A Young Griff's life with Monster Girls

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Chapter 4

It was early in the morning when Centorea awoke. Rising to her feet, she gave a yawn and stretched her arms above her head, feeling her bones pop as she did so. Looking out the window, the centauride could see that it was almost dawn, perfect time to go for a run then come back for a shower, after that, breakfast.

Changing into some liminal friendly workout clothes, Centorea prepared to head outside when her ears picked up the sound of something slamming against wood. Curious, Centorea followed the sound which led into the backyard where she found her master armed with a practice sword, hacking away at a sparring dummy. What was also fascinating for the centauride was that her master was currently shirtless; he had pale almost ivory coloured skin and sweat glistened on his body as he hacked away at the sparring dummy. His silver-blonde hair stuck becomingly to his head, matted with perspiration and his expression was intense and focussed, an almost angry look in his indigo-coloured eyes as he swung the practice blade in his hands onto his erstwhile foe.

If there was one thing the centaur race respected, it was those who followed the way of the warrior. Many centaurs were exceptional warriors, skilled with blade, bow or lance. Many strived to live up to the legendary centaur heroes of ages past such as Chiron the teacher and companion of the human hero Hercules.

Centorea herself had hoped that any man she had found worthy to be her master also followed the way of a warrior, or at the very least, took care of themselves. So, needless to say, she was pleased that her newly found master Aegon Targaryen looked to be a warrior.

"Centorea? What are you doing up so early?" Centorea blinked as she realised that her master had spoke to her.

"Oh! Master, I did not mean to disturb you!" the centauride apologised. "I had just gotten up to go for a run this morning," she explained.

"Oh. Well, I had gotten up to do some exercise myself," Aegon said as he swiped his sweaty locks of hair back. "I fear I'm getting a little rusty," he added self-deprecatingly.

"You know swordsmanship?" Centorea enquired.

"I was training for knighthood back where I come from," Aegon replied. "Since I arrived here, I haven't had much opportunity to keep up my skills," he said.

"Where is it that you come from?" Centorea asked as she realised that she did not know all that much about her master.

"Depends on how much time you have," Aegon said in response.

"Forgive me! I have overstepped my bounds!" Centorea blurted out as she realised that she may have hit a sore point.

"It's alright," Aegon said to her kindly. "I haven't been very forthcoming about myself with you and I probably should have," he added.

"You need not tell me everything, Master," Centorea said as she bowed her head. "You are my master, it is not my place to pry into your personal life," she added. She then felt a hand gently grasp her chin and tilt her head up to see Aegon looking at her closely.

"And as your master, I need to build up trust with you," he said to her softly. "And that includes sharing details of who I am and where I come from," he added.

"Master…" Centorea blushed deeply, steaming coming from the top of her head as she realised just how close her master's face was to hers. Aegon then released his hand from Centorea's chin and stepped away a little before saying,

"I can surmise that as a centaur, you are trained for combat, yes?" Centorea nodded shyly. "Would you care to demonstrate your skill with a sword in a match?" Aegon asked her.

"Are you certain about this, Master?" Centorea asked nervously. "I have no wish to harm you," she then said.

"Let me worry about that," Aegon said to her firmly as he walked over to a nearby rack and picked out another practice sword and tossed it over to Centorea who instinctively caught it in one hand. "Good reflexes," her master remarked in approval.

Moving over to a sparring ring, facing each other on opposite sides, Aegon then laid out the rules. "First one to disarm the other wins. Best of three. Agreed?" he asked and Centorea nodded as she readied the practice blade in her hand getting a feel for the weight of it.

The two stared at each other for a long moment, before Aegon gave the signal. "Begin!" And the pair launched themselves at each other in a series of strikes.

…

Half an hour later, both Aegon and Centorea sat together, each with a bottle of water in their hands, drinking the cool hydrating liquid. Centorea was feeling exhilarated after the sparring match against Aegon; he was an excellent swordsman and matched up quite well against her. Centorea considered herself quite a capable swordsman, much better than most humans, but Aegon had utilised his comparatively smaller size to his advantage to avoid nearly all of her strikes, though Centorea did tone down her strength and speed to make the match fair.

The match had ended in a draw with one disarming each and the final match ended with both of them breaking their sparring swords against each other. Deciding to call it a draw, the pair then decided to take a break and drink some water.

"I had heard that centaurs were highly skilled warriors," Aegon had said as he drank from his water bottle. "I'm glad to see that it wasn't all talk," he added.

"Thank you, master," Centorea said with a blush. "I had not expected you to be so… capable with a sword, for a human," she then added hesitantly.

"Did you expect me to disappoint you?" Aegon looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, certainly not!" Centorea said quickly waving her hands in front of her. "Most humans in this day rarely take up swordsmanship, so I never expected you to be a swordsman," she added nervously.

Aegon smiled and replied, "Well, I'm simply glad that I've found someone I can spar with. If that's what you wish for, of course?"

"I'd… I'd be glad of that, master," Centorea said with steaming cheeks and Aegon nodded and said, "Perhaps we can find a dojo where they practice swordsmanship? I'm also quite curious about the practice of Kendo and the samurai of Japan's past."

"I too am curious about that. It's one of the reasons I came to Japan as part of the Interspecies exchange program," Centorea said in agreement.

"Well, if we have some time, perhaps we can have a look around for a dojo?" Aegon suggested.

"I would like that, very much, master," Centorea said with a soft smile and her cheeks going even pinker.

"Well, in any case, I daresay we could both do with a bath," Aegon then said as he finished off his water bottle. "Then I need to draw Miia's bath for her and get breakfast ready," he added.

"Do you require my help at all, master?" Centorea asked kindly.

"No need. And please, call me Aegon, or Egg if you'd like," Aegon said to her with a smile on his lips.

"Then I insist you call me Cerea," Centorea said with a smile.

"Cerea… that's a pretty name," Aegon said with a smile and Centorea felt her heart flutter at seeing that soft boyish smile on her master's lips. "Well, I need to wash off, and you do as well, I'll wager," he added.

"Yes, we both worked up a sweat doing this," Centorea said with a nod. For a moment, she thought to make an offer for her master to join her in bathing, but she stopped herself, telling herself that it would be improper of her to lasciviously ask her master to bathe with her. But some small perverted part of her tried to encourage her to make the offer. Centorea quashed down that voyeuristic side and headed indoors to wash off. Aegon kindly allowed her to bathe first, citing she was his guest and that guests took priority over the host.

As she neared the bathroom, Centorea once again thought about offering to Aegon to bathe with her, but she stubbornly squashed the thought before it could make itself known on her lips and she slipped into the bathroom where she stripped off and prepared to wash off the sweat from her workout with her master.

As she bathed, Centorea's mind was filled with the visions of bathing with her master and even more steam filled up the room as the centauride lost herself in her little fantasy.

TO BE CONTINUED…

A/N: There! After almost two years, I finally updated this! I do apologise for such a long wait and for this chapter being so short, but hey, at least I got something for you, right?

Next chapter, we'll perhaps see how Aegon deals with three liminals under the effects of the full-moon, then perhaps learn how to handle having three liminals under his care and after that we'll see the introduction of Mero, Suu and Rachne. Of course, with Rachne, we'll have to deal with the more darker aspect of human on liminal crimes and I think in the past I spoke of Aegon getting involved in the rescue of liminals from human captors and perhaps even join a special team that deals with human crimes against liminals.

Of course, I did also speak of Aegon becoming Mero's bodyguard, so there's that, but I'm not sure at this stage, so I'll have to workshop the ideas and see what works best.

In other news, I've got the idea of an Elder Scrolls/Game of Thrones multi-crossover in a Multiverse of Madness/LEGO Dimensions style story where Aegon, the Dragonborn and the Courier get sucked into a dimension hopping adventure and I've set up a poll of which world/setting should be used. I've mostly used games created by Bethesda, but I've included other games from other companies such as the Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red, World of Warcraft by Blizzard, Red Dead Redemption by Rockstar and even Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, so feel free to cast your vote, or even leave a suggestion of what worlds should be used first in a review or PM.

And that's about all I have right now, so I'll leave this here and catch you all in the next one.

Be kind to one another,

Angry lil' elf.