Pond Pleasures

All characters in sexual situations are 18 years of age and older.

*

Novik breathed in the warm, clean air. It was mid-morning somewhere in the Hawthorne Forest, a lovely if not well known place. Tall spruce trees mixed with oaks, creating thick canopies in places that shadowed the ground below, but there were plenty of copses and clearings where the grass grew tall, and the flowers bloomed.

Soft shrubs were scattered about between the trunks of the trees, and Novik himself was following the wending edge of a stream, burbling quietly on its way to its destination.

Deer sometimes lifted their heads to observe him as he walked, sometimes bolting when they felt he got too close.

Foxes peered at him from patches of tall grass, and rabbits bounded here and there.

It was not a mysterious place, but it was poorly mapped, and its deeper recesses were seldom visited because of the tight clusters of trees making movement somewhat difficult.

And most of all, its lack of mystery meant few were ever invested in exploring the place. Despite its sometimes odd mixture of flora, it was a forest like any other.

But Novik was a spirited man, still youthful, and full of curiosity and scholarly intrigue. He'd already received a commendation from the Cartographer's Guild for his work exploring a previously unnamed island in the middle of Govan Lake, about twenty leagues north east of this forest. It wasn't a big island, and there wasn't much value found there, but his thoroughness and quality of his work was well appreciated by the Guild, comparing it to his previous help in rectifying and updating some other maps.

The little islet was renamed after him, though beyond that, he had yet to make much of a name for himself, but it seemed people in a few Scholarly institutions believed he had what it took to become quite renowned.

It was small belief at this stage, only passing but positive observation and praise, but Novik accepted it gladly, and it motivated him. His skills, it seemed, were appreciated, and that made him worthy of some note. He intended to make himself even more noteworthy.

He crossed over the stream as the side he was walking on became a bit more unstable thanks to a large number of gnarled roots from a row of oak trees growing at the edge of the stream. It was things like that which made people not bother going too deep, but his intuition was serving him well, the stream was making his journey a bit easier. And if he had to, he could always walk through it, the water no higher than his ankles, and he sported tall leather boots, sealed and treated, for the purpose. They were also just very helpful for cross country walking.

He came across a bush partly obstructing him, and it caught on a thread of his flaxen shirt. He tugged, and there was another tear.

He sighed and continued on; the flaxen shirt he wore over a more comfortable cotton one was covered in small rips and frayed threads from his many forays into the wilderness, but he had grown fond of its rough appearance. The dirty white colour didn't offer the best concealment, but Novik rarely ventured into places known to be dangerous; he was skilled in recording and research, and quite fit after so much hiking, but he was no warrior. For defence he carried a small iron dagger, and he mostly brought that along to cut rope or vines or carve up salted and preserved meats, and to put marks in trees, assuming there wasn't a local nymph or dryad ready to make him consider turning the blade on himself.

He wouldn't make that mistake again.

He sidled past a tree that was growing close to the stream, unable to hop back over to the other side. He scraped along its trunk, and got his cotton trousers scuffed and stained with some leaking sap.

He grunted in disgust, it was always hard to get sap out of his clothes. But at least it wasn't on his skin or in his hair, and the charcoal grey of his trousers helped hide the stain.

He checked his pants, and other than the sap stain, they were still in good condition, nice and comfortable, held up by a quality leather belt that nonetheless bore the evidence of a lot of ad hoc use, its rich brown colour now quite faded.

He sighed, and continued onward, taking off his leather pack and carrying it behind him as he passed between two oaks that grew close together, still unable to cross over to the other side of the stream. He grumbled as his flax cap was pulled off his head, leaving his messy black hair to get some cobwebs caught in it. He brushed his hair and put his grey cap back on, and continued once more, the path along the stream becoming a bit easier now.

He stopped for a rest, taking out a canteen from his pack, a recent upgrade from a leather waterskin. The canteen was made from wood and metal, and bound in leather, and it was much easier to carry and much sturdier.

It also seemed to keep its contents a bit cooler, which is throat and body appreciated.

He gazed around, back to the trunk of an oak, its gnarled roots twisted in such a way they formed a recess between two of them, providing a rather comfortable seat for Novik.

It wasn't as bright here, the boughs of the trees quite tightly clustered together, but the sun was shining brightly above and there were no clouds to speak of, so the threads of light that filtered through the canopy proved illumination enough, filling the space with a dim but sufficient light.

He spied orange and grey fish flitting through the stream, a crayfish menacing some fry that passed too close to it.

He also spied the discarded shells of crayfish tossed onto the bank of the stream, and that caught his interest. Eyes narrowing, he moved over, and picked up a piece of shell, and noted that they appeared to have been shucked, if crudely. He pondered the carapace in his hands quizzically, wondering if a person had come through here, since it did not seem like the work of an animal. But who in their right mind would eat raw crayfish? He couldn't see any signs of a nearby camp -- or prints for that matter -- and removing the shells of larger crayfish before transporting them to one's camp seemed strange to him.

He placed the shells down and took out his notebook, jotting down his findings thus far.

"... thick tree cover in parts... wildlife typical of the region... signs of fishing of crayfish... discarded shells... no signs of camping... investigate further when able..." he recited slowly, using a piece of charcoal lodged into a special stylus to put the writing to paper, Novik not wishing to risk ink in the wilderness, even though charcoal could potentially smudge. It was still a safer bet.

Closing his notebook, he placed it back in his bag, and hefting it onto his shoulders again, he continued further into the forest.

He had half-expected the place to get more foreboding as he ventured deeper, more ominous, but the areas with thick tree growth seemed to be separated by spaces with much more spacious growth, even the occasional clearing, much like the outer reaches of the forest, which only further exemplified its lack of mystery. It was just an inconvenient place to explore.

That did not bother Novik at all, it just meant he was going to have a proper job ahead of him. And there was always the possibility he discovered something special. That would've been exciting.

It put a pep in his walk, murmuring a tune to himself, whilst looking around and mentally taking notes of anything interesting.

A group of foxes began trailing him, darting away whenever he looked at them. He smirked and kept going, they were no threat. They were curious, like him. Eventually they forgot about him to give chase to a group of rabbits, so that further eroded any ominous nature the Hawthorne Forest could've possessed.

He heard birds singing in the trees, one even swooping at him and twittering angrily, either defending its territory or its nest.

"My apologies," he said, holding his hands up defensively until it stopped flitting between tree branches in pursuit.

He even saw an owl groggily watching him from the knothole of a tree, seemingly woken by his walking, and looking rather grumpy for it.

So far, nothing that could've been a real danger to him, save the ever present threat of poisonous plants and venomous critters, like snakes and especially insects and spiders.

The former he hadn't seen yet, the flora an interesting mix but ultimately very little that could've been harmful to the touch or proximity. Plenty of berries and mushrooms that were edible... once. But nothing like stinging nettle or the like.

He did give a beehive a wide berth of course, not wishing to anger the pollinators.

He kept going until he came upon a broad clearing near what had to be the centre of the forest. Maybe it was the centre. Either way, it was where the stream was leading to, emptying into a large glistening pond, sparkling in the sunlight and covered in small lilly pads, half of which sported small white flowers. He could hear the hum of insects here, and spied a few birds plucking at the grass, stalking for a meal of bugs and worms.

The air was cool against Novik's face, and a pleasant, earthen smell mixed with the aromas of flowers and the scent of trees. He took a deep breath, letting the air fill his lungs, and then he sighed out in satisfaction, feeling refreshed.

The sun was warm, and a gentle breeze kept the air circulating.

Sparkles danced across the nearby tree trunks, reflected off the surface of the pond, which gently rippled with a current from a few streams that fed it, a few more branching off on the opposite side and draining water away.

The sound of leaves rustling in the breeze was soft and calming, though he could already feel the many dozens of tiny insects buzzing around, which was a bit of a negative, in such a lovely place.

As far as he could tell, the clearing and the pond was untouched and possibly unexplored.

Novik wasn't the most conceited man, but he couldn't quite dispel the idea that he may have been the first human to step foot here. It made him a little giddy, but he kept it in check; people had gone into the Hawthorne Forest before, and it was likely unremarkable enough beyond its above average difficulty to traverse that they left little record of it.

Still, he ventured towards the edge of the pond, and realised it was quite deep. Not quite wide enough to be a lake, it was probably less than two hundred feet across, but still plenty big as a water source. It was clean too, though not strictly clear.

He sighed out again, enjoying his simple presence here.

"I think I might stay a little while," he mused to himself, spotting his reflection in the water's surface, dull blue eyes staring back at him, a bit of stubble starting to regrow after his shave yesterday.

He made faces and smiles at the water, perhaps some amount of vanity in him. He thought himself handsome enough, though admitted he never much did go looking for women. A few flings over the years, but nothing more.

Oh well, if he got famous, it'd probably be a lot easier.

Besides, if he spent all his time chasing women, he'd never find places like this.

It was... peaceful, besides the buzzing insects.

He set his pack down nearby, taking out both his notebook, and a sketchpad; no scholar or explorer worth their salt would be complete without one, in his opinion. Or at least someone who could draw.

He started sketching a rough landscape of what he saw from his position on one page, and on the opposite, he started a rough top-down map of the pond clearing. He felt a centralised place to make a map from worked better than working from the edges in, at least for him.

In between sketching, he'd go to his notebook and jot down references and observations, all very neatly organised. Researched thrived on risk, but also on careful record keeping.

After a while, he took a package from his bag, and unwrapped a bundle of jerky from it, taking a few strips and chewing slowly, sipping from his canteen to keep his fluids up.

It was starting to get warm, so Novik decided to take his boots off, tug the legs of his trousers up, and dip his feet into the water.

He let out a pleased murmur, sitting on the edge of the pond, feeling his soles settle on a sandy bottom, sloping quite steeply, further evidencing the pond's depth.

He kept nibbling on a piece of jerky, taking a break from his work, mostly to avoid risk of dropping his most precious and valuable items into the water. That would be disastrous.

As he ate and enjoyed the serenity around him, bar his constant effort to shoo the insects away, he saw a bunch of lily pads shift from a ripple.

There was another, and he saw the water displacing from something moving within it.

He pulled his legs up a little, but not entirely, ready to bolt at a moment's notice, placing his notebook and sketchpad back into his pack. If there was a dangerous predator here, he wanted to be able to get away with at least his most important things.

But then, he was quite surprised when a head popped up a few yards from him.

It was clearly humanoid, but definitely not human. A young woman's face with short, straight mossy brown hair, ears with rounded points, and more immediately noticeable, smooth but mottled green skin that appeared slick from the way it glistened, and large green-yellow eyes with slit pupils, though not quite as sharp and blade like as a reptile's.

Other than that, her face appeared fairly normal, and quite pretty.

She was looking straight at Novik, and he could see a curiosity in her eyes, and by the way she cocked her head subtly.

"Uh... hello," Novik greeted nervously. It was not the first time he'd met a non-human, having suffered the verbal wrath -- and he was lucky that's all it was -- of a dryad. And there had been a few other encounters, and a few more individuals he'd spotted on his travels. But after the dryad, he was a little cautious about green-skinned females staring him down.

At least this one didn't have eyes that looked like they could've lit him on fire.

They were a little unsettling, given they were noticeably larger than most after humanoids, though not to a substantial degree.

She got closer to him, and then stopped, rising up a little and baring her shoulders. Then she glanced between him, and the jerky he still held in his hands.

He was quiet for a moment before figuring out where her eyes were gazing. He looked to the jerky himself, and then back to her, holding the jerky out a little further.

"Is this what you want?" he asked.

He had more, so he wasn't too concerned about sharing, especially if it meant getting out of this place without incident. For all he knew, he'd been trespassing on their territory.

Her eyes lit up slightly, and she moved closer, a small smile spreading across her lips, which he then realised could stretch open just that little bit wider compared to a human's.

She rose a little bit more out of the water, and with a startled gasp, Novik realised she was naked.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but her seeming apathy to baring her chest to him, a set of modestly sized globes, petite but still what one would consider 'handfuls', still took Novik off guard; being exposed like this... he wasn't used to it, and he knew it wasn't typical of most societies and species. Even mermaids, whom almost always were naked, at least seemed aware of the affect they had on others with their nudity.

Though, a part of him wasn't too worried; she was quite pleasing to the eyes.

Her slender frame seemed oddly lanky, and as more of her appeared, he noted that her arms were oddly lanky as well. She moved close to the shore, disconcertingly between his legs, and lifted a hand from the water; her digits were slender like her body, though her fingertips were slightly bulbous compared to the rest of their length.

By now Novik had gathered that she must have been some sort of frog creature, though her feminine physiology and beauty made him wonder if she was somehow in fact distantly related to mermaids.

She reached out and tentatively plucked the jerky from his fingertips, and she brought it to her small, admittedly cute nose, and sniffed it.

Novik did wonder how she'd react to it; frogs weren't herbivores, but most didn't eat red meats. Most.

She gave it a few more appraising sniffs, before taking it between her teeth, and chomping down. She bit down a few more times, and then unfurled a long, slimy tongue from her mouth, its tip slightly bulbous, much like a real frog's tongue, only infinitely more flexible and prehensile, the muscle coiling around the stick of jerky as the frog girl tasted it.

It seemed the jerky passed with flying colours, the girl letting out a shrill sound of delight and proceeding to nibble on it without further caution.

Clearly the jerky was tougher than she was used to, and perhaps a little saltier, given she repeatedly cupped water with her other hand and poured it into her mouth. The salted meats also in Novik's bag would've probably been even harsher for her, but she wasn't stopping.

The stick of jerky was gone quickly enough, and the frog girl affixed Novik with an appreciative smile.

"Well, no problem, I guess, hehe?" He wasn't quite sure how to respond to this nude froggy woman standing before him; as strange as her physiology was, she was very attractive, and Novik was struggling not to let more primal elements of his own physiology cause potential insult.

She cocked her head this way and that, and released a series of warbles. He doubted she could speak any language, at least any he knew, and with a tongue like that, speaking might've been difficult without some sort of magical element.

"Sorry, I don't think I can understand you," he remarked without any surety in his voice, shaking his head and giving her an apologetic, slightly confused look, hoping that in the absence of spoken language, body language could at least prevail, but even that was no guarantee.

She frowned, but she didn't seem angry or upset. Perhaps unfortunate understanding. There was intelligence in her eyes, so whilst Novik internally postulated that her kind -- at least the population that resided in this forest -- was primitive in the way they lived, they were intellectual equals to most other beast folk and humanoids.

He then offered her another stick of jerky.

"More?" he asked, using exaggerated bobs of his head to point to the jerky.

She nodded and smiled, which came as a relief to Novik, as it seemed to indicate some common body language.

This time, however, instead of taking the piece of desiccated meat with her hand, she struck with her tongue and snatched it from his fingers, taking it into her mouth where she chewed away vigorously, again drinking water between bites to counter the salt content, or so he believed.

Then, with the last mouthful swallowed, she let out a breathy sigh of satisfaction, before turning to face him.

This time, however, her expression was a bit more... mischievousness.

Novik didn't have time to figure out what this could've meant before she reached down and grasped his crotch through his trousers.

He practically jumped at the touch, and let out a noise like a yelp.

"Whoa whoa, what are you doing?" he questioned, but she only shot him a knowing and salacious grin, gently rubbing his crotch through his pants, deliberately fondling his genitals.

Before now, respect and scholarly intrigue had kept his boorish urges in check, but what was he to do with her deliberately massaging him like this?

His cock throbbed as it came to life, and a tent started to form, but it wasn't brought even to halfway before she stopped.

Not that it was the end of course. She simply dropped down into the water so she could start running her lips over his masculine bulge, breathing hot, moist breath across his trousers and unfurling her tongue, lapping up and down slowly.