I have come to a very important realization.
Konohora’s boobs are amazing.
I like to think I’m a reasonably well rounded man. Sure, my brain was blown to smithereens and pieced back together and every week, literally, I’ve suffered some crazy new reality. But usually, I’m a perfectly boring, average man. No, even more than that, I feel like giving me the title ‘excessively reasonable’ wouldn’t be out of place. After all, conflicts are awful and suck and aren’t great, despite what my new demon biology is trying to tell me about chaos and massacres.
But sometimes, sometimes that tiny little gremlin that first spawned when I was young, came crawling out and back. The one that first saw boobs and said ‘that’s so hot, I want them’. Who doesn’t love boobs? Even my gay friends loved boobs. Boobs are great.
“Are you quite done yet?” Konohora said, slightly exasperated.
I squeezed her boobs one more time for fun.
“Yes.”
We had laid awake all day, pretending to fuck. Well… alright, that’s not fair or really true. We were ‘pretending’ to fuck and then well… there’s no reason to pretend all day right? Though that was less ‘insane animalistic primal fucking’ and ‘relaxing and soothing, slow and gentle love making.’
Although, the fact that it wasn’t optional tainted it a bit. The damn Giantesses had come back, twice, with their damn flowers, and if we weren’t fucking… well… I was not looking forward to being drugged out of my god damn mind again.
A whole day had passed, half anxiously and half relaxed. I was thoroughly sick of it at this point. I wanted to go home. That sentiment had increased drastically today and now I’d strongly settle for just making it back to a random safe forest outside of this bastard of a jungle.
Night had fallen and I was glad I’d managed to get in a nap at least early on. Because tonight…
“Tonight, we’re breaking out of this joint.”
“Joint?”
“Sorry, I’ve always wanted to say that. It’s from a… thing.”
“Hmm.”
I felt a lot more comfortable with Konohora now. I mean, I always kinda sorta did, but sex had certainly made things smoother. There had sadly not been a lot of talking, we both were still exhausted. Not just from the sex, but from the whole situation, the whole everything. It was not fun it turns out, to be at the mercy of skyscraper sized creatures that could safely be called ‘Goddesses’ if this was back on earth and even just 200 years ago. Hell, they still had a good running for the title even today.
We got up, moonlight drenching us once more. This hut had plenty of gaps, large ones at that, for the sun and moon to peek through. I was fairly certain it was on purpose. The Giant Women in this village took good care of their… something. Progenitors.
We both moved towards the wall. This part was… honestly gonna suck. The walls were tall but only somewhat. With every new day, I felt myself regaining my ‘new’ strength. A distinctly odd feeling. It would mean that soon, I’d be more than able to just leap up and pull myself over it.
Today was not that day.
“Give me a boost.” I said.
Konohora raised an eyebrow.
“You’re going to pull me up?”
“Well… yeah?”
“I believe I would be the better choice.”
I looked at her.
“You don’t think I can pull you up.”
“I do not.”
“That’s a human level feat! I mean, an unranked human level feat even! I was literally throwing you around earlier.”
“You can not do it.”
“What? Why?”
“Your means of support are shallow considering my density.”
I stared at her, my mind whirling, before I squinted.
“...How heavy are you exactly?”
She humphed at me, sending a small glare. Alright, point taken.
“Fine, fine.” I leaned up against the wall, cupping my hands. “You go up and pull my small, lightweight, feather body then Ms. Heavy.”
She looked at me deadpan and then stepped and-
Jesus Christ, was she always this heavy? Fuck. How the fuck was I even doing anything earlier? Oh my god, my body is going to be so bruised tomorrow. She literally threw that weight down on top of me. Christ almighty, I probably pulled a muscle earlier without realizing.
Feeling like a fucking elephant had stomped on my hands, I rose up, allowing her to vault on top of the wall. I jumped up, letting her catch my arms and pull me up all the way.
A hop down that my knees would not thank me for, and we were already doing alright on the plan.
Now came the shitty part.
The boxes were not ‘homes’. Not all soulless horrible creatures with only the dull appearance of a human, stayed in the ‘sex boxes’ all the time. Most of the time, the boxes had doors. And eerily, horribly, the creatures would walk the ‘streets’. The second we were down, I saw them and felt like I was going to have a heart attack as my whole body recoiled.
They did not walk like a human. They moved more like… robots came to mind but that really didn’t do justice to the absolute biological monstrosity I was witnessing. Muscle moved and pulled, like electrocuted pork, stiffly but somehow smoothly. Like a creaking willow tree.
Eyes vacant, bodies moving as if through molasses, all eyes turning onto us immediately. We began walking but… there was nothing there. Nothing in those eyes, on their vacant expressions. It wasn’t even an animal level of intelligence. It was a void of thought and being. I was looking at, somehow, biological robots. Just… meat… and nothing more.
Our path was simple, outside of this town and then… well… we’ll figure some way down off this table. But before we left, we needed to see that damn book. I had missed it the first time, given my position, but being put down this second time, I hadn’t. It was nearby. No idea how we were going to climb down and then back up but we needed to know where the damn Gem was. Too many reasons to list for that.
Number one reason, it might get us back where we started. Somehow. Miracles seemed to be almost literally happening every other week, I could roll the dice for this one.
Secondly, just to make god damn sure Happy didn’t get it. He was still lurking about somewhere and I wasn’t going to forget that for a second. He was far too dangerous to let him get his hands on them.
Our path took us through a veritable horde of the creatures. We were walking, mostly out of fear. Running felt both right and wrong, as if it would spell our doom but also we dearly wanted to not be here. Konohora passed too close to a male… thing and my eyes lit up with horror as he moved to grab her. I pulled her quickly away, seeing his dick begin to rise.
Ah. Right. Of course, I was stupid. I know why these things are so god damn scary now. We were dealing with zombies, except worse.
“Run!”
We sprinted away, quickly. The thing just stood there, dick erect, eyes continuing to trail us.
We made it out of the ‘town’ soon after and I felt like cockroaches were crawling over my skin. Konohora had it worse. She looked like she was physically shaking from revulsion.
“I… tried to talk to a few of them beforehand. I gave up immediately. None of them… had that happen.”
Konohora’s shakes were getting worse now.
“So many…”
I nodded, grimacing. The idea of being gang raped by hundreds of lifeless horrors from beyond was unsettling on an unfathomable scale. I was there right alongside her, the idea of putting my dick inside one more disturbing than the idea of fucking a corpse. Gah.
“We’ve reached the edge of the table.”
Which was a problem. That was a long ways down and-
“Tha Buln Medar?”
I looked up in shock, wondering how we had missed a literal Giant woman. She was standing over us on one side of the table, staring at us in equal amounts of shock. Her hands moved fast and-
God damn it. There was a shadow and then a sense of tightening, as I was dragged into the air, firmly in her grasp. She brought us close to her face, peering at us in confusion.
“Buln Medar... esa ru rdselra.”
She seemed to say in awe. Honestly, I was sick of this.
“Go Buln Medar yourself!” I yelled.
I didn’t even have time to struggle in her hand. Her reaction was beyond my expectations. The second I’d said those words, her expression had morphed into pure, absolute shock. So much so, that she did something I’d previously thought impossible for some reason.
She dropped us.
We were saved only by something glorious. Something purely divine, that could host no evil. Kind of. Sort of. Her breasts. Her beautiful, massive, glorious, life saving boobs. Amen.
We bounced right off them as we hit them, going back into the air. Before I even had the chance to panic, we were falling and I felt myself hit something and then roll to a stop on top of wood. Konohora groaned next to me, as I looked up. We had bounced right off Saisaie’s breasts and onto the book stand! More specifically, onto the book itself, before rolling down it. We lived!
Now let’s try to keep doing that.
“B-Buln Medar?! Nu.... nu... Yui'sa... Awecalan Lailla Bsailrasr?!”
Wow. I was caught in awe as I almost understood that sentence. Buln Medar were ‘us’, whatever we were to them. I still assumed it meant ‘people, actual people’ considering how obviously different we were from these things. “Lailla Bsailrasr” were the soulless abominations.
And Awecalan… I’d heard that one too. When was it-
“Oh fuck.”
That’s what they’d called the things that attacked them. The Elementals. Life to… things that shouldn’t have life. Like air, trees, and earth. Their Enemies.
The look on Saisaie’s face confirmed it. Because I’d had the same face not five minutes ago. It was the look of absolute disgust, fear, and horror that I felt when looking at the soulless abominations. I had a feeling… we represented far worse than ‘miniature people’ to them.
“Nu…. nu!”
“Derek.”
“Already moving.”
We were on a book stand and we had wanted to read that book. That was now out of the picture. It was time to run. How were we going to get down? I was prepared to jump but Konohora proved smarter than me here. She tore off a piece of the paper from the book.
“Derek!”
“I told you I’m already-”
Saisaie was apparently against our escape attempt. A hand came for me once more but I dodged it this time, diving out of the way. Konohora was running, holding a massive piece of paper above her head. She jumped, holding onto the sides tight, and I ran after her. I could practically feel Saisaie’s hand behind me. Images of being crushed to paste flew through me and I ran like the devil himself was chasing me.
I jumped, grabbing onto Konohora, Saisaie missed me by a hair.
“NU!” Saisaie screamed.
Her grab sent the paper sailing out of control. We were tumbling, spinning, my hands grabbing tight around Konohora when-
Bang.
We crashed onto the dirt but there was no time lose, I hoisted Konohora onto my shoulder (Christ, what did you eat?! Are your bones made of metal?) and began to run.
I could already hear and feel the ground shaking with the force of Saisaie after us. I ran. Faster, faster.
Faster.
She was gaining on me, building up into her own run. I wasn’t going to be fast enough. I’d have to run a dozen times faster than an olympic athlete to get away but it was our only hope.
I felt the fires burning in my legs, the focus and drive overtaking me, as I realized this may literally be life and death. The stomping grew closer, the vibrations stronger. My legs burned, my chest heaved, but I didn’t stop.
Closer, Closer.
Sprinting.
Closer. Clos-
I stopped. Well, I dove to the right. Saisaie’s foot sailed over me, as I used my tail to pivot, my claws scraping the ground, my body screaming with the exertion. I felt stamina flow through me from Konohora on my shoulder. She had been right to save her healing energies.
I sprinted again, aiming for one of the tents. My trick had bought us time but it was going to be a long run to get out of this village…
***
Four tents, two women making out, one woman bathing with a leaf somehow, and a very strangely placed rock, and we had finally made it. My lungs were threatening to burst out of my chest and the whole village seemed to be in an uproar, but I’d done it. I’d ran and ran and ran and ran, pivoting and twisting, all with a heavy sack on my shoulders, but I’d done it.
I collapsed to the ground, face first.
Said heavy sack finally got off me and began sending healing energy through me.
“Why… hah…. Why are you… hah… so heavy?”
She flicked my nose.
“You could have put me down.”
“When?”
She thought about that for a moment.
“When we were behind the rock.”
Damn it, she was probably right, but I wanted to get the hell out of there. And now we had. Yup. Awesome. Great. Now we didn’t need to worry about being prisoners by an amazonian esk race of Giantesses, instead we just had to contend with a jungle full of giant creatures… great. Awesome. Truly the best. We couldn’t have done better.
I just lay there face first in the dirt, groaning to myself.
I suddenly felt myself being lifted. I blinked in surprise.
“I-I can walk.”
Konohora let out a small breath through her nose.
“You’re tired and I can carry you.”
And with that, she began to run through the jungle, with me laid over her shoulder. Huh. This was… a bit emasculating. Hmm. Well, whatever. Not like I care. Tired. Too tired to think about that. Time to just rest.
******
Saisaie was freaking out.
“Grand Elder! Grand Elder!”
“I’m here Saisaie, I’m here. The whole village is screaming and running around! What’s going on? Are we under attack by something?!”
Saisaie paused, unsure what to say. She knew what she’d heard, she knew what she’d finally seen.
“T-The Bond Mates. They…”
The Grand Elder suddenly looked extremely worried. She was right to be. Bond Mates were legendary. They were only found some of the time and variants? They were even more rare! She’d never even heard of Variant Bond Mates before. To find them randomly out in the jungle? Still alive? Saisaie had been overjoyed at the time. She had immediately connected them to her, feeding them.
Oh god, she felt sick just remembering it now.
“T-the Life Bringers, the Bond Mates they…. They are Awakened.”
The Grand Elder’s jaw dropped.
Awakened were… horrible. Every year they killed a few Gaieldr and making more of their kind was hard. The village had just been attacked by a group of them recently! No one had died but still.
It was only by pure chance that their race existed at all! Long ago, two Life Bringers had, for some reason, had sex at just the right time for the First to be born. She had paved the way for more of them. They had learned much from her and from her talents. They had found and took care of as many Life Bringers as possible. Almost none were found out in the wild now. They had learned how to nurture them, how to care for them, and yes, occasionally have a bit of fun with them. But it had noticeably shown to increase the frequency of them bringing life!
She suddenly remembered what she had done with the Variant Life Bringer and felt like throwing up.
“Are you sure Saisaie? Are you sure?!”
“Yes. Yes! I, I promise! They, they spoke our language! Then they ran away! They fled.”
The Grand Elder frowned, hard, thinking.
Saisaie did too except… she didn’t know what to think! An Awakened Life Bringer? That was impossible. Completely impossible. And two of them?! Bond Mates at that?
Life Bringers didn’t give birth to other life bringers in the first place. Every one lost, was a permeant one lost. They didn’t seem to age but it was the only saving grace. If it wasn’t for that… well… their village would have been wiped out long ago. After all, the Gaieldr did age.
“You said they spoke our language?” The Grand Elder finally spoke up.
“Yes!”
“...no Awakened has ever talked before… we must find them!” The Grand Elder spoke.
Saisaie hesitated.
“B-but what does this mean?”
“I don’t know young one, I don’t know. This… could mean anything. But I do know this. Language is communication. It’s one of the most important things we have. If the…. By the First… if the Awakened Life Bringers really can speak it, we must find them and talk to them. Perhaps… perhaps they are like us. Or perhaps they could lead to a whole new kind being created. The Jungle is a place of great evil but also a place of Miracles. We will learn more after we find them.”
Saisaie nodded, before her eyes went wide.
“The other Variant!”
The Grand Elder was already rushing. The two Bond Mates had been important, but a few days before them they had found another Variant. The one with grey skin. They ran to the Tribe Member that had him but…
He was gone too.
I have come to a very important realization.
Konohora’s boobs are amazing.
I like to think I’m a reasonably well rounded man. Sure, my brain was blown to smithereens and pieced back together and every week, literally, I’ve suffered some crazy new reality. But usually, I’m a perfectly boring, average man. No, even more than that, I feel like giving me the title ‘excessively reasonable’ wouldn’t be out of place. After all, conflicts are awful and suck and aren’t great, despite what my new demon biology is trying to tell me about chaos and massacres.
But sometimes, sometimes that tiny little gremlin that first spawned when I was young, came crawling out and back. The one that first saw boobs and said ‘that’s so hot, I want them’. Who doesn’t love boobs? Even my gay friends loved boobs. Boobs are great.
“Are you quite done yet?” Konohora said, slightly exasperated.
I squeezed her boobs one more time for fun.
“Yes.”
We had laid awake all day, pretending to fuck. Well… alright, that’s not fair or really true. We were ‘pretending’ to fuck and then well… there’s no reason to pretend all day right? Though that was less ‘insane animalistic primal fucking’ and ‘relaxing and soothing, slow and gentle love making.’
Although, the fact that it wasn’t optional tainted it a bit. The damn Giantesses had come back, twice, with their damn flowers, and if we weren’t fucking… well… I was not looking forward to being drugged out of my god damn mind again.
A whole day had passed, half anxiously and half relaxed. I was thoroughly sick of it at this point. I wanted to go home. That sentiment had increased drastically today and now I’d strongly settle for just making it back to a random safe forest outside of this bastard of a jungle.
Night had fallen and I was glad I’d managed to get in a nap at least early on. Because tonight…
“Tonight, we’re breaking out of this joint.”
“Joint?”
“Sorry, I’ve always wanted to say that. It’s from a… thing.”
“Hmm.”
I felt a lot more comfortable with Konohora now. I mean, I always kinda sorta did, but sex had certainly made things smoother. There had sadly not been a lot of talking, we both were still exhausted. Not just from the sex, but from the whole situation, the whole everything. It was not fun it turns out, to be at the mercy of skyscraper sized creatures that could safely be called ‘Goddesses’ if this was back on earth and even just 200 years ago. Hell, they still had a good running for the title even today.
We got up, moonlight drenching us once more. This hut had plenty of gaps, large ones at that, for the sun and moon to peek through. I was fairly certain it was on purpose. The Giant Women in this village took good care of their… something. Progenitors.
We both moved towards the wall. This part was… honestly gonna suck. The walls were tall but only somewhat. With every new day, I felt myself regaining my ‘new’ strength. A distinctly odd feeling. It would mean that soon, I’d be more than able to just leap up and pull myself over it.
Today was not that day.
“Give me a boost.” I said.
Konohora raised an eyebrow.
“You’re going to pull me up?”
“Well… yeah?”
“I believe I would be the better choice.”
I looked at her.
“You don’t think I can pull you up.”
“I do not.”
“That’s a human level feat! I mean, an unranked human level feat even! I was literally throwing you around earlier.”
“You can not do it.”
“What? Why?”
“Your means of support are shallow considering my density.”
I stared at her, my mind whirling, before I squinted.
“...How heavy are you exactly?”
She humphed at me, sending a small glare. Alright, point taken.
“Fine, fine.” I leaned up against the wall, cupping my hands. “You go up and pull my small, lightweight, feather body then Ms. Heavy.”
She looked at me deadpan and then stepped and-
Jesus Christ, was she always this heavy? Fuck. How the fuck was I even doing anything earlier? Oh my god, my body is going to be so bruised tomorrow. She literally threw that weight down on top of me. Christ almighty, I probably pulled a muscle earlier without realizing.
Feeling like a fucking elephant had stomped on my hands, I rose up, allowing her to vault on top of the wall. I jumped up, letting her catch my arms and pull me up all the way.
A hop down that my knees would not thank me for, and we were already doing alright on the plan.
Now came the shitty part.
The boxes were not ‘homes’. Not all soulless horrible creatures with only the dull appearance of a human, stayed in the ‘sex boxes’ all the time. Most of the time, the boxes had doors. And eerily, horribly, the creatures would walk the ‘streets’. The second we were down, I saw them and felt like I was going to have a heart attack as my whole body recoiled.
They did not walk like a human. They moved more like… robots came to mind but that really didn’t do justice to the absolute biological monstrosity I was witnessing. Muscle moved and pulled, like electrocuted pork, stiffly but somehow smoothly. Like a creaking willow tree.
Eyes vacant, bodies moving as if through molasses, all eyes turning onto us immediately. We began walking but… there was nothing there. Nothing in those eyes, on their vacant expressions. It wasn’t even an animal level of intelligence. It was a void of thought and being. I was looking at, somehow, biological robots. Just… meat… and nothing more.
Our path was simple, outside of this town and then… well… we’ll figure some way down off this table. But before we left, we needed to see that damn book. I had missed it the first time, given my position, but being put down this second time, I hadn’t. It was nearby. No idea how we were going to climb down and then back up but we needed to know where the damn Gem was. Too many reasons to list for that.
Number one reason, it might get us back where we started. Somehow. Miracles seemed to be almost literally happening every other week, I could roll the dice for this one.
Secondly, just to make god damn sure Happy didn’t get it. He was still lurking about somewhere and I wasn’t going to forget that for a second. He was far too dangerous to let him get his hands on them.
Our path took us through a veritable horde of the creatures. We were walking, mostly out of fear. Running felt both right and wrong, as if it would spell our doom but also we dearly wanted to not be here. Konohora passed too close to a male… thing and my eyes lit up with horror as he moved to grab her. I pulled her quickly away, seeing his dick begin to rise.
Ah. Right. Of course, I was stupid. I know why these things are so god damn scary now. We were dealing with zombies, except worse.
“Run!”
We sprinted away, quickly. The thing just stood there, dick erect, eyes continuing to trail us.
We made it out of the ‘town’ soon after and I felt like cockroaches were crawling over my skin. Konohora had it worse. She looked like she was physically shaking from revulsion.
“I… tried to talk to a few of them beforehand. I gave up immediately. None of them… had that happen.”
Konohora’s shakes were getting worse now.
“So many…”
I nodded, grimacing. The idea of being gang raped by hundreds of lifeless horrors from beyond was unsettling on an unfathomable scale. I was there right alongside her, the idea of putting my dick inside one more disturbing than the idea of fucking a corpse. Gah.
“We’ve reached the edge of the table.”
Which was a problem. That was a long ways down and-
“Tha Buln Medar?”
I looked up in shock, wondering how we had missed a literal Giant woman. She was standing over us on one side of the table, staring at us in equal amounts of shock. Her hands moved fast and-
God damn it. There was a shadow and then a sense of tightening, as I was dragged into the air, firmly in her grasp. She brought us close to her face, peering at us in confusion.
“Buln Medar... esa ru rdselra.”
She seemed to say in awe. Honestly, I was sick of this.
“Go Buln Medar yourself!” I yelled.
I didn’t even have time to struggle in her hand. Her reaction was beyond my expectations. The second I’d said those words, her expression had morphed into pure, absolute shock. So much so, that she did something I’d previously thought impossible for some reason.
She dropped us.
We were saved only by something glorious. Something purely divine, that could host no evil. Kind of. Sort of. Her breasts. Her beautiful, massive, glorious, life saving boobs. Amen.
We bounced right off them as we hit them, going back into the air. Before I even had the chance to panic, we were falling and I felt myself hit something and then roll to a stop on top of wood. Konohora groaned next to me, as I looked up. We had bounced right off Saisaie’s breasts and onto the book stand! More specifically, onto the book itself, before rolling down it. We lived!
Now let’s try to keep doing that.
“B-Buln Medar?! Nu.... nu... Yui'sa... Awecalan Lailla Bsailrasr?!”
Wow. I was caught in awe as I almost understood that sentence. Buln Medar were ‘us’, whatever we were to them. I still assumed it meant ‘people, actual people’ considering how obviously different we were from these things. “Lailla Bsailrasr” were the soulless abominations.
And Awecalan… I’d heard that one too. When was it-
“Oh fuck.”
That’s what they’d called the things that attacked them. The Elementals. Life to… things that shouldn’t have life. Like air, trees, and earth. Their Enemies.
The look on Saisaie’s face confirmed it. Because I’d had the same face not five minutes ago. It was the look of absolute disgust, fear, and horror that I felt when looking at the soulless abominations. I had a feeling… we represented far worse than ‘miniature people’ to them.
“Nu…. nu!”
“Derek.”
“Already moving.”
We were on a book stand and we had wanted to read that book. That was now out of the picture. It was time to run. How were we going to get down? I was prepared to jump but Konohora proved smarter than me here. She tore off a piece of the paper from the book.
“Derek!”
“I told you I’m already-”
Saisaie was apparently against our escape attempt. A hand came for me once more but I dodged it this time, diving out of the way. Konohora was running, holding a massive piece of paper above her head. She jumped, holding onto the sides tight, and I ran after her. I could practically feel Saisaie’s hand behind me. Images of being crushed to paste flew through me and I ran like the devil himself was chasing me.
I jumped, grabbing onto Konohora, Saisaie missed me by a hair.
“NU!” Saisaie screamed.
Her grab sent the paper sailing out of control. We were tumbling, spinning, my hands grabbing tight around Konohora when-
Bang.
We crashed onto the dirt but there was no time lose, I hoisted Konohora onto my shoulder (Christ, what did you eat?! Are your bones made of metal?) and began to run.
I could already hear and feel the ground shaking with the force of Saisaie after us. I ran. Faster, faster.
Faster.
She was gaining on me, building up into her own run. I wasn’t going to be fast enough. I’d have to run a dozen times faster than an olympic athlete to get away but it was our only hope.
I felt the fires burning in my legs, the focus and drive overtaking me, as I realized this may literally be life and death. The stomping grew closer, the vibrations stronger. My legs burned, my chest heaved, but I didn’t stop.
Closer, Closer.
Sprinting.
Closer. Clos-
I stopped. Well, I dove to the right. Saisaie’s foot sailed over me, as I used my tail to pivot, my claws scraping the ground, my body screaming with the exertion. I felt stamina flow through me from Konohora on my shoulder. She had been right to save her healing energies.
I sprinted again, aiming for one of the tents. My trick had bought us time but it was going to be a long run to get out of this village…
***
Four tents, two women making out, one woman bathing with a leaf somehow, and a very strangely placed rock, and we had finally made it. My lungs were threatening to burst out of my chest and the whole village seemed to be in an uproar, but I’d done it. I’d ran and ran and ran and ran, pivoting and twisting, all with a heavy sack on my shoulders, but I’d done it.
I collapsed to the ground, face first.
Said heavy sack finally got off me and began sending healing energy through me.
“Why… hah…. Why are you… hah… so heavy?”
She flicked my nose.
“You could have put me down.”
“When?”
She thought about that for a moment.
“When we were behind the rock.”
Damn it, she was probably right, but I wanted to get the hell out of there. And now we had. Yup. Awesome. Great. Now we didn’t need to worry about being prisoners by an amazonian esk race of Giantesses, instead we just had to contend with a jungle full of giant creatures… great. Awesome. Truly the best. We couldn’t have done better.
I just lay there face first in the dirt, groaning to myself.
I suddenly felt myself being lifted. I blinked in surprise.
“I-I can walk.”
Konohora let out a small breath through her nose.
“You’re tired and I can carry you.”
And with that, she began to run through the jungle, with me laid over her shoulder. Huh. This was… a bit emasculating. Hmm. Well, whatever. Not like I care. Tired. Too tired to think about that. Time to just rest.
******
Saisaie was freaking out.
“Grand Elder! Grand Elder!”
“I’m here Saisaie, I’m here. The whole village is screaming and running around! What’s going on? Are we under attack by something?!”
Saisaie paused, unsure what to say. She knew what she’d heard, she knew what she’d finally seen.
“T-The Bond Mates. They…”
The Grand Elder suddenly looked extremely worried. She was right to be. Bond Mates were legendary. They were only found some of the time and variants? They were even more rare! She’d never even heard of Variant Bond Mates before. To find them randomly out in the jungle? Still alive? Saisaie had been overjoyed at the time. She had immediately connected them to her, feeding them.
Oh god, she felt sick just remembering it now.
“T-the Life Bringers, the Bond Mates they…. They are Awakened.”
The Grand Elder’s jaw dropped.
Awakened were… horrible. Every year they killed a few Gaieldr and making more of their kind was hard. The village had just been attacked by a group of them recently! No one had died but still.
It was only by pure chance that their race existed at all! Long ago, two Life Bringers had, for some reason, had sex at just the right time for the First to be born. She had paved the way for more of them. They had learned much from her and from her talents. They had found and took care of as many Life Bringers as possible. Almost none were found out in the wild now. They had learned how to nurture them, how to care for them, and yes, occasionally have a bit of fun with them. But it had noticeably shown to increase the frequency of them bringing life!
She suddenly remembered what she had done with the Variant Life Bringer and felt like throwing up.
“Are you sure Saisaie? Are you sure?!”
“Yes. Yes! I, I promise! They, they spoke our language! Then they ran away! They fled.”
The Grand Elder frowned, hard, thinking.
Saisaie did too except… she didn’t know what to think! An Awakened Life Bringer? That was impossible. Completely impossible. And two of them?! Bond Mates at that?
Life Bringers didn’t give birth to other life bringers in the first place. Every one lost, was a permeant one lost. They didn’t seem to age but it was the only saving grace. If it wasn’t for that… well… their village would have been wiped out long ago. After all, the Gaieldr did age.
“You said they spoke our language?” The Grand Elder finally spoke up.
“Yes!”
“...no Awakened has ever talked before… we must find them!” The Grand Elder spoke.
Saisaie hesitated.
“B-but what does this mean?”
“I don’t know young one, I don’t know. This… could mean anything. But I do know this. Language is communication. It’s one of the most important things we have. If the…. By the First… if the Awakened Life Bringers really can speak it, we must find them and talk to them. Perhaps… perhaps they are like us. Or perhaps they could lead to a whole new kind being created. The Jungle is a place of great evil but also a place of Miracles. We will learn more after we find them.”
Saisaie nodded, before her eyes went wide.
“The other Variant!”
The Grand Elder was already rushing. The two Bond Mates had been important, but a few days before them they had found another Variant. The one with grey skin. They ran to the Tribe Member that had him but…
He was gone too.
