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Huge, strong hands wandered up the wild dog’s waist, caressing his belly, circling around towards his lifted tail… then tightening there and pressing him back down, the equine lifting up into him. Zuli arched his back a little bit with the sensation of supple wet warmth squishing around his buried shaft, then relaxed back again.\n\n“It is…” He paused to catch his breath. “It is right.”\n\n“It’s a relic of times past, is what it is. I… hah…” The wild dog straightened up and leaned back, his legs tightening around Zuli’s waist for leverage, his paws reaching back behind him to now brace against the bed that was made theirs for their visit to these foreign lands. “’Foreign’,” he had scoffed, after making the arrangements with the others in his kingdom; “I could climb the nearest mesa and throw a rock, and I would be able to reach them.” He wet his lips again, took a breath, lifted up… sank back down again, felt as well as saw the zebra’s girth press out along his belly from inside. “Understand… the need to settle disputes, but… we could have done that through actual conversation, and… meeting over a mutual point of discussion, and… all the things Father would never think to try – do they not understand that I am not him? That they – ah…”\n\n“Mm.” Underneath him Zuli lifted his hips, thrust deep into the wild dog, and drew down again, his hands now coming down to spread his rump, tailhole already stretched around his length. Gentle fingers teased in at the opened rim, then came up to grip the base of his tail and yank him up. “It is an established practice.”\n\n“So is talking through our problems. That was the issue with Father’s reign. Everyone knows it, but nobody… nobody was… will…” The wild dog trailed off, head rolling on his shoulders, jaw dropping open as he rode. He lifted himself up towards Zuli’s blunted head, held there where he could feel the rim tugging at the inner ring of his tailhole, then sank back down again, the mix of saliva and natural wetness slurping around the zebra’s impressive length. Each time he sank down onto him his own arousal leapt against his belly, the ink-blot fur there dusted with cinnamon, ocher, charcoal, and now foggy, milky cream as well, thick strands of pre matting down his fur and thighs. “Nobody was… willing to bring it up with him, for fear of his rage. But I am different. I am King Askia.”\n\n“And a good king you are…”\n\nAskia opened his mouth to speak back to the zebra, but then just as soon felt the breath pressed out of him. Those large, strong hands lifted across his body, one hooking beneath his raised arm, the other squeezing in along his waist – and he was pushed back, angled down so that his back settled against the mattress and his legs hoisted up around Zuli’s lap as the zebra pushed him over and slid into place beneath him, between his spread legs, all the while he remained hilted past the ring. His broad snout came in close to nuzzle against the side of the wild dog’s face, leathery skin of his nose drawing in his scent, holding it, then puffing it back out – and Zuli gave another slow thrust, and another, and another, each one at this angle forcing Askia to gasp and tighten and squirm with the pressure welling up inside of him.\n\n“…and a proper king, too, now that you are married.” That hand reached over towards Askia’s, fingers entwining with his own… running across the sleek metal band, the fit of which the wild dog was still becoming accustomed after the ceremony earlier in the day. “Would that I could be your husband, my love.”\n\nAskia scoffed – then grunted and moaned again, trying his best to squeeze around the thick equine shaft now pumping steadily within his tailhole. He rocked with the motion, legs squeezing around Zuli’s waist, lifting himself up, sinking back down… lifting up again, grinding him inside of him.\n\n“It is only in title. You… serve all of its tasks, and roles, and needs, and…” With effort he managed to open his eyes again, mismatched brown and blue glittering at the zebra poised above him. “Were I to never see him again, I would still live happy, alongside you.”\n\nZuli offered a rare smile, lips pulling slightly up at the edges. He looked back and forth between his King’s eyes. “And how happy I am to serve in such a way…” And he leaned in, tilted his head, brushed his lips to Askia’s, held there…\n\n…and the King’s large ears twitched with soft, gentle paws reaching to caress them from underneath, velvety webbings in between the fingers tickling at his cheeks. Once again he opened his eyes, still locked in the kiss with the zebra, and looked up into the sweetly smiling muzzle of the otter leaning over him.\n\n“And now you are a true king,” Luka purred, the body servant-turned-advisor running his thumbs across the canine’s cheeks. “A marriage like this for you has been overdue since your father’s passing. Outdated as the practice is, it is still respected: this will help to unify those under you who have been… less than accepting of your more progressive ideals, and-”\n\nAskia swallowed amid the kiss, then pulled free from it. Still leaning over him, Zuli drew back, sank forward, and resumed his initial rhythm, the mattress shifting with the momentum of his moment; Askia had to take a moment to gather his thoughts beneath the battering waves of pleasure.\n\n“Luka,” he said when he could. He reached a shaky arm up towards the otter; Luka tilted his head, ran his fingers over Askia’s, and leaned into the touch. “This is not the place for politics.”\n\n“Sorry.” The otter shifted to lean in a little bit closer. Askia’s whisker tickled with his warm breath. “But to be fair, you did bring it up, my lord.”\n\n“Shut your mouth or I’ll give you something to shut it.”\n\n“Hmm…” And still he leaned closer… “I think I’ll take the alternative…”\n\nAnd with the taste of Zuli’s lips still on his own, Askia lifted his head to do the same for his trusted advisor, Luka’s kiss softer but no less sweet, no less intense. He tilted his head one way, webbed paw coming up across the wild dog’s cheek and chin – and then the short, thick tongue pressed its way in as well, dancing across sharp fangs, finding Askia’s own, drawing it out, sucking him into his mouth.\n\nStill the zebra pumped away at him, hands gripping his thighs, fingers digging into soft flesh and firm muscle; Askia pulled in urgent breaths out of the corners of his mouth, moaned out into Luka’s, wrenched his eyes shut, tightened, tightened further. His paw clenched around a handful of bedsheet; his back arched, he strained, and tugged himself down into the equine’s lap; Luka purred softly against his mouth, his warmth and appreciation for his king’s pleasure trickling through their kiss; and then that smoldering flame blazed outwards, and Askia jerked, and bucked, and bucked again – and yanked himself up along Zuli’s length only to slam back down, again, and again, each time lifting his belly out from inside as he jetted his peak out across his already splotchy fur.\n\nUnable to resist, the wild dog pulled himself out of the kiss and groaned out into the otherwise still bedchambers, his legs trembling, his entire lower body thrumming with the force of his orgasm. His stretched tailhole slopped wetly around Zuli’s half-buried length as the zebra, too, throbbed inside of him to coax him through the remaining waves of his peak… and then slowly, gently, slurped himself free, the rim of his blunted head pulling out at the inside of the king’s ring of muscle. Askia gasped as he came free, then reflexively tried to clench back – with muscles that faltered to respond.\n\nLuka rumbled again, the noise halfway between a purr and a giggle, and pushed his paws down through Askia’s chest fur. The wild dog reached up to caress his webbed paw, then let his head roll to the side so he could catch his breath; Luka, meanwhile, made his way down his body, leaning to the side to sprawl out alongside him. Eyes partially closed, Askia felt the damp, hefty weight of Zuli’s still-hard cock nudging against his side, soon followed by both of the otter’s paws sliding behind it to lift it up and to the side. \n\nStill panting, Askia rested an arm over his muzzle, squirmed a little bit, half-lifted a leg, let it drop back down. He licked his lips, swallowed – he could taste Zuli and Luka both – and then took in another slow, steady breath. “I… suppose you’re right…”\n\nThe sound of wet lips smacking across slick skin twitched at his ears, with the otter’s voice to follow: “Mm?”\n\n“About this arranged marriage being… best for our societies. If it’s what the people expect, then it is my duty to give it to them.” With great effort he hoisted himself up onto his elbows, then rubbed at his eyes to clear the indulgent bleariness from them – and then blinked again: Zuli still knelt on the bed between his legs, though now Luka had come forward to run his muzzle along the sex-streaked length of his shaft, eager tongue working to lap up the remnant slickness, one webbed paw massaging hefty equine balls in between his fingers. \n\nThe otter swallowed, did so again, nosed down into dense, dank sheath wrinkles, held himself there for a moment with a deep, slow inhale… and then sighed back out, sharp blue eyes flicking over to his king. “You are a true king now,” he went on, voice muffled somewhat by the sheer heft of equine equipment hanging against his muzzle. He pursed his lips, drew some of the leathery-velvet skin of Zuli’s sack into his mouth, suckled briefly, then let it slip free again. “At least, in the eyes of those aforementioned subjects. The hyenas may be strange in their ways, but…” His eyes drifted shut again, and now that slick, matted paw trailed up to the other side of Zuli’s sheath. The zebra huffed softly, turned his body, and grinded in against Luka’s muzzle; the other male purred deep in his throat, shifted a little bit, and took in another breath. “…they are… ah. Both our kingdom and their civilization will be much stronger for the unification of their ways with our own. Once their queen… passes her title to the prince, your husband…” Both paws squished in along those supple folds of skin, bunched them forward, then stretched back again. He slid his tongue across the dank, revealed flesh in between. “…shall rule alongside you, with both of you overseeing both lands…”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment, then similarly came forward to sprawl out near the base of Zuli’s still-hard shaft. From here he could smell the rich, familiar equine musk that had become so close to him over time, earthy and grassy with a touch of acrid, sweaty tang, invigorating, inspiring. He knew precisely why Luka pressed his muzzle so firmly into the velvet-soft flesh, and breathed in through his nose, and sighed out through his mouth with his tongue cupped underneath…\n\n“Be that as it may…” the king went on. He reached forward to idly tease Zuli’s sack in a paw, the thick, dank heat quickly trickling across his palm. “I still don’t like it.”\n\n“You don’t… have to like it.” Luka drew back again, then swallowed. He looked up at Zuli, who returned the glance and chuffed. “You are King. The day you begin enjoying your rule, is the day it becomes your responsibility to pass it to another.” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAskia trudged up the shallow incline towards the overlook, the unfamiliar grit of sand and gravel crunching beneath his footpaws. This region stood so close to his homeland, yet still felt so far away: he could turn around in a full circle and feel as though he were in a dream against the strange sense of displacement, where he felt like he knew where he was, yet could not identify any of the landscape. Vast, rolling grassland savanna turned instead to low, arid brushland pocked about with rich yellow and red flat-topped plateaus and mesas, pebbles dropped by some careless giant.\n\nAnd then the smells, too… where his own kingdom comprised mainly of wild dogs like himself, a loose family clan amalgamated by his father’s efforts and those of his father’s father, and his father and so on, to then join in with steppe and prairie wolves, the lions, the zebras and antelope and other such species; strength in numbers, his late father would say, and victory in strength. Naturally Askia had grown up knowing of the dangers of the hyena tribes just past the river border, hearing the stories from bereaved mothers of the things they would do to lost pups, and horrors from the scouts his father sent to watch the ever-expanding borders; he himself had heard their characteristic laughter while out late one night retrieving acacia bark for ritual purposes, and it taken him the better part of an hour to still his panic and build the courage back up to cross the river again.\n\nAnd now, he thought, reaching out to hoist himself up by another branch, seeing the glimmer of the creamy early-evening sunlight across the sleek metallic band now adorning one finger, I’m married to one. The wild dog swallowed, took in a breath of cool, sweet desert air, and hefted himself upwards towards the flat of the mesa overlook.\n\nThe tense arrival at the hyenas’ homeland the other day, the brisk discussion with their Queen – A matriarchal society! Father would have ended relations right then and there – who very obviously did not like “the wild dog prince from over the river,” as she called him… Askia had understood and had been completely willing to end the arrangement right then and there, if not for Luka’s constant, insistent urging that this was the correct path to take. At least it seemed that the Queen liked the sleek otter, but then again, everyone seemed to like him. Softspoken yet deliberate, confident in his choice of words, the largest part of his two and a half decades of age spent as the right-hand body servant for a gluttonous lecher of a king across the western sea, the proximity of which gave him vast insight and understanding of the game of politics.\n\n“As good with his tongue as he is his fingers,” Askia remembered Zuli grumbling once, one of the rare occasions where the zebra had more than five words to say. And then the way he had smiled, just a little quirk at the corner of his mouth while he stood beside his king’s throne, bodyguard’s assigned polearm clutched in one hand. Askia had thought about changing the guard uniform from the shoulder sash and loincloth to something a bit more protective, but the maneuverability and airy coolness afforded by the current outfit could not be overstated, and besides, he quite enjoyed being able to glance over to where the zebra stood, and tilt his head a little bit, and see the way the thick, hardy fabric rested over even thicker folds of skin and flesh, and…\n\n…and thin, light gossamer veil dancing across naturally coarse fur brushed and combed to velvet softness, warm lilac draped down and around a trimmed mane of threaded cinnamon; slender arms corded with sleek, tight muscle angled along the flowing lines of his back, paws braced on the surface of the smooth stone, fingers spread, claws manicured. One of his tall, triangular ears perked and flicked with the sound of clattering gravel; he tilted his head down from where he watched the beginning of the sunset and looked back over his shoulder, the color of his eyes masked beneath the thin fabric of the veil hanging down about his short muzzle pinned in place by wrought jewelry the same glimmering metal as the rings they each now wore. \n\nThe hyena prince straightened upon seeing his new husband ascend the incline, and sat forward to fold his paws in his lap. Feathery ribbons of the insubstantial outfit he wore shifted and swept around him like curls of mist, drawing apart to show the shadowy stripes coursing up and down his arms, along his back between the rise of the mane which spread across him like a thick cloak, scuffed with foggy stripes of charcoal indistinct through the fabric. He pursed his lips, tilted his head again, and looked Askia over, the hyena’s eyes halfway lidded beneath their veil; short whiskers twitched forward, then splayed out, then shifted back again, and in a smooth, silent movement he rolled himself to the side and stood up from where he reclined.\n\nAskia saw now that the wisps of the hyena’s garb were little more than just that: the veil draped over his muzzle, one pinned at each shoulder along the forearm with shimmering bangles, another pair crossing over his chest and more at the waist, one more hanging loose at one hip, and then nothing else save for the metal glittering against his fur the color of rich, warm soil. He reached up, ran a pair of those trimmed claws beneath the hem of his face veil, and lifted it just high enough for eyes the color of thick honey to peer across the space at the wild dog – at his husband, the king of the neighboring land, against whom his own people had waged something just short of war for the past several generations.\n\nAnd he blinked, long lashes stirring the fabric of his veil. The hyena floated closer, footsteps silent among the early evening. Askia smelled him first and then felt the air’s slow twirl from his approach, his scent warm, dry, a bit spiced, with the characteristic acrid tang of something close to gentle sweat… and then a distinctive, fiery flair hovering about the jagged edge. He opened his mouth, paused; tilted his head, flicked his tongue out across black-fleshed lips, looked Askia over again, and then let a ghost of a smile touch his muzzle.\n\n“You are…”\n\nDespite himself, Askia felt his hackles shiver and threaten to rise up, not out of fear or panic, but rather… rather from something similar to the sensation of someone running their claws across the small of his back, or exhaling across his ear, or combing their fingers through his tail. The hyena took another step closer, and then another, and another – and gentle paws brushed across the wild dog’s waist, and he felt himself tugged forward, and the firm, sweet warmth of the prince’s bared sheath nudged up against his front.\n\n“Beautiful, now that I see you with my own eyes,” the hyena continued, his voice cool, sharp, spiced like his scent. He leaned in closer, jewelry jangling, and touched his broad nose to Askia’s neck. The wild dog couldn’t help but shiver as he breathed in, fingers tightening at his waist, teasing in at the waistband of his own trousers. “And yet again are the flaws in perspective shown to me, clearly under the light of tonight’s moon. My mother the Queen would have me believe you were a… foul, twisted, mangled creature-”\n\nAskia grunted. Good thing Zuli isn’t here to hear this, or there wouldn’t be a Queen tomorrow.\n\n“-and a poor excuse for a spouse, who lets their advisor say everything for them… but, traditions must change, else they fall into the past and crumble beneath the weight of their own expectations.” One of those paws found Askia’s, danced across to his wrist, and then pulled forward, guiding him around the hyena’s shapely waist. He felt the lines of those muscles layered beneath fur, the thick puff of his mane… the ring of metal bound around the base of his tail, along which further wisps of his outfit had been tied. \n\nThe hyena prince smiled again, rocking his hips slowly forward against Askia’s, washing the wild dog in his rich, intoxicating scent. Askia instead focused on his eyes, on the way they sparkled and glittered in the light of the rising moon, how the dark sockets only further brought out the glimmering yellow-gold.\n\nKing Askia tilted his head. “You seem different from the ceremony this morning.” There, he had not known what to expect: it was the same hyena, the same mane, the same colors, the same markings, but the prince had both moved and spoken swiftly and stiffly, as though he had other places he would rather be. No celebration, no recognition: just an exchange of rings, a few words said in their native tongue, and Askia was sent back to his visiting quarters to prepare for the night.\n\nThe prince turned his head back, looking down at his husband along his muzzle. “I am different,” he said, pronouncing each word deliberately. “That was the Barchan who shall rule our people together. This, now…” Again his paws slid up Askia’s sides, drawing sleek, sweet shivers out of him. “This is the Barchan who shall be – who is – yours at home.”\n\nAskia kept his large ears from flicking back. He tried to untwine his paws from around the other male’s body. “Really.”\n\n“Yes.” The syllable hissed between deadly sharp fangs, Barchan leaning in again, drawing another breath… sighing it out across the wild dog’s neck. “As per tradition, tonight is to be our first union, here beneath the light of the moon, and overlooking the canyon I call home. Tomorrow night shall be our second; and the night after our third, and then our marriage will be complete.”\n\n“No. We shall not, for it is already complete.” This time he drew back with a little more force, and managed to step away from the hyena’s grasp. Barchan wobbled where he stood, ears upright, paws halfway up; he frowned, tilted his head, then shuffled back in towards himself. Askia avoided eyeing how fresh, rich pink had begun to protrude from the lip of his sheath. “I married you for necessity, for the safety of my people. Were there any other way to end these pointless, ceaseless wars, then I would have done so. But your so-called tradition demands that we form this union instead. And it is finished; so let us be done with it, for the good of my people, and the good of yours.”\n\nBarchan stood there a moment longer, warm gaze once more dancing across Askia’s figure. Then he shifted, squared his shoulders, reached up… tossed the veil back from over his eyes. They glittered with a light of their own.\n\n“Ours.”\n\nAskia frowned. “What?”\n\n“Our people. Yours and mine.” And he smiled again, softer this time. “A marriage like ours, prince to King, is unprecedented among my people. Again, tradition must change and adapt. And if you would keep our relationship purely political… then I will concede.” He turned his back, brushy tail swishing, and moved to sit back along the flat stone where Askia had first found him. He waited there, looked up at the sky, leaned back, then looked over his shoulder and patted the spot beside him. “Tonight we shall talk. If you would prefer… husband.” \n\nFor a moment the wild dog was caught off-guard. He stepped forward, footpaws rustling among the dry, low brush of the mesa. “I was expecting… more resistance. It was really that easy?”\n\nBarchan looked over at him again as he approached. The moonlight glistened off his thick fur and the fabric of his veils, catching in the rings of metal, dancing across him, trickling down and around the contours of his body like honey. When he smiled, the night felt just a little bit warmer.\n\n“When two rivers meet without mixing…” The hyena looked back down over the edge of the mesa. Far beneath, the glittering lights of his mother’s city sparkled among the crevices of the canyon ravine and spilled out into the grassy flatlands surrounding it. “They are still two rivers. Not one. My mother may be strict and set in her ways, but if my people are to flourish, we must be able to grow and adapt as the world needs. So my river shall mix with yours; and my ways, with yours.”\n\nThe stone was warm as Askia slid back onto it. Barchan scooted to the side a bit, close enough for the wild dog to feel his presence, far enough away that he did not actually touch him. The two looked out over the city below, the rolling savanna grasslands beyond, and the moon gradually rising over the horizon.\n\nAnd there they just talked. Askia began by telling about where he came from, the savanna on the far side of the river, and how it was so similar yet so different from over here: the dirt was a different color, cinnamon-red here, compared to ocher-yellow back home. Barchan smiled again and told him about how the difference could be tasted on the wind as well, a subtle, lilting thing; two fruits from the same tree can never taste completely identical. Then from there to each of their upbringings as a prince, beneath a lone monarch of a parent who thought they knew best for their kingdom and their people, and maybe they did, for a time. As it would turn out, the Queen would never have married her son to another male, and actually had not been informed of it until the night of the marriage; Barchan explained that her council, into which he had poured years of effort to garner a foothold, knew that such a move was necessary for the survival of the hyena clans.\n\n“Things are different now,” Askia said, eyeballing the way the moon had risen about a hand’s breadth and a half further from when he had first sat down; “things are different now,” Barchan had agreed, and the two had turned to look at each other.\n\nThe wild dog swallowed. “You said that… it was tradition, part of sealing our marriage in your culture, for you and I to… lay together. What happens since we – didn’t?”\n\n“Hmm?” One rounded ear flicked. Barchan tilted his head; his veil drifted across one eye, where he reached up to again brush it aside. “Nothing. Everyone will have seen us come up here together; they will have seen us remain here for… oh, the better part of an hour; they will see us return, one at a time. For all they know, we will have. And so things continue as usual. That is part of authority, is it not?” Here he tilted his muzzle down, looking up at the wild dog over the bridge of his snout. “It is not lying, if it is only an assumption made but never voiced. We shall… take it as it comes.”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment. He straightened up, folded his paws in his lap… was kept sharply aware of Barchan’s little paintbrush tail tickling against his own. He shifted, halfway hoping he would lean against him a little more fully. “And that’s okay?”\n\n“Askia. Husband.” The hyena smiled again, even though now he, too, looked up at the sky. He crossed one leg over the other, gossamer fabric sweeping aside; his pert sheath, plump sack, shifted along the lower leg, then slid slowly along in the warmth of the evening. “We have nothing to consummate, no child to conceive. If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office, with no intimacy or physical contact, then… I am willing to accept that.” Arms reaching behind to keep himself propped up, he let his head roll across his shoulder to look at Askia. “I have to be, for the sake of my people and yours. And, besides… it seems to me as though you already have someone who fills that role for you.”\n\n~ ~ ~\n\n“If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office…”\n\nAskia reached up to rub at his eyes, gritty with the weight of exhaustion, sleep evading him nonetheless. The thick, dank, familiar heat of zebra sagged down in the mattress beside him, Zuli’s slow, steady breaths the only noise in the room other than the faint songs of the night insects coming in through the windows – and yet the wild dog still heard Barchan’s voice, over and over.\n\nI don’t know him, he told himself, and I don’t have to know him. We did this for our people, not for each other. But, then… I still want to do right by him.\n\nHe rolled over, pressed his muzzle along smooth, warm velvet striped pelt, rested an arm around the equine’s body, tugged himself closer… drew in a lungful of his rich, intoxicating aroma, still invigorating after all of these years together, and all of the nights spent side by side. And he thought of Barchan’s scent as well, soft yet still sharp, like freshly roasted spices caught from across a room.\n\nHe is sincere. Honest with himself, and with me. At least… I’d like to think he is. But where is this going to lead?\n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAs each day passed, so too did King Askia’s thoughts and feelings muddle together even more tightly. He and his entourage were to be the hyenas’ guests until the next turn of the moon, at which point he would take his new husband home and there begin the long process of uniting their two lands – but, in contrast, each day that passed somehow made this future seem that much further away.\n\nBit by bit the wild dog learned more about their culture and their ways. Matriarchal indeed, with the women being in charge of hunting, and gathering, and every pillar of society and community, while the men took cares of things at home: about the grand halls of what stood for their “palace”, by Askia’s best estimation, it was only male servants standing at the corners, eyes downcast, each one garbed in the same light, flowing veils that made no effort to hide the rhythm of their spots or stripes, and the heft and hang of sheath and sack both.\n\nStill Askia did not see the Queen. As far as he could tell, this pleased both of them: his restricted conversations with Barchan over meals and in between meetings, for the hyena stood as the head of his mother’s advisory council, showed that his husband had ensured this would be the case. “In rule,” he explained one evening, “there are risks that are necessary, and those that are not. An important skill is discerning the difference, and you two meeting is unnecessary.”\n\nBut still he heard from her, though, and saw her from a distance at the meals, shared out beneath the open sky around a roaring bonfire instead of under the shelter of constructed shade. Meat hard roasted and lightly seasoned, grease and bone and gristle – with the hyenas having more than enough jaw strength to crack right through, suck clean the marrow, and toss the remnants to the side for later repurposing. And she always had first pick, unafraid to toss her wispy, ceremonial clothing up along her shoulders and dig right in, striped pelt soon bearing the glistening stickiness of the meal, strings hanging between sharp fangs, lips smeared, eyes bright.\n\nSimply put, she terrified him. She would bark her commands to her underlings and servants, and held no qualm against physically punishing them for being slow on their feet: the longer Askia watched, the more he could pick out the ghosts of scars along muzzles, shoulders, backs, rumps, where sharp manicured claws had raked through layers of skin. On another night shared beneath the stars, heated prairie mead steaming in each of their mugs, he caught the glimmer of a similar scar along Barchan’s cheek, just beneath his left eye.\n\n“This?” the hyena said, and reached up to touch it. “Yes. It was my fault. And I do not mean that as a self-pitying admission of guilt; I mean it as the truth.”\n\n“But what happened?” Askia asked, once more shifting within his own outfit. He had been given one similar to Barchan’s, woven from smooth, mossy green instead of the hyena’s pale lavender – and it had been a new kind of hall striding through the city with the whole of him on display for everyone to see. On the way to and from dinner the wild dog had had to step aside into an alley to wait for a certain side-effect of such a view to dwindle back down, and then he would step out – and feel all of those eyes on him, and have to turn away again.\n\n“It is the past; what happened has happened, and there is nothing to be done about it now.” And Barchan had reached out to brush his fingers across Askia’s, resting there on the flat stone between them, but then stopped. When he turned his head, the moonlight shimmered off the tiny scar and disappeared. “Mother does not treat me like the others. Do not worry about that. I am the Queen’s firstborn, her pride, her joy… although her words often bite deeper than her claws.”\n\nIt was a wonder to him that Luka could bear being around her at all, but the otter still hustled back and forth between the King’s quarters and the Queen’s bearing news, discussions, everything that resulted from an arranged marriage between two previously warring kingdoms. Askia also did not fail to notice that each visit took him a little bit longer, and when he came back he seemed a little more breathless, a little more exhausted… a little more roughed up. First he was missing a patch of fur between his shoulder and his neck, and Askia began to worry; then he returned bearing four perfect valleys along one thigh from where sharp claws had dug through his fur, and Askia felt his rage begin to boil; and then one evening the otter came back in the middle of the night, visibly trembling, head quirked to one side. He had practically melted into Askia’s arms when the wild dog received him, chest heaving with exhaustion, breath catching in his throat-\n\n-and then his own veils swathed down and away from his neck, and Askia saw the clear, clean bite marks there, still wet with hungry drool, and his nose tingled with the rich, intense scent of female hyena. Luka squirmed a bit, dragged his paws up his King’s side, slumped into him again – and those bites continued on around his shoulder, down his back, towards the base of his thick rudder-tail, then underneath.\n\n“Hell of a woman,” was all the advisor could say, dreamy smile on his face, and then buried his muzzle in Askia’s neck again. Bemused, he carried him over to his bed, lay him down there, and then returned to his own alongside Zuli.\n\nAnd so things continued: Luka had the Queen herself; Zuli had the full range of huntresses and warriors from each of the individual hyena clans – and how it terrified Askia to see the zebra standing among a literal pack of hyenas as he learned their fighting ways, laughing and shouting louder than he had ever heard back home, within days putting on exhibitions by the light of the bonfire – and then Askia had… some clothing that fit a little too loosely for his tastes, a personal vendetta from the Queen against him, and then a husband he had just met, with whom he shared only a handful of sentences a day, and whom he barely knew. Askia spoke more with the other hyenas of the tribe, who had begun to come to him to get to know their future King a little better, and learn of his ideals, his stances, his plans.\n\nBut still, Askia was learning Barchan, too, a little bit more day by day. The hyena had of course made it routine to eat his meals alongside him, and it was there the two had most of their discussions, voices low and close. He learned of the hyena’s father, and his younger brother who stood as a body-servant in the barracks; he learned how he, too, had been taught to fight, with twin shortblades rather than the huntresses’ spears; he learned of how the hyenas’ society stood split into clans between spotted, striped (“and aardwolves,” he mentioned with a little wave of the paw), and then his own smaller royal family line, brown hyenas: “the spots,” motioning to his lower legs, “the stripes,” along his shoulders, “and the mane,” turning his back and arching it, to show where the coarse-brushed-smooth fur bunched out from the center line of his spine.\n\nHis mane flowed beneath gossamer lavender fabric like the twisting of a sand dune beneath early evening sky…\n\nThe moon made its way across its cycle, shining bright, turning away… reforming anew, each night casting a little more light down across the savanna. On one of the nights Askia had Luka to himself, he enlisted the otter in helping him undress, as little work as that would take: Luka’s sleek, deft paws easily slid across the bangles binding wisps of cloth to his shoulders, around his neck, across his chest, along his waist, and Askia closed his eyes, and sighed…\n\n“Something on your mind, my lord?”\n\n…and then opened them again, and knew what had caught Luka’s attention without needing to look. The wild dog squirmed where he stood, took in a breath, sighed again… throbbed gently, worked up from wandering thoughts and wandering paws. And now Luka had noticed, which just like when he had first started wearing this silly harem garb out on the city, served only to work him up further, and – and he gasped as webbed fingers reached down and wrapped about the lip of his sheath, squeezing supple skin forward, pressing back.\n\nThe King tilted his head back, eyes closed, mouth open. His hips rocked slowly, forward into the otter’s grasp, then back again… then forward, then back. He wet his lips. “Luka…”\n\n“My lord.”\n\n“Would you… perhaps be willing…” As Askia spoke, Luka finished undressing him and then stepped around to his backside, other arm making its way first up over the short, plush fur of the wild dog’s chest, then down again towards his belly, around his growing shaft, down to massage his sack. “To…”\n\n“Mm?”\n\nAskia caught himself. He looked back over his shoulder at the otter, still wearing his assigned outfit, still bearing the physical signs of his time spent “advising” the Queen on “international relations”, then reached back with a paw to caress his short, round muzzle.\n\n“Zuli is still out sparring…”\n\n“He’s been having quite a time with them. They love him. This is good, you know: we each have something to teach the other in combat, warfare, and hunting. Their pack tactics are – remarkable, and-”\n\n“Luka.”\n\n“Sorry. Please continue.”\n\nAskia smirked, other paw now covering Luka’s, keeping him down at the base of his sheath. A gentle squeeze held the supple skin in place as he slowly thrust, length pressing out a little further, dripping natural slickness across folded fingers and silken webbings. “Zuli is out sparring,” he continued. “It’s just you and I. Would you be willing… to… pretend… to be a hyena with me, tonight?”\n\n“Ooh…” Small, needle-sharp fangs nipped in at the wild dog’s neck, sending sparkling shivers vibrating through his shoulder. “They are rough, and quite dominant, and… very bitey, and, wow, do they have powerful jaws. And you’re sure you want me to-?”\n\nHe was – and so he did. Luka played the part well, likely due to recent personal experience: the way he bent Askia over the bed, how he traced down the wild dog’s back with little kisses interspersed with bites, how he dug his paws up along plush rump to spread him… the way he dove in, licked, lapped, slurped, sucked, then came back up to grind against him… how he leveraged his thrusts to press his king down against the bed, all the while maintaining a low, hungry growl in his throat. The arms around Askia’s body, the surprisingly strong grip of a paw along his upper arm, the fangs digging into the skin of his neck, sucking, pulling back the closer he came so that Askia could feel the tension in the tug, and-\n\n-the scent, the spice of hyena washed down across him, coating his nose, catching in his fur. He could feel the warmth of his body, like the shimmering heat dancing across the open fields beneath the blazing sun; the tense, bestial growls from an unfamiliar throat, the little huffs through flared nostrils against his ear, even the shape of the fangs, so thick, so large, so different. The way he moved his body felt different, too, as though he held a certain kind of control over his sleek yet strong musculature: where Zuli was all built mass and Luka slim and streamlined, he struck a middle balance between the two, slight of frame with noticeable definition cording along his arms, his sides, his legs… his chest pressing against Askia’s shoulders, his belly grinding against his lower back. One of those arms wrapped around his body, firm and tight, and the paw of the other swiftly ran his length, and pumped him closer and closer, and Askia squeezed around him, and gasped, and lurched, and-\n\n-bucked once, then again, and again as his finish spurted out of him, pounded to this point by the forceful thrusts beneath his tail. The arm wrapped around his body slackened, and the breath in his ear sighed, and then a shorter, stockier muzzle than he had expected came forward to nuzzle against his cheek – and it was Luka’s voice that followed, at first taking him by surprise:\n\n“How was that, my lord?” \n\nThe scent and presence of hyena drifted away, lost beneath the flow of reality. Askia wriggled, the otter’s length still buried inside of him, and pressed back against him.\n\n“That was wonderful…” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nThe moon glimmered overhead, just a sliver short of full, a slightly lopsided disc hanging high above in blue velvet speckled with stars. Across the valley, pillars of smoke curled up like puffy bunches of river grass reaching out from the multiple bonfires built for the occasion, each one corresponding to the notable families of each clan. Askia felt proud to recognize most of these faces as he made his way through the grounds, stray tassels of his clothing dancing about his shoulders, his waist, his ankles.\n\nPerhaps it was the prairie mead vibrating through his veins; perhaps it was the constant heat of those fires, the wood treated with some kind of incense blend to paint the smoke in swirling curls of sweet, spicy aroma; perhaps it was the joyful faces around him, the lyrical native language, the invigorating rhythms of their music and odd timbre of their instruments; perhaps it was the simple fact that, once that nearly-full moon dropped below the horizon and gave way to the searing sun again, that the King and his entourage would be returning home, but – he felt good tonight.\n\nOne of the heads of a striped hyena household caught him by the upper shoulder, squeezing the bangle against his fur, and shouted his greetings in heavy accents. Askia couldn’t help but grin, reach up to clasp her on the shoulder in return – though his paw barely encompassed half the larger female’s musculature – and shout back at her, tail wagging, before he was tossed on his way to the next. Another mug of mead ended up in his paws, sticky fluid sloshing over his fingers, and then was just as quickly taken away – to be replaced by another with the wine his entourage had brought as a gift.\n\nThen he found himself caught by a spotted hyena matriarch, her playing one of the instruments thrumming in time with the rest of the celebration before she handed it off to another, crouched down to put herself at eye level with him, and then reached forward with a paw as large as his head. She pressed it against his chest, fingers sliding easily beneath the loose fabric, and held him there; confused, startled, a little bit drunk, Askia tottered where he stood, fully aware of his relative nudity, and the effect this good mood was having on him, and how she just stared at him with that short muzzle, those sharp eyes, the squarish, rounded ears. When she licked her lips he almost thought as though it was in preparation to devour a snack, and again he recalled the trail of bite marks curling over Luka’s shoulder and down his back, and then how just the previous night he had returned with another, matching series of marks down his chest and along his belly, down his inner thigh and then back up, and – the matriarch grinned with teeth far too large to be sensible, nodded once, and patted him on the shoulder. \n\n“Heard you speak,” she said, the consonants thick on those fangs. “Like your style. Prince Barchan is ambitious. Energetic… hopeful. You will balance him well. We shall miss your presence, and eagerly await your rule.” Then she leaned in closely enough, still towering over him even though she had crouched nearly halfway over, that her scent tickled at his nose. “And already you are an improvement over her. She is overambitious, belligerent, reckless. Driving us to ruin. And besides…”\n\nThat huge paw continued down his chest, over his belly – and easily flipped the poor excuse for a loincloth aside, one surprisingly gentle fingerpad squishing in along the side of his plumped sheath.\n\n“You are much cuter.”\n\nAnd with that she stood back to her full height, cast the smaller wild dog a wink, and reached for her instrument again. Askia hovered there a moment longer, swirling among the whirlpool of drink, scent, and arousal, and then wobbled off again.\n\nThat’s right, he recalled, the recognition foggy at one side of his head. This is… our going-away party. Barchan’s last night among his people…\n\nAnother hyena bumped up against him, this one with sleek, coffee-colored stripes twisting along a smooth field of cinnamon; without thinking Askia rubbed up against him, rumbled in his throat, reached around to run his fingers into the root of the other male’s mane. The striped hyena reflexively pressed back against him, his eyes obscured by his own veil but his revealed mouth showing a small twist of a smile. Broad tongue flicked out, and he leaned in, and touched his muzzle to Askia’s – and then firm, sleek warmth grinded up against his own sheath, strong paws gripping his waist, the other male pressing himself against him, rubbing to one side, drawing back, nudging forward again… a wandering paw reached down beneath both of their loincloths to squeeze their growing lengths together, and there was a small stroke, a quick pump, and a soft exhalation against his cheek, and then the hyena turned and danced away among the crowd, leaving the wild dog worked up, humping into the air beneath his tented clothing, wondering where this new cup of mead in his paw had come from.\n\nHe knew where to find Barchan, again thanks to Luka, and was well on his way to him – but time and time again either wandered or was pulled off-course, exploratory paws reaching out to touch their soon-to-be King, to feel his thick, paint-splotched pelt, to tug at his jewelry, to feel along his tail, his rump, his thigh, his chest… his sack, his sheath, his shaft. At one point another spotted hyena caught him by the shoulders and shoved her nose up into the crook of his neck, drawing deep of his strange, foreign scent; then he recalled another male slipping another pair of bangles up his shoulders to bounce and jangle against his own; and then his loincloth disappeared somewhere, and a slim, sleek aardwolf granted him his own, though its positioning was then shifted up and down his thighs again and again by new paws reaching out from the crowd. Sometimes they missed, on purpose or otherwise: a full palm grasped his rump, a pair of fingers slid up beneath his tail, another finger tugged down at the lip of his sheath, another paw nestled around his sack…\n\nAnd then Askia tumbled out and away, and within minutes realized that he had begun trudging his way back up the slope towards the mesa, where he had first caught sight of his new husband. He had seen the hyena earlier that day back then, during the poor excuse for a wedding ceremony, but hadn’t really looked at him until that night – and as he worked his way up the slope, gravel clattering beneath his footpaws, body feeling hot despite how he wore practically nothing, he remembered how the moonlight had sparkled off of Barchan’s jewelry, and his eyes, and the shimmering, ghostly swish of his own harem garb, and how it highlighted the patterns of his fur underneath, and… and there he lay now, lounged out across the same flat rock now with a woven blanket spread out underneath him. One broad ear twitched and flicked back at Askia’s approach; the hyena shifted how he lay and looked back over his shoulder, one of the wings of fabric drifting down across his arm. A faint smile tugged at his lips.\n\n“Hello,” Askia called, reaching to one side to steady himself against a tree that was not actually there, “husband.”\n\nBarchan sat up a little straighter. He pulled his knees in towards his body; from here the wild dog could see the plump, pert curve of his sack poking out between his thighs, resting across the blanket in the warmth of the evening. “Hello, beautiful,” he responded, in that smooth, sweet, slightly spiced voice of his, like the hot cocoa brewed with that rich orange powder. “You certainly look as though you’re having fun.”\n\n“Your people… are…” At least the stone was there: Askia caught himself against it, paused while waiting for the world to slow its spinning, and then with quite some effort pulled himself up alongside Barchan. The hyena leaned in against him, one arm going around his shoulder to pull him closer; Askia gladly rested his weight against him, indulging in the thick, syrupy warmth of his body, and that same intoxicating scent that stuck in his nose. “Welcoming,” he finally managed to finish, muzzle swaying towards Barchan’s. The hyena leaned back a little bit. “I have had… so many paws on me… tonight…”\n\n“You are well known by now,” the other male rumbled. He reached over for Askia’s paw, slid his fingers over the wild dog’s, and managed to entwine a few of them. “And not only that, you are enjoyed. The way you have spoken with our matriarchs, and the words your advisor has spread about you, has put you in very good graces with our council-”\n\n“Luka? Talking?” Askia leaned a bit more of his weight against Barchan. The hyena turned to let him lean in against his chest, warm, soft, plush. He settled in a little bit. “And here I thought all he was doing was – fucking your mother…”\n\nSilence for a moment, and then the hyena jerked with a quick bark of a laugh. His surprisingly strong arms wrapped in around Askia’s chest, paws slipping beneath the dancing folds of his minimal clothing, pressing into his pelt beneath. “Well,” he drawled, “yes, there is plenty of that, too. I almost fear she will demand you leave him behind, in exchange for my hand in marriage-”\n\n“She can’t – can she?”\n\n“No. Husband, the marriage is already done.” The hyena chuckled, the little puffs of breath tickling sweetly across Askia’s shoulder. He shivered and pressed back against him; still those paws continued up and down his body, one lifting towards his collar, the other sliding down his belly. By this point the wild dog had long since lost all embarrassment at being so on display at all times, and in fact, welcomed the extra attention – and found himself hoping that Barchan would be able to see the effect that his slow, intimate touches had on him. “But she might still ask, though.”\n\n“Mm…”\n\nFrom here the two could still see the trails of smoke from the bonfires, and distantly hear the music and celebration. “This is a new age for their people – for our people,” Luka had explained during the preparation earlier in the night; he and the King had helped each other with their loose, wispy outfits, and had shared more than a few touches and kisses in doing so. “From what I have heard, and what I have seen? Nobody is satisfied with the Queen. That is why the Council was established. It shall still remain once this land becomes yours, alongside Barchan – but I foresee a much smoother reign.” And then the otter had turned to look over himself in the mirror, turning first this way and then that, letting the fabric swish across his thick rudder-tail. “And I shall certainly not mind spending more time here…”\n\nBehind him Barchan shifted. Askia jerked, stirred back to full wakefulness; he thought that perhaps he had dozed off for a moment.\n\n“I am… truthfully, looking forward to leaving this place, and seeing your home…”\n\n“Our home.” The warmth simmering throughout his veins and filling his head with steam reverberated back down through the wild dog’s chest. He sat up, leaned forward a little bit too quickly, then turned partially sideways so he could see his husband’s eyes, obscured behind his lavender veil. “We will… have to build a palace. With the river… running right through the grand hall…”\n\nBarchan scoffed. “A palace? Askia, my people live in caves and tents, and-”\n\n“That could change.”\n\n“But do they want it to? This is to be a union of both of our ways, and both of our people. You and I will not live to see the end result, nor shall…” He caught himself. “I was about to say our children.”\n\n“Well…” King Askia brought a paw up alongside Barchan’s short, stout muzzle, fingers teasing beneath his veil. “Zuli and I haven’t managed it yet. Neither have Luka and I. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of trying.”\n\nAgain he laughed, though this time it was lower, softer, sweeter, bouncing along like the rhythm of the music further down in the valley. Barchan glanced over his muzzle at Askia, then looked away again. He brushed his veil back down into place across his snout.\n\n“You’re drunk,” he said, to the still night around them. Somewhere off in the dry brush, an insect chirped.\n\n“Perhaps a little. Have you – had the wine?”\n\n“Yes. It’s fantastic.”\n\n“And your mead is… delicious, too.” Askia wiped at the corner of his mouth. “One of your… matriarchs… spat in my cup before giving it to me, though.”\n\n“Did you drink it?”\n\n“Of course I drank it.”\n\n“Oh.” Barchan’s ears perked again. “Oh, dear. That means that you’ve agreed to let her carry your pups.”\n\nAgain the world spun. Askia slid over to stare at him, but the hyena tactfully avoided eye contact.\n\n“Are you – joking?”\n\n“Askia-”\n\n“Barchan!”\n\nOne paw found a firm, veil-wrapped shoulder, and then the hyena presented surprising resistance against his strength – but then he tottered backwards, spreading out across the stone with Askia leaning in over him, other paw beside his chest, one leg drawn up by his waist. Barchan had his head turned to the side and was struggling to stifle his laughter, his thick, strong neck pulsing with the effort. Loose jewelry dangled across his throat, threads of pale violet swinging in between, shifting with each breath; Askia swallowed, licked his lips, and begin to lean in, wanting to press his nose into the little puff of fur there, to get another taste of Barchan’s sweet, spicy scent… and then the hyena’s paws reached up to caress his muzzle, at the same time stopping him in place.\n\nIdly, Barchan rubbed his thumbs across his cheeks. “It’s… silly,” he went on, voice softer, “but I can’t help but imagine the stars are different, where you are.”\n\nAskia blinked, then craned his head up to peer at the night sky stretching overhead. This was a mistake; he felt himself wobble, one of Barchan’s paws clamping to his shoulder to hold him steady.\n\nHe wrenched his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again. “But I am right here.”\n\n“I mean where you come from. Here we have… up there, just beneath and to the right of the moon. That is Acacia the hunter, forever tracking his prey the sun – but the sun always outsmarts him, and dances away from his arrows at the last moment, which root in the earth and grow into the trees we see around the savanna. And then here…” He switched arms, his other now lightly grasping the wild dog’s forearm. Askia stifled a hiccup and looked down across sleek, yet muscular chest and belly, swung his hips gently side to side, felt the sag, the heft, the smack of his own balls nudging first against one thigh and then the other, sheath following a second later. “The River Delta, from which all water flows. It is a way to lull young pups to sleep: point out the delta itself, then have them draw out as many tributaries as they can, star to star, all the way across the sky, and…”\n\n“Barchan.”\n\nWarm eyes flicked back to his muzzle, focusing through the veil. “Mm?”\n\n“I’m listening.” Askia dropped down to one elbow, bringing his muzzle so close he could feel the hyena’s breath. “I promise. But right now I just… really…” Once more he brushed the veil up and aside – and yet again Barchan’s eyes shimmered with their own light. “…want to kiss you.”\n\nStunned, the other male stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth open. “What?”\n\n“I want to kiss you.”\n\nHis lips quirked; he laughed again and looked away. “You want to sober up, is what you meant to say. I have gotten no more than two handshakes and one nuzzle from you, on the shoulder, last night, which still surprised me, and-”\n\n“No, no…” It was remarkable how well Askia’s paw fit against the center of Barchan’s chest, fingers following the line of his sternum hidden beneath thick fur, thumb reaching out to the side. He swallowed again, leaned in closer, felt the world sweep up to meet him… buried his nose in the plush, thick mane that draped over the hyena’s shoulders like a cloak, then trailed up from there to lift his chin up from underneath. Barchan shivered around him, his own breath catching in his throat while Askia drew a deep, slow drag of his scent, that same fur tickling his nostrils. “We are married. I’m the king, and you are also the king, and you said…” The mane muffled his voice a bit. He dug in further, finding the line of Barchan’s collar bone, resting his lips against it. “…we have to establish our union. Prove it to the people.”\n\n“Ah – Askia – the people think we already did that; you were not comfortable with it, and… and we… hah…”\n\n“Mm. But we didn’t.” He remembered the way Luka had nipped, and tugged, and gently sucked between his teeth, and tried to emulate these same touches. “And I’m not about to be made a liar.”\n\n“Please, I – o-oh, that’s… you’re… Askia, I’m…” Gentle paws pressed up at his chest, sending fiery little sparkles vibrating out from the points of contact. “Come on. Let us at least wait until you’re sober, and then we can talk about this, and-”\n\n“All it does to me,” the wild dog went on, words slurring as he dragged his nose and lips across the hyena’s neck again, “is… lower my inhibitions. It makes me… do and say things that I already want to, but… would be too shy or hesitant to do.”\n\n“And maybe there’s a reason for that hesitation, and-”\n\n“And like I said,” and here he pulled himself forward and deliberately sat back along the hyena’s lap. The closeness between the two of them had had the same effect on Barchan as it did on Askia: just by rocking his haunches forward and back, he felt the wet tapered heat of growing half-arousal, nudging up at his tailhole, teasing, poking… coaxing out further with his movements. “We’re married, and you’re my husband.”\n\nBarchan paused. He bit his lip. “And so,” he murmured, “then I suppose it is my duty to-”\n\n“No. No, no.” Askia lifted up again, paws on the stone by his shoulders, muzzle directly above the other’s. “As your husband, it is my right to ask if you want to,” and he leaned in again, this time brushing a gentle kiss into the thick fur of the hyena’s cheek. Barchan’s ear flicked. “Just as it is your right to tell me no, if you do not.”\n\nFor a moment that expression remained; then broad hyena paws made their way back down Askia’s sides, to his waist, then around in front… where one cupped around his sack beneath the thin veil, and the other hooked behind his sheath to massage and work his half-hard length further out into the air.\n\nThen the hyena wet his lips. His other paw trailed back up Askia’s hip, found the waist of his loincloth, began to undo the thin binding. “You said you… wanted to kiss?”\n\nAskia’s tail wagged. The wild dog smiled, turned his head, leaned in – and then finally felt his lips brush against his husband’s, the warmth there intoxicating, invigorating. Barchan met him gently at first, and then with more intent and effort: he pressed in, his tongue flicked forward, Askia met it and reciprocated… and then tilted his head further, and sucked at his breath and his mouth, and swallowed down his taste, and grinded down against him.\n\nThen he drew free, dove back in for another, pulled back again, and now shifted the hyena’s head up and to the side to place another kiss along the line of his jaw. Then one to his neck, and his shoulder, and then down, in much the same pattern that Luka had returned with the Queen’s bite marks the other night; the hyena squirmed underneath his attention, jewelry jingling, wisps of fabric shifting this way and that beneath exploratory paws. The further he went, the stronger the scent in his nose simmered: there was that dry spice, the warm sweetness, that touch of slight sourness… Askia had seen Barchan practically naked every time he had been in the same vicinity as him, but now, finally slipping his fingers beneath his loincloth and flipping it up, it felt so, so different.\n\nThe first thing he noticed was the different shape from himself. Less of a bulge and contour, as deft work from his paw cupped around the hyena’s sack and attentive nose worked him further out, and a bit more of a discernible head – and then the scent as well, more of that warm, dense earthy spice, sleek and slick. A quick drag from his tongue sent a shiver reverberating through Barchan’s body, and a throb bouncing his shaft against Askia’s muzzle; then a second, and a third, and the wild dog wrapped his lips around and dove down, feeling his wet heat across his tongue, filling his maw.\n\nBarchan moaned and reached down, paw splaying between Askia’s ears. He lifted up into his throat, but only a little bit; Askia closed his eyes and continued there, still rubbing at his sack, finger lifting up underneath – then moving aside, slipping down further, teasing between his legs, until the soft, tight folds of puckered tailhole danced across his fingerpad. Just a little bit of focus there and then the wild dog lifted up again, mouth flooded with the unfamiliar, enticing taste of hyena; he looked up at his husband, licked his lips, and now scooped his paws ­beneath his thighs, gripping into the plush firmness there.\n\n“Askia-” Barchan giggled softly, also reaching down. “What are you-”\n\nAnd then his arms went out to his sides when the wild dog hoisted his hind end up, brushy tail hanging down in the air, balls slipping forward along the underside of his shaft. Askia swallowed, licked his lips again, looked down at the pert rump held up right in front of him, at the way the shifting of weight tugged at the sleek, delicate pucker nestled beneath his tail, how his pubic fur bristled and pinched down to soft, felt plush, and – he couldn’t resist. Meeting the hyena’s eyes and holding them, the wild dog leaned in, dropped his tongue out, and dragged up across his tailhole, pulling up past the underside of his sack; Barchan gasped and clenched against him, then did so again at a second, and another.\n\nAnother breath came thick with Barchan’s musk, and then Askia pursed his lips against his tailhole, slid in, and suckled softly, tongue dancing over the tight folds and wrinkles, poking and prodding at the center tension. Underneath him the hyena sighed and moaned again, reaching up to slowly stroke himself; his head turned and faced out over the valley below, the celebration still ongoing, though his eyes remained gently closed under the pleasure.\n\nAskia focused there a moment longer and then lowered his husband back down again, this time to rest his haunches across his lap. Barchan’s eyes fluttered open to look up at him; he reached out towards the wild dog’s arm with one paw, stroked gently, smiled, then watched as Askia adjusted to spit into his own palm and smear the sticky slickness across his fully hard length.\n\nThe wild dog leaned in over him. “Have you ever-?”\n\nBarchan nodded. “I’m not supposed to have done so. But I have.”\n\nThat made him smirk. “Me, too.”\n\n“You don’t hold it against me?”\n\n“What? No. If anything, that…” Tapered tip to saliva-slickened tailhole, Askia nudged forward, felt the grip, the squeeze… the slick, wet heat beginning to unfold and wrap around him. “…makes it easier… for me, and…”\n\nAnd both of them sighed out as he began to sink in, the deep, indulgent sensation flooding through both of them. Still the wild dog tried to measure his pace as he went, nudging in, sliding back out, sinking in again, following Barchan’s noises as well as he could with the world still spinning slowly around him. Each time he pulled back and then pressed back in felt better than the last, his sheath continuing to roll back along his unswollen knot, Barchan’s length stiffening, sliding out further, dripping across his chest.\n\n“You feel…” The hyena reached out with a paw, pressed it into the fur of Askia’s chest, trailed up towards his jaw. “Divine…”\n\nSo Askia leaned in again, brushed his lips to Barchan’s, held there, breathed out. “And so do you,” he rumbled in response, and thrust in again. The other male gasped, clenched around him, released his breath as a slow moan – and rocked his hips around him.\n\nFrom there the rhythm began, slow and steady at first, Askia holding his husband’s gaze, keeping him locked in a kiss. He felt not unlike someone of Luka’s size with Zuli’s build, streamlined yet dense musculature tightening beneath skin and fur, with this stout, short muzzle against his own… and there were those fangs and that tendency to bite and nip and chew, more so the deeper they both fell into the union, bangles clattering, fur rustling, breath puffing.\n\nAskia let his eyes flutter shut, felt his balance wobble, realized this was a mistake and opened them again. He drew away from the kiss, lips slick with the hyena’s drool, and leaned in to bury his muzzle amid the puffy mane cresting all around his shoulders; Barchan wrapped his arms around his back, claws digging into his fur, and rode in against him as the wild dog continued to thrust, now fast and hard, hips smacking against rump. Little gasps and exhalations of tense breath rolled over into voiced moans, higher, faster, urgency building, pleasure peaking.\n\nThe wild dog straightened up, gritted his teeth, and slid his paws around to the underside of Barchan’s thighs, lifting the hyena up so that natural leverage brought him sinking back down onto him, each time with him thrusting forward. Sensation and passion surged within him; the hyena had again let his head roll to the side, mouth open, one paw moving swiftly across his hard length, the other cupping his balls to lift them up and out of the way, and-\n\n-Askia’s peak hit all at once, pounding through him, bending him over his husband, knot swelling out and pressing against his tailhole as each spurt unloaded deep inside, one after the other. Barchan moaned out over the music from down below, wriggled around him as he continued to fill him, then swallowed, gritted his teeth, jerked, jerked again – and clenched so hard with the first of his own spurts, milky white lancing out across cinnamon brown, that Askia for a moment that he was about to cum again. He was panting, and Barchan still moaned with the echoing remnants of his own peak, and then Askia came forward and mashed his lips to the hyena’s and felt the vibrations of his voice pour out into his mouth, and he held him there, and gave a few more slow, deep thrusts with the warmth and presence of his body all around, and held him there against him for a just a moment longer.\n\nThen he drew back, swallowed, smiled. “My King,” Askia murmured, then leaned into bury his nose again among thick fur.\n\nBarchan’s arms drew around him, the wet heat of his body still squeezing around his buried shaft. “My King…”\n\n…and then Askia opened his eyes again and blinked against the glare of the sun through one of the windows, carved from the stone wall of the cliff face. He swallowed, felt the dry grit in his throat, pulled himself upright… winced at the ache throbbing in the center of his skull.\n\nWhere is…?\n\nHe looked around the room, saw the tapestry hanging on the far wall, the pale wood of the door, the decorations… the clothing strewn across the floor. That’s right, he realized, vaguely; Barchan and I, we… up on the mesa, and then came down, hand in hand, but got distracted halfway there and went again, and… He reached up to rub at a sore spot on his shoulder, then poked a fingerpad along textured divots sunken into his skin. With effort, and further wincing, he traced out the half-moon arc of a bite print.\n\n…and then he brought me back here, to his own quarters, and… as soon as I felt him in my arms, I fell asleep, and here I am now. Askia blinked against the glare and reached out beside him – and felt the thick, plush mane, the warmth of another body, the slow rise and fall and comfortable sleep.\n\nAnd here he is still, right beside me. Strange sleeping without Zuli or Luka, but this feels… well, I think I could get used to this. He rubbed a little bit more, reaching beneath the sheets to find the hyena’s paw; a moment later Barchan stirred, stretched, sighed, and opened his eyes.\n\nAs soon as he saw Askia he smiled, and squeezed his paw. “Good morning,” he purred, and turned away to voice a wide yawn. Thick, sharp fangs glittered in pink gums. “How are you feeling?”\n\nAskia rubbed at the side of his head. “Like I tumbled down that rock we were on last night…”\n\n“You almost did. Good thing you tied me nice and tight and I was there to keep you from falling.”\n\nThe world slowed. He stared at him. “Did I-”\n\nBut Barchan laughed, a sharp, rich sound. The sheets slid down across his chest; Askia felt the sudden desire to lean over and run his muzzle down that smooth, flat chest. “A joke. You did not. I hear wild dogs have smaller knots than other species; I think I could still manage, though.”\n\n“Who told you that? Who are you talking to that-”\n\n“Ah! Askia! Stop, that’s – I’m ticklish, and-”\n\nThen those fangs sank into his shoulder, thankfully the one opposite the bite, and a sweet, fiery shiver shot down the wild dog’s back. He rumbled atop his husband, squirmed, and then let his weight slosh out around him, until Barchan tapped at his sides and back to get him to roll back off, both giggling softly. Askia lounged back on the bed, the pleasant heat of midmorning washing across his naked body.\n\nHe sighed. “We are to head home today.”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“Well. To my home, I suppose.”\n\nBarchan rolled onto his side and reached an arm across the wild dog’s body. His broad nose pressed into his shoulder. “It will be my home, too.”\n\n“For the time being. I must speak with Luka for arranging the documents and whatever else, who…” He craned his head up. “…I must ensure is returning with us, instead of serving his new role as – what – chew toy for your Queen?”\n\n“She spits on him, I think.” Sharp claws teased through his fur. “I saw her do it into his mouth once. I think he asked for it.”\n\n“She doesn’t-”\n\n“-and the times he didn’t speak with the matriarchs was because his jaw was too sore from ‘servicing’ her, and-”\n\n“Barchan, that is your mother-”\n\nGiggling, the hyena nuzzled a little deeper. “Wait until you hear what that zebra of yours has been getting up to.”\n\nHe lifted his head again. “Is this another joke?”\n\nBarchan paused, held his gaze – then laughed out loud, and came in for a kiss. Askia met him and held him there, then dragged it out into a second, and a third, and a fourth, and then the hyena was wriggling and squirming underneath him again, and then gasping, shivering, moaning.\n\nPerhaps there really is a future here. I like his presence, his personality… his ideas, and his policies, and his ambitions. Strong paws slid up his sides, dug into his fur, pulled him close. And once everyone else rises, we shall depart for home. Our home, as he says, and… our new beginning shall start from there.\n\nOne of those paws came up to his muzzle, spread across his jaw, and teased him closer. Askia smiled, rested his own over it, turned his head, and leaned in for another kiss.\n\nAnd then all that’s left to us is the future."
    },
    ".description.json": {
      "description": "This is a longer (about 13k), more story-centric commission for dear Askia. It's been long enough since I last wrote him in this setting that I took this as a chance to sorta do a soft-restart, & did my best to wrap in the background & such throughout this story so that it's standalone from the previous ones. The main themes are actually very similar to Ghost of a Rose, where it's about Askia getting roped into an arranged marriage with someone he neither likes nor really knows, and over time he ends up falling for them and accepting the arrangement. The difference here, though, is that the story starts right after the marriage - when Askia's got his bodyguard's massive horsedick hilted under his tail, and his attendant otter boy contributing as well...\n\nSo across the next few weeks, as by tradition they're in hyena lands for a full cycle of the moon, Askia starts to learn more about the culture of this neighboring land and this species group with which his (or, more properly, his father's) kingdom has been at war for generations. And seems like the people like him and his ideals quite a lot! So it seems like things are going pretty well.\n\n(Also, a note: the copy-paste from the word processor doesn't maintain the italics & other formatting, so download the file instead of reading it inline, lol)\n\n[url=https://inkbunny.net/s/3684757]Also check out the sequel~[/url]"
    },
    ".writing.json": {
      "writing": "The wild dog gritted his teeth, swallowed, wrenched his eyes shut, and slid himself back down, the familiar sleek, fulfilling pressure once again sinking up into him. His tail hiked up at the base, his back arched to where he could feel the pulsing shaft buried inside of him, an irresistible shiver thrummed through his body; he tilted his head back, sighed out, and shifted his paws along the firm, muscular chest underneath him, running his fingerpads across sleek equine pelt, feeling the zebra’s breath, his heartbeat, his closeness.\n\n“I just… can’t believe…” And the wild dog leaned forward, lifted up… felt the zebra’s semi-soft medial ring slurp free from his stretched tailhole, then just as smoothly press back in when he pushed down onto him again. His words hiccupped around a breathy moan. “…that this is how it had to go. Zuli…”\n\nThe zebra’s eyes fluttered partially open. Huge, strong hands wandered up the wild dog’s waist, caressing his belly, circling around towards his lifted tail… then tightening there and pressing him back down, the equine lifting up into him. Zuli arched his back a little bit with the sensation of supple wet warmth squishing around his buried shaft, then relaxed back again.\n\n“It is…” He paused to catch his breath. “It is right.”\n\n“It’s a relic of times past, is what it is. I… hah…” The wild dog straightened up and leaned back, his legs tightening around Zuli’s waist for leverage, his paws reaching back behind him to now brace against the bed that was made theirs for their visit to these foreign lands. “’Foreign’,” he had scoffed, after making the arrangements with the others in his kingdom; “I could climb the nearest mesa and throw a rock, and I would be able to reach them.” He wet his lips again, took a breath, lifted up… sank back down again, felt as well as saw the zebra’s girth press out along his belly from inside. “Understand… the need to settle disputes, but… we could have done that through actual conversation, and… meeting over a mutual point of discussion, and… all the things Father would never think to try – do they not understand that I am not him? That they – ah…”\n\n“Mm.” Underneath him Zuli lifted his hips, thrust deep into the wild dog, and drew down again, his hands now coming down to spread his rump, tailhole already stretched around his length. Gentle fingers teased in at the opened rim, then came up to grip the base of his tail and yank him up. “It is an established practice.”\n\n“So is talking through our problems. That was the issue with Father’s reign. Everyone knows it, but nobody… nobody was… will…” The wild dog trailed off, head rolling on his shoulders, jaw dropping open as he rode. He lifted himself up towards Zuli’s blunted head, held there where he could feel the rim tugging at the inner ring of his tailhole, then sank back down again, the mix of saliva and natural wetness slurping around the zebra’s impressive length. Each time he sank down onto him his own arousal leapt against his belly, the ink-blot fur there dusted with cinnamon, ocher, charcoal, and now foggy, milky cream as well, thick strands of pre matting down his fur and thighs. “Nobody was… willing to bring it up with him, for fear of his rage. But I am different. I am King Askia.”\n\n“And a good king you are…”\n\nAskia opened his mouth to speak back to the zebra, but then just as soon felt the breath pressed out of him. Those large, strong hands lifted across his body, one hooking beneath his raised arm, the other squeezing in along his waist – and he was pushed back, angled down so that his back settled against the mattress and his legs hoisted up around Zuli’s lap as the zebra pushed him over and slid into place beneath him, between his spread legs, all the while he remained hilted past the ring. His broad snout came in close to nuzzle against the side of the wild dog’s face, leathery skin of his nose drawing in his scent, holding it, then puffing it back out – and Zuli gave another slow thrust, and another, and another, each one at this angle forcing Askia to gasp and tighten and squirm with the pressure welling up inside of him.\n\n“…and a proper king, too, now that you are married.” That hand reached over towards Askia’s, fingers entwining with his own… running across the sleek metal band, the fit of which the wild dog was still becoming accustomed after the ceremony earlier in the day. “Would that I could be your husband, my love.”\n\nAskia scoffed – then grunted and moaned again, trying his best to squeeze around the thick equine shaft now pumping steadily within his tailhole. He rocked with the motion, legs squeezing around Zuli’s waist, lifting himself up, sinking back down… lifting up again, grinding him inside of him.\n\n“It is only in title. You… serve all of its tasks, and roles, and needs, and…” With effort he managed to open his eyes again, mismatched brown and blue glittering at the zebra poised above him. “Were I to never see him again, I would still live happy, alongside you.”\n\nZuli offered a rare smile, lips pulling slightly up at the edges. He looked back and forth between his King’s eyes. “And how happy I am to serve in such a way…” And he leaned in, tilted his head, brushed his lips to Askia’s, held there…\n\n…and the King’s large ears twitched with soft, gentle paws reaching to caress them from underneath, velvety webbings in between the fingers tickling at his cheeks. Once again he opened his eyes, still locked in the kiss with the zebra, and looked up into the sweetly smiling muzzle of the otter leaning over him.\n\n“And now you are a true king,” Luka purred, the body servant-turned-advisor running his thumbs across the canine’s cheeks. “A marriage like this for you has been overdue since your father’s passing. Outdated as the practice is, it is still respected: this will help to unify those under you who have been… less than accepting of your more progressive ideals, and-”\n\nAskia swallowed amid the kiss, then pulled free from it. Still leaning over him, Zuli drew back, sank forward, and resumed his initial rhythm, the mattress shifting with the momentum of his moment; Askia had to take a moment to gather his thoughts beneath the battering waves of pleasure.\n\n“Luka,” he said when he could. He reached a shaky arm up towards the otter; Luka tilted his head, ran his fingers over Askia’s, and leaned into the touch. “This is not the place for politics.”\n\n“Sorry.” The otter shifted to lean in a little bit closer. Askia’s whisker tickled with his warm breath. “But to be fair, you did bring it up, my lord.”\n\n“Shut your mouth or I’ll give you something to shut it.”\n\n“Hmm…” And still he leaned closer… “I think I’ll take the alternative…”\n\nAnd with the taste of Zuli’s lips still on his own, Askia lifted his head to do the same for his trusted advisor, Luka’s kiss softer but no less sweet, no less intense. He tilted his head one way, webbed paw coming up across the wild dog’s cheek and chin – and then the short, thick tongue pressed its way in as well, dancing across sharp fangs, finding Askia’s own, drawing it out, sucking him into his mouth.\n\nStill the zebra pumped away at him, hands gripping his thighs, fingers digging into soft flesh and firm muscle; Askia pulled in urgent breaths out of the corners of his mouth, moaned out into Luka’s, wrenched his eyes shut, tightened, tightened further. His paw clenched around a handful of bedsheet; his back arched, he strained, and tugged himself down into the equine’s lap; Luka purred softly against his mouth, his warmth and appreciation for his king’s pleasure trickling through their kiss; and then that smoldering flame blazed outwards, and Askia jerked, and bucked, and bucked again – and yanked himself up along Zuli’s length only to slam back down, again, and again, each time lifting his belly out from inside as he jetted his peak out across his already splotchy fur.\n\nUnable to resist, the wild dog pulled himself out of the kiss and groaned out into the otherwise still bedchambers, his legs trembling, his entire lower body thrumming with the force of his orgasm. His stretched tailhole slopped wetly around Zuli’s half-buried length as the zebra, too, throbbed inside of him to coax him through the remaining waves of his peak… and then slowly, gently, slurped himself free, the rim of his blunted head pulling out at the inside of the king’s ring of muscle. Askia gasped as he came free, then reflexively tried to clench back – with muscles that faltered to respond.\n\nLuka rumbled again, the noise halfway between a purr and a giggle, and pushed his paws down through Askia’s chest fur. The wild dog reached up to caress his webbed paw, then let his head roll to the side so he could catch his breath; Luka, meanwhile, made his way down his body, leaning to the side to sprawl out alongside him. Eyes partially closed, Askia felt the damp, hefty weight of Zuli’s still-hard cock nudging against his side, soon followed by both of the otter’s paws sliding behind it to lift it up and to the side. \n\nStill panting, Askia rested an arm over his muzzle, squirmed a little bit, half-lifted a leg, let it drop back down. He licked his lips, swallowed – he could taste Zuli and Luka both – and then took in another slow, steady breath. “I… suppose you’re right…”\n\nThe sound of wet lips smacking across slick skin twitched at his ears, with the otter’s voice to follow: “Mm?”\n\n“About this arranged marriage being… best for our societies. If it’s what the people expect, then it is my duty to give it to them.” With great effort he hoisted himself up onto his elbows, then rubbed at his eyes to clear the indulgent bleariness from them – and then blinked again: Zuli still knelt on the bed between his legs, though now Luka had come forward to run his muzzle along the sex-streaked length of his shaft, eager tongue working to lap up the remnant slickness, one webbed paw massaging hefty equine balls in between his fingers. \n\nThe otter swallowed, did so again, nosed down into dense, dank sheath wrinkles, held himself there for a moment with a deep, slow inhale… and then sighed back out, sharp blue eyes flicking over to his king. “You are a true king now,” he went on, voice muffled somewhat by the sheer heft of equine equipment hanging against his muzzle. He pursed his lips, drew some of the leathery-velvet skin of Zuli’s sack into his mouth, suckled briefly, then let it slip free again. “At least, in the eyes of those aforementioned subjects. The hyenas may be strange in their ways, but…” His eyes drifted shut again, and now that slick, matted paw trailed up to the other side of Zuli’s sheath. The zebra huffed softly, turned his body, and grinded in against Luka’s muzzle; the other male purred deep in his throat, shifted a little bit, and took in another breath. “…they are… ah. Both our kingdom and their civilization will be much stronger for the unification of their ways with our own. Once their queen… passes her title to the prince, your husband…” Both paws squished in along those supple folds of skin, bunched them forward, then stretched back again. He slid his tongue across the dank, revealed flesh in between. “…shall rule alongside you, with both of you overseeing both lands…”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment, then similarly came forward to sprawl out near the base of Zuli’s still-hard shaft. From here he could smell the rich, familiar equine musk that had become so close to him over time, earthy and grassy with a touch of acrid, sweaty tang, invigorating, inspiring. He knew precisely why Luka pressed his muzzle so firmly into the velvet-soft flesh, and breathed in through his nose, and sighed out through his mouth with his tongue cupped underneath…\n\n“Be that as it may…” the king went on. He reached forward to idly tease Zuli’s sack in a paw, the thick, dank heat quickly trickling across his palm. “I still don’t like it.”\n\n“You don’t… have to like it.” Luka drew back again, then swallowed. He looked up at Zuli, who returned the glance and chuffed. “You are King. The day you begin enjoying your rule, is the day it becomes your responsibility to pass it to another.” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAskia trudged up the shallow incline towards the overlook, the unfamiliar grit of sand and gravel crunching beneath his footpaws. This region stood so close to his homeland, yet still felt so far away: he could turn around in a full circle and feel as though he were in a dream against the strange sense of displacement, where he felt like he knew where he was, yet could not identify any of the landscape. Vast, rolling grassland savanna turned instead to low, arid brushland pocked about with rich yellow and red flat-topped plateaus and mesas, pebbles dropped by some careless giant.\n\nAnd then the smells, too… where his own kingdom comprised mainly of wild dogs like himself, a loose family clan amalgamated by his father’s efforts and those of his father’s father, and his father and so on, to then join in with steppe and prairie wolves, the lions, the zebras and antelope and other such species; strength in numbers, his late father would say, and victory in strength. Naturally Askia had grown up knowing of the dangers of the hyena tribes just past the river border, hearing the stories from bereaved mothers of the things they would do to lost pups, and horrors from the scouts his father sent to watch the ever-expanding borders; he himself had heard their characteristic laughter while out late one night retrieving acacia bark for ritual purposes, and it taken him the better part of an hour to still his panic and build the courage back up to cross the river again.\n\nAnd now, he thought, reaching out to hoist himself up by another branch, seeing the glimmer of the creamy early-evening sunlight across the sleek metallic band now adorning one finger, I’m married to one. The wild dog swallowed, took in a breath of cool, sweet desert air, and hefted himself upwards towards the flat of the mesa overlook.\n\nThe tense arrival at the hyenas’ homeland the other day, the brisk discussion with their Queen – A matriarchal society! Father would have ended relations right then and there – who very obviously did not like “the wild dog prince from over the river,” as she called him… Askia had understood and had been completely willing to end the arrangement right then and there, if not for Luka’s constant, insistent urging that this was the correct path to take. At least it seemed that the Queen liked the sleek otter, but then again, everyone seemed to like him. Softspoken yet deliberate, confident in his choice of words, the largest part of his two and a half decades of age spent as the right-hand body servant for a gluttonous lecher of a king across the western sea, the proximity of which gave him vast insight and understanding of the game of politics.\n\n“As good with his tongue as he is his fingers,” Askia remembered Zuli grumbling once, one of the rare occasions where the zebra had more than five words to say. And then the way he had smiled, just a little quirk at the corner of his mouth while he stood beside his king’s throne, bodyguard’s assigned polearm clutched in one hand. Askia had thought about changing the guard uniform from the shoulder sash and loincloth to something a bit more protective, but the maneuverability and airy coolness afforded by the current outfit could not be overstated, and besides, he quite enjoyed being able to glance over to where the zebra stood, and tilt his head a little bit, and see the way the thick, hardy fabric rested over even thicker folds of skin and flesh, and…\n\n…and thin, light gossamer veil dancing across naturally coarse fur brushed and combed to velvet softness, warm lilac draped down and around a trimmed mane of threaded cinnamon; slender arms corded with sleek, tight muscle angled along the flowing lines of his back, paws braced on the surface of the smooth stone, fingers spread, claws manicured. One of his tall, triangular ears perked and flicked with the sound of clattering gravel; he tilted his head down from where he watched the beginning of the sunset and looked back over his shoulder, the color of his eyes masked beneath the thin fabric of the veil hanging down about his short muzzle pinned in place by wrought jewelry the same glimmering metal as the rings they each now wore. \n\nThe hyena prince straightened upon seeing his new husband ascend the incline, and sat forward to fold his paws in his lap. Feathery ribbons of the insubstantial outfit he wore shifted and swept around him like curls of mist, drawing apart to show the shadowy stripes coursing up and down his arms, along his back between the rise of the mane which spread across him like a thick cloak, scuffed with foggy stripes of charcoal indistinct through the fabric. He pursed his lips, tilted his head again, and looked Askia over, the hyena’s eyes halfway lidded beneath their veil; short whiskers twitched forward, then splayed out, then shifted back again, and in a smooth, silent movement he rolled himself to the side and stood up from where he reclined.\n\nAskia saw now that the wisps of the hyena’s garb were little more than just that: the veil draped over his muzzle, one pinned at each shoulder along the forearm with shimmering bangles, another pair crossing over his chest and more at the waist, one more hanging loose at one hip, and then nothing else save for the metal glittering against his fur the color of rich, warm soil. He reached up, ran a pair of those trimmed claws beneath the hem of his face veil, and lifted it just high enough for eyes the color of thick honey to peer across the space at the wild dog – at his husband, the king of the neighboring land, against whom his own people had waged something just short of war for the past several generations.\n\nAnd he blinked, long lashes stirring the fabric of his veil. The hyena floated closer, footsteps silent among the early evening. Askia smelled him first and then felt the air’s slow twirl from his approach, his scent warm, dry, a bit spiced, with the characteristic acrid tang of something close to gentle sweat… and then a distinctive, fiery flair hovering about the jagged edge. He opened his mouth, paused; tilted his head, flicked his tongue out across black-fleshed lips, looked Askia over again, and then let a ghost of a smile touch his muzzle.\n\n“You are…”\n\nDespite himself, Askia felt his hackles shiver and threaten to rise up, not out of fear or panic, but rather… rather from something similar to the sensation of someone running their claws across the small of his back, or exhaling across his ear, or combing their fingers through his tail. The hyena took another step closer, and then another, and another – and gentle paws brushed across the wild dog’s waist, and he felt himself tugged forward, and the firm, sweet warmth of the prince’s bared sheath nudged up against his front.\n\n“Beautiful, now that I see you with my own eyes,” the hyena continued, his voice cool, sharp, spiced like his scent. He leaned in closer, jewelry jangling, and touched his broad nose to Askia’s neck. The wild dog couldn’t help but shiver as he breathed in, fingers tightening at his waist, teasing in at the waistband of his own trousers. “And yet again are the flaws in perspective shown to me, clearly under the light of tonight’s moon. My mother the Queen would have me believe you were a… foul, twisted, mangled creature-”\n\nAskia grunted. Good thing Zuli isn’t here to hear this, or there wouldn’t be a Queen tomorrow.\n\n“-and a poor excuse for a spouse, who lets their advisor say everything for them… but, traditions must change, else they fall into the past and crumble beneath the weight of their own expectations.” One of those paws found Askia’s, danced across to his wrist, and then pulled forward, guiding him around the hyena’s shapely waist. He felt the lines of those muscles layered beneath fur, the thick puff of his mane… the ring of metal bound around the base of his tail, along which further wisps of his outfit had been tied. \n\nThe hyena prince smiled again, rocking his hips slowly forward against Askia’s, washing the wild dog in his rich, intoxicating scent. Askia instead focused on his eyes, on the way they sparkled and glittered in the light of the rising moon, how the dark sockets only further brought out the glimmering yellow-gold.\n\nKing Askia tilted his head. “You seem different from the ceremony this morning.” There, he had not known what to expect: it was the same hyena, the same mane, the same colors, the same markings, but the prince had both moved and spoken swiftly and stiffly, as though he had other places he would rather be. No celebration, no recognition: just an exchange of rings, a few words said in their native tongue, and Askia was sent back to his visiting quarters to prepare for the night.\n\nThe prince turned his head back, looking down at his husband along his muzzle. “I am different,” he said, pronouncing each word deliberately. “That was the Barchan who shall rule our people together. This, now…” Again his paws slid up Askia’s sides, drawing sleek, sweet shivers out of him. “This is the Barchan who shall be – who is – yours at home.”\n\nAskia kept his large ears from flicking back. He tried to untwine his paws from around the other male’s body. “Really.”\n\n“Yes.” The syllable hissed between deadly sharp fangs, Barchan leaning in again, drawing another breath… sighing it out across the wild dog’s neck. “As per tradition, tonight is to be our first union, here beneath the light of the moon, and overlooking the canyon I call home. Tomorrow night shall be our second; and the night after our third, and then our marriage will be complete.”\n\n“No. We shall not, for it is already complete.” This time he drew back with a little more force, and managed to step away from the hyena’s grasp. Barchan wobbled where he stood, ears upright, paws halfway up; he frowned, tilted his head, then shuffled back in towards himself. Askia avoided eyeing how fresh, rich pink had begun to protrude from the lip of his sheath. “I married you for necessity, for the safety of my people. Were there any other way to end these pointless, ceaseless wars, then I would have done so. But your so-called tradition demands that we form this union instead. And it is finished; so let us be done with it, for the good of my people, and the good of yours.”\n\nBarchan stood there a moment longer, warm gaze once more dancing across Askia’s figure. Then he shifted, squared his shoulders, reached up… tossed the veil back from over his eyes. They glittered with a light of their own.\n\n“Ours.”\n\nAskia frowned. “What?”\n\n“Our people. Yours and mine.” And he smiled again, softer this time. “A marriage like ours, prince to King, is unprecedented among my people. Again, tradition must change and adapt. And if you would keep our relationship purely political… then I will concede.” He turned his back, brushy tail swishing, and moved to sit back along the flat stone where Askia had first found him. He waited there, looked up at the sky, leaned back, then looked over his shoulder and patted the spot beside him. “Tonight we shall talk. If you would prefer… husband.” \n\nFor a moment the wild dog was caught off-guard. He stepped forward, footpaws rustling among the dry, low brush of the mesa. “I was expecting… more resistance. It was really that easy?”\n\nBarchan looked over at him again as he approached. The moonlight glistened off his thick fur and the fabric of his veils, catching in the rings of metal, dancing across him, trickling down and around the contours of his body like honey. When he smiled, the night felt just a little bit warmer.\n\n“When two rivers meet without mixing…” The hyena looked back down over the edge of the mesa. Far beneath, the glittering lights of his mother’s city sparkled among the crevices of the canyon ravine and spilled out into the grassy flatlands surrounding it. “They are still two rivers. Not one. My mother may be strict and set in her ways, but if my people are to flourish, we must be able to grow and adapt as the world needs. So my river shall mix with yours; and my ways, with yours.”\n\nThe stone was warm as Askia slid back onto it. Barchan scooted to the side a bit, close enough for the wild dog to feel his presence, far enough away that he did not actually touch him. The two looked out over the city below, the rolling savanna grasslands beyond, and the moon gradually rising over the horizon.\n\nAnd there they just talked. Askia began by telling about where he came from, the savanna on the far side of the river, and how it was so similar yet so different from over here: the dirt was a different color, cinnamon-red here, compared to ocher-yellow back home. Barchan smiled again and told him about how the difference could be tasted on the wind as well, a subtle, lilting thing; two fruits from the same tree can never taste completely identical. Then from there to each of their upbringings as a prince, beneath a lone monarch of a parent who thought they knew best for their kingdom and their people, and maybe they did, for a time. As it would turn out, the Queen would never have married her son to another male, and actually had not been informed of it until the night of the marriage; Barchan explained that her council, into which he had poured years of effort to garner a foothold, knew that such a move was necessary for the survival of the hyena clans.\n\n“Things are different now,” Askia said, eyeballing the way the moon had risen about a hand’s breadth and a half further from when he had first sat down; “things are different now,” Barchan had agreed, and the two had turned to look at each other.\n\nThe wild dog swallowed. “You said that… it was tradition, part of sealing our marriage in your culture, for you and I to… lay together. What happens since we – didn’t?”\n\n“Hmm?” One rounded ear flicked. Barchan tilted his head; his veil drifted across one eye, where he reached up to again brush it aside. “Nothing. Everyone will have seen us come up here together; they will have seen us remain here for… oh, the better part of an hour; they will see us return, one at a time. For all they know, we will have. And so things continue as usual. That is part of authority, is it not?” Here he tilted his muzzle down, looking up at the wild dog over the bridge of his snout. “It is not lying, if it is only an assumption made but never voiced. We shall… take it as it comes.”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment. He straightened up, folded his paws in his lap… was kept sharply aware of Barchan’s little paintbrush tail tickling against his own. He shifted, halfway hoping he would lean against him a little more fully. “And that’s okay?”\n\n“Askia. Husband.” The hyena smiled again, even though now he, too, looked up at the sky. He crossed one leg over the other, gossamer fabric sweeping aside; his pert sheath, plump sack, shifted along the lower leg, then slid slowly along in the warmth of the evening. “We have nothing to consummate, no child to conceive. If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office, with no intimacy or physical contact, then… I am willing to accept that.” Arms reaching behind to keep himself propped up, he let his head roll across his shoulder to look at Askia. “I have to be, for the sake of my people and yours. And, besides… it seems to me as though you already have someone who fills that role for you.”\n\n~ ~ ~\n\n“If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office…”\n\nAskia reached up to rub at his eyes, gritty with the weight of exhaustion, sleep evading him nonetheless. The thick, dank, familiar heat of zebra sagged down in the mattress beside him, Zuli’s slow, steady breaths the only noise in the room other than the faint songs of the night insects coming in through the windows – and yet the wild dog still heard Barchan’s voice, over and over.\n\nI don’t know him, he told himself, and I don’t have to know him. We did this for our people, not for each other. But, then… I still want to do right by him.\n\nHe rolled over, pressed his muzzle along smooth, warm velvet striped pelt, rested an arm around the equine’s body, tugged himself closer… drew in a lungful of his rich, intoxicating aroma, still invigorating after all of these years together, and all of the nights spent side by side. And he thought of Barchan’s scent as well, soft yet still sharp, like freshly roasted spices caught from across a room.\n\nHe is sincere. Honest with himself, and with me. At least… I’d like to think he is. But where is this going to lead?\n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAs each day passed, so too did King Askia’s thoughts and feelings muddle together even more tightly. He and his entourage were to be the hyenas’ guests until the next turn of the moon, at which point he would take his new husband home and there begin the long process of uniting their two lands – but, in contrast, each day that passed somehow made this future seem that much further away.\n\nBit by bit the wild dog learned more about their culture and their ways. Matriarchal indeed, with the women being in charge of hunting, and gathering, and every pillar of society and community, while the men took cares of things at home: about the grand halls of what stood for their “palace”, by Askia’s best estimation, it was only male servants standing at the corners, eyes downcast, each one garbed in the same light, flowing veils that made no effort to hide the rhythm of their spots or stripes, and the heft and hang of sheath and sack both.\n\nStill Askia did not see the Queen. As far as he could tell, this pleased both of them: his restricted conversations with Barchan over meals and in between meetings, for the hyena stood as the head of his mother’s advisory council, showed that his husband had ensured this would be the case. “In rule,” he explained one evening, “there are risks that are necessary, and those that are not. An important skill is discerning the difference, and you two meeting is unnecessary.”\n\nBut still he heard from her, though, and saw her from a distance at the meals, shared out beneath the open sky around a roaring bonfire instead of under the shelter of constructed shade. Meat hard roasted and lightly seasoned, grease and bone and gristle – with the hyenas having more than enough jaw strength to crack right through, suck clean the marrow, and toss the remnants to the side for later repurposing. And she always had first pick, unafraid to toss her wispy, ceremonial clothing up along her shoulders and dig right in, striped pelt soon bearing the glistening stickiness of the meal, strings hanging between sharp fangs, lips smeared, eyes bright.\n\nSimply put, she terrified him. She would bark her commands to her underlings and servants, and held no qualm against physically punishing them for being slow on their feet: the longer Askia watched, the more he could pick out the ghosts of scars along muzzles, shoulders, backs, rumps, where sharp manicured claws had raked through layers of skin. On another night shared beneath the stars, heated prairie mead steaming in each of their mugs, he caught the glimmer of a similar scar along Barchan’s cheek, just beneath his left eye.\n\n“This?” the hyena said, and reached up to touch it. “Yes. It was my fault. And I do not mean that as a self-pitying admission of guilt; I mean it as the truth.”\n\n“But what happened?” Askia asked, once more shifting within his own outfit. He had been given one similar to Barchan’s, woven from smooth, mossy green instead of the hyena’s pale lavender – and it had been a new kind of hall striding through the city with the whole of him on display for everyone to see. On the way to and from dinner the wild dog had had to step aside into an alley to wait for a certain side-effect of such a view to dwindle back down, and then he would step out – and feel all of those eyes on him, and have to turn away again.\n\n“It is the past; what happened has happened, and there is nothing to be done about it now.” And Barchan had reached out to brush his fingers across Askia’s, resting there on the flat stone between them, but then stopped. When he turned his head, the moonlight shimmered off the tiny scar and disappeared. “Mother does not treat me like the others. Do not worry about that. I am the Queen’s firstborn, her pride, her joy… although her words often bite deeper than her claws.”\n\nIt was a wonder to him that Luka could bear being around her at all, but the otter still hustled back and forth between the King’s quarters and the Queen’s bearing news, discussions, everything that resulted from an arranged marriage between two previously warring kingdoms. Askia also did not fail to notice that each visit took him a little bit longer, and when he came back he seemed a little more breathless, a little more exhausted… a little more roughed up. First he was missing a patch of fur between his shoulder and his neck, and Askia began to worry; then he returned bearing four perfect valleys along one thigh from where sharp claws had dug through his fur, and Askia felt his rage begin to boil; and then one evening the otter came back in the middle of the night, visibly trembling, head quirked to one side. He had practically melted into Askia’s arms when the wild dog received him, chest heaving with exhaustion, breath catching in his throat-\n\n-and then his own veils swathed down and away from his neck, and Askia saw the clear, clean bite marks there, still wet with hungry drool, and his nose tingled with the rich, intense scent of female hyena. Luka squirmed a bit, dragged his paws up his King’s side, slumped into him again – and those bites continued on around his shoulder, down his back, towards the base of his thick rudder-tail, then underneath.\n\n“Hell of a woman,” was all the advisor could say, dreamy smile on his face, and then buried his muzzle in Askia’s neck again. Bemused, he carried him over to his bed, lay him down there, and then returned to his own alongside Zuli.\n\nAnd so things continued: Luka had the Queen herself; Zuli had the full range of huntresses and warriors from each of the individual hyena clans – and how it terrified Askia to see the zebra standing among a literal pack of hyenas as he learned their fighting ways, laughing and shouting louder than he had ever heard back home, within days putting on exhibitions by the light of the bonfire – and then Askia had… some clothing that fit a little too loosely for his tastes, a personal vendetta from the Queen against him, and then a husband he had just met, with whom he shared only a handful of sentences a day, and whom he barely knew. Askia spoke more with the other hyenas of the tribe, who had begun to come to him to get to know their future King a little better, and learn of his ideals, his stances, his plans.\n\nBut still, Askia was learning Barchan, too, a little bit more day by day. The hyena had of course made it routine to eat his meals alongside him, and it was there the two had most of their discussions, voices low and close. He learned of the hyena’s father, and his younger brother who stood as a body-servant in the barracks; he learned how he, too, had been taught to fight, with twin shortblades rather than the huntresses’ spears; he learned of how the hyenas’ society stood split into clans between spotted, striped (“and aardwolves,” he mentioned with a little wave of the paw), and then his own smaller royal family line, brown hyenas: “the spots,” motioning to his lower legs, “the stripes,” along his shoulders, “and the mane,” turning his back and arching it, to show where the coarse-brushed-smooth fur bunched out from the center line of his spine.\n\nHis mane flowed beneath gossamer lavender fabric like the twisting of a sand dune beneath early evening sky…\n\nThe moon made its way across its cycle, shining bright, turning away… reforming anew, each night casting a little more light down across the savanna. On one of the nights Askia had Luka to himself, he enlisted the otter in helping him undress, as little work as that would take: Luka’s sleek, deft paws easily slid across the bangles binding wisps of cloth to his shoulders, around his neck, across his chest, along his waist, and Askia closed his eyes, and sighed…\n\n“Something on your mind, my lord?”\n\n…and then opened them again, and knew what had caught Luka’s attention without needing to look. The wild dog squirmed where he stood, took in a breath, sighed again… throbbed gently, worked up from wandering thoughts and wandering paws. And now Luka had noticed, which just like when he had first started wearing this silly harem garb out on the city, served only to work him up further, and – and he gasped as webbed fingers reached down and wrapped about the lip of his sheath, squeezing supple skin forward, pressing back.\n\nThe King tilted his head back, eyes closed, mouth open. His hips rocked slowly, forward into the otter’s grasp, then back again… then forward, then back. He wet his lips. “Luka…”\n\n“My lord.”\n\n“Would you… perhaps be willing…” As Askia spoke, Luka finished undressing him and then stepped around to his backside, other arm making its way first up over the short, plush fur of the wild dog’s chest, then down again towards his belly, around his growing shaft, down to massage his sack. “To…”\n\n“Mm?”\n\nAskia caught himself. He looked back over his shoulder at the otter, still wearing his assigned outfit, still bearing the physical signs of his time spent “advising” the Queen on “international relations”, then reached back with a paw to caress his short, round muzzle.\n\n“Zuli is still out sparring…”\n\n“He’s been having quite a time with them. They love him. This is good, you know: we each have something to teach the other in combat, warfare, and hunting. Their pack tactics are – remarkable, and-”\n\n“Luka.”\n\n“Sorry. Please continue.”\n\nAskia smirked, other paw now covering Luka’s, keeping him down at the base of his sheath. A gentle squeeze held the supple skin in place as he slowly thrust, length pressing out a little further, dripping natural slickness across folded fingers and silken webbings. “Zuli is out sparring,” he continued. “It’s just you and I. Would you be willing… to… pretend… to be a hyena with me, tonight?”\n\n“Ooh…” Small, needle-sharp fangs nipped in at the wild dog’s neck, sending sparkling shivers vibrating through his shoulder. “They are rough, and quite dominant, and… very bitey, and, wow, do they have powerful jaws. And you’re sure you want me to-?”\n\nHe was – and so he did. Luka played the part well, likely due to recent personal experience: the way he bent Askia over the bed, how he traced down the wild dog’s back with little kisses interspersed with bites, how he dug his paws up along plush rump to spread him… the way he dove in, licked, lapped, slurped, sucked, then came back up to grind against him… how he leveraged his thrusts to press his king down against the bed, all the while maintaining a low, hungry growl in his throat. The arms around Askia’s body, the surprisingly strong grip of a paw along his upper arm, the fangs digging into the skin of his neck, sucking, pulling back the closer he came so that Askia could feel the tension in the tug, and-\n\n-the scent, the spice of hyena washed down across him, coating his nose, catching in his fur. He could feel the warmth of his body, like the shimmering heat dancing across the open fields beneath the blazing sun; the tense, bestial growls from an unfamiliar throat, the little huffs through flared nostrils against his ear, even the shape of the fangs, so thick, so large, so different. The way he moved his body felt different, too, as though he held a certain kind of control over his sleek yet strong musculature: where Zuli was all built mass and Luka slim and streamlined, he struck a middle balance between the two, slight of frame with noticeable definition cording along his arms, his sides, his legs… his chest pressing against Askia’s shoulders, his belly grinding against his lower back. One of those arms wrapped around his body, firm and tight, and the paw of the other swiftly ran his length, and pumped him closer and closer, and Askia squeezed around him, and gasped, and lurched, and-\n\n-bucked once, then again, and again as his finish spurted out of him, pounded to this point by the forceful thrusts beneath his tail. The arm wrapped around his body slackened, and the breath in his ear sighed, and then a shorter, stockier muzzle than he had expected came forward to nuzzle against his cheek – and it was Luka’s voice that followed, at first taking him by surprise:\n\n“How was that, my lord?” \n\nThe scent and presence of hyena drifted away, lost beneath the flow of reality. Askia wriggled, the otter’s length still buried inside of him, and pressed back against him.\n\n“That was wonderful…” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nThe moon glimmered overhead, just a sliver short of full, a slightly lopsided disc hanging high above in blue velvet speckled with stars. Across the valley, pillars of smoke curled up like puffy bunches of river grass reaching out from the multiple bonfires built for the occasion, each one corresponding to the notable families of each clan. Askia felt proud to recognize most of these faces as he made his way through the grounds, stray tassels of his clothing dancing about his shoulders, his waist, his ankles.\n\nPerhaps it was the prairie mead vibrating through his veins; perhaps it was the constant heat of those fires, the wood treated with some kind of incense blend to paint the smoke in swirling curls of sweet, spicy aroma; perhaps it was the joyful faces around him, the lyrical native language, the invigorating rhythms of their music and odd timbre of their instruments; perhaps it was the simple fact that, once that nearly-full moon dropped below the horizon and gave way to the searing sun again, that the King and his entourage would be returning home, but – he felt good tonight.\n\nOne of the heads of a striped hyena household caught him by the upper shoulder, squeezing the bangle against his fur, and shouted his greetings in heavy accents. Askia couldn’t help but grin, reach up to clasp her on the shoulder in return – though his paw barely encompassed half the larger female’s musculature – and shout back at her, tail wagging, before he was tossed on his way to the next. Another mug of mead ended up in his paws, sticky fluid sloshing over his fingers, and then was just as quickly taken away – to be replaced by another with the wine his entourage had brought as a gift.\n\nThen he found himself caught by a spotted hyena matriarch, her playing one of the instruments thrumming in time with the rest of the celebration before she handed it off to another, crouched down to put herself at eye level with him, and then reached forward with a paw as large as his head. She pressed it against his chest, fingers sliding easily beneath the loose fabric, and held him there; confused, startled, a little bit drunk, Askia tottered where he stood, fully aware of his relative nudity, and the effect this good mood was having on him, and how she just stared at him with that short muzzle, those sharp eyes, the squarish, rounded ears. When she licked her lips he almost thought as though it was in preparation to devour a snack, and again he recalled the trail of bite marks curling over Luka’s shoulder and down his back, and then how just the previous night he had returned with another, matching series of marks down his chest and along his belly, down his inner thigh and then back up, and – the matriarch grinned with teeth far too large to be sensible, nodded once, and patted him on the shoulder. \n\n“Heard you speak,” she said, the consonants thick on those fangs. “Like your style. Prince Barchan is ambitious. Energetic… hopeful. You will balance him well. We shall miss your presence, and eagerly await your rule.” Then she leaned in closely enough, still towering over him even though she had crouched nearly halfway over, that her scent tickled at his nose. “And already you are an improvement over her. She is overambitious, belligerent, reckless. Driving us to ruin. And besides…”\n\nThat huge paw continued down his chest, over his belly – and easily flipped the poor excuse for a loincloth aside, one surprisingly gentle fingerpad squishing in along the side of his plumped sheath.\n\n“You are much cuter.”\n\nAnd with that she stood back to her full height, cast the smaller wild dog a wink, and reached for her instrument again. Askia hovered there a moment longer, swirling among the whirlpool of drink, scent, and arousal, and then wobbled off again.\n\nThat’s right, he recalled, the recognition foggy at one side of his head. This is… our going-away party. Barchan’s last night among his people…\n\nAnother hyena bumped up against him, this one with sleek, coffee-colored stripes twisting along a smooth field of cinnamon; without thinking Askia rubbed up against him, rumbled in his throat, reached around to run his fingers into the root of the other male’s mane. The striped hyena reflexively pressed back against him, his eyes obscured by his own veil but his revealed mouth showing a small twist of a smile. Broad tongue flicked out, and he leaned in, and touched his muzzle to Askia’s – and then firm, sleek warmth grinded up against his own sheath, strong paws gripping his waist, the other male pressing himself against him, rubbing to one side, drawing back, nudging forward again… a wandering paw reached down beneath both of their loincloths to squeeze their growing lengths together, and there was a small stroke, a quick pump, and a soft exhalation against his cheek, and then the hyena turned and danced away among the crowd, leaving the wild dog worked up, humping into the air beneath his tented clothing, wondering where this new cup of mead in his paw had come from.\n\nHe knew where to find Barchan, again thanks to Luka, and was well on his way to him – but time and time again either wandered or was pulled off-course, exploratory paws reaching out to touch their soon-to-be King, to feel his thick, paint-splotched pelt, to tug at his jewelry, to feel along his tail, his rump, his thigh, his chest… his sack, his sheath, his shaft. At one point another spotted hyena caught him by the shoulders and shoved her nose up into the crook of his neck, drawing deep of his strange, foreign scent; then he recalled another male slipping another pair of bangles up his shoulders to bounce and jangle against his own; and then his loincloth disappeared somewhere, and a slim, sleek aardwolf granted him his own, though its positioning was then shifted up and down his thighs again and again by new paws reaching out from the crowd. Sometimes they missed, on purpose or otherwise: a full palm grasped his rump, a pair of fingers slid up beneath his tail, another finger tugged down at the lip of his sheath, another paw nestled around his sack…\n\nAnd then Askia tumbled out and away, and within minutes realized that he had begun trudging his way back up the slope towards the mesa, where he had first caught sight of his new husband. He had seen the hyena earlier that day back then, during the poor excuse for a wedding ceremony, but hadn’t really looked at him until that night – and as he worked his way up the slope, gravel clattering beneath his footpaws, body feeling hot despite how he wore practically nothing, he remembered how the moonlight had sparkled off of Barchan’s jewelry, and his eyes, and the shimmering, ghostly swish of his own harem garb, and how it highlighted the patterns of his fur underneath, and… and there he lay now, lounged out across the same flat rock now with a woven blanket spread out underneath him. One broad ear twitched and flicked back at Askia’s approach; the hyena shifted how he lay and looked back over his shoulder, one of the wings of fabric drifting down across his arm. A faint smile tugged at his lips.\n\n“Hello,” Askia called, reaching to one side to steady himself against a tree that was not actually there, “husband.”\n\nBarchan sat up a little straighter. He pulled his knees in towards his body; from here the wild dog could see the plump, pert curve of his sack poking out between his thighs, resting across the blanket in the warmth of the evening. “Hello, beautiful,” he responded, in that smooth, sweet, slightly spiced voice of his, like the hot cocoa brewed with that rich orange powder. “You certainly look as though you’re having fun.”\n\n“Your people… are…” At least the stone was there: Askia caught himself against it, paused while waiting for the world to slow its spinning, and then with quite some effort pulled himself up alongside Barchan. The hyena leaned in against him, one arm going around his shoulder to pull him closer; Askia gladly rested his weight against him, indulging in the thick, syrupy warmth of his body, and that same intoxicating scent that stuck in his nose. “Welcoming,” he finally managed to finish, muzzle swaying towards Barchan’s. The hyena leaned back a little bit. “I have had… so many paws on me… tonight…”\n\n“You are well known by now,” the other male rumbled. He reached over for Askia’s paw, slid his fingers over the wild dog’s, and managed to entwine a few of them. “And not only that, you are enjoyed. The way you have spoken with our matriarchs, and the words your advisor has spread about you, has put you in very good graces with our council-”\n\n“Luka? Talking?” Askia leaned a bit more of his weight against Barchan. The hyena turned to let him lean in against his chest, warm, soft, plush. He settled in a little bit. “And here I thought all he was doing was – fucking your mother…”\n\nSilence for a moment, and then the hyena jerked with a quick bark of a laugh. His surprisingly strong arms wrapped in around Askia’s chest, paws slipping beneath the dancing folds of his minimal clothing, pressing into his pelt beneath. “Well,” he drawled, “yes, there is plenty of that, too. I almost fear she will demand you leave him behind, in exchange for my hand in marriage-”\n\n“She can’t – can she?”\n\n“No. Husband, the marriage is already done.” The hyena chuckled, the little puffs of breath tickling sweetly across Askia’s shoulder. He shivered and pressed back against him; still those paws continued up and down his body, one lifting towards his collar, the other sliding down his belly. By this point the wild dog had long since lost all embarrassment at being so on display at all times, and in fact, welcomed the extra attention – and found himself hoping that Barchan would be able to see the effect that his slow, intimate touches had on him. “But she might still ask, though.”\n\n“Mm…”\n\nFrom here the two could still see the trails of smoke from the bonfires, and distantly hear the music and celebration. “This is a new age for their people – for our people,” Luka had explained during the preparation earlier in the night; he and the King had helped each other with their loose, wispy outfits, and had shared more than a few touches and kisses in doing so. “From what I have heard, and what I have seen? Nobody is satisfied with the Queen. That is why the Council was established. It shall still remain once this land becomes yours, alongside Barchan – but I foresee a much smoother reign.” And then the otter had turned to look over himself in the mirror, turning first this way and then that, letting the fabric swish across his thick rudder-tail. “And I shall certainly not mind spending more time here…”\n\nBehind him Barchan shifted. Askia jerked, stirred back to full wakefulness; he thought that perhaps he had dozed off for a moment.\n\n“I am… truthfully, looking forward to leaving this place, and seeing your home…”\n\n“Our home.” The warmth simmering throughout his veins and filling his head with steam reverberated back down through the wild dog’s chest. He sat up, leaned forward a little bit too quickly, then turned partially sideways so he could see his husband’s eyes, obscured behind his lavender veil. “We will… have to build a palace. With the river… running right through the grand hall…”\n\nBarchan scoffed. “A palace? Askia, my people live in caves and tents, and-”\n\n“That could change.”\n\n“But do they want it to? This is to be a union of both of our ways, and both of our people. You and I will not live to see the end result, nor shall…” He caught himself. “I was about to say our children.”\n\n“Well…” King Askia brought a paw up alongside Barchan’s short, stout muzzle, fingers teasing beneath his veil. “Zuli and I haven’t managed it yet. Neither have Luka and I. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of trying.”\n\nAgain he laughed, though this time it was lower, softer, sweeter, bouncing along like the rhythm of the music further down in the valley. Barchan glanced over his muzzle at Askia, then looked away again. He brushed his veil back down into place across his snout.\n\n“You’re drunk,” he said, to the still night around them. Somewhere off in the dry brush, an insect chirped.\n\n“Perhaps a little. Have you – had the wine?”\n\n“Yes. It’s fantastic.”\n\n“And your mead is… delicious, too.” Askia wiped at the corner of his mouth. “One of your… matriarchs… spat in my cup before giving it to me, though.”\n\n“Did you drink it?”\n\n“Of course I drank it.”\n\n“Oh.” Barchan’s ears perked again. “Oh, dear. That means that you’ve agreed to let her carry your pups.”\n\nAgain the world spun. Askia slid over to stare at him, but the hyena tactfully avoided eye contact.\n\n“Are you – joking?”\n\n“Askia-”\n\n“Barchan!”\n\nOne paw found a firm, veil-wrapped shoulder, and then the hyena presented surprising resistance against his strength – but then he tottered backwards, spreading out across the stone with Askia leaning in over him, other paw beside his chest, one leg drawn up by his waist. Barchan had his head turned to the side and was struggling to stifle his laughter, his thick, strong neck pulsing with the effort. Loose jewelry dangled across his throat, threads of pale violet swinging in between, shifting with each breath; Askia swallowed, licked his lips, and begin to lean in, wanting to press his nose into the little puff of fur there, to get another taste of Barchan’s sweet, spicy scent… and then the hyena’s paws reached up to caress his muzzle, at the same time stopping him in place.\n\nIdly, Barchan rubbed his thumbs across his cheeks. “It’s… silly,” he went on, voice softer, “but I can’t help but imagine the stars are different, where you are.”\n\nAskia blinked, then craned his head up to peer at the night sky stretching overhead. This was a mistake; he felt himself wobble, one of Barchan’s paws clamping to his shoulder to hold him steady.\n\nHe wrenched his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again. “But I am right here.”\n\n“I mean where you come from. Here we have… up there, just beneath and to the right of the moon. That is Acacia the hunter, forever tracking his prey the sun – but the sun always outsmarts him, and dances away from his arrows at the last moment, which root in the earth and grow into the trees we see around the savanna. And then here…” He switched arms, his other now lightly grasping the wild dog’s forearm. Askia stifled a hiccup and looked down across sleek, yet muscular chest and belly, swung his hips gently side to side, felt the sag, the heft, the smack of his own balls nudging first against one thigh and then the other, sheath following a second later. “The River Delta, from which all water flows. It is a way to lull young pups to sleep: point out the delta itself, then have them draw out as many tributaries as they can, star to star, all the way across the sky, and…”\n\n“Barchan.”\n\nWarm eyes flicked back to his muzzle, focusing through the veil. “Mm?”\n\n“I’m listening.” Askia dropped down to one elbow, bringing his muzzle so close he could feel the hyena’s breath. “I promise. But right now I just… really…” Once more he brushed the veil up and aside – and yet again Barchan’s eyes shimmered with their own light. “…want to kiss you.”\n\nStunned, the other male stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth open. “What?”\n\n“I want to kiss you.”\n\nHis lips quirked; he laughed again and looked away. “You want to sober up, is what you meant to say. I have gotten no more than two handshakes and one nuzzle from you, on the shoulder, last night, which still surprised me, and-”\n\n“No, no…” It was remarkable how well Askia’s paw fit against the center of Barchan’s chest, fingers following the line of his sternum hidden beneath thick fur, thumb reaching out to the side. He swallowed again, leaned in closer, felt the world sweep up to meet him… buried his nose in the plush, thick mane that draped over the hyena’s shoulders like a cloak, then trailed up from there to lift his chin up from underneath. Barchan shivered around him, his own breath catching in his throat while Askia drew a deep, slow drag of his scent, that same fur tickling his nostrils. “We are married. I’m the king, and you are also the king, and you said…” The mane muffled his voice a bit. He dug in further, finding the line of Barchan’s collar bone, resting his lips against it. “…we have to establish our union. Prove it to the people.”\n\n“Ah – Askia – the people think we already did that; you were not comfortable with it, and… and we… hah…”\n\n“Mm. But we didn’t.” He remembered the way Luka had nipped, and tugged, and gently sucked between his teeth, and tried to emulate these same touches. “And I’m not about to be made a liar.”\n\n“Please, I – o-oh, that’s… you’re… Askia, I’m…” Gentle paws pressed up at his chest, sending fiery little sparkles vibrating out from the points of contact. “Come on. Let us at least wait until you’re sober, and then we can talk about this, and-”\n\n“All it does to me,” the wild dog went on, words slurring as he dragged his nose and lips across the hyena’s neck again, “is… lower my inhibitions. It makes me… do and say things that I already want to, but… would be too shy or hesitant to do.”\n\n“And maybe there’s a reason for that hesitation, and-”\n\n“And like I said,” and here he pulled himself forward and deliberately sat back along the hyena’s lap. The closeness between the two of them had had the same effect on Barchan as it did on Askia: just by rocking his haunches forward and back, he felt the wet tapered heat of growing half-arousal, nudging up at his tailhole, teasing, poking… coaxing out further with his movements. “We’re married, and you’re my husband.”\n\nBarchan paused. He bit his lip. “And so,” he murmured, “then I suppose it is my duty to-”\n\n“No. No, no.” Askia lifted up again, paws on the stone by his shoulders, muzzle directly above the other’s. “As your husband, it is my right to ask if you want to,” and he leaned in again, this time brushing a gentle kiss into the thick fur of the hyena’s cheek. Barchan’s ear flicked. “Just as it is your right to tell me no, if you do not.”\n\nFor a moment that expression remained; then broad hyena paws made their way back down Askia’s sides, to his waist, then around in front… where one cupped around his sack beneath the thin veil, and the other hooked behind his sheath to massage and work his half-hard length further out into the air.\n\nThen the hyena wet his lips. His other paw trailed back up Askia’s hip, found the waist of his loincloth, began to undo the thin binding. “You said you… wanted to kiss?”\n\nAskia’s tail wagged. The wild dog smiled, turned his head, leaned in – and then finally felt his lips brush against his husband’s, the warmth there intoxicating, invigorating. Barchan met him gently at first, and then with more intent and effort: he pressed in, his tongue flicked forward, Askia met it and reciprocated… and then tilted his head further, and sucked at his breath and his mouth, and swallowed down his taste, and grinded down against him.\n\nThen he drew free, dove back in for another, pulled back again, and now shifted the hyena’s head up and to the side to place another kiss along the line of his jaw. Then one to his neck, and his shoulder, and then down, in much the same pattern that Luka had returned with the Queen’s bite marks the other night; the hyena squirmed underneath his attention, jewelry jingling, wisps of fabric shifting this way and that beneath exploratory paws. The further he went, the stronger the scent in his nose simmered: there was that dry spice, the warm sweetness, that touch of slight sourness… Askia had seen Barchan practically naked every time he had been in the same vicinity as him, but now, finally slipping his fingers beneath his loincloth and flipping it up, it felt so, so different.\n\nThe first thing he noticed was the different shape from himself. Less of a bulge and contour, as deft work from his paw cupped around the hyena’s sack and attentive nose worked him further out, and a bit more of a discernible head – and then the scent as well, more of that warm, dense earthy spice, sleek and slick. A quick drag from his tongue sent a shiver reverberating through Barchan’s body, and a throb bouncing his shaft against Askia’s muzzle; then a second, and a third, and the wild dog wrapped his lips around and dove down, feeling his wet heat across his tongue, filling his maw.\n\nBarchan moaned and reached down, paw splaying between Askia’s ears. He lifted up into his throat, but only a little bit; Askia closed his eyes and continued there, still rubbing at his sack, finger lifting up underneath – then moving aside, slipping down further, teasing between his legs, until the soft, tight folds of puckered tailhole danced across his fingerpad. Just a little bit of focus there and then the wild dog lifted up again, mouth flooded with the unfamiliar, enticing taste of hyena; he looked up at his husband, licked his lips, and now scooped his paws ­beneath his thighs, gripping into the plush firmness there.\n\n“Askia-” Barchan giggled softly, also reaching down. “What are you-”\n\nAnd then his arms went out to his sides when the wild dog hoisted his hind end up, brushy tail hanging down in the air, balls slipping forward along the underside of his shaft. Askia swallowed, licked his lips again, looked down at the pert rump held up right in front of him, at the way the shifting of weight tugged at the sleek, delicate pucker nestled beneath his tail, how his pubic fur bristled and pinched down to soft, felt plush, and – he couldn’t resist. Meeting the hyena’s eyes and holding them, the wild dog leaned in, dropped his tongue out, and dragged up across his tailhole, pulling up past the underside of his sack; Barchan gasped and clenched against him, then did so again at a second, and another.\n\nAnother breath came thick with Barchan’s musk, and then Askia pursed his lips against his tailhole, slid in, and suckled softly, tongue dancing over the tight folds and wrinkles, poking and prodding at the center tension. Underneath him the hyena sighed and moaned again, reaching up to slowly stroke himself; his head turned and faced out over the valley below, the celebration still ongoing, though his eyes remained gently closed under the pleasure.\n\nAskia focused there a moment longer and then lowered his husband back down again, this time to rest his haunches across his lap. Barchan’s eyes fluttered open to look up at him; he reached out towards the wild dog’s arm with one paw, stroked gently, smiled, then watched as Askia adjusted to spit into his own palm and smear the sticky slickness across his fully hard length.\n\nThe wild dog leaned in over him. “Have you ever-?”\n\nBarchan nodded. “I’m not supposed to have done so. But I have.”\n\nThat made him smirk. “Me, too.”\n\n“You don’t hold it against me?”\n\n“What? No. If anything, that…” Tapered tip to saliva-slickened tailhole, Askia nudged forward, felt the grip, the squeeze… the slick, wet heat beginning to unfold and wrap around him. “…makes it easier… for me, and…”\n\nAnd both of them sighed out as he began to sink in, the deep, indulgent sensation flooding through both of them. Still the wild dog tried to measure his pace as he went, nudging in, sliding back out, sinking in again, following Barchan’s noises as well as he could with the world still spinning slowly around him. Each time he pulled back and then pressed back in felt better than the last, his sheath continuing to roll back along his unswollen knot, Barchan’s length stiffening, sliding out further, dripping across his chest.\n\n“You feel…” The hyena reached out with a paw, pressed it into the fur of Askia’s chest, trailed up towards his jaw. “Divine…”\n\nSo Askia leaned in again, brushed his lips to Barchan’s, held there, breathed out. “And so do you,” he rumbled in response, and thrust in again. The other male gasped, clenched around him, released his breath as a slow moan – and rocked his hips around him.\n\nFrom there the rhythm began, slow and steady at first, Askia holding his husband’s gaze, keeping him locked in a kiss. He felt not unlike someone of Luka’s size with Zuli’s build, streamlined yet dense musculature tightening beneath skin and fur, with this stout, short muzzle against his own… and there were those fangs and that tendency to bite and nip and chew, more so the deeper they both fell into the union, bangles clattering, fur rustling, breath puffing.\n\nAskia let his eyes flutter shut, felt his balance wobble, realized this was a mistake and opened them again. He drew away from the kiss, lips slick with the hyena’s drool, and leaned in to bury his muzzle amid the puffy mane cresting all around his shoulders; Barchan wrapped his arms around his back, claws digging into his fur, and rode in against him as the wild dog continued to thrust, now fast and hard, hips smacking against rump. Little gasps and exhalations of tense breath rolled over into voiced moans, higher, faster, urgency building, pleasure peaking.\n\nThe wild dog straightened up, gritted his teeth, and slid his paws around to the underside of Barchan’s thighs, lifting the hyena up so that natural leverage brought him sinking back down onto him, each time with him thrusting forward. Sensation and passion surged within him; the hyena had again let his head roll to the side, mouth open, one paw moving swiftly across his hard length, the other cupping his balls to lift them up and out of the way, and-\n\n-Askia’s peak hit all at once, pounding through him, bending him over his husband, knot swelling out and pressing against his tailhole as each spurt unloaded deep inside, one after the other. Barchan moaned out over the music from down below, wriggled around him as he continued to fill him, then swallowed, gritted his teeth, jerked, jerked again – and clenched so hard with the first of his own spurts, milky white lancing out across cinnamon brown, that Askia for a moment that he was about to cum again. He was panting, and Barchan still moaned with the echoing remnants of his own peak, and then Askia came forward and mashed his lips to the hyena’s and felt the vibrations of his voice pour out into his mouth, and he held him there, and gave a few more slow, deep thrusts with the warmth and presence of his body all around, and held him there against him for a just a moment longer.\n\nThen he drew back, swallowed, smiled. “My King,” Askia murmured, then leaned into bury his nose again among thick fur.\n\nBarchan’s arms drew around him, the wet heat of his body still squeezing around his buried shaft. “My King…”\n\n…and then Askia opened his eyes again and blinked against the glare of the sun through one of the windows, carved from the stone wall of the cliff face. He swallowed, felt the dry grit in his throat, pulled himself upright… winced at the ache throbbing in the center of his skull.\n\nWhere is…?\n\nHe looked around the room, saw the tapestry hanging on the far wall, the pale wood of the door, the decorations… the clothing strewn across the floor. That’s right, he realized, vaguely; Barchan and I, we… up on the mesa, and then came down, hand in hand, but got distracted halfway there and went again, and… He reached up to rub at a sore spot on his shoulder, then poked a fingerpad along textured divots sunken into his skin. With effort, and further wincing, he traced out the half-moon arc of a bite print.\n\n…and then he brought me back here, to his own quarters, and… as soon as I felt him in my arms, I fell asleep, and here I am now. Askia blinked against the glare and reached out beside him – and felt the thick, plush mane, the warmth of another body, the slow rise and fall and comfortable sleep.\n\nAnd here he is still, right beside me. Strange sleeping without Zuli or Luka, but this feels… well, I think I could get used to this. He rubbed a little bit more, reaching beneath the sheets to find the hyena’s paw; a moment later Barchan stirred, stretched, sighed, and opened his eyes.\n\nAs soon as he saw Askia he smiled, and squeezed his paw. “Good morning,” he purred, and turned away to voice a wide yawn. Thick, sharp fangs glittered in pink gums. “How are you feeling?”\n\nAskia rubbed at the side of his head. “Like I tumbled down that rock we were on last night…”\n\n“You almost did. Good thing you tied me nice and tight and I was there to keep you from falling.”\n\nThe world slowed. He stared at him. “Did I-”\n\nBut Barchan laughed, a sharp, rich sound. The sheets slid down across his chest; Askia felt the sudden desire to lean over and run his muzzle down that smooth, flat chest. “A joke. You did not. I hear wild dogs have smaller knots than other species; I think I could still manage, though.”\n\n“Who told you that? Who are you talking to that-”\n\n“Ah! Askia! Stop, that’s – I’m ticklish, and-”\n\nThen those fangs sank into his shoulder, thankfully the one opposite the bite, and a sweet, fiery shiver shot down the wild dog’s back. He rumbled atop his husband, squirmed, and then let his weight slosh out around him, until Barchan tapped at his sides and back to get him to roll back off, both giggling softly. Askia lounged back on the bed, the pleasant heat of midmorning washing across his naked body.\n\nHe sighed. “We are to head home today.”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“Well. To my home, I suppose.”\n\nBarchan rolled onto his side and reached an arm across the wild dog’s body. His broad nose pressed into his shoulder. “It will be my home, too.”\n\n“For the time being. I must speak with Luka for arranging the documents and whatever else, who…” He craned his head up. “…I must ensure is returning with us, instead of serving his new role as – what – chew toy for your Queen?”\n\n“She spits on him, I think.” Sharp claws teased through his fur. “I saw her do it into his mouth once. I think he asked for it.”\n\n“She doesn’t-”\n\n“-and the times he didn’t speak with the matriarchs was because his jaw was too sore from ‘servicing’ her, and-”\n\n“Barchan, that is your mother-”\n\nGiggling, the hyena nuzzled a little deeper. “Wait until you hear what that zebra of yours has been getting up to.”\n\nHe lifted his head again. “Is this another joke?”\n\nBarchan paused, held his gaze – then laughed out loud, and came in for a kiss. Askia met him and held him there, then dragged it out into a second, and a third, and a fourth, and then the hyena was wriggling and squirming underneath him again, and then gasping, shivering, moaning.\n\nPerhaps there really is a future here. I like his presence, his personality… his ideas, and his policies, and his ambitions. Strong paws slid up his sides, dug into his fur, pulled him close. And once everyone else rises, we shall depart for home. Our home, as he says, and… our new beginning shall start from there.\n\nOne of those paws came up to his muzzle, spread across his jaw, and teased him closer. Askia smiled, rested his own over it, turned his head, and leaned in for another kiss.\n\nAnd then all that’s left to us is the future."
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  "writing": "The wild dog gritted his teeth, swallowed, wrenched his eyes shut, and slid himself back down, the familiar sleek, fulfilling pressure once again sinking up into him. His tail hiked up at the base, his back arched to where he could feel the pulsing shaft buried inside of him, an irresistible shiver thrummed through his body; he tilted his head back, sighed out, and shifted his paws along the firm, muscular chest underneath him, running his fingerpads across sleek equine pelt, feeling the zebra’s breath, his heartbeat, his closeness.\n\n“I just… can’t believe…” And the wild dog leaned forward, lifted up… felt the zebra’s semi-soft medial ring slurp free from his stretched tailhole, then just as smoothly press back in when he pushed down onto him again. His words hiccupped around a breathy moan. “…that this is how it had to go. Zuli…”\n\nThe zebra’s eyes fluttered partially open. Huge, strong hands wandered up the wild dog’s waist, caressing his belly, circling around towards his lifted tail… then tightening there and pressing him back down, the equine lifting up into him. Zuli arched his back a little bit with the sensation of supple wet warmth squishing around his buried shaft, then relaxed back again.\n\n“It is…” He paused to catch his breath. “It is right.”\n\n“It’s a relic of times past, is what it is. I… hah…” The wild dog straightened up and leaned back, his legs tightening around Zuli’s waist for leverage, his paws reaching back behind him to now brace against the bed that was made theirs for their visit to these foreign lands. “’Foreign’,” he had scoffed, after making the arrangements with the others in his kingdom; “I could climb the nearest mesa and throw a rock, and I would be able to reach them.” He wet his lips again, took a breath, lifted up… sank back down again, felt as well as saw the zebra’s girth press out along his belly from inside. “Understand… the need to settle disputes, but… we could have done that through actual conversation, and… meeting over a mutual point of discussion, and… all the things Father would never think to try – do they not understand that I am not him? That they – ah…”\n\n“Mm.” Underneath him Zuli lifted his hips, thrust deep into the wild dog, and drew down again, his hands now coming down to spread his rump, tailhole already stretched around his length. Gentle fingers teased in at the opened rim, then came up to grip the base of his tail and yank him up. “It is an established practice.”\n\n“So is talking through our problems. That was the issue with Father’s reign. Everyone knows it, but nobody… nobody was… will…” The wild dog trailed off, head rolling on his shoulders, jaw dropping open as he rode. He lifted himself up towards Zuli’s blunted head, held there where he could feel the rim tugging at the inner ring of his tailhole, then sank back down again, the mix of saliva and natural wetness slurping around the zebra’s impressive length. Each time he sank down onto him his own arousal leapt against his belly, the ink-blot fur there dusted with cinnamon, ocher, charcoal, and now foggy, milky cream as well, thick strands of pre matting down his fur and thighs. “Nobody was… willing to bring it up with him, for fear of his rage. But I am different. I am King Askia.”\n\n“And a good king you are…”\n\nAskia opened his mouth to speak back to the zebra, but then just as soon felt the breath pressed out of him. Those large, strong hands lifted across his body, one hooking beneath his raised arm, the other squeezing in along his waist – and he was pushed back, angled down so that his back settled against the mattress and his legs hoisted up around Zuli’s lap as the zebra pushed him over and slid into place beneath him, between his spread legs, all the while he remained hilted past the ring. His broad snout came in close to nuzzle against the side of the wild dog’s face, leathery skin of his nose drawing in his scent, holding it, then puffing it back out – and Zuli gave another slow thrust, and another, and another, each one at this angle forcing Askia to gasp and tighten and squirm with the pressure welling up inside of him.\n\n“…and a proper king, too, now that you are married.” That hand reached over towards Askia’s, fingers entwining with his own… running across the sleek metal band, the fit of which the wild dog was still becoming accustomed after the ceremony earlier in the day. “Would that I could be your husband, my love.”\n\nAskia scoffed – then grunted and moaned again, trying his best to squeeze around the thick equine shaft now pumping steadily within his tailhole. He rocked with the motion, legs squeezing around Zuli’s waist, lifting himself up, sinking back down… lifting up again, grinding him inside of him.\n\n“It is only in title. You… serve all of its tasks, and roles, and needs, and…” With effort he managed to open his eyes again, mismatched brown and blue glittering at the zebra poised above him. “Were I to never see him again, I would still live happy, alongside you.”\n\nZuli offered a rare smile, lips pulling slightly up at the edges. He looked back and forth between his King’s eyes. “And how happy I am to serve in such a way…” And he leaned in, tilted his head, brushed his lips to Askia’s, held there…\n\n…and the King’s large ears twitched with soft, gentle paws reaching to caress them from underneath, velvety webbings in between the fingers tickling at his cheeks. Once again he opened his eyes, still locked in the kiss with the zebra, and looked up into the sweetly smiling muzzle of the otter leaning over him.\n\n“And now you are a true king,” Luka purred, the body servant-turned-advisor running his thumbs across the canine’s cheeks. “A marriage like this for you has been overdue since your father’s passing. Outdated as the practice is, it is still respected: this will help to unify those under you who have been… less than accepting of your more progressive ideals, and-”\n\nAskia swallowed amid the kiss, then pulled free from it. Still leaning over him, Zuli drew back, sank forward, and resumed his initial rhythm, the mattress shifting with the momentum of his moment; Askia had to take a moment to gather his thoughts beneath the battering waves of pleasure.\n\n“Luka,” he said when he could. He reached a shaky arm up towards the otter; Luka tilted his head, ran his fingers over Askia’s, and leaned into the touch. “This is not the place for politics.”\n\n“Sorry.” The otter shifted to lean in a little bit closer. Askia’s whisker tickled with his warm breath. “But to be fair, you did bring it up, my lord.”\n\n“Shut your mouth or I’ll give you something to shut it.”\n\n“Hmm…” And still he leaned closer… “I think I’ll take the alternative…”\n\nAnd with the taste of Zuli’s lips still on his own, Askia lifted his head to do the same for his trusted advisor, Luka’s kiss softer but no less sweet, no less intense. He tilted his head one way, webbed paw coming up across the wild dog’s cheek and chin – and then the short, thick tongue pressed its way in as well, dancing across sharp fangs, finding Askia’s own, drawing it out, sucking him into his mouth.\n\nStill the zebra pumped away at him, hands gripping his thighs, fingers digging into soft flesh and firm muscle; Askia pulled in urgent breaths out of the corners of his mouth, moaned out into Luka’s, wrenched his eyes shut, tightened, tightened further. His paw clenched around a handful of bedsheet; his back arched, he strained, and tugged himself down into the equine’s lap; Luka purred softly against his mouth, his warmth and appreciation for his king’s pleasure trickling through their kiss; and then that smoldering flame blazed outwards, and Askia jerked, and bucked, and bucked again – and yanked himself up along Zuli’s length only to slam back down, again, and again, each time lifting his belly out from inside as he jetted his peak out across his already splotchy fur.\n\nUnable to resist, the wild dog pulled himself out of the kiss and groaned out into the otherwise still bedchambers, his legs trembling, his entire lower body thrumming with the force of his orgasm. His stretched tailhole slopped wetly around Zuli’s half-buried length as the zebra, too, throbbed inside of him to coax him through the remaining waves of his peak… and then slowly, gently, slurped himself free, the rim of his blunted head pulling out at the inside of the king’s ring of muscle. Askia gasped as he came free, then reflexively tried to clench back – with muscles that faltered to respond.\n\nLuka rumbled again, the noise halfway between a purr and a giggle, and pushed his paws down through Askia’s chest fur. The wild dog reached up to caress his webbed paw, then let his head roll to the side so he could catch his breath; Luka, meanwhile, made his way down his body, leaning to the side to sprawl out alongside him. Eyes partially closed, Askia felt the damp, hefty weight of Zuli’s still-hard cock nudging against his side, soon followed by both of the otter’s paws sliding behind it to lift it up and to the side. \n\nStill panting, Askia rested an arm over his muzzle, squirmed a little bit, half-lifted a leg, let it drop back down. He licked his lips, swallowed – he could taste Zuli and Luka both – and then took in another slow, steady breath. “I… suppose you’re right…”\n\nThe sound of wet lips smacking across slick skin twitched at his ears, with the otter’s voice to follow: “Mm?”\n\n“About this arranged marriage being… best for our societies. If it’s what the people expect, then it is my duty to give it to them.” With great effort he hoisted himself up onto his elbows, then rubbed at his eyes to clear the indulgent bleariness from them – and then blinked again: Zuli still knelt on the bed between his legs, though now Luka had come forward to run his muzzle along the sex-streaked length of his shaft, eager tongue working to lap up the remnant slickness, one webbed paw massaging hefty equine balls in between his fingers. \n\nThe otter swallowed, did so again, nosed down into dense, dank sheath wrinkles, held himself there for a moment with a deep, slow inhale… and then sighed back out, sharp blue eyes flicking over to his king. “You are a true king now,” he went on, voice muffled somewhat by the sheer heft of equine equipment hanging against his muzzle. He pursed his lips, drew some of the leathery-velvet skin of Zuli’s sack into his mouth, suckled briefly, then let it slip free again. “At least, in the eyes of those aforementioned subjects. The hyenas may be strange in their ways, but…” His eyes drifted shut again, and now that slick, matted paw trailed up to the other side of Zuli’s sheath. The zebra huffed softly, turned his body, and grinded in against Luka’s muzzle; the other male purred deep in his throat, shifted a little bit, and took in another breath. “…they are… ah. Both our kingdom and their civilization will be much stronger for the unification of their ways with our own. Once their queen… passes her title to the prince, your husband…” Both paws squished in along those supple folds of skin, bunched them forward, then stretched back again. He slid his tongue across the dank, revealed flesh in between. “…shall rule alongside you, with both of you overseeing both lands…”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment, then similarly came forward to sprawl out near the base of Zuli’s still-hard shaft. From here he could smell the rich, familiar equine musk that had become so close to him over time, earthy and grassy with a touch of acrid, sweaty tang, invigorating, inspiring. He knew precisely why Luka pressed his muzzle so firmly into the velvet-soft flesh, and breathed in through his nose, and sighed out through his mouth with his tongue cupped underneath…\n\n“Be that as it may…” the king went on. He reached forward to idly tease Zuli’s sack in a paw, the thick, dank heat quickly trickling across his palm. “I still don’t like it.”\n\n“You don’t… have to like it.” Luka drew back again, then swallowed. He looked up at Zuli, who returned the glance and chuffed. “You are King. The day you begin enjoying your rule, is the day it becomes your responsibility to pass it to another.” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAskia trudged up the shallow incline towards the overlook, the unfamiliar grit of sand and gravel crunching beneath his footpaws. This region stood so close to his homeland, yet still felt so far away: he could turn around in a full circle and feel as though he were in a dream against the strange sense of displacement, where he felt like he knew where he was, yet could not identify any of the landscape. Vast, rolling grassland savanna turned instead to low, arid brushland pocked about with rich yellow and red flat-topped plateaus and mesas, pebbles dropped by some careless giant.\n\nAnd then the smells, too… where his own kingdom comprised mainly of wild dogs like himself, a loose family clan amalgamated by his father’s efforts and those of his father’s father, and his father and so on, to then join in with steppe and prairie wolves, the lions, the zebras and antelope and other such species; strength in numbers, his late father would say, and victory in strength. Naturally Askia had grown up knowing of the dangers of the hyena tribes just past the river border, hearing the stories from bereaved mothers of the things they would do to lost pups, and horrors from the scouts his father sent to watch the ever-expanding borders; he himself had heard their characteristic laughter while out late one night retrieving acacia bark for ritual purposes, and it taken him the better part of an hour to still his panic and build the courage back up to cross the river again.\n\nAnd now, he thought, reaching out to hoist himself up by another branch, seeing the glimmer of the creamy early-evening sunlight across the sleek metallic band now adorning one finger, I’m married to one. The wild dog swallowed, took in a breath of cool, sweet desert air, and hefted himself upwards towards the flat of the mesa overlook.\n\nThe tense arrival at the hyenas’ homeland the other day, the brisk discussion with their Queen – A matriarchal society! Father would have ended relations right then and there – who very obviously did not like “the wild dog prince from over the river,” as she called him… Askia had understood and had been completely willing to end the arrangement right then and there, if not for Luka’s constant, insistent urging that this was the correct path to take. At least it seemed that the Queen liked the sleek otter, but then again, everyone seemed to like him. Softspoken yet deliberate, confident in his choice of words, the largest part of his two and a half decades of age spent as the right-hand body servant for a gluttonous lecher of a king across the western sea, the proximity of which gave him vast insight and understanding of the game of politics.\n\n“As good with his tongue as he is his fingers,” Askia remembered Zuli grumbling once, one of the rare occasions where the zebra had more than five words to say. And then the way he had smiled, just a little quirk at the corner of his mouth while he stood beside his king’s throne, bodyguard’s assigned polearm clutched in one hand. Askia had thought about changing the guard uniform from the shoulder sash and loincloth to something a bit more protective, but the maneuverability and airy coolness afforded by the current outfit could not be overstated, and besides, he quite enjoyed being able to glance over to where the zebra stood, and tilt his head a little bit, and see the way the thick, hardy fabric rested over even thicker folds of skin and flesh, and…\n\n…and thin, light gossamer veil dancing across naturally coarse fur brushed and combed to velvet softness, warm lilac draped down and around a trimmed mane of threaded cinnamon; slender arms corded with sleek, tight muscle angled along the flowing lines of his back, paws braced on the surface of the smooth stone, fingers spread, claws manicured. One of his tall, triangular ears perked and flicked with the sound of clattering gravel; he tilted his head down from where he watched the beginning of the sunset and looked back over his shoulder, the color of his eyes masked beneath the thin fabric of the veil hanging down about his short muzzle pinned in place by wrought jewelry the same glimmering metal as the rings they each now wore. \n\nThe hyena prince straightened upon seeing his new husband ascend the incline, and sat forward to fold his paws in his lap. Feathery ribbons of the insubstantial outfit he wore shifted and swept around him like curls of mist, drawing apart to show the shadowy stripes coursing up and down his arms, along his back between the rise of the mane which spread across him like a thick cloak, scuffed with foggy stripes of charcoal indistinct through the fabric. He pursed his lips, tilted his head again, and looked Askia over, the hyena’s eyes halfway lidded beneath their veil; short whiskers twitched forward, then splayed out, then shifted back again, and in a smooth, silent movement he rolled himself to the side and stood up from where he reclined.\n\nAskia saw now that the wisps of the hyena’s garb were little more than just that: the veil draped over his muzzle, one pinned at each shoulder along the forearm with shimmering bangles, another pair crossing over his chest and more at the waist, one more hanging loose at one hip, and then nothing else save for the metal glittering against his fur the color of rich, warm soil. He reached up, ran a pair of those trimmed claws beneath the hem of his face veil, and lifted it just high enough for eyes the color of thick honey to peer across the space at the wild dog – at his husband, the king of the neighboring land, against whom his own people had waged something just short of war for the past several generations.\n\nAnd he blinked, long lashes stirring the fabric of his veil. The hyena floated closer, footsteps silent among the early evening. Askia smelled him first and then felt the air’s slow twirl from his approach, his scent warm, dry, a bit spiced, with the characteristic acrid tang of something close to gentle sweat… and then a distinctive, fiery flair hovering about the jagged edge. He opened his mouth, paused; tilted his head, flicked his tongue out across black-fleshed lips, looked Askia over again, and then let a ghost of a smile touch his muzzle.\n\n“You are…”\n\nDespite himself, Askia felt his hackles shiver and threaten to rise up, not out of fear or panic, but rather… rather from something similar to the sensation of someone running their claws across the small of his back, or exhaling across his ear, or combing their fingers through his tail. The hyena took another step closer, and then another, and another – and gentle paws brushed across the wild dog’s waist, and he felt himself tugged forward, and the firm, sweet warmth of the prince’s bared sheath nudged up against his front.\n\n“Beautiful, now that I see you with my own eyes,” the hyena continued, his voice cool, sharp, spiced like his scent. He leaned in closer, jewelry jangling, and touched his broad nose to Askia’s neck. The wild dog couldn’t help but shiver as he breathed in, fingers tightening at his waist, teasing in at the waistband of his own trousers. “And yet again are the flaws in perspective shown to me, clearly under the light of tonight’s moon. My mother the Queen would have me believe you were a… foul, twisted, mangled creature-”\n\nAskia grunted. Good thing Zuli isn’t here to hear this, or there wouldn’t be a Queen tomorrow.\n\n“-and a poor excuse for a spouse, who lets their advisor say everything for them… but, traditions must change, else they fall into the past and crumble beneath the weight of their own expectations.” One of those paws found Askia’s, danced across to his wrist, and then pulled forward, guiding him around the hyena’s shapely waist. He felt the lines of those muscles layered beneath fur, the thick puff of his mane… the ring of metal bound around the base of his tail, along which further wisps of his outfit had been tied. \n\nThe hyena prince smiled again, rocking his hips slowly forward against Askia’s, washing the wild dog in his rich, intoxicating scent. Askia instead focused on his eyes, on the way they sparkled and glittered in the light of the rising moon, how the dark sockets only further brought out the glimmering yellow-gold.\n\nKing Askia tilted his head. “You seem different from the ceremony this morning.” There, he had not known what to expect: it was the same hyena, the same mane, the same colors, the same markings, but the prince had both moved and spoken swiftly and stiffly, as though he had other places he would rather be. No celebration, no recognition: just an exchange of rings, a few words said in their native tongue, and Askia was sent back to his visiting quarters to prepare for the night.\n\nThe prince turned his head back, looking down at his husband along his muzzle. “I am different,” he said, pronouncing each word deliberately. “That was the Barchan who shall rule our people together. This, now…” Again his paws slid up Askia’s sides, drawing sleek, sweet shivers out of him. “This is the Barchan who shall be – who is – yours at home.”\n\nAskia kept his large ears from flicking back. He tried to untwine his paws from around the other male’s body. “Really.”\n\n“Yes.” The syllable hissed between deadly sharp fangs, Barchan leaning in again, drawing another breath… sighing it out across the wild dog’s neck. “As per tradition, tonight is to be our first union, here beneath the light of the moon, and overlooking the canyon I call home. Tomorrow night shall be our second; and the night after our third, and then our marriage will be complete.”\n\n“No. We shall not, for it is already complete.” This time he drew back with a little more force, and managed to step away from the hyena’s grasp. Barchan wobbled where he stood, ears upright, paws halfway up; he frowned, tilted his head, then shuffled back in towards himself. Askia avoided eyeing how fresh, rich pink had begun to protrude from the lip of his sheath. “I married you for necessity, for the safety of my people. Were there any other way to end these pointless, ceaseless wars, then I would have done so. But your so-called tradition demands that we form this union instead. And it is finished; so let us be done with it, for the good of my people, and the good of yours.”\n\nBarchan stood there a moment longer, warm gaze once more dancing across Askia’s figure. Then he shifted, squared his shoulders, reached up… tossed the veil back from over his eyes. They glittered with a light of their own.\n\n“Ours.”\n\nAskia frowned. “What?”\n\n“Our people. Yours and mine.” And he smiled again, softer this time. “A marriage like ours, prince to King, is unprecedented among my people. Again, tradition must change and adapt. And if you would keep our relationship purely political… then I will concede.” He turned his back, brushy tail swishing, and moved to sit back along the flat stone where Askia had first found him. He waited there, looked up at the sky, leaned back, then looked over his shoulder and patted the spot beside him. “Tonight we shall talk. If you would prefer… husband.” \n\nFor a moment the wild dog was caught off-guard. He stepped forward, footpaws rustling among the dry, low brush of the mesa. “I was expecting… more resistance. It was really that easy?”\n\nBarchan looked over at him again as he approached. The moonlight glistened off his thick fur and the fabric of his veils, catching in the rings of metal, dancing across him, trickling down and around the contours of his body like honey. When he smiled, the night felt just a little bit warmer.\n\n“When two rivers meet without mixing…” The hyena looked back down over the edge of the mesa. Far beneath, the glittering lights of his mother’s city sparkled among the crevices of the canyon ravine and spilled out into the grassy flatlands surrounding it. “They are still two rivers. Not one. My mother may be strict and set in her ways, but if my people are to flourish, we must be able to grow and adapt as the world needs. So my river shall mix with yours; and my ways, with yours.”\n\nThe stone was warm as Askia slid back onto it. Barchan scooted to the side a bit, close enough for the wild dog to feel his presence, far enough away that he did not actually touch him. The two looked out over the city below, the rolling savanna grasslands beyond, and the moon gradually rising over the horizon.\n\nAnd there they just talked. Askia began by telling about where he came from, the savanna on the far side of the river, and how it was so similar yet so different from over here: the dirt was a different color, cinnamon-red here, compared to ocher-yellow back home. Barchan smiled again and told him about how the difference could be tasted on the wind as well, a subtle, lilting thing; two fruits from the same tree can never taste completely identical. Then from there to each of their upbringings as a prince, beneath a lone monarch of a parent who thought they knew best for their kingdom and their people, and maybe they did, for a time. As it would turn out, the Queen would never have married her son to another male, and actually had not been informed of it until the night of the marriage; Barchan explained that her council, into which he had poured years of effort to garner a foothold, knew that such a move was necessary for the survival of the hyena clans.\n\n“Things are different now,” Askia said, eyeballing the way the moon had risen about a hand’s breadth and a half further from when he had first sat down; “things are different now,” Barchan had agreed, and the two had turned to look at each other.\n\nThe wild dog swallowed. “You said that… it was tradition, part of sealing our marriage in your culture, for you and I to… lay together. What happens since we – didn’t?”\n\n“Hmm?” One rounded ear flicked. Barchan tilted his head; his veil drifted across one eye, where he reached up to again brush it aside. “Nothing. Everyone will have seen us come up here together; they will have seen us remain here for… oh, the better part of an hour; they will see us return, one at a time. For all they know, we will have. And so things continue as usual. That is part of authority, is it not?” Here he tilted his muzzle down, looking up at the wild dog over the bridge of his snout. “It is not lying, if it is only an assumption made but never voiced. We shall… take it as it comes.”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment. He straightened up, folded his paws in his lap… was kept sharply aware of Barchan’s little paintbrush tail tickling against his own. He shifted, halfway hoping he would lean against him a little more fully. “And that’s okay?”\n\n“Askia. Husband.” The hyena smiled again, even though now he, too, looked up at the sky. He crossed one leg over the other, gossamer fabric sweeping aside; his pert sheath, plump sack, shifted along the lower leg, then slid slowly along in the warmth of the evening. “We have nothing to consummate, no child to conceive. If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office, with no intimacy or physical contact, then… I am willing to accept that.” Arms reaching behind to keep himself propped up, he let his head roll across his shoulder to look at Askia. “I have to be, for the sake of my people and yours. And, besides… it seems to me as though you already have someone who fills that role for you.”\n\n~ ~ ~\n\n“If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office…”\n\nAskia reached up to rub at his eyes, gritty with the weight of exhaustion, sleep evading him nonetheless. The thick, dank, familiar heat of zebra sagged down in the mattress beside him, Zuli’s slow, steady breaths the only noise in the room other than the faint songs of the night insects coming in through the windows – and yet the wild dog still heard Barchan’s voice, over and over.\n\nI don’t know him, he told himself, and I don’t have to know him. We did this for our people, not for each other. But, then… I still want to do right by him.\n\nHe rolled over, pressed his muzzle along smooth, warm velvet striped pelt, rested an arm around the equine’s body, tugged himself closer… drew in a lungful of his rich, intoxicating aroma, still invigorating after all of these years together, and all of the nights spent side by side. And he thought of Barchan’s scent as well, soft yet still sharp, like freshly roasted spices caught from across a room.\n\nHe is sincere. Honest with himself, and with me. At least… I’d like to think he is. But where is this going to lead?\n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAs each day passed, so too did King Askia’s thoughts and feelings muddle together even more tightly. He and his entourage were to be the hyenas’ guests until the next turn of the moon, at which point he would take his new husband home and there begin the long process of uniting their two lands – but, in contrast, each day that passed somehow made this future seem that much further away.\n\nBit by bit the wild dog learned more about their culture and their ways. Matriarchal indeed, with the women being in charge of hunting, and gathering, and every pillar of society and community, while the men took cares of things at home: about the grand halls of what stood for their “palace”, by Askia’s best estimation, it was only male servants standing at the corners, eyes downcast, each one garbed in the same light, flowing veils that made no effort to hide the rhythm of their spots or stripes, and the heft and hang of sheath and sack both.\n\nStill Askia did not see the Queen. As far as he could tell, this pleased both of them: his restricted conversations with Barchan over meals and in between meetings, for the hyena stood as the head of his mother’s advisory council, showed that his husband had ensured this would be the case. “In rule,” he explained one evening, “there are risks that are necessary, and those that are not. An important skill is discerning the difference, and you two meeting is unnecessary.”\n\nBut still he heard from her, though, and saw her from a distance at the meals, shared out beneath the open sky around a roaring bonfire instead of under the shelter of constructed shade. Meat hard roasted and lightly seasoned, grease and bone and gristle – with the hyenas having more than enough jaw strength to crack right through, suck clean the marrow, and toss the remnants to the side for later repurposing. And she always had first pick, unafraid to toss her wispy, ceremonial clothing up along her shoulders and dig right in, striped pelt soon bearing the glistening stickiness of the meal, strings hanging between sharp fangs, lips smeared, eyes bright.\n\nSimply put, she terrified him. She would bark her commands to her underlings and servants, and held no qualm against physically punishing them for being slow on their feet: the longer Askia watched, the more he could pick out the ghosts of scars along muzzles, shoulders, backs, rumps, where sharp manicured claws had raked through layers of skin. On another night shared beneath the stars, heated prairie mead steaming in each of their mugs, he caught the glimmer of a similar scar along Barchan’s cheek, just beneath his left eye.\n\n“This?” the hyena said, and reached up to touch it. “Yes. It was my fault. And I do not mean that as a self-pitying admission of guilt; I mean it as the truth.”\n\n“But what happened?” Askia asked, once more shifting within his own outfit. He had been given one similar to Barchan’s, woven from smooth, mossy green instead of the hyena’s pale lavender – and it had been a new kind of hall striding through the city with the whole of him on display for everyone to see. On the way to and from dinner the wild dog had had to step aside into an alley to wait for a certain side-effect of such a view to dwindle back down, and then he would step out – and feel all of those eyes on him, and have to turn away again.\n\n“It is the past; what happened has happened, and there is nothing to be done about it now.” And Barchan had reached out to brush his fingers across Askia’s, resting there on the flat stone between them, but then stopped. When he turned his head, the moonlight shimmered off the tiny scar and disappeared. “Mother does not treat me like the others. Do not worry about that. I am the Queen’s firstborn, her pride, her joy… although her words often bite deeper than her claws.”\n\nIt was a wonder to him that Luka could bear being around her at all, but the otter still hustled back and forth between the King’s quarters and the Queen’s bearing news, discussions, everything that resulted from an arranged marriage between two previously warring kingdoms. Askia also did not fail to notice that each visit took him a little bit longer, and when he came back he seemed a little more breathless, a little more exhausted… a little more roughed up. First he was missing a patch of fur between his shoulder and his neck, and Askia began to worry; then he returned bearing four perfect valleys along one thigh from where sharp claws had dug through his fur, and Askia felt his rage begin to boil; and then one evening the otter came back in the middle of the night, visibly trembling, head quirked to one side. He had practically melted into Askia’s arms when the wild dog received him, chest heaving with exhaustion, breath catching in his throat-\n\n-and then his own veils swathed down and away from his neck, and Askia saw the clear, clean bite marks there, still wet with hungry drool, and his nose tingled with the rich, intense scent of female hyena. Luka squirmed a bit, dragged his paws up his King’s side, slumped into him again – and those bites continued on around his shoulder, down his back, towards the base of his thick rudder-tail, then underneath.\n\n“Hell of a woman,” was all the advisor could say, dreamy smile on his face, and then buried his muzzle in Askia’s neck again. Bemused, he carried him over to his bed, lay him down there, and then returned to his own alongside Zuli.\n\nAnd so things continued: Luka had the Queen herself; Zuli had the full range of huntresses and warriors from each of the individual hyena clans – and how it terrified Askia to see the zebra standing among a literal pack of hyenas as he learned their fighting ways, laughing and shouting louder than he had ever heard back home, within days putting on exhibitions by the light of the bonfire – and then Askia had… some clothing that fit a little too loosely for his tastes, a personal vendetta from the Queen against him, and then a husband he had just met, with whom he shared only a handful of sentences a day, and whom he barely knew. Askia spoke more with the other hyenas of the tribe, who had begun to come to him to get to know their future King a little better, and learn of his ideals, his stances, his plans.\n\nBut still, Askia was learning Barchan, too, a little bit more day by day. The hyena had of course made it routine to eat his meals alongside him, and it was there the two had most of their discussions, voices low and close. He learned of the hyena’s father, and his younger brother who stood as a body-servant in the barracks; he learned how he, too, had been taught to fight, with twin shortblades rather than the huntresses’ spears; he learned of how the hyenas’ society stood split into clans between spotted, striped (“and aardwolves,” he mentioned with a little wave of the paw), and then his own smaller royal family line, brown hyenas: “the spots,” motioning to his lower legs, “the stripes,” along his shoulders, “and the mane,” turning his back and arching it, to show where the coarse-brushed-smooth fur bunched out from the center line of his spine.\n\nHis mane flowed beneath gossamer lavender fabric like the twisting of a sand dune beneath early evening sky…\n\nThe moon made its way across its cycle, shining bright, turning away… reforming anew, each night casting a little more light down across the savanna. On one of the nights Askia had Luka to himself, he enlisted the otter in helping him undress, as little work as that would take: Luka’s sleek, deft paws easily slid across the bangles binding wisps of cloth to his shoulders, around his neck, across his chest, along his waist, and Askia closed his eyes, and sighed…\n\n“Something on your mind, my lord?”\n\n…and then opened them again, and knew what had caught Luka’s attention without needing to look. The wild dog squirmed where he stood, took in a breath, sighed again… throbbed gently, worked up from wandering thoughts and wandering paws. And now Luka had noticed, which just like when he had first started wearing this silly harem garb out on the city, served only to work him up further, and – and he gasped as webbed fingers reached down and wrapped about the lip of his sheath, squeezing supple skin forward, pressing back.\n\nThe King tilted his head back, eyes closed, mouth open. His hips rocked slowly, forward into the otter’s grasp, then back again… then forward, then back. He wet his lips. “Luka…”\n\n“My lord.”\n\n“Would you… perhaps be willing…” As Askia spoke, Luka finished undressing him and then stepped around to his backside, other arm making its way first up over the short, plush fur of the wild dog’s chest, then down again towards his belly, around his growing shaft, down to massage his sack. “To…”\n\n“Mm?”\n\nAskia caught himself. He looked back over his shoulder at the otter, still wearing his assigned outfit, still bearing the physical signs of his time spent “advising” the Queen on “international relations”, then reached back with a paw to caress his short, round muzzle.\n\n“Zuli is still out sparring…”\n\n“He’s been having quite a time with them. They love him. This is good, you know: we each have something to teach the other in combat, warfare, and hunting. Their pack tactics are – remarkable, and-”\n\n“Luka.”\n\n“Sorry. Please continue.”\n\nAskia smirked, other paw now covering Luka’s, keeping him down at the base of his sheath. A gentle squeeze held the supple skin in place as he slowly thrust, length pressing out a little further, dripping natural slickness across folded fingers and silken webbings. “Zuli is out sparring,” he continued. “It’s just you and I. Would you be willing… to… pretend… to be a hyena with me, tonight?”\n\n“Ooh…” Small, needle-sharp fangs nipped in at the wild dog’s neck, sending sparkling shivers vibrating through his shoulder. “They are rough, and quite dominant, and… very bitey, and, wow, do they have powerful jaws. And you’re sure you want me to-?”\n\nHe was – and so he did. Luka played the part well, likely due to recent personal experience: the way he bent Askia over the bed, how he traced down the wild dog’s back with little kisses interspersed with bites, how he dug his paws up along plush rump to spread him… the way he dove in, licked, lapped, slurped, sucked, then came back up to grind against him… how he leveraged his thrusts to press his king down against the bed, all the while maintaining a low, hungry growl in his throat. The arms around Askia’s body, the surprisingly strong grip of a paw along his upper arm, the fangs digging into the skin of his neck, sucking, pulling back the closer he came so that Askia could feel the tension in the tug, and-\n\n-the scent, the spice of hyena washed down across him, coating his nose, catching in his fur. He could feel the warmth of his body, like the shimmering heat dancing across the open fields beneath the blazing sun; the tense, bestial growls from an unfamiliar throat, the little huffs through flared nostrils against his ear, even the shape of the fangs, so thick, so large, so different. The way he moved his body felt different, too, as though he held a certain kind of control over his sleek yet strong musculature: where Zuli was all built mass and Luka slim and streamlined, he struck a middle balance between the two, slight of frame with noticeable definition cording along his arms, his sides, his legs… his chest pressing against Askia’s shoulders, his belly grinding against his lower back. One of those arms wrapped around his body, firm and tight, and the paw of the other swiftly ran his length, and pumped him closer and closer, and Askia squeezed around him, and gasped, and lurched, and-\n\n-bucked once, then again, and again as his finish spurted out of him, pounded to this point by the forceful thrusts beneath his tail. The arm wrapped around his body slackened, and the breath in his ear sighed, and then a shorter, stockier muzzle than he had expected came forward to nuzzle against his cheek – and it was Luka’s voice that followed, at first taking him by surprise:\n\n“How was that, my lord?” \n\nThe scent and presence of hyena drifted away, lost beneath the flow of reality. Askia wriggled, the otter’s length still buried inside of him, and pressed back against him.\n\n“That was wonderful…” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nThe moon glimmered overhead, just a sliver short of full, a slightly lopsided disc hanging high above in blue velvet speckled with stars. Across the valley, pillars of smoke curled up like puffy bunches of river grass reaching out from the multiple bonfires built for the occasion, each one corresponding to the notable families of each clan. Askia felt proud to recognize most of these faces as he made his way through the grounds, stray tassels of his clothing dancing about his shoulders, his waist, his ankles.\n\nPerhaps it was the prairie mead vibrating through his veins; perhaps it was the constant heat of those fires, the wood treated with some kind of incense blend to paint the smoke in swirling curls of sweet, spicy aroma; perhaps it was the joyful faces around him, the lyrical native language, the invigorating rhythms of their music and odd timbre of their instruments; perhaps it was the simple fact that, once that nearly-full moon dropped below the horizon and gave way to the searing sun again, that the King and his entourage would be returning home, but – he felt good tonight.\n\nOne of the heads of a striped hyena household caught him by the upper shoulder, squeezing the bangle against his fur, and shouted his greetings in heavy accents. Askia couldn’t help but grin, reach up to clasp her on the shoulder in return – though his paw barely encompassed half the larger female’s musculature – and shout back at her, tail wagging, before he was tossed on his way to the next. Another mug of mead ended up in his paws, sticky fluid sloshing over his fingers, and then was just as quickly taken away – to be replaced by another with the wine his entourage had brought as a gift.\n\nThen he found himself caught by a spotted hyena matriarch, her playing one of the instruments thrumming in time with the rest of the celebration before she handed it off to another, crouched down to put herself at eye level with him, and then reached forward with a paw as large as his head. She pressed it against his chest, fingers sliding easily beneath the loose fabric, and held him there; confused, startled, a little bit drunk, Askia tottered where he stood, fully aware of his relative nudity, and the effect this good mood was having on him, and how she just stared at him with that short muzzle, those sharp eyes, the squarish, rounded ears. When she licked her lips he almost thought as though it was in preparation to devour a snack, and again he recalled the trail of bite marks curling over Luka’s shoulder and down his back, and then how just the previous night he had returned with another, matching series of marks down his chest and along his belly, down his inner thigh and then back up, and – the matriarch grinned with teeth far too large to be sensible, nodded once, and patted him on the shoulder. \n\n“Heard you speak,” she said, the consonants thick on those fangs. “Like your style. Prince Barchan is ambitious. Energetic… hopeful. You will balance him well. We shall miss your presence, and eagerly await your rule.” Then she leaned in closely enough, still towering over him even though she had crouched nearly halfway over, that her scent tickled at his nose. “And already you are an improvement over her. She is overambitious, belligerent, reckless. Driving us to ruin. And besides…”\n\nThat huge paw continued down his chest, over his belly – and easily flipped the poor excuse for a loincloth aside, one surprisingly gentle fingerpad squishing in along the side of his plumped sheath.\n\n“You are much cuter.”\n\nAnd with that she stood back to her full height, cast the smaller wild dog a wink, and reached for her instrument again. Askia hovered there a moment longer, swirling among the whirlpool of drink, scent, and arousal, and then wobbled off again.\n\nThat’s right, he recalled, the recognition foggy at one side of his head. This is… our going-away party. Barchan’s last night among his people…\n\nAnother hyena bumped up against him, this one with sleek, coffee-colored stripes twisting along a smooth field of cinnamon; without thinking Askia rubbed up against him, rumbled in his throat, reached around to run his fingers into the root of the other male’s mane. The striped hyena reflexively pressed back against him, his eyes obscured by his own veil but his revealed mouth showing a small twist of a smile. Broad tongue flicked out, and he leaned in, and touched his muzzle to Askia’s – and then firm, sleek warmth grinded up against his own sheath, strong paws gripping his waist, the other male pressing himself against him, rubbing to one side, drawing back, nudging forward again… a wandering paw reached down beneath both of their loincloths to squeeze their growing lengths together, and there was a small stroke, a quick pump, and a soft exhalation against his cheek, and then the hyena turned and danced away among the crowd, leaving the wild dog worked up, humping into the air beneath his tented clothing, wondering where this new cup of mead in his paw had come from.\n\nHe knew where to find Barchan, again thanks to Luka, and was well on his way to him – but time and time again either wandered or was pulled off-course, exploratory paws reaching out to touch their soon-to-be King, to feel his thick, paint-splotched pelt, to tug at his jewelry, to feel along his tail, his rump, his thigh, his chest… his sack, his sheath, his shaft. At one point another spotted hyena caught him by the shoulders and shoved her nose up into the crook of his neck, drawing deep of his strange, foreign scent; then he recalled another male slipping another pair of bangles up his shoulders to bounce and jangle against his own; and then his loincloth disappeared somewhere, and a slim, sleek aardwolf granted him his own, though its positioning was then shifted up and down his thighs again and again by new paws reaching out from the crowd. Sometimes they missed, on purpose or otherwise: a full palm grasped his rump, a pair of fingers slid up beneath his tail, another finger tugged down at the lip of his sheath, another paw nestled around his sack…\n\nAnd then Askia tumbled out and away, and within minutes realized that he had begun trudging his way back up the slope towards the mesa, where he had first caught sight of his new husband. He had seen the hyena earlier that day back then, during the poor excuse for a wedding ceremony, but hadn’t really looked at him until that night – and as he worked his way up the slope, gravel clattering beneath his footpaws, body feeling hot despite how he wore practically nothing, he remembered how the moonlight had sparkled off of Barchan’s jewelry, and his eyes, and the shimmering, ghostly swish of his own harem garb, and how it highlighted the patterns of his fur underneath, and… and there he lay now, lounged out across the same flat rock now with a woven blanket spread out underneath him. One broad ear twitched and flicked back at Askia’s approach; the hyena shifted how he lay and looked back over his shoulder, one of the wings of fabric drifting down across his arm. A faint smile tugged at his lips.\n\n“Hello,” Askia called, reaching to one side to steady himself against a tree that was not actually there, “husband.”\n\nBarchan sat up a little straighter. He pulled his knees in towards his body; from here the wild dog could see the plump, pert curve of his sack poking out between his thighs, resting across the blanket in the warmth of the evening. “Hello, beautiful,” he responded, in that smooth, sweet, slightly spiced voice of his, like the hot cocoa brewed with that rich orange powder. “You certainly look as though you’re having fun.”\n\n“Your people… are…” At least the stone was there: Askia caught himself against it, paused while waiting for the world to slow its spinning, and then with quite some effort pulled himself up alongside Barchan. The hyena leaned in against him, one arm going around his shoulder to pull him closer; Askia gladly rested his weight against him, indulging in the thick, syrupy warmth of his body, and that same intoxicating scent that stuck in his nose. “Welcoming,” he finally managed to finish, muzzle swaying towards Barchan’s. The hyena leaned back a little bit. “I have had… so many paws on me… tonight…”\n\n“You are well known by now,” the other male rumbled. He reached over for Askia’s paw, slid his fingers over the wild dog’s, and managed to entwine a few of them. “And not only that, you are enjoyed. The way you have spoken with our matriarchs, and the words your advisor has spread about you, has put you in very good graces with our council-”\n\n“Luka? Talking?” Askia leaned a bit more of his weight against Barchan. The hyena turned to let him lean in against his chest, warm, soft, plush. He settled in a little bit. “And here I thought all he was doing was – fucking your mother…”\n\nSilence for a moment, and then the hyena jerked with a quick bark of a laugh. His surprisingly strong arms wrapped in around Askia’s chest, paws slipping beneath the dancing folds of his minimal clothing, pressing into his pelt beneath. “Well,” he drawled, “yes, there is plenty of that, too. I almost fear she will demand you leave him behind, in exchange for my hand in marriage-”\n\n“She can’t – can she?”\n\n“No. Husband, the marriage is already done.” The hyena chuckled, the little puffs of breath tickling sweetly across Askia’s shoulder. He shivered and pressed back against him; still those paws continued up and down his body, one lifting towards his collar, the other sliding down his belly. By this point the wild dog had long since lost all embarrassment at being so on display at all times, and in fact, welcomed the extra attention – and found himself hoping that Barchan would be able to see the effect that his slow, intimate touches had on him. “But she might still ask, though.”\n\n“Mm…”\n\nFrom here the two could still see the trails of smoke from the bonfires, and distantly hear the music and celebration. “This is a new age for their people – for our people,” Luka had explained during the preparation earlier in the night; he and the King had helped each other with their loose, wispy outfits, and had shared more than a few touches and kisses in doing so. “From what I have heard, and what I have seen? Nobody is satisfied with the Queen. That is why the Council was established. It shall still remain once this land becomes yours, alongside Barchan – but I foresee a much smoother reign.” And then the otter had turned to look over himself in the mirror, turning first this way and then that, letting the fabric swish across his thick rudder-tail. “And I shall certainly not mind spending more time here…”\n\nBehind him Barchan shifted. Askia jerked, stirred back to full wakefulness; he thought that perhaps he had dozed off for a moment.\n\n“I am… truthfully, looking forward to leaving this place, and seeing your home…”\n\n“Our home.” The warmth simmering throughout his veins and filling his head with steam reverberated back down through the wild dog’s chest. He sat up, leaned forward a little bit too quickly, then turned partially sideways so he could see his husband’s eyes, obscured behind his lavender veil. “We will… have to build a palace. With the river… running right through the grand hall…”\n\nBarchan scoffed. “A palace? Askia, my people live in caves and tents, and-”\n\n“That could change.”\n\n“But do they want it to? This is to be a union of both of our ways, and both of our people. You and I will not live to see the end result, nor shall…” He caught himself. “I was about to say our children.”\n\n“Well…” King Askia brought a paw up alongside Barchan’s short, stout muzzle, fingers teasing beneath his veil. “Zuli and I haven’t managed it yet. Neither have Luka and I. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of trying.”\n\nAgain he laughed, though this time it was lower, softer, sweeter, bouncing along like the rhythm of the music further down in the valley. Barchan glanced over his muzzle at Askia, then looked away again. He brushed his veil back down into place across his snout.\n\n“You’re drunk,” he said, to the still night around them. Somewhere off in the dry brush, an insect chirped.\n\n“Perhaps a little. Have you – had the wine?”\n\n“Yes. It’s fantastic.”\n\n“And your mead is… delicious, too.” Askia wiped at the corner of his mouth. “One of your… matriarchs… spat in my cup before giving it to me, though.”\n\n“Did you drink it?”\n\n“Of course I drank it.”\n\n“Oh.” Barchan’s ears perked again. “Oh, dear. That means that you’ve agreed to let her carry your pups.”\n\nAgain the world spun. Askia slid over to stare at him, but the hyena tactfully avoided eye contact.\n\n“Are you – joking?”\n\n“Askia-”\n\n“Barchan!”\n\nOne paw found a firm, veil-wrapped shoulder, and then the hyena presented surprising resistance against his strength – but then he tottered backwards, spreading out across the stone with Askia leaning in over him, other paw beside his chest, one leg drawn up by his waist. Barchan had his head turned to the side and was struggling to stifle his laughter, his thick, strong neck pulsing with the effort. Loose jewelry dangled across his throat, threads of pale violet swinging in between, shifting with each breath; Askia swallowed, licked his lips, and begin to lean in, wanting to press his nose into the little puff of fur there, to get another taste of Barchan’s sweet, spicy scent… and then the hyena’s paws reached up to caress his muzzle, at the same time stopping him in place.\n\nIdly, Barchan rubbed his thumbs across his cheeks. “It’s… silly,” he went on, voice softer, “but I can’t help but imagine the stars are different, where you are.”\n\nAskia blinked, then craned his head up to peer at the night sky stretching overhead. This was a mistake; he felt himself wobble, one of Barchan’s paws clamping to his shoulder to hold him steady.\n\nHe wrenched his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again. “But I am right here.”\n\n“I mean where you come from. Here we have… up there, just beneath and to the right of the moon. That is Acacia the hunter, forever tracking his prey the sun – but the sun always outsmarts him, and dances away from his arrows at the last moment, which root in the earth and grow into the trees we see around the savanna. And then here…” He switched arms, his other now lightly grasping the wild dog’s forearm. Askia stifled a hiccup and looked down across sleek, yet muscular chest and belly, swung his hips gently side to side, felt the sag, the heft, the smack of his own balls nudging first against one thigh and then the other, sheath following a second later. “The River Delta, from which all water flows. It is a way to lull young pups to sleep: point out the delta itself, then have them draw out as many tributaries as they can, star to star, all the way across the sky, and…”\n\n“Barchan.”\n\nWarm eyes flicked back to his muzzle, focusing through the veil. “Mm?”\n\n“I’m listening.” Askia dropped down to one elbow, bringing his muzzle so close he could feel the hyena’s breath. “I promise. But right now I just… really…” Once more he brushed the veil up and aside – and yet again Barchan’s eyes shimmered with their own light. “…want to kiss you.”\n\nStunned, the other male stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth open. “What?”\n\n“I want to kiss you.”\n\nHis lips quirked; he laughed again and looked away. “You want to sober up, is what you meant to say. I have gotten no more than two handshakes and one nuzzle from you, on the shoulder, last night, which still surprised me, and-”\n\n“No, no…” It was remarkable how well Askia’s paw fit against the center of Barchan’s chest, fingers following the line of his sternum hidden beneath thick fur, thumb reaching out to the side. He swallowed again, leaned in closer, felt the world sweep up to meet him… buried his nose in the plush, thick mane that draped over the hyena’s shoulders like a cloak, then trailed up from there to lift his chin up from underneath. Barchan shivered around him, his own breath catching in his throat while Askia drew a deep, slow drag of his scent, that same fur tickling his nostrils. “We are married. I’m the king, and you are also the king, and you said…” The mane muffled his voice a bit. He dug in further, finding the line of Barchan’s collar bone, resting his lips against it. “…we have to establish our union. Prove it to the people.”\n\n“Ah – Askia – the people think we already did that; you were not comfortable with it, and… and we… hah…”\n\n“Mm. But we didn’t.” He remembered the way Luka had nipped, and tugged, and gently sucked between his teeth, and tried to emulate these same touches. “And I’m not about to be made a liar.”\n\n“Please, I – o-oh, that’s… you’re… Askia, I’m…” Gentle paws pressed up at his chest, sending fiery little sparkles vibrating out from the points of contact. “Come on. Let us at least wait until you’re sober, and then we can talk about this, and-”\n\n“All it does to me,” the wild dog went on, words slurring as he dragged his nose and lips across the hyena’s neck again, “is… lower my inhibitions. It makes me… do and say things that I already want to, but… would be too shy or hesitant to do.”\n\n“And maybe there’s a reason for that hesitation, and-”\n\n“And like I said,” and here he pulled himself forward and deliberately sat back along the hyena’s lap. The closeness between the two of them had had the same effect on Barchan as it did on Askia: just by rocking his haunches forward and back, he felt the wet tapered heat of growing half-arousal, nudging up at his tailhole, teasing, poking… coaxing out further with his movements. “We’re married, and you’re my husband.”\n\nBarchan paused. He bit his lip. “And so,” he murmured, “then I suppose it is my duty to-”\n\n“No. No, no.” Askia lifted up again, paws on the stone by his shoulders, muzzle directly above the other’s. “As your husband, it is my right to ask if you want to,” and he leaned in again, this time brushing a gentle kiss into the thick fur of the hyena’s cheek. Barchan’s ear flicked. “Just as it is your right to tell me no, if you do not.”\n\nFor a moment that expression remained; then broad hyena paws made their way back down Askia’s sides, to his waist, then around in front… where one cupped around his sack beneath the thin veil, and the other hooked behind his sheath to massage and work his half-hard length further out into the air.\n\nThen the hyena wet his lips. His other paw trailed back up Askia’s hip, found the waist of his loincloth, began to undo the thin binding. “You said you… wanted to kiss?”\n\nAskia’s tail wagged. The wild dog smiled, turned his head, leaned in – and then finally felt his lips brush against his husband’s, the warmth there intoxicating, invigorating. Barchan met him gently at first, and then with more intent and effort: he pressed in, his tongue flicked forward, Askia met it and reciprocated… and then tilted his head further, and sucked at his breath and his mouth, and swallowed down his taste, and grinded down against him.\n\nThen he drew free, dove back in for another, pulled back again, and now shifted the hyena’s head up and to the side to place another kiss along the line of his jaw. Then one to his neck, and his shoulder, and then down, in much the same pattern that Luka had returned with the Queen’s bite marks the other night; the hyena squirmed underneath his attention, jewelry jingling, wisps of fabric shifting this way and that beneath exploratory paws. The further he went, the stronger the scent in his nose simmered: there was that dry spice, the warm sweetness, that touch of slight sourness… Askia had seen Barchan practically naked every time he had been in the same vicinity as him, but now, finally slipping his fingers beneath his loincloth and flipping it up, it felt so, so different.\n\nThe first thing he noticed was the different shape from himself. Less of a bulge and contour, as deft work from his paw cupped around the hyena’s sack and attentive nose worked him further out, and a bit more of a discernible head – and then the scent as well, more of that warm, dense earthy spice, sleek and slick. A quick drag from his tongue sent a shiver reverberating through Barchan’s body, and a throb bouncing his shaft against Askia’s muzzle; then a second, and a third, and the wild dog wrapped his lips around and dove down, feeling his wet heat across his tongue, filling his maw.\n\nBarchan moaned and reached down, paw splaying between Askia’s ears. He lifted up into his throat, but only a little bit; Askia closed his eyes and continued there, still rubbing at his sack, finger lifting up underneath – then moving aside, slipping down further, teasing between his legs, until the soft, tight folds of puckered tailhole danced across his fingerpad. Just a little bit of focus there and then the wild dog lifted up again, mouth flooded with the unfamiliar, enticing taste of hyena; he looked up at his husband, licked his lips, and now scooped his paws ­beneath his thighs, gripping into the plush firmness there.\n\n“Askia-” Barchan giggled softly, also reaching down. “What are you-”\n\nAnd then his arms went out to his sides when the wild dog hoisted his hind end up, brushy tail hanging down in the air, balls slipping forward along the underside of his shaft. Askia swallowed, licked his lips again, looked down at the pert rump held up right in front of him, at the way the shifting of weight tugged at the sleek, delicate pucker nestled beneath his tail, how his pubic fur bristled and pinched down to soft, felt plush, and – he couldn’t resist. Meeting the hyena’s eyes and holding them, the wild dog leaned in, dropped his tongue out, and dragged up across his tailhole, pulling up past the underside of his sack; Barchan gasped and clenched against him, then did so again at a second, and another.\n\nAnother breath came thick with Barchan’s musk, and then Askia pursed his lips against his tailhole, slid in, and suckled softly, tongue dancing over the tight folds and wrinkles, poking and prodding at the center tension. Underneath him the hyena sighed and moaned again, reaching up to slowly stroke himself; his head turned and faced out over the valley below, the celebration still ongoing, though his eyes remained gently closed under the pleasure.\n\nAskia focused there a moment longer and then lowered his husband back down again, this time to rest his haunches across his lap. Barchan’s eyes fluttered open to look up at him; he reached out towards the wild dog’s arm with one paw, stroked gently, smiled, then watched as Askia adjusted to spit into his own palm and smear the sticky slickness across his fully hard length.\n\nThe wild dog leaned in over him. “Have you ever-?”\n\nBarchan nodded. “I’m not supposed to have done so. But I have.”\n\nThat made him smirk. “Me, too.”\n\n“You don’t hold it against me?”\n\n“What? No. If anything, that…” Tapered tip to saliva-slickened tailhole, Askia nudged forward, felt the grip, the squeeze… the slick, wet heat beginning to unfold and wrap around him. “…makes it easier… for me, and…”\n\nAnd both of them sighed out as he began to sink in, the deep, indulgent sensation flooding through both of them. Still the wild dog tried to measure his pace as he went, nudging in, sliding back out, sinking in again, following Barchan’s noises as well as he could with the world still spinning slowly around him. Each time he pulled back and then pressed back in felt better than the last, his sheath continuing to roll back along his unswollen knot, Barchan’s length stiffening, sliding out further, dripping across his chest.\n\n“You feel…” The hyena reached out with a paw, pressed it into the fur of Askia’s chest, trailed up towards his jaw. “Divine…”\n\nSo Askia leaned in again, brushed his lips to Barchan’s, held there, breathed out. “And so do you,” he rumbled in response, and thrust in again. The other male gasped, clenched around him, released his breath as a slow moan – and rocked his hips around him.\n\nFrom there the rhythm began, slow and steady at first, Askia holding his husband’s gaze, keeping him locked in a kiss. He felt not unlike someone of Luka’s size with Zuli’s build, streamlined yet dense musculature tightening beneath skin and fur, with this stout, short muzzle against his own… and there were those fangs and that tendency to bite and nip and chew, more so the deeper they both fell into the union, bangles clattering, fur rustling, breath puffing.\n\nAskia let his eyes flutter shut, felt his balance wobble, realized this was a mistake and opened them again. He drew away from the kiss, lips slick with the hyena’s drool, and leaned in to bury his muzzle amid the puffy mane cresting all around his shoulders; Barchan wrapped his arms around his back, claws digging into his fur, and rode in against him as the wild dog continued to thrust, now fast and hard, hips smacking against rump. Little gasps and exhalations of tense breath rolled over into voiced moans, higher, faster, urgency building, pleasure peaking.\n\nThe wild dog straightened up, gritted his teeth, and slid his paws around to the underside of Barchan’s thighs, lifting the hyena up so that natural leverage brought him sinking back down onto him, each time with him thrusting forward. Sensation and passion surged within him; the hyena had again let his head roll to the side, mouth open, one paw moving swiftly across his hard length, the other cupping his balls to lift them up and out of the way, and-\n\n-Askia’s peak hit all at once, pounding through him, bending him over his husband, knot swelling out and pressing against his tailhole as each spurt unloaded deep inside, one after the other. Barchan moaned out over the music from down below, wriggled around him as he continued to fill him, then swallowed, gritted his teeth, jerked, jerked again – and clenched so hard with the first of his own spurts, milky white lancing out across cinnamon brown, that Askia for a moment that he was about to cum again. He was panting, and Barchan still moaned with the echoing remnants of his own peak, and then Askia came forward and mashed his lips to the hyena’s and felt the vibrations of his voice pour out into his mouth, and he held him there, and gave a few more slow, deep thrusts with the warmth and presence of his body all around, and held him there against him for a just a moment longer.\n\nThen he drew back, swallowed, smiled. “My King,” Askia murmured, then leaned into bury his nose again among thick fur.\n\nBarchan’s arms drew around him, the wet heat of his body still squeezing around his buried shaft. “My King…”\n\n…and then Askia opened his eyes again and blinked against the glare of the sun through one of the windows, carved from the stone wall of the cliff face. He swallowed, felt the dry grit in his throat, pulled himself upright… winced at the ache throbbing in the center of his skull.\n\nWhere is…?\n\nHe looked around the room, saw the tapestry hanging on the far wall, the pale wood of the door, the decorations… the clothing strewn across the floor. That’s right, he realized, vaguely; Barchan and I, we… up on the mesa, and then came down, hand in hand, but got distracted halfway there and went again, and… He reached up to rub at a sore spot on his shoulder, then poked a fingerpad along textured divots sunken into his skin. With effort, and further wincing, he traced out the half-moon arc of a bite print.\n\n…and then he brought me back here, to his own quarters, and… as soon as I felt him in my arms, I fell asleep, and here I am now. Askia blinked against the glare and reached out beside him – and felt the thick, plush mane, the warmth of another body, the slow rise and fall and comfortable sleep.\n\nAnd here he is still, right beside me. Strange sleeping without Zuli or Luka, but this feels… well, I think I could get used to this. He rubbed a little bit more, reaching beneath the sheets to find the hyena’s paw; a moment later Barchan stirred, stretched, sighed, and opened his eyes.\n\nAs soon as he saw Askia he smiled, and squeezed his paw. “Good morning,” he purred, and turned away to voice a wide yawn. Thick, sharp fangs glittered in pink gums. “How are you feeling?”\n\nAskia rubbed at the side of his head. “Like I tumbled down that rock we were on last night…”\n\n“You almost did. Good thing you tied me nice and tight and I was there to keep you from falling.”\n\nThe world slowed. He stared at him. “Did I-”\n\nBut Barchan laughed, a sharp, rich sound. The sheets slid down across his chest; Askia felt the sudden desire to lean over and run his muzzle down that smooth, flat chest. “A joke. You did not. I hear wild dogs have smaller knots than other species; I think I could still manage, though.”\n\n“Who told you that? Who are you talking to that-”\n\n“Ah! Askia! Stop, that’s – I’m ticklish, and-”\n\nThen those fangs sank into his shoulder, thankfully the one opposite the bite, and a sweet, fiery shiver shot down the wild dog’s back. He rumbled atop his husband, squirmed, and then let his weight slosh out around him, until Barchan tapped at his sides and back to get him to roll back off, both giggling softly. Askia lounged back on the bed, the pleasant heat of midmorning washing across his naked body.\n\nHe sighed. “We are to head home today.”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“Well. To my home, I suppose.”\n\nBarchan rolled onto his side and reached an arm across the wild dog’s body. His broad nose pressed into his shoulder. “It will be my home, too.”\n\n“For the time being. I must speak with Luka for arranging the documents and whatever else, who…” He craned his head up. “…I must ensure is returning with us, instead of serving his new role as – what – chew toy for your Queen?”\n\n“She spits on him, I think.” Sharp claws teased through his fur. “I saw her do it into his mouth once. I think he asked for it.”\n\n“She doesn’t-”\n\n“-and the times he didn’t speak with the matriarchs was because his jaw was too sore from ‘servicing’ her, and-”\n\n“Barchan, that is your mother-”\n\nGiggling, the hyena nuzzled a little deeper. “Wait until you hear what that zebra of yours has been getting up to.”\n\nHe lifted his head again. “Is this another joke?”\n\nBarchan paused, held his gaze – then laughed out loud, and came in for a kiss. Askia met him and held him there, then dragged it out into a second, and a third, and a fourth, and then the hyena was wriggling and squirming underneath him again, and then gasping, shivering, moaning.\n\nPerhaps there really is a future here. I like his presence, his personality… his ideas, and his policies, and his ambitions. Strong paws slid up his sides, dug into his fur, pulled him close. And once everyone else rises, we shall depart for home. Our home, as he says, and… our new beginning shall start from there.\n\nOne of those paws came up to his muzzle, spread across his jaw, and teased him closer. Askia smiled, rested his own over it, turned his head, and leaned in for another kiss.\n\nAnd then all that’s left to us is the future."
}

{
  "description": "This is a longer (about 13k), more story-centric commission for dear Askia. It's been long enough since I last wrote him in this setting that I took this as a chance to sorta do a soft-restart, & did my best to wrap in the background & such throughout this story so that it's standalone from the previous ones. The main themes are actually very similar to Ghost of a Rose, where it's about Askia getting roped into an arranged marriage with someone he neither likes nor really knows, and over time he ends up falling for them and accepting the arrangement. The difference here, though, is that the story starts right after the marriage - when Askia's got his bodyguard's massive horsedick hilted under his tail, and his attendant otter boy contributing as well...\n\nSo across the next few weeks, as by tradition they're in hyena lands for a full cycle of the moon, Askia starts to learn more about the culture of this neighboring land and this species group with which his (or, more properly, his father's) kingdom has been at war for generations. And seems like the people like him and his ideals quite a lot! So it seems like things are going pretty well.\n\n(Also, a note: the copy-paste from the word processor doesn't maintain the italics & other formatting, so download the file instead of reading it inline, lol)\n\n[url=https://inkbunny.net/s/3684757]Also check out the sequel~[/url]"
}

{
  "writing": "The wild dog gritted his teeth, swallowed, wrenched his eyes shut, and slid himself back down, the familiar sleek, fulfilling pressure once again sinking up into him. His tail hiked up at the base, his back arched to where he could feel the pulsing shaft buried inside of him, an irresistible shiver thrummed through his body; he tilted his head back, sighed out, and shifted his paws along the firm, muscular chest underneath him, running his fingerpads across sleek equine pelt, feeling the zebra’s breath, his heartbeat, his closeness.\n\n“I just… can’t believe…” And the wild dog leaned forward, lifted up… felt the zebra’s semi-soft medial ring slurp free from his stretched tailhole, then just as smoothly press back in when he pushed down onto him again. His words hiccupped around a breathy moan. “…that this is how it had to go. Zuli…”\n\nThe zebra’s eyes fluttered partially open. Huge, strong hands wandered up the wild dog’s waist, caressing his belly, circling around towards his lifted tail… then tightening there and pressing him back down, the equine lifting up into him. Zuli arched his back a little bit with the sensation of supple wet warmth squishing around his buried shaft, then relaxed back again.\n\n“It is…” He paused to catch his breath. “It is right.”\n\n“It’s a relic of times past, is what it is. I… hah…” The wild dog straightened up and leaned back, his legs tightening around Zuli’s waist for leverage, his paws reaching back behind him to now brace against the bed that was made theirs for their visit to these foreign lands. “’Foreign’,” he had scoffed, after making the arrangements with the others in his kingdom; “I could climb the nearest mesa and throw a rock, and I would be able to reach them.” He wet his lips again, took a breath, lifted up… sank back down again, felt as well as saw the zebra’s girth press out along his belly from inside. “Understand… the need to settle disputes, but… we could have done that through actual conversation, and… meeting over a mutual point of discussion, and… all the things Father would never think to try – do they not understand that I am not him? That they – ah…”\n\n“Mm.” Underneath him Zuli lifted his hips, thrust deep into the wild dog, and drew down again, his hands now coming down to spread his rump, tailhole already stretched around his length. Gentle fingers teased in at the opened rim, then came up to grip the base of his tail and yank him up. “It is an established practice.”\n\n“So is talking through our problems. That was the issue with Father’s reign. Everyone knows it, but nobody… nobody was… will…” The wild dog trailed off, head rolling on his shoulders, jaw dropping open as he rode. He lifted himself up towards Zuli’s blunted head, held there where he could feel the rim tugging at the inner ring of his tailhole, then sank back down again, the mix of saliva and natural wetness slurping around the zebra’s impressive length. Each time he sank down onto him his own arousal leapt against his belly, the ink-blot fur there dusted with cinnamon, ocher, charcoal, and now foggy, milky cream as well, thick strands of pre matting down his fur and thighs. “Nobody was… willing to bring it up with him, for fear of his rage. But I am different. I am King Askia.”\n\n“And a good king you are…”\n\nAskia opened his mouth to speak back to the zebra, but then just as soon felt the breath pressed out of him. Those large, strong hands lifted across his body, one hooking beneath his raised arm, the other squeezing in along his waist – and he was pushed back, angled down so that his back settled against the mattress and his legs hoisted up around Zuli’s lap as the zebra pushed him over and slid into place beneath him, between his spread legs, all the while he remained hilted past the ring. His broad snout came in close to nuzzle against the side of the wild dog’s face, leathery skin of his nose drawing in his scent, holding it, then puffing it back out – and Zuli gave another slow thrust, and another, and another, each one at this angle forcing Askia to gasp and tighten and squirm with the pressure welling up inside of him.\n\n“…and a proper king, too, now that you are married.” That hand reached over towards Askia’s, fingers entwining with his own… running across the sleek metal band, the fit of which the wild dog was still becoming accustomed after the ceremony earlier in the day. “Would that I could be your husband, my love.”\n\nAskia scoffed – then grunted and moaned again, trying his best to squeeze around the thick equine shaft now pumping steadily within his tailhole. He rocked with the motion, legs squeezing around Zuli’s waist, lifting himself up, sinking back down… lifting up again, grinding him inside of him.\n\n“It is only in title. You… serve all of its tasks, and roles, and needs, and…” With effort he managed to open his eyes again, mismatched brown and blue glittering at the zebra poised above him. “Were I to never see him again, I would still live happy, alongside you.”\n\nZuli offered a rare smile, lips pulling slightly up at the edges. He looked back and forth between his King’s eyes. “And how happy I am to serve in such a way…” And he leaned in, tilted his head, brushed his lips to Askia’s, held there…\n\n…and the King’s large ears twitched with soft, gentle paws reaching to caress them from underneath, velvety webbings in between the fingers tickling at his cheeks. Once again he opened his eyes, still locked in the kiss with the zebra, and looked up into the sweetly smiling muzzle of the otter leaning over him.\n\n“And now you are a true king,” Luka purred, the body servant-turned-advisor running his thumbs across the canine’s cheeks. “A marriage like this for you has been overdue since your father’s passing. Outdated as the practice is, it is still respected: this will help to unify those under you who have been… less than accepting of your more progressive ideals, and-”\n\nAskia swallowed amid the kiss, then pulled free from it. Still leaning over him, Zuli drew back, sank forward, and resumed his initial rhythm, the mattress shifting with the momentum of his moment; Askia had to take a moment to gather his thoughts beneath the battering waves of pleasure.\n\n“Luka,” he said when he could. He reached a shaky arm up towards the otter; Luka tilted his head, ran his fingers over Askia’s, and leaned into the touch. “This is not the place for politics.”\n\n“Sorry.” The otter shifted to lean in a little bit closer. Askia’s whisker tickled with his warm breath. “But to be fair, you did bring it up, my lord.”\n\n“Shut your mouth or I’ll give you something to shut it.”\n\n“Hmm…” And still he leaned closer… “I think I’ll take the alternative…”\n\nAnd with the taste of Zuli’s lips still on his own, Askia lifted his head to do the same for his trusted advisor, Luka’s kiss softer but no less sweet, no less intense. He tilted his head one way, webbed paw coming up across the wild dog’s cheek and chin – and then the short, thick tongue pressed its way in as well, dancing across sharp fangs, finding Askia’s own, drawing it out, sucking him into his mouth.\n\nStill the zebra pumped away at him, hands gripping his thighs, fingers digging into soft flesh and firm muscle; Askia pulled in urgent breaths out of the corners of his mouth, moaned out into Luka’s, wrenched his eyes shut, tightened, tightened further. His paw clenched around a handful of bedsheet; his back arched, he strained, and tugged himself down into the equine’s lap; Luka purred softly against his mouth, his warmth and appreciation for his king’s pleasure trickling through their kiss; and then that smoldering flame blazed outwards, and Askia jerked, and bucked, and bucked again – and yanked himself up along Zuli’s length only to slam back down, again, and again, each time lifting his belly out from inside as he jetted his peak out across his already splotchy fur.\n\nUnable to resist, the wild dog pulled himself out of the kiss and groaned out into the otherwise still bedchambers, his legs trembling, his entire lower body thrumming with the force of his orgasm. His stretched tailhole slopped wetly around Zuli’s half-buried length as the zebra, too, throbbed inside of him to coax him through the remaining waves of his peak… and then slowly, gently, slurped himself free, the rim of his blunted head pulling out at the inside of the king’s ring of muscle. Askia gasped as he came free, then reflexively tried to clench back – with muscles that faltered to respond.\n\nLuka rumbled again, the noise halfway between a purr and a giggle, and pushed his paws down through Askia’s chest fur. The wild dog reached up to caress his webbed paw, then let his head roll to the side so he could catch his breath; Luka, meanwhile, made his way down his body, leaning to the side to sprawl out alongside him. Eyes partially closed, Askia felt the damp, hefty weight of Zuli’s still-hard cock nudging against his side, soon followed by both of the otter’s paws sliding behind it to lift it up and to the side. \n\nStill panting, Askia rested an arm over his muzzle, squirmed a little bit, half-lifted a leg, let it drop back down. He licked his lips, swallowed – he could taste Zuli and Luka both – and then took in another slow, steady breath. “I… suppose you’re right…”\n\nThe sound of wet lips smacking across slick skin twitched at his ears, with the otter’s voice to follow: “Mm?”\n\n“About this arranged marriage being… best for our societies. If it’s what the people expect, then it is my duty to give it to them.” With great effort he hoisted himself up onto his elbows, then rubbed at his eyes to clear the indulgent bleariness from them – and then blinked again: Zuli still knelt on the bed between his legs, though now Luka had come forward to run his muzzle along the sex-streaked length of his shaft, eager tongue working to lap up the remnant slickness, one webbed paw massaging hefty equine balls in between his fingers. \n\nThe otter swallowed, did so again, nosed down into dense, dank sheath wrinkles, held himself there for a moment with a deep, slow inhale… and then sighed back out, sharp blue eyes flicking over to his king. “You are a true king now,” he went on, voice muffled somewhat by the sheer heft of equine equipment hanging against his muzzle. He pursed his lips, drew some of the leathery-velvet skin of Zuli’s sack into his mouth, suckled briefly, then let it slip free again. “At least, in the eyes of those aforementioned subjects. The hyenas may be strange in their ways, but…” His eyes drifted shut again, and now that slick, matted paw trailed up to the other side of Zuli’s sheath. The zebra huffed softly, turned his body, and grinded in against Luka’s muzzle; the other male purred deep in his throat, shifted a little bit, and took in another breath. “…they are… ah. Both our kingdom and their civilization will be much stronger for the unification of their ways with our own. Once their queen… passes her title to the prince, your husband…” Both paws squished in along those supple folds of skin, bunched them forward, then stretched back again. He slid his tongue across the dank, revealed flesh in between. “…shall rule alongside you, with both of you overseeing both lands…”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment, then similarly came forward to sprawl out near the base of Zuli’s still-hard shaft. From here he could smell the rich, familiar equine musk that had become so close to him over time, earthy and grassy with a touch of acrid, sweaty tang, invigorating, inspiring. He knew precisely why Luka pressed his muzzle so firmly into the velvet-soft flesh, and breathed in through his nose, and sighed out through his mouth with his tongue cupped underneath…\n\n“Be that as it may…” the king went on. He reached forward to idly tease Zuli’s sack in a paw, the thick, dank heat quickly trickling across his palm. “I still don’t like it.”\n\n“You don’t… have to like it.” Luka drew back again, then swallowed. He looked up at Zuli, who returned the glance and chuffed. “You are King. The day you begin enjoying your rule, is the day it becomes your responsibility to pass it to another.” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAskia trudged up the shallow incline towards the overlook, the unfamiliar grit of sand and gravel crunching beneath his footpaws. This region stood so close to his homeland, yet still felt so far away: he could turn around in a full circle and feel as though he were in a dream against the strange sense of displacement, where he felt like he knew where he was, yet could not identify any of the landscape. Vast, rolling grassland savanna turned instead to low, arid brushland pocked about with rich yellow and red flat-topped plateaus and mesas, pebbles dropped by some careless giant.\n\nAnd then the smells, too… where his own kingdom comprised mainly of wild dogs like himself, a loose family clan amalgamated by his father’s efforts and those of his father’s father, and his father and so on, to then join in with steppe and prairie wolves, the lions, the zebras and antelope and other such species; strength in numbers, his late father would say, and victory in strength. Naturally Askia had grown up knowing of the dangers of the hyena tribes just past the river border, hearing the stories from bereaved mothers of the things they would do to lost pups, and horrors from the scouts his father sent to watch the ever-expanding borders; he himself had heard their characteristic laughter while out late one night retrieving acacia bark for ritual purposes, and it taken him the better part of an hour to still his panic and build the courage back up to cross the river again.\n\nAnd now, he thought, reaching out to hoist himself up by another branch, seeing the glimmer of the creamy early-evening sunlight across the sleek metallic band now adorning one finger, I’m married to one. The wild dog swallowed, took in a breath of cool, sweet desert air, and hefted himself upwards towards the flat of the mesa overlook.\n\nThe tense arrival at the hyenas’ homeland the other day, the brisk discussion with their Queen – A matriarchal society! Father would have ended relations right then and there – who very obviously did not like “the wild dog prince from over the river,” as she called him… Askia had understood and had been completely willing to end the arrangement right then and there, if not for Luka’s constant, insistent urging that this was the correct path to take. At least it seemed that the Queen liked the sleek otter, but then again, everyone seemed to like him. Softspoken yet deliberate, confident in his choice of words, the largest part of his two and a half decades of age spent as the right-hand body servant for a gluttonous lecher of a king across the western sea, the proximity of which gave him vast insight and understanding of the game of politics.\n\n“As good with his tongue as he is his fingers,” Askia remembered Zuli grumbling once, one of the rare occasions where the zebra had more than five words to say. And then the way he had smiled, just a little quirk at the corner of his mouth while he stood beside his king’s throne, bodyguard’s assigned polearm clutched in one hand. Askia had thought about changing the guard uniform from the shoulder sash and loincloth to something a bit more protective, but the maneuverability and airy coolness afforded by the current outfit could not be overstated, and besides, he quite enjoyed being able to glance over to where the zebra stood, and tilt his head a little bit, and see the way the thick, hardy fabric rested over even thicker folds of skin and flesh, and…\n\n…and thin, light gossamer veil dancing across naturally coarse fur brushed and combed to velvet softness, warm lilac draped down and around a trimmed mane of threaded cinnamon; slender arms corded with sleek, tight muscle angled along the flowing lines of his back, paws braced on the surface of the smooth stone, fingers spread, claws manicured. One of his tall, triangular ears perked and flicked with the sound of clattering gravel; he tilted his head down from where he watched the beginning of the sunset and looked back over his shoulder, the color of his eyes masked beneath the thin fabric of the veil hanging down about his short muzzle pinned in place by wrought jewelry the same glimmering metal as the rings they each now wore. \n\nThe hyena prince straightened upon seeing his new husband ascend the incline, and sat forward to fold his paws in his lap. Feathery ribbons of the insubstantial outfit he wore shifted and swept around him like curls of mist, drawing apart to show the shadowy stripes coursing up and down his arms, along his back between the rise of the mane which spread across him like a thick cloak, scuffed with foggy stripes of charcoal indistinct through the fabric. He pursed his lips, tilted his head again, and looked Askia over, the hyena’s eyes halfway lidded beneath their veil; short whiskers twitched forward, then splayed out, then shifted back again, and in a smooth, silent movement he rolled himself to the side and stood up from where he reclined.\n\nAskia saw now that the wisps of the hyena’s garb were little more than just that: the veil draped over his muzzle, one pinned at each shoulder along the forearm with shimmering bangles, another pair crossing over his chest and more at the waist, one more hanging loose at one hip, and then nothing else save for the metal glittering against his fur the color of rich, warm soil. He reached up, ran a pair of those trimmed claws beneath the hem of his face veil, and lifted it just high enough for eyes the color of thick honey to peer across the space at the wild dog – at his husband, the king of the neighboring land, against whom his own people had waged something just short of war for the past several generations.\n\nAnd he blinked, long lashes stirring the fabric of his veil. The hyena floated closer, footsteps silent among the early evening. Askia smelled him first and then felt the air’s slow twirl from his approach, his scent warm, dry, a bit spiced, with the characteristic acrid tang of something close to gentle sweat… and then a distinctive, fiery flair hovering about the jagged edge. He opened his mouth, paused; tilted his head, flicked his tongue out across black-fleshed lips, looked Askia over again, and then let a ghost of a smile touch his muzzle.\n\n“You are…”\n\nDespite himself, Askia felt his hackles shiver and threaten to rise up, not out of fear or panic, but rather… rather from something similar to the sensation of someone running their claws across the small of his back, or exhaling across his ear, or combing their fingers through his tail. The hyena took another step closer, and then another, and another – and gentle paws brushed across the wild dog’s waist, and he felt himself tugged forward, and the firm, sweet warmth of the prince’s bared sheath nudged up against his front.\n\n“Beautiful, now that I see you with my own eyes,” the hyena continued, his voice cool, sharp, spiced like his scent. He leaned in closer, jewelry jangling, and touched his broad nose to Askia’s neck. The wild dog couldn’t help but shiver as he breathed in, fingers tightening at his waist, teasing in at the waistband of his own trousers. “And yet again are the flaws in perspective shown to me, clearly under the light of tonight’s moon. My mother the Queen would have me believe you were a… foul, twisted, mangled creature-”\n\nAskia grunted. Good thing Zuli isn’t here to hear this, or there wouldn’t be a Queen tomorrow.\n\n“-and a poor excuse for a spouse, who lets their advisor say everything for them… but, traditions must change, else they fall into the past and crumble beneath the weight of their own expectations.” One of those paws found Askia’s, danced across to his wrist, and then pulled forward, guiding him around the hyena’s shapely waist. He felt the lines of those muscles layered beneath fur, the thick puff of his mane… the ring of metal bound around the base of his tail, along which further wisps of his outfit had been tied. \n\nThe hyena prince smiled again, rocking his hips slowly forward against Askia’s, washing the wild dog in his rich, intoxicating scent. Askia instead focused on his eyes, on the way they sparkled and glittered in the light of the rising moon, how the dark sockets only further brought out the glimmering yellow-gold.\n\nKing Askia tilted his head. “You seem different from the ceremony this morning.” There, he had not known what to expect: it was the same hyena, the same mane, the same colors, the same markings, but the prince had both moved and spoken swiftly and stiffly, as though he had other places he would rather be. No celebration, no recognition: just an exchange of rings, a few words said in their native tongue, and Askia was sent back to his visiting quarters to prepare for the night.\n\nThe prince turned his head back, looking down at his husband along his muzzle. “I am different,” he said, pronouncing each word deliberately. “That was the Barchan who shall rule our people together. This, now…” Again his paws slid up Askia’s sides, drawing sleek, sweet shivers out of him. “This is the Barchan who shall be – who is – yours at home.”\n\nAskia kept his large ears from flicking back. He tried to untwine his paws from around the other male’s body. “Really.”\n\n“Yes.” The syllable hissed between deadly sharp fangs, Barchan leaning in again, drawing another breath… sighing it out across the wild dog’s neck. “As per tradition, tonight is to be our first union, here beneath the light of the moon, and overlooking the canyon I call home. Tomorrow night shall be our second; and the night after our third, and then our marriage will be complete.”\n\n“No. We shall not, for it is already complete.” This time he drew back with a little more force, and managed to step away from the hyena’s grasp. Barchan wobbled where he stood, ears upright, paws halfway up; he frowned, tilted his head, then shuffled back in towards himself. Askia avoided eyeing how fresh, rich pink had begun to protrude from the lip of his sheath. “I married you for necessity, for the safety of my people. Were there any other way to end these pointless, ceaseless wars, then I would have done so. But your so-called tradition demands that we form this union instead. And it is finished; so let us be done with it, for the good of my people, and the good of yours.”\n\nBarchan stood there a moment longer, warm gaze once more dancing across Askia’s figure. Then he shifted, squared his shoulders, reached up… tossed the veil back from over his eyes. They glittered with a light of their own.\n\n“Ours.”\n\nAskia frowned. “What?”\n\n“Our people. Yours and mine.” And he smiled again, softer this time. “A marriage like ours, prince to King, is unprecedented among my people. Again, tradition must change and adapt. And if you would keep our relationship purely political… then I will concede.” He turned his back, brushy tail swishing, and moved to sit back along the flat stone where Askia had first found him. He waited there, looked up at the sky, leaned back, then looked over his shoulder and patted the spot beside him. “Tonight we shall talk. If you would prefer… husband.” \n\nFor a moment the wild dog was caught off-guard. He stepped forward, footpaws rustling among the dry, low brush of the mesa. “I was expecting… more resistance. It was really that easy?”\n\nBarchan looked over at him again as he approached. The moonlight glistened off his thick fur and the fabric of his veils, catching in the rings of metal, dancing across him, trickling down and around the contours of his body like honey. When he smiled, the night felt just a little bit warmer.\n\n“When two rivers meet without mixing…” The hyena looked back down over the edge of the mesa. Far beneath, the glittering lights of his mother’s city sparkled among the crevices of the canyon ravine and spilled out into the grassy flatlands surrounding it. “They are still two rivers. Not one. My mother may be strict and set in her ways, but if my people are to flourish, we must be able to grow and adapt as the world needs. So my river shall mix with yours; and my ways, with yours.”\n\nThe stone was warm as Askia slid back onto it. Barchan scooted to the side a bit, close enough for the wild dog to feel his presence, far enough away that he did not actually touch him. The two looked out over the city below, the rolling savanna grasslands beyond, and the moon gradually rising over the horizon.\n\nAnd there they just talked. Askia began by telling about where he came from, the savanna on the far side of the river, and how it was so similar yet so different from over here: the dirt was a different color, cinnamon-red here, compared to ocher-yellow back home. Barchan smiled again and told him about how the difference could be tasted on the wind as well, a subtle, lilting thing; two fruits from the same tree can never taste completely identical. Then from there to each of their upbringings as a prince, beneath a lone monarch of a parent who thought they knew best for their kingdom and their people, and maybe they did, for a time. As it would turn out, the Queen would never have married her son to another male, and actually had not been informed of it until the night of the marriage; Barchan explained that her council, into which he had poured years of effort to garner a foothold, knew that such a move was necessary for the survival of the hyena clans.\n\n“Things are different now,” Askia said, eyeballing the way the moon had risen about a hand’s breadth and a half further from when he had first sat down; “things are different now,” Barchan had agreed, and the two had turned to look at each other.\n\nThe wild dog swallowed. “You said that… it was tradition, part of sealing our marriage in your culture, for you and I to… lay together. What happens since we – didn’t?”\n\n“Hmm?” One rounded ear flicked. Barchan tilted his head; his veil drifted across one eye, where he reached up to again brush it aside. “Nothing. Everyone will have seen us come up here together; they will have seen us remain here for… oh, the better part of an hour; they will see us return, one at a time. For all they know, we will have. And so things continue as usual. That is part of authority, is it not?” Here he tilted his muzzle down, looking up at the wild dog over the bridge of his snout. “It is not lying, if it is only an assumption made but never voiced. We shall… take it as it comes.”\n\nAskia thought on that for a moment. He straightened up, folded his paws in his lap… was kept sharply aware of Barchan’s little paintbrush tail tickling against his own. He shifted, halfway hoping he would lean against him a little more fully. “And that’s okay?”\n\n“Askia. Husband.” The hyena smiled again, even though now he, too, looked up at the sky. He crossed one leg over the other, gossamer fabric sweeping aside; his pert sheath, plump sack, shifted along the lower leg, then slid slowly along in the warmth of the evening. “We have nothing to consummate, no child to conceive. If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office, with no intimacy or physical contact, then… I am willing to accept that.” Arms reaching behind to keep himself propped up, he let his head roll across his shoulder to look at Askia. “I have to be, for the sake of my people and yours. And, besides… it seems to me as though you already have someone who fills that role for you.”\n\n~ ~ ~\n\n“If your culture sees marriage as just a thing of law and office…”\n\nAskia reached up to rub at his eyes, gritty with the weight of exhaustion, sleep evading him nonetheless. The thick, dank, familiar heat of zebra sagged down in the mattress beside him, Zuli’s slow, steady breaths the only noise in the room other than the faint songs of the night insects coming in through the windows – and yet the wild dog still heard Barchan’s voice, over and over.\n\nI don’t know him, he told himself, and I don’t have to know him. We did this for our people, not for each other. But, then… I still want to do right by him.\n\nHe rolled over, pressed his muzzle along smooth, warm velvet striped pelt, rested an arm around the equine’s body, tugged himself closer… drew in a lungful of his rich, intoxicating aroma, still invigorating after all of these years together, and all of the nights spent side by side. And he thought of Barchan’s scent as well, soft yet still sharp, like freshly roasted spices caught from across a room.\n\nHe is sincere. Honest with himself, and with me. At least… I’d like to think he is. But where is this going to lead?\n\n~ ~ ~\n\nAs each day passed, so too did King Askia’s thoughts and feelings muddle together even more tightly. He and his entourage were to be the hyenas’ guests until the next turn of the moon, at which point he would take his new husband home and there begin the long process of uniting their two lands – but, in contrast, each day that passed somehow made this future seem that much further away.\n\nBit by bit the wild dog learned more about their culture and their ways. Matriarchal indeed, with the women being in charge of hunting, and gathering, and every pillar of society and community, while the men took cares of things at home: about the grand halls of what stood for their “palace”, by Askia’s best estimation, it was only male servants standing at the corners, eyes downcast, each one garbed in the same light, flowing veils that made no effort to hide the rhythm of their spots or stripes, and the heft and hang of sheath and sack both.\n\nStill Askia did not see the Queen. As far as he could tell, this pleased both of them: his restricted conversations with Barchan over meals and in between meetings, for the hyena stood as the head of his mother’s advisory council, showed that his husband had ensured this would be the case. “In rule,” he explained one evening, “there are risks that are necessary, and those that are not. An important skill is discerning the difference, and you two meeting is unnecessary.”\n\nBut still he heard from her, though, and saw her from a distance at the meals, shared out beneath the open sky around a roaring bonfire instead of under the shelter of constructed shade. Meat hard roasted and lightly seasoned, grease and bone and gristle – with the hyenas having more than enough jaw strength to crack right through, suck clean the marrow, and toss the remnants to the side for later repurposing. And she always had first pick, unafraid to toss her wispy, ceremonial clothing up along her shoulders and dig right in, striped pelt soon bearing the glistening stickiness of the meal, strings hanging between sharp fangs, lips smeared, eyes bright.\n\nSimply put, she terrified him. She would bark her commands to her underlings and servants, and held no qualm against physically punishing them for being slow on their feet: the longer Askia watched, the more he could pick out the ghosts of scars along muzzles, shoulders, backs, rumps, where sharp manicured claws had raked through layers of skin. On another night shared beneath the stars, heated prairie mead steaming in each of their mugs, he caught the glimmer of a similar scar along Barchan’s cheek, just beneath his left eye.\n\n“This?” the hyena said, and reached up to touch it. “Yes. It was my fault. And I do not mean that as a self-pitying admission of guilt; I mean it as the truth.”\n\n“But what happened?” Askia asked, once more shifting within his own outfit. He had been given one similar to Barchan’s, woven from smooth, mossy green instead of the hyena’s pale lavender – and it had been a new kind of hall striding through the city with the whole of him on display for everyone to see. On the way to and from dinner the wild dog had had to step aside into an alley to wait for a certain side-effect of such a view to dwindle back down, and then he would step out – and feel all of those eyes on him, and have to turn away again.\n\n“It is the past; what happened has happened, and there is nothing to be done about it now.” And Barchan had reached out to brush his fingers across Askia’s, resting there on the flat stone between them, but then stopped. When he turned his head, the moonlight shimmered off the tiny scar and disappeared. “Mother does not treat me like the others. Do not worry about that. I am the Queen’s firstborn, her pride, her joy… although her words often bite deeper than her claws.”\n\nIt was a wonder to him that Luka could bear being around her at all, but the otter still hustled back and forth between the King’s quarters and the Queen’s bearing news, discussions, everything that resulted from an arranged marriage between two previously warring kingdoms. Askia also did not fail to notice that each visit took him a little bit longer, and when he came back he seemed a little more breathless, a little more exhausted… a little more roughed up. First he was missing a patch of fur between his shoulder and his neck, and Askia began to worry; then he returned bearing four perfect valleys along one thigh from where sharp claws had dug through his fur, and Askia felt his rage begin to boil; and then one evening the otter came back in the middle of the night, visibly trembling, head quirked to one side. He had practically melted into Askia’s arms when the wild dog received him, chest heaving with exhaustion, breath catching in his throat-\n\n-and then his own veils swathed down and away from his neck, and Askia saw the clear, clean bite marks there, still wet with hungry drool, and his nose tingled with the rich, intense scent of female hyena. Luka squirmed a bit, dragged his paws up his King’s side, slumped into him again – and those bites continued on around his shoulder, down his back, towards the base of his thick rudder-tail, then underneath.\n\n“Hell of a woman,” was all the advisor could say, dreamy smile on his face, and then buried his muzzle in Askia’s neck again. Bemused, he carried him over to his bed, lay him down there, and then returned to his own alongside Zuli.\n\nAnd so things continued: Luka had the Queen herself; Zuli had the full range of huntresses and warriors from each of the individual hyena clans – and how it terrified Askia to see the zebra standing among a literal pack of hyenas as he learned their fighting ways, laughing and shouting louder than he had ever heard back home, within days putting on exhibitions by the light of the bonfire – and then Askia had… some clothing that fit a little too loosely for his tastes, a personal vendetta from the Queen against him, and then a husband he had just met, with whom he shared only a handful of sentences a day, and whom he barely knew. Askia spoke more with the other hyenas of the tribe, who had begun to come to him to get to know their future King a little better, and learn of his ideals, his stances, his plans.\n\nBut still, Askia was learning Barchan, too, a little bit more day by day. The hyena had of course made it routine to eat his meals alongside him, and it was there the two had most of their discussions, voices low and close. He learned of the hyena’s father, and his younger brother who stood as a body-servant in the barracks; he learned how he, too, had been taught to fight, with twin shortblades rather than the huntresses’ spears; he learned of how the hyenas’ society stood split into clans between spotted, striped (“and aardwolves,” he mentioned with a little wave of the paw), and then his own smaller royal family line, brown hyenas: “the spots,” motioning to his lower legs, “the stripes,” along his shoulders, “and the mane,” turning his back and arching it, to show where the coarse-brushed-smooth fur bunched out from the center line of his spine.\n\nHis mane flowed beneath gossamer lavender fabric like the twisting of a sand dune beneath early evening sky…\n\nThe moon made its way across its cycle, shining bright, turning away… reforming anew, each night casting a little more light down across the savanna. On one of the nights Askia had Luka to himself, he enlisted the otter in helping him undress, as little work as that would take: Luka’s sleek, deft paws easily slid across the bangles binding wisps of cloth to his shoulders, around his neck, across his chest, along his waist, and Askia closed his eyes, and sighed…\n\n“Something on your mind, my lord?”\n\n…and then opened them again, and knew what had caught Luka’s attention without needing to look. The wild dog squirmed where he stood, took in a breath, sighed again… throbbed gently, worked up from wandering thoughts and wandering paws. And now Luka had noticed, which just like when he had first started wearing this silly harem garb out on the city, served only to work him up further, and – and he gasped as webbed fingers reached down and wrapped about the lip of his sheath, squeezing supple skin forward, pressing back.\n\nThe King tilted his head back, eyes closed, mouth open. His hips rocked slowly, forward into the otter’s grasp, then back again… then forward, then back. He wet his lips. “Luka…”\n\n“My lord.”\n\n“Would you… perhaps be willing…” As Askia spoke, Luka finished undressing him and then stepped around to his backside, other arm making its way first up over the short, plush fur of the wild dog’s chest, then down again towards his belly, around his growing shaft, down to massage his sack. “To…”\n\n“Mm?”\n\nAskia caught himself. He looked back over his shoulder at the otter, still wearing his assigned outfit, still bearing the physical signs of his time spent “advising” the Queen on “international relations”, then reached back with a paw to caress his short, round muzzle.\n\n“Zuli is still out sparring…”\n\n“He’s been having quite a time with them. They love him. This is good, you know: we each have something to teach the other in combat, warfare, and hunting. Their pack tactics are – remarkable, and-”\n\n“Luka.”\n\n“Sorry. Please continue.”\n\nAskia smirked, other paw now covering Luka’s, keeping him down at the base of his sheath. A gentle squeeze held the supple skin in place as he slowly thrust, length pressing out a little further, dripping natural slickness across folded fingers and silken webbings. “Zuli is out sparring,” he continued. “It’s just you and I. Would you be willing… to… pretend… to be a hyena with me, tonight?”\n\n“Ooh…” Small, needle-sharp fangs nipped in at the wild dog’s neck, sending sparkling shivers vibrating through his shoulder. “They are rough, and quite dominant, and… very bitey, and, wow, do they have powerful jaws. And you’re sure you want me to-?”\n\nHe was – and so he did. Luka played the part well, likely due to recent personal experience: the way he bent Askia over the bed, how he traced down the wild dog’s back with little kisses interspersed with bites, how he dug his paws up along plush rump to spread him… the way he dove in, licked, lapped, slurped, sucked, then came back up to grind against him… how he leveraged his thrusts to press his king down against the bed, all the while maintaining a low, hungry growl in his throat. The arms around Askia’s body, the surprisingly strong grip of a paw along his upper arm, the fangs digging into the skin of his neck, sucking, pulling back the closer he came so that Askia could feel the tension in the tug, and-\n\n-the scent, the spice of hyena washed down across him, coating his nose, catching in his fur. He could feel the warmth of his body, like the shimmering heat dancing across the open fields beneath the blazing sun; the tense, bestial growls from an unfamiliar throat, the little huffs through flared nostrils against his ear, even the shape of the fangs, so thick, so large, so different. The way he moved his body felt different, too, as though he held a certain kind of control over his sleek yet strong musculature: where Zuli was all built mass and Luka slim and streamlined, he struck a middle balance between the two, slight of frame with noticeable definition cording along his arms, his sides, his legs… his chest pressing against Askia’s shoulders, his belly grinding against his lower back. One of those arms wrapped around his body, firm and tight, and the paw of the other swiftly ran his length, and pumped him closer and closer, and Askia squeezed around him, and gasped, and lurched, and-\n\n-bucked once, then again, and again as his finish spurted out of him, pounded to this point by the forceful thrusts beneath his tail. The arm wrapped around his body slackened, and the breath in his ear sighed, and then a shorter, stockier muzzle than he had expected came forward to nuzzle against his cheek – and it was Luka’s voice that followed, at first taking him by surprise:\n\n“How was that, my lord?” \n\nThe scent and presence of hyena drifted away, lost beneath the flow of reality. Askia wriggled, the otter’s length still buried inside of him, and pressed back against him.\n\n“That was wonderful…” \n\n~ ~ ~\n\nThe moon glimmered overhead, just a sliver short of full, a slightly lopsided disc hanging high above in blue velvet speckled with stars. Across the valley, pillars of smoke curled up like puffy bunches of river grass reaching out from the multiple bonfires built for the occasion, each one corresponding to the notable families of each clan. Askia felt proud to recognize most of these faces as he made his way through the grounds, stray tassels of his clothing dancing about his shoulders, his waist, his ankles.\n\nPerhaps it was the prairie mead vibrating through his veins; perhaps it was the constant heat of those fires, the wood treated with some kind of incense blend to paint the smoke in swirling curls of sweet, spicy aroma; perhaps it was the joyful faces around him, the lyrical native language, the invigorating rhythms of their music and odd timbre of their instruments; perhaps it was the simple fact that, once that nearly-full moon dropped below the horizon and gave way to the searing sun again, that the King and his entourage would be returning home, but – he felt good tonight.\n\nOne of the heads of a striped hyena household caught him by the upper shoulder, squeezing the bangle against his fur, and shouted his greetings in heavy accents. Askia couldn’t help but grin, reach up to clasp her on the shoulder in return – though his paw barely encompassed half the larger female’s musculature – and shout back at her, tail wagging, before he was tossed on his way to the next. Another mug of mead ended up in his paws, sticky fluid sloshing over his fingers, and then was just as quickly taken away – to be replaced by another with the wine his entourage had brought as a gift.\n\nThen he found himself caught by a spotted hyena matriarch, her playing one of the instruments thrumming in time with the rest of the celebration before she handed it off to another, crouched down to put herself at eye level with him, and then reached forward with a paw as large as his head. She pressed it against his chest, fingers sliding easily beneath the loose fabric, and held him there; confused, startled, a little bit drunk, Askia tottered where he stood, fully aware of his relative nudity, and the effect this good mood was having on him, and how she just stared at him with that short muzzle, those sharp eyes, the squarish, rounded ears. When she licked her lips he almost thought as though it was in preparation to devour a snack, and again he recalled the trail of bite marks curling over Luka’s shoulder and down his back, and then how just the previous night he had returned with another, matching series of marks down his chest and along his belly, down his inner thigh and then back up, and – the matriarch grinned with teeth far too large to be sensible, nodded once, and patted him on the shoulder. \n\n“Heard you speak,” she said, the consonants thick on those fangs. “Like your style. Prince Barchan is ambitious. Energetic… hopeful. You will balance him well. We shall miss your presence, and eagerly await your rule.” Then she leaned in closely enough, still towering over him even though she had crouched nearly halfway over, that her scent tickled at his nose. “And already you are an improvement over her. She is overambitious, belligerent, reckless. Driving us to ruin. And besides…”\n\nThat huge paw continued down his chest, over his belly – and easily flipped the poor excuse for a loincloth aside, one surprisingly gentle fingerpad squishing in along the side of his plumped sheath.\n\n“You are much cuter.”\n\nAnd with that she stood back to her full height, cast the smaller wild dog a wink, and reached for her instrument again. Askia hovered there a moment longer, swirling among the whirlpool of drink, scent, and arousal, and then wobbled off again.\n\nThat’s right, he recalled, the recognition foggy at one side of his head. This is… our going-away party. Barchan’s last night among his people…\n\nAnother hyena bumped up against him, this one with sleek, coffee-colored stripes twisting along a smooth field of cinnamon; without thinking Askia rubbed up against him, rumbled in his throat, reached around to run his fingers into the root of the other male’s mane. The striped hyena reflexively pressed back against him, his eyes obscured by his own veil but his revealed mouth showing a small twist of a smile. Broad tongue flicked out, and he leaned in, and touched his muzzle to Askia’s – and then firm, sleek warmth grinded up against his own sheath, strong paws gripping his waist, the other male pressing himself against him, rubbing to one side, drawing back, nudging forward again… a wandering paw reached down beneath both of their loincloths to squeeze their growing lengths together, and there was a small stroke, a quick pump, and a soft exhalation against his cheek, and then the hyena turned and danced away among the crowd, leaving the wild dog worked up, humping into the air beneath his tented clothing, wondering where this new cup of mead in his paw had come from.\n\nHe knew where to find Barchan, again thanks to Luka, and was well on his way to him – but time and time again either wandered or was pulled off-course, exploratory paws reaching out to touch their soon-to-be King, to feel his thick, paint-splotched pelt, to tug at his jewelry, to feel along his tail, his rump, his thigh, his chest… his sack, his sheath, his shaft. At one point another spotted hyena caught him by the shoulders and shoved her nose up into the crook of his neck, drawing deep of his strange, foreign scent; then he recalled another male slipping another pair of bangles up his shoulders to bounce and jangle against his own; and then his loincloth disappeared somewhere, and a slim, sleek aardwolf granted him his own, though its positioning was then shifted up and down his thighs again and again by new paws reaching out from the crowd. Sometimes they missed, on purpose or otherwise: a full palm grasped his rump, a pair of fingers slid up beneath his tail, another finger tugged down at the lip of his sheath, another paw nestled around his sack…\n\nAnd then Askia tumbled out and away, and within minutes realized that he had begun trudging his way back up the slope towards the mesa, where he had first caught sight of his new husband. He had seen the hyena earlier that day back then, during the poor excuse for a wedding ceremony, but hadn’t really looked at him until that night – and as he worked his way up the slope, gravel clattering beneath his footpaws, body feeling hot despite how he wore practically nothing, he remembered how the moonlight had sparkled off of Barchan’s jewelry, and his eyes, and the shimmering, ghostly swish of his own harem garb, and how it highlighted the patterns of his fur underneath, and… and there he lay now, lounged out across the same flat rock now with a woven blanket spread out underneath him. One broad ear twitched and flicked back at Askia’s approach; the hyena shifted how he lay and looked back over his shoulder, one of the wings of fabric drifting down across his arm. A faint smile tugged at his lips.\n\n“Hello,” Askia called, reaching to one side to steady himself against a tree that was not actually there, “husband.”\n\nBarchan sat up a little straighter. He pulled his knees in towards his body; from here the wild dog could see the plump, pert curve of his sack poking out between his thighs, resting across the blanket in the warmth of the evening. “Hello, beautiful,” he responded, in that smooth, sweet, slightly spiced voice of his, like the hot cocoa brewed with that rich orange powder. “You certainly look as though you’re having fun.”\n\n“Your people… are…” At least the stone was there: Askia caught himself against it, paused while waiting for the world to slow its spinning, and then with quite some effort pulled himself up alongside Barchan. The hyena leaned in against him, one arm going around his shoulder to pull him closer; Askia gladly rested his weight against him, indulging in the thick, syrupy warmth of his body, and that same intoxicating scent that stuck in his nose. “Welcoming,” he finally managed to finish, muzzle swaying towards Barchan’s. The hyena leaned back a little bit. “I have had… so many paws on me… tonight…”\n\n“You are well known by now,” the other male rumbled. He reached over for Askia’s paw, slid his fingers over the wild dog’s, and managed to entwine a few of them. “And not only that, you are enjoyed. The way you have spoken with our matriarchs, and the words your advisor has spread about you, has put you in very good graces with our council-”\n\n“Luka? Talking?” Askia leaned a bit more of his weight against Barchan. The hyena turned to let him lean in against his chest, warm, soft, plush. He settled in a little bit. “And here I thought all he was doing was – fucking your mother…”\n\nSilence for a moment, and then the hyena jerked with a quick bark of a laugh. His surprisingly strong arms wrapped in around Askia’s chest, paws slipping beneath the dancing folds of his minimal clothing, pressing into his pelt beneath. “Well,” he drawled, “yes, there is plenty of that, too. I almost fear she will demand you leave him behind, in exchange for my hand in marriage-”\n\n“She can’t – can she?”\n\n“No. Husband, the marriage is already done.” The hyena chuckled, the little puffs of breath tickling sweetly across Askia’s shoulder. He shivered and pressed back against him; still those paws continued up and down his body, one lifting towards his collar, the other sliding down his belly. By this point the wild dog had long since lost all embarrassment at being so on display at all times, and in fact, welcomed the extra attention – and found himself hoping that Barchan would be able to see the effect that his slow, intimate touches had on him. “But she might still ask, though.”\n\n“Mm…”\n\nFrom here the two could still see the trails of smoke from the bonfires, and distantly hear the music and celebration. “This is a new age for their people – for our people,” Luka had explained during the preparation earlier in the night; he and the King had helped each other with their loose, wispy outfits, and had shared more than a few touches and kisses in doing so. “From what I have heard, and what I have seen? Nobody is satisfied with the Queen. That is why the Council was established. It shall still remain once this land becomes yours, alongside Barchan – but I foresee a much smoother reign.” And then the otter had turned to look over himself in the mirror, turning first this way and then that, letting the fabric swish across his thick rudder-tail. “And I shall certainly not mind spending more time here…”\n\nBehind him Barchan shifted. Askia jerked, stirred back to full wakefulness; he thought that perhaps he had dozed off for a moment.\n\n“I am… truthfully, looking forward to leaving this place, and seeing your home…”\n\n“Our home.” The warmth simmering throughout his veins and filling his head with steam reverberated back down through the wild dog’s chest. He sat up, leaned forward a little bit too quickly, then turned partially sideways so he could see his husband’s eyes, obscured behind his lavender veil. “We will… have to build a palace. With the river… running right through the grand hall…”\n\nBarchan scoffed. “A palace? Askia, my people live in caves and tents, and-”\n\n“That could change.”\n\n“But do they want it to? This is to be a union of both of our ways, and both of our people. You and I will not live to see the end result, nor shall…” He caught himself. “I was about to say our children.”\n\n“Well…” King Askia brought a paw up alongside Barchan’s short, stout muzzle, fingers teasing beneath his veil. “Zuli and I haven’t managed it yet. Neither have Luka and I. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of trying.”\n\nAgain he laughed, though this time it was lower, softer, sweeter, bouncing along like the rhythm of the music further down in the valley. Barchan glanced over his muzzle at Askia, then looked away again. He brushed his veil back down into place across his snout.\n\n“You’re drunk,” he said, to the still night around them. Somewhere off in the dry brush, an insect chirped.\n\n“Perhaps a little. Have you – had the wine?”\n\n“Yes. It’s fantastic.”\n\n“And your mead is… delicious, too.” Askia wiped at the corner of his mouth. “One of your… matriarchs… spat in my cup before giving it to me, though.”\n\n“Did you drink it?”\n\n“Of course I drank it.”\n\n“Oh.” Barchan’s ears perked again. “Oh, dear. That means that you’ve agreed to let her carry your pups.”\n\nAgain the world spun. Askia slid over to stare at him, but the hyena tactfully avoided eye contact.\n\n“Are you – joking?”\n\n“Askia-”\n\n“Barchan!”\n\nOne paw found a firm, veil-wrapped shoulder, and then the hyena presented surprising resistance against his strength – but then he tottered backwards, spreading out across the stone with Askia leaning in over him, other paw beside his chest, one leg drawn up by his waist. Barchan had his head turned to the side and was struggling to stifle his laughter, his thick, strong neck pulsing with the effort. Loose jewelry dangled across his throat, threads of pale violet swinging in between, shifting with each breath; Askia swallowed, licked his lips, and begin to lean in, wanting to press his nose into the little puff of fur there, to get another taste of Barchan’s sweet, spicy scent… and then the hyena’s paws reached up to caress his muzzle, at the same time stopping him in place.\n\nIdly, Barchan rubbed his thumbs across his cheeks. “It’s… silly,” he went on, voice softer, “but I can’t help but imagine the stars are different, where you are.”\n\nAskia blinked, then craned his head up to peer at the night sky stretching overhead. This was a mistake; he felt himself wobble, one of Barchan’s paws clamping to his shoulder to hold him steady.\n\nHe wrenched his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again. “But I am right here.”\n\n“I mean where you come from. Here we have… up there, just beneath and to the right of the moon. That is Acacia the hunter, forever tracking his prey the sun – but the sun always outsmarts him, and dances away from his arrows at the last moment, which root in the earth and grow into the trees we see around the savanna. And then here…” He switched arms, his other now lightly grasping the wild dog’s forearm. Askia stifled a hiccup and looked down across sleek, yet muscular chest and belly, swung his hips gently side to side, felt the sag, the heft, the smack of his own balls nudging first against one thigh and then the other, sheath following a second later. “The River Delta, from which all water flows. It is a way to lull young pups to sleep: point out the delta itself, then have them draw out as many tributaries as they can, star to star, all the way across the sky, and…”\n\n“Barchan.”\n\nWarm eyes flicked back to his muzzle, focusing through the veil. “Mm?”\n\n“I’m listening.” Askia dropped down to one elbow, bringing his muzzle so close he could feel the hyena’s breath. “I promise. But right now I just… really…” Once more he brushed the veil up and aside – and yet again Barchan’s eyes shimmered with their own light. “…want to kiss you.”\n\nStunned, the other male stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth open. “What?”\n\n“I want to kiss you.”\n\nHis lips quirked; he laughed again and looked away. “You want to sober up, is what you meant to say. I have gotten no more than two handshakes and one nuzzle from you, on the shoulder, last night, which still surprised me, and-”\n\n“No, no…” It was remarkable how well Askia’s paw fit against the center of Barchan’s chest, fingers following the line of his sternum hidden beneath thick fur, thumb reaching out to the side. He swallowed again, leaned in closer, felt the world sweep up to meet him… buried his nose in the plush, thick mane that draped over the hyena’s shoulders like a cloak, then trailed up from there to lift his chin up from underneath. Barchan shivered around him, his own breath catching in his throat while Askia drew a deep, slow drag of his scent, that same fur tickling his nostrils. “We are married. I’m the king, and you are also the king, and you said…” The mane muffled his voice a bit. He dug in further, finding the line of Barchan’s collar bone, resting his lips against it. “…we have to establish our union. Prove it to the people.”\n\n“Ah – Askia – the people think we already did that; you were not comfortable with it, and… and we… hah…”\n\n“Mm. But we didn’t.” He remembered the way Luka had nipped, and tugged, and gently sucked between his teeth, and tried to emulate these same touches. “And I’m not about to be made a liar.”\n\n“Please, I – o-oh, that’s… you’re… Askia, I’m…” Gentle paws pressed up at his chest, sending fiery little sparkles vibrating out from the points of contact. “Come on. Let us at least wait until you’re sober, and then we can talk about this, and-”\n\n“All it does to me,” the wild dog went on, words slurring as he dragged his nose and lips across the hyena’s neck again, “is… lower my inhibitions. It makes me… do and say things that I already want to, but… would be too shy or hesitant to do.”\n\n“And maybe there’s a reason for that hesitation, and-”\n\n“And like I said,” and here he pulled himself forward and deliberately sat back along the hyena’s lap. The closeness between the two of them had had the same effect on Barchan as it did on Askia: just by rocking his haunches forward and back, he felt the wet tapered heat of growing half-arousal, nudging up at his tailhole, teasing, poking… coaxing out further with his movements. “We’re married, and you’re my husband.”\n\nBarchan paused. He bit his lip. “And so,” he murmured, “then I suppose it is my duty to-”\n\n“No. No, no.” Askia lifted up again, paws on the stone by his shoulders, muzzle directly above the other’s. “As your husband, it is my right to ask if you want to,” and he leaned in again, this time brushing a gentle kiss into the thick fur of the hyena’s cheek. Barchan’s ear flicked. “Just as it is your right to tell me no, if you do not.”\n\nFor a moment that expression remained; then broad hyena paws made their way back down Askia’s sides, to his waist, then around in front… where one cupped around his sack beneath the thin veil, and the other hooked behind his sheath to massage and work his half-hard length further out into the air.\n\nThen the hyena wet his lips. His other paw trailed back up Askia’s hip, found the waist of his loincloth, began to undo the thin binding. “You said you… wanted to kiss?”\n\nAskia’s tail wagged. The wild dog smiled, turned his head, leaned in – and then finally felt his lips brush against his husband’s, the warmth there intoxicating, invigorating. Barchan met him gently at first, and then with more intent and effort: he pressed in, his tongue flicked forward, Askia met it and reciprocated… and then tilted his head further, and sucked at his breath and his mouth, and swallowed down his taste, and grinded down against him.\n\nThen he drew free, dove back in for another, pulled back again, and now shifted the hyena’s head up and to the side to place another kiss along the line of his jaw. Then one to his neck, and his shoulder, and then down, in much the same pattern that Luka had returned with the Queen’s bite marks the other night; the hyena squirmed underneath his attention, jewelry jingling, wisps of fabric shifting this way and that beneath exploratory paws. The further he went, the stronger the scent in his nose simmered: there was that dry spice, the warm sweetness, that touch of slight sourness… Askia had seen Barchan practically naked every time he had been in the same vicinity as him, but now, finally slipping his fingers beneath his loincloth and flipping it up, it felt so, so different.\n\nThe first thing he noticed was the different shape from himself. Less of a bulge and contour, as deft work from his paw cupped around the hyena’s sack and attentive nose worked him further out, and a bit more of a discernible head – and then the scent as well, more of that warm, dense earthy spice, sleek and slick. A quick drag from his tongue sent a shiver reverberating through Barchan’s body, and a throb bouncing his shaft against Askia’s muzzle; then a second, and a third, and the wild dog wrapped his lips around and dove down, feeling his wet heat across his tongue, filling his maw.\n\nBarchan moaned and reached down, paw splaying between Askia’s ears. He lifted up into his throat, but only a little bit; Askia closed his eyes and continued there, still rubbing at his sack, finger lifting up underneath – then moving aside, slipping down further, teasing between his legs, until the soft, tight folds of puckered tailhole danced across his fingerpad. Just a little bit of focus there and then the wild dog lifted up again, mouth flooded with the unfamiliar, enticing taste of hyena; he looked up at his husband, licked his lips, and now scooped his paws ­beneath his thighs, gripping into the plush firmness there.\n\n“Askia-” Barchan giggled softly, also reaching down. “What are you-”\n\nAnd then his arms went out to his sides when the wild dog hoisted his hind end up, brushy tail hanging down in the air, balls slipping forward along the underside of his shaft. Askia swallowed, licked his lips again, looked down at the pert rump held up right in front of him, at the way the shifting of weight tugged at the sleek, delicate pucker nestled beneath his tail, how his pubic fur bristled and pinched down to soft, felt plush, and – he couldn’t resist. Meeting the hyena’s eyes and holding them, the wild dog leaned in, dropped his tongue out, and dragged up across his tailhole, pulling up past the underside of his sack; Barchan gasped and clenched against him, then did so again at a second, and another.\n\nAnother breath came thick with Barchan’s musk, and then Askia pursed his lips against his tailhole, slid in, and suckled softly, tongue dancing over the tight folds and wrinkles, poking and prodding at the center tension. Underneath him the hyena sighed and moaned again, reaching up to slowly stroke himself; his head turned and faced out over the valley below, the celebration still ongoing, though his eyes remained gently closed under the pleasure.\n\nAskia focused there a moment longer and then lowered his husband back down again, this time to rest his haunches across his lap. Barchan’s eyes fluttered open to look up at him; he reached out towards the wild dog’s arm with one paw, stroked gently, smiled, then watched as Askia adjusted to spit into his own palm and smear the sticky slickness across his fully hard length.\n\nThe wild dog leaned in over him. “Have you ever-?”\n\nBarchan nodded. “I’m not supposed to have done so. But I have.”\n\nThat made him smirk. “Me, too.”\n\n“You don’t hold it against me?”\n\n“What? No. If anything, that…” Tapered tip to saliva-slickened tailhole, Askia nudged forward, felt the grip, the squeeze… the slick, wet heat beginning to unfold and wrap around him. “…makes it easier… for me, and…”\n\nAnd both of them sighed out as he began to sink in, the deep, indulgent sensation flooding through both of them. Still the wild dog tried to measure his pace as he went, nudging in, sliding back out, sinking in again, following Barchan’s noises as well as he could with the world still spinning slowly around him. Each time he pulled back and then pressed back in felt better than the last, his sheath continuing to roll back along his unswollen knot, Barchan’s length stiffening, sliding out further, dripping across his chest.\n\n“You feel…” The hyena reached out with a paw, pressed it into the fur of Askia’s chest, trailed up towards his jaw. “Divine…”\n\nSo Askia leaned in again, brushed his lips to Barchan’s, held there, breathed out. “And so do you,” he rumbled in response, and thrust in again. The other male gasped, clenched around him, released his breath as a slow moan – and rocked his hips around him.\n\nFrom there the rhythm began, slow and steady at first, Askia holding his husband’s gaze, keeping him locked in a kiss. He felt not unlike someone of Luka’s size with Zuli’s build, streamlined yet dense musculature tightening beneath skin and fur, with this stout, short muzzle against his own… and there were those fangs and that tendency to bite and nip and chew, more so the deeper they both fell into the union, bangles clattering, fur rustling, breath puffing.\n\nAskia let his eyes flutter shut, felt his balance wobble, realized this was a mistake and opened them again. He drew away from the kiss, lips slick with the hyena’s drool, and leaned in to bury his muzzle amid the puffy mane cresting all around his shoulders; Barchan wrapped his arms around his back, claws digging into his fur, and rode in against him as the wild dog continued to thrust, now fast and hard, hips smacking against rump. Little gasps and exhalations of tense breath rolled over into voiced moans, higher, faster, urgency building, pleasure peaking.\n\nThe wild dog straightened up, gritted his teeth, and slid his paws around to the underside of Barchan’s thighs, lifting the hyena up so that natural leverage brought him sinking back down onto him, each time with him thrusting forward. Sensation and passion surged within him; the hyena had again let his head roll to the side, mouth open, one paw moving swiftly across his hard length, the other cupping his balls to lift them up and out of the way, and-\n\n-Askia’s peak hit all at once, pounding through him, bending him over his husband, knot swelling out and pressing against his tailhole as each spurt unloaded deep inside, one after the other. Barchan moaned out over the music from down below, wriggled around him as he continued to fill him, then swallowed, gritted his teeth, jerked, jerked again – and clenched so hard with the first of his own spurts, milky white lancing out across cinnamon brown, that Askia for a moment that he was about to cum again. He was panting, and Barchan still moaned with the echoing remnants of his own peak, and then Askia came forward and mashed his lips to the hyena’s and felt the vibrations of his voice pour out into his mouth, and he held him there, and gave a few more slow, deep thrusts with the warmth and presence of his body all around, and held him there against him for a just a moment longer.\n\nThen he drew back, swallowed, smiled. “My King,” Askia murmured, then leaned into bury his nose again among thick fur.\n\nBarchan’s arms drew around him, the wet heat of his body still squeezing around his buried shaft. “My King…”\n\n…and then Askia opened his eyes again and blinked against the glare of the sun through one of the windows, carved from the stone wall of the cliff face. He swallowed, felt the dry grit in his throat, pulled himself upright… winced at the ache throbbing in the center of his skull.\n\nWhere is…?\n\nHe looked around the room, saw the tapestry hanging on the far wall, the pale wood of the door, the decorations… the clothing strewn across the floor. That’s right, he realized, vaguely; Barchan and I, we… up on the mesa, and then came down, hand in hand, but got distracted halfway there and went again, and… He reached up to rub at a sore spot on his shoulder, then poked a fingerpad along textured divots sunken into his skin. With effort, and further wincing, he traced out the half-moon arc of a bite print.\n\n…and then he brought me back here, to his own quarters, and… as soon as I felt him in my arms, I fell asleep, and here I am now. Askia blinked against the glare and reached out beside him – and felt the thick, plush mane, the warmth of another body, the slow rise and fall and comfortable sleep.\n\nAnd here he is still, right beside me. Strange sleeping without Zuli or Luka, but this feels… well, I think I could get used to this. He rubbed a little bit more, reaching beneath the sheets to find the hyena’s paw; a moment later Barchan stirred, stretched, sighed, and opened his eyes.\n\nAs soon as he saw Askia he smiled, and squeezed his paw. “Good morning,” he purred, and turned away to voice a wide yawn. Thick, sharp fangs glittered in pink gums. “How are you feeling?”\n\nAskia rubbed at the side of his head. “Like I tumbled down that rock we were on last night…”\n\n“You almost did. Good thing you tied me nice and tight and I was there to keep you from falling.”\n\nThe world slowed. He stared at him. “Did I-”\n\nBut Barchan laughed, a sharp, rich sound. The sheets slid down across his chest; Askia felt the sudden desire to lean over and run his muzzle down that smooth, flat chest. “A joke. You did not. I hear wild dogs have smaller knots than other species; I think I could still manage, though.”\n\n“Who told you that? Who are you talking to that-”\n\n“Ah! Askia! Stop, that’s – I’m ticklish, and-”\n\nThen those fangs sank into his shoulder, thankfully the one opposite the bite, and a sweet, fiery shiver shot down the wild dog’s back. He rumbled atop his husband, squirmed, and then let his weight slosh out around him, until Barchan tapped at his sides and back to get him to roll back off, both giggling softly. Askia lounged back on the bed, the pleasant heat of midmorning washing across his naked body.\n\nHe sighed. “We are to head home today.”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“Well. To my home, I suppose.”\n\nBarchan rolled onto his side and reached an arm across the wild dog’s body. His broad nose pressed into his shoulder. “It will be my home, too.”\n\n“For the time being. I must speak with Luka for arranging the documents and whatever else, who…” He craned his head up. “…I must ensure is returning with us, instead of serving his new role as – what – chew toy for your Queen?”\n\n“She spits on him, I think.” Sharp claws teased through his fur. “I saw her do it into his mouth once. I think he asked for it.”\n\n“She doesn’t-”\n\n“-and the times he didn’t speak with the matriarchs was because his jaw was too sore from ‘servicing’ her, and-”\n\n“Barchan, that is your mother-”\n\nGiggling, the hyena nuzzled a little deeper. “Wait until you hear what that zebra of yours has been getting up to.”\n\nHe lifted his head again. “Is this another joke?”\n\nBarchan paused, held his gaze – then laughed out loud, and came in for a kiss. Askia met him and held him there, then dragged it out into a second, and a third, and a fourth, and then the hyena was wriggling and squirming underneath him again, and then gasping, shivering, moaning.\n\nPerhaps there really is a future here. I like his presence, his personality… his ideas, and his policies, and his ambitions. Strong paws slid up his sides, dug into his fur, pulled him close. And once everyone else rises, we shall depart for home. Our home, as he says, and… our new beginning shall start from there.\n\nOne of those paws came up to his muzzle, spread across his jaw, and teased him closer. Askia smiled, rested his own over it, turned his head, and leaned in for another kiss.\n\nAnd then all that’s left to us is the future."
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