Louis awoke, lying on what he supposed was a warm, soft bed, so it surprised him to feel the cold breeze on his bare skin. He opened his eyes and saw the bright blue sky through the wafting grass.
He almost started when he realised his bed was moving, rising gently up and down. It was a moment before he realised that he hadn’t simply dreamed the previous night. He genuinely had had sex. With a minotaur and a snake. He wasn’t sure which part was the most surprising.
He looked up at huge minotaur he was sleeping upon. He was snoring in loud grunts and his belly fur was still matted with dried semen. With a stretch, Louis let himself shrink. His muscle faded, his skin paled, his tusks pulled back into his mouth. The hairy mass beneath him caressed his skin as his body drew inward. Once human again, he fully appreciated how big Hawk was now. Easily double Louis’s height with a flaccid organ the size of a good wine bottle.
Louis slipped down from his makeshift bed and hopped through the grass to his bag. He used the back of a spare tunic to wipe the fluid stuck to his chest -which covered much more of him at this size- before getting dressed.
‘What are you doing?” rumbled a voice.
Louis turned to Hawk, who stretched across the flattened grass. The sight of his rippling flesh brought back pleasant memories of the previous night. But despite temptations to the contrary, Louis finished pulling on his boots.
‘It’s almost noon,’ Louis said, ‘I want to get moving if I’m to make good progress.’
‘You’re not leaving without me?’ said Hawk, with a mournful coo.
‘Of course not,’ said Louis. ‘I mean, if you want to come with?”
Hawk brightened. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘But that’s not what I meant.’
‘Huh.’
Hawk sat up and scooted over to Louis. Even on his behind, he was taller than Louis.
‘When I asked what you were doing, I meant this.’ He reached up and pulled at Louis’s tunic.
‘My clothes?’
‘All of it. The clothes. The bag. The sword. Why carry it around with you?’
‘Well…’ Louis was momentarily stumped for an answer. ‘Because I need them. I used the sword to kill the dragon.’
‘But the dragon is yours now,’ said Hawk. ‘That’s stronger than any sword.’
‘I have money. I need money to buy food.’
‘There are no shops here and yet we found food.’
‘Lodgings then. I might need a place to sleep.’
‘You slept very well last night, didn’t you?’
‘But I need money and my clothes or I can’t set foot in a human town again.’
‘Foxes set foot in human towns and sleep and feed without clothes or coin.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Louis felt himself getting red. ‘I don’t have a fox.’
Hawk drooped his head a little, realising he had said something wrong. Louis put a hand on his muzzle to reassure him. He didn’t mean to get upset. It wasn’t Hawk’s fault he no longer understood the human world.
Louis glanced at the sun. ‘Come on. Let’s make a move.’
Louis stepped out into the grass and continued his walk across the vast plains. Hawk rose to his full height and plodded after him.
‘So where is it you’re headed?’ Hawk asked.
‘North. That’s where the monsters are supposed to be.’
‘Monsters,’ the minotaur repeated. ‘Like the dragon? Oh, boy, I need to bag me one of those!’
He trotted ahead a few paces, but hesitated when he realised Louis could not keep up on his human legs.
‘Hey, er…’ Hawk mumbled, wary of saying the wrong thing again. ‘Howcome you don’t just, you know, fly us there?’
‘Because I don’t know where there is. I just know it’s north and I don’t want to miss it from the air.’
‘Oh.’
That seemed to satisfy Hawk, which Louis was grateful for. He didn’t want to admit he was being stubborn by remaining human. He could at least fly to the end of the plain rather than walk, but he didn’t want the trouble of carrying the clothes he couldn’t wear, proving that they were an unnecessary burden.
They walked in silence a while, Hawk taking slow, lazy steps to match Louis’s pace. Louis didn’t want to suggest that Hawk revert to human, in case that drew attention to the lack of speed. Nevertheless, the distant hills did not appear to be getting closer and Louis suspected Hawk was getting impatient. Then-
‘Oh! I forgot humans do this…’
‘Wha- AH!’
Hawk rushed Louis from behind, ramming his horned head between his legs. At first, Louis thought Hawk might be trying to plough him again, before he was lifted off the ground. Hawk’s body forced his legs apart and Louis saw something large and hairy thrust forward from between them. He almost instinctively shifted into the orc, for he knew his human rump could not take whatever Hawk intended to put there, but he was distracted by the rushing air and the grass that tickled his boots as it thundered past. He clutched at the hairy thing beneath him and realised he was holding a mane. He was riding a huge, dun stallion that galloped eagerly across the plain. Realising this, he readjusted himself into the correct position and leant into the wind.
He gave Hawk a gentle pat of appreciation, who whinnied in return. Louis found it equally humorous and peculiar that this was the second time he had ridden this beast in as many days.