GryphθΔ on Nostr: At last: it was done. All the appointments, procedures, infusions, transfusions and ...
At last: it was done. All the appointments, procedures, infusions, transfusions and other steps. All that was left? To wait.
Day by day, the subtlest changes occurred. Your posture minutely changed to slump more forwards; hair fell out from all over; facial structure rearranging; every day, you noticed more. No one said it would be easy, or pretty. After a manner of weeks, the worst of it began. Itching all over your body as thousands of hair follicles were purposed to a use never originally envisioned. Sleeping was hard these days, any angle you rested was one of pain.
What made it worth it, though, was one morning, waking itching and scratching and at last, the least sense of release. Looking down, you can see the tips of your newly-found talons clawing at your right arm, and there, exposed to the air, were your first feathers, real and true. Still in the blood-feather phase, they were short, stubby, with a highly vascularized and _extremely_ sensitive base. Maybe half a centimeter long, they were nothing to be impressed at, nor were they even a quarter-done growing, but they were _yours_, and no one elses. Your own to preen, to bathe, to ruffle and to beak at. And itch.
Beak at? You startle, shocked, as you raise your fledging talons to your face and feel the sharp, keratinous profile of a bird-of-prey beak instead of a human face and jaw. You give your own talon a nibble to test-- ouch!
You spent that morning cursing, chirping, and scratching yourself all over, developing your technique for preening. Uniquely painful and pleasurable, removing the sheaths from each feather was therapeutic and you felt yourself slipping into a rhythm. Scratch, ruffle, beak, chew, over and over. Growing in fervor, you passionately preened every inch reachable, chewing and chomping on each feather.
Removing yourself from the bed and leaving behind a dandruff-snowstorm of feather-dust, you check the mirror, and for the first time in your life, see the beginnings of a correct reflection.
Day by day, the subtlest changes occurred. Your posture minutely changed to slump more forwards; hair fell out from all over; facial structure rearranging; every day, you noticed more. No one said it would be easy, or pretty. After a manner of weeks, the worst of it began. Itching all over your body as thousands of hair follicles were purposed to a use never originally envisioned. Sleeping was hard these days, any angle you rested was one of pain.
What made it worth it, though, was one morning, waking itching and scratching and at last, the least sense of release. Looking down, you can see the tips of your newly-found talons clawing at your right arm, and there, exposed to the air, were your first feathers, real and true. Still in the blood-feather phase, they were short, stubby, with a highly vascularized and _extremely_ sensitive base. Maybe half a centimeter long, they were nothing to be impressed at, nor were they even a quarter-done growing, but they were _yours_, and no one elses. Your own to preen, to bathe, to ruffle and to beak at. And itch.
Beak at? You startle, shocked, as you raise your fledging talons to your face and feel the sharp, keratinous profile of a bird-of-prey beak instead of a human face and jaw. You give your own talon a nibble to test-- ouch!
You spent that morning cursing, chirping, and scratching yourself all over, developing your technique for preening. Uniquely painful and pleasurable, removing the sheaths from each feather was therapeutic and you felt yourself slipping into a rhythm. Scratch, ruffle, beak, chew, over and over. Growing in fervor, you passionately preened every inch reachable, chewing and chomping on each feather.
Removing yourself from the bed and leaving behind a dandruff-snowstorm of feather-dust, you check the mirror, and for the first time in your life, see the beginnings of a correct reflection.