Author: M C

The Three Brothers
By Strega
October 29^th, 2007

Once there were three brothers riding through the woods.  They were returning from a night in the town of Dyvers, and had done so well at the gambling tables that they laughed and joked.  As they handed around the wineskin the youngest brother noticed they were passing a small farm.  Through the farm ran a little stream, and next to the stream was a plump little praka-woman, fishing.
If she had stood up the top of her head would hardly pass the tallest brother’s waist, but the youngest brother, who had a bit more from the wineskin than he should have, pulled his horse up short.
“I think she’s cute,” he said rather grandly.
“Are you mad,” said the oldest brother.  “She’s a raccoon!”  A raccoon-woman more properly, but fur and claws and fangs and ringed tail on a buxom little womanly shape still left her a ‘coon in his eyes.
“I hear they are very friendly,” said the middle brother.
“I’m going to find out,” said the youngest, who took a long pull on the wineskin and dismounted his horse.  The two still on their horses watched with amused interest as he walked, a bit unsteadily, over to the fisherwoman.  He fished in his gambling-fattened pouch, pulled out a silver, and said, “I will give you this to suck my manhood.”
A silver Lunar is not much money in a big city, but out here in the country it was a day’s wages for most people.  The little raccoon-lady’s eyes brightened, and she pointed behind the tree.  Leaving her fishing pole, she led him out of sight.  There was a brief series of moans from behind the tree, and then he reappeared, fixing up his breeches.  “Very friendly,” he said.
The middle brother, who had almost as much wine by now, got down from his horse at that.  As the furry little lady picked up her fishing pole he said, “I will give you this to lie with me,” and held up an electrum Lucky.
“She’s not going to be the same height lying down, brother!” shouted the oldest with a guffaw, and the youngest almost fell off his horse laughing.  But the little raccoon-femme, who saw the Lucky, led the middle brother behind the tree.
She had not said a word ‘til now, and the two brothers on their horses talked about praka.  They’d never seen one this close, for they were rare in these parts, but the younger remembered hearing that they couldn’t talk like a man.  Sign language or something like that, they agreed, what what they had heard.  
There was a mix of chittering and groaning from behind the tree, and shortly thereafter the middle brother appeared, doing up his buttons.  He gave them a gesture with his middle finger, which to this day means “I had her.”  The praka-femme reappeared, none the worse for an encounter with a male twice her size, and went back to the stream.
The two younger brothers laughed at the oldest, who was much more proper, and much more likely to be interested in a male praka, if he were honest.  Eventually he could take no more and dismounted.  He held up a gold Noble, worth twenty Lunars or two Luckies, and said, “I will give you this to have your ass, little woman.”
She looked unsure at that, but the oldest brother pulled out the little jar of lubricant he always carried.  A Noble is not so much to a wealthy man, but it’s more money than a farmer can save in a year.  With that incentive she led him behind the tree, and there followed a more anxious series of chitters and some loud groans.
Shortly thereafter they were back on their horses and riding away.  Once more the wineskin made its rounds, but the oldest brother was frowning.  “I should not have given her a Noble.  That’s too much money for a pissy farmer wench.”
The middle brother was like-minded.  “I could have had her for a Lunar.  Curse this wine.”
The youngest said, “You had your way with her and we have plenty more.  Let it lie.”
“Easy for you to say,” said the oldest as he turned his horse around.  “You only spent a Lunar for your fun!  I am going to get my Noble back and give her a silver.  It’s all she’s worth.”
The middle brother had spent far too much as well and turned his horse with the eldest.  The youngest followed his brothers, though he tried to sway them from their course.  “It’s robbery, brothers.”
“Robbery!  Fah!  As though a little ‘coon on a farm deserves to have that much money!”  The two older brothers were not to be swayed.  They were the sons of a very minor noble, and though the youngest had learned some humilty, the others had not.
Soon they were at the farm, and there was the little ‘coon still fishing.  This time they all three dismounted at once and approached, the youngest reluctantly.  He would ride on, but he worried that his elders might so something foolish.
“Give us back the gold and silver, peasant.”
“And give her silvers, right brother?” said the youngest.
“Pah! Your silver is enough to pay her for three uses of her charms,” said the oldest, who in retrospect was disgusted he’d been with this furry little lady.  Tastes vary, and some love the cute little praka, while others see them as little more than animals.
“We’ll have her again,” said the middle brother suddenly, and grabbed her by the arm.  He almost hauled her feet from the ground, and she chirped in alarm.  She had sharp little claws and fangs but was too terrified to use them.
“Drag her back here,” said the oldest, who had found a spot behind a haystack even farther from the road than the tree.
“This is not right,” said the youngest, edging toward the horses.
“She is just a peasant, and a ‘coon,” said the middle brother.  He and the eldest already had their pants down, and they pinned the little praka between them, taking her fore and aft.  “What can it hurt?”
The youngest watched them take her, and heard her frightened little noises, and stood frozen.  Then the middle brother said “Or are you not man enough?” and the wine had its way with the youngest.  He undid buttons and stepped close, and the older too crouched down so her muzzle was at the right level.
“Do this and we won’t hurt you,” he said, though he knew they were already hurting her.  Not in her flesh, which could accommodate a man, but in her spirit.
She began to suck enthusiastically, just as she had before, and the youngest brother closed his eyes.  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, low enough that his brothers mistook it for a moan.  Her sharp raccoon ears caught it, though, and that saved his life.
His eyes flew back open as his brothers cried out.  “What is happening!” said the middle, and “Gods!  She is a monster!” said the oldest.  He could not see why they were frightened, and when he tried to pull away from the tangle of sex she sank her claws into his tunic.  
He was too close to see what was happening.  They seemed stuck to her somehow, trying to pull out but unable to.  Then his middle brother’s fell over backward, legs up against his chest, and slid – no, was pulled – closer to the praka.  The same thing was happening to the eldest, despite him punching her repeatedly in the back.
Despite the horror of it, the suction and licking had its effect, and the youngest brother moaned as he let go in her mouth.  He, too, fell over backwards as his hands slipped off her shoulders, but he was allowed to pull out.  Finally he could see what was happening, and it was as awful as he’s suspected.
The ‘coon’s sex and anus had expanded, or stretched, far wider than should be possible.  Somehow they had fastened a sucking grip on his brothers’ members and pulled them in, and as they continued to expand and suck more than members went in.  The two were forced to bend double, knees against chests, as the expanding flesh crawled over them and pulled them in.  Her sex was like a pink flower, past his middle brother’s hips, and her little brown hole was stretched around his oldest brother’s waist.  The distension of her lower body pushed her legs outward and swelled her belly like some obscene fruit, and still they were pulled in.
She swallowed the only part of him that he had left her and smiled, then and reached down.  She could just reach his brothers’ belts, and took from them the fat jingling pouches.  One of them she threw to him, the other she dropped by her fishing pole.
“Help us, brother!” cried his eldest brother, but the youngest crept backward instead.  There was a friendly light in the raccoon-femme’s eyes when she looked at him, but if he tried to steal away her meals, he thought he knew what would happen.  The middle brother yelped wordlessly as he was sucked in; only the top of his head, arms, and feet were left outside now.  The swollen sex pulsed, bulged, and he was gone.
Moments later the eldest followed, devoured by the brown hole he’d raped.  The last the youngest saw was a single booted foot, then her body swelled and the boot slipped in beneath her tail and was gone.
He was in a haze.  She had been half his size, now she was more than double it; furry arms and legs and face and tail still normal-sized, but swollen grotesquely of body.  Stretched thin there, so her pink skin showed through the fur, and the bulges of his two brothers still moved.  Still struggled, moving the skin and fur, but unable to escape.  Unconsciously he felt her, the soft pelt and the smooth, warm skin, and she giggled and belched.  Her sex was returning to its previous size, a wet slit of pink stretched moments before around a man’s whole body.  He could not see the other hole, but no doubt it was the same.
She burped again as he climbed to his feet and staggered away.  There was the road.  There were the horses….

When he awoke he was in bed.  He stared at the ceiling, not recognizing the room.  A bit of daylight made it in through the curtains.  He blinked, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  Surely it had all been a nightmare.
That evening he met his benefactors.  “They found you on the north road,” the innkeeper’s wife said as she ladled stew into his bowl.  “Some children were on their way back from the river and they said you were wandering as though blind. It was by Cotton’s farm.”  She paused.  
“The Cotton’s farm…is Cotton a praka?”
“A praka?  There aren’t any in this village.  We see them occasionally…there’s a tinker’s wagon comes back for spring and fall festival, has a couple of praka who sharpen knives and fix broken toys.  That sort of thing.”
“I remember a farm, a stream…there was a praka-woman, fishing.”  It was his turn to pause.  “Has anyone seen my brothers?”
She shook her head.  “We found your horses.  What else do you remember?”
He held his head in his hands.  “I don’t know.”  He thought back.  “Did the Cottons see anything?”
Again the pause, then: “We don’t know.  No one has seen them since last Sunsday at church.  The whole family is missing.”
He stayed there for two more days. Somehow all three of the money pouches had ended up in his pack.  He had enough money to live comfortably for a year or so.  More if he was frugal, and even more if he sold the horses.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go home.  What would he tell his parents?
On the third day he visited the Cotton farm, accompanied by the innkeeper’s son.  It was as he remembered it, stream, haystack, and farm buildings in the distance.  The innkeeper’s son waited while he he looked around.  There was no trace of the events he remembered.  No scrap of his brothers’ gear, no footprints in the mud.
Had any of it really happened?
“Where do praka live, Jim?”
“Praka? Willowby is about half praka and half halflings, but that’s a week’s travel.  A few in Sunbury, that’s almost as far.  Let’s see….”
“OK, where do they not live?”
Jim blinked.  “Well, anywhere far from the Lortmils I guess.  And anywhere that doesn’t like nonhumans. Some cities I guess, and that church state over by Aerdi.”
“The Pale, it’s called.  A theocracy.  Hmm.”
The youngest brother sold two horses and set off on the third to Verbobonc, the nearest city of any substance.  He moved on from there into Veluna, settling in Mitrik. When he was well settled he put a letter in the caravan mailbag, telling his parents that his brothers had been killed by bandits and he had only just escaped from slavery.  He promised to visit them soon, but he never did, for in Mitrik was a comforting near-absence of praka.
For whenever he saw a praka, however cute and harmless and happy they seemed (and most of them were mostly cute and harmless and happy), he remembered seeing that boot disappear beneath the praka-femme’s tail.