Rising Ch.1

Ahma let out a heavy sigh and stood up. Her wings were stiff and achy from all the bending and stretching she did while she cleaned. The sun filled the room, stifled by the gloom of heavy winter clouds hanging across the sky. At first Ahma thought it would snow, or perhaps sleet, but the heavens began to open and a light drizzle began to fall across the gardens below.
She placed her dusting rag in an unoccupied drawer in the Masters now empty desk, and shut the door to the study quietly behind her. She was done before schedule, and the study would not be inspected till just before the evening meal. She could stay in the Study, undisturbed, and continue to attempt to finish learning how to read, but without the Master to finish teaching her where he left off, reading felt hollow. And the rain called to her.

The crisp grass tickled her bare feet as she shut the door to the side gardens behind her. She walked deeper into the gardens, taking a deep breath. The day smelled of gloom and greenery and rain, and Ahma was glad the Manor was uphill of the city commons, and thus upwind of the stench of Durinum’s masses. The rain was coming down steadily now, a soaking but gentle downpour.

The east garden was much more natural than the southern garden overlooked by the study. This garden was more of a clustering of trees and shubbery, and had been allowed to grow in a more natural and wild way. The grass was tended and weeds removed, and the trees and undergrowth had been cleared out so that people could walk through the trees and bushes, but the plants and flora were allowed to otherwise grow as they would. Many of the trees were naked and spindly looking, their green cloaks having been shed for the winter, leaving their gnarled and branching bodies to cool in the winter winds.

The snow had been cleared away from this part of the gardens, but another shower was sure to come along in a few days and leave the ground white. The limbs of the trees were still fairly heavy with powder.

The rain was chill, but Ahma did not mind cold, and the day was surprisingly warm for the season. She would have to spend time warming herself by the kitchens fires when she went inside, but for now she was unconcerned. She wandered deeper into the garden till she came near the small lake the Master had been so fond of. He had fished therein his youth, but as age came upon him took to simply watching the ripples on its surface. A layer of ice covered it now, and snow was piled on its smooth surface where it had fallen from the overhanging branches in great clumps. She didn’t trust the ice as stable enough to walk upon given the mildness of the season.

The Manor was still in sight, but the men would be busy tending to the animals and bringing them out of the rain for the day and harvesting the winter crops on the west side of the Manor as quickly as they could before the approaching winter rains and snow ruined them. The other servant women had enough sense not to be out in the cold rain.
Ahma undid the bindings on her dress as she approach the lake. She smiled when she spotted Hannah and nodded a greeting.

“We Wingling have no sense, you know,” Hannah said by wave of greeting. “I think the Humans may just have it right with their bathes and warm water.”
“It is our way,” Ahma replied. She pulled her dress off and placed it under a pine tree that still had most of its needles.
Hannah handed Ahma a rag and a sliver of dirty and worn soap. Ahma thanked her.

The young Wingling was a vision as she bathed. Her hair was long and thick, a shining, healthy chestnut shade with shocks of gold along her bangs. Braided it hung down below her buttocks and was so thick it took several minutes out in the rain for it to completely soak through. Her skin was the snow white shade of her people, as if untouched by the sun, though she bore light tan-lines from regular tending of the flowerbeds. Her face was perfection. It had a gentle oval shape and large, wide eyes of a deep brown. Her nose was small and delicate and slightly upturned and her lips were full and had a natural purse with a pronounced and dainty cupids bow.

Ahma’s figure was that of her people as well; slender and slim with pronounced, extravagant curvature. Her shoulders were slightly wide and her hips round and supple. Her breasts were full, perky, round, and enormous, hanging high and surprisingly firm on her young chest. They were as all Wingling women were; Hannah, too, had an oversized bosom, and it remained tight and perky despite the graying around her temples. Wingling women could support their generous chests due to the powerful flight muscles needed for flight through their backs and chest. Ahma’s took on a firm teardrop shape, with just a touch of pull along the heavy bottoms. Her nipples were hard and throbbed softly from the cold rain splashing across her bosom, a pleasing cherry blossom color. Her areola were of the same color and stretched across her generous breasts. Her bosom jiggled softly as she bathed.

Her stomach pulled inward slightly and her ribs could be seen through her flesh. Hannah had the same look about her middle; all the servants did these days. Belts had been tightened alarmingly since the Master passed away. No one could complain…it did no good for any of them, and had only been met thus far with even more ration cuts.

Her womanhood was soft and plump, and smooth as silk from top to bottom. This, too, was the way of her people, both the men and the women…Some Wingling grew a small path of downy feathers over their genitals, as Hannah had. Ahma and Hannah had both been puzzled upon seeing a thatch of pubic hair the one time a human servant woman had joined them in their bathing ritual, and agreed that humans were quite odd. Ahma’s buttocks were full, shapely, plump and meaty with a perky and round shape.
Finally, Ahma’s beautiful wings lent her an exotic, fabulous beauty.
Or rather, they would have if they had not been bound down against her back.

Wingling servants and slaves regularly had their wings clipped and their flight taken away so they could not escape. It had been so with Hannah, who’s wings were beautiful and delicate, but useless for anything but their aesthetic value. Hannah had been sold to the Manor by another, but Ahma, who had been directly taken in and cared for by the Master, was spared this fate. The Master had delighted in Ahma’s flight, watching excitedly as the child soared through the clouds. In her later years, he had even taken her out on the hunt with him, letting her fly high above as he rode down his quarry.
Ahma tried not to choke on the bitter-sweet memory.

The Steward would have nothing of the kind. As soon as he was able, he had her wings bound to her back with a kind of corset he had made just for the cruel function. It scooped down around her middle, just under her breasts and over her navel, and lapped over her wings. It was locked in the back, and the Steward was the only one who had the key. The corset flattened them tightly to her back, making them chaff and sore and ache from disuse. Ahma was afraid her feathers were going to fall out soon. She bit her lip. She would not dwell on the injustice, and she would not give the Steward the satisfaction of making her miserable.

“Why do we even follow the old ways?” Hannah asked sadly as she soaped her generous breasts.
“Because it is who we are. We bathe in the sky’s gift of rain, and we say silent prayers to the turning of dawn and dusk,” Ahma replied hollowly.
“We are long removed from our people,” Hannah reminded.
“We are our people. We are not removed from each other. It is enough,” Ahma said, as she always did.
“You are young,” Hannah smiled, and there was resignation in the smile. She cupped rainwater in her hands and splashed it across her bosom to wash away the soap. She began to rub her last bit of soap into the feathers above her womanhood.

“I am not so young anymore,” Ahma said, allowing the hint of a smile to curve her lovely lips as she lathered her inner thighs and buttocks. “I’ve seen Twenty-Two years.”
“Not so long, in the grand scheme of things,” Hannah chuckled.
Ahma was silent for a moment before looking up at Hannah. “How much longer do you think the Steward will go unchecked?”
Hannah stared at the younger Wingling woman for a moment before letting out a soft sigh. She began to bring her wings forward to clean them then, remembering Ahma’s inability to do so, folded them back. “I do not know Ahma. The war is long, and it is terrible, and everyone’s attention is occupied by it. Compared to the war, our situation is nothing. You know this.”
“I know,” Ahma admitted grudgingly. “But that does not make things okay. That man has no right to do the things he does.”
Hannah shrugged. She hated talking about this. “Who will stop him? You? I? He has been seated over us, and there he will remain until someone over him says otherwise. And who is to say anyone will? You know the nature of nobles.”

Ahma nodded wordlessly and finished rinsing the soap away in the rain. The two Winglings turned as a servant woman approached from the Manor. She was a Human, as most of the servants and slaves of Durinum were.

“Ahma, the Steward asks for you,” she said as she drew near. She looked down; no one envied Ahma the Stewards summons. No one knew what he wished from her, but the Steward was not a kind man, and it was certainly no favor to her.