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A Treasure of Time

Part 11

For Nataraj

By Draconicon

Despite her confidence in the temple - or what was left of it - the hippo wasn't sure that she could really pull off the whole 'mission' thing anymore. She had finished off her encounter with the goddess, and with Olag's help, she'd even gotten to the point of feeling like she'd actually won. Not on her own, admittedly, but she had won.

Then why don't I feel good about that?

The hippo looked down at the campfire that she was tending to. Eventually, the polar bear would be back with food, and she would be able to get to cooking, but in the meantime, she was left alone with her thoughts, and her thoughts were mean.

What are you going to do when you don't even have a name that fits anymore?

That was one of the big ones, and it brought with it a sense of loss, of abandonment, of incompletion. It felt like there were too many things wrong with her to be a proper person, and it meant that she didn't want to be around other people. It made her doubt anything that she did, and it meant that even simple things like putting the fire together was a lot harder than it should have been.

The hippo sighed as she poked the fire with a stick, leaning forward and resting against her knees. Her legs were thicker than they used to be, with a bit of pudge on them that made them a little squishy. She made sure to squeeze them, if only for the reminder that she was real. That this was real, and not a dream.

Why...

The hippo ground her forehead against her knees, sighing. It had felt so good, at first. So good to have breasts, to have hips, to have this ass that was just so bouncy and sexy. She had enjoyed the feeling of being a 'she', to feel like she was making progress towards something that she had never realized that she wanted. Everything had been good, grand, even.

And then, she was alone, and with Olag somewhere else, she started to doubt things. She started wondering if she was fooling herself, if there was any point of someone like her trying to pretend she was a real woman. If the cock between her legs was just...just a big flag that said that she wasn't, that she didn't really want to be. If other people would only see her as a sexual object now, since women were so frequently labeled that way.

And she didn't even have a name to put to this body, to at least feel like it was a person instead of just a stupid fantasy.

The former lizard was about to slam her head against her knees when the sound of cracking branches distracted her. She looked up, her pudgy toes digging into the rock under her as the leaves and underbrush parted to reveal her polar bear partner.

"Got some boar," the bear said, holding up a bled pig. "I'll get it stripped. You got a preference on cuts?"

"Um...you pick. I don't know them enough."

She knew pig, but not boar. That should have been close enough, though, right? Then why didn't she...

Ugh.

The hippo didn't know what the hell was wrong with her. All she knew was that nothing was clicking the way that it should have been.

Everything that she'd gotten from the goddess remained. There was more than just knowledge of pleasure from being strapped to the altar, too. There were inklings of magic, of transformation, of the way that energy moved to and fro in the world around them. She had learned bits and pieces about it, not enough to really understand it, but enough to have a low-level fascination with everything.

She had the feeling that if she looked up and studied the world, she'd start coming to conclusions that had never really hit her before. She imagined that she'd feel like a genius, if she merely applied herself.

Thunk. Thunk. Riiiiip.

The sound of cutting, chopping, and tearing flesh filled her ears, and she tugged the little stalks down, covering them. That was one advantage of the transformation. She could deafen herself a hell of a lot easier with actual ears than she could with earholes.

Ugh...

The hippo bonked her forehead against her knees a few times. She would have kept going if it wasn't for the polar bear poking her in the knee with the butt of his axe.

"Eep!"

"Hey. What the fuck?"

"W-what do you mean?"

"I mean, what the fuck?" the bear grunted, putting his axe down again. "You've been whimpering ever since I got back. What the hell's going through your head this time?"

"...You could be a bit gentler asking, you know," she muttered, rubbing her arm.

"Could be, but after krakens, another fucking boulder punching my face in, and going hunting, I don't got any energy for that. So, what, the, fuck?"

"...Are you sure that this...that me being like this...is a good idea?"

That was the question that she had been wrestling with, or at least, one of the ones that tagged in the most. She'd been looking at herself, doubting herself, and every time that she tried to come up with a positive, or remember what Olag had said to big her up a little bit, she found herself sinking again, feeling like it all had to be lies. Someone like her wasn't worth that sort of effort.

The bear sighed, rubbing his forehead and tossing the half-stripped carcass towards the fire. He turned to look at her, not quite glaring, but with that sort of tired face that made any expression look like a glare.

"So, you saying you want me to call you a 'he' again?"

"What?!"

She blinked, sitting up straight.

"You heard me. You want me to say 'he'? To call ya a guy, a man, whatever the fuck ya were before?"

"Well, I mean, no, but -"

"Then there's your fucking answer, right?"

"But...but what if I'm making a big deal about nothing? What if I'm just overreacting, or it's a phase, or there's just something wrong with me, or - meep!"

In that split second, the bear had moved from the fire to right beside her, and his hand was more than big enough to get her by the balls. The hippo crossed her legs on instinct, trying to keep them protected, but the bear already had his fingers wrapped around them, holding them tight.

"Look. I'm fucking tired, so I'm just gonna say this once. Whatever the fuck ya wanna be, that's the right thing for you. Are ya gonna change later? Yeah, probably. Everybody fucking does. Far as I'm concerned, there ain't a forever-right thing for anybody. There's just whatever's right for ya right now. Ya like this body?"

"..."

"Do ya like this body?" the bear asked, giving the hippo's orbs a squeeze. Not hard, but enough to get her gasping.

"Y-yes..."

"Why?"

"Because...because..."

"Come on, ain't got all night."

"Because it feels good!" she said, whimpering and blushing. "I like all the heavy curves, I like being a short, big girl, I like having this bit between my legs instead of a pussy because it still feels right to me, but nothing else about it did, and I wanted to be different and feel good in my body and I finally do and I don't feel like I deserve it and -"

The hippo couldn't find the words after that. She was freaking out, and she knew that she was just a breath away from going into a full hysterical breakdown. Casting her eyes around for any distraction, anything that might keep her from losing it completely, she spotted the boar. She grabbed for it, trying to make herself useful, dragging it to the axe.

She was just starting to follow muscle memory from trimming pork meat when the bear grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back. He turned her around, made her face him. Bloody fingers met bloody fingers, and he made her lean against him. She wanted to cry, but didn't want him to have her tears all through his fur.

"It's not fair...it's not fair..."

He didn't say anything, just held her tight, kept her from running. She couldn't get away from the bear, or herself, and there was no way to just retreat from it and bury it the way that she used to. There was no instrument to play to distract her, no flirting to be done to make her feel different.

There was only the feeling, the breakdown, and the pain, and she was completely consumed by it.

The hippo leaned against the bear's chest, sobbing as it all came flowing free. She couldn't stop herself, couldn't pull it back in. The tears just kept coming, dripping down her cheeks and into his fur.

"It's not fair. I finally...I finally got what I want, and I can't...I'm not happy...I should be happy...Why can't I be happy..."

Olag didn't answer her. Instead, he just kept up the slow back rub, keeping her close, not letting her run away. For the first time, she had to face it, be honest with herself about what she had, and decide what she wanted to do going forward.

The impossible had been made real. She wasn't Nat anymore. She was someone else, and she needed to figure that out. As much as it hurt her to admit it, that meant that there was no way that she could stick this out. The mission...

The mission was too much for her.

With a little sniffle, she slowly lifted her head, meeting the polar bear's blue-eyed stare. The big guy hadn't let go, hadn't looked away. He just held her the whole time.

"I...I can't do this," she whispered.

"What?"

"I can't do the mission. It's...it's too much."

"Yeah...I wondered."

"You...you're not mad?"

"Nah."

Finally letting her loose, the bear got to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. He seemed almost resigned and relieved at the same time, and she wondered just how obvious her distress had actually been if he'd already figured it out.

"Boss already said that he'd sent out a back-up team earlier. They'll be heading towards the island to fix it."

"He thought...did he think I was going to screw up?"

"The boss? Nah. He just covers his bases. All the time. Annoyingly. Repeatedly."

The bear looked even more annoyed than she had felt self-conscious, and it made her giggle just a little bit. There was something about a polar bear looking annoyed rather than angry that made it more comical than scary, particularly when they were annoyed at someone else rather than you.

As the hippo giggled, she felt some of her tension easing out, leaving her with a little more space inside to work with. She didn't feel as bad about stuff, though she didn't quite feel good just yet. She just felt...she didn't know. Better, she supposed, though even that wasn't quite right.

She rubbed the back of her head, looking down at the ground.

"You're not mad, though, right?"

"At you? Nah."

"At something else?"

"Just the fact that I'm gonna have to work with the horses."

"Horses?"

"Yeah. Six brothers that think they're all that. Fucking assholes. Gonna have to fuck 'em into obedience, too."

"Isn't that the fun part?"

"Usually. Heh. It's them complaining until I get it done and then begging for more afterwards that gets annoying."

"Oh?" She blushed. "You're...that good?"

"I'm way fucking better than that."

The hippo wondered. She kept meaning to give him a good ride, but every time that she started setting herself up for that sort of thing, she started feeling shy. The loss of her confidence in exchange for all the information that the goddess had was starting to get on her nerves, making her feel like less than herself, and it kept getting in the way of things that would make her feel better.

Like the bear's dick.

Still...at least he was keeping the offer open. One day, she told herself. One day, she would find a way to say thanks with her body without feeling bad about it.

"So...what do we do now?" she asked.

"I'll call Boss, and we'll head back to the ship. He can grab us from any of the campsites."

"And...and then?"

"Well, you ain't yourself anymore, so just putting ya back where we found ya is kinda out of the question."

She hadn't even thought about that, but the bear was right. Everyone in her life knew her as Nataraj the lizard, or Nat the occasional drag queen, but nothing more than that. Showing up as this shorter, curvier hippo would lead to more questions than she could answer, not to mention...

Well, not to mention the way that people would react. She had a semi-handle on things right then, but she didn't know how secure her grip was. If she ran into hate, into people that wanted nothing to do with her because of her change, then she wasn't sure how well she'd be able to take it.

But up and leaving everything behind...

There are people that can still find you, she told herself. Draconicon, Salla. Hell, Salla could bring people to you...

It wasn't much, but it was a start. A small start. Enough of a start. The hippo took a deep breath, then nodded.

"Okay. I think...I think I'm ready."

"Yeah. So's the boss. Say goodbye to the island. Bye, island. Hardly knew ya, ya fucker."

She opened her eyes in the transportation room, and did her best to feel okay about being a completely different person to when she had been there before. She smiled at the black and white tigress, trying to give a wave, but Tatyana didn't look up from whatever it was she was doing. She looked at Salla, who was staring back at her through that strange mask of his, and waved at him, too.

He, at least, waved back.

"Good to have you back," he said, and it was weird to hear him out loud after hearing him in her head for so long. "How are you feeling?"

"Confused. Not...not sure what I'm going to do, really," she said, feeling the shakes rising in her voice and trying to push them back down. "I'm just...trying to keep it together right now."

"I thought so. Olag? If you would go and get some food? The galley's running high right now, but you have permission to skip the line."

"Fucking fine with me. Didn't get that boar, after all."

The bear left, leaving her alone with the mouse. She rubbed her arm, trying not to feel completely exposed, vulnerable, alone...

Olag wants me, she told herself. That has to mean something good, right? I'm not...I'm not just...

She wasn't making a mistake. She told herself that again and again. No matter what else happened, she wasn't making a mistake staying like this. It had felt right since the first time that she'd been changed by the goddess, and it still felt right now. She had to remember that, and remember how much worse it felt when Olag had offered to call her a 'him' again.

Taking a few deep breaths, she realized that Salla had offered her his hand. She took it, and he led her down from the platform.

"I think you and I need to talk."

"Oh?" And just like that, anxiety was back. "About...what, exactly?"

"Nothing bad. I just need to know where we're going from here."

"You mean...where I'm going?"

"No, I mean we. Tatyana?"

The mouse held out his hand, and the tigress absently passed over a few pieces of paper. He tucked them into his suit jacket, all while the hippo cocked her head to the side.

"Trust me, classified information. For your eyes only. It's part of the plan."

"Plan?"

"You'll see. Follow me."

And just like that, they were back in the corridor. It felt almost like her first time again, following the mouse through the metal tunnels and hoping that she was going the right way. This time, however, she didn't have the same confidence, the same wandering eye that her sheer arrogance in her own abilities had allowed her.

Yet, she had something else. Her curiosity was still there, but it was stronger this time, strong enough to have her peering at the different open rooms, trying to find some more information. She remembered that Salla had mentioned something before, something that he hadn't actually explained.

"You, um...you mentioned that there was something that'd kick in before..."

"Hmm? Oh, you mean when we were traveling," the mouse said. "Yes. The G.A.T.E. system."

"What is that? Is that how you get around?"

"Pretty much."

"Is it a wormhole system, or...or some sort of warp?"

"Nothing of the sort, actually."

"Then what is it?"

"Tatyana came up with the whole engine originally, but it was so messed up and filled with so much pseudo-science that I ended up renaming it," the mouse said as they wound their way around a group of men coming back from the galley. They all stared appreciatively at the hippo as they walked by, and she blushed, fighting the urge to cover her nudity as the mouse continued. "I was going to call it the Contradiction Engine, considering that all the different things that it did seemed to come back and cancel themselves out, but that was already taken. So. G.A.T.E."

"What does it stand for?" she asked.

"Getting Anywhere Through Excuses."

She almost stumbled head over heels at the self-aware name, and almost ran right into his back. Considering that she was even shorter than she was before, standing perhaps four and a half feet tall, maybe less, that almost took her down to landing against his hips from the angle of the fall. She grabbed for a low-hanging pipe, pulled -

And surprised herself by landing about ten feet forward, perfectly on her feet, having accomplished a twist in mid-air and a calculation of -

"...Holy cow..."

The hippo gasped, slapping her hands to her cheeks. The mouse stared at her, too, and she was half-sure that his eyes were wide behind his mask.

"I'm...I just..."

"Performed a perfect double-backflip and twist from the standing position after flipping yourself over my head," the mouse confirmed. "I'm not quite sure how you did that, but apparently the changes in your head have already taken effect."

"Changes - what changes? What happened?"

"Let's continue to your room first, hmm? And without any further gymnastics, heh."

"I'm...I'm a genius?" the hippo whispered.

"Well, potentially, though the backflip in the hall implies it's at least partially unconscious," Salla said, sitting on her bed as she looked down at the papers spread out on the wall-mounted desk. "We took a few scans of your brain at each campsite, and the results speak for themselves."

She couldn't take her eyes off the paper. It was like staring at a clean test result after expecting to see AIDS on it. There was no way that she could ever imagine this being true, but there it was, in black and white. Her IQ was higher - a couple dozen points higher, for that matter - and so was her emotional intelligence reading. Her mind seemed to be firing faster than it was before, the neural response speed much higher than it used to be.

And from what she could see, he had managed to pin down a few other interesting traits...including an affinity for magic.

I could learn it, she realized, staring at the papers before her. I could really learn it, this time, instead of just...just having it fucked into me...

There were so many changes with her new body, so many differences that she hadn't even known about. The shift had unlocked more than she could have ever thought possible.

And yet, for all that, it didn't make her feel better. She wasn't happy with her body because it was a super-star, or because it came with a faster, smarter brain. She wasn't keen to keep it because it was able to do magic in ways that the lizard body could not. It wasn't any of that.

No. She wanted to keep it because...in some way...this all validated that it was still her. She had always been smart. She'd always been interested in magic. It was still her, not some entirely brand-new person. Whatever the core things had been for Nat, from curiosity to music to magic, those were still there. It was just in a different package.

A package that felt...better, she had to admit. A package that seemed to fit everything else that much better. And that was why everything was easier, because she could stop feeling wrong in other ways.

And now, she had proof. She had proof that everything was just...flowing easier. She didn't have to worry about being someone different. At heart, this was not that different; it was just putting who she really was in the right packaging.

If she hadn't already cried her eyes out against Olag's chest, she probably would have cried again right then and there. As it was, the hippo slowly folded the papers up and walked over to her bed. The mouse tapped her shoulder with his cane, keeping her attention on the here and now.

"You obviously can't go back to your old home."

She smiled slightly, shaking her head.

"Olag mentioned that. He's right."

"I've already found a potential replacement."

"Replace - what are you talking about?"

"I found a different place for you to live."

She blinked, hardly believing what she was hearing. That...that wasn't supposed to be how it worked. The hippo stared at the mouse as he shrugged.

"Well, theoretically, you could live here, but clearly you want to find some time to discover yourself, figure out what you are, what you're like. If I had time with the island and all, I'd let you make it into a whole quest for your own identity, but we both know that you're a little bit done in at the moment."

"...It feels wrong not to earn it," she admitted, rubbing the back of her head.

"Earn it, schmearn it," Salla said, shaking his head. "You go through life fighting all the time anyway. Why not take a shortcut here and there when the opportunity comes? And if you want to earn it, consider giving me an IOU for it. A favor for a favor."

"...What kind of favor?" the hippo asked, blushing. "Oh god, why can't I stop blushing when people talk about sex now? I know more about it than I ever did, but I can't stop blushing! Gah!"

"That'll be part of the shift, I imagine. That might change, but for the moment..."

The mouse smiled behind his mask, she could just tell. He leaned in, whispering for a moment.

"Just imagine how it will feel the first time that someone gets up the courage to put you in your place, properly...imagine how it will feel to have that new snout broken in under a fat, musky sole, while some brute is slapping his cock against your chest, and his buddy is slapping his cock against your fat ass..."

If there was a way for a pair of suns to move into her cheeks, she was pretty sure that just happened. The hippo flung herself down on the bed, blushing worse than ever as she buried her cheeks in her pillow.

"NOT! FAIR!"

"I'd say that's pretty fair," the mouse said, stretching his arms over his head before getting to his feet. "Regardless, we'll be putting you down in a new world tomorrow. Olag'll be sent off on his mission then, and you can say goodbye, and then we'll head off to your new home."

"Mmmph..."

"You'll be fine. It's a little rough getting there, but once you arrive, you'll fit right in."

"Mmmph. As a shemale?"

"I'd call you a female with a dick, personally, but that's up to you. We all have to figure out our own labels."

"Mmmph. Maybe we should get rid of labels."

"Why?" The mouse chuckled. "It might give us a bit of mystery, I suppose, but we're all so different. Why should we be in such a hurry to get rid of that?"

The mouse left the room, then, and the hippo was left alone once more. She slowly rolled over, making sure that the rodent had closed the door to her room - he had - and then laid on her back and stared at the ceiling.

It was going to take some time to figure out just what she was, and what she was comfortable with. She liked her dick right now, but would that change in the future? She liked being big in her curves and small in her height, but would that change? Would she want to be something else, after wanting to be so different from Nataraj?

She remembered what Olag had said. Everyone tried to find the forever-right for themselves, forgetting about the right-now right, and...

Well, for her, this body was good. Very good for right-now.

Smiling, the hippo closed her eyes. For the first time, she felt good on her own. She didn't feel the need to go hunting down compliments, or validation, or anything like that. For the first time in far too long, she felt comfortable in her own skin, and she felt like she could actually live a life like this.

Sooner or later, anxiety would come knocking on her door again. It always did. But for now, she savored the freedom from it, and the good feelings that she had been missing for far too long.

And she finally had a new name to go with the new body. She'd been thinking about it all day, and she finally felt happy with her decision.

Maeve.

Maeve passed her new name around to Olag and Salla before they had to zap the bear into his new assignment, and she was lucky enough to get a hug from the bear before he had to go. She felt good that he had been able to give her everything that he had, but she was still sad to see him go.

On the journey through whatever dimensional bullshit the G.A.T.E. system was pulling, she managed to find her way down to Tatyana. She tried to tell the tigress that she was thankful for all the help that had been given through the tech and everything else, but with the blank looks that the feline gave her, she wasn't sure how much got through. After all, Salla said that she could speak English. She didn't know if that meant that the tigress understood it all that well.

But still, it felt right to do it.

They eventually came to a halt, and she joined the rest of the crew in the transporter room. There was an image on the wall-mounted monitor, and she blinked at it.

"Is that..."

"The Academy of the Written Soul," Salla said, nodding.

"...I was just going to ask if it was a school."

"Well, it's more impressive than that, but if that's how you want to think of it, yes, that's a school."

"Sorry," Maeve said, chuckling. "Keep talking."

"You'll regret that."

Everyone in the room whipped their head around, blinking at the white and black tigress at the consoles. Tatyana rolled her eyes, muttering something about 'you know I'm right' before getting back to work.

Eventually, Salla cleared his throat.

"Essentially...and to prove her wrong...The Academy of the Written Soul is a wizard school. It is one of the better ones in the multi-verse, and it certainly has better knowledge of how the multi-verse works than the average wizard college. I can speak from personal experience that the library that they have there is one of the best-stocked of any that I've seen in any universe, and contains more theories on the workings of reality than anywhere else.

"Of course, we've merely assumed that you would prefer to learn to be a wizard rather than going into somewhere more 'normal', but if we're wrong, please, say - oof!"

The mouse grunted as Maeve yanked him into a hug again. She was very huggy, she was finding. Not sure if that was something that would stay, but for the moment, her emotions were bubbling, running high, and they were difficult to keep a good lid on. Whatever the reason for that, she was happy to feel the mouse against her, and she squeezed him tight.

"Thank you...thank you for thinking of me. And wanting to make things good."

"Well...certainly. What else are friends for?"

She didn't answer that. There was no need to.

Friends. I have...friends. And they want me, even like this. Maeve didn't know how to find the words to explain how much that meant to her, nor did she know if she ever would. The feelings were impossible to explain, the relief of the fear that she'd been under, the utter release of the self-doubt that had been harbored in so many ways...

But she was going to school, now. Perhaps she'd learn the words there.

The End

Summary: After that last transformation, Nataraj doesn't feel like herself anymore, and falls into some self-doubt, and some serious self-doubt at that. What will happen to pull her out of it?

Tags: no sex, nudity, S/solo, F/solo, trans, kinda, epilogue, polar bear, mouse, Salla, Olag, hippo, curves, revelations, changes, character development, series,