Three years later, I walked through a familiar-but-different forest. The trees mostly looked the same and that was how I knew my way, while things like bushes and flowers were completely new, some species I’d never seen before.

Well, I hadn’t played around in the forest much when I stayed with Aunty. Not the sort of thing adults did.

I chuckled to myself thinking like that, because, back then, I was an adult, but still so young. Now, I could understand why a forty-something elf couldn’t tell I was an adult.

Eventually, following the familiar route, I heard the trickle of a stream. Smiling, I went towards it and ended up by the “bath room”. Good memories there. Even now, I could picture her clearly—all of her. I could remember how soft her breasts were, how gentle her embrace, how lovely her voice.

Walking past, I ended up at the front door to the cottage and knocked.

“Jeda? You were only here yesterday and—”

Aunty’s muffled voice stopped the moment she opened the door and saw me.

“Hi, Aunty,” I said, grinning.

Her lip trembled, then she dove forward, almost knocking me over.

Honestly, I was surprised she recognised me instantly. I cut my hair short, sort of a bob, and bleached some strips. Pierced my ear too—just the one—a ring at the bottom, a stud a bit above. The stud cost me a month’s rent, but, well, that was Aunty’s fault—yellow gems were really expensive, even tiny ones.

Oh, and my clothes. When I left, I basically just wore dresses since that was how long elf shirts were on me, but the capital had stuff in human sizes and I’d kept practising sewing. So I wore something like a button-up blouse in a pastel pink, and a long skirt in a navy blue—more of an office worker style, especially with a cardigan on top, sort of beige.

“Careful, I’ve got something fragile,” I said, laughing.

She pulled herself off of me, tears in her eyes. “I missed you so much, Izzy,” she whispered.

“I missed you too.”

While I came in and got comfortable, she buried me in questions. “How was the trip?” “Did my sister treat you well?”“Jeda always refused to tell me about you, just that you were still alive.”

She didn’t even give me time to answer them.

Once she calmed down, she looked away and muttered, “Sorry.”

Following where she looked, I saw the set of cutlery sitting in a pot. “I’m happy you didn’t forget about me.”

I was watching her closely and, the way she lowered her head, her hands fidgeting, I thought… she was maybe feeling shy.

The whole trip back, I couldn’t decide what to do when I saw her. I hoped I’d just know when the time came. That shyness, I took that as my answer.

“How about a drink? I brought wine,” I said, opening my bag.

“Aren’t you—no, you’re not too young.” She chuckled and stood up. “I’ll get some cups. Do you want to sit at the table?”

I stared at the embers of her cooking fire, thinking it would be easier to say what I wanted if we weren’t facing each other. “No, here’s good.”

She chuckled. “You always did like the fire,” she said, returning with cups.

I said nothing, pouring us each a generous portion. “To seeing you again,” I said, raising my cup.

“To seeing you again.”

We sipped away in silence, the sweet wine warming my empty stomach. Once it reached my head, I felt the lump in my throat shrink, the words that were dammed up ready to spill out.

“Before we get… too comfortable, I want to say something,” I said, not quite a whisper, but soft.

“Sure.”

“I slept with a few women. More than a few. But I never… connected with anyone. I never forgot you. So I need to, I need to know if you can see me as an adult, or if I’ll always be a child to you. Otherwise, I don’t think I can move on. And if you’re not sure, lie to me, because I don’t want to wait for something that might never happen.”

Lowering my head, I wanted to laugh. Oh Sappho, that sounded really awful.

Pushing through, I said, “Just this once, please treat me like an adult and give me an answer.”

There was a long moment of silence… and a lot of sips of wine, at least on my end. She just sat there, clutching her cup.

Then she finally spoke. “You’re not any taller, but you’ve grown a lot.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out like a sigh. My heart was pounding, I felt like throwing up, had to stop my leg from shaking, and my mouth didn’t know what it normally looked like, making all kinds of stupid shapes.

“Please, I really need an answer. Or, if you need time to think, I need a lot more wine,” I said, trying again to laugh and failing.

One second, two, thr—her hand came up and she gently touched my cheek, pushed it so I turned to face her.

“Flis,” I whispered, trying so hard not to jump to conclusions.

“Isabelle,” she whispered.

One second of my heart tearing itself apart, then she leant in and kissed me.

We didn’t stop kissing to stand up, kept going while we shuffled to her room, even kissing through her tunic when I pulled it off her. Although not planned, my buttoned cardigan and shirt didn’t get in the way of our lips, but waiting for her to undo every button was too much and I just yanked it open, buttons be damned.

Her breaths, her moans filled my gut with warmth, made a mess of my knickers. Moving onto the bed, I tried to be on top, but she didn’t let me and picked me up before laying me down.

I shivered, a small wave washing over me at being womanhandled like that. And I think she knew that because her hand ran through my hair so gently, her kiss becoming so tender, like she was giving me a moment.

But she didn’t wait for long. Her hand trailed down to my “bra” and slid inside, her rough fingers brushing over my nipple. That was already enough to get me going, then she squeezed and I hurried the fuck up, thighs clenching.

“Flis,” I moaned, begged.

She swallowed my moan, then gently sucked on my lip, her tongue running across it. Sappho, that felt good, more than good how she pulled me between my breast and mouth, giving me no time to get used to either.

Like she knew that, her knee climbed up the inside of my leg. Her leg was bare while I still had my skirt on, but she’d started right at the bottom, pushing my skirt up as she went. Her skin wasn’t perfectly smooth, covered in fine hair, a little ticklish as she moved.

I didn’t laugh.

She moved so slowly that I grew impatient, desperate for her to run out of leg, and maybe that was her plan because her fingers started pinching my nipple, rolling it. On the verge of climaxing, it was all I could do to wait for her knee to press against my pussy

Then finally, I could let go.

There was no thinking, I just wrapped my arms around her back and clenched every muscle. She guided me through it, rubbing with her knee, massaging my breast, whispering to me, “Good girl, good girl,” over and over.

For a moment, I thought I met Sappho—she was smiling.

Coming down, my mind cleared enough to reach up and kiss her again. However, she broke away, trailing kiss across my cheek and coming to my ear. Oh Sappho, hearing the little wet sounds as she licked around my earring.

She was more draped on me than straddling over me, and I needed to do something with my hands, so I moved one down to her butt—luckily, I could just reach—and the other came around to her front. And I squeezed.

Her butt was so firm, her boob so soft, both so good I couldn’t stop myself from squeezing and massaging—and pinching her stiff nipple. Then she moaned and, fuck, she moaned right by my ear, sending a shiver of pleasure through me.

By the time she took off my knickers, they were soaked. And without saying a word, she kissed them, a few sticky tendrils stretching out for a moment.

“You taste so sweet,” she murmured, her voice so rich and deep, practically growling.

I was already on the edge from groping her and her tongue in my ear, those words nearly enough to send me over. But I held on and she rewarded me with two of her long, long fingers, sliding deeper inside of me than mine could ever reach. And unlike dildos, her fingers curled and rubbed and I felt her learning where to touch to make me gasp and moan, both of my hands now squeezing her butt.

As hard as I tried not to, I broke quickly when her thumb pressed against my clit. She didn’t even rub it, made me rub it by writhing and squirming, rocking my hips to grind against her.

I felt so bullied, teased, and that only made my orgasm better when I finally came, clenching around her fingers, fingers that kept moving, and her thumb finally swirled, stretching my orgasm out as long as I could handle before it became too sensitive, pulling my hips away.

She let me escape her thumb, but kept her fingers inside, gently rubbing, and her lips were by my ear again, whispering, “Good girl,” and her other hand combed through my hair.

I was dead, there was no other reasonable explanation. If I wasn’t dead, I would be soon, my heart struggling to keep up, pulse pounding in my ears, and my lungs felt like I hadn’t breathed in years.

But that was all muted by the pleasure engulfing me. It wasn’t like that with anyone else. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d slept with more than a few women in the capital. Some were, well, selfish, some were generous-but-bad at it, but the good times were only about as good as masturbating felt (I had a lot of practice to get good).

That was when I remembered what she’d told me so long ago.

Still breathless, I said, “Flis?”

“Mm?”

“I want to… learn how to make you feel good,” I whispered.

For a second, I thought I’d made a mistake because her body stiffened up, but then she whispered, “You do?”

“Yeah, I want to fuck you.”

Again, I worried, suddenly trying to remember if “fuck” was even used like that in this world, but she cut me off by rolling off of me. “Okay, I’ll teach you,” she said softly.

It was exhilarating in a whole other way having her tell me to do such lewd things to her. And I made her tell me everything, watching the beautiful look on her face as she said things like, “Suck my nipple.”

And when it came time for me to feel her insides, I finally found one place where she wasn’t “bigger” than me, so tight I barely fit one finger in. A bit worried, it was the first time I asked her, “Are you sure?”

She smiled for me and said, “If it’s you.”

I didn’t have the time to break that down right away, but it settled my doubts, so I started, and her moans and whimpers soon made me forget I was ever worried. My mouth still on her tit, I gently slid my finger in and out, thumb stroking her clit through the hood.

Slowly but surely, I felt her muscles sometimes clench under me, her breaths grew heavy, quicker, my finger squelching.

Until finally she shuddered, quietly moaning, “Izzy.”

There was something incredible about staring into her eyes as I made her cum. She wasn’t the first woman I got off, and I certainly felt great the first time I managed that, but this….

I felt the connection I was searching for, yearning for, happy chemicals pumping through my body like I was the one who just came.

Without her asking, I knew what she wanted, and she did want it, her mouth opening and eyes closing as I kissed her. And I kissed her hard, pouring my love for her into it, my clean hand coming up to caress her cheek, my dirty hand cupping her cute pussy, gently rubbing it up and down. I couldn’t keep that position up for long, so I lowered myself on top of her, hand going from her cheek to her hair.

We lay like that for a while, and I swear I sometimes felt her shudder again, and I knew I felt some small waves spilling from the warmth in my gut.

When I did roll off her, oh Sappho, we were such a mess. It was impossible to tell which of us made the most mess, but I knew probably me. And we hadn’t put a towel down first, so it was going to be a nightmare to clean, not to mention my clothes….

She suddenly kissed me and, looking at her, she was pouting. I definitely didn’t dare think she was, like, jealous I wasn’t paying attention to her. Definitely not. But she did smile now I was looking at her, such a sexy smile, her eyes half-closed, sweat glistening on her dark skin.

It was pretty exciting sneaking out to the bath room naked, both of us giggling as went. Honestly, Jeda was basically the only one who ever visited her, so it wasn’t a big risk. Inside the hot spring bath, we both melted, and I soon noticed we were in our old position: me sitting in front, her wrapping me up from behind.

That bit of nostalgia helped everything that had happened settle in because she never held me like she did now. Like, she used to hug me from behind, but now I was leaning back into her.

Similar, but different.

After soaking for a while, she asked, “Were you ever… intimate with Jeda? I don’t mind if you were, I’m just… actually, don’t tell me.”

I smiled and rubbed her arm that was looped around my waist. “No. She’s pretty, but, I mean, she’s kind of like a sister, I think. And she’s never made me think she’s interested.”

She didn’t say anything, but her sigh sounded like she was relieved. And I was relieved she felt any kind of jealousy over me.

“Can I ask you the same question?” I said.

She didn’t stiffen up, but her arm around me tightened. “Yeah, we were—a long time ago. Tweenage sweethearts for… four years? And we started experimenting the last year.”

“Something happened?” I asked without thinking, then quickly said, “I mean, you don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s fine. I, well, I knew I didn’t like… penetration, and I told her, but, one time, she forgot or was lost in the moment or…. Anyway, I broke up with her over that. She was so genuinely sorry that I soon forgave her, but she never forgave herself, so we stayed friends except for a couple of, um, mistakes.”

My brain not good at thinking, I said, “But you told me to….”

Squeezing me tight, she giggled. “I did. You have such cute fingers, I wanted to see… if there was something new to learn about myself.”

I grinned like an idiot, something about that making me so happy. I guess that she trusted me.

After a bit of silence, I thought of something else I wanted to ask. “What made you, like, see me as an adult now?”

She hummed, gently swaying. “One thing, when I was still asking about you after a year, Jeda told me something like, it’s normal for a parent to miss their child, but did I want you to visit, or did I want you to come back to me. I wasn’t really sure what that meant until today. When I saw you, I felt like… you were home. But this can’t be my home and your home, not unless we’re… you know.”

That silly smile was back. “The other thing? Things?”

She chuckled. “Seeing you look so different, and you even sound different. I know you were an adult before, but it really feels like you have grown, but it also feels like you’re the same. Then you said you loved me and… I still have my old feelings and they’ve grown too.”

Speaking of things that have grown, her hand slipped down, idly brushing my bush in the water. I kept it trim, but didn’t dare go bald after what happened that first day.

Four years, it felt like just yesterday.

“I, um, tell me if you don’t like it, but when we have sex after this, can I call you mommy?”

She laughed, her hand sliding farther down. “Of course my good girl can.”

Thank You, God.

End of Arc.