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Half a Day's Hike Later.

Clay has taken point, leading the way back through the forest along the deer trails. He both wants to trust his instincts, and dreads them, feeling unable to truly trust what his gut. He's always been one to just follow his instinct, to let that little voice that sometimes gives him a hunch where to dig, or what path to take, but now it almost feels like that voice is a traitor, an outside force he refuses to trust.

This has caused some delay in the hike, as often he would start down a new path without thinking on it, only to stop and try to second guess himself, trying to deduce why he picked certain paths. He wanted to find any other reason beyond his new senses pointing the way, but often times couldn't. They would then continue along his first chosen path.

As the they continue, his features have slowly grown more cervine in nature, a similar numbness of feeling that Nithya claimed to experience in her legs, but offset by the sheer volume of new sense-information coming through his ears and nose. Every twig snap and leaf rustle sets him on edge, his ears swiveling without a conscious thought, and his nose sniffing at new scents on the breeze.

His mind is rebelling against the data his senses have been taking in, and on top of his own thoughts, Nithya's behaviors aren't helping, as she seems to be all too accustomed to her new legs already.

Nithya Once the numbness abated and the changes stopped, Nithya was left with legs that are somewhere between that of a deer, and what they were just before all this. Digitigrade cervine legs, but ones seemingly meant for standing upright with.

She has spent all day alternately marveling, and then dreading her new legs, putting on only her shorts since her usual heavy duty trekking pants were out of the question. She had to fashion a hole with her knife for her tail, that also grew to almost a feet in length.

But the actual walking... Has felt good. Real good. She's never exactly been afraid of trekking, but now her legs, her hooves, seemingly wanted that.

She has not minded Clay not finding the direction at points either.

If it wasn't for the utter insanity of their situation, she might even almost admit she's enjoying herself.

Clay sighs in frustration as they approach another branch in the path, "It's left... We need to go left, and I hate that I know that. I don't even know how I know that!"

He turns on Nithya with an almost comical look of anger and fear on his deer-like face, "And stop sounding like you're having fun! Igh, I can hear your heart beat accelerating, I can hear the little laugh you think you you're hiding. It's driving me insane."

Nithya blinks, startled by the outburst. She stops walking: "Um... I wasn't..." She blinks again. "...you can hear my heart pumping? How good is your hearing now?"

Clay sighs, immediately embarrassed at his anger, resulting in a small blush as he pulls back, "It's... It's really good. Disturbingly so. ...my smell too. There's... There's so much information coming in, I can tell you all the closest sources of food, and somehow even which ones might be poisonous. I thought foraging was a little too easy the other night... Now I know why."

Nithya winces softly: "I guess you might have had a point of not... letting this carry us away." She shifts from one hoof to the other: "But... I can not deny how easy it is to walk now, either."

The currently rather faun-looking woman idly scratches at where her shirt meets her shorts, having no doubts where things are headed whether or not she enjoys some of the results so far. Which she is not, obviously, enjoying.

Clay nods, "The worst part is the grass... I can smell it everywhere... Like walking through a carnival and smelling the funnel cakes, just hot sugar smell everywhere, making you want to just give in and buy one..."

He swallows, "Except it's grass! I... I feel like I'm losing it, Nithya..."

Nithya looks at Clay with a soft sigh: "I think our only hope is in that temple. If we can get in. But..."

She frowns a bit: "...would you believe me if I said that I have a hunch it will open for us again?"

Clay pauses to stare at Nithya for a moment, then slumps, "I would... I sorta feel the same hunch... That passage is there, and it's open again. I just feel it."

Nithya sighs as she steps closer to her friend. "I think we are made in the image of that... goddess, or whatever... supplicants, servants..." She looks at her legs: "I'm not sure if my legs will actually change more, if that makes sense."

Clay looks down at her legs, then lifts a hand, "I... I felt the same about my hands. Like, I wasn't going to lose them to hooves... I knew this was as far as the change would go."

Nithya frowns as she looks between them: "I guess in that case... we might have a rough estimate where we're ending up. I don't really like it, but at least... I think we might not be becoming fully feral animals. New instincts notwithstanding, we're still us, right?"

Clay steps in closer to hug Nithya, "Y-yeah... So far at least. Guess between the two of us we're one complete deer-thing... Wh-why am I not...I mean, I'm not okay with this, but... When I look at you and listen it doesn't seem so bad. And it should, shouldn't it? I can't be this..."

Nithya hugs: "I don't know. But I get what you're saying. Feeling both like this is okay, and that this so very very much is not okay, and just leaving oneself..." She lifts a hand to her forehead: "...confused."

Clay nods, "Yeah... Yeah exactly. We're not too much further from the temple... Err... I don't know how I know that. But we'll get this made right, Nithya."

Nithya nods in agreement. "We will."

She glances around, briefly wondering what it will feel like to be able to hear and smell much better. "I guess... we keep going. I think we want to be at the temple before the change reaches your legs."

Clay nods, "Won't do either of us any good if we get delayed because I can't walk, yeah." He points again, "Left path... Again, don't ask how I know, I just... Know."

Nithya shrugs: "The line between instinct and whatever got shoved into our heads via dreams or whatever... that line blurs, but if it leads us to some kind of solution, I'll take it." She offers her hand to Clay with a smile. "Let's go."

Clay looks down at Nithya's hand and nods, taking it and squeezing gently, feeling a surge of confidence rise in him, "Right. Let's go."

Nithya tries her best to not start at the feel of how different Clay's hand is, and almost manages to cover her surprise. She smiles anyway: "I feel like I should make some kind of deer pun right here, but I'm not sure we can digest such things at the moment."

Clay blinks, expression dropping at Nithya's initial reaction, but somehow he pushes through that... Disappointment? and tries to use a long tradition of survival between the two of them, one that got them through the crunch of finals back at the university, and through the worst of times hiking through India. He gives her a grin, "What? Since when have you given a buck about avoiding puns?"

Nithya blinks, the smirks: "I really doen't know what came to me, I'm sorry."

Clay hums, considering, "Afraid to put your hoof in your mouth, I'm sure."

Nithya giggles, and doesn't even mind much that it comes out a bit bleat-y. "...good one. As long as we get to hightail it out of here, eventually." Her tail, now seemingly its' full lenght at foot and a bit, flicks as though in response, to which she blinks. "...huh. That's new."

Clay laughs, "To pun is human, Nithya. To forgive is cervine." He pauses from his own chuckling to glance back at her tail. "It's... Longer? I didn't know deer tails got so long."

Nithya giggles at Clay's words, then turns her attention back to her tail. "No, and..." She seems to focus intently for a second, and now her tail lifts up as she wills it. "...oh wow that feels strange."

Clay stares a moment, watching the tail, "Are... You doing that then?" His ears flicker, but not through any will of his own.

Nithya can't help but smile a bit: "Yes. I am! I have... no idea how, but I have now muscles for moving my tail...!" She swallows: "...not sure either why that thought makes me giddy instead of freaking out about it, maybe I've just used up my freaking out quota for today already."

Clay sighs, "It's been a pretty high quota day for freaking out... I'm using all mine too." He concentrates a moment, trying to move his ears, to actually actively tilt them and direct his hearing, and slowly gets a sense of what he's doing, "I... Huh... Well look at that..."

Nithya looks from her tail to Clay's ears, slightly transfixed. "This is so eerie." She swallows: "But I suppose I will rather take a functional weird body, than having all my wires crossed and my body rejecting any changes..." She shudders at the idea.

Clay tilts one ear to better listen to her, then lets it shift back into a normal position. ".... you're not wrong... It does feel kind of good, knowing that I still have control, even in the parts that aren't 'me' anymore?"

Nithya nods, though for her own mood, flicks her tail from side to said again and smiling. "Yeah. Like... all my leg muscles and bones have rearranged now, and there's technically nothing 'me' about them anymore... and yet they undoubtedly are all me. A..." She pauses, hesitating.

"...I won't say 'new me' cause that'd be basically inviting more change in."

Clay shudders at that thought still, "Yeah... Yeah, don't tempt fate here. It feels... different for me. Like... My arms, my chest, they don't feel that different." He has noticeably stopped wearing a shirt since the previous day, his entire chest and back covered in fur, lighter along his stomach and darker at his sides and back. "But these changes to my face... I almost feel like I'm in someone else's head, all my senses are different and... It feels like my brain already knows how to translate all of this but I don't understand how."

Nithya looks at Clay and considers. "I have to admit I am curious how all that feels. Information overload, judging from how you've been today." Having watched Clay change, his face looking different and kind of inhuman doesn't really bother her much. Especially since she's pretty certain she's in for it pretty soon as well.

Clay sighs, "It's... Getting better? It was everything all at once, and then..." He wiggles his ears, "well, this helps. Some control. Maybe I'm starting to learn how to focus on things?" He looks back at Nithya, "I'm not sure I like that I'm learning to control it... It feels wrong. But as you said it ah... It bleats the alternative?" He grins wide.

Nithya starts nodding, then blinks and grins at her friend. "Oh deer."

Clay laughs, ignoring the bleats in his own voice for the moment. "Even if I can't do anything else, if I have no control over any of this... At least I can still laugh, right?"

Nithya smirks as she nods her head sideways towards the trail forward: "They say it's the best medicine. Though I'm not sure it applies to this, we can certainly try."

Clay starts walking at Nithya's prompt, still holding her hand. "Maybe though... At least it keeps me out of my own head, trying to think of a pun instead of trying to figure out what grass would even taste like."

Nithya winks: "To both of those questions, a bit wooden I suspect."

Clay puts his other hand over his chest, "You wound me! ...but I don't know. It smells sorta... You know what, no, not going to acknowledge that. Let's just focus on my bad jokes. And not... Grass..."

Nithya smiles: "Deal." She gives Clay's hand a squeeze. "Let's go solve this... issue... and I don't mean the taste question."

She walks for a few seconds. "...not sure I mean your bad jokes either, that seems incurable."

Clay chuckles, but at the feeling of Nithya's hand squeezing his, he genuinely smiles, "We can only hope. Some mysteries are best left unsolved. I... Thanks, Nithya. I couldn't do this without you... No one else tolerates those bad jokes quite like you."

Nithya lifts her other hand to her forehead, looking up dramatically: "The things I do for the future of archeology." She then turns to smirk at Clay: "Wouldn't do it with anyone else, you know that."

Clay hums as they walk together down the path, "I know... I don't know why, but I know."

Nithya just gives an amused snort as they head onwards.

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