TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 05

The final celebration of a pup on the way was also tinged with sadness as this meant it was time for them to go their separate ways. Shelta would stay while Daxas followed Kal and Rose back to Kelthor's tower, the pack acting as lookouts and allowing the mage to focus on his studies. Once Kal's three months was up, or he had learned what he needed and moved on, they would make their way east towards Telsin and take up residence in the forest below Felli's mountain.

There were many offers from Shell's group for a final romp but only two he accepted. The guards outside during his tryst with Daxas and Rose were the only two he hadn't spent any time with and when they approached him he felt it was a good way to show his thanks for not putting demands on him along with the rest of the rescuees. Seeing the crowd of women vying for the human's time and with neither of them being in heat, they had instead decided to act as guards, despite wanting very much to show their appreciation to their rescuer.

After rejecting all the other girl's advances, they hadn't expected him to say yes. It was two very surprised women whom he led back into the tent a final time before packing it up and giving it to Ria.

"Stop by the forest every so often, if we're lucky a few of us might be in heat when you do. It beats the hell out of having to hunt down a man for a couple of days of fun. Plus, it's nice knowing that our pups will have a good sire," said Shell as she gave Kal and Rose a goodbye hug.

Don't worry about me visiting, I'll be around," he said, nodding toward the dog girl behind her, the only one of the women he had gotten pregnant who was going with the beta's group. "If I can get away from Kelthor's teaching I'll try to make a couple of trips down here over the next few months. However, that's a big 'if,' there's a lot I need to learn in a short amount of time. After that, it may be a year or more before you see me again."

Shell turned towards her alpha and Daxas stepped up to her with tears in her eyes. Throwing her arms around the large dog girl the wolf kissed the other woman passionately. To Kal, it looked more like a farewell kiss between lovers than co-leaders of a dog pack.

When they finally broke the kiss Daxas leaned her forehead against Shell's. "You can't go, you're mine," she whispered barely loud enough for Kal and Rose to hear.

Shelta chuckled. "You've only known me for a few days."

"Wrong, you've been a part of my family for a few days. I know this is the best for all of us, but that doesn't mean I have to like it." Daxas shooed her beta back towards her group. After meeting the eyes of each of them she looked at Shell again, "All of you bitches!" her voice dropped to a choked whisper, "get out of my pack."

Shell nodded and turned around, "That means all of you are with me now!" she bellowed, then looked over at the beagle girl. "You have point, take the girls to the pond we found when scouting yesterday, I'll be along in a minute." The smallest of the dog girls beamed up at Shelta for a moment, her face nearly glowing with pride at her new role before switching to canine arms and legs and tearing off through the forest, tail wagging and baying with happiness.

"Might have to do something about all of that noise," said the newly appointed alpha, smiling as she watched the other girls in her pack quickly form up behind the beagle. She stepped over to Daxas who was also watching the receding girls but with a very different expression. Reaching out, Shell traced the edge of the wolf girl's breast. "Come back down here before you head east. I'd like to give a proper send off to my former alpha," she said before giving the wolf a goodbye kiss. With a wink at Kal, her arms and legs shifted to canine, the mage noticing for the first time that, unlike the other girls, her hands actually widened significantly when they turned into paws. She dropped to all fours facing away from the human, lifting her tail and shaking her bottom at him before trotting off into the forest. Soon, all that could be seen was her shaggy white and copper tail occasionally waving above the underbrush as she caught up with the rest of her pack.

"I think that means it's our turn," Kal said to Rose. "We'll see you in a couple of days then?" he asked the wolf.

"Maybe one extra. After seeing them leave," she tilted her head in the direction the other pack had gone, "I want to spend some time alone with my girls," replied Daxas, still looking sad.

Kal walked over and gave her a kiss goodbye, Rose following right behind and giving the woman a big hug. Leaving the wolf and her pack, the human and golden-haired dog girl began making their way out of the forest.

---

A gigantic crocodilian form swam languidly up a river of molten rock, five 'eyes' on either side of its head and snout were not actually eyes but receptors for the natural sonar the creature used to navigate the molten sea that was its home. Few creatures had the ability to live in molten rock, making prey scarce and usually well defended, the river it had found offered the possibility of new hunting grounds. As the channel widened out into a large lake the creature became excited, swimming forward more quickly as its eyes told it there was something up ahead, little more than a morsel but soft and defenseless.

Had its brain been larger it might have wondered why this tidbit was still swimming towards him.

Jaws lined with blackened, hardened teeth that could easily rip through stone opened wide and snapped down on its fleshy prey, the teeth coming together with a crack audible on the lake's surface as it missed. A moment later it felt movement on its tongue and started pushing the morsel back towards its throat where something akin to a gizzard ground up even the toughest shells produced by lava dwelling crustaceans.

Had its brain been larger it might have wondered why this creature had just willingly swam into its open maw.

Had its brain been larger it might have realized it was already dead.

An unfamiliar sensation started to build in the creature's throat. For something that spent its entire life swimming through molten rock, there was one particular feeling it had never experienced before.

Its throat was burning.

The monster thrashed in pain as the heat inside its neck far exceeded anything it had ever experienced along with exceeding what its body could tolerate. It gulped down molten rock from the lake around it, attempting to quell the scorching heat and push its prey further down where grinder of its gullet would rip it apart.

Eventually, the monster's movements became slower and stopped as the bright yellow glow coming from its neck finally made its way up to the creature's skull.

The huge corpse slowly sank through the viscous fluid to the bottom of the lake as the glow faded. A minute later an orange hand pried the jaws apart from the inside, enough to let her smooth-skinned body slide safely between the large teeth. After giving the monster beneath her a contemptuous glare, Silma flicked her tail and sped off towards her home, where a brightly glowing egg was tucked into an alcove just below the surface of the lava lake. There was now one less threat to her growing child.

---

Standing before a heavy wooden door, Kal lifted the large iron ring attached to it and let it fall, the sharp clang as it struck the metal plate echoing throughout the clearing around him. Looking beside him, Rose bounced on the balls of her feet in barely contained excitement.

The door unlatched and swung open when Kelthor was still a few paces from it, revealing the man striding quickly towards them with his wand still extended. Before the old wizard could react, Rose bounded inside, bowling him over and landing on top of him. Her fingers seemed like they were already working to get his robes off before they even came to rest on the large rug in the middle of the room.

"She's still in heat, Kelthor," he called out as he stepped in and grabbed the door handle, "I'll see you tomorrow, so we can start working on my training." Smiling, he pulled the heavy wooden door shut behind him and headed back to where he had set up his tent.

---

Kelthor sat in one of the large, comfortable chairs on the bottom floor of his tower with Rose curled up sideways on his lap. He'd managed to remain in his robes, the girl giving up on the clasps and diving beneath to pull his only undergarment off, a pair of linen shorts. Those now lay on the floor over by where she tackled him, along with the dog girl's soft leather garments. The woman in his arms had her eyes closed and a contented look on her face but he could tell she wasn't asleep.

"We need to talk, Rose."

The girl's eyes opened, a worried expression on her face. "Is it about Kal?"

"Some of it, but more about you and me."

"I'm sorry I had to ask you to let me be with him," she said, turning her face towards his chest in embarrassment, "between my heat and watching him have sex with all of those girls, I think it was driving me mad. He refused to do anything at first saying he couldn't have someone who hates him as a teacher, but Daxas convinced him to at least give me some relief from my heat, even if we didn't have sex." The dog girl went on to describe the entire encounter as Kelthor listened.

"It didn't hurt when you sat on him that suddenly?"

"His thing is enchanted," she said pointing towards her crotch, "it changes size so he's always the right size for who he's with and it won't let him hurt them either." Rose giggled, "The sprite girl from his bag, Ria, loves to tease him. She shook her butt in his face once and it suddenly got tiny, right in front of all the girls! It didn't stay that way for long but it sure was funny!"

Kelthor smiled, he imagined that would have been amusing to watch and it sounded like he needed to ask the young mage about this enchantment. Knowing a spell like that could make him a small fortune with the people of Carriston. He opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again, he had been about to ask Rose if she enjoyed the experience with Daxas and Kal but the heat and dampness coming through the front of his robes was enough of an answer. "We will speak more about Kal later. I was upset and jealous when I wrote that letter but after I sent it to you I thought for quite some time about our relationship and how you want to become my companion..."

"I already am," she interrupted, smiling at the wizard's surprised look. "I've never been a slave. Talking with the girls made me understand that." She leaned her head back against his arm, "I wish I had understood that Kal was really only talking about changing what we call ourselves. I wouldn't have run away. Still," she looked back into his eyes, "I think the experience was good for me. It made me appreciate what you were protecting me from."

Her expression changed to a sly grin, "However, this does mean that a couple of things are going to change around here."

"Oh, really," he said sounding mildly annoyed.

Grinning she hopped off his lap and went over to her discarded clothes getting a small piece of parchment from a small bag that hung from her leather loincloth. Walking back to him she said, "You may want to teach me a bit of magic. From now on I will be a bit more... demanding." She handed him the piece of paper, "Kal used that spell many times over to take care of all the other girls he rescued." She spun around and dropped to all fours on the rug in front of the chair. Holding her tail off to one side, she looked over her shoulder. "I was hoping you could use it to make me a very happy puppy," she said shaking her bottom at him.

Kelthor had planned on having a long talk about how he felt about her and how becoming a 'companion' would change that. Rose's declaration and talk of her experiences with the slavers and the other dog girls made him realize that the girl he had been treating as his daughter had grown up. Well, she had grown up quite a few years ago, it just took this incident to make him understand that. He also admitted that this homecoming romp had been the first time they had made love without him feeling guilty, it was a refreshing change, to say the least.

He looked at the carefully drawn rune in his hand, scrawled beneath it were directions to point it at the spot between his shaft and balls and just below that were the words 'Peace Offering?' Smiling, he began gathering up his robes so he could test out the young mage's rejuvenation spell. As he was about to stand up he stopped. Kelthor set the parchment on a small table next to the chair, smirking at the confused expression on the dog girl's face. She wanted to be his lover? So be it. "Before we resort to magic why don't you see if you can get me ready first," he said, leaning back in the chair. Rose's face brightened with a victorious smile before she turned around leaned into his lap.

---

Kal sat in one of the study rooms in the upper part of the tower poring over various books and tomes. The circular room took up the entire floor apart from the stairway with rows of bookcases running around the outer wall. Small crystalline orbs gave off a soft light from sconces placed where one set of shelves ended and another began, a number of these magic lights also hung from the ceiling, lighting up the middle of the room. A large blue-gray rug specifically woven for the study covered the floor, matching the contour around the stairwell and leaving only a finger's width of space between its edge and the bottom of the bookshelves. A large, round mahogany table with a dome made of quartz glass in the middle dominated the center of the chamber. Touching the dome made a matching one above the table glow, offering more light to study by. The plush chairs dotted about the room were wonderful for reading but Kal quickly learned to use the less comfortable chairs at the table, the old wizard had learned some creative means of waking up sleeping students; he'd seen drawings of the gigantic oliphaunt in books, thanks to Kelthor he now knew what one sounded like.

He could only blame part of his falling asleep on the comfort of the chairs. Unlike learning runes and other magic this felt like drudgery, probably because astral magic wasn't something that ever caught his interest. If it weren't for needing to protect himself and those he cared about from Azrin, he wouldn't even be here.

Still, he did get some satisfaction from how quickly he was catching on. In the month since the rescue, he had lost count of how many times Kelthor had finished a study session just staring, dumbfounded, at the young mage before throwing his hands up and yelling, "Inconceivable!" as he walked out of the room. Since beginning to teach Kal, this had become one of his favorite words.

The older mage came walking in looking disheveled and worn but happy. He sat down hard in the chair across from Kal before leaning back with his eyes closed. "I had no idea she was such a slut."

Kal's nose wrinkled from the smell of sex coming from the older man. "We've talked about this before Kelthor. You can't judge a monster girl by the same standards as human women. They were literally made to be like that."

"Ah, yes. Your story about some ancient mage creating them. I'm not sure I believe it," he gestured about the room at all of the books on the shelves, "There would have to be some mention of Prentas somewhere in here."

The first time they had this discussion Kelthor showed him one of the other features of the glass dome in the center of the table by putting his hand on it and speaking Prentas's name. The dome on the table, as well as the one on the ceiling, glowed bright green for a moment before fading. Seeing Kal's unimpressed face he repeated the process using the word 'Pyromancer'. After lighting up with the green glow again, rays of light spread out across the room, touching each book that mentioned the word, the brightness of the ray indicating how often the word appeared. Kal asked the old wizard where he could get one of the tables after Kelthor demonstrated how he could filter highlighted books by adding a second or third word, or even just ask it a question. He was disappointed to find out that this particular magic was beyond the old man's abilities and the room had been built at great expense by a far-away mages' guild.

This also led to Kal snooping about one of the times Rose was keeping Kelthor 'occupied.' From what he could tell, shards of near-flawless mana crystals powered runes on the backs of the bookshelves. These were connected to the table by what looked like a thread or wire, probably silver if he were to venture a guess, that ran under the floor and up the inside of the legs. The wires then ran into a complex set of runes that, at first, appeared to be set into the wood of the table somehow. After closer inspection, Kal found that the tabletop was made of two pieces with the runes layered in between. Much to his consternation, and the creator's credit, not a single rune was visible and even with the increased sensitivity of his glowing eyes, he couldn't make them out well enough through the wood to create copies.

The wizard had been extremely interested in Kal's ability to fill himself with magic, making his eyes light up bright blue. The old man would have likely never found out about his student's 'mana mode,' as Kelthor had dubbed it, were it not for a slip up during his morning exercises.

Since he left Telsin, Kal made a habit to practice the katas that Ikuno taught him each morning, something he had been grateful for after the first time someone attempted to rob the lone traveler. Rose and the girls from Daxas's pack quickly joined him, after their experience with the slavers they were eager to learn new ways to defend themselves. It was during one of these sessions that Rose suddenly gasped, tearing his attention away from whatever distant thought was occupying his mind as he moved between the poses. Looking over, he saw the golden-haired dog girl staring at him wide-eyed before running inside the tower, calling for the old wizard. When he cast a questioning look at the others, one of them just tapped her temple next to her eye. He looked down at his hands in confusion, he had filled himself with magic but without intending to, or even noticing. Unfortunately, he didn't get to dwell on it as Rose emerged from the tower, dragging Kelthor behind her. The younger mage suffered through Kelthor's gamut of tests for about a day but quickly realized that the list of experiments the man wanted to perform kept getting longer with each new result. On the second day, Kal had to decline any further poking, prodding, or scanning.

Daxas was the only one of the girls constantly missing from the morning exercise sessions. Her duty as an alpha was to teach all the girls how to hunt. With many of them taken from areas more accepting of dog and cat types of monster girls, they had little knowledge of how to fend for themselves. After listening to the girls complain for a few days, Kal agreed to start doing a second round of practice at night once all of the women returned from the woods. The girls were quick to show their appreciation, with Kal experiencing a very literal 'dogpile' from the day's hunters.

Making matters worse for the wolf girl was Rose, who had become an unofficial beta and seemed to be preventing one of the other girls from stepping up into the role. If they had been wolves it wouldn't be an issue, she could just assign another beta, but the pack alpha didn't have the same control with the dog girls. The lack of a strong second left the wolf dealing with every little issue personally, at least until the girls developed their survival skills and personal relationships more.

However, Kal did see it as a good sign that after the first week since their arrival at Kelthor's tower there was little talk from the girls about returning to their respective towns and cities. Four of them didn't have homes to go back to and were simply longing for familiar surroundings, they quickly began to feel that being part of Daxas's pack was an improvement over their former lives. That wasn't true for all of them though.