Become Your Fursona

My night vision is gone. The hotel room goes from green monochrome to pitch blackness.

For a moment, I am confused. Then I realize what just happened.

I don’t know how I expected it to feel. Then I realize the feelings I’m used to are gone. Instead of the chill, liquid rush through my cooling lines, I feel a faint thump, thump in my neck. And instead of the whoosh of air over my circuits, the pump of mechanical breath, I feel … nothing.

I stand there confused, turning around trying to see myself and failing. My tail swishes, not with nervousness but annoyance. It feels floppy and loose, as though it’s not secured tight but is hanging limply on my skeleton. Everything feels floppy and loose, and I wrap my arms around myself, as if trying to keep my squishy flesh from sloughing right off of my bones.

It hurts, and I wince and let go as I realize I’ve pinched myself. But even the movements of my face seem unnatural.

There’s a tightness in my chest, and I unfold my arms, prodding the skin that’s stretched over my ribs and wondering if I have damaged myself. But then I remember where that pain comes from, and I take a deep breath through my muzzle — a dry, airy breath, that leaves me thirsty for liquid coolant.

I exhale, and realize I’ve got to breathe again in a second. Now I’m starting to feel something. Worry? I don’t know. I was never able to recognize it, not even when I was human. But the thump, thump in my neck is thumping faster, and I feel like a claw is gripping my innards. My stomach growls, and I worry about it, too.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” a male voice asks. And then I can see specks of light in the darkness, eight pinpricks bright as candles. They’re in between me and the television, and the man is between me and them; a silhouette in the dark. In the television’s wide screen, I see the reflection of a muzzle, and a knot of bushy, white-tipped tails like mine. They’re swishing and sly, like snakes.

I think of how to answer the man. Even when I agreed, I knew this was not what I wanted … not in the long run, at least. I realize now that the feeling that caused me to say ‘yes’ was not the deep, inner longing he spoke of, but a sense of curiosity. And that curiosity is abated.

My stomach tightens, and I clutch it, beginning to feel waves of awful. The feelings are strong enough that I remember their meaning from childhood. I must be very distressed, if I am about to throw up.

I decide not to answer the man. “Change me back,” I say, my voice sounding quiet and “off.” It wavers, reflecting the nervousness I must be feeling.

“What?”

I can’t tell if he doesn’t believe that I want this, or just didn’t hear me correctly. I decide to be generous and assume the latter. “Change me back,” I say again, putting more force in my voice. Remembering how to do that. Remembering arguments with my father, and roommates, and fellow board members. I won’t be denied what I am entitled to.

“But … why?” he sputters, less confident than when we first met. “You’re a living being again! Claris, you’re a living, breathing woman, and-”

“I was already alive,” I say, cutting him off. I realize I’m clutching my soulcrystal in my hand, and I open my palm, letting its faint violet light shine out into the room.

He points down at it. “That’s not life!”

“For me, it is. Now change me back.”

He’s silent. I see his fist-outlines clenching and unclenching, and I wonder if he plans to steal my soulcrystal. For a second, my worry intensifies, and I know it means I am afraid. Then I remember who I am, and what kind of power I have. And I tell myself no one would dare, not even him. Not even someone with powers like his.

He’s still silent. “What are you waiting for?” I ask, and I start to feel annoyed with him. “I don’t need more time to make up my mind. I remember what it was like to be this way. Having fur and a tail doesn’t change anything. Or is it because I’m a woman?” I ask. “Would you be so confused if a man had asked you to change him back? Or were you hoping I’d let you do something else to me now?”

It occurs to me that I am naked.

There is a flash of green light, and I stagger and fall. I am on my side all of a sudden, leaning against the bed, and I can see in infrared and feel the mechanical breath pumping throughout my system. But something feels wrong, and I realize the feeling of liquid throughout me is gone. My coolant lines are dry, my batteries are almost dead, and the thick polyfur all around me is making my innards heat up.

Brighter green fills the room as the door flies open, without anyone reaching for it. “Go,” the man says, and points outside. “Go, and get out of my sight.”

I don’t want to argue with him. I am scared now, as though the same neurons were firing and muscles were tensing inside me. The soulcrystal embedded in me glows brighter as I stumble and lurch outside, tripping and falling just past the door as it slams shut behind me. I look around for someone to help me up, but there’s no one here. Just a loud room party across the hall.

I look up at the door. A drawing of anthropomorphic animals is taped to it, and I wonder if the people inside know a real one is staying across from them. I realize I was one for a minute, but that doesn’t make me feel different.

I pull myself up by their doorknob. The sky past the window at the end of the hall is black, and I can see myself clearly in it: Claris, the mechanical vixen. The heir of Pomegranate Computer, and the best fursuit ever designed. The guest of honor, and sponsor.

The rig with a gaming-class power supply, and a carpet of insulation.

I have to get back to the room, with my charger and my liquid coolant. Before I either shut down, or watch everything inside me melt.

Species: Bat
Defiance: Nil

There are a man and a woman standing on the streetcorner, wearing face-concealing gas masks and gray-and-white camouflage uniforms. Each has a bulky, nozzled contraption slung over his or her shoulder, a dark gray menacing kind of machine with dual handgrips and a trigger.

The sky is gray. The streets are quiet. The cars are all stopped. A handful of people are out, beneath the skyscrapers with shuttered doors and blank windows. All of them have animalistic features, swishing tails and twitching ears, and clothes that are too big or too small on them.

Species: Dog
Defiance: Nil

A canid rounds the corner in front of the soldiers and gasps, then hurries past with his tail tucked between his legs. He does not look up at them. He does not make eye contact. The man swats at his back to hurry him past, and he jumps, before running to a safe distance.

The woman examines him, pressing one hand to the side of her mask and holding down a small button. Then she looks across the street, at a big, burly cat that bristles his fur at her, glaring as he goes by.

Species: Lion
Defiance: Significant

She says nothing, but watches slowly as he walks past. Seagulls cry overhead, and out in the bay the sky rumbles with thunder. Somewhere nearby, it is raining.

The man plays with a touchscreen set in the arm of his uniform, as the woman unshoulders her pack and sets it inside a doorway. She rummages through it and gets out a covered steel cup and utensil, then sets them aside before releasing the pressure lock and taking off her mask.

Sweaty, stringy hair clings to the inside of it, before she pulls it away and sets it on top of her pack. Her face is small, and her features look Inuit.

“Time,” the man next to her says, without looking up.

She twists a mechanical watch on the underside of her arm, to set it ticking. “1450,” she reports.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes, Tyris.”

“I know … sir.” Tyris nods, looking up at him. She doesn’t need to be told what happens to exposed humans on this planet.

She unseals the lid on her cup and smells the warm chowder inside, closing her eyes and communing with cream, milk and clams. They were powder this morning, but she doesn’t care.

A packet of crackers gets dumped in. Then comes a spoon, and it scoops out bite after bite. She eats slowly, pretending she’s home in her mother’s kitchen, and there are fish sizzling on the stove and the snow piles up outside on the-

There is a sound like a CRACK of thunder right next to her, and she startles and drops her half-empty cup. It clatters to the sidewalk, the only sound on the street as everyone in earshot freezes.

The man strides across the street, as Tyris fumbles to jam her mask back on. Everything is dark inside. Then it activates, and she sees her commander questioning a pale-skinned native boy, leaning over him and burbling in their fluid language. The boy is wearing their bright-colored clothes, far too light for this weather, and is doing a poor job of hiding how scared he is.

Tyris holds down a button on her facemask and sees the thin, black line traced by the shot, a zone of pure death that goes into the ground. Then she looks at the glowing outline of the talking native boy, next to the tiny pinprick of light in the soulcrystal on her commander’s person, and squints at the boy’s readout.

Species: ???
Defiance: Nil

She cocks her head at him, trying to figure out what’s going on and why her readout is messed up. Then she holds down another button, while unshouldering her own rifle, and hears their voices in plain Nearan.

“Go back!” her commander shouts.

“But-” the boy protests.

“Go back!”

Tyris watches the boy’s shoulders slump, dejected, as he turns and walks away. For a moment, she feels sorry for him. But she knows that was for his own good.

It is back there, further into the city, the way that human boy was going.

It does not like humans.

But as Tyris’ commander comes back to the streetcorner next to her, she realizes that this man just shot at one. At an unarmed child, no less. And in a moment of indignation, she asks “Was that really necessary?”

“At your attention, soldier!”

Tyris and her heart both leap to attention, as she stands still and rigid. Her foot is in the clam chowder spill, but she does not care.

“What is your rank, soldier?” His voice is modulated by his helmet, for no other reason than to sound intimidating.

“Legionnaire.” Tyris’ voice is muffled by hers.

“How long have you been on Earth?”

“Two weeks.” Tyris looks past his facemask without turning her head, knowing her visor is glossy enough that he can’t see her.

“How long have I been on Earth?”

“Three years.” He’d told her that morning.

He tells her about the savage, filthy Earth humans. The survivor camps that they live in. The crude machines that they drive, that they struggle to keep maintained, and the wars that they fight for the last drops of oil. And the way they mix animals’ souls with their own, turning themselves into animals. Turning themselves into beasts of burden.

Tyris listens, and reminds herself of how stupid she is. And how very out of her league she is on this planet.

“I saw what that boy had,” her commander tells her. “He was carrying a blank soulcrystal. He was a Spirit Hunter looking for a mark, an animal that he could kill or capture. Like one of the Company’s workers. It’s our job to guard their assets. It’s-”

Something yips. Tyris turns and sees the boy chasing after a fox, into a dark alley.

Tyris takes off after him, before her commander finishes unshouldering his weapon. He shouts at her. She does not listen. She hates him and she hates herself, but she knows what she needs to do. And how long she has to act.

Damp brick and street trash fill Tyris’ vision. Her echoing breath fills her ears. Her weapon is too heavy, so she unslings it and drops it as she rounds the corner.

Far past the alley, in between ruined skyscrapers, It reflects the dull grayish clouds. It sits there, a crystalline monolith, more powerful than the buildings that It displaced when It grew from the ground. Far beneath It, the boy runs towards a parking garage, across the street and towards It.

It is not dangerous until the sun comes out above It.

The clouds are beginning to part.

Tyris sees the boy running towards It, and shouts the only English word that she knows. “Stop!” she yells. “Stop!” She has to lean against the brick wall on the near side of the street, and gasp for breath after running.

The sun comes out, and It shines Its prismatic Glare, just as the boy dives into the shadows among ruined cars. Tyris stands there in the light, as the air wavers like a heat distortion and everything sparkles like diamonds. For a moment, her breath catches in her throat; but then she reminds herself I’m not like him, I’m not susceptible, it only swallows your soul if you have one.

I’m Hollow. I am immune.

Tyris lets herself catch her breath, feeling uncomfortably warm inside her armor. Then she forces herself to stride towards the garage, mechanically, trying to swallow her fear and uncertainty. Feeling less like a soldier and more like a robot. But that makes her remember Claris, the first woman to have her soulcrystal inhabit a robot after she died, and she thinks I’m not so different. And we’re both different from everyone else.

I can do this. I can save him.

Tyris crawls in between the concrete barriers, into the darkness of the parking garage. She can’t hear any sounds in there, from her quarry or the fox he was chasing, because the noise from near It is too loud; the vehicles rumbling, scaffolding shaking, drills chipping crystal and concrete. The mining operation’s in full swing, and the Company won’t let its Earth workers be interrupted.

Tyris doesn’t care about the Company. She wants to save that poor boy.

Clouds cover the sun again, and Tyris’ eyes adjust to the darkness. She taps the side of her visor again and squints at the vehicles’ outlines, looking for the boy’s glow. Looking for his soul, in between the inanimate objects. It was always easier for Tyris than anyone else, because she never had to worry about her own glow blinding her.

Species: Unknown
Defiance: Nil

There he is. In between two of the tiny Earth vehicles. He’s ignoring her, and crawling on hands and knees towards another, smaller glow. The fox.

A sudden longing wrenches at Tyris’ stomach. She doesn’t know what it is. She’s watching the fox, watching it past the glow in its fur, paws, and tail, and remembering the time that she went to the zoo. And stared at one the whole time.

Only when the boy sets up a large, scraping metal box, and begins to draw anima towards himself from the animal, does Tyris shake her head and clear it. She walks closer, looking down at the boy through the car he is hiding behind, seeing him so intent on the fox that he does not see or hear her. Until the fox notices her and runs, and he stands up and sees her and freezes.

“Stop,” Tyris commands.

He runs, towards the fox. Towards the far end of the parking garage, and the mining trucks around It.

“Thrak.” Tyris runs after him.

The boy stops abruptly at the edge of the garage, where its concrete floor gives way to the crater surrounding It. For a moment, Tyris thinks I’m gaining on him, and remembers her training in hand-to-hand combat and how to subdue a person. But then she sees him jump down and start climbing through broken concrete, as the fox peeks its head up past him. Staring up at It, and the scaffolds surrounding It. At the freshly-blasted crystal dust raining down one of Its sides, into a truck the size of a building. And at the hovering sky-truck above it, where Earth anthro workers are climbing onto the scaffolds and securing themselves by their harnesses.

The fox just keeps staring at It. And the boy’s fixated on the fox.

There’s only one way to end this, Tyris thinks. She puts on a fresh burst of speed, and jumps out into the air.

Tyris lands on top of the boy, cracking his head and kneecaps to the concrete, then rolling with him down the crater until cracked pavement gives way to dust. Her hastily-reattached helmet comes off, but her armor and training help her get the best of it. It only takes her a moment to regain her bearing, while the boy is still senseless.

“Are you insane?” she shouts at him in Nearan, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him as his head lolls. “What were you trying to do!? You could have gotten your soul eaten, you could have … ”

Tyris’ voice trails off, as she notices two things.

First, the fox is right next to her. It didn’t run. It’s just sitting there, staring up at It.

And second, the sun has come out.

The fox rears up on its hind legs and yips, its fur sparkling, as glittery anima wisps from its muzzle. It isn’t in pain. It’s ecstatic.

Tyris looks down, and sees the boy’s spirit escaping him right through her fingertips.

“No!” she shouts, and her training leaves her. She tries to shield him; she tries to shadow him with her body. But she can’t do that and hold him up at the same time, and a steady stream of anima trails out through the unconscious boy’s mouth and eyes.

Tyris leaps up and grabs at it, clawing the air, watching the boy’s and the fox’s souls scatter like dust in the sunlight. Then they twirl together past her arms, and beneath her the boy’s face is smiling as the fox’s form slumps to the ground.

Glowing wisps and motes of anima fill Tyris’ vision, and she knows this is bad but she doesn’t remember why. She’s scared, she’s in shock, she’s losing control of her breathing. She thinks I killed him, I killed him, oh Goddess I’m sorry, I hate myself, I’m so sorry.

Then she remembers her training. The videos, the drills and the hazmat suits. She remembers why she has to wear a mask at all times. And she looks down at her suit’s anima tag, that she has to wear like a radiation badge, and sees that it’s glowing bright red.

The two souls are taken in front of her, drifting up inside It right past the workers. And Tyris slumps to the ground, sobbing and shivering. Small and unnoticed beneath It, and beneath the Company’s hardware.

She finally crawls over and picks up her helmet, putting it on and keying the radio. “Sir, I’m in a hot zone,” she says. “I’m contaminated.” Her voice is flat. She knows what awaits her, and knows she deserves it.

It takes them an hour to pick her up. She just sits there, watching the anthros.

Ryan jumped backwards, staring down at the street. He thought lightning had struck right in front of him.

Everyone, everything stopped, except for the seagulls overhead and the distant rumble of stormclouds. The crumbling skyscrapers and abandoned cars weren’t moving, but neither were the anthros out on the street. They were as frozen as he was, and he could do nothing as booted footsteps ran up, until a thick hand grabbed him by the collar and shook him.

“What are you doing here?” The man’s voice was muffled. Ryan looked up and saw not ears and whiskers, but a face-concealing gasmask with a shiny black visor. He was a human, like Ryan — like he was for now — and he was wearing some kind of gray and white urban camo gear. It looked like he’d come off of a military base.

Ryan was instantly scared. Military gear meant he was a Tea Partier, or with a militia or something. They had to be trying to claim the city. But if he was with a militia, then why did his nametag look … Chinese, or Korean? And what was with his strange accent?

Ryan coughed and tried to collect his wits, clutching his smartphone tight and hoping the man wouldn’t confiscate it. “I’m hunting for an animal … ”

The man shook his head. “What is your name?” he demanded.

He just blurted out his first name. “Ryan.”

“Rye-ann, this place is for Earth workers.” He shoved him backwards and let him go. “Go back!”

“But I-”

“Go back!”

Ryan stood there in a daze, watching him walk back across the street to where a woman in similar gear was standing. They were talking, but he couldn’t make out what they said; they were carrying some kind of machines over their shoulders, but he couldn’t tell if they were rifles or vaccum cleaners.

“‘Earth’ workers?” he thought, crouching behind a car. His reflection looked back at him, a lanky human teenager’s with messed-up hair and a worn-out shirt and backpack. He put it out of his mind as soon as he saw it, and dug in his pocket for his empty soulcrystal.

He got it out and looked through it and the car windows, and winced as an anthro bird walked past them, his feathered tail glowing with bright blue anima. But in the humans across the street, there was nothing … nothing but a tiny pinprick of light, a soulcrystal in the man’s pocket. What were they? he wondered. Robots?

Whatever they were, they were in his way. He tapped the screen on his smartphone, still glancing through the car’s windows at them, and checked the map of this area. Someone had posted a fox sighting in this neighborhood just last night, and he’d gotten up early so he could go look for it. But now the city was crowded all of a sudden — he had to have seen at least two dozen people so far — and these gun-toting, uniformed jerks thought they owned the place.

He couldn’t fight them, not that he wanted to. But a fox lived right here near the shelter downtown, if all these people hadn’t scared it off. How was he going to find it if …

Something splashed, behind him. He turned to look, and saw a red fox’s face looking up at him over the puddle it was drinking from.

His heart started to pound.

Slowly, Ryan reached for his backpack, sideyeing his reflection to guide his shaking hand. The zipper seemed loud — too loud — and the fox cocked its head at him as he reached in and got out his imprinter. It was heavy and awkward, machined steel with sharp edges, and he cut himself trying to fix the soulcrystal inside.

The fox had taken a few steps towards him. “Please don’t have rabies,” he thought, as he stood and aimed the imprinter with both hands. Through the lens on its back he could see the fox anima, thick and swirling and crimson like blood, and as he held down the lever on the side it started to flow towards his gem. Not enough to kill the poor thing … just enough to make him what he longed to live as. Or at least, to bring him as close as it was possible to get.

Ryan’s heart raced. He couldn’t think straight, and could barely hold the imprinter still. Seconds stretched on to infinity, but he only needed a few more of them before-

“What are you doing!?” It was the man in the uniform, behind him.

The fox bolted, and the stream of anima wisped away.

Before Ryan could think, he ran after it.

“OPENING SOON!
The CITY CREEK CENTER — Salt Lake City’s premier retail destination, with over 500,000 square feet of nationally-recognized chain stores!”

That was on the sign next to the doorstep where Alexandre Britos sat, huddled and shivering. He had the shape and build of a tall, skinny human, but his face was shaped like that of a fox. A pink fox, with white fur around and beneath his muzzle and short, bright blue tufts on top.

It was a cold, snowy Christmas Eve night. The air was thick with huge, fluffy snowflakes, forming halos around every streetlight and headlight. And in between the rush of traffic, just across the street from the Center, Alexandre could see the walls of Temple Square, and the forest of Christmas lights just beyond them.

There were humans there; white, upper-middle class humans, taking pictures in front of the lights and the live Nativity scene. Enjoying the night, if they had the clothes to not look out of place. Holding hands, if they were of opposite genders. Celebrating the eve of Jesus’ birth, and the holiday sale on at Deseret Book.

Alexandre flattened his ears. He still didn’t understand why they’d thrown him out of there. He’d just found these books that someone had left by themselves on a table, and decided to be helpful by putting them back in their places. How was he to know that they’d get upset at him for putting the Book of Mormon in the fiction aisle? It wasn’t like he’d tried to just take something without paying for it; he’d learned his lesson after the hot dog incident.

You know why they were upset, he thought to himself. But he didn’t want to think about it … it didn’t seem real right now. The whole world had seemed kind of fuzzy all day, and it wasn’t just because he had fur and a tail. He clutched the tip of it, trying to warm it, long past having given up on his ears. And he wondered if it was safe to go out yet, and if anyone was still looking for him.

Alexandre got up when he heard voices, coming from the door behind him. Then the door opened, and he jumped around the corner, pressing himself to the wall. For a moment he wanted to run, but then curiosity got the better of him — who’d needed to be inside a mall that hadn’t opened yet?

“Thank you for your time,” a male voice was saying. It sounded clipped and professional. “I know we’ll get to common ground somehow.”

“I’ll bet you do,” another male voice said. This one was higher-pitched, and sounded annoyed.

“Merry Christmas,” the first voice said, although it didn’t sound like it meant it. Then the door slammed shut.

After that, there was silence.

Alexandre peeked around the corner, trying to squint through the snowfall to see who it was. Then he stared.

The person who’d just come out was not human at all, but had the face of a cat; some kind of wildcat, with small and thin facial features and long, tufted black ears. They flattened, as he glared across the street with his arms folded. And his tail swished, as he shivered beneath his coat and jeans.

Then he noticed Alexandre. And if he noticed that neither of them looked human, or that Alexandre was staring at him in a confused panic, he did not mention it. “Hey,” he said, his ears unfolding.

“Hel-lo,” Alexandre said, not sure if he should run or not.

“What’s your name?” the cat asked.

Don’t tell him! said Alexandre’s instincts. They were still in fight-or-flight mode, and had just been rehearsing a lecture he’d seen, about how you should always plead the 5th Amendment when you were questioned by the police.

“Uh … ” he said, overwhelmed with these strange new fox feelings, that were making him skittish and hard to calm down. “Uh … no comment,” he finished, and swallowed.

“I see.” The cat took a few steps down the stairs, as if to take a closer look at him. “Are you alright?”

Alexandre’s fox instincts, as well as his human sensibilities — that had never seen a real-life anthropomorphic animal before that day — were still scared and on edge. But he could sense that this … person, meant him no harm. And so he tried to calm down.

“I … um.” Alexandre realized that he had been hunched over as though getting ready to bolt, and made himself stand up straight. Then he put one hand behind his head, embarrassed. “It’s a long story … ”

The cat reached down and brushed off one of the lower steps, then sat down and gestured towards the space next to him. “I’m not going anywhere. Do you want to talk about it?”

He sat down next to the cat, eyes locked onto his face and ears, trying to tell if what he was seeing was real or not. Even after what’d happened to him, he still wasn’t sure. Especially after what’d happened to him. How could he be sure anything he saw was real?

The cat noticed and returned the look. “So, where are you from?” the cat asked.

“Logan.”

“Do you work anywhere?”

“I’m still a student.” Alexandre looked up. “Uh, how ’bout you?” His eyes flicked up towards the door. “What’s up with them?”

“Oh, them.” He rolled his eyes. “They sorta brought me in as a consultant.”

“They, as in the church? I mean the, uh-”

“Yeah, the LDS church, I know they’re the ones building the mall.” He gestured across the street at Temple Square. “They wanted me to come take a look at it.”

Alexandre gave him a funny look. A corporate consultant in street clothes? He looked more like a vagrant. And his species …

The cat grinned. “Yeah, I know. I’m not really their type. I tried to tell them up-front, but they insisted. Even though I was with the GLBT protests outside their temples this fall.”

“I … guess they didn’t know you were there, huh?”

“I do kinda blend in, in a crowd.” His tufted ears twitched.

Now Alexandre was bewildered. Between this cat and what he’d gone through that morning, it was starting to make him question his sanity. What had happened to him? Was everyone going to start looking like an animal?

“So yeah, uh, consulting … ” Alexandre fidgeted. He had to come up with something to say, that would keep this cat here long enough that he could figure out what was going on. “What did they want you to look at, exactly?”

“Oh, the indoor stream, the retractable roof, the underground parking lot … ” The cat’s tail swished and brushed snow off the step, in the way that a hallucination could not. “The million-dollar condos … ”

“And they, uh, they … ” Alexandre made himself look away from the cat’s tail. “They wanted you to tell them how they were doing with them?”

“No, they wanted me to smile and say how excited I was and tell them all that I loved it.” The cat spoke through clenched teeth. “They didn’t want to hear what I really had to say.”

“Ah … ” Alexandre looked closely at the cat’s fangs. “And what did you have to say?”

“I told them they should sell the whole thing, and donate the money to charity.”

Alexandre choked, and coughed for a moment. “Yeah, they wouldn’t want to hear that, alright!”

“At least they finally asked.” The cat folded his arms. “I would’ve loved to hear from them a long time ago.”

“Uh … huh.” Alexandre watched him tap his clawtips impatiently on his sleeves.

He looked up at Alexandre. “So, did you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

“Huh? Oh, I, uh … ” He grinned nervously. “Is it that obvious?”

“Oh, yes.” The cat nodded. “You’ve been on edge the whole time I’ve been talking to you.”

“Well, I, um … ” Alexandre swallowed. His face turned from pink to red as he tried to think how much to tell him, and how to make it not seem crazy. “My friends and I sort of got ourselves in trouble.”

“With your parents?”

“Er … with the police.”

“Sounds like fun.” The cat grinned, and Alexandre caught a hint of mischief in his eyes. “What’d you do?”

“We, uh … we were conducting kind of a social experiment. You know, like Candid Camera.”

“Do tell!”

“Well, uh … ” He didn’t want to tell the cat that it’d been to find out what random people saw him as.

His own friends hadn’t realized that he had become a fox, at first. They’d just thought there was something strange about him, until he had pointed it out to them. Then they’d looked closely at his face, and pressed their fingers to his wet nose and fox ears, and felt his bushy tail. Even though that tail had knocked something off of the coffee table in front of the last holdout, he still hadn’t gotten it ’till Alex had taken him by the hands, looked directly into his face, and asked him what he saw.

After that, they’d thought it was the funniest thing ever, and had tried all kinds of experiments on the way that their mind played tricks on them when they looked at him. And he’d gone along with it and laughed, because it was so much easier to laugh with them than panic and wonder What’s happened to me? He’d wanted to feel that things were alright, that this was nothing serious, and that he wouldn’t be stuck like this for the rest of his life. So he’d let things get carried away, and let himself get carried along with them.

The cat was still looking up at him expectantly. “I, uh … ” He looked away for a second. “Y’know that picture, where it’s like two people’s faces — but if you look at it the right way, it’s really a lamp?”

“Yes. So you wanted to know which one people saw?”

“Yeah, kind of-” Alex jumped to his feet in a panic, as two people came walking around the corner and down the sidewalk just past them. But the cat didn’t move, and the people turned to look but didn’t seem particularly worried.

He sat back down, feeling embarrassed. “Anyway, uh, most people saw the ‘lamp,’ but a handful of people could see the ‘face.’ Especially children.”

The cat smiled, and swished his tail happily. “I love kids.”

“You have any?”

“Lots.”

Alexandre gave the cat’s face a searching look. He hadn’t thought he looked or sounded that old.

“You were saying?” the cat asked.

“Well … the kids were fun. I really hammed it up for them.” He grinned, at the memory. “But I kinda got carried away … ”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I uh … kissed one of my friends on the cheek, just to be silly.”

“Except that he was a guy, and you were on LDS church property at the time.”

“Yeah, and they sicced the Gestapo on us.” Alexandre put his hand behind his head, embarrassed. “In hindsight, they probably wouldn’t have chased us so far if we hadn’t run so fast. But we kinda split up along the way, and well … ” He spread his hands out, helplessly. “Yeah.”

The cat grinned. “Sounds like you had more fun today than I did.”

Alexandre laughed. It was a relief not to be judged. “Yeah, well, maybe you should’ve tried that! Kissed one of those boardroom types and then run off. It probably would’ve gotten you further than talking to them did.”

“I should’ve!” The cat’s slitted eyes brightened.

“Listen, can I, uh … ” Alexandre looked down at the cat’s swishing tail, and coughed. “Can I ask you something real quick?”

The cat nodded.

“When you look at me. What do you see?”

“A person.”

“No, I mean … ” Alexandre cringed. “What species am I?”

“What does it matter?”

And then Alexandre knew that the cat was real, and that he could see him, and that he wasn’t just dreaming this up. “So I’m a … ” He gestured helplessly. “And you’re a … ”

“How does it matter?”

” … I’m not sure.” He looked down at his feet, at the boots that were a little too small for him now, and curled his squashed, frozen toes inside them. His dull claws dug into the soles.

The cat took a deep breath. “Alexandre, listen to me.”

“How do you know my name?” Alexandre was sweating.

“That doesn’t matter either. What does matter is that you’re a person, no matter what you look like or who you like to kiss. Or what part of the bookstore you think LDS scripture belongs in.”

Alexandre was looking down at his feet again now, his heart pounding like mad, unable to look up at the cat’s face.

“You’re not going crazy, you’re just realizing what kind of person you are. And I know it’s painful. I had a good job and a comfortable life when it happened to me, and then all of a sudden I started doing stuff that made no sense at all to the people that I grew up with. I got arrested, I got into trouble with church leaders, I got spat on and beat up and laughed at. But I had to put up with it all, because that was just the kind of person I was. Once I realized who I was, and what other people were, I had to do something to help them. No matter what trouble it got me into.”

“Tell me … ” Alexandre looked up at the cat, nervously. “Were you a carpenter before all this happened?”

The cat just reached over and hugged Alexandre. He hugged him back, crying into the fur on top of his head.

“That doesn’t matter either,” the cat whispered, scritching Alexandre’s back slowly.

Alexandre just nodded, his eyes squeezed shut and still crying.

“Don’t worry about how others see you. Just be yourself, and try to see everyone for who they are. Because that’s the only thing that’s changed about you today. All that’s changed is your eyes are more open now.”

“Okay,” Alexandre whispered.

“I’ve got to go,” the cat said, letting go of him gently and standing. “Merry Christmas, Alexandre.”

“Happy birthday,” the fox said, and swished his tail in the snow.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re really cute as a fox!” Sam admires his fur, in the light of the moon from outside. Then she looks up at his face, and realizes the expression is not one of wonderment. It’s one of shock.

“Joshua … ?” she asks.

There’s no answer. He’s frozen as though in midstride, one hand still inches away from his face where he’d been scratching it. Breathing slowly through his muzzle.

“Joshua, are you okay?”

Sam’s feline tail twitches nervously, and she clasps her hands and fidgets during the long silence. She can smell sweat, and fear, and horrible pain coming from him.

“Uh, look, if this is about the feelings you had during your change … ” She looks away, still fidgeting. “It’s not your fault. A lot of people are sensitive to it like-”

He says something, and she can’t hear him.

“Er, what was that?”

“I SAID GET OUT!” He stands, his eyes burning and tear-stricken, and it looks like he’s about to throw something at her.

Sam jumps to her feet and hurries to the door, sweating and shaken, as he follows right at her heels. When she gets most of the way through the door he slams it on the tip of her tail, and she screams, jumping and losing her glasses. He opens the door just a crack, and her tail twitches out just in time for him to slam it again.

Dogs are barking all over the neighborhood now. A silhouette appears at the window across the street. Terrified and in shock, she reaches down to pick up her glasses and sees that they’re okay, before the pain in her tail catches up to her. Tears come to her eyes as she fights it back, cringing and clenching her teeth.

For a moment she wants to just sit there on the doorstep, cradling her tail and sobbing to herself. But she hears something slump heavily against the door, and a second later she hears Joshua crying. She hurries to her car instead, limping because of her tail and wondering what she did wrong.

* * *

Where had I gone wrong?

Was it looking up transformation stories, with vivid descriptions of changes? I’d hidden that all throughout high school … it’d been my deepest shame and my fondest desire.

How about looking up pics? I hadn’t worked up the courage to do that until I’d almost graduated … they were so shocking. Painful changes, mental changes, change-as-reward and change-as-sadistic-punishment. People being annihilated and replaced by something else, something more attractive, something that deserved to live unlike me-

I convulsed and froze that way, my face twisted in pain, every muscle locked up. It lasted a long few seconds before letting me go, and I gasped for breath and tried to gather my thoughts again. The floor was hard underneath me, and I leaned against the door for support.

Maybe it was when I’d started going to furmeets, I thought, still trying to catch my breath and holding onto the doorknob. I’d told myself there was nothing wrong with it. I’d told myself I was past all of that. But then Sam was there … and she was really a you are too now-

Another convulsion.

By now I was fighting back tears again. I’d almost torn off the doorknob. It wasn’t anything physical … it wasn’t anything to do with my new form or the bands on the fur around my neck and shoulders right now. It was fear, and pain, and awful, awful guilt.

My mind replayed the last few hours for me. Staying up late, letting down my resolve, reading those stories and being filled with such desperate longing again. Remembering that Sam was nocturnal … remembering her invitation. The one she’d extended so innocently, because she hadn’t known. She hadn’t known what I believed, what my family believed, what we’d been taught at church twice a week. She hadn’t known the Truth.

But I had, and I’d been so horrified when I realized what I wanted to do. I’d wanted to just turn my brain off. I’d wanted to forget. I’d turned off my computer, gotten up from my chair and started pacing my room miserably. But nothing distracted me from what I wanted so badly to do. So I called her, and nervously took her up on her offer. I made sure to let her know that this wasn’t a date, and the door had to be open at all times so we wouldn’t be alone together.

After that horribly awkward conversation, my mind cleared a little. I thought to myself Okay, self, you’ve bought twenty minutes to think about it. And when she gets here, you can just apologize to her and ask her to leave; maybe even tell her why, and invite her to come to church with you or something. Something good can still come out of this. And I paced, and sweated, and calmed myself down as well as I could, and imagined exactly how the conversation would go.

But then I heard her knock at the door, and it’s like my mind went all aslkjdf- And all I could think about were those stories, and how badly I wanted it, and this voice in the back of my head was saying Just once! Just for tonight! Just to see what it feels like! Please!

And I couldn’t say no.

So after she knocked a second time, it’s like I went down there on autopilot. Then I sold my soul for a minute of pleasure, and this horrible dustmop thing behind that’s my tail

I almost clawed my eyes out with that spasm.

I lay there on the floor gasping, looking up at the ceiling, hurting from where my foot had struck the stairs but too exhausted to move it.

Finally I dragged myself to my feet and limped up to my bedroom, whimpering with each step and trying to forget what I’d done. Imagining that I had a skin disease, or was wearing a tight, fuzzy coat.

It didn’t work. I cried myself to sleep, thinking of what my parents would say if they knew. Remembering all of the good times with them, and all of the family lessons, and knowing I’d betrayed their trust. My favorite hymns mocked me as I drifted off.

* * *

I dreamed I was seventeen again.

I was sitting on a hard, metal folding chair, in the gymnasium of the church that my family went to. I was surrounded by dozens of kids and a handful of adults. We were listening to the elderly preacher they’d invited to speak to the youth go on about the evils of our day and age … immodesty, homosexuality, disobedience to parents. When he mentioned Internet pornography I shrank in my seat, and realized how disgusting it was to imagine bodies changing like in the stories I read. I nodded, quickly, at everything that he said, beating myself up inside and silently begging God to help me overcome this evil.

“Isn’t this a crazy, mixed-up world we live in?” he asked, his leathery face wrinkling with a sardonic smile. “Where a man thinks he can marry another man … ”

He paused to let everyone chuckle.

” … and where animals think they should be treated like human beings.”

I froze.

“The scriptures say God gave man dominion over all lesser beasts,” he went on. “That means animals, whether they walk on four legs or two!”

Someone called out “Amen!” Meanwhile, I could feel sweat begin to pour down my sides. I was aware now that I was dreaming, I was aware that I was feeling this inside my dream because I was sweating in real life, and I wasn’t letting myself wake up yet because I had to listen to how wrong I was.

“God will not curse you with temptations that you can’t handle,” he went on, stalking the room and pointing out at us. “Not if you pray and submit yourself to Him. So if a woman becomes a cat, a cat that walks on two legs, it’s her own fault!”

“Amen!” more people shouted.

“And if that cat helps a boy become a fox, it’s his fault!” He stabbed his finger at me, and I looked down and started crying. “He has forfeited his rights and blessings as a human being, and has taken his place beneath man!”

“Amen!”

“And since animals don’t have souls,” he growled, “it means he has given his to the Devil, to be tormented by the flames of Hell for all of eternity.”

The crowd and the preacher drifted away, their response muted and faint, as the chair I was in was surrounded by darkness. Hot, firey darkness, and I could hear roaring flames as they began to lick at my-

* * *

I woke up covered in sweat, tangled in bedsheets and scratching myself furiously. I itched all over, and as I fought and squirmed and nearly fell out of bed I could feel my tail and my muzzle growing back out. I must have changed to a human while I was asleep, and now something was causing me to change back.

No! I thought. Stop! I want to go back to being a human! But the itching continued, and I threw off the bedsheets and tore off my shirt, sitting up and scratching hard all over. It didn’t feel good at all, unlike the first time. I was even starting to get nauseous.

Finally I looked up, at the light coming in through the curtains and at the digital clock on my desk. It was almost 11. The space heater was on and the door was closed, and it was sweltering in my room.

I reached over and turned it off, then flopped back on top of my bed, groaning. Rubbing my eyes, and stopping when I felt pawpads. Then I lifted my hands from my face, looked at them for a long moment, and let them fall to either side of me, letting out my breath.

My body felt limp and lifeless. But my soul felt even worse, because I knew that I’d given it up to the Devil — traded it for empty pleasures, a form that would probably last for the rest of my life, and the knowledge that I had sinned against God and His image. And while God was forgiving to those who submitted to Him, there was no forgiveness for soulless animals.

I had no energy left. Not even enough to move. I just looked up at the ceiling and sighed, closing my eyes.

“Damn me,” I whispered. “God damn me to Hell.”

But he didn’t have to, I thought, because I’d already done it myself.

* * *

I don’t know how long I stood in front of the mirror.

I hadn’t bothered to put my shirt back on yet. It was a shock to see myself as an anthro, to the point where I had to pretend that it wasn’t me that I was looking at. The “fox” who looked back at me wasn’t miraculously fit, like in most of the drawings … he was in the same physical condition that I’d always been in. He even still had a bit of a stomach. Somehow, I’d always imagined that I would’ve gotten in shape before doing this.

His fur looked ragged, his face looked lifeless, and his shoulders sagged with the same weariness that I felt. I looked his red and white pelt up and down, too tired to feel any disgust. And when I finally reached my arm out and turned the light off, and saw a dim blue glow around his shoulders and neck, I sighed. Because it meant that I’d probably be looking at this fox in the mirror for the rest of my life.

“However long that is.” My voice cracked.

I swallowed to moisten the inside of my muzzle, and shuffled on out of the bathroom.

I pulled my shirt back on as I stepped off the stairs, and walked into the living and dining area, sunlight streaming in through the curtains. The opened boxes, unplugged electronics, and dishes still wrapped up in packing paper all seemed unearthly somehow. It felt like the place had been frozen in time, like I was stepping into a crime scene.

I’d been going to finish unpacking this morning, before registering for classes online. Somehow that seemed far away now.

Something felt off, but I wasn’t sure what until I slumped onto the couch and sat there still for a moment. Then I realized I could hear everything; the whirr of the refrigerator, the ticking of the clock, the buzz of the electronics in the kitchen behind me. The sunbeams coming in through the windows seemed brighter than usual, and I could feel my clothes on my fur, itchy and uncomfortably tight.

Is this why Sam’s usually human? I thought. But then I corrected myself. She’s not human, she’s … she’s …

I winced. I couldn’t do that to her.

I’m an animal, I thought, sinking back further into the couch. And it doesn’t matter if I can make myself look like a human. I don’t know how. I don’t care to learn how. I don’t care about anything anymore …

My tail was getting squashed painfully. I did care about that. I sat upright and adjusted it, and my mind went blank again for a few seconds. Then it reminded me of what I’d done, and I sighed and put my head in my hands.

An hour later I was still there on the couch, sprawled out along it, staring up at the ceiling and remembering. Imagining. The feel of the changes inside me …

… the shame that I felt inside …

… the first bits of fur poking through my skin …

… knowing I was awful and slimy to the core …

… feeling like this was what I had been made for …

… knowing I’d destroyed myself.

I was a fox, I thought! A red fox! I actually was one, and it was real and I could change back and forth any time that I wanted!

“I am an enemy to God,” I whispered, the corners of my eyes moistening. “I chose to fight against him. I don’t deserve to live, and I deserve to be cast into Hell.”

The memories began to merge. Instead of beautiful change pouring into me through Sam’s arms, I imagined firey, painful death. I imagined it tearing at me, consuming me from inside, liquefying my bones and roasting my internal organs. I imagined screaming as my skin and hair set on fire, and burning to ash as she laughed. Another soul claimed by the Devil.

The only thing worse than imagining that was knowing that it’d really happened. That’s what happened to my soul, I thought, while my body was being changed. I’m just a shambling shell now. That’s why I don’t have any energy left. That’s why it’s okay if I die.

That’s why I have to kill myself.

I stared up at the ceiling again, imagining it and wondering what the best way would be.

* * *

It took me a little while, but I finally figured it out. I didn’t know which cuts I’d have to make, but I thought I could just try them all and see which one did the job.

The trouble was, I’d have to ignore the pain long enough to do so. Worse, I’d have to actually get up and go to the kitchen to get out a knife. And because everything was still packed up, I’d have to dig through the boxes and find which one had them in it, and then find one that was sharp enough.

I wasn’t sure I could even stand up right now, let alone dig through boxes. I felt so drained it was a stretch just to lift up my arm, and squint at my claws. Too dull, I thought. No good. I let my hand drop back to the couch, and sighed.

That’s when the phone rang.

It could be Sam calling to apologize, I thought.

Or to demand an apology, I thought back to myself. To tell me her tail is broken and sue for damages.

Second ring.

Maybe it’s someone else, I thought. Will they still remind me of how worthless I am? Will they help me get the rest of the way there?

Third ring …

I jumped to my feet and ran around the couch to smack into the kitchen wall, and just barely grabbed the phone above me before it rang a fourth time and the answering machine picked it up. My shoulder absorbed the blow, and I slumped down next to the wall and winced before speaking. “Hello?”

“Hey, Josh!” It was a male voice, the voice of one of my friends from high school. It sounded like he was driving. The caller ID just said ” >>> MARK <<< ".

"Hey." I forced a grin.

"Didn’t go to church today?" he asked.

"Uh, no ... " I looked up at the clock. "Too busy ... unpacking. I guess."

"Yeah, don’t worry, we’ll both make it up. I’m still out on the highway," Mark went on. "Got a big moving truck I finally finished loading last night. Still can’t believe they’ve got us in duplexes this year. We’re moving up in the world!"

"Heh, yeah ... " I squirmed, and rubbed at my shoulder to try to make it stop hurting.

"Is something wrong?" Mark asked. "Your voice sounds kinda funny."

"Huh? Uh, no, uh ... " I coughed. "Maybe I’m getting a ... a something ... uh ... are you sure it isn’t your signal?" I broke out in a sweat.

"Yeah, it is noisy out here." He was silent for a long moment, and I could hear the sounds of his driving. He shouldn’t be driving while using a cellphone, I thought, even as I realized I knew what I had to say and tried to think how to put it.

“Listen, Mark, uh … ” I coughed again. “I hate to break it to you, but we’ve got a new roommate,” I sort-of-lied.

“They’re putting five in there?” he asked. “What kind of new roommate?” he went on, before I could stumble over his first question.

“The, uhh … ” I swallowed. “The slightly furry kind, if you get what I’m saying.”

Long, long pause. I burned and itched all over with sweat.

“They’re having us live with an anthro?” Mark asked. “But that’s dangerous! What about disease? What about parasites? What if he turns feral?”

I couldn’t say anything. I’d started to pant through my muzzle, and was slumped up against the wall, sitting down.

“And what about spiritual dangers? I mean, I know the crazy liberals who make the laws don’t give a flying flip, but you know what they do, Josh! This is … ” his signal broke up, ” … a religious college for heaven’s sake! Whatever happened to freedom of religion? Didn’t the Honor Code used to prevent being openly anthro? And now he’s going to be walking around campus that way, shedding in the cafeteria, dating human girls and trying to get them to live his lifestyle!

“This is what we were warned about, Josh. It’s a sign of the times, and it’s already starting. He’s going to try to corrupt us,” he finished, sounding dire and prophetic.

“M-maybe he already has … ” I continued panting, drawing in huge breaths, unable to stop myself.

” … what do you mean by that, Josh?” He sounded suspicious. “And what’s that sound?”

I hung up, then buried my face in my hands and started crying again. It lasted for a long time. The phone rang again, but I ignored it.

I’m doomed, I’m doomed, my whole life is over … It was separate from wanting to kill myself, and felt more real right now than Hell did. This hurt even worse, because it showed me that even if I wanted to go back to my old life, I couldn’t. Not anymore.

The cordless handset rang next to me again, as I huddled there in the fetal position. I wiped tears from my furry, fox face to squint down at the screen. The caller ID read “PETERSON, ANDREW.”

I picked it up, pressed the button and sniffled. “H-hey … ”

“Hey, Josh.” I heard a road map crinkle, and sounds of traffic from nearby, but it didn’t sound like he was driving. “Got lost and stopped at a gas station. The attendant doesn’t speak English well enough to give directions. Can you tell me how to get there?”

“Uh, s-sure … ” I sniffled again.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, uh, no, uh … ” I swallowed. “Where’re you at?”

He told me as well as he could, and I spent the next minute or so giving directions. It took my mind off of what was going on, and helped me to think more clearly.

“Thanks,” he said. “Glad you’re not at church today. I would’ve missed you.”

“Yeah … ”

The phone clicked against his glasses, as he shifted it to the other hand. “Listen, are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound so good.”

I coughed. “I’m not … ”

“What’s wrong?”

“I, uh … ” I couldn’t say it. ” … I found out we’re getting an anthro roommate,” I finished, lamely.

” … that’s got you upset?”

“A-and Mark, he’s really mad about it … ” I sniffled, again.

“What, do you think he’s going to make you into one of them, or something?”

“I-”

“You know it’s not contagious. You know the changes are only temporary. The only ones who are changed permanently are the ones who have species or gender dysphoria, and they seek them out! So if you don’t want to become an anthro, it’s not going to happen!”

“But-”

Andrew swore. “You know what? I don’t know why I agreed to this. And I am not looking forward to a whole semester with you two. Can you and Mark at least try not to be bigots, for once?”

He hung up, leaving my muzzle hanging open in mid-word.

I slumped back against the wall again, sliding down until my feet touched the couch. My arms hung to either side, limp on the floor, and my hand let the cordless phone roll out of it.

I didn’t know what to do, or say, or think anymore. I felt like everything bad I’d been told about me was true, even if it contradicted itself. I was a bigot, and I was also a disease vector and a dirty, unclean animal. Plus I was going to Hell.

My energy had left me again. I wouldn’t be killing myself anytime soon, unless it was of starvation. Or a neckache, from laying down at this angle. But Andrew and Mark will be here soon, I thought. And I’m sure one of them will be able to do the job for me.

Either that, or make me wish I was dead.

Stephanie glared menacingly at the blue screen, though despite her best efforts it refused to retreat and go back to the online encyclopedia she’d been looking at mere seconds before. Rolling her eyes at the all-too-familiar problem, she jammed the restart button just a bit harder than necessary. The blue screen faded to black, then to a colorful splash page with a load bar crawling its way towards completion. And then blue again.

Knowing fully well it was futile, she looked inside the computer case and was met with a confusing mass of crystals and wires and goodness-knew-what else. Her eye twitched. “Come on…” Restart. Black. Blue. Curse. Kick desk. Fist-to-keyboard contact.

“What did you break this time?” Her brother, Alex, was poking his head in through the door she thought she’d locked, a smirk playing across his face.

“I didn’t break it.” Her voice was defensive in spite of herself. “It’s just…” She struggled to come up with a technical-sounding term, before deciding simply on “…blue-screening.”

“Right.” Alex hovered over her shoulder. She forced back the urge to punch him in the jaw. “Should be easy enough to fix.”

There was a long pause, punctuated by Stephanie drumming her fingers against the edge of the desk. “Well…?” She finally asked. “Are you going to do anything?”

“What’s in it for me?” He fired back. “Reagents are expensive, you know. I can’t be using them on just anything.”

Stephanie knew quite well this was a blatant lie, considering that he’d run off with her other brother and a group of their friends to test out spells that involved explosions, ones which she heard from half a mile away. She also knew quite well it was not going to do her much good to argue with him and it certainly wouldn’t do her computer any good to make him angry. “I’ll clean up the living room for this week.”

“Deal.” Given the size of her room, it took him about three steps to get out the door and out of sight.

A few moments later and he returned, dragging his backpack behind him and holding a stick of charcoal in his hand. “Move.”

She obliged, sitting on the bed and inadvertently waking up Bonnie, who opened her one good eye and yawned, before relocating to Stephanie’s lap. Stephanie smiled down fondly at the kitten and stroked her fur. Bonnie purred loudly enough to nearly drown out her brother’s incantations.

There was a sound much like someone slamming an eraser against a chalkboard, followed by shrill electronic beeping. The beeps decreased in volume and pitch, then simply stopped altogether.

“And that should be it.” He dusted the charcoal off his hands. “Have fun.” And he disappeared out the door again, leaving an unsightly ring of black dust on the carpet.

“Great. Thanks.” She muttered, half-sincerely. She carefully ushered Bonnie off her lap and with a spare shirt attempted to clean the charcoal off the ground without success. She sighed. Too late to get the vacuum now with her mother in bed, it’d have to wait until tomorrow.

The computer was indeed working now, at least. So she re-opened her browser, and went back to reading about mages and thinking about how wonderful it’d be if she were normal.

Sure, she knew what other anaetherian activists would say. She’d lurked on the message boards, even posted once or twice, and written about anaetherian rights in the privacy of her own blog which nobody ever read. “People without the Gift are just as capable as mages, because lacking the Gift does nothing to hurt our mental capacities. It’s society that restricts us. We don’t need a cure, mages need to stop gearing everything towards magic-users blah blah inclusiveness blah…”

It was true on some level, she was very aware it was right. Still, it seemed so much easier to just change one person than change all of society. So, just maybe…

She skimmed through the “Anaetherian rights controversy” page, listing false cure after false cure, fraud after fraud. Or maybe not. A false hope was better than none, but there didn’t seem to be much insight.

“Oh well.” She closed the tab. “No use dwelling on what can’t be.” So she spent the rest of the night skimming through pictures of baby animals, reading news feeds, and talking to people hundreds of miles away she’d probably never meet. Time slipped past her, and once she finally decided to check her clock, it was five in the morning.

She sighed. Though she wasn’t tired, Mom would be up any time now, and the last thing she wanted was to get caught up this late again. She issued a few quick goodbyes to the few people still up, and half-fell into her bed, with Bonnie curling up beside her.

* * *

The mechanical droning of an alarm clock woke her up, and the sunlight streaming in through her window conspired to ensure she stayed awake. Despite the fog enshrouding her mind, she had just enough in her to slam the snooze button and take a bleary glance at the clock. Two o’clock. She groaned and slammed her head on the pillow.

“At least Alex is in school now.” She reluctantly kicked the blankets off. “Nobody can yell at me for sleeping in so late anymore.” She made it into the kitchen before realizing something odd. She hadn’t kicked off a kitten along with her covers. She was put at ease for a moment when she considered that Bonnie obviously had gotten up before her.

But there was something else wrong. All the while telling herself she was being too paranoid for her own good, she took a look back at her room.

Bonnie’s food bowl was empty, except for a few crumbs she was sure were left over from last night. And Stephanie was sure Bonnie would have woken her up well before two. A hungry cat was a nigh-unstoppable force, as she’d found out.

“Bonnie?” No response, not even the clicking of claws across the hardwood floors of the hall. She poured a bit of cat food into the bowl, rattling it as loudly as possible. Still nothing.

With deepening dread, she stepped out onto the porch, “Bonnie?”

She heard a high-pitched and familiar mewing, and her paranoia dissipated. She knelt over, and her kitten ran straight into her arms. “Don’t do that again, alright?” She sighed. “You scared me.”

She then found another reason entirely to be afraid when she turned around– a very tall man dressed in the robes of a high mage. She jumped backwards, almost dropping Bonnie.

“Don’t be afraid.” Stephanie figured his tone was supposed to be soothing, but it wasn’t doing much to banish her contemplations on where her mother had left the guns. “I’m here to help you.”

She was certain she’d seen a scene just like this in a movie, right before the female lead was kidnapped and almost murdered. So she took a few careful steps backwards towards the house, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “Who are you?”

“We’ve met before.”

She reached for the handle of the door.

“You’re a member of several Anaetherian Rights forums. So am I.”

Her mind spun, trying to remember what kind of information she’d disclosed that would help him find out where she lived.

His eyes flicked to her hand on the door. “I’m only here to help. I promise.”

“Why should I trust you? You…” She tried to come up with a creative way to tell him off, like her brothers always could. Nothing worth saying came to mind.

“You don’t trust me.” He paused, looking thoughtfully to the sky. “What if I told you that you wouldn’t be the first person I cure?”

A million questions buzzed in her mind. If he really had a miracle cure, why wasn’t he telling anyone? Why wasn’t it all over the news by this point in time? How could he have succeeded where scientists had failed? Who was he in the first place? Unfortunately, she couldn’t manage to come up with anything more articulate than “Prove it.”

“As you wish.” He bowed his head slightly and flickered out of view.

The closet, that’s where the guns were! She rushed inside, almost tripping over the rug. It was right about when she threw open the door she remembered the gun rack was locked. And not without reason, they’d been expensive, not to mention hard to find in the first place. After weeks of scouring mainstream stores, her mother had finally given up and had them special-ordered.

Her mother had also been exceptionally paranoid and reinforced the locks on the rack with magic, reasoning it was the only way to deter potential thieves. In retrospect, it was ironic– the one equalizer she had she couldn’t even use without other mages around.

There was a strangely polite rap at the door. She cautiously peered out from behind the door. It was the mage, a familiar woman beside him.

“Rose?” Her jaw dropped. How long had it been– several months? All the things she’d been warned about, how a mage could easily create an illusion of someone she knew or trusted, and she’d have no way of knowing, dropped out of her mind. She stepped outside to meet her.

Rose smiled shyly at her, the same smile she remembered from pictures and webcam conversations. “Sorry if I worried you.”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, she’d been at the back of Stephanie’s mind ever since she disappeared from the boards. “What happened?”

“I was cured.” She held out her hand. It contained a tiny flame of raw aether. “It’s real, see? I can use magic now.”

Stephanie’s eyes widened. Her hand shaking slightly, she reached out to touch the flame. It wavered and flickered as she drew nearer.

Rose snuffed out the flame before Stephanie could. “I’m…” Her voice sounded shaky. “I’m really sorry I left without telling anyone. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, you know how most of them are. They wouldn’t believe me, or if they did they’d say I was a terrible person for wanting to be cured. They didn’t understand what it was like to be that bad.”

“I know.” She sniffled and forced back tears.

“Things have changed now, though.” She brushed at her eyes. “His cure really works. I can already use elementary-level magic. This could turn my life around. It’s already changed so much.” Her voice cracked. She took a deep breath. “And it could change everything for you too.”

“It’s alright if you can’t decide now.” The mage stepped in. “I will give you time to decide.”

“Okay.” Was all she managed to get out through the growing fog in her mind. This was all too much.

“I will be back tomorrow.”

“W-wait.” She protested, her hand subconsciously reaching out for the mage. “Could you–” Could she stay? That would require some extremely awkward explanations. After all, she’d kept her online life secret from her mother, and her mother had never taken kindly to the possibility she could be talking to forty-year-old men pretending to be teenage girls or weirdos who write poems about killing themselves, or everyone at their school or both, the only people she seemed to think existed on the Internet.

“What is it?” Rose asked.

Stephanie heard the sputter of the school bus’s engine drawing close. “It’s nothing.”

And then the two of them disappeared from sight.

She trudged back inside, collapsing on her bed just in time for her brothers to go barging in the hall, arguing about something-or-another. She’d long since learned to shut them out, and paying attention to their arguments wasn’t going to help her figure all this out. She just needed to calm down and clear her mind.

Easier said than done. The conversation she had kept going through her mind over and over again, and all she could think of was what she should have said, what she should have asked, what she should have done.

She grabbed her laptop and brought it out of sleep mode. Maybe a little distraction would help. And as soon as she logged in an IM window popped up, from someone named Maranatha. ‘Hey there. How’re things going?’ It took her a moment to recognize the username– it was one of the members of the Anaetherian Rights message board.

‘Hey. ^_^’ She rested her chin in her hand. Now there was something that was going to be difficult to give a straight answer to. ‘I could be better. Lots of things going on.’ There. Honest, yet not direct.

The reply was almost instantaneous. ‘Aww. :/ What’s going on?’

She tapped her hands on the trackpad, trying to figure out how to dodge the question. ‘It’s a long story.’ Cliché, but effective.

‘Ah, alright…’ The person typed back.

There was a long pause, and no indicator Maranatha was typing a message. She bit her lip. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to at least bring up Rose. But she still had to close her eyes while typing the message. ‘Do you remember anyone named Damask from the forums?’

Maranatha took a few moments to respond. ‘I think so, yeah. She hasn’t posted in a while though.’ Another pause. ‘Did something happen to her?’

“Yeah, something happened to her, alright.” She muttered. ‘She’s doing fine. I just met her today. She just needed to take a break from the forums, I guess.’

‘Yeah. I can’t really blame her. After that whole flame war over the cure issue.’

Stephanie winced. She remembered one (or several) flame wars erupting on the site, but only had the vaguest understanding of them– she’d always made it a point to stay out of the controversial topics. They’d always gotten extremely heated, and it usually took no more than a few posts before someone got called an idiot (or some more colorful iteration thereof.) ‘I know she was pro-cure…’

‘Well, her and a bunch of overzealous parents. Versus a bunch of overzealous people with a lot of pent-up anger. Nobody came out looking good.’

‘And then she just stopped posting…’ No wonder she’d seemed so worked up about accepting a cure.

‘Yep. :/ That topic was the last I saw of her. Is she thinking about coming back…?’

‘No.’ And with good reason, she thought. ‘She’s had some other things come up.’

There was an awkward break in messages. ‘Are you anti-cure?’ The question came out before Stephanie even had time to think about how stupid it was to ask something so controversial. That was always the advantage of a forum. You had time to think about what you were saying, and you could always just take it back by deleting your post. Then again, if you did put it out there and couldn’t do anything in time, everyone saw it.

Maranatha didn’t reply for a while, which left Stephanie to pace around her room, trying to figure out how she could defuse what would most likely be an explosive argument. And then her computer pinged. ‘In a sense, yes. I think saying that we need to be cured is saying we’re inferior people. And we aren’t. I’ve always agreed that we’re only disadvantaged because of how almost everything in society is so dependent on magic. Yet things don’t have to be like that.’

Once Stephanie could have believed that. Now she wasn’t so sure. ‘But if there was a cure, no strings attached, and you could choose to have it…would that be better?’

‘I don’t believe in no strings attached.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘If there was. Just hypothetically.’

‘Then all anaetherians would be pressured into getting it. We’d lose the insight we get from having to go through life without magic. Think of all the anaetherian inventions and scientific discoveries and progress we’ve made, gone. And those who they can’t pressure into taking their cure would be even more marginalized.’

‘It’s easier than having to change the world.’

‘But is it really better?’ Maranatha replied without missing a beat.

Stephanie could feel a headache coming on and she wasn’t sure if it was from stress or the fact she’d barely eaten or had anything to drink the entire day. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Just think about it, alright? Just because something is easy doesn’t mean it’s worthwhile.’

‘Yeah.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘And I’ll BRB. Time for dinner.’ She left without checking to see if Maranatha bid her farewell.

Dinner, however, turned more into a thirty-minute hunt for decent food and ingredients, followed by another thirty minutes of trying to cook it, followed by another bout of picking at it, then trying to hide from her mom arguing with her brothers, then playing with Bonnie to calm down, followed by a massive video game binge into the early hours of the morning. She finally crashed at three in the morning into a deep sleep.

* * *

The doorbell dragged her into consciousness. Her clock indicated it was twelve, but she felt like she’d barely slept at all. She trudged to the door. Her heart skipped a beat when she opened the door to find what she thought was a complete stranger until she realized it was the mage. Rose was nowhere in sight.

“Have you decided?” He asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was shaking, and she couldn’t manage to spit out her answer.

He arched his eyebrow. “And it is?”

“I…” She prayed she wouldn’t regret what she was about to say. “I want to be cured.”

“As you wish.” He nodded. “Please follow me.”

She didn’t quite understand why they had to use the woods behind her house for this. The mage had rambled on about leylines and some other things she vaguely remembered from her brother’s textbooks. Then he traced out a circle around her and started sprinkling powders, scrawling runes in the earth and muttering incantations. All-in-all it was nearly an hour before he finally said things were ready (and considering it was starting to glow faintly, it was fairly obvious things were.)

He told her he had to leave now, but all she had to do was just sit in the circle until it was done. Easy enough. It was so quiet and peaceful out here, dead silent except for the wind and the faint sound of bird wings flapping overhead. She couldn’t resist closing her eyes, and couldn’t resist letting her mind drift away.

* * *

Something jabbed Stephanie in her knee. She lifted her head up, her eyes snapping open, and immediately regretted doing so. It was painfully bright, despite it being sundown. Everything was like there had been a dimmer on the sun that had been on low, and now someone had turned it all the way up. Furthermore, it seemed like everything she could make out without going half-blind had a green-blue ambient glow around it. The circle she was sitting in was especially bright.

She covered her watering-up eyes with her hand and felt something strange. Something soft and downy, something that definitely wasn’t human skin. With a sense of growing dread, she let her hand travel to the center of her face. She had what felt like a delicately curved beak. Her blood ran completely cold. “Where is the mage?”

She tried to stand up, but stumbled, nearly falling forward onto the ground. There was a weight on her back, something that felt like it was jutting out of the very bone of her shoulder blades. She reached her hand behind her back and tugged at it. It moved, and she could feel muscles and tendons stretching as if it were another limb, along with a covering of the same downy substance on her face. Feathers.

“I have wings.” She realized with a sense of awe and horror and shock all mixed together. “And I’m some kind of mutant bird-thing.”

The next few moments were a whirl of disjointed and panicked thoughts. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply. “Okay. Okay, it’s going to be alright. Transmogrification is a normal magic discipline, it’s reversible. I’ll just have to get the mage somehow.” She tried to speak, but her words came out as harsh screeching.

She clamped her hands (talons?) over her beak, and took a few deep breaths. And then she tried again. The screeching was quieter this time, but still nothing remotely human.

She hobbled around, trying to pace to help herself calm down and think straight, but movement was far harder than it should have been. So she settled for her mounting frustration by kicking around some leaves. And then within the circle the mage had created, she unearthed what was most likely the source of her problem– a single owl feather. She’d heard of minor contaminants and mistakes causing catastrophic results. Just her luck.

With an irritated sigh, she collapsed on the ground. “What am I going to do now? And what am I going to tell everyone?” There was always the off chance it was just a temporary issue. Or maybe she was a shapeshifter, like they always talked about in fairy tales. Owl-creature by night, human by day.

“Or it’s just punishment for wanting something I never should have wanted.” She thought bitterly. That seemed to be the way things always went, after all. Or maybe Maranatha was right– there’s no such thing as no strings attached. And now she had to deal with them– it was just a matter of how.

She began pacing anew, her steps slowly becoming more and more natural, though she still had to hunch over. Still, it was proving hard to think through her headache, and therein one course of action revealed itself. Go back home and get some asprin.

“And try not to get attacked by my family. They’d probably think I’m some mad mage’s latest transmogrification experiment.” And the irony of it was that it was half-true. She collapsed underneath the biggest, shadiest tree she could find. Best to wait until nightfall. Maybe then they’d just think she was a very malnourished bear and not a monster.

She tried to start speaking again in an attempt to pass the time, but even something as simple as going through the alphabet was hard. Vowels proved to be much easier to enunciate than consonants. “At least speaking Japanese won’t be a problem.” Then she remembered how long it’d been since she picked up the books and DVDs she’d gotten to help her learn it in the first place, and cringed.

The sun was getting lower and lower now, and her surroundings got a deeper and deeper tint of red to them. It had to have been a beautiful sunset, and she couldn’t even look at it. The upside was that it was almost dark enough she didn’t need to shield her eyes anymore. The leylines were still bright, but at least they were nowhere near as bad. And the world was coming more and more into focus. If anything, now she could see even better than she used to.

“Guess I should get started now.” She hoisted herself off the ground and began the walk back, taking in the sights of the forest as she went. Everything was as clear as, well, day, and despite it having been months since she’d gone for a walk in the forest. Of course, the fact her house lights were still on helped.

She winced at the flourescent lighting, and tried to take a look inside. She couldn’t see anyone in the main rooms, which meant her brothers were probably playing video games, and her mom was in bed, a stroke of minor luck after several major misfortunes. And she was finally getting to the point where she could form actual words, something that made her happier than it should have considering her situation.

She couldn’t resist taking a quick look in the window glass to assess the damage done to her. A bipedal barn owl stared back at her with wide, pitch-dark eyes, its tawny feathers stirring slightly in the wind. She traced a talon around its…no, her heart-shaped face, trying to force her mind to register that the creature in the glass was her. And when that proved to be a depressing prospect, she tried to force herself to remember it didn’t have to be permanent.

She broke eye contact with her reflection. “The sooner I get this over with, the better.” Steeling her nerves, she carefully opened the window and attempted to slip inside. Though she might have been able to do this as a human, she failed to take into account she now had wings. The result was an audible thump much like the kind one would hear if a bird flew into a windowpane.

She didn’t even bother to check and see if anyone was coming. She ran the best she could, ducked behind a tree, and huddled there until she stopped feeling like she was about to die of cardiac arrest. When she recovered, she opted instead to go through the back door, and the sudden change in light made her flinch.

Inside, she could hear the faint sound of the TV in the basement. She breathed a sigh of relief– they probably had their game up too loud to hear much of anything. She poured herself a glass of water and after a struggle with the bottlecap, finally managed to fish out a pair of asprin. She then raised the glass to her mouth, and tapped the edge against her beak, splashing a bit of water on the ground.

“Aaaawh, come on…” She muttered. She glanced at the basement door. The game’s sound effects were still audible even with it closed, but that did nothing to quell her uneasiness. “Don’t have time for this.” She took the asprin dry, tried to ignore the horrible aftertaste, headed back for the door, and almost tripped over her kitten.

She stopped dead in her tracks, and almost fell over on her face. Bonnie was staring at her with wide eyes. The kitten fluffed out her fur and hissed, backing away from Stephanie. Stephanie felt her heart sink, and fresh tears came to her eyes. She stepped over Bonnie, and opened the door. Then she felt a cold nose poking at her heels, followed by purring. Bonnie rubbed up against her leg and mewed– her usual call for attention.

“Good girl.” She stroked Bonnie’s fur as gently as she could. A lump was rising in her throat, and she was reasonably sure it wasn’t because of the asprin. “I gotta go now, okay? I’ll see you again soon.” She sincerely hoped she wasn’t lying, and slipped out the door before Bonnie could react.

“At least someone recognizes me.” She thought dourly. She tried (and failed) to formulate any other upsides to her current situation when a glint of light caught her eyes. There was a ladder leaning against their shed, and thus an idea formed in her mind…

* * *

She carefully ascended the ladder onto the roof and looked below her. It looked a lot higher up than she thought it would have, and she felt her hands shake a bit at the thought of having to jump.

It was about this point in time she remembered that owls were hollow-boned, and that a fall would not bode well for her skeletal structure. She sighed and sat down, her feet dangling over the side of the roof.

She looked up again at the sky. She could see bats darting erratically about chasing after moths, and even another owl.

More than anything, she wanted to join them. To be free, and get away from the dismal situation she was in.

So she sat for a few more minutes, staring enviously at the owl and the smoothness of his (for she was almost certain it was a male, though she wasn’t able to place a reason why other than simple intuition) flight. So she closed her eyes, let her instincts take over, and jumped.

And after a few seconds in, after she was certain she hadn’t broken anything or otherwise hurt herself, she opened her eyes. She could see the world below with so much more clarity than she had as a human, right down to the crickets leaping from grass blade to grass blade and mice scurrying about. Part of her thought that the mice would make a nice midnight snack, but it was drowned out by sheer exhilaration.

Half-delirious with joy, she pumped her wings faster. The world below grew smaller, her house farther away, the crisscrossing leylines began to blend together, and the blasted, lonely, middle-of-nowhere town that’d felt like a prison for as long as she’d been there started to fade, and even if just for a moment, everything she’d been through was worth it. Even her bizarre new body.

* * *

She flew until she felt as if her wings were about to fall off, and made a somewhat rough attempt at a landing. After plucking some twigs from beneath her feathers, she trudged back to her house, daydreams of a nice warm shower dancing in her mind.

And she was preoccupied enough with those daydreams she didn’t notice a few irregularities inside. Firstly, the lights were still on even in the middle of the night, when her early bird mom and not-quite-as-night-owlish-no-pun-intended brothers would have been long since asleep. Secondly, there were some aether leylines planted in the ground that hadn’t been there before– not that she would have noticed, given she’d never looked at her house with the Sight before.

Not being entirely disconnected from reality, she realized the two unfamiliar shadows skulking about did not bode well. With her heart rising into her throat, she slowly, carefully, and as stealthily as she could crept up to the window.

The lights inside were far too bright for her tastes, but she could make out who was inside. The mage and Rose. Her feathers fluffed out in irritation. “So now he decides to show up.”

Instincts were telling her there was something very wrong with this situation, and reason was quickly filling in the blanks as to why. She knew for a fact that her mother wasn’t a light sleeper, that the doors were supposed to be magically locked at night, and the mage’s body language was far too casual for someone who’d just broken into another person’s house.

And most importantly of all… “What’s he done to them?” He couldn’t have just waltzed in there without anyone noticing. Horrible ideas of what he could have done to ensure nobody saw his entrance ran through her head.

“You can come in, you know.” She stifled a screech of shock– how could the mage have heard her? “I know you’re out there.”

“He’s bluffing. I hope.” Not to mention being in a room with just him was the last thing she wanted right now.

He sighed. “Please be reasonable. I just needed to see you.”

“Reasonable!” She said in a low hiss.

“Yes, reasonable.” She saw him nodding from her vantage point near the window. “And before you say anything, yes, I can hear you too. Please, come inside. I don’t feel like talking this loudly.”

“Tell me what you’ve done to my family first. Or…” She trailed off. What could she threaten him with?

“Oh, them. Don’t worry, they’re fast asleep. Very fast asleep as a matter of fact.”

The thought of punching him entered her mind before she remembered how much frailer her bone structure was now. “What’s that supposed to mean? What have you done with them?”

“It was just a simple sleeping draught, now will you calm down? You’re being very unreasonable.”

“You drugged them? Why? Why are you even here?”

“I just needed to get your attention, seeing as you’ve been avoiding me. And I’m sure you don’t want your family to see you in the state you’re in. Now will you please come inside? It’ll be a lot easier on both of us.”

“Stephanie, please.” She could just barely make out Rose’s voice. “We just want to solve this problem, and we can’t do it while you’re out there.”

“Fine.” She’d hoped what she was saying sounded defiant. The self-conscious side of her told her she just sounded petulant. And to ease a little bit of her frustration, she gave the door a jab with her clawed foot to make it look like she was kicking it open.

“Thank you.” Despite her new appearance, he was staring at her impassively.

Rose, on the other hand, was not. She let out a tiny gasp of shock and jumped back slightly. “What happened to you?”

“Something must have contaminated the spell circle.” The mage answered for Stephanie. “This could be difficult to fix.”

“Really.” Stephanie tried to make her displeasure as readily apparent as possible.

“Really.” He intoned back. “It wouldn’t be as much of an issue if you’d just turned yourself into this after you’d become a mage, but now being a whatever-you-are and a mage are…intertwined, so to speak.” He paused thoughtfully. “Incidentally, did the rest of the spell work?”

If Stephanie had lips, she would have been scowling at him. “You’re worried about that?”

“Well, did it?”

She threw up her hands. “Yes, it did! I can see leylines, I tried to tap into one, but that’s the least of my problems now!”

The mage was stroking his chin, oblivious to her distress. “Well, that much is good. Shame illusionism is such a complex matter, otherwise I could at least make you look human.”

“So you’re saying there’s no way I can be human again.” She wondered how long it would take her to get to the phone and call the police. Probably too long. But maybe if she could just get him to keep rambling on…

“Oh, there certainly is.” He nodded. “Actually, I’d rather prefer that solution, it will be easier on everyone.”

There was a pause, most likely engineered by the mage for dramatic tension. For the most part, it was just wearing down on Stephanie’s already frayed nerves. “And it is?”

“Reverse transmogrification. Basically, I could try to turn you back.”

She tapped her claws on the dining room table. “This sounds too good to be true.”

The mage clenched his jaw ever-so-slightly. “It can be a slow and painful process. For whatever reason, your transformation was unusually fast, but now I’ll have to work much more deliberately to make sure I don’t take away your new gifts, or anything else.”

“Have you ever done this before?” The tapping was quickly turning into a drumbeat from her favorite metal ballad.

“It’s an experimental procedure.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you won’t mess up again?” She tried to glare at him, but couldn’t quite manage to meet him in the eye.

“It wasn’t my fault!” And that was the loudest she’d ever heard the mage get. “It was just an unforseen error. Trust me, nothing like that will happen again.”

“Trust you!” She snapped. “This is the second– no, third– time you’ve randomly shown up at my house! And this time you’ve broken in! And you drugged my family! And you’re acting like this isn’t even an issue! What is wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” He turned away from her. “I can see you’re not going to listen to me. Shame some people just don’t know what’s good for them.” He took a small cloth from somewhere within the folds of his robe.

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

He upturned a small vial, dabbing the cloth with a pungent, clear liquid. “Oh…and don’t bother trying to run.” He returned the vial to his robes and with his free hand snapped his fingers. Stephanie felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach and knocked the breath out of her. “I’ve just activated an anti-magic forcefield. As long as its up, you’ll be unable to use any kind of magic or leave here.” He continued. “Last chance. Will you undergo the procedure or will I have to force you to do so?”

“Stephanie, please.” Rose said softly. “I didn’t get my powers the first time around, just do what he says. He’ll be able to fix this.”

“No.” Her voice might have been shaking, but she was sure in her convictions. “This was a mistake. All this was a mistake. I never should have…” She stopped herself before her voice started to crack too much. “If anyone’s going to fix this, it’ll be me.”

“I see.” He advanced towards her, an impassive look on his face. “If you insist.”

She flattened herself out on the counter, her talons splaying across the cold surface, the very tips of her claws scraping against a frying pan. And without taking any time to even consider the potential consequences, she grabbed the frying pan and slammed it into the mage’s head as hard as she could.

The impact jarred even her, but needless to say the mage had it much worse. He crumpled bonelessly to the ground without a sound.

* * *

Stephanie bundled her covers around her, trying to lull herself into sleeping. Being questioned by the police had been exhausting, yet unnervingly enough she couldn’t get it out of her head long enough to rest. Then again, ever since she’d changed she’d been quite literally sleeping all day. It hadn’t taken much to get to that point given her previous sleep schedule, but that didn’t stop her mother from griping about it.

Still, if that was what she chose to gripe about, Stephanie was fine with that. It was already something she was quite used to hearing, and she’d take any semblance of normalcy she could. She was sure her family was horrified by her change, seeing as how they were avoiding her even more than usual, but at least they weren’t talking about it, and more importantly they weren’t asking her questions about what had happened. They just avoided her. So had Rose, for that matter– she’d only heard from her once in the past few days. She seemed to be coping, but barely. She’d overheard in the police station that there was some residue of magical tampering with her mind and memories, and it’d take a while to recover from it.

At least Bonnie was taking things well– she had a near-infinite supply of feathers to play with now. And things were easier that way, being left to her own devices with the one being in the world she knew could care less about her appearance. Still, she couldn’t say the past few days had been easy at all. The police station had been particularly bad. At least her mother had teleported them straight to the station, but Stephanie still had to insist on wearing a very heavy raincoat, the baggiest pair of sweatpants she could find, a hooded sweatshirt underneath that, and a wide-brimmed hat to hide as much of herself as she could. It was hot as blazes, but it worked.

Then once they were done interviewing her, they had to do a physical exam of her. The horrified look on the nurse’s face the moment she took off her coat and hat was burned into her mind and would be for a very long time, though the actual exam was a blur. And the second it was over, she hid in the bathroom and cried. Her mother took her straight home afterwards, but the damage had already been done. She was certain her mother at least felt bad for what happened, because once she woke up from a fitful sleep, she found a cheeseburger from her favorite restaurant with her name literally on the styrofoam box in the fridge.

If she didn’t find something to do, she’d just get more depressed. As of lately, escapism had been proving to do her a lot of good. There were even times, however brief, that she could forget about what had happened, usually when she let herself get lost in a story.

That was something she fully intended to do right now. It wasn’t hard to find her computer, all she had to do was follow the glowing leylines. As she was skimming past the numerous sites on transmogrification reversals on her bookmark list, someone IM’d her. “Who’d be on at this hour?” She squinted at the font on the screen– Maranatha was, apparently, greeting her with the usual ‘Hey there! ’

‘Hey.’ She might as well be civil, even if she didn’t especially feel like talking now. Besides, it’d give her a chance to practice typing with claws again.

‘How are things going?’

She sighed. Not this again. ‘Kind of rough. Not sure if I want to talk about it.’

‘Ahh, alright. Well, I remembered the talk we had about the cure, and I was just wondering if you’d seen this…’ A link to a topic on the Anaetherian Rights forum followed. Out of morbid curiosity, she clicked on it. Her blood ran cold in her veins when she recognized the title– it was a headline from their local newspaper. Someone had posted an article about the mage’s arrest.

‘They haven’t said much about the reason why,’ Maranatha continued, ‘they just cited reckless endangerment and unsanctioned magical experiments. But the rumor is he was trying to find a cure.’

She stared blankly at the screen. How could word have spread so quickly? And more importantly, how could they have found out?

‘Anyway, it was in your area…I was just wondering if you’d heard more about it.’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’ She replied, and subsequentially realized she was probably just leading on Maranatha.

And surely enough, his response came back within mere seconds. ‘Try me.’

It might be nice to talk to someone who wasn’t a police officer about everything that had happened. If she’d had more sleep, she might’ve had the sense to decide against doing that. But she’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours and her mind was frazzled from stress. ‘Yeah, he was doing experiments. They had side effects, that’s probably why they’re not giving out details.’

‘That’s not so unbelievable. I mean, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think those kind of experiments happen more often than we like to think. The side effects must have been pretty severe, though.’

‘Oh, they were.’ She sighed and looked at her hands. Now she was almost getting used to seeing them there.

‘Do you know if the people he experimented on are alright…? :/’

‘Yeah, we’re alright.’ Something registered about that sentence as being wrong, but it took her a few moments (after she pressed Enter, unfortunately) to work out what. “We’re.” Just the wrong pronoun to use, even if it was true. She felt her skin heat up beneath her feathers. Maybe she could just claim it was a typo?

‘Wait, we?’ And Maranatha noticed. Just her luck.

She took in a shaky breath, and after a great deal of struggling for the proper words, came up with ‘I really don’t want to talk about it.’

There was a break in messages. She was almost to the best part of the chapter when the message alert started flashing. ‘Can I tell you something?’

She scratched the side of her head. “Okay…?” ‘Yeah, I guess.’

There was another long pause without so much as an alert that a message was being typed. And then, finally, ‘It might be easier to show you.’

She received a webcam invite. Her curiosity piqued, she accepted it.

Her breath caught in her throat. Looking at the webcam, a weak smile on his face, was a huge, humanoid bobcat. “H-hey.” His voice was barely audible, and on top of that it was scratchy and sounded barely-human. It almost reminded her of hearing a parrot talk.

Fortunately, the webcam conversation wasn’t two-way or he would have caught her gaping at him.

“Um, I know this must seem really weird to you. I can explain…I think.” He cleared his throat. It inexplicably brought to mind Bonnie when she was trying to cough up a hairball. “I guess you can tell I had some, uh, side effects too.”

Her hands quavered as she typed. ‘Did someone do that to you?’

“You could say that.” His tufted ears twitched. “So,” he laughed, or tried to do something that sounded like it, “how’s this for side effects?”

“It can’t be.” Then again, it probably could. Who knew how many other people the mage had gone after? She desperately wanted to ask how and who and why, but couldn’t quite work up the courage to do so.

“I’ve gotten used to it, though.” He went on, his voice growing more confident. “And there are other people like me out there. It’s a bigger community than people think. And there’s a lot of support for people who live with magic-related disorders other than anaetherianism.” He cast his gaze askance. “I guess I just wanted you to know you’re not alone.”

She brushed tears away from her eyes, self-consciously straightened out a few stray feathers, and sent a webcam invite of her own before she was able to process what she’d done enough to regret it.

She knew the moment he accepted, because his jaw dropped open. “I…did…” He took a deep breath. And then another, just for good measure. “Did you ask for someone to do that to you?”

She stared blankly at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know.” There was a desperate look about him. He gestured furtively to his tail and ears. “Right?”

She shook her head.

He sighed. “I guess it really was an accident for you.”

Stephanie found herself gaining a new hatred for people with an aversion to straightforwardness. “What are you talking about?”

“Shapeshifters. Or anthros– I mean, anthropomorphic animals. Some people like…um, like me, we turn ourselves into them with transmogrification. Or try to.”

Stephanie had a vague recollection about seeing a news segment on them. For the most part, it had played up how insane they had to be to undergo the difficult rituals needed to become one, and other alleged deviant aspects of their lifestyles. The report had seemed thrown-together and sensationalistic, like most news reports. “You wanted to be that?”

“No! I mean, I wanted to be like this sometimes. I was just going for shapeshifter, but something went wrong and I couldn’t change back. So,” he pointed to his muzzle, flexing out the claw on his index finger, “I’m stuck as an anthro. And I didn’t want to be. I mean, I really didn’t want to be. You’d be amazed at how hard it is to get used to not being human. Everything’s made for human mages.”

“Tell me about it.” There was a smile in her eyes– faint and bitter, but there.

“Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. I don’t get to talk to other anthros much.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You probably think I’m a hypocrite. All that talk about resisting a cure and being yourself, and look at what I did to myself.”

She shrugged. “No. You’ve just got more personal experience than most anti-cure advocates do.”

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” He returned the smile. “Um, if you’re interested, there are some forums and places I could show to you.” His voice grew quieter and quieter as he went on, making the last few words difficult to make out. “Everyone’s really nice, and they won’t care you didn’t change on purpose. And they can help you deal with it. They really helped me out.”

The bitterness in her smile started to fade away. “I’d like that.”

His ears perked up. “Really? Um, hang on a second, let me send you the links.”

She sorted through them, the other part of her mind on the outside. Dawn was breaking outside, and she could feel exhaustion creeping in, the edge at last taken off her anxiety. After everything that had changed, the sky hadn’t fallen, and the world was still there. She could fly again any time she wanted.

For the first time she could remember, she finally felt free.