The Displacement of the Duodecaplets
Author's Note
: Episodes 2 and 3 of Pairs of Pumpkins continue the story but contain no sexual acts being performed, only the sexual depiction of characters who are all 18+. Episode 4 through 8 (the most recent as of September 2021) the sex returns in spades!
The Sorceress, Marmalade lifted the brass knocker and slammed it into the towering, double doors once. Twice. Thrice. She was a busy feline and while time was always on her side, there was no good excuse for someone as important as her to have to wait for anyone. A huff filled her cheeks before she glanced over her shoulder at the two blank-faced, brutish bodyguards towering behind her. She paced a few steps, impatiently.
A black cloak hung off her petite and lean body, a figure shaped both by a life of walking but also neglecting her diet when lost in her studies. Her orange, striped fur and matching, short-cropped head hair didn't have a trace of grey and her posture was erect with youthful curiosity. A sharp, raspy voice with a long-voweled accent was young like her appearance but mannerisms betrayed experience and wisdom beyond her perceivable years.
Marmalade grabbed for the ornate knocker again and this time, slammed it into the door. When silence followed, she growled and turned to the towering, monoliths of maleness that accompanied her.
"This is unbelievable."
They said nothing in response. Both were silent, blank-faced and glassy-eyed, staring at the door as that's what happened to be in front of them. Each around seven feet tall and nearly that wide. The wolverine carried a pair of axes slung over his shoulders and the bull, a two-handed sword, broad enough that she could lay down upon the blade. Neither could oblige her need for entertainment and she turned her attention back to the building itself.
It was somewhere between a fanciful manor and a subtle fortress, built with both security and aesthetics in mind and it's appearance suggested it was quite old, likely older than Zarron. The design was clever but the most secure feature, was how tucked away it was from the rest of the world. It was truly remote.
There was movement behind the fortified, double doors, the faint but purposeful stomping of boots. A security slit in the door slid open, revealing bright green, canine eyes framed by white and red fur. They scanned about, annoyed before snapping to her. "What the hell, lady?!"
"What took you so long?"
"We don't get regular visitors. Nobody sits back here all day, waiting for someone to knock! There's no receptionist!" His barking voice was youthful and irritated, with the boldness that comes from hiding behind a fortified door. "In fact, we're not expecting any guests for another month. Go away."
Another month?! What kind of sloppy book-keeping had this baby-peddling wizard been doing, to not have expected her visit? She bristled, nostrils flaring.
"Clearly there is some mistake. I placed a VERY special order many years ago and I am here to take my delivery."
"'I'll check the records," the boy said after a loud sigh. "Name?"
"Madam Marmalade the Enchanter," she stood back enough to be seen, as if the young man behind the door might recognize her. Her accent hinted of a distant, unplacable origin.
Some time followed, along with the song of flipping thick pages of a book.
"I see a 'Madam Marmalade the Conjurer.'"
There was a huff before a nodding. "Yes, that's me. That
was
me. I focused on Enchantment for seventy-seven years but Zarron knew me in my youth so he..."
"You're a month early, Miss Marmalade."
"
Madam
." The feline replied and shook her head. "That can't be. Zarron told me to come back at the start of Yanmoon in the 256th year. The sun is shining and the faffelblossoms are in full bloom. It looks like spring to me!"
"Madam Marmalade, it's been a warm winter but faffelblossoms always bloom after a thaw. It's five days shy of Ymiramoon. You have another month until spring actually starts. Come back then."
The feline drew a deep breath and exhaled, steadying herself. "It's over a week's walk through a woefully neglected trail back to the nearest village. This Manor is enormous and I know there are guest quarters you can spare. I stayed here before! The Purple Room, upstairs I believe it was."
"Master is not here at the moment. Only he can invite guests in. I am sorry, Miss Marmalade but you'll need to come b..."
The feline sorceress had raised her hands below his eyeline, muttering unintelligibly to herself. The gears and chains that held closed the doors began to move on their own, unlatching then lurching open. Through the eyehole, the fox's eyes grew wide before he scrambled away, shouting out for help.
They opened up enough for her to see inside the opulent, tapestry draped foyer of the manor and the fleeing, adolescent fox in a tunic and wool pants. She stepped over the threshold and the doors came to a rest half open and the two bodyguards fell into a single line behind her to be able to clear them.
The room was huge and rectangular, twice as broad as it was, deep. There was a split, grand staircase at the far end, leading up to a stone catwalk that surrounded the room on three sides, ending in smaller, more utilitarian staircases on either side of the room. In the gap between the stairs was a cavernous hallway plunging deeper into the Manor.
Massive, ancient tapestries hung from the walls, difficult to discern a consistent theme but they served to dull what would otherwise be a cavernous echo. In the center of it was a blood red circle of glass in the floor and underneath it, a large, black sigil fifteen feet in diameter. She'd remembered seeing it on her last visit and that it had something to do with location-based magic and intersection of ley lines.
"Intruder! Intruder!" It was the young fox. "The wards aren't going off! Stone! Help me!" He stopped at the center of the room where a sitting area was set up, comically out of scale with the cavernous space: two couches, some tables and chairs in an arrangement suited for a room many times smaller than this one. From one of the seats, another presence rose, slow and powerful.
Standing nearly nine feet tall, the chiseled brute looked to be another sort of fox, which should impossible at his scale. His coat was a faded, light grey from head to toe with black freckles splattered over the thick fur of his chest. Pinkish red eyes were dull and difficult to find pupils in and it wasn't immediately obvious where his focus was. Only his head and hands poked out from his loose, brown robe but it could not hide his broad shoulders, muscled torso and the prominent bulge swinging freely in the front. He started towards her.
"Oh my, he's an interesting one!" She covered her heart and stopped in place, the outside air ruffling her cloak. "Is he mine?"
"No, he's not!" the young fox incredulously barked. "No guests. Master's orders. Stone: remove them!"
Marmalade rolled her eyes. The bull and wolverine stepped up and in to flank her, reaching for weapons but she snapped an arm up. "That won't be necessary, boys. Like I said, Zarron knows me. Tell him to stand down." The boy was too far away to use a Charm spell. The monstrous albino lurched forward on command, as expressionless as her own guards and the feline sighed. As he closed enough distance, she stared him right into his pink eyes. "Stop."
He didn't. The attempted spell had no effect on the fox-brute and her jaw clenched.
"STOP," she repeated. Nothing.
"SLEEP!" she tried, to no reaction.
"Fuck." That should have worked. "No weapons. Don't hurt him. Just restrain him. And don't step on that red circle." she ordered to her bodyguards before slipping gracefully back behind them.
They nodded in unison, shifting to wider stances and stepping shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall between the giant fox and their feline ward. As the brute fox drew near, another commotion echoed into the room, swelling from the balcony: double time marching.
Boots on stone and metal armor rattled from above. From a single hallway at the top of the grand staircase, two rows of canine soldiers poured out, wolflike in stature but lean, like they might be part coyote. Their ears stood taller and sharper and their faces sleeker than wolves, cheeks and muzzle marked with black, peppered patterns. Their aggressive, raised tails were long and full, like foxes.
Sheathed swords rattled in scabbards, swinging at their hips and in their hands, they carried sizable crossbows. They spread uniformly to positions on the balcony before lifting their weapons to train on the three intruders.
"Stone! Stand down!" the teen fox barked and the brute obliged, skidding to a stop barely ten paces from a clash with the feline's escorts.
Marmalade regretted for a second time today, not learning to teleport. Her mind raced as the situation had so rapidly escalated and her magic failed to affect the curiously brutish fox. There were few options to deal with such a group that wouldn't end lives, cause massive property damage and otherwise sour her relationship with another, potent and dangerous wizard.
"This is all a misunderstanding and there is no need for violence. I am a repeat customer of your Master. One of your best! I assure you that Zarron will be quite upset if you riddle us with arrows before he's had the chance to take any more of my money."
"She just barged in!" the young fox yelled to the soldiers above. "She used magic to bypass the locks and the wards."
"And yet, here I am inside without having caused any damage at all. I only want to stay until Zarron returns because there is nowhere else for miles!"