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Fluffy was able to survive. She could have lived a full life inside the Leviathan if not for the acidic effects that became apparent throughout the week. That was the thing ~ just being inside was going to kill her eventually. The conditions inside the creature were even more acidic than she was initially aware of. The air inside the stomach was heavy and suffocating. Her skin had started to feel as if it were on fire and peeling in some areas. Pain that was pulsating and stinging even when she was not coming into contact with the walls. It was rather clear that remaining for a long time inside the leviathan was fatal. She could last another week at most before the damage would be deadly. She would have to make a choice soon as to whether this is what she wanted to do.
Still more water would come in and more sea creatures would pour in with it. The large mouthfuls pulled in schools of fish and all sorts of things from the ocean bottom. Over the days, the water would often reach the level that was close to flooding the chamber before it emptied and then refilled again.
She could climb to the mouth if she wanted to. If she had perfectly she might be able to slip between the teeth during a feeding. She could even try talking to it from within its mouth. There was also the chance of taking its imprint. There was strength in her persistence. There was no better way to know a creature than to live within it, to become a part of it so tightly that one's life would depend on that creature. The connection she so ardently desired with the leviathan was there, but tenuous. Each option seemed viable but there was only time to choose one because time was limited.
The burns. Oh, the burns. They had started slowly but now they were a constant reminder of her shit situation. The salt water didn't help either. It literally putting salt on her wounds. The only way she managed to survive was to switch between forms to try to spread out the damage. Alas, she couldn't keep doing this forever. She would eventually die in here if she got complacent, that much was certain.
She had entertained several options. Kage spoke to her with some regularity to get updates and while he still wanted her to bind to it to add the beast to his collection, he had softened his stance a little since it had been quite some time with no progress. He'd instructed her to try escaping by any means necessary, even if that meant imprinting on the Leviathan.
Fluffy was terrified by the prospect of turning into something so large. She knew only the best changelings in the world could pull off such a feat and she was… well she never considered herself particularly skilled at it. Still, she felt an undying loyalty to her master and would do exactly as he asked. The only question was… how?
She had plenty of blood and flesh to eat, but the one component she was missing was bone. So, she had to eat her way through the leviathan's innards until she got to a bone. She chose a spot and just started tearing into it with chimera'd shark's teeth. It was a long process but she worked on making a tunnel. She aimed to tunnel right through the side of the beast until she reached either bone or scales… or preferably both.
Days blurred together as Fluffy moved through the leviathan's interconnecting sinews, all the while being overwhelmed by the feeling of unease. The saltwater still irritated her acid burns and the constant reminder of her life inside the stomach of the creature. Still, there was no question that she was making progress.
The leviathan's motion changed as it started to prey in the skies. It was a reflex, a hunter's reflex that travelled up and down the length of the enormous monster. If Fluffy looked back at the way she came she would see that there were wings and other bird parts flowing through the leviathan that she could imprint to.
Eventually she would reach a rib bone that stood out as hard and unmovable. It was an important milestone, which indicated that she could burrow her way through the flying snake's innards and make it all the way to the scales if she persisted. But those scales were hard and tough so she would not be able to simply gnaw through them like she had everything else.
Fluffy was not in the best mental state after so many days of suffering. It was only the connection with her master that kept her sane and moving forward, else she would have probably transfigured the leviathan into something small just to commit suicide. In any case, she pressed on until she reached the bone, and after that she kept going until she reached the scales. As expected, she couldn't break through them with her teeth.
She backtracked through the tunnel of gore until she reached the bone. She shaved off a small bit of it with great effort and pocketed it. She intended to imprint to it, but not until she got back to the space where she tended to rest and sleep.
When she got there, however, she noticed that there were wings among the various bodies that slowly flowed towards the levi's stomach. She picked one up and took a bite out of it, imprinting on what she could only imagine was a bird of some kind. She didn't know how to fly, but the imprint gave her hope. She might be able to fly out of the mouth now, or maybe even bust through the scales and fly that way. If there were wings, then that meant the creature was probably flying right now.
She sat cross legged and took a deep breath before consuming the bone of the snake. Mixed with the innards she'd been chewing and spitting out and sometimes swallowing, she had everything she needed to imprint to it… if she could survive the attempt. She tried to become one with the leviathan even as her skin sizzled and made it hard to focus. She would sit like that for some time, until she either had a breakthrough or came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work.
As the leviathan flew high through the skies, it was oblivious to the change happening deep inside. The stress of imprinting strained Fluffy's life force. Her very heart had been unable to withstand the saol being spent and it stopped its beating suddenly.
Then, like a flash of lightening, she would feel her heart start to pound, she could hear the beat against her chest as if it were trying to break free. Suddenly she was flooded with the awful, awesome power she dimly remembered as the pulsing of the nerves the feeling of having her reserves expanded. But the stress was too much for her and her body that had been tortured and scorched could not possibly put the power to use without going into deadly levels of mageburn. The tiredness overcame her and she would feint.
When she woke up, the pain would be right there waiting for her. The acidic burns now caused her body to bleed all over. The energy that had been drained from her now kept her weak and barely able to move on. It was time to escape or accept death.
Power. It came, and then it was gone in an instant. Fluffy could have sworn her heart had even stopped working at some point. There was a moment where she thought she had the power to break out, to get free of this hellish snake… but then she passed out. When she opened her eyes, she had to wipe liquid from them. It was blood.
She tried to form words, to ask Kage for help. She was so, so weak. She forced herself to her feet and stumbled through the tunnel she'd created all the way to the scales. She tried to find some kind of clue that would help her pry her way out. She didn't need a large opening given how she could turn into something smaller… but she did need to pierce through somehow.
She felt around until she found a spot between the scales as she figured it was probably going to be the weakest spot. She would throw what little energy she had left into clawing at it and stabbing at it with some of the animal bones she had at her disposal. Fish bones weren't always the strongest, but they tend to have sharp points to them.
"Just a small hole…" she thought to herself. She couldn't even speak and Kage had no way of knowing if she was even still alive. She had to get out… She just had to.
All Fluffy's attempts were proved to be futile. It was a painful fight and she merely clawed and stabbed at the leviathan's thick scales. Every one of the strikes seemed to be less powerful than the previous one. Her body protested with every movement, the burns, the blood loss, the tiredness pulling her further into the acceptance that she might not survive this nightmare.
And then something roared and Fluffy was flung off the scales she had been trying in vain to move. The noise of fighting increased outside. It was chaos. Its body turned and contorted and it was thrashing around as the leviathan battled whatever was trying to kill it. Fluffy's body was slammed once more against the insides, the impacts coming one after the other.
Then, the heat came. It was getting warmer inside the leviathan as if the monster was burning from the outside. There was a jerk and then the gap between the scales she'd been working on started to crack open. A single tear slit opened, light crept in through. She could finally see outside. The leviathan was fighting something and it was a losing side. As she looked through the gap that was getting larger, her heart missed a beat. Dragons. Two of them, flying in the air, constantly swooping by and breathing fire on the leviathan.
She barely had time to register what was going on before the hole was pulled wider still, the force of combat straining at the leviathan's flank. The ground suddenly turned into mush and, before she could get a hold of something to hold on to, she was dragged from the creature's insides and plummeted through the hole in its side. There was no turning back now.
She would be able to see many dragons in the far distance. She was also above a forest. Nobody was paying any attention to her small body as the behemoths fought. The leviathan thrashed its body and killed one of the dragons with a whip of its tail. Then it flew off towards the ocean in the distance. The other dragon gave chase but it wasn't going to be able to finish it off on its own. None of that was likely Fluffy's concern as if she didn't do something soon she would be a pancake in less than a minute.
Everything happened so suddenly. One moment Fluffy was trying to scrape her way through the scales and the next she was being slammed back and forth between the scales and the mushy innards that she had chewed her way through. Before she could even get a grip on her situation, she was falling out of the hole. She fell and barely got a glimpse of fire above her before the body of the leviathan blocked her view.
She focused on the creature she had imprinted on earlier, the one with the wings, and tried to take its form. Not knowing how to fly was probably going to suck, but she would do her best to catch the air with her wings and flap like her life depended on it to slow her fall. She saw dragons and trees – was she in aelheim? The terrain looked completely unfamiliar to her, not that she was in the right state of mind to make an accurate geological assessment.
With any luck, she would survive and disappear into the forests, away from the fighting.
When Fluffy had fallen through the sky, she had to use the form she had imprinted on, a winged creature from the leviathan's stomach. Her body moved, and feathers grew from her arms and became wings. But flying was not something she was used to.
She flew right through the trees and broke branches and ripped her wings on the trees before she fell to the ground. The impact was rough and her wings were shattered.
She was alive, but barely. She would have to take another form, something that could endure. She could hear the dragons roaring far away, the fight with the leviathan was still continuing in the sky. But here in the shadows of the trees, the pressing danger was gone. This unknown and rather a harsh forest outside of Jian would remain the only place she could heal, rest and recuperate. Only time would tell if she would ever be whole again.
