Chương 85: Chapter 84 - Pangaea, pt. 1

1 The group moved forward, towards the village. Yellow eyes tracked them from within the homes. The ditch surrounding the village had only a single, thick log acting as a bridge over it. The centaur woman easily walked over it, despite her hooves. The number of homes in the village were less than Atzi expected.

"Are there a bunch of villages like this?" she asked. The centaur woman huffed.

"There are villages throughout the forest. This is our most important one. The prophet of the Forest stays here. To help protect our land." A prophet? That might be bad if they figure out I'm one, too... They finished crossing the makeshift bridge. Towards the center of the village, Atzi saw another new sight. A woman, about six feet tall, covered in powdery fur with two leaves sprouting from her head like ears. Two other, much larger leaves extended from her back like folded wings.

As if she were a cross between a humanoid moth and a pretty plant. Various bugs wiggled in and out of her fur. Yummy. She was looking down at a monkey. It had brown fur and stood as high as the moth woman's knees. There was nothing special about its appearance.

"Eek! Ook ook ook!" The moth woman sighed.

"Fine. Sixteen hundred jars of wine, and no more." The monkey screeched and danced from side to side. Then it rushed towards the ditch, leaped over it, and ran into the trees. Several more monkeys fell from the trees, screeching and running after it.

"... Was she talking to it?" Atzi asked. The moth woman turned to them.

"Welcome!" she greeted before Atzi got a response.

"I'm glad to see you all returned safely. And I see a new one has joined us." She looked at Atzi.

"I am the prophet of the Forest. Tell me, lizard, what is your name?"

"I'm Atzi." She swayed from a combination of nausea and hunger.

"Welcome to our village, Atzi!" The prophet smiled. Then she turned to Oak, and crooked a finger that looked made of wood.

"A moment?"

"Of course." Oak stepped forward. They huddled together and whispered to each other. Atzi would have listened in, if she'd thought she could get away with it. After a minute, the two stopped talking and returned to the group. The prophet addressed Atzi.

"Thank you for the aid you offered to the Forest, and all Pangaeans. The party will begin this evening. You're probably tired and hungry, though. Would you like to rest before then?" Atzi nodded.

"Yeah, um, I'm really hungry." Since she's kind of a bug herself, I wonder if they don't eat bugs here?

"Uh, what kind of things are okay to eat? I don't wanna steal your bugs by accident." The prophet laughed. The noise was like a wind chime.

"Well, just don't eat any off my fur and you'll be fine." For Atzi, the noise was an oasis in this desert of feeling awful. She definitely wanted to eat them off her fur.

"Aha..."

"Daisy, take her to a dugout." For the first time, Atzi saw Daisy look enthusiastic.

"Of course!" She waved Atzi to follow her. Atzi did. It's strange seeing her not look grumpy.

"It's so good to be home!" she shouted the last word.

"I fucking hate it in the city."

"It's... different, yeah." Atzi missed the comforting feel of stone all around her. All the little places to slink and sneak into and hide away. She felt so exposed. They arrived at a particularly large dugout. A pit dug in a dirt mound, covered by a roof of woven thatch. There was a large gap between the roof and dirt, all around the building. Daisy slipped through it. Atzi lazily wiggled her way in, before her clawed feet touched a dirt ramp. Inside, there were a number of haypiles and straw mattresses.

In the center of the room was a smiling woman with fur and face like a cat. She wore a frilly dress made of stitched-together leaves.

"Need a place to rest?" she asked cheerfully. Wow, cats can have big tits? Atzi was too tired and hungry not to stare for a few seconds before blinking and closing her mouth.

"Y-yeah, sleep. Food."

"Pick any bed you want, nobody's using them with the party tonight. Food'll need to wait until it starts, but…" She put a clawed finger to her chin and hummed.

"What village are you from?"

"She's new," Daisy said. Atzi nodded.

"Really? Wow! You must be awfully helpful to be let here, then." She grinned wider.

"I've met lizards before. You eat bugs, right?" Atzi laughed awkwardly.

"It wouldn't have been possible without me…" She realized what she said, of all the people she was responsible for hurting. She felt pain in her throat, and coughed.

"Yeah, I do. Any kinda meat is good, but bugs are the tastiest."

"Then have any you like. Plenty are crawling on the floor and walls." She was right. There were plenty on the floor and walls.

"You don't cook 'em?"

"Cook?" She laughed.

"We only cook for parties."

"Oh." Wow, they're lazy. Hemm cooks every day. Then she blinked and thought, Hope she's doing okay… She walked over to a straw mattress and fell into it, falling asleep in an instant. === Atzi woke up, not of her own accord, but to a lot of shouting, laughter, and music. She groggily opened her eyes. She could see the flickering of flames outside the hut, shadows cast inside from various people. Atzi rolled out of a bed, onto the dirt, before pushing herself up.

The room was entirely empty, so she wandered over to the side and scrambled through the gap. The village was filled to the brim with revelers. Way more than she expected for such a small village, all packed into their own groups, collectively taking up most of the space within the ditch. The sky was halfway between evening and night, but the party glowed with firelight.

Just from where she was, she saw centaurs, satyrs, cat-people, wolf-people, deer-people, a giant lobster-centaur woman that she doubled-taked at, shark-people, and a strange-looking woman with pink scales and antennae sticking out of her head. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Atzi felt she'd wandered into another world. It really hit her, seeing all that. I'm the one normal one among this lot. Besides Cory - where is she?

She squeezed through the crowds, careful to not get herself trampled. She passed a group playing music on fiddles and flutes, what looked like a bunch of people just laying in a pile that everyone gave a wide berth, and a cacophony of grunting noises coming from another dugout. She even stared for a second as she watched what looked like an ordinary bear binge-drinking from a large jar it'd lifted to its head. She looked around for food, but didn't see any.

Finally, she found Cory, happily chatting away with some others Atzi didn't recognize. When Atzi approached, Cory smiled at her. Her eyes looked unfocused.

"You woke up!" She sounded happy to see her. Why did Atzi find that weird?

"You didn't sleep?" Atzi asked.

"I just did some drugs instead." Cory shrugged.

"Great stuff, you should try it."

"Oh." Drugs are sounding like a great idea right now.

"Where?" Cory pointed to a nearby half-log with lots of stuff laid out on it. Cooked meat, sealed jars, and pastes in a variety of colors, spread over leaves. Atzi assumed the pastes were the drugs. It took all her willpower to not just run off to eat immediately.

"So what do I do, just take some? Which one?"

"It matters what you want. The red paste gives you energy, while the yellow makes you calm. Blue connects you to the Forest. Green paste makes you hallucinate. If you end up taking too much, take some purple paste to puke it up. The black paste is- don't take the black paste. Trust me." Atzi liked the sound of the yellow paste. She wanted to be calm. Wanted to not think about things.

"What does connecting to the Forest mean?"

"The goddess. You'd be able to speak to her." That's a bad idea, she might notice I'm a prophet!

"Thanks Cory. I just need to relax right now. Be right back!" Atzi slinked over to the log. She stuffed her face full of meat, until she felt like she ate a little too much, before washing it all down with a jug of wine. After burping, she picked up a leaf with yellow paste on it. She dipped a claw in, brought it to her mouth, and licked it clean. Atzi waited a few seconds to feel relaxed, but felt nothing. It must be because of my swamp dragon blood. I just need more, she reasoned.

She took two more leaves worth and licked both clean. She still didn't feel anything, so she wandered back over to Cory.

"Is it not very stro-" Atzi's body felt like bones were optional. The fire lights of the party seemed to dim, and she began to sway. It felt so good to not think about- about- what was she thinking about? She giggled, and flopped down onto the comfortable dirt. She thought the stars in the sky looked very beautiful. Then someone grabbed her arm and started dragging her. Every time a rock dug into her scales, it felt like a comfortable massage. Between fits of giggling, she managed to ask, "Where are we going?"

She finally blinked enough light into her eyes to notice it was Daisy dragging her along.

"Out of the way," Daisy said. It was the funniest thing Atzi had ever heard.

"I got another one," Daisy said to someone Atzi couldn't see.

"Throw her in the pile," came the response. Atzi felt beautiful wind as she was tossed through the air, before landing atop a pile of fur and scales. She was in a big pile of new friends! Atzi giggled like an idiot in the idiot pile, and her new friends giggled back. At one point, a group started cheering and shouting for reasons Atzi understood perfectly. She shouted "Woohoo!" along with it, because it made sense. - Eventually, Atzi sobered up. Embarrassed, she crawled out of the pile.

Evening had already turned to night, but the party was still going strong. Only a few people had filtered out. She assumed into piles like the one she'd just gotten out of. Overhead, some satyrs had taken to a game of hopping between treehouse roofs, cheered on by a mass of howling monkeys in the branches. I should be looking into what happened in Hasen. The people who pulled off the stuff there must be here right now, she resolved. She looked at the gathered people. She didn't want to think about it.

She wasn't ready for it. Atzi ran back over to the table of pastes. She dipped a claw into a mound of red paste. Can't hurt. What's a little extra energy? She didn't plan to take extra, at least. Not until she knew if it worked or not. After ingesting it, she waited a few minutes. Eventually, she tasted blood, and felt like she could party forever. It felt similar to the time she ate fire gems, but even less controlled. With way more energy than she'd ever had before, she zipped around the party.

She was spun around in impromptu dances as she went, and offered drinks from the Pangaeans as they treated her as one of her own. She joined in songs that managed to sound good even when nobody was good at singing. And there were several people already fucking out in the open. It was normal here, apparently. There were so many people she could talk to and dance with and fuck! Atzi began to understand how they'd brainwashed Cory into loyalty. Cory! She went to find Cory. Atzi found her sat against a tree, eating.

When she saw Atzi, she raised a hand, and said with a mouth full of food, "Hey Atzi! You try some?"

"Yes, yes. Yes, took this much," - she made a wide motion with her claws, "of the red stuff." She laughed until she coughed up blood.

"Wow! That's great! Are you sure you can handle that much? That's a lot."

"I can handle anything!"

"Oh yeah? Alana is arm wrestling right now." Cory gestured to Alana, who was sat on a log. She had a bigger log between her and another, empty log.

"Can you handle that?"

"Yes!" Atzi rushed over. She sat down, claws rapping on the table in constant never-ending energy. Alana held out her hand.

"Ready?" Atzi grabbed it and immediately started trying to push her hand down. Alana slammed Atzi's arm into the table so fast that Atzi flipped sideways through the air, body traveling with the motion. Alana let go, and Atzi slammed onto the ground.

"Fueh!" Alana called after her, "Good try!"

"You're really strong." Atzi laughed.

"It's terrifying!" She laughed some more.

"Thanks! Wanna go again?"

"Okay!" Atzi agreed, incapable of what, for her, normally passed for higher thought.

"I didn't realize you wanted to have sex with me so bad," Alana said as she set up her arm again.

"Huh?" Atzi blinked sixteen times.

"Is that the prize for winning?"

"Yep! Isn't that why you're here?" Atzi spat her poison on the ground, and it began to sizzle.

"I had no idea! Let's go again!"

"Alrighty!" - Atzi flew, soaring overhead what felt like the entire party. She felt like she was getting a lot of practice being airborne, lately. She flapped her arms to no avail, and landed back in the idiot pile.

"Bugeh!" Atzi ran out of the pile without apologising. She darted over to a group of shark people, because it had the pretty shark woman with the eyepatch in it.

"Hi!" she said, interrupting a conversation.

"And then I tore off his legs!" another shark woman announced. Everyone laughed. Atzi laughed, too. People are laughing, therefore I should laugh, she reasoned afterwards. Next to her was the pink-scaled woman, with antennae over her head. Her legs both ended in fins, but she stood on them anyway.

"Hey, hey, how do you breathe on land if you're sharks and a fish? A sorta fish? Are you cold-blooded too? I'm Atzi!" The pretty shark woman with scars and the eyepatch gave a sharp, toothy grin.

"Wow, someone took a lot of red paste. I'm Gene. We're amphibious."

"I did! I ate a lot of it! I'm not amphibious so I just drown in the water, ah-ha-ha. Wanna dance?" Atzi motioned to her pelvis.

"Or anything else?" Gene looked at her. She elbowed another shark girl next to her, who chuckled.

"Something else. Sure. Want me to go drown you in the ocean?"

"Not really! You don't like dancing?"

"Can you even dance?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright… prove it. I have the perfect idea." She pointed to the giant lobster-centaur woman, who was talking to the prophet of the Forest.

"See her?" Atzi nodded rapidly.

"She's huge!"

"If you get her to dance with you, I'll dance with you after." Atzi zipped over to the lobster.

"Hi, I'm Atzi! Do you want to dance?!" The lobster-centaur turned, the force of her legs kicking up dirt as she skittered around. Her carapace was bright blue, and she had four giant claws, two as part of her lower body, and two more at the ends of her humanoid arms. They all clamped around Atzi's limbs, pinning her in place. The lobster woman leaned down and asked, "You want to dance with me?"