Nikola Lever was alive and dead. The same was true of Ahegao the Christmas Kitten.
They had both died in an elasticated teleportation accident.
They both lived on as… as…
“What should I call you?” asked Joanna.
The creature that had separately been both Nikola and Ahegao considered this.
“I suppose I’m now… Nikolahego?”
They both lived on as Nikolahego.
The creature that had separately been both Nikola and Ahegao reconsidered this.
”But I might just go by ‘Nikki.’”
They both lived on as Nikki. Nikki the futa catgirl.
“That’s really cute!” said Joanna, the little fairy tomboy sat on Nikki’s shoulder. So far Joanna thought everything about Nikki was cute. Even her dick. Joanna being exactly 73% lesbian told you nothing about how enthusiastic she was for girldick. Joanna couldn’t even tell you how enthusiastic she was for girldick. She didn’t know. She was still young, still figuring it out. Both of her personal life experiences so far that involved dicks had been decidedly negative - being sexually abused by the Miller and witnessing the nauseating rape-murder of Irene Ivermectin - but she wasn’t going to let those prejudice her against dicks. Especially one as cute as Nikki’s.
Nikki’s dick looked a little bigger than Nikola’s had been. For what reason a non-binary boy melding with a female cat resulted in a creature with an enlarged dick is unknown, but this is a quasi-medieval setting and science is in its infancy.
“What are your pronouns, Nikki?” asked the fairy.
“She/Her. But for different reasons now.”
The two were walking along a desert road that either lead to more desert or less desert. If it was less desert then they’d make it safely over the border into Forfeiture’s biome within hours. If it was more desert they’d die under the vicious glare of Ligature’s rising sun.
They were superpositioned.
Nikki and Joanna were alive and dead.
At least the situation gave them time to talk some of this through.
“Different reasons?”
“Yeah, Nikola used She/Her to evoke the theatrical performativity of drag and incorporate some of that into her identity as a non-binary boy. I’m just gonna use She/Her because I’m a girlie.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I feel less… nuanced now. Now I’m just a little girlie. Just a naughty little kitty cat.”
Nikki purred and did a cute paws gesture with her hands.
She was adorable.
Joanna loved that Nikki was a girlie now. And she felt bad about that. Other people’s identities weren’t for her benefit. But she couldn’t help loving it anyway. The two of them were both in Tatiana’s harem and it felt cuter and friendlier to Joanna that the harem was all nice girlies.
Oh. Except for the Minotaur. Joanna felt a flash of resentment towards her girlfriend’s brutish boyfriend. He ruined everything. Tatiana’s harem was all nice girlies except for the Minotaur.
“Hey, we’re talking a lot about me…” Nikki noticed, “Do you want to talk through turning into a fairy?”
Joanna’s eyes went wide. She had been under-examining that.
Her impossible, beautiful, lifelong dream had come true… and she wasn’t revelling in that because she was being distracted by surviving the desert and working out how to respectfully talk about her girlfriend’s… sibling? Was Nikki still Tatiana’s sibling? Half-sibling, maybe?
“I guess what’s happened to me isn’t as complicated as what’s happened to you? You came out of Castle Vesh as a unique new kind of consciousness in a unique new kind of body. I literally just became a fairy.”
“That’s your lifelong dream though, Jo. That’s a big deal.”
It was, thought Joanna happily, it really was.
“The biggest! It’s going to change everything. I’m going to do so many kind and wonderful things. I’m going to escape from every cruelty that weighs on me. I’m a pretty little fairy now, Nikki!”
“Love that for you, girlie.”
“I love it too! But I guess we’re not talking about it much because, like, what’s immediately changed isn’t very complicated for me. As I learn fairy powers and fairy ways and change my life then everything’s gonna be so different. But right now all that’s different is that I’m little and I’ve got wings and I glow a bit.”
“Your cunny looks nicer too,” said the kitty-cat, mischievously.
“Naughty kitty!” scolded Jo, with a giggle. She blushed a little. Her cunny did look nicer. It had been fine before, but it was immaculate now. A masterpiece of labial minimalism. The perfect coinslot. A tiny delicate cleft.
She found Nikki’s company so much more comfortable than she had done Nikola’s. And she’d liked Nikola’s.
Joanna hoped Nikki would still be Tatiana’s incestuous lover when they got home, and that her being a humanoid purple feline with tentacles growing out of her shoulder blades and an expensive looking haircut wouldn’t pose any obstacles to their relationship.
Joanna hoped that she herself would still be Tatiana’s girlfriend when they got home and that her being six inches tall wouldn’t pose any obstacle to their relationship. She wasn’t very worried about that though. She had an idea about how they could make it work.
If the desert would spare her.
There was a darker reason why Joanna had been steering the conversation away from her new nature, her new future, her new body.
The Miller’s cruelty. Her father’s indifference. Her mother’s suicide. Her grandmother’s suicide. Her step-mother’s suicide. They had not taught her to expect the best from life. They had taught her to despair.
Joanna fought against those teachings. She fought against them every day she didn’t pick up her knife and self-harm. She fought against them with her plan to use Kindness to fight the Ser.. the Ser…the Serp… the something she somehow sensed was terribly wrong with the world. She fought them with her love for Tatiana. She rejected those teachings hard. But she had sat in that class. She had heard those abominable lessons.
She had heard the land tell her it would meet her wants with hurt, it would meet her lusts with pain.
She had heard the crackle of the third book in the Miller’s fireplace, and now she fancied she could hear that same crackle coming from her fair skin.
For by the time the sun had been an hour in the sky then they had their answer to the question of how its merciless rays would effect their new bodies.
Nikki the Catgirl was coping okay. She felt tired, thirsty and overheated, but her velvety pelt was protecting her from the worst UV damage.
Joanna the Fairy was not coping at all. This was nothing to with being a fairy, and everything to do with being a redhead and having consequently low eumelanin and high pheomelanin levels. Local science was not so in its infancy that there was any great mystery to that.
Her skin was burning up.
Nikki did what she could to provide shade with her tentacles, coiling them into makeshift hentai parasols. This was less than effective. Especially since Nikki’s tentacles were the only parts of her that were taking sun damage, along with a little spot on the tip of her nose.
“Hey, you said you were gonna learn fairy powers… do you think I’ll learn magical kitty-cat powers?” said Nikki, trying to keep things light.
“The teleportation would be nice. Learn that.”
“It’d just be relearning it, I guess. The part of me that was Ahegao knew how to do it by making occultic motions with her shoulder-tentacles. All I’d have to do is try and remember the motions, then adjust them for my body being different now, then… I could get us out of here with a Wiggle…Wiggle… POP!”
“You should do that.”
“I could try! But you know what might happen…”
Joanna supposed that she did. Having no way of knowing that Rutt’s anchoring technique was responsible for the accident that had created Nikki, she had no way of knowing that a repeat of that accident wasn’t a risk here. As far as she could understand, Nikki attempting to teleport them both could annihilate them both and create a new entity that was a fusion of the fairy and the catgirl!
“Try it.”
Nikki tried it.
Wiggle…
Wiggle…
Fuck all.
The wiggling had no occultic effect whatsoever.
The fairy couldn’t let herself feel irritated with Nikki though. After all, she couldn’t get any life whatsoever out of her magic wand.
“I’m sorry, Jo. My shoulder tentacles are useless!”
“Hey they made a nice breeze though. Could you do that again?”
“Sure.”
“That’s good. That’s really cooling. That helps a lot. Could you make a big circle?”
Nikki whirled her right shoulder tentacle round like a fan. Just feeling the air in motion immediately felt good for both of them.
Joanna gripped tight onto Nikki’s shoulder, positioning herself to get the maximum benefit.
“Faster, go faster!” she begged. The Catgirl mewed and obliged. The tentacles accelerated their rotation.
“Shall I do both at once?” Nikki asked.
“Go for it!”
Faster and faster spun the two tentacles protruding from her shoulder blades.
It was exhilarating.
So much so that whole minutes passed before they noticed they were flying several feet above the ground.
And that is the true story of how a fairy and a catgirl invented the helicopter.
