Pairs of Pumpkins #02: A Seam-Straining Songstress

"What the fuck are you doing, stupid girl?!" a voice boomed through the crack between the lid and the floor. "Trying to break the whole damn elevator? You want us to be stuck up here forever so we can starve to death?"

Anya held still, her hands outstretched and open where she released the lever, her eyes wide, mouth hanging open and disheveled hair in her face. Only her eyes were active, which found the mortified, Madam Muskov leaning towards action. A slight rhythm returned in a bobbing of her head before she began to softly sing, quiet enough that Wilhelm, hanging below the treehouse in the winter wind, would not be able to hear.

"Don't look at me as if you think that I'd ever hurt my master!

I'm so happy to see him I just couldn't crank it any faster

But this rope is old and it has flaws

And careless me has such sharp claws..."

She unfolded herself upright and all was still for a long moment. Anya was the first to move, taking a steps back toward the spool before she whispered the conclusion of her stanza:

"...If this elevator failed, it'd be quite the disaster."

"Anya, what's the bloody hold up!?" Wilhelm barked over the sound of winter. Through the thick wood of the floor, he could hear her boots make the wood creak as she clopped in slow, deliberate steps, toward the spool.

"Odd thing, isn't it? To be powerless?" Anya mused loud enough now for Wilhelm to hear it. "To not have any control over what's about to happen in a few years, a few months... even the next few minutes?" She stopped at the span where the spool connected to the pulley above the elevator by the thick rope. She leaned in and wrapped her hands around it, brandishing her claw-tipped fingers.

"What are you babbling about, Anya?" Wilhelm had lowered his voice somewhat. There was a hint of alarm. "Stop messing around and pull me up!"

Anya tightened her grip and dug in her claws with her whole posture. Madam Muskov gasped aloud.

"I'm sorry Wilhelm this relationship isn't working for me

I don't have the instincts of a mother, wife or other slavery

I know you love my busting seams

But I'm a girl with hopes and dreams

And you're standing in the way of any of those possibilities."

"Why are you singing?!" The bear bellowed from below as the elevator car shook from him shifting inside it. "I didn't tell you to sing."

Anya laughed wickedly. "That should not be your biggest concern right now, Wilhelm!"

She wrenched her hands on the rope and dug in her claws. It reacted to the tiniest change in its strength with a creak in protest and the elevator car lurched.

"Anya, I'm three hundred feet over the ground!" Wilhelm protested, starting to realize his peril.

"Gravity has never been on your side Wilhelm but for your part, you've done little to resist it," Anya called back melodiously, sawing away at the rope, one hair width at a time. Madam Muskov's body tensed at the edge of action but her eyes kept finding those long, black claws of the thick and strong fox. "Tell us about how you went looking through orphanages for your future wife, Wilhelm. Tell us in a way that doesn't make you the villain here!" she shouted back.

"It was an arranged marriage, Anya! It's just how they work!"

"You arranged it by going to the orphanage and picking the baby girl with bear paws you knew would grow up to have huge breasts? Quite a story, Wilhelm. I'm not sure I believe you!"

"She's cutting the rope!" Madam Muskov found the courage to screamed out the obvious, earning a menacing smile from Anya.

"She's right, Wilhelm!" she confirmed boisterously before her song continued.

"For all the ways you've used me all these years you should already know

This situation's not good for me, I think I have to let you go

Your story it just doesn't add up

I get the sense that I've been setup

My fate waits outside this treehouse and your fate waits down below."

Anya shivered with a broad smile across her muzzle. "Music is so much fun, Madam Muskov! Thank you for encouraging this wonderful gift!"

"I've encouraged none of this madness!" the old mink shook her head frantically.

"That's it Anya, I'm coming up there myself!" the bear roared and the elevator shuddered, moving back up an inch. The car had it's own crank! She had never operated it but it was what he would use to bring them both up in her childhood, when she was still allowed to join him on the forest floor. In those days, Wilhelm had still been a musclebound, recently retired adventurer, likely capable of climbing the rope unaided but it had been nearly a decade since he'd used it.

Sapped for the moment of her courage, Anya shrunk back and froze, clutching her hand to her bosom. The elevator car moved again, a tiny lurch, followed by another but never enough to catch the next tooth of the ratchet. Her eyes darted to the mink, who crumpled in anticipation, watching the gears trying to make progress but they couldn't. The car didn't ascend any further and the fox let a long, slow breath escape and relaxed her posture.

"What's the matter, Wilhelm? Does the crank not work? Because I keep the maintenance schedule, just like you made me. Third day of every month, without fail! Inspect the gears, oil the spindles, sand down the spurs. Maybe all these years of me pampering you made you squishy and weak. Too soft to lift your own weight?"

He only grunted as he tried again but she was in no hurry now as she reached out then dragged a clawed finger over the now prominent fraying. He felt it.

"You're right, Anya! I've been lying to you!" He said gruffly, a crack in his voice. She lifted her finger from the rope, instead gripping it with her whole hand, letting it bear some of her weight. It creaking under tension in the silence that followed. "I can..."

"Sing it."

Wilhelm sighed loud enough to be heard over the howling wind that snuck between the gaps of the elevator car and the floor. "I...purch..."

"I SAID SING IT!!!"

The bear fumed in stillness for some time but with an evenness of speech and cadence, he began, flatly:

"I purchased you from a wizard. He wasn't a lizard."

"Don't waste my time with your half-assed attempts. You're singing for your life, Wilhelm. Make it good."

He cleared his throat audibly and a long moment of silence followed. Anya and Madam Muskov exchanged curious looks, neither sure what would happen next. And then, for the first time they had ever heard, the big bear sang.

"I was a good axe-for-hire but I was sad and all alone

I never found myself a love in life I could call my own

And as time passed, the years went on

I found that my heart and spirit longed

To have a wife and children and a place that was our home."

Anya straightened out and let go the rope, looking to Madam Muskov who was every bit as surprised. The giant brute of a bear was built to bellow and it turned out he could do so with incredible control of his volume, timbre and tone. Most unexpected though was that the big brute's voice was a delicate tenor, sounding like a much younger, much slighter man or even a boy. He continued:

"I spent the whole fortune of a decade of adventuring

On a made-to-order guarantee of most superb offspring

A designer wife to love

To be a mother for my cubs

With an honor oath not to consummate before you were eighteen."

It was the first moment that the two women had shared in some time and it left the fur of their arms standing up. His voice cut through the wind and the woods, filling the house with warmth and calm. It was the antithesis of everything she had ever known Wilhelm to be.

Anya broke the silence. "You've been able to sing all this time yet never in my life have you done it. Why?"

The bear was silent for a long moment before answering her. "I only do it when I'm alone. My voice... the other adventurers used to say it was a girl's voice. I was supposed to be this tough guy but people would make fun of me so I stopped."

"And.. you spent your whole fortune on a... designer wife? What does that make me? Am I real?" She stepped back, her entire posture softening. She looked down at herself, then back to the mirror. "Am I some kind of flesh golem? An automaton? Am I actually alive?" She dropped her arms and turned her attention back to the elevator car. "If you had me made, why didn't you make me an adult already?"

Wilhelm gave a small laugh from down below. "Don't be silly, Anya. You're very much real. Flesh and blood. Good blood. I purchased you from a wizard who specialized in life energy. You weren't born of conventional means but you're made from conventional materials. With some alterations, anyway. Biologically, you have a mother, who was a fox and a two fathers, one a fox and one a bear. Which as you know, usually isn't possible but with magic..."

"You made me this way? To be some kind of unnatural half-breed? Why not a proper bear if you wanted children so bad?"

"Quarter breed," he corrected. "There was no bear that would grow up to be you. The wizard wasn't selling just any children but a remarkable, royal, vulpine bloodline that would guarantee brains and beauty. By magically combining it with a father of a different species, he made you capable of carrying my young." He was quiet for a long moment then said again: "Can you please pull me back up now?"

Anya's expression soured as he spoke but Madam Muskov's momentary reprieve had ended with Wilhelm's confession. She now sat in stunned disbelief.

"It all makes sense now, Wilhelm and I must admit my heart has stirred

But then again that's the most selfish bullshit that I've ever heard

You pine about how lonely you were

I've spent my life locked in your tower

You talk about love regardless for what your partner preferred."

Wilhelm growled down below. "You're here for your own safety. The outside world is not kind to girls like you. Girls who look like you do."

"But you made me look like this!"

"No, I didn't! Your chest... comes from your mother's bloodline."

"You made me with a wizard but these are completely natural? And you knew her blood would make me like this?"

"It's... a desirable trait of a wife."

"This royal bloodline is responsible for these breasts?" Anya asked while Madam Muskov gasped and covered her heart.

"And so there are others out there like me, carrying around these ridiculous things?"

"I suppose so."

She clenched her fists, steadily boiling over. "Others. In the outside world. Not just surviving without your protection but ruling."

"Anya..."

She snapped back into her song with swelling fury.

"You've told me quite a revelation, my heart can find some sympathy

I've become an expert now on what it means to be lonely

But it makes me somewhat concerned

You believe love is bought not earned

And you've kept me here for seventeen years without my free agency.

"You act like custom ordering a bride's a normal thing to do

And I'm supposed to pity that, by the Gods what's wrong with you?!

You convinced me I'm a helpless teen

I might be a Duchess or Queen

It's not just to YOUR standards that I'm allowed to live up to!"

Wilhelm sang back, still trying to sooth the seething vixen.

"You're my perfect, little darling and you're only safe with me

The world out there is a dangerous place for pretty girls to be

You're skilled in so many ways

But useless with an axe or blade

To be able to fight, in this world is the only life that's free.

"You mean well but you know nothing of the world, my precious child

The place is full of brigands, bandits, and monsters, dangerous and wild

The foul world that lies down below

Would eagerly swallow you whole

You wouldn't last a day out there, you'd be corrupted and defiled."

"Royal blood, Wilhelm. You said I had royal blood! If there are Queens out there who look like me then I have no place being trapped in here by the likes of you."

Madam Muskov took a step back and the floorboard's creak announced it. Anya's ire whipped to her and beyond but there was no apparent weapon within reach. The mink was giving her space, her hands open and out, nonthreatening. Wilhelm sang again, with annoyance in his voice.

"Royals command armies with thousands of soldiers in their ranks

Royals buy their loyalty with fortunes stashed in guarded banks

The ruling class they wrote the deal

Blood's useless without gold and steel

They hide behind fortress walls for they know that power lies in strength.

"But you have no royal family and you have no title to transfer

You have but one single soldier for your safety to ensure

Freedom means having the skills

To buy and order, hunt or kill

Outside castle walls, your blood 's worth nothing more than tits and fur."

Anya was silent. She glanced over to the trembling Madam Muskov, who was against a wall and had slid down it, seated on her ankles. The old mink had never been a threat, with hardly spine enough to stand. The fox's attention returned to the elevator trap door before she reached out to grip the frayed rope once again. "Wilhelm, I think you are underestimating just how much power I have."

"You have nothing! You are nothing without me!" the bear howled. "I bought you! I raised you! I own you! You owe me EVERYTHING!"

Anya smiled again and lifted a single claw, running it over the rope.

"Your cynicism paints a world where might dictates the narration

You don't see the value of discourse or fair negotiation

Witness the fact you didn't try

To budge your stance or even lie

For me to concede and agree to complete your elevation.

"You could have offered to bring me out on your next endeavor

You could've said 'I'll let you go' then chain me up forever

I'm not difficult to appease

But to you I'm just property

And now you're at the end of a rope I'm about to sever."

On cue, it complied with her words, lurching as the load on each, single fiber increased, taught like a harp string.

"Fine, Anya! I'll take you with me next time. I'll let you out into the world!" The bear was desperate, feeling the movement of the elevator. The rope was half as thick around where it was frayed, threatening to snap at any moment.

"A little late for that, Wilhelm. You tipped your hand. This is the only way."

He growled and tried to pull himself up once again, shaking the car violently as he called up to her, shouting and snarling his words. Anya's index finger claw started sawing again.

"I can't believe your lack of gratitude! You owe me everything!"

"I owe you only for the inspiration of this song to sing!"

"You don't have the instinct to do this, you're not the type to kill!"

"I have no lust for blood like you but I lust for my free will!"

"But how will you defend yourself out there? With clever rhymes to sing?"

"I'll use my voice to form words because violence can't solve everything."

"You'll starve up here, Anya. How will you hunt? What will you eat?"

"I've got winter stores and I'm about to tenderize a half tonne of meat!"

Madam Muskov gasped at that suggestion. The trap door rattled from the thrashing of the heavy bear, trying and failing to pull himself up repeatedly.

"Stop it, Anya! You mad girl, stop! Stop singing! Stop making every word a rhyme!"

"You won't have to endure it for much longer, Wilhelm. This rope is now naught but twine!"

Winded and unsuccessful in his struggle to climb, The bear fell still in the elevator car beneath them. "I'm the only one who loves you, Anya! You can't do this to me!" His rage crumbled to desperate hysterics.

Anya stilled herself and took a loud, deep breath, staring at the frayed rope, then back to the trap door between her and her captor.

"Yes, I can." She hooked her claw around the fray and dragged it, severing another bundle of the braided rope: the last bunch that was keeping it's integrity.

The rope snapped like a foul pluck of the harp and the trap door dropped back into place, the elevator suddenly not there. It didn't seem to fall so much as disappear and to the sturdy treehouse, it made no difference to shed the weight of one bear and the car that carried him. Everything was just the same without him. Even the thick, winter air made little accommodations for his scream as he fell away. Seconds later, the impact of so much shattering wood and meat, sounded barely more than a dropped snowball from their elevation.

Madam Muskov stared at Anya, mortified, her ears curled back so far, they were trying to retreat into her skull. The teen herself was frozen, her own expression not dissimilar.

THUD.

Something was on the balcony.

THUD.

A second, lighter noise followed. The other foot?

Both women were still, statues exchanging wide-eyed disbelief before their eyes moved to the doors. Was it real? How could it be? Wilhelm had just fallen to his death. They had heard him scream as he fell. Hadn't they?

Boots fell and floorboards creaked again. Someone was definitely out there. Could Wilhelm have jumped free and climbed for his life? Even if he had the strength to do so, had he the time? The footsteps neared the door, uneven. Was he on all fours? Steps drew closer then stopped.

The doors jostled but were stuck. There was no need to lock them up here but the wood tended to warp in it's frame, as the doors were often not opened for months at a time.

Both Anya and the old mink snapped out of their daze but only the younger took action, running to the axe mounted on the wall. The stout vixen had her hands on it, starting to lift the massive weapon despite never having swung it in her life.

Behind her, the doors burst open with a violent shove and Anya whipped her attention back to them. It was not Wilhelm's massive silhouette that filled the wind-howling doorway. Instead it was two foxes, a woman and a teenage boy. They stepped over the threshold and into the house, hands open and unarmed.

The boy was near her age, a handsome young fox with white fur, a head shorter than the older woman and two shorter than Anya, wearing heavy, winter clothes. One of his gloved fingers was wrapped straight in a splint. He closed the double doors behind them, silencing the wind outside before stepping up beside the vixen.

She was ivory-furred, a paler but near-spitting image of Anya, shorter, leaner and more mature. Her furred-lined cloak hung open, revealing light armor covered in pouches and pockets but it was her gigantic, hard leather breastplate that demanded the most attention, high and round, very much enormous and held tightly in restraint of soft flesh. The piece had obviously seen combat and repair over the years.

The ivory vixen slowed to a stop, seemingly just as stunned to be looking at Anya, whose hands fell away from the axe. The teenage boy stepped up to stand halfway between the both of them and cleared his throat.

"Hi I'm Joseph, nice to meet you! I'm your younger brother

This fine lady here is Portia but you can call her your mother!"

Portia reached out to rest her hand on Joseph's shoulder. "I think the song is over, dear."

Anya walked closer carefully, reaching out a finger to close the distance between them until it mashed against her leather-armored bosom, it bending before the breastplate gave.