You gaped in surprise at seeing a panda standing there, but not down on all fours as she should have been, she was standing upright with a humanesque body and looking at you as if expecting something from you.
She then only doubled up on the shock factor for you by saying, “By the divines, are you hard of hearing or something? Get in the pool.” She emphasized the command by enunciating and pointing with each word.
A portion of your mind connected the dots and found that she was the one speaking to you when you were in the other room; she had the same tone of annoyance and the same odd accent. Most of your mind was still stuck on the idea of a two legged panda woman, something like that couldn’t really exist…could it? Unaware of your mental lockup, the panda groaned and shook her head, with a look on her face that practically screamed “why do I have to deal with this?” Taking two quick steps closer, she pushed you roughly in the shoulder. In your stunned state, you couldn’t react in time so you ended up falling backwards into the pool that she kept telling you to get in. The water was cold, very cold after the steam bath, and more than enough to take your breath away as you tried to avoid drowning.
Coming to the surface, sputtering and thrashing about, you were dimly aware of the panda commanding “Hold still, hold still!”
It’s only after several more moments that you realized that she was cleaning you, or at least trying to. You somewhat simmered down, in more than a little disbelief at what was happening, though also in an attempt at not ticking her off, as she was obviously stronger than she appeared. Thinking back, you found that one of your first thoughts upon seeing this creature was “soft” and now getting so close to her, you found that your thought wasn’t far off: soft fur over an even softer body. She was covered in silky smooth black and white fur over a body that was decidedly plump, but far below your own weight, but carried it very well with quite a bit of confidence. She had to in order to wear something that looked like a jeweled bikini with most of the bikini portion removed, there was so little fabric between the small gemstones, and there wasn’t much coverage even counting the stones. You felt your face go red and tore your eyes away and only felt the blush deepen when you realized that you were still naked.
You tried to get away from her busy hands and cover yourself up, but she merely huffed and pulled you back into place and resumed her task without much effort. Shivers were soon setting in, further draining your energy past what the cold dunk had done. This, combined with your diminished mental faculties, made it so that you gave up resisting for now.
After a while, you managed to find your tongue again. You managed to stammer out, “Where am I?” between your chattering teeth.
While busy with washing your hair, she responded as if it was plainly obvious, “You’re in the capital city of the planet Jeskara.”
It took a bit for your cold addled mind to catch up with what she just told you. “Wait, I’m on another planet? I’m not on Earth!?” You started to pull away from her in shock again, but she once more repositioned you before dunking you to get the soap out of your hair. You surfaced, gasping for breath and blinking your eyes against the water steaming off of you.
Then as if she was speaking to a slow child, “Yes, you’re a long way from your birth world. Now please be quiet, we’re already running far enough behind schedule, and your frivolous questions aren’t helping.”
Any further attempts at figuring out what was going on were met only with stony silence so you soon gave up. After a while longer, she directed you out of the pool and quickly dried you off. The panda then handed you a bundle that you soon realized was clothing, looking somewhat vaguely like a jumpsuit and offering quite a bit more coverage than what the other was wearing. She pantomimed putting the clothes on so –still feeling more than a little embarrassed standing around naked – you started to slip it on. As the odd fabric slipped over your skin, you noticed how it seemed to instantly wick away the chill that still clung to you. You also noticed how the suit was shaped to accentuate your already eye-catching curves despite the extra coverage, almost as if to show you off.
You started to ask the panda about this, but she didn’t say a word. She instead looked you over briefly with those oddly red tinted eyes, gave a quick nod, and spun on her heel. She marched over to another door than the one leading to the steam room, and it opened automatically at her presence. Standing at the edge she looked back at you and gave a hurried “follow” gesture, before sashaying out. With seemingly your only hope for answers taking off, you hesitated for only a moment before following. As you passed through the door, you looked at the frame for just a split second before nearly getting caught as the door started to seal shut with you in the way. You managed to get through and stifled a grumble in your throat, thinking it best to not antagonize any more than you apparently already had.
Your “guide” wordlessly led you through hallways obviously richly decorated. There was plenty of art around, or at least you thought it was art since you could only recognize a few of things displayed about. Along the way, the two of you passed other “people” heading about business of their own, though each of them were humanoid animals just like the panda woman; you even saw a massive turtle man stomping along, sending tremors through the ground with each step. The windows along some of the walls showed you an unmistakably alien world that still felt somewhat familiar: a reddish sun hanging in the sky with hovering vehicles both big and large, all above a city that stretched beyond the limits of what you could see. So absorbed you were in gawking at everything about you that you nearly bumped into the plush rump of the panda when she stopped before you.
With another annoyed glance over her shoulder, she then turned forwards again. “Could you please go in and say that the cleansing has been finished?” she asked with much more respect towards what you could only think of as a futuristic knight, complete with sword hanging from his hip.
The leopard nodded his helmeted head before heading through a small door in the vast wall. A second “knight” remained standing before the wall, though this one was a falcon with an axe instead. You were wondering about where these two guards were standing, spread quite a ways from the door, till you realized that the door was set in a much larger door with a matching opposite, both towering far over you and looking like the entrance to a hanger or something. Only now did you realize how tall the hallways were that you had passed through before; What needs halls so big? your frightened mind managed to wonder.
Almost as if to try to answer, the doors started to open. It was actually more ominous that they did so soundlessly, no tremendous clang or earsplitting creak, nothing. The guard that went in before darted out through the still widening opening, taking his place again. Without looking over her shoulder this time, the panda gestured for you to follow, before sweeping through the door and into the room beyond.
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