After they ate, Fenrir went back out to the courtyard where he found Nelith just finishing up gathering together all the items needed for the oni's gift. Sending her and her assistants inside for their own meal, he picked up the rge package and carried it across the courtyard to where the oni had set up their own camp. They had built a rge bonfire in the center of their camp with several smaller cooking fires spread around it. Tents were few and far between, most seeming to prefer a simple fur bedroll under the open sky.

  He found the rge bull with whom he had spoken earlier without issue. Upon seeing his approach, the oni moved to meet him. "Honor to you," he said, pcing a closed fist over his heart. "Is this the gift?"

  "Yes," Fenrir replied, handing it over. The oni almost staggered at its unexpected weight, but Fenrir diplomatically pretended not to notice. "I also wished to suggest that you keep that upstart bull confined to your camp. Once he awakes he will want revenge, unless I miss my guess."

  "Oni abide by the accords we strike," the bull said proudly. "Vashedin will not be allowed to shame the rest of us further by again breaking the agreement that was made with you."

  "Good. By the way, are you the new raid chief?"

  "Yes. My name is Sataareth kor-Aqun."

  "Fenrir," the direwolf stated, indicating himself. "A word of warning, I may not be here when you return. However, you may deal with my followers as you would with me. I will return here when my business elsewhere is done."

  "Very well." As Fenrir seemed about to leave, the oni raised a hand to stop him. "There is a matter regarding which I would like to speak with you. We have brought the yeti you killed with us, but they are by right yours. Do you wish us to leave them here?"

  Fenrir considered for a moment. 'I don't actually have any use for them at the moment, but the fact that the oni took the trouble to carry the yeti corpses with them indicates that there's something valuable about them.' Speaking aloud, he told Sataareth, "Leave one, but the other you may do with as you wish."

  "Very well," the oni said. "Fight well." And with that they parted, Fenrir heading back inside the castle while Sataareth went back to the oni camp.

  The oni left before daybreak the next morning. True to his word, Sataareth did not permit Vashedin to bother any of Fenrir's party while they remained. After breakfast, Safara took over the restoration efforts of the old library, and while neither Yumiko nor Koreen looked too happy about taking orders from the elf, they resigned themselves to it at Fenrir's bidding. Nelith took the rest of the succubi and began the considerable endeavor of repurposing several of the rooms near the kitchens to serve as storage for the supplies currently lying in the courtyard. Fenrir himself determined to search for a method of disguising himself while in human civilization. To that end, he directed his steps towards the ruined library tower and Safara.

  Exiting the kitchens, he saw Aimi rubbing her stomach, a half-curious, half-concerned look on her face. "Oh, hi, Master," she said, seeing him.

  "What's the matter?" the wolf asked, pausing beside her.

  "Oh, it's probably nothing. It's just that I could swear my stomach is bigger this morning than it was st night. And just now it kinda felt like something moved in it," she shrugged.

  "That sure didn't take long," Fenrir murmured, speaking half to himself.

  "What didn't- Wait, do you know what's going on with me?"

  "I don't know, but I'm reasonably certain. Aimi, I believe you are pregnant. Congratutions." Fenrir watched with amusement as Aimi's face went from curious, to confused, to incredulous, to uncertain as she considered his words.

  "But succubi can't get pregnant! ...Right? I mean, there are legends, but... No, there's no way. I've been creampied hundreds, maybe thousands of times and I've never gotten pregnant before." She shook her head decidedly.

  "But you've never been creampied by me before, have you?" Fenrir grinned. "I will admit, I am surprised by how quickly it's beginning to show." Internally, he soliloquized, 'I guess slimes are a very simple organism, so it would make sense that they'd develop much faster than a vertebrate. No doubt the Breeding Add-on I chose is contributing as well.'

  He returned his attention to the conversation just in time to hear Aimi say, "Wow. I, uhh, I'm ...not sure how to feel about that."

  "Well, don't get too excited. I'm fairly certain the young you are carrying are slimes, so don't start looking forward to popping out baby succubi. Wait, is that even a thing?"

  "Baby succubi? Well yeah, can you imagine trying to birth a full-grown one? They grow fast though, like, super fast. Like less than a year fast."

  "Mentally as well?"

  "Yep." There was a moment of silence as Aimi caressed her belly, peering down at it with wide eyes. "Pregnant, huh?" she murmured softly. Then she jerked slightly as Nelith called her name from inside a nearby room. "Whoops, gotta run, Master!" And she hurried off to assist with the work, though not without a st awe-filled gnce downwards.

  For his part, Fenrir continued towards the library tower, considering the other succubi he had possibly impregnated. The thought of ciming them in so final a sense deeply appealed to him on a primal level, but he knew that it would be unwise to go overboard with it. They were, after all, his only servants as of yet and to have them all weighed down with his children would severely curtail their usefulness to him. There was nothing he could do about the ones already pregnant, of course. 'Let's see, there's Yumiko, no idea what her child, or more likely, children will be, Aimi is pregnant with slimes, Lilli will have succubus children, and Kira, well, no idea about her either. Something like me, maybe? In any case, it'll be interesting to see what the 'default' is.'

  Reaching the library, he found the girls already hard at work, Yumiko and Koreen retrieving books while Safara did her best to restore them to readable condition by both magical and mundane means. She had drawn a circle on the floor in what appeared to be some kind of chalk with strange runes inscribed thickly along the edge of the circle, connected by lines which swooped in strange patterns across the whole of the circle. Setting a half-ruined book in the center, she would pce her hand upon one of the rger runes and concentrate fiercely for a moment. As the circle lit up with magical light, the book would rise off the ground, vibrating slightly. With a fsh, an identical book would appear beside it and both would settle back to earth. Pcing the original safely to one side, Safara would take the copy and meticulously examine the ruined pages, using careful application of magic to force the ink to coalesce more closely together on the page. The result was thinner but clearer lines of ink, making what had originally been written slightly easier to decipher. If there seemed to be hope that the book could be deciphered, it would be pced to one side together with its original, otherwise, both were regretfully relegated to a quickly growing trash pile near the door.

  Many books were too far gone to be saved and others were missing pages, but some were nearly pristine, having been protected from the elements by fallen bookcases or other debris. Nevertheless, it was a painstaking process, but Safara did not seem to mind, turning to respond to his greeting with an excited smile on her face. "Do you know what this is?" she asked, waving a book in the air. "It's the original rune index written by Archmagus Canrias! All the copies were thought to have been lost centuries ago. And this!" she continued, picking up another book which seemed more charcoal than paper. "I'm pretty sure this is one of the treatises written on the Celestial pne, back before it was closed to mortals in the War at the Dawn of Time!"

  "She's happier than a dwarf in a gold mine right now," Koreen remarked wryly to Yumiko, tossing a ruined book onto the pile of rejects.

  "I have no idea what she's talking about, but it sounds important. Hopefully it turns out to be actually useful to Master," her companion replied, dusting off a particurly rge tome.

  Fenrir walked to where the magic circle was drawn onto the ground. "What's this?" he asked Safara, examining it closely.

  "It's a duplication rune circle. Have you never seen one before?"

  "No, magic is ...less common where I come from. Can you duplicate anything?"

  Safara shook her head. "No, the more complex the object or rare its components, the more difficult and expensive it becomes. The cost scales exponentially, so a simple wooden medallion would be easy, but carve an intricate pattern into it and it would become many times more difficult to replicate and would require much, much more mana. These books are difficult enough, and they're only composed of paper and ink. We found several enchanted books, and those are too much for me, even though their enchantments have faded almost to nothing."

  "What about, say, a single coin?" Fenrir asked, his interest piqued.

  Safara shrugged. "I could, but if it were made of a valuable metal such as gold or silver it would be far more effort than it was worth. For the same amount of effort I could earn many more coins in almost any mundane occupation. Almost every new mage thinks the duplication circle much more useful than it really is until they actually try to use it."

  'Course it wouldn't be that easy,' Fenrir thought. He looked back at the magic circle, noting its almost absurd complexity. "You drew this yourself, I assume," he half-stated, half-questioned.

  Safara tried not to look too pleased with herself as she replied, "Yes, by memory."

  This garnered her a raised eyebrow. "Impressive. There are other types of magic circles, yes?" At her nod, he continued, "Are all this complex?"

  "It depends. Most are even more complex. Higher level rune circles can require multi-ring circles and even multiple foci. At that point it's impossible for all but the most powerful mages to energize alone just because of the mana cost, never mind the split focus required. There are simpler rune circles, but one can only perform the most basic spells with them."

  Fenrir nodded thoughtfully. "Are there any which would allow for disguising myself in any way?"

  "I'm... not sure," Safara said slowly. "Theoretically, I think it might be possible. I'd have to go through my books on runework to know for sure."

  "Make that a priority. I'd like to know just what I'm dealing with, wide-scale, and I'm not going to figure that out sitting around here."

  "As you say, E'nas." Safara bowed slightly, then turning to the rune circle, she carefully erased one of the runes, and taking several books from the stacks beside it, left the room.

  Fenrir watched her go, a quizzical expression on his face, then he turned to the two succubi. "Any idea what E'nas means?"

  They both shook their heads, looking as confused as himself.

  "Ah well. Not that important, anyway. Keep up the good work," he told them, and left the room himself.

  On his way back to the courtyard, he saw Katari standing by a window, looking out at the forest rather dejectedly. As he watched, she sighed, one hand absentmindedly rising to brush a lock of hair from her face. "Foolish girl," he heard her mumble to herself. "What's done is done. There is no point in dwelling on my mistakes."

  "Good advice," the direwolf said, eliciting a start of surprise as he stepped up beside her. "Do you think you'll actually follow it?"

  Katari immediately bowed deeply to him. "My lord. How might I serve you?"

  "Well, to begin with, you can stop being so formal. I'm not interested in having my servants grovel whenever I approach them."

  She straightened. "As you wish, my lord."

  A moment of silence followed as Fenrir's eyes searched the small oni's face, and she tried not to fidget under his gaze.

  "Best to nip this in the bud. Katari, why exactly do you feel guilty?"

  She looked up at him with startled eyes. "How do you know my name?" she almost whispered.

  Fenrir shrugged. "I know much that is hidden to others," he said lightly. "But you did not answer my question."

  Still eyeing him with trepidation, she replied, "You said it yourself st night. I failed my cn-mates, and now I must live with the shame of that failure."

  "But how did you fail them? Do you consider it shameful to have been defeated by me?"

  "No. You are a mighty warrior. There is no shame in defeat at your hands."

  "Then...?"

  "I should not have challenged you to a duel to begin with. I allowed my anger at Vashedin to cloud my judgement, and I paid the price for my foolishness." The floodgates now opened, she continued speaking in a tone of pent emotion, encouraged by Fenrir's quiet attention. "If I only thought the situation through and didn't let his insults get to me, I could have negotiated a goodly portion of the humans' loot just for the release of your succubus, possibly even more for not attacking you and yours, and in doing so I could have finally earned the respect of the cn. But I proved myself still just a foolish little girl by letting my emotions cloud my judgement. Again," she ended bitterly, looking away.

  "From what I saw you already have the respect of your cn. You were chosen as the leader of the raiding party, were you not, White Tigress?"

  Katari winced at the title. "Please do not call me that," she said quietly.

  Fenrir cocked his head in a silent question.

  "They did not name me so for my fighting ability," she expined, her voice low in shame. "Look." Quickly she stripped off her armor, leaving her in only a chest wrap and simple white panties.

  Fenrir eyed her curves appreciatively. She was clearly fit, but her toned muscles only added to the feminine charms of her figure. Her scarlet skin stood in sharp and pleasing contrast to her snowy white hair, but he did not see the point she was trying to make.

  Seeing his confusion, she expined, "I am the white tigress because of these." Tracing one of the many scars that littered her body, she said in a thoroughly humiliated tone, "A bull once made a joke about how my scars are thicker than a tiger's stripes, and the name stuck."

  'Now that I think about it, she does have far more scars than you'd expect, even on a veteran soldier. How did she get so many? Or rather, how did she sustain so many wounds without dying? It's not like she's a poor fighter, far from it. She very nearly kicked my ass yesterday,' Fenrir mused internally. Aloud he said, "It might have begun that way, but you heard the bull yesterday. Just the fact that I defeated you seemed proof enough to him that I was a mighty warrior. And I very much doubt that a ughingstock would be suffered to lead so many, especially considering how prideful oni seem to be."

  Katari didn't reply, but her expression seemed to clear slightly. Deciding to give her some time to think that over, he turned to leave, saying over his shoulder, "Meet me in the courtyard after lunch."

  "Yes, my lord," she answered, and as he walked onwards, Fenrir reflected that the companions he was gathering about himself were quite the strange crew.

  TheBestofSome