Redux: Lineage

Svea wasn't kidding when she said 'cuddle'. I hadn't been in the bed for more than five seconds before this titan of a woman wrapped her arms around me and nearly crushed me into her chest, resting her chin on my head, and falling asleep nearly instantly. I was eternally grateful for her size and warmth, as the night ended up becoming rather cold as it went on, with the temperature dropping, the wind coming down off the mountains being bitter and stinging, and the rain continuing to pour.

She was more than a treat to snuggle in with and help me fall asleep. The morning came all too soon, however, feeling as if I'd gotten barely move than three hours sleep before Svea woke up and got up. She moved away from me, sat up in the bed, causing a crack to open between the sheets that made all the cold air from outside come rushing into my sanctuary.

I groaned in an annoyed manner, gathering up more of the sheets as I closed my dry, stinging eyes once again, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep to get my full twelve hours and then lounge about for another four.

"C'mon," she prodded, gently jabbing a finger into my shoulder. "Wakey-wakey."

"No," I mumbled, sounding extremely irritable.

"You need to wash and eat breakfast," she said, gently leaning over me and poking me in the cheek.

"I'm tire."

"You're lazy," she countered. "How is a prince supposed to learn his duties if he spends most of his hours locked away in his chambers?"

"My duties, as of right now, are sleeping," I grumbled. "And I'd be more than appreciative if you'd allow me to commit myself to my royal duties and politely leave me to do so."

Svea went quiet for a moment, her noticeable weight being taken off my torso before she released a heavy sigh.

"Okay then, Your Majesty," she shrugged, getting out of bed and walking out of the tent. "Guess that's all I can do..."

If I'd been more awake at the time, I'd have noticed the mischievous tone in her voice. However, without at least ten hours of sleep, I was about as aware and sapient as a fucking rock, it went completely over my head as I snuggled back into the sheets for the next few minutes...

Until the tent was violently ripped to pieces and I was torn from the bed by the ankle, soon being held upside down and face to face with an enormous white dragon that winked playfully at me before spitting an entire torrent of freezing cold water all over me. The shock of being grabbed by the dragon was enough to get my heart pounding, but the physical pain of the ice cold water was more than enough to make me squeal like a small child. I'd hoped the squeal had been masked by the loud gargling sounds I made as I was hit in the face by the stream of water that lasted for a five seconds, then being dropped onto the floor and pinned down between two of her enormous dragon fingers.

"Why?" was all I asked in a much less angry tone than I'd expected to have.

"A prince must rise with his people," Svea said, her voice having changed into its much-rougher dragon equivalent, sounding as if it almost had a faint reverberation as well. "And you're rising like wet flour in a doused oven."

"I renounce my crown," I said, attempting to crawl out from under her foot, only to go nowhere. "Release me at once, you foul beast."

"What do you want for breakfast?" she asked.

"More sleep," I muttered.

"I'm afraid we stop serving that after six in the morning," she shrugged, placing her enormous head just above her and looking at me with a bright blue eye. "Is there something else I can get you?"

"Something warm to sit next to?" I asked, now beginning to shiver from the cold air mixed with the freezing water.

"That I can do," she chuckled, lying down on the floor and picking me up, placing me gently against her scaly chest and wrapping her wings around me. "Is that better?"

The softer breast scales of her species were definitely more pleasant to squeeze up against, much moreso than the skin-stripping ones she had on her sides and back. I'd slain a dragon and was now butt-naked, freezing, and cuddling one... sounded like something out of a bad adventure novel.

"Now I'll ask again," she said. "What do you want for breakfast?"

I looked up at the dragon as best I could, her long neck putting her head much further away from me than before, so eye contact was kind of impossible right now.

"Some kind of meat that won't take forever to cook," I answered.

"Rabbit it is, then," she said, shifting back into her human form and leaving me in the same place:

Squeezed right up against her enormous tits with no desire to go anywhere else.

"I normally can't kill rabbits," I said, the drowsiness starting to come back once I was snuggling against Svea's huge, soft bust.

"Why's that?"

"They're too cute-looking," I shrugged. "I can skewer deer, horse, moose, bison, antelope, and all other kinds of animals, but I've always struggled with rabbits and mice."

"What kind of worthless morsel is a mouse?" Svea scoffed.

"Hunger is hunger, Svea," I said with a glance upwards at her.

"I suppose," she said, walking back over to the drying rack and pulling her clothing back on. "So I'll be the one doing the murdering of the cute animals?"

"If you wouldn't mind," I nodded. "And besides, I don't have any of the stuff I'd need to make the traps, skin them, gut them, and butcher them properly."

"Can't you do it with a sword?" she asked.

"In the same way you can chisel a statue with nothing more than a hammer, yes," I said in a sarcastic tone. "But its too clumsy and inelegant to do the job properly or well. Do you have any hunter and trapper's tools tucked away in your hammerspace?"

"Sadly, no," she answered, pulling her dress' shoulders back up and tying the fasten at the back, clothing herself completely and hiding away a true gift to existence. "I often hunt as a dragon and eat whatever I catch completely raw."

"Stronger stomach, eh?" I questioned. "No need to worry about pesky things like bone fragments and disease?"

"Not at all," she smiled, looking around the area and sniffing the air.

"Locating a scent?" I asked.

"Indeed," she answered, seeming to lock onto some kind of prey. "I'll try hunting with magic, since you're with me."

"Why don't you always do it that way? Faster and cleaner, right?"

"Ruins the fun of the hunt," she said with a dismissive wave.

"That's kind of... psychotic," I said with a blank-bordering-terrified expression.

"No matter how high their intelligence, every beast is a slave to their natural desires," Svea said, waxing poetic. "A dragon is a hunting beast, and we find no satisfaction in a quick and easy hunt."

"I'm no slave to my animal instincts," I said. "I'll take convenience and speed over rewarding expeditions any day."

"Then perhaps we are animals of a different instinct?" she suggested. "Maybe a dragon is made to hunt, and an Alicorn is made to breed."

I raised a finger to counter that point, opening my mouth to voice it, before thinking over what she'd just said. It could've been a simple jab at me, and for all the Alicorn that Svea actually knew, it seemed to be just that. But from what I knew about the Alicorn, most notably my close relatives... we all had a thing for fucking. Not just fucking each other, that was a different scenario, but seeing how often my mother and I engaged in sexual acts, the sheer number of partners we desires, and even the stories I'd heard about Luna and Celestia in their youth and even nowadays... maybe promiscuity was simply part of Alicorn psychology?

Maybe we physically couldn't attach ourselves to one partner and satisfy ourselves with them because we hadn't been designed to do so? I had no solid reasoning beyond mass-reproduction as to why the Alicorn would be intentionally designed to be horn-dogs like that, but maybe it was put in their to make sure our numbers didn't dwindle once the Goddesses had left?

Well... it didn't work, that was for sure.

"Richter?" Svea asked, snapping me back to the present and taking me out of my own world.

"Hm?" I grunted, blinking and looking at her in the face once more. "Yes?"

"I asked you how you liked your meat," she said.

"Oh, uh, well done, thanks," I answered, scratching my head and looking at my own clothes, deciding that it would probably be a good idea to get dressed and maybe practice some sword stances while I was waiting for Svea to finish up hunting.

"Right, what kind of appetite do you have right now?" she asked me, creating an in-depth 'shopping list' be she went hunting,

"Uh... I'm not starving, but I could eat..." I said, dressing myself quickly and enjoying the relief from the biting cold as I laced my boots up.

"I'll just get a lot of rabbits, cook them, and let you pick at what you want," she said with a shake of her head and a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Remember that I can't just crunch them like you can?"

"I'll think of something," she said, patting me on the head before making her way into the forest.

"Don't worry, we'll just use the pit oven technique," I said, giving my own dismissive shaking of the hand. "If you can change back into a dragon, scoop some dirt out of the ground here, I'll go and get some rocks from the river bed over there, gather some leaves off the trees, and then you can shear off bits of meat from the rabbit and I'll stick them in the oven. Sound good?"

"You're quite resourceful, aren't you?" she asked with a smirk.

"You can thank my Aunt for it," I chuckled, thinking back to all the trials and tribulations Luna had trained me with. "Now, get going. Those rabbits aren't going to hunt themselves."

With that, the two of us went off on our own duties. I decided to forgo the stance training, gathering up leaves from the trees, trying to get the ones that looked the freshest and least-mauled-by-caterpillar-ish, before going down to the river bank a few yards away from our makeshift camp and selecting large, flat stones from the bottom of the ice-cold river. Once I'd finished my gathering, having more than enough leaves and stones to lay a banquet on top of, I sat around waiting for Svea to return.

She did within another fifteen minutes, carrying several armfuls of rabbit corpses. I could barely stand to look at them for more than a few seconds, as a lot of them still had their tiny little eyes open, reminding me of the way their ears flicked and noses bounced, as well as the adorable little way they cleaned themselves, which made me start to feel a little sick after a moment.

"Can you skin them please?" I asked her. "I don't think I can bring myself to do it."

Svea thought for a moment, setting the literal pile of bodies down onto the ground and putting her hands on her hips.

"I have no idea how to skin animals," she admitted after a long moment.

"Then... cut the heads off and get rid of them," I sighed. "I'll do it, but I won't be able to if the adorable little bastards are sat there watching and judging me while I do it."

"Alrighty then," Svea said, powering up her magic and beginning to decapitate the rabbits.

I kept my eyes on the ground as she did so, not wanting to see them get mutilated, and waited for her to dump a pile of rabbit corpses next to me. I had to get creative with my sword, flat-gripping the edge of it and using the tip and little bit of the side to shear-skin the rabbits, thankful that once their fur was gone, they looked a lot less cute and adorable, before gutting them.

"Do you have any string?" I asked Svea as she sat on a rock, staring off into the distance.

"What for?" I asked.

"Need to bleed them before we cook them," I answered. "Honestly should've done it before I skinned them, but I'm not keeping the belts."

"What's the string going to do?"

"You hang them from trees and slit their throats," I answered. "Blood drains out completely and makes it so you don't taste it or have it stain the meat when cooking."

"Huh... humans sure are picky," she commented. "Though that explains the difference in taste at those functions I went to..."

"Any string?" I asked, getting her back on track.

"Uh... no, sorry," she answered with a shake of her head.

"Right... I'll just shear the meat off entirely and cook that," I said. "Do you want to shift to your dragon form and help me dig it out?"

"Sure," she nodded, moving into a spot where she had some space, being consumed by a shining white light that covered her being, then visibly shifting into her much larger dragon form, easily larger than a two-storey house. "What do you need of me?"

"I need you to scoop a hole in the floor, try about two feet deep, two feet wide, and a foot and a half long," I explained. "We're only making a smaller meal here, so it doesn't need to be huge."

"Coming right up," Svea nodded, using her claws to dig the hole to the specified measurements and then sitting back on her haunches.

"Right, wait there while I set the oven up," I instructed.

I gathered up my rocks and made the bottom half of the oven, setting in place as best I could as not have any spaces between them or dirt poking through. After that, I gathered up my leaves and made the bottom part of the 'platter' as Luna always called it, laying out the strips of meat I'd cut in an order that would allow them all to cook evenly and equally. After that, I put the 'cover' on it; a second layer of leaves made to protect the meat from the rocks and to keep a lot of the heat trapped inside.

Finally, I covered the top layer of leaves with the other rocks that I'd picked up, then requesting Svea to blast it with fire until the rocks glowed a cherry red. She did as requested, clearly interested in the process we were going through, and then killing her fire once the rocks had reached the needed colour.

"Right, now can you scoop the dirt back on top if it and we can leave it for a while to cook," I said.

"Why bury it?"

"The dirt prevents the heat from escaping from the rocks and keeps them hotter for longer," I answered.

"Why couldn't we just do this over a fire?" she asked, burying the oven once more before sitting down next to it.

"I'm not too good at judging cooking times for things over a fire, so I tend to burn them to a crisp," I said with a slightly-ashamed expression. "And the pit oven makes them taste different. Since they're not cooked over an open flame, they don't taste charred when you eat them."

"That's rather interesting..." she said, staring intently at the ground where the oven was buried, looking quite like a cat staring at a bird on the ground. "I never fathomed humans had so many ways to cook things..."

"We have many, many more ways than those two," I chuckled, drawing my sword from my sheath and rolling my neck. "While those are cooking, I'm gonna practice a few stances. I'll give you a shout when they're ready, so feel free to take a nap if you want."

"I want to watch you train," she said.

"It's not that interesting to watch when there's no sparring partner," I sighed. "And, between you and me, I never should train alone. It only embeds your mistakes."

"Then why do it?"

"Because I feel I know my stances well enough to know what they should be and where I'm going wrong without an instructor," I answered. "And if I don't... Luna's gonna beat the mistakes out of me the next time we spar together. So either way: it'll be a learning experience."

And with that, I began going through some of the basic longsword techniques for offensive striking, making sure to keep myself from slicing through my knee and making sure I didn't overswing.