Nobody's Servant 1.0

Received [vore]

I wake to pain.

Muscle and bone separate from metal and rubber, reattaching only to do it again. I don't even have the faculties to move, motorics in metamorphosis, limiting me to involuntary, spasmodic writhing.

My back is quivering. My head is pounding. Agony explodes in places that did not exist until just now, these are the only things I can focus on; any other sensory feedback is just garnish. Eventually, things solidify again and some degree of control returns. I'm not sure how much time it took.

There's a scrap of embarrassment when I realize a repeating noise in the back of my mind is actually the sound of my new acquaintance trying to speak to me. I try to get it together so I can at least look at him, but just as I do, the kangaroo doll lunges into a skidding crouch, his nose almost touching mine as he reiterates himself.

"Focus, or you will die."

That news, of course, doesn't really do a lot to calm me down. "What's happening to me?" I manage to seethe out.

"You have become something more. But, blood is being lost," Suraokh states. "Part of you is wounded. It did not mend itself. Focus to make it stop. The base of your spine. Just think about healing it."

"Believe me," I growl through clenched teeth, "I would love it if I could."

"You misunderstand; you can heal," the gray kangaroo insists. Even the sound of his lexicon module rewinding itself for the next five sounds urgent. "Think about healing it now."

I grunt through clenched teeth, and focus on the affected area. I can feel that the skin has been torn open, and my bones have split and gone off in several directions. I imagine it's no surprise that I'd rather this not be happening right n—

And just like that, the pain begins to fade, though it's replaced by the rather unpleasant sensation of fluids being sucked back into my wounds as they close up.

For a while after it stops, I lay motionless, in disbelief about what just happened. Even the injuries I suffered while adrift in the sea have corrected themselves; however minor, it's the kind of thing I'd have needed maintenance for until now. False life, made a little less false. Enough time passes that I jolt in surprise when Suraokh grabs my wrist and yanks me to my feet. As I stand, eight newly-acquired tails in addition to my original one drape around me, almost of their own accord.

I'll have plenty of time to look myself over later, though. I've done what the kangaroo wanted.

"So now we leave?" I ask.

He nods. "I will lead the way."

Holding my unfinished weapon, he turns quickly and begins marching toward a narrow crevice in the walls of the pale yellow stone pit. Before I follow, I take one last glance at the shifting, rippling prismatic well in the ceiling that bestowed me with... whatever this is. I hope it's worth the pain. And I hope it's worth the trouble it's no doubt put me in.

I slip through the crevice, my clothes catching luminescent lichen from the walls as dust I scrape past. Keeping up with Suraokh proves challenging, especially with these new tails taking up more of what precious little space I have. Speaking of the new tails, to accommodate themselves they ripped the slot meant for a single one wider. As if I didn't look ragged enough already.

It's funny, the ordeal of earlier feels like such a distant memory. Suddenly I can go from fighting for my life to thinking about the specifics of clothing.

At the end of the narrow passage, the scent of damp earth is the first thing to reach me. Suraokh's light casts long shadows off the stalagmites, so abundant there was no room for a clear path, requiring a light-footed meandering way through them.