Prelude Nori stepped into the showers on wobbly legs, his calves and thighs aching. His biceps and triceps were aching, too. And his chest, and his gut, and his back. So, that is to say, it had been a good workout. The wolf-boy didn't much look like someone who frequented the gym, but he did take his job of being Umami's faithful bodyguard seriously. Though it was hard to guard the body of someone who enjoyed having it destroyed as much as she did, that was, nevertheless, his title, so he f

MERCURYby Bitter*** Taymi smiled and pulled her cloak tighter around her body. It was thick and warm against the cool morning air, and was built to muffle not just the sound of the body’s motion, but even the vibrations in the aura that could give a Fey away. That was good for Taymi, because aside from the fact that she was a city Fey more than a warrior, hunter, or even an outdoorsman, there wasn’t much else on her body to protect her. That’s not to say that she wasn’t dressed, tec

Kimberly
By Bitter
***
Kimberly hissed as her feet joined the rest of her in the stomach. "You bitch! You're gonna make me late for my date!" she yelled, mostly for the catharsis. Nobody could hear you through their stomach, and despite being as deep in their body as it was possible to get, you'd never make sense of anything they said to you either. And though going to someone's stomach was usually a one-way trip, Kimberly had a reason to be confident that she'd see her boyfriend again; this kin

HIS
FIRST TIME
by
Bitter
***
It
was the worst sort of inn: the kind that knows you want to leave as
soon as possible and obliges by helping you want to do so. The best
one could say about it was that it did have the essential functions
of a lodging. The rooms contained beds. There was a restroom in the
building, somewhere, if one was brave enough to go looking for it.
The doors possessed locks. If you wanted light, there was a window,
usually. And, best of all, it only cost exactly as much as it

A Threesome
By Bitter
---
A bell rang.
It was a single, quick "ting", a silvery finger in the ear beckoning playfully. At its call, a pair of elves waiting in a booth small enough to be a closet stood up from their benches, smiled to one another, and shuffled beyond the velvet curtain, though not before clasping their hands together, becoming a single organism in body and purpose.
Viselle wondered what she had ever done to deserve Bellamie. She was a towering woman, taller than most human men, e

PASSING
by
Bitter
***
John
stood with his palm against a palm tree, looking out over a bush into
the beach beyond, watching a gaggle of young women in swimsuits
enjoying themselves. Some of them were in the water bopping
beach-balls back and forth, a few had taken to the volleyball court,
he could see Karen reading a book through her horn-rimmed glasses,
and Mary was just sunbathing-- a view that fixed John's gaze for
quite a bit longer than the rest, because the way she was lying let
the curvat

Sereena's tail lashed to and fro behind her as she waited for her friend. A distant rumble made the mouse-girl glance up at the darkening, clouded sky again, running a hand through her short, brown hair with a frustrated huff. It looked like it might storm-and Mimin still wasn't here yet! And it would wait to rain until after she'd done all the day's work, wouldn't it? She leaned her back against the fence post on the edge of town, arms crossed-before perking her murine ears up as she spotted so

Mount Koto-o-noke,
they call it. A towering volcano, the tallest of any on the ring of
islands. The time of its last proper eruption is mythological, but
the magma still flows beneath it, heating the water beneath the earth
and turning the various depressions that sink low enough to reach the
water table into natural spa baths. One would think that there would
be tourists-- at least, more of them. But the mountain is mostly
untouched by human habitation. Outside of the chirping of birds and
the