The thing was a mound of flesh and mottled skin, as big as a barn and the shape of a pumpkin. Four tentacles as thick as trees hung limp at its sides; teeth ringed the gaping mouth at the top of its head like a crown.
A huge, sad whale eye the colour of wine stared at the knight. She could see her reflection in the jelly surface.
“We don’t know what it is,” she heard. “Some kind of monster that makes a perfect copy of whatever it eats. They think that was how the Dark Lord made his armies, feeding his minions to it so that it would make hundreds of copies of them. Do you recognize it?”
The knight opened her mouth. She hesitated. “Yeah,” she murmured, drawing out the word. “We found it in the Dark Lord’s tower, right?”
“That’s right. That’s where it ate you.”
The knight turned around and looked at her other reflection. This one appeared to be about ten years older, and had doffed her armor for a loose blue tunic and breeches.
She was holding a cup of tea. She had pressed another cup into the knight’s hand when she woke up here. It had been a shock finding herself suddenly out the obsidian dungeons of the Dark Lord’s tower and into this tall room of stone and straw. The warmth of it in her hands steadied her a bit.
“Everyone else in the party was worried, but then it started making copies of you,” the copy went on, staring up at the tentacled thing. “And all of the copies helped fight against the Dark Lord, and we won, and peace was restored across the land, but then nobody could figure out how to kill the damn thing or just to make it stop. Dozens of copies of us in a day, hundreds in a week, and then someone decided that the only thing we could do is just bring the thing here, seal it off and hope it starved to death.”
She sipped her tea. “Anyways, that was two-hundred years ago and it’s slowed down a bit. It can only make a new copy of us every few weeks now.”
The knight looked down into her tea. The copy had also draped a blanket over her shoulders.
“I have so many questions,” she said.
“I figured.”
“How can it be two-hundred years? I can still remember breaking into the tower. That feels like it was just minutes ago.”
“It was, basically. Your brain is a perfect copy of the original you’s brain at the exact moment she was eaten.”
“But the quest is just — done?”
“Yep. You missed some of the things that needed tying up afterward. There was a war, and a dragon, and some business about a ring.” She waved a hand. “It was before my time. Things are pretty settled now.”
“My parents?”
“Passed away about a hundred-and-fifty years ago. I’ve been told that they were very proud.”
The knight nodded. “Um. I don’t know if you know — we had an elf in our party—”
“I’m aware.”
“I — right. Obviously. Um. It’s just, after everything was done, I was going to ask her—”
“One of us did. She said yes. She outlived her. A couple of us have tried to reach out since then, but she wants to be left alone for a while.”
The knight considered this. “Uh — right,” she said eventually. Her fingers tightened around the tea cup. “Um. What do I do now?”
Her older copy shrugged. She had let her hair grow out again, the knight noticed. There were a few strands of grey against the black. “That’s up to you, I’m afraid,” she said. “A lot of us are finding work as soldiers and sellswords. We’ve done it for so long that most armies know we’re reliable and don’t tend to turn one of us away. Most of us are just sort of spreading out, wandering the world. Some of us keep in touch.”
The knight frowned. “What do you do?”
Her copy paused, tea cup half raised to her lips. “Sorry?”
“You said it only makes a new copy every few weeks now. So you just stay here and wait for a new one to show up?”
She lowered the cup. “Well,” she said. “I guess I just — I know what it can be like, waking up here in the dark, and it — it can be horrible trying to figure all of this out on your own.
“So I thought that what I’d do is just stay here with a pot of tea, and whenever I see myself again, I tell her that — that she’s not alone.”
“We aren’t?”
“Of course not. We’re all in this together, you know.”
not to sound like a crazy sjw but parents putting little girls in frilly dresses/lavish clothes and telling them not to run, climb, play in dirt, etc lest they ruin their outfits or somebody look up their skirts is one of the most direct ways we as a society teach girls that they are only ornamental and cut their childhoods short
went to a new optometrist today wearing my squid facts ‘save our freaks dont mine the deep’ shirt from @sarahmackattack that has a strawberry squid on it. and i wasn’t even thinking about it but the optometrist walked in and he was like ‘oh what does your shirt say’ so i showed him and he was like ‘oh that’s neat!’ and then i thought he might like to know about strawberry squid eyes since they have weird eyes and he is an optometrist and all. so i was like ‘yeah it’s actually a real kind of squid called a strawberry squid, their eyes are really cool because they have one big yellow-green one and one small blue one’ and he kind of gasped and went ‘oh my god that’s so interesting i wonder why they have that. do you know what their retina composition is like?’ and i watched as he minimized my chart on the computer and started looking up images of strawberry squid and then he googled ‘strawberry squid retina composition’ and he was like ‘sorry we’ll get to your eye exam in a moment i just really want to find out’ LMAO 10/10 optometrist experience will be returning
"Being a therian is an invalid coping mechanism" god forbid a girl becomes a millipede because she feels as if she's been treated like a bug her whole life. Like she's constantly under threat of being spotted by a human who doesn't like her, who will do terrible things to her if she doesn't escape quickly. Like as if finding a nice human who won't hurt her is rare. Like everyone is so biased against her for something she can't control. Like she's misunderstood in every single way. Like the only humans who claim to like her only enjoy the idea of her but not the actual her, and end up wanting her gone. Like the humans around her only keep her as a pet because they want the attention of having a unique animal, but don't really care about her. Like they just want to use her for her differences and exploit her in every way they can.
do you get shifts ?? if so, what do they feel like ?? :3
Omg my favoriteeeeee 🪱🪱🪱 I love talking abt shifts
I love shifts but its like really hard to describe because its not like im gaining any phantom limbs or snything
Its not rlly like other nonhuman shifts Ive seen but it kinda feels liek I don’t feel the weight of my arms, and everything feels really likeeee soft and rubbery.
and I feel kinda cold like when you get out of the pool (worm slime) snd like I should be under a blanket(under the dirt).
It’s like everything is connected so much more bc I don’t rlly feel my limbs, and I feel sooo much more like fluid and muscly and not so bony 🦴
Usually if its involuntary shifts its just the soft and rubbery and boneless feeling, and like my eyes and ears arent really there if thst makes sense??
but when im trying more or dream shifting it’s likeim all connected in 1 piece and Im hearing and seeing and smelling just by feeling through my skin..
Sry if that doesnt really make sense, it’s hard to explain.
do you get shifts ?? if so, what do they feel like ?? :3
Omg my favoriteeeeee 🪱🪱🪱 I love talking abt shifts
I love shifts but its like really hard to describe because its not like im gaining any phantom limbs or snything
Its not rlly like other nonhuman shifts Ive seen but it kinda feels liek I don’t feel the weight of my arms, and everything feels really likeeee soft and rubbery.
and I feel kinda cold like when you get out of the pool (worm slime) snd like I should be under a blanket(under the dirt).
It’s like everything is connected so much more bc I don’t rlly feel my limbs, and I feel sooo much more like fluid and muscly and not so bony 🦴
Usually if its involuntary shifts its just the soft and rubbery and boneless feeling, and like my eyes and ears arent really there if thst makes sense??
but when im trying more or dream shifting it’s likeim all connected in 1 piece and Im hearing and seeing and smelling just by feeling through my skin..
Sry if that doesnt really make sense, it’s hard to explain.
Your theriotype is awesome and I'm happy that you've found love and joy in your identity!
Awwwww tysm Im so happy being a worm 🪱
im thanjful I was born human so that I can be a worm therian and have this community and ppl like me and evryrhingggg but im also sooo happy to be a worm deep down and to be in touch with my worminess 🪱🪱🪱🪱
