Lone Fox 2 – Ch 7 – Gumiho

Gossamer drowned in a sea of pleasure as the goblins fucked her.  At first, their cocks inside her had been a necessary evil, the price to be paid for the bliss their owners offered.  But over time, whatever they’d injected in her had spread throughout her entire body, sparing not a single nerve ending.  The friction of their warty shafts against her wet pussy walls made her cum.  The feeling of fullness as they pushed into her aching guts made her cum.  Even the way their thick cocks choked her, the way they felt hot and throbbing against her tongue, made her scream and gurgle in joy around them.

Somewhere along the way they’d begun to hurt her.  The ones in her ass enjoyed spanking her, happily beating her ass black and blue while they stuffed it.  Those who used her pussy would yank out tufts of pubic hair, or pull on her pussy lips.  And everyone in her mouth tugged her golden hair this way and that, nearly ripping it out by the roots in their eagerness to face fuck her.  It felt awful and wonderful at the same time.  The way their abuse stimulated her body didn’t erase the pain, or help her ignore it.  The pleasure of it all simply coexisted alongside the agony of their rough use, so much greater that whenever her mouth wasn’t too full to speak, the only reason she didn’t abandon all trace of fae dignity and beg them to stop was that she was too busy begging them to hurt her more, to fuck her harder, to utterly ruin her body.

The butterfly woman barely even noticed when they took the vibrators off of her.  They pinched and licked and bit instead, teasing and torturing her in equal measure.  When they used the piercing needle on her chest, she came both times.   When the first goblin viciously tugged on her new rings, using them as leverage to better fuck her throat, she came even harder.  She’d wept with gratitude and terror when she felt the piercing needle touch her clitoris next, and when they used that third ring to twist and stretch her sensitive love button, she had never loved or hated anyone more.

It was many hours before the injections began to wear off and her sanity returned.  What was left of it.  She was a quivering, squirming, shaking wretch of a woman, soaked inside and out with goblin cum, drool running down her chin as her tongue lolled out.  At any other time she would have been disgusted with herself, humiliated to be acting like a braindead, cock addicted slut when she was supposed to be the very essence of elegance and refinement.  And in truth, she was disgusted, and she was humiliated.  Gossamer had never felt more miserable in her life.  But that didn’t matter.  What mattered was cumming.

“More,” she begged, panting, humping the air with her ass even though no one was using her anymore.  “More more more!”  She sucked at her cheeks, trying to show them what a good fuckhole her mouth would be.

“Good pet,” said the first goblin.  “Easy to break, eager to please.  Good summer pet.  Time to choose.”  He held up two vials, one of yellow, one of green.  “This is what we gave you,” he told her, waving the yellow.  “Lasts ten hours.  Enough supply to play until game is over.”  He waved the green.   “Lasts forever.  No cure.”

Gossamer tried to snatch the green vial from him, but her hands were too weak to even close into a fist.  “Gimme!” she pleaded, pawing at his arm.  “Gimme!  I’m good summer pet!”

He held the vials away from her, smiling at her feeble attempts.  “We make deal. Special deal for summer pets. We buy you from your owner.  You swear to be obedient pet forever and ever.  You sleep on ground, you live on cum.  You will be lowest of low in Unseelie Court.  Toilet, fuckpet, paintoy, slave, to all Unseelie that want you, until end of time.  And you get the green.”

“Yes!” she said.  “Yes yes yes!”

“Good pet,” he said approvingly, and began to prepare the syringes.  Gossamer shut her eyes and waited impatiently for oblivion.

---

Delilah didn’t know how much longer she could run.  Her legs felt heavy as cinder blocks as she forced them to keep moving, one after the other. Behind her, goblins hooted and yelled as they chased their prey.

She’d tried her best, she really had.  It had been easy to evade the dogs yesterday, and she’d ended the day proud of her eight ribbons. But today was different: between the traps and the goblin hunting bands, she hadn’t managed to get her hands on a single red ribbon yet.  It had been all she could do just to avoid capture.   Running was the one thing she’d always been good at; she’d never met anyone or anything faster than her, and even as more and more goblins had taken up the chase, her speed had never let her down.  She’d seen some of the girls who hadn’t been so quick, spotted them writhing in bondage while the goblins enjoyed them.  The ones who saw her looking always gave her such desperate stares, wordlessly begging for rescue, but there was nothing she could do for them. All Delilah could do was keep running.

“It’s been a fantastic day folks, but all good things must come to an end!” announced Emmeck.   “And our girls must know all about that, since so many of them are getting cum from both ends, haha! As we approach the last few seconds, the magnificent Ember holds onto the lead with fifty seven points, but Vorona is hot on her heels with forty nine! On the other side of the scoreboard, Ginger is clinging to safety with six points after her thrilling escape from the guards, and her even more thrilling twenty goblin gangbang! She’s gotta be awfully sore right now, but there’s a lot of contestants out there who’d love to take her place. If anyone is going to dazzle us at the last minute, girls, you’d better get to it, because round two wraps up in ten! Nine!”

Delilah’s heart lurched as the countdown to the end of the round continued.  She had to find a ribbon! She still had a few seconds, she just had to keep running.  All she needed was one, one single red ribbon, please…

“That’s all, folks!” yelled Emmeck, and Delilah’s limbs suddenly stopped working.   She collapsed to the ground like a marionette with the strings cut, her rabbit mask already dust, not even able to scream as she laid face down in the dirt.  “To all our girls without red ribbons: hope we see you again next year!”

Hands rolled her over, and an ugly grinning goblin sat himself down on her stomach.  “Good chase, rabbit.  You made us run for very long time.”  His hands sank into her large breasts and he began kneading them happily, molding and deforming her flesh beneath his greasy fingers.  “Fat plump rabbit.”

Two goblins grabbed hold of her feet and started dragging Delilah painfully across the ground, stones and roots digging into her back as she passed over them.  “Time to go back home, rabbit,” said the goblin riding on top of her.  His cock vanished into the valley of her breasts, head popping out the other end. Her paralysis was the only thing that kept her from squealing in pain as he pinched her nipples sharply so he could start scrubbing his shaft with her tits.  “Go home and play lots of games with the rabbit that ran so fast.  Days of fun to be had with the plump rabbit that made us chase her for hours instead of playtime.”

Delilah felt a tear run down her cheek, and the goblin laughed at the sight.  “Don’t worry, we not angry you run!  We happy!  Running means good strong muscles.”  He stopped titfucking her just long enough to reach back and rub her pussy affectionately.  “We love pets with good strong muscles.”

---

“Ugggggggh!”  Qarinah groaned and rubbed her muscles as she entered the elevator shaft.  “Today was the worst!”  The rest area looked identical to the one from last night, save for a pink post-it note on the television that read “Vandalism of Paradisium property may result in disqualification”.

Most of the others hadn’t come back yet.  Crikey had turned on the stove and was trying to cook something using some of the TV dinners as a base.  From the way it smelled, she wasn’t having much success, but she seemed to be enjoying herself, dancing in place as she stirred the pan.  Betty was assisting her; the faux catgirl had gathered together what few spices were available, and was mixing some together in a bowl.  Occasionally she would lean down and sniff it, or lick some off of her finger, then nod and start adding more items.  “Hope you ain’t need to use the shower just yet, love,” called the koala without looking.  “The fox and the otter each commandeered a bathroom when they got in here, and boy howdy, did they need it!  Looked they’d both gone swimming in gobbo spunk.”

A shower did sound like an excellent idea right now.  Not because she was lucky enough to be covered in goblin cum, but because she’d spent all day, all dang day, traipsing around the jungle without a hint of luck.  She was sweaty, frustrated and horny as heck right now.  Qarinah gave the closed bathroom doors a regretful look, then flopped into an armchair in the main area to wait her turn.  Vorona was lying on the couch, her back propped up by an armrest, with Delphyne bent over her, examining her right arm.  The raven woman looked like she’d had a rough time of it today, her beautiful black wings stained with dirt and blood.  “What do you mean it isn’t broken?” she asked, her tone weary.

Delphyne straightened up and dusted off her hands.  “I mean what I said.  The limb is not broken.  Nor is it sprained.  It does appear to have been dislocated recently, but it is better now.  Did someone pop it back into place for you?”

Vorona laughed, and it was a hollow, bitter sound.  “Popped back into place… yeah, someone helped me out…”

One of the bathroom doors cracked open, steam billowing from the opening, and Ginger stepped out.  The Paradisium hadn’t provided them with any towels, so the fox’s skin was still covered with beads of water, but there was no sign of the filth Crikey had mentioned.  The poor girl seemed exhausted, limping slightly as she made her way to one of the seats.

Qarinah stood up, not wanting to waste her chance to claim a bathroom.  “Dibs, please!  I want to get in there before the rush.  If anyone raises a fuss, tell them I’m going as fast as I can.”

“There will be no rush,” Delphyne told her, examining Vorona’s wings.  “You may take your time.”

The succubus giggled.  “No rush?  Delphy, did you forget how backed up things got last night?  I had to wait an entire hour just to get in and brush my teeth.  Sure, I didn’t mind the chance to savor the taste of dog a little longer, but still!  Once everyone else gets here, they-“

“There will be no rush,” Delphyne repeated, her words soft but firm.  “No one else is coming.”  She pointed a finger behind her, towards the television.

The screen was split into four parts, and each one showed a woman suffering.  Every few seconds one of the quadrants would change, showing another woman, and another, and another, each picture retelling a similar story.  Many were bound, most looked like they’d been tortured… all of them looked miserable.  Even the women wearing expressions of pleasure, the ones shuddering and screaming in constant climax, had dead eyes revealing the despair hidden beneath as they were raped and beaten and humiliated by their assailants.  And Qarinah knew them all.  Not well, some only by name or by the masks they no longer wore, but she knew them.  She’d talked to them, eaten with them, seen them laugh and smile, and now… the succubus looked away, nauseated.  She’d known this game wasn’t going to be fun for the others the way it was for her, but there was a difference between knowing it rationally, and seeing the misery with her own eyes.

“Sorry you’re having a bad day,” Vorona said flatly, her own eyes as dead as any on screen.

Qarinah looked around.  Herself, Vorona, Delphyne, Crikey, Ginger, Snowflake, Betty… “Is this really all that’s left?” she asked.  Just a few hours ago there had been more than twenty women here.  “Even Ember?”

“Ember is in her bunk,” Delphyne told her.  “I gather she has no interest in socializing with the enemy.”

“What about Moon?” Qarinah asked, lighting up.  “She wasn’t on the TV!   And look, there’s still another five minutes left before they close the doors.  I bet she’ll be back any second now!”  The wolf’s presence would cheer Vorona up if nothing else, and the poor woman looked like she needed it.  Their puppy love had been absolutely adorable last night, and it would be just the thing to improve the somber atmosphere that had fallen over everyone.

“Belle is dead,” Vorona said.  The words came out with no emotion or intonation, only a great heaviness that seemed to swallow up the room.

“oh,” Qarinah said in a small voice.  She didn’t want to be here.  This wasn’t fun anymore.  “How… how did she…?”

“They killed her,” the raven woman said.  “The system.  The Paradisium.  Her owner.  All of them.  They murdered her slowly.”

“What’s wrong, lion girl?” asked Snowflake acerbically, fresh out of the shower herself.  “Not enjoying the buffet as much as you thought you would?  Reality getting in the way of your sex romp?”

“Do not speak to her that way,” Delphyne said.  “None of this is Qarinah’s fault.”

“Oh yeah?” retorted Snowflake.  “So you think, what, she was out backpacking and stumbled onto this place?  How long have you known the Paradisium existed, Qarinah?  You ever try to stop it?  Try to rescue anybody?”

“I, I didn’t…I don’t like what goes on in this place any more than you do,” said Qarinah, “but I am only one person.  There’s nothing I can do stop them, and I’d only bring down trouble on myself.”

“Right.”  Snowflake gave her a smile full of vinegar.  “Isn’t it so nice and convenient when there’s nothing any one person can do about a problem?  Makes it easy for everyone to do nothing at all and blame everyone else for it.”

“That is enough!” Delphyne said, the dragon angrier than Qarinah had ever seen her.   “We agreed not to hate each other, remember?”

“Sorry,” said Snowflake.  “I wasn’t part of your little singalong last night.  I think Ember had the right idea: you people are a waste of time.”  She vanished into the sleeping area.

“I, I don’t think she means it,” said Ginger, not sounding as though she believed her own words.  “She just had a rough day today.”

“Yes,” said Delphyne, trying to calm down.  “It was a rough day for all of us.”  Everyone was silent for a long while after that, stewing in their own pain.

“Rub-a-dub-dub, it’s time for some grub!” Crikey called out from the kitchen.  She and Betty came out carrying plates heaped high with strange looking food, which they began to set down on a coffee table. “Get it while it’s hot! This one is mashed tater dumplings, and over here we got some green bean pasta with meatballs, and I combined some of the frozen pizzas to make something I call a pizza quesadilla that’s gonna make me millions someday.”

“I’d never made falafel out of frozen baked beans before, meow,” said Betty as she set her own plates down.  “I’m… still not sure if I have, meow.  I also found something called jell-o that frightened me, so I have put it very far away, meow.”

Nobody made any move towards the food.  “Thank you, both of you,” Qarinah said politely.  “But, I don’t think any of us have any appetite right now.”

“Why, cuz a bunch of horrible things happened to folk that didn’t deserve any of it?” Crikey asked, straightening up.  “You lot’ll starve to death waiting for a day when that don’t happen.”  She spread her arms wide.  “Eat. Tomorrow it’s gonna be some of us up on that screen, or worse.  But it ain’t happened yet.” She glanced around their morose expressions and sighed. “Look,  I may not know what the future holds, but I can promise you this much: the eight of us will never get to share another night like tonight again. We’re safe, and we’re together, and there’s food enough for everybody. Don’t waste a moment of it.”

Ginger was the first to approach the plates.  She hesitantly picked up one of the dumplings, which were oddly shaped and unnaturally colored, and took a small bite.  Her eyes closed and her four tails quivered.  “It’s good,” she breathed.  “It’s delicious!”  She quickly finished the dumpling and moved onto the other foods.  “Mmmmm!  I’ve never eaten anything like this before!”

“I’d find it more than a mite weird if you ever had, to be honest with ya,” Crikey admitted.  She began to fix a plate of food for herself, and Betty followed suit.  Soon everyone was eating, and Qarinah was surprised to find everything was just as good as Ginger had claimed.

“How did you do this?” she asked wonderingly.  “I… I ate all of these things last night, and the nicest thing I could say about any of them was that they didn’t kill me.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Crikey.  “I just tossed a bunch of different stuff together to see what would happen.”  The koala pointed at Betty.  “She’s the chef.”

The catgirl blushed under the attention.  “I used to cook, meow,” she said simply.  “It was good to do it again, meow.”

Qarinah found herself feeling much better once she began eating, and she wasn’t alone.  People began to smile and talk, and even Vorona didn’t look as despondent as before, though she often had a distant look in her eyes.  “Your tails are quite beautiful,” Delphyne told Ginger. “But it must be difficult to manage them all, yes? I have only the one, and it causes me no end of trouble.” Her thin, leathery tail swung back and forth as she spoke, brushing the floor with each pass.

Ginger smiled a little. “When I was much younger, they were a terror,” she agreed. “As a small kit, I was constantly tripping over them. Mother told me once that I would find no greater danger in the forest than my own feet and tails, and Father used to carry me whenever we traveled any great distance.” Her expression turned wistful. “Even after I learned to walk and run without difficulty, he would always let me ride on his back.”

“So you were born with more than just the one, then?” Crikey asked. “I always kinda figured foxes started at one and then went up from there.”

Ginger shook her head.  “No, I was born with all of them. I used to have even more, but…” Her face clouded.  “The man who captured me didn’t think I deserved them.”

The dragon laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.  “I am so sorry this has happened to you.  The cruelty of some is unimaginable. It is not enough for them to own others, they must ruin them as well, for no reason other than their own sadism.”

“I…” Ginger looked away for a moment, as though struggling to find the words.  “I’m grateful for your sympathy, Delphyne,” she said slowly.  “But… I don’t want to think of myself as ruined.  Damaged certainly, but I’d like to think that I can be more than my scars.”

“Y-y-you are right,” Delphyne stammered, completely flustered.  “I, I should never have said such a thing.  It was thoughtless.”

“It was kindness,” Ginger said.  “And it was appreciated.”

“Are they truly gone forever, meow?” Betty asked. The faux catgirl was back in the kitchen, dividing the remaining untouched food onto two plates in case Ember and Snowflake changed their minds about eating. “I have heard many stories of kitsune gaining tails through wisdom, meow.  Could they have been foxes like yourself whose tails were restored through some effort, meow?”

“I… I don’t know,” Ginger said.  “I don’t even know what…” She went silent, staring down at her plate.

The meal was almost finished when Delphyne turned to Qarinah. “If it will not cause offense, may I ask a sensitive question?”

“Of course,” Qarinah encouraged, and tried to give her a soft smile. “You couldn’t offend me if you tried, Delphyne.”

“You have said before that you came here as a sort of vacation,” the dragon said. “But what inspired you to come specifically to a place like the Paradisium? You must have understood that there were dangers involved, and if your only goal was sex, even rough sex, I am certain a beautiful woman like yourself you could find willing partners easily enough.”

“That’s true,” the lion said, and considered how much she wanted to share. “And you’re right. An ugly place like this certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice, especially when it means having to separate from my dear husband for a time.”

“Husband?” Crikey asked. “Is he your…” She waved a finger at her receiver.

“Yes, he is my handler.” Qarinah sighed, picturing his face. “I’ll confess, sometimes I wish I’d told him to just stay home and wait for me. To hear his voice but be unable to see or touch him is its own torture. Anyway, I wouldn’t have come here normally, but I was… invited.”

“Invited, meow?” Betty asked, sounding confused. Qarinah got the impression that the others were equally mystified.

“Invited,” she said again. “The message told me that I would find joy and purpose if I came here and participated in the Paradisium Game. It was sent by someone that I’d never met, but they knew certain… certain details about me, and about my past. I must admit, it piqued my curiosity and then some. I was hoping that I would get the opportunity to meet them when I came here, and find out how they knew so much about me, but it seems it was not to be.”

“I have never heard of someone being invited to play in the Game,” Delphyne mused. “Did the sender provide a name?”

“Yes, but only a first name, I’m afraid,” Qarinah told her. “Tanya.”

Vorona choked on the dumpling she was eating, and then began to cough violently. “You alright there, Vee?” Crikey asked. “You know who this Tanya woman might be?”

The raven coughed a few more times. “No,” she said quietly once she’d recovered, her head down. What little spirit had returned to her during the meal was gone. “I don’t… no, I don’t know anything. Sorry.”

Qarinah could tell that the girl was lying. But she also knew that Vorona had been through a truly terrible day, and Qarinah was the last person to berate someone for keeping secrets. The girl would tell her what she knew on her own time, if and when she was ready.

“Are you alright, meow?” Betty asked Ginger. It was only then that the succubus realized that the redhaired woman was still staring down at her empty plate, and had been for some time.

Ginger started in response, as if she’d just been woken up from a nap. “Huh? No, I just, um, there’s something I have to do.” She looked up and met Betty’s eyes. “Thank you for the meal, truly. It was wonderful.” She turned to Crikey. “And thank you as well.” She rose from her seat and made a beeline to the sleeping area.

“Huh,” the koala said, watching her go. “Strange girl.”

Delphyne let out a small laugh. “I do not believe any of us here are what would be considered normal. But… I would hope that I may consider you my friends.” There was a note of trepidation in her voice. “United by our common trial, if nothing else.”

“Absolutely!” Crikey said cheerfully, and held up her glass of tap water. “I consider you all to be the finest of folks, and there’s no one I’d rather be trapped in the bowels of the Earth with.” She raised her voice. “That includes you too, Ginger! And even the pair of sourpusses in there!” She drained her drink.

---

Ember focused on breathing in and out slowly, not allowing herself to make any sounds of pain as she listened to the people talking in the other room.  That otter girl had gone to her own bunk a little while ago, and Ember had to assume her hearing was good enough to pick up everything she was doing.  Her nose caught the scent of cooked food and her stomach rumbled softly.  She’d forced down a few bites of half frozen garbage when she’d first made it back to the elevator, but she was still starving.  She hadn’t stopped moving all day, pushing herself to the breaking point to get ribbon after ribbon, and now she was paying for it.  Everything hurt, and her muscles were so stiff that she wasn’t certain she could walk even if she tried. At least she’d been able to extinguish her hair for the night, but her scalp throbbed with a terrible headache to make up for it.

She ignored her body’s demands to eat, just as she ignored the urges to gasp for breath and to cry out.  She couldn’t show herself among the others right now, couldn’t let any of them see or hear how vulnerable she really was.  Ember the phoenix champion was supposed to be perfect and invincible, defeating every challenge effortlessly.  No one could be allowed to see the toll it all took on her.  Yesterday she’d been able to mask it for a time, but even then she’d spent most of the evening recovering in bed, letting everyone else assume that she was just being aloof.

By tomorrow morning she would be better, especially if she got up early enough to eat some breakfast before the others woke.  She’d still be tired and sore, but not so much that she couldn’t hide her weakness.  Compared to the constant grueling torture of her normal life, enduring five days of this was nothing.

“Snowflake?” asked a voice, and Ginger walked in.  Ember tensed at the sight of the woman.  She hadn’t said anything about Ember to the others, not yet, but that didn’t mean anything.  The first two or three days of the game were always about gathering points and identifying threats.  Once the herd had thinned and you’d seen what the others were capable of, that was when the real contest started and it became time to strike.  Ginger was no doubt hoping to eliminate the phoenix without making herself the new target.  She’d wait until the last minute, when she could not only eliminate her, but steal all the points Ember had accumulated so far and seize the lead herself without giving the others time to stop her.

Ember had seen that sort of strategy before, even used it herself.  And the truth was that Ginger could pull it off if she tried.  The way the woman healed was remarkable, and the reason Ember had tried to eliminate her yesterday by cutting her arms open.  The game was an endurance contest as much as anything else, and she’d known from the moment she saw the way Ginger’s wounds were healing that the fox was going to be one of her biggest threats.  Discovering that the girl knew her greatest secret had only strengthened her conviction.

“Leave me alone, freak,”grumbled Snowflake.  “Didn’t we spend enough time together today?”

“I, I have questions,” Ginger said nervously.  “Please, there are things I need to know.  About kitsune.”

The otter didn’t answer immediately.  “And that information is worth a lot to you?”

“Yes!  I, um, you can have all my points.”

The otter snorted.  “What, all six of them? I’ll need a lot more than a few fucking points, freak.”  Her bunk creaked as she rose to her feet.  “But yeah, we can make a deal.  Come with me.”  Both women walked out of the room, leaving Ember by herself.

Ember almost allowed herself a single shuddering gasp of breath once she was alone, but she resisted.  It wasn’t worth the risk.

So Ginger had already begun making alliances.  She probably thought that she had this in the bag, but Ember wouldn’t go down so easily.  Her sole advantage now, and one in ironic contrast to her usual veneer of perfection, was that the fox underestimated her.  Ginger believed that she could wait for a time and place of her own choosing to eliminate the false phoenix.  She wouldn’t be expecting a frail human to strike first, and this time Ember wouldn’t hold back.

Tomorrow one of them was going to die.  And it wasn’t going to be Ember.

---

Snowflake didn’t taste the same as Mrs Wilmingshire.  Her flesh was ever so slightly saltier, and once Seo-yun had begun to coax her juices to flow, they were noticeably thicker and sweeter than her mistress’s.

The two of them were in one of the shower stalls.  Snowflake sat with her back to the wall, knees up and legs spread, while Seo-yun laid flat on her stomach with her head between the dark haired woman’s legs.  “I thought you said you knew how to eat pussy, freak,” the fox complained, and Seo-yun squealed into Snowflake’s slit as one of her invisible tails came down on her ass cheeks, hitting as hard as any lash. The pain continued to linger afterward, and the redhead could tell without looking at the welt wasn’t healing. “I agreed to answer questions in exchange for orgasms, but I’m not going to wait all night!”

It hadn’t taken Seo-yun long to wonder if she’d made the wrong decision in agreeing to Snowflake’s deal.  At first, it had seemed like a miracle when the taciturn fox offered to provide information in exchange for both her ribbons and being pleasured.  Seo-yun had plenty of experience with her mistress, and a few minutes of submission had sounded like a small price to pay.

The first red flag had been when Snowflake insisted they do it in private, using one of the bathrooms.  Seo-yun’s frequent rapes were almost always public and with witnesses; she’d long ago lost any sense of shame at having sex in front of others.  Acting in secret meant that if Snowflake wanted to abuse her power of her, the other women would not be there to stop her.

The second red flag was when Snowflake demanded that Seo-yun be restrained while it happened.  Seo-yun had tried to persuade her to change her mind, but the fox had made it perfectly clear: bondage or no deal.  And so she had reluctantly given in.  She was aware the experience was likely to be an unpleasant one, but she needed answers.

Seo-yun pulled her head back and shimmied forward on her stomach so she could reposition her face to get deeper into Snowflake’s pussy, not for the first or last time cursing the fox mask that made things difficult.  She couldn’t use her hands because they were bound behind her with her own tail, an unpleasantly familiar sensation.  Her legs were similarly bent back and tied together at the ankle.  She couldn’t do anything but squirm from this current position.  Squirm and lick.

The tail whip snapped across Seo-yun’s cheeks again, and she quickly pushed her tongue into the woman’s folds.  For all of the fox’s complaints about Seo-yun’s poor performance, her insides were hot and sticky, and she heard the woman moan softly as her tongue found a sensitive spot.

Seo-yun froze when she felt something press against her own pussy, hard and thick and not at all lifelike.  “Nobody… told you to stop,” breathed Snowflake.  Seo-yun whimpered quietly and got back to it as the fox continued working the head of a shampoo bottle into her.

“Look at how wet you are, freak,” accused Snowflake.  “If you told me you get off this hard on eating women out, I would’ve reconsidered.  We’re here to make me happy, not you.  Cum without permission and the deal’s off.”

Seo-yun wanted to deny finding even the slightest enjoyment in what she was doing, but she couldn’t refute the woman’s words.  She could hear the soft slick sounds her pussy made as she was penetrated.

When the bottle was mostly in, Snowflake released it, giving Seo-yun just a moment of relief. Then she felt the tail wrap around one of her two remaining free ones instead, and tap it against the base of the foreign invader.  Seo-yun got the message and began using her own tail to fuck herself with the shampoo bottle.

Snowflake’s juices were flowing freely now, and the dark haired woman seized Seo-yun’s head with both hands, grinding the woman’s face against her wet slit.  Seo-gulped down the thick cream as quickly as she could while running her tongue over throbbing flesh.  Another hard strike across her backside reminded her that she needed to keep fucking her own pussy with the bottle too.

Snowflake purred in pleasure, seeming to derive as much enjoyment in Seo-yun’s discomfort and pain as she did from the physical stimulation.  The fox was used to being a receptacle for sadists, even if they’d always been men in the past, and made no attempt at stoicism.  She freely whimpered and cried out in response to her harsh treatment, letting her reactions excite the woman and finish her faster.

Snowflake moaned.  “That’s it… you pathetic little freak.”  Her tail wrapped around Seo-yun’s, taking control of the shampoo bottle once more so she could ram it in and out of the woman, fucking her as hard and fast as any cock had ever done.  Another tail began repeatedly whipping her ass, alternating cheeks with each strike.   “Make me cum… let me hear you scream as you… as you make me…”  She let out a long, loud groan, body rigid and quivering as the orgasm hit her.  Her thighs locked painfully tight around Seo-yun’s head, ensuring the woman had no choice but to keep licking and licking, pussy juice running down her chin, as the other fox rode out her orgasm.

“That… that had been far too long…” panted Snowflake when it was over.  She relaxed, letting go of the shampoo bottle and ceasing the whipping, but her hands remained on the back of Seo-yun’s head, keeping her pressed to her crotch.  “I don’t intend to… wait nearly as long for the next…”. The fox humped herself against the other’s face.  “Didn’t tell you to stop, freak…”

Seo-yun tried to resist and pull her head away, but the other woman was far stronger, and she had to settle for speaking into Snowflake’s pussy instead.  “Question!”

“I didn’t forget,” said Snowflake irritably.  “What, did you think we were going to pause so I could wheel out a blackboard and chalk?  Ask your first question now, and I’ll tell you while you work towards earning the next one.”  Her tail snapped down across Seo-yun’s well beaten ass, and the woman quickly resumed pumping the bottle and licking.

What to ask?  Seo-yun understood now the full price of this information, and knew that she had to make every question count. Should she ask about a way to restore her tails? Or the secrets of foxfire? Or why her healing had become so unreliable? There were too many things she didn’t know. But one question stood out among them. She still remembered what Snowflake had said, just before they’d fallen into the trap.  She’d told the woman that she wasn’t a fox, and it had sounded like more than a meaningless insult.  “What am I?”

“Other than a piss poor cunt licker, you mean?  That’s a loaded question, freak, and it’s gonna cost more than one orgasm for the full answer.  You used to be a gumiho.”  Seo-yun nodded.  “And then, like a colossal idiot, you gave away your foxfire.”  Seo-yun shook her head this time, disheartened to see that Snowflake wasn’t as knowledgeable as she’d hoped. Seo-yun had never possessed foxfire in the first place, much less given it away.  Snowflake let out an ugly laugh.  “Dumb bitch. Do you even know what a gumiho is?”  Seo-yun began to nod again, hesitated, and shook her head instead.

“I knew it.  You really are stupid, aren’t you?  If it wasn’t for having tits and holes, nobody would care the slightest about your existence.”  Seo-yun felt small and miserable under the woman’s scorn, but all she did was flick her tongue against Snowflake’s slit, making her abuser shiver in pleasure.

“You are what you eat, freak, and you, moron that you are, decided it was a good idea to eat humans.”  Snowflake abruptly yanked the shampoo bottle out of Seo-yun’s pussy with her tail, leaving her insides still twitching around empty space.  “You’re enjoying that too much, cunt licker.”  She turned it around and pressed the base of the bottle, much thicker than the head and still completely dry, against the fox’s asshole.  “Try that instead.  And I’m sick of your fucking laziness: I catch you slacking off and QA time is over.”

Seo-yun whimpered as the bottle forced her anal ring to stretch to accommodate it, the corners digging painfully into her skin.   Snowflake stopped once the first half inch of it was in, leaving Seo-yun to force the rest of it in by herself.   Her rectum was still raw and bruised from their all day gangrape, and the dry surface of the bottle felt like sandpaper as it scraped her walls.

“Your tongue would fall off before you made me cum enough times to earn a full explanation of the metaphysics, so I’ll cut to the chase. You eat humans and you’re not just ingesting their flesh, you’re ingesting their soul. And your immune system treats human souls like any other foreign invasion: quarantine.   Wraps them up in a bubble of foxfire so they can’t cause any damage.”   Snowflake reached down and pinched Seo-yun’s nose shut. “You get to breathe again after I cum,” she informed the fox, her other hand easily keeping Seo-yun’s head restrained.

Seo-yun didn’t waste time struggling.   She just kept lapping the women’s wet pussy, ignoring her body’s own demands.   Prioritizing someone else’s pleasure over her own life was second nature by now.   As she meekly ate Snowflake out, however, her mind was thundering over what she’d just heard.   A bubble of foxfire?   Her yeowu guseul had been her foxfire?

“It’s not a perfect solution,” Snowflake said.   “Your foxfire can’t do much of anything while it’s busy protecting you from your own terrible decisions.   And that hunger you used to have, the gnawing need for more human flesh?   That was all the souls inside your foxfire struggling to escape it, pushing you to increase their numbers.   Every time you gave in like the spineless addict you were, they grew stronger, became harder to resist the next time.”

Seo-yun was literally drowning in the fox’s juices by now, too busy licking her to swallow.   It puddled in her mouth and dribbled out the sides.   Like before, as Snowflake neared climax she took over with the bottle.   This time that meant ramrodding her bleeding asshole, making Seo-yun scream, pussy juice sputtering from out her lips, as the woman came hard.

Seo-yun’s body jerked as Snowflake ripped the shampoo bottle out of her.   “Filthy freak,” she said distastefully.   She yanked Seo-yun’s head back by the hair and stuffed the bottle down her throat.   “Clean up your mess.”   The fox obeyed, sucking the traces of her ass off the bottle.

“You’d have to be a real fucking idiot to become a gumiho, but it isn’t all bad.   Human souls have power of their own, and when they’re wrapped up in foxfire they’re like a squishy little battery that can make you faster, stronger, tougher.   I didn’t tell you to stop pleasuring me, freak.  Or to stop cleaning your buttplug.”   Seo-yun hesitated, confused about what to do, and Snowflake sighed loudly.   “You have tails, don’t you?   Some, anyway.”

Seo-yun bent one of her two free tails back and stroked it across Snowflake’s slit, making the woman purr in pleasure.   “Mmmm, that’s right, a soft warm dildo just for me.   Get it up in there, freak, nice and gentle.”   The tip of her tail penetrated the woman, and Seo-yun slowly pushed it forward, sinking deeper into her pussy.   “All the way in.”

Seo-yun cautiously fucked Snowflake’s pussy with her tail while her tongue scraped against the sides of the shampoo bottle wedged in her mouth.   A thrust slightly harder than the woman liked earned the fox five more cruel lashes across her ass.   “Keep it slow and steady, idiot!   Be a proper fucktoy for your mistress.”

Snowflake waited until Seo-yun had established an acceptable rhythm before proceeding.   “Your problem, freak, is that you were stupid enough to give away your foxfire, along with all the souls it was storing.   And your foxfire can’t grow back unless you’re in your true form.   And since I imagine you also lost your skin, which only a completely braindead moron would do…” she shrugged.   “No more foxfire for you, ever.”

Seo-yun didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the warm tears drip off of her chin and onto her front.   So it was true.   Levinson had not only stolen her body, he had taken away her foxfire.   No, in the end she had given it to him.   She was an idiot.

“But all that, ” Snowflake said, “is not why you’re a freak. Now play with my clit.   I want to cum watching your fat tears dribbling from those whiny eyes.   Pathetic crybaby.”

Seo-yun’s other tail brushed over the fox’s clitoris, and then she screamed as her own clit was slapped hard by a tail of Snowflake’s.   “Get it right, freak ,” hissed Snowflake.   “And spit out that shampoo bottle: you look fucking ridiculous.”   She raised her hips slightly.   “Use that mouth to eat out my ass instead.”

Seo-yun was disgusted by the idea, but she’d come too far to turn back now.   She wasn’t sure if Snowflake would even allow her to stop at this point. So she let the shampoo bottle fall out of her mouth, then ran her tongue over the fox’s anus. She grimaced at the awful taste, then poked her tongue in deeper and got to work.   “Eyes up!” Snowflake demanded, punctuating the command with three more lashes.   “Keep those wet teary eyes on me while you work.”

As Seo-yun licked Snowflake’s guts clean and fucked Snowflake’s pussy with her tail, careful not to break eye contact,  she quickly learned how the woman liked her clit treated. Gentle circular strokes at the same measured pace.   Not too fast, not too slow.   Every mistake earned Seo-yun’s clit another painful slap.  After only a couple minutes, it was sore and throbbing, which only made each further strike more painful.

“See that?” Snowflake said.   Her hands were under Seo-yun’s body, roughly groping her tits.   “Even a stupid freak like you can get something right if you have an owner that treats you properly.   Now fuck me harder.   Harder!” She shook in ecstasy.   “That’s it, freak! Sob your tears and eat out my ass and play with… play with my… ahhhhhhhh… “

Seo-yun kept licking Snowflake’s ass and stimulating her pussy and clit as the woman enjoyed her orgasm.   When Snowflake calmed down, the first thing she did was wrap an invisible tail around Seo-yun’s throat and push her away.   “I want that tongue back in my pussy, but you need a wash first, shit breath.”   She picked up a thick bar of soap.   “Open.”

Seo-yun obeyed, and gagged hard as the woman began scrubbing the inside of her mouth with the soap.   Snowflake’s ass had tasted better.   Even the goblin cocks at their filthiest hadn’t tasted so awful.   “So you decided, in your infinite wisdom, to eat another human even after you lost your foxfire,” Snowflake said as she kept grinding the bar of soap against the fox.   “There’s a reason your foxfire quarantines souls, idiot.”

She shoved the entire bar of soap in Seo-yun’s mouth, then wrapped a tail around her head as a makeshift gag. “Chew.   Slowly.     I’ll tell you when you can swallow. ”   It turned to mush between Seo-yun’s teeth, plastering itself all over her cheeks and tongue.   “You’re not a fox anymore, and you’re not a human either.   You’re something lower than both now, a self combusting freak of nature.   Two souls in a physical container that was only built for one. That loose human soul inside you is fighting yours for dominance right now, and you’ll both be destroyed in the process.” Her fingers played over some of the unhealed wounds on Seo-yun’s body, making her flinch and shudder.   “Your body is already falling apart from the strain.   You swallowed poison, gumiho.”

She was dying. Seo-yun knew she should feel worse about learning that, but she felt curiously calm about having her darkest suspicion confirmed.   The thought of death didn’t appeal as much as it had sometimes in the past, but it was no longer the frightening concept it had once been.   More importantly, she knew whose soul it was inside her: Morris.   It wasn’t as good as him being alive, but it was better news than she’d expected to hear. Some part of him had managed to stay with her after all. She wished she could somehow stop fighting and just let him have her body.   He deserved life more than she did.

“Swallow.”   Seo-yun forced the bubbly soapy mush in her mouth down.   She could still feel so much of it in her throat, sticking to the sides, and it became a struggle to breathe.   “I don’t like soap in my cunt, freak.   Get your mouth over here.” Seo-yun planted her mouth on Snowflake’s pussy, and wasn’t surprised when the fox’s urine began to fill her mouth a moment later.   “Don’t swallow any of that either.”

Once she’d emptied her bladder, Snowflake made Seo-yun gargle the mouthful of piss before she was allowed to gulp it down.   The liquid helped remove some of the soap clogging her throat, but not much.     “And dry.”   Seo-yun stuck one of her own tails in her mouth, using it as a brush to wipe off the remaining piss.   “Finally,” said Snowflake when she was done.   “You kept me waiting long enough.   Get back to work, cunt licker.”

Seo-yun hesitated, not wanting to give up the power of speech again so soon.   “Is there any way to fix it?   I… I felt better at one point…”

Snowflake shrugged and pulled Seo-yun’s face to her crotch.   “None that I know of.” Her voice held no sympathy for the redhead’s fate. “You might have occasional good moments, times when your body can actually work properly for a little while.   But they’re only a last gasp. Once your body starts breaking down like this, things go from bad to worse to fucked in a matter of days. You’ll be dead before this stupid game is finished.”

Seo-yun let her mind wander for a time while she focused on pleasuring Snowflake, teasing the woman’s clit with her tail while her tongue slurped and sucked on her wet folds.   She was going to die.   Not someday in the future, but in just a few days.   At least she might never have to see the Wilmingshires again.

After far too long a time, Snowflake came again.   This time she wrapped her tail around Seo-yun’s throat as she approached climax, and throttled her while she enjoyed the waves of bliss.   Seo-yun was nearly unconscious by the time the woman let her breathe again, but at least it was over.  She had nothing left that she cared to ask, and was eager to get out of the bathroom and away from this sadist as soon as possible.  She swallowed her last mouthful of pussy juice and tried to turn her head away, but Snowflake stopped her.  “Don’t… have any more questions…” Seo-yun squeaked as the other woman humped her face.

“Good, ” said Snowflake.   “Means you can stop wasting that mouth talking.   Now stick that tongue in deep this time, freak.   Lap my cervix or pull something trying.”

Seo-yun began struggling for real, not just to excite the other woman.     No!   What she’d been doing up until now had been awful, but she’d consented to it, albeit very reluctantly and sometimes after the fact.   “They’ll… they’ll hear me if I scream,” she said, voice muffled by her assailant’s pussy.

“They will, won’t they?” Snowflake said.   She didn’t sound at all worried by the possibility.   If anything, the idea seemed to amuse her.   “Those fools will come rushing in to save you.   That’s why you’re going to have to try and be a very, very quiet fucktoy for your mistress.   Let me share one more kernel of knowledge, freak.”   She smiled wickedly.   “I’m not a kitsune either.”

The air shimmered, and suddenly Seo-yun could see Snowflake’s tails as they bobbed around her.   They were black.   Not dark, black.   So black that they seemed to swallow up the light around them.   No kitsune had tails like that, only… Terror ran through her body, and she suddenly felt very small and very alone.

Snowflake’s smile widened at her reaction. “So even an idiot like you knows a nogitsune when she sees one.”

Nogitsune. As a child, Seo-yun had always loved stories. It had never mattered much to her what the stories were about. Stories of fisherman kings or walking mountains, stories of dragons that lived in rivers and granted wishes, and stories of nightmares the lurked in the black of dark, abandoned forests. Her parents had been uncomfortable with her obsession with tales of gumiho, but they had never forbidden her to ask about them. They had never been anything but encouraging of her curiosity… save for one thing.

A traveling salt merchant that she had long forgotten the name of had told her a story once. A story of former kitsune who had abandoned Inari and made a contract with some terrible being, who had burned their own skins for the power being offered. Cruel, merciless creatures that were as much demon as fox. When she’d asked her mother about them, she and her father had looked… unhappy. They had said nothing more of the black-furred foxes.

Snowflake was no mundane mortal evil like Levinson or the Wilmingshires. She was something far worse, a monster that thrived on fear and suffering as strongly as Seo-yun had once hungered for human flesh.

“They’ll be dead before they know what hit them,” Snowflake promised.   “This won’t be like those disgusting goblins who got lucky and took me by surprise.   I will kill each and every one of them.   But not you, my shivering furry fucktoy.   No matter what happens, no matter how many people you force me to murder, you’re going to stay right here tonight and keep making me cum.   Your only choice is whether we do it like this, or with the stench of those fools’ corpses in your nose.”

Seo-yun’s response was to press her face between the woman’s legs and bury her tongue into her.   Snowflake moaned with pleasure.   “That’s right, freak.   You’re my plaything tonight.”   Inside, the fox felt ashamed of her submission.  She’d been doing so much better, hadn’t she?  For a little while, she’d  felt like herself again, like more than just an insignificant sex slave.  But now she felt like the same cowardly animal she’d been for months.  She made a small sound of fear and pain as she felt one of the woman’s tails slide up and down her ass crack.   “What would it take to make you scream and sentence everyone out there to death, hmm?”

The tail penetrated Seo-yun’s pussy.  It had none of the gentleness the fox had shown Snowflake when she’d performed the same act for her, and the friction of its rough entry made it feel burning hot as the dry fur grated against her insides.   Another pushed its way into her asshole, fucking her more deeply than any cock had ever managed.

A third tail touched her slit, forcing its way in alongside the other.   “How many tails can I fit into these loose fuckholes of yours?” Snowflake wondered out loud.   A fourth pressed against her anus, and Seo-yun’s battered sphincter resisted for mere moments before giving in and allowing Snowflake to stuff it up her guts.   “What do you think happens first, freak?   Do I get all nine of these in you, or does your lazy tongue finally get the job done?”

Seo-yun couldn’t stop herself from crying out softly when a fifth tail slapped against her packed slit.   “If only you could see yourself right now, freak.   Two tails in this pussy and it’s still drooling for more.   Have you been a painslut all this time?”   She twisted Seo-yun’s nipples hard.     Beg me to shove a third tail into your greedy twat.”

“Please shove a… a third tail into my greedy twat,” Seo-yun managed.

“Fuck you,” Snowflake said, and shoved hard against her asshole instead.   This is what a little painslut like you really wants.”   Seo-yun winced as the nogitsune crammed it in there, her asshole stretched as tight as a drum around all three.

“And how about this one?” asked Snowflake, rubbing a sixth against her pussy lips before lightly flicking her clit.   “I could feed that hungry cunt, but I think you don’t have enough in here yet.”   Seo-yun whimpered as she began to work that one too into her ass.   She’d taken wider things than four tails before, but she’d been able to heal back then.   She could do nothing but lick harder, hoping to entice the woman into cumming before she could stick any more into her.

Snowflake laughed.   “A little anal play and you’re already desperate for my pussy juice.   I’ll make you another deal, freak.   Get that shampoo bottle back up your cunt if you don’t want me to assfuck you with the next tail too.”

Seo-yun’s pussy felt like it would burst if she tried to pack anything more in it, but she knew the nogitsune wasn’t bluffing.  The monster would fuck her to death without hesitation if that’s what she wanted.  So she gritted her teeth, located the shampoo bottle with her tail, and pressed it against her opening.

“You really are a hopeless slut, aren’t you?” Snowflake marveled.  “I never said which end you had to use, but you went right for the widest one.”  Seo-yun’s face went red with shame beneath her mask as the woman laughed.  She’d assumed that if she tried the less painful option, it would only earn her a beating.

Her body protested louder with every millimeter of the shampoo bottle, and Seo-yun found herself frantically tonguing Snowflake’s gushing pussy as much to try and stop herself from screaming as anything else.  The bottle was almost halfway in when Snowflake began shuddering to an orgasm, and Seo-yun gratefully let go of it and focused on lapping the woman’s hot insides.

The fox screamed a few seconds later when Snowflake rammed the bottle in the rest of the way herself.  The only thing that saved her was that the nogitsune had already crammed one of her tails down Seo-yun’s throat, and her agonized cries came out only as soft vibrations that made the other woman smile.  “So you could do your job before I got all nine in, freak.  But did I ever say that would make me stop?”

She withdrew her tail, the other six and the bottle still buried in Seo-yun, and pulled the fox’s head up.  Seo-yun felt limp and boneless as the nogitsune rubbed her tits across her face.  “Worship my breasts while I finish ruining your holes.”

Seo-yun opened her mouth and began licking and sucking on one of the woman’s nipples.  “That’s it, freak,” said Snowflake, shivering.  “Don’t forget to give them both plenty of attention.  Time to polish my clit and be a dildo again too.  That’s all your worthless hide is good for.”  Seo-yun’s tails resumed pleasuring the woman while Snowflake reached down to spread the fox’s asshole wider with her thumbs, allowing her to squeeze a fifth tail in.

She tried to wedge a sixth in as well, but despite tugging on Seo-yun’s anal ring hard enough that the woman thought she was about to be ripped in two, she couldn’t fit it in.  She prodded the mass of fur and plastic wedged in the fox’s bulging cunt instead, searching for a point of access there, but similarly failed.  “Looks like seven tails and a shampoo bottle are your limit, freak.  You know what that means?”

Seo-yun whimpered.  She did know exactly what it meant, and a moment later Snowflake confirmed it.  “It means foreplay is over.”

Snowflake’s tails began to pump Seo-yun’s overstuffed holes with all the gentleness of sledgehammers.  Even the shampoo bottle was forced along, pushed back and forth by the sea of fur around it.  Not content to settle for torturing her with only seven of her tails, Snowflake wrapped one around Seo-yun’s throat to strangle her, allowing only the occasional gasp.  Her final tail was used as a whip again, raining blows all over the fox’s ass and back.  Suffocation and being muffled by a mouthful of tit meat were the only reasons Seo-yun’s howls didn’t wake the dead.

The fox wasn’t allowed to let her agony or lack of breath distract her from service.  Every time her mouth wasn’t lovingly sucking her rapist’s nipples, every time her one tail wasn’t artfully teasing her rapist’s clitoris, every time her other wasn’t smoothly massaging her rapist’s pussy walls, Snowflake’s treatment of her would only grow rougher and more violent.  “It’s not that I enjoy hurting you, freak,” she said at one point, making no attempt to sell the lie, “but how else is a stupid animal like you supposed to learn?”

The worst part was when Snowflake ordered her to cum.  Seo-yun didn’t want to, but the grinning nogitsune forced it out of her.  It was Seo-yun’s turn to have her clitoris played with, but not with any gentleness or love.  Snowflake manipulated her sensitive nub with cruel efficiency, overwhelming Seo-yun with raw sensation until she twitched and shuddered, her holes clenching around the tails still relentlessly sawing in and out of her.  “You disgusting painslut,” Snowflake mocked when it was over.  “I told you you deserved every ounce of this.”

It didn’t take long for Snowflake to finish, but it felt like a million years for Seo-yun.  Between the brutal jackhammering of her lower holes, the harsh lashing of her backside, and the way she had to concentrate on perfectly pleasing her rapist, she hadn’t been so miserable since Levinson.  The fox was sobbing by the time her tender lovemaking, so at odds with the way her own body was being treated like a cheap fleshlight, made the nogitsune cum.

And then Snowflake made her do it again.

Afterward, Seo-yun had to carefully tongue bathe each of Snowflake’s tails, sucking and licking every drop of her scum off of them, while the woman idly toyed with her body, flicking her nipples and smacking her ass while the fox worked diligently.  Only after she was satisfied, and Seo-yun had swallowed the contents of her bladder once more, did Snowflake untie the woman, letting her aching limbs flop to the floor, numb from being bound for so long.  Seo-yun laid there in a daze, feeling too worn out and hopeless to move.  “Take a shower before you come out, freak,” Snowflake said.  “You stink of sex.”  She twisted the shower knob sharply, and Seo-yun flinched as ice cold water rained down on her.

The nogitsune left.

By the time Seo-yun could gather the courage to leave the bathroom, it was only a couple minutes before lights out, and everyone else had already retired to their bunks, all of them tired by the long day.  She looked for an empty cot quietly, grateful that no one was awake to see the welts all over her.  The beds had no blankets and the mattresses were as thin as paper, but compared to her basket at home, they were pure luxury, and she couldn’t wait to fall into hers and lose herself in sleep.

Something tugged on her arm, catching her up short, and she turned to see Snowflake looking at her from the woman’s own bed.  Her tail, invisible once more, tugged on her again, demanding her to come closer.  “Where do you think you’re going?” asked the nogitsune quietly, wearing a wicked smile.  “I didn’t say we were done.”

Seo-yun cast a longing look at the waiting bunk and the safety and rest it offered, and at the sleeping people around who might try to come to her rescue if she spoke up.  Then she gave in and joined Snowflake on the cot.  “You’re going to have be very quiet this time,” the woman told her, her voice a gleeful whisper.  “But don’t worry, I’ll be sure to keep your mouth busy.”