by Alexis Ward
“You okay?” I whispered. I could feel her breath hot against my neck. Just feeling her pressed up against me made a shiver of pleasure run down from the top of my head straight to my crotch.
“Yeah. Just… you saved me and I’m supposed to be the one helping you out and you smell so good and I liked it when you pet me and..” her whispered trailed off and I couldn’t quite make out what she said next.
I rolled over onto my back and turned my head to look into her eyes. They had vertical pupils like a cat, but other than her eyes, ears, and tail, she seemed perfectly human to me. Though her moods did seem to shift pretty rapidly. “And?” I asked.
She scooted closer, pressed herself against me and lifted her head so her mouth was level with my ear. “And I think I like you a whole lot Marcus, and I want to thank you properly.” she whispered. There was a pause, I don’t know for how long and all I could hear was her breathing heavily as we both remained silent. Thank me properly? Did she mean-- I felt her hand slide into contact with my hip. Oh, I felt my cock strain against my pants. Then Zemma laid her head on my shoulder and purred as she slid her hand directly atop my cock and squeezed it through my pants. “Can I please? I know we just met and--” I pushed my lips against hers. That seemed to be enough of an answer. She ground her palm into my crotch in response and let out a long guttural purr as my tongue met hers.
I flicked my tough out and tasted her lips briefly as I withdrew from the kiss. “Yes, I mean, I’ve been staring at you since the moment we met. When we weren’t in mortal danger anyway.” I said.
She nodded. “I saw. It’s not-- not unappreciated, but normally people don’t-- Well, some parts of the country still treat beastkin as subhuman by law.” she said.
“Other than a few things.” I patted her head and ran one finger gently along the edge of her triangular fuzzy ear, “You’re human enough for me, okay? I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you.” I whispered. I wrapped one arm around her back and rubbed my hand into the small of her back.
She purred pleasantly and hooked her fingers around the waist of my pants. I lifted my butt and wiggled to help her pull my pants down. Her hand found my exposed and upright cock and she wrapped her fingers around me and squeezed gently. I exhaled and laid back on my coat-pillow, closed my eyes and enjoyed the simple pleasure of the attention she gave my cock with her hand.
I felt her body weight shift as she scooted down deeper under the covers. I opened one eye and looked down just in time to see her take the tip of my cock in her mouth. Her tongue played at my tip. I took a deep breath and let my arousal take over. I knotted one hand into her hair and gently pushed her down onto my cock. She glanced up at me and made eye contact. A noise burbled out from her mouth but I couldn’t quite understand her. From the tone it sounded like a question. I nodded affirmative, unsure what she had asked. She purred briefly then thrust her face down onto my cock and took my full length into her mouth. I felt a sensation of pleasure and pressure in my cock begin to build up slowly.
Zemma purred as I pushed her down on my cock, then I convulsed as my climax suddenly exploded into her mouth and throat. I untangled my hand from her hair and stroked the spot between her ears instead. She didn’t let me out of her mouth right away, instead she looked up at me again, then smiled around my cock. A little bit of my fluid spilled down her chin as she withdrew and sat up, which moved the blanket off of us. She tilted her head back and scooped the errant fluid back into her mouth, then swallowed it all.
A breeze shook the tree branches as it blew through the forest and I shivered as it reached us. The blanket had ended up down by our feet. I sat up and wrapped it around both of us. Zemma pushed her head against my chest, the furry tips of her ears tickled me slightly. I wrapped my arms around her to hold the blanket in place. “Did I do good?” she whispered.
“That was amazing.” I said as I laid back down, pulling her down with me. She lay atop me now, her head nuzzled into my shoulder and armpit.
“So my sweet scholarly cat, other than escape the bandits, what is the plan for tomorrow?” I whispered.
She responded with a snore and draped an arm over my body. “Already asleep huh?” I asked.
I closed my eyes and eventually drifted off to sleep, one arm wrapped around Zemma to keep her close. She was definitely more warm and soft than the either of the blankets.
Chapter 4
The sound of birdsong and the light of the sun rising on the horizon woke me up. At some point Zemma had adjusted and lay next to me. She snored faintly, oblivious to the change from night to morning. She smelled like dirt and moss, we both probably did, though it seemed a pleasant enough smell to me. I wrapped my arms around her and worked one hand under her shirt. She purred and shifted next to me, giving me more room to maneuver. I moved my hand down and touched the base of her tail where it met her body, just above her ass. Her eyes snapped wide open and she looked at me.
Within a few moments her face had flushed a deep red and I could feel her whole body heating up atop me. “You--- you shouldn’t touch me there. It’s way too hard to restrain myself and there’s other stuff we should probably take care of first today.” she stammered.
I removed my hand from her tail and settled for running my fingers through her hair. My stomach rumbled. “Huh. You know, I don’t think I’ve eaten anything at all lately.” I said.
Her forehead bumped into my chest. “Neither have I, other than last night’s fun, and that wasn’t really food-food-nya.” she muttered into my ribs.
“Fair.” I stroked her hair and she purred into my chest. “So what do you do for food around here?” I asked.
She snapped her head up and stared at me with a sparkle in her eyes. “Fish!” she exclaimed. She sprang up and yanked the blanket off of me. As the cold air rushed in, I realized that my pants were still down around my ankles.
I stood up and pulled my pants up. As I did so I noticed her staring at my crotch. “Thought you said we didn’t have time for that?” I chuckled.
Her ears twisted about and she shook her head side to side rapidly. “Right-right-right-yep.” she said as she rolled up the blankets and stuffed them back into her backpack.
I drank some of my water and then took stock of what exactly was in my backpack now that there was proper light to see by. It was mostly empty. In the bottom was a change of clothes and wrapped inside that was a small paper wrapped parcel tied with string. I held it up and looked at Zemma. “What, I didn’t put it there. If it’s in your bag, then it’s clearly yours. What’s in it?” she asked.
I untied the string and unwrapped it. Inside was a letter and a small bag full of heavy coins. I held out the pouch to Zenna. “I don’t know the values of these, I mean, they’re gold and some whitish metal, is this enough to buy us lunch?” I asked.
Zemma’s eyes widened and sparkled. “That’s more money than I’ve ever seen at one time before! Of course you could by lunch, if any restaurants in town are still standing.” she pointed back toward the town we had fled from the night before. “What's the letter say?” she asked.
I opened it and read it:
Due to the randomly generated content of the game, I cannot provide you with the kind of guide you had in mind. Instead, please take care of Zemma. Hopefully she’ll be able to teach you a thing or two. It wouldn’t do for you to starve along the way, so please take these funds and spend them wisely.
Signed
System AI
Goddess of the Realm
~Oni
“It says this money is for us, mostly. And a goddess welcomes me to the realms.” I said as I folded up the letter and stuck it into my coat pocket. I also explained the bit about Zemma being my appointed guide.
Zemma froze. “The guidebook!” she said as she dug vigorously through her pack, till her head and shoulders disappeared inside of it. I held the coins in one hand and took the opportunity to watch Zemma’s ass wiggle in the air as her tail twisted back and forth.
; She resurfaced from the inside of her bag a few moments later. She held a thick green hardback book in her hands. She looked at me, then her eyes flickered to my groin briefly. “Were you staring at me?” she asked.
I arched an eyebrow. “Maybe. So this is the guidebook you’re working on? Let’s see it.” I said. I tucked the bag of coins back into my backpack and held out my hand toward Zemma.
She hesitated and looked down at the ground. “Well-- I haven’t made much progress.” she muttered. She held the book out closer to me. I took it from her and opened it to the first page. Blank. The second page had ‘Table of Contents’ written across the top and a large comical picture of a fish occupied the rest of the page. The third page had one sentence written across the top ‘A is for Adventure’. I flipped through the rest of the book. “Zemma, this book is almost entirely blank.” I looked at her. She still had her eyes fixed on a point on the ground between us.
“I know. See, I’m a scholar. I read things and I can draw okay pictures, but I’m not super good at taking notes. Writing is not a strong suit, okay? Also, I’m still hungry.” she muttered.
“Fair.” I picked up my backpack and handed the book back to her. “Let’s see how much of the town survived and after we buy some food we can worry about our next move, okay?” I asked.
Zemma looked up at me with a wide smile on her face. “Can we have fish?” she yowled. She was so cute when she smiled. I took a moment to glance down at her breasts. She blushed but didn’t comment on my wandering eyes.
I wrapped her in a hug and smiled. “Of course, if we can find some.” I said.
She wiggled out of my hug which wasn’t hard, her head only came up to my chest when we were standing. “Yay!” she put the guidebook back in her pack, then hefted the whole thing onto her shoulders. She took off toward the road into town at a jog. After she reached the cobblestone road, she realized I wasn’t keeping up with her and looked back. I walked at my usual pace. “Hurry up Marcus! Don’t you like fish?” she shouted.
Chapter 5
We arrived back in town after a short walk. There was no one else on the road. “So does this town have a name?” I asked.
“Of course, this is Zrudale.” Zemma sniffed the air and her tail swished rapidly back and forth. “I smell fish, come on!” she grabbed my hand and led me past a mixture of burnt out buildings and a few that were still standing. There were not many people in the streets and those we did see were busy. They hefted barrels and boards to and for, or went about other business, presumably busy trying to repair their homes and businesses.
As she led the way, the smells of burnt wood gave way to the savory scent of cooked meat. Fish. In front of a partially destroyed wooden structure a food stand had been built out of scrap wood. Between two tall wooden poles a white bed sheet had been folded and hung, with the words ‘Fish and Veggies on a Stick! Still open!’ painted on it in block letters.
Zemma waved excitedly and pointed to the stand. “See, see, fish! I’m so glad they’re still open. And alive!” she purred.
She practically dragged me up to the stand as I dug the coin pouch out of my backpack. The proprietor, a young man in an apron, seemed to recognize Zemma. “Zemmy, my best customer, glad you made it through the night. What can I get you?” he asked.
“Four sticks for us please and some water would be good.” I said as I handed over a coin from the pouch.
“Ah, Sir, that’ll actually only cost you four units, and that’s a hundred unit coin. Due to the bandit raid, my ability to make change is quite limited.” he said nervously.
I looked at Zemma, who eyed the fish on the grill behind the stand hungrily. “I get the feeling that we will be frequent customers here. How about you open me an account and add the difference as credit?” I suggested.
His eyes widened. “You’d do that? It’d be a great help toward rebuilding the restaurant. Consider it a deal!” He produced a notepad, quill and bottle of ink from beneath the counter and wrote down some figures.
A few moments later he handed me a receipt and I passed the coin to him. After that he passed us each a plate of two skewers of juicy baked fish and veggies. He placed two glasses of water on the table as well as a full pitcher from under the counter. “Name’s Enam by the way sir.” he said.
I nodded. “Marcus, last night was my first night in town. I’m working with Zemma on a project.” I said.
Enam grimaced. “Then you picked the worst night of the month to come to town. We’ve had bandit raids occurring once or twice a month for a long time now.” Enam said.
I nodded slowly. “And they just keep coming? No one stopped them? Guards, or the Guild Zemma works for?” I asked.
Zemma, midway through a bite of fish, looked sidelong at me. She swallowed her food, then spoke, “Well, the Guildhall around here is..” she said.
“Dead. Empty. This area was picked clean long ago, and the bandits occupy the north road, which cuts us off from the larger cities for the most part. Every town south of us still relies on our variety of goods and services though, so we rebuild. Most of the experienced warriors work as guards, or have moved to less dangerous areas, such as Pengi, to the north.” Enam explained.
I looked at Zemma. “If there’s no work here, then why are you here?” I asked.
“Obviously because Enam cooks the best fish in the country!” she beamed a smile at me which rapidly melted into a frown. “And because nobody wanted to travel with me. No aptitude for magic, or physical fighting ability. B the time everyone moved on to Pengi, the roads were too dangerous for me to go alone.” Zemma muttered.
“Aye.” Ename nodded, “She’s been mostly either at the Guildhall, hoping some new blood would trickle in, or here eating my fish, or getting drunk over there.” He pointed across the street to another pile of burnt ruins.
Zemma looked back. “Oh no!” she groaned, “That’s where we were last night. They had the best fried potatoes in town.” She turned back to Enam and pointed at the grill. “More please! I guess you’ve got no competition for my dollars now.” she said.
“Any thoughts Marcus?” Enam asked as he served up another plate for Zemma.
I patted Zemma on the head as she bit into her next round of food. She butted her head against my hand and purred. “Yeah. I think we can either find a way to deal with these bandits, or leave.” I said.
“Well I ain’t going anywhere. My father and his father before him passed this place down to me, and I intend to restore it to its former glory and then some.” Ename said as he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb to the ruins of his family restaurant.
“An Ah-- goe where da- fish is!” Zemma said through a mouthful of food.
Great, so stay here and fight bandits it is then, I thought. “So then we need to handle the bandits somehow. Zemma, if you’re the only guild member left, does that mean you essentially own the guild building here?” I wasn’t actually sure if the guild would have a building, or that it would still be standing after last night, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Zemma swallowed another bite of food. “Kinda. I mean, the guild owns it, and anyone can enter the common room, but I have free reign over the rest of it. I mean, there’s no one to stop me.” she said, then she stuffed another large bite of fish into her mouth.
I finished my food and stretched my arms over my head. “Then we should go see if it’s still standing. Come on, bring your leftovers if you’re still hungry. I said.
Zemma grabbed the stick she hadn’t finished. “We’ll be back for dinner Enam!” she said as she led the way to the guild hall.
Chapter 6
It was a pleasant surprise that the guild hall hadn’t burned down last night. It was a large two story stone structure surrounded by a crumbled cobblestone wall. We stepped over a low portion of this wall into a courtyard, then Zemma bounded across the field, up the short flight of stairs and flung the large wooden doors open. “Tada!” she yelled.
Beyond the doors was a cobweb an
d dust filled space. The center was full of tables with chairs placed upside down atop them. To the left was a large counter with many empty shelves behind it and to the right was a stairway up to the second floor. Across the room was a closed door. “So this is it huh?” I asked. My voice echoed off the high ceiling of the common room.
“Yep! Hey, why did you want to come here anyway?” Zemma asked.
“Every guild hall has someone in charge, right?” I asked.
“Well, usually. Yeah.”
“Usually?”
“I’m the only ranking member in this area and-- I’m not really the leading type.” Zemma said.
“You took charge just fine last night.” I said. I reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. As I withdrew my hand she held on and looked up at me.
“That’s different! Lovemaking and administration are two different things!” she exclaimed.