Jordi woke up with sore muscles all over. Not only his lower back but his thighs and abdomen as well.
He went to the mess hall and there were already dozens of different beings there, some with smiles, some with pain all over their faces; it was easy to know who was on their first days and who was already riding the karkles.
He queued for the food delivery in the canteen zone of the mess hall and gave his name when it was his turn. He was given a tray with some weird food that smelled nice.
He sat on an empty table and started trying that mysterious food, some of it tasted sweet and some of it sour, it was a weird combination.
His wrist-pad informed him that Rash was waiting for him by the circular enclosure near the entrance so he rushed his breakfast and went there, unable to hide his excitement.
There were a few more beings approaching the place as well and trainers started to wave at them and walk to them to continue their lessons.
Jordi approached Rash and after their greetings he took him to pick up the karkle they had selected for him.
It was a magnificent beast 8 meter long and 3 meter tall at the shoulder, the scales were reddish like the planet’s daybreak and it was looking at them approaching.
“Jordi meet Shaana. We chose her because she’s small and even though she’s young, she’s shown to be patient and calm.” - said Rash, guiding him to the beast's left side.
“Karkles prefer to be approached by their sides. Shaana prefers the left side so try to always mount by that side.” - Rash explained.
Jordi put his left foot on the left stirrup and mounted easily, resting his hands on the saddle horn. Shaana turned her head and looked at him curiously. Rash grabbed the reins and took them to the enclosure.
Once inside, he gave the reins to Jordi.
“Now relax your body, the twist movement we trained yesterday should come naturally but if you are tense it won’t” - Rash continued explaining, then made a sound with his mouth that sounded like a chuckle and Shaana started to trot.
Jordi rested his back on the back of the saddle which was taller than that of the horses, almost reaching the shoulder blade.
Sitting like this it was easy to relax and let his body sync with the karkle movements. Rash was walking by their side with long strides.
They did a couple laps at that pace, following about a dozen more karkles that were doing the same.
“Good, good. We’ll do some galloping next, follow me” - Rash said, spreading his wings and moving to a bigger enclosure.
Shaana followed him, speeding up a bit, her body twists quicker and sharper than before.
Once they arrived at that bigger enclosure they stopped at the entrance, it looked like there was a race happening with five karkles running as fast as they could, five krlners floating in the middle looking attentively.
Shaana’s body position changed, raising her back and lowering her head, as if waiting for a sign. She was following the race and looking every now and then in Rash direction.Rash moved to the center as well and once those five running karkles passed her again, he whistled with a loud and short sound.
Shaana started running then, Jordi getting pushed to the back of the saddle, and she was fast, maybe faster than the other karkles running.
Now that they were moving at a similar speed, Jordi could distinguish the different beings riding with them and, among them, it surprised him to see a blob inside what looked like an exo-suit.
They caught up in a few seconds, Shaana speeding through the exterior of the circumference.
One of the karkles turned its head and lashed its tail but she sped up a bit dodging the hit. Jordi was smiling though. The wind on his face, the feeling of the beast under him. Even though he was starting to really feel the twists on his kidneys he was having a good time.
In the center of the enclosure the trainers were floating, suspended in mid air with smooth wing movements, observing the situation in case they needed to intercede.
The race continued. Shaana running through the exterior was passing everyone at an incredible speed. Some karkles had tried to stop her but she had dodged them or jumped over them easily.
After about half an hour the trainers started whistling and making them stop one by one.
“That’s good enough for today.” - said Rash - “Let’s take you for a massage and some recovery drinks, you might not be feeling yet but believe me when I say that your body is hurting”
Jordi was about to protest while getting off Shaana but then he felt a piercing pain in his back side that made him fall to his knees.
“See? I told you. You humans and your adrenaline. Other species feel the pain while mounting and ask to stop but not you, no. Your fucking species seems to be designed to go overdrive when you’re having fun” - Rash said offering him a hand to stand up - “Not everyone can go so long on their first day, I should’ve thought about it before. Sorry I didn’t”
Jordi grabbed his hand and stood up, using the other hand to caress Shaana.
“Don’t worry, it's totally my fault. As you said I was having too much fun and even if you had tried to warn me I would have ignored you”
Jordi started to fall again but Shaana put her head in the way, supporting him. He caressed her neck and a long purple tongue licked half his face.
“She likes you! I guess she had fun too. Well, you’re quite lightweight for her so she probably didn’t even feel anything but your heartbeat.” - said Rash with surprise.
Jordi was still half falling over Shaana’s head. She had her eyes closed and was emitting a sound, like a purr.
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Rash chuckled and put Jordi over the beast, then grabbed the reins.
“Let’s go, this way it will be faster” - he said and started to walk.
He was walking with long strides and Shaana was trying not to twist much, with small but quick steps.
—----
Rash left Jordi with the masseuse and took Shaana to her stable.
The masseuse was massaging Jordi’s kidney’s zone with a weird and smelly ointment that felt cold to the touch but Jordi could feel the pain disappearing and started to breathe normally.
After the massage session it was drink time. A drink that was specially designed to help the healing and strengthen the muscles.
Jordi drank it fast and went to the bath zone, he really needed a bubble bath today.
Upon entering the zone he recognized Honey alone in a jacuzzi, with her head back looking at the stars.
“Mind if I join you?” - he said while approaching.
“Sure, why not? - she said with a smile, she wasn’t covering her breasts at all and they were magnificent.
“If you look at them so much I might understand you want to play” - she said with a honeyed voice.
“Sorry. We humans don’t usually have mixed baths and, well, they are magnificent if you don’t mind me saying it” - he said blushing.
“Well… thank you?” - she said, blushing a bit as well. Klrners blushed in a particular way, the scales on their shoulders would change color but their face would show no signs.
She turned her head to the sky again - “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”
A gentle breeze could be felt throughout the bathing zone which mixed with the hot water and the bubbles in the jacuzzi made relaxing easier.
“Indeed it is” - he said, looking too at the sky.
“I wonder, how many of those stars have you visited?” - she said, approaching him a bit.
He looked at the sky. It was difficult to recognize which systems he had been through since every planet showed different constellations and he had never been in that sector.
He scanned the sky and saw a blue dot on the northeast, near a red spot in the sky.
“I think I’ve been on that one” - he said pointing at it - “That blue dot, near the red nebula. I’m pretty sure I’ve been there”
She approached him a bit more, to see where he was pointing.
Her smell was sweet, no wonder they called her honey, and she was massive. Her whole body was big but proportioned.
She started scratching his head and he looked at her surprised.
“I think I really like you. But you’ve been through your first day and you will be dead in your bed before you realize. We’ll save the fun for later.” - she whispered in his ear - “So I’m going to leave because you’re as tempting as a sweet dessert. Is not that I don’t enjoy your company, quite the contrary”
And as she stood she caressed his neck and back with her tail.
He was left speechless, goosebumps all over him. He looked at her as she left, she was honestly hot and her walk was extremely sensual. If she did it on purpose or not he couldn’t say.
“What the hell am I doing” - he thought, and stayed there for a while trying to calm his body before he could leave the jacuzzi.
—----
The next morning he followed the same routine as he did before and met Rash near the big enclosure, Shaana expectant by his side and another and bigger karkle with them.
“Today we’re doing a bit of free riding. We’ll try to climb a bit if I think you can handle it.” - Rash said.
“This is Rosch, he’s mine. I raised him since he left the egg and I was a boy, we’ve been together since.” - Rash explained.
The karkle was a good two meters larger than Shaana and a meter taller at least.
Rash jumped on him and Jordi mounted Shaana. They started to trot towards the mountains.
A good hour after the sun was hitting hard but the suit Jordi had been told to wear was keeping him cold.
There was barely any vegetation around and the terrain was rocky, it would have been difficult to walk in it but the karkles had no problem moving on it.
And so the day passed by. They did climb a bit but the mountain had a thirty degree slope so it wasn’t hard. They spent all the day just trotting around, Rash showing him some interesting places like a lake as black as the night and some monuments left by their ancestors.
He wanted him to get used to mounting the karkle and the best way was spending a whole day on it.
After the hash training all that was left was getting the muscles used to the movement and resting was as important as training. It wouldn’t help to keep pushing non-stop.
So, that night, Jordi really didn’t need the bubble bath, but he went there nonetheless.
Maybe he was expecting to see Honey, or maybe he just wanted to enjoy the bath under a starry sky.
Instead of the big jacuzzi he chose a small pool with warm water. The amount of different baths and places to rest there was astounding.
He had chosen this one because it was one of the few that allowed drinks and today he was in the mood of a mimosa. Luckily for him they had catalan cava to have it with the orange juice, he prefered it to champagne, probably due to his uprising.
He had drunk one on the bar and took another to slowly enjoy while bathing. This was finally feeling like a proper vacation.
The murmur of the beings around him, everyone lowering their voices so as to not ruin the night sounds surrounding them. Some cricket-like sounds, the gentle breeze of the night. He had his eyes closed and a smile on his face.
He first smelled her and then felt movement in the water. Opened his eyes to find Honey in front of him but quite close.
“I asked what you were drinking and man, this is really good!” - she said with a sweet lowered voice.
He took his glass and brought it forward, she looked at him puzzled.
“Is a human tradition. We touch our glasses lightly and say ‘cheers!’ then we drink“ - Jordi explained with a smile.
She approached a bit and touched his glass with hers.
“Cheers?” - she said, still a bit puzzled.
“Cheers!” - he smiled and drank.
“You humans are really weird” - she said with a laugh and drank as well.
And thus they enjoyed a bit of a conversation, about human and krlner traditions and other things.
She told him about how they were absorbed by the Empire, a completely different story than that of humankind.
Krlners hadn’t left their own planet when the Empire arrived. The Emperor had seen them and had decided they would be a nice acquisition. They were a feudal society and when the Empire arrived put an end to it. They got all the social and medical improvements and improved education, a couple millenia had past since then.
But they were not a species that liked to travel the stars, they felt more comfortable living on a planet, under a gravity well.
For her, the idea of spending years without even touching a planet was crazy. She couldn’t even imagine not being able to just open her wings every now and then and fly around. She would feel like a caged bird.
Jordi laughed at that. Humankind was a lot of things but the yearning for exploration and the unknown was something very much alive on almost every one of them.
Even those who would spend their days in a laboratory or a library had it, it was just a different kind of yearning.
She kept asking him questions, about places he’d seen, species he had met, and experiences he had been through. Her honeyed-orange eyes glistening at him, she was like a curious toddler.
They were already on their fourth mimosa, waiters bringing them the drinks ordered on their wrist-pad, when he realized it was quite late and they were almost alone in the bathing zone.
The sounds around them, he realized, had become muffled and all he saw was the occasional couple, all in their separate baths or jacuzzis. The sounds telling him what was basically going on.
She might have felt it as well because her tail started caressing his back.
“You know, this feels nice. But I bet we could make it even better” - she said smiling at him.
“Well, part of being an explorer is the willingness to discover and explore new things” - he said smiling, the mimosas removing any doubt or thoughts he might have had.
Unbeknownst to her, he had been reading a bit about krlner physiology. He approached her and softly bit the scales on her collarbone.
Her head just went back and her tail whipped. She looked at him completely surprised.
“Don’t start what you’re not ready to finish!” - she admonished him with a whisper.
“Who says I’m not?” - he said, and bit again on her collarbone.
Her head just went back again and she grabbed one of his hands and put it over her breasts. He started caressing her, playing with her a bit.
They played with each other, softly, slowly, quietly, for a few minutes.
Then she stood up, her shoulders as red as blood, and grabbed him by the hand.
“You’re coming to my room, now!” - she whispered, pulling him, without waiting for an answer.