Chapter 1
Shirley and the Sorceress
Chapter Description: Shirley discovers that what does not kill her doesn't necessarily strengthen her.
Against her better judgment, Shirley sat down and supped with the sorceress. She needed a way around the powerful magic of the place and hoped that getting on the sorceress's good side might be the way.
She was of a mind to eat very little of the food. One of the many servants set a small bird stuffed with a chestnut dressing cooked to perfection and smelled heavenly. Her autonomic nervous system kicked in and saliva production in her mouth increased her anticipation of eating the succulent delicacy.
Shirley tore off a small drumstick and nibbled on it. The meat was tender and juicy, and she felt as if the bird was pleading with her to consume it. Ravenous, she tore into the meat and sucked the remaining flavor from the neatly picked bones, leaving nothing of nutritive value behind.
"Ah, my dear! I see you're enjoying the fowl. Perhaps you would like a good sweet wine to go with it?" asked the sorceress as she poured a clear, sparkly beverage into a clear glass goblet. Shirley had never met an alcoholic beverage that disagreed with her and drank down the entire glass in one quick quaff. She went to burp and then remembered her manners by covering her mouth with the back of her greasy hand.
"BUURRP! Excuse me!" she offered by the social rules she remembered of apology. If it offended the sorceress, she hid it well by displaying a passive smile in the barbarian's direction.
"That's all right, dear! Eat up, there's plenty!"
With her ravenous hunger unleashed, Shirley devoured every dish placed in front of her. She drank copious amounts of wine that seemed to flow from various bottles in an endless stream. For with a splendid feast, barbarians knew how to party!
The sorceress ate nothing and sipped a little wine as she watched the barbarian woman eat. Since she had mastered the art of longevity and got her nourishment from the mana in the surrounding air. She watched in wonder and fascination as the table's contents diminished at a steady rate.
Finally, Shirley sat back in her chair and patted her considerable belly in satisfaction. She burped a little food back up and promptly swallowed it. No food would go to waste while she was on the job!
"Why don't you wash up a little and join me in front of the fireplace, Shirley? We can discuss our business there."
The barbarian grunted assent and walked over to a small bowl with a pitcher of water next to it on a table in the corner. She began smearing the food's grease off of her face and hands on the towel. Satisfied that she had sufficiently cleaned herself up, she joined the sorceress in front of the fire.
"Now then, isn't this better? You've filled your belly and we can discuss what brings you here to my domain," said the sorceress as she poured two more drinks from a dust-encrusted bottle. This liquid was dark red, had a dry, musty smell of long-ago squeezed berries, and seemed to flow from the bottle at its own pace.
The sorceress handed a glass to Shirley and held hers up for a toast. "Here's to success! Whether it's mine or yours, it really doesn't matter!"
Shirley, well-acquainted in all matters of alcohol, knew what a toast was. She touched her glass to the sorceresses and took a sip of the red fluid in it.
It tasted sweet, then slightly bitter, with an aftertaste that brought up her memories of what she'd gone through to become a successful barbarian-for-hire. A memory of a dirty-faced little girl, looking at the world from a cage with her family dead, flashed through her mind.
The sorceress watched as Shirley remembered her past, and her mind played it out. She could see that Shirley was becoming nostalgic and made mental notes. She raised her glass a second time and made a polite noise that pulled Shirley out of her reverie.
Shirley realized it was her turn to make a toast. She thought for a moment and found it difficult to come up with a proper one because of the flood of memories that were dancing in her head. She squared her shoulders and brought herself back to the present.
"Here's to the future, and whatever it brings!" she murmured vaguely while raising her glass. The sorceress pinged hers off of it and the ping reverberated throughout the high stone walls of her castle.
Shirley attempted to take another sip and choked on the strong liquid as it moved with a purpose all its own past her tongue and into her esophagus. Nearly half of her glass emptied itself into her stomach and a feeling of warmth radiated throughout her body.
Now the images in her head were clearer, vibrant, and succinct. They had brought old smells from her past of places she once trod. She could smell the crispness of sub-zero temperatures in the mountains; the musky smell of a man next to her after a night of delights, and the nearly forgotten smell of an uncomfortable urine-soaked cloth pulled away from her waist and changed out with a fresh, sunshine-smelling clean one.
The last recollection brought a smile to her face, as she didn't have that many memories of her mother. The images of Ma’s face as she took care of, worried over, and delighted in her daughter as she grew, came to her attention. Old nursery rhymes sang by her parents washed over her brain and brought more happy memories long forgotten to the fore.
The sorceress, delighted with Shirley's progress, proposed another toast. "May the edge of your sword and your wits be equally sharp, my dear!"
Shirley, riding on her Da's shoulders as a happy, giggling little girl in her mind's eye, automatically clinked her glass against the sorceresses. She quaffed the remaining contents without so much as a second thought.
As the last drops hit her belly, her face went blank. Now the times past showed themselves to her with full ferocity! She could feel the dampness of a cave, the hot, bright sunshine of a desert, and the salty dryness of her thumb as she moistened it with her mouth and sucked on it as a wee child.
She unconsciously started sucking on her thumb, nearly soiling her breechclout. Her consciousness snapped to the present with an urgent need as she pulled her thumb out of her mouth angrily. Turning to the sorceress, she saw that her glass was untouched, and the amount of liquid in it was easily the same as when they'd started!
Furiously she shouted, "What manner of magic is this? I came here to talk with you today, and you would have me enchanted! I will kill you for this!"
Shirley rapidly got up and went to pull her weapon from its scabbard. Moving towards it as it rested on the fireplace, she tugged up her loincloth. Upon reaching the heavy sword, she foisted it with some difficulty, having to do so with both hands. She turned and advanced upon the smirking sorceress, who did nothing to defend herself.
Instead, the sorceress smiled mischievously as she amused herself by watching Shirley's loincloth edge incrementally downward from her waist with each step she took.
Shirley halted her advance, distracted by her ill-fitting garment, grabbing it before it tripped her and found she could no longer keep her weapon aloft. She held the loincloth up with one hand while resting the sword's point on the stone floor while glowering at the sorceress.
She unclenched her weapon to let it fall on the cold, stone floor with a large "CLANK!" and shook her fist threateningly at the sorceress. The comical picture of a young girl in clothing of a size too large for her further amused the sorceress. She watched Shirley with rapt attention as the process continued.
"I'll beat you with my fists!" screamed Shirley in the high-pitched voice of a youngling. The higher pitch, not something she'd heard since puberty, caused her to pause momentarily. Something was wrong with the room. Was it bigger somehow?
She looked at her feet and saw that her boots were so loose she could easily step out of them.
"What have you done to me, sorceress?" she said as her free hand pulled forth the front of her bodice and she saw her chest had grown significantly smaller.
"My boobs! What have you done to my boobs?" She cried in astonishment at the two puffy mounds that had replaced her once proud breasts.
"Relax, my dear! It's only a temporary enchantment. The effects will wear off in time," assured the sorceress as she got up and approached Shirley. She bent over and gently put a reassuring hand on the confused girl’s shoulder.
Shirley, now so small that her bodice could double as a tent-like dress, let her loincloth fall to rest on the tops of her leather boots. They had tricked her! All her hopes were now lost! Her tears flowed freely on her little girl's face; she went red with embarrassment, and a whimper worked its way past her throat.
"There, there! Shh, shh, shh!" soothed the sorceress as she picked the little girl up out of her boots and loincloth. She playfully kissed the tears on Shirley's face, causing the little girl to giggle softly. Shirley then felt the light tickling of her tummy by her new mommy’s fingers, which elicited some guffaws from her tiny body.
The sorceress, happy that her plan had gone smoothly, signaled for a servant to carry her new daughter to a freshly installed nursery.
As her servant carried the cooing, happy baby away, she remarked, "I have been alone with little or no competition for far too long, my dear! I'm certain you'll provide a modicum of amusement for the next few decades, at the very least!"
She hadn't lied to the girl about the enchantment's effects. It would eventually wear off as the girl aged naturally over the coming years.
(Fin.)
