The city of Debrai. A trading port in the fey kingdoms at the head of the Laurseen river, Debrai held comers and goers from all the varying lands nearby. Not owing allegiance to any one kingdom, the city was governed by it's councillors and policed by their own guard. Made for commerce, once was able to buy or trade anything that could be procured from within the fey lands, including the fey themselves.
Strolling casually past shops with expensive, glass fronts the pair of blond elves were enjoying window shopping. They had come to Debrai as guards on a merchant train from their homeland and the city held many things the men had never seen before. Pointing and laughing or exclaiming in wonder, they happily wandered through the market until they came to a shop with a pair of miniature dragons basking in the window.
"Eh, look at that," the one elbowed the other, indicating the pet sized dragons, "I bet those would fetch a great price among the nobles at home, Baen!"
Baen lifted a pale eyebrow in response and frowned, thinking, "I don't think they'd get along with the peacocks in mother's garden, Jarl..."
"Ah yes, my affluent friend, I had forgotten your heritage," Jarl grinned toothily and smoothed his fine, golden hair back from his forehead, standing up straight and hooking his thumbs into his pockets imitating how he thought the upper class posed and strutted. Affecting a whining drawl, "Dragons, yes, terrible creatures... ate all of Findaurel's white peacocks! Can you imagine, the gall of those lizards!" he mocked his friend.
Two years serving in the border guard and the past couple months travelling from the capital to Debrai had left Baen much tougher than the stringy youth who had run away from his rich family's smothering bosom, and as such the solid punch he delivered to Jarl's shoulder rocked the other elf slightly.
"Ha!" Jarl grinned even wider, then winced and rubbed his arm, "Touchy, subject eh?" Not waiting for an answer the grabbed his riliciatrint companion and wheeled him into the shop, "Maybe they have smaller dragons as well, ones that couldn't eat a peacock..."
Snorting, Baen followed him up a step and into the well lit store. While his friend marched up to the front window display, no doubt to enquire about the price of miniature dragons, Baen placed his hands behind his back and began a perusal of the shop. Lizards, birds, rabbits, fish, and other creatures he couldn't identify filled the well kept display cages. Larger creatures were kept to the back of the place. He noted with surprise a half grown lycanthrope lounging in a glass enclosure.
He was about to start back to the front of the shop and rescue Jarl from purchasing some sort of exotic lizard when he heard a mew from the other side of the lycanthrope and turned to investigate. Sticking out from between the bars of a cage was a paw a little smaller than his hands. Another mew came from within the cage and Baen crossed in front of the enclosure and was nose to nose with a naked woman. Blinking he corrected himself, she wasn't an elf, but she certainly was female.
"Mrew?" she tilted her head and looked at him, her wide, dark eyes looking at Baen curiously as he looked at her just as curiously. Tufted catlike ears grew up out of her hair and a sleek tail sinuously wrapped itself around her bare leg. One of her ears swiveled to the rear of the shop, just as Baen's own hearing picked up the tread of someone coming towards them from behind the door.
A large woman, maybe part orc or giant came bustling through the back door, her arms loaded full of supplies. Nearly running over the smaller elf, she stopped short and set down her armload of packages, "Oi! Sir, didn't catch sight of you before I nearly ran you down! You lookin to get yerself a cat?" she asked guilelessly, nodding towards the naked woman in the cage. "This one here is a little doll," the very buxom woman reached through the bars of the cage and scratched under the woman's chin, who began to purr.
"I wasn't really in the market for a new pet..." Baen began, before the rough skinned half orc woman talked over him.
"Give me a minute to take these back up to the front," she said, picking up her supplies and bustling to the other side of the store. Baen could hear her greet Jarl when the woman mewed at him again. Tentatively he reached out a hand and stroked one of her silky, near black ears. The woman closed her dark eyes and placed a paw on his chest through the cage, purrring and leaning her head forward.
Baen had never seen a creature quite like this. Presumably she might not be natural he though, but could be the result of some meddling wizard. He continued to stroke her ear, and soft, long hair. The woman responded as an affectionate cat would, turning her cheek towards his hand and rubbing her pale skin against him. With the back of his hand Baen rubbed her cheek and then let his finger tips trail down her shoulder and arm, to just below her wrist where her furred paw began. Purring louder she pressed herself against the bars of her cage, the metal hard against her soft skin.
Swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat and growing stiffness in his pants, Baen quickly backed up a step. The press of soft flesh against him through the cage had been a little bit too much. From his vantage point a step back, the elf took in her smooth, pale body, the rise and fall of her soft, upturned breasts with each breath she took, her gently muscled arms and legs, the curve of her hip, the way her tail swayed back and forth behind her... His cock twitched in his trousers and he cleared his throat, turning and walking quickly to the front of the store.
Plaintive mewing followed him as Baen found his friend and the woman picking out lizards and placing them into a wicker cage. "See anything you like, eh?" Jarl asked him, "Ethel here, she helped me find a couple small but healthy lizards to take home." Another mew came from the rear of the shop while the half orc took Jarl's payment. Another while he put his leather money pouch away and started asking about feeding and care for the lizards, a louder long mew as Ethel was explaining how the miniature dragons needed lots of sun.
Uncomfortable at the mewling and endless idle chatter, Baen stepped forward and interrupted them. "I'd like the ..... cat, Ethel," he could think of no way he could walk back to their inn with a naked cat-woman and added, "could you have it and the lizards delivered to our room at the Charging Boar?" The half orc gave the elves a toothy grin and nodded.
"The cat be, 2 go-"
Another mew came from the rear of the shop and Baen set down two fat coins on the counter. "This is robbery, and had best include the delivery."
The halforc grinned again, scooping up the coins, "Aye sirs, your purchases will be delivered this evening!"
As quickly as he could, Baen drug Jarl out of the shop and back onto the street. "Two gold for a cat?!" Jarl asked, laughing, "What sort of feline could be worth that kind of coin? Or don't they teach you rich boys the value of gold," he egged Baen on.
Running his hands through his golden hair, Baen finally felt his erection start to subside, "Shut up, peasant," he growled at Jarl, taunting about their social stations a running joke between the two, "At least I didn't buy two lizards who will freeze solid at the first sign of winter!" he grinned. "Now let's go find some dinner, and not at some dingy hole, at a respectable establishment," he demanded in his most haughty tone.
Laughing harder, Jarl answered, "Yes m'lord, of course m'lord, only the best for you....."
Returning to the inn, the topmost floor which their entire merchant caravan had commandeered, from a dinner where the elves spent more coin wine than food, the pair were in a good mood. Heading upstairs they were stopped by one of the serving boys who travelled with their caravan. "Eh, sommat came for you, earlier, deliver, big boxes, whatcha gettin delivered?"
