Lyanna and the rest of her party had been running for over an hour by the time they stopped. Hopefully they’d lost any enemies still pursuing them, as their contractor, Gar, couldn’t go any further. The dwarf was presently throwing up from the unaccustomed exertion.
Even after he’d recovered enough to speak Gar didn’t complain about the pace Lyanna had set, not after they’d meet a monster like that. Instead they all just sank down to rest on the patch of rocks they’d reached. Rocks were about the only safe place to sit in the Bloodsucking Forest.
That monster was bad news, seriously bad news. It looked just like a human girl but that was an obvious trick. The resonance from Lyanna’s search spell was huge – it had more mana than even the Diamond rank adventurer she snuck a look at once in the capital.
If it had just been that she might have still tried talking to the creature once it spoke, but it had given away its inhuman nature by nesting in a bloodfruit tree. Human, demi-human or even demon, no intelligent creature would willingly get that close to the cursed trees. Even monsters avoided them. Only aura birds, famed for their resistance to curses, would dare to find shelter there.
Any lingering doubt she had about the monster vanished when the fight started. It dodged lightning strikes and ran about the Bloodsucking Forest naked, trampling the needlegrass underfoot like fresh hay.
The creature could have walked straight out of the old adventurers’ tales. The story went that ‘mimics’ were ravenous predatory monsters that imitated beautiful young girls, lost and in distress. They would approach adventurers out in the wilderness in order to be ‘rescued’… then while the party slept they would massacre their would-be saviors and feast on their entrails.
Despite the huge rewards for adventurers who discovered new monster species there had never been a public case of a party capturing or killing a mimic. Lyanna had always suspected the stories were just folk tales that sprang up around the odd adventurer party tricked and killed by bandits or mercenaries… but then she’d never met a mimic until today. Now she had proof they were real.
That didn’t mean that she attacked it intending to lose of course. Even discounting Gar as the total dead weight he was, it was still three on one. Any adventurer knew the power of numbers. The vast mana pool was scary, but mimics in the stories only used shapeshifting magic. Even if it did know any other spells it wouldn’t have had the chance to recite an incantation, while Lyanna could recite her own in safety as Marcus and Dolm covered her.
In a decade of adventuring Lyanna had never met a foe her lightning couldn’t burn. Even the mages in the capital called her a prodigy. Of course she also never met a foe who could dodge lightning. It gave her a chill despite her sweat and exhaustion when she remembered how the mimic had made a mockery of her finest attack.
Everything had gone wrong after that. Nothing they did even phased it enough for it to drop the ‘lost girl’ act. Then the razorflies showed up, at the worst possible timing. Luckily they’d gone for the mimic as well as the party.
Deadly as the blood-drinking insects were, Lyanna didn’t like to imagine what might have happened if they hadn’t disrupted the battle and the mimic had actually gone on the attack.
It was when the party had only just gotten away from the huge swarm that they ran into a lurking geopod, as if just to rub in the feeling that they were somehow cursed.
Geopods were grotesque, three-limbed monstrosities, with hide as hard as granite and stony ‘fists’ that could crush a human skull with a single blow. Normal practice for adventurers encountering such a monster was to outrun the lumbering beast, but with the team already having run for miles it just felt like the gods were out to get them.
Despite everything they’d made it to safety, with no sign of anything still chasing them, be it mimic, razorfly or geopod.
Once Lyanna healed the wounds they’d suffered she slumped down on a stone, pried her helmet off and took a long-awaited gulp of water. Cleaning the insect spit and blood off her armor could wait.
Dolm and Marcus sat opposite her, both looking rattled. Lyanna suspected she looked about the same, even if she was trying not to show it. Gar had finished throwing up and panicking, and was warily washing his beard in the stream.
Lyanna smiled at the dwarf’s exaggerated caution, remembering when they had passed through the same spot the day before and Gar had been attacked at that very stream. He’d screamed his head off when an aqualash grabbed him and dragged him under, trying to down him.
For an adventurer caught alone by the predatory water slimes it was a death sentence, but with the party at hand he was quickly rescued. Even if the dwarf had been in no real danger it wouldn’t have seemed funny normally, but after the events of the day it felt like a fond memory.
Lyanna and Dolm had been exploring the Bloodsucking Forest together for five years now, but she’d never met a creature as terrifying as the mimic. It made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck just looking at it, yet the creature didn’t give off even the slightest hint of bloodlust as it fought. Even the razorflies didn’t seem to rile it.
The Bloodsucking Forest was famously brutal. As the name implied everything was out for blood, from the grass and the leaves to the bugs and even the pond-life. The Adventurer’s Guild recommended those entering be Silver rank or higher, and everyone who ventured in rented or bought armor just to be able to walk around on the needlegrass.
The spoils were worth the risk for Silver-rankers of course. The cursed bloodfruits that grew there were prized by alchemists and the materials from the monsters could be used to make a variety of tools and equipment. Some monster parts were even used as magical reagents.
But for a Gold-rank party like Lyanna’s Thunderbolt, with access to rare magic and martial expertise, that was small change; all the more so given Lyanna and Marcus’ personal situation. The real prizes were the dwarven ruins that lay hidden under the forest.
No-one knew how many ruins were out there or how extensive they were, but the fallen Dweomer Empire had once ruled everything for hundreds of miles around. Or so they said. What was sure was that Gar had offered them a fortune in loot if they helped him find the specific ruin that the scholarly dwarf was searching for. Lyanna hoped that today hadn’t ruined his nerve.
“Hey sis, what the hell was that thing?” Marcus eventually asked, with only the faintest hint of a tremble in his voice. Lyanna could tell that he was putting on a brave face. It would have made their mother proud.
“A mimic,” she replied simply.
Marcus seemed to process that for a moment before he spoke again. “I guess it was too much to hope that a gorgeous girl like that was real… but are you sure? I mean, she seemed totally human; I got a real good look….”
Their mother would have been less proud of the look on his face then.
Lyanna shook her head at his doubts. “Unless there’s a nudist Diamond ranker from another country wandering the forest playing pranks it can only be a monster. Humans don’t nest in trees, Marcus, especially cursed ones. They certainly don’t run barefoot through needlegrass or swat razorflies barehanded. And no human alive has that kind of mana.”
“Yup, that’s a mimic or I’m a vegetable,” Dolm chimed in. “You’re young, kid, you probably don’t know half the stories. Hear some adventurers tell it, mimics been hunting these parts for centuries.”
“Well if it’s definitely a mimic we should get some more people from the guild and go catch it!” Marcus suggested eagerly. “The reward would fix everything; we could finally afford treatment for mom!”
It hurt Lyanna to see the look of hope on his face. In truth she had thought the same thing when they found the creature, but after failing to so much as tickle the monster with her lightning she’d realized that they were in over their heads.
“Kid,” Dolm spoke grimly, sensing Lyanna’s discomfort, “my arrow didn’t even scratch it and it was swatting razorflies like gnats. Thing must have a tougher hide than a geopod and strength to match.”
“But Lyanna, your magic killed a load of razorflies too! You’re just as strong as the mimic!” Marcus insisted. She found it cute that even now he was a Silver-rank adventurer in his own right he still looked up to his big sister. She had to shake her head however; it wasn’t healthy to let him get the wrong idea about things.
“With luck I could survive a swarm that size, but not uninjured. If I was unlucky and they got my eyes with the spit then my resistance wouldn’t be enough – I’d be blind and I’d be doomed.”
As she explained Marcus grew paler.
“Then what’s up with that mimic?!” he demanded, as if he were a patron demanding to see the owner at a tavern.
“I hope that we never find out.”
~~~
The gash on my cheek from Dolm’s supernatural arrow had already healed by the time I found a stream to clean the insect mess off myself. My hair was getting matted from the various fights so I ended up spending extra time untangling and washing it. It wasn’t that I was growing vain; I just wanted to look presentable if I ran into anyone I could actually get along with. Honestly.
Once I’d cleaned up I had a few more evil-rambutans for a late breakfast. I was getting a little bored of the strange and unsettling fruits, but there weren’t any other options that seemed edible. I’d passed a number of bushes with poisonous-looking berries that I wanted nothing to do with, and while I’d found a tree that was growing nuts they tasted bitter and tangy, so I gave up on them too.
That left one option, not just for an alternative source of food, but also for something approximating clothes too. I wasn’t sure how exactly it was done, but on Earth hunters used to make clothes out of animal pelts. If I could find an animal that was big enough maybe I could get some meat and something to wear at the same time.
For ‘weapons’ I found a rocky outcrop in a clearing and broke off some fist-sized chunks that were about right for throwing. With the strength I had from ‘training’ one good hit should kill most creatures in the forest.
That just left the matter of my aim. On Earth my aim had been good whenever I played sports at school, but I was still getting used to my new strength and shorter stature, so I definitely needed to practice before trying to hit anything moving.
Slow and steady progress was the way to get results, so I chose a nice easy target for my first throw, pitching a rock like a baseball at a huge tree at the edge of the clearing. I got a fantastic sound out of the throw, the wind whistling as the stone flew, but my aim left a lot to be desired. The rock flashed right past the tree trunk and disappeared into the sky.
A moment later I heard a resounding impact and an angry screech.
It was that bastard Myr’s curse; it had to be! No-one could possibly be this unlucky! That was my first thought as an enraged monster ascended into view above the trees.
Four powerful feathered wings as big as those of some airliners hefted a humanoid torso the size of a house. The creature had the head and body of a woman but her arms and legs were scaled, her hands and feet armed with lethal claws. Her torso was lined with green and blue feathers, thick plumes emerging at her shoulders and hips like an elaborate gown. I’d have called her a harpy but for her scaled tail, which gave her a reptilian aspect. It was tipped with a savage stinger.
Given that the figure was mostly humanoid I thought that just maybe I’d be able to talk to her and apologize. That thought evaporated when I saw the bloody trickle running down her forehead and the fury on her face. The wind whirled around the huge creature, leaves and even small branches whipped up by each sweep of her wings as she soared towards me, her hair flying up like a second tail behind her.
Running for the cover of the trees seemed like the best way out of this but she clearly had other ideas. As the gigantic ‘harpy’ closed in she swept her four wings forward with a roar that carried some sort of magic, loosing a howling storm at the nearest tree-line.
The devastating winds slashed through branches and ripped up several tree trunks, tossing them end over end.
The tree I’d been using for target practice crashed down just a few steps from me, shattering and gouging out the stony ground!
This was an enemy on a totally different level to the flimsy tripods or the pathetic mosquitoes, and all I had to fight her with were a couple of rocks. I wanted to ask what the hell the gods of this world were thinking making monsters like this.
Clearly I wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to run so I hurled a rock as hard as I could right at the harpy’s chest. Naturally now that I wanted to hit her I missed by a mile….
She retaliated by sending a second burst of slicing winds right for me.
I grabbed the trunk of the tree that had almost hit me, fingers tearing into the bark and splintering the wood as I hefted the huge log and held it up as a shield against the storm.
There seemed to be near-invisible blades of concentrated energy within the storm she had conjured, each hit feeling more like a hammer-blow than a gust of wind.
The wood groaned and creaked, pieces breaking off, but she hadn’t had as long to put power into the attack this time, so while the winds sliced deeply into the trunk the core held together.
The harpy passed overhead, checking the results of her attack. I dropped tree with a boom and grabbed one of my throwing stones. With how huge and close she was even my lousy aim couldn’t miss.
I hurled the projectile as hard as I could directly at her chest.
The vast creature shrieked in surprise as the rock slammed into her side just above her hip, but it didn’t do anything to slow her down.
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I thought I had a moment of respite then as she was passing and doubling back. I didn’t account for her long, deadly tail. Before I could grab another stone the spiked tip whipped towards me like a spear and slammed into my back.
At first I thought I’d been hit by another tree, but when I looked around my stomach churned as I saw a foot-long chunk of her stinger sticking out of me!
It was only when I tried to move and felt the end of it still buried in my flesh that the pain hit me. Blood was welling up around the shaft, the point lodged somewhere in my shoulder blade. I wanted to pull it out, but that would probably just make the bleeding worse.
The harpy was already banking to come back at me again.
“Verminous human!” cursed the creature with an imperious tone. “You dare to wound my royal body?! You shall suffer for your barbarism!” Her voice was smooth and melodic, yet deep and powerful.
I was vaguely aware that she had shifted to a second language as she chanted “Winds heed the Stormqueen, skies tremble before the Empress of Harpies!” Dark clouds were forming around her, a ghostly aura of energy crackling around the tips of her feathers as they beat the air.
She was showing no signs of coming anywhere near me again after the last exchange, and I had no way of reaching her up there.
But even if she was furious and out to kill me she was talking now. As much as I’d like to give her a good punch for what she did to my shoulder my only chance was to appease her.
“P-please wait!” I called back, shouting at the top of my lungs to make myself heard over the turbulence. “I’m very sorry! I had no idea you were royalty, uh, your majesty!” I bowed my head clumsily, gritting my teeth as I felt the barb in my back grating against a bone.
She paused mid-incantation as I spoke, a look of surprise evident on her face. “A mere human speaks Cycloan?” But her face hardened again into a glare. “I will have you suffer for your unprovoked attack – and for the ignominy of snapping my majestic tail! Be glad I don’t leave you to die in agony from my venom!”
I paled at that, hurriedly grabbing the stinger in my shoulder and yanking it out with a sickening wet ripping sound. There was a dark oily substance in the hollow tip. No doubt about it, she really got me with that attack. It didn’t sound like there was any room for diplomacy either.
But that didn’t mean I was just going to roll over and die! So what if I hit her first, how about flying over and talking it out? Give me a good telling off, make me apologize! Was this a world where everyone shot first and asked questions later?!
The blood was rushing to my head as she loosed more blades of wind, ripping through the grass and fallen branches around me. As much as I wanted to find some way to fight back it was all I could manage to dodge the storm of blades, ducking, weaving and rolling. All the while she continued chanting. Both of us were seeing red now. If this overgrown chicken was going to kill me I’d give her the fight of her life before I died.
Just dodging was going to get me killed when whatever spell she was preparing finished, so I gritted my teeth and let the blades slam into me as I hefted the huge fallen tree once more. They cut into my flesh, blood running down my head and arms, but light attacks like these weren’t going to stop me.
Ignoring the pain and the horrible grating in my shoulder I raised the tree up then let out a yell as I caber-tossed it right at the damn bird’s head.
“Take this you coward! Get down here and fight me!”
The trunk tumbled through the air towards her, the harpy queen gasping in shock at the absurd projectile and diving desperately to avoid it!
~~~
The Stormqueen was the leader of her people and empress of the Cyclopean Bones, the unparalleled ruler of the skies. She had been returning home from a rare pleasure trip to hunt sea serpents along the Northeast coast, only to be met with a brutal and unprovoked attack, by a human of all creatures.
She was already aggravated by the poor fishing that year and the need to return to her duties so soon, but as something heavy and incredibly fast blindsided her in the head a bad day turned much worse.
To think that a human of all creatures had wounded her mighty body – and with a rock no less. She had never known such an outrage.
Normally harpies overlooked the ground-dwelling intelligent species within their empire, so long as they didn’t trespass on their lands. The humans, demi-humans and even the powerful naga all knew better than to provoke the wrath of the harpies. In turn the harpies accepted the respect they were due and allowed their lessers to pass about the Bloodsucking Forest as they pleased.
It seemed this abnormal, naked human meant to challenge their supremacy however. And be it her unnatural aim or the freakish power of her throw she was clearly no ordinary adventurer. She probably held a high rank among her kind.
Regardless she was picking a fight. The Stormqueen would have her attacker regret her rashness when the human was left half dead. It would be a fitting warning for the other humans, and a show of her mercy.
Or at least that was how it was supposed to be. The harpy’s winds tore up trees and split the earth, yet the human blocked the strikes and even counterattacked. There had been neither a flare of mana nor any incantation before the blow, but the impact was like a giant punching her in the gut.
It was all she could do to retaliate with her tail, yet even there the harpy too was injured, her elegant sting breaking off in her opponent’s body. The pain was excruciating but the Stormqueen couldn’t show weakness in battle, especially to a human of all things.
Even if she had taken damage and lost her sting the fight had been settled with that attack. The human had taken a dose of venom big enough to kill a dragon. The girl’s fate was sealed. Of course that didn’t mean that the Stormqueen could simply turn tail and run – such a victory would be cowardly, a shameful act for one of her standing.
The harpy regretted killing the human, but the diminutive girl had pushed her too far.
A definitive victory would both salve her wounded pride and give her enemy a better death than the one she would suffer from the venom.
That had been the plan at least. She was reciting a storm-calling incantation when the human shocked her once again. The thrown tree she could dodge but she never imagined that a human would leap dozens of feet up, to catch her with a punch of all things!
The small fist struck her chest with a boom that almost robbed the Stormqueen of consciousness. The air was forced from her lungs as one of her ribs broke under the iron-hard knuckles, but the harpy was determined to finish her magic and end the fight.
Had the situation been less dire she would have laughed at the comical sight of the human falling back to the earth after her jump, arms flailing as the girl tried and failed to find something on the harpy’s body to grab onto.
As the human was plummeting the harpy ascended higher and higher, leaving the ravaged battlefield far below as she climbed into the gathering storm. Ignoring the throbbing pain in her head and chest she recounted the sacred words her mother taught her. With them she would burn her hated enemy to ashes, then sweep the remains away on the storm winds. Nothing would remain.
The day had turned to night, thick black cloud spiraling into a tornado that rippled with lightning. The power built into one almighty strike that no creature could avoid. Or survive.
The Stormqueen loosed the spell and a deafening peal of thunder burst out, shattering the clouds and scattering them as all that power took form; a blinding white bird.
The Garuda, a bird of pure elemental lightning that would destroy all who opposed the Children of Nemoi. It gave a call like cut crystal that resonated in the bones of all who heard it as it dove towards the human far below.
The explosion as the Garuda struck made the sun seem dull. Lightning engulfed the battlefield, blasting apart anything in its path. Thick arcs of energy leapt out, tearing through trees and plants, melting rock and fusing earth to glass.
When the light faded and sight was possible again the Stormqueen could see a multitude of fires burning all around a huge crater where once there had been a clearing in the forest. The fires were unimportant – they would burn out or she would summon rain to see to them. What was important was the human.
She couldn’t see a body, but the crater where the thunderbird had struck was deep, still glowing hot, so she swooped down closer to the ground to make sure there was nothing left. If the human had somehow clung to life then she would need to put the girl out of her misery.
Hovering just outside of potential jumping range she peered down into the crater. Seeing only glass and molten rock at the bottom she relaxed. She wanted to put the place behind her and hurry back to the mountains, but her head was still spinning from the sneak attack she’d received. She also had at least one broken rib from the punch, so for the moment she set down to rest.
Leaning against a surviving rock the harpy gave a long sigh. She nodded towards the steaming pit. “You were a worthy foe, human, you met an unfortunate fate.”
It had been many years since she faced such a fearsome adversary.
~~~
“Don’t talk like it was nothing to do with you!” I yelled, leaping up over the edge of the crater.
The harpy was sitting there totally free of tension, as if she was about to take a nap after killing me off.
If I let her get back into the air I was dead, so I while she was still staring at me in bewilderment I charged.
Her huge form was far too heavy to get airborne in time, so instead she thrust her hand out, claws aiming at my head.
I took the impact with my good shoulder, grimacing as her claws tore into the burns from her outrageous lighting attack.
Despite the pain I kept pushing forwards, jumping over her other arm as she swung it then pushing off her own knee as I leapt up at her shocked face.
The sensation as my fist connected with her gaping jaw was a satisfying one. There was a heavy thud as her upper body slammed into the rock behind her, cracking the surface. A moment later there were two more thuds that shook the ground as her arms fell limp at her sides.
My head was pounding, my vision blurry and my heart racing. Somehow despite the pain I felt more alive than I ever had on Earth. I gave a triumphant, wordless roar of victory.
It took me a good minute to catch my breath and come to my senses. When I did the pain of the burns covering my arms and back and the bloody wound from dozens of wind blades hit me and I felt terribly weary.
I sank down to lie against one of the chunks of rubble created by the battle as my strength left me.
I might have survived being hit by lightning during ‘training’… entirely too many times… but the terrifying lightning bird the harpy had summoned could still have killed me outright if I’d taken it head on – it was that powerful. In desperation I’d ripped up the biggest boulder I could find and then balled up under it just before the attack hit.
It felt pretty pathetic at the time. It was also incredibly painful when the lighting struck. The detonation blew the boulder to bits and rained searing lava down on me. Both the explosion and the molten rock gave me some horrible injuries, especially to my arms and back, but at least I was able to protect my head and eyes.
The lava might even have been a blessing in disguise, as it seemed that harpy hadn’t realized I was still alive under the thick globs of semi-liquid rock. It was thanks to that she’d shown the opening I needed to put my superhuman strength to work.
Though I might have won the fight that didn’t mean I was in a better state than her. For now I was thoroughly exhausted and covered in injuries. Even my bones hurt.
I ended up passing out where I lay as the tension drained from me. As my consciousness was fading I dimly mused that it was lucky I hadn’t made any animal hide clothes yet – that lightning would have incinerated them….
Oh yeah… wasn’t I poisoned?
~~~
When I awoke my body felt stiff all over, especially my recently-perforated shoulder, but given what I’d been through I was grateful that it still worked at all.
Checking myself over, I found that my burns had mostly healed, with just some sore patches remaining. My shoulder seemed to be working normally even if it still hurt. Looking at the sun overhead I guessed I’d been out for a few hours. If I could boast about anything it was my recovery rate.
The belligerent harpy was still unconscious opposite me, not moving at all.
For a moment I was afraid I’d killed her. Even if I’d gotten pretty furious when she kept attacking me I was the one who started the fight after all – but I was relieved to see that her chest was moving slightly as she breathed.
Perhaps I should just leave before she could wake up and start attacking me again.
It seemed like the smart thing to do but a voice at the back of my mind stopped me. What if she died because I left her here like this, helpless and injured? I’d be at least partly responsible wouldn’t I? I’d definitely feel bad about that, even if she turned out to be an irreconcilable enemy.
It might have sounded spineless, but how many people have actually taken someone’s life? I’d never even been in a real fight on Earth, let alone killed anybody. I didn’t want to start now – especially over a stupid misunderstanding.
Even if I did just bail out on the whole situation there was also the question of what would happen next. If the giant harpy really was an empress then presumably she had some sort of empire. She also had wings. If she decided to call her subjects and chase after me I could be in much worse trouble. But… to look at it another way if I could smooth things over with her somehow she might even help me. An empire meant civilization, right?
I thought about trying to tend to her injuries to prove my good intentions and score a few extra points when she woke up, but one of her hands was as big as my whole body and I didn’t know much about first aid to begin with.
She didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere so I settled for moving her arms and wings into a more comfortable sleeping position and propping her head up with a tree trunk as a pillow.
After that there was nothing left to do but wait. I gathered a few more evil-rambutans from the nearest fruiting tree to have survived the battle and took a seat a respectful distance away to eat them.
It was while I was chewing the tendrils of the last one that I noticed that her eyes were open.
“Oh, uh, high theh!” I said, speaking through a mouthful of fruit. That was probably rude in this world too, so I quickly gulped it down and spoke again. “Um, hello…. Sorry about earlier, are you alright?”
The harpy stared down at me like I had two heads, looking between me and the remains of the fruit in my hand. The attention made me want to cover up my chest and hips, but after already fighting her naked I would just have felt more embarrassed to call attention to my lack of clothes at this point.
“You, uh, want one?” I asked, gesturing at the evil-rambutan. “There’s a tree nearby.” She shook her head quickly but didn’t say anything. Nonplussed, I finished the fruit myself.
At least she wasn’t attacking for now. That was progress. Looking at her closely when she wasn’t enraged or trying to electrocute me she was actually a real beauty, albeit in a highly exotic sense. Plenty of guys on Earth would have been enchanted despite the scales, feathers and fangs… and some because of them. Of course the size difference would have made that a daunting prospect.
As for me, I wasn’t going to say she wasn’t my type. Whatever had happened to my body when Myr ‘awakened’ me I was definitely still into girls, and as girls went she was breathtaking. But after fighting with our lives on the line and bearing all to each other in more ways than one the atmosphere between us wasn’t exactly romantic.
I was swallowing the last of the evil-rambutan when she finally spoke. “Why are you alive?” Talk about blunt.
“Well it wasn’t easy. That lightning bird was terrifying. Please don’t do that again, okay?” I replied, grinning, hoping a little levity would diffuse the tension.
“My venom should have taken your life long since, human. Even one as powerful as you should have been helpless before the sting of the Stormqueen, which slays even dragons. Yet there you sit, naked and shameless, consuming cursed bloodfruit as if they were a delicacy!”
I almost choked at that. Was I not supposed to eat these things? Was I going to get another curse?! And it wasn’t like I was naked because I wanted to be! She was one to talk anyway – the haughty harpy had only her built in feathers to cover herself up.
The worry about the fruit must have been apparent on my face, as the Stormqueen sighed and reached up stiffly to hold her head in her hand. “You didn’t even sense the curse burning your flesh, did you? No wonder then that my venom could not slay you.”
“Um… is the curse why they tingle on the tongue?” I asked weakly.
She shook her head in disbelief. “That… ‘tingle’ is the accumulated curses of the countless souls consumed by this harsh land. A real human would be dying in agony with a single bite. Even we harpies would not willingly suffer the pain of consuming such a thing.”
It sounded like if I hadn’t had a reaction after all this time that I was probably fine, but even so what a shock! These delicious fruits were poison! I wanted to curse Myr right back all over again. This was definitely his fault.
Still, even if I’d been careless there was no need for the Stormqueen to be so hard on me.
“You say that, but I’m definitely a human. I just… I lost my memory,” I said, rubbing my head, giving my best ‘girl with amnesia’ act. I’d practiced this, even if I thought I’d be using it on other humans rather than a giant flying empress.
“…amnesia?” She said slowly in reply. “And you lost your clothes and supplies too, and found yourself wandering this place with no knowledge of where you were, yet possessing an impeccable understanding of multiple languages? So you decided to hurl rocks into the air at an innocent passerby?”
Well when you put it like that of course it sounded silly….
“N-not exactly,” I replied, “I was practicing my throwing and I hit you totally by accident. Uh, speaking of which I’m really very sorry about that!” I bowed my head to her like I’d seen people do to royalty in movies.
Still… she didn’t have to go and throw an entire thunderstorm at me.
“I tried to explain, but you weren’t listening….”
She frowned at my reproach. “The Cyclopean Bones do not tolerate careless fools who have ‘accidents’ like that. Or those who indulge such implausible tales in the midst of battle.”
Whatever the Cyclopean Bones were, this world seemed pretty kill-or-be-killed. “I’ll uh, be more careful in the future. Sorry.”
She nodded her head. “Very well, I shall accept your apology.” She tried to sit up straighter and grimaced as she moved.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“No thanks to you,” she gave what almost looked like a wry smile with her response. “A broken rib, it will heal, given time. I will be fine come morning.”
“Oh….” That was awkward. “You can’t heal yourself with magic?” I asked hopefully. Even if the answer was no, it would be good to learn more about the subject and the Stormqueen seemed willing to talk.
She frowned at the question. “I cannot use the healing arts. That is a rare talent even among my people. My magic commands the wind and storms. An ancient art passed down through my royal lineage for thousands of years,” she bragged, feathers puffing up proudly. “The secret incantations of the Stormqueens are among the rarest of magic, taught only to those of royal blood.”
“So just saying the words isn’t enough then?” I asked, disappointed.
“Certainly not! To use any magical language requires many years of study. Everything from pronunciation to mana control and the subtleties of rhythm must be mastered! But to begin with you would not even be able to comprehend the arcane words!”
She certainly liked to boast about her magic; she’d relaxed a lot. It was endearing. I wasn’t convinced the magic was all that hard however.
“The words you were speaking when you cast the spell earlier?” I tried to recite them myself. “Winds heed the Stormqueen? I don’t remember how the rest went though….”
I felt a funny sensation when I tried to say the words, my mouth and brain having to work to make them form, as if they were trying not to be spoken. They came out sounding right to my ear all the same.
The Stormqueen’s jaw dropped. “You monster…” she muttered, “to have grasped the proper incantation, in a dead tongue, after hearing it only once in the heat of battle! Not even the greatest witches could accomplish such a thing!”
Hah, now she was making me sound pretty smart. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to understand that language she was using for her spells though, which probably would have made reproducing it a lot harder.
“It’s not exactly a dead tongue if you can speak it though, is it?” I asked, switching back to the conversational language we’d been using. During the battle she called it Cycloan. “Besides, nothing happened when I said it. No winds heeded me at all.”
She sighed in amazement. “I have learned the incantations that were handed down to me, and even the words of power that true masters of the arcane may utilize to compose their own spells, but no being lives that can speak the ancient tongue in conversation!” She looked almost outraged at the idea.
“And it is only natural that nothing happened when you spoke the words. Your pronunciation was… miraculous for a first attempt… but you did not transmute your mana or weave the corresponding formations. Besides which, the verse you were reciting would be useless to you even if you were otherwise able to cast the spell – the incantation is bound to the Stormqueen lineage. It cannot be stolen.”
I could hear the pride in her voice once more, but did she just mean that it named her in the opening line? Couldn’t I just change that to something generic so that anyone could use it? It was possible there was more to it of course, but for now I decided not to press too much. I was already being treated like a total weirdo. Apparently even she didn’t actually understand the words anyway, so it wasn’t like she could help me.
“Not to change the subject,” I said after a moment, changing the subject, “but you weren’t wrong when you said I lost my clothes, and I definitely don’t know where I am either. I don’t suppose you know where I could get something to wear?” I asked hopefully, even as I felt my cheeks turning pink. At this point I’d fight another harpy all over again if it meant I could stop walking about in the buff.
“You are either an impressive actress or a great fool, human,” the Stormqueen replied with a smile. “I believe I am taking a liking to you. As you have nowhere to go I will allow you to return with me to the mountains. My kin can furnish you with something to preserve your modesty… if you have any.” She looked away, elegantly covering her mouth with a wing, but I definitely saw her smirking.
“Ugh, I told you I really did lose my clothes. I don’t like going around fighting people naked,” I insisted, my face red with the embarrassment. “It feels weird and wrong! But what are you smiling for? You’re not wearing anything but feathers yourself!”
She burst out laughing at that. “Hoh hoh hoh, you do amuse me girl! We harpies clad ourselves in feathers as you say, but we are not immodest. When molting we seek privacy as any intelligent creature would. Only a shameless exhibitionist would dare venture out and even do battle in such a state,” she added with an evil grin.
“Hmph, at least you’re enjoying yourself,” I muttered sulkily.
“Oh now human, don’t take offence at a few harmless barbs. You’ve shrugged off worse today!” she laughed.
“You know my name’s not ‘human’,” I replied, desperately trying to change the subject to something less humiliating. “Although, um… I don’t actually remember what it is. But you’ve got a name, right? People don’t just call you the Stormqueen.”
“My lessers certainly do,” she replied, “however I will permit you to know my name. I am Empress Aellope, reining Stormqueen of the Harpies of the Cyclopean Bones, daughter of the royal line of Zephyrus. You may address me as Ael, as I believe we shall be friends.” She spoke the last part with a blush that made my heart skip a beat. For a monster the size of an airliner she could certainly be cute.
I was starting to think that the Stormqueen’s imperious persona was just that – as the façade slipped the girl revealed behind it seemed both genuine and affectionate.
“Do not misunderstand,” she added quickly, perhaps seeing something in my expression. “It is the manner of address I would expect of a small child who could not yet pronounce my full name and title.”
Well, whatever, it looked like I’d made my first friend in this world. Three cheers for the Harpies!