Brought to you by a very thick, loud sniff that may or may not be productive.

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Sometimes, after the girls, Asher, and the one or many brothers visiting went to bed, Shay would invite Parker and Miur in for round two of bedtime stories--the more adult stories.

Automatically that would make one wonder in either chagrin or horror that they were swapping pornographic stories, which they weren't. And even if they wanted to it wasn't like they had much to tell. Parker and Miur were woefully virgin and the other three, who were married to Shay, protected their experiences fiercely and barely even talked to each other about it. No one wanted their secrets to get out.

No, they were more like horror stories of strange diseases, extraordinary criminal happenings, humans turned monstrous, and, of course, dead people.

"Once one of my mother's mates, when his brothers tried to pursue my mother, tricked them into thinking she had accepted them so he could lure them into a trap at the bottom of a cliff," said Parker in a decent 'ghost story, ooooo' voice. "When he saw his dead brother's bodies, it scared him. He didn't know why. The next day, when he heard his mother howl, he felt scared again, but didn't know why. Then--"

"Let me guess," broke in Shay. "He woke up in the middle of the night with the ghosts of his brothers sitting on his chest, wiggling their arms at him and going 'woooo, you suck for killing us.'"

Parker pouted. "You're ruining my story."

"Your telling just wasn't that good," said Curtis.

"Like you could tell better."

"Oh, but I have. Or shall we revisit the time I met a member of the deep sea mer tribe?"

Everyone by Ryan stiffened.

"Nope." Shay said. "Nope no nope, please no."

"The leg bone of its young, with the female child's perfectly form foot--"

"I said no, damn it!" She threw whatever she had near her, which happened to be the leather rug she was trying to weave. It thwacked over his head, not all that effective, especially when he pulled it off and she couldn't tell if he was holding back a laugh or a grimace.

"Shall I tell you a more lovely story of my travels to make it up to you, my love?"

"You can make it up to me by never telling a dead baby story--or any baby getting hurt--again."

"You should have known better," said Harvey quietly. "Shay's mothering instincts are especially delicate."

Curtis spat a hiss at Harvey and coiled the end of his tail, but otherwise did nothing. Per usual, Harvey was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it, and Harvey was confident enough in his position and knowledge of Curtis to not even flinch.

"I have one," said Ryan, with the edge of a cat-like chirp. "Once, my father--"

"Is this another forest story?" asked Curtis wearily.

"Four marks, and you never thought of leaving?" added Harvey, part curious, part mocking. It was a sign of how settled he had become in the family that he could do so with Ryan and not feel retribution. Then again, Ryan and he had been more or less friends before Harvey had mated with Shay.

Ryan still shot him a scathing look. "The forest is as vast as the ocean. And I've been to the plains as well."

"Ooo, the plains. The great adventure of grass and more grass," said Parker.

Unlike Harvey, Parker had no defense, and got a low, warning growl and extended claw.

"Are you going to let me tell it or not?" Ryan asked.

"Make it quick."

"I'm the male of this house, not you, guardian. I'll tell my story if I so please."

And with the attitude of a preening cat, Ryan sat up from his lounging position on his side and folded his legs in front of him.

"My father once stumbled upon a deep ravine in the forest, hidden by great mother trees and vines. Their roots had even managed to grow across it at certain points. He was the most curious of his mother's cubs, so after calling his nearest brother to him he climbed down the mother tree roots down into the darkness. His brother at first followed with equal curiosity, but as the light faded to the point that even their cat like eyes struggled to see places to set their paws, he began to protest. Finally, at some point, he refused to go any farther, but my father kept thinking 'just a little bit farther, and perhaps I might see something worth seeing.' He'd heard stories from his mother of mushrooms that gave off their own light in dark caves, as well as odd creatures who would live in the waters that pooled there."

Despite being another 'forest' story, the room was actually interested. Even Curtis listened with slightly raised brows.

"I've seen some of those," said Curtis. "The glowing mushrooms, that is."

"That's nice," said Ryan quickly. "Let me tell my story."

Curtis, being the oldest and most well traveled of the lot, naturally had the most interesting stories to tell. His smirk at Ryan's quick cut off said he knew Ryan was jealous of this.

"Every time he'd think 'I should turn around,' he'd get another thought of 'just one more step, I can see a stone to set my paw' or 'the ravine is getting narrower, I can feel the other water. I'm almost to the bottom.' Like that, he found himself stepping down onto a platform in the side of the ravine, the stone as smooth as water under his paw. Very unnatural. It was too dark to see, so he felt along the floor of smooth stone, sensing the earth covering above him as he went deeper into the wall of the ravine. When he came to walls, he turned, following the path, foolishly thinking that he could just follow that same wall out, sniffing the air for any sign of mushrooms. And then, finally, he came to a dead end. Only then, hitting his head upon the wall, did he wake up to his situation, hopelessly lost in pitch blackness far beneath the earth."

Miur, who had never liked tight spaces, being a being of the sky, shuddered and hugged one of his arms.

The fire in the fireplace crackled, casting dramatic lights on Ryan's dark face.

"The same fear that comes over a cub when they look up into the face of a colossal for the first time overcame him. Not even a full adult yet himself, his limbs went still as stone and he started to yowl for his brother, even as he realized it would only lead to his brother getting as hopelessly lost as him. He didn't know for how long he sat there. He howled until his voice went hoarse. Just as he was about to lay down and give up on life, a light cracked through the wall. It may have been but a faint light, but after being so long in darkness it burned his eyes like lightning. The line of light became a door--the wall was a door, split down the middle, opening up in two halves--"

"So a double door sliding open?" said Shay, thinking of sliding doors back home, or the ones on Star Trek.

"Sure," he said shortly, more caught up in his own story than anyone else. Shay quietly chuckled at that. So cute. "Beyond the door, once his eyes adjusted that is, he saw a great hall made of water made stone--"

"Ice?" said Curtis dryly.

"No. Not ice. Dark water, like the deep ocean, except made into walls and floors. Turned to stone, without the cold. Light came from crystals embedded in the walls. And standing in the hall was a great creature, the like he'd never seen before, with claws of cold as big as his arm, a long body like a snake the color of snow, the mane of a lion, and the face of a crocodile, and strange wings of leather furled at it's side."

Shay felt herself go tense. If she hadn't been listening before, she was now.

"A dragon?" she said.

"Perhaps, except this great creature was no colossal. It radiated enough power to make my father cough blood and its eyes shone brighter than the lights on the walls. And then it spoke, in the common tongue, with so much eloquence it made all the words anyone else my father had heard spoken sound like the garble of a mouth full of stones. With each word my father felt himself get weaker and weaker, as though the very words had an unseen physical strength to them. Blood dripped from his nose, his ears. The pain was immense, and yet somehow...splendid.'

"The next thing he knew, he was waking up in the forest, no blood on him whatsoever, completely whole. It was like it had been but a dream. If it wasn't for his brother having seen my father enter the depths of the ravine, he might have believed it was one. Even so, no one believed him. Even when my father's father entered the ravine with a torch for light, he could find no place of smooth stone. Just cliff sides that eventually met at the bottom."

Silence followed as Ryan let his story draw to a close. Everyone exchanged looks, while Ryan did his best not to look too pleased with himself. It would ruin his coolness if he did, and he was no self-conscious cub like Parker (or so he thought). Shay really wanted to go over and rub her hands over his ears from the cuteness, so she did, and ended up ruining the serious atmosphere.

"So he found a strange beast in the ground," said Curtis.

"Oo, the mystery," said Shay, more involved with the velvet soft panther ears amidst Ryan's smooth curls. The deep purrs that had started up also had to do with that preoccupation. There was nothing better than big cat purrs. "That was a good story, Ryan."

"Thank you, my sweet."

"Maybe it was one of those lost beastmen you once spoke of," said Harvey, looking intrigued. "What was it, the tale from a turtle beastman? Of many kinds of extinct beastmen? Perhaps it is the last of its kind, and it is of a species we can't even fathom. I find the appearance of the hall more intriguing than the beast itself, however. It sounds like the tools of Shay's world."

Curtis nodded, a hand to his chin. "Do you perhaps know where this ravine is?"

Ryan snorted. "I told you, the forest is vast. And if my father remembered where it was, he didn't tell us for fear we'd follow our curiosity just like him and, this time, have no god-like beast to save us--after making us bleed from every pore with its very words."

"What did it say?" asked Shay, remembering that he had never mentioned it.

Ryan shrugged and nuzzled his head against Shay's chest. "He couldn't say. Only that he could understand the words, but he couldn't remember them when he woke up." He made a low, throaty mewl in his throat and turned his face into Shay's breasts, wrapping his arms around her waist as he did so. She ended up being maneuvered into his lap, where she happily turned her fuzz-hungry fingers to his tail, which he had even curled up to her reach in expectation of her desire. He knew her too well.

"Curious," said Miur, perhaps the first word he'd said in the past hour.

"More like boring," said Parker. "What's the likelihood of any of us stumbling on such a beast, especially if it hides that far beneath the ground somewhere? And even if we did, what's the point? It'll only make us bleed and forget."

"Maybe it knocked him out and did secret tests on him," said Shay, thinking of aliens.

That got her some strange looks.

"Alright, I think it's time for you to go to bed," said Curtis, sounding as though he thought Shay had lost it.

"What? Haven't you guys ever heard of aliens?"

Curtis had during one of their talks incubating their eggs, but at the blank looks from the others, she couldn't resist.

And since she was reluctant to leave such a warm, comfy, purring seat that she loved oh so stupid much...

"Well, first off, at the end of the sky there's something called space..."

Somewhere during her explanation, Harvey had transformed into his cat form as well and curled around the front, nudging her arm for pets as well. The nudge turned into a burrowing as he somehow managed to get himself beneath what bit of her wasn't sitting on Ryan, so she essentially had a purring cat bed. Only Parker's, and even Miur's, continuing questions about space kept her up. The moment Curtis banished them out the door, she was out.

Screw Tempurpedic and all the million-dollar mattresses of the world. Purring leopards were the ultimate in comfort.