Pull her tail

Not your best idea, but at least it gets a rise out of her. Lia slaps you hard across the face, making you see stars. Then, something slams into your left side, sending you rolling across the sand. When your vision clears, you’re laying flat on your back, with Lia sitting on top of you and looking pissed. She’s got a fist raised and ready to knock your lights out, but after a moment’s hesitation it drops limply onto your chest. As her reactionary rage passes, her expression softens to one of shame and embarrassment.

“You scared me,” she says. Lia blinks down at you, choosing to remain seated squarely over your groin rather than let you get up.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “You just seemed so stuck in your own head. I won’t do it again.”

“You better not,” says Lia. Her tail swings around and dances in front of your face. “Pulling it is… off-limits.” Your mind races at the possible implications of that statement. If something is off-limits, that means other things are allowed. Unfortunately, the black-furred tail swishes back behind the woman before you get any ideas. You do, however, start to get ideas about there being a stunningly beautiful woman sitting on you. Those ideas communicate themselves to your nether regions, making it only a matter of time before Lia notices something hardening underneath her. You consider asking her to move, but the blush renewing itself all the way up to her ears tells you you’re already too late. “I-is that… your…?”

“Yeah.” You don’t bother sugar-coating it. If she’s going to freak out about your erection, then the sooner the better.

But she doesn’t. Instead, Lia shifts more of her weight to the area. She experimentally rubs her crotch on your meat stick through your clothes for a few seconds. The unexpected stimulus sends little sparks of pleasure to your brain, but the fun is cut short when Lia realizes what she’s doing. She freezes for a second, then launches herself off of you, runs over to the water line, and starts splashing her face with sea water. By contrast, you lay disappointed in the sand, watching the clouds drift by as your manhood slowly softens.

After a minute or two, Lia comes back and lays beside you. You turn your head to discover her laying on her side, observing you.

“Are you going to corrupt me, like all the others?” she asks. “Am I gonna turn into a sinful woman?”

“Only if you want to,” you say, turning onto your side to face her. “To be honest, I would love to do all kinds of things with you, Lia. You’re a beautiful woman, and one of the two people I trust the most. It’s because I trust you that the ball is in your court: if you want, I can help you explore a side of yourself you might not know about. We can bring out your inner desires together, and feel good while doing it. But only when you’re ready.”

“What does that mean?” she asks. “How do I know if I’m ‘ready’?”

“If you’re asking that question, I think you already are. You just need to ask for it.”

“B-but I’m scared. These feelings…” Lia shoots a quick glance down to your groin, then rubs her legs together. “…they go against everything I’ve ever believed in.”

You’re fighting off the urge to reach over and finger the horny catkin when something strange happens: a low, booming sound, like an explosion going off somewhere far away, shakes the ground beneath you. Even stranger, the sound is accompanied by a sudden sense of weightlessness that passes as quickly as it came. You sit up and scan your surroundings, and notice that everything now seems bizarrely off: the distant island, clearly visible before, now appears blurry, like you’re viewing it through a camera that’s out of focus; the ocean waves, gently ebbing and flowing as they were, are now following a more jittery, unnatural rhythm, and the patches of clouds that drifted slowly by now seem to stutter step across the sky.

“What’s happening?” Lia asks as she sits up and latches onto your arm.

“I don’t know,” you say, “but I don’t like it.” You pull Lia along with you as you stand up. This doesn’t feel right, you think. It’s like a glitchy video game all of a sudden.

“The fourth trial is one of the body,” says the voice of Blue Cloak. You blink, and sure enough, the cloaked figure appears in front of you, just as they did before. “You stand at the beginning of a three-step journey.” They reveal and extend their arm, and the golden thread appears. This time, it collides with the thread already in the ground and doesn’t properly anchor itself to the beach. As a result, when the thread falls from Blue Cloak’s hand and leaps out to sea, the anchor end goes flying off with it as well. Blue Cloak doesn’t seem to notice this, and simply goes on with the script: “Follow the path to complete the trial. Should you not reach the Wizard within four hours, the trial will be reset, you will be returned to this point, and you must try again.” The mysterious figure turns to face the island in the distance, just as they did the first time. This time, however, Blue Cloak blinks out of existence after a few seconds of observing the waves: no head jerk, no extra line, they’re just gone.

Another bout of sudden weightlessness passes through you. A quick scan reveals no new glitches in your surroundings, but things haven’t gone back to normal, either. You disentangle Lia from your arm, grab her hand, and start heading down the beach again.

“Where are we going?” asks Lia.

“To where I started this trial.” Maybe my starting area is still normal, you think as you lead your catkin companion back the way you came. “We can’t stay here, and we haven’t found Blythe yet, either.”

“W-wait!” Lia stops moving, so you turn around to see what’s wrong. “I know everything is crazy all of a sudden, but before we, uh, put everything that just happened behind us…” she says, unable to look you in the eye. “I want you to know, I…” She squirms a bit longer, her hand shaking in yours, before steeling herself. She locks eyes with you, and says, “When we get a chance, I want to explore more sides of myself. I’m not saying I’m ‘ready,’ or whatever, I just… want to see where these feelings lead.”

Witnessing her resolve, you pull Lia into a gentle embrace. The catkin hesitates for a moment, before wrapping her arms around you in return. You even feel the soft pressure of her tail curling around your waist. It’s a promise, you think.

“Breath not the sweet odor of the demon,” says a new voice, coming from somewhere unseen, “for within it lies the stench of treachery.”

About fifty paces down the beach, a silhouette appears out of thin air. As it approaches, you recognize it as a person, wearing a shiny, white suit of armor from head to toe. The person carries two extravagant broadswords: one in each hand. Their face is hidden by the armor’s helmet, yet their feminine voice rings out all the same.

“Demon Lord Evan Reynolds! I am Emilia Diana of the Holy Blades! By the will of my Lady Anna, I shall smite thee!”