His head spun as he forced himself upward. He was laying on some kind of cold stone, as he could tell by the chill running down his skin. Judging by how much of his body was affected by the chill, he also guessed that he was nude… and yet a strange warmth filled his being. As he focused his vision he was finally able to make sense of the world around him.

The stone floor was actually smooth marble, elegantly designed. There was an intricate golden symbol on the floor, one that he lay in the center of. It unnerved him, a little bit – the idea of laying naked on that symbol seemed like some kind of cult ritual, a black sacrifice, and the symbols woven into the design only reinforced that idea as much as he might try to discard it.. But the emptiness of the room was somehow even more oppressive. There were two doors that led inside, smooth wood covered with literal gold inlay, or at least that was what it appeared to be. The designs on the door were less like a symbol, though, and more like simple decoration… which was somewhat calming. The walls around him were some kind of obsidian tiling, black and so reflective that he could clearly see himself as well as he could in the floor beneath him.

He realized something, then. As he struggled to figure out where he was, how he had gotten there, why he was naked… none of it was registering in his mind. He had no memories of what this place was. Or any place, for that matter. He was drawing a total blank, except, one thing…

“Hadrian… my name is… Hadrian…” as he said those words out loud to comfort himself, a few other hazy facts seemed to drift by. He was… twenty. Something. Twenty-four? That sounded strangely right, but no more than any other number in that region. He could see in the polished reflection of the floor that he had black hair, and he recognized his own face in the floor, but none of this was bringing back any real memories, not anything tangible.

There was a tapping sound coming from the walls. Quiet at first, but rapid enough that he couldn’t miss it. It steadily grew in intensity until, with a great creaking sound, the double doors both flew open so harshly that they slammed into the walls. The sound of wood crashing into crystalline surface echoed throughout the tiny chamber, so loud Hadrian’s ears were like to rupture had he not covered them.

The person who had thrown them open shocked him far more than any level of noise, though. He didn’t recognize her, though even that would’ve been a true miracle given her appearance. It was a woman, as her body shape and facial features. She wore a red corset with a white strip at the top that seemed to be one-piece with a white skirt that flowed around her legs. Unattached, or so it seemed, were two long red sleeves that hovered around her arms as if lifted by a nonexistent breeze. Across her face was an expression that mirrored his own shock, but hers were fixed upon him, while his could scarcely stop moving, taking in her… extra features.

Across the top of her head, two fox-like ears were rapidly twitching to the side, as if she could not stop them from convulsing. Behind her, six pearl-white tails of a length almost equal to her height were dropped to the floor, motionless, but when she had come in they had been spread out and rapidly flowing behind her. And above her shoulder, hovering around her body seemingly randomly, was a glowing blue ball that didn’t appear to have anything inside of it, but rather to simply be a floating ball of light.

“It’s… it’s you!” she shouted, pointing almost accusingly at him. Hadrian looked around, as if he believed someone else had suddenly appeared. As he did so, he realized first that he was the only possible person, and then a moment later the exact situation that he was in. Hadrian instinctively covered himself as best as he could, both hands diving between his legs, but the woman paid no mind. She rushed over to him, going down to her knees beside him and placing her hands on his face, pulling it from side to side and examining every inch of him.

“So much like the scripture, but… so different. So unique, so… real,” she said, breathing the last word. Although she was manhandling him just a little bit, she did so softly, almost tentatively. Every movement she made and even the words she spoke were handled with care, as if she thought anything could break him. The tails behind her were now flicking back and forth madly, in the same patterns over and over again, but each individual of each other.

“I’m sorry… do you… know me?” He asked, uncertain of how much to reveal. As much as he wanted to ask more direct questions, this woman was acting incredibly erratically, and he wasn’t getting over her appearance any time soon.

“Of course! You are the Lord, the one we’ve waited so long for! My sisters will be so incredulous… I cannot believe I was the one to bear witness to your arrival, after so many millennia upon millennia! I cannot express to you the joy this has brought me!”

She clasped her arms around him, and for a moment Hadrian lost himself in that warmth. Then her tails curled around him, and though their softness was welcome, he could not rightfully embrace her without feeling a great degree of discomfort. He pushed her away gently, and looked her in the eyes with what he hoped was confusion rather than the mild tinges of fear he was starting to feel at all this.

“I’m sorry, but… none of this makes sense to me. I don’t remember anything. I mean… anything. But from what I think I remember, I’ve never seen anyone like you. I mean, really, anyone with a tail, much less six of them,” Hadrian said with nervousness. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was feeling. Fear at the loss of his memories was at the forefront, but then there was some tinge of happiness and relief that the first person he’d met apparently cared for him, or at the very least was friendly. But then, her appearance, and everything she was saying just brought back that nervousness and fear.

“Oh! You… you don’t know about us? Oh my, the scriptures said that you would be unlearned in our ways, but nothing about this... you truly remember nothing?”

“Nothing. I… my name is Hadrian. I think I’m… twenty-four. Maybe. Other than that, total blank until I woke up here. Uh… naked.”

She seemed to ignore the last part, but she did put her hands back on his face. “Hadrian… a fine name. But can you really be only twenty-four? Such a childish age for one so prophesized, but perhaps age is meaningless when one is delivered without memory.”

She was lost in thought for a few moments, gazing into his eyes as if expecting to find her answers there. Then, abruptly, she stood up and gazed out toward the hallway. When she turned back she had a toothy smile, one of what appeared to be her actual fangs barely hanging out of her mouth.

“Come with me. I will show you everything.”

She held out her arm to Hadrian, but he couldn’t help hesitating. What if this was the wrong thing to do? That’s what his brain kept asking him. He wasn’t sure that he had any other options, though. Realistically, he was trapped in a building that he had no way to navigate, with a creature (possibly creatures) of a mystical nature. Perhaps choosing to trust in the woman who at least acted friendly wasn’t such a bad idea. Hadrian grasped her hand and pulled himself to his feet, while still covering himself with his left hand.

“Could you… could we find some clothes first?” Hadrian asked, a bit embarrassed to even bring up the fact that until now she had seemingly ignored.

She looked him up and down, a confused look coming across her face. “Why?”

Okay. So she understood he had no clothes. Apparently she just didn’t think it was as big of a deal as he did. “I… don’t feel comfortable walking around like this.”

“Why not? If it is the chill in the air concerning you, we are not going outside, do not worry yourself milord. I only wore mine because I had been cleaning the grounds, and it is so troublesome to keep myself warm in the late autumn. Perhaps you would be more comfortable if I removed them?”

Hadrian couldn’t believe her casualness. Nor his luck, but given what he was in the middle of, there was no way he could even consider something like that. No, he needed focus, and to figure out where he was. “I- I just- never mind, you’re right, let’s go.”

Hadrian tried to force the issue to the back of his mind. If she was so oblivious, why should he bother to point it out? He couldn’t remember much more than what clothes were… maybe they weren’t normal to worry about so much? As blurry as his memory was, that didn’t sound right. Then again, could he really trust a collection of hazy memories about societal norms? There was a living, breathing fox-girl in front of him, and his brain was telling him that the latter was a lot more unlikely than the former.

The hall that they walked into was naturally lit. High windows went from the ceiling to the floor, with only grooves in the stone holding them in place. They were intricately carved, and everywhere he looked there were amazing designs. He thought about commenting on them, but decided it was better to try to keep his focus on what was happening around him. Looking out the windows he saw more stone walls, ahead and perpendicular to the hall they were in. He looked down and nearly stumbled in surprise – they were almost a dozen floors off the ground! He tried to look back, but the stone protruded too far past the windows to look at the room they’d come from. Everything he saw looked like medieval construction… but surely not twelve stories or better off the ground?

There was another set of double doors; these ones were noticeably less intricate than the last pair, but they still had a damned lot of decoration on them. They made their way through them and into a hallway that opened up in three separate directions. The woman turned left and gestured around them with a sweeping motion.

“This is all the Lord’s Quarters,” she said softly, but loudly enough for him to hear. “We’re going to the Living Quarters. On the other side of this, down the right hallway, are your personal quarters for study, research, and recreation. With enough facilities to accommodate any guests you invite to stay in the Living Quarters.”

“How many people can stay in the Living Quarters?” Hadrian asked, suddenly curious as to how large the castle really was.

“Counting your personal bed? A hundred and twenty-five,” she said as if the number were nothing.

“A hundred and twenty-five?” Hadrian gasped, shocked.

“Is that not enough? Oh, my, we can always have more built! The convoy of drakes that visited last week should only be a few hundred miles away by now, surely I can reach them-“

“Hey,” Hadrian said, moving forward and grabbing the wrist of the flustered fox-girl. She perked up but made no movement to stop, and she immediately ceased her rapid words. Hadrian had come to realize something by the girl’s actions – she wasn’t exactly nervous, but she was just as bewildered as he was. It was putting both of them on edge. “Calm down. I don’t need more, that many is… more than I can understand. Why does the… Lord have so many?”

She looked at him in the same curious, uncertain way as she had when he’d asked about his clothes. “Why would he not? It was said the Lord would call many to live with him, for as much or as little time as he pleased, and none would deny him that, so why run the risk of running out of beds?”

“I don’t remember anyone, though,” Hadrian said as she began walking again and he strode quickly to keep up. “Who would I invite to live with me?”

“That’s entirely your decision…” there was a sudden shift in the tone of her voice as she continued. One of her tails swiped to the side, slowly, and grazed his cheekbone. “You are, after all, the Lord. And I said, none would deny an invitation you extended… especially a simple servant.”

Hadrian tried not to notice the action, but he did. He barely responded, though – at the moment, his mind was so overwhelmed with possibilities that he couldn’t handle much more. Instead, a question came to his mind that had actually been slowly ebbing its way forward the entire time.

“What’s your name?”

For the first time, the fox-girl looked genuinely surprised, and – was that a blush that colored her cheeks?

“The Lord honors me,” she murmured, actually turning and giving a small curtsy before she turned back and continued on. “I am but a humble servant, by the name of Eyarra. It deeply pleases me to find that the Lord is such a caring person. Perhaps if you wish, we could get to know each other better?”

The tone did not escape him. He wondered what brought it out, from a woman he didn’t even know. This time rather than changing the topic he just ignored her. The hallway they were in was very long, and they had passed several doors, and even a spiraling staircase that travelled both up and down, but eventually they came to a third set of double doors – a pattern if ever there was one – with the same sort of decoration as the one that had closed off the chamber he awoke in.

“This is your bedroom, Lord.”

Eyarra opened the door and gave another curtsy as she gestured inside. Hadrian walked in and looked in awe at the massive, crimson room in front of him.

The walls were alternating tapestries and windows across half of the room, while the other half was mostly dominated by a large, semi-circular bed. The windows were long, but unlike the hallway did not go all the way to the ceiling. Instead they started about two feet off the floor and went up about eight feet higher, tapering off for the last two feet to points. At the top of each of the four large windows was a mural that looked like it was made of stained glass, but much more detailed; rather than fragments it seemed to be one solid piece of glass where the colors simply stopped when needed. The colors were also a thousand times more detailed than you could get with even the smallest pieces of glass available. Despite the distance, he found he could quite easily see what each was depicting.

From left to right each held a single figure; one was a normal-looking human, or so it appeared until one noticed the very tips of her ears were quite pointed. She was standing in a lush, green woodland. The next one over was a woman not unlike the one who’d led Hadrian here – she had long black hair, with two very visible pointed ears on top of her head, and seven black tails flowing down out of a long kimono. She was surrounded by a strange aura that covered most of the background. The third portrait had, he realized on closer inspection, one main figure – a woman with black wings unfurling from her back and a long, pointed tail, and who was wearing next to nothing – and three other figures in the background, standing behind her. One had similar wings, but reddened skin and what appeared to be scales over most of her body save her white-ish stomach. Another had the tail of a snake jutting out from under her waist. The fourth was barely visible, but appeared to have long, feathered wings, and was perched on the shoulders of the two in front of her. Hadrian gazed at each of them in wonder for a moment before turning his attention to the final portrait.

The figure here was indecipherable – despite the detail in the rest of the glass, which showed a crystal-clear lake by a long meadow, the figure itself was nothing more than a human-shaped white blob. Only the definition on each of the fingers and the individual strands of white hair convinced him that it was part of the design at all, and not a worn or broken piece of it. Each of the tapestries also bore several designs, but they would’ve taken the better part of an hour to examine in full, given that each one was nearly four feet wide and the designs were surprisingly intricate.

Aside from the bed, there was very little furniture; only one small wardrobe, as well as a full-length mirror a short walk from the oversized bed, directly next to one of the windows. But despite the emptiness, the majesty of the room was overwhelming. Yet somehow, he still felt at home. Though as far as he could tell he’d never been here before, something about the room was… familiar. It eased his mind and helped take some of the stress off of his shoulders. For the first time since he awoke he was letting something other than his questions take over his mind.

“This is all very… extravagant. Beautiful. I can’t… why is this mine?” Hadrian was having difficulty putting this thoughts into words, but he tried as hard as he could. “I don’t even remember who I am, or anything about this place. How can so much be mine?”

“Everything will be explained in time, I promise, but I don’t wish to overwhelm you. Come, let us relax ourselves a little more. You must be feeling a great deal of stress if you truly remember so little. Perhaps I can help you relieve some of it?”

Hadrian was preparing to respond when something hit him in the back of the head. Something… soft. And light. At first, he assumed she’d playfully batted at him with one of her tails, something he found surprisingly funny, perhaps just because of the way picturing someone with tails was still so strange in his head. He turned to ask why she was so forward, when he realized it wasn’t her tail that had hit him.

It was one of her sleeves.

The dress followed shortly after, but it landed at his feet rather than on top of them. She didn’t strike a pose, didn’t have any more comments for him or even tempt him with a sensual touch as she had before. She simply smiled at him, and only for a moment, then proceeded to the bed, laying down with her legs over the edge as simply as if she were just taking a rest from standing for a few moments.

Hadrian stared at her, unable now to stop his eyes from wandering. Her soft raven locks were haphazardly thrown across her shoulders, flowing down the pale, flawless skin of her chest. Her breasts weren’t large, a small B-cup at best, but they were firm and stood up even as she lay there. She glanced down and saw him staring at her, but her only response was to smile.

“I’m glad to know my body pleases you, Lord…” she said with a glance downward. Hadrian hadn’t noticed until then, but he was rock hard. He might’ve been for a while. It appeared that while his mind was only just beginning to calm down, his body was more than ready to forget his troubles.

Hadrian blushed and moved to cover up his erection, which surprisingly was the first thing to get a real reaction out of the woman. She pushed herself off of the bed and moved over, gently placing her hand over Hadrian’s and moving it away.

“You are embarrassed. Why? Have I shamed you?”

With the two of them naked, Hadrian’s reaction only strengthened as she pushed herself so close to him that her breasts rested against his chest, and he could feel the heat from her body against every part of him. She seemed almost unnaturally warm.

“I’m just… not comfortable like this. We don’t even know each other.”

She more gently touched his face, while wrapping around his lower half with her tails. The soft caress against his lower back was surprisingly effective at calming his tense nerves, despite the added proximity.

“I know not what happened to your memories, Lord, or where you came from before you arrived here… but I know that here, in Rafflesia, we do not carry shame for our bodies, or what we do with them. We take great pride in the pleasure that our bodies can bring, and the connections it can strengthen. Do you find me attractive?”

“I… I do,” Hadrian said, unable to deny that fact, especially with her in such close proximity.

“And I most certainly find you desirable. So, why should we not enjoy ourselves? It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

She began to pull him by the arm and with her tails, urging him toward the bed. Hadrian wanted to say no, but his instincts had taken hold of him, regardless of his situation. He stumbled along behind her all the way to the massive, semicircular bed. When they reached the edge, she pulled his hand forward and twisted him around, causing him to land on his back and sink in to the softness of the sheets.

“You’re still uncomfortable…” she said softly, trailing her hands down his sides. The motion sent chills up Hadrian’s spine, especially as she got a predatory look in her eyes. “…so just sit back and let me do all the work.”

She went to her knees at the edge of the bed and spread his legs. His arms were at his sides where they’d tried to catch him as he fell onto the bed, so without his legs he was left completely exposed. Eyarra pulled herself closer and slowly began pumping him, almost teasingly. The effect was immediate; Hadrian twitched on the bed and sucked in a breath, overcome by the sensation that her soft skin gave him.

“Awfully sensitive, aren’t you? I don’t know where you came from, but it must have been quite a while since you had any attention. Don’t worry, you’ll never have to worry about that again, so long as you remain in Rafflesia.”

She stopped talking then, and put her mouth to other uses. While her hand pumped his seven inches of shaft, her soft tongue lapped at the head. She alternated between teasing his slit and circling the head with her tongue, while Hadrian lay his head back on the bed and closed his eyes, reveling in the sensations. Precum leaked from his tip, and each twirl of her tongue whisked away the thin fluid.

Saliva began to leak down Hadrian’s length as she picked up the pace, her hand sliding effortlessly up and down with the added lubrication. Eyarra moved her head forward, taking in the entire head between her soft lips and sucking hard while her tongue danced around the tip. Her free hand snaked in between her own legs and rubbed her mound, already soaked with her own lustful secretions.

After a few minutes Hadrian could feel his urge to climax rising. He tried to signal her, to get her to stop, but if anything his efforts only made her more furious in her actions. Her head bobbed rapidly, and Hadrian’s mind was a blur of pleasure as her tongue traced along the underside of his shaft.

“G-gonna cum, soon…” he got out as she reached a new tempo. That was all he said, though, as in the next moment Eyarra forewent the stroking entirely. She pulled her hand off and opened her mouth as wide as it could go, welcoming his member deeper inside of her lips. Eyarra swallowed his shaft unflinchingly, continuing down until her lips touched the base. Hadrian felt the pulsations of her throat around his head, while her tongue bathed his entire length. The pressure that had been building was too much for him, and he spasmed against the bed as he tried to thrust his hips even deeper into the soft cavern.

Eyarra felt the twitching and throbbing in his member, welcoming the fluid that suddenly spurted into her throat. Hadrian could see her throat convulsing as she rapidly swallowed every drop directly into her throat, shoving his member as far down as possible the entire time. It felt like her esophagus was milking him, and he couldn’t stop himself from shaking from the pleasure.

When his orgasm finally died down, he felt the muscles around his spine in particular as the tension left his body. But there was no time for him to rest. Before he could say anything to the fox-girl, though, he felt her shifting at his feet. She leaped up onto the bed, landing with her legs on both sides of his body, her crotch hovering only millimeters above his member, which for some reason had not subsided in the least.

“Mmm, as delicious as I expected,” Eyarra said. Despite how erotic she looked, with her fingers pressed to her lips, her look was one of genuine happiness. “They said the Lord would be pleasure in all forms… I see they were not exaggerating. Now, let us experience even greater heights, together.”

She dragged her body from Hadrian’s thighs all the way up to his abdomen, and then back down. Each time that her heat passed over his member he felt soft wetness caressing him, intense with readiness. He endured it as long as he could, quite sure that he shouldn’t be so sensitive so soon after already shooting a load, but entirely convinced that he had actually died and arrived in some kind of Heaven. When he felt like he could take it no more he gripped her hips firmly, holding her tightly in place over his erect rod, and began grinding upwards into her.

“Ah… I thought- oh, right there – I was going to do all the work?” Eyarra asked, for the first time showing the briefest crack in her attitude as the head of Hadrian’s shaft ground against her clit. Hadrian smiled at her, managing to put his worries behind him for the moment.

“And I thought I’d never be having fantastic sex with an incredibly hot fox-lady… guess we’re both being pleasantly surprised.”

“Mmm, not a big fan of ‘fox-lady’… call me a Kitsune and we can get to the actual sex part,” she murmured, grinding his crotch against him even harder. For a moment he felt her entrance parting around his tip, but then she readjusted her hips and he slipped free, once again sliding along her vulva and rubbing at her sensitive bud. She let out a gasp of pleasure, but for Hadrian the lack of penetration was starting to drive him wild. Hadrian lost himself as he started to shout out what the woman wanted to hear.

“Fine, you’re a sexy, beautiful, hot Kitsune, and I want to fuck you so badly right no-“ Hadrian gasped as she suddenly raised herself up and adjusted his member, the abrupt embrace of her womanhood so overpowering that he thrust upwards in reflex. Eyarra moaned, and Hadrian felt her clench so tightly it was like her entire body was shrinking. He’d wanted to start slowly, but she took the reins again, and was more than ready for him. She started bouncing rapidly, practically drooling on his chest as her mouth hung open in an expression of sheer ecstasy.

“I… ah, always knew the Lord would feel good…” Eyarra said in a half-scream as she tried to maintain control of her voice. As the minutes wore on her pace never shifted, maintaining that steady and rapid motion that kept the pleasure growing for both of them. She rose and descended so fast Hadrian couldn’t feel each thrust, all he knew was that between the friction and the Kitsune’s unnatural heat it felt like his dick was starting to melt into the pressure. Despite the fact that only moments earlier he’d had what may very well have been his first orgasm, Hadrian was already experiencing a rapid climb in pleasure.

Eyarra didn’t seem to be taking any kind of slow build-up with him either. Her tongue was barely staying in her mouth as she leaned forward to clasp both of his hands, thrusting them onto her firm boobs and squeezing to make sure he got the point. Hadrian surprised her by leaning forward, letting her focus on the bouncing as he took both breasts into his mouth one after the other, licking and sucking at her nipples until she screamed with joy.

“I-it’s been too long, gonna cum, gonna-“

The warning meant for Hadrian was cut short as Eyarra burst into a high-pitched scream that surely carried through most if not all of the castle, no matter its size, as she clenched down on him in a rhythmic manner. Being milked in such a way, feeling almost unnatural in its euphoria, Hadrian was pushed past the edge as he jerked forward and further into Eyarra’s depths. His mouth left her compact tits as he let out a quiet moan, his hips jerking erratically as he poured every ounce of himself into her. There was a shocking amount for it being his second in less than an hour, and white cream began to slowly leak from her as his orgasm started to subside.

She collapsed against him, driving them both to the bed with her breasts pressing firmly into the side of his face. They were both quite covered in sweat, not to mention the bodily fluids coating their lower halves, but despite her rapid gasps and the fact that no other part of her moved, each of Eyarra’s tails continued to caress both of their bodies in very sensual but non-erotic ways. With her on top of him it was mostly his face and legs that got the attention, but they didn’t neglect his sides either, nor any part of her back.

Hadrian had expected her to rise eventually, but she seemed perfectly content to lay with him, holding him close and tight. Despite both orgasms, he had yet to subside, and his rod remained firmly embedded within the Kitsune. Judging by how she occasionally shifted slightly to move him around inside of her, she was both aware of this and completely fine with it.

“That’s… a hell of a welcoming party for a man who has no idea where he’s even being welcomed to,” Hadrian joked, not sure what else to say after a sudden encounter like that.

“Party? Oh, heavens, this is just how we say hello around here,” she said, with a smile that Hadrian couldn’t even begin to read as to whether she was joking or not. “The party doesn’t start until you meet the Council. Then we can have some real fun with you. Until then, let’s just enjoy the time we have together. Now, I’m feeling ready for round two, how about you?”

There was a good chance things were going to get very complicated for Hadrian in the near future. Finding himself without memory, in a world he may or may not have existed in at some point in the past (and probably didn’t, considering he was apparently expected to arrive - not return - at an unspecified point) couldn’t possibly come without complications. Then again, if the rest of the people here acted even remotely like the Kitsune, he was likely to have a lot of encounters like this in the future too.

Hadrian decided he was both aware of this, and completely fine with it.