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Into a Chimera

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Roland Latore Speed

_ _

Rene startled awake, sitting up bolt upright with the chill of a cold sweat layering his skin as his dark hair clung to the back of his neck. He grasped at his body, feeling everything out, that everything was still in the right place, his hands brushing over familiar muscles just to reassure himself that it was not real.

That he was not really there – in the world his dream had shown him. For that had been a dark time with clawing, grabbing hands, people pulling at him, restraints that forced him into position. Rene shuddered bodily, even though he didn't want to remember it at all.

Just a dream, he told himself, taking deep breaths to slow himself down, blinking as he collected his scattered thoughts. A dream cannot hurt you. There are no more experiments like that, not on me.

_ _

Yet he was not home and small flickers of memories alit in his mind, as if they were being filtered to him through a sieve. However, there were no recent memories, the last thing being that of his co-workers…for some reason, holding him down.

Rene shook his head. That didn't make sense. But even where he was didn't make sense as a chill clawed at the pit of his belly. Slowly, he rose, swinging his legs out of bed, checking out where he was. It looked something like a bedroom of a mobile laboratory, though everything was clinical and simple in there with no added decoration.

He glanced resolutely at the glow of the moon through the window blinds, sitting on the edge of the bed. It didn't look like any place he knew, a rich rainforest-like environment rising beyond the window. However, there was little indication of where he could go or if he even should go.

“Rene…"

He picked up, listening intently as he tipped forward a little.

“Rene…"

It was her: her voice coming at him from beyond the trees, beyond the line of what Rene could see. Even though his legs were still shaky, he stood once more, shaking his head a little and hoping the fog would clear from his head in due course. He might have been walking on instinct, the movement of his limbs taking on a wafting, dreamlike quality, but there was a part of Rene that was entirely sure of where he was going.

He had to be.

A hospital-like gown floated around him as he stepped out of the cabin into the forest, the bioluminescence catching his eye as insects drifted from night flower to flower. Glowing tracks lined the trees, as if to lead creatures to some kind of sustenance, though it was not a place he was familiar with in the slightest.

He prowled through the forest, sinking his bare toes into the soft soil. The gown frustrated him and he rolled his shoulders back, shucking it from his body as he wandered deeper into the forest in the nude.

After being trapped and captured, from what he assumed, he sighed, relaxing a little. Being nude in the forest filled him with a sense of power and he walked a little taller, puffing out his chest. He had more muscle than he felt he'd had the last time he'd done something similar, though he smiled faintly at how the cool night air nipped teasingly at his exposed skin.

Brushing by the vegetation, he played with fronds and leaves, running his fingers along them. Some shucked a bioluminescent “powder" that floated through the air, though Rene did not pause for long enough to see where it settled. His muscular limbs easily slipped through the forest, following the pull of the voice that had called him, yet it was as if there was movement under his feet even then.

It was as if…the ground itself was alive. And yet Rene would take longer to come to understand that.

With the moonlight glancing off his naked physique, he followed the draw all the way to where the trees thinned and a small curve of a beach came into view. The moonlight danced across the water, waves rippling faintly – but that wasn't what he was looking at.

The one who'd called him was lying on the sand, her head tipped up to the starry night sky as the waves lapped at the shoreline.

“Rêver…" He breathed. “Finally…"

Oh, it felt like it had been so long since he had seen the chimera and she raised her head instantly to face him, a light gleaming in her multiple eyes.

Rêver was a chimera to take in and he saw all of her even as he stumbled into a run, closing the distance between them as quickly as possible. With two tails – the shark and the dinosaur-like one dominant - balancing behind her, sand sifted off her body as she stood, extending her large wings out on either side. He could almost feel just how smooth her dolphin-like skin would be under his fingers, so close and yet so far at the same time. The white feathers of her crow-like tail laid over the top of the other two, adding a softer, feathery note to her hybrid appearance.

Her head was something monstrous, though Rene had once been said to be far more monstrous than Rêver ever had been. Yet with a hard beak-like mouth and an elongated jaw, she was not like any creature in the world, not with her slippery, pale-white skin.

He crashed into her and she folded a foreleg around him, drawing the much smaller human against her. When standing, Rene came up to about Rêver's bicep, not quite her shoulder. Yet he melted in against her, exhaling a hard breath that pulled more tension from the tight lines of his back than Rene had even realised he'd been holding.

“Oh, Rene," she murmured, her voice low and musical – just like the notes that had carried him through the forest. “Rene, Rene… It has been weeks and yet it felt like years…"

“So long?"

He shook his head, shivering a little. Still, he caught Rêver eyeing him lightly, seeing him in the nude for the first time in quite a while too. She always had enjoyed an eye for his physique, even though Rene had to admit, vaguely, that it wasn't the time for that either.

Or was it? Maybe their coming together again was a release of so much they'd been holding back, forgetting the world that'd been left behind.

With Rêver, he could move forward at last. Yet the chimera nuzzled into him warmly, showing more affection than he had yearned for – oh, it had been too long. He caressed her neck, sliding the flats of his hands down her smooth skin to her forelegs or forearms – it didn't matter how they were referred to – to squeeze her muscle. Of course, he couldn't get the fingers of his hand all the way around one of her legs or biceps, but he didn't mind that. As long as he was with her again, rooting himself in reality by giving him the tangible sensation of touch to focus on.

Rêver blinked at him, her heart surging. She did not experience time and distance quite as Rene was, yet he was the man she had taken to be her mate and to not have him with her, in a sense, caused her physical pain too. As a creature, however, Rêver simply did not acknowledge what hindered her in her quest for survival, even though a chimera had little to fear from the natural world. It was humans that caused problems for her.

Still, she took advantage of the moment and followed her instinct in drawing him to her, nuzzling into his chest and savouring the sensation of his muscle against her snout. Her large hand closed around his body, holding him like that so she could take him in visually. To anyone watching, it would have looked as if Rene and Rêver were taking one another in, but Rêver closed the distance again.

Rene moaned faintly, so touch starved in weeks that had passed. Even if his active mind did not comprehend the enormity of all that had come to pass, he still had to lean into her, relishing in the smooth rub of her skin against his. She was comforting in a way no one else, in the whole world, ever would be to him, even without saying anything at all.

“It's hard to explain," he said, shaking his head. “I remember bits of it… But I remember more from earlier, after we came together for the first time."

He grinned, a blush warming his cheeks. Of course, Rene was referring to the time Rêver and he had enjoyed sex with one another for the first time, taking their intimacy to the next level. Yet he could not linger there, as much as his body tingled.

“So, I think it was my employers," he went on to explain, “who captured me. They experimented on me… But I don't know what they were looking for, not yet. I don't remember it all, it's all in fragments like I'm trying to put together pieces of a shattered window. I don't think I will ever see it all."

He gulped hard as Rêver pulled him protectively in closer to her, letting out a rumbling growl.

“They'll never take you again."

There was a threat in her tone and Rene was not all that sure he minded it in the slightest. He wanted to be with her, close to her, and never back in the hell of endless tests and experimentation.

“A guinea pig," he breathed, another flicker of memory coming back to him as his employer stood over him, flicking a syringe with a needle already in place with his nail and a smile that didn't reach his eyes. “That's all I was. It must have been my intimacy with you, something that changed my genetic code."

It came back to him then, just a little more. The injections he'd been given had held the genetic material of a chimera too – not Rêver, he thought, but another, perhaps. Whether it was synthetically generated or something else entirely, but maybe there was a way for him to find that out.

He remembered…lying there. But he had not been a human. He had been something familiar and strange at the same time, stretching out a wing – and then it had been bound, restricted.

Rene blinked, taking a breath. His body had never felt like it was quite right for him, as if he was always occupying the wrong “space" in time, in the world. Was this the way everything was going to change?

“I think…" He said slowly. “I think I became something else."

Rêver's eyes gleamed and she blinked slowly, resting her muzzle compassionately against Rene's.

“I think I feel it too," she said. “Not through sharing memories, not like that. It's like…an instinct. You are like me now."

He smiled, his chin lifting a little. He could almost feel the new muscles of his back and wings rising, lifting in that moment. They were not there, on his back, but it felt like they should have been there, ghostly appendages.

“Rêver," he said softly, a light quiver in his voice. “Could you wait for me out in the water? A bit out from the shore?"

She nodded and backed away from him, her muscular tails sweeping around as they trailed briefly across the surface of the sand. She might not have understood everything, much the same as Rene, that was going on, though time together and his memories pulling back together, giving him a map of what had happened, would help them both. Until then, the chimera merely sensed one of her own as she gave him space, allowing him to find himself in his own way and in his own time.

She dipped into the water and swam powerfully away, using her tails to pump and direct her while her legs and wings worked together. Rene, however, stayed back on the shore, briefly dropping to one knee with his head bowed.

Farewell…to that time.

_ _

It was time to take on his true self, rising tall. If they had looked to experiment on him, to turn him into nothing more than a helpless lab rat, he would show them exactly why they were wrong.

Pressing the flat of his palm to the sand, he left the impression of his digits there as he stood again, eyes fixed on the shifting, ever-in-motion waves of the ocean. Pacing a little further down the beach, he followed a “tug" inside him that led him out into the water, the waves lapping over his curling toes as the sand became firmer under his feet.

“This is right…"

Rene breathed out the words as he waded out, though the waves were not too bad there. The curve of the beach seemed to protect the shoreline somewhat, although the waves and waters were rougher further out from shore. So, he waded in comfortably, deeper and deeper, until his feet could no longer touch the sand.

“Unff…"

He grunted as he struck off into deeper water still, though he didn't feel out of his depth. Diving underwater, once it was deep enough for him, he exhaled, bubbles streaming from his nostrils and tickling his face. He'd swum with Rêver before, although, back then, it was difficult not to compare their swimming styles and to appreciate just how much stronger of a swimmer the chimera was than he was.

That was when he'd been merely human, however. And, like removing his gown earlier, he was ready to shake off the chains of that form and body. It had never suited him anyway.

Rêver waited for him out by a sandbar as he relished in the flow of the ocean water over his body, though the chimera was hardly subtle about the look she stole of him. The chimera sensed she would not get to enjoy that part of him for much longer, even if something greater still was coming in its place.

The sandbar was underwater; when he stood, the surf was up to his knees, lapping around his legs. Giving a smile to Rêver, he parted his lips, holding his hands out to either side of his body, fingers lightly splayed.

“Wait for me."

Rêver cocked her head minutely, not knowing what to say or what she could do. Yet it was out of her control as she allowed Rene to do everything he needed, the moonlight glimmering tantalisingly off his wet skin. He was even more alluring to her when he was naked and wet, although Rêver would have had him regardless of what body he had or how he looked. His wet hair came down to his midsection, clinging to his body almost with a sense of overstimulation in how it stuck obnoxiously to him.

He breathed out – and didn't take another breath in. Not yet, at least, for every flicker of energy in his body fed to something greater, a prickling tingle seeping through him. It was a good thing Rene was already nude, for his clothes would have been ruined if he had shed his skin like that otherwise, but it would have ceased to matter regardless. He had already left behind the gown as evidence of his escape from the mobile laboratory, though Rene was quite sure no one would be able to find him.

Not where he was going.

His skin rippled and bubbled as if it was clay in the process of being moulded by a potter's hand, although that was not a pastime Rene had ever paid much mind to before. He held his hands out before him as his thighs thickened up with muscle and flesh, definition coming and going as his entire body changed at once.

Even the placement of his organs seemed to shift, almost jostling within the cage of his ribs and lower still, where those in the lower half of his torso were not as well protected as his heart and lungs. A body was a marvellous thing indeed and he swallowed hard, throat working, as his lungs expanded, ribs crinkling and cracking as they expanded too.

As muscle layered his body noticeably, he tipped forward a little, his legs bent while his body looked to adjust his stance even then. His neck thickened and he lost some of the definition between that and his shoulders, swinging his head back and forth lightly. It all felt so cumbersome – and yet like he was shedding that sense of heaviness for something that would feel as light as a feather.

Or perhaps a feather floating on water.

“Mmmm…"

Rene tried to hum gently, aware of Rene's eyes on him, though it was hard for him to say what she saw as he transformed. His flesh shifted, covering him more adequately as his chest pushed out, his arms lengthening while the strain of his bones lengthening sent a quiet ache through his body. There was not, however, any true pain present in the transformation as his face bulged out too, losing its human features.

That was the best part of it for Rene. He didn't want that human jawbone and the cut of his cheekbones. Without his often-bedraggled appearance, many would have considered him a handsome man, even if it would have taken a little work on his part. But the truth of the matter there was that Rene would never have wanted that for himself.

His back trembled, skin rippling as bud-like appendages slowly pushed from his shoulder blades, or thereabouts. In all actuality, those would move further back as his bones rearranged themselves too, forming fresh matter out of pure energy. From an outside perspective, it was no wonder they had wanted to experiment on him when he was capable of so much. That didn't make it right.

Rêver took a breath, her huge sides expanding. As intoxicating as it was for her to look upon Rene when he was nude, in his natural form, there was something even more spellbinding about the man she connected with during his transformation. For he could not see how chimera-like the wings were as they bulged from his back, as if his skin had taken on the consistency of rubber.

Yet it was so much more than that as she peered more closely, her feet on the sandy seafloor where it was at a depth that she could peer over the tops of the waves. All of her eyes locked on to him, gleaming red even in the darkness, and her tails swung lightly back and forth through the water.

On her partner and confidant, there was still a fair bit of muscle, though Rêver tracked it curiously with her gaze as it grew. It was not to be placed there in that human definition, after all, but moulded into chimera shoulders, his back lengthening to better hold his new bulk. Every part of him grew and it was not as if only one part of Rene was transforming at any given time but every part of him at once.

Rene groaned, too caught up in his own growth and transformation to notice Rêver staring at him, admiring his form with a sheen in her eyes. He would have blushed to see the chimera, after all, staring at him so intently, even with that soft little tilt to her head that only ever seemed to come out just for him. The vertebrae of his back popped out lightly as his skin and muscle caught up with it, even the lines and webbing of fascia that wove throughout his entire body needing to come along with it.

The stretch of his spine was the most intriguing part as the bump that had begun at the base of his spine, above the point of his buttocks, increased in length slowly. Growing to a foot long and then greater, it captured Rene to such an extent that he tried to turn around to grab at it, just so he could fold his fingers around the smooth flesh.

He was not, however, that flexible, not even in the middle of a transformation, as he grunted and tipped forward, forced to catch himself once more. What had been Rene's hands splashed back down into the ocean and clouds of sand puffed up around what were becoming his front legs.

Legs… Arms… He laughed shortly, a joyful bark that echoed across the water. Who cared what terms were used when the definitions of such things transcended so very far beyond? He was becoming a chimera, feeling it in his soul, though that could have been another fragment of his memories from his time in the lab slotting back into place. Just how Rene knew simply ceased to be important as his skin rippled and stretched wonderfully.

The bulge of his chest was strange, though he felt more of that muscle, where his pectorals would have been defined, swell along the line of his abdomen instead. He contracted his abdominals even as they grew, though it felt like there were even more of them, following the line of his underbelly and giving him the impression that he was trying to pull his belly up closer to his back. It made him feel stronger and more stable, though Rene did not quite understand the mechanics of why that was.

The wings, however, may have had their root in his shoulder blades, though they were not the same. A chimera was not a creature designed to appear sweet and wholesome and, as he stretched out through the water, standing on all fours for it felt like a more comfortable position with his head just clipping the waves, his wings demonstrated that. The flesh and bone that had sprouted layered more smoothly down the length of his arms, as if it was being folded into place, though one was more recognisable as a draconian type wing. The spokes sprung out, allowing smooth, rubbery flaps to stretch between them, although it would take him a while to learn how to use them appropriately. With him, Rêver had always been more of an aquatic soul and he closed his eyes briefly, imagining just how it would be to use his wings to pump himself through the water.

The other wing, however, though it was still small and filling out as it grew into place, layered with feathers. It suited the mismatch of his arm on that side as he raised his hand out of the water, turning it over to eye up the pulling of webbing between his “toes." In that way too, he was just like Rêver.

It makes me closer to her.

_ _

And that was all he'd ever wanted as lines of muscular power rolled over his hindquarters, his transformation racing smoothly onward now that the major components were all in place. His tail swung, growing slowly out to three feet and beyond, but his feet curled into differently shaped claws: one dragon-like and the other definitely avian – like his wing on that side. So, it matched up a little but not too much, leaving Rene itching with the growth of the prickling feathers for a double-wing as the waves slapped against his sides. The thick length of tail split, breaking into a shark-like fin while the other side retained a reptilian appearance. Even the feathers prickling at his rump denoted the avian influence winding through him.

He was higher, curled his claws toes, regardless of which foot they were on, into the sand as he held himself firm on the sandbar. With his greater size, his head rising a good two feet above the water as he bulked up and towered in height, his muscular mass caught up. Setting his stance a little further apart, he itched and twitched his nose a little while his pectorals filled the space. It felt like they were taking up more room still so he shifted his forelegs apart even more and tried to allow for it while muscle and flesh smoothed down his neck, giving it an easy headset that made him feel like it cost no effort at all to keep his head raised and forward.

His dragon-like claws extended a little further, though they would become clearer when he was on solid ground again. His head and face drew the most attention as he gurgled through his lips forming into the hard, beak-like protrusion at the end of his face. His teeth moved inside, hidden from view, yet the sharp pinch and pull of them aching into a carnivorous setting bit through him, even if only briefly.

“Gnnghh..."

Rene grunted and Rêver took a couple of steps forward, concerned about how he was dealing with the transformation. Yet it was all down to Rene to hold fast through the moment as warmth swelled within him, allowing him to steady himself, his biceps and triceps filling out nicely with muscle and giving his forelimbs a more chimera-like definition.

His eyesight blurred as his eyes moved apart and a little forward – no, that was not right. For there were more eyes to come and Rene groaned as his vision cleared, though it was hard to look through all of his eyes at once, as if he didn't quite know what to focus on. His tails swung, one twisting into a smooth fin as the shark-like influences became a little better known on that side.

Both a creature of the sea and the land and the sky, he already was a true chimera as his growing body brought him higher, the sea seeming oddly far away from where he'd begun. He swayed, trying to get a feel for his body and the space it occupied, eyeing up his skin which seemed to be a darker shade than Rêver's.

Although he was wet and his skull grew to mould out into a blockier, more powerful shape for the final touches, a spill of hair moved along his back, from the back of his neck and down a little more, over the point of his hindquarters. He twisted experimentally, feeling out the range of movement he had in him, though was distracted by the pressure around the claws on his avian foot. Even as those grew, sharpening to a deadly point, they felt like they were being shaped and very much as if they were being drawn from inside the point of the toe they lived on.

Rene took a breath, the softer lure of hair, which was an accentuating feature to his understanding, folding softly against his body while he adjusted his stance. His dinosaur tail grew to its full length, sweeping over the surface of the water, and he could have laughed to think how small he had been before. Only when his body was slightly larger than Rêver's did the transformation settle with a ripple and a bubble that felt quite restful inside him, although he couldn't put further words to how he felt about that.

A chimera was power and ease, a creature that belonged everywhere and nowhere. As he swayed, trying to get a sense of how to best use his eyes (for even opening and closing different eyes proved troublesome), Rêver brushed him with her feathered wing, her head held high.

“Come, join me, Rene," she murmured, not needing to raise her voice for him to catch the music of it. “It's time to see who you truly are."

Rêver drew the newly transformed chimera along with her as he moved off the sandbank slowly, floating amongst the waves as they slapped and leapt up against his body. He was dark, definitely black, yet his skin gleamed in the moonlight in a way that human kin simply could not live up to.

He splashed, floundering a little. His limbs didn't seem to go where he wanted them to and his tails struck out behind him wildly, though his natural buoyancy kept him near the surface until he wanted to sink.

“Ah… Rêver…" He gurgled, water entering his mouth as he tried to talk through a warble. “How… How do I…"

Yet there were too many advanced motor functions for Rene to take stock of all at once. Thankfully for the new chimera, Rêver was there for him.

“Settle," she instructed him patiently, showing him how to fan his wings out across the surface of the water to float more easily. “It will come. I cannot imagine changing one form for another…"

It was a fragmented, beautiful form at that too, with no two parts of any chimera being quite the same. Rene swung his head through the surf, too many sensations and stimuli crashing into him.

The waves lapping at him.

The call of seabirds, high above.

His eyes blinking – all five – with the central eye fixed open for the moment.

His tails swung, trying to balance himself somewhat “upright" in the water.

Yet he felt like he was being dragged down and bogged down, even though he could not drown, not with Rêver there. She nudged him gently, letting the side of her body rub up sinuously against his. It was enough to calm his pounding heart, just a little.

“Don't overthink it," she breathed gently. “Come now… Let me show you. I'll be with you the whole way."

As always, he trusted her. He would never not trust Rêver. Like his trust, something intangible, it was instinct that would guide him.

He followed Rêver into deeper water still and gasped as he ducked under the waves. However, the water did not flow into his lungs as, briefly, he expected it too, but passed smoothly through his system, allowing him to easily breathe underwater. Yet Rene could not waste time battling back and forth with human and chimera instincts as he pressed onward into what he truly was, ducking under Rene and testing out the limits of his body.

She was a lot quicker than him through the water, showing him the reefs where the waves crashed and the choppier water gave heed to the danger underneath. Small fish flickered, darting in and out, and a shark eyed them up before making a quick right turn and darting sensibly away. Out there, the chimera were most certainly the alpha predators, though neither Rêver nor Rene meant any harm.

Slowly, though it took some time and Rene showing him by example, he learned how to use his body, swimming with his wings and both of his tails, though he could use his legs too if he was going more slowly. Breaching brought a surge of joy to his heart and he practised, many times over, powering up to the surface to burst through into open air in a shatter of droplets, framing his body as Rêver laughed and called to him.

He glanced back at the shore as they swam out of the bay, but that life no longer held any lure for Rene. He ducked under the surface and powered through the water behind the paler chimera, though racing from the complexities of being human with the open water yawning around him was an escape he gladly took for himself.

Catching prey was not particularly easy a task, even with Rêver herding and schooling fish in his direction, though he did his best, snapping and twisting with his massive jaws. When they parted, they revealed sharp lines of fish-catching teeth that were otherwise concealed, though he learned to anticipate and strike where the fish were going to be, rather than where they were at the moment of action. In time, his reactions would become swifter and more agile still.

He had time.

Hours passed, though Rene and Rêver paid no mind to dawn breaking above the surface as they swam through a deep-sea cavern with a glowing reef on the seafloor. It boasted the same bioluminescence that the forest had as sea creatures darted amongst the glowing strands and fans of coral. Rene drew a spellbound breath, soaking it all in as they came to hover in the middle of it all, a school of pinkly glowing fish circling them before deciding they were neither a threat nor a food source.

The pink and purple, with some notes of blue, of the reef, drew his eye, drifting and following the different lines, some glowing pulses rising and fading, nothing ever the same. The sheen of colours glanced off Rêver's skin as she floated there, her tails steadying her body, and he smiled with an open mouth, coming in close to her.

She knew what he wanted, following the language of his body through the water as she let their bellies rub together, though it would be different that time – different to when Rene had been a human, that was. Rêver purred as he ground up against the small slit that was mostly hidden on her smooth underbelly, close up between her hind legs. Yet, unlike with a typical mammal, it was designed for a chimera to slip inside – and that required it to be a little further forward, where it would not be too well hidden under the tuck of her tails.

“Rêver…" He rumbled, adoring how she purred and trembled lightly against him. “I want you."

“And we are mates, Rene," she said simply, though the arch and push of her body against him stimulated his prickling skin even more. “Let us be as mates should be."

That was all he needed to know as his slit parted, revealing a long, smooth length of shaft with a tapered tip. Feeling water caressing it was a strange sensation indeed but not one he needed to linger on as they swam very slowly through the water together, barely even needing more than a pump and a flick to their tails to keep them moving over the blissfully glowing reef. It was heaven, all in a way he could never have anticipated.

Yet chimera instinct and need urged Rene on as his length throbbed and he ground increasingly lustfully. In the middle of his forehead as a large, central eye – again, matching Rêver – but he couldn't easily control it, as it wanted to stay open all the time. Yet something ached at the back of it as the tip of his cock eased down, finding her slit as Rêver helped him get into position, though Rene was not in any position to pay attention to it.

Not then, but he would.

He slipped inside her as pleasure exploded through him and Rene languished in the moment, letting it all swell. His shaft throbbed and he experimented with his thrusts, though it was more the motion of their bodies, however gentle it was, through the water that let them come together like that, over and over again. Rêver squirmed a little on his member and he arched into her, holding her close with his arms and legs, not knowing where one part of her ended and he began.

It was the best thing he could ever have imagined, the intimacy vastly unlike how it had been when he'd been a human with her. They copulated, making soft, gentle love while the reef watched on, though he slipped in closer and closer to her on a deeper level.

For, as her vent rippled teasingly around his spire, their nervous systems connected, through their central eyes. Those eyes, after all, were not solely for “seeing" as far as chimera were concerned.

He thrust a little harder, gasping as ticklish bubbles streamed from his maw, though there was nothing Rene could do but let it happen. A wash of emotions, love brimming over in the forefront of it all, pushed into him and he realised, with a start, that he was feeling what Rêver was feeling.

In that moment, and so many more to follow, the chimera truly were one soul.

He leaned into it with a throaty warble, ignoring the bubbles floating from his maw, seeking the surface. The female chimera curled into him a little more urgently, her 'saur tail wrapping around his as she trusted him to bear her weight. Yet they did not sink amongst the bioluminescent glow of the reef as they drifted closer to a rock face, revealing another feature of the underground cavern they were within.

However, they were not yet ready to strike for the surface as they made love, her passage closing around him with a tight desire unlike anything he'd ever felt. Closer than they had ever been before, his heart pounded and he tried to send out all his love and passion for her, all his thanks, so Rêver could know just a little of what she meant to him.

That would be easier, in time to filter through, sharing thoughts, memories and emotions as well – but was not for the moment of lust. Not as he thrust harder, pumping as if to power through the water, though her inner muscles caressed and massaged his member. He didn't really have to thrust when she was doing that, although he twisted and wriggled, a tight pull of desire drawing him on.

He was close and Rêver knew it too, her body bucking instinctively against her lover. Together, they climaxed as if they were spilling over the edge of a waterfall into a blissful freefall, tumbling down together. Rolls of passion and ecstasy powered through them, her vent squeezing his shaft while he spent his seed inside her, with not a single drop escaping. Only time would tell of what would come of them copulating as chimera, yet neither was thinking of that in the moment as they embraced tightly, sharing the shuddering waves of joy.

If he'd thought orgasm was wonderful as a human, it was nothing like climaxing as a chimera, sharing every moment with his partner. He felt her vent close as if it was his own and he ground his hips up against her just to feel Rêver twitch and shudder, bringing another pulse of devout pleasure to the forefront of her mind.

Orgasm would come again for them, though theirs felt short-lived considering the enormity of all that had come to pass between them. They separated slowly, though did not completely let go of one another, as his shaft slid from her vent and back into his body, as if nothing had ever been. A few wispy trails of mixed arousal and semen, however, told the tale of what had happened there.

Rêver turned her head, briefly touching his muzzle with hers. He returned the gesture of affection, his claws linked with hers for a moment before breaking apart.

“Ah, Rene," Rêver bubbled lightly, her voice a little warped underwater, though she otherwise had no issue speaking. “This was always meant to be. Your strong heart and fearless nature were what drew me to you, always."

Rene swung his head back and forth lightly, feeling the light caress of the water against his skin. He didn't think he'd ever quite get used to that.

“Thank you, Rêver," he said slowly, working his tongue around the words, though he had to control how the sounds left his mouth underwater, feeling out what he wanted to say more through what he meant than sound alone. “I wouldn't have been who I am now without you, if you hadn't saved me. Thank you… Thank you for all you've taught me, for all you've shown me."

He nuzzled in against her, letting the tip of his nose caress the line of her throat as she growled faintly.

“I'm most grateful for, however," he added, “you showing me that…yes, hope is possible. This world is so cruel and I needed someone, you, to show me love in it."

Her five red eyes, including the central one, met his and Rene took a breath, water slipping through him as his body filtered out the required oxygen from it, finding it no different, in all truth, from air. With the coral glowing a softer blue and green around them, from where they had swum in their romantic interlude, he wrapped his arms and legs around her, holding her gently to him as she met him halfway, folding her wings into his body too.

It was cuddling…but cuddling softly in a way Rene had never before experienced with water all around them. Soon, they would find a secluded island to rest on and lie on the sand, tracing patterns with their claws, while the smooth lines of their bodies rested against one another. The ocean, however, however they chose to enjoy it, would never lead them wrong. What might did the sea have, after all, even in the stormiest of seas against two chimera?

They didn't need to say a single word more as they let their bodies rest against one another but, with unspoken understanding, they swam up, breaking the surface of the water into the cavern. It dripped with a quiet ambience as the water flickered and rippled, leaving a blue-green glow to glance off the damp walls.

Down there, no one could reach them or even know they were there as they settled down against one another on a soft patch of sand. It seemed like it had been a resting place for other sea creatures at some point, though the chimera would come to see just where they were when they left the cavern and took stock of where it was in the sea, with a secret entrance through the rock back to the surface world. Yet they could rest down there and take leave of the world that had been so very cruel without a sliver of kindness to soften anyone's day.

It would take a while longer, however, for Rene to become fully comfortable with his body, twisting his fluke back and forth lightly as he trialled his control. It was almost strange to him to be out of the water after spending so long in it after transforming, yet walking on land was going to be another test for him.

It was all worth it. For himself, for Rêver and for all that was to come.

They laid their heads down together to dream as they shared their time through their central eyes, linked on a deeper level. The aquatic bioluminescence glanced off them as they let their dreams carry them away, never again to be parted from one another. With Rene's arms softly around Rêver, they slumbered peacefully, her dinosaur tail looped lightly over both of his in turn.

Together, they had the entire world before them.