Harpy Redemption
A Lolirotica by Weebtrashmachine
Chapter 1 - A Marriage Proposal In Borderia
"So, you confess to having carnal relations with your young niece, Isabelle?" The town Elder, Old Mack, asked with an air of stern officiality.
In front of the town council, the group tasked with passing judgment in Borderia, and in front of the gathered people in the town hall, Cecil admitted, "Yes, I do confess." His face burned with shame and he looked to his feet while the townspeople whispered behind him. Having no children of his own, his niece and he were very close. He loved her to death, and she, in turn, adored her favorite uncle. But he let this happen, he let things go too far, fully knowing the consequences. Thus, he was ready to accept the judgment of his peers.
Old Mack rubbed his temples and sighed. He continued, "Well, that makes this proceeding short and simple, doesn't it? I don't think anyone, including your brother and his wife, believes you meant to hurt your niece. It is well known how close you two are. Also, this is a frontier town. Sometimes these things happen, and it can be fixed with a forced marriage and the consent of the parents. Although, usually, not when the girl is only twelve that's a bit young even for a frontier town. But you're a citizen of good standing who has never been in trouble with the law. We might have still worked something out for you, Cecil. Except Isabelle is your brother's daughter, related by blood, a close enough incestuous connection to risk spawning new breeds of monsters to darken the world for the rest of humanity. As an adult you are aware of how wildly irresponsible your actions were. There can only be one punishment for incest in civilized lands. Death."
As expected. Cecil continued to stare at his feet and tried to be as small as possible. The whisperers grew louder and he heard his mother stifling her sobs in the background. It was a shameful way to go with no upsides...Except in Borderia.
"Of course, Borderia is no civilized town," Old Mack continued with an orator's vigor, "We are a sinful people that have traded the blessings of God and King for the protection of monsters. Like everyone else, you will be given the option to commute your sentence as a Husband to the Harpies." Old Mack brightened at this, "I sincerely hope you take that option, Cecil. We haven't provided a sacrifice to our neighbors and guardians in over a year and some worry about the security of our northern border. Winter is coming, and the Harpies are the only thing between us and the hungry animals and monsters that steal our children to feed their own."
Old Mack took a breath and finished dramatically, "Do it for the children of Borderia. Do it for your niece, Isabelle. Do it to regain you and your family's honor. Records of your misdeeds will be wiped away and your name will be added to The Monument. Besides, it's probably not worse than death." Old Mack shrugged, "So, what will it be?"
The townspeople present were silent for the brief moments it took Cecil to come to a decision and say, "I'll do it."
Chapter 2 - Walking Down the Aisle
About halfway up the mountain to the meeting place with the harpies was a bluegray boulder that looked suspiciously like an egg. On it was written the history of Borderia and the centuries old relationship with the tribe of harpies that lived in the wilderness of the mountain range known as "The Edge of the World". The huge range of mountains capped off the world in the north and marked the very end of where the civilized races could live and survive. Borderia was, in fact, a good deal actually across the civilization border for which it was named, miles deep into monster-infested territory. Thus the odds of adventurers stumbling upon this very path up the mountains and running into The Monument without first passing through the large town of Borderia seemed quite slim. Nevertheless, The Monument was covered in warnings about the huge number of intelligent and well-organized harpies that laid claim to the surrounding mountains for as far as the eye could see. One of the warnings read: "Please do not hunt or cause harm to the feathered guardians of Borderia. They are our sisters and daughters, but never mothers."
Whether this cryptic request had ever aided a traveler, it was unknown. But it did serve as a reminder to the citizens of Borderia that the harpies that were rarely seen were quite real and deserved a measure of respectful caution. Besides the ancient warning, most of the boulder was covered in the names of every man and boy that had become a sacrifice to the harpies in some fashion or another. After scratching his name in tiny letters on The Monument, Cecil glanced at the massive pile of clothing and belongings that surrounded the stone, half buried and weathered beyond recognition.
"You can strip here, or at the top," Old Mack offered, "if you wait until the top, I'll carry your belongings down and arrange them. "
All of the members of the town that decided to follow along the marriage ritual looked on as Cecil answered, "Thanks, Mack. It's cold, nearly winter...I'll wear them up." Cecil appreciated being given the choice and assumed that not all of the condemned were likewise privileged.
"No men, boys, or young girls that the harpies might mistake for young boys beyond this point," Old Mack announced. He himself would make this journey because it was the responsibility of the town elder to be the liaison to the harpies, and the harpies weren't nearly as cooperative with human women.
At this point, various friends and family of Cecil came to embrace and say goodbye one final time. There was a brief scuffle and outcry, then little niece Isabelle herself suddenly bounded over to Cecil, teary eyes and bouncing brown braids obscuring her youthfully round and pretty face. Before her parents could stop her, she made it to Cecil and just stopped in front of him, fists clenched and silently crying.
"It's not your fault," Cecil claimed, looking sadly at the beautiful little girl.
She replied, voice shaky, "I know. I'm still sorry, Uncle Cecil. But I'm really glad you're not going to die." She took one of his much larger hands in both of hers, brought it to her face and kissed the backs of his fingers firmly. She then took off running down the mountain and back to town, her family in close pursuit. Wanting Isabelle's sweet and innocent gesture to be the last thing he saw or experienced from the townspeople of Borderia, but also keeping close the memory of the little moans she made while her childish face was twisted in pleasure, the prize for which he had traded his freedom, Cecil turned and marched up the mountain with purpose.
Chapter 3 - Wedding Reception
After a point, the trail up the forested mountains stopped at a stream that sprang up from some unknown source in the mountain and ran down towards the town. The group, led by Old Mack and Cecil, carefully made their way down a little bank to the sandy surface surrounding the water. Following the stream up the mountain, the group encountered more and more feathers of various colors that had floated down the stream and collected along the edge in little clumps. The townspeople, mostly middle-aged women who were fit enough to make the journey up the mountain, greedily gathered all the feathers that they could find. Most of the women wore clothing and accessories decorated with colorful and durable harpy feathers such as these and they were an important Borderian export.
Soon, the group came to a natural clearing in the forest where the ground leveled out and the stream trickled over a rocky bluff, gathering into a lovely, shallow pool before spilling over and draining down the mountain. The townspeople gathered at the edge of the clearing and quietly caught their breath. Old Mack, who had made this trip countless times over his lifetime, was not even winded despite his advanced age. Noone made a lot of noise; this was not the first journey for most, and they all knew that they had arrived at the official meeting place of the humans and the harpies. According to The Monument, this is the location where, hundreds of years ago, the first human had a chance encounter with the first harpy. They fell in love and created the bond that would eventually become the pact between the humans of Borderia and the harpies of the Edge of the World. Supposedly, Old Mack was a direct descendent of that first man.
"There!" he whispered to Cecil, pointing at a low branch of a tree that grew just above the rock face. Cecil was startled when he suddenly noticed the sleeping harpy on the branch. The feathers of her wings were the same dark green as the needles of the coniferous tree upon which she rested. She was crouching on the bough, with a posture like that of a person hugging their knees. Holding perfectly still, she was completely wrapped in the large wings she had in place of human arms, leaving visible only long, dark talons wrapped around the thick branch upon which she rested. Her short, spikey, dark green hair was the same color as her feathers, and tufts of it messily peaked above as her face rested against the inside of her wings. So perfectly camouflaged and still, Cecil hadn't noticed her at all and felt a spike of adrenaline at his sudden awareness of a mysterious and deadly monster in his proximity.
"Take off your clothes and walk into the water," Old Mack instructed, quietly, "The Harpies will make a show of inspecting you and you are supposed to inspect them in return. Then they will carry you away. You'll have to figure it out from there on your own...good luck."
"How am I supposed to...inspect them?" Cecil asked back, equally quietly, as he began taking off his clothes, not once taking his eyes off the sleeping monster in the trees.
"Usually," Old Mack explained, "They touch the man gently with their face, then he touches them back gently. I don't think it really matters what you do. Sometimes they give you a choice and you pick a harpy you like...sometimes they don't. Follow your instincts...they come from us and are more like us than they are different. Now go stand in the middle of the pool and I'll try to get that one's attention."
Cecil finished disrobing and stepped into the freezing water, immediately wrapping his arms around himself and shivering from the cold. The Borderians were a fair-skinned, dark-haired people that could tolerate the cold better than any other race of man but Cecil was still glad the water of the shallow pool only came up to his ankles. He assumed the marriage ritual wouldn't take very long...not even the nearly superhuman hardiness of the Borderians would let them survive this sort of exposure for very long. Every step he took in the water towards the sleeping harpy felt like the mushy, resistant progress one makes treading through a nightmare, towards death and the unknown. Yet this was a nightmare in which he was awake as possible and hyper-sensitive to his body and every other stimuli bombarding his senses.
He stopped in the exact center of the elliptical pool of shallow water, craning his head to look up at the harpy above him. A few moments later, Old Mack began to make a shrill whistle. When nothing happened and the feathered monster continued dreaming, he whistled loudly and longer. Finally, he picked up a pebble from the mountain stream and threw it against the bough the bird was sleeping on, with what Cecil thought was amazing accuracy for such an old man. With a single startled, questioning chirp, the harpy's head popped up over her wings and looked around. Even from the ground, Cecil could tell she had a round, youthful face, bright green eyes a shade lighter than her feathers and hair, and large, bushy green eyebrows that gave her an expression of constant surprise. She seemed to chirp to herself and took a wide-eyed, bushy-browed look to the left, to the right, then gave a mighty yawn and went to settle back down to sleep. Halfway through the yawn, she suddenly noticed the humans gathered in the clearing below and froze. She stood up on her mottled, birdlike harpy legs, flung her surprisingly huge wingspan outward (She's naked! Cecil exclaimed in his mind), then flapped and lifted her legs alternately as if trying to recover her balance from the force of a surprise nearly great enough to send her tumbling from her tree.
She finally regained her balance, shook her head violently as if to shake off the surprise, then leapt from the tree, gliding down to land just in front of Cecil. Cecil cringed away both from the cold splash and the intimidating grace and physicality of the monster that had suddenly approached him. (She's small!) She took a step forward and placed the inside of each wing around his arms, as if to keep him from running away. He held very still and stared at her, trying to take in both the danger and the wild beauty all at once. He expected a grotesque monster but what he found was a petite and flawless doll of a little girl, with a face and body startlingly similar to his niece and lover, Isabelle. Her skin was pale and perfect, contrasting with the dark green coloration of her messy, shoulder-length hair and sleek, healthy feathers. She gave the impression that she was just made; a shiny, brand-new thing, one that had yet to exist long enough to acquire any wear, tear, or flaws. She had large, expressive eyes, small and cute ears and nose, and she was very lean; her ribs were visible on her sides, and her breasts, thighs, and rear were slim and tight to her body. Aerodynamic, Cecil thought.
She stared earnestly into his eyes and made a desperate mixture of bird noises, such as chirps, tweets, and clucks, as if trying to tell him something as a bird but unable to decide which kind to imitate. She stomped her legs restlessly in place, gestured with her wings, turned towards the rocky bluff then back towards him again, concerned, uncertain. (So cute)...Cecil couldn't help but think, unable to look away from her adorably expressive and bushy eyebrows. She kept turning around to take off, turning back to chirp at him and make sure he wasn't leaving, then turning back to almost leave again. When she finally turned and took off into the air with rapid flaps of her massive wings, he noticed the little spray of tail feathers that looked as if they hung over her butt to cover her modesty from behind, despite her hairless, child-like body having no such protection in the front.
The air from the beating of her huge wings pushed him back a couple steps in surprise and made him even colder. She looked over her shoulder and chirruped once before ascending over the bluff and away from sight. While he waited, with a guilty feeling, Cecil compared in his mind the young, smooth body of the harpy and that of his niece, Isabelle. He wondered if these harpies might have been created from a sin similar to his own and that was why they resembled his little niece so.
Cecil shivered and held himself, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder at the townspeople quietly whispering behind him. They were mostly women he knew personally at one point or another, and he didn't want to face them in light of either the knowledge of his crimes nor the shame of his nudity. He felt considerably less self-conscious about his nakedness a couple minutes later when the swarm of colorful harpies flew in with a windy racket and a swirl of multicolored feathers. Now the nude outnumbered the clothed, and he felt as if his own clothlessness gave him some kind of solidarity with the beautiful monsters surrounding him. They perched on the ridge of the bluff in front of him and everywhere among the trees both above and beneath the bluff. Unlike wild animals, they didn't seem to keep a perimeter of personal space about them and settled in the trees right next to the visiting townspeople, unafraid. There was a cacophony of bird noises as the harpies looked down on him curiously and cooed, cawed, hooted, chirruped, tweeted, clucked, catcalled, cheeped and whistled to each other, shifting their weight from leg to leg, cocking their heads sideways and adjusting their wings in a very birdlike fashion. Their feathers were every color of the rainbow, and then some, such that Cecil was almost disappointed when a drab gray one was the first to glide down into his pool and presence.
Not that she was ugly, far from it. She was more beautiful than any of the townswomen behind him had ever been in their lives, even though it was obvious that this was an "old" harpy. Her movements were stiffer than the others, her feathers dingy with missing patches, she moved a little slower than the rest and her skin was tan and freckled, as if she had spent a long time in the sun. Yet, she still had the youthful, unwrinkled face of a teenage girl, curious, innocent eyes and a perky, desirable body. It was easy to tell at a glance that she was taller and more important than the rest of the harpies; she had countless colorful feathers that were not her own tucked into the underside of her wings, while the rest were decorated only in their natural beauty. Yet she only came up to Cecil's nose and looked no older than a seventeen year old human girl.
Cecil felt he had a new understanding for why the harpies were such a well kept secret of Borderia. If the rest of the world knew how beautiful this tribe of monsters was, there would be no end to those that would come to harass and hunt them for some reason or another. Was this to be his wife, this intelligent and wise elder of the mountain harpies? He would prefer the skinny, bushy-eyebrowed, awkward little thing that reminded him of his niece, but he wouldn't complain, for even the least of the harpies were as beautiful as they were an unnatural sin against God.
Chapter 4 - Here Comes The Bride
If this elder were the most beastly of the monsters he would be forced to mate with then this didn't feel much like a punishment at all, so far. The gray harpy kept a respectful distance and circled him, making a show of looking him up and down. With effort, he unwrapped his hands from around his torso, and relaxed his neck and shoulders, wanting to be as cooperative as possible during this "examination". No matter what happened now, he could comfort himself knowing that he would have beautiful young girls to look at. He wanted to start off on the best foot possible with the new masters of his fate.
But the elder harpy never approached and seemed to give him only a brief once-over as she did a couple circles around him, appearing as if her mind was already on something else. Was he not good enough for the harpies? He didn't consider that possibility until now. It would be more shameful than he could handle to have to walk back down the mountain to his own execution, rejected; he would rather drown himself in the few inches of water at his feet.
However, the truth was that his passing the test was a foregone conclusion and that the elder was merely going through the motions of the ritual. Cecil was the youngest, healthiest looking husband candidate the harpies had received in over a decade and they were positively thrilled. After the third circle, the elder flew back up the bluff and began selecting harpies, pushing them off it one by one, after which they fluttered and glided down to line up in front of Cecil. None of the girls seemed the least bit shy about their nudity, but some seemed to beam at him proudly, sticking out their modest breasts, while some coyly and submissively avoided his eyes, hiding behind their hair or looking away and blushing slightly when they made eye contact with Cecil.
He noticed that the harpies the elder selected were the plumpest and most well-endowed, which wasn't saying terribly much as far as the slim, petite, child-like flying creatures were concerned. They were also the oldest looking, appearing about fourteen or fifteen years of age, ideal ages for breeding; the rest of the harpies around him looked closer in age to bushy eyebrows, preteens or even younger.
Despite looking like children, those the gray-feathered elder selected were nevertheless the tallest and healthiest, with thighs, breasts and butts that were ever so slightly fuller and rounder than their sisters. They were also brightly feathered, red, purple, orange, pink and blue, as if mere brightness of plumage were what mattered and the color itself unimportant. Many of the smaller, younger looking harpies surrounding them had duller, more camouflage oriented colors that matched the colors of the mountain forest during one season or another. Cecil wondered if the different types of harpies were all, in fact, the same species, and if their roles in harpy society, perhaps as breeders or hunters, were determined by the role they were more physically suited for.
As the birdgirls lined up in front of Cecil looked him up and down, Cecil hoped the coldness of the water didn't somehow misrepresent him and give him a failing grade of some sort. But again, it appeared that it was the ritual that mattered here, not he himself. As soon as he made eye contact with the tallest and most well-endowed of those in front of him, a harpy with pumpkin-orange feathers and long, well-brushed orange hair, the elder squawked and chirruped some sort of direction. At this, Orange, as Cecil had labeled her in his mind, stepped forward proudly to the disappointed clucking of the others. She had the largest breasts of the harpies Cecil had seen and was tall for a harpy, the top of her head coming up to his chin. She looked just a bit older than the others lined up, perhaps sixteen to their fourteen and fifteen, and had creamy pale skin that had just a hint of orange tones, blending with the orange of her hair, feathers, and eyes. Her hair was the longest of any harpy present, covering one eye alluringly and laying straight as far down as her shoulder blades.
She made an expression he hadn't seen on a harpy yet, a smile, as she approached him with her wings held in front of her as if asking for a hug. He held still as she did exactly that; she pressed her firm and warm young body against his and wrapped them both entirely up in her great wings. Cecil thought that the feathers must have had some sort of fantastic insulation properties; in moments, Cecil warmed up and stopped shaking, cold now only on his feet and face, and now sagging in relief into the lovely young girl's welcomed embrace.
"Thank you," he whispered into her pretty ear, almost moved to tears by her act of consideration and kindness. She quietly cooed back at him in response, as if understanding his words and reassuring him that everything would be OK, now. Cecil immediately believed that such a gentle and empathetic creature would make a perfect mother to his children and he found himself thoroughly smitten, closing his eyes and smiling to himself in happiness. Grey squawked a reprimand, as if chastising Orange for breaking the procedure of the ritual, but she didn't sound very upset about it to Cecil. Instead, he saw Grey looking happily at his silly, smiling face in approval.
Orange tweeted an apology and backed up from the embrace primly. She then took a showy pose, back arced severely, jutting out her perky, well-rounded breasts and perfectly proportional, heart shaped rear, massive wings as their maximum length to her sides, many times the length of her body. She strutted about like she knew she was the treasure of her tribe. Cecil couldn't argue that Orange was flawless, every feather straight and sleek, every inch of her skin clean and unblemished, every detail from the firmness of her thighs to the slight blush on her chest and cheeks screaming healthiness and readiness to breed.
After giving him a good few seconds to look at her, Orange pulled in her wings and began the inspection in earnest. He held as still as possible as she came extremely close to his face, sniffing his ears and neck. He felt her warm breath as her pretty hair brushed against him and her delicate nose gently booped him, giving him a heady, dizzy feeling and bringing a blush to his cheeks. He tried not to shiver as she sniffled and snuffled him up and down his legs, arms, and torso, of course spending the most time at his armpits, crotch and rear. Every once in a while, she would give him a polite, brief little lick, as if taste were also part of the standards upon which he was judged.
Finally, she crouched down and settled between his legs with a look of concentration and began to continuously boop his most sensitive parts with her nose. He wasn't sure what she was looking for, but could only think of wanting to please the orange haired beauty. He would work hard to give her all the baby harpies she wanted and do whatever else that made him a good harpy's husband. One small part of his mind reminded him that this was a monster, an ungodly creation of sin, and realized how easily his heart was won over was precisely why these creatures were so dangerous. But Borderians, unlike the rest of humanity, had always been patient, tolerant, and even empathetic towards monsters, preferring to scare them off instead of killing them, and sometimes even leaving food out for them when no one was looking.
Cecil didn't perceive anything like evil or wrongness from this creature in front of him. His thoughts were interrupted when Orange's nose boops became persistent licking; it didn't take long before something of Cecil's extended to poke Orange in the eye. She blinked her long eye lashes in surprise, then stood up straight, turned, and chirruped her approval to the audience. She gave Grey an exaggerated harpy nod, deeply bowing and slightly turning her head to the side in a jerky fashion. Grey returned the gesture equally as the spectators hooted and clicked their talons together in harpy applause. Cecil sighed in relief; he must have passed. Orange seemed only to be making sure the toolkit functioned and nothing else; a pretty easy standard to pass to win such an exquisite prize, Cecil thought.
Orange turned back his way, once again taking the severely arched back, open winged posture to submit herself for Cecil's own closer inspection of her unnaturally perfect young body. (Of course you pass, you masterpiece)...Cecil wanted to say, but could tell the ritual itself was what was important to the harpies and so decided to do his best to give a satisfactory examination of his own. Wings still fully extended, Orange looked down at her just-over-a-perfect-handful breasts, back up to Cecil, back down, back up. The message was as clear as the harpy's exaggerated body language was painfully cute to Cecil. Ever so gently, he placed one of his hands on one the monster girl's breasts and immediately couldn't help but give it a healthy squeeze. (So sensitive!) She shivered in such a way that went from her taloned toes, to the tip of her wings, and back. Her eyes were wide, staring directly at Cecils as she tried to endure the pleasure and hold her posture. She might have the face and body of a human girl barely out of childhood, but the full, soft firmness of her chest left no doubt in Cecil's mind that she was in her harpy prime and ready to do her part to help perpetuate the local harpy population.
His hands acting on their own, he squeezed harder, kneaded her breasts and tweaked her nipples between his thumbs and index fingers. "C-c-coo...tweet?" Overloaded with the sensations brought on by her first encounter with human hands, she made confused bird noises, squinted one eye, and began to rub her thighs together involuntarily. Cecil finished his breast inspection by pulling her nipples just a little as he was letting go; she rocked forward a bit on her taloned toes, then regained her balance, smiling and happily wiggling her tail feathers, breath coming a bit more erratic and rapid then before.
She watched his hands with excited coo's as he ran them down her sides, over her soft, feminine tum, across her silky, athletic thighs, and back to squeeze and caress her firm and perfect behind. She fluttered her wings a little as she closed her eyes and focused on enduring the pleasurable touches. Without opening her eyes, she took a wider stance, spreading her legs to make it easier to inspect the girlhood between. Cecil crouched down and rubbed the underside of his fingers across the young girl's most delicate parts, finding them a little wet. She chirruped loudly when he gave a sudden squeeze down there. Yup warm, soft, hairless and perfect. Test passed?
Trembling a little, she let him know he wasn't finished yet by wrapping the inside of a wing against the back of his head and guiding it to her crotch. He obediently sniffed her. It was exactly as he might have guessed; Her arousal smelled halfway between that of a human and that of a wild animal. Not a pleasant smell, but not an unpleasant one either. Just...young and healthy. When she turned around and lifted her tail feathers, he was surprised to learn that her plumbing was similar to that of a human, instead of the cloaca of a bird. Face mere inches from the young girl's rectum, Cecil began to think of harpies as people instead of as animals or monsters. He playfully gave her perfect, heart-shaped little butt a lick, making her jump a bit and go "tweet-tweet!" He caressed the inside of her silky thighs with his face, just because he wanted to, then stood up and took a step back from the thoroughly stimulated and somewhat flustered young monster girl.
He had probably done enough to satisfy the ritual; he gave his own attempt at the exaggerated, slightly-dipping-to-the-side harpy bow in Grey's direction. The audience again hooted and whistled and gave the clicking harpy applause, some of the members surreptitiously rubbing their own thighs together, themselves aroused by the show. But instead of bowing back, Grey, with perfect balance, raised one of her taloned feet much higher than Cecil would have guessed to be possible, folding two talons back and pointing at him with the other two; like all monsters, her limbs ended in either four or six digits, never five like their parent race, humans. There was something divinely mandated about this: should a six fingered monster lose a finger or toe and thus number five digits, another would fall off within a day's time. Thus, six-fingered monsters that were very humanlike couldn't trick anyone for more than a day under normal circumstances.
He noticed that the physically superior Orange had six "fingers'' per foot, and that the extremely intelligent Grey had only four. Cecil supposed that the harpies could get by pretty well without hands if they had such dextrous and flexible legs and feet, whether their fingers, toes, or whatever, numbered six, four, or anything else. As if to demonstrate exactly this, when Cecil didn't appear to get the message right away, Grey elaborated by pointing one long talon at Orange and one of the same claw at the line of pretty birdgirls Orange had stepped in front of. As an afterthought, she waved that same talon around in an arc, indicating every harpy in the vicinity.
It seemed Cecil was meant to acquire two harpy wives this day. The first wife was clearly selected for him, he guessed due to some sort of harpy politics. But he would be allowed to choose the second wife according to his own preferences. One prime breeder and one teaser wife meant to keep him in the mood to productively copulate. Cecil thought about what Old Mack had said about Borderia not donating a husband to the harpies in over a year; this was a good thing for the peaceful frontier town, implying that serious crime was low. But perhaps it had an effect on this tribe of harpies, changing the proceedings of their ritual by the mountain stream, somewhat. Cecil guessed that the Harpies couldn't afford to let him pick an inferior quality wife; they badly needed a population boost in the next few years for some reason and so selected for him a wife whom they most trusted to successfully bear the offspring of the next generation.
Thinking about how important Orange must be made him swell up with pride when realizing how important his own role would be to his new feathered family. These thoughts crossed his mind as he looked from harpy to harpy, at every young girl crowding the trees around him, displaying themselves and whistling, hoping to be picked. Second wife, and thus second best, Cecil thought with pity; it was not fair to force anyone to compare themselves with Orange, whom Cecil's entire mind and body were currently convinced was the most beautiful female-creature to have ever existed. He looked at the second place hopefuls, then again at the crowds of lesser-endowed harpies around him.
(Ah-hah!) By chance his eyes landed on a harpy that he was even more sexually attracted to, even if she wasn't as objectively beautiful as Orange Bushy-Eyebrows: the skinny little harpy with the lovable, childish face that reminded him of his niece, Isabelle. She sat small and alone on the bough upon which he had first seen her, not really trying to present herself like many of the others, not daring to hope that she could be picked. (This works!) One sexy, perfect wife to keep pregnant at all times, and one adorable, skinny-limbed, preteen-looking waif to keep him in a constant state of arousal.
Cecil pointed directly at Bushy-Eyebrows. She made a startled cluck and raised her expressive eyebrows in surprise, looking left, right, then left again, trying to figure out who Cecil was pointing at. Gray gave an impatient squawk, as if to demand the green-haired harpy get her skinny little tush down here to get married, right this instant. She fluttered down, excited, splashing messily and half-flapping her dark green wings in a harpy's version of gangly, adolescent, all-knees-and-elbows awkwardness. (So cute!)
Cecil couldn't help but smile as Bushy-Eyebrows went straight in to sniff his crotch, got nervous and faltered, and tried again, over and over. He finally helped her, putting his hand on her little green head and petting it, which seemed to reassure her and calm her down, quieting her nervous hoots and tweets. With the same hand, he encouraged her just as Orange had encouraged him, by gently pushing her face into his crotch. Cecil resisted the urge to push himself into the little girl's mouth, but the thought of doing so pushed away the cold and put him at full arousal; he ended up draping his member across the harpy child's innocent, upturned face, making her cross her eyes adorably to try to see it while giving an impressed "cooooo".
Good enough for her; she slowly backed away, still crouched, to free herself from the hand and genitals, then stood up abruptly and gave Gray the harpy nod of approval. Gray nodded back then a few moments later made an impatient gesture, indicating that Bushy-Eyebrows should hurry up and present herself to finish the ritual. The goofy green harpy raised her eyebrows high and chirupped as if to say, "Oh yeah, that's right!" then turned back to Cecil and did her best to imitate the severely back-arched posture that Orange had displayed earlier. It was the cutest thing Cecil had ever seen; while making Orange seem taller, sexier, and more voluptuous, all it accomplished in Bushy-Eyebrows's case was showing off just how skinny and child-like her body was. He smiled as he ran his hands over her lithe form, enjoying the feeling of her prominent collarbones, ribs, and hipbones. She closely watched his hands just as Orange did at first, then seemed to quickly get embarrassed and shy, blushing and looking away cutely.
Most of the harpies around Cecil had either a bit of a tan it or at least tones in their skin that complemented the coloration of their hair, feathers, and eyes. Orange herself was creamsickle pale, with just a bit of orange tones to her skin that would be unusual in a human. But Bushy-Eyebrows was as pale as virgin snow, as if she spent all her time lurking in the shade of the evergreen trees that she was camouflaged so well in. Cecil guessed that with her dark green and white coloration she would be all but invisible among the snow covered trees of winter. This had the effect of making her blush much more pronounced and quite visible on both her face and chest, which Cecil found irresistibly endearing.
He lovingly fondled her tiny tween breasts, and was surprised to find them full and firm; despite looking the same, these were not the still developing buds of a child, easily compressed flat under his groping fingers like those of his twelve year old niece, Isabelle. These were the fully ripe breasts of a small breed harpy. The would never get bigger and Bushy-Eyebrows would look like a skinny preteen with one foot in the door of puberty for her whole life. Cecil couldn't ask for more; he tweaked her nipples, which made the little girl tremble a little and blush even harder, still looking away in embarrassment, face fire engine red, then decided he was more than satisfied. He didn't have to check if things down-low worked; the trail of lubricant running down the inside of her thighs made it obvious. He turned to Grey and again tried to imitate the exaggerated harpy nod. This time she returned the nod, then squawked some rapid commands to the new wives. Before Cecil or the humans could change their mind, Orange and Bushy-Eyebrows took rapid flight, grabbed Cecil carefully around the upper arms, carrying him up and over the bluff towards his new forever-home.
Chapter 5 - Dinner With The In-Laws
At Grey's command, a squad of harpies emerged from the trees carrying swords, shields, axes, spears, bows, and various pieces of armor, the leather and cloth from which had been stripped, dumping them on the ground a few feet away from the humans gathered at the edge of the clearing.
"What's this?" whispered Glenda, Old Mack's third wife.
"That's right, this is the first time you've made this trip up the mountain, isn't it?" Old Mack answered patiently, "This is something like...Cecil's dowry? This is also the reason you don't trespass into harpy nesting territory."
"These came from people the harpies murdered?" Glenda asked, horrified.
"Well...yes. I can't speak for other harpies in the world, but I am certain that our harpies gave the travelers ample warning when they approached the nests, kicking up quite a racket before finally attacking. Even then, if the harpies recognized the armed and armored intruders as humans, they probably tried to physically shoo them away instead of hurting them, at first. Most likely, the humans attacked first, and had come to pick a fight to begin with."
"Why would they do such a stupid thing?" Glenda wondered out loud, brows furrowed in confusion.
"Because harpies usually aren't very much of a threat to a well-prepared band of monster hunting adventurers or mercenaries. For monsters, they're small and weak, usually living in packs of ten to twenty around a couple nests and with one or two captured husbands. The hunters crossed the border either to hunt monsters in general or harpies in specific; harpy eggs are extremely valuable, the unfertilized eggs are sold as a delicacy and the fledgings from eggs that hatch are sold as pets and slaves, mostly to exotic brothels."
"Oh," Glenda remarked, thoughtful, "I guess those people put themselves in harm's way, then. Can't blame the harpies for protecting their babies from such a fate."
"Certainly not," Old Mark agreed. "But why would professional monster hunters lose, if they came so prepared?" Glenda wondered.
"Great question. It's not their fault, really," Old Mark explained, "They expected at most twenty harpies, most of which would be out hunting while the men raided the nests and then quickly retreated, getting away mostly unscathed with their loot and a rescued harpy husband or two. That's the normal outcome. They could not have anticipated the swarm of two hundred, possibly two thousand organized harpies that descended upon the threat to protect their husbands and young. It would take an army to even try to force their way through these mountains...and it would fail."
Old Mack smiled with pride at the last bit, as he and the women of the village started packing up the valuable metal to bring back down the mountain. It would be a burdensome journey for middle aged women, but the bearers were hardy Borderians and would, besides, be entitled to a generous portion of the retrieved wealth; especially Cecil's family. Cecil's mother snatched what was obviously the nicest sword, its hilt still bearing a few jewels that the harpies either couldn't or didn't care to pry out, and the rest of the group accepted this with no reaction. There was plenty enough for everyone.
"Big haul," Old Mack commented. "We have to take all of it, even the junk, so we don't hurt the harpies' feelings," he instructed for the benefit of the first timers, "But if it's too much, we can drop off some a little ways down the mountain and come back for it later."
The harpies had added hunting trophies, the corpses of animals and monsters, several of which were plenty fresh enough to butcher and feed the townspeople thanks to the preserving cold of the mountain region. Finally, some of the smaller, cuter harpies toddled out, each with a rainbow-colored, spiky fruit carried in their mouth, shyly laying them in a neat line at Old Mack's feet.
"Starfruit from deep in monster territory!" Glenda exclaimed.
"Don't touch them!" Old Mack quickly warned. "These aren't payment for Cecil," he explained, "each fruit we take is promising a husband to the harpies. They're telling us they need fifteen husbands, right away. It's completely unreasonable and we shouldn't accept it." He made eye contact with Grey, giving her a cautious, questioning look. She immediately started strutting over in his direction.
"Looks like we're going to talk about it," Old Mack explained, "Glenda, this harpy is probably going to touch me inappropriately. There's nothing I can really do about it please forgive me."
"It's your job and it's for the sake of Borderia," Glenda said reasonably, taking his hand and squeezing it reassuringly, "it doesn't count, of course." Sure enough, the harpy elder marched right up into Old Mack's personal space without hesitation.
"Gray, this is my new wife, Glenda. You haven't had the opportunity to- MMMMFFFF!" He was interrupted when Grey wrapped her long wings around him and her both, went up on her harpy toes, and stuck her Iong tongue into Old Mack's mouth. Glenda patted his hand comfortingly and released it, and he hugged the harpy back as they kissed, gently rubbing her back. Both man and monster were flushed and catching their breath when they finally broke apart.
"Jeez, Gray!" Old Mack exclaimed, coughing into his hand and supremely embarrassed, "I'm happy to see you too, but this is highly inappropriate! I must be three times your age!" Grey's only response was to stare at him with sparkly, adoring eyes. The sight of an old man, even if one unusually athletic for his age, passionately making out with what appeared to be a seventeen year old girl made the onlookers uncomfortable.
Despite herself, Glenda got jealous and demanded, "How do you know this harpy's age, Mack?"
Gray stroked Old Mack's face lovingly with her wing while he answered Glenda, "You were just a young child during the last harpy occupation of Borderia, weren't you, Glenda?"
Somewhat chastised, she answered, "Everyone now alive was. No one in Borderia is as old as you, Mack, or knows the harpies as well."
"You might not remember it too well, but when the Harpies move in, it's chaos. An immoral disaster. They sniffed all of the males out of hiding, whether old men or little boys, dragged them right out of their houses and mated with them in the street. It was a mess."
"That's awful!" Glenda said, gasping in horror, "Could we not fight back and at least protect the children from these monsters?"
"Monsters they certainly are, but no, we chose not to," Old Mack explained, "We owed the harpies too much. We're not proud of what we had to do to survive in those times." Some of the older women present still remembered the brothers and fathers who had been victims during that time and looked down in shame. "But anyway, it may be hard to believe, but the Harpies didn't really mean any harm by it. It's just their instinct to survive. And if they didn't come and stay with us for a while, we would have been occupied by the invading forces of the neighboring kingdom of Lusk, instead. Then it would have been the women and girls of Borderia that suffered instead of the men and boys. The Lusken mercenary army would not have been nearly as gentle with our children as the harpies." The women nodded in silent, solemn agreement. It was well-known that it was the innocent women and girls that suffered the most during times of war. In all likelihood, there wouldn't have been a Borderia once the invading forces were done plundering it.
Sounding more subdued, Glenda still pressed, "But how do you know this harpy, Mack?" While Glenda and Old Mack conversed, Gray was lost in concentration, drawing something in the sand surrounding the shallow pool with her talons, as well as taking the variety of colorful feathers not her own from their place tucked in the inside of her wings. She would grab a feather with her mouth, as if pruning, pass it to a four taloned foot, then place it on the ground in a specific spot.
Voice heavy with shame, Old Mack confessed, "As my wife, you deserve to know, Glenda. I am this harpy's father...and grandfather. " Glenda and several of the others gasped and backed away in shock.
"You committed incest? No!" Glenda exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hands, stricken.
"No..." Old Mack disagreed, "I had incest committed on me. We do not blame young Isabelle for Cecil's actions, do we? Although we would not tolerate any offspring of that unholy union to live." He looked fondly at Grey, who had retrieved variously shaped fangs from another harpy helper and was positioning them on the sand next to the feathers and the lines she had drawn. "I am not proud of my sins," Old Mark admitted, "But what was done was the right thing for Borderia. Monsters are born of incest and further incest makes them stronger and smarter, instead of sicker and weaker like humans. Monsters may mature extremely quickly, but do not live as long as humans; on top of that, God does not tolerate male monster children to live, thus forcing half of all monster young to be stillborn. Monsters must reproduce constantly in order to survive competition with nature's animals who do not have such limitations. I may very well be this harpy's great-grandfather as well; her grandparent mated with both my father and I during The Occupation. My father had formerly mated with that harpy's ancestors, as did his father with hers, and so on. This deeply incestuous bloodline gives the harpies a sort of super intelligent leader, which is both important to their survival in such large numbers and key to how we can so successfully coexist with them. I understand if you are disgusted with me and refuse to touch me after this, Glenda. But this is what it means to live in Borderia, under the protection of the harpies."
Old Mack watched the harpy elder put the finishing touches on her presentation in the sand and explained, "Grey is about to recite for us the history of her people, letting us know what has happened in the past year since we've last spoken. That is one of her jobs as harpy elder, to act as historian for her people. No doubt this will lead up to an explanation for why the harpies are demanding so many husbands, as well as a request for me to once again mate with her and her daughters. Although it is past time now for that responsibility to be passed on to my sons and grandsons."
*Cluck-tweet-hoot-whistle* After making sure he was paying attention, Grey began making the various bird noises and gesturing in the exaggerated body language that constituted the language of the harpies, telling her people's story as Old Mack did his best to translate for the others.
"Ah, for some reason she is starting the history from when the Luskens last invaded the kingdom half a century ago. Those symbols mean that there were about three thousand harpies of her tribe living nearby in the mountains at the time." The onlookers ooh'd and ahh'd; most monsters existed in small packs of five to twenty sisters, and harpies were no exception. But due to the ancient, symbiotic relationship with Borderia, this tribe had matured and reached unprecedented and unbelievable heights of prosperity and numbers, roughly equaling the population of prosperous Borderia, itself.
"This is the Great Sacrifice," Old Mark went on to explain, "and why we owe the harpies so much. The mercenary army of Lusk that had invaded our kingdom eventually made their way to our relatively large and wealthy frontier town, looking for easy plunder. We didn't believe this was our fight; frontier towns neither pay much taxes to the king nor expect much in the way of royal protection in return. We didn't really care where the taxes we did pay went and might not have even noticed a regime change. We did not try to resist the Lusken army and welcomed a mercenary brigade into our town without putting up what would we foresaw as a tragic, pointless resistance. We had hoped that they would simply rest in our town, appropriate some of our goods and food stores to fund their army, then head back towards more politically vital targets. Instead, the Lusken army didn't hesitate to begin raping, pillaging, and destroying. Nor did the entire population of the harpies of the Edge of the World hesitate to descend en masse and drive them right back out of our town before the end of the very same day. But harpies are smaller and weaker than well-equipped veteran mercenary warriors, and the cost was high."
Old Mack took a moment to catch his breath but Gray was only getting warmed up and continued chirping along animatedly, moving around feathers and rocks that represented numbers of harpies and Lusken soldiers. "The Luskens at first retreated from the completely unexpected attack, regrouping outside our village and calling reinforcements. It was then that the harpy suicide squads began." With reverence, Grey begun lining up the many feathers that represented the suicide squads. "Every day, for weeks and weeks, exactly one hundred harpies would plunge silently from the noonday sun at a random grouping of Lusken soldiers, cause as much damage as possible, then drag away anything they could, equipment, soldiers, even horses, screaming into the sky. The Lusken army prepared for this daily attack as best as they could, and often less than half of each suicide squad returned alive each day. These were minor losses that the army could withstand, for a while. But it must have been terrifying waiting every day for the next attack, not knowing if you or the person next to you would be the next to be suddenly snatched into the sky before you could react. The rest of the harpies cohabited with the humans of Borderia, keeping watch in every direction at once. When enemy scouts were found or a brigade was discovered trying to flank the town, the harpies attacked all at once, routing the enemy with superior numbers and perfect mobility."
The story continued. The rocks continued to move back, further and further away from what the harpies had clearly demonstrated was their territory. The rocks occasionally gained or lessened in number, but the feathers representing harpies steadily decreased. "It was Borderia's job to feed the harpies that had been taken from their hunting grounds and drafted to defend us. We also treated the harpy wounded as best as we could but harpies are fragile creatures, and the injured rarely survived to fight again. In the end..."
Old Mack watched sadly as the mock combat came to an end and the rocks retreated, "There were less than 500 Harpies left of the original 3000. About half of those were injured survivors, unable to hunt and provide for themselves. Those that were still whole couldn't begin to support all the noncombatants, the husbands, fledglings, old, and injured. The harpies then began to suffer our tragic, pointless losses for us, as they starved in their nests at home."
More feathers were moved into town, "We supported the population of harpies as best as we could, and they moved their husbands and young into town. Many exiled men were reunited with their families and we learned a lot about our mysterious, monstrous neighbors. Most of the husbands defected and rejoined the town; hearing about their living conditions in the now impoverished and unprotected tribe of harpies, starving and being preyed upon relentlessly by lamia, we couldn't bring ourselves to reject them. Besides, their crimes had already been forgiven. But this was very upsetting to the harpies...and their population continued to dwindle. Many of the injured lost the will to live after losing their fathers and husbands to the town. They were veteran soldiers who had been abandoned by the families they had loved, the very men they had fought and sacrificed so much for."
The tone of Grey's chirps and tweets changed during the next part of the story, and the elder harpy became expressionless. Old Mack continued to translate, "When the Harpy adult population dipped under 300, less than a tenth of where it started, they panicked. Their monstrous, animalistic instincts took over and they took the actions they needed to survive as a people. That was when Borderia paid the true price for harpy protection; that was when the rapes began."
The harpy population in Borderia, represented by their colorful feathers, doubled, then doubled again, feathers of new colors replacing those that had been lost to drive off the Luskens. The audience was deathly quiet during this part of the story out of respect for those who had lost fathers and brothers to the chaos.
"We could have easily risen up and wiped out the demoralized and weakened harpies using the very weapons and armor they had stolen from the Luskens and given to us to help arm and protect our people. But...we chose not to. We didn't act to protect ourselves from the Luskens; what right did we have to raise our hands against our noble saviors? We had chosen the harpies over God as a people and we knew that this was the price for our sins. Nor could we bring ourselves to harm the innocent and precious little fledglings that were the daughters, sisters, and cousins of us all. We were in too deep."
Gray finally began to move feathers out of town and back into the part drawn into the sand that represented the mountains. "We began to finally kick them out when their population stabilized around 1500 and they were once again able to hunt and feed their people on their own. At this point there was not a living male Borderian, of nine years of age or older, that had not been forced to mate with the harpies. Each and every one of the 1500 harpies in town refused to leave until they were pregnant with a fertilized egg. But now, thanks to our support, they were poised to bounce back and take control of the mountain range once again. Orcs, Lamia, Dire Wolves and other dangerous monsters and animals had moved in during the harpies' absence, but it was only a matter of time before our feathered family, with the continued support of donated food and husbands from us, were able to out-reproduce their competitor species and re-assert dominance over the Edge of the World. Thus ends the harpy occupation of Borderia that took place more than half a century ago."
Over the next 50 years, as represented by Gray's lines in the sand, various clashes with the local flora and fauna occurred as the harpy population increased and matured to a level that was able to comfortably dominate the nearby mountain range. Feathers were moved around by Gray's talons, along with claws and fangs that represented the various monsters and animals that the harpies constantly protected the town of Borderia from.
"That many dire wolves?!" gasped Glenda, "Can you imagine what that would have done to our town during that harsh winter?" The other townspeople nodded, easily imagining it. The town would have suffered the tragedies common to any frontier town, at least those that did live under the protection of a tribe of loyal monsters. The numbers in the sand explained everything clearly; uncountable Borderians were saved from monster attack over the years by the steady and reliable sacrifice of their harpy guardians.
"But why must so many of our harpy sisters die every time?!" Glenda moaned, now mourning for the monstrous peoples that prior till now she did not appreciate nor respect.
"Because harpies are small and fragile, at least compared to other monsters. They rely on suicidal devotion towards protecting their families to win. To these harpies, all of Borderia's peoples are their family. There was no calculation or ulterior motive on their end when they attacked the vastly more powerful Lusken forces. They just wanted to protect us." He interrupted Grey's storytelling to softly pet her head and face. She nuzzled his hand, lovingly.
"God might hate the harpies, but Borderia doesn't. I don't. My sons, my grandsons, and myself will be ready to mate with you and your offspring, Gray, when you deem it time and next visit my household." The elder harpy stared deeply into his eyes and nodded, as if understanding his every word. She then went back to her storytelling, finally having caught up to recent events. Every feather now represented a dear sister or daughter that had fallen in the last year; indeed it was their feathers that Gray had held onto to remember them by and were being used to tell their own story. Life and death struggles were recounted with dramatic, emotional chirping, as squads of harpies gave their lives to push back threat after threat. 20 harpies slain, routing an infestation of nasty, egg-stealing goblins. 40 in order to convince a powerful tribe of orcs to occupy a different mountain range. One brave harpy lost in an honor duel with the centaurs in order to convince them to do the same. Four to ten harpies lost for every mighty dire bear brought down. 10 fledglings sacrificed to appease the mysterious and invincible dulhallen, the headless harbingers of death.
"That otherwise would have been 10 of our children, of course," Old Mack explained. Everyone nodded; it was well known how the dreadful dulhallen reproduced.
Chapter 6 - Wedding Crashers
Suddenly, there was a commotion from a nearby edge of the clearing. There was a girlish shriek of alarm and two boys stumbled out of hiding from behind the trunk of a large tree, having been discovered and flushed out by a pair of small, camouflage-colored harpy scouts.
"Get away, get away!" the younger of the two boys cried out pitifully as he was surrounded by colorful harpies that would take turns sneaking close to sniff at his behind. He was Shota, a pretty, effeminate boy of nine with a mop of long, rare blond hair that caused him to frequently be mistaken for a young girl. The other boy was Colin, his older brother, fifteen but already tall and broad shouldered, physically fit and strong from his apprenticeship with Borderia's blacksmiths. Colin held perfectly still, eyes wide and terrified, as the harpies surrounding him gently booped their noses all over his body. He was already tenting his pants from proximity with what appeared to be beautiful, naked young girls around his age and younger.
"It's Colin and Shota! They must have snuck up the mountain behind us!" someone cried out in panic. Sensing impending catastrophe, a couple of the more brave townspeople tried to gently push their way between the the harpies and the frightened boys, but were firmly held back by the outspread wings of a few of the larger, stronger warrior harpies.
Grey hooted and chirped some quick queries. Males? Young Males? Ripe?
Old Mack quickly objected, "Wait, wait! Grey, this is a mistak-"
"It's Colin's fault!" Shota whined, "He wanted to see the stupid naked harpy girls! I didn't want to- OW!" The younger boy was scratched as the harpies started tearing away his clothes. He fought and wrestled with the harpies, some of them not much bigger or stronger than he himself, taking many bloody scratches as he lost the fight and had his clothes ripped off, torn strip by torn strip.
Colin on the other hand was meek and cooperative, cheeks blushing furiously as he removed his clothes at the polite request of the beautiful young harpy girls surrounding him and pressing their soft bodies against him, pleading with him with gentle coos and their large, beautiful eyes.
"Don't fight them Shota...they won't hurt you if you don't fight back," Colin called out, trying to sound brave for the benefit of his little brother.
"No! I don't want stupid gross girls to see me naked!" Shota whined pitifully, still struggling. The brothers had snuck up the mountain to see the harpy marriage ritual and had been sniffed out by the harpy's scouts. They now stood naked, cold, scared, the little one scratched up and bloody, as the harpies sniffed and licked their crotches, trying to get a reaction.
"Grey, please!" Old Mack begged desperately, memories of what had happened to boys their age during the last harpy occupation clear in his mind. "They're just children!"
All of my warriors and hunters are children Grey countered in the hoots, clucks, tweets and chirps of the harpy language, looking at Old Mack dead in the eye and trying to get him to understand. She then continued to finish telling her tribe's recent history, ignoring the commotion. When Old Mack looked away, she batted him with a wing to regain his attention and make him watch.
"Um...I see..." Old Mack translated, flustered, "the harpies have been watching Lusk with long ranged scouts all these years. The Luskens are militarizing again, probably preparing to invade our kingdom once again in the next few years.
Understand? Grey demanded. So this was why the harpies had gathered fifteen rare and precious starfruit and offered them to Borderia.
"The harpies plan on increasing reproduction and having a force twice as large ready for the next time the Luskens trespass on their...our territory. If there's enough harpy survivors, they won't have to occupy Borderia again to recover. Ah...that way, we wouldn't have to endure that dark time, again." His face and tone gentled as he realized the necessity of what was about to happen, for the sake of the greater good. He gently stroked Grey's beautiful, freckled, but forever-young face with both hands, saying, "All harpies are children, aren't they, Grey? I understand. Do what you need to do to protect your family. To protect us."
And so Borderia would accept all of the starfruit, would find a way to make things work and do their part. Gray understood; she licked and nuzzled his hand appreciatively, then began to gather up the feathers of her fallen kin, replacing them in their place of honor under her wings. Her mission was complete, her story was told, and the request of the harpies was made clear. The harpy tribe needed fifteen more husbands, immediately, in order to produce enough soldiers to properly protect Borderia in the coming years. The two boys were already here; if they were fit to serve, then they must. There was no time to waste, no rational, survival-based reason to hesitate.
"Stay calm, boys," Old Mack called out, no longer panicking. "They're checking if you're old enough to breed. Try not to react. Think of cold baths and old, naked men."
"I don't understand! Stoooop!" Shota cried out, as the harpies held him still and gently licked him between the legs. It seemed that he was actually too young to need to worry, however. Colin was a different story; he was in his prime, hormones raging. The harpies were the most beautiful girls he had ever seen, and the first he had seen naked. He didn't stand a chance. In moments, he had ejaculated all over the faces of the young girls who were squatting in front of him and pleasuring him with their long, birdlike tongues. The harpy girls were overjoyed, chirping and licking each other's faces clean in celebration, then surrounded Colin and wrapped him in their huge wings in order to calm him and keep him warm. He quickly stopped shaking and visibly relaxed into the embrace, closing his eyes and sighing in happy surrender.
A small harpy child, appearing younger than even Shota himself, toddled over with the offering of a starfruit in her mouth. A pink haired harpy, one of more voluptuous and extra beautiful second-place harpies from Cecil's ceremony, took the starfruit from the harpy child and placed it between her breasts, which were currently pressed firmly against Colin's chest. As she gazed lovingly into his eyes, the message was clear "Take this fruit and you can have me along with it."
"Colin, boy," Old Mack said sternly, "If you accept the starfruit, you are a harpy's husband. You will be honored, but you will never come home."
"I know..." Colin said quietly, unable to look away from the spiky, rainbow colored fruit and the perfectly perky, pale, pink-tinted breasts that held it. Shota, on the other hand, wasn't reacting at all to the licks and touches of the pretty young girls, and it seemed like he might actually escape from the encounter with only a few bloody scratches.
"C-c-colin! You're naked!" he somehow just now noticed his brother's nudity, and finally, his body showed the reaction the harpies were looking for. They hooted in triumph, mistakenly giving themselves credit for stimulating the pretty little boy.
"No!" Colin objected, "Take me and leave Shota. I have sinned, and deserve this. It's not his fault, he's the younger brother." With that, to a chorus of Noo!'s from the watching townfolk, Colin pushed his face between the pink harpy's breasts and bit into the starfruit, accepting it. The overjoyed harpies immediately lifted him into the air.
Seeing this, Shota called out in despair, "No! That's wrong! I'm the one that snuck into my brother's bed and made him do it! I love him! Don't take him away from me!" As soon as the little harpy child toddled up with the star fruit offering, Shota snatched it, and was immediately carried off into the air in pursuit of his older brother. The young boys, with their long breeding lifespan in front of them, apparently counted as two husbands, each. The grateful harpies left only 11 star fruits on the ground as they joyously flew off to celebrate their new husbands.
~ Fin ~
...for now.
