Zecora 3

Zecora quietly walked down the path on her way to meet Amber at their agreed meeting spot.  Zecora was quite nervous, Amber seemed to be an almost terrifyingly advanced master of biology, an alien from the stars.  Zecora didn’t show it the last time that she met with this creature but she was a bit afraid.  Logically she knew that if Amber wanted to harm her then she could have.  Amber even donated some of her own flesh to her and healed her mangled body!

Zecora felt frail, handicapped, weak, vulnerable, inferior.  Zecora was middle aged, healthy and physically active but she never felt so old and frail before.  She felt incredible agony when she was almost killed by that manticore.  She was ready to accept her death peacefully.  But then Amber came and against anything she thought possible, Amber simply regrew and healed her body like her flesh was something that could be easily manipulated and altered.  Also, the way that Amber could change her body’s shape and take different forms was beyond anything she could have imagined before.

Amber healed her while rolling her eyes like it was no big deal but it was extremely jarring to think you are about to die in agony and have your body completely healed in a matter of minutes.  Despite this, she was able to calmly communicate with Amber the amorphous shapeshifter.  Amber was so fantastical that she thought that she was perhaps dreaming.  Zecora shivered as she remembered that day, she forced her trauma down but now it came out a little.  She hoped that she could be a good friend to Amber.  She felt some comfort that this creature was friendly and promised to protect her but she felt like an insect in comparison.  She hoped that Amber wasn’t the type to toss her away if she wasn’t interested.

Zecora was a little jumpy, she flinched at small noises.  This wasn’t like her, she was usually at home in the forest, she was still shaken by the manticore attack.  She silently walked down the path, almost instinctively trying to avoid attention.  It was not well traveled so it had soft grass that made her quiet.  She was able to be alert and hear the sounds of nature as she walked to the meeting spot.  She was just about to arrive, she got here early.  Perhaps she could take some time to meditate while she waited.

CRUNCH.  Zecora flinched.  She heard a violent sounding noise and grimaced as she heard the wet organic sounding noises coming from within the trees.  She was reminded of when the manticore savagely tore through her belly and broke her bones.  Her heart rate jumped, she could feel her heartbeat in her throat.  She heard squishing, slurping, slithering noises.  Then she saw movement in the trees.  She tensed, ready to bolt and sprint home.  Wait a minute, she spotted movement above her and squinted.  It was in the trees, a tentacle slowly slithering as if it was lubricated; they were a familiar tanish colour.  The flesh undulated, making disturbing squishing noises as it contorted, bulging with some kind of liquid traveling down its length.  Zecora was transfixed with horror but she quickly realized after seeing the texture of the tentacle’s skin and the veins.  This had to be Amber!

Zecora let out a breath of relief and almost laughed.  Tears escaped her eyes as she smiled.  The tentacle suddenly froze mid undulation, a disturbing display of muscular control.  Several alien eyestalks that also bore resemblance to Amber’s eye color and mysterious alien lava lamp irises poked through the leaves down at her.  Zecora quickly rubbed the tears away with her foreleg, trying to hide her embarrassing fear from her new friend.  Zecora walked forward and peered up into the trees.  Then she saw more of Amber’s otherworldly body, curiosity about her alien friend quickly overtook her fear.  Her eyes and the color of her skins were the only things that resembled the pony that she had met yesterday.  Huge muscular tentacles were curled around branches, they were veiny and smooth.  They were somewhat ugly but they weren’t meant for beauty, they were meant for frightening strength and flexibility.  Zecora sensed that Amber was perhaps experiencing some embarrassment or nervousness because she saw how the tentacles tensed, the branches they were curled around creaked and groaned at the powerful muscles squeezing them.

Zecora continued looking around, the tentacles seemed to fuse together into a vague central mass.  She noticed that in places where amorphous shapeshifting had recently occurred the skin became more red as if it was hot or stretched.  Places where the muscle was less amorphous and had less active shapeshifting and more conventional muscular mechanics had more tan and brown skin.  Near where she heard the crunching and slurping noises she noticed that the tentacles looked more red and spiky, more violent and dangerous looking.  The tentacles above her unfroze and started to slither once more in an almost panicked attitude but she was interested in what was in front of her.  Several squelching and cracking noises occurred above her.  She glanced upwards but did a double take to the scene in front of her, was that a cloven hoof-?


Amber’s face suddenly filled her vision with an embarrassed toothy grin that was also a grimace.  Her teeth were sharp like a predator and her lava lamp eyes quickly resolved into more natural looking pony irises, round and innocent.  Zecora recoiled in surprise.  Amber’s face fell, “Sorry, sorry!  I didn’t mean to scare you!  You kind of caught me in an awkward spot here.”  Zecora’s heart raced at the sudden appearance of Amber’s pony face, she noticed that Amber’s pony head was attached to a thick and muscular J shaped tentacle neck that snaked down from above to bring Amber’s face right in front of her and coincidentally right between what she was looking at right before.  There was an abrupt transition on her neck from pony fur to smooth and veiny tentacle skin.

It was quite interesting to see the shapeshifter squirm, it seemed that even a tentacle monster could express body language.  It was clear that she was embarrassed about something, Zecora curiously peered around Amber’s head but Amber subtly shifted her head so that it was between Zecora and the origin of the slurping noises.  Amber’s face started sweating, “So, ah, you kind of got here a bit early!  I guess you kind of caught me uh, naked.  I barely had time to change into my face, I wasn’t ready with my whole pony body yet.  I never really understood why Anon wanted privacy when he changed clothes but now I think I get it.  Do you mind going around the corner while I change back-”

Amber was interrupted by Zecora placing her hoof under Amber’s chin, closing her mouth.  Amber looked a bit surprised with widened eyes.  “It’s okay, Amber.  I know you’re a natural predator and you don’t have to hide it from me in embarrassment.  I’m a natural herbivore, being descended from prey animals, it’s natural for me to be a bit uncomfortable with predators but I’m a zebra, a sapient species.  I’m capable of overcoming my instincts with reason.  I trust you.  Moreso, I’m curious about you and I won’t judge you for eating animals so long as you keep the balance of the ecosystem in mind and don’t eat sapients.”

Amber drooped slightly.  “So you figured me out that quickly?  I guess I’m embarrassed to show you that side of me.  I’m sure you saw some of it when I devoured that manticore.  I was kind of hoping that you were too dazed to really notice what happened.  I enjoy it, Zecora, eating flesh gives me joy, it gives me the energy to shapeshift easily and gives me a heightened feeling of strength and flexibility.  But it feels almost wrong to show this to you.  You’re-”

“An herbivore?  A cripple, compared to your amazing abilities?”  Amber cringed with embarrassment but Zecora smiled.  Then she sat on her haunches and wrapped her forelegs around Amber’s head, hugging the crook of her strange J shaped tentacle neck.  She brought Amber’s head next to her own and closed her eyes as she hugged Amber, nuzzling their furry faces together slightly.  “You shouldn’t be embarrassed about who you are, you are very special.” Zecora released the hug and Amber's head hovered in front of her, Amber’s cheeks tinged slightly with embarrassment.  “You said that your mind merged with a pony’s giving you a pony-like personality?  Maybe you aren’t special where you came from in a galaxy of advanced biology but here you’re unique and I want to get to know you better.  One thing I really enjoy doing is discovering new herbs and their magical properties.  I know countless ways of making powerful magical potions, and ponies will even pay a lot of bits to have them!  It’s a joy to me, perhaps even as satisfying as eating an animal is to you!”  Zecora’s face fell.  “Besides my intricate knowledge of potion making, there’s a good reason why potions are expensive.  It’s dangerous to try and find some of the ingredients.  But now that I have you here, perhaps we could even be business partners!  I could even pay you a healthy portion if you want to do it regularly.”

Amber sighed, she never had an understanding and accepting friend like Zecora before.  She had to disable the tear ducts before she got teary eyed.  “I would love that, Zecora.  I was kind of afraid that I would scare you if you saw what I truly am.  But it’s not all pleasant, when I hunt I can be violent and when I eat, it can get gory.  I’m afraid of revealing that all to you.  Worse, I relish it, Zecora.  I love to taste and feel the warm and wet flesh, fuse my flesh to my prey and absorb them.  There is no doubt that I was meant to be a monster with these monstrous instincts, I feel pleasure when I kill and eat a helpless animal.”

Zecora stood there, pondering what she was told.  “It’s okay, Amber.  You can choose not to be a monster.  It’s fine to relish your food but treat the animals with respect.  Don’t prolong their suffering.  Don’t eat too much of one species or you might damage the balance.  I can help you to do it properly so that when you harvest energy from the forest you don’t destroy the diversity and strength of the ecosystem.”

Amber looked impressed, “Before you mentioned that, I didn’t really think about that kind of thing.  I did notice that if I ate too many of the same animal then later other animals would die or a certain type of plant would take over.  I didn’t really notice the connection until now.  If you can help me with that then perhaps I won’t have to travel as much to find food.”  Amber looked at Zecora and sighed.  “Well, I guess you want to see what I’ve been hiding.”  Amber finally shifted her face out of the way so that Zecora could see the hooves and hind legs of the deer but she hesitated.  “It’s kind of an unpleasant thing, are you sure you want to see?”

Zecora hid her fear and hesitation but she was also genuinely curious.  This is how she would prove to Amber that she accepted her.  “Yes Amber.  I’m ready.”

Amber raised her head and slithered like a snake through the branches.  Zecora followed on the ground and rounded the tree to see an eldritch scene.  A very large and thick tentacle was fused to the deer’s neck.  The deer’s head was completely gone and instead the flesh of the tentacle was fused to the deer’s neck, a continuous fusion of skin and continuous blood vessels.  Deer fur ended on the skin and turned into veiny tentacle flesh.  The rest of the deer looked somewhat normal but Zecora noticed that sometimes she could see something slithering under the skin.  Zecora was fascinated at how Amber’s tentacle had so seamlessly fused to the animal.  There was no spilled blood and her tentacle seemed to even share blood vessels with the animal.

Amber’s head slid down from the branches along with two small tentacles that she could use for gestures.  “As you can see, I usually go for the head first so that they die quickly.  Sometimes I do it so quickly that the animal has no time to feel anything.  I don’t usually eat and digest animals in the conventional way with a stomach unless it was a particularly messy catch.  Instead I assimilate.  I fuse my flesh to the animal and convert their cells to more of my own.  Then I usually liquify their insides, organs, bones and other things and slurp them up without even spilling a drop of blood!  Handy, huh?  Assimilation is much more efficient.  I am able to infect and convert their cells in a viral manner with some super advanced nanoscale enzyme things.  It allows me to gain more cells and biomass without having to dissolve and rebuild cells like predators usually do with stomachs.  Such a process is super inefficient by comparison, I’m able to extract a much larger percentage of energy this way.  You interrupted me so I kind of stopped halfway but I’ll finish up here.”

Suddenly the cracking, squishing, slurping, squelching noises continued and the animal’s skin deflated like some kind of wrinkled balloon.  The liquified flesh was sucked into the huge tentacle, the tentacle undulated as the slurped flesh traveled down its length towards the central mass.  “My enzymes have had their time to do their work while we talked, so I can just, ah, slurp the deer up real quick.”  Soon even the skin started to fold into itself and was sucked into the tentacle.  Then the tentacle closed up on its end, a pseudopod tendril once more.  There was no trace left of the deer.  Amber shivered in pleasure as new biomass entered her body.  Her tentacles got a bit thicker.

Zecora watched with wonder.  “Amazing,” she whispered.  She looked at Amber in the face again, Amber looked worried.  “I must admit that it was a strange thing to witness.  But I trust you and know you mean me no harm.  So I’ll let you be and raise no alarm.”

Amber laughed, “Back to rhyming are we?”

Zecora smiled, “Maybe a little bit but perhaps not.  It’s simply easier to talk normally.”

Amber sighed, “Well let me get changed and we’ll go get your herbs.  I’m a bit excited to see what magic potions can do.  I’m sure my ancestors would have been terrified of magic.  It’s a force they are not familiar with.  Also, starting a business with you could get me more pocket change.”

Zecora laughed, “What could an eldritch creature like you need with pocket change?”

Amber winked, “You’ll see!”

Zecora grinned and before she could think too much about it she asked, “Mind if I watch you transform?”

Amber looked at her with hooded eyes.  She imagined this is what Anon would feel like if she asked to watch him change clothes.  She raised the tips of her two tentacles up in a shrug gesture.  “Eh, why the hell not.”