The Huntress

      
      A curious scent filled the air, carried by thick clouds of smoke that emitted from incense burners placed in front of every doorway, and as you breathed it in through your nostrils you felt a calming aura wash over you, easing your anxieties, but at the same time you couldn’t help but feel like it was too overpowering. Still, it was better than the stench of the dank and the moist that would have in all likelihood pervaded the atmosphere inside this dark alleyway if the incense hadn’t been there, if there weren’t something even worse lurking in the shadowed nooks and crannies. Your feet ached with every step as they pounded against the hard cobbled pavement, the result of trudging through the streets of this city for the past several hours, but you couldn’t give up, not when you were so close to reaching your goal.
      
      At the far end of the alley, there was a considerable gap in the frequency of doors along the walls on either side before the final one, and this door didn’t have any incense burning in front of it, but there was still a peculiar kind of odor in the air emanating from behind the wooden barrier, a multitude of flowers and herbs that gave the impression of being among nature instead of in the heart of a bustling urban center. You hesitate as you stand in front of the gate, your heart frozen in your chest, but only for a moment before stepping forward and reaching out to rap your knuckles against the wooden surface, the knocking echoing loudly in the streets and no doubt in the domicile within. Then everything is quiet once more while you wait, holding your breath in anticipation; you can’t help but look around yourself anxiously, but there’s no one else to be seen in the passage, and far above can be seen the dying orange light of the sky, the sun setting over the horizon somewhere in the distance.
      
      Ever so faintly, you can hear a soft tapping of footsteps from the inside of the building, steadily getting louder as they approached until coming to a stop directly on the other side of the door, though it didn’t open just yet. “Well now, you certainly have an interesting smell,” a female voice said, every syllable lovingly articulated, dripping with honey, “not like all the slimy ministers and officials who usually come to visit me. You’re not from around here, are you?”
      
      You stumble on your words briefly, but you give the explanation you had prepared on your journey here, saying how you had come from far away in search of something special.
      
      “Ah, a flatterer, are you?” she replied, and you could hear her amused smile in the way she spoke, “I wouldn’t have expected word of my services to get so far out of the city. Unfortunately, as much as I’d hate to disappoint you after all the trouble you went through, I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn you away this time. There’s a bad moon out tonight, I can’t go around taking clients right now. Come back in the morning, why don’t you? I’ll give you a little extra to make up for the inconvenience.”
      
      The footsteps then begin to move away, and you quickly reach out and bang the door again, more forcefully to keep her attention. “Oi! What’re you trying to do, break in?!” she yelled harshly, her voice suddenly far more rough and violent, “Don’t think you can take me easily just because I’m a woman, I’ve got a pistol in here and I know how to use it!”
      
      You carefully apologize for your rash actions, and you clarify yourself. You had been well aware of her policies around this time; in fact that had been a large part of your reason for coming at this particular time.
      
      There was quiet between both parties for a while as you waited on the doorstep, hoping that you hadn’t angered her too much with your ridiculous wishes, but then there was another sound from the other side of the door, a low snicker that gradually grew upon itself and eventually turned into full-blown laughter, raucous barks and howls that echoed in the alley. “And here I thought I had seen it all!” she proclaimed as she caught her breath, still stifling chuckles between words, “Oh, that’s rich. I really shouldn’t be doing this, but here, let me open up and at least get a good look at you up close.”
      
      There was a series of grinding metallic noises, several different locks and latches being undone in succession, then twisting gears as the doorknob itself was turned, and finally rusty hinges squealing open, revealing what lay behind. There was a woman standing in the doorway, filling much of its space with her tall, thick frame, her pale skin smooth, almost luminescent, as if carved from ivory, and her face, framed by long flowing tresses of fiery orange-red hair, looked down upon you amusedly; her features were soft and gentle, but also spoke of being firm, resolute, and unyielding. She wore a silky crimson gown that draped over her figure, baggy sleeves hanging from her arms, though the front was unabashedly left open, and underneath it she wore nothing more than simple lacy undergarments, a bra to cup her hefty, melon-sized breasts and underwear that wrapped around the broad slopes of her hips, while also exposing the thick gut bulging out from her abdomen and hanging over her waist.
      
      “Such a curious type, all you foreigners coming into these streets,” she said with a grin that flashed her glistening teeth in the light as she loomed over you, leaning with one elbow propped against the side of the doorway, “your kind always looks so surprised at everything they see when they come here. At least it looks like you managed to avoid running into any of our less hospitable citizens; they tend to not look too kindly on outsiders, and it would have been a shame if anything happened to that pretty face of yours. Come, let’s go inside, and old Atalanta will see what she can do for you.”
      
      She turned around, giving one last furtive glance and a beckoning gesture with one finger before walking back into the interior of the building, and you followed her obediently – of course, entering the house had been your intent all along, but now you felt an extra degree of obligation from being commanded to do so. The smell of nature was stronger as you walked through the living room on the other side of the door, small and quaint but lavishly decorated to the greatest possible extent, with a fine carpet covering the floor and chairs of smooth leather, bookshelves standing against the walls. In the corner to the right there were stairs that went up to a higher floor, but Atalanta continued forward to the opposite end of the room, her rear swaying with an exaggerated, pendulous swagger, leading to another door. The next room appeared rather similar in aesthetics, but less extravagant, with only a couch sitting in the center of the floor facing toward a large window that took up most of the space of the wall in front of it.
      
      “Take a seat, I’m sure you must be tired after your journey,” she said, pointing toward the couch, which you gladly do, feeling the ache in your feet ease away marginally as you lean back and breathe in relief. “Our city is very special, dear visitor,” she said as she walked toward the window, which looked out onto a grand vista of the urban sprawl, rooftops and spires lining the hills far below, lit by hundreds of glowing lights as a curtain of night began to fall over the buildings, “and many outsiders such as yourself have come searching for its secrets. Not many of those secrets like to be discovered, however, but luckily for you I am more welcoming than most of our residents. Unluckily, though…” Far in the distance, the moon rose over the towering buildings, a great luminous disc of white light so bright that you almost had to squint when you looked directly at it. Atalanta slowly turned her head back around to look over her shoulder, and it soon became apparent that something about her had changed, her mouth pushing out in front of her face in a canine muzzle, hackles raised to reveal sharp teeth, and her eyes had narrowed, pupils turned to monstrous slits. “That doesn’t mean I can’t be just as threatening if I want to.”
      
      The woman’s composed posture buckled, hunching over and clutching her stomach as she groaned, and her robe seemed to become less loose around her body, though that was more as a result of her body bulging and swelling underneath its baggy folds. There were creaks and pops in the air as her bones stretched, the structure of her skeleton morphing, and her balance shifted again as her feet extended, pushing her forward to stand on her toes in a digitigrade stance, though she reached out with one arm, its length significantly extended, to keep herself from falling to the floor. Her spine lengthened both above and below, pushing out above her tailbone and forming into a tail, while her neck extended higher, the additional length combined with her height bringing her head nearly to the ceiling. The thin hairs on her fair skin grew thicker, shaggier, becoming a coat of snowy white fur that soon covered her entire body, and her already long hair seemed to writhe as it flowed down her back like a fiery avalanche until it covered her even more than her robe did.
      
      The robe itself wasn’t holding up too well anymore, now practically skin-tight as it desperately clung to her, but rips were starting to form along its folds, white fur spilling out through the red cloth. The front lapels probably couldn’t even have been closed anymore, no longer able to reach far enough to contain the enormous flabby mass that was spilling out from her midsection, a swollen gut lined with thick folds of flesh that was stretching further and further down her legs. Her underwear, though, had already given up the fight, now leaving her breasts to sag freely outward as they rested upon the upper slope of her gut, the engorged globes each large enough that they could smother a grown man beneath their ponderous mass. Her legs thickened in order to support her immense bulk, the limbs swelling out to the diameter of tree trunks, thighs squeezing against each other as a result of their sheer size and proximity, with a pair of buttocks so wide that it couldn’t even have been contained on the couch in the room jiggling behind her as she shifted experimentally from one foot to the other.
      
      “On this night, my hunger knows no bounds,” the colossal beast that had once been Atalanta said in a low, guttural growl, “so I hunt in the city streets for one who may be able to satisfy me, but I have found none who are capable of such a task.” She prowled around the room – not that there was much room to maneuver, as she took up most of the space – crawling on all fours, pulling along with her clawed hands, her thick arms covered in the remaining scraps of crimson cloth that had been her robe’s sleeves. Her belly dragged against the floor as she approached you again, and you felt the intense warmth of her bosom nearly pressing against you long before her head lowered down on her neck to stare directly at you, ravenous eyes peering through the messy fiery mane of her hair. “Do you think you can succeed where they failed?” she asked, licking her lips, saliva trickling through her fur and over her swollen chin.
      
      You aren’t entirely sure how to react, your body frozen completely solid, your mouth unable to form words, and your heart and lungs barely even functioning properly. The most you can bring yourself to do is nod your head.