NOVEL NEXT Chapter 65: Familiar Unfamiliarity
Dominic had been surprised about how much the demise of the young lion had affected him. More, in fact, than it had affected the lion who was both the cause of the death and also had always been the same species as it.
Perhaps it was because he had started recognising himself as a lion, but he still kept the human distaste for killing others of the same species. He wondered how he would react if he had to kill a human one day. Would he be as affected as killing the young lion? Or more? Or less?
Maybe it will never come up, he hoped, knowing even as he did so he was in denial. Even if he never accidentally ran across humans, he wanted to try to find out what had happened to his father one day. That alone guaranteed that he would have to make contact with them, regardless of his preferences. But that was a question for later down the line.
For now, Dominic was just glad that he’d managed to convince Leo not to kill the cubs. At least, he thought he had.
His hopes seemed to be borne out as Leo ignored the two mothers still snarling at him from their protective positions. The one Leo had threatened to strangle was less vociferous than the other two, but she was standing in front of the three sub-adult females with her teeth bared. First he headed back to the corpse of the dead juvenile. To Dominic’s surprise, he didn’t start eating the body, but instead triggered Consume while touching it.
The lionesses around them startled backwards as the body dissolved into golden smoke, even the two protective mothers taking a step back. One of the cubs yowled painfully as it was trodden on by its own mother, her surprise making her clumsy. Leo leaned down to lick up the Core before Dominic could object.
‘Wait- Oh, you’ve done it already,’ Dominic grumbled. Bang went that opportunity to see the details of what the Core offered. Oh well; at least the 50 Prey Points the level 3 juvenile lion had offered were enough for him to level up. Later, Dominic concluded as he noted Leo’s single-minded intentions right now. With anticipation, Leo headed towards the lioness who had been flirting with them earlier, nosing at her.
She backed away as he came close, but when he stopped, she advanced instead, once more flicking her tail around, the motion sending wafts of the same musky, arousing scent which they’d tasted in her urine.
The back-and-forth took a bit of time, and Dominic was slightly surprised that Leo didn’t just pin the lioness down or something: he’d been led to believe that lion takeovers were rather violent. And it had been, considering the fights they’d been in, but apparently not now with the mating.
Eventually the lioness lay down and allowed Leo to mount her. When he realised what was about to happen Dominic also realised that he in no way wanted to see, feel, or otherwise be part of it. I may be a lion now, but this just feels way too much like bestiality!
Trying to escape what was about to happen, Dominic pulled back from his connection with the body he was in and its senses. The sensations seemed to waver, like the signal on old TVs used to, sending a brief moment of snow across the screen.
Heartened, Dominic redoubled his efforts and felt more than heard a ‘pop’. Suddenly, he was back in a very familiar space. Well, he thought it was, but since featureless white was featureless white, it was impossible to say for sure.
Either way, it appeared very similar to where his and Leo’s post-evolution challenge had taken place – and the fight against the dungeon master. Wherever he was, he seemed to be completely cut off from the sensations of his body, so objective achieved.
This time, he realised he’d appeared as a lion – perhaps Leo was affecting him more than he’d thought. I wonder, he muttered to himself, focussing on hands, feet, bipedal movement, a lack of a tail…
There was a blurring sensation and Dominic suddenly felt like he was standing taller off the ground. Looking down, he saw hands resting at his sides and lifted them, inspecting them once more. They felt…foreign. Alien. Yet also familiar at the same time. There was the scar from when he’d fallen off his bicycle; there were the calluses caused by writing his end of school exams, still there but fading in the years of little writing since.
The same familiar unfamiliarity was true of his feet. If he took a step without thinking about it, he was fine; as soon as he started thinking, he lost his balance and stumbled. After one such stumble sent him to his knees, he decided to explore something else. Sure, he could return to his lion body – he sensed that doing so wouldn’t take any more time than the reverse transformation had – but he didn’t want to. He’d been immersing himself in being a lion; he felt like he needed a bit of time to be human again.
If I can change my own body, can I do something with this space? he questioned thoughtfully. The two didn’t necessarily correlate: he might only be able to change his body because it was his own insight which determined its shape; the shape of the space might rely on both him and Leo, or on neither, being a product of the System itself. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
If his sense of Leo’s intentions was correct, the lion wasn’t going to only mate once. That meant Dominic didn’t dare return back to their body for a while: he wanted to let Leo have enough time to get it all out of his system before risking reconnecting with his senses. He only hoped that Leo would wait for him to return to trigger the level up. Otherwise he’d probably just try to enhance his mane again. Or maybe his, ah, mating prowess.
Actually, which of the enhancements would help with that? he wondered. Stamina, probably – for obvious reasons. Would Bones? I mean, it’s called a ‘boner’, but there aren’t actually any bones in it…. On the other hand, lengthening my bones has meant increased mass overall so…maybe? And there’s got to be some way of improving my sperm count or fertility – the warthog even had an ability for that. And why exactly am I thinking about all this? Dominic questioned himself upon realising that he was doing the System equivalent of searching for sellers of viagra or other more questionable procedures.
Better to be considering how to make his stay in this space more comfortable considering that it seemed likely he’d have to flee here at regular intervals when one of the lionesses was in heat. At least three of them aren’t likely to do so any time soon since one is pregnant and the other two have cubs.
So, what should he try to do? For some reason, the image which kept coming to mind was a cosy little study with bookcases lining the walls, a couple of incredibly comfortable armchairs, another extremely comfortable sofa, a coffee table with a steaming cup of coffee and a biscuit, and a fire crackling in the hearth.
Deciding that that was as good a place to start as any, Dominic focussed on his image. Remembering he’d actually had to feel himself into his lion body during the challenge and his human body when he arrived a short time ago, he tried to feel
his way into the study. Closing his eyes, he focussed on the sensations of the study. How he could close eyes when he was only a mental presence, he didn’t know; apparently he could – that would have to be good enough for him.He imagined the lovely musty smell of books and paper and furniture polish, a combination he remembered well from his father’s office back home. That one had been small and cluttered, though, and he wanted more space for this one. He imagined the crackling of the fire in the hearth, the warmth it would send spreading throughout the room. He imagined being able to sit on a soft carpet before the fire, the warmth licking luxuriously at his skin.
Then he imagined standing and moving over to the armchair, sinking into it with a groan of comfort, the piece of furniture embracing and supporting him, but not eating him like his student sofa used to try to do. He leant forwards and picked up the cup of coffee, feeling its warmth sink into his fingers, its rich scent wafting past his nose.
And then he opened his eyes and realised that he wasn’t imagining any more. Although the colours of the space weren’t identical to what he had been visualising, the bare bones of the space was exactly what he’d been wanting.
The differences were mostly in the decor. Instead of being the dark, close space of a European study, the whole room was done in beige, white, and warm neutral tones. The furniture was in the sandy pale colours of pine rather than the dark of a hardwood. The carpet was the skin of a zebra, and the room was warmer than he’d originally intended, the fire not being particularly necessary.
There were still the bookshelves lining the walls, but there were abstract paintings in between them which spoke to Dominic of the battles he’d won with the Trodil mini-bosses, the warthog Guardian, and the most recent fight with the previous pride leader. There were also abstract statues made of twisted branches and grasses, the shapes of which seemed to call to something inside Domnic, but he didn’t know what.
However, there was still coffee on the coffee table and books on the book shelves. Dominic headed over to inspect one of the tomes. Closer inspection proved each one to have identical bindings and nothing written on the spines.
Pulling one out, Dominic was disappointed when he saw that it was bare, its pages creamy-white and blemished by neither time nor print. The one next to it was the same, as was the one from a different bookcase that he checked.
I suppose expecting books to fill themselves in an imaginary space is a bit too much to ask, Dominic tried to console himself. If I had to feel myself into this space, I’d also have to feel myself into the books.
The thought inspiring an idea, he tried to think about one of his favourite novels, one he’d read many times before. Trying to remember the events as they were told in the book, Dominic tried to feel his way into the story once more. Hope springing anew, he opened the book to see whether he’d succeeded.
The answer turned out to be partial success, which ultimately meant a total failure. There was print newly marking the previously unblemished pages, but only the scenes which he’d been able to visualise in great detail had actually made their way into legible words. The rest was either a blurry mass of ink barely recognisable as words or a mixture of words which made no sense together.
“Shame,” Dominic said out loud, his own voice startling to his ears – he’d got out of the habit of hearing voices it seems. And that sounds like I should be considering checking myself into a psychiatric hospital, he thought to himself wryly. It seemed like his memory hadn’t suddenly got worlds better just because he’d found a way to transform this…soulspace? Was that what the description had called it?
Though, memories…that was a thought. Closing the book once more, he also closed his eyes as he focussed on a memory in the past. Trying to once more relive the moment, he opened his eyes and then the book. Smiling as he saw the result, Dominic moved over to the very comfortable armchair and picked up his book. He supposed there were worse things to spend his time on than revisiting happier times.
Settling into watching the memory of his father taking him out to a restaurant to celebrate his university acceptance, Dominic sipped at his latte and relaxed into his armchair.
