Elephantine Mistake

It was bright balmy day, with a good breeze that kept the heat in check. The night before had been a long rainstorm, and the winds had knocked a few trees down in the field between the town and the house of the shapeshifters on the forest edge. The storm had cleaned the air, and today the marketplace was back in business, with its many shops open.

Sadly for Kejital, Nuri had decided they were going to town, which depending on what she was looking for could have portended a short, or ridiculously long outing. She left him outside the big church, possibly the only thing that has not, and probably could not turn him into anything. She told him to stay there, and putting on a pair of gloves (her shape shifting are about as random and if not more embarrassing than Kejital’s are), she went off to the bazaar.

He waited an hour, finally assuming Nuri found something of interest, and was going to be a while. So naturally his curiosity impulse got the better of him, and he decided to wander through the marketplace. Despite the many tempting smells, brilliant colors and exotic wares that were flaunted in every kiosk, Kejital had never bought anything here; usually he moaned and groaned when Nuri brought him. After the kangaroo incident three weeks ago, she refused to let him near the weapons section and the foodstuff was kinda not to his interest, as he had to grow his own food. The zoo at the northernmost end of the market place was out of the question too; if he so much as smelled a zebra he could expect to be on hooves quickly.

Regardless he lumbered down the path of shouting vendors of every race, and he as always was uninterested. He took note of the strange people, two elves from the southern borders were fighting each other with swordfish as sabers, that they stole from an angry freetailed merman from Venzia who, grabbing his own swordfish as a weapon confronted them. The epic swordfish duel- now a triple person brawl, played out in front of Kejital like paid entertainment. Eventually after throwing a large quantity of pepper in the faces of the belligerent elves, the merfolk shopkeeper subdued them and recovered his fish without any serious goring.

He continued to walk when a large man shouted his name, demanding to know if Kejital needed rope, lamp oil or perhaps some explosives. He replied he had all of that with his stuff back at home. The next vendor was an older man, who called out to him,
“Where do you plan to have dinner, my boy?” Slightly creeped out, Kejital said he was dining in, and kept walking. As the sun dipped behind a beast of a cloud, the breeze picked up, and he wished he had something warmer to wear, or actually in an ironic sort of way, even the kangaroo fur he was sporting last week.

Kejital came to a new tent; the royal purple outside was pitched and arched to form a convex pentagonal prism, with two flaps staked out to form a grand arabesque entryway. The top had a small flag fluttering with a good luck charm, emblazoned on it. Curious once again, he walked through the doorway, to find a ceiling that was deceptively low from the outside- forcing him to lean forward. An elderly woman sat on a stool behind a seemingly plain counter. She had a rather inviting smile, a typical grandmother feel about her- without out even speaking to the woman. He could not guess her age, her ancient wrinkles were like the sea trenches, and her hair was so grey with age it was white.

“What can I get for you, young man?” the old woman asked in a matronly tone. “Do you wish to buy some luck?” Kejital didn’t answer her outright, but his facial expression gave him away. “Oh dear I think I can tell by your expression you’ve had it rough. What seems to be your source of misfortune? Infestation of smilefish or nematodes in your pond? Emoheartplants killing your tomatoes?”

Kejital looked her in the eye; “It’s a kind of different thing-do you have anything that stops transformation?”

“Are we talking C.P.T.S., or lycanthropy dear? I can’t help a werewolf, unless you want me to poke you with this silver stick until you die.” She told him completely nonchalantly.

“I don’t even know what that first thing is. I’m not a werewolf either, I’ve never been bitten by anything.” Kejital said, “except by a mosquito.”

“Well if you don’t appear to be a loon, and if you’ve never heard of Chronic Persistent Transformation Syndrome… then you probably have it. I may have something to help it, it’s in this bag over there somewhere.”

She walked to the back, where growling and loud crashes were audible from the storefront. After a particularly loud crash came a strange cry,

“Get off my leg you… watermelon!”

Kejital told her, leaning even further over the counter to see where the hag ran to, asked admittedly confused, “Are you alright back there ma’am?”

“I’m fine- it’s these vampiric watermelons, they’re affectionate, but they tend to lack discrimination between who cares for them, and who is their food- I tell you. No respect these days. But I don’t have anything for you.”

“Well, thanks for looking, for me.” Kejital said turning to leave.

“I feel bad, I couldn’t help you.” The elderly woman reached down to a hidden shelf and produced a small gold necklace. “Will you please take this? It may not help your condition, but at least it may give you some good luck.” The necklace had a small golden elephant on it.

“Lady, I don’t think I can affor-“, Kejital started to say.

“You would refuse a lonely old woman her only source of income?” She asked, making herself look frail and succeeded in guilt tripping Kejital into buying the charm.

“Oh hey…alright. Fine I’ll take it.” He handed her his money, and she only charged him a talent, almost 90% off her normal price.

“Thanks again, Mr. Vecchelli.” She said smiling as he left her store- she knew those charms were a hoax, but he looked somewhat now, and he put the thing on as he stepped outside the tent. Where he was gratified to realize he could straighten his back out.

Once outside, he felt like maybe he was going to have better luck today, he walked through a gap in the kiosks to go to the fields to relax for a few minutes before he would go tear the now clearly engrossed shopper from her quarry. He stopped and stared out, the sun was back out, and the breeze seemed dead. That, and now it felt like he’d acquired a major neck ache from leaning in against the low tent ceiling.

Trying to massage it a way he began to rub his neck, where the pain started but quickly discovered that it had swollen. It was leathery and bumpy to touch. The familiar dread and heat had built up once again, “Oh-no….”

Kejital gulped, and as he felt it go down, he knew something else was wrong, his “gulping” feeling extended down his throat and into his stomach, which began to swell into a pot belly, stretching his shirt, also turning leathery and it took on the color of light graphite. As it grew his chest barreled, sending a blow to his balance. The discoloration and change in texture coursed along his body, his once lean frame was beginning to swell, becoming more muscular, but also gaining an amount of flab.

As he began to wobble, his legs suddenly followed suit with his upper body, growing larger as bones, tendons muscles and everything resized. His romp grew, putting a strain on the seat of his pants, and a small tail grew from his changing spinal column. His morphing feet blew his shoes up, as his toes became discernable only by the large nail as his lower legs became the size of a tree trunk. His fingers swelled, the nail enveloping most of the finger, as his arms became the fore legs of a bull elephant. As they grew his wristbands snapped off and sled into the grasses. His ears ballooned out from the side of his head, becoming leathery as well. His nose began to pull away from his face, as his jaw receded and enlarged with his skull and teeth warping his face.

As his tusks grew to long spears from his re-arranging maw, the glowing necklace resized itself so Kejital could wear it even in his enormous size. His immense girth annihilated his shirt, and his backside took out his pants, leaving scraps dangling on his back. As he continued to grow, combined with the spinal readjustments he lost his balance and getting on all fours, he watched as his nose grew into a full-fledged trunk.

Extremely unhappy, the Elephant known as Kejital walked to a very small pool of water that had been left from the rainstorm the night before and saw his reflection. He was angry at first, but then when he saw how ridiculous he looked as an elephant he laughed, in a weird sort of elephant way. From there he began so test his new trunk, picking up fallen pieces of wood and hurling them against the stone wall.

The loud noises surprisingly brought none other than Nuri out who was speechless when she saw a yellow and black haired elephant throwing huge pieces of lumber at a wall. Calling out to him, she laughed when he answered her in a thundering ‘hello.’ After he explained to her what happened, she climbed up on his back and he took her home.

**
About a month later Kejital woke up after his charm got snagged on a tree branch, it broke and slipped off. He shrunk back to human size, and made a nude dash for his room, to get changed before Nuri woke up. He returned to his very smelly makeshift elephant habitat when he was fully clothed and saved the charm. He didn’t know why he should keep it, but if the need came, he had it.
---
I am never fair to him. He shoulda seen it coming. But oh well, If I made him that realistic, he wouldn’t be funny anymore.

The idea and idea for the trigger were suggested to me by

Oh yeah, Kudos to anyone who gets the references of the fifth paragraph, and yes I have nothing better to do than to put that in here.

His hair was not intended to be that waxy, I didn't have all the colored pencils i needed to finish it, and I forgot to handle it until now. Sorry if your eyes are burnt. And my watermark is fail-worthy in color too.

Nuri is ©
Kejital, the art and story are © to me.