Chapter 3: The Village Welcoming
The afternoon light was thick and golden when the cottage door flew open with a crash that shook the walls.
Elke stood in the frame, breathless, her chestnut hair escaping its tie and her cheeks flushed with excitement.“Anya!He’s awake?Good! You must bring him!Everyone is at the hall—they’ve heard about the little flyer! They all want to see!”
James, who had been dozing fitfully in the sling on Anya’s lap, jerked awake at the noise. The visceral panic from his dream still lingered at the edges of his consciousness.“What?No. I’m not going anywhere.”
Anya’s hand, which had been resting on his chest, pressed down slightly, a gentle but firm restraint. “It is the way, James.The village welcomes you. It would be an insult to refuse.”
“I don’t care about insulting them!” he snapped, trying to push himself upright. The sling fabric tightened around him, and Anya’s arm became an immovable bar. “I’m not a curiosity to be paraded around.”
Elke bounded over, her green eyes sparkling.“Oh, but you are!A man!And so small!And from the sky! It’s the most exciting thing to happen in years!” She reached out and pinched his cheek playfully between her thumb and forefinger. “Don’t be such a grumpy sparrow.”
The touch was patronizing, demeaning. He swatted at her hand, a futile gesture that made her laugh.“See? So spirited!”
Anya stood, adjusting the sling with practiced ease. James felt himself lifted, his world tilting as she settled his weight against the colossal swell of her chest. His splinted leg dangled uselessly, and his good one brushed against the soft shelf of her abdomen.“There.Secure. We go.”
His protests were a steady, desperate stream as she moved toward the door.“Anya, please.Put me down. I can… I can meet them later. When I can stand.”
“You cannot stand now,” she replied simply, stepping outside. The crisp valley air, tinged with woodsmoke and pine, hit his face. “And later is now.”
The village path was a wide track of hard-packed earth between towering, timber-framed houses with steeply pitched roofs. A few giant women were outside, tending to herb gardens or drawing water from a well whose bucket was large enough to bathe in. They stopped and stared, their faces breaking into warm, knowing smiles as Anya passed, her hand cupped protectively under James’s rear in the sling. He shut his eyes, hoping to block it out, but the sounds were worse: the gentle, rumbling murmur of their voices, the soft, affectionate laughter that seemed to follow them.The hall dominated the center of the village. It was built of stone and timber, with doors twice as tall as any man he’d ever known. Anya pushed one open without breaking stride, and a wave of heat, light, and sound rolled over them.
The interior was vast, lit by three roaring fireplaces along the walls and heavy iron chandeliers holding scores of candles. The air was a rich tapestry of smells: baking bread, roasting meat, sweet honey, fermenting grain, and the underlying, ever-present scent of milk and female skin.
And there were women.Dozens of them. They sat on wide, low benches padded with embroidered cushions, they stood in groups near the hearths, they moved with an easy, powerful grace between long trestle tables laden with food. All of them were variations on a theme—towering, voluptuous, their figures ample and soft in simple linen dresses, their hair braided or piled high. They ranged in age from girls who were still a head shorter than Elke to matrons with silver threading their hair.A hush fell, gradual but complete. Every pair of eyes turned toward the door, toward Anya, and toward the tiny figure slung against her chest.
James felt his face burn.He was a specimen under a glass.A mouse in a room of cats.
Then the chorus began.“Oh, look at him!”
“So tiny! Anya, is he real?”
“His little leg!The poor thing!”
“Those eyes! Like a scared fawn!”
The voices weren’t hostile.They were warm, enveloping, a humming symphony of maternal curiosity. It was infinitely more terrifying than anger.Anya walked forward into the heart of the hall. “This is James,” she announced, her voice carrying easily.“He fell from the sky. He is healing.”
A woman with a kind face and streaks of silver in her auburn hair approached.She was nearly as tall as Anya, her hands large and capable-looking. “I am Frau Helga,” she said, her voice a low, soothing rumble. “The healer here. Let me see to him, Anya.”
Before James could object, Anya was untying the sling. Large, gentle hands—Helga’s—reached in and lifted him out. He was cradled horizontally, like an infant, in her palms before she brought him close, settling him into the deep, soft cushion of her lap as she sat on a bench. The world became a landscape of soft linen and warm, pillowy flesh.
“Now, let’s see these bandages,” Helga murmured, her fingers, impossibly delicate for their size, beginning to unwrap the linen on his forearm.He was passed from lap to lap after that. It was a soft, slow, inexorable rotation. One woman would finish cooing over him, and another would reach out with a smile.“My turn, Hilda. You’re hogging the little one.”
He was placed on knees that were like soft hills. He was tucked into the warm, broad curve of a hip.He was held against a bosom that felt like a feather mattress. Their hands were everywhere: stroking his hair, tracing the lines of his burned face with a feather-light touch, marveling at the smallness of his hands, comparing them to their own thick, work-strong fingers.
“Try this, little flyer,” a brunette said, breaking off a piece of soft, white cheese and holding it to his lips. It was rich and creamy, overwhelming his senses.He ate it because refusing required more energy than he possessed.
“And this!” Another woman offered a chunk of dark bread dripping with golden honey. It stuck to his fingers, and she laughed, wiping them clean with a damp cloth before sucking the honey from the cloth herself.
A cup appeared constantly at his lips. Warm milk, sometimes sweetened with honey, sometimes carrying the faint, bitter aftertaste of the herbs he now recognized. He drank to avoid choking, and with each sip, a deeper lethargy seeped into his bones. His protests died in his throat, becoming weak shakes of his head that the women misinterpreted as playful refusal, making them chuckle and insist.
Elke appeared, threading her way through the forest of legs. “I made you something!” In her hands was a rough carving of an airplane, whittled from pale pine. It was crude, the wings uneven.It was the most beautiful and the most devastating thing he’d ever seen. Tears pricked hotly at the corners of his eyes. He took the toy, his fingers wrapping around the tiny fuselage, a pathetic replica of the powerful machine he’d flown. A symbol of everything he had lost.“Do you like it?” Elke asked, her face earnest.
He couldn’t speak.He just nodded, clutching the carving.
“Oh, he’s overwhelmed,” clucked the woman whose lap he currently occupied—a plump, rosy-cheeked giantess named Gerda. “All this attention for such a little man.” She rocked him gently, humming.The hall swirled around him.The firelight blurred. The deep, melodic voices of the women blended into a single, soothing drone. The rich food and the constant milk sat heavily in his stomach, a warm, drugging weight. His head lolled back against Gerda’s substantial bosom.
Through half-lidded eyes, he saw Anya watching from across the hall, a satisfied, possessive gleam in her blue eyes. She had been waiting, letting the village have its share, knowing she would reclaim him.
As if on her unspoken cue, Gerda stood, cradling him. “I think our little guest is tired,” she announced to general sounds of agreement. She carried him back through the press of bodies and placed him, not into the sling, but directly into Anya’s waiting arms.
Anya settled into a large, carved chair near the central hearth. She arranged him not on her lap, but against her chest, turning him so his back was to the room, his face nestled into the soft, fragrant valley between her breasts. One of her arms cradled his back, the other came up to cradle his head, her fingers stroking through his short hair.
Here, the world narrowed to the sound of her heartbeat, a slow, steady drum beneath his ear, and the rise and fall of her breath. The boisterous noise of the hall became a distant, comforting murmur. The heat from the fire and from her body enveloped him.He tried once to lift his head, to muster some final shred of defiance. Anya’s hand pressed down gently, holding him in place. “Shhh,” she whispered, the sound vibrating through her chest and into his very core.“Sleep now, James. You’re home.”
His fingers, still curled around the tiny wooden airplane, went slack. The toy dropped silently onto the thick fur rug beneath the chair.
His soldier’s pride, already cracked and chipped, eroded into fine dust. There was no fight left, only a deep, aching surrender to the warmth, the softness, the overwhelming security of it all.His eyelids fluttered shut.
The last thing he heard was the gentle, collective laughter of the giantesses, a sound like far-off thunder, warm and approving, as they watched their newest, smallest villager fall asleep.
The last thing he heard was the gentle, collective laughter of the giantesses, a sound like far-off thunder, warm and approving, as they watched their newest, smallest villager fall asleep.
The conversation around the hearth settled into a lower, more intimate rhythm. The great logs crackled, settling into embers that pulsed like beating hearts in the stone. One of the older women, Magda, her face a web of kindly wrinkles, leaned forward on her bench.“So, Anya,” she began, her voice a dry rustle. “The village has met him.He is sweet, even in his frustration. Do you intend to keep him? To lay a formal claim?”
Anya’s fingers, which had been tracing slow circles on James’s back, stilled. She looked down at the small, sleeping form pressed into her.The firelight caught the silvery trails of old burns on his cheek. “I… I never thought to claim a male permanently,” she confessed, her voice barely above the crackle of the fire. “I always assumed I would select a stray from the mountain village when the time came for daughters. A practical arrangement.”
Elke, who had been refilling mugs with mead, spun around with a mischievous grin. She padded over and crouched by Anya’s chair, her eyes gleaming in the dim light. “Well, if you don’t want him, I’ll take him!” she whispered, not quite playfully. Her hand darted out to gently touch James’s dangling foot.“Look at him. He’d be so much fun.”
A hot, sudden surge of possessiveness flared in Anya’s chest, sharp and unequivocal. Before she even formed a thought, her arm tightened around James, pulling him deeper into the soft refuge of her bosom.She turned her shoulder sharply, blocking Elke’s access. “Don’t.”
Elke rocked back on her heels, laughing softly. “I was only joking, Anya!Stars above, look at you.”
But Anya didn’t relax her hold. She kept James pressed close, his quiet, sleep-softened breaths warming her skin through the linen. Even after Elke’s retreat, she held him there, a silent declaration.
Magda watched this, a slow smile spreading across her face.She chuckled, a sound like stones tumbling in a creek. “It seems your heart has already decided, girl. Even if your brain is still catching up.”
Anya looked from Magda’s knowing eyes back down to James. As if sensing the attention, he nuzzled instinctively further into the warm cleft between her breasts, letting out a soft, contented sigh.The sound was tiny, defenseless, and it dissolved the last of her hesitation. Her heart didn’t just melt; it seemed to swell, filling a space she hadn’t known was empty.She felt a profound, terrifying rightness.
She let out a long, slow breath, her resolve solidifying. “Yes,” she said, the word firm and clear in the hushed hall. “I will lay my claim.”
A soft, unanimous murmur of approval rippled through the women.Frau Helga, the healer, nodded with professional solemnity.“Good. Then we begin the bonding.I will bring the herbs and oils to your cottage at dawn. The process must be gentle, but thorough.”
Magda nodded in agreement. “And you must instruct him in a male’s proper place here, Anya.His duties, his comportment. He knows nothing of our ways.”
“I will ensure he is trained,” Anya replied, her voice gaining a new, steadied authority. She felt the weight of the responsibility settle on her, not as a burden, but as a purpose. “I will be his keeper.”
The women offered their quiet congratulations, their smiles genuine. One by one, they began to hum, a low, harmonious vibration that filled the timbered hall. It was an old melody, a song of bonding and devotion, its rhythms slow as a heartbeat, deep as the valley roots.
Anya leaned back in her chair, cradling the sleeping pilot.She began to rock, slowly, in time with the song. Her lips moved silently along with the words she had known since childhood, now imbued with a meaning she finally understood. James slept on, utterly oblivious, as the women’s voices wove a soft, irrevocable net around them both.
James slept on, utterly oblivious, as the women’s voices wove a soft, irrevocable net around them both. The deep hum of their song followed Anya home, a vibration in her bones as she carried him through the silent, twilight-wrapped village. She placed him in the center of her large bed, tucked the blankets around him, and sat watchful in her chair by the fire, waiting for the promised dreams to find him. Her own thoughts were a tangle of fierce possession and nervous hope.He dreamed of a siren.
It was the air-raid alarm back at base, a grinding, mechanical wail that shredded the night. He bolted upright from his cot, his heart a hammer against his ribs. The barracks were a blur of shadow and urgency.He stumbled to his footlocker, fingers fumbling for his flight suit. He shook it out, the familiar olive drab a comfort in the chaos.
He pushed his legs into the trousers, but the fabric billowed around his calves. He yanked them up, but the waist pooled around his hips like a deflated parachute. He shoved his arms into the jacket, and the sleeves swallowed his hands.Something was terribly wrong.He looked down at his chest.
Bright, primary-colored patches stared back at him: a cartoon eagle, a smiling star, ribbons of garish yellow and red.The medals were cold, cheap tin, sewn clumsily onto the cloth. This wasn’t his uniform. A low, warm chuckle echoed through the empty barracks, a sound that belonged to no man.
“Awwww… is my little pilot ready to fly?”
He froze.The voice came from everywhere. He turned slowly, his ill-fitting costume rustling with a childish, plastic sound.The walls of the barracks had vanished. He stood on an endless, polished floor, and above him, so vast the ceiling was lost, was Anya’s face. Her head was tilted, her expression one of tender amusement. Her blue eyes were lakes of condescending affection.“I am a pilot,” he insisted, his voice sounding reedy and small. “Not some kid.”
She laughed, a rich, earth-shaking sound that made his bones tremble. “Of course not, my brave little flyer.”
He looked down again at the bright patches, the puffed sleeves, the exaggerated cut.A cold understanding seeped into him, corrosive and absolute. It was a costume.A child’s play-suit. The horror wasn’t just in the clothing; it was a feedback loop. As the realization dawned, he felt himself diminish, his perspective shifting until the oversized suit seemed to fit a smaller, more compact frame. The world expanded terrifyingly around him.A helpless, choking sob erupted from his throat. He couldn’t stop it. He was crying, hot tears streaking down his face, as some foundational part of himself—the lieutenant, the adult, the man—slipped away into the vast, smiling gaze above.“Shhh, now. Shhh.” Anya’s immense hand descended, fingers wider than his torso.They closed around him with infinite gentleness, lifting him from the floor. She brought him close, cradling him against the monumental warmth of her breasts. Her other hand rubbed his back in slow, soothing circles. “You will always be my brave little pilot.”
Through his tears, he saw her other hand move. With a soft, deliberate motion, she loosened the front of her dress. The fabric fell away, revealing the full, massive curve of her breast, the nipple dark and prominent against her pale skin. She guided him gently, bringing the areola toward his mouth.
“Here comes the airplane,” she cooed, her voice a vibration through her chest and into his core.He shook his head wildly, thrashing in her grasp. “No,” he gasped, the word a pathetic whimper. “No.”
He woke with a ragged inhale, disoriented and slick with cold sweat. He was wrapped in a thick wool blanket, held tightly against Anya’s sleeping form in the chair by the hearth. The cottage was dark except for the fire’s dying glow.The dream’s terror clung to him, visceral and sour in his mouth.
He pushed against her arm, a frantic, weak shove. It was like pushing against a seasoned oak.She didn’t even wake. A soft sigh escaped her lips, and in her sleep, her arm tightened, pulling him closer until his face was pressed into the soft linen over her sternum. Her warmth enveloped him, a comfortable prison.
He strained for another moment, muscles quivering with effort that amounted to nothing. A profound exhaustion, deeper than any fatigue from his injuries, washed over him.His body went limp. His mind, scarred by the dream’s humiliation, offered no more resistance.
He gave up.