A/N: Again, not much to say on this one, just a young woman feeling the marriage and baby pressure. I hope you enjoy the new chapters! They'll be up here pretty soon, and just a small reminder that for the purposes of this story they are all equivalent to being in their early twenties, with Guaraha being a couple years older than Meru.

Enjoy adults learning how to be adults and learning how they feel about things. This chapter has the awkward sex in it. Written as implied as possible for publishing guidelines but the draft is equal parts Juicy(tm) and Uncomfortable(tm).

Tolten

Reader Discretion is advised

Content warning: mentions of sex and masturbation, nudity, blatant sexism.

Chapter 4: Pressures

Weeks had passed after they'd been informed of their marriage, and after being scolded or reminded of responsibilities with just so much intrusive advice for what felt like the millionth time, Meru had had enough. Meru had excused herself abruptly from dinner that night, and holed herself up in her room until dark. She had taken to sneaking away when she wanted to be out alone without Guaraha as her escort, and now that they were made to be united soon, well… there was no way she was allowed out on her own now. Meru heaved a heavy sigh and reasoned to herself in irritation, 'to protect my virtue.'

Now that they were both aware of their fated future, she noticed he crossed her mind more often with disappointment instead of pleasure. She had liked him a lot, they'd grown up closely together after all, but the announcement and planning their union was something that really bothered her. The two had known each other for their entire lives, and she chewed at her lip in anger thinking over the whole situation she found herself in. Just how much of her life had actually been hers to decide? Were they truly close, or was this all their parents' design?

Why can't I just decide on my own?

The pressures of marriage and courtship kept her restless all day and night, especially after receiving unsolicited advice (and scoldings) at what felt like every angle, and then all of the looks and horrible whispers over her virtue. She sighed in her bed, her stomach turning just thinking about the future, with the obligation of marriage comes the strong expectation of children and homemaking on her part. It was her duty, her purpose to the village to provide repeatedly, and all of her status outside of her future husband was now overshadowed by him. The thought made her sick.

Meru threw herself back down onto her bed with a loud groan, staring at the ceiling. She didn't want any of that for herself at all, to be stuck in the forest living a boring quiet life of centuries bogged down with homekeeping and constant children. A tired life in eternal hiding while they dwindled away, fated for extinction and fighting against it. The roiling of her gut grew bitter as she yearned for something else… something more which waited for her. She knew it was there, somewhere, intuitively.

Hours passed while she waited in her bed, and the moon that never set shone brightly down at her from up above after darkness fell. She crept to her door frame and pressed an ear against it, listening for any movement in the house. It was late, and she could hear her parents continuing their duty in the bedroom down the hall. There may yet be another mouth to feed, she thought, now confident that they wouldn't hear her leave. Meru carefully closed her door behind her and paused, padding slowly through the dark hallway past their room, through the main room and entryway, and finally through the back door which led past the cold room.

Walking carefully along the moonlit path and sticking close to shadows, Meru made her way to the springs up the mountain. No matter what, whenever she was upset and needed time alone, the water and rock fireflies always helped to soothe her. Tonight was definitely a night she sought the comfort of the springs, and no one was going to stop her. It took awhile, but her ears pricked up when the running water was close, and relief already found its way between her shoulders. A few minutes later and she stood at the bank's edge, dipping her toes in upon arrival with a smile and greeting the water, "Hello old friend."

It took seconds for her to strip down to nothing and dive into the icy pools, only breaking the surface to feel the chill of air against her skin. It felt so good to swim, and she swam along the bottom, running her fingers through the spring weeds and letting the plants brush and tickle against her naked body. After awhile she lay back and enjoyed floating weightlessly without magic, staring up past lush trees to the moons and stars visible between the dark walls of the mountain, letting her shoulders unwind while the fish swam beneath her with curiosity. It didn't take long for her mind to wander back to worrying. All of the looks, all of the whispers.

Gone were the times of childlike play in Meru's life. Ever since she was little she would run and play and dream as she pleased. Sure, it got her in plenty of trouble with the elders, but they were all stuffy relics stuck deep in their ways. Meru always assumed they had forgotten how to have fun, and as she got older she realized it wasn't that they'd gotten old. No, to Meru it became clearer by the day that they were all afraid. They were in fear for the lineage of their people as a species, forever hiding in the shadow of Human dominance. The noose of their weakening power and threat of being discovered once again by Humans drawing tighter around their necks by the days, weeks... years… centuries...

When had she started to notice the fear in the adults? The dark circles under their eyes, the scarce use of magic, taking to the skies on what were once powerful wings of light less and less? Meru couldn't recall for the life of her when she'd become acutely aware, but she understood that it began long before she was a baby, even longer still than her most recent predecessors in the ocean of life. They all felt it, the doom of an ever weakening species struggling to adapt in a modern age, doomed ever still as they had hidden themselves away. My ancestors were afraid because they're still stuck in the old ways of our people during the Dragon Campaign, thought Meru that starlit night, as she floated in the icy spring waters that reflected the ever present glow of the unset and ever-looming moon. She enjoyed the company of it in an odd way, knowing that she was naked and alone with it, with nothing else to judge her or strangle her with another noose... one of settling down and having so many children in an attempt to preserve her dwindling race.

But if we are already weakening, are we not going to die out anyway? Why hide away and not even bother to change, and burden me with it? What a stupid thing! I don't want to be pressured into so many births and having to raise the ones that survive! I don't want to stay here in fear! She thought, floating under the moon.

She felt the heat rise up in her belly and chest again, angry that her closest friendship, their whole lives, now suddenly felt like a lie. She couldn't trust any amiable feelings they shared now because they couldn't possibly know at this point whether such feelings were disingenuous, they'd been paired together in the hope of becoming one and producing many strong and well-built children when the time came. And so the time had come.

The gentle bauble of water and occasional hoot of an owl in the distance kept her swimming for a long while in the water with her thoughts, diving and skirting the smooth stones and ticklish spring weed along the bottom, and the moon provided ever present company. An old God never born, an eternal memory of the folly of her people. She asked questions to it sometimes, and tonight she considered it, though she did not ask her questions aloud. She wondered if she and Guaraha were truly fated to be together, doomed to be pressed into the constant struggle of successful births. How many times would they expect her to provide healthy children before it to be considered appropriate to stop? She had sixteen other siblings alone, and her parents were back home producing more. The numbers she thought became more ridiculous and exaggerated as time passed. Finally, she floated again on her back and stared at the moon, thinking very clearly to it and listening as hard as she could.

Moon, she began, am I fated for something more than the life expected of me here?

For a while, she heard nothing except the running spring and muffled crickets and owls in the forest, feeling the cool breeze graze across her skin. Her slightly pointed ears twitched softly as she closed her eyes and did her best to listen even harder when, finally, she started to hear something through the thickness of the water. A single, reverberating and resounding hiss rippling through the dark spring of her mind…

Yes.

Her eyes shot open and she floundered, suddenly struggling to tread water. The hiss had seemingly pressed into her for a moment, and just like that it was gone. Her brow furrowed and she blinked, righting herself and floating once again, staring at the moon.

Surely she had imagined it?

She floated there becoming aware of the chill in her body, she allowed herself to feel it for a while longer, letting the icy water penetrate her senses. No other words came to her, and she soon gave in to disappointment.

'No, of course I've imagined it. I want so much for my life to be something more but it isn't. I'm here.' She thought sadly.

She realized that they were both eventually going to become intimately close in a terrifyingly unfamiliar way, and she would have nothing to cover herself with, have nowhere to hide, and have nothing to separate them. Meru realized in horror that from then on nothing would separate them in that way, and she would become entirely his in a way she didn't choose, a way she didn't know if she had or would ever truly want. All of her private and naive curiosities of him would soon be answered, and the young woman was suddenly filled with a nauseous combination of excitement for her curiosity to be quelled, and fear of what actions that meant would come to pass.

It was a cool autumn day when Meru walked along the rocky mountain path between the old firs and river with her betrothed. They walked this path and often followed the spring as it carved out its way through centuries of stone and tumbled down the dark peak. She dressed in plain dark skirts cinched tightly at the waist with a slate colored triangle shawl under a simple leather belt. She wore her long hair half up in typical fashion, braided and beaded tresses cascading down her back and around her shoulders. Guaraha walked beside her in similarly dark robes which were now lightly overlaid with dark leather armor. His hair had a brand new braid and beading pattern, all signifiers of his new position. They spoke more easily these days, like they'd used to, and every now and then she bent to retrieve pine needles and acorns from the path for future basket weaving and dye. His red eyes occasionally glinted with great longing to her breast as it shone warmly in the sun. She pretended not to notice.

He often imagined the two of them like this in the future, walking this path just along the cragged black peak under the trees with children giggling in tow, safe, happy. They came to a small clearing past the waterfall as the mountain declined and came to rest along the barren edge.

"Do you ever wonder what it's like, out there?" Meru asked plainly. She sat beside him, legs splayed over the edge beneath her skirts. He watched her with a hint of sadness as she looked out far beyond the horizon, long white hair haloed by the westering sun.

"No. I think of here and now, with you. I think of our future and the village."

She sighed but didn't take her honey red eyes away from that horizon, the forest and lands alight with so many colors of the season twisting far off and overshadowed in the mountainside. The stark crystal palace marking the age of Humans and reminder of their ancestors' bloodied past glittered still farther off in the distance.

He sighed heavily through his nose, he wanted her to look to him as she used to, to have her sweet eyes gaze into him and see if she tasted just as well. He dreamed of it.

"... Listen, I... I want to make this work out for us. I know that I'm not…" he made a loose gesture with his arm, "but I want to be the one to make you feel loved and protected. We might live a typical life here and it might not end up how either of us wants it to, but don't you want to at least try it together?"

Meru stayed quiet for a moment in thought, she wanted to be honest with him but as her friend, she didn't want to break his heart either. When she did finally speak it was hesitant, "We can't be sure of our feelings anymore in the way of things, can we? Our parents planned this from the beginning and for all we know the whole thing is a farce. I don't want to live my whole life having never seen the modern world and I definitely don't want to be stuck here for centuries with this feeling growing deeply within me… Oh, Guaraha it terrifies me!"

He shifted his weight nervously, this was definitely not going the way either of them had planned. He was wishful for marriage, truly, but he cursed the announced union for tangling his relationship with Meru into so many knots.

"It terrifies me too! I wish I'd not been such a coward and confessed to you sooner, maybe then this would all be different." The glimmer in his eyes continued to grow in the sunlight, "I just don't know what to do anymore… months ago we were fine, and then… Well," he gestured in the space between them hopelessly, "...this."

They both sighed in near unison, and Meru crossed her arms tighter, locks of hair swaying in the wind as she looked down, suddenly the woven pattern of the shawl in her lap was of immense interest.

"What else can we do?" She finally said. He could hear the quiet resentment in her voice.

Deep inside himself the young guard knew that he loved her without a doubt. He wanted to prove it to her, but nothing acceptable came to mind. She wouldn't believe it was really real anyway, and somewhere deep down, even though he denied it, he wouldn't either.

"Surely nothing to spare our virtue."

"Guaraha!" She hissed, and the heat crept into her cheeks.

"You asked," he sputtered with embarrassment, "it's the truth!"

"And you have honestly answered!" she replied.

They spent a moment in the mutual discomfort of such childish embarrassment, each respectively reflecting on their own private curiosities of the other.

"Well… I guess it's good to get all of the embarrassment out now. We have to lay together eventually." She mused, "It is expected of us, after all."

He looked at her then, hopeful in the waning light, "Do you want to?"

She leaned back onto her hands and thought over his question, recalling back to moments he'd privately crossed her mind. Meru wanted desperately to calm the familiar curiosity that ran through her skin and suddenly caused her heart to flutter in her chest.

"Well, I'll admit…" she hesitated, sucking in a deep breath through her teeth to calm herself as her heart continued to flutter. Guaraha silently watched on with great interest.

"I've been curious to know what it's like to lay with you. To understand and experience what it's all like."

His heart leapt, and it was his turn to steady himself with a measured breath.

"You've thought about it, laying together?"

"I've had to."

Such was the way of her life even if she didn't want it to be, and the life of all of the women in her village, maybe even some men. She finally turned away from the horizon, that colorful autumn view of the outside world spanning outward forever, after one long and final gaze. She met the longing mulberry eyes of the man before her, and his eyes were so deeply full of her. They held that moment in silence while the wind whistled through the great pines behind them, their arboreal shadow now cast down across the path. The waterfall hissed in the distance.

"I suppose finding out with you won't kill me." She sighed finally.

"No, I suppose that it wouldn't." He replied, still holding her gaze, "I'd rather us discover it together away from everyone..."

Meru hummed in response, comforted at least in their shared dread of consummation practices and looked down when she felt his hand take hers gently. Guaraha leaned in after a brief moment and tilted her back to him by the chin, placing his lips softly against hers. Their eyes fluttered shut as the two experienced the warmth of each other's mouths in romance for the first time. They breathlessly parted after the long moment to observe each other and he eagerly kissed her again, and she let him. Meru placed her arms around his fine shoulders and felt him curl his fingers into the long, silky hair at her neck as it craned slightly for him. She sternly told herself that this was the way of things as he clumsily kissed her neck and breast, and her body urged that she would chase that deepest curiosity with him. Guaraha kissed her skin with lust misunderstood as reverence, with what fools believe is love. He longed to fully discover her, the thought thrilled him. He had sought after her heart since they were children, desired her lips against his, dreamed of having her. He wanted to wake up each morning with his greatest treasure safely tucked into his arms and fill her with his love. She hummed softly into his hair, his trousers tightened at the sound, and he sighed heavily against her neck.

"Let's be alone and discover, then." He said, before standing and taking her up with him.

Meru and Guaraha nervously stood hand in hand before retreating into the trees for cover, and shortly beyond the line the two settled behind a toppled old tree with thick roots. They laid out his cloak and her shawl along the fallen sandy pine needles and embraced once more on the improvised bedding under the loudly whispering trees. There enveloped in the whistling walls of pines by the river they privately discovered what might be while the Moon loomed even farther overhead, and the unborn god witnessed all in silent gestation.