TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 15

"You... didn't... come," panted the harpy.

"Not yet, but I plan on changing that soon," he said with a smile.

"Wait... I want you... the other way. You just... can't come... in there."

"You're sure?" he asked. Kuto just nodded in response.

As he pulled out, he got a faint impression of why she wanted to do this. He sent along to the other girls that they might want to prepare themselves. Gerda sank into the stone where she and the mushroom girl were while Bea made for the doorway to her house, 'Dell and Perra just relaxed and got ready for another round. He also got the impression that the harpy wouldn't be upset if he couldn't contain himself and came inside her anyway.

As he pressed back into the bird-girl she moaned as a sense of fulfillment washed over her along with the certainty that if he came in her right now she was guaranteed to have a chick of her own.

Back at the farmhouse, Perra sat straight up in her bed, her hand frozen in place as she experienced the feelings coming from Kuto. She even let out a small grunt as Kal sheathed himself completely in the harpy. Aradelle, Bea, and Bas were pregnant or had children already by the time she formed a bond with Kal. The feelings from the bird-girl were completely foreign to a human where there was always a degree of chance or luck involved. She couldn't help but be a bit envious as 'Dell and Bea reveled in a sensation they were both familiar with.

Kal too was enjoying a familiar feeling though it took a moment to figure out why. Back when he had visited the salamander-girl, Silma, the first time they had sex she'd had a cervix like every other woman he had been with. The second time, however, that particular part of her anatomy seemed to be missing, much as it was with Kuto right now. Kal pushed the thoughts to the side for later, there was a harpy wiggling her backside against him trying to get him to move.

While the other times he had been with Kuto had felt normal, this second passage felt more muscular and seemed to be trying to milk him. Sooner than either one of them liked he warned her of his impending release. With a whimper, she pulled all the way off him only to slide back onto his cock a second later, this time the tip of his prick lightly brushed the entrance to the harpy's womb. Just before he came, he noticed the two spots where she was missing feathers and quickly switched his grip from the feathers on her neck to her hair, he didn't want to yank out any more as he started pulling her back into him. A few more grinding thrusts and Kuto climaxed once more as Kal began to fill her. The harpy's hips worked up and down, squeezing every last drop she could from the human as he drove his cock into her.

A little while later, once they both caught their breath and Kuto had diligently cleaned him with her tongue, she looked up at him and asked, "Really, Kal, why did you bother asking me if I loved you earlier?"

He raised an eyebrow, "Should I not have?"

Smiling, she shook her head, "Of course you should have. But after that, if I didn't love you before, I certainly do now.

Kal laughed, "Up for a little more? Maybe a bit less intense though."

Before Kuto could answer a thought came from Perra, 'Use Kuto's room at the boarding house, Talin is asleep.'

The harpy's eyes widened as this new aspect of her life finally sunk in. "I- I can talk to them, and even hear their thoughts," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Perra already told you about that," replied Kal, the memory was plain as day in her thoughts.

"I guess... I guess I didn't really understand what she meant until now." She looked up at him and he felt her thoughts fluttering across his. Smiling, he decided to give her something to see. Kuto let out a chirp of surprise at the vivid image and looked down at her mostly flat chest. Since he hadn't played with her nipples her breasts never grew to full size but her intense arousal earlier made two small bumps appear, begging to be touched. "I don't know if they are big enough to do that but I'm certainly willing to try," she said.

Kal sent her another image of her with her mouth open awaiting the inevitable end of the first one.

Kuto's face flushed, "We need to get to my room, now."

The mage just smiled and let the harpy lead the way.

---

"So... she needs a different name."

"Yes."

"She thinks that 'Macy' means me and doesn't understand it's supposed to be her name."

"Yes"

"Any ideas besides 'Mike'?"

Gerda pouted at the rejection of her suggestion. "Let her get a better understanding of the language and pick her own?" she offered.

Kal nodded. "I like that."

---

The mage walked into the clearing with a rope hammock over his shoulder and a tattered book under one arm. He tied the hammock between two trees and climbed in before opening the book he brought. The edges of the pages were yellowed with time and stained with the oils of his and his mother's hands. He couldn't recall how many times he'd read through the storybook as he grew up and he felt bad that he had hardly touched it since he met Ikuno.

Carefully flipping through the pages, he came to the beginning of one of the tales and began reading aloud. "Once upon a time a beautiful maiden was fetching water from the well. When she came to the well, there was a toad sitting upon the side. "Come, fair maiden," said the toad. "I am thirsty. Pull a bucket of water from the well and allow me to drink. When my thirst is sated I shall give you a gift..."

As he continued to read, Kal didn't see the leaves slowly turn toward him on the tree closest to the center of the clearing.

---

The mage received some good-natured ribbing from his realization that Ikuno had been right all along and that he had indeed fathered a child with the salamander-girl. He wished that he had time to go and visit but with the days ticking away until he left, that seemed unlikely. Plus, he didn't have the stone that Ikuno had used to summon Silma the first time, so contacting her was impossible other than through sheer luck.

It was decided that Kuto was going to take him back to Sera and Ria instead of Ruce, the falcon didn't want to leave Lada again since there was no huge hurry in returning. This led Kal to run a couple of quick tests, measuring how long it took the falcon to fly over one of his fields at top speed then comparing it to Kuto's cruising speed over the same distance. Perra brought Talin out to watch as well since his experiments were over one of the nearer tracts.

"Goodness," said Perra as Ruce streaked past nearly as fast as she could blink. "You traveled with her at that speed for nearly six hours?"

"Uh-huh," he said absentmindedly as he jotted down numbers on a piece of parchment. A few seconds later he watched intently as Kuto flew past, her pace seeming sluggish by comparison to the falcon.

"What are you doing?" Perra asked, peeking at the paper.

"Calculating the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. It looks like I'm going to have to leave early. Ruce made it back in hours, but Kuto by herself is going to take a couple of days traveling back to where I left Sera and Ria. If she's carrying me it'll take even longer.

"Besides," he grinned at her, "You are frustratingly good at managing things around here. I thought I would be taking things over while you recovered and took care of our little man. Instead, I've felt more like I'm in the way. Admittedly, sexing up all of the women around here has been enjoyable, but it wasn't what I came here for." He looked out across the fields and frowned, "You'd think I'd be used to no longer being needed on my own farm by now, but it still hurts a little."

"Are you considering staying?"

Kal shook his head, "Too many questions out there that don't have answers. I have a feeling I'm going to need Ikuno's help to take down the lich who attacked her." He held out his hands and Perra gently transferred Talin to his father's arms. Kal smiled softly down at the newborn. "And now I have one more reason to make sure those I care about are safe."

---

Goodbyes were never easy but this one seemed harder than before. Kal chided himself as soon as the thought crossed his mind. Of course this was harder for him. He was leaving Dax's pack, all of whom were more than halfway through their own pregnancies. He was leaving the mushroom girl, whose childlike innocence as she learned about this big, new world tugged at his heartstrings.

He was leaving all his women for a second time, except for Kuto, but she was only going to stay with him for a day or two before coming back to Perra. If Sera were not part of the picture then she might have traveled with him for a bit, significantly reducing how long it took him to get around, but she could only carry one person at a time. Aside from that, it was easy to tell that while the harpy said she loved him, something he didn't doubt for a second now that they were bonded, her connection with Perra was much deeper. A couple of the times he sat back and recharged for a second round as the two women made love reminded him of watching Ikuno and Aradelle.

In a smaller sense, he was leaving Elta, and that bothered him as well. Through his connection with Kuto, he asked the cleric if she could help him set up wards to protect the farm, Ikuno's cave, Felli's Peak, and Telsin from any astral attacks in case Azrin decided he wasn't done with them. Elta responded that she would take care of it once he was gone and that she didn't think she could be around him for as long as it would take to set everything up. Though he didn't understand how he could have possibly caused her predicament, he still felt slightly responsible for her fixation.

Hardest though, was leaving Talin. Eludora was still in her tree phase and would continue that way for many years yet. Adalena had her bright orange markings on her back that warned off potential predators along with several other instinctive behaviors as defenses. Talin had nothing but his mother and father to protect him from the hazards of the world. His sense of duty and the feeling like he was abandoning this child who was so completely dependent upon him nearly made him stay.

He had to remind himself that Perra and Talin wouldn't be alone. The harpies and Gerda would always be close by and Dax set up a rotating guard among her pack where two of the dog-girls would stay in the area for added security. The cleric was still a bit of an enigma but even if she didn't actively help protect his family beyond the wards she had agreed to, she at least wouldn't become a threat.

His farewells were filled with tears from everyone involved but eventually, they came to an end and he nodded to Kuto. The harpy leapt into the sky, pounding the air as she took off toward Telsin before arcing back around the top of the farmhouse. As they had practiced many times before, Kal took off running and leapt into the air, the harpy swooping in and grabbing him by the shoulders before winging off to the northeast.

---

The next day, a weary and disheveled cleric sat across from Perra in her living room.

"I can't go on like this," Elta told the farmgirl. "When it was just wanting sex I was able to deal with it but this obsession with Kal is too much."

Perra noted how the woman's thighs clenched at just the mention of him. Admittedly, she knew how the woman felt in that regard. She had felt much the same during the weeks leading up to her and Kal's first night together. The big difference, of course, was that Elta didn't love Kal or even like him that much since he was a mage. Though her respect for him seemed to have grown by leaps and bounds after their match, that didn't add up to what was going on with the cleric right now.

"I told him that I was broken," Elta continued on, "and he insisted I wasn't. I think he was wrong."

"I understand why you are asking me to do this, but I want to try one more thing before giving you any more commands," said Perra, the cleric's face falling as she spoke. "I made a suggestion to Kal before he left and he's not so far away that I can't ask him his feelings on it."

"What's that?"

"That you two sleep together, but in the astral plane. He and I tried it and it was... unfulfilling, to say the least."

Elta winced from the rush of emotions when the farmgirl mentioned her and Kal having sex. "The idea has merit," she said after taking a moment to compose herself, "Others in my classes tried it and after hearing of their experiences I never bothered. But I don't think it will work."

"Why?"

"Because..." the cleric took a deep breath, "I don't... need to touch myself. It's just as much in my head as it is physical. Whether here or on the Astral plane, I believe doing anything with him will have the same effect." Almost as if to prove her point, Elta closed her eyes tightly and gripped the chair she was sitting on, panting through gritted teeth as she teetered on the edge of having an orgasm.

Perra quickly recovered from her surprise at the woman's reaction. "You're safe here, Elta. It's just you and me, let it happen."

The cleric's eyes were filled with embarrassment as well as thanks when she looked up at the farmgirl.

A couple of minutes later when the woman stopped shaking and moaning she broke down into tears of shame. The farmgirl stood and went over to her, holding Elta's head to her chest as the woman cried.

"Give me a few days to come up with the right wording. Like Kal, I don't think you are a broken woman and I don't want to accidentally do more damage than what I'm trying to fix. Let Ghoss take you back to the mountain and try to get some rest. I'll send one of the harpies for you when I feel I'm ready," she said, tilting the older woman's head up and kissing her on the forehead.

Elta nodded and mouthed the words 'thank you,' before making her way outside where the harpy who brought her waited to take her back.

As Perra sat back down next to Talin's bassinet, it was her turn to let the tears flow. The look of genuine suffering on the cleric's face after her unprovoked and unwanted climax would haunt the woman for some time to come.

---

Kal and Kuto ended up arriving a day later than planned. He forgot to take into account that Ruce had a tiny paper guide to find him, then just turned around aligned herself with the sun to bring him back. All of his messenger parchments were still with Ria and even if he had thought about it, he wouldn't have taken one of the few he left with Perra. Without his bag of holding he didn't have the components or recipe to make more.

None of this occurred to the mage until they ran into the main road north of the mountain range. Kal let Kuto continue on for a few seconds before coming to a decision ad having her turn west to follow the road.

While Ruce had been able to hold her wings in place and use her power to sustain her breakneck pace, Kuto needed to flap constantly to maintain airspeed. Even with the harpy's power making him extremely light, the extra weight and drag from his body turned into multiple extra stops to allow her to rest. Kal used his stamina rune to extend the times between these stops but powering the rune and pushing it into the harpy drained him much more than just boosting Ruce's natural abilities. This left him stuck using the rune sparingly. After all, he needed to keep enough in reserve to land safely if something went horribly wrong and Kuto dropped him.

The harpy tried to take advantage of the boost in her abilities she now got from sex with Kal. She quickly realized that the benefits weren't significant enough to justify any extra stops. With how little he already weighed from her power, making him even lighter didn't really do much besides make him more susceptible to turbulence.

The only real excitement on the trip was an arrow whistling past them, shot by someone who spotted them from the road. Kal had Kuto circle around and let him glide down to confront their attackers. He had to suppress a grin at the stunned look on their faces as he drifted down to the road. Taking advantage of their surprise, and the bit of fear all of his glowing runes were causing, he walked straight into the small merchant caravan unchallenged.

"'M s-sorry, sir. T- Thought she w-was stealin' off wit' ya..." stammered the guard holding his bow in front of him defensively.

Kal snatched the weapon out of his hand. "Be happy you've such bad aim. That harpy is my woman and if you'd hit her you would be dead already," he snarled, crushing the wood of the bow with one hand as the strength rune glowed a menacing red. Turning around, he glared at the people who had gathered around before spinning up the haste rune and bolting down the road. Kuto caught him when he jumped and they continued on their way, staying a bit further north of the road from then on.

A tiny part of the mage's mind was extremely happy that Kuto had formed a bond with him for a relatively silly reason. These four days of flight would have been extraordinarily dull without someone to talk to during the journey.

He was slightly confused to see the tent sealed when they finally arrived but figured that Sera had likely gone out hunting, something he was going to have to do soon depending on how much of his stores the gorgon went through during his absence.

The mage stopped as he was about to say the command to unseal the tent. He turned to Kuto, "Cover your eyes, she might think we are intruders," he said as he sent her a couple of images of his time frozen in place. The harpy's eyes widened and she quickly brought a wing up to cover her face.

Closing his own eyes, he unsealed the tent and pulled the flap to the side. Multiple loud hisses were his first warning that something was amiss. "Sera it's me, Kal," he called out cautiously as he slid a foot forward, looking for the edge of the steps just inside the entrance.

"I know damn well who ye are, ya bastard!" spat the gorgon. "Open your bloody eyes so I give ye what ya deserve!"

Kal managed to get to the bottom step safely with his eyes closed still but stopped at the woman's words.

"Wait... What?! What did I do?"

"Ye pulled me from the only home I've ever known! Had yer bird bitch fly me through the air and dump me here afore disappearin' on me! I've never been to the surface! Ria had to explain to wot the fuck daylight was ye fuggin' arsehole! How the hell was I supposed to know how long two weeks was supposed to be?! Then yesterday I couldn't call Ria anymore! Do ye know how scared I was that I was gonna die here!? Stuck in this damn tent with no food!?"

"Kal no!" called out Kuto as she felt what he was about to do. The mage ignored her and walked toward the sound of Sera's voice with his arms open.

"The fuck are ye doin'?" asked the gorgon, backing away. She almost made it to the marble flooring around the fire pit when he caught up with her and wrapped his arms around her. "Stop! Ye bastard! I'll fuckin bite ya!"

"Go ahead," he said softly, "I'm so sorry, I didn't think of what I was doing to you."

He didn't see the startled expression on her face but he did hear her yell as she released all of her fear and rage building towards him since he left. Every one of the snakes making up her hair found purchase on a part of his upper body, from the venomous fangs sinking deep into his skin to the multitude of tiny but painful pricks from the mouths of the constrictors. At the same time, her fingers dug painfully into his side.

Wincing in pain, Kal counteracted the poison with the rune on his back but took the bites as what he felt was a justified punishment for what he had unwittingly done to the woman.

Sera's breathing slowed as her anger flowed out of her. She hadn't realized how much rage she was harboring toward him until she heard his voice and saw his face. Slowly, the serpents withdrew. A couple of those with longer fangs needed assistance dislodging themselves, they normally didn't go that deep when they struck.