20

  After breakfast on their second day at sea, Sabina, Dalibor, and Edric lounged again at the rail of the ship, staring out at the sea as they chatted idly with each other. Simend finally joined them after an hour or so, still somewhat bleary as if he had not slept much. "I'd ask if the lot of you had a good night," he said, "but it couldn't have been nearly as good as mine."

  "We don't want to hear about it," Dalibor said.

  "But I want to tell you about his tattoos!" Simend whined. "What good is knowing something juicy if you can't brag about it?"

  "Keep it to yourself, Sim," Edric said. "It's not just the two of us now."

  Sabina bit her tongue. She was immensely curious about Marcos's tattoos, but she knew better than to give Simend an inch. She'd taken time to surreptitiously inspect the bull's tattoos the few times he'd been on deck over the past two days, but there was only so much she could see without openly ogling the creature. Marcos kept the fur over his tattoos carefully shaved in the same geometric patterns as the black ink itself, giving his short fur a fabulously textured look. She couldn't imagine how much work it took to keep them as sharp as they were. Of course, Simend knew now, but she suspected she couldn't ask him without getting a detailed description of any other activities the two of them had gotten up to.

  Simend began to say something, but his amber eyes grew wide. "Oh no," he whispered, grabbing his tail. "It's happening again. What is wrong with me?"

  Sabina followed his gaze to find that, as before, it was the naked Volusa causing him to panic. Just like the day before, the dancer strode to the middle of the deck and began to stretch, Marcos following close behind her. Sabina tapped the ship's rail, her brow furrowed. Volusa knew all of the Sanguine Song's dances. It would probably be to her benefit to pay closer attention, especially given how highly Simend seemed to think of Volusa's abilities. Sabina left the others and approached Marcos. "Excuse me," she asked him. "Is it alright if I watch?"

  "I wouldn't do this in the middle of the deck if I cared about people watching me, Sara," Volusa said from where she was bent over in a stretch, her tail lifted and showing off everything. Sabina focused on Marcos.

  "Just stay by me," Marcos said. "We're out of the way here."

  So Sabina did, but watching proved to be less helpful than she'd hoped. The Sanguine Song called their training routines dances. There were eight in total, and Sabina knew only the first two. She managed to partially follow Volusa's movements while she was performing the two dances that the princess knew, but the lioness was so quick, so fluid, so perfect, that it was nearly impossible to identify where one pose ended and the next began. Then the lioness moved into dances that Sabina had not yet learned, and it felt more like watching a dance performance than martial training. A masterful dance performance at that. She understood now how Simend had gotten stuck the day before. What else could you say?

  Simend joined them after the dances were complete. "As one Sanguine dancer to another?" he told Volusa, still clutching his tail. "That was very impressive. I thought I was the best dancer I'd ever met, but you absolutely live up to your legend."

  "Thank you," Volusa said. She gestured at his Astral arm. "But you have your own tricks that I could never match."

  Simend flexed his platinum-laced fingers. "That's fair," he said. "But if you're ever up for it, I'd be thrilled to dance with you."

  Volusa smirked at him. "A full Sanguine dance?" she asked.

  Simend smirked back. "Is there any other way?" he asked.

  Sabina's cheeks burned, but, even knowing they were both going to be naked, she still could not stop herself from asking, "Can you teach me as well?" Both dancers looked at her, and her blush grew deeper. These were two of the best dancers in the entire Ring. She would not have another chance like this. "I was taught the basic arts of the Sanguine Song back in New Rome, but I would like to learn more. If you'd teach me."

  To her dismay, they accepted. Nothing about watching the two of them prance about the deck entirely naked sounded appealing to her. She'd more or less gotten used to seeing Volusa, but she didn't want to have to watch Simend flopping around everywhere while he danced.

  She joined them the next morning and did her best not to crawl out of her skin. Both veteran dancers stripped down to nothing and began their stretches, chatting idly about people Sabina had never heard of. Old dancer acquaintances, she gathered, or perhaps instructors. It would not have been out of place in any corridor of the imperial villa were not both participants without a stitch of clothing and bending in all sorts of fabulously revealing ways.

  Soon they were ready. "Just watch us for now, Sara," Volusa said. "We'll include you after we've done our own dances."

  "Sounds good," Sabina said. Anything to keep her clothes on longer.

  Volusa returned her attention to Simend. "First dance," she said. She stood tall with her right hand extended to Simend and her left placed on the small of her back. The jackal matched her pose. "Right leads. Begin."

  Sabina reluctantly allowed that she was now slightly glad she'd come. She did know the first dance, and for some reason it seemed easier to follow than when Volusa had performed it alone the day before. Both dancers performed the same strikes at the same time, but, since they were facing each other, their movements were mirrored in a way that made them look like they were dancing with each other instead of fighting. Sabina was pleased to find she was able to follow along with the dance well enough, even though she could tell by watching that both Simend and Volusa were much more adept at it than either of her instructors had been.

  They soon reached the final form of the dance and returned to their first pose. Volusa spoke again. "Second dance," she said. "Switch leads." They both hopped, switching their footing and hands to the opposite sides. "Begin."

  And again they danced. Sabina had been taught this dance, but she could not follow along the way she had to the first dance. She shook her head. She recognized maybe half of the poses. She caught Simend looking at her during one of the spins, and he seemed to notice that she was lost. When the jackal's facing returned to Volusa, he jerked his head slightly towards Sabina. The lioness's eyes flicked to Sabina before she nodded at Simend.

  Sabina wasn't certain what had passed between them until they reached the end of the dance and returned to their neutral pose. "Third dance," Volusa said. "Switch leads. Double time. Begin."

  It was then that she realized they had been exaggerating their movements for her benefit, to try and let her follow along. Because if Sabina thought she had been lost before, she had been mistaken. With the third dance, the two dancers began to truly show their mastery of their art. They were moving twice as fast as before, going through kicks and flips and spins that the princess would have thought impossible at half that speed. Several of the sailors had paused in their work to watch the dance.

  About halfway through, Volusa spoke without missing a step. "That's not part of the dance," she said.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," said Simend, still dancing.

  "Don't play this game with me, yellowbelly," Volusa said with a growl. "You won't win this fight."

  "I'm confident in my dancing," her partner replied.

  "Have it your way," said Volusa.

  When the dance was done, Volusa fixed Simend with a hungry grin. "Fourth dance. Half time. Begin."

  Simend's ears flicked when she called half time, but he said nothing. The fourth dance, moving at half the pace of the earlier dances, was difficult to watch for very different reasons. Unlike the first three dances, which were very acrobatic, the fourth dance appeared to focus on dodges and evasions, and moving at half pace meant holding the awkward angles required for much longer. And, as they got farther into the dance, Sabina realized that it also included a large amount of touching, simulating grapples and holds. Those movements at that tempo looked almost exactly like foreplay, and Sabina felt her face begin to grow warm.

  Gleb let out a high whistle, and Marcos smacked him. "You'll respect the captain's training or you'll be confined belowdecks when it happens," the officer said.

  The dance continued, and at one point, the dancers stood almost face-to-face with a hand on each other's chest. Simend was obviously fondling Volusa, but she purred and let her agile tail snake around to stroke Simend's dick. The jackal twitched and bared his teeth but said nothing. He had, after all, started this.

  The dance continued, with each taking every opportunity to get to the other. But in the end, it was impossible to tell if Simend's attempts had had any effect on Volusa. It was, however, rigidly obvious that her special attention had affected him. Simend was shaking his head when they returned to their neutral pose. Volusa smirked. "Fifth dance," she said. "Double time. Be—"

  "No," Simend interrupted, breaking his pose by putting his hands up. "You win. There's not a chance I'm going to be able to manage my bounce through a double-time fifth dance when I'm this hard. Well played."

  Volusa bowed. "Thank you," she said. She reached down to massage briefly between her legs. "You did pretty well yourself."

  Sabina watched them chat idly about various non-standard techniques the other had used during the dance. Their fur gleamed with sweat, and Simend's erection gradually faded. Sabina frowned. Always before when she'd been around Sanguine dances, she'd been far too embarrassed to even consider looking at any of the participants. But this time, she forced herself to look. To really look. Because something was bothering her.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Volusa's head was fully leonine—apart from her disturbingly human eyes—and Simend's was canine. Each was covered in a full coat of fur. Volusa's short, tawny fur covered nearly every inch of her body, from her ears and straight down between her legs and along her tail. Only her dark nipples and nose were bare. Simend was the same, though his fur was multicolored, light on his belly—almost the yellow of the lions, Sabina noted, far yellower than Dalibor's snowy white chest—and fading to dark on his back. Their hands and feet, though furred, padded, and clawed, were shaped just like hers. Indeed, other than their heads and tails, everything about them seemed to be shaped distinctly human. Even Simend's furless, brown penis.

  "I have a question," Sabina said slowly. Both dancers looked over at her. "Forgive me, but… Both of your bodies are very human in shape."

  Simend tilted his head. "Of course they are," he said. "Why wouldn't they be? What did they teach you about the other Aspects back in Italia?"

  "Aspects?" Sabina asked.

  "The beast people," Volusa explained.

  Simend scoffed. "Well that's rude," he said.

  "That's what I was taught, though," Sabina said. "That when the Star fell it corrupted the animals and made them think they were people. That they began to walk like us and talk like us with the goal of one day replacing us."

  "What?" Simend roared.

  "Sounds like what they say, yeah," Volusa confirmed.

  "You're joking, right?" Simend asked. "That's really what they taught you?"

  Sabina nodded. "Yes," she confirmed.

  Simend clapped his hands to his face and massaged his eyes. "That's immensely… It's so… I can't even…" Then he shook his head. "No. Sit with me. I'm fixing this right now."

  "Can you put your clothes back on first?" Sabina asked.

  "No," Simend said. "You want to be a Sanguine dancer, so get over it. Besides, you're the one who was staring."

  Sabina clenched her teeth, took a deep breath, and sat in front of Simend beside the mast. Volusa leaned against said mast, waving at her sailors to get back to work. Sabina glanced at her and looked quickly away. She was eye level with and distressingly close to the lioness's fuzzy crotch.

  Simend sat with his legs crossed, tapping his hands on his knees as he gathered his thoughts. Soon, he leaned forward and stared intently at Sabina. "Before the Star," he said, "in the time of the Romans, there were only Homines. There were animals about, of course, but there were no other people. Only the Homines. Then, after the Star fell, people began to change. More and more Homin children began to be born with features of one of the animals meaningful to their people, until eventually no more Homin children were born in those places. We now call ourselves Aspects of Humanity, because underneath our fur and our faces, we're all still human. Just different aspects of the same thing."

  "But…" Sabina asked. "Why didn't we change? I mean, why are the people of the Empire still human?"

  "We're all human," Simend corrected.

  Sabina grimaced. "Sorry," she apologized. "Still Homin."

  "Gods only know," Volusa said, scratching under one of her breasts. "You're worse off for it."

  "We really don't know," confirmed Simend. "Some of the scholars back in Meleko posit there's something in the earth or the water that protected you from the light of the Star. Others think that since you don't have any Astral craters, there wasn't enough influence from the Star to change you. But honestly, we don't know. Volusa's not wrong that it's not doing your Aspect any favors, though. All the other Aspects can interbreed just fine, but the Homines cannot."

  "The Homines can interbreed just fine," Volusa spat. "It's us crossbreed children that are broken."

  "Fine, yes," Simend said. "Homines can interbreed, but their Aspect never breeds true in crossbreeds. With other Aspects, children will always take the Aspect of one parent with maybe a minor trait or two from the other."

  "Like eye color," Volusa said. She tapped beside her eyes. "I didn't get these from my Kinin father, I can tell you that. Not that I ever met him."

  "Or fur colors, like me," added Simend. He patted the leonine fur of his chest then grabbed his tail. "I got my dad's tail tuft too, but my tail's already pretty fluffy so most people don't notice. But Homin crossbreeds always take the Aspect of the non-Homin parent."

  "And the sex of the Homin parent," Volusa added. "And we're always barren."

  "Barren?" Sabina asked.

  "Always, without fail, entirely barren," Volusa said.

  Sabina bit her lip. She wasn't certain she wanted to ask the question that came to her mind, but she had to know the answer. "Do you still bleed every month?"

  Volusa smiled broadly. "I do not," she said. "The Lady of Love may be heartless, but the Matron governs childbirth, and she showed mercy on me."

  "Now I want to hate you even more," Sabina grumbled.

  Simend cleared his throat and tried to get them back on topic. "Homin crossbreeds never bring forth children, whether that crossbreed be male or female. So the only way the Homines persist is by mating exclusively with other Homines. Otherwise, the Aspect will die out."

  Sabina had intended to say how horrible that was, but instead what she said was, "That actually makes my father make a lot more sense to me. All his hatred for the beast… Sorry, for the other Aspects is to try and keep the Homines alive." She sighed. "That means I need to marry a Homin, don't I?"

  "You don't have to," Volusa said. "You and Dalya can have as many adorable little puppy girls as you want." Sabina felt her blush return, and Simend chuckled. "But they will never have children of their own, and your line will die with them."

  Though she tried to be angry, Sabina let out a frustrated sigh instead. "Maybe ending my father's line wouldn't be such a bad thing," she said.

  "Oh?" Simend asked. "So you are looking forward to bringing forth some puppies for Dalibor then, are you?"

  Sabina sighed again. "It's not like that," she said. She pointedly did not add 'yet' to that sentence. She fished about for another denial to get the two other dancers off the topic. Their teasing wasn't going to do anything to soothe Dalibor's fears about being close to her, and she knew the ship was small enough that Dalibor could hear them from anywhere. She could imagine the way his fur must be bristling out even now. "Besides, he's so much older than me."

  "Not older than any husband you'd get out of the sort of political marriage your father would stick you with," Volusa said. "Besides, old is relative. Dalibor is still quite virile."

  "Enough of that," said Simend. He leapt straight up from the ground and began to stretch. "Come on. Strip down and join us. I want to see how well you know the first dance."

  Sabina grimaced. "Here?" she asked.

  "Yes, here," said the jackal. "Where else?"

  "You're getting a little ahead of yourself, yellowbelly," Volusa said. "You know full well that dancers aren't expected to perform their dances naked until they're learning the fourth dance."

  "Ugh," Simend groaned, tossing up his hands. "Fine. Be boring. You can keep your strophium and subligar on, Sara."

  Sabina sighed. "Fine," she said. She pulled off her tunic and untied her sandals, leaving her in just her breastwrap and loincloth. That was what she had always worn when she was training, so she was used to it. She hopped a few times. "Walk me through the stretches? It's been a while, and after watching you two, I don't know that I trust my instructors."

  Simend snickered and began stretching with her, correcting her form in a few places. "Who did teach you? I'm curious," the jackal asked.

  She huffed, reaching for her toes. "A pair of old men named Taurius and Antonius," she said. "Honestly, though, I'd swear they were teaching me just to see me in my underwear."

  "Wait," Volusa said, still leaning against the mast. "Quintus Taurius?"

  "Yes, that's him," Sabina said.

  "He's still alive?" the lioness asked. "And they're letting him teach novices?"

  "He was alive and teaching me," Sabina said. She and Simend started a series of side stretches. "Though I had to sneak into training sessions. My father wasn't going to just let me hang around with the Sanguine Song."

  "Your form must be awful if he taught you," said Volusa. "Taurius was kicked out of the Sanguine Song because he was useless. And, as you noted, more than a little creepy."

  "Great," Sabina said. "Just my luck that I managed to find the one Sanguine veteran who didn't actually know what he was doing."

  "Now I really want to see your first dance," Simend said. He straightened up and took the ready pose. Sabina gritted her teeth and matched him. "Just do your best. First dance. Right leads. Begin."

  Simend was gentle with her and occasionally pointed out errors in her footing or facing or the position of her hands. He would break tempo for her to catch up when her memory of what step came next faltered. Volusa walked a circle around both of them, offering her own suggestions as well. Even to Simend once. When they were done, Simend had her do it again, and the second time through, she did much better. By the end, she almost didn't notice that Simend and Volusa were both still naked. "Once more," the jackal said, stepping back. "I want to see you do it alone. You need to practice these every day, and you won't always have me around to dance with."

  Sabina took a moment to catch her breath then took the ready pose. "First dance," she said. "Right leads. Begin." And she went through the dance yet again. It was harder this time. She had to rely entirely on her own memory since Simend wasn't there for her to copy, and she didn't think she'd exercised this much since the day she and Dalibor had fled through the streets of New Rome. But her memory didn't fail her, and she felt almost freer than she had her entire life, dancing across the deck of a ship in front of the highest concentration of attractive men in the entire Ring of the World while wearing nothing but her underwear. She could almost hear music as she landed step after step, formed pose after pose, all without having to consciously think about them. It felt good. It felt warm.

  In the end, she made it through the dance just fine, if anybody were to ask her opinion on the matter. Which they didn't. In fact, when she stood there panting and sweating for what felt like quite a while after she was done and neither Simend nor Volusa had said anything, she grew worried. A worry which only deepened when she looked over at them, and both of them were looking back at her with their ears laid back.

  "Are you…" Simend stuttered. "Glowing?"

  Sabina gasped and looked down. There, at the center of her chest from behind her breastwrap, shone a golden glow, barely visible in the bright light of the sun. "You can see it?" she whispered. "It's actually real?"

  "That can't be healthy," Volusa said.

  "Ed!" Simend shouted. "Edric! Get over here!"

  "What?" shouted Edric from as far away on the deck as he could get from the naked dancers. "What happened? Is somebody hurt?"

  "Is Sara alright?" called Dalibor from the other side of the ship.

  "Just get over here!" Simend called back.

  Edric and Dalibor dashed towards them from opposite directions. "What happened?" Edric asked. Simend just pointed at Sabina. Edric looked at her and frowned. "Are you glowing? How are you glowing?"

  "Are you alright?" asked Dalibor.

  "I don't know," she said. "It's always been there, on and off, but this is the first time anybody but me has seen it!" Her eyes began to well up with tears. "I wasn't even sure it was real or if I was crazy."

  Edric reached out with his symbiotic arm, then paused. "May I?" he asked.

  "Of course," she said. "I'd do anything to learn what this is."

  Edric laid his metal-laced hand on the bare skin above her strophium and closed his eyes. The lights on one side of his arm rushed down past his hand and into her chest as fleeting azure sigils, while the lights on the other side pulled the sigils back out of her and raced all the way up out of sight under the sleeve of his tunic. The glow from within her chest grew, and Sabina began to feel a warmth that was simultaneously familiar and strange. Like a sensation from a time she couldn't remember.

  Soon Edric pulled his hand away, and the glow in Sabina's chest faded away entirely. The shark reached up with both hands and clutched the fin on the back of his head. "It's definitely Astral," he said. "The yellow glow suggests a sinistral inversion, but I don't feel a symbiote." He turned to Simend then turned away. "Why are you still naked?"

  "We were in the middle of training!" Simend said.

  "You've been with us for three days now," said Volusa. "Why is this a surprise?"

  "Is she going to be okay?" Dalibor asked.

  The shark studied Sabina from head to toe. Sabina's breath caught when he shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Are you okay with me poking at you a bit?"

  "Yes," she said. "I said I'd do anything, and I meant it."

  Edric nodded. He looked out at the ocean and not at Volusa. "Captain?" he asked. "Is there a private place I can perform a fuller exam on her?"

  "Use my cabin," Volusa said. "Maybe change the sheets if you plan to use the bed."

  Edric squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "We will. Thank you for telling me that." Then he sighed and met Sabina's gaze. There was no white in the shark's eyes, only pupils that seemed too large and silvery irises that stretched beneath his eyelids. "Come on. Let's get you checked out." He held out a hand for her. "Grab your clothes first, though."

  Sabina choked back tears and nodded at him. She wasn't crazy, and she might actually get to find out what it was that was that she carried inside her chest. She took the shark's hand, and he squeezed her hand in return. His gray skin was rough, cool, and slightly damp. She didn't care. If he could tell her what was wrong with her, she would let him take her anywhere.