Yrba's Travels Pt. 09

"Let—me—out—now," she coughed and moaned.

"Well, that was... odd, even by your standards," the wizard conceded.

"Don't say anything yet," warned Yrba. Then she straightened Mirca's back and pulled at the clasps. The chain mail dropped to the floor.

Almost as fast was the drooping of Mirca's breasts. They unrolled, expanded, fell down to her ankles; empty, skinny bags, the finger-sized buds of her nipples almost reaching the floor. Mirca groaned with relief. Yrba kneaded her protégé's cramped shoulders from behind.

"Right, girl, now show him what I've taught you."

Mirca took a deep breath, pursed her lips and sucked. As if pulled by strings on the inside, the nipples crept into the flesh, pulling the areolae along. Then the skin right behind them puckered and wrinkled until, finally, her breasts seemed almost normal, though they stood straight off of her chest. With a sigh, Mirca exhaled. Yrba nodded to her, a gesture of "well done". She turned to Ramec, who hadn't dared to blink.

"Wizard, now's your turn. Tell me what's going on. I know about making them grow, and making them smaller, and I taught her, too, but what you've just seen was tame, compared to what happens every now and then, seemingly out of nowhere. Worst I've seen was almost twenty feet. Across one. 'Mec, I know what my potion does, like the back of my hands, and that's not just a side effect from the overdose. I could handle an overdose like this." She snapped her fingers. "She's also grown six inches taller over the winter, and her whole basement's almost doubled in size, too. I can lose my arm to the elbow inside her. But now she's stopped growing again. She still spouts milk like crazy, evening after evening. Give it to someone, and they invariably begin to adore her. And what about that chain mail? Why does it hold? No other stuff does. Once she swells, all other kinds of cloth or metal just rip apart. Not that one, though. And why does it instantly trigger the bloat? It's got to be some kind of show-off thing for warrior women, but I can't see anything magical on it. Can you?"

Ramec thoughtfully brushed his beard. "Not right away. That is quite a riddle all right." He shook his head. "I can't give you an answer yet. Hand me the chain mail, please. I'll try and see what's up with that. Are you two willing to spend the night here? I wouldn't hold it against you if you don't, honestly. But if you want to, Yrba, your room's still like you left it—"

For a moment, it seemed as if he was about to add something. Then he abruptly turned away and hobbled into his private chamber. An arcane gesture from his hand, and the door slammed shut after him.

"Still the charmer, I see," mumbled the witch. Her eyes wandered over the benches and racks, carelessly covered with devices from a glassblower's nightmare and stacks of ancient tomes some people would kill for. She frowned. "And your lab's still the same mess, too. I wouldn't get a thing done in here."

She turned to her companion and continued with a more normal voice, "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up again, girl."

~

Chapter 45: Nightmare

~

Yrba brushed away the cobwebs from the four-poster bed and coughed as a decade's worth of dust rained down.

"Yeah, like I left it, my ass!" She gently picked up a spider and dropped it out the window before she turned to the table and put down the candle holder. Her gaze fell on the tabletop. Gooseflesh spread over her skin in one huge shiver.

"Like I left it," she whispered and touched the old parchment lying there. The inkwell by its side had dried up, and the feather had mice's gnaw marks on it, but the scribble, though bleached, was still visible even under the layer of dust.

Mirca came into the room, wrapped in a huge towel and clean again after a quick naked stroll through the thunderstorm to check on the horse. She pointed over Yrba's shoulder at the yellowed scroll. "Oh, that's a nice flower! Did you draw that?"

"Yes, sweetie. Long time ago. Happier days, then." She sighed. "Let's hit the sack. But let's lock and bolt the door first. Just in case."

"Because of the wizard? He didn't seem so bad. Grumpy, though. What's it with you and him?"

"Long story. Been his apprentice for a while, after I washed ashore in the village a little further down the coast. Fun times. Met Red here and found the Tincture's recipe. And then, one night... "

Her voice faded, then she took a deep breath.

"The short of it is once he learned I am an immune one like he is, he got the idea in his head that we'd absolutely have to," she gulped, "to breed, to see if our offspring would be immune-mages, too. Was just talk and insinuations for some time. And suddenly it got so bad, one day he tried to jump me. Didn't do him much good. I got a grip on a knife, and things got ugly. After all these years, he's still got the limp. I ran that night, and I've not returned here until today. Heard a few stories through the grapevine about him, and he probably heard a few things about me, too." She sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have returned at all. Keep your eyes open, Mirca. The moment he does something that bothers you, or he tries something funny, come running to me. Don't listen to him. Don't trust him. He's dangerous. And he's a smooth talker, so — just don't."

~

The old bed creaked ominously, but it held, and even the old mattress of dried straw was bearable once they'd laid their blankets over it. Mirca snuggled up to the chocolate-colored skin of her mature girlfriend.

"You're shivering?" she asked, gently kneading the witch's shoulders.

"Damn rain. And the last days were a bit too much. I'm still cold from the soaking I got, just waiting at the door. Brrrr. It'll pass, as long as you don't hug the blanket like last night."

"I never would!" Mirca protested, mixed with giggling, and gave her smaller bedfellow a playful hump from behind with her hip before she pulled her closer into her embrace.

~

A crack of thunder startled Yrba awake. Her head ached, and the world around was dark. Gusts of wind and rain whipped against her body, lying on a forest floor that was covered with brittle branches that poked into her skin. Her naked skin.

The surroundings turned into mesh of black and white as another lightning flashed across the chasing clouds. The trees, leafless, gnarled and bare like old skeletons, extended everywhere. She struggled to her feet and gazed around, but the blackness revealed nothing but the lightning's violet afterglow in her eyes. The thunder rolled in, a bang so loud, it hit her like a wall of sound and swept her from her feet with its sheer force.

"Mirca?!" she screamed, and couldn't hear her own voice over the howling wind. The clouds tore open, and white moonlight came down.

No. Not moonlight. Yrba stared up, transfixed with horror. The clouds were pushed aside by the moon itself coming down, a huge, white, glowing orb that grew bigger and bigger as it filled the sky. The air, forced aside by the white ball, howled by, lifted her up and threw her against one of the tree trunks.

The impact squeezed the breath from her lungs. She hit the ground again, harder still, and as she tried to struggle to her feet, her back ran into the descending wall of — warm, pliant skin.

That is no moon, shot through her mind.

"Yrba?" a questioning voice thundered down from the skies. "Are you there?"

"Mirca?! Mirca!" howled the witch. "Stop! I'm here! I'm down here! You're squeezing me to death!" She dropped to her knees as the glowing skin bore down on her. The weight grew, even as the soft wall stretched around her. Her arms and legs gave in, and she ended up face down and flat on the floor.

"Yrba? Where are you?"

"M—," she managed before all air had left her lungs. Oh heavens, she can't hear me. I'm too tiny. She'll crush me like an insect! She'll—

The pressure disappeared, and air streamed in as the sphere rose again. Imprinted into the flesh, sticking to the skin of the gargantuan breast, she was lifted from the ground. The forest zipped away beneath her. Its edges came into view, patterns became visible.

A rug? A giant rug, or am I — so small?!

Yrba tried to lift her arms. There was — resistance, resilient resistance against the movement. She turned her head.

More horror. She had started to dissolve. Her skin, her body, it melted into the white wall behind her. She lifted her arm, and between it and the wall of boob was something like a bat's wing, a rubbery sheet made from a mixture of her own, brown skin with the pale wall in her back, half translucent and veined with throbbing vessels that thickened and forced her arm back into the spread-eagled shape. She was tied to the strange shape, and as it grew again under her, the pull on Yrba's outstretched limbs became more intense. She hollered in agony. Her joints came apart, slowly, horrifically, painfully.

And then the rumbling and stretching noises grew stronger still, together with fire that scorched her back. She still felt her body, her straining muscles, but she became soft and flexible. The boob absorbed her, all of her but her skin and her mind. Her bones dissolved, useless as they were now anyway, and slowly, her skin was pulled larger and thinner atop the incessantly swelling orb. She opened her mouth and screamed again. Not a single sound. She was but a flat, brown patch on the pale moon in her back.

The white skin that she had become part of pulled at her flanks. She flattened further, her outline distended and lost any resemblance of a human figure as the shapes of her arms and legs were absorbed back into her round body. Slowly she was distorted into a round, flat, brown circle. Sweat broke from her skin and covered her with sticky, chilly wetness.

Her belly swelled up. Something hot and boiling streamed from the sphere into a pocket right under her and made her womb bloat; it turned her into a little half-orb atop a giant orb. The sweat on her body wasn't sweat, it was milk. It ran down her skin in white, warm, winding rivulets.

A nipple! I'm turning into a giant nipple on a giant breast. That can't be happening! That's impossible! I'm going mad! Someone HELP MEEE!

She opened her mouth. And not a scream, but a jet of milk poured from her lips. She saw it spray on and on, a long white bolt reaching from her mouth in a curving, curling line straight into the infinite void.

The pressure inside her skin rose. All that now remained of her was a brown areola with protrusions that once had been fingers, hands, feet; her belly was a stretching, ever growing cylindrical nub, covered in milk ducts that produced thick drops and faint jets. She felt the milk sweating from her skin, and the thinner she was stretched, the larger the ducts and pores became. The biggest jet sprayed and spattered from her center — from what used to be her crotch and now fluttered in the milk flood like a balloon's nozzle.

"Yrba? I can't find you!" hollered the voice.

I'm here. Oh Mirca, I'm here! I don't know what to do! Help me! Find a wizard! I can't tell you what to do! Just hurry before—

"I'm so full, I need to milk me now!" announced the voice.

No! Oh no! Don't! I'll burst! Don't squeeze more milk through me! I'm too bloated already! Nooooo!

Two giant fingers grabbed her and twisted her belly. Milk sprayed, and within moments, the skin and the circling fingers were covered in slippery, sweet wetness. She struggled and fought to keep her mind in place even as the endless gush raced right through her brain. Two hands dug into the white flesh, they pushed the river of milk onward against the thin dam that remained Yrba. She grew and grew, more jets exploded out of her skin, the blasts tore at her...and then she was pulled along with it, out of what was her body, spraying across the sky as her mind was torn apart in a rain of milk droplets.

~

"Yrba! Yrba, wake up!" Mirca's voice. Up close. Yrba's head bobbed back and forth. Someone shook her shoulders. Strong hands.

She moaned and pinched her eyes. Her head ached. Her body ached. Cold sweat, all over her. Something warm and sticky and heavy enveloped her and clung to her skin, tying her up.

"I'm awake. I'm here," she mumbled.

"Oh thank heavens, Yrba! You really had me worried!"

The witch opened her eyes. Pale moonlight shone on the old bed and on Mirca's face, right before her eyes. The blonde was close to tears. Yrba turned her head and gasped. She was laying on Mirca's front, and—

"You've wrapped me in your breasts?!"

Mirca nodded. "Uh, yes? To keep you extra warm? I woke up, and you had started mumbling something. Then I touched your head, and you were all sticky wet and cold, and shivering. And then you became hot, and mumbled more. And cold again. Then I shook you, but you screamed and flailed like you had a horrible nightmare. So I thought, oh, I know that, I was once like that, too, when I had to work outside in the rain a whole day. I was sick and cold for a week! And so I made my boobies hang out all the way and wrapped you in them to keep you warm and rolled on my back and put you on top of me. You started squirming and kicking some more, and I was really worried for a while. But you're better now, are you?"

Yrba nodded. "I'm still feeling like shit, but I'll live. Just help me get my arms out of your boob cocoon here. I'm totally wrapped up, I can't even move. How long—"

"Maybe an hour. It's not even midnight yet."

The witch snuggled more comfortably into her living mattress' embrace.

"What a nightmare. I guess I've inhaled too much nostalgia dust with the cold water. Let's try and get a little more sleep."

~

Chapter 46: Unwelcome Answers

~

The next morning, Yrba met up with Ramec while Mirca cleaned up the bedroom. He looked spent, with dark rings under his eyes. Yrba suspected she didn't offer a better sight to him. The chain mail bustier laid curled up atop a heap of opened tomes on his table.

"A fine riddle you posed me, old girl, but I do believe I have an answer for you. Do you want to hear it?" He leant back into his chair and put his fingertips together.

"Out with it," she demanded, fed up with his fake gravitas and the smirk on his face. Nobody should be allowed to look so tired and yet so aloof at the same time.

"Very well. First, her growth sprint. That one was simple. She's a serf, right? They don't get much food. She was probably half-starved most of her life. Stunted her. The whole milk diet over the winter helped her reach her natural size."

He shook his head.

"Really, Yrba. I had expected you to work that out by yourself. Next, this chain mail."

He threw it into her lap.

"Metallurgic magic. Not your strongest aptitude, if I recall correctly. That's probably why you missed that, too. Your guess was right, it's a distraction toy. They still are popular with a few of the northern tribes, where the women are big and bulky and the only thing distinguishing them from their men is they have smaller beards. Really not much use for anything besides making your enemy hesitate for that critical second or two. What good is looking good in a combat dress if you turn back to ugly once you take it off? It acts as kind of a growth trigger, and container at the same time. The magic's meant for ordinary women, but it's a heavy duty wrapper all the same. Cupping your girl's supercharged udders with it makes them go pop the very instant. Which brings us to subject three, your blonde's bloat fits. Now she's really interesting. Your little airhead has two problems—"

"If you tell me now they're left and right on her chest, I'll gut you, dirtbag," hissed Yrba. "Hurry up already."

"As I said, two problems," he repeated indignantly. "First, the overdose of your potion. Her body's susceptible to all kinds of influences now. I recall you using one of those stimulating herbs normally reserved for cattle. Because of that, her breasts fill up with milk like crazy. Second, the magical growth you've used on her. Usually, the milk making stops once the body runs out of nutrients. Unfortunately, you've used magic to grow her to a perverse size, very soon after she swallowed an undiluted batch of your potion. That opened a channel, or so it seems. So now her boobs can tap into the inexhaustible sources of magic to produce their contents. I don't know where that milk comes from, and frankly I'm not sure I even want to know. If my calculations are right, her new natural shape are those bags that stretch to her ankles. You've taught her to suck them in and keep them at half-melon size. Well done, and quite impressive, teaching that to a non-immune non-mage. Again, that is magic at work. Rudimentary magic, background magic, the kind that works just about all of the time. That's why she grows and shrinks and can keep herself at an inconspicuous size at all. You can't see or feel its presence, and you can't really control it. She can, because it's her own body. She doesn't know exactly how or what she does. Maybe by instinct or something. Rare, but not unheard of. There are some fifty documented cases in the Historica Magica Obscura, and another twenty in Begrica's Annualis aetherica — all right, maybe I don't need to quote them all," he conceded as Yrba yawned demonstratively.

"Thank you," she nodded. "You were saying—?"

"The short version: The very moment she loses her concentration, panics or becomes embarrassed too much, the other kind can kick in. The temperamental magic. Your 'white fog' or whichever way you perceive it. Funny thing is, you've always had a better grip on that. Without you stepping in, nobody can say what's going to happen. Sometimes, nothing might happen at all. Or she might just grow a bit. Or she'll blow up to barn size again. The way you've stuffed her with your puffer potion and made her a conductor, it'll be years until that's going to wear off."

Yrba paled and sat down hard. "Years."

"Congratulations," snorted Ramec. "And now get her out of my tower before that klutz' next bout of embarrassment blows it to pieces!"

"Don't worry, old man. I'll breathe a lot easier once I won't have to see your damned smirk any more, too."

She rose from her seat and stormed out the room. Had she looked back, she'd have noticed how he sunk deeper into his chair and followed her with eyes filled with sadness.

~

Evening approached fast. Yrba was affixing the last few of her belongings to her caravan when the wizard reluctantly limped up to her.

"Yrba, I need to have a word with you."

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against her mobile hut.

"Go ahead. And hurry."

"Not here. In the tower." He looked around.

~

Yrba squinted at the table that bent under the load of food, beverages and flambeaus before she picked a small glass of wine. The wizard laughed as he sat down heavily into his chair.

"There's no magical poison here, child."

"Just making sure, 'Mec. Whenever you have such a sudden change of heart, then I prefer to make sure. I've not forgotten your dirty little tricks." She took only a little sip, and even then, she rolled it in her mouth for quite a while before she finally swallowed. "All right, why all this?"

His face turned serious. For a few moments he avoided Yrba's gaze and took a deep breath. The witch's eyes narrowed. She had never seen her mentor chew on his lips before. Ramec cleared his throat.

"Why? To come clean. Dammit, Yb, it's been what, ten years? Fifteen years? I was an asshole then, and I've regretted that night every single day since. And I'm embarrassed to admit it, but you do deserve a few more answers. Like, didn't you wonder at all why I was so shell-shocked when your blond ditz showed up at my door?"