“You made that sound awfully ominous,” Niall muttered, gaining another small giggle from Katao.

“My bad,” she said good-naturedly in response before she gestured at him. “But you haven’t really taken a look at yourself, have you?”

“Well… no. I kinda had more pressing shit to take care of, like running from a wolf.” His tone got more tense the more words he uttered, and that seemed to do the trick of snapping Katao from her smug mood as she blinked in surprise.

“By the tails,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I suppose I didn’t realize just how awful all of this would be from your perspective. No wonder you look so… frazzled.” Katao’s back straightened up and she approached the boy with a softer look on her face, placing a hand onto his shoulder. “Would it be okay if I prepare a bath for you?”

Niall didn’t move away from the touch, though he did flinch slightly. He could feel her literal warmth through even that small contact. He didn’t answer her question at first, and instead he looked down at his body again. Now that she’d mentioned it, he really could use a bath. But actually doing it would force him to face what his body had become, and very intimately at that.

Still, he knew he’d benefit from a thorough clean-up. He’d almost literally eaten dirt earlier when his jump failed, and the trek through the forest had left him with more than a couple leaves hanging in his clothing. Besides, he couldn’t run away from this body, either literally or figuratively; he was going to have to work with it if he wanted to get back home.

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” he turned his eyes toward Katao’s own, finding that she was slightly taller than he was. Only by a few inches, but the feeling was still bizarre as he would have been almost a foot taller than this in his actual body. The realization left him staring for a couple seconds while the healer girl worked up a smile. “Alright, wait here. I’ll take just a moment.”

With that, Niall was left alone as Katao walked into the next room over.

“This isn’t gonna be fun,” he said to himself as he glanced down at the pair of bumps on his chest. Of course he’d enjoyed the sight of a nice pair of breasts while he still possessed a penis, but he’d never expected to actually own a pair. They felt bizarre and… oddly grounding, in a way. Their modest weight made it clear that they really were there, making Niall unable to imagine that any of this was a figment of his imagination. This was real, and he had to accept it if he didn’t want to go mad. He carefully nudged one of the bumps again, only for his ears to pick up the sound of Katao’s footsteps with a small twitch. He’d been busy with his own thoughts for longer than he’d realized.

“The bath’s ready!” the healer girl announced as she walked into the main room. “The tub’s right there with lots of warm water. Make sure to scrub those ears clean,” she allowed a bit of the previous smugness into her voice as she winked at Niall, who scoffed lightheartedly. “Yeah yeah, I know how to bathe.”

“Not as a girl you don’t,” Katao replied just genuinely enough for the former boy to not go off on her for it. It was a fair point, after all.

“Fair enough,” he said after a brief pause before he made his way into the bathroom.

Compared to the bathrooms he was used to, the place turned out to be relatively decent. No plumbing was to be seen anywhere, as all the water was held in large barrels on one side of the room, likely sourced from a well. The room looked somewhat like one that would be found at a fancy, expensive ‘forest retreat’ resort, as everything here looked extremely rustic. The walls consisted of dark wood, and the similarly wooden floor was bare while a large tub sat in the middle. Just like Katao had said, it was full of pleasantly-warm water, and Niall dipped a finger into it to confirm just that. The log-fed furnace in the corner had done the job of warming up the water, as the thing still radiated warmth.

“Not too bad,” he mused to himself, but he was hesitating. He knew it himself. The procrastination wasn’t helped by what he saw next as his eyes fell upon a mirror that had been hung up on the wall a handful of feet away. It wasn’t angled so that he could look into it now, so he was spared from the shock of seeing his new face all of a sudden, but that was almost worse. He had to make the conscious decision of stepping in front of it instead.

“Get your damn act together, man,” Niall spoke to himself and gave his cheek a small slap. “You’ve gotta face it. You’ve gotta face the…reality,” he gulped, his knees almost locking up as things were becoming more concrete to him by the moment. “The temporary reality,” he then added, just to safeguard his mind from the inevitable shock.

The steps Niall took from there were nigh robotic as he forced his limbs to move, though he did close his eyes just before he stepped in front of the mirror. “Alright,” he took a deep breath, some of the tension leaving his core. “One, two, three!” On the count of three, he opened his eyes and rooted his feet in place.

The cat girl staring back from the mirror was just as petite and fit as he’d seen previously, but her – his – face was what he could only call… cute. His face was rounder than before, and the large honey-colored eyes added to the undeniably cute look. Nothing of his old appearance had stayed with him on that front, as even his nose was smaller.

However, all of the frankly adorable qualities mixed with the new feline attributes to create something that had an air of mischief to it. A smug grin would look great on this face, he noted to himself.

He’d already gotten to view the vast majority of his new body previously, but seeing it from what was effectively someone else’s perspective put a whole new spin on how odd it felt. This is what he looked like to everyone else, and he couldn’t deny that he was attractive, though not overly so. He wasn’t some smoking hot femme fatale, his figure wasn’t full and curvy enough to pull that off even if he wanted to. And he definitely didn’t want it.

“Fuck, the ears are massive,” Niall turned his attention to his other features to escape the thoughts of his newfound cuteness, poking at the ears as if they were a creature with their own free will. Carefully, he turned around and studied his backside, breathing a small sigh of relief when it became clear that his rear mirrored his breasts: nothing crazy. “At least it’s modest,” he commented quietly on his proportions.

Still, the challenge of disrobing stood in front of him, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose before his thumb hooked onto the underside of his top. “Get it over with, you wimp.” His voice lacked a harsh edge, the very same one that would have certainly been there if he was still in his old body. And so, without waiting for further anticipation to crush his willpower, he removed the top and threw it aside with the underwear beneath it: a garment made of slightly-stretchy leather that worked a little more like a sports bra or a binder than a traditional bra.

With the compression gone, Niall’s breasts bounced ever so slightly as they were freed. “Ngh,” he grunted quietly, not having been expecting the sensation before one of his hands crept up to touch one of the breasts. They were perky and round, no doubt about it, and the size seemed to perfectly suit his body as they weren’t too big nor too small. “I can handle this.”

Perhaps it was the way the breasts looked right at home on this body, but he didn’t find himself feeling overwhelmed yet.

Next up were the shorts, which he grabbed onto with both hands, making sure his thumbs took hold of the panties as well. “One, two, three!” he counted again before he removed them quickly, throwing the two items aside as well. Afterwards, Niall found himself staring down at the floor in his slightly bent-over position as his mind raced again with thoughts of doom and the loss of his masculinity. ‘You’ll be stuck this way forever!’, ‘Ah but you look so lovely now!’ they said to him in a chorus of intrusion.

“Calm down, you’ll fix this. Besides, you’ve seen vaginas before. Having one for a while isn’t the end of the world,” he reassured himself, pairing the words with a few additional deep breaths before he straightened out his back and opened his eyes once more.

A tiny whimper escaped Niall’s lips the second his eyes focused on the slit between his legs, resting underneath a small patch of fittingly-orange pubic hair. The sheer sensation of emptiness where his penis and testicles should have been was alien, and again one of his hands moved down to the source of the feeling. He couldn’t bring himself to actually touch the slit, however, and so his fingers merely hovered near it before his hand came to rest against the small bump on his lower abdomen. Images of what existed behind that bump forced their way into his mind with the strength of a castle-breaching battering ram, sending a shiver up his spine. He knew that the mound was natural and that it was something every woman had, but it still gave him pause.

Niall’s fingers gripped onto the skin as he bit the inside of his cheek. He hadn’t spared a thought to the intricacies of womanhood until now, and while having a vagina wasn't a minor detail, his current predicament had kept his mind preoccupied. All of the distractions were gone now that he was alone and able to focus on every little detail, both inside and outside of him.

“It’s just a vagina,” he spoke to himself again and withdrew his hand from his abdomen. His shoulders felt tense, and he had to willingly ease them before he glanced toward the tub. “Better use it before it goes cold,” he then commented, interjecting into his own wandering thoughts with a bit of logic. “Just don’t think about all that.”

And so he stepped over to the tub and lowered himself into the water. The shudder that ran through him now wasn’t one of shock, but rather of pure comfort as the warmth seeped into every pore of his skin. “Fuck, I needed this…” he whispered and leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling for a while as he lay there, almost limp.

Niall’s relaxation was, however, interrupted by Katao’s voice calling out through the closed door. “Everything alright in there?”

“I guess. Give me a while to get through this existential crisis,” he replied, grumbling.

That seemed to elicit a chuckle from the healer, but her tone was still as warm as it was a few moments ago. “Take your time. Feel free to call out to me if you need any help.”

“Alright.”

After Katao left him alone again, Niall lifted one of his hands out of the water and looked it over. The fur clung to his skin now that it was thoroughly wet. It felt almost like wearing a drenched glove, a sensation that wasn’t very pleasant, but he could handle it for now. That wasn’t to even mention his tail as he grabbed it and brought it in for a small inspection. The poor thing resembled a furry snake that had gotten caught in a rainstorm, but it was sure to fluff up again when it was dry.

After a brief search, he located something that’d help him with washing: a block of soap. It wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant in looks or scent as the soap he was used to, however. It was a rather unwieldy hunk that was more grey, green and brown than he would have liked, and the scent was a mild one that brought to mind various herbs. It did the job all the same, though, as he began to use it to clean his body, steering clear of his chest and crotch for the moment. The movements of his hands still familiarized Niall with the new shapes of his body, the curve of his hips and the narrow nature of his waist included. He couldn’t deny that they didn’t feel pleasant to touch, but the fact that they belonged to him was off-putting all the same.

To wash his hair, he just dunked his head in the water before rinsing away the soap suds with a bucket of room-temperature water next to the tub. Somewhat begrudgingly, he finished up by scrubbing his ears clean just like Katao had encouraged him to do.

Drying off after the bath had Niall’s hands traveling all around his body again as he wiped off and squeezed away some of the water. Then he grabbed what he assumed to be a towel of sorts. It was similar enough, made of animal pelt and soft fabric. Judging by the scent, it had been recently washed too. So after using it to dry his hair some, he wrapped it around his body and peeked out of the bathroom with his clothes held with one hand. “I’m finished,” he called out, and Katao was quick to emerge from the main room to give her guest a look.

“Feeling a little better?” she asked with a small smile.

“That’s kinda debatable. But at least I’m clean,” Niall ran a hand through his still-damp hair.

“Baby steps,” the healer nodded and ushered him back to the cot, where he sat down while she fetched something from the table.

A bowl full of some kind of stew was pushed into his hands along with a wooden spoon before Katao took a seat nearby. “I figured you might be hungry so I warmed this up for you,” she said.

“Fair,” Niall nodded and gave the dish a sniff. There was fish in it, he could tell, but it smelled quite pleasant. “Thank you,” he then said before beginning to eat.

The girl simply watched for a moment before she cleared her throat to get his attention. “So while you were bathing, I came up with an idea on how to possibly get you back home.”

This immediately caused Niall’s ears to perk up and his focus was all hers as she began to speak again, “Only the gods can traverse the realms, like I said earlier. So in order to get you home, you’d need to contact Two-Tails again, yes?”

“I’d guess so. Not too sure if I trust them now, though,” came Niall’s answer before he ate another spoonful of stew.

“The matter of trust aside, you can’t exactly contact a god at your leisure. But there is one person who can: a god’s Champion.” Katao gestured in a grandiose manner when speaking the last couple words.

“A Champion? Go on,” Niall nodded.
She nodded in turn, looking rather confident. “A Champion is a person who has been directly bestowed with a little bit of a god’s power. They usually serve as a conduit of their deity’s will and act as their link to the mortal realm.”

“And what’s your deity’s Champion do? Turn others into cats?” he sneered and briefly pointed at himself.

“Well, no, they do not,” Katao chuckled. “Two-Tails’ Champion is Otaoka, she’s a great warrior who has actually done plenty of good. But she’s… fickle.”

Niall sighed and rolled his eyes, “Figured. What’s it gonna take to find her anyway?”

“That’s the hard part. Otaoka wanders from place to place, and it’s difficult to tell where she might go next.”

“So I should go on a wild goose chase to try and find her in a world that wants to apparently kill me on sight?” The former boy pulled his legs up onto the cot and hugged them, a sense of hopelessness stirring in his chest.

To his surprise, Katao gave him a smile again. But instead of looking entirely soft and reassuring, this one was a confident and proud grin. “Not like I’d let you go out there alone!” she proclaimed.

Niall stared at her for a moment before he opened his mouth again to speak, “You want to come with me? W-why?”

“You obviously have no idea how boring this village is,” she giggled. “Besides, I’d feel really bad if I let you head off on your own. And I really want to hear about your own world.”

“You’re serious?” he scratched his temple.

“Absolutely! Let’s call it an exchange, you give me information while I protect you and lead the way.”

“What about your healer job? Won’t the villagers need you?”

“Oh shush. My mother is coming back here tonight, and she’s a far better healer than I am. They’ll be fine, trust me,” she waved away his concerns and smiled. “I’ll just tell everyone I’m escorting you home, and it won’t even be a lie.” She finished with a cheeky little wink, which instantly made Niall’s cheeks redden with a blush.

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and let out a weak chuckle. “You’re… awfully nice. I can’t really say no to that.”

“It’s a privilege, really!” Katao patted Niall’s shoulder. “I’ll get to travel with someone from another realm, if that’s not cool then nothing is!”

“Guess so,” he did his best to smile as well, and her encouragement luckily helped. “But… thank you. When will we head out?”

“Tomorrow morning,” she answered readily. “Judging by what you’ve told me, you could do with plenty of relaxation and a good night’s sleep. And I can teach you a thing or two about catfolk so that you’ll know the basics. Deal?”

“Deal,” Niall nodded, a little flustered as he finished up the stew and set the bowl aside.

A little while later, he was dry enough to put on his clothes again. Katao gracefully gave him some privacy for that as he familiarized himself with the act of putting on a bra, and once he was done, the two came to sit at the steps of the house. Other catfolk were still out and about during the evening, and some cast curious glances at Niall, especially the children. They’d likely concocted plenty of rumors as to why a strange girl had suddenly flown in through the gate earlier, rumors that they were now whispering among each other. Luckily Niall’s new appearance gave no reasons for them to believe he was anything other than a regular catfolk girl, so he didn’t need to try and explain himself.

“You wanted to tell me some basics?” he whispered to Katao.

“Mhm,” she nodded. “For starters, do you have any questions? Is there anything about the place that looks weird to you?”

One of Niall’s ears perked up. “Should there be?”

“If there isn’t anything, then that’s good. The better you know how we go about our days, the easier you can blend in.”

“I mean, there are some places back home that still look a little like this. Rural villages, you know,” he shrugged.

“Have you lived in one?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Actually, my world looked a lot like this a few hundred years back.”

“Wait, seriously?” Katao had to be careful not to raise her voice too much, but her intrigue had been piqued without a shadow of a doubt. “How advanced is your world?”

“Well uhh…” Niall began to think, not being too sure how he should even try to explain plenty of modern concepts and inventions. “The houses are bigger. There’s more technology,” he waved his hands about in a manner that couldn’t really be deciphered.

“Technology?” Katao tilted her head.

“Machines,” he looked back toward her and grimaced a bit at his own lack of eloquence. “We don’t really use horses much these days, for one. I’m guessing you do?”

“Of course.”

“Yeah, we use these things called cars instead. They’re like wagons but they move on their own, kind of. With engines.”

The girl scratched her head, trying to picture a car in her head. “That’s… incredible. Tell me more!” Her eyes glimmered with curiosity in a distinctly cat-like manner, and so her attempt to teach him about the catfolk had been thoroughly sidetracked.

In the end, Niall had to try and explain concept after concept to Katao, ranging from computers to skyscrapers. The sun continued its journey across the sky all the while, and soon it had dipped to the horizon enough to bring the duo back indoors to try and get some sleep. Since Katao’s own room had only one bed, her new friend had to use one of the cots for tonight. He still wore the clothes he’d emerged into this world with as he pulled up a blanket for some extra comfort.

“It'll be a privilege to travel with me, huh…” he muttered before he closed his eyes and his exhaustion took care of the rest.