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 35: Girls’ Night

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Carey fumbles through a tall cabinet as I lounge on the living room couch, a spare blanket covering me with my arms tucked at my sides. With hindsight Carey’s desire to return to her truck for one is obvious: it traps the heat while presenting a desirable texture, not that I can really enjoy the latter as much as the sisters could. Overall it’s quite nice, being warm but not ‘hot day’ warm. Not a moist ‘being carried around by Mother as a broodling’ warm or even a ‘huddled against each other’ warm, simply a cozy warm that is yet another new experience to me.

“Anything in mind?” Sam asks her sister.

“Yep.” She pulls out a long and wide but flat box. “I’ll be doing her turns for her but it should be a good experience.”

“The Game of Life?” Sam snorts. “Really? Well, it beats trying to teach her Monopoly. Which couldn’t be as painful as playing it.”

The two share a hearty chuckle, enjoying some unknown injoke. I make a vow to myself to one day both learn this Monopoly, and beat them at it! It is clear we are playing more games which excites me; Rock, Paper, Scissors was new and interesting but new things are newer and interestinger.

Carey places the box on the squat table before me which runs the length of my seat, Sam at the end in a single-person chair with a vacant twin opposite though to the side a bit. Rather than take said empty seat she lifts the entire top off the box and unveils... well, something colorful to say the least. She takes it out and unfolds it so she may affix other pieces to the thing.

It is a board covered in squares, imagery, and squares with imagery. Some parts rise up and slope down, others are decorated in strange but familiar sights. I recognize what must be created-nests--houses--and their paths; roads. Yet more comes out of the box as I watch: slips of colorful material identical on one side but different on the other, what appear to be miniature cars full of holes, and two types of tiny cylinder: one blue and one pink. In the middle of it all is a relatively intricate device set among pretend-hills. The entire construction is slightly worn and in places the color is faded; it must be old and well-used to be in this condition if stored in a box.

My Carey excitedly and expectantly holds up the colored cars. “Pick, Emeral,” she asks.

I decisively raise a claw and prod the yellow one. It reminds me of a flower back home I always liked the look and smell of. She takes a pink peg and slots it in the front and places it down on the board. Sam leans forward and selects her own: red, and Carey takes blue. Both get their own pink pegs.

Without further ado she sets the middle piece spinning, the same symbols from the stove below it. It lands on a number and she spins it again. It lands on a different number, and this time Sam spins it. When it settles, the woman scoffs, though clearly not in any real dissatisfaction.

“Alright Emeral,” Carey declares. “You’re going first. I’ll do your turns for you.”

Eager to learn I watcher patiently. I am in no great hurry to abandon my comfortable position even if my body is already spilling over the edge of the couch. Plus, some of these pieces are rather... well, likely impossible for me to use.

She spins once more and it lands on a number. It is clearly for deciding a number within the order, but with a difference: rather than zero to nine, it is one to a new number between that one and nine on the circle. It is a combination of both the one and the zero together.

“Left or right?” she asks.

I lack any knowledge on what any of it means. There are many strange symbols between the two paths, the right one longer as it comes around to link up with the left one. Distinguishing the right path further is the building beside its entrance. I make my decision and the game progresses. She sets my car down along the path.

What follows is a game where we each spin, take a turn, and then deal with what the game throws at us through cards. The individual spots on the board must tell you what happens since the pair know exactly what needs to occur. I get a card to keep which stays on the table in front of me along with colorful slips with symbols.

Over a hill and around a bend, it isn’t long before something new occurs; something strange. Carey reaches the next building first and stops at it, grabbing a new peg and inserting it--a pink one. Outside of the building is an image of two of her kind: one dressed in black, the other in an elaborate white. Neither is pink or even blue.

Next arrives I, and Carey offers me another choice: blue or pink. She looks thoughtful and before I can decide, she returns the pink and slots in the blue one. I give her an inquisitive look.

“Family,” she says. “Husband and wife. Man and woman.”

This only confuses me further. “But both?” I ask, pointing to hers.

She blushes and looks to Sam, who raises her shoulders up and down in a shrug--a sign of noncommitment, neutrality, and no answer. “I would need more words to explain,” she simply states, returning to the game and leaving me to my own thoughts.

Family. That’s one word I do know, as do I man and woman. Carey is a woman, I am a woman, Sam is a woman. Female. Which means that man is male, so the pink peg represents each of us and the blue represents... huh.

A mate.

This game represents gaining a family. If so, why does Carey have a female mate?

Sam comes along as well to park beside us. She takes a blue peg and we move on. Sam was excited to see the man earlier today--Frank--and it was clear they were close; not mates, but close and definitely interested, so the blue one is the Frank. I can only conclude that Carey... likes females and wants a female mate. This game is meant to represent us on the board. Mating with a female is one thing, but this seems like... more than that. It’s about starting a family and two females cannot make broodlings. They simply lack the needed parts and while they could ‘mate’ in a way--sexual stimulation--they cannot be mates.

Had I not thoroughly inspected both a male and a female of her kind I would be curious on whether they can still do so, but now I’m just confused. I’ll have to wait for more words I suppose in order to get a proper explanation.

We advance along and I get a new card, one representing a house; a home for me and my new mate. It would certainly need to be a big one but it looks like we don’t get those until the end? Then we each begin to accrue blue and pink pegs behind us and our mates, and for some reason Carey does get them anyway despite her choice. I will definitely have to be more thorough come my next bodily inspections.

We get new homes, we progress along the board, and finally we approach the end. Each of us has multiple children, and I myself have three; a woefully inadequate number for any self-respecting broodmother but I suppose this game was not made by Kin, obviously. Each time we gained a child we only got the one, except for one instance where Carey got two. This pales in comparison to the dozen a fully grown female could have at once.

We reach the end--two houses, one large and one small--and our numbered slips are all counted. Sam has the most so she is declared winner, advancing to the larger one as the other two of us sit back, having lost.

They call this ‘The Game of Life.’ Life. Except... this isn’t a reflection of life. There’s no death or killing. You simply progress along the path until you don’t any more. Is that death? If so, what is the point of collecting all of those points? They don’t do anything, they can’t be used if you’re dead, and if that isn’t death then you’re just... sitting in a house fat and old until you do die. I suppose this did keep us all occupied but it wasn’t very fun. Cozy but not fun.

I suppose it’s telling of one key difference between our species. Rather than growing large and having nothing to do until you die, the humans amass things and then have nothing to do until they die. Or they fail and have to settle for less.

Settle for less.

Hmph.

Settle...

...for...

...less.

Oh dear.

The blue piece. It’s been bothering me ever since I saw it, but I didn’t realize until now.

I will never be a mother.

I will NEVER be a mother.

I WILL NEVER BE A MOTHER.

There are NO Kin here. I am far from home and have no idea how to return. I could wander forever and freely if not for Carey’s kind. I will never foster children, I will never see my home, and I will never be a mother. My own path in life was severed the moment I fell through that hole with my prey; played out through this infernal game I finally see the truth.

A cold weight settles deep within me and I lock still, my thoughts spiraling deeper and further. I will never be a mother and I will die alone.

I don’t like The Game of Life. I don’t like it at all.

“Emeral? Are you okay?” I hear from beside me. I snap back to reality and lock eyes with my Carey. My sweet, innocent little Carey. My Carey... who would defy the path life has given her. For reasons unknown she would rather a female of her kind for a mate, and yet she still wants children, but whose? Sam and Frank’s as if her own? Would she mate with a male, but raise her children alone or with another woman? Perhaps, perhaps. But this changes little for my situation.

I will need to think deeply and thoroughly on these disturbing facts. Carey has females of her species to turn to.

I have nothing.

“...Emeral?” she asks once more. I realize I have been intently staring at her and close my eyes, bringing my head down and hiding it beneath the blanket. I purse my lips; I do not wish to speak right now. I wish to be anywhere but here, even if it’s safe. I feel water on my cheeks as rare tears well up in my eyes betraying the extreme emotion I am under. I do not wish to speak right now...

I want to go home.

Instead, I slink down to my hole, the blanket trailing off as I leave. Neither sister says anything and I pull the door shut. I curl atop my new bed--a ‘mattress’ as it was termed--and do my best to rest.

As much as I wish it, I’m not done tonight... I’m nowhere near tired.

There are only two things that can make me feel better: learning and eating, and there’s nothing to learn or eat here right now.

---

“That was... odd,” Sam remarks. I can’t disagree.

“Yeah, uh, I have never seen her react like that before,” I reply.

“Any idea why?” she asks.

“No... none that come to mind. Sometimes I forget just how alien she really is, especially in the way she must think.”

She looks pensive as I put away the board game. “Alien or not, she looked downright distraught. Maybe the game wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

I sigh, releasing a week of frustration. “I wish I didn’t have to keep approximating things and watching my words to make sure she actually understands what I’m talking about.” I seal the box and put it back where it belongs. “She was obviously confused about the whole lesbianism thing, but it couldn’t have been about that, right? Or is she mad I gave her a blue piece instead of a pink one?”

“Who knows. Should we... I dunno, go try and talk to her or give her some space?”

I think for a moment. “Well... she didn’t seem in a talkative mood. She does that lip press thing like that sometimes and won’t speak so I’ll check later and see how she’s feeling. I think she likes fruit, do you mind if I give her the rest of our apples?”

She shakes her head. “Go ahead, I don’t mind. But you’re going shopping later.”

And so I grab the book I’d been reading earlier and continue it as Sam returns to her room. After an hour, I set it aside--with a bookmark this time--and go to check on Emeral, a bowl of apples in hand.

But I find only the cold night air seeping in from an open hatch.

---

A/N:

Home is... a bit of a sore spot with Emeral. All of this with Carey has been quite a distraction from the facts, but the way of things is that she will likely never return to where she belongs. All she can hope to do is learn more about the world around her and fight for that belonging here instead.

This is a very short chapter which is absolutely packed with Emeral’s feelings. I could have padded it with more descriptions about them playing Life but I felt it would be needless tedium which wouldn’t have contributed much. This is more of a ‘feelings and introspection’ chapter than an ‘Emeral pokes around with human stuff’ one. And for reasons that will be obvious come the next chapter... well, the cut-off point had to be here.