34th of Glade
Vivian finally felt ready to practice his homework. Degare Secorro had told him he needed to practice chimerism; as a founding principle of the magic he found himself with, he needed repetition and reinforcement. He had been practicing small expenditures of ether all morning; reinforcing his fingernails with flea armor or changing the tip of his tongue to the branching proboscis of a hammerhead worm. Now, as he stood on the front lawn in the early evening, he felt ready to truly transform. He wanted to combine all of his forms, and see how far he could travel with them.
Maybe it was a bit ambitious, but perhaps he could learn more about the whole of each of them by using parts. He looked back at Bara, who was contentedly munching away in a nosebag. He was staked out, he would be fine. He readied himself, breathing deeply and focusing his ether. He thought of Bara’s form. That frame of four hooved feet, swishing tail and powerful neck. His fingers melted together into one, the tip of the last becoming spadelike. It swallowed his entire hand. His elbows shrunk up against his body, and his wrist lengthened and thickened. His femurs shrunk, becoming thick and short, supporting his rapidly growing feet. His heels cricked up and became proper hocks, his hip bones snapped in half and traveled to either side of his spine to become the cradle for a heavier structure.
Vivian’s neck expanded and arched forward. Now…he envisioned Bara’s smooth skin, hair gone. No swishing tail, prickly whiskers or short mane. No hair at all. Just smooth slimy skin, with a incredible pattern of cream and black bars down his back and flanks. Now for the head. His skull dissolved and flattened out, becoming absent of hair, eyes or teeth. His ears he kept, becoming short protrusions at the back of the head. He needed eyes, so he took them from the flea. Small, predatory eyes at the top of the flowery, red head. His tail lengthened, and mucus sprouted across his skin.
Vivian stood on the lawn, a perfect blend of worm and mule. His mouth was a soft slit hidden under the sensitive sweeping lip of his head. Experimentally, he took a step forward. He moved easily in this form, the flea’s eyes giving him a clear view of the world around him. They were tiny, and hidden amongst the black and red patterning on his head. He breathed through his skin and mouth. Vivian took a moment to assess the form. It was predatory; apparently the hunger of the worm and flea overtook the more passive mule. There were strong instincts from all three of the forms to eat and fuck, the basic wants of any creature that found itself in a safe environment.
It was the hunger that struck him strongest. Vivian swung his head around on his powerful equine neck, and began to walk. Alright. A short distance up the road and back. In the middle of the night he could easily be mistaken for a horse. He walked easily, taking time to evaluate what he’d made. The spine started about halfway down the neck and ended shortly after his rear, giving his tail and head amazing flexibility. The worm was elastic, and Vivian recalled that when he’d first imprinted it had eaten a member of its own species at least two thirds the size of itself.
There was a strong undercurrent of the need to breed that came from all three forms. This chimera was inherently hermaphroditic…there was a heavy penis and sheath, but a genital slit under his tail similar to that of the flea and worm. He had ovaries, quite useless…nothing like this existed in nature and he was fairly sure no stallion would have the stomach to try.
Vivian shook his head, wiggling the broad crescent structure. It was so…sensitive. He could taste scent on the air. Prey, prey everywhere. Meat everywhere. He kept moving, reminding himself that there was food back at the estate. He really didn’t need to be eating things out here. That would also raise questions. He turned to head back toward the slums and familiar territory. The night was relatively peaceful, and it seemed the few drunks still awake were happy to dismiss him at a distance as a weird horse. That suited Vivian just fine.
A thin scream pierced the night, and Vivian’s ears swiveled forward. He accelerated into a trot, his heavy hooves clopping on the cobblestone street. At this hour, that had to be one of his own…another hapless streetwalker. He spotted her in an alleyway, shoved up against the wall. A man was groping at her, and she was doing her best to defend herself. Streetwalkers like her and Vivian were feisty when cornered, and this woman was no exception. She punched him twice before he slammed her head into the brick. Vivian’s head blushed a deeper crimson, that spread down his neck and across his shoulders in rage.
He’d been that whore more times than he’d wanted to admit. Some drunk got too strong and decided he wanted to take it for free. Vivian lunged toward the alleyway, and without thinking lashed out. His proboscis wrapped around the man’s head and throat like a net, neatly peeling him off the woman.
The taste hit him almost instantly. Struggling, warm prey. Breathing, fresh and alive. He stood still for a moment, spreading the white tendrils across the screaming man’s face and neck. Warm blood pulsed in his neck, and he could taste the salt of his skin. The woman paled, stumbling away from the monster and her assailant.
The man, getting over his shock, tried to peel the tongue off of himself. No. No no. Prey didn’t get away. Vivian dragged the man closer, wrapping more tendrils around his chest and the trunk of his body.
“Help me!” The man screamed.
Vivian’s lips closed over his head, and his mouth stretched wide. He could still breathe through his skin while swallowing struggling prey this large, but it wasn’t something he could sustain forever. He had to stay still. The screams were muffled in his throat. Vivian’s lips crawled down over his arms, trapping those clawing hands to his victim’s sides. He used that strong neck to lift him into the air, watching his legs kick wildly. His tongue wrapped around the man’s hips, easily peeling his clothing off. He didn’t need to swallow any belts or steel. Tendrils slid between the man’s legs in a mocking imitation of what the drunk had been doing to his own victim just minutes before.
Vivian gathered his muscles, and slurped the man down. His legs still kicked weakly, and as his lips closed over the man’s toes and shook off a boot he could still feel him kick. Vivian swallowed again, shoving the man’s shoulders into his stomach. Little chambers closed off in his throat, folding his victim up in his stomach for digestion. He gulped in air to compensate for using gas exchange in his skin, and felt his victim stir a bit. Ah, right. Gas diffused through his stomach and esophagus just like the worm did; his victim would get some of that air he’d been lacking.
Vivian felt him flail and kick, and closed his mouth again. The worm wanted warmth and safety to digest. Vivian gulped in air again. A thin scream escaped up his neck and out of his mouth, muffled from its journey up from the stomach. Vivian had to walk slowly back to the estate, his victim squirming and kicking and screaming. Shh now…poison flooded his gut. The kicking shuddered, becoming erratic. It wasn’t enough to kill the man.
No, the worm didn’t care that his meat could feel every moment. Vivian slowly settled down on the lawn, folding his legs underneath him. Still. It was quite a lot of food. He squeezed his stomach in discomfort, and felt a wet crack and a pop. The taste of blood and viscera filled his mouth, flooding up his esophagus before it pooled back down in his gut. Oops. He’d popped him.
Hours later, Vivian couldn’t hold the form any longer, but his prey presented a unique problem. The form shuddered. He began to change back, and his throat expanded powerfully. He regurgitated what was left of the corpse…half digested bones and guts slid out of his mouth, coated in mucus and poison. Vivian felt his bones cracking and becoming smaller, lighter. In the case of his skull…regrowing entirely.
He was a shivering, naked mess on the lawn, but back to his normal form. He blinked blearily. Meat? Still some in his stomach but he hadn’t been able to fit it all. He shoved the thoughts away. That wasn’t him, that was the worm. The hunter.
Vivian blinked his human eyes, and saw the half-digested mass. It was gelatinous, and pink from acid having digested most of the blood. The large meaty portions were still in his stomach. He felt bloated, like he’d been after bolting sausages in Degare’s pantry.
Oh god.
He could see a skull.
Vivian’s hand clapped over his mouth and he scrambled in the grass away from the mess of very human bones. He could see a little bit of the brains, the rest of which were gurgling away in his gut. Intestines that had come out, roplelike, from his muscular throat.
He leaned forward and vomited the rest of it up in the grass.
He’d murdered a man. Not just murdered…digested him alive. He heaved, eyes watering and stomach cramping, until nothing but thin yellow bile was coming out of his lips.
Gods…what was he going to tell the Veir?!
