Lorelei's Note: This commissioned series features boy-with-cock POVs and contains fantasy nc (moderate-to-heavy), femdom/malesub, hypnosis, honey-drugging, md;lb, degradation/humiliation, breastfeeding, brainwashing, fantastical misandry, and everything else listed in the tags. Real-life con-noncon requires a lot of trust, safewords, and other things a fantasy can fudge a little. Enjoy the kink responsibly, and enjoy the story!
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A great many things could be found in the western strawberry meadows.
Golden summer sunlight streamed down from the western skies, casting pretty reflections off of the dewy plants that blanketed the meadow and bathing the meadow in the last kiss of the day. The strawberry plants grew throughout the meadow, of course, lush and verdant, right in season, joyously celebrating the primes of their short existences. And interspersing the plants were, dotted here and there like irascible weeds, many dozens of gray stones--some wide and flat like tablets, some tall and hexagonal like basalt pillars, some broken, some intact, some rough and unhewn, some standing at waist height and some the size of a fingertip, some jutting from the earth and some lying half-immersed in the mud, but all inscribed with infinitesimal runes, runes of a tongue nobody around here wanted to speak.
Clover himself stood in the meadow as well, a fit, well-built dark-haired man of average height with a chiseled jaw and an unflinching gaze. His brow furrowed as he surveyed the clearing.
Many things could be found in the strawberry meadow. But one thing that could not be found in the strawberry meadow was a single ripe strawberry.
He knelt to inspect one of the little leafy plants. On this one there was only one little unripe white berry--a wispberry, as the villagers called them--and one fully ripe red strawberry that had, unfortunately, met the hungry end of a garden slug. He reached down and pushed the leaves back, eyes narrowing, searching in vain.
He straightened with a sigh, looking about the strawberry glade, and chewed his upper lip. This was not good.
Clover had had to harangue the elders for weeks to let him manage this patch of land, not to mention the money he'd had to borrow off of the Tailor sisters to cover the year's rent for it. He'd had to plead his case over and over that he could handle it, that he didn't need a partner, that the meadow wouldn't go to waste. Nevermind that nobody ever wanted to use these meadows anyways. Nevermind that he was 24, a grown man, and had been helping to maintain the fields of others for years, knew exactly what he was doing.
Everyone had implied he couldn't handle it on his own--that the glade was too far out, too close to the Runefield, too dangerous, even, that he'd get absent-minded and stay out too close to dark. They'd suggested he take a partner--even one of the Tailor sisters, as if he needed a girl a year younger to monitor him! But he had insisted he could handle it. Clover was a strong, capable man, and did not believe in asking for help when he could do something himself. He'd looked forward to rubbing it in everyone's face--especially those stuck-up Tailors.
And now... Clover grimaced, rising from what feld like the thirtieth plant he'd fruitlessly double-checked. Now it was nearly dusk, a week from the harvest festival, and there was nothing. Nothing at all.
But how could there be
nothing
? It didn't make sense! Cursing, he kicked at the dirt, sending clods of earth and rune-scribed pebbles flying across the meadow.
As the dirt settled, Clover gave a grumbling sigh. He walked over and stooped to retrieve his basket of carrots. He just wouldn't have any berries to share come festival. At least the carrots down the hill had done well, but he'd really hoped...
A rosy shadow swept over his surroundings, and a chilly wind sent his dark mid-length hair right into his eyes.
Sputtering, Clover looked up at the sky--and realized with a start that he had dallied too long.
Clover's eyes followed the sun's arc across golden clouds and descended to the outline of the distant western badlands. The bleed of the dusk sun had begun to flow swift across the horizon like waters filling a floodplane. Suddenly, the whole world was awash in a vivid pink glow glow.
Thinking fast. Clover snatched up the strawberry and straightened. He could come back tomorrow, maybe, but the last thing he needed was to get back to the village a half-hour after sundown and earn a lecture on top of everything else.
He turned to leave, not quite looking where he was going -
--and tripped over a protruding runestone.
Clover staggered and lunged out, his knuckles whitening around the protruding rock he grabbed to catch himself just in time.
Recovering his balance, the farmer hissed under his breath. He'd dropped the basket. Carrots lay spilled out over the ground around him now, as if they'd positively flung themselves away in their eagerness to make his life just a little bit harder.
He let out a groan and dropped to his knees.
Damn it. Damn it!
He hastened to gather up what he could of the harvest. Clover wasn't too nervous about the setting sun--he'd never seen anything dangerous around this place before, and he had a dagger in his boot and a pair of strong arms if anything did try to mess with him. He was more dreading being caught getting home late and being expected to explain his meager harvest to the other villagers.
All the same, all his focus was on picking carrots out from the leafy undergrowth and tossing them back into the basket as quickly as he possibly could. And so he was caught quite by surprise when his gaze traveled up and he saw it.
At first, he wasn't sure what he was looking at. Perhaps the sunset was just very bright, Perhaps his vision was failing him. Perhaps it was just too dark too see clearly.
But... no. He squinted, surprised to find himself not so much scared as... puzzled. No, it was real, alright.
A swirling, roiling cloud of golden-pink mist was flooding through the forest from the west, rushing between the densely-packed trees like a great tidal rosy wave and spilling rapidly into the clearing.
Clover reached up and rubbed his eyes, then blinked again. Twice.
And then the mist was upon him.
Strangely, Clover felt no chill as it settled around him. He didn't smell anything, either, as far as he could tell. He frowned, worry warring with curiosity warring with simple confusion.
Strangest of all, within seconds his eyes seemed to have... adjusted. He could see everything around him without much of any obscurity. Were it not for the slight pink tint to everything, Clover might have doubted the mist existed at all.
Clover stared around him. He hesitated. Then he glanced down at the basket and resumed slowly retrieving carrots. This was... weird, he decided. It didn't seem dangerous, and he didn't feel worried, but... well, better retrieve what little he'd harvested and get back to the village quickly.
He grabbed the last carrot he could easily see, took a deep breath, and made to rise to his feet.
But then he paused.
Clover squinted. A glimmer of red had caught his eye, just a little towards the western edge of the clearing.
It couldn't be. But... he took a step closer, head tilting to the side. It
was
.
Resting there on the ground right in front of him, as peaceful as if it had been dropped there by a sleepwalking goddess, was a single perfect, ripe, plump strawberry.
"What the hell?" Clover muttered under his breath.
It wasn't attached to any plant. it was just... lying there, as if it had simply casually rolled away from the patch. But he was sure he would have remembered picking a berry like that.
It looked delicious. Flawless, even. It looked just as he'd expected the harvest to be a week ago: fully ripe, but still bearing the sheen that promised juicy, firm tartness.
Coming to stand over the berry, he reached down hesitantly and picked it up.
The berry looked perfectly unblemished. He twirled it around between his fingertips and marveled at how the faint rosy lighting seemed to shimmer off of it. There was not a bite. Not a mark. Not even any smudges of dirt.
It was the only berry he'd found, he reasoned subconsciously, licking his lips. It wasn't as if he could sell it.
