Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 19: brought to you by a doctor

Next time on "Womanly Daydreams": Neara wins the most stressful game of hide and seek. Winston gets concussed by her rescue methods. The differences between predator and prey beastmen become more apparent when a doctor comes to town: Dr Steal Your Girl. And lo, there be fish guts.

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A snap of lightning lit up the ground and threw white flashes across the flooding streets. The river broke in waves against its banks and shuddered in the heavy downpour. Neara flinched, but stayed by the door. She probably wouldn't get hit because of all the tall trees and houses surrounding her, right? She took a cautious step forward, her feet almost slipping in the wet.

"Winston?" She screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth. "WINSTON?"

Only the thunder answered. The trees bent in the sudden wind, their branches lashed against the stiff breeze threatening to tear their branches off. The rain no longer soothed her; it was a curtain she had to fight through. She had to find Winston. He wouldn't leave her like this. He was hurt somewhere... she knew it.

The water continued to hammer against her bare skin as she walked. Her cloak hadn't finished drying and she figured it would only weigh her down. Her arms tightened around herself as she walked, her feet firmly planted in between the stones of the street. The houses around her were silent, sheets of fur or leaves drawn across the windows to protect against the rain. She thought of their little house, so bare and dusty, and stiffened her lips against the tears. He had to be out here.

"Winston?" she called into every corner, hoping someone would hear and help her. Nobody came. "Winston?" He went to see the Ape King... maybe he'd been sent on a dangerous mission or something. She'd go there and get their help. A large tree, almost the size of a redwood, stood by the walls, remarkable for its solitary post. Stumps littered the ground around it, none as wide, in different stages of decay. Maybe it was hollow? She walked over to check and slipped on the grass. A cry burst past her lips and she sobbed on the ground as the rain pecked at her, icy cold needles driving into her skin and bones. She wanted to go home. She wanted Shay. She wanted to wake up and have this be a dream. Everyone was naked, everyone wanted to have sex with her, she had to invent all of civilization from scratch, and the one beastman who respected her had disappeared. Here she was, looking in the rain, and she'd probably die from exposure or something.

Might as well die beneath the tree. She pulled herself towards it, not bothering to stand, and her hand touched something warm. Shivers contorted her frame and a long time passed before she was able to look at what she had grabbed. A strong, brown, arm, wrapped in... teeth? Her hands and knees slid in the grass as she reached for him again.

Her fingers slid up his warm arm to his warm neck. His closed eyes looked puffier than normal, though she'd never seen him sleep. His lips... were purple? The color of sickly plums. The way his chest rose and fell beneath her fingers felt shallow, as if his lungs couldn't draw enough breath. Her attempts to lift him bridal style didn't work for obvious strength-related reasons. The cobbled road home would give him brain damage if she tried to drag him... she felt so helpless.

He murmured something, his breath warming her fingers. She stroked his hair absentmindedly while she thought. The doors were all closed, the windows covered... did she dare? His face looked so peaceful in his sleep...

There wasn't another way. She shrugged herself out of her tight top and managed to fold it under his head. The armband of teeth went around him, securing the padding to the back of his head. Positive her glowing body evaporated the drops before they could touch her, Neara firmly grasped his shins and dragged him home.

Her path went through the middle of the city (she didn't want anyone using the sand pits behind their houses to see her high beams in this weather... or any weather) where the gutters ran the deepest. She couldn't keep his head out of the water all the time, but she made sure it didn't go past his nose.