A/N: I have no real explanation for why this idea struck me, it just kind of did. And now that I am physically capable of writing for you all again…well I wasn't going to let my inspiration die while it was flaring. So, I hope this is enjoyable! Glad to be writing once more, glad we all made it…glad to still be alive.

King's Log, entry 34; "The Before, at The End."

Life was a cold, quiet affair. For as long as I could remember, it was silence and stifling. Chilling to the core.

No love. No mistakes. No change.

I held onto that life out of sheer spite. Through the pain, the storms, and the freezing cold, I refused to give in, to fade silently, to go on any terms but my own.

What a hopeful little idiot I was.

Some things can't be stopped. You cannot hold some lines. Sometimes…bad things just happen.

Many, many bad things…until the last, the worst.

I thought, if nothing else, it would finally be over.

But it wasn't.

Oh, it Wasn't…

Pain.

It drove the exhaustion that had seeped in, waking me with a spike of adrenaline so intense I shot bolt upright, roaring in agony that burned through my whole body like Fire-

To be cut short as it faded so fast I thought I'd gone into shock, from the sudden absence. And without the pain, without the distraction, the world came into clear view. And it was so…so…

Green!

A vibrant forest stretched out before me, alive-though quiet at my scream-and flourishing, more full of color and variety than anything I'd seen before. As my eyes adjusted to the sights and colors, I felt the chill of cold water against my hips and looked down.

I was sitting in a stream, crystal clear, its bed a span of small, smooth stones that I could barely feel, they were so smoothed over and pressed together, it was almost like sitting on a solid surface.

Looking down also greeted me with a horrific, monstrous visage; snarling and terrible.

A maw easily large enough to swallow a watermelon without biting, its teeth some horrible mixture of fanged and tusked, razor-sharp canines filling the majority of the space-off center and asymmetrical-while the spots that a human mouth would bear its canines were overtaken by immense tusks, broad and sharp enough to make a butcher question the quality of his blades. Its eyes were rimmed red along the edges, and a vibrant amber in the center, like molten magma, while its brow sloped upwards, black scales covering its unsettling face before vanishing under protruding bone that dominated its forehead, like some twisted, vile crown-

I slammed my hand into the water, instinctively trying to (hurt? Push away?) to put distance between myself and the thing-

My hand, now the center of my attention, drew me to such a violent stop my heart skipped a beat in protest, muscles wound like corded steel in shock and fear.

My hand was huge, and would have looked at home on the face it just smashed. Black scales poked out between the gaps in the protruding bone-which looked almost like a gauntlet, covering the back of my hand and stretching down just shy of my fingernails, and further up the arm-leading to blackened nails, sharp and thick.

The reformed reflection showed the monster admiring its hand.

The reformed reflection showed me admiring my hand.

I took in the full breadth of my (Change? Rebirth? Body Swap?) new form with a shaking gasp.

I was…a troll, maybe? Or an Ogre, perhaps. I didn't know, had never been much into fantasy, but I imagined this is what those terms meant. I was…big. While I didn't know my new height, it was easy to tell I was far from small. My limbs were thick and defined by a musculature that strained visibly every time I moved. My skin was scaled, small and soft near my stomach, larger and rougher the further it stretched from my sternum and also far darker, the large scales getting progressively, and swiftly darker until they were pitch black near the middle of my chest, and the front of my shoulders and hips. The smaller, softer scales on my front were brighter, cycling greyish near the edges, to a pale, almost pinkish-white near the very center, and the same soft, white scales dominated my palms.

Interestingly, though they faded to black like their larger counterparts, the scales on the tips of my fingers were soft and smooth like the white under-scales.

Beyond that, it was hard to say what my scales looked like. Much like the back of my arms, and the crown of my forehead, my back was covered in thick, bone-like armor, that shifted to accommodate whatever motion I tried, but remained a hard, consistent surface from the many overlapping plates that it was made of.

Disappointingly, there was not a large row of ridges down my spine like a dragon. Or if there were, they were too small for me to see from my limited view.

Strangely, the bone plating didn't seem to cover much of my stomach, or the inside of my legs, despite the outside edges being armored. Maybe I was some weird turtle monster guy.

Guy?

A slight shift to check confirmed that yes, definitely still a guy.

The sounds of the forest swiftly returning reminded me of my surroundings, and I looked up warily.

If something like whatever the hell I am could just appear out of thin air…I should definitely scarper before anything comes looking for that scream of mine.

For a moment, I panicked, with no idea what to do, before forcing myself to relax, and think.

I was alone, in a strange place, in a strange body, but that was…well, not fine. But doable. Workable. I could manage this, and a good place to start was making manageable things I needed to do.

Find shelter.

Find food

'Wait, no.'

2.) Find out if I need food.

2(a).) If I do, find food.

'Water is already here, as long as I stay close to the river, or make sure I can find my way back. Next would be defense…'

Experimentally, I picked up the biggest stone within reach. It barely fit between two of my fingers. Curious determination coursing through my veins, I wound up and threw as hard as I could at the riverbank

I missed the bank and instead hit a tree five feet past it.

And the bolder ten feet past the tree, five feet past the river.

And the tree, fifteen feet past the boulder, ten feet past the first tree, five feet past the river.

'Note to self. Strength is our new best friend.'

3.) Practice my aim.

'Yeah…I can do that!'

With a (mildly terrifying) snaggletoothed grin, I rose from the water, ready to start on my list of things and go find some shelter.

'…'

4.) (Optional) Find some pants.

My safest bet was the river, so it was really just a coin flip on which direction to go.

Being without a coin to choose for me, I decided to go upstream. I would vigorously defend said pick with logic, like it being easiest if upstream was a bust, so I could go downhill to look for something better instead of trudging all the way down, just to go all the way up. Or the guarantee of water at the beginning of the stream being safer than the end, with much lower chances of filth slipping in at the source compared to anywhere else down its winding path.

I would, as it so happens, also viciously decry any accusations that I picked a direction at random so my brain couldn't overthink things and started marching, before making up reasons why it was the better option. Because that's not what happened.

Definitely.

It was tempting to make my way along the shore for my journey, but my feet were large and would leave very distinct tracks, doubly so on a riverbank that would have soft, easily compressed soil, and with no way to know who(or what) was in this forest…it was worth the extra effort of pushing against the current.

At least the water felt nice, and the stones were smooth enough to feel like a bumpy floor, rather than how most riverbeds had been described to me.

I didn't know the exact length of time I walked, wasn't much of an outdoorsman in my last life, but the sun had poked its way out from over the treetops near the start of my journey and had nearly tucked itself halfway behind the trees on the other side when I came to my first stop, so I guessed at anywhere from two, to four hours...ish.

I hadn't wanted to actively count time, and if this wasn't the world I knew, my metric of time might not even be accurate.

Regardless, said first stop was a four-way split in the river, not including the direction it flowed from. The separation was at the hands of three large, stone outcrops, jutting up like spikes from the earth(?).

The left, closest to me, was a deep blue. The middle was an earthy green, and the right was a vibrant, electric yellow.

'Neat.' I thought idly, 'Tempting as it is to check the other branches, I still think my best bet is going all the way up. I can explore later.'

Decision made, I kept moving. The water got colder and colder as I moved past the Blue stone, and I swore for a moment it felt almost like the surface was frosted over.

But it faded quickly after I passed the outcropping, and the water was noticeably warmer, so I brushed off the strange feeling and continued to ford my way up the flowing path. The big, pooling area that split into the four separate rivers was deeper than before, all the way up to my chest. Thankfully, I didn't have to put my new body's swimming skills to the test just yet, and it leveled out back to just under my navel further upstream.

Which felt very strange for a moment, because I still had no pants, but it wasn't too unpleasant, so I shoved the tingling discomfort to the back of my mind and kept moving.

A few hours later, if the sun disappearing and lighting the trees on one side a bright orange could be trusted, I finally reached the Heart of the river. And it was quite a sight.

The water sprung with force from several places along the edge of a mountain, shooting off into a waterfall nearly twice the height of the treeline at its central, most direct fall. Several other, smaller waterfalls dotted the area next to the Big fall, two on its left, and one on its right, all leading down various paths off the edges of the mountain to pool together, in one large berth, that made up the start of the river, merging all four falls together.

It was breathtaking.

I wanted to keep staring, to take in the light mist that filled the shoreline from the Falls' spray, and wanted to see the light reflecting off of dark grey stone into the clear, rushing water forever.

But shelter took precedence over a beautiful view, and I waded yet further, up towards the mountain itself. Once I ran out of river, I finally stepped fully onto the shore, flinging water from my crevices of bone and scale with a hearty shake I'd seen my uncles Huskies do the three times I met them…and him.

My full weight, no longer supported by dozens(and at a couple of points hundreds) of gallons of water, took a second to get used to. But standing entirely under my own power felt indescribably right.

Not too surprising, but still quite satisfying.

Standing on the rocks at the bottom of the fall, damn near kissing the mountain, I noticed a gap in the rock, large enough for me to comfortably slip through.

'How did I not…?'

Shuffling back into the water quickly hid the split. Stepping back under the spray of the waterfall, it slid back into sight.

'Oh wow. Trippy. I guess the angle hides it from wider viewing…' I mused. Curiously, I edged towards it, and though I needed to turn sideways, and duck, I slipped right inside without needing to squeeze myself.

I stepped through the threshold…and blinked hard. Because I could still see perfectly fine. The faint outline of light ringing my shadow was noticeable on the ground, but it was barely brighter than the rest of the cave.

'Do I have night vision?'

Turning myself to fully block the light confirmed that yes, I was seeing just as well in the dark as I was outside, in the midday sun.

'Cool!'

Finding the cave was a huge success, and after several hours of familiarizing myself with the slight system of caverns it led to-three 'chambers' of stone, the entry 'room' which was the biggest, and almost perfectly round; a second that was long, and thin, and whose walls were diagonal all the way up, with a slight crack in the ceiling; and a third, very small cavern I could barely fit in, whose entrance was near the bottom of the lower wall of the second chamber, which I guessed had been formed by water running in from the crack at the top-I was pulled from my new home(the spot was perfect, the caverns were pleasantly large, and it was, quite literally, two steps left of fresh water, this was my new home) by the sounds of loud thudding, and growling.

Stepping outside led me face to face with a bear.

A big, fluffy black bear.

Literally.

About two inches between us.

It blinked. I blinked. And suddenly this perfect spot being unoccupied made way more sense.

It reared back, first just lurching away from me, before actually rearing back onto its hind legs.

Which gave me an excellent idea of how tall I'd become, because its head was now level with the center of my sternum, and from the way its roar of challenging defiance petered out into a whine, it was understanding my height, too.

Out of curiosity, and a free opportunity to test my strength in a more definable way, I swung at the bear, not using any fighting style-because I didn't know any-just aiming for center mass and swinging.

My fist crashed against it, crashed through it, and then came to a crashing halt on the other side of the now very, very dead bear as my brain processed what just happened.

My strength, as it so happened, had not been a fluke.

I killed a bear…by punching it.

With my Bare hands, one might say.

I might have thought of that pun to cope with the fact that I'd killed an animal larger than a bug for the first time in my life, but that was neither here nor there.

What was here, was a very large carcass dripping blood onto my arms.

Well. When life gives you lemons…

As it so turned out, you cannot, in fact, make lemonade out of a dead bear.

I did, however, manage to make myself a passable loincloth!

Though that wasn't too big of an accomplishment since I'd been aiming for pants.

Sharp as skinning knives my claws may be.

Actual skinning knives my claws are not.

But, now I have plenty of material for making repairs or adjustments so…that's nice.

It was dark out now, and while the bear's meat tasted alright, I didn't feel anything from eating it past the taste of the initial bites, to the point where I had a Very uncomfortable half an hour as it just sat in my stomach, unchanged, before I forced myself to vomit it up, so food was more than likely not needed in my new form.

Side note, I could vomit on command and said vomit was a concentrated stream of dark-green acid that lasted several seconds, and felt like it had emptied from a space that my lungs used to fill, before…before.

It also ate through solid stone like it wasn't even there, and had made a me-sized hole in the far wall from the small burst I had…disgorged.

Why did I have acidic, weaponized vomit? I, frankly, wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Much like food, I found over the next three days that water was Not something I needed.

Downside, all of my planning about food and fresh water didn't mean very much.

Upside, I didn't have to waste time testing and purifying water, or hunting down animals and edible greens.

And with those things struck from my to-do-list, I had oodles of free time on my large, freaky hands, and quickly got to work making a somewhat unofficial schedule of exploring my surroundings during the night, and working on whatever I brought home during the day.

Night-time exploration was…probably harder than exploring during the day would've been. My night vision was lovely, and worked wonderfully, even in the pitch black of the caverns of my new home, but that didn't make it perfect. Any color was pretty much a no-go unless there was some form of light nearby what I was looking at, and it required pretty consistent focus not to fall on my face. Anything that I wasn't directly focusing on became blurry, its edges muddled in with that of the things around it.

Thankfully, details became clear for whatever I was focusing on, though I'll admit I jumped several times when a woodland critter darted about in my peripherals suddenly.

And, even with that moderately annoying only-clear-when-focusing aspect, the night was far better for exploring. Fewer things moved in the night, people especially, which was my biggest concern.

If I had seen myself Before, I would have screamed, run, then screamed some more to anyone who would listen. And, especially in communities near wilder areas like this, such claims could very well be met with a hunting party, if whatever-the-hell-I-was bore a wider population than me.

I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I also wasn't keen on dying twice, so discretion was to be the better part of valor until I could ascertain how people would react to my presence.

I stayed in the river mostly, untying my loincloth and holding it above my head whenever the water would go up past my hips. Bear fur is unlikely to be ruined by water, I know, but that doesn't spare it getting musty or mold seeping between the strands, so I'll sacrifice my dignity on the off chance I run into something while it was too deep.

I did eventually start making treks onto shore by the second night of exploring, my fifth night in general, confident that if anyone was around, they didn't come this way too often, and foraged for anything of use.

Unsurprisingly, there wasn't very much of use in random bushes I couldn't identify.

I probably didn't have to eat, with my adverse reaction to meat and lack of hunger since, so food wasn't on the list, but I eventually decided to take some berries, vines, and wood. Carrying a big bundle of wood over my shoulder with no issues felt kickass, though having to be extra careful not to smush any of the berries was a pain, and the vines kept getting caught on my shoulders since I'd thrown them around my neck to spare a hand for the berries.

The wood and vines were a priority, I had a plan for them after all, but the berries were honestly more of an impulsive snag I couldn't quite put my finger on. I hadn't been a large fan of Blueberries the time my uncle brought them in The Before, and I had only had strawberries by way of things flavored like them, but something in me refused to simply drop them and move on.

Curiosity, perhaps? An instinct to want something I needed to be gentle with?

Or, perhaps…because I wanted something that wasn't for any use, but just to have.

Hmm. Questions for later.

Because for now, I was home, fresh resources in tow.

I waded through the shallows, holding the wood out to my side so it wasn't soaked by the central waterfall as I passed under it, shuffling into my cavern home.

I deposited the berries in the small stone almost-basin at the very back, eyeing them a moment longer before turning on my heel and starting on my first project.

It took the rest of the night, and well into the day after, but my claws were better at whittling than skinning, and I had managed to make two sturdy, workable poles that could individually take my weight, and hold it without snapping for long periods. Plus, all the bits I'd whittled off could be used for reinforcement.

At first, I'd been concerned about needing nails, with the size of the poles I had in mind, I would've needed entire tree trunks from scratch, right up until I made an accidental discovery.

I'd been testing my weird super-spit again and found that my initial feeling had proven itself correct. If I was indeed feeling it right, there seemed to be two…for lack of a better word, sacks in the spaces that used to fill my lungs in my human body. When I wanted to vomit, I drew from both at once, and got a controlled spray of acid, spewing out like a Dragon's fire breath.

Individually using them to spit with was very different.

My left lung-sack produced some kind of foul-smelling, bright-green vapor, that took nearly fifteen minutes to disperse, and left a sizzle on my scales that I later discovered to likely be the source of the acidic compound, as leaves and grass shriveled on contact, and wood cracked and groaned as if rotting in moments(a quick de-barking had shown that to be exactly what it did on touching wood.)

My right lung-sack produced the fluid, and it was decidedly less dangerous. Instead of dealing any damage on being sprayed out, the fluid was dark, almost like a navy blue, bordering on black, and seemed to be some kind of binding agent. It stuck to just about anything and could stick things together just as well, which had been the start of this whole project.

'Oh, right, the project.'

With my poles made I used small, controlled bursts of my combined spit to melt divots into the floor of the cave, a little wider than my wooden creations, spread apart about three feet taller than myself in both directions.

Then, I carefully inserted them, making sure they were as upright as I could make them and filled the space left over with my binding spit, giving them a few gentle thwacks after the binding fluid dried, just to make sure they were sturdy, which they thankfully were.

And now…the hard part.

Weaving.

It took a solid three days of figuring out just how bad my new hands were at dexterity, four more trips to collect more vines, and one whole hour wasted when I somehow got myself tied up in the many strands, but eventually, I managed a suitable sheet of bound vines.

It was supremely satisfying to lay in my new hammock for the first time and have it hold me without strain.

The weaving was much more difficult with such large fingers, but I could never forget how to make a hammock. I'd dedicated myself to remembering and practicing, when it became clear it was the only 'outdoorsy' activity my father would take part in with me, and this fresh, overlarge one would've been my sixth in as many years.

I wondered idly if father would keep the other five, in my memory, as I passed into a gentle sleep.

My first not on the ground since I arrived!

I'd never had a victorious sleep before.

It felt like Freedom.

A/N: I know, I know…I'm late. But I am also alive! Which I couldn't honestly say with confidence for the last…eight months. Nine? Fuck, it's been too long. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this little foray, and are as excited as I am for that which comes next! I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a pleasant holiday otherwise if you don't celebrate the last two, because this would take even longer to have been made if I researched all of the options lol.

I missed ya'll beyond words.

See you soon.