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five-rivers · 17 days

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Hunger Chapter 2

“Well, if it's the lone star tick, that only makes you allergic to red meat, right?” said Sam.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Danny, staring hard at the plate of chicken nuggets Tucker had just pulled from the microwave. He was also under the impression that the tick thing got you all at once, not gradually if rapidly over the course of a few weeks, with the effects going from thinking meat tasted off, to just ‘not being in the mood’ for it, to actively throwing up upon taking a bite of a hamburger.

He tried to determine if the faint sense of nausea he felt while looking at the chicken was from his memory or, well, from looking at the chicken.

“Cheese was fine,” observed Tucker. “Eggs were fine.”

They had been. Danny picked up a chicken nuggets and tried to ignore how his skin crawled as he did so. Before he could double-guess himself, he popped it into his mouth and swallowed as quickly as possible, hardly even chewing.

His body immediately rebelled.

Luckily, he had a good mental map of Tucker's house, so he was able to dive through the wall and into the bathroom before he started puking his guts out.

“Not the tick, then,” said Tucker, sounding like he was going to barf himself.

“You know,” said Sam, “I'm all for having more vegetarians in the world, but I think you should maybe… see someone about this.”

Danny finished emptying his digestive system and went to the sink to rinse out his mouth.

“Who?” he asked, tone matching the bitter taste. “It's not like I can go see a doctor. Half ghost and all.”

“I know that,” said Sam. “I meant your ghost friend. The one that helped you with your other changes. The freckles and skin color and ghost puberty stuff.”

“Oh,” said Danny. “I don't really want to bother him too much, though.”

And, when he wasn't actively experiencing the need to be eaten, or the disorienting second childhood that came after, he was rather shy about the whole arrangement. Understandably so, he thought.

Sam crossed her arms and stared at him, unimpressed, through the bathroom mirror.

“What happens when this does spread to eggs and cheese? Or fruit? Or vegetables? Would you go see him then?”

Danny grimaced and went ghost, hoping he could get rid of the foul taste in his mouth that way. If anything, it made it worse.

“Whoa! What's that on your back?” asked Tucker, pointing.

Danny looked back at him, alarmed at the tone of voice, then twisted so he could see his back in the mirror. Pushing up on his suit from below were two bumps, just under his shoulder blades. He quickly unzipped and pulled down the top of his suit. It wasn't something stuck on his back. It was part of his back. Two upwards distortions of skin.

“I don't know,” he said. He touched one of the tiny knobs. It was sensitive, though not in a bad way. On the other hand, it didn't really feel like skin. More like… petals, maybe. Soft and silky.

He swallowed. As strange as it may sound, being eaten had removed some of the sense of wrongness Danny had felt about his body since the Accident. But this… this mutation… he didn't know what to do with this.

But maybe Clockwork would.

Half curled in Clockwork's lap, listening to him rhythmically list off things he thought were appetizing, things that Danny could feel his core taking special note of, he didn't know why he'd been so nervous.

When Clockwork finished his list (which included things like statues, silver, gemstones, the smell of lilacs and lilies, chocolate, vanilla, cream, sugar, and the sound of clocks) Danny looked up. “So my wings will bloom… like a flower?”

“They tend to be similar in appearance, yes.”

“And my body will change to be tasty.”

“As you ripen.”

“And then you'll eat me, and that's it? Things will go back to normal?”

“What do you mean by normal?”

“You know. Like it usually is for me.”

“You will have to grow up again, and when you near ripeness, the wings will grow back, but, to some degree, yes.” He paused for a moment, playing with Danny's hair. “Once your wings bloom, you will find yourself compelled to seek out places with high concentrations of ectoplasm, so you can feed. You may also find yourself losing mobility, either from physical changes or psychological pressure. At least, those are all things experienced by other ghosts with this adaptation. I cannot tell you your future, after all.”

Danny wrinkled his nose at the obvious loophole-ing, but pressed on. “To make it easier for someone to find and eat me.”

“Yes.”

“And this will happen again?”

“It may happen more slowly, if you are not under quite so much pressure to improve, but yes.” Clockwork started to braid some of Danny's longer hairs.

“Can I, um, can I come here, when I start to bloom, then?”

“Of course,” said Clockwork. “I believe the garden will be most suitable, should you feel the need to plant yourself, but your bedroom is also available, and you may choose any space you like.”

Danny hummed. “And you'll still eat me?”

“Of course.”

Danny's stomach rumbled, jolting him out of his half-doze and reminding him that he'd thrown up everything he'd eaten today.

He blushed, then blushed harder when he realized that, without his top on, Clockwork could probably see the blush working its way all down Danny's back to the base of his spine.

Clockwork chuckled. “Speaking of eating, growing wings is hungry work. Come.”

Reluctantly, Danny got up and followed Clockwork to the kitchen he had stocked with human things. Danny hadn't thought about it much, but he must have made it especially for Danny, for when he was growing up again after being eaten.

Clockwork reached into the fridge and removed a large, clay jug of something, then a smaller glass bottle full of something red like wine. He examined the bottle for a while. “I could,” he said, after a moment, “accelerate the growth of your wings. Just this once.”

“Why only once?”

“The cycle of consumption and regrowth would become unbalanced if done too frequently. You may eventually wind up growing wings shortly after hatching.”

“Yikes,” said Danny. “Um. I think I'll pass this time and just go at the normal rate.”

Clockwork nodded and put the glass bottle away. Then, from the jug, he poured Danny a cup of what looked a lot like thick paint but smelled so good Danny's mouth was watering before Clockwork even gave it to him. It tasted a lot like a vanilla milkshake, and as soon as he was done drinking it, he fell asleep.

“He says it's normal,” said Danny.

“Really?” said Sam, with all the sarcastic bite a goth teenager could manage, which was a lot.

“The type of ghost I am doesn't eat other ghosts, and since I'm half human, that crosses over to animals. It's not going to get worse, it's just…” He sighed. “A thing.”

“And the stuff on your back?” asked Tucker.

“Same kind of thing. They're like antlers. They'll fall off eventually.”

“Well,” said Sam, when Danny failed to elaborate, “I can at least give you some vegetarian meal recipes.”

Danny found himself eating more sweets. And more cream. A lot more cream, since usually he didn't eat any. He wasn't sure why, since it wasn't like eating those would make him taste like them. Unless it did? Ghost logic was strange, sometimes.

Whatever. It was food. It wasn't like he was eating flowers.

The process of growing wings was both painful and satisfying. Painful, because the growing buds made his back ache in both forms, despite only existing in one. Satisfying, because the bigger they got the less wrong they felt.

Like he was growing back into himself.

Okay, so he was eating flowers. It wasn't like he was eating anyone's jewelry.

He'd thought he'd have to change his jumpsuit to accommodate the wing buds. He didn't. His jumpsuit changed on its own, not stretching, but weaving itself over the buds as they grew. It was like the suit was part of the buds, too, that way.

Even the seams lined up with the edges of the petals.

He booted Johnny Thirteen from the jewelry store, then froze, looking at the display cases. His stomach rumbled a little.

No. Just, no. He wasn't an animal. He had control over himself. He wasn't doing that.

In the dead of the night, he woke from the kind of deep, heavy sleep he only got when he had truly exhausted himself. His core sang with resonance.

With an automatic response that came from being taught it from early childhood twice, Danny rolled out of bed and followed the pull down the stairs and into the basement. He transformed sluggishly, groaning a little as his wing buds came into being. They were still furled, but they had grown long and heavy and while the weight and tension could feel good in some positions, the same tension could stress every muscle in his body if he moved the wrong way.

He flew through the Zone on autopilot, following the resonance all the way home to Long Now. He snuggled into Clockwork's side, seeking the core that had called him.

“Hi,” he said, tiredly. “What's up?”

“Hello, Daniel. Your wings are about to bloom. I thought it best to call you here.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Danny.

“Here, I've set something up for you in the garden.”

“Hm? Why?” asked Danny, letting Clockwork steer him.

“The garden has the best ectoradiation and flow of ectoplasm.”

Those things did sound good…

When they got to the garden, in all its multi-season glory, Clockwork took Danny down a path he'd never noticed before. At the end of it was a cool, pleasant glade, with a small pond and a wooden bench and table. On one side of the pond was the statue of a veiled angel, holding a mirror. Directly opposite the mirror, on the other side of the pond, was a clear space and a a moss-covered rock that was just the right size for a pillow.

Clockwork guided Danny down to kneel by the rock, then to rest his head on it so he was looking at the mirror.

The first thing that Danny noticed was that Clockwork had arranged him in the classic, semi-fetal “baby angel” pose. The second thing was that it was absurdly comfortable, the position perfectly accounting for the weight of his wings.

“I thought you would like to see,” explained Clockwork.

Danny, still only half awake, was about to ask see what when his whole body was seized with acute, anticipatory tension.

The covering of his jupsuit peeled away first, revealing the silver-freckled purple of the outside of his wings. Then, with a sticky, tearing sound, the petals themselves separated, falling open to the sky. There were three for each wing, their insides a dull, clouded green.

He trembled with the sudden influx of energy. He could taste the sky, the wind, the delicate variations of ectoenergy. But none of that energy was available for him. He could feel it being stored away, packed tight and out of reach, a treat for whoever ate him.

He tried to stay awake, but the exertions of his new functions bore him under swiftly. He didn't even remember closing his eyes.

An advantage of his wings senses was that he knew exactly where he was when he woke up. Directly in front of his face was a ladle with a note that said “stay hydrated!” on it, and a plate full of… clock parts?

He picked one up - a small silver plate with emeralds pressed into it - and popped it in his mouth without thinking about it.

The freak out was immediately followed by the rest of the clock parts disappearing.

Danny's jumpsuit was shredded and didn't seem to be reforming like it usually did, so Danny put on the pair of pajama pants that had been left, folded, on the bench. Then, he went to look for Clockwork.

(Stepping inside made his wings droop ever-so-slightly. The environment outside really was better.)

“Thanks for calling me over,” said Danny, floating closer to Clockwork, “and for the, um. Snack. But should probably go back to Amit–” Danny was hit with a massive wave of disorientation. He very much wanted to go home, but at the same time, he was completely certain that was a bad idea. He would have fallen out of the air if Clockwork hadn't steadied him. His core whined, confused, and a very small part of him was pleased to detect a slightly mechanical, ticking note to the noise.

“Daniel,” said Clockwork, very gently, “Amity Park is back on Earth, outside the Zone. There wouldn't be enough ectoplasm there for you.”

“But,” said Danny, uncertainly.

“Can you turn human right now?” asked Clockwork.

Danny tried. He couldn’t. His wings held him firmly in ghost form, refusing to be banished before their task was done and Danny was being digested in Clockwork’s stomach.

“I intend to keep our arrangement from earlier,” said Clockwork, before Danny could panic. “You will not be missed.”

Danny relaxed. The times Clockwork had eaten him, he'd stopped time until Danny could go home. “Thanks,” he said.

Clockwork nodded graciously, then pulled Danny towards him to kiss his forehead. “I can already tell that you'll taste delicious in no time. Please, relax. There is no hurry.”

“I think I have more freckles than before,” said Danny.

“Indeed,” said Clockwork, setting a bowl of what Danny knew was just cream, sugar, vanilla, and ectoplasm mixed together in front of him.

That didn’t stop his body from craving the mixture like nothing else.

Clockwork stopped him from grabbing it, and emptied a small jar of flower petals into it. Then flakes of silver and diamond dust.

Danny made a hungry noise. One layer of it was human enough, but whirring and ticking and something bell-like were clearly audible.

(Danny could not match any clocks, yet, but he was working on it)

“They’re getting bigger, too,” he observed, after guzzling half the bowl.

“I see,” said Clockwork.

“And they feel different. The skin.” The freckles felt smoother, slicker, and cooler than the skin around them.

Clockwork picked up one of Danny’s hands and ran his thumb over a tight cluster of freckles. “Like icing on a cake.”

Danny took his hand back and finished off the bowl. “Do you think I’ll taste like cake.”

“I think you will taste like yourself,” said Clockwork. “Sweeter than any cake.”

Danny tried to sleep in the room he’d grown up in, the last two times, but the air in there felt so stale when compared to the garden, and he found himself sleeping at the pond, resuming the position Clockwork had put him in the first time.

Well, he supposed Clockwork had foreseen how well it would work.

Clockwork spent a lot of time there, too, sitting at the bench and reading out loud to Danny as he dozed.

The freckles started to merge together into broad silvery-white patches. When those patches were around a joint, the joint became hard to move. Extra force was needed to bend the tough, shiny, skin. And within those silver patches, gems grew, set into his skin like bearings in watches.

Danny’s wings started to pale. Streaks of color - silver, bronze, blue, palest lilac and pink - made appearances, organizing themselves into complex fractal patterns.

“I know I’m sleeping more,” said Danny, “but I don’t know how much more.”

They were still in the garden. Clockwork was rubbing a cream into Danny’s back, near his wings. There were complex structures there, under his skin, woven through his ectoplasmic muscles and around his bones, and they were working hard, all the time. Even in the best position Clockwork could put him in, they often ached.

And even the satisfying ache of a job well done was still an ache.

“How much time you spend here doesn’t matter,” said Clockwork. “You should sleep as much as you need to, and not worry about it.”

When Danny woke up, he couldn’t open his right eye. He looked at the mirror across the pond and saw that a silver patch had completely covered the eyelid.

He groaned and tried to push himself up. Tried. His wrist didn’t bend when he told it to. He glared at it, one-eyed. Silver had circled it, too, and the thumb on that hand. He tried to bend it again, and had some success, but as soon as he stopped actively forcing it, it returned to the position it was in before.

A quick check showed that his eye and wrist weren’t the only body parts affected. His left hip was partially covered, and so was a great deal of his spine.

This would have been a much bigger problem if he couldn’t fly.

“I can bring you breakfast in the garden,” said Clockwork. “You don’t want to be stuck in an uncomfortable position.”

Danny was already itching to go back to the garden. His wings had started to produce a thin, fragrant nectar from their bases the other day, and since then, sitting upright made his back feel bloated and leaky.

He opened his mouth to say as much, but instead of a human voice, a complex series of ticks and chimes rolled out. The ticks sent pleasing vibrations through his bones and flesh, and the chimes hummed in his throat. It was all completely incomprehensible to him, but it felt good.

He glanced up at Clockwork, who was smiling. “Go on,” Clockwork said.

Danny grinned - skin moving strangely around the silver patches - and started to chatter.

The next day, Danny couldn’t open either of his eyes. The air smelled strongly of vanilla and lilac.

“Don’t worry, Daniel,” said Clockwork as he tipped a cup of cream into Danny’s mouth, “I will take pictures of what you look like ripe.”

Having spent so much time at Long Now, Danny hadn’t released the cold energy that naturally built up in his core over time. It spread outwards, now, freezing him from the inside out even as the silvery-white coating his skin did the same from the outside in.

But it did not touch his wings, which stayed soft and flexible and took in energy and ectoplasm at the same steady rate.

“I wonder if you are even aware of all the sounds you are making,” said Clockwork, fondly, as he rubbed Danny’s back in that way that felt so good. “They’re enough to make me want to eat you right away, but I can tell you aren’t quite ripe yet.” He patted Danny’s back. “Just a little longer.”

Danny knew when he was ripe. Not from any external stimulus, but because something like a switch popped up in his brain. Not a literal switch, of course, he wasn’t hallucinating, but he knew that if he flipped it, if he made this one, last, tiny conscious decision, he would send out a signal that said eat me, I’m tasty!

He flipped the switch.

(The next thing he consciously remembered, he was hatching from an egg in Clockwork’s hands.)

#danny phantom #dannymay 2024 day 11: mutation #dannymay #dannymay 2024

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theleslistuff · 12 days

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Danny may 2024

Day 11 Mutation

The ice beast

Second part of; https://www.tumblr.com/theleslistuff/697151428019486720/the-ice-king-no-one-knows-au-but-what-if-dannys?source=share

Ghost king Danny au, Nobody knows au, Feral ghost puberty au

Warnings; body horror, loss of humanity and autonomy, self harm, attempt to suicide

Danny has taken over the ghost zone in matter of days, the title of king is rightfully his anyways, there was no real opposition.

But he could not help but to feel insecure...

Every royal seems to look at him in pity, talk slower to him as if he could not understand, except for prince Aragon who would hold a proud grin around him as if the dragon Lord knew something he didn't knew.

Even so, he liked to have him as a company, feeling he's treating him normally unlike his annoying sister who would try to approach him like all the others with slow pet-like talk.

-Shut up! -

The ghost boy yelled at the lady, not really listening to anything she said... Not wanting to recognize he barely understands anything in his last 3 meetings, he used to understand when everyone talked slowly despite how annoying it was, with Aragon he doesn't understand anything at all, but feeling comfort in him talking to him like he understands has made him agree to sign every paper he brings.

That's the reason for Dora's visit.

-Shh... It's alright my liege... I'm just... Trying to make you... See, my brother... Will take your crown... When ghost puberty ends... -

The ghost lady said as slow and understandable as possible, like talking to a wild animal, it was evident for the horns, sharp fangs, tail, spines and fur on their king who used to be a humanoid ghost, he's going through an awful ghost puberty and unlike the far frozen (who he refused to call them for help), Danny has been acting more... feral.

-I don't care!, get out! -

He yelled at her as he pushed her out side, he was not angry for something he didn't understood, he is angry because he no longer understood a word.

-This should have stopped, why is it not stopping?! -

The ghost boy exclaimed as he looked at his hands..., his nails have gotten longer and black, the fur has covered his skin completely, as he turned his hands to see his palms, it's evident de dark color on his fingertips and a bigger patch on his palm with no hair in those areas and getting gradually numb as the black skin swells it's evident those are no longer hands but just...

Paws

He clenched his hands into a fist, not wanting to see his disfigured hands.

Pacing in circles around the meeting room tries to calm himself down.

-It's ok..., I'm the king now..., I don't have to be in disposal all the time..., I'll just... Stay here until it stops... -

He said to himself, he doesn't notice he has been purring and growling when he walks, but when he finally does, he abruptly stops, his tail slapping the floor in anger makes him finally snap and let go a roar as he grabs the long tail and tries to rip it off, making large cuts with his claws and teeth... He has gotten past the point he could cut it long ago...

He winced in pain when one cut reached a nerve, he dropped the tail and allowed it to heal back.

Danny wanted to cry and scream, but he couldn't show weakness, he couldn't show he was not in control of his own body and he was not a full ghost...

He feels his face ache..., he knows when something in him aches the next time he sees it, it's a monstrous new version of it.

This makes his heart sink

he puts his hands on his face in a poor attempt to stop it, the ache turns into full pain as his mandibles began to crack and stretch.

He let go of his face and screamed, dropping on his knees as he did.

The process never stopped and he could feel his jaw open wider as it resembled more a muzzle, with his gums turning black as the little human teeth he had sharpened and reshaped all along the muzzle, his tongue turns green and rough resembling a feline tongue, his nostrils began to bleed as they were forced to grow wider and change their position and even color and texture resembling a canine nose.

But as soon as it started, it stopped.

He was panting exhausted for the change, even so he raised a hand to his face, immediately feeling a snout similar to the far frozen people..., His snout...

He immediately put down his hand and got up, he hasn't noticed his back got slightly curved too, all thanks to the cape he wears... But the shock of the muzzle is too much for him.

-I'm... A beast... -

The boy said with a strange feeling because of the new muzzle, some saliva is dripping from it, totally horrified and grossed out he runs around the room trying to find something... Anything to end this, to not feel this any longer and he knows his claws are not enough, when he finds a sword in the room he's almost relieved as he holds it... Pointing at his core, laughing and crying as he prepares to dig it inside of his chest, he raised it high and...

An ecto blast threw the sword away from his hands.

He turned around to see the responsible...

Dora didn't wait for him to react as she rushed by his side and hugged him.

-It's ok...-

She said in a soft tone..., he could not understand it, but it made him feel... Safe.

He hugged her back and cried.

-I don't... Want to be a... Monster... -

She didn't answer, it was no use... He could not understand her and she knows she could not lie about his destiny...

#danny phantom #danny phantom au #danny fenton #ghost king au #ice king au #day 11 #mutation #dannymay 2024 #dannymay2024

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