Mutant, Part I
Mutant, Part I
by Von Krieger
Asha slowly opened hir eyes, hir body wracked with pain, hir throat aching from coughing up water. She looked all around, but no matter where shi directed hir gaze shi saw the same thing. Black. A black empty void. She could hear the rush of water and feel the touch of sand on hir skin. She reached out a hand cautiously exploring the ground in front of hir, hir claws tapping against solid rock.
The Renakana attempted to stand up, but felt pain shoot through hir leg the moment shi put weight on hir right foot. She falls to the ground, eyes tearing with the pain. Concentrating on the ankle, shi pulled hir magic to it, healing the injury, making everything come back together as it ought to be. Asha could feel the hurt slowly leaving hir body.
Summoning forth more energy, shi twisted it into the shape of a ball, creating a sphere of dim light in the air. Hir clothes looked beat up and bloody in places from now healed scrapes. Shi intensified the glow beyond herself to get a look at her surroundings. A cave. Shi was in a cave. Asha tried to remember how she got here. There was running, and the river and...
Oh. That. Shi sighed and looked around for a dry, clean place to sit. Wrapping hir tail around hir legs shi began to cry, waving the light out of existence. She had wanted to be alone, and this was as good a place as any. Shi was a herm, a natural herm. Fate had been particularly cruel to hir when designing hir body. Not only did shi sport two sets of genitalia, but shi also looked like a mish-mosh of human and feline. Most other Renakana were somewhat consistent in their form, not Asha. Asha had fur growing in patches all over hir body, human skin elsewhere. Shi looked like someone had taken a human and a full-blood Renakana and cut them into pieces. The pieces then fused seamlessly together to make Asha.
Hir left hand was human, but hir right was nothing more then a paw, lacking even a thumb. Shi had digigrade legs, but they were mismatched as well, fur growing on the foot, shin, and hip of the left, but only on the knee and thigh of the right. Hir face was mangled much in the same way. Hir muzzle was fully formed, thanks the gods, but the left side of hir face had fur, while the right did not. Shi had fangs one the furred side of hir face, and human teeth on the other. Her eyes where mismatched as well, in color and shape. Her left was a perfectly green-blue Renakana eye, slit pupiled and perfect. The other was a dull grayish shade, round pupil, wholly human and plain looking human at that.
Asha was thankful hir ears matched, perfect Renakana ears covered in the same dull gray fur that appeared in other places on hir body. Even hir fur was mismatched, some white, some gray, some the same brown as the hair on hir head. Hir tail didn't match hir ears though, it was brown and white. Thankfully entirely furry, but covered with a rather yucky looking bunch of brown splotches. To anyone, shi was hideous. Shi had no idea how Ma'Rak had taken a liking to hir. But he had. They had dated for a few months. He was nice, he was funny, he was handsome. Asha had loved him very much.
It was why Asha was down here. They had never mated during the whole time, Asha was very skittish over the fact shi was a herm. In fact Ma'Rak hadn't known, shi hadn't told him. Shi didn't tell anyone. She had protested, but Ma'Rak had insisted. So shi had stripped down, and slowly turned around, the human side of hir face beet red, the fur on the Renakana side bristling with shame. His eyes had widened, and he had told her to get hir clothes and get the hell out.
Asha had gotten dressed very quickly, and left the trade caravan they were employed with, running off into the woods, hir eyes filled with tears. Shi had run until shi was physically incapable of running any further. Shi had dropped to hir knees, cuddled hir tail, and cried. There was nothing for hir, just a deformed Renakana freak in the middle of nowhere. Shi couldn't go back to the caravan, they would all know when shi got back in the morning. They would taunt hir and mock hir. They would make jokes about hir, and stare at hir like the freak of nature that shi was.
Asha had decided that shi would walk back to the last town they had left, and start over. Again. But then shi had walked into a clearing and the ground had cracked under hir and everything went dark. In the darkness Asha picked up hir tail, hugging it to hir chest, rubbing the human side of hir face. Instinctively she begins to lick the fur, cleaning hir tail as tears began to pour down hir half-furred face.
The only thing shi had ever wanted was the only thing shi never could have. All shi ever had wanted was for someone to love her. Not even someone, something, anything that could snuggle up to her. Animals hated her. Dogs would bark and growl, trying to nip at hir if she came close enough. Cats would scratch at hir. The two starving kittens shi had found in the alley behind hir residence had run away into the cold winter night, rather then accept food from hir. Asha had found them the next morning, dead of cold and hunger huddled behind a trash can trying to keep warm. They died rather then let her touch them.
The kittens were when hir dream began to fade. Eventually shi stopped caring if whatever it was loved hir or not, just as long as it was someone. There wasn't much Asha could do as a living. Shi frightened just about all animals, except cows and oxen who were probably too stupid from millennia of domestication to be afraid of anything on two legs. Hir body universally disgusted people. Humans, elves, dwarves, Renakana, gnomes, even orcs and goblins. Shi had been so lonely at two points in hir life that shi had tried to be a whore, and failed miserably.
The first time anyway, the second time she tried to sell hirself into slavery, but no one wanted hir. After three months of laying in the slave kennels, hir master had unlocked hir collar and told hir to leave. No one had wanted hir. Shi was a sad, pathetic freak. The only reason that shi was still alive was because shi had promised that shi would never hurt hirself, though sometimes shi wished shi hadn't been born.
Shi had survived infancy only because of magic. Asha had a strong inborn talent for it, or at least that's what shi had been told. Asha had never been able to harness very much of the potential hir father told hir shi had. Asha suspect he just kept hir around as some sort of mana battery. Hir father had been a very powerful mage, and hir mother had been one of his pets. Asha was an accident. Hir mother was one of the few pure-blooded Renakana left. Hir father had bought hir for a large sum. His plan was to breed hir with a leopard in order to produce full blooded, but feral, Renakana.
Having her tied up and vulnerable, and decidedly female, hir father had forcibly mated hir mother before the cat did. Asha was born about half the size of hir full blooded Renakana brothers and sisters. If the wizard hadn't felt the magic power in hir tiny malformed body, he most likely would've broken Asha's neck and thrown hir into the moat to feed the carnivorous fish he kept. Asha's mother had hated hir.
Renakana cubs learned to crawl only a few hours after being born, and were walking withing a few weeks. They were also capable of eating solid food from birth. Asha would feed on the meager scraps left after hir mother and litter mates were done. More then likely shi had never nursed. Asha remember bits and pieces of hir first year of life, mostly from dreams that shi knew to be memories. The most recurring one was where shi watched in from the perspective of an outsider. Hir mother cuddling hir three feral cubs to hir chest, while hir half-furred little mutant shivered and tried to keep hirself warm by covering part of hir body with hir mother's tail.
That had stopped quickly. As long as shi lived in hir father's tower, shi slept in the same room with hir mother and siblings. They looked so happy laying close together. Mother would tolerate Asha's presence, barely. But if shi ever got close, Asha would be growled at and struck with a slap from one of the Renakana's massive paws. When Asha had learned to speak, anything ever said towards hir mother would be ignored. She would just pretend Asha didn't exist.
Asha could remember saying "Good night, Mama." every time shi curled up in the corner opposite hir family to sleep. Asha's siblings soon found that shi was easy prey, although Father punished them if shi was every physically marked. Despite being not very bright, they figured out to hit her where the fur was, so the bruises wouldn't show. Father was the only thing Asha had ever had to a real loving relationship. He didn't hurt hir, or yell at hir, or taunt hir. He ignored hir most of the time, looked uncomfortable every time he looked at hir, but he had never hurt hir.
The half-blood had been horrified when one night a band of adventurers had invaded hir father's tower, slaying him and his minions, and setting everyone free. Except Asha. Asha had stayed in the tower, trying pathetically to work up enough magic to bring hir father back. Shi had seen it done before, but shi couldn't do it. Shi had buried hir father, and walked the well worn road until shi found a town.
With a snuffle Asha summoned up the power for one of the few spells shi could cast. Nibbling on a tasteless bit of food Asha continued hir weeping. Shi was so damn lonely. Shi had been all hir life. Slowly calming hirself down and flicking the light spell back to life, Asha began to look around once more at hir surroundings. The place shi had washed up at wasn't very big, at least in comparison to the entire cavern. It was perhaps 50 feet from side to side, and from the back to the river.
Asha tapped the walls, hoping to find a hollow sound where she could kick through into another cavern and maybe find a way out, but found nothing. Shi put as much power as shi could into the light, standing at the water's edge shi still couldn't see the other side of the river, or much of anything but water for that matter. The current was strong, Asha knew shi would be unable to swim back if shi went more then a few feet out. The rocky walls jutted out into the water, making hir unable to walk along the shoreline, for there was none. So Asha was stuck here.
Shi found that shi didn't particularly care. Shi could feed hirself indefinitely with hir magic. Shi spent most of hir time in hir own mind anyway, telling hirself stories, designing fantastic creatures, dreaming about having a loving mate. All that was different was that down here shi didn't have to work to purchase shelter, and there was no one down here to torment hir. Asha smiled faintly, here was the perfect place for something like hir. Shi was all alone, and it didn't matter. Even in a roomful of people shi felt all alone. There were no animals to frighten, or anyone to disgust with hir twisted body. By accident Asha had found a place where she could be, if not happy, then at least contented.