Birds sung, insects chirped, the leaves swayed and wind gushed through the gaps, feeling soothing on my exposed scales. "Ehhh... ehhhiiiiiiuuuuuu~!" A bit too soothing for comfort...
That was the reality I woke up to after Spice had catapulted me through the realm barriers. "Uhh... ssssshhhh..." That and an awful soreness paralysing every little movement of mine.
"Ehhuuuu~." It was only with trembling hands and an awful load of concentration that I managed to raise my arms, sampling the newly grown flesh and scales.
"How brittle," I muttered, finding the patchwork not really living up to my expectations, "no compound spell in the foreseeable future." "Uwah! Uwahhh~!"
No martial arts either." And after focusing my sensitive senses for a while longer on my body, I had to add with a sigh, "spell-slinging is also off the table..."
In short, I had really hit rock bottom. At least, there was no injury I suffered from that hadn't been there, to begin with. It was just... "this will take time to heal, huh?"
Five months down to what? "Four and roughly three weeks? Might be right." Certainly not the best situation for lasting powerlessness. "Aeeehhh!!!"
"Ouch! That hurts!!! The fuzz on my horns ain't useless extra!" Though my mouth gave its best to convince a certain nasty bug of the fun derived by keeping still atop my head, it was useless for a long while.
As I waited for my muscles to adjust themselves, for the soreness to gradually leave, for the clumsiness to dial down... the youth engaged in all which was possible atop my head.
It was already bad enough she swatted that beggar's medal into my face Spice had given me moments before departure, but the foul stench and open floodgates following her excited exploration of my head...
I endured. The artwork worthy of a devil from the most crooked layers of hell she was painting on my skull?
I endured that too. Yet when the youth smeared literal shit all over my sensitive fuzz... I could no longer make sense of the messy sensory input.
Stumbling all over the place, I proceeded to embrace and kiss the most rugged of bark there was in this place, that I swear.
"Stop it, please. Stop it! I b-b-beg youuuuu!!" "Uwaiiiiii!!! Uhhhiiiii!!" "D-don't pull—argh!!" Bang! I landed squarely on the ground, my tail lashing about aimlessly.
Somone's doo-doo must have been hidden in that knot of roots I'd landed in, providing my nose with just the right input to furiously call the workers union.
"What have I done wrong...?" I was just this little away from bursting out into bitter tears. Then a boar or something crashed into my back, rocking the youth tho and fro as my head dug deeper into the aromatic extras.
Worse still, the youth took that as a challenge, tearing away at my sensitive fuzz, tiny claws extended all the while hissing like crazy.
She must've slid down my neck due to the impact, against her wishes to boot. Taking two handfuls of precious fuzz with her.
In my futile effort to talk sense to the damn contractor now flooding my mind with her feelings of uneasiness and possibly also fear, I had that shit-eating mouth... open. At the right time.
"Bruwhh... splergh. Puff, blargh!!!" To my misery, the Great Consciousness added its own two cynic cents.
Until the creature at a standoff with my gloriously exposed rear interpreted my randomly thrashing tail as an invitation for a duel.
Time and time again, blunt horns drove me deeper and deeper into the ground, rocking the youth even more.
"Nooo.... speguuff. Schtopff... trrreehhhhtttt!!" Fear then turned to unparallelled fright and what was bound to come around did so in spades. The contract struck.
"Uaweeehhhh, uiiihhhhh... ehhuiiiiiiii!!!!" I was probably competing with the most expressive sow that ever lived in these lands if one ever did thrive here.
Yet between a body that refused to react on time, a dumb as fuck youth turning this humiliation into the most hilarious show ever and an actor engrossed in his workout session, there was little I could do.
"Buiiiiihhhh!" Suddenly, I heard an anguished, longwinded cry. Then something hit my rear with less force than I had sadly grown accustomed to.
The smell of blood entered my barely functioning nose. The very feeling of warm wetness clinging to my tail made sure I didn't misjudge.
"Ho there... you alive?" Rung out a gruff voice from somewhere above. "Guesht... meeeeehhh. ouuusssttttttt!!!"
"Ho-ho-ho!!!" Help might be just around the corner. "Larissa come 'ere...," that did sound promising.
You'd at least need two guys getting me out of this darn hole, I was sure. "...there's a talking dung beetle 'ere. First ever in all my adventures!" Nooo...
If I could, I would've seriously broken out in tears. What I didn't realise earlier was that my exposed rear in plain sight coupled with two-thirds of me submerged in shit painted the very picture of a gentleman.
I never cared much about how others perceived me... but that didn't mean I was left with zero feelings of shame.
"Grandpa, comiiing!! Waddaitisss, whaddaitissssss?!?!" I could swear the gruff voice was chuckling at what must be like the most excited of brats jumping all around the attraction.
Me... that was. "Larissa, take dat small grunt." "No wanna, no wanna. Stinky!!!!" A short pause. How dare he?! "Uhhh... either that or help me out, wontcha?"
"No!!!!" You. Braaaaaat!!!! What was up with your emotions?? I was literally tearing out the few remaining strands of fuzz that survived the youth's rampage.
In my mind, that was. I felt a strong pair of hands grip my tail real hard, almost breaking off the expensive piece as he plucked me out of the ground.
Like a carrot, I hung there on the other end, limbs useless and each orifice literally bleeding dung. "...be a champ and bring me dat towel."
"Sure-sure, grandpa!" Something small and heavy moved behind me, rummaging through what sounded like an impressive collection of paraphernalia.
Then Larissa returned and the same two arms responsible for almost relieving me of my tail hit my face with the procured dust rug that couldn't surely be any cleaner.
"Choom... yer help yerself." "I—uragggjjjjjhhh!!!" "Bwahhhhaaaaaaa~!" "Larissa, dear... mind's got twisted. Fetch medicine." It was. Literally. The worst!!!!