Groomed As An Orphan Dark Priestess

This is the story of how I came to be spirited away to a monstergirl village.

It was a long, long journey over time, and with the gentle ministrations of a Dark Priestess, who saw it fit that I was taken as a boy to the monstergirl village and married me off to one of them.

I'm now middle-aged, happily married with many children, and more humans and monsters make peace, but it was not always so.

This is how my story began:

***--***

Many years ago, I lived as another peasant boy in the Frankish woods where hundreds of tiny villages of many races lived apart, separated by a massive, magical forest that acted as a border between the Monster Girl Reik and Lescatian Human Empire.

I was unremarkable, one of many sons of a peasant serf family of some Lord of Someone Lorded over by the Vassal King of North Somethington of the Empire I could care less about. I was...ten, I believe, tending to orchards and collecting mushrooms...

Occasionally I would meet a few little monsters there and then, like fairies or the occasional stray wolf-girl. I don't think they paid us much attention. But our villagers, the boys, the older they were, the more...interested they were in. Some of us who lived more apart from the village were...flirtatious with them, I believe.

Flirting, I heard the priest says it's from the devils, so I don't do that.

One September evening, I knew I had messed it all up. I was lost. I was too young, and panic finally creeping over me, I had lost all direction, running in the panic just to find my village. When thunderstruck, and trees started to break from the winds, I was wet, sick, and panicked, bawling like a girl and running to any dark shape I could find.

That's when I stumbled on a clearing and ran towards a dark building with lights on.

Entering in panic, I was sobbing and crumpled on the ground in tears.

I thought I hit someone, from the surprised exclamation and the pair of boots I came face to face with... Looking up, I saw a nun...

...I think...

This "nun" had horns on her forehead and was dressed...very...scantily, with a tail that was locked with a padlock and had stubby wings on her back. Her face was beautiful with slanted eyes, pointy ears, and a perpetual smile on her beautiful lips. I'd learn their kin to be as "Dark Priestess" in the years to come.

She gently lifted me into her arms.

"A lost lamb blundering into the Goddess' arms? Are you lost?" I was too tired, and could only sob. She shushed me in her arms, her ample breasts cradling my head.

"Poor thing. Probably stray human from another village. You must be lost in the rain." She cooed, ruffling my hair and hissing when water dripped like a fountain from her hands.

"You are soaked. Let's get you changed before you die of cold." She pulled me into her arms and gently carried me to a lit room with many children sleeping in bunk beds.

A monster orphanage?

Many were human though, the kids sleeping in beds next to each other wearing grey, nondescript sleeping gowns or dresses. I was ushered to a lone, double bed (maybe I was lucky), where she took out a big towel, and hurriedly stripped me without even bothering for modesty. I was a child after all: nothing of that sort was of my mind rather than *not* freezing to death.

"Come on! No shame, little one! I am tonight your big sister as well as your caretaker." She chided me gently, but looked away, amused when I took off everything and finally, could have some warm, crude peasant clothes. The clothes were thankfully warm, coupled with the bed, they calmed me down.

I started coughing violently.

*-*-*-*

Loud steps similar to a horse's hooves made her turn back, to see another monster lady towering over us. It was a large woman with bull's horns, hooves, curvy, massive and muscled body and a big ax.

"I heard a crash. Is everything alright, Drazha?" I'd learn they are Minotaurus in the future.

"Just a lost human boy, Mimi." Drazha nodded, bumping her forehead on mine with a smile. Her gaze was loving but worried. "He is burning. He should stay here until he heals up."

"Another stray to groom?" Mimi raised her bushy eyebrows. "Young enough to forget where he was born..."

I couldn't understand the cryptic words, but I was crying. Both of their faces softened.

"We'll see...I could say he is another male gift from the Goddess, but it's too early to decide what to do with him." Drazha squeezed Mimi's hand, intoning from her Holy Scripture as she looked at the sick, crumbled child, me, tucked in the bed."...for all manhoods must be under the tender domination of Agrat, surely, but all human servants will find their place in time, Amen." Giving me, the dying kid some cool water from a basin after blowing on it, she added: "We'll see how he turns out."

"Amen, sister." Mimi nodded with a smirk, her breasts jiggling with every breath.

I lay silent, coughing my lungs out, being the little child I was. "Drazha", my savior, the Dark Priestess, nodded seriously and stood up.

"I'll get some medication."

***--***

"Drink. I know it's bitter."

"Mmrgbl..." I burbled like a dying man as she pushed the bitter, red potion in my lips, bottlefed like a babe. She gently rubbed by chest and wrists, rubbing cool, blue lotion over them.

"You're safe here." She whispered in my ears, kissing a burning cheek. "We'll take good care of you." I only felt the realm of sleep creeping into my eyes as they felt too heavy.

Drazha sang me a lullaby in the form of a prayer, I would find out, singing hymns dedicated to Agrat, the Succubus Queen who overtook Maou in his evil reign. I was stone cold when she slowly sang, praying with her pink rosary over my sick, skinny peasant body and rubbed her cheek on mine.

***--***

When she slowly prayed over me, another player came to the stage.

Pitter patter of paws roused Drazha from her quiet vigil.

Behind her stood a tiny monster girl, no older than eight summers. She had huge fluffy jackal ears, thick, MEATY, FLUFFY PAWS, dressed in a pure white night dress of Kemet (Aegyptos) design, with cute ankhs all over her dress and a tiny snake circlet on her forehead. Otherwise, she looked human-ish, with dusky brown skin and kohl makeup on her right eye. Like a puppy she pulled on the Dark Priestess' skirt, mumbling something.

"Anukh-su, why are you up? It's past your bedtime..." Drazha smiled, patting the Anubis pup's head. "Do you want milk?"

She shyly shook her head as her equally huge fluffy tail started to wag.

"Is he gonna be awright? Didn' see 'im befo' "

The little Anubis pup asked Drazha in a quiet voice, pulling on her skirt. The Dark Priestess nodded, ruffling the little Anubis' ears, which flicked at the reaction and scratched behind her ears. She watched her look worried over the coughing, sleeping boy.

"Just a lost boy, Anukh-su. Don't worry."

The tiny Anubis just blinked with her sapphire eyes, looking at him with interest.

"Stays wi' us now?" She looked with puppy eyes in Drazha's gentle own pair of red-black orbs, who just smiled and squeezed her nose eliciting a giggle.

"Would you like for him to stay here? Anukh-su?"

After a long, quiet minute, the Anubis shyly nodded.

"It's up to him to decide." Drazha gently chided her, taking a dab of water from a beaker and praying over it, rubbing on Anubis' forehead. "Why don't you stay with him? I have...conflicted humans to attend...to. A Dark Priestess' duty to enlighten poor humans never ends." She smiled sweetly, gathering her robes about herself and standing up.

Anukh-su nodded, waddling to get a tiny chair to climb next to my sleeping body and bumped on it, waddling until she could nestle her fluffy tail around my feet, her paws cradling my tinier hands.

"Warm him up with your powers, if you feel sleepy... You can go back to sleep I guess." Drazha nodded without pointing to a bed as if she felt where in particular the Anubis pup would want to sleep next to.

The scene was innocence incarnate, the tiny Anubis praying over the little boy for his health and attention with her wagging tail, tiny golden Ankh in her paws.

She could not bear herself to scold and punish her orphans when all they wanted was to be loved. Many had grown up without parents ever since the war and the occasional Spon Plague wrecked Ermorea. Human slaves of monster girl towns had children, and she had picked up an abandoned baby almost daily when famine had struck a nearby town.

Drazha was, in a sense, mother to every child.

Yet her ears had perked, sensing a familiar presence nearby, a human rival's scent. Since she felt she came alone, it would do no harm to welcome her...provided she came to do no harm. I would learn later what they talked about and did: at my age, it was inappropriate. The priestess' name was Aurea, a human priestess who was somehow Drazha's rival...and more.

***--***

I woke up wrapped in thick, warm furs.

Wait, I woke up wrapped in a big tail! I heard soft, quiet breaths accompanied by a canine scent; I was confused.

My sickness was somehow gone, my cold already fading... And a tiny girl was snuggled next to me, roughly my age.

She had...jackal features across her body!

Fluffy ears that twitched in her sleep, dreaming like a dog with spasms. She had a fluffy tail and paws in lieu of hands and feet, hugging me, mouth open in a quiet sleeping snore showing adorable dog fangs around her lips.

A monster. All around us children were stirring awake, rubbing their eyes, monster and human kids alike. The Dark Priestess stood over us both, stirring me awake.

"How are you feeling, Lamb? Did you recover? What is your name?"

I mumbled quietly, stirring my sleeping, innocent bedmate as she yawned like a puppy.

Drazha looked at us, smiling. She was thinking of something...

"Anon, hmm? Eat with us, then my friend Aurea will deliver you home." She dried my sweat and pulled me to my feet, as well as the sleepy Anubis. She just stirred, blinked at me, and shied away from before following us both into the mess hall.

The breakfast was in a mess hall with long, wooden benches. Dozens of human children and monster kids were eating eggs, bread, milk or cereals. Their voices filling the room, human and monster children were loud, combative and mischievous, just like our village but MUCH less restrained. Dark Priestesses wandered the tables, warning and correcting the worst.

"Don't fall asleep on your cereal, Dormy-chan!" A Dark Priestess chided a tiny monster girl, a sleepy little mouse-eared one in pajamas. "Nagini! Felari! No fighting over the boiled egg!" She scowled at a little Lamia and a young Werewolf pup pitter-patter fighting across the table.

"BUT TEACHER! SHE CALLED ME AN EGG-STEALIN' SNEK!"

"SHE CALLED ME GREEDY WOLF! LEGGO!"

A Dark Priestess that looked like my savior scolded them, pulled them apart and cut the egg in half with a sigh. Both nibbled on the other half with their bread slices, drinking milk. It was a monster-human kindergarten where kids shouted, ate, and argued like brats.

There were human women serving food too, smiling, middle-aged women who...carried hoops of ribbons around their necks, wearing grey clothes without any flash or decorum. I'd learn that monster girls often took women to serve them along as well, defeated adventurers and the like. Instead of killing, monsters spared life as much as possible, putting them to work and live in their homes as...servants. Surely such women couldn't be bad?

I was seated next to Anukh-Su, who was eating milk and bread with eggs, like me. We ate shyly, we were young and just had met. Her tail was wagging, however.

Kids ask weird questions, and I was one, obviously.

"Are you some kind of dog?" I asked like an idiot.

"Awe ya sum kind of monkey?" Anukh-Su was kind of bratty, with a snarky streak even at that age. "It's rude to call us a dog. I'm an Anoobis!"

"A-noo-bers?"

"Anubis!" The little doglike girl thrust her chest, her tiny snake circlet dangling on her head. "I'm the guardian of the pyramids, the dead and servant of da Pwaraoh! Pyramids are anchuent tombs that our qweens use for sleeping!"

I blinked, confused.

"Why aren't cha in desert or something, in them Pay-ramids?"

Suddenly she went silent and ignored my words as if I wasn't there. Drazha luckily was near and whispered something in my ear before I poked her and did something stupid.

"Her parents died in the First Demon War."

I was quiet then until the breakfast was done, the human servants chatting with the Dark Priestesses, and eventually, we filed outside.

I could spend time talking with human or monster orphans but...I wanted to go home. Parents must be terrified. So I waited next to Anukh-su, who sat with me quietly as kids filed into classrooms where human and monster teachers carried scrolls to.

...

She looked at me, one innocent eye with the mystical makeup, gleaming like a star. She was young like me, little, young, dressed still in her night dress. Her adorable little paws dangled from the chair she sat next to me, looking thoughtful.

"So ya go home now?" She asked in a high pitched voice that reminded me of a yapping pup.

I nodded. "I'm healed now." The Anu-pup just thrust her chest and "hmph"'ed.

"Becuz magic! I used my magick to heal you!" She pointed to her little Ankh, which looked more like made out of wood and painted than real gold. I remembered the priestess praying over me, but then I woke up with her. Maybe she did some monster magick. Anubis was some sort of healer as she told me, so... I played along.

"Thanks," I mumbled, knotting my hands. That was the moment when I felt a warm pawpad.

She put her paw on my hand, her tail wagging. We just sat quietly as children without any special things happening. It wasn't a moment of magic or dreams.

We were just simple kids who didn't know what from what.

"Ok..." She mumbled, looking down. "Will you come again?" The little Anubis pup was shy and worried, squirming and pressing her hindpaws (what we humans call feet) on the ground.

That was the establishing moment. I was alone, I was quiet, and a child, someone who didn't know too much about limits and where to stay. That moment, I somehow realized I could come here again. To mingle with wonderful monsterkin, I had to exercise care not to be found out in my village. So I decided there and then.

"Yes."

I said, with growing confidence as the Anubis' tiny face shone with a fanged smile. Little girls with fangs looked so cute: I would never forget her smile that day. When we held hands and paws, smiling at each other Drazha came accompanied by a female human, obviously, a cleric wearing Empire armor. She must have been the Dark Priestess' visitor, but I'll never know why.

I would find out years later when Drazha educated me in things between a man and a woman.

"She will take you home." She motioned to the shy looking, quiet woman who wore clergy armor and her equipment, eager to take me home. Her face was flushed, and I think I saw a few purple marks on her neck...Did I?

I slowly squeezed the "anoobers'" paw and waved her goodbye. "I'll come again!"

And come back I would. But would she be there?

*-*-*-*

You don't care much for sentimental childhood memories much. No one would, dear reader. They are still what makes us people, depending on how they are established.

So from now on, I would use the "Lady Aurea" excuse many times. I'll spare you the boring details between my family and the arguments. Needless to say, the wandering cleric who patrolled the forests was the perfect excuse for me to stick around her when you collect mushrooms, especially ones favored by the nobility. They were money. Easy money, I must say. And Aurea was often around me, but I knew she often visited the monster village and came back...changed. Haggard. Tired. But happy. I wouldn't understand much around that time...

So one day I followed her and entered the town holding her hand, the secret magic village I often missed due to wards and clever camouflage. It was guarded by two Minotaur sisters, who greeted us amiably, each having a bust that would put the milkmaid back in the village to shame, bearing axes twice our size.

"Hey, kid!"

They ruffled my hair when I visited them.

The village was lively, monster girls and women of all species and ages working in harmony, collecting honey, grains, and fish to make a living. Since I was underage around that time, they would usher me to the orphanage where I would play with the other monster kids and humans.

I wasn't allowed *inside* the village where they said, "I had to be an adult to see."

"Anoobers" was there, reading a big book with an ankh on it, perched on a chair... Her eyes twinkled a bit when I was there, months later.

Hey, it wasn't easy to get a permission after being grounded and scolded, even though a human nun delivered me home, warned to be careful.

"Anon!" She squeaked, getting off her chair with a plop and shaking my hand with her MEATY, FLUFFY PAW. Her tail was wagging like mad. "How are ya!"

"I'm fine. Parents were mad..." I mumbled as she giggled.

"They don't like you coming here?" I nodded.

"What, you come from human town?" Her eyes grew. "What's it like?!"

"Boring I guess..." I mumbled, as her ears perked at a jingle of bells and piano tunes. Enthusiastically, the Anubis pup jumped up and down, clapping her paws:

"IT'S THE PUPPER SHOW! IT'S DA PUPPEHT SHOW!" Suddenly, she yanked me by the arm, pulling me to a small gathering where a young human woman and a troupe of weird, fae musicians, some elves, and a small fairy set up a small shadow curtain.

"Watch da puppet show!" She squeaked, pulling me by the arm to the clearing where the puppet show would be conducted.

Dozens of human children, in the arms of their mothers who wore grey servile dresses, sat side-by-side with monster kids and their mothers. The booth was set in a shadowy thicket where sunlight didn't penetrate save for a magic lamp which shone behind the magical curtain which not only gave shadows but also colorful shadows, woven from strange fabrics. It was a magic screen of visions. Once the kids were quiet, a musical started, the Anubis patting her paws together wildly the moment a puppet was thrust on stage, a cute little Pharaoh's figure.

"I AM THE PHARAOH OF THE SANDS, HUMANS, AND MONSTERS PAY ME RESPECT!"

Accompanied by cheers, a puppet of a strange woman came to the stage, wrapped in bandages and beautiful headgear.

"It's the Pharaoh!" My "Anoobers" squealed, earning shushes.

The figures floated across the desert landscape until a purple, snake monster girl giggled evilly, dangled by deft hands:

"I AM THE APOPHIS! ALL HUMANS AND MONSTERS WILL BE PERVERTS NOW!" She bellowed evilly, striking the Pharaoh.

"Boo!" My little Anoobers was enthusiastic. "Booooo!"

"Shh!" A human mother angrily hissed.

"Sowwy..." She looked crestfallen, whimpering.

The music played as they fought and headbutted each other, until the Apophis ran away, hissing.

The play was simple, but the "Anoobers" was so happy and enthusiastic that I could not bring myself to scold her. The play was finished, and we could finally wander around, hand in paw.

The day was uneventful, me and her sharing what little stories we had from our sheltered lives. I don't even remember much, save for her twinkling eyes, her wagging tail, and her little nose, playing ball and fetch under the benevolent eyes of Drazha watching over us.

Years passed. We met once a month when mushrooms kept growing, so I could bring my forage home to make my increasingly distant and unpleasant parents richer.

The time with her, however, was my only joy.

We played together every day we met, she had something called "Lego" which were bricks to to put figures and worlds together.