Author's Note

Hey, folks. As part of the story being boosted to M-rated, welcome to the new M-rated prologue! But for those new to the story, every M-rated chapter has a T-rated counterpart. If you prefer your stories clop-free, go here:

0: Prologue (T-rated version)

All R or M-rated content will contained spoilered content advisories:

Chapter contains: Female griffon on male human, wingplay and teatplay, vaginal and anal fingering, Cowgirl position, and hints of things to come disguised as reminisces of the past.

For those who are already familiar with the story, I left the original T-rated version in as the chapter following this one. That way, it remains available to those readers who prefer it, and I preserve the comments on it as well. For new readers, just skip past it if you read this one to reach the rest of the story.

Thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire and ASF for a rapid preread. Hope new and returning readers alike enjoy the M-rated action!

—Firesight

Original intro follows:

Welcome to the relaunched story of Feathered Hearts! For those curious, this story originally belonged to the great Demon Eyes Laharl, father of the Gentlemanverse and author of several very popular stories on site. Unfortunately, he abandoned his account, leaving at least two hit stories unfinished, including this one:

TFeathered Heart

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Adventure

The exploration of the Gryphon Kingdom and the love between a human and a griffin. While securing trade routes, Gilda reminisces how the humans arrive, the trials they face together, and the one who stole her heart. Set in the Gentlemanverse.

• Sex
• Human
• Gilda
• OC

Demon Eyes Laharl · 139k words  ·  1,622  51 · 21k views

The short of it is, after being unable to contact him over a series of months to ask to take over the story, I’ve taken it upon myself to not only finish it, but update it with all the new lore and writing skills we didn’t have back in 2012. This is the start of that effort.

Originally, I had to post these chapters off-site since they weren’t entirely original content. But as the original author appears to have abandoned his account and stories, permission was granted by the mods for me to post reworked chapters from the original story directly to the new one as long as they were heavily updated. If you want the full story behind this relaunch and the general rules accompanying it, go to the introductory blog:

Edited and updated chapters from the original story will be marked as such. This one corresponds to Feathered Heart: Prologue. You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original, which greatly influenced many of my own works.

0: Prologue (M-rated)

Soaring high above the foothills of the Foal Mountains on the strength of her broad, brown-feathered wings, Grizelda Behertz—called Gilda by those who knew her—felt her lithe half-eagle, half-leonine form shiver as she spotted the silhouettes of the moderately-sized houses in the distance; their dark forms contrasting sharply with the piercing rays of the Celestial sunrise that appeared in the east.

Her shivering wasn’t because of the weather, which the ponies carefully controlled to the point of obsession. While it was the Running of The Leaves Season—a rather ridiculously long name considering the Gryphons just called it Autumnus—and a step closer to Winter, the frosty predawn temperatures were not the reason for her discomfort. She was, after all, a sky griffon of the North; not even the freezing bite of the wind was a match for her thick coat and feathers.

No, her discomfort was a product of the town itself—Ponyville. It was a quaint little settlement in the Sovereign Realm of Equestria, situated in the foothills of the mountain range where the Equestrian capital city of Canterlot was located. From her position, she could see the river that cut through the settlement’s center, the big red building that served as its town hall, all the equally colorful houses with bright yellow roofs, and the outlying farms dominated by a giant apple orchard.

She had visited the town before only once, and it was not a pleasant memory. She’d lost her best friend, and with her, the only reason she had to stay in Equestria. But the years had passed, and so many things had changed since then. She was now a decorated soldier who had since made peace with that former friend, fighting back-to-back in the air against a mutual foe.

After her stormy and admittedly misspent youth, all was now well in both her personal and professional lives; she was content with all she had and all she was. Yet the trepidation of returning here remained. Was that the reason why she hadn’t stopped by the town yesterday, making an excuse that the travel had exhausted her?

Gilda stared at Ponyville from her hover for a few more seconds, with no answer springing to mind. Were the memories of her hurt still too raw? Did she fear encountering ponies who remembered her? Or was she too afraid to even think about it, even after fighting a war and facing down death a thousand times over?

In the end, she turned her back on the town, reminding herself sharply that she was no longer the immature and insecure teenage eagless she was then. Her powerful wings flapped with practiced gracefulness as she soared higher and higher, towards the overlooking foothills that built towards the distant Foal Mountains.

As dawn broke over the misty hillocks with an orange glow that touched their peaks first, her sharp eagle eyes shifted from left to right, trying to find the cavern where they set up camp. It took her a moment, but she soon spotted it: wisps of red-orange embers, dancing inside an open maw almost a kilometer away.

The wind shifted as her sky griffon wings began to fold the air around them. With a powerful push of her most treasured appendages, Gilda dove for the opening at breakneck speed; her eyes narrowing as she weaved through the clouds with expert ease—expertise she’d gained in races with Rainbow as a cub and battles for the survival of her very race as an adult.

Before she knew it, she was at the mouth of the cave. Smiling, she spread her large wings outwards, immediately causing the air to drag her back hard. The wind resistance slowed her descent enough to plant her claws on the rocky ground, sparks flying from stone as her talons skidded across the surface. Her momentum was still pulling her forward as she shifted her body without difficulty, her hind paws moving diagonally across the stone floor as she then slid to a stop.

With such a practiced entrance and her wings spread out to show her full array of large and well-groomed pinions, she fancied herself the very image of a graceful and powerful griffon, and not without reason. For she’d been variously referred to as strong, sensual, and “just plain awesome” in the words of the one she was returning to.

The first thing she heard after landing was a series of sharp clapping sounds, causing her to cock her head slightly, like those damn griffon fashion models she absolutely hated. Then again, she couldn’t really begrudge it, either—her companion, her chosen mate, was a special circumstance. She never had a problem being a bit girly for him.

“Nice entrance,” Marco Lakan said from his seat on a large stone beside the campfire, his deep and throaty voice sending its usual thrill through her. “I’d give it a 9-point-4. Have to dock you a half a point for low degree of difficulty and not quite sticking the landing. You also dragged your tail a bit when you came to a stop.”

“Who asked you?” She growled in mock ferocity even as she felt a touch of flush build in her cheeks. She’d never really understood why she liked his teasing when she hated it from nearly everyone else—save one or two others she was also quite close to. But coming from him, it was somehow endearing; a mark of deepest trust and affection. Trying her best to ignore the feelings of love and lust his mere presence so often produced in her, doubly so since he was nearly as naked as she was, the young eagless approached him in the makeshift lodgings they had built the previous day.

The cavern that sheltered them from the cold was a former dragon hoard, though Gilda was certain it had been long abandoned. If it wasn’t, their stay would have been short indeed when the adult dragon got back and took exception to not just their presence, but their potential raiding of his riches. But whatever wealth had once been there had long since been looted; she had checked the cave carefully before letting him in only to find there was nothing remaining except strong and ancient stone.

Their camp, she noted again, was definitely different from the usual griffon setup, which usually consisted of a few dry twigs for the fire, firegems, and a pile of leaves for bedding. The basic materials were still there, though some additional amenities were needed because of her mate.

At the center of the camp was a small blaze contained within a hastily constructed stone-lined fire pit. The usual one-time use firegems were missing, instead replaced with human tools. Her mate called them fire-starters, which only consisted of two parts. One was the ‘flint lighter’, which was a simple-looking metallic stick with a wheel at one end. It could cause sparks with a simple flick of a finger—or talon, in her case—and unlike firegems, it was also reusable. The second were termed ‘fire-tabs’; little cotton knotted ropes that ignited quite quickly, even when wet.

These tools were far more usable and much more simplistic than the firegems that needed a vial of liquid magic or a strong impact to work. It was thus no surprise that the human ‘fire-starters’ had quickly replaced the traditional magical gems back in the Griffon Kingdom. Firegems had, in turn, become popular on the human world of Earth for providing a ready source of illumination, even when their usual methods of powering lights—electricity, they called it? —was absent.

Another difference was that instead of the usual leaf or pine bough bedding, there was a tent in place. But unlike pony tents, which were costly and required magic to unpack and erect, this one was far simpler, using a strong frame made of refined aluminum as its skeleton. How humans developed them was beyond her, given it usually took a team of unicorns or griffon metalworkers—called Blackbirds in the case of the latter—to refine the lightweight metal to a usable form. And even then, it was generally far too soft for most purposes.

The humans had also developed interesting fabrics that they used to cover the tent, which her mate called ‘nylon and other stuff’. It was thin, but it kept the insides toasty warm even if she didn’t quite like the smell.

While it seemed, like so many other inventions, impossible for humans to accomplish without magic, it was unimportant in the end. After all, the tent was big enough for both of them, and he was comfortable enough being unclothed within it, covered during sleep by nothing more than a single blanket and her wing—wasn't that enough?

Speaking of her mate, there he was, sitting by the fireplace and stoking the flames as he prepared to make breakfast. Since the cavern and the fire had warmed the surrounding air to a very comfortable temperature, he had not bothered donning the gold-yellow and red hooded jacket, pair of brown pants and thick ‘steel-toed’ boots that made up his typical traveling and heavy hiking attire.

Instead, to her great satisfaction, he wore nothing but that thick fur vest she had given him as a gift some time earlier. It could be closed in front but he had kept it open, showing off his middle chest and decently muscled golden brown arms, well-toned human flanks and a set of impressive male endowments she now knew well.

It was about the only clothing she cared to see on him most of the time, mainly because it both accented the rest of his anatomy and represented his eager acceptance of her gift. She remembered a time not long before when she was so busy with her military duties that it was hard enough to spend quality time with him, let alone get enough free time to hunt animals for their fur.

Worse, she had the bad luck of only starting the search a month before his October birthday, when she desperately wanted to be able to present a coat made for him just as colder temperatures arrived. She failed, but her gift was enthusiastically received nonetheless. And judging by the wear and tear on it, he wore it nearly every day, often not even taking it off when they rutted to make clear how much it meant to him.

It was just another reminder of why she loved him.

Seeing his bare body and remembering all the ways he had honored her made her neck and face feel warm, and it wasn’t because of the flames. Approaching him, she laid her kill down next to the campfire, licking the blood off her beak before she faced him.

It didn’t show while he was sitting, but Marco Lakan was a tall, bipedal creature who walked upright like a dragon or minotaur. Although she stood nearly as high as him when she reared up—which she could only do for short periods—she’d normally be gazing right into his navel while finding her beak nearly at the same level with what lay below it.

It was one of many reasons she’d decided long ago that humans and griffons were both socially and sexually compatible. For in the words of her former partner Fortrakt, how could their races not bemeant to have sex when human erotic anatomy was almost perfectly at mouth level for griffon heads, leaving it constantly staring them in the face and only an open beak away from being able to perform oral?

The thought brought a smile to her face as she briefly wondered what Fortrakt or the rest of their mutual friends were doing now, back in the Kingdom. But the thought was lost as her hunger grew from the presence of fresh meat and she studied his furless features again. He grinned at her, and while the brown skin of his face was muted by the low intensity of the fire, it made the white teeth of his smile much easier to see in the relative darkness of the cave.

Approaching him, she nuzzled his neck affectionately and hugged him to her with a wing. He rubbed his cheek on her neck in turn, his teeth nibbling at the sensitive surface she would bare to few other beings, making her throat involuntarily trill.

“Morning, Gilds,” he greeted her, almost as an afterthought.

“Morning, Marco,” she answered back, sheathing her wings while baring her chestfeathers to the pleasantly warm flames. She settled down on her haunches beside him, and he automatically grabbed a brush from his pack and began to groom the lion half of her body, smoothing out the fur and removing a few specks of frost. She groaned with pleasure, her spine arching with each stroke of the brush’s passing.

“Nice catch. You need me to skin it for you?” her mate asked. It took her a moment to realize he was talking about her kill.

“Not unless you want some,” Gilda replied distractedly. While she had gained a surprising appreciation for how humans prepared meat—who would have thought that cooking it could make it taste better?—griffons were more than comfortable eating it without any preparation. Plus, skinning the kill herself was quite an enjoyable task, letting her be the predator she was born to be.

“Eh, thanks, but I’ll stick with eggs and sausage. This jerky’s good, too,” he said as he placed a cast-iron pan on the fire to let it start heating.

Gilda rolled her eyes. “You’d really pick that mush and a piece of dry and briny meat over my fresh kill?” she asked, and this time, her reaction wasn’t entirely feigned—it was always something she’d say every time he’d eat the ‘jerky’ on their travels, which was what he called the dried and salt-preserved surplus griffon military rations they’d procured. Surprisingly, they had been a hit with their human guests, who found them close to snacks they enjoyed back home.

And as always, he would give his usual smile as a reply. She looked at him for a second before turning away, with a fake huff. “I can’t believe you actually like that stuff. Humans really are masochists. The whole lot of you are dweebs and weirdos.”

Her unperturbed mate just chuckled. “I don’t see why you’re complaining, Gilds. Especially if...” He let his words linger as he slowed down his brushing in a particularly sensitive spot near her shoulder.

Gilda hiccuped a squawk of surprise and pleasure before she cuffed him with her wings. “Stop that!” she ordered him, feeling her face flush.

He backed off, but only barely, keeping his efforts tantalizingly near the erogenous zone at the base of her wings. “If I wasn’t weird, would I be able to make you feel this good?”

She felt her face flush harder, trying to stop her suddenly twitching wings from going erect. “Oh, just shut up and brush me.”

“Only because you asked so nicely…” He gave a sound that was surprisingly close to a feline purr. And brush her, he did. Up and down, back and forth; his hands steady as he worked a rhythm of even strokes. They were very practiced motions, honed by months of repetition. Gilda had always enjoyed his grooming efforts, even when he wasn't initially that good at it. Thank the Ancestors that he was such a fast learner, at both that and...

Satisfied, she tapped his leg with her wing, signaling him to stop before they got too amorous. With the pressure off her coat, it was time to return the favor. She walked behind him and draped her forelegs over his shoulders, her claws lightly scraping through the fur vest as she rubbed her neck and beak over his head, scruff and back. She closed her eyes and lost herself as she breathed in his scent deeply, finding it as pleasantly warm and spicy as always.

Her stomach suddenly rumbled. Her eyes flew open as she felt her cheeks heating up, both from embarrassment and glancing down to see his spear—what griffons called their male phalluses—now lying partially engorged in his lap. But before she could stare at it any longer, she suddenly felt his fingers glide over her feathered neck, followed shortly by his lips kissing her throat.

“Sounds like you’re as hungry as I am. So go eat, Gilds. Sex can wait. And thank you.”

Gilda could only give a very halfhearted huff of annoyance for him so easily reading her mind, but she obeyed his suggestion, taking her kill near the fire. Before she dug in, she looked back at him for a moment; her gold eyes catching his brown ones before motioning down to the slain flying boar. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“I’ll be okay with the jerky and sausage for now,” her mate replied with an easy smile; a flick of her gaze to his lap told her that his spear still hadn’t fully subsided from the beginnings of his earlier excitement. “Save me some slices and I’ll do them up as steaks tonight. Besides, with Ponyville so close, I can get some potatoes and veggies, too.”

“Ugh, Ponyville,” Gilda spat out before she began to eat her breakfast ravenously, tearing the fresh and still-warm meat off the bone with her beak. “My least favorite place in all Equestria.”

“Hey, slow down, Gilds! I don’t want you to choke,” he advised her with a laugh.

Gilda rolled her eyes as she ate her meal. As far as she was concerned, choking to death was a much better prospect to her than returning to Ponyville. And who knew; maybe it would convince him to let someone else represent her. “Better to choke now before I enter that Ancestor-forsaken town,” she muttered between swallows of fresh flesh, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “So why did I agree to come here with you, again?”

“Because I’m supposed to meet up with the town council and Mayor to finalize the new trade routes, while you volunteered to escort me as the Kingdom’s military liaison. You also claimed that you wanted to protect me from amorous ponies,” he replied, chuckling as he cracked some eggs into the pan; they hit with a hard sizzle in the butter he had already added.

“Claim, nothing! I’m definitely going to protect you from those in-heat dweebs,” she replied through a mouthful of meat.

“Funny, weren’t you the girlfriend of one of them?” he teased with a wink, earning him a half-hearted hiss and a swat with a wing. “Honestly, Gilda, I don’t think they’re that bad.”

She licked her beak clean before facing him again. Her mate wasn’t afraid of a little blood, but he had told her before that he was still a bit unsettled seeing it on her.

Oh, the things she would do for him. Oh, the things she would do with him! Even if she still found him as exasperating as endearing at times. “Not that bad? They’ve built companies to hire out male humans for sex with mares!”

He laughed loudly at the reminder. “Okay, you got me there, but I still say it wouldn’t be that bad. Haven’t you been reading those articles in the Manehattan Post? Sounds like mares really go for human guys, given how few stallions there are. And besides, it’d be nice to have some additional affection.”

As soon as those words left his mouth, Gilda stopped eating. Her neck straightened; her eyes narrowing. The tone of his voice indicated that he was teasing, but the idea of having to share him with Equestrians? Her thoughts began to zoom around her head, and when she imagined seeing him with those stupid ponies, her blood began to boil.

“Additional affection?” she asked in a low, deathly quiet tone.

“Well, sure! I mean, a man can never get enough, you know? And neither can pony mares if those articles are any indication. Wonder if they’re as fun in bed as the author says?” He made a show of being deep in thought, leaning over with an elbow on his knee and a fist of his fingers supporting his chin as he sat on a rock, which he’d covered with a blanket to protect his bare flanks from the cold surface.

A low avian trill vibrated from the deepest confines of her throat, echoing throughout the cavern. She turned, leaving her breakfast on a flat stone near the fire and stared straight at her mate, who was wearing a goofy smile on his face. He was egging her on and she was playing right into his wings—er, hands—but she didn’t care. How dare he imply that she should share him with ponies! Weren’t griffons like her enough? Wasn’t she enough?

Her hind paws kicked up a bit of dirt behind her as she pounced him, her wings spread and arched forward to make her look as intimidating as possible as she knocked him to the ground and stood over him. Her talons bit lightly into his shoulder, sharp enough to cause him to yelp, but not enough to pierce his flesh. She would not hurt him, but he needed to be taught a lesson!

Far from alarmed, he put up no resistance even though he had proven himself more than capable of offering it, letting her pin him on his back. She settled her haunches on his hips, staring at him for a few seconds before her claws moved towards his vest. She then slowly kneaded them on the furred surface, a little rougher than her earlier actions.

“Okay, okay!” Her mate stiffened at her aggression, yelping quietly as her beak darted in quickly and bit him on his neck, sharper and more painful than her usual nibble of affection. She wouldn’t let him up, though. Using her foreclaws to pin him down, she slowly traced the outline of his shoulders, nipping in a few particular places, feeling satisfied every time he gave a half-muttered apology. “I give! I give. Can’t a guy even make a joke?”

“You are mine, Marco Lakan!” she whispered harshly in his ear after a fifth bite. She earned only a weak affirmation, so she bit it again, earning another yelp. “Now say it!”

“I’m yours,” her mate replied agreeably, then spoke more clearly and emphatically at the look in her eyes. “Like we swore before your Queen, I’m yours, Grizelda Behertz.”

“That’s right. You did. And don’t you forget it,” she said, growling low in her throat.

“Swear to God,” he replied, with his arm moving and positioning itself perpendicular to his prone form, palms facing upwards from the ground, his fingers open. It was a human gesture of supplication, she had learned long before.

“Swear to me!” Gilda ordered, now settling on all fours, letting her full weight rest on top of his torso, though she allowed her tail to dangle provocatively between his legs. She could feel their shared warmth; feel his beating heart beneath his chest as she deeply inhaled his scent; his body intermingling with hers once more. She lowered her face; her beak almost touching his nose, internally smiling as she felt him squirm under her weight.

It was an ages-old gesture of griffon dominance; a lesson to show him her displeasure. A normal griffon response was to expose their neck in a sign of trust and submission, and Marco knew it well by then. But instead, he stretched up her neck to kiss her on the beak. Gilda stared at him, her eyes crinkling and cheeks flushing. And as much as she hated to admit it, her ire was ebbing.

“Ugh, whatever,” she muttered in an uninterested tone, trying to keep the smile that threatened to break out over her beak. She stood up off him, letting her mate sit up. She then rubbed her neck over his vest-covered back and shoulders. “For teasing me like that, you owe me some preening.”

“Preening? Or preening, Gilds?” Marco asked meaningfully, a little lust entering his tone as he began to give soft kisses on her feathery neck. “Because unless I miss my guess…” He let his hands start drifting over her sensually sensitive flight muscles again, which he knew from long experience was guaranteed to make her legs buckle.

Gilda felt like she was struck with lightning at the intimate contact, her breath catching and spine stiffening as she felt her four teats begin to engorge low on her belly, swiftly growing exquisitely taut and sensitive. “What do you think, dweeb?” she whispered huskily, sensing her passions rise along with her wings and a growing ring of pink around the edges of her vision. The latter was a phenomenon she was now well-used to; one that could boost both her sexual pleasure and combat ability for heightening her senses and sharpening her desires.

The result of being deliberately poisoned with a dangerous magical concoction for evil ends, she had hated and feared it at first for both who had done it and what it might make her do. But in the end, she—and he—had declined the chance to permanently remove it. They had discussed it but ultimately decided that they liked what it could do for not just them, but for certain human and griffon friends back in the Kingdom they had perhaps inevitably bonded with during intrigue and war.

But such friends were half a world away, and here and now, she only desired him. “I think you want a little loving, Gilda,” was his only response aside from more feathery kisses against her beak, cheek and neck. He even sometimes added his teeth to the efforts by nibbling at the leading edge of her wings, causing her to arch her head back and trill.

His hands moved with practice and precision, massaging her quivering flight muscles using just the right amount of pressure and the broad circular motions he knew that she liked, causing her wings to steadily rise in a sensual display she knew he loved. “And I’m more than willing to give it to you…” he all but purred as he shifted a hand to reach down her belly, finding and fondling her hypersensitive teats.

Her wings began to flare and stiffen harder as she gave a quavering trill. Like most griffons, she had never thought of her mammaries as anything sexual before humanity arrived, but like so many other things he and his human friends had taught her—the latter of whom had been granted Kingdom citizenship along with Marco for fighting at her nation’s side—she happily embraced the idea that they were erotic objects now.

Doubly so since they were a favorite of his, and he knew from prior experience with human females how best to stimulate them.

Experience that Gilda now shared. Her remaining annoyance quickly ebbing, she sighed happily and finally surrendered to his efforts fully, baring her neck while lowering herself on top of him. She savored the feeling of his deliciously groping hand on the mounds of her mammaries, which he then moved along with its twin to her leonine hips.

Her breath caught as his soft but uncannily dexterous fingers squeezed her well-muscled flanks and neared the feminine opening of her eagless nest. Their proximity caused her swollen lips to quiver and wink in anticipation of contact even before the tips of his digits reached them, pulling their sides apart and causing her to release a startled squawk at the stretching of the sensitive flesh.

Within seconds more, he was using his soft talons to deftly probe not just her sexual slit but the other orifice beneath her tail; engaging in what she would have previously considered an incredibly unwanted—and even obscene! —act of intimacy that she now enjoyed so much that it nearly caused her to climax on the spot.

For after many months as his mate and countless sensual experiences with him and several others, her old hangups and societal taboos now meant little to her. Having had all the foreplay she could take and not wanting to climax from that alone, she sat up off him and moved her hindquarters over his impressive stature, taking a human mating position she’d come to love for making her dominant and allowing her to see his face.

His breathing coming as quick as hers for anticipating the rapture to come, he grasped his organ to position it for entry, looking down her belly at her eagless teats rubbing lightly against his waist and navel, and then up at her flushed and eager face in renewed wonder.

She smiled at his reaction, pausing just long enough to give him a lick on the forehead. Staring at his supine form beneath her and seeing his lithe body wearing nothing but the furred vest she had given him, all she could think of at that moment was not the coming sex, but all the time they had spent together. And especially the unlikely means by which they had initially met and bonded.

It was an impossible tale, one almost reminiscent of the sickeningly sappy romance novels the ponies favored crossed with the heroic griffon legends of old. It was a tale that was not always happy, but she regretted none of it, knowing that regardless of any others she found worthy of her affection and attention along the way, she loved him above all else.

And that she would remember and cherish their mutual journey for the rest of her life.

By all my most honored and sacred Ancestors... she thought as she lowered herself onto him, feeling his flared head part her eagless opening easily as it had so many times in the past. How did I get so lucky?

She didn’t know, but the question was soon forgotten as she and her human mate brought each other to ecstasy.