The bucket was as heavy as one might expect a full bucket to be – which would not have been any issue if for the pair of reasons for keeping it away from Kanaya Maryam’s line of sight.
The first was of course, the fears that trolls tended to associate with buckets from the moment they could talk – genetic harvesting. Which, of course, was not currently an issue.
The second was that the surprise was is the bucket. Or, the last bit. It had been a good many bucket-fulls of sopor slime Rose had lugged from the alchemizers – OK, to be fair, this last bucketfull was the only one that hadn’t been captchalogued. Some manual labor had seemed appropriate.
Tiptoe past one more door, slip into the respiteblock – and there it was. The rebuilt recoopracoon. looking just like the one Kanaya had showed Rose in the dreambubbles, with one amendment – this one should be big enough for two.
The trolls had gotten used to human beds, for the most part, since the last source of chucklevoodoo had … well, escaped, to be honest. The complaint that they were too hard without a small hill of pillows on top was frequent, though.
Thus long days – or nights, whatever – of trying to reproduce that comforting sludge from the rare crusty pie tin, hiding the results among other experiments so Kanaya would be none the wiser.
Until tonight. Today. By Vris, she needed some sleep. Perfect time to test.
The tilted bucket felt empty. she lowered it to check – close enough. She stowed it around a corner – out of obvious view, but theoretically close enough to grab again.
Rose reached in, ran her hand across the surface – it might have been a just blended pudding – opaque, cool but not cold to the touch. Wait – that had been the first time she had actually touched the stuff, hadn’t it? No, that couldn’t be right, this had been a weeks-long project. But – she raised her foot to climb in – this would be the first time with it between her toes. Between her –
Oh Vris, what was she doing – wearing her clothes in, Rose had been warned about that. Even if god-tier duds were easy enough to renew – they were also easy to remove.
That done, she climbed back up to the rim and lowered herself in.
It was cool – but warmed up rather quickly, all very comfor….
~
“Rose,” Kanaya considered poking the human.
“Rose,” She looked so cute, sleeping there. And the sopor, however she had come upon it, seemed a marvelously thick consistency, if a bit too warm and bubbly.
She adjusted the human’s face a bit, just to make sure there was no threat of the sopor going up her nose – no flaps for that. But, they didn’t have any gills to speak of either, so it made some sort of sense.
Kanaya could find another room to rest in for now – Obviously Rose’s was open. No reason to ruin the presentation of a gift.
~
She couldn’t breathe. Sopor. Rose snapped awake, coughing. It was in her eyes and nose. Trying to sit up – the goo schlorped after her as she tried to raise herself out of it, continuing in a hacking cough, trying to rub it out of wherever she should manage. She almost fell on the floor as she tried to exit the recuperation, blinded, before she remembered to hover. Something smacked her on the back – nothing about this felt right. Finally she scrubbed at one of her eyes enough to look around – towels. A neat stack of towels, which all the trolls seemed to keep around. For one of the missing ones. Rest in … well, it may have been fetishistic rapture, by what she had heard, but peace sounded better.
Vris, She could see again. Second towel – oh, but it felt good to get that stuff off. It was getting hot – nothing about the descriptions Rose had been given made that seem right. Nod to get this stuff out of her ears…
That. That was her thigh. Rose gingerly felt around – her crotch – she realized what that sensation has. Head. Hair. In her crotch. Mirror. She could just float on over to one of Kanaya’s many full-length mirrors. Just – stay level. Keep balanced.
The site in the mirror was one she wasn’t used to. The small chunks of sopor did not really surprise her. the leg hanging down from either side of her head should have. They were obviously hers just… in the wrong place. Orientation, that was the word. her ankles almost hung as far down as her hands – which she realized she had allowed to drag across the floor.
She couldn’t raise them. What. What. the fingers – she could get them to twitch the slightest bit – but how…
Floating. Just let them float.
Her hands slowly raised up. Started moving – Ok, she could barely move in the traditional sense, but she could float. So – a somersault. She imagined leaning back – and gravity sort of took over. the legs flopped to the ground – hitting hard, they sort of bounced off the solid floor, then settled down on to it.
Straight. Higher. She floated up, walking height – a little higher – her legs straightened out beneath her body. Down a bit, putting weight on them – Stand.
She collapsed, unable to keep her legs straight.
She could just kill herself, the though flashed across her mind. Heroic? No. Just? No. A physical reset? Probably.
But… then there would still be everything to explain. An impaled body, presumably. A ‘coon full of once-used sopor – which might be bad, or might honestly be an expectable reaction to human… bones? joints? It wasn’t like she tested for any human effects thoroughly.
She’d have to explain to Kanaya…
Wait, what would Kanaya think about a boneless Rose? That could be… interesting.
~
The first question could have been if Rose’s possibly bendy-boned condition was permanent – but time might answer that. It might have been trying to get her hands to work with any effectiveness, figuring out what she could get this ragdoll of a body to achieve on just the concept of “floating”.
The first question ended up being, “Just how did I get my legs around my head like that?”
A marionette. That might work. Rose visualized – groaning as the word ran across her mind -strings, controlled by some astral form or something equally grandiose, lifting her head from the ground, her torso, her legs. She imagined the strings jerking her legs up, in some approximation of walking – it sort of worked, though anybody seeing it would suspect something was up immediately. Lazy floating would do.
But, legs. Ok, when she was climbing out of the recuperacoon – the sopor was sticky. She tried pulling herself out with her hands, but it wasn’t enough, so she had thrown herself forward in a panic. That should probably be considered flying over floating. She’d flown out, there were sticky noises, she was free, relaxed, and –
Thump. Rose had leaned forward far enough – not pointed straight at the ground, but like she was taking a steep slide head-first. She stopped turning suddenly, thinking to float – but her bottom half had kept going, legs swinging in an arc, until her own ass had landed on her back. Cue thighs for earmuffs.
The flipped-over marionette tugged herself back to Kanaya’s mirror collection, searching for a good angle to see what was going on. With a careful though, she tugged on her mental arm strings, awkwardly raising them to reach around her thighs, jiggling the mass a bit to wedge her hands in-between ear and thigh for a slightly wider angle of view.
She finally found a reflection of a reflection that gave her some answers – her ass looked like an ass, even while it sat on her shoulder bones. Her belly was stretched, tautly, between the ridges of her pelvis and ribcage – and the ribs honestly looked like they had smooshed a bit. Although – maybe that was the cartilage part?
Instead of trying to look up at the ceiling to reorient her ass, she opted to look down this time – gently letting toes touch the floor, unwrapping arms, slowly straitening whatever was left of her back.
Ok. Close enough to an answer. Time to shower this sopor off.
~
Rose was, in fact, quite glad that all the tolls’ rooms had their own absolution blocks, but was disappointed Kanaya hadn’t put more effort into hers. It was, essentially, a janitor’s closet – a drain in the floor, a drain is some sort of low square basin that barely rose above her ankles, two faucets at waist level, one of which fed into a long tube and an handheld shower sprayer currently hanging from a hook on the wall.
And the troll equivalent of a toilet. Another green fluid in that, no way to flush. Composting, Rose hoped. One thing she had managed not to use yet.
Floating over to the floor basin, Rose realized she would need a different strategy than the door handle – which had been rising her foot above it and releasing, which thankfully have her heel enough momentum and leverage to release the latch.
The shower control was a twisting knob. But, she still had fingers – which she carefully willed into position one metaphorical sting at a time. And … flying. If she could somehow make her fingers fly at the knob – that actually felt like a decent grip. Something to further explore, anyways.
Wait – just how would one twist their wrist, given her condition? Twist her arm? No, twist her whole body. A Screwdriver was the right metaphor here.
First revolution clockwise – legs flopped down well before full inversion, need to keep those in mind. Her arm did twist along it’s length, but there apparently was not enough tension to turn the knob along with it.
Second revolution – no butt caressing the backbone, but the legs flopped abound even more weirdly without the guide. Could definitely perform the splits better now than back during those classes. Arm has more tension, still not enough.
Third revolution – at no point was Rose ever thrilled with the tepid water of Kanaya’s shower, but at this point the slow drizzle was preferable to freezing or being scalded.
Fourth revolution – A good, steady stream. “Tugging” her head upright while inverted was actually nice for not getting water up her nose, even the dual sensations of ear rubbing against back and spine rubbing against ear were strange.
Rose’s extended arm was a twisted mess – an odd assortment of bumpy joints and arcing bone, muscles feeling like she was failing at chin-ups back at gym class, perhaps without the fatigue. Certainly not in any real pain. Her knuckles hadn’t gone white. The arm did flail a bit when she finally released the knob, hitting her upside the head.
The water did warm a bit. There was a bar of soap of human make – scratching with fingers proved difficult, she made do with the base of her palms, scrubbing patches of drying sopor off. She did take a few minutes under the running water to check the softness of a few things – her face … with the flying finger trick, she could press the bridge of her nose to the point her eyes couldn’t keep focus, but thankfully not farther. Possibly because it hadn’t been submerged in the sopor?
She could swear she felt her spine when plunging a finger into her belly button. She could manage to shove a fist into a gap underneath her ribcage – though it took a minute to sink in. Whether this was actually a limit of her current coordination or not, she couldn’t tell.
And then there was the offhand thought of just sinking into the basin as much as she could, filling every square inch, using some variation of the thought of localized flight to press bits into corners and, with some force, bend limbs in places they shouldn’t bend. She fit, by a loose definition, bent backward, laying on her side – one foot on a shoulder, another calf pressing against a breast. But, there were things that needed to be addressed before perfecting her corner-stuffing skills, she realized, as she blocked the drain and water started to rise. Turning off the shower was much faster than turning it on – she grabbed the knob with both hands, letting arms twist together in a corkscrew as she tossed herself around midair, successfully avoiding the chance of folding upon herself via centrifugal force.
Toweling off was a lengthy process – pulling away from something seemed to be a fundamentally different process from pulling away from gravity. But if she wasn’t going to try and at least get the essentials down, well – some ways of surprising Kanaya were better than others. And she didn’t even want to contemplate what other’s reactions might be to her “being an invalid”.
Now, getting dressed – the one thing she knew Kanaya would be very disappointed if she could not manage to do on her own. Her robes appeared from her sylladex – and promptly flopped to the ground. Oh. Grabbing that stuff was a learned response, wasn’t it. Maybe she could just… snake into it? Pull feet up and behind, lower chest, pull arms up and slightly apart, feed them through the bottom hole, push in – oh, sort of sliding across the floor now. Bend arms a little bit to let the head paperweight things in place, push in arms – ok, bring one foot down on the garment so the head can be lifted up – no, around the front, not the back – press in… no, pull out a bit, that’s the head hole – arms in right holes … a little further and … straighten out.
“GOD DAMN IT,” was the natural response when she noticed the hood hanging down her chest, while still trying to free the leg from her hemline. Vriska didn’t always get the honor of being the God Tier to be named. The outfit disappeared – leaving Rose nude again and allowing anatomy to fall into standard positions – and then reappeared, correctly oriented.
There would always be time to try that again later, Rose promised herself, putting weight on the door handle to the next room – and it’s transportalizer.
~
As she silently floated through the common hallways, Rose couldn’t help but try and monitor what she assumed was her appearance. Her posture had to be different. Did she… yes, she was still blinking. Then again, her heart was still beating too, even if… no, it was probably useless to try and take her own pulse.
She passed by a shiny piece of duct work and tried to smile into it. Ok, that – that was weak.
There was the question if she could still crack her knuckles. Fly… backwards… that was a no, with fingers slapping across the back her has so fast the hand actually clapped. Well, there was an answer to one question she hadn’t even asked.
Another transportalizer. This place was a mess. But half a thought… Vinegar. Soak a chicken bone in vinegar for a week, like… was it a science class, years ago? But it was close enough to what she had seen – felt – while taking her shower. It also begged the question of just how long she had been sleeping in the sopor.
And here was the liquids lab …. everything looked oh Kanaya.
“Rise And Bask, Love.”
“Good morning, I hope. And usually, that’s shine.”
“Of Course,” Kanaya’s face lit up a bright white.
Rose groaned, “What day- Night- is it?”
“You Skipped A Night. You Must Have Been Quite Exhausted From Whatever Your Endeavors Have Been As Of Late. Soporific Endeavors, I Would Assume?”
Rose paused, for a moment turning her back to the troll, “Haven’t we proved that alcohol and soporifics are different things?” A pair of tongs was there, sitting in front of her equipment – that was a low enough bar, right? She carefully dropped her hand on the metal implement-
“We Have,” the troll slid up behind her, tugging at the fabric on her waist to pull the human closer, “But I Noticed Some New Equipment. What Have You Been Working On, Dear?”
Rose tried to counter the pull downwards, mind racing. She could already feel the cloth deforming her shoulders, flattening her breasts. She forced her fingers around the tongs, and jabbed them at a flask – thankfully catching it instead of braking it, “In fact, while I wanted it to be a surprise – I’m rather sure I have come across what you are implying. Although,” Kanaya got the flask stuck in her face, making her release her grip. Rose hope she was focused enough on it that she didn’t see exactly how her arm twisted to get it there just yet, “I am missing an authoritative test.”
“Oh – That Close? Well, I Can Help With That,” Kanaya took the flask, stepped back, and grabbed another empty flash from the table, which she promptly spit into, “It’s All About The Reactions, Really,” She poured as bit of the bright green slime in after – swished it around, frowned, “Do You Have Any Water Available?”
Rose managed to pass her a pitcher of it, awkwardly.
Kanaya, feeling it pressed against her hand glanced over and took the water, poring in an equal amount. The mixture fizzled lightly, and she smiled in response, “It looks like you have a good concentrate here.”
“Concentrate?” a thought stabbed at the back or Rose’s mind.
“Of Course. Otherwise You Might As Well Be Shipping Tide Pool Water Around,” Another part water, the fizzing died down significantly, “Or That Is What… Trolls… Claimed,” She put down the flasks and turned back to Rose.
“What – theoretically – would happen if you slept in concentrate?”
“Hmmm. You Could Oversleep… There Is Always The Possibility One Could Drown, Not Having Enough Oxygen,” Kanaya nervously scratched at her sides with the thought.
Rose was looking more worried by the second, “Is that all?”
Kanaya wasn’t quite sure of just why Rose was looking more and more concerned, but she couldn’t help but reflect it, “All That I Know Of. Admittedly, I Am A Light Sleeper.”
Rose started to tear up, “I… I could have killed you.” Either not realizing, or not caring, Rose flung herself at Kanaya to embrace her.
“Please Do Not Cry Over This I Would Have Caught It Befuck Is Happening?” Kanaya had tier to return the hug to find herself sinking far further into the human’s clothes than she expected. She pushed Rose away.
“Surprise?” Rose managed through her tears.
~
Over the next hour or two Kanaya Maryam received many assurances from Rose Lalonde.
Assurances that no, this was not a trick. Assurances that she was the same Rose Lalonde, and not some dream bubble variant. Assurances that no, this was not something humans had happen to them. Ever. Assurances that human pregnancy was nothing like this. Assurances that humans did not undergo cell mitosis to reproduce. Assurances that she had had no idea this would happen. Assurances that, even if this was an awkward state, she would rather have some time to explore it. Assurances she still would love to try sleeping together in Kanaya’s recuperacoon once the sopor was properly diluted.
It was somewhere among these assurances that Rose agreed to troll fengshui, to get to the bottom of… something. Somehow this led to her being mounted to a ridiculously large embroidery wheel – probably more than triple her standing height – and being slowly stretched flatter and flatter as she was tilted to not quite look at the ceiling.
Rose wasn’t quite sure how she could breathe at this point, as Kanaya made yet another round, slowly tugging tugging tugging at bare stretched flesh before refastening clips, and generally flattening her further. “I’m not sure what this has to do with Dragons.”
“As Flat As The Ground Under A Dragons’ Footfall.” She poked at bones held and relief by stretched sinew.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not the Earth tradition – rather, I think it was more in the line of avoiding being crushed by a dragon,” Rose very much wished she had a neck to speak of, to look at what the troll was doing rather than just feel it, but what she would have previously considered her neck was now the plains around skull mountain and the spine hills.
“I Seem To Recall You Also Had Never Seen A Dragon Before Seeing Latula’s Lusus.”
Rose didn’t even have the lips free to properly frown. She suspected they were somewhere around where her neck would have started, “Your point being?”
“One Does Not Plan To Avoid Dragons At The Last Moment.”
“Ah. Does that make you the dragon, now?”
“It Might. I Doubt I Am The Worst Case Scenario For A Stretchy Human, However,” Kanaya finally paused in her circuit to move to an elevation Rose could see her, “I Believe Your Form Can Be Called Seamless At This Point – Um… Many Square Human Feet. Wait. Does That Measure Change When The Human Feet Are Stretched?”
“No, ancient male empress, remember?”
“Ah, Yes, The Foot Fetishist… Not To Imply Anything But You Are Beginning to Drool A Bit,” She pulled out a scrap of cloth discretely tucked into her waistband. Maybe she could just reach over and –
Nope. That’s sure a facefull of stretched human flesh she was now laying against… actually bounced against twice before she settled.
“There is an Earth saying that one makes a better door than… hah… a window,” She didn’t know what to call the sensation that had just gone through her, over the tension that had been slowly building for an hour. She tried to cover, “But I think that ‘trampoline’ might be more appropriate at the moment.”
The vibration had accelerated the flow of spittle – it now zigzagged between the ridges of ribs.
Kanaya steadied herself against the sloping plane, bowed under her weight, “Pardon Me, Rose”, and started climbing up exposed nubs of bone like a rock wall, trying to dab away the slow stream.
The weight was amazing and maddening, Rose’s mind wanting to respond in any way whatsoever, but even most of what little muscle control she still had was locked away in the circle of tension. Her heart – or the large patch that constituted it right now – tried to beat faster. However, the main result just ended up being another rush of drool.
Kanaya rushed to address the flow, ending with footing on what would be a pelvis if it held it’s standard shape, one hand on one disjointed rib, the other mopping up the drooling remnants of a mouth, “Your Munch Lubricant Seems To Be getting Thicker – Have You Drunk Any Water Today?”
Rose tried to think through the haze that was Kanaya standing on her crotch, “I… No. Maybe something in… the shower.”
“I Wonder If Some Of The Sopor Is Still Reacting,” Kanaya gave up on drying the flow completely. Making her way down. Rose sagged the slightest way in her ring as the last bit of extra weight was removed.
“In Some Ways This Is A Little Disappointing.”
“What?” Rose was slowly returning to lucidity.
“It Is Slightly Like Seeing A Lawn Ring Full Of Tunnelbeast Tunnels. These Bones Are The Slightest Bit Unsightly.”
“I think that’s beyond current testing – besides, cutting me open to remove them is a bit too likely to cause a temporary death, isn’t it?”
“I Was Thinking Longer Sopor Concentrate Exposure Might Do It – Five Nights, Seven. If Some Challenges Are Taken Care Of,” The troll wandered out of site again, to return with a set of nails so long they looked like spearheads. Though, admittedly, they were oddly pliable as the troll made a show of examining them.
“Those – they wouldn’t happen to be the dragon’s claws, would they?”
“These Are The Last Test Before I Release You, Remember? We Have To Test Puncture.”
“Then…” Rose could not take a deep breath, “Proceed.”
The troll disappeared from the human’s mediocre line of vision.
The points Kanaya had chosen had been carefully manipulated as Rose had been pulled thinner and thinner – skin and mostly useless long muscle, no organs or bones. Joints had been considered – not that she had told Rose that.
The Human Navel was an odd parody to the troll’s current, well-managed condition. Rose herself had occasionally wondered aloud – in drunken state – why she should have one given her ectobiological origins. Thankfully, tension had displaced organs far enough out of the way that it was a straight shot between it’s odd untanned memorial blotch and the spine.
There was no more eyelid to “shoot open” – but her eyes did bulge as the strip of metal penetrated through her slightest dimension. She was going to tear in half – but no, after several waves of full-body nervous twitching, she finally tried to focus on the projectile running through her – Kanaya was on her front face again, lining up –
The second wave hit from almost the same unidentifiable region.
“Where Should I Put The Third, I Wonder?” Kanaya drew what might as well have been the flat of a sword in an arc across what Rose decided was mostly her hips, pausing at a point that definitely wasn’t her hips, before slowly continuing. “I Think I May Just Save It Until You Return To The Third Dimension.”
“Kan…”
“Yes. This One Can Wait,” Kanaya wandered out of Rose’s sight again, returning empty handed, “You Have, In The Past, Admired My Piercing, Have You Not?” Kanaya bulled up her shirt the slightest bit – there was a corset underneath. A new one – Rose reasoned – or at least she hadn’t seen one that actually accentuated the gap in the troll’s thorax and spine, an injury that had happened somewhere on this very meteor, while still keeping her upright. “While It May Not Be An Equal Gauge, Your Own Might… Add To The Experience.” Kanaya gently stroked the inner circumference – the fabric one – before dropping her shirt sloppily. “Let Us See How Well You Pull Together.”
The Clips that held Rose to the round frame were released in three rounds – first Rose’s sinew started to tug, then yank, and then sweet release as the flattened form fluttered to the ground.
Rose’s first feeling, besides release, was of her heart starting to beat normally again.
The second was the pins. Not the ones in her slowly reconstituting midsection, but the ones as all her muscles started to receive bloodflow again. She whined loud enough that Kanaya stopped disassembling the frame to shoosh her – and when that didn’t work, tried to massage her distended form for a few too-long minutes, occasionally coaxing a few odd rubbery bones into what seemed the right place.
As her nerves calmed down Rose felt the pair of needles running through her gut – they kept drawing closer – but not moving. Filling her, but with no more sensation of piercing.
“Ah – This Should Be Enough Now.” Rose was propped up on her side, and Kanaya bent one of the needles around the edges of her waist – fixing one end to another, the pulling the connection into Rose’s body. Tape, by the feel of it. “Now Do Not Remove These.”
Rose’s arm gloated to one finished waist-ring as Kanaya finished off the other. the edges were much duller than she expected. She made an awkward tug at it. It didn’t budge. Perhaps it wasn’t just tape inside her. “And what if I do?”
“Then I Shall Have To Figure Out A Better Place To Put The Last Needle,” Kanaya’s hand went from a finished second ring to pressing into Rose’s almost reformed crotch. “I Can Not Just Let this Lovely Human Slip Through My Fingers. I Need Something To Hold,” She put he full weight on that hand as she stood up – flesh bulged between her fingers. “You Are Dried Out, Are You Not? Drink Some Water. I Need Some Time To Look Into How To Not Kill A Human By Drowning. Or Other Options.”
“Kanaya -” Rose was finally more or less Rose shaped and dared to float after the troll, “Don’t just – After that -“
The troll turned back, “Have You Drunk Your Water?” She glanced at the mostly-full pitcher back on Rose’s lab table.
There was no hesitation as Rose floated over over to the table, pressed the pitcher between bother hands and slammed it into her open mouth. Water cascaded over her skin while a few fistfull-sized gulps made it down her throat. She gasped for air. “Enough?”
“I Suppose,” When Rose floated back to the troll, grey fingers gently dried cheeks, “Put Something On, We Shall See If Anyone Has Alchemised Something Useful.”
Even as Rose’s God-tier Oranges draped over her body, Kanaya pulled one of the human’s hands, threading it through the hole in her corset, and then the human’s waist, subtly pinching one of the rings embedded around it.
“I Must Say – It Is A little Tiring To Keep Up Pitch Appearances.”
“You can be mad at someone you like – I did deserve it, as long as your ‘surprise’ took.”
“Well, It Gave Me The Time To Finish The Corset. But Really, Sleeping In Untested Sopor? Idiotic In Ways You Normally Are Not.”
“You took the effects well. Let’s hope we can one-up them.’
“Let Us Hope We Find Options To Do So Besides A Grubslurry Agitator.”
___
In which Sopor turns out to relax more than just the waking mind for Humans
https://archiveofourown.org/works/12145584
Leave a Reply