Along for the Ride
Don't you hate being the third wheel in a relationship?
You're sitting on a couch, waiting for Lion and Goat to finish their preparations. You met the couple not too long ago, stumbling across them while they were casting a spell. You didn't believe it at first, but after they let you hang around while they practice, there was no way to deny what they were doing is real, actual magic. Lion and Goat probably aren't their original names, but it's the only names you've ever heard them use. You're pretty sure their current forms of an anthropomorphic lion and goat aren't their original bodies, either, since they change to humans when they go out in public. Well, except that one time they took you to the crazy party with all the dog-people. Despite meeting them accidentally, Goat warmed up to you immediately. Lion, on the other hand, has taken a while to come around, and even now he doesn't seem to trust you. You didn't take offense, though. As far as you can tell, Lion is a bit of a jerk towards everybody. Sometimes he's even rude to Goat, although Goat never lets him get away with it. You're pretty sure Lion likes you too, deep down.
You've been waiting for the two of them to give you a chance to join in on their spellcasting, but until today they've only let you watch, never participate. However, this morning you woke up to a text from them, asking you to come over and help with their latest spell. They're being characteristically secretive, all they'll tell you about this spell is that it's supposed to let them turn into their "ideal form", and that you're a key part of making that happen. You're happy enough to finally get your chance to participate that you haven't pushed your luck by asking too many questions. You know they've seen how "excited" you've gotten about their transformation spells in particular, so you don't think it's a coincidence that they're letting you join in on this one. Admittedly, some of your excitement wore off over the past half hour or so, while you've been waiting impatiently on their couch. Their last minute preparations took a little longer than you thought.
But now they're finally ready. They're holding out a small slab of stone with some undecipherable symbols on it. Both of your hosts have a hand on the stone slab, and they indicate you should follow suit, so you slap your hand down too. Lion speaks first. "There's one thing we need before we get started. For this spell to work, we all have to agree to it. Do you agree to let this spell change you into another, better form?" Lion and Goat both say "I agree", and you nod your head eagerly. Lion rolls his eyes at you. "You have to agree out loud, bud."
"Oh, uh, Yes! I agree!" you say. Goat lets out a sigh of relief and Lion drops his plastered-on smile, his eyes developing a predatory glint. Then the energy in the room changes, literally. A red light shoots out from the stone, landing on the floor and flowing out through small channels that have been carved there, which you hadn't noticed until now. Soon, the whole floor is lit up with a glowing pattern that looks a lot like what was on the stone, and the three of you are in the center of it, along with the couch. You look around, startled. You didn't expect this to start so fast. You're still waiting on an explanation of what you're supposed to do, but the couple are completely ignoring you at the moment.
"God, I really thought he was gonna back out at the last second. Guess you were right, Goat. This guy really IS way too trusting."
Goat gives his boyfriend a gentle swat on the shoulder. "You make it sound like a bad thing! I just said he seemed like a nice guy, and that he was eager to get a little transformation of his own. Besides, we're finally getting what we want, and he's going to be part of it, so you could be a little nicer to the poor guy." You don't know what they're talking about, but the way they're talking about you is making you realize you've just trusted them with your entire body, and you don't even really know them that well. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Interrupting their amicable bickering, you ask them what's going on.
Lion glares at you, the edge in his voice more hostile now. "I'm still not happy he's got to be a part of this at all, and I don't make a habit of talking to body parts. You wanna be nice to him, you explain it."
Goat sighs and gives you an apologetic smile. "The least we owe you for this is an apology and an explanation. So, first things first: we have taken advantage of you, a little bit. Regardless of what my partner thinks, I really am sorry about that. Let's see, how to explain this quickly before the changes start... Okay, so, we aren't really here to test out a spell. We already knew the exact spell we wanted to do well before we met you. In fact, we've already done it several times. It's a spell that changes us into the perfect creature, blending our two favorite forms together as one, forever. Unfortunately, there's a catch: it needs three people to work properly. We tried it out a couple times with just the two of us, but without the third person, the form was unstable and we kept changing back. The third part, that is to say the part you're filling, it's, well, to be honest, it's kind of a bad role. We couldn't imagine anyone willingly taking it, but the spell requires everyone involved to agree.
"Thankfully, after a bit of research, we found a loophole. The spell needs agreement, but with the right modifications, it doesn't need the person to know exactly what they're agreeing to. We just needed to find someone who was so eager for a new body that they wouldn't ask too many questions, so we tracked you down and let you 'accidentally' walk in on us doing some ritual. Then we just had to befriend you while we prepared the final spell." You're crestfallen. The entire friendship was a ploy? Seeing your betrayed look, Goat tries to soothe you. "Hey, it's not like that. I really do like you! I wouldn't have agreed to this if I didn't think it was something you'd end up liking, so even if it's not what you would have asked for, try and enjoy it, okay?"
Enjoy letting them use you to somehow fulfill their weirdo fantasy? You still don't get what they need you for, but screw this, you're outta here! You get up to bolt for the door, but you only get two steps in before something goes wrong with your legs. You lose your balance and collapse backwards onto the couch. As you fall, your pants slide right off your body, somehow slipping right off of their own accord. You try to get back up and run again, but your legs aren't responding anymore. You squirm backwards until you're propped up on the armrest for a better view, which lets you just catch the last bit of your legs vanishing as they're pulled up inside your body. Any hint of your bottom two limbs is gone, but the magic isn't done down there. Your underwear is deflating, then it falls off too as your body continues to vanish, finally stopping right below your bellybutton.
Your lower body disappeared so suddenly that you're in shock. It's so insane that, at first, you feel like it must be an optical illusion. You reach down in disbelief for where your legs should be, but your eyes aren't lying. There's nothing down there. From your head to your lower torso, your body is perfectly normal, and then it simply ends, terminating in a flat surface as if you've been bloodlessly cut just below your abs.
You rub around the flat surface, desperately hoping for any sign of your missing limbs or crotch. You don't find them, but what you do find is a bumpy texture that's growing across your body, and it's growing fast. Soon you feel it spreading over your chest. Not having much to hide anymore, you take your shirt off to see what's happening. There are green scales popping up across your body. They're slightly reflective, making them look wet and shiny, but when you touch them, they're dry and just slightly rough. You feel your scales under your fingers, and at the same time you feel your fingers running across your scales. It's a confusing new sensation, and it sends a shiver down your spine. That shiver intensifies, spreading over your entire torso, until you realize it's more of the magic, ready to change you further.
The magic pushes in on you from all sides, compressing you. Your body shrinks down and rounds out, your body simplifying and losing all definition. As you shrink in diameter, you're growing in length, your torso stretching until your whole body is one long cylinder. It even absorbs your neck, robbing you of your ability to look down at yourself. In order to keep watching your change, you swing a portion of your body that used to be your upper chest. It feels wrong to call it your chest, now that your whole body is an undifferentiated tube. You stare down at your new ropy shape, and you recognize now that you're becoming a snake. At least, you're becoming MOST of a snake, since your body still ends in a flat surface instead of a snake tail. You lean forward to get a better look at yourself and discover you can completely double over without any strain. In fact, you can twist and turn in basically any direction, even coiling around yourself, showing a flexibility that would be completely impossible in a human body. You flop around a bit before you get your new slithering movements under control. You try to find some identifier of your human body, but even your nipples and belly button are gone, smoothed away by the sea of scales that now covers you. The only parts of you left human are your head and your arms, neither of which have been touched by the change yet.
Speaking of your arms, throughout your change, you've been absentmindedly rubbing them up and down your new scales, testing the sensation. Now, when you try to lift your arms up from where they're wrapped around your body, they won't budge. You let out a cry when you see that they're starting to sink into your scales. You tug as hard as you can, jerking back and forth, but you're only pulling at your own skin. You watch helplessly as your arms sink inside you, leaving you fully limbless. You hope that your arms are just somehow trapped inside you, and you try to move your arms around, or wiggle your fingers, but it's like you never had any arms in the first place. You only manage to jerk and writhe around on the couch. You can already feel the scales creeping up onto your face and you know you don't have long before you lose that, too.
Why are they transforming you like this? What use could they have for half a snake? You turn to talk to the duo, not sure if you're going to demand answers or plead for them to stop, but they aren't even looking at you. While you were changing, they've had a change of their own. You don't even recognize it as them, at first, because their two bodies have merged together into a single, giant quadruped. It's only when you see the creature has Goat and Lion's heads resting side-by-side on its shoulders that you realize what you're looking at. They've merged together into a feral mix of their two species.
For a moment you forget your trouble as you look in awe at the strange creature before you. Their fur is a light brown, blending their original two colorings. The back half is closer to a goat's, with short fur and wiry hoofed legs, while the front half is the powerful upper body and huge paws of a lion. Even though they're on all fours, the lion's paws still somewhat resemble fingers, and you think they probably still have pretty good dexterity. You're pissed that they left themselves with fingers while they didn't even leave you a hand. They're huge, too, you'd guess at least 10 feet long, and a little under half that in height. The creature is topped off with Goat's head on the right and Lion's on the left. Their heads are mostly unchanged from their previous anthro forms. They're looking themselves over, each of them enjoying the final bits of their change as the fur finishes covering them. They look themselves over for a few moments, then they walk over to the couch. You're surprised when Lion speaks to Goat, his voice deeper then before but still perfectly recognizable. "He's almost done, not long now until we can seal the deal."
"Seal thhhhhssss?" You clear your throat and try again. "Hssss. Hhhhssss?" The change has worked it's way further towards your head, and it's removed your voice box. You can't make any vibrations in your throat anymore, limiting you to sharp exhalations that come out as hissing. Your mouth reshapes next, pushing out into the strong, hinged jaws of a snake. Two fangs form at the top of your mouth. You try to feel around with your tongue, but it darts out in front of you, out of your control. In the brief glimpse you get of it, you can see it's forked now. Without thinking your tongue flicks out again, and keeps doing so any time you don't actively try to stop it. Every time you put your tongue back in your mouth, you can get a taste of the air around you, enough to smell the creature in front of you. After a few more tongue-flicks you can smell that the goat-lion hybrid is excited, nervous, and a little aroused. You get caught up in exploring your new sense, but you're snapped out of it when you're hit by the most uncomfortable change yet. Your eyes are pushing out to the side, widening your field of view around your new snout, and it's very disorienting to watch your view change as your eyes swim in your skull. The dizziness goes away once your eyes settle in place, and you move your head side to side, trying to figure out your new field of view. As you shake around you realize your hair is gone already. You must have lost that a while back, without noticing. You brace for further changes, but the electric feeling of the magic fades. It seems your changes are done. You try one more time to communicate, letting out a few more angry hisses at Goat and Lion.
Goat, who'd been watching nervously, gives a relieved smile. "Oh, he can't talk. The book wasn't clear about that bit. I was worried we'd be stuck with a chatty tail. Nobody likes a backseat driver!" He turns to you. "Sorry, I shouldn't tease you. Poor thing. For what it's worth, I think you're pretty cute, for a snake." Did he call you his tail? You panic and try to get away as you finally recognize what the duo have turned into. They've become a chimera, the mythical beast that was a mix of a lion and a goat with a snake for a tail. They've got the lion and the goat down, they want you to be the tail! Not wanting to be attached, you once again try to escape, and this time the magic doesn't stop you. Unfortunately, you're not used to your snakey body. It turns out slithering is really complicated! You've just about figured out how move forward instead of sideways when one of their huge lion paws pins you to the couch.
Lion gives Goat an annoyed look. "I told you not to talk to it! Now it's scared and it'll be all squirmy for the next bit." Goat gives a sardonic apology, but Lion doesn't stay mad long. "Oh, whatever, it's not like he can get away or anything." He turns back to you. "Looks like you figured out what you're turning into. To us, the idea of sharing a single body is the ultimate level of intimacy. Since I wanted to be a lion and he wanted to be a goat, we compromised and decided to become a chimera. We just couldn't manage it with two people, it was somehow 'conceptually unsound', or something like that. Honestly, the theory is a beyond me, but apparently magic things a chimera needs a snake for a tail or it calls the whole thing off. So, to make this body permanent, we needed some hapless dork to take the part of the snake tail. You're just along for the ride, here." Lion looks at you mockingly. "Unless you have any objections?"
He clearly expects you to try and beg, but you're not going down without a fight. They said that the change reverts if the chimera body isn't completed. If you can escape, you can wait this out until you change back, you just have to avoid getting attached. The couch you're pressed against is pretty soft, so as Lion talked, you've been carefully wriggling your way out of the lion's grip. You actually take him by surprise when you shoot off the couch onto the floor. They try to cover the doorway to prevent you from leaving, but instead you dive under the couch, making for a window. You don't think you can actually open the window, but that's not important, because the chimera is rounding the couch to chase you now. They reach down to grab you, but you wind between their legs and they almost trip over themselves. They may have changed into this form a few times, but it seems they're still getting used to it, too. You make for the now unguarded doorway, which has thankfully been left open. You're making pretty good time, and you're almost at the door, but you're still an amateur slitherer with half a tail, so they catch up with you just before you get out. A hoof slams down in front of you. You look up to see the goat's behind towering above you, the two heads craned around watching you. You wait for them to turn around and try to grab you, ready to juke left or right depending on which way they turn. However, this time they take you by surprise. Instead of trying to turn around, they simply fall back on their haunches and sit on you with their rear. Too late, you realize what their plan is, and you're smothered in a pile of goat fur before you can get away. You try to worm your way out from underneath them, but they're too heavy, and you can't even see where you're going.
And then, suddenly, you're up in the air. You're not sure what happened, but the open doorway is right in front of you, so you dart towards it. You move a few feet forwards, but then you jerk to a stop. You're stuck on something. You assume the chimera is stepping on a part of your tail, so you try and pull yourself free, but whatever has you pinned isn't budging. You turn around, trying to see what you're caught on, but oddly, you can't see anything holding you down. In fact, Goat and Lion are looking back over their shoulders with devious smiles, and it doesn't seem like they're even trying to stop you. You try to move away from them again, unsuccessfully, and they each let out a laugh, although Goat tries to hide it. Doubling yourself over, you scan over your body, trying to figure out how they've trapped you. When you get to where your body should end, a cold dread washes through you. There, coming right off the end of the chimera's back, is the start of your body. You try to tug free, but there's no give at all. Desperately, you reach your head over and bite yourself, trying to use your jaw to pull yourself off, but it's clear you're not just glued on. If you concentrate when you tug, you can even feel a part of yourself that extends into the chimera, locking you in place. You look down at what you now know is your new home: perched directly above a goat's ass. No, you can't be stuck here, of all places! In desperation, you tug and yank more, but it's starting to hurt, and you're not getting any more free.
"Hey, easy back there! We can feel that too, you know!" Goat shouts at you, not bothering to turn around. They've already decided to ignore you, instead looking over themselves in a mirror and chatting excitedly about how great they look. Reluctantly, you decided you'd best have a look too, and move yourself forward to try and see what you look like. Annoyingly, even if you stretch to your max length, you stop a little short of the chimera's shoulders, so you have to maneuver around to get glimpses of yourself over their heads. You don't even get to ride up front with the other two. After a minute, they do a spin to check out their whole body, and when they turn around you finally get a moment to look over yourself.
You don't recognize any part of yourself in the dark, beady eyes of the snake in the mirror. It doesn't even parse as your reflection until you move back and forth a few times and watch the snake in the mirror do the same. You're panicking, but it doesn't show on your snake face. Your facial expressions are limited to "my mouth is closed" and "I want to bite you". Between that and the lack of speech, even if you do somehow get someone's attention you've got no way to communicate, or even to show that you're more than a dumb animal. You swivel to the side a bit to get a better look at how you link up to the body. As you thought, you grow right out of the spine, like any normal tail would, and you're definitely firmly anchored there. Goat and Lion look like they're sharing control over the rest of the body, but thankfully, you've got full control over yourself, at least as far as you can tell. As an experiment, you try to control the main body, willing the back left leg to lift up, but you can't find any way to make that happen. Looks like you can't control their parts, either.
You've been swinging back and forth up here a while, and it occurs to you that you should be tired of holding yourself up by now. Even though you're exhausted from the change and the subsequent chase, you have no problems keeping yourself upright. It seems like you're naturally propped up by the body, or something. At least you won't be dragging on the floor all the time. Speaking of, you're long enough to reach the floor and lay your upper half down on it, or move up and lie flat against the back of the chimera. Maybe that's how you'll sleep, or maybe you don't sleep? You start wondering about your anatomy. Do you need to eat? CAN you? You think you still have a stomach, which is odd because you're not sure where your stomach is. If you do eat and drink, how would you, uh... wait, do you even have genitals? You try to get a closer look at your underside in the mirror, but the two heads in charge decide to turn back around, and the mirror rotates away from you until you can't see yourself clearly anymore. It's incredibly frustrating to watch the mirror slide away from you. It's only a few feet away, but it might as well be in another state for all that it matters to you. "I wasn't done with that", you try to yell, but you just hiss a little louder than usual. If the other two hear you, they don't respond.
"God, we're a beautiful creature. I feel so powerful! We can be like this forever. " Lion lets out a roar. The word "forever" hangs in your mind. You could put up with this for a while, maybe even enjoy it, but spending the rest of your existence as a third wheel? Being tied down to two people who, at best, see you as an ignorable body part? You give another useless tug at where you're attached before drooping down in despair. Drooping down makes you nestle snugly into the chimera's butt crack, which just adds insult to injury. Couldn't you at least come out of the front end of the body?
Goat leans his head over to Lion and gives him a kiss. "I'm just happy we get to be together." Great, so they're happy, but what about you? Goat gives you a look over and chuckles. "You know, at first I was just thinking that having someone as a literal hanger-on was going to be a drag, but now that I'm looking at how cute he looks, I think he really compliments my butt nicely." He gives his rear a shake, which sends you rocking side to side. This is enough to shake you out of your despair, and you're suddenly furious. They've been ignoring you this whole time, chatting to each other like you weren't even here, and now they're mocking you? You rear up, then whip forward to bite them on the side, hard, right where their two halves join. Lion grimaces and Goat lets out a scream of pain. You feel the pain too, and you'd wince in pain if your eyes still did that, but you keep biting down hard.
Lion reaches back, grabs you where your neck should be and yanks you off. He brings you around underneath them as the chimera sits down, sitting down on your lower half uncomfortably, although he's careful not to hurt you. Sitting like this, you've got enough give that he can bring you around in front of them, and he stares down at you with a stern expression. "Okay tail, you wanna talk, let's talk. As far as I'm concerned you're just one of my body parts, but I'll give you a rundown on your situation this one time. You're part of our body. That means what we feel, you feel. You misbehave back there, try to make our lives miserable, you're only hurting yourself. You behave instead, stay nice and quiet doing snake stuff back there, maybe pick up a thing or two in your coils when we ask, and this can be a real nice experience for all of us. Maybe I'll even toss a mouse back there from time to time for you to snack on." The thought of crunching down on a nice juicy mouse sounds incredibly appealing, bizarrely, and you have to tamp down appreciation at the thought of being fed.
Goat turns to his partner. "No need to scare the poor thing! He's new, he just doesn't know how to behave as a tail yet." The other lion paw, the one not grabbing you, lifted up and started gently stroking your head. Lion rolls his eyes, but he loosens his grip and lets out a smile. Goat keeps petting you, stroking down your head and partway down your back. Even if you have conflicting feelings about the circumstances, being pet does feel pretty nice. "Hey, there's another thing I bet we'll all like. We were so busy during our other changes, we never got the chance to get intimate, and I know you're horny over your new body. Why don't we really take this body for a test drive."
Lion smirks, and then the two heads are making out, aggressively, and soon the arousal hits you too. Your view rapidly twists upside-down as the entire body rolls over, laid out on it's back, goat legs splayed to the side. You feel yourself getting hard, but you don't even have anything down there, right? It must be the chimera getting hard? The sensation of having a hard on in a penis you don't control is confusing, but soon it doesn't matter who is feeling what. You're all overtaken by need. You can feel their arousal, and they can feel you feeling it, and so on, creating an echo chamber of lust. The lion paws are rubbing up and down, trying to hug themselves, as the two lovers explore their new body. Left to your own devices, you try and get off, but you don't have anything TO get off, so you coil and writhe around yourself, rubbing your scales together, hoping you can push yourself to a climax somehow. Lion pulls his head away from his partner for long enough to call down to you, between heavy panting. "Hey tail! Now's your chance to behave. Give us a hand down there!" Lost in your own coils, it takes you a moment to figure out what he means, but you see the lion paws reaching down, trying to grasp their penis. It's long, thin goat-like penis where it juts out from their sheath, and the lion arms aren't long enough to reach it.
You're long enough, though. Long is practically your specialty. You slide down, rubbing yourself along the dick. Your dick, you realize, as much as it's theirs. You flick your forked tongue over it, the lick lightly teasing across it, your snake tongue "smelling" it in a way you never could have as a human. You coil around your own penis, wrapping yourself around it several times, constricting up and down. "Aww, fuck yah, just like that, Snake." You're feeling yourself from both sides again, the dick slick against your scales. Lion starts purring, or maybe it's Goat, who knows. The deep vibration of the purr resonates throughout your body. You're losing track of where you end and where the others begin. Your minds start to blur together, the overwhelming emotions you're sharing breaking down the barriers between your identities. You can't tell where the arousal is coming from now, because it's coming from everywhere, a white hot need that you're constantly sending and receiving. And then the separation between you falls away entirely, and you're a single complete being. You can feel your love for yourself, and that love reciprocated, and Goat's tenderness and Lion's enthusiasm and your desperation and it's all you. And then you reach climax, shooting out cum all over the lion's chest. It's more powerful than anything you've ever had before, and all you stay synced for a minute as you bask in the afterglow. Then your minds start drifting apart again, slowly melting back out into your separate selves, still occasionally sharing a flicker of satisfaction between yourselves. The exhaustion of the whole last hour finally catches up to you, and you can't keep yourself awake much longer. You try to close your eyes, but you realize you can't, you don't have eyelids anymore. The thought is almost funny to you. You don't know quite what you do, but you close SOMETHING inside your eye, and it makes it so you can't see, which is good enough for you to fall into a dreamless sleep.
You wake up, slowly and groggily. You let out a yawn that gets bigger and bigger until you're pretty sure it's wider than your head. What the heck? You close your mouth and flick your tongue out to get a sense of the situation. Oh right. The snake thing. Wow, snakes can really open wide. Neat. You let your mouth close and slip out your tongue a few more times as you look around. You're lightly bobbing along as you walk through a forest. That is to say, as the other two walk through the forest, although you can feel the soft crunch of dry leaves under your (their?) paws. It seems they didn't need the sleep as much as you did, and got moving while you slept. You see that your body kept yourself upright while you were asleep, which is nice. At least your fear of being inadvertently dragged on the ground is one thing you can take off the list of worries. Lion and Goat are whispering to each other up front, having some kind of conversation about where in the forest they want to set up a den. You can't be bothered to listen to the details. You stretch yourself out, lazily twining and untwining around yourself. The late afternoon sun hitting your scales is heavenly. Maybe you're cold blooded now? Whatever it is, it feels comfortable, and all you want to do right now is soak up the warmth of the sunshine. You're not even concerned about where you're going or what's going to happen to you. You probably should be more concerned, and it's not like you're totally carefree. You do still want to change back, at some point, but you're not in any position to make that happen, and you don't have anything else pressing to attend to. Hell, you can't even see where you're going right now, since you're stuck riding in the back seat. No point in worrying about things you can't control.
As you relax and think it through, things aren't all bad. Sure, they tricked you into this, and if you'd known you probably would have had second thoughts. On the other hand, you DID want to experience transformation, and you can't deny that's what you got. Honestly, if they'd asked you to do this voluntarily, and you knew it would feel this good, you might have said yes anyway. You probably would have asked for hands, and maybe to come out of their back instead of right above the ass, but all things considered this feels pretty good. You certainly can't complain. Literally, you can't complain, not in a way anyone would understand, so asking for changes at this point is a non-starter. But it's not like the other two want to hurt you. After all, if you feel bad, they feel bad. Goat notices you're awake and gives you a brief smile before going back to his conversation. Lion doesn't turn around, but you think you can feel a hint of acknowledgment through the leftover wisps of whatever that mental link was. It hasn't totally faded, and you keep catching hints of the thoughts and emotions of the other two you're sharing this body with. You've got a hunch that, with a few more sessions like the one you all just had, that link will strengthen, enough that you'll at least be able to talk with Lion and Goat. Maybe you'll even get to take control of the body from time to time. You coil yourself up on a particularly fluffy part of the chimera's back and stare up at the sun dappling through the leaves. Until you do have some way to get yourself changed back, you might as well make the best of the situation.
But Lion better get you that mouse.