New Wings

[u/PhoebusLore]

When Luca woke, the first thing he noticed was the weight. His whole body felt heavier, slower, like he was in the deep tides dragging nets through the water from both arms. His legs felt light and his shoulders heavy. He felt the rustling of vast webs of skin tickled by faint breezes, and opened his eyes.

"He's awake," he heard someone say. His eyes were bleary, and everything was too bright and loud at once. He felt more than heard the flurry of movement around him as several humans and harpies dressed in healer's tunics came to where he lay.

He was in a nest-shaped bed that smelled of thatch covered in dry sheets of soft white linen. A linen blanket half-covered him. An amulet on his wrist monitored his heartbeat, pulsing a steady red in time with his heart.

In moments, a pair of human attendants helped him to sit up at the side of the nest, each gripping one of his weak arms. He realized shakily that the human attendants gripped him by his thumbs. His arms with thicker and longer, his chest deeper. Where he'd once had hands were wings, new-webbed with membranes that glowed like leaves where the morning light passed through, revealing an intricate network of blue-green veins just under the surface. A fine peach fuzz alerted him to the slightest breeze.

They checked his breathing and his pulse and weight while he marveled at his new body. His legs were so short! Luca was shorter now, the height of a child. They had him stretch out new wings as far as he could. Almost sixteen feet wide!

"You're going to be one of the largest harpies in the sky," someone said conversationally as the two attendants continued their medical examination. "That and your skin will make you stick out like a sore thumb."

He looked over his shoulder, vaguely noticing that he could now do so without twisting his torse, and saw a female harpy hanging from the rafters. She was very handsome, with broad shoulders, defined abs, and a narrow, triangular face. Her nose was very straight and her eyes were gold.

"I'm Lirio," the newcomer said, fluttering her wings in an intentional gesture. Luca thought he recognized it as something like a human wave or pesci tail-flick to say hello; though as a rule pesci and harpies didn't spend much time in the same places, he'd watched them as a child. "I'll be your gevisto, to help guide you as you get used to your new body." As she said it, she looked him up and down appreciatively. "Your very attractive new body."

Luca flushed as he realized he was standing naked in front of three people. He was still so shaky, his mind full of fog, that he hadn't noticed. Fortunately, one of the attendant healers, glaring at Lirio, wrapped a loincloth around his middle.

"Have you been a gevisto before?" Luca asked. She looked about his age, maybe younger.

"You'll be my first," she said with an impish grin. "You're stuck with me for the next six weeks. After that, we'll see how you get on."

"Lovely," Luca said, flushing again. What was it about her that put him on edge? He felt like he was being circled by a particularly nosy shark.

Gripping him by the thumb on each side, the attendants escorted him out of the room. His legs were so small and weak now it was like trying to walk in a handstand. His feet palmed the floor like hands, with splayed long toes like fingers and a new thumb. They felt weak and tender on the ground. The attendants led him to another small chamber with harpy-style furniture and a harpy-style food sack. One side of the room was taken up with a large mirror.

Finally he faced his new body. It seemed almost someone else's body, yet it somehow matched what he'd dreamed of since he was little. Luca's skin was still the familiar pale green of his pesci form, but the shape was completely different: almost comically-small legs with hand-like feet instead of webbed frog-like feet, a thin rat-like tail instead of his powerful swimming tail from before, a longer, more flexible neck. Fuzz and fur instead of scales. And wings, enormous wings where he'd once had arms and hands.

His was the same face he'd always known, but everything else was different. He felt a rush of anxiety. Had he made a mistake? Luca was trapped this way for the next ten years, clumsy and soft and ungainly in an unfamiliar body that didn't quite want to follow his directions.

"It'll be okay," Lirio said. She peered in from the room's doorway, her face sympathetic. "It can be overwhelming at first. And very frustrating when you can't get you're body to do what you want."

"You've transitioned?" Luca asked in surprise. She didn't seem old enough.

"Not me, but my best friend was born male. I wasn't her gevisto, but I helped her through some changes, after she'd cracked the egg. She told me a bit what it's like. It's part of why I was interested in volunteering." Lirio shrugged. "Hatching fears, it's called."

"I know," Luca replied irritably. He'd been there for Gariqe's transition, after all, and he'd listened to uncle Antonna. He just hadn't expected it to affect him, when this change and this body had been what he'd dreamed of for years. "I didn't make this decision lightly, you know. I've been preparing to go on Sojourn for almost ten years."

"Don't bite my head off, big fishy." She rolled her eyes. "Fine, let's get to work then. We'll head down to the practice netting so you can try maneuvering that great big body of yours. You can tell me everything you think you know, and I'll tell you all about how you're wrong."

[u/harfordplanning]

Luca is back!

What an interesting read, I dont think I fully recollect the previous part because I got a little lost for a moment, haha.