PoP12 and a Half: A Second Slice

"Pairs of Pumpkins" is a genre-bending dark fantasy/tragic comedy/erotic adventure about unlikely heroes with unusual bodies. It follows free-spirited adventuress, Portia Pridemoon as she deals with a newfound responsibility, a forbidden addiction, and her begrudging obligation to save a family she never knew she had. The characters are anthropomorphic animals but I do not consider "the F word" a genre.

In the interest of allowing myself to write smaller and faster, the concept of "A Second Slice" is to write a few scenes of a story to develop characters, progress the story or cover one of the several "meanwhiles." Consider "Slices" to be mini-episodes of the Season, or maybe an After-credits scene!

PAIRS OF PUMPKINS 12: A SECOND SLICE

CHAPTER 1

The sun peeked through the relentless grey of the sky for a moment, lighting up the white field of the walled-in property. Cold as always but not snowing today, the jagged mountains were visible to the northeast over the walls, looming giants faded in the distance. The gates of the defensive wall remained open during the day, as the nineteen children of Portia Pridemoon worked outside.

In the center of the yard stood the five-story manor house that had once belonged to the raccoon wizard Zarron and technically still did. His powerful Life Magic and disregard of all accompanying ethics created the situation that the Pridemoon family was now dealing with. It was in fact, his taking and breeding of Portia's eggs without her knowledge twenty-one years prior that this generation existed at all.

Portia, along with her sorceress daughter, Anastasia, rescued all nineteen of them from different masters and lives of captivity, slavery, or servitude. As they continued their rescues of other captive children on the southern mainland, the responsibilities of organizing and operating their new home fell on the young adults of the lot.

Using Zarron's secondary home as a residence was a risk but if secured from him, offered a safe, remote and largely self-sustaining haven for the family. Anastasia had learned everything she knew about magic from a lifetime as his protégé and was confident she could secure it from him.

First, she had thwarted his magical means of returning via teleportation. Seals were the safest way to teleport, one-of-a-kind markings that once visualized, could be transported to safely. The risk of using seals was if any other matter occupied the space above the seal when used, it would co-locate with the teleportee and result in some grotesque and generally fatal fusion.

When kept clear and secure, seals were quite reliable but they were rendered inert the moment they were altered, as they could no longer be visualized. Anastasia had broken every seal Zarron had made in the house. There were only two now of her own making, a primary and a backup and nobody knew them but her.

Zarron's primary residence was southwest by two thousand miles, and any attempt to reclaim this one would now have to be on foot.

Next, upon their return to the empty Manor, she did everything she could to ensure that if he used magic to track them, he wouldn't find them. Runes fortified the property to block any remote tracking or sensory spells. Others scrambled any divination and scrying. Any attempt to view the site remotely would see an abandoned version of the home, offset by six-feet, so that any scrying for a safe teleport site would be inside the floors or the dirt outside, causing a horrific death.

Teleporting anywhere outdoors in the frozen north was incredibly dangerous, thanks to the variable snowfall. Doing so into snow would be lethal, even if just for the immediate internal organ temperature change. More dramatically, a body co-located into its own volume worth of melted snow would flood all tissue beyond any structural integrity, like a saltwater fish dropped into fresh water, times a thousand. Less than full immersion could still cause the instant loss of one's legs.

As a final defense, a massive Rune of Detection in the attic would alert everyone in the house and Anastasia, wherever she was in the world, if Zarron came within one hundred miles of the house. It was the only way they knew he wasn't already there, dead and buried in the ground or snow.

The clearing of the clouds was a pinhole in the grand scale of the winter sky, but its resulting beam graced them in the yard. The newest additions to the residence, twin brothers Anton, and Laszlo Pridemoon, rushed to the glorious and rare ray of warmth, waddling in ill-fitting shoes and then huddling together.

Shivering, shoulder to shoulder, they exchanged sympathetic glances while puffs of quick, shallow breath fled their chattering teeth. Rounded, tall, grey rabbit ears that sprung from otherwise vulpine skulls lay straight back against their short and wavy brown heads of hair. They stood in borrowed, fur-lined boots several sizes too large, with layers of hides draped over their shoulders, a poor substitution for proper clothes.

Between the greys and browns of their new winter clothes popped thin legs wrapped in tailored and tight, bright red, and gold leggings meant for a much more pleasant climate and immodest audience. The colors were more lively in the sun, a rare moment of vitality among the muted palette of The Pale Lands. Colored clothing was illegal by the strict moral codes of this jagged island nation, but the overcast skies seemed just as eager to enforce them.

The other older teens in the house offered them warmer trousers to try, but none of them were optimistic about the fit. Some of their brothers were bigger, and their sister thicker, but the half-rabbit twins were born and built for uncompromised breeding, to the detriment of both their discretion and mobility. Under prominent canine sheaths, they bore testicles many times what would be proportional, a pair of overripe melons that denied them any chance at modesty. New trousers would need to be tailored.

"Isolde should have some warmer clothes for you within a few days," their sister, Constance, called out, approaching from the house. "The furs and blankets will be all you need to stay warm once you're working. But you have to work first. You can choose between helping Marco and the quadruplets chop down trees or Dante and Matteo set logs for the cabin. The younger wolf twins are cutting trees to length and working with me on the joinery."

Constance was like them: another hybrid. A magical impossibility of species that could never be naturally bred, defying the laws of nature. Breaking those laws for curiosity and profit had been one of the focuses of Zarron's work. Constance was the only half-raccoon of the group so far and all were relieved when records confirmed she was not Zarron's biological daughter.

Her features were more raccoon-like, and the triplets more wolf-like than Anton and Laszlo resembled rabbits, perhaps because of their shared carnivore ancestry. Her muzzle was shorter and sharper than the canines and vulpines, and her figure thicker than her sisters and mother.

Like the triplets, she could pass for either species but would invite more scrutiny if common people believed such hybrids were possible.

As with her mother and all the adult females of the bloodline encountered thus far, she was uncommonly prominent of the bosom.

The hole in the clouds closed in on itself, returning the landscape to its usual grey.

"We don't know how to do any of this!" Anton threw up his hands.

"None of us do!" Constance tossed hers out to match. "Mother and Ana haven't rescued any carpenters or architects, but we're running out of space inside faster than they are bringing more of you home."

"Home?! You make it sound like this isn't temporary!" Laszlo stepped in.

"Yeah!" Anton added. "She said we're going to move to Brummel soon. It's not perfect but far enough south to have a summer. They at least have more than a few hours of daylight."

Constance sighed a long exhale, a patience practiced from several years working in public service. The pause ran on, holding their attention, but when she replied, her tone was calm and reasoned.

"Do you know anything about Brummel?"

"Not really..."

"Nobody does. It's a valley village that barely shows up on the map. Do you think they'll have room for everyone? Nineteen of us. Twenty-two when those eggs hatch? Five more in Zentia and more coming every week or two? And that's not counting Mother or Anastasia!"

The rabbit hybrids slumped. "So she lied to us."

Constance shook her head. She paced, wiping away the frost accumulating on her wet black nose and sniffling. "No, she didn't lie to you. She's doing her best, but she's thinking through more than one person can think through. And she's an adventurer, not a logistician. I'm trying to help with the things I'm good at but it's going to take time. We'll figure this out.

"In the meantime, we need more space. That's what we're building. I can't imagine a little manual labor is worse than whatever you did before."

"We were breeders."

Constance stopped and tilted her head back to them, her striped tail swinging with curiosity. "You just bred all day?"

"Pretty much."

Constance's nostrils flared and her lips pulled back but a curiosity held her expression back from pure disgust. "How does that work? You're not foxes and you're not rabbits..."

More disgust took over her face with the cocky grin of Anton and the chuckle of Laszlo. "We were special-ordered for it. Our master wanted us able to breed with women of as many species as possible. So it's not just vulpines and rabbits but any canids or lagomorphs."

By the end of the explanation her head was canted, curious again.

"And something that unnatural just works?"

The twins nodded proudly. "Oh yeah! We were quite a draw. Sometimes women of other species just wanted to have a go at us, even without a chance of a kid."

"Huh," Constance mused and rubbed her cheek. "Because you know, horse and zebra folk or tigers and lion folk... it works, but the offspring are messed up."

The twins' smiles faded to confusion as she continued.

"They can't breed and they have a lot of health problems. Failing joints, weak hearts, short lifespans, Gigantism," she let her words trail off as her eyes gestured down their bodies. "A lot of bad stuff! I read about this as a kid since I am one. I figured I was infertile. Or at the very least, shouldn't have kids even if I can."

"No. No, we're magic," Laszlo replied with obvious uncertainty.

"We were all made with magic." She shook her head, her thick tail swishing behind her, smoothing out a sweep of snow. "That's how we're impossible hybrids. But we aren't made OF magic. Not as far as I know. So unless your balls are casting spells, there's got to be a catch."

The twins were smaller now, looking to one another.

"I don't think so. We haven't had any complaints."

Constance hummed as she mused. "Well, you're still young. Most of your kids probably haven't been born yet. I guess we'll see! So if breeding life was so much better, why did you leave? I know mother gives everyone a choice who can make one."

With ears back flat and heads shrunk into their shoulders, they turned to each other. Anton bit his lip and averted his eyes while Laszlo glared at his brother. His attention returned to their sister after a long pause.

"We had to, whether we wanted to or not," Laszlo said. "Breeding, I mean. It didn't matter if we were sick, tired, chafed or wounded. Nor if she reeked of cheese, weighed thirty stone or was covered head to toe in sores. Yes, it was sex, but they didn't let us forget we were slaves. We had to do whatever they said whenever they said it."

"Is this so different? Forced labor?" Anton's face soured, looking between her and his brother.

Constance flattened her triangle ears, and the exposed fur above her scarf puffed out. Her posture tensed in an arched spine and her fists planted on her hips. "I'm sure Anastasia could return you to being full-time inseminators if that's what you prefer."

She turned to Laszlo and gave him a gentle push of the shoulder, but he stumbled and stepped back. "Felan's Harvest!" she cursed and stepped back into Laszlo's space, her chest nearly bumping his. "I imagine she could just drop you off somewhere with warm weather and you could go about your lives. Or if you really can't wait, it's a five-hour walk to Lepaja. Seven for the two of you. I don't recommend it, especially not dressed like that, but you could take your chances with these Pale Lands primitives if you think you could do better than us!"

Her head ducked to catch his lowered eyes under a knotted brow.

"Does breeding pay well? I assume they taught you some other skills or trade, so you can make a living and survive on your own. You don't have to be in this family. You can leave anytime. I'll explain whatever I need to explain to mother. We don't need deadweight deadbeats around here, and we could use the space and resources you are taking up."

"We're just adjusting," Laszlo said, stepping up to his brother's side. Anton nodded. "This is all so new to us. Work, siblings, a mother. It's a shock, you know?"

"We know," Constance said. "Everyone of us, down to the youngest."

"We'd like to be a part of this family," Laszlo said.

Constance said nothing, turning her glare to his brother.

Anton's eyes avoided her, off to the side now, but he nodded his head in defeat.

"Start acting like it then! Maybe your slave jobs weren't that bad, but the rest of these kids had some shitty futures in store for them. Keep that in mind when you notice you're the only ones complaining."

"What about you?" Anton lifted his head.

"What about me?"

"Why did you come here? You weren't a slave, were you?"

"No, I was a city clerk."

"Then why?"

Constance moved back into Anton's space and took his shoulder. Her muzzle was near his, just a few inches shorter than her brother and her chest filled the entire distance to his in her closeness. With eyes tense and brows furrowed, she replied.

"I was tired of trying to help people, only for them to ignore me and stare at my chestI figured my own brothers wouldn't do that."

Silent, he averted guilty eyes.

She straightened out her fitted and fur-lined coat and stepped back, glaring at him. "This should be the one place where we don't have to feel like we're in the fucking freak show. Do your part."

The twins both nodded, more eagerly now.

"So which is it? Chopping trees or lifting logs?"

"We're not that strong. We could help in the kitchen?"

"Osvaldo had the cooking covered. He's a trained chef. Vita and Vox are his helpers. They're seven years old."

Constance lifted her muzzle, turning her attention beyond them as they shrunk. She waved a hand and called out past them. "Doing great, girls!"

They turned to see the quadruplets, Callista, Celestia, Caelia and Cordelia, struggling to drag a trimmed log on a sled through the open gates. Slowly but surely they progressed, digging in their feet with heavy rope tugged over their shoulders, over to the construction site of the new building. All four waved back with one hand, careful not to lose momentum.

"They're ten," Constance added, looking back at the twins.

"You have children dragging trees?"

"Trees they chopped down themselves! They're impressive kids. The triplets taught them to swing an axe, and Marco supervises. Rigged up properly, pulling a log on a sled is just tug-of-war that you always win! We put everyone over ten to work out here, but Mihael begged me to make an exception. He's stripping branches off the trees before the girls drag them. So why don't you two go help Dante and Matteo build some walls?"

"Yes, okay, okay!"

"Thank you." Constance walked a few steps away, then turned and pointed.

"Which one are you again?"

"Anton."

"Stop staring at my chest, Anton."

He nodded, eyes locked to the ground until she was gone and out the front gates.

"She caught you!" Laszlo teased, giving his brother a light smack on the shoulder as they started towards the half-built cabin.

"Of course I was staring at her tits. How could I not?! I just keep thinking about cumming all over them. They're almost the size of Mom's!"

His brother huffed, shaking his head, his steps wobbling in the snow and his oversized boots. "Good luck with that."

"'Oh Anton! Lift some big, heavy logs!'" he feigned a feminine voice. "I've got a big log to push in that big butt, sis."

Laszlo stopped and grabbed his shoulders. "Stop it! You're going to get us kicked out. Mom said no one can know!"

"I know, I know. I can keep my mouth shut. But she didn't say we couldn't fuck our sister." Anton grinned, with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"She said exactly that!"

"No, she said, 'Constance won't fuck you...'"

"...so don't try it!"

"Sure, but that's not the same. And I think she underestimates just how wild other women go for us. Our own mother couldn't even resist us!"

"Anastasia did. And you're not endearing yourself to Constance either. Eventually, Mom will come back. Maybe she'll bring some other girls too. Until then, think clean thoughts. Jerk off in private. Don't you fucking dare get caught."

"Fine."

CHAPTER 2

The layout of the new outbuilding was straightforward: a squat cross of five squares each of fifteen feet. Already two feet high of log walls were built on top of a rock foundation previously hacked into the frozen ground and laid by the triplets. Constance had drafted the shape to maximize its size but ensure they could build with only logs that the three half-wolf triplets could carry. Once construction started, they'd shown it only took two to lift the longer logs, so a third could lead the cutting of more trees.

The two on building duty, Matteo and Dante, had just finished placing one such log from two nearby piles when they stood and turned, noticing the pair of rabbit-earred foxes approaching. The wolves were both wearing leather, wool-lined pants and boots. Shirtless, their thick winter coats almost concealed their broad-shouldered, chiseled physiques.

"Hey, hey! Fratellini! Are you lost?" One wolf called out in his singsong accent, his tail hanging loose behind him. The twins hadn't been around long enough to tell the wolf triplets apart.

"Constant sent us to help," Laszlo replied, the two surveying the scene as they approached..

"Help? With what?"

"I don't know. Whatever you're doing."

"We're turning these logs into a house," he pointed from one to the other.

"Okay," Laszlo turned to his brother. "So I guess we are too."

Both wolves chuckled to each other. The more animated of the two replied. "They're heavy. No offense, but it's hard work. We've trained every day since we were little cubs." He stood in half-pose, showing off his chiseled fighter's physique. "Plus, we're part wolf, bred to be stronger than foxes, let alone rabbits. Ask Constance if you can chop trees instead."

Anton folded his arms. "With the little girls?"

His larger, half-brother shrugged, but his grin became a chuckle. "Those little girls are tough! They chopped down most of this once they could swing an axe."

His face straightened out then, eyes stern. "But yes. You should join our strong, little sisters, who are excited to help and don't complain. We saw you whining to Constance. You'll just be in our way."

He waved them off before looking to his wolf brother. They started back to a stack of logs.

Laszlo tugged Anton closer. "What about these shorter ones?" he called out. When the wolves turned back, he pointed to a different pile. "Those are for either side of the windows, right?"

The wolves exchanged skeptical glances. "You two deadlift one and we'll show you how we build up the wall."