Confined With a Goddess

Over the next few hours, Celestia cooked the fish she'd caught early that morning, along with the coconut halves. As she did, Jake sat off to the side, not really doing much of anything except for watching her move. She definitely caught him staring more than a few times, but she said nothing.

Of course, he had a good reason for watching her. When he needed to do all of this on his own, she was giving him a close-up view as she seasoned the fish with herbs and salt. The coconut went over the fire, only seasoned with a bit of salt, and she also added a few roots he didn't recognise.

He was shocked, of course, when she pulled the fish away from the fire and held some out to him. Both had been seasoned exactly the same, so he knew it was safe, but he was confused.

"You're giving this to me?" he asked.

"No," she answered. "Go put this in the larder, so I can eat it later."

He nodded, stood up and walked back toward the hut. He was really hungry, but he'd done almost none of the work for this, so it was understandable that she wouldn't want him reaping the rewards. Plus, he'd drank all of the coconut water, leaving none for her.

"For fuck's--... Sit," she commanded.

He turned back to her, and saw that she was waving him back to the place he'd been sitting. He took a few steps back and sat down.

"Is your culture one in which jokes do not exist?"

He shook his head.

"Then why are you being intentionally oblivious?"

He didn't know how to answer that. Oblivious, sure, but intentionally so? Not at all. He was out of his element, he hadn't had time to adjust to her particular style of humour, and he was very much ill-prepared for his situation.

"Eat," she commanded, taking a big bite of her fish.

Jake took a tentative bite. He was hungry, and he knew the fish was safe to eat, but he felt really stupid for believing her when she said to put the fish away for later. It made him question all of the other things she'd said today, as to whether or not they were jokes, and he was too narrow-minded to realise it. Maybe she hadn't intended for him to climb the tree and collect the coconuts. Maybe she would have trivialised the task entirely if he'd just pushed back a little harder. She certainly didn't seem like she was working all that hard today, so maybe demanding that he hurry with washing his clothes was just her trying to see how frantically he would try to work.

"She could never take a joke, either."

Jake looked up. "Your student?"

"No, no... Well, yes, actually, but that's not to whom I was referring. I'm talking about Luna."

She'd said that name before; he was sure of it, but he hadn't heard it enough times to be certain who exactly it was.

"My sister," Celestia clarified. "The current queen of Equestria, ruling from my throne and sending spies my way to make sure I'm not violating the terms of my banishment."

Jake swallowed, managing to not just convey his discomfort, but ease it as a lump of fishy flesh slipped down into his stomach.

"If I seem upset, it's because one of two things is happening. Either you're lying to me, which means you're toying with me, or you're telling the truth, which means I'm about to be ejected from my home. And given the fact that there's been no effort to eject me from this island into another hellish place that I have to live in, I can only assume that you're here to watch me. That, or the Queen of the Night has either stopped performing her duties, which means I'm able to leave at any time and take over your plane of existence, or she's stopped caring about me entirely, which means that I will never again be free."

Jake started to force a chuckle, but a glare from her told him that this was not a joke. "Sorry."

"Do you think it funny, seeing me in suffering? Is that what makes for good humour in your mind?"

His eyes went wide and he waved his hands, dropping the rest of his filet into the dirt at his feet. "No! No! I just... I can't tell when you're joking! I thought you were trying to pull one over on me again."

All was quiet for a few moments as they exchanged stares. Celestia was offering anger and disappointment for her half of the exchange, and Jake was giving fear and cowardice on his end.

Celestia chuckled as she broke their lock. "I suppose I deserve that. No, that was not a joke, but it's fair that you didn't figure that out. I suppose that, after eight hundred and forty-seven years alone, my humour has deteriorated. Maybe I'm just not funny anymore."

Jake really didn't want to open that can of worms. Instead, he just picked up his fish and started brushing the dirt off. When he found a bug, however, he suddenly found that his appetite had waned. For fish, anyway. After the coconuts and something that tasted, but did not look like, potatoes, Celestia put out the fire. From her horn, there came a light as she led him into the hut.

"You will rest here, tonight," she ordered. "That's not a joke, since you can't tell. It's already dark, and I'm not letting you go all the way back to your hovel looking like you do."

"Okay," nodded Jake. He wasn't particularly fond of the crabs that had come to join him in bed the night prior, and the only benefit he was missing out on was a vinyl mattress and nylon pillow. "Just... on the floor, then?"

Celestia shook her head, turned him around, picked him up by the waist with one arm, and curled up around him as she pulled him into bed. "Good night, Jake."

Jake could not answer back. His naked back was pressed against her strong abs, an intimacy he'd never felt before, but his head was situated between her voluminous breasts. One was acting at his pillow, the other, he could feel pressing down on his face. The thought paralyzed him, and he could not respond as his whole body locked up.