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The Next Morning.
Clay 's dreams have been peaceful thus far, but tonight is different. the warm, gentle embrace is more abrasive, the strange welcoming sensations more harsh. They are not painful, just... different. Different enough to feel awkward, uncomfortable. It assaulted him, and a voice spoke to him.
"...GRANTED THE FORM OF THE FAITHFUL."
Clay awakened in a hot sweat, catching his breath as though the air had been knocked out of him. He sighed, his head dropping back down on the pillow of his sleeping bag. Something felt different. A strange, dull sensation between his legs, like the numbness he'd felt when his face had changed... like what Nithya had felt in her legs. That makes sense... the fur had progressed to his ankles, and hooves were the next logical step, the digitigrade legs, the last steps before his body was fully a deer, what else was there?
The sensation is centered upon his groin, making him think back to the changes to Nithya's belly, the teats. He had wondered what changes a buck would go through, and it seems her words were true that he would experience it soon enough...
Quietly unzipping the sleeping bag, he pulls out his feet, expecting hooves, but only finding the fur had lightly spread, but no full changes to the shape yet. His legs were unchanged as well, but the sensation were still going, an uncomfortable rearranging of... something.
It was his groin. It was... shifting. His member was pulling in... the sensation was awkward, like suction, watching something rush to fill in an emptiness. That emptiness was new... and the first sign that something was dramatically wrong. Did male deer have sheathes, like a horse? That would explain the now missing member between his legs. He reached down, and brushed against the second sign that something was very wrong.
A sensitive area, just under his belly... He sat up now, suddenly feeling very awake. He reached down feeling the area, looking at the darkened skin. 'Just like the teats on Nithya... just like them, but...'
His hand move further down, towards the cleft between his legs. Darkened skin beneath the fur, his body was still shifting, his hips changing shape to accomodate things rearranging within him. The emptiness felt like it was moving in deeper, and his hand reached to his sheath to brush against it, curiously looking for his penis... but the burst of sensations that ran through him nearly caused him to cry out. He muffled his bleat just in time, biting his other arm as he pressed it against his face.
Tears formed in his eyes as the revelation struck him. The growing hair, his body's changing proportions... They Were teats on his belly, not just similar to Nithya's, but exactly the same. And it was no sheath...
His genitalia had been transformed, becoming a feminine vagina. He hadn't been transforming into a buck.. he was transforming into a doe.
He... she? HE pulled his hand back quickly, terrified of the sensations of his body. "Fuck fuck fuck... this isn't right. This isn't right."
Nithya's dreams were somewhat harsh as well, though more in the sense of feeling like too much was happening in them while her head was crammed full of information.
She's already a bit restless by the time Clay curses out loud.
Blearily at first, then with a jolt as she remembers where she fell asleep, she opens her eyes. At the familiarly unfamiliar voice she calls out: "C-clay? What's up?"
In the dawn it takes a few seconds for her to realize that things are not, in fact, okay.
Clay is breathing heavily trying to pull away from Himself. He's only half covered in his sleeping bag, he has started crying, sobbing quite hard. His voice is indeed a bit higher than before, "N-Nith...? I- I'm not... I'm n-not..."
Nithya takes a couple of seconds to register: "You're not... What?" She can't quite see what's different, but she can certainly hear the stress in her friend's voice.
She gets up to sitting, looking at Clay searchingly.
Clay shakes, "M-me... I'm not me... I... I'm..." He uncovers himself and turns towards Nithya. He went to bed last night in just the boxers, and it's still not wholly obvious what has changed.
"It... it took my..." He points down towards his pants... "I'm... a Doe"
Nithya blinks, looking Clay up and down. "Oh."
She takes a second for the word to click. "Oh. Fuck."
Reflexively, her hand drops down to her own panties, but aside from the gentle mounds of the teats she discovered last night, things are the same.
"Your... Thing... Changed. Oh jeez."
Nithya herself is now changed up to her neck, just her head and arms unfurred and human now.
Clay is on the verge of panic, clutching at the fabric of the sleeping bag. "I'm... a fucking deer... a-and a female one? What do I do? Th-this feels wrong! It's... I'm... I don't know what I am..."
Nithya frowns a bit. The deer part didn't cause this much panic. But this...? She stops herself from saying anything untoward, though.
"Clay, calm down. 'A fucking deer' seems to be our case last few days, that's why we are here. To get help."
Clay pauses, trying to pull himself together to listen to Nithya's words. "I... th-those... it all felt so... unreal... it felt like a fantasy, somehow." He lifts his hands to his head and pulls his legs in against his chest, still crying. "This feels... different. I can feel it deep down."
Nithya looks at Clay for a second, before scooting over to give her friend a hug on the shoulders, for the moment ignoring the feeling of fur on fur.
"It's... Unfortunately, pretty sure this is very real." She swallows. "I-it's all going to be okay."
Clay is in no position to resist the feelings of the hug, just letting himself pour out his emotions next to Nithya. "I can't do this... I can't..."
Nithya hugs tighter: "You can. We got this far. We made our way back. I'm dead certain the solution is waiting for us downstairs." She lets go enough to look at her friend, even if that cervine face looks a bit unfamiliar. "For us."
Clay: "I..." He cringes, taking a deep breath. "F-fuck Nithya... this is way too in my head... B-but you're right... you're always right... I owe it to you, at the least."
Nithya sits next to her friend, and now that it has been said out loud, all the subtle changes are all too visible. Clay is now becoming an image of the goddess watching above them... And so is Nithya herself.
She offers her hand to Clay: "I'm going to need your help to go down there. Can you do that?"
Clay shakily reaches out to take Nithya's hand once again. He nods, "I d-don't know if I have much choice... I... ugh, just... damn, Nithya... wh-why is this so much worse than... than all the rest of this?"
Nithya sighs, glancing down at the teats on her abdomen. "It feels more... Private, I guess, to have that stuff change. And scientifically speaking, we are talking about very sensitive parts of the human body." She offers Clay a smile: "We'll get you changed back."
Clay reaches up to wipe his face, "I... I was ready for hooves. Somehow... I almost expected them this morning... but then I felt this change, I watched it when I woke up..."
It's clear this has really shaken Clay, and it has to be for more than just the changes themselves. He squeezes Nithya's hand, "And we'll get you changed back too."
Nithya nods, then leans to hug the distraught doe again. "The changes on us are almost complete, I feel. And I don't think either of us can really stomach breakfast right now." She starts to get up and pulls Clay up as she does. "Let's go get some answers."
For reasons she both can and can't explain, she's more than certain that something about their lives is about to change once they go down there.
Clay lets Nithya hug him, then stands up with her and nods. "Y-yeah... we're due for at least a few answers..." He's lost a lot of confidence, but at least he's standing. "Nithya... if... if something happens to us down there... you're my best friend. And... thank you, for that."
Nithya smiles despite the mountain of trepidation she feels. "Works out, because you are my best friend, Clay. Few temporary changes is not going to shake that."
Clay sniffles, "R-right now it feels like the only thing I really do know is... right." He turns towards the tunnel, "...let's do this..."
Nithya takes Clay's hand, and leads the way in before either of them have a chance to second guess. She's only wearing her underwear, but she's not cold and modesty is not terribly high on her list of concerns right now.
"Whatever happens, we're in this together."
Clay is equally only wearing his boxers, and while that doesn't seem to fully register for him, his face is still blushing as he takes Nithya's hand again. "We're in this together, y-yeah."
Nithya leads the way down the tunnel the pair walked down with curiosity not so long ago. What was just a week ago feels like half of a lifetime, now.
She starts to almost say something, but as they make their way down, a feeling, a presence of sorts keeps her quiet.
Respectful, maybe.
Clay is quite cowed by his experience this morning, keeping his head down as they enter the amphitheater, her... no, still his confidence may be broken, but he still stands with his friend, looking up to give her a nod, and to let her lead on in whatever they need to do together.
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