Foggy With a Chance of Absent-Mindedness

"Which one what?" he asked back, tilting his head clockwise a bit.

"I-I mean... that's..."

Ara's voice died down, consumed by doubt. If what Rena said was true, and she had no reason to think she'd lie about something like that, then Oberon might really have switched places with Obe -which would mean the one Ara ordered around was indeed him and not Obe- and switched back after she left her room that morning. But... would he even do something like that? In case that was really all just in her head, asking him clearly would imply telling him both of Obe and of what she did with it. Granted, Oberon already knew of Obe, but Ara wasn't aware of that. As her mind tried to decide what to do, Rena walked upstairs, probably lured in by the scream.

"What happene- oh, thank heavens" the elf commented upon seeing Oberon's ordinary body.

"This" he then said as he handed a rather large box to Ara, who had been to caught up in her own thoughts to notice it before "Is for you"

"Ah... thanks..." she replied as she took it in her hands, though her thoughts were still elsewhere.

Oberon simply walked downstairs, asking Rena to come with him to discuss about one of the menagerie's guests, leaving Ara alone. A minute or so later, her mind came back to reality and she realized that she was holding something. She brought it back to her room, placed it on the bed and noticed that the sheets had been changed with clean ones. Her ears twitched at the sight, but she managed to convince herself that that had no implications about Oberon being Obe or the contrary or him knowing what happened or whatever it is that she suspected. She took a deep breath to calm down and opened the box.

Inside was a chess set. An odd looking one, with every piece being shaped like a different plant or tree. At first that seemed really unpractical, but upon closer inspection she realized that recognizing each piece was actually rather easy, if only just by comparing them to each other. The board itself was somewhat irregularly decorated in a way that strongly resembled a forest, especially with the pieces placed over it. She put the whole thing on the table, then walked out. Then she came back in, closed the door and pulled Obe out again.

"It was you yesterday, right? It wasn't Oberon. It wasn't him, was it?"

As usual, he didn't reply. Thinking about it, Oberon had been more... proactive that morning, while the previous evening he'd been rather passive -in context- doing only what she told him to, which did made her think that maybe she was really imagining things. She shook her head to think about other things, and walked down to the kitchen, for real this time. There she found him, in the middle of cleaning up after breakfast.

"Thanks" she said "For the chessboard"

"I'm not too practiced with the game" he replied "But I wouldn't mind playing when you feel like it. ... I" he then added "... wasn't sure what else you might like"

"D-don't worry about that" she replied, his last sentence sounding somewhat off "I don't have that many hobbies in the first place"

Silence.

"Do you want to try cooking something?" he eventually asked.

"... sure"

The results of her attempts are probably best left unknown.

The next day arrived surprisingly quickly. Ara had spent a good part of the previous afternoon theorycrafting board states in her room, if only because it'd been a long time since she'd done something like that, and that morning decided to take Oberon up on his offer and have a game -after breakfast, that is- and brought the chessboard to the kitchen. Rena, on her part, wasn't too interested in chess itself, but she was curious to see a match between a person and a machine so she sticked around to watch.

The game lasted somewhere between one and two hundred moves and went of for a bit more than seven hours, including a break for lunch and a couple more for going to the bathroom. At some point the elf decided to go get some work done and left. In the end, Oberon resigned.

"I have to be honest" he commented "I wasn't expecting this outcome"

"I'm quite good at chess" she replied cherfully.

""Quite" is most definitively an understatement"

"Eheh"

They spent another while talking about the match, until the subject got changed to work. By Ara.

"S... say, what about the next... well, the next session?" she asked, lowering her gaze a bit.

"... right. Since it's relatively late, however, I think it'd be better to postpone it to tomorrow"

"Sure"

She brought the chessboard back to her room, and there she noticed that her tails had gone back to being six. That was relieving. Playing really brought her mind away from her work. Though she still brought it up because it felt somewhat weird that Oberon hadn't done so himself yet. On top of that, she was a bit curious to see what other animals they had there. And with that she meant that she just wanted to completely pay off her debt. She buried her face in the pillow -the actual pillow of the bed, not Obe- to convince herself of that, as little sense as such a gesture probably made.

The first noteworthy thing to happen after that was Rena's announcement during lunch, the next day.

"Tomorrow and the day after I'll visit the last animals. I'll probably leave the following morning"

Oberon didn't really say anything, but Ara did.

"... wait. How many did you check on every day to be done already, now that I think about it?"

"Quite a few, actually" she replied "I'm skilled at this. And it's not the first time I've seen these exemplars, being already familiar with them considerably sped up the process"

"I see"

On one hand, Ara felt that the place might get a bit too empty with Rena gone, on the other that would mean that she wouldn't have to go out of her way to make sure she didn't find out about the few things she didn't want the elf to know about, so she had mixed feeling about it. ... and truth be told, the two of them actually didn't even interact that much, all things considered.

Another couple or so of hours went by, and the three of them got into the elevator. Ara and Oberon stepped down at the fifth floor and there headed to the third room, while Rena went to a deeper level. The antechamber they walked in this time was surprisingly empty, which kind of made Ara more anxious. Maybe it was because she had lost a tail since her last session, but she wasn't feeling too eager to get to work this time. Oberon had told her that her partner would be something similar to a ram, and that while the place it lived in was somewhat cold, she wouldn't need heavy clothes. It was kind of vague, or rather it was really vague, but she decided that it was enough. Then Oberon handed her the key and turned around, waiting for her to take off the chastity belt. She did so, without much hesitation but still blushing a bit, left it on the table and gave him back the key. Then they stepped into the dome.

The inside of it was a plain. Or rather, the doorstep was in a plain in the middle of a slightly hilly landscape, with bushes and shrubs here and there, occasionally a tree as well. There was a faint mist hindering sight a bit, and a small narrow pathway heading straight into the fog. And the air was, indeed, quite chilly.

"Eat this" he said as he handed her something which strongly resembled a green candy.

"What is it for?"

"To prevent excessive sweating"

"... alright then..." she replied as she swallowed it. The taste was rather dull.

"This way" Oberon spoke as he began walking.

Ara followed him as she rubbed her hands over her arms to keep herself a bit warm. She knew already that being pantyless with that outfit felt breezy -she was strongly considering changing clothes again because of that- but with low temperatures like that it was plain uncomfortable. On the bright side, they arrived at their destination really quickly. On the not as bright side, their destination turned out to be a graveyard.

"... for real?" she asked.

Seeing that she was feeling colder than he had expected, Oberon took off his shirt and gave it to her. Ara took it without protests as by that point she knew that he was rather insensitive to both hot and cold. The fog was growing thicker.

"The graves are all fake. As in, I regularly replace the carcasses with new ones. We don't have people buried here" he replied.

"Why do you need to replace them?"

"Because this guest is a carrion eater and feeds on that. This area is designed like a cemetery because its kind easily links such places to food sources"

"... I'm assuming I don't risk getting any kind of weird disease, right?"

"Don't worry, I'd never let something like that happen to you"

Oberon told Ara that she'd been acting strange a few days earlier, but... now she was the one feeling like he was acting a bit weird. That last sentence seemed a bit... off, said by someone like him, even though his voice sounded as calm and composed as ever. Her cheeks were a bit red, but that might just have been because of the general situation and being without the lower half of her underwear while wearing such a dress. Soon after -thankfully as Ara was starting to feel a bit too cold, Oberon's shirt or not- they heard footsteps approaching and a dark, somewhat intermittent red light appeared in the mist, approaching with every stomp. The creature emerged from the fog with slow, heavy steps.

It was standing on its hind legs, but was so heavily hunched forward that the fact that it wasn't using its front legs as well to support its weight seemed unnatural. It wasn't as tall as an horse, but even under its thick, black, curly fur it gave off the impression of being much more muscular. It also seemed like parts of its body shone intermittently underneath the fur. Its head strongly resembled that of a goat, with the main difference being that the mouth was larger. It had six large, ridged, spiral horns, two pointing upwards and back, two going forwards and the last two interwining along the base of the other four. Its hind legs had clogs, but its front ones had feet instead, each with three large, bulky and somewhat short fingers. All four limbs were noticeably brawny, and the fur covering its back was surprisingly long, going from curly to smooth the further it went from its base, almost giving off the impression that it was wearing a cape of some sort.

All things considered, that was a rather intimidating sight, though probably not as much as the pulsing light approaching with heavy steps from the fog had been.

The creature stopped and placed its gaze on Oberon for a brief moment, then moved it to Ara and stared at her for a short while before starting to move forward again, the sound produced by its footsteps making it seem even heavier than it looked, and... bleated? Bellowed? A sort of middle ground. Oberon pretty much ignored it, but Ara seemed to get a bit fazed by that sound. Or rather, it seemed to shock her somewhat, her tails starting to wave behind her. The ram approached her slowly, until its head was right in front of her face.

Its breathing was slow, but the air that came out of its mouth felt hot. Searing almost. And it had an odd smell. Her nostrils were hit by a scent as strong as she'd have expected from a carrion eater, but unlike she'd thought, it didn't stench. Sure, she wouldn't describe it as pleasant, but rather it was... somewhat alluring. Her fur pricked up briefly. The creature then pushed its snout against her face, its skin being surprisingly warm to the touch, and started loudly sniffing her. She was starting to feel kinda... dizzy. And the ram's body seemed to emit a rather noticeable heat, enough to cause her to take off Oberon's shirt.

It then licked her, leaving large droplets of surprisingly sticky drool over the left side of her face. That felt rather unpleasant, and she cleaned it off her eye with an hand. The ram then bleated again, the sound giving Ara goosebumps for some reason. She was feeling light-headed, and surprisingly hot, enough to start sweating. Then she realized that she was running her tongue over the ram's face, the same way it just did with her. She reflexifely pulled back, wondering what had gotten into her. Then the bitter, intense taste left on her tongue struck her, leaving her stunned for a brief moment.

Her head was spinning. And she was cold. Really cold. Freezing, almost. So she stepped forward. The ram was pleasantly warm. The creature, which was already standing on its hind legs, straightened its back, not completely but still enough to tower over her. Or rather, enough for Ara to walk under its upped body, albeith she had to basically get on her knees and bend down to not bump her head against its body. The ram turned its head down and looked at her from above, though from that angle her tails covered her quite a lot. It placed one of its feet over her shoulder, making her feel the roughness of its skin, the weight of the limb and the intense warmth -heat almost- coming from it. She nearly leaned its head against it.

Maybe it was because she was standing under it, but now the creature's smell seemed to be more intense. For a moment she wondered if it was really a nice idea to stay there, but just as she wondered about that the ram bellowed again. Ara's head was sent spinning by that, confusion overtaking her mind. Amidst the dizziness, the creature's scent stung her nostrils with even greater strength. She leaned forward, following the trail of what seemed to be the only unshaking thing in the world at the moment, and moved her fingers inside its fur, finding something stiff. She wrapped her hands around it and slowly pulled it forward, revealing the creature's erect member.

Ara wasn't sure what was happening. Her thought were blurry, she felt like almost everything around her was spinning, and she couldn't quite recall what she was doing there. But there was an entrancing smell coming from right in front of her, from something she was holding. The scent was nice and sweet, which she wondered if the source had an equally pleasant taste. So she started licking it. It had a very rough texture, and against her tongue it felt even hotter than it did against her hands. The taste was nice, but she felt like the more she moved upwards along it the sweeter it got, so she ran her tongue alongside it, until she reached a sensibly smoother area which also seemed to be top of it. Her sight felt nonexistent. She was seeing things, but it was as if her brain couldn't register the informations received by her own eyes. The taste quickly changed, somewhat resembling honey.

... what was she doing again? It had something to do with...

She heard an animal bleat in the distance, and her already frail train of thoughts faded together with the caprine voice. She got closer to that thing offering her both a pleasant taste and scent, and as she did so the warmth irradiating over her body increased. She started licking the head of the object, and soon after an extremely sweet, rather sticky fluid started coming out of it. Was that honey? Was she having a snack? She was somewhat hungry, and started drinking the viscous liquid. She tried to take the whole object in her mouth to not miss a drop, but quickly realized that it was too large for that. She kept running her mouth over the thing, and at one point she realized that there was something moist between her legs. Did she spill some of the honey? She wasn't sure.

Upon noticing that, however, she started feeling a tingling in the same spot. The distant ram bleated again, and Ara turned around, made two or three steps and then got on all fours, raising her rear. She wasn't sure what she was doing or why, but she sort of felt like that was a natural thing to do. That said, moving away from where she was made her feel cold, unpleasantly so. Then something hot touched her butt. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was long and vaguely soft, leaving something over her where it touched her. The thing then ran over her exposed privates, sending a sudden jolt through her body. Her tails stood up from the sudden, unexpected pleasure, as she let out what she'd have sworn was a somewhat loud moan, but for some reason her own voice sounded distant.

Then, what she guessed to be a tongue ran over her again, heavily tracing a line which started almost from her belly button, moved between her legs, proceeded in the middle of her buttocks and stopped at the very base of her back, sending warm shivers along her skin. The same process was repeated again and again, but for some reason Ara was finding it hard to focus on it. She didn't know why, but every time the tongue touched a certain area of her body she felt a wave of pleasure coursing within her. She somehow realized that she was sweating, and that her breathing wasn't too regular.

The pleasure kept piling up, every new jolt feeling more intense than the previous one, warmness slowly spreading from where the tongue touched her all the way to her fingertips, until she felt a sudden, pleasant shock discarching through her whole body, her back arching as her body tensed up, her ears standing up as the pleasure ran within her system. But, as nice as the feeling was, she could tell that something was... missing. Her breathing had gotten even less regular. Her sweating, while it hadn't grown more intense, also hadn't subsided. The tongue parted from her skin, leaving her alone in the cold. Her back went back to a more straight position. Her ears moved back down.

The far away creature bellowed once more, the sound echoing inside her head. She was waiting for something, but she didn't know what that something was. Then, a sound, distant but close. Followed by another. She felt something like hair but warmer and not as smooth running over her body, enveloping her in a blissful, almost violent heat. She smelled the scent from before getting a bit closer. The next thing she felt was something hot, hard and apparently covered in a somewhat sticky substance pushed against her privates. Then, suddenly, the object pushed itself inside of her.

By all accounts, she sould have let out a loud cry, she thought so herself, yet her voice sounded distant. But since that'd make no sense, she probably just didn't moan as strongly as she'd have thought. She was enveloped by the heat, as if she'd just been placed under a warm blanket. Her head was light, her thoughts fleeting.

The thing inside of her was large, to the point of being painful -if just so faintly-, and hot, so much that she wondered if she'd get burns from it. The sheep bleated again from far away, and at the same time the thing inside of her moved back, scraping her inner walls, sending jolts through her body. She didn't really understand what was going on or why she was feeling that way, but all things considered she was feeling... nice. Good even. The foreign object then started moving in the opposite direction, burying itself inside of her again, its rough surface causing surges of pleasure to spread within her system. It kept moving deeper and deeper, its size and shape feeling nice and uncomfortable at the same time, until its head hit her cervix, making her fur stand straight up. It then pulled back, almost enough to slip completely out of her, before moving back inside again, once again enough to scrape the entrance to her womb.

Ara wondered if she'd lost her voice. She was sure she was moaning -... why again?- but she wasn't really hearing much. There was a distinct noise reaching her ears though, and if she had to guess it was coming from where that thing was entering her body. It was a somewhat sloppy sound. Now that she payed attention to it, there was also something running back and forth against her raised butt, in rhythm with the object's motions. Hair? She wasn't sure, but it did feel warm. ... had she noticed that already earlier?

The pleasant feeling kept increasing. Her muscles started to tense up as an hot, somewhat sticky fluid started pouring from the foreign object and getting smeared all over her inner walls by the back and forth motion. Her breathing grew more ragged as the feeling piled up more and more, starting to reverberate thought her body, until it just... started fading. Her limbs relaxed, her fur going back down as the pleasure returned to a lower, albeith still considerable, level.

That was disappointing. She realized that something was missing, and she was sure that said something's absence was the cause of her letdown, but she just couldn't remember what that thing was. Nor what she needed it for. That said, she used the moment to regulate her breath a bit, even though the warmness enveloping her all around was keeping her very dizzy.

The ram bellowed again in the distance.

The fluid being released inside of her seemed to be getting stuck to her insides, as every movement of the foreign object within her was sending more and more pleasure to her nerves, every motion feeling like her inner walls were being pulled and pushed alongside it. Then the thing started pulsating, emanating even more heat. For a moment she got scared of that burning her, but for some reason that thought quickly turned into something different, and she now wondered how long that blissful warmth would last. The pulsations grew even stronger, stretching her insides even more, causing loud, distant moans to escape her mouth.

Then an even hotter fluid suddenly emerged from the object right when it was at its deepest within her. Her voice broke, the sudden stimulation sending jolts all the way to the tip of her tails, her fur standing straight up, her pleasure increasing more and more and more and... then stopping, only to start decreasing slowly, just like before. The burning liquid started pouring out from inside her, and at the same time she felt the thing within her pulling out, scratching every part of her as it did so, eventually coming out of contact with her, aside from a few trails of fluid.

After another disappointed, far away moan, Ara heard a few distant sounds, the warmness which was enveloping her backing away. She got on her knees, turned around and moved forward, following the source of the same scent from before. She quickly found herself again surrounded by heat, and her hands got hold of something covered in a sticky substance.

She was sweating. She'd been sweating since quite a while. So she was thirsty. And the thing between her fingers had a pleasant scent. She started running her tongue all over it, taking frequent but brief pauses to gulp everything down, only to go back to licking it, but every time the fluid moved down her throat she felt her body growing even hotter. Then she found a different kind of drink. It was more dense, much hotter, and had an even stronger smell. She started drinking it up, and once there was none left she started moving her hands up and down alongside that thing, with the faint feeling that she'd get to drink some more if she did so.

With no idea why, her motions really caused more fluid to spill out, and she drank all of that too, the odd taste filling her mouth as her belly grew more and more hot because of all the warm stuff she'd been drinking. At one point she realized that she'd moved an hand over her chest and had started fondling herself, but since she didn't really know why she was doing that, she brought it back around the source of her drink.

She was covered in sweat, but for some reason she wanted to feel more of that warmth. Not on her skin, rather, underneath it. She turned around and tried to guide the almost boiling object she'd been licking inside her, but its height and position made that a particularly difficult task. Eventually, Ara gave up on that, just when another bleat reached her ears. So she got on all fours, her mind feeling rather empty, and as she did so she felt something brushing against her back again. Heat surrounded her once more and the steaming, faintly pulsating object suddenly rammed itself inside of her, leaving her breathless for a couple of seconds.

The staff then started moving back and forth, with much more intensity than before, and Ara wasn't sure if her hips were getting dragged along with it or if she was actually moving by herself. What she did know was that her insides felt almost as if they were on fire, her inner walls getting scratched and pushed with every motion, and even more so when the object started pulsating again, releasing a fluid which by that point almost felt lukewarm in comparison to how hot Ara herself was feeling.

Her voice, which had been letting out uncontrolled moans echoing from some far away place, stopped when a stream of boiling liquid started being released within her, pushing against her cervix, filling every crevice of her insides before starting to drip out. The pleasure had caused her fur to stand on edge, her back arched and her breathing wildly irregular, but just like the previous times, something was lacking, something which would have allowed her to really feel it, to really get over the edge.

Once again, the pleasure started subsiding, leaving her with a strong yet vague sense of disappointment, even though she didn't even know what it was that she was disappointed about. A last gasp escaped her lips when the foreign object parted from her again. The ram bleated again, and Ara suddenly realized how tired she was. Exhausted even, to the point that she just wanted to lie down there and rest. Her clothes were drenched in her own sweat and her insides were burning -figuratively, that is- but the warmness which had been enveloping her body suddenly moved away, accompanied by the sounds of distant steps.

She opened her mouth to say something, she wasn't sure what, but nothing she could hear came out of her lips. Then, something took her by the shoulders, rolled her around so that she was lying on her back and picked her up. Whatever that was, it felt chilling against her skin. But she was too worn out to move away from it. Then... she wasn't sure what happened. If she had to guess, she'd maybe say that she was carried somewhere. To a lake probably, since at one point she was made to sit in a large water body. Something was then rubbed all over her body, which made her realize that at some point she'd been undressed. She felt a small ball being pushed inside her mouth, but it tasted really bitter so she tried to spit it. As she attempted to do so, however, something was placed on her mouth to shut it while her nose got grabbed and pulled up, forcing her to swallow the sphere.

Ara suddenly felt as if she'd just woken up.

"W-wait... what... what happened?" she asked as she blinked repeatedly.

"You did your job"

"Did... I? I remember just... bits and fragments... maybe not even those..."

"Its bleating has a bad effect on the mind. Nothing permanent, don't worry"

"Did it affect you too?"

"I'm a machine, it would be weird if it did have an effect on me"

"... right... wait... why are you... in the bathtub... with... me... na... nak..." she asked, her face growing more and more flushed with every word, her ears standing progressively more on edge, without managing to finish the question.

"You had a strong smell left on you" he replied as he stood up, at which Ara nearly literally slapped her hands over her own face to cover her eyes before seeing anything other than his chest emerging from the wather "And it got on me too while carrying you to the bathroom, so I had to wash myself as well"

"I-I see, that makes sense" she said with an unnecessarily high voice.

Ara heard a few noises which probably were Oberon getting dressed.

"... say" he spoke "Had Sha requested a private exhibition like the one you did during the fair instead of a photo shooting, would you have accepted?"

"... why are you... asking me this? Did he show up again?"

"No, he didn't"

"Is Eve planning something again?"

"No. Nothing I'm aware of, at least"

"Why are you asking me this, then?"

"... I'll go prepare dinner now" he said after a short silence.

"Hey, wa... it... " she said, stopping halfway through her sentence when she heard the door opening and closing.

She opened her eyes -for some reason she hadn't yet done so-, took a deep breath then sank into the water to calm down, emerging a minute or so after. She was feeling kinda tingly, and frustrated, though she couldn't remember why, but when she finally decided to move her hand between her legs, her fingers were met by a cold layer or chaste metal. She groaned loudly, immediatly regretted that, then smelled herself. And started searching for the soap.

While preparing the meal, Oberon thought about a few different things. Mainly -probably- he was wondering if he should talk with Eve. He was just a servant so he didn't consider it his right to either ignore his mistress's orders or oppose her, but he was also starting to think that she was really getting a bit over the edge with how she was treating Ara. It probably was normal to treat one's friends in a special way, and he knew her and Eve were friends, but making a younger clone of Ara, moving her mind to said clone while putting her real body in hibernation, leaving her in that state for a while to see how the mind reacted to being transfered in such a way then switching her back to her real body and disposing of the clone, all without telling her anything... he had a vague feeling that such a treatment was excessive.

But that wasn't all. Other thoughts had been drifting around his mind since quite a while, thoughts he found confusing and hard to sort. He would almost say they were illogical. He wasn't even sure why he asked Ara those questions in the bathroom.

As those thoughts drifted around in his head, Oberon accidentally cut his finger while cooking.

I'm not sure what I had in mind when I started this chapter, but I'm sure it didn't involve a ram with mind-numbing bleatings.

Also, I realize that the time between updates on this story has gotten stupidly long, I apologize for that. In case you're still reading, you have my thanks for still being there.