A noble provides you with an opportunity

Duke Kaldrass is a man who is always at the cutting edge. He's full of surprises, even surprising you on occasion. When he comes to see you one day he is well equipped. He has money and more importantly a signed writ from the councilor in charge of the centaur program. Which means that he's thought so far ahead that he already got the necessary permission for what he's asking before coming to see you.

Most nobles would tend to come and ask what you could do, what you needed, possibly complain that you aren't willing to put their needs ahead of something or someone else. etc. etc. Duke Kaldrass has maintained his position for a reason. Truth be told you were starting to get antsy again - centaur after centaur, day after day, has you thinking of other projects. Another cataur is an interesting diversion, so you accept and ask him what he's looking for.

Turns out the duke didn't come prepared with just money and paperwork in hand. Outside, lazing in a cage and scaring the locals, is a black panther. The duke tells you he had guessed you needed to do something to enlarge the cat, as he'd never heard of a lynx as large as the one that now makes up part of Linne. Standing near the cage is a young serving girl, clearly a **** and with deep raven black hair that will match the panther nicely. He leaves both in your care and thanks you again.

You get to work growing the panther to a reasonable size, then ask some questions of the woman, who you learn is named Ariane. She's rather small and quite quiet. Very much like Linne, which gives you a lot of hope. Had the duke chosen some great fiery amazon of a woman then the transformation itself would have worked, but you bet things would not have gone as smoothly for him. Like Linne you suspect the thought of using her claws on someone will not even occur to her.

She's not a captive from the recent war, instead she was bought from far to the east and she's been in the duke's service for two years now. She says it's been pretty quiet and she's been getting bored with her work. Becoming a cat-centaur creature isn't her first choice in life, but it could be worse. And she does say life working for duke Kaldrass has been far more pleasant than the work she did before he bought her.

She's not quite as shy as Linne. She's quiet because as a **** she's likely been trained to only speak when spoken to. Once you start talking to her casually she starts responding more and more. You encourage her to act more like this, since after the transformation the duke will surely see her as someone special. She can excuse the fact she's being a lot more forward on the transformation itself, and once the duke is used to it she'll be in a better place. Exceptions become the rule and all that.

She's pleased to get advice like that from you and watches with great interest as you transform a new centauress for the army. Emboldened, Ariane questions Hanna, the new centauress, and takes great delight in brushing Hanna's coat once she gets Hanna's permission. As with most of your centauresses Hanna definitely likes the treatment. She's a bigger and tougher woman than most of the captives, which lead to her turning into an intimidating centauress who towers over you and Ariane at 7'6" or so. She's got a set of big E cups too, so the young knight who gets her is going to be quite pleased - assuming he can keep her under control.

When Hanna leaves Ariane is just brimming with questions about the transformation. You answer them as best you can while you tend to a number of things around your lab, but one question catches you by surprise. She asks if she'll still be able to bear children.

"Yes," you tell her. "Combining two beings isn't as simple as bonding the bodies together. If I just connected the blood vessels and nerves you'd die quickly - it takes a lot of fine tuning in every bit of the body to make two into one. When I started creating the centaurs I thought about how I wanted things to work as far as reproduction. If a centaur and a human have a child then there's an even chance of the child being either a centaur or human, just like there's a roughly even chance of them being a boy or girl."

Technically this is true - you did think about it, but when you were making Navir you were pressed for time. You hadn't thought about what to do in the cross cases either - human plus centaur is comparatively easy. But if you consider centaur plus cataur, centaur plus lamia, cataur plus lamia... and even that is ignoring any other taurs you might be asked to come up with in the future. At the moment none of your taurs can breed, but it seems like high time to correct that with Ariane.

"Oh," she says, with an obvious sigh of relief.

"You want to get pregnant?" you ask.

"Yes," she says. Then, "Oh, not right now! It's just... my mom, both my aunts, my cousin - they all had big families. So I always thought that one day I would too."

"I think you'll get your wish. Just smile at the duke a few times."

"Oh no, I don't think he wants me. I'm just a ****."

You got a look at the way the duke was keeping calm when he was near her. You roll your eyes, "Sure, of course, Duke Kaldrass only wants you transformed because cataurs are new and different."

"Yeah..." she says, sounding unsure.