Evergreen Treats Ch. 01

Lorelei's Note: This series will primarily feature a boy's POV, as well as a wide variety of kinks, including nc/dubcon, cock growth, manipulation, intelligence reduction, matriarchy, addiction and ageplay. Real-life con-noncon requires a lot of trust, safewords, and other things a fantasy can fudge a little. Enjoy the kink responsibly, and enjoy the story!

This series is set after the events of Warm Welcome and Happy Holly Days, but it's meant to stand entirely on its own. All it spoils is that Gretel has yet to encounter any final (canon) Bad Ends. Will this series see him break that streak? The answer to that question is... a little complicated~

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As he made his way through the dense forest, Gretel couldn't shake the feeling that he was failing to learn from past mistakes.

The wizard swallowed. He'd finally managed to escape. He still wasn't sure how long the fauns had had their way with him, but it... well, it wasn't a good sign that it no longer quite appeared to be winter.

In fact, the Greatest, Darkest Forest was barely recognizable. It had become bright and colorful, brilliant hues of green painted by the moss spreading over the ancient evergreens, orchids, honeysuckle and morning glories climbing up trunks and hanging from branches overhead.

Gretel's entire winter had melted away beneath some colored lights. He'd spent more time since leaving the Tower in the arms of enchanting, beautiful women than actually conducting his studies.

Well, it was time to wise up. To stop falling for every pretty fey or witch he met. Gretel had work to do, important work, and besides that, he had his dignity. It was time for a fresh start.

And yet here he was, not six hours later, straying off-course yet again in pursuit of some unseen woman's voice.

At least now, he told himself, he had a good reason.

It sounded like she was crying.

Gretel could be smart. He could be firm. But he couldn't quite bring himself to be apathetic. What kind of guy wouldn't at least go to see what was wrong? Especially considering he was supposed to be representing the Ivory Tower out here. He just wanted to make sure the lady was okay. Then he'd come straight back.

So he swallowed his doubts and pushed through the ferns to step onto dry sand.

Gretel found he stood on the shores of a vast lake. The pale beach was strewn with great boulders interspersed with driftwood, wooden bones caught in the beach's vast stone teeth. The tide was out, it seemed, and the beach stretched out for miles in either direction. The far side of the lake was obscured by mist, though it looked like there might be a larger body there--a cliff, maybe.

He squinted against the lights reflected on the water. Everything seemed so... bright since he'd escaped the fauns. Not exactly what he'd gotten used to in the Greatest, Darkest Forest.

A blonde woman leaned against one of the boulders. As Gretel watched, heart nearly bursting with empathy, the woman reached up to wipe tears from her eyes, biting a quivering lower lip as if trying to hold in sobs. The poor girl. Gretel started to take a step towards her.

Then his brain finally managed to get a grip on his nervous system again, and his leg came to a halt.

This woman was wearing nothing but a skimpy two-piece bathing suit. She was gorgeous, too--her pale hair fell all the way down to her waist, luscious and wavy as it rolled down her ample curves. Her bell breasts swelled against her delicate bandeau. He couldn't make out her eye color from here, but he would bet anything they would be bright green, maybe to match those vivid sea-green eyebrows. This woman was out here alone, in the middle of the wilderness, and he'd just happened to run into her when she was in distress.

Gretel fallen for fey too many times to not have some sense of danger. He'd barely escaped the solstice fauns--was he now going to approach some random pretty girl he didn't know? The first one he ran into?

He heard the woman give a soft whimper and watched her dab at her eyes.

Gretel seized his courage and raised it high. He couldn't just leave her, even if she was fey. He'd just... he'd just ask if she needed help, and she'd probably say no, and then he'd go. He wouldn't get too close.

He took another step.

The woman looked up abruptly. Bright, vivid fey-green eyes met his.

Gretel was briefly struck dumb. He stumbled, feeling his cheeks warming slightly. "I... I, um... are you okay, Miss?"

She stared at him, tilting her head slightly to the side. Her large, beautiful eyes glimmered.

"I mean, I'm..." Gretel squirmed beneath that stare. "I'm terribly sorry, I'm, um, no doubt interrupting. I'll leave you to, um..." He started to turn away.

Someone grasped his arm.

Gretel spun to see the girl, just a foot away from him now. She smiled up at him. "Sorry, sweet boy! I was just startled!"

Gretel's eyes flitted between her eyes and the hand gently gripping his upper arm. "N-No problem." So much for keeping his distance.

"It's really sweet of you." She giggled, batting her eyelashes. "Coming to comfort the sad lass by the lake."

"Oh." He smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head and running his fingers through curly pink hair. "I-I was just doing what anyone, um, would have done."

"Oh?" She gave his arm a squeeze. "And would anyone be as dashing and handsome as you?"

"Um. I, um..." Gretel cleared his throat. "What's wrong, though?"

Her smile dropped away. "Oh, it's just awful." She pouted, turning away and positively skipping back towards the lake--still holding his arm. Gretel tried not to look at how her ass bounced with every step as he hurried to keep pace. "I've lost a necklace! A beautiful silver necklace. It belongs to someone very important to me, and... oh, goodness, I couldn't bear to lose it." Her lower lip quivered as she turned around, lashes fluttering low. "I don't know what I'll do if I can't find it by the gloaming."

Gretel stared into those shimmering green eyes. He swallowed. "I, um..." His gaze drifted down to those plump, quivering lips. "I could... help?"

Her eyes lit up. She squeezed his arm tight, practically sandwiching it between her breasts. Her skin was smooth and soft and very warm against his. "Oh, would you? That would be so chivalrous of you!"

"Buh." Gretel found his brain wasn't working quite right. Those batting eyelashes and shining green eyes wouldn't allow it. "Buh... I..."

"My hero," she cooed with a voice like dissolving sugar, resting her chin on his shoulder and tilting her head cutely to the side. "I'll bet you'll find it in no time! Are you sure, though?" She frowned, plumping her lips out in a pretty pout. "I don't want to put you... out of your way."

Gretel's heart was pounding in his chest. He breathed in her scent and felt his head spinning. His cheeks felt like they were on fire. "I. It's no trouble." His voice was a pathetic squeak. His wits suddenly felt like mush.

Her smile returned, radiant as the summer sun, and he melted beneath it. "My name's Jenny," she said, licking her lips.

"G-Gretel," he managed.

"Gosh, I'm so glad a big, strong man came along to help me." Her fingers danced across his chest. Gretel swallowed--she was actually about his height, if not a hair taller. "So, do you want me?..."

"Uh..." Gretel's breath caught. "Wait, what?"

"To show you where I had it last!" She giggled, tousling his hair. "Silly boy!"

Gretel flushed. He'd gone from 'big, strong man' to 'silly boy' awfully quickly. He knew he was coming across as a total airhead, but being this close to a gorgeous girl, after everything, it just... it was just making it hard to think.

It was making more things hard than that, too. He swallowed. "U-Um, yeah. Yes, please. I want you... to. Yes."

She beamed and led him--still holding his arm pressed against her chest--between the boulders, further into the beach, into an especially rocky area with a few tide pools dotting the surface. "I remember having it somewhere around here," she said sweetly. "Maybe I dropped it in one of the tide pools?"

"Right," Gretel muttered, stumbling after her. He felt so clumsy right now, but it was hard to walk straight with a girl literally clinging to his arm, let alone a girl who was so... so gorgeous and pretty and soft.

Not to mention heavy. Warm and heavy and so, so soft...

Gretel tripped.

Thankfully, he hadn't been standing over one of the rocks. He fell to his hands and knees in the sand.

"Oh no!" Jenny bent down next to him, eyes wide. "Are you okay, Gretel?"

Gretel looked up. His mouth went dry. "F-Fine," he managed. Jenny was extremely close all of a sudden, and those big eyes were shimmering with concern. He tried to look at her eyes. He tried very hard. But her breasts were directly at eye level. "I, um... I meant to do that."

"Oh, really?" Her eyes crinkled with ill-concealed amusement.

"I did!" Gretel scrambled over to an especially deep tide pool. "I-I... wanted to look in here first, is all."

"Oh!" She blinked. "Oh, you're so clever, Gretel! I was so silly for doubting you." She grasped his arm again, lashes fluttering. "I should have known a clever boy like you had a plan for everything."

"R-Right." Gretel tore his gaze from Jenny's and focused on the pool, licking his lips.

The tide pools of this beach were as lush as the tide pools of vast ocean shorelines. Sparkling anemones, a species he vaguely recalled reading about in the Treatise on Aquatic Reagents, glistened pink, blue and gold as little fish swam among them. Hermit crabs--some as large as his big toe--clacked their claws, shells shimmering with beautiful swirling patterns of sunsets and cloudy skies, as they nibbled at algae that seemed to stir with a mind of its own.

Gretel reached up to roll his shirt sleeve up to his shoulder. He took a deep breath, bracing for the cold.

"That's it," Jenny whispered in his ear. "You'll have to sink deep to look for it, sweet boy."

Blushing, Gretel plunged his arm into the depths.

It was cold.

It was really freaking cold.

Gretel bit his lip hard, trying to control the shivers rocking through his body. The cold wrapped around his arm and ran up his shoulders, and as if on the cue of a wicked windsylph, the breeze chose that moment to pick up around them, buffeting his face and tousling his hair.

Gretel was suddenly very grateful of Jenny's presence. He leaned against her slightly, shivering, desperate for some warmth.

"Aw, poor boy!" Jenny extended an arm around him and pulled him close. His face was practically pulled into her tits, but he ducked at the last second and wound up pressed against her tummy instead. Which wasn't much less embarrassing, but at least she couldn't see the look on his face.

She was so warm. All of a sudden, she felt like a furnace to Gretel, and he pressed harder against her.

He heard her giggle. "Aw."

His cheeks suddenly feeling a bit warmer, Gretel returned his focus to the search. His numbing fingers probed through the water.

The algae was his first focus, and he reached carefully for the strands, noticing that it was drifting towards his hand. He felt like he should have read something about that, but his botanical studies hadn't exactly been solid.

"Ooh, selkie's mantle," he heard Jenny murmur. Her body rumbled against his cheek as she spoke. "It shouldn't be too dangerous when it's so little, though. Go on, feel it. There's nothing silkier."

There wasn't. The algae wrapped around his finger as he reached towards it, moving delicately to entwine around him. It felt as strong as arachne silk, but even more delicate, even more elastic. It felt so light he couldn't believe it would restrain him, and indeed, it felt easy to extend his hand deeper in, to let it cocoon more fingers.

Pulling his hand out, however, met resistance like iron.

Gretel bit his lip, tugging hard. It felt like he'd dislocate his fingers if he tried to hard.

Extricating his free hand from Jenny's grip, but still leaning on her for balance, Gretel reached up to just where his neck met his shoulder and touched the glistening silvery sigil tattooed there.

A shiver of a different nature passed through him. His arcane focus had always been sensitive--all focus tattoos were--but after the encounters he'd had, after all the fey and monster girls who'd taken advantage of that little weakness...

"Aw, are you still cold?" Jenny whispered. "Should I pull you in tighter, my dashing hero?"

"N-No," Gretel squeaked. He hurriedly channeled the magic, causing a little bubble of pure magic to pop into existence around his hand and force the extremely stretchy algae off of him just long enough to pull his hand back out.

As the algae parted, though, he saw that there'd been something else caught within.

Counting down the seconds the ward would last, he thrust his hand back in and snatched it up.

"Ooh! Is that it?"

"No," he murmured. He pulled his arm back out, shivering as the breeze blew against his wet skin, and examined the tiny silver eel he now held wriggling in his hand. As it left the water, the eel stopped twisting and turned to stare at him. Its green eyes glittered. "It's just a fairy eel."

He manifested another larger force-bubble in the water, carefully selecting the mental runes of liquid-true and solid-false, and pulled it up into the air. The tide pool shrank a little as the force-bubble breached the surface and rose into the air to submerge his hand, like a perfectly spherical aquarium.

The eel swam free of his hand. The bubble climbed higher, fairy eel in toe. Gretel managed a smile as he watched the eel twist in circles and somersaults around its new enclosure.

Concentrating intently, focusing on Jenny's warmth so he wouldn't shiver and bungle the spell, he levitated the orb of water over to a much larger tide pool, this one free of selkie's mantle, and lowered it down.

He released the spell with a sigh of relief. The sphere dissolved into the pool, and the eel vanished into the depths with a happy flick of its tail.

Gretel was panting. Normal wards were easy, but normal wards were not meant to serve as levitation spells, and water was unpredictable. It was a good thing it had been a full moon last night. That sort of thing helped.

Jenny was quiet for a moment above him. As she spoke, her tits jiggled a little just above his head, making Gretel blush and almost miss her words. "That was really nice of you."

"If you're losing less than you give, it's not nice." Gretel was glad he wasn't meeting her gaze, because this praise, more than anything, had him downright uncomfortable. "It's... just the default. I wasn't in any danger, and she could have died."

"Oh, selkie's mantle doesn't kill you, you know." Jenny's tone lightened. "Really, it does the total opposite~"

Gretel bit his lip. "A-Anyways, um... we should check the surrounding area before we try the tide pools again. Like, just to be safe." If he spent any longer with his head under Jenny's tits he was going to dissolve.

"Mm, good idea!" Jenny pulled back, smiling brightly. "Plenty of time for you to play with the anemones later."

She took him by the hand and helped him to his feet.

"Th-Thanks," Gretel managed. "You can, um, let go of my hand now."

Jenny gave him a dazzling smile. "Aw, but I like holding your hand! Besides, isn't it cold?"

She could feel how cold his hand was. Her hand was nice and warm, a deep, cozy relief. Gretel nodded meekly.

Jenny led him between the boulders, bouncing with every step. "We can just glance in the tide pools for now," she said sweetly. "I mean, you'll know it when you see it." She twirled on her heel and bounced up close to him. "You just have to stare deeply."

Gretel desperately held her gaze, no matter how desperate he was to duck his head, no matter how molten that adoring look in her eyes made him feel. Anything to avoid looking downward.

"Like here!" she said, giving an innocent giggle, as she gestured to another tide pool. "No need to stick your whole arm in. Just... look it over."

His eyes fell to the tide pool. This one was shallower, but he still had to bend down, blocking the reflections with his shadow, to see clearly within.

"The fog is rolling in," she whispered in his ear, squishing up tightly against his side. "Better stay close."

Gretel swallowed. She was close, alright.

"The fog can get awfully heavy this time of day," she murmured. Her hand brushed through his curly hair. "And cold. The cold makes it hard to focus on looking, but you want to keep looking, don't you?"

"Y-Yeah." Gretel tried to tune out her flirting, to focus on the pool. He didn't see anything that looked like a necklace, so he made his way to the next pool.

"Want to be my brave hero." She nuzzled his neck. "No matter how exhausting it may get."

"Uh-huh..."

It really was beautiful here. The tidepools were riots of color, and the cold didn't bother him so much as long as he pressed close. And Jenny seemed to like it when he pressed close.

He moved to another tidepool, trying not to stare as her hips jiggled. He kept his head low, studying the ground, searching for the slightest glint of..

"Is the necklace silver?" he asked, his voice mumbled. "Or gold, or..."

"Oh, it's gold, of course!" She laughed. "I like the weight gold offers. Don't you?"

"I, um, wouldn't know. I don't... wear much jewelry." The decorations those fauns had given him didn't count.

"Mm, but there's something satisfying about weight, isn't there?" She reached over and took his chin slightly, guiding him to stare into another deep tide pool. "It's nice to feel that heaviness."

The fog was getting thicker, and he gripped her arm tightly. "Yeah." He watched the anemones sparkle beneath the water, their tentacles wafting like flowers in the breeze. "Heaviness. Uh-huh."

"Uh-huuuuh," she echoed, petting his head. "Nice and heavy. Nice and relaxing. That nice weight pulling you down."

"Down..." Gretel blinked blearily. He was getting kind of groggy, and he struggled to clear his head. He had to focus on the search. "Yes, um..."

"Down," she echoed. "Stare deeper, sweet boy. Be my hero. Such a good, sweet boy you are. My big, strong man coming to my rescue."

"Y-Yeah..." He stared deeper into the new tide pool she'd taken him to. He didn't fully remember walking there, but he stared deeply into the dark waters. It was hard to see anything with this heavy fog blocking the sunlight. It was like an early twilight, a soft, intimate darkness pressing down on them. "It's, um... no problem..."

"Even though I bet your neck is getting so stiff, with your head tilted down like that," she murmured, and he felt her hand on the nape of his neck gently kneading between his shoulders, a nice, soothing massage. "I bet you just can't imagine lifting your heavy head right now." Her lips brushed his earlobe. "Because you have to find that necklace, don't you?"

"Y-Yeah..." Gretel swallowed. It felt like he was getting harder every time Jenny moved in. At least as long as he kept his head down like this, it wasn't too obvious... was it? "Yeah, I'm just, um... trying to find it, is the thing."

"Of course," she purred, and her hips brushed ever-so-slightly against his lap as she steered him around toward another tide pool. Her curvy ass squished briefly against his hardness. "Just keep your head down, sweet boy. It's too heavy to lift anyways, and you have to find my necklace down there, anyways, so there's no reason to, is there?"