I interrupt your usual stupid episode intro to let you all know that my co-writer, taykuni whatever (I can never remember the pen name she chose because she pulled it out of her butt and never says it), is going through a really hard time at home right now and is having a hard time writing because of it. It's hard to write when you're so stressed and sad. So I'm putting a note here to ask of you who enjoy this story to please put a comment on here with words of encouragement to her so she knows there's someone who enjoys what she does. It will help her write. She needs the help. Just comment on the story and I'll pass it along to her. If you guys aren't sure where her writing is, she's the one who writes Neara. Now, back to your regular programBecause getting people drunk was always the cheap way of getting a marriage to work. That's why they call it a "honeymoon." Honey was a common ingredient in making alcohol, namely mead. Then and now it was a cheap shot and they should be sued.

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Shay woke up the next morning lost, confused, and so hungry she retched.

Didn't I eat anything last night? And she tried to remember as she turned over on her comfy-comfy bear-fur nest and came nose to nose with a chocolate, sleeping Ryan.

A very naked sleeping Ryan, not even with his pouch. On that thought, she was also naked, with concentrated aches between her legs and scattered across her body.

Drenched in foreboding, she lifted her head and took her first look at herself. Bright purple bruises ringed her arms and thighs, along with reddish marks across her breasts and stomach. Slime slipped from between her legs.

And contrasting to all the chaos was the tattooed head of a panther on the right side of her chest near to where her shoulder met her breast, baring its fangs towards her heart.

Shay suddenly found it very hard to breathe.

Shaking, hurting, chin trembling, she pawed around for clothes and only found her snakeskin skirt. Something terrible expanded in her chest, ready to explode, so she stuffed the snakeskin against her chest and pushed to her feet.

"Curtis?" she croaked. Her legs moved like a newborn fawn's.

She stepped past the temporary leaf curtain hung over the doorway into the main room, which had been cleaned out of moss and bugs the day before, to find stone tools, ashes, and bamboo canisters strew every which way, as though a tornado had had its way with the room.

Memories trickled in like the raindrops sliding in from the half-born framework of the mainroom. Each one caused the shivers within her to increase until she was running for the front door, uncaring of the sharp pangs against her feet.

She tripped and caught herself on the front doorway. "Curtis!"

There were bodies in the front yard. Parker curled beneath a tree, red gashes staining his yellow spotted fur, and a particularly soggy lump of ginger fur huddled between two bushes, still, but at least unbloodied.

She stumbled towards the forest, sobbing and screaming her husband's name in turn. Tears mixed with the heavy rain, washing away whatever ick she'd gleaned from the night before but not the ick in her chest.

She ran away from the City of Beasts, deeper into the forest, catching to trees as her bare feet hit rotting logs and roots. The cold numbed the pain of her bruises.

Finally, she fell into the dirt, sobbing so hard that between the thick rain and her weeping she couldn't catch her breath.

A whuffling sound came, followed, by a sudden stop to the rain above her. She felt a brush of feathers.

"Shay, what--what happened? Who..."

She didn't need to see to recognize who the stiff tone belonged to. But rather than be happy that Muir had found her and protected her from the freezing rain, her distress increased. She curled in on herself, hugging the snakeskin like a protective talisman. She opened her mouth to scream for Curtis, but she hadn't the breath and merely choked.

Suddenly, the mark about her ankle grew warm.

"Move," Curtis hissed.

But the rain didn't return.

"What happened to her?" Muir asked with barely contained fury. "You're her mate, you're supposed to protect her. She's distressed and injured, she can hardly--"

A loud bang of flesh on flesh and the rain returned with a rush, only to vanish a moment later as snake coils encompassed her in a familiar tower, topped by Curtis's hunched shoulders and dripping hair.

"Shay, love, I'm here, it's okay. It's..." His fingers brushed over a particularly sore spot on her arms. "I...but I left the panther with you. And if not him, the leopard...no. No, no, this..."

Shay clung to him, digging her fingers into him so hard she was sure if he'd been an ordinary man she would have broken skin.

"Drugs, they put drugs on the fire!" she wailed. "It messed with our heads and made us loopy and sleepy and I wanted to sleep, so Ryan took me home and put me to bed, but then--then there was banging and I woke up and Ryan was there and he--he--I was so loopy and sleepy and he was warm--"

Curtis pulled her back. Through her watering, squinted vision she saw his red eyes see the panther on her chest.

What came over his face sent a new wave of fresh agony over her.

"I'm sorry! I didn't want to--I never wanted to hurt you--I don't want all these stupid guys over me, I hate this world! I'm a whore, I feel like such a whore, and I feel so sick still and my head--I wanted to throw up, and I never wanted more than one husband and now he's stuck on me and you're so hurt. This world is so messed up, I hate it! I hate it so much! I want to go home!"

She partly gasped, part hiccuped as she choked for air, her head flung back in a wail.

Curtis cupped the back of her head with his hand to reel her back in. "Shay, love, calm down, it's okay. I had already accepted this might happen."

"NO! No, it's not okay! You love me, it must hurt so much! I'd want to die if this ever happened to me, I cheated on you and I didn't even mean to--it's just the second time in my life I ever mated and I don't even remember it and I hate it-it-it---waaaaaaaaaaah!!!"

"Shay, no, that will never happen. I love you and only you, you're a female, you won't ever have to share your male."

"That doesn't matter! It's happened to you and it hurts! It's so awful, I'm so sorry, Curtis--hic--Curtis, I hate this--I hate this place, I wanna go home. I feel so sick and hungry and sorry and my husband is so hurt-huwaaaah! I wanna go home!"

She had to stop there to forgo talking for breathing, as her head had grown light. Curtis pulled her beneath a tree, huddling with her as he stroked her wet hair, hushing and murmuring.

"It's okay, after the cold season I can kill him when I wake up and take you to the sea. It can be just you and me. It's okay, I'm not angry, I accepted this. He'll keep you alive, and that's more important."

She just wailed all the harder.

"Shay...love..."

Very carefully, as though holding a very injured child, he carried her back through the trees to the house. As the sound of her distressed reached them, the leopard stirred and the ginger fluff ball gave way to a short, bare-chested man.

"Shay?"

"Oh no, what happened?"

"Snake, did you--"

Curtis's tail lashed out, beating aside both rabbit and a shifted, bloodied Parker back against the trees they huddled against. Blood sprinkled their lips.

"Leave!" Curtis roared.

Parker, showing mindfulness of his injuries for once, dropped into a leopard and fled. Joseph hesitated a second too long and barely managed to dodge the second lashing of Curtis's tail before thinking better of his lack of weapons and vanishing.

Curtis ducked into the house. Just as he neared the back room, the only fully roofed section of the house, Ryan appeared with wide eyes. He barely managed to catch sight of Shay, bruised and sopping wet in Curtis's arms, before red coils lashed about him, tightening up to his neck.

"How dare you do this to her," Curtis hissed, every syllable venom.

Curtis ducked into the room to gently set Shay down on the nest before turning his full attention to the writhing man in his coils. His lips peeled back, teeth growing back into fangs.

"There's always another who can keep her safe during the cold season," he spat, the fangs impeding his speech. Spittle dripped off Curtis's chin, only to hiss as they hit the stone floor.

Ryan clenched his eyes against the popping of his joints under the pressure, only for them to pop back open.

"I..I didn't mean..." he gasped.

"Stop!" Shay squeaked. "Don't--don't hurt him. I'm sorry, hurt me! Just hurt me, I'm the whore."

"I don't even know what a whore is," hissed Curtis, but fury softened with grief as his eyes turned to Shay. As he watched more tears pour down her face as she continued to clutch to his snake skin, still naked, pale-skin turning blue from cold, his fangs sunk away.

With a frustrated grunt, he tossed Ryan against an opposing wall, shaking a few careful collections of water from the thatch roof.

Curtis curled himself about Shay, wrapping her up once more in his arms and coils.

"Hush, Shay, you are not at fault. It is mine for leaving you, only mine. You've done nothing wrong."

She buried her face in his chest and whimpered. Above the sounds of the rain, her stomach gave a loud gurgle.

Curtis frowned and turned to glare at the panther, who had picked himself up to his hands and knees and remained there, hanging his head.

"Get her food and you may keep living. I will not leave her unprotected a second time."

Without looking up, Ryan stood and slunk out of the leaf-flap door.

"This house is unfit," Curtis muttered as he gently stroked her head. "I know you want to keep close to your friend, but I do not know if I can get a roof up in an orderly fashion, and I have no patience for the help of any other males anymore."

Shay said nothing. Her shivering had only compounded her hunger, and she was afraid if she opened her mouth she might vomit what little she had left.

A flicker of Curtis's ribbon-like tongue made her shiver harder.

"You're freezing. But the fire pit's soaked."

He had already tightened about her to trap her body heat, but she hadn't any body heat to spare so it was making slow progress. He tried rubbing her, but at the pained squawk at the friction on her bruises he stopped.

"I hate this..." he said. "I hate what I am. I hate that I can't warm you more than this." He bowed his head over hers, tucking her beneath his chin. "And then I had to lose to..."

But, slowly, his coils did their job and the air trapped about her and the bearskin sheet of the nest began to warm. As it did so, he tucked her in, head and all, turning full snake so as to better cap up the bubble he'd created. Shay resorted to using the snakeskin to wipe away the snot and, once it had done its task, abandoned it to the side to curl back into the bear fur.

Just as her eyes fluttered, ready to pass out from hunger, Curtis lifted his head enough to allow a strip of seasoned meat in. Before she'd even processed the smell her hands had snatched it and stuffed it into her mouth. Parker had most likely made better, but with hunger being the greatest seasoning, it was heaven.

"Once she is done eating, build a firepit in this room," said Curtis. "We can't finish the roof until she is warm and protected."

Ryan said nothing as he continued feeding strips of meat through the allotted space in Curtis's coils.

By the time the sickly edge to Shay's hunger started to fade away, she found she had eaten more than she ever had in two sittings combined, and yet still felt like she could eat more. The disappearance of starving helped her to calm to mere hiccups, but her eyes now joined the rest of her body in soreness.

Damnit, and I just got better from being sick.

"Shay mentioned something called 'drugs' being used at the ceremony that caused her to feel sleepy," said Curtis. "What happened after I left?"

"I don't know what she means by 'drugs,'" Ryan's voice sounded thick and heavy. "But the Ape King had mind affecting plants burned in the fire. I...I would not have ever done so to Shay if they did not...I wasn't alone. The effect was quite strong on other beastmen. I saw a few pairs beginning to mate even as we left, and others already asleep."

"So it either puts you to sleep or pushes you to mate?" asked Curtis skeptically. "Wouldn't something like that endanger females? If you hadn't been stronger than the leopard and rabbit, couldn't she have been hurt far worse? Foolish. I suppose the Ape King shall have to die as well."

After a moment's pause, where Ryan slipped in yet another piece of meat to Shay, he said, "I wish him dead as well for those herbs, but...I do understand his logic."

"What? Watching mass mating occur before him so he can slip in to rape with drugs as an excuse?"

"That wouldn't be logical, only villainous. No." Ryan took an uneasy breath. "From what I've observed since coming here, the laws the Ape King has put forth are truly to encourage the growth and thriving of beastmen."

Curtis snorted. "I can do that quite well without him."

Ryan didn't mention that Curtis hadn't been doing all that great with Shay to begin with. Rather, he said, "My mother once told me a story told to her by a dying turtle beastman of a time when beastmen covered the entire earth, as far as the eye could see, and beyond, so numerous and of so many different kinds one could not number them."

"Turtle? I have never heard of a turtle beastman."

"That is because they are one of many different species that have gone extinct. Beastmen are dying off. They have been for a long time, and that is what the Ape King fights."

Still sounding disbelieving, Curtis asked, "And did the turtle mention why so many died off?"

"That's what the story was, and it was one told to him by his grandfather, who was told by his grandfather. The turtle beastman said he was three hundred and fifty three years old when my mother tended to him, so this was very long ago when one day females stopped being born with the ability to transform."

Curtis made a surprised hiss. "Females? Transforming?"

"Yes. And because of that they filled the womb, made birth as painful as it is dangerous, and became as weak and fragile as we know them now."

"Females transforming..." Curtis murmured.

Curious, Shay crawled over to her slit in the coils to nuzzle her head out.

"Do you mean you guys are all born as animals, but females aren't? And in batches too?"

Ryan flinched at Shay's appearance before giving her a strange look.

"Shay...how could you...not know?"

Curtis set his fingertips to her damp head. "Yes, beastmen give birth to litters, but the litters are only males. If you have eggs they all will be male. Females, however, are only born one at a time and in their human form. Because of that they are too large for any other babies in the womb and are much more difficult to birth. There is little danger in giving birth to males, but females can die giving birth to other females."

"That's why females are so precious," said Ryan, still frowning. "But, Shay, this is something even children understand, why don't...surely, even if your parents hadn't told you..."

Shay popped the last bit of her meat into her mouth and chewed to give her time to think. As she did so, she sniffed heavily and rested her cheek against the snake coils.

They were her husbands now. They'd given her their one chance in this life to have a mate, surely...

She swallowed. "Where I'm from, no one can transform into animals and everyone is born as humans."

Curtis's fingers froze. Ryan blinked slowly, then opened and closed his mouth.

She tried to give a reassuring smile, but her mouth only wobbled. "No, you'll never find this place, no matter how far you travel. I don't even know how Neara and I came here. But where I'm from there's no shortage of females or males, but there are no litters and no beastmen either. We're all just human. That's why I'm so...different."

Ryan shook his head. "Shay, you're speaking nonsense. No such place exists."

But Curtis said nothing, his hand still as snow upon her head.

"The mind plants must still be affecting you," he said to himself with a sigh before pushing to his feet. "Snake, I'll make her some mind calming medicine, you shouldn't let her leave here. She might hurt herself."

Shay just heaved a heavy sigh and slipped back into her bubble in the coils. The next time a bit of light came in it was Curtis's hand that held the meat.

"Eat as much as you can," he said softly.

Her stomach grumbled, still somehow not filled, so she took it from him and complete darkness returned.

Some time after she had finished all she could and curled back up, Curtis's voice rumbled down to her.

"Your mind is clear, isn't it?"

"You believe me?"

"...It explains...too much. You behave like no female I've ever known."

She rubbed her knees together, her stomach clenching. "Does that bother you?"

"On the contrary, it is why I cannot resist being so helplessly in love with you. Perhaps I have waited so long and managed to gain four stripes because the female I looked for wasn't in this world."

....well, damn.

"Curtis, I want to see your face, could you...?"

Within moments he'd brought her up into his arms and into the light. His high cheek bones held up his glistening, bright eyes, which no longer reminded Shay of blood but of cherries. Every line, from his clear, perfect complexion to the shape of his straight nose was perfection she'd rarely even viewed in the movies, where most was artificially shaped.

She took hold of that face.

"I love you," she said.

His slit-like pupils bloomed. A whoosh of breath left his lips.

Gingerly, having so little practice initiating it, she kissed him on the mouth.