Something a bit different from my usual tf artwork, and my first plushie tf ^^
That was very fun to draw and write about.
This was a commission done for Laupin
www.deviantart.com/laupin
The mythical creature named Humalos, and the characters Baleina and Chafine are part of his personal lore.
Link to the commission journal:
https://www.deviantart.com/phyrexia.....OPEN-889915891
[Temporarily-inanimate] [Permanent-Fusion] [Dark] [Existential] [Unwilling]
Across many cultures, legends always arise about alternate planes and dimensions entangled with ours in strange ways. Some civilizations attempt to communicate with the realm of spirits, the underground demons in hell, the angels up in the heavens, and many more.
Among these many myths, there is the curious world of Erithia. A realm inhabited by two wizards who took upon themselves the task of populating the land with animal species of their own glorious creation. On that land, the pair rule supreme, acting as gods who control evolution itself.
However, life cannot be simply conjured. The wizards had the power to shape flesh and bone, create tissue from clay, bone from stone, and blood from water, but they lacked the most fundamental ingredient… A soul.
Because of that limitation, they had to claim spirits from other worlds to power their hollow creations. However, each of the wizards had a different opinion about how to properly harvest those souls…
Julien considered life a gift and transformation an opportunity for growth. He always asked the creatures for permission before letting them become part of Erithia. He also ensured that the new residents would feel at home, and they would smile at the reflection of their new physical forms. Julien offered the gift of change, and his creations were always thankful to him.
However, the witch Baleina didn’t follow the same philosophy. Although she also considered life a gift and change an opportunity, she looked down upon those less powerful than her, and saw those creatures as mere ingredients for her recipe of creation. The world of Erithia was her playground, and the souls from other realms were nothing more than toys waiting to be claimed...
Chafine, a 20-year-old human girl, was hastily putting on some pretty clothes before a night out. She was going to a concert that she had been planning to go with her friends for months. And they would likely arrive soon
She smiled as she checked herself in the mirror. The girl was draped in a long green dress with a blue ribbon around the waist, had her long hair cocked with a ponytail, and put on her favorite cookie-shaped necklace.
As she was about to exit, though, a strange purple cloud appeared in front of her, blocking the door. Space distorted around it, as if a hole in the very fabric of the universe had opened for that colorful smoke to come out.
“H-hello?” Chafine stepped back, holding her necklace, unsure if her mind was imagining things or if reality had stopped making sense. Was that some kind of prank? Her friends would never scare her like that.
She rubbed her eyes, then looked back, expecting it to be just some optical illusion of dust and light. Yet, the purple cloud remained in front of her, even bigger, completely blocking the view to the door.
Before Chafine could make any sense of the situation, the haze formed a large hoop in the air and light shone through from the other size, like a portal… And from that astral gateway, a strange creature stepped out.
She was human in shape and size, but her skin was painted green and a unicorn horn stuck out from the forehead. Her hair resembled spiky leaves and her clothes had the color of moss. The entity didn’t seem like a monster, neither did it look scary or threatening… Instead it featured a friendly smile.
“Hello, human.” Said the horned, green-skinned person, eyeing the other girl from the bottom up. “I adore the green of your dress. Such a natural color.”
“T-thanks.” Chafine gulped, still too scared to approach the stranger. “Wh-who are you?”
“Oh ho ho!” The humanoid chuckled and covered her mouth. “My name is Baleina! Pleased to meet your acquaintance! Would you also happen to have a name?”
“I am… Chafine.” She nervously replied, trying to seem friendly despite clearly still unnerved about the mystic creature showing up uninvited. Chafine didn’t know how to handle this, as such life forms had never been seen in her world! She mostly assumed this to still be a dream.
“Hello Chafine!” Baleina continued to scan her pretty human body from head to feet, like an art connoisseur inspecting a statue. “You seem like you would be enough. Come with me now.”
“Enough? Go? Where?” The girl backed up into the wall, eyes nervously looking to the window in case she needed to run. “Are you kidnapping me? What’s going on? I’m gonna call the police!”
“You humans are always so scared around me.” The witch sighed and waved her hands. “I don’t understand how Julien has such an easy time with this race. You all act like cornered animals every time I show up to say hello! I came here to bless you with my gift of creation, but you act so ungrateful of my presence.”
“I’m sorry!” Chafine’s forehead was covered in cold sweat and her legs kept shaking. “I didn’t mean to… I just… I’m just confused… You showed up through a random wormhole and… and… What do you mean with the gift of creation?”
“O ho ho! Glad you asked!” Baleina’s frown quickly sharpened to a smirk. “I’ve chosen you to partake in a very special myth of creation! That of a new species I’ve just came up with this morning. I’m here to morph you into something grand, something of historical proportions! You’re going to be changed into something much better and meaningful!”
“But I don’t want to change!” Chafine bit her lips and held her beautiful dress. “I’m fine as I am. Thank you, I think you’d better find someone else. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t want to change? Nonsense!” The witch widened her eyes in surprise, as if Chafine had said she didn’t need air. “You have a pure, untainted soul! Do you know how hard it is to find humans with souls as crystalline as yours?”
“I… I… I’m thankful for the compliment, but I’m afraid you are wasting your time here. My friends will arrive soon, and I must go out with them. I’m quite satisfied with this life already.”
“You humans tire me…” Baleina sighed, then shot a green light from her horn. The energy slashed through the air like a loose thread, quickly piercing into Chafine’s chest and poking out from behind... Somehow not causing any damage.
“Wh-what is this!?” Although there was no pain, she was overwhelmed with tingles and numbness as that ethereal thing pierced through her skin. She gasped as the immaterial line trespassed into her body again and again, thrusting itself in and out repeatedly as if she was being knitted. “What are… you… doing… with… mmmmfghfgh!…”
Chafine’s screams of agony were suddenly muffled when her lips shut themselves involuntarily. When she tried to pry her mouth open, she was met with a very unpleasant surprise as her fingers grazed over her jaw. First, she could feel a pattern of threads sewing her lips closed. Second, her skin no longer felt warm and smooth… Instead it had the texture of soft fabric, like the clothes she was covered in!
“Mmmfh! Mmmmfh!” She continued trying to yell for help, regretting not having done that sooner. “Mmmmmhhhfggg!”
The green, ethereal thread pierced her body in different locations, binding her up and sapping away Chafine’s strength. Her bones wobbled as if they were made of wool and simply standing on two legs was now a challenge. Her guts felt lighter and empty as her insides softened into thick cotton. Her hair gained the consistency of a paintbrush. Her fingers merged with one another, becoming similar to oven mittens. The clothes somehow fused with her torso like a second layer of skin.
Her arms flopped to the sides, completely unresponsive and devoid of joints, so light that the wind could make them swing. Then her legs bent like a ragdoll and Chafine was sent tumbling to the floor, face first.
Upon landing on the carpet, there was a soft “ploff”, akin to a regular plush being dropped, as if no hard material composed her body anymore. Chafine couldn't get up, speak, turn her head or even close her eyes. And then, the rug beneath her inexplicably started to thicken, like the tall grass of a savanna!
“O ho ho! You look so tiny and adorable! I almost feel tempted to exhibit you on a shelf!” The witch's voice boomed emphatically, yet also echoed as if she was speaking from atop a high tower. “Let’s take you to Erithia so I can improve you into something better than a mere human!”
Two giant, warm fingers pinched each of her stubby hands and lifted the immobilized girl from the floor… And as the floor moved further away, an intense vertigo took over her.
Her small bedroom now seemed fit for a giant! Her bed was the size of a football field, her wardrobe was as tall as a skyscraper, and the ceiling seemed as far away as the sky itself. She basically dangled multiple stories off the ground!
Baleina, now a hundred times taller, swung the girl through the air as she walked, acting as childishly as an infant holding a teddy bear. And as she came close to a mirror, the green entity allowed Chafine to witness the state of her body.
“Look at you! How cute!”
She was just a tiny doll, made of fabric and filled with cotton. Her eyes were replaced by shirt buttons, her mouth was a wavy line of stitches, her hair a few strands of thread, and she couldn’t say where her dress ended and her skin began. Even her cookie collar became a miniature glued to her chest. She was nothing but a powerless plush that could be found in a doll house! If anyone saw her like that, they would have no way to discern it from any other toy!
“Don’t worry, my darling! This is not your final form!” Baleina giggled and pulled her arms up and down, forcing the poor girl to dance in front of the mirror, cotton stuffing bouncing inside of her belly. “This is just a temporary shape that helps me with the reconstruction process! You’ll be perfectly alive again soon!”
Despite the green witch’s playfulness, Chafine felt empty inside. And the reason wasn’t all the stuffing replacing her guts. Looking at the mirror, she realised how powerless she was. How little choice she had and how little her existence was in the big scheme of things. How every decision she made in her life was now null because some random goddess decided to claim her for herself. She had no way to fight back. The world was so unfair… That had to be a dream… It had to be a dream… There was no way any of that was real…
“Time to go!”
Chafine was dropped into a pocket and everything became dark…
It had to be a dream...
But she didn't wake up….
The toy-girl’s time in that dark pocket felt like an eternity, and she thought that she’d be inanimately stuck in the void forever until she was finally pulled out and deposited onto a gigantic circular table. Around her, there were colorful threads, mountains of cotton, fields made of fabric, colossal scissors that could chop her in half, pins the size of her head, needles as thick as pencils, and an assortment of other humongous sewing supplies.
Or, rather… The things were all regular sized, and Chafine was still unused to seeing the world as a tiny plush. It felt like being in the house of the beanstalk giant…
“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt! I’m quite the skilled craftswoman myself!” Baleina bragged as she pulled a chair and sat in front of the toy-girl. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement, and for a moment she looked more like a clueless child than a cruel goddess. Her face showed no signs of remorse or empathy. She hardly seemed to realize how horrific it was for the young girl to be stolen from her life, trapped inside of a doll, and taken to another world. Chafine was truly just a toy for her…
No…
Worse than a toy…
Chafine was an ingredient…
“I’ve chosen you three to become the first Humalos! And you should be honored to receive the blessing of populating the world of Erithia! I welcome you to my Eden of creation, where the imperfect animals of the universe are brought and reshaped into true art! Rejoice in finally having a purpose!”
Before the human plushie could wonder who were the other two, a massive hand grabbed her by the waist and moved across the table in a silly way that made it seem like she was waddling. Just a few hours ago, Chafine was excited to visit a concert with her friends, and now she was someone else's source of entertainment!
In her other hand, Baleina held a second plushie from the table. A long snake made of cloth, with buttons for eyes and a red silky tongue showing up. It looked exactly like a regular inanimate object, but Chafine was sure that, just like herself, there was a soul trapped inside of that plush vessel.
“Hello, friend!” The green witch moved the snake up and down, pretending that the animal was the one talking. “You look so pretty, Chafine! I can’t wait to be fused with you!”
The word “fused” caught the girl by surprise. Would she seriously be combined with that other animal? Would something like that even be possible? How was she even supposed to…
Oh no…
The many sewing materials lying across the table made her inexistant heart skip a beat. She had a sinister guess about what was going to happen, already wanting to curl up as she imagined those needles going through her.
“Of course I’m here to fuse!” This time, Chafine herself was shaken up and down while the wizard pretended she was replying to the snake. “Baleina told me I have a beautiful, untainted soul! She showed me that I am a perfect piece of her new creation! I can’t wait to become one with you and help populate the wondrous world of Erithia! My silly human life was nothing compared to being one of her children!”
The horned witch carefully set aside the snake and brought another tiny, stuffed animal closer to the girl. This time, a horse.
“Hello Chafine!” The equine was made to prance around in circles. “I’m also very excited to be here! When I was born, I never thought I’d one day become the first Humalos! Don’t you love this magical feeling that our lives finally have meaning now?”
“Of course I do!” Chafine was lifted by the hand and spun like a ballerina, before being pushed against the horse in a clumsy, soft hug that would feel comfortable if it wasn’t for the nightmarish situation they were both in. “I’ve waited years to be part of something greater! I’m thankful to Baleina for choosing me to become the first Humalos! I was saved from my meaningless human existence to finally be part of a worthy creation!”
The stuffed human and the two animals were all pressed together into a tight hug, squishing against each other with no rigidness to their bodies. They felt like miniature pillows cuddling against their will. Meanwhile Baleina smiled and blushed, shaking with anticipation to start her craft. Chafine wasn’t sure if all the talking was part of a ritual or just some cruel teasing.
“Time to start another myth of creation, my cuties!” The green witch left the girl and the horse leaning against one another, while she clenched the snake. “I won’t even erase your memories, so you can remember this day forever and be a testament to the genesis of the Humalos race.”
As if Chafine wasn’t anxious enough, her emotions reached a new low when the witch held the snake by the head… brought a pair of scissors to its neck… casually humming to herself... and snipped right through its throat without blinking…
The lower body of the snake fell to the table without making a sound, limp as it already was, but somehow even “less alive” than before. Some pieces of cotton leaked from the insides and spread around as the wind gently blew it away.
That had to be a dream!
That couldn’t be real!
Chafine kept telling herself that she probably fell asleep while waiting for her friends… she had to wake up… back in her human body… ready to go to that concert she was so excited for… her friends would knock on the door soon… they had to… her entire life couldn’t be wasted so easily...
But the knocking never came…
Baleina swept aside the body of the snake as if it was trash, but placed the reptilian head on top of a pillow with all the care in the world… She even scratched the creature’s muzzle and forced some of the cotton stuffing back into it.
“Oh ho ho! I can already picture how pretty you’ll all look once I’m finished!”
Baleina picked the horse by the torso next, and Chafine fell to her side… But she was still facing that horror as it unfolds. The poor girl wanted to faint and skip that nightmare, but her body refused to shut down, no matter how dysphoric the experience was.
No…
Not like this…
Once again, the former human watched as the scissors were brought to the neck of the horse… Then unceremoniously closed to separate the inanimate creature into two parts. Just like that, a formerly strong creature was decapitated…
The horse’s head fell, but Baleina didn’t discard it right away. Instead, she carefully took out every piece of cotton from that head, using a pincer, and forced that same stuffing into the headless torso of the equine. Once the “cotton transfusion” was complete, she scrapped the flattened, empty head and gently put the corpse to lie beside the snake on the pillow.
If Chafine could, she would cry, beg, plead, run, or anything else. However, the poor toy-girl was a mere observer of her own destiny now. A plaything of a childish goddess. A means to an end... A crafting material, quite literally. The universe was indifferent to every aspiration she ever had…
Baleina grabbed her by the chest and, as she was squeezed between a thumb and an index, Chafine could feel her cotton moving freely inside her. She had to wake up!
“Don’t worry, darling. I’m just taking away the unnecessary bits.”
The cold steel of the scissors touched her waist from both sides and made her silky skin itch. She had to wake up! She had to! None of that made any sense! She had to...
Clip…
At one moment, she felt her legs…
In the next one, they were gone…
There was nothing down there…
There was no pain…
Just a void…
As bits of her own cotton stuffing fell off, it felt like a frostbite, with more and more of her organs slowly consumed by numbness. That was until Baleina began to pick up the stuffing and shove it back into her torso, bringing a bit of life back to the inanimate toy. She was literally in the hands of a mad, magical surgeon… And she had no idea of what could happen if something went wrong.
An overwhelming hopelessness invaded her soul and threatened to crush her very being. A sadness that was unlike any other she ever experienced before. She was nothing but worthless, organic matter in the universe. Nobody would come to save her from being toyed by Baleina. Free will was a lie when gods decided to exert their whims. She would be forgotten forever… Nothing she had ever achieved had any meaning… Nothing about her life was… and… she… that… and… her…
Corruption poured into Chafine’s crystalline soul, tainting it and weighing it down. Her mind was flooded with regret, anger, envy, scorn, despair, suffering and much more. At one moment, she thought she would cease to exist. That her spirit was soon to be crushed. That her essence would shatter like glass. That she would be eradicated from existence itself… she never thought that it all would end like this… so easily… And her day had started so full of joy...
But then…
The darkness went away…
As quickly as it had come…
Chafine was just tired now…
Very very very tired…
And before she blacked out, Baleina smiled at her and said:
“I knew you had a pure soul.”
Although Chafine’s button eyes had never closed, coming back to her senses was reminiscent of waking up. Part of her even thought that the nightmare was over, that she was back on her comfy human bed, but all hope was dimmed once she looked at the ceiling far above her head. She still couldn’t move her arms… and she still couldn’t feel her legs… she was still trapped in that unknown place….
“Oh ho ho!” The witch’s warm laugh returned. “You are finally back! Time to finish my work! I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if you missed this moment!”
Chafine no longer felt fear, sadness, anger or despair. She just had an aura of apathetic acceptance surrounding her heart. Maybe she had simply understood that there was nothing she could do about that. Maybe her mind was just tired. Or maybe her world had been turned upside down so much that nothing felt real anymore. It was like being trapped in a dream that would last forever…
“Time for you all to truly meet one another!” Baleina picked the headless horse body and held it against Chafine’s legless waist, as if she was mounting the equine rump.
The green-skinned witch fetched a needle with a long green thread tied to it, and proceeded to carefully sew the toy-girl and the stuffed horse together.
Her body was tickled as the needle passed through her, and after each tug, her waist pressed tighter against the rump of the horse. As the two were combined into one, their cotton stuffings mixed and tangled, until the hind legs of the horse began to feel like her own legs. A few stitches later, the equine torso also entered her zone of self-awareness. And when the last stitch was made, Chafine’s senses spread all the way to the animal’s front hooves too.
She had four legs now, two arms, two torsos and… eeeek… As something itchy brushed against her back, she realised her body also had a long tail.
“Don’t worry, my darling.” Baleina pet her head a few times with a fingertip. “It feels strange at first, but every animal in my paradise eventually learns to love its true form. I'm sure you are itching to go gallop outside, but be patient for now, you’ll have an eternity to enjoy it.”
How could someone be so cruel and at the same time so playful? How could a creature force an innocent human to partake in that horror but at the same time act as if that was a heavenly gift? Was Baleina truly evil, or did she truly think that humans were desperate to be uplifted by a “goddess” like her? Was that horned woman really a goddess to begin with? Or was her power so vast that, for a mere human, it was like being brought towards a deity? Even if she knew her human feelings, would she truly care either way, or was Chafine too insignificant to her?
Maybe that witch saw Chafine the same way humans saw dogs… or laboratory rats… or flowers growing on the sidewalk…
She always wanted to participate in something bigger than herself… But not like this...
The girl was returned to her senses when the snake was positioned to fill the empty space left by the horse’s head. Baleina continued sewing them, stitch by stitch, and this time, instead of being introduced to a new body, Chafine was also met by a second consciousness… and a third…
The head of the snake was not like a part of her, neither was its thoughts. The instincts of the reptilian and the horse visited her own, connecticting without words, and Chafine was able to glimpse what those animals were feeling.
Those creatures were also scared, confused, and lost. They missed their worlds, others of their kind, and begged to be returned to the forms they were used to. She had to help them, right? She wasn’t as heartless as Baleina! Those animals deserved someone who cared for them!
She sang a song in her head, and the animal noises seemed to calm down. She opened her heart to those creatures longing for love, and they came in to bask into her warmth. She embraced them with her soul, and their spirits calmed down… Chafine just wished someone else was there to console her.
“You did great, my lovely Humalos. I’m so proud of you! That pure soul truly helped to bring you all together.” She picked her creation with both hands and nuzzled it, rubbing her face against the softness of that meshed up toy. “However, I still have one last gift for you.”
The Humalos plushie was put back onto the sewing cushion, and Baleina hummed happily to herself as she attached a pair of pegasus wings to each of the animal’s sides. And this time, the stitches were so close to the horse’s armpits that Chafine was overwhelmed by a tickling sensation… While being unable to laugh nor squirm.
Wings were supposed to represent freedom, but acquiring them in such a fashion was basically a cruel joke. It was like giving wings to a caged animal...
Chafine had always wanted to fly… But not like that…
Nothing about that day had anything to do with her wants and aspirations…
Those wings were like a… consolation prize, almost…
“Now, I shall give you the breath of life.” That green-skinned woman picked up her masterpiece with both hands and brought it outside, to a world of endless nature in all directions. Red mountains, blue skies, green grass, golden plains, blooming forests, everything undisturbed. No buildings, roads or anything, except for the witch’s small cottage. It looked like Eden…
Baleina kissed her creation in the cheeks, and carefully placed it on the soft ground. She took a few steps back and smiled, excited for what was about to happen.
Soon, the Humalos pulsed and shaked, then a hundred ethereal green threads left its body like fireworks, going high into the skies and blasting into clouds that quickly dissipated.
For each long thread that escaped Chafine, her body warmed, her stuffing stiffened, and she swore she could move her fingers and hooves.
Cotton turned to flesh and bones. Paintbrush turned to hair. Shirt buttons became eyes. Mitted reshaped into hands. Fabric turned into skin, fur, scales and feathers.
She grew rapidly, hearing her own bones creak as they materialized. The scale of the world returned to normal as her body stabilized back to its regular size, with a bit of a bonus, as she could look down from the vintage point of the horse’s rump… From now on, she would always be mounting a horse.
She willed her arms to move, and they did…
She willed her legs to move, and all four did…
She twitched her ass, and the tail swished back and forth…
She felt the breeze caress her feathers, and she opened her wings…
She was alive.
She was different.
She wasn’t sure if she was better or worse than before.
She couldn’t decide whether she was happy or sad.
Chafine was… stunned… and her mind was still trying to comprehend that weird experience.
She was still trying to figure out if any of that was real.
All of those events felt like a dark fairy tail…
Or some mysterious tale of a forgotten religion...
Was she part of a divine, cosmic plan, bigger than any human could comprehend?
Or was she just captured by a selfish entity who wanted nothing but to entertain itself?
Was she chosen for a reason?
Or that green witch had found her by happenstance?
“Welcome to Erithia, my child.” Baleina brushed her fingers across the back of the horse, and Chafine couldn’t help but release a soft purr from that caress. “You are the first Humalos, and soon I’ll bring you more friends, so you can guide your race across the endless horizons of this paradise.”
Chafine had never felt so important and so irrelevant at the same time.
So big and so small.
So certain and so uncertain.
Maybe those human words had no meaning there: “important”, “irrelevant”, “big”, “small”, “certainty”, “uncertainty”.
Those feelings and those words were only confusing her…
“Remember, my child, that I will always love you.” Said the green creature, putting a snuggy collar around the necks of both human and snake. “Remember this day! For you shall tell stories about it for all the other Humalos who will come. Your words will be their origin, and your rules will be their rules.”
After saying that, Baleina disappeared into a purple cloud and left Chafine alone with those two animals that were now part of herself…
The snake looked at her and tilted its head in confusion.
Chafine sighed and held her cookie necklace close to the heart.
Could she really guide an entire race of mythical creatures?
Could she really fly freely and try to escape that place?
Was Baleina a goddess or a reckless child?
Were there others like herself in that Eden?
Part of Chafine still daydreamed about another version of herself who was having fun at the concert. And she even wondered if, maybe one day, her friends would also show up in Erithia, either to save her… or to live with her...
That was very fun to draw and write about.
This was a commission done for Laupin
www.deviantart.com/laupin
The mythical creature named Humalos, and the characters Baleina and Chafine are part of his personal lore.
Link to the commission journal:
https://www.deviantart.com/phyrexia.....OPEN-889915891
[Temporarily-inanimate] [Permanent-Fusion] [Dark] [Existential] [Unwilling]
Across many cultures, legends always arise about alternate planes and dimensions entangled with ours in strange ways. Some civilizations attempt to communicate with the realm of spirits, the underground demons in hell, the angels up in the heavens, and many more.
Among these many myths, there is the curious world of Erithia. A realm inhabited by two wizards who took upon themselves the task of populating the land with animal species of their own glorious creation. On that land, the pair rule supreme, acting as gods who control evolution itself.
However, life cannot be simply conjured. The wizards had the power to shape flesh and bone, create tissue from clay, bone from stone, and blood from water, but they lacked the most fundamental ingredient… A soul.
Because of that limitation, they had to claim spirits from other worlds to power their hollow creations. However, each of the wizards had a different opinion about how to properly harvest those souls…
Julien considered life a gift and transformation an opportunity for growth. He always asked the creatures for permission before letting them become part of Erithia. He also ensured that the new residents would feel at home, and they would smile at the reflection of their new physical forms. Julien offered the gift of change, and his creations were always thankful to him.
However, the witch Baleina didn’t follow the same philosophy. Although she also considered life a gift and change an opportunity, she looked down upon those less powerful than her, and saw those creatures as mere ingredients for her recipe of creation. The world of Erithia was her playground, and the souls from other realms were nothing more than toys waiting to be claimed...
Chafine, a 20-year-old human girl, was hastily putting on some pretty clothes before a night out. She was going to a concert that she had been planning to go with her friends for months. And they would likely arrive soon
She smiled as she checked herself in the mirror. The girl was draped in a long green dress with a blue ribbon around the waist, had her long hair cocked with a ponytail, and put on her favorite cookie-shaped necklace.
As she was about to exit, though, a strange purple cloud appeared in front of her, blocking the door. Space distorted around it, as if a hole in the very fabric of the universe had opened for that colorful smoke to come out.
“H-hello?” Chafine stepped back, holding her necklace, unsure if her mind was imagining things or if reality had stopped making sense. Was that some kind of prank? Her friends would never scare her like that.
She rubbed her eyes, then looked back, expecting it to be just some optical illusion of dust and light. Yet, the purple cloud remained in front of her, even bigger, completely blocking the view to the door.
Before Chafine could make any sense of the situation, the haze formed a large hoop in the air and light shone through from the other size, like a portal… And from that astral gateway, a strange creature stepped out.
She was human in shape and size, but her skin was painted green and a unicorn horn stuck out from the forehead. Her hair resembled spiky leaves and her clothes had the color of moss. The entity didn’t seem like a monster, neither did it look scary or threatening… Instead it featured a friendly smile.
“Hello, human.” Said the horned, green-skinned person, eyeing the other girl from the bottom up. “I adore the green of your dress. Such a natural color.”
“T-thanks.” Chafine gulped, still too scared to approach the stranger. “Wh-who are you?”
“Oh ho ho!” The humanoid chuckled and covered her mouth. “My name is Baleina! Pleased to meet your acquaintance! Would you also happen to have a name?”
“I am… Chafine.” She nervously replied, trying to seem friendly despite clearly still unnerved about the mystic creature showing up uninvited. Chafine didn’t know how to handle this, as such life forms had never been seen in her world! She mostly assumed this to still be a dream.
“Hello Chafine!” Baleina continued to scan her pretty human body from head to feet, like an art connoisseur inspecting a statue. “You seem like you would be enough. Come with me now.”
“Enough? Go? Where?” The girl backed up into the wall, eyes nervously looking to the window in case she needed to run. “Are you kidnapping me? What’s going on? I’m gonna call the police!”
“You humans are always so scared around me.” The witch sighed and waved her hands. “I don’t understand how Julien has such an easy time with this race. You all act like cornered animals every time I show up to say hello! I came here to bless you with my gift of creation, but you act so ungrateful of my presence.”
“I’m sorry!” Chafine’s forehead was covered in cold sweat and her legs kept shaking. “I didn’t mean to… I just… I’m just confused… You showed up through a random wormhole and… and… What do you mean with the gift of creation?”
“O ho ho! Glad you asked!” Baleina’s frown quickly sharpened to a smirk. “I’ve chosen you to partake in a very special myth of creation! That of a new species I’ve just came up with this morning. I’m here to morph you into something grand, something of historical proportions! You’re going to be changed into something much better and meaningful!”
“But I don’t want to change!” Chafine bit her lips and held her beautiful dress. “I’m fine as I am. Thank you, I think you’d better find someone else. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t want to change? Nonsense!” The witch widened her eyes in surprise, as if Chafine had said she didn’t need air. “You have a pure, untainted soul! Do you know how hard it is to find humans with souls as crystalline as yours?”
“I… I… I’m thankful for the compliment, but I’m afraid you are wasting your time here. My friends will arrive soon, and I must go out with them. I’m quite satisfied with this life already.”
“You humans tire me…” Baleina sighed, then shot a green light from her horn. The energy slashed through the air like a loose thread, quickly piercing into Chafine’s chest and poking out from behind... Somehow not causing any damage.
“Wh-what is this!?” Although there was no pain, she was overwhelmed with tingles and numbness as that ethereal thing pierced through her skin. She gasped as the immaterial line trespassed into her body again and again, thrusting itself in and out repeatedly as if she was being knitted. “What are… you… doing… with… mmmmfghfgh!…”
Chafine’s screams of agony were suddenly muffled when her lips shut themselves involuntarily. When she tried to pry her mouth open, she was met with a very unpleasant surprise as her fingers grazed over her jaw. First, she could feel a pattern of threads sewing her lips closed. Second, her skin no longer felt warm and smooth… Instead it had the texture of soft fabric, like the clothes she was covered in!
“Mmmfh! Mmmmfh!” She continued trying to yell for help, regretting not having done that sooner. “Mmmmmhhhfggg!”
The green, ethereal thread pierced her body in different locations, binding her up and sapping away Chafine’s strength. Her bones wobbled as if they were made of wool and simply standing on two legs was now a challenge. Her guts felt lighter and empty as her insides softened into thick cotton. Her hair gained the consistency of a paintbrush. Her fingers merged with one another, becoming similar to oven mittens. The clothes somehow fused with her torso like a second layer of skin.
Her arms flopped to the sides, completely unresponsive and devoid of joints, so light that the wind could make them swing. Then her legs bent like a ragdoll and Chafine was sent tumbling to the floor, face first.
Upon landing on the carpet, there was a soft “ploff”, akin to a regular plush being dropped, as if no hard material composed her body anymore. Chafine couldn't get up, speak, turn her head or even close her eyes. And then, the rug beneath her inexplicably started to thicken, like the tall grass of a savanna!
“O ho ho! You look so tiny and adorable! I almost feel tempted to exhibit you on a shelf!” The witch's voice boomed emphatically, yet also echoed as if she was speaking from atop a high tower. “Let’s take you to Erithia so I can improve you into something better than a mere human!”
Two giant, warm fingers pinched each of her stubby hands and lifted the immobilized girl from the floor… And as the floor moved further away, an intense vertigo took over her.
Her small bedroom now seemed fit for a giant! Her bed was the size of a football field, her wardrobe was as tall as a skyscraper, and the ceiling seemed as far away as the sky itself. She basically dangled multiple stories off the ground!
Baleina, now a hundred times taller, swung the girl through the air as she walked, acting as childishly as an infant holding a teddy bear. And as she came close to a mirror, the green entity allowed Chafine to witness the state of her body.
“Look at you! How cute!”
She was just a tiny doll, made of fabric and filled with cotton. Her eyes were replaced by shirt buttons, her mouth was a wavy line of stitches, her hair a few strands of thread, and she couldn’t say where her dress ended and her skin began. Even her cookie collar became a miniature glued to her chest. She was nothing but a powerless plush that could be found in a doll house! If anyone saw her like that, they would have no way to discern it from any other toy!
“Don’t worry, my darling! This is not your final form!” Baleina giggled and pulled her arms up and down, forcing the poor girl to dance in front of the mirror, cotton stuffing bouncing inside of her belly. “This is just a temporary shape that helps me with the reconstruction process! You’ll be perfectly alive again soon!”
Despite the green witch’s playfulness, Chafine felt empty inside. And the reason wasn’t all the stuffing replacing her guts. Looking at the mirror, she realised how powerless she was. How little choice she had and how little her existence was in the big scheme of things. How every decision she made in her life was now null because some random goddess decided to claim her for herself. She had no way to fight back. The world was so unfair… That had to be a dream… It had to be a dream… There was no way any of that was real…
“Time to go!”
Chafine was dropped into a pocket and everything became dark…
It had to be a dream...
But she didn't wake up….
The toy-girl’s time in that dark pocket felt like an eternity, and she thought that she’d be inanimately stuck in the void forever until she was finally pulled out and deposited onto a gigantic circular table. Around her, there were colorful threads, mountains of cotton, fields made of fabric, colossal scissors that could chop her in half, pins the size of her head, needles as thick as pencils, and an assortment of other humongous sewing supplies.
Or, rather… The things were all regular sized, and Chafine was still unused to seeing the world as a tiny plush. It felt like being in the house of the beanstalk giant…
“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt! I’m quite the skilled craftswoman myself!” Baleina bragged as she pulled a chair and sat in front of the toy-girl. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement, and for a moment she looked more like a clueless child than a cruel goddess. Her face showed no signs of remorse or empathy. She hardly seemed to realize how horrific it was for the young girl to be stolen from her life, trapped inside of a doll, and taken to another world. Chafine was truly just a toy for her…
No…
Worse than a toy…
Chafine was an ingredient…
“I’ve chosen you three to become the first Humalos! And you should be honored to receive the blessing of populating the world of Erithia! I welcome you to my Eden of creation, where the imperfect animals of the universe are brought and reshaped into true art! Rejoice in finally having a purpose!”
Before the human plushie could wonder who were the other two, a massive hand grabbed her by the waist and moved across the table in a silly way that made it seem like she was waddling. Just a few hours ago, Chafine was excited to visit a concert with her friends, and now she was someone else's source of entertainment!
In her other hand, Baleina held a second plushie from the table. A long snake made of cloth, with buttons for eyes and a red silky tongue showing up. It looked exactly like a regular inanimate object, but Chafine was sure that, just like herself, there was a soul trapped inside of that plush vessel.
“Hello, friend!” The green witch moved the snake up and down, pretending that the animal was the one talking. “You look so pretty, Chafine! I can’t wait to be fused with you!”
The word “fused” caught the girl by surprise. Would she seriously be combined with that other animal? Would something like that even be possible? How was she even supposed to…
Oh no…
The many sewing materials lying across the table made her inexistant heart skip a beat. She had a sinister guess about what was going to happen, already wanting to curl up as she imagined those needles going through her.
“Of course I’m here to fuse!” This time, Chafine herself was shaken up and down while the wizard pretended she was replying to the snake. “Baleina told me I have a beautiful, untainted soul! She showed me that I am a perfect piece of her new creation! I can’t wait to become one with you and help populate the wondrous world of Erithia! My silly human life was nothing compared to being one of her children!”
The horned witch carefully set aside the snake and brought another tiny, stuffed animal closer to the girl. This time, a horse.
“Hello Chafine!” The equine was made to prance around in circles. “I’m also very excited to be here! When I was born, I never thought I’d one day become the first Humalos! Don’t you love this magical feeling that our lives finally have meaning now?”
“Of course I do!” Chafine was lifted by the hand and spun like a ballerina, before being pushed against the horse in a clumsy, soft hug that would feel comfortable if it wasn’t for the nightmarish situation they were both in. “I’ve waited years to be part of something greater! I’m thankful to Baleina for choosing me to become the first Humalos! I was saved from my meaningless human existence to finally be part of a worthy creation!”
The stuffed human and the two animals were all pressed together into a tight hug, squishing against each other with no rigidness to their bodies. They felt like miniature pillows cuddling against their will. Meanwhile Baleina smiled and blushed, shaking with anticipation to start her craft. Chafine wasn’t sure if all the talking was part of a ritual or just some cruel teasing.
“Time to start another myth of creation, my cuties!” The green witch left the girl and the horse leaning against one another, while she clenched the snake. “I won’t even erase your memories, so you can remember this day forever and be a testament to the genesis of the Humalos race.”
As if Chafine wasn’t anxious enough, her emotions reached a new low when the witch held the snake by the head… brought a pair of scissors to its neck… casually humming to herself... and snipped right through its throat without blinking…
The lower body of the snake fell to the table without making a sound, limp as it already was, but somehow even “less alive” than before. Some pieces of cotton leaked from the insides and spread around as the wind gently blew it away.
That had to be a dream!
That couldn’t be real!
Chafine kept telling herself that she probably fell asleep while waiting for her friends… she had to wake up… back in her human body… ready to go to that concert she was so excited for… her friends would knock on the door soon… they had to… her entire life couldn’t be wasted so easily...
But the knocking never came…
Baleina swept aside the body of the snake as if it was trash, but placed the reptilian head on top of a pillow with all the care in the world… She even scratched the creature’s muzzle and forced some of the cotton stuffing back into it.
“Oh ho ho! I can already picture how pretty you’ll all look once I’m finished!”
Baleina picked the horse by the torso next, and Chafine fell to her side… But she was still facing that horror as it unfolds. The poor girl wanted to faint and skip that nightmare, but her body refused to shut down, no matter how dysphoric the experience was.
No…
Not like this…
Once again, the former human watched as the scissors were brought to the neck of the horse… Then unceremoniously closed to separate the inanimate creature into two parts. Just like that, a formerly strong creature was decapitated…
The horse’s head fell, but Baleina didn’t discard it right away. Instead, she carefully took out every piece of cotton from that head, using a pincer, and forced that same stuffing into the headless torso of the equine. Once the “cotton transfusion” was complete, she scrapped the flattened, empty head and gently put the corpse to lie beside the snake on the pillow.
If Chafine could, she would cry, beg, plead, run, or anything else. However, the poor toy-girl was a mere observer of her own destiny now. A plaything of a childish goddess. A means to an end... A crafting material, quite literally. The universe was indifferent to every aspiration she ever had…
Baleina grabbed her by the chest and, as she was squeezed between a thumb and an index, Chafine could feel her cotton moving freely inside her. She had to wake up!
“Don’t worry, darling. I’m just taking away the unnecessary bits.”
The cold steel of the scissors touched her waist from both sides and made her silky skin itch. She had to wake up! She had to! None of that made any sense! She had to...
Clip…
At one moment, she felt her legs…
In the next one, they were gone…
There was nothing down there…
There was no pain…
Just a void…
As bits of her own cotton stuffing fell off, it felt like a frostbite, with more and more of her organs slowly consumed by numbness. That was until Baleina began to pick up the stuffing and shove it back into her torso, bringing a bit of life back to the inanimate toy. She was literally in the hands of a mad, magical surgeon… And she had no idea of what could happen if something went wrong.
An overwhelming hopelessness invaded her soul and threatened to crush her very being. A sadness that was unlike any other she ever experienced before. She was nothing but worthless, organic matter in the universe. Nobody would come to save her from being toyed by Baleina. Free will was a lie when gods decided to exert their whims. She would be forgotten forever… Nothing she had ever achieved had any meaning… Nothing about her life was… and… she… that… and… her…
Corruption poured into Chafine’s crystalline soul, tainting it and weighing it down. Her mind was flooded with regret, anger, envy, scorn, despair, suffering and much more. At one moment, she thought she would cease to exist. That her spirit was soon to be crushed. That her essence would shatter like glass. That she would be eradicated from existence itself… she never thought that it all would end like this… so easily… And her day had started so full of joy...
But then…
The darkness went away…
As quickly as it had come…
Chafine was just tired now…
Very very very tired…
And before she blacked out, Baleina smiled at her and said:
“I knew you had a pure soul.”
Although Chafine’s button eyes had never closed, coming back to her senses was reminiscent of waking up. Part of her even thought that the nightmare was over, that she was back on her comfy human bed, but all hope was dimmed once she looked at the ceiling far above her head. She still couldn’t move her arms… and she still couldn’t feel her legs… she was still trapped in that unknown place….
“Oh ho ho!” The witch’s warm laugh returned. “You are finally back! Time to finish my work! I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if you missed this moment!”
Chafine no longer felt fear, sadness, anger or despair. She just had an aura of apathetic acceptance surrounding her heart. Maybe she had simply understood that there was nothing she could do about that. Maybe her mind was just tired. Or maybe her world had been turned upside down so much that nothing felt real anymore. It was like being trapped in a dream that would last forever…
“Time for you all to truly meet one another!” Baleina picked the headless horse body and held it against Chafine’s legless waist, as if she was mounting the equine rump.
The green-skinned witch fetched a needle with a long green thread tied to it, and proceeded to carefully sew the toy-girl and the stuffed horse together.
Her body was tickled as the needle passed through her, and after each tug, her waist pressed tighter against the rump of the horse. As the two were combined into one, their cotton stuffings mixed and tangled, until the hind legs of the horse began to feel like her own legs. A few stitches later, the equine torso also entered her zone of self-awareness. And when the last stitch was made, Chafine’s senses spread all the way to the animal’s front hooves too.
She had four legs now, two arms, two torsos and… eeeek… As something itchy brushed against her back, she realised her body also had a long tail.
“Don’t worry, my darling.” Baleina pet her head a few times with a fingertip. “It feels strange at first, but every animal in my paradise eventually learns to love its true form. I'm sure you are itching to go gallop outside, but be patient for now, you’ll have an eternity to enjoy it.”
How could someone be so cruel and at the same time so playful? How could a creature force an innocent human to partake in that horror but at the same time act as if that was a heavenly gift? Was Baleina truly evil, or did she truly think that humans were desperate to be uplifted by a “goddess” like her? Was that horned woman really a goddess to begin with? Or was her power so vast that, for a mere human, it was like being brought towards a deity? Even if she knew her human feelings, would she truly care either way, or was Chafine too insignificant to her?
Maybe that witch saw Chafine the same way humans saw dogs… or laboratory rats… or flowers growing on the sidewalk…
She always wanted to participate in something bigger than herself… But not like this...
The girl was returned to her senses when the snake was positioned to fill the empty space left by the horse’s head. Baleina continued sewing them, stitch by stitch, and this time, instead of being introduced to a new body, Chafine was also met by a second consciousness… and a third…
The head of the snake was not like a part of her, neither was its thoughts. The instincts of the reptilian and the horse visited her own, connecticting without words, and Chafine was able to glimpse what those animals were feeling.
Those creatures were also scared, confused, and lost. They missed their worlds, others of their kind, and begged to be returned to the forms they were used to. She had to help them, right? She wasn’t as heartless as Baleina! Those animals deserved someone who cared for them!
She sang a song in her head, and the animal noises seemed to calm down. She opened her heart to those creatures longing for love, and they came in to bask into her warmth. She embraced them with her soul, and their spirits calmed down… Chafine just wished someone else was there to console her.
“You did great, my lovely Humalos. I’m so proud of you! That pure soul truly helped to bring you all together.” She picked her creation with both hands and nuzzled it, rubbing her face against the softness of that meshed up toy. “However, I still have one last gift for you.”
The Humalos plushie was put back onto the sewing cushion, and Baleina hummed happily to herself as she attached a pair of pegasus wings to each of the animal’s sides. And this time, the stitches were so close to the horse’s armpits that Chafine was overwhelmed by a tickling sensation… While being unable to laugh nor squirm.
Wings were supposed to represent freedom, but acquiring them in such a fashion was basically a cruel joke. It was like giving wings to a caged animal...
Chafine had always wanted to fly… But not like that…
Nothing about that day had anything to do with her wants and aspirations…
Those wings were like a… consolation prize, almost…
“Now, I shall give you the breath of life.” That green-skinned woman picked up her masterpiece with both hands and brought it outside, to a world of endless nature in all directions. Red mountains, blue skies, green grass, golden plains, blooming forests, everything undisturbed. No buildings, roads or anything, except for the witch’s small cottage. It looked like Eden…
Baleina kissed her creation in the cheeks, and carefully placed it on the soft ground. She took a few steps back and smiled, excited for what was about to happen.
Soon, the Humalos pulsed and shaked, then a hundred ethereal green threads left its body like fireworks, going high into the skies and blasting into clouds that quickly dissipated.
For each long thread that escaped Chafine, her body warmed, her stuffing stiffened, and she swore she could move her fingers and hooves.
Cotton turned to flesh and bones. Paintbrush turned to hair. Shirt buttons became eyes. Mitted reshaped into hands. Fabric turned into skin, fur, scales and feathers.
She grew rapidly, hearing her own bones creak as they materialized. The scale of the world returned to normal as her body stabilized back to its regular size, with a bit of a bonus, as she could look down from the vintage point of the horse’s rump… From now on, she would always be mounting a horse.
She willed her arms to move, and they did…
She willed her legs to move, and all four did…
She twitched her ass, and the tail swished back and forth…
She felt the breeze caress her feathers, and she opened her wings…
She was alive.
She was different.
She wasn’t sure if she was better or worse than before.
She couldn’t decide whether she was happy or sad.
Chafine was… stunned… and her mind was still trying to comprehend that weird experience.
She was still trying to figure out if any of that was real.
All of those events felt like a dark fairy tail…
Or some mysterious tale of a forgotten religion...
Was she part of a divine, cosmic plan, bigger than any human could comprehend?
Or was she just captured by a selfish entity who wanted nothing but to entertain itself?
Was she chosen for a reason?
Or that green witch had found her by happenstance?
“Welcome to Erithia, my child.” Baleina brushed her fingers across the back of the horse, and Chafine couldn’t help but release a soft purr from that caress. “You are the first Humalos, and soon I’ll bring you more friends, so you can guide your race across the endless horizons of this paradise.”
Chafine had never felt so important and so irrelevant at the same time.
So big and so small.
So certain and so uncertain.
Maybe those human words had no meaning there: “important”, “irrelevant”, “big”, “small”, “certainty”, “uncertainty”.
Those feelings and those words were only confusing her…
“Remember, my child, that I will always love you.” Said the green creature, putting a snuggy collar around the necks of both human and snake. “Remember this day! For you shall tell stories about it for all the other Humalos who will come. Your words will be their origin, and your rules will be their rules.”
After saying that, Baleina disappeared into a purple cloud and left Chafine alone with those two animals that were now part of herself…
The snake looked at her and tilted its head in confusion.
Chafine sighed and held her cookie necklace close to the heart.
Could she really guide an entire race of mythical creatures?
Could she really fly freely and try to escape that place?
Was Baleina a goddess or a reckless child?
Were there others like herself in that Eden?
Part of Chafine still daydreamed about another version of herself who was having fun at the concert. And she even wondered if, maybe one day, her friends would also show up in Erithia, either to save her… or to live with her...
Category Artwork (Digital) / Transformation
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Trans (Female)
Size 1187 x 850px
Listed in Folders
I wonder what it would feel like to be in the horse's position as a plush. Having your head removed and all...
In the commissioner's canon, the mind of the horse and the snake becomes one.
It probably means that once the creature is a plush, the stuffing represents its "soul".
Since the stuffing of the horse was preserved, it's still alive in the Humalos even without a head >.<
That's what I think.
It probably means that once the creature is a plush, the stuffing represents its "soul".
Since the stuffing of the horse was preserved, it's still alive in the Humalos even without a head >.<
That's what I think.
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