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As the day continued Markus tried to distract himself by thinking about what was likely to come, but found that this barely held his attention. He hardly cared for Oryon politics and specifics, and Leyo promised more of the same, just different. At least he would be able to see the city from which his father had first come, as little as that might mean to him.

As evening cast its cool dying light down across the yard the foxwolf again wondered just why he was doing this. Regret began to creep across him, strengthening the more he thought about just where he was going, and then abating when he realized there would be no expectations of him, no responsibilities, no senseless tasks or stupid requirements. I can just spend my time how I please, he resolved, looking out across the carriage that would take him along the journey, led by two feral horses drawn by a driver, with another assistant sitting alongside.

“The journey is a little over half a day," Azura explained to him upon meeting him in the manor's great hall, “so ideally you'll be arriving in midmorning. I sent a messenger after we spoke this morning to alert Volo of your visit, so they'll be ready for you." Then, added in a lower voice as she walked beside him: “I'm sure Rhea will be excited to have you."

Markus held his tongue. The more he thought about it, the less confident he was in this plan: at three separate points throughout the afternoon he had blindly wandered the halls of the manor just in case he might end up running into Lura, wanting to again feel the otter's touch and warmth and comfort. But then he remembered their argument, and how the normally softspoken, sweet otter had snapped at him, had glared and growled and…

I didn't deserve that, the foxwolf resolved, now climbing up into the carriage. Though no attendant was to be sent with him, a bodyguard had still been appointed and sat stoic along the other seat, nodding her greeting to him. Not for what I asked. Right? Maybe I'll talk with Rhea about it. I suppose it would be good to become… at least some sort of friends.

_ _

And who knows. Maybe something will happen after all.

After final checks and confirmations, Markus waved goodbye to his mother and brother, nodded for the guard to close the door, and within another minute felt the space around him rock into motion. He looked out the window, rested his chin in his paw, sighed, and for just a few minutes closed his eyes.

When he opened them again the landscape had changed, from the familiar fertile bowl into which Oryon had been built giving way to the jagged rises and close valleys in between, the surrounding roads fairly well maintained. The town itself saw exports along the coast, just across the western mountain range, to the north and south both. Vaguely he could recall hearing something about that range specifically, how the leeward valley combined with the relatively low altitude provided a perfect environment for the bayshoot terraces, and…

And already he felt himself drifting again. The foxwolf crossed his arms in front of his chest and once more closed his eyes, wondering if the rhythm of the road would provide him a better chance at sleep. Along those export routes Leyo was of course the first stop, known to him only because he had heard it in passing so many times before. A fairly large city, not quite like Alenar's capital of Leyo, or Mora's Ryalon further down south at the mouth of one of the countless river deltas, but still certainly more so than Oryon, and he couldn't recall much of Solm.

But that would be tomorrow. For now there was nothing more than vast crests of stone riding up all around, as though some impossibly huge creature had reached down and clenched the earth in its fist, wrinkling it like so much fabric. Wide swathes of trees blanketed those wrinkles as well, the forests deepening as minutes carried into hours and the space in between cities expanded. Small homesteads dotted the landscape here and there, villages comprising of likely fewer people than wandered the Oryon manor halls on a daily basis; idly Markus wondered if these fell within the Oryon county, and from there if Azura sent patrols or guards or tax collectors or whatever else that might have required out to them.

That doesn't sound so bad, he thought, listening to the sound of the road, the wind in the trees, the quiet clinking of the guard's gear against the lacquered wood of the seat. Trudging through the woods, chatting with the… provincials. Maybe I could do that instead… Lulled by the rhythm and the deepening night, the foxwolf rested his head in against the door and drifted into a daydream, at some point splitting into an actual dream.

There he was along mountain roads and forest pathways, branches reaching down across him, speckled half-sunlight drizzling down across his fur in patches. His bare fur, he noticed without really thinking about it: a slight chill wafted along his shoulders, but the rest remained untouched. Gravel slid and crunched beneath his footpaws, and he still had his sword at his side, though regardless of the lack of a belt it remained in place.

_ _

At the first house he came to, the door opened but nobody was inside, so he turned around and continued on to the next. For this one it was Lura who answered, except his eyes glittered bright, warm green, thick verdant moss growing among the rich soil-brown of his muzzle. He smelled of cinnamon and eucalyptus, and he smiled when he saw Markus. The door opened further, the darkness embraced him, and so too did the otter, standing up on his tiptoes to run his muzzle in along Markus's, breath puffing out across and into his mouth…

…he rocked gently awake, blinked blearily, looked out to see that the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and shifted…

…and then when he drew back it was instead a tall, broad-shouldered wolfess here in front of him, recognizable to him as Rhea even though the face, the markings, the appearance itself, lacked any sort of distinction. She smiled at him, and then kept on smiling, mouth pulling wider apart, sharp teeth continuing up along the sides of her face, toward her ears, up around the back of her head. She gripped his shoulder with one paw and the back of his head with the other, and held him in place, and leaned in with that mouth, and-

And again Markus jerked away, this time to the still, silent darkness of night all around him. His eyes felt as sticky as his mouth, and he took a moment to wipe at both of them; still the bleary weight of sleep hung down around his thoughts, but so too was he crossed with an odd, restless energy, leading him to straighten up, lean against the carriage window, and tap his foot against the floor. As he drew the curtain back he saw that the landscape had changed yet again, the thick forests having changed in composition with the shift in latitude; it was only a short journey from Oryon to Leyo – far northern Mora to far southern Alenar – but already he could feel the change in atmosphere as well, as the greater mountains crawled their way further west towards the coast, the air as a result becoming drier, a bit more temperate.

Some part of him still treasured the high, dry climate into which he was born, among the swirling desert of Maldeth, to the east. Central in its position within the continent, all roads, almost literally, passed through Solm – or, rather, the more economic hub city of Meris to the northwest, at the desert's border with the northern grasslands. Markus sat up and leaned over to peer through the opposite window: had they already crossed the mountain pass north of Oryon, then the very fringes of that green expanse should be visible now.

He had heard that further north past the twin seas of sand and grass, the country of Loria – bordered on the west by Alenar, a slender portion of the southwest with Loria, most of the south with Maldeth, and then crossing an eastern river to the empty, forbidding highlands of Taiko – melded into dense, verdant forest the likes of which were unknown out here. Again the foxwolf turned his head, barely able to make out the shapes of the tall, angular trees passing by on the mountain slopes, their trunks thick but straight, the ground underneath littered with a thick mat of dropped needles; in Loria he heard that the earth underfoot wove together as thickly as the canopy overhead, and that each stretched, shifted, molded around branches heavy with moss, old bones of plant and animal both, living air as warm and humid as exhaled breath.

Markus sighed, resting his head against the door of the carriage. Loria had myth, too, as vibrant as its wildlife: even in Oryon, all exports and next to no imports due to the sheer lack of profitable business, he had still heard of the things that lurked in the deep forests. Some beast, a monster, congealed from swirling shadow, heavy dew, and lashing vine, trudged along the edge of the woods and occasionally harassed the border villages, small settlements of little more than two or three families; nobody who had seen it had lived to tell, and everyone who heard the tale naturally told it a little bit differently.

Then there was the alleged tribe of uncivilized wolves threaded throughout the heart of the forest itself, a disparate group of animalistic, nearly bestial lupines who spoke in grunts and growls and barks and snarls, and sometimes walked on all fours, and intermingled freely with their feral counterparts similarly roaming the depths of the woods. Perhaps they worshipped the nightmare beast, or had created it as a way to reclaim their territory lost to expanding society and spreading agriculture. Apparently they hunted with a bow strung with the innards of their first kill, and arrows with heads flaked off of flint and fletching plucked from the crows that dotted the sky; they wore loincloths tanned from the hides of their prey, and nothing else; and they spent their days hunting, feeding, worshipping their strange primal idols, consorting with their feral companions.

Sounds nice, Markus thought, once again letting his eyes close. Still his leg bounced, fervent energy bumbling through him. Much simpler than this – maze of societal expectations, social cues, responsibilities, whatever else. Always remember this; never do that. So-and-so is alright, but only behind closed doors, and never mention it in public. By the way, we're marrying you off to some stranger you've never met before, for the sake of strengthening the family empire, and – what? Reconsolidating something or other? Who even cares what my father did?

Idly he slipped into a fantasy of opening the carriage door, leaping out into the brush, hiding there until the light of the lone lantern hanging down disappeared in the distance, and then running off into the woods, running until the shadows closed in around him and the trees tightened their embrace. He imagined meeting the wild wolves out there clothed in barely more than their own fur, bows and arrows poised, monstrous ferals flanking them. They watched him, eyes glittering sharp amber, wild predators' eyes, sizing up their prey; the one in front tilted her head, sniffed at him, and feeling as though it was the right thing to do, he sniffed back. She smelled familiar, though neither could he place nor describe the notes in that scent; Markus found himself drawn in closer, and then their paws were touching and feeling at his body, running over his shoulders, sliding down his chest, pushing him down to the ground.

At least that's something good my father did for me, he thought, drifting off a little further. I don't think I could stand being a full fox. I've seen how much Mercutio has to brush after a bath, and…

_ _

And then the wild wolves continue in on him, the one in front slitting her eyes as she picked out something familiar in him. The hybridization presented itself well within Markus, he knew: looking at any individual piece of him it would be easy to discern the source – muzzle of an Alenari wolf, tail of red fox; ears of fox, shoulders of wolf; and so on – but all together the two blended perfectly, so that looking at him head to toe it would be impossible to differentiate the two beyond just what he was: foxwolf. Kalla and Oryon both, yet representative of neither.

_ _

But out here, out in the woods where these names, these words, these sounds meant nothing, none of that mattered. The paws continued across his body, ruffling his fox-thick and wolf-dense fur, lifting his shirt up at the hem, rolling it across his chest, tugging it over his arms. Muzzles pushed down into the space between his neck and his shoulder, hot breath steaming within his pelt, making his eyes water, curling his nose; strong whiskers tickled his cheek, and he reached around with one arm to squeeze at that muzzle there, feeling the lips curl back, the rounded surface of the saliva-slick fangs, the inquisitive wet leather of the nose sniffing deeper.

_ _

Eyes closed, mouth open, overwhelmed with the attention and investigation, a shiver racks the foxwolf's body. His back arches and his tail swishes underneath him – and in that moment another pair of paws takes the chance to seize the waist of his pants and tug them down, freeing him to the chill, still air of night in the open forest. That stillness just makes the swirling of steam-humid breath that much sharper, tickling across his bared belly, his abdomen, his inner thighs.

_ _

The one in front still stands there. As expected she wears nothing but the loincloth, full breasts bared to the glimmer of the moon through the dappled canopy overhead, succulent pink points of her nipples glistening – with more trailing down through the short fur of her belly, little mounds marking the way down. From where he is held on the ground Markus does not need to move his head to see up underneath her loincloth, though soon it does not matter: with a swipe of her paw she undoes the knot and tosses it aside, and then suddenly she drops down between his legs, sharp eyes glowing with a light all their own, and runs her nose up between his legs, breath sucking in over fur and skin so sensitive.

_ _

Where he lay in the carriage Markus squirmed, sighed, and parted his lips, rolling over onto his side a bit. Bleary-eyed, barely half awake, he blinked, glanced throughout the carriage, figured that there would be no stops until they arrived at the Thorn estate, and as such judged the opportunity proper. With a little bit more adjustment he had undone the fastening of his pants, slipped one paw in, scooped himself out into the air, then wrapped his paw around his sheath as it plumped with growing arousal, squeezed, stroked…

…and the wolfess's eyes flutter as she draws in his scent, his sack draped across her nose, his fur tingling with the depth of her breath. Markus tries to arch his back again but now more of the hunters keep him pinned to the ground from behind, sprawled out across the earth behind his head: he looks back at them, and they meet his gaze, and watch as he is pushed further and further, arousal stirring with the wolfess's investigation.

_ _

Satisfied with his scent there, she moves up further, surprisingly gentle fingers cupping around his sack-

_ _

-Markus gave himself a squeeze, shivered, bit his lip-

-and giving a soft pull, tugging the supple skin of his sheath down along his slick, tapered length. She licks her lips, flares her nostrils, and leans in again, now sniffing there at luscious, naturally moist flesh. Markus knows what catches her interest there: the deep, ruddy undercurrent of lupine musk layered beneath the higher, sharper, acrid bite of vulpine richness. But she doesn't seem to mind, her ears flicking back as she digs deeper, her mouth parting as she runs her nose down along the rim of his sheath, folding the soft, wet skin back across itself, mashing it against her lips… flicking her tongue out, curling it into the soft, sensitive space there.

_ _

The foxwolf swirled the pad of a finger across his tip, slick with dribbling pre, and then easily sank that down underneath his sheath, the extra pressure squeezing around him, urging him further. Yet again he swallowed, eyes fully closed…

…and around and around she dragged her tongue, slow and deliberate, the soft, slick sensation swirling within his sheath, coaxing him out further. The foxwolf's head falls back on his shoulders and his eyes roll back, and for a moment he can do nothing but wriggle within the grasp of the other wolves, hips churning up against the wolfess as she works at him. Fingers massaging his sack, tugging at his sheath, folding the thick skin forward, pushing it back, all the while she continues to nuzzle and slurp and sniff and drink down his scent, learning him more fully than anyone else ever had, and then – then suddenly the feeling is gone, but only for a moment.

He shifted where he sat, straightened up a bit so that he could tug his pants down further, and then wrapped his paw around his now fully-hard shaft. One stroke, then a second, and a third, slipping his sheath back past his unswollen knot,

_ _

and the wolfess's paws tighten against his shoulders, scooting the others' further down his arms, and she sinks smoothly down onto him. Soft, sweet, decadent, yet again his back arches as he plunges up into her, the plump, full flesh of her lupine sex sucking perfectly around the contours of his length. Her breath joins him in the still air in between, and as she rides, hips pumping forward and back with her movement, her paws dance around his body: one comes up alongside his neck while the other spreads down over his bare chest, feeling the structure of his bones, the shape of his musculature. This touch, this connection, the way that her lips remain curled back and her eyes glitter down at him, show to him – 'this strange creature, this unfamiliar individual, belongs to nobody; and as such I shall claim him as my own.'

_ _

Her rhythm, her pace, her ferocity, her urgency, all steadily increase, until her rump smacks down against Markus's lap each time she pushes down. Mouth open, paws gripping his chest, she rumbles and growls and pants across his muzzle, her breath tickling his nose and tongue. There is no need for the words she lacks to show her interest in him, and her desire; his paws still held down at his sides, Markus wishes to reach up and feel her, to grip her waist and hoist her tail, to run his fingers across those little pinpoint nipples, to feel her shoulder and pull her mouth down against his own like he kissed Lura, like he-

_ _

The wolfess arches her back, body trembling, throat pulsing. She swallows, gasps, draws in a great gulp of air, then leans in and affixes her jaws around the captured foxwolf's shoulder, clamping down, tightening until fangs crunch through skin.

_ _

Markus rolled his head to the side again, other paw coming up to pinch at that spot, claws poking in. Just a little bit; he didn't want there to actually be a mark, but still he stroked himself faster, harder, feeling the intense warmth start to bubble up, roil inside of him, and-

-unable to hold himself back he thrashes against his impromptu bonds, the other wolves around him rumbling in appreciation. He grits his teeth, sucks in a breath through his nostrils, bumps his head against hers, and then feels himself begin to unload inside of her, the thick spurts pounding deep – with her own peaking arousal squirting down into his lap, soaking his fur, dribbling down the forest floor underneath him. Both of them shiver and shake in turn, his full, swollen knot tied inside, her spade squeezing deliciously tight around him,

his own fingers and thumb tugging at the perfect spot there at the root of his shaft within his sheath, his body continuing to buck with the force of his finish,

and he slumps back, breathless, entire body tingling, wet warmth trickling from his shoulder. The wolfess huffs loudly in his ear, her own pleasure still trickling out across him; then with palpable effort she pushes against him, lifts herself up… and Markus looks up through dazed, dizzy eyes to see Rhea there on top of him, satisfaction sharpening her muzzle, delight thrumming through her. Still tied, she leans in more comfortably over him; Markus squirms once more and finds that this time his movement is free, that no longer do the wild wolves hold him down. No longer does the sensation of loose leaf litter and old branches prick underneath his back; no longer do his toes tingle in the cool night air.

_ _

Instead he feels the plush fabric of the sheets and mattress underneath him, the resilient steadiness of the lacquered wood headboard, the warmth of the fire crackling across the room. Instead of the moonlight coming down across her bare body it is the dancing flames of oil lanterns about the bedroom.

_ _

“This is what your life is to be," she purrs, still riding her hips gently back and forth, constantly wiping any semblance of coherent thought from within the foxwolf's mind. He groans and shudders again. “This isn't so bad, is it? What are you running from? What are you so scared of? It's what everyone wants of you. It's what everyone expects. Why can't you just see that? Why-"

_ _

-can't I just want it? Markus thought, blinking himself back into reality. There was no bedroom, no fire, no lanterns, no Rhea. Just himself swirling amid his own heady musk, the space within the carriage thick and heavy with humid warmth, the evidence of his self-pleasure dripping down the painted wood in front of him. He released himself, grimaced with the sensation, then made quick, sloppy work of cleaning up before managing to finagle himself back into his pants.

Now exhausted, drained of that restless energy, and more than a little bit perturbed, he rested in against the door again, arms crossed in front of his chest. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it? If I could just fit all of that, what Mother wants for me. But I don't. I can't see myself in that position. Rhea's nice enough, I guess, but I'm not interested in her. I want…

He shifted, closed his eyes, pulled in a breath, and let it out. And as the carriage rumbled further along the road, crossing the border with Alenar, he imagined that he felt the warm, comfortable weight of the slim otter lying against him, head on his shoulder, rudder looped around his ankle.