[This chapter is inspired in part by a writer long since lost to time, wherever they are I hope they are well]
Rick wasn't sure what he had expected. The empty roads were only intermittently interrupted by idle and decrepit buildings, long since abandoned and overgrown.
Once or twice he had, on long nights, considered leaving... or rather, he had regretted leaving the city, and considered going back. It wouldn't have been hard to do. Finding a more travelled and maintained roadway and then hailing a convoy would have taken maybe a day; two at most.
The images in his book, shiny visages of beautiful buildings, were... disappointing to see for himself. Crumbling ruins, where often the broken glass had only been patched by wild and unkempt plantlife. It made him wonder just what plants might grow in the thick undergrowth not too far from the edge of the roads... The forests would have to be incredible indeed, given how thick the foliage was.
Even here, on the outside of the latest building he’d come across, the plants had grown thick. It was four stories tall, sat in the midst of a wide clearing. Though it was clear of trees, though, that hadn’t stopped it being overrun with greenery. It took him nearly half an hour just to break his way inside through layers of thick branches. When he finally managed to break the door down and stumbled in, however, he gasped... in disappointment.
Another long since rendered ruin. It was large, and perhaps contained something of value, but it was little more than it had seemed. Again, he was forced to ask, what had he expected? Coming out here on his own, of course there was nothing left beyond the walls… if there was, then they wouldn’t have been living behind them for so long. Maybe there really was nothing left out here.
Dejected, he kicked his way through the scattered remains of a life that might have been. Empty boxes, a few pieces of broken timber and masonry…
A feather.
Among the dull dust and rubble, it stood out as oddly colourful. A single, pink feather.
He wasn't sure why, but he bent down to pick it up. Turning it in his fingertips, he grinned, it was so soft! Even the slight movement of its bristles over his skin was enough to elicit a smile from him. Incredibly soft.
He took out a small zip bag from his backpack and put it inside. It would be nice to take with him, to at least have something for his efforts. Some small piece of colour in an otherwise drab wasteland.
It had been late in the afternoon when he had found this place. Now through gaps in the walls he could tell the sun was getting low. He'd have to find somewhere here to sleep. This place wasn't exactly warm, but it was dry, and it would keep the worst of the wind out. It wasn’t like he had time to find anywhere else, after all.
The interior of the building, it transpired, was a multitude of small rooms. Apartments, he realised, after opening a few and finding the remains of beds and more. The bottom floor had a corridor around it in a ring, and on either side were apartments. The interior ones, however, were proving difficult to open.
Carefully moving over the uneven floor, he stopped in his tracks as he saw something familiar. Another pink feather, laying atop an otherwise unseeming branch. He retrieved it, smiling again at his little game. A few days outside of the walls and he was already feeling the desire for some stimulation, and collecting feathers was better than nothing.
Making his way over an old wooden door, and through the frame it had once sat in, this new room was far more foliated. He realised, in his mental map, he had managed to find a way into an interior apartment. Branches and twigs littered the floor. By his feet, though, was again something unmistakably pink.
As he was reaching for it, though, his eyes adjusted to the room and he saw more. Dozens of pink feathers, across the brambled floor, until what was in the room finally came into focus.
The entire far wall was a mass of tightly woven branches. A near solid wooden braid.
Dropping the feather in his hand, he made his way over to the gnarled palisade. He tentatively touched, pushed, then pulled on a branch and found it practically immovable, save for a slight organic give.
The whole boughage curved in slightly, and curved deeply away beneath him, as if he stood on the outside of a giant wooden sphere. Holding his hand up, though, he felt no wind passing through it. Whatever it was, it kept the wind out… and, he realised as he felt closer, it kept the heat in. Whatever this thing was, it was warm inside.
He scanned the edges of the walls, and saw that it fitted uniformly to the structure around it, but definitely continued on in either direction, both down into the ground, past either wall, and into the ceiling. As he moved to the apartments on either side, he found the wooden mass continued.
Thinking back, that gave him an idea. He made his way back to the entrance, and to a doorway covered in branches. Those, however, he managed to pull aside with more ease, and behind it was what he had hoped to find - a staircase.
Squeezing through, he felt the branches snap back into place behind him, but paid it no mind. The next floor, as he had hoped, had the same floor plan as the one below. Retracing his steps from below on the next floor up, he once again found a room with a mass of branches, and as he made his way from room to room, found it continued, as if this sphere had rooted within the very interior of the building, occupying its heart.
He climbed the stairs once more, and found that here the walls at last began to taper in. Yet he found no gap, nothing. No entry into it whatsoever, whatever it was. Or exit… he thought, for a moment.
Rick made for the top floor, hoping that he might find a way into this warm, safe alcove. Yet now he couldn’t find the top of it, whatever it was. He moved from room to room with nothing to show for it.
At last, however, in a penthouse apartment, occupying the very middle of the top floor, he found it. The roof was open to the sky here, and below, the floor gave way to an eruption of roots and branches, all seemingly woven into a funnel that led… inside.
Rick stood on the edge of the roots, testing them with his shoes, and stared at the daunting hole that opened up before him. Everywhere now were those pink feathers. They protruded more frequently from the branches just inside the hole, though.
Momentarily uncertain, he fished his book on the outside world from his backpack, and sat against the penthouse’s wall in the setting sun, flicking through. It seemed obvious now, from up here. It was a nest. He’d seen birds making nests outside his window his whole life. However, a nest that filled four floors of a building was new to him.
He jumped at one point, coming across a page on vibrant pink creatures standing on thin red poles… No, not poles, he realised as he read on. They were birds with long, thin legs, and vibrant pink feathers. They, however, were pictured being stood in tranquil water, and green fields. Looking up, he shook his head. This nest hadn’t been made by those things.
Another page, later on, about ‘Birds of Paradise’ sparked his interest. They displayed the same vibrant colours, many colours in fact, but some were definitely pink. It said nothing about their nests, but then, perhaps that’s all it was. A giant bird’s nest.
Long abandoned, he reasoned, as he hadn’t seen nor heard a bird the entire time. Deep down, he didn’t want to think about how big a bird would have to be to carry those thick branches, let alone to bend them into a nest…
Cautiously, he picked up a small piece of rock and tossed it in, bracing for the flap of a dozen pairs of wings to come flying past him.
It never came, however. The stone didn’t make a sound at all in fact. Leaning closer to the edge, he stared down and saw the interior… it was entirely pink. The entire thing was practically carpeted with those same pink feathers.
The sun was going down, and already the dimming light was leaving him chilled. He could find a dry corner of the building… but staring down inside the nest, it looked so warm, so soft…
Rick girded himself, and tested the branches one last time. He was confident he could climb in, and out if needed… Slinging his backpack, he took a firm hold of two branches and lowered himself inside.
Instantly, he felt warmer. Heat rose from within as if he was atop a chimney. For a moment he paused, resting his foot atop a branch to halt himself. It made sense, he reasoned. All those feathers, the tight wood, likely acted to keep the interior warm. As the sun shone down, it probably incubated well and stayed warm through the night. He wasn’t fully reassured, but continued regardless. If it came to the worst, he could always just climb out.
His arms, however, began to tingle as he climbed. The pink feathers began to work their way under his shirt, beneath his arms, against his neck, across his midriff and of course across his face.
Sputtering, he tried to pull his face back, but the feathers seemed to always be there wherever he went, and they tickled awfully. Every slight movement caused them to work away at his vulnerable skin, eliciting little shrieks and giggles from him as he struggled to keep climbing down.
As he descended, the feathers grew thicker. The wood now felt slick and soft as the feathers seemed practically to be growing from the wood, but it seemed as though they had simply been worked in there over time. Now, though, his hands were being tickled awfully, and the urge to let go was growing stronger.
Gritting his teeth, he forced his arms and legs to move mechanically, groaning in frustration as he blindly felt for footrests with his shoes. All the while pink feathery fronds were seemingly finding every exposed inch of skin and worming their way in.
He wrenched his head back, a few pink feathers following and floating down beside his face almost mockingly, as tried to hold himself still. Every tiny tickle, however, caused an involuntary twitch, which would simply set off further ticklish touches, and slowly he began to squirm in place despite his best efforts.
Rick looked down to the bottom of the nest to judge how far it would be to fall, and saw the bedding of the nest was just what it had appeared to be. Judging by the curves, below him lay a half-floor thick layer of nothing but pink feathers. He was only a few feets’ fall from the surface now, and was soon judging whether he could just drop into it. It seemed thick enough to easily cushion his fall, and if not, he was close enough to the ground that it would be a short drop.
Only then, just as he had made his decision and was about to let go, did he see something that caused his blood to run ice cold. For a moment, the ticklish sensations were dulled as fear flooded through him.
A large pair of piercing blue eyes peered out from beneath the feathers, staring… unmistakably and unerringly, directly at him.
For a few moments he was simply frozen in place, as his mind tried to process what he was seeing through a cloud of instinctual apprehension.
That, however, gave way to blind terror as those same eyes rose from the sea of pink feathers, and brought with them a cascade of pink plumes which slowly fell away… From within came the outline of a massive, naked woman, who even from his heightened position seemed to possess immense proportions. Her long pink hair hung loosely over ample breasts. Her plump stomach fed into even healthier hips and thicker thighs. Given how deep the feathers seemed, it spoke to her sheer size that she could stand atop them. At either shoulder, however, most alarmingly, she sported a pair of massive pink wings.
Yet, more than anything, as she rose to her full height, he fixated upon those glacial eyes. Only when she was eye to eye with him did he suddenly realise… just how large she was. Looking down, most of her legs were still buried beneath the feathers… which he was certain would have come up to his head.
As fear gave way to terror he felt his limbs unfrozen at last, and began to scramble for grip, trying desperately to climb back up the wall he had taken so long to carefully descend. However, as adrenaline flushed through him, and gave him the strength to climb faster, it also heightened his every sense… including his sensitivity.
Now he felt every phantom touch from the feathers as if it was the whisking tickle of a teasing touch, and sweat beaded his brow with the effort it took to ignore them. Hand over hand, he felt his shoes slipping as the feathery branches gave little purchase in his haste.
From behind, he could not only hear the woman, but feel her - whatever she was - growing closer.
“You should be careful climbing like that,” came a bubbly voice from behind, which caused him to gasp in shock, and he nearly let go of the branch he had clasped onto altogether, “you might fall and get hurt!”
Desperately, he tried to force himself to not be ticklish, even as his arms recoiled instinctually from the ticklish sensations and nearly sent him plummeting down. He struggled to keep his footing.
“Why don’t you come down baby? Come down to Mommy where it’s safer…” the voice came again, much closer this time.
Glancing down, he yelped in panic as he saw her arms, and her fluffy pink wings, reaching out for him. He struggled mightily to pull himself upwards out of her reach, yet the teasing pink fronds were relentless. The further he stretched his arm, the worse the tickling became, and his progress had become painfully slow.
When her hands made contact with his thighs, he began to plead. “No no no! Please!”
However, she didn't, as he had expected, simply pluck him from the wall.
Instead… she gently ran her fingertips under his thighs in an utterly ticklish fashion.
“I’ll catch you, come to Momma!” she said in a sweet tone that starkly contrasted with her pernicious actions.
His eyes widened as a rictus grin spread across his cheeks, an involuntary response to her gentle touches against the undersides of his sensitive thighs. Shakily, he reached out a hand, hoping he might just be able to at least climb out of her reach.
“Awww, I know you want to play sweetie, but you really would be much safer down here with Mommy…”
Why was she calling herself Mommy!? She wasn’t his mother!
He forced his legs up, knees against his chest, but she just began to tickle the globes of his ass instead, under the pretence of being ready to catch him. He felt his body sag back, and his arms strained beneath his full bodyweight hung out, barely holding on.
“Now now, it’s okay sweet thing… There’s no need to be afraid. See? Mommy will use her wings to keep you safe…”
He watched in horror as, out of the corner of his tear-swept eyes, as her fluffy pink wings moved slowly in. His arms, clinging desperately to the branches, were now fully outstretched… and totally vulnerable. As soon as the lead feathers of either wing, far softer even than those which adorned her nest, began to trace along the underside of his forearms in a frightfully ticklish manner, he knew he was doomed.
His arms shook with the effort of clinging on by his fingers, given the utterly electric feelings of those ticklish feathers… but when they dipped inside his shirt and began to sweep gently under his armpits and across his chest, he could hold on no more. As her wings ever so gently lapped beneath his arms, like a finger beckoning him to his doom, it took every ounce of his remaining strength to hold on, fighting every instinct to tug his arms in and pull his hands down to protect his sensitive hollows.
Rick giggled, choking back laughter, as tears now truly welled in his eyes. His knuckles turned white with the effort of both trying to hold on, and trying to physically force out the ticklish sensations from his mind through mental fortitude alone. At last, though, some ticklish pink feathers found his nipples, and began to circle them mercilessly. His giggles burst forth like a dam breaking, and he squealed in total ticklish torment. In more ways than one, he just let go.
Her hands caught him expertly, and her wings encircled him as she gently pulled him into her embrace. Instantly, her massive breasts enveloped his head from behind, and amidst the ticklish sensations still ravaging his body he merely squirmed and blushed as they pressed into his head.
“There we go, such a good boy…”
She lowered him to the bedding of feathers below, and he felt the soft quills depress beneath him as he sank down, until they formed a yielding but firm layer.
Letting him go, much to his surprise, the giant bird woman loomed over him as he merely lay there. She had to be ten feet tall, maybe more. A giant… naked… woman; with massive pink wings sprouting from her shoulders. Her breasts were simply immense, each nearly the width of her torso, which was itself well obscured behind them. Given how much larger than him she was, their sheer size left him dazed.
Rick had to have gone insane. This couldn't really be happening. As she leaned in close to him, he couldn't help but scurry back in panic. Yet as he did so, now sunken into the feathers, he felt himself quickly going mad as they found their way into his clothing, and every movement was swiftly bringing him back to the brink of hysterics. Soon enough, he found himself backed up against the nest's wooden wall, squirming as the feathers itched away within his clothes.
"Oh my sweet baby!" she gushed, crossing her hands affront her nude pussy, his view of which left him blushing immensely, before her titanic bust ballooned to fill his vision as her arms pressed together around them.
"Ah, uh, I…" he mumbled, momentarily distracted from the tickling by the mind-boggling physics at work between her breasts.
"I've always wanted a baby. That's why I built my nest!" she spoke giddily, her eyes practically beaming, "A baby of my own to take care of is all I've ever wanted…"
For a moment she looked almost lost, distant, until her dazzling blue eyes locked on him and narrowed.
"And now I finally have one!"
“I… um… I’m not…” he mumbled, but couldn’t get the words out.
He didn’t have much chance to speak, though, it turned out. As she fell upon him, he screamed in panic, but it was quickly muffled by her breasts pressing in over his mouth. As the moments passed, his panic subsided somewhat, as he realised she wasn't devouring him… she was hugging him. Cuddling him…
The closeness had sent the feathers within his clothing, though, which he could no longer reach into to remove as she had him pinned to the feathery floor beside her. It sent him into a ticklish frenzy, and he now giggled incessantly, squirming at the invading ticklish touches. Not only that, but being practically buried in her soft pink feathers was doing very little to help either.
"Oh my, I've wanted to hear a happy giggly baby for so long, you have no idea my sweet baby boy…"
"Nnnh! No! I-" was all he could manage before she simply lowered her hand to begin lovingly tickling under his chin, which given his already ticklish predicament sent him well over the edge of total delirium.
"Awww, my cute baby's such a squirmy boy! Do you like Mommy's soft feathers that much? Hmmm…?"
Unable to clear the cheek-aching grin from his face, he tried desperately to disagree, but once again his words dissolved into laughter along with any thoughts he'd had.
"Awww, so adorable. Come cuddle Momma!"
With that she plunged him face-first into her monumental mammaries, and his giggles were soon muffled by her flesh, along with any attempted protests.
"Snuggle with Mommy, that's it, let Mommy cuddle you. I've been waiting so long for a baby to take care of..."
She slowly traced the contours of his body, sending him into a giggly squirming mess as she pressed the feathers within his clothing against his entrapped skin.
"Oh my," she cooed with mock sympathy, at last acknowledging his manic squirms, "are Mommy's feathers being all tickly inside your clothes?"
"MMMFH!" was all Rick could say in response, before squirming in renewed ticklish torment as her fingers danced along his sides.
"Oh dear, whatever can Mommy do to stop those awful tickly feathers?" she asked, grinning down at the top of his trapped head as it twitched from one side to the other, unleashing breathy laughter into her cleavage which tickled her pleasantly in turn.
"Hmmmm…" she mused, toying at the small of his back and sending him jumping and squirming against her thighs, "if only there were some way to get those feathers out…"
She let him suffer for a little while longer before, at last, pulling the poor boy free of her bosomy prison. Sweat had soaked his face both from the closeness of her skin and the exertion of his laughter.
"I suppose we'll just have to get my baby boy out of those clothes!"
She soon held him just above the layer of feathers in which he had erstwhile been trapped against her massive soft body. Rick’s tired brain was fogged with a mix of sexual haze and ticklish exhaustion, but as her words set in, panic loomed once more.
"N-n-n-no w-wait-" he stammered, picturing himself naked against her and blushing, then froze as he realised the true implications nudity would have.
Looking down, he saw the tantalising bed of her pink tickly feathers, and shivered in terror. It had been sheer torture when he had been clothed. Being naked in there would be…
"NO! PLEASE!" he panted, yet she merely smiled that airy smile, eyes fixed on his.
She merely enclosed her wings around his waist, holding him under the arms with their surprising strength, and her hands gently took hold of his shirt.
Then shredded it in seconds.
Rick barely felt a tug as the material simply disappeared around him. Before he knew it, his chest was bare. He looked down in astonishment as her nails… no her talons… tore his shorts and underwear apart in kind.
Merely gawking down at his own nude form, stunned by the speed of his disrobing and the sheer strength she must have possessed, he could only shudder slightly and blush as his naked cock now lay inches from her protruding, mountainous breasts and plump, thick lips. He tried to close his hands over his waist, blushing deeply, but couldn’t reach down far enough.
She ran her tongue across those lips now, lasciviously, and he watched in awe as her long tongue coated them in a slick layer. Now he simply imagined what that tongue could do. In spite of everything, and much to her delight, his cock hardened in the space between them.
"Aww, is Mommy's boy excited?"
Then he felt her slowly lowering him down, and he remembered why he had been so worried.
"Please, wait, no!" he squeaked, clinging to her arms for all the world as if he were the very child she seemed to wish him to be.
"It's okay, sweet thing… it's time to play with Mommy."