Bound In Beast Flesh -- Aperture
#2 of Bound In Beast Flesh: Transformation RPG Scraps
I felt like I needed to write a continuation to this vignette.
I've moved out of state since last writing, and am living with a dear friend, who I have mild affections for. It's been rough, and an intimidating process, being away from my parents. Heh, hard to make that confession at twenty-seven.
Nonetheless, it's a moment of growth that I no doubt needed. Anyhow, enjoy the tale, I'll probably write a transformation scene for these two, next.
"Did men find us tempting? Shapely? Yes. We were the predators of humans--those creatures such as yourself, that prey upon and compete amongst all things. Back in the day, we sired children with your own, that would grow fond for the beckoning of the wild. And we were a proud kind."
Your thoughts turn to a familiar scene, and you are suddenly lost in recollection:
You are running; chasing after a prey that you had taken for familiar--turned alien. It is a man who had, till moments ago, been basking in sunlight, in a silken robe. Elderly and grey-haired as he was, he chortled and offered you a game at his chessboard, as if mocking your gait of metal, and sharpened blade. When you brought your weapon down upon his ramshackle table, what sprung from his robes was, not a man, but something else. Its flesh twisted into a primal form, growing spurs and claws, that quickly subsumed human back legs. The boa of an animal tail wreathed your neck for but a moment as the creature slipped by, climbing upon your backside and pouncing off as it chortled. You remember the weight of human hands, pressing down on your shoulders, and then launching off of you, a thing that transfigured in midair, baring the old man's face, but an entirely animal-body: a grey-furred fox, that quickly took its natural visage, its face snapping forth from the false-priest's own image, as if to say it had never been a man at all. Nor would it choose to go back.
Now, your stomach quakes with something...not quite disgust, but near it--anxiety at the thought of that thing, as 'freed'. That it was the old man's 'choice'--its preference, to be transfigured. Looking up, you stare through your visor at her--the raven-haired gypsy who is a vulpine witch.
She nods knowingly. "I see you have met one of ours. Steadily, your thoughts will be freed, as theirs, for you bear our blood, stranger."
"How... long?" you ask.
"Does it matter?" She laughs. "Does it terrify you then, that you have an incurable illness, which will... how would your kind put it--'degrade you into an abhorrent savage'? It is not as if our people think of these things, in the way yours do. In the past, men desired strong unions which would give them a license of power--an ability to survive, despite their obvious faults. One such contract, your kind made with us, before you took us all for fool children, innocent or naive mongrels--and then finally, vicious butchers."
"How long?!" you repeat, hair bristling from your changing rear appendage. You feel a divide in it, moist with human sweat and strange, animal stench--as if it's trying to break, seperate in two. All the while, you feel squirming sensations, throughout your body, as if it were a tangled mess of growing roots, trying to shift and find their proper place.
"It is... uncertain. How many bites, did our kin inflict upon your flesh? How many of our kind have you lain with, not knowing? How long have you donned the hide of one of ours, or drank from our waters, breathed of our--air?" she raises a long, supple tail into her hands, and sniffs at it with a delicate, human nose. "You are changing. Whether you become a brother, a son, a lover, now, in ten minutes, in a day... it hardly matters. There is no recourse for what you become, save to become it."
You kneel to pick up your sword, ready to end this--ready to end you both. You, the monster, and her, the monster-maker.
Then, she does something. Something unexpected. Rather than try to strike you with a vile curse, breathe flames, or trip you up and run, she moves in gently, and places her hand on yours. It's not an intimate touch, in your heavy plate mail, but it stalls you.
"Why need it be so horrible?" she asks. "Must not all things eat? Do we all not stink of excrement, and tire of it, and wash ourselves? You and I both find our ways to put life's miseries in order, and we both have our crudities and finesses."
"I am changing. I will be a man, that lays with beasts, and walks as them, and wears their hide as my own."
"And now, how is that so different from what you were before--a man that tans our hides and dons them, and instructs us in the art of breeding to make children; pets for your own gain?"
Her green, slitted eyes gleam, and you feel a presence, settling into your head. Comforting, native and warm, but wild--and restless. It moves your body, unsettles it further into activity--
"There is evil in the houndmaster, as there is evil in the hound. Look not to our ills though, hunter. Lie down with me."
--and it arouses you. The question--what if you give in--what will you become?
Suddenly, you want to--'need' to know.