…or, Going Downhill
I’m going to break from the story now to give you all a bit of advice.
If somebody asks you to have sex in the ruined temple of an unknown god, say no. It doesn’t matter how hot the guy is or how much your blood is pumping. It’s not going to be worth it.
Seriously, just don’t.
“What the hell were those?” I asked Iason when we finally stopped running and collapsed panting on the ground.
I’d grabbed hold of my belt, but my shoes and pants were back up on the hilltop far behind. Iason had gotten away with all his clothing, the bastard.
“I do not understand it,” Iason said.. “They mostly come out at night.”
“Mostly?” I repeated. “Mostly?”
“Yes. I can’t think why this time would have been different,” Iason said, shaking his head. “What would have angered them so much that they would expose themselves to the light of day?”
“I think it might have been the part where we started taking off our clothes and having sex,” I asked. “In a ruined temple. Of an unknown god. Was there any reason to think that would end well?”
“I like to think that my record speaks for itself,” Iason said.
“Seriously, what the fuck were those things?” I asked. The impression I’d gotten had been, well, it had been disjointed.
It wasn’t good, though. The rustling, rasping sound that might have been breathing had been enough on its own.
The glimpse of what was making it?
Too much.
“Always with the questions,” Iason said, throwing up his hands. “You may as well ask me what is an elf, Iamie. Or a human.”
“I know what elves and humans are,” I said.
“Well, what are they?” he asked. “Explain an elf to me in the same terms that you would have me explain the green men to you, or the temple guardians.”
“See, you do know what they are,” I said.
“I know they seem to be guarding the temple,” he said.
“Are they undead?”
“Did they look undead?”
“I didn’t exactly get a good look at them,” I said. “But you’ve seen them before, right?”
“Yes, I’ve failed to get a good look at them on numerous occasions,” Iason said.
“And now I don’t have any pants!” I said, punching the ground beside me.
“Frankly, I’m more concerned about the loss of our meal.”
“Well, I’m more concerned about my pants,” I said.
“Do you not have other pairs?”
“My keys and my ID were in the pocket,” I said.
“Why do you not keep those things in your belt pouch?”
“Because I wasn’t planning on leaving my pants in the ruined temple of an unknown god!” I said.
“Does somebody pay you a fee for every time you say that phrase?”
“No, I’m just trying to drive home the stupidity of what you did back there,” I said.
Iason laughed, throwing back his head so far and fast that his hat slipped off.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“What I did back there?” he said. “You are so insistent that you are your own man, but it seems you’re perfectly willing to abdicate responsibility when it suits you.”
“I was deferring to your experience,” I said. “You’re the one who’s familiar with the area.”
“And yet you seem to be implying that you had some indication that it was a poor location for a tryst,” he said.
“Well yeah,” I said. “Ruined temple. Unknown god. It seems obvious.”
“And yet as always, you were racing to undress yourself before I could,” Iason said.
“Because I thought it was okay,” I said.
“As did I,” he said. “So I would say that we were both foolish, or neither of us was.”
“Fine,” I said. “Whatever. What do we do now? I can’t hike back through the forest barefoot and half-naked.”
Now that the urgency was gone, I was starting to feel the scratches on my bare legs. My socks were torn and bloody.
“I expect that you can’t, but as the plan was for you to be barefoot and completely naked that hardly seems to matter,” Iason said. “Did you mark the point from where the guardians emerged?
“No,” I said. “They were just suddenly there.”
“I thought they came from the direction of the altar,” Iason said.
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “I mean, we were on the other end and they came from that direction. Why?”
“Just a theory of mine,” Iason said. “Approaching during the night, I’ve never been able to catch them in the act of emerging. They were simply there. Now that we know how to provoke their appearance during the day, it should be a simple matter of verifying my suspicions.”
“On, no,” I said. “I’m all for sexual experimentation, but I’m not about to go back there just to test your theory. For one thing, who says they won’t still be there?”
“If they are, we will be able to tell before we set foot within the ruins,” Iason said. “And that being the case, we will at least get a better look at them.”
“Do we want a better look at them?”
“You seemed curious as to their nature,” Iason said. “Do not worry, Iamie. They are confined to the area enclosed by the ruined walls. They cannot leave it.”
“Is that like the way they can’t come out during the day?”
“Believe me, I have watched from a distance as they throw themselves at the boundary and then fall back,” Iason said. “Does it fulfill any sort of logic that they would be more free to move about the countryside in the daylight than they are at night?”
“Not really, no,” I admitted.
“And if they were free to leave, they should have overtaken us long ago,” he said. “In any event, we won’t be able to retrieve your belongings if we don’t return to the hilltop.”
“I’m ready to declare them a loss,” I said.
“Your ID? Your money?” Iason asked. “What about your shoes?”
“I’ve got another pair,” I said. It would suck wearing my dress shoes to classes until I could get new ones, but I’d take the discomfort over another run in with whatever lurked around the temple.
“You are frightened, Iamie?”
“I wasn’t the only one who ran,” I reminded him.
“I ran with you,” he said. “To make sure you did not fly headlong into a worse hazard, or fall and injure yourself. In any event, we outran the guardians easily once. We could do it again, if it came to that, especially if you ran on four legs instead of two.”
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“I will ride you back to the hill. We’ll make a wide circuit of the place first. If anything is amiss, we will turn and go back to Treehome. If not, we will approach cautiously. I will leave you outside the boundary to stand watch while I collect your belongings.”
“And then we leave?”
“If we are not menaced by that point, I see no reason why we couldn’t resume our meal,” he said.
“I do,” I said. “I’m not having a cookout in a haunted temple.”
“Fine,” Iason said. “We’ll remove ourselves back down the hill and build another fire, then. I do not know about you, but the afternoon’s exertions have left me quite hungry.”
“Fine,” I said. “But be careful. No hanging around, no showing off, no unnecessary risks.”
“How does one show off gathering up trousers and food?”
“I don’t know, but you’d find a way,” I said. I handed Iason my belt, then stripped off my shirt and my socks. “Okay, do it.”
He took my clothes, and then reached out and stroked my forehead. Now that I was expecting it, the transformation was a rush. My body was bigger, stronger, more powerful. The scratches on my hind legs were so small they hardly mattered. I’d been pushed to the point of exhaustion, but now I was full of energy. The presence of my rider, my shining beacon, excited me.
Iason vaulted up onto my back and dug in his heels. I took off, and he swung me around. It was good to stretch out my legs, to kick off away from the ground and watch the world fall away around me. It was great to feel Iason’s weight on my back, to feel the pressure of his thighs squeezing on my sides. I could feel his desire for me coursing through me with every stride, and the more closely I attuned my body to his wishes the better I felt.
Being a mount was an amazing feeling, but a scary one, too. Iason had said the stables were enchanted to provide contentment for the animals sheltered there. I felt pretty damned contented being Iason’s stag already. That didn’t bother me, but I was self-aware enough to be a little worried that I wasn’t more worried.
Before, I hadn’t had any clear idea how long we’d been running away from the temple. It took a good ten minutes as the stag flies before we reached the hill. The air tasted bad. The sunlight, too, was wrong. I knew something was wrong immediately. I wanted to keep running in accordance with my rider’s wishes, but my body wouldn’t obey. I reared up on my hind legs, and then wheeled to the side.
“Your stubborn willfulness is only slightly endearing as a human, Iamie,” Iason said, digging into my sides and pulling on the furry mantle over my neck to try to turn me around. “As a mount, it is simply not on.”
He goaded me on up the hill. I forced my legs to comply, moving one and then the next. It was clumsy and undignified, not at all like the wild flight through the woods I’d experienced during my first transformation. I was stubborn, though. Even if Iason thought balking was my idea, I wasn’t going to let this new body disobey me.
The resistance grew as we approached the crest of the hill. Iason slid down onto the ground, then looped my belt with the axe on it over my neck before he climbed over the low wall and into the ruined temple. There was no sign of life. No sign of movement, either. Our fire had gone out.
I watched Iason stride cautiously up towards the stone altar. He held out a hand like he was going to touch it. I snorted and then sucked in my breath. What was he doing? My ears twitched. I shouldn’t question the rider. But his halo was dimmed in this place. The aura of death around it swallowed up the his light.
He stopped himself before he touched it, then doubled back and picked up my pants and my shoes. He got the pack that had held our food, and stopped to fish the foil pouches out of the fire pit.
Leave them, I thought. We don’t need those.
Iason gathered them all up and stowed them back in the pack before he returned to me. The ride down the hill was pure bliss, my body and mind in perfect agreement with each other, in full accord with the wishes of my rider. Getting away from the temple was like kicking towards the surface of a freezing lake. The first breath I took in away from that poisonous atmosphere filled my lungs with life.
We eventually stopped in a clearing by a stream. Iason waited until I had drunk deeply from its cool water, and then he stroked my muzzle and I shrank back into myself. I started to reach for my clothes, but he put his hand on my wrist.
“Leave them for now,” Iason said. “The act of riding is such an intimate one, and I see no reason to end that intimacy now.”
“Yeah, fine, okay,” I said, sitting down on the soft grass. An act of intimacy. That was one way of putting it. It seemed a shame that our second ride had been marred with a trip to that cursed ground. I found myself looking forward to the trip back to Treehome, to make up for it.
“You do not enjoy it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “It’s intense.”
“It is an experience few people ever have the pleasure of knowing,” Iason said. “But one that may become a daily occurrence for you.”
“Daily?”
“Why not?” Iason asked. “If you enjoy it, why not seek it out as often as you can?”
“I’m worried about what it might do to me,” I said. “To my mind.”
“In what regard?”
“With regards to my independence,” I said. “When you’re riding me, I feel what you want, and it feels good to do it.”
“That is one of the benefits of the enchantment,” Iason said. “It brings us closer together, two bodies that move with one purpose.”
“Your purpose,” I said. “Not mine.”
“One of us has to be the rider,” Iason said. “An army cannot have two generals. A vessel cannot have two captains. It is simply the way of things. Why fight it, when accepting it brings such pleasure?”
“You’ve never heard of a steering committee?” I asked.
“A committee of two seems like a recipe for indecision if neither is acknowledged the superior of the other,” Iason said.
“This is what I’m worried about,” I said. “I don’t acknowledge your superiority, Iason. When you’re riding me, okay, you’re in control. That’s the way it goes. But a relationship between two people isn’t the same as the one between a rider and mount. I don’t want that carrying over from one form to the other. I don’t want that creeping into my thinking.”
“Even as a stag, Iamie, you can still choose to obey or not,” he said. “Your instincts simply reward you for making the correct choice.”
“And when I’m human?”
“You are human,” Iason said. “It seems to me, dear Iamie, that if you are aware enough of yourself to be worried about this, then you have very little reason to fear for your independence.
“I suppose that’s true,” I said.
“Now, be a dear and fetch us some more firewood,” Iason said. “I grow ravenous.”
“Be a ‘deer’?” I said, raising my eyebrow.
“Take it how you will.”
“I just find it a little odd that you’d send me to fetch wood right after telling me not to worry about my independence,” I said.
“Such a sensitive soul,” Iason said. “I’m merely proposing an equitable division of labor, based on our respective strengths. I am an experienced camp cook, and you come equipped with that.” He pointed to the axe, hanging from the belt that was draped over my shoulder. “If you’d like to try your hand at cooking, I’d be happy to borrow your axe.”
“Do you mind if I get dressed, then?” I asked.
“You don’t have to go far,” Iason said. “There’s suitable wood all around us, and you’d only have to undress again once the fire is going.”
“You want to fuck, in other words,” I said.
“That was the plan,” he said. “Would you deny yourself to prove the point of your independence, or will you choose to do as I ask for the greater pleasure of both of us?”
“I could just masturbate,” I said.
Iason’s smile widened.
“If that is what you feel like, I have no great objection,” he said. “I do enjoy a good show.”
I sighed.
“I’ll go get the wood,” I said.
Woot no comments .. and I love Iason for the record
first ook?
That was annoying – Jamie got a glimpse but couldn’t bother describing even the little he saw!
And Iason is back to annoying normal.
MOOK!
“Does somebody pay you a fee for every time you say that phrase?”
“No, I’m obeying the comedy rule of three,” I said.
I have to admit to sharing Iason’s curiosity about those creatures, tho Jaime has a point about getting too involved in such research.
Still Jaime should describe his views of the area as a mount. Iason would find the information at least interesting, and he would learn something about his mount as well.
Interesting stuff. I’m beginning to think that the rider / mount aspect would make an interesting game mechanic.
MOOK!
Okay, this was interesting. Now I’m all sorts of interested in the ruined temple of the unknown God (TM).
iason world would be perfect if jamie just submited to his every want and desire. he doesnt realise that jamie has wants and needs outside of his control. that hes not just some pet/fuck toy.
Mook!!!
I keep hating iason more and more… fantastic…
Jamie suffers an
Embarassment of britches
(His breath in short pants)
Perhaps this isn’t
A ruin so much as it’s
A necropolis
I had planned to use
That “Be a dear!” pun but I
Was beaten to it
8OOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!
@beappleby (3): Well, from the way both he and Iason seem to talk about them, I’m not sure he could explain what he saw at all, actually.
.
Interesting that Jamie’s instincts as a stag apparently override his built-in desire to do what his rider wants. It seems the transformation indeed has it’s protection value.
And Jamie, why the heck didn’t you tell him about how you had to really force your stag body to do as Iason wanted, how it wasn’t your mind that balked but your body’s instincts?
The Stag has more sense than human or elf it seems.
I’m afraid now, as distastful and annoying as Iason has been in the past I am now truly afraid for Jamie if he continues in this relationship (which we know from oldMU will continue for some time to come.)
Jamie voiced a very valid concern in a world where magic holds sway, and a not unreasonable one even in this world. He deferred to Iason assuming Iason has superior experince under the circumstance. He didn’t, and he didn’t care that he didn’t. That kind of willful disregard is scary in someone who presumes to be ‘in charge’.
Darn pesky breathers getting frisky in our circle of doom! Damn the rules, let’s git ‘em!
Iason is showing more and more traits that make him resemble Raffles the Gentleman Thief. Coming up with amusing plans, not telling his Bunny-boy what they are, hoarding his knowledge, letting Bunny, er, Bucky-boy get surprised.
Hold on… bunny + deer == jackalope! And the Latin/Draconic form of James/Iamos is Jacobus or Iacobus. So Jamie has become the Iacolope!
But certainly, Iason should be more careful in his archaeological probings. They could have ended up like that Stealers Wheel song:
Worms to the left of us, guardians to the right,
So I am: stuck in the temple with you…
I wonder why there hasn’t been a more professional investigation of the site. Probably, humans don’t get out there much, and the other races aren’t interested. Maybe the Khampus Khrusade for Khersis would be interested in doing some wild mass blessing? The site seems to have a defined boundary which the inhabitants can’t cross, which favours the site being set up deliberately, rather than caused as a result of an accident, i.e.:
Though it might have been an established site tainted by a catastrophe in its confines…
I do hope we get some explanation at some point. AE hasn’t approached it in the Lovecraftian sense of “indescribable horror”, just “difficult to see”. I wonder how Mack would get on there? Too bad the Iacolope sense doesn’t work when he’s in human form, or Jamie would surely have spotted Pitchy and Mack.
Greenwood, I’m not at all surprised that the area hasn’t been ‘cleaned’. Honestly, if I was in this world and knew about the site, I’d object vehemently to it being cleaned. Who’s to say that the beings there don’t have a right to be there, they do no harm unless others tresspass on thier clearly marked land. Not to mention, it’s a temple to an unknown god, why desecrate it further with Kheris blessings?
Well, I got that right for once! Though it was easier to guess than most of AE’s cliff-hangers. I commented last time:
One thing this chapter settles: Iason does know this area and its dangers well. “I’ve failed to get a good look at them on numerous occasions.”
His pretence that he doesn’t know much about the various creatures in these woods is just a lie to allow him to subject Jamie to a series of surprises, and perhaps to learn more about the denizens of this place, which appear to fascinate him.
@Aiea, 16:
You wrote:
> Not to mention, it’s a temple to an unknown god,
> why desecrate it further with Khersis’ blessings?
I think you mean “consecrate”. Most Khersians so far seem to be rather unwilling to accord other religions equal status. (In my experience, the vast majority of the Christians is considerably more tolerant. If I may be so bold as to draw an out-of-universe parallel.)
Am I right in thinking that the ‘They mostly come out at night…mostly’ quote is from one of the Alien movies? Seem to remember laughing at how OTT that line was delivered, but can’t remember if it was Aliens or not.
Esteis, no I mean desecrate as I’m speaking more from the perspective of the unknown god and whatever creatures that are there than from the Khersian perspective. The Khersians would certainly call it consecrate, but whoever’s religion was there first would call it a desecration just as much as Iason and Iamie having sex is apparently also a descrecration.
I guess we know the temple is not to a fertility/sex god, otherwise they may have allowed that…
The aura of death around it swallowed up the his light.
The exorcism bonus story shows not all Khersians are extremist fanatics like Granny Blaise and Gloria. That others are willing to voice their disagreement suggests they are in fact a small, albeit vocal, minority within the faith.
ARF, MOOK, whatever
found a typo “The aura of death around it swallowed up the his light.”
I assume it should not have the ‘the’
@Aiea, 19: You’re quite right that it’s a desecration from the point of view of the unknown god (God? Khod? Ghod?) — when I called it a consecration, I was just making a wisecrack.
And –heh– it still could be the temple of a fertility god — gay or lesbian sex in hir temple would pretty much be the ultimate slap in the face. ^,^
@Luddite, 20: You mean “Bonus Story: Devil Children”[1]?
Good catch. Actually, there must be more such Khersians: I haven’t yet met an MU character who was defined solely by his group’s stereotypical culture. (Barring, perhaps, the elves furiously beating off as Iamos leads Jamie to his room; but they don’t have a speaking part.)
[1] http://www.talesofmu.com/story/bonus-stories/bonus-story-devil-children
@ Aiea:
Do you know what we are dealing with here? Is it a temple? Was it a temple? Open air laboratory? Scene of a magical accident or tragedy? A combination? First one of these things, then another? A hellmouth? Target of a major curse? Any idea at all?
Yes, it could be the sacred ground of the God of Death and Life Stealing, whose guardians are many, and come out at night, or sooner when people start playing hide-the-sausage on their (dead) turf. Maybe such things are necessary, like Galactus. Maybe not.
It could be a portal to hell that could not be sealed or removed, so it was walled off with a warding circle. In which case, it should be investigated by experts, and a decision made on whether they could fix what the ancients couldn’t.
If it’s anything else, then it probably qualifies as a phenomenon to be studied. Or dealt with. Or just avoided. But it is surrounded by an aura of death, and existing in the world of the living. It seems out of place there.
I’m as tolerant and morally relativist as the next biungulate. I don’t think that a thing should be abolished just because it represents a risk, or because people object to it. However, I also don’t see that it shouldn’t. So, this location needs to be assessed at some point, and a decision made on what to do, if anything. But, as long as the area around it stays wild and unvisited, there is no hurry. And if the KhKhKh did decide to have a go, they’d probably get a bloody nose when their simple blessing and exorcism rituals failed to do the trick.
“They mostly come out at night.”
“Mostly?”
Ho ho ho. (Though I can’t believe I’m the first to comment on that reference.)
I am definately interested in finding out what the repercussions are going to be for having sex in the temple. Because it definately seems they pisted somebody off but good!
Great Chapter Thank you!
the more I read the more I hate Iason with a passion. He’s the worst kind of dom
I’m having fun now that Iason is getting our hero into really *exotic* kinds of trouble. I can read about ordinary abuse anywhere, but really, what other story is going to give me “let’s you and me use hot sex to pick a fight with a dead god”?
@28 I wasn’t aware that Iason/Jamie’s relationship was a BDSM one.
Pictures of both of these two are now officially Relevant To My Interests.
@ macropixi 28:
I know! Isn’t he just awful?
Possibly the worst thing is the fact that he doesn’t even seem particularly vindictive against Jamie. He doesn’t see Jamie as enough of a person to even go there. Jamie is just a pretty human boy, with enough elf-blood to make him last a good long while, who also happens to be a good roll in the hay.
All Iason seems to care about is making Jamie the most awesome steed he can, mostly to impress his Elfy friends.
Note the many times Iason has mentioned that he’s ‘investing’ in Jamie, and the enchantments on that Elven Spread, all designed to make Jamie a better mount. Iason is planning to have a fabulous magical stag mount for at least the next few hundred years. He’s probably looking to out-do his grandfather….
Oh, and appropo of nothing, I saw this today and immediately thought of Jamie, so insistent that he’s not REALLY simply gay….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Bisexuality_Day
Celebrate!
Needs more Violet and less Iason.
Needs more Violet and less Iason. The guy is bad influence.