Late night liasons

It's the middle of the night and you should be getting some well earned rest. Helena tells you as much when you sit up.

"Yes, but my sleep schedule is all mixed up at the moment. Best to just walk around for a while, fix up a few wards until I'm tired."

In the dark the flick of her vivid white tail is barely visible. "I've got another way to help you burn off some energy."

You give Helena a kiss and a hug but tell her "If we start then you know I'll have three other catgirls trying to pounce me. It won't just tire me out, it will put me in a coma."

"Awww," she purrs. "Well, okay. But you tell me if you need a hand. Or a tongue." You can feel her skin heat up making a comment like that.

"I think you're getting naughtier," you tell her, and the invisible blush gets hotter. A minute or so of deep, firm ear massage leaves her boneless and semi-conscious.

"I'll make sure to take care of you properly come morning."

"Mmmmm."

After sneaking out of the bedroom you use your magic to locate Sandra. Not in the nursery as you thought she would be at this time, but downstairs in the hidden portions of the mansion. Sitting next to lady Emira. Hmmm, interesting. But the lower library is where you were planning to go regardless.

Old habits die hard, and as you make your way there you open a connection to one of the many little living roots that rest against sound boards in various parts of the mansion. A simple but effective listening device that's served you well, particularly over the last several months with all your new catgirls and catgirls to be.

"I am sure that in my case horses and dogs were the cause," you hear lady Emira say.

"It sounds bad when you say it like that," Sandra replies, snickering.

"You are incorrigible, a terrible influence and know precisely what I mean," replies Emira.

"Yes, yes. More wine?"

"Yes, thank you."

"As I said, it was the fact that I couldn't. But a lot of the girls I worked with did have the chance..."

"I'm sure they worked quite diligently to avoid it."

"Not all of them. Sometimes that was a way out."

At this point you come down the last flight of stairs to find Sandra and Emira reclining together on a couch, chatting like old friends, sipping wine in one case and milk in the other. There are some smoked meats, cheeses, bread and butter laid out on the table.

You walk over and say, "I'm glad the two of you managed to become friends. No one would guess how you met."

"Yeah," says Sandra. "But don't they say something like conspiracy breeds close bedfellows?"

"They don't," you reply, "but I'm sure you will find a spot for that one somewhere in the long lost catfolk journals."

"Probably a tantalizing clue for Leshak to find. Maybe a favorite quote some housewife wrote down from a sermon she heard?" Sandra gets up and stretches. "I'll be right back, just got to visit the bathroom before we get started."

You sit beside lady Emira and sample some of the wine and cheese while you wait for Sandra to return.

"The noblewomen I met as I was growing up would not have known what to do with her," says Emira, gesturing vaguely in the direction Sandra went. "To them any lowborn women were unimportant, of course, but even more so any lady of the night. Your Sandra would have blindsided them and wrapped their husbands around her fingers before they even took note of her existence."

She looks a little flush thanks to the wine, and taking that slight advantage in hand you ask "Would you mind if I ask what you were talking about?"

"Not at all." She looks down at her wine and smiles to herself. "I have been coming to a realization over the last few days and admitting it to myself, then to Sandra and now to you is... relaxing, I suppose. Everyone seems to develop certain interests in their potential partners, but the cause of those interests and their expression are often obscure, even to the person themselves. It would appear mine are tightly tied to breeding."

"I suppose you could say mine are as well."

"Yes, to a degree. Surely Sandra's are canted toward breeding more heavily than either of us. But when I say 'breeding' I do not mean the act itself. I am sure now that the lessons of my tutors on proper breeding, proper etiquette, choosing a good husband and so forth set a path before me. All of it placed a seed in my mind. I was telling Sandra just now that it was the competitions, the breeder's shows that my family often went to as judges in many smaller towns and villages - these are what drove home the whole issue for me."

"So you were impressed by the powerful warhorses, the racing dogs..."

"Yes! And more so I was impressed at the care and techniques these farmers developed, the variety of breeds and all their uses. It wasn't quite so proper for a young lady to be interested in dogs, but I became quite the expert on horses and falcons, even a type of tamed fox that is only kept in two small counties in the north. Later, once I started to notice boys, I looked at everything through the lens of breeding. What our children would look like."

She takes another sip of her wine. "It would have been quite the coincidence if I had taken interest in the breeding of cats back then, but alas they were not of interest to northerners in the same way as dogs, horses or cows. In the north there is just one form of cat, the barn cat, and they are not bred for appearances or for personality."

"Then I can assume Sandra has told you what we are waiting for?"

Your pregnant wife bounds around the corner and says "I did, and she's as keen as we are."

Lady Emira laughs and takes a slice of smoked meat. "Indeed. And I can't help but wonder at the possibilities that manifest once a life mage chooses to involve himself in breeding experiments." She gestures at Sandra, who is worming her way into your lap, "If the current results were not impressive enough."

"Breeding a whole new race isn't impressive enough?" asks Sandra.

"It's astonishing. It's miraculous. But there's even more, I'm sure." Lady Emira fixes her gaze on you. "For example, to ensure the traits of a breed pass down through the generations, dog breeders often mate bitches to sires from their own line. When they want to lock in some traits they will even mate a bitch to her sire or grandsire, or a dog to its own dam. Quite honestly I'm sure that many nobles would prefer to breed only within their own line, but the difficulties that arise are so troublesome." Her eyes twinkle. "You can fix that, can't you? Life mages are usually quiet, they want the world to see flashy displays of trees grown overnight, terrible maladies cured, fields destroyed in seconds, plagues of locusts or colonies of mushrooms eating away the bulwarks of a fortress. But secretly you can do something so potent, so world changing, that the kings and queens of the world would lock you up and deny your powers to all others if they knew."

That puts you off your wine. "Yes. You had a reputation for being intelligent, but without many hints you've worked it out. Life mages keep our real powers hidden for good reason, as do many other types of mages, I'm sure. Everyone school of magic has their own opinion, and I am all but guaranteed to be biased, but what is more powerful - the ability to create a volcano? The means to dominate a mind? Predict fate? Or the ability to change the very nature of the beings who witness such things?"

"Now that I've guessed," she says conspiratorially, "I want to know more. When Patrick breeds Emilie you will be able to adjust the outcome favorably? Their children will all be hale and healthy."

"There are limits, at some point it becomes a great deal of work to prevent certain types of diseases if the two parents share a number of unhealthy, but hidden, natures. But that is usually only a concern after a few generations. And it won't happen at all if a life mage is able to carefully edit what is passed on in each generation. It's quite difficult to remove all of the dangerous natures within a small number of related people, but it is possible to hold them at bay. The simplest, coarsest way is to examine each new life and remove those that will fail regardless, leaving only those with the best potential to develop."

"So Patrick and Emilie's children could breed with each other?"

"Perhaps, though that's starting to push it as not only are Patrick and Emilie closely related but so are their parents."

She's definitely a little tipsy and you're not sure if she's drunk on wine or knowledge. "What about this then? If some of your children with Doe, Renee and Alice decided to breed with Patrick and Emilie's children - would that work out favorably?"

"I could make sure of it. And that's a larger group, so things would be easier. It's still not something that could go on and on, but as long as there aren't any major problems in their family (and there aren't, I've checked) it could go on for a time."

Lady Emira puts down her wine glass and just sits there thinking about it for a bit. Then she asks "How many breeds are you aiming for?"

"I don't think of them as breeds per se. Schemers, lovers, fighters. In terms of personality - seductresses and seducers, obviously, as well as those who take charge, those who are caring, quiet or submissive. Most of the catfolk will be athletic, some will be powerfully built, most will be fit, some will be slender or slinky. I certainly hope to see many intelligent catfolk, though that is one of the hardest traits to control."

"But have you not considered particular markers for their fur, eyes and builds? A hundred years from now when someone sees a tall, muscly catgirl with white fur will they say 'Oh, that is one of the snowshoe breed'? If they see a shorter catgirl with black trimmed red fur will they watch out because most of those 'foxfall' catfolk are as devious as they are energetic?"

"I have a few plans in that direction, Sandra has a few more since she's been putting together the notes and histories for this. But if you would like to invent a few breeds of your own it would be a big help. And I rather like those two. There's always room for a small sect, a splinter group or crossbreed somewhere. I felt that the main issue was to create them - now that we've got a good number we are taking notes and determining how things naturally lie - if I can use the word naturally in this context. For example, we recently noticed that a lot of the gray furred girls are quiet, thin and tall, so Sandra make up a tribe that tended toward archery and hunting silently from the trees. Now if I spot a tall, thin and shy girl I'm a bit more likely to give her gray fur."

Lady Emira looks ready to ask you more, but Sandra straightens in her seat. "Oh look, it's time," she says eagerly. And indeed, the little green ward stone that you linked to Emilie's door and Patrick's key to that door is starting to glow.

Lady Emira drinks a bit more wine and says "This will be the first time I've watched something like this." You create the portal, binding it to the large mirror on the table. Your guest laughs and says "I meant that this will be my first time watching others having sex. Being a voyar, I believe? It is now also my first time looking through a scrying portal."

"It's voyeur," says Sandra. "And I bet you're going to enjoy it." To the scrying portal she says "Best of luck Patrick, it's time for you to breed your cousin's fertile womb."