Volume 11 - Building Up, Chapter 81 - Pwessmas Eve

As Christmas approached, Korbin told the workers to pause all construction on the inn. Even though he wanted this joint-venture project completed as soon as possible, he insisted that the workers should spend the holiday at home with their loved ones. Yuki and Phoebe left as well, but not before throwing another couple insults at each other.

"Have fun in your third-world village, Elsa," Phoebe teased as she climbed into Yuisu's small red truck for the ride to the train station.

Yuki was on the front porch, enjoying the freezing weather while she waited for Yuisu to return for another trip to town. There were too many reasons why putting Yuki and Phoebe in the same little truck would have been a bad idea. She scoffed and said, "It's too bad that even Okinawa has a cold season. For once, you wouldn't have looked like a freak in your se— uh, slutty outfit."

Yuki then promptly buried her face in a book to hide her blushing face. She'd almost said 'sexy', which was what she actually thought of Phoebe's clothes. They accentuated her best features perfectly, and Yuki couldn't get the image out of her head. Those hip lines, and those tiny shorts… damnit! I can't stand her!

After Yuisu shuttled the two girls to the train station one at a time, she drove straight to work. Some of her coworkers had left town to visit family, so the Atlas convenience store really needed her to pick up some shifts throughout the holiday season.

Quess was also busy at work at the flower stand. After all, bouquets of pheromone-enhanced flowers were a perfect gift for the Japanese tradition of a romantic Christmas Eve night.

On the day of Christmas Eve, Yuisu and Quess were at work, but everyone else was at home, enjoying the calm holiday atmosphere. Well, it had been calm, up until Pwess arrived.

The sliding door to the back porch slid open with a bang and a purple-and-pink slime zipped inside, trailing in fresh snow from the deck. Pwess was in her typical shape: that of a little kid with pink skin, purple bobbed hair, a yellow tendril sticking out of the top of her head, and a three-foot-long glistening purple tail instead of legs. She turned back and shouted through the open door, "You're slow, Momma! I'm going on ahead!"

Back by the cabin, Iormu started to ask Pwess to wait, but it was too late. The hyper child had already closed the door and disappeared into the house.

Iormu was carrying a snow shovel and carefully clearing every speck of snow from the walkway before her. Her upper body was bundled up in a long coat, but her tail trailed back into the cabin where it was warm. As a cold-blooded liminal, Iormu needed to keep herself warm and dry, so the winter made simply getting from the cabin to the main house into an ordeal.

While Iormu made slow progress at clearing a safe and snow-free path, Pwess wandered around inside the main house. First, she slithered into the laundry room, where Haru was getting dressed after a bath. Haru finished pulling on a v-neck shirt and some loose pajama pants, then smiled down at the adorable visitor. "Hello there, Pwess. How are you today?"

Pwess smiled wide, her gelatinous cheeks stretching until she was literally smiling from ear to ear. "I'm great, Auntie Haru! I've been practicing my shape-changing. Wanna see?"

Before Haru could even reply, Pwess spread her arms and they started to stretch and deform. Inch by inch, they spread out into wide pinkish-white wings, complete with a feathered edge along the bottom.

Haru nodded appreciatively. "Wow, great work, Pwess!"

Pwess flapped her 'wings' and zoomed around Haru in a circle, but she wasn't able to generate anywhere near enough lift to fly. She stopped with a frown, then looked pleadingly up at Haru, her pink eyes glistening. "Can you lift me up? I wanna see what it's like to fly!"

Haru planted her wings on her knees and leaned over to be closer to Pwess's eye level. "Oh, I'm sorry, Pwess, but you'd get all stuck in my feathers, and I just cleaned them…"

Pwess took one look at Haru's now exposed cleavage and got an idea. She coiled her tail, then launched up and landed right on Haru's chest, suctioning herself onto Haru's skin to hold on. "No feathers here!" she cheered, proud of her resourcefulness. "Let's go!"

Haru let out a squawk, jumped back, and flailed her wings in surprise. This only made Pwess squeeze harder to hold on, engulfing Haru's breasts. The slimy, squeezing sensation was overwhelming, and Haru just wanted the weird feeling to stop. It didn't help that her vision was obscured by the toddler-sized slime that was sitting on Haru's chest like a chair.

Haru was about to grab the slime to remove her, clean feathers or not, when Pwess said, "Huh. These aren't as bouncy as Momma's. Bored now!" With that, she leapt from Haru's chest and landed on the ground with a graceless PLOP! Then the colorful slime zipped off out the door and down the hallway, wiggling her tail and flapping her little wings.

Haru just stared for a second, still a little shell shocked from the whole situation. Then she tugged at a dry spot on her shirt and looked down, fearing what she'd find. Pink slime residue had soaked through most of her shirt and bra, coating her chest. Normally Pwess had strong surface tension and barely left any slime behind. It was a very different story when she fully engulfed something.

With a sigh, Haru got undressed, tossed her slime-soaked clothes in the laundry basket, and stepped back into the bathing room to rinse off.

Pwess rounded a corner and stopped when she saw a strange sight: a little pink arachne was perched on her tip-toes on the back of the living room couch, reaching with her short arms. Pwess quickly realized that Mara was hanging holiday decorations on the wall with her sticky webbing. She was also dressed for the occasion in a lacy red and white dress and a full assortment of Christmas themed socks.

The living room was looking very festive and Christmassy, despite not having an actual Christmas tree. Since the house was surrounded by majestic pine trees, Yuisu decided they didn't need one inside too. There was, however, a massive pile of wrapped presents in the corner of the room. The gifts between couples would be exchanged that night, and everyone was going to get together on Christmas day to open the rest.

Pwess returned her arms to normal, then called out in her echoey, high voice, "Hi, Auntie Mara!"

Mara hopped down from the couch and cheered back, "If it isn't my favorite slimelet! What's up?"

"This!" Pwess retracted her tail until her lower body was a sphere, then her face took on a look of intense concentration. Slowly, eight thin spider legs extended out of the body until she looked exactly like a tiny arachne made of pink jello.

Mara grinned, her six eyes glistening. She waved one arm and one leg in the air and dramatically proclaimed, "Oh ho ho… Excellent work, but there's only room for one cute pink spider in this house. We must race for that honor!" With that declaration, Mara sock-skated along the smooth hardwood to the west side of the living room, where Pwess was standing and giggling.

Mara glanced down at Pwess, though Pwess wasn't that much shorter, and said, "Just skate around the house back to this spot, alright?"

Pwess nodded, then immediately took off, before Mara was ready. Pwess was surprisingly fast and she was using an unusual technique: sliding on her belly while she pushed with her eight legs against the smooth wood floor. She looked comically like a one-girl rowing team, paddling furiously.

Mara started skating after her, but she hadn't gotten far when she heard a worrisome SPLAT! Pwess may have had speed, but she wasn't able to corner at all. She'd slid right into the wall at top speed and flattened out against it like a pancake. Mara was worried for a second until Pwess reformed back into her normal shape, no worse for wear.

"Being a spider is too hard. Byebye!" Pwess proclaimed, then slithered away in the direction of the kitchen.

Mara shook her head at the realization that someone could be even more fickle and easily distracted than herself, then she returned to decorating.

The kitchen was filled with gentle clinking sounds and the soft clopping of covered hooves on hardwood. Tsuen was unpacking holiday-themed dishes from several boxes on the table and stacking them on the counter. She was too focused on the delicate dishes to notice the arrival of a curious observer.

Pwess watched closely as Tsuen carefully shuttled dishes from table to counter, seeing how she moved, studying how the centaur's four thin yet sturdy legs supported her large body. After a bit, Pwess started to transform. Assuming the shape of a centaur was easy, but standing up like that was another story entirely.

Pwess's entire body jiggled as four spindly legs pushed off from the floor. It took intense concentration to keep the thin slime-legs from squishing flat under her weight, and it was several more seconds before she took her first step.

Like a newborn foal, Pwess stumbled and wobbled on unstable legs. It was then that Tsuen finally noticed the movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced over.

"Squee!" she cried out. Tsuen set down the dishes she'd been holding then clasped her hands together against her yellow sports bra. She could barely contain herself at how cute the tiny slime-taur was. "Oh, you look so adorable, Pwess!"

Pwess didn't respond. She was deep in concentration, with her eyes narrowed and her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. She took another few feeble steps before acknowledging Tsuen. She looked way up at her and said, "This is hard, Auntie Tsuen. How do you do it?!"

Tsuen couldn't help but giggle. "Oh, it's definitely tricky, and being made of slime can't be making it any easier for you." She kneeled down on the floor next to Pwess and said, "Let's see if I can give you some pointers."

She spent several minutes guiding Pwess on how to walk and turn and eventually run. As an intelligent Queen Slime, Pwess learned alarmingly fast. Soon she was galloping around the kitchen table, her slime-hooves making little PLINK-PLINK sounds that were just too cute. Before Tsuen could congratulate Pwess on her success, Pwess zipped off down the hallway toward Chione's room.

Still smiling, Tsuen returned to unpacking dishes, but she didn't get far before an out-of-breath jormungand came slithering into the kitchen from the living room.

Iormu was still bundled up in a winter coat, but she'd left the snow shovel on the porch after finally clearing a path all the way between the buildings. Shoveling all that heavy snow was a heavy workout and she was exhausted. "Hey, Tsuen," Iormu said between panting breaths, "Have you… seen Pwess?"

"You just missed her. I helped her learn to walk as a centaur, then she ran off toward the back door," Tsuen answered.

Iormu sighed and started that direction. "Ugh, I just can't keep up with that girl. I need to lose some weight."

Tsuen glanced over Iormu's body with the perspective of a fitness trainer. "You look right for your body type, Iormu. Based on your toned arms and midriff, you're probably a very healthy weight."

Iormu shook her head, sending her long hair and horns swinging. "Other than these huge boobs, my body stores all my extra fat back there," she said, casting a glare back at her epic-length tail. "You don't want to know how much weight I'm carting around…"

As Iormu slithered down the hall in pursuit of Pwess, yard after yard of hefty tail trailing by, Tsuen realized just how right Iormu was. As a light-weight centaur, Tsuen weighed a few hundred pounds more than human woman with a similar build. For Iormu, that number was probably closer to a few thousand.

Meanwhile, Pwess had squeezed flat and slinked under the closed door to Chione's room, thinking, Ooh, Chione's cool looking! I want to copy her. The gargoyle was asleep on the bed, so Pwess climbed up on it to get a better look.

Chione was lying face down on top of the covers in a t-shirt and underwear, with her wings unfurled into the open air of the room, perfect for Pwess to reference.

Pwess spent a moment extruding some gelatinous wings from her back. Rather than the gently fading purple-to orange colors of Chione's wings, Pwess's became a chaotic rainbow of bright colors swirling against a darker background, like a beautiful technicolor oil-spill.

Needless to say, Pwess was proud of her work, and she wanted to share it. "Chione, wake up! Look at what I did, Chione!" She crawled across the bed, teetering due to her large wings, until she approached Chione's butt, which was clad in cute teddy-bear panties. Pwess climbed up on it and bounced up and down. With a giggle, Pwess said, "Ooh, for a rock-girl, this part sure is soft and squishy!"

When Chione just continued to sleep like a stone, Pwess changed tactics. She sat down on the back of Chione's thighs, turned her fists in cartoonish boxing gloves, and lightly punched Chione in the butt, repeatedly. She alternated between the two cheeks and cheerfully yelled, "Bop, bop, bop! Wake up!"

Pwess's yelling was loud enough for her searching mother to hear from the hall. Iormu flung open the door and quickly took in the scene. In a stern voice, she called out, "Pwess, stop punching that butt right this instant!" Then she shook her head and muttered, "That's something I never thought I'd say…"

Pwess gave Chione's shapely booty one last bop, then turned around and said, "Momma, why won't she wake up?"

Iormu slithered forward and scooped Pwess up into her arms. The young slime was getting almost too big to carry around that way. "That's because Chione is nocturnal." When Pwess tilted her head in confusion, Iormu explained, "That means she sleeps in the day, and is awake all night. Let's let her sleep, since she's got a big date with Actia tonight."

Iormu doubled back over herself and slithered out of the room. "Come on, princess. We need to go get ready to surprise Mommy when she gets home from work."

Pwess wriggled happily and nestled against Iormu's massive chest. "Yay! I love surprises!"

Iormu smiled down at Pwess and said, "Well that's good, because you're getting one too!" At first Iormu had wanted to have a romantic dinner that night, but since Quess didn't eat normal food and it was Pwess's first Christmas Eve, Iormu had come up with a new idea. She'd ordered some carbonated juice for Pwess, since she loved being tickled by the bubbles, and a bottle of hot hard cider for her moms, and they were all going to watch an online Santa Tracker together as a family.