Lineage

“Righty then,” Cadance said, standing up and stretching her arms out. “I need to check on how our lucky ladies are doing.” I cocked an eyebrow in confusion at that statement, wondering who she was referring to, so I asked.

“Oh, yeah, Grael must not have mentioned it,” Cadance chuckled. “A merchant came to the town square yesterday to sell exotic animals. I’ve been thinking about getting into dog breeding recently, as a side hobby, and since he had three female Direwolves for sale that were in good condition, I bought them for about a hundred grand each and studded Grael out with them.”

“Oh,” I said in a surprised manner. “Thank fuck for that.”

“What’s wrong?” She asked with a confused expression. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “It’s just that… when Grael mentioned that you’d made him impregnate someone… I thought he meant…”

“That I’d let him knock me up?” She asked with a chuckle. “No, not quite. I mean… I was considering doing it, just to get started on the breeding thing, but then the merchant had the three female Direwolves and I decided that it’d be a better investment to pay the money for the girls and get three litters in the space of two months, rather than get three in six if I did it myself.”

“So… you’re telling me...” I began in a shocked tone. “That the only reason that you refrained from letting a four hundred pound wolf ram you with its twenty one and a half inch cock and dump a load into your oven to cook a litter of animal babies… is because it was much more cost effective to buy other Direwolves do it for you?”

“That’s about the long and short of it,” Cadance shrugged in a nonchalant manner, scratching her cheek with a finger before asking a question. “Is Grael’s cock really that big?”

“From what I know about Direwolves, probably,” I nodded. “Though, since Grael is a bigger-than-average male, it could be between twenty and twenty four.”

The size of the smile that appeared on my mother’s face after hearing that unnerved me.

“Well… I suppose a fourth litter could only add to the profits…” she chuckled, leaning closer towards me. “What d’you think?”

“I think you have an obsession with bestiality,” I said in a blunt tone.

“True, why don’t you tell me all about what it’s like riding that high horse of yours after you’re done emptying your balls into the giant lizard you’re looking for?” She said, flicking me on the nose.

“Fair point…” I sighed, looking down at the floor before an idea sprang into my mind. “Hey… since you don’t mind the idea of getting nasty with an animal, and since my sense of taste is stronger in this body… mind if I give your snatch a quick lick?”

“I’d be more than happy-” she began before the sound in my ears died as I felt myself being dragged back to my own body and seeing Luna’s glowing blue palm hovering just in front of my face.

“What the hell did you just do?” I asked in confusion. “I was in the middle of something just now.”

“I pulled you out of your mind link,” she shrugged. “I was getting bored standing around here. So, did you find out what the Legionnaire was doing here?”

“Yeah, Celly sent them on a treasure hunt about twenty years back,” I answered. “And I also found out that Celly’s tits are the divine’s gift to Earth.”

“Good to see you stayed on topic,” Luna nodded. “Find out anything else interesting?”

“I think Cadance is gonna end up raping Grael one of these days,” I added in a worried tone.

“She found out how hung Direwolves are, didn’t she?”

“How do you know that?”

“There was a massive genetic disorder in a strain of them in Northern Vinterlund,” Luna shrugged. “I gave about four litters of pure-breds before they counted my quota as filled.”

“Oh… that’s nice.”

“Indeed. They’re quite gentle lovers when you get down to it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They’re also the only species of animal that instinctively performs cunnilingus on their mate.”

“Neat,” I nodded looking over the ruined village and back into the forest. “Are we gonna make tracks to the academy soon?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” she confirmed, patting me on the back as she began to walk down the hill. We gathered all of our things from the cabin we rested in, Luna deciding to take the fur comforter with the reasoning of “fuck you” before we went into the barn to saddle up the horses again. Within ten minutes, we were back out on the trail and heading towards the Whispering Valley.

I’d been slightly worried that the horses may have experienced some kind of adverse effects from their night in the barn, but the way they performed on our trip out of the forest showed that my fears were unfounded. We made good time once we were on the trail, the Whispering Valley being only an hour or two’s ride north before we needed to exit the trail and head down, as Luna informed me, and that time had almost gone by the time Luna turned to question me.

“Richter?” She asked me after ten minutes.

“Yup?” I asked, swinging my leg over my horse to be able to sit facing her, my natural sense of balance allowing me to remain steady on the large beast.

“D’you remember the name of the training method you’ve been schooled in?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” I shrugged. “Why d’you ask?”

“Because the man we’re going to see will be quite disappointed in you if you’re not knowledgeable in your training,” she said with a sigh.

“How will he be disappointed in me?” I asked with a smirk. “If anything, won’t he be disappointed in you for being a shit teacher?” She blinked blankly for a moment, realizing the truth in my words before nodding her head.

“I think it’d be best if you and I went over the basics of your training,” she said. “Just to prove to him you’re not a complete idiot.”

“And to prove you’re not a shite teacher?” I asked with a smirk.

“Yes, anyway,” she said, clearing her throat before putting on a voice that showed me she was reciting from something she’d memorised long ago. “In the teachings of old, they speak of four different methods of training the world’s greatest warriors. Those four teachings have been split into four different schools, each represented by a different animal: there is the School of the Ox, which focusses on the teachings of brute force and feats of strength, the School of the Puma, which focusses on extremely quick movements and flexibility in order to outmanoeuvre their opponents, the School of the Wolf, which teaches its pupils to fight as teams, each with their own specific roles, and the final school, the School of the Panther, which is a school that focuses on training its pupils in the way of solitary hunting.”

“Right… that last one’s kinda confusing,” I said with a scratch of my head. “What exactly does ‘solitary hunting’ mean?”

“To be honest, I agree with you,” she sighed. “While Ruthus Longoria is an extremely reliable source when it comes to illustrations and examples, the man’s biggest flaw was his lack of description in his writing. Its why I always made you read out of Helia Vorrman’s books. She may not have had the same flair as Longoria, but the girl’s work was reliable.”

“That tone of voice is the one of familiarity,” I pointed out. “Did you know her?”

“Know her?” Luna asked with a laugh. “She and I were very close friends. One of my fondest memories, or lack thereof as I’ll explain, was when the two of us enjoyed a heavy night of drinking, a very long pub crawl, before the waking up the next morning in a rented inn room with her clutching a penguin and myself having cut off most of my hair.”

“Wow,” I whistled. “Hell of a story.”

“I know. We both decided I suited the haircut and I decided to keep it for a good seventy years, long after she’d passed away sadly,” Luna continued. “But to this day I still have no idea where we got the penguin from.”

“Where were you drinking?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow. “I know you probably know this, but you can get penguins in South Hingste, Brumby, and other weird places. Was it anywhere near there?”

“Shetland.”

“How the fuck-”

“Exactly my point.”

“You do some weird shit when you’re drunk,” I said in an impressed tone. “But, back on topic: you were explaining the panther thing? And I’ll bring up my beef with that in a minute.”

“Right, the School of the Panther teaches its pupils the usual techniques of proficiency with a wide array of weapons, fighting styles, and the like, but it also throws in the teachings of tracking, climbing, and stealth,” she explained. “The last three are added to make those taught in the Panther classes more than just a deadly opponent in outright combat, but also a person capable of attacking from the shadows and remaining unseen. It’s why the Panther school adopted the wrist blade you’re wearing as part of its usual weapon list, to be able to kill without revealing themselves.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” I said. “Where exactly did these things come from?”

“That’s… kind of a heavily debated topic at this point,” Luna said with a shrug. “A lot of people used to say that it was the Guoxian assassin Xiang Kun that made the first wrist-mounted blade and used it to assassinate the Guoxian Empress Kang Lo, but recent discoveries have uncovered evidence that the first ever design documents for the wrist-mounted blade were found in Jeju and predate Xiang Kun’s use of it by about four hundred years, though some scholars are refuting this, as there is no date on the plans and they aren’t linked to any known person.”

“So it was the Guoxian, eh?” I asked, extending the blade with a flick of my wrist and examining it with a more critical eye. “It looks like they dropped the usual East-style designs from it.”

“Of course,” Luna nodded. “As the blade moved around the world, the design for it changed quite dramatically in some cases. The Giarians changed it to a more sophisticated metal gauntlet, with one noteworthy man getting a second one, those in Jeria started removing a finger as a pledge to their order, and in the West  Bhuties, they replaced the gauntlet entirely and just used a strap mechanism on top of a regular leather bracer, though that use isn’t recognized by the other assassins, as I believe that the man who did it wasn’t part of their order. I think his name was Edmund or something like that.”

“The South Islands, huh?” I asked. “I’ve been there before, haven’t I?”

“Once, I believe,” Luna nodded. “I wasn’t on the trip myself, I was busy in the East at the time, but I believe your mother and father brought you there with them. Anyway, shall we get back on topic?”

“Right… what were we talking about again?” I asked with a chuckle.

“The Panther school,” Luna sighed.

“Right, yes,” I nodded. “And why that name is bullshit because-”

“Because a panther isn’t an actual animal and is the name given to a different selection of big cats depending on where you go in the world,” Luna recited in a droll tone. “I’ve heard it a thousand times and I’ll say it again for a thousand and one times: the school was named before that discovery was made, Richter. So don’t be a smart ass.”

“Hey… since a cougar gets called a panther sometimes…” I said with a childish grin. “And you’re trained in the Panther school… doesn’t that technically make you a-”

“You’re not the first one to make that joke, Richter,” she said in a scornful tone.

“Who was it that made it first?” I asked. “Dad?”

“No, it was your mother,” Luna answered.

“Huh,” I nodded in a surprised manner. “It’s usually Dad that comes out with the worst jokes known to man.”

“I see where you get it from now,” Luna said under her breath.

“I heard that,” I said.

“You were meant to,” Luna countered. “Now, if we can get back to the brief education I’ve been trying to give you so I don’t look like an idiot, I’d like to tell-”

“Is that the academy over there?”

“Oh for fuck’s sakes.”

I looked off into the distance to make out the ancient stone, well… there was no other word for it: fortress that lay just on the horizon, over what seemed like an enormous canyon with no visible bridge to cross over to the isolated area it was situated in.

“That’s it, right?” I asked, looking at Luna with a cocked eyebrow.

“Aye, that’s it,” she nodded, steering her horse in a direction that lead off the path.

“Where are you going?” I asked in confusion.

“To hitch the horses and drop my bag,” she answered. “We have to make the rest of the journey on foot.”

“Yay,” I said with a lack of enthusiasm. “I fucking love walking.”

“Bet you wish you’d learned to teleport, eh?” She asked with a smirk.

“Aye,” I nodded, steering my horse to follow Luna’s lead. “But the whole ‘rupturing of internal organs and then bleeding to death if even a centimetre of your body isn’t reattached in the right place’ thing kinda turned me off it.”

“Then stay still,” she chuckled.

“How the fuck am I supposed to stop my heart from beating?” I asked.

“And that train of thought is why you never became a master mage,” she said, getting down off her horse after hitching it to a large rock, porous rock. “You’ve got no imagination.”

“I’ve got plenty of imagination,” I said, hitching my horse and jumping down. “I imagine you naked all the time.” I gave her ass a gentle squeeze as I walked past her, stopping dead at the enormous drop into the canyon below before kicking a rock off the side.

“So… how are we getting across?” I asked.

“I, myself, am jumping,” Luna shrugged. “You can take the long way around.”

“You’re kidding me right?” I asked with a look of disbelief. “Not even you can make that jump?”

“Not on my own, I can’t,” she shrugged. “But I can with a little bit of magically-focused air propulsion.”

“What?”

My question was swiftly answered as she crouched down low and balled her fists, her body becoming surrounded with swirls of air before she splayed her palms and pushed down with great force, the air blasting from her palms and sending her flying over the canyon and, as she continued to blast air to allow her to glide the rest of the distance, landing safely on the other side, well over two hundred metres away.

“Are you fucking serious?” I asked in shock. “How the hell am I supposed to get over there?”

“There’s a wall that’s been carved out to allow you to climb across it to get here,” Luna said to me telepathically. “It’s just through that passage to your right and should only take… ten? Fifteen minutes to climb across? If you’re quick about it, I’ll let you bathe with me tonight.”

“You let me eat you out in that bath or I swear to the heavens above I’m telling Celestia you left me to die,” I growled. “Again.”

“Deal,” she chuckled. “Don’t ever say I don’t do things for you. Don’t take too long.”

With that, she ended our chat and left me standing there. I spotted her waving to me as she walked toward the large, open drawbridge of the fortress before disappearing from sight. With a heavy sigh, I began my journey to get to the academy, eagerly awaiting the luxuries of a heated castle, a warm bath, and venting nine years of frustration by devouring my abusive aunt’s black cherry-flavoured pussy.

Onward and upward to vagina.