When the birds talk back (F/F)

[Beaumains]

The robin landed on Alice’s hand, and the piece of the walnut she fed him filled its beak.

“... And that’s why I won’t return to the Seychelles. Caribbean resorts are so much more organised and professional. And there’s actual culture there. No sane person should fly all the way to the middle of the Indian Ocean for a mediocre experience,” Charlotte snapped before taking another sip of her sherry.

Alice nodded dreamily. The bird interested her more than her friend’s luxury vacation mishaps. It remained for 15 seconds, and Alice tracked its flight into the dense apple tree.

“What about the Maldives?” Penelope suggested. “I liked them when we were there two years back.”

“The Maldives are adequate, but I went there too often as a child to enjoy them.”

Alice nodded again despite her limited exposure to these resorts. The sun had faded on the August evening as the four former Oxford housemates enjoyed cheese and wine in the gazebo, having returned from an evening-filling dinner at a restaurant with two Michelin stars. In the windless countryside east of London, the temperature remained high.

“Did you go on a vacation, Alice?” Flora inquired diminutively. The moody lighting played with the brightly colored stones in her jewellery.

“I went hiking with my brothers in Scotland last June. I had to escape the city. No screens, no meetings, and no stress.”

“Sounds exhausting. There are warmer, less rainy, and more special places on earth,” Penelope sneered. “Explore the world when you’re alive. Now you can afford it. I heard you got a promotion.”

Alice chose her words carefully. “Yeah, I’m the deputy director of mid-sized loans. It’s more responsibility, and the pay is fair. I cannot complain.”

“Splendid,” Charlotte scoffed in her unmistakable Essex accent. Her father had already made her the creative director of one of his fashion brands. “Now you can finally take care of yourself, right?”

Alice’s pupils widened. This again. She put 500 pounds on the table. “This should cover my share.”

Penelope laughed, sliding the money back towards Alice. “I prefer not to seize your hard-earned money. That’s quite a sum for a single night, isn’t it?”

“Have we not outgrown this?”

The three smirks around her told her otherwise. They emptied their glasses. “Don’t whine yourself out of it, Al. It should be expected,” Flora said. “If you never pay with money, you pay with time. Strip.”

The outrageous demand surprised nobody present, and Alice was caught alone. Flora was right. Their decision was final. Countless times, they had forced her into this position in the past seven years. Resisting or playing games would only harm her cause. Alice rose, dropped the white cocktail dress on the floorboards, and stepped out of her white heels. Her bra and panties followed as she stared Charlotte in the eyes. The blonde enjoyed the sight of the short, red-headed woman who was now at her mercy.

“Time’s yet to catch up with your body,” Charlotte remarked, inspecting the slender body with freckles running up to her C-cup breasts. Her own face was plastered with preventive Botox.

Being on Penelope’s family estate, she had chosen the bondage in which Alice had to pay “with her time”. She braided Alice’s long red hair into a braid and opened a prepared basket. The brunette revealed a black rubber mask with holes for Alice’s neck and eyes, two long black ears pointing upwards, and a long snout to cover her nose and mouth. It was a dog mask.

Alice grimaced. Her reactions were half the fun. Their routine tie-ups of Alice had acclimated her to bondage. It even felt reasonably de-stressing. Hence, this humiliation was deemed necessary. Penelope slid the mask over Alice’s head, fastening the straps and padlocking them. She also locked a heavy steel collar around her neck, mittens around her wrists to sabotage her useful fingers, and boots around her ankles with spiked inlay soles. The latter made standing up agonising, if not impossible.

“Can she bark?” Charlotte asked.

Alice understood the cue and gave the woman three quick barks. It resulted in a sharp pain in her left breast. Penelope had swatted her with a riding crop. “More enthusiasm, please.”

The dog mask shrouded her crimson glow but not her defeated, radiant green eyes. She barked and panted. A swat ensued, and the third time, Alice employed all of her theatrical talents. Any proper second attempt would have been penalised anyhow.

“That’s a good girl,” Flora giggled. “The best girl. A Scorpio without sting. Excellent. Now sit!”

Alice capitulated. She then obeyed the commands to roll over, lie down, and lie dead. Then Penelope put on medical gloves with an ominous snap. With Alice on her hands and knees, she drove a lubed-up plug between her butt cheeks. Its small size indicated it would remain in for a while. The attached dog tail curled upward, and her movement made it wag.

“Fetch!” Flora exclaimed as she flung a tennis ball on the immaculate lawn. In decent shape, the crawling was more degrading than physically taxing for Alice. The darkness made it cumbersome, as entering the darkness from the well-lit gazebo blinded her, and she had to pick the tennis ball somehow. Those bloody mitts. Although she was not gagged, the mask’s snout was a solid mass, leaving her armpit as the most viable option, mixing the dirt on the ball with salty sweat.

“That’s my girl,” Flora chuckled as Alice offered the ball to her. A dribble of the disgusting mixture fell on her pricey black dress, which went unnoticed. Instead, she patted Alice demeaningly on her head. “We should do this more frequently. Keep that pose. Josephine and Anna-Sophia would love some photos.”

Alice posed before a chemically tasting ball-gag was pushed between her jaws before concealing it with the snout. Then the tennis ball bounced back into the night. She retrieved it, and Charlotte decided to rope her legs together before the third fetch. Meanwhile, the three women gossiped and reminisced about their shared student life while bullying Alice. An hour later, Flora’s taxi arrived as Charlotte and Alice stayed the night.

“We should put our puppy to bed,” Penelope stated, fixing a weighty metal chain to the collar. Charlotte walked Alice with the leash into the private woods, forcing her to crawl as fast as possible. Far from civilisation, Charlotte locked the chain to a birch, and Penelope spread a thick baby blue blanket on the forest floor. “Sleep tight, Alice. Tomorrow morning, we’re all even again. You have paid your share.”

Alice groaned and collapsed. Although all individual bounds, tasks, and taunts barely hurt, their totality had wrecked her body and sanity. Her scaved knees and sore back reminded her that her teenage years were many summers ago, and the stings of the crop on her breasts, butt, and thighs still tingled. Although the gag was removed, her mouth was dry, and a pulsing pain zoomed through her head. Sadly, the dog tail plug still rested inside her.

Alice’s fighting spirit had long been broken. They seldom went this far, usually tying her up for a few hours or the entire night with a toy or mild teasing. Now she had to follow dehumanising orders and taunting. Obeying blindly was easier than pondering when to disobey and accept subsequent discipline. She was devoid of thoughts and curled into the blanket to fall asleep in a deep slumber.



The morning sun pierced through Alice’s eyelids, and she pressed them shut. Everything ached, and the plug sat in her ass. The reminder of the degrading mask and brutal evening hit her like a brick wall. Her skin felt as if needles poked it from all sides, and her brain had turned to mush. At least the wildlife surrounding her brought her joy. The tits, finches, and blackbirds sang their songs as a woodpecker drilled for a meal. Then she opened her eyes.

Before her, four tiny birds in a neat line eyed her: a wren, yellowhammer, treecreeper, and goldcrest. For a moment, Alice was self-conscious about her kinky presentation before concluding that birds did not comprehend human dignity, and thus that her behaviour and appearance were depraved. “Morning,” she yawned.

“Greetings, Alice,” the wren chirped. Alice presumed she was hallucinating. Birds cannot speak English.

“Why do you allow this to occur?” the yellowhammer queried.

“You should fight back,” the treecreeper added.

“And we will aid you,” the goldcrest concluded before all flew off.

[LunaDog]

Guess what? I read this, just having returned from taking my DOG for a walk! Talk about co-incidence.

Utterly superb, by the way!

[Caesar73]

Lovely Idea! Especially the End! Very creative @Beaumains !!

[Ovi1]

Nice story Beaumains, I believe this is one of the first ones I've read from you in the adults section. Was this a one-off or did you just set us up for a story with some fantastical elements?

[slackywacky]

Another great story @Beaumains , well done.

[Beaumains]

Many thanks for the kind comments guys! This is (yet another) stupid expermental story.

Nice story Beaumains, I believe this is one of the first ones I've read from you in the adults section. Was this a one-off or did you just set us up for a story with some fantastical elements?

I have written a few stories in the adult section (most notably, the Tangled Maiden and Bound to be Dared), but they are often less explicit (I mean smutty) than the previous chapter and many other works. I expect this story to wrap up in ten or so parts.


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“Calculating the value of those assets to put against the loan is hard. These vacation homes are sometimes poorly maintained and constructed with substandard materials. Moreover, the local government also considers curbing the short-term lease market. These homes are too small to live in, let alone through a winter. One signature reduced them to their raw per-acre value,” James presented to Alice. “Still, the calculator likes the loan. We could offer a loan with a rate based on four to six penalty points.”

Her subordinate’s risk assessment report was decent. “There are more problems. Is that appraiser trustworthy? That’s a lot of money for a single lot with 12 bungalows outside the city centre and two miles from the beach. 300000 for each is excessive. The surrounding places – proper houses – are worth less. It’s overoptimistic. Their value cannot have tripled within 18 months. I advise against approving. Talk to Henry tomorrow. Even with six penalty points, I decline.” Alice explained as she laid the report down and bagged her laptop. The work day was over.

James hid his frustration. It had taken him days to compose the report, and now Alice dropped his bonus for the quarter. He combed his hands through his slick black hair before retreating to his desk.

Alice spun around and grabbed her bright yellow coat and bicycle helmet. Only then did she notice the two pigeons and a seagull precariously glued to the window frame. All three tracked her movements. “Strange,” Alice hummed. Usually, these birds scavenged for food on street level and not outside the 15th floor of a building with fixed windows.

She had almost forgotten the encounter when three magpies hit her face while leaving the bicycle garage. She wanted to turn left, but the birds urged her otherwise. They screamed and danced as they requested her to follow.

“Well... Let’s roll the dice,” Alice mumbled. She weaved through the London rush hour, distancing herself from her Greenwich apartment. Instead, she rode north. She passed Hackney, Stratford, and Woodford while adhering to the traffic rules despite the magpies’ pressure to hurry.

The birds sent her into Epping Forest, where Alice locked her bike and continued on foot. Besides the magpies, green woodpeckers and moorhens joined them. She traded the well-established trails in the ancient woodlands for brambly mud. She had to scramble over hills and through gullies in her fine work clothes to reach a tranquil pond with a gargantuan willow. Hundreds of birds of all sizes and colours had gathered, welcoming Alice with a bombastic, unsynchronised song. The speaking birds last weekend could have been more than a hallucination.

“Nothing to lose,” Alice grimaced as the birds directed her to climb a thick, ten-storey-high net of ivy. She climbed up as ecstatic birds flew around her as if a long-lost princess had returned to their kingdom.

“Welcome, Alice,” she heard as she rolled into a three-metre-wide nest. In the middle rested a giant bird, an enormous eagle, who sported blue, gold, and black feathers. The creature was not native to Britain or anywhere else on Earth. “You finally found yourself.”

Alice sat down, removing her bicycle helmet. That would be magical bird etiquette. Curious blackbirds and barn owls stood on the edges of the eagle’s nest. “Do you know why we selected you?”

“No, sir,” Alice replied. What a bizarre fever dream.

“You always had a special bond with us,” the godly bird spoke. “Since you were born.”

Alice bobbed her head. She had been close to nature. Her dad was a countryside ranger with tied accommodation, so she had spent her youth living in his tiny cabin in the woods. It was a simple yet perfect childhood. At every point in her life, at least half a dozen birds were being nursed back to health inside. In winter, they would return for food and sing the most beautiful songs sitting above the fireplace. It was nothing extraordinary. Birds are relatively intelligent. Even when Alice was studying in Oxford, birds observed her reading from outside.

“You have a heart of gold and do not deserve what is happening to you. We want to give back.”

“Sir, I am doing okay. Others need help more.”

“But you earned it, Alice. We chose you because you chose us,” the mighty animal spoke. “We cannot watch your suffering. You deserve vengeance, and we merely provide the means.” He searched his nest and displayed a metal ring in his beak.

“Thank you,” Alice expressed, confused, as she accepted the gift.

“Clamp it around your ankle, but better not wear any clothes.”

The bird invited her to strip in the middle of his nest. She ditched her shoes, pantyhose, skirt, jacket, and shirt before fastening the ring around her ankle like a bracelet. The transformation was instant. A rush of air flowed through her body before she changed. Feathers grew out of her skin. Her feet became razor-sharp claws, and her arms mighty wings. She looked like an archaic goddess, a combination of Horus and Quetzalcoatl.

“What... The...” Alice exclaimed, half surprised her voice had remained human, despite rising in tone due to her expanded lungs. She touched her head. It was unaffected. Her useful fingers were hidden at the top of her red wings.

“Fly! Fly!” a robin cried, and Alice peeked over the edge. The floor was 25 metres below. Falling would be fatal. She spread her wings and jumped up. They caught some air, but not enough to fly.

“Jump! Trust!” a duck shouted. This was madness. Complete suicide. She walked back, gripping a branch at the corner of the nest. Dozens of birds watched as Alice placed her faith in her new avian form and jumped, dropping three metres before pushing her feathered arms down. With much effort, she bent her trajectory up until she was horizontal. Alice was flying!

Then another tree emerged, which Alice barely avoided. Another tree approached, yielding another near miss. “Follow me,” a buzzard screamed, overtaking Alice. She relaxed, trailing the smaller bird zigzagging through the woods. It guided her to a glade to enter the open skies and glide miles above the Essex hills.

It was stunning. Air grazed her face as the summer smells entered her nose. Flying was trivial and intuitive. It was a fantasy with unimaginable freedom. Alice fell in love.

“Let’s return,” the buzzard called before embarking on a death-defying dive. Alice smirked. They overtook cars on the motorway, achieving incredible speeds before slowing down in Epping Forest. After a rough landing in the willow, she rose to her claws and eyed the bird god. He appeared content. She pulled on the bracelet around her ankles and returned to her nude, human form.

The large eagle refused to take the bracelet. “It’s yours now, Alice. Keep it. Use it. Go and avenge yourself.”

Alice dressed herself, descended, and biked home. She stopped at a home improvement store and bought many black ropes, chains, linen, and, to remain inconspicuous, a big bag of bird feed. At a JD Sports, she purchased a balaclava and ski goggles.

Tonight, she would practice her flight. The next night, she would strike. The target? Charlotte Woolferstone. The second daughter of the Woolferstone family was the creative director of Woolf’s Finest Fashion. She lived in a cottage outside Finchingfield, Essex. Alice knew her husband was travelling for business this week.

[Ovi1]

Nice update! So we really do get a fantastical story. Let's see what our chosen one has in store for her 'friends'.
As for me not having read much of your adult stories before, I guess I have some catching up to do

[Beaumains]

Three tawny owls awaited Alice on the dark, courtyard-side balcony as she shut its door at one in the morning. Her balaclava and skiing goggles concealed her human head as the rest of her body had morphed into its bird form. “Time for crime,” she mumbled to the owls, feeding each raw liver while scratching their heads. With a bag of ropes fixed to her leg, she jumped off. She flew eastwards with the owls and turned northwards after passing London City Airport’s take-off path.

Flight was a blessed gift. Alice was unbound by roads, tube delays, and road traffic. She observed Europe’s second-largest metropole in its nighttime glory as endless rows of dark fields filled with the year’s harvest unfolded. Their centre held the tiny, proud village of Finchingfield.

Alice’s augmented navigational skills located it. She landed on the slanted roof of Charlotte’s darkened cottage. Its open window provided fresh air. Alice paused. Entering was trespassing and thus a criminal offence, and she had planned a heinous scene inside. It was her first. Still, if prosecuted, she would be imprisoned, shattering her flawless reputation and future. She had to trust her newly acquired magic. A spark in her heart told her so. She tilted the window and dropped into Charlotte’s bedroom, who slept like a baby. The second daughter of one of the country’s leading real estate moguls was vulnerable. Her family owned thousands of homes, hundreds of stores, fashion labels, a monstrous yacht, a private jet, and a luxury chocolate brand. Only that did not save the 27-year-old blonde from the intruder.

Her claws prevented Alice from sneaking on the wooden floor. So she acted fast. She leapt on the mattress and smothered her friend with a feathered hand. Her other hand pulled the duvet away and rolled her shocked victim on her back. Alice’s clawed feet snatched Charlotte’s wrists and bent them behind her back. With one hand and one claw, she roped the wrists and elbows together and forced a rubber ball into the aristocrat’s mouth. The gag reduced Charlotte’s muffled screams into high-pitched squeals as she woke up. Her worst nightmare was unfolding. Charlotte’s powerful family ties were meaningless now, nor could a philanthropical donation buy her way out. Alice had tied her up, which nobody had done before. Charlotte detested losing control, and a mysterious trespasser held her fate.

Alice put the blonde into a tight hogtie. She bandaged her bare legs together with rough ropes and dragged them to her tied elbows. Charlotte only wore soft cotton panties, so the fibres bit straight into her tanned skin. Lying on her stomach, Alice grabbed her ass, letting her friend wail and shed tears on her duck-feather pillow. Revenge was sweet. These cries were real, and not because a handbag had the wrong colour. It still felt bad, even though she had reversed their roles. Charlotte had displayed her habitual lack of empathy during the pet play the previous week.

During their first term, Alice had tried to hide her lower-class background. She lied about family visits and coursework to sidestep the extravagant sushi deliveries, pub crawls, and London trips. When her five wealthy roommates found out, they offered to cover for her. In return, Alice did chores in their shared kitchen and living room in the Oxford college dorms. That deal did not last long. Due to Alice’s small, off-brand wardrobe and unfamiliarity with high society, she was the group’s black sheep. One of Josephine’s hookups introduced her to bondage, which she remembered when Alice dodged a West End play during Hilary term. The next morning, Josephine tied Alice to a chair in her room for two hours with a complimentary tea towel gag. Facing a mirror, Alice contemplated her life choices as her captor wrote a management essay. A bargain, in hindsight.

This deal intrigued the other four roommates, and especially Charlotte. She coined the phrase “If you can’t pay with money, pay with time.”. Within months, Alice spent nights in closets, tasted rubber gags larger than her fist, and was spread-eagled on her bed. Her roommates were cordial and generous in public but brutal in private.

And Alice reaped the benefits of the generosity. Sometimes the agreement was reasonable, or at least acceptable to all parties. They paid for Alice’s tickets to concerts by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Harry Styles and had taken her to races at Ascot. They paid for their joint vacations to Valencia, Malta, Santorini, and Corfu. They let her spend their money on shopping trips to Paris, Milan, and even New York. They took her to Michelin restaurants and bought her a gorgeous dress for formal dances. And crucially, they invited her to their family’s events. Flora, Anna-Sophia, and Josephine had each helped Alice with a summer internship.

Was the trade fair? Proportionate? Or did she dare to fight back because her career had taken off? Did the escalating bondage, humiliation, and pain alter this balance? Alice asked herself these questions as she towered over the bound body. Charlotte was a menace. Charlotte had put Alice in a suitcase on a Wales road trip. Charlotte had ordered the shock collar. Charlotte had made her into a living Christmas tree. Charlotte had filmed her numerous times in awkward positions. Even though it did not circulate, she used it to remind Alice of her prior payments.

The birds were right. Violence was justifiable when the time for retribution came. With a magical avian body, Alice lifted Charlotte up and spun her around. Using a big, torn-up bedsheet around Charlotte’s lower back, she tied both ends over a thick beam in the cottage room. A bully hung there, staring upwards, with her limbs tugged behind her. It had to be straining in her shoulders and spine, and emotionally devastating. Would she have ever experienced such genuine fear?

Alice had only started. Her feathered fingers followed the curves of the blonde’s slender body. She reacted to them. Being a bird, Alice plucked out a red feather and rubbed it against Charlotte’s soles. She squealed like a fish on a hook. Like a seal in a net. Like a cat in a bathtub. In other words, it did nothing. Charlotte Woolferstone could only pray for mercy. Nobody heard her pleas and moans as she flung her body against the bounds to avoid one crimson feather. How the mighty had fallen.

Charlotte’s inflated breasts received a massage before Alice penned a message on her belly. “Had kindness led your hand, you would have slept peacefully.” She tittled the “i” of kindness with a heart. Charlotte’s personality had led to few actual friendships, so it did not betray Alice’s identity. But it could change Charlotte’s ways. Mission accomplished, Alice untied the frail, exhausted figure and bagged her bondage supplies.

“Wonderful,” an owl hooted as she flew over London. “But she deserved worse.”

Flora Oglethorpe was Alice’s subsequent target. Flora’s father was a self-made billionaire. He had grown his teenage sports statistics website into one of the UK’s leading betting sites. She was primed to take over the family business. With infinite money, Flora had a luxurious Soho apartment and a farmhouse with stables for her horses. Flora had earned herself a century of torturous bondage but would receive a night.

[LunaDog]

Thoroughly enjoying this. Talk about a 'flight path' to vengeance!

[Ovi1]

Alice (and her author) did a great job!

[Caesar73]

Just read the two new Chapter. Simply marvellous and intriguing. The basic Idea is brillant! Its Execution too of course!

[RopeBunny]

For the title alone I had to come in for a look.

And, wow. Definitely not disappointed

Only finished chapter one so far, though I see there are more. Intrigued to see where you take this @Beaumains

Looking forward to reading the rest

[RopeBunny]

Managed to read the rest, the following two chapters.

Great work, interesting idea, good twist on the base idea of someone seeking revenge through bondage.

[Beaumains]

Many thanks for all of your kind comments, guys! Here is the next chapter.

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It was Friday night. Alice flung herself off her balcony to hunt. She soared upward and followed the Thames east through the city of London into Berkshire. Flora’s farmhouse lay somewhere between Windsor and Reading. Flora craved spending every waking minute outside her city day job with her six beloved horses there. As a 27-year-old with a farmhouse and Soho apartment, Flora still worked a nine-to-five at her billionaire father’s gambling company, to Alice’s bewilderment. Ambition was unnecessary for her to prosper. Her success was guaranteed.

Alice landed on the thatched roof. Her balaclava and skiing goggles shrouded her sole human bodypart: her head. Flora’s jaguar on the driveway and the closed bedroom curtains suggested Alice’s prey was home. All windows were shut as the air conditioning unit zoomed. Alice darted onto the stables and ripped off the locking handles of a high window to let herself in. Lucienne, a proud black mare, snorted at the intruder but remained silent. Alice crawled towards the living quarters on her massive eagle-like claws. She knew the house well. After climbing upstairs over the non-creaking bannister, she kicked in Flora’s bedroom door.

In the blacked-out room, Alice’s enhanced night vision located Flora’s bed, and she jumped the human-looking bump under the duvet. It did not resist and was soft. Alice’s claws pierced through, shooting a cloud of duck feathers up. Flora was not asleep there. Instead, she had prepared an ambush.

“Sugar,” Alice cursed before a jolt of electricity stunned her. She collapsed on the bed. Human Alice would have been knocked out, but magical-bird-Alice could roll onto the floor and rise up unharmed like a Viking berserker.

“What the actual---” Flora exclaimed as she appeared from behind her laundry basket, taser in hand.

Alice’s scrambling had unravelled her braid of red hair, which leaked out of her balaclava. She nudged it back in, but Flora had flicked the lights on.

“Don’t move. Knees. Or do you fancy more?”

Alice desired to keep her identity secret and dashed to the bedroom door to exit the house. Only, another dart hit her back. It paralysed her legs for a second, and she slipped face-first on the carpet.

“Alice!” Flora shouted. The friction of the carpet had rubbed Alice’s disguise off. She calmed down, seeing the head of her former roommate on the frame of a giant bird. “Explain. Why do you attempt to assassinate me?”

Alice hated the taser pointed at his face. “I’m no murderer. I crave revenge. Tie you up. Release an hour or two later.” Slowly, she released the ring around her to exchange her feathers and wings for fair skin and skinny arms. She opened her bag of ropes to prove her intentions. “Nothing more, nothing less. You earned that.”

“Well, well. Revenge. Sweet Alice? You fight back? That’s news. Your bird persona drove you into madness?” Flora mocked. “What about a truce? Explain yourself. I won’t electrocute you or expose your secrets. Just don’t attack me like a rabid dog.”

Alice had a disastrous bargaining position. “Deal.”

“Dress yourself. Don’t stain my carpet,” Flora scoffed, flinging a white bathrobe to Alice. She wore blue silk pyjamas herself. They sat down at the kitchen bar. “Explain. How did you become a bird?”

“Why would I spill facts first? You seem awfully unruffled. What do you know?” Alice countered.

Flora laughed, brushing her raven black hair behind her ears. “Observant as ever. Then you also understand that I seldom share my position. Please, tell me.”

“I’ll go home,” Alice bluffed. Flora was too clever to fall for it. It was a game of chicken. She rose and approached the door.

“Birds always loved you, didn’t they? It was uncanny how many watched through the windows.”

“And you can glimpse into the future. Do you read hands or crystal balls?” Alice bluffed. She dumped the bathrobe on the floor. “You hold the cards. You play first.”

Having grown up with sports, games, and gambling, Flora understood how a deck is shuffled. “Neither. But a correct guess. I indeed received the blessing of foresight, but only a weak form. If powerful emotions occur somewhere, I can sense them hours in advance. My senses were tickled when I went to bed, and they waned when I hid. I had changed the timeline. It was nothing personal. I could not foresee a bird-hybrid trying to rip my heart out as if I were Prometheus.”

“And you call matches.”

“True, true. I did. Stadiums and fan zones generate intense emotional outbursts. I discovered my gift when I was seven, and our profits got my dad banned from most bookies. We started our own, attending all games in the London area, giving us the sharpest odds. We made mountains. But now we’re legal and make bank anyway. Math, statistics, and psychology are sufficient for the house to guarantee significant earnings. But you comprehend how the gambling industry’s inner workings.”

Alice recalled her internship. “And you use your powers to leave lame parties early.”

“That’s a minor. But what about you, birdlady? Still not interested in our employment offer? Are you enjoying the moral high ground as a loanshark?”

“That’s still on the table after tonight?”

Flora smirked. “Of course, silly. I felt fear, not an impending death. You deserve vengeance. Our offer stands. But you’ve gained work experience. You’re a strong, creative, trustworthy economist, which is worth an awkward miscommunication. 450.000 pounds a year. But now, your secrets. Speak.”

“And you swear that’s the truth? No bs?”

Flora giggled. “That’s the truth, and I’d suggest you follow that example.”

Alice sighed. She recounted the talking birds in Penelope’s forest, the wild ride through London, and the divine eagle. She even explained how the ankle ring transformed her.

“That god wants you to avenge yourself? He wishes to punish me? All because you’re nice to birds?”

Alice nodded. “Plausibly.”

“And I wasn’t your first target, was I?” Flora asked, making a pot of tea. She had dared to turn her back.

“I won’t self-incriminate.”

“You just did. Who was it? Penelope or Charlotte?”

“Charlotte.”

“Excellent choice. You two never vibed, did you?”

“She deems herself better than me, constantly belittling me. I tried to stay diplomatic.”

Flora snickered. “Almost. In truth, she was jealous. You’re more beautiful, smarter, and diligent, exactly what money can’t buy. She despised that you dated Geoff and charmed any guy or professor effortlessly. Did she suffer? I won’t blame you,” Flora commented as she filled two cups of tea. “And I was next? Because I would be alone?”

“Remember last week? That caused the birds speak up.”

“Then chase after Penelope. She bought that mask and tail and chained you up all night,” Flora continued. “I could apologise, but that doesn’t help anybody. I’ll be kinder in the future.”

“You could feel my feelings...”

“I assumed we held up both ends of the deal.”

Alice tensed up. “You did not. You forced me. You denied me the opportunity to pay my share. It was never about the deal. It was about power, Flo, nothing else. Am I wrong?”

Florian took a sip and kept eye contact. “For some. Not for me.”

“So what were your motivations?”

“Following others. Habits. Boredom.”

“And those reasons are defensible? Do you not deserve your comeuppance? You put me in strict bondage for hours, spanked me, and humiliated me for a decade. True or false?”

“True. As I said, Alice, your vindication is reasonable, but others deserve your wrath more. I wish to remain your friend and support you in your career. Others led in this evil, and even if I deserved this, self-defence should be expected.”

“Then accept your fate. You decide. Let me tie you up now, or expect me to return. The police will love your stories about a winged college friend that you caught using foresight. Your pick.”

“Josephine’s birthday is tomorrow, so not tonight.”

“Fine. But I’ll be back,” Alice grumbled, setting the half-empty cup of tea back on the table before clicking the ring around her ankle and flying home.

[LunaDog]

Flora has powers of her own it seems. Brilliantly told.

[Caesar73]

Flora has powers of her own it seems. Brilliantly told.

Absolutely!