—Sally—

  I regained a bit of my enthusiasm as I took a closer look at the item I'd picked up. A mysterious piece of loot to dissect and understand was too tempting to keep me down. As Orion moved down the tunnel, I inspected the suspiciously intact piece of junk. It’d been sitting at the bottom of that septic tank for who knows how long, yet after the water had dripped off of it—it somehow left no gunk behind—and leaving it mostly clean and intact.

  Twine—rough and hairy—had been braided into a small loop, and a soapstone with a hole drilled into it had been threaded into the string. The stone had a tear-drop shape, faded carvings etched into it with a flowing, smooth style, the markings forming patterns, shapes, and possibly a language I didn't recognise. I could almost imagine seeing it for around fifty—no, sixty bucks at a farmers' market.

  But before I could investigate it further, Orion abruptly took me off of his head and dumped me onto the ground. It forced my attention to return to the outside world and I noticed that we’d stopped at a very convenient spot in this cave.

  Just next to us was a clean and fresh geyser of water running down from the roof like a shower, delivering a clean spray of water at a constant and high pressure. It was a fantastic feature for a tunnel that immediately followed a dirty fight in a fetid swamp.

  Too perfect… I might've thought if I were a paranoid, crime-fighting, vigilante.

  But for me, it's simply a perfect coincidence.

  I dropped the necklace on the ground and rushed into the water. I only hesitated hopping in for a moment because of the sudden chill from the spray of the cave water. But the idea of finally getting all of the gunk off of my scales was pleasurable enough to move me underneath the falling water.

  For a few seconds I struggled to get to areas I needed to reach with my claws, but then I realised I could simply use my wings. It was a pleasurable feeling, the slime getting uprooted and leaving nothing behind but shiny silver scales.

  It felt so much better than cleaning human skin, there was no scrubbing necessary to get clean. I think my scales were hydrophobic, and grime really struggled to stay stuck to my skin.

  After a minute of stretching to scrub away the clumps of UFOs—unidentified floating objects—I jumped out of the water. Any temptation I had for staying in longer was squashed by how cold the water was. It really pierced into me, making it feel like I'd been in an ice bath for ten minutes.

  Something that I've quickly learned about my new body is that it's extremely vulnerable to temperature changes. This body completely lacked the internal heat a human body could produce, and instead relied on absorbing energy from the surroundings. To add insult to injury, this cave didn't have a natural source of heat for me to enjoy. I sent an envious look Orion’s way, and while I don’t wish to be a mammal again, I do miss that one feature.

  With a shake of my body, the droplets of water still stuck to me were flung off, leaving me completely dry. Didn't solve how cold I was, but it's a nice bonus that I'll never need a towel again I suppose.

  I looked back at Orion, while I would happily get this cold again if it meant getting that muck off of me, I still wanted the ability to simply shrug off the cold. Even now my body was starting to act weirdly. My limbs felt a bit rubbery, uncomfortable and distant. It was like I slept on them wrong and they're still asleep. Though this scared me a bit more, because no matter what I did, it wasn't getting any better.

  My human body probably would've handled it much better, though a scary new reaction to the cold wasn't enough to scare me. Not now, not ever. I'd rather be a lizard than a greasy teenager any day of the week, even if it's a bit uncomfortable in the cold.

  But while gazing at him jealously, he abruptly stripped off all of his clothes. It took me a second of looking at his increasingly bare chest—being so shocked by it that I didn't think to immediately look away—to realise that he was preparing to get into the shower.

  I averted my eyes from his naked form as another shiver racked my frozen body.

  To find something to distract myself from the naked man washing himself and his clothes only a few metres away from me—and the creeping chill—I picked up that strange necklace again. No matter how ordinary it looked, it was too strange to be anything common or non-magical.

  In a moment of fancy I used [Appraisal] on it, just to see if the strange piece of most-likely garbage had anything interesting about it.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 1] on: Deer-woman’s pendant]

  [Deer-woman’s pendant – Level [Attune]]

  [An enchanted necklace holding the remnants of a soul]

  [A promise made, a trinket exchanged.

  Held until death, her faith lost breath.

  Will you keep it? The words made secret?]

  Wow! This kinda fucking sucks. Fascinating that a pendant has such esoteric powers, but it was mostly just aggravating. The first magical item to ‘coincidentally’ fall into my claws was only a charisma buff with extremely high standards.

  Well, maybe the fact it's a soul item means something important. Path?

  [Please unlock-] Right, almost forgot about your fun 'quirks'.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 1] on: [Attune]]

  Hmm… [Soul] is my only good stat so far, so would the necklace be strong?

  And to be perfectly honest, while it didn’t fix any of my pressing problems, I could easily imagine it helping with some other… Issues, I’ve been dealing with for a while. If it could help me get a girlfriend, it’d be worth it. Both the – uh… [Natural Charms] and [Life of the Festival] seems perfect for it.

  I can’t really see a negative either to doing this whole soul binding thing… Fuck it, it's practically fate that it ended up in my talons, so I’m going to do it. I poked my head through the loop of string and hung the dirty necklace around my neck, then called upon the system.

  [conditions met for attunement:

  

  
• 
  
    untouched and pure: [?]
  
    


  
• 
  
    woman or child: [?]
  
    


  
• 
  
    hasn’t hurt a living soul for selfish reasons: [?]]
  
    


  

  [Conditions met! Would you like to proceed?]

  I… I’m trying my best not to feel too insulted by these requirements. That I’m ‘pure’, which… I can’t deny, but it’s still insulting to rub it into my face. The whole reason I decided to bond with this stupid thing is to help with the fact that I’m ‘untouched’. Ugh.

  Also, the fact that I’m physically a child is something I’m perfectly aware of. The only one I don’t take as a direct insult is ‘hasn’t hurt another for selfish reasons’, I never got into fights at school and at least can be perceived as a purely good quality.

  Argh, okay, enough delaying, let's do it.

  [Unlock the full version for access to this feature.]

  C’mon, really? Stop copying Adobe's business model and let me live my life, ple-e-a-a-se!

  With a sigh I grabbed the stone pendant, tracing the carvings with a claw as I lamented that I’d yet again been foiled at getting some progression.

  As I gazed longingly at the stone, wishing nothing more than to be able to bond with the necklace. The fact that I’d been denied the opportunity only making it more tantalizing, now that it was just out of reach.

  Then—abruptly and without consent—the twine unfurled, the braids coming undone like it was possessed by a kraken. Each individual string shot towards me and grasped my neck, weaving each thread into a tight grasp on my scales. With a scream I tumbled sideways, thinking that my new necklace had decided to try and strangle me.

  I tried to hold back the cords with my claws, but the twine dodged and weaved around them with ease. A flashback to a certain Alien movie made me panic even more as I tried to stop this neck--hugger from killing me.

  But no matter what I tried to do to stop it, it overwhelmed me easily. I fell onto my back as I tried to use all four talons to tear it off of me, but as I screamed in panic—the squeaky whine echoing through the cave—it finished moving.

  In a few swift and violent seconds, it was over, and the necklace had secured itself to my neck. As I was breathing heavily, Orion stuck his head out of the shower and looked at me, before continuing to wash like nothing had happened. But I suppose that there wasn't anything to worry about from his perspective.

  With some desperate twists of the neck, I managed to get a glimpse of the new form of the necklace, my panic immediately reappearing. It had become a long band, at least five centimetres long, wrapped around the base of my neck snugly.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 1] on: Sally’s pendant and collar]

  [Deer woman’s pendant → Sally’s pendant and collar – Level 0 Accessory]

  [An enchanted necklace holding the remnants of a soul, bound to a strange infant]

  [A promise made, the trinket exchanged.

  Held until death, then she lost the faith.

  Will you keep it? The words made secret?

  While the choice was strange, it made a perfect exchange.

  Sin, Ranger had done, sky-scale companionship won,

  Souls conjoined, from blighted soil a bond Anointed.]

  Ah… this wasn’t disclosed. They… changed…

  Fuck… Shit! This is not going to help with first impressions, they’re probably going to assume that I’m Orion’s pet. Or something else even more horrifying, a thing I don't even dare think about.

  I tried my best to get a claw between the rope and my scales, desperate enough that I’d destroy the item if it meant getting it off of me. But no matter what I did I couldn’t get any sort of purchase on it, or even cut it off. It didn’t feel tight around my neck—just snug—and the trouble I had even getting purchase on it made it feel like it’d merged with my scales.

  The more concerning thing is that it took the initiative when the system refused to do its job. And if the name change was anything to go by, it had also done its [Attune]ing, binding thing with me.

  I suppose that I got what I wanted in the end, but I felt a bit strange about the fact that it did it without my permission, though it is an interesting titbit of information that things can still happen without the system’s express permission. Maybe it isn't as all-powerful as I thought?

  With the latest mess I've made of my life finalised, I slumped to the floor in misery.

  How did this already go wrong? Somehow the neat item I got turned into a collar, forced itself onto me, and now refused to let go. I know that it's only named that because that's what it is, but the connotations of that word disgust me, especially given the situation I've found myself forced into.

  A pained grunt behind me reminded me of my companion’s presence, and turned around to see him miserably leaving the water while holding a pile of freshly washed clothes. Another shiver from the cold went through me as I made sure not to look at anything below the waist—I didn’t need anything else to be jealous of.

  I looked away from him as I realised that I needed to pull myself together, no matter how shitty things were now, things can always improve. This necklace wasn't the end of the world, I could figure out a way to change its unfortunate name later.

  Though, no matter how much rationalisation I did of the situation, I kinda wanted a hug. I already missed those two big, beautiful dinosaurs who greeted me on my arrival here.

  Who knew it'd only take me less than a day to have gotten attached to my new Mother and Father. It took less than that to lose them.

  Patreon is up! So if you would like to read 5, or even 10 chapters ahead. Click the links, and support the book!