Transferred 3 (Patreon)

Both @J.N. Squire and @ArcadeDragon suggested that I write more about Sarsuk being turned into a geroo. All right. I can do that. Though we need to get through some feels before we can go back to the humiliation.

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Sarsuk flopped back on the exam table, depressed. How could he not be? The universe was mocking him. As if it wasn’t bad enough for him to fall in love only for that to turn out to be an act, get sentenced to execution, rescued and transferred into the body of a slave, why did it have to be a geroo body he’d spend the rest of his years inside? He hated the geroo!

There wasn’t anything wrong with the geroo in particular. They were less vulgar than the ringel, smelled less awful than the geordians, had more personality than the anup, and unlike the coosa, at least they had the decency to realize when they were being subjugated. But for the past four hundred years, he’d dealt with the geroo personally—and he did mean personally. It wasn’t like his geroo cleaning crew that he could generally leave them to their own devices. For the past four hundred years, he’d been meeting with geroo, sharing the same air with them, yelling at them for disappointing him, and punishing them for screwing up.

He was sick to tears of geroo and how clever they thought they were, how they were always sneaking around as if he’d never notice.

And now he was one. Life—simply put—sucked.

“Look,” said the yellow geroo, “you could spend the rest of your life griping about how wonderful being a krakun had been and how unfair it was that you’re now geroo. But no one wants to hear it. No one cares. In a couple hours, that body will be dead, and anything you have—even if you’d been transferred into a lowly kerrati—would still be an improvement over dead, right?”

He stared down at his furry russet paws, refusing to agree with her.

“So instead,” she said, “let’s talk about the good things that could come from this?”

“Like what?” Sarsuk demanded, the anger clear in his voice.

“That’s what we’re going to figure out, Sarsuk.”

“Commissioner Sarsuk!” he screamed. “You will address me with my full title, slave!”

She stared at him for a moment and then crossed her arms. “You don’t have a title. You don’t even have a job at the moment. And you are not to shout at me, do you understand?”

He looked back down at his paws, refusing to admit that he’d been wrong to yell.

“So, let’s figure out what sorts of things you do want out of life and figure out which are obtainable.”

The russet geroo sighed, his ears nearly hanging from his head. Eventually, he raised his chin enough to look her in the eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why do you think?” she asked. “It’s my job. And as a slave in krakun society, I’m sure you realize that the rewards for doing as we’re told might be meager, but the punishment for failing to do what is expected of us can be severe.”

He lowered his chin down once more. “Yeah, I realize.”

A long silence. “And you realize that includes you too, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” he grumbled. “I realize.”

More silence. She cleared her throat. “Sarsuk, I’m sure you felt like—as a prisoner on death row—that they could do anything they wanted to you for absolutely no reason.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” he agreed.

“Well, that wasn’t the case—not really,” she said. “Not like now.”

He opened his eyes wider.

“Now, that’s literally true,” she said. “If I wanted to, I could strap electrodes to your sensitive bits and shock them until they were crispy and charred, right?”

Sarsuk gasped, covering his crotch with both paws and staring at her in wide-eyed horror. He stammered, “Y-you wouldn’t!”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she agreed. “But I could. I could do literally anything to you, and it would earn me little more than a, ‘Tut tut, Jerrea, I really wish you hadn’t done that,’ from Mistress Erridiah.”

He swallowed hard.

“So, I’d appreciate if you could be a little more cooperative.”

“Okay,” he whispered. More silence. “Jerrea? Is that your name?”

“Yes,” she said after a pause, “my name is Jerrea.”

“That’s … a very nice name,” he eventually volunteered. “There was a time—a couple hundred years ago—when I knew someone by that name. Captain Jerrea was in command of the Sun-swept Coast IV for a short while.”

The yellow geroo blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking back on it. “I didn’t like her all that much, but … I always thought that name was kinda pretty, all things considered.”

“Well, um, thanks,” she said. “I suppose that’s the best sort of compliment that I could really hope for.”

She grabbed a chair from the corner and rolled it to where she had been standing a moment earlier before taking a seat. “So, Sarsuk, what is it that you’d like out of life?” Before he could respond, she raised one palm, “And don’t say getting back into a krakun body. I mean, what would you like most given your current existence?”

He stared at her a moment with a blank expression on his ears. He shrugged.

“Well, what did you want back when you were a krakun?”

“I wanted to get out of prison,” said Sarsuk, without even pausing to think.

“Before then,” said Jerrea, “before you got in trouble with the law. Back when you had an ordinary life. What did you want then?”

He stared at her. “Uh, to be left alone, I suppose?”

“Odd,” said the yellow geroo.

“Well,” said Sarsuk, feeling like he had to justify his emotions, “I hated my job. I hated working with slaves. I hated my cleaning crew. I really hated my boss. If I could have anything, I think I would have liked to be left alone—not have to deal with anyone’s complaints or demands. I’d have liked to just be left alone and allowed to do my own thing.”

When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “Sad, huh?”

“Perhaps a little. Maybe a bit Nihilistic,” agreed Jerrea. “But let’s say you got that, back when you were krakun. You changed jobs, didn’t have to deal with slaves, your boss never bothered you … then what?”

Sarsuk laid back on the exam table, closed his eyes, and interlaced his fingers, taking some long moments to visualize a world where everyone left him alone. “It would be … bliss.”

“Sure, it would be nice to have a rest, have a vacation from everyone—especially if you were so frustrated with everything around you,” she said. “But forever? Do you think you’d get lonely? Do you think you’d ever want more?”

“Well,” he said, not opening his eyes, “it would have been nice to be a success someday. That dream got crushed out thousands of years ago, but if you want my fantasies, I’d have loved to be successful.”

“Okay, tell me what successful would be like,” she said. “Imagine that you were successful and tell me the best parts of your life.”

He glanced over at her, his ears frowning. “Why?”

“Because I asked you.”

Sarsuk sighed. He closed his eyes once more, trying to imagine what success would be like. He didn’t know anyone he considered a success, but he’d seen a zillion movies and television shows that featured successful characters. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be any of them. “Everyone would want to be me.”

“True, but is that what you want?” she asked. “For someone whose fondest desire is to be left alone, it seems strange that your fantasies would hinge on the opinions of others.”

He stared at her a moment, hating how correct she was. He didn’t want actually that—it was just the first thing that popped in his mind when he imagined being successful. “Perhaps not,” he agreed, “but it would be nice to live in luxury, to have expensive things and fancy food.”

“So others would envy you?”

That made him scowl.

“Success is a huge umbrella,” said Jerrea. “There’s going to be things you truly want out of it and other things not so much, things you might have to put up with because they just come along with the package.”

He looked at her and the yellow geroo smiled.

“You may not have that huge brain anymore, but you’re still a smart guy, Sarsuk,” she said. “I’d like you think about this for a few minutes, dissect all the parts of being a success, and figure out which bits you actually care about.”

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GftHY6v7se9mHjStDCRuhGgYvSTo7CdURHG_jsdUQqY/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?