ACR - Ch9

The discussion dragged on for another hour and made little progress on the true details. Lyle focused on gathering data on the birdgirl “not-flock” now that he had their trust, or at least enough for them to speak openly.

“I think I have enough to start working on a design,” Lyle said as he stood. It was well past noon now, and he wanted to be back before the sun began to set. “One of you should visit my homestead shortly so we can talk specifics and go through some of the basic elements.”

“How shortly?” Itria asked, her eyes glittering. She rubbed her belly absently.

“It doesn’t matter. Whenever you can make it. I can work on other things in the meantime,” he replied.

“Tomorrow, then?” Itria asked.

Felife scowled and looked away.

“That works,” he said, hiding his surprise at how willing Itria was to work with him. “I expect I’ll see you tomorrow, Felife.”

Both birdgirls blinked at him. Itria opened her mouth to reply, but Felife spoke over top of her.

“Of course, Lyle. Allow me to lead you out. Do you need an escort?” she asked, although her eyes dropped to the table. She must be thinking of how sleepy the Vierfach were.

“They’ll be fine,” he said. “C’mon girls, get up. We’re heading home.”

The trio of wolfgirls let out exaggerated yawns as they stood up and stretched. Each of them took it in turns to nuzzle against him, although he batted away their wandering hands whenever they got too close to his crotch.

“You can wait,” he reminded them.

“Awww,” they whined in unison, appearing much more alert suddenly.

Crafty little wolves. He’d lost count of the number of attempts they’d made to get into his pants on this trip. These three might not be as intelligent as their eldest sister, but they had enough cunning to come up with new ideas to get sex.

The trip back was slow and uneventful. The sun continued its low trip toward the western horizon, its rays reddening with each passing minute. Lyle knew he was getting close to the river when he saw beegirls lazily drifting south. Fat balloons of rainbow-colored pollen hung from their waists, each connected to the carapace wrapped around their body.

A few of the beegirls eyed him off, but none followed him. The Vierfach’s sharp eyes and drooling faces as they imagined tearing into the plump fat of the bees kept the returning workers focused on their jobs.

Lyle knew he’d have business with the beegirl colony soon enough. The amount of territory they claimed and the number of beegirls suggested they had established a truly massive colony. Their honeycombed hives were monolithic structures that grew to match the necessary size for the colony.

The largest one that Lyle had seen in Ghraive had been the size of a large town. It had been home to a Blight herald who used the beegirls as a vector to spread the Blight. The army necessary to crush the thousands of beegirls who swarmed out of the hive had only been dwarfed by the size of the structure itself.

Lyle doubted the nearby hive was anywhere near as large. But he knew that it had to be large enough to be dangerous to enter. If even the Blight Cat and this wolf pack steered clear of the beegirls, it was a powerful enough hive to deter thieves and intruders.

On the other hand, that also meant lots of honey. Trade might prove lucrative for him.

Other than the beegirls, the most notable inhabitants in the forest were the birdgirls. Their numbers grew, with a dozen or more openly watching him at all times. Word spread quickly among the “not-flock.”

Several birdgirls lazed on branches near the homestead when they returned. More arrived, startling them, and a cacophony of squawking, muttering, and birdsong broke out.

The purple wall of light that protected Lyle’s home felt comforting as he stepped through it. He doubted the Vierfach felt the same way. They shook themselves wildly once inside the perimeter and let out low growls of annoyance.

“Oh, you’re back earlier than I expected,” Ein greeted them. She raced out on all fours and practically leaped on Lyle.

Her sisters squawked in outrage and tackled him seconds later. The ensuing dogpile threw him off balance. He tottered backward, then collapsed to the ground.

“Can’t you wait until we get inside,” he said, pushing their heads away as they wrestled with his crotch plate.

Their fumbling hurt.

“They’ve been fucking you all day. I can smell the sex you’ve had, and the dried semen on your pants,” Ein whined. She leaned into his hand when he tried to push her away, her ears twitching and begging to be scratched.

“No, we haven’t!” one of her sisters whined. “He’s been fucking everybody but us!”

“That’s your fault for not seizing the chance,” Ein said. “It’s my turn, and I’ve been waiting all fucking day.”

The Vierfach—all four of them, for once—stopped trying to get into Lyle’s pants. Their attention turned on one another and they began to push, shove, and scratch at each other. Fortunately, their shadow claws stayed sheathed.

Even if they could heal up within a minute or two, Lyle disliked watching them rip each other open.

He took the opportunity to scramble away from them. Their attention was so focused on one another that they didn’t even notice that the object of their lust was discreetly slipping away.

“Hey!” Ein called out.

Well, almost. Ein remained the only one of her sisters with something between her head.

Their amber eyes shimmered with the purple light of the Blight, and Lyle suspected he was about to be jumped.

“You didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day, did you?” Ein asked, her voice halfway between sultry and threatening.

Even if he did, did it matter? He’d been pushing the Vierfach away all day, and now they wanted their promised reward. They were feisty and horny. What did it matter if he let Ein join in?

A lot, as it turned out. Lyle hadn’t taken all four of them at once for since they finished building the house and broke in the bed. He’d forgotten how much endurance Ein had. Her sisters slipped off into orgasmic dozes, their holes packed full of Lyle’s cum.

But Ein rode Lyle well past the point she even comprehended what was happening. Her instincts compelled her to continue to ram his cock into her pussy. Only his supreme confidence in his contraceptive magic allowed him not to worry about impregnating her.

On the other hand, she would only become more suspicious of her lack of a belly bulge.

Once she finally collapsed on the bed, her womb absolutely brimming with his seed, he slipped out of bed.

After a quick trip to the bath and a soak, he checked on what Ein had been up to. Night had arrived at some point. In order to see, he relied on a simple hand-held lamp that he powered with his crest. It projected a warm light over the surroundings, with only the slightest tinge of purple within it.

Ein had made good progress cutting up additional logs and planks. Although Lyle suspected they might not be used for a while. Any nursery he built for the birdgirls would be far larger than the homestead, and therefore needed the logs cut to a different size and structure.

But the wood wouldn’t rot. He needed to store it somewhere, which made a simple freestanding lean-to a good short-term storage option.

Once inside, Lyle saw what else Ein had been up to. A pair of rabbits had prepared and left in the icebox. The wolves knew how to prepare meat, so Lyle had very little to do other than cook it.

But the meat problem captured Lyle’s mind as he cooked. Food was central to most of his problems right now.

He planned to help the birdgirls to secure a reliable source of protein, and not just the eggs they laid. Birdgirls were extremely effective hunters but ate lightly. What Lyle had initially wanted from them was meat.

His hands moved automatically while his mind remained busy. Some extra chickpeas were leftover from soaking—Ein had presumably eaten a rabbit for lunch while hunting—so he used them to prepare a chickpea soup with some spices and olive oil.

“I was going to cook that,” Ein said as she padded out of the bedroom. Her body looked sticky, and when she hugged Lyle from behind, he confirmed that she felt sticky as well.

“There’ll be plenty of everybody,” he said. “You should clean up. Take your sisters with you.”

“That wasn’t my point.” Her hands wrapped around his waist and she sighed against his back.

Several long moments passed, accompanied by the spitting and bubbling of the soup.

“Did they do anything to help you?” Ein asked. “My sisters, that is.”

Lyle raised an eyebrow. “They kept away annoyances. And they led me to birdgirls without any trouble. I wouldn’t have dared to travel without my warded cart without them, and I don’t know how welcoming the birdgirls would have been in that case.”

“That’s good.”

He slipped back into thought and allowed Ein’s gentle warmth to creep into his body.

Once he had meat, he needed to preserve it. The four most accessible methods were potting using fat or butter; curing fattier cuts; curing and smoking; or drying.

“What are you thinking about?” Ein asked. “You’re barely paying any attention to the soup. Move over. I’ve seen you make this a dozen times, even if I can barely stand this stuff.”

She bumped him out of the way and left him to tend to the rabbit meat.

“How to preserve meat,” he said. “Hunting isn’t viable for us, as it takes a lot of time away from the four of you.”

Ein winced when he said that and looked guilty.

“But it’s okay once in a while,” he added, and she perked back up. Her black tail batted against his leg as it wagged wildly behind her.

“But I’m working with the birdgirls to set up a nursery,” he continued. “That will give us eggs, but they’ll also have a safe food store here as well. That means they’ll start collecting lots of hunted meat, and we can take some as rent or tax.”

“As what?” Ein asked, tilting her head.

“Payment for using our property,” he said. Sometimes he forgot that she didn’t understand civilization, given how sharp she otherwise was.

“Huh. That makes sense.” Ein smiled broadly. “So they’ll hunt for us? That’s fucking amazing. A free meat supply.”

Not exactly free, but Lyle figured to take baby steps before trying to educate Ein on property ownership or feudalism. They were in the wilds. Force was how everything operated out here, normally.

“But the meat won’t last. Birdgirls tend to just dry everything they catch, but that’s because they don’t have better methods available,” he said. “I do.”

“Like those sausages. They taste weird, and rely heavily on the salt and spices, but you brought them in your wagon. They’ve been fine for weeks.” Ein gnawed on the tip of the wooden spoon.

He gently pulled it away from her mouth and she winced, looking away from him.

“That’s one method. Drying obliterates the flavor of meat, although herbs and spices can create something special. If I had a good supply of butter or rendered fat, I could pot up meats for months and preserve a lot of the flavor,” he explained. “Curing also works, which just involves salt and brine, but the meat should be fatty if we want it to last outside of an icebox. Finally, we can smoke cured meats so that last for far longer.”

“I vote for the one involving fat,” Ein said, raising one hand. “And I’m voting on behalf of my stupid sisters, so that’s four against one.”

Lyle poked her in the side and she giggled. A smirk crossed her lips as she tasted the soup. She frowned, then grabbed some more salt. Lyle stopped her before she added so much salt that they wouldn’t be able to taste a thing.

“Just a little more and I won’t be able to taste the stupid chickpeas,” she muttered.

“Even once we have meat and protein, you’ll still need to eat some of this,” he said. “Like I said, I’d use rendered fat if I had a good supply, but I don’t. Once we start getting plenty of meat, it becomes an option, but we’ll end up with more meat to preserve than rendered fat.”

Smoking seemed like the most viable option to him. Eventually, he’d need to start trading for more salt, but he had enough in his wagon to last him for a good while.

That would be a minor project for him and Ein. A proper smoking setup that she could use to safely and reliably smoke a large quantity of meat, as well as somewhere to prepare the meat. He added it to the list, along with a flour mill and a bread oven.

The soup was essentially done, and the rabbit meat needed to rest, so Lyle shooed Ein and her sisters away to the bath. He prepared plates and bowls, then prepared some herbal tea for everybody.

After dinner, he ended up sharing his bed with all four of his wolfgirls. Surprisingly, none of them woke him up in the morning. Ein had claimed his right side and snuggled into the crook of his neck, murmuring something about how he wasn’t allowed to leave.

The other three had each claimed a limb of their own. Their bodies were flung over his. His right leg felt numb.

Despite feeling like he deserved a lazy morning, he shook off his wolfgirl limpets. They rose with huge yawns and a big appetite. Naturally, they whined when he served them porridge.

The birdsong was almost deafeningly loud this morning. Just in case, Lyle slipped on his armor and check outside.

Dozens of birdgirls crowded into the trees. Some of them were nocturnal varieties, and they appeared to be barely staying awake. None of them carried weapons, but they were waiting for something.

“Lyle, what’s wrong?” Ein asked.

She froze the moment she stepped outside.

“So much plump, fatty meat,” she whispered. “If we just caught them all—”

“Ein,” he warned.

“Tch. Fine,” she huffed.

It wasn’t that late, given where the sun was. And the birdgirls didn’t seem hostile. Lyle had never bothered to put up the shield over the fields and homestead. The birdgirls didn’t seem too dangerous, and he lacked the necessary wards to adequately cover the whole area.

The Vierfach were unwilling to spend much time outside at first. But when the birdgirls did nothing but watch and sing, they grew more comfortable. Lyle kept Ein with him and sent the other trio into the woods to cut down some trees.

Preferably, those not filled with birdgirls.

Lyle spent the next half-hour talking Ein through smoking, and what he wanted to set up. The basic theory was simple, but a proper setup that would work on large quantities of meat was another matter.

“We’ll probably build a storage shed and a lean-to,” he explained. “The shed’s to keep food and other things that need complete protection from the elements, and the lean-to can be for hardier materials. They’ll be much simpler, and probably use more raw logs, than the house.”

Ein nodded enthusiastically, her mind greedily gulping down every scrap of knowledge he gave her.

Suddenly, the birdsong stopped.

Lyle looked around and saw a pair of familiar figures. He raised an eyebrow.

“That’s Felife, but who is the other one?” Ein asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“She’s the leader of the flock,” Lyle said flatly.

He’d suspected something was up with Itria. Her voice, Felife’s deferential attitude, the fact she was so eloquent compared to almost any birdgirl, and even the high quality of her little home.

But now he knew it. A small army of birdgirls had turned out just to see Itria. Or, possibly, to protect her if something went wrong.

“Did your negotiations involve a personal touch?” Ein’s voice lowered. “Is that why she looks delightfully stuffed, Lyle?”

Lyle chose to ignore the warning in Ein’s voice and her questions. But she was right. Itria had a stomach full of eggs that they hadn’t laid. Something told him that Itria was interested in a repeat of yesterday’s adventure, although he was far more interested in finishing negotiations.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing for it but to approach them,” he said.

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Commentary: This is basically the end of the pre-written content, as chapter 10 needs to be completely redone from scratch. Hopefully people have enjoyed it so far, despite the slow pacing and different tone. Newer chapters will come out at a slower pace now.

DT2 chapters will resume in a day or two. I've been doing some research and plot rewriting, and don't want to push out rushed chapters that I will completely rewrite later. I experimented with pushing out chapters as I wrote them, but with low engagement and my less-than-consistent writing schedule, I think I'm better off building up a backlog.