Title: The Empire of Fancy.
Summary: How strange it is for the beasts of the forests to see the prince of Bats and a griffon engaged in an amorous relationship. It's not a bad thing; to the contrary, it's quite interesting to watch from afar. Sequel one-shot to Flight of the Chicken Hawk, slash, TerryxRex, mention of other pairings.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, the series they belong to, and make no money from publishing this.
Warnings: Sequel to Flight of the Chicken Hawk, slash, hinted other pairings, takes place a while after the previous fic, fantasy, the whole thing. And rated Mature for a reason. And I think it's garbage, ugh.
Dedication: To Rose Midnight Moonlight Black, because as is the way, I am grateful and, well, she asked me to add onto Chicken Hawk. How could I resist at such fabulous compliments for such a spontaneous fic that came out of nowhere and, I suppose, the urge to continue this little festival we have going on of trades and favors and enjoyment? Hopefully, this won't go down into oblivion as this actually got fun after a while.
-:-
We'd like to know where you're going as well, since evidently you'll be having sex there.
-Sex and the City.
The water isn't as dirty as the soapy material floating around it should have made it and Rex was grateful, considering any such kind of water often made him uncomfortable and double check his wings to be sure nothing had solidified and would become difficult to get out when preening.
The large marble walls made him feel tiny in this bathing temple the people of nearby villages had built for the griffons—his clan—that protected them against foreign invaders so long ago, but he had long since grown used to it. What he still wasn't quite used to, was having a partner to bathe with.
Both of their legs resting up on a perch sort of built into the shallow end of the bath; Rex couldn't stop looking at Terry's toes and how they had crinkled about the skin and turned much whiter than usual, along with the rest of the body because of the wetness that, as it were, he rarely enjoyed. Bats didn't like getting wet, but since becoming…what had Maxine called them—oh! An item. Terry was getting better at accepting taking baths with Rex; always swimming about and often times, resting his back on Rex's stomach just to float around. Sometimes they floated with their stomachs touching and pressing up and against and down in the water like they were supposed to be attached by thin strands of sinew and reeds and it often got Rex so hot that they ended up going at each other for hours in the place, and hard.
But, sadly, not today. Today, Terry was just so soft and quiet after teaching Matt how to fly and hunt those fish in the raging river a few miles north that Rex didn't have the heart to take him out of this comforting warmth of simple company and bathing.
Terry sighed, both of his wings making a little spin in the water, movement stirring the foam of soap and those scented salts that Rex had gotten from Merina when the sort of goddess found out about him and Terry. After this, they were both sure to smell like olive oil not quite properly made and those crushed flowers that Dana and her friends ate or used at the festivals that celebrated Diana among the humans of the area. But, that was not exactly a bad thing.
Rex ran his hand up the length of one of the wings, eyes ghosting over the dark fur that waved in the water as it moved about and was gratified in his own right by the groan that came forth from Terry's mouth, the bat spinning around to engage Rex in a deep kiss.
They stayed that way for a little under a minute before disengaging, blue eyes staring into much darker ones as the bat ran both of his hands under the meeting of Rex's feathery wings and his shoulder skin, earning an awesome keening noise that Terry might have once confused with a baby duck but, eh, this was much better.
Heat encapsulated them in the bath, but they didn't continue any further; they had things to do, much to Rex's chagrin.
"So, you gonna help dry me off, or what?" Terry smirked, with one fell movement bringing himself out of the water with a stroke of the wings; the water slid off of him like he was a rain cloud and directly onto Rex—it soaked the man entirely and Rex had to hold back an insult that had welled up just for a moment of Terry's laughter.
Walking with a peace and quiet in mind today, a strange sort of…thing…makes its way across the ghostly, fog enshrouded field.
Woof knows he looks quite strange today, but it is as a means for protection in case something even less friendly than he comes out while he is looking for food for him and Jack.
He has his general visage of a sort of hyena in play, but he does not walk on all fours—indeed, he walks now on his hind legs, grossly clawed and see-through hands held out like he is a wandering specter upon the mortal coil. Anyone walking by might think he looks a bit like he's made out of those milky plants found on a tropical canopy bed (the kind that you can and yet at the same time can't see through), all green and white with his spots normally quite a dark brown now a sort of filmy grey like pond scum on the top of morning lake water. He is terrifying.
He looked like a big bad wolf yesterday, but today he wants mellow. He was happy; Jack had finally gotten pregnant after weeks of their trying and trying. Woof had enjoyed the experience, but after a while it just gets exhausting during the mating season. Melanie and Ghoul were still going at it somewhere in the woods, no doubt Melanie looking like that gorgeous clouded leopard that faded in and out of reality every time Ghoul hit that spot inside her just right; Ghoul seemed to like the Manticore body when Melanie was the leopard, but Woof could be mistaken. The blonde sort-of kind-of supernatural didn't exactly like the spikes on his tail—then again, like it was said, Woof could be wrong.
His nose tilted awkwardly into the air, teeth showing as his lips curled and flicked twice at a quick and angry current of wind heading his way. An uncomfortable growl reached into his voice box and he knew whatever was coming his way could either be just vaguely annoying or openly hostile.
The berries of red and purple and the meat of those three rabbits he had gobbled up to regurgitate for Jack later in the evening churned and bubbled unpleasantly in his throat as he carefully flattened himself to the ground. With a strange snapping sound, his back rearranged itself into what to a naked eye might seem like a just broken tree stub with shoots of thistle and nightshade growing from it. It was his best defense so nobody would think twice about coming too close; even an idiot knew what nightshade looked like and that anything like that to grow in the meadow, if even touched, could be fatal. He would be fine until whatever came went away.
The wind shuffled again and he felt two shoots of black shade pass over him, two bodies setting down in the field atop that dead tree. He could smell a Bat within its human body, its wing of leather and matted fur swishing twice as it sat down, laughter coming from him as his…lover, Woof thinks as he smells ardor and sweat, sits down beside him; feathered wings fluffed up and uncomfortable. That was good, the other knew he was in a place that he didn't belong. Perhaps the other was some sort of griffon; they knew better than to be here, so what was this one doing?
Like lightning, the Bat cried at a calling and Woof gently (so quiet and careful with that food of his in his throat) shifted his shape back into what his was a blink of the eye in a moment ago. He sets his body to be more see-through—less like a milkweed plant and more like murky bath water—and shifts his head up, eyes looking further out and skin flinches as he doesn't so much see or hear, but feels one of his tribe heading towards the two strangers.
Woof smiles as he sees that he was indeed right in his assumptions of a Bat and a Griffon sitting on the dead tree, one with a cornucopia filled to the brim with grains and flowers of red and white and the other sitting awkwardly with his bronzed arms crossed, flinching at any twig that cracked or any leaf that descended from a nearby tree.
Good, at least he knew that he didn't belong in this field.
Out of the mist to Woof's left, all white and yellow with bits of mud clinging to her black legs, went Deidre.
She was prettier today than she was yesterday. Not a mere little garden snake eating snails and getting her belly slimy and dirty, but a rather tall Xanthos; a fierce beast that the gods had crossed and forged to look like a harmless mare, right up until some unsuspecting victim came too close, only to see teeth and claws more fitting on a lion. It fit with their kind's way of life—beautiful and terrifying all at once. Even if Deidre herself never was that terrifying to begin with, no matter what form she took.
She smiled pleasantly at the pair, showing off all of her sharp teeth and sending the bronze male into a fighting stance before the Bat admonished him and dropped the grain to the ground, holding the flowers in his hands.
Woof, though not one generally prone to eavesdropping, couldn't help himself as the three started speaking; eating all of the grain and the Bat—Terry, Woof remembered; his name was Terry and he was a prince is what Melanie said, his lover a "chicken hawk" griffon the girls' had helped Terry be set up with—chatting away with news about what had been going on.
"…and today we're going to see my brothers and see if they're willing to teach Rex in our fighting style if he gets down and prostrates before Father," Terry spoke, grinning ear to ear as the other male's ears glowed red with the blush spread over him like fever, feathers bristled up like fur or after a fall that came too close to a court with Death.
But, the way the blue eyed boy was looking at the other, Woof could tell that he was saying this only in jest and not to hurt his lover; his leather wings swayed back and brushed over the Chicken Hawk's with ease and teasing, the claw at the end of one joint rubbing Rex just so…
Woof never would have thought romance could be so sweet if he hadn't been standing there that day.
But, still, his own joints croaked and crinkled and his skittered away from the scene, hearing a loud call of laughter over his shoulder from Terry; Rex saying something he couldn't quite hear as his coarse voice was swept up in the wind.
The strange beast smiled to himself, even as he moved to the forest and the rabbits in his stomach made him sag and hit the occasional downed tree branch and nearly vomit it all up before reaching his and Jack's hollow. There was the distant sound of Melanie and Ghoul going at it forty acres away.
Scooping up all of her tunic—why did she have to wear one so long; it wasn't as if she were worth the look anyway—Max crossed over the one annoying river the stood out like a sore thumb before her temple. She still got wet, of course, she was too small to carry so much cloth, but didn't mind so much as she caught sight of her two—or three, depending on how one looked—friends sitting about.
She made it inside, the cool air soothing on her so very human skin and calling her to draw breath in savory feeling upon entry. Eyes closed, she made a silent prayer of thanks to Hermes and then opened her dark orbs again, sights set on another oracle, a male nymph and the nymph's… talking golden…thing.
Said golden thing—she had been trying desperately to give a name to what his kind could be, but could not think a thing of it, except that surely Hephaestus had made the thing for the nymph if only to shut him up—turned from talking to his master the nymph and to look upon Maxine. Its one black eye blinked and made a clicking noise and then his metal glowed for a moment. The poet and sort-of oracle had come to recognize this as a greeting before speaking.
"Hello there, Mistress Maxine! How was the journey to visit Sir Terrence?"
Well, at least she could make peace with the thing being polite. That put him on a higher pedestal than Michael Carter, male nymph and absinthe fiend, any day of the year.
Still, Maxine held up her pointer at the golden thing, taking a seat on a large mountain of pillows she had collected from the village over time, trying to leave her fellow oracle in the corner alone until he was done levitating above the ground, eyes closed and humming, "Now, Skeets, I've told you to call me Max! And please don't call me Mistress—that only applies to Kai-Ro."
The golden, tiny little thing tilted from its place in the air, "Is that because you engage in sexual activity?"
This didn't get a rise out of the oracle in the corner—nothing could bother Kai in this state, the lucky bastard—but it did cause Michael to get up from his place in the teeny tiny pool dug into the temple and clock Skeets on the top of his gold plating; both he and Max blushing scarlet.
"Skeets, what did I tell you about talking about inappropriate stuff like that?" The nymph—in just his loincloth and golden hair sopping wet—barked, avoiding eye contact with Max.
"But, Booster," the little golden, floating thing squeaked, trembling and using Michael's nickname given by some unknown to gain sympathy, "You do it all the time."
Michael raised his pointer finger in a fashion similar to Max, only to be interrupted from behind, Kai coming out of his meditation to touch down into Maxine's lap, "Yes, he does. But he is a little older than you and you should do what he says. Even if he is being a hypocrite. And to answer your earlier question, Skeets; yes. It is because Max and I engage in sexual activities."
"Thank you," Michael chirped, ignoring Kai's mention of his hypocritical habits; instead taking his position back into the water, "But, uh, Max, how was Terry?"
"I don't know," Max growled under her breathe, only to be stopped cold in that action by Kai—the smallest oracle she had known and some kind of demi-god three times her age trapped in a ten year old body to boot—fiddling with the knot on her tunic so he could look at her breasts; but she continued, "He wasn't at his temple when I went to see him, and it looked like he had been entertaining someone when he left, so I came right back here."
"He is with the griffon, Rex," Kai spoke, in fact and truth, since he seemed to just pull truth from the air; fingers loosening the tunic and allowing one of his hands access to Max's left breast, gaining a lovely mewl from his chosen—and very mortal, as all of the other demi-gods had remarked—lady; not a concubine, a lady. Concubines couldn't read, write, or give him any joy, after all.
"Ah," Michael answered, ignoring Max as she had fallen backwards onto a giant ebony pillow that could hold a pair of three hundred pound ox, Kai removing the rest of her wardrobe and doing things out of the other male's sight that were enough to get the dark beauty moaning, "I take it you know what they're doing now?"
Kai hummed, continuing the conversation even as he removed his own robe; gods and demi-gods were notorious for having no real reaction to shame, after all, "They just finished up in that terribly dark meadow, and now they're going to…I think they're going to see Terry's brothers. Oh, and he'll be leaving flowers for Max at the foot of the hill later in the evening. Terry is polite that way. Hopefully, he'll be able to coach Rex into that soon."
"Oh, Zeus, I hope so," Michael grinned, pulling Skeets down so he wasn't looking directly at the two oracles as Kai was without clothing and was starting to suck on Max in various sensitive areas—and the little bald teenager was still in the conversation, "Have you met that guy? No manners at all! And, I've seen him lure the Bat into sex in completely public places this last month! Right at the foot of my own temple, if you can believe that!"
While Michael continued in on talking about Rex's lack of manners, and his hopes that Terry would train him better, Skeets—from his insides, that only Hephaestus knew existed—started to play a little music similar to the Apollo's flute as Kai was now fully engaged in pleasuring Max, the young lady raising one leg high into the air as Kai inserted…well, the little gold friend wouldn't think on it. There were plenty of euphemisms, but not right now.
"I don't think your friends like me very much."
Doing a spin in the air that climbed twenty feet all around, Terry flipped so he was flying directly under Rex, getting a good view of the other's torso and ripped abs in the process of having a slight frown on his features at the same damn time, "Well, maybe not Deidre, but I know Max kind of likes you. And maybe Dana and Kai-Ro. And the others will follow, you just have to give them time."
Rex looked down at the other and dove forward, his own momentum giving him enough room to get under Terry—wings flapping madly to keep them both stable—and hug the other from behind, a very slight grin on his own face. Very slight, but none the less charming.
"I never said I cared about whether or not they like me," he corrected himself, allowing the both of them to find a tree to land in before they reached Bruce's very large, daunting temple, at least three miles still away from them; perching upon a Sycamore, "As long as you are okay with what they think, that's enough for me."
Winding in the other's arms, Terry gave him a deep, blue eyed look, glancing from the griffon to the surrounding areas, very aware of the heat radiating off of the other.
"Okay, that was way epic of a realization to have in a half-hour flight pattern. Just how long have you been thinking up a way to have sex instead of going straight to my father's?"
Rex let him wings fall away from both him and Terry, face now completely red and eyes flitting about like he was hunting in the marshlands for those disgusting red cicadas that were too fast for anyone, "Now , I would never suggest such—it was the truth—Oh, screw it!"
Taking his lover's arms, Rex pinned Terry to the tree trunk and by and almost glued their mouths together. Terry, for his part, allowed it, but only for long enough to get his own skin a scorching temperature; before he pushed the other away to breath and thwap the back of his head.
"We are not having sex now. Can't you just wait until after we see my father and brothers?"
"No!" Rex squalled, wings raised to block out the sun and, quite possibly, show himself off, "I saw thirteen different couples having sex on our way here! I could hear two of your very odd friends going at it in the meadow—which was not a meadow! It should at least have birds chirping if it's called that—and I know it's a sign! Please?"
Terry rolled his eyes. The invitation would be a shame to waste with Rex so desperate—sex was awesome when Terry was in control—and he did have to admit to himself that it was mating season and he himself was quite…erotically charged…but letting Rex have his way could not be this easy. Terry was a Bat and that meant making the deal much sweeter.
Sighing dramatically, Terry crossed his arms and tucked his wings behind him, looking serious, "If we do this, you are cleaning my temple when we get back. And I get to be on my back—you're too heavy otherwise."
Rex, without thinking—as he was prone to do when he was so fricking ready he could already taste the Bat—nodded his head rapidly.
Terry's triumphant laugh was stolen in a kiss.