Tishrei 12, 6767
"I want you to visualize your magic in your body," The newly recolored, sandy furred Huxian said in a low, even tone of voice.
We both sat under Sequoia's tree and listened to the crooning songs of harpies in the boughs above, and she continued, "Come on my love, I know you can do this. You're already aware of the magic residing in your Soul Well. It is the foundation of your strength, dexterity, and constitution, and because of that, it is where the bulk of your magic resides right now. That is why it is so easy for you to feel it, but there are two other Wells. The Well of Power and the Spirit Well." *fn-B1
I nodded along with Huxian, I had heard this a thousand times over the last few days. Ever since the night at the pool, but it was all proving to be infuriating. Sitting with my legs crossed and the sequoia tree behind my back, my eyes were closed as I tried to meditate on these supposed energy wells within me.
I was starting to think they didn't exist!
Except for the Well of Soul which I could always feel, roiling in my belly, now.
"Maybe I should mate with him," Sequoia suggested in a sly purr directed at Huxian and said only to rile the fox, also for the thousandth time, "You know the Harpies and I all have particularly strong Soul and Spirit Wells. Maybe, all he needs is more power in order to feel it."
"And what would we do if he went berserk like he did when fighting Nahuel? No! He must master communion and cultivation first," Huxian argued, and then she opened her eyes just to give Sequoia a dangerous glare as she growled, "And, no one is breeding with my man until my seventh day is concluded. Understood?" *fn-B2
Sequoia just smiled back at Huxian and sashayed away to walk around her tree and tend to a wayward root or something.
"Maybe a break is in order though," Huxian mused half to herself.
"Yes please," I begged, and then grunted and groaned as I stood up and stretched, then suggested, "Why don't we go for a walk, and maybe take a bath?"
Huxian smiled at that. It was a daily ritual for us, and as she rose to her feet, she admired my hybrid-fox body with my new white fur, golden mane, and fluffy tail. With a happy squeal she took off running ahead of me, and I tore out behind her. My heart was pumping so fast I could hear my blood pumping in my ears. I was breathing hard as the ground and trees became a blur around me and all I could see was a sandy gold tail bobbing back and forth a few yards ahead of me.
Huxian's voluptuousness belied her fleet footed pace. The woman was fast!
She would periodically dart off to the side turning left or right, leading me on a merry chase, but I was always right on her tail. When we arrived at the pool she was breathing hard while I was not, and I wondered why that was.
"Are you tired," I asked as we both waded into the still waters of the pool.
"Foxes are sprinters, and then we go to ground when we are hiding from a predator," She admitted as she moved to the small stream that fed the pool and drank thirstily. When she came back she continued, "When you purified my Chi, you should have felt how small my Soul Well was while my Well of Power was a little larger, and by comparison, my Spirit Well is very well cultivated. This is because foxes are highly intelligent, cunning, charismatic, and sometimes wise. We try to out-wit our prey and the predators, but that aside, it is true that I have been more easily winded since our mating. I think it is that I have lived with my magic longer than, say, Bastet, so I just need more recovery time."
"Is it also why you are so...curvaceous," I asked as I ogled her lustfully.
She looked down at her own breasts and then twisted to appraise her wide hips and thick buttocks and thighs before she shrugged, "Well, I am a vixen!" Then looking up she asked, "Do you not like it? It was a 'Gift' from Seline when she marked me as her Messenger. She is a buxom goddess and she thinks beauty and happiness is found in the arms of a full-bosomed woman. I guess she let me keep my 'Gifted' body as a reward for obedience."
"Well I love all of you," I answered.
"Good," She purred as she approached and straddled my lap, pushed me backwards to lay back, and rubbed a hand across my dick until I was aroused enough to be guided inside her sex.
She sighed as she lowered herself down, and then slowly rocked her hips as little moans and squeals escaped her as we bred. I laid back and combed my fingers through the soft fur on her hips and thighs, and admired the gentle sway of her breasts above me. As she fell deeper into the motions of our coupling, and I felt my dick growing longer and my knot swelling up inside her, I tried to reach out with my magic and feel her Wells since it was the only time I seemed to feel Chi. However there was nothing...she was dark to me now, so I opened my eyes and enjoyed the rest of our union. Once we both climaxed, she laid forward and rested her head on my chest and we napped there on the edge of her pool.
——(!)——
An hour later we returned to Sequoia's grove. I sat down with my back against her tree trunk, and began meditating. Huxian walked over to a small burrow she had made for us between two large roots and curled up and went to sleep. She had been doing that a lot since I came to live with her, but I hadn't been around her long enough to know if she often became tired and napped. I only had my experiences with Bastet, and she could fall asleep anytime she was bored.
While Huxian slept, a deep quiet fell over the forest as I floated in a void of nothingness. It was when I was just on the verge of nodding off, I saw the large ball of green energy sitting in the pit of my abdomen, and a smaller ball of energy in my chest, and another larger ball in my mind. When I poked the Soul Well I could now feel my own strength, dexterity, and constitution. When I touched the Well of Power, I could feel raw, vibrant, power pumping through my body. I could feel my lungs as I drew breath and when I exhaled. Then, when I touched the Spirit Well I could feel my own consciousness; my intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. This is no game, this was life, and so, I was not surprised to find that there were no numbers representing any formal statistics. There was only a feeling...of doing well, and a feeling of wanting to do better, and a feeling of potential.
"Hey," Sequoia whispered in my ear, "Come with me."
The vision, or meditation, or whatever it was, shattered and was gone, and I opened my eyes to look up into golden brown sequoia seed eyes framed by a smiling red face with long green leafy hair. She held out a hand to me, and when I took it, she pulled me to my feet.
"Walk with me for a while," She whispered innocently enough, "I don't get many visitors, and I would like to talk with you before you leave."
She took my hand and she guided me around her tree, and it was a long enough walk to be well and truly a hike. In a small fork of her roots on the eastern side of the tree was a small rangale of El'dwea. The Alfar's version of the Centaur except that these Animals were an Alfar and deer hybrid. *fn-B3
We stopped and watched as five doe played with or cared for eight fawns while their buck, a much more robust looking male with broad, elegant antlers stood watch over them with a spear in one hand. When he saw us, he scowled at me but then smiled and waved at Sequoia.
Turning away, we walked on, and moments later a drone bee landed on my arm. She would have been only the size of my hand in my Alfari form, but as I was now she was positively tiny. Her head looked humanoid even though it was a glossy black that made it difficult to make out her finer details. Her eyes were a bee's compound eyes, antenna grew out of her forehead, and she had spiky yellow hair striped with black. She had a tiny humanoid female torso with arms that started out as humanoid at her shoulder, but became a regular bee's forelegs before they reached where her hands should have been. She had little breasts sitting proudly on a slim chest that led to a tiny waist that in turn led to hips and buttocks that seemed too wide and thick for her torso. From the sockets where humanoid legs should have been were instead two sets of humanoid thighs leading to insect middle and hind legs. As she turned in circles on my arm, licking pollen off my fur, I noticed that the thighs of her middle and back legs were swollen with stored pollen, and as she kept moving about, turning in an ever growing circle, I noticed that her abdomen connected to her humanoid pelvis, just below the sacral promontory of her pelvis, grew out from between her buttocks like a tail. It was an incredibly fat black and yellow tail full of the gelatin that would become honey when she returned to her hive. When she finished eating, she gave a quick flap of her four wings and was airborne and flying away. *fn-B4
"That was nice of you," Sequoia whispered, "Most people panic when a bee lands on them, and kill them without thinking."
"I used to...love bees," I answered as we moved along.
We were on the northern side of the tree now, when suddenly I heard a buzzing and six hummingbirds whizzed past, then circled around and zipped by again. Sequoia tipped my hand up and out, palm up, and whispered, "Here, watch this."
She drooled into my palm. When I gave her a look of revulsion, pulled away and started to wipe my hand, she held his hand fast in her's as she chuckled, "Just wait..."
It didn't take long for a large female hummingbird to land on my hand!
She was almost as tiny as the bee! She was no taller than 3 inches. She had brilliant shimmering green feathered hair that changed to blue and purple as she moved in the sunlight. Her eyes were tiny little chips of onyx, and her skin was pink. The feathers of her wing arms and her feathered tail, that sprouted from between her buttocks and was as long as her legs, were red with purple tips. The rest of her body was that of a woman until reaching her hummingbird's taloned feet. *fn-B5
She looked at me, then looked at Sequoia. She whistled a quick volley of high pitched little squeaks and Sequoia responded. The hummingbird then bent over and drank Sequoia's drool out of my palm, and before I could count to five, two more little hummingbird-girls landed and drank as well. When they were done, they flew off and we continued our walk while I felt like I was living a dream.
We walked for a mile, or so, before Sequoia stopped us again so that we could listen to a harpy singing in the distance. When the song stopped she tilted her head to look up at me and asked, "Do you know that there are two different kinds of harpies in this world now?"
"I didn't," I confessed with a shake of my head.
"Indeed," She continued with a nod, "A friend of mine was wandering the Dragon's Spine Mountains eight years ago and found thousands of Harpies, Centauri, Lamia, Gorgon, Succubi, and hundreds of other types of hybrids spilling out of a cave high in the Spine."
"Is that where these harpies come from," I asked.
"Some of them," She answered, "When my friend found their leaders, which were in themselves a strange group consisting of a pregnant Dragoness, a pregnant Nottalfar Priestess, and a pregnant Succubus Queen-Mother. He had them tell him how they came to be here."
She paused, so I asked impatiently, "And?"
Sequoia grinned, seeing that she had me fully caught up in her story as she continued. "They explained that they were from Midgard, that the Dragoness and Nottalfar priestess had been human, and changed from drinking their goddesses milk. Sound familiar? The Succubus had been human and gotten trapped in the shadow realm. She had also undergone changes by absorbing Amalgamation body parts and drinking their blood. She had a friend that had fallen prey to the Curse and when she too absorbed Amalgamation body parts something unexpected happened. Something new was created, something unforeseen by the Fallen. The Succubus's friend nearly killed her, and she was only saved by binding what was left of her soul to her Succubus daughter."
"Holy shit," I gasped.
"Yeah," Sequoia agreed and then continued, "In the end, Nymphillus, their mirror city of our Olympia, was under siege, and they were refugees escaping the terrible war against the Fallen's Amalgamations led by the Cursed human." *fn-B7 *fn-B8
"So, they came from Midgard via the Shadow Realm," I asked calmly, trying to keep my feelings and thoughts from revealing my origins.
"You do realize that trying to not think about something means you immediately think about it right," Sequoia asked as she chuckled, "And when in the presence of someone that can read minds like me, it means you just told me everything."
"Ah shit," I cursed as Sequoia's chuckle turned into a giggle.
"Don't worry young Viridian Vale, or, should I call you Daniel Reas," She reassured with a pat on my arm, "Your secret is safe with me."
"Daniel Reas is dead," I answered, "I am who I am now. So, where did all these new species of Animals go?"
Sequoia smiled and led me into a small clearing, "This is the far northern edge of my illusion," She purred as an open field with wheat growing and another with corn appeared in front of us. Further away I saw barns, and well before we walked into the village I stared with my jaw hanging open as male and female refugee Centauri ranging in age from very old to the very young worked and played. *fn-B6
The men wore heavy belts girding their waists where the human part of their bodies met the horse part. The women wore heavily fleeced leather bras, or semiprecious gem encrusted and bird-bone breastplates, sewn together with gut-thread and decorated with ornamental harpy feathers. They also wore feathers tied in their hair and tails lending to a culture that reminded me of the Native American Indian's.
"The majority of the Centauri fled to Northern Annwyn. It is colder up there, and harder to farm, but very few Alfar venture into those lands," Sequoia explained as a few Centauri women gave us side long glances as we passed by, "The harpies fled in every direction, mixing in with our native Flocks almost seamlessly. The Lamia fled south to warmer climates, and the Gorgon found homes among the rocky crags of the Dragon's Spine, and the Succubi seem to have disappeared."
"That's good and bad, isn't it," I answered as I pulled Sequoia to a stop and we watched a group of young centaurs practice their jousting, archery, and halberdering, "So, why are you showing me this Sequoia? What's going on?"
"I'm showing you this, Viridian Vale," Sequoia answered as she held out her hand and gestured to the village, "I'm telling you this because you have the potential of being the most powerful Guardian ever born. No matter where you came from before. None of them have ever had your shapeshifting ability, and with your ability to increase your power by simply cleansing female Animals of the magic blocking their Chi, you could quickly become a champion we desperately need right now."
"I want to help," I agreed, then shook my head as I continued, "I told my father as much, but he believes I am too weak to be of any real benefit."
"You are weak Virdy," Sequoia agreed with a nod of her head, "Your father is right. You just came into your power. He was not trying to belittle you. It is simply the truth, but, you don't have to remain weak for long. I can help you to become strong very quickly, and help you learn control of this new power as you accumulate it."
"You don't understand," I objected with a shake of my head and turned to face Sequoia, "Father told me how he accumulated his power. By mating with as many female Animals as he could, whether they were willing or not! I...am not going to do that!"
Sequoia waited until I was finished and then she put her other hand on my arm in reassurance, "What if I told you that I could have a hundred females for you to cleanse that are willing to breed and are not interested in a mate."
I just stared at her, my maw hanging open stupidly before I closed it with a click of my teeth, "What are you, a madam?"
Sequoia laughed and shook her head, "You know, I had no idea what a madam was until you said it just now. Human culture is so profoundly ironic and hypocritical. For instance, why would your lawmakers make a law prohibiting a private act of intimacy between two people, but then repeatedly get caught paying large sums of money to participate in said illegal act?"
"What can I say," I said with a shrug, "That's what makes them human?"
Sequoia chuckled, then purred, "No, I am no madam. I just happen to know some women that have no mates, or lost them, and it has been some time since they have felt a man's embrace. Some of them are martial artists seeking to purify their Chi, and still some of them are devout followers of Seline and see this as a way to contribute to their Goddesses' will."
"What about you," I asked, "You've been teasing Huxian all week. Are you interested? Or, are you just teasing her?"
"Actually, I am interested," She admitted and looked up into my eyes with a new intensity, "I am very interested in finding out if you can purify my Chi like you can the Animals. If you can, I think it will be a benefit for us both."
"So you're not interested in mating," I asked, my voice giving away my disappointment, "You just want to breed, and experiment?"
"No, I am interested in you as a mate," She corrected with a shake of her head, "Especially if my hypothesis is correct concerning you acquiring Huxian's shapeshifting ability is correct, but I will not be as needy a mate as many of your more short-lived partners."
"What hypothesis," I asked.
"Oh just a thought," Sequoia chuckled, "Don't you worry about it. If what I think is true you will find out soon enough, and if not, then no harm no foul."
"Okay," I answered with a nod, "I will let that go, so about these other females. I don't want to hurt Huxian or Bastet, is it really okay for me to breed with all these other women?"
"Hmm," Sequoia hummed with a shake of her head, "There you go again, associating human morality with Animals and Alfar. The short answer is, no. In the Animal and Plant kinds females outnumber males fifty to one. We can't afford to be all hung up on keeping one male only to ourselves, not if we want to breed, and certainly not if we want to have progeny. The only thing we females get a little possessive about is our mating week. It is a long standing tradition that the female gets her stud all to herself for the seven day of our wedding celebration."
"I see," I mumbled, but I wasn't sure if I really did or not. So I decided to change the subject and asked, "So why are you doing this?"
"There are mysterious things happening, and not only on our earth," She answered, "In a few short weeks you will be taken captive to a Svartalfar city. Who knows what will happen then. You will also be in the Dragon's Spine. While you are there I want you to look for this mystery bridge the Succubi and hybrids came from. We have always been told that coming to this world was a one way trip. That there was no activating them from our side. They could only be activated from Midgard, and yet, the Succubi somehow found a way to do so. We need to know if we have been lied to all this time. And, I want you to look for clues as to where the Succubi disappeared to."
"I see, I will do what I can," I answered with a nod, then turned and led us back the way we came, "I'm sure Huxian could find us when she wakes up, but I don't want her to think we are...being inappropriate during our celebratory week."
"No," Sequoia agreed with a shake of her head, "That would be bad."
——(!)——
When we returned to the grove, Huxian was still asleep, which made me wonder if she was going to be awake all night. If she was, then I had a feeling she was going to be keeping me up as well. Sequoia left me and went to speak with the harpies up in the boughs of her tree, and I returned to my meditation spot between two roots with the sequoia tree behind my back. Closing my eyes, I let my thoughts wander in a black void.
Finding my Chi Wells was much easier this time. Touching the Soul Well, it felt exactly the same as before, but this time, the gamer in me immediately parsed out what I was feeling into three core traits; strength, dexterity, and constitution. Touching the Spirit Well, again I found I separated my overall consciousness into three core traits; intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. I got a general sense of being strong or weak in each trait, but there were no numbers that I could associate with just how strong or weak I was. However, I could sense that I was capable of getting stronger in all of them. When I touched the Well of Power, I felt a surge of overwhelming energy pulsing through my consciousness. As I meditated, for the first time I could sense two different power sources within the well. The first one was like a vast ocean, I couldn't even begin to quantify how much power there was, but I also could since that it reduced over time and was not replenished. The second was also a large amount of power, though it was more like a large lake instead of a vast ocean, and I could tell that it was only half of its capacity, but was replenishing quickly.
Pulling back within my meditation to dwell on all three wells together, I became aware of what I deciphered as passive skills inherited from Bastet and Huxian:
Feline Grace; with this skill I could perform complicated acrobatics and no matter what I did, I wouldn't ever lose my balance, and I would always land on my feet.
Elusiveness; I naturally was not a loud walker, but this skill made my movements almost completely silent. I also felt that I could be in a crowded room, and unless I did something drastic, no one would even realize I was there.
Prowl; with this skill I could all but disappear, melding almost seamlessly into my environment.
Night vision; my eyes were now as keen as a cats, capable of seeing in nearly complete darkness.
Evasion; If caught by my enemies, with this skill, I can cast an illusion of myself and quickly disappear for several seconds.
Hide; With the slightest of cover I could disappear as long as I didn't move.
Moonbeast; I could sense that this was what shapeshifted me into this hybrid-fox form. I could also sense that this was a blessing from Seline, but the base skill had been from Huxian, and it hadn't allowed for this...hybridization. Meditating on the Moonbeast skill, I tried to bring it into more tangible focus, and it opened before me like I was reading a book of drawings. On the very first page was a drawing of normal Alfari me. On the second page was a fox, but not the Alfari-Animal like Huxian, rather it was a fox from my previous world...as I remembered them. On the third page was a drawing of the Alfari-Fox-hybrid form I was currently in. As I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book of the Moonbeast, they were all blank.
Pushing the Moonbeast skill away, I had a feeling I knew what I had to do now to revert back to my humanoid form. However, I was enjoying being with Huxian like this so I left it and meditated on something new, I was just beginning to get a glimmer of.
The Well of Power pulsed, and I could feel it flowing outward and filling my senses with knowledge of my offensive, defensive, and utilitarian skills:
Rip and Shred; Heavy clawed attacks that I could use in my hybrid form.
Bite; A standard attack in my animal form.
Foxfire; A magic fire that covers my back, shoulders, arms, hands or paws, and claws. Upon receiving or inflicting damage wherever I was covered in Foxfire, upon coming into contact with me, it's flames inflict continuous and persistent fire damage.
With the knowledge of my new abilities fully realized, my meditation shattered, my eyes popped open, and I felt exhausted. Looking up, Sequoia and Huxian were both standing over me with their arms crossed and looking vexed.