FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Farms and orchards made decent places for necromantic work. There had been enough sentient and other life there to enrich the area with the right sort of spiritual residues. This should be obvious. Unless the farm or orchard was in a constant warzone, it didn't include the uncontrollable malaise of a battlefield or hospital site, which were very well-known for tripping up the amateur warlock. One moment you're trying to store the ghostly ichor of death in a flask, the next that ichor has a name and a rank and it thinks you're a hun.

Ivan was not an amateur warlock, of course. He could deal with battlefield necromancy, he was sure. Well, he was an apprentice, technically, in healing magic, but necromancy was a side thing... well, yes, in all honesty, he was an amateur's amateur. He had barely so much as sung to a skull. Roth, his Naga friend, lent him the use of some of his land for his practice of this unholy art. The big snake-man was only too happy to play 'lovely assistant' to the magician - the ritual needed to be done in the wee hours, but Roth was always up then, anyway.

"The Flaymes around the Cyrcle will turn a certain colour," Ivan explained, "based on the mood of the Death in the area."

"What colour is happy death?" Roth asked, not really out of interest. If they had negotiated this by letter, Roth would have refused, for obvious reasons - any magical art which adds unnecessary letters was not to be trusted, in his book. (He didn't have a magic book, all of his own power coming from his nature.) The serpent-man lay in a sprawl, not one bit of him crossing over another, which took up a lot of space. Even without any mischief from Roth, it was a good workout for Ivan to try to make his way around the place.

"Sort of a desaturated chartreuse," the witch said, without thinking, and Roth laughed. Ivan frowned, but continued on with preparations for the ritual, planting wooden stakes for the Cyrcle.

The Naga, working out that the ritual was approaching, shifted himself into a very specific curl on the grass. He looked for all the world like he might fall asleep. Ivan, in his ceremonial cloak (with two bronze shoulder-cups chained together to keep it on, and a rather fetching chain thong), went around him. He planted candles onto the small spikes on top of those stakes.

He nearly tripped on Roth's tail.

"Sorry," the farmer said. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just lie still and think about eating whatever was growing here... whatever's furthest back in your memory." Lemons, then. Ivan had finally planted all the stakes and all the candles. "Things to do with being alive, back when the things here were alive."

"And this definitely isn't summoning ghosts?"

"No ghosts, Scout's honour."

"You were never a Scout! Your parents are secular!"

"I got better, okay?" Ivan said, holding his hand up to gesture to the ring.

"I don't think warlockry is a religion, yet," Roth said, "you godless wretch."

"Just! Just." The godless wretch rubbed his temples, and picked up the grimmoire from next to their picnic blanket. (Pre-breakfast had been quite hearty. It didn't do to raise necrotic magics from the sod on an empty stomach.) "The more alive you feel towards the climax of the ritual, the more the energies of death will come to us."

"And I won't be possessed," Roth said. "I definitely won't be possessed, and you can promise me that."

"The energies can't hurt or kill you, one, because they're only attracted to the living, they don't do anything once they get there, and two, because they'll all be absorbed by the Cyrcle and sent into the Ryng on the largest stake," Ivan explained, babbling it all at once. He managed to do this both as though he was speaking to a child, as though that child about twenty years experience in syncretic magic. Ivan was, himself, nervous, though he was more nervous about failure than he was about danger.

Roth just folded his arms behind his head, then, and waited for the ritual to begin.

Once the candles were lit, the Sun started to rise. There was possibly some connection between the two.

Ivan opened his ceremonial cloak, and the light caught him.

Roth squinted: almost nothing. There was that thong, so small and insignificant that it had no right to exist. Ivan also wore some fairly sensible sandals. It was brave, for this time of year.

Roth closed his eyes, and heard Ivan speak.

He didn't recognise the language, because it was probably long dead. He opened his eyes to see the candle flames burning purple - then blue. Then a more vivid blue. It was very definitely settling on a bright, active cobalt, not unlike Roth's eyes when he let his magic out.

The ground beneath him started to shift, in segments, like circles in the land were spinning in different directions.

"This had better not be worms," Roth said.

"Na taa, na ib'som safc," said Ivan. He shook his head. "Probably not. Power in the soil itself."

The soil beneath him started to get even warmer, but more interestingly, the grass itself was thickening.

"I think it's the grass," Roth said.

"It's not the grass," Ivan replied.

Every blade and shoot of grass beneath Roth squirmed, all at once, and the two could hear roots tearing themselves free from one another, leaves and stems hulking out in miniature.

"Okay, it's the grass," Ivan said. He scratched a bit on the back of his bare thigh, hoping it wasn't a tick or something. All this awful nature....

"You don't seem bothered by this," Roth said, being, himself, bothered. The noise of the vegetation was getting deeper. The small plants had become about one and a half times their normal size. The sun was properly rising, now, and in a moment, Ivan's body was going to be painted in bright gold. Roth very much did not want that view spoiled by impertinent necromancy-powered grass.

"I'm a bit bothered," Ivan said at last. "It means the ritual failed. The death-energies we summoned using you have been converted to cthonic energy in the soil - that's the equivalent of fertilisation, spiritually."

A thin stem grew from the grass and curled around the tip of Roth's tail. He wiggled it a little - he was ticklish there. Ivan and Roth watched as it grew a leaf...

"That's ivy," Roth said.

It grew another leaf...

"That's potato," the Naga continued. "Can you explain what's happening in normal-person language, Ivan? Please?"

"The Tletlessans were perfectly normal!"

"Ivan." The stem thickened as it grew, and it wrapped around Roth's tail very, very quickly. Just as quickly, the liana yanked Roth's tail-tip down, pinning it to the ground. Stems grew up around Roth's hips and wrists and head, and he tried pulling them out, but they were quickly replaced. "Ivan!"

"I think the cthonic energies have been absorbed by dormant seeds in here, and fusing with each other."

"Ivan," Roth said, because this wasn't what he needed to hear. "Can you stop this?"

"Oh! Oh, right!" Ivan opened and searched frantically through his grimoire for something, anything that could slow or stop empowered plants. He tried a quick spell - and it was rebuffed. He almost felt the ground shift in amusement that he'd try.

There were now several soft, herbaceous vines lapped happily around Roth's tail his limbs, and his hips. They began the leisurely task of coiling further around him. While the serpent-man couldn't struggle very easily (and that was a first, for Roth, big as he was) it was a very gentle affair.

"I'm not sure it wants anything in particular from you," Ivan said, at last. Roth's brief hope of escape vanished into exasperation. The ground shifted again. "Maybe it just likes you?"

It did feel like they liked him. They held him and squeezed in exactly the correct way to please Roth, like overly-affectionate tentacles.

Rhey slithered along a certain part of the small of his back, and Roth sighed, and their intent was clear.

"You're right," he said, and he pulled his hands up -- his shackles remained, but the vines grew longer as they were pulled. They coiled up in two big loops to lassoo around Roth's upper arms. Just to describe it, this act would have been forceful, or violent, but the way they did it - something about the timing - was playful. Roth was fairly sure he would be allowed to just squirm free if he put his mind to it.

All at once, all of the green coils squeezed him, and he moaned. Yesterday, one of the trees had shown some signs of sickness, and he had to cut it down, dismantle it, burn it. It had been hard work, and his muscles were sore today, but this squeeze was taking a lot of that pain away.

"I think it knows what it's doing," Roth said. "I think I like what it's doing."

Ivan mumbled a few things, and waved his hands over his book. There were a few odd noises, contrasting with the vegetation's corn-threshing noises of growth. Ivan nodded.

"That was communication," Ivan said. "It's one entity, formed from the plant life, and it's attracted to you, and wants to know if you're, uh, game." The tension seemed to drain out of the boy. "It'll stop if we ask it to. This is so much less scary than I thought."

"Tell it I'm game," Roth said, straining his arms against the hold, finding for the first time in his life that his strength was not enough. There were many different textures - every leaf seemed to be from a different plant - but overall it was a lovely sensation on Roth's soft, sweatless skin and scales.

"It can understand both of us," Ivan said. "You want I should leave you guys alone...?"

A thin stem grew up and laced itself into Ivan's sandal, going up his calf.

"Ivan, you idiot," Roth laughed, his face almost completely covered by the plant. "Of course I want you to see. Sit down."

The boy nodded and obeyed. It was good to know what to do. The stem curled round his knee.

The vines wrapped Roth in a funnel of themselves, and the Naga relaxed at last, and felt himself manhandled into position. Though he was bound, he wasn't held totally still, not consistently. Nor was he squeezed to any discomfort. It was more like an exceptionally ropey, tangled bed.

Ivan panted as he watched. He only noticed he was doing it for a second before Roth sighed out a moan. Wet, thick, rubbery leaves softly brushed over the serpent-man's vent. Ivan had fattened up from the sight of it, a little, but hadn't really paid attention in the panic... now, the young witch's cock stuck forward, capped by his thong. His hand kept idly creeping towards it in midair, before he remembered himself and put it away.

Roth thought it was strange how many little pieces of propriety Ivan held onto during sex.

The warlock could feel a knot of cold jealousy below his heart, steaming out and disappating every time Roth groaned. Roth occasionally made eye contact with him, grinning, and the jealousy thinned and left him completely.

There was a burst of musk, and Ivan realised Roth's cocks had emerged under the vines. He reached out, and placed his hand over there - yes, he could feel them. The same level of rigidity as before, and he could (just) see their dark brown skin between the vines.

Folded, layered flowers budded from all over the branching coils.

"Do you want to come?" Ivan asked.

Halfway through saying "maybe", Roth's mouth was filled with one of these flowers, and he sucked down on it. It was filled with some strange fluid, and it spilled that juice down his cheek and chin. This juice was acridly sweet, and a little thicker than water. Ivan reached over and tugged at the phytic net over his friend and master's cocks, freeing one, which stuck out proudly. Ivan licked it.

It didn't taste much different from the usual, so presumably nothing nasty had smeared onto Roth from the plants. Ivan shifted about on the pile of vegetation and serpent, straddling them, and the plant graciously allowed him to continue. Ivan was still wary, though, and he decided to make Roth come as soon as possible. For his own good. Not for the feel and taste of Roth's thick slime going down his throat again. No.

No, that line of thinking would make Ivan come on the spot, and he didn't want that. Not yet. He suckled the precum from the end of Roth's cock, and wrapped his fist around the bottom... gingerly. Roth loved when Ivan was pliant and gentle. 'Squishy', the Naga sometimes called him. He circled his tongue around the end, feather-light, and felt the Naga squirm under him... but said Naga was unable to move properly, of course, bound by the plant, and couldn't slow Ivan down.

It occurred to the witch that they'd made life, sort of. He squeezed Roth's glans tightly between his lips and slid them down over the whole thing, past the now-familiar two ridges. They'd need to name this plant. This plant-person. He loosened his lips, and closed his eyes, and luxuriated in the feeling of his jaw being forced open by Roth's thickness.

Roth hadn't gone any quieter, not really, even with the phallic flower in his mouth. No, his groaning was waking everything up around them. Normally, when he bucked up into Ivan's mouth like this, the force of it pushed his friend right back. Now, the farmer was restrained so well that he barely managed to push at all. The sucking sensation over that one cock was, therefore, delightfully gentle, so much so that he almost growled, wishing he could spend more time like this...

...but the plants' hold was loosening, incrementally. It was probably getting tired. Fine, then. If he had to orgasm, really had to, Roth supposed that he would.

There was probably a Scout motto for that kind of pragmatism, but they didn't accept serpentine mixanthropes either, so neither Roth nor any children he ever had would ever know.

Roth shook the thought from his mind, as it was softening him. He felt one of the phallic flowers press between his two cocks, soaking Ivan's chin as it slithered past and plugged itself into Roth's vent. His other cock sprung free, and Ivan kissed it.

The farmer twisted -- only, held still, he didn't. He screamed -- only, gagged, he didn't. Ivan nursed at his leaking tips, suckling now and then, and he was so light about it, so sparse, that the moment the flower's leaking, pulpy petals brushed his prostate, his orgasm was choked out of one cock. It wasn't the one in Ivan's mouth, and it splattered Ivan's chest and belly in two or three pumps.

Ivan moaned involuntarily at the warmth, and chuckled as the vines sent trailing roots up him, wiping and sort of absorbing Roth's slime from him before it could cool. They loosened their grip from Roth, who shucked them off in clumps, careful not to tear any of them. The two kissed the nearest leaves.

"I don't think I want to be a necromancer, after all," Ivan said.

Roth gurgled. He swallowed the last of the nectar in his mouth, and tried again.

"No?"

"No," Ivan said, with an air of finality, "if I was, I'd just go around animating skeletons. If this is what a failed ritual looks like, I want it to happen every time."

The vines had unwound themselves from Roth, and began to gather themselves into one big ball. It was nearly midday, now, and the sun was starting to stream over the clearing directly. The vines displayed their many leaves, on the outside of the ball, twisting to do so. Those phallic flowers turned to fruit.

This seemed like a farewell, or a 'fuck off', so Ivan and Roth walked and crawled away.

They washed in the river going through Roth's orchard, though really, the roots had taken most of the come off of Ivan's chest, and Roth didn't sweat. It was relieving to take off the cloak and thong. Before meeting Roth, Ivan had never suspected himself a naturist, but you never knew how you'd feel about it when no-one was watching but a lover. Nudity had slowly become something he wished for, his preferred state, rather than purely for sex or washing. There had been far more concealing ritual outfits available, but Ivan had chosen the cloak and thong.

Bathing done, in companionable silence, they moved closer to Roth's farmstead. Not so near that they could see it, though, as it was still warm, and not even midday, and neither felt like civilisation just yet. The two collapsed in a small group of apple trees and sat in a pile of each other, exhausted.

"I'm," Ivan said. It was the first thing either of them had spoken to one another since the incident. The witch found the words choked off from him, as if he should have had more and better to say.

"I bet you are," Roth said, not feeling anything of the sort.

"I'm sorry," Ivan said. He crawled up onto Roth's chest, and lay on his front, skin to skin, face to face. His own skin had been far paler before he started visiting Roth - before he'd taken to casual nudity and ritual half-nudity around his friend. "That could've gone much worse. It was my fault."

Roth's big hand lay over the small of Ivan's back, warm and calused.

"I loved it," Roth said. He rubbed his thumb over Ivan's back. "You have nothing to apologise for."

"But... but it was...." Ivan tried not to get too emotional, but the anxiety of the situation was only now affecting him.

"It was unpredictable. It was chaotic. You meddled with forces you couldn't control," Roth murmured. He didn't have to do more than murmur -- their noses were touching. "Ivan, you're a witch. If I had a problem with that, I wouldn't invite you to my farm."

"I think. I think I need. Um." Ivan realised he was still hard. Even though it had been nearly an hour, he hadn't softened much. Roth's comforting purr had made sure of that. "Thank you, first of all, I need - I need you to hold me, Roth."

"I am holding you," Roth said, but his tone changed, to that - that serious-ish one, that happened when he was about to hypnotise Ivan, that went slow. He sat up, and up, and knocked Ivan back into a seat of waiting coils. "Silly little witch. Tell me what you need, with words."

"I. I want you to hold me still," Ivan stammered, red in the face, and clutching at Roth's scales. They didn't feel any different along Roth's tawny gradient, but it felt like they did when he could see the colours. "I want not to get out."

"I am still holding you," Roth said, taking hold of Ivan's ankles in his gargantuan hands. He could have crushed Ivan many times over, with just those hands, but Ivan knew he'd never get hurt in Roth's company (except if he bashed his own face on a tree) (again). "More words, Ivan."

"Force me to stay still, please," Ivan said. He was relaxing, now, and speaking more slowly. "I want you to make me feel like -- not like a child, not like a pet, like..." and now Ivan murmured, "like your small friend, who can't get out."

"Not without asking nicely," Roth said, completing the sentence.

"Not without asking nicely." Ivan sighed, and was visibly soothed. He felt Roth's thumbs dig slowly into the soles of his feet, then up round his ankles... it was good, after a day on his feet.

"I think I can do that," Roth whispered. The farmer's eyes lidded in affection, and some lust. He wasn't spent yet, apparently. "I think this whole thing was good for you, Ivan. You're so orderly. You need some disorder in your life." he raised Ivan up, and gently sunk his teeth into the back of Ivan's thigh, drawing an undignified - but very happy - moan. "Let me show you what that's like."

The little warlock sat up - and found his chest and upper arms quickly lapped up in Roth's muscular tail. He pushed out with his arms - and Roth let him?

No, Roth tightened the thick circles of himself around Ivan after a moment, and he tightened them hard.

"Roth!"

"You can, of course, leave, if you tell me the magic word. But you won't. Because you don't want me to let you out."

"Yes!" Ivan scrambled, pushed his arms out as hard as he can, and found he slid along Roth's scales - somehow he was slippery, but still inescapable. He kicked out his legs and found them released from Roth's hands... only to be engulfed in a couple of loops of the serpent-man's trunk. Again, he pushed, and thrashed -- well, he tried to thrash. He didn't actually thrash at all.

"There's my good, struggling boy. You like that?" So saying, Roth compressed the little spellcaster such that he couldn't manage a sound but his own breathing.

Roth looked into Ivan's eyes, and he kept that squeeze on for some considerable time. In reality, it was only for a moment, but to Ivan, it felt like several happy minutes.

Then, he loosened his coils, and released Ivan... no. The witch tried to move, and was restrained again, and he lacked the strength to lift himself up against the weight of the coils around him.

He wiggled his calves... and another loop closed over them, keeping him flat and still.

Roth squeezed him again.

"You've not finished, yet," Roth said, idly. He loosened himself around the exhausted boy again. "I wonder if you even want to finish." Ivan could not speak. Roth's tail coiled further up around his neck, and his mouth, and his eyes.

And he squeezed.

Ivan's lips dragged over Roth's scales when his mouth was freed, and he let out a series of noises he didn't care to remember. He knew he would sleep like this later, ensconced in his friend, and the very thought nearly made him pass out then and there.

Roth's hand closed around his cock. The sorceror grunted, and wriggled, sliding more easily now. He realised that that extra slipperiness around him wasn't Roth's coils, but his own sweat.

"I'm," he started again, but Roth choked him again, at the same time as he tightened his fist around Ivan's penis.

"Yes," Roth said, "I suppose you are." Ivan was twisted and held horizontally over the ground. Roth pulled a bottle of oil from somewhere - did he just stash these around the farm, so he could have sex on it? - and emptied it onto his fist, over the two of them. Ivan felt as the oil slid between Roth's fingers to coat his cock.

The witch stared down at Roth, who looked at him thoughtfully, idly slipping his thumb over the head in languid circles. The oil, hot, flowed down over Ivan's hips, between his legs, and mashed between Roth's and Ivan's skins. Small remnants of wax from the bottle melted in their heat.

"I love you," Ivan said. Well, 'said'. It was more a strangled mewl. And thinking about it, you're probably my best friend, too, he thought, but didn't add.

"I love you, too," Roth said, eyes glancing up at Ivan's. His eyes faded into those familiar rings of blue. "And, come to think of it, you're probably my best friend, too."

Ivan smiled, and came, and fell asleep.