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Yolla was still unsettled by his encounter with the young lioness who planned to become a priestess by poisoning her mother and the way that he had found himself sort of attracted to her despite her despicable plans, but he had not yet gotten to swim and that was what he had told his cousin-things he would be doing when he left the den.

Personally, Yolla didn't think he should have to say where he was going, since he'd never had to tell his dad any of that superfluous information, but apparently the fact that they were none of them his father, and only looking out for him on his father's behalf meant that they had to be nosier. As a young lion on the cusp of adolescence, Yolla found the concern smothering.

The brothers Grei really needed to find themselves a competent, unshakable thrall to clean up after them and their carnal acts. Because Slips was beginning to suspect that his brothers cheated when they cast bones to determine who got stuck with the washing up.

Ordinarily without a thrall to do the work, Slips would have just had one of the subs clean up their toys, but things hadn't worked out as planned. The previous evening's sub had not been one of their usual ones and she had not known the procedures. She'd just left afterward. Without even asking permission.

"Not going to work out," Slips murmured. And that was a shame, because she'd not been a bad sub.

Yolla splashed a lot as he paddled around the river. One of the problems with being a self-taught swimmer was that he didn't have much in the way of style or technique. Just bare functionality. Nevertheless, he was making progress upriver against the current, and he was proud of that.

The water and the splashing was not loud enough to stop him from hearing the sound of a lion murmuring to himself a short distance away. Yolla was really not sure he wanted to intrude on the grumbling lion, given how his last encounter had turned out, but he had paused in his paddling for too long and now he was the current's b***h and the current was taking him to the side of the river where the adult was.

"Hi," he called as he floated past.

Oh, a distraction. Glory be!

Moving with the unfair sort of grace some people just seem to have in spades, Slips reached out with one paw and snagged the floating cub. The spotted youth didn't look like he was in any danger, and so Slips did not flatter himself that he had just performed a rescue by pulling him to shore.

"That is no proper way to greet a person," Slips said as he pulled the cub onto the bank. As he spoke he wondered why he always sounded like he had a figurative stick up his arse. Perhaps because he was trying not to dominate the kid, and his default mode when not being a dom was just douche. That was a disquieting thought.

No proper way to greet a person? Really? Floating past and waving while saying "hi" was no proper way to greet a person? Who would have thought that?

"Oh, right. My bad," Yolla said. This time he was determined not to be the one left gaping at the end of things, although being plucked out of the water and plopped onto land didn't do much for his dignity and put him behind points-wise. "Someday I will kill you."

He shook himself, deliberately spraying the older lion, and then looked up at him challengingly as if to ask what he was going to do about it. The little voice that told him when he was doing stupid things wasn't really on the ball today it seemed. Then his eyes fell on what looked like a pestle without a mortar.

"What's that?"

Slips' lip curled to expose the tips of his teeth at the youngster's show of defiance. It wasn't that he thought he was being seriously challenged. Slips just had problems with any affront to his dominance, no matter who it came from or how it was intended.

"Not today." And if the little punk tried, Slips would carve him up and bring him home for dinner, though he'd hardly satisfy one of the brothers Grei, let alone all three of them and their subs.

"It's an a**l plug," he said with a perfectly straight face, keeping his smirk contained. He doubted that the cub would believe him, and so some fun could almost certainly be had here. Albeit at the cub's expense, but who cared how a kid felt?

Yolla's eyes did their very best to bug out of his head. Of all the answers he might have gotten, that was one which had not crossed his mind for even a fraction of a second.

"A...what? You mean...like..."

He was having a truly difficult time convincing his brain to form complete sentences in light of learning that apparently there was such a thing as an a**l plug. He also was having some difficulty imagining why such a thing might exist.

"Is it something healers use? For...um..." Yeah. He had nothing.

Slips stared at the cub and said nothing. He was afraid if he actually said anything he would burst out laughing at the kid's bug-eyed expression, which would just ruin everything completely.

When he finally thought he could keep a handle on himself he answered, "It's not a healer's tool. It's a stimulant. It's pleasurable."

The best part was, he was telling the gods' honest truth, but the truth obviously seemed so strange to the kid that he couldn't bring himself to believe it. In other words, the secrets of the brothers Grei were safe, even though Slips was discussing them candidly.

Yolla frowned and peered at the object under discussion curiously. From its shape he could imagine it being put to the use described, but he still could not bring himself to believe that it was pleasant, let along pleasurable to have that thing shoved up one's bunghole.

"To each his own, I suppose," he offered. The sentiment wasn't exactly one the Stormborn lived by, but sometimes bits and fragments from Yolla's life before coming to live with his father surfaced. That expression was one such fragment.

It was at that point that he finally noticed the amusement glinting in the lion's eyes and realized that he was being had. He was a little bit annoyed by the attitude that adults seemed to have toward him, thinking he was fun to toy with just because he was younger, but this lion did not look like the person to take out his frustrations on.

"You're just messing around, right?"

Slips angled his ears in such a way as to be equivalent to a human raising his eyebrows. The expression seemed to say, Is that what you think?

"I'm afraid so," he admitted. "Be glad that's all I've done. I could've made you clean this without letting you in on the joke. Then you'd be wondering all day if you'd just handled something that's been up another lion's arse."

Deftly he flipped the buttplug toward the young lion, just to see what he'd do.

"Haha," Yolla laughed sarcastically. "Funny. But I wouldn't've washed it if I really thought that's what it was for."

That much was the truth. He'd've made his escape somehow, even if it meant jumping back into the river and paddling out of reach to let the current carry him away. Not the most honorable course of action, but to a youth of his age almost anything was better than being forced to clean someone else's a**l plug. In fact, the only thing he could think of that would be worse would be to have to clean someone else's a**l plug that had been forcibly shoved up his butt first.

When the thing came flying toward him he instinctively batted it sharply downward and pinned it to the ground. Then he rolled it back to Slips before deciding it was time to go home and dry off. The weirdos were out today. Over his shoulder he called, "Careful. Wouldn't want to lose your...a**l plug."