#deathclaw ada

[luchthonn-art]

Would you like a copy?

[trans-lykanthropie]

cw: transformation, blood, some gore, vomit, descriptions of pain

Edit: fixed the typos

I'd finally had enough.

The days upon days upon days of pressing, aching pains. The agonisingly slow creeping destruction of the last of my humanity. The pathetic attempts to cling on to my old self. No more. It ends now.

The wound on my back was the epicentre of my misery. It had taken control of my life, pulled me from one place to another, and all the time slowly chipping away at me, rotting me away. But it was time to take back that control. This is my life. And I had a plan.

I pulled my old leather map folder from my pack and studied it, leafing through the sheets the best my stiff fingers would let me. Not far from here is an area marked with red hatching, with an exclamation mark adjacent. A roundhouse for the pre-war railways, where huge old world engines waited to pull trains across the width of the continent. Left to rust and fall apart, their powerful fusion cores leaking as their hulls crumbled away. The whole place was flooded with radiation, and that's where I now headed.

I was working on the assumption that whatever I had worked similar to ghoulification. If I could at least speed up the process, maybe I could at least get past the pain. The old me would be gone, atomised. But I could at least start again. I was desperate.

A day and a night of travel brought me to my destination. I look at the grey stone building through the chain link fence for a moment, wondering how close I'd need to get to it. A flutter of fear almost had me giving up on my suicidal plan, but the grim resolve soon took its place again. I walk the perimeter until I found a gap, squeezing through it with my pack in hand. I crouch, fishing through the contents until I found the old geiger counter I'd used as a caravan guard what seemed like a lifetime ago and switch it on. The needle jumps and settles at a steady, low background level with only the intermittent click. I place it back in my bag, shoulder it, and start walking towards the building.

By the time I reach the outside wall, the counter is ticking regularly, like the dripping from a leaky tap. Infrequent and irregular, but persistent. I find a fire exit and manage to pull open the peeling metal door, stooping ever so slightly to enter. The hall inside is huge, the dull sunlight of the early evening filtering through cracks and holes in the ceiling high above. The place is a mess of fallen metal beams, gantries, cranes, and other heaps of twisted rusting metal. But the berths are mostly unoccupied. Perhaps the engines had been moved to safety in the days before the Great War.

One locomotive still waits in its berth, however, far on the other side of the hall. In its time it would've been a magnificent streamlined machine, perfectly designed to fly along the rails, pulling passengers in luxury from West to East and back again. Now the paint has flaked, the metal thinned and crumbled to mineral, abandoned, forgotten. I walk closer to it, geiger counter clicking faster in new panic. I start to taste metal and itch all over, but I keep walking in grim determination. I round a heap of scrap metal and can see the great steel wheels of the engine, see the faint blue glow of ionised air behind them. My counter starts to scream, I feel my steps falter and weaken. I drop my pack and double over, dropping to all fours and violently vomiting a dark bloody bile. The pressure, the ache that's tormented me for weeks or months reaches a crescendo, I scream inaudibly and claw at the last remaining patches of human flesh that until now have clung to my body, tearing my tattered, ill-fitting clothed to ribbons. I crawl forward, reaching out and watching through tears as vicious, lethal claws tear my fingers apart from within. That horrible tortuous pressure in my head continues, a creaking of bone like a tree seconds before being felled. I manage only a few more feet before slipping, falling hard on my side against the rails, crying out. Something feels like it's trying to pull my spine out through the small of my back. I writhe and curl up, unable to ignore the feeling of my legs shifting and reshaping, clutching at my head with my hands, eyes screwed shut tight. The sound of the geiger counter, like hail on a metal roof, suddenly cuts out. This is it, I thought through the swirling red fog of agony, I'm going to die here....

....but I didn't

I don't know how long I lay on the floor of the roundhouse. I lost all sense of time. Eventually though, the pain started to subside. From agony to painful. From painful to uncomfortable. Finally, for the first time in a long time, from uncomfortable to nothing. It was that above anything else that made me open my eyes. I took a few moments more, lying on the sleepers, breathing heavy ragged breaths. But still breathing. Get up. Get up. Get up.

I somehow manage to shuffle into a kneeling position, head still swimming. Then, with a herculean effort, I get shakily to my feet.

I look down at myself, eyes wide. The patch of ground where I'd been lying looks like the worst back alley brahmin slaughterhouse you could find. Blood and torn scraps of flesh cause me to step backwards instinctively, uneasy on my feet. I look at them. I can scarcely believe they're mine. Curving, onyx coloured talons and crooked, animalistic legs with rough hide and hard dark scutes. If I didn't know better I'd say I was hallucinating.

I practice a little at walking and finding my new centre of balance. It's much further forward than I'm used to, but my long reptilian tail naturally balances me out. A few times I slip, even falling to one knee on occasion, but I get the hang of it quickly. The air no longer has that metallic taste to it, something I discover by instinctively flicking my tongue out like a snake, recoiling a little at the impulse. I manage to make my way over to my pack, gingerly trying to open it with claws clearly ill suited to anything requiring fine motor skills. The geiger counter sits on top of the contents, the display unlit, the glass hazy. It's well and truly dead. I decide to keep it for now, in case I can get it repaired. Picking up the bag, I gather myself, get my bearings, and head back to where I came in.

I soon discover that I'm now too big to fit through the door I came in by, and have to find another way out through the yard, eventually barging my way through the fence with my shoulder. Once again reaching the road, I sit down on the floor, dazed, stunned. What even was I now?

I look up at the sky, emblazoned with countless stars. For once the world is quiet. For once my mind is calm. Resignation or acceptance? That I'll have to work out in the weeks to come.

I curl up on the ground and fall asleep.

[luchthonn-art]

"Carry your own ammunition Floyd"

Deathclaw Ada pressganged into the NCR army

For context see this post

[trans-lykanthropie]

Hey I actually finished my deathclaw Ada portrait, properly this time

[luchthonn-art]

deathclaw Ada in hunting mode (her eyes seem to lose their pupils when she goes feral)

[trans-lykanthropie]

[luchthonn-art]

A picture of deathclaw Ada and @nonbinary-bosmer 's OC Tess

Edit: Made some adjustments

[trans-lykanthropie]

I sit on a rock overlooking a shattered, hollow town. About an hour before I'd been rooting through the piles of debris, splintered houses, and crumbling office buildings, searching. Throwing an assortment of finds into a box, I left the old world graveyard be and headed up to the hill where I now sit, drinking in the cold sunshine.

After a while I hug my knees, listening to the wind whistle over the hill and down to the town below, the light fading and brightening as the clouds roll by. I think my sense of hearing is much sharper than before, and it's taking a lot of getting used to amid the onslaught of sensory information I now receive. Sights, smells, sounds....the only thing not wildly sharpened is my sense of touch.

I look down into the box. A few soggy books, a faded magazine, and an old battered radio. I pull the radio out and turn the volume switch with a soft click.

Nothing happens.

I shake it roughly.

Nothing.

Growling, I hit it on the side with the flat of my palm.

The radio flickers into light, the dial illuminated in a warm yellow, a burst of static from the speaker grill. Eyes widening with surprise, I gingerly turn the tuning dial. The machine is so small and feels so fragile between my claws.

"....ation levels remain dangerous. Residents of Release Band A are instructed not to leave their shelters for more than two hours per day. Residents in Release Band B should not...."

A forgotten automatic message drones from the radio in a bland, matter of fact voice. A chain of three claxon-like buzzes makes me jump, then the message repeats. How many times has this played since the war, unheard?

"....ation levels remain dangerous. Residents of Release Band A are instructed not to leave their shelters for more than two hours per day. Residents in Release Band B should not...."

I take a deep breath and grumble, eyes shut tight with focus.

"levvvvvel....ban....thannn....hhgghouurrrsss"

I try repeating the message over and over, just like the recording. My larynx clearly isn't made for speech. It's optimised for growls, snarls, and roars, which come naturally and scare me every time. It's disorientating to hear and feel such sounds rumble through my own voice box. No, I had to see if it was even possible to go back.

"hggtthhannn....bannnn-d....grrrr.....ttgheirrr"

My 'voice' is rough and deep, but just about comprehensible. It takes a lot of effort and concentration to form even basic syllables, modulated by a kind hoarseness similar to the kind that comes with a very bad cough. But it's a start.

I turn off the radio and place it delicately into my pack, hoping it'll turn back on again later. Again I look over the town below me. There's a lopsided old billboard, one I'd seen many times during my travels around the wastes, the paper poster tattered and blowing in the wind.

Fancy Lads: A big delight in every bite!

"Fannngghh....Laahhhggrrr"

I've already lost the knack. There's a long way to go, but for the first time in a long time, I dare to feel a scrap of optimism.

Maybe I could still find a way to live after all? Maybe I could adapt, or even thrive?

I can't help but laugh to myself. It's more of a quick exhale through my nostrils.

But who'd want to talk to a deathclaw?