("Pairs of Pumpkins Patches'' are standalone, supplemental stories in the "Pairs of Pumpkins" Universe that exist outside of the chapters and timeframe of the main, numbered story. They explore and detail ideas and characters in the world, who may have some secondary or tertiary connection to the cast and events of the Pairs of Pumpkins story, even if they are never bound to intersect with it.)
Ser Thomas's broad, black nose crinkled, his muzzle tilted to the air. Her trail was fresh now and his steel gauntlet-clad right hand slipped across his body to the hilt of his broadsword. He'd brought the torn shirt with him that bore her scent, just in case but he was quite sure he wouldn't forget. It was wild, foreign and natural, unlike the perfumed, city folk he was used to.
He wasn't a tracker by trade. He was a Knight and didn't like nature much at all. The spaces between cities were an annoyance that his line of work often required but he didn't find the appeal in forests or fields, and even preferred monster-infested catacombs to them.
Ser Thomas was a grizzly bear, which gave him a stature well-suited to the martial duties of a knight but also a naturally keen sense of smell. The people of the small town of Zlotz were desperate and this bear would frequently joke that the only thing outsizing his physique was his code of honor.
It was some kind of miracle the Mayor of Zlotz survived the attack. In his study, late at night, his wife had heard a commotion and called for the guards. They kicked open the door to find him in the thrall of a succubus!
Stark white fur and red eyes, they reported, vulpine in form. She'd seduced him fully dressed, with her skirt hiked up high enough to mount him in his office chair and remained dressed until she fled, diving out a third-floor window which was somehow too narrow for the blouse she wore and it ripped right off of her, leaving a convenient scent to follow.
Ser Thomas hadn't seen any of this himself, except for the scene of the crime the next day, including the window she'd jumped from. He'd peaked out of it and it was almost as broad as his pauldron-laiden, broad shoulders. He could fit through it with minimal effort.
"This is the window that ripped her blouse off?"
"She was quite fat," the guards explained.
"That must've been a sight: a big, fat succubus in your mayor's lap. It's a wonder the chair survived." The chair was fine. The Mayor was a groundhog, under five feet. It was a wonder he survived.
"I suppose I would have been dead already, were it not for my daily exercise routine and the gift of extraordinary virility!" The Mayor had declared.
Something was off about the whole story but this wasn't the first he'd heard about this succubus along the south coast. Besides, the 50 extra gold jingling in his coin purse would be doubled upon proof of her death, and the expenses and debts of a knight weren't insignificant.
The forest broke for a towering, rocky formation the size of a barn and he could smell the remnants of a campfire nearby. He didn't have to circle around it far until he found the mouth of a cave, a foot or so above his eye level. Shorter creatures, of whom most were, would have missed it.
The scent was fresh and strong now, both of the extinguished fire and the succubus. He climbed up, his metal plate armor rattling and scraping against the rock before he stood at the top, hunching to clear the low ceiling. There was a bend just ahead and he drew his sword.
"You won't need that," a woman's voice called out and startled him enough to rattle his armor. It was calm and oddly, normal. Not the sultry purr of a seductress or the strange echo demons seemed to always have when they spoke.
"I'll keep it anyway," he called out, louder than she had. "I'm coming in."
"Obviously."
He rounded the corner, blade first and the cave ended, barely wider than a bedroom and half again as deep, with a ceiling mercifully higher than the entrance. He could stand up straight in here.
A fire smoldered in the middle of the cave, but none of that was as interesting as the figure on the far side of it: a white-furred, white-haired, beautiful face of a vixen atop a seated, pyramid of flesh. The entire shape of her was hard to register as a bipedal body and at first glance it wasn't apparent in the dim, ambient light, if she had two arms and two legs, or even a torso. There was her disarming head and a lean neck, then shoulders above a tremendous and indeterminate mass that for a moment, seemed monstrous. What kind of beast was this?
Her eyes were in fact, pinkish-red but they weren't glowing like the Mayor had claimed.
"Welcome to my cave, I guess." The female fox shifted and stood awkwardly with a grunt and some effort, revealing legs in an ankle-length skirt that had been folded beneath her, behind her or both. With a wobble, she righted herself and her odd form started to make sense as a humanoid, with a long sweep of a tail. There were two upper arms but lower than her biceps, they were obscured by the absolutely massive globes of the biggest, bare breasts he'd ever seen in his life.
Upright, she was a bit over five feet and her bosom was half of her height, down to her mid-thighs but from their enormous, impossible radius in all directions more than any kind of pronounced sagging. If anything, the relationship of their rounded form with gravity was defiant. They jutted two feet from her chest, not much less than she'd be able to reach forward, and they were far wider than her shoulders. The blouse situation made more sense now.
"By the Gods..."
She must have heard that before, perhaps with different intonations. Her scowl showed she picked up on the pity and disgust dripping from his version of it.
They were silent for a moment.
"Yes, I'm a freak. I'm well-aware. Not all freaks are demons."
The vixen wasn't just being sassy: it was like he'd worn the thought on his face. If she was an adult, it was a recent development. He finally pulled his eyes back to hers. She looked so young.
"I'm an adult freak." Was he so obvious?
"I have your shirt," He gestured down to where it hung from his belt.
"Should I put it on before or after you kill me? You might need a longer sword if you're planning on running me through.."
He narrowed his eyes. She didn't seem like a succubus.
"You don't seem like a succubus."
A succubus should be trying harder. He'd met women who relied on their charm and guile, masters of seduction. Others might play up their innocence and naivety to their advantage. He'd never met a succubus but imagined one of those would be their reliable tactics. This girl was neither: she was cold, crass and kind of awkward.
"That one again. I'm guessing that shrimp-dicked groundhog sent you."
The fox started around the fire but stopped when his posture tensed. "You don't need your sword. Look at me: I'm slow."
He didn't need his sword, so he slid it back into his scabbard and she approached. "That's better." How did she do that? She continued to him until she was close enough to turn half-sideways and extend a hand toward him, palm up.
