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 Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:13 pm
Sophie laughed warmly, then responded, "I'll try and do my best for a girl, then. See you out there in a little while." She ended the call and let out a sigh of relief, coupled later with a fist-pump of victory! She had something to do! Which meant she wouldn't be boring her brains out! Without any hesitation, she left her duplex, making sure to lock it before jogging down towards the site with loads of enthusiasm.
By the time she got there, though, she seemed to be considerably lacking in it, and paused as she looked around to check her forehead for a fever. Was she sick? Her temperature felt right, but she certainly didn't: specifically, her head was throbbing quite a bit.
Merely attributing it to the already warm tropical air and her jog (which would naturally leave her a bit winded), she waited for Gaius, already a million questions about the site coming to mind.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:23 pm
Gaius had yanked on a pair of old modified jeans he'd cut off around the knees after finishing toweling off his legs, and left his hair kinda damp, which made it even curlier than normal. Putting Vixen on a leash to keep her under control - the dog had taken to getting her nose in the worst places! - he trotted out towards the site.
It was about mid-way that he stopped to think about his last encounter with Sophie. That had been weeks ago... and last she'd seen him, he still had a human-ish face! He stopped dead in his tracks, suddenly gripped by panic. Crud! He didn't have anything to cover his head! Or his legs, why hadn't he worn longer pants? But he'd already taken this long, she'd wonder if he kept her waiting and probably get mad...
Quietly, he walked the rest of the way, head held a bit low on his long neck, and wings puffed behind him as he tried to dry the feathers in the sun. Looking ahead, he saw Sophie standing around, and worked on approaching her from behind. Not until she was a couple yards away did he call to her.
"Hey! Uh, hi Sophie..."
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:29 pm
Once again, the sound made Sophie jump, and she turned around sharply with a loud "EEP!", nearly toppling over from losing her balance. It took her a second to recognize the fuzzy, winged man as Gaius, and she gave him a confused, blinking stare until she did, at which point, her eyes momentarily widened, despite her attempts to hide her surprise.
"Oh, uhm...hi! You, uh...you look different." She nearly slapped herself in the face for being so blunt, but it was true. His face had widened, the extent of his fur had spread over his body, and his wings were now feathered. But, as she couldn't take it back, she just did he rbest not to stare too much, and instead looked out towards the site.
"So...what exactly are you guys doing right now?" The pain in her head caught her for a moment, and she rubbed her temples, the aching throb becoming slightly more acute.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:38 pm
Gaius jerked at the reaction, taking a step forward as Sophie fell over, but he was too far and too slow to even think of catching her, so he offered her a hoof-hand up instead, along with a sheepish smile. "Yeah, I'm different... sorry, should've warned you or something."
Waiting until she'd caught his hand, he hauled Sophie up, making sure she was okay before looking around the site. His eyes widened with surprise as he surveyed the site work in progress. "Heey... someone's been working here... Those beams weren't up last I was here!"
Augh, that made him feel guilty. How long had it been? Offering her an arm, he gestured towards the pit. "Well, shall I show you around? We've been working on building a theater for the islanders..."
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:44 pm
Sophie didn't quite notice the gesture of offering the arm: instead, she made note of his hoof-hands, and did her best not to make a comment about them. So, she looked out at the site, her head still throbbing as she replied, "Sure: where do we start?"
She waited for a response, but instead found herself hissing in a breath of pain when the pain in her head suddenly became centered on her ears, pulling upwards and itching as fur began to sprout from their tips. With a soft moan, she clutched at her head, unaware that it wasn't a migrane treating her so harshly: it was a change.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:49 pm
Gaius was heedless of the pain in Sophie's head, instead leading her around to the edge of the site. He babbled along happily, talking about wood quality and tools and hours of man-work and how helpful people were being. He didn't notice as Sophie seemed to trail behind a bit, growing more distracted with her own problems. It wasn't until she clutched at her head that he looked down, clearly hearing the low moan she uttered.
"You feeling okay?" Was it something he'd done? Had he annoyed her with something he'd said? "Do you, uh, need to sit down? There's trees with some shade right over there..."
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:55 pm
"I dunno...I kinda feel sick, but I think I'll be okay..."
Karma seemed to feel particularily wicked that day, and no sooner had the words left Sophie's lips did she feel the same sharp aches in her face, and she yelped as her hands went to her ears to her nose, now exposing the inches that her ears had grown and how they were continuing to swell, getting larger by the second.
"What's...going on?!" Sophie managed to cry from clenched fangs, her sinuses gritting as her nose began to push forward the slightest bit, fur spreading onto her face starting from her eyebrows. Her feet bucked and she went to her knees, her eyes tearing up from the pain.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:03 pm
Gaius opened his mouth just as Sophie first cried with pain. He jerked back a step, ears and tail twitching in agitation.
"No, Sophie...! Not her!" Of course, it was inevitable, they all had to succumb to it, didn't they? But she'd come changed! Somehow, he'd wondered if she'd be different...
Recovering himself, Gaius stooped to gather the fallen girl up in his arms, slinging one arm behind her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, and quickly carried her over to the trees he'd pointed out earlier, setting her down on the softer grass. A glance was all he needed to note what damage was already done. Her ears - huge, and her nose. Gaius could easily imagine the pain her nasal cavity was going through, as he'd felt something like it before.
"Don't panic, whatever you do..." he said to her in a tight voice. That close, he could practically smell her fear - a bitter smell to his nose, and it acted on his own nerves. He had to clench down on them to keep from losing control of himself.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:24 pm
Sophie was barely aware of the fact that Gaius had picked her up and set her down in a different place, her senses aflame and painfully aware of what was happening to her body. Fur spread out in a mask over her eyes, closed tight from pain, and she cried out again as she put a hand over her face, an abrupt stab to her sinuses indicating the reshaping of her skull to accomodate larger eyes.
Despite the fact that none of this could be seen from under the cover of her hands, there was still a sight to behold for the poor horse-man witnessing her change. An itch prompted sandy fur to come forth on the backs of her hands, and her moans began to creep up to wails as the bones within her hands cracked, her fingers actually growing longer.
"It...hu-hurts..." Sophie whispered, bending her back in upon herself to try and hide from the harsh realities of her deforming body. "I don't w-want...to die, Gaius!" From underneath her hands, her tears began to flow freely, aching sobs joined with the fact that she could feel her nub growing as well, sproting fur as it did.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:37 pm
Gaius bit his lip as he watched helplessly. Hair washed over Sophie's hands like a werewolf movie, accompanied with claws and cracking, growing joints that his sensitive horse ears could hear all too clearly.
"I-I know it hurts..." he stammered, brushing his fingers against the back of one of her hands, and then up, pushing back locks of hair that had tumbled forward. He wished he could stop it, or at least somehow take all this pain into himself. He was used to it, he could handle it. This slight girl didn't have the body to take such abuse! Surely she would be snapped in two under the pain.
"It's... a change. It'll be over soon. Try to focus on something, anything but the pain. Here, grab my hand, I don't want you scratching up your face..." He held out one of his hoofed hands to Sophie, hoping the girl wouldn't somehow accidentally hurt herself further.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:50 pm
With a whimper, Sophie took the hoof-hand, leaning against Gaius without any regards to the things that might be taken from such a move. Her eyes remained closed, but slowly, the changes abated, and she let out a deep breath, too scared to look up at Gaius, to see what had happened to her.
It was a false security, however, and the moment of silence was replaced with another cry of pain as she went scrambling for her shoes, her feet lengthening from within and pressing against the linings of the fabrics. Shaking hands got her shoes from her feet, and she watched in horror as they lengthened, feeling with a painful strain how one toe was left behind from the others as the beginnings of a dew claw. She winced, and as the sound of ripping fabric exploded from within her ears, the claws of her feet shredded into her socks, showing the extent of her change.
For a while, Sophie merely sat there with a quivering lip, her whole body sore and her mind wracked with fear. She wasn't dead...that was a start. However, everything looked...different. Would 'more vibrant' be the way to put it, or was it just that she was exhausted from the change and not thinking straight. Still, she refused to look at Gaius, and feeling very vulnerable, leaned back onto his chest, the tears starting down her face once again.
"It wasn't that bad last time..."
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:06 pm
Gaius held her hand silently, and wrapped an arm around her thin shoulders, too caught up in the midst of the change to think about anything that would bring out his modest, shy side that would have leaped at the proximity of the girl.
He had to let her go again quickly, though, as she scrambled for her shoes, and he knew what was likely happening, ascertained as he watched fer feet straining within the socks. His own feet twitched in remembrance. Ah, the second change, how long ago it seemed.
As it slowed again, Gaius wrapped his arm around Sophie, hoping that somehow he could channel some strength into her, somehow shield her from everything else, somehow make it alright. As she cried, he brushed a thumb against her furry cheek, wiping away some of the tears that were coming.
"I know... I know. It always gets worse, somehow. But, at least it's over now..."
The poor girl. Gaius gave her a small squeeze, trying to reassure Sophie. "Hey, you made it at least."
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:16 pm
"I...Oh, God, Gaius...what's it look like?"
Sophie looked up at Gaius from her shaken self, clinging to his shirt with her elongated fingers, trying to stop the flow of tears. She looked down to her strange feet, then back at her tail, and to her hands...It was all too strange to be real. It couldn't be her...could it? It wasn't just that, either: there was a subtle change to the way she perceived things, a gentle awareness of noises she hadn't noticed before, a certain detail in the things she could see.
"I...I look really weird, don't I?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:23 pm
Gaius' expression said more than the man vocalized - his expression sad and depressed as she asked him how she looked. Now that she was looking up at him, he was able to get a better look at her face, able to see the unusual, even alien size of her eyes, which exaggerated her worried expression.
Attempting a weak smirk, the horse-man chuckled. "Hey, I can definitely say you don't look nearly as weird as me..."
He was startled by a sudden cold, wet feeling against his arm, and looked down to see Vixen, who'd run off once more, nudging him. In her mouth, pulled from one of the supply buckets, was a slightly dirty rag, but it would do well enough. Taking it from the dog, he wiped Sophie's cheeks clean.
"Want me to take you back to your duplex?" he offered, doubting she'd want to see more of the site in this state.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:30 pm
Sophie closed her eyes to allow him to wipe her face off, then offered a weak smile, biting her lip. "I never thought you looked all that weird...Well, not really, I mean..." Turning away, she gently petted Vixen, using the dog as a distraction to escape what she'd gone through.
"...Yeah, I think I need to get back to my duplex. Maybe order some new shoes or something." Shakily, she got to her feet, but before she could stand, she was back on the ground, her rump giving her a painful reminder of the tail that now resided there. Looking back up to Gaius, she blushed a little bit, then added, "Do you think maybe you could help me up? I...I don't think I can stand up on my own."
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