Chapter 15 Fade Into Obscurity
Datu
Xiaoyu’s gone through many phases today. Just a few hours ago, she’d been lively and determined. Now, she’s silent while struggling to keep her breathing even. I know her enough that my words weigh heavily on her.
“Come now, you’re dirty,” I untie her toga, letting it fall to the ground.
She’s terribly shy. She doesn’t like it when I watch her so intently. I think she feels judged when I do. She doesn’t know she’s the only woman my gaze has lingered on for too long.
My hands run over her arms, her torso, feeling the little hairs of her skin rise to my touch.
We walk deeper into the creek until it is waist-deep for her.
I cannot believe it has only been one night since we have known each other.
As I wash her hair, it’s grown longer. She may think it’s only been a day, but in her world, it’s been a while.
“You’re quiet,” I observe.
“I’m having a crisis.” She deadpans. “Give me a moment.”
Gruffly, I sigh and knead her muscles, shoulders, neck. “Remember what you were sent here for?”
“Yeah, to treat you, but I still don’t understand why I need to collect pollen. How is that going to help the sprouts?”
An upset thrumming starts in my belly. “To appease the void.”
Xiaoyu freezes, and I know she’s caught it. She’s shaking as the water—so in tune with her—ripples. I run my fingers over her hair, sliding along the curve of her hip.
“Was I sent here to die?”
“No, of course not,” I whisper. “You were sent here to belong to me.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” She steps away and faces me. “Don’t speak riddles with me.” There’s a fire in her eyes I’d never seen before. “Tell me, what was I sent here for? The other women?”
Serpents stir in me, slow, coiling. “Sateva has made a bargain with the humans. They give Esoterra females, I give…what I can in return.”
Disgust distorts her strange features. “Is this why they want me to collect your pollen?”
I’m silent as I loom over her.
“Why me? Anyone could have done it.”
She still does not know she’s been calling to me in her dreams. She does not know even a fraction of humanity’s depravity to even think she was sent here to heal me. To save the sprouts. If only it were that simple.
“Hypothetically, the males produce a rare secretion very valuable to humans if they…mate with one of your species.”
“W-what does it do?”
“It’s akin to a love potion. Pheromones, you humans call it.” For the life of me, I can’t say what else Moriarty has harvested from me. It’s as if humiliation has carved itself into me.
“Oh, my god, mate bonds…” Her eyes are glassy with tears. “The children… No, no, no, I can’t do this. I can’t let them be abused like that.”
Pain lances through me. “This is why you and I are here, Xiaoyu. As long as the Void is appeased, the sprouts are safe. The sprouts will survive.”
“Why? Will the Void stop the humans?”
“The Void will provide what the humans ask…in return for more women.”
“Oh, my god, is the Void gonna eat them?”
This confuses me. I thought she’d understood that I was talking about myself. “What? No.”
She begins to panic as she paces around—going against the water current. “I knew it! We were sent here to be eaten alive. To feed some sort of Lovecraftian monster. It’s gonna eat us one by one.”
Shockingly, a headache starts pounding against my temples. I know she had an overactive imagination, but—unfortunately—I did not know the extent of it.
“The Void is a god, not a monster.” My retort comes out defensive. It stings—her thinking I am a monster.
She whips her hands around in frustration. “What’s the difference?! It’s gonna eat us anyway!”
“I just said no, I’m not gonna eat them!”
“Ah-hah!” She points at me accusingly. “I caught you. You are the Void. Why couldn’t you have told me that earlier?”
I blink twice. “I thought you knew,” I flex my arms, oddly embarrassed that I’ve been bested. Baited.
“Cryptic is for cryptids. You’re a god, so stop it and tell me outright what the issue is!”
Providing her outright answers goes against my Vow of Natural Selection. Well, so does being in this form, trading human females…
“I will provide everything the humans want…as long as they do not disturb my land. One thing I know is you were not chosen by chance. You’ve been calling to me in your dreams.”
Xiaoyu stills, becoming a statue as the gears in her head spin.
I have laid out all my cards but one…the most important one.
A forest doesn’t grow overnight, but the Void finds ways.
It mimics, emulates living beings, but it still isn’t enough to feed a whole island.
I needed something to fill the void, and that’s Xiaoyu.
She’s not here to heal me like what she thinks. And once she eventually leaves, it will be as if I’d never existed to her. Fading into obscurity like all things forgotten, removed from memory.
“You’re saying you and I are..?”
“Best friends, yes.”
She gives me a funny look. “Just because you’ve been stalking my dreams doesn’t mean we’re BFF’s. What happened to good ol’ fate?”
“Don’t you think fate removes personal agency over your life?”
Her mouth drops open, looking around, “Don’t say that. A nameless god might strike us dead for having such controversial opinions.”
“What?”
“So, we don’t have a special, supernatural bond?”
“The Void can’t have any, unfortunately. However, the Terra can. This form can be your Provider.”
She is silently mulling this over. “You fucking with me?”
Not at all, but I’m not sure how to explain it to her without sounding like an arrogant—
“I think I know why. You think this mate-thing is beneath you.”
There’s a pounding in my temples that won’t go away. I do not know what to say, because—taking everything into consideration—she’s right. I’m a god—a monstrous one at that. I have no right to anyone the earth possesses. The thought makes the snakes in my gut curdle.
“Don’t worry.” She pats my arm awkwardly. “I will help you be humble.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It only does if you actually think you aren’t better than us subhumans. With that said, I am very familiar with people who have god complexes and have gained a tolerance.”
“It sounds to me you are going to let me continue and be arrogant.”
“No, it means I know exactly where this arrogance comes from.” She crosses her arms over her chest, raising her nose at me. “Which means I have an effective way of stopping it. Hypothetically. You’ve been hurt, in great pain that you built this Tower of Babel judging us.”
“That is cruel of you to break me down like this so early in our companionship.” I reply dryly, but in truth, her words dig deep.
“Right…So, how did Ingar find me?”
I am relieved at the abrupt segue of the conversation. “I do not know the specifics, but the Otherlands have evolved. They have a way of collecting your innermost thoughts through your devices.”
Slowly, she turned to stare at me. “For fucking real?”
“You might have searched something incriminating.” A smile spreads throughout my lips. “Mainly, having sex with plants.” I tease.
“I’ve never had sex with plants in my dreams!” she hisses guiltily.
Lies. I lighten the mood by chuckling, dragging her with me to the shallow part of the water, washing her. “I jest. You might have dreamt of the Void. The hunger. I believe those are hyperspecific topics that do not come up a lot in humans.”
“So it is true! Our devices are listening to us.” She’s giving me a strange look right now. “Shit, Sunny might just be right.”
“Pardon?”
“This is a romantic scifi-fantasy novel come to life. With these fated mates, illicit sexual encounters, strange lands…” She swallows thickly. “The only thing missing is the main antagonist.” Her eyes shift toward my direction.
“Being in this barren land sounds more tragic, no? Not romantic?”
“I really wish you would stop foreshadowing everything. It creeps me out.”
Her back is pressed up against me as we let the blackness swallow us.
The starflies flutter across the sky, perching by the branches like sentries.
The silence lingers, but intimacy—her warm, wet skin against mine—is a salacious beast. It is not wild and unhinged.
It’s a slow trickling of poison, covering my body, soaking into my skin with the promise of breaking me into pieces.
My Terra form disintegrates until black smoke licks her skin.
“Do you remember me now?”
I do not fight the rush in my chest. I should not. There is no reason to. It is what she is here for. My fingers skim over her neck, her breast until I hear her breath catch.
“You’re the thing always in the corner of my dreams. The hole.”
“Yes.” Within the forest where all my hearts lay, they stammer a beat. “I have never visited a human’s dream more than once. Except yours.”
“So you knew who I was the whole time?”
“No. I only found out last night when you called to me. Then, I realized who you were.” My lips find the top of her head. Bending, falling to my knees, I lick her jaw, down to her collarbones. Small, delicate, breakable. I see the pulse on her neck jump as my teeth meet her flesh.
“Have I ever told you how good you taste?” My mouth drifts lower.
Breathing hard, she places her hands on my shoulders. “Stop seducing me.” The fight in her is weak. She wants this just as much as I do.
“There is no stopping me.” My tongue swipes, laves her nipple until she arches, seeking more. “You will take whatever I give.”
The somber bass of my hearts give in, and they thrum as she cups the back of my head. She’s pulling me closer, deeper. I bite with restrained hunger, but oh, how I want to sink.
“I’m going to fill you tonight.”
“I—I don’t know what to do.” She says softly, imploring.
“My sweet dreamer, just trust me.”
She does what I say, clinging to me like her life depends on it. My desire comes in the form of vines. They wade through the water, their sole intent to make her lose control. A vine dives, curls up her leg as I sweep my thumbs over her face.
“I’ll be gentle tonight.” The smaller vines wrap around her thighs, parting them. My forehead meets hers, and our noses touch. The thicker vine slides between us, finding paradise in the softness between her legs. The tip sneaks in, twisting in the warmth.
Her reaction is automatic. She breathes my name, digging her nails into my skin. I feel it like nettles, but the vine exclaims its excitement. The bulge fights against my slit until another cilia breaks. Two left. Almost there. I know I’m leaking, but I do not care.
The air here is thick, choking with sin I can taste.
Xiaoyu is tight, the vine never sits comfortably as she pants through the pain. I brush my hands over her back, calming, reassuring that I have her. I seem calm, settled, but inside I’m feverish. I’m fighting against the urge to break the remaining cilia and just take her now.
I push the stiff vine into her, but her body protests.
“Datu…” she groans. “Slowly…”
“It hurts?”
She nods, biting her lips. “A little, yeah.”
Lifting her from the water, I lay her over the grassy bank where she stretches. The vines have basically sunk into her skin at how closely they held her. She sweeps her hair away from her face. The vines pull, her cunt completely exposed to me.
“It’s going to hurt more.”
I squeeze my bulge and cup the liquid that gathers.
The head of my cock pokes through. Good.
I crawl between her legs, laying them over my shoulders.
She needs more coaxing. Using my thumbs, I spread her cunt apart until the hood peels back, baring her nub.
I smear myself all over her as her legs shake.
Looking into her eyes, I drag my tongue over her swollen flesh lush with a combination of our desire.
It’s an amazing biological gift human females have.
A body part purely for erotic purposes shrinks my vision into a tunnel.
I want her to come apart in my mouth while my vine, my fingers slide in and out of her.
The image has me grinding my teeth until it breaks.
Not a problem. It always grows back, bigger, thicker, stronger.
I move my mouth with single-minded resolve.
The cavernous emptiness of my existence has not prepared me for such untainted, crushing lechery.
She tastes of decadent torture. I want to break her into pieces and put her back together.
Not used to being touched so brazenly, she pulls in breaths frantically while scratching the skin off my shoulders. She’s hurting and wanting at the same time. I realize I love seeing her like this. Helpless and needing what I alone can give.
.
When she attempts to squeeze her legs close again, my finger slides in.
Just one for now. There’s time to give her more.
I do not give her reprieve. I want her to build up this inferno greater than mine.
No, it’s not a want. It’s an irrational need.
To fill her with every part of me. If I could, I would crawl into her.
She is hot, dripping as I slide in a second finger. It is a crime how it barely fits, but I made it work. Loosening her, coaxing aggressively. She bucks, screaming my name again. I am reaching a frenzy that burns my skin. The gust of night air does not cool us down.
A fresh vine sneaks in, but it has a hard time slipping in. Giving in, I pull my fingers out, letting my vine explore her. It pines for her, then it will vine her. Tie her to me.
Vining her is unlike any other intimate act. It’s the troughing of the layer underneath the layer. She is aether in disguise. She is all-consuming, a static tension embedded in my bones. I slam my slit against hers, rubbing, chasing a high I know I can never satisfy.
Her sharp gasp is swallowed by my other hand. There’s a reckless longing in me that wants her to rip me apart with her teeth. My thumb snakes into her mouth, and she knows what I need. She clamps down hard as I slide the head of my cock over her.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It is a sensation unlike any other. Not even the gods I know can make me feel this way. Like Xiaoyu can. Only Xiaoyu. My sweet dreamer.
My vine splits into several reverent ropes. It will seep into her, scar her with me, only me, for as long as I exist.
There’s a sudden crushing sound, and I stare in fascination as she sinks her teeth into my hand. My joints pop, but I slide through her faster, harder. The pain is damning and exquisite, and when she shouts her release, I am undone.
Unraveled.
Surreal but so real. So fucking real. Arriving, coming, is bittersweet. I don’t want to leave, but I beg for it to end. In this instance, I am not a god. I am a worshipper.
The reality chills me to my bones.