Yrba's Travels Pt. 12

~

Half an hour later, Brina woke from a sleep that had little to do with her weakness and all with a few herbal tricks which Yrba had played on her. The former palace maid felt refreshed and stronger and struggled to her feet.

"Don't overdo it, girl," cautioned the witch, watching her with crossed arms while leaning against her caravan. "This is borrowed strength, you'll need to lay down again pretty soon. You need food to really get better. So hurry, what is it that you wanted to show to me?"

Brina dug her arm up to her shoulder into a crack between the wall and the heavy table littered with tools. She pulled a leather-bound tome from the cache and brushed dirt and dust from the envelope before she handed it to Yrba.

"This. I can't read much of it, but what little I understood, it scares me to death. I've found it one night in the palace kitchen. I—I took it because I thought maybe there's a spell in there to improve my cooking, but — just look at it."

Yrba thumbed through the yellowed and wrinkled pages. Every now and then, she narrowed her eyes or shook her head.

Brina looked over the witch's shoulder.

"That's bad stuff, right?"

The gypsy snorted and cocked her head.

"Bad? You've got no idea. Do you know what this is? Do you know how old it is? And do you know how many real witches and wizards there are? Precious few. I've done a lot of traveling, and in all the years, I've met but two others like me. Oh, I've seen my share of wannabes, no doubt about that! Sometimes, I even had to clean up after them. I know why I stay away from the difficult spells. Spells like these."

Yrba slammed the book shut and turned to the girl.

"I must get into the palace. At any price!"

She lifted the book and shook it in front of Brina's face.

"Oh shit, if only half of those incantations do what I fear they do, and someone who can't really see magic tries them blindly—"

She didn't finish the sentence and shook her head again instead.

~

Chapter 64: Hunger, Fruits And Secrets

~

"I can't go any further," Brina panted. "I'm growing weak again. Need to — rest a little." Her knees began to tremble, and she sagged against the wall of the palace. Yrba knelt down beside her.

"Shouldn't have come with me in the first place," Yrba muttered. Louder, she replied, "It's okay. Rest here for a while, and then go back to your house. I'll manage the rest alone."

She looked up along the crenelated walls. "Or so I hope."

"Little gate — to the right, kitchen and stables. Someone's gonna let you in. Girls guard it themselves. Mention me there."

~

"Brina sends me. I'm looking for Patra."

The ill-equipped guard woman looked at the stocky visitor with the dark skin and the blazing clothes. Glancing left and right, she suddenly grabbed Yrba and pulled her into the shadow of the small gate.

"Some nerve you've got, showing your mug around this place," she whispered. "You're too late, witch. Patra took off with a merchant, two months ago. What are you doing here anyway? Some of us remember well it was you who has brought this leech of a goddess upon us. You better leave, and fast!"

Yrba freed herself from the hand that held her collar.

"Not before I talked to the goddess," she hissed.

The other woman snorted. "You want to — fine! Maybe you can beat some sense into her, while you're at it! Take the stairs over there. Us kitchen girls, we're not even allowed to the upper floors any more. See if you have any more luck with that."

~

The witch met not a single soul as she sneaked through empty hallways and the stale air of dusky corridors. Nobody had been here for months. On the dust-covered floor, her feet left the first footprints in a long time. Only when she neared the throne hall did the marks and tracks increase.

~

Yrba stormed through the door, expecting to find Mirca with her boobs filling the room straight up to the two huge domes of the roof.

She was wrong. The throne hall was empty, save for a lone maid sweeping the floor in an exercise of futility. Yrba quickly strode across the marble to the echo of her footfall.

"You, girl! Where is the goddess?" she barked.

The broom stopped waggling as the maid glanced at the intruder, disinterest in her gaze. "Why, at the summer residence, of course." She continued her chore. Yrba waited a few seconds for another reply, until the rough bristles of the broom scraped over her feet. She jumped aside.

"Hey! Hello?! I'm still he—ere! Summer residence? Where is that? Don't make me pull the words from your nose one by one!"

The maid frowned. "Huh? Residence? It's at... uh, wait, I almost got, it's at... at..." She shrugged. "Sorry, I thought — well, it's the goddess' summer residence! What does it matter to me? I don't need to know where the summer residence is after all." She narrowed her eyes. "Who are you, anyway? You're not from the palace! Darkskin? You a trader? What do you want in here at all? You've got no business—"

"I, uh, I just thought the door leads to the baths. I heard you got a lot of bathtubs and stuff and I, kinda, wondered if you'd need—," Yrba frantically improvised, "—soap! Right, exactly. I'm a soap trader. And I heard your goddess—"

"Ah, one of those. Well, you heard wrong," the woman shrugged.

"Scented oils then?" Yrba added in faked, devout hopefulness.

"No," was the reply. "And you better make yourself scarce now, the guards don't like it when strangers parade around here."

Yrba grudgingly turned around and hesitated in the door frame. A certain background noise was missing. She took a glance at the palace square and narrowed her eyes, turned around and addressed the girl again.

"Since when is the fountain dried up? Come on, can't you at least remember this?"

The maid shrugged. "Must've been about the time that the goddess moved out for the summer," she answered and turned her back as she picked up sweeping the floor again.

~

None of the few other maids she met sneaking through the palace had been able to offer any clue to the 'summer residence'. Yrba had taken to the old records in the library instead, searching for maps, but the hours went by, and still she had nothing to show. The library was as dusty and deserted as Yrba remembered it to be. Since the whole backside of the palace burrowed into the rocky slope, light became scarce the farther the witch walked along the tall shelves where scrolls upon scrolls were stored inside bundles of tubes. A few dozen steps in, rock face replaced the marble walls. She sat down with another handful of rolled-up parchments and tried to decipher the minuscule handwritten records.

When finally she lifted her eyes from the dusty scrolls, she startled, noticing that the daylight had almost gone. She sighed and rose, looking for a hideaway for the night. Finally she curled up to sleep in a hidden corner, ignoring her grumbling stomach.

~

Long past midnight, Yrba woke to the rumble in her tummy. She patted down her pockets, even though she knew there was nothing in there. All she found were a few pieces of weed that must've slipped through her fingers over the course of the last few weeks. She gnawed on the dried-up stalks.

Milkman's friend. Well, won't do me much good, stale as it is.

While she chewed on, her hands massaged her breasts through the layer of her clothes. It felt good. Warmth spread through her flesh.

Oh? Maybe there's a little punch left in that dried straw after all.

Yrba dug her fingers into her cleavage and cupped the soft, sensitive volume of her left breast. She gasped at the touch, and as she pulled the heavy, pliable melon out into the chilly air of the library, her nipple hardened. The witch bent the dangling, elongated dumpling upward and lowered her head as she squeezed the nervous nub in the palm-sized areola towards her pouted lips.

She shuddered as her warm, plump lips touched her own skin, and she closed her thighs and started to rub them against each other while she sucked on her mammary. Glands woke, gently prodded by the herbs coursing in her blood. The first sweet drops of milk seeped from the rough skin and melted on Yrba's hungry tongue. She sucked stronger, and, reluctantly, her body obeyed.

Feeding off myself. Won't do much good for long, either. Still, better than nothing.

The chill of Yrba's evaporating spittle made the almost black skin of her areola contract into concentric folds as she let go of her emptied first breast and switched to her other, still brimming jug. Thin, warm jets sprayed in the night air, and the witch hastened to cup her hand and catch as much as she could in her palm. Pinching her right nipple with one hand, she licked up the tiny puddle in her other hand before she relieved the pent up reservoir of her right mammary into her mouth.

Sweet as it was, it still emptied much too soon. Yrba sighed and wrapped herself up again.

Dammit, I wish I could get at the groceries in my cart. No point in sneaking out and back in, though.

She narrowed her eyes. Few and weak were the sparkles of magic that floated around. Even they seemed tired and worn. Yrba folded her arms over her chest and curled up against the wall again.

Still two or three hours until sunrise.

She tried to put the puzzle pieces of the palace's mystery together, but there was so little to begin with that soon she gave up on it and listened to the faint noises of the night instead, dozing off every now and then.

~

Footsteps, quiet and slow. Yrba lifted her head. Weak candlelight shone through the crack between the door leaves, and then one of them was opened quietly. Muffled voices drifted down the hall.

"No, oh please, I don't want —"

"Most of the guards are asleep! And we're all starving, you stupid broad! You pulled the short straw, it's your turn tonight. Just see that nobody's inside, and dip your finger into the bottle with the purple juice and lick it! Remember, only one or two drops. And then hurry back before it starts! We're waiting with the buckets."

"But—"

Slap.

"Go! You'll do you part like the rest of us!"

Someone outside shoved a shadowy figure through the gap. It hesitated and almost turned around to flee, then an arm from the outside pointed into the depths of the hall. The figure cowered and tiptoed along the shelves, rubbing one of her cheeks. Yrba quickly hid behind a table.

Sounds like some of the maids. Juice? Drops? Those scatterbrains are messing with magic!

She sneaked after the woman.

This doesn't bode well. No, not at all.

~

Deep in the library, the shadow stopped and listened with bated breath at a small door before she sneaked inside, only to return a few moments later. Yrba narrowed her eyes. What few sparks of magic there were, now they drifted towards the womb of the young woman. To the witch's other sight, the girl glowed from the inside like a paper lantern.

"Mumblia," whispered the slender woman as she carefully closed the door and turned around. Her footsteps were faster and louder now. She dragged the incoming sparkles after her like a veil, and the glow in her belly intensified. Yrba followed her closely.

The lass pushed back her sleeves and started with gestures. Yrba shook her head.

Never do magic on the run, you stupid broad. Wait — that's just flailing, nothing else. You don't have the gift to start with. Your wiggling goes right through the mesh. Dammit. Wannabes without a clue and a belly full of strong stuff. Now what did you swallow in there?

One more corner to turn before they would arrive in the main corridor to the library's exit.

Do I stop her now? Maybe she's got a few answers. Or maybe she'll scream for the guards. Maybe the others will rush in, and there's no telling what they'll think of an intruder. They all seemed pretty nervous. Not a good ide— holy shit, that's one big sparkle if I ever saw one!

It flew right by Yrba and soaked into the girl's body, lighting it up like a flare. The young woman gasped and rose to her toes before she collapsed against one of the shelves. Scrolls tumbled down around her as she grasped at them. She managed a few more steps, moaning quietly, before she finally stooped and fell over. With clenched teeth, she rolled on her back, clutching her chest. The candle in her hand dropped to the floor, rolled away and died. In the blue darkness, things moved under her loose toga. They moved fast.

"Girls," coughed the young woman, her gasps subdued to an urgent whisper. "Sisters! Quick! Uuuuhhh—hurry! It's starting! What do I dooooaah — now?"

Whoever she had come with, they didn't hear her. And before she overcame her fear of the guards and dared to yell louder, the moist, lustful fire in her body overcame her mind. Her eyes grew big, and her jaw went slack.

Her nipples had started out as tiny bumps barely showing through her toga. Now the white cloth domed up as the girl's areolae throbbed upward, and the rest of her chest hastened to join in. In moments, her dress stretched over swelling hills that soon turned into foot-high, bulging mountains of flesh. The gurgling of liquid and groaning of taxed flesh and skin filled the moments of silence between the young woman's throaty breaths. Her legs pumped, and her heels slipped over the polished marble floor.

She squeezed her fingers into her barely yielding orbs, her rhythm accelerating along with her mammaries' growth. Her toga reached its capacity. Another squeeze, and the cloth, straining over the strawberry-sized nipples, turned dark with wetness from the inside. Another squeeze, and a white gush bulged up the garment before the warm, sticky helping ran down the sides of her breasts, turning more of the white toga into a clingy, transparent wrapper. Another squeeze, and now the gushes didn't stop any more, they just pulsed stronger and weaker with her frantic stimulations. The maid squirmed happily in an ever-growing, steaming puddle as she pumped pint after pint from her mammoth knockers.

Yrba narrowed her eyes and ignored her growling stomach. The smell of fresh, warm milk spreading through the cool air didn't make it any easier.

Heavens, she's sucking them sparkles into her womb like a whirlpool. It isn't over by far. There's something else about to happen. The breasts, that's just a side effect. Dammit. Much as I despise them, maybe I should've learned more about the complex spells. What is this stuff?

She frowned. The maid's body swallowed the inbound specks of light much faster than her conjured jugs consumed them, and the ethereal glow didn't focus on her chest, even though the pair of malleable pumpkins throbbed and swayed in the swirls and eddies of magic like balloons caught in a gale. Her womb stockpiled the energy, growing brighter by the second in the witch's eyes.

"Ungh my melons, oooahh my sweet big heavy honeymelons," babbled the girl, stroking deftly from the root of her breasts over her brimming flesh to the swollen nipples that spouted milk into the soaked, fluttering cloth like a pair of hoses.

Yrba winced as a flash of magic blinded her eyes. She blinked a few times until the afterimages of rainbow-colored arcs, bursting from the maid's belly and crawling along the edges of the shelves, faded. The witch stared at the young woman on the floor. Ethereal light, strong, focused light, emerged from a single point inside the girl's belly. The girl's swelling belly.

The bloat spread quickly. In seconds, her womb had blown up by more than a hands' width. The girl's hands left the heavy, milk-spewing pumpkins of her breasts and cupped the expanding orb. She suddenly seemed terrified, struggled to her feet and stumbled towards the exit, swaying under the dangling momentum of her dripping, elongated milkbags and her throbbing potbelly while she opened her mouth to scream.

"H—mmggpf!"

Yrba grabbed her from behind and covered the writhing girl's lips with her hand. She leaned over her shoulder and hissed, "What did you do?! What kind of potion did you drink?"

"Intru—mmgpf!" The girl tried to scream again, and Yrba slapped her hand back on the girl's gaping mouth. Another pulse of expansion throbbed through the body in the witch's grip. The soaked toga strained around the orb stretching a dozen inches from the lass' midriff. The durable cloth groaned, struggling to contain the growing girth.

"One more time," Yrba whispered into the young woman's ear. "Maybe I can help you. Don't you dare to scream!"

She let go of the lass' jaw. The girl's hands pushed down in vain on the swelling orb. Her belly finally overwhelmed the white cloth, ripped it open and spilled out through a long, horizontal tear in the garment, hanging down as a throbbing, twenty inches ball that dangled to her knees as she stooped. Her navel stood out like a half-lemon nipple. Sweat and tears covered the young woman's face as she sagged against the witch's body.

"P—plenty, h—hhaaaaaagh—horn of plenty—," sobbed the girl.

"Oh shit. You crazy?!"

"Aggghhh—," gasped the captured woman. "A little food — for us — guuuuuhhhh!"

Yrba cursed. "Cornucopia's a goddamned sacrificial potion, stupid girl! It makes fruits appear inside whatever poor creature you give it to! How much did you drink?"

"A—A drop, only a single drop—hoowwaaaah! My tits! They're — so full — my belly — huuuurrrnngh!"

Yrba bit her lip. A single drop is well enough to fill up a cow until it bursts like a piñata!

~

Propping up the girl, with one arm wrapped through the milk-lubed cleft between the udder-sized boobs and the growing dome of the womb, Yrba fumbled in her pockets for her emergency vial. She pulled out the cork with her teeth, spat it aside and juggled the content into her open hand. The witch wrestled her coated palm into the tight cloth and slathered the green, glowing slime on the girl's struggling nipples.

"Can't help you with your womb, too much charge in there already. You'd just blow up faster. This'll make it easier on your tits, at least."

Yrba's fingers scribbled hasted sigils while the ooze soaked rapidly into the swollen, strained skin. She finished the last strokes and cupped both bulging breasts, holding her forefingers and thumbs like O's around the tiny, spraying nipples.

"Papilla mammae boviforme temporalis! Expandere ducti lactiferi!"

Another throb of growth tore long cuts into the soaked garment. Focused on the very narrow spots in the witch's grip, sleek flesh grew and squeezed through the rings of Yrba's fingers, inch after inch after inch, sprouting forward into a pair of fat teats. The tiny, overwhelmed ducts in the former nipples' rough skin united and turned into two nozzles, their holes half an inch across. Milk burst out in two long, white arches and spattered over the floor.

"Hhhhhaaaaahhhh!" exhaled the quivering figure in Yrba's embrace.

"Your hands! Here, gimme your hands!" Yrba grabbed the girl's wrists and pushed her hands into the warm white jets, then she wrapped the girl's slippery fingers around the fleshy rods. "And now, milk'em like there's no tomorrow!"

She lowered the twitching body to the floor, circled the girl, grabbed her legs, spread them apart and tore the white toga over the girl's crotch wide open.

'Wide open' also greeted the witch's eyes. Magic crawled in tiny sparks and long, forked lightnings over the distended labia. Something, trapped inside, pushed violently against the struggling mouth. The young woman's groin moved and swelled and stretched as if her hip bones had turned into rubber.