Ryn of Avonside

I was warm and safe, that’s what I knew, the only thought in my head were those two feelings. Warmth, safety. It was all I cared to know and all I was capable of knowing, my mind was bare and empty. I have no idea how long I was like that, but I didn’t care about the not knowing, I didn’t care about what was before. I couldn’t remember what was before, not really, not on a conscious level.

It’s hard to remember much of anything when you're asleep, after all. I wasn't even aware on a base level of my own name, let alone my life and memories. They were still there though, melding and mixing together in the way that dreams do, picking faces and events almost at random to construct nonsensical narratives.

Slowly though, my mind gathered itself once more, flowing together from the gaseous state it had been in, back to the solid state of full consciousness. My first fully formed thought was this, why is everything so dark? There was a vague orange haze on the inside of my eyelids, but I couldn’t open my eyes, let alone figure out where I was.

I struggled, pushing against the world around me and found it to be liquid, I was immersed completely in some sort of viscous liquid. I panicked, kicking and squirming, my limbs flailing about with the raw strength of terror.

My limbs felt odd though, weaker than I was used to, thinner than I was used to. That counted for my whole body, it just didn’t seem like my body. I couldn’t feel any of the usual features, no body hair as my legs rubbed together inside the liquid, and… oh my god, there was nothing between my legs. I couldn’t feel it when I moved!

I stilled in my struggles, trying to figure out what was wrong with my body. The more I tried to understand what was different, the more confused I became. I needed to get out of the liquid and get a look at myself— something very strange had happened to me.

I pushed and pushed— and after a little effort, found some sort of soft wall to my prison. I pushed against that too. It was tough, resisting my efforts at first, but then in a rush it burst, and I was ejected, the strange, sweet-smelling liquid pouring forth around me as I fell to the ground.

Exhausted by my efforts, I gasped for air— and realised that I hadn’t been breathing inside my prison. Strangeness upon strangeness though, I hadn’t felt like I needed to breathe. I was really tired though, why did it feel like I’d just climbed a cliff or something?

An older woman’s voice startled my eyes open when she spoke, her tone curious. “Well that is strange, what an odd little discrepancy we have here. My memory might be leaving me after all.”

My eyes were so clogged with the gunk that I couldn't actually see the woman who was speaking. Wiping at them, I tried to clear my eyes of the sticky, viscous liquid, but it was a futile effort.

A towel was pushed into my hands.

“Here, use that, dear,” she said somewhat impatiently.

“Thank you,” I murmured, and was almost immediately startled by how my voice sounded. It was higher than I had ever heard it before, and I felt a sudden little burst of happiness. I wished it sounded like that all the time.

As I towelled at my face, the woman continued to speak. “So please do tell me, because I’m questioning my memory here, but you went into the fruit as— well, a man, did you not?”

“What?” I asked, suddenly very confused. Feeling that familiar little spike of sad wrongness, I nodded slowly, “Uh, yeah I’m a guy.” I paused as soon as I was finished replying, frowning now. My voice still wasn’t going back to normal, that was really odd. Could it stay like that please?

I quickly wiped the last of the gunk from my eyes and opened them properly to get a look at who I was talking to. I found a woman standing over me in a brown robe, the bottom of which was covered in dirt and grass stains, like she’d just been gardening when she found me. What was strange was that her hair was a brilliant, metallic white, and her eyes matched the colour. It was eerie.

“My name is Elias,” I said quietly, still in awe of the fact my voice sounded so feminine.

“I imagine that is a male name where you come from, I suggest you find a new one,” she said curtly, giving me a once over again, her eyes running up and down my body.

What was she looking at that was so strange? I mean— Oh. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. Right in front of my face were two breasts, attached to my body. They were small as far as boobs went, but they were definitely boobs. Beyond the boobs was a small, thin waist, followed by frankly enormous hips. Then came the small tuft of… wait, metallic magenta pubic hair? That was odd. My dick was gone, replaced with its opposite reproductive counterpart and surrounded by soft shapely legs.

In short, my body was pretty undeniably feminine. In fact, it looked like it had been wholly replaced. That... explained the voice thing, I guess. I still had my male speech patterns from what I could tell, but I could change that. I’d always been putting them on anyway, which had been… well, an effort.

“Right… I can see why you’d be confused,” I said at last, my tone far calmer than I felt. “This is definitely not the horse I rode in on.”

“You don’t seem bothered by this,” she remarked with a frown.

“This is kinda what I’ve wanted my whole life, so yeah, not bothered,” I shrugged, feeling a wide grin forming.

Seriously, like holy shit, was this a dream? I hugged my arms around my naked torso and felt everything moving so deliciously. My arms were small, no testosterone fuelled muscle on them, the skin so soft despite the goop I was covered in. My boobs were so damn soft— my arms compressed them against my body and I felt my newly remade heart flutter as I felt the much larger nipples.

It was so much, too much all at once. I swear my brain was overloading with the euphoric realisation that somehow, some crazy way, I had been given the body I had always dreamed of. I felt tears beginning to roll down my cheeks as emotion overwhelmed me. I was a girl, I was a girl, I was a girl… I was a girl!

“Oh, an emotional response,” the woman said, taking a step back. “I believe you should save any tears for later, as you are currently still covered in the juices of the magefruit. While it may taste sweet and provide many important nutrients, it is also disgusting. Follow me, I will take you to an area where you may bathe.”

Hold up lady, I was still basking in the wondrous event that was getting rid of my old, gross body. I went to stand up anyway, but before I got anywhere I saw a few shining points in the orange muck around me. It was my family ring, the one that Bray had made! It was surrounded by random metal objects, like a zipper, a weird blob that might've been a tooth filling, and my belt buckle. Reaching down, I scooped the ring up and tried to put it on my finger, but it didn’t have a hope of fitting onto my slender fingers. Bending it wasn’t an option either, I definitely didn’t have the strength.

With the ring clutched in my small hand, I wobbled to my feet and took a step forward, but curiosity turned my head back to see what I had actually fallen out of.

Oh.

Well that made sense, it was a fruit like the one I had found but it was huge— large enough to hold me. It had burst open when I pushed my way out, the flesh of it torn and the inside still half full of the strange sweet smelling goop. Okay yeah, the crazy lady had a point, that was super gross.

I wobbled after the older woman, who was watching me impatiently further down the dirt path. My fruit had been sitting in the middle of what appeared to be a tended grove, although I saw no sign of another fruit like it. Instead the place was bursting with all sorts of wild and strange species.

Some had huge glowing flowers, others were vines that appeared to be climbing a pillar of crystal, or a tree that was entirely translucent. It was a garden of the imagination, because every single plant was one that did not belong in reality, or at least not the reality I was familiar with. The dirt was just dirt though, and I felt it squishing between my pretty, dainty little toes as I walked.

Almost involuntarily, my happiness over this seeming miracle became too much to hold within, and I gave a giggle of delight and took a few skipping steps. Of course, that was a bad idea because I was not at all used to moving in this body, and stumbled into a tree. Oops! Oh well, I was happy, I could stumble around a little.

“Are you coming, or will you continue to frolic directly into the flora?” the older lady grumbled, squinting at me like I was a wayward puppy who’d gotten all muddy while I was playing. Maybe I should roll around in the dirt a little to make that part true?

“Yeah, sorry,” I smiled, her dour attitude doing nothing to dampen the wild euphoria that was carousing around within me.

It wasn’t just happiness though, there was a truly mind boggling number of questions building up. Was this a dream? Where the hell was I? What the hell happened to me? Was Grace okay? That was just to name a few. Seriously, I’d just been schwooped onto a ring world, and then I was schwooped into a fruit. It was like a story from some author in the 1930’s who was getting way too high on whatever drug was cool at the time. The type of story that was considered some sort of strange classic in today’s era and had no fewer than four movie adaptations already released. Wild.

The dirt path merged with a stone one, and then soon enough we were walking towards a large cottage. It was surrounded by a well kept lawn, but none of that was what drew my attention as we left the forest behind. No, it was the sky.

Gone was the ring world, gone were the stars themselves. The sky was a bluish purple in colour, while the sun was a brilliant gold. It was just like the plants in the forest around Avonside, so close to Earth normal, and yet so alarmingly strange at the same time.

“Follow me, you’re not to go inside until you’re clean, I can’t have you tracking magefruit juice and mud through my house,” my guide told me in what I was beginning to suspect was just her usual grumpy tone of voice.

“Yes ma’am,” I chirped, giving her a little mock salute. Squinting and frowning in return, she muttered something under her breath and turned down a side path.

“We’re going to find a bath for you, young woman,” she grumbled, clearly put out by my joyful mood.

Too bad for her, because I felt wonderful. My only worry was that this was all some sort of incredibly vivid dream. Please don’t be an incredibly vivid dream! Wait… did she say mage fruit? Did that mean this was all magic? Oh, I really needed to start asking questions. It was bound to annoy her, but whatever, I wanted answers.