Work Text:
Darkness floods your vision as you awaken in a cramped space, soft material surrounding you as you regain consciousness, trying to recall what you were doing before you ended up here as your hands feel about your presumed prison.
You were in a ship- your ship, traveling about when... something happened, making everything go haywire. Everything else feels like a blur, as you scramble about, soon finding a door as you push all your weight against the door, flinging it off the hatches as you fall with it, tumbling down and nearly banging your head against the hard metal that composes it.
Slowly, you rise up, eyes adjusting to the sudden light as you look to see…
An alien landscape resembling a vast, fractured plateau, with gray-blue rocks and soil scattered about, topped with grass and massive, broken and mossy stone arches.
You remembered what happened now.
You hit a bit of rubble in space, messing up your controls and sending your ship on a crash course you likely wouldn’t survive. In a state of raw panic, you dashed into the escape pod, without any protective gear, towards the planet you were going to crash onto anyway.
Shockingly enough, despite the lack of anything protecting you from the elements of the world you’re now on, you’re still standing. Perhaps the atmosphere is safe to breathe in, or you’re simply hallucinating in your last moments.
Regardless, you should leave the escape pod.
You step outside, the grass scrunching up beneath your feet as you look around, the serenity of the alien world seeming like a lie made to trap you, to lure you into it so it can condemn you to a slow death at the hands of the beasts dwelling upon it, but you can’t help but almost feel at peace.
Almost.
You’re still on edge as you look around, eyes wide as you turn to see a group of purple anthropomorphic lizards, seemingly chatting to one another in peace, undisturbed by the crash. Curiosity bubbles up in you as you look upon them. They seem so… defenseless, so-
One of them turns to spot you as you find yourself walking closer to them, seemingly as surprised as you are to see it.
You freeze up, a part of you wanting to greet the thing, while a part of you cries you to flee, the screams of that part drowning out your odd desire to ignore basic survival tips as you turn tail, fleeing into the distance as fast as your legs can take you, hoping the creatures aren’t following after you.
You run for god knows how long, eventually making it to one of the natural stone walls of the plateau-like world you are in, and then flop down against it, looking off into the distance.
As you stare out to the endless skies before you, your mind races on regarding your state. You’ve just crash landed on an alien planet- thankfully, with breathable atmosphere, but it’s a curse in disguise, as you know that it will only lead to your inevitable demise coming slower, be it at the hands of the creatures here, or by lack of resources.
And you have no idea of what to do to get off or survive on this alien world.
…What are you going to do? Struggle to repair your ship? Try to kill your way off this planet? Simply accept your f-
…what’s rubbing against you?
You snap out of your thoughts, turning to your right to see a large beetle-like creature nuzzling up against you, for reasons you cannot discern. Out of instinct, you put a hand on the head of it, slowly moving it in circles as you pet it, the waxy feeling of the chitin plate on its head almost… comforting to you.
A tingling sensation wraps around your fingers as your fingernails grow out, darkening in coloration as small black specks form on your fingertips, slowly growing in size as they spread down your hands.
The realization of what you’re doing dawns upon you- you’re petting an alien beetle as if it’s a simple puppy… and it’s oddly calming to you. It’s an innocent thing, in your eyes. It’s kind damned to a slow demise, something you couldn’t sta-
…You don’t know why your train of thought turned to that.
Regardless, you keep petting it, your hands fully turning black, with the discoloration beginning to spread down your arms, their muscles beefing themselves up. Any other time, you would panic over both your changing body and the beetle-like alien, but… you can’t help but feel oddly calm with everything going on. The transformation, though strange, feels oddly relaxing, and the beetle seems to simply want your attention.
As your shoulders blacken, broadening out a little, the beetle pulls itself away from your hand, looking up at you like a lost puppy. You stare back at it, just for a moment, then rise up from against the wall, walking off into the distance, with the beetle following close behind you. You walk without any sort of destination in mind, just for a moment, as underneath your clothing, black specks form on your soles as your toenails push out, sharpening at the points.
You wander aimlessly, occasionally turning around to see the beetle still following you- it must have been separated from its queen, most likely. You keep walking, the blackness spreading over your feet and crawling up your legs, as underneath your changing skin, your muscles ripple and beef up, similar to what happened to your legs.
A sickly sweet aroma fills the air around you, lightheadedness seeping in as you wince a little, before refocusing as you realize that the queen of this stray beetle must be near. It doesn’t take much longer to find her, towering over the landscape. The stray beetle, clearly recognizing her, instantly runs over, but not before turning to look at you one last time.
You can’t resist giving it a small goodbye pet before leaving it be. As the blackness overtakes your knees, slithering up your body with little notice from you, you turn away and leave
As you walk away, the realization of what you just did slowly hits you. Strangely enough, the fact that you made the choice to pet an alien and help it find its home isn’t what is shocking to you, it’s moreso the fact that you seemed to know this place like you’ve been here for a while, and the fact that with every passing second, this place seems more… familiar to you. Like you’ve lived here all your life.
It’s an alarming feeling, one that should scare you, but… you can’t help but feel at peace with that fact. It feels like this planet and the life on it needs you.
The blackness soon reaches up your thighs, recoloring them as you decide to just try to find what’s left of your ship, and hope that when you find it, you’ll be able to get your thoughts together. So, you keep walking, the blackness spreading further and further up your legs, with a barely notable, but oddly relaxing tingling sensation.
As the blackness reaches your waist, your private parts seal themselves away, your belly button closing up along with them as more muscle adds itself onto your frame. Your spine stretches out, limbs following suit as you stumble, nearly falling over as you find yourself growing in size, soon tearing your clothing as you struggle to regain balance.
You soon reach ten feet in height, that strange yet oddly relaxing numbness stretching over your body as you take a moment to recover from that. Soon, you’re back on your feet, taking small, unsure steps at first, before growing more confident in your altered body as you walk on, the blackness continuing to spread over your form, leaving behind those relaxing sensations in your skin.
Your eyes drift over the landscape before you, almost glazed over from boredom from your quest. As the blackness crawls up your body, flattening out your chest and making your nipples fade away into it, you eventually take notice of something in the distance.
Something that clashes with the world around you, and is very, very familiar.
Breaking out of your trance, you dash over to take a closer look as the blackness bubbles up around the base of your neck, and soon, you stand a fair distance away from your ship.
Or rather, the remains of it.
It is slammed nose-first into the planet, bits of it torn open and flung onto the soil carelessly. The damage is clearly immense, and it seems unlikely you can repair it yourself, leaving you with only a single option: Remaining on this planet until the day you die.
…but, somehow, you don’t feel so upset over that.
Yeah, this place, for how alien and strange it is to you, feels more like home than anything else. You have sensations and memories of living here in the past, gazing at the moon (which doesn’t seem to even exist), tending to the creatures you saved from destruction, and just… living a peaceful life here, where you seem to belong.
As you think about your situation, the blackness crawls up your neck, wrapping around your head like cold fingers as it seals up your mouth, the bones and flesh within merging with the rest of your skull. Soon after, your nose follows suit, flattening up against your face as it vanishes into the black that crawls further and further up your head.
Your hair starts to drift off your skull as the blackness reaches your forehead, first starting with single strands of it that drift to the grass below you, then more and more fall out until clumps fall off your head without a care. Your eyes grow closer and closer together on your head, growing in size as they merge into one.
As this happens, your sclera turns a very dark, almost black turquoise, with your iris turning a much lighter version of that same color, and your pupil turn white, with an intense glow that seems to overtake the entire eye, gleaming like a star and seemingly making your entire eye seem white.
As you stare on, the final strands of hair drifting off your head and blowing away in a sudden brought of wind, you snap out of your trance and realize that you had either started crying, or your eyes were watering quite a bit when they were merging. You presume the reason why is the former, as while this place truly feels like home now…
You can’t help but miss your old life.
Sure, this planet is beautiful, tended to with your own hands and raised to become a perfect little home for creatures damned to an unfair demise, but it isn’t your true home, and despite how you feel on the inside about it, it never will be.
But… that doesn’t mean you have to hate this place or what happened to you.
In fact, you feel reborn. Like the planet itself has saved you in exchange for you becoming the new guardian of it and the beings that reside there.
Yes, you are the bulwark of the weak ones that live here.
Your old clothes flicker away in turquoise light, wrapping around you and reforming into a dark red tattered cloak lined with turquoise diamond markings, open down the sides where your arms are, as some strands of light wrap around the lower halves of them, turning into dark red armbands lined with gold at the top and in the middle.
Similar bands wrap around your legs, just above your feet, as on your head, light balls up and forms into a dark red crown-like headdress, with a turquoise gem down the middle of the main section, two duplicates to both sides of it. Inbetween the gems are gold markings, with similar ones in turquoise above the section where your head sits, and on the bottom of the main part of it, are several turquoise gems strung to it by golden thread.
In your mind flashes memories, foreign to you yet so familiar at the same time. Memories of growing up on this planet, being forced to banish your brother to the moon (that seems to have vanished… you should look into that), and saving thousands of species from their doom…
Just like the planet seems to have saved you.
You understand now. This planet’s will has changed you into the long-gone guardian of it…
And you will embrace this role with open arms.
More strands of turquoise light form around your open hand as you clench it around them, causing them to form into a massive crystalline sword, cyan in color with a moon shaped tip. Five diamond shaped flickers of turquoise light form around your head, with smaller dots of light in between them, all creating a sort of halo around you.
You take another moment to look over the remains of your ship, the ruins of what remains of your old life, before turning around. You will miss who you were before, but you now have something greater. Something precious, that needs to be cared for- not by mortal hands, but by the hands of a god.
They need providence. They need you.
And you will happily assist them with anything they desire.