2.5 Dirt Poor

“Really, this is not a lick of trouble for me,” Zeshyrrith said, gripping onto Qastael’s back and adjusting the fit of the tight brassiere. “Rather, you made my entire life easier by drawing Gowk’s attention away from me and mine. Ever since his uncle died and he inherited all the mines last year, Gowk has gone plum cuckoo throwin’ his codpiece around town. So I don’t envy you when Gowk brings a posse your way or tries makin’ your life miserable elsehow. As dumb and useless as a ingrown pube, the pisspot’s been known to clever when he gets mean.”

“Wasn’t trying to start anything. He leaves well enough alone, I won’t call him out. Perfectly happy on my farm.” Qastael itched her chest, wondering why the black bra was so tight.

The two were behind the house, Thexi and the other arachne laying things out in the barn to finish the fittings. Left the two in the garden, the giant woman enjoyed a bit of privacy while Zeshyrrith adjusting the intimates. The act of clothing created a growing, unfamiliar feeling of modesty in Qastael. This amused the bordello madame to no end, yet Qastael insisted on privacy and continued resolutely not caring about Gowk, already thinking more about walking the valley and seeing if she could track what ruined her potatoes.

“Already your farm, eh?” Zeshyrrith said, deftly pinning her work in place then threading a needle. “Won’t get any arguments from me, but you will not enjoy getting the deed transferred to your name. Government is like genital warts: rubbing up against them only covers you in blood and puss and more warts. Then wait until the tax man swings around! At least when I screw someone, I have the decency to say thank you and swallow.”

Qastael didn’t reply, though she wanted to scrub vivid explicitudes out of her mind. The sable and fuzzy arachne woman was a gab and didn’t need prompting to keep talking, mostly in lurid details. Worth it, though, as Qastael ran claws down the side of the snug and caressful matching black panties, the garment including a strap looping over the base of her tail to keep them in place.

Who knew clothing felt so good? Qastael thought, air easing out of her lungs as the bra finally loosened and she experienced proper support.

“Swore I had your measurements dead to tits back at the Embrace.” Zeshyrrith snipped thread with her teeth, quickly scaling down Mount Qast and skittering around to view her handiwork. “Was off by two whole cups. I’ll leave some towels you can use if it’s your time of the month. ‘Fore I go, me and the girls’ll make sure to fix the tops so you can adjust in case your pumpkins ripen larger.” All eight dark eyes scanned up and down Qastael, Zeshyrrith replacing pins into her seamstress corset and replacing other tools inside a pouch riding her black and orange furred carapace. “Anyhoo, lets mosey to the barn and finish your fitting.”

The litany tickled something in Qastael’s brain, otherwise gently poking around her chest distractedly while standing and limping her way towards the barn. Kuri’ma were not like common races and didn’t fluctuate physically in fertility cycles. There was another possibility, but it was decades too early and she didn’t want any hopes up, instead laying bosomly changes at the feet of recent healthy eating. Compared to her kin, she was a withered and famined specimen, made sense she would fill out again with proper diet. Didn’t matter. Qastael pursed her lips, determined to keep moving forward and not dwell on her past or future.

*krckcoom!*

“Reckon we made it to your stead in the nick of time,” Zeshyrrith said, whistling at the vermilion clouds rising up from the south thick enough to block the suns, black lightning striking the ground and the wind quickly progressing from a stiff breeze into a gale. “That metareal storm out of Wylo doesn’t look too bad, but don’t want to be caught outside in it. Wouldn’t have come if’n I knew it was brewing, Wylo is a bundle of chaos and no one can ever predict these things, clouds coalescing out of the ground or falling from the aether. Should blow over in a day, two at most.”

…darkness…unlight, flashing…

...galloping hooves, somewhere close…need to keep Little Mouse safe…

...didn’t expect so many, all of them out for blood…

...tired, hungry…can taste thaum, so thick in the air…

...not enough Breath…must save Little Mouse, she is all…all…

They found her.

*KRCKCKCOOOM!!*

Qastael jumped, wings lifting her thirty feet (9.2 m) before landing with a THWUMP onto the dirt, winds churning everything into a cloud outside the barn around her. The giant Kuri’ma was no lightweight, her jump left craters and rocked panels of the barn from the shockwave. Zeshyrrith skittered around to keep her feet, animals and people inside shouting, wondering what happened.

It hurts! Qastael thought, digging claws into her side, half her body experiencing the same echoes of the injury. Panting, she gulped to get enough air, choking on dust and still needing more. This wasn’t normal for her, she had been afflicted before, hard to be a soldier and not expect the enemy to fight back. Yet for a moment, hearing cracks of black lightning, she was back in Wylo and surrounded. Not a moment, she was still there. Qastael focused hard on the concerned eyes of Zeshyrrith to convince herself she was now and not then.

“Careful there, don’t want to pop stitching,” Zeshyrrith said softly, resting pedipalps against Qastael’s shin. “Not the only soldier I’ve seen jump at thunder. Lets get you inside and don’t you worry, no shame.”

Qastael flinched at her touch, but years wandering Evma taught the giantess that common races were fragile, subduing her reactions. A rueful chuckle spilled out, looking down at the double-taller-than-Thexi arachne woman and noticing she only came up to Qastael’s knee. “Not saying I don’t have mental hangups, this one is new to me. How do I bear new nightmares when I have all the old ones hanging around?”

“Everyone has problems. Problems don’t define a woman, only how you deal with life despite them.” Zeshyrrith reached her arms around Qastael’s leg, giving a hug that warmed all the way to the long woman’s heart.

The barn door flew open, assisted by increasing winds. After a squeak when it slammed open, Thexi hopped out and quickly braved her way into the weather wearing a white bra and matching shorts hugging her hips. “Qast? Is everything alright?” Despite previous experience, Thexi showed not a lick of embarrassment over her current state of dress, only concern. A few of the younger arachne peeked out of the barn but kept their distances.

“Just me jumping at shadows,” Qastael said, motioning everyone back inside and closing the door tight, rain and thaum splattering down into the dust. The interior was well lit despite unnatural darkness outside, a dozen lamps hanging around the barn lit and make the room cheery and bright.

“Thought I was the only scaredy cat here, amiright? Jehaha!”

It took a titch for Qastael to pick out the speaker. The barn was occupied with six - now seven, Zeshyrrith inside now - busy arachne, most stepping lightly around fabric and tools spread across the ground. Two were hanging from higher levels, spreading out simple webs to cradle themselves while they worked. Passing her gaze across the room again, Qastael found the loudmouth as the only one not working, peering through the stalls at cows with a hungry gleam. For their own part, the livestock were subdued, likely instinctual understanding the level of predators nearby.

“Allow me to introduce you to the family,” Zeshyrrith said, her tone exasperated as she waved towards a tall and lanky girl with pale skin and light yellow carapace, dressed in a simple white smock. “Roweb is the oldest, helps in the kitchen at the Embrace.” The next hung the highest, near the rafters and over Qastael’s head. A bulbous black carapace, her dark skin matched her mother, though her clothing was decidedly more…leather straps and chains, with a sadistic smile to match. “Ackoow is my top girl at the bordello. She’s aggressive, so make sure to establish a safe word if she corners ya.” The next had a veritable web tunnel in the far corner near the silos, black and furry carapace with stubby legs, her skin brown and a large dust cloak over most of herself. “Fuun needed bribery to leave the city - she doesn’t like outdoors much - but she’s the best seamstress in Farthest.” Purple striped, both on her dark carapace and up along tanned skin, her clothing and manner displayed and austere stoicism and preciseness, despite clearly being younger than Thexi. “Ornaat may look ornery as a goose, but she secretly loves to show off. She helps Fuun in town.” Yellow and white carapace, the next girl possessed a head proportionally larger than human normal and a mouth with far too many teeth, the gangly awkward of early teens clearly not any more pleasant with arachne than other tween girls. “Ceemelle is too young for silk work, but her capacity for getting into trouble knows no ends, so better to bring her along and keep her busy.”

“Forgetting someone?” the last girl asked, stomping angrily away from the cows and towards her mother, thrusting her chest out like a challenge. Different from the rest, her carapace was a black and yellow striped scorpion rather than spider, the bulbous tail a bright red. Her other half was also not human, rather a female tiger as heavily muscled as a minotaur, not even her yellow and black striped fur able to disguise rippling muscles thicker than the barn’s timber beams. She was also proportionally larger than her mother and sisters, standing double in height and easily weighing ten times as much as the others. Her only other obvious trait - aside from boisterous - was a bosom of unusual size. Qastael had concerns the girl couldn’t physically wrap her arm around them, yards of white vest suspending the celestial orbs with straining effort.

Zeshyrrith rolled all her eyes and went over to the long coat, inspecting stitching and mostly ignoring her last daughter. “I’m still mad with you, Indrura, but I suppose you are doing your best. Indrura, Qastael. Qastael, Indrura. She isn’t much of a seamstress, but she hauled half the wagons here by herself.”

“Darn shootin’ I hauled all those wagons, ya saggy honkytonk!” Indrura said, snorting and spitting into the dirt hard enough to kick up a small cloud of dust.

“You show Ma respect, Indy!” Ceemelle shouted, dropping the blue bra sized for Thexi and crawling up into Indrura’s face, her pedipalps dripping viscous green acid to sizzle onto the ground while platinum blond hair flew about her face, large teeth gnashing. “This whole mess is your fault, with what ya done up in the mines!”

Indrura looked ready to respond, her tail twitching over her shoulder when she suddenly bit fang down into her lip and turned around, rushing to the door and leaving the barn in a huff and bluster, the storm raging inside for a moment before she had the decency to close the door behind herself.

Through the entire exchange Qastael kept still and quiet. None of her business, but in an odd way it was comforting, which didn’t make a lick of sense. Her own relationship with her family was complicated and far enough distant as to be faint memories. This was real, and it felt nice to see it, the closeness of a family. An intimacy, and Qastael wondered if she would ever recapture those kinds of closeness with her own life.

Zeshyrrith finished inspecting the stitching, sighing and giving her youngest daughter a glaring look. “I don’t take kindly to what Indrura said, but that doesn’t excuse yourself, Ceemelle. We are guests and need to act bona fide.” The matronly arachne fixed her corset and studied Qastael and Thexi critically. “Enough gabbin’, need to take care of both y’all first and get this clothing fitted.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Qastael replied, looking over the outfits and wondering how some of them would fit around her body, though in the back of her mind she pondered the wayward Indrura.

Fitting didn’t take long as most of the word had been done during the journey to Nowhere, all the girls capable of acrobatics and using webs to drape and efficiently make minute adjustments. Spider silk was surprisingly versatile, able to allow Qastael to pull her pants on past overly awkward hind digitigrade legs and sharp claws. Not pants, the girls were quick to remind her: capris. Four pairs total, each giving her legs the look of a coat of paint. They rode low on her hips and when the loops of her panties stuck up above them, Zeshyrrith informed Qastael that look was in right now. Half a dozen vests fitting snug over her chest in various plain and complex patterns, more than a dozen bras and panties with each a wonder in design and engineering. Three corsets for variety, one so shamefully lewd Qastael was unable to put it on in present company.

Other pieces were more costly and used metal and leather to hold them together. Fuun mumbled a complex chant on each to bind enchantments of protection, each more sturdy than bits of clothing had a right to be. The first was a belt, a thick leather strap and a round brass buckle with the silhouette of a draconic in flight inside. Not that any of the capris needed belting, they were tailored against her scales and fur perfectly, but it was for style and carrying weapons or tools. Qastael knew nothing about either, but better to have something and not need it. The next was a hat, a simple low profile affair with a wide brim and a loop to keep it on her oddly shaped head. It was dyed dark leather and well made, but simple in design. Qastael rather liked it, thinking smugly it was bigger than Sherriff Wapp’s hat, something she envied the smaller man before.

The last was the magnum opus: a long black coat the girls called a duster. It was similar in design from others Qastael had seen at Farthest, immediately springing a grin along her snout as she realized she wouldn’t get nearly as much dust caught in her fur now. Clever seams and buckles in the back allowed her four wings to slide through while Ackoow strapped a harness to tuck in the lame two wings against her back and under the coat.

“Is it normal to feel this good in clothing?” Qastael asked, stretching her arms around to make sure the fit wasn’t too tight along the shoulders. “Like…whole?”

“I don’t know about you, but some of us could use a bit more cloth in our clothing,” Thexi mumbled, eliciting a chuckle from the girls helping her fitting. Not receiving as many outfits, the girls managed to whip up a few shirts, shorts and overalls for the blushing bunny. As was explained patiently, Thexi wasn’t a working girl anymore and needed to dress the part of a farmer, or at least what a bunch of prostitutes thought a farmer should wear. “These shorts barely cover more than a pair of panties, and I’ve sneezed into handkerchiefs larger than this shirt!”

“Oh hush,” Zeshyrrith said, pulling a pin out of her mouth and stabbing a red and white checkered shirt into place on Thexi to hold the sleeve in place. “Nothing wrong with showing a bit of short fur. Farming is hot work, you’ll be thanking me when you’re pouring waterfalls out in the dirt. Not much use for dresses on a farm.”

Qastael enjoyed the view, very little left to the imagination, yet that little bit enticed as her tongue snaked along lips and wanted to taste a bit of rabbit tonight. Might have acted on those impulses, as well, when the barn doors flew open again and Indrura burst inside, soaked from the rain and panic lighting her lime green eyes.

“There’s something out there, in the fields!” Indrura shouted, heaving from a run and frantically looking behind her into the dark as if worried she was followed. “Big suckers! Came up from the south, couldn’t make out what they were in the storm. One of them looked as big as the barn!”

No one said anything, unsure what to make of the news. Qastael wasn’t sure what to make of it herself, only knowing this was probably her potato thieves back for seconds. Standing, her tail grabbed the hat off the ground and put it in place, shuffling her way towards the door with a grim visage.

“Wait, Qast! It isn’t safe!” Thexi said, grabbing hold on the hem of Qastael’s new coat, her eyes wide and scared.

The larger woman paused, another strike of black thunder rattling past the door and into the barn. Flashes of her past struggled to stop her hearts, break her at the knees, but she shook it off and looped her neck down close. “Nobody is ever safe, only free.” Gently dipping down, Qastael kissed the top of the diminutive bunny as tenderly as she was capable, quickly stepping into the hard rain thrumming with thaum. “I’ll be back in two shakes.”

Qastael didn’t look back, but if she did, she might have noticed tears in the rain falling down pink and green fur.