Nucleus 1: The Dust of Moon [Mature Sci-fi Romance]

22:55, March 27, 2295

The Lair of Astrid, Mount Lyell, Yosemite Valley

Astrid pulled back from the kiss, just enough to look into his eyes. Her breath came in small puffs that crystallized in the cavern air between them.

"I need to show you something," she whispered. "The real me. Not this..." She gestured at her human form. "This pretty lie I wear like armor."

"Astrid—" Jabari tried to reply.

"No, listen." Her hands pressed against his chest, trembling harder now. "Everyone who's seen me transform either runs screaming or looks at me like I'm a specimen. Like I'm something to study or own or use. But you..." She searched his face. "Maybe you'll be different. Maybe you'll understand."

She stood, taking a step back from the fur bed. Her fingers found the hem of her robes, and she paused, vulnerability naked in her eyes.

"If you want to run after you see, I won't stop you. I'll even disable the paralysis completely. Just...please don't scream."

Before he could respond, she pulled the spider silk robes over her head in one fluid motion, letting it fall to the cavern floor. For a moment, she stood there in her human form—pale and perfect and utterly still, like a statue carved from ice. Water droplets from her perpetually damp hair traced paths down her skin, catching the bioluminescent light.

Then she began to change.

It started at her waist. The flesh there seemed to ripple and flow, losing its solid form. Jabari's instinct was to recoil—the sight was wrong on every primal level, like watching someone melt and reform simultaneously. Her lower body elongated, spreading outward as translucent tentacles emerged where her legs had been. They weren't quite solid, more like living water given form, undulating with their own rhythm.

The transformation traveled upward, but stopped at her ribcage. Her upper body remained human—achingly, beautifully human—while below she had become something else entirely. The tentacles, her oral arms, spread around her like the bell of a jellyfish, translucent and faintly glowing with their own inner light. That strange braid of her hair seemed to move on its own now, no longer pretending to be mere keratin but something alive and aware.

She stood there, neither fully human nor fully beast, waiting for his reaction. Her arms crossed over her ample chest, not in modesty but in self-protection, as if bracing for the disgust she expected to see in his eyes.

"This is what I am," she said, and her voice cracked. "This is what Harald made me. Beautiful enough to want, alien enough to never truly have. Do you see now? Do you understand why—"

"You're incredible."

The words left Jabari's mouth before he could think them through. But they were true. Yes, the sight of her transformation had been disturbing, even frightening. But now, seeing her like this—vulnerable and powerful and utterly unique—all he could think was how lonely she must be. How brave, to show him this.

"Don't mock me." Her voice was sharp, defensive.

"I'm not." He pushed himself up on his elbows, meeting her gaze steadily. "I mean, I've already seen it when we first fought. And you're...you're beautiful. Different, yeah. But still beautiful."

Something broke in her expression. She moved toward him, her oral arms propelling her with ethereal grace, until she hovered over the fur bed. When she reached out to touch his chest again, her hand was shaking.

"You really mean that?"

"Yeah." He covered her hand with his. "I do…"

This time when she leaned down to kiss him, it was different. Desperate and hungry and full of a need that had nothing to do with collecting samples and everything to do with being being wanted.

Astrid's oral arms, cool and slippery like the fleshy tendrils they were, coiled around Jabari's thighs as she straddled him. The sensation was both alien and arousing.

Jabari's senses were on fire. The cool, slick texture of her lower half intertwining with his thighs, the wetness of her oral arms, the way her translucent skin glowed—it was all too much and not enough. His heart pounded in his chest as he stared up at this beautiful monster who'd just bared her soul and body to him.

Slowly, as if moving through water, Jabari propped himself up on his elbows. Astrid watched him warily.

He reached out with shaking fingers and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. Her skin was cool to the touch but still somehow alive with an alien energy. Astrid closed her eyes at his touch, exhaling a shuddering breath that sent goosebumps prickling down his spine.

Emboldened, Jabari continued exploring her. His hands roamed over the contours of her back and sides, marveling at how seamlessly human flesh transitioned into something else entirely. The oral arms undulated around him like living silk as he moved higher...higher...until he finally reached Astrid's breasts.

They were every bit as perfect as they'd looked when she'd been in human form—two perfect globes of pale flesh tipped with peach-hued nipples that begged for attention. And Jabari was more than happy to oblige. He took one into his mouth, suckling gently at first before applying more pressure when she moaned encouragement into the cavern air above him.

Astrid's moans grew louder, more insistent, as Jabari sucked her breasts with increasing hunger. Her oral arms tightened around his waist, pulling him closer as if she could meld their bodies together. Her nipples hardened further against his tongue, and he knew he'd found her sweet spot.

But just when he thought she might come undone right there in his arms, Astrid pulled away with a gasp. Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath.

"Jabari…" she panted, "as much as I'd love to let you...ah...do that all day...we have...hmm...work to do."

He reluctantly released her breast and looked up at her flushed face, slightly dazed but intrigued by the newfound playfulness in her voice. "Work? What?" he managed to croak out.

Astrid flashed him a mischievous grin before leaning in for another searing kiss. This time, it was short but no less potent. She then pulled back.

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"Well," she purred, "I need a sample of your...ah..." She trailed off, blushing furiously despite her alien lower half. "You know what I mean."

Jabari felt his own cheeks heat up as understanding dawned on him. "Oh." He cleared his throat awkwardly before adding, "Right."

Astrid laughed—a genuine, carefree sound—and gently pushed him back down onto the fur bed below them. Straddling him once more, she leaned forward and kissed him again—this time slower, more sensual—as one of her oral arms reached between their bodies and began stroking his mandhood to full erection with ease...

Her delicate human hand reached for his penis, guiding it towards the blue-glowing opening between her lower body's oral arms.

With a shiver, Astrid positioned him at her entrance. "Are you…ready?" she breathed into his ear, her voice husky.

"Yeah…yeah…." Jabari nodded, panting quicker now, unable to find words as he stared at the surreal sight of her human torso perched atop the undulating mass of her glowing lower half.

Slowly, inch by tantalizing inch, Astrid lowered herself onto him. The sensation was unlike anything Jabari had imagined—warmth and wetness enveloped by cool, undulating flesh around his erect member. It should have been jarring or even painful, but instead it was…transcendent. As if she were made for this—made for him.

When she had taken him all the way inside herself, Astrid threw her head back and moaned—a sound that was half-human, half-something else entirely. Her oral arms squeezed tighter around his thighs as she began to grind against him in a rhythm that echoed through the cavern walls.

Jabari couldn't help but gasp as he felt Astrid's inner walls envelop his erection. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced—warm and wet, yet somehow also cool and silky smooth, like being enveloped in a liquid silk blanket. Their eyes locked as she began to move, her hips grinding in sensuous circles. Moans escaped both their lips in unison, each one driving them closer to the precipice of ecstasy.

Jabari gripped Astrid's waist, his hands digging into the smooth, cool flesh where her human upper body seamlessly blended with her alien lower half. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the surreal sight of their bodies joined as one as he began to thrust upward, driving himself deeper into her yielding depths.

Astrid's orifice was unlike anything he'd ever experienced—watery and soft, yet strangely inviting. It felt as if it had enlarged itself to accommodate his girth, enveloping him in a warm, silky embrace that sent shivers down his spine with every thrust. Her oral arms tightened around him in response, squeezing him even closer as she moaned encouragement in his ear.

"That's it," she panted, "give it to me...oh...oh...ohhh!"

Jabari felt himself approaching the edge of orgasm faster than he had with Fuuka. His hips picked up speed, slamming into her with abandon as he sought release.

With a final grunt of pleasure, Jabari came—pumping his seed deep inside her alien depths as wave after wave of ecstasy washed over him. Astrid threw her head back and cried out in kind, her body shuddering around him in a climax that seemed to last an eternity.

As their passion subsided, Jabari collapsed onto the fur bed beneath them both panting heavily. Astrid nuzzled against his neck, her oral arms still wrapped around him like a blanket, not saying a word.

They lay tangled in the furs afterward, her human upper body pressed against his chest while her oral arms created a protective canopy around them. The bioluminescent veins in the ceiling pulsed in slow rhythm.

"That was..." Jabari's voice came out rough. "Not what I expected when I woke up here."

"Disappointed?" There was vulnerability in the question, despite her attempt at lightness.

"No." He traced lazy patterns on her shoulder, marveling at how her skin felt exactly like human skin above the waist, despite what lay below. "Just...thinking."

She laughed, a real laugh this time. "Join the club. I've been processing for years."

They lapsed into comfortable silence. Jabari found himself oddly at peace, despite everything—despite being capture, despite the fact that he'd just made love to someone who was technically his enemy. The world outside this cavern felt very far away.

"I still need the samples," Astrid said eventually, but there was no urgency in it. "For Skarn. For Lady Maren. But..."

"But?"

"But I don't want this to end." The admission came out small, almost lost in the sound of dripping water somewhere in the cavern. "Is that pathetic? That I want to pretend, just for a little while, that this means something?"

"It does mean something." Jabari turned to look at her fully. "I don't know what, exactly. But it means something."

She studied his face for a long moment, then nodded. Carefully, she disentangled herself and moved to her laboratory. She returned with her instruments—the crystalline syringes, the glowing vials.

"This won't hurt," she promised, settling beside him again. "Well, the blood draw might sting a little."

"I trust you."

The words seemed to surprise them both. But Jabari meant them. Whatever else she was—Radi-Mon, enemy—in this moment, she was just Astrid. And he trusted her.

She worked with careful precision, drawing blood first, then saliva. When it came time for the third sample, she met his eyes, and reached into the orifice between her oral arms, inserting the vial into it. Before long, she withdrew her hand, the vial now filled with sticky white fluid. Jabari needed no explanation to know what it was.

"That should do it. Your Aether in its undiluted form." she whispered when it was done, sealing the last vial containing his semen. "I'll…be careful with it."

As she moved to store the samples, one of the vials slipped from her grasp. Time seemed to slow as it fell, the precious fluid inside catching the cavern's light. It shattered against the floor near a small Bone Fiend that had been gnawing on some detritus in the corner.

"Shit!" Astrid lunged forward, but it was too late.

The moment the fluid touched the creature, something extraordinary happened. The Bone Fiend let out a shriek that was cut short as its body began to dissolve. Not burn, not melt—dissolve, as if the very bonds holding its form together were coming undone. Within seconds, there was nothing left but a puddle of organic matter.

They both stared at the spot where the creature had been.

"That's...that's impossible," Astrid breathed. "The Lotus variant shouldn't—it's not toxic to—"

"But it is to Fenris." Jabari pushed himself upright, mind racing. "Holy shit, Astrid. The Sand Lotus virus is lethal to Fenris Radi-Mons."

She turned to him, eyes wide with the implications. "If Skarn knew...if any of them knew..."

"They'd kill me. And probably you for discovering it."

They looked at each other across the space of this terrible, wonderful discovery. Everything had just changed. The balance of power, the war between the Hordes, the value of what ran through Jabari's veins—all of it shifted in the space of a spilled vial.

That's when the rumbling started.

It began as a low vibration through the cavern floor, barely noticeable. But it grew, became a sound, became a roar that seemed to come from the very bones of the mountain.

"What is that?" Jabari was already reaching for his clothes, the moment shattered.

Astrid's face had gone pale. "I don't know. That's not—that's not any of ours. The frequency is wrong."

The rumbling intensified. Somewhere in the depths of the tunnel system, something was moving. Something that didn't belong to either Fenris or Jokull.

They looked at each other, lovers and enemies and now conspirators in a secret that could reshape everything. But whatever was coming, it wasn't enough to distract her from the original purpose.

"Hey…" Astrid said, her already shifting back to her Ísmarr form. "...you mind if we do it one more time?"

"You want to…have sex again?" He asked incredulously, but his body did not resist the idea, heart already beating faster once more.

"Yeah, we could…try a different position. I can get you something to eat before that, too…if you'd like." She ran a finger through her damp hair. "Anything to get a proper full bottle of your Aether."