Chapter
1
Yellow eyes.
That was the thing that struck her first when she finally built up the courage to look at her reflection in the pool of water sheltered by a circle of rocks along the stream.
Yellow eyes.
She blinked and stared at them. At her. The eyes were larger than she expected. Nearly the size of Medjool dates with a tapered black line running from top to bottom. A reptilian eye.
She turned her head to one side and looked at her profile. Her hair was a shade of red and brown, it appeared to be close to burgundy. She pulled her hair back over her ear. They were small and recessed more than her human ears had been. Her hair fell back across her cheek.
She tilted her head to the side gazing at the reflection. The skin was dark and shined like well cared for leather. She placed her hand against her cheek and caressed her face. It felt softer than she imagined. She smiled and her teeth shown for the first time between her lips. Well what snakes had for teeth. There were no fangs, but a smooth white ridge along the top and bottom of her mouth that would was probably only useful for smooshing food. She could feel her long tongue inside her mouth and she grew nervous as she extended it out between her teeth. She let out a breath of relief. It wasn’t forked. It looked normal enough. Pink. However she could extend it far enough to reach under her chin.
Across the stream, a pair of eyes studied the snake skinned woman gazing at her reflection in the water and slowly floated towards her. Watching eyes skimmed silently just above the surface until they were just behind the rocks. Those eyes drawn wide open, looked like cloudy green marbles and stubbornly refused to blink.
Splash.
The woman breathed in with a soft hiss, startled by the splash in the water, and unsure what had made it. She glanced nervously around her and saw a long scaled tail rise briefly above the surface and then disappear silently into the dark water. Everything returned to silence by the stream and she thought she was once again alone.
Crack!
A branch snapped behind her and several feet crunched against the dense undergrowth. She ran off to hide before they saw her.
***
Two figures emerging from the dense woods of the Tumbiri forest. Both of them had red panda fur, small white ears and deep set black eyes walked in front. The one at the rear shoved his companion forward. “Where is it Daelik?! We’ve been walking for almost an hour. I think you made it up. Another one of your stories.”
Daelik shook his head, “No. Faraji. I told you it’s just this way. I saw her last night and watched her change form. I’m not lost.”
Another person emerged from the woods. She had a face spattered in black spots that bore a close resemblance to a cheetah. She swung long thin arms and legs as she stepped into the clearing. She snickered, “I’ve heard that before.”
Daelik stopped walking and Faraji nearly ran into him. “This is it. But we have to be careful. She has amazing eyesight.”
Safiya, the half cheetah, scanned the area along the water for any signs of the creature but saw not a living soul. Usually a fresh water source like this stream would be like a beehive with creatures calling out, swimming, drinking and flying overhead, but it was eerily silent which could be a sign of a predator near.
Faraji, who appeared to be a similar creature to the red panda just taller and thicker, smirked, “And how do you know it’s a she?”
Daelik twitched, “I don’t know. It’s the way she moves and her hips. They look very feminine to me.”
Faraji couldn’t resist and ran his paw over Daelik’s head sensually, “Oh I see. You LIKE like her. That’s why you’ve been watching the little thing.”
Daelik had fur so you couldn’t see the skin of his cheeks turn a bright shade of red, but they all knew it was at that moment.
Safiya inquired, “Wait, I thought you said this thing was scaled and dangerous looking? With huge rows of sharp teeth?”
Daelik voice faltered, “It.. she is. But. But only when she’s in crocodile form. She’s a changeling. She turns human when she wants to.”
Faraji whispered sharply, “There!” She pointed a soft brown finger toward the stream at a human woman with smooth fair skin, completely naked, stepping out of the water onto the opposite side. She was facing away so she presumably could not see them looking down towards her.
Daelik grabbed Faraji’s arm and pulled him down behind some bushes. Faraji dropped down behind the two boys.
Faraji snickered, “Well that’s definitely a female. I don’t know any boys with a back side like that!”
The cheetah gave Faraji a damning look, “Do you have to be so..”
She was cutoff by the red panda popping his head up over the top of the bushes. “And she’s gone! Where did she go?”
***
Naleya smelled the three kids from Tumbiri before she saw them on the far bank of the river looking for her. And for the record they didn’t smell exactly what you would call “good”. But as far as she could tell the small furry red one with soft white ears was harmless and she had seen him several times spying on her over the past couple of weeks from the woods. His two friends didn’t look any more threatening than he did, so she wasn’t worried.
What did interest her was the black scaled woman who appeared out of nowhere on the other side of the stream.
She was intrigued.
When the boy and his friends arrived she watched from the water in her crocodile form as the mystery woman dashed upstream a ways and was hiding in a pile of large boulders piled at the bottom of a small waterfall and covered in twisted purple Karoo vines. Naleya would make the acquaintance of the mysterious woman in black in a moment. Right now she wanted to have a little fun with the brats from Tumbiri. Hopefully she could scare them away from the stream where she enjoyed sunning herself and gobbling up fish at her leisure.
Naleya swam underwater, her long crocodile body cutting through the deep cool water of the stream. She closed her eyes and focused on slipping out of her reptile body. A tingling sensation tickled her tail and toes and soon ran down the length of her body. Claws transformed into soft finger tips, tail into a smooth pink pair of legs that she scissored to propel her towards the shore. Her short front legs grew and swelled into long arms and dark green hair cascaded off the top of her head.
She reached the shore and placed her hands and knees against the wet rocks and climbed out of the water and stood up with her back to the young onlookers. She let them get a good look at her as the water dripped off her smooth soft skin. Maybe she knew the boys found her a tiny bit attractive and she enjoyed the attention.
She waited a long moment and then walked past the rocks and up a small hill and dropped down over the other side out of sight.
***
Daelik stood up and searching and finding no sign of her sighed. “She’s gone. We’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Faraji wasn’t deterred, “Screw that. I want to see her up close. I didn’t get to see her milk duds.”
Daelik turned to his older brother and made a sour expression, “What did you say?”
Faraji placed his hands over top of his soft furry chest pretending to cup breasts, “You know. Milk duds.”
Safiya rolled her eyes the color of orange rinds, “You’re disgusting you know that Faraj.”
He shrugged, “Yeah. I get that. Come on.” He strode down the hill towards the stream. “Let’s go find her.”
The cheetah girl shrugged and followed him.
Daelik called after, “Hey wait up!”
***
Naleya climbed over the hill and looked around for a place to hide in wait for the 3 kids. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was so annoyed at them. She just liked her privacy and didn’t want to have to move to avoid the kids paying her visits every day. When it was the one kid it wasn’t so bad, but now it was three. How long before it was a dozen? And honestly, kids can be cruel sometimes. Maybe word spreads and their parents and a bunch of do-gooders come with bows and swords to rid the stream of the crocodile monster. Best to just end it now and send them running home. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Naleya found a place to hide and got down on all four of her human limbs and reversed the metamorphosis turning back into a menacing 10 foot long crocodile and waited.
***
Safiya was a fantastic tracker and found human foot prints in the sandy soil that led over a hill. “This way guys. This is the way she went.” She scrambled over the hill and slid down into a small clearing. The two red pandas chased after her and slid down into the clearing.
“The tracks end here. I can’t tell which way she went.”
Naleya from above the three interlopers spread her jaw wide showing off two rows of deadly sharp teeth and hissed at them loudly.
Daelik screamed loudly, “Aaaaaaaaaaa!”
Safiya fell backwards landing on her hand-paws.
Faraji froze and his eyes flew open wide in fear.
Naleya snapped her jaws closed giving them a vision of their furry limbs and body snapped in her mouth and broken.
But instead of running, Faraji bent down and finding a large rock threw it hard at Naleya striking her between her nose and eyes hard.
Naleya snapped her neck to the side and grunted loudly. It hurt like hell!
Safiya got to her feet and stood beside Faraji, “Looks like we found the monster. You were right Daelik. She’s a nasty thing. Let’s stone her to death and drag her dead body home. Maybe we can turn her into a handbag or some shoes?”
Faraji laughed, “I like the way your thinking Safiya. I think my mom would love a crocodile purse.” He spotted a large solid looking stick and took it in his hand. “I think if we stab her in the eyes she will be easy to kill.”
Naleya had enough. She WAS just going to scare the kids, but she realize things had gotten out of hand and she needed to send a strong message she wasn’t going to be treated like a helpless animal. She scrambled forward towards the big red panda on her short but powerful legs and mouth wide clamped her large deadly maw around his leg and bit down with her incredible jaw force. Bones snapped and blood filled her mouth.
The panda screamed loudly, a blood curdling scream, “EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaAAAAA!”
Daelik ran and slipping used all four of his limbs to get away as fast as possible. Safiya was equally terrified and decided to go with flight instead of fight this time. Faraji was on his own.
***
The snake woman with yellow eyes heard the horrifying scream from across the water and held her breath. Those three teenagers from Tumbiri must have killed that poor defenseless woman.
Then she saw one of the panda kids scrambled and tumble over the hill and run through the water and head back towards the woods. The cheetah faced girl was close behind.
More yelling and loud moaning continued until finally a crocodile appeared at the top of the hill. It’s jaws were smeared with bright red blood. It slowly clambered down the hill and seemed to pause to look in the woman’s direction and then slipped into the water without a sound.
When enough time had passed the snake woman decided she should get away from this place. She quietly left the protection of her rock pile and headed upstream. Hopefully the crocodile or whatever that was would stay where it was and leave her well alone.
After half an hour of climbing over rocks, wading through the stream and occasionally testing out her new claws on the tree trunks of live and fallen trees beside the stream she felt her belly grumble its displeasure at not having any food in it.
She sighed, “I hear ya. Let’s see what we have to eat around here.” The land she was standing on was along the border between the rainforest Tumbiri and Maporomoko, a largely deciduous woodland with a ridiculous number of waterfalls fed by rivers from the north. It was home to a number of species including Halihopes (small antilopes), Thumpits (large rabbits with short round ears) and Sunyisee (wild birds the size of chickens). Any of them would make a fine meal, but there were none she noticed by the stream she was following.
As she explored the area in search of food, Naleya had been keeping a close watch on her from nearby wondering what she was doing and just who she was. She made sure to stay hidden until she felt it right to make herself known.
The black scaled woman crouched down on her long scaled black legs and listened to the environment around her. In no time she became aware of many “options” to grab something to eat. A Poplin, a small yellow bird with red wing tips happened to land on a rock beside her. She held her breath and leaped at it and watched it fly away before she even touched it.
Naleya a short distance away bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.
A sparrel (half squirrel half sparrow) glided down from the tree tops slipping noiselessly over the water near her. The woman leapt up and clapped her hands around it only to open her hands and find two lone strands of gray fir and no sparrel.
Naleya, peering from behind a tree let out a short laugh and then clamped her hand over her mouth and ducked back behind it hoping she didn’t hear her.
The woman swore she heard someone and glanced behind her, but after a minute decided she just heard the water of the stream gurgling or a fish splash in the water.
The woman muttered to herself, “Maybe I need to hunt for game that can’t run away…” She crept into the dense knee high plants that lined the banks of the stream searching for something. She soon found a bush covered in purple berries the size of her thumb. She plucked two hands full of the plump little fruit and poured them in to her mouth. Her sense of taste was different from when she was human and although it tasted like berries there was no sweetness to them or fruitiness. They just tasted wet and juicy.
Naleya watched her devour the Bobo berries she knew well were poisonous and squeezed her eyes closed and pinched the bridge of her nose wishing she hadn’t done that.
Half an hour later the black scaled woman vomited them up. Apparently they were poisonous!
Naleya realized she would have no choice but to save her before she found something really deadly in the woods. Heaven help her if she decided to try eating some of the local mushrooms. They were nearly all poisonous and a few could kill you in seconds. The reason why she had learned how to identify them. The later were handy for poisoning the tips of arrows for her bow.
Now the dark scaled woman’s belly wasn’t just grumbling because it was empty, it was aching because of the berries. This wasn’t going very well. She wiped the bile juices off her lips and crouched down by the stream again to scoop up some water in her dark hands. She drank deeply and her belly instantly felt better. She noticed a silver fish of descent size lazing in shallow water, waving it’s fins to keep itself in one place against the water’s current. She suddenly realized she was surrounded by food. A little gutting and scaling and a fire and she’s have fresh grilled fish for dinner!
She crawled as close as she could to the fish and thrust her hand claws out into it’s body. It darted away easily. She followed and repeated the same approach over and over. She was crouched on a large rock in the middle of the stream surrounded by water on all sides with her back to Naleya.
Naleya waded through the water and crept up behind the mysterious dark scaled woman and waited for her opportunity to introduce herself.
The black scaled woman inched slowly towards a school of half a dozen fish right beneath the rock and moved over them like a passing cloud until…
Naleya leapt on her back and yelled, “Hi!”
The woman immediately lost her balance, black scaled feet flying out from under her and down she crashed into the water. Naleya could do nothing but fall after her.
SPLASH!!!
Naleya lived in the water so getting wet hardly fazed her. But the other woman got to her feet and shook herself off like a cat that would be burned if the water stayed on her too long.
Naleya extended her hand warmly, “Hey! I’m Naleya. Nice to meet you stranger.”
The woman just glared at Naleya and glanced at her hand. Then looked back at her face and long green hair matted to her skin like a wet blanket.. and then noticed she was completely naked and turned her head sharply away. Her face turned red as she looked up at the canopy of leaves overhead and wondered what the hell was up with this girl who just knocked her in the water rudely.
Naleya repeated more clearly, perhaps she didn’t speak the same language, “I’m NAL-E-YA. NICE TO MEEEET YOU.”
The woman put her hand in the air to let Naleya know she heard her, “That’s great Naleya. Nice to meet you to. Now go away.”
Naleya was suddenly around and in front of her. She got right in her face. Big smile. Annoying. “Now that you know who I am. What’s your name? And what is it you were doing there with those fish?”
The woman scaled in black looked to the side avoiding looking right at Naleya’s large breasts. They were hard not to look at when they were anywhere in view. “I don’t have a name. At least not yet. And I’m fishing. And if you don’t mind I need to get back to it.”
Naleya burst into laughter and hugged her belly. She started to cry. “Fishing? Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa…. “
The woman with dark snake skin started getting annoyed. “Hey look it’s my first day…”
“On Acai?”
The woman was simmering mad. “Whether it is or not it’s none of your business. If you’ll excuse me I have to get something to eat.” She began walking north up the stream away from the annoying Naleya.
Naleya ran in her way and threw her hands out at her sides and leaned forward, “Stop! You’ll be dead by the end of the week if I don’t help you.”
The woman stopped and thought about that, “I suppose that’s possible, but I’d rather make my own way without your help. You are very annoying.” Ugh those stupid breasts, look away.
Naleya’s lip curled up briefly, “Yeah. I get that. But wait. Wait. Just let me show you how to catch a fish. And then you can get back to trying every dangerous berry and mushroom and killing yourself. Okay?”
The woman’s belly grumbled firmly. She let out a long sigh and shook her head, “Fine.”
Naleya suddenly smiled brightly and grabbed the woman’s hand, “Here. Let’s go. Class is in session and I’m your teacher.”
The woman muttered, “When I went to school the teachers normally wore clothes.”
Naleya chuckled, “Why on earth would I cover these up? You cover up and hide what embarrasses you. I am not embarrassed. I love myself.”
“Okay, first of all you will never catch a fish with your bare hands. Fish may have tiny brains, but they’re programmed to see movement and swim away from it much faster than your hands can move through the water. You need to hack their system and create an image that doesn’t trip their security system and you need to move as fast as they do. For that you need this.”
She broke a small sapling tree off at the ground and held it out. “Here, do me a favor and use those claws of yours to sharpen one end of this. Strip off the little side branches too.”
The woman nodded and fashioned a very sharp long stick.
Naleya look at the finished instruments and nodded. “Good. Now, let’s go back to that school of fish you were watching and I’ll show you how to do it.”
They quickly speared a dozen fish. They laid out on the rock and the sun reflected off their sparkling scales.
“So now we should gut and scale the fish and start a fire to cook them right?”
Naleya made a sour face, “You want to cook them? You lose all the vitamins. I’m not sure what pink castle you grew up in princess, but out here we don’t have cooks and servants, and fires attract too much attention.” Naleya grabbed a medium sized fish in her hand and placed its head up to the eye into her mouth and bit down sharply.
The black scaled woman turned and felt the urge to vomit.
Naleya talked as she chewed the fish’s head. “va henn haffs va beff fwavah.”
Naleya approached the woman and handed her what remained of the fish with no head. She held it out for her to take and eat.
The woman’s stomach grumbled loudly and she snatched the fish in her long black hands and took a tentative bite of the flesh. Or at least what she could do with her bone ridges in her mouth. At first thought it was disgusting eating raw fish, but the taste of the fresh fish in her mouth, scales and all, was pleasant and she grew to enjoy it. She swallowed. “Mmmm.”
Naleya and the woman sat beside each other on the rock and ate all the fish. The sun was beginning to approach the horizon and the sounds of wildlife around them that reached a peak midday was beginning to sound more relaxed and lazy.
“Thank you.”
Naleya tilted her head curious, “For what girl-with-no-name?”
“For helping me catch the fish this afternoon. You’re the first person I’ve met in Maporomoko. And I appreciate your kindness.”
Naleya chuckled, “Well don’t get your hopes too high. I’ve been known to disappoint just about everyone in my life. That’s part of why I live alone out here.”
There was a pause and the wind blew gently across the two women.
“How was your first day?”
The woman smiled for the first time in her new life. She turned and let Naleya see her smile. “It was pretty good.”
Naleya smiled back and that was the moment their souls touched and they became friends. Maybe a little more than friends.