Honeysuckle Rose is rearranging her furniture.
The band is learning a new song, which is always adorable — hearing the instruments falter and pick up again tickles her every time, when they’re usually so consistent. She’s trying out new cushions for the chairs and figuring out where to put a new door for a kitchen. All is quiet.
—and then there is an enormous reptile in the middle of the floor, sleeping in a curled-up pile. He has a large dragonish head (currently issuing large dragonish snores), two mostly humanish arms tucked away half-visible, and a lovely long coily tail that goes around and around and around and around and around.
–that is definitely an enormous lizard on her floor.
She’s had some odd clients over the years, but “suddenly, reptile” is going to be a little startling no matter your level of experience.
She puts down the armchair she was holding and approaches her new guest.
Her new guest remains asleep. And forty feet long and scaly.
It’s going to be a little difficult to keep her new friend in here. She only has so much floor space in here, and expanding would just ruin her new layout.
It might be more convenient to just shrink it a little, but she’s trying to keep everything nice and consensual, so instead she gives the lizard a tap on the snout.
The snout vents a disagreeable hiss. The lizard opens his eyes and greets her with a green-gold glare and an irritable snap of his teeth, not so much actually trying to bite her as just raising the possibility for further consideration.
“Morning, hon.”
She indicates the surroundings.
“You’re a little big to fit in here.”
He flicks his tail, uncurling a coil which sweeps across the floor to take up even more room, and then closes his eyes and tucks in his arms and flops his head back down on the pile.
...sigh.
“If you say so.”
She sits down on a nearby chair. (It creaks in protest.)
He huffs a loud snort/sigh.
“Now, I don’t know exactly what your problem is, hon, but I don’t pick up a lot of non-humanoids who want to stay that way.”
He half-opens his eyes for another glare.
“Four limbs and a voice, hon? Am I driving in the right direction?”
He answers that with a disdainful, impatient snort.
She runs internally through several exasperated pet names of increasing sappiness.
"Mm. Do you want to know where you've ended up?"
He flicks the tip of his tail and shrugs semi-agreeably, lifting his head to a slightly more conversational pose. The long arch of neck rises very prettily from slim scaly shoulders.
“This is my bar. It’s somewhere outside whatever world you came from.”
She leans back and the chair creaks again.
“It picks sweethearts like you up when they have problems with the body they’ve been walking around in.”
Snort. Tailflick.
“Was it wrong this time?”
He narrows his eyes at her and huffs.
“...first off, do you need a voice, hon?”
Growl. A fairly mild growl, as these things go.
“No? It wouldn’t cost you anything, cross my heart.”
She does so literally with a finger.
Disbelieving snort.
“Sugar, if I only took paying customers I’d miss out on all the fun.”
He swishes his tail, uncoiling across a little more of her floor in the process, and glares somewhat halfheartedly.
...well, this seems like a good time to take a closer look.
She leaves her vision aside and directs her gaze into the wyrm, past the surface-level irritation. What does he want, really? What’s his aesthetic, his self?
Beneath the annoyance and bewilderment and the petulant urge to take up all her floor space—
—independence is the thing he wants. Freedom. The power to be his own self on his own terms. She can offer him all the transformations she likes, and as long as she intends to carry them out herself, they won't be the right ones.
Interesting.
And how does he feel about challenges?
Oh, he'd rather everything came easily to him, but if the thing he wants is on the other side of a lot of hard work he's not going to give up on that account.
Well. She hasn’t used this in a while, but it doesn’t look like she has a choice with this strong a preference. She can design as many forms for someone as they like, but for true morphological freedom...
“Or you can do it yourself.”
Intrigued rumble.
“I brew a kind of godsmead here myself, and...well, the trip’s not easy, sugar, but if you want to control your own transformations I’m proud to say there’s nothing better. After a little practice.”
This assertion buys her a mildly suspicious glare.
“I’m just being straight with you, honey. Full control isn’t easy at first. I could start you out on something milder, but I don’t think you’d be satisfied.”
Harrumph.
“Or you could take a bite out of me, but I’m not sure you’d like that any better.”
He makes an intrigued/skeptical/questioning sort of chirp.
“Oh, now you’re interested.”
Huff.
“It’s more power, but you run a few risks, and if it’s all the same I like to keep my meat where it is, most days.”
He stretches, uncoiling further, then settles back into a slightly tighter loop with a regal toss of his head.
Hmm.
“Do you have a strong self, hon?”
Affirmative snort.
“Good. Anybody who doesn’t...there’s a whole lot of me left and not much of them, by the end.”
She inspects him.
“Now, how this turns out really depends on the person. You can expect shapeshifting for yourself and a little transformative potential from fluid contact, but it’s up to you how good it is.”
When did she start seriously considering letting her guest take a bite out of her? She’s just too damn helpful for her own good. And, well, maybe she misses that old cult of hers.
He narrows his eyes suspiciously at 'not much of them', but listens through the rest and nods.
“I think we should start you on the mead before we take any pieces off me, if that’s all the same to you.”
Agreeable shrug.
"All right. I won't be a minute."
She heads towards a back hallway and disappears for a while.
When she returns, she's holding a clear wine bottle filled with glowing golden liquid.
The coiled-up lizard regards it suspiciously.
She uncorks it with two fingers. There's a wisp of glittering vapor that quickly dissipates into the air.
"Do you want a cup, hon?"
He nods.
She leans over to retrieve a somewhat larger and sturdier glass than usual from behind the bar and fills it carefully about halfway before setting the bottle down.
She then brings him the cup and holds it out for him to take.
He holds it much like a human would, although getting the contents down his long snout turns out a little messier.
She laughs very quietly as some of the mead drips to the floor.
(She can deal with the wildflowers and the cloudy crystals that spring up out of the carpet later.)
“Try to relax until you’re all the way down, hon.”
The lines of her body seem to start to warp and shift.
...Actually, the whole bar seems to be warping, a little.
It starts very subtly, wood grain flowing gently on the counter of the bar and carpeting rustling in a nonexistent breeze. Things start running together, merging and separating cleanly into themselves.
He does not find this an especially relaxing experience. Coils shift and heave; but he's not trying to lash out or flee so much as just... expressing discomfort.
The bar is—
No, the altar in front of him is—
No, the expanse of cloud is—
The whole seems to be shifting constantly between faces, changing — and yet it feels clear that it’s not really changing at all, that these are just facets of the same crystal.
Honeysuckle Rose herself remains almost just as she was, but...
(Her presence is almost suffocating. It fills the entire room, spills out over the cloudscape, hangs bright and blinding over the altar and seeps from every inch of plant life in its surroundings. Her body holds its shape but her soul is sickeningly infinite.)
“S̪͉͇̭͟ ̘͙̹̙̕w̳̼̝͖͍͝ ̰̠̘͍̝͞ͅͅe̟̖͎͔̜̩̘ ́ḙ̣͔ ̶̬̯͎̰̪t̻ͅ ̛͙ͅ ̵͕͎̤̙d̤ ̨̗̘̠͉͍r̼̪͙ͅ ̳̗͖̯̜͖̼e̺̜̺̘̱ ̻̦̯̱͚͠a̙̠̝̺̪ ̤͕͓m͍̬̥̣͞ ̭̦̰̥͔s̞̮͈̼̺ ̪̻͠,̯̹̤ ̭̪̤̮͙͙̜ ̫̣̲h̛̬ ̸͙͓̗o̯͖͓ ̦n̮͚̦̰̜͓̲͘ ̺̞̣͘e̴̝̲͓̝̬̖ ̸̮̫͕̭̗̩͔y̶ ͎̙̱̀.̜͚͕͎̙̰ͅ”
He growls—squirms—sleeps.
The lichen on the forest floor is surprisingly soft on his naked back.
...He is...
...Confused. He's confused.
This isn't - how he's shaped, this isn't - what?
Apparently, it is now.
His legs continue to be legs. A few songbirds chirp quietly above him. The sunlight filters bright and clear through the leaves.
There is a faint but distinct smell of fresh bread drifting on the breeze.
He... ??sits?? ...up...? Is this how sitting up works? It appears to be.
What's that smell? It smells tasty. He... attempts to go in that direction. This legs thing might take some figuring-out.
The moss under his feet will accommodate quite a bit of tipping over for the first few yards, before it transitions to a slightly less comfortable bed of leaves and small twigs.
Following the smell isn't so hard, once he figures out how walking functions.
Once he figures out how to stay consistently upright, the trees abruptly part into a small clearing. There's a cottage on the other side, and a faint glimpse of something moving through the window.
Huh. Walking. Walking isn't so bad, really.
He has seen cottages before, and doors. He hasn't gotten a very close look at them, but it can't be that hard to figure out, right?
As he approaches he gets a better look through the window–
–at the pretty naked girl slicing a loaf of bread on a nearby counter.
Somehow, she doesn't notice him in turn.
The door is...a door. It has a round knob, and a place for a padlock on the outside that's currently not filled.
His first attempt to open the door is unsuccessful. He tries again. What do you have to do to it...?
It remains stubbornly closed. It seems to be stuck somewhere around the edge.
(There's some shuffling about from inside the cottage.)
He rattles it ineffectually, snarling under his breath. This is around the point at which, if he still had his lovely long coily tail, he would be breaking down the door with it.
A voice comes from behind the door.
"Uh...hi? Stop?"
It's not like he's getting anywhere anyway. He lets go of the door with a frustrated hiss.
"...It's not even locked, dude."
He growls, a much less intimidating sound coming from a mere six feet four inches of human than the previous forty feet of lizard. ...still a little intimidating, though.
"Do you...know how to open doors?"
"Ehhh," he says, or at least vocalizes; the tone is impatient, sarcastic, a 'what's it fucking look like?' sort of thing.
"Are you gonna axe-murder me if I open this door for you?"
Snort. He doesn't even have an axe!
The doorknob turns a little.
...She stops to think it over. For all she knows this could just be a semiarticulate bear or something.
The maybe-bear utters an impatient rumble that probably isn't very reassuring as to his species.
She cracks the door just a little and peers out.
"...hi?"
He is not a bear! He is in fact a tall, handsome, extremely naked man. He grins as soon as he sees her face, because it is a nice face.
–she snorts.
"I guess you're excited to see me?"
"Mm!" he says affirmatively, gesturing at her with both hands. Look at her, who wouldn't be?
She opens the door the rest of the way.
...She is indeed as naked as she appeared through the window.
"Where'd you even come from?"
He shrugs expansively. Who even knows!
"...wanna come in and eat some bread, while we're both stuck here?"
"Mm!"
That's... probably a yes?
She turns around and heads back for the bread, gesturing for him to follow her.
(She's pretty from the back, too!)
Aaah. She is so nice to be near.
He catches up to her and runs a hand down her back, just to see what it feels like. It feels nice! He hums happily and does it again.
She makes a very entertaining "eep!" sound.
"–hey, ask first!"
"Ehhmmmm," he says, possibly reminding her of his extremely limited ability to ask questions, and then he pets her some more.
...well...this isn't so bad.
She picks up a piece of bread and butters it.
"Guess it's kinda hard to ask questions if you can't talk–what's up with that, anyway?"
"...right, you kinda can't tell me."
She opens a jam jar and scoops some out onto the bread.
"Mm," he agrees, and runs his fingers through her hair. It's soft.
It is soft.
She holds out the bread to him.
He tries it.
"...!!!"
What a good thing this is!
Okay that's kind of adorable.
She takes her own slice, butters and jams it, and sits down on the bed nearby – the cottage is small, and everything's fit together in one room.
"Nobody introduced you to the magic of bread before?"
He shakes his head, crams the rest of his slice of bread in his mouth, sits down next to her, and gives her an enthusiastic hug. Squish!!! She's so good!!!!!
She almost spits out her bite of bread when she starts laughing again. She swallows and then coughs a little, still giggling.
He giggles a little too, but manages not to inhale any bread in the process.
"I have so many questions."
He does not have any answers! But he swallows his bread and presses his face against her shoulder and nuzzles her affectionately.
Aww.
She reaches up and pets his hair a little.
He makes a delighted chirping sound and nuzzles her some more.
"Guessing you can't write or anything..."
Headshake. Snuggle.
"I guess you're just gonna keep being mysterious."
Nod! Snuggle!
...okay, snuggling does seem like the thing to do at this point. (She's soft.)
"This is a weird dream."
She doesn't seem to mind.
He laughs and nods, running his fingers through her hair again. Soft soft soft.
This can happen.
(It feels really real, somehow.)
Mmmmmm good good soft good soft. He hums contentedly as he pets her. Her hair is soft and her skin is soft and she is very good to touch.
They can just...lie there for a little while.
Maybe a long while. This is very nice.
There's noise from outside. Laughing, metal clanking, horses.
—he glances up with a frown. People should not interrupt the snuggles. These are very important snuggles.
...huh. What's happening out there...?
A hand clad in a heavy leather glove pokes through the open window and grabs the rest of the loaf of bread.
"–hey!"
Fucking bread thieves!
She scrambles out of bed–
–and as soon as she's close enough to the window, she's yanked out too.
He leaps after her, snarling.
The four lightly armored men outside the window look somewhat taken aback. They didn't expect him, apparently.
She kicks out hard at the one holding her, and she's thrown over the back of a horse for her troubles.
One of them approaches with his sword out as the other one on the ground remounts his horse.
He charges the one with a sword, lunging in to bite him.
He gets his teeth sunk into the man's cheek, who, from the sound of his scream, is not pleased.
The man stumbles back and slashes out at him with his blade.
He swats the sword aside with his arm. The arm is now bleeding profusely, but he has room to lunge again, tackling the man to the ground and attempting to rip his throat out with inadequate human teeth.
The man screams again (as the horses ride away) and shoves the sword into his gut.
That hurts. A lot. He is nevertheless determined to do some damage here.
His teeth catch something and the man’s throat spurts blood over his face. He abandons trying to further destroy his insides in favor of flailing and dying.
He hisses triumphantly, then collapses, curled up awkwardly around the sword.
The dead man bleeds beside him. He bleeds too.
Hoofbeats fade into silence.
He lies there, dizzy and in pain, for - an amount of time.
Eventually he notices belatedly that it has stopped hurting. He sits up; he's still covered in blood, which has gone all sticky by this point, but the sword is lying on the ground next to the dead man and not in any way intersecting his body.
He staggers to his feet and looks around to try to figure out where they went.
There are imprints in the leaves where the horses left, faint but visible.
A little ways out, the leaves transition into damp earth, and there it’s much easier to track.
Oh good.
He follows the trail.
It’s a long walk. The ground is clearer, here, though, so there aren’t so many twigs to step on.
Eventually, the forest opens onto a cliffside facing the ocean.
The three remaining men seem to have stopped — maybe to wait for the fourth — and are investigating their prize.
They’ve looped a rope around her neck a few times and tied it off, and one of it is holding the loose end while another, ungloved on one hand, shoves his fingers inside her. They’re laughing and speaking in a different language than the girl, one he can’t understand.
She’s shaking and clearly trying not to make a sound.
That's—
—actually really hot, wow.
But no, he's still pissed off. Those were good snuggles.
He tackles the closest man and attempts to bite his throat out, since that worked so well on the last one.
He takes the man holding the rope by surprise. His throat gives way surprisingly easily under his teeth.
The girl takes this opportunity to raise a leg and kick her other assailant hard between the legs. He doubles over.
Oh good!
He leaves the one he just killed and tackles the third, since the one who just got kicked is probably going to stay distracted for at least a little time.
The third shouts and tries to roll and pin him to the ground, grabbing for the short blade on his hip.
The girl approaches the one she kicked to try to knee him over, but he lashes out with his own dagger to slash her across the abdomen and she stumbles back.
He snarls, biting at the third man's face and neck.
He takes a healthy chunk out of the man’s cheek as the man pulls his sword, and he roars in pain.
Kicked-man manages to straighten up and advance towards the girl, who is dripping blood from the gash on her stomach. She dashes to grab the blade on the hip of the dead man—and when she notices the fight beside her she stabs it down into the back of the armored man. He’s not quite armored enough where it counts.
Very helpful.
He bites again, trying to get the neck properly this time.
He succeeds. Blood, death.
She turns around to go for the man she kicked.
He buries a dagger in her chest.
She crumples to her knees as he draws his shortsword.
He launches himself at this last man, hissing like a furious snake, completely ignoring the sword. He means to go for the throat, but finds that he is instead just biting off chunks of his face, too frenzied to get any more specific.
The man finds that he can’t effectively stab from up close, and that slicing at his back isn’t even effective as a deterrent, and very shortly that his nose is gone. There is screaming and hacking.
The girl leans up against the rock they had her prone on before and tries not to move too much.
He finally succeeds at ripping the man's throat out, then crawls over to the girl and curls up on the ground with his head in her lap. There is no part of him that is not absolutely drenched in blood; the only difference is whether it's dry, sticky, or fresh. All three stages have plenty of representation.
Her hands are wrapped around the handle of the dagger in her chest.
One of them drifts down to stroke his blood-matted hair.
"Thank you."
He nuzzles her thigh.
His back is... a mess; it sustained a lot of damage in his latest encounter with a sword. Glimpses of bone are visible in a few of the deepest cuts. But it's healing with visible speed.
...huh.
She lays her hand on his back, gently.
Might as well try this, then, if it's this kind of dream.
Three. Two. One.
She pulls the dagger free in one motion, and makes a noise halfway between a sob and a moan as blood pours down her abdomen.
He twists, resettling himself so he can look up at the source of the flow. Blood splatters his face; he licks his lips and reaches up, tracing the edge of the hole in her chest with his fingertips.
She sighs softly and lies back as he pets at her wound, dropping the knife to stroke his hair again.
"...mhmm. That's...not great, huh..."
He hums softly, nuzzles her thigh, and starts licking blood from her skin. When his tongue meets the edge of the gash across her stomach, he licks along it with a pleased little noise.
"Ohhh," she says, informatively. Her fingers tighten a little in his hair.
Ooh. That's a good response. He likes that response. He drags his tongue along the cut, tasting her, feeling her hand in his hair and the tiny movements of her body.
She squirms a little, and her knees part underneath him.
"Mmmthis is really bad, you don't even know how doors work..."
He reaches the other end of the cut and turns to kiss his way up to the stab wound in her chest, which he licks slowly and thoroughly like someone trying to get the last drops out of the ice cream cone.
...okay. Tongue > ethical concerns.
She moans and grabs his head with both hands to keep it pulled to her chest.
Oh she's delicious.
She's going to have to repurpose one of her hands to touch herself.
Mmmmmm.
The way his teeth scrape the edges of the hole probably isn't doing her any favours, but he can't help himself, it's just so good.
She goes "oh" every time she feels his teeth.
One of her legs goes around his waist to pull him in.
(She's starting to get a little lightheaded, but that's okay, the hole is starting to close up anyway...)
He licks out her open wound very much as though there are other places he is thinking of putting his mouth.
(He isn't, actually, thinking of that - he isn't actually thinking at all, really. He's just - feeling, and acting on the feelings.)
Then she will obligingly come like he’s licking somewhere else, and even more loudly.
(Neither of them are thinking right now, really.)
She's so good, she's so—the way she moves, breathes, bleeds—
He wraps his arms around her and squeezes, nuzzling her aggressively and kissing the still-healing wound.
It closes up shortly, leaving a dun-colored mark behind. The one on her stomach has gone, too.
She's catching her breath.
He nibbles the mark and then flops his face on her chest and breathes.
She apparently now has the capacity to pet him again!
Good. Important.
...sticky.
He sits up and looks around, pawing at his blood-matted hair. Is there someplace around here they can wash...?
There's a small waterfall pouring over the cliff edge a little ways away, which presumably means moving water of some kind.
Promising!
He nuzzles the girl affectionately and then goes that way.
"Hey, don't just leave me on the–ow–"
She pulls herself up with some difficultly and follows him.
So: water? Yes?
Yes!
It doesn’t take too long to get to the river, and the moment they’re there she hops in—
“—coooold! Cold cold cold!”
He hops in after her, giggling.
“Aaa really fucking cold!”
She takes a deep breath, dunks her head in and shrieks a little as she comes up.
He laughs, splashes her, ducks under the water to rinse his hair, and splashes her again.
“—hey!”
She splashes him back.
Giggle. Splash.
She leaps at him. Can't splash her if she's clinging on you! What are you gonna do now, huh?
Giggle and hug her, that's what!
"I really wish I knew what your deal is. But you seem pretty cool."
She kisses his cheek.
"Ah!" he says delightedly, and then he kisses her cheek.
That's so cute she doesn't even know what to do with herself–she kisses him back again and laughs–
–and then the arrow lodges in his skull.
There is a moment of pain and confusion, and then silence.
When he wakes up, there's a bag over his head, and all his limbs are tied down to – a table?
The noise of men conversing and eating, mugs clinking together and fire crackling, comes a little muffled through the fabric.
He hisses furiously and struggles.
There’s some muttering around him, and abruptly, he’s unhooded.
A bearded man stares down at him from above and spits something at him in what sounds like the same language that the men earlier spoke.
Ssssnaaarrrrrrrrrl.
A thin man taps the bearded man’s shoulder and he withdraws slightly, growling back.
“You killed four of our men,” says the thin man, with a heavy accent.
He grins triumphantly.
The thin man frowns. The bearded man shouts something, face twisting in anger, until the thin man quiets him.
“You should have given them their rights. Now you lose your girl for good, and you lose your fingers. No one is happy.”
Something radiates heat by his left hand.
He makes an unfriendly noise that does not entirely sound like it could have come from a human throat. Sort of a hiss-croak.
There’s more muttering around him. It’s hard to see how many men are there.
The confusion doesn’t stop whoever’s off to his left, though. There’s a moment of steadily increasing heat, and a hand pries his fingers apart, and then the glowing knife descends on his pinky.
Fucking useless human shape, they'd have a much harder time doing this to forty feet of angry reptile—
His form declines to change. But he sure sounds like an angry dragon, hissing and spitting and shrieking.
The men gathered around him laugh and jeer and snarl back.
The knife slices through his each of his fingers in turn, leaving only his thumb - and then someone grabs his wrist, and his thumb, and bends it backwards until it snaps.
He howls in pain and rage.
A man walks by with a hot iron in a twisting shape, and the thin man raises a hand for a moment.
"Listen–"
There's a scream, and the sounds of a struggle.
Hisssssssssss.
A corresponding hiss, a burning smell and a sob.
The knife falls on his other hand.
He makes a sound that's half a gasp, half a scream.
His right hand gets the same treatment as his left, more slowly this time.
He yells and snarls and hisses and finally cries.
They seem to find this hilarious. One of the men in the crowd spits on him.
"Now, if we let you go, will you run back to your village and show them your new paws?"
He answers with a low growl. It does not sound very cooperative.
The thin man shrugs.
"Your toes it is, then."
And so it is.
It's better not to listen to what's happening in the background.
Snarling furiously, he resumes his struggles. They haven't helped before and they don't help now.
But this is his body, and that's his pretty girl with her sweet smile—
He takes a deep breath, and
roars
and pulls with all his strength, heedless of pain and other mortal limitations.
The ropes hold steady on all but a single hand—and moments after that hand comes free, there's an awful cracking noise from his other wrist—but meanwhile, the table shudders in protest of these unaccustomed forces, and splits apart with a prolonged splintery snap.
The roar of the crowd changes its tone very significantly.
A few of the men go pale and wide-eyed, gesture signs of protection, turn and flee. The thin man himself stumbles backwards away from the table.
A few of the others waste no time in drawing their weapons.
The noise in the background stops — the man breaking the table in half is now a much higher priority than a new girl.
His assorted wounds still aren't healing, and also he is still tied to two halves of a table, and you'd think this would slow him down some, and in fairness it does a little; but nevertheless he lunges teeth-first for the nearest armed soldier.
He takes a significant bite out of him, but he is met with a sword through the shoulder and another through the belly and then a warhammer to the skull.
He barely has time to feel it.
(All his other wounds heal up good as new before his dented skull finally reassembles itself.)
When he awakens there are shackles on his wrists rather than ropes, and he is in a damp stone cell alone.
He growls.
A shout comes through the wall behind him the moment he makes a sound.
After a moment, the door swings open, and a few men – better-dressed than the soldiers from before, in colored fabrics rather than leather and coarse cloth, save for one – file in.
He hisses at them.
A couple of them seem taken aback, and they start to discuss something in hushed voices, gesturing wildly.
In a few minutes, they reach an agreement, and one of them nods and says a few words to the less richly attired man who came in with them, who takes something down off the wall.
He approaches, then, with the knife.
Sssnarrrl.
He makes a thin cut across his chest, then steps back and waits.
It bleeds, bleeds, bleeds...
...trickles to a stop...
...heals.
The men crowd closer to look, gasping. One wipes the blood clean with a cloth and touches his chest, scratches at it with a fingernail to ensure they haven't been tricked.
Then they back off, and the man with the blade approaches again. There's another exchange.
The point of the knife slides in just below his breastbone.
He spends this entire time growling nearly continuously.
The blade cuts down - down - down, past his navel.
He hisses, struggling futilely.
And then his fingers shove into the wound and he
pulls it
all the way
apart.
His insides look very much like the insides of an ordinary human.
He howls with rage.
The men all gather round, two of them covering their ears, and one brave soul sheds his coat and rolls up his sleeves and starts to sort through organs.
Howls turn to screams, which turn to sobs.
There's nothing missing inside him, nothing extra that shouldn't be there; he's just like a real person, except for the way the edges of the cut start to pull together at each end after a few minutes.
Eventually, disappointed, or satisfied, they withdraw again. He's allowed to close up. They talk amongst themselves.
He resumes growling at them as soon as he catches his breath.
They seem taken aback, even a little offended.
One says something, sharply. The knife comes back.
This time, evidently, they want the skin taken off his chest.
They will find it very difficult to do neatly, with him hissing and struggling like that.
Then he'll resort to peeling.
Messy but effective.
He's crying again, now.
They step back and watch and wait.
His skin and flesh regrow, and with them his rage. He struggles uselessly against the shackles, not seeming to care or even to particularly notice when he breaks his wrist again.
They don't seem to know what to make of him.
After a moment of discussion, one of the men retrieves a packet from his pocket, and nods. Man-with-the-knife puts down the knife, and approaches to pry his jaws open.
He's going to have a hard time managing that without getting bitten.
He's wearing very thick gloves. He grits his teeth when he bites down and tries harder.
He's going to have some very bruised fingers under there, but he can manage it eventually.
The man in the red coat approaches nervously to pour the powder in the packet into his mouth, then jerks his hand back as soon as he's able.
The man in the gloves holds his jaws shut, now, instead.
He doesn't - quite - manage to bite the man in the red coat, though he gets unnervingly close to succeeding even with the other fellow's interference.
And then—
—everything feels very strange, and he can't seem to get a full breath—
He shudders, then goes still.
But did they really think they'd be rid of him that easily?
Apparently not – they're all watching him, anxiously, waiting for signs of life.
For a minute, he's as silent as the dead.
But then he draws a ragged, shaky breath, and looks up at them with murder in his eyes.
There's an explosion of excited chattering. Concerned – they keep glancing over at him with some trepidation – but excited.
The man in the gloves looks almost sorry for him.
Strangely enough, he doesn't seem to appreciate the sympathy.
Another minute of conversation, and then the knife goes into his chest again, in the same place as the last time.
He makes a quiet, pained noise, but doesn't even bother struggling this time.
They open him up, just like last time.
One of the well-dressed men sheds his jacket.
It hurts. But he can't seem to hold onto his anger; he just feels... tired.
Oh, now he's crying again.
The man without a coat takes the knife from the gloved man.
In a few cuts, his liver is out.
He flinches - shivers - whimpers softly. There are tears running down his face.
The gloved man keeps holding him open.
He does start to struggle, weakly, after a minute.
Also, his liver is regrowing.
This fascinates them just as much as everything else.
One of them speaks and the gloved man pulls him apart even further.
Whimper.
When the liver is regrown, they cut it out again.
They lay them down on the floor to dissect and compare, and he's finally allowed to close up.
He breathes, and blinks away tears.
The two livers are not precisely identical, but very close. They are ordinary in every way except for their origins.
They discuss this, they trade theories...
And then they all leave, taking the gloved man with them, and the room is empty again.
That's... good? Probably? He's finding it really surprisingly hard to have opinions about that.
It’s hard to tell whether time passes or the world just...skips ahead, a bit.
Someone’s coming down the hall, and there’s the sound of several male voices — different ones than before.
He turns his head, slowly, tiredly, to look at the door.
The men who walk in this time are familiar.
The thin man and the bearded man are there, as well as some others from the group, and a tall man is dragging something in behind him.
One of her legs is broken.
The tall man clamps a shackle around the girl’s wrist, and the thin man starts to speak.
“As you killed the brothers of two of the men here, we have gotten special dispensation to see you.”
When the tall man turns back towards him, the flesh gouged out of his cheek is much easier to see.
He tilts his head and looks up at the tall man with a smile that promises more teeth in his future.
The tall man regards him coldly and presses down with his foot on the break in the girl’s leg.
She doesn’t mean to make the sort of noise she does.
“We are gracious men, and we’ll offer you a chance to apologize,” says the thin man, smiling a little too wide.
He—
—looks at her—
—then drops his eyes, hissing softly.
There’s a roar of laughter, and the bearded man says something incredulously to the thin man. The thin man looks pointedly down.
“Even here! I suppose you’re a man, whatever kind of creature you are. And this excites you?”
The tall man kicks her broken leg below the break, and it bends at a horrifying angle.
He answers this question with a quiet growl, which is... not exactly a denial.
"When we put a child in her," he muses, as he draws a knife from his belt, "will you like to see that too?"
...he's not entirely sure what's going on, but multiple things about this situation are concerning!
"Is this your mate? Or just a slave? She certainly seemed upset about watching you hurt."
He looks over him contemplatively. One of the men behind him is looking impatient.
"–can you just fucking leave him alone–"
She's kicked in the stomach, and falls silent, coughing.
He frowns. It's one of the most human expressions he's made this whole time.
Gasps for breath.
"–you–got what you want–got me, killed him enough already–just fucking stop–"
Another kick.
"He is not dead," says the thin man, and then –
"Perhaps he could choose to die."
"If you can, I would recommend it," he says, "because you will not leave this room until you do."
And he leans down with the knife and removes what was so impudently sticking out before.
He snarls, lunging and snapping his teeth as though he has forgotten his restraints entirely in his mindless drive to tear this man's throat out.
The thin man smiles, too wide, and his companions jeer and shout their approval.
"Is that more important to you than your liver?"
The tall man sets his foot on the girl's broken leg, again, and grinds his heel down until
he forces a sound out of her.
His wrists snap and splinter against the unyielding metal of his shackles, and only then does he begin to calm down, his all-consuming fury subsiding into something more manageable.
They all look unsettled (all but the thin man) when they hear the crunch. The tall man glances, if briefly, at the door.
The girl is – horrified, but –
– she's also slowly reaching for the tall man's dagger.
He hisses under his breath and gives one last pull, mangling his shattered wrists further just as they're beginning to heal.
The thin man opens his mouth–
–and is interrupted by the tall man's screaming as the girl stabs his dagger into his thigh and drags it down to the knee.
He grins triumphantly.
The tall man stumbles back and collapses to the ground – the other men swear, shout, surround her, one grabbing her by the chain on her single shackle and hauling her arm up –
When the proverbial dust clears, the bearded man is helping the tall man out of the room, and two of the three men left behind are pinning the girl's arms while the thin man, holding a gash in his side, stands over her.
By this point he is healed. He rattles his chains but doesn't break himself on them again.
She looks right at him.
"Sorry. I gave it a shot."
One of the men passes the thin man his axe.
He—is having a lot of feelings, and an unusual amount of difficulty expressing them—
He looks at her, smiling a small, odd smile, with something of the predator in it but also something softer, gentler, sweeter.
And: "You're... good," he says, slowly, as though with great difficulty, but also somehow without seeming to realize what he's doing until the words are already out of his mouth and he's blinking in surprise at the sound of them.
"...thanks. You're good too."
And then the axe comes down on her left arm, the one she used to wield the dagger, and she screams.
(Other things have healed, too.)
It's not done. She sobs and convulses on the ground.
She forgets that it's a dream. She forgets that she can heal.
"Stop–stop–"
It takes another strike to sever it completely.
He looks up at the thin man.
"Don't... do that."
The thin man laughs, disbelieving.
"You believe you can tell us what to do? In your position?"
He turns to the other men and barks something to them. They were picking her up, but now they pin her down again, and she starts to struggle and scream. He hefts the axe.
He growls.
It comes down.
"No no no–"
And again.
He flinches, first, looking away—
—but then he starts to laugh, softly, a breathless gasping snicker that steadies into outright chuckles.
...please let this be some kind of fuck-off magic power about to activate. Please please please.
The men don't seem so amused. The thin man is approaching him again.
He looks up at the thin man with a surprisingly threatening smile for someone so thoroughly helpless.
“Are you simple?”
He stops right in front of him.
“We will torture you, and the scholars will dissect you, and you will someday die a very painful death or be left alone to starve. That is your story.”
He leans down with the blade again.
"You're ... not," he says, with the air of someone struggling to articulate a concept he doesn't yet fully understand himself.
He stops, looks at him impatiently.
“Not what?”
He laughs and shakes his head.
He shakes his own head in exasperation and repeats his last cut.
He makes a choked noise of pain, but keeps laughing.
He can't properly articulate what he's thinking, even to himself. But it feels like he just discovered something crucially important.
And then he abruptly turns into a forty-foot-long mythical reptile. The chains shatter off his body. He bites the thin man's head off with a snap of his jaws and lunges forward to wrap himself protectively around his girl.
The thin man’s body crumples to the ground, gushing blood from the stump of its neck.
The other two men do not waste time in running.
(And the mechanics of transformation have become much more clear.)
The agony of missing limbs just starting to seal becomes abruptly unimportant.
“...well, fuck, I guess it was.”
He nuzzles her and coils his serpentine body around her and pets her hair with his surprisingly humanlike hands.
She leans up into his hand and laughs.
“...I don’t think I ever told you my name, huh? I’m Z.”
She gives the end of his snout the smallest of kisses—
—and then she is gone, and the cell is gone, and the bar is there instead.
It takes him a moment to even recognize what has happened, and then he hisses and lashes his tail furiously, doing incidental damage to some nearby furniture.
She looks up from watering the decorative plant in the corner.
—oh, that’s not an ideal response.
She approaches with her hands held out.
“It’s all right, hon.”
"It is not," he hisses. "She's important and I don't even know if she was real."
But he does at least stop bludgeoning the decor to death, and coil himself up into a tidy pile again.
Oh. That would make sense.
(She’s glad he can speak, now. It makes this much easier.)
“Tell me about her, sugar.”
"She said her name was Z. She..." He trails off, struggling with words, trying to find some way to communicate how good she was. "...She smiled."
...that’s very cute.
“Did she ever talk about being in a dream, honey?”
He frowns (an odd look on a dragon), thinks back, and then nods.
“Then she’s a dreamer. She’s out there somewhere.”
"I want her."
...well, she has to admit that the phrasing is a little concerning,
but she can tell the feelings are all right.
“Well, honey, we might be looking a while, but I’ll see if we can help you out with that.”
"Good," he says, nodding firmly.
“First, though, hon — do you want to try out that new power of yours?”
"Sure."
He thinks about it—recaptures that feeling of turning from yourself into also yourself—and then he's human, and grinning at her.
She grins and applauds very sincerely.
“Did you find this one in the dream, hon?”
"Yeah. It's good. Cuddly."
“Cuddly? Did you check with your dream girl?”
Earnest nodding.
Aww.
“Well, it’s a good one. Did you want to put some clothes on it?”
Shrug. "I don't know things about clothes. I could try them."
“Let’s get you a robe, for now...”
She approaches a cupboard at the back of the room and leans down.
“Smooth or fluffy?”
He gives this question due consideration.
"Fluffy," he decides.
She produces an absurdly fluffy bathrobe from the cabinet and hands it off to him.
He figures out how to put the correct parts of the robe on the correct parts of himself, and then wraps himself up in it cozily and beams.
"Soft!!!!"
“Isn’t it?”
She pets his shoulder.
He hugs her, impulsively.
"Soft."
!
She laughs and hugs him back. She’s very soft, too.
“Aren’t you just the sweetest...”
"You're so huggable!" he exclaims.
“Made for it, honey.”
She ruffles his hair.
“Hugs are new for you?”
He nods, leaning cozily against her and hugging her some more. So many kinds of soft.
“Well, you’re in the right place for those.”
Pet pet.
“Do you want a little help with making adjustments, or with getting dressed up...or we could start looking for your dreamer now.”
"Dreamer!" he says immediately.
“You got it, honey.”
She lets him go.
“You could tell me about her and I could go ask myself, or you could come with me.”
"—I—come with."
Possibly just because he has no idea how to describe her.
“All right.”
She starts towards the stage.
“Vision can be a little shy, but I’m sure you’ll get along.”
He follows.
When she steps up onto the stage, she spreads her arms wide—
—and the curtains part into a forest clearing.
The altar he saw before when he was sinking into his dream is there.
Honeysuckle Rose steps up to the altar.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
A butterfly flutters down and lands on the back of her hand. Another circles the lindworm(?) curiously.
The butterfly is pretty. He smiles at it.
It flutters down and lands on his shoulder.
"Were you listening to us before?"
A breeze stirs the branches of the trees above them.
"Good."
She looks back over her shoulder.
"Come here, honey."
He goes there.
As he approaches the altar, the breeze ushers him forward, and his butterfly flutters down to perch on the stone slab.
And, once he's within a certain distance, he suddenly feels compelled to consider whether he would allow his memories of the girl to be looked at.
...!
Of course he would!! Look at her, isn't she so good?
Isn't she so good! His love echoes back to him.
And she is about this tall, and has hair that's cut and dyed like this, and speaks like this, and is shaped like this. He finds himself remembering all of these things, one little detail at a time.
A thousand little flickering lights blink on above the altar.
She is, she is so good! Her hair and her words and her shape are all very good. He bounces excitedly.
The lights blink off one at a time, some in rapid succession and some spread out, as his memories of her keep repeating. Some shift sizes and colors and drift into different locations before eventually winking out.
Eventually there's just one electric blue light left, hovering fist-sized above the altar.
"Can we get a look at her?"
It expands in midair into a crackling blue ring around a window that shows
a black pod about the size of a human head connected to a computer.
"...hmm."
...that does not look like Z at all. He blinks uncomprehendingly at it.
"...honey, can you rush this one? I hate to make you– ...all right. Thank you, sugar."
The window closes, and the breeze starts nudging them gently back towards the exit (which appears to be between two bent trees, not curtains). Honey motions for him to follow her out.
He goes along, his confusion gradually turning to concern.
The curtains close behind them.
"...right. Honey, it looks like your sweetheart doesn't have a body right now."
...he frowns.
"She should, though."
It was a very good body! Soft and cozy and huggable! And it had blood! Blood is important.
"I know, hon. I can help her get one. I just want to make sure you knew so it's not a shock."
As she says so, there's a ripple in the air just above the countertop, and the little black pod fades into view.
"...Is... that her?"
"Looks like it, honey. Let's see what we're working with..."
She proceeds to the bar and starts to feel around on the top of the pod for a moment, until she finds the right spot to tap – when she does, the spot glows for a moment, and then the two halves of the pod open outwards to reveal...a brain, sitting in a depression in the middle, covered in sensors.
"Mhmm. Thought so."
"...I wanna hug her," he says.
"...do you want to wait until she's got a body, or do you want to now, hon?"
"She's so—" He gestures helplessly at the brain. It's small and sad and fragile and important. These are all huggable characteristics.
"...all right."
She closes the top of the pod again and picks it up. It squishes slightly in her hands.
"Be gentle with her, all right? She's very delicate right now."
He nods earnestly and reaches out and carefully hugs the pod.
"You're good," he tells it.
It goes whhmmmmm.
That is just too cute for words.
Good good good good good good hug good.
Okay. He carefully gives the pod back.
She takes it and sets it down.
"...let's see..."
She feels around the pod again until she finds another button. This one opens a small tube leading into the device.
"Here we go."
A drop of honeylike fluid starts to well on her fingertip, and she drips it carefully into the tube.
He watches, slightly anxiously.
The thing WHMMMMMs very intensely for a moment.
Honeysuckle Rose opens the pod again and starts carefully removing sensors, then slowly lifts the brain itself out, letting a couple of wires slide out from the flesh.
Almost immediately, there's a soft layer of skin over the outside. She is now a blob.
"Now, she should start taking a shape in a minute, but she needs a moment to really process...do you want to hang onto her for me?"
He nods, and holds out his hands for the blob. It is a good blob. He loves this blob.
She places her gently in his hands.
She's not sure what happened.
She was in a sim – the normal kind, not in dream mode, somebody's magical rapist power fantasy that they'd presumably spent a fortune putting together given all the custom skins – when it all shut down out of nowhere. Not even dream mode, just unconsciousness, as far as she can tell now. She thought someone had just unplugged her, probably, but...now she's got no sensory information coming in but touch, and she'd think it might be some spell from the sim but her body map doesn't feel right, and she thinks she's being...pet?
She's trying very hard not to freak out, here. It helps that those hands are warm.
He cuddles his blob. She is small and round and warm and good.
It's kind of...nice, being held.
After a minute her body map starts coming through again – at least, that's what she thinks is happening. She feels limbs, although they're all stuck close to her body for some reason, the top of her head, palms, a face. She slowly uncurls as she becomes unstuck – oh, she has lips now, and eyes, but the eyes won't open yet – the hands are getting smaller? –
He holds her the entire time, adjusting his grip as she grows, and when she's all there he kisses her on the cheek.
Her eyes blink slowly open.
"...dragon guy...?"
"I found you!!"
He hugs her tightly, then sets her down on her feet, then beams and hugs her again.
"...am I dreaming again? Where'd you come from...?"
"You're not, honey."
"–aaaaa big. Hi. Tall."
...he giggles.
"If–wow–if I'm not dreaming, then, uh, whose sim..."
Her eyes drift over to the empty pod on the counter.
"...no fucking way."
"You didn't have a body, and you should, so you do."
She throws her arms around him and hugs him tight.
"Fuck–it sounds like my voice, even, whatever you put me in is so good–thank you–"
She's trembling a little.
"How'd you get into my dream–was that actually a sim, did they just not tell me?"
He hugs back. "I'm a little confused about that part myself."
She pulls out a couple of barstools.
"You're going to want to sit down, honey. There's a lot to explain."
"...that sounds like there's a catch."
Pause.
"–like, not that I'm saying put me back, I'm so cool with catches..."
He snuggles her. "I dunno about a catch. I don't really understand what's going on. The important thing is I can hug you now."
"You don't know what's happening either...?"
She attempts to unsnuggle just enough to sit down.
He unsnuggles just enough to let her, then stands by her barstool hugging her some more. Mmmmcozy.
"This nice lady gave me magic powers!"
"No, like, really."
"He's being serious, honey."
She looks at him.
"I used to be a lindworm and I couldn't talk and then I came here and she gave me some stuff and I had a weird dream and you were there and now I can shapeshift," he elaborates.
By way of demonstration, he turns back into a lindworm, coiled up around her barstool, and hugs her with his scaly arms and nuzzles her with his scaly snout, and then turns back.
"Coke. Pepsi. Snickers. Dollie. M&M's. Kleenex. Peppy-Kola – what the fuck – Superman, Iron Man, Kitty Kasper and the Jump-up Band, Mickey Mouse, Stay-lo, Colorbrite, Twinkies Doritos Pringles what the fuck."
"What?"
"Either somebody went to a lot of fucking trouble or magic is real."
"...magic is real."
"Not last time I checked!"
"Well—" he gestures around at the place they are in, and at Honeysuckle Rose, and at his formerly reptilian self.
"This is stuff that could happen in sims. And obviously this isn't some rando's project, there's no branding, I don't even know if the cops get no branding – but if I pissed off Coke or the ASL or something while I was legal –"
"...hon, if you come with me I think we can straighten this all out."
She holds out a hand, and, warily, Z takes it, and grabs his as well.
"I don't think I know what a sim is," he contributes, but he follows along.
"...what?"
"That's part of what we're going to fix."
This time, the space behind the curtain is an expanse of cloud.
It pulls them in gently with what probably shouldn't be described as "fluffy tentacles".
But are the fluffy tentacles soft?
They are exceptionally soft.
Would he like to know some things? Would he like to let Z see some things in his mind?
He would! He would like that!
Soft.
This is what a computer is. This is what a corporation is. This is what the United States are, more or less, from when Z lives. This is what a credit card and a bank account are, and what advertising is, and what the police are, and all sorts of other things. This is not the emotion about them, just the information.
This is what a sim is. People use computers to have experiences that aren't happening in real life – here are some memories of that happening. But fake people are hard to make, so when nobody wants to be something complicated in a sim people use a Cranium.
A Cranium is the kind of squishy pod that Z was in. People take brains out, and put them in the Cranium, and then the person only lives in sims and not in a real body anymore. Lots of people use Crania to stay alive after they would have died, and take jobs being people in sims to pay for electricity and brain-food. They don't have as many rights as a person in a body, but they have a lot.
Sometimes, if you commit crimes, you can avoid dying or being in torture-prison by letting someone take your brain out and keep it in a Cranium. A brain with no documents in a Cranium doesn't have any rights at all. Z was one of those.
...oh.
No wonder she's confused.
"...you have old lady magic?"
"I think so?? I don't understand a lot of things. Because I'm a lizard."
"That's a good reason."
He giggles.
"...I don't think they've figured out direct abstract information upload yet. So–uh–"
The clouds wiggle encouragingly.
The clouds are very tired, though. Making tendrils is not easy – actually, it's really hard – but the clouds got very excited.
"...we'll let you get your rest, hon. Thank you."
The former(?) lizard pats the clouds. They're good clouds. Soft, helpful.
The clouds are so pleased!
...she pats one next to her before she stands up.
"Aww, cute."
Honey ushers them both gently out of the cloudscape, and the curtains close once more behind them.
He hugs Z, because that's a thing he can do now, because she's here and huggable.
She is so appreciating all these hugs. And returning them!
"So...I've got some questions."
"Fire away, honey."
She edges in behind the bar. Her dress morphs and shifts from a sparkling red gown to a somewhat more practical black cocktail dress.
Magic is real.
"–uh–where is this, exactly?"
"Cozy," he mumbles into her shoulder. This does not answer her question at all, but in fairness, it wasn't intended to.
What, cute.
She pets his hair.
"We're in Vision, hon. Little pocket dimension just outside the conventional spacetime continua. There's many more like it, but this one is mine."
She pats the bar affectionately.
"I put together the bar so she doesn't have to go to the trouble of keeping this all stable."
"She's... good clouds," the dragon man contributes, nuzzling Z's shoulder.
"She is."
Okay. Pocket dimension. She can work with that.
"And, uh...you turned him into a person?"
"A human. More or less. And technically he did that one himself."
"She offered to turn me whatever shape I wanted but I didn't want - to be turned something."
"So...what did she do?"
He spends a moment struggling to articulate the answer to this question, then says, "I had a weird dream - you were there for that part - and now I can change myself."
"I gave him a magic drink," she says. "You could call it a potion if you really wanted. Godsmead pulls in other dreamers, sometimes, if they're the right people."
"...why am I the right people?"
"Who knows, honey. But it sure seems like it was right."
"You're good," he asserts, hugging her some more. "I'm glad I found you. I wanna keep you. 'Cause you're good."
“If you knew more about me than what I look like naked you might change your mind on that one.”
He blinks at her, somewhere between offended and confused, pulling away slightly so he can talk to her face instead of mumbling into her shoulder.
"That's not—you—tried. When—the dream—was bad. You helped and you got hurt and you helped anyway. And - you smile. You're... good smile."
"...I guess I did. Try, I mean."
She lays her head on his shoulder hesitantly.
"You promise you're real. Right? 'Cause...this is the kind of thing I'd make up."
He hugs her some more. "I promise I'm real."
"Okay. I guess I believe you."
...She kisses him quickly on the lips.
"Thanks for trying to save me."
—he squeaks delightedly.
She squeaks a little herself.
“—warn me before you do cute shit like that!”
She kisses him again.
He would have some sort of response to that, but instead kisses. Kisses are good.
So cute.
"...would you really lick out somebody's chest wound or is that just in dreams?"
"I mean—not if you were gonna die of it—well, maybe if you were already gonna die of it and might as well have fun while you still could—"
“...kinda sad we can’t set up a sim from here.”
“Oh, I can do that, honey.”
“A sim?”
“Regeneration. It’s not too tricky, but you might need to come get a booster every once in a while, if it doesn’t take well...”
“Where have you been my whole life.”
"Ee," says the lizard-man, snuggling Z enthusiastically.
"Can we do that, like–now?"
She glances at her lizard.
"...while I'm doing this?"
She laughs.
"Come sit down, sweethearts. I'll see what I can do."
She turns back towards the wall of bottles behind her and contemplates her options.
He nuzzles Z and agreeably brings his snuggles in that direction.
Bar stool snuggles. She approves.
Honey pours ice into a shaker.
Let's see...
Mezcal has the right character for this kind of change. Then tequila, a little lime – and chili tincture, because Z is that kind of girl, isn't she?
A golden drop hangs from her fingertip above the shaker, and then falls to sink into the alcohol.
She shakes the whole mixture up and strains it out into a glass, then sets it on the bar in front of the two of them.
"...this is a regeneration cocktail."
"Mhmm."
"So cool."
"You're cute," says the lizard man, hugging her and smooshing his face on her shoulder.