Kinverse: Volume One

PATH OF THE EMERALD MAIDEN

A naive young monster's tale by Moros, aka KinverseWriter

Legal Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise herein mentioned. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters and events in this story are entirely fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. This work of fiction contains disturbing content.

Reader discretion is advised.

Description:

A young woman from a pre-neolithic society is accidentally whisked away to another world entirely during a raid on a research lab run by alien invaders. Stranded with no friends, badly injured, and no idea where home even is, she's forced to live off the land and learn how to survive in this strange and hostile world.

There's only one slight problem, though.

She's not trapped in this world with them. They're trapped in this world with her.

Categories:

Adventure, Coming-of-Age, Isekai, Erotica.

Disclaimers:

This story contains sexual elements and disturbing themes. The contents aren't purely intended to be pornographic, but some scenes objectively are. This is about a giant monster that eats people, so reader discretion is advised. This story contains vorarephilic themes.

This story will have a very slow and intermittent pace to begin with. True stakes don't really show up until halfway through, though the build-up is always there in the background. This is ultimately not a story of grand adventure and defeating one's enemies to rise to the top, it is the tale of a lost and naive young woman growing as a person and learning new things. It is a personal one concerning her, and thus this story will be told in present-tense first-person.

Chapter 16: Poaching

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A/N:

From an outside perspective, it's easy to mistake the Kin for dumb gluttons. In reality, they're a rich and vibrant people in tune with the land who... mostly just chill all day and occasionally eat.

Living the dream, eh? They're not dumb, just... stagnant.

---

There are two obstacles to a Kin's growth.

The first is food supply. Without sufficient food, a large Kin will eventually starve, unable to support themselves. Others could feed them if they can no longer do so themselves... but they're still doomed to be so strong that they can't actually use their strength.

The second is overgrowth. When a Kin gets to a certain size, even as our bodies adapt to compensate, and even if they could acquire more food than they use just to get it, there comes a point where their frame simply can't support them any more. Movement becomes a burden and they find themselves swiftly winded whilst overheating.

This is the inevitable fate of all Kin who do not die in battle. Many elders choose to fight to the death to establish one final unending hierarchy of strength, roaming the jungles in search of a stronger Kin or prey too great even for them alone. It is the way of our people, the way we live and die. We grow. We become strong. We get stronger. And then, we aren't strong enough and we die.

No Kin is strong enough to beat death. All young are taught this.

A strange thought occurs to me: but what would happen if we could?

Would we even still be Kin?

Bang!

Interrupting my idle thoughts comes echoing over the hills and valleys the sign of my prey's own hunt. Locking on to the sound, I change directions.

Ohhh, I'm excited! Another tall intruder, this one both all to myself and a strong one at that! First I shall taste him, then I shall assert my dominance, make him mine, and then I shall learn! When I have taken all that he may offer me, I will take that which he values most of all and make it my own. Strength is life, knowledge is strength, but fun is fun.

The first step to my plan is to find its created-nest's new location. After that I shall observe him and learn. Finally, once I am prepared, I shall approach him and see how he reacts. Maybe he will give himself to me like the female, deferring to my strength. Perhaps he shall react in fear and try to fight. Part of me hopes for the latter to be his response because it means I get to teach him my strength instead. Hehehe.

---

Finding him was easy. I just needed to follow the smell of blood to the pilfered elk, taking my own share once I arrived. Most of the good meat was gone but he had no interest in the bones nor the heart, which makes it a wonder he's as strong as I believe him to be. Then I just had to follow his tracks through the muddy foreign jungle all the way back to his created-nest.

His camp is pretty much identical to what it was last time: created-nest, containers, seat, surfaces, and device set up in the middle. The expected mover, and quite a few of the containers secured in the trees.

My my, that must be quite a bit of meat. It would be a shame if something happened to it...

His little rituals are the same as they were last time. Having eaten what he did not take earlier I'm content to simply observe once more from the undergrowth. Should he continue his routine I will have a plan for tomorrow, to sate my curiosity. While he is away gathering more meat I should be free to examine his things and learn! For one, I really want to know why he's placing the meat in those containers and why it isn't rotting.

Surely the decay must be slowed, but I can only barely begin to guess at how. Hypothetically if the container is sealed then insects and other carrion feeders won't be able to get at it, but meat still sort of… loses something, after death. It loses the heat of life, the feel of blood pumping and muscles tensing, struggling. It loses its power.

With a carcass there can be no final thrill, no ultimate fight over life, death, and nourishment, only a routine and simple meal. Picking apart what I want from what I can't eat. Sure, I do enjoy a good meal too--even if it isn't a live one. I went my whole life until a few weeks ago like that but now it's awakened something within me, having expanded my horizons and shown me something new that I will never be able to move past.

I'm going to steal that meat and then I'm going to steal him.

---

After he went within his created-nest and remained within, I retreated for the rest of the day worried that he might barely be able to smell or stumble upon me by accident. After waking up I returned to find him preparing food for himself.

From a colorful tall, long, and thin container he pours small objects into a squat container, this one tapering out with an open top like a hole in the ground. A bowl. It reminds me of Kin waste pits, though with smoother sides and entirely made of sharp-rock rather than a hole in the ground.

After that from one of the food containers beside him he takes out a clear bag full of a white substance.

That… isn't what I think it is, right?

Right?

That's not why the previous male did what he did, right?!

Setting it into a strange tall holder and using a small tool he opens the top, the entire contraption he then tips, pouring its contents out into his bowl.

Nah, there's no way it would flow like that. Not sticky enough. Good… that would be quite odd.

Finally, after putting away the bag of white fluid he digs into his odd meal with a different small tool: a flat bowl-shaped one. He shovels the food into his mouth, fluid as well, and after finishing he drinks the rest. Efficient. Good.

Mother says that some animals feed their young with a liquid which the mothers produce within themselves. I've never seen anything like it but I haven't really had a chance to; I'm surprised Mother was even able to learn that. Perhaps this fluid is milk? I know that they can preserve meat, so why not other foods? Though an adult consuming it is a little strange… I'm fairly sure he's an adult, he looks like my first tall intruder meal did and that would mean he's fertile, so, adult.

After he returns the food container and performs yet more strange doings he eventually grabs his bag, burning-stick, other assorted items, and leaves into the woods--presumably to go out and secure yet more meat.

Greedy, greedy, gluttonous little tall intruder. A single elk, every day? This can't be good for the local ecosystem. Oh well, the food is already harvested and his weight on it will be changed to a different kind soon.

Minutes after his departure I waltz into the clearing like I own the place, because soon I will.

This, that, whatever that is, all of it, mine. Like my bag, my water, my light projector, and my head-rest. Mine, mine, mine, and mine. I wonder if I could somehow use that mover? It would help me carry my many things!

Then again… I'm larger than it.

First step: food! Ambling over to the nearest tree I eye the vine keeping my prize suspended. The hunter tied it up so that it would remain in place, but I don't really want to fiddle with that so instead I just grab hold of the vine and slice through the knot; vine, bark, and all.

Feeding the vine through my claws I lower the container to the ground. I could probably just slice-and-drop, but it might spill my meat all over and damage whatever's inside that keeps it from rotting.

With the blue and white container settled on the ground I approach and feel at the edges, finding where it hinges up and where it opens. Cracking it open I find bags of meat within small… rocks? Clear rocks. A wall of cold air hits my face as I stick it in and I recoil.

Cold rocks. Got it.

I suppose that my hunger can wait just a little bit. Reaching into the cold air I tentatively grab one and pull it out to inspect. Immediately it begins to shrink and wet my foreclaw.

This has to be the strangest thing I've found so far. A rock that is cold and melts!

Well, there's one classic test to do. I pop it in my mouth to taste both it and the liquid it melts into!

COLD. Egh. Cold. Cold, cold cold I do not like cold, but I don't spit it out, nor swallow. It quickly begins to melt faster on my tongue, and it becomes obvious what it is once the numbing fades. It's water.

Cold is rare for Kin. Mother has told many tales of what it is like and what it does. The only time I've ever felt it has been during fierce typhoons or within flowing water. There was also the lake earlier, but it wasn't anywhere as cold as this! The tall intruders have bent fire to their will, perhaps they have bent water and cold as well? Water is cold. This melts into water. Therefore, this must be water. Somehow.

Solid water. That makes no sense at all... but it works I suppose.

This entire container is FILLED with the cold rocks. No, not cold rocks, solid water. Or maybe cold-water?

Cold-water it is.

Cold-water and bags of meat. With the one in my mouth finally melted I reach back in despite the chill on my claws and pull out a bag of meat. Strangely, this bag is solid despite how thin and droopy it appears it should be--and it conforms to the meat. But… when I poke at it, the bag reveals that it isn't what's solid and unyielding, it's the meat. It might as well be as hard as my armor.

The cold-water makes the meat not move which means it doesn't rot. That's, uh… that's something alright, but I suppose it makes sense. Kin dormancy works roughly the same way; our body temperature is cooler, we have a lot less energy, and we don't need to eat as much. This is so cold that any living meat would surely die though.

But perhaps that's the point. Maybe the meat isn't truly dead and still changes? Stop the meat from moving, from changing, and you stop the meat from rotting. Genius!

The implications of this thought then hit me.

Does anything ever truly die, then? I mean, I eat meat and then I get bigger. Is my new meat the meat of others or my own? Or both?

...That's weird. It doesn't explain why herbivores aren't made of plant, though. And whether meat loses its power still despite not rotting.

Regardless: this discovery on the properties of cold gives me no benefit whatsoever since Kin live meal-to-meal as hunters with no need to preserve food for a long period. The most I've ever heard of is capturing food live and feeding it until its time to be eaten arrives. I remember all of the times tall intruders were taken and kept like that before back home, but that became rarer and rarer as the war progressed.

When many were taken at once by one Kin who had earned them and did not choose to share, they couldn't just eat all of them at once. Well… unless said Kin was Mother's size. Hence the need for this system. They were theirs by right of victory, although it was common to share.

The bag has an opening that can simply be pulled apart, which makes things easy. Inserting my claws I pull out the cold slab of meat, then secure my grip on it more, its cold transferring into my foreclaw. How am I supposed to eat this? Bringing it to my mouth, I experimentally gnaw and bite at it.

Yep. It's rock hard. It might as well be rock. My sharp teeth sunk into it a little bit but it's clear that eating it wouldn't be worth it and the cold would feel weird going down whole. Surely there must be a way to make it edible? Hm. If it was cooled down, then it just needs to be heated up! Just like the cold-water!

I have a plan! First I return the meat I have taken within its protective bag, sealing it and placing it with the rest.

Placing one foreclaw against the top of the food container's front I simply shove and the whole thing tips backwards, spilling its contents across the underside of its top and the needle-coated ground beneath the tree.

The cold-water pours out along with actual cold water flowing over the meat. Rounding the tipped container I begin the process of digging out my prizes and placing them out on the ground individually to heat up, which hopefully won't take too long, right? Why would he need so much cold-water otherwise?

Ten minutes later I've liberated the contents of what I would estimate to be about a quarter of the containers. The piles of cold-water melt relatively slowly in the cool air of this place, the meat kept away from its effects. It still disappears rather rapidly all things considered.

As I'm about to tip my tentatively final victim of the day, a thought strikes me. I'm getting a little bit thirsty, and this is water...

I dig a clawfull into the frigid container, bringing the cold-water rocks up to my mouth. I dump them inside and swish them around before chewing.

Hmm. Yes. Interesting.

Chew. Crunch. Munch.

Tasteless, but still a very interesting feeling.

My mouth grows colder and colder, until eventually... I feel it.

“Ehhhgh-" I moan as the cold-water falls from my mouth. It hurrrrts. Ow. Ow. Ow. Why, cold-water? Why?

It feels as if the roof of my mouth itself is now frozen, my own meat made cold! I pant, bringing hot air out from within my body, and it gradually heats up again. I'm not doing that again.

I sit in pain for a minute, simply panting, before the sensation passes. Ugh. Mother never said anything about that feeling.

Well. With that out of the way and my repossessed meal in its own form of preparation it's time to continue my investigation, I suppose.

My next stop is the meal preparation place. I want to understand that fire thing.

Walking over to it I have a second thought. An important thought, one of caution rather than curious thirst.

Fire… is dangerous.

Very dangerous. Memories of the fires from the storm weeks ago are still fresh in my mind. At least the jungle is wet now, so if I screw up and allow the fire to spread it won't burn everything down. Just my food and the hunter's things, both of which would be unacceptable to lose.

With that in mind I eye this dangerous rectangle with wary respect for its power. It reminds me of the sight-sound rectangle in shape, but it's longer and significantly thicker. Tall intruders seem to like rectangles that flip open… their permanent dwellings even have them to allow entry.

On my approach I bat the hunter's seat out of the way and park my rear in front of the sharp-rock surface upon which the device rests. I peer down at it, its knobs, its weird container on the side, its shiny weathered surface, and above all, its capacity to destroy everything that I know.

Respectfully and carefully I work to flip it open. The inside is… incredibly strange. I can't really describe it very well. It has lots of thin pieces rising from the sides out into the middle and two circles underneath, where the fire must sprout from. Thin sharp-rock plates flip out to the sides--not only keeping it open but also shielding the fire from wind, perhaps? Just as wind blows leaves, so too does it blow flame.

I pick a knob at random and gently twist it, mindful of my larger claws and superior strength. It would not do to break this powerful little device, else the fire might escape!

Suddenly, a clicking from the machine startles me before fire erupts high with a soft fwoom, and I unceremoniously fall backwards.

Scooting away so as to not potentially whack the surface with a stray limb, I roll back to my claws and return to the fire-tamer. Its fire is steady, released through holes in one of the circles and heat rises from it.

Hm. Heat rises from it.

Aha… I get it now.

Beside the device is the tool I'd previously spied him using to hold the meat. The fire heats the tool, the tool holds the meat, the meat… burns-but-not-burns? It would be protected from the flame itself but not the heat which means it wouldn't burn but it would get hot. Hot, just like cold, is bad for living things. If you get too hot on a burning day without any shelter, you die. First a Kin begins to pant, attempting to replace hot air with cooler air. Then they get thirsty... and then they die. Not a good death. Not a death in pursuit of strength. A death you can only defeat by escaping from it.

The cold preserves the meat. The heat must do the opposite. Does it make the meat move too much?

This is exciting! Perhaps that means Kin die from heat because it makes them too strong? We do get hotter during battle... and there is a balance between life and strength.

Mindful of my tail as I turn, I quickly bound over to where I left the first food container, snatching up the very first bag of meat that I inspected. Returning with my meal I unbag it and place it on the tool, the tool over the fire, and wait.

Aaaand wait.

Hm. It takes a moment but something seems to be happening now. Where it meets the tool, the fat on the slab of meat begins to melt and pop, once more startling me for a moment.

Over the course of the next few minutes the edges of the meat begin to darken, and after another minute more it's charred. Curiously and carefully I slide the tips of my claws underneath and flip it, revealing the side that had met the tool. Coating most of it is the black scar of burnt flesh. Hm, it should be fine but perhaps I shouldn't leave it on for so long.

After another few minutes my meal is about done so I turn the knob back. Grabbing the meat with my claws from the hot tool, I wave it around a little first to cool it. This unfortunately loses some of its juices into the air, the rest dripping down my claws and foreleg. Opening my mouth, I unceremoniously pop it onto my tongue and taste.

Mmm! Hey, this is good!

It's not the heart of a well-fought opponent, but it's new and interesting! Experimentally I shift it to the side of my mouth with my tongue and chew a bit, tasting it thoroughly.

It feels like it's… uneven, almost. I think I might have done something wrong but I'm not sure what. Perhaps I left it on for too long? There's certainly a lot of blackened grit to it. Finishing my chewing and tasting I swallow. Time to do it again!

---

By the time I was done I had heated most of the meat, slowly getting a little bit better with it but also experimenting with different lengths of time. Less time meant a juicier and more tender slab, more time meant a more charred and dry one. I think I prefer 'less.'

Unfortunately, my experiments were cut short when the fire simply died, spent. I think the container attached to the fire-tamer is what lets it make fire and it must be out of things to burn now. It's so small, I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did.

Oh well. All in all I'm quite decently fed, both in mind and body, new ideas and new food.

Next up, the mover, and then the created-nest.

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A/N:

Here we see an alien primitive discover the laws of thermodynamics on her own. Mostly. Mother travelled the world and discovered many things, such as ice and snow, her adventures becoming tales to entertain the broodlings. But alas, this isn't her story.

For the record, the hunter was eating an undescribed cereal with bagged milk.

Fun fact: despite being Canadian, I have never used bagged milk. It's just… not a thing where I live. It's more of a thing in the east from what I know. Or I just never knew anyone who used it.

The scenes with the hunter and the later ones with Carey are some of the first scenes I came up with and wrote plans for. Originally it was actually the hunter who the protagonist was going to personally encounter first but I realized that I didn't want it to be that early. So, Spencer and Susan would be the first scene involving 'alien-human relations' and the hunter was pushed into Arc 2 despite his very early appearance in Chapter 3.

As mentioned in prior author's notes, this story wasn't originally envisioned to be anywhere close to as long as it will be. It was just an experiment. In fact, almost all of the contents of these early author's notes were written later during my editing phase. At the time of writing this specific one, I'm up to Chapter 30 before going back and bringing everything up to later-established standards.