Merchant & Monster Girls Ch. 11

"Sure."

Suvi angled the reflection so Reina could see her belly. "Aren't they supposed to be invisible to everyone except users?"

"I don't know. Maybe because it's not activated yet?" Reina surmised.

"It's certainly detailed. So you're an affinity user?"

"No, herd-mate and Azalea will be sharing theirs with me."

"You can do that?"

"That's what Azalea said, so I guess so."

Suvi set about scrubbing. In this position, Suvi's heightened demi-human sense of smell was inundated with more of Reina's natural scent than the dampness of her fur. It was earthy and wild. Being underneath the Whitehorn's huge frame felt intimate in a stranger way than when she was having her own hair washed.

I wonder how thorough she wants me to be? Reina's mammaries were close to where Suvi was washing. The Whitehorn was busy washing the hair on her own head, the suds falling over her collarbone and breasts, and showed no sign of stopping her.

Suvi shrugged and went for it. Reina's udder wasn't especially prominent, yet, but full of milk -- she wondered what they'd feel like. A few quick, soapy passes over the pert, soot-colored teats made her want to linger on them.

She resisted, skurried out from beneath her, and moved around to her rear. Whether intentional or reflexive, the moment Suvi placed her hands on Reina's haunch, the Whitehorn raised her tail, exposing her slit in all its prim and demure glory.

I guess she wants me to be thorough. Tail first.

Her mind was distracted as she spent longer on the stubby tail than intended, hoping Reina wouldn't notice her procrastination. She wasn't used to touching other people's private areas. She'd do it, but she still felt embarrassed about it.

Steeling herself, she swiped the fabric across the pursed vulva. On the second pass, her fingers accidentally brushed up against her silky lips. 'So soft. Should I wash the inside? Definitely not. Maybe just once?' Suvi's hands trembled as she spread the dainty lips and gave the pale pink insides a few quick strokes 'Good enough'.

Several buckets worth of water to rinse the soap later, and she declared herself done.

"So, Reina, this morning, Jeni made a suggestion to me, and I need a second opinion."

"I'll provide one if it's something I can speak on."

"Jeni suggested that Ky and I live here."

"That's a wonderful idea!" the Whitehorn enthusiastically expressed.

"So you think I should accept?"

"Of course! Sweet girls like you shouldn't be on the streets."

"I guess it could work. This room will be open when you all leave, and Ky doesn't technically even need a bed. She can just hang from the ceiling. Although, she almost never does that and prefers to sleep with me."

"It's wonderful to be able to share the same bed with one you love."

"Speaking of sharing beds, did you know Jeni makes the cutest hooting noises when she's dreaming?" Suvi did an impersonation, making both of them laugh.

"She is a darling. Your two's presence will keep her from getting lonely."

"I guess it could work out. Haven't lived in a house since the orphanage, and I don't want anything like what happened to Ky to happen again." The rat girl shook her head vigorously to get some water out of her ear. "I think we are both pretty much clean. We should probably get out before Azalea sees us naked and decides it's playtime."

They both burst into another fit of giggles.

-----

The following day, Jeni waved goodbye as Reina and Devin left for another day of errands, with Suvi hitching a ride to work.

Azalea emerged from the kitchen, breakfasting on an apple drizzled with honey. "Happiest of mornings to you, Jeni!"

Jeni looked over her shoulder. "This one returns chipper Azalea's morning greeting."

"What's the plan for today?"

"This one surmises the weather will dissuade customers from coming in today." She scooped several small spoonfuls of different powders into a large pot, cooking something bubbling in front of her.

"Once fruitful Azalea's tincture is finished steeping, this one wants to assess her current physical condition by going on an errand to the guild hall's auctioning services."

Azalea floated over and peered into the mixtures. In one pot was a clear, syrupy liquid. In the other, the one closest to Jeni, was a pale, milky gold concoction.

"These are mine, huh? Why is there more than what I remember?"

"This one diluted it slightly with water and added crushed herbs for preservation purposes and to aid in quick ingestion."

"I hope it sells well."

"This one believes it will." Jeni sat down and rifled through a box of labels.

"So we are going out after it's done? Do we have time to do some warmups while it's cooking?"

"This one supposes." Jeni set the box down and turned to the fairy. "The sun is warm enough to use the patio."

Jeni's shop doubled as her home. Wedged into the northwest corner of the workshop was a stairwell leading up to Jeni's bedroom. At the base of the stairs, to the right, (left of the kitchen), was a door leading to a high-walled brick patio. Jeni sometimes used the open space to preen and sun her feathers. It was empty except for a chair, tilted and leaning back against the wall, and an herb garden hidden under the previous night's snow.

Azalea inhaled the clean, cold, fresh air. "Invigorating!"

Jeni closed the door behind them. "This one should buy a shovel for situations such as this." She kicked and stomped an open patch in the ankle-deep snow while Azalea comically tried to drag the chair over.

"Allow this one." Jeni positioned the chair next to her and brushed the snow off.

Together, fairy and owl-harpy spent the better part of half an hour loosening up. Their breaths dissipating into puffs of clouds.

"I'm thoroughly awake now. And thirsty. I'm gonna grab a drink."

"This one will check on the kettles."

Azalea joined Jeni as she was placing two prismatic vials into a felted cedar box. The corked neck was wrapped with a yellow ribbon and labeled:

Fairy Extract

&

Fairy Essence

Locally Sourced

"This one is satisfied with how they turned out."

"I'm glad. In case it didn't, I could always provide more. Does this mean we are ready to go?"

Jeni nodded and tucked the box into a bag cinched around her torso, toward her back.

"I'll go grab my coat!"

Jeni wrapped a scarf around her neck and donned her goggles. Together, they returned to the patio.

"Are you sure you're ready?"

She nodded determinedly and spread her wings to their full length, her wingtips reaching nearly door to wall. Flapping twice, she bent her knees and leaped, grasping the air and cupping it in her wings. She beat the air with broad strokes, propelling herself skyward.

For all owls-harpies capable of flight, lifting off from the ground with no altitude assistance was an unspoken right of passage. Even with hollow bones making them lighter than other races, becoming airborne under one's own power was strenuous. Jeni's lack of physical activity did not help.

She circled outward from her house. She'd forgotten the exhilaration of this unique perspective those gifted with flight could experience. Everything below them grew smaller. She felt a bit shaky, but the memories stored in her muscles knew what to do.

Azalea was right behind her. She normally never flew this high. While highly maneuverable and able to change direction instantly, her wing size and shape were only good for hovering and short, high bursts of speed rather than sustained, long-distance flight.

She zipped forward, grabbing onto Jeni's feathers, pulling herself between her shoulder blades.

Instead of flapping her way across the city, Jeni soared east toward the lake. A lip of ice had formed along the shore, challenging a rambunctious romp of river otter demi-humans to try their fishing skills. They waved as she passed overhead.

Out on the water delivery trawlers weaved and dodged across the choppy grayish-blue water, avoiding mines of growlers (small icebergs) and bergy ice bits.

Worried this might be too strenuous for Jeni's first flight since her hiatus, Azalea voiced her concern. "Are you feeling ok, Jeni? Not too tired?"

"This one is alright. The updrafts here are plentiful." The unathletic owl conserved energy by swerving from gust to gust, riding the softly cushioned invisible currents.

She took a deep breath, wishing she had done this sooner. The feeling of freedom was unparalleled, and all her worries, like the things below her, felt small. She was encouraged and more motivated that Azalea's plan to get her in shape was doable within the timeframe they had set.

Judging she was high enough, Jeni pulled her wings tight to her sides and dove, picking up velocity. At the same time, Azalea bowed down, reducing the wind resistance. The north-end guild hall, previously a speck on the horizon, was rapidly growing.

Covering the distance quickly, Jeni lifted her wings, slowing their descent. She intended to come to a complete stop using the ground when their speed was reasonable. Unbeknownst to either of them, the weather created a hazard as they descended -- the ground was more slippery than Jeni anticipated. Touching down, her talons grasped for purchase but found none. Azalea jumped off mid-slide just as Jeni's face planted into a pile of snow.

"That was exciting," laughed Azalea. "Let me help you up?"

Jeni extracted herself from the snow pile and brushed her feathers clean. "This one is not injured."

Azalea landed on her shoulder. "Good. The box looks ok, too. Let's straighten your hat."

Jeni carefully treaded over the ice toward the sound of boisterous voices pouring forth from the front entrance of the hall. Inside, scribes, merchants, and clerks sat at table benches, talking amongst each other over a breakfast buffet.

"Miss Feather, what a delightful and unexpectedly rare visit you grace us with this day," shouted a white, mousey man behind the front desk. He was bestrewned with ink and flanked by towers of stacked parchment.

A few glanced over as Jeni apologized, bumping into people and trying to squeeze between the packed bodies while Azalea flew above them.

"Morning greetings. This one has business she needs assistance with."

"I'm always delighted to help a guild member!" He hopped off a stool a little too short for his stature. "It's a bit noisy. Let's go into the back room." He motioned them around the desk to a hallway. Guiding them into a sparse but richly paneled side room with carpet and upholstered chairs. Silence filled the room as soon as the door was shut.

"Much better. Everyone's always so eager to start the day conversing about daily profit estimations and goals." He straightened his bowtie. "Allow me to introduce myself to your fairy companion. I am Rodenton Liten, but everyone calls me Roddy. I am an auction manager and bookkeeper."

Facing Jeni, he continued, "What business can I assist you with this chill morning?"

Jeni placed the box on the table, pushing it forward. "This one is acting as an intermediary to place this up for sale."

Roddy lifted the lid. "How exciting! Don't see fairy commodities very often. Am I right to assume you want to put it up for auction, or did you have a particular set of private buyers in mind?"

"Auction."

Roddy pulled a notepad out of his pocket with his tail, checking a formidable number of timetables. "How does tomorrow sound?"

Azalea and Jeni looked at each other. "This one can think of no conflicting appointments."

"Splendid. I put you down for auction room D at ten in the morning. Are you a guild member, Mrs..."

"Ebonplume. Yes, I think so. We filled out a bunch of paperwork yesterday but haven't received it yet."

"Excellent. If you have time today to stop by the central council building where you applied, it'll probably be ready. For some reason, their outgoing deliveries are always backed up. Bring it with you tomorrow, and I'll fill out the rest. May I take this for safekeeping?"

"Please do."

"I'll put it in the vault with the other wares," he assured, picking up the box.

Azalea shook his finger. "Thank you for helping us."

"I look forward to any excuse that takes me away from the mountain of paperwork that never seems to deplete. We look forward to working with you." Roddy stated. Then he escorted the two girls back to the common room before returning to his besieged desk.

"Jeni, are those, um, free to eat?" Azalea pointed to a plate of pastries.

"Sweet-toothed Azalea may have one."

Azalea returned hefting a flaky, square-something filled with cooked cinnamon peaches as big as she was. "Mmmmph amph gmpph."

Jeni blinked. "Perhaps swallowing would yield better conveyance of thought."

"Sorry. You should taste this!" Azalea held it up for her to try.

Jeni nibbled off a corner. The mellow and smooth sweetness spread across her tongue. "It is very pleasing to this one's palette."

"Isn't it?!?"

Azalea had somehow devoured a quarter of the pastry in a short time. "I'm ready to go when you are."

Heading out after their recharge of sugar, they flew straight south. Azalea was perched with hands fastened to her back, as Jeni ascended higher and higher until they were level with the tallest point in the city: the clock tower.

"I recognize those from when we arrived in the city!" Shouted Azalea over the wind, pointing to six statues stationed on flying buttresses. "Can we get a closer look?"

Jeni landed on a parallel archway, tightly gripping the building with her talons to keep from getting blown off.

"What are they?"

"Gargoyles."

"What's that? Never heard of them before."

"It's a chimera from the imagination of their creator. They They are not representative of any real kind of demi-human. They are not a staple of architecture here in the north. "

"Oh. Hmm."

Azalea fluttered over to inspect the amalgamations. Each of the three pairs of silent sentinels faced outward to the north, southeast, and southwest. They all possessed the head and upper body of a lissom human woman, well-toned stomach and thighs of a lizard girl, tail of a lamia, legs and hooves of a satyr, front-clawed hands of some kind of something they didn't recognize, and broad dragon-girl wings.

"Why are they up here?"

"They are known as the six guardians of Thawdenn."

"The only thing they seem to be guarding against is people keeping their virginity," sniggered Azalea.

The pair nearest them were almost identical to each other except for minor differences in hairstyle, facial features, and body size. The smaller of the two was submissively on her knees, chest down with breasts squashed against a reinforcing strut jutting out from the tower. Her butt pointed to the sky with the tip of her tail crammed in her pussy. Her dominant, larger partner straddled her hips, hugging the base of the sub's tail to keep it out of the way from the gaping anus she faced and was spreading.

"How are these allowed to be up here? According to what Suvi told us, shouldn't something like this only be allowed in the pink or red districts?"

"The city considers them a historical monument. They can't be seen that well from below. Plus, they are too heavy to move anyway."

"What are they... um, monumentizing?"

"They are speculated to be ancient golems."

"Eh?"

Azalea looked closer at the lewd display. "They don't seem any different than the other's I've seen in throughout the city. Wait, why isn't there any snow on them?"

The surrounding structures of the clock tower had snow piled as tall as she was. She placed her hands on the smooth skin of one and gasped. "They're warm! How?"

"They are unlike anything currently understood of what is known in modern golemancy. In answer to curious Azalea's question, if they are retain any of the basics of our current day designs; this one postulates affinity circulates through them."

She pointed a feather at the faint orange, tattooed lines that covered the body.

"Interesting." No matter where Azalea touched, and despite the wind chill being worse up here than on the ground, every part of their bodies was as warm as she was.

"They are so smooth and...I can't exactly say they feel soft, but they don't feel as hard as stone." She tapped them. "And they don't produce the same sound solid stone would."

"Analysis from the city's best suggests their bodies are made from jet, a gem-like material derived from wood put under extreme pressure, similar to coal or diamonds. This would make sense since golems seem to function best from previously living materials like trees."

Azalea processed that before asking, "Who put them here?"

"This one's guardian's predecessor."

"The one who raised you -- their teacher?"

"Not so much a teacher as someone they aspired to be, but yes."

"Have they ever moved?"

"This one does not know. But it seems like the most likely answer of how they came to be up here."

"Can they talk? Why are they in such lewd poses? Do you think they have names?"

"The only one who can answer inquisitive Azalea's inquiries is this one's old mentor."

"He's never talked to you about them?"

"Old mentor has not."

"Why? With your interest in golems, I'm sure you would be bursting with questions!"

"The process Old Mentor uses to construct golems is how it is typically known, not like these. This one thinks he was not taught by the one he venerated."

"Or maybe it was too challenging to build one?"

"Doubtful. Old Mentor was not discouraged by a challenge. The one time this one came up here with Old Mentor was a long time ago. This one didn't understand the purpose of the visit, but it seemed similar to someone visiting a memorial. Old Mentor offhandedly reminisced how seductively graceful they moved, and when they spoke it was as a sextet choir of melodic, sultry voices."

"So they could sing, or they just had musical voices?"

"This one does not know."

"Awww. I hate not knowing things. How old do you think they are?"

"Given that Old Mentor is estimated to be close to a hundred years of age, and these were crafted by his mentor when he was young, maybe close to two- or two hundred and fifty years old."

"Wow!"

"These were the catalysts for inspiring this one to take up golemancy as a hobby. They piqued this one's curiosity to learn and study."

"Do you miss him? Your mentor?"

"Old Mentor never spoke much, but this one misses sitting on Old Mentor's lap and watching him work... and the head pats."

"I hope you get a chance to see him again one day." Azalea comforted while rubbing one of Jeni's wings.

"This one doesn't think so, but thanks, kind Azalea, for the sentiment."

Azalea fluttered to the southeast side. Another pair in a different pose. The submissive sat in her partner's lap facing the same direction while having her breasts groped. Her head was tilted back, her mouth open, and her tongue lolled in ecstasy. Both her holes were stuffed with their tails.

The final pair was the most lascivious. On her back, the submissive's legs were pulled above her head. Her tail was stuck into her anus, and her arms were opened wide in wanton invitation. The dominant sat next to her. One hand caressing their partner belly while the other splayed her gaping pussy.

"I can't believe how much detail was put into this!" Azalea peered inside. "The pleated edges of her vagina and even the entrance to her cervix resemble the real thing!"

"I wonder how you turn them on."

"Did humorous Azalea make a pun?"

Azalea laughed. "They already looked turned on. I mean, how do you wake them up... er, activate them?"

"Many others have wondered the same. Given their overt postures, the obvious was tried."

"People tried to have sex with them?" the stunned fairy asked.