#mushroom copulation...

[ellekhen]

What Grows Around, Comes Around

Chapter 2 - What is Undone

Summary: When the Aedyran envoy accidentally inhales the spores of an explosive mushroom, she unexpectedly develops a condition that sends her into an insatiable heat. Her companion — Kai — does his best to help, even if that assistance turns out to be more hands on than either of them expected.

(This fic was formerly titled Somata.)

---------

Pairing: Kai x Fem!Envoy Rating: Explicit Length: 9.8K+ words; Chapters 2/4

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63150184/chapters/161883538#workskin

Excerpt below:

“I should tell you,” Stell babbles, stopping his hand before it can touch her. “Just so you’re aware. My… features… go further than my head.”

Kai nods, “I mean, I’ve seen your freckles if that’s what you—?”

“Not my freckles,” Stell purses her lips. “I wish it were that simple. But there’s… more fungus — I mean, godlike features further down my body. Nothing like this,” she gestures at her horns, “but bumps, ridges… gills. Things I don’t want you to touch and panic about.”

Back in Aedyr, the times Stell had been intimate with anyone were mostly furtive trysts where she was still clothed or conveniently in the dark. Those that were not involved the rare partner who could stomach the sight, or more often than not, a person with a previously undisclosed fetish. 

“Envoy,” Kai chides her, low and soft. “You could have anything down there and it wouldn’t make a difference to me.” He shrugs, “Because it’s a part of you.”

Stell gawks at him. 

He has no right to say something so lovely so easily; not now when they’re together out of necessity rather than choice.

Kai clears his throat, “You know, while we’re on the subject — do those growths have… sensation? Like if they break, or even if someone just…”

He taps demonstratively upon his own bald scalp. 

“There are nerves and blood vessels in them, so yes,” Stell answers uneasily. “Found out the hard way. But you don’t have to worry — they’re tougher than they look.”

“I figured,” Kai hums. “Otherwise they’d be all gone given how often you bump your head.”

He seems pleased when Stell chuckles at that. 

“Nevertheless, I’ll be careful with all parts of you,” Kai continues. “Now, if you don’t mind… it’s a bit warm in here.”

He tugs meaningfully at his vest.

“Ah, please. I mean, of course,” Stell mumbles, shuffling backwards a few inches.

Kai efficiently removes his arm wrappings, boots, and belts; shucking his vest afterwards so that it’s only his deep-cut shirt and trousers beneath. Stell’s core tightens at the show.

“I’m flattered,” Kai says dryly.

Stella realizes too late that she has been staring at his chest a bit too intently. 

“Forgive me,” she mutters, as if this wasn’t expected as part of his help. She wipes at her face. “It has been a while since…”

“Since…?” Kai prompts her after a moment, tossing his garments aside. 

“I’m… look, I swear that I’m not a virgin. At all,” Stell laughs nervously. “It’s just… I don’t do this. Not with the light on, and not with people I’ll see again. And not for… years, now.”

“Oh?” Kai says, but not unkindly. “I’ll admit, I’m surprised. You seem confident enough. You didn’t even bat an eye the whole time we were in the Mermaid.”

“Courtship doesn’t come easy to someone with mushrooms growing out of them,” Stell scoffs, plucking at her shirt to fan herself. “It is hot in here, isn’t it?”

Kai looks delicious in just his shirt and trousers, and with that whale-shaped pendant resting against his falling and rising sternum…

“I get it, you’re nervous,” Kai murmurs. “But want to know a secret?”

“What?”

He grins at her, flashing sharp teeth, “So am I.”

Stell wants to devour him. 

“Thanks,” she laughs. “I suppose at the end of the day it’s just sex, isn’t it?”

There. Finally, she said it plainly. Tonight is simply sex. Coitus. Copulation. Every living thing does it to reproduce, whether it’s a kith like her or a gods-damned mushroom with its gods-damned spores. It’s perfectly natural, and the fact that she will also derive pleasure from it is purely incidental.

“...yeah,” Kai hesitates, his hand drifting up to cradle her head. “Just sex.”

“Right,” Stell sighs.

And then he kisses her.

[sgtruttersdartsclubband]

Oh boy you guys, I don't often post real-life updates, but I just have to get this out of my body right now, and I can't post this on normal social media because I just took like a Bunch of mushrooms last night and had the most insane time lmaooooooo

So it started out fine, and I was hanging out and chilling, but then everyone went to sleep, and I became so fixated on having a child that it felt like I would die if I didn't copulate at once.

Now I'm sober and just like sitting in my feelings of grasping for motherhood and knowing my partner isn't ready, and we're not in a spot financially for a child, and it's whack, but I'll cope and move forward as usual 😎👉

Anyways back to the regularly scheduled shit posting 🤪

[questcult]

HENTAI TENTACLE ECOLOGY

It uses neutral sciency language but still,

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I'm not qualified at all but I'll give it a shot,

Human specialized because of how a human womb can almost completely take over the functions of the body, how wildly nutrient rich we are due to farming, and because the alternative is gross to think about.

This implies they have a non sedentary phase where they search for, out of the way, human adjacent areas, with a low amounts of foot traffic, before becoming sedentary.

As for daily survival the most likely option is that they have evolved to co-opt mycelial networks and draw nutrients from entire forested regions possibly in a symbiotic way that strengthens the local foliage, increasing ground cover near it.

This also implies they are both a type of mushroom, and K-type survival strategists who invest greatly in a low number of spawn.

Therefore the large amounts of fluids likely aren't reproductive in nature but rather a nutrient rich slurry to keep the human alive, help with the takeover of it's reproductive organs, and create drug induced pleasure so the human might return and not be hostile once the ordeal is over.

Their tentacles due to being extremely demanding on energy are used only during the copulation process and otherwise lie in dormancy building up resources within themselves until a breeding opportunity presents itself, the tentacles also likely have a mechanism that locks them in place once a human is captured further preventing excessive energy use.

This likely means they hold on to the human for the entire gestational period, then release the human upon "birth" so it may be a potential incubator in the future.

This process would spawns litters of 3 to 5 larval tentacle monsters that likely resemble snakes to deter predators, which would then move away traveling miles with stored up energy seeking an area with an optimal level of human pheromones, ground cover, and mushroom sporulate with finely tuned sensory organs, then once in an optimal area bury themselves, attach to the mycelial network, and begin to grow.

Species in flat non-woodland areas would likely create small ambush-spider style trap-door caves, solidifying the walls with their fluid, and their larval form would likely have long thing limbs that they lock into a ball shape to travel in a manner akin to tumble weeds until discovering an ideal area.

Why did they evolve like this?

The same reasons parasitic wasps did, because fuck *insert creature here* except in a different (less???) horrible way than the wasps chose.

You're welcome, or, I'm deeply sorry, depending on how you feel about this.

I'm fascinated by the ecology of organisms from fetish porn. The idea of a terrestrial cephalopod that uses a host organism as an incubator is not actually that crazy, but it gets more fun the more seriously you take it.

Like yeah you specialize for hyperactive gonads and extremely survivable seminal fluid. But like, are you going for multiple host organisms? Or are you specializing specifically for humans? You probably want to shoot wide right? Just try to impregnate anything you see, and hope at least a handful of kids survive.

But uteruses are pretty chemically complex little organs. Even a slight change in the PH balance could send your host into sepsis or shock or whatever.

And what do you EAT? like how do these organisms actually survive? When they're not banging are they squirming around eating snails like aquatic cephalopods? They're usually depicted as pretty big too, usually strong enough to lift a fully grown human off the ground with what have to be like, hydrostatic appendages? That's a much more energy-intensive physiology to have on land.

They're clearly not specialized for hunting. But what food source could support an organism at this size? Those tentacles could probably be useful for navigating like, mangrove swamp type areas with abundant foliage and lots of little cracks to navigate. Maybe they're kinda like barnacles, or some kinda terrestrial coral. They just kinda plant themselves in a nutrient-rich stream and just kinda impregnate anything that brushes past them like some kinda parasitic sex anemone.

[vulpinera]

@erabundus: ❛ you don’t have to keep me company, i’m fine by myself. ❜ 

"   did   you   know   -   "

there   is   the   quaint   sound   of   feet   upon   damp   verdant,   boots   digging   plush   into   moist   earth   as   the   forest   watcher   moves   through   the   trees   with   his   ever   preternatural   swiftness.   "   that   during   the   rainy   season   -   "   as   if   to   punctuate   his   words,   there   is   a   rumble   of   thunder   in   the   distance,   the   noise   reflexively   forcing   large   ears   backwards   and   his   body   to   draw   taught   like   his   bow.   it's   best   not   to   think   of   the   connotation   thunderstorms   might   bring,   especially   when   in   pursuit   of   strange   men...   children?   teenagers?   within   his   forest.   

"   -   many   types   of   fungi   are   twice   as   likely   to   attack   on   sight?   and   by   attack   -   "   a   hand   upon   the   root   of   a   great   tree   finally   has   him   nimbly   drawing   upwards   into   a   branch,   so   that   he   might   seat   himself   next   to   the   wanderer   beneath   the   eaves   of   foliage   before   the   rain   starts   to   fall.   "   i   mean   spray   their   spores   in   your   face   in   both   self   defense   and   what   could   be   considered   their   version   of   copulation.   "

"   so   what   i'm   saying   is   -   maybe   you   shouldn't   go   traversing   about   avidya   forest   in   the   rain,   unless   you're   prepared   to   become   a   fungi...   carrier.   "   

[eldritch-spouse]

I love how family motivated Morrell is, I can imagine someone who had a crush on him about to be killed and when she mumbles "I was hoping I could have kids before I die." He just puts his knife down and immediately has his cock out like, "you were sayin?" Lmao

Along that note (ignore if it's been answered) how would he react to a miscarriage? Like it was all going so well, the mood swings were, challenging, and the temperature had to be just right or his Piglet would murder whoever touched the thermostat. But in the end, the baby didnt make it, would he try to comfort his mourning baby mama? Would he blame her for the loss? Would he shrug it off thinking, It's part of life and her first child, it was bound to happen.

Your friendly neighborhood Depresso Espresso

TW: Miscarriage.

Do you remember the last line of this post?

If all is lost and he has you on his chopping block, say you want kids.

It's a totally feasible strategy when dealing with a near-death encounter regarding Morell.

Of course Morell's going to comfort you, it's a rough blow to everyone involved, not just you. Provided you behaved decently throughout the pregnancy's duration, it's not anyone's fault... And really, he went into it knowing humans and mushroom monsters copulation has low conception rates, high-risk pregnancies are common too. Morell knows that the only thing he can do is try his best with you and hope that everything goes well. It's disheartening, obviously, and it's going to have him in very sullen, irritable moods- But he distracts himself by nursing you back to health. The chef's going to think about what could have been done differently during the whole episode and what might have been the cause- Even if, realistically, no single act was responsible for it.

You will try again, he won't listen to any objections. And this time, Morell promises it'll work out fine. Because he's ready to sacrifice a whole lot to a certain siadar in order to make it work... He will have his family.

[rarepears]

So for the SY and SQH sleepover au where the peak lords overhear their conversations, what other things has SY just said in normal conversation that for him is common sense but for others it revolutionary

Like, say hey maybe if we wore mask we would be less likely to be affected by sex pollen. Or maybe don’t cross contaminate food because you might get sick.

And on the other hand he stays some of the most out of pocket things, like yeah if you choke a person like this they’d be out in minutes but you wanna choke someone like during sex if you don’t want to kill them. Or hey if you mix these to perfectly harmless substances you get a deadly poison that no one would be able to track back to you.

Shen Yuan: The average human dick size is *** cm long and *** in width. There's a theory that states that the mushroom shape - which did you know is pretty unique to humans since most other animals don't have a mushroom tip? cat dicks are barbed and dogs have knots - at the end is designed to reach the woman's cervix and lift the uterus to release sperm into the uppermost portion-

Shang Qinghua: Bro the fuck you'd read up on this

Shen Yuan (pulling out more fun facts about penises like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat): Human ejaculate with such great force and distance that reaches 2 feet. Did you know that duck pensis can reach 2 feet long?

Cang Qiong people who are eavesdropping in horror: ...what if Shen Qingqiu actually goes to the brothels not to enjoy prostitutes but in an attempt to study these... ahem theories.

Another Cang Qiong person: But that doesn't explain how the Qing Jing lord knows about animal copulation...

Cang Qiong people: o.o

original post

[i-did-not-mean-to]

An exciting walk

So, dear @laurfilijames...here goes the first part of this little story! I hope you'll enjoy!

Words: 1,3 k

Warnings: dog copulation, injury, seduction

“I swear,” Elle hissed warningly at the devious monstrosity – pretending adamantly to be a young dog – wriggling at the end of the state-of-the-art leash she had bought only a few days ago after the previous one had been mysteriously chewed to bits. “If you don’t behave this time, I’m going to sell you to a sausage-maker.”

She would, of course, do no such thing, but – having tried compliments and outright blackmail – Elle was willing to give threats, however empty they might have been, a try.

The cheerful bitch, barely out of her puppyhood, wagged her tail in a deceiving show of feigned innocence; unfortunately for both mistress and pet, there was a considerable lapse of time that had to be observed before one of them could be safely spayed. Elle was relieved that it was not her – there really was no need for any such intervention – and her pity made her look a little kindlier on the antics of Emerald, the hellhound.

As she led the elegant, long-limbed beast outside, Elle mused about how much more luck her dog would have had – if Elle had let her – to find a mate; indeed, Emerald’s fur shimmered in all the warm shades of autumn comfort – vivid browns marbled with distinguished hues of pearl and cream – and her pleading, dark eyes could have made a rock melt.

She was a gorgeous dog, and she never grew tired of hearing random people and kind friends alike saying so.

If she was completely honest, Elle – far from being a guileless woman herself – also understood the heat that plagued her poor pet only too well; she herself had been secretly yearning for the tender attentions of a potential mate often lately, but – unlike the shameless animal – she could hardly go wriggle her ass into the face of every halfway eligible candidate.

Moreover, humans were unfortunately a little pickier on average when it came to those things.

With a sigh, she resigned herself to staving of Emerald’s potential suitors before returning home to a cup of hot chocolate and a romantic movie.

She was almost down the newly built road on either side of which houses seemed to pop out of the ground like mushrooms when Emerald suddenly wrenched her forward violently. Utterly unprepared for such an unexpected onset of naughtiness, Elle was dragged along for longer than she normally would have and, when her foot caught on the yet uneven pavement, she felt her ankle twist as if in slow-motion.

“No,” she cried, but the pain turned her authoritative order into a pathetic whimper.

To her surprise, her outburst was echoed by a much deeper, fuller voice just before she collided with a warm and surprisingly soft wall.

“Oh, I am so sorry, Miss,” the voice said, and then strong arms were slung around her tottering body; Elle let go of the leash tethering her to the unruly bitch and looked up into a pair of azure blue, deeply worried eyes twinkling beautifully over a strong nose and a sensitive mouth surrounded by a golden beard.

Aware of how indecently she was pressed against him, she tried to take a step back and winced when pain lanced through her injured ankle.

“Woah, slow down,” he said quickly, extending his arm and catching her around the waist once more.

For a long moment, they just stared – amazed and dumbfounded – at each other until the sound of frantic canine tongues in action drew their attention back to the reason for their unfortunate meeting.

“Ori? Down,” the man barked hopelessly, tugging in turn on a broad leather lead. “Is your bitch in heat?”

Elle blinked in confusion; his voice was so mesmerizing that she licked her lips in awe even as she struggled to make sense of his words.

“Yes,” she then exclaimed in alarm and looked down, only to discover Emerald already being vigorously mounted by a visibly enthusiastic dog. “Oh no,” she sighed, knowing full well that it would be ill-advised to separate them now as it was probably too late anyway.

“Ori, you nasty bugger,” the man ground out not without sympathy. Then, still holding Elle in his firm grip, he informed her that he lived in the house right behind him. “Do you want to come in and let me see to the ankle? I’ll close the gate…” he chuckled. “Not that I think that they’d go anywhere. This might take a while.”

It was only then that Elle realised that she was standing in the neatly fenced-off front garden of a prim little cottage. “I am so sorry,” she mumbled, leaning into his offered warmth and support a little more eagerly. “I thought the worst was over.”

She gave the male – still rutting – a cursory but appreciative glance; proud and exceedingly cute, the dog was of a golden russet colour with a funny, curled tail.

“What’s the lady’s name? I shall get them my best vintage of Château Robinet,” the man smiled. “My name is Fíli by the way.”

“I'm Elle and the lucky lady is Emerald,” she replied softly. “You’re a real romantic, huh?”

“Very,” Fíli promised and promptly lifted her into his arms to carry her inside. “You stay here,” he ordered, spreading out a fluffy, quilted blanket over her legs before rummaging through his freezer in search of an icepack for her ankle. None was found and Elle had to content herself with a bag of frozen pasta with tomato sauce.

As promised, he also brought out a bowl of water for the dogs so they might refresh themselves after their amorous intermezzo and then immediately returned to Elle, gently lifting her foot into his lap as he sat down on the coffee table in front of her.

“How are you feeling now?” he asked while his broad thumbs rubbed soothing circles into her tender flesh.

“I’ll live,” she said with a shrug, increasingly fascinated by his good looks and gracious smiles. “Thank you for letting me rest here for a bit.”

“They’ll be tied for a hot minute,” Fíli commented light-heartedly, “and – depending on our luck – we’ll soon have to co-parent a litter of funny-looking puppies.” His tone didn’t sound as if he was opposed to the idea and his smile grew ever brighter. “I can’t wait to see Ori’s face.”

“The dog?” Elle asked with a burst of choked laughter.

“What? No,” Fíli chuckled in turn. “No, we named the ginger Casanova after a friend of mine. Not that the actual human namesake would ever get that lucky to have a pretty lady barrel into him. Ah, trumped by a dog, what a sad destiny for my old friend.”

Mischief and yearning flared in Elle’s chest at those words, but first she had to ascertain who he meant when he so confidently said “we”.

“Huh?” Fíli looked up from her foot. “Oh, my brother and I. We’re very close and he’s incredibly vexed that I moved out.”

He has a brother, Elle thought with a wave of entirely uncalled-for relief, but he had not brought up a housemate, romantic or otherwise.

“Aren’t you also being upstaged by your dog? At least one Ori is getting some action,” Elle purred and looked up at him innocently from under dense, fluttering lashes.

“I have a little more style than that,” Fíli grinned, letting his ready, effortless charm engulf her like a wave of pure heat. “While on the subject, can I offer you something to drink?”

With a puzzled nod, Elle watched him stride back into his sparsely stocked kitchen where he lifted a bottle of chilled wine and inquisitively; again, her silly head bobbed up and down mutely.

“So, dear Elle,” Fíli then smirked as he brought over two exquisite glasses, “what else can I do to make you feel more comfortable?”

Love you lots!!

[sylvctica]

      “... why do people presume a ‘god of fertility’ means that you can pray to get a bigger dick or bigger boobs? What does that even have to do with it? No, I’m not giving you a dump truck to raise your chances of finding someone to copulate with. Not that I can even do that anyway unless I stuff leaves or mushrooms in someone’s pants, and that’s a waste in itself ...”

      Thank the stars above they haven’t had to deal with that for well over 3000 years, and gods know they will tell very few people that was one of their titles!

[denscontrol]

Cockshroom + Moo-Mooshroom: Cherry makes a nice mushroom soup for her and Jade to enjoy—unaware of just what type of mushrooms she got for the meal

Cockshroom-grants the user a cock and balls, consumed by Jade

Moo-mooshroom-grants the user larger breasts, cow tail and horns, as well as possible lactation, consumed by Cherry (cause Strawberry milk)

Jade had decided to visit Cherry after some huntress work and Cherry herself wanted to show off her cooking skills with some ingredients she found while she was also out traveling from her own work. After the two had finished their meals and began to chat they felt somewhat different, something was changing within them. Jade had felt something tighten in her pants as she began to feel something that wasn’t there before.

Excusing herself to the bathroom, she’d discover that she had grown a thick cock, and even a pair of balls as well, and began to inform Cherry only to be met with the punkish huntress with her breasts out as well as a tail and horns. As well as Cherry breathing heavily as she was trying to stand at the island in the kitchen. Something snapped into the redheads mind looking at the larger ass that had grown on Cherry, she dropped her pants and yanked Cherry’s down and began to use the punkish girl.

Cherry moaned loudly with the surprised intrusion of a cock in her now quickly moistening pussy, as Jade wouldn’t grab at Cherry’s hips, but at her horns. “N-no…don’t grab or pull them. They’re sensitive!” Cherry pleaded, but the plea fell on deaf ears as the wolf girl pulled and continued to use Cherry’s pussy like a toy, with quick thrusts as Jade listened to the symphony of moans coming from Cherry.

“Sorry. But when I saw your ass…something told me to take it, and right now I couldn’t pull myself off you right now.” She explained to her friend as Jade continued pounding into Cherry, as she could only moan and groan in response. After a while though Jade would find herself edging closer to an orgasm, but by then the two were in Cherry’s bedroom. Cherry taking top as Jade sucked at the milk, leaking from Cherry as soon enough Jade would stuff Cherry’s pussy with her own ‘milk’, but the copulation wouldn’t end there as the two spent the rest of the day breeding like the faunus they were till the effects wore off, but perhaps they’d do this again sometime in the very near future.

[chronicsheepdrawing]

I recently participated in a local exhibition featuring queerness in nature and was really proud of this piece, submitted because of mushrooms variety when it comes to gender! One of my other pieces was actually used as the header for the exhibition on their website!

( The image used is that of New Mexico Whiptail Lizards in the colors of the Lesbian flag as the species is entirely female and only lays eggs after simulating copulation with one another. ) The site of the exhibition wasn't nearby to me so I wasn't able to attend but it was still an honor to have my pieces on display.

[quantumlocked310]

Summon Up Remembrance

@deans-ch-ch-cherrypie​. Cherrypie. My friend. My OG. My Vikings Mom. My shared braincell about everything Hvitty. You encouraged me to put myself out there and talk to people. You’ve given me some of my best ideas. You’re an amazing human who works so hard both in fandom and irl. I’m so happy I took the plunge and wrote you Bjornekram so we could start up this wonderful friendship. Congratulations on your 500 followers! Every single one is well-deserved.

So! In order to celebrate our love, I’ve tortured myself and Hvitty with this story inspired by The Little Match Girl. I’d say “Enjoy!,” but I have a feeling that’s not the right word...

Summary: What if Ivar hadn’t found Hvitserk in that cold forest in time?

Warnings: not a happy time, depression, graphic descriptions of violence, major character death, loss, despair, drug use, oral sex female receiving

Note: Title from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30

Don’t forget to tap the moodboard to see it in its highest quality!

++++++++++++

He’d used his last coin to buy the matches. Everything else had already been spent on the sweet release the mushrooms and drink provided him. His greatest triumph bled into his deepest failure when Bjorn sentenced him to live in the frozen forest. He knew it would not be long. His half-brother had given him painful and terrible mercy. Already he could no longer feel his toes, and his hair was stiff with ice.

His first match is useless. Scraped against the frozen rocks he huddles behind for some semblance of shelter. He knows he’s going to die, but he’d like to have a last taste of heat before he goes. Even the memory of the bright burning flames of his execution can no longer keep the shivering at bay. The cold and wet sticks he’d gathered couldn’t catch, even with the pine needles he’d found to shove under the bundle.

He is resigned to no fire and no hope. Only four matches to keep him company. The last vestiges of drink and drugs are leaving his body aching and freezing; his hands have barely enough movement to strike the next match. He watches this one burn. Its tiny flame dancing merrily along the wood. In its flickering he sees a better time; his favorite feast.

He’d been younger then, and happier. Not yet burdened with a legacy and revenge. The feast fires had kept him warm inside the packed great hall, and his belly had been full of food and satisfied with drink. It was the night he learned a woman might prefer his mouth over his other parts, and he’d been fascinated. The thrall he’d danced with had taken him aside and shared in his body, and shown him things other women hadn’t yet taught him. Their copulation was in a side room; their sounds of pleasure hidden by the noise in the hall. He remembers the delicious wet heat of her body against his tongue, and the way she whimpered and begged so sweetly for him.

The match goes out and Hvitserk is thrust out of the memory. He grows melancholy as he remembers the thrall was killed by horse hoof to the head when she was cleaning the stables one day. A horrible accident.

He scrambles for the next match. Wanting to leave this new remembrance aside and see something joyful once more. The next match strike flares bright in front of his eyes and he hears the clang of axes on swords. His best battle. He’d felt invincible that day. Bobbing and weaving in between English soldiers. Feeling the thunk of his axe as he buries it in the flesh of his enemies. The sweet and terrible smell of blood and guts and fresh mud. Hearing screams and battle cries around him as the Vikings cut a swath through the English forces. Getting to fight alongside his brothers, and seeing the prideful look in Ubbe’s face when he swoops in at the last moment to save his older brother from danger. Ubbe.

The match goes out, and the cold rushes into Hvitserk’s head. His despair is palpable. Ubbe could not let him die as he’d wished for on that fiery spit. But Ubbe let him walk into this cold and certain death demanded by Bjorn.

His saddened breath rattles his chest, and he feels the exhaustion in his bones; the wet snow seeping further and further into his clothing to numb his skin. The stinging tears falling from his red-rimmed eyes freeze to his cheeks, and he is barely able to lift a hand to strike the match. The tears fall faster as he stares into the flickering orange and gold to find a moment of peace.

They’re all there. Ivar, Ubbe, Sigurd, and Hvitserk. The four of them that beautiful spring day, together in the forest trading blows of the sword and the axe. Even their verbal sparring brings a smile to his disheveled face. He remembers going toe to toe with Sigurd, and being equally matched with Ivar. The rush of adrenaline in the fight is a distant comfort, and he dwells again upon youth; how young they all were. Naive and furious; untouched by the horrors that awaited them.

The match goes out and shivers wrack Hvitserk’s body. He sobs and shakes as he memorializes the family he will never see again.

Desire floods his system. The desire he’s always had to escape, to be someone he is not, to chase the dreams he had but could never fulfill. He weeps for his brothers, his mother, and his father. The most torturous thoughts follow, and he mourns and cries for himself. For the person he will never be. For the women he loved, and the children he never gave them.

This is his last one. The last chance to see his loved ones again. To see his brothers happy and together and alive again. Perhaps he will catch a glimpse of Thora or Margrette in this last memory. He draws strength from this small hope.

His breaths rattle and he lights the match. In the tiny flame it is his mother. How tall she felt when he was a child. She is loving peering down at his small frame as he plays with a wooden horse from Floki. Her smile is radiant as she talks to him. Asking him about the horse and the world inside his mind. Her tone is warm and loving, and it floods his body with a final burst of heat.

The match goes out and Hvitserk’s hand falls. In front of him his mother hasn’t left. Standing there like she was in his memory, with a gentle, proud smile on her regal face. She raises her hand, palm up, open and beckoning him. He rises and falls deeply into his mother’s embrace, clutching at her silken robes that catch the salty tears still falling down his face.

“Come, my son. You have done well. We must go to meet your father and brother.” Aslaug wraps her arms around her beautiful boy and holds him close. She feels his sorrow and his perfect joy as their souls connect and ascend.

Some hours later the stomping of boots and the rattle of wheels can be heard in the forest. Ivar looks to his side, observing the landscape around him, and his eyes are drawn to a cluster of rocks. They’re not at all interesting he thinks, but a strong winter wind whips past his face, and the rocks flutter in the wind. No, not the rocks. The hood of the person hunched behind them.

Ivar calls for a halt and carefully climbs down from his rig. He doesn’t know why, but he knows he has to see who it is for himself. His heart is pounding, and his instincts are screaming, and when he rounds the cluster he sees why.

The body is Hvitserk.

White hot rage floods his body, and Ivar lets out a primal scream. His sorrow and pain released in one powerful sound. Tears flood his eyes and freeze on his cheeks. He gestures to the closest soldiers to help carry his brother. They can barely lift him; Hvitserk has frozen in place, but Ivar is determined to give his brother the Viking funeral he deserves.

Ivar cries and mourns, and swears that he will seek revenge on his brothers in Kattegat who shoved one of their own into the wild to die. They did not even allow his fearsome brother the warrior’s death he deserved. What Ivar misses in his incandescent rage is the sweet smile on Hvitserk’s frozen face. Ivar should be celebrating, because as he was not in life Hvitserk is euphoric in his death; together with those he loved and lost once again. The image of rapturous bliss frozen forever in time on the face of his mortal body.

++++++++++++

If you want to read other stuff I write here’s my masterlist!

Taglist: @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie @punkrocknpearls @solinarimoon @alexhandersen-marcoilsoe-fandom @southernbe @vikingstrash​

Photos are not mine they are from Pinterest.

[mason-mem]

more pages of Serres’ Malfeasance

FROM LANDSCAPE TO COUNTRY

From tribe to homeland, from the rustic farm to cities, and from these to nations. The latter sometimes revere the tomb of an unknown soldier, not so much to remember the horrors of war, as the inscriptions claim— it would be better to forget those—but to bow before the vile remains that sanction the urban or national appropriation of the soil. My book Statues and Robert Harrison's The Dead develop this insight at great length. Leland Stanford built our campus on top of the remains of his beloved son, just as Romulus built the eternal city on the corpse of his brother.

Millions of young people, whose remains rest in military cemeteries, in the shadow of bronze statues erected for the foul glory of the very people (were they clueless or criminal?) who sacrificed them, marked with their blood, their corpses the nation's property. Born on the soil of their nation, they died on it and for it, and now they sleep in it.

THE LITTLE-KNOWN MEANING OF A FEW WORDS

I have briefly described actual individual or collective behaviours, without paying much attention to the words I use such as clean or one's own, place or location. Let me start then by clarifying the meaning of some of the terms signifying property. Note: the verb "to have" in Latin has the same origin as to inhabit. From the mists of time, our languages echo the profound relation between the nest and appropriation, between the living space and possession: I inhabit, therefore I have.

Appartenir4 comes from ad-per-tinere, which means to hold or to be linked to. The English words tenure and tenant also describe an inhabitant who dwells. We hold on to our habitat; we value it. To inhabit is to have. The relation between "appertain to" and "apartment" is similar; they imply the grip, the solid link I have just mentioned between the body and its nest, between life and place, which is the very subject of this book. From the Latin ligare (to bind) come the words ob-ligation, re-ligion, neg-ligence ... all links that bind one to a reference, a point, or a place. I belong to a space where such-and-such a place belongs to me.

What do we mean by the French word for place, lieut Its magnificent and little-known etymology, the Latin locus, refers to the sexual and genital organs of the woman: vulva, vagina, and uterus. Sic loci muliebres, ubi nascendi initia consistent (woman's places, where the beginnings of birth are situated;5 Ernout and Meil-let, Dictionnaire e'tymologique de la langue latine, Paris, Klincksieck, 1885, p. 364b; I quote this in passing as ev­idence for readers who might think I am fantasizing). The word topos (rojiog), which expresses in Greek the same meaning, of course preceded the Latin and refers to the same delights. We have all inhabited the matrix, the first place, for nine months; all of us were born by going through the vaginal canal, and a good half of us seek to return to the original vulva. The lover says to his loved one: "You are my home," the neonatal place, of birth and desire. It is our first place, warm, humid, and intimate.

The term lodging, of a different, Germanic origin (Laube, entrance hall) leaves the Latin tenancy behind and signifies a hasty construction of leaves, for instance a tent, called in Latin tabernaculum. The Jewish religion celebrates this mobile habitat every year, pitched here and there, as in the desert of the Exodus; here we have a nomadic tent that looks like a rental. I'll come back to this.

With reference to sites that are outside the body, our language says "here lies" for the place where our ancestors rest; I am coming back now to consider the country and the aforementioned landscape. In Egypt, in the City of the Dead in Cairo, the poor have invaded a huge cemetery where they haunt the graves; it is a necropolis, a metropolis. There I understood that the first house was built near the tomb of the loved one whom the poor wretch did not want to leave. The here of the "here lies" did not in fact designate the funeral site; on the contrary, it signalled that there is no place other than the site rooted in those bodies. The site does not indicate death; death designates the site, and often its limits. This is another inevitable link.

Ultimately, here we lie down, to sleep, to love, to give birth, to suffer and die. We return to etymology: the French verb coucher comes from col-locare, to sleep in the same spot, to share a location. The original vulva, the final tomb . . . this third location designates the bed, the pallet, precisely the place to be born and die, but also to sleep, copulate, be ill, rest, dream. . . .

My very language displays the three themes of this book, which proposes that there are at least three fundamental sites: the uterus, the bed, and the grave. Do we really know what we are saying? To inhabit therefore haunts the nests needed in moments of weakness and fragility, the embryonic state, the risk of being born, the infant at the breast, the caress in the amorous offering, sleep, peace, rest. . . requiescat in pace: fetal life, the love act, the darkness of the tomb, the horizontality of night.

Everything else—the ability to cope with daily life and standing on your own two feet, economic or culinary activities, public comedy, politics, the heat and cold of the desert—depends on those intimate necessities that bind us to our nests with the strongest possible links. Exposed to space, our strength emerges from our weaknesses that lie in those places from which they spring forth. The primary need: to live here. To inhabit, to have; how to describe the strength of the link that unites them? He who lacks a "here" where he can lie down does not have the strength to stand up for very long.

These words do not refer solely to spaces occupied by humans, for let me remind you of the real origin: every living being takes refuge in such nests and emerges from them. Oysters and clams, titmice and wasps, hares and moles, boars, chamois, izzards ... all inhabit a shell, hive, nest or burrow, wallow, shed, as I have mentioned before. And so plants grow in sites where the altitude reproduces the cold or heat of their latitude. Here is the proof: when their environment changes, either they die or they must go to hothouses, hotels protected by a glass roof that imitates the effect known by that name. Anthropomorphism aside, let us then consider those places as slices of inhabitable space, a division practised also by animals, vegetables, algae, and mushrooms and even by monocellular beings ... a division that is generally necessary for life to continue. Apart from our maps, land registries, or nautical charts, we could imagine many more such vital divisions.

Let us return to humans. What happens when this nest, this place, is lost? Again, on this point our language is quite precise. The person whose pecuniary resources are dwindling is called poor, the famished deprived even of bread are indigent; those who roam without a roof, without a place, are miserable. Human misery marks the limit of possible life. Those who have a place have. Those who have no place have nothing, strictly speaking. Do they still exist? They have fallen below the level of animals. I will return to this subject in the end.

THE NATURAL FOUNDATION OF PROPERTY RIGHT

Necessary for survival, the act of appropriation seems to me to have an animal origin that is ethological, bodily, physiological, organic, vital . . . and not to originate in some convention or positive right. I sense there a collection of urine, blood, excretions, rotting corpses. . . . Its foundation comes from the body, alive or dead. I see those actions, behaviours, postures as sufficiently vital and common to all living beings to call them natural. Here natural right precedes positive or conventional right. Rousseau is wrong when he writes, "The first who after enclosing a piece of land thought of saying 'This is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society."6 Describing an imaginary act, he proposes a conventional foundation of property right. A few centuries before him, Livy, in the first book of his Roman History, might have said more concretely: "The first, Romulus, who having enclosed a piece of land by plowing a furrow around Rome, and thought of saying 'this is mine,' found no one to believe him, but on the contrary found a twin brother, a rival, a competitor, someone with the same desire . . . and opposed him." Livy understood this sudden jealous reaction quite well and ascribed it to a double, a twin. Romulus therefore killed Remus, who had turned up so conveniently, and hastened to bury him under the walls of the city, which made him its founder, owner, master, and king. The bloody remains of his crime polluted the earth he thus appropriated, according to what I have just called the natural or living law. Romulus remained faithful to the wolves that reared him. Although from a historical perspective it is just as wrong as Rousseau's tale, the Latin historian's account expresses an anthropological truth that refers to bestial customs described in ethology; these customs are still obvious to the passer-by on streets full of dog piss.

I foresee that laws emerging from animal life and behaviours will slowly but surely wrench themselves away, break loose, and free themselves from their origins. They may finally forget their origins to give birth to a set of conventions or cultural legislations. The so-called natural law becomes, little by little, positive.

How? In two ways: first, by changing the most horrifying practices, such as crimes, violent invasions, stinking trash . . . and evolving toward what I call soft signs, and finally by freeing itself from those marks. This is the theme of my book.

BLOOD, CORPSES:

PEASANT AND SACRIFICIAL CUSTOMS

Most of the rituals performed in antiquity, throughout what was called, erroneously or out of ignorance, the inhabited world, revered the gods pertaining to the cult of ancestors. Fustel de Coulanges describes this in his book The Ancient City. Sacred was the name of the Earth that they walked on, haunted, and cultivated; sacred because it contained the historical remains of descendants buried there. The cultivated Earth, the pagus, from the tilled plot of land, owned by the descendants of the ancestors buried there, was the origin of the pagan religion, as the term itself indicates. The domestic altars bring into the household the remnants of the dead and the gods of the pagus. In the second generation, Numa, the successor of the founding king Romulus, becomes a priest instead and establishes the rites in question. On the heels of the first murder come religions.

THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS: A HORRIBLE TRAIL

When I read the pious Virgil or the divine Homer, I count the enormous number of sacrifices offered by kings, warriors, priests, and travellers. First of all, there was Iphigenia, killed for wind;7 next the children of Athens, devoured by the Minotaur; they precede the bulls, pigs, calves, heifers, and kids whose throats are cut on the altar stone. The suovetaurilia sacrifice multiplies the mass graves of animals; holocausts burn all their limbs. Disgusted by the bloody trail whose abomination abundantly soiled the space they traversed, I track the travels of those ancient heroes: slimy, unpleasant trails. . . . What smells of burned flesh, which bone yards did they leave behind? Did they know that their passage was marked by garbage of whose function they might have been unaware? They were purifying, so they said. . . .

I must really translate into Latin Rousseau's saying, even though he is plenty Roman already. In that language, "The first who enclosed a piece of land," the word lustrare is used specifically; it means to travel all over a place, go around its periphery, circle it, inspect it. The same word for closure also means to clean, to purify. This purification occurs through sacrifice; is this bloodshed used to clean, or to soil? The victim to be bled is led around the object to be cleansed, surrounds it and confines it as it passes by; and so the oxen turned around the altar before dying. With this ritual and sacrifice, lustration becomes both spatial and bloody. This plot of land full of blood and hideous limbs appeared pure to the ancients, while to me it looks soiled, dripping with suffering, reeking of a foul stench. They called it enclosed, and I say appropriated: a bloody appropriation on top of corpses.

The first who bled a child or a pig after having led him around such a spot, and flooded this spot with the blood of the victim, succeeded in enclosing it and made it into a temple. Let me now give a Greek translation. Belonging to the same family as lobo-tomy or a-tom, the word repivd) (temno) in Greek means to cut. Just so, the term temple means the closure of a place that is sometimes sacred, sometimes profane. Translated into French, it becomes cloitre (cloister). Translated into Polynesian, "here" is taboo, elsewhere, yours. When you go to a Pacific island you will see the word taboo in large letters on the signs indicating private property. Don't enter here, this place belongs to someone. Another enclosure. When in ancient times the human or animal sacrifice flooded the altar, the temple, or the square with the victim's blood, the horrible outflow marked in red the place of the god. Or that of the hero: Remus' blood spreads over Romulus' Rome. It is his. Blood signals the inner space. No one has the right to enter this templum tabu, this taboo temple. Do you want to desecrate it? Well then, soil it! The "natural" foundation of property right is followed by the religious foundation. Yes, Numa succeeds Romulus.

Finally, nothing is shut more tightly than the temple of Vesta, located long ago in the Forum in Rome. A round structure, it admitted only chaste priestesses. In the back, a small door opened up through which the vestals regularly expelled the ashes of their pure and perpetual fire. They called it the stercorian door— in other words, the anus. As we know, the word stercus _ means excrement; the (scatological) term scoria says the same thing in Greek and Latin. Situated outside the city that Romulus appropriated in earlier times, the temple threw its refuse into the city. Thus they signaled the boundaries of the temple.

After urine, blood. And after blood, we have ashes. After nature, after the paganism of the pagus, we have polytheism. TWO ENDINGS OF RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION

Here is the first example of a softening, a first narrative of liberation. We no longer realise what upheaval was introduced, at least among European peoples, by their progressive conversion to Christianity around the first century of our era. Suddenly, a conversion. As I reread the old Latin of the mass, I remember the lavabo} When I was an altar boy, I gave the priest the water for purification—not blood, but water. Not blood, but wine. The priest, his hands under the flow of water, recites the ninth verse of psalm 26: "Lord, do not let my mind or my life perish among men of blood" . . . cum viris sanguinum. . . . Of course, I will no longer kill a human being or an animal as sacrifices; nothing is taboo any more. There will be nothing sacred, only what is holy. Nothing dirty is left, only what is clean and proper. At the altar as at the hotel? There is no more property?

Here we have another conversion. This Holy Land, no longer sacred but holy, we will no longer tread on, no longer work it either by hand or by plough. We will barely inhabit it because it no longer lies here; it takes place somewhere else, far away, toward Jerusalem and Bethlehem and the rising Sun, the birthplace of Abraham, Sarah, the Holy Virgin, and the Messiah, all men and women who will never appear in our genealogies. Our very earth has been desecrated, or rather secularised; in other words, it has become ordinary, analogous to any other, plunged into a homogeneous and isotropic space. Lying before us passively, the earth has even become objectified . . . objectifiable. Hence our sciences will be able someday to study it, observe it, and measure it.

A very few of us will get to know this Holy Land, only after a long pilgrimage. Pilgrimage or peregrination is derived from per-ager, to travel to the other field, another agriculture different from mine, which therefore is no longer mine. What is more, this so-called Holy Land no longer harbours any remains of the one who was raised from the dead, leaving his tomb empty, containing neither corpse nor mummy; even better, he is the one whose Ascension—or Assumption in the feminine—we celebrate but whose departure leaves nothing behind on earth. There is nothing there, not the least scrap of cloth, not the smallest relic, not the smallest mark implying a story. Daughter of the religion whose prophecies created history, this religion is based on the life of a person leaving no trace whatsoever that would allow us to infer a history. Ancient history ends here; I'll discuss the end o/geography later.

Called holy before, this Earth now also loses its sacredness because it contains no more remains—no more blood, a little bit of wine; no corpse, no stench, no signs of appropriation any more. It is finally cleansed, finally dis-appropriated, de-territorialized. On the universal face of the world, the grand old Pan, the son of all the dead, is dead. With the resurrection of the new god Jesus Christ, there is no longer any marked place. There is no more space, no more history, no more time.

Our only hope left now is in the heavenly Jerusalem, completely absent from this world. Our world lies elsewhere. The holy land no longer even lies in the Holy Land; it can no longer even be found on earth, henceforth referred to as "here below." Like a dispossessed traveller, wandering and roaming, a transient pilgrim, a tenant, our being is not there; it does not come from there, does not go there, but only passes through.

Here are the new answers to the four classic questions concerning place: neither ubi, nor quo, nor unde, but qua.3 We now have a new spatial, religious, or anthropological foundation for tenancy. No longer is there a here or appropriation; we live as transients or tenants, deprived of a fixed abode.

We can call this the first end of property; it is abstract, theoretical, virtual, whatever you want

IMPURE BLOOD

However, here is evidence of a regression at least from this achievement. Indeed we have a second narrative, or second example, to the contrary; the homeland of the Marseillaise10 with its soiled and dirty furrows, soaked (hence appropriated) by the impure blood of its enemies, reveals an anthropological or even animal, and in any case racist, regression toward the archaic pagus. Do you dare to tell me, privately or in any other way, who has impure blood? Do they know what the French are saying? At the top of their voices, they sing this national anthem; what it signifies takes them back even before antiquity, indeed toward those archaic rites whose gestures again mimicked the bestial behaviors of hyenas and jackals. This represents two regressions at the same time. Dirtied by blood, this country belongs to them. Buried under the furrows, the dead by the millions found the homeland, sufficiently soiled by their own pure blood and by the impure blood of their enemy brothers; and so appropriation, twice founded, has returned.

The national anthem becomes a religious hymn, although archaic, falling short of Christianity with its discreet monotheism. But be assured; our fellow citizens belt it out only at trivial encounters, sporting events in the past and today at media or financial gatherings. Like victory, the terrain changes hands with each match and every half-time. It is paid in rent.

4. In English "to belong," but also "to appertain to."

5. Varro, On the Latin Language, vol. 14 (http://www.archive.org/stream/ onlatinlanguageoivarruoft/onlatinlanguageoivarruoft_djvu.txt).

6. Discourse on Inequality, second part, beginning (rendered by translator).

7. A pun in French: pour du vent, "for wind," referring to the ancient Greek myth. Iphigenia is to be sacrificed in order to appease Artemis, who stopped the wind from blowing; this was preventing Agamemnon, who had offended the deity, from travelling to Troy. The colloquial expression c'est du vent means "it is just hot air."

8. From the Latin verb lavare, "to wash."

9. Ubi, quo, unde, and qua are Latin adverbs related to places. They refer to the sentence above, "Our being is not there, it does not come from there, does not go there, but only passes through"

10. The French national hymn, La Marseillaise, is a call to arms to the French to "drench the furrows with the impure blood of the enemy."

and for the  chaverim

[bukbot]

Tumblr thinks mushrooms are inappropriate.

Tumblr thinks my Pokémon Go lessens the technology that had no desire to copulate with him often.

[cocktailsdechinoiseries-blog]

INDONÉSIE 🇮🇩 - BALI

Mardi 5 février 2019

Nous arrivons, Mary-Lou et moi, après 6h de route, à Sanur sur l’île de Bali et nous retrouvons enfin Juliette arrivée la veille.

Nous sommes directement parties à la plage de Sanur (hyper décevante) pour se balader et détendre nos jambes complètement mortes avec la voiture et les deux randonnées.

Après un saut dans la piscine de notre auberge, Rai Dormitory, nous sommes ressorti diner dans un petit restaurant local, Warung Little Bird pour y déguster des plats typiques: poulet saté, babi ... en bref, la ville de Sanur ne sert pas à grand chose à part en point d’escale donc si vous comptez aller à Bali, n’y restez pas !

Mercredi 6 février 2019

Après une nuit qui a commencé de façon chaotique avec les gens du dortoir qui ont essayé de copuler littéralement partout, nous avons pris un speed ferry direction l’île de Lembogan à environ 1h de Bali. L’île est véritablement paradisiaque même si l’on sent que l’industrie touristique s’y est beaucoup développée ces dernières années.

Après un rapide saut à notre hôtel (top du top) Pondok Baruna Garden, nous avons loué deux scoots et entame la visite de l’île. Nous avons d’abord traversé Lembogan puis emprunté un vieux pont jaune pour gagner l’ile de Ceniguan, plus petite, plus calme pour aller déjeuner au Manoha Point avec une vue sur le blue lagoon.

Après ça, nous avons retraverse et longé la côte de Lembogan pour rentrer à notre hôtel en passant par le sud et en faisant plusieurs stops : Dream Beach, Devil’s Tears, et Mushroom Bay.

Nous avons admiré un fabuleux coucher de soleil à côté de l’hôtel puis, après un plongeon dans la piscine, nous sommes allées découvrir la vue nocturne de l’île (plutôt mort comme c’est la basse saison) et nous sommes finalement tombées sur une perle que nous avait conseillée Lucie (mon ancienne coloc), un restaurant thaï très bon avec une vue sur la mer absolument parfaite, le thaï pantry !

Jeudi 7 Février 2019

Juju étant malheureusement pas au top de sa forme, elle est restée se reposer à l’hôtel au frais. ML et moi avons décidé d’aller nous promener du côté de Nusa Penida, la troisième île de ce mini archipel à seulement 10 minutes en bateau de Nusa Ceniguan. Nous arrivons sur cette île beaucoup moins touristique et beaucoup plus sauvage vers 10h. Une fois n’est pas coutume, nous louons un nouveau bolide, un scooter bleu électrique ⚡️ pour visiter l’île. Le scooter étant le seul moyen efficace de pouvoir se déplacer vu qu’il n’y a que très peu de voitures sur l’île et que le relief n’est pas propice au vélo. Nous avons roulé 40 minutes pour gagner la falaise de Kigling, lieu phare et principale attraction de l’île. Et nous n’avons pas regretté !!

Bon, le scoot s’est transformé en motocross, la route étant véritablement pourrie mais nous nous en sortons tant bien que mal! Et ça en valait la peine, la vue est spectaculaire ! La plage paradisiaque au pied de la falaise nous incite à entamer la descente pour y accéder mais attention c’était assez vertigineux et inutile de dire que la tongue doit rester au placard ! Il nous aura fallu environ 1h15 pour tout descendre et atteindre le sable blanc. Gros fail: le courant rendait la baignade absolument impossible mais la beauté de la plage et le peu de monde (Grace à la difficulté de la descente) rendaient tout de même ce lieu magique ! Après une pause photo et eau bien méritée nous avons entrepris de remonter ce que nous avions descendu : nous avons fait ... de l’escalade ! Nous avons ensuite repris notre super scooter pour gagner Crystal Bay, un lieu prisé pour sa beauté, où nous avons dégusté un petit plat local avant de reprendre la route.

Sur le chemin retour, visite d’un beau temple hindou puis nous avons regagner l’embarcadère pour rentrer sur Nusa Ceniguan et rentrer ensuite sur notre île : Nusa Lembogan.

Nous avons pu retrouver Juju vers 16h qui allait mieux pour l’emmener voir le coucher du soleil depuis la terrasse du Deck, un restaurant face à la mer. Nous avons grignoté au même restaurant de la veille en suivant avant de regagner nos lits, épuisées par notre journée et rouges cramoisi par le soleil !

[sserpente]

It’s never too late to love (Part III)

Back when you were only a teenager, your entire life changed in but a single heartbeat—as a victim of a terrible plane crash caused by a raging thunderstorm, you seek refuge in a cave inhabited by a pack of wolves that decides to accept you as one of them. For seven years, you adapt to their habits, their behaviour and their communication, giving up entirely on being rescued until one day, a man shows up in your cave. He introduces himself as James Conrad, promises to bring you home. Who is this handsome stranger? Can you trust him? And will you learn to understand these flustering feelings you have for him when you look into his beautiful blue eyes?

A/N: Try listening to “Heart by Heart” by Demi Lovato. It’s perfect for this story!

Words: 1763

Warnings: none

Find  Parts I and II on my masterlist or read it on Ao3!

The next day, both James and your mother accompanied you to the dentist, the three of you led by your psychologist. The procedure took several hours, leaving your mouth sore and numb and you swore you felt sorry for biting the dentist at first.

He ranted something about you not being allowed to eat for two hours and after returning to your room, where you were met with a young woman introducing herself as Clary, a hairdresser.

Now, you were fascinatedly playing around with one of the soft pillows on your bed. While Dr Drake suggested giving you some alone time for yourself to sort your thoughts, James had insisted on staying—much to your mother’s dismay.

You still treated her like a stranger, even if slowly, you started warming up to her again. She failed to encourage you the way James did, who kept refusing to leave your side for whatever reason but at least, she stopped glaring at you in this hurting and disappointed manner. It felt good.

It was half past two now and time for you to eat. The doctors said it would be best for you to start with soups, given you hadn’t had proper warm meals in years and it would take your stomach a while to get used to human nutrition again. You didn’t complain. Even though most of the food they brought you tasted strange compared to the berries, mushrooms and meat you had eaten throughout the last couple of years, it did not taste bad.

You definitely could get used to it again. Your only problem was your stomach seemed unable to contain more than only a few spoonsful of soup before protesting, telling you indignantly it was full.

“(Y/N), you need to eat more, you know you need to get stronger again.” James began softly. You tilted your head in silence. I want to eat more. I just can’t.

It was remarkable you still managed to hold cutlery and eat with it—apparently, it was like swimming or riding a bike. Once you knew how to do it, you never forgot it again. But then, why did you not remember how to form words?

Dr Drake and Dr Kensington, a linguist who was to teach you how to speak again, was to remedy just that. After finishing your meal and watching a patient James encouraging every spoonful of soup you swallowed, they both entered your room without knocking first, the linguist introducing himself politely.

You liked him, your first impression of him a lot more positive than what you had felt for your own mother. Unlike her, he did not seem to judge you either, barely interested in how your brain worked and instead, determined to help you learn how to speak again.

“So, (Y/N), may I call you (Y/N)?”

You nodded approvingly. Dr Kensington smiled. Apparently, this was a huge step already.

“I would like to ask you to come to my office. You will be able to talk again in no time, (Y/N).”

James knew immediately what it was that you requested him to do when you reached for his arm and squeezed it gently.

“Of course I will join you.”

Smiling, you both entered the small office. It was sterile, impersonal, the desk neat and tidy and on the wall, a couple of signs listing the alphabet. It was odd. You recognised the letters—every single one of them. You were even able to read the words spelled out in the title.

How was this possible?

Dr Kensington explained it would be best to start pronouncing vowels again first. He quickly learned you remembered the letters and the sound of them, so when he began pointing at various letters and spoke them out loud for you, he asked you kindly to try and copy the sound.

James held your hand tightly under the desk, never ceasing to comfort you. Squeezing it a little, you opened your mouth and took a deep breath. The sooner you learned how to speak again, the sooner you would be able to talk to James.

For some reason, this was the most important aspect of these sessions. You were so grateful for him you wanted James to be the first one to hear you speak again—and for that, you would practise day and night for hours on end.

“’A’, (Y/N). Try to say ‘a’.”

His blue gaze was curious. Not expecting but fascinated. The sound left your lips a little distorted, not quite resembling a real ‘a’ but still, not too bad for your first attempt.

“Great, (Y/N), you’re doing great. Try to say it again.”

“You can do it,” James added gently.

And so this continued until you were familiar enough with all the vowels of the English language. Dr Kensington ended his session after one and a half hours, sending you back to your room with a small success and for the first time, even your mother was delighted, smiling contently when the linguist reported your progress.

This was how it could work out. If this was how you would get back into the world, adapting to human life again, you were going to be happy. Hopefully, James would stay as well. As soon as you could talk again, you would ask him to.

One and a half weeks later, your progress was already tangible. You had mastered the pronunciation of all letters of the alphabet by now and even if James hadn’t been able to join you for each session with Dr Kensington, it was still refreshing to be able to speak more and more with every day that passed.

“What about your name, (Y/N)? Can you tell me your name?”

You tried, forming the sounds slowly—only in your opinion, it didn’t sound like your name at all.

“That’s good, that’s good, (Y/N).” Dr Kensington exclaimed. “You will make it. What about James, the man who rescued you, can you say his name? James?”

This time, you put even more effort into your words. The result was acceptable—yet you still sounded like a baby speaking its first words.

“That’s very good. You have improved a lot. In a few more weeks, it will be like you will never have stopped speaking in the first place. Maybe we should call it a day now, it’s late, and you need your rest. Would you like me to walk you back to your room?”

You nodded. You preferred James over Dr Kensington of course but as long as you couldn’t phrase questions about his whereabouts, you would also accept the linguist. James had not disappointed you thus far. Every night, he joined you, seemingly knowing exactly you did not want to sleep alone.

Perhaps the doctors and Dr Drake would not approve on this new habit but you could tell he never wasted a word on it. He did like you, maybe a lot more than he let on, you could sense it. The way his blue eyes sparkled when he was around you was all but thrilling and touching and you longed to tell him what he meant to you.

With your heart beating faster and your palms getting sweaty in his presence, you slowly began to realise what was happening to you. Something you had last experienced when you were fourteen years old, dating your former boyfriend. It was falling in love.

Wolves did not fall in love, not romantically. They deeply cared for each other and protected their offspring with their lives but still, the main purpose of copulation was to produce descendants. With James, you wanted so much more than that.

You wanted to touch him, to feel him, to become one with him. You caught yourself dreaming of it when you fell asleep curled up next to his warm body every night, without being able to wrap your finger around what exactly it was you wanted from him.

You knew how sex worked—just because you and your former boyfriend had not taken this step yet, it did not mean you were entirely innocent, it was just… human affection was so different from what wolves did to show each other their love.

You were insecure about your own body, the weapons of a woman and intimacy it scared you. It was a huge step for you already to sleep in the same bed with him, to be this close to another human—the one species you had lost all trust in when you realised there was no one coming to save you from the cave.

How would you even approach something this intimate? Besides, you didn’t even know if James liked you back the way you liked him. Jesus, it was already hard getting used to the feelings of proper clothes on your body, how would you work on these flustering feelings now?

It would take you weeks to speak again, what if he wouldn’t wait that long and leave you? Not because he grew tired, you trusted him to care about you enough to not do so lightly, but did he not have obligations too? A job or other duties he needed to attend to? Was he even expecting something from your mute relationship, friendship, whatever it was?

If only you could talk already.

Flinching, you tensed when you heard footsteps just outside your bedroom. They were calm and calculated as they approached the door, opening it so quietly you held your breath.

James thought you were asleep already, that he would only check whether you were safely tugged into bed and not slumbering curled up like an animal on the ground tonight. Maybe this was another reason for why he stayed with you every night. Did he really care this much? Would a man care for a woman this much if he wasn’t romantically interested in her?

The sparkling in his blue eyes… were you interpreting it correctly?

He smiled when he found you awake, sitting on your bed with the blanket barely covering your legs. He entered without hesitation, approaching your bed and taking off his shoes. It had become so normal for him to join you—it was an act you appreciated so much it made your heart skip a beat.

“Did you wait for me?”

You nodded eagerly, reciprocating his cordial smile—it was infecting, after all. I can’t fall sleep without you.

He had barely climbed into bed when you pounced on him shyly, placing your legs over his and snuggling up to his warm chest to listen to his heartbeat.

A/N: *sigh* Part IV, the final part, should be up in a couple of days!

If you liked this story, would you care to support me a little by buying me a cuppa? I would appreciate it so much! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

[merriamspoetry]

Sex And The Victorian Gentleman

He walked with a silver headed cane

Among the elm trees in the shaded lane

Tipping his beaver top hat

At the ladies so young and fat

He smiled and stroked his large beard

It was complicated and fantastically weird

To think like some mongrel gone astray

I would loosen my britches and have my way

Thinking that as if in a dream

Having tea with a female and exchanging cream

He silenced his thought

With a mighty disciplined naught

Then his old eyes led him astray

In the park on this wonderful day

Two dogs were conjoined

Not even copulation for a coin

Zanzibar! What a hideous day

No lady would ever act that way

He could at least lick her snout

After he pulls the thing out

And propose on his little dog knees

But he just smelled her once and did as he pleased

So he grabbed hold of his cane

And made the dogs feel their pain

While he worked himself into a lather

As a large crowd began to gather

When he stopped he was heard to remark

Dogs should not fuck they should bark

While the crowd walked away

He heard a young lady say

Shame on the way you use dirty curses

I would object to men like you using our flesh purses

After that day he was never the same

His morals took all of the blame

Things like that hurt his pride

His mushroom fell over and died

And as he withered away

From pious decay

He watched his dog grab his leg for a ride

Spigot4

A man of La Mancha