An invitation to Erstval's royal family, leads a merchant to a rather permanent stay
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 skiesofsilver



Deshan really didn’t know why he was being asked to come to the Erstval. It had to have been something he sold… or maybe, he finally got prestige enough to be worth noticing. He smiled as he passed a pair of Lionmen guards at the gates who held spears, men from this land who were not quite human. They were just one type of many from.

The City in the Desert was grand, but was never thirsting, for the River provided and the land is green and lush. The monuments in the Square were lovely, obsidian black and bright gold, a polished marble and granite, a testament to the founding so long ago.

The summons had taken him far, more than he had ever dared to admit. Who would have guessed that the Royal palace wanted him for an audience? Not him, surely, for he was but a simple merchant of all sorts of wares, real, imagined, legal, and illicit. Maybe it was a request? A task for his ears only? Who knew?

Deshan stepped through to the palace, led there by couriers and scribes who had little else to do but attend him. It wasn’t long before he stood face to face with the royal family.

For royalty, they were quite plain. The Queen, a humanoid phoenix female more alluring than the rest of her kind, at least for Deshan, wore simples robes so grey they were nearly black, but not quite so. The King, a stout phoenix male and humanoid in form like his betrothed, wore white robes that seemed to slightly shine. Both royalty sat in simple chairs constructed of a wood specifically treated to resist the phoenixes’ inherent heat. In not for the Royal Band of Erstval each wore around their an arm, he would not have known they were loyalty.

“My lord, my lady,” he said, bowing to each phoenix. Though he owed them no real loyalty, he knew what to treat royalty like. “Why did you send for me?”

“We had heard of an experienced man near our city,” the King answered. “We thought you might have some tales to tell.”

“Tales?” Deshan snorted, then remembered himself. “Tales, milord? Why, I know many a man more interesting than me.”

“But we asked for you,” the Queen said. Deshan looked to her and jerked slightly. Now that she had spoken, he saw something in there, in her, but...what? He shook his head as she continued to speak:

“And now you are here,” she said, smiling and causing the man to relax. “Tell us, Deshan, what do you do?”

Deshan’s brow rose at the mention of his name, but it really shouldn’t be that surprising that the royals knew it. They had sent for him, after all. No, what was really concerning was how he was going to answer the Queen’s question.

“Milady,” he said, smiling back. “I admit I am a coarse man. You would not like to hear what I do. I don’t want to...ruffle any feathers.”

The Queen seemed not to care at his quip. She merely continued to smile.

“You won’t,” the Queen replied. “I know hardship, but where are me and my husband’s manners? You’ve traveled far at our request. Please, have something to eat.”

Deshan grunted, wondering what food she meant when snakish servants suddenly slithered out of doors behind the thrones and brought with them tables and a chair. They placed the table in front of the thrones and put the chair on the other side of the table across from the royal pair. A second set of servants appeared, colorful birdmen who carried great plates of food. They laid these on the table and then disappeared along with the snakes. The Queen motioned to the chair with her winged arm.

“Sit,” she said. “And eat.”

Deshan begrudgingly took his seat. He looked over the food and licked his chops.

“Mmm,” he said. “And I was expecting bird food.”

Again, his hosts did not seem to find his joke particularly funny..

Still, they were quite courteous and the meal time was underway a moment later after some odd glances and shrugs by the servants.

“So, what did you did you do?” asked the birdman.

Deshan simply grin in a reply. “Well, I come from, you know… it’s not exactly the most… liberal.”

“Ah, warrior. You been in any raids?”

Deshan laughed, taKing a drumstick from the table and replied in a meek tone, “Well… a few?”

“Any notable ones?” asked the woman. “Surely there must have been something worth remembering…”

Deshan shrugged. There was no real harm in telling them his story. It wasn’t like it was a deep secret or anything. It was a common practice. Plus, there was something on his mind, something he almost felt compelled to tell. He smiled.

“Well… there might have been my first, though I guess I wasn’t a warrior back then…”

*****

He was a young boy in a distant settlement in a far away land, deep past the Spice Roads. His village was a quaint place, by the sea. They were a people that made a living off of taking captives and destroying other lives. It was simply how things were when Deshan grew up.


When he was young, his father, a strong, lean man, had taken him on one of the voyages to another neighboring tribe, not his own kind, but still… men were men, though to them, not all were equal. It was to their benefit that Deshan’s father had managed to slip their ship into their harbor.

“Now, Desh,” his father had said. “It’s time for you to become a man.”

“Really?” Deshan cheered. He was barely ten this winter and the prospect of proving himself.

“Yes! You will go out and take a captive… and I’ll show you a trick I learned…It’s time to learn the family business

“Uh, okay!” said the boy.

So he went into the village and tried to find someone suitable. He doubted he could take an adult, the men and women were too strong and smart for him, but Deshan was crafty. All he needed to do was lure someone to him and then when he and his father left, he could do what he needed to.

He found another boy, a much smaller child who he easily bribed into following him with the promise of sweets.

And then he hid the boy in a crate when he and his father left, leaving the small town to wonder where their missing child went.

*****

Deshan felt a little bit… off. He wasn't quite sure of the details here, they were just sparse. And his head hurt. He had a vague feeling something was off, something wrong.

“Is something wrong?” asked the King.

“Oh… uh…” he wasn’t too sure. His teeth felt brittle and the skin on his head...flowed? He gulped. His throat felt unusually dry, almost hot. Croaking, he grab the nearest goblet and sipped at it, sighing in relief as cool liquid slid down his throat. He was no longer parched, but that heat remained, almost as if it were inherent to him. He sipped at the goblet’s contents again and found even that wrong. It was too close, so close that his beak was practically…

He blinked. Beak? Since when did he have a beak? He lifted a hand to his face..

“Sir Deshan?”

Deshan looked to the Queen. Her beak was cracked into a smile, and he found solace in that smile. He lowered his hand. What had he been panicked about again?

“The boy,” she said. “What happened to the boy?”

Deshan blinked and rubbed at his beak, his headfeathers slightly ruffled. What was she asking about? The boy? Which boy?

“I…” he mumbled. “I’m sorry, I’ve lost track of my own tale.”

“We understand,” the Queen said. “You’ve come far. Perhaps you could tell us something else you have seen in your travels, recent or far past?”

Deshan nodded and for the first time noticed the protrusion of his beak in his vision, yet it couldn’t be the first time he had seen such a thing. It was his beak after all, shaped like a swan’s though darker orange in coloration, like a deep flame. It was his beak and yet--

He closed his eyes. He was thinking too much. He was here to tell tales, not be so introspective. So what might he tell them?

Deshan’s gaze wandered around the room until it fell upon a dish nearby. He smiled and picked out something from it, a tough looKing nut. He opened his beak into a smile and held the nut up with a taloned hand. He tilted his head and looked not at the nut, but the hand holding the food. It was orange and scaly like an avian’s, with four talons perfect for grasping and fine manipulation. Why did it interest him so?

He shook his head and focused on the nut instead. His smile returned.

“You see this?” he said, to which the royalty nodded. “It’s from...it’s from…”

He scratched the feathers upon his head, shifting uncomfortably in his seat when his tailfeathers rubbed uncomfortably against them. As surreptitiously as he could, he adjusted his pants so his tailfeathers weren’t so cramped. What was going on? Shouldn’t that have been adjusted ahead of time?

“The Aviarn Isles!” he exclaimed, the place suddenly recalled. He chuckled and continued: “I’ve been there for a few trips, most business, but some pleasure. The people there are like you--”

“Like us?” the Queen said.
“Yeah,” Deshan said with a nod. “Like you, you know, birdy and such.”

“Birdy?”

“Birdy,” Deshan affirmed. “You know, feathery and beaky and--”

“Don’t you mean like you?” the King rumbled.

Deshan paused, then shivered uncomfortably as his flesh itched. He looked down at himself to find what the sort of such discomfort would be, but he found only as he always was--a feathered phoenix wearing simple merchant’s clothes, nothing like the hardened leather garb he had worn throughout most of his slaving days. Still he felt something was off.

Off! That was the problem. His feet ached and felt cramped in his boots.

“Excuse me,” he said, placing the nut on the table before bending down to unlace his boots. He did so quickly and when his boots were loose enough he kicked them off and let out a sigh of relief. He stretched out his talons, clicking them against the floor until feeling returned.

“Sorry about that,” he said, resuming his seated position. The King and Queen stared at him expectantly. He gulped. “What was I talking about again?”

“The nut,” the Queen supplied.

“Right,” he said. “I--” he looked at the nut. “I...I’ll move onto something else. It’s really not that funny, just something about how they ate them...how we would eat them.”

“We?” the King said.

“Yeah, I mean, we’re from different places but we’re all phoenixes here, right?”

“Right,” the Queen said, smiling. “And the Aviarn Isles…”

Deshan waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing important about them, I--” his stomach growled. “I’m hungry.”

He reached for a piece of meat and began to gnaw on it hungrily. As he sated his appetite, memory began to return.

“Ah!” he said, reaching for more meat. “Let’s move on from Aviarn. The boy---you were asking about the boy, what happened to him, right?”

The Queen nodded.
“Well, we changed him,” Deshan said shortly before gnawing at his newest acquisition. “We-hrk!”

Deshan grasped at his beak, something caught in the keratin edge. He chewed on for a moment and spat the tiny offending bone out of his throat, apparently lodged in his meal.

“Oh, sorry,” he spoke.

“No, it’s quite alright.” said the Queen. “How did you change him?”

“Oh, uh… well, we made him less human. I mean, he could still talk but now he was more keen on squawking and he had feathers and scales instead of skin and hair. He sort of looked like an eagle man, but he was just a boy so…” Desan shrugged. “Now how did I change him? It’s just something my father picked up. Not sure where, but I used it...sometimes it’s a potion, sometimes it’s something I put in their food...it’s magic mixed with something else, essentially. Well, it’s more complicated than that but it makes selling captives so much simpler.”

“I see,” said the King. “We have a similar technique in our lands. Yours seems crude, honestly, unrefined.”

“It works,” Deshan said with another shrug. “I’m just not sure how, completely. If you wanted to know that, you’d have to ask my father.”

“Your father is still alive?”

“Of course, nothing can take that codger down. I don’t see him much, he’s retired a bit away, in Aviarn to be exact.”

“Hmm,” the Queen said. “Were there any other changes you made before you sold your captive?”

“A few,” said the slaver. “Just a few…”

*****

It had been a few weeks later, Deshan and his father were accounting for all of their haul in a warehouse in a marketplace. Where else would they inspect their wares? Deshan had been more or less doing it by himself while his father gathered the details of the trade.

“Please let me go,” whined the eagle boy. “Please…my family would pay you a fortune...”

But the young Deshan wasn’t so easily fooled.

“Ha. Fat chance!” said Deshan as he stepped away, his beak set in a smirk. “I saw the dumpy place you’re from! They don’t care about you!”

The eagle’s beak quivered and he broke down in his own cell. Deshan laughed at his plight, but soon became bored. He was looking for someone else to terrorize when his father returned, holding garments close to his feathered chest.

“What are those?” Deshan asked.

“Something to… enhance our stock,” his father said, placing them down in a pile. “I found a buyer, but there will be some caveats. We shall subdue our captives.

Deshan picked one of them up and looked over it. It was a simple linen dress though brilliantly colored with a fiery red.

“Yes,” his father said. “That’s it.” He nodded towards the sobbing eagle boy. “Have him wear it. If he won’t...make him.”

Deshan nodded, approaching the eagle’s cage

*****

Back in the present, Deshan was starting to feel self conscious. Again something was off--for some reason his chest felt heavier though...softer?

He glanced down his seat, trying to see past his feathered breasts and touch the fabric of his pants. He felt something off, but he wasn’t sure… what exactly was wrong with him. His garment felt… looser around his waist, tighter further up. Maybe it had to do with nearly vomiting. Perhaps he should stop eating.

“Ah, so you made him into a woman?”

“A girl. She was too… juvenile,” spoke Deshan. His voice was a little shrill. Maybe it was because of the near choking hazard...

“Do you ever wonder what it must be like having that done to you?”

“Maybe?” admitted Deshan. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond to the Queen’s probing. Why was she staring?

“How was it done?”

Deshan wanted to answer, but it was difficult to concentrate. He squirmed, shifting around in his seat as his hips ached and creaked. He looked down and squawked, embarrassed to see his pants had dropped slightly from his movements while his shirt was pulled slightly up. He blushed beneath his feathers, pulling his shirt down over his smoothly feathered stomach and squeezing it tight over his waspy waist. What was going on? He had gotten these custom fit not too long ago. Had he lost more weight than he had thought recently? Being semi-retired, he would have thought he’d have gained some...

“Sir Deshan?”

Deshan looked up, then diverted his gaze down when he caught sight of his talons. He flexed them, noticing that they seemed more dainty somehow...but that couldn’t be right. They were as they always were. He took a deep breath and felt his breasts jostle. He blushed again, smiling apologetically as he crossed his hands over his chest. Why wasn’t he wearing something to contain them? There was a reason, but it was just outside the reach of his muddled mind.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I...what was the question again?”


“What did you do to the boy?” the Queen asked. “Tell me.”

“Sure,” Deshan said, nodding. He squirmed again as he felt something bothering at his crotch, but he ignored that for now. He had a tale to tell.

*****
The eagle boy hadn’t wanted to wear the dress, of course. Thus, Deshan had to force him out of the cage and with some threats he got the young man to strip down to his underwear. It took a few more threats, ones that Deshan made the eagle all too aware of how capable he was of carrying them out, and then Deshan’s charge was dressing himself into the orange linen dress, sobbing and crying all the while.

Putting on the dress did far more than make the eagle boy look like a girl--it activated the rest of the magic lurking within him, fed to him in his food and drink. As soon as he had pulled the dress over his head, the eagle’s feathers all over had brightened to a fiery orange while the rest of his body had altered appropriately until by the time the eagle was completely dressed, she matched her wear. The new phoenix girl whimpered and held her wings close to chest as Deshan looked over her in satisfaction. Now her prey was just like her.

The little bird girl cried. “Not fair… Not fair… I want mommy!”

Deshan could only smile. When she saw her mother approach, Deshan felt a swell of pride. Victorious, she hopped, skipped and jumped, trailing feathers all over as she spoke to her mother.

“It’s done!” she chirped.

“Very good, my chick,” her mother said, stroKing her daughter’s head. “Very good indeed.”

*****



Deshan grasped at her head, a dizzy swell coming over her. That last retelling had left her drained. She stopped eating and glanced at a mirror in the far corner, noticing herself for the first time. Yet she almost didn’t recognize herself.

The mirror’s reflection showed a phoenix female sitting in an ornately crafted chair, but Deshan hardly cared about the chair. She stared at the phoenix woman, an avian with a healthy glow to her feathers, a proud beak, a modest bosom, slender, almost dainty limbs, and a fine set of eggbearing hips. Her clothes seemed a little strange, of human make and Deshan could tell. The pants were loose around her hips and the shirt didn’t seem like it was meant to accommodate her breasts, their presence all too obvious. Despite the seemingly innocuous image, Deshan couldn’t help but feel something was off. The phoenix female just wasn’t her. It couldn’t be, could it? Her heart began to beat rapidly. She was...she is…

Deshan stared into the phoenix’s eyes and saw herself in them. She let out a calm breath and felt her heartbeat slow down. It was her, this was her, she was...she was a phoenix female, a woman who was well off due to her past. It should have been alright, but then why did it feel wrong?

“Are you feeling alright, Madam Deshan?” the Queen asked.

“Kind of, I might just need a drink,” Deshan said, looking back over to the royalty. She smiled and sat up straighter as she reached for an enticing goblet.

“So, how hard was, uh, she to sell?” the King queried.

Deshan took a long drink, thinking all the while on how to answer that.

“Not much, an idle sum at best. She wasn’t… fully bloomed at the time.”

“Oh, of course,” said the Queen. She smiled, “Maybe it is time I begin a story of my own, just as you’ve spoken of yourself…”

“That’d be fine,” Deshan said. “I…”

She held her head as she felt it spin. She looked up to the King and Queen and somehow the world felt...larger.

“I’ll just listen,” she said. “I need to cool my tongue…”

“Very well,” the Queen said. “Sometime ago…”

While the Queen spoke, Deshan tried to listen but she just couldn’t concentrate. She looked to the Queen the whole time, but there was something about the phoenix’s speech and looks that made it impossible for her to focus...but was that really the reason why? Was it just what she was looking at or was she just so tired that it was time for a nap?

Deshy blinked. Nap? That sounded awfully nice, especially with this terrible headache…

“Something the matter child?” spoke the Phoenix Queen.

Deshy nodded. “... yeah.” her voice felt so… high, squeaky. Maybe it was just what she was drinking. She shouldn’t be drinking this bitter stuff. “Head hurt…”

The King and Queen both took seats next to their guest to reassure her. It was here Deshy noted how big they were. She could have sworn they weren’t so extreme a moment before, her height, but the two royal phoenixes could have towered over her.

The Queen then took Deshy and placed her on her lap. “There, there… little one. I know, I know. Let me tell you another story.”

Deshy’s eyes perked up at the mention of a story. It sounded like it would help her focus, be more entertaining.

“Storry?”

The Queen nodded.

*****

Once there was a young boy who lived like the rest of his people did, peacefully and with his family. Then one day some travelers came to town, a father and his son. The father looked like a cruel man and so the young boy feared him, but his son seemed nice enough, innocent and the same age as the young boy. In any case, the young boy kept away from them, for he was never that courageous and he heeded his parents’ words on strangers. Still, the son sought him out and at first he was as nice as he seemed. For a time the young boy and the son played simple games until the son showed his true colors, tricking the young boy into a trap. The son caged the boy, and then the father took the young boy away from his parents.

The father and the son were indeed cruel. They changed the young boy into a mixture of man and bird so that he would not be recognized by kin when he was taken away but what was the young boy to do? He could only cry and hope for escape, but it go only worse. When the boy could not be sold, they dressed him up as a girl and soon enough she was actually a girl, no longer an eagle or a boy, but a phoenix female. In this shape they sold her to a swarthy phoenix. As she was being taken away, fear in her heart, she saw the father and the son for the last time and felt hatred too.

The phoenix held onto that hatred. She stroked it as a flame inside her and would have totally turned bitter if fated had taken an even worse turn. Her fortune, however, reversed when she found her buyer treating her with dignity and respect, for she was to serve as a handmaiden to the Queen of his land, not some sordid servant. Though he had freed her, she could not return home for she hadn’t the heart. She couldn’t be sure she could be loved as she was and she wasn’t sure of the road to home either. She was wrong, however, for she would find both in her new life.

The phoenix grew and learned in servitude to the Queen, finding out much about the world. She served the Queen honorably and for her efforts was rewarded. She was adopted to be as a daughter and when tragedy struck, she was the royalty’s only child. Eventually she found herself sitting in the same throne she used to clean, yet even in this place of power she never forgot who she had once been and neither did she forget who had done it to her. She often thought of that cruel father and his son who had so willingly taken after him, and wondered what had become of them. Then one day she decided she would find out and figure out what how she could pay them back for what they did to her so long ago.

*****
As the Queen finished her tale, Deshy felt a little bit… odd. Her head continued to spin and odd visions began to play in her eyes. Her clothes felt loose, almost too big. Had the fabric been drooping on her hips? She could have sworn that she had breasts weighing her down on her, but… then again. Maybe she was imagining it. She remembered she didn’t have them before, why did she have them earlier? Was she just wanting to bloom so soon? The phoenix girl couldn’t tell. She was a long way off from reaching maturity. Why would the young girl think otherwise?

“That was a cruel son, full of trickery,” spoke the Queen. “But you wouldn’t do that, would you?”

Deshy’s eyes fluttered a few moments, just only understanding what had been said to her, but as she went through the thoughts, it only seemed to lose sense and reason within her own mind as though she could no longer understand it.

The Queen lifted a single slender talon onto her little one’s nose and gently tapped the beak. The act sent Deshy into a fit of bubbly giggles as she flailed around in oversized clothing that was more blanket than garment. It was so… funny and enjoyable. The rational part of her knew that she should be upset, offended, but the giggles just wouldn’t stop.

It was at this point that the Queen tapped the little phoenix's forehead and then suddenly the younger phoenix could think clearly again, seeing through the spell for the first time. She... He noticed everything that was wrong. He was supposed to be a grown man, but the Queen, the King they did something to him, they turned him. He raised a shout to protest but all of his words came out as timid squawks. “Na! Wha!”

With a smile the Queen took Deshan with a single motion, picking him up by his weakened arms and overly large garments. It was here that Deshan was taken to a room in the back, some sort of personal quarters. And that was when she took him to the mirror and stripped him of what remained of his dignity.

It was then Deshan saw what his final fate was. Gone was the somewhat out of his prime slaver, warrior, and mercenary, now reduced into a ball of white fluff, not even grown enough to have her first real feathers. And yes, her, no matter how much he didn’t want that. Deshan wailed, wishing that even the barest trace or vestiges of himself were to remain, but alas, the Queen had seen fit to rob him of everything.

“You robbed my darling of her life once. Today, we do the same to you, though we say this fate is far kinder than you gave her,” said the King. “Consider this a lesson in humility, maybe you’ll grow up better adjusted.”

And that was when Deshan was placed onto a table and for all of the former slaver’s wailing, he didn’t have even the strength to pick himself off the ground. He could only see what was going to happen to him.

The Queen received a small linen dress from her husband, the kind that obviously emphasized girlishness with its shape being a diminutive of a more adult version. And in her other talon, she bore a garment of thick padded cloth, its intent clear.

“Just as you did to me…”

Deshan complained and hissed but an infant's cries weren’t going to stop them.

And as the last garment was put into place, he felt… strange. Something was wrong. What was it?

The Queen smiled and bent down. “Now, are you a grown up?”

Deshan wanted to say that he was, but… as he tried to speak in infantile babble… he stopped and let out a laugh. That question sounded silly, like some sort of joke.

“Nuh! Nuh!!”

The Queen rose and picked up the phoenix chick by her back. Deshan started to feel light headed. “Are you a boy?”

Deshan squealed in more laughter. He… she… didn’t have the boy thing… so maybe she wasn’t. What gives? What was happening to him… her?

And that’s when it dawned on her. The clothing, it was meant to change her… mind, like how she warped the Queen’s body in… in… when she was older? That made no sense.

But her thoughts were interrupted by something coming into her view. Deshan tried to reach it, some sort of toy on a stick that made strange noises as it was shaken.

“And you don’t want to be a grown man, do you?” The King asked.

Deshan froze, still trying to hang on, but losing ground. This had been the whole point of the exercise, it didn’t matter that she had been reduced to this and almost forgot. No, they wanted him to renounce himself, to want to be their infant daughter. And the worst part of it was, Deshan really wanted that doll, an urge inside of her seeking to grab everything nearby to her.

“Enora?” the Queen said. “Answer your father.”

The little chick squealed and tried to reach out. She wasn’t really sure why, until her diminutive talons came into contact with the stick-toy. She grabbed it and her father…

She chirped. Father? Her father was…

“Dada?” she said.

Her mother...no, the Queen clapped her talons together.

“Oh, that’s ever so adorable,” she said, turning and give a quick kiss to the King. “Very good, Enora. Yes, it’s father!”

Enora blinked. Was she...it was...how…

Then her father shook the stick and Enora couldn’t help but squeal in excitement. She grabbed it with all her strength and tugged, but her father was far stronger than she and of course he should be. She was just a little phoenix chick, their baby girl, nothing less and nothing more.

Enora suddenly felt exhausted as something left her. Sighing, she let go of the toy and curled up in an adorable bundle of feathery fluff.

“Done already?” she heard mother ask. Enora nodded, though she opened an eye and peeked through her wing.

“Well, it has been a long day,” her father said, picking her up and stroking her head. Enora cooed and felt herself begin to drift away. She heard no more before she fell into a sound sleep.

*****
“She is adorable,” the Queen said, following behind the King as they carried her chick. “I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“And who would have thought you would end up as a beautiful phoenix queen?” the King asked, giving her a quick peck. “He didn’t.”

“She,” the Queen corrected with a smile. “No, you’re right. Neither of us expected our fates.” She looked down at the chick. “I--”

The King stopped and turned. “What?”

“I was just thinking,” the Queen said, her smile broadening. “Perhaps we should take a trip to Aviarn. Enora could use a sister.”

The King nodded.