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 43: Judgement

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So that I don’t get food wrappers thrown at me I rap my knuckles three times on the door. It shakes in the frame and I hear a surprised shout from within. Whoops.

“Come in...” Sam demurely responds soon after.

I twist the knob and squeeze my way into her room, finding her seated at her computer desk. She takes the weird ear-covering thing off and sets it aside.

“Uh, hey, Emeral. Do you need something?”

I trundle past her to her bed where I lounge on my side. She follows me with her eyes but when I lie down they fight to wander to my lower belly and groin. A blush forms on her cheeks before she wrests them back to look me in my eyes.

Ah... right. Hm. Perhaps this is another reason why humans wear clothes: they think often of others’ parts. I adjust my position to make things easier for her; I am here to mend things, after all.

I blink and bare my teeth in a smile. “Hello Sam. You good?”

She awkwardly fiddles with her ear thing’s cord. “Uh, yeah. You spooked me a bit there.” She clears her throat. “How are you?”

It’s in the inflection of their words; their tone. It conveys their feelings as well as scentspeech would, and she is not eager to speak with me right now.

“Very good. Had bath. Talked with Carey. She said I good to apologize. For ‘icky licky.’”

Her brow and lips scrunch. “‘Good to...’ oh. Um, okay. Go on?”

I perform that throat-clearing thing humans do for some reason before they’re going to speak a lot or say something important; it comes out more like a coughing grunt. “You open when I was playing fun. I tease you for it. Was rude. I am sorry.” Belatedly I continue, “We friends still? We good?”

Her expression twitches and shifts. She blinks her dull green eyes and sighs. “Thank you, Emeral. It’s alright, and of course we’re still friends. You’d been... rather vocal.”

I grin wider. She gives me an odd look for some reason. Do I have food in my teeth? That shouldn’t be the case. I quickly give them a once-over with my tongue to be sure--only for her to scoff and look away.

“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you aren’t trying to tease me again, Emeral.”

I purse. “Sorry. Thought I had food stuck. Was checking, no tease. Sorry.”

Oogh, I hate not being able to convey my feelings properly! Humans can’t smell properly and I can barely talk. At least I can work on my speech and get better at it; they simply lack the instincts and acuity.

I decide to change the subject and glance past her to her computer screen. “What you doing, Sam?”

Her eyes briefly go wide before she schools her expression, her heartbeat rising for a moment as well. Tension. Anxiety. Shy? But ultimately she deflates and blows out a long breath.

“I was playing a game. You don’t have computers where you’re from, right?” she answers slowly.

I shake my head. “No computers. Many games. All of them outside, not in hole.”

For the hundredth time she becomes unrecognizable in expression, though it’s a bit of a ‘grimace’ expression. “Right. We do too, but I’ve never really been the kind of person for them. What sort of sports do you have?”

Sport... sport... I haven’t heard that one yet. “What a sport?” I ask.

“Oh, sorry. It’s a game that more than one person can play together and is usually very physic- uh, ‘outdoor tiring.’ Like running.”

Hmm. Yes. “Many. Run fast... fast? Most fast. Get food best. Grab-play-hunt. Hide and find. Not-sleep mother too; it good. Many good games,” I recount.

“So that would be... races, um, hunting--or maybe cooking?--uh, wrestling I think, and hide and seek. And whatever ‘not-sleep mother’ is.”

Do they not have wake-the-mother? I perk up and lean in closer to her. “Not-sleep mother very fun but very hard. Do things to own mother or other mother. Try not not-sleep... try not ‘wake.’ Do things.”

That interests her. “So pranks? That sounds like a lot of fun. Humans have stuff like that too.” She chuckles. “Carey loved torturing Mom and her friends with pranks when we were growing up. Have any good stories to share?”

I have lots! But some of them are harder to tell than others. “Good-good one was bury Mother in mud. Took time and sisters--Mother is big--but she stuck and need- needed other mothers to dig her out.”

She smiles as wide as I. “That sounds hilarious! And I think you mean ‘best,’ not ‘good-good.’ Was she your mother, or another kid’s?”

Right. She wouldn’t have noticed the slight scentspeech inflection I subconsciously added. “My and sisters. Best mother, big of big mothers, very strong!” I beam with pride.

She scoffs. “My mother would yell at me if I called her fat.”

I pause for a moment. “Fat? Like on meat? No, not fat. Big,” I correct her.

She blanches. “Uh, how big? I noticed you were growing larger... how big could your people get?”

I think for a moment, trying to recall how large she would be compared to a human object as reference, factoring in about how much larger I’ve grown.

“Mmm. Bigger than truck of Carey? Very strong. Best mother; she is mother-of-mothers.”

The ends of her lips go wide and flat, but somehow not as wide as her eyes!

“Holy shit, Emeral! If you got that big you wouldn’t even fit in the house! That’s not going to happen any time soon, right?”

“No,” I shake. “Much time or much food. Again and again my time of live.” Mother is approximately sixty wet seasons.

She looks only confused. “Wait, how old are you, anyway?”

I think hard on my many years. Age isn’t particularly something the Kin care about what with our development able to be sped up, but I’d say I’m... what, twenty wet seasons give or take a few? I hold up five fingers on each hand, flex out my eight toes, and offer my two scythes. “This. More maybe. Less maybe.”

Her hand comes up to cup and rub her chin. “So, about twenty. Your mother would be sixty then. She had you rather late.”

I nod. “Mother already strong. She made many sisters and many brothers before me.”

She does the weird human ‘whistling’ noise. “Wow. How big is your family?”

That question gives me pause. Of my immediate family I have a few dozen sisters of varying age--though some are dead--and countless more brothers who have either died, left to find a mate, or were reunited with us under the Skywar Brood. As for my extended family through cousins... well, I can’t even really conceptualize it.

“Many,” I utter. “Many, many, many. More sisters than age, more brothers than mother’s age. More of other-family than both, many-many over.”

She looks awed. “Okay, that’s... wow. Your mother is prolific. That has to be at least eighty kids then. Assuming she had kids every year that would mean at least two per year since she was twenty. Our mom is in her late fifties and she’s only had the two of us. One-to-forty.”

The number ‘eighty’ means nothing to me as Carey has focused on words and language over mathematics, which are... well, difficult to wrap my head around to say the least. Whatever numbers she’s spouting are probably right, even if I recall ‘eight’ being way too small.

She sits back, gazing at the ceiling with her hands clasped behind her head. “Well no wonder you were able to bury her in mud. You had lots of help.”

The conversation dies down so I get comfortable on my side, my tail hugged to my chest for Sam’s pickiness. She thinks in silence for a time further before grabbing her ear covering and putting it back on and returning to what she was doing.

It would seem that the main difference between a ‘television’ and a ‘computer’ is that the television only shows you things, though you can choose what is shown. Her computer is significantly more interactive. The mouse is for direct interaction with the screen and the keyboard’s symboled buttons are for completing that interaction. With her ‘game,’ she is pressing many of the same buttons constantly--potentially because the ‘letter’ has more relevance for some reason, or potentially because it has multiple uses. I’d previously seen on other keyboards that there are many more letters than Carey has passingly tried teaching me, and even some words.

There is little more that I can learn from passive observation.

“What your game, Sam?” I ask her. She jolts for a moment as if having forgotten my presence. She taps the board and the screen darkens, a square with rectangles on it appearing in the center.

Her body releases a minor note of sweet fear into the air for some strange reason and she looks pained again. “Oh, it’s... well, I don’t really know how to begin describing it to someone who’s never used a computer before.”

I give her an unblinking, four-eyed stare as I wait for her to continue. She withers under it but does so.

“...Um, you also wouldn’t know what all of these words mean. It’s a ‘real-time strategy game,’ which means things happen while you play it and you try to keep up and get ahead of your opponents.” Rather than continue her cringing she gets into the flow of discussing something she enjoys. “And you have to be both smart and fast to win because you need to figure out what your opponent is doing, counter it, and do that faster than they can react. But I’m playing the game alone right now against the computer.”

I give her a nod, though she was right: I’m just left confused. It’s some sort of game about being faster and smarter, which I can understand; just not in how it’s done.

“Thank you, Sam. Hope you good,” I encourage her.

She gives an easier smile. “Thanks. I’d like to think I am. Do you... have any other questions?”

I think for a moment. Hmmm. Nope. I’ll just keep watching. I shake my head and she goes back to her game.

It’s certainly different from my people’s pastimes of play-fighting, play-hunting, and simple lazing. While all of our games are for fun, they do still serve a purpose of training due to largely using the same skills one needs to survive. Even wake-the-mother is about stealth and cunning.

But what is this practice for, I wonder? Something to do with their hands and eyes?

Carey has said that Sam is better at cooking than her, and the difference in the two’s dinners is telling--but I still have a hard time believing that reaction times, vision, and precision would be good for that. They’d be great for hunting but from what I’ve seen Sam is nothing of the sort! She does some of Carey’s ‘exercise,’ but her flesh lacks the elder sister’s definition and suppleness.

The clicking and clacking stops. I blink open my eyes again and find her looking at me with a slight frown.

“Emeral. This might be a weird question to ask, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Back home, did you ever... have someone? That you cared about a lot?”

I think for a moment. Mother is an obvious one. I wouldn’t say I cared about my sisters a lot beyond being family. Uhh. Hm. Other than that, nope.

I shake my head. “No. Only Mother. Why?”

She gets that distant look her and Carey sometimes get when thinking about something they want to say. “Have you ever... loved someone? Like, had a boyfriend?”

I kink my neck back and tilt my head quizzically. She was right; that is a weird question.

“No. No ‘boyfriend.’ No babies. Why?”

“I was just wondering, is all. I didn’t realize it until now but you must be really lonely here. It’s just the two of us, and, well... there probably isn’t another of your people on Earth, right?”

I grunt noncommittally. She’s right, and I’ve tried not to think about it. “You right. Little lonely, but safe. Have food. Have things. I live. I grow.”

She idly rubs her neck. “Heh... yeah. I used to feel like that too, but when Carey disappeared I realized just how used to being down here that I’d gotten, and how scared I was of going outside. If she didn’t have her ‘adventure in the woods’ with you I doubt I’d have asked out Frank when, well... the opportunity was made for me.”

Hmm. Yes, Frank. Her lover and would-be mate. He smells nice; the shampoo he uses reminds me somewhat of a fruit from back home that I loved.

“I’ve been forcing myself to open up to other people.” She takes a deep breath and gathers herself. “...And I think you’ve been a lot of help for that, Emeral. You’re not like us, and if you have an opinion--as strange as they sometimes are--you just say it and you mean it honestly.”

I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about now. She lost me at fruity soaps. I just smile and nod which earns me good reactions from my Carey.

“So thank you, Emeral.” She rises from her chair and hugs my neck. “Just for being here. You’re a good friend even if you’re weird and hard to live with.”

I slip my tongue out and taste the nape of her neck. Hmm. Definitely not supple. And despite the faint smell of her fruity soap, she doesn’t taste like I’d hope; definitely more useful as a literal sister-of-sister.

She giggles and sits back. I think I get the intent of her message though, and it puts a smile on my own face. I feel a flutter deep within me as if I’d eaten a bird, but it’s deeper. I didn’t even realize it, but... I had actually missed this. I’d missed being around others. Though they may not be my peers, my Sam and my Carey are mine.

“Actually, I just had a funny thought. With that many girls running around your mother must have had a hard time keeping them out of trouble with boys.”

‘Trouble’ in this case I can only assume to mean fighting, and the bad kind of fighting rather than the fun kind. I haven’t seen anything yet that would indicate human males and females fight each other physically so she may mean something else.

“No. No trouble. Only fight when have fun or find boyfriend.”

“Ha!” she slaps her knee. “Fighting over boys. I can’t imagine how bad it would be if one guy had twenty women after him. It never got that bad though, right?”

I shake my head. “You right, but not all sisters. All fight for strong-of-strong boy every ‘year.’ Very good fighter, very strong, make many good babies.” As I speak her smile becomes strained. “But I not do. Want other strength.”

“Huh. Well... there’s a bit to unpack there. When you say ‘fighter’ you mean, like, he’s good at hunting? Or... hurting people?”

I nod enthusiastically when she suggests the latter. “Yes. Very good always. Need good to win, get best ‘girlfriend,’ and make best babies. Good hunter some, always good at kill other boys. Girls hunt best anyway.”

Her face drops. “Wait, kill?”

I nod again. “Yes. Too many boys, not many girls. Weak die. Strong live. Girls fight but no kill, boys kill two boys. Every year.” I feel a spark of pride for remembering the number ‘two’ from the attempted lessons.

Her mouth gapes open further with every word and she goes silent, eyes searching my own.

“That’s...” she drifts off. “That’s- I- I don’t...”

“Frank strong? He good boyfriend?” I interrupt. “Saw before; looked small for human. How do humans find humans?”

She does that thing again humans sometimes do, the distance-staring thing. We sit in silence as she slowly processes my words.

“...That’s fucked up, Emeral. I was just making a joke, but... why? That has to be... half of your population dead by adulthood.”

Ah. She thinks it’s a bad thing. I give her a slow nod. “Need do. Not enough food. Make only strongest boys. Best fighter makes babies. Babies grow. Babies learn. Boys fight and kill.”

She scoffs. “Why are there more men than women? Do two-thirds... um, two die and one live as babies?”

I shake. “No. Just is. It works. ‘Men’ fight, not brothers, not family, men die, best live. ‘Women’ fight, all sisters and sisters-of-sisters, all family. They fight, but no kill. Strong get strong, weak girlfriends get least strong boyfriends.”

She leans back in her chair and deflates. “So why didn’t you... take part in this, well... tragedy? You said you didn’t, and you wanted... ‘other strength.’ What does that mean?”

I puff up as best I can, laid down. “I wait. I learn. I grow strong in head, not only body. Want boyfriend who same, but did not happen. Was here before time.”

“I don’t know enough about your home to make comparisons- that’s, uh, different things but same,’ I guess. So, I can’t be sure what exactly your reasons are, but that’s something some people do here too. They want to try and find the perfect person to be with, but it doesn’t usually end well. Frank is...” She once again gets that far-off look.

“Strong?” I ask. “Strong in head? He small, so yes?”

She snorts. “Yeah, something like that. He’s not shitty like some guys, and I don’t know him as well as I should for being boyfriend and girlfriend, but that’s my own fault. I’ve been spending lots of time with him the past few weeks and... he’s just great. I couldn’t really explain it, Emeral. He’s just Frank. He’s strong in heart.”

I grunt out a scoff. Her words are nonsensical, though it does make me disappointed by her attachment that I can’t take his heart. Either he’s a strong mate or he isn’t. The two haven’t fucked yet so they must be deciding whether they like each other enough to do so as Carey had tried explaining. They’re trying to find if their love is there.

This is why our methods are better. You know if they’re strong or not right away.

“Do you regret it?” she asks. “Not finding who you were looking for, or at least that ‘true love’ they call it. Like what me and Frank have, as dumb as it sounds.”

It is as dumb as it sounds. ‘Real’ love? Love is friendship between mates and they’re already friends; they should just fuck already. As a ‘joke’ Carey once showed me something on the television she called a ‘soap’--which had nothing to do with shampoo--and complained about how it’s bad ‘writing,’ but fun to watch, and there’s lots of relationship stuff. The characters in it are usually in love but don’t do anything about it or they try and they complicate it.

The ‘story’ of these soaps just goes on for a really long time without the fucking happening. So here we have my Sam and her Frank, and they won’t fuck despite clearly liking each other. She comes home often with his smell on her clothes and a smile on her face. Perhaps they’re called soaps because they both use nice-smelling soap? Will they have found their love if they start using the same soap?

“...Yes,” I admit, pulling myself from my thoughts. “Can’t go home. No Kin here. Can only do sex with me. Thought of find a human.”

That sends her into a giggling fit. “Haha! Oh, girl, that’s good. The ‘find a human,’ part, not the... extreme loneliness part.” She frowns. “Damnit, now I’ve reminded myself of the killing each other thing again. Your home kind of sucks, Em.”

I rearrange myself on her bed and splay out a bit more now that she’s more comfortable being around me again.

“Dangerous home. Need to be strong. Not always that many dead; weak die anyway in forest.”

She lets out a sad sigh. “Yeah... well, look at it like this. Maybe you’ll find love here one day, and at least you didn’t leave anyone behind to wonder if you’ll ever come back.” She grimaces. “...Aside from your parents and your siblings. Eesh. Maybe don’t think about that part, then.”

I simply grunt. She’s right--along with Mother certainly being distraught. She loved us all equally, but she always kept a bit of a closer eye on me, listening more intently to my own successes of the day than my sisters’. She must be absolutely distraught.

I rise from her bed and make for the door, only knocking over her lamp on the way out. “Good talk, Sam. You good friend too. I rest now.”

She gives me a soft wave goodbye with a sheepish smile. Turning around and pulling the door closed behind me I see her righting her lamp.

...Whoops.

---

A/N:

I’ve deliberately been vague on Emeral’s actual age because it would complicate some stuff in the prequel and sequels if it was concretely mentioned, so as of now all she is is ‘about twenty.’ Considering how at the time of the story’s start she was roughly the size of a wolf prior to beginning her artificial growth and catapulting to the size of a large horse, her initial one is the size of a twenty-year-old Kin who doesn’t over-eat. Emeral however is actually now biologically 30 years old due to her overeating behind the scenes through Arcs 1 and 2. I believe I’ve mentioned before in an early author’s note that she was eating her life expectancy away, but the fact that she’s taken a decade off of her life in just a few months should really say something. For all their seeming strength, the Kin... well, they have a few downsides.

A tiny little detail that will almost certainly be missed is that Emeral thinks of the forests around Gold River as a jungle because she has no concept of the difference between the two words, so in the chapter she referred to her home as a forest rather than a jungle. Gotta have those little details. Another bit is Emeral’s usages of boyfriend and girlfriend. ‘Mate’ is used internally for Emeral when thinking about what her people do, but she speaks of human concepts as she can only speak of human concepts. She gets lots of English-learning in off-page between chapters but by and large major things like this you’ll see on-page. I did this for plot reasons but my disdain for stories with animalistic characters overusing the term ‘mate’ was channeled into it.