The Striped Filly Ch. 04

This is a short work of erotic fiction containing furry, or anthropomorphic, characters, which are animals that either demonstrate human intelligence or walk on two legs, for the purposes of these tales. It is a thriving and growing fandom in which creators are prevalent in art and writing especially.

****

The Striped Filly

Flying Changes

Chapter Four

When Christian woke the next morning, something was very wrong.

Sitting up slowly in his double bed, he swung his legs cautiously over the edge of the mattress, ignoring its creak. Anxiety trembled through his stomach, snakes tying themselves into knots in the depths of his belly. He thumbed over the darker, thicker hair on the back of his hand, bare chest rising and falling rapidly. The hair spread down his chest too, darkening his skin as if he had been painted in his sleep, something itching at the base of his spine.

It almost looked like...no. He balked, leaping up and stumbling over his own feet. Cracking one into the bed frame, he swore and hopped on one foot, pulling the other up as if he could soothe the pain away with the mere act of cradling it.

But something was wrong there too. Pulling his foot away from his body, he gaped at the toes that had fused together in his sleep, in the process of forming something that looked all too familiar. His heart drummed viciously and he rolled through the wave of nausea. It wasn't quite a hoof, but it was certainly getting there.

Lunging for the phone on his bedside table, he dialled the number of the only one he could trust with hands that shook so badly that it took him several attempts to get the number correct.

"Anna?"

"Christian?" The zebra yawned down the telephone line. "This is early for you."

"Anna..." He said again, sinking back on the bed with the phone pressed to his ear like a lifeline. "What would you say if I said that I..."

He struggled with the ears as the zebra made concerned noises, huffs and snorts that nudged him into urgency.

"What would you say if I said that I was growing more hair over me..." He swallowed, twisting to look at his back and then down at his chest. "All over my body. It..." He cursed and tried again. "It looks like your coat. Only just one colour. It's hair - a coat of hair!"

He jerked the phone away from his ear as the zebra brayed noisily down the line.

"It's as I thought!"

He could almost see her trotting in circles around her hotel room.

"I'll be right there!"

His brow creased.

"You don't even know where I live."

The zebra snorted and his heart throbbed with longing for her warm breath on his skin.

"You'd best tell me then."

Sometime later, on Anna's insistence, sitting with his back to the wall at the London Feral Research Centre, Christian shifted his buttocks uncomfortably. The fresh protrusion of bone at the base of his spine itched, twitching back and forth in the confines of his jeans as it struggled to situate itself comfortably. The researcher - he could not be called a physician - peered at him, tilted Chris' head back to look into his mouth.

"Hm... Interesting..." He murmured, using a small torch to look right to the back. "I've never seen it happen so quickly before. When did you say you met again?"

He directed his question to Anna, standing beside him with a worried flick in her tail.

"Last week. Wednesday. On his radio show."

"It's not my show," Christian mumbled, wrenching his jaw away. "What the hell is this all about? What the fuck is wrong with me and why am I starting to look like a..."

He couldn't make himself finish the sentence, clamping his jaw shut and folding his arms across his chest. The researcher, who had introduced himself as Louie only moments before laying curious hands on Christian, scratched the stubble on his chin, blue eyes serious.

"It's truly remarkable how quickly the transformation is progressing. How have you felt the last few days, Christian?" Louie spread his arms wide, beaming toothily as if sharing a great secret with Christian. "Come now - tell me everything!"

Christian pressed his lips tightly together. How had he felt? Elated. Giddy. On top of the world. Sickened. Worried. Low.

"I've been fine."

Louie's lips turned down.

"That's not what I meant. You've been with Anna for this time, yes? The last few days."

"Longer than that. Yes." Christian scowled, avoiding Anna's eye. "A few days. I've known her for a few days."

"Then tell me about that. How have you felt during that time?"

Christian sighed, scratching his hand and scowling at the dark hair, shiny under the glaring strip of overhead lighting.

"I really like her...you." He changed his sentence halfway through, directing the utterance at Anna instead, heat searing his cheeks. "We've been on a few dates. Amazing dates."

Louie nodded and made a few notes on a clipboard.

"And would you say that you love Anna?"

Christian's back shot ramrod straight, arms tightening where he had them folded across one another.

"What sort of question is that?" He dodged the point, looking anywhere but at Anna. "I like her, yes...but we haven't been around each other for that long! I don't know! I'm sorry..."

He trailed off, feeling that he should have had a more concrete answer. Who knew if they were in love after a few days or not? He frowned darkly. Love took longer than that. Everyone knew that.

Louie smiled and put his hand on Christian's shoulder.

"Christian, I think you may like Anna a little more than that," he pressed gently. "The transformation doesn't happen just because you've had sex with a feral." He laughed. "We'd have a lot more like you if that was the case! You have to love a feral for the changes to even begin taking root in you. Or at least be a good way towards falling in love. It's a slow process...usually."

Christian ground his teeth, refusing to look at Anna, although he could see the zebra's head held high out of the corner of his eye. His heart pounded, beats irregular as breath clawed through his lungs, each lungful hard-won.

"What...transformation?" He forced out, the words trudging from his lips like the steps of a weary traveller. "What are you talking about?"

Louie nodded at Christian as if the answer should have already been obvious.

"You are not only a human at this point, Christian," Louie said, taking his time as if he was choosing his words very carefully. "You're becoming part-animal and part-human. Haven't you seen the ones walking on two legs? Those that are a cross between feral and human?"

Christian gaped, exchanging a look with the zebra for the first time since the researcher started prodding him. She matched his look of surprise, though the flicker of desire lurking deep in her gaze stirred worry in his soul.

"Walking on what now?"

His head spun and he pressed his fingers to his temples.

"This is too fucking much..."

Anna nudged his shoulder, nuzzling in close for support, although she had no words with which she could comfort him. Louie rested the toe of one shiny shoe on the floor, fingering his tie.

"You'll be glad to know that it's not permanent, but, I'm afraid I must tell you, it can go either way at this point. You've already started down the path."

He paused, studying Christian who put his head in his hands, fingers trembling.

"The transformation could continue until it runs its course... Or you could stop engaging with who is inducing the change in you."

Louie twisted his mouth, speaking as tactfully as he possibly could, but the message was not lost on the pair. Christian's head jerked up, dry lips parted. Anna snorted in his ear, moist breath settling onto his skin.

"You mean it could get worse?"

Chuckling uncomfortably, Louie nodded and Christian raised an eyebrow at the blush blooming on the researcher's pale cheeks. He'd never have expected someone in the sciences to be embarrassed - not like that. But what was there to be embarrassed about? Louie cleared his throat.

"If you continue mating with Anna," Christian flinched from his words, "then, yes, you will continue transforming into a half human and half equine crossbreed. It's part of the genetic makeup of the ferals that allows them to breed more freely." He paused, a shadow passing over his face. "We're still studying it. There's so much we don't know."

Studying his clipboard, Louie prodded the tops of Christian's ears, which sat higher than they had the night before.

"From the looks of it, I think you're going to be a two-legged equine, unless you gain some stripes later on," he mused. "We call them 'anthros'. Anthropomorphised animals. You could say that ferals fall into the same category, but it's simpler to differentiate like this."

He looked at Christian strangely.

"You really must have been living under a rock if you've been here for - what was it, five years? - and not seen an anthro walking around. There's all kinds of them!"

Christian stared at the ground, feet pulled up off the ground and toes pointing down. He could have been a small child again sitting in the doctor's office with his father, waiting to be told whether he had chicken pox or measles. Only, this time, the stakes had been raised. He rubbed his throat, words trapped within as conversation moved on without him.

"Perhaps you have been around more of them since you work at the research centre," Anna suggested.

Louie shrugged.

"Maybe that's right. I'm more used to it. But there are about the city, certainly."

"More in my land," Anna added quietly, looking past him as if seeing more than the clinical room. "It is more common there than it seems to be in your city."

"Makes sense. People are more accepting there - no offence."

Anna bopped him on the arm with her nose, good humour returning to the flick of her tail.

"None taken."

Christian stood abruptly, bag dropping heavily from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow.

"I can't listen to any more of this," he said curtly, tone clipped and short. "You've told me all that I need to know."

Tugging a baseball hat further down over his eyes, he stormed from the side room, slamming the door open with the palms of his hands. It banged off the wall and clipped his shoulder as it swung closed on his heels, yet the pain was a dose of sensation in reality that he welcomed. He didn't have to think about the fact that he was turning into a horse - or a zebra! - if he had that sliver of pain to focus on.

Rubbing his arm, he thudded heavily past the startled lady on the welcome desk, heading for the sliding doors as he made sure the hat covered his now tapered ears. How did it even work? He'd never even heard about it happening? He scowled. Maybe Louie was right and he had been living under a rock this whole time. He had hardly known about ferals before meeting Anna.

Cold sweat ran down his spine. He couldn't let the changes continue: he'd become a horse! What would his friends think? Would he even be able to keep his job? Would he have to go to the research centre? What would people like Todd think? Christian growled mentally, striding into the open space in front of the building with his hands shoved deep into his pockets so no one would see the hair. It didn't help the darkness on his face, though he hoped - feebly - that it could be mistaken for a shadow or the beginnings of a beard.

"Christian! Wait!"

Glancing back, he sighed. He couldn't have expected Anna not to follow. In his haste to get out into the fresh air, he had honestly forgotten about her, if only for a minute. The zebra mare nudged his arm, breath frosting in the cool autumn air.

"Are you okay?" She pushed her head under his arm, but he moved away. "I'm so sorry, I knew this could happen..."

Christian's lips hardened into a tight line.

"You knew?"

Anna balked, shaking her head so violently that her whole body vibrated visibly.

"No!" She backtracked. "At least not like that. Louie - he was right. There has to be something more for a human to even begin transforming into an anthro."

"Like what?" He growled. "What, exactly, has to be there for this so called 'transformation' to happen?"

Anna swallowed, ears drooping. She knew he already knew the answer. And the answer terrified him.

"Love. You heard him say it."

He clamped his jaw shut, something tingling in the corners of his eyes. His anger faded as if torn away on the breeze and he exhaled, chest deflating more and more until he feared he would sink entirely into his oversized coat. Christian held his hat onto his head with one hand, eyeing people up and down the street as they wandered along their way. He pulled his coat tighter around his torso. Did they know his dirty little secret too?

"I need to go home," he sighed, hunching his shoulders against the biting wind. "I've got a lot to think about."

Anna snorted and lowered her head.

"But I'll see you again...won't I?"

She looked so despondent that Christian stroked her ears impulsively, drawing a pleased grunt from her lips.

"Of course," he said in a softer tone. "I only need some time to think...get my head around this. You know?"

"I think I understand."

Christian ran his fingers down her neck, not bothering to hide the longing in his heart as he bid her farewell, if but for a time. The zebra hung her head, whispering words to the paving stones as the wind bristled frostily through her mane.

"I hope I'll see you again, Christian. I really hope I do."

He couldn't bring himself to raise or dash her hope.