Lament of the Slave

Chapter 3: Camping

"Miss Grey, may I have a question?" Scoresby, an old man, sitting on a blanket on the other side of the campfire, asked me.

I hesitated, not ready to talk about myself, about what had happened to me. I still wasn't sure if the merchant could be trusted or if I could expect to end up with a collar around my neck.

"You can," I said with a nod.

It depended on the nature of his question whether I answer him.

"My memory is not what it used to be, but I can't remember a race like yours. You are not a Dwarf, a Gnome, or an Elf. I'll be bold and say you're half-beastmen, but I've never seen anyone like you. Those horns, charming eyes, and beautiful ears, are something I would remember," said the old man.

Yeah, that was something I couldn't hide. Like those of deer, two horns were growing from my forehead at the edge of my hairline. The left one was short, only about ten centimeters long. The right one was about fifteen centimeters long in the middle with a small protuberance. This was the only mutation on my body that was not symmetrical.

My ears were another feature that I could hardly hide. They were the ears of a mammal I had never seen in my life. They were big ears. One ear was almost thirty centimeters long, and when I lowered it, it touched my shoulders. However, their natural position was horizontally tilted somewhat backward.

My eyes were brown all my life, and I was satisfied. It wasn't an eye-catching color, but I didn't mind. Now the irises of my eyes were green with a purple circumference and veins intersecting the green.

Scoresby didn't mention it, but another mutation on my head was my mane. It was the mane of some mammal, different from the one to which my ears belonged to. Not that those ears belonged to anyone before, they were mine, just mutated. My hair was much thicker, firmer, and healthier now. You could say they were what a woman could wish for, right? Almost. They were too thick and bulky. The first weeks after the mutation, was hell for my neck. I suffered from severe neck pain.

When I underwent this mutation, it also had other unexpected side effects. The mutation wasn't limited to my head hair. The madman Frederic Dungreen was eagerly taking notes when he observed me. He explained that this mutation was a combination of my previous one, my ears, and this new one. Therefore, now my eyebrows were thicker than before. My nose's bridge was covered with fine short hair, and my teeth had the features of carnivore's teeth—especially my canines, which were longer and sharper now.

As other mutations followed, especially my tail, smaller changes began to appear on different parts of my body. White hair grew under my collarbones above the sternum between my breasts. Surprisingly, my back remained bare, fur appearing only under the wings on my ass, which was now all covered with it. As is said, thanks to my over a meter and a half long tail. The hair on it were very long, soft to the touch, and large in volume. Thanks to that, my tail looked like something huge, as its diameter with hairs was about eighty centimeters.

My calves were overgrown with hair, but feathers grew around my ankles. On the contrary, my wrists were covered with white fur, elbows with feathers. The small thing was the change of hair in my armpit and lap to fine white fur.

The overall color of my fur was probably affected by the color of my hair. I was a redhead. Most of my fur was the same red color, with the exception of white to light gray spots. Like the ends of my hair, the inside of my ears, the hair between my breasts, my wrists, the top of my tail, and its end. On the contrary, the wings were white to light gray, with red ends.

So I was not surprised that the old man was interested in my race and had never seen it. The race whose members had the same form as me simply did not exist.