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It started innocently enough.
Airk had been listening to Willow retell the story of how he met Elora. More specifically, it was the part about him transforming Raziel from a rodent into a Daikini. Everyone else in the group wasn’t that fussed about these historical events, or rather how they were retold. But if they had to choose between dishonest retellings, they preferred it over Boorman any day of the moon. Plus, Airk hadn’t been on the quest out. Magic to him was still epic tale cool. He’d seen Elora shoot lightning bolts out of her fingers. He’d seen Willow blast everyone out of a trance inside the Wyrm’s fantasy. So hearing Willow tell of transformation spoke to the vanity of his youth, and about being appealing to the ladies again. He couldn’t seduce with the scars the Crone’s possession had given him, nor with the tale of how he got them: A dying woman crawling inside you to kill Elora Danan wasn’t a precursor to rolling in grass.
It progressed as any it’s-not-immediate-danger magic lesson did with Willow. Slowly. It wasn’t the transformation of speed growing a plant. It wasn’t the transformation of adding a few herbs to change a party stew with a magic wand. This was precise work, about lifting the scars from the prince’s skin. At the rate things were progressing, Airk would take just his face and neck being fixed, and trust that any ladies would be won over by his charming smile enough to embrace what lay beneath his clothes.
Then Kit started teasing him about it, and Airk wanted the whole thing done now.
In Elora’s defence, she was off her game. If she could transform Daikini bodies, she would have stopped her periods as a self-experiment. And maybe she shouldn’t have been distracted by the thought of how nightmarish periods were for people that had them, as she was now. Because the spell cast in an area effect, from the camp fire to the river side, transforming everyone in its wake.
It couldn’t get any worse.
After the screams of transformation subsided – because this wasn’t a quick set in stone affair -
Elora Danan was a helpless toddler. The men (after Willow picked up Elora in a towel) went running to the stream to see their reflections. Boorman cried as a woman looked back at him, with curves and lack of body hair. Airk grimaced as some strange blend of aged father figures in Kase and Madmartigan disapprovingly regarded him, with long grey hair and a pudgy gut. Willow looked exactly as he did before, but maybe a bit shorter. All of them had progressed to different life stages of their species.
Kit and Jade were having a much rougher time. The only plus point was that they were covered in towels after bathing when the wave hit, as their new bodies would have ripped through their clothes. Jade was a mermaid. Kit was a satyr. Actually, the second plus point was Kit had the reflex to shove Jade into the water so her body didn’t get damaged by the dry gravel bank. And Kit quickly concealed herself under the water, too. The last thing Kit needed was Airk teasing her about being a hairy goat man, as that’s what she thought he was running to the river to do after hearing the screams.
“What the heck?!” Kit directed at her twin – still recognisable as their dad - knowing the spell had gone wrong. She coughed around her wider voice box.
“Bigger problems,” Airk replied, wheezing with an unfit body.
Airk’s fattened finger pointed to the younger Elora, which was their obvious means of reversing this. Boorman looked up from his self-absorption to follow Airk’s point.
“Self-loathing, much?” Boorman sneered at Willow’s unchanged form, which Elora seemed delighted to hold the hand of and swing freely between them.
“Says the person that hates women,” Airk retorted at Boorman, catching on to the fact their bodies were what they hated.
“He’s trans, you goober head,” Kit corrected Airk, which took everyone by surprise. But Kit stood by her defence of body autonomy. As much as she could stand with the river current pulling at her fur. The widened crouch stance was helping.
Airk blinked his blurred vision as he processed this. “So, there’s women that have… that?” he pointed to beneath the water surface on Kit’s body.
Kit was going to kill him. Jade put her hands on Kit’s shoulders as a buoy to come in front of her to shield her form from view, concealing her own chest with an arm.
Willow stepped up to be the peace keeper. “Let’s leave the people who were bathing in peace. I should be able to age up Elora to fix everyone else. It only took me three attempts to change Raziel.”
Everyone’s collective eyebrows touched the sunset sky. It was going to be a long night.
***
Once everyone else had gone back to the camp fire, Jade secured her arms on the river bank so she didn’t float off. Kit did the same, as the fur in the current was a workout she didn’t need.
“You can leave,” Jade offered, recognising at least one of them could get out of the water.
“I’m only going to fetch supper for you if they forget about us,” Kit affirmed her position.
“I used to like magic.” Jade started, taking too much interest in a shiny pebble in front of her. The idea of Elora Danan the Chosen One, who would come in and fix everyone’s problems just like that. Jade much preferred the idea of a throwing star in her arm over this.
“I like the Cuirass,” Kit tried for nonchalance, before having a brilliant idea. But Jade was holding Kit from getting out to fetch it.
“We don’t know if it will choose me. Or if it will just form around me as I am,” Jade explained.
Kit settled as much as her new body sensations would let her. She glanced at Jade, who was still transfixed on the pebble.
“I thought I’d have been a mermaid. After Skellin,” Kit mused. Jade was a necessary presence when Kit bathed now, to stave off the panic attacks of immersion now the adrenaline of saving Airk had worn off. Kit creased her forehead. “I’ve never known you scared of water.”
“I’m not.” Jade sighed and turned to look at Kit. “I’m scared of not being able to run.”
Oh. Kit reached to squeeze Jade’s bicep, as she always did when Jade remembered her family dying. It was why she hadn’t transformed into a child like Elora, as Jade had managed to flee her attackers to safety of sorts. The touch sensation was weird for both of them, with hairy palms meeting scaly skin.
“Do you, um,” Kit cleared her throat. “Do you hate being a woman?”
“I hate being treated like one” Jade huffed, to which Kit hummed her agreement. “No. I hate having the marks of Elora Danan.” Jade gestured with her head to her red hair, the brown skin mark on her neck, and looking like a woman. It had made her a decoy target growing up in Tir Asleen, something Kit had helped her realise.
“You’ve always been my Chosen One.”
Jade smiled warmly. She was okay with being vulnerable with Kit.
“Hell, worst case I’ll build a water tank on a wagon and have Eclipse take us on adventures,” Kit (hopefully) joked about their predicament.
“You’re definitely off the hook for arranged marriage,” Jade teased Kit back about her appearance. Kit looked like the beast in that tale about the mardy royal getting shafted for being unkind to a witch. Jade persisted her humour, about Kit’s unkempt aesthetic, “I’ll brush you down with the rest of the horses. You afraid of needing to comb your hair?”
“Can I touch you?” Kit asked hopefully, with a growing confidence about being in water with this fantasy distraction.
Jade nodded, and pulled herself up onto the shallower bank to give Kit better access. She turned to face the water, just in case anyone came back to snoop or change them back. Her hearing was better attuned to the water, but she still kept an arm over her chest. Kit wasted no time in sliding her hand across Jade’s shoulders, along her side, to the threshold where skin stopped shimmering and became scales. They were iridescent red with black flecks where freckles once were, making her a standout target against any backdrop. Kit looked across into Jade’s eyes, to ensure it was okay to go further. Jade nodded, so Kit continued. She kept her hands on Jade’s sides as she walked along the riverbed, having no idea what counted as between the legs of a mertail. It still felt like Jade’s strong thighs, and that strength continued as her form tapered. At the tail, Kit couldn’t help tickling a bit, hoping Jade was still ticklish at the feet and that it continued in this body. Jade did smile her amusement at Kit’s actions but remained unmoved.
“Thank you,” Kit sighed happily. She came back up to kiss that gratitude onto Jade’s lips. Soft stubble grazed against supple skin.
Jade lifted the arm covering her chest to run her fingers through Kit’s actual black hair, avoiding the curled horn. Kit hummed her appreciation, and leaned their foreheads together. Jade continued her own exploration into the fantasy form. The slight webbing of Jade’s fingers made for more of a smooth stroking, which probably stopped them from getting tangled up in Kit’s thick dark fur. The ruff of her neck gave way to thinner coated shoulders. Jade stopped at the collarbones, and pulled her head back to ask permission: Kit’s body may have been male appearing but it was still Kit inside.
Kit consented by reaching up to hold Jade’s hand and bringing it off centre on her chest, next to the pendant she never took off. The skin was visible here, and Jade scritched at it with blunt fingertips. Kit purred at the touch, and leaned forward to put their foreheads back together. Jade kept her petting above the waterline, to Kit’s belly button. Kit’s breaths became shorter, first in laughter for the ticklish sensation, and then for something baser. The growl in her throat caused Kit to pull her head back. Then she pulled the rest of her body away.
Kit had to turn away from Jade’s worried expression. The memory of Jade’s touch, the continuing stroke of the water on her extended phallus and the current pushing the fur coat around it was too much. With a grunt, Kit’s knees buckled. She dropped her whole body under the water, and watched with some horror as the liquid was clouded by her emission. She ran her hands in front of her, trying her best to dissipate it. For Jade’s sake. For the sake of anyone downstream.
Kit felt Jade’s strong arm around her waist, lifting her head above water. But Kit resisted, which Jade mistook for panic over drowning rather than accidental parenthood. The end result was the same, with Jade pulling Kit to the bank and rolling her onto her side facing away from the water. Jade tried to get out to fetch a towel. But Kit scrambled feverishly to wipe her hands clean and get cover for her horny body. Kit settled for sitting cross-legged and tenting the fabric to conceal everything. Her breathing was a lost cause. Her face was pink rather than drained of colour.
Jade watched all this, her face turning from concern to amusement. She rested her chin on her crossed forearms on the bank. “Didn’t know I had that effect on you.”
“You don’t. It’s this body” Kit managed around gasps. Even the drips off her fur were setting her arousal off. “I think I’d rut a tree if it had a big enough knot hole.”
“Thank you, for stepping away from me,” Jade realised what Kit had done for them.
“Where would I even?” Kit mused, trying to make light of it. She gestured at Jade’s curvaceous form, before settling her eyes on her face, and dropping them to her lips as she often did.
Jade noticed, and uncrossed her arms to lace her fingers together in front of her mouth.
Kit raised her eyes to meet Jade’s, and smiled sheepishly. “You know. I’m starting to get why the May Pole festival has men with bells on their ankles. It tells you where they are in an open field. Because if you step into the forest, you’re gonna get set upon by a satyr, and before you know it you’re carrying goat spawn.”
Jade lowered her hands. “You’re biggest fear is rape?”
Kit grimaced as the sensations under the towel were responding to the evening wind in her drying fur. She shook her head. Though it was a fair theory given the arranged marriage, once Graydon had explained how insistent his father was about continuing the bloodline.
“No. It’s more Tanthalos children growing up without fathers.”
Jade unlaced her hands and reached forward, hoping Kit could find comfort in the touch. Kit risked it, and it grounded her.
“Part of me hopes that Airk keeps his scars,” Kit admitted. “I’m afraid to ask him if I’m already an aunt and our mother’s brought that poor girl’s silence.”
“You’re not.” Elora’s unexpected voice cut through the clearing in the trees. She was back to her normal self, alone, and carrying two clean blankets. “The castle kitchens are the main gossip station. Trust me, we’d know.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to look at you,” Kit said.
Elora looked at Jade, who nodded that things were better this way. If Kit got a visual lock, there was no way for Jade to get on land to hold Kit back from her urges. For the same reason, Kit needed to be transformed first, because neither of them were contemplating kids.
Jade let go of Kit’s hand while Elora laid her hands on Kit’s head and chanted some magical words. There were no screams of transformation this time. It still felt desperately unnatural to watch, so Jade found her favourite pebble in the dim light. Then it was Jade’s turn. The water temperature quickly changed from comforting to chilled, and Kit was standing ready to wrap her in a blanket as she climbed out. Both blanketed, they tightly hugged each other; finding comfort in their familiar forms.
Elora briefly interrupted them. “Willow is making supper. Roast veggies,” she assured. There was no meat, milky water, or magic to be consumed.
“Mr Vanity had better be cleaning up afterwards,” Kit warned, in no hurry to release Jade. “If he doesn’t have scars, I’m gonna give him some.”