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The scattering of islands across the endless sky are home to an infinite variety of creatures, wondrous and strange, from the docile to the ferocious. And yet so many people seem content to know little or nothing about them, to fight those that cross their path and avoid all others: to remain ignorant and isolated from the wonderful possibilities all around them.
That will not be Will's lot in life. He has research to do, treatises to write, experiences to seek out, and he will not be bound by such silly preconceptions. Monsters are his life's work, his calling, his greatest passion. The things he has seen and done so far with help of the skyfarers have taught him much already, and now with the assistance of Mr. Prowrs he's reached an even greater understanding. It's time to take the obvious next step.
When the Grandcypher docks at Auguste for this summer's festivities, Will quietly slips away from the others to explore the more distant reaches of the island chain. Auguste is thriving, Leviathan at peace and caring for the sea's inhabitants, and most of the monsters Will sees on his expedition are calm, uninterested in attacking humans. It's an encouraging state of affairs!
At the edge of the water Will stops to shed unnecessary layers: his shoes, his coat, his crozier, his hat—everything, in fact, save for the last layer of shirt and shorts to spare his skin from the sun's heat. His destination is a little further on, and all these layers of clothing will only weigh him down.
He wades into the water, letting it buoy him up as he heads further out. It's warm enough that the water feels good, and the waves are gentle. Will pushes off from the sandy bottom and strikes out toward an islet that sits low on the water in the distance.
The tiny, craggy, black volcanic islets that dot Auguste's sea are often inhabited, just not by humans. This one, as Will swims up close enough to find his footing again, looks like an excellent gamble.
He climbs up out of the water and picks his way carefully across seaweed-dotted rock to the sheltered grotto that makes up most of the islet's above-water area. For a moment he simply has to pause at the cave entrance, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light; he can hear water lapping at stone, closer and more intimate than the waves outside. Then his vision clears, and his breath catches in his throat.
There is a monster half submerged in the clear water of the grotto, poised alert and ready for whatever he might try, and she is beautiful. She's a rare type, one the superstitious locals name "Sea Empress" and the academic taxonomies call Ammonoidea: from a striped, spiraling shell emerge a head and torso almost human-like in appearance, but her arms turn to fluttering fins instead of hands, and in place of legs she has a mass of tentacles, pearly silver flushed on one side with coral red.
He takes a careful step into the pool. The monster hisses, lifting her foremost tentacles as if to warn him off, but she doesn't strike.
"It's all right," Will says, pitching his voice low and gentle as he can. "I'm not here to do you any harm. I'd like to be friends." He holds his arms outstretched, showing her his lack of weapons, and takes another step.
Her tentacles wave, a slow undulation that looks fluid and graceful even outside the water. It doesn't look like a threat. Will steps into the pool, just at the edge. The water is only slightly cooler than it is outside—it must connect somewhere below, giving this obviously oceanic creature an easy entrance and exit. She's watching him as he sinks into the pool, into her domain, but since that first warning hiss she hasn't done anything remotely threatening.
"I'd like to be friends," he says again. "It's my life's work to learn more about creatures like you, so that I can help humans realize how wonderful you are."
She lifts one tendril above the water's surface—smooth and pliable all the way to its tip, without the armor of the ones she brandished as weapons—and stretches out toward him. He reaches out to meet her, moving slowly, his heart pounding. When they touch, her tendril curls delicately around his fingers, the most precious caress he can imagine.
"Yes," he breathes. He offers her his other hand as well. "You're simply exquisite." He strokes her tendrils with the fingers she hasn't captured; her skin is so soft, with a smoothness entirely unlike a human's. Are all of them like this, save for the pair adapted to be weapons, or are there other specialized types as well? He takes a small step toward her, closing the distance between them.
More tentacles curl around his legs, exploring him; he thinks by this point most humans would be alarmed, probably fighting the touch of this unfamiliar creature. But that seems foolish, when she's only as curious as he is and she's offered him no harm thus far.
She's so verycurious, enfolding him completely in her cool, firm grip. It feels as though she's searching for something. If he knew what it was, Will would give it to her immediately—though the chance to feel her explorations is itself a rare opportunity. And perhaps a more physically exciting one than he'd realized it would be. He's getting hard as the two of them entwine more completely, as she lets him touch the satiny smoothness of her torso (is that the right word? how does her body work?) and her tentacles make their way up his arms and legs.
When she starts trying to push her tentacles up under the hem of his shorts she pauses as if she's stymied. Surely she has the strength to simply tear the cloth—but perhaps she's unwilling, much as he would be to harm the delicate veil-like membrane around her body. "I can take those off for you," he tells her, tugging one hand free of her grasp. "Here, allow me."
He pushes his shorts down off his hips and over his burgeoning erection, offering his body to her curiosity. He kicks them free of one leg and that should be enough for her to reach further, to discover his form. His heart is pounding. He'd never imagined contact would go so well—wished for it, perhaps, but not truly imagined it could happen outside of his dreams.
He leans back into the Ammonoidea's embrace as she slides her tentacles up his bare thighs and she trills at him, sweet and encouraging. It's breathtaking. "Yes," he tells her as she lifts one limb to trace the shapes of his face: much like hers, for this close he can be certain that hers is a face, and not simply mimicry to draw attention away from some less-human sensory organs elsewhere. She's watching him as she wraps his thighs in her coils and strokes his lips with one questing tendril.
There's only one response he can make. Will opens his mouth to taste her, licking that tentacle tip. He tastes salt water, of course, but also something sweet and strange that he can't place—so he licks again, fascinated, electrified by this amazing chance. She teases her way into his mouth, the narrow tip swelling to a remarkable thickness on his tongue. Still she seems to be exploring, touching every surface in his mouth as she seeks something.
And her other tentacles have not ceased their motion, either. One finds his navel and probes briefly before dropping further to trace his cock. Another slides into the cleft of his ass, stroking and pressing tender flesh, and when it presses against his hole he pushes back. The tentacle slips in, just a little ways, and Will makes a soft sound around the one in his mouth. His cock pulses in her grip. The tentacle in his ass undulates, slowly working more of its length inside.
This is better than he dared hope for, this connection, this careful intimacy. She's so gentle with him! The swelling tentacle in his mouth opens his jaw wide, but he welcomes it. She pushes deeper, slowly, testing him, and eventually touches something far enough into his throat that he cannot help the reflexive attempt to expel her. She withdraws then, but doesn't let go of him anywhere else, and he leans close to press kisses to her tentacles to make sure she knows that's fine.
The tentacle filling his ass continues to press deeper, further than any mere person has been able to go, touching him in ways nobody has. The pressure inside is wonderful—unintentional though it must be, the curl and push of that tentacle against his prostate is almost unbearably good, and the intimacy of being so full, stretched open as more of that endlessly flexible limb coils into him.... He catches himself making noises, gasps and half-voiced moans, thrusting into the overlapping grip of her tentacles as best he can with so little leverage.
It's inevitable that she bring him to climax given how good her every touch feels. Will doesn't try to fight it, relaxing into her grip and letting her milk the pleasure from him until his whole body is wracked with it and he spills into the water between them. Some part of her that he's too close to see clearly engulfs his cock, teasing it as though with cilia until he's wrung dry and almost too sensitive to bear it. She trills again, stroking his limbs and his back reassuringly, holding him close.
What is she seeking from this encounter? It's certainly been pleasurable for him, Will thinks, but surely the Ammonoidea would have some goal of her own in letting him this close. The tentacle she's filled him with is withdrawing now, and for all that he's already come he's sorry. There must still be something else she wants, mustn't there?
Her tentacles are moving, coaxing his legs further apart. When the one inside him slips free, another takes its place. He doesn't get a good look at it but it feels different, stiffer, consistently thicker along its length as it presses in. Before he came he thinks it would have been uncomfortable; now it's simply intense, making him aware of the stretch and heaviness of it settling in his gut. But she's shown no interest in harming him so far. He won't be afraid.
She strokes his skin—almost as though she's petting him—and it seems she wants him to relax, so he does his best. The specialized tentacle she's filled him with ripples, and for a moment stretches his rim even wider before that sense of greater fullness passes inward. Inward, deeper, as far as it's managed to reach inside him. Then it shifts slightly but that new pressure stays where it is. As if it's depositing something in his body.
For a moment Will can scarcely breathe. "Is that an egg?" he asks her in a whisper, though he shares no language with her. "Are you giving me—oh," for it isn't only one egg she gives him; there's another stretching his rim now and moving up the length of her ovipositor to come to rest inside him.
He tries his best not to alarm her with his reaction, but this is amazing. To think he should find a monster not only receptive to his overtures of friendship but at a point in her reproductive cycle where she'd welcome a mammal host for her offspring! And for her to be so gentle, to treat him so much like a lover, ensuring he came to no harm.
It's not simply coming to no harm. It's an intensely intimate, erotic experience as she repeatedly stretches him open for her eggs while her tentacles hold him comfortably restrained. She adds another to the growing mass of them and they press down against his prostate. His cock twitches in her enfolding grip and her cilia avidly collect the fluid that wells up at the tip. He moans, leaning into her embrace; his skin feels tender all over from the earlier climax, but every time another egg stretches him open on its way to join its brethren, a shiver of pleasure washes over him.
With enough of them inside him the pressure on his prostate becomes unceasing, shifting slightly with his movements but never abating. His cock is fully hard again and he's panting against the Ammonoidea's skin where she holds him close. It feels so good, being opened up and filled, having her treat his body as something precious, to use for such a wonderful purpose. When he starts moaning, she slides a tentacle into his mouth to soothe him, and he sucks on it gratefully as yet another egg joins the weight in his belly. He's so full, and held so carefully.
He comes again while she pets his tongue and fills him with her eggs, and by the end of it he's not sure he'd be able to hold himself up even in the water. He's limp and trembling as she deposits the final egg, leaning into her for support. He feels stretched and swollen, the eggs a strange weight between his hips, but the euphoria outweighs any discomfort by far. She has entrusted him with her eggs! The future of her kind!
When the ovipositor withdraws, he can't help a brief whine, jarred by the sense of emptiness. But he's not empty where it counts, deeper inside—the Ammonoidea guides him gently to the edge of the water, where he can sit without being submerged. She's watching him, and in a person that expression would seem considerate.
"Thank you," Will says to her. He puts his hand over the swelling in his belly. The skin there is stretched tight with the eggs he now carries. "I promise, I'll take very good care of them."
She nods as if she understands, as if that was what she wanted to hear; then she dives into the depths of the pool. Her tentacles are a flash of silver and coral red, and then she's gone.
Will sits at the water's edge, basking in the satisfaction of two orgasms and the thrill of an incredible step forward in his research. Already he's learned so much about monsters' habits and life cycles! And when his little brood are ready to hatch, he'll discover so much more. He'll have to get an aquarium installed in his quarters to keep them safe. Something to bring up when he gets back to the Grandcypher for certain. Surely the captain will understand. They've always wanted to protect people's bright futures. And this—Will cradles his swollen belly, heavy with the Ammonoidea's trust—this is the brightest future he can imagine.