Challenge

M/F, centaurs, kinks, and more plot than sex. Don't say you weren't warned.

Challenge

Eina heard the bell ring in the next room, and she stood up, straightening her dress. Another hour, another customer. This one probably wanted a love spell: Those had grown distressingly popular lately. She sighed: She was getting tired of brewing frog's breath. Income was income, but she was bored. Ten years out of the Academy and she thought she'd be doing more by now than spending all day making boring potions for boring customers.

She circled the table in the back room, walking out through the curtain to the main part of the shop. "Hello, welcome to 'the Magic -- Chalice.'" She paused, looking up.

Most of her customers weren't this tall. Or this horse.

The centaur grimaced down at her. "I don't suppose you can cure this?" he said nervously.

Eina whistled. "I take it you weren't always a centaur?"

"What's a 'centaur?'" he said.

She shook her head. "Apparently you are." She walked over to the wall of visicks and took a half-gauge lensetter off the shelf. "How'd you end up like this?"

"My ex-girlfriend gave me the horse as a parting gift," he said, chagrined.

"Wow, what did you do to justify that?"

"Nothing!"

Eina looked up at him, one eyebrow cocked. "Uh huh."

"Her -- her sister kissed me in the barn, but I swear I didn't kiss her back!"

"Really."

"Honest!" he said. "I -- was going to break up with her anyway. She's crazy, but -- "

Eina chuckled, walking over with the lensetter. "But she's got lots of ass and great big tits?"

He bit his lip awkwardly.

"Boys," she said. "So consistent, you can set your watch by 'em." She sat down on a stool, cranking it up to its highest setting, and waved at him. "All right, come over here, let's take a look at you."

The centaur walked over and stopped in front of her. She lifted the lensetter to his side and switched out several of the crystals until a violet-colored image of tangled lines came into focus. She studied it a moment.

"Well, I can't say as I've seen that before," she said. She lowered the lensetter and looked up at him. "That's one heck of a curse you've got there."

"Curse?"

"That's no ordinary spell," said Eina. "Sex curse. Crafted by a succubus, by the look of it. That's the good stuff right there. You really must've gotten on your ex's bad side for her to summon a succubus. I wonder how much of her soul she sacrificed to do this to you?"

"Can you cure it? They say you're the best."

Eina grinned. "Who says that?"

"I asked around in the square, in the tavern. They say you're the best sorceress for a thousand leagues."

"Well, they're right," said Eina, grinning wider. "But this is a pretty strong curse. And you don't want to know what it's going to take to get rid of it."

"I just want my body back! Please, I'll pay you." He lifted up the small coin pouch he was carrying and poured the coins onto the counter beside her.

She glanced at them, wryly. A dozen bronze pieces, and a couple of silver pieces. That could barely buy a basic fire spell, much less cover the costs to lift the kind of curse he was carrying. He had no idea how deep he was in. Still --

Eina took three bronze pieces and slid the rest back. "All right, you have a deal. I've been needing a good challenge," she said. She ran her hands through her long, dark hair, straightening it, then stood up. She turned toward the back and waved at him. "Come on. This is going to require stronger magic than anything I have out front here."

He nodded, and followed her back through the curtain. She turned, opening a door in the wall, and she started down a deep, narrow staircase. The poor centaur had difficulty following in such a narrow passageway, but he managed.

"What's your name, anyway?" she said.

"Daen," he said.

"So now tell me what really happened," she said, stopping on the stairs. The horse-man behind her had nowhere to go, and backing up was almost impossible. He was stuck.

"I -- "

"If you want this curse lifted, I have to know what you did. They probably used that as part of the curse. So out with it. You didn't just kiss her sister."

"I, uh -- "

"If you want your feet back, talk. Otherwise, good luck with your new job pulling plows."

He looked down at the dark stairs. "I wasn't -- with her sister," he said. "And it was more than -- kissing."

"Uh huh. And?"

"It was -- her horse."

Eina paused, then grimaced. "Eew! Eew ew ew! Well, that explains a lot! No wonder she chose this for you. I would've too."

"I had never even -- anything! With anyone! I didn't cheat on her! I was drunk -- and it was stupid, and I don't know what I was thinking, and --!"

Eina shook her head. "Alright, you deviant, come on down, let's get you fixed up," she said, turning and waving at him. "But next time you have too many flagons of mead, just puke in the gutter like everybody else, okay?"

Daen glared at the ground, his face burning hot, and he followed her the rest of the way down the stone stairs, his hooves clopping loudly on each step. They arrived in a large, round chamber, deep underground, its walls bluish stone bricks with a hint of mildew on them. Eina waved her hand, and several torches along the walls burst into flames.

"Wow," said Daen, watching the room light up.

"That's an easy spell. The one on you is harder," she said. She walked over to a set of bookshelves against one wall and pulled down three books.

"What do you have to do to cure it?" he said.

"You don't cure curses," she replied, striding over to a table where she laid the three books. "You lift them or you satisfy them. We don't know what terms the succubus used to create the curse, so we probably can't satisfy it. Which means the only option is to lift it."

He clomped over to the table and looked down at the open tomes, which she was slowly paging through. "How do we do that?" he said.

"Well, it's a sex curse, so sex," she said, not looking up.

"What --!"

She peered up at him. "Don't get any wise ideas," she said. "I'm not doing anything with you. But if you want the curse lifted, you're going to have to weaken it by satisfying a part of it, and that means you're gonna have to do something sexual while I try to pry it free from you."

"Something -- "

She pointed at the chalk circle on the floor. "Go sit over there and start masturbating," she ordered.

"What --!?"

"You think I want to watch you jerk off?" she said. "The only reason I'm doing this at all is because it's a challenge, and I haven't had one of those in a while. So go sit over there, follow directions, and if we do this right, I should be able to lift it off of you and attach it to something else, like this bucket." She held up a bucket. "Which, by the way, if you have a stupid orgasm, make sure the jizz ends up in the bucket so I don't have to clean up after you."

He blanched. "You want me to -- "

"Don't be stupid and pay attention," she growled. She pointed at the circle. "Go sit there and weaken the curse by jerking off that horse prick of yours. Think about that mare you were nailing, or a cute girl or something. I don't care. Just play along and do what I tell you, or get your horse ass out of my store."

He nodded soberly, and, taking the bucket, walked over to the great chalk circle on the floor, which had a pair of seven-point stars inscribed within it and several ominous-looking symbols and shapes. He lay down in the middle of it, leaned back over his shoulder, and awkwardly started to gently massage his sheath.

Eina shook her head. That was easily the weirdest thing she'd seen this week. Or possibly this month. This year? Out in the Deep Forest, when she'd seen the cyclops making out with the fairy, that might have been weirder. But watching a cute guy jerk off a horse's prick was definitely not something she'd seen before.

But to business: While he was busy weakening the curse, she needed to pry it free. She got up from the books and walked over to the chalk circle, kneeling down at its edge. She concentrated, feeling the energy build up, and the chalk circle began to glow. A wind whipped up, and she let her mind sink into the astral plane. He was still there, in the center of the growing maelstrom, his body now glowing red-hot with sexual energy.

"Is it working?" he shouted over the wind.

"Shut up!" she hissed, losing focus for a moment.

The wind howled in the chamber, and she could see the curse now, a web of dark purple lines wrapped around him in the astral plane. The succubus had even stamped the web E.S., as if she had been so proud of her curse that she wanted to label it. Eina focused, and slowly, a few of the outer lines began to loosen and whip in the wind. Carefully, delicately, she pried each line free of his body, and it started to shrink, now that the curse was no longer stretching it to shape.

"It's working!" he cried.

"Shut up shut up!" she shouted, losing focus again.

The lines tangled a little, wrapping back around him, but they were all wrong now, mispositioned and knotted on themselves. She pulled at them again, and again they began to pry free. It was harder this time, but as long as she concentrated, they were coming off. The dark black shape of his physical form began to shrink, the legs and barrel contracting. Eina grinned. She was the best, and she knew it.

Something tapped her on the shoulder.

In the astral plane.

A figure was standing there, dark purple and horned, but translucent, like a ghost. She had a long, spade-pointed tail, and hooves, and dark eyes with red pupils, and long black hair that whipped in the invisible winds Eina had summoned.

"You!" said Eina.

"What?" said Daen.

"You're going to destroy my handiwork," said the figure.

"Damn straight I am," said Eina, grinning. "Also, you're not the succubus. You're just a guard projection."

Eina concentrated and waved her hand like a cutting blade, and the guard projection was sliced in half, surprised at the attack. The upper half floated for a moment in surprise, and Eina watched, waiting for it to dissipate.

But a moment later, the cut simply filled in.

"What the heck?" said Eina, puzzled.

"I'm not a guard projection," said the figure.

Eina glared. "Then what are you?"

"A distraction," she said, grinning, and suddenly she faded away, like smoke blown on the wind.

Eina turned back to the curse, and inwardly spat. The E.S. was gone -- the lettering had been an illusion trap! And now the web of lines had grown, knotting with each other, growing like tangled vines, completely out of control, spreading outward in every direction, and from underneath, a new bright-red set of tangles exploded outward through the dark purple shell. Eina braced against the impact, fighting back against them, and for a moment, she gained the upper hand, thrusting the near side of them back toward him --

He cried out, and Eina's heart sank, realizing what the sound meant.

The tangle of red swirls burst outward with his orgasm, and she realized that the succubus's curse had gone far deeper than she'd realized. It had clearly been designed to raise his lust if they dared try to break the curse, and then to trigger on his orgasm, and to use every iota of his sexual energy to power something far more deadly, hidden under the webbing of the outer shell. The curse sprawled outward with his orgasm, filling the room like a giant red spiderweb, and the swirling lines wrapped tightly around everything they touched, drawing every object in the room toward the center of the circle.

Eina took a deep breath, and opened her eyes as she was pulled toward him, just in time to see the centaur's cum spraying outward, and then she lost consciousness.

* * *

Eina opened her eyes and sat up, and realized that the dark figure of her body on the floor was still laying there. Everything was blackness, but another figure was sitting on one of the barrels nearby, sharpening her nails with a file.

"About time you woke up," said the succubus.

Eina looked left and right, and then down at her own ghostly hands. "I'm not actually awake," she said. "I really hate reviving in the astral plane like this."

"I really didn't think he'd find a sorcerer capable enough to try to lift the curse," she said. "That girl paid me handsomely for it, so I added lots of protections. You almost pulled it off, too. Almost."

"What did you do?" said Eina.

The succubus laughed. "I made sure that boy gets exactly what he deserves. And for trying to mess with my curse, you will too."

Eina frowned at her. "Out with it, demon. What are the terms of the curse?"

"One thousand," said the succubus, grinning so widely that Eina could see her pointed teeth.

"One thousand what?"

"Of course, by that point, he might even like it," said the succubus.

"One thousand what?" insisted Eina.

The succubus stood up and walked over to her. "One thousand hits of horse pussy, of course," said the succubus darkly. "That girl wanted a curse that was nice and ironic, and I think I really nailed it, don't you? I gave him such a glorious stallion dick -- and he hasn't even tried humping anything with it yet. I wonder how long it'll be until he discovers there's a giant counter in the sky each time he mounts a mare?"

"That's just cruel," said Eina, aghast.

"Oh, I really don't think so," she said. "I think he'll enjoy it." The succubus leaned in close and put her finger under the sorceress's chin, lifting it up so that they met eye-to-eye. "By the way," she added, "no reason, but you might care to know that centaur pussy counts double."

The succubus began to laugh, a deep, echoing guffaw, and slowly she stepped back and faded away, leaving behind only the laughter, echoing across the darkness of the astral plane.

* * *

Eina blinked, and the vision and the astral plane were gone. She was laying on the floor inside the chalk circle next to Daen, completely naked on the cold stone floor. She shook her head and tried to sit up, but her legs weren't working right. She slammed back down into the floor, just barely bracing against it before her head hit the stone.

"What the -- hell."

She looked down, and shook her head. It couldn't be. But of course it was. Everything made sense now.

Eina rolled herself upright. A long, beige-colored equine body trailed out behind her and ended in waves of brown tail that matched her hair.

"Damn demons," she grumbled, and the centauress slowly pushed herself up onto her hooves. She wobbled a little, but the curse was a good one, and she had no trouble operating her new body.

She glared down at the unconscious centaur boy, laying in the middle of the chalk circle with a large puddle of cum on the stones next to him. There were two options. She could try to lift the curse, but now that it had spread to the both of them, that would be even harder. Lifting it from his body was hard enough; lifting it from her own at the same time would be almost impossible. Or --

Eina walked over to him and nudged at him with a hoof. "Hey, wake up," she said.

He blinked and looked up.

"Oh, no, no, no, you're a centaur now too --?" he stammered, pushing himself up off the floor.

"We had a bit of an -- incident," said Eina. "But I promised I'd fix your curse, and I have every intention of doing so. I do like a good challenge. Stand up, get up, and pull yourself together."

She reached out to take his hand, a wry smile on her face.

"How can you be smiling at a time like this?" he said, taking her hand, his face full of worry.

"Because I know two things you don't know," she said.

His body lifted upward until he was standing on all four legs. He brushed himself off, wincing at her. "What's that?"

She stepped so close he could feel her breath. "We have a lot of work ahead of us," she said, "but if we work hard, and really put in the effort, we'll both be rid of your curse in just a few months." She grinned wider. "You see, the curse is keeping score -- and I'm worth double."

* * *

Eina concentrated, kneeling on the chalk circle. A brilliant white light shot up from the lines, and the torches in the room dimmed. A dark, purple glow began to swirl in the center of the nine-pointed star, and suddenly, with a pop! the figure of a horned, purple-skinned young woman with large breasts and wide hips landed squarely in the middle of the glow.

Eina relaxed and looked up. The succubus sat in the center of the circle, rubbing her rear where she'd landed on the hard stone.

"Oh," said the succubus, her pointed tail twitching irritably. "It's you, that witch who got herself turned into a horse. How's that working out for you?" She sprawled, yawning, and lay on her side, flicking her black hair out of her face.

Eina glared at her. "I need you to do something."

"Just because you figured out how to summon me doesn't mean you can make me remove the curse," said the succubus.

Eina grinned. "That's not why I summoned you," she said.

The succubus cocked an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really." The centauress sat upright, flicking her hair off her shoulder.

"Well, you have me intrigued," said the succubus. "What do you want then?"

"Three months," said Eina.

"Three months?"

"That's how long it's been."

"Oh? And I should care about how you mortals measure time because why?"

"The first few weeks," said Eina, "I was going to fix this, come hell or high water. I made Daen hump me five times a day. That adds up pretty fast."

The succubus cocked an eyebrow again but said nothing.

"Funny thing about that," she continued. "All that time we spent together, and we got to know each other. And you know what? It turns out I like him. He's a little clueless at times, but he's very sweet and caring. And a great cook. That girl didn't know what she was losing when she kicked him out."

The succubus made gagging motions with her finger. "Ugh, romance, why do you mortals have to ruin perfectly good meaningless sex?"

"Oh, you want to talk about the sex?" said Eina, grinning wider. "Well, I found out he really does have a horse fetish. But we've managed to -- shall we say -- divert it. You see, he absolutely worships this horse ass you gave me. He'd kiss my hooves clean even if they were covered in manure. You know how many times I go to sleep at night with his -- oh, what did you call it, his 'glorious horse dick'? -- thrust all the way up inside me, only to wake up the next morning with his cute scruffy face buried between my legs, his hands groping my butt cheeks and tail, his tongue licking my big horsey clit until I scream and melt? That's a lovely way to start your day. He begs me to let him do the most delicious things to me -- and me? I used to be all about work, but it turns out I actually like getting laid. Who knew that's what I was missing in life?"

The succubus had sat up. "That's a bit more my style," she said, grinning. "All right, horse-eress, so -- what do you want? Why'd you summon me?"

Eina smiled at her, and held up her hand, palm facing the succubus.

"What?" said the succubus. "You want me to -- stop something?"

Eina pointed at the ring on her finger. "Yesterday, that sweet lovely boy asked for my hand, and I said yes," she said.