Your shoe hits the ground one final time on the muddy, grassy ground of this forsaken mountain. You hear Dill’s ragged breaths behind you, even if it sounds less like breathing and more like bubbles popping from her gills.

You take in the view, a lake can be seen far below the cliff you now stand on. The forest extends beyond your sight. You can see the volcano from afar, its height surpassing the mountain you’re on by a large margin.

Dill falls headfirst into the dirt with a pained groan. You sit down next to her, and pat her on the back.

“That volcano’s nothing like what we saw on that first year exam, if anything, it looks smaller.” you remark.

Dill pulls her head out of the dirt, taking off a few bugs that decided to rest on her hair. “It’s because of the heat and water that pushed the rocks further out. It became smaller again once the spirit inside calmed down.”

“I don’t think that’s how volcanos work,” you remark.

“No, but spirit-made volcanos work a bit differently.” She puts the picnic basket down, and pulls out a blanket from her pocket space. “I’m so dirty, I’ll have to change.”

She casually takes off her shirt, and you turn around before you can see anything. She didn’t use to be this shameless, but as you became more comfortable with each other, it started happening more and more.

After a long minute, she taps your shoulder; you turn around, and she’s now wearing a new pink shirt with a cat pattern. “I prefer unicolor clothings, but I thought I’d try something new for once. Do you like it?”

She’s close, you stare at her lips for longer than you should. You look back up to make eye contact, but this makes it worse.

“Atlas, the shirt.”

“Uh- it’s cute! Sorry, it’s hard to tell from this close, let me take a few steps back.” You stare at her shirt, acting as if you can make any insightful comment on it beyond: ‘I like the cats’. “I think it suits you a lot.”

“The cats? Or the pink? I didn’t think much of it when picking it. But I’m glad you like it, I was afraid you’d make fun of it.” She pulls out the sandwiches and biscuits from the basket, offering you your part.

She claps her hand twice to get your attention. “Atlas, I wanted to say something, we’ve been knowing each other for two years now, and we’ve done a lot together. I...used to depend a lot on you, for a while, it felt like you were the only thing I was looking forward to seeing.”

You stop chewing your food. Is this going where you think it’s going?

“But,” she continues. “I realized I might have become a burden. That depending on you wasn’t healthy, that I needed to be better. So I’ve built up my self-esteem, I tried blaming myself less, I’ve come to see myself in a positive light. I quickly realized, maybe, in the end, I don’t need anyone but myself, I saw you less and less like a perfect being, and more like the flawed person you really are.”

This is not going where you think it’s going.

“So, the reason I brought you here was to tell you something that you might not like to hear, but it’s something I think needs to be done for both our sakes. Maybe we will never talk to each other again after this, but that’s something I can live with.”

Your stomach drops. What is she saying? Did you mess up somewhere? Were you being too weird? You thought things were going well, but-

“Atlas, I love you, and I want us to date, or more, if possible,” she concludes.

The wind blows, the unchewed food still in your mouth. You gulp it down slowly. “What.”

“If you do not share my feelings, I understand, and if you think that this makes things too awkward for our friendship to work, then I am also willing to accept this-”

“Dill. Look at me.” You put down your sandwich. She stiffens up, and stops talking. “First, you NEED to work on your communication skills. Second. Yes, I love you too. Romantically, and in other ways--whatever you meant by that.” You let out a long sigh. “And even if I wasn’t into you that way, I wouldn’t stop being friends with you for the world, okay?”

Dill lowers her head, expressionless. It takes multiple half sentences for her to find what she wants to say. “This is… the moment where people tend to kiss, but due to my saliva, this might be a problem. Maybe a kiss somewhere else than my lips could do. If you want.”

You get on all fours, crawl to her over the picnic blanket, and give her a kiss on the cheek.

Dill rubs where you kissed her. “Sorry for being greedy, it’s okay if you don’t want to but… that is not a spot that is particularly romantic. It is pretty common for family members or even friends to kiss there, so maybe, somewhere else would be more appropriate.”

You raise an eyebrow, and put her hand in yours, lifting it up to your face, and gently kiss it the same way a knight would kiss a princess. While you know very little about Dill’s personal fantasies, you know being treated like a queen is something she has a soft spot for. Of course, you never had an opportunity to capitalize on that knowledge before, but now is the perfect time for it.

She turns her head away from you, hiding her mouth with her other hand. “You can do it again, if you want.”

This was as close as you could get Dill to admit she enjoyed the gesture. You kiss her hand again, the texture of her small scales feeling cold and nice on your lips. She pulls her hand away from yours, and puts the spot you kissed against her mouth. Out of nowhere, she starts tearing up. “Sorry, it’s a lot. I don’t know how to- I didn’t think you were going to-” She pulls you into a hug, burying her face in your shoulder and weeping quietly. “I was lying. I was scared you were going to hate me. I just wanted to look strong. I didn’t want to worry you. But it’s true, you know? That now I want to live. Even if you were to hate me, or leave me, I’d still want to live. That wasn’t the case at all before. I was just staying alive because I was afraid of death, but now-” She sniffs, coughs, her embrace gets stronger. “I’m so happy, but that’s scary, because now it feels like I have things to lose, you know? When I was ready to die, I felt nothing, but now I’m even more afraid of messing up, or losing you, or- what if you don’t even like the real me, what if you only like the person I act like?”

“Dill, of course I like who you really are, it’s not like all the good times we had together were fake, right?”

“It’s- It’s not just that, I know I act like I’m normal, but I’m a freak. I- I think of hurting people sometimes, like really bad. I don’t like it, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but it COMES UP and it makes me feel awful for it.”

“Dill, that’s… those are just intrusive thoughts, these are normal. Thoughts don’t define who you are, action does.” Her embrace is only getting stronger, it starts to hurt.

“I… I didn’t hurt anyone, but I also acted on some bad thoughts too, you know? I- I thought of mixing my saliva with your drinks once, and take advantage of you. And- And I didn’t do it, but I still found the situation- I mean I thought about it later and fantasized about it and… and...”

Okay, that’s a bit trickier of a subject to approach. You put yourself into a more comfortable position so her ‘hug’ doesn’t stop your breathing. “Dill, uh, touching yourself or… whatever you did--as long as you don’t tell anyone, and that you don’t hurt anyone doing it, then there’s nothing shameful about it, right? It’s natural.”

“But… I just told you, doesn’t that make it shameful by that logic? Did I go too far? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I hate that I can’t tell anyone how I feel without feeling judged.”

This is getting bad. You decide to sacrifice your pride for her sake. “I also masturbated to you, it’s fine.”

The moment you say this, she stops. She lets go of you, back to her usual poker face. “Really?” She asks as if you just told her it was going to rain tomorrow.

“Well, yeah. I mean, you’re really attractive, we spend a lot of time together, and I like you. Of course I didn’t tell you before because it would be weird, but it’s not strange to say now that we’re in a relationship, so it’s okay! Everything you’ve done, it’s normal things people do. Others not talking about it doesn’t mean you’re alone in this.”

Her gills open wide, and close, her equivalent of deep breaths, which means she’s calming down. You give her a smile, and she smiles back, crisis averted. You’re glad you don’t have to explain that telling someone you’ve dated for one day that you touched yourself to them isn’t usually normal, or that some thoughts can, in fact, affect your actions. Of course, you don’t believe she’s a bad person or anything, her main problem is that she overthink things.

“I’m sorry- I mean, thank you, Atlas. That’s what you told me, right? It’s better to say thank you than sorry, so thanks.” She raises her arm as if she was asking a question in class. “What- What kind of- you said I was attractive, but I wonder the type of fantasy you had about me. We’re dating now, so it’s fine to ask that, right? Unless you don’t want to answer, that’s okay too.”

Oh. You never actually masturbated to her, it felt disrespectful; between studying magic and libido, magic usually took precedence. You can’t tell her that though, you’re in too deep. “So, uh, we’d start making out in the classroom before it starts, but then… class was about to start, so we had to hide in the locker, but we’d keep going in there, trying to keep quiet so that we wouldn’t get caught.”

You’re not sure why THAT’S what your mind decided to conjure up, but you think that’s naughty enough to not make herself feel guilty about her own fetishes.

“Oh,” she looks mildly disappointed. “That’s surprisingly vanilla.”

You make a baffled expression. What does that even mean? What kind of stuff is she into if that’s considered vanilla? How does she even know what vanilla MEANS.

“It’s fine, Atlas! It’s cute. It’s only that… scenarios are only limited by your imagination, right? Why not go further if there’s no limit? Why not have sex in the middle of the class while we’re invisible? Or, you could become invisible and touch me while I’m not even aware it’s you, and I’d have to stop myself from-”

You put your hand up. “Okay, I get the idea. No need to go into details.” You try to not look too weirded out, but how can she go from feeling guilty about normal things to unashamedly talk about stuff like that as if it was entirely normal? Are you- are you the prude one here?

Dill seems to notice your nervous smile. “Of course that’d be horrible to do in real life, it would be non consensual, and disgusting for other students to know others are having sex so close by, but it’s a fantasy so none of it should matter, right? You said it yourself, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s fine.”

You want to object, but she’s not wrong. What she said would be weird to actually act upon, but if it’s only something you use to relieve yourself, it doesn’t make you a bad person. There might be some psychological and philosophical holes in that belief, but now might not be the time to think about them, Dill overthinks enough as is.

She might be a lot freakier than you anticipated. The weird part is you she never showed any hints of it, she never made flirty jokes, or checked you out, or even implied she even had sexual desires at all. Everytime she talked about sex it was clinically, as if it was nothing more than the way species reproduced.

“Hey, Dill, how long have you had these… fantasies about me anyway, just curious.”

Dill rests her chin in her hand in a thinking pose, closing her eyes as if she was unsure how to answer this question. “I’d say about 6 months ago. I… didn’t really do stuff like that before, not because I didn’t feel the need to, but it was as if it felt bad to feel good. as if I didn’t deserve that much, everytime I tried it I could only feel guilty after it, it wasn’t even that enjoyable. But then, when I started thinking about you, or how much better my life had gotten over the years, it was as if I was allowed to let go for once.”

Considering you’ve known her for 2 years now, that means she didn’t think of you sexually for about 75% of the time you’ve known her. This makes you feel a little bit less weirded out, since it means she wasn’t just pretending to not care about sex, this side of her might have only awakened recently, and because she didn’t get time to process it in a healthy way before, it’s going way overboard as it’s all new to her.

You pat her head to show you’re okay with this new side of her, and she nuzzles your hand like a cat. This will take some getting used to.

You decide to go for a risky question. “Dill, do you have some of those thoughts right now?”

She shakes her head. “No, it was an emotional moment, I can’t get turned on when I’m stressed like this. It only happens when I’m alone and I think about you, I’m usually too busy thinking about other things during a conversation to have those fantasies.”

That explains a lot, actually. Unfortunately, you don’t share her peculiar mind, so you have to hide your boner before she notices.

“But, I wouldn’t mind trying it right now, Atlas. If it’s okay with you, of course.”

She says it so casually you can’t help but feel like you’re being too coy right now. This is normal, you’re in a relationship, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, and besides you’re… a little bit excited at the prospect of going further with her.

“I’d like that,” you reply shyly.

She nods. You nod.

You both get up at once, and go back to sitting down when you realize the other is doing the first move.

Nothing is happening.

Dill breaks the silence. “Do you want me to start?” She asks.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

She points a finger at you, and with a flick of her wrist, your shirt splits in the middle. She repeats this a few more times, until your shirt slides off of you. “This was supposed to work on the first try. I’ll fix it later. I can work with this.”

What remains of your shirt starts coiling around your arms, and suddenly, you find your arms tied up behind your back. You could easily break out of this, but that might defeats the purpose of the restraints.

Dill gets closer, taking off her shoes, and pushes you lightly to the ground against your back with her leg. Your heartbeat gets faster as her hand caresses your crotch through your pants. She looks surprised to find that you’re hard, maybe she expected it to take more work; once again she underestimates herself.

Dill starts straddling you, her figure now towering above you. “Is it bad I like it when you’re at my mercy like this? It’s not bad for you, is it?”

“I don’t mind the view,” you joke with an awkward smirk. Being on the receiving end isn’t too bad, all you need to worry about is go along with whatever she does.

She lays down on top of you, and you hesitantly touch her chest. She undoes her bra, letting you feel the texture in your hand. It’s like jelly, you remember reading that these are actually egg sac, and they don’t get that big without pregnancy being involved. You don’t mind how modest her breasts are however, for some reason, you feel like bigger wouldn’t suit her.

“I’ve never done this before, so tell me if I’m going too fast, okay?” She pulls down your pants with her feet without even needing to look. Her gaze is locked into yours, she touches your cheek like you’re the most precious thing in the world.

She lowers one of her hands into her pants. She locks eyes with you as she touches herself, her hand still caressing your face. Her gills open and close faster than usual, some water even dripping from it; she pulls out the hand she was using to masturbate, and puts it in your mouth. It tastes… like cold coffee, you’re not sure how, but it does. When she finally pulls her fingers out of your mouth, she looks satisfied to see it’s clean, and goes back to masturbating with it.

She takes off her own pants, then her shorts. She’s clean shaven, but then again you don’t think her species has any bodyhair to begin with. Her hair is more comparable to algae that developed a symbiosis with her than actual hair.

You should stop thinking about her biology while she’s riding you. For once, NOT having sexual thoughts is the disrespectful thing to do.

She takes off your briefs, and she is, once again, surprised at how hard you’ve gotten. Her stare is no longer focused on your face, but further down. She backs up a bit to get a closer look, tilts her head to the side, and opens her mouth, revealing… very sharp serrated teeth.

You wince, closing your eyes and expecting the worse, but seeing your reaction, she stops. “You’re right, that shouldn’t be my first kiss.” She locks eyes with you and kisses your neck, then your forehead, then your ears; she takes great care to avoid your mouth so that her saliva doesn’t come in contact with it, even if you think it’s a little late to care about its aphrodisiac effects now.

She raises her waist, then slowly lowers herself on you. A squelching sound can be heard, along with some stretching. Dill grits her teeth with one eye closed until she’s fully in. Her insides feel tight and warm, almost uncomfortably so; you wait for her to move, but it looks like she needs more time to get accustomed to the feeling herself, she shakes her waist from side to side until she feels like she can go again. Once she finds a position she’s happy with, she raises her waist, her gills opening wide as if she was holding her breath, and lowers herself back again. She’s doing it slowly, but even this much feels overstimulating to you.

She gets faster as her body learns to accept you inside her. She won’t stop staring you down while doing it, and when you try to hide your face, she pulls your hand away; however, even she can’t keep a straight face forever, and it’s her turn to turn her head away from you.

“Dill, I want to see your face.” You ask. You don’t think it’s fair for you to be the only one to feel humiliated. She begrudgingly complies; her gaze is distant, drool drips down from her mouth as she bounces on you like her life depends on it. Quiet moans soon turn into internal screaming, she must be at her limit too.

She starts rambling, no longer keeping her unhinged thoughts to herself. “Atlas- Atlas, go. Gogogogo, now- Atlas fucking- paint my insides… huff… fi- fill me until it’s spilling from my gills...!”

You’re at your limit too, it rises and rises, and in an instant, you release everything you built up inside her, she spasms, but her bouncing doesn’t stop until she’s satisfied, each descent sending another rush of pleasure. You’re out of breath by the end of it, and she collapses on top of you, muttering a tired ‘love you’ in your ears.

You lay down in each other’s arms for what feels like hours. The bugs and birds are eating what’s left of the spilled sandwich on the ground, but you don’t mind.

“Atlas. I hope I didn’t act too weird, and there’s a lot of me that I don’t think you’ve seen yet.”

“Weird’s not bad. It’s cute, sometimes,” you answer.

“I don’t want to be cute, I want to be taken seriously. Cute feels like I’m a child, as if I was patronized, falling over and being told ‘aw, they tried’.”

“Weird’s hot, sometimes?”

“Better.”

“Weird’s you.”

She smiles. She looks happy with that. “Same to you, Atlas.”