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Why the FUCK am I doing this? I asked myself.
Honestly, I should have asked myself that sometime earlier.
Okay, like — everyone knows how creepy the Affini are. Everyone knows. Even their, you know… those florets, even though they like the damn creepiness, they still know it, too. Unless they’re so high they can’t stand, which itself is a result of the same.
I had to look closer, right? I can’t just… stand by and all. I had a responsibility! Even if we’re under an invading force, I’m still in the Cosmic Navy, and I’ve got a duty to do what I can.
The Accord surrendered… “surrendered” six days ago, and five days ago the occupying forces showed up on my stationed planet. I woke up that day to alarms all over the naval base, and by the time I had gotten outside my barracks, the big guns had melted from nanobot swarms and the smaller ones simply didn’t do anything when you pulled the trigger, somehow. Leadership didn’t even have enough time to figure out whether they wanted to accept the terms of surrender or try to fight.
An entire full-scale Battle Command naval station, housing a huge fleet right near the center of the Accord, rendered combat-ineffective in under three minutes. The place had been full for a year, since the rapid incursion of the Affini Compact meant that Strike Command and Border Command, who typically had bases way farther out, were pushed in… or captured.
And then that was it. They told everyone here that it was all over and we could safely go home, wherever home was. Our weapons were confiscated unless we wanted to put in requests to keep them for range shooting or something, we were allowed to keep the rest of our supposedly “adorable outfits”, and the rest of their logistical plans for sending us away, I forget. I almost couldn’t believe their conquest ended with a “no hard feelings as long as you don’t break our laws” clause. I guess they weren’t fond of the well-renowned coercion of naval command.
The ride home I scheduled was in about a week since the newly-arrived Affini transports were so busy with much of the Accord suddenly moving, so it’s not like I was in a rush or anything, but still… I couldn’t shake the feeling. That they were doing even worse than the already terrifying shit they broadcast out in the open.
Three days ago, I started seeing some really mutated florets around the place, since I was still staying planetside where all the sophonts were. Two days ago, I heard some of them talking about a hive of some kind, and it sounded like they were even referring to some of the rumors I’d heard about taking terrans as prey, inhuman experimentation, and labor camps. They mentioned it wasn’t planetside. I had already planned on visiting the same ship they mentioned, Puppy Dog City (what a weird name), since the thing had a video game shop that sounded enticing, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. One day ago, after a successful hunt for new game consoles, I saw it: onboard the biggest of the orbital ships that were visiting, a big huge termite mound kind of thing that wasn’t listed on any of the public registries. For the time, I went back planetside and just went home.
But… now it’s today. And I’m standing in a big entrance.
No guards… Well, not exactly like a bug hive, not like a terran one I guess, since ours usually had a few bugs at the front to deter predators. And I hadn’t seen any florets that resembled termites, so it was probably not the same concept either. But, well, I’d only ever seen this kind of thing made by bugs. A big mound of concrete-stuff that probably also extended underground, since it rested up against a short cliff at the bottom of a small mountain.
Thunder crashed, lighting up the sky.
That’s the other problem, a severe thunderstorm started. I kinda hadn’t started using Affini tech yet, including the new weather programs that would tell me what schedule the ship used for the climate control. So I guess I’m stuck here no matter what.
Hypothetically speaking, staying in the entryway would keep me out of trouble; I knew Affini are at least lenient towards anyone who isn’t unreasonably nosy. I could plausibly have been hiking here anyways.
Venturing deeper, however… was where the risk would come.
I breathed in and out. Drafted or not, I still felt like I had to do my part. Private Wister Oxbow. That’s… that me, I guess. In basic I was told it was a cool enough name by the sergeant, so I guess that means I’m a hero automatically. So, I gotta.
I took a step further in.
Oooooh, this is stupid.
I slowly walked further inside. Okay… just… don’t be a hero, just see if anything’s going on in here, snap a picture if able, and exfil, I guess. Tell the public and let someone else handle it… and try not to get made into a mind-controlled superslut. Unless it’s roleplay.
It was a few hundred feet before I came across the first intersection, but after that they kept coming. For simplicity I kept going straight through each of them; it would make exiting easier, and I was thinking anything of interest would be in the bottom-middle of the place, wherever that may lie.
It was a little weird to see this place even exist; plants didn’t really map onto bugs in my mind. But I saw one of their announcements that the first intelligent species they “domesticated” were bees of some kind, so maybe they had a habit of experimenting on others to make more of their favorite “pets”.
Deeper and deeper, the place kept going, but not much of interest. Some rooms that had what seemed like large sheets of bedding to rest on, some with food stores, a few larger chambers left empty. But no actual bug people, nor bug-shaped plant aliens, or whatever else could be inside.
The place had a nice smell to it… kind of attractive. Probably just petrichor, from the rain.
The central chamber, when I arrived there, was pretty obvious to identify. A huge room, extending all the way up to a skylight, positioned not to let much rain in. It had to be hundreds of feet wide and tall. Huge, appropriately for Affini involvement.
The place was filled with eggs. Each around five feet across, spherical, shiny and translucent. I could see… shapes? In the nearby ones.
I walked up to one pile of them… nothing that big in there, so not enough to be a terran. The small shape kind of resembled some pictures I had seen of zooplankton, but didn’t look all that intimidating. I could have sworn I had seen something with that vague sort of shape prior, but… I wasn’t sure. I don’t think there was any animal I knew of with that kind of look.
The eggs themselves looked sort of squishy, maybe a little slick and slimy on the outside. Almost like they were big water droplets with higher-than-natural surface tension, inviting me to push myself in and swim around. They kind of reminded me of video footage I had seen, taken long ago, of macroscopic-scale unicellular organisms, living in the oceans of Earth’s past, before the complete ecological collapse. Single cells the size of a baseball, though I suppose some bird eggs kind of did that too.
It was satisfying to see how the eggs squished against one another, all piled up. It almost made me want to put a hand on one and feel it. But I figured I should know better. Xenodrugs can act topically, I was pretty sure.
In the back were two more rooms; I could see the entryways. But at this point, I figured this would be enough. Someone else could continue investigation, once I got word out. With a quick glance around, I took out my phone, made sure it was on silent, and took a few snapshots. The signal was oddly good, so I was even able to get them uploaded to the cloud, just to make sure I didn’t lose anything.
Okay, good. Time to go.
“Well!” a voice announced. I jolted in place, eyes wide with shock.
Big, intimidating, feminine, and kind of… alien.
Fuck. Fuck. Not fucking good. My breathing quickened. My eyes darted around.
I looked around… there was nothing in here, right? I still couldn’t see it. Maybe it…
…Wait. I should know better.
As slowly as possible, hoping not to find anything, I looked up.
That’s not a normal Affini. I stopped in place, my breathing hitched. That is not a normal fucking Affini!
I had known that not every Affini was going to just imitate humans — and it wasn’t uncommon, as far as I knew, for the less-human ones to also be less interested in mimicking our culture. And with Affini, that extended to not caring how acceptable it was to just take someone. And experiment.
…Just like on those mutated florets.
I swallowed, trying to control my breathing. This “investigation” had worked a little too well.
“That was fast!” she remarked. Miku, her voice shook my whole damn body. She talked a little slow, and not in a particularly terran register. Both of those meant she wasn’t going to be intimidated. “Usually it takes at least a month for a guest to come visit.”
I was shocked still. My legs wouldn’t work. She was huge, and wasn’t exactly mimicking anything familiar, much less a terran. She had taken the form of some enormous, semi-humanoid bug creature. Arms… at least eight of them, I think. Extra legs on the pelvis-like part, plus an abdomen of some kind. Mandibles around her mouth, a bunch of symmetrically-placed eyes like on a spider, wings, antennae, chitinous plates.
All of what had to be a thirty-foot-tall Affini, crawling on the wall with ease.
Looking right the fuck at me.
“What’s your name, darling?”
It took me a couple of short moments to realize what she had asked, and that disobeying her wouldn’t put me anywhere better. “W… Wister. Wister Oxbow?”
“Pronouns, dear?”
“Oh, um,” I stuttered. “She/her/hers.” Fuck, I had forgotten I was supposed to tell Affini that.
“How precious!” she sang. Her face made this big, hungry grin. Like she was entirely ecstatic that I arrived. It wasn’t the polite little smile of someone happy you came to share a beverage — instead, her eyes stayed wide open, pointed right at me as if to pin me to the wall. “Would you like me to give you any more pronouns right now?”
I just barely got a hold of my muscles, and shook my head, stepping a little to the side and forwards, unsure of myself. “Um! N-no! No thanks. I, um. It’s just that it started raining so I took shelter, I’m just leaving anyways—”
She let off the ceiling, flying down to the floor in a rush of wind and noise, setting down to block the exit from me. I flinched hard at the surprise.
“No,” she replied, “I don’t think you were.”
“S— sorry,” I stammered, heart beating hard. “I um, really don’t want to cause a problem!” I held my hands in front of me, shyly. “I, I promise I didn’t touch anything! I’m not here to take anything!”
“Except for pictures?”
Shit.
“I um. I can delete them!”
She huffed. It didn’t sound like she was using human lungs, nor a human throat. “No, little one. That isn’t the problem.”
I backed away a few steps, arms awkwardly shielding myself. “Wha, what do you want?” My heart was going crazy; I felt like I could explode.
“You’ve committed quite the faux pas, you know,” she said, prowling closer to me, pushing me back into the room on a strange, otherworldly, hypnotizing gait. I could see inside her mouth as she spoke. Big sharp teeth, almost cartoonish. Her tongue looked like it could pass off as an alien creature of its own. “There’s no harm in curiosity. But you’ve been lying,” she growled. “To yourself and to me.”
“Wh… what…” My body felt tight, my throat constricted by tension and fear.
“Good little girls only wander inside for one reason. What do you think that is, little Wister?”
My mind drew a foreboding blank. Was she meaning to imply she knew more than I did about myself? “Uhm… espionage?”
She shook her head. “No, not quite, Wister. It’s envy.”
“Wh, what!” I almost shouted. “What does that mean?”
She slowly began to laugh, a little softly for her size, slow and saccharine. It felt oddly nice. “Why tell? I’m going to choose show.”
“Wh, hey! S— stop!” I shouted, trying to wiggle away when she grasped me. Gently but firmly, and so fast that I could not begin to run. She started walking towards the back of the space. She was so huge. I was nearly getting a full-body hug from a pair of hands. Worse still was how it somehow came off as the first thing she did which didn’t feel alien, grabbing me like that. When everything else about her was so deeply different, the oddly-placed familiar feeling was not so welcome.
“I should introduce myself,” she purred. “My name is Xanthrotricha Lancifolia, Seventeenth Bloom. She/her/hers, ve/ver/vers. Try to remember my pretty name; you’ll likely want to.”
I gulped. One of those Affini that used an alien-sounding name. I tried looking away from her, at anything else at all.
Xanthrotricha carried me into the first room, revealed to be a huge surgery room, stocked with alien equipment. “Here it is,” ve sang, as she grabbed a set of small organic pieces from a refrigerator of some kind housing many more of them.
I tensed up, unsure of what to make of the place. What had been done to the terran “florets” in here? I was unable to avoid shuddering.
“This is where I operate on the sweet little xenosophonts who come my way,” Xanthrotricha explained, leaving the room. Entirely skipping over the possible implications. “You however, are, I think, special.” She strode up to an egg pile, selected a light pink one, and carried me with it into the other room.
Entering it, ve shut the door, leaving me inside with ver. It was as large as an Affini bedroom seemed to normally be, and had another door on the opposite end. The room was mostly a wide, circular bed set into the floor, and around the circular edge was a series of shelves and dressers, filled with a variety of items, mostly bottles of things, with some exceptions like a shelf of towels and a section featuring a sink big enough to fit an entire terran.
At least it was warm and steamy inside; it was beginning to get a little cold since the mound was a little open to the outdoors, even indirectly.
“What… what are you going to do to me?” My voice came out quiet. I wasn’t sure I should even be asking. I kind of couldn't help it. I felt like the line was nearly dragged out of me. “I’m not here because I want any of your… your weird surgery things! I just— it was suspicious! I had to find the truth and tell others!”
Xanthrotricha set down ver equipment on the soft bed, sitting down on it. I was still stuck in ver arms, now made to sit on her lap. She was holding me snug, and I wasn’t leaving. “I think someone has gotten too used to her Cosmic Navy responsibilities,” ve chided me. “That’s no good for you, darling. You can’t handle all that; you’re just a little creature.”
“Don’t talk down to me…” I complained. I struggled, squirming and grunting, to no avail, as she grabbed my head to keep it still and affixed some kind of soft mask to my lower face. Ve then stuck some kind of flat membrane onto my back from under my shirt, before adding something I couldn’t see to it. “What are… what are you doing? What are these things?”
“You shall soon know. You will deeply understand,” was ver reply. She sounded so sure. I didn’t want her to be correct.
“I don’t… I don’t understand at all!” I squeaked. I tried to see if I could squirm an arm out, and pull any of it off. It felt like I couldn’t even budge it. The struggling was starting to feel overbearing. “Don’t, don’t do anything to me!”
She finished whatever she was doing… I couldn’t see. She was holding me still on her lap. “A little late for that, hmm?” She spoke slowly, in a low, sultry tone. She… was she getting off on this? “You found me irresistable, after all. You skittered right inside, even in a place marked with my scent. You felt safe enough to come inside. You could only possibly be mine. And I don’t let my broodlings just run off.”
This was bad. It was really, really, bad. I could hear it in her voice: she really thought all those things were true, and she was going to act on it.
She moved around on the bed, bringing me to the center, where the egg was waiting. I got a bad, bad sinking feeling.
“N… no, please,” I stammered and begged, trying to shuffle away, despite being in her grip. “I… Please don’t do anything? Just let me go, please!”
“...And what’s more” — she practically buzzed the words — “I don’t let my broodlings stay unfixed.”
“N— no! W— wait, what are you…?”
She pressed me up against the egg. It was soft, squishing against my body. Kind of slick and sticky on the outside. I gasped and grunted, surprised and still trying to get away. “Grh. What the…”
Gradually, the surface got softer and softer. It was… giving way. I felt the external membrane stretch around me, slowly. My breathing quickened further. What was happening?
Xanthrotricha was pressing me harder and harder, and the egg was… it was… something about it wasn’t acting right. After a few moments, my legs slipped in, but the egg didn’t burst. The membrane closed back up, around my thighs, climbing up them.
Tears were welling up. It was all too much.
“No! No, wait!” I yelled unevenly. “Help! Someone help? What are you doing?! Stop!”
My arms were engulfed as well, and the membrane closed around them, sliding up my upper arms slowly. My limbs felt like they were in a sea of very thick jelly. As I was pressed harder and harder against the egg, the membrane was pulled in with me, almost surrounding me with the membrane and the fluid within.
“No… no, no! No, please, let me out, stop—”
Ve then held me in place for a few moments. I was pressed so deep into the egg that I was about where its center would be. Slowly, the membrane slid around me, and finally closed up, around ver arm, which ve then removed.
“Help! What is this?” I yelled into the mask. I felt like I was almost crying. My breathing kept hitching. “Let— let me out! Let me out, what are you d— doing?”
I couldn't hear anything. If she did, she didn’t bother to reply. I couldn’t really see, either, though the stuff inside wasn’t an eye irritant. I kept gasping through the mask, making fearful moans.
I wasn’t sure what I was able to do. All I could think to try was to swim to the edge and push out again, but nothing seemed to move me. The stuff was dense and viscous, so thick I couldn’t feel my clothes. I could only move slowly, and to no avail. I couldn't even turn my head. I hated feeling so helpless and doomed. Overwhelmed by the awful feeling of fear.
“What— what was that?” I yelled. Something had latched onto my back! I tried to get my arms back to get at it, but I could hardly move. I thrashed around uselessly, unable to get it off, or even turn around. It felt like it was sticking to me even more than the goo was.
I felt my body start to tingle. Then more, and more. As I felt the thing on my back start to merge with the big sticky panel that Xanthrotricha had stuck there, it was making the area feel like it was being filled with the hormones that I got when my feelings were going hard. It filled me with so many different emotions: excitement, thrill, confusion, success, relief, obsession. All these different hormones hitting me at once, whatever they were. It’s like I was getting high, only off of the hormones my body naturally made and emitted during emotional states, all forced into me in huge quantities. I still had my mind, but thinking was getting hard. The frustrated noises and thrashing gradually began to give way to confusion and aimless fear.
I tried to swim towards the bottom, wiggling around, hoping I could maybe scrape against the floor to remove the thing that had latched onto me. Every few moments I got disoriented, over and over. I couldn't feel which way gravity was going, and the light bouncing around was neither bright nor differentiated.
I was losing my ability to even choose and focus on even a basic countermeasure. My coordination, survival instincts, and critical thought were all succumbing to the overwhelming onset of haze. Time was beginning to feel like it was slipping by faster, and my body only got more sluggish. I quickly lost the ability to move around at any higher speed than my very minimum, along with the ability to scream. I felt tired, fatigued. Like I needed to sleep for a very long time. My eyes were open about half the time, but the universe was hazing into unreality every few moments.
My breathing was finally slowing, drugged down like the rest of me. The last of my angry groans were replaced with the squeaks and moans of a far emptier mind, not nearly as sure what it was trying to do. I felt myself, gradually, rendered more simple. I couldn’t think any harder than I could when I was very, very sleepy, and ready to collapse.
That thing on my back… it… I knew what it was, didn’t I? I had to. I just… I just knew what it was. Exactly what it was. But I couldn't think it. I couldn't think right. It was pushing half of my panic out, and the other half wasn’t holding up against the wall of sleepy-high-feel that seemed to ebb and flow every four seconds.
The egg was getting warm, and even more cozy… Had it always been cozy? Did it always feel good to be inside of it? It should be a bad thing if it changes, but… I wanted to be so, so cozy.
The thing… against my back. I could feel it sinking. Sinking into me. The thing interfaced with my backside; I could almost feel my actual spine as it did. Electric feelings kept sprouting from it, wonderfully enticing things that I couldn't hold out against. All sorts of overwhelmingly good feelings, taking me over. I was being invaded by this… this thing, in my back.
N… no… All I could do was think the words. My voice was gone. Help? Something’s… happening to me. It’s… it’s bad… It feels so good? But it’s bad…
After a few more moments, I couldn’t feel it any longer, and my back felt as it had. Did it leave, or was it inside of my body? I… wasn’t sure. Thinking remained hard. As did moving. Everything, difficult, except to be still.
My body… it was beginning to… feel warm. Hot. Almost burning, as much as it could feel good.
I was… I was… being incubated. It was warm and safe. Something… something told me I was safe. In abstract thoughts, the idea was given to me. I could not stop it from entering my mind and asserting itself as correct. I could not even shake my head in a symbolic rejection of its power.
The warmth and sparks, they were starting to spread out from my back. I could feel them. They were in my head and most of my chest. The feelings, so many of them. Something spreading throughout my body.
This… this is… wrong, I told myself. Something bad is happening. I also couldn’t help but think, I really really like it.
Before long, the warmth had gotten through to all of me. And I was full of all sorts of odd, good sensations. Some familiar, many many more alien. All kinds of tingles, sparkles, buzzes, warm and soft and tight and… and… connected. Connected to new things inside me. In my brain and spine, I could sort of feel it. Entering all parts of me. Knowing all of me.
This is bad, something’s becoming part of me. But it feels so good to be connected to it. What is it doing to me?
My arms… they felt tight. Squeezed tighter and tighter. Alien instincts grew inside me. My arms were stuck. They needed freeing. They had… they had… not grown right? They needed to be fixed. My arms were stuck, so tight and constricted.
N— no, I can’t listen to that… that’s not… Something’s messing with me. I wouldn’t think that. I couldn’t. I’m being manipulated! My thoughts felt divided. My remaining little consciousness torn between learned reality and something invading.
I tried to get my arms to be free… I wasn’t sure what it meant. Listening felt easy… I could maybe just do it a little. Pull! The thought came to me. Pull! I was trying, harder and harder. I had to pull my arms free. I needed to; it was important.
No, stop! I couldn’t stop myself from feeling the desire, from acting upon it. It was nearly involuntary. Something must be wrong, I can feel it, something’s about to happen.
I watched my arms through sleepy eyes, as I tried to flex them. I couldn’t think of what was wrong. The arms were right there, it’s just… well.
I… did not have enough arms? But I had two already…
All the same, I… didn’t feel right. My arms… they needed fixing! I felt like fixing them would feel so good I would get more of the nice tingly feelings. It was urgent; there wasn’t much time. I closed my eyes, and then opened them again, and pulled. No, don’t listen!
My arms, they seemed to stretch — simultaneously towards and away from each palm. Gradually, I was able to get my hands apart — they separated into two more hands each, with parts of them covered in healthy new chitin.
Woah, I’m really doing it… I mean, no, I have to… I have to stop…
I kept pulling, and my forearms slowly, painlessly separated, as did the upper arms. I felt my shoulders move around, clicking parts into new places. The joints in my shoulders felt different, accommodating more limbs.
It… it feels weird… Why did I do that? What did I do? My arms… Did I get hurt? Under the blanket of chemicals I felt worried. Something about what I just did seemed wrong. Yet, when the nice feelings came, washing over me, it just felt too good to be ignored. No, it was too good to be true, right? I… what did…
The needy instincts came back. They were important. I can’t… My legs… my legs needed it too. Stop, don’t—!
I pulled at them, trying to do the same as my arms. I felt the parts in them separate like clicky plastic toys, coming apart in many satisfyingly odd little “pop” sensations.
No, stop, I tried to tell myself. They shouldn’t feel like that, I know it!
But… it feels so nice… I could just finish…
I got my feet separated into two each, covered in chitin, and slowly the process slid up my legs, popping all the sections apart, until reaching my hips, which likewise rearranged themselves. Through the sleepiness, I felt good and satisfied. I had to keep going.
Stop…
I need to do more…
I concentrated on my arms again. I lazily looked back at them… They weren’t done.
I pulled and pulled, and this time the four of them stretched further.
This is… bad?
More chitin was revealed, all of my arms now being mostly covered in it, as each arm formed into three this time.
No, it’s… good?
Slowly and steadily, I was able to pull the six of my new arms apart, then six more. It… it should have hurt, but it was nice. Safe. Good. My shoulders again pulled apart into more joints, leaving enough room for each arm to move properly. It was going well, I was doing great, I could feel the compliments flowing into my mind.
I didn’t tell myself those. What was that? That wasn’t me.
The thoughts were right, I was doing great.
Don’t listen, I need to stop right now! This is already too far!
I feel so good… More amazing feelings flowed through me, feeling just so incredibly good. I did a good job, I fixed my arms! I did it!
I felt like I should be breathing relief… but I hadn’t been breathing for a few minutes. I hadn’t noticed until now. As soon as my small amount of focus was on it, the mask over my mouth changed. It was absorbed into my face, and new parts formed over my cheeks. Somehow I knew they were called chelicerae. I didn’t know why, but that felt like the right name.
No… I should have been breathing. I don’t even know what those are, they shouldn’t be on me!
They feel nice on me… they’re supposed to be here.
I felt more things change in my head… my mouth felt different, then soon my face and especially forehead did as well. After a few moments, I felt a little bit like I could better sense what the goo was like inside the egg. Kind of like a good smell. I felt satisfied in the same way as before. Something else had been freed properly.
I shouldn’t be able to feel any of this. My body… What's happening to my body? I can’t see the changes.
The base of my spine felt ready to change, now.
No, no, don’t! I reacted to myself. Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t!
I… I… couldn’t… couldn’t help it. It just… I had to. I had to do it. My… I had more parts I needed freed.
No! No, please, no—
My thoughts frayed against one another. My mind and back were filled with so many amazing feelings. I could only focus on desire.
I bent forwards to look, and tried to let something grow. A tail… no, it was bigger. Parts of me down there shifted, right above my butt, and extended out, forming segments and getting longer. It felt amazing. Like my body parts were all stuck and squished together until now. I could feel it pulling itself apart as it extended, feeling much better as the segments fit nicely into place. I wasn’t sure how, but my clothes seemed to be gone, which was good. It gave me room to keep growing.
My… my body… I don’t understand… All these things happening to me…
The rewarding feelings came to me again, and the desire did as well. Next was my back. I felt things ready to grow from there. I did my best to let them; it felt nice, and I felt good and satisfied, and the good feelings congratulated me for freeing more of my body parts.
Help… This isn’t right…
I felt a few more things changing, but from there, I knew I could then rest. My body felt coated in tiny little sparks, as if a trillion nerve endings were connecting, all over my body. Most of them… I was pretty sure weren’t spots on my body, hovering outside of it.
I had done it all right, and I was…
I was… Almost ready now. Ready for… something. What did I need to be ready for?
No… it’s over… something was done to me. It… Miku, I’m so afraid…
The feelings are so nice… I want to feel them forever. What did it all mean?
I couldn’t even tell what had happened. It was all so much. All my thoughts had been fighting. I felt so, so, so different.
I felt it coming up. I needed to be Ready. I was almost done and I was… going to…
The egg goo felt… different. I felt urged to move, and so did. I wiggled around, and managed to get myself moving. My body felt nice, more perfect. My mind was beginning to speed up again, the impressions of sleep beginning to fade. Like I was asleep for a very, very long time.
I made it to the edge of the egg, and started to press on it. It wasn’t moving much, but it did stretch just a bit.
One last instinct came to me. I had to break the membrane.
I pressed more, wiggling around, trying to break it open. I needed… my body told me I could attack the egg with my chelicerae. I pushed my face against the egg, and tried to stab it a few times with my new parts. It worked! Some of the egg had broken open! I brought my hands up against the tears, and I was able to carve them open into a big hole, and I gradually slid out with the thick egg stuff.
The feeling of air… it had never been so odd.
I coughed, several times, evacuating my lungs from the stuff, and then successfully inflated them again. Though it also felt like I was using my abdomen to help breathe.
I took a few long breaths, in the puddle of slime, still confused and groggy. Something big picked me up, and I readily allowed myself to be moved, unable to assert any opinions.
Something feels… weird… What was it again?
In only a few moments, I was doused with a torrent of hot water, and the stuff quickly surrounded me, forming a deepening pool. It felt nice and comfortable, safe. I could feel safety around me… I could smell it. Something smelled like safety and love. And water, fortified with an appropriate mixture of healthy mineral additives.
It was just so relaxing. All tension left my muscles. I let myself be only supported by whatever was around me. I could not help but make a few small noises to express my relief.
I still could hardly see. But I felt… so soft. My body felt hard in most places, more than half. Like I was wearing something under my skin. But my mind was soft. I could only move gently, my thoughts still away from real use. I wanted to stay docile and calm. I felt the influences of something nice that wanted me to feel that way, too.
I… I should be… I should be afraid… I should be panicking. Why am I so… so, so relaxed. I feel so relaxed. I… have not felt this way for… ever? Have I ever felt this way…?
I let myself be doused with the relaxing water, weighted blanket still over my mind. Something got me wet all over with a soft, soaked towel, and I was covered in nice-smelling soap, which was then rinsed off. My body was brushed all over. My head was massaged thoroughly as my hair was washed afterwards, and rinsed. An itchiness that had been bugging me that week was gone, my outer layers of uncomfortable dead skin cleared off. And it was all so, so gentle.
The water disappeared over a few moments, and I was lifted again, wrapped in a very large, very warm towel. I heard… speech of some kind, and was carried around. I was set down somewhere soft, still wrapped in the towel… It must have been huge because it stayed warm for a long time.
I could… smell someone. Right next to me. No… two. Two sophonts.
They were nice smells. Friendly, loveable. Familiar…
I had smelled them before?
I opened my eyes. The place around me was very blurry, but it gradually cleared. I was in some kind of cozy room. Lots of soft things to rest on, and some nice dark-wood furniture.
My head, it was resting on something… thighs. Someone’s lap.
I turned to face upwards, slowly and lazily. I blinked a few times, breathing slowly, still having a hard time thinking.
Someone’s face… a pretty girl. Friendly. Familiar. Loveable.
I felt stuff come from my brain and back areas. Chemicals flowed into me, waking me up quickly. All my normal mental functions turned back on, rushing back to me.
All the realizations came to me at once.
In front of me was one of my closest friends from the naval base: Brioni. She was in the trans girl group I hung out with when off-shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as the groupchat, which allowed us to communicate any day we wanted, so we knew each other pretty well.
Brioni had been changed. She was a bug girl, specifically she seemed to be an anthropomorphic, furry/chitie moth. The kind that was yellow and gray, with pink-and-black stocking colored legs. Four arms, big fluffy antennae, a big round abdomen, huge wings, and fuzzy all over.
I… didn’t even recognize her by her face; it was entirely replaced. I knew her smell. I could smell her, and I somehow knew that this was exactly her.
And I too had been transformed, into a similar body to… the one that Xanthrotricha had. It was a shock I could already remember ver name perfectly. Xanthrotricha, who was sitting on the other side of me, in her enormous glory — the other smell I recognized. My… my antennae were the things that identified them both.
In a shock, I jumped up, trying to get out of my towel — and it worked, though not the way I expected. The thing was immediately torn to shreds, and I realized, as I landed away from the couch, that my twelve arms, now with fingers that sported large claws on the ends, had eviscerated the thing.
Shocked, I looked at my arms. Twelve, and clawed. I dropped the scraps of the towel. My body… holy fuck.
My body.
It was… so changed. All these arms… more legs, too. Wings, four of them. A big abdomen, pretty long, too. It reached the floor. My face had chelicerae, and antennae.
My body was bright, electric blues, and dark nighttime blues, in a few places looking ever so slightly purple. Much of it chitinous.
Back in front of me, Brioni, was smiling. Almost laughing. She… looked… happy to see me?
Xanthrotricha was happy too. Ve… ve did this to me.
Oh my Miku… I changed. I hatched from an egg and I changed inside of it.
“What the roots?” I said. Oh… my mind was modified, too.
“Y— you!” I turned to Xanthrotricha. “What— what did you do to me?” I wanted to sound aggressive, but I only sounded afraid. “I… you made… what… You did this rotting—”
“Please, darling,” ve replied. “Are you really that surprised?”
“Y, you— you’re the one who’s been doing this to all those, those florets!” I accused her. “You, you did it to me, I can’t… I can’t believe…”
“Darling,” ve said again. “Of course I am; I’m a surgical veterinarian.”
“You, dirt, you’ve been — taking terrans apart and reassembling them!”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“You’ve — you made me into, into this—”
Ve nodded, seemingly undisturbed.
“You… I… I’m horrifying…” I looked around, wildly at my own body. “You, you, made me into one of you! Wh— why…”
“I did,” ve confirmed.
“You— you monster… and you’ve, you’ve made me into a monster!” I shouted. “I’ve… I’m a bug creature! All these arms and legs, and an abdomen — terrans aren’t supposed to have any of this!”
“True.” She kept… agreeing.
“I… I…” I slowed my breathing, overwhelmed from the panic. “I… my body…” I looked down at myself. “What did you… do… I feel so different…”
A weird feeling came up on me. One I had felt before, but not often.
I raised some of my hands, nearer to my face. Segmented things, now. Like a collection of human-size doll arms. Though, still organic. Mostly covered in chitin, with a few spots of exposed flexible skin, and much more soft skin on my palms. All… twelve of my palms.
It was so foreign… these parts of mine. It… it was so foreign.
Dirt. It should have felt so foreign.
I felt… something else.
Seeing these hands, on my own real body, like this. So, so real, so much more real than my forced high in that egg. So much more real than in artwork or stories.
I had… I had been truly transformed. One had really happened to me. I… I couldn’t shake it. It felt… so weird… so odd.
I tried to get myself to hate the hands attached to my body. I… I could not. The arms. The hands.
There were far too many of them. Yet. They felt so, so, horribly right.
I nearly stumbled in fear. Stumbled, on my four legs. Sort of humanoid, but distinctly arthropod, connected at my hips to some new kind of joint. They… they too felt… they… they didn’t feel wrong. They were so wrong. But they Did Not Feel That Way.
My abdomen. I could see it too. I should have feared and hated such a horrible change happening to my actual, real body.
And yet. It did not come to be.
It wasn’t just any affection, either. I knew the feeling.
The distinct, deep-seated, incredible euphoria of having something on my body be right. I knew it many times, during my transition, and even afterwards too.
But… here it was being put on these things attached to me.
Oh, Miku — why did my body want this? Why does it feel so, so, so good?
“You… you messed with my head,” I let out, fearfully. “You, you did something to my mind! You’re, you’re, you’re making me feel things! Making me feel like, like, as if I like this body.”
“That,” Xanthrotricha finally said, “is far from true.” On her alien stride, one that now surely fit my own body as well, she approached me. “I could easily, easily modify your mind as I wish.”
I huffed. “Frost. You, you… you have already—”
“Yes, of course I have.” Ve sounded like ve was bragging. “Do you not understand what I truly do to florets?”
“Y… you turn them into…”
“Creatures. Yes,” she confirmed. Without any hint of guilt for it. “And I give florets these gifts, because my job is to give them their deepest desires.”
My eyes went wide. “Y— you expect me, to, what, believe that?” She stepped closer to me, and I shrank a little.
“Why do you think those florets are so terribly happy to be in those bodies?” ve asked. “My expertise is to make dreams come true, no matter how impossible. I have aeons of experience, Wister. At more than five thousand years of age, I have learned many things. Such as how important it is, when someone wanders into my lair…” Ve leaned down closer to me as I backed into the corner of ver living room. I tried to suppress the odd instinct to raise my arms up to appear larger, as if I really was a bug.
“...Not to let them get away. And after all those years of experience helping florets, when I decided I was ready to keep them for myself? I can proudly say that no terran who has ever wandered into my lair has ever exited my territory unsatisfied, unchanged, or in the case of those who didn’t come to me with their owners, without myself as their own. No sophont who does not want what I give would ever walk into my trap, Wister. I have made sure of that for twice as long as terrans have had paper.”
I shivered. “H— how… old?”
“I am as old as the Great Pyramids of Giza,” she answered. “As old as cuneiform writing. As old as Assyria. Stonehenge, a united Sumer kingdom, the height of the Bronze Age, all happened when I was four times your age and beginning to see the universe. Ancient Greece began when I was about as old as the printing press now is. Ancient China’s first dynasty, when I was as old as terran space travel now is. And I know all of these terran events, memorized them, because six of my beloved hive of florets asked me when I took them as my own. Now seven, with you.”
Ve didn’t ask me when ve picked me up. Ve didn’t even warn me. Ve simply did what ve wanted.
I felt so far off the ground, held up to ver face. And yet, ver hands around my body… they felt… so, so safe.
These… aren’t my thoughts, I tried to tell myself. I should not feel safe. I should not feel satisfied. I should not feel so… so… so terribly seen.
Like ve was looking right through my soul.
“You feel this way,” she explained, in a voice I felt through my whole body, “because it is natural and true to you. You had no choice. You had no other way. You were this way for as long as you have existed. Because you’re supposed to be like this.”
“N… no,” I said, unsure how much I meant it. “This… this isn’t me.”
“Your world told you that your body should have satisfied you. It did that, despite how you’re transgender, and desperately needed the right gender expression.
Her eight eyes felt like they were piercing me. I felt her many arms, holding me tight.
“...Should you really trust all the other terrans when they tell you being human is correct?”
“N— no, it. It. It…” I stuttered. “It can’t be. No, no, it— it’s not— that’s impossible. It doesn’t work that way, that’s— it’s… it’s…”
“It is you,” she said, rattling my soul around in my invaded mind. “Wister, this is how you have always felt. And this is the body you should have always had.”
“Y— you… it’s…” I struggled to correct myself, figure out what to think.
There was one truth even worth latching onto, let alone that I could actually believe.
“I was… was I really always meant to be this?”
I sounded so afraid. So small. So much smaller than her.
Ver smile… Miku, was it wonderful to see ver smile so wide for me. “Search your precious little soul, darling Wister,” ve said. “What is true?”
I smiled back, almost befuddled by my own excitement. “It’s… all true.”
“That’s right, precious little floret. It is.”
She set me down again, in front of the couch, amongst the scattered remains of the towel.
Right in front of Brioni, who had been watching the whole thing. She looked the most ecstatic I had seen her.
Brioni jumped towards me, hugging me, before I could think of what to do. “Aaaaaahhhh! Wister!” Her adorable voice was somehow the same in that body.
I couldn’t say anything for a few moments. I brought my arms up to hug her, careful not to scratch. “Brioni…” I said, beside myself with… many things. “Brioni… what are you doing here? What happened to me…”
Xanthrotricha plucked us up. “There we go, darling,” she laughed. “Feeling like yourself?”
With my mind freed from the fear, I could… I could understand my body. It was… it was so much. I had needed it.
It hit me that I had been given a gift. Though, not one that was merely a privilege. I was given what remained to be my truest self.
“You… oh, wow, you did so many things to me… And it… it was… ”
“Yes, and I’m sorry for the surprise. But it was necessary, I hope you now see. Trust me, no sophont without the right desires would wander into my lair like that.”
“Woah…” was all I could manage.
My body… it was good. I… it was perfect. I had no idea, before. How could such a thing even happen? How… I never got so lucky. I felt that way. Lucky.
Her body, and now mine, had been alien, earlier. Xanthrotricha, upon meeting me, called me a creature. She was right, not me. This… this is not alien. Life as a terran feels alien to me. It’s all clear now. This is… well… I don’t know. It’s…
“My new home?” I asked.
“Yes,” Xanthrotricha confirmed. “You, your new pinnate, Brioni, and of course, your thirty-six other connivents thus far!” She seemed prideful. Both because I could smell her making the pheromones for it, and… because… maybe I could even feel her thoughts in the haustoric implant I had. She made me her floret. She was in me. Ve changed me with parts of verself.
Ve really did it all for me. I had been implanted, my soul was augmented with vers, the haustorium woven into my whole body. Little by little, I could even feel just a bit of the nice feelings from the egg come back. Little soda bubbles crackling in my brain.
“Wow.” I was quiet. “It… must have been months of incubation…”
“Nope!” Brioni laughed. “Mistress has been pioneering methods for terran body modification.”
“Experimental,” Xanthrotricha added, “but quite functional already. Technically it makes you a sort of cotyledon. Sort of. It won’t say it in the records, but what’s really important is how wonderful you are, naturally~.”
“It’s only been three days!” Brioni finished. “All the incubation stuff was mostly involving putting the egg thing in a pod. You know, those things the Affini have which can do surgery and implants and use for full-dive VR! My new Affini therapist says they’re sometimes even used for relatively intense mental health treatment.”
“There is more context, petal. Still, I am proud of my work. The egg has enough nutrients and planttech to work on its own, but so far I’ve been using it in conjunction with a large-size pod system I have hooked up, which makes it only around three days. So each egg has a grown generic haustorium, waiting for use. Adding a membrane and an additional haustorium growth allowed me to assign the implant to myself. From there the membrane and the egg’s internal liquid-form biotechnology allow the implant to be absorbed safely through your skin over a five-hour period, from where it can manage your bodymods, each taking a few hours to safely do, mostly by adding material between your cells to allow fast modification without pain or harm.”
“...Huh,” I replied after taking it all in. “Wow, uh. So. I haven’t missed my trip home?”
“Oh, you have!” sang Xanthrotricha. “You won’t be needing it, more specifically. Your belongings are already here — along with your phone, which I grabbed from your dissolving clothes when you were incubating — and I’ve taken you as my floret, obviously. And yes, I checked as soon as I noticed you trespassing to make sure you’d be a compatible fit. Just in case, though I pride myself on what one of my little ones calls my ‘100% win rate’. We’re quite good at gathering information, including things you don’t know about your cute little selves.
“As of three days ago, you are Wister Lancifolia, Thirty-Eighth Floret. I’ve also taken the initiative to give you some extra pronouns; you had a severe pronoun deficiency I’m afraid. Yours are now she/her/hers, it/its, ve/ver/vers, fae/faer/faers.”
“Pfft,” I happily laughed. “Of course you would.”
“Now, all the rest of the hive will be back soon; I sent them out to have fun while you woke up,” Xanthrotrichia continued. “They had a nice few hours of fun at the arcade. Before they get back, let’s make sure you are acquainted with your body.” Ve brought me to the bathroom. Seeing my face was… wow, a lot more than expected.
I had six new eyes, eight total, matching Xanthrotrichia’s — on my forehead. And what’s more, they were glowing. Vivid glowing red sclera, blue irises. I had also grown very long antennae, segmented ones like centipedes had. They shifted from a deep, dark blue at the base to very bright electric blue at the tips.
Xanthrotricha guided me through my body. My tongue was very long, now working as a proboscis if I wanted to use it to drink, and was colored in pinks and blues. My breasts and butt were a lot larger now, which was a huge bonus. I also finally had the vagina I wanted! Plus, now I could see the wings as well.
I… wow. I was actually really pretty.
I leaned into the other two. “Thank you.” I meant what I said.
A few minutes after that, all my new connivents had gotten home: many more cute girls, most of them trans like me, turned into bug creatures. Some chities like Brioni, the rest monster girls like me! And everyone was super cute as well. There were a couple more moths, a fair bit more of whatever I was supposed to be (nobody I asked seemed to have actually been told), and all sorts of others. They had all sorts of great personalities too! Some strong and confident, some timid and adorably cute, and all very nice to talk to!
A cuddle pile quickly generated, of course, and I quickly found out about the next fun aspect of the transformation. My instincts had been toyed with, and quite a lot. Every ounce of me was being dedicated towards love; I had no choice but to obsess over my new hive! It felt so wonderful to instinctually be driven to affection for them all.
After dinner, Mistress (Brioni convinced me to call ver that — sure enough, it also activated the hive-love instincts), in between bouts of flustering me by using my new pronouns as much as possible, announced that ve wanted to “rescue” a few more of the girls from the group Brioni and I were in. Apparently, with Mistress’s help, the Affini info-gathering clerks for the thing-with-the-long-name-I-don’t-know-how-to-say determined they love bug girls too!
As a result, that evening, Mistress, Brioni, myself, and many of our connivents were all on our way, having used a shuttle to land on the planet. We were flying! It was very fun to test out my new wings, and they would be instrumental in grabbing our friends easily and safely.
As indicated by the group leader's recent post on the newly-instated Affini internet, that evening's trans girl hangout was being held at a new gazebo (one of many recreational improvements courtesy of the Affini); sure enough, the remaining seven members had all gathered there to talk. They could have been wondering what happened to me and Brioni! We definitely needed to make sure they’d be safe and happy. We all landed quietly on the roof (Affini make things very strong! It helps them sneak around for sexy reasons, Mistress says) and I used my cool new bug-wall-climbing ability to crawl down, peering over the edge of the roof to let them see me.
“Hello!” I sang, the other seven girls clearly startled, quickly turning to look at me.
“What the fuck???”
“Who… who are you?”
Oh! I guess with all the eyes and the new arthropod skin tone I’d be a little harder to recognize, even though my face was mostly the same aside from some increased cuteness. “It’s me! Wister! Hello!”
Ester, the leader, seemed shocked. So did everyone else, but she was the one who spoke first. “W… Wister! What happened to you?”
Even if they were so shocked, it was still very nice to see them again. My hive-love instinct even activated upon seeing them, so I knew they meant a lot to me. It felt relieving just to see that they were safe.
“Oh, long story!” I replied. “Three days long actually. But I have good news! I’m here to convince you to also get a bug-girl TF~!”
“Wh… what?” Celly asked. “Why would we want that?”
I shrugged. “I thought I didn’t at first but it ended up being really nice. And Brioni’s here too!”
Brioni jumped out next to me, fluttering down to stand on the railing, happily waving. “Hello!”
“Wha… how do we even know you two are for real?” Ester asked, seemingly on guard.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to be scary…” My antennae drooped.
“Hey, she’s going through a lot!” Brioni argued. “Ester, you can’t be that harsh on her, remember? She’s anxious!”
“Uh— oh, right. S… sorry about that, Wister,” she replied. “I promise I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, you know… the Affini made kind of a really fuckin’ scary entrance.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I agreed. “But… you know. I can’t really handle all that.”
The other girls nodded. “So,” asked Onyx, “uh, why do you think bug girl transformation is something we’d all want?”
“Oh, our Mistress says you’d all like it!” Brioni answered honestly. “She says it matches your profiles, so she’d love to help.”
“Uh… I dunno,” Ester replied. “I uh, like, if you like an Affini I get it, but I dunno if I’d trust them myself. We’re all kinda just planning on leaving, finding a planet with less of them, or maybe none of ‘em. I mean, you know, we have military training and all, so I think we’d be reasonably safe if we can defend ourselves. Did you two want to come with? We always have room for you, even if you, heh, take up a bit more…”
“Why would we want to leave?” I asked honestly. “I mean I was suspicious of the Affini too, but like. It’s working out pretty well for me, all things considered. I can smell a pizza shop from sixteen miles away!” I gestured in the direction of a pizzeria I liked, which I could indeed smell from that distance now. Ooh, maybe I could ask Mistress to bring us there in an hour? I would probably be hungry soon.
“Well, you know!” Ester gestured wildly, a little frustratedly. “They’re… they’re all dictators! Imperialists! I just, I don’t wanna live through the same shit as before again. They freak me out, y’know? I’d rather—”
“Oh my,” came Mistress’s voice. She climbed down from the roof, blocking the entrance of the gazebo, and all our connivents started swarming down around from the roof on the other sides as well. Our friend group, isolated in the middle, seemed startled. “I didn’t know my girls’ little friends were such feralists! I knew the transformative aspects of my care would help, but this? You all need more help than expected, I must admit. You’re still plenty nice sophonts, and your concern is understandable to an extent — but being afraid of Affini is quite bad for your health. And mistaking our strategy as ‘the same’ is certainly an insult I cannot simply allow.” She crept forwards. “Dears, will this be the easy way or hard way? It’s your choice, but I should warn you, acting out counts as choosing.”
To my shock (shock I tell you!) all our friends tried to make a break for it! It was a little dismaying, but that’s okay; Mistress and our connivents got most of them. Despite that, somehow Ester had gotten away! She was running off into the dark, where it could be unsafe! It didn’t seem like anyone else had noticed, so I hoped that Mistress wouldn’t mind too much if I went to get her.
I buzzed up to her, hovering beside her as she ran, trying to give my best friendly Wister smile. It helped that I felt so relieved to make sure she had someone to keep her safe. The instincts really made me want to ensure nobody went missing. Though I also wanted that regardless. “Hi Ester!!!”
“Gah! Wister!” she shouted at first, then was relatively quiet. “Wha… what are you doing?”
“Uh.” I tried to interpret the question, to no avail. “Like… in general, with my life? At the moment?”
“Right— right now!”
Oh, that was probably obvious. Maybe I was still a little off. I had just been high for three sleepless days. “Um. I am… flying. With wings. Cool, right?” I waved a couple pairs of arms excitedly.
“No!” she almost yelled. “I mean… okay, yes, obviously. It is cool, objectively.” She spent a few moments just running, breathing to get her air. “I mean, like. Are you getting away with me? Or what?”
I frowned. “No, I don’t wanna run away… or fly. And you really shouldn’t leave us all, even if Mistress was bad. We should stick together!” I decided to leave out the part that doing so would end up feeling really good for her.
“I… I can’t!” Ester didn’t stop. “She’s— gonna do… something to me!”
I kept buzzing along with her for a few long moments. “I mean… she did do something to me. And it was really wonderful.”
“I…” She almost said something honest. Instead, her answer was “I can’t.”
Well, that about did it. Ester was usually the leadership-y one, but even I knew when she was doing the kind of sad rejection-of-desire thing I often did! Thankfully Mistress had known to look past the issue when I showed up to her really rooting freaky bug hive roleplay veterinary surgery clinic, which meant that I had learned from her that I should do the same for my friends.
“Ester,” I stated, “I love you very much. That is why I am about to do this.”
As she yelled in anger and surprise, I lifted her into the air (my wings were very strong!) and carried her at a safely low altitude, back to Mistress at the gazebo. I felt more instinctual satisfaction for helping a loved one.
“W— Wister!” she yelled. “Let me down!”
“Gently?”
“Wha—”
“Come on, you’ve seen that one Batman movie right? Batman tells Joker to ‘let’ someone ‘go’, and he drops them off a building! You should really specify just in case one of these times you’re being carried by, like, an evil genie or something. You never know!”
“I— yeah, of course I mean gently!” she stammered, wriggling indignantly. “S— just stop! And nobody normally worries about that you know, it’s your anxiety again. Nobody worries about random genie occurrences!”
“I’ll have you know that there’s a good reason why I never say the phrase ‘I wish’ unless I would plausibly really mean it, and have a pre-designed set of low-risk, high-reward wishes to attain my goals safely. These are important things that every mentally-healthy girl worries about constantly, despite not believing that genies are real.”
“What? It doesn’t matter!” She tried swinging herself around, but I had a good grip on her. “Lemme go! This… this is betrayal! We— we’re all together!”
“Yeah. That’s why. We’re gonna stay together.”
“Wister! Don’t do it! They… they fucked with your brain!”
I stopped, setting us down just before we got to the gazebo. “Yeah. She did. And nothing bad happened. Only good. I’m as lesbian, transgender, and neurodivergent as usual. More, even. Given how much better and more comfortable I feel.”
As Ester struggled, I didn’t let her go. I ignored her complaints and yells, as Mistress approached us from behind, picking us up and holding us in her arms with Brioni. I hugged Ester all the way home, our connivents bringing the rest of our friends.
We did have that pizza for dinner later. We also reserved another few tables for after everyone hatched in three days.
Ester gasped, getting new air into her body, the last of our friends to hatch. Everyone had done so in the span of ten minutes, and Mistress was still washing the first three in the big sink. With help from Brioni, I walked up to her to make sure she was sitting upright and breathing okay.
“Oohgh…” she groaned. She was still very high, after three days of ecstacy and rebirth. Like myself, she wouldn’t really wake up until Mistress gave her an antidote for the haustorium-recovery mix she had chosen — or by waiting ‘round sixteen hours or so.
“Wow,” Brioni gasped. “She’s so pretty…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. My eyes fixated on our wonderful new… definitely connivent, maybe pinnate? Broodmates maybe. I guess this made it kind of funny that Ester sometimes said stuff like “as trans girls we’re sisters”. I’d have to joke about that once she’d woken up more! I’m sure I could think up something funny within the next… few… uh, days. In the shower.
I let her lie on my lap (I was easier to clean slime off of than the very fluffy Brioni). She was another of the same thing I was. A couple other of our friends had become more of me, or more mothgirls. Unlike me, she was mostly yellows. Some gray and black parts, and some little blue highlighted markings in some places. Her eyes glowed yellow on her irises, blue on the sclera. Her hair had actually changed too: it had fancy curls to it now. I liked the look; she always seemed kind of fancy to me, being our sorta-leader and all.
It was likewise nice to feel so relieved, seeing everyone out of their eggs. Knowing we’re all together, feeling the nice feels from being close to the hive.
It was an hour later when she had finally been cleaned and dried (Brioni and I got the same treatment), and Mistress gave Ester the antidote.
“How’d you like it?” I smiled down at her, accompanied by Brioni, and our friends slowly waking up around the cuddle space we were in.
“Woah…” Ester said, clearly pretty woozy. “W… Wister?”
I nodded. “Yep!”
“W… wait. I, um… how… do I look?”
“Like Wister, but even prettier,” Brioni responded.
Ester slowly turned her head, ogling my body. “Like Wister…”
I could see her eyes focus, and she jumped up. Luckily I was able to pull her towel off before she did what I did.
“W— Wister!” she shouted. “You— you took me to ver, and you, you, let her turn me into, into, into this thing!”
“And, I would not have if I wasn’t certain you’d be better off,” I added. “Just like Brioni is, and I am.”
“Wh… why would you…?”
I rushed forwards to hug her before she could trick herself into thinking the wrong thing like I did. Mistress says I couldn’t accept my true self because I was so shocked that I could only default to reacting how I thought I should react.
But now, thanks to Mistress, I also knew all the tricks that helped me calm down. Ester might have been more capable of doing brave things than I was, but she had just as much autism as I did, which meant that squishing her would be perfect.
It was nice, to be on top of her, holding her down and letting my weight rest on her as she quickly calmed, startled by the feeling. Like I was on the other side of things, when for the past three days I was given plenty of time with Mistress squishing me.
She rested for a few moments. “I… wow. I can feel it all working. I… Damn. The instincts.”
“Do they feel good?” I asked, wiggling a bit.
“I… wow. Yeah. I… this… this body. I can’t… can’t believe it, but, it… really is… it’s wonderful. Can’t really resist the new instincts, um… heh. I kinda… love you both.” She sighed. “Ugh… can’t believe it was actually as good as you said.”
I shrugged. “Lying, I was taught, isn’t good for me. That’s what Mistress says. So I told you the truth.”
“And… it’s… really normal for me?”
“For all of us.” I nuzzled her face a little bit, buying myself time to think of more nice words to say that sounded smart and fancy like Mistress did. “We were all fated for it. We had no chance but to have our dreams come true.”
“Mmm… yeah.” She felt like she wanted to move, so I let her on top. She nuzzled into my thicc thighs. “Hmmnh.”
“...So!” Brioni interjected. “Wanna, maybe… find some more connivents?”
“Betray even more terrans?” Ester asked, seemingly incredulous.
“Yeah,” I offered.
“Mmmm…” she grunted, stretching. “Sure. I know some girls.”