A.N)- There seems to be a pattern here. A pattern of fornicating with authors notes.
I stared at the patches of white on my otherwise tan skin… It… it looked like a skin condition I'd seen before while at work…
Was… was this normal? Or… I hadn't known that was in my genetics. And… and I didn't think that any vitamin deficiencies would lead to this… could they…?
Beneath the multicolored glow of the crystals in the main cavern, I sat on the hood of my car, staring at my forearms… I'd recently taken down another of those big bear hollows. I'd been ranging further and further from my temple… okay, 'my' temple only in so much as I was the only resident.
It had to be… right? This was normal when you had a primarily meat diet, right…?
I mean… it wasn't scurvy but…
My hand clenched into a fist so hard that my bones creaked and it trembled, nails drawing blood from my palm.
They didn't hurt! I wasn't sore or achy or anything, I just… had white patches on my skin now. Totally normal.
…
Totally normal…
A shuddering breath escaped me as I looked away, unable to keep looking at my hand as I let it open… "… what am I doing to myself…"
The familiar walls of the temple became blurry as hot tears started to gather in my eyes before slowly sliding down my cheeks as I curled up into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest. My eyes scrunched closed as I took another shuddering breath, laying my head against my knees. I couldn't lie to myself… no matter how much I wanted to. I was changing, I wasn't… I didn't know what was going on and it terrified me, the realization of what was happening crashing down on me from the undeniable patches on my skin…
The sharper teeth? Getting worn down weird. The hair? I'd already been going gray before all of this, young or not. The strength had just been too useful to question too much. But this…? This I couldn't just ignore.
I sighed, hugging myself tightly despite the terrible weight in my gut.
Eating these things was changing me…
But… but I was so hungry.
I was ranging further and further out in search of food, getting further away from my Temple. The deer were getting smart and staying away… and these things were just coming straight to me… I…
Slowly, I breathed in deep, filling my lungs entirely with air, taking in all of my fear, my horror, all of the negative bullshit… and then blew it out with my breath, emptying my lungs entirely.
Tears still flowed down my cheeks, but I felt at least a bit better. I needed to find an alternative food source, I needed to go out and try and find civilization, and I needed to accept that I was changing as well as figure out how to deal with it.
What's my first step? And then what's the next? Take it bit by bit, analyze, think, plan, do. Don't hesitate or be paralyzed by indecision.
My eyes opened up even as I gave my legs a squeeze. I'll survive, and I'll move on, just got to go one step at a time.
-oOo-
"Rose?"
My eyes blinked open blearily before I cringed slightly at the harsh light, raising a hand to rub the sleep from my eyes, "Andy…?" Focusing through the light of the morning behind him, I looked up at the green eyes of the knight and pushed myself upright, "What is it?"
"I hath a way… that you can hunt alongside ne." He scowled away from me for a moment before muttering, "Hath… hath… haghhh… have. There we go."
I blinked at him in confusion for a moment, "Wait, back up, you're talking like you have lips…?"
"'irds can do it without lits, and I ate a lot of the 'ird ones," he stretched out one of his arms, the wing extending. It was almost identical to a Nevermore's now that I looked at it, his arm proper was almost covered in the bone plating, but aside from that and the hand at the main 'joint' of the wing, it could have passed for one of the avian Grimm's wings.
"That's useful… why didn't you do it in the first place though?"
He was quiet for a moment before sighing, refolding the wing as he sat before me in the cavern, "Never had reason to really try it."
I cringed sympathetically, "Well… that's morbid…"
"Heh… a little, yes." He sounded like he was smiling even as he waved a hand dismissively, "Sorry."
But I shook my head, "Don't be sorry, it's not your fault. Anyways, you said you had a way for me to go with you…?"
He nodded before reaching out to gently pick me up, carefully wrapping me in my own cloak some before adding a one of the furs. "Hey, it's not that cold out." I grinned up at him to ensure he knew I was kidding and got a little chuckle out of it.
"Don't want you to get hurt." He said simply. He hesitated, holding me up by the waist with his large hands, and I rested my arms against them for comfort.
Blinking up at Andoriol, I prompted, "What is it?"
"This… could… ah, it's likely strange and disconcerting."
My eyebrows drew down as I considered that, "… okay… well, I promise not to freak out…? It'd have to be pretty bad to mess with meeEEE–?! Holy crap you have a lot of legs now!"
I ended in a shrill little shriek as the interlocking bone plates that covered his abdomen unfolded into three pairs of legs that ended in sharp little tips. I stared, trying to process what I was looking at… it was like on either side of where abs would have been on a guy there was a pair of these insectoid-like legs… they'd folded upwards into this interlocking diagonal pattern across his stomach before he'd unfolded them to reveal the fuzzy, downy center…
A thought occurred to me and I scowled up at him, "You did that on purpose."
The infuriating chuckle assured me that, yes, he really had. Ugh. Rolling my eyes, I squirmed a bit in his hands to get more comfortable as he held me off of the ground, "Did… you eat a Deathstalker or something…?"
"… yes."
My head jerked up, "… wait, seriously?"
"Well… what's a Deathstalker?"
"Ah…" If he really was an alien… then he probably didn't know the names of any of the Grimm or anything. I gestured with a hand as I described it, "It looks like a really big, armored scorpion sort of thing."
"Ah," he said in realization before nodding confidently, "Then yes."
Shaking my head, but smiling in spite of myself, I grinned up at him, "Okay then, so this is going to let me go with… you…" I trailed off, eyes widening as I finally realizing how it'd let me go with him. I shook my head, "Oh… oh no. No you don't."
"Say'ther…" he scowled briefly in concentration before continuing, "Safer than the wing."
"You're not going to hold me in your freaking insect legs!"
-o-
"I can't believe you're holding me in freaking insect legs."
"You'll lifff… libb… live. Live. Vvvvvvtththh… Vvvv." I glanced up at him as he walked, and he likely felt me shift about as he looked down the length of his chest at me to shrug, "Vee's are hard."
Sighing, I shook my head before crossing my arms and settling as best I could. I was not pouting.
…
… okay, I wasn't pouting much. I didn't really care for insects. And sure, it was surprisingly comfortable here, while he was holding me tight against his stomach, it was sort of like laying on a park bench with a really fuzzy blanket on top of you. Except the bench could shift and would press against you at times. The four lower legs were wrapped around my torso and upper thighs, my shoulders and arms above the legs, the uppermost set of the legs resting atop the others. He kept those ready to snap in place over my head and shoulders to protect me with his armored body and shield me entirely from view if need be.
He was almost silently prowling through the forest on all fours with me in the pouch made by his insectoid abs-legs almost like a baby kangaroo in a pouch. It was like I was the little baby monster tagging along with the parent monster as they went out on a hunting adventure!
… alright, it was kinda cool, but I wasn't about to let him know that.
Andoriol was very careful of my still exceedingly tender… stumps… for which I was grateful. I… still wasn't used to them.
Heh. I guess I didn't have a leg up on the competition anymore.
I could practically hear the sweet, sweet groans of Taiyang and Qrow from here.
"So how do we do this?" I asked the giant grumpily, arms crossed in protest as I was carted around through the forest, in an effort to distract myself from the moderate discomfort and my own thoughts.
"Thh... very carefully."
I rolled my eyes, "Uh huh, more specifically?"
"Track something down, pounce, crush its head, cart it back and skin and cook it." He said simply and quietly as he moved sinuously through the trees, lowering his head close to the ground briefly to... flick his tongue out like a snake's... well I guess that made sense given that he didn't have any obvious nose holes to his mask... face... thing? I hadn't thought of it really. "Devil's in the details is all. Don't worry though, I've got it. Had a lot ov practice."
"Yeah... I believe–" I was cut off by one of his ab-legs drifting in front of my face, I glanced up to find that he'd gone still and was focused on a point... huh, a bear. A normal bear rather than an Ursa. One that had just noticed us.
Silence reined in the forest for a moment before Andoriol surged forward, the G-forces very similar to those I put myself through while using Blooming Moon to swing about, and with a golden flash of light the bear was... oh, hoo boy, beheaded.
The golden stinger at the tip of his tail had basically torn the bear's head clean off.
"… well... he suffered a grizzly fate."
The knight snorted in amusement as his tail coiled around the bear, lifting it off of the ground, "You need to 'ork on your jokes."
"They're making you laugh! I consider that good!"
-oOo-
"Get-! The fuck-! Away-!"
My chest heaved as I swung my spear about, trying to knock the damn birds out of the air. The fucking things were like crows with white masks and infuriatingly agile.
Ever try to hit a flying bird?
No, me either, not till now.
Pain flashed into existence beneath my eye as one dove at my face before I could react properly, tearing open my cheek, it was only a reflexive jerk of my head that had saved my eye.
Fucking damnit!
They cawed at me mockingly and oh fuck you and your fucking face! I snarled at them, hot blood slowly dripping down my cheeks as the flock of the damn things circled me.
A dozen little cuts adorned my body, my pants little more than shorts now as I leaked from the burning lines of pain along my body. My skin was flush and hot, nearly burning in the cold air. The fur I'd used as a cloak to ward off the chill had been tossed aside for mobility, a decision I was regretting now that my unprotected back had so many little bleeding scratches…
They wanted my eyes. I could tell.
And no, it's not paranoia if you're actually fucking right-! Damnit!
My head bobbed and weaved as I dodged out of the way of two more of the crows, feathers and beaks flashing past my face as I swung my spear, clipping one and knocking it from the sky. A tremor went through my body, a little shaking of hot fury, if I could just get a hold of them I could turn them into paste! But they were too fast!
No! No more of this crap!
I held my spear out to the side, readying my other hand, "Take your best shot!"
There was the flapping of wings behind me but I ignored it even as pain flared in my back as it scratched at my shoulders, gritting my teeth as I waited. Another rushed at my face, faster than I could have reacted, but there were only so many vectors of attack, and my hand swung through the air swatting it down-!
My spear shot out, stabbing the damn thing as it struggled to right itself, another rushing at my face but fuck you-! My head snapped forward this time and my teeth closed around the damn thing's beak.
"… mmmrrmph?" The thing's eye widened as I glared at it, its wings flapping madly to try and escape my jaws, but you want to eat me?! Not so fun with the tables turned is it?!
So I bit down harder!
Its beak shattered and I spit out the bits even as it screamed, falling backwards.
I snarled at them, blood leaking from between my teeth and down my jaw into my two colored beard. I was little better than a feral animal at this moment, and I knew it, but right now? It didn't matter. This wasn't a job for a refined man, a cultured gentleman, or a civilized person.
This? This was the domain of beasts.
Another one of them swooped at me and my swing missed this time, a new line of blazing pain was placed on my face as it scratched at me.
My muscles burned as I swung the spear, faster and faster, my hand lashing out as I fought off these damn crows! Each breath steamed in the air, red from the blood in my mouth as I panted, only one strike out of a dozen actually hit them, and for each one I took down, I gained a half dozen scratches and cuts.
Another swiped at my face and I lashed out, catching it by the wing and biting it off!
Growling through the wing, I swung harder, faster, stronger, desperately swatting them from the sky! Biting clean through the feathered mess I swallowed a piece of it before roaring incoherently and wordlessly in challenge to the damn things!
Time blurred into a mess of feathers and blood and pain and rage. Biting at the damn things whenever they dared go for my face! Swatting them from the air, breaking them even as I died by inches!
Until there was nothing left.
I twitched, chest heaving as my breath came out as pants around the dead creature hanging from my jaws. My eyes jumped around, searching for the next target… but… but there was nothing else. Only the blood seeping from my wounds to the cold ground, the dead and broken bodies of the birds sublimating around me, their blood evaporating… but mine remaining…
Shaking… I was shaking… nothing…? Nothing else…?
No sounds in the forest… nothing beyond my panting and the rushing of blood in my ears as my heart thudded in my chest.
Nothing else…
I… the world was getting fuzzy… that terrible clarity was fading and… and I was tired…
I planted the butt of my spear against the dirt, grabbing it with both hands and leaning against it as I tried.. tried to let my heart breathing… heart beat… fuck… fuck…
Needed to eat… needed to feed…
I… cook…? How far was I…? Too far… too far from the Temple… been going further out and couldn't start a fire in time… needed…
My jaw flexed and teeth, sharper than they had any right to be, sunk deeper into the flesh of the dead creature in between them, bones crunching as still hot blood that tasted like liquid vitrol washed across my tongue… and it was sweet and everything I needed…
A hand came up to pull the dead bird away from my face as I swallowed the hunk of meat I tore off whole…
I stared down at the body of the bird… a bite taken out of it… and… was I really…?
Yes I was damnit!
With a snarl, I took another bite out of it, tearing out a hunk of it, feathers and all. Fuck it. Fuck the hesitation. If I hesitated, I'd die. If I spent time worrying about my humanity, I'd die. If I got hung up on the possibility of diseases, I'd die.
I dug in, tearing into the hollow bird with my teeth even as its blood splattered over my face.
Existential crisis later. Surviving now.
I'm me. Even if being me includes eating shit raw as hell.
-oOo-
"Hey, Andy?"
He made an inquisitive grunt from above his wing.
Things had been going well for the past week, even though my aura had yet to recover, my strength was definitely returning. I could actually move myself about on my own now, it seemed that my aura was functioning, because there's no way I should be this close to fine this soon after such a horrible wound, but I was.
"What do you do for fun?" I asked as I splashed some water on my bare arm.
We'd talked a fair bit, and with my savior actually articulate now it was quite a bit easier, though he had a strange accent due to having to use his tongue in creative ways. He was actually a decent conversationalist, enjoying making jokes and laughing easily, though he was also out of practice. There were numerous pauses every time he spoke, even after he'd gotten the hang of speaking like he was. But we'd talked of the world and things that any child learned growing up in Remnant, while he'd talked about things he'd seen out in the Grimm lands. Understandably, he knew a lot about Grimm, though not their official titles or anything.
He shifted above me slightly, the black feathers of his outstretched wing ruffling slightly, "… the snappy answer is 'hot ladies' or such like that."
I snorted and smiled, "Well, there's probably at least a few Aura-enhanced size queens out there that'd like to meet you."
The giant chuckled above me before it faded into a pleasant hum, a sound almost like the lowest pipes of a pipe organ, "What brought this on?"
"Well…" I started, trying to organize my thoughts into something a bit more coherent as I bathed in the river. My clothes were on the bank not far away, and Andoriol was using his wing to shield me from too much sun as well as his own sight. Quite the gentleman. "I get that you're a giant badass monster, which is probably pretty cool by itself, but that can't be it. And I'm sort of struggling to figure out what you could do to entertain yourself… because otherwise you'd just go crazy out here by yourself. And you're obviously not crazy–" he snorted and I grinned, "Okay, not really crazy." Looking up at the expanse of black feathers over me I asked, "So… what do you do?"
"… used to sing." My chest ached just a bit at the implication… until he lost his lips. Oh, wow, that sucked. "Before all of this I wrote but…" I stared up in the direction I knew his head was, a little surprised. He didn't usually talk about his life before all of this, it was obvious that it hurt to do so, no matter how muted. The wing shifted as he shrugged, "But, I couldn't do that while surviving… been carving ever since."
Now that's interesting. I scrubbed a bit at my torso, trying to get the grime and nastiness of the sweat that had been crusting as it dried on me, though without soap or shampoo, the amount of work I could actually accomplish about the oils on my skin and hair were minimal at best. Scowling slightly at my lack of progress, I prompted the knight, "Carving?"
"The claws aren't great for most little things," he said in bemusement, holding out his other hand just above the water to bring it into my view as he clacked the bone claws together, "But they can carve quite well…" Andoriol hesitated for a moment before retracting the arm, "I grew them because I was growing and couldn't seem to stop… having fine dexterity didn't seem like such a big deal anymore…"
"You can change your form that freely…?" Putting my hands on the riverbed beneath me, I pushed myself up and shifted my position slightly to work on my other... stump. I knew Taiyang would have said I looked beautiful regardless and… and I was sure he'd say so despite my new condition, but I knew the truth. My skin was horrible right now and definitely was in need of exfoliating and more. First order of business after seeing my family and getting Andy taken care of? Full make over.
"Adding is easy… removing is… hard. Easier to replace something with something else, a new feature in its place… outright removing… is harder." I rolled my eyes, brilliant speech there, very informative. A small, rumbling growl came from him before he continued, "It's frustratingly hard to describe. There's no analogous sensation or… anything really. I focus on a trait as I consume the Grimm and its mass is converted into the analogous structure growing or shifting on my body, but it's not something instinctual… but neither is it an entirely learned skill. Describing it is… problematic."
… and then he goes and says stuff like that. "Oh. Huh."
The water was cool, making goosebumps rise against my skin as I twisted in place, looking myself over, mentally cataloguing my scars and situation, my stumps… they were looking better, a little less like burnt hamburger now and more like old stumps. Still really tender, but at least I didn't have to worry about a little twitch making me practically collapse in pain now.
"You can really control your physiology though?" Coming to the conclusion that I was as clean as I was gonna get without products, I began to work my way back towards the bank with my hands. It was… well, really awkward to move about like this, but it was something I'd probably have to get used to unless Atlas had finally perfected those prosthetics. The water splashed just a little bit as I pulled myself out of the river and onto my cloak.
"Yes, though it seems to require me to eat to catalyze the transformation." I gave myself a little shake, sending droplets flying everywhere from my hair. "Admittedly… after I accepted my situation, experimenting with my physiology was… fun."
A small smile appeared on my face at hearing that, it was actually kind of cute… well, as cute as an enormous, built-for-battle giant Grimm knight could be considered 'cute'. Ugh… I was not getting dry at any reasonable speed… "Hey big guy, could I borrow a wing real quick?"
He made an inquisitive noise even as he brought the wing not acting as an umbrella over beside me. Reaching out and grabbing some of the large feathers, I tugged the black wing closer and used it as a towel, "Urk-?!" His entire body twitched and the wing I was holding nearly jerked away, but with my grip on it the motion started to move me and he immediately stopped, "Rose-?!"
"Oh hush, I can't use my cloak because I'm sitting on it and it's stained with my blood." The feathers of a Nevermore were tough like armor, but the downy ones beneath those were soft as silk. It was actually an interesting sensation. "Your reaction was hilarious though."
Andoriol sighed above me, his arm relaxing to allow me to better tug it about to dry myself off, "… a little warning next time please?"
"Mmmm…" I hummed as if I was actually considering it before grinning cheekily, "Nah."
"What a terrible maiden have I saved?" He asked with an exaggerated sigh, making me laugh.
Dry enough and satisfied with the embarrassment that I'd put him through, I let go of his massive wing and gave it a gentle push, which he understood and pulled it away. Getting panties on when you couldn't stand up was a pain. An enormous one at that. Thankfully they were basically clean as were the rest of my clothes. I'd washed them and set them on a rock on the bank and Andoriol had moved that out into the sun to dry them out while I'd bathed.
It was as I slowly buttoned up my blouse that something occurred to me, "You said you sang… couldn't you sing now…?"
That seemed to give him pause, "… probably."
"I'd like to hear it… you singing that is. I'm decent by the way." The expanse of black was moved away and I looked up, smiling up at the giant. I'd heard his singing in the dreams, but that was different, and he deserved to at least have a fraction of who he was back after all he'd done for me.
He looked away briefly in what I assumed was embarrassment, "It'd… sound weird with my voice. I don't really know any songs that'd sound good with such heavy bass."
"Still," I pressed, still smiling up at him even as I held my arms out and flexed my hands twice, like Yang always did when she wanted upsies, "You must have gotten pretty good with all that practice."
Another one of those pleased hums like a pipe organ as his large hand settled around my waist and my hands went to grasp his large claws for stability. He settled me in the clutch of his ab-legs before passing me my cloak, "I like to think that I did… yes. But I've changed a fair bit since then…"
"For me? Pleeeeaaaaase?"
"We'll see." He mused, "Give me some time to think of a good song at very least."
I pouted up at him playfully, "Awwww…"
... huh, no musics or jokes. -cries at failure-
