FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Martin lifted his head up from the pool of mud. This was not how he'd been expecting his day to go. As a professional explorer, he was no stranger to going on hikes and getting dirty, but he generally only did that for the profit of finding ancient valuables or lost artifacts. In this case, the goal was to help capture a "spring guardian" for his companion Rina, and he was discovering that he wasn't very good at animal wrangling. After a few frustrating attempts to sneak up on the animals, he'd tried the direct approach, but his lunge had gone wide, and he'd taken a particularly slippery pratfall into the mud that lined the shores of the natural hot springs. Rina stood behind him, and Martin appreciated that she at least pretended not to laugh at him as she walked over to help. Like Martin, she was an explorer, They had met a few weeks ago, when they were both exploring an ancient and previously undiscovered ruin known as Castle Racken.

Most people thought of explorers as fierce warriors who took trips into trap-laden caves and crossed swords with monsters. The reality of the job is that it rarely got more dangerous than making sure the occasional wild animal didn't venture into camp and steal your food. What they did was closer to archaeology, with most of their time spent doing research to find unexplored ruins and figure out what was valuable enough to sell, and most of the difficulty of the job came from the long hikes required to get to the latest abandoned ruin or forgotten hoard left behind from the golden ages of magic. They rarely kept what they found, generally looking to sell to magical types who wanted to unlock the secrets of older and more powerful magic. There had been rumors of a castle in the area for years, but Castle Racken had been well hidden, and most people didn't take the rumors seriously, so actually locating the place had been a rare find for both of them. Racken had been a small but affluent fiefdom some thousand years ago, but it had fallen as abruptly as it had risen. As a result, it remained undiscovered and poorly-known, making it a prime target for treasure-hunting. Martin had tracked it down over several weeks by pouring through some dry historical texts that almost nobody had bothered to read and carefully cross referencing a few clues, while Rina had found it by studying maps and determining the most logical places a castle would have been built, then checking each location until she got lucky. It was sheer coincidence that they'd found it at the same time, and they'd been quite startled when they almost literally ran into each other while exploring the castle grounds. After a bit of unease about jumping each other's claim, they'd decided to pool their information and resources in order to better plan a full expedition back to the castle to gather up the real valuables. They'd need more than a one person expedition to get everything worth getting out of that castle anyway, so they decided that they'd rather split the payoff with someone who actually found the castle themselves. Thankfully, their skill sets happened to complemented each other nicely.

Martin was a bit more of an explorer than Rina was. He'd been at it for longer and was very knowledgeable about hiking, climbing, and the various practicalities of excavating and transporting whatever they might find. Rina, on the other hand, was a bit more of a bookworm, having spent several years as an assistant to a mage's guild before becoming an explorer, although she was still quite capable of handling herself. She had a particular interest in acquiring and researching magical objects. Her expertise and magical contacts would help immensely in making sure they turned a good profit when they started selling. However, it wasn't just their skill sets that were complimentary. In the process of heading back to civilization to sell what they'd scavenged on a first trip and prepare for a more thorough expedition, they quickly struck up a friendship. Rina was simultaneously a bit absentminded and rather demanding, which might have bothered most people, but Martin didn't mind. Left to his own devices, Martin tended to be slow to act, so having someone around who would simply decide what to do and leave the details up to him was refreshing, and it helped that she was never mean. For her part, Rina seemed to like Martin's honesty and hard work, and genuinely enjoyed his company. She was certainly enjoying it now, although Martin had to admit that his absolute failure to jump onto the scaulder's back and the subsequent faceplant was probably pretty funny from the outside.

"I told you that you can't just run up and grab one! They might look ungainly, but they're cautious animals." she said teasingly as she walked over and offered Martin a hand up. "You won't be able to capture one by running up and grabbing it, especially not when you're so, uh" she gestured to the pile of mud he'd slipped in "poorly adapted to the environment."

"They", in this instance, referred to the spring guardians, more commonly known as scaulders, strange creatures that were native to the volcanic springs. Rina had learned about them in the town they'd been staying in, and when she heard the hot springs were only a half-day's journey away, she decided that she wanted one. Castle Racken was surrounded by swamps and lakes, and she thought that the best way to haul stuff out on their return trips would be to tame a scaulder as a mount to take advantage of their semi-aquatic nature. As an added bonus, they could sell it afterwards for a bit of extra cash. Rina had done a few favors for him, so he agreed to pay her back by coming along. However, Rina had made it sound a lot easier than it was turning out to be to capture one of the skittish animals, and he still wasn't sure how she planned to tame one. She'd gone as far as buying a saddle and set of riding gear for one ahead of time, so Martin trusted that she had SOME kind of plan for dealing with a scaulder after they'd caught it, but she hadn't let him in on the details. The scaulder he'd tried to grab had retreated to a safe distance and was now eyeing him warily. This was the closest Martin had come to one so far, so he took the opportunity to examine it closely. He'd never seen wild scaulders before, and even around here it was rare to see them as tamed mounts, so he'd never gotten a good look at them until today.

The scaulder was quadrupedal and roughly the dimensions of a horse, its smooth, wet-looking skin marking it as an amphibian of sorts. This particular scaulder was a light blue on its underside, and dark blue across its top, with an elaborate pattern of even darker blue squares on top. The back half looked like it could belong to a mammal, with long digitigrade webbed paws and a curved, flat tail that looked like a leaf of seaweed, but it's front half looked more draconic, with its upper body more barreled out. Its front legs, on closer inspection, were actually a pair of tiny wings that it walked on. Martin had seen one dive into the deeper water and swim away earlier, and underwater it was able to use the wings as relatively effective flippers, but they were too far too small for flying, so the scaulders were forced to use them as their front legs and knuckle-walk on them instead. It gave them a stooped-over and, as Rina had noted, ungainly look. Not that it'd stopped this one from getting away, Martin thought with a grimace. It had a set of "wings" on its back, too, but they were clearly vestigial, consisting only of a few decorative tufts. It's head was also draconic, sitting at the end of a long neck, but it was soft and rounded where a true dragon's face would be hard and bony, and the long pointed ears on top twitched around cautiously at the slightest noise, showing it was far from an apex predator.

The most distinctive features, however, were the pouches that were used to store water. Its serpentine neck was bowed down by the weight of a huge fleshy sac that looked like an overfull water balloon. The neck sac was visibly full of liquid, jigging around when the scaulder walked, and the weight sometimes caused the whole head to wobble off balance. Its two cheeks were also bulged out to each side, the skin stretched taut against the water held inside it's mouth. On the walk up to the springs, Rina had given Martin a bit of a lesson on scaulder biology - apparently, once they stopped being a juvenile, their jaws fused together, sealing their mouths shut into a sort of hard rounded beak. From that point on, they had to feed by sucking spring water in through their large nostrils, filtering out what tiny plants and animals they could, and then storing the rest of the water in their mouth and neck. In a pinch, they could expel the steam from the hot water out through their nostrils in self-defense. Superstition said that the water from a scaulder was the purest, cleanest spring water possible, which is supposedly what gave them the name spring guardians, although since they never expelled any of their stored water, Martin figured that was all folklore. Indeed, rather than being magical guardians, the awkwardly heavy neck and cheek pouches combined with the somewhat worried look that they seemed to have in their eyes made them all look somewhat pathetic. This one in particular seemed uncomfortable, its sacs being among the larger ones Martin had seen out of the handful of scaulders they'd run into so far today.

"I know you've done your research, as always, but it's hard to imagine that these cobbled-together things are related to dragons." Martin tried to salvage his outfit, brushing the water and mud off as best he could, but he was thoroughly soaked.

"I think they're cute! You have to admit that their skittish nature is at least a little bit endearing. It's like they're always a little bit shy." Rina gave Martin a glance over. "And you've also got to admit that those clothes aren't going to get clean any time soon. There's a copse of trees back there that will give you some privacy, You go get changed while I give this a shot. I've got a plan to get one of these guys that will work better than trying to wrestle them into submission."

Rolling his eyes at Rina's typical bluntness, Martin gave one last look at the scaulder he'd tried to catch, then headed behind the line of trees and bushes she'd indicated. Picking out a relatively clean-looking rock, he dropped his pack and took off his clothes, leaving them them on the rock to let them dry out. "So what IS your plan to capture and tame one of those things? I know you must have some kind of plan. What's the trick?" Martin said, raising his voice a little to carry his voice through the trees.

"Oh, it's a pretty good trick." Rina's voice came from directly behind him, startling Martin. He spun around in surprise, covering himself up with his hands as he saw she had snuck up behind him. While he'd been busy getting naked, she'd slipped on some thick gloves, and she was using them to hold a golden orb a bit smaller than her fist that was covered with intricate carvings. Before Martin could react, Rina reached out and tapped him on the chest with the orb. Martin felt a small shock from where it touched him, and he noticed it was soaking wet, leaving behind a bit of the spring water it was covered with.

"Wha...what do you think you're doing, Rina? I said I was getting changed back here!" Rina just stepped back and smiled expectantly at Martin, anticipating something, although Martin couldn't imagine what. They stood there awkwardly for a few moments, until the smile on Rina's face faltered, and the confidence started to drain from her expression. Rina could be a little oblivious sometimes, but sneaking up on him fully nude to try some...whatever she was doing was beyond the pale, even for her.

"It should have worked...it said it just needed spring water, some mud a scaulder had walked through, and physical contact. Did I mistranslate?" Rina had retreated up inside her head, as she often did when she was thinking something through. She didn't respond to Martin at all, in fact, she seemed to have briefly forgotten he was there.

"Look, I don't know what you're trying to do with your artifact there, but maybe you can go around the corner and wait a minute while I get dressed and then explain it to me?" Martin said, trying to smooth over the bizarre situation he found himself in. "If this is your way of hitting on me, it's not worpbth. Ahem, I mean, it'sppth." Martin was unable to finish his sentence, as his mouth was suddenly drooling out cups of water, filling his mouth with liquid as fast as he spit it out. "What's happening?" he managed to get out in between mouthfuls.

Rina's face brightened. "Oh good, it's working after all! I assumed it would start right away, I'll have to remember to write that down in my notes later. I wonder if the quality of the water would effect the initial delay..." She zoned out, gazing into the distance for a moment, before shaking her head and refocusing back on Martin, carefully looking him up and down. "Sorry, Martin, don't mean to be rude, there's just so many avenues for research here! As for your question, well... I'd explain to you what's happening, but by the time I finished explaining, you'd have it figured out already." Martin followed her gaze down to his torso, where he saw that his skin was starting to turn a pale blue. In shock, he reached down and touched the skin, finding it to be slick and rubbery. The new skin quickly spread over his whole body, and as he twisted around to watch it spread, he noticed that on his back, his skin was a darker blue, with a geometric pattern of deep blue squares and turquoise circles. The pattern seemed familiar somehow, but before he could place it, he started feeling unsteady on his feet. Looking down, Martin watched with alarm as his foot elongated and thinned out, and his toes merged into three big toes with a layer of webbing between them. The change moved up his legs, changing them to digitigrade, causing Martin to topple over forward onto his hands. Looking at his now-changed legs, he realized where he'd seen them before, and the thin, frond-like tail that now curved out from his backside confirmed it: Martin was being changed into a scaulder, a mirror image of the one he'd tried to catch earlier.

This realization snapped Martin out of his dazed state. He tried to stand back up and walk over to his pack, but he couldn't manage to get fully upright before falling down onto his hands again. He started slowly crawling towards his pack, hoping to get the anti-curse treatments he always kept on hand in case of emergencies. He'd never actually had to use them before, but he hoped if he ingested them before his changes finished, they'd be enough to fix this. As he scrambled forward, he felt his upper body and arms change, thickening out and lengthening to support his new quadrupedal stance. Even as discombobulated as he was, he couldn't help but stop for a moment and watch as his hands changed. His thumb absorbed into his palm, while the rest of his fingers grew out long and thin, growing webbing between them. Despite the fact that these were supposed to be wings, it felt more like wearing oversized swimming fins on his hands, the difference being that he couldn't take these off. His stopped moving forward as his crawling turned into useless flapping of his new wing-hands against the ground. Martin did his best to calm himself, and remembered how the scaulders he'd seen moved by folding their wings up and walking on the knuckles. He quickly attempted the same technique and found it came confusingly natural to him. Whatever this change was, it at least seemed it came with a basic understanding of how to move his new body.

Martin made it to his pack, only his head remaining human, clinging to the hope that he could still undo the transformation. Unfortunately for him, he wouldn't get the chance to try. His pack was secured closed with a couple of metal snaps, easy enough for a human to undo, but impossible for someone with slippery flippers for hands. Martin let out a frustrated shout as he tried to get his wings to slide under the snap, but he knew he'd never manage to get it open with his current lack of hands, much less manage to grab anything out of the bag. He was pretty sure that his last-ditch anti-magics wouldn't have worked against something like this, anyway. He'd never heard of any modern magic that was this powerful, this was old magic, rare and poorly understood. Where had Rina gotten that artifact?

Martin looked up at Rina, noticing that he'd grown: even on all fours, his head was at the same height as hers now. He spit out the last bit of water from his mouth, leaving it finally empty of water and able to speak clearly. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, his voice tinged with betrayal and anxiety.

"Oh Martin, don't take it so personal! I'm not doing this to hurt you, and I really am sorry about all this. I do owe you an explanation, but before that, I think you're going to need a drink. You look parched, your new body isn't meant to run on empty." Martin scowled at her, but then felt a consuming thirst rise up from his throat, which suddenly felt burningly dry. It felt like he hadn't had a drink in weeks! The sensation quickly hit unbearable levels, and he knew he had to drink some water soon or he'd pass out. He looked around for a source of water before realizing there was only one option. Grimacing, he ran over to the hot springs, at first trying to cup the water up to his mouth, but soon giving in and shoving his face into the water. To his relief, he at least found the water wasn't gross. In fact, as much as water had a taste, this tasted clean and refreshing. He started gulping down water as fast as he could, not even stopping when he heard Rina walk up behind him. "I'll explain while you sate yourself."

"You see, I didn't tell you everything that I found in Castle Racken. Before we ran into each other, I found a full set of these little metal balls in a hidden chamber off of the throne room. I could tell they were intensely magical, but I couldn't figure out what they actually DID. I didn't want to share the payoff until I knew what I had, so I hid them until I got back to town and could study them for a few days, and what I've found has been astounding! You see, when properly triggered, these orbs impose spectral templates, modified by the local environment, to...ahh, sorry, I've gotten into the technical details again." Even distressed as he was, Martin rolled his eyes, only Rina would go into lecture mode at a time like this. "To save on time, and since the final result is obvious, I'll summarize: after being activated by hot water and proximity to a scaulder, they can transform a human who comes into contact with them into a scaulder, with the effect lasting somewhere between a few days and a week. The only documentation I could find was unfortunately a bit vague on the specifics. Apparently the old ruler of Racken found the spring guardians hilarious, and had these custom-made to punish political rivals for his own amusement. Because they were prized possessions, the enchantments on them have survived to the present day barely scathed. There might even be some of these artifacts for other animals, too, if I can go back and find them. I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but if I can figure out how the magic on these work, and learn how to modify it, this could be huge, the discovery of a lifetime! Finding magic this potent and old that's in perfect condition is quite rare, and it could help push our understanding of enchantments forward by decades! And if anyone wants to learn about it, they'll have to come to me."

Martin pulled himself away from drinking for a moment and glared at Rina. He wasn't particularly interested in her plans for the future! He tried to ask why specifically she'd changed HIM, but he couldn't get the words out through his mouthful of water. Although he only stopped drinking for a moment, his overpowering thirst rose up again, and he forced his face back underwater, closing his eyes and drinking deep. As he drank, he distantly noticed that his neck was getting heavier. The water he was drinking was only going partway down his throat and staying there, but that was a distant worry compared to the compulsion to hydrate himself. Rina did realize she'd gotten a bit off topic again and answered his unspoken question. "As for why I had to transform you? Honestly, as much as I like you and find you trustworthy, I simply couldn't risk having you sell these, or letting anyone else know about the castle. You're a good guy, but you don't care about the study of magic like I do, and it'd damage my chances at researching these myself if anyone else found out. Letting more people in on this discovery before I understand it myself might entice people looking to get rich quick to go into the castle and take other magical artifacts or historical texts that could still be there. It would also, admittedly, cut into my potential payout..." As she talked, Martin felt his neck extend and his face start to push out into the stubby, hardened, rounded snout he'd been seeing all day. His nostrils enlarged and he soon found it was easier to drink water through them than it was to drink with his mouth. His ears were now pointed, and he heard Rina's voice became clearer as they swiveled towards her of their own accord from their new place atop his head.

Rina continued talking, mostly to herself at this point, not that Martin could respond to her anyway. "...Plus, I needed to test these to really see how they worked. I was pretty sure they activated on contact, and were powerful enough to last for a day or two, but seeing the specifics of the change has been incredibly informative. Also, well, I really DO want a scaulder for a mount. It's going to be very helpful to have you to haul stuff through the swamps that surround the castle. And you're so cute! So I figured I'd kill three birds with one stone, or I guess with one ancient magical ball, as it were."

Martin's control over himself returned as his compulsion to drink finally faded. He lifted his head from the water slowly, dreading what he'd see when he looked at his reflection in the lake. Just as he feared, he saw he now had the head and neck of a scaulder, finalizing his transformation. His gaze scanned past his stubby snout and stared at his puffed-out cheeks and enormous sac at his neck, each holding the water he'd just drunk. Now that he'd stopped, he realized just how much water he'd taken in. His mouth was uncomfortably stretched out, each cheek bulging out to the side, and the sac at his neck was inflated to practically the size of his head, which was saying something, as his head was quite large now! He adjusted his head slightly, and he felt the liquid pressure built up in his pouch jiggle around uncomfortably. The sheer weight of it threw off his center of gravity as he lifted his neck, and he instinctively whipped his tail to the side to avoid falling over. In total, he had to be carrying least a gallon and a half worth of water, maybe more. "How do scaulders stand this?" Martin wondered to himself, "I don't know if I can bear this, even if Rina did say it would last a couple of days at most...I suppose this is where she takes the opportunity to run away and get a head start on me."

Finished writing up her notes for the moment, Rina turned back towards Martin. Martin started trying to spit the water out of his mouth, but found it was much slower going out than coming in. Still, he was making progress, and if he could get enough water out, maybe he could deal with this change for however long it was going to last. "Well Martin, you're quite the specimen. Your pouch is impressively large, even for a scaulder. But I'm afraid there's one final thing I've got to do to protect my research." Martin, trying to expel as much water as possible, glanced up at Rina just in time for her to shove something in his mouth and force his jaw shut. His mouth made an ominous clicking noise as it closed. "You remember what I said about adult scaulders and their mouths fusing shut, yes?" Martin's eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to shake Rina off, but even though she was holding his jaw closed lightly, he couldn't get it back open.

After only a few seconds. Rina let go, and Martin quickly tried to open his mouth again, but it was too late. He could feel the last bits of mobility in his jaw vanishing as his upper and lower jaw fused together. He strained his muscles as hard as he could, but his snout had fused together into a single sealed beak, muzzling him. The pressure of the water built up in his cheeks again, and he tried to expel it through his nose, but he only succeeded in letting out a cloud of steam. Martin gave a few experimental deep breaths in and out, making soft snuffling noises, and discovered that his nose operated like a one way valve; it could let water and air in but only air could come out. This was bad, Martin wanted out of this already and it'd only been a few minutes, but now the water was firmly sealed inside his mouth. He could feel it resting inside him, pushing against his taut skin, swirling slightly whenever he moved his head.

Martin looked up at Rina with a pleading look, trying to ask her for help. Rina patted his head gently and tried to give him a calming smile as she gave the last bit of explanation. "You're probably wondering what I just put in your mouth. Well, while I was thinking up the plan to change you, I realized that it had a pretty big flaw. See, it's going to take years for me to figure these things out. Even if I left you here and ran as fast as I could, there's no guarantee that you wouldn't reveal my secrets or even try to steal my discovery for yourself once the spell wears off in a few days. You're a really nice guy, so you PROBABLY wouldn't intentionally betray me...buttt I just can't take any chances. But even if I kept you with me, I'd have to transform you over and over, and without being in "close proximity" to a scaulder anymore, I wouldn't be able to. Plus, I'll need to do a lot of traveling to find the resources I need, and a mount that randomly changes back to a human is no good for travel, so I had to come up with a long-term solution for you. Now, like I said, the magic activates when the orb is near a scaulder, while touching hot water and a living creature. Thankfully for me, there doesn't seem to be any limit to how often the orb can activate, so I simply shoved it in your mouth and fused your mouth shut around it. With that orb in your mouth, it's ALWAYS meeting all the criteria, so the spell should be refreshed constantly! It's really quite fascinating how the artifact re-powers itself, it's got a core made of some local plant life I haven't quite nailed down..."

Rina started one of her impromptu lectures about magical theory, but Martin stopped listening as he grasped the implications of what she'd just said. The spell would refresh as long as the orb was touching water and near a scaulder, but the orb was in his mouth, which was full of water? And he was a scaulder... and if he can't open his mouth, then...! Martin jerked his head back in alarm, accidentally putting more pressure on his neck sac as he did so. He'd been thinking of this discomfort as something he'd have to put up with for a while, but Rina intended to keep him this way indefinitely! The weight of the water neck seemed to grow heavier as he stopped thinking of it as a temporary issue and started thinking of it as part of his body. He had to get that orb out of his mouth! He reached up with his wings again, flapping them around his snout, trying to find a crack in his newly-fused jaw. Unable to find a weak spot with his front limbs, Martin sat down and bent his flexible neck forward, reaching up to his head with his back paws. His webbed toes were more capable of gripping than his wings, and after a few tries he managed to grip the sides of his snout and pull, but all he accomplished was yanking his head around. He felt the orb drifting around in his mouth and bumping into his cheeks, a constant uncomfortable reminder of how close the cause of his transformation was. He'd be willing to put up with being this weird lizard, with acting as Rina's pack mule, anything, if he could just get his overstuffed mouth open! Losing his grip with his feet, he resorted to frantically pushing his head against the ground, digging ruts in the dirt as he tried to force his mouth open. He pushed and yanked and screamed internally for a few minutes before he tired himself out. After a moment of laying on the ground exhausted, he wearily got back to all fours.

Rina, for her part, had been sitting back and taking more notes. Seeing Martin was done with his outburst for the moment, she walked back over, and Martin turned to her and glared as angrily as he could. Unfortunately, scaulders aren't very good at glaring, and it looked more like a worried pout than a threat. Rina let out a tiny "aww" and reached down to scratch him between the ears, and although it didn't quell his panic and anger, Martin to admit that it DID feel oddly nice, and he calmed down slightly. "Now, as for turning you back, well...I do know a few good mages, I bet one of them could figure a way to get that ball out of your mouth." Martin was a little embarrassed how quickly his glare turned into a hopeful, pleading look, and he eagerly took a few steps towards Rina. "Okay, okay, since you're a friend, I'll give you a chance to get changed back. All you have to do is say that you won't tell anyone about my discovery." Rina gave a sly smile as Martin furrowed his brow, then tried to speak, then tried to make any noise at all, but he stood there fully mute, the only sound he could make the quiet snuffling of his panicked breathing.

"You know, you're right" Rina said teasingly, "It IS too much of a temptation for you to talk about it. Keeping you this way makes sure your mouth stays shut, so to speak. From your silence, I guess you're fine staying like this for a while to remove the temptation, huh?" Martin shook his head no, snorting as loud as he could. "Well, you can rebel if you want, but you're essentially helpless on your own now. I'm the only one who even knows what you are, much less might have an idea about how to change you back, so I'd be nice to me if I were you. The fact is, if you won't cooperate with me, then I'll have to leave you here, and it's not like you'd know how to survive in the wild. You're practically tripping over your two front feet. Front wings? Whatever. Now, are you going to keep throwing a fit, or will you be a good scaulder and let me put this on?" Rina brought out the saddle and bridle she'd brought from town and held it in front of her. Martin stared at it, the idea of going along with this willingly sat poorly with him, and he felt his ears start to pin back in anger. However, his anger vanished quickly as he considered his situation. Rina really was his only chance of turning back, and he'd do anything to stop feeling like he was carrying half a lake around in his mouth. Meekly, he lowered his head and let Rina slip the loop of rope around his snout, and stood still as she attached the saddle to his back. While she worked, she kept talking to him, although since it was a one-sided conversation, it started to seem like she was mostly talking to herself. "And just in case you haven't realized, if you decide to be troublesome later on, I can always sell you. A rare tamed scaulder like yourself, with your pretty colors and cute watersacks, would fetch a pretty price for some rich person's stables, or maybe a zoo somewhere. Then you could show off for everybody!" Martin shuddered in humiliation at the idea of being displayed as he was now, he'd rather stay here at the springs than be some noble's exotic pet. He let out a soft chuff of resignation as he felt Rina tighten the saddle on his back, for now, he was stuck as Rina's work horse.

Rina patted him on his side. "I do promise to treat you well! I've got all the available research on how to take care of scaulders, so you don't have to worry about any of that, although it will be hard to find stables that will put you up with a full tub of water..." Martin braced himself as she swung up onto his back, but although it was strange and somewhat demeaning to have someone riding on him, he found he could easily handle the weight. "Hey, maybe by the time I finish my research, you'll be so used to this that you won't wanna change back, huh?" As Martin started the walk back to town, he felt the water in his taut neck slosh back and forth gently with his gait, and tried once again to open his mouth and relieve the pressure just a little bit. He couldn't imagine ever getting used to this.