The Moons and the Stars

A twig snaps under your step. Leaves rustle next to you ominously. The sound of your blood rushing past your ears and your quick, shallow breathing almost manage to drown out the owls' coos from somewhere in the dark forest. Your shoes thump dully in rushed steps as you try to make sense of the dark maze you've been roaming around for too long now.

You were calm at the start, when the sun was just beginning to set; you still thought there was a familiar path out, and so you walked, only slightly faster than usual. But as the sun kept creeping ever lower, the shadows of the tress in your familiar forest stretched into long strips of thick black, covering the ground and setting panic behind your ribs. At this time of the celestial cycle, you usually relied on the Moons to see. Their twin glow would light your way if it weren't for the thick canopy of leaves above your head that smothered their luminescence. As the realisation set in – that you won't be able to look up at your Goddess for guidance, nor see her holy shine – your heart rate increased, and so did the frequency of your steps.

But the trees only grew closer together as you stumbled your way through the dimming forest. You didn't know this area at all now. Had no clue how to get back or where to go next. You felt tears pushing against your throat and eventually broke into a spring, throwing your poor woven basket somewhere to fend for itself. You still believed, despite not being able to see her, that the Northern Moon Goddess will help you as her faithful follower.

But your shirt would snatch here, your shins would slam against a bush there, you would stumble on a root you couldn't see through your blurry vision in the dark. And you would pray extra hard when you heard a rustle around you.

But no matter how much you pray, the Norther Moon's light cannot pierce through the leaves. She loves you dearly, you know she does, she has to, but still cannot light your way. And yet, you put your trust in her, as your elders have taught you, and believe she will save you from the Southern's foul spells.

It must have been her who planted the beautiful red carnations to lead you astray. Sullied your plans to just pick mushrooms and spices to snatch the life of yet another follower of her virtuous sister. It is how the Southern Moon operates, you remember your mother teaching, your pastors reminding, but you didn't heed their warnings this time.

If you had, you wouldn't be growing goosebumps at the wolves' hungry howls. Fear seeps into your very being, squeezes your heart impossibly tightly and makes it beat ever faster. Faster than ever before. You pray. Pray harder than you ever have. Your chest burns as it struggles to take in the hot, dry air so that your feet can carry you farther. To exactly where is still unknown.

Whoosh.

You feel a current of air, and something thuds softly before you, missing you only by a small margin. Your butt hits the ground with a pathetic yelp coming from your shaking lips before instincts take over and you curl up into a ball. You hear heavy breathing from outside of your cocoon. Whatever evil creature of the Southern One is here, it is ready to strike.

Any moment.

You feel its horrid aura stick to your skin like a thick blanket of hate and malice. It’s the final push your tears need to finally start flowing freely – dread at last breaks the dam of your courage that lasted so long under the night’s assault.

Darkness surrounds your shaking frame – a tiny body wrapped around itself in fear and black hair, barely noticeable in the night. Sobbing and praying to the Northern Goddess for help; she must know you need it more than ever. You quiver and you quake with your red cheeks wet and hurting from how your face contorts at the thought of what's about to happen.

"Please." It's just a whisper. A breath of hope towards your one true Goddess. The one that has been beside you this whole time. The one that you've sworn your little heart to. You need her now more than ever.

"Please, Goddess, please. Please, spare me, please," through quiet sobs you pray and plead and still find yourself alive and whole, the breathing of the other creature simply having vanished. Her love can still indeed reach here, and that's a morsel of hope for your thumping heart.

You shake there on the floor of the forest for Goddesses-know-how-long, and your tears eventually subside when you realise that your time has not yet come. With a shaky breath, you uncurl yourself and try to collect what's left of your gal, scattered somewhere amongst the dry leaves and dirt.

"Thank you, Goddess," you say as you stand up on wobbly knees. You're shaking, but her grace just gave you another chance, you better not waste it. So you take off, running again, guided by the One True Good.

Left – you hear soon after, in your head – somewhere from within your soul, and you trust her. She will guide you when you're lost, she will save you when you need it. You will pray double as hard tomorrow if only you live until then.

You take the sharp turn, more leaves crunch under your sole, forming a howling harmony with the owls and wolves that your Goddess will shield you from, you believe.

You can see it. More space between each tree now, the bushes hitting your shins doing so less and less often. The Moonlights' shine breaking through the ever-thinning blanket of leaves above and before you.

You come out to a clearing – a serene scene to contrast the hammering in your burning chest. You can see clearly now, the Goddesses fighting for which one of them will light your way most. A lake shimmering with their virtue and wrath, water perfectly still, a pitch-black canvas for their pearly luminescence. Fine sand beneath your shoes instead of crunching twigs and leaves. It is calm – a lull of clearance in the night's horrid darkness and suffocating malignance.

"Hello, little one." The voice startles you, makes you jump out of your skin despite it being nothing but calm.

You whip your head to see a woman.

No, that would be too crude a description.

She is this ethereal beauty – unlike anything you've seen before. Eyes glowing as if on their own, not just reflecting the Goddess' pure light. So big and honest. Long, wavy purple hair frames her perfect white face, the centrepiece of which are undoubtably the scarlet, plump lips. She is glowing, pristine skin shining against the backdrop of the scary dark trees behind her.

And she is naked.

Full breasts, pink nipples hard from the night's air, a flat tummy that expands into full hips, followed by what looks like the softest pair of thighs under the Moons and Stars. She is perfect – head to toe unblemished. A human-sized doll of unmatched beauty and temptation.

"Well, you're a beautiful flower," she states, seemingly unbothered by the fact that you're definitely staring at all of her, and you only blush harder.

And the proper etiquette of the given situation evades you. You stammer a bit, eyes drifting in and out of her milky skin, checking if the trees behind her are still there only for your gaze to inevitably get sucked back into all the curves and grace and curls speaking to you.

"Well, you're in luck" – so it would seem – "I was just about to bathe, and you seem like you need it too."

It’s absurd, but you nod at the naked woman that's sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest, like some sort of faery, despite having no good reason to. All you have is this feeling her soft eyes evoke in your chest. There is something calming, bordering on maternal, in the way she speaks to you.

But the Southern Moon is a tricky goddess, you remember. She's known to plant a myriad of skulduggery to get faithful followers of her sister to disobey and sin. The woman before you stretches her elegant legs and gets up from the stone she was sitting on. The distance between you two shortens, and the vague memories of your elders' warnings do little to ward your eyes away from the hypnotic display of jiggling flesh before you.

She stops a single step away from you, confident and as if not bare, and whispers.

"Why don't you join me, little one?" You thought you already agreed to the bathing in all honesty. Hasty was your assumption, maybe, so you just confirm again. It's not like you can deny her anyway.

"Please," you whisper as if you're afraid someone might hear.

She smiles at you as if lovingly, like she has waited for this moment despite meeting you mere seconds ago.

"Let's get you out of these; they are dirty anyway."

Her hands wrap around your waist, dig under your shirt and lift it off. The moments she isn't in your sight feel like an eternity before you are greeted with her angelic features again. One of the moons shines from behind her, through the thin strands of purple hair, and it makes her seem like a gift from the cosmos. She must be one of the Goddesses' servants.

The ones you have heard so much about. The Northern Ones – they fight off evil spirits, save children from drowning. Cure old people from unknown illnesses. Guide sweet girls through forests in the middle of the night.

Or maybe she is from the Southern Ones. Maybe she is amongst those who steal pets when no one's looking. The servants who lure men off course and crash ships into rocks. Who throw plagues around like dice and lead girls like you astray.

You've heard stories, of course. Of the Evil Moon's evil creations. Horrid creatures with jagged teeth and sulphur for breath that lie and cheat and corrupt from within.

But you've never heard stories of them resting their hands on girls' pants and pulling down slowly. Of the Moons' angels dropping to their knees to kiss freshly exposed flesh with burning, red lips and unreasonable devotion to beings way lesser than them. You've never discovered, in any book you've read, even a peep about how their fingers can wrap around your white panties and take them off with their big, brown eyes never leaving your slick entrance, as if it's all they can think about.

So she has to be from the good ones. Though you haven't heard of them doing this either.

You'd have to write a new story about that. Wax lyrical about the way her lips move up your skin. About the way her lips part in front of your heat. She looks up at you through the curls of her eyelashes. The story would have to include how her elegant fingers dig into your backside, pull you closer to her, make you drift onto her wet mouth.

Your folk mythology would suffer greatly if you were to never describe how her tongue presses against your clit. How she runs it through your folds to gather the sweet slick you prepared just for her to enjoy. You have to learn how her hair feels in your fingers as you look for purchase so the way your legs buck at her licks and slurps doesn't lead to you falling on top of this actual angel. All for your people to learn how wonderful your true Goddess can be.

Yes, you have to take it all in, like a good girl, she reminds and you can't look away now. Not when this lovely creature is worshipping you instead of it being the other way around. Your eyes cannot leave hers even for a second. There is this gravity to them. They are huge, sure, but the way they shine, look up at you with so much unfounded devotion while her tongue brings you wave after wave of pleasure, is a whole different story. Not one about horrid spirits but one of sparkling promises – each gleaming point a moment of pleasure, a future together or an orgasm gifted by the cosmos. And there are a lot of sparks in those eyes.

One of these twinkles rips off, flies into your skin and sets it all ablaze. Wave after wave of pleasure pulses over every part of your body – from your curled toes to the hair sticking to your neck. You feel your legs growing softer under you, her grip on your ass tighter to hold you up, to let you whimper the last of your breaths towards the sky, where all holy resides.

When all is said and done – all of the misuses of your Goddess' name have left your throat and all of your slick has thoroughly covered this mysterious angel's chin, even soaked down her neck and now glistening breasts – she lets you stand on your own, pulls away to look back into your eyes.

And the sight ignites a new spark within you. A whole new forest fire bursts in your chest at her pupils, blown out to high hell, lips even fuller and redder than before, however that was possible evaded your mind, and the sheen of your pleasure on her skin, as if it had any right to be there.

She stands up and extends a delicate hand to you.