They flew an hour outside of the enclave. I was in such shock I didn't even protest to the flight.
Until it started to rain again, and the rotting rain made Itek's back slick.
After we landed and made camp on an outcropping of sort of flat rocks, I huddled under Korr's wings and tried not to think about it. Itek, in human form, squeezed under there with me, while Korr twisted his neck around like a swan tucking its head, and Ethat just shoved his head under there too.
"Are you sad he is such an idiot?" Korr inquired.
"Sad about Assund?" I asked, hugging myself and shaking.
"That's what I asked, isn't it? Are you upset he rejected you again?"
"I wasn't there asking him for anything," I snapped. "I just wanted to know if he existed."
Itek shimmied closer and hugged me against him. We were all wet, the rocks were wet, and under the shield of Korr and Ethat's extended wings—each one resting on their brother's backs—the rain dripped, and lightening illuminated the sky in the distance, and the thunder rumbled. Itek kissed me just behind the ear.
"It was just a question," he whispered, stroking my wet thigh.
"How did it happen?" I asked nobody, staring at the storm in the distance. "I know my enclave was real. It had to have been real, right? I've got these scars, don't I?"
"It was real," Korr said, his icy eyes observing Itek stroking my sides and gently kissing me along my neck and shoulders. "We know it was real because Assund visited you there."
"But how did he get his Trinket?"
A snort of fireflies from Ethat, and Korr said, "He went to the Temple, of course. And then he had the dream of you. I wonder what would have happened if he'd had accepted you in the dream. Would you have pulled him in with you, or would he have pulled you out?"
"Then the gods had to know where I was," I said, uncertain. "Maybe.. My enclave was all a dream? I remember the man who brought me to Haven finding me. Maybe..."
I touched my long-healed scars on my face.
"We also remember that man," Ethat said. His bright eyes narrowed. "We may need to find him. I have his scent."
Korr said, "We must tred lightly, brother."
"Why?"
"Have you considered that perhaps our pet escaped a prison, and her keeper is looking for her?"
I shivered, and Itek held me tighter against him.
"Now Everfell knows we have her," Korr said, tone tense. "And their chancellors do too. Assund was able to make the trip there, but we must consider the gods did not lead her out, but that she escaped. In your memories, Theia, did you sneak out, or simply walk out?"
"I waited until night and left quietly," I said.
"Did you tell anyone?"
"No."
"Why not?" Korr asked. "You were an unwanted foundling. No one would have stopped you."
All I'd been thinking was no one could know I'd left, and I needed to be miles down the road before I'd been missed. But the guards wouldn't have stopped me from leaving, and I'd left the enclave plenty of times before to fetch water or work in some fields. I'd taken such pains to hide my face that last time, except even as I thought about it, I still felt the anxiety that nobody could know I'd left.
"That does not prove it was a prison," Itek said. "It may have been a safe place."
"A prison by a different name." Ethat snorted.
"And the gods sent Assund to lure her out?" Itek asked, doubtful. "But it was this Tynne who sent it all into motion with the Trinket."
"A pocket realm of such detail and power is a great magic," Korr murmured. "We must be very careful. We don't know who we are dealing with."
"Is that your way of saying it's more powerful than you?" I asked, annoyed and shaken.
"It only has a head start," Korr said arrogantly.
"We will catch it. We just have to find its trail," Ethat added. He snorted at Itek. "If our hunter would stop fondling your breasts to listen."
"I think better like this," he said, one of his big hands indeed cupping one of my breasts. He used my hair to turn my head so I would kiss him, slow and deep, and he inhaled, pushing his body closer against mine.
Ethat snapped his jaws and clipped Itek on the ankle. "A wet, crumbling rock is no place for her first time with us!"
Itek, blood dripping out of the multiple lines drawn by Ethat's fangs, kicked the dragon in the head and snarled, holding me away and into Korr's body. Ethat growled, barring his fangs, the fireflies turning into buzzing hornets.
I pushed backwards into Korr's freezing bulk.
"Put your cock away," Ethat demanded, snaking his neck towards Itek's swollen body, which had shoved his bound-cloth aside for all of us to get a good look.
"She did not tell me to stop, so mind your own business," Itek shifted onto his knees, growling deep in his throat. "If she wants me to pleasure her under your wings on this wet rock, then I am going to do so, and you can deal with it."
Korr twisted his neck a bit more to whisper in my ear, "Shall I make off with you while they fight?"
I shoved his head away. "Some diplomat you are! All of you knock it off."
Ethat growled but lowered his head back onto the stones, grumbling at Itek, who resettled behind me, tugging me possessively against his strong torso. He nibbled my neck, sending a wave of warmth through me.
I elbowed him off me, because Ethat's fireflies were still buzzing wasps. How the hell was I supposed to keep things even between all of them?
* * * * *
It was muggy and hot the next morning. The clouds had blown away and whatever dampness they'd left behind was quickly soaking and evaporating away. Everything had the usual gross sheen to it from whatever taint ate away at the world. Everything sort of smelled too, like mildew and slightly bad meat.
Even the sky seemed to have a haze now.
"What are you thinking?" Korr inquired, resting off to the side and keeping the ground frosty for his brother.
"Just that the sky seems a bit hazy now."
Korr looked up. "I see nothing?"
"Like a bit smoky," I tried again.
He looked at me now. "You must being perceiving the taint. The same as you can perceive the demonic influences in your tutor."
"You can't see it?" I asked.
"I feel it." He shivered his scales. "Interesting. I wonder if awakening you to the truth your memories are... not what you thought they are... has awakened new potential in you. Opened your eyes, if you will."
"But you said my connection to my past is broken."
"And you did not believe us. Now you know it is true." Itek gnawed on one of his back legs. He always looked silly when he preened.
He did have the cutest little fur-balls though.
Ethat was still annoyed, but at least the soft fireflies had replaced his wasps. "Where are we going next, brother?"
Korr nibbled his own chest, gnawing off a scale that had gotten dislodged. "The foremost authority I know on dreams is a pantere priestess that lives in the Forest Valley. We can start with her. She can confirm if Theia was locked in a dream, or something other."
"Who's dream would she have been locked in?" Ethat said. "Dreams exist in the minds of those that have them."
"I don't know, brother, perhaps that is why we should determine if she was in a dream or not?"
Ethat grumbled, then spun around and hissed at the grass.
Itek jumped up and bounded into the grass.
Barking, and a wolf ducked around Itek's paws/claws, jumped over the gryphon, and tumbled through the grass, rolling over and over, shifting upwards into a man.
"Nice try, cat-bird," Assund said, grinning. "I was on the three of you before you realized it. I could have had her throat in my maw before you realized I was here."
Ethat snarled. "No one wants you here, dog. Begone!"
Assund's grayish hair settled around his face, a striking contrast to his amber eyes, his physique toned, nicked, bruised from service, and like Itek, he had only a skimpy loin-cloth as his bound-clothing. I think it was even skimpier than Itek's. It barely covered anything at all, being little more than thin leather thongs strapped over his hips with a piece of leather covering his privates. Barely. Like why even bother at that point?
Itek clacked his beak and sprang towards Assund, who danced out of the way. "Will have to do better than that, cat-bird."
Ethat swept his wings forward, shooting green tendrils across the miserable crab grass. The tendrils wrapped around Assund's ankles and swiftly coiled up his muscled thighs, even as they yellowed and turned brittle from contamination. "How is this?"
The tendrils yanked, and dragged Assund down, clenching hard over his thighs, and snaking under his loin cloth and—
"Stop it!" I shouted at Ethat as Assund howled in pain as the tendrils coiled around his phallus, one at the base, one around the head, and stretching the organ outward (it was stretchier than I'd expected), and another clenched around the base of Assund's balls.
"Oh, I don't know," Korr commented. "Some males are very much into their genitals being punished."
Ethat grinned and the fireflies turned back to wasps.
Assund's balls turned a very bad shade of purple. The Captain snarled, and one of his hands turned into a claw, and he swiped at the vines, severing the ones around his balls while his cock got stretched further.
Itek pounced on him and used his talons to pin him down, the claws digging into Assund's shoulders and blood welled up instantly.
"I don't think he's into this," I said as Assund snarled and tried to buck Itek off him while clawing at the punishing tendrils tried to castrate him and Itek tried to peck his face off.
"I might be," Korr cocked his head to the side, contemplative.
I bolted towards Assund and flung myself on him, straddling his waist with my ass towards his face, and trying to yank the tendrils off his genitals. "Stop it, stop it, you idiots!"
"Nope," Korr commented. "Not aroused. Just intrigued by how far his cock stretches."
"Will you shut up and help me!" I screamed at him.
"I wonder if that is how long it will be when engorged," Korr said. Then. "Assuming it is not permanently damaged from all this. Some do take their play too far."
"Get off him!" Ethat bellowed, "He doesn't deserve to live!"
Assund's balls were like... black at this point. And the head of his cock was purple, while the middle was white and stretched terrifying thin. He was still bucking and fighting under me, trying to rip Itek's beak off.
"He's still my mate!" I screamed. "His balls are mine, not yours! Stop hurting him!"
Behind me, Itek made a sound of fury and pain, and there was an awful noise like claws sliding off rock, and a bunch of feathers fluttered around us.
Ethat snarled and lowered his wings, and the tendrils loosened. I tore at them, unwinding the vines from Assund's cock and balls, and they relaxed back into a normal shape. I breathed hard, bracing myself on each of his powerful thighs, watching as the color in both quickly changed color to something normal.
Itek sauntered by, clicking his beak angrily, a huge bald spot around his rough weeping some drops of blood, and gouges in his beak.
Assund shifted and sat up under me, his strong abs right against my ass.
Korr, still in dragon form, settled down like a cat and crossed his front talons one over the other.
"You could have hurt him!" I snapped at Ethat.
"That was the idea," Itek growled.
The cock under me had started to swell and demonstrate it had not been permanently injured.
"What do you expect with your ass against me?" Assund inquired, tone calm and cool.
"Oh, you asshole!" I tried to spin around but I was stuck with both legs on either side of him and backwards, like a dumbass wheelbarrow.
"Yes, I can see yours. It's quite adorable." He helpfully pulled my pants up over my ass.
"What are you doing here anyway?" I demanded, managing to get to my feet and storming over to Itek, who curled one wing around me protectively.
Assund got to his feet, seemingly unaware of the gouges in his shoulders pouring blood, or the bruises and burns from the tendrils. As I watched, they started to heal. "I came after you, of course."
"Oh, you shouldn't have," I said sweetly.
"How can I serve as Captain while my destined mate is out here?" Assund said.
"Did you have to get relieved of duty to make that realization?" Korr inquired.
"No," Assund said.
"Well, she doesn't want you around." He pointed back towards Everfell with his other wing. "So you can leave."
"Hey, I didn't say that." I pushed his wing down.
Assund reached down and adjusted his loin cloth, and felt himself, ascertaining everything was intact (it clearly was still functional) and didn't seem to hear Itek.
"We travel by wing," Korr said. "We have no patience for you."
"Then I suppose you will have to carry me, same as her," Assund said flatly.
"I would rather kill you."
"I had no idea she was anything other than a dream until yesterday," Assund said.
Korr said, "You called her a nightmare. That's not very nice. My brother should resume punishing your genitals."
"Those are my genitals," I told Korr.
"We can just remove them from Assund and I can preserve them in ice for you."
"They would be lovely on the mantle. Quite the conversation piece," Itek agreed.
Assund picked some bits of feather out from under his fingernails. "The Churn provides the most perfect mate for a soul. Since I know that I will be relentless in my pursuit of her—"
"Relentless. Yes, that is what I would cause your actions up until this morning."
"I believed she was a dream," Assund repeated. "I am here now, and I know that since I will be relentless, then you three are relentless as well. We will only kill and maim each other squabbling over this, which would surely sadden her."
Ethat glowered.
Korr chuckled.
Assund walked towards me. I held my ground, trying to ignore the fact that his cock was still somewhat swollen against his loin cloth. "I am sorry for how we met. I am here now. Is it enough?"
/*******
Peeeppppssss...
Well. And then things got weird. Actually things were going to get much weirder in the first part... but too hot for Wattpad, so I was like let's steer this ship around these rocks...
How is ya'all's situation going? Because this is our situation here:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
~ Merry
(always pantsting)
********/