"It's not what you can hear, but what you can't" - Iorle of the Wind

  "So you're really good to go?" Aurelia said, she and Thessa were walking out and onto the field of Mars, the Campus Martius. In the few days since their "impactful" acquaintance, Aurelia had eased Thessa into life at the Sword and Scroll. The Tauren wasn't super forthcoming with her past, but considering that she bore a shepherds crook, and had no flock, she could garner enough to know that Thessa hadn't exactly come from a stable household.

  She hadn't pressed too hard yet, she would tell her when she was ready if they got to that point together. The past few days she had introduced Thessa to Brann, and the other workers and regur patrons which frequented the tavern. Thessa had seemed surprised when she had seen Aurelia begin to work the tables, her face had turned a bright crimson at the sight of all that skin and jiggle.

  "Ye?-hmhm-yes!" She said between clearing her throat. She looked down at her feet (almost, her chest was in the way) before continuing. "I just wanted to thank you again, I don't think there are many people who would be so willing to drop everything they're doing just to look after someone like me. Even if it was only for a few days." She said clumsily.

  Aurelia stood tall, and posed dramatically "Nonsense, Any true Roman would have helped a young woman in need." she said in a patriotic voice, emuting the city criers who announced the test news from whatever war Rome's armies were marching towards on the given day. Then, she dropped her act, and scrunched her face. "I did also kinda nd right on you, so I was at least partially responsible for you".

  "Partially?" Said Thessa with a raised eyebrow.

  "Hey! I'm not the only one who's fallen after seeing you. That potter's boy we passed earlier is lucky he didn't crack his head open after falling like that! It seems like it's just an occupational hazard being near you." Aurelia said, full of mirth.

  "That was one time!" Protested Thessa.

  "Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern, Little Moo."

  "Hey! I'm not little, I'm taller than most human men!"

  Aurelia paused in her stride, and straightened her back so that she rose to her full height. She reached out an arm and brought Thessa in close so that the disparity was made apparent. It was true enough that Thessa was tall enough to rival the tallest of human men, but standing next to each other, the crown of her head was just level with Aurelia's armpit.

  "No fair! What even are you? I've been meaning to ask." Thessa said, only puffing out her cheeks slightly.

  "I'm big, and as far as I know, I'm the only one." Aurelia said, expertly dodging the question if she didn't say so herself.

  "Come on, we want to be able to get our hands on as many Blue Splitleaves as possible before having to turn back. This job pays per pnt!"

  Interlude

  Antonia tried to wipe the filth from what was left of her Sto. Weeks of living in a damp cave had left it as barely more than mud-coloured scraps of fabric. Her rge woolen Pal she'd been covering herself with during her travels had faired little better, but at least it was still recognizable. And now they had given her enough furs and hides to cover the ground, so the cold didn't leach into her skin like before.

  She sat cross legged on the ground, slurping from a crude wooden bowl they had given to her on her first day. She was also offered haunches of whatever meats they had caught that day, but her captors weren't of a mind to actually cook their food before eating it. Or properly killing it, for that matter. Nevertheless, after the second time she had been offered human meat she had learned to say no to fresh meat. The soups and broths would have to do.

  Thump Thud Thud Thump

  The sound of heavy footfalls echoed down the entrance to her cave. And a horrifying brute from her nightmares emerged. It was massive, half-again as tall as a man, and broad as a barn. It was covered in dark green skin which seemed to resemble leather more than anything else, and two rge pointed teeth jutted out from it's lower jaws in a mighty underbite.

  "Da Bozz wantz yu to hazz anoda won" It said in a simple, if deep voice. If someone were to scrape bloody rock against leather, they'd have something close to what the rge ork in front of her sounded like. But for all it's size and ferocity, it behaved more like an oversized toddler than anything else. It looked at her curiously, set down the rge pot full of soup in front of her, then turned to leave without another word.

  Antonia sighed, then finished her current bowl off with a long ssluuuurp! It resembled grey, interspersed with chunks of green... things, and suspicious clumps of off-white fluid. She knew why they insisted on feeding her the stuff, they'd answered her immediately and honestly the first time she had asked.

  It was to help with the pregnancies.

  She rose to her feet, leaving a small puddle where she had been leaking her previous visitors parting gift. She was always hungry in the cave, and each day she woke she seemed to have swollen even bigger than the night before. By now she looked near full-term. The orks were using her to breed more of their filthy ilk. All the men of the caravan had been eaten by this point, and most of the women hadn't survived their first dozen matings on that first day. When they'd first dragged her into this damp pit, she'd been able to glean that this wasn't the only cave. At the start she had occasionally heard cries from the other women fortunate enough to have been capable of dealing with the orks substantial size and virility. But those had gradually faded over time.

  She didn't hear them anymore, but she also didn't know if whether that was because they were dead, or if the orks had just shut them up because they got annoyed at their shrieks.

  She scooped a fresh load of soup into her bowl, and began to drink. It was so thick that she almost had to chew it as she swallowed. But the constant rumblings in her belly made her eager for more.

  It wasn't just the pregnancy changing her, whatever they were putting in the soup was altering her body, her breasts had begun to leak milk two days ago, and they just kept growing. She had always been proud of what the gods had given her, but now she had to part them if she wanted to see her growing belly. Her hips had widened too, but she was grateful. It had made taking the orks easier, and it would surely make the coming challenges easier on her body too.

  Antonia couldn't see it, but unbeknownst to her there were more changes than just her breasts and hips. Her entrance had begun to restructure itself to accept rger insertions with greater ease. Her rapidly widening pelvis creating room for radical restructuring. But the most dramatic changes were unseen to any eyes, inside her body, her womb and ovaries were growing rapidly. Her intestines beginning to shrink to make way for more important organs. Her ovaries, once the size of almonds had started to balloon to many times their original size.

  The orks had their eyes set on fertile fields filled with cattle, and menfolk. They would need an army to take it, Antonia and her like would give it to them.

  A rge green form thudded into the room as she was finishing the bowl. She knew what to do by now. She tossed off what was left of her clothes, and presented herself to the intruder. It's small, beady eyes raked up and down he body. At first she had felt vioted when they had looked at her like this, now she felt something else entirely. It picked her up easily with one arm, its other hand positioning it's rapidly hardening member. With a roar of triumph and a moan of pleasure, it began to slide Antonia down it's colossal shaft.

  It held her there, using her like a toy. Lifting her up and down at it's own pleasure. Antonia shrieked and shrieked. But where on the first day they had been cries of pain and viotion, now they were cries of delight and ecstasy.

  End of Interlude

  Thessa picked the blue pnt carefully with her hands. They hadn't brought trowels or spades, not that they had any. But in any case, they wouldn't have been any use anyway. It squirmed in her hands as she held it aloft. The trick was to touch it, and pull it out all in one motion. If you disturbed it with even the slightest touch before quickly picking it, it would disappear into the ground and be rendered useless.

  Both it's vibrant blue leaves, and the roots were valuable reagents to those who dabbled in magic. But the darn pnts resisted any form of cultivation, and had to be caught wild in the woods beyond the city of Rome. Aurelia had said the more the better. The contract had only been for two bags, but any extra they got their hands on could be sold independently. So the pair had been collecting all they could during the afternoon. They had started when the sun wasn't quite at it's apex, and now it was beginning to threaten the first amber rays of sunset.

  It was about time Thessa found Aurelia again so that they could head home.

  She packed up her things, and began to retrace her steps back to where she had st seen Aurelia. Since the Splitleaves grew wild, their paths had naturally parted as they had gone off to collect their own pnts, but she was reasonably certain she knew where Aurelia was.

  Hmmph. Her thoughts were conflicted about her would be rescuer. One one hand, she had brought her to safety, and graciously cared for her in the past days while Thessa had been finding her feet. But something was beginning to bother her. Whenever Thessa saw Aurelia, she began to feel all funny inside. Like she was falling, or spinning. Oh she just didn't understand it!

  She kicked a nearby stump in her frustration at herself, then promptly began cursing as her foot smarted. She bent over and began to gently rub the offending limb.

  It was clear that Aurelia only meant well for her, and Thessa was a sheep without a flock at the moment. Maybe that was why she felt the way she did?

  She couldn't go back, not anymore. And her first adventure had ended in disaster.

  She shuddered.

  Maybe things would be different this time, she and Aurelia were taking things slow, no crazy jobs yet.

  Look at her, she was already thinking of her and Aurelia as one unit. How did she even know if the other woman even wanted her around. Maybe she was just trying to do acts of charity?

  She just couldn't get the image of Aurelia's face out of her head. Or her legs... or her breasts... or her rear.

  "UGGhhh!" With a frustrated shriek, Thessa kicked a nearby tree with her other leg.

  She nearly fell to the forest floor now that both her feet were hurting.

  "Stupid me! Stupid Adventuring! Stupid Sheep! And Stupid Aurelia for making me feel all weird."

  Maybe this was like when ewes mounted each other in mating season, but that wasn't real was it? Women didn't pair with other women, and Thessa wanted children at some point, how would that even work?

  "Nonsense Thessa. You're thinking nonsense and talking to yourself."

  She began to hear wet rhythmic sounds in the distance. And as she approached, they resolved themselves into wet, sloppy Pp Pp Pp sounds. It was almost like flesh hitting flesh?

  Even though this was a fairly safe part of the forests, one regurly patrolled and cleansed of any intruding monsters, one could never be too careful when encountering the unknown.

  Thessa began to creep forward slowly, unable for the life of her to figure out what was making all that noise.

  An outline took shape through the brush, a rge, white and gold outline.

  Thessa almost called out to ask Aurelia what was going on, but the most delectable smell began to fill her nose. She approached closer, and could now clearly see the backside of Aurelia. Aurelia... who didn't seem to be wearing any clothes.

  She couldn't see much with her enormous wings in the way, but she could see her glorious backside swaying back and forth as Aurelia jerked and shuddered in pce. She supposed that when you felt the need, you felt the need, but did Aurelia really have to do this here and now?

  The smell wafting up Thessa's nose was stronger the closer she got to Aurelia. But before she could get any closer, Aurelia turned in pce so that she was facing where Thessa stood half-crouched behind a bush.

  She almost ducked further behind the brush, but stopped when she realized Aurelia's eyes were closed.

  Then she noticed something else.

  An enormous something, throbbing in time to Aurelia's pumps up and down it's length. Below that were two vast testicles. Enough to put any breeding bull to shame. She could almost swear she could see them pulsating.

  Then a deluge shot out of the fat head like a fountain, and the very green bush Thessa had been partially hiding behind became suddenly very white.

  And so did every part of Thessa which wasn't behind it.

  Including her open mouth.

  She could barely get the words "Oh my!" before her mouth was too full to speak.