Richard and a convoy of people from a nearby village trudged through the forest on a cool autumn night. Twigs and leaves crackled beneath his feet as he followed those around him. Their muffled sobs reverberated through the otherwise silent forest, all of them were being driven, hands bound and at spear point, toward some unknown destination.

How did it come to this? The elves of Elsira shouldn’t even be on their small island kingdom of Ivelsten. Richard knew the elves had been on a warpath, but the western kingdoms were still fighting them in the field! He was no military strategist, but he was a scholar, so he knew the Empire of Elsira was powerful, but even with all that strength, how did these elves slip past all the western kingdoms?

He just didn’t understand, but given his luck in life, he wasn’t surprised. Lost in thought, he bumped into the girl in front of him, before he could even stammer out an apology she had already turned on him.

“Watch your step, my lord.” Her last words came out as a hiss, and she turned to continue on their trek. The other villages shot dirty glances at him, but otherwise kept marching in silence.

It was no secret that Richard was part of the nobility, all tax collectors had to have some noble lineage in Ivelsten, most were noblemen down on their luck, his own house had fallen upon hard times when their consumer goods trade with the western kingdoms dried up as those nations switched to a war footing; his own years of studying for entrance into the Scholar's Guild being halted as a result, he simply couldn’t afford the admission fees.

So he signed up as a taxman, though he quickly realized noblemen down on their luck in charge of taxation inevitably led to corruption, and animosity between the taxman and the villages they visited. He tried to operate within the bounds of the law, but the stereotypes were too deeply entrenched, and that tension led a very angry and resentful band of villagers to hold him up at the local inn with pitchforks and torches.

He didn’t know if the extra light and sound drew the elven raiding band to the village, but based on how the villagers looked at him, it seemed they believed it had.

Richard sighed, just his luck, he was cursed after all. Everywhere he turned, misfortune befell him. From his house’s finances, to this village’s capture, all the way back to his very birth. From the moment he came into the world he had been unlucky. He, of course, was born feet first and the shock his blue head gave the midwife as he popped out caused her to drop him to the floor. Even though he made it through the mishap unscathed, it set a dangerous precedent.

He didn’t know why he had blue hair; both of his parents were brown haired, same as many others in Ivelsten, but he was different. His hair was at least a darker navy blue instead of a sky blue that would draw even more attention, but it hadn’t done him any favors during his life. Constant bullying as a child and a distinct and visual marker of otherness in a society as conservative and insular as the Kingdom of Ivelsten led to a life devoid of close acquaintances or friends.

Which was why he could only get a job as a simple tax man, which led him to this village, which had since led to his capture. It was all the hair! Even when he shaved himself bald, dark blue stubble would start poking back through within hours!

His internal recollection was interrupted by the sound of Elven conversation.

“What a tiresome assignment, raiding these savage’s hovels, did you see their dwellings? I’m not sure if they were constructed with mud or shit.”

The speaker was a slender elven warrior, tan of skin, with a mean streak to her expression. The elf beside her, an even darker elf with more intricate armor, replied.

“We follow orders, they don’t need us in the west, so they sent us here, that’s all there is to it.”

“Silence both of you,” the lead elf hissed from further ahead, “we are still in enemy territory.”

The closer duo merely nodded. Their conversation eliciting no reactions from the villagers, as they couldn’t understand the Elven language.

Richard, however, had studied it extensively as part of his research to join the Scholar's Guild. He kept silent and tried to conceal his understanding. He wasn’t sure what would happen if the elves knew one of their captives could understand them.

They continued on like that for a while, eventually he caught sight of a light in the distance, and soon after that the gentle rush of waves hitting the beach; they were at the coast. As the group cleared the forest and the dirt beneath their feet transitioned to sand, his eyes fell upon an elven ship.

It was a work of art. Obviously military in design, built for speed from the number of sails, and adorned with ballistae with overlapping arcs of fire. The ship’s obviously superior craftsmanship combined with the elves’ magical advantage… this small raiding ship could probably punch far above its weight.

Atop the ship’s bow, Richard spotted a hooded figure, a staff in one hand and a torch in the other, it was an elven mage. She called down to her subordinates.

“A new batch? How many?” She inquired.

“We count a little over a hundred.” The lead elf called back.

“Perfect! We’ve a cage left, let’s get them aboard.”

One cage left? So multiple cages? How well-built was this ship that it could carry enough cages to hold a hundred people?

Before he had time to ponder elven logistics, he felt the butt of a spear in his back, pushing him toward the ship with the rest of the villagers. As he ascended the gangplank, he was forced into the center of the deck. More villagers were forced into him from behind, and the elves made sure to squeeze them all in. People cried out and protested being corralled so close, but their pleas had barely begun when he heard the elven mage shouting… something, and the world began to change.

The world was getting larger, he felt like he was collapsing in on himself as he watched the masts of the ship somehow seem to get further away despite the fact that he wasn’t moving. When he looked around and saw the rest of the villagers heads disappearing into their clothes, he realized that the world wasn’t somehow getting larger.

They were getting smaller.

Within moments his own head had fallen through his shirt; his world became a blur as he got lost in his own clothing, he ran as he shrank, desperately trying to find an exit. Terrific thuds would occasionally jolt him upward from the deck of the ship, faint screams usually followed them.

Perhaps a minute passed before he felt his prison of cloth begin to twist and shift, vertigo overtook him as he fell through his clothing and… directly into a gigantic palm. It was the size of a house, even at its narrowest point it would take four of him, head to toe, to cover its girth.

He was, at most, barely over an inch tall.

As his world came back into focus, he found himself staring up at the gigantic face of a tanned elven warrior. Strikingly beautiful, as all elves were, but with an expression of… complete and abject boredom.

Her eyes glanced over him as he crawled on her palm, trying to stand, only for her movements to disrupt his balance before being unceremoniously dropped into a tiny cloth bag.

Upon landing, his perception was overwhelmed by a cacophony of limbs, heat, and screams. There were dozens of the villagers trapped in here with him, all as nude as the day they were born, with most screaming like the day they were born too.

The pandemonium continued for perhaps a few minutes more, as additional hapless victims were tossed into the sack; by the time the tie zipped and darkness overtook the container, he was buried a few bodies deep.

And then, motion, he got a face full of some woman’s belly and a couple knees and elbows into his abdomen as their prison swung about, a sweltering mass of humanity packed tightly into the bottom of a tiny sack. Time seemed to move at a snail's pace in the darkness and chaos, but soon enough the vertigo returned as the cloth bag’s tie opened. Gravity shifted as he, and the rest of the bag's unlucky denizens, were poured into a… cage.

The latch came down on the top of the cage and the screams subsided, only to replaced with a sense of panic and shock. Richard followed the gaze of the villager’s out into the cargo hold. The ship’s interior, a cramped space by the definitions of their previous size, now loomed like an immense cavern, multiple times larger than the largest hall in the largest castle in Ivelsten, or at least it was from their now diminutive perspective.

A single candle the size of a lighthouse stood in the center of the hold. Adorning the massive hall were the standard provisions and tools of seafarers, at a scale that seemed unbelievable to Richard, but what drew his attention was the rows and rows of other cages, all filled with teeming masses of pale, miniaturized humans.

He had heard tales of elven magic shrinking people, preliminary reports from scouts on the front in the west… but he and every other learned individual dismissed those reports as the tall tales of soldiers…

Now… he was living it, along with what looked like thousands of others. A series of cries passed through the cage as a now titanic elven warrior descended into the hold with another cloth bag in hand. She approached them, her bare midriff looming over them, it felt like it was all they could see.

A clunk reverberated through their cage as something hard and heavy dropped onto it, another cage, he realized; the cage being placed above them was quickly followed by a plethora of screams and shouts as the elven warrior dumped the other bag of villagers into the cage above. Her task complete, she sauntered off, back to the deck of the ship.

And after that… nothing. Some tried to slip through or bend the bars, some wept, and still others, like Richard, were silent as they felt the ship cast off and everyone in it was taken away for some unknown purpose.

Richard sat in the corner of the cage, the constant rocking and swaying of the ship pushing him gently into and away from the bars. Since their abduction, the ship had been constantly on the move, and the captives had settled into something of a routine. As there were no bathrooms in the hold, once a day one of the elves would come into the hold and wash their cages, after that she would feed and water them in silence. Some villagers yelled and screamed at her at first, but after simply being ignored repeatedly, the yelling slowly gave way to the same resigned silence that all the other cages of humans had.

The villagers excluded him from food at first, sharing amongst themselves and their neighbors, but he was fortunate enough to know some ways to ease the seasickness that had overcome a few of their numbers, so they began to give him some small portion of the food provided by the elves, but only just enough to keep him going. Otherwise, the villagers mostly left him alone. Speaking, comforting, and worrying with each other over whatever fate awaited them.

A few weeks passed like this before he heard the distinctive cawing of birds through the creak and groan of the ship’s hull. Birds meant land, and it meant discovering what was in store for them.

Soon, a dull thump reverberated through the ship, and within minutes elves they had not seen before were entering the cargo hold. They had arrived at their destination, wherever that was.

Orderlies walked through and began sorting through the contents of the hold, military elves hauled out what looked like documents and other important prizes of the ship’s voyage. Once the officers gathered everything they needed, the orderlies began to filter in en masse and carry the cages into the searing sun.

Richard had to hand it to them, the elves were nothing if not efficient, and within minutes they had carried all the other cages out. The villagers, having observed the other cages being taken, didn’t scream or panic as his row was taken. They merely held onto the bars and prayed that wherever they were headed would be better than here.

The sun blinded them as they ascended through the hold’s ladder, and the colossal lighthouse, with its distinctive ornamentation of oak leaves and olives, told him what he needed to know in seconds.

“We’re in Alstor…” he whispered, realization creeping into his mind. Alstor was the coastal capital of, Arentide; the strongest human kingdom that remained on the western continent and the bulwark of the west.

Alstor’s Great Lighthouse was undamaged, but as Richard’s gaze fell upon the rest of the city, he saw a different story. Some ashes where buildings once stood were still smoldering, the Elsiran flag flew above many of the city’s tallest landmarks, and he saw a heap of wrecks scattered upon the beaches of the harbor, likely all that remaind of the Grand Navy of Arentide.

If Arentide had fallen, these raiders were not some small band of saboteurs, they were the advance scouts of the armies of Elsira, Ivelsten would fall as soon as they landed on the island, and from there Elsira would launch its crusade against the kingdoms of the east.

The fall of the kingdoms of man, however, was not an immediate concern of his. And as the elf carrying them entered into some gargantuan building, his focus shifted back to his present situation.

“Hey, chef!” He heard one of the elves ahead of him call. “Where do you want the fresh catch? We’ve got about one thousand wild caught humans here.”

Richard looked around… knives, cutting boards, crates full of vegetables and grains.

They were in a kitchen.

“Only a thousand? What is the Empress paying you for!” The chef spat out, she was a somewhat portly woman with an apron down her front, her crossed arms partially covered some multicolored stains that traced the white linen, the red stains were the most worrying.

The elven orderly ahead of her shrugged. “It’s just what the Dravida brought in, you know their main mission was scouting, not harvesting.”

The elf carrying their cage walked beside the chef and placed them atop the other cages, from up close the chef’s voice was booming.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just don’t come complaining to me when your rations have got vegetables and nothing else!”

As the orderlies left, the chef unfurled her arms and began inspecting her product. Her eyes peered into each of the cages, her gaze glanced past Richard, and she did a double take. She looked him up and down in an instant before continuing to assess the quality of the catch.

She clicked her tongue, and as she sauntered off, he could hear her grumbling indistinctly in hushed tones.

A wave of panic began inside the cages. Richard was willing to bet that few, if any, of the other prisoners could understand Elven; however, he was certain they understood what being stacked next to produce in a kitchen meant.

But their panic could do nothing to break the bars of their cages. Every cage had at least someone trying to escape. Within minutes, blood was dripping off of the more desperate in their midst, while the others, including Richard, could do nothing but wait in fear. Praying that this was not what they thought it was.

What felt like ages passed, but eventually he heard the harsh tones of the chef as she drew closer, in conversation with another.

“So I figured I would come and get you, right? I know you said you’d trade for any weird humans that found their way to me.”

“I did indeed say that,” the voice with a smoothness like honey replied, “and what do you have to show me?”

The two elves rounded the corner and came into view, the chef dwarfed their new arrival in both height and girth, the second elf was a somewhat small, raven haired elf that walked with a grace that outclassed even the majority of her race. She followed close behind the chef as they closed in on the cages.

The chef stopped directly in front of their him, and bent down to peer inside, her hazel eyes followed quickly by the brilliant violet pupils of her partner.

“That one, the blue haired one, I’ve never seen a human with blue hair before, and I’ve seen a lot of humans.” The chef said plainly.

The violet eyed raven said nothing, she simply stared at him. Sizing him up and down for what felt like minutes. For the first time since this ordeal began, he felt truly naked.

“Interesting.” She finally said.

“So? He worth anything?” The chef suggested eagerly.

“To you? No, to me, maybe. How about thirty gold pieces for him?”

“Thirty? Did you say thirty for the blue one?” she balked, her astonishment creeping into her voice.

Richard didn’t have any way of knowing just how much an Elsiran gold piece was worth, but given the tone of the chef’s voice, he guessed it was far above normal prices.

“Yes.” The smaller elf replied simply.

“Sold! Say… you wouldn’t happen to want any of the others, would you? Maybe ones from the same batch?”

The violet eyed elf smiled at her, “No, thank you, just the one.”

The chef shrugged. “Suit yourself, I’ll just get dinner started then. The girls will be excited about tonight’s meal. It might not hold a candle to the human dishes they ate back home in the cities, but they’ll be happy it's not just gruel again.”

Elven cities served dishes with… human beings?… He had heard rumors of how the elves treated their prisoners… but he had always dismissed those rumors the same as he dismissed the rumors about elves shrinking humans.

A sinking feeling overcame Richard, perhaps the elves did eat humans, the rumors were right about the shrinking after all.

Suddenly, the top of his cage was being opened, and a massive hand was reaching in. Richard didn’t struggle, he had barely processed the fact that he was about to die what looked to be a violent death, and now he was being saved from it. Fingers thicker than him grasped his hips, ever so gently, and before he knew it he was deposited into a much smaller cage that his new owner produced from her clothing.

“I’m done with this cage,” the smaller elf said while stepping back, leaving the larger elf to her craft.

“Alrighty, lemme just…” the chef maneuvered past her guest and grabbed his former cage. Richard’s eyes were glued to what was happening to those that were not chosen.

The chef tilted the cage over into a bucket of water. He watched those dumped into the bucket pop up above the surface, only to have dozens more human beings thrown on top of them as the chef added another cage. After nearly a dozen cages, hundreds were desperately trying to tread water, he couldn’t image what it must be like inside the bucket. Hundreds of naked human beings, jam packed, slipping and sliding against each other. His attention was drawn to the chef once more as she placed a titanic, high rimmed pan atop some smoldering coals and poured a lake’s worth of oil inside.

The chef returned to the people in the bucket, she ran her fingers through the mass of humanity, washing them like how one would wash rice. The shouting and screams intensified, and then were silenced as she pushed the masses up and down into the water with the experience of someone who had done this many times before. Some had almost certainly already drowned.

He wondered if that was the more merciful fate.

After about thirty seconds of washing, the chef transferred the mass of humanity to a colander. From Richard’s vantage point the bottom of the kitchen utensil looked like a swarm of pale bugs piled upon each other, some lucky few lay still, having already drowned. However, others desperately tried to stand, only to be shaken back down by the chef as she struck the colander repeatedly to strain the water off of them. He heard their cries as their bodies were thrown around like pasta.

The chef looked down at her handiwork and, satisfied with the results, took a few steps over to the pan and casually tossed them all into the now boiling oil.

He couldn’t see inside the pan, but he heard the screams in his bones. Inhuman, animalistic screams that faded into the rolling sizzle of oil within moments.

None of the other cages had a vantage point to see what Richard was seeing, but they surely heard the screams, sizzling, and then silence. He could see the pure, unbridled horror in the remaining cages. How could the elves be this… barbaric? How could they be getting away with these crimes against humanity? He was simply in awe of what he was seeing.

But before he could wonder further, his new cage was being lifted away from the hell that had awaited him, his savior, if one wanted to call the raven haired elf that, must have decided it was time to go as she walked over to the chef and deposited a heavy sack of gold into her hand and bid her farewell.

With his cage hanging by a chain in her fingers, his new owner departed. Richard spared one final glance at the doomed souls they were leaving behind, and for the first time in his life he was thankful for his abnormal hair.

Richard bumped along in his tiny cage, lit only by the faint glow that emanated from the cloth that covered the wagon. Much like his time on the elven warship, he spent his days clinging to the bars to keep from being rocked around the much smaller prison.

It felt like weeks since he had been plucked from the masses for some unknown purpose. His savior, the violet eyed goddess with jet black hair, only made appearances to load and unload cargo and see to her own meals. He would usually be fed at the same time, he didn’t miss the old cage with its filth and odor, but he did miss the social contact, limited as it was. He had tried shouting up at his new owner in the common tongue a few times, but she ignored him each time. He had debated trying Elven… but he didn’t want to give away his understanding of their language just yet.

So his imprisonment continued. Every day, food and water would come in, and the elf would take his cage out from close to the front of the wagon to dump some water through it for cleanliness. It was a feeble existence, but Richard could only count his blessings, for once in his life, he had been the lucky one. His thoughts would frequently flick back to the fate that befell those he was captured with; in the solitude of the wagon, he prayed that he wouldn’t meet the same fate.

Finally, his isolation came to an abrupt end as the elf lowered a single, massive cage into the other end of the wagon. The cage had multiple floors, and it was absolutely packed with naked humans. It was far larger than the cages the military used, and each of its multiple floors had hundreds of small pale forms, packed tightly in the cramped interior.

The wagon moved. Considering how packed it was, there was far less shouting and screaming from the cage than he expected. He couldn’t make out anything about its occupants, but the voices sounded feminine, primarily. The seething, almost flowing motion of their bodies melted together from the distance, and he found the cage to look more like a colony of ants than humans.

Perhaps that’s how the elves viewed humans? Is that how they justified their crimes? Richard had never been an elf hater, far from it, he admired their civilization’s advances from a scholar’s point of view. But to fry human beings alive… just for a meal. He couldn’t wrap his mind around that. It had to have been some military decision, right? An aberration, too many prisoners too quickly; he was convinced of this, there was no other reasonable explanation.

The wagon came to a stop again, and it seemed to be their final stop as the elf began to remove everything from the wagon; he heard the voice of another as she approached.

“Galea! How was the trip? Find anything interesting?” The approaching elf sounded young, very chipper and warm.

“Fine, Maya, just fine, and actually.” Richard could almost hear her grin from her tone alone, “I did find something interesting, I’ll show you in a second. First, help me unload all this feed and the new females.”

“Okay! I’m on it!”

True to her word, the elf girl known as Maya suddenly appeared over the cage full of women. Her shoulder-length silver hair nearly touching the cage as she bent down to haul it out of the wagon. Those trapped inside let out a few shouts that likely sounded like the squeaks of mice to Maya, and lifted them away without another word.

Both of the elves continued to unload the wagon until they finally reached the front, the small raven haired elf, the one evidently named Galea, gently took hold of his cage and lifted it up.

With his view finally unobstructed, he saw that they were in some kind of elven settlement, a city, it was much quieter and much cleaner than any human city he had ever seen.

“So? What do you think? Interesting catch, don’t you think? Galea suggested while holding the cage out for Maya to see.

“More than just interesting! I’ve never seen a human with blue hair before!” Maya was absolutely floored. “What are you gonna do with him? Where did you get him?” Her face took up half the view from his cage, her brilliant golden eyes shining in the sun as her words nearly deafened him.

Richard felt Galea’s shrug through the cage.

“Bought him off one of my contacts at the front, fresh caught.” She replied coolly, “as to your other question, I figure we’ll just get him started breeding and find out if it is genetic. Separate from the general population, of course, wouldn’t want to waste this one if it is genetic.”

What? Richard thought, did he hear that right? Breeding? Elves were breeding humans? Maya was saying something back, but he couldn’t focus on it. He felt… disgusted and revolted, his eyes darted around, his mental confusion transmitting to his body for the briefest of moments, and he stumbled a tiny bit. He thought he saw Galea looking at him and he did a double take, but her gaze had already fallen elsewhere.

His cage began to move, their conversation over, Galea was taking him into the building she and her accomplice had taken the other cages and supplies. Before he knew it, he was through the doors of the building and into a small front area that was being used for storage. Mountains of crates and sacks lined the walls, and at the far end, another door.

Galea didn’t pause for a moment in the front room, instead she strode directly to the door on the opposing wall and walked straight through. On the other side was something Richard could never have imagined.

It was a massive room, seemingly thrice as long as it was wide, there was a hearth at either end and a gargantuan work desk in front of the hearth closest to the door. From Richard’s scale, the room could have easily housed an entire city. It had four rows of shelves running down the length of the room, and all along the shelves and walls, stacked nearly fifteen to column, were cages.

The elven goddess placed his cage down upon the desk, and from his new, closer vantage point he gawked at the megastructures.

Atop each colum was a hopper filled with food. A system of aqueducts crisscrossed the room and supplied each column with two sources of fresh water. Some cages were massive… hundreds of human beings seemed to mill about within them. Others were smaller, seeming to hold a few dozen at most.

There was motion in the cages. He squinted and could just barely make out individuals amongst the throngs of people. With a sick sense of horror, he saw some of those individuals paired off and doing…

Breeding, That’s the word Galea had used earlier. The realization nearly brought Richard down to his knees. It all made sense. For the past few weeks, he had been trying to rationalize the murder of all those captured with him. Cooked alive to be an ingredient in some elven dish. Surely it had been a military necessity during wartime, a strange anomaly that had resulted from too many prisoners too quickly.

But something had bothered him upon reaching that conclusion, the military chef said that elven cities had human restaurants. That didn’t make any sense, given their current diminutive size, there weren’t enough humans in the world to satisfy the demands of an elven city with human restaurants. They were only an inch tall! You would need dozens, if not hundreds of humans per serving! There was just no way, he thought it must have been some strange elven humor that he didn’t yet understand.

But upon seeing this… he realized that the elves could reach sustainable numbers of humans, there had to be thousands of people imprisoned here, like animals on a farm…

The elf known as Galea turned and took a seat at the desk, her face lowered until she was staring at him, like how she had done at the elven kitchen.

She smiled.

She sat like that for a time, simply observing him in silence, before finally speaking.

“I know you can understand me.” She declared in a quieter voice than she used with elves.

Richard froze, how could she know he understood Elven? He had been careful to not say a single word in Elven this entire time… no, she had to be bluffing, but why would she bluff?

He felt the wind blow around him as she sighed. His silence must have bored her.

“You know, the other wild caught humans I’ve encountered that knew Elvish tried to play dumb too. Would you like to know how I always find them out?” Richard shuffled on his feet and looked away, she laughed.

“They react! It seems humans just can’t help it, especially when they’re wild caught. I knew as soon as you listened in on my conversation with Maya that you knew more than your barbaric, savage language.”

Her arms found their way to the table, she placed her chin upon them, directly next to the cage.

“So?” She whispered, so close to the cage he could nearly touch her. “Can you understand me?”

Her eyes looked down at him, expectedly, and he sighed.

“Yes.”

“Perfect.” She nearly purred out. “I have a few questions for you, you’re rather unique.”

“Oh yeah?” Richard spat out, no longer needing to keep up the ruse of ignorance as before. “I’ve got a few questions for you too! What the fuck is this place? How could you stand by while everyone I was captured with was-”

Suddenly his cage rocked, Galea had taken her hand and knocked the cage back the tiniest bit, but it was enough to cause Richard to fall right on his ass.

“Do not take that sort of tone with me.” Galea said firmly, yet calmly.

“Oh yeah! Why-”

As fast as he stood back up to shout, he was knocked down again as she hit the cage a second time.

Richard glared up at her from his place on the floor of the cage, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

He stood up, again, and glared daggers at her.

“Done?” She asked, nearly giggling as she watched his furor.

He held his tongue.

“Good.” She said, smugly. “Now, how about you ask every single thing bouncing around in that little head of yours, politely, and after that you answer my questions, how's that sound? ”

Having been knocked on his ass twice already, Richard didn’t want to anger her again.

“Fine.”

“Good.” She smiled at his much more restrained tone. “Ask away.”

He asked the first question that came to his mind. His anger only barely masked.

“What is this place? Are we in Elsira?”

“Yes we are, a mid-sized city, though that’s not really a concern of yours anymore…”

“Why the hell is it not my concern anymore?”

“Tone, little man,” she frowned down at him. “Your world is within these walls now. I’m not letting you out, and you wouldn’t want to be out anyway.”

“I wouldn’t want to be out?” Richard replied indignantly. “As if! I want out right now!”

Galea knocked his cage again while snorting, “You sure about that, Blue? You’re about an inch tall right now, no colony of wild humans to run back to either, you’ve got no chance of surviving out on your own.”

Richard stayed where he fell. She spoke the truth, and he knew it, there was no way he would be able to survive at this size. Finally, his undertone of anger switched to resignation as he spoke again.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you making people…” his gaze turned to the other cages.

“Making them what? Breed?” She laughed, “I’d be a lousy human breeder if I didn’t.”

“What’s the point? I thought elves wanted to exterminate humanity.”

She shrugged.

“Some, sure, but most recognize humanity’s more practical uses.”

“Practical uses?” He was afraid of the answer.

“Oh, you know, food, jewelry, pets. Just the standard stuff.”

Richard would have been sickened if he hadn’t seen it first hand, but he couldn’t hide the sadness from his voice.

“How could you do this to human beings? We’re intelligent, civilized beings! We’re not animals!”

“Oh goodness!” She laughed, as she responded. “I sometimes forget how delusional you wild caughts can be.” She had to take a breath to compose herself.

“You most certainly are animals. You breathe, eat, sleep, and breed like every other animal there is.” She continued on, “human ‘civilization’ is an aberration at odds with mankind’s natural place at elven feet, along with the rest of the natural world.”

“Along with the rest of the natural world?” He mimicked her words back at her. “What’s natural about shrinking humans down to an inch tall?”

“Are pigs natural?” She asked simply.

“What?” Richard immediately asked back, flabbergasted. “Of course they are!”

“Really?” She started, “because pigs came from wild boars, humans changed them using their limited intelligence to better suit your needs. We change humans to better suit our needs, it’s the same thing really, perfectly natural.”

Richard sat in shocked silence. The way she could rationalize away mass murder, slavery, and genocide with a single sentence and truly believe she was correct… he had no words.

“Finished? Good, so now it’s my turn. Why is your hair blue?”

“My hair? I was born with my hair this way, why does it matter?”

“You know Elven, that means you were some kind of smart human out in the wild. I just told you elves change humans to better suit our needs, I run a human breeding farm and I bought you for a far higher than market price than one measly human would almost ever be worth. Why do you think it matters?” She snorted. “And you were saying humans are ‘intelligent’…”

It felt dehumanizing to say, but he already knew the answer.

“You’re going to… breed me off, or that’s what you want to do. Like some stud bull. Like some animal.”

“Bingo, Blue, maybe you’re not as dumb as you look.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Refuse? Why would you do that? I can offer you everything your little animal instincts have ever desired. Food, shelter, mates.” She giggled for a moment. “You know, every time I’ve brought a wild caught human in, they go on and on about the exact same things. “You can’t make me!” or, “It’s dehumanizing!” or nonsense like that. I usually just drop them in with a few attractive mates and wait. Within a few months, they’re all doing what their instincts demand.” She smiled smugly down at him before giving a brief sigh and continuing. “However, I did pay a decent chunk for you, and time is money… so I’m not waiting.”

She stood, the air from her movement washed over him as she walked over to the cage Maya brought in, the one filled with what had sounded like almost exclusively women. She trudged back over to his comparatively tiny cage, and placed it directly next to him. His guess earlier was accurate, the other cage appeared to contain exclusively young women.

“I outsource the rearing of offspring to a friend of mine, who sells the product to either pet shops or upscale restaurants.” Galea stated simply. “I pick the most genetically fit ones to breed the next generations. These just aged into their breeding years, physically attractive, fertile, everything a male could want." She said with a smile. "Pick a couple dozen or so.”

“Pick? A couple dozen or so?” He replied, incredulously, while standing up quickly. “As if! I’m not going to be some animal for you to stud out!”

She raised an eyebrow at him before she started looking around the cage full of women. “You’ll do,” she muttered before opening the cage’s top, deftly grasping a woman hip's with her fingers, and carefully transferring her to his cage.

She was blonde, a few inches shorter than him, strikingly attractive by every measure, she looked at him nervously as Galea placed her mere feet from where he stood.

“Well, get to it.” Galea commanded him. “I paid a lot for you, and I’m not going to wait around for you to decide you’re ready to mate. Go on.” She gently pushed the female toward him.

“No!” Richard pushed the girl away. “I refuse!”

Galea frowned down at him.

“What are you gonna do?” He spat up at her.

“I could start crushing fingers, arms perhaps? Last time I checked, humans don’t need those to reproduce.”

“You… you wouldn’t hurt me! You just admitted you’re trying to get a return on your investment, you need me alive and healthy!”

Galea snorted.

“You think I meant you?” Her smug smile was back. “Girl, hold out your arm.”

“Mistress, I…” The young women spoke for the first time, fear and trepidation laced her voice.

“Quiet child. If Blue here is reasonable, you have nothing to fear.”

The young woman lowered her head and held out her right arm, Galea’s thumb came to rest under the girl's forearm, and her index finger hovered a foot above it. The poor girl was so terrified she was shaking.

“Well, Blue?” Galea gazed down at him. “Are you going to do what I asked, or are you going to hurt this girl?”

Richard looked up at Galea, unsure what to do.

“Fine…” he sighed.

She was enormous, and controlled everything from his food and water, to the ground he would sleep on. If she wanted him to do something, she could force him. If it came down to it, she could probably just tie him to a plank and order her pets to just… take turns on him. He didn’t want that, he had to retain some sort of control, even in a dire situation like this.

Galea’s smile was ear to ear as she purred out.

“Good boy. See sweetie?” She cooed down to the woman between her fingers. “Blue here can do as he’s told.”

With that Galea took her fingers away, and gently nudged the woman toward him, she made contact with Richard and unlike before, he didn’t push her away, still shaking a tiny bit, she whispered to him.

“Thank you.” The tremor was slowly fading from her voice.

Richard didn’t say anything back, he merely patted her back as she dug herself into his chest.

“Awww, see? Not so hard? Hurry up past the cuddly bits though, I don’t have all day.” Galea breathed out, her face laden with satisfaction at having gotten what she wanted.

“Can’t you give us some privacy? We’re not some dogs, we’re not…” he stopped himself before he said animals.

Galea smiled down at him, but said nothing.

Richard frowned, and tried again.

“I’m going to do as I’m told. I’ll do what you ask, but can you give me something back? If you’re going to be… studding me out to women, can’t you at least give me something? Like privacy during the act?”

Galea made a show of considering his demand, bringing her finger to her chin and everything, before replying.

“I’ll tell you what, if you work hard and do as I command, I’ll try to accommodate what you want. Your request for privacy, though, is a no. You don’t need it, wild caughts like you think that you do, but you don’t. In a few weeks you won’t even notice.” She said with a knowing grin.

Richard frowned at her, again, she wouldn’t budge on privacy, so he tried pushing her on efficiency.

“I wasn’t raised here, I’m not used to this kind of exhibitionism, it’ll make it harder for me to perform.”

“Hardly!” Galea scoffed. “I’ve raised close to five generations now, if you creatures had any problem not mating in private I would have noticed by now.”

Richard’s frown, somehow, intensified further.

“Don’t give me that look! I’m giving you dozens if not hundreds of females I’ve been breeding for attractiveness and health for five generations, I know how much you creatures care about procreating, really you should be thanking me!”

Richard was astounded, she truly believed she was doing him a favor by imprisoning him here and running a human farm. Though... considering the fate of other humans the elves got their hands on… maybe she was doing him a favor…

His scowl finally faded the tiniest bit, and he decided to just… go with it. Living in a cage beat getting fried alive.

With that thought, his eyes turned to the girl in front of him. Early adult, blonde, round in all the right places. She was an absolute beauty, her looks alone would have gotten her married into nobility back home, even if she wasn't of noble birth.

He reached out toward her, grasping her hips in hands.

“Happy?” He queried toward Galea.

Galea rolled her eyes.

“I’d be happier if you’d just get on with it. Girl, take the lead.”

“Of course, mistress!” The girl's now calmed voice called out.

In an instant, her hands grasped his member and began to rub him back and forth. One of her hands at his base while another took his member and rubbed it against her bare midriff.

Richard tensed, but she didn't stop. It took some time, and he hated to admit it, but the girl’s efforts were getting him hard. It was difficult not to when a beautiful woman was servicing him as eagerly as she was. In what felt like less than a minute, the girl removed his penis from her hands and assessed it.

He was hard, hard enough, it seemed, for him to pass the girl’s test. With a nod, she laid back and spread her legs, inviting him in.

Galea said nothing, waiting to see if Richard would actually fulfill his end of the bargain. He sighed, he didn’t really have a choice, so he lowered himself onto the girl, fidgeted around until he found purchase, and entered her.

She gasped, loudly, as Galea declared from above.

“Good boy. You’ve mated before, right? We don’t need to train you, do we?”

Richard was slowly thrusting into the woman with his hips, her moans accented his words, he felt completely exposed, indecent, and demeaned, and his bark of a reply reflected that.

“What? No! I’ve been with a woman before!”

“Perfect, please, don’t let me interrupt you.” She said smugly.

Richard did his best to ignore the giantess as he grabbed the girl’s waist and started vigorously pumping. He was breathing heavy within a few minutes, and the girl’s moans continued with each thrust. Galdea stood, and circled around behind him.

“Move your knees up, girl, and Blue, spread your legs.”

"What?" Her sudden request knocking him out of his rhythm.

“I need to make sure you’re in the right hole.”

She was ridiculous! “Of course I am!" He shouted back. "I’ve done this before!”

Galea snorted, “listen, I’m not letting you waste your semen by shooting it into some female’s anus because you’re too stupid to tell the difference and yes I have seen males do it before. So knees up, now.”

Richard sighed with exasperation and did as he was told, the girl had already complied, so as he spread his own legs Galea was able to get an unobstructed view of where their two bodies joined.

“Good boy. Finish up now.” Galdea said plainly.

With that, Richard turned his attention back to girl beneath him. He would have lost his arousal a couple of times by now if she wasn’t so… enticing. Her moans were like honey, her body smoother than any woman he had ever been with. He refocused solely onto the woman he was inside of and allowed himself pleasure that he never thought he would experience after being caught by the elves of Elsira.

Soon his pace quickened, with one hand on her waist and another on her shoulder he pushed into her with a few final thrusts. He groaned as he emptied himself inside her. He quivered atop her, and stayed like that for a few brief moments before removing his member from the girl, and sitting back on his haunches.

Galdea gave a happy hum upon seeing the girl’s sex, wet and leaking slightly, proof enough that he had done what she commanded.

“See? That wasn’t so hard. Good work both of you. Now upsie dasie.”

“Huh?” Richard asked, but before he knew it, she had gently grabbed the two of them and was lifting them toward… one of the cages in the wall.

Within moments, she had deposited the two of them in a new cage.

“And here you are! Food, water, and a place to call your own! Your capture was probably rough, so we’ll pick more mates and continue tomorrow. For now, rest, I place great value upon the health of my breeders, as you’ll soon learn.”

She smiled warmly down at him, before turning on her heels and going back to tend to the enormous woman’s cage that was still on the table.

Richard was stunned. It was all going so fast, he lost himself during the sex and had hardly realized what he was actually agreeing to in the long term.

Richard sat down, the surprisingly soft surface indented where his body touched it. Finally, in a safe place for the first time in a long time, his immense fatigue caught up with him.

“Are you okay?” He heard the girl’s faint voice, as if from a distance.

“Fine… I'm fine… I just need to rest…” he mumbled out, before falling asleep.

Through the windows in the room, Richard could see that the sun was beginning to light the sky, but it had not yet crested the horizon. He had woken up hours ago, the girl he had passed out in front of lay about half the cage away, sleeping blissfully. For the first time in a long time, he was in a place of silence. No insects and animals sending out calls in the night, no bumping and bouncing in the back of a wagon, and no titanic elf looking down on him from up high. Alone with his thoughts, he was able to think about the events of the past few weeks, and his thoughts kept coming back to the elven… philosophy when it came to dealing with humans.

It was common knowledge that elves believed themselves to be superior to humans, but Richard never thought they would take it this far. Unless he was mistaken, human and elven intelligence were comparable, so that just left their greater proclivity for the arcane arts and through those arts, their size. Was that really all it took for elves to believe themselves not only to be superior to humans, but some kind of higher form of life? That was a stretch… even for someone as open-minded as him to believe.

But everything he had seen thus far told him that was indeed how elves perceived humans. If he was hundreds of times more massive than an elf, and had a lifespan measured in millennia rather than decades, how would he feel?

This was the topic that Richard had been pondering over the past few hours as he leaned against the miniscule bars of his enclosure; he was unable to move past it despite the length of time he had mulled it over in his mind, because no matter how hard he tried he kept coming to same conclusion. He didn’t know elves, but he knew humans, and if the roles were reversed, humans would act the exact same way.

That thought terrified him. The future of mankind under elven domination looked grim. Humanity being reduced to pets at best and slaughtered wholesale at worse made him, understandably, sick to his stomach.

His life, though? He didn’t know what to feel about his own predicament. Should he be happy that he wasn’t going to be casually cooked or butchered for some meal? Should he do exactly what Galea wants and try to appease her entirely, or try to retain some measure of control over his life?

His eyes flicked over to the young woman imprisoned with him. Her middle rose and fell as she slept. There was no doubt in his mind that “doing what Galea wanted” would involve a lot more women in his life than there had been before. A more lustful man might have salivated at the very thought of it, but Richard had never been a lecher. He had a healthy, if someone reserved, amount of sexual desire and that had been just fine when his primary concern dealt with books and not with members of the opposite sex. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to keep up with his new elven master’s demands.

His thoughts were finally interrupted by the sound of the door in the front room opening and closing, followed quickly by the muffled sounds of movement and commotion coming from the other part of the building. The noise continued for a while, and before long the door to the room he was in opened.

Galea strode through with a cup of some steaming liquid clenched in her grip, her body moved as if on autopilot, fatigue etching creases into her otherwise smooth visage. She strode through the rows of cages, taking a brief glance into each. Richard occasionally heard a few of the others speaking up to her in greeting. Galea didn’t respond, though he did notice that she would sometimes smile at a cage when the reception was particularly warm. He heard no cries or shouts of anger coming from any cages as she did her quick walk through. The girl who had previously been sleeping in his cage began to rouse, yawning and stretching, the ruckus must have woken her up.

Before long, Galea arrived at his cage, a quick glance was all she spared the duo inside as she swept by. Richard didn’t even get a chance to start speaking before she continued down the rows just as rapidly as before. The human girl walked over to him, and he addressed her.

“Does she always do this?”

“I…” the girl began, “I don’t know. This is my first time here.”

Right, Richard remembered, she was taken from the new cage that was picked up while he was on the wagon.

The girl he was speaking to shifted on her feet, staring down nervously and taking deep breaths slowly and with intent. Richard took note. Though, he wasn’t sure what to say, or even if he should say anything. They stood like that for a time, her eyes never leaving the floor, before he finally decided to say something.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Oh.” She replied quietly. “Sophia, yours?”

“Richard.”

“It’s not ‘blue’?” She said, finally looking up at him. “Mistress Galea kept calling you that.”

“No, with how frantic yesterday was, I didn’t really think to correct her… Speaking of yesterday, sorry about that, by the way.”

She tiled her head, seeming to relax a bit, “sorry about what?”

“The uhh,” he stammered, “the whole sex thing.”

“Sorry?” Her eyebrows shot up as her tone of voice rose a few notches. “Did you do it wrong? Did I do it wrong?”

“What? No! You did… we did it fine. I’m just sorry for… you know… having to do it to you.”

Her eyes closed as his words processed in her mind, and she sighed in relief. “Don’t scare me like that! I thought I’d messed it up right in front of Mistress Galea!”

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize? Mistress Galea is a breeder, I should be thanking you for helping me prove I’m a worthy investment.”

Richard masked his feelings of… astonishment, did she just refer to herself as an investment?

“By the way…” she began, “wanna do it again?”

This girl was all the way gone, he thought.

“I’m flattered, but I don’t really want to…”

“Really?” It was her turn to feel astonishment, “that’s sorta weird.”

“Weird?” he queried.

“Yeah, aren’t men supposed to be, like, sex-crazed? Especially wild caughts.”

“What? No! I mean… some might be crazy about sex, but…” he paused for a moment before continuing. “Where did you even hear that from anyway?”

“At Mistress Cassandra’s, where I’m from, we had teachers who used to be breeders. They said men, especially wild caughts, were completely obsessed with sex, wild caughts especially would sometimes get violent if girls resisted…” She continued on. “Actually… when you first woke up I was a little nervous that you might get a bit rough with me, so I was trying to psych myself up a bit…”

Richard stood aghast, horrified, the reason she was nervous earlier was because she thought he was going to rape her? And upon learning that he wasn’t, she relaxed, only to proposition him for sex a minute later?

It was his turn to shift on his feet now. He walked toward the back of the cage, away from the hordes of other cages in the room. He had hoped that the other people trapped her would be a way to help keep himself sane, but if this Sophia was any indication… he wouldn’t be able to rely on any of the elven bred humans.

Sophia leaned over into his vision. Her hair draping down around her shoulders.

“Are you sure you don’t want to?” She reached over and placed one of her arms around his waist.

“Yeah, yeah I’m sure.” He gently removed her arm from him. “Maybe later, but for now I just-”

His voice cut abruptly as a shadow loomed over the two of them. Sophia turned around rather quickly, but Galea spoke before he turned.

“Come on now, Blue! You should be more responsive to the needs and wants of your mates.”

Galea’s voice boomed down at him, he turned to see her grinning, ear to ear, just like the previous day.

“Or,” she continued, “maybe she’s not to your liking? You seemed to like her yesterday, though…”

Sophia glanced nervously at him while Galea gazed down at him, evidently expecting a response. He obliged her.

“She’s… perfectly fine as a partner, I’m just a little tired I suppose.”

“Well, that just won’t do! We’ve got so much to do today after all! I know just what you need.”

Galea turned on her heels and went back to the table at the head of the room. Her enthusiasm stood in abject contrast to how she looked when she walked in a few moments before, and when she returned with a medicine dropper full of liquid, he realized why.

“Coffee.” He said simply, as she dropped some black liquid into the food and water tray on the edge of the cage.

“Yes indeed my little human, now drink up, you’ll need your energy for today.”

“What for?” Richard asked.

“What for?” She echoed back. “Well, today I’m going to give you your first perk for your cooperation from yesterday, are you ready?”

Her voice was sickeningly sweet, she spoke to him like an obedient pet, and it still bothered him despite how much rationalization of elven behavior he’d done earlier.

“Blue? It’s rude to keep a lady waiting.” She insisted.

“Sorry,” he quickly stammered, having forgotten to respond. “Yes, I’m ready.”

“Perfect! Drink up then.”

Sophia stayed where she was while he obediently walked over to the feeder, he leaned over to scoop some coffee into his hands and drank it down. Bitter and lukewarm, it was a welcome change from the water he had been drinking exclusively for over a month now.

“Now up we go.” She said as she quickly popped open the top of his cage and reached in. Richard didn’t resist, allowing her to gently pinch him around his hips and lift him up and out of the cage. The air rushed around him as he hung precariously from her fingers, he noticed that her other hand hovered below him, prepared to catch him should he fall; Within moments, he was hovering over the multi-storied cage from yesterday, the one Sophia had come from, the one absolutely filled with girls.

Galea popped the top open and deposited him inside near a corner on the top floor, shooing away a few women who had been there moments before. Suddenly he was surrounded by whispering and mumbling individuals. Galea wasn’t lying yesterday, all of these girls looked young, healthy, and while beauty was certainly subjective, he found most of them pleasant to look at. They all, almost reflexively, backed away from him and left him standing alone in a space devoid of others, about forty feet in diameter.

The cage was pretty packed before, and it was even more tight now that a void had opened up around him. It didn’t look like any one woman could fully extend her arms without touching or bumping into someone else, but the density didn’t seem to bother them, because all eyes were on him. Some had a similar demeanor as Sophia this morning, looking somewhat anxious, some had a tinge of fear in their eyes at having a male stranger placed in their midst, but others looked at him with eyes full of… desire.

Now he felt the same anxiety as Sophia had this morning. He slowly backed into the corner, his eyes flashing up toward Galea, but her focus was elsewhere; she was threading some kind of string through the bars at waist height. Quickly tieing both ends and creating a sort of demarcating line between him and the rest of the people in the cage.

“Okay!” Galea said triumphantly. “All of you, listen up. Blue here is gonna go through the cage, don’t move across floors and don’t harass him, absolutely no touching and no breeding, and do not cross the line unless told to. Got it? Those of you on the bottom floor finish up and come up.”

“Bottom floor?” He asked.

“Bottom floor is where the latrines are, there’s a waste disposal underneath the cage. Sanitation is important, but don’t worry yourself with that.” She continued, “so here’s your first reward for cooperating! Instead of me picking your mates or just dropping you in here for a few months and letting them mate with you on rotation, I’m going to let you pick! Isn’t that fun? Now go ahead and pick as many as you want, but make sure you get at least twenty or so.”

Richard balked up at her.

“What? You want me to pick for you? I don’t want to leave you in this cage, one male can’t keep up with this many females, it would be bad for your health.”

His words finally returned to him.

“No. I’ll pick, I just… don’t know what to say.”

“How about, ‘thank you Mistress’?” She suggested.

“Umm… well, thank you I suppose?”

“Missing a little bit there, Blue.”

“Thank you Mistress.” He sighed out, what tiny bit of his pride that remained taking yet another beating.

“You’re very welcome! Now be a good boy and pick, I’ll give you an hour or so.”

With that, she stood and left into the other room, leaving him to do as instructed.

He swallowed hard, ducked under the tiny string that was an enormously thick rope from his perspective, and approached the others.

Richard stepped forward with a bit of hesitance. What did Galea expect him to do, make some kind of harem? Go around oggling girls up and picking them at random? Were they even okay with it? He shook his head to clear his thoughts. If Sophia was an indicator these girls were probably far more willing than he was, so he didn’t have to worry about that, but walking amongst them and picking whoever he fancied, like shopping at a market, struck him as objectifying to an extreme degree.

He sighed for what felt like the hundredth time. This was choice, agency, he had to do as Galea said… but at least she gave him some small degree of freedom in how he did as she wished. With that thought in his head, he moved forward a bit more confidently.

Soon he was walking amidst everyone else. They parted ahead of him to give him space and abide by Galea’s command to not interfere with his search, but now that he was close enough he could finally hear the content of their hushed whispers

“Wow, he’s tall.”

“He has such a flat chest…”

“Is that what I think it is? That little wobbly thing?”

Their comments made him feel more naked than before, even if he had already been fully nude since being captured. Galea’s gaze often felt more like a god looking down at him, and other humans he’d been in contact with hadn’t regarded his nude form as a curiosity, but these women hadn’t ever been this close to a man before, so their curious eyes swept him from foot to forehead, whipsering all the while.

A series of ladders connected each of the floors, and he decided to start from the bottom up. He descended three ladders only to arrive at floors filled with occupants. As he went down his fourth ladder he reached the bathrooms, if one could call them that. They were essentially a series of open holes in the ground. There was a bit of flowing water in a large but shallow tub in the corner, for washing most likely, but otherwise it was a cramped, and while not filthy, it was certainly less pristine than the rest of the enclosure.

He quickly ascended the ladder back up to the second floor and got to work. There were four floors and he had to get at least twenty girls, so he began in earnest.

He walked through the floor, he was being given a wide berth, but now that he had been with them for more than a few minutes most of them were getting used to his prescense. Some were even starting to speak with him.

“Hello.”

“Do you want through his way? Here we can move over a bit.”

“Hey! Why is your hair blue?”

Richard almost smiled at that one, some things never changed.

He locked eyes with a girl, black hair, a little shorter than him, a little thinner than Sophia.

“Hello.” He stated.

“Umm, hello.” She replied meekly.

He looked her over, he didn’t want to appraise her like some piece of meat, but if he was going to do this… he might as well pick girls that he was actually interested in.

“Could you come with me? Galea asked me to pick some, uh, mates and I was wondering if you wanted to be one.”

She didn’t say anything, merely nodding her head.

“Okay, thank you, just follow me for a bit, while I pick some more.”

These rest of his time in the cage passed in a similar fashion, he would approach a girl that he liked the look of, ask if she was okay with coming along, and she would accept. Not a single one refused, he made sure to avoid the lusty eyed ones like a plague, he didn’t want to risk it, there would still be more of them in his cage than he could reasonably stop should they get any ideas.

Sometime later he had finished. The group of young women he had picked waited behind the rope with him, he chose twenty-three, he didn’t want to select the absolute minimum Galea told him to, lest he anger her in some way.

They waited like that for a short while, the whispering having evolved to full blown conversation in the cage, but most of those behind the rope whispered if they spoke at all. For them this was likely a nerve wracking experience, an unknown man comes through what is your home and picks you to go rail you repeatedly until you’re pregnant? If it was him he’d be terrified, but if any of them felt anything beyond nerves they didn’t show it.

Galea finally returned, placed something onto her table beside them and peered down at them.

“Now let’s see… that’s…. twenty-three females you picked? This all you want?”

“Yes, this many is fine.”

“Alright, if you want, I can let you pick some more if you get bored of this couple dozen in a few weeks… Say, why are they all shorter than you? Feeling a bit insecure are we?”

Richard looked over the girls he had picked, women in general weren’t usually taller than him, but he noticed that he hadn’t actually picked a single girl that was taller than him.

Richard shrugged and looked up at Galea. “You’re tall enough for the lot of us.”

Galea bit her lip with a half smirk. “Actually, I’m pretty short for an elf.”

“Oh? And you spend all day around humans a hundredth your size? So who’s the insecure one?” He asked, interacting somewhat playfully with her for the first time.

“Watch your tongue there, Blue!” She replied back, the slightest tone of mirth in her voice. “I’ve known some ladies to smoosh their pet humans for less!”

She was obviously not actually offended, but he was certain that some elves had indeed killed people for saying less. His own feelings of mirth deadend slightly at the thought.

Galea didn’t take note of his change in demenor and happily declared, “Well, let’s get you all moved then!” Her hand descended into the cage and everyone began climbing aboard; even flat against the ground, her hand was about as tall as they were. Richard had to help a few of the girls up onto Galea’s palm. Touching and pushing against them, he tried not to think about how much more physical they were going to get soon, he didn’t want to pop a stiffy in front of Galea if he could help it.

Everyone aboard, Galea quickly moved them all back to his original cage. As her hand touched down inside his cage he felt a tinge of relief at no longer being packed tight like sardines. Most of the women seemed less nervous now that Galea was instructing them to do things instead of having to follow around some man they’d never met before. Galea cleared her throat and every one of them looked up at her, reverentely.

“Alright girls, Blue here is special, the weird hair color and all, so you’re all going to help introduce the trait into the population! Sounds fun, right? He’s freshly wild-caught, but unlike a lot of other wild caughts he is actually apprehensive to breed instead of overly eager, so coax him into it. Do a good job, this is your first responsibility at my farm and I expect you’ll all do as I say.

A chorus of voices replied “Yes, Mistress” back to her, but Richard just looked up at her incredulously.

“I’m right here you know!”

Galea smiled down at him, “Oh I know, and now you know what I expect of you too. I’ll even do you another favor! I won’t stand here and watching you breed all day! You can get some of that privacy you wanted! I’ll check at the end of each day to make sure you’re outputting, but otherwise you’ll have your own private cage. Aren’t I nice?”

“Galea…” he began.

“Mistress Galea, to you.”

“Mistress Galea,” he began again “it’s not exactly private if there are more than twenty strangers watching…”

She snorted. “Trust me, you won’t be strangers for long, but I do have something that could help. Wait just a moment!”

Galea turned on her heels and into the front room of the building, she quickly returned with what looked like a small box, it was so small she held it between two of her fingers, she reached in and placed it in the corner of the cage.

It was a tiny… house. It had a rudimentary hole for an entrayway, and a piece of cloth draped over it. It was maybe ten feet on each side, with no roof.

“Ta-dah! What do you think?” Her smile larger than the house itself.

Richard looked up at Galea, “I thought you said no privacy?”

“No privacy from me,” she corrected, “you’ll notice there isn’t a roof; I can still see you fine, but if this will make you more comfortable… then picking it up from the pet store will be worth it.”

“I… um, thank you.”

She gave him a brief smile, and then she left without another word, walking back over to her desk to do… whatever it was she did as a human breeder, some papers came out and she started to read.

And so he was alone with his new… roommates. Most of them were taking stock of their new home. Floor made of some kind of soft material, a food and water feeder in the corner, and a few streams of water entering from the top of the cage and exiting from the bottom for sanitation. It was rudimentary, but enough to do what Galea wanted them to do.

“Umm, Blue, right?” One of the girls piped up. “Shall we get started?”

He turned toward the girl who spoke up, a brunette on the more voluptuous side, she was flanked by the shorter black haired girl, the first one he had picked.

“Richard, actually, she just likes to call me Blue.”

“Well, Richard then,” the brunette continued, “I don’t think any of us want to keep the mistress waiting, so shall we start?”

He sighed, having spent what felt like hours surrounded by naked women he was certainly in the mood, but…

“Food first,” he said as his stomach growled to prove his point.

The brunette shrugged, and turned on her heels toward the food bowls. The black haired girl smiled at him, rosy cheeked, before turning to follow.

The food was… pretty standard fare. Dried meats and greens that served to fill his stomach and not much else. The girls clustered around where Galea had poured the coffee earlier, some brave few took sips of it only to quickly spit it back out, the bitter taste not something they were used to. The brunette was near the coffee, but the black haired girl had stayed beside him.

“Have you finished?” She piped up, she had eaten her food as she watched the other girls experience coffee for the first time.

“Yeah, I’m not going to eat anymore.”

“Shall we mate then?” She responded nonchalantly.

“I…” he stammered, “what is with you people? Don’t you want to do anything else?”

Her head tilted. “What else would we do?”

“I don’t know! Try cooking this food into something better?” He gestured with his arms toward the others near the coffee. “Or get to know everyone else?”

The girl stared at him blankly for a moment, before responding.

“We all know each other, we’ve been together for years, you’re the only person we don’t know.”

Her arms folded across her small breasts, her hips jutting to the side as she continued.

“Plus, cooking is what elves do. Maybe humans do out in the wild, but properly raised humans do as they’re told. Now, come on.”

“What? Hey!” He managed to stammer out as she reached out to grab his arm and pull him off toward the little house Galea had recently added to their cage. His sudden shout drew the attention of the rest of the girls, and even those that were previously giggling and spitting coffee out seemed to have stopped to watch him be led away. He looked down to avoid their gazes, but that only led his eyes to the swaying of his guide’s nude hips back and forth… he felt like he should look away, but his eyes lingered for far too long. He felt his loins begin to stir as he walked, and before he even realized it, they were already at the house.

She split the curtains to the entrance of the house and led him inside, where there was… absolutely nothing. It was completely barren, just four walls with no roof and a door covered by cloth curtains.

“Well, I guess it only partially worked.” The girl accompanying him sighed, while he analyzed the room, she had turned and seen his half-erection for the first time.

“What partially worked?” He asked.

“Oh, one of my teachers told me she used to arouse men by just walking in front of them, I wanted to see if it would work.” She reached down to stroke his member while she continued, “It didn’t work too well, but this should do just fine...”

Richard raised his eyebrow as she rubbed his glans in the palm of her hand, this girl moved fast! He jerked reflexively before responding, but didn’t push her away. “What else did your teachers tell you about men?”

“Well…” she purred out, “they told me that men were sturdier, taller, had more hair, stuff like that.”

She closed the distance between them and, strangely, buried her head into his chest while taking in a deep breath. Exhaling, she continued.

“They never told me about the smell though, you smell… different, and… good.”

With that, she seemed to be done talking. Instead, she pressed herself into him, inhaling deeply, rhythmically rubbing his penis with one hand and his thigh with the other.

Alone now, with no peeping toms to wrack his nerves, and with a girl on his chest and her hands around his penis, Richard suddenly didn’t care about how barren this little dinky house was, or the wider situation he found himself. Most of his worries shunted out of his mind as his baser instincts took over; he reached around the girl’s hips to grasp her rear with both hands. Her breath quickened as he squeezed and kneaded her cheeks between his fingers. She moved to his side and he lost his grip on her, without making any conscious choice he turned to put his now free hands onto her shoulders and began to push her to the ground. Within moments, she was on her knees, Richard fell to his own knees, and they continued there for a while. His hands exploring her lower back and creeping dangerously close to her sex, while her own hands grasped at his.

Suddenly, she let go of him. The two of them looked at each other for a moment; Richard thought about backing off, they were moving so quickly, just a moment before they were talking out by the food!

Those apprehensive thoughts, however, were being overridden by his desire. After all, he thought, what was wrong with a little stress relief?

His internal monologue concluded, Richard wasted no more time, he reached out and pushed her further to the ground. Her side touched the floor, and he was on her in an instant. With his mind addled by arousal, he barely even thought as he pushed his torso into hers, forcing her onto her belly.

He lined his body up with hers, he felt her rear push into him as she raised her hips in anticipation of him. In a moment of clarity, Richard thought about how similar the behavior was to the cats he had seen in the alleys of the cities he used to live in. Maybe the elves were right, and humans were just another animal…

His pause didn’t go unnoticed. The girl pushed her ass deeper into him while she looked back at him, wordlessly, as if requesting for him to get to it.

He obliged her, he pushed her hips back to the floor with his, and once she was fully back on the ground he slipped himself into her. The familiar pleasure of penetration washed over him as he found purchase and he began to move. His thrusts were rough, violent almost, having spent the whole morning with the prospect of sex on his mind, he hadn’t even realized how his body had been yearning for it.

Now, though, his instincts completely took over. He rammed himself into her and she moaned, over and over he cycled himself in and out of her. Before long, drops of sweat and other liquids were pooling under them. The squelching sounds her body made as he forced her into and out of the puddle below them began to distract him from the moment, so he stopped thrusting and pulled her butt into the air. Her weight settled onto her hands and knees, and he placed both of his own hands upon her hips and guided himself into her using only his torso before continuing to fuck her. Wet smacking sounds reverberated through the privacy of their tiny abode, accented by his own rasp breaths and her melodic moans.

She was really getting into it. His thrusts forward were being matched by her pushes back into him. They continued like that for a few minutes before he could feel his climax approaching, he increased his pace, the force of his thrusts nearly forced her back into a prone position; her own movements back into him was all that was keeping her from being forced back to the ground.

His fingers gripped deep into the flesh of her ass. His senses flashed as he climaxed, slowing down as he pushed himself as deep into her as he could. He was spent, without his own thrusts to counterbalance hers, he quickly found himself being pushed onto his own ass as she kept rubbing her sex into his in an attempt to climax herself.

Having just ejaculated, it was extremely uncomfortable for him to continue, but before he could voice that fact, the girl on top of his crotch quivered and stopped her movements. She fell back onto him as his member slid out of her with a wet pop, her ass plopping down on top of his belly.

They laid there just like that for a while, in a pool of their own fluids, before she finally spoke.

“Wow. That was a lot better than the practice.”

“The practice?” He responded, “what are you talking about?”

“Mistress Cassandra had former breeders teach us mating positions, so that we could practice the movements, but just going through the motions with other girls… it’s not the same, the feeling of fullness from actual mating is incredible…” She breathed out, obviously still in a blissful state of afterglow.

“Well, uh, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I had fun too.” He said simply, not sure of what else to say.

She rolled off of him and stood, her right arm shooting up as her hips shot out in the same direction, she hummed a single note as she stretched, and he watched a tiny dribble of semen trace her inner thigh and leave a path down her leg. Her butt was covered in fluid, sweat, semen, her own love juices, and even a few stray pubic hairs, likely his own hairs that had separated from the intense friction of their session.

He stood, reaching down to her butt, and picked a few of the hairs off of her, her head spun toward him at the sudden contact, he silently showed her the hairs he was removing from her rear.

She grinned sheepishly, “thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“I’m Amy, by the way.”

“Richard.” He responded, before putting a hand around her waist and drawing her closer to him as she let out a tiny yelp.

He turned her around and spread her ass cheeks apart to expose her still sopping wet sex and asshole, she turned her head to look back at him, eyes glistening.

“Again?” She asked simply, not resisting his advances in the slightest.

Richard said nothing, and instead grabbed both of her hands with his own, and placed them onto the wall, standing with her back facing toward him, he entered into her with force. He had to squat a little in order to make their hips level, but once he got into a rhythm, they were back at it again. His hips slapped into hers, he watched her ass bounce with each thrust as he pushed into her. They didn’t shift positions around this time, instead both opting to stay in a standing rear entry position until Richard was closing in on climax, he reached one arm to pull on her somewhat short hair and placed another on her ass just as a shadow came over them.

Really? He thought. Now of all times?

His pace slowed as he looked up, expecting to see Galea’s smug grin, but instead he only briefly saw the back of her head, as she was already leaving. Having checked up on him, she must have been satisfied with what she saw and decided to leave him to it, uninterrupted. She had been so swift and silent, if her shadow hadn’t come over them, he would have never known she was even there.

Unfortunately, the brief appearance of his gargantuan owner did interrupt him. It knocked him out of his escapist sexual tirade. He had been able to focus solely on having sex with Amy, for a moment, he completely forgot where he was, lost in the pleasure of a beautiful woman. But now… he backed off of Amy, slipping out of her.

She looked over her shoulder, “does she really bother you that much?”

Richard said nothing, opting to shrug instead.

Amy let out an exasperated breath, stood up straight, and turned to face him.

“Look, Richard… I’m not going to pretend to know what being a wild human out there is like, but you've to get used to life here. You freeze whenever she’s around, we all saw it earlier.” She took a stepper closer to him. “If you’re gonna freeze up every time she so much as looks in at us, you’re just gonna stress yourself out.”

“Yeah… yeah I suppose you’re right,” he replied, “it’s just jarring, sex is such an intimate experience and to have her just… watching. It makes me uncomfortable.”

Amy pushed herself into his body, hands grasping his rapidly deflating member to get it back into the game. “Well… I will try to make you as comfortable as possible.”

One of her hands left his penis to go to her own sex, and she began to rub both her sex and his simultaneously. The sounds and sights… got him back into it. Shunting Galea into the back of his mind, he began to respond to Amy’s ministrations.

She smiled up at him, before turning and re-approaching the wall. She bent over and arched her back as she took the same position as before.

Richard wasted no time, he immediately took up his place behind her and guided his penis into her slick, wet hole. Soon, he was back in the rhythm. The two of them synced perfectly with each other’s bodies.

This time, Amy came first, she fell to her knees, tensing and shaking as her legs gave out. Richard didn’t stop for a moment, opting to continue fucking her where she fell. His own knees didn’t even touch the ground as he pushed into her. With her gasps accenting the sounds of their sex, he finally climaxed into her for the second time.

Unlike before, they quickly came apart, Richard falling back onto his ass while Amy stayed on all fours. He saw her folds glisten with arousal and semen, a white stream unceremoniously slipped out from between her legs and pooled below her crotch. A few muscles around her asshole twitched, and her butt occasionally shook from the post orgasm muscle spasms.

Before long, she sat upon her own haunches, and looked back at him.

“Shall we go bathe?” She asked breathlessly.

He simply nodded back at her.

Galea sat at her desk, scribbling down notes and reviewing her logs, the sun was setting. As she scratched down the last bit of text and finished her administrative work, her mind began to wander. Breeding humans was a pretty hands-off occupation, but she just had too many of the damn things! She had a little over forty thousand humans at her farm, small by the standards of industrial human farming, but it was too much to keep track of for just her and her assistant, Maya.

In fact, Galea had been thinking about hiring another assistant, so she could scale her operation up; the constant need to transfer humans to and from her farm made Maya rarely able to actually assist her in the shop itself. She didn’t want to borrow from the banks to hire… that was always a dangerous move, so that left her with securing enough reliable income to hire someone else on her own…

Galea leaned back and stretched in her chair in frustration. That was the problem! Her store was only able to barely survive in the human selling and trading market because she offered clean organic humans that the factory farms wouldn’t bother providing. Her humans were all bred and raised with no adulterants and absolutely no drugs; whereas the factory farms jacked their humans up with everything under the sun to increase fertility and accelerate growth. Galea thought factory farmed raised humans looked… uglier, she thought they tasted worse too, and that they were somehow even stupider than regular humans, but when most of the demand for humans in Elsira was for cheap, mass-produced humans the lack of demand really ate into her bottom line. She understood it, in a way, when humans are barely an inch tall and used primarily as food or screaming pieces of jewelry, why does it matter if the thing is smarter? So… her humans became just another batch in an empire with a glut of supply. Organic, sure, but otherwise nothing to differentiate her product from the masses.

At least until now, her eyes settled on her notes, the newest entry concerned the most recent addition to her store, the little blue haired male that she picked up from the frontlines. After checking up on him earlier as he happily bred with one of the new females, she decided to leave him be for the rest of the day. Galea had been breeding humans for about seventy years, and during that time she learned that wild caughts really don’t like mating out in the open, hence why she got the little pet house for him, no need to incite a reaction from a wild caught before it acclimates to life in a cage. Blue would get used to being seen like all the other humans, but until then she would accommodate its idiosyncrasies.

She was excited at the potential of Blue, when she checked in later and asked the females for a count they told her that he had mated with four of them in total. Not stellar numbers by any means, but for a first day? Galea couldn’t complain. She was pretty sure she could push him up to six or eight copulations a day, so around two hundred copulations in a month, with about a one in twenty chance of conception each time… Galea could get conservatively get a hundred offspring out of Blue every year. Over the course of a full breeding career, that would mean thousands of offspring. Even if it’s a recessive gene she could still interbreed the offspring and get hundreds more studs with that distinctive blue hair. If she really pushed, she could get the gene into all her breeding age humans in just a few of their short generations. Finally, she thought, a visual indicator of the quality of her product! She grinned at the thought.

Maya chose to return at that exact moment, stepping through the door to the back of the store to see Galea grinning like a maniac.

“Something happen?” Maya inquired.

“Oh, no, nothing, just thinking about how our little blue friend is just the thing we need.”

“What, like money?” Maya raised her eyebrow.

“Yeah, like money.” Galea thought for a moment before continuing. “Well, at least in the long term, I still don’t know what we can do to raise funds short term…”

Maya set her bag down amidst the rest of her things in a cubby along the wall. She turned back to Galea, her face scrunched together in confusion.

“Why not take him up to the human markets? You could sell him there.”

Now it was Galea’s turn to be confused. “I don’t want to sell him! He’s our ticket to a brand!”

Maya rolled her eyes, “I mean take him up to the studding section.”

“What studding section?” Galea cocked her head, “I thought the pet shops had a monopoly on studding. No studding outside our premises, no selection of a particular mate, that sort of thing.”

“They did until some noble came by each of them a few months ago, throwing cash around like she had the key to the Empress’s own vault. You know that minor noble Belvia? The one who always had a distaste for the rest of the pet store owners and their merchant backgrounds? Well, she caved and took the offer. With no more benefit to their little studding cabal, now they’ve all got small selections of breeders available for pet owners.” Maya shook her head for a moment, remembering something. “Didn’t I tell you this already? I got back one day to find you sleeping at your desk and left a note!”

Galea grinned sheepishly. “I probably didn’t notice it… with how much paperwork is lying around…” she trailed off.

Maya sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re overworked here. If we stud him out, we can get some income flowing in quickly. Maybe even hire some more help?” Her tone sounded like she was dangling a treat in front of Galea and hoping she would take it.

Galea scowled at her playfully, “you just want a raise!”

“A raise would be nice too!” Maya laughed back.

They chuckled for a bit before Maya spoke again.

“So? What’s the call, boss?”

Richard stretched his aching muscles along the floor of his “house” if one wanted to be so generous as to call the hovel that. Over the past week, he had grown accustomed to waking up within its four walls. He stretched and woke alone, the girls in the cage usually slept together in clusters, but he had asked them to leave him out of it, he had plenty enough physical contact with them as it was.

He sat up and parted the curtains of his hovel and was welcomed to an increasingly familiar sight, nude young women going about their early morning routine. Some ate and drank, others were washing up by the fountain, and still others simply lay about, with nothing in particular to do. His eyes wandered as his legs carried him to get some breakfast.

Even from a distance, he spotted the rear ends of two of the girls as they leaned over into the bowl and ate. Their butts were bare and smooth, like a baby’s, and between their thighs he could clearly see their most private parts on full display to the world, with not the slightest hint of womanly shame.

Richard had been trying to understand the vastly different human culture he now found himself in, and over the past few weeks he had been questioning all the girls about… well, anything he could think of. What their lives were like before this, what the other farm where they were born was like, what kingdom their ancestors were originally from. Some questions, like the kingdom one, just drew blank stares, but others were incredibly revealing.

The farm they were born in had nothing to do with reproduction, at least not directly. It was larger than this farm, and was much more cramped. Breeding age women would be sent over in batches to be impregnated by Galea’s males before being sent back to gestate. From what the girls told him, they lived pretty comfortably, certainly more comfortably than the boys and men who were usually sold to restaurants or jewelers… but the girls had precious little to actually do until they eventually gave birth. Which was part of the reason why the other cages here at Galea’s shop contained people so… enthusiastically having sex; to them, this was the vacation farm.

The eventual progeny from the countless acts of intimacy in Galea’s breeding farm would be placed in a container filled with children of the same sex. Some older women were kept after their child bearing years to see to the next generation until they were old enough to have children of their own if they were women, or be sold to some horrible fate if they were male and unlucky enough to not be chosen for breeding.

This did explain, at least in part, why all these girls were so relaxed and excited to be here. No responsibilities besides having sex with him, no screaming children, and plenty of food, rest, and the best “entertainment” anyone in the farms would ever know. Actually it was even better than many of them had imagined, apparently being chosen to be selectively bred was a much cushier and pleasant experience.

With that knowledge, Richard felt a lot less guilty about this whole affair than he did when he first arrived. So much so that he had begun making… fairly assertive advances onto the women in his enclosure, and so far they had all been receptive. He gave action to his thoughts as he came alongside the two women bent over at the food bowl and ran his fingers through each of their rears. One yelped, while the other simply continued rummaging through the food. The one who yelped brought her head up from the food. Dirty blonde hair… decent sized breasts with a delicate voice… what was her name again? She had already turned to look at him, and was quickly chewing the food she had been eating, so she could speak.

“Ah, good morning!” She said when she cleared enough space in her mouth. “I didn’t see you there- mmm!”

Her greeting was cut short as Richard began to dig his fingers into her sex. As she let out quick gasps and moans with each circuit his fingers ran over her clitoris, he couldn’t help but think, did her name even matter? Based on what the girls had told him, as soon as they started showing signs of pregnancy they would be taken back to the other farm and, as they were being used for selective breeding, be absolutely pampered with good food and comfortable living conditions, and he would likely never see them again.

When he made that realization… he began to find it harder to remember their names. He remembered the names of the first girls he met, Amy and Sophia… but beyond that? He just couldn’t remember them.

Oh well, he thought as he casually withdrew his fingers and positioned himself behind the mystery girl. His cock began to harden even further and push against her ass, and she seemed to instinctively react by arching her back and pushing her rear into him.

No one else paid them more than a passing glance, continuing on about their business as if he and this girl were just having a normal morning conversation.

A thought suddenly shot through him like a lightning bolt, he barely even noticed and certainly didn’t care that he wasn’t fucking girls inside the hovel anymore. Galea was right about him not caring about privacy before long. For the past few days, he had just been taking girls wherever and whenever he felt the desire to.

His thoughts delayed his movements, and the girl looked back up at him from over her shoulder, expectedly. Her eyelashes fluttered as she bit down into her bottom lip. Realizing he was keeping her waiting, he pushed her hips into the edge of the food bowl with his and reached down to guide himself into her…

“Blue! Good morning!” A booming voice reverberated over him.

The girl he was on top of, jumped at the sudden surprise, as she had earlier when he was the one surprising her, and Richard quickly found her body pushing quickly into his, before his weight caused her to crash back into the side of the bowl. Richard heard the air in her lungs sputter out as her chest compressed a little from the pressure.

“Ahaha… sorry about that you two…” Galea sheepishly smiled down at them. Her raven hair, tidier than usual, hung off her at an angle as she tilted her head to bring her eyes closer to them.

“Oh, do not worry mistress!” The girl he had crushed a little sputtered out, suppressing some coughs that quickly followed.

Galea simply smiled down at the girl that responded, like a doting mother, before a more serious expression settled onto her face as she looked at Richard.

“Blue, I’ve got a job for you today. It shouldn’t take all day, but you’ve got to come out of the cage for it so…”

Galea removed the lid of the enclosure as she spoke, and gently pinched him around his middle. Richard tensed a little, still not too fond of being in the grip of a creature that could end his life if she only closed her fingers with the tiniest bit of force, but he kept his composure as she lifted him up and out of the cage.

A brief, windswept journey later, he found himself upon the table where Galea had questioned him when he first arrived. She took a seat after placing him atop it, and slowly brought her face down to the table. He barely came half the way to her lower lip, but at least when she was down here with him their interactions felt more like a conversation between two living things instead of between a mite and a mountain.

“I’ve got a job I need you to do. It shouldn’t be too hard, but it’s important, so listen carefully.” Galea began.

Richard hadn’t interacted with her much beyond those first few days and her occasional check ins, but she seemed… a bit less lighthearted than normal.

“My farm hasn’t ever been… especially profitable.” She spoke cautiously as Richard felt a tinge of worry pulse through him along with a thought. What exactly would happen to him if this farm failed?

His internal worries were cut short as Galea continued.

“But you, my little friend.” She beamed down at him. “You are going to help me change that. Maya and I have been talking, and while she wanted me to take you to the breeding section of the human markets… I don’t think I could risk putting you out in the open like that. I mean, imagine if a bird snatched you! It would be awful!”

His tinge of worry returned quickly, carried to some mother bird’s nest like a worm to be fed to chicks was not how he wanted to go.

“So,” Galea said, “I sent a few letters and asked some of the noble houses if they had need of a… unique stud for some of their pets, and one Lady Vanoux replied and is coming over with some of her pets to see you for herself! If we can impress her, we’ll have some good short term income for at least a month or so! Plus, it’ll give us an in with a noble family!”

Richard looked up at her, mouth agape. His worries about the shop potentially failing and what would happen to him… was actually something he had the power to influence?

For the first time since his abduction, he felt a sense of actual… agency. He replied quickly.

“What do you need me to do, mistress?”

A few hours later, Galea waited patiently in the now significantly more tidy front storage room. May had cleaned the room while Galea drilled Blue about manners and proper etiquette when dealing with nobles and their pets. Before today, she worried that Blue wouldn’t take to the quick instructions, she was worried that he would act out like how he had on that first day, but much to her surprise he seemed… oddly cooperative. He paid attention and did everything he was told without backtalk or resistance. She wasn’t sure what caused his adjustment in attitude, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain about it.

Maybe it was the time he spent with the females? She would have to test that with uncooperative wild caughts in the future… just drop them in with some mates and let them vent their stresses for a few weeks….

Galea shook her head to refocus, Lady Vanoux would be here any minute, and she had to make sure everything was good enough if this was going to be a successful day.

First, she checked the room itself. May had done an incredible job of tidying it up, but it was still very obviously a storage room. Normally, such an environment would be wildly inappropriate for hosting a noble, even one of relatively low stature such as Lady Vanoux; but, normally Lady Vanoux wouldn’t be coming to the sessions, content to simply send a maid and her pet instead. She was only coming this first time to make sure Blue was up to snuff.

Speaking of Blue, he stood, clothed in a bright golden garb, on top of a white tablecloth placed atop the table that sat in the middle of the room. He had seemed surprised when presented with clothes, but happily accepted them anyway. The nobility loved to dress their humans up into outfits, so Galea was just playing along to help make Blue seem a bit more prim and proper.

Galea sighed in relief and straightened her back, it wasn’t perfect, it was still a somewhat murky storage room and Blue was certainly no prim and proper pet, but it was good enough for a simple studding session. Now all they had to do was wait.

Blue shifted on his feet some, but otherwise stayed where he was. Galea simply watched the clock on the wall tick toward the meeting time Lady Vanoux had agreed to.

Two minutes before the appointment time, the front door opened and Lady Vanoux strode through the entryway. Her long silver hair was drawn up into a bun, and she wore a simple purple dress. Her features were hawkish and tempered with age. Behind her came a much younger lass, but one that shared her features, a daughter, Galea realized. Lady Vanoux was probably on the upper end of child bearing years, in her 4th or 5th century, perhaps. But the young girl coming in behind her couldn’t be a day over sixty.

“Lady Vanoux! Welcome to my store!” Galea began, standing quickly and bowing deeply.

Normally, a merchant such as Galea wouldn’t need to prostrate herself to a minor noble so extremely, but Galea saw no harm in starting off the relationship with respect.

Galea raised her head, and saw Lady Vanoux’s face just as hawkish as before, but softened ever so slightly.

“Galea, thank you for your welcoming words.” Lady Vanoux’s speech was like silk laced steel. Galea did everything she could to conceal her grimace, nobles always made her a little bit nervous, but she spoke with a calm tone regardless.

“Please, please take a seat! I will have to get another chair for…” Galea looked toward the younger girl.

“Zella, my daughter.” Lady Vanoux replied, picking up on Galea’s implied question. “Do not trouble yourself with finding another chair.” Lady Vanoux declared as she sat and pulled her daughter onto her lap before continuing.

“Zella has been wanting to breed our pet human for years now, I tasked her with finding a suitable stud… and she found your letter to us.

“It was in the junk mail! So I- ow!” Zella piped up happily before Lady Vanoux pinched her arm.

“We mustn’t speak out of turn, Zella.”

“Yes mother…”

Lady Vanoux turned back to Galea, clearing her throat before continuing, “So there you have it, shall we get to it then? I see you have him already prepared…” Her eyes fell upon Blue for the first time. “I must admit, I didn’t think humans could have such… colorful features, but Zella was absolutely infatuated with the idea of a bright haired pet.”

Zella brought her face down to the table close to Blue, his own miniscule stature barely coming up to her lower lip. He gave a deep bow, as Galea had taught him a few hours ago.

“Mother look! It’s really blue!”

“Yes, I can see that darling… how old are you, boy?”

“Twenty-three, mistress.” Blue said, keeping his head down in his bow. His voice giving away no hints of apprehension or nervousness.

“Polite too, for such a recent wild caught, your letter said he was caught two months ago?”

“Yes, mistress.” Galea replied.

“Then he hasn’t sired any offspring yet, how do you know the coloration is a genetic trait?”

Galea tensed, the all or nothing question. “I don’t, Lady Vanoux, which is why I offered such a rare specimen’s services at such a low price.”

“I would not call one hundred gold pieces a ‘low price’ for something as simple as a studding service.” Lady Vanoux countered.

“Lady Vanoux, this human is a unique creature, you said yourself that you had never seen one like it before, and if it is genetic then your investment will be well worth it. She paused a moment before continuing. “And… even if the coloration is not genetic, this is still a virile and healthy young male, any litter he helps sire will be well happy and healthy.

The noblewoman paused for a moment, a look of silent contemplation on her face.

“I’ll pay you fifty gold coins up front and then fifty once the offspring has been proven to have the same appearance. An untested service shouldn’t demand such a price, no matter how rare.”

Galea was silent for a moment, it didn’t look like Lady Vanoux would budge, but could Galea really get away with charging only fifty gold pieces up front? This single studding wasn’t what she was too worried about, more the precedent that it set. Word always gets around, and if other noblewomen were to find out that Lady Vanoux only paid fifty gold…

But, Galea thought some more, she would still get the second half of her payment at the end once Lady Vanoux’s pet had her litter. The upfront gold would help give her studding service some legitimacy as well….

Galea made up her mind.

“I accept your suggestion, fifty gold up front, with the rest paid when the offspring is delivered.”

“If the offspring has the same coloration.” Lady Vanoux quickly corrected.

“If the offspring has the same coloration, of course.” Galea echoed back to her hastily.

“Excellent.” Lady Vanoux declared as she carefully reached into her shawl and retrieved a miniscule cage, designed more to keep its occupant safe than to prevent escape, and placed it directly in front of Blue. Inside was a young woman, flaxen haired, wrapped in the silky, pompous clothes that nobility often dressed their pets up in.

“I have other business to attend to in the commercial district, as Marisa is Zella’s pet, let her handle the studding. I’ll be back in an hour to collect them, human matings don’t take longer than that, do they?”

“No, we should actually be able to get a multiple in during that time, no problem.” Galea stated, she was the expert after all.

“Excellent, be good, dear.” Lady Vanoux commanded to her daughter before depositing a small bag of gold onto the countertop, and left the store, leaving her daughter and her pet with Galea and hers.

“Sooo, Zella right? Shall we get started?”

“Okay!” The young girl gave a toothy grin, “Marisa! Come out!”

Her voice boomed, the child either had never learned that it was best to speak quietly around humans to not frighten them, or simply didn’t care.

Her pet, Marisa, seemed to be used to it though, so she didn’t flinch or hesitate as she quickly exited the cage and stood in front of it, eyeing Blue warily from a distance.

“So what do we do now?” Zella queried.

“Well… we don’t really do anything, we just let them do what they need to do, have you had the lesson on the birds and the bees in school, Marisa?” Galea cautiously prodded.

“Oh, yeah! It’s how animals make more animals, right?”

“That’s right! Humans are just a kind of special, talking animal, so they do the same thing.” Galea responded, matching Zella’s excitement and enthusiasm with her own, though she tried to keep her voice down a bit. “Why don’t we go make some tea and let them started on their own?” She kindly suggested.

“Hmmm… okay.”

Galea smiled at her before turning to address Blue.

“Well, you heard Lady Vanoux, you’ve got an hour so try to shoot for two or three matings before she gets back.”

“Yes, mistress.” Blue replied dutifully.

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A brief minute later, Richard watched Galea and the elven child chattering about as they prepared tea in the corner of the room. His diminished size made them seem to be much further away than just across the room; previously, such an observation would fill him with unease, but he was beginning to get used to the scale of his new life.

He turned and looked toward the elven girl’s pet, he didn’t have time to dally, so he took a few steps toward her and started an introduction.

“Hello, I’m Richard, you’re Marisa, right?”

“Yes…” she took a step back as he took a step toward her.

Richard frowned, he took another step toward her, and she took another step back. He stopped for a moment, before taking another step toward her, only for her to back away again.

“Are you alright?” He asked cautiously.

She didn’t respond, instead opting to look everywhere in the room but at him. He frowned and examined her more closely. She was a small thing, not quite as young as the farm raised women back in his cage, but not old or anything, she was probably around his age. Her gaze met his for the briefest of moments before she averted her eyes again. Her body was tense, and her arms were wrapped around herself, as if trying to hide beneath the silk of her clothing.

She was terrified, he realized.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” He queried.

She looked down toward her feet, choosing to not respond to his question.

“Hey… it’s pretty easy, I won’t hurt you or anything, but we need to get started or we’re both going to be in trouble…”

She didn’t reply, and he watched her gaze flick over toward the two giantesses with their backs turned to them.

“Mistress Zella wants me to have children.” The girl stated plainly.

“Well… yes that’s why I’m here, why don’t you let me help you do that?” Richard replied, carefully trying to coax her into opening up a bit more.

“I don’t want children…” The girl murmered out as she shook her head, casting her gaze onto the tabletop again. Just in time for the two giantesses to turn and walk toward them, a cup of tea and saucer clasped in each of their hands. Galea massive hips stopped at the end of the table as she frowned at him from up on high.

“What’s the holdup?” She didn’t sound angry, at least not yet.

“Mistress… I don’t think she wants to do this.” He demonstrated his point by taking a few steps toward the other human, only for her to once again take the same number of steps away from him.

Galea was silent for a moment, but before she could speak her attention was drawn toward the young elf piping up.

“Umm, is something wrong?” Zella asked innocently.

“A tiny bit, sweetie, it looks like your pet doesn’t want to be mated with. I have a fix though, if we have your permission.”

“Umm, can I talk to her first? In private, she’ll listen to me.”

“Of course.” Galea quietly reached down and placed her open palm in front of Richard for him to get on. Even pressed flat against the table, the top of her hand came up over half his height. As soon as he finished climbing into her palm, he felt the air rush around him as Galea carried him to the breeding room's doorway before she paused to turn and address Zella one more time.

“Just let me know when you’re ready, okay sweetie?”

“Yes ma’am!”

In the breeding room, Galea sat down at her work table and let Richard jump off her hand before leaning back in her chair and letting loose a tensed breath.

“Mistress?” Richard probed tentatively.

“Hmm?” She rumbled in reply.

“What was the fix you were talking about?”

“Oh, there are magics that exist that can induce coitus, but as you’re a trained male, forced copulation is actually what I had in mind. It’s pretty common in human breeding.” She stated matter-of-factly, as Richard felt the blood leave his face. “You’ve only mated with farm bred females, but it’s actually standard practice to have some trained males break in any unwilling females. Zella’s pet is no different, I’ll just let her know how these things work and get her approval.”

An eerie silence was all he gave as a reply. At this point, he didn’t even feel surprised how Galea just nonchalantly mentioned mass rape as a common practice, but it did serve to remind him that this new world he found himself in wasn’t just some sexcapade adventure. If he ever stopped being useful… he would be thrown away just as quickly as those women were thrown to the metaphorical wolves.

Up until now, all he had to do to stay useful was have sex with women of his choosing, which was dehumanizing, demeaning, and humiliating, but not… entirely unpleasant. This, though? Being the aggressive partner in ‘forced copulation’… Richard was no rapist, but what choice did he have?

He looked up at Galea as she had begun idly tinkering with a small cage between her fingers, hoping behind hope that in the other room the young elven girl was having luck convincing that girl to go along with all this.

“Umm, Miss Galea?” The young elf’s voice came from behind the door between the breeding room and the storage room, it had only been a few minutes since Zella asked her to leave the room, and she must already be done talking to her pet. Galea rose to her feet and opened the door.

“Yes sweetie? How’d your little talk go?”

“It went good! Marisa will listen now. She was just nervous was all.”

“Oh that’s great sweetie! I’ll get Blue, and we’ll get started!”

Galea turned back into the breeding room to lay her hand down for Blue to hop on. Just a minute before, his body had been tense and his posture was apprehensive, but now he had returned to normal, and she felt a little relief herself. Blue wasn’t fully trained yet, and forced copulation was always a little risky, what would she do if he hurt Zella’s pet accidentally? What if the female hurt Blue? Galea was lucky that Zella had enough control over her pet that it didn’t have to come to that, but still, there was a reason Galea preferred farm bred females instead of wild caughts.

Galea strode back into the storage room with Blue in tow, and she slowly placed him in front of the other human.

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Jumping off the enormous elven hand, Richard took a tentative step toward the festively garbed woman. She looked just as nervous as before, but she stood her ground as he approached to within arms length of her.

“Are you going to be okay?” He prodded, unsure of what he would have to do should she say no.

“Yes, I just… I just needed to talk to mistress Zella a bit…”

Richard wasn’t too happy with her answer, but it was better than an outright refusal, it would have to do.

“Shall we get started?” He politely prodded.

She gave him a curt nod, and started to remove her clothes.

------------------------------------------------------------

Galea watched the two humans interact, they exchanged some quick words, before the female started to disrobe and Blue quickly followed suite.

“Do they have to have their clothes off?” Galea heard Zella pipe up.

“Not technically, just the parts around their middle, but it’s easier to breed when the bulky clothes are gone.”

“Hmmmm.” Zella hummed in response, before simply observing the two humans as they continued their courtship.

Blue was next to Zella’s pet now, within a few moments he had turned her around and gotten her onto her hands and knees. He quickly mounted her, and they began mating in earnest.

Good. She thought to herself, if he was quick about it, he still might be able to get two or three rounds in before Lady Vanoux returned. Satisfied with how things were progressing, she turned to Zella.

“Shall we go get some more tea, sweetie? We can leave them to it, Blue is well-trained.”

“Hmmmm, okay, I kind of wanted to see what happens though…”

“Oh? Truthfully sweetie there isn’t much to see.” She gestured toward the two humans on the table. “They’ll just keep doing this until Blue here finishes and then take a break before going again.”

Zella started intently at the two humans locked together at the hip. Blue had picked up the pace and Marisa looked to be trying to ignore the male slapping into her backside on repeat.

“How long do they do this for?” Zella inquired.

“A few minutes, usually, do you have an interest in human breeding?” Galea inquired back.

“Hmmm, maybe? I think it would be fun to have a whole bunch of humans as pets, but when I told mother, she put some wild males in with Marisa to make some more… and poor Marisa didn’t seem to like it…”

Ah, Galea thought, that explained the female’s apprehension today.

“When you’re breeding humans, you need to always make sure the male is trained. They’re the more aggressive of the species; they’ll fight other males and aggressively mate with females, so only put a male you trust in with females.”

“Oh, I think I see, that’s why Marisa is ok with Blue, right? Because he’s trained? When the other boys were in with her before, she wouldn’t stop yelling, but now she’s so quiet.”

“Blue is still in training, but he’s a very gentle male.” Galea smiled reassuringly at her as she stood and took Zella by the hand. “Do you want to see the rest of the farm, sweetie? If you’re interested in human breeding, you might find it more interesting than a single pair.”

“Sure!” Zella beamed back.

------------------------------------------------------------

Richard thrust on repeat, trying to finish as quickly as possible. He could hear Galea and the elven child talking over them, but his focus was solely on the girl he was thrusting into. Normally, he would take his time and enjoy himself during sex, taking in the feeling of the bodies of the girls’ he was with. But this time he moved with a mission as he thrust, over and over, quickly pushing himself toward climax.

The girl beneath him was mostly quiet as well. Usually when he took girls from behind, they would buck back into him while casting furtive, sultry glances over their shoulders, but this girl was silent. Sure, her breathing had intensified a little, but otherwise she kept her eyes on the ground and was seemingly trying to ignore the man slapping his hips into hers.

Well, he thought, it doesn’t matter if she’s enthusiastic or not, he would do what he needed to.

Richard placed his hands on the girl’s hips, cupping her ass in his hands, and pulled her toward him as he thrust. The sound of flesh impacting flesh intensified, and at last he felt an orgasm pulse through his body. With a final push, he ejaculated into the girl.

It wasn’t exactly the best orgasm he’d ever had, but that didn’t stop him from feeling the tiniest bit of satisfaction at having actually done something, anything, to solidify his position as a capable asset that was worth keeping around as he extracted himself from the girl.

“I’m, uh, finished. How are you? Feel okay?” Richard said hastily, realizing that the girl still hadn’t moved from her all-fours position even after he had finished inside her. Following his declaration, she slowly lowered her butt to the ground and reached a hand down toward her genitals to finger herself for a brief moment. Her hand came away glistening with his fluids mixed with hers.

“I’m okay, I think.” She paused for a moment. “Did you do everything you needed to?” She asked bluntly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did it work? Am I pregnant? When will I have the child? You’re the stud here, I thought you’d know…”

“Oh, umm, we won’t really know when you get pregnant until later, but yes, I did everything I needed to. Now all we have to do is wait.”

With that, she let out a sigh of relief and finally became a bit more talkative.

“Good, hey, umm, I’m sorry for earlier. I was just kinda nervous you know?” She gave a small smile for the first time as she turned around to properly face him.

“It’s alright, what had you so nervous anyway?” He inquired.

“Oh, umm, I was worried if I gave Mistress Zella a child she might fawn over the child exclusively… and give me back to her mother.” The tiniest bit of fear flashed across her eyes. “Mistress Vanoux is very strict, she was my mistress for most of my childhood and I would sometimes get in trouble with her…” She trailed off before continuing. “When Mistress Zella asked why I was apprehensive, I told her why… and she said that she would ask her mother if I could be hers permanently. Along with the child. So I shouldn’t be afraid, and then she called you back in here…”

Richard nodded sagely, before replying.

“Well, I’m just glad you’re feeling better about it all. I really didn’t want to do anything to you that you didn’t want.”

Marisa nodded, looking around the room a bit before speaking again.

“So, do we just wait here until they come back?” Marisa asked.

“Actually, we should probably do it again, your owners are gonna want their money’s worth, right?”

“Oh, I guess you’re right.” Richard could detect the slightest hint of nervousness creeping back into her voice, but that didn’t stop her from laying down on her back and spreading her legs.

“Is this okay?” She asked meekly. “Or do you need me to turn around again?”

“That position is fine, don’t worry.” He tried to reassure her as he placed his body atop hers.

“Hey… umm… could you be a bit gentler this time?” She quietly asked.

“Yes, of course, sorry.” He quickly said as he slowly entered her once again. “I must have frightened you earlier.”

Marisa didn’t reply, but thankfully this time his thrusting got some whimpers and moans out of her instead of dead silence. From their face-to-face position, and especially with her trying her best to avoid looking directly at him, he could study her features in greater detail. Soft green eyes, beautiful blonde hair, a small nose with equally small lips, this girl was stunningly beautiful. It was no wonder her owners were trying to breed her. He had to make an effort not to be too aggressive with her, slowly pumping into her rather than fucking with the wild fervor he had gotten used to over the past few weeks.

His hands frequently traced over her moderate sized chest as his light grunts were met with her soft moans and whimpers. They continued like that for a while longer, and as his ejaculation inevitably approached, he had to make a concentrated effort to not thrust into her too roughly. Thankfully, he was able to stay gentle with her even as he pumped her full of semen for a second time. Not wanting to overstay his welcome with a nervous girl, he made sure to pull out as soon as he was finished.

Marisa slowly closed her legs and sat up again, looking toward him with her calves splayed to both sides. “Thanks for being gentler than the first time.”

“Of course, sorry for being so rough the first time.”

“It’s okay. That’s just how males are, right?” She smiled back at him as she seemed to relax more and more. “How many more times do we have to do this until I’m pregnant?”

“Sometimes it only takes one time, but it could take dozens of tries. It really just depends.”

Marisa nodded, “Well, should we go again?”

“I can’t go again right away, sorry, but yeah we should when I can.”

“Really? Males are so strange…”

Richard chuckled at that, and they ended up going a total of four rounds by the time Galea and Zella came back in from the breeding room.