Elliot had assumed the metallic ringing that filled the gaolhall to be a city watch smith beating an errant blade into shape. When Sasha pulled open the reinforced door leading to a corridor of barred cells, and the clattering music poured out from within, he realised he’d been mistaken. A shouting voice from the gloom, a song to accompany the monotonal rhythm, revealed the truth of the sound.
“A pox on vile humanity, the foul scourge of Gaia!” bellowed the prisoner. Her deep, resonant voice shook the air in concert with her metal commotion. “Put me beneath your boots? Nay! Wrath of ages consume you! Death to the usurpers of the natural cycle!”
“Good luck,” said Sasha with a roll of her eyes. She took up a casual lean beside the open doorway, producing a creak of oiled leather as she did, and her smile was made sharp by the little scar on the edge of her lip.
“Has she said anything at all?” Elliot asked her.
“She’s said plenty. Listen to her.”
“May rot consume you, children of filth! May the-…”
“I mean anything practical,” Elliot amended. “Anything like a request for help? Anything that could help our case with her?”
“Nah, just this,” said Sasha. “Just a lot of this. Sure this is worth the trouble?”
Elliot nodded to cover a sigh of resignation. “I hope so.”
Leaving his escort behind, Elliot walked down the row of cells. He tugged at the hem of his green-and-gold coat of office and brushed the cover of his leather binder of documents. Then he touched at his hair. If possible, he’d like not to grant their guest more reason to call him a ‘child of filth’.
All the cells were empty save the noisy one at the very end. Elliot bent to grab a three-legged stool from inside the adjoining cell and placed it before the bars of the sole captive. He didn’t sit right away, since that would have been rude. He stood as tall as he could and smiled as if he wasn’t being pelted with sharp percussion. He waited for the woman in the cell to acknowledge him.
This took a while, so Elliot used his time to let his eyes grow accustomed to the sight of her. He’d need to do away with awe if he was going to speak with her on her level. But it was difficult. Awe continued to rise over and over, a flurrying flame in his belly.
The prisoner was a spirit of the forest of Ilvarith, a creature of ancient myth, based on Elliot’s best guess. But for all the antiquity of her origin, she held a human shape. Two fleshy arms, two long legs. Very long. Even seated knees-up on the stone beside the bars as she was, it was clear the woman was at least eight feet tall, and her bundled posture made the cell appear cramped. Her skin was rich and dark, the luxurious purple of calla lilies. She was heavy-set with broad curves and thick thighs, rounded cheeks and soft lips.
Her hair was a long cascade of bound braids, a harvest field of dry, rope-like fronds, which fell about her frame and tumbled to the stone beneath to obscure her shape. The braids were deep green like old moss for the most part, though many wove straw-yellow and snow-grey into their pattern. Her eyes, peeking between a thick braid of hair that trailed alongside her nose, were big, round and black, lacking visible irises. They reflected the winter’s sunlight despite the limitations of the barred window worked high up on the stone wall of her cell.
The woman scowled as she ran a pewter mug back and forth along the bars of her cage. She didn’t take her night-pool eyes off Elliot as she continued her tirade.
“I abjure you, humanity!” she snapped. “Vermin! I abhor the sight of you! Return to your filthy caves and pass away! All you are good for is the nourishment of the soil with your corpses! All you are… good for…”
Her eyelids fluttered, her strong shoulders faltering and her head dipping with fatigue. She beat her dented mug against the bars once, twice, a third time… then let her hand drop to the stone.
In the quiet, Elliot took his seat. He held his smile and rested his papers in his lap. His ears were ringing. “May we speak?” he asked.
The green-haired giant fixed him with a bitter scowl, but she said nothing.
“I would like to help you,” Elliot continued. “I would like to get you out of this cell, if I can.”
“Then go, fetch the toothed device from the belt of yon servant of corruption and open the way,” she replied with a hoarse voice, nodding weakly up the corridor in the direction of Sasha. Though clearly fatigued, her tone birthed reverberations in Elliot’s bones. Her breath was a force against his seated frame that made him want to lean away.
“I wish it were that simple,” he said. “Why don’t we start from the beginning? My name is Elliot. I work with Layman’s Office of Municipal Integration. May I have your name?”
“Must you have it?” she spat.
“It would be very helpful,” he said, recalling the first entry on the paper in the binder.
The verdant woman gave a heaving sigh. The thick strand of hair beside her lip didn’t seem to bother her, though Elliot would have pushed it aside for her if he’d been able. “Then I permit you to use the ancient moniker thrust upon me by your ancestors. You may call me Sycamore.”
Elliot beamed. “Ah, like the tree? That’s great. We have a sycamore tree in the Castle Layman courtyard.”
Sycamore sneered. “I know.”
He swallowed, unsure what to make of that. “S-So. Sycamore, I’d like to hear your account for what occurred this morning, if I may.”
The giant heaved her body from against the wall, grunting her exertion all the while. She shuffled on her bum until she was facing Elliot cross-legged. Her dry hair ran down her shoulders and over her breasts, pooling at her thighs to obscure her sex. She planted her hands on her knees and bent forward at the waist. Her black eyes shone like freshly sharpened blades.
“Hear this tale of woe then, Elliot of Layman,” she intoned. “And gird yourself. A man of principle shall surely become slave to the same righteous fury as burns bright in my chest. I was about my duties in the domain of the old ones.”
“The eastern edge of the forest of Ilvarith, this would be?”
Sycamore shook her head. “Il-var-ith. Say it correctly, if you must speak the enlightened tongue at all.”
Elliot pressed his lips together. He hadn’t heard a difference in their pronunciations. “What happened then?”
“Then, lo, I was forced to cease the song of Gaia on hearing the plaintive cry of a fellow in peril! I rushed from the glade to find one of the old ones a-fallen in the dirt! And cavorting in their suffering, a cohort of mongrels with weapons drawn and soaked in the sap and splinters of their prey! Murderers!”
Elliot nodded. Those would be the five men from the West City Logging Union. Obviously, even an established labour union didn’t have the right to fell a tree from the elven forests, only the sparser, coarser trees to the north. They were currently sequestered in Sasha’s mess hall, awaiting judgement. Not on themselves, but on this green giant they had brought in.
“Did you say anything to them?”
“Nay!” Sycamore scoffed. “Such as they have no understanding of words, Elliot! They communicated with my kinsman using the tongue of violence!”
She bared her teeth in a savage grin. “I returned their words in kind.”
“You fought them,” Elliot translated.
“A simple measure to teach them the error of their ways.”
“One of the men claims he’ll never be able to lift an axe again.”
“I may have heard a snap in my furore,” Sycamore replied with a shrug. “But the beasts did not receive their lesson dutifully, so I was forced to elevate my ire. Then more came, dressed in green and blowing whistles. And in short order, I was beset with ropes and carted off to this dank hole of stone. Though I have done nothing this morn but defend the natural order!”
Elliot crossed one leg over the other and sat up straight on his stool. “I have a couple of questions.”
“Your tone suggests I shall not like them,” Sycamore growled.
“Did you see the men cut down the Ilvarith pine? By your account, the deed was already done by the time you appeared. Or they didn’t actually cut it down at all.”
Sycamore’s eyes widened. “You truly mean to say they are innocent?”
“According to West City, the team you saw was attending to a building project on the north side of our Low Town. The only logging they had done today took place in Layman lands to the north. They took a stroll at the edge of Ilvarith and found-…”
“Il-var-ith.”
“…-the fallen tree as it was when you came upon them. Then you attacked them, allegedly without provocation.”
“Lies!” Sycamore shouted, raising her mug again and slamming it against the iron. “They felled the ancient one, I know it! You believe such falsehoods?”
“From the perspective of the city, it is your word against theirs,” said Elliot. He held his hands tightly together to keep them from visibly shaking. “And you are… an unknown in the Layman city legal structure.”
“I know not these words!”
“You… Um, you don’t have any support, a family or such. You are… F-From a purely bureaucratic perspective, you are like a-a wild animal, not a human. And we cannot offer legal support to an animal.”
Sycamore stared. Her round face was fixed with the rumbling shadow of a thundercloud. Her braids of hair twitched and wriggled along their lengths as if under an invisible breeze. Her fingers, still holding to her knees, grew tight like talons.
“An animal?” she seethed. “Outrageous.”
“Yes, it is,” said Elliot. “It’s awful. I’m afraid humans have very short memories, Sycamore. Nobody has seen a… a person like you in generations. A lot of folk in the city would doubt your kind even exists. Th-That’s why I’m here,” he continued quickly as Sycamore raised her bent mug again. “I can’t change the whole legal system for you, though we’re all trying. But I can help, if you’ll permit me. I can offer a means of granting you justice. If you’re willing to trust me.”
She said nothing, but her twisted lip spoke volumes. Her jaw moved back and forth, chewing her tongue bitterly like over-seasoned meat. But she wasn’t outright dismissing him.
“Here.” Planting both feet on the stone once more, Elliot opened the binder in his lap. “We call this a certificate of aegis. Folk in the Low Town can use one to access the city as if they were a born citizen. And the application doesn’t require a recipient to be human; we made it that way intentionally. We could give you the same rights as a resident of Layman. And those rights come with legal support for those who need it. We can plead your case for you.”
He smiled, letting his optimism flow from him. But it didn’t take root. Sycamore continued to glower.
“And this… writ,” she said with an open sneer, “would tie me to your city?”
“Note of your cooperation would be stored in our records, but we wouldn’t ask anything of you.”
“Then what is the basis of this generosity, if I must pay no cost for it?”
“The hope is that opening up the city to a more diverse population will provide increased… um,” said Elliot, briefly losing his nerve under her twilight stare. “Um, increased market fluidity, populace stretch over particularly secondary industries, a reduction in the effects of the class d-divide… It’s our oath to you,” he said in the end. “Castellan Thaddeus believes cooperating with the kin of humanity will make our city better. To that end, we will swear an oath of support to honour our side of that cooperation and hopefully encourage your participation.”
He let out a breath and resigned himself to silence. In his anxiety, he’d forgotten who he was talking to. Sycamore wasn’t a guild master or city noble. She didn’t care about market fluidity.
But when he looked up from his lap, the blank application he was intent on completing, he saw Sycamore’s expression had softened. She was sitting up straight, and her fingers were relaxed and soft on her bare thighs. She wasn’t smiling, Elliot should be so lucky. But she no longer looked ready to pounce upon him.
Something of his surprise must have revealed itself on his face, as Sycamore flinched back, rosy red suffusing the lily purple of her round cheeks.
“Very well,” she said, turning up her nose. “I shall invite you to swear to me, Elliot of Layman. Until your oath to me becomes burdensome.”
“Great. Thank you.” Smiling with relief, Elliot slipped a hand into his coat and retrieved a sealed quill and vial of ink. “I just need a little information from you. Most of the certificate we can fill in already. I have your name.”
“Or a clumsy version of it,” said Sycamore with a smirk.
“As your reason for entering the city, I’ve put down… legal consultation. Then I’ve added a few dates here to align you with this morning’s incident. We’ll also need a guarantor. That’s someone who can provide personal support for you while you’re here. I’ve written Castellan Thaddeus by his request, which is very impressive.”
Sycamore raised one brow. “It is?”
“If you are looking for someone to represent you in a trial, you couldn’t ask for better.”
“And I am to trust this ‘Castellan’ of yours? Despite having never met him?” asked Sycamore. “I am to trust that I can go into your castle, to the very chambers of this oh-so important human, for counsel whenever I need aid? That he will set aside the running of his realm for my sake?”
“Th-That’s the idea,” said Elliot with a wince.
Sycamore shook her head. Her braids brushed back and forth across her smooth skin. “If you are true to this oath, put your own name. Swear yourself to me, not your regal lord.”
“Oh.” Elliot’s quill hovered over the parchment. “I’m… I’m not that…”
But he couldn’t keep the smile from surfacing. “I’ve never been a guarantor before. If you’re sure I’m good enough, Sycamore… I’d be honoured.”
There was that rosy glow again under her rich skin. Sycamore’s wide eyes drank Elliot up. “Very good,” she said softly.
“And that’s it.” Elliot resealed his quill and lay it on the page. “We usually have to submit this through the scrivener’s hall, but I’ve been told we can forgo that step just this once. I just need a mark on the page to confirm you agree.”
He passed the paper through the bars. Sycamore eyed it with narrow distrust.
“You are aware paper is made of trees, are you not?” she asked. “This is in poor taste.”
“Sorry,” said Elliot.
Sycamore pressed her thumb against the bottom of the page. The fine layer of dirt on her skin left a labyrinthine, grey mark. It would do.
“And now we are bound,” said Elliot. “I hope I’m worthy of you, Sycamore.”
“As am I,” she replied.
“Just one moment.”
Elliot stood and turned to face up the corridor. Sasha, sensing his attention, leaned around from the well-lit room beyond.
“This citizen of Layman has witnessed the illegal logging of the trees of Ilvarith, protected under the First Treaty,” he called. In the echo of his words, Sycamore whispered, “Il-var-ith.”
“Really?” said Sasha with a cat-with-the-cream smirk. “That’s a dire crime, and no mistake. In violation of the First Treaty? We’ll have to investigate. Please thank your citizen for her help, then send her on her way.”
She unhooked a key from her belt and tossed it down the corridor. Elliot, naturally, was unable to catch it around the paperwork he was already holding.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go arrest some lumber-twats,” she said, then winked before sealing the door shut behind her.
“That is… truly all that needed to be done?” asked Sycamore as she was unsealed from confinement. “This all feels trivial, Elliot.”
“I know what you mean,” he replied, drawing the cage door open with a rattle of metal.
“But if you are now bound to support me in my need…”
With a bold smile, she reached her hand to him. “I would ask that you support me with your strength, and would escort me home.”
Elliot took her hand. Her skin was warm. “My pleasure,” he said.
* * *
Moving from the city walls to the forest of Ilvarith required passing through Low Town’s main thoroughfare. Elliot had asked Sycamore if she was comfortable being witnessed, and she had scoffed.
“Let the short memory of humanity see me and recall,” she had said.
She walked close beside him now as they passed the Dancing by Lantern. Sycamore brought her height into sharp relief with the graceful gait of her sturdy legs and a proud rise of her braid-curtained countenance. She received the stares of the populace with a warm, content smile. She could have been a queen passing through her realm. She didn’t even seem to mind how the street’s thick mud clung to her feet and seeped between her toes. Knowing her kind as he did, which wasn’t much outside of stories, Elliot wondered if she enjoyed being close to the earth.
But her hand on his shoulder was heavy. She took full advantage of his strength to keep herself upright. Once or twice, her pace faltered as she slipped in the mud.
“We can stop to rest if you like,” he said as they crossed the intersection and continued west, keeping his voice below the shocked murmuring of passers-by.
“No,” Sycamore replied at once. “No, this place shall not nourish me. I require sun. I must replace myself in the cycle.”
Elliot nodded. He didn’t believe the winter’s sun would be any different in Ilvarith as it was on the Low Town high street, and he didn’t know a thing about this ‘cycle’ of hers. But it was lunchtime, and the people of Low Town were out in droves. They flocked the street corners and hung from windows to gawk and whisper at Sycamore’s passing. Many smiles, much childlike wonder. Only a little fear. But whatever the awesome resilience of the spirit’s pride, Elliot would rather she was out of sight. She didn’t deserve being made a spectacle.
“I see your kind will truly not prevent my leaving,” Sycamore chuckled as they reached the edge of town, left the road and began the climb that would take them to the treeline. None from Layman had followed, thank the Almighty. “I had believed this all a trick of humans to capture me more tightly. But lo, we are almost beyond their reach. I am… relieved.”
“I’m sorry this all happened to you,” said Elliot, digging his shoes into the earth to keep himself steady on the rise. “As happy as I am that we got to meet, I wish it had been under better circumstances. Circumstances that didn’t involve breaking a man’s arm.”
Sycamore laughed, or perhaps that was the creaking bark of Ilvarith’s trees as they swallowed him up. “That filth shall demand a blood-price for my harm to him, if I know humans.”
“Any fines West City demands can be taken out of their punishment for defying the First Treaty.”
“Which is what? Execution? I dearly hope so.”
“Not in Layman,” Elliot said with an uncertain grin. “Sorry. The elves would have agreed with you, but our ambassador managed to negotiate treaty-breaking down to seasons of toil in recompense for their harm. Community service, as we call it. And that tree had been standing for many seasons… They may be working off their debt for the rest of their lives.”
“A life served, or a death celebrated,” said Sycamore. “I cannot say which is more just. Never mind. It is now behind me, and the ancient one remains fallen regardless.”
By this point, the two of them were well within the gloom of the forest of Ilvarith. Home of the elves and birthplace of legend. The sunlight filtered through the evergreen canopy above and made the air shimmer with a silver gilding. Elliot’s shoes crunched through the icy stiffness of undergrowth. And when the wind rushed between the great ethereal pines, it sounded a lot like singing.
“Do you deal much with the elves?” he asked.
“When they see fit to acknowledge me,” Sycamore replied. “Unlike humans, elves recall my importance in this place. Some even remember a time before my kind. But they are flighty, and it is easy to arrest their interest away from the old ways. They often have to be reminded that I crave attention just as they do.”
“Have you ever met the King?”
“I laid that crown upon his head,” said the spirit with a beaming smile, half hidden behind her thick braids. “I sealed his rule into the ancient soil.”
“What does that mean?”
Sycamore laughed again. This time, the sound was warm like spring sunlight. She bumped her grand frame against Elliot, letting him feel the weight of her hip.
“That is not for young ears to hear,” she said.
Elliot fancied he had an idea of what she meant. She had a human woman’s body; she likely knew how to use it. He chuckled, since he didn’t want Sycamore to think him a child, but the sound was awkward and clumsy and did him no favours. And he was sweating, he realised when a bead of moisture dripped across his nose.
Sweating? Elliot frowned, peeking up again at the sun between the boughs. Was its light stronger now? It didn’t feel like winter at all.
“And thus, we have arrived.”
They passed together between the trees, and Elliot gasped. A wide glade stretched out before him, and sunlight poured from a cloudless sky above, thick and heavy like golden honey. The trees bordering the glade burned with verdancy, green enough to make Elliot dizzy, and the earth was thick with a carpet of tall blades of grass.
And flowers! Elliot’s head swam as it tried to take in the luscious field of petals. They stood tall enough to brush his knees, and their wide, colourful heads faced the sun in silent celebration, wafting gently in the breeze.
Elliot had seen the maps Layman held of the forest, and he didn’t recall anything like this being present. How long had they been walking?
“Oh… wow!” he breathed, and his exclamation brought air, heavy with pollen, spilling into his lungs. He coughed, and it looked to him as if the flowers bobbed their heads towards him in recognition of the sound.
Sycamore strode confidently into the glade, casting up more yellow motes of pollen in her wake. Her smooth arms were outstretched to receive the sun’s rays, and her laughter was musical.
“At last!” she sighed. “I am returned!”
Elliot watched, spellbound, as the spirit took her long hair between her fingers and lifted. The braids acquiesced to her motions and followed on, rising from the ground on their own momentum. Smiling all the while, Sycamore bundled her heavy hair into a thick wrap atop her head with gentle movements of her fingers, and the hair acquiesced. As she brushed the fronds into order, they blossomed. The grey and yellow strands turned green and vibrant, and little buds grew and then burst across her crown, opening into a coronet of pink and yellow flowers.
“Oh, wow,” said Elliot again. But his eyes only stayed fixed to the marvellous transformation of her locks for so long. Eventually they were dragged down to her exposed flesh.
Out in the sunlight, Sycamore’s sunset-purple skin had taken on a warm, bronze underglow as it soaked up the beams. She radiated heat and vitality across the whole of her tall, heavy form. And Elliot’s eyes explored it all. The staggering curve of her weighty breasts, nipples dark as blackberries. The soft excess of her hips. And between her grand thighs, green pubic hair like a bundle of soft moss.
“W-Wow…”
She was watching him, he realised belatedly. Sycamore’s smile was coy, laced with the same heat as her skin. She invited his eye and proudly approved of his fascination. The intensity of her gaze made his mouth dry, so he licked his lips, tasting that thick pollen in the air.
“I-It’s so warm,” he said to dispel some of the tension. “This doesn’t feel like winter at all.”
“Winter? It is spring.”
“I… don’t think so. It won’t be spring for a few weeks yet. And this feels like late in the sunny season, when it was so cold back in the city.”
“That was your world,” said Sycamore with a wide smile. “This is Ilvarith. Here it is spring, if the King so decrees.”
“O-Oh,” he said, then let out a nervous chuckle. “Am I even allowed to be this deep into Ilvarith?”
“Il-var-ith,” said the spirit. “And yes. There was a time when many of your kind would venture to this place. See how the petals remember you?”
Elliot stepped into the glade. The flowers brushed at his trousers, but they swayed out from under his feet before getting stepped on.
Sycamore turned her voluptuous body to greet him. As he neared, she reached down and brushed his cheek with her fingernails.
“I have considered your words to me from when I was imprisoned,” she said. “When you named yourself as an agent of your city. You claimed that my cooperation would aid your home. You offered me gifts to see that cooperation blossom.”
“Yes,” said Elliot, awash in her gravity. “That’s right.”
“Then we are the same,” said Sycamore. “Your agency is in the movement of words on a page and humans in a city. You move them so that all residents might flourish together, and your city with them. My agency is in the growth of new life here in the forest, the disassembly of what came before. But all for the prospering of my realm. Just like you.”
Sycamore granted him another smirk, then turned and strode away, her fingers trailing along his chin. Elliot dazedly followed her. His brain was full of the heady scent of the flowers, and his eyes remained glued to the luscious bounce of Sycamore’s exposed rear.
“This forest has no need of humans,” she said as she walked. “It has been growing since long before your species appeared beneath its boughs. But it has at times welcomed the cooperation of that which sits outside the cycle. There is strength in experiencing novelty, just as you claim is true for your city. Elliot…”
At the sunny centre of the glade, Sycamore turned. The graceful spin of her body made colours swim in Elliot’s vision like streamers of light, and he realised he was giggling nu couldn’t fathom why. Sycamore joined her voice to his.
“They have missed you,” she told him. “They are needy. Else they would not be overwhelming you with their scent. Elliot, you who have sworn yourself to my aid, won’t you offer them what they crave as partial recompense for your people’s crimes today? The earth could use a good meal. I could use one. The fallen pine could yet be reborn if I had but a little nutrition to work with.”
“You need…” Elliot said, swaying on his feet in the pollen-rich air, “you need… food?”
“Just a little. Here.”
Sycamore approached. She placed her hands on his shoulders. Towering over him, her bust was at Elliot’s eye height, and it took concentration not to bury himself in softness. Sycamore moved around him, touching him all the while, and stood at his back.
“Take a seat,” she whispered down into his ear. “Take your ease. Let the earth have its fill.”
He needed no encouragement. Awash in the floral scent of the glade, Elliot would have willingly done anything to keep Sycamore’s attention on him. He sat down in the flowers, and the spirit knelt behind him. Then she eased him backwards. Elliot found himself lying on his back, his head resting on Sycamore’s pillowy thighs, staring up at her smile, her breasts, the sapphire sky. Sycamore dug her fingers into his hair and caressed his scalp, and a moan of delight left his lips.
“Very good,” whispered Sycamore. “Just like that.”
A wriggling sensation tickled Elliot’s sides, but he couldn’t find it in himself to feel anxious. The colours were swimming in his vision. He felt light and airy. He was unfettered from the cares of his life in the city. He started giggling again, even as the grassy fronds from the earth leashed his thighs to the ground and eased into his trousers. His giggling only grew as the plants split open his clothing with a whispered rip of cotton and bared his cock to the air.
“I-Is this…?” he tried to say as soft, smooth vines encased his member in an undulating green casket. “Is this… r-really the best way to feed plants?”
Sycamore grinned down at him around her chest. “No,” she said. “But it is the most fun.”
“O-Oh. Ohh…” Elliot let out a ragged breath as the earth began to massage him in earnest. “Oh… I see.”
His eyelids fluttered. Sycamore’s stroking of his hair was luxurious. She parted his locks with a gardener’s compassionate confidence, rubbing pressure out of his scalp. And below, the earth was tending to his more carnal desires. Men must surely have been here in the distant past, since the summoned vines were expertly milking him of pleasure. They knew just what they were doing. Elliot bucked his hips against the binds around his thighs. A silly smile played out along his lips.
“I sh-should have been a… f-florist,” he laughed.
Reaching up over his head, Elliot braced himself by taking hold of Sycamore’s mighty thighs. He gasped and moaned as he was rubbed towards climax by the plants of the glade. He could feel pollen resting on his skin. The humid air swam with gossamer ribbons of colour and left moisture on his flesh.
“Cooperation benefits us all,” Sycamore whispered down at him. “There is space for all of us in Gaia’s bosom.”
“B-Bosom…” Elliot repeated.
“I am glad you agree. It has been too long since our people walked in one another’s footsteps. Humans have forgotten much. It is fortunate that I am having such fun reminding you.”
Elliot looked down his body at the sensation of sunlight on his cock. The vines were retracting from around his head, and a flower was rising up between his legs. Its petals were long and white, thick and sturdy. They came together around the centre of the plant and formed a cylinder. Thick nectar dribbled from within and dripped onto Elliot’s trousers.
“M-Mmm?” he asked blearily.
Fear that he was about to be handled by something truly alien warred with erotic fascination in his belly. But he was still tied to the soil, still wrapped up in grass. There wasn’t anything he could do. So he simply stared, mouth agape, as the flower eased its petal-cylinder over his cock and made him slick with nectar. Elliot’s tip pushed against the bushy fronds of pollen filaments within. And he was squeezed.
“O-Oh, wow!”
Elliot hissed in a breath as the flower fucked him. It bobbed its head in slow rhythm and stroked the length of him. It squeezed him greedily.
“Do not be alarmed,” said Sycamore. “Your seed in the soil would be beneficial to the glade. But this one will see that the nutrition reaches the places that truly need it. And is it not so very good at aiding you?”
“M-Mm! Good!”
Elliot gasped and writhed. The heavy air was keeping his breaths from satisfying his lungs, making him pant. And sensing this, the flower increased the pace of its suction. Around the base of his shaft, tight stems rubbed him up and down to ease the orgasm to the surface.
“Let it out for us!” Sycamore whispered. She leaned over him and placed a soothing hand on his chest. She held him steady. “Let it out, Elliot! Do your duty!”
His eyes moved from the bleary shape of the flower on his cock and up into the black eyes of the rich-skinned forest spirit. Her smile was hungry, and he liked that. He held tight to her legs and pushed his cock against the head of the flower. His vision went white.
Elliot’s semen coated the inside of the plant. He moaned into the air as the flower squeezed a full load out of him and pooled it in its head. Then, with a wet sucking noise and a trailing string of sticky nectar, it pulled off his cock and looked skywards. It drained his come down its neck. The white petals opening up to the sunlight looked to Elliot like extended arms of celebration.
“A mighty meal!” laughed Sycamore. She stroked his cheek with a warm hand. “Well received! And well given, if that absent smile of yours is any judge.”
“G-Good,” Elliot murmured. “Very good. You… do this often?”
“Nay, the song of Gaia has many stanzas,” she replied. “The cycle is long and winding. It has been quite some time since I eased a man through a feed like this. I have missed it. Fellow agent of the realm, does your role in the city, so akin to mine, include the pleasure of the flesh?”
Elliot grinned, a humble dismissal ready on his lips. But then he thought again on his time in the Office of Municipal Integration, the kin of humanity he had met. The nights he had stolen alongside them.
“Same as yours, I reckon,” he said with a sleepy smile. “Sex isn’t exactly needed in my line of work, but I don’t mind when it happens.”
“I understand your words well, my guarantor.”
Sycamore slipped out from under him. She eased his head onto the grass and rose to her full height, casting him into her shade. The vines around his crotch continued to gently stroke the base of his wilting cock. Elliot languished in the luxurious treatment.
“Sycamore,” he said, words slurring in his stupor. “I’m sorry about what happened today. I’ve enjoyed walking in your realm a lot more than you did walking in mine.”
“A symptom of humanity’s short memory, as you say,” said the spirit. “There was a time when Layman and Ilvarith would have welcomed guests in just the same manner.”
“A lot’s changed since then,” Elliot sighed.
“Humanity can yet tap into its roots, I am sure of it. And I could… perhaps be convinced to visit your streets, should I have a compelling reason to do so.”
“What sort of reason would attract you?”
She cast him a coy smile over her shoulder. “We do not need human intervention to grow or reproduce,” she repeated. “And yet, in knowing now what awaits you here in this glade, would you not work to come here once more? Would you not seek novel ways of sating the needs of the flowers?”
“Yes,” he said at once.
“Precisely. Your loyalty to this glade benefits us. You can feed us, protect us. You can think well of us. It behoves us to attract you. To encourage you. To reward you for your efforts. And to that end…”
She set her vision upon him with a wide smile. Her fingers trailed along her bare breasts.
“I wear this lascivious form. For your enjoyment… as much as my own.”
Elliot’s cock twitched, prompting a squeeze from the plant-life arresting his shaft. He licked his lips and tasted pollen, and then he laughed. The scent of the flowers was making him giddy, and he loved it.
“You’re saying we should advertise sex with humans as a reason to come to Layman,” he said. “You think that would bring you and the rest of the kin of humanity out of hiding.”
“Oh, I am sure it would draw a certain kind of client,” Sycamore giggled. “But let us talk no more of grant municipal systems, Elliot. Right now, let us talk of just you and me.”
She strode over and planted one foot on either side of his hips. Now fully in her shadow, Elliot stared up at her. Sycamore squeezed her breasts with her hands and swayed her heavy body back and forth. Her smile, like the pollen of the glade, was intoxicating.
“Thank you for your assistance today, Guarantor,” she said. “My recklessness caused me to overstep, but you took my hand and pulled me back. We are now cooperators! Why don’t we seal our new cooperation with another act of recklessness?”
“Y-Yes, please.”
“My, so eager!”
Sycamore eased herself down to a kneel. The plants around Elliot’s cock slipped free and retreated into the grass, leaving him bare. But he was still slick with nectar, and the dizzying air, accompanied by Sycamore’s earthy beauty, had made him hard. Sycamore pushed herself forward and stroked him with the moss of her pubis. So much bigger than him… But her weight was light, and her smile was kind.
“Elliot,” whispered the spirit, holding his cock gently between her fingers, “I am looking forward to working with humanity more closely in the future.”
Then she pushed herself up, wriggled forward on her knees, and sat herself down on him. Elliot was hard and slick, and Sycamore was wet and deep. He slipped inside as if he had been made for her, and she for him.
“That’s it…” she sighed. “Oh, how I have missed this!”
Elliot’s thoughts were washed away under the hot, slick pressure of Sycamore’s vagina. Her grand body possessed a grand orifice to match, but Elliot didn’t feel small inside her. Perhaps it was the heady pollen in the air, or the captivating smile of his partner as she rode him, but he felt large. As if he was growing. Growing… growing…
Sycamore folded her hands behind her back and rocked her hips in gentle rhythm. She let her head roll along her shoulders, eyes closed and lips parted. Her wrap of vine-like hair writhed atop her head and made the little flowers dance.
“Flora does not need human intervention to reproduce,” she said with croaking voice as she rode him. “But we enjoy your intervention none the less, Elliot. Oh, how we enjoy it!”
“M-Me too,” he grunted, laying his hands on her warm thighs. “I… I love it!”
Sycamore smiled. “I am glad.”
“I’m gonna come, Sycamore!”
She opened her eyes and tightened her lips. “So soon?”
“You are… magnificent!” Elliot slurred. “You feel… magnificent!”
“But to end things now… Why not dwell with me for a while instead? Is this gentle communion not satisfying in its own right?”
Her pussy slipped up and down on his cock. Her slick, organic grip made him throb.
“Y-Yes,” said Elliot, “but I don’t really have a choice!”
“Ah. Poor thing. Here.”
Sycamore leaned forward. Her shadow covered him. When Elliot’s cock slipped out of her, Elliot let out a whimper of regret. But then his lips were sealed by a kiss from the forest.
She was sweet. Her tongue was coated in sticky nectar, and it was delicious. Sycamore painted the inside of his mouth with it. And as it trickled down his throat, Elliot’s heart began to slow. His thick, bloated cock throbbed with impotent stiffness.
“There,” Sycamore whispered against his lips. “That should seal you for a time.”
She sat up on him once more and fed him inside, and the ride began again. Sycamore pumped her hips in tantalising rhythm, but Elliot’s climax remained unfulfilled. It rumbled beneath the surface of his skin.
“I do not need your semen, Elliot,” Sycamore sang as she made love to him. “I simply wish to be with you.”
“A-Ahh…” he muttered. “G-Great.”
She giggled, and he laughed with her. Elliot let himself enjoy her. He let himself drift away on a gentle breeze.
Elliot was human. He was as much a part of the cycle of nature as Sycamore, or the grass or the flowers or trees. In fact, what did the word ‘human’ even really mean? He was, just as all life was. They were all connected. They were all the same. Why had he not realised that sooner?
With pollen making joyful colours in his brain, tickling his lungs and brushing along his skin, Elliot laughed as he was ridden by Sycamore. He could hear music. Perhaps the wind between the trees, perhaps a concert of elves deeper in the forest. Perhaps Madam Lantern’s girls performing for their clientele in the Low Town. It didn’t really matter. It was all the same. It was all beautiful.
“Good,” said Sycamore with a beaming sunlight smile. “Elliot, good. You understand.”
“I understand!” he laughed. “I understand!”
Time passed, and Elliot and Sycamore made love. Elliot wasn’t aware of fatigue or hunger or thirst. Just the gentle rhythm of their intertwined bodies. Just the unimportant pressure of an orgasm waiting to be realised, easy to ignore. Just her smile, her incredible breasts, her heavy thighs. He could sink right into her if he tried.
Red light stained the sky as the sun set over the trees of Ilvarith. Il-var-ith. Whatever. Elliot found himself on his knees over a Sycamore lying back in the grass. She stared up at him with her pitch-black eyes as he mounted and then lay with her. His hands looked small on the grand mounds of her breasts, but her smile was approving and encouraging. Elliot paused his thrusting to kiss her, and she let him taste her nectar once more.
Stars whirled. In the glittering gemstone moonlight, Elliot sat back against a tree at the edge of the glade and let Sycamore, facing away from him, bounce on his cock. She had a hand in her hair to keep it from breaking its containment and trying to smother him, and his hands were on the curve of her spine. Up and down, up and down. She smiled at him over her purple-black shoulder, and he grinned foolishly back.
A new morning, and she was on all fours in the flowers. She lapped and kissed their petals and filaments as Elliot penetrated her from behind. His thighs slapped against her rear again and again, and his fingers sank into the folds around her cheeks. His tongue felt dry; he would have to kiss her again soon. But neither of them had spoken in a while. They didn’t need to. So Elliot could wait, and he would love her as he did.
And now… when? When was it? Morning? Evening? Overhead sunlight suggested it was daytime, but Elliot couldn’t determine any detail beyond that. He was naked, but he was warm. And his cock was between Sycamore’s lovely breasts. She smiled up at him from the grass, her vine-like hair spread out around her like a mycelial colony. Her hands pushed her bust together and made a squeeze for his pleasure, and he straddled her stomach and used that squeeze over and over with a push of his hips. His hands were tight on her shoulders to keep him upright. Sweat on his brow dripped from his hair and bounced off her chin.
“You are lucid,” Sycamore remarked as Elliot fucked her breasts. “Has something occurred to you, dear?”
His tongue felt fat and impotent in his mouth. He pushed through the dizziness and forced it to work.
“I never went back to the office,” he giggled. “I n-n-never let Jacque and Mathilda go home for the day.”
“Ah. You wish our communion to end?”
“No,” he growled.
“Then you are far gone indeed,” Sycamore laughed. The jostling up and down of her chest made Elliot moan with pleasure. “Remember, mutual duty brought us together, Elliot. Your duty is important, did we not decide that?”
He grunted, unwilling to agree out loud. But he did agree, unfortunately. And that acknowledgement broke him out of his spell.
“I should go,” he said with another pump between her breasts.
“Then finish,” Sycamore whispered. “And let it be wonderful, dear.”
Suddenly, Elliot’s climax was filling his attention. It wouldn’t be ignored again. Elliot cried out and raised the pace of his thrusting. His bum slid forward and backward over Sycamore’s stomach. He began to pump into her breasts with wild abandon.
“Yes! Yes!” laughed Sycamore beneath him. “Good! Let it out! Elliot, let it out!”
“O-O-Ohh!” he replied. “S-S-Sycamore! I… I…!!”
With a push of his hips and a mortal cry from the depth of his belly, Elliot came. Thick semen slapped up Sycamore’s neck and across her cheek. It ran river-like from within her cleavage and over her collarbone. And she teased more and more out of him with an undulating squeeze of her breasts along his shaft. She drained him.
When he began to slip from atop her, Sycamore took his shoulders in her hands. She held him steady, even as his head lolled.
“Oh… Oh…” he repeated. “Oh…”
“Well done,” said Sycamore with a warm smile. “Let this be but the first communion of man and nature, first of many to come.”
Elliot tried to say something. But white light surrounded his vision, and his ears were ringing. He was slipping.
“Elliot?” giggled Sycamore. “Where are you going, dear?”
He couldn’t answer. His muscles, from his lips down to the twitching rod between his legs, refused his commands.
“My, my,” said the forest spirit. “You truly were far gone. If you cannot handle a little pollen, Elliot, then I would steer clear of the elven cities. What they have… will surely…”
But she was vanishing from his sight. Elliot fought to keep Sycamore in his failing vision. Her words were important. He battled for control. But it was no use. Elliot flew away on a spring breeze.
* * *
“Elliot? Can you hear me?”
Warmth covered his icy, naked skin. Elliot’s head rolled lazily, and he took in the sight of a woman beside him, draping a cloak across his shoulders.
“S-S-Sycamore?” he murmured from shivering lips.
“Hm? I’m afraid not.”
Madam Lantern’s smile was cosy and familiar. Her cheeks were smudged with a fresh layer of cream, and her blonde hair was tied practically at the top of her head. Her voluptuous frame was wrapped casually in a red dressing gown. It wasn’t an outfit she showed to the public; she must have been preparing herself for the afternoon crowd. But there was a tightness around her campfire eyes that he didn’t recognise. Elliot sat up straight on the chill, slanted surface beneath him.
“Lantern? What’s going on?”
The madam’s lovely lips twisted. “I was hoping you would tell me.”
A whisper of sound rose up from below him, and Elliot turned. His stomach lurched.
He was seated on the roof of the Dancing by Lantern. The midday sun was pale in the cloudy sky above. And below, the Low Town streets were filled with grinning, laughing onlookers. Some of them waved up at him. He almost passed out again.
“You returned from the forest almost as soon as you’d left,” Lantern explained, hands tight on his shoulders to keep him from falling. “You were naked, and you were… you were raving, Elliot. You kept insisting that you were a flower, that all people were flowers. Or something like that. Then you rushed up here to the roof to… photosynthesise, I think you said. None of us made much sense from your words.”
When Elliot didn’t, couldn’t respond for the embarrassed quiver of his lips, Lantern leaned close and sniffed his hair.
“I would wonder if you had been at the smoke,” she said, “if I didn’t know a little about the creature you escorted through these streets just now. I trust you had fun with our friend in Ilvarith?”
Her smile was lovely, just the right side of teasing to soothe his wounded pride. Elliot let the laughter of the crowds fall on his skin like soft pollen. Like warm sunlight in spring. And he smiled back.
“It’s Il-var-ith,” he said.
laymenstory
Ewan Stone 
Leave a comment