Everything that happened to me, everything that I’ve been through that landed me in a medieval world, fighting for the fate of righteousness against an evil as dark as Sauron and Hitler put together and having a baby raised on the teachings of Voldemort, all started one sunny morning in a clearing on an alien world, with the sun peeking through the trees, hitting my closed eyelids, and me waking up. This was a serious mistake I would later come to regret.

I sat up, felt the warmth of the sun on my face and the deep, earthy touch of the grass on my skin, and immediately barfed into the dirt, yakking until my stomach emptied and my throat was as dry as the Sahara.

It was only after the barfing was over and I looked down at my hands gripping the grass while promising to every god I could think of that, okay, for real this time, I was going to give up drinking for good (while already wondering in the back of my mind whether it was free margarita night at the Mexican place around the corner or five-dollar martini night at the bar across the street) that I realized something: these weren’t my hands.

There is very little in the English language that could come close to describing what it feels like to feel with your hands, to sense them at the end of your arms, to know without looking that they are where they’ve always been, then to look down and see four, sausage-like, purple monstrosities ending in claws where your fingers should be. That’s a damn shame, because those same words could also be used to describe what it’s like to roll up your sleeves and find these sinewy, well-muscled anacondas with red-gold pelt covering them, and then to raise your hands to your face and trace your fingers over your cheeks and find more fur, as well as a dog-like distended muzzle, then to trace those weird claws over your now-pointed ears and find a whole bouquet of horns sticking out the top of your head like the world’s worst beer helmet has been super-glued to your hair, which I do have personal experience with, but this went way beyond any of my days as a college frat pledge.

Welp, at least I didn’t also have a bra on, with “PROPERTY OF U OF M CAMPUS ENGINEERS” Sharpie’d into the small of my back. Big improvement right there, but that was small consolation to anybody waking up in a completely alien body.

“Oohhhh, Jesus God, what the fuck is this?” I grumbled, looking over my pelt-covered hands like a couple of hairy spiders latched onto my arms. Good God, how?! Just how!? How did a guy go to sleep in his own bed and wake up…wait…what was the last thing I was doing?

My stomach twisted, and I sank to my knees, ready to hurl again. Obviously, whatever was happening to me did not like me thinking right now, definitely one of the worst hangovers I’d ever experienced.

And that’s when it hit me: a hangover. Yes, it had to be! I must have been drinking again, and this was just some fucked-up dream brought on by a few neurons in my brain finally deciding to teach me a lesson for constantly trying to kill them with booze. Yes, of course! That had to be it! Some sort of coma-dream with ultra-feedback! That thought was such a relief I couldn’t help but laugh, starting with a chortle, building to a guffaw, and cutting off before I reached Joker levels of hysteria. A coma! I finally did that thing dad always worried I’d do to myself! I drank myself into a coma!

“Oh, if he were here right now…” I mumbled, though this being a dream and him being real (as far as I knew), that didn’t seem like a terribly distinct possibility.

Gathering myself under this mental protection, I finally took stock of my surroundings. If I was gonna be trapped in coma-land, best to figure out some base rules for reality, make sure I couldn’t noclip through the Earth on accident and fall out the bottom of the map.

I did a quick spin in place, scanning the trees for any sign of civilization. If this was a coma, my mind would crank out something interesting for me to find, right? Unless this was one of those bullshit, boring comas where I spent eternity wondering around a forest where the trees were all my dad’s erect penis while the wind sighs like my mom when she’s disappointed. If that was the case, I hoped whoever was monitoring me up top pulled the plug.

Thankfully, my quick little spin showed me that this was just a normal forest, not a penis in sight, and a quick sniff and listen informed me that the breeze was just a breeze and that the woods smelled like moist dirt and rotting bark instead of the inside of my locker from that time in sixth grade when Darren Michaelson locked me inside (and as a side note, let it be known that if I die suddenly, my last thoughts were likely along the lines of ‘Fuck you, Darren Michaelson, you’re gay’). So all this was good, except I didn’t see much of anything else. Not a Walmart or a McDonalds in sight. Hell, I would have even settled for a Ted Kaczynski-style cabin, if only that’d give me somebody to talk to, even if said somebody was wearing a tinfoil helmet and was convinced the UN wanted his sperm for a clone army. But no. Nothing of the sort.

“Great,” I grumbled. In real life, the best thing to do now would be to sit down and wait for a search party, but judging by the insanity that was my current face, I was pretty far from real life. Odds were, I wouldn’t be spotting rescue choppers or dudes with dogs and flashlights scouring the woods anytime soon. Besides, this being a dream, it’s not like I could starve to death, the IV almost certainly clipped to my arm by now would see to that.

So, figuring one direction was as good as any other, I put one weird, moccasin-clad foot that I had no intention of looking at just yet in front of the other in the direction that looked the least debris-strewn, thus starting my journey towards having the best coma ever.

After everything that happened, all the shit that went down not even a day after leaving that glen, I think it might have been better if I’d just stayed put and starved.

A few hours later, my “dream” theory was really starting to crack under the strain of reality. I never remembered being thirsty in dreams, or so damn hungry! At the rate I was going, even the twigs and branches nestled in the long grass were starting to look good.

That’s when it hit me: what if I was feeling now what my body was going through in real life? What if I didn’t have an IV drip and a team of paramedics looking after my half-dead ass, but instead was still face-up in a puddle of my own puke, baking in the July sun in some unexplored back alleyway somewhere? Shit, if that was the case, I had to hurry up and get my ass in gear, but seeing to it that the dozens of twigs and half-ton of pebbles I’d had to fish out of my moccasins hadn’t woken me up despite how painful they were, I couldn’t imagine what else I could do. Maybe it was the sheer amount of pain that was supposed to get me up? My mind could only cook up so much, maybe if I put myself through a shitload of pain, like maybe if I climbed one of these bigass trees and threw myself off, or maybe if I built a fire and stuck my arm in…

…oh God, I’m cooking! THAT’S MY FUCKING ARM COOKING OH GOD OH JESUS OH GOD NO PLEASE FUCK NO JESUS GOD IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT…

I sank to my knees and retched. My empty stomach only cranked out a few mouthfuls of liquid, thankfully, but that added to the acid taste fermenting in the back of my throat. Jesus, was that…was that a dream within a dream? Was Leonardo Di Caprio actually making us an instruction manual with that movie a few years back, instead of a special effects bonanza doomed to be ignored when Oscar time came around? Whatever that was, I figured it’d be best to avoid anything that might possibly trigger it again, so a fire was definitely out. Maybe I could stab myself with something? Like a sharp stick? That could do the trick. Then again, all this was based on me thinking this was like a normal dream, and if I could fish pebbles out of my shoes and feel them and roll them around in my fingers, then that was probably a shit assumption to make.

Fortunately, something bubbling away in the distance reached my ears. My throat gave a quick clench, reminding me that somewhere and somehow I was dying of thirst, and dream water or not, this shit probably would at least make it hurt a little less. My quiet walk turned into a desperate run as I tried to close the distance between me and whatever hepatitis-infected stream likely ran through this little patch of dreamscape. Bursting through a round of foliage, I came upon it: water. Like, actually clear water, not the muddy crap filled with hypodermic needles and diapers and probably Ebola running out the culvert at the end of my street.

At that moment, I didn’t care that the stuff probably had worms or a million other diseases I hadn’t even heard of, I straight up dunked my head in the stuff and started drawing in, coming up coughing and spitting and drooling long strands of mucus from where it went up my sinuses. I shivered, sneezed, and finally opted to just cup my hands in the stream and guzzle from that. It was so cold that had I owned my regular pair of hands, they would have gone pale white after the first dunking, but the fur coating my weird, purple claws shielded me from the worst of it. The ice-cold water felt like heaven on my aching throat, and soon I’d downed enough of the stuff to even take the edge off the hunger pangs. I rolled over on my back and patted my stomach. I might have been doomed to starve to death in this place, considering my hunting experience consisted of trips to WalMart back home, but at least my thirst was gone for now.

Finally, I paused at seeing my reflection in the near-perfect water. What I saw made my heart give a quick gallop in my chest: the horns towered over my head, punching upwards at least a solid meter. My eyes were beady, brown orbs set back behind the distended muzzle I felt earlier, and my ears perked up in a way that reminded me of one or two nature specials I’d seen during my time in public school. I looked like a weird, anthro version of…an elk? Naw, too big for that, furrier too, I wasn’t an elk. I was something else, something northern, what was it the Canucks had…a…

“A…Caribou?” I realized out loud.

As I sat in my bush, running over my own alien features again and again, I heard the rustle of wings and a loud splash from somewhere upstream. Cocking an eyebrow, I slowly and quietly turned over, ears perked (as in my ears were literally standing up, and let me tell you that is a surreal experience by itself) and swiveling around for the sound again. I picked up another splash, followed by an incredibly effeminate sigh, and my heart jumped into my chest. A person! A lady person! Hopefully, with a cell phone and GPS. And maybe a cooler full of beer. And sandwiches. Italian subs with pepperjack cheese, to be precise. And legs that went all the way up. Hey, can’t blame me for wanting to enjoy my coma, right?

Grinning, I bolted up out of my bush and made my way through the foliage, following the water upstream to where I figured the sound was, never even thinking that whoever this person was, they might mean to do me harm. Kinda naïve on my part, but all I could think about was finding a way back to a place with indoor plumbing and free Wi-Fi.

I was about to go crashing through the last line of foliage like a rhinoceros in the midst of a stampede when a twig stabbed up through the sole of my moccasin, jabbing me right in the pinkie toe. I snarled in pain and dropped to a knee, blinking back tears. Hungry or not, I was not going to appear before this woman crying like a kid who just skinned his knee. So I took a moment and bit my lip, blinking back the tears until the shock was gone and I could stand again. Figuring I could look at the foot later, I wobbled up on two feet and took my time making my way through the woods. I strode up to the last line of brush, most definitely not biting my lip like a little bitch, and cleared the last branch out of the way to gaze upon my salvation. And instantly my heart dropped again, this time making an audible splash in my stomach.

Before me was the most trim, well-toned bottom ever beheld by man. This was the kind of booty you dreamed of as a kid, probably after looking at the younger students in your mom’s yoga class and deciding right then and there that maybe some girls weren’t as icky and cootie-infested as the others. Unable to stop myself, I drank in every curve, every turn of each cheek barely contained in this fine, stretchy cotton, every dimple shown off behind that amazing, multicolored tail…wait, tail?

Holy crap, there was a raggedy, multi-colored tail poking out a hole in this woman’s pants, and before I could think I was hallucinating a rainbow leading to the most well-sculpted booty I’d ever encountered, she stood up, and I realized what my dad meant by me winding up with a horse-faced woman if I didn’t stop drinking.

Again, the muzzle was distended like mine, but more striking was the size of the eyes: these big, purple saucers she had perched just over the muzzle, surrounded by a coat of blue fur. Two big, blue, feathered wings stuck out her back, bizarre as it was, but at least the color scheme was consistent. Speaking of which, she had a pelt that covered her everywhere, even running over her hands, which she ran through her rainbow-colored hair. Mane? I guess a mane was more fitting, since this chick was basically a horse walking around on two hind legs. Well, there was that and a couple other things.

“Damn the torpedoes,” I muttered as she stood up and a decent-sized pair of breasts bounced back at me, barely contained by that tight, stretchy cotton shirt. Definitely not the best I’d seen, but far from the worst. And with the water dribbling down, I could make out every valley, hill, and curve in them, every jiggle they gave with each bounce, even as her eyes darted around and locked with me.

Oh damn, probably shouldn’t have been muttering snide one-liners this close. Now that I’d been caught, I knew my only options were to either scurry off and die in the woods somewhere, or own up and introduce myself as the guy ogling her from the bushes. Based on the wide-eyed look of horror I got the moment we met gazes, both options seemed equally attractive, at least until common sense won through.

Striding out of the bushes, I thought of how best to charm my way out of this situation. Now, given my experience with bar-hopping, I knew I was no slouch with the ladies. At least one or two nights of going home totally blackout drunk had ended the next morning with some decent-looking, totally-not-wookie-like little number curled up beside me, be it in a motel room, my own couch, or under the stairs in the parking garage up by Fifth and Main. Now this was all after I’d been way too drunk to even remember what I’d said to get into that situation by the next morning, but surely sober me could be as much of a playa as drunk me! And since drunk me did have a proven track record, I figured the best thing to do was be as impulsive as possible: I had to stand up, thrust my chest out, and say the first thoughtful thing that came to mind.

“I like your butt!” I screamed instead, honking like a retard.

Granted, this was definitely one of the more autistic moments of my life. Had this been a poorly-lit pub downtown, and she some saucy little number in a tank top boozing it up with the rest of the crowd, I would have slunk away to the other end of the bar to drink away my shame for the rest of the night. Still, I don’t think an appropriate response to a crappy pickup line should be to lunge at me, screaming maniacally with a dagger raised. And yet, here we were, me running through the woods, screaming like a little girl finding a massive spider in the bathroom, her lunging after me with all her strength and a dagger the size of my new forearm raised over her head.

As far as romantic relationships went, this was definitely a rocky start in my book.

The chase wound on through the woods as my pursuer continued to scream at the top of her lungs. However, we were closing in on five minutes since it began and her voice was starting to sound a little bit raggedy around the edges. You know, more than it already did.

Figuring her voice petering out would be the closest I would get to explaining myself, I shouted over my shoulder: “I don’t know what I did to fuck you up, but c’mon! We can talk about this!”

“There’s nothing to talk about, you evil fuck!” She screamed back. Aww, lookit that. She did speak a language besides stabby-stabby-McCrazyBitch, delightful. However, that she was sane and still totally determined to turn me into shish-kabob only made matters worse.

I pumped my alien legs as hard as they would go, which fortunately turned out to be pretty hard. I had to say, whatever gripes this weird, alien-anthro-bird-horse-gay-pride-flag had with whoever I looked like, at least an inability to take care of himself wasn’t one of them. This dude was ripped. Not that I had any illusions that a few extra layers of muscle would really save me from a damned stab wound.

Figuring I should save my breath, I opted to shut up and keep running, the woods whipping by around me, branches and tangles of leaves clawing at my weird feet. I actually figured I was gaining some distance, until I chanced a peek over my shoulder and saw big, blue, and bitchy still just a couple feet behind me. Without even looking winded, damn.

Finally, the sound of burbling drifted to my ears, and my weakening knees almost gave out. The brook! All this damn running and we just circled around right back to where we started!? I’d been I might find a village or someone else who might be able to get this maniac off my tail! But then it hit me: she was obviously real good at running on land, maybe she was just a little crappier at running on water? I was a bit taller than her, so my stride might give me some advantage. And besides, maybe I could swim for it.

I plunged in, slogging along as fast as I could. Confident I had won some time, I turned with a middle finger raised, but my triumphant “fuck you” died in my throat at the sight of big, blue, and bitchy taking to the skies.

Oh right, shit, she had wings. Was hoping she couldn’t actually use those.

Snarling with nearly-manic anger, the blue horsey-lady dove out of the sky, dagger raised, screaming at the top of her lungs. My mind went utterly blank, and that was probably what saved me, because my mind was that of a borderline-alcoholic electrical engineer from Michigan, but my body was some sort of warrior-elk, and he knew when to duck.

I don’t even remember ducking, but suddenly my hands were planted in the mud at the bottom of the creek, and I was coughing and sputtering as I clawed my way back up, forcing myself to my feet just as I heard big blue’s scream of triumph turn into a far less dignified “Woooaahhhhhh…FUCK!” She splashed into the water as a bundle of feathers that flared out everywhere, tensing up and flailing around.

I drank this sight in, then levelled a claw on her as a grin crossed my face. “HA!” I screamed. “And I say again: HA! That’s whatcha get, bitch! That’s whatcha…”

My triumphant victory dance ended abruptly when the wings gave one last spasm, and suddenly went limp, dipping into the water. I gave pause. Of course, my immediate thought was that this was a trick to lure me in, wait until the right moment, then spring up like fucking Jason Voorhees at the end of Friday the Thirteenth. So, keeping my distance, I slowly crept towards her. “Miss Blue Horse-thing?” I asked tentatively. “You okay?”

Silence on her part. An eddy caught the tip of one of her wings and drifted with it, straightening it out. I bit my lip. “Y-you need a…a drink of water?”

I almost face-palmed again, but I still didn’t get any response from her. So upside: she didn’t hear me handling this whole situation like a high school freshman getting to second base for the first time. Downside: that was likely because she was dead.

“Aww, shit,” I moaned as I tromped up to her. Hey, attempted murderer or not, for all I knew, this was a case of mistaken identity. She thought I was some other asshole; she hardly needed to die for that. Besides, if your goal is to get killed by a torch-wielding mob as quickly as possible, introducing yourself to a new world as the guy who murdered a chick in a stream is only a slightly classier method than setting an orphanage on fire, or stabbing a little girl in a wheelchair, or stabbing a little girl in a wheelchair and setting her on fire, then rolling her back to her orphanage.

Splashing up to the body, I felt through the mass of feathers to grab the back of her shirt and haul her up into a sitting position, so at least her face was out of the water. She came up with her mane drenched and water pouring out her mouth and nose, and almost immediately I found the problem: a nice, flat rock just under the water’s surface, with one sharp edge where her face had been. “Great,” I mumbled, peeking over her shoulder (and getting a great view down her soaking-wet shirt at the same time) to find a big, purple bump high up on her forehead, just in front of the temple. I couldn’t help but cringe as I dragged her through the stream, out of the water, towards the shore where I could lay her back.

I pressed my ear up to her mouth…muzzle…whatever, while also jabbing a claw against her neck. I didn’t feel a pulse, but that was probably because I had no clue what I was doing, as I felt her breath wafting shallowly over the tip of my ear. So still breathing, but unconscious, okay, good. My CPR training mostly consisted of episodes of House MD, so I had no clue what the hell I could’ve done if she hadn’t been breathing. Must’ve just knocked her own stupid self out.

I fell back on the shoreline, panting heavily as the adrenaline wore off. Jesus fuck, what was that all about? Probably shouldn’t hang around to find out, I doubted she’d be in any more of a talkative mood when she woke up. I pushed myself up in my muddy, soaked robes, ready to take off for parts unknown, when it hit me: what if it wasn’t just her? What if other assholes were out there, waiting to fuck me up because of how I looked? Shit, it might be as simple as the bigass horns. For all I knew, horns marked you off like a Jew in Nazi Germany. Or a Jew in Soviet Russia. Or a Jew pretty much anywhere in history, really.

Damn. If this chick’s reaction to my face was to immediately try and jam an icepick through it, I’d probably need to know what I was dealing with and just who might have the same reaction. I needed answers, I was obviously playing by a different set of rules here, and coma dream or not, I didn’t wanna find out what happened if you died in anything this vivid. Sounded like it could hurt at the very least, or it might send me deeper into a layer of my own mind, again like that di Caprio movie. But odds were, if she woke up, I’d get much of the same reaction as before. Knocking someone’s pert, blue ass out in a river was not a great way to endear myself to them.

With my resolve steeled, I figured I’d have to do a bit of searching; perhaps she brought something with her that could help me out here? Figuring that was my best bet, I waded upstream until I found a dip in the foliage by the river, marking off what I could assume was her pack. Turning around, I couldn’t help but notice I was only a couple hundred feet from where I’d left my unconscious new friend. For God’s sake, all that running to just wind up where we started…

Grimacing, I knelt by the foliage and pulled out…a chainmail tunic? Yep, a form-fitting bit of chainmail, the sort of thing that would cover her entirely while hugging every curve of her body, every little corner, every little…

“Down boy, bad,” I grumbled, giving my crotch a pat as I tossed the tunic over my shoulder. So, what was this babe, some kinda warrior-horse-bird? I rummaged around, and found gold-plated metal shoulder pads, a chest plate, chainmail sleeves and leggings, and a light sword. Okay, cool, so she was a warrior. Maybe it was as simple as “winged things at war with horned things in this world.” Good ol’ fashioned interracial violence. Glad to know home could still be so close.

Finally, I came upon a little sack, filled with more light, stretchy clothing, and even a few apples. I reached for one, but quickly pulled back with a twinge of guilt. These weren’t my apples, after all, but another twist of hunger from my stomach informed me that dream food or not, it’d be better than nothing. Besides, could a big blue dream warrior technically own anything if they didn’t exist? I thought not, and so scooped the apple up and took a nice, big bite.

Heaven exploded in my mouth. It was the cool graininess of a Golden Delicious, but more with the sugar sweetie goodness of Red Delicious for taste. Hey, I’m from Michigan, of course I know apples. I chomped the whole thing down before I knew what I was doing, no small feat considering the thing was nearly the size of my head. When I’d gorged myself, I let out a contented sigh, and immediately stuffed the remaining apples in the pockets of my robes. Again, she was a construct of a dream-reality, it’s not like she could actually enjoy this shit.

I gathered up the rest of the spare clothes and bundled them up, nodding with satisfaction at the pants I found. I piled in the armor, scooped up the bag and sword in my hand, and waded back to where I’d left sleeping beauty, still resting, her rainbow-colored hair splayed out over her shoulders. Looked pretty cute like that, really, horse face or not. Couldn’t help but smile, even as I turned her over, laced up her spare pair of weird cottony yoga pants, and used them to secure her wrists tightly behind her back.

“Just so you know: yes, this is my kink,” I said, turning her over on her back again. “But that’s not why I’m doing this. I mean, I’m not a perv…much…but I just gotta make sure you don’t go all crazy McStabbyFace again. Plus, I need answers about this place, y’feel me?”

Her only response was to give a contented whinny, followed with a nuzzle into the grass and a smile as her body stretched out, her muscles rippling as she did so, her flat stomach rising and falling peacefully as her breasts rose with each breath…

“Bad boy, bad,” I muttered again, scooping up the pack and sword, walking to the nearest tree, and taking a seat facing her, the sword by my hand. At long last, my stomach full and my thirst slaked, I leaned back. And I waited.

Author's Note

So yeah...this is what's been occupying my time for the past year or so. Didn't intend for it to go down that way, but here we are.