Earth, Sun, and Moon Saga Ch. 04

Welcome back! Dakota here with chapter 4! Thank you all so much for your comments and ratings, I hope you like this chapter as much as the last! Don't forget to rate and comment, I love reading them!

Yesterday, James Faraday had awoken in his tent, having slept on hard ground. In less than twenty-four hours he met and became intimate with a selkie, a vampire, and a woman who appeared to have magic powers. The word witch was rife with expectations and presumptions but that was the word that came to mind in seeing his hostess now.

They stood in her garden, blossoming plants all around them, fat fruits and vegetables growing amongst curled tangles of foliage.

Gwendolyn was naked and covered in moving vines. Her exposed skin, what wasn't concealed by the green vines, was decorated with strange symbols in blue paint.

"Morning, lover," she said, curving a green tendril up her opposite arm with a finger. "Ready to do some magic?"

James, having seen and experienced a variety of sexy and supernatural things since arriving here, knew he ought to choose his next words carefully.

"Are we going to kill Batman?"

Gwen cocked her head at him. "I've never encountered such a creature."

"Nevermind." He hazarded a few steps toward her. "I've never done magic before."

Gwen smiled warmly. "Oh, I very much doubt that."

"Okay, once I scared my nephew by pretending to steal his nose by tucking my thumb between my fingers."

Gwen walked toward him, her expression dreamy and seductive.

"And I got pretty good at tying a cherry stem using just my mouth."

"Mmmm."

"One time I—"

Gwen put a finger to his lips, silencing him. A small green tendril wrapped around her finger and a flower bud formed at the end. The bud grew and then bloomed into a white flower that seemed to rotate in the sunlight like a lazy windmill. James stared at it, mesmerized.

"Magic is just a way of seeing the world around you." Gwen's voice was soft, and soothing. "It is the act of perceiving the hidden and the forgotten." She ran her other hand down his chest and he felt a vine wrapped around his waist, pulling him close to her.

The white flower puffed out a small cloud of pollen directly into Jame's face.

He inhaled, surprised by it, and immediately turned his head to sneeze.

"Jeez, sorry," he started but Gwen pulled his face back to hers and kissed him full on the lips. She was warm and soft and it was like pulling a blanket tight around his shoulders. He became light-headed almost immediately and realized it suddenly took an extraordinary effort to stay standing. His legs tried to collapse under him but the vines kept him standing.

"Just breathe," she said, stroking the side of his face. "The worst of it will pass shortly."

"Oh fuck. You poisoned me again." James tried shaking his head as if he could dislodge the vertigo he suddenly felt. "You really need to quit doing that, lady."

"I promise this is not to take advantage of you. But you need to see what I see if we're going to hold a palaver."

"A what?"

"I've lived so long, watched the world change so many times, and watched so many generations of people be born, live, and die that it's a struggle to remember that I was once human myself. With human fears and human desires." She kissed him again, delicately, as if savoring his taste. "Now I have this man in front of me. This strong, handsome, virile man, and it's hard to put myself in his shoes. What does he want, I ask. Money? Power? Glory?"

"No," he whispered. James' vision gained a depth in color he didn't have names for. The plants and trees around him separated into a thousand shades of what his brain stupidly thought of as 'green'. The dirt under his feet became a fractal pattern of bronze that flowed as if he were standing on the surface of a raging ocean. He held on to Gwen to steady himself, sure that if he didn't he might fall into the Earth.

Gwen's face, beautiful and mysterious, shifted in this new spectrum. Her eyes seemed to sparkle, their color shifting continuously. "Most people are easy to read," she continued. "Their motivations are visible when they speak. But you . . . " She pulled his shirt off. "You are an enigma to me."

Her fingers were dripping in that blue paint—were they always dripping? Or hadn't he noticed—and she began drawing on his chest.

"Can I ask you a question, James?" Gwen's voice made him think of honey.

"Yes."

"Why did you come to our island?"

Storm clouds crashed above him and it began to rain. He looked up. "What? Did I just make that happen? Or, did you?"

"Sometimes we see without seeing."

Fat drops of rain fell on them, but Gwen drew another symbol on his chest. There was a crack of thunder in the distance.

"What brought you to our island?" Gwen asked again. Her voice was far away now, but seemingly all around him.

"I was gathering samples," James said automatically. But it was like he was reading a script. Not even he believed it.

Gwen kissed a symbol after she wrote it. When she pulled back those eyes unraveled him. "I see you, James. It's alright, lover."

Rain fell harder. Smashing into his face as he looked up. That same fractal pattern crawled across the sky and James felt like he was underwater. Am I drowning?

"I . . ." he started, then stopped. "I just wanted to be alone if I did it."

Lightning curled across the sky in a spiderweb flash. Thunder boomed closer.

"I wanted to find a spot overlooking the sound. I thought I might watch the sunset, then I was going to put a gun under my chin and kill myself."

Gwen nodded, tears forming in her eyes as if he only confirmed what she'd suspected. When she blinked her tears away they fell upward. She traced and retraced her fingers around the symbols on his chest. His skin felt electric. "And now?"

"Now, I'm . . . here."

"Magic is funny sometimes," Gwen said. "It has a mind of its own. A personality, even. A love potion will often rebound to someone you despise. A conjuration of rain to end a drought leads to a flood. And a protection spell can protect more than what it was originally intended to. I know now why our hearth let you in."

She whispered in a language he'd never heard before.

And the world focused again.

The storm clouds were gone, not as if they dispersed but as if they'd never been. The rain didn't just stop; it never was.

"What the hell was that?" James still felt woozy but the ground was firm again and Gwen's tears obeyed gravity.

"We took a walk inside your heart."

"That sounds like a cheesy 80s love ballad."

"You've been hurting for a long time. So long that your sense of humor is tuned to circumvent meaningful dialog with this." She put a hand on a symbol over his sternum.

"Yeah, I'm not good with feelings."

"Few are. Tell me, do you still want to find that overlook? Wait until sunset?"

"No." The answer was quick and definite.

"Why? And don't say because you got laid."

"No. It's just that I'd been searching for so long. For purpose. I thought I found it once, but that ended. I went back to school and enrolled in a master's program because I thought it was important work that would give me meaning. But it wasn't just meaningless, it was anti-meaning. I was surrounded by people resigned to the idea that the planet is doomed and humans are the cause, so what's the point?"

Gwen nodded. "Trapped between a past that rejected you and a future that did not have a place for you. Believe it or not, I can relate."

"Then, yesterday, you found me and invited me in. I think you saved my life."

Now it was his turn to kiss her.

Vines curled around them, pressing their bodies together. Not only did he not feel weak anymore, he felt much stronger. And lighter, too. Not in the mental health sense of unburdening once's self but physically. He felt like he suddenly lost thirty pounds.

The blue symbols on his chest began to glow, heating up as they did and pouring energy into him.

Her lips were soft and inviting, and her mouth parted slightly for her tongue to dance off his.

Her voluptuous breasts pressed against his chest and she moaned into his mouth. His arousal came as a relief, surprising him in its ferocious arrival. He stiffened in his pants and, no doubt sensing this, Gwen unbuttoned him and slipped a hand down, embracing him boldly, and sending a tremor between them.

"What is all this?" he asked.

"We're having a palaver, lover. Our magic is meeting."

"I don't have magic."

Gwen smiled. She opened his pants, freeing him. A tendril of vine wrapped up his leg and curved around the base of his cock. "My magic is connected to the Earth. The nature of nature. Growth and renewal. Consumption and destruction. The interconnectedness of life."

As she spoke the vine grew, corkscrewing around his erect member and tightening with the encouragement of her hand.

"That feels . . . just wow . . . How are you doing that?"

"Connection. And some practice. My magic can work through you. Here. Try." She guided his hand to a vine on her arm. While it was difficult to concentrate with his own vine attending to him, he touched hers with a finger and it moved with him. He found he could curl it down her arm by just picturing it happening as he pulled it along.

He looked down at the vine pleasuring him and touched it, imagining it squeezing and relaxing. As if it could read his mind, it began doing just that.

He groaned in pleasure. "So, that's new."

Gwen smiled at his success. "Let's put that to use, shall we?"

She lifted her leg up and wrapped it around his waist. Using a single finger, she pointed at his cock and, without touching him, tilted it at her opening.

With the vine still wrapped around his dick, she impaled herself on him. She was slick with juices and he slid in easily.

She let out a squeal of pleasure and grinded her hips into him. "My! You are a quick study! But I still have a few tricks." With that, she made a large sweeping motion with her hands as if gathering sand around them. The thick vines around her legs and his waist thickened and rose all at once, growing out of the ground and lifting them off their feet. James was tilted back in a reclined position, supported by a chair of vines. Gwen was pushed forward, riding him.

"Oh yes!" she cried out, grinding her hips. The cock vine pulled and twisted and squeezed with his thrusts.

James ran a finger up a vine that had curled up Gwen's thigh. While it took a few attempts for it to obey him, he managed to manipulate it up and around her hip. He pulled it, then pushed it, around her ample asscheek, making sure to visualize precisely where he wanted it to go.

When it was in position he reached down and spread Gwen's ass wide, giving the thickening tendril access.

Gwen jumped when she felt the invasion but immediately relaxed into it. She closed her eyes and assisted with two fingers, guiding it into her. She made a fist and James felt it thicken so it was a proper girth.

"You are naughty indeed!" she said, moaning as she was filled to the brim. "An excellent student!"

Holding the writhing vine in his fist, James fucked her ass with it. "I have a good teacher."

The rhythm was tricky to establish but soon they were able to sync their humping with the vine James was manipulating.

Gwen came quickly after, crying out in ecstasy. Her body convulsed over and over again. He didn't relent, keeping pace with his thrusts. Though he was very obviously under the influence of some sort of hallucinogen, he tried to be as methodical as he could.

Gwen came again. Her first orgasm rolled neatly into her second. She arched her back and cried out to the heavens. James grabbed her glorious tits, one in each hand, and buried his face between them.

Once her shuddering subsided, she turned her attention back to him. While he licked and sucked on her puffy areolas, she reached between them and lightly touched the vine that disappeared into her pussy. James immediately felt it thicken and squeeze his cock, making her already crowded pussy even tighter.

Any chance he'd had of prolonging the inevitable was dashed. He came immediately, pumping load after load into his hostess. Idly, he wondered if two-thousand-year-old witches could get pregnant.

The vine continued holding on and he felt it milk him while he was still inside her. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Hell, he didn't even have a frame of reference.

Gwen, breathless, stretched backward in a long sigh. The vines responded to her, moving and shifting under her, and pulled her off him as if she were floating away. Gobs of his semen fell out of her and she scooped a palmful from between her legs.

"Just what I needed," she said. It took some doing but she began untangling herself.

James could only pant. Vines still held him in a reclined position and trying to move was a chore. He focused on unwinding the vine from his dick before anything else.

Gwen's mastery of whatever magic this was was apparent in how quickly she extricated herself. The vines moved, uncurling themselves from her and shrinking back into the ground while James was still trying to undo the one around his waist. She flicked her wrist and the vines quickly released him.

"Okay," he said, finally. "I didn't think it was possible. But that was the strangest sexual experience of my life."

Gwen nodded, winking at him over her shoulder. "Wasn't that just splendid?"

"Splendid? Dinner parties are splendid. That was un-fucking-real."

"You're talking all this remarkably well." Gwen moved to the potting bench and found a small glass jar.

"I guess I don't know how else to take it. What do other guys do in my situation?"

"Oh, your situation is rather unique." Gwen scooped the sperm into the jar and corked it. She then gave her fingers a few licks to catch stray strands.

"Follow-up question: what are you doing with that?"

"Storage mostly. A man's seed is his essence. It can be quite powerful, although I imagine that's hard to believe. With yours, I can do a variety of things. Including making potions and incantations tailored to your spirit."

"I bet you can curse me with it too. Enslave me? Maybe even kill me?"

Gwen spoke matter-of-factly, "Not quite that extreme. But yes. I could use it to influence you in negative ways. But enslave? Kill? No. For that, I'd need a lot more. Among other things."

"At least getting it would be fun."

"And that is what makes that sort of magic rare. Imagine the hatred involved in sleeping with someone many times in order to collect enough to hex them. That takes dedication."

"Do you speak from experience?"

Gwen looked suddenly and uncharacteristically solemn. She retrieved her clothes and began dressing and James wasn't sure she was going to answer him until she did. "I was very full of hate for a very long time. I try not to dwell on it much, suffice to say that there is a reason my kind were hunted down and burned at the stake."

"You mean witches?"

"I hate that word. But yes."

"So what is your kind called then?"

"The Romans—those bloodthirsty savages—called us druids. I was originally from the island they now call Britain." She scowled at the memory. "My people were originally called Iceni. We called our island Prydain." She finished dressing, looking sad. "I always marvel at the gross irony of it all. There are whole decades and even centuries that blur with the passage of time. But I can still remember the smell of my father's orchards during harvest season."

She shook her head, saying no to an intrusive thought. "I ought not dwell on that past. There are other times to consider."

"Anubis?" James offered. "I got the impression that you'd faced him before."

Gwen nodded. "That was a dark time for us."

James fished his shirt out of a nearby berry bush. He almost felt normal, although the pronounced coloring of his vision remained. "But you defeated him? Escaped somehow?"

Gwen nodded. "Follow me. This is kind of a long story."

She led him out of the garden and due east. That side of the protective box the house resided in was sheer cliff-face. It was only about thirty feet tall but enough to conceal the house from that approach. The cliff-face itself was a layer of soil atop bone-white limestone. Moss and lichen and creeping vines (not unlike the one that had just been wrapped around them) covered the surface.

Gwen led him along the bottom until she found the right spot. She pulled apart a veil of foliage to reveal a passage; a narrow entrance to a cave.

Sensing his hesitation, she said, "I know that I haven't given you many reasons to trust me."

"I mean, you drugged me with a plant and then had your way with me. I'm pretty sure that's illegal, you know, everywhere. That's, of course, after you drugged me with bread. As fun as all this is, my fatalism is wearing rather thin. Also, I'm still not sure what I'm still doing here."

"I don't believe in coincidences. As far as I can tell, your arrival here coincided too neatly with our discovery by Anubis. I would like to discover your purpose. And, I admit, I've been too quick to turn to my powers when you've been nothing but a delightful guest. I'm sorry about that." She paused, her words caught. "It's been a long time since I've been honest with a flesh and blood man. I forgot my manners. I hope you can forgive me."

James considered her, then peered into the cave. "Look, it's not like you slipped me a roofie to steal my wallet. I think I get it. But, moving forward, just ask."

"I can do that."

James followed Gwen into the cave.

The narrow opening soon widened into a domed chamber. It was nearly pitch black inside, the only light coming from the entrance. The ceiling was high enough that he couldn't see it in the low light.

Gwen started lighting candles. At first, he thought she was just touching them, snapping her fingers to ignite them with magic. But the sound she made was too familiar.

"Are you using . . . a lighter?"

"Of course." She held up a red BIC lighter. "Wonderful inventions, these are."

He wanted to inquire further but kept quiet.

Soon the chamber glowed with warm light, revealing a spacious rocky interior. James wasn't sure what to expect but this wasn't some sort of fantastical chamber of secrets. It was just a cave lit by candles. The root systems of the trees above them curled down the rock walls and James swore silently that if they started moving, he was out of there.

At the center of the chamber lay an altar.

It was a thick block of carved stone that might have been an extension of the cave floor if not for the sharp angles.

Gwen lit more candles around the altar, revealing several pieces of what at first glance looked like broken pottery. The shards were surrounded by a thick circle of salt.

"So what is all this?" he asked.

"That is all that remains of the idol of Anubis. It's kept here under a binding spell. A ward that will keep him from returning to this plane of existence."

"So how'd he come back?"

"My best guess is that he's attached himself to another idol. Something outside of my control."

"So like a statue? A figurine?"

"Perhaps. Or a sacred vessel. A totem. A fetish."

A thought came to him, the barest outline of an idea. "How far would Anubis be able to travel away from this object? Like, the physical distance he'd be able to put between it and himself?"

"He would want to stay close to it. To protect it from destruction."

"But what if he didn't have to worry about that because it was already protected?"

Gwen paused, looking at him. "Miles. His powers would be weaker the farther he traveled away from it but he could have a wide range. That's how gods in the ancient world moved about. They stayed locally in the city that held their main temple. When those temples were destroyed or repurposed, and their idols destroyed, their connection between gods and our plane would be severed. Sometimes gods with temples in many cities could travel across an entire land."