Journey to the North Ch. 02

Author's Note: This story/series is primarily focused on futanari and non-human content. Enjoy. (If you're into that kind of thing.)

Chapter 2: Preparations

I stumbled out of the woods sometime before dawn, naked and exhausted. At first, I had no idea where I was. Having broken free of the trees, I found myself on the edge of a darkened field. In the distance I could see a house dimly silhouetted against the paling sky. As I got closer, I recognized the thatched roof and crooked chimney of Orla's cottage. I almost sobbed with relief.

I ran to the house and began pounding on the door. "Orla!" I cried, "Orla! It's me!" The door swung open. Inside stood Orla, her eyes wide with surprise.

"My god, Brynn!" she said. "Where have you been? What happened to you?"

I must have been a frightful sight, standing there in the dark, naked, dirty, my body swaying as if I might collapse at any moment. Orla guided me to a chair by the hearth and sat me down. She wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, then she stoked up the embers in the hearth and laid a couple of fresh logs on top. When the logs had caught and the fire was blazing merrily, she put on a kettle for tea.

"Poor thing!" she said as she fussed over me. "Don't worry, dear, you're safe now. Here, let's have a look at you. Are you hurt?"

"No," I said.

"Can you tell me what happened?" she asked.

I stared into the fire, not knowing how to respond. What had happened? It was a question I was still trying to answer myself. The red-orange embers glowed and flickered in the hearth. I knew that Orla could not have failed to notice the lump of metamorphosed flesh that hung between my legs. The story of how it got there was simple enough: I had angered a spirit of the forest, and this was my punishment. What I was still trying to figure out was what that story meant--why did it happen the way it did, and, most unsettlingly, what role had I played in it?

"I don't know yet," I said finally.

"That's okay," she said. "Take your time." She handed me a cup of hot tea. "Here, drink this."

I sipped the tea and stared blankly into the fire, too tired even to think. When I was finished, Orla gently pulled me to my feet and guided me to the little room at the back of the cottage where my bed was (as her apprentice, I had been living at Orla's house for the past six years).

"Try to get some sleep," she said as she spread a blanket over me. "We'll talk in the morning."

I closed my eyes and drew the blankets around myself. Within moments I was fast asleep.

--

I slept all that day and into the next. It was my stomach that finally woke me up. I was ravenously hungry. Orla brought me a plate of oatcakes and jam, which I devoured almost instantly. When I was finished, Orla sent me outside to bathe.

Behind the cottage was a wooden wash basin. Orla had filled it with water and set a pail next to it. I stood in the basin and poured bucketfuls of water over myself, scrubbing myself with my hands to remove the layer of grime that clung to my body. As I washed myself, my spirits began to lift. It was as if, along with the bits of dirt and duff, I was washing away the events of the previous day -- all except for that one thing, the dryad's "gift," which no amount of water could wash away.

Back in the cottage, Orla had set a simple linen dress and a comb by my bed. I put on the dress and brushed my hair. When I was finished, I ran my hands over the dress, smoothing the fabric against my body. It was as though a piece of civilization had been returned to me. I was no longer some rough animal rutting in the woods. For the first time in days, I felt like a human being.

"Now," said Orla, "do you think you can tell me what happened?"

I told her about my encounter with the dryad and the curse she had placed on me. I was deliberately vague about some of the details, preferring to let Orla make her own assumptions about my role in the affair, which were probably more sympathetic than they might otherwise have been. (Besides, a blow-by-blow account of my debasement would have been unnecessarily gratuitous.)

As I finished my story, I fixed Orla with an imploring look and said, "You can fix this, can't you? You can make a potion that will turn me back to normal. Right?"

Orla looked down at the table and sighed. She was silent for a long time. When she spoke, it was to the wooden mug cupped in her hands, as if she couldn't bear to see the effect her words would have on me.

"No, Brynn, I'm afraid it's beyond my power. A dryad's curse is a powerful sort of magic. I'm just an old woman who knows her plants. My potions can heal many an ailment, but they cannot lift a curse. Only magic can do that."

"So I have to go to the capital," I said. "But how will I afford a healer? Lifting a curse can't be cheap."

"You would be wasting your money," said Orla. "There is no magician in the southern lands who can match the power of a dryad.

"The healers in the Capital can cure diseases -- some of them, anyway -- and close wounds; I have even heard tell of one who can regrow old men's hair, although there are those who say he is a fraud. But to reshape a human body is beyond the power of even the Capital's greatest sorcerers."

"Orla, what are you saying?"

"Perhaps the Ministry of Historical Preservation has an artifact somewhere in their vaults that could undo the curse," she said abstractedly, as if voicing a thought that had just come to her. "But the Divine House guards its treasures jealously. The fate of an apprentice herbalist from the provinces is of no concern to the Emperor."

"You mean I'm stuck like this?" I cried. This whole time I had assumed that undoing the dryad's curse would be, if not simple, then at least doable. Upsetting though my transformation may have been, I had been comforted by the knowledge that it was a temporary condition. Now, for the first time, I felt the true weight of my predicament.

"There must be something we can do," I said, a frantic edge creeping into my voice. "I can't have this... this... thing on my body. What will become of me? If anyone finds out, they'll think I'm some kind of freak! Or worse, they'll pity me. 'Oh, poor Brynn, she was a lovely girl once you know. Such a shame. It must be so hard on her parents.' Feh!" and I spat on the floor to punctuate my disgust.

"Sorry," I said, embarrassed by my outburst. Orla waved her hand dismissively.

"It's nothing. You've reason enough to be upset," she said.

"So I'm doomed, is that it?"

"Not... necessarily."

"So there is a way to fix it?" I leaned eagerly across the rough-hewn wooden table. "What is it? Tell me, quick!"

"There may be a way," she said.

"Yes?" I prompted, scanning her face for any clue as to what she might be thinking.

Orla pursed her lips. "I need to make some inquiries first. I have a friend in Stonybrook who might know something. It's a day's journey there and back. Promise me you won't do anything until I return."

"What aren't you telling me, Orla?" I said.

"In due time, my child. Have patience. I will return tomorrow. Get some rest in the meantime."

"All right," I said. "Have you told my parents anything? Do they know? About..."

"No. I just said that I'd been keeping you busy with chores. You know what a harsh task mistress I am!" she said, her dark little eyes twinkling warmly.

"Thank you, Orla."

"Stay safe, my dear. Wait for my return. Then I'll explain everything."

Orla packed up her traveling kit and bid me goodbye as the afternoon sun began to set low in the sky. I watched as she crossed the footbridge that lead into the village, her staff tapping dully against the ground, and disappeared around a bend in the road. When she was out of sight, I went back inside and shut the door.

My plan was to hole up in the cottage until Orla returned. Although there was no danger of anyone finding out about my "condition," the thought of having to exchange pleasantries with my friends and family -- all the while pretending that I wasn't in the middle of a crisis -- was intolerable.

I went to my room and lay down on the bed. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the outline of my body, starting with my hands and feet, and then, from these cardinal points, following the lines of sensation that connected one part to the next. In this way, I hoped to reacquaint myself with a body that I had lately ceased to recognize as wholly my own.

As I lay there -- a silhouette suspended in darkness -- images rose unbidden before my eyes. I saw the dryad, her black hair matted with sweat as drove her cock into me, her face illuminated with surreal blue light. The memory repulsed and fascinated me in equal measure. Eventually it faded, and as I sank further into my semi-trance, others came floating to the surface.

A fallen tree all covered in moss and ferns, in whose shadow I crouched, digging my fingers into the moist, loamy soil in search of hidden roots.

A hot summer's day, hiding in the brush along the riverbank as I watched a trio of young men from village swimming naked in the river.

Ehric, the milliner's son, leading me to a hidden spot in the unmown fields and returning to the village with grass stains on my dress.

And from my childhood, an indelible image: a fresco in the village temple depicting the rescue of Calla, daughter of King Gehrn, from the Wyrm of Kernstone.

For seven years, so the legends say, the Wyrm of Kernstone had terrorized King Gehrn's lands. Unable to defeat the Wyrm in battle, King Gehrn sought the advice of a seer. The seer told the king that the only way to kill the Wyrm was to make for it a sacrifice of the fairest maiden in the kingdom. After the beast had devoured the maiden, it would fall into a deep slumber, at which time the king and his knights would be able to strike it a mortal blow.

The king's advisors all agreed that Gehrn's daughter, Calla, was the fairest maiden in the kingdom. And so, with a heavy heart, King Gehrn commanded that his daughter be lashed to a rock outside the Wyrm's lair. But before the Wyrm could devour Calla, she was saved by the hero Ordren, who slew the creature with his Twenty-Span Spear. Ordren married Calla and became King Gehrn's heir. The Princes of Ullsland all claimed to be descended from Ordren via one or another of his offspring, and the question of which family had the most direct connection to the heroic bloodline had been the pretext for centuries of dynastic struggle. Not even the Qarizmian invasion had been enough to make them set aside their ancient rivalries; unable to organize a coordinated resistance, they were ultimately overthrown by the armies of the Divine House, their squabbling kingdoms subsumed into the body of the Empire.

The fresco's artist had chosen not to depict Calla's rescue itself, but the moment just before Ordren's appearance. As the Wyrm bears down on her, you can see the terror in the young princess's eyes. Calla is shown wearing a diaphanous, nearly sheer gown, beneath which the lines of her slender legs and graceful body are clearly suggested as she struggles in vain against her bonds.

As a young girl, I remember being transfixed by this image, although I could never say what it was about it that so fascinated me, only that it exerted some powerful yet inchoate influence over my young imagination. I would study it intently whenever my family went to the temple to make an offering. Laying in bed at night, I would sometimes imagine myself in Calla's place, how she must have felt in that moment as her body strained against the unyielding ropes. In my fantasies, there was no Wyrm, only a nameless, unseen presence looming somewhere just out of sight, both ominous and exciting at the same time.

I opened my eyes. Yellow afternoon sunlight slanted in through the cottage windows. Something felt strange, I realized. There was an unfamiliar sensation in my groin, a stiffness that I'd never experienced before. I lifted my head and saw that the front of my dress was raised up into a little tent.

So that's what's happening, I thought. I let my head drop back onto the pillow. I had wanted to avoid thinking about my new appendage for as long as possible, but my body, it seemed, had a mind of its own. I lay still and waited for it to settle down. But no matter how studiously I ignored it, my erection refused to go away.

I reached down and pulled up my skirt. My cock sprang up. I stared at it accusingly. I hadn't really looked at it since that day in the woods. Now that I could see it more clearly, I noticed that it seemed a little on the small side. I wrapped my hand around it. The head barely stuck out above my encircling fist. Yes, it was definitely smaller any of the ones I'd seen before. For some reason, I was vaguely irritated by this discovery. Obviously, I didn't want to have a cock at all, but if I had to have one, why couldn't it be normal sized? True, a smaller cock would be easier to hide, but I couldn't help feeling that I had been given a dose of insult to go with my injury.

My mind drifted back to that night in the grove. Why had I submitted to her so easily? Maybe all those things I'd said to her -- that I was a slut, that I wanted to get fucked -- were secretly true. I shook my head dismissively. I couldn't allow myself to start thinking like that. But the thought lingered nonetheless.

As I pondered my situation, I absentmindedly tightened my grip on my cock. The sudden change in sensation brought me back to the present. Intrigued, I gave my cock an experimental squeeze, and was surprised to discover that the feeling was not totally dissimilar to touching my clit. Not as intense, perhaps, but by no means unpleasant. I rubbed my hand up and down the length of my cock. The head, which was pink and a little slick, was particularly sensitive.

The more I played with myself, the more aroused I became. With each stroke, I could feel my cock getting stiffer and stiffer; a bead of clear fluid appeared at the tip, as if the pressure in my shaft was causing it to leak. My pussy was getting wet, too. I put a finger in my mouth to moisten it, then slid it inside myself. My pussy swallowed it greedily.

The sensation was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. The more I played with my pussy, the harder my dick got. The harder my dick got, the faster I stroked it. The faster I stroked it, the wetter my pussy got -- and on and on in an endless, ever-intensifying cycle.

I need more.

My finger was nice, but I wanted something bigger, something that would really fill me up. I cast my eyes around the room and spotted a wooden mortar and pestle sitting on a shelf. I grabbed the pestle and examined it. It was about seven inches long, made of polished, fine-grained wood, and was shaped like a club. Perfect, I thought.

I found some oil jelly and smeared it on the pestle. A bit of gentle pressure was all it took to ease the thick, well-lubricated head into my eager passage. I pushed it in deeper. As my pussy stretched to accommodate the pestle's generous girth, I felt my cock twitch in anticipation.

I began to move the pestle in and out of my pussy. At the same time I was stroking myself, rubbing the heel of my palm against my tender cockhead. A steady stream of gasps and moans flowed from my lips. As my climax neared, I instinctively clamped my thighs around the hand holding the pestle, limiting its movement to short, churning thrusts. I could feel something building in the tip of my cock, a strange, burning sensation that was equal parts pleasure and anticipation. I quickened my pace. The feeling kept getting stronger and stronger, until suddenly it was too much; I cried out and squeezed my legs together, trapping my hand and the pestle in place. My cock spasmed, and a jet of semen splattered all over my belly. I lay on the bed for a long moment, my body quivering, unable to move. My cock twitched a couple more times, pumping out a few more squirts of cum, then was finally still.

Eventually, the tide began to ebb. I let out a deep breath and unclenched my body.

"Whew, that was more fun than I thought it would be," I said to myself. I was still slightly dazed, my body flush with afterglow.

As I watched my cock slowly shrink back to its regular size, I thought about what had just happened, and what it might mean for the future. I was sure that Orla would figure out a way to change me back, but I had to accept the possibility that it might not happen right away. Today's events hadn't made me any less determined to get rid of my cock, but they had made the prospect of living with it a bit more bearable, at least for a little while.

-

It was late the next evening when I looked out the cottage window to see Orla coming up the road, her bent figure silhouetted against the setting sun.

"Hello, Brynn," she said as she came in and hung up her cloak. "Come, sit down. We have a lot to talk about."

We sat at the wooden table by Orla's hearth.

"As I had thought," began Orla, "there is a way to get rid of your curse."

"Thank the gods," I said, and heaved a sigh of relief. Orla held up a cautioning hand.

"Before you get too excited," she said, "you should know that it requires a perilous journey, one you may not survive."

"A perilous journey?" I said. "What do you mean by that?"

"My friend in Stonybrook is a great scholar of magic," said Orla. "According to him, there is a place far to the north where the land meets the sea. There, on the bluffs above the sea, you will find a type of flower known as a suncup. First you must collect one of these flowers. Then, make your way down to the beach at low tide. Search until you find a tide pool so deep you can't see the bottom. Cast in the flower, and the nereid who inhabits the pool will grant you a blessing. As sister to the dryads, she has the power to undo what was done to you."

"To the north? Into the wild lands? There must be some other way!" I said.

Orla shook her head. "I'm afraid not."

I slumped in my chair. "But the wild lands are dangerous. They're full of monsters even more terrible than a dryad. I'm no warrior. I'd be devoured long before I reached the northern sea."

"Not necessarily," said Orla. From within her tunic she produced a small pouch fastened with a leather thong. She laid the pouch on the table, undid the thong, and pulled out a golden choker set with a single red stone.

"My friend is also a collector of magical artifacts. This choker was made long ago by a powerful enchanter. When worn, it grants the wearer protection against all manner of monsters. With it, you would be able to pass through the northern lands without fear of attack."

"Really?" I said. I turned the choker over in my hands. "How did your friend come to have it? Shouldn't it have been surrendered during the Great Relic Hunt?"

"The Divine House isn't all knowing," said Orla, "despite what they'd like us to believe. Besides, the purpose of the hunt was to seize artifacts that might benefit -- or threaten -- the Divine House. This one," she said, reaching across the table and tapping the choker as I held it in my hand, "does neither."

"How can that be?" I asked. "I can think of a many ways the Divine House could put something like this to use."

"Ah, there's the rub," said Orla sadly. "Whoever created this object was either very malicious or very perverse. Perhaps both. Using it exacts a high price from the wearer, which is why, even now, I'm reluctant to suggest using it."

She continued: "For one thing, it is cursed. Once put on, it can't be removed without the help of an enchanter. But that is a comparatively minor drawback, considering the nature of its 'protection.' You see, the choker does not simply ward off monsters. Instead, it tricks them by turning their hostility... into lust."