Let me explain how I ended up in that situation.

It was only about a week ago I was living as I always had, with no expectations that anything was going to change in my routine life. I lived alone on a small farm in the town of Greenfield. I’d inherited it from my parents, who had died protecting the town in a demon raid a few years back, leaving me on my own to keep things going. Well, that and the help of the other townsfolk. Losses like that were just common enough that everyone knew we had to help each other out.

The person who helped me out the most was my childhood friend, Mary. Her and her parents did a lot to watch after me and help me get on my feet when I found myself on my own. Still, she never seemed to pass up an opportunity to come over and give me a hard time.

That fateful morning I woke up to the sound of metal banging against metal. I’d grown use to this part of my day-to-day life. Mary had come over to wake me up and cook breakfast before I got to work on the farm.

The sound grew louder as she walked into my bedroom, still banging the pan with a spatula as a makeshift alarm. “Wake up, sleepy-head. You’d think that you could get up faster after doing it for your whole life!” She yelled, looking down at me and putting her arms on her hips. Her usual outfit, not having changed in style much since we were kids, was a simple top and a pair of blue overalls for working. It worked fine when we were younger, but as the two of us grew older, her chest grew much more quickly than most of her and now it was hard to look at her without seeing those mounds struggle against the straps of the overalls which never seemed to give in no matter how hard she worked them. The rest of her filled them out not soon after and there were days I wondered if they were so tight around her hips that they were stuck on. Her red hair was tied into a short ponytail, only about down to her neck, to keep it out of the way. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw it let down.

“I’m up, I’m up!” I said, sliding out of bed and getting dressed quickly. As much as she seemed to not worry if I saw how her breasts were struggling to break free from her clothing, I was much too embarrassed to let her see any parts of my body that might try to break free, especially while looking at her ample chest. I had gotten very accustomed to sliding right into a pair of slacks from under my bedsheets. She had gotten just as used to making her way back to the kitchen while I did so.

After getting decent, which mostly just meant making sure my messy grayish-brown hair was patted down and not sticking up too much, I let out a yawn as I followed behind her. My house was only a few rooms big. A couple bedrooms, a kitchen and dining area which was also the main room, and a small pantry room of sorts for storing food. It was a bit too big for just me but it was meant to hold a family.

Approaching the dining table, I gave my arms a good stretch before sitting while Mary went to get breakfast off of the stove before it burnt. She brought over a couple of plates and set them down on the table. Just bacon and eggs, as usual, but it was enough to get me going and out the door. That and a glass of freshly squeezed milk to down it all. From the cows, of course. I don’t think that Mary would- No, I can’t think of her like that. It was just hard to look at her without seeing them, is all.

“Honestly, I don’t know why I go out of my way to do so much for you. I have to wake up even earlier than you so I can get all of this ready and then drag you out of bed so all of my effort is worth it. Every single day! It’s like you don’t really value what I mean to you...”

I looked up from the food I was eating and I thought I saw her eyes dart away for a moment as she said that. Was there something more to what she was saying? It just sounded like her normal complaining. She had been doing that more and more lately but she never stopped helping me, or even threatened to do so.

I set my fork down and sat up straight. “Well… thank you for helping me. It means a lot that you’re willing to do so much for me. It’s been rough but I’ve been able to get through it with a friend like you.” I gave a bit of a nod at the end of that. I meant it.

Mary seemed taken a back a bit, maybe even starting to blush, up until I finished what I was saying and that all seemed to evaporate. “Yeah… friend… You’re welcome…” She let out a sigh before chugging down the rest of her milk and slamming the cup down on the table before standing up and walking closer to me, leaning over. She was trying to get her face up close to mine but it was hard to not see just how close her breasts were freely hanging down beneath her, the only thing holding them in place being the straps of her overalls, as she placed her hands on her hips and spoke up. “Hmpf! Well this friend might just see how well you do without me for a few days and then watch you come back to me a little more grateful.”

What? Did I make her mad? I really meant that! What did she want me to say? She was so hard to understand sometimes. Things were much simpler when we were kids. At least I could tell when she was teasing me or not, or why she would get mad at me. “No, I really mean it! You’re my closest friend! I don’t know what I would do without you!” Tell me why you’re acting like this!”

She stood up and crossed her arms under her massive mounds. It seemed like it would be awkward to try and do so in front of them. No, stop thinking about them and focus. “If you can’t figure it out then I’m not going to tell you. If you weren’t so dense you would have figured it out ages ago and at this point I’m not even sure I care anymore.”

Before we could really sort things, there was a knock on my door. We both paused for a moment as the tension of a conversation between just the two of us needed more time to deflate before we could bring someone else in. Since Mary was already standing up, she let out a sigh went over to open it. At the door was the village elder, Nick, an older man that was wearing some rather plain, brown clothes, a graying beard and a head that was on it’s last couple of hairs. “Oh, good morning you two,” he said, giving us a small nod. “A messenger from the capital arrived and we were asked to gather all of the young men in town. I’m afraid I know what’s coming but I still need to ask you to go.”

“Alright,” I nodded, letting off a sigh of my own. I finished off my breakfast, not wanting to let Mary’s hard work go to waste and even more so after she voiced concerns about me taking her for granted.

Mary looked between the elder and me. There was a look of worry on her face. We could both guess what was happening and it couldn’t be good news but there was little that we could do now. “I… I’m going to come with you into town,” She said, trying to shake the worry from herself. She probably didn’t want to linger on the worst case scenario until I got back.

I looked over to her and sighed again, giving a nod to her now. What had remained of any animosity between the two of us was gone over something like this. There were very few reasons why a messenger from the capital would come out to our village and since we had been keeping up with food production, that could only really mean one other thing.

There were demons on the move. I thought about going to grab my spear now, but since we weren’t told to come armed then there must be time for me to come back and grab it and my armor later.

“Ok, let’s head out then. No use keeping this waiting.”

Elder Nick turned to leave my house and I followed behind him with Mary quickly behind me.