7th of Sunsfall, 3418, Somewhere in North Yaavy, Markus' Journal

So that was yesterday. Today was- cathartic I suppose is the right word. Like yesterday it put many things into perspective, but the experience was more perspective about the last few weeks, rather than my thought on elves in general. Suffice to say, I had made some very incredibly stupid assumptions that could have been cleared up in just a single talk.

Did in fact, clear up in just a single talk. Aure had a knack for that sort of thing, wizards in general had a reputation for wisdom and sensibility and the supposedly older elf very much lived up to the legend. I say supposedly older because despite the assurances from both herself and the other eves that her appearance was quite telling of her age- I had no idea what signs to look for. I remember marveling at the seeming agelessness of elves when Aure had plucked me from my dreams in Teale's breasts and gave my still somewhat sticky body a once over while I groggily took in her own wise yet not wizened face.

Elves of all sorts I've personally encountered seem to almost freeze in time once their femininity comes in and they cease to be children. Aure might very well be older than my mother as she claims, but no human would ever figure that out from just her looks or the feel of her heavy breasts as she cupped a man against them. Aure snorting to herself shook me out of my groggy reverie, and it occurred to me that perhaps I should avoid thinking about subjects that will get me teased when my erection inevitably poked into her hand while she was holding me up against the underside of those same 2 subjects. Too late now I supposed.

High elven bathtime was harrowing enough without my encouraging my teammates to make a game of it. Well, no. Harrowing was probably the wrong word. But elves were nothing if not very exacting when it came to cleanliness. I'd clean myself as best as I could, but not even an alchemist's attention to chemical detail was fine enough for their sensitive noses. I would inevitably find myself in hand and scrubbed to Aure's standards no matter how raw I rubbed myself. And then she would have the gall to admonish me of my harsh treatment of my body rather than simply take the time to 'do it right'. The 'right' amount of time to bathe according to an elf was 'all day'.

As usual, I had started my bath when Aure set me down in a shallower bit of the massive steaming caldera. While I set about squeezing and working the gel-filled washleaf into a lather to get the worst of Teale's residue off of myself, she and the other elves made efficient work combing one another's hair with a comb carved from a dragon's jawbone. From prior experience, I knew that this first mutual combing was just to get the stray leaves and sticks out from their locks before they sat down to soak, they had no intention of cleaning their hair just once while we were here.

I was no stranger to the elven love of cleansing, I was just used to doing it in the steam rains that commonly fell from the middle of Sunsrise to the beginning of Sunsfall in Terela and the other the dark elf queendoms of the south. It was more or less impossible to tell for how long the pleasantly heated rain would fall so I was used to using the water quickly and efficiently at a moment's notice. The alternative was a visit to the public bathhouse where a combination of magic and high technology replicated the experience of a hot rain shower for as long as a visitor wanted, at the cost of literally being surrounded by elves who would doubtlessly be delighted at the opportunity to carry, cuddle, and otherwise embarrass any hapless humans sharing the “shower” room with them. Given the choice, I preferred the somewhat common natural occurrence.

Supposedly, the steam storms themselves were sourced from the sea far to the south of our continent literally simmering like a soup pot as the sun got closer to the world during the warmer part of the year. This, combined with the icebergs in the far north continually rising from the abruptly liquid water and violently shattering during this same time of year, contributed to a cylindrical weather pattern that pushed the air and clouds far above the world north even as the wind down here seemed to blow south. And of course when the sun began to move away during Sunsrest, the pattern would altogether halt, as the north sea solidified and the shattering winds stopped pulling in the steam storms with their vacuum. Though obviously, no exploratory effort into either such hostile climates would ever take humans along to observe the phenomena in person, so I simply had to content myself with written descriptions and sketched illustrations from the expeditions rather than see for myself.

In any case, my learned habit of quickly rinsing myself in the open air while I could was at odds with the mountain queendom tradition of making an entire day of lounging in these hotsprings that wouldn't be suddenly disappearing or cooling down without notice. And so my technique was at odds with the rest of my team's sensibilities. So while I was at first allowed to wash myself, I would not be allowed to declare myself clean until I had been washed by an elf.

So it wasn’t truly harrowing, but it was often restrictive as Aure needed me to be contorted in a specific way so that she could get the wash leaf pressed and gently scrubbing at my skin in a specific angle. Being so much larger than a human, each of a high elf's fingers was about as thick around as I was, and I wasn't obese or anything, but I wasn't skinny either. Handling me was one thing, getting a small, rough, and yet naturally slippery leaf into all of my body's crevasses required some awkward positioning. And I think they just liked the excuse to dangle me over their naked bodies with my own nakedness in full view of anybody who happened to be in the area.

But after several years of the treatment I was used to it. I was even able to make conversation while held upside-down, my torso pinched between her thumb and first finger while she carefully ablated away the callouses on each of my toes. “Flatterer.”

“I mean every word.”

“Aye, you do. But it's flattery all the same. I'll not go easy on you just because you say nice things, you realize?” I did my best to shrug at that.

“Fair enough. It was worth a shot.”

“It really wasn't Markus, I wouldn't normally object to the smell of a man but-”

“But on this occasion it's because I smell like Teale's- er, her-”

“-Her womanhood, aye. Or elfhood, if you prefer. Scientifically speaking, we're not exactly 'women', for all similarities on a surface level and shared ancient lineage.” I didn't know exactly which lineage Aure was referring to, but I clearly recalled that particular taxonomic ruling had come out when I was a boy. My elven classmates were in an uproar over it for weeks and it marked one of the few times I'd ever seen a human tease an elf before they collectively embraced the change and teased the human girls right back.

“Either's fine with me I suppose.” Despite the science of it saying otherwise, elves had much more in common with women than they did anything else. Even orcs who gave birth from nothing as elves do were much more like man-shaped animals than anything else. Not that I'd ever seen one up close whom wasn't an extermination target for our party. Perhaps they were more personable when they weren't fighting for their lives against folk who towered over every other.

“And yet you still struggle to enunciate when speaking of the experience. Did you dislike it that-”

“No, it was amazi-! I mean, uh-” Aure smiled slyly at my outburst, and I suddenly became aware that I had an erection again. This time it was out in the open, and with my arms pinned between her knuckles, I had little choice but to blush and shiver when Aure's fingers trailed up my thighs to cradle my balls on a single fingertip. “I- I mean- I liked-”

Aure cut me off, “You mind if I take a little break in cleaning you Markus?” her finger lightly tapped agaisnt me, making my erection bob with every word.

“I- What?”

“It's been a while since I held a cute little man like this, all vulnerable and pliant. It hasn't been very long since I washed you last, of course. But that was before all of this, back then, you hadn't made any indication of wanting to be- more than strictly professional.” I suddenly noticed that I was being eyed like a piece of meat again, Aure was actually interested rght now, not just teasing me. “And of course I've tasted you plenty, but I couldn't watch your expressions while I did that and- well I'd rather not get a mouthful of soap today.” Understandable.

“Oh uh ye-! I mean- um. I don't know if-”

“Markus. You know there's no point in lying to me, aye? We both know what you really think of my request and you certainly don't have any other plans today.” Well I guess we're doing this now. At least I'd already written off the day as far as my primary duties go. Plenty of time to devote to my secondary duty of appeasing the sexual appetites of my team, better that than sating the other appetite they had for my folk.

“... I suppose I wouldn't mind taking a little break from the-” Almost instantly I was dangling by my elbows from Aure's fingers while the fingers of her other hand palmed my ass and hips in a vicegrip before her thumb and first finger reached forward to encircle my penis in a pinch, only when my limbs were pulled back behind me did Aure begin to stroke me. It wasn't painful, but it was immediately clear that I was utterly at her mercy, angled just low and close enough to my captor that my predicament was all I could see, hear, or focus on. I always was of course, but dangling and exposed like this, while the elf stroked my genitals with slow and deliberate purpose, I could do little more than look around and take it all in.

Only my head was free to move around in my current pose. Aure's grip never threatened to squeeze too hard or too soft, she relentlessly robbed me of any hope of feeling something beyond her powerful hands holding me still as a statue and that damned yet blessed steady tempo. I wasn't allowed, it seemed, to have any sort of say in how quickly I received my slowly building orgasm, my teammate was too engrossed in the journey to allow such liberties to the lowly human she had set to reach her chosen destination.

Aure pumped my cock with a pace that glaciers would be jealous of. Her grip on my shaft was gentle and plush but utterly unyielding, and the sensation of her fingerprints lubricated by the washleaf fluid was like- I could scarcely think of an apt comparison. The wavy lines engraved into every folk's fingertips were much more prominent on a high elf than they were a human, they were over half the width of my own fingers and 3 to 4 times as long, but squishier and unsegmented given that lack of bones. It was as though I was actually being wrapped around by dozens of small feminine hands rather than just 2 fingers, they slid up to my tip and down to my balls over and over again, without any of the imperfect deviations that a human woman would have. I couldn't think of any other way that I could have possibly compared these particular feelings beyond some other river or high elf with a grip slippery with washleaf suds.

Of course that was just the feeling of it, what really stood out in my mind was the sight of her stroking me. Above me I could just barely make out my own fingers wiggling on the other side of the fingertips of Aure's left hand, beyond that, the tangled silver branches of the Yggdrasil grove that had grown around the hotspring and the blue sky up above that.

Looking down I could only see Aure and what she was doing to me. The stark contrast between my pinkish wood colored body and her bright blue hand with its dark purple undertones only served to draw my eye down to where I was being sensually tormented. For several long minutes I found myself unable to do anything beyond watch as my penis was rhythmically devoured and regurgitated, in and out and in and out, never deviating but endlessly captivating. And when I tore my gaze up from the sight of the digits that continued to glide across my member, all I could see was the relaxed rise and fall of Aure's breasts, each tipped with nipples as firm and erect as I was. Above the fleshy globes, Aure's perfect face smiled warmly down at me even while her eyes gleamed sharply, as they had at the bandits that had begged her for their lives just days ago. I'd memorized her face after years of travel together, but I still couldn't help but take in every detail of her peculiar countenance now. That mixture of gentle intentions and yet unmistakably carnivorous excitement, it was one I'd seen before, but never directed towards myself for more than the split second it took her to slip me into her mouth after winning me in a contest with the others. She was regarding me with a silent promise that I was both perfectly safe in her possession and that I was her prey and would not be escaping before she had had her fill of me.

Aure was ever so slowly but surely building up to the moment when my mind would blank in bliss and I'd be even more helpless in her hands. Her palm kept me from bucking or otherwise disrupting the pace that she'd chosen, her smallest three fingers hooked my legs and kept me from kicking or otherwise distracting myself from my companion and her actions. Her thumb and first finger curled around my pudgy midsection and pinched my manhood, and if I had my hands free I'm sure that I could have reached down to feel her iron-hard tendons just beneath the skin working back and forth as the digits flexed, I could certainly feel them straining and relaxing against my sides. Such immense power brought to bear to entrap and massage my penis like it was the milky teat of some manner of livestock.

My agency as a folk was being almost entirely stripped away for this wizard's amusement, and I loved every agonizingly slow minute of it. All the pretext of our previous encounters was gone, I wasn't trapped in this game of hers because I was tasty or because I'd stumbled into some clever joke. Aure had decided that she wanted to make me helpless, to enjoy me as I enjoyed being helpless, and so now I was just her toy. Those predatory eyes were trained on my face no matter where I looked, I could feel her smug stare everywhere I craned my head. I might be the one getting masturbated, but Aure was clearly deriving the lion's share of satisfaction from my predicament. The gleam in her eye only got more triumphant when I gave up on distracting myself and gazed back at her without care for how my expression appeared, wordlessly begging the elf to speed up, put me in her mouth, anything but this erotic monotony. But alas, Aure did not have mercy and continued to pump me as methodically as before I surrendered. I had no choice but to endure it.

I have no idea how long I was reduced to wanton moaning under those eyes, but eventually I was allowed to release and I remember doing so with an almost strangled yelp, held just as still as I had been the entire time she worked me up to that point. Aure though, had broken her amused and leisurely recline to dart forward and catch my production on her tongue, I remember the moment very strongly as it and the heavenly suction she applied to my still-twitching manhood immediately afterward were all I could think of as I basked in the comfort of both the heat of the bath and the softness of Aure's hands. My earlier thoughts echoed back to me in that liminal state, that I was milked much like livestock. And evidently my milk was so delicious and valuable that my herdself refused to waste a drop.

By the time I was coherent again she was back to scrubbing me as though nothing had happened. It was all so ordinary that I myself might have written it off as a daydream, had I not noticed that I could make out Aure's womanhood through the steamy waters and my sore cock didn't even twitch in response to the observation. Apparently Aure had seen fit to drain my body as dry as she had my willpower.

I was positioned to be sitting between her second and third fingers while my arms hung over the first and her thumb held me in place. Meanwhile her other hand was gently rubbing circles into my back, any knots of tension that had once been there had already been replaced with newly popped vertebrae and relaxed muscles. Generally speaking, none of the elves who washed me were ever satisfied with my cleanliness until I'd had the suds massaged into my skin and giving me an almost elf-like earthy scent that persisted for days instead of hours, which naturally meant that I also got the other benefits of having a massage. Even if I hadn't just been brought to orgasm, I don't think it would be possible for me to be any more comfortable than I was right then.

“Did you have a nice nap, Markus?”

“Aye. A much needed one.”

“I'm glad. Feel free to let me know if you'd like another one like it.” Ah? Are we not going to ignore the mammoth in the room then?

“You mean, sleeping in your hands? Or-?”

“I'll be 296 seasons old this next Sunsrest, Markus. You're hardly the first human who let me play with them like that, and you'd not be the first to want me to make a game of them again once they'd recovered.” 296?! That's-! Oh wait, no. Seasonal age, right. That's what they do up in the northernmost queendoms. So, 296 divided by 4... It seems I underestimated her age a little, while not a bicentennial, Aure is still just 2 years shy of my grandmother's age. And yet, even knowing this, I still couldn't make out any sign that she wasn't as young as Teale or me. Elves are truly the most mysterious creatures under the goddess.

Then, before I could muster a response to Aure's invitation, I was abruptly dunked in the water to get rinsed off, effectively putting an end to the subject. Thankfully the hotspring was very very large, and thus had quite a bit of thermal capacity compared to smaller phenomena such as geysers that could cook a man alive in seconds. So even though the water was literally boiling as it streamed into the caldera from beneath the earth, the center of the pool itself was only slightly too hot for me for anything more than a brief dip. And those brief dips were luxurious.

Once I had finished coughing and sputtering the residual water from my nose and throat, Aure leaned in and gave me a big sniff. Instantly my hair was air-dried as all the moisture went up her left nostril, and if Aure had noticed that or found it uncomfortable, it was masked when she wrinkled her face for a completely different reason. "Teale really soaked herself into you, huh?"

I would have shrugged in response, but my arms were held fast between Aure's knuckles while she dabbed at my armpits now. "I like to think it was a team effort."

Aure cracked a big smile at that. "Perhaps, or perhaps it was mostly your work. You know she couldn't even stand for a few minutes there?" She looked up at presumably Teale and giggled "We're going to have a lot of fun in the future, you understand?"

I nodded slowly, thoughtfully. Of course, while Aure had clearly enjoyed seeing me in such a state, I rather doubted that she or any of the elves would be content with stroking me when they could be filled by me instead. While they shouldn't be mistaken for humans, elves weren't that much different from human women. "Aye, if I feel that good to you then I must have a third job to do from now on." At least all my jobs in the party were enjoyable. Some folk hated their jobs.

Instead of seeming pleased at my submission, my words prompted Aure to cock her head in confusion. "You don't seem too happy about that."

I waved her off. "No it's fine, I'm still just a little tired after our- um.” Aure slyly smiled at my blush and I had to stop before I started stuttering. goddess, I was going to hear about that slip up later, wasn't I? “Well anyway, I'm truly glad to be more useful to you all without my lab and-" I had to cut off as my vision was briefly blocked by her finger suddenly and briefly pressing against my face. When I could see it again, Aure's face was plainly concerned and mildly disapproving.

"Hush, you. It's not about usefulness, you're our friend and we just want you to enjoy your lot in life as much as we do." Not about usefulness? What? But then, what about- Wait.

"So if I were to stop making potions?" Surely I couldn't have had this all backwards? There's no way I'm that far mistaken, right? I'm an educated man, logic was my strong suit, right?

"We've been trying to get you to hold off on that for over a week Markus, we've got plenty and you're allowed to take breaks." Oh. Yes that sort of put the last few days into perspective. Fuck, maybe I- goddess, that actually throws a lot of my assumptions and educated guesses into question. But then, I'd never actually confirmed my fears with any of the elves, had I?

I- I wanted- No. No, I don't want it at all. I would love to remain ignorant if my fears were true, but I needed to hear it from them now. I was terrified of what would follow if I heard Aure confirm that she would happily eat me if circumstances allowed, but knowing how wrong I'd been about how to view these past few weeks, how the elves had viewed it- I was terrified still, but I had to know for sure.

Here goes everything. "What if I stopped altogether?"

Aure's expression shifted to be slightly more disapproving, as I expected her to be. Oh goddess. "That'd be different." As I thought then- "We'd have to find another alchemist and we sure as shit would stop paying you a fair share for a job you weren't doing, but that'd be it.” What. “I personally wouldn't mind still keeping you around afterwards, just in case your replacement was a stick in the mud." I don't- I was wrong? I- What is this feeling, I-? I needed absolute confirmation, that much I knew. “Markus, is something wrong? Your heart is beating awfully fast, you should be relaxed right now.”

I barely managed to stutter out my request for Aure to clarify. "So I'd be free to go? You wouldn't- I'm not-"

For as long as I'd known her, Aure has always been a very sure sort of elf, so this was the first time I'd ever seen her look so mystified. "Free to- What do you mean, exactly? We wouldn't what? Spit it out Markus, I'm more of a fireball throwing witch than a mind reader."

"I-” Aure held me a bit closer to her face, presumably to hear me better. “Uh, you-” Unfortunately, this meant I was also closer to her mouth, which did not help my sudden bout of nerves. “You wouldn't eat- eat m-" I couldn't finish it, I couldn't even look her in the eyes. Instead I stared hard into the bubbling water below while the wizard struggled to comprehend what I was even asking.

The color drained away from Aure's usually vibrant face when it clicked in her mind. "What- Of course not Markus! We only eat bad humans who rape and murder other humans! You're our friend! Goddess' grace, what kind of monster would eat their friends like that?!" Faster than I could blink, I was suddenly hugged tight against her breasts as Aure clutched at me possessively as though I would be snatched away by some evil folk if she didn't keep me close.

I couldn't really answer her if I wanted to, pressed into her breast as I was I could barely even hear her. But I did hear her, and it was like somewhere in the deep fear-ridden recesses of my mind, a parched desert of worry was suddenly flooded in a deluge of relief. I was never going to be eaten, it was just- it was just harmless fun between adventurers, that's all it ever was. I just- It was too much for me to handle in just a handful of minutes, I had no idea how to process and contextualize it all.

Meanwhile, this outburst of Aure's got the attention of the others on the team, and they all apparently wanted a turn to hold and reassure me of what Aure had said. All the high elves were incredibly distraught at the thought that I had feared them, possibly more distraught than I had been when I imagined myself in place of any of the dozens of bandits that had been devoured in front of me.

Looking back, I supposed we were all in a state of shock, as I can scarcely remember any specifics of what might have been a panicked hour in the time that followed. An hour of being held against elven flesh and listening to the rush of displaced water and high pitched elven babbling. I don't think I've ever actually heard an elf sound so scared before, and that they were scared on my behalf was truly touching. They actually truly cared for me beyond what my profession and form could provide them.

While I had started to recover the feeling of safety in their presence again, each of my companions were suddenly feeling horrified on my behalf. I think I started crying in sheer relief at some point, which almost definitely did not help reassure any of the elves of my relative okayness compared to the last several weeks of my subtle terror at the thought of becoming expendable.

And then I spent what seemed like forever being passed around and fretted over by all 4 of them, I was just aware enough of what was physically transpiring to note what was happening to me but not who was doing it or what any of them were saying, and I'm not sure if my lack of comprehension was because of the distress of the party or because they had switched to a mountain dialect I didn't know.

What I do remember is being subjected to a microcosm of every comfort the elves could think to provide a scared human with until they were finally convinced that I was no longer scared of them. I found myself clutched in the darkness of their interlocked fingers. Every bit of me was kissed, and half of those kisses were wet with spittle. I was pressed against cheeks, and lips, and hands, and all over their breasts, and finally I drifted off to sleep completely surrounded in someone's breasts deaf to the world save for the elf's heart reverberating around me.

As I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't help but marvel at how light I suddenly was. Physically, I was unable to move from my comfortable prison. But mentally, spiritually, it was like I'd been carrying- I don't know, the weight of the elves themselves on my back and it was suddenly lifted off with just words and their gentle touches. That combined with the almost religious experience I had had inside of Teale that I suddenly remembered was going to be repeated at least as frequently as becoming intimate with the breasts and mouths of my- my friends- that I just-

Goddess, I don't know what it was that I did to deserve such amazing and powerful and gentle friends. Surely mixing crushed plants into magic juice wasn't worth more than a mote of this? For weeks I had thought such horribly uncharitable things about them and their character and they reacted by- They instantly forgave me, what they thought of me was never in any question and they only wanted what they felt was best for my health and mental wellbeing. I have never felt so deeply ashamed and loved by the same people. I would just have to make it up to them. My friends of 5 years deserved nothing less than my best efforts.

I- words cannot describe how ready I am to enjoy the rest of what remains of this little vacation our party is currently mired in. I want nothing more than to be surrounded by my friends and to show them as much love and appreciation as they have shown me. The astute reader who is familiar with high elves might recognize the wordplay there.

End