Welcome Home – 1

Swirling blue lights were all around me, and a formless, whispering voice filled my head. I was drifting, lost in a void without end. And then, the voices solidified into a single, woman’s voice, speaking with an accent I hadn’t heard before.

“Go, now. And find the truth, if you can!”

The lights were spinning faster now, and I had a sense of movement. I was falling, faster, faster, and then with a blinding flash, the void was gone, and I stood in an unfamiliar place. Ruined stone buildings were all around me, the intricately carved friezes that once adorned the walls faded and blurred with time and exposure.

I looked down at myself, trying to remember… anything. All I knew was my name. I couldn’t remember where I had come from, who I had been, anything. For all that, my body was familiar enough. I had spent the last years of my 20s working at getting back into shape, and I was proud of the hard muscle I had built up.

Whatever light had brought me to my current location had neglected to bring my clothes with me.

“Oh!”

I turned around and stared in surprise. There was a woman standing behind me, her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, mirroring my own shock. She was… purple? Not dramatically so, but the uncertain light coming through the collapsed roof of the ruin was bright enough that it was undeniable. She had purple skin, large, liquid brown eyes, and pointed ears. An elf?

Certainty that I was dreaming eased some of my nervous tension and I straightened out of the crouch I had fallen into. “Sorry,” I said with a smile, “I seem to be lost.”

The woman’s eyes shifted downward to my naked crotch, and her eyes got even wider, if that was possible. “Oh, my. You must be a human!” Her eyes flew back up to mine, and a flush of embarrassment spread across her face. She was kind of cute, in a chubby, girl-next-door kind of way. “Sorry! We don’t get many of your kind around here.”

“I bet,” I grinned. If this was a dream, it was a pretty vivid one. “So, where am I?”

“Oh, gosh. I’m all flustered. You must think me a wool-head! This is Bening! Your new home! May I be the first to welcome you!”

I blinked. My new home? I started wondering what drugs I had taken before going to bed. This was some good shit. “Thanks, I guess.” I looked around at the ruin. Not much of a home. I decided to just play along for now. “I’m Jack. What’s your name?”

She blushed again. “Oh no! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Jenna. And this,” she gestured behind herself at a towering, rotund automaton. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed the robot with her until she pointed it out. “This is Houri.”

The robot lifted a long flexible arm and waved.

“Uh, hello. Sorry, is that a robot?”

“Houri is my friend,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I see. Well, Jenna, what do I do now?”

“Oh, you should go to Bening Village. Check in with the mayor, Penli. He’ll get you sorted with a plot to build a house on.” She looked down at my dick again, and her eyes lingered for a long moment before she pulled her gaze back up. “Gosh. And maybe put some clothes on?”

I gestured down at myself. “This is what I have.”

“Oh! Silly me. Houri, hand over that blanket, would you? Sorry, it’s what we were eating lunch on, so it’s got some dirt on it, but better than you flashing the entire town!”

Houri extended a long flexible arm, and handed me a checked picnic blanket. I wrapped it around my waist and secured it as best I could. Jenna looked disappointed once I was somewhat decent once more, but she shook it off. “I’ve got to keep working, but I’m sure I’ll see you around town, Jack! Just follow that path, and you’ll see Bening quick enough. Welcome home!”

I nodded and waved goodbye, bemused by everything I had seen so far. I decided to just go along with the flow and see where the dream took me. If Jenna wanted me to check in at the nearby town, I could do that.

The rough path was uncomfortable on my bare feet, so I stepped off the side and walked in the grass. I couldn’t remember where I lived in the real world, but I was pretty sure the grass wasn’t as lush and soft there. A few minutes of walking, and I stepped out of the ruins and a beautiful valley opened up before me.

Trees grew along a sparkling river and windmills slowly turned in the afternoon breeze. Bening Village spanned the river, a loose cluster of wooden-shingled buildings with farmland off to one side. The air was pristine, with only a hint of distant wood smoke. White clouds floated in the sky above.

It was unbelievably quaint. If someone asked me to describe an idyllic agrarian village, Bening was more or less exactly what I would come up with. I set off down the overgrown path toward the village. If I had to guess, the mayor would be in one of the larger buildings. Hopefully he would have a solution for proper clothes.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the villagers when I showed up in their town, barefoot, wearing nothing but Jenna’s picnic blanket.