Within the village of Chuleigh was an old and venerable church. It did not have a name, for such frivolities were reserved for churches with regular attendance that could be counted on more than two paws. They held services to the Goddess, as one expected, but this was mostly a formality. The building's main purpose was to act as a sort of informal monestary, little more than a home for the head priest and a number of juniors that, in its long history, had never gone higher than five. It, like most everything in the town of Chuleigh, never grew and never amounted to anything, but for reasons unknown had been allowed to keep on going for longer than anyone ever cared to record.
At the time of our story, the priests in the monestary numbered four, senior priest included. One of the junior priests was a grey wolf, head and shoulders taller than his peers and therefore easy to pick out of the flock. Brother Adelard was not the most devout, or the most knowledgable of scripture. Being a burly sort, he primarily did the hard labor on the grounds that the rest were too old or sedentary for. However, his presence here was understood to be natural. In every generation of his family there was a man who, seemingly on the flip of a coin, either grew up to become a lascivious reprobate in the cities or came back to Chuleigh to try and make amends for his family's shameful history through penance. The church understood this well, and always seemed to have a spot open for a large grey wolf whenever the coin landed tails-side-up.
It was late evening, and Adelard was doing one of his more common jobs around the church; waging a forever war against ivy. Abandoning his robes for such a base task, he swung a scythe along the front lawn in nothing but a battered pair of burlap pants and the workman's boots he had entered the brotherhood with. Against one of the stone walls was a massive pile of plant matter, the results of hours spent tearing the invaders away from the fence, by hand. Despite that, the priest was not especially tired. Physical labor was never too much of a bother for him, and he had only needed to spend a season in this town before he found himself a natural enemy in the infernal ivy.
If there was any one problem he had with the work, it was that standing out in the open, broad chest on full display, tended to attract attention. New men were a precious commodity in Chuleigh, and the eyes of the young women wandered here as easily as they wandered anywhere else. Adelard tried to not let such things bother him, to put his whole focus on his work. However, he (like many of the men in his family) had a sixth sense for such things. The idea that someone was watching them, that his presence was inspiring less than pious thoughts, made his blood itch in a way that simultaneously frightened and disgusted him.
Not helping matters was the fact that the one who was staring at him was doing quite literally nothing to hide the fact that she was undressing him with her eyes.
"Good evening, Brother Adelard," said the tall and curvy mare, who leaned against a section of Adelard's newly-liberated fence as casually as a neighbor.
Her shirts don't fit her as well...
"Madam." Adelard set down his scythe and rubbed leaves out of the fur of his forearms. "How are your children?"
...they've definitely gotten larger, since the pregnancy...
"They're fine," she replied, with a sigh. "The Goddess gave them both a strong set of lungs, and they refuse to squander Her gifts for even a moment." She leaned forward a little bit more, her cleavage visible in her too-small shirt. She had the faintest, but most devilish smirk as she followed where the priest's eyes went.
Damn her. While talking about her own babes, even...
Adelard shook his head. "Did you need something, Madam Hermine?"
Hermine pushed herself off of the fence and began the slow walk over to the open gate. "I heard something interesting. From my husband. Apparently, there might be some trouble on the horizon."
He's a good man. He has to know what she's up to.
Adelard motioned behind him, with his head. "Father Cecil is inside."
"A stranger came around, just a little while ago."
"You can tell it to Father Cecil."
"He was looking for the manor house."
"The ma-" Adelard forgot, just for a moment, that he was supposed to be brushing her off. He, like most everyone in the town of Chuleigh, knew about the abandoned home of old Duke Maiselle. He knew that it was nothing but trouble, that there was a long, unspoken agreement that it was not to be poked around. He knew these things better than most, for despite their constant attempts to leave, his family was tied to Chuleigh in a way he only vaguely understood. He, more than anyone in the church, would have wanted to be the first to hear anything involving the accursed place.
Hermine knew that, or at least she could intuit it. She considered Adelard to be fun to mess with, a priest who was very much not made of stone. Having this in her apron pocket was just the thing she needed to get him to stay put, for just that little bit longer. She took advantage of the opportunity to get herself closer. "Indeed. Some out-of-towner blows in, and the very first thing he asks about is where to find that old place."
Adelard fought to keep his expresion level. "Did he say what he wanted with the place?"
Don't get too close, you fool. We're outside. The whole town can see us.
She got close. Too close for Adelard's liking. "Apparently," she said, "he plans to live there."
"Impossible." Torn between the itch and the simmering anger of learning about this stranger, it seemed that anger won out. He scowled at Hermine. "No one has so much set foot in that house for years. It's forbid...den." He looked down at his arm, at Hermine's fingers brushing against his fur. The anger lost out to the itch, and suddenly he was very quiet.
Her hips are wider, too...
Hermine chuckled. "You see? I couldn't take this to Father Cecil. You take these things so much more seriously than he does."
Lucky bastard...
"Perhaps we ought to discuss this somewhere else," Hermine offered, with a tone that was not even attempting to be subtle. "Just so the other villagers don't have cause to worry, aye?"
Adelard's mouth opened. He was not sure what he was about to say.
To think that her husband gets to have those hips under his hands whenever it pleases him...
He wanted it to be a rebuke. A castigation.
Stop touching me, woman. It burns.
Her nails raked down his arm. Still his mouth hung open.
It burns...!
Just then, the door to the church creaked open. A hunched little hedgehog in a brown robe slipped out into the front lawn, his soft shoes scuffing the dirt with every step. He lifted his pointed snout, eyes smiling. "Oh. Good evening, Hermine." The rest of his face followed his eyes, a cracked tooth slipping out of his grinning mouth. He spoke slowly, only able to pull about a half a lung's worth of air at any time to speak with. "A very good-hh-evening, indeed. How are your-hh-children? Are they well?"
Hermine had withdrawn her hand, the second she heard the door open. The smile she gave Father Cecil was as warm as cordial as any other. Internally, she was more than a little bit miffed that her fun was to be cut off, so unceremoniously. Even so, at least she had had her fun. "They're perfectly well, Father," she said, sweetly. "Angels, the both of them." With a mental shrug, she pulled away from Adelard. "Well, I best be getting back to them. Be well, Brother. Father."
Adelard forced his muzzle shut. He and Father Cecil watched as the mare disappeared around the corner. Only once he was sure she was out of earshot did Father Cecil step forward and place a scribe-hardened paw on the wolf's shoulder. "Brother Adelard," he said, his voice still as warm as ever. "You need only say-hh-the word, my boy. I-hh-will speak with her. Privately."
The feeling of the old hedgehog's paw on his bare fur was cold water on a hot stone. Adelard's ears flattened against his head. Then, with a half-hearted mutter of "Please excuse me, Father," he pulled away and retreated into the church.
Once inside, he marched to the back of the building with implacable purpose. He did not stop, not even when two of his fellow monks paused the conversation they had been having in the corridor to greet him. He did not stop until he was in his cell, the door was closed behind him, and he had his robes in his hands. Only then did he allow himself to breathe, just for a moment. Then, he shucked off his boots and climbed out of his pants, eager to ensconse himself in the Goddess's grace.
He paused, only for a moment, to look at the erection hanging half-out of his sheath. Only for a moment, long enough to regard it with contempt. Then he was back to climbing into his simple monk's garb. Then he strapped on a pair of basic sandals, tied a rope around his waist, placed the image of the Goddess around his neck. By the time he had finished changing, he felt more like himself. Or at least, more like who he wanted to be. He pushed Hermine out of his mind, endeavored to forget what she said and did.
Or at least, forget what she did. What she said stuck in his head.
At first, Adelard had the desire to rush to the library. There, they kept what scattered records were available on the manor house, about the curse that had fallen upon it, and about the countermeasures that the pious could apply to them. However, by the time he got halfway there, he realized that the sun was already set. The written word was a difficult subject for him; he had only just learned his letters when he joined the brotherhood. Attempting to decipher bestiaries and magical treatises was already nearly beyond him; to try and decipher bestiaries and magical treatises by candlelight? Impossible. Or, at the very least, close enough to impossible to give him pause. He snarled, half at himself and half at the concept of sunsets. He needed to do something. Even if, realistically, there was no tangible direct action he could do, the thought of some stranger poking around the town's forbidden areas was a crisis, one which he impulsively decided that he needed to put himself in the middle of, right this instant.
He was moments away from giving in and putting his eyes on the line for information. But then, he remembered the belltower. He clawed his way across the cloister lawn, into the chapel, past the pews and the lectern and into the back rooms. He took the old spiral stairs two at a time, then three. In a trice, he was at the top, in the little open-air chamber with the large and ancient church bell overhead. Here, tucked in the corner furthest from the stairway, was a single wooden stool and one of Father Cecil's only extravagences: a brass telescope inlaid with long-faded gold engravings.
Adelard put a hand on the stone railing and leaned over, just a bit. He could see the whole town, from this high vantage point. Not there was usually a lot to see. A handful of farm-houses, carved out of the woods, formed from the cobbles of a thousand-and-one repairs over countless years. At this hour, nobody walked around. Except for Zeke, but to call the druken staggers he was doing from the tavern "walking" was an insult to anyone with functional legs. Barring that distraction, however, the town of Chuleigh was quiet. No obvious crisis. No black magic tendrils snaking through the streets. No cackling witches laying curses on the innocent for disturbing her eternal slumber. The only iniquity that could be said to be in progress was the one Zeke was about to do to the side of Wallace's house, as the old dog doubled over and began to retch.
Adelard paid the town no further heed, instead turning his head to the black stand of woods, just down the path. From this height, he could see the manor house. Or, at least the upper half of it. Or, at least, the glint of the moon from the glass of the windows on the upper half of the manor house. From the moment he first looked at those windows, he knew the manor was bad news. Despite decades of neglect, that glass had never broken or clouded. The font of ivy that coated the old building never seemed to encroach on the windows. He had made the mistake of approaching the front gates, early in his stay in Chuleigh. He had stood in the shadow of that house. He did not need to do anything else, in order to understand how dangerous that place was.
He bristled. A light! A light had gone on in the house! He squinted his eyes, trying to make sense of the shape he saw moving around inside. It had to be the stranger. It had to be. Looking to his side, he rushed to get himself behind the telescope. He swung it down, so fast he almost cracked the thing against the railing and had to pull it back with a panicked start. Only once he was sure he did not break Father Cecil's most prized possession did he resume his quest to find his stranger (though, obviously, with somewhat muted enthusiasm). He put his eye against the eye-piece. He angled the scope around, questing almost blindly among the trees and shrubs until he saw the orange glow of candle-light in the corner of his view. He grit his teeth, as he adjusted upward and got his first look...
...at a naked dormouse, suspended from sheets of linen with his hindquarters pressed against the glass.
Leaning back, Adelard took a moment to stare into the middle distance. It would be a moment, before he could fully and properly process what it was he just saw. He put his eye to the eye-piece again cautiously, as if afraid it was going to snap at him. Sure enough, he saw the same thing he saw last time. A fuzzy blonde mouse, tangled up in sheets, tail raised, his every secret on full display.
As far as young males were concerned, he was not especially impressive. The way he was suspended, belly down and limbs spread out, made his gut the lowest hanging part of him, where it wasn't being supported by the web of sashes. Competing for that lowest-hanging distinction was his short, blunt looking member, which Adelard was surprised to see was, seemingly, completely free and swollen with arousal... he stopped looking there. Looking there made his blood itch. It was just as well, because the dormouse apparently decided to start moving in earnest. Poorly. Adelard was once again convinced that, whoever this strange naked mouse was, he was not a field-worker. One of the apprentices from the University? Some member of the gentry, here from the capital? Wherever he came from, he certainly did not get those skinny arms or that soft, round ass by performing any sort of labor that was not on his back... in a seat. Labor that could be peformed while sitting down. Not on his back.
He looks nothing like the males I met who sold their bodies.
Adelard's ears flattened. A blush started to form underneath his fur. He was once again forced to confront the thoughts, and the fact that they just... happened. This was not the first time he had had the thoughts about another male. Far from it. He had encountered all sorts in his time in the capital. His attempts to work his way into the royal guard was stymied in no small part because his commander in the regular watch had an immensely frustrating habit of spending his time off-duty naked from the waist up and...
We would have bent him over, if we'd had the chance.
"No." He shook his head. Then he shook it again, more violently. "Stop it, Adelard. You are stronger than this. You are strong." He took a deep breath. He pulled his paw away from his crotch, where it had wandered in his ever mounting excitement. With a grim scowl, he put his eye once again back to the eye-piece and was once again greeted by the sight of soft, vulnerable flesh, squirming and writing like prey caught in a spider's web, splayed lewdly out in front of his eyes like a drunken stablehand, begging to be taken and filled and...
Within moments, Adelard had almost entirely forgotten his purpose for being here. Now he was sat on the little stool, robes up past his stomach, one thick paw groping at his aching cock while the other struggled to keep the telescope steady, even as his body trembled with unleashed pleasure. Certainly, he was mad at himself for giving in to the temptation. He was doubly mad at the fact that he had already given up on pulling himself together. However, at that very moment, every ounce of that simmering rage and contempt was pointed away from him. Instead, he channeled it through the old telescope, at the pair of tawny cheeks that shook and squirmed in his direction.
Shameful. What are you even doing, little mouse? Is this what you plan to do with our town's history? To traipse around it like a common whore, on display for anyone to take? I ought to "come down there and pull you down to the ground." His gropes became strokes, as he muttered to himself between heavy pulls of air. "Fuck... would I even feel anything? Has that twitching hole of yours been worn out by all the men you've taken to bed? Would you even care? I bet not." He began to leak. He was almost delirious as he barrelled closer and closer to the edge. "Oh, I bet you'd bawl like a bitch in heat once I bent you over and gave you what you wanted, you..."
A slip, and suddenly the dormouse dropped. Adelard was startled, but he quickly followed him down with the telescope. The stranger only fell a short distance, the ropes catching him once again to deposit him upside down, facing the window. Adelard got his first look at the mouse's face, his wide, almost terrified eyes and his panting mouth. He got a good look at the mouse's body, short and soft and covered in fuzz. He even got a better look at the mouse's cock, moments before it heaved and spat hot seed against the window.
Adelard saw all this, watched the way the dormouse's mouth widened in an inaudible scream, and his paw dropped down. He threw his head back, growling as he tightened his fist around his thick knot and tugged it with short, rapid pulls until he, too, was painting the bannister with ropes and ropes of pent-up frustration.
It was around that time that Father Cecil had finally finished his trek up the stairs. It had been a slow and laborious process. Even as old as he was, he considered the sight of himself as a huffing and puffing wreck to be undignified, and so took special care not to exert himself unless strictly necessary. Unfortunately, while his lungs might have been a shadow of their former selves, the old hedgehog's hearing was about as sharp as it had ever been. He could hear just about every word that Adelard had been muttering to himself. Because of that, he had to prepare himself mentally for what he would see and hear, when he climbed the last dozen or so steps and made it to the top of the bell tower. When he did, he found exactly what he expected. A junior priest, head thrown back, gripping his rod and spilling his seed onto the floor.
Adelard, for his part, did not notice his superior's presence until he was about six shots in and the strength of his orgasm was beginning to fade. When he turned his head and looked into Cecil's eyes, a shock of pure terror rolled through his body like a punch. "F-F-Father?!"
Father Cecil put on his warmest smile, placidly pretending that nothing was amiss. "So, this is where you-hh-had run off to, Brother Adelard."
The wolf threw his robes down, desperately trying to cover himself. "Father Cecil, this... this isn't what it seems, I..."
"I was-hh-going to ask you to han-hh-handle the confessional tomorrow," explained the old hedgehog. "However, as I was-hh-climbing these stairs, it-hh-occurred to me that perhaps-hh-perhaps I should do it-hh-myself. It has been a while."
"Father, please, I..." Adelard struggled to find anything that could even begin to explain what he had just been caught doing. Not helping matters was when he threw his paw forward and a portion of his cum flew off of it and spattered in front of the old monk's feet.
Father Cecil, for his part, had already made the decision that he had seen and heard nothing, and that he was too tired from the trip upstairs to notice how obviously guilt-ridden his underling was. He was every bit the oblivious old fool, as he turned around and prepared to make the long, tedious climb back down to the ground floor. "Enjoy the stars, Adelard. I-hh-shall see you in the morning."
With that, Adelard was left alone. His member, now spent and shocked into compliance, retreated back into its sheath, but not before leaving a clear and obvious dark patch where he had bundled his robes around it. He looked down at it, at the streaks of discolored rock he created on the bannister, and what was once an overwhelming feeling of anger and lust was entirely replaced with a cold, simmering hatred. Normally, he would have directed that hatred against himself. Fortunately for him, however, there was somebody else he could turn all those feelings towards.
He did not look back at the manor directly, but he did turn his head to get the accursed thing in the corner of his eye. "You loathsome creature," he muttered, rising to his feet. "I have no idea what shameful things you are planning to do in there, but your existence is clearly a threat to the moral fabric of this town. Mark my words, whoever you are: you are watched, and you will be stopped."
Had he looked closer, he would have seen magic at work. He would have seen the drapes shift and reform as they deposited an unconsious dormouse on the floor. He would not look closer, however. He was too busy making plans, resolving to crack into those books of magic and demonology at first light. He made resolution after resolution, how he would unmask this stranger and thwart his plans and regain the honor taken from him. He launched into impromptu prayers to the Goddess, for strength and guidance and the forebearance to endure the trials ahead.
And then, once he was sure enough time had passed, he ventured a look down the staircase, to make sure Father Cecil was well and truly gone. Only when he was entirely sure the coast was clear did he stop praying and resolving and start the long, shameful skulk back to his chambers to wash himself off.
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