Into a Chimera

The wings, however, may have had their root in his shoulder blades, though they were not the same. A chimera was not a creature designed to appear sweet and wholesome and, as he stretched out through the water, standing on all fours for it felt like a more comfortable position with his head just clipping the waves, his wings demonstrated that. The flesh and bone that had sprouted layered more smoothly down the length of his arms, as if it was being folded into place, though one was more recognisable as a draconian type wing. The spokes sprung out, allowing smooth, rubbery flaps to stretch between them, although it would take him a while to learn how to use them appropriately. With him, Rêver had always been more of an aquatic soul and he closed his eyes briefly, imagining just how it would be to use his wings to pump himself through the water.

The other wing, however, though it was still small and filling out as it grew into place, layered with feathers. It suited the mismatch of his arm on that side as he raised his hand out of the water, turning it over to eye up the pulling of webbing between his "toes." In that way too, he was just like Rêver.

It makes me closer to her.

And that was all he'd ever wanted as lines of muscular power rolled over his hindquarters, his transformation racing smoothly onward now that the major components were all in place. His tail swung, growing slowly out to three feet and beyond, but his feet curled into differently shaped claws: one dragon-like and the other definitely avian -- like his wing on that side. So, it matched up a little but not too much, leaving Rene itching with the growth of the prickling feathers for a double-wing as the waves slapped against his sides. The thick length of tail split, breaking into a shark-like fin while the other side retained a reptilian appearance. Even the feathers prickling at his rump denoted the avian influence winding through him.

He was higher, curled his claws toes, regardless of which foot they were on, into the sand as he held himself firm on the sandbar. With his greater size, his head rising a good two feet above the water as he bulked up and towered in height, his muscular mass caught up. Setting his stance a little further apart, he itched and twitched his nose a little while his pectorals filled the space. It felt like they were taking up more room still so he shifted his forelegs apart even more and tried to allow for it while muscle and flesh smoothed down his neck, giving it an easy headset that made him feel like it cost no effort at all to keep his head raised and forward.

His dragon-like claws extended a little further, though they would become clearer when he was on solid ground again. His head and face drew the most attention as he gurgled through his lips forming into the hard, beak-like protrusion at the end of his face. His teeth moved inside, hidden from view, yet the sharp pinch and pull of them aching into a carnivorous setting bit through him, even if only briefly.

"Gnnghh..."

Rene grunted and Rêver took a couple of steps forward, concerned about how he was dealing with the transformation. Yet it was all down to Rene to hold fast through the moment as warmth swelled within him, allowing him to steady himself, his biceps and triceps filling out nicely with muscle and giving his forelimbs a more chimera-like definition.

His eyesight blurred as his eyes moved apart and a little forward -- no, that was not right. For there were more eyes to come and Rene groaned as his vision cleared, though it was hard to look through all of his eyes at once, as if he didn't quite know what to focus on. His tails swung, one twisting into a smooth fin as the shark-like influences became a little better known on that side.

Both a creature of the sea and the land and the sky, he already was a true chimera as his growing body brought him higher, the sea seeming oddly far away from where he'd begun. He swayed, trying to get a feel for his body and the space it occupied, eyeing up his skin which seemed to be a darker shade than Rêver's.

Although he was wet and his skull grew to mould out into a blockier, more powerful shape for the final touches, a spill of hair moved along his back, from the back of his neck and down a little more, over the point of his hindquarters. He twisted experimentally, feeling out the range of movement he had in him, though was distracted by the pressure around the claws on his avian foot. Even as those grew, sharpening to a deadly point, they felt like they were being shaped and very much as if they were being drawn from inside the point of the toe they lived on.

Rene took a breath, the softer lure of hair, which was an accentuating feature to his understanding, folding softly against his body while he adjusted his stance. His dinosaur tail grew to its full length, sweeping over the surface of the water, and he could have laughed to think how small he had been before. Only when his body was slightly larger than Rêver's did the transformation settle with a ripple and a bubble that felt quite restful inside him, although he couldn't put further words to how he felt about that.

A chimera was power and ease, a creature that belonged everywhere and nowhere. As he swayed, trying to get a sense of how to best use his eyes (for even opening and closing different eyes proved troublesome), Rêver brushed him with her feathered wing, her head held high.

"Come, join me, Rene," she murmured, not needing to raise her voice for him to catch the music of it. "It's time to see who you truly are."

Rêver drew the newly transformed chimera along with her as he moved off the sandbank slowly, floating amongst the waves as they slapped and leapt up against his body. He was dark, definitely black, yet his skin gleamed in the moonlight in a way that human kin simply could not live up to.

He splashed, floundering a little. His limbs didn't seem to go where he wanted them to and his tails struck out behind him wildly, though his natural buoyancy kept him near the surface until he wanted to sink.

"Ah... Rêver..." He gurgled, water entering his mouth as he tried to talk through a warble. "How... How do I..."

Yet there were too many advanced motor functions for Rene to take stock of all at once. Thankfully for the new chimera, Rêver was there for him.

"Settle," she instructed him patiently, showing him how to fan his wings out across the surface of the water to float more easily. "It will come. I cannot imagine changing one form for another..."

It was a fragmented, beautiful form at that too, with no two parts of any chimera being quite the same. Rene swung his head through the surf, too many sensations and stimuli crashing into him.

The waves lapping at him.

The call of seabirds, high above.

His eyes blinking -- all five -- with the central eye fixed open for the moment.

His tails swung, trying to balance himself somewhat "upright" in the water.

Yet he felt like he was being dragged down and bogged down, even though he could not drown, not with Rêver there. She nudged him gently, letting the side of her body rub up sinuously against his. It was enough to calm his pounding heart, just a little.

"Don't overthink it," she breathed gently. "Come now... Let me show you. I'll be with you the whole way."

As always, he trusted her. He would never not trust Rêver. Like his trust, something intangible, it was instinct that would guide him.

He followed Rêver into deeper water still and gasped as he ducked under the waves. However, the water did not flow into his lungs as, briefly, he expected it too, but passed smoothly through his system, allowing him to easily breathe underwater. Yet Rene could not waste time battling back and forth with human and chimera instincts as he pressed onward into what he truly was, ducking under Rene and testing out the limits of his body.

She was a lot quicker than him through the water, showing him the reefs where the waves crashed and the choppier water gave heed to the danger underneath. Small fish flickered, darting in and out, and a shark eyed them up before making a quick right turn and darting sensibly away. Out there, the chimera were most certainly the alpha predators, though neither Rêver nor Rene meant any harm.

Slowly, though it took some time and Rene showing him by example, he learned how to use his body, swimming with his wings and both of his tails, though he could use his legs too if he was going more slowly. Breaching brought a surge of joy to his heart and he practised, many times over, powering up to the surface to burst through into open air in a shatter of droplets, framing his body as Rêver laughed and called to him.

He glanced back at the shore as they swam out of the bay, but that life no longer held any lure for Rene. He ducked under the surface and powered through the water behind the paler chimera, though racing from the complexities of being human with the open water yawning around him was an escape he gladly took for himself.

Catching prey was not particularly easy a task, even with Rêver herding and schooling fish in his direction, though he did his best, snapping and twisting with his massive jaws. When they parted, they revealed sharp lines of fish-catching teeth that were otherwise concealed, though he learned to anticipate and strike where the fish were going to be, rather than where they were at the moment of action. In time, his reactions would become swifter and more agile still.

He had time.

Hours passed, though Rene and Rêver paid no mind to dawn breaking above the surface as they swam through a deep-sea cavern with a glowing reef on the seafloor. It boasted the same bioluminescence that the forest had as sea creatures darted amongst the glowing strands and fans of coral. Rene drew a spellbound breath, soaking it all in as they came to hover in the middle of it all, a school of pinkly glowing fish circling them before deciding they were neither a threat nor a food source.

The pink and purple, with some notes of blue, of the reef, drew his eye, drifting and following the different lines, some glowing pulses rising and fading, nothing ever the same. The sheen of colours glanced off Rêver's skin as she floated there, her tails steadying her body, and he smiled with an open mouth, coming in close to her.

She knew what he wanted, following the language of his body through the water as she let their bellies rub together, though it would be different that time -- different to when Rene had been a human, that was. Rêver purred as he ground up against the small slit that was mostly hidden on her smooth underbelly, close up between her hind legs. Yet, unlike with a typical mammal, it was designed for a chimera to slip inside -- and that required it to be a little further forward, where it would not be too well hidden under the tuck of her tails.

"Rêver..." He rumbled, adoring how she purred and trembled lightly against him. "I want you."

"And we are mates, Rene," she said simply, though the arch and push of her body against him stimulated his prickling skin even more. "Let us be as mates should be."

That was all he needed to know as his slit parted, revealing a long, smooth length of shaft with a tapered tip. Feeling water caressing it was a strange sensation indeed but not one he needed to linger on as they swam very slowly through the water together, barely even needing more than a pump and a flick to their tails to keep them moving over the blissfully glowing reef. It was heaven, all in a way he could never have anticipated.

Yet chimera instinct and need urged Rene on as his length throbbed and he ground increasingly lustfully. In the middle of his forehead as a large, central eye -- again, matching Rêver -- but he couldn't easily control it, as it wanted to stay open all the time. Yet something ached at the back of it as the tip of his cock eased down, finding her slit as Rêver helped him get into position, though Rene was not in any position to pay attention to it.

Not then, but he would.

He slipped inside her as pleasure exploded through him and Rene languished in the moment, letting it all swell. His shaft throbbed and he experimented with his thrusts, though it was more the motion of their bodies, however gentle it was, through the water that let them come together like that, over and over again. Rêver squirmed a little on his member and he arched into her, holding her close with his arms and legs, not knowing where one part of her ended and he began.

It was the best thing he could ever have imagined, the intimacy vastly unlike how it had been when he'd been a human with her. They copulated, making soft, gentle love while the reef watched on, though he slipped in closer and closer to her on a deeper level.

For, as her vent rippled teasingly around his spire, their nervous systems connected, through their central eyes. Those eyes, after all, were not solely for "seeing" as far as chimera were concerned.

He thrust a little harder, gasping as ticklish bubbles streamed from his maw, though there was nothing Rene could do but let it happen. A wash of emotions, love brimming over in the forefront of it all, pushed into him and he realised, with a start, that he was feeling what Rêver was feeling.

In that moment, and so many more to follow, the chimera truly were one soul.

He leaned into it with a throaty warble, ignoring the bubbles floating from his maw, seeking the surface. The female chimera curled into him a little more urgently, her 'saur tail wrapping around his as she trusted him to bear her weight. Yet they did not sink amongst the bioluminescent glow of the reef as they drifted closer to a rock face, revealing another feature of the underground cavern they were within.

However, they were not yet ready to strike for the surface as they made love, her passage closing around him with a tight desire unlike anything he'd ever felt. Closer than they had ever been before, his heart pounded and he tried to send out all his love and passion for her, all his thanks, so Rêver could know just a little of what she meant to him.

That would be easier, in time to filter through, sharing thoughts, memories and emotions as well -- but was not for the moment of lust. Not as he thrust harder, pumping as if to power through the water, though her inner muscles caressed and massaged his member. He didn't really have to thrust when she was doing that, although he twisted and wriggled, a tight pull of desire drawing him on.

He was close and Rêver knew it too, her body bucking instinctively against her lover. Together, they climaxed as if they were spilling over the edge of a waterfall into a blissful freefall, tumbling down together. Rolls of passion and ecstasy powered through them, her vent squeezing his shaft while he spent his seed inside her, with not a single drop escaping. Only time would tell of what would come of them copulating as chimera, yet neither was thinking of that in the moment as they embraced tightly, sharing the shuddering waves of joy.

If he'd thought orgasm was wonderful as a human, it was nothing like climaxing as a chimera, sharing every moment with his partner. He felt her vent close as if it was his own and he ground his hips up against her just to feel Rêver twitch and shudder, bringing another pulse of devout pleasure to the forefront of her mind.

Orgasm would come again for them, though theirs felt short-lived considering the enormity of all that had come to pass between them. They separated slowly, though did not completely let go of one another, as his shaft slid from her vent and back into his body, as if nothing had ever been. A few wispy trails of mixed arousal and semen, however, told the tale of what had happened there.

Rêver turned her head, briefly touching his muzzle with hers. He returned the gesture of affection, his claws linked with hers for a moment before breaking apart.

"Ah, Rene," Rêver bubbled lightly, her voice a little warped underwater, though she otherwise had no issue speaking. "This was always meant to be. Your strong heart and fearless nature were what drew me to you, always."

Rene swung his head back and forth lightly, feeling the light caress of the water against his skin. He didn't think he'd ever quite get used to that.

"Thank you, Rêver," he said slowly, working his tongue around the words, though he had to control how the sounds left his mouth underwater, feeling out what he wanted to say more through what he meant than sound alone. "I wouldn't have been who I am now without you, if you hadn't saved me. Thank you... Thank you for all you've taught me, for all you've shown me."

He nuzzled in against her, letting the tip of his nose caress the line of her throat as she growled faintly.

"I'm most grateful for, however," he added, "you showing me that...yes, hope is possible. This world is so cruel and I needed someone, you, to show me love in it."

Her five red eyes, including the central one, met his and Rene took a breath, water slipping through him as his body filtered out the required oxygen from it, finding it no different, in all truth, from air. With the coral glowing a softer blue and green around them, from where they had swum in their romantic interlude, he wrapped his arms and legs around her, holding her gently to him as she met him halfway, folding her wings into his body too.

It was cuddling...but cuddling softly in a way Rene had never before experienced with water all around them. Soon, they would find a secluded island to rest on and lie on the sand, tracing patterns with their claws, while the smooth lines of their bodies rested against one another. The ocean, however, however they chose to enjoy it, would never lead them wrong. What might did the sea have, after all, even in the stormiest of seas against two chimera?

They didn't need to say a single word more as they let their bodies rest against one another but, with unspoken understanding, they swam up, breaking the surface of the water into the cavern. It dripped with a quiet ambience as the water flickered and rippled, leaving a blue-green glow to glance off the damp walls.

Down there, no one could reach them or even know they were there as they settled down against one another on a soft patch of sand. It seemed like it had been a resting place for other sea creatures at some point, though the chimera would come to see just where they were when they left the cavern and took stock of where it was in the sea, with a secret entrance through the rock back to the surface world. Yet they could rest down there and take leave of the world that had been so very cruel without a sliver of kindness to soften anyone's day.

It would take a while longer, however, for Rene to become fully comfortable with his body, twisting his fluke back and forth lightly as he trialled his control. It was almost strange to him to be out of the water after spending so long in it after transforming, yet walking on land was going to be another test for him.

It was all worth it. For himself, for Rêver and for all that was to come.

They laid their heads down together to dream as they shared their time through their central eyes, linked on a deeper level. The aquatic bioluminescence glanced off them as they let their dreams carry them away, never again to be parted from one another. With Rene's arms softly around Rêver, they slumbered peacefully, her dinosaur tail looped lightly over both of his in turn.

Together, they had the entire world before them.