Tomboy Island

They spent the rest of the day walking around and not finding anything of note. When something happened, it was more accurate to say that it found them.

Daylight faded and so they were on their way to the north-eastern tip of the island. There, they expected to be greeted by the tree and the rest of the harem.

As they wandered through the jungle, Alex lifting foliage for the women he led, they found themselves surrounded by a swarm of glowing particles. They were each and every one odd, tumbling and flying at their own pace. There was no uniform size, no uniform colour, and no two were truly alike.

Suddenly, they were in the middle of the strange lights that many of the women had seen over the days.

“A fae sight,” Alex spoke, to the nodding of his women.

“Are they here to say goodbye?” Astrid wondered.

Evelyn put a hand on her hips and smirked at a particularly large light drifting by them. “Probably here to acknowledge our Master and his hoard of women as the one true owners of the island,” she haughtily declared.

“Incorrigible,” Yahui sighed, shaking her head.

Alex stood and stared, watching the particles drift around them. They grew more lively as the daylight faded, moving around the quartet of humans. Soon the swiftness of their motions drew streaks behind them. It was as if they stood amidst the stars and yet they were in the jungle.

“Don’t move,” Alex requested of his women. “I think I can… work this out.”

“Work this out?” Astrid asked.

“Understand it… you know, how you get in the zone? I feel like if I just look at it then I will understand,” Alex explained in more detail. After that, his companions fell silent.

Alex observed it all closely. Each light flowed individually, but there was an underlying current. He turned with it, to keep a window of it all, and then he turned against it, to see the entire picture.

He did not truly comprehend what he was looking at in its entirety, yet he was getting closer. In the same way as a carpenter did not understand the wood more actively as he carved into it, layer by layer, Alex only approached the epiphany of instinct slowly. As he did, his ears began to pick up sound. Rustling and steps, and the ringing of wooden instruments.

The gorgeous light kept turning, like the stars of the firmament, brought down to this world, and Alex started to get it.

There was a rhythm there, beneath the melody of the wooden flutes. “Kneel down… no, not for anything fun,” Alex told Evelyn, mirroring her enticed smirk. “I just need a clear view.”

“What are you going to do?” Astrid asked.

“Dance.”

The answer raised amused eyebrows, even as they did as he had requested. Once they were settled, Alex put his legs wide and began to follow the melody.

Alex had never danced like this before. He had visited a couple of clubs in his time. That was the instinctive shaking of bodies, the displaying of one's own physique for the proverbial meat markets. It was nothing like this.

He danced in rounds and rounds. His steps were slow, not quite yet finding the beat under the music. The closer he beat, the harder his heart beat in his chest. It was strange. He was not exhausting himself at all. His dance was slow and methodical, his feet careful not to step on the ground too harshly.

The lights came into focus, bit by bit.

The drums started.

Then voices, a choral of women.

“Demon Sultan Azathoth

Bubbles in confusion.

Centre of the Universe,

Sprouting foul protrusions.

Muffled madd'ning beating drums,

Hellish flutes a-playing

Round him dance the Other Gods

Voiceless, mindless swaying.”

Alex’s eyes widened in shock. The heart in his chest pounded with panic unrealized. The tumbling lights around were the reflections of reality in the eyes of other beings. Masses of liquid flesh, less circling him than circling a drain to his feet. Would he fall down if he looked down?

The beating of the drum continued with maddening softness. The hellish flutes kept on playing away.

He was sweating now. Head to toe. Alex tried to stop dancing but he was getting pulled along. His motions lost any sort of grace. He was flailing in confusion, feeling his flesh, his oh-so-changeable flesh, eager to protrude.

Around him danced these other things.

Noises bubbled into words. “Mongrel, are you Sultan?” 

“I am.” The answer was certain, for all and no reasons.

Words spoken, the circling flesh closed in on him. The women squealed in surprise. To them, it was a strong wind. They did not know what truly brushed over them - they did not know what dug into Alex’s form.

Fibres pierced his skin and fed into him. His tongue liquified in his mouth, then returned to its shape, sitting more comfortably than ever. All the while, his mind was assailed by the music. The singers began to laugh. It lost all semblance of humanity.

Alex’s mind felt as if it would break.

But he refused.

Alex’s mind felt as if it would break.

But he was indomitable.

‘I cannot die when I have this life to live!’ he thought against the storm of outside influences. He grabbed them all, bundled them into a vein that entered his soul and rekindled an old tree within his core. ‘Another bloodline,’ he thought. ‘What all am I? Angel, titan, chaos of flesh?’

That last one was certainly true in that moment. Then, another moment passed. His dance had stopped and through that, the connection began to drain away. Alex clawed at the draining flesh, ripping a part of it down with him as he fell to the ground.

He caught himself on his hands. The reflections of fading light in the eyes of now unseen beasts danced in the air around them. It was all gorgeous now. Alex felt the laughter rise in his throat. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

“We don’t know anything,” he said. “Fairies,” he said. “How stupid,” he said, and straightened up. The worried looks of the three women helped him ground himself. Their naked bodies awakened his desire and desire helped him stave off the madness. He had seen too much to comprehend it. “I’m a spawn of Azathoth?”

“Bull!” Yahui shouted. Astrid looked to Evelyn, who shook her head in confusion. Only the Chinese gymnast had an idea what he was on about. She chewed on her lower lip. “You know what that would mean, right?”

“No, I don’t,” Alex answered. “That’s what I just realized, we actually know nothing. We assume we know, but we don’t. We have read stories and recollections so detached they think this is fantasy.” He opened his right hand, revealing a squirming blob of formless, black flesh within. “But it's not.”

The flesh parted into three pieces, leaping in front of each of the women in his presence. Swelling in size, they assumed the shape of a stable ooze, of sorts. Each formed a tendril and a pair of eyes, bowing before the haremettes like a butler before their mistress.

Alex’s mind and body were slotting back into reality rapidly. His heart was calming to a steady beat. “They’re mine,” he assured the three lightly confused women. “By extension, they’re yours. Servants of the Sultan and his women.”

“What… are they?” Yahui asked carefully.

“I don’t really know… I guess shoggoths that aren’t mindlessly hostile?” Alex answered and rubbed his forehead. “I just know they’re mine.”

Yahui reached down to her servant creature. The discomfort was written on her face, but it diminished greatly when she touched the black, liquid thing. “You are right,” she admitted. “We don’t really know anything, do we? We were just getting comfortable in our speculations.”

“So… wait… all the strange lights we were seeing were Lovecraftian monsters?” Astrid realized.

“Some of them were,” Alex answered. “Some of them were different things. We have manifold attention and I still don’t quite get why. I just know that they offered me the title of Sultan and I instinctively agreed.”

“If we all were latent eldritch abominations, it would make the mutations make sense,” Yahui said thoughtfully. “But… I don’t feel like one and if they wanted to be stealthy about it, why do this?”

“We need more answers,” Evelyn stated plainly. “And we need to get that stress pounded out of our Master. He is more than ready.”

And so they returned to the tree to tell everyone of what had transpired.