“Dandee, did you hear about last night? At The Bare Hare?”

I frowned, whiskers twitching. “No?”

Lola stepped up close, hiding her mouth behind her paw. “A hym walked in and started chatting up the barmaid.”

“What? No,” I said.

Nodding, her ears flopped forward. “Someone told her, ‘Hyms should stick to other hyms,’ so she said something like, ‘I’m not a hym, I’m a her.’ Then someone else was like, ‘You know that’s a lagohym?’ so she said, ‘He’s so cute, I don’t care.’ So someone else asked her what she wanted, and she said, ‘I want to fork a cute bunny.’”

Whiskers twitching again, I asked, “Fork? What’s that mean?”

Lola shrugged. “I guess it’s like spooning?”

“Well, what happened next?”

“She had a drink, then got upset no one wanted to talk to her and left. At least she was good enough to not call the guards or get in a fight,” Lola said, ending in a sigh. “Hyms, I swear they—”

I couldn’t stop myself and said, “You mean hers?”

Lola tried to look mad, but laughed in the end, stroking her ear. “Watch out for her. Apparently, she practices magic just out the south gate and I know you go picking flowers there.”

“Magic?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement.

“She bought a bunch of mana potions from the shop Kisa works at, so she told me about it.”

Lola gossiped some more, but all I could think of was the woman, a tiny, tiny flame of hope lit. So, after saying goodbye to Lola, I immediately set off for the south gate.

It didn’t take long to find her. I knew the area well, knew all the things that weren’t quite right, and the scorch marks on tree trunks were a good sign I was going the right way. So I went into the hilly forest and found her.

She certainly looked like a hym, her hands and face free of fur, no unusual ears poking through her hair, and her clothes weren’t puffed up by fur or a tail or anything like that. Her skin was a bit of an odd colour, sort of like breadcrusts. Not quite the same as the paler hyms who worked in the sun and lighter than the hyms with dark skin. I thought she was maybe the child of a pale and a dark hym, not common, but not unheard of. Her hair was fairly long, but braided and hanging over one shoulder, while her clothes looked simple and cheap, the kind hymoids usually wore over their fur for “modesty”.

I didn’t come see her to see her, though.

She opened up a cloth satchel and took out a glass phial, the inside a glittering blue, then popped off the cork and downed it. I heard potions tasted horrible, but she didn’t even flinch. And once she finished it, a glow surrounded her, sparkling for just a moment before it faded.

Then she bent over and threw up.

I stared, too surprised to look away, as the bright blue vomit made a puddle in front of her. She retched a little more even after nothing came up, then finished by spitting a few times and it was like she was trying to scrape the taste off her tongue, sticking it out and pulling it back in, constantly opening and closing her mouth. It would’ve been funny if not for, well—the sight of blue puke was fresh in my mind.

After all that, she put the empty phial back in her satchel, then turned to face a tree. Not just any tree, it was the largest one around, maybe in the whole forest, and it had countless marks and grooves on it, bark stripped.

“Let’s try this again,” she muttered, my long ears picking it up.

She rolled her shoulders, held out her hands, took a deep breath, then I felt the wind suddenly billow, sucked towards her, and it was hard to see, but bits of dust swirled in front of her, loosely making a ball. It grew and grew, bigger than her head, then she clapped her hands together and it squashed into a circle before launching forwards, so quick I only saw the tree shake and some bits of bark fall to floor, this heavy thud a beat after.

And I watched as she did that over and over, then drank another mana potion and threw up again, then went back to doing that spell, over and over and over.

Eventually, I realised she only started “attacking” this tree today. And then I realised she was getting better every time, the “wind blade” starting to cut deeper, thinner, wider. She could do it more times before drinking another potion too.

So I waited, watched and waited, until the sun started to set and she finally stopped.

“Excuse me,” I said.

Instantly, she tensed up, turned to me, her hands up and a sudden breeze blew from behind me. Panicking, I held up my hands, heart pounding.

“P-please,” I managed to say.

She kept it up for another second, then lowered her hands. I let out a shuddery breath, but my heart was beating so painfully fast, I had to sit down, stroking my ear, focused on taking deep breaths in and out.

I was aware she was walking over, but I knew that, if she wanted to kill me, there wasn’t anything I could do. So I focused on keeping my body from killing itself.

“Are you okay?” she softly asked.

“I just… need to calm down,” I whispered.

She sat in front of me and said nothing else, just waited. Waited for me. After a minute, I felt settled, maybe going on a bit longer so I could think about what I wanted to tell her.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

I nodded. “You’re not… used to hymoids, are you?”

“What’s a hymoid?” she asked.

I smiled, maybe would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so tense. “People like me, part animal.”

Her hand came over and touched my knee. “I want to be used to people like you.”

That time, I did laugh softly—this was definitely the person who caused a fuss at The Bare Hare. “Really?” I asked.

“Really,” she said, her voice deeper, richer, reaching into the part of my mind that was desperate.

But I pushed those instincts away—at least for now. “If you save my sister, I’ll let you do whatever you want with me.”

Her eyes widened and the hand on my knee squeezed, kind of ticklish. “Really?” she said, but that “deep” voice of hers came out more like a squeak this time.

I tried not to laugh, nodding since I didn’t trust myself to speak.

A couple of seconds passed in silence, then she took back her hand and softly asked, “What happened?”

I looked down, fidgety paws scrunching up my dress. “It’s all my fault. I wanted her to get an education, like our parents did for me, but it’s not easy getting that much money. I told her I’d manage, but she… someone offered her a loan, then she was dragged into a brothel to pay it off.” Pausing there, I let out a sob. “I even offered to swap with her, but the owner—she’s younger, so she’s worth more. She’s only sixteen! Still a child, and I…. I can’t do anything. I’m trying to save money, but, even if I do, I don’t think they’ll give her back to me, but it’s all I can do.”

Crying by the end, I couldn’t see her face, couldn’t see if she had any shred of hymanity, but I begged the gods, even though they’d ignored my prayers so far, I begged them.

“Please,” I said, my voice cracking this time.

And then I was being hugged, held, cradled, and I couldn’t stop the tears as I dared to feel that I could hope. She gently rubbed my back with one hand, and the other came up, stroking my ear. I melted, thinking she was trying to comfort me, let her comfort me.

For the first time since my parents died two years ago, I wasn’t alone.

“I’ll sort it out,” she whispered, her voice so soft, so gentle.

“I-I talked to so many people, and they told me how sad it is, but that, even if this shop closes, another one will just open up. And I can’t go to the courts. They won’t do anything, or just arrest her for prostitution….”

She squeezed me tight, like she was drying a sponge, getting the last of my tears out. “I’ll sort it out. Just tell me what I need to know.”

So I did, answering her questions about where and who and anything else I could think of that might have helped her.

But her last question nearly set me off again: “What’s your name?”

Hyms didn’t care about hymoids’ names, not unless they were employing one—and even then, it was fairly common for hyms to just give their hymoid employees new names. “Dandee,” I whispered, “short for dandelion. I know my furs not white now, but I was… my mama told me I was just the cutest little ball of white fluff when I was a baby.”

“That’s a beautiful name, and a beautiful story,” she said, her hand still idly stroking my ear… not that I minded.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Siya.”

“A beautiful name,” I whispered.

We went our separate ways. If she needed anything, she knew where to find me. Honestly, once I got home, I wondered if I’d hallucinated the whole thing, if it was a dream, if I was dead. Any of those made more sense than what happened.

As tired as I was, I didn’t sleep, couldn’t even if I’d tried.

The hour grew ever later, soon even the pubs closing up, drunks wandering for a bit before there was the closest thing to silence in a city. So late, it wouldn’t be long until the early workers woke up.

A gentle knock rang out.

I tried to run, but really just fell, barely catching myself every step, scrambling to the door. Not caring who was there, willing to die than see my sister a second later, I swung open the door, asking, “Daisy?”

“Dandee.”

My little sister.

I drew her into a hug, so tight I heard her gasp. Mind blank, I kissed her endlessly, all over the top of her little head, and I felt her nuzzle me, nose touching the fur of my bare shoulder. When I was finally sure she was real, I pulled back enough so we could touch noses, our whiskers touching—

They cut her whiskers?

“Daisy,” I whispered, pained, holding her close again and crying, finding the tears Siya hadn’t squeezed out of me.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she mumbled, but she wasn’t fooling me.

I closed the door and led her to the kitchen where I clumsily made her ginger tea—her favourite treat. Once I watched her drink it all, I let out the breath I’d held for a week. That was when I realised something.

“Where’s Siya?” I asked.

“Is she… the one who saved me?” Daisy asked. I nodded. “She said she’s going to hide for a couple of days, then leave.”

The next day, I heard that a “massage parlour” had burned down in the night. No one came for Daisy either, so, whether or not anyone noticed, there were a few disappearances too.

But one person hadn’t disappeared. I knocked on her door, heard her say, “Who is it?”

“Dandee.”

After a long few seconds, Siya opened the door. “Something wrong?”

I took a deep breath, then looked up at her and asked, “Can I come in?”

She hesitated, but let me. Making herself comfortable, she went to sit on the end of her bed and I noticed her walk with a bit of a limp, heart tensing. “So, what is it?” she said.

I held my chin up and strode over to her, finger toying with the top button of my cardigan. “Your reward.”

She froze, eyes wide, then looked away, scratching the back of her head. “That’s, um, you know, we’re both women—isn’t that weird?”

“It’s weirder that you’re a hym, but I don’t mind. We’re pretty much the same down there, so I, I think I can make you feel good.” As I spoke, I put my hand on her knee, gently rubbing it, then started sliding it up the inside of her thigh.

“W-wait!”

I stopped, frowning in confusion.

“It’s, just, I—I don’t want to be like… the person who kidnapped your sister. So you don’t have to do anything for me. I mean, I might have taken some money that he doesn’t need any more, so that’s—that’s my payment.”

I thought over what she said. “Then, I’m free to do what I want?”

“Yes! Exactly, yes,” she said, nodding.

I smiled and turned around and walked to the door… and put down the latch so we wouldn’t be disturbed.

“Haha, Dandee? What’re you doing?”

Smiling, I walked back over. “I’m doing who I want.”

She tensed up again and, well, my head fell, losing my confidence.

“Do you… really not want me?” I asked, looking up at her through my long eyelashes.

“Yes—I mean, no—I mean, you’re beautiful, but—”

I undid the top button of my cardigan, watched her eyes widen in a different way. “Can I bed you?” I asked, a whisper thick with my repressed desires.

She let out this cute gasp, then nodded, a dumb look on her face.

I pounced, pushing her onto her back and straddling her, leaning down for a kiss. But her nose was too high, so I soon moved my nose down to her lips. Gods, she felt good, my nose twitching like mad, loving how her soft lips felt.

After a bit, I realised my hips were moving on their own, grinding against her. Not wanting to ruin my clothes, I stood up again to undress. Once I did, I saw her looking at me, but quite low down.

Understanding her curiosity, my hands went down to brush my nipples, just above my waist. “Most high-hymoids have four teats,” I said.

“Do they… feel good?” she asked, her voice so soft and precious.

“Mm, they do,” I said, pinching two as I did.

Only one of us naked, I fixed that, pulling her shirt over her head and skirt and knickers off, but she undid her brassiere herself—I had no idea how those hym things worked.

It was my first time seeing a hym naked. I’d heard lots of things, mostly how, without any fur, they looked like babies, how they felt cold to touch, how they felt leathery.

But she was beautiful. Even without fur, she looked so soft, so warm. And she didn’t have teats, she had breasts—I had to touch them and they were soft, felt so good to massage, not too big, but enough. She moaned, shivered, and I quickly noticed she liked when I brushed her nipples with the fur on the back of my paw, squirming.

While I did that, I gently grinded against her thigh, my little rabbit feeling so hot, so wet, and that only turned me on more, thinking about how I was coating her in my scent. But that made me think of her place, soon aching to know her scent, her taste.

“Can I lick you?” I asked.

She looked confused, so I shuffled down a bit and pointed—and she nodded. Eagerly.

My curiosity too much, I had to ask her, “What do you call it?”

She hesitated, then said, “Yoni.”

“Yoni? Mm, it fits, just as pretty,” I said, touching her lips there with the furless front of my finger.

She shivered and I saw her opening clench for a moment. Smiling, I played a little more, watching it “wink” at me, a bit of her essence dribbling out. I scooped it up and licked it off, my turn to shiver at the musky taste. Indescribable, but it tasted the same as squeezing her breasts felt or hearing her moan, this intensely erotic taste.

Too much to resist, I went to drink from the source, my little tongue darting out to lap at her opening. And it was like she wanted me too, clenching tight and forcing more of her essence out.

“Dandee,” she said, a deep and desperate moan.

I kept lapping, my fingers rubbing my own little rabbit, the fur around them slick with my own essence. Her hand came down too, lightly patting at the top of her yoni. Curious, I paused to look and saw something there, so I brought up my nose to touch it. Instantly, she bucked, gasping, my nose painfully pushed back.

“S-sorry,” she said.

Looking up at her, I smiled and asked, “It feels good?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “But I’m… very sensitive, so… gentle.”

I understood and, as gently as I could, nuzzled that nub. But I didn’t even have to touch her, blowing out my nose enough to make her moan and writhe. It was… incredible, so incredible. For every insult, every slur against my people, there was a hym under me who couldn’t lie still even if I didn’t touch her.

But I didn’t feel any kind of hatred for her, instead felt… freed. As different as we were, we were bonded in our feelings this moment.

Driven by that, I let the tip of my tongue tease her opening, nuzzling her nub, brushing the inside of her thigh with the furry back of my paw, rocking back and forth against her shin, while she gently rolled my ear between her fingers, other hand stroking the top of my head with her fingertips, moved her leg back and forth against my little rabbit.

Giving each other everything, I felt her tense under me, her yoni pulsing, and my little rabbit did the same, the tension in my gut finally releasing.

We worked through our orgasms, gentler, but still going, and we kept going and going, not always in sync, yet the times we were were so intense that I felt my heart almost give. I didn’t stop, though, thinking of no better way to die.

However, we soon slowed, getting slower and slower, until I finally crawled up to her and kissed her again, lying with our bodies pressed together. I still gently rubbed my little rabbit against her, smearing my scent just above her waist. That wasn’t enough to get me off, though, just keeping me in the warm, comfy haze. Eventually, I didn’t have the energy for that.

My heart still hadn’t slowed, but she kept playing with my ears, so I thought that this was as slow as my heart could beat when like this with her.

As nice as it would have been to sleep like that, she helped me up and said something about a bladder infection, then took us through to use the toilet, cleaning up while we were there. It was nice being intimate with a witch, the water from her spell warm, and she dried me with a hot breeze afterwards.

Back on the bed, I fell in and out of sleep for a while. Maybe she slept, maybe she didn’t, but she held me close, feeling so warm and soft, nothing like the rumours.

Once I had some energy back, I sat her up and kissed her some more. She kissed me back for a bit, then pulled me into a hug and whispered, “Thank you, that was amazing.”

“It was amazing for me too,” I whispered back, whiskers twitching.

We held each other for a bit, then just sat together; I idly stroked her hand and she idly rubbed my ear. And as we sat, we talked. Well, mostly I talked, telling her things the hyms didn’t know.

“I’m not sure how true this is, but my mother and my friend told me similar things. We—lagohyms, I mean—we do have these… instincts to… bed people, to touch ourselves. We’re taught this is bad and evil, but we’re taught this by schools, schools run by hyms.

“And long ago, before they ‘civilised’ my people, we weren’t so… horny. Instead, when we were in our teens, it was normal for us to have partners. Not for bedding, but kissing and cuddling. We, we like physical affection, so doing that is… important.

“We change partners too. We see… who we can bond with. Then, when we go into our twenties, and we’re ready to mate, we make a burrow with the people we bonded with, and the people they bonded with. So it’s… maybe two men and two women, or maybe more of one or more of both.

“And something important, I think, our litters can have different fathers. If the gods don’t want us to be with different men, why would they do this? And our litters, apparently the first mother usually had four kittens, the second three, and any others two or one. Not always, but it was—my mother and friend both told me this was common. But now, we only have one or two at a time, and most mothers only have one litter. My mother said, before my sister was born, she was going crazy, feeling like she was in heat, her heart ready to give out.”

I paused there, awkwardly smiling.

“It was, um, she told me so, if the same thing happened to me, I knew to have another litter. We were close, but talking about how horny we felt… wasn’t something we did.”

She hugged me, stroking the back of my head. “You miss her?”

“Mm, a lot,” I whispered, blinking away the tears.

After that, she told me about herself. “I guess I grew up around only hyms, and I guess they said the same stuff. A girl must marry a boy and have babies, but she can’t enjoy sex. What’s funny is there were so many stories of gods with more than one wife, or husband, and there were even old kings who had a dozen wives.

“I actually really liked those kings. Not, I mean, the other girls thought it was disgusting, but I thought it would be nice to live with a bunch of other girls, sort of like sisters. Then I got older, and I realised I didn’t really want to be one of the girls, I wanted to be the king. But I wanted them to be happy, and I knew how much I’d hate it if someone just… made me their wife.

“And then I started thinking about the gods again, and they were sometimes animals or part-animals. So I came up with my own… part-animal people, and they weren’t like hyms, they didn’t care if I already had a wife, as long as I treated them all well.”

She paused there and giggled.

“I put my story online and, next thing I knew, here I was.”

Half of what she said didn’t make sense to me, but I understood enough to know… she wasn’t like other hyms. She wasn’t treating me well because she saw herself as better, wasn’t pretending to be nice to get me to drop my guard.

That made up my mind. The bond I felt between us, an almost tangible feeling, was what I wanted to treasure and protect.

“My sister said you’re leaving soon,” I whispered.

“Mm. Don’t want to hang around after… you know. The courts might decide to do something for once since it was hyms that died. But I promise, no one’s coming for your sister.”

Smiling, I squeezed her hand. “She needs time to heal her body and mind, so we’re going to go to our aunt’s. When my parents passed, she offered to take us in, but I…. Here, she could finish her education, and there’s so many lagohyms, I thought it would be easier for us to settle down.”

“It’s okay, none of this was your fault,” she said, stroking my head.

I scrunched up my eyes, but nodded. After a second to settle myself, I said, “You could come with us.”

“I can’t.”

“If you don’t, I’ll become so depressed after losing my first lover that I’ll die,” I said, speaking confidently despite lying because, well, it wasn’t impossible.

She tensed up and her voice squeaked again as she said, “You will?”

I giggled and leant over, rubbing against her cheek. “No, but, if you care about me that much, you might as well come with us.”

A few seconds passing without an answer, I huffed.

“And I really enjoyed what we did, so you can expect a lot more of that.”

I struggled not to laugh when she hastily said, “Okay.”

What a queer witch I’d fallen for.