A logging company employee receives a job offer from a competing organism.
tags: gender bender, girl penis, the greensea, modern azuras, nsfw, plantgirl, transformation
art by Jill
She had warned them, of course.
From a purely logistical standpoint—and, as head of human resources, it was purely logistics—they would need twice the regular number of logging crews. But once the rumor had gotten out that Viridian was pushing into the Greensea, nothing could staunch the bleed of contractors and employees to other timber firms, not even the promise of inflated signing bonuses and hazard pay. And once the first missing personnel reports started to filter back, even the veteran crews began going AWOL before they set foot in that nightmare.
Because of course they did. This was completely foreseeable. The horror stories of the Greensea were unbelievable, but more importantly, they were true.
Elizabeth Winslow had explained all of this in exacting, dispassionate, mathematical language to her superiors: if you plan on a sustained forestry operation this far from civilization for this many months in this environment that has this reputation, you’ll need to plan on this level of employee turnover, and so need to start with…
For the temerity of her suggestions, she was awarded the special responsibility of visiting the families of missing lumbermen, to add that “Viridian cares” feel to the bad news.
“You’re head of HR; it’s your job,” one superior said, technically true.
“It’s to more accurately ensure that the employee is, in fact, departed, and did not simply return home early,” another said, even more accurately.
“It’ll be good, getcha you seeing faces, not numbers,” a third said, knowing full well that this was absolutely, patently false, and that Viridian only cared about numbers.
Elizabeth took this tacit demotion with the grace and skill that a mathematically inclined middle manager could be expected to. She seethed quietly while explaining in deadpan that yes, your husband has disappeared; no, we can’t tell you any details about where your wife was deployed, but if you do hear from her, you are contractually obligated to inform the company; oh, your son was here, two days ago? Thank you for the information…
Everyone hated a Company Woman coming onto their property, and no one hated it more than the Company Woman herself.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
As she climbed the porch to the front steps, Elizabeth braced herself for another unpleasant experience. Paul Turner had been one of their best, the veteran captain of a survey crew tasked with mapping a particularly nasty sector of the Greensea. But he was a month overdue, and now it fell to Elizabeth to tell the poor man’s wife that orc rangers had found his halftrack two weeks ago, abandoned and overgrown.
(“No,” the conversation would go. “Since no body has been recovered, Viridian cannot definitively conclude your husband has perished. As such, the Death Clause of Mr. Turner’s contract cannot be invoked, until such a time as…”)
She knocked, waited. Sighed. The waiting was the worst part, except for all the other parts that were worse: the talking, the not-talking, the crying, the recriminations, the threats. And the worst, worst part was that Elizabeth knew that this Very Corporate Punishment was a complete waste of her abilities, that someone up top had wanted to expand Viridian into the Greensea and her little white paper had insulted those plans, had provided incorrect answers to questions that had been conspicuously and intentionally unasked.
So Viridian was in the Greensea, and she was on the porch of the Turner household, waiting.
She had raised her fist to knock a second time when the door suddenly swung open.
Elizabeth started. She was staring into the most green eyes she had ever seen, their intensity such that the HR director actually let out an instinctive gasp.
“Ms. Winslow?” said a voice that must have been connected to those eyes. Elizabeth couldn’t look away. In the shade of the porch, they almost seemed to glow.
Elizabeth nodded dumbly. “Yes…?”
The other woman—it sounded like a woman—giggled, and Elizabeth smiled back. Those eyes were just so calm and intense and green, how could she not smile back? There were more words now, and Elizabeth felt herself nodding again, stepping across the door’s threshold, stumbling as her foot clumsily caught the lip and she inadvertently tore herself away from her host’s eyes…
… and then she glanced around, suddenly free to process her other senses. The air was warm and wet, and touched with the faintest hint of a smell—like nutmeg or petrichor, a smell of dark soil and growth that matched the antechamber’s shadowed appearance. Her skin was already beginning to bead with sweat, and she appreciated the cool breeze that was coming from somewhere up ahead.
“I’m here about… Paul Turner,” Elizabeth managed to say, the memory of those green eyes making it difficult to move her tongue. “Are… you… Mira?”
There was another tinkling giggle, and Elizabeth felt the laughter hook around her, pulling her head back around until she was again staring into those beautiful green orbs.
“Follow me,” the eyes gently commanded, and Elizabeth nodded, already forgetting the question she had asked.
They were walking deeper into the house, and the breeze was getting stronger. Elizabeth knew this from the little moments of clarity that came on whenever she stumbled over the home’s vein-covered carpet, when her eyes inadvertently broke away from her host and scanned over water-stained wallpaper and decaying walls. But each time, she turned back and knew again that everything was fine and normal and green.
The room they finally stopped in was a contrast of lights and darks. With a gentle nudge, Elizabeth was slipped off the invisible leash that led her here, and she was finally free to take in her environment. Holy shit, the floor was covered in vines, and the walls, too, waterlogged wallpaper peeling away to reveal rotting wood underneath. The air was hot and warm, like a greenhouse, and the light breeze she felt came from a window—no, a hole in the godsdamned ceiling, strange dappled sunlight playing across the surface of a massive knot of wood in the center of the room.
“What the fu—” Elizabeth started to say, suddenly conscious and very, very afraid.
And then the knot of wood began to move, unfurling and standing until it wasn’t a knot of wood or even a tree but a… but a…
Elizabeth didn’t know where to look, because every part of Her demanded attention. She was taller and wider than even the most powerful human, and even taller yet were a set of dramatic horns that effortless splintered the ceiling beams they brushed against. Her clawed feet rent the floor just as easily, as if the world had no choice but to give way before Her. Every part of Her, from the barbs that covered Her hide to the sinew and muscle that moved just beneath, from the sensual smile that settled on Her face to the glowing green of Her eyes, radiated a power absolute, perfectly contained and controlled. She was a predator and a monster and a queen simultaneously, and Elizabeth’s heart pounded in her chest, her every instinct demanding that she run, that she leave this place and never look back.
But she couldn’t even look away, much less flee. In Her presence, She demanded respect—but more than that, She deserved respect. In a just world, everything would kneel before Her strength and Her beauty; supplication was the only appropriate reaction. When Elizabeth’s feet finally moved, they moved not to carry her away, but to let her drop to her knees, all the better to look up at Her.
“Mira, honey,” the giggling voice cooed behind her, “Ms. Winslow asked to speak to you.”
She—Mira, this monstrous goddess—tilted Her head, an inquisitive curl touching Her lip. And in the face of such beatitude, Elizabeth took refuge in the message she had come to deliver: “Mrs. Turner, your husband led a survey team into the Greensea several months back. I’m here to tell you that two weeks ago, Viridian rangers found his team’s survey vehicle, abandoned. We’re afraid that… that… he’s…” She slowed to a halt, beginning to process the absurdity of what she was saying. “He’s already come home, hasn’t he?”
Elizabeth turned to look up at the other woman in the room, the one who had greeted her at the door. And this time, the HR director saw her host for who she really was, able to look past the captivating green eyes and take in the rest of her.
“Paul?” she whispered.
The woman giggled again, her frond-like antenna bobbing with her nod. If Mira had grown into a tree, then Paul had blossomed into a flower. She was the grace to her mistress’ power, supple where her mistress was strong. Mira was the colors of the earth, full but unadorned foliage. Paul was—striking. She was as naked as Mira, but red and orange petals wrapped around her like a dress, accentuating her curves, drawing attention to her uncovered shoulders, her thighs, her pussy. It was with a dawning admiration that Elizabeth understood the dramatic difference between the two was the point—that something had allowed Mira and Paul to grow together, to complement each other, to achieve a unity of opposites. Paul was now the color that grew in Mira’s shade, and Mira the canopy that protected and nurtured the delicate beauty below.
This realization brought no greater understanding, only a gnawing sense that she was still missing something, some motivating force that hung just out sight. Elizabeth felt sluggish, the heat and the humidity and the smell of fresh earth conspiring to weigh down on her body as much as they slowed her mind. The thoughts she did manage were confused, contradictory. She was embarrassed and scared and jealous—that her clumsy footfalls had led her into this isolated grove, had brought her to the attention of these two very different monsters, these two beautiful monsters who were so clearly together, that she was exposed before them as weak and small and so, so alone. Another part of her knew that these feelings were irrational, irregular, not completely her own—that what had happened here was strange and alien, that it shouldn’t elicit jealousy but horror, that some force had taken these two people and undone them.
And she knew that if she stayed, that force was going to undo her, too.
“What… happened?” she managed to croak, her skin plastered in sweat, her breath coming heavy. The plantgirl approached, hips swaying, and crouched beside Elizabeth. With a knowing smile, she wrapped a thin hand under Elizabeth’s chin and gently turned her head back and up so it was refocused on Mira.
“The Greensea happened,” Paul whispered, her lips now positioned at the kneeling woman’s ear, and Elizabeth shuddered. There it was, the alien force given name. But how had…
“She is magnificent,” the plantgirl continued, and this time Elizabeth heard the words as much as felt them, resonating within her. “She’s not simply a place, Elizabeth. Every living thing within Her borders is an extension of Her. She saw my team through a thousand different green eyes, and She felt us through ten thousand different blades of grass.” The sweet words dripped into Elizabeth’s mind like honey, and as she stared up into Mira’s face, she could feel what Paul was describing: the footfalls of interlopers across Her skin, the pricks as they took parts of Her. “She was not amused at our efforts to hurt Her, but She is forgiving, and She is curious, and above all She is kind.”
Again, Elizabeth could see what happened, how the team had been stopped by Her, and bestowed with Her gifts, and sent back out into the world to grow Her glory and to help Her learn. But now she understood that these were not her imagination, not approximations conjured by Paul’s words, but memories. And Elizabeth could remember so much, so much that she had never seen or done or been but now was. She felt the wind in the tall pines, the crash of water down a clear rapids, the scamper of small animals along Her limbs and in Her leaves.
Her consciousness kept expanding outward, taking in more and more impossible sights and memories. She understood now that Mira was a conduit, an avatar of the Greensea, that the Her she saw in Mira’s eyes was both of-Mira and not-Mira. She understood that Paul was Her herald, who spoke for Her but without Her voice. She understood that she stood in a small exclave of the Greensea, nurtured toward a specific end. And she understood that Elizabeth Winslow would very soon have a decision to make.
All things she understood, and it was glorious. But it was also dangerous, fundamentally destructive to her sense of self, and the part of Elizabeth that was only human reacted with instinctive dread, the terror of a small being on the edge of a deep precipice. But She could feel Elizabeth’s vertigo, and in response the images began to focus, the sensations growing less expansive until she was merely remembering Paul walking up the front drive, carrying with him Her gift. How he shared it with his wife, and how together they had been transformed, blooming into something new and beautiful, intertwined bodies and limbs and tongues pleasing each other as they pleased Her. Elizabeth felt her body react to the memories, her nipples hardening and her pussy growing wet. To change like that, to feel like that—it was incredible, her memory told her. It would be incredible, her hope told her. She wanted it have been her, and she wanted it to be her again.
And then it wasn’t a memory, or a hope, but a current reality: Paul was behind her, nuzzling her neck, warm hands slipping under her sweat-soaked blouse to cup her breasts. And to her surprise and shocking delight, Elizabeth realized that she could feel both of them. When their lips touched, she felt the experience from her own perspective, and from Paul’s—two sets of tongues entwining, two sets of lips sucking.
They tumbled into the mud together, and as the wet earth embraced them it became difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. Elizabeth-Paul loved with two bodies, gasped with two voices, toyed with two pussies. It should have been a disorienting, unsettling experience, but instead they felt only joy. And at the edge of their consciousness, they could feel Mira, too, pleased to watch them play. They felt her arousal build in time with theirs, and in unison, they turned toward her, two sets of gleaming green eyes, to admire her engorged cock.
But then the symmetry was broken, as the one with green skin led the one with pale skin back down to the ground. “Please,” the pale one said, spreading its legs. “Fill me. Please.”
Mira smiled, but it was not Mira who spoke.
“If We take you,” She said, in a voice that was a peal of thunder, “that will be the end of you.”
The pale one nodded.
“There will never again be a you,” She continued, in a voice that was the howl of the wind. “It will forevermore be an Us—Our thoughts, Our wishes. Our bodies.”
The pale one nodded again, biting its lip.
Mira knelt, Her great member sliding along its belly and pelvis. Then She slowed and smiled, kind but with a touch of cruelty. “Tell Us again what you want. Beg Us,” she commanded.
“Fuck us, please. Fuck me.”
She slid along its slit, drinking in its wet arousal. “More.”
“Please. Take all that I am. Take all that was, take all that I will be. Bind it in your vines. Lash me to your will. Take me. Make me. Please.”
Her cock was positioned at its edge, waiting. “More.”
With that, the pale one finally understood. It closed its eyes and slowed its breathing and it opened.
And then there wasn’t an Elizabeth or a her or an it. And there wasn’t a Paul or a Mira, either. It was just the Greensea, formless and omnipotent and unending, poured into Her three chosen vessels, pleasing Herself with their bodies and their souls.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Elizabeth smiled at herself in the car mirror. She wasn’t the same as she had been, she knew. Her body now chafed at its confinement, at how her covered feet were kept from the fresh soil and her covered skin kept from the brilliant sun. And her eyes! They were freckled with a vibrant green, a green of the lush forest, a green of fresh growth, of change and becoming.
She knew her mind had been touched by that same green. Elizabeth could feel a transformation spreading under her skin, a rebirth germinating within her soul. The Greensea was within her now, guiding her, filling her with purpose. She was both herself, and not—a complement, a continuation, a congress.
But her mind was still her own, even if it was also Her’s. She appreciated the feelings She had given her, the new emotions and sensations trickling through her changing body. But her single-minded focus, her detached outlook—these defined her, too, and they were traits that the Greensea needed.
And yet she was not content.
“Why?” she wondered aloud, querying her new goddess. “Why me?”
In the mirror, a smile formed on Elizabeth’s face, serene and loving and above all kind. In her mind, She spoke of nodes and life and the connections between all things. Of how the Greensea was a whole, and it had been challenged by Viridian, a hollow simulacrum of a whole. Of how the Greensea saw an opportunity, and sought to fill this empty whole with Herself, how She would learn of the world and protect Herself simultaneously. Of how She needed avatars and lieutenants and knowledge and insight.
Of how the Greensea had learned of one Elizabeth Winslow in the minds She had touched, and how She came to want her for Herself.
Elizabeth felt her self confidence return. In fact, by the time she made it to the turnpike, Elizabeth’s exacting, dispassionate, mathematical analysis had determined the exact right person in the corporate hierarchy to bequeath Her gifts upon next.
She was, after all, the head of human resources.
Author’s Note: This story has been a very long time coming! I originally released it on Patreon in May, 2019. As eager as I was to share it, though, I wanted to wait until my artistic partner-in-crime Jill had a chance to bring the story to life. The wait was very much the right call; I think this is one of our best collaborations yet. If you like her art, please consider supporting her on Patreon!
This story also marks several fun firsts for me. Most obviously, it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to create the “plantgirl” tag. But it’s also the first story of mine to involve the Greensea, the sentient hive-mind forest first introduced in Zyzzyva’s Trespass. Finally, it is the first time one of the stories on my website has advanced the world of Azuras into the “modern” era, with cars and logging companies existing alongside magic forests and orc rangers. I’m hopeful it won’t be the last.