Cinder's Brazen Lactation

Chapter 1

"C'mon guys, I'll really owe you one," Zam pleaded, his hands splayed as he leaned on the table. He gave Cinder a beseeching look, doing his best puppy-dog impression.

Cinder leaned back in her chair, laced her fingers into the auburn mop of her hair, and made a show of considering his proposal.

"I don't know, man," she replied, "maybe you should write your junk off and call it a day. Stuff is just stuff."

Zam sat down heavily, elbows on the table. He ran his hands through his dreadlocks, then scrubbed them across his face.

"This particular stuff has a lot of sentimental value, Cin. I need it back."

Cinder raised an eyebrow. "Won't seeing her again be super awkward, though?"

"That's exactly why I need you there for moral support! Harper can be a little...," he groped around for the word before settling on, "intense. I need the two baddest girls I know to back me up."

He looked from Cinder over at Maeryll. The other elf was throwing darts at a board with uncanny, frightening precision, toss-thunk-bullseye after bullseye. It didn't even look like she was paying attention to the conversation, but Cinder had seen those pointy ears of hers twitching and knew she was gobbling up every word.

Cinder balanced the chair on two legs, her booted feet propped on the table amid the wreckage of their breakfast. At that moment the only other person in the Happye Bitche besides the three of them was the tavern's barkeep. Brov was busy doing that thing with a washcloth and empty glasses behind the bar that all tavern keepers Cinder had ever known did when they wanted to look busy but were actually eavesdropping on their customers. His pet dragonlizard yawned lazily on the countertop, then went back to sleep. Of the proprietor, Luna, there was no sign.

The Happye Bitche had that denuded, vaguely obscene look that all taverns got in the morning when the cold light of day stripped all of the beery mystery away and left behind only the stark reality of empty seats, drink-stained tabletops, and the vague stench of old alcohol. It was like seeing an actor without his stage make-up, or a dwarf without her beard. Nothing against the Happye Bitche, of course. Cinder loved the place, and Luna and Brov took great care of it. It was just a simple fact of life that bars were better at night.

Ah well. Zam was their friend, and he was in a bind. You didn't turn down a friend when he asked for help, no matter how awkward a quest to get his stuff back from his ex-girlfriend was most certainly going to be. Cinder shifted her gaze to look at Maeryll.

"I'm in," the pale elf said, not bothering to turn around. There was a thunk as another dart hit the bullseye.

"C'mon M," Cinder began, adjusting her tits in her top. She was fully prepared to sell the idea and not above using all of her charms to do so. "Zam's our friend, and he needs..." She paused. "Holdupaminute. Did you say that you're in?"

Maeryll turned around, one hand on the elegant dip of her waist while she set a dart to dancing through her slender fingers.

"That's what I said."

Zam blinked, the surprise Cinder felt written all over his face. "Really?"

"Oh yes," Maeryll replied. "This sounds like it's going to be very, very amusing."

"Ah!" Zam said, pounding the table with excitement and looking very relieved as he shot to his feet. "Thanks! I owe you big, girls."

Cinder took her feet off the table and let the chair land back on all fours. She cast a speculative look at her friend.

"How big are we talkin'?" she asked, shooting a sly look at his groin.

"Really, really big," Zam confirmed. "Some people might even say huge. Being the humble guy I am, I wouldn't go that far, but some would."

"Mmmm...," the redheaded elf put a finger on her lips and cocked her head to the side.

"Cinder," Maeryll began, a warning note in her voice.

"Aw c'mon! We've got time, don't we Zam? This Harper chick broke up with you already, so it's not like you're trying to make a good impression anymore."

"Actually, I broke up with her," Zam protested, but Cinder was already heading towards the stairs, pulling off her top as she went.

"Last one to the bed has to clean up after!" she called behind her. "Hey Brov, you aren't fooling anyone. Put that rag down and join us upstairs."

Chapter 2

The day was bright, the weather was hot, and Cinder's tits were sweating profusely. She untied the yellow neckerchief she wore around her throat and used it to dab her forehead. Little half-moons of perspiration darkened the blue-green fabric of her shirt under the elf's opulent bosom, but it still felt great to be outside and on the trail.

"Damn Zam," she exclaimed, stopping in the middle of the path, closing her eyes, and turning her face towards the sun, "this place is downright bucolic!"

"It sure is," Zam agreed, but when Cinder opened her eyes she caught him staring nervously into the treeline as if trolls might be hiding among the shadowed boles.

"Anxious?" Maeryll asked, her voice nearly a purr. "I thought you said the breakup was amicable."

"I did, and it was," Zam assured them, "Harper and I just want different things out of life, that's all."

Something rustled in the woods, and Zam flinched as a bluebird took wing. Cinder lifted an eyebrow at him, and he gave her a tepid smile.

"Uh-huh, sure."

After another quarter-hour of walking, they came to the cottage. The snug little house was nestled among a grove of old oaks. It sported a thatched roof of yellow straw and walls of whitewashed lime hemp, the edges rounded as if applied by an enthusiastic amateur. There was a little wooden fence out front, more to keep deer out of the carefully tended garden than anything else.

"I guess she's home," Cinder said, observing the woodsmoke which rose from a chimney of fitted stones.

"Yeah." Zam swallowed, took a fortifying breath, and stepped towards the gate.

Cinder and Maeryll exchanged a look but followed him down the path. As they pushed through the gate Cinder turned her attention to the garden, assessing the plants growing there with a ranger's expert eye. As pretty as it was, the garden was obviously for utility and not just show. The wood elf recognized several varieties of helpful flora thriving in the dark soil, including queenmoss, walloweed, and a trellis of bloodvine.

She also spotted a few more disturbing kinds of herbage. There was acidic hemlock and widowbasil, and tucked away in the corner...

"Sheesh, is that a mortododendron?" she said, squinting at the little shrub. They might look innocuous, but Cinder knew if you ground up the flowers into a pestle and added hot water, you'd end up with a potion that could knock an ogre on its ass--at least for a little while. A sudden, unpleasant thought occurred to the auburn-tressed elf.

"Hold up," she said, "is this a witch's cottage?"

Zam winced, his furtive gaze raking the darkened windows of the little building. "Ooph, I wouldn't let Harper hear you say that if I were you. She prefers the term, 'Servant of the Old Magic."

Cinder stared at her friend in disbelief for a moment. "Uh, ok, and I prefer the term, 'Cinder Von Awesometits.' A witch is still a witch, Zam!"

Maeryll stopped short of clapping her hands together in glee, but only just. "Oh, this'll be even more fun than I thought," she said.

"Who breaks up with a witch and then goes back after they escaped?" Cinder exclaimed. "Talk about tempting fate."

Zam looked exceedingly uncomfortable. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I told you, I left behind something really important."

The front door to the cottage opened with a bang--causing Zam to flinch yet again--and out stepped a woman Cinder had to assume was Harper. She had mousy brown hair that fell across her narrow shoulders in loose curls, and her half-moon glasses were perched atop the bridge of a nose spangled in a smattering of freckles. She turned her watery blue eyes to her visitors, and the bow of her mouth pressed into a hard, narrow line when she caught sight of Zam.

"Hi Harpie," Zam said weakly.

Harper let the moment draw out nice and long, waiting until the awkwardness approached excruciating levels before she finally deigned to reply.

"Hello, Zamuel." The witch's voice sounded like it would've frozen a fireball. "I assume you've come for your things."

"You got it," Zam replied. He tried to force a laugh to break the tension, but it was so jarringly brittle that a squirrel sitting in a nearby tree dropped its nut and fled down the branch.

"You'd better come inside, then," Harper said. She turned on her heel with a swish of her dark robes and disappeared back into the cottage.

The door gaped open expectantly. It reminded Cinder of an empty mouth.

"Hoo boy," Cinder sighed.

"After you, Zamuel," Maeryll gestured, her grin stretching from ear to pointed ear.

Chapter 3

The inside of the cottage was tidy and clean, and entirely lacking the skulls, bones or other witchy decoration Cinder expected. She spent a moment taking in the neatly organized bookshelves and small framed paintings of cats on the walls and reflected that maybe witchkind had just gotten a bad rap. There were no jars of pickled body parts or giant spiderwebs that she could see, at least.

They followed the witch through the mudroom and into the house's foyer. "I'm so glad you brought..." Harper appeared to cast about for the appropriate word, "friends."

The witch paused at the bottom of a staircase and turned, looking over the edge of her half-moon glasses at the elves and focusing on Cinder in particular. Zam's ex stared the red-headed woman up and down, starting with the elf's toes and ending with the tips of her pointy ears. When she had, at last, looked her fill, the woman's expression was set in such a way as to convey the abyssal depths of her disdain for the elf girl.

"Eesh," Cinder muttered under her breath. Harper finally stopped dragging her eyeballs all over her and turned her overbright gaze to Zam.

"Your things are here," Harper said to him in a voice that sounded like cracked glass, pointing at a small box at the bottom of the stairs.

"Thanks," Zam said, too-eagerly. He scooped up the box and immediately turned to leave. "It was great seeing you again Harpie, but we have to go. Wish we could stay, but you know how it is. Slutface needs help back at the store and I've got to pick up a new shipment of alembics coming from Midwood, and you know how those guys are about being late haha!"

Harper's eyes narrowed. "Zam, you and your companions have only just arrived, and it's a long walk back to Bad Grass. You must join me for a cup of tea before you leave."

Cinder wasn't really sure why the witch's lip had that nasty curl to it, but the elf was pretty sure it didn't mean anything good.

"Oh, nah that's ok," Zam said apologetically, clutching the box to his chest like it was some kind of shield, "we really should get going..."

Harper's hands balled into fists, and a sudden howling wind buffeted the cottage, shaking the windows in their frames. The witch took a deep breath and forced her hands to unclench, and the impromptu gale faded away.

"What odd weather we're having," Maeryll remarked glibly, staring at her fingernails.

"Maybe we could stay for a minute," Zam said, exhibiting a surprising degree of wisdom and self-preservation. "We wouldn't want to be rude, right Cin? M?"

"Dude, what have you gotten us into?" Cinder hissed as Harper led them all into the kitchen. Zam marched forward with stoic resignation, like a man walking to the gallows.

"Sorry, Cinder," he replied, "I'll make it up to you later. You too, Maeryll, I swear."

"We'll take a thirty-percent discount off anything in the store for the next month," Maeryll said.

Zam's eyes bulged, and he almost dropped his box. "Fifteen," he countered.

Maeryll gave him an unimpressed look. "Now it's thirty-five. Unless you want to drink your tea on your own?"

Zam's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Alright, alright."

Bundles of dried herbs hung from the bare rafters of the kitchen, and there was a pleasant smell about the room of tarragon and sweet decay. A high wooden table surrounded by four chairs took up most of the middle of the room, while cupboards and counters lined the walls. The pitted surface of the tabletop was covered by an impressive array of empty wine bottles, and unwashed dishes were piled in high stacks in the sink.

Ooph, Cinder thought, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the lovelorn--although still pretty scary--Harper. Poor chick.

Harper gestured towards the table and said in a viciously polite tone, "Please, make yourselves at home. I'll put on the kettle."

They all dropped into chairs at the table while the witch got some water boiling using hot pebbles from the fire. Zam perched on the edge of his chair as if he were poised to flee at any moment, still clutching the little box in his arms. Only Maeryll seemed at ease, reclining in her seat with her typical cool insouciance.

Cinder looked around the kitchen, keen on finding something to take her mind off the situation's viscerally palpable awkwardness. She spotted a cast-iron pot above the hearth, brimming with some kind of simmering brown liquid. Cinder figured it was a little too small to qualify as a full-blown cauldron, but then again, what the heck did she know about witches? Maybe some of them liked their cauldrons fun-sized, who was she to judge?

"So, what kind of potion is that you've got brewing?" she asked curiously.

Harper glanced over from the counter where she was making the tea.

"That. Is. Rabbit. Stew."

The witch bit off each word as if speaking to Cinder was an ordeal akin to chewing on boot leather, and her glare would've made a gorgon sweat.

Yikes. Cinder thought it had been a reasonable enough question, but whatever.

Harper brought the tea, placing a little cup and saucer in front of each of them, her hands shaking slightly. Cinder was trying to be polite about it, but the drink looked absolutely disgusting. It was thick and black like roof tar and smelled worse.

"Uh, yum," the elf said, picking up the cup. The oily liquid inside shivered viscously. "This is tea?"

"Yes," Harper dipped her head in a birdlike node. "Haven't you ever tried La Leche de Malo?"

That sounded a little ominous. Cinder's nose wrinkled as she stared down into the abyss inside of her cup.

"So Zam," Maeryll said, ignoring her own teacup, "what's in the box?"

A smile broke across Zam's face. "Oh this?" he shook the small container, "This is my lucky--"

"It's a sock," Harper said, her voice cracking out like a whip.

"Just one sock?" Maeryll's eyebrow arched.

Cinder chuckled. "Ha, gross dude."

"No, it's not like that," Zam protested. He reached inside the box and pulled out the sock in question. It looked thick and warm and was made of multicolored yarn that had faded somewhat over the years, patched in many places. "I've had this thing forever, since before I opened up my shop. It's been with me through thick and thin. Never let me down, this sock."

Cinder noticed Harper's left eye twitched slightly at that. The witch had her hands folded together, thumbs chasing each other in nervous circles.

"What exactly do you mean by that, Zamuel?" she said, her voice going high and brittle.

"Nothing?" Zam replied. He wore the look of a man who was about to get hit by an ox cart but didn't have time to get out of the way.

"Don't think I don't know what you're getting at, Zam!" Harper said, her voice ratcheting up high and higher with every word until she was practically shouting. "The stupid sock hasn't ever let you down, unlike some people in this room named Harper--is that what you're trying to say? Is it? It is, isn't it!"

"Nope, just talking about my sock--"

"And as if ditching me like a mismixed potion wasn't enough," Harper shrieked, spots of bright pink in her pale cheeks, "you bring this hussie and her garish implements of crass seduction into my home?"

Panting with rage, Harper flung one hand out and pointed directly at Cinder's chest.

"Whoa," Cinder said, "maybe I could give you crass, but garish?"

"I didn't realize I was so easily replaced, so deeply disposable!" screeched the witch, her glasses askew.

"You got it all wrong, Harper," Zam said, "I'm not with Cinder. She's just a bud!"

Maeryll laced her fingers under her chin and leaned forward. "Scandalous," she said, savoring the word as if it were a fine cut of meat.

Cinder scowled at her friend. "Hey, what about her?" she said, jerking her chin at the other elf.

"Pah," Harper said with a dismissive sneer, "Zam is obviously not her type."

Maeryll shrugged. "She has a point."

Harper started yelling again about 'tasteless chest hams' and Cinder picked up her teacup, willing to take just about any kind of distraction at this point, even the fetid-smelling Leche de Malo, whatever that was. She brought the rim to her lips and tilted the mug, sipping at the thick liquid.

"Cinder!" Maeryll said, sounding put out for the first time since they'd entered the witch's cottage. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

The wood elf looked down at the tea, then back up at Maeryll. "Oh right," she said belatedly, sticking out her pinky finger. "Better?"

"Unbelievable," Maeryll rubbed at her temples. "Did you just drink that?"

"...Yes?"

The snow elf sighed. "Cinder, it's clearly cursed." To demonstrate, Maeryll dipped one slender finger into the liquid. The surface of the tea bubbled as if brought to a boil and the black color fled from the elf's finger, rising in a little cloud of foul mist from the cup, leaving only a clear water-like liquid behind.

Maeryll looked at Harper, who was staring at the blue-eyed elf in shock.

"Anti-mage," Maeryll said by way of explanation, wagging her finger cheekily at the witch.

"Well," Harper said, recovering quickly from her surprise, "that was unexpected. But at least I got one!" She rose to her feet, cackling madly.

"Until the next full moon," she jeered at Cinder, "you and your tasteless bosom will be cursed! Cursed I say! Have fun with your dumb, hot, cursed new girlfriend, Zamuel!"

Zam looked uncomfortable. "I already told you, she's not my girlfriend."

"Did you say until the next full moon?" Cinder asked, setting down her teacup bemusedly.

"Yes!" crowed Harper victoriously. "You'll just have to endure it until then! La Leche de Malo affects everyone differently, but trust me, it'll be awful, or at the very least, annoying! Hahahha Ah Hahahha!"

Cinder shrugged. "Huh, well that's not so bad. The moon will be full tomorrow night, I think." She looked over at Maeryll, who nodded her confirmation.

Harper glanced at the dozen or so empty wine bottles on the table and deflated a little. "Oh. I guess I lost track of time. Well... still. You're fucking cursed, you chesty whore!"

With those parting words, Harper flipped Zam the bird, stuck her tongue out at Cinder, and blew Maeryll a kiss. The witch then clapped her hands three times. Suddenly, the entire cottage--kitchen, cauldron, and all--vanished, leaving the companions sitting on a trio of boulders in a grassy field, the sky blue and cloudless overhead.

"What in the shit," said Cinder, "just happened."

"Cinder," Maeryll asked, peering closely at her friend, "do you feel alright?"

The elf did a quick inventory of her body parts--no horns, tails, or otherwise unusual bits seemed to be growing out of her. She shrugged.