theattic | Ryslig PSL: Snorse Mythology

Lust was forever grateful that she wasn't something limited by temporal boundaries. She was free to be out and about day or night, leaving her plenty of time for business and pleasure.

Days, mostly, were for business. Specifically, at the moment, shopping. It still amazed her how many things a person needed to buy on the regular. She was already laden down with bags, and her list wasn't even complete yet. No wonder humans always had carts and vehicles, it wasn't for them, it was to carry all of their things!

And she still hadn't done the shopping for dinner. That was always last, so nothing spoiled before it could be put in the refrigerator. Of course she could simply order in. Or make something out of a box.

An idea that became all the more appealing as she attempted to adjust her many bags...and dropped all of them on the sidewalk.

"Damn it!"

Her tail lashed in irritation, causing a few pedestrians to leap quickly out of the way. Lust paid no attention.

"You'd think with enough hands, this wouldn't be a problem...."

Don't mind her as she just takes up the entire sidewalk and a portion of the street to tend to this....

A few souls hung around to gawk because the spectical of one of the powerful unkillable monsters fumbling just like one of them made them feel brave for a few seconds. Then they dispersed because a second monster appeared on the scene.

It had been weeks since their fling and Maurice had tossed and turned for a few nights but after seeing similar reports pop up on the network, didn't feel nearly as weird. Everybody had gotten the Itch, it seemed. That was that, he guessed. Just another weird thing happening on the peninsula. But as the centaur clip-clopped his way out of the building he'd been moving furniture in and adjusted his hat he spotted a familiar scaly form just down the way and the fur along his withers stood up.

Oh god. Oh GOD. Okay. He was going to apologize! He was going to right this instant! And so he strode forward on stiff legs like some kind of copper automaton. It was only when he was a few horse-lengths away did he notice she'd actually dropped a bunch of stuff.

"Let me--!" It came out before he could stop it and Maurice was bending down on one scarred knee to help scoop up one of the bags.

"No really it's...oh! It's you!"

Lust glanced up hurriedly but paused when she recognized the kelpie. She wasn't likely to forget him, they'd had quite a pleasant little encounter when everything had gotten odd not very long ago. Those things happened, and really, compared to the usual sorts of oddness that happened...

She hadn't seen him since then. She continues to gather up her spilled odds and ends - a few books, some soap molds, a rather impressive amount of lady's gloves, cleaning paraphernalia, sparkly things...it's a varied assortment.

"Thank you."

It was also a little hard to forget that bright green.

Maurice was nearly shaking with his ears swept out to the sides as he clumsily grabs up the boxes and bags and hands them to her. Did she have this many arms the last time they met? Maybe? His mind had been so foggy then but--no! He couldn't get distracted. He had a mission.

"It's--it's no problem, hey, I really wanted to, uh, apologize I guess? For--the last time we met, I dont' think--I think we started out on the wrong--"

DON'T TALK ABOUT HOW SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANY FEET.

"I THINK WE DID THINGS OUT OF ORDER WILL YOU GO TO LUNCH WITH ME?"

Maurice deflated with a whinny, finally having gotten it off his chest.

That was...quite the explosion of invitation. Lust blinked, eyes widening some in surprise as she looked at maurice. She was used to being invited for a brief drink, but usually it was simply an invitation home. Or the nearest closest alternative.

An invitation to dine was something new and unusual. not to mention the apology itself.

"Well you don't have anything to apologize for, I can promise you that. I certainly don't regret our last meeting. You don't need to feel as though you have to take me out because of it."

Which she assumed was behind the offer - she was the woman men took home, not out.

All four of Maurice's legs felt like they would go out from under him.

"It's not that. I just--it was really fun and you were so nice and--I feel like you deserve it is all. It was--." The salmon pink started to return to his cheeks and his ears fell crooked as he sputtered. "It was my...uh." His voice lowered along with his eyes. "First time doing anything like. That."

"...Oh."

Lust was, momentarily, stricken for words. He was serious. He just...wanted to take her out. He thought she was nice.

From the way he flushed and dithered, she didn't doubt he was telling the truth about his personal habits. He didn't strike her as the sort to consort intimately with strangers in empty lots. But it had been fun, and even then she'd found him endearing and oddly charming.

There was no harm in agreeing. What did she have to risk? He was a sweet man, and they had had a very nice time during their encounter. Besides, it was....nice. Being asked out like that. Flattering in a way the compliments on her appearance and appeal weren't.

"Then I accept your invitation. I'd...like that."

"Really?"

His ears and tail perked up and his whole form straightened, emboldened once again by her acceptance. That was another thing that was so amazing about her--during their entire horny adventure, she hadn't made any faces or comments about his appearance. She just...enjoyed him and herself. She felt genuine.

"When are you fr--I mean, when would you like to?"

His hooves shuffled on the sidewalk. No pressure, no pressure! He was gonna go on a DATE. And have nice food and talk to another living being he could not blow this.

"I suppose...whenever you are."

Goodness, the change in him was immediately obvious. He appeared so delighted to be able to have a meal with her. It brought about a strange bout of nervousness underneath Lust's calm exterior. It was strange, how such a common thing was so strange and foreign to her. The only sort of 'dates' she went on were ones where she was being compensated for laughing at bad jokes and pretending to be interested.

There was nothing to pretend, here. Maurice was just a nice man who liked her company.

"I don't go out much, with other people. My schedule is as flexible as my tail."

The centaur looked thoughtful for a moment as he rubbed behind the waterfall of kelp he had for hair. He shuffled his hooves again.

"I mean--I'm good now but you've got all this stuff to take home! What about--what about tomorrow? Around noon? I know a place. I think it's good. I broke a chair there once by accident and the staff didn't even get mad at me."

Whether it was out of fear or monster approval, he didn't know but when you were Maurice Hutch you took what you could get.

"They have a salad bar..." Maurice trailed off and started to look worried. Sure HE might be able to push back his cravings for human flesh a little by browsing peoples' window boxes but Lust didn't look like she ate flowers on the regular. "A-and fish!"

"Tomorrow would be fine." She had nothing planned, and it gave her plenty of time to get ready beforehand. Even with her habit of sleeping a bit late in the mornings.

And he certainly was eager for this.

"It all sounds fine, really. I'm fond of both salad and fish. And chicken and bread sticks and chocolate and all manner of things." Lust could guess where Maurice's mind was. Despite her appearance, she very much enjoyed human food - and hadn't lost her ability to digest it.

"Where shall we meet?"

Not noticing that he'd gone and tied a knot in a length of his hair, Maurice startled at Lust breaking into his thoughts.

"Oh! Uh-- it's." He made a face. It was hard for him to explain directions. He didn't use street names, he used landmarks. "Do you know where that kinda...outlet-mall lookin' place with the big stone triangles out front is? It's at the end of that street on the corner. It's called Mayfly's. I don't know why it's called that."

"Outlet...oh, yes, I know the place." By the description, not the comparison. There were so often things Lust had no context for, but she muddled through.

"Who knows why anything's called anything? But that should be easy enough to find. Mayfly's, then. I'm...I'm looking forward to it, Maurice."

It surprised her, but she was. The longer they spoke on it, the more she found herself warming to the idea and the eventuality itself. She shifted her bags once more, knowing she had no reason to linger any further but finding herself doing so all the same.

Why did she feel so silly all of a sudden?

"Me too!" Maurice reined himself in. He could feel himself sweating and blushing and he had to resist the urge to rub his face or hide it in his mane. "Me too, I mean. Well...see you then? See you then!"

The kelpie spun on one hoof and kicked off in the other direction with a giddy little buck to his gate. He was going on a date! It was happening!

AND LO! It came to pass that the following day was nice enough--nice as days on a peninsula full of man-eating monsters could be. Maurice had gussied himself up as well as he knew how--he'd taken a bath in a body of water that was not a pond, he'd tied his hair back, and he was wearing a button-up shirt that he hadn't ripped the sleeves off of. Yet.

Unfortunately, thanks to his anxiety, it was already kind of sticking to him. The centaur stood outside Mayfly's with his tail swishing by his heels. He occasionally checked himself in the restaurant's big window and instantly looked away to avoid making awkward eye contact with the other monsters inside.

Maurice scanned the street traffic for any sign of his scaly dining companion. At one point he even reared up on his hind legs, forelimbs tucked to his chest, in attempts to spot her.

It didn't help that he'd shown up an hour early.

Where Maurice was early, Lust found herself running late.

It was ridiculous, really. She'd had plenty of time to get ready, and she was hardly given to fretting over her appearance. But when it came time, she was struck by a sudden concern for what image she presented. All of her interactions with men involved so much of cultivating a specific image, presenting herself as what they'd want. This was entirely different.

He was so entirely different. Maurice was a sweet and earnest man, Lust hadn't much experience with those. He wasn't looking for some realization of a fantasy, he just wanted to take her to dinner because he liked her.

Which finally led her to abandoning her irrational concerns - he didn't care. She didn't have to care either, about how she presented herself, she could just be herself. Well, that had been a pointless waste of time worrying over what to wear and how much decoration to add on. After all of that, she went with something on the simple side. A dark red embroidered and beaded halter and a handful of bracelets, just a few clips to hold her hair artfully off of her face. And already she was running late, necessitating a most vigorous slithering through the city to make her date.

All that fuss and here she was, leaving the poor man probably assuming he'd been stood up... She came oscillating down the street towards Mayfly's with her body low to the ground for speed, foot traffic parting rapidly at her approach.

An anxious hour passed and no enormous snake woman that could easily crush him to death if she wanted to appeared. Maurice stopped rearing up on his hind legs and took to sitting like a great big dog.

Maybe she got held up in traffic.

Maybe his directions were bad.

Maybe...she had just said yes to be nice and escape the situation and then moved to another city to avoid him! Maurice braided a long lock of his slimy hair as he fretted and watched a manticore stalk some pigeons in the empty lot across the street. This went on for some time until his ears perked up.

People were shouting and the sound of bodies hurriedly moving aside as something came surging down the sidewalk.

Out of breath and a bit disarrayed from her hasty dash through the city, Lust finally arrived. In a cacophony of irritated cries and curses. She whipped to a stop in front of Maurice, her tail lashing out behind her as momentum carried through it.

Pedestrians ought to know by now to get out of her way.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting." As though she weren't trying to catch her breath between words. "But I'm afraid time slipped away from me while I was preparing myself."

Lust you have a giant snake body which needs giant snake lungs. It's hard not to see you puffing. Maurice noticed that and quietly marveled at it. Someone had hurried to see him!

He broke into a huge grin and stood up, struggling to untangle his fingers from its hair.

"It's okay, I haven't been here long!" Lie. "And it's not crowded or anything! I'm--really glad you came."

The centaur awkwardly offered her an arm as he faced the door.

"Of course I came. I said that I would."

Delay aside. Goodness, he did look excited to see her. She eyed his arm in surprise a moment, the gesture simply taking her aback. Then she took it with one of her upper arms, resisting the urge to laugh a bit. There was nothing particularly funny about the situation, she'd no idea why the urge possessed her.

It couldn't possibly be nervousness. She had nothing at all to be nervous about!

"I've been looking forward to it, in fact."

Maurice had been quietly wondering which of her arms she'd use seconds after offering his own. Did she have those before? The question returned to him. He led her inside.

The inside of Mayfly's was very obviously not built for monsters. The tables were close together, the chairs were all people-shaped and the long windows did nothing for those who had sun allergies. Still, the atmosphere was pleasant and clean and each table had a little light fixture situated above it. Everything was done up in beige and aqua and fishing paraphernalia decorated the walls in a tasteful, uncluttered way--the main focus being on fishing flies of every size, shape, and color.

A salad bar stood to one side of the register and double doors marked the way to the kitchen. The radio played peppy inoffensive tunes from the counter.

Maurice led her to a table near the middle of the room and shyly put the chair that he could have used if he'd bothered to shift back to biped form at another table.

"Is this okay?"

It was going to be a bit cramped, Lust couldn't deny that. But it was simply part of being a creature as large as she was. She'd learned to adapt. And it was easier to maneuver herself to a position at a table. Relatively speaking.

"This is. It's different, I don't usually eat at this sort of place - proper restaurants. But I don't usually have occasion to. Thank you." And now the show. "You'll have to forgive me, getting myself settled is something of a process."

But one she was experienced at. It was a matter of pulling in her tail and coiling tightly where it wouldn't be in the way. Which at the moment was under the table - with leftover to form her own 'chair'. It was always slow going, having to carefully shift all of her, section by section, through a crowded space and arrange it inconspicuously.

The horse man politley sat and waited for Lust to get her situated. After all the looping and scooting and adjusting, all Maurice had to say was,

"Cool."

He couldn't imagine how having that much body must feel or even move. Sure he had more legs than he was used to but honestly his front legs just felt like more arms. His ears perked up and he gave her another shy smile that showed the gap between his two front teeth.

"Have--you had an okay day so far?"

WHAT DID YOU DO ON A DATE???

"I...suppose so." Lust had never been very skilled at small talk. "Nothing's caught on fire or grown teeth, so I believe that counts as an average or better day."

She chuckled a bit after that.

"You'll have to forgive me, I've never done this before. The first date, the trying to get to know one another over light pleasantries..." She shrugged her upper set of arms. "Aren't nearly everyone's light pleasantries more or less the same? What does that tell anyone?"

"Around here? I guess you're right."

Maurice hadn't suffered too many of the peninsula's weird plagues but he'd heard stories. And seen pictures. Good gods the pictures. Lust's next comment interrupted him from remembering a very grizzly transformation caught on live television he'd seen a while back. His ears perked up and he stared at his date in disbelief.

"What? Really? I'da figured you went on dates all th' time." Maurice placed his hands on the table's edge as his insides did a flip. HE was her first date??? PRESSURE. HNHHGGGNN. He swallowed. Okay, okay, he had to pull out all the stops then! No more how's the weather talk! It was time for the DEEP questions.

"Have you ever put part of a person on a sandwich?"

"I'm not the sort of woman most men want to date. Not in the traditional sense." She spent time with men, but it wasn't in this sort of context. This was entirely unexplored territory.

Maurice's next question only surprised Lust for a moment. She blinked, then pursed her lips in thought. It was certainly a unique ice breaker, she had to give him credit for that.

"On a sandwich? No." Well, he'd asked. He was going to get a very honest answer.

"I don't eat human flesh that way, I only eat the insides after they've been reduced to slush. Like a milkshake. Only I call them meatshakes, for obvious reasons."

Ryslig PSL: Snorse Mythology

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