Kinverse: Volume One

PATH OF THE EMERALD MAIDEN

A naive young monster's tale by Moros, aka KinverseWriter

Legal Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise herein mentioned. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters and events in this story are entirely fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. This work of fiction contains disturbing content.

Reader discretion is advised.

Description:

A young woman from a pre-neolithic society is accidentally whisked away to another world entirely during a raid on a research lab run by alien invaders. Stranded with no friends, badly injured, and no idea where home even is, she's forced to live off the land and learn how to survive in this strange and hostile world.

There's only one slight problem, though.

She's not trapped in this world with them. They're trapped in this world with her.

Categories:

Adventure, Coming-of-Age, Isekai, Erotica.

Disclaimers:

This story contains sexual elements and disturbing themes. The contents aren't purely intended to be pornographic, but some scenes objectively are. This is about a giant monster that eats people, so reader discretion is advised. This story contains vorarephilic themes.

This story will have a very slow and intermittent pace to begin with. True stakes don't really show up until halfway through, though the build-up is always there in the background. This is ultimately not a story of grand adventure and defeating one's enemies to rise to the top, it is the tale of a lost and naive young woman growing as a person and learning new things. It is a personal one concerning her, and thus this story will be told in present-tense first-person.

Chapter 2: Beast

---

I awake to the rising sun and the smell of smoke.

My meal will last me for another day, at the least. I can't smell any more of its kind over the acrid stench of burnt jungle anyway. Looking back to the south, beyond the site of my victory, I can already see the orange glow of annihilation, the ultimate devourer of all: fire.

I may one day be an apex predator, but there are some things all must fear; even the strongest of matriarchs can, and have, been claimed by it.

I wonder what Mother would do in this situation. Probably exactly what I've done. I hope so; Mother is wise. She is the strongest of broodmothers in our region: the matriarch. Alongside Father--the patriarch--she has been the strongest and wisest of Kin for longer than I have lived. One day, I will be as strong as her! She is a strong mother, the best in the world!

But first, I should probably not wait around and burn to death. Judging by the dry heat and the yellowed grass, it's been a while since it rained. Hopefully it will soon.

Small creatures--insects, clearly--buzz around in the morning light, oblivious and uncomprehending of the wall of flame approaching, just over the ridgeline. Back home, the insects are far larger than this and I doubt these are babies either. I'm starting to notice a trend here: everything seems smaller! I wonder if it has something to do with the air? I've been feeling a little bit lighter, too... I didn't notice until now.

Curious. I've never travelled beyond our brood's territory, being too young for any land skirmishes, not that many occurred during the war, so I wouldn't recognize this place. Mother's stories never told of a place like this before either, let alone the weird air and weight stuff. Maybe if I ever find my way home I can ask her? Mother once climbed a high mountain on a dare from her sister, and she told us of how the air grew lighter, thinner, tasting of less. And also much colder.

Perhaps this place is like that? It isn't cold, though--if anything it feels more like home during the dry season.

That brings a thought to my head, one I hadn't considered until now. Right. The broods, territories. I haven't smelled a single trace of anyone else since arriving wherever I am, but it's bound to be inevitable that I'll run into the territory of another brood at some point. While I might be able to get some information from them, I don't know how well they would react to my presence. I am, after all, all alone, without my brood, and clearly far from home. Normal and expected of the itinerant young males, but not for a female.

I don't even know where home is.

Hm... Home.

Well... great. Now I'm sad.

No time for self-pity, though. Time to get on the move again. I turn north.

Back south the way I've come I can see a lake that the creek I passed through empties into. To my north the valley continues before sloping down to meet a greater one. To be honest I really haven't travelled that far for how much time I've spent here so far, taking it slow, gazing all around in wonder at this new land. Hunger did drive me to speed up a bit, but now I have the luxury to take my time--that is, if I ignore the raging inferno in the distance of course.

The trees here are quite different from home. Back home, the trees are thick and wide, with broad flat leaves. The trees here are tall and thin, with spiky needles adorning spiky branches upon the spiky trees. Much light reaches the loamy floor in contrast to my home's darkening boughs. Even the land is different. This place is a series of trough-like valleys running between ridges, while most of my brood's territory consists of flat jungle. Mother has told stories of great mountains, filled with fire and flaming stone that moves. I see no moving stone, but perhaps that fire sources from one of these places?

I will need to avoid the fire at some point. As the valleys meet the fire shall spread further, seeking to grow stronger beyond the constraints of the ridgelines. I recall my brief time atop the ridge, gazing down into the next valley over and its swiftly encroaching fire. Looking west, I can only barely tell through the smoke that the greater valley veers southwest, meeting the burning valley sooner.

I could cut across the valley north, but I would rather not risk it. The fire is to my south and will soon be to my west, so it is eastward I shall continue. I don't have any long-term plan behind wandering in search of familiar territory. The only landmark I have is the sun, and it can only tell me which direction is which for where I am.

For now... east.

---

I casually meander for another few hours, observing all, studying, and learning. Eventually I crest a slight rise, and stretching below me are stubby open fields with the occasional copse of foreign tall-thin trees leading up to a larger lake's edge.

By now the brush fire is well behind me, and while if it continues it may reach me again in a few days, I should be fine. Back home when I was young, a neighboring rival brood's territory was once ravaged by a forest fire. They were displaced and forced to invade their neighbors' hunting grounds.

While they had formerly been one of the strongest broods in the region, their matriarch was unwise despite her strength and virility, having gorged herself large and fat in her decadence. She was one of the first to burn. Their exodus was disorganized and loose, and without leadership they scattered in every direction but the fire's, fracturing into smaller broods in turn attempting to invade larger neighbors.

It went poorly. Mother is wise and strong. Mother organized our brood and repelled them. The matriarch of the 'Burnt Brood' as it would be referred to by Mother when telling this story had grown too large to keep fed while on the move. Perhaps this is why she could not organize it very well? She could not keep up with her children.

This is the fate of all Kin who do not die in battle or the hunt: to grow too large to feed without assistance, and one who does not hunt is one who is weak. While healthy adults can control how much they eat--the excess going into growth--we still inevitably grow a little bit over time, and after decades? That growth adds up.

Mother has told tales of distant broods who perform strange practices where the strongest injure themselves and risk being weakened for fights, then fasting, fighting against their instincts. To not only deprive yourself of the hunt, but to starve yourself just to enjoy a bit more food?

Madness. I would sooner throw myself into battle than die under my own weight. At least the elders have an excuse, as while we can choose to grow faster, we cannot halt our growth. To be young and huge is unwise greed and a careless lack of foresight.

On the approach to the lake, I have to pass through these odd clearings I had noticed. Making my way down this rise and into the jungle, I ponder. I don't like being out in the open, and this is strange new territory. I haven't seen any dangerous plants yet, but that doesn't mean they don't exist here!

Reaching the treeline I stay well back and observe. Bar the occasional cluster of trees, firmly planted into the ground are what appears to be the lowest portion of tall-thin trees, the base of their trunks. Not dangerous plants, but perhaps something else dangerous. What could eat entire trees?

There's only one way to find out if it's safe, and while I believe I could make my way around the fields by passing through the trees running through the fields like aimless rivers, my curiosity has taken over and I won't learn unless I try.

Slowly and carefully I creep out. I really don't like being out in the open; few Kin do! My armor camouflages me with the dirt and bark of the trees, and while the ground is quite torn up here, due to the long open sight-lines movement would be easy to spot for an observer.

These stumps... they appear as if everything above was simply sliced off either with great care by what would need to have been a truly massive elder's claws, or a very sharp and swift slice of their tail-blade. The cuts are precise, with little-to-no tearing left, but strangest and most glaringly obvious of all, is that the tops are missing, nowhere in sight.

Branches litter the ground, bearing similar marks. Throughout this barren land regrowth pokes through, with saplings sprouting from the desolation. Life will return to normal here one day, but not soon.

I continue on warily, keeping my night eyes peeled for motion. Eventually, I come across yet another oddity. I find... a path, a rather wide one. How strange. How many animals would need to have trekked this route to have made it so packed down? It cuts meanderingly through these odd clearings just as the trees do, to no discernible destination. It's as if a great many of the largest of prey back home passed through, single-file, stomping out the grass, the flowers, everything.

A strange mystery. I sit back and scratch at my jaw in irritation. This place is weird. Perhaps there are giant beasts that eat whole trees.

Continuing on, I find yet another path, but this one is stranger. It is clearly not dirt, it is rock. Perfectly smooth rock, with regular colors in certain parts: a white line on each side where it meets the jungle floor, and two yellow ones running down the middle. This can't be normal, someone or something made this, but how? The rock is so smooth. Is it the dangerous and hot moving rock Mother has spoken of?

Curious and ready to pull back at the first sign of an impending burn, I reach out to feel it. It is still, perhaps cooled. Palming at it, I press down and feel the baking heat. Not enough to burn through my chitin, perhaps over a great period of time, but this could not be what Mother spoke of.

It does vaguely remind me of the ground outside of the tall intruders' nesting grounds and their constructions. Hard stone, bent to their will. Colors applied, the meanings lost on me.

Just as I ponder this, I hear a loud noise approaching from around the bend like a great rushing of air. A swooping bird! And it must be huge! Running back to the tree line from the road, I turn and watch, but rather than a bird, an odd white contraption of shiny sharp-rock rounds the bend, similar to those of the tall intruders.

I've seen these before... there was something like it at a site where the brood ambushed the tall intruders, some similar to this at the nest we attacked, and made of all sizes at their nesting grounds. A mover. Transportation. They use these to move around quickly, faster than we can, but only over open, flat terrain.

Mother believes that the tall intruders created them; not as we create more of us, but with tools, items that they have also created, out of things they have gathered. Mother is wise; she has studied the tall intruders ever since their arrival many years ago. They arrived in a very, very large one of these movers from the skies, flames falling with them. According to her, the fire that devastated the Burnt Brood was caused bythem.

If there are these creations here, then there must be tall intruders. If they're here...

My hunt has not been denied after all. I grin.

The strange and blocky mover speeds past faster than I could ever run; too fast to get a good look at the occupant, or occupants. In its wake it leaves an acrid smell somehow worse than that of the fires, and yet also somehow sweet? Sweet is a rare taste, only found in fruits growing from some trees. Perhaps it contains many, many fruits. I salivate. Fruits taste good. It's not meat, it's not filling, but they taste good.

My fantasies of tasty, tasty fruits is interrupted by another mover approaching. This one is quite different, with an open back and a small seating area at the front. A green stripe runs along its side, much like the wounds I gave to the elk with my tail. There is a strange pattern of colors below the see-through portion of the opening-wall, a creation that allows the rider to see outside in the former's case and leave the mover in the latter's case.

My people have never needed tools. We are strong without them. While we could certainly make them--and Mother has toyed with the concept--we've never needed it. The tall intruders are small and weak, with no true natural weapons of their own, needing to rely on their burning-sticks, created-claws, created-carapace, movers and, of course, walls. Our extent to creating things is digging burrows slowly over time by hand and piling up the excess dirt wherever. We do not need walls.

This one, too, passes just as fast, if not faster, and leaves the same acrid-yet-sweet stench. While I could not see through the windows in the first mover, this one has an open back, and I can clearly tell that it has no fruits. Within are angular objects. These are containers that could be hiding them, perhaps? Yet another mystery.

I want nothing to do with this... yet. It took Mother herself organizing the entire brood for the raid, and many of us still died! I am alone. I need to avoid the tall intruders, at least until I am stronger! None could best Mother! She lost her entire arm once in a brawl with a rival broodmother wanting her hunting grounds, and not only did she still win, she grew it back!

Turning away, I wander back through the strange fields. At least I can solve this mystery: the tall intruders did this. I've been left with more questions than answers, but I'd rather that than nothing at all.

Moving south, an hour later as I arrive near the top of the peak of this hill, I hear another odd rumbling sound, and yet I'm nowhere near the path. It's like it's coming from all around me, echoing across the lake's valley. I search the skies in confusion, looking every which way. Whatever it is, I should hide. The drone is constant and loud.

Hidden against some boulders behind some bushes, I gaze out at the sky. In the distance rising up from the lake, an odd entity appears: red on the bottom as if bathed in blood, yellow everywhere else but the tips of its wings, and it isn't flapping. Notably, there is also only one.

Another tall intruder creation--a flying one. That's bad. There were very few of these invading my home, but without fail whenever they showed up, my family died. They were slow, seeming to ponderously float through the air, but they were the single reason why my people would not attack in large groups during the day: they would spot us through the trees somehow and rain fire, according to Mother. The tall intruders arrived many years ago, and if not for these creations, they would all be food for the brood by now. I would have more brothers and sisters, and fewer would have died in the first place--though returned to Mother and the brood.

Not only Mother. So many died, Mother could not--and would not--keep up, else she would grow too much. The excess went to the broodlings, the young, and other broodmothers, in that order. I recall many successive seasons of broodlings being sired during my childhood... perhaps one day our numbers will be enough to overwhelm them.

As for this air-mover, it's... quite different. Rather than the angular blacks, greys, and whites of the tall intruders' vehicles, this one is fast, and in such bright colors. Creeping out of my hiding spot, I watch as it passes in the distance, heading over the ridge. While it is past me now, it could easily turn around, but it does not seem to have noticed me. I creep out further. It's flying over where the fire is, now.

Its bottom opens, quite unlike how the air-movers attacked the swarm in their raids on our original primary nesting grounds, before we began to disperse. Rather than great blasts of light and fire, it drops... water? Created rain, in great concentrations. Amazing. If the Burnt Brood could have had this, they would not have needed to flee, their matriarch would not be dead, and they would not have shattered and doomed their own brood in their exodus.

After its charge through the air, bottom sealed once more, it turns, making for the lake again. Did it see me? I duck back into cover.

It flies past. It has not seen me. Not yet. Not ever, if I have my way. It descends down to the lake, running itself against the surface, before rising once more. It returns again to the fire, and repeats its duty as I watch in silence, mesmerized.

Beautiful. I do not like air-movers, but I do like whatever this is.

Perhaps we do not need tools, but if we could do this, already strong as we are... we could defeat the tall intruders. Kill them. Eat them. Not necessarily in that order. I turn away from the sight and continue my journey south.

For whatever reason, I'm getting a little bit tired. The day is only half gone, I haven't been in any brawls, and yet I'm starting to feel a fatigue building in my muscles. Not much, I could certainly still fight if I need to, but it's there. Perhaps it's the air? In the longer brawls that I have seen, some lasting close to an hour, the participants are almost always left breathing hard, and are quite tired, as if they need more air.

Perhaps the air indeed. Once again, I recall Mother's story and the vague resemblance between her tale's mountain and the rocky landscape I've found myself in, though this one is significantly greener. She spoke of the world around her thinning and her lungs aching, yearning for more. This doesn't feel like that, but it's definitely something.

Regardless of whatever it is, I am tired. I'm going to rest for a while. I'm still well-fed, I need to heal, I have nothing else to do except travel further, but for now... rest.

With the discovery of a nice comfortable patch of moss, I'm asleep.

---

When I awaken, the sun has not yet risen thanks to my early sleep, and I'm hungry once more; my belly having returned to its usual size. My carapace feels significantly better, although I can still tell it's damaged by the aches from it. My scythes will still take a good while longer to heal as well, though I can tell the bones are mostly reformed now. Soon, the muscles will be next, growing back to their usual strength. I wouldn't trust them in a brawl against one of my sisters, but for hunting, they would be fine. You don't need the accuracy to strike between a plate or the strength to stab in when you can just slash along at a meaty opponent.

Looking down to the south, the valley and lake extend quite far--perhaps the distance I've already travelled so far, which truly serves to put things into perspective. In the distance out of the horizon rises an odd white-capped peak, and beyond, mountains and ridges a bit higher and rougher than the ones I've already traversed.

To my east I can see where the created-path crosses a river between the lake I arrived at and another to the south. Beyond that are steep cliffs, not unlike the mountainous terrain I've maneuvered through. With the lake to my north, a torched wasteland to my west, and signs of the tall intruders to my east, I can only head back south. The mountains between where I arrived and here should block the fire long enough for the tall intruders to deal with the fire, if they keep dumping that much water on it.

I will need another meal soon, and while I don't feel nearly as hungry as I was, the occasional small critter isn't going to cut it forever. I need real food! I'm an apex predator, not a ravenous broodling escaped from Mother! Well. I do still eat everything in sight, but I put thought into it. One day I'll have to watch over my own broodlings, making sure they're safe while trying to shove whatever they can into their mouths. At least they don't try and eat each other; I'm pretty sure if we did we'd have all died out by now.

So. Mountains, here I come.

---

A/N:

The Burnt Brood's destruction was originally meant to be one of those off-hand comments used for exposition and thrown away. However, when I got more ideas later on, it got fished out of the bin and actually became an extremely prominent event both for the planned prequel and sequel, being a major precipitating event in the prequel and a butterfly effect event in the sequel.

Not that I knew when first writing this chapter that months later I'd have the material for more books, mind you.