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 54: Much to Unpack

---

Icecream is easily the sweetest thing I have ever tasted! And that makes it the best!

It melts against my warm tongue, seemingly perfect for coating it so that I may enjoy its taste. This is the best idea that my Carey has ever had, and it's no wonder that sad humans eat it!

I give it a longer, slower lick to savor the strange new taste. I smack my lips a few times after in puzzlement over it.

“What taste?" I ask my sister.

She once more smiles wide in pride back up to me.

“Vanilla!" she exclaims. “There are lots of different flavors but vanilla is considered the most basic which is perfect for now."

With that answered I dig in for more. I'm on the fence about the chill... it reminds me of a feeling I get when chewing on ice, but... it's getting worse from my savoring. I continue licking at the mass of sugar; the cold won't dissuade me! The novelty of a new food is definitely helping me move on from my emotional brooding but while I may be a comfort eater it isn't entirely enough.

Mmmmm. I like icecream.

I continue to lick, less savoring and more shoveling it into my maw with my tongue. The chill builds... and builds... until finally... I feel it.

A shock of pain shoots through my palate!

“ACK," I blurt!

But Carey just... chuckles? I swallow and give her a pained glare.

“Haha, whoops. I forgot about that." She tries to suppress her grin. “I thought you'd have been used to it what with the ice chewing. You got a brain freeze."

I got a what? Freezing is bad for living meat and my brain is going to freeze! Why is this funny?!

I clutch my head and fret but feel her pat my shoulder.

“Don't worry about it," she encourages me. “It'll pass. Just, uh, eat it a bit slower."

True to her words, it does, though the sensation remains to a degree. It's one I won't forget, and it only gives me even more reason to want to stay inside.

I must have missed her entrance during my distraction for I can smell a labored Sam in my presence.

“Hey, uh, Carey?" she asks.

I look over and find her free of her winter coverings and back to her normal--if slick--clothes she had worn underneath. Humans sweat to cool down when they do hard work, so she must have really been putting an effort into competing with my Carey.

“What?" said sister asks.

Sam looks down to the tub of icecream before me and gestures to it.

“Is it... really such a good idea to let her have that? She's lactose intolerant, remember?"

Carey's brow scrunches, she glances to the tub, to me, and... a flash of sheer horror crosses her face!

“Oh fuck. Emeral, that's enough for now-"

She reaches to take the tub but I beat her to it, grasping it in both hands and holding it above her reach.

“Mine!" I proclaim. It's my sugary goodness!

The sisters share a look.

“Well..." Sam begins. “I see she's feeling better already. I got the shoveling done."

Carey just sighs and puts her face in her hands.

“Emeral... you can enjoy that icecream now or suffer later."

Why would I... oh.

'Lactose intolerance.' Milk. This is frozen milk, isn't it?

Oh well. I bring the tub back to my face and continue licking at the slowly melting meal. I've already polished off a third of it, I might as well finish the rest...

---

My belly has begun to make rumbling noises, but that's a problem for the future.

“Hey, I have an idea..." Carey begins.

“Is it better than your last one?" Sam snarks.

The older one fumes.

“Yes," she insists, turning to me. “Hey, Em, you've eaten your feelings, how about we get your crayons out again and you draw them?"

I perk up from the living room couch. It has been some time; I got caught up and didn't touch them since I first got them. I could make more drawings of my family, but... would that make me feel better?

I nod anyway and she goes to get them out from wherever it is she's stashed them.

In the meantime I catch Sam glancing at me. I stare back and flash her a smile but she simply grimaces and averts her eyes. I purse and internally squash the nagging worry trying to crop up that I've once again done something wrong I don't understand yet.

I've gotten used to it over my time here. Usually it's just because I look big and scary--honestly rightfully, given the pangs of hunger I've fought so hard to suppress looking at my not-food friends.

My Carey returns swiftly with a cardboard box she presents to me on the 'coffee' table after removing its lid. Within is a stack of the absurdly thin 'paper' and the colorful box of 'crayons.' At the sight of them I feel a different urge of hungering desire despite having eaten an entire tub of icecream, but I silence this too. They may have the colors of fruits but they absolutely do not smell or taste like them.

“Thank you Carey," I say as I grab for her, but unfortunately she withdraws.

I roll myself free from the couch to carefully fall to my feet and rise to seat myself hunched above the table. As careful and mindful as I can be I pick the crayons and papers out and prepare; the former already have a few scratches from my claws in their wax and the latter I must ensure not to accidentally puncture or tear.

My sworn sisters drift off to do their own things; Sam below, Carey as well after a moment's hesitation.

What to draw... what to draw...

Aha!

First I begin with the red one. Unfortunately there isn't a white one or any way to un-draw any mistakes, so I begin inside. I start by drawing a line then two corners beneath it, similar to the human 'letter' of 'T.' From there I turn the bottom two lines and bring them around to meet their other ends with another turn while leaving one shape larger than the other. Filling each is simple, as is connecting across the ends of the divides.

With my first piece of the day done I stop and marvel at it: a large, page-filling, and very bloody 'T-bone' steak!

Keeping the red crayon, I grab another page and begin anew. This one is far simpler: first I make a big curve up, around, down, and back in again, and then I repeat it flipped. I color this in, though I ensure a small 'oval' shape of blank white is left. To finish off the art I retrieve the brown crayon and draw a stubby line from the top indent.

This one is a nice and probably also juicy apple. Recalling my lessons on basic geometry, I am still not surprised humans have names for basic arrangements of an object's outline. Much like learning to communicate with words, so too have they made ways to explain the world around them through more than instinct.

Another page comes, and another food goes, interrupted only briefly by the realization that icecream is white... so that one just gets a circle-upon-a-circle and my best impression of myself sticking my snout in it.

Only finally do I stop on the banana, for this one is... different? Yes, different somehow. Art does seem to make me happier, but this one...

I like it more. The icecream was best for its taste, but this one is yellow.

It's a very human thing to have a favorite color. That... gives me a feeling of reassurance. It just makes me happy to see yellow and I can't really say why.

My thoughts drift to my family, and I wonder if they have favorite colors. I know that Sam's is red and Carey's is blue, but despite all her stories Mother has never spoken of this.

Soon the art begins again, and this time of family. Family together, family travelling, family in a tree, family hunting, family... fighting...

Great beasts. Each other. And the invaders...

I feel a drop in my belly... and a need to express it.

The red crayon sees much use. For blood, for fire, for death.

This... does not make me happy, but I continue all the same.

“Hey, don't mind me, I just need some more measurements..." Sam intrudes, having shown up at some point again.

I offer only a grunt and ignore her even as she begins to clamber all over and around me. She runs her string measure at points across me, mostly around joints and my torso's length.

I draw flight from fire. I draw tall intruders being set upon. I draw the battlefield of the raid, green and grey covered in brown and red. And I draw myself... bloody, with only three eyes and blood streaming from my jaws.

With a grunt I crumple and tear the offending art, for it has not done what I want.

“Woah, Emeral! What's wrong?" Sam asks. For a moment I'd forgotten she was even there, so lost in my feelings as I was. No desire to chew flesh and crush bone even came.

I eye her and find worry with a tinge of fear to her, as is too much the norm now. As for the page... I offer its pieces to her.

“Bad," I explain.

She takes the ball and begins to unravel it only for it to come apart in tatters. Her frown deepens and she collects them all up to piece back together upon the table.

She remains silent, but her expression tells me everything I need to know about what she finds.

No tears come even though it feels like they should. Humans may have favorite colors, but humans also cry when they're sad. And I... well, don't. Only when I'm really sad and hurt all over.

I feel a sense of growing agitation, both from my belly and my head, flowing all throughout my frame. I need to do something. I need to...

Hug. Instead of a string, my Sam wraps me in her arms as best she can with her tiny frame.

“Hey... it's okay. Carey told me about what happened, and you did the right thing."

I hear steps in the soft carpeting and find my Carey on approach. For once my instincts know precisely what to do.

I grab my drawings of death and sadness, crumple them all up together, and shove them in my mouth, gulping them down with only one swallow.

The two just... stare at me, in complete and utter shock.

“Uh..." Carey tries.

I give her a tired smile. “Ate sad memories," I explain... because she was right.

Now that did make me feel a little bit better, even if the soggy paper and wax tasted horrible.

Doing the right thing tastes bad now... but feels good later.

Sam just turns her look of shock and confusion to her sister, who shrugs.

“Hey, not my fault she's weird. I think she took my spiel about 'eating your sad memories and keeping your happy ones' a bit too literally."

She too comes in close, but rather than hug me as well she smiles and looks down to study what remains.

The steak. The apple. The banana. All the rest. Even the icecream I spared, despite the promised unpleasantness that shall come of its consumption. She looks up to me, her face brightened.

“Feeling better?" she asks.

I nod.

She takes the pages and simply walks off back the way she came. I shrug off my Sam and follow her to the basement and all the way to the lounge. From a drawer in the kitchenette she withdraws a few magnets and pins these below the happy ones of my family, and only now do I truly grasp what she meant.

I have made these. They're mine, and... any time I'm feeling down I can look at them and remember that I did it.

I do feel better. Going forward, I don't need to be the monster I knew I was. I can choose, and... the hunger has become tame. I glance at the two and feel only kinship. They are my friends and my family, and never shall they be food so long as any of us live.

I may never return home, but if I do, I can choose to make things better by trying to stop the killing and enlighten my people through art. Mother is wise and would understand if only I could explain.

For now, I have more to create.

---

Despite the feeling that I should be resting, I just can't. Both the rumbling and lingering agitation remain and disrupt me, and so I sit in silent thought watching my creations, my frustration having been channeled into more of them.

One of the new pages depicts a herd of elk among trees. Another shows me and Carey in a cave both with smiles, and another is my best scribblings of Carey's face. My favorite of all I have made so far contains me flanked by my new friends, all sitting down and watching a movie. In it my Carey is dressed in blue and my Sam in red. Sadly I don't have clothes otherwise I would probably be yellow and not a dull but youthful brown.

I shall remain here, complacent and happy...

...Until the two return once more, that is.

They enter with no greeting needed, but spare only a glance to me in my corner. Instead they head for one of the stranger oddities within the house I have grown used to: the pile.

I don't understand the things inside of the pile of boxes, so it's just... the pile.

One by one each sister grabs a box and hauls it away with a smile on their face. In my own mounting confusion I just... watch.

But finally the pile is mostly gone. They go for the fake tree's box and I can't stay quiet any more; I need answers about this esoteric behavior.

“What are you doing?" I ask.

“Christmas!" Carey explains as she picks up one end of the box while Sam hefts the other.

I peel my lips back in a subconscious bid for her to elaborate. She peels her own back in a smile.

Sam just sighs.

“Remember Halloween?" she questions. “Christmas is another holiday."

It's been a month, but yes, I do. I didn't particularly pay too much attention to it, but I knew enough to stay inside that night, alone in the house as the sisters went off to some gathering in odd clothes. 'Costumes' are what they and the human families out and about had been wearing. Make-believe like the horror movies where they dress up as fearful things--or regular animals, or even weirder things like food items. There were also lots of what I know to be very inaccurate human skeletons depicted around.

Suffice to say, it's a human thing where they do human things and enjoy human life.

“Yes," I eagerly respond.

What's next? Something to do with a fake tree, socks big enough for me, and those colorful orbs...

Were it not for them already having been here when I moved in I'd have assumed the socks were for me. I tried one on anyway but it was definitely shaped for a human foot, if one that's very stubby.

“I can bring it up by myself, you explain it to her," Carey says.

Sam looks between the large box and her before shrugging. The strong of the two just adjusts her grip and starts dragging it out and into the hallway.

“Alright, so..." she begins, pacing idly. “Christmas is about family. That means eating good food together, spending time with distant relatives, and giving gifts. You'll probably love the turkey dinner."

That's... a bit of a mixed bag. Good food is great--especially if Sam thinks I'll especially like it--but that does serve as another reminder I'm not with my blood family, only my sworn one, and not of the mate kind. But gifts? I've had a terrible track record with that, this could be my chance to redeem myself.

“Tree? Socks? Balls?" I inquire.

“The Christmas tree, stockings, and ornaments," she explains with one arm crossed, ticking each off with her fingers from the other hand before beginning to gesticulate. “The ornaments go on the tree, the stockings go above the fireplace, and presents go under the tree and in the stockings."

What a strange holiday indeed.

So: a fake tree is made and unusable socks are crafted. The tree is... what, decorated with the ornaments? And then the huge socks are used to hide gifts. The ornaments are very intricate, colorful, and dazzling so they might be to distract from the presents below.

“We'll be done putting everything up in a few hours. Carey got the lights outside done yesterday so you'll be able to see them tonight. That's about it."

Hrm. I wave her off and lay my head back down on my pillow. She snorts indignantly, grabs a box, and leaves.

“Drama queen..." she mutters, the words unfamiliar but her tone decidedly not.

Pah.

---

As I leave and pass by Sam's open room, a mass of yellow cloth catches my eye. A part of me wants to investigate but it's nothing, probably just some of her strange clothes.

There will be time to snoop later.

The basement stairs creak ominously beneath my inhuman weight but hold for my ascent. With the angle of the sun through a window below as my estimate, I napped for a few hours. Surely they will have finished their work by now.

The first new change I spot upon entering the hall is a plastic circle of foliage set upon a shelf of drawers. It looks like it's supposed to mimic a twirled branch of a local tall-thin tree, but oddly enough has similarly fake little red berries scattered about its length. Fruits from trees is normal, but I've only ever seen extremely inedible wood cones from the tall-thin ones. Human yards occasionally had a variety of ripe fruits I would pick clean, but that was well before the snows, and those trees were shorter and squatter.

The scent of the sisters emanates from the living room, so I follow it to the source.

The wreath was just the beginning.

Most obvious is the false tree and its colorful baubles, but almost everywhere I look the scene has changed. Carey turns and I'm surprised to find that even she has decorated herself differently, wearing an eclectic and colorful shirt composed of thicker strands. Atop her head is a red cap with a white and fluffy brim. Strangely and seemingly inefficiently the cap rises and falls to a drooping point, its end tipped with a white puff. It could perhaps fall back and warm the rear of the neck, but...

Humans. Strange ideas, strange holidays, and strange clothings.

Sam in contrast has not changed and her eyes keep flashing to her sister's garment as she purses.

Discomfort, rather than dialogue unwanted.

That is stranger than the clothes.

“Merry Christmas!" Carey calls to me in greeting.

I cast my gaze around and further study the arrival of this new celebration. The socks have been hung up on the mantle of the contained fire. Said fire is lit, but now that I pay closer attention I notice that the logs within are fake and the fire is sprung from nothing, likely fueled the same way the stoves are. A fuzzy blanket of the similar red-and-white scheme as most everything else is folded upon the couch, and between the tree's shade and the living room's carpet is a thin circle of fabric with many designs and depictions upon it.

Likely guessing at my thoughts, Carey speaks up.

“We didn't decorate much for Halloween; some people do, but a costume party with friends was enough for us. Christmas is different though, you need to really change your surroundings to help get in the mood, you know?"

I did not really know or understand enough back then to get the whole 'Halloween' thing, but that does make sense. The only similarity I can think of in my people's culture is the painting of armor plates for rituals, the glyphs acting as trophy and attractor both.

Hmmmm... that gives me an idea...

“Know," I grunt, but I recall Halloween and its decorations lasting for weeks around the town. “Number of days until Christmas?" I ask.

It wouldn't do to not have a gift ready in time!

“A few weeks of this," Sam explains. “Carey loves Christmas. Not enough to start it too early like some people, but you can bet she's going to be wearing those sweaters for an entire month."

She gives Carey's 'sweater' another glare. I approach closer to get a better look, prompting a wide smirk from her as she proudly shows it off. It isn't just colors; similar to the cloth beneath the tree, it has imagery. This one's is covered in...

...Hamburgers?

Rising in lined sections, side-to-side, bun-to-bun, are dozens of hamburgers. Burgers up the sleeves, burgers at the waist, burgers at the neck-hole, and a large burger on the front. She turns to show me its back, and I find there printed a short few words. I strain my neglected lessons in lettering as I slowly mouth it out...

“I... got... buns... hun."

Sam lets out a weary sigh.

“It's every year, and she's got an entire wardrobe of them."

“One per day!" its wearer exclaims. “Almost. I get a new one every year. In a couple I'll have enough I won't need to wear any of the same twice."

I give her a nap-groggy three-eyed staredown. It's certainly an odd tradition--whatever the sweater says--but then nothing is odd when everything is strange.

But, I suppose it's something I like about my Carey: she is spirited, keen, and good at scratching itches beneath the edges of my plates.

“But wait," she continues, “there's more!"

...Said spirit has certainly experienced a rebound after my mood's thaw. There is a manic energy to her I have never before seen, her scatterbrained behavior increased tenfold.

What could possibly have gotten her so absurdly excited? Gifts and good food are great, but this is something else entirely.

---

A/N:

This was a rollercoaster of a chapter where a lot of things happened Emeral is sad, Emeral begins to feel happy again, but the big sad comes back, only to be beaten through friendship. Then, it crimmas. There is indeed much to unpack about this chapter, especially what with it being the penultimate chapter before the end of Arc 4. You may also have noticed Emeral's general speech and dictation improving, courtesy of the weeks-long time-skip last chapter where she didn't particularly do anything other than lay around and mope while practicing with Carey.

Have you finally realized yet that this entire book is a metaphor for being some horrible creature without realizing it residing in the basement, wanting to fit in better and needing to change, running into a bunch of problems, and finally coming to terms with who you are and who you want to be? Yeah. It is. I've said before that this book is a passion project and I meant it; that this book isn't an erotica for porn's sake, it's the story of a young and naïve individual lost in a hostile world they don't truly understand. One used to being in a dangerous and unsafe environment that was ultimately all they knew, where all of their friends were too. Unsafe safety, fighting to stay where they felt happy from bitter pleasures and fading victories.

This isn't just Emeral's story. It's the story of a lost generation.

Anyway, Emeral is at times a smidge immature by human standards despite being a fully-grown (and then some) adult with deaths to her name. She's pretty easily impressed by many human things because they're so novel to her; we take for granted the fact that you can just grab a piece of paper and draw what you want, but for her, that's... not really a thing. The concept of drawings just doesn't exist in her cultural background. There's some painting, but it's not really normal to draw an object.

She's also got a serious sweet tooth. She already likes fruits in general (as do most Kin), but she's been shown even sweeter things now and, uh... that totally won't get her into trouble later, right?

Right.