Boots 5 (ver 5) (Patreon)

Edit: I changed out the first half-dozen paragraphs to show what I hadn't. Hopefully, this is better, but I'm still not going into details. I also shortened the conversation where Esho tells Ykahi about what happened, since the reader won't need a recap.

Boots 1 (ver 5)
Boots 2 (ver 5)
Boots 3 (ver 5)
Boots 4 (ver 5)

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Ykahi toiled with her potion, chanted over it, and stirred in various leaves and powders. Korosovak checked in on her periodically and left her snacks that went largely ignored. Occasionally, he’d find her napping while the ointment simmered or cooled, and he’d lay a cloth napkin over her and tuck in the edges.

Meanwhile, Boots made a late-night trip to his kitchen to grab a snack. He hadn’t bothered switching on the lights, and only two steps into the linoleum-lined space, his heel came down on something that crunched with the most sickening of sounds.

“Ew, yuck,” he groaned, scrunching up his face. The krakun grabbed a butter knife from the sink to scrape the mess from his heel, then he wet down a dish towel to wash the residue from his scales.

He grabbed his snack, flopped down on the couch, and channel-surfed for a few minutes before returning to bed.

In the morning, the gigantic krakun frowned when he saw the mess in the light. The slaves hadn’t cleaned it up just yet, of course—they weren’t allowed out until after he left for work—but he felt certain that the geroo would make a big deal of it. So, he did the best he could—scraping it up from the floor with the butter knife and depositing it in front of their box so they’d be sure to find it.

Then, feeling good about himself for putting in the extra effort, Botabriask had a quick breakfast and left for work.

Three more days and nights passed, but down in 1B, the ointment still wasn’t what Ykahi wanted, and she wandered away from her work in a sleep-deprived daze, stumbling through the tunnels inside the walls. She woke when a yellow geroo squeezed her shoulder. “Hey ringel,” he whispered, “you’re our master’s friend, aren’t you?”

“Me? Yes?” she mumbled as she sat up and leaned back against the hole in the baseboard. “No? Maybe? I don’t know.”

“Well, he’s not here—if you’re looking for him,” said the geroo with stern ears as he took a seat nearby. “He works during the days while we clean his apartment. Then, we hide away in his shoebox while he’s around to keep from upsetting him.”

“Oh, I remember you,” said Ykahi with an unexpected flash of recognition, “you’re that geroo who asked him to turn down his music. Are you okay? He nearly killed you with that beer bottle!”

The geroo’s ears managed a faint smile. “Roli. Nice to meet you,” he said with an offered palm. “Yeah, we don’t do that anymore. We just wait for him to turn it down, then we try to put the cubs back to sleep.”

“Ykahi,” she said, touching his paw. “I’m sorry about laughing when he did that. I didn’t know how to react—not like I could scold him.”

“It’s fine,” said Roli with sadness in his voice. He rose and offered his paw once more. “But you don’t look so great. Come with me and nap in our box. It’s safe in there and quiet too. The cubs are stuck inside with us all night, so they’ll leave you alone. They want to play out on the carpet while they can.”

Ykahi nodded and leaned some of her weight on Roli’s arm as they walked. “I’ve been working on a potion…” she mumbled, “haven’t slept.”

“A potion?” he asked. He put his arm under hers to give her a little more support. “Whatever for?”

“I’m going to swap bodies with Boots,” she muttered. “Then, I’ll be able to go wherever I want, and he won’t be able to chase away my friends.”

Roli ended up carrying the little ringel most of the way, and she snored softly in his arms. Within the shoebox, his mate, Esho, kept an eye on Ykahi throughout the day and fed her a little soup whenever she managed to open her eyes.

“Huh? Where am I?” the ringel groaned at last, barely managing to sit upright.

“Are you finally ready for the waking world?” Esho asked quietly in the box’s twilight. “Sleeping through all the cubs asking who you were and why you were here was feat enough, but sleeping through blaring music and dancing? That must have required a whole new level of exhaustion!”

“Heh yeah,” said Ykahi, “I suppose I must have overdone it.”

“I’m glad my mate found you when he did,” whispered Esho. “It’s not safe out there. It’s not safe for anyone your size.”

Ykahi accepted a cup of water but drank only a sip. “Safe?” she asked, her brain too muddled to understand why.

The round geroo looked away. “We lost one of the cubs the other day—my brother’s daughter,” Esho said with a sniffle. “She must have slipped out while we were sleeping. I don’t know why. Perhaps she was looking for the bathroom?”

“Lost?” asked Ykahi, feeling more awake now. “Do you need help searching? I know all the tunnels—”

“Not that kind of lost,” said the geroo with a whimper. When the ringel reached out to touch Esho’s shoulder, she turned back and pulled Ykahi into a tearful hug. “Our master … that monster … he stepped on her.”

“Oh no!” gasped the skeletal ringel. She rubbed her palms slowly across Esho’s back. “I’m so sorry.”

The two sat in silence a long while, holding one another wordlessly, sobbing softly. When at last she pulled away, the geroo apologized. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to lay this all in your paws. It’s just … the entire crew is in mourning. We’ve been able to think of little else.”

“No, I get it,” said Ykahi, patting at the geroo’s shoulder.

“I’m Esho,” she said, “my mate brought you here. You must have been so tired. Roli said you were nearly incoherent, talking about magic potions or some such—”

“Yeah, I made one,” said the ringel, “but it’s an ointment. It’ll allow me to swap bodies with your owner.”

The geroo stared at her, wordless. “Really?” she mouthed. Ykahi nodded. “But… And then what?” asked Esho.

The ringel shrugged. “I dunno. Guess I’ll go where I like, see what I want.”

“You’d take his place? Pretend to be him? Replace him as our owner?”

“I suppose,” said Ykahi. “But I won’t blare my music. I won’t step on anyone.”

“And Boots?” Esho asked. “He’d end up in your body?”

The ringel nodded. She raised her paws to indicate herself. “He can do what he wants with this. I won’t need it anymore.”

“Well, he best take it and run,” huffed the pudgy geroo. “He has no friends here.”

Ykahi nodded and the two sat in silence.

“When?” asked Esho. “Will you swap with him soon?”

The ringel’s ears drooped sad. “Well, there’s a problem with that,” she explained. “I needed a whole stick of butter to make the ointment work, but Korosovak only let me have half of one. I was hoping that might be enough, but it’s not looking like…”

“Butter? That’s it?” asked Esho. “That’s all you need?”

“Well, yeah,” Ykahi sighed, “but Korosovak—”

“Take half a stick from our fridge,” said the geroo with a wry smile. “Boots has plenty.”

The ringel’s ears pricked higher. “He won’t care? He won’t miss it?”

Esho shrugged. “He has plenty.” Then, more darkly, “And if it works … he’ll be in no position to punish anyone.”

“I suppose that’s true…” Ykahi whispered, deep in thought as she revisited the spell in her mind. “I’ve already finished the casting though. If I added the butter now…”

“Will it still work?” asked Esho.

“Oh yeah, it’ll work,” Ykahi promised, “it’ll just take a few applications to make it … stick.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hlIrMEjzR0JpKD47g06cDAxfqw1jqCt36aUVjQJCXPA/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?