Solmarks pass. Sols. The light, then the dark. Light, then dark. Cycles. I am dimly aware of my Jus-teen moving around me.
She brings water from the pool, the cool liquid soothing my burning skin as she drapes something damp across my forehead. Her touch lingers, and I feel the faint tremor in her hands.
She’s afraid.
And yet she stays.
Her voice washes over me, vocalizations soft and insistent, lost in the roaring that fills my ears.
“…never seen anything like this…”
“…please be okay…”
“…don’t you dare die on me, Rok. I mean it.”
Her words are a balm, even when I cannot make sense of them.
But then, something shifts.
At first, it’s faint. Barely noticeable through the haze of pain and heat.
A whisper.
Not her voice—not the one I hear with my ears—but something deeper, softer, resonating within my mind. Thoughts in the mindspace. Thoughts that are not mine. Images that transform into words. Understanding.
“What if he’s dying?”
The thought is fleeting, like a ripple across the still water, and for a moment, I think I’ve imagined it. But then another comes, clearer this time.
“What if I did this to him?”
It’s Jus-teen.
I can hear her.
In the mindspace.
I can hear her directly.
The barrier between our minds has thinned, becoming so fragile it’s nearly transparent. For a moment, I am distracted from the pain.
Her thoughts come in fragments, disjointed yet vivid, each one cutting through the chaos like a blade.
“I need to…him to cool down. His skin…burning up.”
“Stupid Xyma water. Stupid Xyma themselves.”
“What am I going to do if…doesn’t recover, huh? What the fuck are…going to do, Justine?”
Humor rises inside me. Her thoughts are just as many as her vocalizations. A constant stream of commentary.
I hold them close to my dra-kir as the darkness takes me.
For solmarks more, the fire rages.
Time passes. Jus-teen remains by my side, sometimes speaking, sometimes silent, but always touching me in some way—a hand on my arm, fingers brushing my face, her shoulder pressed against mine. Each contact soothes the fire within me, brings me closer to some equilibrium I cannot name.
When exhaustion finally claims her, she curls up beside me, her body a warm, steady presence against my side, her head resting on my shoulder. Her breathing deepens, evens out, and I know when she succumbs to rest.
I watch her, marveling at the trust this small, fragile being places in me. Even after witnessing my transformation, even knowing what I am capable of, she rests beside me without fear.
The thought fills me with a protectiveness so fierce it borders on violence. I would tear apart anything that threatened her, would face down the rival clan and shadowmaws and the dust itself to keep her safe.
Perhaps it’s the thought. For, without warning, the fire within me surges again—different this time, focused, concentrated in a way it wasn’t before. The heat pools in my gut, then lower, in the pouch that houses my member, and panic flares alongside it.
No. Not this. Not now.
But my body responds to some call I cannot resist, some transformation that has been building since I first tasted her essence. No…since I first touched her. My member, normally sleeping within its protective pouch, begins to swell, to change, to push outward.
The pain is excruciating—not like the burn of the transformation, but sharper, more localized. I bite back a cry, not wanting to wake Justine, but the agony of it tears through me like a dust-stalker’s claw.
It feels as though my member is being reshaped, remolded—which is impossible. The sensation is wrong, terrifying. But it is true.
My claws dig into the stone as I brace against the pain, a surprised grunt going through me as I see myself emerge. It breaks free of the protective pouch, the pouch itself reshaping as it escapes, fully extended for the first time in my life. I stare down at it in shock and confusion.
This is…not what I expected.
My stem…it has changed—transformed as completely as the rest of me. It is larger, thicker, the dark skin shot through with the same starlight that flows beneath the rest of my skin. The shape is different too—no longer the simple rod I emerged from the Giving Stone with, but something more complex, curved slightly, with a broad head and ridges along the underside.
And beneath it, where there was once only smooth skin, hang two heavy sacs, tight and full, their purpose a mystery to me.
My breath comes in harsh pants as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing, of what I’m feeling. The fire has localized here, concentrated in these new appendages, and the sensation is…intense. Not pain, not pleasure, but something in between, something that makes my claws flex against the stone and a growl rumble in my throat.
The movement, the sound, is enough to wake Jus-teen. She stirs against me, her eyes fluttering open, still heavy with sleep. For a moment, she seems disoriented, confused by the starlight emanating from my skin. Then her gaze drops to my lap, to the transformed member jutting proudly from between my thighs, and her eyes widen, all traces of sleep vanishing in an instant.
“Oh,” she whispers, the sound barely audible even to my enhanced hearing. “Well, that’s…made an appearance.”
Her face flushes a deep red, but there is no fire there. It is…blood. I can sense it…though I do not know how. Blood rushing to the surface of her skin in a way that fascinates me. She looks away quickly, then back, as if she can’t help herself, then away again, a nervous laugh escaping her.
“I, um…that’s…wow.”
There’s something in her voice, something that comes through in her thoughts. Embarrassment, certainly, but also…interest? Fascination? I don’t understand the complexity of her reaction, but I can smell the change in her scent, the subtle shift that makes my fangs ache.
The realization sends another pulse of heat through my new stem, making it twitch. Visibly. Jus-teen’s eyes widen further.
“Oh my God,” Justine projects into the mindspace.
She calls to Ain. I would have asked her more about this if the stars beneath my skin didn’t suddenly begin to fade.
One by one, they extinguish themselves like dying lights. The darkness that had consumed me recedes, retreating into some unseen place, leaving my skin bare—normal. That rich amber-gold. Like it was before.
I even test my glow. Brightening, then dimming myself. It follows my commands.
The fire is gone.
The transformation is complete, and yet…I am not the same.
I glance down at myself, at the new appendages between my legs, still throbbing with heat. My stem still juts forward.
I close my hand around it, trying to ease the ache there, but the touch only intensifies it. A low, rumbling groan escapes me before I can stop it, the sound reverberating through the chamber.
Jus-teen, who had been gazing at me with those wide, cautious eyes, flushes bright red. Her gaze flickers downward—toward the source of the sound—and her face somehow turns an even deeper shade of crimson. She quickly averts her eyes, looking anywhere but at me.
“Well,” she says, her voice unsteady, “I guess you’re better?”