Niall’s fast footfalls drowned out the other sounds of the forest from his ears, aside from his heartbeats and the rapid, annoyingly-feminine breaths that left his lips. He found himself to have a good deal of stamina, however, so he continued onward as the forest gradually became denser around him the deeper in he ran. He was no slouch in his male body, so being able to run well was nothing new to him, but the feel of this new body was something he hadn’t expected at all. It was so much more limber, his joints moving with unparalleled smoothness and ease.
In spite of that, he soon slowed down to a stop in order to take a look around himself. Leaning against a tree for support, he steadied his breathing as he rubbed the area right below his breasts. They hadn’t been bouncing around wildly as he ran, meaning he had some kind of support for them, though he hadn’t yet built up the courage to check what it was. He appreciated it silently all the same.
“Please be close…” he whispered as he wiped his forehead free of sweat. The thought of having to possibly make a huge trek to the nearest town was intimidating, but he tried not to focus on that dreary possibility.
No matter which direction he looked in, there was nothing but more forest around him, but the mere existence of the road was still a good sign. It promised that he’d arrive somewhere *eventually*.
Niall straightened himself out and took a few deep breaths to prepare for more running, but that’s when he heard rustling from the thick bushes opposite of him. He froze instantly while he hoped beyond hope that the sound was created by nothing more than a bird or a rabbit, but that wish was quickly dashed into the dirt. Instead of a small critter, something far larger stepped out from the bushes to stare right at him. Niall blinked, his skin going almost paper-white with a deep stomach-twisting fear.
It was a wolf. The huge dark-furred beast stood in front of him with a hungry look on its face, sniffing at him as if to check that he was indeed edible.
Before the wolf could make that decision, though, Niall’s instincts kicked in and he dashed off with a powerful pounce against the dirt.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” he repeated to himself as his feet carried him forward on the forest path, running faster than he had ever done in his life. This was no escape from an angry convenience store clerk or even from a police officer, this was something that propelled Niall to squeeze every bit of speed out of his muscles if he wanted to live.
Run.
Run!
Run!!
Run!!!
From the commotion behind him, he could tell that the wolf had given chase, dashing over tree roots while it snarled with what seemed like sadistic glee. Niall could feel tears forming in the corners of his eyes as he ran and ran, all of his focus going to more running as a primal fear gripped him.
He could hear the wolf drawing closer, and the thumping of his heart filled his ears with its intensity. The animal would soon catch up to him, he knew it. But that’s when an idea struck him, cleaving its way through all of the panic in his mind to present him with a lifeline. His eyes widened and he darted to a nearby oak before his new claws dug into the bark. “Please please please please please work!” Niall grit his teeth as he used his pre-existing speed to pounce, bringing those same clawed hands further up.
Frantically, his feet kicked against the gnarled bark as he put one hand in front of the other, creating more distance from the ground just when he could feel the wolf catch up. For a brief second, he felt a whoosh of air as the beast’s fangs whiffed past his legs, giving him another boost of motivation to climb further up to leave the wolf behind.
Snarling and angry howls filled the air as the wolf raged against the tree that had saved Niall, and he soon reached a strong branch about twenty feet up. Clambering onto it, the former man’s throat felt as dry as sandpaper and his muscles screamed at him for daring to exert them so much so quickly. But now he could smirk a little as he looked down at the frustrated wolf. “Yeah, fuck you too man,” he grinned briefly, though it melted away soon enough as the massive dose of adrenaline in his veins was dissipating, leaving him aching and breathing heavily for several moments.
Still, he had a new problem. He couldn’t climb back down since the wolf would just chase him again, so he looked around himself once more. The forest was more dense here, so the branches of nearby trees sat right side by side, giving him another idea. “Cats have good balance, don’t they?” he said, but before he could execute his plan, he had to take off his sandals. The damn things were terrible for running and even worse for climbing, so he removed them gladly. In the absence of a backpack, he held the leather straps of the sandals between his sharpened teeth as he began to advance along the branch.
He crawled onto the next branch easily and went forward from there, following the dirt path below as he slowly but steadily made progress. Back on the ground, the wolf watched him for a few moments before it decided to walk off, huffing as it disappeared into the forest. This gave Niall some reprieve, but he continued his trek along the branches just to be on the safe side. It was better to deal with them and the heights than it was to deal with the jaws of a hungry predator.
Continuing like this was slow, and he almost slipped more than once, but his claws came in clutch each time, not to mention his newfound quicker reactions. Roughly half an hour passed like this, hopping from tree to tree before he could finally see something ahead: a wooden palisade. It stood just a few meters away from the treeline and the path led right to it, filling Niall with hope. “Fucking finally!” he smiled, wiped his forehead again and climbed his way to the very edge of the forest.
He studied the palisade for a moment. While he couldn’t see above it from his current position up in the branches of the tree, he noted that it definitely belonged to a village or a town as he could hear plenty of voices from beyond the wooden wall. It continued for a good distance to his left and right sides before curving around the settlement, and he could smell… the sea, he assumed. He knew the scent of water well enough, so that possibly meant he was at a coast. He couldn’t see it from his current point at any rate.
“Now to get back down…” he muttered and glanced down along the trunk of the tree before his eyes again veered to the palisade. Knowing what he did now about his abilities, a small smirk crept to his lips once more as his tail swayed from side to side. All of a sudden, the wall looked awfully climbable. In his mind, he surmised that he could easily hop onto the side of the palisade and climb down from there, sparing him from having to contend with even more branches..
With a distinctly feline little wiggle, his body coiled up before he sprung into the air, arcing right for the wall with his arms outstretched toward it.
But as he sailed across the air, a slow creaking sound reached his ears. The palisade was opening up right where he wanted to land. He’d entirely missed the doors there as they’d blended in with the rest of the wall so well, and now he was careening straight toward the ground. “No no no!” he squeaked just before impact.
*Thud!*
With his feline dexterity, he just about managed to land into a clumsy roll, saving him from broken bones and a bad concussion. The landing still wasn’t exactly graceful, however, as it ended up with him rolling across the ground before he came to a stop on his back.
“Are you okay? We thought you were going to climb down from that tree,” a concerned feminine voice asked. Niall didn’t bother to face its source just yet, as his world was still spinning plenty even now that he’d come to a halt.
“Quite a stunt!” another voice exclaimed, audibly masculine and much more amused.
Slowly, a group of people came to surround the dazed Niall. He immediately recognized them all as other cat people thanks to their distinct ears and tails, the colors ranging from brown to black to a beautiful blue-ish hue. Some orange ones were among them, too. Their fashion was similar to his own as well, though not quite as revealing.
“Are you alright, girl?” an older male asked, scratching his temple.
“I’m… fine,” Niall replied with a groan, his eyes fluttering a little as he tried his best to recover.
“Let’s get her to the healer just to make sure. That looked rough,” a young woman then stated. Not even a couple seconds later, Niall found himself being hoisted up carefully by his shoulders by two men.
He didn’t put up any resistance, his body hanging almost limp as he was carried along. “Of course the deity placed me near a cat village,” Niall whispered to himself, sighing as his eyes slowly scanned his surroundings. It was indeed a village, and an idyllic one at that. Wooden, visibly-handcrafted buildings dotted the area and other cat people were milling about, many simply talking to others while some were in the middle of fixing up fishing nets or other items. He’d been correct, however, as the village did sit right next to a large body of water, some fishing boats visible from behind various homes and workshops.
Niall’s sudden appearance had created a bit of a stir by the looks of it, as almost everyone’s eyes were on him, all of them filled with questions. He couldn’t help but feel self-conscious about it all, he’d made himself look like an utter clown.
He was carried into one of the buildings and placed down onto a wooden cot to lay down.
“The healer’s going to be here in a second. Just stay there,” one of the two men said. Niall felt slightly intimidated looking up at him in spite of his kind expression. He had a very powerful build and the shoulders of a linebacker, dwarfing his new size.
“Y-yeah, okay,” Niall nodded timidly. Either the man was a giant or he’d become shorter than he’d expected.
The men left, giving him small waves on their way out while one placed Niall’s sandals near the doorway. Now that he’d had a moment to deal with his dizzy mind, he took a look at his surroundings. The room wasn’t all that special, featuring a bookcase, a large desk with plenty of scrolls, bottles and vials upon it, and then another cot on the opposite end of the room. He hadn’t expected the place to be so unkempt.
The newly-minted cat person took a deep breath, his limbs and back ached from the earlier impact on top of his earlier exertion. He knew for a fact that they’d bruise, if they weren’t doing so already.
Footsteps snapped Niall out of his thoughts and he looked toward the doorway, through which someone soon entered. His eyes widened briefly at the sight.
The stranger turned out to be a girl perhaps slightly older than he was, but her beauty struck him instantly. She had slightly tanned skin, dark brown hair and fur that was a hue darker yet. Icy blue eyes cut through it all with their sheer contrast, which turned to look at Niall. He almost choked on his spit at that moment as his eyes trailed along her off-white tunic and knee-length shorts. “A-are you the healer?” he asked.
“Her daughter, but yes. I can do that job too,” the woman replied with a nod as she walked over to sit on a chair that she scooted over to the cot. “My mother is away right now, so I’ll take care of you if that’s okay?” she smiled, and Niall didn’t doubt her sincerity for even a nanosecond. He just nodded quickly, avoiding taking glances at the girl’s chest. It was at least double the size of his own, and he did his best to silence the odd sensation of envy that sparked in his very core.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The young woman reached over to the table, grabbing a bottle half-full with some kind of reddish honey-like substance. “Good. You are pretty bruised up after all,” she noted as she opened up the cork lid of the bottle with a small *pop*. “You made a flashy entrance there. My name is Katao, by the way. What’s yours?”
The answer almost got stuck in his throat, but he managed a shy “Niall” while his cheeks were aflame with a pink blush.
Katao’s expression turned into slight confusion. Niall wasn’t a catfolk name. “Which clan are you from?” she asked.
“I-I don’t know. I’m from Denver,” he answered, fidgeting with his fingers after he’d sat up, now a little closer to eye level with the girl.
“And where is that?”
Niall could tell that he’d weirded the girl out. *“Of course she wouldn’t know where the hell Denver is, you moron!”* he berated himself in his head. “In the United States,” he cringed with the reply, knowing he was digging himself a deeper hole that he’d have a hard time answering his way out of.
By now, Katao was staring at him like he’d just waltzed in with an extra head on his shoulders. She cleared her throat briefly, as if to try and dispel the awkwardness in the air. “You really did bump your head hard. How many fingers am I holding up?” She held her hand out at him, four fingers held up in turn.
“Four. But I promise I’m telling the truth!” Niall looked desperate now. If he couldn’t convince even a single person of his story, he could be stuck in this place for good, trapped in this annoyingly small girly body. “I’m not even supposed to be a cat girl or whatever, I’m a human and I’m a guy!” His eyes were wide and pleading as he gestured at himself, only for Katao to look even more confused as she wasn’t prepared to deal with a total nutcase.
Niall pointed at the doorway quickly, “You have humans around here somewhere, right?”
“We do,” the girl answered, not looking all too convinced as she began to spread small amounts of the red substance onto his bruised areas. It felt slightly cold and slimy like low-quality sunscreen, but Niall did his best to ignore it.
“How’d you get here from that ‘Denver’ place then?” Katao asked.
“That’s the fucking annoying part!” he exclaimed, raising his hands above his head with an angry, exasperated swing. “Your god duped me and dropped me here in this damn body. He *tricked* me!”
Katao’s brow raised at this. “Two-Tails tricked you?”
“Yeah, that fucker! Why’d they have to turn me into a girl, huh?” For the healer girl, the embers of very real annoyance burning in Niall’s eyes looked frighteningly genuine, making her quiet down for a moment as she fell into deeper thought. She soon stood up and walked over to the cluttered desk, her ears twitching with curiosity.
“I’m not sure about the girl part, but let’s try something,” she said, picking up a palm-sized stone roughly in the shape of a chicken egg from underneath a stack of other items. Its surface was pearlescent, shimmering even in small amounts of light with a slightly eerie glow. Niall tilted his head as the stone was brought over to him. But as soon as it was near him, the stone suddenly began to glow much brighter as if someone was shining a flashlight through it. Katao almost dropped the stone in surprise, fumbling with it briefly before she caught it.
“You weren’t lying!” she held the stone tightly in one hand as she stared at Niall with eyes full of shock.
“I just told you that!” the boy crossed his arms and huffed. “What is that thing? A magical truth detector?”
The stone returned to its normal state as soon as the girl took a couple steps back, but her expression wasn’t any less wild than it was a second ago. “It’s… y-you… by the gods…” she muttered to herself, returning the stone to the table before she approached Niall again, looking him over with much more intrigue this time. It quickly made him feel like he was some kind of valuable item that was being appraised, a feeling that wasn’t all too comfortable. “Could you explain yourself a little?” he asked.
“O-oh right, sorry,” the healer blinked and took a seat. “To be blunt about it, this isn’t the first time someone like you has come to this world. Everyone has thought it to be just a myth, but… here you are.”
It was now Niall’s turn to look shocked, and he looked all around himself, followed by his own body before he again turned to face Katao. “W-when… when did the others come here? How?”
“Hundreds of years ago, maybe thousands. They’re just stories, so no one is truly sure,” came the girl’s answer with an apologetic shrug. “Only the gods can move between realms, so they must have been involved, just like Two-Tails was when they sent you here.” She took a moment to collect her thoughts, glancing out through the doorway before she seemed to realize something and she turned her attention back to Niall. “Actually, why *did* they send you here?”
“Apparently to save my life,” the boy grumbled, arms still crossed even though he knew he would have been dead without the deity’s interference. “I tried to save a cat from being killed, and I might have died if they didn’t pull me away into their damn realm.”
Katao’s expression brightened up at this and she leaned in closer to Niall. “Their realm? What was it like? Tell me!”
Taken aback, he stared back into the girl’s excited eyes as he gathered up an answer. “It was a forest,” he gulped. “A really pretty one.”
“Ah of course!” Katao’s eyes fluttered dreamily while she leaned back in her chair. “So coming here was a reward?”
“I don’t think so,” Niall shook his head, again getting some hair strands in his face that he had to blow off with an annoyed huff. “They said they couldn’t return me home if I wasn’t a cat. And apparently this was the ‘second best thing on offer’,” he made obviously sarcastic quotation marks with his fingers before sticking his tongue out a little in a show of displeasure.
“Ohh right, since you were a human,” Katao nodded in a sagely manner, rubbing her chin.
“Yeah. But why’d they turn me into a girl?”
At that, the healer let out a small giggle. “Honestly, it might have been a prank. They’re known to be mischievous.”
In return, Niall’s face darkened into an angry grimace. “What?! A prank?!”
Immediately, Katao rushed to cover his mouth with her hand. “Not so loud!” she shushed him urgently.
He could only whimper out his response, the anger crumbling away as she saw so close to him now. He couldn’t get past those striking eyes of hers. “Why not?”
“You don’t understand how huge this news is,” she began, leaning away from him again. “If everyone else was to find out where you’re actually from, you’d be chased down by every single magic user in this world. Your body is still suffused with realm-traversal magic, something that only the gods are capable of, and that’s the magic the stone picked up on. People will do anything to get that power for themselves.” Katao’s voice didn’t waver even slightly from its concerned tone, convincing Niall that much more.
“So I’m fucked?” he summarized glumly.
“Only if you’re found out. And I have an idea that’ll help, but I doubt you’ll like it.” There was a definite hint of empathy in Katao’s eyes as she said this, as if the impending suggestion itself could literally cut into Niall like a knife.
“You sound like you’re gonna tell me to feed myself to the wolves out there. What is it?”
“You’ll need a secret identity. Something to blend in with.”
“Like a superhero or something?” Niall guffawed briefly in a sarcastic tone before his expression became a little more neutral. “Right, you probably don’t know what superheroes are. Anyway, why would that be bad?” he raised a brow.
In response, Katao only gestured at Niall’s body, and as soon as he glanced down, he instantly realized the reason for the girl’s initial reaction. He’d almost forgotten about the weight of the breasts on his chest and the feeling of emptiness between his legs, but now that his mind zeroed in on them, it was like the sensations were nails on a chalkboard. “Fuck.”
“Suppose that’s a fair reaction,” Katao noted quietly. “You’re one of the catfolk now, I’m afraid, and there’s no working around that.”
Niall’s shoulders slouched and he pawed at one of his ears, both of which had also become downturned to mirror his mood. “Hiding these things would be a pain, yeah. So I should pretend I’ve always been this way?”
“More or less,” the girl nodded, lacing her fingers together as if she was Niall’s therapist. “Catfolk aren’t uncommon, so we don’t stand out. But you would, if you were to go out there acting like a human.”
“And like a guy,” he added while he again fiddled with his hood nervously.
“And like a guy,” Katao repeated the words in confirmation seconds prior to her voice becoming more confident. “But I can teach you!”
This caused Niall to blink in surprise, and he leaned against the wall at the head of the cot as if he was bracing himself for the weight of the topic. “Teach me how to be a cat person, *and* a girl?”
“Exactly!” There was a bit of excitement in Katao’s eyes now, no matter how neutral she’d tried to be previously. The thought of teaching someone else of the wonders of femininity seemed to thrill her in a way that certainly didn’t have the same effect on Niall. If anything, he shuddered slightly, though he nodded and rubbed his temples. “You’re right, I don’t like that at all. But if the other option is to become some crazy wizard’s power battery… then fine.”
Katao’s eyes glimmered briefly and she smiled. “It won’t be as bad as you think, I promise. I think it’ll be fun, actually! But first off, you need a new name to go by.”
Niall felt like he had just agreed to become his new acquaintance’s dress-up doll. He hoped she wouldn’t take it too far. “Right,” he said, looking at her cautiously.
“How about…” Katao began to think, squinting a little as she seemed to study Niall’s body and features a little more. “...Niaka? It’s not too different from your real name.” She was visibly proud of coming up with the name, and even the look of discomfort that Niall gave her didn’t dampen her mood.
“Niaka, huh?” he sighed and looked down at his paw-hands again. Moments later, he turned his eyes toward her. “Sure, I guess. Don’t expect me to get used to it anytime soon though.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Katao giggled. “Also your bruises should be healed by now. You’re welcome,” she then added with a slightly smug smirk on her lips as she was beginning to like the situation more by the second. Not in a devious or sadistic manner, of course, but Niall would have likely described it as such.
“O-oh?” Niall took a look at his previously-bruised arm, and it turned out that she was right. The pain and the swelling were both gone, as his skin had seemingly absorbed whatever the red goo was. “Uhmm, yeah. Thank you for that, actually.”
“No problem!” the girl patted her own thighs with a bit of glee and stood up while Niall got up onto his feet, feeling energy returning to his muscles in spite of the trepidation he felt. “And… what now?” he asked.
Katao’s tail was swaying from side to side, going against Niall’s own nervous mood with a wave of intrigued anticipation as she nodded for him to follow her. “Now, Niaka, you get to learn all about that new body of yours.”