File type: Text File (.txt) [Download]
-----------------------------------------
Disclaimer: This story has themes, allusions, and references to child and spouse abuse including physical and verbal abuse. If this makes you uncomfortable feel free to not read.
Reap what you Sow
By Featheredfriend24601
"We are lost", she said in a low tone. The two people were walking down a dirt path so thin and rocky that it could barely be recognized as a path. Looming over the path on both sides were trees, dark and densely packed, whatever space between them was filled with hard tough undergrowth. One of the figures was a man. He was very large and had a great swollen belly which poked out from under his red shirt, he wore a pair of khaki shorts, and on his feet were a pair of sandals. Though his skin was white, his arms, face, and neck were red and irritated from years of sun exposure, and he moved his arms in wide bold swings. Behind him was a woman, short and thin with boney shoulders and hollow cheeks. She wore a thin black dress which appeared to be sized not for a woman but rather a girl, and where it clung tightly to her body faint outlines of ribs could be seen. On her feet she wore a pair of cheap plastic high heels with which she had to carefully find spaces between rocks. Her skin was pale, she was looking down at the ground, and she held her arms together close to her body.
"We are lost", she repeated in the same tone. "Nah, we ain't lost", he responded, scrunching up his nose and looking up at the treetops as he did so. "We have been walking for a long time" she said. "Wife, quit ya worrying, we will find something soon enough. Look, see!" as the man said this, he pointed a finger in the direction of what he saw, and the woman briefly looked up. At the end of the path was an opening, small and dim. The man hastened his pace to reach it, not looking back at the woman. As he came out through the opening and looked around, the excitement in his eyes turned to disappointment. He was now standing in an empty clearing. Thin grass grew on the ground, and in the middle was a fallen tree. He walked to the tree and looked around the clearing, shielding his eyes from the sun. As the woman came out of the opening herself, she took a glance around herself.
"Huh, well, this is something, I guess. Looks kinda like it used to be a campsite. Ought to be a ranger station or hunter cabin close by" he said as he looked at the tall and foreboding trees surrounding the clearing, shielding his eyes from the sun as he did so. The woman said nothing as she made her way to the fallen tree and sat down on it. "We should not be out here" she said, looking up and seeing that the sun was already halfway through the sky. It was only morning when they first set out on the path, though she could've sworn that they had only been walking for a short distance. The man turned to her with an annoyed look in his face. "Ya think I don't know that?". She shook her head. "We should have stayed on the freeway" she said. The man walked closer to where she was sitting, a frown on his face. "Woman, you doubt me too much. I know these back paths real well, we woulda been home by now if we had a good car. That dumb salesman, Larry I think his name was, he gave us a bad car. Stupid nerd looker with his bow tie and suspenders. When I get outta here Imma wring him dry!".
The man looked around once again, scanning the perimeter of the clearing. "The trees don't look too tight, and the bushes ain't lookin so bad. I reckon that if we head thatta way we are bound to find some proper civilization". He looked back and noticed something about his wife. She was still looking down at the ground, but there was a look in her eyes, a look that meant that thoughts were going through her head, thoughts he did not like. "Whatcha thinking woman? Spit it out!" he said as he bent over so his head was close to hers.
She spoke without raising her head. "A few days ago, I read some newspapers. This forest is off-limits. Seventeen people disappeared here just last season alone" she said. He laughed.
"Really, the papers? You believe that trash? I swear woman, you go readin too much of that junk, your head will turn into a garbage can!". He turned back to the forest. "Now, I say that we go that way. If we go now, we might find some life before the sun goes down". As he said this, he heard a mutter, and he spun around to face the woman. "Huh? Speak up!" he said. "We should not go into the forest. We need to stay here or we will get more lost" she said. He snorted at these words. "Now, look here woman, you been running ya mouth off the whole time. Now, I'm a nice guy, I been real patient like with ya, but you are starting to make me rather angry. So how about ya shut ya trap or imma-".
Before he could finish his sentence, the woman faced him, her once expressionless face transfigured in rage as she roared at him with such volume and boldness that he was caught off guard. "It is all your fault! The car was junk, it was so obvious that a child could see it, but you were so blinded by that smoking hot deal that you didn't care! You decided to drive that hunk of junk through the middle of nowhere for a shortcut! You made us leave the car and walk blindly into the forest instead of going back to the freeway! If we die, it will all be your fault!".
The man stood staring at her blankly, not knowing how to respond. Then he curled his face in anger as he raised a meaty hand up to strike her, a motion which usually made her shut up. But she did get shut up. Seeing the raised hand, she began laughing madly. He paused his motion, stunned. She had defeated him. Even if he were to go through with striking her, he somehow knew that she would not stop laughing at him. His ugly face turned tomato red as he put his hand back at its side and bellowed with such force that spittle flew into the woman's face. "Fine! Have it your way! I'm gonna go off and I am going to find help, and when I find it I might not feel like telling them to go find you! Just watch, it'll be real easy!" with that he stomped off into the woods in a huff. The woman stayed where she was, watching him disappear from sight.
~~~
He found the journey harder than he initially expected. The bushes looked shorter and softer from a distance, and the trees made it impossible to move in a straight line. The man cursed every time a bramble reached out and scratched his legs, which was often, cussed whenever a leave reached out and made his legs itch madly, which happened regularly, and he grumbled whenever a patch of uneven ground made him trip and stumble, which occurred every half a dozen steps. Even with his hands held out in front of his face branches repeatedly wacked his head and sent flakes of wood and dust into his eyes and mouth, choking him, and forcing him to blink and wipe his eyes.
Eventually he stopped and doubled over, putting his hands on his knees as his fat cheeks flared out from the exertion. He had never been much of a woodsy person when he was young, and his youth was far behind. Still, he guessed that he must have gone a great distance. When he regained his breath, he stood up and scratched his belly where it protruded from under the taut shirt. He turned around and yelled. He had only gone a stone's throw from the clearing. Between the trees he could still see one end of the log. His wife was out of view, but he guessed that she was still sitting on that log all smug like. He growled and was about to head out when a thought stopped him. He expected to find help, and quickly, but on the off chance that he didn't he would need a way to head back to the clearing. The man looked around, wondering what to do before his gaze fell on a nearby branch. He gripped it in one hand and ripped it off, letting it fall to the ground. He walked off some way and kicked a bunch of stones away. After doing this he looked back and saw where he broke the branch. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. If the boy scouts could do it, so could he. Of course, he had never been in the boy scouts, but what they did couldn't be that hard. The man continued his way, snapping branches and kicking rocks every now and then.
His hiking skills didn't improve, but he found that the bushes were now less mean and the ground flatter, and he began to make better progress. After some time of this he stopped by a tree. Its branches were thick and sturdy, so he took the lowest one in both hands and pulled hard. Eventually it came free and he looked at his handiwork, thinking that the exposed white of the broken branch was so big and bright that it would be impossible to miss. He put a hand to his forehead and wiped the sweat which beaded it, but he felt something strange. Patting the top of his head he realized that he felt that his hair was a little thicker, and one of his bald spots was gone. He guessed that it must have been the healthy forest air doing some good for him and thought that it would be nice to look a little more like he did back when he was younger. He continued a little way before taking a rest, leaning against a tree. He was feeling very hot, and the itching in his legs seemed to have spread up to his chest. He tried to scratch his belly but found his shirt was in the way and he had to lift it up a little. He assumed that it must have been from all the exercise he was doing, amusingly thought that by the time he found someone he would be thin as a stick and hungry as a cow. At this thought he began daydreaming about finding the cabin of some nice hunter and pleasuring the sight of a whole deer cooking on a spit. Drool poured from his mouth at this image.
Turning around, he swiftly stood straight up as his daydream was violently ended. The branch he had just torn down was gone. He ran to where it should have been and looked around fearfully. There were no torn branches or kicked rocks anywhere, and he could have sworn that even the trees had changed position. He realized in horror what had happened. The trees had changed. The signs were gone. He was lost.
~~~
She sat on the tree, still looking at the ground. As she sat, she listened to the forest and found it odd that she could hear no animals, no running water, and even the leaves seemed to barely move. She pulled out her phone and looked at it before putting it away. No connection out here. There hadn't been any connection for a while now, but she vainly hoped that there might be a little in the clearing. She sighed and looked up at the trees. There was no movement, and the only sign that there had been anyone else besides her were faint sandal prints in the ground leading off to the forest, stopping where the bushes began. Sighing, she shielded her eyes as she looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was now over halfway through the sky. The sun truly felt like it was going quickly, though she guessed that it must have only been a short time.
She put her head into her hands and groaned. She did not know when her idiot husband would come to his senses and return, but she guessed that he was never going to do so and was almost certainly going to keep marching off until he got himself truly lost. Not that she really cared if he came back at all. She remembered clearly what the papers said about the forest. It had been closed since 1996 when people who went into it began disappearing, though it seemed like just as many people went missing now as before as young campers and vacationing families were replaced with daredevils and teens. There were all sorts of rumors surrounding the forest, that it was cursed. Of course, she knew that old forests didn't need ghosts or goblins to be dangerous, she used to do a lot of hiking with her church when she was younger and knew all too well the dangers of the wilderness. Bears and wolves were the most obvious ones, but there were many more dangers. Untreated water and sprains could kill just as well as an animal bite.
She should then about leaving her husband to his fate. In her mind she remembered the way back well. All she had to do was walk down the trail they had come down, find their car, and follow the dirt road back to the freeway, where she could hitch a ride. Of course, it would be risky, it would take a long time, the sun was going down, and she would be all alone if she broke a leg or was attacked by an animal. But she was already alone, and the chances of her husband coming back were next to none. If she was to die, she would rather do so with hope at the end of the tunnel rather than die waiting on a meatloaf of a husband.
The woman stirred where she was sitting and felt that she was getting very hot. She stood up, thinking little of how her dress now felt tighter on her body. Yes, she was going to go back now. She should've done so long ago. She would be hated, her family and church would accuse her of failing in her responsibilities of being a wife, of willfully leaving her husband to die while she saved herself. God would judge her however he judged, but she certainly didn't care about the judgement of others now, she didn't care about being the perfect wife anymore.
She turned around and walked towards the path, her strides as long as her high heels would allow. But she stopped. The path was gone. She looked around fearfully, thinking that she might've just forgotten where it was, but she did not see it. Indeed, even the trees looked different, taller, and more foreboding than before. She was trapped.
~~~
How? How did this happen? He remembered his wife saying that they would only get more lost if they went into the woods, and now he was truly lost. In frustration he kicked the nearest tree and roared as he clutched his toe, and roared even louder when he toppled over and fell on top of a spiky bush. Cursing, he scrambled out of it and sprang back to his feet. He was lost, lost in a storm of hate aimed at everything and everyone. He hated that no good salesman for selling him a junk car, he hated his wife for being so smug, he hated the forest that he was lost in, and he hated himself for getting lost.
The man took deep breaths for a minute before coming back to his senses. He was lost, yes, but he believed that he knew the general direction he had come from, and guessed that if he went that way, he might come upon the clearing again and find his wife. His wife.
At this thought the man's fear and worry was replaced with anger. His wife said that he would be lost if he went into that forest, but what did she know. She was a woman, a stupid woman who didn't know anything. Yes, he clearly remembered the words of his father. Between strikes of the belt, he would say them to him. "Women are stupid. Women are weak. Women do not know what they want. You need to be a man. Men are strong. Men don't make mistakes. Men don't need anyone!". If he came back to the clearing his wife would see him cut up from head to toe, his clothes torn, and the act of coming back to her would be admitting to making a mistake, but he never made a mistake. He stood up straight now. What did she know? Nothing, he was not lost, and he certainly didn't need her. He hardened his heart and marched off in the opposite direction.
His anger soon turned to misery as the journey weighed down on him. His entire body was itching madly, and despite the shade of the treetops he felt like he was burning up. The air which he had thought to be healthy was now suffocatingly thick and he labored for every breath. He didn't know how long he had been walking, so he leaned against a tree and pulled out his phone to check the time, but saw that it had zero battery, though he could have sworn it was at least 40% last he checked. The man grumbled about his bad luck and rubbed his face with his hand and found that he couldn't feel his lips anymore. Something brushed against his ear, and when he reached his hand up, he felt hair. His hair was getting thick and long now, and the man shook his head. While he would like to have a full head of hair again, he didn't want no woman's hair.
He resumed his walk, but found that it was only getting harder, not easier. His clothes were beginning to weigh heavily on his body, his toes and fingers felt like they were glued together, and his every movement felt drunk and clumsy even though it had been some time since he had a proper drink. It was bad enough when he had stumbled every half a dozen steps, but now he stumbled with every other step, and he couldn't even blame his clumsiness on the ground anymore for it was now relatively flat. It did not take long before he had to stop again and doubled over, thinking that he only needed a minute to regain his breath before he could start off again. A minute passed, then two, then five, and still he felt no better. Putting a hand against a tree, he stood up straight and felt strangely naked, like he was wearing no clothes. Looking down, he saw in shock that his shirt was right about to slip down his shoulders and fall off.
He hastily took his shirt off, threw it to the ground in front of his feet, and looked down. The first thing which he found immediately odd was that he could see his feet, for it had been some years since he could see them without bending over. As he observed his feet, he thought that last time he checked, there were five toes on each foot and not three, and while he didn't take the best care of his toenails, he didn't remember them looking so blue, long, and sharp. The skin of his feet appeared awfully dry and pink as well and was beginning to crack. His gaze now turned to his front, and he noticed that his chest and belly were now covered in some sort of soft green fuzz. He took a finger and poked his belly, feeling it give way as it seemed to lose weight and pressure, then something about his hand caught his attention. He brought it to his face and saw that the reason he felt like his fingers were becoming glued together was because they were. Two of fingers on the hand had merged into what he could describe as a big paddle, and his hand was now covered in the same green fuzz as his belly. The man watched in horror as the mutated finger grew and extended outwards. Shaking his head and muttering, he reached down for his shirt. It was gone.
Panicked, he spun around in circles looking for it, but it was nowhere to be seen. It had been just right there! All he had done was raise his hand to his face, and as soon as he put it down the shirt vanished before his eyes. He spun around several more times to no avail before bringing his head up and seeing something very strange. He did not remember the trees looking so purple before.
~~~
She returned to the log and sat on it, frustrated. It was not possible, the path had been there, just there she was certain of it. But it was gone now, and it was nowhere to be seen. Looking up at the sky, she saw that the sun seemed to be rather low now, the day going by startlingly fast. Soon it would be nightfall, and she had no tent, no sleeping bag, nothing but a thin dress and a useless smartphone. She balled up her hands and squeezed until they turned white and bit her lip, failing to notice that she felt no pain in them.
She glanced around at the tree ring, noting that there didn't appear to be anything that could be used for shelter, and considering what happened with the path she did not want to risk entering the woods. The woman groaned and put her hands in her heads. 'My husband, my stupid pigheaded husband' she thought. He dragged them out into the middle of nowhere against her protests, now they were both going to die because of his stupidity. And she was going to die alone, all alone.
The sun was beating down on her making her hot, her clothes felt tight and uncomfortable on her, and a demand for action began to grow within her. Eventually she got up and began pacing back and forth in the clearing, thinking that some movement would soothe her muscles and calm her mind. Her desire for movement only increased and soon the heat became unbearable. She kept increasing the length and speed of her strides until she was certain that her high heels would make her fall and sprain an ankle, but still, she did not stop. Her clothes now felt like constricting shackles on her.
'What happened to him' she thought as she paced furiously. What happened to her husband? Did he pass out from not getting a drink of beer every hour? Did he fall down a ravine and break his neck? Did a bear find him and gorged itself on his swollen bulk? These questions spun through her head. She did not know why she was thinking about her husband now, it was her own survival, her own problems she should be thinking about. But she could not stop thinking about him, and this only made her more furious. And she was hot, too hot, her muscles were too sore, and she needed to move. Shaking her head, she stretched her arms forward and heard a ripping noise from behind. She paused, confused, then stretched further, and this elicited more ripping. She put a hand on her back and realized that her dress was now clinging to her body so tightly that it was tearing. With a growl she gripped her dress and tore it to shreds with incredible ease and threw the useless fabric to the ground before realizing that she was now naked. She wondered what to do about her modesty before looking down and seeing that she had no need to worry.
Her breasts had disappeared, and her chest and belly were now covered with a layer of dark stuff which she immediately recognized as feathers. She did not dwell on this as she became aware of a sharp pain which came from her feet, the black plastic of the high heels digging into her flesh. She bent down and wrenched one shoe off, but the other one refused to come off. In her anger she brought it down on top of a nearby rock and swiftly smashed it to pieces. She wondered what she would now do without feet protection before seeing that she once again did not need to worry. The woman's feet were now covered in thick hard scales, and on each foot were now four toes which were very large and muscular. She lifted one up and saw that the toenails were forming into claws, long, sharp, and strong ones. The woman remembered seeing pictures of Velociraptor feet in school and thought that her feet her now looked a lot like those.
She first looked forwards, then down at her feet, then looked up again and began running. It was exhilarating being free of the high heels, and she found that her new feet were faster and better than any pair of hand-me-down tennis shoes she had ever worn before. She whooped as she ran in circles within the clearing, faster than she had ever run before, and as she ran, she put her arms out to her sides, feeling the air blow through the feathers forming on them and relieving her of the heat. Eventually she stopped, not from exhaustion but rather to admire her changing body. The scales now went up to below the knee, the skin above covered by dark feathers like what was on her chest. Underneath the scales and feathers she could feel thick and powerful muscles, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Indeed, her entire body felt strong, and with each breath she took she could feel her muscles becoming stronger.
She looked up from her body and saw that the forest had changed.
~~~
He was quite simply flabbergasted. Where there had once been greens and browns there were now purples and pinks. The trees were no longer straight but curved like something out of one of those restaurant aquariums. Even the ground looked more like puked up crayons than anything worthy of being stepped on. Gross looking tubes and pipes sprouted up here and there. He couldn't comprehend it. It was as if his whole world was turned upside down. He thought that maybe there was an underground drug factory which was burning down nearby, and he was huffing up poisoned fumes making his toes look pink and the trees purple, and he was going to die a loony.
At that moment he briefly regretted walking off into the woods, thinking that even if the woods changed anyways, he would at least not be in them. Then he thought of his wife, doubtlessly still in the clearing, and his worry turned to anger. What did she say, something about the forest being dangerous? He couldn't remember exactly anymore what she said, but it didn't matter, he was going to prove that woman wrong! The man hardened his heart and marched in the clearest direction.
He had resolved not to let the ground eat his shorts like it did his shirt, but trying to do so was very troublesome. Every couple step he made, he had to pause to tighten his belt one notch, and when he ran out of notches, he had to keep the shorts up with one hand as they turned from shorts to pants on his legs. It was not helping matters that the paddle-fingers on his hands were now bending backwards along the length of his arm and stretching horribly long, making his limbs feel heavier and clumsier than they already felt. A rustling noise came from his side. He turned and peered through the alien trees, not knowing if the sound was just from the trees, or some dangerous creature. One hand gripping his belt, his other reached behind him into the back of his shorts, where he knew that he would find his 1911. He got it for cheap from a pawn shop a while back, and while he hadn't shot it much it was a big metal pistol, so it felt good in his hands, and it was a .45 caliber, so it had some good stopping power. His hand fell on where it was holstered, but he did not feel it. Panicked, he reached his hand deep into the back of his shorts and began to wonder if the forest had sucked it out of his shorts when the realization hit him. This time it was not the forest's fault but his own. He had left his gun back in the car.
He glanced warily at the grotesque environment around him and realized that he was defenseless and cursed himself for his stupidity. Then a horrifying revelation came upon his mind, and he knew that he would never find his gun again, for even if a path back to the clearing suddenly appeared before him, and from the clearing he was to return to the car, the car would be gone. If the forest had eaten his shirt as soon as it hit the ground, a broken car left unattended for hours would doubtlessly see the same fate. He looked up at the sky and saw that it was no longer light blue but instead appeared dark, though the sun was still up, and it was light out. He turned his thoughts inward.
The man had never been one for church and hadn't stepped foot into one since he was a little kid. His wife liked to spend Sundays at church with the old ladies while he preferred to stay home to drink, sleep, and watch TV. The few times he did go to church when he was very young, he cared little for it. All he saw were a bunch of old men bending over in front of a weird stick. Was this their doing? Was the big boss of the church guys punishing him for not cracking open their big book once? Looking up into the sky, that strange dark sky, he couldn't think of any other explanation for what was happening to him, and so he raised a fist and shook it. "Hey big guy! F--- you!" he screamed. The man imagined that a triumphant rebellion against the powers that be would make him feel at least a little better.
It did not. His voice felt shrill and hollow, the sky was tall and dark, and the forest was deep and menacing. He looked away from the sky and turned his gaze to the ground, trembling as he did so. Bringing an arm to his face, he saw that long feathers of a bright green color were emerging from the paddle, making it resemble a giant wing. His jaw felt uncomfortably stiff, and he saw something bright pink come into view at the bottom of his vision. He tapped at it and felt that it was hard. He once again brought his gaze back up to the trees. Once he thought that he hated everything, and there was nothing he liked, now he felt that he was the one who was hated. Everything hated him, his wife hated him, that dumb salesman hated him, his car hated him, the forest hated him, the sky hated him, his body hated him, even his shorts hated him and wanted to get off him as soon as possible. He felt like the most wretched and miserable thing in existence, worthy only of pity.
Emotions raced through his mind, and tears began to well up in his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to cry, to wail and bemoan his plight. Then he saw his father in his mind, that ugly face contorted in rage, wordlessly accusing him of being soft and weak like a woman. With great effort he brought his emotions under control, wiped the tears from his eyes with his wing, and hardened his heart. He continued his journey.
At first, he found that it was surprisingly easy to walk as he adjusted to the physical changes to his body, though his shorts were still trying to slip and trip him. Just as he was beginning to think that things were finally looking up for him, he suddenly fell face first to the ground. Spitting a mouthful of disgusting dirt out and growling, he looked to see the cause of his fall. He was horrified to see that his legs had seemingly broken themselves, and the pink dryness had formed into hard scales. Looking forwards, he spied a fallen grey tree that looked somewhat safe, and he dragged himself forwards towards it as his shorts pulled themselves off his legs, not caring what happened to them anymore. After what felt like forever he reached the tree, pulled himself up it with great heaves, and twisted himself around so that he was seated. He watched in horror and wonder as his lower legs bent and twisted before his eyes, and soon they came to resemble bird legs, and his heels had been replaced with backwards fourth toes. Indeed, his toes now ended with short blue claws perfect for gripping onto branches and poles. Looking down at himself, he saw that his entire body was covered in the green fuzz, and as he stared, he noticed that the fuzz was only getting thicker and fluffier, like that of a bird. He shook his head, hardened his heart, and got up. He didn't care what was happening to him anymore, he needed to get out of here.
~~~
She stared at the forest, bewildered at what she was seeing. First the path had disappeared, now the forest was looking like something from a sci fi movie. Perhaps the rumors were true, perhaps the forest truly was cursed. Then she turned her eyes from trees and turned them to her arm, straightening it out as she did so. Under the feathers she could see the well-defined muscles, and she balled up her fist and felt the strength in them. If this was a curse that she was experiencing, then it must be a blessing as well.
The woman brought her eyes back up to the forest and scanned it, thinking of her husband. That foolish man sowed the wind, now he was reaping the whirlwind. He wanted to go marching through untamed wilderness, well, he got untamed wilderness, more untamed than the deepest darkest depths of the Amazon. The alien plants appeared mean and cruel, and she was certain that whatever life dwelled within them was as unfriendly as the trees themselves looked. What had he ever done for her? Nothing but berate her for not having his Salisbury steak in the microwave five minutes ago and beat her whenever he lost a job. Well, she certainly didn't need him anymore, for she was now strong and free.
Then emotions began flowing through her mind, strange emotions which she did not recognize. She began pacing back and forth in the clearing, trying to understand what these emotions were. She hated and feared the man, but she was feeling something about him, something she could not put her claw on. The woman spent some time in thought before suddenly realizing what these emotions were. They were love, and care. At this she stopped her pacing, freezing still like a statue.
Love? Maybe she loved him a little bit when they first married, when he had put on a thin veneer of being a decent person, but she hadn't felt any love for him for almost as long as they were together. So why was she feeling love for him now, when he was responsible for getting them into this mess. She began walking again, but this time her feet seemed to move against her will and brought her to the edge of the clearing. She looked down, seeing the faintest signs of his footprints before she raised her head and peered between the trees, wondering why she cared about him now. He deserved it, he deserved all of it for being so pigheaded, but soon she felt that her love and care for him rivaled her hate and fear of him, and her mind was sent into a tumultuous pell-mell of conflicting desires.
Should she go after him or leave him to his fate? Did she love him or hate him? Why did she love him now? The changes which were happening to the forest and her body were nothing compared to the changes to her mind, and she gripped her head as though she could catch her wandering thoughts in them. As she gave thought to these emotions, she came to realize that her feelings towards him were taking on strange dimensions. He was still her husband, yes, but she came to realize that she felt protective towards him, concerned for him. She had never had children, she and her husband never had the energy or desire to do so, but she had seen the way young mothers at church looked upon their children, and she now knew that her newfound care for her husband was the same care which those young mothers showed. She somehow knew that if she went into that forest that she would never return to the clearing, no matter how well she kept track of the way back. At that moment she knew what she needed to do. If she stayed in the clearing, she would be both doomed for there was no food or shelter and damned for abandoning her husband, and so she plunged into the forest.
The way was very hard. The signs of her husband were already faint in the clearing, and now they were completely gone leaving her to guess which way he would have taken, and running over flat ground was nothing like trekking through dense forest. The surface of the forest was uneven, and there were strange fleshy growths which she was afraid of stepping on. Frustrated, she rested against a tree which looked less menacing. It was hopeless, she thought. Even if she were to somehow come upon signs of her husband's path, she was certain that he was miles away by now and she would never catch up at this pace. Suddenly she felt pressure in her legs, and she feared that she was going to fall over before she managed to stabilize herself on the tree. Looking down she saw that her lower legs were shortening at the same time as her heels were elongating, and her toes were now enormous. Soon she saw that her legs now looked very much like those of a Velociraptor, covered with scales below the knees, the rest covered with feathers. Pressure was also felt in her back, and as she looked forwards, she saw that her chest was thrust forwards, her entire body changing to make her perpetually forwards. Wondering how she was going to balance now, her concern turned out to be unfounded for a sharp but brief pain suddenly came from behind, and as she turned her head and looked down, she saw a spike of bone and muscle emerge from the base of her spine. Staring, the spike grew in length and width rapidly, becoming covered in feathers as it did so, and as it began to angle upwards, she recognized it as a tail. Soon it reached up to above the level of her head, large feathers erupting from the tip before the growth stopped.
She waved it back and forth, marveling as she did so. The tail only existed half a minute ago, yet she felt like she had been born with it. Then something dark appeared at the bottom of her vision, prompting her to rub it, and she felt that it was hard. She brought her attention back to her leg, lifted it up, and flexed her toes, amazed at how fast her new claws sliced through the air, and thought that they appeared larger and sharper than many butcher knives she had seen. While she might not be able to strike down one thousand warriors with the jawbone of an ass, she felt like she could strike down a full score of men with her strong legs and sharp claws. She brought her view back to the forest and thought that while it was still appearing alien, it was starting to feel more familiar, like she had been here before. She took off.
At first, she took slow and careful steps, but she quickly increased her pace until her strides became very long and taken with bold speed, and occasionally she even leaped over treacherous looking stoney bushes. Her arms were tucked close against her body as she raced at breakneck speed, swerving between trees with incredible ease, feeling faster than a track runner and possessing better balance than a ballerina. She knew what she needed to do, she needed to find her husband. She just hoped that he was ok and wasn't hurt.
~~~
He managed to go five steps before falling over again, though this time he caught himself on a rock before he could eat dirt. Looking behind him, he wondered what it was this time. It looked like some giant had just kicked him in the back permanently deforming it, and some sort of stick was growing outwards just above his butt. Looking closer, he saw that it was made of bone and muscle. Shocked, he watched as it grew swiftly, and he noticed that growing on it was that green fuzz. The stick went far before the tip of it exploded with bright white feathers of great size, and he realized that the stick was a tail. Growling, he hardened his heart and pushed himself back up onto his feet. He tried to walk as he did before but found that doing so only made him stumble around. Once he adjusted his gait to account for the weight of his tail he stopped stumbling, and after a few steps he began to get used to it.
The man continued for some distance, not bothering to keep track of either the time or the distance. 'This is not real' he thought. It was impossible, this should not be happening. Yet it felt real, horribly real, and he knew that there was no escape from it. Eventually he came upon a small clearing, empty save for a few scattered rocks and a small pond of water. Upon spotting the water he was reminded of his thirst, for he hadn't had water in a long time. He walked straight towards it and saw that it was clear, and he found it strange that the water wasn't ugly or gross looking like the rest of the forest. Not caring what the explanation was, he went down to his knees and plunged his head into it. He removed his head from the cool water and gripped his throat, half-choking for he had drunk too greedily from it. By the time he had finished coughing up water he noticed that the pond was now still again, and in the reflection on its surface he saw a strange creature.
It resembled a big humanoid bird covered with green and purple feathers, its beak pink, and eyes green. On its arms were big folded up wings, colored green like the rest of its body, and the purple feathers on its head hung down like hair and flowed past its shoulders in a very feminine manner. Below the knees were bird-like legs and feet, covered in pink scales. Immediately he cursed himself for not paying attention as he turned his head, but behind him he saw nothing. Spinning around, he saw that the clearing was still devoid of life, but when he returned his gaze to the pond the alien creature was still there, staring back. The man opened his mouth, and the thing opened its beak in response, and as he closed his mouth the things beak shut. A creeping sensation began to take him as he raised an arm up and saw that the thing raised its arm as well, and as he looked at his arm, he saw the green wing folded against it, the exact same green wing which the creature in the reflection had. He stared at the creature, puzzled, before the realization hit him like a truck.
He had saw his body become covered in feathered fluff, watched as fingers turned into wings and legs became scaled and digitigrade, observed a beak emerge from his face, but somehow, he had failed to understand what was happening to him until the truth was literally staring him in the face. He had transformed into an alien bird.
The man opened his beak to scream in horror, but before any sound could come from his mouth something stopped him. Wondering, he stared into the water and carefully observed his new body. His once bloated belly had completely disappeared so that his tummy was now perfectly flat, and his waistline had shrunk to one fifth of its original size so that his hips were now slightly wider than his waist was. Unhealthy angry skin had been replaced with warm colorful feathers, and as he ran a hand through his head feathers, he felt that they were silky smooth. As he continued looking at himself, he saw a pair of pink horns emerge and protrude upwards from the top of his beak. He thought that the horns looked very much like those tiaras princesses always wore in the movies which teachers occasionally showed, back when he was in public school. Looking down, he saw that he was wearing nothing, his underwear having come off with the shorts long ago, but he did not feel embarrassed for now his feathers and scales provided better protection than any sweat-stained shirt could. Still looking down, he saw that the area between his legs had become featureless. A thought which he found to be somewhat naughty sprang into his mind, and he gingerly reached down between his legs with one hand and proceeded to poke and prod. With a gasp he drew his hand back immediately. He was still a man, not a woman.
Then he looked back at his reflection. 'I look like a woman' he thought. Yes, though he was still a man he found that he looked far more like a woman now. He put a hand on his hip and struck a pose like what he saw women on magazine covers do. He had never been a handsome man even during his best years, and his best years were disappointingly short. But now he found that he looked nice, pleasant, attractive even. He remembered what his father had said about the importance of being a man and not a woman, but... perhaps he was wrong? At this thought he raised his arms to his sides and unfurled the wings, watching them stretch outwards. Then he began spinning, slowly at first but quickly gaining speed, and he laughed as he spun, his fears and cares no longer weighing him down. When he stopped spinning, he looked back into the water.
There were no more physical changes, but now his feathers appeared to become more vibrant and colorful, and his horns seemed to shine almost as bright as the sun. "I am beautiful" he said to himself, his voice coming out in a high pitch. His father was wrong, it was good to look like a woman. He was now more beautiful than any of those movie princesses or magazine models, and he loved it. Laughing again, he brought his gaze up from the pond back to the alien forest, and he remembered his wife. His heart softened, and his joy turned to sadness. He regretted running off and thought that he should have never left his wife. He couldn't remember what he and his wife were arguing about, but it was doubtlessly over something small and stupid, and now he was out here all alone. Tears began to well up in his eyes, and he wanted to cry. He shook his head and forced down his emotions. He needed to be strong, he needed to be tough, and so he tried to remember the words of his father but found that he never remembered his father saying those words. He remembered the face of his father very clearly, for his father looked much like he himself did, with the only differences being his blue beak and orange feathers. That couldn't be right, his father wasn't a bird man, his father was... what was his father? He knew what he was, the word was right on the tip of his tongue, but no matter how hard he tried he just could not remember it.
Frustrated, he noticed that the clearing had suddenly become covered in shadow, so he looked up and saw a mountain, tall and fierce, rising high into the sky with the sun hiding behind it. 'A Nevrean' he realized, and he clucked at his foolishness. Of course, his father was a Nevrean just as he was, their people named after the mountains which protected them from the dangers of the outside world. How could he possibly forget that? He had clearly been spending too much time in the Talyxian forest. The Nevrean man scanned the perimeter of the clearing, hoping to catch a glimpse of his wife. Deep in his heart he still felt a desire to be strong, tough, and independent, but he did not know where these feelings came from. No one had ever taught him them, not his mother, not his father, nor his wife. The thoughts seemed to come from a deep and dark place in his mind, existing without a frame of reference.
He found a rock and sat down on it to wait. He had messed things up badly enough running off without her, the least he could do was to not make things worse. It wasn't long before his solitude was interrupted. A noise came from the forest, a strange and sinister hooting. At this he sprang up to his feet and peered into the forest, shaking as he did so. Some time passed, and he was beginning to think that perhaps it was merely a figment of his paranoid imagination when it came again, louder, and closer. Panick took him, and he turned around and ran blindly into the forest.
He did not know how long he had been running, but eventually he was forced to stop. The Talyxian trees thinned and eventually cleared out, and opening before him was a ravine. It was very wide, and as he peered into its depths, he saw cruel rocks deep below. Looking behind him he did not see anything, but he could only assume that whatever it was, it was still on his tail. Turning to the side, he noticed a very tall grey tree with numerous branches, then he looked down at his arms and got an idea. He gripped the lowest branch and began climbing, finding that his light weight and clawed feet made it incredibly easy to ascend. Soon he was on the highest branch that could support his weight, balancing on his two feet. He looked down once again and saw the bottom of the ravine, which only looked more lethal from up here. What if his plan failed? What if he failed to keep control and he plummeted into its depths? He remembered the wicked sound he had heard back at the clearing and decided that crashing to his death was preferable to being eaten alive. He spread out his arms, unfurled his wings, and leaped.
At first, he thought he wouldn't make it, that he would smash headfirst into the cliffside and be knocked unconscious, but at that moment a strong breeze picked up and carried him clear across the ravine. Too amazed to say anything, he used his tail as a rudder to control his descent. He angled his body to slow down, but he did not know how to do so properly and ended up slamming into a soft mound of dirt. He laid there for half a minute before getting up, looking himself over. While he was glad that he didn't crash land into anything nasty, he would need a long hot bath and careful preening before he was ever free of the grime. Shrugging, he walked off. He had successfully escaped the monster and was now safe. Things were looking up for him. Then the ground gave way beneath him.
Down he went, tumbling and turning as stones struck him, until he eventually came to a stop. He was lying down, and as he looked up, he saw what had happened. So lost in self-satisfaction was he that he failed to notice that he had walked into a short but steep sinkhole in the ground, where he accidentally stepped on a pile of loose rocks and caused a mini landslide. He tried to move but found that he could not and turning his head he saw that a rock had come down on top of his leg. He tried to pull it out with all his strength but to no avail. 'I am Stuck' he thought.
The Nervrean man's thoughts turned inwards. He was silly, a silly Nevrean, and he had finally undone himself in his silliness. He remembered clearly why he had gone marching into the forest. His wife had gone to pick mushrooms and took him with her. They came upon a clearing with a good number of safe Talyxian mushrooms, so she set herself to picking them and wanted him to help, but he said that he wanted to go on an adventure through the forest instead. She told him no, he got angry at her, they yelled, then he stamped off into the forest and did not stop. His wife did not follow him because he usually came back quickly, but something about the argument had really flustered him so he kept marching on, refusing to return. He wanted to go on an adventure but look where his adventurous spirit got him. Stuck and all alone
He looked up and saw that the sun was going far behind the mountains, and soon it would be gone, and he would be alone in the dark. If he was lucky, he would die a slow and painful death of exposure to the elements, and he reckoned that he would be a rather easy and tasty treat for some nasty beast. He was going to die, all because of his foolishness, all because he had run off from his wife. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he opened his beak and let out a shrill cry, loud and echoing.
He did not want to be strong anymore, he did not want to be tough or independent. He wanted, nay, needed his wife. He needed her to come save him from his foolishness, he needed her to pick him up and bring him home, he needed her to feed him hot food, he needed her to wash the dirt from his feathers, he needed her to clothe him in clean clothes, he needed her, and she was not there. His cry rose out from the drop and carried deep into the forest.
~~~
She came upon a small clearing and slowed down, taking note of the rocks and small pond within it. She had not seen any signs of her husband since leaving the large clearing, but she knew what way he would take. The forest was treacherous and dangerous even for her to navigate, and she imagined that it would be doubly so for her husband, so it would stand to reason that he would take the path of least resistance with the fewest obstacles and the flattest ground. She followed this invisible path, and that was what led her to the clearing.
Walking over to the pond, she noticed two sets of tracks. One set of tracks looked strange, as though something walked over the ground with tendrils. She observed these prints and saw that whatever they belonged to must have come into the clearing some time ago, but finding no meal, it left quickly to go back where it had come. But it was the second set of tracks that really caught her attention. The prints had four toes, three forward facing and one backwards, resembling bird feet, though she couldn't imagine what bird species would have perching feet of that size. Looking closer, she somehow knew that they belonged to her husband's, though she had no idea how and she was certain that her husband did not have bird feet. Following the tracks with her eyes, she saw that they led off into the forest. She sighed in relief, glad that whatever creature had come through here had done so after her husband had left. The woman had half a mind to immediately launch back into the hunt, but something held her back.
Looking back, she saw the clear, clean water of the pond, and at that moment she felt a burning in her throat. She had been running nonstop for hours now, and if she didn't stop and rest now, she would certainly pass out. She went down to her knees, tempted to plunge her face into the water, but she restrained herself. Looking into the water, she saw the black thing in her vision and, taking a hand from the ground and feeling it, now realized that it was a beak. Remembering how she had seen blue jays drink, she opened her beak, dipped it into the water, closed it, and brought her head up, letting the cool water run down her throat. She repeated this until she was satisfied, then she noticed how amazingly reflective the water was and decided to look at herself.
What she saw in the reflection was certainly not human anymore, and she found that she truly did look a lot like a velociraptor, a feathered one. Emerging from her face was a black beak, the same one which she had just used to drink from the pond, and she saw that it was thick, heavy, and strong. Covering her body were a mix of black and dark grey feathers, with grey scales covering her lower legs and feet. Her hands had four fingers ending in sharp claws, and her once shoulder length hair had turned to feathers and now went down only to the level of her earholes, though she found that this looked surprisingly fashionable. While she might look an awful lot like a dinosaur now, she was smarter and more beautiful than any dumb prehistoric beast.
She angled her head to get a better view of it, and she raised up an arm and flexed it. Even under the feathers she could see her muscles form into a heavy ball, and she grinned, noticing as she did so that there were large white fangs in her beak, appearing to her imagination to be as sharp and shining as polished scimitars. She thought that while she might not have the cunning of Queen Esther, she had far more brawns. Looking up from her reflection she noted the location of the sun far behind the mountains, and she realized that it would soon be nighttime. She needed to find her husband, and fast. Glancing back down at the pond, she saw that the water was no longer clear but had now taken on a pink and unhealthy hue. 'Talyxian microorganisms' she thought. This was a Talyxian forest she was in, a thin one that was relatively safe and stable, but Talyxian nonetheless, so water sources were often dangerous to drink from. What she found strange was that the pond had been clear just a few seconds ago, in fact she had drank from it safely and saw her own reflection in it. She shook her head and shrugged, thankful that she was able to refresh herself before the water went bad. Then she heard the sound.
A shrill echoing cry came from the forest. 'My husband' she thought as she spun around in its direction, seeing that the footprints of her husband led in the direction of the sound. He was in danger. She immediately took off running, taking deep breaths as she did so and ignoring the pain in her chest. Sprinting hard, she saw the trees begin to thin out, and she knew what was coming before she saw it. But she did not slow, but rather she struck the ground with such force that dirt was kicked up and sent flying behind her. Right as she was about to tumble into empty air, she planted both feet on the edge of the ravine and leaped. Far and high she sailed through the air across the ravine, and though she missed the edge she dug her claws deep into the dirt on the opposite side and halted her descent, before swiftly clambering up and over the edge.
Running, she saw the ground open before her and she stopped, her heart hammering in her chest. The tracks led to here before suddenly stopping right at the edge of the sinkhole. She walked carefully to the edge and looked over, and that was when she saw him.
There he was at the bottom, and in the dim twilight his green feathers seemed to shine even when covered in dirt. His head turned to face hers, and as she locked eyes with him she had to suppress a laugh. Somewhere far in the back of her mind was a sense of fear, but not fear for her husband but rather of him, of what he could do to her if she found him. But seeing him in this state now, she saw that this notion was incredibly silly. Even by the standards of Nevrean men her husband was short, and he was more feather than flesh and bone. Leaping down to land next to him, she saw the rock on his leg. Fearing that his leg was broken, she took up a position and pushed it off him, then she breathed a sigh of relief. The rock which had been pinning him down had rolled onto him in such a way that it did not crush his legs, leaving them merely bruised and lightly scraped.
She looked at him, having half a mind to chastise him for his foolishness when something made her stop. His emerald, green eyes were looking straight into hers, and in them she saw that his sorrow and regret was great, and she saw that there was no need to reprimand him. Instead, she pulled him close, letting him lean his head against her chest to feel the rhythm of his breathing. They did this for a while until the last rays of light disappeared and the stars revealed themselves in the sky. Then slowly, carefully, she lifted him up in her strong arms and carried him up a slope which led out of the sinkhole.
~~~
They lay down together, his head resting in her lap as she leaned her back against the trunk of the tree. She looked down and saw the ground far below them. Though it was dark, and her night vision was poor, the moon was full, and the stars were shining brightly down on them, so they were able to make good progress until they had found a large safe tree. Climbing up, they found a branch suitable for the both of them, and so they took shelter for the night. While it still wasn't perfectly safe, she was certain that nothing would notice them as long as they remained quiet. They had somehow lost the clothes they had left the village with, but their combined body heat was ample protection from the high-altitude night chill. She turned her gaze from the ground and looked up into the night sky. The stars were up there, the same stars which she had seen since she was a hatchling, but for some reason she felt as though they were clearer and more beautiful than ever before. Then her thoughts turned to what they would do when the sun rose. They weren't very far from the village, only a couple days of steady hiking away, and they could've perhaps even made it back in one day had it not been for her husband's condition. He wasn't seriously injured, but he showed signs of overexertion, so she did not want to push him. Her mother was a skilled hunter who had taught her the way of paths, so she did not worry about finding her way back home. She looked down from the sky and turned her gaze to the head on her lap, watching the gentle rising and falling of his chest. Her husband was fast asleep now, his soft purple head feathers flowing down her legs and coming to rest on the tree, his tail twitching slightly every now and then.
Watching him now, she thought that she didn't care what he had done anymore. He was once lost, and now he was found, and for that she was glad. She vaguely remembered knowing some sort of parable for this exact situation spoken by a wise person once, but she couldn't quite bring it into her mind. It had something to do with sheep, she was certain, though she did not know what a sheep was. Probably some sort of dim and slow Talyxian creature. She shook her head slightly. While moral stories were nice and all, what mattered most was that she and her husband were back together, safe and sound. As her husband slept, he saw his father, but there were no more ugly visages or evil words but instead he saw beautiful faces and heard wonderful songs.
Epilogue
"I kissed a man!" he proclaimed as he burst through the doorway. "Hm, really? Tell me all about it" she replied as she looked up at her husband from the plant roots she had been chopping with a large knife. "Oh, it was wonderful" he said as he spun and leaped around the room. "I was taking a walk around the hills when I met him painting a beautiful creek. He's a son of that large family, you know, the one with all those nice paints and dyes. Well, I met him painting, and so I stopped and talked with him about paints and dyes and streams, I don't know how long we were talking but it felt like forever. Then, we touched the tips of our beaks together, for a second! It was only one second, but it was the most magical second of my life!" As he said this, he stopped spinning, walked to the door, and went back out. Wondering why he was leaving so quickly, she put down her knife and followed him out, where she saw him perched and ready to launch from the edge of the wooden walkway which their doorway led out to.
"Now where do you think you are going?" She said, putting her hands on her hips. He turned to her and grinned. "I promised some of the boys that I was going to skip stones with them, and I very well can't disappoint them!" he spoke. "Well, make sure to enjoy your time" she said. Without a word he faced forwards and leaped. She watched her husband glide away, his green and purple feathers catching the sun in dazzling patterns as he shrank into the distance. Then she turned her head and took in the sights of the village.
The village was set in a cut deep in the mountainside, and everywhere she looked there was activity. The air was filled with the labor of Nevrean women and the singing of Nevrean men, and everywhere she looked there was activity. Nevreans were making their way either along walkways or up and down many stairs, and a lot of them were leaping and gliding. The Nevrean women were hard at work building and repairing huts of sturdy red clay, carrying pots and baskets, and hauling either fuel or the cleaned corpses of those Talyxian creatures which were safe for consumption. The Nevrean men were singing, chatting, dancing, or putting their hands to arts and crafts. As she watched this dizzying display of vibrant life she thought briefly about the history of their village.
This village was relatively new, only having been started a few generations ago. At first the village was very small for there were few Nevreans, but it grew swiftly so it was now quite large. Every day it felt like more Nevreans appeared, adding to the village, and making it ever larger. Of course, these Nevreans were never strangers, they had always been a part of the village and were merely returning. Yes, some of them said strange things and muttered odd names, a side effect of spending too much time in the Talyxian biome, but a few days of clear mountain air and good healthy food always brought them back to their senses and reminded them who they were and where they belonged.
Something brushed past her legs, and she looked down. Running by her were three balls of fluff, giggling as they speedily headed down the walkway. They were her children. "Stay safe!" she called out, but she knew that she did not need to worry, for the village folk would make sure of that. Strange, she and her husband had failed to produce children for the several years of their marriage up until that eventful day, but afterwards she and her husband had gone to that secret place once a year, and each time they produced an egg.
'Three years' she thought. It was truly amazing what had happened in the three years which had passed since that day. The Talyxian forest which was close to the village was very safe and stable with few truly dangerous creatures in it. But on that one day, her husband had seen it fit to turn what should have been a routine mushroom run into a feather-raising adventure, and ever since then something had changed between them, as though some missing link had clicked together. It was kind of odd that their clay hut had burned down to nothing in the few days in which they were gone from the village, but her fellow Nevreans seemed to understand without judgement. They helped in rebuilding her home so that it was much larger than the one before, almost as though her neighbors knew that she and her husband would be rapidly growing their family. Who should she thank for this good fortune? She turned her eyes in the direction of Vilous, the light of life, and thanked the Guardian Spirits who had granted her people the Nev mountains to keep them safe from the depredations of the Talyxian Biome.
She stood there, enjoying the sight of the village when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw her neighbor Yami standing in the middle of the walkway. He was a tall, slender Nevrean man with bright gold and yellow feathers, and his eyes were blue. What struck her as odd was that he appeared to be very confused as he was looking out at the view. She approached him. "Good morning Yami" she said.
Startled, he quickly turned to her. "Oh, I'm sorry ma'am, you must be mistaken. I am not Yami, my name is Larry. Indeed, this is all a big mistake, a big misunderstanding, I really must explain it all. You see, I was on a business trip when my company car broke down, right next to the forest. My boss promised me that it was a good car, but I digress. There was no cell connection, so I walked a little ways down the road looking for a callbox and I could have sworn that I kept that car in view, but when I turned back it had gone! Then the road disappeared, then the forest started looking weird and purple, then one thing led to another and now here I am, looking rather, uh... marketable". At these last words he raised an arm and looked at the yellow feathers protruding from it. Then he put his hands on his hips and looked back across the village. "Great lot of good my boy scout training did me" he said.
She knew exactly what was happening. Her neighbor Yami was suffering from a severe case of the Talyxian influence. Thankfully, she knew just what to do. She took a step towards him, catching his attention. "Come inside my home. We will talk and eat hot food" she said. Yami, or as he called himself Larry put his hands up in protest. "Oh, thank you madam, but I really do not want to intrude on your hospitality". She grinned, put a firm hand on his left shoulder, and began walking him towards her home. "Nonsense. My family has more food than we need, it will spoil otherwise". "Well, if you insist, I guess" Larry said as he disappeared through the doorway with her.
The End
Note 1: According to the Vilous wiki, female Nevreans stand at an average height of 4 feet 9 inches, whereas the average height of an American woman is 5 feet 4 inches, so why is the woman in the story growing instead of shrinking? The answer is that the woman in question is exceptionally short standing at 4 feet 7 inches and is badly malnourished, and the female Nevrean she transforms into is a very large one standing at 5 feet 1 inches and heavily built.
Note 2: Yes, the Biblical allusions were on purpose. Pharaoh hardened his heart five times and it ended with his kingdom wrecked, his chariots smashed, and his workforce gone. An angry drunk guy hardens his heart five times, and it ends with him being turned into a crybaby of an avian who will spend the rest of his life under the thumb of his wife. I would say the results are equivalent.
-----------------------------------------
Disclaimer: This story has themes, allusions, and references to child and spouse abuse including physical and verbal abuse. If this makes you uncomfortable feel free to not read.
Reap what you Sow
By Featheredfriend24601
"We are lost", she said in a low tone. The two people were walking down a dirt path so thin and rocky that it could barely be recognized as a path. Looming over the path on both sides were trees, dark and densely packed, whatever space between them was filled with hard tough undergrowth. One of the figures was a man. He was very large and had a great swollen belly which poked out from under his red shirt, he wore a pair of khaki shorts, and on his feet were a pair of sandals. Though his skin was white, his arms, face, and neck were red and irritated from years of sun exposure, and he moved his arms in wide bold swings. Behind him was a woman, short and thin with boney shoulders and hollow cheeks. She wore a thin black dress which appeared to be sized not for a woman but rather a girl, and where it clung tightly to her body faint outlines of ribs could be seen. On her feet she wore a pair of cheap plastic high heels with which she had to carefully find spaces between rocks. Her skin was pale, she was looking down at the ground, and she held her arms together close to her body.
"We are lost", she repeated in the same tone. "Nah, we ain't lost", he responded, scrunching up his nose and looking up at the treetops as he did so. "We have been walking for a long time" she said. "Wife, quit ya worrying, we will find something soon enough. Look, see!" as the man said this, he pointed a finger in the direction of what he saw, and the woman briefly looked up. At the end of the path was an opening, small and dim. The man hastened his pace to reach it, not looking back at the woman. As he came out through the opening and looked around, the excitement in his eyes turned to disappointment. He was now standing in an empty clearing. Thin grass grew on the ground, and in the middle was a fallen tree. He walked to the tree and looked around the clearing, shielding his eyes from the sun. As the woman came out of the opening herself, she took a glance around herself.
"Huh, well, this is something, I guess. Looks kinda like it used to be a campsite. Ought to be a ranger station or hunter cabin close by" he said as he looked at the tall and foreboding trees surrounding the clearing, shielding his eyes from the sun as he did so. The woman said nothing as she made her way to the fallen tree and sat down on it. "We should not be out here" she said, looking up and seeing that the sun was already halfway through the sky. It was only morning when they first set out on the path, though she could've sworn that they had only been walking for a short distance. The man turned to her with an annoyed look in his face. "Ya think I don't know that?". She shook her head. "We should have stayed on the freeway" she said. The man walked closer to where she was sitting, a frown on his face. "Woman, you doubt me too much. I know these back paths real well, we woulda been home by now if we had a good car. That dumb salesman, Larry I think his name was, he gave us a bad car. Stupid nerd looker with his bow tie and suspenders. When I get outta here Imma wring him dry!".
The man looked around once again, scanning the perimeter of the clearing. "The trees don't look too tight, and the bushes ain't lookin so bad. I reckon that if we head thatta way we are bound to find some proper civilization". He looked back and noticed something about his wife. She was still looking down at the ground, but there was a look in her eyes, a look that meant that thoughts were going through her head, thoughts he did not like. "Whatcha thinking woman? Spit it out!" he said as he bent over so his head was close to hers.
She spoke without raising her head. "A few days ago, I read some newspapers. This forest is off-limits. Seventeen people disappeared here just last season alone" she said. He laughed.
"Really, the papers? You believe that trash? I swear woman, you go readin too much of that junk, your head will turn into a garbage can!". He turned back to the forest. "Now, I say that we go that way. If we go now, we might find some life before the sun goes down". As he said this, he heard a mutter, and he spun around to face the woman. "Huh? Speak up!" he said. "We should not go into the forest. We need to stay here or we will get more lost" she said. He snorted at these words. "Now, look here woman, you been running ya mouth off the whole time. Now, I'm a nice guy, I been real patient like with ya, but you are starting to make me rather angry. So how about ya shut ya trap or imma-".
Before he could finish his sentence, the woman faced him, her once expressionless face transfigured in rage as she roared at him with such volume and boldness that he was caught off guard. "It is all your fault! The car was junk, it was so obvious that a child could see it, but you were so blinded by that smoking hot deal that you didn't care! You decided to drive that hunk of junk through the middle of nowhere for a shortcut! You made us leave the car and walk blindly into the forest instead of going back to the freeway! If we die, it will all be your fault!".
The man stood staring at her blankly, not knowing how to respond. Then he curled his face in anger as he raised a meaty hand up to strike her, a motion which usually made her shut up. But she did get shut up. Seeing the raised hand, she began laughing madly. He paused his motion, stunned. She had defeated him. Even if he were to go through with striking her, he somehow knew that she would not stop laughing at him. His ugly face turned tomato red as he put his hand back at its side and bellowed with such force that spittle flew into the woman's face. "Fine! Have it your way! I'm gonna go off and I am going to find help, and when I find it I might not feel like telling them to go find you! Just watch, it'll be real easy!" with that he stomped off into the woods in a huff. The woman stayed where she was, watching him disappear from sight.
~~~
He found the journey harder than he initially expected. The bushes looked shorter and softer from a distance, and the trees made it impossible to move in a straight line. The man cursed every time a bramble reached out and scratched his legs, which was often, cussed whenever a leave reached out and made his legs itch madly, which happened regularly, and he grumbled whenever a patch of uneven ground made him trip and stumble, which occurred every half a dozen steps. Even with his hands held out in front of his face branches repeatedly wacked his head and sent flakes of wood and dust into his eyes and mouth, choking him, and forcing him to blink and wipe his eyes.
Eventually he stopped and doubled over, putting his hands on his knees as his fat cheeks flared out from the exertion. He had never been much of a woodsy person when he was young, and his youth was far behind. Still, he guessed that he must have gone a great distance. When he regained his breath, he stood up and scratched his belly where it protruded from under the taut shirt. He turned around and yelled. He had only gone a stone's throw from the clearing. Between the trees he could still see one end of the log. His wife was out of view, but he guessed that she was still sitting on that log all smug like. He growled and was about to head out when a thought stopped him. He expected to find help, and quickly, but on the off chance that he didn't he would need a way to head back to the clearing. The man looked around, wondering what to do before his gaze fell on a nearby branch. He gripped it in one hand and ripped it off, letting it fall to the ground. He walked off some way and kicked a bunch of stones away. After doing this he looked back and saw where he broke the branch. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. If the boy scouts could do it, so could he. Of course, he had never been in the boy scouts, but what they did couldn't be that hard. The man continued his way, snapping branches and kicking rocks every now and then.
His hiking skills didn't improve, but he found that the bushes were now less mean and the ground flatter, and he began to make better progress. After some time of this he stopped by a tree. Its branches were thick and sturdy, so he took the lowest one in both hands and pulled hard. Eventually it came free and he looked at his handiwork, thinking that the exposed white of the broken branch was so big and bright that it would be impossible to miss. He put a hand to his forehead and wiped the sweat which beaded it, but he felt something strange. Patting the top of his head he realized that he felt that his hair was a little thicker, and one of his bald spots was gone. He guessed that it must have been the healthy forest air doing some good for him and thought that it would be nice to look a little more like he did back when he was younger. He continued a little way before taking a rest, leaning against a tree. He was feeling very hot, and the itching in his legs seemed to have spread up to his chest. He tried to scratch his belly but found his shirt was in the way and he had to lift it up a little. He assumed that it must have been from all the exercise he was doing, amusingly thought that by the time he found someone he would be thin as a stick and hungry as a cow. At this thought he began daydreaming about finding the cabin of some nice hunter and pleasuring the sight of a whole deer cooking on a spit. Drool poured from his mouth at this image.
Turning around, he swiftly stood straight up as his daydream was violently ended. The branch he had just torn down was gone. He ran to where it should have been and looked around fearfully. There were no torn branches or kicked rocks anywhere, and he could have sworn that even the trees had changed position. He realized in horror what had happened. The trees had changed. The signs were gone. He was lost.
~~~
She sat on the tree, still looking at the ground. As she sat, she listened to the forest and found it odd that she could hear no animals, no running water, and even the leaves seemed to barely move. She pulled out her phone and looked at it before putting it away. No connection out here. There hadn't been any connection for a while now, but she vainly hoped that there might be a little in the clearing. She sighed and looked up at the trees. There was no movement, and the only sign that there had been anyone else besides her were faint sandal prints in the ground leading off to the forest, stopping where the bushes began. Sighing, she shielded her eyes as she looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was now over halfway through the sky. The sun truly felt like it was going quickly, though she guessed that it must have only been a short time.
She put her head into her hands and groaned. She did not know when her idiot husband would come to his senses and return, but she guessed that he was never going to do so and was almost certainly going to keep marching off until he got himself truly lost. Not that she really cared if he came back at all. She remembered clearly what the papers said about the forest. It had been closed since 1996 when people who went into it began disappearing, though it seemed like just as many people went missing now as before as young campers and vacationing families were replaced with daredevils and teens. There were all sorts of rumors surrounding the forest, that it was cursed. Of course, she knew that old forests didn't need ghosts or goblins to be dangerous, she used to do a lot of hiking with her church when she was younger and knew all too well the dangers of the wilderness. Bears and wolves were the most obvious ones, but there were many more dangers. Untreated water and sprains could kill just as well as an animal bite.
She should then about leaving her husband to his fate. In her mind she remembered the way back well. All she had to do was walk down the trail they had come down, find their car, and follow the dirt road back to the freeway, where she could hitch a ride. Of course, it would be risky, it would take a long time, the sun was going down, and she would be all alone if she broke a leg or was attacked by an animal. But she was already alone, and the chances of her husband coming back were next to none. If she was to die, she would rather do so with hope at the end of the tunnel rather than die waiting on a meatloaf of a husband.
The woman stirred where she was sitting and felt that she was getting very hot. She stood up, thinking little of how her dress now felt tighter on her body. Yes, she was going to go back now. She should've done so long ago. She would be hated, her family and church would accuse her of failing in her responsibilities of being a wife, of willfully leaving her husband to die while she saved herself. God would judge her however he judged, but she certainly didn't care about the judgement of others now, she didn't care about being the perfect wife anymore.
She turned around and walked towards the path, her strides as long as her high heels would allow. But she stopped. The path was gone. She looked around fearfully, thinking that she might've just forgotten where it was, but she did not see it. Indeed, even the trees looked different, taller, and more foreboding than before. She was trapped.
~~~
How? How did this happen? He remembered his wife saying that they would only get more lost if they went into the woods, and now he was truly lost. In frustration he kicked the nearest tree and roared as he clutched his toe, and roared even louder when he toppled over and fell on top of a spiky bush. Cursing, he scrambled out of it and sprang back to his feet. He was lost, lost in a storm of hate aimed at everything and everyone. He hated that no good salesman for selling him a junk car, he hated his wife for being so smug, he hated the forest that he was lost in, and he hated himself for getting lost.
The man took deep breaths for a minute before coming back to his senses. He was lost, yes, but he believed that he knew the general direction he had come from, and guessed that if he went that way, he might come upon the clearing again and find his wife. His wife.
At this thought the man's fear and worry was replaced with anger. His wife said that he would be lost if he went into that forest, but what did she know. She was a woman, a stupid woman who didn't know anything. Yes, he clearly remembered the words of his father. Between strikes of the belt, he would say them to him. "Women are stupid. Women are weak. Women do not know what they want. You need to be a man. Men are strong. Men don't make mistakes. Men don't need anyone!". If he came back to the clearing his wife would see him cut up from head to toe, his clothes torn, and the act of coming back to her would be admitting to making a mistake, but he never made a mistake. He stood up straight now. What did she know? Nothing, he was not lost, and he certainly didn't need her. He hardened his heart and marched off in the opposite direction.
His anger soon turned to misery as the journey weighed down on him. His entire body was itching madly, and despite the shade of the treetops he felt like he was burning up. The air which he had thought to be healthy was now suffocatingly thick and he labored for every breath. He didn't know how long he had been walking, so he leaned against a tree and pulled out his phone to check the time, but saw that it had zero battery, though he could have sworn it was at least 40% last he checked. The man grumbled about his bad luck and rubbed his face with his hand and found that he couldn't feel his lips anymore. Something brushed against his ear, and when he reached his hand up, he felt hair. His hair was getting thick and long now, and the man shook his head. While he would like to have a full head of hair again, he didn't want no woman's hair.
He resumed his walk, but found that it was only getting harder, not easier. His clothes were beginning to weigh heavily on his body, his toes and fingers felt like they were glued together, and his every movement felt drunk and clumsy even though it had been some time since he had a proper drink. It was bad enough when he had stumbled every half a dozen steps, but now he stumbled with every other step, and he couldn't even blame his clumsiness on the ground anymore for it was now relatively flat. It did not take long before he had to stop again and doubled over, thinking that he only needed a minute to regain his breath before he could start off again. A minute passed, then two, then five, and still he felt no better. Putting a hand against a tree, he stood up straight and felt strangely naked, like he was wearing no clothes. Looking down, he saw in shock that his shirt was right about to slip down his shoulders and fall off.
He hastily took his shirt off, threw it to the ground in front of his feet, and looked down. The first thing which he found immediately odd was that he could see his feet, for it had been some years since he could see them without bending over. As he observed his feet, he thought that last time he checked, there were five toes on each foot and not three, and while he didn't take the best care of his toenails, he didn't remember them looking so blue, long, and sharp. The skin of his feet appeared awfully dry and pink as well and was beginning to crack. His gaze now turned to his front, and he noticed that his chest and belly were now covered in some sort of soft green fuzz. He took a finger and poked his belly, feeling it give way as it seemed to lose weight and pressure, then something about his hand caught his attention. He brought it to his face and saw that the reason he felt like his fingers were becoming glued together was because they were. Two of fingers on the hand had merged into what he could describe as a big paddle, and his hand was now covered in the same green fuzz as his belly. The man watched in horror as the mutated finger grew and extended outwards. Shaking his head and muttering, he reached down for his shirt. It was gone.
Panicked, he spun around in circles looking for it, but it was nowhere to be seen. It had been just right there! All he had done was raise his hand to his face, and as soon as he put it down the shirt vanished before his eyes. He spun around several more times to no avail before bringing his head up and seeing something very strange. He did not remember the trees looking so purple before.
~~~
She returned to the log and sat on it, frustrated. It was not possible, the path had been there, just there she was certain of it. But it was gone now, and it was nowhere to be seen. Looking up at the sky, she saw that the sun seemed to be rather low now, the day going by startlingly fast. Soon it would be nightfall, and she had no tent, no sleeping bag, nothing but a thin dress and a useless smartphone. She balled up her hands and squeezed until they turned white and bit her lip, failing to notice that she felt no pain in them.
She glanced around at the tree ring, noting that there didn't appear to be anything that could be used for shelter, and considering what happened with the path she did not want to risk entering the woods. The woman groaned and put her hands in her heads. 'My husband, my stupid pigheaded husband' she thought. He dragged them out into the middle of nowhere against her protests, now they were both going to die because of his stupidity. And she was going to die alone, all alone.
The sun was beating down on her making her hot, her clothes felt tight and uncomfortable on her, and a demand for action began to grow within her. Eventually she got up and began pacing back and forth in the clearing, thinking that some movement would soothe her muscles and calm her mind. Her desire for movement only increased and soon the heat became unbearable. She kept increasing the length and speed of her strides until she was certain that her high heels would make her fall and sprain an ankle, but still, she did not stop. Her clothes now felt like constricting shackles on her.
'What happened to him' she thought as she paced furiously. What happened to her husband? Did he pass out from not getting a drink of beer every hour? Did he fall down a ravine and break his neck? Did a bear find him and gorged itself on his swollen bulk? These questions spun through her head. She did not know why she was thinking about her husband now, it was her own survival, her own problems she should be thinking about. But she could not stop thinking about him, and this only made her more furious. And she was hot, too hot, her muscles were too sore, and she needed to move. Shaking her head, she stretched her arms forward and heard a ripping noise from behind. She paused, confused, then stretched further, and this elicited more ripping. She put a hand on her back and realized that her dress was now clinging to her body so tightly that it was tearing. With a growl she gripped her dress and tore it to shreds with incredible ease and threw the useless fabric to the ground before realizing that she was now naked. She wondered what to do about her modesty before looking down and seeing that she had no need to worry.
Her breasts had disappeared, and her chest and belly were now covered with a layer of dark stuff which she immediately recognized as feathers. She did not dwell on this as she became aware of a sharp pain which came from her feet, the black plastic of the high heels digging into her flesh. She bent down and wrenched one shoe off, but the other one refused to come off. In her anger she brought it down on top of a nearby rock and swiftly smashed it to pieces. She wondered what she would now do without feet protection before seeing that she once again did not need to worry. The woman's feet were now covered in thick hard scales, and on each foot were now four toes which were very large and muscular. She lifted one up and saw that the toenails were forming into claws, long, sharp, and strong ones. The woman remembered seeing pictures of Velociraptor feet in school and thought that her feet her now looked a lot like those.
She first looked forwards, then down at her feet, then looked up again and began running. It was exhilarating being free of the high heels, and she found that her new feet were faster and better than any pair of hand-me-down tennis shoes she had ever worn before. She whooped as she ran in circles within the clearing, faster than she had ever run before, and as she ran, she put her arms out to her sides, feeling the air blow through the feathers forming on them and relieving her of the heat. Eventually she stopped, not from exhaustion but rather to admire her changing body. The scales now went up to below the knee, the skin above covered by dark feathers like what was on her chest. Underneath the scales and feathers she could feel thick and powerful muscles, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Indeed, her entire body felt strong, and with each breath she took she could feel her muscles becoming stronger.
She looked up from her body and saw that the forest had changed.
~~~
He was quite simply flabbergasted. Where there had once been greens and browns there were now purples and pinks. The trees were no longer straight but curved like something out of one of those restaurant aquariums. Even the ground looked more like puked up crayons than anything worthy of being stepped on. Gross looking tubes and pipes sprouted up here and there. He couldn't comprehend it. It was as if his whole world was turned upside down. He thought that maybe there was an underground drug factory which was burning down nearby, and he was huffing up poisoned fumes making his toes look pink and the trees purple, and he was going to die a loony.
At that moment he briefly regretted walking off into the woods, thinking that even if the woods changed anyways, he would at least not be in them. Then he thought of his wife, doubtlessly still in the clearing, and his worry turned to anger. What did she say, something about the forest being dangerous? He couldn't remember exactly anymore what she said, but it didn't matter, he was going to prove that woman wrong! The man hardened his heart and marched in the clearest direction.
He had resolved not to let the ground eat his shorts like it did his shirt, but trying to do so was very troublesome. Every couple step he made, he had to pause to tighten his belt one notch, and when he ran out of notches, he had to keep the shorts up with one hand as they turned from shorts to pants on his legs. It was not helping matters that the paddle-fingers on his hands were now bending backwards along the length of his arm and stretching horribly long, making his limbs feel heavier and clumsier than they already felt. A rustling noise came from his side. He turned and peered through the alien trees, not knowing if the sound was just from the trees, or some dangerous creature. One hand gripping his belt, his other reached behind him into the back of his shorts, where he knew that he would find his 1911. He got it for cheap from a pawn shop a while back, and while he hadn't shot it much it was a big metal pistol, so it felt good in his hands, and it was a .45 caliber, so it had some good stopping power. His hand fell on where it was holstered, but he did not feel it. Panicked, he reached his hand deep into the back of his shorts and began to wonder if the forest had sucked it out of his shorts when the realization hit him. This time it was not the forest's fault but his own. He had left his gun back in the car.
He glanced warily at the grotesque environment around him and realized that he was defenseless and cursed himself for his stupidity. Then a horrifying revelation came upon his mind, and he knew that he would never find his gun again, for even if a path back to the clearing suddenly appeared before him, and from the clearing he was to return to the car, the car would be gone. If the forest had eaten his shirt as soon as it hit the ground, a broken car left unattended for hours would doubtlessly see the same fate. He looked up at the sky and saw that it was no longer light blue but instead appeared dark, though the sun was still up, and it was light out. He turned his thoughts inward.
The man had never been one for church and hadn't stepped foot into one since he was a little kid. His wife liked to spend Sundays at church with the old ladies while he preferred to stay home to drink, sleep, and watch TV. The few times he did go to church when he was very young, he cared little for it. All he saw were a bunch of old men bending over in front of a weird stick. Was this their doing? Was the big boss of the church guys punishing him for not cracking open their big book once? Looking up into the sky, that strange dark sky, he couldn't think of any other explanation for what was happening to him, and so he raised a fist and shook it. "Hey big guy! F--- you!" he screamed. The man imagined that a triumphant rebellion against the powers that be would make him feel at least a little better.
It did not. His voice felt shrill and hollow, the sky was tall and dark, and the forest was deep and menacing. He looked away from the sky and turned his gaze to the ground, trembling as he did so. Bringing an arm to his face, he saw that long feathers of a bright green color were emerging from the paddle, making it resemble a giant wing. His jaw felt uncomfortably stiff, and he saw something bright pink come into view at the bottom of his vision. He tapped at it and felt that it was hard. He once again brought his gaze back up to the trees. Once he thought that he hated everything, and there was nothing he liked, now he felt that he was the one who was hated. Everything hated him, his wife hated him, that dumb salesman hated him, his car hated him, the forest hated him, the sky hated him, his body hated him, even his shorts hated him and wanted to get off him as soon as possible. He felt like the most wretched and miserable thing in existence, worthy only of pity.
Emotions raced through his mind, and tears began to well up in his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to cry, to wail and bemoan his plight. Then he saw his father in his mind, that ugly face contorted in rage, wordlessly accusing him of being soft and weak like a woman. With great effort he brought his emotions under control, wiped the tears from his eyes with his wing, and hardened his heart. He continued his journey.
At first, he found that it was surprisingly easy to walk as he adjusted to the physical changes to his body, though his shorts were still trying to slip and trip him. Just as he was beginning to think that things were finally looking up for him, he suddenly fell face first to the ground. Spitting a mouthful of disgusting dirt out and growling, he looked to see the cause of his fall. He was horrified to see that his legs had seemingly broken themselves, and the pink dryness had formed into hard scales. Looking forwards, he spied a fallen grey tree that looked somewhat safe, and he dragged himself forwards towards it as his shorts pulled themselves off his legs, not caring what happened to them anymore. After what felt like forever he reached the tree, pulled himself up it with great heaves, and twisted himself around so that he was seated. He watched in horror and wonder as his lower legs bent and twisted before his eyes, and soon they came to resemble bird legs, and his heels had been replaced with backwards fourth toes. Indeed, his toes now ended with short blue claws perfect for gripping onto branches and poles. Looking down at himself, he saw that his entire body was covered in the green fuzz, and as he stared, he noticed that the fuzz was only getting thicker and fluffier, like that of a bird. He shook his head, hardened his heart, and got up. He didn't care what was happening to him anymore, he needed to get out of here.
~~~
She stared at the forest, bewildered at what she was seeing. First the path had disappeared, now the forest was looking like something from a sci fi movie. Perhaps the rumors were true, perhaps the forest truly was cursed. Then she turned her eyes from trees and turned them to her arm, straightening it out as she did so. Under the feathers she could see the well-defined muscles, and she balled up her fist and felt the strength in them. If this was a curse that she was experiencing, then it must be a blessing as well.
The woman brought her eyes back up to the forest and scanned it, thinking of her husband. That foolish man sowed the wind, now he was reaping the whirlwind. He wanted to go marching through untamed wilderness, well, he got untamed wilderness, more untamed than the deepest darkest depths of the Amazon. The alien plants appeared mean and cruel, and she was certain that whatever life dwelled within them was as unfriendly as the trees themselves looked. What had he ever done for her? Nothing but berate her for not having his Salisbury steak in the microwave five minutes ago and beat her whenever he lost a job. Well, she certainly didn't need him anymore, for she was now strong and free.
Then emotions began flowing through her mind, strange emotions which she did not recognize. She began pacing back and forth in the clearing, trying to understand what these emotions were. She hated and feared the man, but she was feeling something about him, something she could not put her claw on. The woman spent some time in thought before suddenly realizing what these emotions were. They were love, and care. At this she stopped her pacing, freezing still like a statue.
Love? Maybe she loved him a little bit when they first married, when he had put on a thin veneer of being a decent person, but she hadn't felt any love for him for almost as long as they were together. So why was she feeling love for him now, when he was responsible for getting them into this mess. She began walking again, but this time her feet seemed to move against her will and brought her to the edge of the clearing. She looked down, seeing the faintest signs of his footprints before she raised her head and peered between the trees, wondering why she cared about him now. He deserved it, he deserved all of it for being so pigheaded, but soon she felt that her love and care for him rivaled her hate and fear of him, and her mind was sent into a tumultuous pell-mell of conflicting desires.
Should she go after him or leave him to his fate? Did she love him or hate him? Why did she love him now? The changes which were happening to the forest and her body were nothing compared to the changes to her mind, and she gripped her head as though she could catch her wandering thoughts in them. As she gave thought to these emotions, she came to realize that her feelings towards him were taking on strange dimensions. He was still her husband, yes, but she came to realize that she felt protective towards him, concerned for him. She had never had children, she and her husband never had the energy or desire to do so, but she had seen the way young mothers at church looked upon their children, and she now knew that her newfound care for her husband was the same care which those young mothers showed. She somehow knew that if she went into that forest that she would never return to the clearing, no matter how well she kept track of the way back. At that moment she knew what she needed to do. If she stayed in the clearing, she would be both doomed for there was no food or shelter and damned for abandoning her husband, and so she plunged into the forest.
The way was very hard. The signs of her husband were already faint in the clearing, and now they were completely gone leaving her to guess which way he would have taken, and running over flat ground was nothing like trekking through dense forest. The surface of the forest was uneven, and there were strange fleshy growths which she was afraid of stepping on. Frustrated, she rested against a tree which looked less menacing. It was hopeless, she thought. Even if she were to somehow come upon signs of her husband's path, she was certain that he was miles away by now and she would never catch up at this pace. Suddenly she felt pressure in her legs, and she feared that she was going to fall over before she managed to stabilize herself on the tree. Looking down she saw that her lower legs were shortening at the same time as her heels were elongating, and her toes were now enormous. Soon she saw that her legs now looked very much like those of a Velociraptor, covered with scales below the knees, the rest covered with feathers. Pressure was also felt in her back, and as she looked forwards, she saw that her chest was thrust forwards, her entire body changing to make her perpetually forwards. Wondering how she was going to balance now, her concern turned out to be unfounded for a sharp but brief pain suddenly came from behind, and as she turned her head and looked down, she saw a spike of bone and muscle emerge from the base of her spine. Staring, the spike grew in length and width rapidly, becoming covered in feathers as it did so, and as it began to angle upwards, she recognized it as a tail. Soon it reached up to above the level of her head, large feathers erupting from the tip before the growth stopped.
She waved it back and forth, marveling as she did so. The tail only existed half a minute ago, yet she felt like she had been born with it. Then something dark appeared at the bottom of her vision, prompting her to rub it, and she felt that it was hard. She brought her attention back to her leg, lifted it up, and flexed her toes, amazed at how fast her new claws sliced through the air, and thought that they appeared larger and sharper than many butcher knives she had seen. While she might not be able to strike down one thousand warriors with the jawbone of an ass, she felt like she could strike down a full score of men with her strong legs and sharp claws. She brought her view back to the forest and thought that while it was still appearing alien, it was starting to feel more familiar, like she had been here before. She took off.
At first, she took slow and careful steps, but she quickly increased her pace until her strides became very long and taken with bold speed, and occasionally she even leaped over treacherous looking stoney bushes. Her arms were tucked close against her body as she raced at breakneck speed, swerving between trees with incredible ease, feeling faster than a track runner and possessing better balance than a ballerina. She knew what she needed to do, she needed to find her husband. She just hoped that he was ok and wasn't hurt.
~~~
He managed to go five steps before falling over again, though this time he caught himself on a rock before he could eat dirt. Looking behind him, he wondered what it was this time. It looked like some giant had just kicked him in the back permanently deforming it, and some sort of stick was growing outwards just above his butt. Looking closer, he saw that it was made of bone and muscle. Shocked, he watched as it grew swiftly, and he noticed that growing on it was that green fuzz. The stick went far before the tip of it exploded with bright white feathers of great size, and he realized that the stick was a tail. Growling, he hardened his heart and pushed himself back up onto his feet. He tried to walk as he did before but found that doing so only made him stumble around. Once he adjusted his gait to account for the weight of his tail he stopped stumbling, and after a few steps he began to get used to it.
The man continued for some distance, not bothering to keep track of either the time or the distance. 'This is not real' he thought. It was impossible, this should not be happening. Yet it felt real, horribly real, and he knew that there was no escape from it. Eventually he came upon a small clearing, empty save for a few scattered rocks and a small pond of water. Upon spotting the water he was reminded of his thirst, for he hadn't had water in a long time. He walked straight towards it and saw that it was clear, and he found it strange that the water wasn't ugly or gross looking like the rest of the forest. Not caring what the explanation was, he went down to his knees and plunged his head into it. He removed his head from the cool water and gripped his throat, half-choking for he had drunk too greedily from it. By the time he had finished coughing up water he noticed that the pond was now still again, and in the reflection on its surface he saw a strange creature.
It resembled a big humanoid bird covered with green and purple feathers, its beak pink, and eyes green. On its arms were big folded up wings, colored green like the rest of its body, and the purple feathers on its head hung down like hair and flowed past its shoulders in a very feminine manner. Below the knees were bird-like legs and feet, covered in pink scales. Immediately he cursed himself for not paying attention as he turned his head, but behind him he saw nothing. Spinning around, he saw that the clearing was still devoid of life, but when he returned his gaze to the pond the alien creature was still there, staring back. The man opened his mouth, and the thing opened its beak in response, and as he closed his mouth the things beak shut. A creeping sensation began to take him as he raised an arm up and saw that the thing raised its arm as well, and as he looked at his arm, he saw the green wing folded against it, the exact same green wing which the creature in the reflection had. He stared at the creature, puzzled, before the realization hit him like a truck.
He had saw his body become covered in feathered fluff, watched as fingers turned into wings and legs became scaled and digitigrade, observed a beak emerge from his face, but somehow, he had failed to understand what was happening to him until the truth was literally staring him in the face. He had transformed into an alien bird.
The man opened his beak to scream in horror, but before any sound could come from his mouth something stopped him. Wondering, he stared into the water and carefully observed his new body. His once bloated belly had completely disappeared so that his tummy was now perfectly flat, and his waistline had shrunk to one fifth of its original size so that his hips were now slightly wider than his waist was. Unhealthy angry skin had been replaced with warm colorful feathers, and as he ran a hand through his head feathers, he felt that they were silky smooth. As he continued looking at himself, he saw a pair of pink horns emerge and protrude upwards from the top of his beak. He thought that the horns looked very much like those tiaras princesses always wore in the movies which teachers occasionally showed, back when he was in public school. Looking down, he saw that he was wearing nothing, his underwear having come off with the shorts long ago, but he did not feel embarrassed for now his feathers and scales provided better protection than any sweat-stained shirt could. Still looking down, he saw that the area between his legs had become featureless. A thought which he found to be somewhat naughty sprang into his mind, and he gingerly reached down between his legs with one hand and proceeded to poke and prod. With a gasp he drew his hand back immediately. He was still a man, not a woman.
Then he looked back at his reflection. 'I look like a woman' he thought. Yes, though he was still a man he found that he looked far more like a woman now. He put a hand on his hip and struck a pose like what he saw women on magazine covers do. He had never been a handsome man even during his best years, and his best years were disappointingly short. But now he found that he looked nice, pleasant, attractive even. He remembered what his father had said about the importance of being a man and not a woman, but... perhaps he was wrong? At this thought he raised his arms to his sides and unfurled the wings, watching them stretch outwards. Then he began spinning, slowly at first but quickly gaining speed, and he laughed as he spun, his fears and cares no longer weighing him down. When he stopped spinning, he looked back into the water.
There were no more physical changes, but now his feathers appeared to become more vibrant and colorful, and his horns seemed to shine almost as bright as the sun. "I am beautiful" he said to himself, his voice coming out in a high pitch. His father was wrong, it was good to look like a woman. He was now more beautiful than any of those movie princesses or magazine models, and he loved it. Laughing again, he brought his gaze up from the pond back to the alien forest, and he remembered his wife. His heart softened, and his joy turned to sadness. He regretted running off and thought that he should have never left his wife. He couldn't remember what he and his wife were arguing about, but it was doubtlessly over something small and stupid, and now he was out here all alone. Tears began to well up in his eyes, and he wanted to cry. He shook his head and forced down his emotions. He needed to be strong, he needed to be tough, and so he tried to remember the words of his father but found that he never remembered his father saying those words. He remembered the face of his father very clearly, for his father looked much like he himself did, with the only differences being his blue beak and orange feathers. That couldn't be right, his father wasn't a bird man, his father was... what was his father? He knew what he was, the word was right on the tip of his tongue, but no matter how hard he tried he just could not remember it.
Frustrated, he noticed that the clearing had suddenly become covered in shadow, so he looked up and saw a mountain, tall and fierce, rising high into the sky with the sun hiding behind it. 'A Nevrean' he realized, and he clucked at his foolishness. Of course, his father was a Nevrean just as he was, their people named after the mountains which protected them from the dangers of the outside world. How could he possibly forget that? He had clearly been spending too much time in the Talyxian forest. The Nevrean man scanned the perimeter of the clearing, hoping to catch a glimpse of his wife. Deep in his heart he still felt a desire to be strong, tough, and independent, but he did not know where these feelings came from. No one had ever taught him them, not his mother, not his father, nor his wife. The thoughts seemed to come from a deep and dark place in his mind, existing without a frame of reference.
He found a rock and sat down on it to wait. He had messed things up badly enough running off without her, the least he could do was to not make things worse. It wasn't long before his solitude was interrupted. A noise came from the forest, a strange and sinister hooting. At this he sprang up to his feet and peered into the forest, shaking as he did so. Some time passed, and he was beginning to think that perhaps it was merely a figment of his paranoid imagination when it came again, louder, and closer. Panick took him, and he turned around and ran blindly into the forest.
He did not know how long he had been running, but eventually he was forced to stop. The Talyxian trees thinned and eventually cleared out, and opening before him was a ravine. It was very wide, and as he peered into its depths, he saw cruel rocks deep below. Looking behind him he did not see anything, but he could only assume that whatever it was, it was still on his tail. Turning to the side, he noticed a very tall grey tree with numerous branches, then he looked down at his arms and got an idea. He gripped the lowest branch and began climbing, finding that his light weight and clawed feet made it incredibly easy to ascend. Soon he was on the highest branch that could support his weight, balancing on his two feet. He looked down once again and saw the bottom of the ravine, which only looked more lethal from up here. What if his plan failed? What if he failed to keep control and he plummeted into its depths? He remembered the wicked sound he had heard back at the clearing and decided that crashing to his death was preferable to being eaten alive. He spread out his arms, unfurled his wings, and leaped.
At first, he thought he wouldn't make it, that he would smash headfirst into the cliffside and be knocked unconscious, but at that moment a strong breeze picked up and carried him clear across the ravine. Too amazed to say anything, he used his tail as a rudder to control his descent. He angled his body to slow down, but he did not know how to do so properly and ended up slamming into a soft mound of dirt. He laid there for half a minute before getting up, looking himself over. While he was glad that he didn't crash land into anything nasty, he would need a long hot bath and careful preening before he was ever free of the grime. Shrugging, he walked off. He had successfully escaped the monster and was now safe. Things were looking up for him. Then the ground gave way beneath him.
Down he went, tumbling and turning as stones struck him, until he eventually came to a stop. He was lying down, and as he looked up, he saw what had happened. So lost in self-satisfaction was he that he failed to notice that he had walked into a short but steep sinkhole in the ground, where he accidentally stepped on a pile of loose rocks and caused a mini landslide. He tried to move but found that he could not and turning his head he saw that a rock had come down on top of his leg. He tried to pull it out with all his strength but to no avail. 'I am Stuck' he thought.
The Nervrean man's thoughts turned inwards. He was silly, a silly Nevrean, and he had finally undone himself in his silliness. He remembered clearly why he had gone marching into the forest. His wife had gone to pick mushrooms and took him with her. They came upon a clearing with a good number of safe Talyxian mushrooms, so she set herself to picking them and wanted him to help, but he said that he wanted to go on an adventure through the forest instead. She told him no, he got angry at her, they yelled, then he stamped off into the forest and did not stop. His wife did not follow him because he usually came back quickly, but something about the argument had really flustered him so he kept marching on, refusing to return. He wanted to go on an adventure but look where his adventurous spirit got him. Stuck and all alone
He looked up and saw that the sun was going far behind the mountains, and soon it would be gone, and he would be alone in the dark. If he was lucky, he would die a slow and painful death of exposure to the elements, and he reckoned that he would be a rather easy and tasty treat for some nasty beast. He was going to die, all because of his foolishness, all because he had run off from his wife. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he opened his beak and let out a shrill cry, loud and echoing.
He did not want to be strong anymore, he did not want to be tough or independent. He wanted, nay, needed his wife. He needed her to come save him from his foolishness, he needed her to pick him up and bring him home, he needed her to feed him hot food, he needed her to wash the dirt from his feathers, he needed her to clothe him in clean clothes, he needed her, and she was not there. His cry rose out from the drop and carried deep into the forest.
~~~
She came upon a small clearing and slowed down, taking note of the rocks and small pond within it. She had not seen any signs of her husband since leaving the large clearing, but she knew what way he would take. The forest was treacherous and dangerous even for her to navigate, and she imagined that it would be doubly so for her husband, so it would stand to reason that he would take the path of least resistance with the fewest obstacles and the flattest ground. She followed this invisible path, and that was what led her to the clearing.
Walking over to the pond, she noticed two sets of tracks. One set of tracks looked strange, as though something walked over the ground with tendrils. She observed these prints and saw that whatever they belonged to must have come into the clearing some time ago, but finding no meal, it left quickly to go back where it had come. But it was the second set of tracks that really caught her attention. The prints had four toes, three forward facing and one backwards, resembling bird feet, though she couldn't imagine what bird species would have perching feet of that size. Looking closer, she somehow knew that they belonged to her husband's, though she had no idea how and she was certain that her husband did not have bird feet. Following the tracks with her eyes, she saw that they led off into the forest. She sighed in relief, glad that whatever creature had come through here had done so after her husband had left. The woman had half a mind to immediately launch back into the hunt, but something held her back.
Looking back, she saw the clear, clean water of the pond, and at that moment she felt a burning in her throat. She had been running nonstop for hours now, and if she didn't stop and rest now, she would certainly pass out. She went down to her knees, tempted to plunge her face into the water, but she restrained herself. Looking into the water, she saw the black thing in her vision and, taking a hand from the ground and feeling it, now realized that it was a beak. Remembering how she had seen blue jays drink, she opened her beak, dipped it into the water, closed it, and brought her head up, letting the cool water run down her throat. She repeated this until she was satisfied, then she noticed how amazingly reflective the water was and decided to look at herself.
What she saw in the reflection was certainly not human anymore, and she found that she truly did look a lot like a velociraptor, a feathered one. Emerging from her face was a black beak, the same one which she had just used to drink from the pond, and she saw that it was thick, heavy, and strong. Covering her body were a mix of black and dark grey feathers, with grey scales covering her lower legs and feet. Her hands had four fingers ending in sharp claws, and her once shoulder length hair had turned to feathers and now went down only to the level of her earholes, though she found that this looked surprisingly fashionable. While she might look an awful lot like a dinosaur now, she was smarter and more beautiful than any dumb prehistoric beast.
She angled her head to get a better view of it, and she raised up an arm and flexed it. Even under the feathers she could see her muscles form into a heavy ball, and she grinned, noticing as she did so that there were large white fangs in her beak, appearing to her imagination to be as sharp and shining as polished scimitars. She thought that while she might not have the cunning of Queen Esther, she had far more brawns. Looking up from her reflection she noted the location of the sun far behind the mountains, and she realized that it would soon be nighttime. She needed to find her husband, and fast. Glancing back down at the pond, she saw that the water was no longer clear but had now taken on a pink and unhealthy hue. 'Talyxian microorganisms' she thought. This was a Talyxian forest she was in, a thin one that was relatively safe and stable, but Talyxian nonetheless, so water sources were often dangerous to drink from. What she found strange was that the pond had been clear just a few seconds ago, in fact she had drank from it safely and saw her own reflection in it. She shook her head and shrugged, thankful that she was able to refresh herself before the water went bad. Then she heard the sound.
A shrill echoing cry came from the forest. 'My husband' she thought as she spun around in its direction, seeing that the footprints of her husband led in the direction of the sound. He was in danger. She immediately took off running, taking deep breaths as she did so and ignoring the pain in her chest. Sprinting hard, she saw the trees begin to thin out, and she knew what was coming before she saw it. But she did not slow, but rather she struck the ground with such force that dirt was kicked up and sent flying behind her. Right as she was about to tumble into empty air, she planted both feet on the edge of the ravine and leaped. Far and high she sailed through the air across the ravine, and though she missed the edge she dug her claws deep into the dirt on the opposite side and halted her descent, before swiftly clambering up and over the edge.
Running, she saw the ground open before her and she stopped, her heart hammering in her chest. The tracks led to here before suddenly stopping right at the edge of the sinkhole. She walked carefully to the edge and looked over, and that was when she saw him.
There he was at the bottom, and in the dim twilight his green feathers seemed to shine even when covered in dirt. His head turned to face hers, and as she locked eyes with him she had to suppress a laugh. Somewhere far in the back of her mind was a sense of fear, but not fear for her husband but rather of him, of what he could do to her if she found him. But seeing him in this state now, she saw that this notion was incredibly silly. Even by the standards of Nevrean men her husband was short, and he was more feather than flesh and bone. Leaping down to land next to him, she saw the rock on his leg. Fearing that his leg was broken, she took up a position and pushed it off him, then she breathed a sigh of relief. The rock which had been pinning him down had rolled onto him in such a way that it did not crush his legs, leaving them merely bruised and lightly scraped.
She looked at him, having half a mind to chastise him for his foolishness when something made her stop. His emerald, green eyes were looking straight into hers, and in them she saw that his sorrow and regret was great, and she saw that there was no need to reprimand him. Instead, she pulled him close, letting him lean his head against her chest to feel the rhythm of his breathing. They did this for a while until the last rays of light disappeared and the stars revealed themselves in the sky. Then slowly, carefully, she lifted him up in her strong arms and carried him up a slope which led out of the sinkhole.
~~~
They lay down together, his head resting in her lap as she leaned her back against the trunk of the tree. She looked down and saw the ground far below them. Though it was dark, and her night vision was poor, the moon was full, and the stars were shining brightly down on them, so they were able to make good progress until they had found a large safe tree. Climbing up, they found a branch suitable for the both of them, and so they took shelter for the night. While it still wasn't perfectly safe, she was certain that nothing would notice them as long as they remained quiet. They had somehow lost the clothes they had left the village with, but their combined body heat was ample protection from the high-altitude night chill. She turned her gaze from the ground and looked up into the night sky. The stars were up there, the same stars which she had seen since she was a hatchling, but for some reason she felt as though they were clearer and more beautiful than ever before. Then her thoughts turned to what they would do when the sun rose. They weren't very far from the village, only a couple days of steady hiking away, and they could've perhaps even made it back in one day had it not been for her husband's condition. He wasn't seriously injured, but he showed signs of overexertion, so she did not want to push him. Her mother was a skilled hunter who had taught her the way of paths, so she did not worry about finding her way back home. She looked down from the sky and turned her gaze to the head on her lap, watching the gentle rising and falling of his chest. Her husband was fast asleep now, his soft purple head feathers flowing down her legs and coming to rest on the tree, his tail twitching slightly every now and then.
Watching him now, she thought that she didn't care what he had done anymore. He was once lost, and now he was found, and for that she was glad. She vaguely remembered knowing some sort of parable for this exact situation spoken by a wise person once, but she couldn't quite bring it into her mind. It had something to do with sheep, she was certain, though she did not know what a sheep was. Probably some sort of dim and slow Talyxian creature. She shook her head slightly. While moral stories were nice and all, what mattered most was that she and her husband were back together, safe and sound. As her husband slept, he saw his father, but there were no more ugly visages or evil words but instead he saw beautiful faces and heard wonderful songs.
Epilogue
"I kissed a man!" he proclaimed as he burst through the doorway. "Hm, really? Tell me all about it" she replied as she looked up at her husband from the plant roots she had been chopping with a large knife. "Oh, it was wonderful" he said as he spun and leaped around the room. "I was taking a walk around the hills when I met him painting a beautiful creek. He's a son of that large family, you know, the one with all those nice paints and dyes. Well, I met him painting, and so I stopped and talked with him about paints and dyes and streams, I don't know how long we were talking but it felt like forever. Then, we touched the tips of our beaks together, for a second! It was only one second, but it was the most magical second of my life!" As he said this, he stopped spinning, walked to the door, and went back out. Wondering why he was leaving so quickly, she put down her knife and followed him out, where she saw him perched and ready to launch from the edge of the wooden walkway which their doorway led out to.
"Now where do you think you are going?" She said, putting her hands on her hips. He turned to her and grinned. "I promised some of the boys that I was going to skip stones with them, and I very well can't disappoint them!" he spoke. "Well, make sure to enjoy your time" she said. Without a word he faced forwards and leaped. She watched her husband glide away, his green and purple feathers catching the sun in dazzling patterns as he shrank into the distance. Then she turned her head and took in the sights of the village.
The village was set in a cut deep in the mountainside, and everywhere she looked there was activity. The air was filled with the labor of Nevrean women and the singing of Nevrean men, and everywhere she looked there was activity. Nevreans were making their way either along walkways or up and down many stairs, and a lot of them were leaping and gliding. The Nevrean women were hard at work building and repairing huts of sturdy red clay, carrying pots and baskets, and hauling either fuel or the cleaned corpses of those Talyxian creatures which were safe for consumption. The Nevrean men were singing, chatting, dancing, or putting their hands to arts and crafts. As she watched this dizzying display of vibrant life she thought briefly about the history of their village.
This village was relatively new, only having been started a few generations ago. At first the village was very small for there were few Nevreans, but it grew swiftly so it was now quite large. Every day it felt like more Nevreans appeared, adding to the village, and making it ever larger. Of course, these Nevreans were never strangers, they had always been a part of the village and were merely returning. Yes, some of them said strange things and muttered odd names, a side effect of spending too much time in the Talyxian biome, but a few days of clear mountain air and good healthy food always brought them back to their senses and reminded them who they were and where they belonged.
Something brushed past her legs, and she looked down. Running by her were three balls of fluff, giggling as they speedily headed down the walkway. They were her children. "Stay safe!" she called out, but she knew that she did not need to worry, for the village folk would make sure of that. Strange, she and her husband had failed to produce children for the several years of their marriage up until that eventful day, but afterwards she and her husband had gone to that secret place once a year, and each time they produced an egg.
'Three years' she thought. It was truly amazing what had happened in the three years which had passed since that day. The Talyxian forest which was close to the village was very safe and stable with few truly dangerous creatures in it. But on that one day, her husband had seen it fit to turn what should have been a routine mushroom run into a feather-raising adventure, and ever since then something had changed between them, as though some missing link had clicked together. It was kind of odd that their clay hut had burned down to nothing in the few days in which they were gone from the village, but her fellow Nevreans seemed to understand without judgement. They helped in rebuilding her home so that it was much larger than the one before, almost as though her neighbors knew that she and her husband would be rapidly growing their family. Who should she thank for this good fortune? She turned her eyes in the direction of Vilous, the light of life, and thanked the Guardian Spirits who had granted her people the Nev mountains to keep them safe from the depredations of the Talyxian Biome.
She stood there, enjoying the sight of the village when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw her neighbor Yami standing in the middle of the walkway. He was a tall, slender Nevrean man with bright gold and yellow feathers, and his eyes were blue. What struck her as odd was that he appeared to be very confused as he was looking out at the view. She approached him. "Good morning Yami" she said.
Startled, he quickly turned to her. "Oh, I'm sorry ma'am, you must be mistaken. I am not Yami, my name is Larry. Indeed, this is all a big mistake, a big misunderstanding, I really must explain it all. You see, I was on a business trip when my company car broke down, right next to the forest. My boss promised me that it was a good car, but I digress. There was no cell connection, so I walked a little ways down the road looking for a callbox and I could have sworn that I kept that car in view, but when I turned back it had gone! Then the road disappeared, then the forest started looking weird and purple, then one thing led to another and now here I am, looking rather, uh... marketable". At these last words he raised an arm and looked at the yellow feathers protruding from it. Then he put his hands on his hips and looked back across the village. "Great lot of good my boy scout training did me" he said.
She knew exactly what was happening. Her neighbor Yami was suffering from a severe case of the Talyxian influence. Thankfully, she knew just what to do. She took a step towards him, catching his attention. "Come inside my home. We will talk and eat hot food" she said. Yami, or as he called himself Larry put his hands up in protest. "Oh, thank you madam, but I really do not want to intrude on your hospitality". She grinned, put a firm hand on his left shoulder, and began walking him towards her home. "Nonsense. My family has more food than we need, it will spoil otherwise". "Well, if you insist, I guess" Larry said as he disappeared through the doorway with her.
The End
Note 1: According to the Vilous wiki, female Nevreans stand at an average height of 4 feet 9 inches, whereas the average height of an American woman is 5 feet 4 inches, so why is the woman in the story growing instead of shrinking? The answer is that the woman in question is exceptionally short standing at 4 feet 7 inches and is badly malnourished, and the female Nevrean she transforms into is a very large one standing at 5 feet 1 inches and heavily built.
Note 2: Yes, the Biblical allusions were on purpose. Pharaoh hardened his heart five times and it ended with his kingdom wrecked, his chariots smashed, and his workforce gone. An angry drunk guy hardens his heart five times, and it ends with him being turned into a crybaby of an avian who will spend the rest of his life under the thumb of his wife. I would say the results are equivalent.
The short of it: A fat angry country hick is cured of his toxic masculinity by being turned into a sissy avian femboy and dominated by his buff mommy dommy raptor wife.
The long of it: A husband and a wife, their relationship riven with strife, find themselves lost deep within mysterious changing woods. They desperately try to to find a way out, unaware that it is not just the forest which is changing...
Nevreans ©
The long of it: A husband and a wife, their relationship riven with strife, find themselves lost deep within mysterious changing woods. They desperately try to to find a way out, unaware that it is not just the forest which is changing...
Nevreans ©
Category Story / Transformation
Species Nevrean
Gender Any
Size 120 x 80px
Enjoyed the story, like how it turned out! Think this is the first Nevrean transformation I've read, so that was pretty neat
Aw, thanks! The idea behind the story is that while it isn't a tftg, with the differences between Nevrean males and females it might as well be.
Fair, makes sense with the switch in roles/mentality. Also liked the inclusion that these two probably weren't the first to change, or the last.
What's the point of transformation if you can't share it's wonders with others?
Comments