War of the Races Ch. 35

Chapter 35- The Sky Dance

The sun rose in the east brightening the night sky from the vast black void of space sprinkled with stars and slowly transitioning it to dark indigo. As the stars winked out the sky brightened and the clouds and the land turned a dark purple. Purple became red. Red became pink. Pink became orange, and above it all, the sky, low on the horizon, turned green.

I watched it all, as the sun rose and the land was bathed in light, from thirty thousand feet. Light shimmered off of golden wheat-colored feathers that covered my hybrid-eagle face and a mane of feathered hair. My shoulders, wing-arms, and halfway down my back were covered with white feathers. My skin was the same chestnut color. Sprouting from between my buttocks, just below the sacral promontory of my pelvis, was a short bird-like tail covered in long white tail feathers. And lastly, my feet were an eagle's sharp talons.

With eagle's eyes, I soared above the Dragon's Spine Mountains and searched for my mates. I spotted Burza two thousand feet below me and I dived...

----(!)----

In the predawn darkness the camp stirred as Glenna, Huxian, Usagi, and Tsukino marshaled the rest of my wives and me out of sound sleep beneath the roadside trees. Laying across me, small and warm, was Bastet. Her black fur was so soft as I ran my hand down her back and cupped her bottom. I was still inside her, and last night Quebracho had been as vigorous in my dreams as Bastet had been before we fell asleep, and so, now, we were a mess.

I was rewarded though with a satisfied smile from Bastet as she carefully lifted herself off of me.

"Thank you, my love," Was all she purred before she left.

By the time I caught up, even Matron Forelain, Sinaan, Ra'Shaal, Fjallindae, and the housemaid honor guard were present. Bartlett and Maha were there. Gregr and the village council of Moonlight Burrow were present. Tanaya and Chenoa of the Howling Forde Lupus stood together looking nervous. Juno and Koda of Earthmother's Den both stood at relaxed attention. Lastly, Elders Poeal and Yawel both shuffled up looking aged and tired.

Once everyone was gathered, I nodded to Bartlett and raised my voice, "Bartlett. Maha. Warriors of Earthmother's Den. Mayor Gregr. Wolf-mother Tanaya. Elder Poeal. Bartlett and Maha are in command of the march to Sequoia's Grove. They know where to go. Listen to them. Lastly, I wish for all of you to find safety beneath Sequoia's boughs. Safe travels."

I passed the maps from Moonlight Burrow to Bartlett and the group broke up. They all knew what to do, and left to go do it. As they departed to start rousing the refugees Burza approached.

"Husband," Burza said as she caught my elbow with the thumb of her wing.

"Yes, wife?" I replied as she pulled me off to the side of camp and up the road a ways.

Once Burza was satisfied with our distance from the camp she turned to me. She gave me a brief smile. She was thrilled by Glenna's announcement that she no longer needed to refer to herself as my mate. Nor was she to refer to herself as a concubine which she already is. Rather, she was to think and act as my wife. A true wife. But, Burza was also shrewd enough to not be overexcited and understand that, despite Glenna's desire and effort to honor her and my other mates, the claim to wifely rights was simply just not true.

Not yet at least and maybe not ever.

Burza could call herself and think of herself as my wife, but that was all it was, a word. Wife. Concubine. Mate. Slightly different words that hinted at rights and privileges she supposedly didn't have and should want. Mate. That was what she was and all she needed to be. She had all she needed and wanted from me in that one word.

"Husband," Burza began again, "It is time for us to fly our mating flight."

"Okay," I replied as I looked from her to her daughters who were intently watching from a few paces off.

Burza's aves-alfari features were beautiful and exotic. Her face and body were free of feathers exposing skin that was a pale white. Her long feather-like hair reached the bottoms of her buttocks, and it was as white as her flesh. She wore a single tribal medallion around her neck with a large ruby stone and a long purple feather that dangled between her small sleek breasts. Her only other clothing, or rather, ornamentation, were six hip chains starting at her natural waist. Each one was a slightly different length so that they rode further and further down her waist and hips while being separated by at least two fingers' width of space. The last hip chain rode low on her hips and was connected to a four-inch silver plate that rested on her lower belly just above her sex.

For the most part, Burza and her daughters, like all aves-alfari, appeared beautiful and mostly alfari in form and figure. Which meant that her face, body, upper arms, and legs were for the most part humanoid. Each aves-alfari subspecies varied a little, and so, being an accipitridae-alfari, Burza's wing feathers started just below her thickly muscled, very humanoid, shoulders. As for her lower legs and feet, they were humanoid while her toes were longer than normal and taloned, and dexterous enough that they could grab prey or throw spears or rocks with surprising accuracy.

"Are you sure now is the time for this?" I asked as I searched Burza's golden eyes.

"Now is the only time for this," She replied before turning to look at her daughters, "We go into battle, possibly today, tomorrow, or the day after. It is the habit of our people that all mated warriors have relations with their mates, and all the unmated warriors are brought before the Mother and are given a mate to procreate with. Usually from her own daughters. In this way should the warriors not return, then we continue their line and we continue as a flock."

"How often are harpies at war?" I asked since I hadn't ever heard of any large-scale wars between the aves-alfari and the Prime races.

"Nothing so large as war, my husband," Burza admitted, "But, the wilds are dangerous. Flocks, prides, packs, herds, tribes, and clans have all waged vicious battles. Even massacres over water, land, territory, and breeding stock."

"Yes," I agreed as I nodded along, thinking of my previous life's world history, "That does make sense."

"What of your daughters then," I asked changing the topic, "I mated with you Burza, not them."

"To be mated to the Mother of the Flock is to be mated to all of the females of her flock," She replied, "This is not usually our way, but extreme circumstances push us to this. It must be our way now since neither I nor my daughters will mate with my sons."

"I thought you passed your leadership--to another," I said as I cut my eyes to Burza's eldest daughter.

"Her name is Arden," Burza said.

Arden was a little shorter than her mother, which is to say she was only a head taller than me. She also had the coloring of a golden eagle. Her skin was still the same pale white, but her eyes were a brilliant hazel gold and green and her feather-like hair, wings, and tail were all a golden brown.

Being avians meant that Burza and her daughters were all thickly muscled through their chest, back, and shoulders. They all had slim waists, and their hips were narrower than their shoulders. Though, after having nested thirteen times and laid over thirty eggs which produced six sons and nineteen daughters, Burza's hips were much broader than normal for a virgin aves-alfari. Still, despite the norm, and being a virgin, Arden's hips were almost as broad as her mother's.

Another alluring aberration that Arden and seven of her sisters' shared was that they were endowed with breasts much larger than Burza's. Not that it mattered to me, but I was surprised. After meeting Burza I had thought that most, if not all, aves-alfari were small bosomed on account of the vigorous exercise of their upper bodies, but, apparently, that is not the case.

"How should this proceed then," I asked as I cut my eyes to Burza.

"I will lead the flock in the Sky Dance," Burza replied, "Each of my daughters will follow me in succession by age. We will soar as high as we can. We will dance among the clouds. You will follow us. You must perform feats of aerial agility and grace, then you must fly as high as you can. This is our tradition so we are sure we are mating with the strongest male. Once you are higher than us you must choose whom you will mate with first and give chase."

I nodded and she continued, "You must dive down and capture all of us and then we will mate with you as we plummet towards the earth. The longer you mate with us. The longer you can hold out before pulling out of the fall. The more eggs my daughters will produce and you will fertilize."

"We," I said with more than a little surprise in my voice, "Didn't do any of this our first time."

"No," Burza whispered as she shook her head, "You are a Prime. I am an animal. I never expected to nest or lay again. Besides, you were also flightless..."

She ended her explanation with a matter-of-fact shrug. I could almost feel her disappointment at not having been mated by the traditions of her species, but I could also see her excitement at being pregnant too. She was in fact pregnant. Harpies. Avians. Aves-alfari. It didn't matter what name they were called, they were all a peculiar subspecies of animalae-alfari. As hybrids, their reproductive systems also were an amalgam of avian and homosapien. Unlike the alfar, aves-alfari do not produce eggs on a monthly cycle. At least accipitridae-alfari, or eagle-alfari, don't. Burza herself, having nested and laid before, produced a set of eggs twice a year. However, her daughters needed a male to breed with before they would start producing eggs.

"Be careful that you do not become too greedy or fall too deeply into your breeding thrall," Burza warned, "Many harpies have died because they failed to pull out of their free fall in time. Better for you, since this is your first time, that you pull out early and not seed them until later."

"Later?" I asked.

Her face scrunched up in amusement as she replied, "You should know that we are not opposed to breeding in other--more intimate--ways..."

"How many eggs can a harpy produce in a single mating," I asked in mild curiosity.

"Only once, mind," Burza replied in a low stern whisper, "I heard of a harpy having a clutch of six eggs from a single mating. Fear of the fall and the excitement of our breeding stimulates our ovaries to produce more eggs. But still, six eggs is highly irregular. I myself have only had clutches of four eggs twice, and clutches of three five times. All the others were clutches of two eggs."

Burza took a breath to focus her thoughts and then continued, "Putting the eggs aside, what you need to focus on is that gravity and velocity are hard foes to overcome once you reach terminal speeds. You only have so much strength in your wings. If you descend too fast you'll break your wings or tear your shoulder muscles, then you die on impact--if you're fortunate."

"I see," I mumbled as I looked up into the still-dark sky and wondered what it was going to feel like to fly.

After Burza's daughters' potential eggs are fertilized, the magical bio-engineers that created all animalae-alfari, in their great wisdom, tweaked the development and laying process of their eggs. Since aves-alfari are not capable of sitting on their eggs without crushing them or incubating them like normal birds. Those--engineers--instead made it so that avian females had to have sex to fertilize their eggs, then the shell would remain soft and inside the female harpy uterus for thirty days while the embryo incubated, after which they then lay their eggs.

The egg-laying is drawn out over two or three days. The shells are soft and translucent allowing the mother to inspect her offspring, but it quickly hardens upon contacting the air. Afterward, another five days pass as the fetus inside grows and reaches full maturity. Over those five days, the shell dries out and becomes increasingly brittle allowing the chick within to scratch its way out with special thumb talons on its wing arms.

"Well then," I purred as I mentally reached inward, within my inner realm, and grasped the Tome of the Moon Beast. I found the page I wanted and focused on the contract for power which was the transformation spell, "Let's go sky dancing!"

Burza's eyes lit up and her plump mouth spread into an eager smile as, for the first time ever, she watched me grow head and shoulders taller than her. My feet transformed into large eagle's claws and talons, legs lengthening. My waist remained almost the same--very slim for my new height and breadth of shoulder. Ribs, chest, back, and shoulders grew on new muscle. The muscles in my arms lengthened and slimmed down into sinewy tendons.

I gasped as my fused sacrum and coccyx bones broke apart, slimmed down, and lengthened, then reformed into a short tail layer thickly with new muscle. But, it was when my hands and fingers fused into a bird's metacarpals and phalanges that I cried out in pain!

Burza, and her daughters, gasped as my scream became an eagle's screech as my hair changed into long golden wheat-colored plumage that covered my shoulders and grew halfway down my back. My head and face changed as a large beak grew from where my nose and mouth had once been. Feathers grew rapidly from my wing-arms and from my tail. And, through it all, Quebracho whispered sweet reassurances from just behind my shoulder, like a ghost I never could quite catch a glimpse of, while she made sure to modify my clothing through the whole of my transformation. Only at the end did I realize what I had done.

Turning and looking around I realized I had an audience. Glenna and Hlina were standing together watching me. Glenna was emotionless while Hlina appeared concerned. Bastet, Huxian, Leandra, and all the others seemed to somehow be arrayed around me and annoyed that I had interrupted them in the middle of their tasks and chores. And then, I saw Sinaan, Forelain, and all of her entourage.

Dark-skinned Sinaan was blatantly excited though he did a good job of keeping a cool demeanor. Forelain's eyes and mouth were wide open in shock, and her daughters and personal guard weren't much better off. Without thinking of where I was, or who I was accompanied by, I had just given away our one singularly most powerful advantage against the coming Svartalf army!

Shit!

Turning to Burza I growled, "Go!"

She leaped twenty feet straight into the air. Her wings unfurled, and with a mighty downward stroke, she shot up higher. With another beat of her wings and she was soaring. Arden leaped into the air only a second behind her mother. Her large rounded breasts pulled, surged, and bounced when she jumped into the sky and then with every flap of her wings. Then, she too was gone in seconds. One after another Burza's daughters leaped into the air and flew away high into the dark sky. Then, there was only me. I didn't look around. I knew. I could feel it. Everyone was watching me, and so, I leaped!

----(!)----

Those first few wing strokes--those first few minutes--were by far the most frightening of my lives. Both of them!

I looked like a fledgling flying for the first time as I slowly climbed into the sky. My only redemption was the fact that I was old enough to be able to apply what I've seen both from the birds in my original earth and what I have observed of Burza and her daughters. At a thousand feet I was seriously questioning my life choices. By two thousand feet I figured out the rhythm of flapping my wings. By three thousand feet I started experimenting with using my tail feathers. By five thousand feet I could feel the taxation on my energy and stamina as I tried to climb higher. A quick look-up told me all I needed to know about my predicament. Burza and her daughters were tens of thousands of feet above me, soaring lazily as they watched me struggle. Then, there would be a burst of energy as they dived and swooped and barrel rolled before leveling out and catching thermals to lift them back up to where they were previously.

Thermals!

Why hadn't I thought of it sooner?

I remembered a documentary on birds--eagles I think--it mentioned them being able to see air currents. Just the thought about it and specialized eyelids slide down over my eyes and the world burst into vivid life!

The sky was an ocean of wind currents! There was an ebbing and flowing with jet streams high above that were like massive rivers running through that ocean of wind. There were streams and eddies. There was cold air high above and hot air below struggling to rise, and where the two met--thermals!

Then, I saw everything else.

The blue sky was even more so. The clouds seemed to shimmer with silver. The forest below seemed to pop with colors. Greens. Yellows. Oranges. Reds. A kaleidoscope of wondrous colors!

Where the Tunglvatn was I no longer saw water. Instead, I saw small and large fish folk that seemed to be hovering or flying through the air. My eyes adjusted and my binocular vision activated. The fish went from being tiny specs thousands of feet away to me being able to see the green, red, yellow, and silver patterns of their scaly lower bodies. There were thousands upon thousands of them swimming at different depths. Some swam in schools of families. Others were solitary creatures. And down deep, at the very bottom of the lake, was a small but vast city.

Something large and black crossed the periphery of my vision and my eyes adjusted to the much larger size of a huge--at least fifty feet long--serpentes-alfari. She glided through the water with a sleekness born from long years of hunting. She had a humanoid torso and long raven-black hair that was dirty and unkempt. I couldn't see her face or belly, but her arms and back were covered in glistening black scales. Her hips were exotically broad. Much wider than her shoulders, and she had the defined swells of well-rounded buttocks, but that was as far as it went in appearing humanoid, at least from the back. Below her buttocks was a long serpent's tail that appeared to be extremely thick and strong.

I was intrigued but realized that I had been staring for far too long. I had other business to attend to. Finding a thermal, I rotated my wings and tail to turn in that direction. As I rode the hot air up I experimented. Diving and stalling and rolling. I watched the women above me. I saw their dance, and I tried to mimic their moves. The first attempt was always the scariest, but then I figured it out. Before long I felt like I had been flying for--well, not years, but I was feeling much more confident. I caught another thermal and I shot up as high as I could climb before I started feeling the effects of thin air.

----(!)----

Burza saw me diving at her from thirty thousand feet and she folded her wings and twisted in the air as I streaked past her. I pulled out my dive and used my momentum to give chase. She twisted and turned and performed complex aerial maneuvers like they were nothing at all. Only sheer determination and maybe a little sympathy on Burza's part for the new guy just learning to fly allowed me to catch her. She soared up to twenty-eight thousand feet. It was as high as she could fly when I caught her.

I wrapped my wings around her waist. Burza wrapped her legs around my hips, and somehow, I managed to thrust myself deep inside her. We were in free fall for two and a half minutes and all I could think and feel was Burza's taut and tender body against me.

The climb to our climaxes was fast and explosive. There were screams from the ground. There were shrieks from the heavens. The wind whistled in our ears, and then suddenly Burza threw out her wings and released me from the tight grip of her legs.