Tales from the Golden Feather V (f/f, m/f)

TALES FROM THE GOLDEN FEATHER, V
The Harper's Tale, or An Unusual Contest
another one of those stories

ARE YOU OVER 18? THEN YOU CAN READ THIS STORY. OTHERWISE, BEAT IT.

Snow stretched around the Golden Feather endlessly, unbroken save for the occasional track left by rabbit or squirrel. I stared out at it and rubbed sleep from my eyes, squinting against the glare from the sun. As usual, I had not slept particularly well, for once again the sound of mysterious laughter had resounded through the inn. To make it even worse, this time there had been two voices clearly audible. If this kept up, no one would be getting any sleep at all, for one reason or another ...

Turning back to the company, who had just set aside their breakfast, I raised my eyebrows to see that the red-headed harper was sitting nonchalantly in the lap of the forester, whose shaggy dark beard hid any sign of a smile that might have grown in its midst. Well, that was one part of the mystery solved, at least. I wondered who had provided the second voice, but no one else was behaving unusually, and there was no way for me to tell whether the signs of weariness all bore were from being tickled all night ... or from listening to someone be tickled all night. In any case, I could not look long, because it was time for the story to be told.

Settling a little into her living seat, the harper began her story thus:

Before I came to this place, I used to travel the wild country of my own homeland. Those were lands where every little lord in his hilltop fortress styled himself a king, barely acknowledging the others. They were always starved for fresh music and stories, and they could pay well if pleased -- which was why I went there, of course.

One evening, I came to the hall of a man who styled himself King Aedan. For a hill-lord, he was reasonably prosperous, with a large hall and many retainers, all of whom were crowded in that night to hear me. But not just me, for another harper had arrived the same night, a little blond thing named Sorcha. I'm sure each of us hoped the other would leave, but it would have been impolite to say so directly. So we just wished each other well without much sincerity, and got down to the business of entertaining the gathering.

Only ... we couldn't. Sorcha was obviously in need of practice; her playing was flat and uninspired, and her voice wobbled all over the scale. The folk scowled and grumbled and muttered, and King Aedan himself shook his head and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair until she finally stumbled to a halt. There was no applause or praise, only a grim silence. I felt almost bad for her as I stepped up to take my turn.

It should have been an easy thing for me to surpass her entirely. But the incompetent little fool had left me with the most hostile audience I'd ever faced, and under their glares, my talent withered away. My fingers found the wrong strings every time, and my voice tried to crawl down my throat and hide. I had barely gotten halfway through my performance when Aedan stood, cutting me off with a gesture.

"You claim to be harpers?" he snapped. "I have never seen such fumbling and squawking! What you do is almost an insult to me and my court, to suggest we should be entertained by this poor excuse for music! I will hear no more. You have had your chance -- now pay the price!"

In less time than it takes to tell, Aedan's men had grabbed both Sorcha and myself and hauled us to two of the posts that supported the roof. We were both crying out and protesting this gross violation of the laws of hospitality, but the men paid us no mind as they wrapped our limbs with cloth and then rope. I was pressed to my knees with my back to the post, my wrists bound to it above my head. Men took hold of my kicking ankles and held them still while they were lashed together behind the post, leaving me unable to stand up or even move my legs much. A glance over my shoulder showed me that Sorcha was in the same predicament.

For the first time that night, Aedan almost smiled. "Since you have entertained us so poorly tonight, it is now our turn to try and entertain you. Alas, we have even less skill at singing and poetry than you, so we can only offer one kind of entertainment, the kind we make with our hands!"

Barely had the words left his mouth than someone from behind put his hands on my waist. I managed to make one sound of protest before he dug in. And then I had to snap my mouth shut, trying to cut short the strangled yelp that burst from me. His fingers worked up and down, almost exactly like mine when I played my harp. I swung my hips, trying to get away from him and still the sudden, insane need to laugh building up in me. At the same moment, I heard Sorcha squeal and realized, with a burst of astonishment mixed with horror, that I was being tickled!

I looked over at her, and saw a young man kneeling before her. He had pulled her shirt out of her belt and was tickling her bared belly with the tips of his fingers. She squealed again and tossed her head as he probed around her navel. Then my attention was taken from her as my shoes were dragged from my feet and something that felt like a piece of straw or the point of a feather skittered down my upturned, immobile soles, tickling unbearably. I pulled at the ropes that held me, but they were strong and expertly tied, and there was no way I could work loose. There was nothing I could do but try to remain still and silent, deprive my tormentors of as much of their fun as I could -- even though my body was already beginning to shake with a swarm of giggles that needed to be released ...

But Aedan had anticipated that. Stroking his beard, he called, "Let us make a contest of this! Whichever one of our kittens laughs the louder, we set free! The other, alas, will be kept to entertain us ... until the sun comes up!"

Well, after that, there was no way I could remain stoic. I giggled, squealed, laughed out loud But it was no relief. The more I laughed, the more ticklish I seemed to become -- and the more eager the tickling became! The lone point tracing my feet was replaced with a cluster of wiggling fingertips, tickling all the way from my heels to the base of my toes at once. In my position, I could barely move my feet, even though the tickling was driving me mad. All I could do was squirm the rest of my body in twisting arcs, the wild tickle energy that filled me driving me like a runaway horse . The hands on my hips had wandered upward and were wickedly kneading my ribs, each squeeze of the fingers making me let out a scream of laughter and try to double over. My only reassurance was that I would be certain to win this mad contest, for no one in the world could possibly be laughing harder than I was ...

Then I heard Sorcha scream, "Tickle my underarms!" I jerked my head around to look at her in astonishment. "Tiiiiiickle me under the arms!" And the man who had been tickling her belly was eagerly unbuttoning her shirt, opening the top and slipping his hands inside. I stared at her in astonishment, almost forgetting my own torment for a second. She managed to raise her eyebrows in a "what can I do?" look before he touched the armpits and a burst of laughter overtook her, making her crumple and bellow hysterically. "In the -- eeeeaaahahaaha -- center!" Sorcha howled. "Oh yeshahaahaahaha -- veerry liiiight -- yesHAHAAAAHAHAHAAAA!" She screamed and thrashed like a madwoman. Through her shirt, I could see the fingers in her armpits moving steadily and mercilessly on those delicate spots, tickling and tickling. Her feet had been bared, too, and were being teased with a feather, while a young fellow had taken up the tickling of her belly. Her face was scarlet, and tears of laughter ran down it as she shrieked. A fingernail scraping down my arch made me yell and jump, and recalled me to my own suffering, but not before I'd registered that Sorcha was laughing much louder than before -- which didn't mean well for me.

Well, that was a game two could play. And the thought of being tickled by these people for hours drove away any reservations I might have. "Toes!" I managed to get out. "Between the -- hahahahahahah -- toes! Get a feather -- ooooaahahahaaha!" The tickling on my feet abruptly stopped, giving me a moment of relative clarity to wonder what the hell I was doing -- and then, far too soon, a hand had taken hold of my toes, pulling them apart. "Noooo!" I shouted in a sudden flash of panic. "I changed my mind -- don't do it -- please no pleaseeee -- " And then I felt the first delicate touch of a feather on the inside of my big toe. My body gave such a great heave upward I'm astonished I didn't rip the pillar up by the roots, and I let out a scream that had every head in the room turning to me. Then the feather began to move back and forth, its edges gently brushing the insides of both toes. If the first touch had been hard to bear, this was even worse. I screamed, and screamed again, and the tickling still went on ....

The man with the feather knew without my having to tell him to go slowly, extracting every last screech and frantic wriggle from me. Unable to move my feet, or even curl my toes, I was forced to endure eight long passages of ticklish agony, each worse than the last. Between each, the tickler teased me further by gliding the feather tip up and down the undersides of my toes, which was only slightly less tortuous, before dipping the feather swiftly between the next vulnerable pair of toes, catching me by surprise more often than not. My ribs were being tickled nonstop as well, and the soles of my feet, pushing me beyond hysteria into a mindless shrieking madness that seemed to go on forever ... Occasionally I could dimly hear myself howling and pleading for mercy, or feel myself thrashing like a fish on a riverbank, but for the most part there was no room in me for anything but tickles ...

It was not until they were untying me that I finally realized the tickling had stopped. I could still feel phantom fingers on my body and soles, and the feather had left the memory of its tingling touch all over my toes, so that I still shuddered uncontrollably. My muscles were sore and limp, and I would have collapsed when the rope came loose if hands hadn't grabbed my arms, hauling me more or less upright. My sweat-soaked hair stuck to my cheeks as I raised my head to meet Aedan's gaze.

"Never have I heard screams like that!" he exclaimed. "There's no doubt that you took the victory this time!" His hand was on my arm, guiding me forward through the crowd, and I had one foggy moment to wonder where he was taking me -- and then I saw Sorcha.

She had been stripped to the waist and lay on one of the feasting tables, cleared of dishes, her arms and legs bound to its legs. Her feet were bare, and she was trembling. Even in the cool air, sweat was trickling down her pink skin and matting her golden hair.

"As the winner of our little contest," Aedan declared to me, "you will have the honor of providing the entertainment! Do as you like, and we shall watch!" And he retired to his throne, leaving me staring down at the quivering Sorcha as the company gathered around to see my ... performance.

"Be gentle," Sorcha whispered in a voice only I heard. "I cannot stand much more ... "

You might well think that, given what I had just endured, I would be sympathetic to Sorcha's plight. Perhaps I should have been. But at the time, all I knew was that I was surrounded by people who would gladly see me tied and tickled to madness if it amused them, and my only chance to escape that fate was to put on a good show. So I only smiled down at her, said, "Under the arms, wasn't it?", and touched her in the center of each hollow very lightly, with just the tips of my nails.

Her body gave a reflexive squirm, and she gasped and giggled -- then shrieked with fresh laughter as I began to move my fingers. My hands are deft and my touch light from long work on the harp -- much more so than any lout used to the sword or the axe -- and Sorcha's torment had to have been terrible. At the time, though, I couldn't allow myself to think of that ... all I could do was concentrate on making her laugh as much as possible. And that's what I did, tickling her armpits until her hips were slamming against the table as she squirmed and bucked and laughed madly. I scraped my nails down her sides and tickled all around her waist, and her wild giggles rose to the rafters above, especially when my hands met just under her navel. "Stooooppp it!" she screamed, and called me half a dozen filthy names, but I only grinned again, enjoying the blessed relief of not being tickled and secure in the knowledge that every laugh was another guarantee of my safety. I skipped my fingers all over her belly, reached for her feet ...

And then Aedan shouted, full of amusement at the trick he had played on us, "Switch them!"
I was seized and forced, protesting, to the table, the bonds wrapped around my wrists and ankles even as they were unwound from Sorcha's. But all my struggles were to no use, and in a few seconds I was spread out on the table, with Sorcha looking down at me with the gleam of vengeance in her eye. Her situation was just the same as mine had been, except that she had no reason at all to sympathize with me. And no sympathy is precisely what I got. She didn't bother to say anything, just reaching out to separate the first pair of my toes while taking up a feather with her free hand.

I had already proven myself the more ticklish of us two, and after what I went through then, there is no doubt in my mind that Sorcha was the crueler tickler. She gently brushed my toes with the feather a few times, just enough to get me trembling and demonstrate that she could destroy me any time she wanted. Then she tucked the feather in between two toes and set about slowly and thoroughly tickling my soles with her sharp little fingernails. This time, I could move my feet, bend and flex and twitch them ... and it didn't do me a bit of good. She still scratched every ticklish inch of them and made me scream with laughter like a girl a quarter my age. Then she poked and prodded my ribs and belly until I was squirming like a nestful of snakes and gasping with laughter every time she touched me. Switching suddenly from playful to merciless, she fastened her fingers on my ribs and began wiggling them rapidly. "Tickletickletickle," she chanted, in exact time with the twitches of the fingers that were burrowing into my ribs, and the rest of the company -- even Aedan -- took up the chant as I howled in crazy laughter and utter humiliation. It was as if all those voices in unison were tickling me as thoroughly as Sorcha's fingers. Just to be exceptionally mean, she did the exact same thing on my belly and under my arms, leaving me limp and breathless and completely tickled out.

Only THEN did she start pulling the feather through my toes one by one, ignoring my pleas for mercy. I called her all the names she had called me, and then some, on those few occasions I could talk and not laugh. But all that got me was the feather moving even slower, until it seemed like she was taking hours to tickle each pair of toes. It wasn't quite as bad as the triple tickle I'd had to endure before, but by that time any tickle was agony, and having my toes tickled was something beyond that. I honestly think I died somewhere between the third and fourth toe, only to be tickled back to life as Sorcha continued without mercy.

Fortunately, the tickling did not last until dawn as Aedan had threatened ... the gathering eventually got tired and went off to seek sleep, and I was untied, carried dizzy and breathless to a bed, and left there to recover. I dreamed of tickling all night.

When the next day dawned, I collected my payment from Aedan -- to give him his due, it was considerable -- and hastened on my way. I was hoarse from screaming and still tingling all over, and I wasn't about to risk being forced to give a repeat of last night's performance. But Sorcha, to my surprise, elected to remain behind. I heard later that she married the man who had so mercilessly tickled her armpits that hellish night. Which goes to show something, even if I am not sure what ...

After the harper had finished the story, I commented that it was unfortunate that King Aedan had not been snowbound with the rest of us, for he would no doubt have some interesting tales to share. The company agreed with that wholeheartedly. The soldier further commented that Aedan could also have organized some interesting contests to pass the time, at which our hostess threw her dish rag at him.

Afterward, we began to discuss who should tell the next tale, but the harpist waved the debate to a stop. "I'll make it simple for you!" She pointed at the physician. "Let him have the next tale, for I suspect he'll never tell one unless we make him!"

The physician frowned and harrumphed. "I had no intention of evading my duty, young lady, but I will be glad to take my turn next."

The rest of us assented to this, and the harper turned to the forester. "See? Over quickly, like I said. Let's go!" And without a word, he picked her up and carried her off to the stairs, while the rest of us tried not to envy them too much.

NEXT: The Physician's Tale, or The Delicate Patient.