The Lust of Horns

EROH V

We laughed, and my body ached. I was thankful for his company.

The pain brought me back under. I slept, looped in images of ice while my brother's scream echoed in the distance. After the nightmare ended, there came another. Fine brown hairs sprouted from my flesh and around my face. My muscles rounded and thickened. My eyes blackened to obsidian. And two brown curved horns tore through my forehead, twisting and bending around my ear. It left me with pain ... a pain that flushed down my body, making my muscles scream and bones ache.

Two days later, I was taken out of the mold. It took five elders to carve away the hardened shell. Each white chunk thudded against the floor. When I was freed, I shifted on my right leg then my left, rising to my feet, and wiggling my ... toes? I looked down. I saw the fine cracks and disparities in the floor, but no fleshy digits protruding from my ... these weren't my feet. I lifted my legs and stomped. Any harder and I would've broken through the floorboard. Where did this strength come from? What has replaced my feet? I took a step, identifying the two black marks. Two tracks, not of man, but of beast.

I've grown... hooves

I drew my eyes up my legs. They were large, monstrous things with a coat of brown hair that concealed my flesh. On further inspection, I discovered hills of muscle on my stomach, and mountains of muscle on my chest. Each breast hidden with brown hairs to match my legs. My hands calloused, ugly, three-fingered appendages. I clenched my fingers, as if that's what they were, and felt a new, powerful energy surge up my arm. I needed to break something. And when I swung my arm to my right, it connected, causing the table to collapse into a pile of wood.

Father placed a mirror in my hand. I trembled, unsure if I was afraid of what I'd see. Or if it was the beastly poison coursing through my veins. I lifted the mirror. My mouth dropped as a rough, low note left my throat. The man peering back had a mane of brown hair wrapped around leathery skin. Two long brown bones twisted from his forehead while obsidian black eyes glared into my soul. I lowered my lips, only to find this man do the same.

I raised my left hand, moving across the mirror. My fingers met the bone. They slid down the twisted, rough surface, finding the point below my ear. I tugged. My forehead ached. And I groaned at the pain, causing my head to drum.

My father raised his lips and chuckled with the elders. They'd all experienced the shock of shapening. I shouldn't have been so angry, but the inside of my chest held a fire ready to erupt. And I was ready to tear the heads off of anything that mocked me. The worst part was, I liked this sudden anger. It felt ... rejuvenating.

I gazed around the healing room in the northern part of the temple. Many of the greatest warriors had rested here. And many of the wise elders. Each as young men. It was a small room with windows in the east and west side of the room. I could cover an opening in the roof with thatch if the weather turned bad.

Light could pour through each opening window while the sun arched across the sky. The heat from the sun helped the mold. Incenses burned, giving the air a spicy, floral aroma. And beast catchers hung from the ceiling, made of sticks, beads, and webbed string. White symbols of horned-humans fighting black beasts were on the wall. They were my ancestors. There to protect me, like the beast catchers, from anything trying to enter the room while I was in my weakened state.

"Come," father said, "you must allow your body and the Skin Armour to become as one."

I tried to lift my leg, but my spirit seemed frozen. "I can't move ..."

"That is the Skin Armour." He said, brows dropping to his nose. "If you allow it to, it'll take control of you. It is alive, but it is still weak. You must gain control of it before it takes control of you. You remember what Akabar told you?"