Red Sonja's adventures in the nursery

Chapter 1
Sonja's travelogue

Chapter Description: Where our heroine takes a break from the weather.

 Red Sonya of Rogatino

The evening was wet as rain and dark clouds covered the sky. Red Sonja, wearing a heavy cloak to keep out the rain, wet and chill, rode her horse down a muddy trail. Her horse plodded on, seemingly unaware of the weather as its shod hooves splashed mud, leaving small puddles behind it.

A lone, single-story house, illuminated from the inside by flickering light, and large for its size, slowly became visible in the murky climate as the horse and rider approached it. A lone figure opened the house’s door and walked up to Sonja as she plodded along the trail.

“By the gods, traveler, this is not a night for a wanderer to be about! Come into my house and be warmed with warm food and wine.”

His appearance was that of an elderly gentleman with long silver hair and beard. He wore a simple robe tied at the waist with a thick woven belt. Upon his head, there was a gray, pointed hat with a wide brim. He carried a large staff of well-polished mahogany.

Sonja halted her horse and pulled back her hood to reveal the lovely features of her aquiline face framed by her fiery red hair.

“As it’s getting too dark to navigate. I shall take you up on your kind offer with gratitude. Do you have a stable for my equine companion as well?”

The house owner motioned towards a small building just off to the side of his house. A suitable stable with a watertight roof and plenty of freshly thatched tall grass on its surface were just visible in the rapidly diminishing evening light.

“Will this do for your companion, dear traveler?” he asked, knowing what her answer would be.

“Yes, that will house my horse most satisfactorily. Let’s bed him down for the night.”

The two were busy for the next quarter-hour taking care of Sonja’s transportation. The horse was towel-dried and put in a stall with plenty of fresh grass to munch on. With the horse taken care of, the two entered the elderly gentleman’s domicile. There, Sonja put up her wet cloak on a hanger, and the owner offered her a fur skin blanket to warm her chilled body.

The owner upon seeing her warrior outfit, a soft leather bikini festooned with small circles of metal interlinked by stout threads, remarked that it wasn’t every day he saw a female warrior, and was it the nature of female warriors to wear such seemingly inadequate armor?

“It permits freedom of movement,” said Sonja as she hefted her broad sword. She put it beside the fireplace to dry. No other explanations were offered.

The house owner sat her down next to the fire on a seat in front of a roughly hewn table and offered her a hot bowl of gruel with bits of fresh game in it. He went into a separate room and brought back a large wineskin with a pair of goblets. After he poured and filled them, he took a seat at the other end of the table.

“Where are my manners? My name is Amergin; I moved here to get away from the bloodshed of battle, the noisiness of crowds, and live out the last days of my life in peace and quiet.”

“Greetings, Amergin. My name is Sonja. Some would call me Red Sonja, while others would use more unmentionable words not normally used in polite society,” she said as she finished off her gruel and took a sip from the goblet.

“Ah! This is very good wine, Amergin! I hope that I won’t deplete your supply. I've been known to have a thirst for the stuff.”

“Worry not, Red Sonja, I have ample supply. I rarely drink it these days as it doesn’t do all that much for me at my advanced age. Rather, it gives me a headache when I’ve imbibed too much of it,” he took his goblet and sipped on it.

Sonja quaffed down the rest of her goblet and grabbed the wineskin for a refill. Amergin said nothing as she filled the goblet and drank down half of its contents in one go. Wiping a stray bit of wine from her mouth with the back of her hand, she let loose a large belch.

Amergin said nothing and smiled at her gusto. “Would you like some more gruel, Red Sonja?”

“Yes, please, good Amergin! It’s very savory and quite tasty.”

The two discussed various topics and methods of bloodshed for the next few hours. Sonja was finally getting a bit tipsy after several more wineskins were emptied. The large quantity of wine she had drunk had loosed her tongue. She began singing war ballads slightly off-key to entertain Amergin. He smiled all through it, sipping from the same first goblet of wine.

The same goblet of wine that he’d poured for himself earlier.

Sonja continued her heavy drinking, sinking deeper into a sea of personal inebriation when a call of nature made itself known to her.

“Say, Amergin! Where’s a privy around here anyway?”

“Just outside the back door there, my dear. Take this lantern with you to see it better.”

She grabbed the heavy brass lantern and staggered through the back door of the house to do her business. As she squatted over the privy hole, she hoped she wouldn’t get her leather britches as wet as the last time she got this drunk.

With her mission accomplished, she pulled up her armored bikini bottom while rising. She didn’t notice that it wasn’t skin tight as it normally would be due to her intoxication and the heavy concentration it was taking to stagger back into Amergin’s house while carrying a lit lantern.

“Ah! I see that you’ve made it back. I do hope everything came out okay?” asked Amergin with a wry grin.

Sonja chortled at the joke and moved to sit down at her spot at the table. In the process, her bikini bottom slipped off her hips and slid downward. it caught her thighs, making her stumble and trip. Coming to a drunken halt, she grabbed them and pulled them back up.

“Whoops! I hope that wasn’t anything you haven’t seen before,” she quipped as she sat back down.

“Absolutely not! I’ve had a few tales with the ladies in my time, would you have some more wine?”

“Are you sure?” She picked up one of several empty wine skins from a small pile on the table, “I’ve gone through so many!”

“Please, Sonja, enjoy my wine! It’d just go to waste with the way that I drink these days.”

“Well, okay then! More wine, good Amergin!” She emptied the rest of her half-empty goblet and held it up in salute.

Sonja rarely ever got so drunk that she went blotto, but the coziness of Amergin’s house seemed to be an exception to her personal rule. Nearly unconscious, she was helped to the privy by Amergin. He seemed a bit taller than when she first met him as he moved her around with ease.

It was hard to believe that such an old man would have the strength to do so!

She was put to bed, then covered with furs and tucked in as she passed out.

===================

Several hours later, a strong urge overcame her sleep. She hopped out of her warm bed and ran to the privy. She was in such a hurry that she failed to notice that she was naked. Coming back from the privy, she grabbed the wooden door latch and let herself inside.

Everything looked so much bigger this morning! The table nearly came up to her belly as she passed by. Realizing that she was naked, she hurried back to her room to put on her armor.

Sporting a hangover from the previous night’s drinking, she didn’t notice that her bikini armor was ill-fitting until she pulled up her breechclout and found that it was quite loose on her diminished frame.

There were no mirrors in the house. As she put on her armor top, she found her chest to be lacking in the voluptuousness that it had the night prior. She gasped at the pair of young maiden’s breasts that sat forlornly in her oversize top.

“By Mithra! Where are my breasts?” she yelled in surprise as she looked further and discovered a small fuzzy patch of hair had replaced her normally abundant thatch.

“My armbands don’t fit, either!” she muttered aloud as she tried to affix them to her. Her now scrawny arms weren't wide enough for them. She put them aside and ran out to find Ambergin for an explanation.

As she moved quickly into the living area of the house, she frantically looked for Amergin. She found out he wasn’t there.

“Where would he go at this time of the morning?”

As she didn’t run into him while using the privy, the backside of the house was out. She ran out of the front side of the house and found him bringing a bucket of water gathered from a small well.

“Amergin! What the nine hells happened to me last night?”

“Calm down, my dear! All will be explained after I fill the cooking pot.”

She gave him a pained look of “Really?” which he ignored.

It wasn’t until the bucket had been emptied into the pot, and he put a few sticks of wood on the pile to rekindle the flames that he turned his attention to Sonja.

He said, “Now then, you remember last night when I said that my supply of wine was ample?”

She nodded in agreement causing one strap of her armor to fall over her shoulder. Distracted by the ill-fitting outfit, she went to correct the errant strap and had to tug up her loose bottom in the process. She then gave her attention back to Amergin.

“There is still a small stockpile of it left, but I have to say that in the darkness, I might have accidentally grabbed a special wineskin that had a rejuvenating spell laid upon it.”

“You might have?” she gave him an incredulous look, “MIGHT HAVE? I think we can see that you very well did just that!”

“Calm down, calm down,” he waved his hands gracefully at her, and she eventually did. But not before going for her sword.

She attempted to heft it with one hand and ended up grabbing it with both. Her loose bottom slid down in the process and nearly tripped her at the knees as she dragged the heavy sword across the room towards Ambergin with great difficulty.

The humorous picture of a young girl with flame-red hair attempting to heft a heavy sword while sporting a killing intent was not lost on Ambergin. He broke out into heavy laughter.

“Oh, my! The kitten has claws!” He guffawed as he lost himself in his personal mirth.

“I fail to see the humor, Ambergin!” She yelled as she gave up trying to heft the sword. She let it fall with a large clank against the thatched floor, and went for her dagger. This she could hold with one hand.

Ambergin was unfazed by her latest action. He smiled and quipped “Your bottom is slipping again!” then fell into another fit of laughter.

She looked down and then hastily pulled her armored briefs up, holding onto one side with one hand while sporting the dagger in the other.

“I am quite serious, Ambergin, I can think of no reason to not gut you where you stand!” She snarled through her teeth.

“Pax, pax dear Sonja! The effect of the spelled wine can be reversed,” he said soberly. The act of her getting ready to stab him brought the laughter down to a few random giggles.

“And what would it take to remove the spell?” she said as she paused her lunge that would firmly place the dagger up to the hilt in Ambergin’s sternum.

“We would have to visit the mage who concocted it.”

“Very well, and where is this mage?” She let the heavy dagger drop as it was too much for a noodly armed girl to bear for an extended amount of time.

“About a day's ride from here. We’ll take your horse and provide you with some clothing that’s more appropriate for your current size.”

“Fi-i-i-ne!” breathed an exasperated Sonja, “Let’s get ready for the trip.”

“Oh, and I might also mention that the effects of the wine might be unstable. That’s why I never drink it.”

“Unstable? How unsta--” asked Sonja as she shrank down to toddler size. She fell down on her bottom as her weakened legs gave out.

A cute little dimple-faced girl with bright red ringlets of hair looked up in shock at Ambergin.

“Your age might go up or down at random,” said Ambergin cryptically.