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Sundown.

Nithya sits down after they have set up camp, smiling despite considerable amount of walking they have done today - and the situation in general. But the tan lady has always been one to slightly enjoy getting lost in physical labor, so you can not really blame the deer hooves for this.

They are in a forest clearing, somewhat more in the lowlands, presumably closer to town but no signs of civilization yet.

She holds her hands towards the campfire, glancing at Clay: "I think we made good progress today."

Clay walks towards the fire and takes a seat himself, passing Nithya the spoils of his foraging adventure today, a sizable if not overly large sampling of berries and a lucky hall of vitamin-rich flowers that he's added to some boiling water to make a tea. It's a meager meal compared to their trail mixes and dehydrated foodstuffs, but when it's all they have, it's quite a good haul.

He continues to idly scratch his neck as he boils the tea over the campfire, "Feels like we really picked up the pace. It'll be good to see some artificial lights again, but for now I can just enjoy the stars."

Nithya nods as she starts stretching her legs a bit. "Yeah. Feeling like my legs wanted to get a move on for real, today."

She blinks as she realizes what that might mean, and curiosity gets the better of her. Not that there's much in terms of modesty between the two anyway, not with everything they've been through. She gets up to undo her belt and drop her travel pants, then her long underpants down.

The fur has crept up to her knees, and everywhere it has, her legs look noticeably more toned underneath.

"...oh. That would... explain. Wouldn't it."

Clay politely averts his eyes, more out of his own modesty than any kind of embarrassment between the two, but looks back over when Nithya speaks again, "Jeez... no wonder you were so pumped today..." He glances back up to her face, "You... still feeling okay? Still feeling... I don't know... 'you'?"

A stupid question to ask, but...

Nithya frowns slightly, but then nods. "No, I... I still feel like myself. My legs are still mine, they're just..." She gestures vaguely. "...whatever else this is, it's apparently crazy good workout."

She stares at the campfire for a second before continuing. "Just... wanted to walk, I guess." She shifts in her seat, once again freeing her tail. Tail that is now good four inches long and fluffier than before.

Clay nods, still feeling concerned. He's not experience any such feelings, that he's aware of at least. "Just checking, just checking... guess I should check myself too... or, have you check since I can't exactly see my back..."

He removes his shirt again, an almost electric feeling as his fur is fully exposed to the air once more. He stands, turning around to let Nithya see.

The fur has spread downwards now, his frame seeming thinner somehow wherever the fur has touched. It almost blends in to his hairline (in fact his hair might even be a touch longer to cover just how far up his neck it's gotten), and has spread almost entirely down his back... the way it's creeping towards his rear, it might not be long before he is growing a tail as well.

Nithya looks at Clay up and down: "It's spread... like from the back of your head, all the way down. Also your hair might have gotten longer on the back. It kinda... blends, now."

She sighs a bit: "No doubt about it, we're cursed. Or have completely gone off our rockers with a shared delusion, but this feels several layers too real for that to hold water anymore."

Clay sighs, sitting back down. "...it feels... too long to be a shared delusion. I guess I don't know how long shared delusion is supposed to last? But... I agree. It's... real. Ahh, fuck... it's real."

He drops his head down and puts his hands atop it, trying to take deep breaths to keep himself from panicking at the admission.

Nithya nods: "As real as it gets, I think." She reaches her hand to touch Clay's shoulder.

Clay sighs, raising his hand to rest atop Nithya's. "Deep breaths... Just... we keep moving... I just... I don't know. I wish I knew... why. Or how. Or... anything, really."

Nithya blinks, then perks up a bit. "Well. I do have that tablet..." She starts digging through her backpack for the carefully packed up stone.

Clay manages a weak smile, as he watches Nithya pull the tablet out, "You had any thoughts about what that language might be related to on the walk today?"

Nithya hums, nodding. "Maybe. And I realize some of the text might actually be... not text, but very small pictograms. Let's see..." She starts doing her thing of putting her finger on the text she's translating and murmuring to herself.

Clay sits up straight again, then leans in to listen to Nithya work in interest. He has no idea what she's saying half the time, or what it means, but he can't help but share in her excitement when she starts digging into her specialization, doing his best not to interrupt her.

Nithya hums. "If... if I am understanding this right, some... part, or result, of a worship ritual is... well, this. But if... some conditions were met, it means..." She hums a bit more, attempting to translate in silence. "...i-if I am right, we will not end up fully... animal..."

Clay listens closely, waiting until Nithya is done reading to respond, "That's... that's great news! Sort of...? I mean, of course it is! That means... we don't have to worry about ending up on four legs nibbling at the grass, right?" He laughs a little too much at that, the thought having been bothering him a lot.

But then the rest of her reading reaches him, "If... conditions were met, anyways... what ritual? ...what conditions? Did... did we perform that ritual? Is that what we can't remember?"

Nithya winces: "Don't... maybe not get too excited. I can't read... a good chunk of this I think, it eludes me. But. Maybe?" She looks at her legs, her hooves and her tail.

"...I won't say nibbling on grass is out of the picture yet, though."

Clay 's enthusiasm is properly doused, "...o-oh... oh..." He doesn't know what else to say in this moment, running his hand down his forearm, feeling the fur there.

Nithya puts the tablet down. "I think that's all I can get." She frowns slightly: "...I would call it weird that I feel like can understand more, the more I change, but... I think our scale of 'weird' needs recalibrating as of last few days."

Clay frowns further, "You think it's because of... of these changes? Maybe... you'll understand more the... the more you... the more we change?"

Nithya shrugs and sighs: "Makes as much as sense as any of this. I have a tail, Clay. If I am suddenly understanding text I had no hope of reading earlier, I don't want to question it."

Clay holds up a hand, "I'm getting pretty fuzzy too... I just want to know that we'll be okay..." He falls silent a moment. "I'm... sorry, Nithya. I'm just trying to find whatever sliver I can to hang on to..."

Nithya sighs. "Yeah. I know. Me too." She feels a hand down her leg and to her ankle. "It feels so strange, but..." She trails off.

Clay waits a moment before prodding her to go on, "Hmm? You think of something else?"

Nithya blinks, pausing her touching at her leg. "No." She frowns. "Well, maybe. But have you noticed how... none of this actually hurts? It should, with our bodies... reshaping, but it doesn't."

Clay breaths out, clenching his hand slightly. "Y-yeah... I mean... I've just been growing fur so far... except my hands I guess, but... they're still hands, not..." He looks down at Nithya's legs. "But... none of it has hurt..."

Nithya nods, thinking. "So whatever... did this... it's pretty obviously not that intent on killing us." She glances at Clay: "I know, grasping at straws here, and the rational part of me says all we found are empty ruins, but..."

She sighs deeply. "The weird is just piling up."

Clay nods. "If... this is real... there's no reason to believe some kind of deer Goddess isn't real... maybe she's... mad? We did take her tablet. We could go back, return it... apologize?"

He lifts up his compass from his pack, glancing at the arrow, then back up towards the woods in confusion, "Wait... If we came in from that way... that means we've been heading west?"

Nithya blinks, then looks at her own compass, then at the setting sun. "... What. If that's..." She looks at Clay glumly: "... We might not have gotten any closer to town."

She looks about, frowning: "How did we travel like this?"

Clay frowns, shaking the compass as if checking to ensure it isn't broken. "...I... I don't know. I just... I felt like I knew which way to go today and... just..." His face goes pale, "Trusted my instincts..."

Nithya nods absently as she thinks of something. She gets up to look at nearby trees, and true to her thoughts, several of them sport old scars at about shoulder height, from where stags have rubbed their horns during rut.

"... Fuck. We have been following deer trails."

Clay 's eyes go wide, "Oh hell, Nithya, I... I screwed us... I've screwed us and haven't even been able to stop myself from thinking like a damn deer!"

Nithya swallows, then turns back towards her friend: "... This may be a stupid question, but do you feel like a deer?"

Clay 's eyes are frantic, but he forces himself to focus on Nithya and shakes his head, "N-no... no, I don't... think so? I... I still think I'm me..."

Nithya nods as she steps closer, firm in her steps despite the somewhat uneven forest floor. "And I'm still me. We can work this out. Heck, we've been lost before."

Clay frowns, "But- but this is different... this time... it's because of me..." He pauses, and can't help but laugh... "Aw... fuck, they've always been because of me, haven't they?"

Nithya laughs softly: "Maybe more you than me, at least." She blinks as the end of her chuckle comes out as more of a bleat.

She just stares forward for a second as she blushes: "... I shall repeat my scientific opinion about how fucked this is."

Clay shudders at the noise that he saw plainly coming from Nithya. "Y-yeah, that's definitely the best way to put it..."

He flexes his fingers, staring at them. "The Deer Goddess or whoever might not want us dead, but... feels just as bad, ending up as nothing but a deer in the wild..."

Nithya nods, holding her hands to her throat for a second. "Yeah, um... G-guess we have no option but to find out. Unless I can decipher a reversal from that tablet, or we make our way back and get it solved that way."

Clay sighs heavily, reaching down to itch at his thighs. He stops himself, forcing his hand back when he realizes what that heralds. "...I hate feeling so helpless about this. I'm terrified to go to sleep. Nithya... I'm sorry for leading you this far... not just the deer trails. The whole temple was my call. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be going through this."

Nithya lowers her hands and sits down, shuffling her legs a bit as she finds a position. "Well. I did agree to come with you, didn't I. Your call maybe, but I'm still here and I don't blame you, Clay. There is no earthly way you could have known." She looks a bit dispirited, but at the situation itself rather than at Clay.

Clay hums, "You did, but... I just... I feel responsible. I feel... well, a whole mess of things right now. How can we keep going forward when this curse keeps pulling us down?"

Nithya nods, then muses on it. "I mean... It's clearly changing us, but from what I could understand, not... All the way. Possibly not permanently."

"Might be more of a lateral move than downwards, is what I'm thinking. Like, yes, this is not ideal, but considering where we are..." She trails off just short of actually saying her hooves have actually felt better to walk with.

Clay takes a deep breath and tries to straighten up again, "All I've got is that hope. That this will stop... or reverse... or something. I might be hitting my limit here, Nithya..."

Nithya nods slowly. "Yeah. I'm just... I guess my mind just wants to figure out how to work with this, instead of swimming upstream while trying to solve this. If that makes sense."

Clay: "It does... but... in the same metaphor, I just... feel like I can't keep fighting the current... and if I let go, I'll be lost to it."

Nithya: "Yeah. But... Regardless of how we got here though, here we are." She gives Clay an encouraging smile: "I will attempt to read more tomorrow. We can decide in the morning which way to head, and now that we know we have new instincts or something guiding us astray, we know how to compensate, too."

Clay forces himself to smile back, "You have always been able to guide us back to the path when I lose it... I just... I'll try to be mindful..." He looks at the signs of the deer trail and sighs.

Nithya smiles. "We can do this. See what -" She swallows a bit: "-morning brings, and work from there."

Clay nods, "Answers, I hope... and not... not too much more fur."

Nithya nods, then winces ever so slightly. "... Trying to ignore that with our vocation, we have practically made a career out of pattern recognition, anyway..."

Clay sighs, "I'm... painfully aware. And the pattern so far..." He shakes his head. "Not going to linger. It'll play out soon enough."

Nithya nods with a weary smile: "It'll probably happen whether or not we are checking the exact timing with a stopwatch." She glances at the darkness now surrounding them. "We should sleep anyway. Even... Well, even with the dreams."

Clay: "Yeah... we should... no sense prolonging it, and no sense skipping it..." There's a bit of a resigned edge to Clay's voice, the uncertainty and fear fading into a grim acceptance for the moment.

Nithya pauses for a second, then gets up to give her friend a hug. "Hey. We will get through. We always have."

Clay gives Nithya a tight hug in return. "I... I know. Yeah. Yeah, we will. We'll pull through. I-" He cuts himself off, then simply nods and gives his friend a weak but sincere smile.

Nithya smiles back. "As the saying goes, sun will shine again in the morning." She then lets go and starts heading for their tent.

Clay stands and puts the fire out, then shortly follows after, giving a long glance up at the stars before he enters.

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