A Final Offer

The water had turned a vivid orange with the setting sun by the time the first ripple started to spread from around the little wooden bobber, and Cross Current held his breath in hopeful anticipation. The ripples repeated, and again, and then the bobber jerked. He gave his fishing pole a sharp, purposeful tug, and felt the line snap taut as the startled fish below tried to flinch away.

"Finally!" Cross breathed in relief as he started to reel his catch in, the pole bending as the hooked fish fought to escape. It was getting late, and he had been having poor luck so far. Nothing he had managed to land had been even worth considering for The Offering, and after having tossed so many back into the sea, the young stallion had been starting to worry he wasn't going to have anything to offer that night.

He was just about to get the net ready when there was a startlingly strong tug on the line, something that very nearly pulled the pole right out of his wings, and made him have to place a steadying hoof on the edge of his boat to avoid losing his balance. He groaned, cursing under his breath as he pulled hard on the line, hoping something bigger hadn't just gone after his fish. The pole bent to a dangerous degree and Cross forced himself to let up the pressure a bit, not wanting to risk breaking it, or snapping the line. He frowned as the line remained steady however. If something like a shark had grabbed his catch, he would have been expecting it to be fighting with him over it. This was more like something was just holding onto the line and...and...

"Oh come on," Cross growled, giving the line a series of three deliberate, spaced tugs. He paused a moment, and then gave three more. And he felt the pressure release. The sun tinted water below darken as the shadow of a huge form rose from the depths, and the stallion set his hoofing before his boat was rocked by the wake as first a giant head, and then shoulders, and then a good dozen feet of slick, shimmering torso rose above the sea as the kēta reared up out of the water.

She was gorgeous, even by the high standards of the kētas, though Cross would admit he was somewhat bias in regards to this particular siren of the sea. Still, the bright red mane, the lustful green eyes, the playful, sultry expression that seemed to be her natural, resting face. She had plenty to make a stallion want to ogle. Although at the moment, Cross's focus was on something besides her looks.

"Aki, give me my fish back," he told the kēta in a polite but firm tone of voice. She blinked at him, her head cocking to one side in a rather adorable, thoughtful manner, the motion causing the fishing pole to jerk in Cross's hold as the line pulled taut from where it disappeared into the corner of Aki's mouth.

"What fish?" Aki asked, Cross's fur standing on end at getting hit with her echo voice at such a close distance, even if she was clearly holding most of it back. His eyebrows lowered at her, and he gave the fishing pole a pointed tug, making the line dance all the way up to her lips. "...there's no fish there. You just managed to hook me.

"Aki. Give. Me. My. Fish," Cross repeated, pulling on the line harder. Not that he expected it to accomplish anything, and it didn't. The kēta didn't even acknowledge the effort, but it gave him something of an outlet for his annoyance so that he didn't start yelling at her.

"Seriously Cross, there's no fish. Just me. I mean, did you actually see a fish?" Aki asked, her voice infuriatingly calm, especially in contrast to the playful glimmer in her eyes.

"I felt it take the bait," Cross groaned, letting the line go slack. "I'm been fishing more than long enough to know what it feels like to hook a fish. And if there is no fish, why are still holding my line? And using your echo voice? It's almost as if you know you wouldn't be able to talk normally, like say, because you have something in your mouth?" he went on in a rather dry, sarcastic tone.

Aki made a thoughtful noise at that. Her lips twitched, and the muscles around her jaw subtly tensed and relaxed in a pattern Cross had, through many an Offering, come to recognize as signs of a kēta's tongue in action. A few seconds later and Aki made a soft little 'pwto' of a noise, and Cross watched the empty hook sail out of her mouth and plink down into the water.

"Don't you dare swallow!" he exclaimed, pointing a hoof swiftly at her. "Aki! That is my fish! Come on, I need it!"

Aki giggled, flashing Cross her best smile. The one that had a habit of making stallions do dumb things around her. "Aw, but you like watching me swallow," she purred playfully, something wicked lurking in her voice. "But, as you can see, and hear, there was no fish on your hook, and obviously none in my mouth since I can talk clearly. And I know you know what it looks like when I swallow...you really are so fascinated with my throat, after all..." she went on, her voice turning more and more sultry as she spoke.

Cross cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly, the thread of his frustration at the kēta being derailed by her aggressively flirting with him. Which was totally unfair, and he cursed himself for being so readily flustered by her. Especially by her.

"Aki, come on, quit messing around. It's getting dark, and fishing has been lousy today. I need whatever I caught for the Offering tonight."

The kēta shrugged apologetically. "Don't know what to tell you, there's no fish here," she said earnestly.

"Aki...I can see the bulge in your cheek," Cross declared flatly.

"...no you can't," Aki retorted.

"Wha...bu...err...yes I can!" Cross half yelled.

"Where?"

"Right there!" Cross exclaimed, pointing with a wing. "Right cheek, slight bugle, looks about the right size to be a four footer, maybe thirty odd pounds."

"...you're making that up," Aki scoffed.

"No, I'm an experienced angler," Cross countered stubbornly. "And I've been to enough Offerings to know what kind of bulge a pony makes, so it's just a matter of comparing sizes and educated guesswork."

"Fine, if it'll make you feel better and put an end to these silly accusations," Aki sighed dramatically. Cross yelped softly as his boat gave a sharp jerk, and then steadied as if it was no longer floating on the water. His stomach gave a little lurch as the boat rose, the kēta picking it up with a casual ease and bringing it, and thus Cross, right up in front of her face. She smiled sweetly at him, and from that distance, the expression took up most of his vision. It also made him question the wisdom of sticking with the boat and letting her bring him that close to her mouth, rather than bailing out and going airborne.

Granted, he really ought to be safe. There were rules, traditions, agreements. Lots of reasons why he shouldn't have cause for alarm or worry. There was the whole quasi-religious Balance thing the kētas put so much faith into. A pony not only shouldn't have to fear a kēta, but ought to feel safe out on the water with one. Many ponies had been saved from drowning or worse by a watchful kēta.

Then again, ponies did sometimes go missing out on the water. Not often at all, rarely enough really that it could very well just be accident and mishap. Bad weather, unexpected waves, one of the few dangerous wildlife that lurked in the water. That said, most disappearances did seem to happen at night, which it nearly was. And this was Aki he was dealing with. She wouldn't break tradition or go against The Balance, but she had a way of working within the rules to her advantage.

Plus Cross would never forget the fact that the last time he knew he was safe around Aki, it had very nearly cost him his life.

So jumping out of the boat was definitely a very near thing as the huge mouth in front of him slowly opened, the glistening, inviting pink length of Aki's tongue poking out slightly as she gave him a look that brought a flood of memories back. It was quite the mixed bag of feelings, from the overwhelming pleasure she had delivered upon his body, to the fear induced panic as she had swallowed him down to eat him. About the only thing that stopped him from running was the thought that he might not be able to make it. He remembered how fast Aki could move when she wanted to, and his wings might not be able to get him out of lunging range if he provoked her instincts.

Also, as his friend Quick liked to point out, he was rather an idiot where Aki was concerned, and the view into her mouth and down her throat was something that froze him in place. Not with the proper and healthy cautious fear it ought to have, but with an irrational, possibly suicidal lust and longing. Her playful flirting had already primed his body, and the wonderfully inviting sight before him had his libido ready to go...along with more physical attributes.

Cross did his best to hammer down the dangerously treacherous thoughts, though it was hard as he watched Aki tilt her head a bit from side to side, her tongue wiggling around to let him see under and around it, and generally doing everything she could to give him a very thorough look at all the soft, warm, slippery surfaces of her maw...that is, show him that her mouth was empty! That was the point! Only...well, it could be both after all. With Aki, it could very well be both.

"See? Nothing in there right now," Aki said, her word choice something he definitely caught, and which made a little shiver run up Cross's spine. He really ought to just let it go. He could skip an Offering, or just go and watch. It wouldn't kill him...and messing around too much with Aki just might. After all, he was totally, completely, absolutely safe right now, by tradition and weird sea siren religious logic...as far as he knew. Just like last time.

"...you have it hidden behind your back teeth on the right side," Cross stated matter-of-factly, leaning over to look outside the kēta's mouth and along the line of her jaw. "You stuck it between your cheek and teeth, I can see the bulge from the outside, even if the fish itself doesn't stick up above the line of your teeth."

"...you can't prove that," Aki replied after a second, pulling the boat back so she could eye him properly. Her gaze made a brief trip from his face to down between his legs, and then back to his now slowly reddening features. "Although you definitely seem to have enjoyed the view," she teased.

"Shut up," Cross grumbled, ducking his head bashfully and fighting down an urge to cover himself with a wing. He felt stupid being bashful about it, especially considering just a week ago he had technically bribed her into giving him a full body blowjob and deep throat experience. And yet he couldn't help it when she was being so blatant about the fact that she turned him on so much. "And yes I can."

"Oh? And how is that?" Aki asked smugly. "Short of crawling in there to poke around..." she added with a dangerously inviting quality to the words.

"You're an idiot!" Cross heard Quick's voice yell out in his mind, and he was in full agreement with the memory of his friend, because his immediate reaction was not to dismiss the idea right away. "...uhhhhhh..." he stated instead of any meaningful response.

"I mean, I guess if you really feel like you need to be completely, totally, absolutely sure," Aki went on in a playfully singsongish voice, her eyes boring into him intently, watching him as if evaluating every little motion and feature of his expression and body language.

"Uhhhhhh..." Cross continued, trying to mentally bludgeon his brain into action, but it was currently tied up in a war between his libido and his everything else, though most especially his common sense and desire to live.

"I see. Well, I mean, if you feel so strongly about it," Aki said with a shrug. "Very well Cross Current, I see that my hooves are tied on this matter. You drive a hard bargain and all that, and I have no choice but to submit to your examination," she stated earnestly, even if her eyes were twinkling with mirth the entire while. The boat shifted under the stallion's hooves, and he fought for balance as Aki brought him right in front of her mouth again. His wings snapped out as he over-corrected, and was forced to take a quick step to avoid falling...and his hoof landed right on Aki's bottom lip.

"Oh my, so eager," Aki mused, the feel of her echo voice vibrating through him making Cross's erection throb with needful desire. "I do so like my stallions eager. Go on then...do it. Climb in."

Cross took a slow, deep breath in, raising his hoof off of Aki's lip, and hesitated. Stepping back was the smart move. Stepping back was the safe move. It was just a fish. Nothing more. Just one of hundreds he had hooked in his time. Aside from a general guess of its size, he didn't even know what kind of fish it was, or what it would be worth as an offering. It was just a fish, letting it go was the correct choice. Letting it go was safe. Letting it go was just a matter of missing out on one Offering. Letting it go was allowing Aki to get away with stealing from him. It was letting her win. It was admitting that he didn't have the guts to take back what was rightfully his, and which she had no right to take, or to put him through all this over. Letting it go was backing down.

Cross stepped forward, putting his hoof down firmly, deliberately, purposefully. Unfortunately Aki's tongue had no sense for the dignity of the moment, and his hoof slipped right across the slick surface it represented, causing him to fall with a resounding splat onto the damp softness. His wounded pride took an immediate backseat to the surge of sensation that went up his body as his chest and stomach and raging erection slid across Aki's tongue.

He lay there, stunned for a moment by the feeling, by the memories that came flooding back with the sensation. His gaze turned towards the back of the kēta's mouth, to the dark opening of her throat. More memories, of the enveloping softness and warmth, pressing in around him, rubbing against him in ways that had set every nerve alight with enjoyment. Other, less pleasant memories tried to intrude, his common sense trying to hammer in the remembrance of crushing pressure and suffocating darkness, but it had no more traction on his thoughts than he had on Aki's tongue.

"Need some help there, Cross?" Aki asked after a moment, and the stallion groaned, both at the sensation and the unfair amount of mirth the kēta managed to put into her echo voice. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I am loving getting to taste you like this, but I am going to have to get going soon if I'm going to make it to The Offering in time."

"I swear Aki, I am going to get you for this somehow," Cross grumbled, trying to stand up, but quickly aborting the effort. Aki's tongue was just the worst combination of softness, wetness, and springiness to make walking on it a reality. Of course, those very same factors are what made it a delight to lay upon, and only made it all the harder to stay focused as he was forced to slide himself along with an awkward effort of dragging and pushing himself. Gliding over to the right side of her mouth, he managed to get a little better traction from her teeth, though the surging jolts of pleasure shooting through him as his cock rubbed across Aki's tongue were making him clumsy and uncoordinated.

The patient, casual humming Aki was indulging in was not helping anything either.

Eventually though, Cross managed to haul himself along to the back of her mouth, hook a leg over her teeth, and fish around until he found what he had known was there all along. Which was to say, a fish.

"Ha! Knew it!" he exclaimed in triumph. Soggy, tired triumph, but still!

"Huh, well now how did that get there?" Aki asked in a tone of perfect sincerity.

"Yeah, gee, I wonder," Cross snarked, turning around, and tossing the fish out of the kēta's mouth, where it landed with a dull thunk in the boat. He kicked off her teeth, trying to slide more on his side before the pleasure of rubbing himself against her tongue caused him to lose control of himself. He bumped up against her front teeth, clambered awkwardly over them, and reached out and down blindly, trying to find the bottom of the boat to put his weight down.

His heart seized in his chest as Aki's lips closed down suddenly around his middle. It then started hammering frantically as Aki slowly lowered the boat away, an oppressive silence filling Cross's ears as her humming stopped.

"A...Aki?" he barely managed to force out through nearly paralyzed lungs.

"Yes, my little morsel?" Aki replied, and Cross felt his throat go dry. She had been calling him by his name this whole time, something he only belated realized with any consideration. It was something she had never done at The Offering. There, he was always her 'little morsel'. And hearing her use that term for him right now, made his stomach fill with a vast, hallow sensation.

"I'd like to leave now," Cross said in a voice of extremely forced calm, a little quaver running through the words.

"But, would you really?" Aki mused, and her tongue pressed up, gliding smoothing between his rear legs, and pulling a strangled gasp from the stallion as his mind swam with enjoyment. "You are so very worked up right now..." Her lips pursed, her tongue gently pressing him forward until his cock slide across her lower lip. She then sucked him back just as slow, a shaky groan escaping him. "Wouldn't you rather I help you with this?"

"Ahh, Aki...wha...but this isn't...we're not at...how..." Cross struggled to find his words, having trouble thinking over the pleasure and the fear. He had no context for this outside The Offering, no idea what the rules or expectations might be. He had no idea what tradition might say about it, or what The Balance might cover. He was completely out of his depth. "Wh-what do you want?" he managed to get out.

"Just your consent, and your trust," Aki replied with maddening casualness, giving his whole body another back and forth sucking.

Cross shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. There was no way, this was beyond stupid. It had to be a trap, a ploy to trick him into agreeing to something, but...why bother? She had him. The sun was almost gone now, the light of the rising moon providing the only real illumination. Out here, away from the shore, no one would be able to see them clearly, if at all. She could just swallow him down, and there wouldn't be a single witness. No evidence except for his empty boat, and even that she could easily get rid of. He could so easily just vanish, be one more pony that disappeared upon the ocean. So why bother asking for anything from him at all, least alone just words that he couldn't possibly enforce.

"I...Aki, I..." Cross floundered, wishing he knew something of what she was thinking. At times, the kētas seemed so much like ponies one could be forgiven for treating them just like giant, sea living versions. And yet every so often one just ran right into a wall of how different they could be, and think. Like now. His permission was somehow important, and meaningful to her. His words right then had power to dictate her actions, though for the life of him, he had no idea why, or even how he felt so certain about it. But he was certain, and despite everything, he found he actually did trust her, as insane as that was given their relationship. "...okay. I consent. I...I trust you..."

Aki let out a long, near moan of a sigh. And then she ate him.

Cross gasped in alarm as he was strongly sucked back into her mouth, the wan light of the moon vanishing into total darkness. Her tongue rose, shoving him back effortlessly, so quick he never had a chance to even try resisting, and then his world was engulfed in the resounding noise of her swallowing him down. Her throat took him, closing in around him, leaving him completely enveloped by the kēta. He wriggled and squirmed, trying to move, but all he could do was be pulled down by the tight, slick walls.

It was too much, the feeling, the emotion, everything that had lead up to that moment. The teasing, the flirting, the feeling of her mouth had worked him and worked him, and now he was trapped in her throat, being pulled down to her waiting stomach. She had devoured him, just as she had always said she would, and somewhere inside Cross, the desire for just this moment had been waiting. It was a mad, senseless desire with no logical reasoning, but it was real all the same. It was what had drawn him to Aki, made him want her so much. The knowledge that she was such a dangerous predator, that she ate ponies and took true joy in it, and now she was eating him. He had always secretly felt a thrill whenever she swallowed someone down for good, and now that thrill was for himself.

His body was wracked with pleasure as he came, one last thrill as Aki's throat squeezed down tight around him, that crushing pressure that forced the air from his lungs, until flashes of ghost light and twinkling false stars filled his vision, and then that too faded to utter darkness as the pleasure peaked, and then began to taper off, consciousness going with it...

...Cross gasped, jerking awake into darkness. His eyes blinked, trying to clear as he sucked in deep lungful of hot, humid air as he floated, his body loose and feeling weightless as small waves bumped and jostled him. He reached up a shaky hoof, and felt it touch something soft.

"Ah, there's my little morsel," Aki cooed, a bit of relief in her voice, her lips brushing his probing hoof back and forth. "I was about to be worried."

"...wha...what happened?" Cross asked, coughing lightly.

"You passed out," Aki giggled. "I do apologize, I might have gotten a little carried away, but I was just so eager." The darkness lifted, stars shining down, and the moon glowing brighter still as Aki's head moved, no longer filling his vision. He was in the water, floating on his back, the great form of the kēta lazily drifting nearby.

"...you ate me," Cross stated numbly.

"Mmmhmm, and you were every bit as yummy and filling as I had dreamed you would be," Aki sighed happily, though it turned wistful. "Sadly, I couldn't keep you. Not after you gave me your trust and consent. It would have broken the Balance, because I know you still wish to live as yourself, and are not yet really ready to be part of me."

"...uh...yeah, okay..." Cross replied, having no clue how to respond otherwise. Instead he just lay there in the water for a time, drifting next to Aki. "We're missing The Offering," he said after a time, though it was an idle remark without much importance or urgency.

"Yeah," Aki agreed, in much the same tone.

"...hey Aki," Cross spoke up after a few more minutes of silence.

"Hmm?"

"What would you have done if I hadn't given you permission?"

"Oh, I would have eaten you all the same," Aki stated. "But for good."

"Oh...uh, wouldn't you get in trouble for that?" the stallion asked, feeling odd at the simple curiousity he felt, devoid of any concern.

"No one would have known," Aki said simply, quietly. "I told you before, once I tasted you, I was never going to be able to let you go. I was going to need to eat you. If you couldn't trust me, then and there when you were most vulernable and helpless to me, then I knew I would have to eat you right then, because I might never have a realistic chance to do so in future."

"...but I do trust you..." Cross said slowly, wondering at himself at the truth in his own words.

"Yes," Aki said, and he could hear the smile. "You will be mine, one day. I know this now. And I know that, since you trust me, I can, and shall, trust you, to pick when that day shall be."

"Oh. So...so you're not going to eat me until I ask you to?" Cross asked, again, wondering at the odd sense of truth to the implication he had just made, that it was not a question of if, but merely when. "Even if I approach you at The Offering?"

Aki laughed gently. "Even then, I would not. Though frankly Cross, you shouldn't worry about that. I'll be happy to play with you, to taste you, to swallow you down and back up, whenever you wish me to. You're my little morsel, more so now than ever before. I want to have you as much as possible, until I get to have you for good."

Cross was silent for a moment more. "...yeah, I'd like that, Aki."