by Kris Schnee
Feeling afraid and conflicted — the proper roles of gentlemen and ladies were taught much more often than the roles of humans and otters, when he was growing up — Dane hesitated before giving in. Kirani was probably right; he'd not heard of any antidote. He was doomed in that sense. So, there was some urgency to the few hours before work.
Dane spent them well.
* * *
He woke up with Kirani nuzzling his ear. Dane vaguely recalled wild dreams of waves and fur... then noticed that she was curled up with him in bed. He could feel her purring warmly against him. The sight and musky scent of the ottergirl helped him keep from worrying about what lay ahead.
She was waking up too. "It's going to be strange having you around as a friend once you're done."
"I hope we still can spend time together." Dane ran a hand up along Kirani's front to the underside of her breasts, feeling the soft fuzz there.
She squirmed and giggled. "Hey, get your own!" She saw a twinge of fear in Dane and nosed at him. "You'll be fine. I'm around to handle any questions you've got. I need to get to work, though; are you still going to show up?"
Dane reluctantly let her untangle herself from him. She pulled on her grass skirt, swaying playfully next to the bed. Dane tickled her tail and she looked back over one shoulder, grinning. "Oh, you like that? Get used to seeing it." Though there wasn't much room, she leaned close and gave him a kiss. "Come on down when you're ready."
Dane reluctantly looked himself over. Still male, but with fur hiding any obvious sign of that now... and with less to hide. He whimpered. It was silly of him to care much about this part of his changes, even if it wasn't expected. Just another thing to get used to. He stood and tried doing the same cute over-the-shoulder pose that Kirani had done. It was disturbingly easy to imitate.
He went downstairs and noticed halfway down that he was walking with that same wiggle she had, without meaning to. That was just how his tail and hips were built now, apparently.
* * *
All afternoon and evening, he worked in the kitchen as before. He glanced over the counter into the bustling tavern. It looked like a bunch of the locals had swarmed in today. Dishes clanked and empty mugs practically swam back. The otters had rigged up a spell to bring water up from the shore to the kitchen (and marvelously, the outhouses), making his washing as convenient as could be. He hummed and wiggled his tail while trying not to get in the cooks' way. At one point, though, he had to say something. "Wait! You didn't cook that one!"
The chef, a burly otter with the whiskers on one side of his face missing, had just served up some raw fish. "So? That was the order."
Dane made a face. "Who would eat their fish uncooked?"
The chef stared at him in disbelief. "You've never had the spicy raw swordfish? You're missing out! Heh, you'll probably learn to appreciate it better once you've got your muzzle."
Dane ran his tongue over his teeth and felt his flat face with one hand, wondering how much truth there was to that.
That evening there was some idle time, so he watched people. A tailtip caught his eye, twitching like a snake behind a patron who was leaning over a table. Dane's gaze slipped up the fuzzy thing to admire her... Which turned out to be "him", actually. Dane startled and went back to his cleaning work. He grabbed a mop and ran it across the floor, trying to calm his thoughts. It was understandable that the change was working on his mind as well as his body. He'd be happier if his instincts adjusted in every way to match the new form, including what he liked to eat or... anything else. A little scary, but if he thought of the change the right way, it should be fun. He resolved to make it fun.
When he got the chance, he looked out at the customers. His eyes wandered over the women, but there was something to be said for the men usually going bare-chested too. Kind of nice to see the fuzz and the muscles moving under it. They were more angular, rougher, but still mostly lean and athletic. Dane found himself wondering how much of his attention was envy for them being in better shape than him, and how much was attraction.
Eventually, Kirani hopped back into the kitchen. "Things are slowing down for the night. How are you doing?" She wiggled her whiskers in what he'd come to recognize as concern.
"I'm all right. Calmer about this than I'd feared." The head chef was nearby, one ear cocked toward him, making Dane blush.
Kirani said, "I got permission to take you away for the night, if you're willing to finish off the washing later in the evening. Helps that you're staying for the night anyway. So, if you want do do anything while you have the chance...?"
Dane blushed worse. She was looking pointedly down between his legs. "You have a point. Er, I'd like that."
She led him back upstairs, where her presence made the tiny room warm. "Still male?" she murmured.
It had been hours since he'd had any chance to check. Dane let her shut the door, and he slipped out of his clothes. Sure enough, he was still technically a man, despite his wide new hips covered with fur and the telltale pulling sensation starting to tug inward on him, a little stronger now that he noticed it. "If you're willing," he said.
Kirani very much was. They were hasty this time, knowing Dane's life was about to change. Dane still loved the feeling of being in bed with her, climbing onto her, pressing his lips to her muzzle and his hands everywhere. She'd given him a gift of this last night, to feel and appreciate what he was losing. "Remember this," she kept saying, sometimes loudly and sometimes whispered in his ear.
* * *
He woke up to silence, except for the purr of Kirani beside him. Dane shifted and rolled back onto his back to see.
Only a sliver of moonlight through a chink in the walls lit the room. It fell on one of Dane's breasts, where warm cream-colored fur prickled and didn't quite hide a large, dark nipple. He... she stared at it and watched her chest rise and fall with her shallow breaths. A single touch there made her shiver. Dane whimpered. She sat up to see past her own breasts. There was just enough light to show fur outlining her lap and down her thights, fading out around each knee. She raised one hand, still bare-skinned and human, and touched her face to find that it hadn't changed either.
Kirani stirred and opened one eye. "Mmm."
Dane cuddled her automatically. There'd never be another chance to do this with her, if she wasn't interested in Dane now. "Thank you." Her voice was still deep and unlike the otterfolk's faintly muzzle-slurred sounds.
Kirani slowly untangled herself from the former human and perched over her, then leaned down for a kiss. "My pleasure. Want to get downstairs and finish the dishes? We should probably go for a swim first."
Dane accepted Kirani's hand and they staggered out to the inn's upper hallway, overlooking the restaurant area. "Clothes!" said Dane.
Kirani grinned. She slipped past him into the room and pulled on her skirt. She offered Dane the tattered sailor shorts she'd been wearing.
Dane struggled to put them on. They hugged her curves alarmingly tightly, enough that she feared the fabric would tear. She tied the cord around her waist with some trouble.
"Are you all right?" Kirani asked. She patted Dane high on the back, right where the fur ended and bare skin began.
Dane was breathing shallowly, feeling confined both by the shorts and by the layer of fur, which ended just above her breasts. "I feel like I'm wearing a fuzzy dress."
Kirani rubbed Dane's shoulders. "Want this too?" She handed over the shirt. That fit badly too, even though Dane felt like her shoulders were beginning to cramp up and pull narrower. Kirani said, "Come on. You'll feel better in the water."
They went downstairs. Dane kept quiet and avoided the gaze of the few people hanging around at this late hour. Outside at the beach, Kirani led her into the waves. Dane stood stiffly with water up to her waist.
"Well?" asked Kirani, and tugged Dane forward to splash into the sea.
The water shocked Dane, chilling her, then gradually warmed. She floated there and the ocean flowed through her new fur,
murmuring and tickling her with its foam. Dane's tail flicked and helped her flip around faster than she'd thought possible.
The native brushed her hands through her own fur, getting clean. "Swimming will get easier once you get proper hands and feet. Come to think of it, even our whiskers help for sensing the current."
"I'm a freak," Dane said, looking over her mismatched body. Seeing Kirani there rubbing through her fur was alluring, but already less so than it had been just this evening.
"You look a little strange now, but wait another day. So far it looks like you'll be pretty cute."
"Cute." It wasn't the kind of disguise Dane had been hoping for.
Kirani suddenly glared at him. "Quit it. You knew perfectly well you were going to become one of us, and I know you had no problem enjoying an otter body. Now come on back and we'll finish our work for the night."
Dane didn't protest. Back in the Crown and Tail, they washed dishes and pots for a while. Only the ripple of water and the clanking of dishware broke the quiet. Dane's clothes were still soaked.
"Go back to sleep," Kirani said. "You can start working with Rapanui in the morning."
Dane crawled back into bed alone and slept.
* 3. *
When she woke, Dane groaned. The good news was that her changes had nearly finished; her face had started to reshape into the snout of a native, and fur now reached down to her elbows. Her jaws ached as they slowly ground against each other. Her tail had gotten wedged under her again; how did the islanders avoid that? Dane crawled back out of bed and tried to dress, but if anything her clothes felt like they'd shrunk despite her losing a few inches of height. "Oh, come on! I got bigger?" Maybe that shaman had controlled what the final result would be. The bastard hadn't warned her!
Dane sighed. She'd chosen this path, and it was better than the alternatives. She trudged downstairs and found the otter innkeeper at work behind the bar, pouring from a keg. She spotted Dane and beckoned.
The innkeeper looked Dane up and down. "Well, you've certainly filled out."
"I really don't want to think about that right now. Could I get some breakfast, please?"
"It's on the house today since I hear you're starting your new work, but after that I'm going to start charging you." She brought Dane some bread and cheese. "I have some goat's milk too, if you can still drink that."
"If... what?"
"We mostly use it for cheese, but the humans can drink milk directly. If you can, might as well have it now before you lose the ability."
Not that Dane had had any fresh milk lately in the navy, but she'd liked the stuff. Great, just another loss. She nodded. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Unne," she said, like a grunt. She set down a mug and a small fish.
"Fish for breakfast?" said Dane, taking a drink.
"Where do you think you live?" She grinned at Dane. "Anyway, that might be your last milk till you start making your own."
Dane coughed and sputtered.
"Seriously, it's not too early to start thinking about who you'll marry. I can make some introductions."
Dane focused on her food. Her teeth felt different this morning, sharper and set in a face that had started to lengthen. "I need time."
"You have a responsibility, young lady. There aren't enough of us around for us to be holdouts. You also need to learn our language. I notice you've picked up a few words already, so that's good."
"So there really are too many men?"
Unne frowned. "Especially when the Imperials come, yes. A lot of us islanders changed to fight them, when they first tried to take over."
Dane tried to process that. "You mean the islander women turned into men, as part of that uprising I heard about? Why?"
"Because women aren't fighters or sailors. That's men's work, obviously. Even your people, even the humans, have figured that out. So in a rush to drive off the invaders, we panicked. Many good women turned into men and went off to war. Some of them didn't come back, but even so, there are too few of us womenfolk left for them."
Dane had imagined that the imbalance was due to being in a port district, or coincidence, but apparently there'd been a self-inflicted wound across the whole society of the Luskinsday... the Hikkoi Islands. "They can't just turn back to female?"
Unne shook her head. "Changing your body so drastically is quite a spell. We've never found out a way to do it twice to the same person. Maybe your... maybe the humans could figure out a way, but why would they care about our problem?"
"Then the next generation is in trouble," Dane said.
Unne's voice lowered. "Making sure there is a next generation is our little war. I'll not have the islands wiped clean of us by the humans." The door opened and a little bell chimed. Unne spun and was all smiles to greet the two uniformed human men who'd arrived. "Come in, come in!"
One of the humans double-taked at Dane. "What's wrong with your face?"
Dane glared at him and said, "What's wrong with yours?"
Unne said, "She's a new recruit. Not quite done changing yet."
"Ha!" said the other man. "Let's have some food, please." He looked at Dane.
"Well?" asked Unne.
Dane hurried back into the kitchen, glad to be away from them. They weren't naval men who might recognize her, probably agents of the governor instead. Still, she busied herself for a minute back there to fetch a similar breakfast for the guests.
Unne took the two plates out and returned to the kitchen. "Thanks. Are you all right?"
"I think I just need to keep moving."
"Fair enough. I might be able to use your help some nights, but with no ships around here, business will be slow for a while. Check back in a week."
Dane sighed. "Thanks for your patience. Miss Unne, I never asked: Is Kirani your daughter?"
Unne stared at her, then guffawed. "You really don't know us! We don't look anything alike. Kirani is a special girl, but no, we're not related. I have my own grown children. I keep telling her it's time to settle down, but she has a fondness for humans."
"I noticed. Where is she?"
"Running errands. As for you, it's time to get to work. Don't keep Rapanui waiting."
* * *
The sunlight dazzled Dane and soaked into her fur. She stood just outside the inn and let the warmth calm her for a while. There was a lot to do, from earning money to mastering a new language, to simply learning how to tell everyone apart. "This is my life now," she muttered, walking along the beach back toward Rapanui's dock hut.
The shaman greeted Dane from the shaded water beneath the hut. Rapanui was in the middle of casting a spell that made the gentle waves swirl around her. Dane stopped to watch her artistry.
To ordinary vision she was dancing in the shallows, but to magic-sense she was weaving emerald light like strips of seaweed. When the spell completed, the water fled from something in her hands. She raised up a rod made of coral, which acted like a spoon that stirred the water and kept it away. Or like the sea-cliffs surrounding the islands.
Dane said, "You know how the repulsion works!"
The shaman tilted her head and beckoned Dane into the water. "Look. Learn." She began to explain how the spell worked, but most of her words were nonsense to Dane. There seemed to be a question in there somewhere and when Dane had no idea how to answer, Rapanui repeated it like the newcomer was a slow student.
"I'm sorry; I don't understand. What's the word for, say, a first-order node?" She pointed to a bit of the spell that was still visible, coiled tightly around the water-repelling wand Rapanui had just made.
"Wand," said the shaman, pointing to the rod. She added a word in the natives' language. So that was just the word for "wand", maybe.
"I mean the node. This part."
They went back and forth, trying to work out a shared vocabulary, but Dane was coming not just from a different language but from a whole different teaching tradition. Magic was magic, despite vague rumors Dane had heard of the otters having uniqu
e powers. The way it was defined and explained was totally different. Dane only picked up a few words, and wasn't sure even of those, before the shaman lashed her tail in the water and retreated up into her hut. Dane followed.
Rapanui handed Dane a bundle of herbs, then a different batch, so that she stood awkwardly clutching a pile of leaves that tickled her chest. "Here. Do these." She mimed crumbling the leaves and dumping them into the nearby pot.
Dane did as told, hopefully, but Rapanui had moved on to continue working on her own project. While Dane worked she looked over the shaman's shoulders to try to understand what was going on. "These plants are for some sort of potion?"
The shaman answered confusingly, but Dane made out the word "soup". Oh, it was that same spicy stuff from the other day. Great; Dane was learning at the most basic apprentice level, doing chores. Next she'd probably be told to sweep the floor.
Rapanui let Dane watch her continue to work on the coral wand, but over the next few hours most of what Dane did was just more chores. She tried to bear with it and learn whatever she could. The soup was still far too spicy. Around noon, the shaman led Dane back down into the water and shooed her off. Maybe this was supposed to be a lunch break.
Dane looked around the shore and saw the blue "clam-hut" she'd been told could be her new home. The thing was anchored by a rope to the little pier of Rapanui's place. It was maybe ten feet across, made of wood and reeds, like a thick disc that could be pried open on one side. Dane fiddled with it and found that really, it could be opened all around and propped up on a set of cleverly jointed rods. Inside was a bare wooden floor with sandbags for ballast, and some built-in nets for storage, and a threadbare blanket. Dane stared into the "hut" and decided it was a little better than a coffin.
She kicked at the sand, then realized she'd been going around barefoot all morning. The stuff tickled the webbing between her clawed toes. Dane lowered herself into the hut and squashed her tail under her again, then winced. The hut wasn't terrible; it was shaded and its gentle bobbing in the waves was calming. The stinking, rat-infested hold of the Seal had been worse. This one smelled of saltwater like nearly everything else around here, and... she sniffed. Otter. The musky scent was vaguely pleasant, and surprisingly strong. Dane patted her face and discovered whiskers starting to grow out near her oddly rounded nose.