Esmie the Calamity Chapter 17 (Patreon)

** One of my rules with this story is to never curtail a random tangent my imagination takes with this story. Esmie wants to do something? I gotta write it. This chapter is one of those times... **

Esmie’s PoV

“You okay?” Iria asked, giving me an open, friendly smile.

Oh god, oh god, oh god. She was so fucking hot, what the hell? The pretty mane of feathers, the little patches of multi-hued scales, the easy smile? She even had a big feathered tail. I’d never considered that a thicc tail might look good, and yet there it was, swaying gently behind her.

Shit, and her legs were so long, like oh my goodness. They just went up and up and up like a fuckin’... I don’t know. Like the trees around us, except they were firm with muscle and squishy with squish. I could tell that because her pants were skin-freaking-tight, and oh… my eyes reached her abs, and my breath caught in my throat. Holy shit. Holy shit. Aaaaaaaaaa! Help! Help! I was being assaulted!

The insides of my thighs quivered slightly, and I had to look down at the ground before I keeled over. God, what had… what was… that… Iria was so much. She was like some sort of… thingy. A big, juicy, yummy… woman. Except she was that other guy outside. Not that I gave a shit, to be honest, but… fuuuuuck.

To all the deities of the world, past, present, and future, no matter how small or large your following, I implore you, save me. Save me from the sight of hot, confident, skilled, warrior women. Specifically, that one, that one right there.

Jeez, and that jacket? She’d tried to do up the buttons, but her goddamn tits were too big. I feared for the life of any mortal who was in the way of that button when it finally failed. The army would classify it as an anti-armour projectile or something. I have no idea what the army called things. They had guns and went pew pew, that’s all I knew. Well, that, and they would want access to Iria’s boob projectile tech.

“Esmie?” Lynlyn asked, leaving the bodies alone to approach me. “You okay?”

My eyes flicked up to meet hers, and I very slowly typed out a message using the mind-to-text function. She’s so fucking hot, how are you not affected?

Embarrassingly for me, she burst out laughing and leaned in close, pretending to hug me. “Straight, remember?” she whispered in my ear.

“Didn’t seem so straight all the times you’ve been groping me recently,” I grumbled under my breath, but her words had snapped me out of my daze. A bit. I just needed to not look at Iria’s abs.

Lynna turned to Iria and gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Esmie’s a little new to the whole gore and violence thing.”

“Ah, sorry,” the tall, feathered woman said quickly, glancing around at the carnage. “Uh, Lynna and I can handle the looting if you’d like to look away. I forget that not everyone has… a stomach like mine, I guess you’d say.”

“No!” I blurted, trying desperately not to bite my lip or blush. “No… no, I can help. I uh… yeah. I think I can use their tongues, actually. If that’s okay.”

Iria blinked. “Their tongues?”

“You know, for alchemy?” I said. I almost made a comment about how I could use her tongue too, but for some reason I held back. That was so not like me. What the fuck?

“Ah, in that case, I’ll grab them for you,” she said, drawing her big knife again with a casual flick of the wrist. Oh dear sweet mercy.

Looting was quick, they didn’t have all that much in the way of stuff to take. A few coppers here and there, a sword that wasn’t totally ruined, plus a fairly serviceable crossbow. Iria was scarily efficient with her knife, sticking it into the mouths of dead rats and slicing neatly to free the tongue. Thank fuck we had inventories to carry them in.

“How are you feeling about the new body?” Lynna asked as we began the trek home.

“It’s surprisingly good,” Iria said, glancing down at herself. “Doesn’t feel too weird, and my god can it move. I’d never have been able to do that with my real body, but this one has so much power. I can see that my speed, strength, and endurance are all very high. Seems like my casting stat is speed, not any of the magic ones either.”

Lynna seemed puzzled by that. “Oh?”

“Yeah, uh… all my abilities with, ah, there it is,” the taller woman said, scrolling through menus. “It looks like the grace skill tree can convert normal spells into physical abilities that have magical properties.”

Everything they were saying was going right over my head, so I tuned out. Instead, I just pretended to be listening, when really I was staring at Iria. Her face was really pretty, all softness on the outside, but her bone structure underneath looked sharper, harder. Her eyes were big… but slightly deceptively so, because her eyelashes were ridiculous. Like how Warcraft universe elf ears were to the normal variety, except with long, luscious… her eyes were really pretty.

Her feathers too, oh my god. She looked like some sort of lion or something, if it were a bird of paradise. Her scales too, in the small patches I could see, they shone with iridescent light. It was soft though, no hard reflections. You had to really look to see all the different colours in them.

“No dysphoria then?” Lynna asked, the question piquing my interest enough to tune back in.

Iria shook her head. “Nope, not so far. I imagine it will probably kick in later once the novelty of running around in a badass body like this has worn off.”

To the outside observer, Lynlyn would have looked mildly interested as she nodded and glanced casually around the thinning forest. I knew better. That was the look of a Lynlyn who didn’t believe what our new friend had said. Did she think Iria was lying?

“I haven’t had any either,” I said, coming to her rescue even if she didn’t know it.

Lynlyn rolled her eyes. “I’m aware.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I frowned.

“You’ll figure it out soon enough,” she said with a little secretive laugh.

Silence descended for a few minutes, everyone collectively getting lost in their own thoughts for a bit.

Then, Iria broke the silence by asking me, “So you’re… you know, different out there, but you’ve been in the game for a little while. Is there anything I should watch out for? Anything I should know?”

This time, I couldn’t hold back a big ol lip bite as I gave her a once over. “I think you might have a few different experiences to me. I’m small and cute, but you’re tall and… uh, strong, and… stuff. I made friends with a guy who was all chivalrous and stuff when he was helping me. I think if he met you, he might not know what to do.”

“Ah… yeah, I think I know what will happen with a lot of guys who see me,” she laughed, eyes twinkling with amusement. “I meant on the more personal or physical side of things.”

God, her laugh was infectious. It had me smiling just for hearing it. Looking up at her beside me was an effort, but I did so. “Buy a brush, and a comb, and like… nice soap. It’ll be super weird at first, but you need to take more care with your hygiene than you might have before. Not insinuating anything, but guys can be gross. Your hair feathers are going to take half a day to dry, so you’ll need to learn to tie it out of the way while you bathe. Unless you’re washing it, in which case, make sure to chalk out that half a day where it’s going to be wet.”

“Hair doesn’t take that long to dry,” Lynlyn said, giving me a funny look.

“Normal hair, no,” I grinned, swishing my tail around for emphasis. “But her hair feathers and my tail are probably going to be similar.”

“True…” she muttered, watching the tail. “How did you learn all this anyway? You’ve barely asked for any help about feminine stuff.”

“Research,” I said, shrugging. “Plus, it just makes sense.”

“What kind of research?” she asked, giving me a suspicious side-eye.

Iria burst into another adorable bout of laughter beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Lynna, trust me, the kind of research you’re thinking of would not teach anything close to feminine hygiene.”

“Ah…” Lynlyn mumbled. “Nevermind.”

Iria’s touch caused a cascading failure throughout my entire body, starting with the leg below it until I was a boneless bundle of squish. I fell sideways against Iria, eyes fluttering closed as my head bounced off her soft, strong waist.

“Oh, shit!” Iria blurted, catching me before I hit the ground. “What happened, are you okay?”

“I am so okay,” I sighed, smiling happily. Her arms were so strong, and she smelled like flowers and a little bit of girl sweat and… her stomach was supporting one of my cheeks. It was pure bliss, and if she wanted me to stand up she was going to have a difficult time of it. I doubted my limbs would behave even if I asked them to.

"Oh?" Iria sounded intrigued, rather than flustered like I'd expected.

Opening my eyes, I looked up at her and was again robbed of all breath in my lungs. She was watching me with a calm and knowing amusement. "I see. In that case, let's test how strong this body is, yeah?"

"Huh—" I asked, before I cut myself off with a squeak of surprise as she shifted her arms to get a better grip on me, then lifted me like I weighed nothing. My heart was beating pretty fast beforehand, but now it was like someone had slipped cocaine into the marching band's water supply.

I was being carried by the hot dinosaur lady! Help! Help! Actually no, don't help, don't help!

Lynna was laughing beside us as Iria just casually carried me, the journey continuing like this was all perfectly normal. The crazy thing was that she seemed perfectly chill with this. No embarrassment, no shy blushing. In fact, when she glanced down at me, I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I was a prey animal and she was a raptor. Oh dear sweet mother of god.

It was clear she was having issues with carrying me though. Not because of my weight, but because the human body was just awkward to carry.

So, tentatively, I threaded my arms up and around her neck. The moment my hands shifted, she was looking down at me, and we maintained the electrified eye contact until my fingers were threaded through the feathers on the back of her neck. She didn't say anything, but her lips twitched into the shadow of a smirk.

She shifted her hold on me to account for the redistribution of weight, then let out a gentle breath of relief. "Much better."

Fucking hell, this was so intense! We barely knew each other! How was this happening? Why was she so casually fine with this? Had she carried a lot of girls? When was she going to stop carrying me? Had we accidentally discovered the truth of heaven together, and that it was the feeling of strong fingers gently kneading my squish? God, I was so turned on. If she had asked to take me here on the forest floor, I'd have unequipped my clothes in a flash.

Oh, and then there was the fact that I wanted to be taken in the first place! Like, I was thirsting after the idea of a girl's fingers reaching deep inside me. What the hell was VR doing to me? Other than giving me opportunities to feel fucking incredible, obviously.

What did Lynlyn think of this? A quick peek in her direction found her full of barely contained mirth at my expense, but that was fine. I'd been thinking she might get jealous or protective or something, but apparently not.