The Aviary. Farryn. Vorthe

Rihal

With how prepared he came to spy on the tamers, he never thought he would stay this long. Even then, when he looked back to see if he achieved his goal, he could only shake his head — mentally. The tamers were, for some reason, being tight-lipped about what was going on in Terra Praeta. He’d seen dragon after dragon appear in the air above the forest, next to the Yigg. The tamers were like a well-oiled machine, putting the dragons to sleep within breaths and dragging them off to bond them.

There was much discussion among them — mundane discussion. Or at least, mundane to him. They never talked about Terra Praeta though. Was that a rule of some kind he didn’t know of?

Rihal had begun questioning why he was doing this at all in the first place. Was finding out why Jerome had prior knowledge before birth that important? Even when Ash went to Pilgrims’ Keep, he hadn’t been interested in finding out how she was doing. Rihal knew he’d be beating himself up about it for a while.

But then, something big happened in Farryn that killed his drive to research Jerome’s prior knowledge. The Argonaut had appeared in Farryn!

Right now he was in the process of separating himself from the great tree, the Yigg. his master would probably be looking for him. Damn, he was in a lot of trouble. He knew it.

Soon Jerome would be back and focus would shift to the fated Dark One. He was supposed to be searching for a way for him to retain his faculties after taking on the Darkness in the Northern mountain range.

Talk about misplaced priorities.

~~~

Terra Praeta

“Still not done?” Jerome called from outside the cavern he had made on the side of a snow-covered hill. A storm had started a few minutes into their journey. Little did he know that storms in Terra Praeta were unlike anything he had ever witnessed.

It was a Superstorm! A cyclone started to spiral inwards in the troposphere. The wind had picked up and after a while, he couldn’t see clearly as he flew. They were lucky enough to have dropped down to find shelter when a hailstorm began.

“No! Can’t a succubus bathe in peace,” Csala shot at him.

Jerome ignored her, looking up at the raging storm in the sky as he waited for Csala to finish bathing inside the cavern. “It should be rotating at perhaps forty, forty-five miles per hour?”

“Forty-eight, Xerae. Did you not have storms like this in your world, both worlds?”

Jerome shook his head. “The first? No. The current? Probably. Maybe that’s why sacred artists track storms to absorb the energy from them. This is not a storm, it’s a world-changing disaster.”

Lightning bolts kept striking the ground from time to time, destroying trees in the distance and transforming the land. Boulders as large as buildings were being flung here and there, carried high in the sky by the wind. If it wasn’t for the protective barrier he put around the hill, the destruction happening all around him would be happening where he was too.

“Would you like to learn how to absorb energy from the storm, Xerae?”

Maybe some other time. With a storm that’s not… he gestured with his finger to encompass the storm.

Achilles chuckled. But then Jerome heard something. It sounded like… a voice?

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“Yes, Xerae. There are people out there. And they seem to be in trouble.”

Jerome stood up. “Csala, I need to check something out!” He heard the sound of sloshing water from inside the cavern. His mind quickly provided him with images of her tantalizing body as she stood up from the makeshift tub he had made her, water dripping from those marvelously gigantic— “I would be back soon!”

He shot out of the protective barrier with Achilles laughing at him in the back of his mind. The storm immediately pulled him in the direction of its rotation.

Counterclockwise rotation, he noticed. Which means we’re getting farther North and gaining on my friends. The knowledge brought him some measure of relief. He let the storm pull him towards its apex as he knew it was going to be futile to struggle. A gigantic block of ice hit him and shattered on impact. Or he probably was the one to hit it. Since he had to have been moving faster than it was.

“Aaaah!” the voice from before screamed again. It was closer now. Clearer too. A female’s voice. He was glad he could hear it over the raging storm.

Jerome pushed himself faster and flew around another giant block of ice. The trunk of a tree smacked him in the face and cracked on impact.

“Urgh,” he complained, but he didn’t feel an ounce of pain. Only frustration at not being able to open his eyes without squinting. The raging wind was too much and limited his sight.

Jerome scanned around, noticing the amount of debris being pulled along by the cyclone. A stag with pretty big horns bellowed behind him as it was pulled by the current of the storm. Jerome turned around to catch it since it would be heading towards him. The wind whipped at his face and the lightning in the storm was charging up the atmosphere so much that charged remnants of the energy bounced around from object to object. He quickly shot forward and caught a stray bolt of lightning that would have disintegrated the stag. He chucked the animal into his void space, a feast for later.

Wrapped around his hand was a bolt of lightning. Jerome turned his hand every which way, admiring it. His psychic energy kept it wrapped there. But it was losing its energy to the atmosphere. If he did nothing it would dissipate completely. He cycled, siphoning the energy from it.

His instincts alerted him to danger the next moment. He quickly teleported away and a bladed arm sliced through where he had been. Jerome extended his whip without looking and whipped the creature. It roared — a sound between a roar and a screech, vibrating the air with the sound — as the whip hit its chitinous carapace with a blue flash of light.

What kind of unholy beast is this? He stared at it in wonder. Something cracked against his skull and shattered. The cyclone wasn’t slowing down at all.

The creature looked like an arachnid. Eight powerful, bladed legs carried its weight and ended in sharp claws. But it had two tiny beady black eyes and a plethora of fangs dripping with saliva in an open maw. And arachnids didn’t have open maws.

This was a chimera.

The creature dashed at him, a blur of bladed limbs. It hopped from a boulder to blocks of ice to get to him. Jerome activated his coat’s barrier and dived head-first toward the incoming disaster. With a few swings and spins of his spear, he amputated four of its legs.

“Watch out for the tail, Xerae.”

I remember. Chimera’s had powerful tails. He would know — he had received a powerful blow from the one that swallowed Ms. Tara. And just as predicted, the tail came from behind the chimera like a blur. Jerome stepped aside and stabbed the offending appendage into a rock which knocked both of them away from each other.

But the chimera was stuck now, screeching and roaring at him as the floating rock spun slowly around. The otherworldly creature tried without success to pull its tail out of the rock but the spear didn’t budge. Jerome lit a blue flame in his palm, ready to fry the chimera alive. But the rock face holding the creature spun away, blocking his aim at his target. He remained hovering in the air as the cyclone pulled him and the rock along. The moment the rock face spun to face him, he shot a lance of blue flame at his target.

But the chimera wasn’t there anymore. Only a dangling half tail.

Huh. I gotta say I’m impressed.

The chimera bulldozed into him from his right side. If he was on solid ground he could match it with his augmented body. But in the air, he was flung away like a chunk of debris. The chimera followed after him, trapping him to another boulder and slicing at him with its remaining four limbs. It was quick and brutal. But it stopped when it noticed there were no cuts or blood spilled to show for its efforts.

“You might as well give up,” Jerome said calmly from underneath the monster. Not that it could have heard him over the din of the storm.

It roared in his face. A long sustained vibration of sound as if to communicate its frustration.

“Urgh. you should get a toothbrush,” Jerome said, wiping off the sticky, smelly spit that poured out of its mouth from himself.

Something hit the chimera, distracting it for a second. Jerome heard the grunt of women struggling to hurl boulders at the chimera. It stamped around above him, claws digging into the rock. The boulders were quite large and shattered on impact. But they did nothing but irritate it. Jerome stabbed its belly with Suzie and dragged his blade to its back. This chimera had no extended abdomen like the previous one he fought, which made it look weirdly otherworldly. But he noticed something — some things — stuck to the underside of the remaining half of its tail: Eggs. Jerome lit it on fire in an instant.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I thought chimeras couldn’t reproduce, he said to Achilles.

“They are evolving, Xerae. This one surely reproduced asexually.”

You’re saying these things can now clone themselves? That’s fucked up!

Heat seared its chitinous carapace and it turned around to face Jerome, noticing its burning eggs. It didn’t care for its own burning body, only its eggs that had just been destroyed. Chimeras had a very high threshold for pain. It tackled Jerome as it did before but he held his ground, holding back the giant arachnid like it was nothing.

The chimera roared again, long and hard, the sound vibrating his eardrums. Thankfully, he was sturdier than he used to be.

“Don’t kill it, Xerae. I need to study it.”

Jerome bled Suzie out of his skin and it invaded the creature, tearing its limbs away from its body, and splattering gore all over him.

“Fucking chimera.”

“Good job, Xerae.” Achilles teleported the limbless creature away.

Jerome looked around, noticing two people trying to hold on for dear life inside the storm. He reached out to them and pulled them to him with his psychic energy, against the storm. Studying them he didn’t know what to call them. And they just cowered before him, scared he might turn on them.

Their most prominent features were the short stubby horns growing out of the side of their heads, like bovines. And their eyes — big brown eyes and bigger irises than he was used to. Their irises covered most of the white sclera of their eyes. Jerome’s gaze moved south of their bodies and he marveled at the size of the tits on them. What was it with Terra Praeta and ‘big-titted’ women? Their jugs were massive! And it didn’t help that they were only barely covered in strips of hide that weren’t even properly tanned — same with their waist wrap.

These women, girls really, were super curvy — they looked his age. With slim waists and wide hips that tempted him to want to stretch his neck to see what their backsides looked like. Their wide hips led to thick luscious thighs and firm legs with small bare feet. His eyes kept wandering to their hips though. He could feel blood flowing south of his brain fast, and an erection coming. Jerome shook his head and exhaled loudly to shake the feeling off.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said after he had finished ogling them. But he was sure it would be nearly impossible for them to hear him over the raging storm. Jerome used his powerful psychic energy to push the wind roaring in his ears away from them, effectively silencing their immediate surroundings temporarily.

They both sniffed the air in front of them as if they could smell his arousal. The expression on their faces afterward confirmed that they, in fact, could. They knew what he thought of them. Jerome blushed but cleared his throat to shake off his embarrassment.

“My name is Jerome. What’s yours?”

One bold one with long, unkempt black hair approached him as steadily as she could on the shaking boulder. Jerome stretched his arm out and his spear, Charybdis, flew into his open palm, startling the girls. They flinched and moved back from him. He stabbed into the boulder they were all hanging onto and willed it to the ground using his space rune. He felt the runes light up in his eyes and the next moment, they were on the ground, close to the hill he came from.

“That’s better.” He sighed. He stopped pushing the storm away from them since the pressure down on the ground was less than it was high in the sky. He looked at the two bovine girls and smiled before jumping down from the boulder and holding out a hand to help them down. They hesitated and looked at each other. Seeing them more clearly now, he noticed the dirt and grime covering them from head to toe. But he didn’t let that disturb him.

The one that approached him before took a hesitant step toward him and offered him her hand. He grasped her hand slowly and carefully pulled her toward him, bringing her down from the boulder. Her palm was calloused — a complement to a hard life. She was very tall. As tall as he was. The second approached, seeing that he didn’t mean them any harm and he helped her down too.

How tall am I now, Achilles? He asked, marveling at their height.

“You’re six feet six inches, Xerae. You used to be six-two.”

Jerome nodded. These girls were just as tall as he was. That was quite the growth spurt they had. If it wasn’t for Achilles improving his body, he’d still be six-two. Which was very tall already.

“So, what are your names?” he asked as he started walking them towards the cave. They looked at him questioningly before beginning to speak to each other. Their language startled him. A series of clicks and sounds that reminded him of the sounds of the wild.

Realization hit him then. They were like the hunter-gatherer tribes he’d read about in Africa, but much less developed, seeing that they didn’t even have language words. Wow! He gave them both another once over.

The one who first approached him faced him and pointed at her bountiful chest, drawing his gaze there. “Biskin,” she said. Then pointed to her friend, or sister, he couldn’t tell. “Biskin,” she said again. Before touching his chest. She waited patiently, looking into his eyes expectantly. She was so cute.

Ah. They wanted him to introduce himself. “Jerome,” he said. She smiled at him. An innocent, bright smile. “But why ‘Biskin’.” He pointed at her, “and ‘Biskin’.” He pointed to the other girl. He noticed she was walking a step behind him to his left side. The first girl was between him and the second, and the second was walking a step behind the first.

“For protection, Xerae. They watched you fight. They know you’re right-handed. Just in case they’re not out of trouble yet.”

Smart. I would have never thought of something like that. He studied them again, noticing that they were not as graceful in their steps as the succubi. Their footsteps were heavier than normal. And why wouldn’t it? They carried a lot of weight as it were. His eyes flicked to their breasts and asses. Jerome would have whistled in appreciation if it wouldn’t have felt offensive.

What a world! He thought, glancing at the beautiful curves of their derriere again. Their backs were arched just right to give those round jiggly fat the right push — on both ends! He adjusted his long winter coat to hide his erection.

“You’re strong, Xerae. The strong need not be ‘that’ cautious. And apparently, they can ogle anyone they want, it seems.”

Don’t start, Achilles, Jerome said with a sigh. I’m a young hot-blooded male who has never had… never mind. It felt awkward to say it. Even in his head. He’d lived over sixty years in a past life and he wasn’t acting like it — didn’t feel like it, even. He noticed the girls didn’t answer him. They were looking at him, maybe wondering what to make of him and his words.

They entered the cave to see a glaring Csala. Both Biskins drew in air sharply and shot behind Jerome in fear. Jerome raised his hands to calm them down.

“You’re scaring them,” he said to Csala.

“You brought beastkin with you?” she asked.

“Ah,” the name clicked in his head at once. ‘Beastkin’ not ‘biskin’. They were telling him their race. “They were being chased by a chimera. You know, the kind of creature I save Ms. Tara from,” he said, “and I want them to stay here with us until the storm dies down.”

“I know what a chimera is, Jerome.” Csala looked at him as if he had different motives. He ignored her and ushered the girls into the warmth of the cave. They sat by the fire he had made previously and sighed as their bodies relaxed.

~~~

Csala

“Do you have anything against them?” Jerome asked her as she glared at the dirt-covered beastkin. They had relaxed when they felt him defend them.

“I don’t,” she said. “But they’re not so smart and are easily taken advantage of.”

“I don’t agree with that but… got you,” he said. She didn’t like the tone of his voice at all. It made her feel terrible. “So are they mystic creatures?”

Csala scanned them for cores. Their cores didn’t have the same depth as Jerome’s, so he was leagues beyond them in power. “No. But whenever there are beastkin in trouble, they are sure to come sniffing around. Especially with a threat like a chimera.” She went to the entrance to check around. “And don’t call them mystic creatures, it sounds demeaning. They call themselves ‘mystic kin’.”

Jerome frowned, stopping what he was doing to glare at empty space. It felt like he was scolding someone. But she knew his anger wasn’t directed toward her or the beastkin. She tilted her head, studying him. “You’re doing it again.”

He blinked and faced her. “What?”

“Spacing out. We have to prepare to leave.” She walked back toward him and snatched the roasted slab of meat in his hand, giving it to the beastkin. They had been eyeing it with hungry eyes but he didn’t notice. “Mystic kin are not known for their… patience. They’re cold and haughty, looking down on everyone and everything, and expecting the world to roll over and serve their every whims. Sound familiar?”

Jerome took out another slab of venison and began roasting it. He frowned. “What’s the difference between beastkins and mystic kins? And why can’t they,” he gestured to the beastkin, “speak with words.”

Csala glanced their way. The beastkin in question were more focused on stuffing their faces full of meat than anything else at the moment. She sighed. “Beastkin and mystic kin are both used as singular and plural names, Jerome. Mystic kin are stronger, with unique and mysterious powers. There are very few of them, I think. I’ve only ever met two of them… twice. They travel in pairs.

“Beastkin on the other hand are simple folk who don’t even know what it means to bathe or wear footwear. I’m guessing I’m the first intelligent being you have met on this planet. That’s because I am more intelligent, even more than you are, hmph!” she lifted her chin, daring him to counter her.

He smiled and looked over at the beastkin as they ate like animals. “I know you’re intelligent, Csala. But I don’t think they are less intelligent—”

“Are you comparing them,” she interrupted, pointing at the beastkin, “to me.” She found it absurd and laughable.

Jerome glanced her way with a smug smile on his face. She wished she could smack it off his face and show him who’s stronger. “No, I’m saying they aren’t less intelligent because they can’t speak with words,” he said. “It just shows that they are less educated, is all. Education and intelligence aren’t the same, Csala. The little time I spent interacting with them outside already let me know they are intelligent.”

“Anyway, the mystic kin would be here any moment now. It’s best to leave before they bring trouble.” Then she added under her breath, “I still think they are not very bright. They can’t even clean themselves up.” But Jerome heard her, she knew.

They both glanced at the dirty, blackened feet of the beastkin. Jerome shook his head. “Let’s agree to disagree. No need to misplace my priorities, though. We should leave.”

“Good,” Csala said. “For a moment there, I thought you were going to drop everything to take care of them.”

Jerome snorted but then he startled and looked up. Csala tried to stretch her perception to scan as far as she could too but she sensed nothing. “What is it?” she asked.

“Two… ‘Beings’? Flying towards us. And fast!” he said.

“They found us.” She said, standing up. “You didn’t know what to make of them because they felt strange to your psychic energy, yes?” He nodded in thought. “Try to hide and let me do the talking.”

“Why should I hide?” he asked. “What if they attack? I can sense their strength and you may not be able to take them both on your own.”

Csala sighed. She knew what would happen if they laid eyes on him. There was a shortage of men in Terra Praeta, even the Incubus. “They would capture you so you could breed them if they saw you. They’d never let you go until you drop dead from exhaustion.”

Jerome’s mouth dropped open in shock, bringing a smug smile to her face. It felt good to be the one giving his tiny brain a shock. She was going to cherish that moment forever.