Mr. Perkins tried to focus, tried to hold his attention to the human parts of the woman he knew and loved. He sighed; it wasn't working. He could try to pretend things weren't there, and for brief moments he could almost convince himself, but an illusion was an illusion, and he'd glimpse a fleshy antenna bobbing in front of her face, or feel the sticky, muscular foot instead of the legs she used to wrap around him, and it would be broken.
His wife looked at him, visibly troubled. "Dear...is it really so bad?" she asked.
He wanted to deny it, wanted to fervently claim that there was nothing wrong with her in his eyes - but was there? Was that true? ...he didn't know. He could look at her face or her torso and recognize his wife, but the rest of her...it was all so strange, but did that make it bad? He didn't want to say yes, it had been awful enough losing her once, when it was only her own panic and self-doubt making her fear rejection...what would he do to her if he did reject her? He couldn't do that...
"I...I don't know," he sighed. "I love you, and I...I want you, honey, it's just...this is all so unfamiliar..."
He waited, butterflies in his stomach, watching for her reaction. Please, God, don't let that have been the wrong thing to say...please...
She nodded solemnly, which did nothing to alleviate his tensions...but at least she didn't seem visibly hurt. "Y-you're right," she whispered. "This is unfamiliar, isn't it? For me, too...so much has changed for both of us..."
He frowned; he hadn't really thought much about what she must be going through. After all, she had disappeared on the first day; as she had told him, when she'd been thrown out of the grocery store, and saw what she'd become, she went straight to Ms. Nagra's, and she'd been living there, separated from her family, for several weeks before his own transformation, let alone their reunion. He must seem as strange to her as she did to him...
...but she wasn't the one shying away. She wasn't the one intimidated by unfamiliarity. He should know better than this...he should be better than this. She was right..."till death do us part." Not just until he got a little uncomfortable...
Gently, she pulled away from him; she didn't look hurt or upset, to his relief. He felt a tug on his skin as her mucous-covered lower body peeled away from him, but he didn't complain. She slid off the bed and onto the floor, took a deep breath, and stood (or what passed for standing) naked before him.
"You're right, honey," she said. "This is unfamiliar...so we have to work through that, don't we? Here I am, Nate. Look at me - all of me. See me as I am now. And let me see you...let's figure out how to love each other as we are, husband."
It took a moment for him to grasp what she was saying, and then he too was off the bed and undressing. He looked at her - tried to look at all of her. At first it was confusion and discomfort to see strange, inhuman parts mixed with the very recognizable features of his wife...it felt like she was diminished by these additions that didn't fit.
...or did they? The more he looked, the more his eyes became accustomed to what he saw...the more he began to see that maybe they did. Not in the way he was used to - if he looked at her foot expecting to see her human legs, it looked misshapen and unnatural - but if he considered her changed body on its own terms...
There was beauty there. The parts fit, flowed naturally into one another. Her foot continued the curve of her back, in a different way than the buttocks it replaced - such lovely things they'd been, especially for her age - but still a bit reminiscent of them, and no less pleasing to the eye, now that the eye knew what to look for. The antennae weren't grotesque outgrowths, they were charming little decorations for her forehead, slightly hypnotic in the way they swayed with her movements and mimicked the actions of her eyebrows...
Oh, this woman, this lovely woman...his wife. Not exactly as she had been, but still clearly herself. How could he have missed that? No, he knew why he had felt that way, but he had just been looking at it wrong. Now...now it was plain as day. And recognizing that, he began to find the differences...tantalizing. He smiled, and he saw her smiling too.
"Dora...you're beautiful," he whispered, stepping closer to her. She beamed, tearing up a little at the corners of her eyes, trembling slightly. This was right...this was what she needed from him. Give her no reason to doubt that he meant that...no reason to doubt herself. He placed a hand on her shoulder...
Something about his touch stirred a fire within her. She nearly shoved him onto the bed, and within moments she lay next to him, kissing him deeply. Then she was on top of him, wrapping her foot around his whole lower body, climbing up him...
...and he didn't mind a bit.
Kimi felt her stomach turn. The way this crazy ghost-woman talked, saying that she was going to be some kind of sacrifice to benefit people a hundred years from now, or something...she couldn't tell if the witch was lying, or if she was actually crazy enough to believe that, and it scared her. Liars and thieves she understood, but what if this ghost-witch was just plain loco? How was she supposed to reason with a crazy person?
For that matter, how was she supposed to do anything? The vines kept their grip on her limbs, and while she could thrash around a bit, she could hardly both lift her own weight against these vines and have enough strength left to break them - even if she wasn't sick. She coughed and hacked rather nastily; being in this position seemed to draw phlegm into her windpipe. Not enough to suffocate her, but plenty enough to be uncomfortable and trigger coughing spasms. Why did she have to be sick? Why now?
Morgana looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and irritation. "Are you ill?" she asked. Fey didn't have diseases! ...did they? Not the spluttering, flesh-and-fluids kind, at any rate...but this was certainly no distemper of the spirit, or disconnect from magical energies.
Kimi scowled, tearing up a bit. In the middle of this, the witch was going to start pretending to be concerned about her!? But perhaps this was her chance; what if she didn't want a weak, sick body? "Yes'm," she stammered. "Been sick ever since I got this body...it's just weak. 's why I wanted t' get out of it..." She put on the best weary smirk she could muster. "'spect it won't be much more good t' you than what you've already got."
Her captor looked at her first with annoyance, then with bemused incredulity. "I beg your pardon," she said, with an elegant little chuckle, "are you trying to bluff me, child? Don't make the mistake of thinking I haven't dealt with your kind before. No, we'll simply have to do something about this...malady...before the spell is cast, that's all."
She turned away before the girl could see her begin to show her displeasure. Delays, delays! If it wasn't for this anomaly, she could be reawoken and active in the new age by now! And just when she'd found her solution, she had to worry about a weakened host body...she could forge ahead, but she wasn't certain that the girl's body would survive that - she wasn't sure that the transference wouldn't be physically demanding, and she didn't know how sick the girl really was. If she was trying to bluff, then obviously she might play it up for the purpose...or she might really be that ill...
Kimi watched helplessly as the witch debated something with herself. She wished she'd never come here...not least because, if the woman was right, and if it was the light that changed her, and not the skunk-thing...dammit, that meant the whole terrible evening was nothing but a useless wild goose chase! She wished she were back with her gang, in her own body. She wished she were...oh hell, she didn't even care! She'd even settle for back in the Indian camp, in this body - just away from here! She didn't want any part of any magic, or conquests that required her to be sacrificed, or anything...she just wanted to get out of here...to go home...
