Rowana & Azzie Read "Running the Gauntlet" by Wrynn, Part 2

Three green lines stared up from the pregnancy test. Rowana and Azzie didn't need a palantír to interpret that.

"Mother fuck," the Uruk-Hai said, in shock as her pregnant wife guided her to the couch. "I'm going to be a fucking mother!"

"And your breasts are probably going to be bigger than mine," the human said, easing the genetically-engineered breeding machine-cum-assassin down. "But let's give Wrynn's work the attention it deserves. Let's finish this review. Then—then we celebrate properly."

"I'm going to gargleblast Bebe until he's shooting ghost loads!" Azzie promised as she nuzzled Rowana's swollen midsection.

One of my recent rewards was an extra-dimensional dwelling, much like my storage.

"Mordenkainen's magnificent Playboy Mansion," Rowana muttered. "Not that we have Playboy in Middle-Earth."

And with a billow of green fire, she was a magnificent black horse.

"I know I joked about Silver earlier, but now I'm wondering about a season of Harem Hotel where all the girls are horsegirls of some stripe and how close things can get before the **** rules are tripped," Azzie said.

"And to Wrynn's credit, nothing that perverted appears at any point in this story," Rowana said.

"So fluffy!" The monster girl actually looked at a loss for words.

The Uruk-Hai snorted.

"Furries in Wrynn's work seem to occupy the same conceptual space as bimbos," Rowana observed. "Like, Wrynn gets that catgirls and wolfgirls are sexy, but never actually makes them the focus of the work because they're one flavor of waifu among many. So it's not really a furry story, and it doesn't really play to furry interests per se. That's not really a complaint, it's just another example of how for all that the story is nominally waifu-centered, the sexy waifus aren't really the focus."

"Tell me Guy, is your retinue all women?"
"Why, I do believe it is. Funny that."

"Savor this moment," Rowana said, as Azzie lay one ear against her wife's stomach to hear the twins' heartbeats. "This is as close as Wrynn gets to socio-political commentary on gender dynamics in Disney films."

"Yes, okay, give them a thing for huge breasts and an **** kink while you're at it."

"I am reminded of a story from another universe, the Master PC, which imagined a giant computer that could basically line-edit reality and change people by typing into a computer," Azzie said. "I don't want to keep harping on Wrynn throwing a kink out there without actually leaning into the kink to the degree I'd prefer, but I do think the story would be stronger if there were more focus on the waifus. Maybe side-chapters from their perspective? Something to consider for a future story."

"Truly. A dear friend of mine confessed her love to the man who swept her off of her feet the very day they met. They have been together since." And I was never letting Ella go.

"While we're on suggestions," Rowana added, "this is a case where the pace of the story overcame the plot, but the story so far doesn't really support this assertion of Guy being especially enamored by Ella. She isn't the waifu that spends the most time with him—she isn't even on this mission—or even the waifu that Guy interacts with the most, or the first when he gets back to the castle. There's no indication that Ella is a favorite. I think Wrynn had it in their head that Guy had a special bond with Ella, but because that relationship isn't really shown consistently on the page, it doesn't come across."

"Hale and whole again. Though you may have noticed she's a cat girl now." I just had to poke the nest, but she was taking things very much in stride so far.
Elsa nodded. "Yes, I see that. I figured it was a normal part of the process. So that was quicker than you thought, yes? You said three days initially."

"Missed opportunity to normalize magic in the Disney world," Azzie said. "Like, if cat girls are normal as curses, that's something that could be developed further. Of course, given that this is supposed to be the first of ten worlds and Guy is already planning to vamoose, that might be extraneous to requirements."

I leaned back, enjoying the feeling of Ariel's plush tits as she energetically bounced them on my dick.

"I know this isn't what Wrynn meant, but the idea of Guy getting a titjob from a teddy bear is going in the spank bank," the Uruk-Hai said with a fang-filled grin.

She played at cold disinterest, but couldn't hide the needy sub she'd become in my arms.

"Serious but hypothetical question: is anyone in this story actually a submissive in a BDSM sense?" Azzie went on. "I mean, slavery is normally a fairly **** expression of power dynamics in bondage and sadomasochism, but here the bondage is largely symbolic and mental, the waifu aren't masochists, and Guy isn't notably sadistic. You don't really get the sense that he enjoys dominating the women in any way beyond the occasional 'remember I'm the boss,' sense. If anything, he seems to want their love and adoration and for them to be totally horny for him all the time."

"Well, Wrynn is no John Norman, and Waifu Catalog isn't Gor," Rowana said. "Not that we have that on Middle-Earth, and thank the Valar for that. But yes, I would agree that this is really a harem story with a twist rather than a BDSM tale. But then, Wrynn never said it was a BDSM tale, emphasis on slavery aside."

You have a lot of demi-humans that work for you.

"Throwing some D&D terminology in there," Azzie noted.

For all I knew she could use her ice to refract sunlight into deadly lasers with the right knowledge.x
It was a pretty exciting idea.

"Is that an X-Men reference?" the Uruk-Hai asked with a frown.

"Hard to tell," the pregnant human said. "Wrynn's approach to physics and metaphysics is weird. Sometimes he treats it like real-world physics, sometimes he treats it like Disney metaphysics, and sometimes he treats it like video game mechanics. Not sure if there's a best balance between the three; obviously, Wrynn doesn't want to frontload the story with a dissertation on how gravity works in the five magic kingdoms, but at the same time every other chapter we tend to get new rules, very much in the Harem Hotel vein. Which some readers like, admittedly."

The top of the wall had a nice, wide walkway between the crenulations, which gave a fantastic view of the city.

"Crenellations," Azzie corrected. Castles were one thing Middle-Earth and Far, Far Away had in common.

"There's a bit of a break in the comments for this run of chapters, which seems to correspond with a break in the writing," Rowana noticed. "But the likes largely stay in the same range, so I think the audience was still following along."

"A hero." Elsa whispered. "An actual honest hero, here to save me just like in a story."

"Gaslighting people is one of the parts of Wrynn's writing they do well," Azzie said. "Felt I should mention that. I know we nitpick."

Suddenly I was glomped on by another ravenette with massive breasts, who squealed as she was incoming.

"Not sure if that's used seriously or a seriously inside joke," Rowana said. "But I would not put it past Wrynn to be a My Immortal fan."

The orgy lasted quite a while. I had a lot of women in my harem now, and some were acting like they hadn't seen me in years. Thankfully, Sexual Calibration meant I had the stamina to ensure everyone was well satisfied by the time we fell asleep.

"'The hero defeated the dragon. Then he fucked her super hard. And gave her some ginormous milkers,'" Azzie said. "What do you think of my fanfic, Rowana?"

"Point taken, green genes," Rowana said. "But yeah, the thing about an orgy is that if all you can do is tell us the orgy happened without actually showing us what happened, you're better off not telling us it happened."

I am Prince Guy of Fawks at your service.

"The e is silent," Azzie said.

"Everyone slips," Rowana said. "Look on the bright side: no character's dialogue is rendered in an incomprehensible Scottish accent. Props where they're due."

Still, a combat-trained archer with her own horse was a nice prize. Maybe I'd switch her over to werewolf too.

"I'm kind of wondering how Guy would fare in a world where he didn't have a massive and overwhelming advantage," Azzie said. She scrunched up her little green nose. "Like, I can see him as a basic pimp, medieval **** dealer, or the manager of a woman's baseball team. He treats women like baseball cards he can fuck."

Couldn't sail a ship without a name, it was bad luck.

"I don't want to say Wrynn has completely given up on the pretense of writing a sex story by this point, but he hasn't mentioned expanding Merida's breasts yet," Rowana said.

"Fuk no. I'm hav'en a right blast. Tha flight, tha falls, and now riding about on a real sailing ship! I just wanted to knew."

"I think her accent's gotten thicker," Azzie said.

We were actually attacked on three separate occasions.

"I can't tell if Wrynn just didn't want to write these, or if they're trying to keep the story moving so it finishes in a reasonable length," Rowana said. "Either is plausible."

"It will not be the first time we've played at being a couple."

"Grimhilde really is Guy's best girl," Azzie said. "Even if she doesn't have an ass fit for a dragon."

Of course he'd run straight for cosmic power without reading the fine print first.

"Guy actually reading the small print on the rules would have been a good aside," Rowana said.

"Am I alone in wishing he'd pimped out Hilde to Jafar?" Azzie said. "Like, they have so much in common!"

"Ship the villains on your own time, love," Rowana said, running one finger along her wife's ear. "I did find Jafar's plight at basically failing to pull a Guy on Princess Jasmine amusing, even if it made him seem pathetic."

"I am already bound."

"Having a genie in a waifu **** harem story is interesting," Rowana said. "Because a genie is already a ****, so there's a whole angle that could be explored about being doubly enslaved, or having thousands of years of experience being enslaved to reflect on the circumstances."

"Wrynn doesn't do that," Azzie said.

"No, it's all about power and points," Rowana said. "Guy would tell power he loved it if it would get power into bed."

Mmmm, shapeshifters.

"The thing about shapeshifters is that they give a greater physical variety within a single individual," Azzie said. "Like, if you want bigger tits, or an Asian girl, or a redhead, instead of having three women, one can handle it all. But Guy already has a shitoad of women. And the magic to alter them. So the whole shapeshifting thing is like—this is why Guy isn't fucking Cinderella! He's got a pint of his 'favorite' ice cream at home, but can't stop trying other flavors."

The Uruk-Hai pouted.

First lots and lots of sex, and then Exit Stage Right to world number two.

"This was where Wrynn should have bent his own rules," Rowana decided, one hand slipping down to play with Azzie's breast. "If each Disney kingdom had been set up as a separate world, the story could be completed relatively easily. But it took 55 chapters just to get through the Tier 1 world, and it felt like a bus trip through Europe. I don't know if Wrynn outlines their stories, but they should consider it, if only to help with balanced pacing and to see whether they just started a 20 chapter story or a 200 chapter story."

Long, long ago, early in my career, I'd been sent to a Mamono world of the MGE, Monster Girl Encyclopedia.

Azzie paused. She did a Matrix search.

"We don't have this in Middle-Earth," she said after a moment. "But I would much prefer to read this story than the Disney one."

"The idea is sexy," Rowana said. "But Wrynn's strength doesn't lie in writing sexy. Wrynn's strength lies in writing the gaming equivalent of a **** manager."

I was tempted to look for my horse

"Silver! Noooooo!" Azzie wailed dramatically.

"Wait until the pregnancy hormones really kick in," Rowana said dryly.

"So what brings you to our shores then, [Prince Guy](<"So what brings you to our shores then, Prince Guy?">)?"

"I get why he'd keep the name, but trying to keep up the identity of being a prince feels unimaginative," Azzie said. "Like, it's a new world, you can be whoever you want, and you want to continue to be the same asshole as the last world."

The Unagi Joro was an interesting mermaid variant native to Zipangu. Her lower body was that of a huge eel rather than a fish, and easily more than four times the length of her more human upper body. I knew about them from past studies, but seeing her, I got a whole lot more information than I knew before. Information I had to be getting from my Persona as a Prince of Zipangu, which I wasn't aware it could do. Apparently being a Prince meant knowing about local monster girl varieties, handy that.

"One of the nice things about going into worlds with well-defined bestiaries is that there's a lot of detail to draw off of," Rowana said. "Which definitely helps the writing, especially for less-familiar monstergirls."

"Oh no, sir. Nothing like that. Not to say you can't find a few of those around here these days, but that's the daughter market."

Azzie's face fell, her hand clutched to her still-flat stomach. "I no longer like this story."

"To be fair, MGE is fairly fucked up as worldbuilding goes," Rowana said.

Hell, the bracelets were silver. For all I knew the Mamono energy was boosting them. Scary thought.

"One point of credit to give to Wrynn, making it clear that the sexual bonding from the exchange of body fluids/mana in MGE is dangerous gives a good reason why he doesn't try to just stick his dick in every monster girl he captures," the pregnant human said. "Like, if you're going to avoid writing hardcore, pussy-pumping, cunt-nutting, womb-blasting sex, setting it up ahead of time is the way to go."

"And that is," Azzie said. "As far as the story goes. For what it set out to be, it's not bad. We have our tastes and our arguments about stuff we'd like to see more of, of course."

"But hopefully this ribbing didn't hit you too hard, Wrynn. Keep writing. You seem to have some fans."

With that, Rowana bent over, and Azzie lifted her head, and the two women shared a soft, delicate kiss which shared the promise of many more intimate moments to cum.