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The Harpy Matriarch - Part I
🕑 Added 2019-10-07 12:32:08 +0000 UTC
Posters were pasted upon message boards, and scrolls were delivered to adventurers and champions. The message was the same, clear and unmistakable. “The harpy infestation must cease,” it read. “By decree of Countess Harmonia, until the change of the season, all heads of harpies gathered in her name will be rewarded handsomely for their service. Hunters and sellswords alike are encouraged to brave the Crumbling Valley and slay any such winged-beasts that they observe.”
A diagram was provided, detailing the harpy anatomy and pinpointing weaknesses and strengths. They were magical creatures, beyond the laws of nature but resistant to the laws of mankind. They appeared like most human women, though their hair often grew wildly and from a splendid variety of colors. For arms and legs, however, their bird-like qualities stood out. From the shoulders sprouted wide wings in place of arms, strong and capable of flight, and their legs were inverted at the knee, ending with sharp talons that could pluck and pry from above. Due to such unique legs, harpies stood taller than humans by more than a couple heads, but their slender builds were better equipped for flight rather than a fight.
These magical creatures were not in the same tier as dragons or ogres. They were disorganized pests -- lethal, predatorial pests, but nuisances more than they were terrors. They protected their territory and hunted within their own grounds, only ever bothering the humans that intruded. However, harpies from the Crumbling Valley were not so passive and reserved. They expanded more outwardly from the wilds, flying further from their nests to harass, steal from, and slaughter any who traveled near their land. Such territory may have belonged to them, but legally, this violence was breaking out on Harmonia’s soil. As countess, her duty to her people was to bring an end to these monsters.
An arrow struck its target. A razor yelp, “Kieeeeeyyy!!” Out of the sky dropped a flailing body, falling from a burst of feathers which trailed behind the spiraling shape. A canopy of trees shivered as a wounded harpy collapsed past its branches, somewhere in the canyon.
“Right in the wing,” someone remarked, a celebratory pump of a fist to go with it. “She never saw it coming, Captain. Excellent show.”
The bow was lowered like an exhale. Reina’s muscles relaxed along with her poise, but her stoic stare remained. “Fetch her,” she softly commanded. By her word, three men jogged into the thicket, equipped with nets and ropes. Reina did not supervise them like her lieutenant did. Rather, she surveyed the skies, on the search for the next mark.
Reina was a foreigner to this nation, but hunting was always familiar. Her homelands were only plentiful with its dangers, disciplining her to the ways of survival. When she was too young to travel alone, she seized the life of a sellsword, adapting her ways to new lands rich with opportunities. Age had only honed her skills, and she stood now as a proud hunter, dressed in quality studded cloaks that brazenly boasted her arms in particular. Against the red of her uniform was the jet black of hair, its length impressive even while packaged into a braid behind her. Although she sported a haul of gear, her strides were casual and unshaken, a testament of her upper body strength.
“Spotted another?” the lieutenant wondered, tracing her gaze upwards. He was a stout man that looked up to many, but especially so when it came to Reina. Over thirty volunteers joined this expedition, yet only the biggest of them could see over their captain’s shoulders.
“No,” she replied, after a long and studious pause. “They fly in pairs, if not more. Different altitudes from one another allow them to sift through more land at once.” She looked behind her, still to the cloud-rich sky. “There’s another somewhere.”
“Hah, we shouldn’t be greedy! Leave some wings for other hunters to get!” the lieutenant chuckled. “We’ve struck down five at this point. The countess herself will be cooking our meals when we bring them back! She’ll have to with the bounty she’s promised, eh?”
Reina trekked forward in the midst of what was being said, her disinterest not hidden. “These birds are deadly hunters themselves,” she said. “I am keen to compete against them.”
“Fair enough,” he chortled. “They should begin their hunt soon, before it’s too late for them.”
All this time, the harpy’s crying hadn’t ceased. It was a sharp screech of pain, not unlike the wailing of its slain sisters before her, yet not one of them had put up such a fight. Quite so, there was an argument between her and the men sent to retrieve her. The lieutenant turned back in their direction, suspicious of what trouble could be had with such a simple task.
Yet unphased by all this, however, was Reina. The sound didn’t bother her, not like the scenery concerned her. Along the stony cliff sides, she sensed disturbing details. Carvings were weathered into the rocks, strips of damage as though a significant battle took place. Reina stepped away from the rest of her group and into a flat clearing, her ears perked towards the open air.
The lieutenant stomped into the scene, his concern matched with a curiosity to see the beast closer. The harpy still had fight in her yet. She stood tall on her legs with her wings spread far, becoming a stretch of red-and-black feathers. A net was wrestled over her, but even with its weights and the strength of two men pulling down, the harpy refused to be completely anchored. She was wild and desperate, her flash of orange hair tossed over her face from whipping and yelling. Like the other harpies before her, she donned a unique robe over her torso, designed for a winged creature’s anatomy, and not with the same dignities as human fashion.
The wind was picking up as the crying still continued. Reina felt a chill in the air, unsettled by how strange of a noise this particular harpy was making. It wasn’t a pained cry, and she did not speak a human tongue against her hunters. It was like a call -- too late did she solve that, however, as from the peak of distant cliffs rose exactly what was being spoken to.
Reina’s instinct was to position herself and rally her mercenaries. The sight she beheld, however, washed away that trusted wisdom. Her reflexes froze, because what came upon her and her men was beyond any creature a league of their caliber was meant to face. She dared ask what army was supposed to challenge the mammoth beast soaring into the valley. It’s size suggested it was a dragon of legend, but it was in fact a harpy -- the matriarch.
Yet no matriarch was ever of this scale, none that Reina ever researched. Regardless of her expectations, reality crashed onto her and her forces. Massive wings of countless purple feathers whipped at the air, stirring whirlwinds that ravaged through the valley. Dirt and sand was picked up by the gusts, barreling through the trees that shook and bent like a storm was uprooting them. It became difficult to see, but it was impossible to not understand the magnitude of what they had summoned. Above the dust clouds was the harpy, hovering closer to the ground in a not-so-gentle descent. The sun behind the matriarch blinded the eyes that stared up at her, but her landing could be felt by anyone with their feet on the ground. A quake rattled through the wilderness, like the earth itself was growling back at the five-hundred foot tall beast perched into the valley.
The movements of flight came to an end, but for moments afterward was the air still disturbed by the matriarch’s entrance. Reina was dumbfounded, her steel-cold wits having been shattered. She thought to run, but where? The harpy above her, as tall as a palace, could undoubtedly find and claim her anywhere in the valley. So she then thought to attack, but how? An arrow from her bow would be fortunate to travel even halfway up the harpy’s body, let alone pierce flesh and cripple. The only reasonable target of attack were the talons, as they clenched deep into stone, but even just one claw was bigger than her strongest brute.
Reina realized then just how alone she was, evident when the dust began to settle. Her mercenaries were still deep into the thicket, where the crying harpie was. A shiver dashed up her body, “Get out of there!”
A talon rose from where it had been planted and hovered over the wooded area. Reina gawked at the underside of the matriarch’s foot, deafened by how silent the threat was. Her hearing returned; the sounds of mercenaries haphazardly evacuating, fleeing desperately into the valley’s hills and crags away from her. Conflicted still on how to act, Reina’s body didn’t move. She only watched as the claw pinpointed where that crying had resonated from.
Swiftly, the talon descended upon the trees. Its claws ripped through the canopy, turning branches and leaves into debris. A fraction of the thicket was mangled in this one grab, dozens of trees torn from their roots and crushed down into chunks. The mess was discarded, lazily tossed behind the matriarch like sand thrown to the wind. Beneath her, the ground was exposed, and it revealed the lieutenant and his three men, bunkered down or toppled over, surrounding the net-captured harpy.
“Mother! Mother!” the harpy yelled in a clear human language. Not at all did she buckle with fright; she beamed with pride and excitement. Without her captors there to weigh her down, the harpy finally wrestled out of the net. She couldn’t fly, not with the arrow still inside her, so she jumped and waved a wing up at the behemoth matriarch. “I’m here, Mother! And the humans as well!”
A sole claw was pointed forward and then lowered down into the area just exposed. It made for a platform that the harpy could perch on, fluttering up to it as best she could with the injury. The men were too paralyzed to stop her, watching as their prey ascended to safety in the grasp of the giant monster. It dawned on them too well that the tides had utterly turned.
Something of such incredible size was difficult to perceive as a mother, but as the mercenaries marveled at the beast, they saw just where the name came from. The creature above them was a woman, more mature than the harpies from before. At her wide hips did the digitigrade legs meld into human flesh, becoming the body not unlike an actual mom. The title “mother” was not literal, the matriarch being a leadership role more so than an actual bearer of children, but her feminine physique had her appear more like one. Past the large hips were a pair of breasts that spilled outward from her chest, significant in shape even relative to her gigantic proportions. Exotic and revealing clothing exaggerated this size, decorated with gemstones and rubies unearthed from the valley’s mines, more like a studded harness than the robes and tunics the lesser harpies wore.
The matriarch brought the harpy close to her face with an unreal balance, capable of holding her own incredible weight up on one leg while the other was used to carry her subordinate. The small harpy was joyful to be this close to her leader, brought near to her sharp green eyes. A cascade of purple, a shade not far from that of her wings, made for a wind-rustled mop of hair. It was wavy and long, lazily tended to at best, with bangs swept to one side and concealing most of one eye. Lips quite soft for a hunter curved into a devilish grin, pleased to have her minion returned to her.
“Excellent misguiding, little one,” the matriarch cooed. Her tone was gentle, but the whisper was an omen that growled high above the mercenaries. While some still fled for cover, others were too amazed to do anything but watch the giantess move, even her slightest motion drawing so much attention. “Our plan succeeded. It seems the humans have gathered together nicely in one place.”
“I-I never doubted your plan, Matriarch Atilda! G-Genius!” the harpy complimented, gnawing at the arrow embedded in her wing. With a violent pull, she ripped the stick from the wound and spat it away. “It was an h-honor to be struck for you…!”
Atilda leaned forward, nuzzling her cheek into her minion and receiving similar affection. “A worthy sacrifice for our kind,” she muttered. Her eyes flashed at the stumbling mercenaries below. “How many have they claimed so far?”
“I-I heard them! I heard them say I was the fifth!” the harpy whistled. “They’re being paid, mother! They said a countess is paying them!”
A winter befell the atmosphere around Reina and her mercenaries, a cold season set upon by the matriarch’s unchanging expression; a glare and a smile. They were being tattled out, far too late now to beg for a reconsideration. Atilda said nothing in response, merely moving her talon to a far cliffside for the harpy to leave, her gaze never leaving the mob of mercenaries. “I can’t wait any longer,” she told her harpy, restraining a giggle. “For having killed four of you brats, I will make sure to leave a message for humans that will not be forgotten.”
Another wave of panic revitalized the mercenaries, spurring them to run away. Reina turned and watched as the rest of her troops were rushing back where they came, leaving behind inventory and weapons just to lose the extra weight. Reina remained where she was; she knew it wouldn’t matter where they went, a concept confirmed by the movement of Atilda’s claw.
In the cradle of two hills, many hunters clustered in an attempt to funnel away and escape. They climbed over the stone as much as they climbed over each other, and the madness didn’t cease even as the shadow of Atilda’s talon blanketed them. With that same amount of ease, she dragged her claws through the cliffs and hills surrounding the humans. Boulders crumbled down in avalanches, crashing together regardless of what souls came between them. The matriarch gathered more stones in her grasp, depositing them over the same area with much enthusiasm for the disaster she caused.
Mercenaries cowered from this rearrangement of the geography. They were trapped in the valley, cornered by a harpy that acted as though this were a game. Already had she spilled enough blood to match her losses one-to-one, but she insisted on more, her eyes flaring to life for the first time in years. There was excitement to be had in simply leaving her foot hanging over the squabbling men and women, her keen hearing picking up on their screams, their pleading.
“Ha! These are the mighty hunters sent to kill my family! Look at you all trample over yourselves so pathetically,” Atilda laughed, her mouth only vaguely veiled behind a wing. Out of curiosity, she dropped her talon close to the mercenaries, pointing to them with a lone claw. Thicker than a spear, the claw hovered precariously over individuals at a time, each hunter shoving others out of the way to avoid being targeted. After that fun had been drained, the claw plummeted. Atilda’s precise vision allowed her to specifically strike right through a single soldier, an impalement that immediately lead into being crushed under the talon’s weight. The crowd around the unfortunate hunter broke away in screams, only a select few brave enough to draw their weapons in retaliation.
“Hoohoo… You think you can fight me? You think that?” Atilda tilted her head. She then hunched close to the ground, squatting so she could stare down at the tiny humans. Locks of her loose hair swung over their heads like vines, and her breasts sagged only a short distance from them, like a wall of rotund flesh waiting to enclose them. Yet, it was her green eyes that posed the most terror onto the mercenaries, her gleeful look to watch their horrified and helpless reactions.
The rest of the talon flattened across the stony ground, forcing the survivors around it to leap aside. Her foot was in the center of their scattered ranks, motionless and vulnerable. It was like a tree that sprouted from the valley and impossibly high towards the clouds, virtually unmovable where it was rooted. The hard exterior of the leg promised a solid defense, yet a number of hunters still chose to engage with it in a desperate melee. Swords and lances were equipped and slashed into the leg, but no steel could break the titanic talon, nor could they even make a toe twitch.
Atilda laughed again, an eruption of fiery sound as she rose back to full height. She was embarrassed for them and these weak attempts of attacking her, the most pity she could offer. “Why even exhaust yourselves?” she teased, her smile always creeping wider. “Whether you fight or not, you’ll all die like vermin the same. If it were up to me…” Atilda coiled one nail of her talon, scraping through the hard stone. With that single claw, she kicked down a hunter striking at her, throwing them back twenty feet. “... I would just relax and die.”
The foot launched into the air, high above the troops once again. Any spirit that had meant to put up a fight had been abandoned, and the dozens of mercenaries were rapidly trying to climb past the blockade or find refuge elsewhere. She already knew how in vain these efforts were; a second later, the foot dropped back down with tremendous force. A cluster of hunters despaired in their final moments, swallowed into darkness as an ultimate weight flattened them and more into the valley.
Atilda raised her talon, surveying her work. A distinctly shaped mark was imprinted into the land, a pit of narrow crevices in the shape of her claws. Remains of her destruction that were embedded into her sole began to drizzle apart, like dirt stuck to her foot. She flexed her claws, relishing in the mayhem she was able to cause with a single step.
“I don’t believe any of you really understand just how small you are,” the matriarch announced, eventually setting her gaze down onto the scrambling people. A group had taken a route directly under the giant harpy, hoping to weave past her legs and escape deeper into the valley. They would not run unnoticed, and Atilda saw an opportunity to make an example of these humans.
Atilda’s dexterity was uncanny for how huge she was. Despite every limb certainly weighing tons, she expertly balanced herself while on one leg, using the other to pick out her targets. Swiftly, her talon fell and crashed into the valley, but she avoided stomping out any lives. Instead, it was with that dexterity that she plucked the hunters off the ground. She carried five of them in her one talon, raising them higher so that she could examine them. Along the ascent, one warrior lost his grip, and down did he fall back to where he had been taken from, his shout dwindling the further he went.
Like a mighty crane, the talon lifted the four unfortunate souls until they were level with the eyes of their predator. Green pupils lit with excitement as she observed their distress closely, entertained by how they flailed and scrambled to maintain a grip on her feet. One was squeezed between two digits, and another clung to the tip of a claw, his legs circling around in kicks. Regardless of their desperate positions, not one was truly luckier than the other underneath Atilda’s gaze.
“What terrible hunters you all must be, to end up caught by your own prey,” Atilda giggled, her voice resonating through the tiny bodies. “You deserve to fall down a ring in the food chain.”
Slipped from Atilda’s grin was a red tongue, a coat of saliva freshly applied as it slithered forward. Chaos was stirred anew among the mercenaries, though they had no where they could race to. Trapped in the giant talon, the only escape was to commit to the jump, from a height that was hundreds of feet tall, but there was no time to grapple with even that suicidal plan. The tongue was its own beast, a predator of its own form, and as such it was agile in picking its targets. All it took was a dot of touch for the tongue’s adhesiveness to grip one soldier out from Atilda’s grip. He begged and pushed back, he reached as far as he could to grab the hand of another, but the red snake reeled back in, past the slightly-parted lips to where the mercenary was sealed.
The other three witnessed the scene and its grave details. Just beyond the cheeks and lips of this maternal face were wild screams of terror; a man losing a fight against a behemoth tongue, drowning in saliva as perfectly intended. Moments later, there was no battle to speak of. A gulp had sentenced the mercenary to his fate, and Atilda returned to the remaining three, a hungry expression not yet vanquished.
“You don’t even count as a meal,” Atilda spat, an insult to folks already immensely belittled. “You really are disappointments, even when you die…”
She shrugged, a playfully sarcastic gesture. The talon was brought close to her mouth again, this time a giggle signalling the end for someone else. Another lick picked out a struggling mercenary, and a follow-up attack also gripped another. Both were swallowed instantly, doing away with the illusion of a possible struggle. Her final victim was raised highest over her head, his grip on the claw’s tip gradually failing under the building pressure. Only for so long could he last before the wind forced him into a fall, plummeting right into the monster’s expecting maw.
It was after that final swallow that Atilda moaned in delight. Her now empty talon returned to the canyon floor, never noticing that it collapsed over a straggler. Her wings folded around her stomach and her smile aimed down at those who had survived thus far -- a scrambled array of mercenaries, sifting through the rocks and trees like the bugs she saw them as. It was a disorganized retreat from a morally crippled force.
“How funny! Trying to get away? To where?! You’re at my feet, humans! You’re in my canyon! You came thinking you could exterminate us harpies?! Not one of you will sneak away from punishment.” Atilda spread her wings, casting a long veil of shadow over the terrain. With a few strokes, she summoned whirlwinds of air to sweep across the ground, gusts strong enough to bend trees, uproot shrubs, and topple armored foes. She laughed at their clumsy dismay, then called forth her own kind; “Come, children! These pests will be our prisoners! They came to our canyon and now they will never leave!”
Her call was answered immediately. From the cliffs and trees, harpies took to the skies with an adrenaline rush. They gathered around their matriarch as a swarm, swirling around their queen and producing a storm of cackles and caws. Multi-colored beasts flew together in a cluster, their numbers outgrowing that of the mercenaries. By the aim of Atilda’s wing, the swarm dove to where the survivors were scattered, freely swooping down on their foes with overwhelming speed.
A woman was caught in the razor grip of talons and dragged into the air, while two others wrestled with a heavyset man until he was off the ground as well. Few had the nerves to draw their steel and fight back, and even those that did were vastly overpowered by their flying opponents. Cries for help were flooded by the laughter and taunting of the harpies, their counterattack a resounding success.
The messy scuffle only worsened for the hunters. Atilda would not allow only her minions to have their fun, and so she stepped into the fray with a laugh of her own. A single stomp cratered the land, crushing down on unsuspecting mercenaries. That same foot bounced back into the sky, tearing with it a chunk of the stone it had just cobbled, and then again it fell, a devastating crash that took out not only a handful of mercenaries, but a duo of her own harpies as well. Her children knew best to stay away from their matriarch’s feet, aware of her merciless nature, yet some stomps were too sudden for any to dodge.
Atilda was pleased, almost overjoyed with how the tides had turned against the invaders. As the remaining lives were being stolen by her children, all seemed to have been flawless. Not a single hunter had dared resist her impossible might -- she had thought so, at least, until she felt a burn on the back of her thigh. There was a pop to accompany it, leaving behind an itch that drew Atilda’s attention to behind her.
The giantess turned and surveyed the canyon beneath her. Her opponent made no effort of stealth, having to sacrifice that advantage just to get an angle to attack. Reina had not been idle while Atida and her family brought havoc to her soldiers. After all rank was lost, Reina gave up commanding her forces and took to her own position. She knew from the beginning how overwhelming the matriarch was, and so she had staked her location atop a rocky spire, a high ground that only matched a fraction of Atilda’s digitigrade legs. Normal arrows were not readied in her bow, but instead, projectiles tipped with gunpowder explosives, set to burst into flames on impact.
Fearlessly, Reina launched another such arrow that whistled through the air. She aimed as high as she could, but the arrow would only reach Atilda’s thigh, the point at where her bird legs became human. The explosion had the force to crumble a brick wall, but the soft skin was only blackened by the fires. Uninjured, Atilda merely wafted at the burns with a wing, her sneer pointed sharply at Reina.
“Spare them, matriarch!” Reina yelled, her bow aimed with one hand while the other waited at her quiver. “Let my mercenaries flee, and we will all leave you! Continue, and I will finish this hunt myself! You, and all your children, will not continue this violence and still live!”
“Hah? Is something speaking to me?” Atilda’s expression softened, her eyes purposefully glazing over Reina. “Was that a human I heard challenging me? If they were wise, they would have ran when they had the opportunity, yet someone dares attack me.” She refocused on Reina, only then deciding to study the hunter and her potential. She was certainly brave, and it wasn’t ignorance that emboldened her. Atilda acknowledged that this woman was a capable warrior -- for her kind.
Reina was patient for resolution, but Atilda’s attitude actively tested that quality. She equipped another explosive arrow, the weighted head slowly pointed to its target. “We can settle this without another soul being lost,” she emphasized, drawing far back on the string. “Be reasonable, matriarch!”
Atilda scoffed with a cocky smile, a brow raised in question. “You threaten me with this?” she asked. Unphased by Reina’s words, Atilda only knelt closer to her, her knees bending back so that she was in a graceless squat directly in front of the stone spire. Her crotch was just shy of being completely exposed, a string from the waist-half of her harness offering just a bare minimum of concealment. The shameless sight unsettled Reina, who looked upon the center of Atilda’s hips with a blushing shiver. Atilda giggled, detecting that faint scent of fear and embarrassment from Reina’s sweat, a delicious combination.
Reina’s gaze had been locked onto that one spot, but her thoughts did not stray for long. She took aim again, taking advantage of Atilda’s squat. “This is no joke,” she lectured, and the arrow was launched. A brief whistle sounded just before the boom of combustion -- a direct hit against the matriarch’s right breast, too big to miss. An explosion that could have downed a unit of cavaliers, however, had only the effect of leaving a black cloud around the fatty flesh. When the smoke cleared, the breast appeared untouched, the blow unable to break even her harness’s top.
Atilda mocked Reina with an obnoxious laugh, her loud voice rattling the canyon with its echoes. She brought the end of a wing to her chin, her coy grin put forwardly on display. “Ohh? Was that an attack? Those arrows are interesting. Should you be wasting them like this?”
Reina growled, her hand reaching for another arrow. Disrespect had surmounted the limits of her calm, and so she angrily took aim for another attack. Her instincts burned, knowing how fruitless these special arrows were, yet her fury had been ignited. The fuse was lit, Reina arced her bow for a higher angle, she pulled--
Splash. A day’s worth of rain had been compiled into one lone droplet, a drip of saliva that bombarded Reina with a ruthless crash. She saw the collection of spit only in the last second before landfall. All went black upon the wet impact; Reina was temporarily knocked out, the force slamming her hard into the ground. The spire had been washed of its details, a coat of saliva consuming the position Reina had taken. It was quite warm having just left Atilda’s mouth, and it was considerably heavy, constantly dragging the hunter back down as she struggled to her knees. The once proud persona of the hunter had been ruined and replaced with a savage image, her hair an untamed mess and her clothes stained with mud.
“You asked me to be reasonable,” Atilda chuckled. “And so I am! When an ant bites you, do you compromise with it? I imagine that’s not the case from a hunter like yourself.”
Reina gagged on the flood of spit, powering through the viscous water so that she might stand up again. Panting, she reaffirmed her grip on her bow and arrow, but there was an issue. The gunpowder-filled head was drenched. As wet as it was, there was no chance of it lighting, let alone bursting on contact. She hadn’t prepared any tool better for an encounter of this scale, not having expected one at all.
“Are those even good now?!” Atilda used her wing tip to point harshly at Reina’s weapon, a giggle bubbled between her words. “Did my spit turn your fancy arrows into duds?! Haa! Hoho~! I didn’t even mean to…!
“There must not be anything else you can do, hm,” Atilda wondered, her amusement finally being leashed. “Useless things are better off dead. I suppose you’ve earned a counterattack for your efforts, at least.”
The matriarch rose only slightly from her squat, enough so that she could remain seated on one leg while the other reached forward. The talon gripped the spire in front of her, digging into the stone with crushing claws. The tactical position Reina had taken now worked against her; she was stranded on the spire, now an island that was literally in Atilda’s grasp. “The question is, how to properly humiliate something as insolent as you…?”
Reina felt a tremble. She first feared it was herself that shook, that her composure had melted away completely, but it was the ground beneath her that quaked. She heard fissuring from below, then the shaking intensified, forcing her even lower than her knees. Suddenly, she was airborne, rocketing upward along with the spire. Atilda had torn it from the canyon floor, claiming it as her own possession. Even less than before did Reina have any hope of escaping.
It was not just any height that Atilda brought the spire to. She intentionally held the jet of stone so that its peak was level with her chest. Reina took notice of this fact from her peripherals, undeniably glimpsing at the deep cleavage but persistently returning her glare to Atilda’s watchful eyes directly above her.
“I have a little plan for you,” Atilda explained, subtly reeling the spire even closer to her plump breasts. “But first… Children!” Her voice flared with commanding presence. Immediately, a quintet of harpies left the swarm behind Atilda to join her at her shoulders, loyally awaiting their directions while eyeing their prey. “Strip her. Take everything away from her.”
Feminine cackling whipped like their colorful wings. The five harpies dove their target as instructed, surrounding Reina from above. Still glued down by the excessive spit, the hunter was easy looting for the bird women. Talons lunged and snagged anything of Reina’s they could grapple, tearing them from her possession in hard tugs. A strong struggle was made for her bow, the first of her things to be grabbed at, but the weapon was eventually pried from her hands. If Reina concentrated on one, then another two were snatching her satchels, or her belts, or her blades -- even her attire was not off limits, becoming shredded by the fast-striking claws. From each direction, Reina was pulled and shoved, her cries of anger piled over by the harpies’ jeering and taunting.
There was no shelter to be taken. Soon, Reina was prone with almost nothing left of her status as a champion hunter. Her prized bow had been stripped, held like a flimsy replica in the careless grip of bestial talons. Her gear faired worse, a bag being dumped by accident into the open air as a duo fought over its contents. She herself was disgraced and vulnerable, her once fine garments for hunting now just shambles of red cloth that she had to hug to keep on her. So much exposed skin allowed the sting of saliva to seep over her wounds, a wide number of scars and cuts given to her by the mad harpies.
Atilda marveled the results, chuckling maliciously. “What a miserable sight,” she cooed to the defenseless woman, bringing the spire slightly closer. Reina shuddered under the matriarch’s breath, a breeze that threatened to blow away what was left of her clothes. “This was who the countess sent to slay my children. A naked, quivering woman. If anything, this countess has an eye for cute girls.” She laughed, a huff that involuntarily shook the stone and its lone survivor in her grip. “Had you come to the Crumbling Valley looking like this from the beginning, I would have assumed you were a peace offering! Hoohoo~!”
“I won’t beg,” Reina spat, her voice hard like ice. Her courage was cemented and unyielding. “I’ll never plead with a monster, let alone one as wicked as you.”
“And I don’t expect you to!” Atilda replied. “You don’t strike me as the begging type, so I won’t even bother. But, there is someone I can think of with so, so much to offer…~”
Atilda turned, finally returning some attention to the mayhem she had unleashed. Her harpies continued to dart through the canyon, swarming the disorganized hunters with vicious attacks. A team of over thirty mercenaries had been soundly deconstructed; half were killed, and the rest captured. Satisfied with these results, the matriarch began marching forward, her lumbering footsteps announcing to her minions that they were to take to the sky and avoid her. Reina mostly wrestled with her balance atop the rock, but as captain, she too surveyed the battlefield, despairing over their defeat. Worse yet was Atilda’s enthusiasm for even more carnage, a promise that this was far from over.
Reina’s view of the chaos was interrupted as the ground under her began to tilt sharply. The sudden incline had her rolling backwards, away from one ledge and spiralling to the other, until she tumbled off the spire entirely. She withheld a scream, fast to notice the surface intended for her. She held her breath, expecting not to break upon impact, but to possibly suffocate; she was being dropped directly into the matriarch’s cleavage.
Her body bounced from one boob and onto the other, where she then was slipping into the cleavage itself. Disoriented from being tossed about, she had only a small window to prevent herself from sinking too deep too quickly. Gripping the plush flesh was as difficult as it was humiliating, requiring Reina to practically swim to stay poked out from between the two breasts. That, however, was when Atilda was stationary. As she began to march again, the motion was even harder to bear, with the two globes of skin hopping in response to every stride. Every footfall had the potential to be the one that shook Reina from her place and saw her sink deeper into the cleavage, a pit whose softness was meaningless at such size.
“Release me!” Reina demanded, hoping a punch against one of the rotund breasts would get her attention. “You can’t keep me like this!”
“Calm down, now, this isn’t so bad~” Atilda hummed, her voice sugary sweet. Casually, she threw the spire to the wayside, thoughtlessly rearranging the geography. “Are you comfortable? We have a ways to go, so you might as well enjoy it while you can.”
Reina growled, her face reddened by a mixture of anger and embarrassment. From this belittling position, she had to crane her neck completely back just to gaze up at Atilda’s expression. The matriarch’s face loomed like a distant canopy, trails of purple hair traveling down the breasts like ribbons on a slope.
“You will guide me to this countess,” Atilda explained, staring across the horizon. Where the valley ended, it became rolling hills, lush woods, and a wide river. The mercenaries had traveled far to reach the Crumbling Valley, but it would take her only half an hour to complete the voyage. “Lead me to her, and I will release you and your hunters. That is, what’s left of them.”
“Th-The countess?” Reina stuttered. She would be at her estate, a prime vineyard along the border of a city. Those were innocent lives -- it was her and the hunters that volunteered to risk their skin, not any of them. Yet, the numbers were grimly factual. In exchange for a handful of lives, the price of one noble was all that had to be paid.
Atilda continued towards the end of the valley, all the while smiling down at Reina. A wing was gently brought to where the hunter was stashed, brushing the unwilling pet with light, feathery strokes. “I’ll let you point the way. Don’t fall.”
The wings spread apart to their widest span, each purple plume given the space to breathe before take off. The wings flapped down, hurdling storms of wind at Atilda’s talons. The air rippled with such might, cleansing trees of their leaves with every gust. Against any common expectation, the extraordinarily-sized harpy was hovering in the air, a massive body held afloat by the strength of incredible wings. Her talons pushed off the valley floor with a great thrust, giving a significant jump into the air where she could then fly over the vast lands.
Comments
Absolutely excellent! You're easily the best size writer there is, imho (not to sound like a sycophant or anything). I've been meaning to say this since the days I read Endless, I just didn't have a platform, but there's definitely something more to your writing, beyond the initial "unga bunga big girl hot". What stood out to me, and I hope this makes sense, is the balance you struck between the terror of the hunters and the fun of the harpies. That's not to knock down on the erotic aspects of this story, the matriarch is a top tier giantess. Truly harpies are underrated, I got plans for a giant harpy commission myself, but that's down the line. Curious to see where this goes, keep up the good work.
arris
You write fantasy so succinct and well. Much like with the story of the bard and dragon, there is tactics and whimsy. I love how you paint the scene of the encounter with this big bird and I look forward to reading of Reina's fate.
