FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

“Hooho~ fascinating.”

Her words flowed with a ting of amazement.

Sigrid was no expert on gems, but it was not uncommon for her to pick up their luster from the merchants’ stands. Yet, as her orbs orbited toward the ovoid stone, caged in rusty iron and dimly shining above her mask, it became evident that this gem was a novelty, even in the world of commerce.

“It’s like coal made glass that glows like embers.”

“Lovely, don’t you think? It’s called pyro… pyrae…” A few feet to her left, Marek spoke; the name of that unusual gem hung on the tip of his tongue. The rarity that the gemstone held had no effect on him, and his focus was mostly aimed at preparing the kitchen.

“Pyr… Pyr—” Fingers snapped until the name flashed back to his mind. “—Pyraelite!”

“Pyraleet… Odd name for an odd stone. Fitting.”

Holding her curious stare as if she were to miss something impressive the moment she blinked, Sigrid stretched her talon high.

“Is it dangerous?”

Wood snapped behind her; a stool split in pieces under the stomp of a boot. “Ehh… No. At least no more than a fire lamp.” Metal clonked as he cast the splinters into a vessel. “Whatever the case, given the conditions of this place, these must be running out of magic.”

After last day’s tribulations, it was no surprise that the duo slept more than usual. There was still plenty of daytime available, but with a goat ready to be cooked and preparations to be done, neither Marek nor Sigrid needed to go elsewhere.

The day was reserved to lighten their moods.

Tck tck.

A nail tipped the craggy surface, making the stone’s bright blink with each touch. It was no warmer than the breath of an ox; its contexture, as though carbon underwent crystallization.

Her childish prodding went on for a couple of seconds when the ovoid elicited one last flicker before losing the remainder of its luster.

It blinked no more thereafter.

Oh oh. Her head gyrated in Marek’s direction, ears lowered flat and pointing to her sides. “It broke… Somehow…”

“That’s what I said. At the brink of expiration.” He waved his hand in indifference before going for Iosterard. He soon began to hammer a brass craft.

“Sorry about the noise. I need to improvise an iron to cook the meat.”

The hammering was indeed ear-scratching. An unintended attack sent forth to annoy her eardrums.

“I’ll manage.” Clank. Clank! “But please, be quick.”

Marek showed his determination to be as little noisy as possible with a hum before continuing, doing his best to reduce the intensity of his smacks.

Meanwhile, Sigrid took the opportunity to move away from the source of her earache toward the other side of the shack.

Lucid after a night of good sleep, she no longer saw her old abode through the lens of a distant dream and could appraise most of the elements beyond the values of her past.

Not that it actually meant anything — everything was beyond her ken.

The tools. The devices. The samples. The organs crammed inside vessels.

The elements that presumably engineered her being into existence, once responsible for sparking her nostalgia and driving her to the edge of an unearthing shock, no longer awakened any interest in her.

Well, no elements except for the plates.

Sigrid footed toward the furthest desk next to the nest.

The table was a mess, as everything else, filled with sheets not made of skin but of another material altogether, less stiff and whiter.

She sifted through the sheets depicting monsters she was familiar with in a light never considered before. They portrayed bone structure, organs underneath the muscle, and the muscles underneath the hide, all hand-drawn with great detail.

One plate displayed a warg blowing a storm; another, the image of a troll with gruesome injuries next to another depicting a healthy one. Other sheets in worse condition showcased eggs, the skeletal frame of an unrecognizable creature, seemingly equipped with both leathery and feathery wings.

Decades of studying wildlife embossed into fragile layers — and she destroyed them all in her youth.

This place must have been so uneventful in the past that boredom drove her to wreck behavior.

Not that she felt any sense of guilt.

The plates had no academic value for Sigrid, but she was impressed by the artistic work put into every single one.

And among the leaves, a sapling. Buried under many plates, a book lay.

It had walnut wood as a carapace, and letters she was not familiar with were embossed on its spine and cover. It was a fine piece of art, greater than any book she had seen.

She took the weight on her talon.

Heavy. Solid. Time spared this one, and so did a little and disastrous owlette.

Would the book portray more monsters?

Would it portray her?

“All right, it’s finished.” She heard Marek say behind her. Too absorbed was she in the book that her ears did not pick up the moment the hammering died off.

She gyrated her head in Marek’s direction and saw him unsheath the runned sword.

The foreign code was uttered, and the blade grew in redness and temperature. Then, the length was placed inside a brass cauldron containing a hump of wood and crumpled plates. Flames spunked with a _foop _as soon as hot metal made contact.

“I’m not the kind of man who just burns academic knowledge… but hunger abounds.”

He went for the piece of metal he had been smacking ‘flat’ for the last few minutes and placed it on top of the cauldron.

“Who knows what the pot was used for. No way I’ll introduce our food there. I rather improvise an iron and cook on top of it.”

He groaned as he rose and moved to the nest’s edge, wherein he let himself fall.

“Now we wait until the iron is hot.” He turned to Sigrid. “Found something to keep you entertained?”

She responded with a hum and a nod but did not elaborate. As she advanced back to the nest, her fingers were busy flipping the pages, careful not to tear the papyrus with her nails, and her eyes took glimpses at the handwritten illustrations within the sheets.

“A book,” the man observed. “One in good condition at that.” He lapsed for a moment, giving Sigrid the time to close the gap and sit next to him. “You know, I never asked myself: can you read?”

“So-so. I can read signs hanging on shacks, but that’s about it. Whenever Imbi gave me something to read, it was a children’s book; more doodles than text.” A couple of flips more. “I can’t understand what this book says, but the pictures here look lovely.”

“Well, considering the woodwork of its cover, whoever the author was must have spared no expense in getting a good artist.” He took his chin between his thumb and index finger and began to rub it. “Are pictures the only thing you’re looking for?”

“I have the hope of seeing something about myself, as to figure out what the wizard’s intent was when he created me.”

Marek’s lips puckered a bit as his stare went firm, a stare Sigrid did not meet as her eyes were busy scanning the paper. Her carefree expression told him that nothing troubled her — the ashes of her existential crisis had dispersed into the air.

Only curiosity lingered.

“You know, you aren’t going to discover a lot if you can’t understand a syllable.” He stretched his hand, forcing Sigrid to remove her eyes from the sheaf of papers. “Care if I appraise it for you?”

“Hoo! Sure.”

She handed the book, and Marek took it with a smile on his face.

When the weight of walnut and a hundred paper pages lay in both hands’ grip, his eyes scanned every detail across the wooden surface.

“You’re wonderful, you know,” he let out.

Her head cocked horizontally.

“When I brought out your origin— your potential origin, I felt I hurt you badly. I thought you’d be sad for a while, even mad at me.”

“Discovering my origin was… disheartening. But you were right: whatever brought me to existence doesn’t change anything. Me, you, us. At the end of the day, it bore no meaning.”

Marek snorted and grinned. “That’s my girl. You mature way faster than I.”

The fighter’s adulation extracted a delightful chirp from Sigrid.

The appraisal continued, but it fell short as soon as his eyes found the first obstacle; just then, his brows knitted together, and his smile angled flat.

“This is not written in Geban.”

“Geban? Like, hooman language?”

His gloved hand traced the outline of the embossing. “If my memory serves me well, this writing must be a variation of…” His tongue clicked in sequence, building the answer until it became complete. “Syvaá.”

“Sywhat?” Her mask frowned.

“Elven language.”

He flipped through the pages a couple of times, only stopping when he found something that caught his eye. Whenever he stopped, Sigrid could notice how his eyes glimmered with a rather _childlike _emotion.

“Interesting. It seems this book archives and references elements of North Gebaten, as some sort of encyclopedia. It portrays faraway regions, flora, unusual fauna, and even teratofauna.”

Blinking. Prelude of mild annoyance.

“I mean monsters. And an encyclopedia is—”

“You should stop doing that, Marc. Tossing weird words with the illusion that I would understand them at the first try,” she cast a smirk at him. “It also makes you sound bookworm-ish.”

“That much?” He huffed humorously. “Aurelio taught me a lot of things I could not use often, so I just can’t let the chance slip.”

Marek leafed through the pages, eyes swaying from corner to corner.

“This brings back memories. My first book ever was a children’s bestiary. Won it in a fight against a ruffian my age.” The book snapped shut, and Marek released a half-cough, half-sigh. “Most elven cultures are known to be well in the arts. This book, however impressive it looks, is quite humble for their standards. Its creator must not have been very wealthy.”

He faced Sigrid once more and handed her the book.

“Sorry, I cannot read Syvaá. In any case, this is not a journal but one of the many texts our mysterious guy used as a reference. I doubt it says anything about you.”

“Oh… It’s all right.” She did not sound dissatisfied. That bit about Marek’s childhood had been edifying.

When Sigrid took the book back, Marek rose from the nest and went back to the cauldron. “The iron must be hot. I’ll put the meat to cook.”

With Marek busy, Sigrid pinned her eyes back on the leaves of papyrus.

She saw pretty portrayals of forests, mountains, lakes, and other regions she was not familiar with. There were also unknown creatures, some variation or common beasts, and others shaped like entities only seen in dreams or nightmares.

And speaking of nightmares, she came to stop by one page depicting one she was very familiar with.

Her irises subtly grew in diameter, and her breathing skipped a cycle.

It was the very shadow that tormented her past but made ink.

A size that dwarfed pines. A wingspan that blocked out the sun. A range of mountains that ran across its back and tail. Natural weaponry that put to shame human and orc’s weaponcraft alike.

An illustration that prophesied Marek’s final challenge — a dragon.

“Hey, Marc.” Marek offered a closemouthed cue, confirming his attention was on. “Are more dragons out there?”

Marek paused imperceptibly before giving a verbal answer. “Yes, there are a few more winged lizards out there.”

“Then, why choose Hissing Wing over the others?”

“Hissing Wing was… the most_ accessible_ to me.”

“Do you mean that you cannot find the others?”

Marek lifted himself and left the makeshift kitchen. He offered no answer until he was once more seated next to Sigrid.

“More like I cannot _reach _the others. Not like I didn’t try looking for them.”

“You went all the way to the Northmost of the World. Few places are as dangerous as this one. Where could the others be located for you to not reach them?”

“Hundreds of miles underground. Swimming in seas of lava. Under the protection of layers upon layers of protocol that a nobody like me could hope to fill. It is suspected that others live in hiding.”

“Why would a dragon hide?”

“Why would they, indeed.” Marek glued his sight on the house’s exit, past the hanging door, past the illusory wall, which looked like glass from within the abode.

The interval dragged out for several uncomfortable seconds. Sigrid learned to read Marek’s aura some time ago and now could tell the warrior felt somewhat… uncomfortable?

“The truth is,” before Sigrid had the chance to ask what was happening to him, Marek continued, “dragons left the continent long ago. Way before the defeat of the undead. Possibly even before the undead settled over our lands. If it wasn’t for Hissing Wing spreading destruction, I’d have far more trouble finding its whereabouts.”

Sigrid waved her fingers along the wooden cover, considering the man’s words.

“So, not all dragons are like Hissing Wing? Ferocious and destructive, I mean.”

“They are like us humans. They have wits, ambitions, and dreams. But those features match their size. The bigger the dragon is, the more volatile it becomes. And it’s said they never stop growing, building more power and wisdom as the years wash over them.”

The cover creaked under her grip. Somewhat hearing about them was as informative as it was disheartening. Maybe it was that: the deeds of his next contender were stressing Marek out.

But as much as Sigrid hated seeing his downcast sight and his lips getting pressed between his teeth, she needed to know more.

“Knowing all that, how do you exactly pretend to defeat the dragon?”

“You already saw my card under my sleeve.” He extended his arm to where his rifle rested. “I’ll sneak into its lair, catch it sleeping, and then blast it until it moves no more.”

“But that cannot be everything, right? There must be something else.”

“The stratagem is oversimplified; but yes, that’s the gist of it.”

Sigrid had the initiative to come up with a beat of her own, eyes wide and unblinking. “Is that your plan?”

“Monstrous problems need monstrous solutions.”

Sigrid leaned back, arms pressing the books against her tuft. It’s as if she had just heard a bad joke.

To think that Marek Blakesley, a master of the bladeplay who performed a choreography as impressive as it was lethal, would come up with the most shallow strategy to bring down the dominant force of the World.

“So… brutish. But that was expected from a pinehead like you.” Now, that was a dissatisfied expression that even a blank mask could not hold back.

Marek, on the other hand, could not keep his coughs and laughter contained in his mouth.

“Yeah, well, what else did you expect? It is a fucking dragon!”

His clowning did little to quell Sigrid’s irritation, who puffed her cheeks and looked elsewhere.

Chuckles eventually fizzled out. “Hey, hey. These faces are unwarranted.” His hand landed on her shoulder, drawing her sight back to him, even if askance. “I didn’t toss the die when I chose this adversary.”

Disgruntledness loosened its grip on Sigrid, and she turned to see Marek directly in the eyes.

“Let me do the worrying, all right? I promise you, I’ll make this dragon bleed like never before. And with the ingredient for my cure within my hands, we’ll take our leave toward Vergrárr Path. There, the wizards must know how to synthesize the cure.”

His hand slid across the curve where shoulder met the neck until it reached the cheek. “Once cured, the Gods will it, I’ll see you again. We’ll be together, and then, well, we shall see. Maybe I can teach you to read more, and even write. Whatever you desire, within the confines of what we could call home.”

The warmth exuding from the inside of his glove felt cozy, and his words genuine. She leaned against his palm, almost churring in delight, savoring his promise for a future together like a roasted hare.

Nevertheless, in the woodland of oak that was the warrior’s irises, she saw a hint of dullness. In his smile, she observed a flabby corner.

Playing tough, she noticed. Past the fortress of resilience, an intruder hid like a homeless thief, who held within a hint of insecurity.

Pinehead.

She whistled and pressed further against his hand. She played along and disregarded that hidden sentiment of his, at least for the time being. Plus, his palm was indeed inviting. How to deny it?

“Promising, indeed. But, are you willing to stay in the North after all you have been through?”

“There’s no other place calling for my presence.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “When this journey is over, _ours _begins. Of that, I give you my word.”

Their foreheads kissed each other for a twinkling, the two lovers lost in sharing their breath as if they were feasting upon it.

Sniff.

And speaking of which, Marek’s breath was sourer than ever. Disgusting even.

Snff-sniff.

A deeper analysis revealed that it was not he who emitted that scent, but the substance that enshrouded his attire.

Sigrid let out a fizz and jerked back, causing Marek to nearly bump onto the chimera’s chest. Confusion fell short to describe his expression.

“You stink.”

“Huh?” His mouth fell ajar.

“It’s pretty sour.”

“Is— Is it so bad?”

“It’s like someone poured a stale drink onto rusty iron.” It was a merciful description — comparing his smell to ox piss would have been more accurate.

Nonetheless, her remark stung like a dirk in one of his lungs.

The harshness of her words made him back up. Shame forced him to estimate the stench by himself, and although his sense of smell was not as developed as Sigrid’s, he caught the pungentness that caused so much discomfort in his girlfriend.

“I… forgive me.” He stared away.

“Hoohoo, don’t feel bad, Marc. I did not intend to shame or mock you. But, really… it’s intense. _Dragons have strong senses. That scent you exude might as well awaken Hissing Wing.” _From a mile away, she wanted to add, but ultimately decided not to.

“Is that so…” He raised his head; he seemed as if he had skipped a night of sleeping. “Then, I better get my clothes clean. Maybe I could melt some ice to get water.”

She had to bite down a giggle — his mate looked so adorable when contrite.

“If you allow me, I have an alternative. One that settlers use in places where water is rare. I’ll tell you more, but first, we eat.”

“Cooking something, eh? Very well, I’m eager to listen to what you have. I’ll finish the goatmeat. Cooked meat is better cologne than spider fluids.”

He scrambled to his feet and went to the cauldron, not without stumbling one time first.

Sigrid had to hold her giggles with her talon before settling her eyes upon his back, each eye charged with fondness.

Poor Marc. There is too much pressure on his shoulders.

His sight went back to the book, and a nail ran along the gap between pages.

The burden must be eased. And it’s up to his mate to do so.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

“Crap. My snots are frozen.” Marek hissed from within an envelope of remiges.

The back of his head pressed against the tuft of Sigrid’s chest as the two trudged away from the laboratory and Icing Boundary, in search of a place to carry out the wash.

“Resist. We are almost there.”

“We’ve been walking for half a mile.” It took him a handful of his stamina not to give off the clattering of his teeth.

“Just some more paces. See?” She parted her wings and gave Marek a window from which to peek. Frost particles missed no beat in crashing against his cornea; it stung, but at least he confirmed the proximity of their destination.

It was the faraway stretch of the glacial labyrinth, an outlier formed by no more than one dozen chunks of ice, some as tall as a three-story building. A remnant of the titan that endured the cascades of gusts since the beginning of time.

Had Sigrid failed to notice the cave during their night march, the two would have been forced to spend the night in a place like that.

The couple lumbered and went around the icy boulders until both stood where the wind struck with less intensity.

“Right-hoo, we’re already here.” She looked down at the man wrapped in her wings. “Whenever you’re ready!”

“Just— give me a moment while I acclimatize to— ohshit ohfuck!”

Familiarization took a rude turn when Sigrid stretched her wings wide, leaving the man vulnerable to the elements. The fabrics wrapped around his shoulders — the one used for his rifle — barely made any difference in reducing the arctic breeze’s effect.

“Y-you ga-gave me n-n-no time!” Will lessened, and clatter seized his teeth.

“Hoo? Oopsie~” She did not look apologetic; if anything, her kiddish smile told Marek she wanted that reaction.

“Fuck, Sig. W-we are at the E-end of the World.”

“And how many out there can brag about fooling around here of all places? This is quite the achievement.”

Murmurs crept out of his mouth before he sighed in resignation.

“Well, fine. We are the big deal. Now, let’s end before I join the background as another cube of ice. How does this ‘snow-washing’ work?”

“Easy!” She made space between her and Marek. “First things first: take your clothes and bury them under the frost.”

Marek’s eyelids shrank into slits.

“You will make me undress once more?” A scoff. “I shall have known better: you like seeing me butt naked.”

“Wha! No. I don’t want you to see your butt naked.” She backed up and took her hand to her chest as if she had been accused of petty theft.

Marek raised a brow. “You don’t?”

“Well… Yes, but not right now!” Her sight wandered, and her cheeks puffed.

Chuckles. “Yeah, whatever you say… naughtygirl.”

“Hey! You had been the one ogling a naked lady.”

“Do I have a choice? You are always naked.”

“Apex predators use no clothes, silly!”

“You say that, though, but apex predators don’t sway their hips or cross their stems the way you do.” A grin crept to his mouth. “Admit it: you like my eyes all over you.”

Sigrid almost let a groan out and rolled her eyes; nonetheless, deep inside, she felt a bit complimented. “Does babbling bring you harm?”

“Not quite.”

“Then take your bag, coat, and vest and bury them.”

“What about the rest?”

“You can bury them, too. I have no problem.”

Marek offered a smirk before following her instruction.

The wrappings were whipped off like a scarf, and his chest slipped off the coat, the leather vest following suit.

Quick not to let the wind blow the garments away, Marek crouched and swept the snow on top. Sigrid helped with the task, and within two minutes, the first phase was over.

“Alright. What’s next?”

“The whacking.” She stomped the snow with one foot. “Strike. Smash. Flail.” She swung her wings and threw punches in the air as she described the procedure, showcasing a cumbersome fighting style.

“Sounds uncivilized. Does it work?”

“It’s not better than water-washing, but it reduces the odors to bearable levels. Dragons have keen senses, so you don’t want to enter their lair smelling like smashed bugs.”

Marek cast his sight once more upon the garments, now under a layer of frost.

“Very well. Let’s finish this so we can go back to warmth.”

He dragged himself on top of the garments and began trudging, extracting a series of crunches from them, pulverizing shells of ice into shards and then shards into snowdust. The Arctic carried out its role, and his belongings were already rigid, crackling like dried leather.

“This feels so stupid.”

“You are doing it wrong.”

“What?” He spun in her direction. She was sitting dog-like, tail idling from side to side. “I’m smashing it, and I feel ridiculous while I do it.”

“You have to put more energy into it.” Her talon smashed the floor. “Stomp! Like an angry troll. Kick! Like a rabid reindeer. Beat the awful smell out of it.”

A groan joined the windful blare, heavy with annoyance but also giving away the quiver of his lips. There was some merit to Sigrid’s proposal: if he put more effort into the task, he would delay the numbness of frost by heating his joints.

“Fine. Wanna see a washmallet? Then see it!”

The hard-leathered sole drove downward, and snow splashed all over.

The clothes rose high only to be smashed into the ground by the will of a boot.

“Yes, like that!” A wolfish tail picked up speed. “Smash it!”

“I feel like a drunk bushdweller right before beating his wife,” he shouted between jumps and tramplings.

“Now, flail! Against the big ice!” She threw her arms high as if pounding the air with a sizable object.

“Definitely what a bushdweller would do.”

A gust lifted the wrapping fabric, and Marek took the leverage to clutch the hem. Thereupon, he swayed the textile directly toward the chunk’s surface.

It whipped loudly, over and over again.

Each strike splattered a rain of frost. Each pound brought the fabric back to its malleable shape.

The hand of the wind took his longcoat, ever so sneakily.

“Look out for the wind!”

“Got it!”

Krrsh. Ksssh!

An arm slam and a boot put the textile back to its intended place; then, his sole protection against cold underwent the same ‘punishment’ as the wrapping. Another piece of wool released from the clutches of frigidness.

Only the vest of machine-knitted, oiled leather remained; good at keeping metals and fangs from piercing into his flesh, but not so much at repelling odors if not treated well.

The beating with that one would require a bit more of his strength.

“Only one left, Marc!”

“This one isn’t escaping the washmallet!” His mind did not register how _silly _that sounded. In fact, his senses were filtering a bunch of elements usually considered unpleasant.

His exposure to the harsh elements. Isolation from the comfort of civilization. His coughs even seemed to halt for the moment.

Was there a sweat drop running down his neck? In this frosted graveyard?

Too heavy for the air to take, Marek punted the vest up until it floated at the level of his eyes, his brown eyes watching it as if it were a rival.

A hand dashed for the vest, grip iron-strong, but it lasted little — he launched it against the glacial fragment with such potency that it produced a halo of air.

The washing — the beating — was not done. Marek rushed behind, howling like a soldier amid war, his weight guided by a tackle, which slammed all the ice out of the banded surface.

The vest never stood a chance — it slipped along the ice into the ground, joining the other pieces.

Defeated.

Cleaned.

Marek stood in silence, panting a cloud of fog before his mouth, observing the result of his effort.

Only the wind blew; Sigrid barked in cheering no longer. Was his cry too much? Most certainly it had been.

After breathing in a lungful of air, Marek bent down and grabbed his longcoat.

The light tint of pale green cleared and was way less obvious than before. As for the stench, it was less redolent, and as far as his human nose could tell, it no longer reeked.

“Wow. It worked.” He turned to Sigrid, eyes wide and brown arced high. “Stomping like a deranged mountaineer paid off, S— hm?”

His eyes caught nothing — Sigrid was gone. Only the deformation on the snow where she used to sit remained.

“Hey, where did you go? We can’t afford spending—” Pffsh! “Grh!”

A mass of chillness burst against the side of his neck.

“What the—” _Fwsh! _“Garr!” More than feeling the cold spread on his skin, the impact brought the crisp flavor of snow into his tongue. It, too, flowed down the canal of his nose.

Amid his recoiling, Marek picked up tittering, reminiscent of a roguish alumna. Half her form was concealed by a mast of ice, both arms laced behind her back.

“I see the washing did you well~.”

He blew snow off his noseholes. “Too bad you just reverted it with that prank!”

“It was no prank. The clothes you are in still reek.” One arm was brought forth in front of her; it held a snowball.

“Strike. Smash. Flail.” Meaty commissures curved up until they mimicked the curve of squirrel tails. Mischief oozed from every curve of her mask.

Marek cast a grumpy stare, a sign whose intent was to stop roguery from taking place. “You won’t dare—” Fsh!

It failed.

“Argh— that hurt.” He held one breast with one palm. “Keep your strength at bay, at least!”

“Make me!”

She burst into action out of the sudden, dashing in Marek’s direction as her form blended with the snow.

Marek offered the most clunky of defenses as he raised his arms in front of his chest and face. He did not see how Sigrid lifted an ample amount of snow and arced it toward him.

It flooded him like a tide in winter, cold and damp, but that was the least of it — a wing bolted low, ripped his footing off the ground, and made him fall headfirst.

More dullness on his face. More snow in his noseholes and mouth.

“Bwagh— Alright, you asked for it!” He rolled and jumped straight, not bothering to brush the snow off his garments. Defiance itself shone in his eyes. “You will have it your way. I defeated you in the past; I’d do it again.”

His hands went for the ground, and each loaded itself with a snowy missile.

“Now, my dear. Show yourself and be a predator!”

A bark bounced off the chunks.

It spelled ‘challenge accepted.’

She rushed out of her hiding, white loaded on her clutches. They travelled in succession, and Marek ducked and sidestepped.

“Have at you!”

His turn. Projectiles swished forward, leaving a trail of hoarfrost in their wake. They met against a screen of feathers.

“Hoo-hoo~ what’s that? I’ve seen hooman younglings throw their balls with more strength~.” She hunkered down, legs spread and tail high.

Sprinting resumed, but Marek was prepared this time.

He read every tilt of her body, the way the wings angled to her sides, and foresaw her trajectory. A stream of slush landed on him, but he at least preserved his footing.

His eyes did not miss the moment she took advantage of her low stance to fill her palms with ammunition. As soon as she lay next to another pillar, she swiveled on one foot and sent forth both balls.

He ducked, and one flew past. He rolled, and the other joined the white of the floor.

One cycle was over — another one was about to begin.

White loaded and ready in each grip, compressed solid into a spherical shape, drew lines and arcs in the air.

Sigrid shielded more often than dodged, whereas Marek slid fast for cover. What was the point of avoiding snowballs if he dove into the slush?

“This dance will lead you nowhere, Sig. Surrender!” He exclaimed behind cover.

“No way! It will indeed lead somewhere: you turning into an iceblock,” she chimed, her sly mien as solid as at the beginning of their snowball fight. “Then, you’ll be like: oh my Sig, it’s so cold here. Please, carry me to the nest so I can have your cozy cuddles.”

If that comment aimed to hurt the man’s ego, then it had failed: it extracted a snort out of him. “I’ve never spoken like that, woman. Besides, I’m _on fire. _The wind will erode what is left of this place before I freeze over.”

He brought his arms in front and skipped from foot to foot, ready to toss some punches around, among other things.

Such a manly display of vigor.

A nick on the armor.

“Talk is cheap when you are here, where the wind blows weaker.” She leaned against the piece of glacier, his movements unsubtle with enticement. “Let’s expand our playgrounds. If you feel like your _fire _is going out, I can help with that.”

There they were again, the so un-predatory behavior.

Leg dragged forward, sliding along the ice as if caressing it.

Hips bucking to the side, a beckoning finger.

The mount of flesh emerging from her tuft as it squeezed against the ice.

The man had been right — She liked to be ogled by him.

He pondered as he lost control of his teeth, which bit the inside of his lip.

Fussh!

“Ahh!” Icy substance burst on his face.

“Had to wash your face. It looked dirty.” A playful smirk hit his face.

“_Pfff. _Seductress! You have gained enough advantages. That will do nothing but make my victory more satisfying.” He riposted with a smirk of his own.

“Wanna take this farther? Let’s take it farther!” He sprang ahead.

“Gee! A mad hooman is chasing me! Help!” She veered, not without giving off a butt shake, and lost herself in the garden of snow and ice, her scream a mixture of a maiden in distress with an overactive child.

Snowball fight evolved — it was now also a game of tag.

A chaotic pastime that blended speed with furtiveness.

He wheeled past one chunk, ready to hurl a ball.

“Got you!” His sight revealed before him, but there was only white, none of which belonged to Sigrid’s color shades.

“Wha—” Sprsh! “Not again!”

Unfortunately, no matter how much his reflexes could keep up with Sigrid’s. If he could not pinpoint her in the area, all effort was naught.

The chimera’s stealth could not be outmatched in her terrain.

Tittering. “You can undress whenever you want and spare you the humiliation, dear~.”

“Never!”

Marek persisted in his methods, but the pattern followed him everywhere.

Pop into a corner? Cold on his back.

His ball throws? Blocked by wings or lost in the sea of white.

Leaving his back open? Knocked down to sip snow.

It was no understatement to say Marek was suffering an inglorious beating.

Was this indignant ritual necessary? Was not cleaning the smell of his clothes the purpose? And what were the victory conditions?

Whether the answers, the two were having a blast. The wind blared overhead, but laughter streamed across the pillars.

The Icing Boundary or a park amid winter — there was no difference.

“This is growing repetitive, Marc. You sure the cold isn’t making you clunky?” She teased as she galloped around the northern edge of the outlier. “I think your body has swept the floor enough. You can yourself be trapped now~.”

She caught his scent. The weather made it difficult, but the strain of their sport had extracted that _manly _liquid out of his pores, essentially making him detectable within a few yards.

And speaking of which, the odor of her mate. Behind a four-yard block.

This onslaught would be different. Sigrid had kept her paw grounded for way too long, and it was time their game ended.

Making use of the stealth so characteristic of Howling Talon, Sigrid pressed herself against the horn of ice and crept up until the very wind combed her with intensity.

She did not even bother to look down — she just pounced, tracing an arc and diving down, like a snowcat over its prey.

“—!”

But the snowcat felt like a kitten as soon as her vision cleared. Nothing was there; nothing except Marek’s longcoat piled on top of a hump of ice against one chunk.

She landed with a_ foop,_ confused and irked.

Her head rotated everywhere, and her beakholes surveyed every stream of air next to her.

“You sure are stubborn, Marc. You refuse to get your clothes off yet desire to drag out our game.”

She kept forcing her senses to the surroundings. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds.

“Come on, Marc! The wind is growing strong! You cannot risk a c—”

Ears reacted to movement. A muted _swoosh _muted by the blow of a convenient gust.

Realization just hit her then. The coat had been in the center of the outlier. The wind could have blown it away through the many pathways, even if the odds were small, but how did it end half-buried under a hump of snow?

“No way—!”

“Here comes the washmallet!”

That madman — he buried himself under the snow and awaited the right moment to surprise her and jump onto her.

If he could not pinpoint Sigrid quickly enough, he just needed to bait her into a trap.

“Got you!” Like a tick, he clung to her on her side, arms and legs wrapped strongly around her furred form. His face was deep in the tuft between where the armpit and breast met.

“Are you insane?! You can’t just bury yourself beneath the chill soil! What if you get sick?”

“T-that has been measured in ad-vance—” he failed to keep the shuddering away from his voice, even if a little. “And it p-paid off!”

“You are such a blockhead…” She grimaced down at him.

“Says the o-owlette who lost!”

“None of that! I swept the slush with your body many times. When did I say catching me was enough to—Gy!”

A ripple of vibration rose next to her armpit. Her pelage lost shape and pattern, beginning to frolic like a litter of rowdy squirrels.

Marek had just blown zeberts on her.

“W-wait! Ky— St-st-stop! That—_ Hye!_ Not fair!”

Hide as strong as magical armor, but not devoid of sensibility.

“This ends when one of us surrenders!” He said before blowing again and extracting yet another whoop from the monstress. “Surrender!”

“N-no! Kyheehe! Don’t make me!”

A festival of tickles sparked throughout her body with each continuous puff of his mouth. It made her thrash about, wobbling with each step and stumbling into the walls, occasionally rolling on the snow.

Any demand to halt his actions — any insult and laughter — was a defiance to him; he responded appropriately and so intensified the punishment.

The crease where the armpit and breast met, the collarbone edge, dangerously close to the curve of her breast — all targets of his blowing.

It was surrender or exhaustion from laughter.

And as the retribution dragged on, the latter was becoming a reality.

“Hye— F-fine! Gygye— You win!” She managed to claim amid laughter. “Let go of me! Let go!”

The admission of surrender was like the jingle of brass bells amid a tempest. It took him two seconds to savor his victory and seal his mouth from blowing more raspberries.

The annulment of the ripples meant a treaty of peace to Sigrid, who seized Marek’s stop to abide by her trembling legs and let herself fall on her back.

Her breathing grew shallow, and her sides burned. The muscles of her fleshy corners throbbed, and her mask was damp with tears. Occasional remnants of caws found their way to the outside until they were reduced to steady whistles and hoots.

As for Marek, he remained on top of Sigrid the whole time, arms spread by his sides, eliciting the least of motions. His face was buried in Sigrid’s mane, practically between her breasts.

“Hoo— You… madman… You played me dirty…” She hooted out, eyes squinted into slits.

Marek grunted without taking his face out of Sigrid’s chest. She had not noticed during her tickling struggle, but as she resisted, Marek collided with more than one wall. His body also ached a bit, the warrior as exhausted as his partner.

“You know—_ Hwoh…_ I could have ripped you off me…” Her chest vibrated with a mumble; a response of sorts. “Because I could have hurt you otherwise…”

Marek shifted on top of her until he gained support with his hands; then, he rose until his sight met Sigrid’s.

“I call your bluff, dear. Everything suggests you enjoyed it,” he cast a sly grin upon her.

“Do I look like I enjoyed it? Besides, you could get sick.”

“I was counting on your fluff. There was no risk of a cold.”

“Is that why you keep your head buried between my teats?”

“That… was an accident… A pleasant accident.”

“... You silly.” Her affront was needle-thin, something Marek called out with his smugness.

“You are one to speak, making me smash my clothes under the snow. Well, at least I no longer smell awful.”

Her head wobbled from side to side. “Hmm~ I can’t yet confirm that.” The head movement stopped, and her eyelashes fluttered. “Care to get closer so I can smell you better?”

Marek read her aura and complied, shuffling ahead and inching to her until his lips touched her beak.

What was initially a peck evolved deeper and more intimate, with Marek tracing his mouth along the side of her beak, which gladly parted to savor his breath better.

Her arms rose and laced each other behind the man’s neck as if preparing to engage in a longer activity, ignoring that they were exposed to the coldest atmosphere of the continent.

If it was not for Marek backing up to let out a shaky gasp, Sigrid would have locked herself onto him further.

“S-sorry, b-but… Seolvor’s helmet, it’s so cold.”

“Hooo?~ I forgot.” The pair of wings skipped from the ground and shielded Marek, enough to block the air but not to hinder movement. “Let’s take your things. Back in the house, well, we could do something to get rid of that cold…”

Her proposition steamed with something more than the concern for safety; Marek managed to read between the lines, if the bob of his throat was something to go by.

“Sure, let’s me…” He shuffled on the spot to give Sigrid space to pick herself up. The chimera parted her wings to allow movement, but after a couple of seconds of repositioning, Marek stopped.

More than stopping, he froze in place.

“Marc?” His mouth was almost ajar, but no answer came. His sight was locked ahead, in the direction of the Icing Boundary, but not to where the house lay.

She followed the gaze, head cocking back until the colossal rampart was the only thing that made up the environment.

But after a few eyeblinks, Sigrid confirmed that the rampart was not the only thing.

Beyond the snowdrift, far to the East, there was an architecture that crashed with the landscape. It was a mere shadow — a lime stain on a white wall — and no larger than the wall, but it excelled with its spiky silhouette.

Everwintry Blackpeak.

Marek no longer wore a smile.

The atmosphere reverted to its harsh habitualness.

The itch to cough grew on the back of his throat.

Everything felt colder — _so _much colder.

“Marc…” He winced, but his eyes did not abandon the horizon. Only when a palm caressed his hand did he glance at the lady beneath him.

Half-closed moons glimmered at him with concern.

“... It’s—” Sight bounced at the horizon for an instant before going back to Sigrid. “Just… it’s nothing. Let’s go back.”

Rolling off Sigrid’s body, Marek got up and moved to the center of the outlier where his garments waited. One cough, and Marek disappeared past a corner, leaving Sigrid thinking about what went wrong.

In his absence, Sigrid’s eyes focused on the dragon’s lair, where they remained fixed until Marek’s comeback. Even from afar, its presence was overwhelming, chill-inducing, like a tempest approaching from the horizon.

No one wanted to be near when it arrived, let alone march closer.

Yet, Marek thrust into a circumstance where he could do nothing but trek ahead.

“... Oh, Marc… Why does it have to be like this?”

It would have been naive to think keeping his spirits up was going to be easy.

Nobody ever said it would be easy.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The day unfolded quieter than Sigrid would have desired.

Their trek back had been overwhelmed by the paradoxical aura of loud currents mingled with tense calm, practically like a ghost that harassed them with reticence.

Back under the tranquility of wooden enclosedness, Marek had expressed his desire to check for his rifle’s condition and refine his aiming speed.

Knowing that Marek needed time alone to sort out his thoughts, Sigrid remained on the sidelines the whole time, observing how Marek stuck to his routine.

Hiking up the weight of the rifle with quickness.

Honing the ability to align his eyesight with the barrel’s length, even amid and after a stride.

The arrangement of his items, mainly ammunition and the flasks, was also taken care of.

From a tactical standpoint, everything was in order. Nonetheless, round, owl eyes saw beyond the facade. Although nearing flawlessness, she would catch moments where the fighter would lapse into meditation.

A stare that went blank amid the routine.

Lips pressing tight.

Brows jerking closer for eyeblinks.

Within that bubble of discipline that made him distant from his sole company, a dark cloud marred his mood.

Sigrid would not stand to see the cloud darken further.

As soon as Marek finished his routine and sorted out his belongings, Sigrid invited him to join her on the nest and ‘read’ the elven encyclopedia together, to which he agreed, not without dragging his forlorn aura along with him.

She had some work to do.

“Hey, hey, Marc. Look at his beast. It looks like an ox but bigger and with horns curving down below.”

Both rested on the interwovenness of twigs that was the nest; Marek sat at the border, back against the wall, whereas Sigrid lay stretched from edge to edge, head and feet resting on the borders, wings tucked tight to her sides. Her arms were suspended high up and holding the book, at which she tapped with insistence.

“Heh? Oh, that.” The man was caught distracted, with his eyes glancing at the device, which rested on the table. That, too, had been a repetitive occurrence of his during the last hours.

“That’s… a mammoth, or perhaps a close family of them. It’s like an elephant but hairy.”

“Elephant. Never heard of them. How are they? Are they dangerous?”

Sigrid had learned to appreciate that ‘bookwormy’ facet within Marek, to the point it made him more comely before her eyes and ears.

More than a fighter, he was quite knowledgeable about a world she knew little about. Whenever he offered a witty answer, her tail gave off a shuffle below her weight.

The gestures were not missed by Marek, who often curved his commissures up into a faint smile.

“Elephants are massive. Twofold Gruhulla’s size. That large appendage you see is their nose, named trunk; elephants use them like some form of fingerless hand, imagine something like a snake, coiling around stuff. Those horns you see are their tusks. Albeit bearers of great strength and moody, they are easy to avoid and can also be tamed.”

“Fascinating.”

Her fingers turned pages until something interesting drew her attention, or Marek’s, for that matter, trying to bring back that kid she saw in the outlier, even if for a few hours.

“Hoo! What about this? It’s hooman, but more hairy… and ugly. Is it a hoo-mammoth?”

Marek let a bit of a snort out. “That must be… a _Yeti. _You can think of them like the fusion of an orc and an ape. The worst of both worlds, or so people have told me.”

“What are apes?”

“How to say it… among animals, they are considered the closest to us humans. Humanoid in shape and more hairy than us, they are considerably smart, very social, and have thumbs that enable them to pick up tools. But besides the positive, they can also be brutish, temperamental, and stink, depending on the species.”

“I think I’d found some of them in the wild, even rescued them. They stink a lot, especially to hooman drinks.”

This time, a full-fledged snort found the air.

“Yeah. No wonder we use ‘ape’ as an insult.”

Sigrid beamed at the man, taking in the speck of warmth he elicited whenever his spirits went up. She also took the moment to cuddle closer until her wing was pressed against his hip; Marek responded by resting his hand between her horns, gently sliding his hand back and forth.

It felt good to be petted.

More pages were flipped; the book often depicted more than one type of illustration per creature or plant, making their mutual skimming more enlightened. It was like walking through an art gallery with her mate.

Date — that was the name.

Unfortunately, every date — however little it might be — was subject to the unforeseen.

When Sigrid turned past a leaf, both stumbled before the terror of many. The dragon — the very illustration she had seen earlier that day.

She felt Marek’s hand wince on top of her head, and when she saw him askance, she noticed how his lips went flat, leaving just a fir-thin line from where his breath ghosted out, and how his eyebrow bent lower into almost a sulk.

His smile was no more.

“Curses— I mean, sorry. Let’s find something else.” Sigrid went for a frenzied course-correction and rifled to the next page.

More draconic depictions.

“Wait…”

More flipping; more dragons.

Humble as it was, the book spared no effort in showcasing the wild behaviour the dragons were known for. Ferocious gnashers tearing ersatzverns apart. Granite crumbling under the might of their stomps.

Knights rendered dead frozen by their breath.

Why so many pages for a dragon?!

“Come o—” Rrrp. “Oh no!”

She fumbled with her claws during that last flip, and one page was torn in two.

“Nonono!” She pulled the book down to her and clunkily tried to mend her damage.

Rrp-ktt.

Needless to say, her knife-sharp nails were useless to mend stuff, and the page spawned yet another scrap.

“Geee!”

“Hey, hey, calm down, Sig. It is just a book.”

“B-but the book— but you.”

“Me? What of me—”

“You know exactly what!” She barked and burst forward into a sitting position, the book squeezed against her chest. “You are sad. That’s why you are meditative and unhappy… and I just made it worse.”

Her ears lowered until they pointed down, and her cheeks swelled into a pout. When she glanced at Marek, she noticed that his face was blank.

“Oh... So you noticed.” He breathed.

“You were always bad at hiding your mood…”

“... Right.”

An awkward beat settled between the two. Sigrid stared down; Marek leaned back until his head touched the wall.

“I… did not want to mess it up this hard. Spending quality time with you has always been my goal for this day. But…” He closed his eyes and took a lungful of air before releasing it in a stream through his mouth. “I can’t think of anything else…” He shifted his sight to Sigrid. “I’m… I’m scared, Sig.”

Sigrid stared right back, pout replaced by sympathy. “... I know. I’m scared too. I remember saying it, didn’t I? Stoopid would not be scared.”

“You have the full right to be scared. This is a path I chose; I cannot get my feet cold now that I’m so close. The plan. The stakes. The pressure… argh…” He groaned, letting his head drop and hang. “I envisioned this moment countless times, yet no matter how many times I evaluate my options, I never see myself polished enough for the task.” Shy chuckles ensued. “You might have been right: my plan is _damn _brutish.”

She placed her hand over his knee. “It was not my intention to belittle your plan when I said that, Marc. I’m sorry…”

“Confidence goes back and forth, but that, like your comment, hadn’t been what weighed me down. It had been_ you._”

Her head inched back, and confusion found its way to her mask.

“Whenever I see you smile, whenever we lose ourselves in a good time, I feel free from responsibility. Free of sickness. Free of the idea of carnage… I find no words to describe it, but for that time we were lost in each other, my goal blurred.”

Marek felt something snake along and past his back; then, that very thing pressed him against the cozy embrace of the chimera’s fur, now sitting beside.

“So, a distraction. That’s what I am.”

It was not a harsh remark. She could understand Marek’s predicament. Of course, losing time in a snowball fight was a nuisance when a life-and-death toil demanded the entirety of the man’s attention.

“Sounds rude. A_ sunbreak,_ more like it. A spiral of refreshment.”

Marek raised his head and met Sigrid in her eyes.

“So much refreshment and pleasure you bring to this spent warrior that I managed to see my sole option forking off. A new path opened to me, one wherein I no longer unsheathe my blade and stay seated in tranquility with you by my side. That prospect of staying here, in peace, until the Arcane Infection finally catches up, is what keeps my mind absent.”

“—!” Sigrid released a short caw and backed away as if he had stolen something from her. Her wing, too, tightened back to her shoulderside. “Y-you can’t do that. Don’t ever think about that!”

“Just toying with the idea, relax. Yet, this shack, forsaken as it was, is way more comfortable than any other shelter we had found so far. Food can be hunted and cooked. And water… rivers are far, but I guess some can be melted and treated to be edible. We could settle down right here and now, spend the last days of my life with you, and… that would be it. I would die happy even if I cannot save myself.

“No death throes filled with impotence and regret. I’ll close my eyes and be glad that I passed the last moments of my life beside the most wonderful female in existence.”

His voice was embellished with dreaminess; his mind illuminated with a life where he no longer had to strive for survival.

It sounded dreamworthy, indeed — a horizon sweeter than it was bitter.

Leaving his self-imposed duties was unlike the Marek she knew, an ideal that crashed against the fighter that swung its blade through everything the Frostscape had to offer.

But Marek — her poor Marek — had been fighting for so long. Parentless… and struggling in the streets. Immature… and forced to kill others. Foreign to nonbelligerence… and dying of sickness.

Of course he yearned for surrender — he had done nothing but keep going for most of his life.

She understood the desire. She was eager to accept it.

But deep inside, Sigrid felt split in two.

The prospect, though an end satisfactory for her lover, was nothing but sadness laced by short-term happiness.

More bitter than sweet.

How to proceed? How to stop the pressure in her chest? How to welcome his desire and protest at the same time?

Her beak went slack, brewing words that never met the light, fighting the impulse to cower in resignation.

“... But things have changed,” his voice came as a blast of air; it steadied her stare and made her ears wince up, even if a little. “There is more at stake than the life of a foolish man. Doing such a thing is nothing short of selfish.

“With you in the middle, the stakes are higher. I could not depart this World knowing that I left you on your own, alone and at the mercy of a dragon’s whims. That, I promised you one night in Rinkai.”

He turned to Sigrid, visage not quite marred by that cloud of sadness. His jaw was set firm, and his stare unwavering. His eyebrows drew a straight blade on his face, kept tight as the lips, which gave no opening for air to flow.

“Tempting as it is, I’m not surrendering.”

And amid the bowels of fear, a beam of determination.

Sigrid inched her beak open, not knowing what to say; her eyes sparked waterishly.

“My Sigrid.” Marek’s hand slid up across the wing’s height until it stopped at the wrist. “Forgive me for making you worry. I wanted to think about us. I really did… But whenever my thoughts lingered about the dragon, I felt the risks crushing my shoulders and… well…”

A churr flew in his way. Then, the lukewarmness of a scaly hand found his cheek.

“It is fine. You think of keeping yourself alive.”

“I would rather think of living.” He mirrored Sigrid and placed his hand on her cheek.

“And we both will. The way you think about us living in a shack is beautiful. Tomorrow, these very dreams will be of use, but tonight, let’s dwell in what we have. In us.”

She edged closer until the curve of her beak pressed against the man’s lips. She rubbed here and there, both lovers taking in the scent of their breath for some eyeblinks before Sigrid backed away.

“Can you do that? Please. For us.”

A solemn nod. “Whatever you desire, my love.”

She did not smile; rather, she leaned forward once more and indulged in another beak-to-mouth contact. It lasted no less than the previous one.

It was a promise.

An unspoken pledge to keep moving forward.

Eventually, both withdrew away from each other, and Marek spoke: “The dusk is young. What do you want to do? What you wish, I fulfill. No more sour face.”

A mouth corner bent up. “Let’s eat. Next, we cuddle and read.”

That was a wish he could fulfill.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

“Look. I think I’ve seen this thing before,” Sigrid said while pointing at the book’s picture.

“Really? Remember the name?”

“It was like… vrah… grorum…”

Worry left behind and bellies filled, the couple moved on to spend the time relaxing, now lying stretched on the nest with the edge serving as a pillow.

The fumes of a food cooked wafted like cologne, and dancing embers danced around, spawns of a steady fire that burned inside a pot.

Marek lay on top of a wing, his attire reduced to his undershirt and pants, taking care to hold the book at an angle so the two could revel in the illustrations. As for Sigrid, she nestled against his side, chest and arms pressing tight.

“—Vrauwoorm!”

Chuckles, almost a laugh. “Bramwurm.”

A yelp of displeasure. “Curses!”

“Yeah, yet another variant of a wurm. You can find them everywhere. Deserts. Jungles. Swamps. By all means, they are a pest. A dangerous one.”

“I’ve seen one when I ventured a bit too far to the East. Luckily, I never got an up-close encounter with one of them. They look nasty.”

“I bet those who have encountered these also thought the same. It was one of the few monsters that never sparked my interest. They are just big worms. That’s hardly teratofauna.”

“Wargs are just bigger wolves, and they once appealed to you, doommy.”

“Those speak and breathe ice. Not the same.”

More pages turned. Yawns were increasing in frequency, foretelling the advance of sleepiness. They would occasionally tease each other over that, especially given Sigrid’s puppylike variant, but they kept themselves awake, their embrace strengthening as the time ticked on.

None of them wanted to end the night prematurely.

Having flipped through a dozen pages, commenting on many monsters and beasts, not so much on flora, eventually their eyes came across a very peculiar image — one that brought a sour ting in Sigrid’s mouth.

Among a record of monsters, the figure of a maiden lay disclosed.

Long hair that hung past her hips.

A dress long enough to reach her feet and with wide sleeves, showcasing a floral pattern.

Wearing the hand of the wind like a veil.

A bosom that spilled out of her dress like squeezed pillows.

“Hey…” Marek raised a brow. “Isn’t that—”

“Kiya—” A hiss rode her voice.

“Kiya’s kind, actually.” He sideglanced at Sigrid before focusing on the book again. “To think this book would also display entities from the far East.”

“To think it would show a vixen…” She muttered.

“Come on. Don’t tell me you keep holding spite for Kiya?”

“How would I not? She kidnapped you and rubbed her sex on you!”

“She also tried to kill me, but glad you have your priorities in check,” a riposte of sarcasm. “Besides, this is not Kiya—”

“Vixen.” A bark cut in, but Marek continued.

“—Rather… it’s a member of her species. A generic one.”

“Do ‘generic’ vixens have these massive breasts?”

“Maybe? They are essentially sirens, so it’s a useful feature. They are made to appeal to males.”

“Sounds like it already appealed to you…” Her cheeks puffed.

“Don’t be like that. It’s just a book.” He added, but Sigrid’s pout, one that began crawling beneath his skin, told him she remained convinced. “Well, fine,” he let his eyes roll. “Let’s turn the page and see what’s next.”

“Thank you.”

Fingers grazed the page’s edge and leafed it aside. But far from leaving the Kiya’s kind matter behind, the new page underlined the beautiful elemental’s behaviour in a portrayal neither of the two could have foreseen.

The elemental now had company— opposite sex company.

The attire bearing the flowery pattern was gone, the male ‘to her side’ mirroring her fashion.

Both were tangled together — male towering over female, the latter showcasing no hint of torment.

Quite the opposite — for someone about to be frozen to death, he looked to experience _more _than fun.

A clear depiction of copulation.

“Wha—!” The avian girl was quick to catch an indignant caw from escaping her beak. Nonetheless, she failed to prevent her fur from standing spiky and her eyes from bursting wide.

“Wow.” The man’s reaction, on the other hand, was leaning towards amusement, like someone seeing his dog pull a trick it had done many times over. “This is the kind of image you see hanging outside a brothel.”

“Brothel? What’s that? Forget it— Turn page! This image is wicked!”

“Oh, please. We are all adults here.”

Marek kept his eyes latched on the drawing, disregarding Sigrid’s outrage. She emitted a low growl, but whether Marek heard it, he did not react.

“Full marks for whoever drew this. It is pretty detailed. He could have made gold drawing po—”

“That was it!”

In under one eyeblink, the book vanished from Marek’s hands. Sigrid had snatched it.

“This is no monster book. This is vixens’ puffery.”

“Hey! I was reading that.”

“No. You were ogling at vixen’s teats.”

“What? No, I was—!”

The wing wrested off from below Marek, making the man helplessly stir while she gave him her back, keeping the book and its inappropriate pictures out of his sight.

“That was unwarranted,” he rolled back to his former position, “and you err. I was ogling nothing. Just appreciated artistic skill.”

“Untruth” Barking. “‘Artistic skill’ has no bearing on creating big breasts. This piece of crap was made to lure people like you.”

Marek winced in disbelief. “You chirp foolishness, girl. I’m not lured by any piece of paper.”

“Yes you are. You can’t help but be absorbed by massive mammaries.”

“Oh, so it is that. You_ jealous._” A smirk found its way to his face. “My mate, the apex predator, threatened by someone else’s cleavage.”

“Not jealous.” The book drew an arc in the air and thudded beyond the couple’s sight. “Reading time is over.”

A wing stretched above her, creating a wall that separated her from Marek.

“Give me a break. What are we supposed to do now?”

“We sleep.”

“This early?”

“Plenty of time to think about what you did. Or about someone else’s teats. You wolf.”

“Oh, Sig, there is no need to bark,” he leaned up and forward and traced his palm along the wrist and the leaning edge of her wing, back and forth. “You don’t need to be threatened by a scrap of paper, or by any other women for that matter. Your breasts are perfect as they are.”

She blew a huff out of her beakholes and shook the wing, trying to repel the man’s hand. She failed, and Marek continued with the rubbing.

“Keeping the theatrics, eh? Fine, fine, I’m sorry. I did not intend to offend you. Can we go back to share the moment?”

He offered an awkward smile but only got intelligible muttering in return. She kept giving him the 'talk to the wing' gesture.

She had to admit: her drama had been an exaggeration, and her reaction, the fit of a child.

But what piqued her the most was the fact that Marek seemed to forget what Kiya did to him and, somehow, her mind attributed that lack of anger to Kiya’s voluptuous body.

I bet if she had been ugly, he would hate her as much as I do.

A sigh blew at her back. “Very well. I’ll be honest. Maybe I was digging that picture more than I had admitted. But there was no ogling. Rather, I pictured us in these pages.”

One ear winced and twirled back. Although a bit, his words had prickled her interest.

“It made me recall earlier. Around those ice monoliths. Remember my arse freezing to death? Few men could stand that long outside, let alone partake in a children’s game.”

What is he up to? Mm?

His hand changed course — from the wing it went south, where the scapulars met the fur.

“But then I saw you next to that corner. Taunting me.” The fingertip moved down further until it rode the first fold of her back. “Luring me.”

“Marc, if you think that sweet-talking will make me forget what you did, then you are wroooohh~.”

A pinprick of stimulation crackled on her back. Her grumpiness quenched in the act, replaced by the stiffness of surprise.

His nail, uncut since over two weeks ago, cut through the foliage of her fur, stroking a nerve she did not even know existed. The mere contact ignited embers on her hide.

“Showing off. Leg drawn forward. Pronounced hip bucked to the side. Chest swelled against the surface and out of your tuft…” His voice shed its impassiveness and was now thickening with huskiness. “Let’s say it set a flame on that killed the chills. I felt like a steam machine.”

At the bottom of her throat, the urge to warble emerged and was picking up strength. Her back, defenseless against a skilled hand, writhed in response; not in resistance, but in delight.

“You worry about sirens on paper when you could do such a thing? Your deeds surpass those of any other woman on the continent. You don’t need to be jealous.”

The first moan found its way to the outside, fleeting but not subtle. The tail jerked sporadically. The way her back angled could no longer be concealed, and her thighs, closed tight, slowly rubbed each other.

“I apologize for ruining the mood back then. I’m such a killjoy sometimes. I remember you now want to continue with our game, so… If you are eager to continue, well—” The sparkle changed course — it veered in the direction of her tail, dangerously close to the small of her back.

Then, streams of steam lapped the back of her ear — the scent of goatflesh mixed with saliva. It sent shivers — the good _kind _of shivers — down her spine.

“We can still work toward heating up—”

“Reeeuuu!~”

Like a finger pulling the trigger of a rifle, Marek’s nailtip hit a mark, triggering a ripple of delight.

Sigrid did not contain herself.

Wings tensed. The tail stood straight. Her back drew a bow. Toes curled.

Every inch of her body sprang wide as the jolt of pleasure thundered across her nerves.

Her whine, albeit short-lived, was intense and stirred the atmosphere. Even Marek winced back, retrieving his hand.

When Sigrid recovered her composure, her head spun back, mask wearing a blend of embarrassment and arousal.

“Went too far?” Marek, on the other hand, seemed to display both apologetic and remorseless elements across his visage.

“No— I mean— _Yes! _How could you stroke me on my back after what you did? And how is that you keep finding these places that— that—”

“Make you feel funny?” A shameless smirk.

Her response was a low growl, one far from intimidating.

“What can I say? That’s my forte.”

“You are such a wolf sometimes…” She shot him a pout, although more than narrowed, her eyes seemed half-lidded.

“Says the one who invited me to heat up.”

There was no denying it.

Marek had induced more than a fit of tickles, blowing and grazing _dangerous _regions on her body. Then, there was how he used her bosom as a pillow — how his breathing vibrated against the foot of her mounts.

Needless to say, that event had caused the images of her breasts being sucked to flash within.

“So… want to continue what we started?” He articulated, hand scratching his chin.

Sigrid withheld the right to answer quickly, causing a shadow of tension to grow in the air. It was a way of punishing him for… not hating Kiya enough? For stirring the flame of libido within her?

Not even she knew why she wanted to punish him.

“... Roode wolf.”

Mare blinked, lips puckering. “I take that as—”

Sigrid would not give him the chance to tease her further. She went for the lips — the crook of her beak smacking against the soft flesh, making them vibrate with a quiet rumble.

She parted away, just an inch. “You are still a doomb wolf.”

“I— Mm!”

Interruption.

Marek did not seem to mind — his grunts did not convey protest, only enjoyment.

Words morphed into muffles, then into moans. As usual, their distinct mouths did not mold with each other, but after a minute or so, their tongues crept out of their lair and performed what a rigid snout and a pair of flabby protrusions could not choreograph.

His tongue traced the edge of her beak. Her own sloshed against his lips, from the corner to the softer part to the tip and back to slap his tongue. Their intimation at first unfolded with the tempo of gentleness, but as the encounter prolonged, the wrestling between muscles grew noisy and wet.

The routine dragged on, and other body parts joined in.

Marek slid one hand along the curve of her waist and hip, whereas the other fondled the front of her… back?

Curses. She was still giving him the back. Turning around would not take more than two eyeblinks, but Sigrid’s mind was brewing something else.

Meanwhile, she limited herself to rubbing her calves and feet against Marek’s legs, and tried to use her arms to get rid of that layer of wool that separated Marek from toplessness.

Talons shifted to his abdomen and snaked toward the undershirt. Curious claws did not miss the opportunity to feel the outline of the man’s muscle beneath the piece of wool, careful not to cut his skin but deliberate to induce a line of fire on him.

After that, her hands moved on the buttons.

It pressed one button, but it refused to unfasten.

Tucked the shirt; the button was still there, evading her talons.

Stubborn thing — and stronger tuck, and it unfastened free.

Actually, it tore free.

A tad of guilt germinated, but a taste of Marek’s saliva erased the remorse.

It was only the start, and it was about time the next button released his chest. Nevertheless, a hand caught hers, interfering.

Marek noticed her struggle, it seemed. Steam machine and all, but he could not afford to have his undershirt destroyed.

His hand guided hers, and one by one the buttons went undone. With the shirt’s front part no longer held by these bothersome knobs, both lovers took a few seconds to remove the shirt.

His copperish skin glowed a little under the light of the gemstone; his many scars caught her eye, standing out across his defined physique like unearthed soil. There was a snake of blue twilight stretching across his right side to the base of his neck; its implications were blocked out of her mind.

Always a pleasure reveling in his muscles.

With the undershirt now removed, Marek’s hand wandered across her back until it found another region that required their services.

“—! Raaww!~”

That region was her unattended ass.

A massage ensued — fondling, kneading, a crude squeeze. From the upper corner to the tender underside, where cheek and thigh met. Her reaction, unexpected for her — the sensation, thrilling. Thus, she pushed her buttocks further into his hand until the fingers sank into the taut mass.

The man took the cues — she enjoyed it a lot.

A hand left the back and joined the other. Twofold the massagers — twofold the mewls. The hip swayed in approval; the tail wound from hand’s wrist to another as some kind of living veil.

She could not help but push her hip onto Marek, on and on, until it stumbled upon something hard.

Hard and hungry.

Too much that it was now the one driving forward, the trousers struggling to keep the warmth his length emanated from suffusing to her.

Sigrid — or more accurately, her _body _— recognized this was the perfect timing to change her stance.

Last time, they mated his way — tonight, it was going to be her way.

Therefore, she stopped pushing and yielded to her man’s thrusting, further and further, until his upper body had no choice but to drive forward as well.

Flexed chest kissed furry back. Two waists lined up with each other. Manhood, confined yet hungry, wedged against her cleft.

He was practically on top of her, wordlessly awaiting the sign for him to move onto the next ladder.

Sigrid finally complied — she leaned to the side, rolling so her buttocks pointed to the ceiling. Marek spared no time and climbed onto her.

Their buccal exchange, uninterrupted during their entire pose shift, finally broke, leaving a thin strand of saliva between the two.

“Take it off.” Her beak gasped out, eyes heavily hooded by her lids.

A nod took place between pants, followed by him backing off and shifting both focus and hand to the buckle on his trousers. The metal rattled little, and when the hem came loose, two motions were all that was needed to take the trousers off his legs.

The purest form of maleness had been set free before her eyes.

That primal urge from the last time burst within.

The growl in her throat.

The dilation of her irises.

The tempo of her tail.

Right before she

The sticks that made up the nest crunched under the grip of both talons and toes.

Now driven into neediness, Sigrid wasted no time in hauling herself up onto all fours, rocking lasciviously with each rock that brought her higher and higher until her cheeks covered the man’s cock from her sight. Only the warmth of its touch prevailed, and so did the muskiness it exuded, as intense as soil during rain season.

The subtle pause that transpired after adopting the all-four position told Sigrid that his mate froze, stunned because of the sight. When the pause came to an end, Marek missed no beat to push himself onto her, hands settling on both sides of her waist, until the base of his manliness wedged itself in the rift of her cheeks and his cockhead kissed the trunk of her tail.

She expected her lover to spear his fleshy length right away since her entrance was _slick _enough to withstand penetration without issue.

But Marek, always the teaser in carnal affairs — master of brewing anticipation — went for another route.

The one route where she eventually would beg for proper intercourse.

Hence, hands resumed their canoodling, exploring every inch, curve, and indentation of her rump and waist.

His fingers were not led by randomness. Every single line they drew was with the intent of discovering ‘triggers.’

Triggers that would make her whine with pleasure. That would ignite torrents of fire throughout her nerves. That would drive her crazy and needy.

In synthesis, vulnerable spots that would make her cunt clench wetter.

And whenever he identified a new trigger, her back bent lower, her butt perked up further, and her tail swayed faster.

And when she thought there was no other secret to be dug out — that it was time to move into the main event — a coil of force manifested out of the sudden.

“Rhhaaww!~”

A whimper of surprise. A whinge of desire.

Maybe it was the way her tail had slapped his hands or brushed his abdomen, but Marek opted to stop the movement by gripping the base of her tail, stopping the wagging but sending forth a blast of arousal.

Look at that — another weak spot.

This could not keep going forever — It was no exaggeration to say that her slit was drooling like a hungry beast.

This sensory overload must not drag on further!

So she whimpered and whined, more beastly sounds than words, complaining with her throat while her peak was practically buried in the bed of twigs. Her head was long since it turned around, so she could not see Marek’s face, read through his own lustful visage, and discern if he desired to prolong the ‘torture’ or finish this with an eruption.

At least the break he took told her he was considering it.

“... Will do.” He croaked out before shuffling on his knees.

His rod ground off between her cheeks and slithered, like an eel of sorts, along the curve of her ass until it repositioned itself between her thighs.

Tense, his cock pressed hard against her slit, transferring each throb it elicited onto her nethers.

Even during the final act, Marek could not help but tease her further by rubbing his length, back and forth, along her slick honeyspot, bathing with liquid sweetness.

With shaky legs, Sigrid waited, whistling harshly through beakholes in anticipation of the ultimate intimation. Her passage edged desperation — if Marek did not make haste, she was tempted to turn around and pin him against the ground.

Fortunately, after one last round of back-and-forth cycles, Marek angled his aim, and penetration occurred.

Swift.

Smooth.

A burst of letch that drove a yowl out of her mouth. Fleeting, but loud.

Her legs almost gave in, but Marek’s firm grip on her hips kept her rear high, securing his cock sheathed inside the oven of ecstasy that was her passage.

There had been no time to adapt to the sensation — Marek began bucking his hips at once.

In and out.

A ripple on her rear flesh with each thrust.

An unrestricted vocalization for each cycle. Caws and yells belonging to a female; grunts and groans of a male, accompanied by the occasional swearing.

When the movement became repetitive, Marek decided to grip her tail once more, adding a portion of bliss to their act. It was no act of rudeness nor dominance — she never felt harm — but one of primal impulse, one that synchronized with her roots.

It was quite the paradox considering her life record.

It was as if another beast, foreign to Sigrid or Howling Talon, was taking over her thoughts, influencing her mind so she could maximize the pleasure, whispering conceptions that would make Sigrid hide her face behind a wing and Howling Talon hiss in disdain.

“B— bi— Caaw… bite~.” And it seemed this new facet successfully caused another idea to germinate.

“Biiit… Biiit— Gaaww~.”

Sheer delight sealed her words, knotting her tongue. The mere act of formulating human speech was as hard as overwhelming a breeze with one’s blow.

Did Marek notice?

His rhythm experienced no change, so chances were that he was as lost as—

“Kyyyeeshaa!~”

Oh, he got the message through. His head just dove on the small of her back, catching her hide between his teeth immediately after.

Humans’ bite strength could not hold a candle to the myriad of abominations that could tear bark off trunks and shatter bone like ceramic. His teeth inflicted no pain — the opposite — it sent forth a tide of ecstasy that pushed Sigrid to the brink of orgasm.

That had been the final trigger.

There were no more secondary performances for the remainder of the act.

Only the bliss of climax was left, its coming announced with a crescendo of their broken articulations and the soft slap of flesh against furred flesh.

Her mind gusted wild, anxious for having her belly filled by the liquid fire, for her inner walls being washed with white.

It was then that it came again — the whisper of her instincts — trying to trap her into a spiral of self-mesmerism.

Harder. Go _ **_harder.**

Love me. Love me _ **_harder.**

Your _ **_seed.** _ Give me your _ seed.

Fill me. _ Fill me with your seed._

My _ **_womb** _ is yours and only yours._

It is a _ **_garden.** _ You are the _ gardener.

You _ **_plant.** _ I _ create.

As much as you _ **_desire.**

Release _ in me._

Please, love of mine…

Breed me.

The voice had fulfilled its role — Sigrid ended up ensnared in a cyclone of her own heightened desire.

It only hushed away when a throaty grunt resounded against the fold of hide between teeth, deep with masculinity.

Marek had just discharged himself.

And as his load streamed deep into her, rope after rope, she shouted animalistic cries and her body writhed.

By the time Marek had no more seed to give, the slit where his cock remained sheathed leaked with the mixture of their fluids. After a few drips, the squirming ceased; Marek set free the fold of hide he caught with his teeth and backed away with a lengthy grunt, leaving the spot damp where his mouth had been.

A subtle roll from Sigrid and a quick fall and subsequent shuffle from Marek that put him nestled alongside the chimera were the last movements they gave off for the following minutes.

The two lovers were reduced to a panting bunch, exhausted, emitting the musk of aftersex.

When their breathing stabilized, both turned to each other. Sigrid enveloped Marek with her wings, the latter not bothering to put his clothes on.

Everything looked done for the night. There had been no bedtalk and the likes. If there had been a conversation, it was a wordless one initiated by the fond touch of a scaly hand on his cheek.

Her heavy gaze, washing him over, conveyed more than satisfaction — It was an assurance.

Sleep well. This time, it was her own inner whisper.

Worry no more.

Tomorrow, you thrive.

Tomorrow, you win.

Whether Marek picked up the message behind her gentle hand, she could not tell.

He only stared, almost absentmindedly, with half-closed eyes. He offered one last smile and then sealed his eyes shut.

His state of sleep more than guaranteed, Sigrid mimicked shortly after, and also shut her body off for the rest of the night.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The night might be done for the warrior, but the beast’s mind meandered between sleep and wakefulness, unable to bring herself to rest for long periods.

Her gaze focused on the gem inside the rusty iron, blinking darker and darker as the night grew short.

It reminded her of the reality the two had to face tomorrow.

The crude, unfair reality.

All this time trying to cheer Marek up, she forgot that the dragon matter stressed her out as much as it stressed her lover, if not more.

Her origin’s disclosure.

The snowball fight.

The date that had transpired within the pages of the book.

The mating session.

All under the risk of being erased, like a pleasant dream undergoing vanishment after awakening.

There was a lot to fight for — to keep moving forward.

She wanted Marek to be healthy. She wanted a lair for the two of them. And after that intrusive thought during intercourse, she also wanted pups — Marek’s pups.

Whether that was possible for a homunculus or not, she could not know, but it was a horizon worth exploring along with her lover.

In silence, she turned her head to Marek, the latter soundly asleep, closed eyelids hiding a warrior undergoing preparation. His lovely and quiet sleep was only disrupted by the occasional cough, which ultimately failed to stir him awake.

Her talon settled on his cheek, caressing it ever so slightly.

You thrive. You win.

Not ‘us.’

Marek’s most important toil until the date… and she could even push herself to be at his side.

Every fiber of her being flinched at the thought of standing before the greatest calamity.

The scourge of her land.

Saku’s killer.

The nightmare that will be.

Whether the battle would end with his demise or with the materialization of yet another tragedy was something she could not witness.

If fate led Marek through the darker path, the weight of the tragedy would surely destroy her.

“... Oh, Marc…”

A droplet of a tear washed down her mask.

“Why does it have to be like this?”

Nobody_ ever_ said it would be easy.