Tales of Myth and Legend

Part 4 – Woodland Encounter Part 1

By Richard C.H. Davies

Warning this story contains: Giantess witch, fantasy fiction, Shrunken Man, Shrunken Women, giantess, kidnap, giant woman lick, soft vore, naked giantess, chase, hard vore, human to animal transformation, handheld, taunting

The wind ruffled the dark feathers across the wings which were spread out as wide as they could.

Aqualisha circled from thermal to thermal as she felt her way through the spiralling rising heat beneath the white fluffy clouds.

She enjoyed the wind rushing across her beak and eyes and down her neck and body. She felt young and free and healthy again.

For years she had been trapped in bird form, cursed by her own incredible skills of transformation. Now, thank you to Ember and Sir Arthur, she was free to change form at her own will. That once again made being in avian form an enjoyable experience; because it was her choice.

She spent hours and hours enjoying flying, bouncing between thermals and being buffeted by the wind; as she collected her bearings and her thoughts.

She dived into action occasionally to dive bomb and snap at a little field mouse or two; to enjoy a fresh snack.

Then she moved to her true objective, to locate her coven sisters.

Aine would surely be the easiest to find, of course. Known as the Goddess of Love, she was the most sociable of all of the witches and the most likely to be immersed in mortal human society.

She was the most debaucherous of the sisters and lived up to her name.

Aqualisha located the first mortal human settlement. She circled overhead for a while on a reconnaissance, gauging the threat levels. She tended to avoid areas where there were a significant number of people bearing arms. It just wasn't worth the risk.

In human form Aqualisha was an incredibly attractive dark- haired woman, stunning to look at, and highly tempting to mortals. Over the generations she had lost count the number of times she had been forced to defend herself and shrink down potential sexual predators.

She had always got the better of them, apart from one of the first times in Ancient Greece, where Ember had rescued her. Nevertheless, when she did succeed in preventing her sexual assault it was still an unpleasant experience made more worrying by men and thugs who bore arms.

So, she always did a reconnaissance of any human settlement first and then flew to the outskirts and dropping down into the treeline.

She always found a good branch to land on, wait for a few moments of quiet and ensuring there were no witnesses, then she had to patiently wait for someone to pass by. She needed their clothes. It usually turned too many heads walking into town naked.

She had done that once when she had been young and stubborn and it had led to her, quite rightly, being accused of being a witch and a she-demon (the latter of which wasn't so fair).

Thankfully she didn't have to wait too long. She could hear two women speaking as they wandered through the woodland.

Aqualisha enjoyed watching them through her bird's-eye. Her eyesight was so sharp in this avian form, as was her hearing. She actually felt quite clumsy in human form, stumbling about, almost feeling deaf and blind.

She could hear every word very clearly.

The women were talking about the goings on in the village. They noted that a Knight had ridden through a few days ago and it was the talk of the community.

The women stopped and one of them said that here was a good spot.

Aqualisha hopped between some branches silently to get a better vantage point.

The two women were crouching and picking mushrooms from the woodland floor and popping them into baskets that they carried.

Aqualisha watched them intently. She cocked her bird head to the side; studying them, waiting for the correct moment.

Her yellow eyes flickered. Thin flaps of skin glazed over and refreshed her razor focused eyes.

Her talons clung to the branch that she was perched on. She was getting impatient and was feeling cocky today. She had been trapped without any enjoyment or freedom for too long.

She felt like doing something that Ember would very much not applaud.

Aqualisha lowered her bird head, her slender form narrowed, her wings were angled and muscles bunched and primed and she dropped from the branch and swooped down towards the women.

The bird of prey glided towards the women who were focused on the ground looking for mushrooms.

"Winzig!" Aqualisha cried out as she glided like an arrow.

One of the women screamed out in shock, but rapidly shrank down to the size of a mouse, a perfect size for the bird of prey to swoop down on and catch in her talons.

Aqualisha reached down with both claw feet, she saw almost in slow motion the terrified look of the tiny naked woman as the dark shape of the terrifying giant bird of prey approached.

The woman turned and started to run but was caught painfully by the claws of the predatory bird.

Aqualisha noticed the legs of the normal sized woman as she swooped past to pick her tiny companion up.

She felt her fear and shock filling up her Life Force Well, as was the tiny struggling captive in her talons.

Aqualisha didn't land there on the ground, she snapped out with her talons, grabbed her prey, continuing her forward momentum and arced straight up into the air, flapping her wings very hard and flew back into the canopy.

"Harriet!" The normal sized woman screamed out. "Where are you?" She looked around in terror. "Demon!" She screamed out. "Satan!" She cried. "Be gone with you, give me my friend back and be gone!" She screamed out, backing away from the horror scene of what had occurred.

She didn't really know or understand what had just happened. Her friend had seemingly disappeared, but she could have sworn she saw a tiny creature in her place, which the bird had snatched up and flown off with.

She turned around, looking in every direction. Waiting for a spirit, a demon, or some kind of a horned satanic creature to spring out and grab her.

What had she seen? What was this apparition of hell? Her panic addled mind recalled an image, a bird. A dark bird. Did it have horns? That was how she pictured evil that was how the stories were told. Yes, it had horns. It was a satanic bird. It had sprung up from hell and taken her friend.

There was a snap of wood behind her and she spun round. Her lungs were burning in fear. Her heart was thumping. She was panting.

Her eyes were wide, looking for the threat.

She swung round, spinning, looking from tree to tree.

The very bark of the trees seemed threatening. The branches and bowers of the trees seemed to droop and frown at her. The whole woodland seemed hostile.

But she just saw fallen leaves, trees, mushrooms…

Some movement to the left.

She spun round.

"Stay back!" It was a moving branch in the breeze.

She backed up further.

Then she bumped into something hard with creases in it.

She screamed and struck out. Smacking her hands against the solid bark of an oak tree.

She stumbled backwards and tripped over the exposed roots of the tree. Falling backwards onto her backside.

She scrambled along the leaves, rustling as she went.

Her hand gripped around a stick and she hoisted it up, she brought herself to her feet.

She spun round shaking in fear, using the stick like a sword to ward off evil.

That was when a light- coloured thing came into view and she came face to face with… the demon.

Her heart turned to ice.

The creature didn't have horns.

But it was truly satanic in form.

She watched in ice cold terror as the bird like form landed nearby to her in the clearing.

Impossibly the featherlike appearance of the bird transformed into skin, the beak softened and transformed into a nose, mouth and jaw, the piercing dark pools of black eyes changed into human eye form and the smaller body enlarged into a human like form. It was an ugly transformation, but it was shocking to behold what remained at the end.

The bird had finally transformed into a beautiful naked woman with long dark hair, and it seemed to occur only over a matter of seconds.

It was so absolute that one would wonder if their eyes had fooled them.

The dark- haired woman was crouching and then slowly stood upwards until she stood fully erect, displaying her completely naked chest and body, her piercing eyes looking towards the confused woman.

Her face was very serious and focused, but as she made eye contact and felt the fear in the other woman her serious face turned into a terrifyingly beaming and wicked smile.

"Hello my little snack," the demon said, baring her white teeth in the process.

*

Sir Robert was a drunk.

He was a drunk, a misogynist, a thief, a blagger, a bragger, and a ruffian. In modern terms he would have been defined no less as a thug.

He had very few knightly virtues, in fact.

However, he did have a few vague attributes that could be associated with a knight. He had a sword, a motley uniform and helm, and he was normally up for a fight. That was about it. Sometimes those attributes helped people, when he could step into a fight and give someone a good thumping, sometimes he inadvertently rescued people. Oftentimes he did not. He was not always the best, or indeed bothered in identifying the victim of a fight. He normally decided who was the most virtuous to fight and went at them.

He was standing facing an oak tree in the woodland, having a piss against the side of the tree. He leaned heavily against the tree pressing one of his hands against it.

He swayed from side to side, humming to himself, watching the steam rise from his urine in the cool morning air.

He didn't notice that some of his mud- stained tunic swung into the stream of his piss and got soaked with it.

Nobody would notice his smell.

This village was a shit hole just like most of them that he passed through. He mused.

They were all full of dirty, rat and flea infested peasants, who smelled worse than a horse’s arse, in his humble opinion.

In fact, he concluded, he probably smelt distinctly rosy compared to them. The fact that he had bathed a week ago, was indeed most hygienic.

A scream caused his drunken head to snap upwards in the perceived direction.

He looked about and searched for the source, all he could see was trees and woodland around him.

He quickly finished his stream of urine, shook his cock, and glanced at his camp that he had made outside the village. He had camped outside the village, not lodged there, mostly because he wasn't satisfied that anywhere had suitable bed and board. It was, of course, nothing due to his apparent lack of coin.

He could dismantle his camp later. He glanced to see his steed was still lashed firmly to a tree. 

He picked up his sword and helm and staggered in the direction of the noise. His tunic swaying as he staggered wildly from side to side.