#taurgust

yeehawgust day 3: horsin' around, plus counting this one as taurgust as well

Day 2: Taurs of Tealloch

At it's core, taurs have two main variants: hooved and pawed. Some older classifications called these "herbivore vs. carnivore" but that use has died out by current day since it's both inconsiderate and inaccurate. Both groups are omnivores. In another post we'll discuss the different branches of all of these~

Traditionally, the Wall (Tealloch) is a land locked country in a Northern hemisphere, fairly dry temperate mountain to valley and some plains biomes. Now, several thousand years ago before world trade began the biodiversity would be similar to Southern Canada, North-North America and the middle Eurasian belt of the world. Cloven hooved taurs, bears, canines and some larger/mid sized cats were the most common for larger taurs, and a fairly large mixture of smaller mustelids and foxes... however, fairly early in history the Wall was a place of world trade.

Central to many trade routes, easy access to rivers, rich in ores and ferrin (previous posts just called this "Crystal")... it was a place that was been traded with, conquered, reclaimed and fought over since people began to populate the area. So, the taur population is incredibly diverse with people of many ethnic groups from all over the world. some examples: there is a diverse large cat populations now, a fair number of antelopes, horses (lots of horses)... some ethnicities are dying out like hyenas (don't worry, they are THRIVING elsewhere), some were never very prevalent in the Wall such as giraffes. It all had to do with space and how many people were of these groups when the country closed it's borders. (Full disclosure, narratively speaking for us writers means we can just make any taur and it will work unless we can't imagine them in the space.)

It being the glorious month of Taurgust (Taur - as in centaur - plus August), I did a poll for my patrons with a number of humanoid torso + monster body 'taurs' and they decided on a nonbinary drider who's a tailor to royalty, and a royal, gender neutral reader.

Available to all tiers on Patreon

Preview:

“How’s that, your Royal Highness?” 

Gods, how that soft, susurrating voice in your ear made your heart flop over in your chest, and how those light, dancing fingertips made your skin prickle into goosebumps, even after all these years. 

Sal had been your own, personal tailor for six years now, while their mother remained the court tailor to your parents and older brother. Having them stand so close to you in the seclusion of your private apartments, their fingers skimming over the lines of your body to make the final adjustments to your outfit before you emerged into whatever task or speech your role as the younger of the two royal siblings demanded, had become a guilty pleasure in which you indulged far too often. Nobody needed that many new outfits, after all. 

Nothing was going to make you stop. 

Nothing short of Sal asking you to stop, that is, but they didn’t seem inclined to back off either. 

You’d been dancing around each other for years, after all. At least, in your mind you had… Finding out the truth would involve shattering this spun-sugar fantasy you’d woven around the two of you like spidersilk. 

Sal had started coming along to their parents’ appointments to learn their mother’s trade when they’d only been around ten years old, and the first time you’d met them, you’d been fascinated  by them. Of course, you were used to the sight of driders from having to attend your parents’ and older brother’s appointments already, dragged along like a piece of spare cargo and expected to sit quietly on a silk damask sofa until it was your turn to be fitted for something new. 

The captain of the Royal Guard was also a drider, but he looked nothing like Sal and their parents. He had long, steel grey hair that he plaited back off his stern, slate-grey face, and he was armoured with his own, natural carapace that gleamed softly like burnished steel. His nightmare limbs were needle-sharp and hooked at the tips with stiletto-talons that could probably have punctured the steel of the royal vaults in a single punch.

Sal and their parents were more like tarantulas, with velvet-soft fur and low-slung, rounded bodies, but while Sal’s mother was white all over, including the thick, curly hair on her head, Sal’s fur had slowly turned from white to a cherry blossom pink as they’d grown. Their father, apparently, had done the same, and his fur was now a rich, vibrant fuchsia, banded with paler tones across his legs. He was a renowned leather worker in the upper city though, and while some of his skills had been used in his wife’s work, he rarely came up to the palace. 

The first time that Sal had been there had been the day you’d first begun to enjoy learning about clothing, and at every appointment since, they’d been there to make you smile or reassure you, or keep you from keeling over out of sheer boredom.

More recently though, it had become exquisite torture. 

Sal never did anything that wasn’t completely appropriate. Every touch had a purpose – to snip a stray thread or to tuck up a hem for adjustment, or to make a suggestion about the drape of a fold of silk – but the way their fingers lingered at your hip or the nape of your neck always made you shiver. 

When you met their strawberry-pink eyes, your breath caught.

Based on the winner of my JnD Taurgust poll!

Crocadog Jak 🐾

[Other's] Taurphlosion!

For Typhlosion Day, I had asked WizLicos for a Typhlosion taur!  I do believe the loaf needed tauring ;3

By @Licographics, requested from their Patreon!