Make the World Believe (that it's literally a giant tornado!)[short story]

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Vertigo Fox
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Make the World Believe (that it's literally a giant tornado!)[short story]

Post by Vertigo Fox »

This is a story I've been working on for a few months now, in a setting that I've been fleshing out in extreme detail since last fall. The world is... well I'll let the story's worldbuilding speak for itself instead of spoiling it here, but suffice to say that it's very weird.
Right now the story's in a state somewhere between a draft and a finished, polished work, so while I do welcome any and all feedback, I'll only be making very minor changes, and only for very good reasons.
It features human-people, animal-people, magic, strange illusions, an irreversible transformation, a mad cult, an epic journey, and, hopefully, good writing for all of that. :lol:
It also features a couple of content warnings. Nothing major but enough that I think cw-ing is necessary.

CW's are -- a brief discussion of infant mortality, and some offhand allusions to the existence of animal genitalia. In both cases nothing is actually described, and it's mostly a statement that such things are a part of this world and people have to deal with that.
In addition the villains are written as a radicalized religious faction which I'm sure is something not everyone wants to be reminded of. The religion in question is at least purely made-up.
If you're unsure you want to continue, just keep in mind this story's written by someone who's worked in several different kinds of hospitals and also spends a good deal of time around real-life wild animals. I deal with a lot of the sorts of things that can make people a little bit squeamish on a daily basis and my tolerance for them is probably pretty high as a result. I won't shy away from showing you those things if I think it would make the world or the characters feel more real, but I also won't try to gross you out or be "edgy" unless I have a good reason to do it.

TL;DR, I wanted to create a world with people who come across as real and have real problems. Everything in this story is in service of that, even if it means some things might be a little bit unpleasant to think about.

With all that out of the way, one more, smaller warning... this is very long for a short story. The word count clocks in at over twenty-four thousand. If you're expecting to finish it in one sitting... you'll need to make time for that.
Oh and the bit in the brackets up there is just silliness, not an actual subtitle :D

Story begins in the next post. Unsurprisingly it's way past the forum's character limit so it's going to be split into several posts.
Last edited by Vertigo Fox on Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Make the World Believe (that it's literally a giant tornado!)[short story]

Post by Vertigo Fox »

Make the World Believe
A story of the World Cyclone


Caolanthia, Earth, 892 AT


“So, I hear you specialize in making disguises.”
The ears of the creature sitting across from me on the straw-covered floor twitched backward slightly, and his black-nosed face lifted upwards, meeting my eyes with a slight challenge in his own.
“It depends who’s asking,” the coyote replied, in a voice that could almost be mistaken for a human child, if not for a slight growling harshness and the obvious authority in his tone. No matter how often I interacted with them, talking to new animal-people was always a little off-putting.
“Let’s just say, if I like what you’re up to, I might know a way for you to get the magic you want.” he continued slowly, standing on his spindly canine legs to pace back and forth in front of me, posture betraying some wariness.
I could imagine what he wanted to do, but was fairly sure he wouldn’t in front of a human, a species well known not to enjoy that sort of display. For my part, I tried to take an example from the creature’s unselfconsciousness and ignore my occasional glimpse at what was hanging under his tail.
“It’s a bit of a story, but I’ll try to explain as best I can. My name’s Fernald, by the way,” I added, trying to defuse a little of the tension.
The coyote’s posture did relax slightly, but he didn’t stop pacing. I sighed inwardly. I wasn’t even sure I really wanted to do this, but, well, here we go. I’m taking the leap into the storm, I thought to myself. Try not to look down.
“You remember two years back, when that windriding hyena clan passed through town?”
The canine’s stance became, if anything, tenser than it had been before. I reminded myself that a lot of people didn’t like the hyenas. Personally, I’d found them fascinating, and immensely enjoyed the conversations I’d had with one of their younger females about what the collection of strange abilities people often derided as “death magic” really entailed.
I realized I was distracting myself from the task at hand, and I needed to keep going if I was to ever go through with this definitely crazy but potentially vital plan.
“I work at the grocers on the other side of town. Back when those hyenas were here, just before they left, they traded us a scroll they’d made for some food and travel supplies. They said their clan never carried money, but that that… thing… was powerful and valuable.”
The dog’s ears actually perked up at this. “I think I’ve seen it there. Soul-binding, or something creepy like that. I have no idea what it would actually do. Not sure why the market would even accept something like that, to be honest.”
I squirmed slightly as I nodded, hoping he didn’t notice. The market had accepted the scroll because I’d been the one on barter duty and the particular hyena who’d come by to sell it… well, I’d known it was the last time I would see her and I hadn’t wanted to end our strange little friendship on a note I’d regret.
I was certainly regretting it now, or I wouldn’t have come into this little shop.
“That’s the one–” I continued finally, only to be cut off.
“Let me guess,” the coyote said. “Someone finally bought the thing.”
“Yes,” I said. I’d seen the exchange while restocking some of the public shelves. “It gets worse than that, though. I recognized them. There aren’t many deerfolk around here, let alone with fangs.”
The coyote actually laid his ears back and growled at this, but his tail wagged slightly when he looked back over at me. I sensed I might be starting to win him over.
“He’s in that screwball cult,” the dog said. “What is it they call themselves, the order of something…”
“The brown dragon,” I supplied. It’s easy to remember things like that when you’ve been turning the situation over and over in your head for the past half-hour’s walk. I didn’t mention that I hadn’t even known the musk deer was a he.
It was common knowledge around town that this religious movement wanted to overthrow our country and establish itself as a particularly nutty flavour of theocracy. But, “wanted” was the key word there. They had less than thirty members and only existed in this one city. Nobody really had any reason to take them seriously. Until me, today, and hopefully at least this one canine ally…
“Whatever it is they think they could do with something like that, I… don’t think I want to ever find out,” the coyote said, stopping his pacing with some apparent effort and sitting back down across from me. “So what is it you want to do about this? I assume you have some kind of plan.”
Well, here it was. I was probably going to sound like a complete idiot, but: “I want to infiltrate them. Figure out where they’re keeping it, and what they’re planning to do with it if I can, but definitely take it back.” I hadn’t figured out anything past that, except, “They’ll probably know I’ve taken it. But if I do it under a made-up identity, in disguise, and then get rid of that disguise when I’m done, they’ll be chasing a ghost. If they ever find out who had it, it’ll be long after I’ve… buried it, or dropped it right off the country’s edge into the storm.” Even I knew that attempting to outright destroy a powerful scroll was one of those Very Bad Ideas.
To my surprise, the coyote was smiling. That was one thing at least some of the animals could do well when dealing with humans.
“It’s a good start,” he said. “It needs some refining, but we can help you with that.” I had to remind myself that this small creature, with his air of authority and experience, probably was older than me. “Where did you hear about me, just by the way?” he added. “It’s not as though I advertise I can do this.”
“A friend at work had a sheepdog costume at our Halloween party last fall,” I said. “It was all we could talk about for a week after. I asked him, he said he’d got it from a coyote in a little shop over this way. Once this idea started forming in my head, I came looking.”
“I remember him! Normally I just do road signs, for people out in the country. You know, the kind that move, change what they tell you to do depending on the weather. But your human comes in, flatters my illusion talents, and says he wants a costume that will blow all the others away.” The dog’s tail was wagging again, he was clearly enjoying his little tale. “I used to do things like that, when I was younger and didn’t have a family of my own. I thought it would be fun to try it again, just the once.
“Anyway, my name’s Yarpl. I’m glad you did hear about me, Fernald, because I can help you, and, with no offense meant, I think you’ll need helping.”
I didn’t even bristle. I had been pretty sure I’d be laughed out of the shop, and any help with this insanity I’d dreamed up was beyond welcome. Especially from someone with actual magic.
“If you could turn that sign in the window around so it says I’m closed, and just lock the front door– then come with me into the back room. No sense in anyone seeing what we’re up to.”
I did as Yarpl asked and followed him into another straw-floored room; I wholeheartedly agreed with that last sentiment.
“Oh– Sigrun!” his sudden bark nearly made me jump. “Wake up! We’re going to need you here too.”
A black-beaked shadow I hadn’t even noticed detached itself from the low rafters in the room we’d come from, and soared through the doorway a hair’s breadth over my head. I couldn’t help but flinch a little.
“This is Fernald, he works at the grocery”, Yarpl explained to the new arrival, who had perched on his neck.
“Really?” the raven croaked, “I had him pegged as a farmhand when he came in.”
“Nope, I’m a city mouse through and through,” I said, with a nervous smile.
“Well, we’ll make sure the cat doesn’t eat you,” the bird cackled, and then mumbled something to the coyote in a quiet voice I didn’t catch. He murmured back to her for a few seconds. Though I felt frustrated, I didn’t bother trying to overhear, as I knew human ears wouldn’t be up to the task.
Finally, Sigrun said “Oh my, that could be serious,” in an audible voice, and then turned to me. “You’re a brave lad. Are you sure you want to do all this?”
I nodded, mutely, even though I wasn’t.
“Well, let’s get to business then,” Yarpl said.
Sigrun fluttered to perch on the edge of a dusty table and began working at a drawer beneath the spot with her talons. It looked a little stuck, and I started over to help, but she had it open before I could reach her.
“No, stay in the middle of the room there,” the raven croaked over at me. “We’ll need a good look at you.”
“Now, let’s see…” the coyote said, thoughtfully. “For spy work like this, I think we’ll want to make you someone exotic.”
“Wait–” I interrupted. “You mean you’re going to make me look like one of–” I realized just in time how bad it would sound if I said ‘you people’, and cut myself off. After a second I added, meekly, “Couldn’t you just make me look like some other, you know, human?”
The raven shook her head. “Humans are too recognizable, lad. Too many connections. Nobody will know this person, nobody saw them arrive. If the cult gets suspicious, all they’ll have to do is ask around town to find out you don't really exist.”
That made a depressing amount of sense. I acquiesced. I was going to look like one of the animal-people. Well, actually, if this disguise was as good as I hoped, I’d look, smell, feel, and, heck, probably taste like one.
“No,” Sigrun continued. “The person you want to be is a traveller from another land. They can’t check up on you, but if your kind isn’t from around our country, they’ve no reason to doubt who you are.”
“That’s all well and good,” I huffed, “but you’d need to actually know the species from another island to make that, wouldn’t you? How they look and sound and smell and everything.”
Yarpl laughed. “Easier than you think. Sigrun was born on another island. What was it called, Locriatian?” The bird nodded, eyes seeming to twinkle slightly. “And she’s got keen ears, a keen nose, very keen eyes, and an extremely good memory.”
I resisted a strong urge to point out that the raven didn’t technically have a nose at all.
“So what do you have in mind, then?” I asked instead.
“Stand back a bit,” Sigrun said. I obliged, hesitantly, and an image sprung unceremoniously into being in the space I’d been occupying. It was a long-tailed creature with grizzled brownish fur, though beyond that I couldn’t tell whether it was cat, weasel, or mongoose. There was something snake-like about the long body and flattened head as well.
“What in the name of–” Yarpl cut himself off, but he’d expressed my thoughts exactly.
“It’s called a jaguarundi,” Sigrun said, her voice betraying some small pleasure at our reactions. “A jungle feline. Back on Locriatian we had them, but they kept mostly to the deep forests – it’s likely even if anyone you meet has been there, they won’t know any more about the species than you do. That should make bluffing easier for you.”
That made… some sense, I supposed. I nodded.
She continued, “We’ll need to make some additions, of course. A pair of wings, ribbed like a bat’s, and furred lightly,” she must have noticed my questioning look – “fur so that a cat could clean them better. Add a bit of membrane for steering at the tail base–”
I interrupted her, “Why are you giving him wings?”
“Well, lad, you had to get here somehow,” the bird squawked with slight irritation.
“I know that,” I said. “And I know some of you– umm… some kinds of people can do modifications to a body like that. But wouldn’t he have had them removed after he got here?” I was pretty sure that was the usual practice for body parts you needed to use but weren’t used to.
“Only foxes can make those kinds of changes to another creature, at least as far as I know,” Sigrun said, seeming mollified now that she knew what my question was. “Have you ever met a fox, lad?”
“No,” I admitted. I knew from travellers’ stories that they were small canines, and imagined they must be similar to a coyote but with brighter colours and bigger tails. But I’d never seen one myself. It clicked. “I see. We don’t have those on Caolanthia, so he’d never have found a chance to get the wings off.”
“Exactly, boy.” The raven seemed quite pleased again. “And don’t think of this beast as ‘he’. He’s going to be you, at least for a time. Think of him as yourself, and you won’t ever give yourself away.”
I nodded, both thankful for her expertise and wondering how the bird had such a good knowledge of subterfuge in the first place.
“Oh, I almost forgot, the one I met was a girl. We had better keep you male. Keep the identity as close to the real you as we can – which still isn’t that close, under the circumstances.” She cackled a little and added some things under the tail that I tried not to look too hard at. At least the steering membrane helped to hide them a little.
“All right, is that all, Sig?” Yarpl asked, standing up and stretching.
“Should be,” the raven said slowly, then supplied, with more confidence, “Yes. He’s all yours, boss.”
“Step into the image, if you’d be so kind,” the coyote said. I obliged.
Yarpl worked almost silently for several minutes, just occasionally muttering to himself. It was a marked contrast from the chatty raven. I noticed she was now nosing at a golden trinket on the table, with what appeared to be intense concentration.
I felt a few odd, nameless sensations, then gave a start as my body tingled and my eyesight was suddenly overtaken by another image, slightly off-colour and lower to the ground. I nearly panicked for a second until I found I could still see through my own eyes, and shift mental focus between the two images. I realized I must be seeing what the cat– the jaguarundi– would be seeing, if it were a real person.
The coyote must have noticed my reaction, because he seemed to realize his silence wasn’t helping my nerves. “I’m just linking the constructed form’s senses to yours. You’ll be able to see what it sees, feel what it feels, smell as it smells– more or less. Your brain won’t be able to process some of these signals as they come, but I can cross-wire them to your other senses so you still get some kind of representation.”
“You mean, I’m going to… see smells?” I asked, confused and a little bit awed that he could even do this to a completely non-magical creature.
“Yup! Just wait a second, that part’s almost ready.”
And I experienced it. A sudden flood of abstract colour and shape that seemed to exist in a separate pocket of vision from my actual eyesight, along with a much stronger experience of the smells I could perceive in this little room. Some of them were a little bit gross, or, at least, they should have been. Maybe I was somehow experiencing them through a fragment of a cat’s mind, but I found myself far more curious than disgusted.
I started to feel like one of those complicated electrical “thinking machines” in the back room of the grocery, which sheep or nebulosa occasionally paid to use. Being powered on, one component at a time.
And then I felt the sensation of the jaguarundi’s body. I may have clutched at my real crotch for a second, because it certainly felt nude. I had always assumed that fur on the mammalian animal folk must feel something like clothing. But it just felt like a very slight weight on a very naked form. Eye-opening, to be sure.
I saw the coyote grin a little as I looked down just to double-check my real clothes hadn’t gone anywhere.
The cat’s whiskers were quite something, I realized. I could feel tiny movements in the air of this room that I would have sworn a second ago was completely stagnant.
And then the image of the cat yawned, stretched, and disappeared, and it all went away.
“Did something go wrong?” I asked Yarpl, a little disappointed that we’d have to start all over.
“Not at all,” the coyote said with a tail wag, tongue lolling slightly from seeming exertion. “It’s finished. We stored it away for you to activate when you’re ready.”
Sigrun flew over with a small glass ball, like a very large marble, in one of her talons – not the golden bauble I’d seen her with earlier – and dropped it towards my hand. I instinctively reached out to grab it.
“Just break that when you’re ready to begin your spying, lad,” she said with what I could have sworn was a grin on her black beak. “It’s a little messy, yes, but the best we can do for someone with no magic of their own.”
I nodded in gratitude, and made to say my goodbyes, but she interrupted me.
“A little more advice for you, if I might.”
I gestured for her to continue.
“Don’t activate it at your home. If the jaguarundi is seen in a place people can connect with you, that may lead the cult to suspect you when they figure out it was a fake – and they will figure that out, eventually, even if all goes according to your plan.
“Be careful when choosing your name – you want one you won’t forget in a heated moment, but also one that sounds like a jungle cat could have been given. I don’t know how cat parents choose names–”
I interrupted her there. “They don’t. Most cats choose their own names when they’re about a year old.”
Both raven and coyote looked taken aback at this, and I felt just a little vindicated. I had worried the entire time I was in the shop that I might be coming off as something of a stereotypically racist human, but now I had known something meaningful about at least one form of animal culture that they didn’t.
“Well,” Sigrun said, after preening a wing feather slightly, “I was going to suggest spending some time doing research, but it sounds like you might have that under wing already.”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I did know of any actual name I could use.
Yarpl piped in. “Normally, I’d give someone an illusion they could control in a similar manner to their own body. But that only works if you have some magic of your own. So, what I did was add a tiny spark of life to your creature – to put it simply, it has just enough of a mind to believe that it’s the real you. It will follow any movement you make in its own way.”
This sounded a little creepy to me, but I supposed if it worked, it worked.
Yarpl continued, “Now, your real body will still be visible to you, but not to anyone else under most circumstances. People can still bump into you, but the illusion affects their perception – they won’t notice that a human was there even if they knock you over. However, and this is important – if all goes to plan, you’ll have at least one thing to pick up and carry. Try to do that around the level of the cat’s body. If it’s close enough, the illusion can make it appear to people like you’re holding it in the cat’s mouth. If it gets too far away, they might notice the real you holding it.
“Once you have the scroll, lay low for a day or two if you can. Don’t let it out of your sight. After that, come back here. We’ll take the illusion off you and help you figure out how to dispose of the curse-taken thing safely.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I really didn’t expect this much help, and I’m truly grateful for every bit of it. I have some money on me, how much do you want for—”
“Nothing,” the coyote shook his head. “From what you say you could very well be saving our town, maybe even this whole country, from those lunatics. That’s payment enough.”
I nodded my gratitude again, and said my goodbyes. I had come quite a way to find this place, and had a long walk home ahead of me.

* * *

I stepped out of the shop into one of those evenings where, aside from the odd speck of debris scudding across the sky high above, you could almost forget you lived on a massive chunk of rock and dirt circling eternally through a continent-sized tornado. The clouds were calm, and though I knew that only really meant that they happened to be blowing through the sky at the same incredible speed as we were, the effect was still relaxing. The ever-present wind, which on this country blew in a direction we had long ago decided was east-to-west, was felt as barely more than a stiff breeze.
All in all, in a land where we’d all seen the sort of stormy day that could lift a man up and fling his probably-broken body clear into the next town, this was uncommonly pleasant weather.
A voice from down the road brought me out of my reverie. “Hey, Fernie! What’re you doing down this way?”
The voice came from a bright orange feline shape, a little smaller than Yarpl. I stared in confusion for a moment – I’d been so caught up in my thoughts and plans on the way over, I’d completely forgotten who else prowled this side of town.
“Tana!” I finally exclaimed, but she was already in front of me, her warpaint-like face literally lifting up as she assumed a two-legged posture. This was accompanied by a crackling sound that I might have once found disturbing, a long time ago, but was, by now, very used to.
Tanager and I had known each other since our days in the schoolhouse. She was a farm cat, employed since the day she could walk chasing mice out of a barn. By the time we met she was already an only kitten – her twin brother having succumbed to a tragic injury when he tried to use their species’ innate shapeshifting ability too early.
As far as either of us knew, the war cats, as they were called in this part of the country because of those facial markings, were the only species in the world aside from humans that could ever be termed a “featherless biped” – at least, when they chose to use their magic to stand upright.
Tana finished shifting her body to stand and rubbed her face on the bottom part of my shirt – a very feline expression of friendliness. I responded by rubbing my hand down the back of her neck. I knew if she’d been human this would look completely inappropriate – but we’d been greeting each other this way since long before either of us were even capable of sexual attraction. For solitary folk, cats certainly liked to be in physical contact more than humans.
I decided not to answer her question – no need to be dragging anyone else into my mess. I could feel two bony nubs on Tana’s back just barely below her shoulder blades, so I decided to ask instead, “How are the flying lessons going? Gregorio still working you to death?”
She made a face up at me and replied, “He wants me to practice shaping my breastbone for half an hour every night. At least now he's told me it could help to do something I like at the same time-- he says it might be easier if I'm purring. But it’s been half a year! I’d thought by now I’d have at least started to work on the wings.”
I didn’t point out that I was pretty sure she’d been trying to work on them anyway – I knew Tana wouldn’t actually jump ahead so far to do anything that might hurt herself. Not after what she saw as a kitten.
Instead, I made what I hoped was a sympathetic noise, and started walking toward home. Tana walked beside me, rubbing against me a little more than usual. I knew she could tell something had me preoccupied.
After a few minutes of this, she broke the silence. “I know you’re a little jealous. Look, I don’t even know if I’m ever going to be able to…”
That wasn’t even close to what I’d been thinking about, but I gratefully took the offered excuse. “Well, eventually, you’re going to get to do something for real that I can only do in my dreams. And you will do it, Tana. However long it takes. I know you too well to think you’d ever give up.”
She nodded, accepting that. I felt her tail swishing against my leg a little as she thought for a few seconds. Finally, brightening a little, she said, “You know, this world is full of magic and we barely know how it works. It’s capable of making, well –” she gestured broadly at the world around us, and I knew she meant the cyclone itself. “If this is a world where a cat can learn to fly, I bet we can figure out something for you.”
I nodded with a smile, accepting the reassurance even though I doubted whether it was really possible.
We walked in silence for a while longer.
“Hey,” Tanager suddenly said. “You remember when we used to have those little arguments –”
“About the species you came from, yeah!” I would always take the side that intelligent cats must have been descended from humans, around the time the world became cursed, and Tana would say that no, humans were far too gross and clumsy to become anything like her, and she didn’t even want to think about them “becoming ancestors”.
“Ahhh, my, we’d just say the strangest things, wouldn’t we?” Tanager grinned up at me. “And then one of us would start giggling and they’d lose.”
That one had usually been me. One time, after ‘losing’ one of those ‘arguments’, I actually managed to locate an ancient, yellowed zoology text from the old world, and found a picture of her species, although the book had called it an ‘asiatic golden cat’. I’d never told Tanager about this, though I think I did understand why her kind had gone to the trouble of changing what they were called. Humans would have never called themselves ‘pangean tailless land-monkeys’, after all. Why would you want to be named after a place that hasn’t existed since before you were people?
“Why don’t we do that anymore?” Tana asked, with a hint of a laugh.
“I have no idea,” I really didn’t, but I understood she wanted to give me something else to think about besides what was really bothering me, since I wouldn’t tell her. I was grateful, and yet, that thought of the thing that was bothering me gave me an idea.
“Hey, Tana… I’ve been wondering. Your people always pick their own names, right?”
“Usually,” she replied. I could tell she wasn’t sure where I was going with this, but I knew she’d be willing to humour me.
“Well, I wonder… how do you choose them, when you’re only a year old?” I worried that it might be painful for her to remember that far back, but if it was she didn’t show it.
“Oh, it could be a favourite snack, a plant you like the smell of, something you like doing – there’s a reason ‘Mouser’ is such a common name for the really small species. Anything a young mind might connect with itself.”
I didn’t have to ask to know which of those options had been her pick. “Thanks, Tana.”
She just looked at me curiously.
An idea was starting to form in my mind. A plant. A name that I wouldn’t forget. An alternate identity that was as close as possible to my real one – and in these circumstances, that was pretty darn close.
I thought of something else I’d forgotten that might hopefully steer the conversation back to lighter winds. “Have you seen that ocelot around, the one who’s new in town you were telling me about?”
“Yup,” Tana said, forlornly. “Still cute, and she still doesn’t know I exist.”
Well, that subject crashed and burned.
We were nearing my home now – a low-rise structure carved from the rock of the island itself, wallaby-made, sturdy enough to stand up to almost anything the wind could throw at it. It wasn’t quite in view, yet, but I decided we were close enough to begin our usual ritual.
“Hey, Tana, you want to come in for some tea?” Most felines couldn’t really drink tea, but Tanager was able to modify her internal body structure with enough precision to resist poisons that were much more toxic to her, and she liked the taste of it.
“You know the answer to that,” she said with a grin.
“Not until I spend the night outside,” I grinned back. Tanager did not like being cooped up indoors. Like a lot of other catfolk, she had a few sleeping places in trees or under bushes around her part of town and the farms just past it, all of them claimed with her individual scent so they wouldn’t be taken by someone else, and she only slept inside if the weather was bad.
I’d convinced her to come in just once, on an evening that had been getting stormy, and hadn’t even been able to show her around – the noise of the growing storm had had us both so much on edge we’d huddled together all night in the foyer. Having been raised in a barn, she had at least proven to be housebroken.
“Well, can I bring some out for you?” Usually, we wound up sitting outside with our warm cups, looking up at the clouds.
“No, I have to get back to the O’Daniels farm. Got a job coming up tonight – sounds like a big one, but I won’t be the only cat there.”
“Pest control?” I asked.
“Yep. They’ve hired some rats on the case too. It’ll be a long night, but it shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll say hi to Marvin for you if I see him there.”
Marvin was a rat who’d been in our class back then as well. I hadn’t seen him since then, but he worked some of the same pest-control jobs that cats were often hired for. Probably with a less direct method than physically eating the problem nonsophonts – I imagined a rat’s fear magic could be used to just convince rabbits, mice, or whatever else might be eating a crop, to leave. Of course, at that point they’ll just infest the next farm over, which is why you still need the cats.
“I’ll see you later then. Good luck!”
She bared her long teeth. “I’m looking forward to it.”
I waved goodbye as Tanager settled back down on all fours, and then went inside to make my usual cup of cocoa before bed. My thoughts turned back to the task I’d set myself – tomorrow, I decided, since this evening had gone so well. I’d already told my supervisors at the market that I needed to take care of some personal business over the next few days.
I had my disguise, I knew what I was going to call myself, and I was starting to get some… slightly cheeky ideas on what my new identity’s history might be if I was asked.
I was still scared, but I felt more ready now than I ever would have thought I could, back when I walked into the little illusion shop.

* * *
Last edited by Vertigo Fox on Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Make the World Believe (that it's literally a giant tornado!)[short story]

Post by Vertigo Fox »

I decided to scope out the area the next morning before activating my disguise. After all, I wasn’t sure how paranoid these people were. If a strange cat-weasel-mongoose was seen lurking around the old bunker complex at the east end of the city that the brown dragon cult used as a church before any of them were around, and then showed up to join their group later the same day, it could make them suspicious of me far too early.
Once I was satisfied with the escape routes I’d found, I went to find a small kiosk in the market building which I knew would be open early. This vendor sold, among other things, the spelled pouches that animal folk often used to carry money or other small objects. The straps themselves were essentially a scroll, with light telekinesis or precision wind spells applied to allow anyone with a modicum of magic to fasten and unfasten the apparatus without needing the use of hands. I’d seen Tanager fasten one that way once or twice, though with hands in her bipedal form she usually didn’t need to.
Yarpl had said to carry anything that needed carrying around the height of the jaguarundi’s body. I didn’t know if the illusion would extend to a pouch that was fastened at that level, but if it did, it would make carrying a small parchment object, like the scroll I was after, a much less awkward and risky task.
After looking at a few different models, some of which had extra features like an upper flap that could be undone by telekinesis, or even a spelled interior that would allow objects to be floated out a short distance so as not to need any clumsy mouth- or paw- contact, I settled on a basic version that only had a magic strap, since all I would need was plausible deniability that the cat could have put it on himself.
I decided to buy two of them, just in case something happened to the first. For now I just folded one up inside the other, then hand-signed a thank-you towards the rattlesnake vendor, who seemed to think the whole experience of having a human looking through his (or maybe her) magic wares was very amusing.
I stepped out and headed back towards a narrow, shaded alley I’d spied west of the cultists’ building. First I took the pouch and tied it around my ankle, then, checking to make sure nobody was in view, I took the glass marble out of my pocket.
It was filled with a crimson-brown smoke and I could swear I caught the occasional glimpse of a pair of eager catlike eyes staring out of that furred, oddly snakelike face. Alright, I said to myself, time to take the leap.
I looked around one more time, and then threw the bauble at the ground. The smoke swirled around my ankles a little before dissipating, and I felt the sensations of that second body again.
The very naked sensations. I could feel the wind on several parts of the other me that my real body simply didn’t have, as well as several parts that I did know, but certainly weren’t used to feeling the wind.
Well, I reminded myself, everybody else there will probably be just as nude. I’d never actually seen a human associated with their movement, and while I didn’t know for sure that there weren’t any, I was pretty sure most of their membership was a mix of other species.
While all the parts that mattered were still uncovered, I realized the cat was slightly less naked than yesterday – I could feel the strap of the pouch tied around its flank, behind the membrane of the wings. I tried to take a look down at it but found it a little difficult to concentrate on something that far down with my own vision. I settled for twisting my head over my shoulder to check with the cat’s vision that it did indeed appear to be tied where I wanted it.
I slunk closer to the bunker-church, still in shadow. I could see two of their number, a meerkat, and the fanged deer from yesterday, talking in front. I could even make out most of what was being said with surprising clarity. The cat’s hearing, I supposed. I could feel “my” ears rotating towards their voices.
“So I hear you got it,” the meerkat was saying.
“Yes,” the deer’s voice was deep and strangely accented, and he didn’t elaborate further. I guessed he wasn’t from around here. I’d read somewhere that mixed herds of deer and antelope could windride once they grew large enough– maybe he’d come through from another island with his extended surrogate family and then stayed behind.
It occurred to me that if that was the case, I’d have to watch out for him. If he’d been through Sigrun’s homeland, it was just possible he might have picked up some knowledge about jaguarundis that I didn’t have.
It also occurred to me that if I barged in on them while they were talking about the very object I was after, that would be extremely suspicious. I bit my lip – stifling a yelp at the sharpness of my second self’s feline teeth – and retreated a little into the shadow, to wait for a better moment.
I couldn’t hear them as well from back here, only picking up snatches. But eventually, I saw two others approach them. A pair of tiny weasels dropped down from outside my field of vision – they must have been windriding, probably flying above the road to keep from being stepped on. And from the opposite direction, a spotted feline–
Oh, hell, I thought to myself. Tanager’s going to be disappointed. It was that ocelot. I could smell her female-ness. In fact, the scents of all these creatures were intermingling in very colourful patterns in that other little dimension of my vision. I wondered how I was able to interpret them so precisely, then remembered Yarpl’s statement that the jaguarundi “thinks it’s the real me”. I guessed if the cat thought that I had grown up in its own shape, maybe it would have learned all this from growing up? The thought of real and imaginary worlds intermingling like that made my head hurt.
I realized that I wasn’t going to have a better opening than this to intrude on their little meeting, and, taking a series of deep breaths, I stepped out of the shadow.
The ocelot’s ears twitched back towards the sound of my human footsteps almost immediately, but she didn’t seem to consciously notice me until I cleared my throat.
“Wow. What the heck are you?” she asked, bluntly.
“I— uhh, I’m a brown dragon.” I said, stumbling over the carefully-assembled backstory I’d put together in a sudden bout of nervousness.
The ocelot snarled a little and the rest of the group turned to stare. I gulped. That probably wasn’t the best thing to lead with.
“I mean, that’s what my brothers called me, back at home, after I got these for a job,” I flexed my shoulders a little so my cat-self would show off his wings. The mood seemed to relax a little, but only a little. I decided to take the leap and go all-in. “It was lucky I did. I somehow managed to beef consumme off a bunch of crazy people back on Locriatian and they chased me right off the island. I saw you had an organization in this town with the same name as what my brothers called me, and wanted to see what you’re all about.”
I stopped for a second, then realized I’d forgotten to introduce my cover, “My name’s Fern, by the way,” I said just as the ocelot opened her mouth again.
She closed it, then waited a second before she opened it up again to reply.
“Well, Fern, this is the Order of the Brown Dragon. We’re a new religion. Founded, oh, twenty two years ago now, by the equine Krastus – dragons rest his soul. He was taken by the storm just a few months after I joined.”
I nodded. Horses had it hard on this country and probably most of the other islands. They were heavy enough to withstand all but the most severe winds, but their legs were very vulnerable to large debris. Their size and weight limited the types of shelter they could use when the storm worsened, so they probably would have to endure bad weather while at least partly exposed. There weren’t very many left in this country.
“There are other people who believe around Caolanthia, but they’re not really members of the Order the way we are. None of them have the spine to do what’s necessary.”
That last word was delivered in a hiss that was frankly frightening. I recoiled a little but held my ground.
“And… what is necessary?” I prodded, hoping for a little more.
“To get off this stinking curse-forsaken planet,” the meerkat said.
I was surprised their goal would be something that simple, and I couldn’t help but notice the irony of the smelliest creature in the meeting saying the planet stank.
“The dragon cursed this world with His breath of wind when people stopped believing in His kind,” the deer said, as if reciting holy text, which I supposed he might have been. “If we prove our loyalty to Him, He will sweep us up and take us to His land of peace and plenty.”
Crazy, I thought to myself. The real events that led up to the Earth’s cyclonic curse weren’t entirely unknown, and even with very few surviving physical records, there was still a prominent branch of magical science dedicated to studying that period of time in detail. What had been taught in my history classes certainly had had nothing to do with imaginary fire-breathing lizards. But, it might explain why these people seemed to want to take over the whole country. If they managed to enforce their religion on an entire island, I could understand how that might seem like “proving loyalty” in their minds.
Out loud, I said “That sounds interesting. How would I go about joining up, if I were to decide I wanted to?”
The deer gestured with his head towards the ocelot. “Adolpha will judge your fitness.”
Adolpha approached and shoved her face forcefully against the sides of my cat-self’s body, scent-marking me with an off-putting aggressiveness. She took several long breaths through her nose, and then sat back on her haunches to give me an appraising look, before turning part way around, her tail now held a little higher than her body. I knew from spending time with Tanager that that was probably not a bad sign.
“If you want to join our Order,” she said, “be here for the service at eight o’clock tonight. If you choose not to, then a piece of parting advice – leave this town. Amazing things will happen here soon, and I think you’d be much happier to watch them from afar.”
I gulped again. Whatever she meant, it didn’t sound good. And I’d bet the fur on my imaginary tail that the soul-binding scroll was involved somehow.

* * *

I decided to risk a short stop back at home, as I felt the fewer people around town who saw this temporary new identity of mine, the lower the risk was of being exposed for who I really was sometime in the future. I just stayed long enough to prepare myself two meals, and then left, checking as I did that no-one was around who could see this strange little creature stepping out of my house.
I worried that the act of trying to eat while balancing two very differently-sized bodies would risk breaking the illusion if anyone was watching, so I headed east, out of town, to wait out the day. Thankfully, the weather was still nice enough that I could leave the artificial crater where the city and southern farms had been constructed. Being uphill would give me a vantage point where I could see anyone coming early enough to adjust my behaviour and avoid giving my real shape away, before they could see me.
However, aside from a single human farmer with his two donkeys and cart leaving town on the same main road, I didn’t see another soul, and evening rolled around all too quickly.
As I headed down the crater’s incline back towards the settlement, I nearly tripped over a large rock one of the farmer’s animals must have kicked onto the trail. I felt the cat’s muscles tense and jump as if to leap over the obstacle, and its wings extend. I could have sworn when I started to fall that I actually glided on the wind before landing back on my own two feet. All I could tell for sure was that I was now several meters further down the road, and apparently unharmed.
I entered the bunker “church”. The ocelot Adolpha, the fanged deer whose name I still didn’t know, and a heavily muscled human man I'd never seen before were just inside waiting for me.
“Nibble tells me you’re a jaguarundi,” the ocelot said, indicating the musk deer with a rooster of her head. “He says he’s heard that the powers your kind has might be very useful to us. I wouldn’t mind seeing a demonstration of what you can do.”
At this point, she must have noticed the look of utter terror on my face – I hadn’t even thought to ask Sigrun what a jaguarundi’s magic was supposed to be! Adolpha seemed to misinterpret the expression, though.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, her tail lifting up in what could have been a reassuring gesture if it wasn’t also flicking dismissively. “I know we can’t do it in here. The service is about to start anyway. There will be plenty of time for this later. Maybe even tomorrow.
“In the meantime, find yourself a seat somewhere around the back here. My place is at the front, but I can answer any questions you have after it’s done.”
As I sat down on an empty bench, feeling my cat-self jumping up to sit around the level of my crotch, it sunk in that my cover was going to be blown, one way or another, in less than twenty-four hours. I needed to make my move tonight.
The priest at the front, a big, dull-scaled varanid lizard, started to preach something about dragons or awakening the dragon-fire within you, or something along those lines. I wasn’t paying much attention, instead looking around to try and see a way deeper into the bunker complex.
I saw two heavy-looking doors with wheel-shaped locks at the back of the big hall the service was taking place in, which must have been the foyer of the original complex. I was pretty sure I could see some good routes through the shadows along the side of the hall which, combined with the jaguarundi’s small size and dark fur, should allow me to reach them unseen. But the muscle-bound man I’d seen before was standing between them.
I listened more closely to the monitor’s sermon as I watched the man carefully, biding my time. He was saying something about how the world must be made to see the truth of the brown dragon’s wrath, and then added a bit that really made me prick up my imaginary cat ears:
“Fortunately, my hatchlings, we now have possession of the item which shall be the first step in creating that vengeful army. Our electro-mages are studying its application to our cause, and have already given their assurances that it is capable of synergizing with their electro-mechanical constructs. From the ashes of this city we will rise, and take the first step towards making the world believe.”
He must be talking about the scroll, I thought to myself. Ashes of the city didn’t sound good at all, but I realized he might have unwittingly given me a hint about where to find what I was looking for, once I could slip away from this room. The only animal-folk with electrical powers that I knew of were nebulosa cats and sheep. While I’d met a few of the large-fanged felines as customers at the market, they were all passing through town and I didn’t think any of them actually lived here. Not enough trees for their liking. That left the sheep, and while it wasn’t that much to go on, it would certainly be easier to look for signs of sheep than for signs of a small piece of–
Actually, my thoughts said suddenly, this is plenty to go on. I’ve met and seen and talked to enough sheep to know exactly what they smell like. They have to come into the bunker the same way I did. I can track where they’ve gone easily.
I balked for a second. I’d felt sensations and impressions from the jaguarundi illusion’s mind already, but this was the first time it had actually spoken in my conscious thoughts. Those thoughts had felt so much like my own, I might not even have been sure that that was what had happened, save for the strange way it interrupted my own train of reasoning to insert its logic into my head. I wasn’t at all sure that it was supposed to be able to do this, or what it meant that it now could.
I didn’t have much time to think about that, though, as I saw the big man, along with Adolpha, moving towards the altar, presumably to participate with the priest in some kind of ritual. I steeled myself, and slipped off my bench and into the shadows around the sides of the hall.
Three pinkish patterns of colour and blobby shape in that extra part of my vision seemed to identify themselves as “sheep” to my brain. I zeroed in on them as I crouched towards one of those heavy looking doors with the wheel-locks. Thankfully, it was slightly ajar – probably so that the sheep and whoever else needed to go back there could get through without needing the use of hands.
Less fortunately, the gap would only have been big enough for me to slip through if I was an actual small feline and not just a human disguised as one. I stepped up to the door, gritted my teeth, trying to make as little noise as possible, and–
–I slipped around it to the other side. In bewilderment I looked behind me to see that the door had, in fact, not moved an inch.
This was unnerving but I couldn’t waste time worrying about it. I could still smell the sheep, tinged with a bit of sheep waste, mixed in with the odours of other creatures that had used this passageway. I set off down the corridor, the cat-illusion’s nose to the ground.
Judging from their multiple odour trails of different ages, all three of the sheep habitually travelled in the same direction through this church/bunker complex. It made tracking them very easy indeed, although it meant I didn’t pay much attention to which way I was actually going in this maze of corridors and small rooms.
I stopped for a second in a room stocked with shelves of what looked like cans of preserved meat, wondering if I was going to get myself completely lost on the way out.
No I’m not, my mind said, I can just follow my own scent back out.
I was almost sure that was the cat’s imaginary mind talking like it was part of me again, but it was even harder to tell than the first time.
I was far enough from the church proper now that I wasn’t worried about alerting the congregation by making noise, so when the odour trail led me to a door that was locked, I turned the wheel and pushed it open to find a sight equal parts amazing and terrifying.
At first I thought it was an army of human- and animal-shaped warriors standing to attention. After a moment, though, it became clear that these creatures were not even alive. They were made of some kind of metal, and as I moved along their ranks, I could see cases built into the backs of the constructs that looked a lot like the electronic “thinking machines” in that little room at the back of the market.
The sheep smell was thick here, and I figured, in a place that was so obviously important to the cult’s plan, the scroll had to be somewhere nearby. The room didn’t seem to have any light source, but I could still see quite well through both the cat’s eyes and my real ones, just by the sliver of light coming through the open door.
It still took me several agonizing minutes of looking around, worrying one of the sheep might show up, before I finally spied the curse-avowed thing lying on a small pedestal in a back corner, next to an absolute disaster of tangled cables and strange-looking machinery.
I forced myself to pause and make completely sure this was the scroll I was looking for, reading the first few words:
“Scroll of Soul-Binding
“This scroll can be used to extract a soul on the verge of death and attach it to an object”
Suppressing a shudder, and satisfied that I had indeed found the right scroll, I picked it up and opened the pouch that now appeared to be tied around both my real leg and the jaguarundi’s flank with the same strap, despite the fact that those two surfaces were perpendicular.
I dropped it in and tried not to look too hard at the illusion, which I could swear became even more mind-bending every time I paid it attention.
I left the room, following the particular feline scent that I knew to be my own. The journey back through the rooms and corridors felt so much longer than tracking the sheep had, terrified as I was that I would run into Adolpha or someone else and not be able to make up an explanation for what I had been doing back here.
But the only ocelot-scent I ever caught was old, and I arrived back at the door to the main church to find the service still on. It seemed to be just ending, from what I could hear of the monitor lizard’s words. Either this religion demanded very lengthy sessions of worship, or my trip into and out of the back-rooms hadn’t taken as long as it had felt like.
As the congregation started to rise, I took advantage of the noise they were making to pull the door open enough to fit my human body through it, not sure if whatever stroke of luck I’d had before would happen to me a second time.
I slunk back through the shadows and, with difficulty, forced myself to return to the bench I’d been at before, and sit there for at least a minute. I was confident I hadn’t been seen leaving, but hopefully, this way, anyone who saw me get back would assume I’d just gotten up to relieve myself or something equally normal.
I reminded myself that once I returned to Yarpl I wouldn’t have to worry about any reprisals, if the cult even figured out who had taken their precious object of power. I’d just lie low at home for a few days, make sure the scroll stayed on me at all times, and then head back to Tanager’s territory to finish this insane quest. What could happen now? The worst was already over.
Having gotten my mind sorted, I realized I was the only one left in the church hall and got up to leave. I passed Adolpha and Nibble again at the exit, the former getting a curious glint in her eye when she saw me, but I just gave them a nod and kept walking.
Outside it was raining, and windy, and getting worse by the minute. I was surprised by the sudden change in weather but not disappointed. If I needed to stay at home and off the cult’s radar, for a little while, bad weather might actually help. At the very least, low visibility and rain covering up the sound and scent of me would mean I was unlikely to be followed on my way west to home.
On the other hand, I could feel the jaguarundi’s fur getting soaked and still smell my own odour of wet cat with a surprising number of meaningful overtones. While it wasn’t too unpleasant, it was certainly disorienting.
As I got closer to home, I felt a gust of wind catch under the jaguarundi’s wings and pull them fully open. This time, I was sure I left the ground for a few seconds, because after the gust died down I had to backtrack to find my house. It at least gave me the opportunity to look around and confirm that nobody had followed me, before I went inside.
I set about making my usual bedtime cup of hot cocoa, but for some reason it smelled foul. I checked my supply of chocolate – nearly knocking my full supply of baking soda onto the floor, and actually spilling a little of it, in the process – nothing seemed to have happened to the cocoa, but it all smelled just as unappetizing.
Sighing, I left the cup out on the table and headed for my bed in the underground level of the house. At least the storm outside wouldn’t touch me in here, however bad it sounded. I toweled myself off in the lavatory, an act which seemed to prompt the jaguarundi to shake itself and spray real water all over the room, but I was too tired to care about this latest magic strangeness. I’d figure it out whenever the storm let up enough for me to visit Yarpl’s shop.
After checking to make sure the scroll was still in the pouch on my leg, I lay down on my bed and almost instantly drifted off.

* * *
Last edited by Vertigo Fox on Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Make the World Believe (that it's literally a giant tornado!)[short story]

Post by Vertigo Fox »

I woke up just as suddenly to find my bladder already in the process of soaking through my bed sheets. It took a few moments of disorientation before I was able to get the unruly muscle back under control.
The bedding stank worse than anything I think I’d ever smelled, but I knew I was still too exhausted to take the sheets off, and the mattress was probably already soaked to the point of uselessness anyway.
I crawled off the bed onto the floor, and curled up in a corner, pillowing my head on an arm, tail to nose. I could still hear the storm outside. If anything it sounded louder than before, and just compounded my worry. Maybe it was a side-effect of just having had the most stressful day of my entire human existence, but nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
And the smell was still bothering me too much to go back to sleep. Lifting my head, I sensed something above me that felt helpful in a way I couldn’t really explain even if I’d had the energy to try, and, with a sparking sensation in my chest, I pulled at it with my mind until I felt all of it on the bed instead. I didn’t know or even care enough to question what it was I’d done, but as the stink slowly began to dissipate I knew it had at least worked.
I lay my head back on my paws, sighed, and went back to sleep.

* * *

It was still windy and raining come morning, but judging by the sound from outside, the wind and rain had slowed considerably. I wouldn’t have expected the bad weather to wind down this quickly, but I supposed it had started pretty suddenly as well.
I opened my eyes in my position on the floor, yawned and stretched my legs, and realized I had apparently gone to bed naked. I didn’t even remember taking my clothes off in the state of exhaustion I’d been in last night, but considering what I remembered happening in the middle of the night it might have been for the best that I hadn’t soiled anything else.
I stood up and stretched my tail and wings, taking in the rich human odours combined with the cat-smell of my illusionary alter-ego. Oddly, the colours and shapes of my scent-vision seemed fainter than yesterday, but as I was still able to perceive all the detail in the smells anyway, that didn’t seem particularly important.
Something was nagging at the back of my mind now, but whatever it was could wait till after I got myself dressed. I only stopped to nose open the pouch on my flank and make sure the scroll was still in there.
I nosed the closet open and switched my visual perception back to my human eyes, so I could see the—

I switched my vision back to my human eyes—

I tried to switch my vision to my human eyes
My human eyes weren’t there.
I did a closer inspection of my human body, and found that–

I inspected my human body and found–

I couldn’t find it.

My body wasn’t there either.
No, that wasn’t true. My feline illusion-body was still very much there, and it was feeling very, very real.
I let out a strangled little cry, the likes of which couldn’t possibly come out of a human mouth.

This…. This must be some mistake. The illusion’s gone wonky, and now it feels to me the same way it’s supposed to look to everyone else. Yes. It’s gotten too real and now it’s…

It’s gotten too real.
It’s becoming real.
It’s already become real.

No no no no no no no no no! Yarpl and Sigrun. I need to get to them. They can help me. They can break the spell.

Do I really believe I’m still under a spell?
I have to.

I got up off the floor, which I didn’t remember falling onto, feeling nauseous and weak as a kitte– I tried not to think that word.
To hell with laying low, I thought to myself, I need to go see them and figure this out before it somehow gets even worse. I ignored the small part of my mind that kept trying to tell me there was no more worse for it to get.
I stumbled up the stairs on all fours, realizing some of the stink from last night was still in my fur. To hell with that too, though. To hell with breakfast, or trying to put clothes on a human body I could no longer sense in any way.
I needed to get out the door. I needed to get to the south end of town.
I somehow made my way to the street and started walking, still unsteady. Even in the lighter rain, my fur– the cat’s fur– was soaked through very quickly. At least it seemed to clean me off.
My brain didn’t seem to be processing time or… anything else… very well, and I hardly realized when I reached the little shop. It was closed, but I scratched at the door desperately, soaked to the skin and violently shivering, until it opened to reveal… no-one? No, there was Sigrun perched on the doorknob and flapping.
I helped her close it against the wind, and then I told her what had–

I told her what–

I tried to tell Sigrun what had happened to me, but what came out was,
“Sigrun, they wanted me to show them a jaguarundi’s power. Why didn’t you tell me what a jaguarundi does?”
I could see an odd expression on her beaked face, but she still replied levelly, “If I knew that, lad, I would have told you. I… think you’re going to find out anyway.”
I started again, shouting, letting her know exactly what she and Yarpl done to–

I told her–

I was on the floor again. I didn’t remember going there. Straw was sticking to my wet fur. Yarpl and Sigrun’s scents were both with me now. I heard one of them say something about stirring and thinking he’s waking up, and opened eyes that I hadn’t closed. I could see I was now in the back room of the shop.
I sat up and retched, but there was nothing in my stomach.
“You were gone for quite a while there,” the coyote said, as I finished dry-heaving.
Somehow, I managed to remember my real priorities. “Is the scroll safe?” I asked. I worried I had left it at home, or dropped it on the way here, or, even worse, got it so wet in the rain that it was ruined and leaking power.
“It’s here, lad,” Sigrun said reassuringly. “You did well. And I don’t think anyone could blame you for coming here earlier than I said, after what’s happened to you.”
“The… I… the illusion was…” I started, then tried again, “I think you might have made it too real. Can you take it off?”
“I think you’re right,” Yarpl said. “It’s as real as it gets. And I’m sorry. Maybe I was too out-of-practice with this kind of thing. I screwed it up.”
And I knew – I dreaded, I screamed at myself inside, but I knew what he was going to say next.
“There’s no illusion to take off of you.”
I slumped on the floor, every part of my body – legs, ears, tail, wings – drooping.
That little voice in my head, the one that had tried to keep me rational, popped back up, niggling and nagging and reminding about something…
I came very close to wetting myself again as I realized what it was.
“My plan!” I moaned, with another sound that was far too animalistic. “There’s nothing to stop them coming after me! The fake identity I wanted them to chase is… it’s me now.”
“It is,” Yarpl agreed. “Don’t worry though. You were catatonic for several hours, and Sigrun and I were not idle in that time. We can still salvage this.”
“We’d better,” I said, feeling both relieved and still frightened nearly out of my mind. “Because I’m pretty sure I know what they want to do with this thing, and if they get it back, they are at least going to kill everyone in this city.”
I shuddered. “And if they get just one of us, I don’t think anyone here is going to be able to stop them.”
“What is it they want, lad?” Sigrun said, with the same expression on her beaked face as she’d had when I stumbled in through the door.
“They have this army of metal soldiers, waiting for souls to animate them,” I said. “I don’t think they can be killed. Even if they can, I don’t think anyone in this town has magic that can do it.”
“So,” I continued, trying to sound brave and probably achieving the opposite, “What’s the plan?”
Yarpl returned to the room with a bucket of water held in his mouth. I hadn’t noticed him leave, but I gratefully accepted the drink and started lapping greedily.
“Sigrun’s going to teach you to fly,” he said matter-of-factly.
I felt like I was certainly going to choke, but somehow managed not to.
I realized immediately the most mundane facet of what this implied. Poor Tanager, I thought. Somehow, all this craziness that’s happened means I’m going to learn to fly before she does. Can I even tell her about this? If she’d even recognize me, or believe who I was, the next time I saw her. Which would only happen if both of us survived the dragon cult’s designs on this place – I tried very hard to stop thinking about that.
“We’re going to fly west to the next town, and wait to see if the cult follows,” the bird took over. “Yarpl will follow on foot with some extra supplies that you might end up needing. If the cult doesn’t follow, we’ll lay low for a few days and then find a way to get rid of that thing like we’d planned before. If they do follow, you’re going to have to take it out of the country.”
I gulped, but I could see the sense in this idea. The only members of the cult I’d seen who could fly were the two weasels. Even if they were stupid enough to follow me off the island into the storm, the prevailing wind would prevent them from ever bringing it back to the group who actually wanted to use it.
That same wind would prevent me from ever coming back, from ever seeing my family, or Tanager, or my friends at work, or anyone I knew, ever again.
All I could do was hope it wouldn’t come to that.
“You still with us, lad?” Sigrun said.
I shook my head to clear it, only succeeding partially. “Yeah,” I said. “Well… I am now.”
“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” the bird continued, not unkindly. “But you won’t be without friends, even if the worst happens. I have a brother, one of my nestmates, who lives on Fyridgea.
“This thing–” she fluttered up to the table and picked up a golden filigreed bauble, which looked oddly familiar, “this lets me keep in contact with him even over such a distance. I’ve already spoken with him since you got here, and he’s given me directions for you to take if you have to brave the cyclone. You have to–”
“Stop,” I told her. “I don’t think I want to know until it’s necessary.”
It was a small risk, but I didn’t know if my mind could take much more without another breakdown, and the raven nodded, seeming to understand.
“I’ll have some advice to give you on flying with a strong tailwind as well, but it will make more sense once you’ve experienced the sky for yourself, so I can hold off on it until we’ve got you airborne.”
“One more thing,” Yarpl said. “You don’t have any idea what magic you have?”
I was stunned for a moment. The question might have crossed my mind when everything fell apart, but I didn’t think I’d let myself think about it properly… I was fully one of the animal-people. Not a human anymore. I had magic of my own now.
And no, I had no idea what it was or how to use it. Except last night, in the middle of the night, when the smell in the room was too much to let me sleep, I’d…
“I don’t know what it is,” I replied slowly, “but I think I’ve used it already.”
Another image popped into my mind. A tin of white powder, tipping slightly in my cupboard, spilling a little of its contents, then righted and pushed back away from the edge. Baking soda I’d nearly wasted last night.
An incident that would have been fresh in my mind when I started awake on a wet bed.
Something that could have gotten rid of the smell.
An idea was forming, but I wasn’t at all sure it was correct.
“I need to get back home!” My excited shout sounded odd to my ears in this new higher-pitched voice. “There’s something I can check, maybe figure it out.”
“Alright,” Yarpl said, sounding a little confused. “Take the scroll with you. And, Sigrun, you go too. You can start your flying lessons from there once he’s done.”
I took a final drink from the water bucket and leaped out the door almost before Sigrun had opened it, taking off at a run down the street. But after a few seconds of that I got so hot I had to stop, panting, the soles of my feet sticky with sweat.
The raven fluttered up behind me, looking amused. “Cats can’t jog like humans, lad. Take it easy.”
I realized the storm had broken completely. This was… rare, for bad weather to come and go so fast. Rare enough to make me wonder if it was entirely natural. Did anyone in the cult have weather-control abilities? I wasn’t familiar enough with the magic of ocelots, or varanids, or meerkats, to say for sure. If they had called a storm last night, it would have had to be to keep whoever stole their scroll from leaving town.
If they’d called the storm, that would mean they’d known it was gone before I’d even left the building.
This might be very, very bad.
I set off at the fastest trot this feline body could keep up, feeling hunger pangs in my stomach and the wind on my nethers.
That last was certainly noticeable but it didn’t feel… wrong, exactly. I supposed my time with the illusion, when I was both clothed and naked at the same time, must have helped get me used to the sensation already. I was just glad of one less thing to be actively worried about, even if it was still slightly distracting.
I noticed, too, that the colours and shapes that signified different odours were still present in my vision, at a much lower level than they’d been before. They weren’t needed – my actual sense of smell was incredibly detailed and precise now, and I realized it had already been this way at least as far back as when I entered the backrooms of the church yesterday. The complexity had been added so gradually over the course of the day that I just hadn’t noticed.
We arrived at my house, the door still open from when I’d left this morning. It was just as well. Even if I didn’t have to leave the island, I’d probably never be able to come back here again.
I rushed to the kitchen, and leaped onto the countertop, flapping wings a bit to help gain some extra height. I was surprised I knew to do that, but maybe a little bit of the cat illusion’s imaginary story had come true along with its imaginary shape.
Then I tried to get that cupboard open, but my paws didn’t have the dexterity. Sigrun grabbed the handle in her talons and did that backwinging thing again to pull it.
I climbed, a little nervously, to grip the top shelf – my body might be made for climbing now but the shelves were still far too small to stand on – and peered over its edge into the baking soda container which had been full when I nearly tipped onto the floor last night.
Empty.
I pushed off the edge and used my wings to parachute to the floor. “Well, either a thief snuck in here who’s very fond of alkaline substances, or my magic has something to do with chemical reactions,” I told Sigrun.
She didn’t question my logic, which was nice, because I really didn’t want to share too much of what had happened when I woke up in the middle of the night.
“Now, can you… help me open stuff up so I can get something to eat?” I asked the bird.
She helped me open the icebox and start the stove. I knew my diet would now have to be entirely carnivorous, but I still didn’t want to try to eat what meat I had while it was still frozen.
As it turned out, aside from being carnivorous my tastes were not picky, or at least, the bits of beef, pork, and chicken I was able to thaw quickly enough all went down without any complaint.
Sigrun was even less picky, and I told her to help herself to anything I wasn’t eating at the moment. She found something nameless that had spoiled in one of the cupboards, and I think she was trying to be polite by eating something I couldn’t have eaten as either human or feline, but it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t as though we could take any of this with us.
Finally finishing, we stepped back outside. I wouldn’t have bothered to close the door behind us, but Sigrun did anyway.
“You showed a little bit of talent in there already, lad, but don’t think you’re ready for a long-distance flight in a tailwind.”
And she drilled me, first explaining the mechanics of lift, of climbing gradually instead of all at once to avoid stalling, and why this all meant a tailwind would actually make flying more difficult. She showed me how to move my wings to get the most thrust against the air. She told me how while most of our journey would just involve catching the wind and gliding, I’d still have to thrust once in a while to gain height in order to stay airborne for the duration, and that if I did this wrong while the wind was coming from behind me I might actually lose lift and drop out of the sky.
“If you feel yourself falling when you should be rising, just glide for a minute, then try again,” the raven said. “That way you won't start tumbling, and if you do hit the ground you won’t be so likely to hurt yourself.”
She put me through my paces after that. It turned out getting my body off the ground and then keeping it that way was harder than it had seemed in the kitchen. I eventually settled for a running start, even though Sigrun thought I should be able to take off from a standstill.
Getting airborne felt incredible, even the first three times when I immediately fell on my face, or the fifteen times after that when it only lasted a matter of seconds. Eventually, though, I was able to get myself properly into the air, at least as long as I took off into the wind. Sigrun explained to me that, yes, that was supposed to be easier. She explained that windriding fliers like weasels and genets prefer to take off with the wind since their power over it makes the wind itself their vehicle, but winged fliers like us whose body is their vehicle will do better the other way, and we can always turn around after we get high enough.
After I was able to get high enough we practiced gliding in a tailwind for a while, which was fairly easy – just a matter of angling wings properly to lose as little height as possible. And then we practiced gaining height in a tailwind, which was not easy, and made me crash into houses, barns, trees, bushes, boulders, the ground, and some other things that I wouldn’t have even thought could be crashed into.
All of them hurt a lot. Except the trees. Those hurt even more.
As the sun went down, we retired into my house for another meal, one of us bruised and sore yet somehow miraculously not broken, the other one in high spirits.
“You learn fast, lad,” Sigrun said.
I had my doubts on the veracity of this acquittal, every bone and muscle in my body being witness to the defendant’s many crimes.
“You’re still a little clumsy, but I think we can make our flight at dawn.”
Every physical aspect of my being protested this harsh and unfair sentence delivered by the feather’d judge, even though I knew the sooner we left, the better. We’d already given the dragon cult enough time while I’d done my level best to impale my furry body on every object in the town.
After adding a small amount of money to my pouch with the scroll, we quickly discovered that, much like Tanager, I couldn’t relax myself enough for sleep to come while indoors. We stepped outside and took a moment to look up at the night sky. For a second, there was a single star, visible through a small gap between two of the ever-present storm clouds. I watched in wonder until it was hidden from view once more.
Even the unflappable Sigrun seemed awed by the sight.
“Only the second time I’ve seen one of those,” she admitted to me, as I sat down near one of the more fragrant bushes that hadn’t blown over last night, and she perched on a branch.
“I never have,” I admitted. “I hope I live long enough to get a second time. Heh. I’ve already transformed once now. Who knows what I’ll be then.”
“We never know where the wind will bring us,” the raven said, softly, as if reciting something from memory. “Running over cursed land, hunting for a gift. Life itself is a once in a lifetime experience. Why not fly instead, when all you need is lift?”
“What is that?” I asked her.
“Something from my mother,” Sigrun replied. “A bird wise enough to know that even the wise are fools in the end. I loved her dearly.”
“Why did you leave, then?” I almost bit my tongue, realizing too late how callous that might have sounded, but she either didn’t notice or ignored it.
“She died. Young. We were her only clutch. Our whole island never felt the same to me after that.” Sigrun paused for a minute. “Two of the clutch stayed with our father. My brother and I eventually took the feeling as a sign, though, telling us we should make our own way.”
I curled up under the bush, nose to tail and head pillowed on my front paws. “Wake me when it’s time to go.”
“I’ll wake you when it’s time to eat, lad. And then…”
But I was already drifting away.

* * *
I woke up to the sound of rustling in the grass, and, just detectable over the fragrance of the bush I’d slept under, a robust feline scent… ocelot. Cracking open one eye I could see, in the pre-dawn glow, a spotted forepaw that was alarmingly close to my face.
I realized three Very Bad Things at that moment. One, while I didn’t personally know every person in town, I knew enough of them to be fairly sure there was only one ocelot around these parts. Two, Adolpha was bigger and stronger than I now was. I might have had the advantage of flight, but I was sure, with a cat’s reflexes, she’d catch me before I could get off the ground. And three, I hadn’t told Sigrun, the one person around who could help me, that the ocelot was in the dragon cult, let alone that she had seemed to be one of its most disturbingly devoted believers.
I could only stay as still as possible and hope that the fragrance of the bush was enough to mask my own odour. I didn’t think my scent was as strong as hers. Maybe, even though it certainly seemed she could tell I’d been here, she wouldn’t be able to get enough of it to find my exact location?
I was at least glad the scroll was still safe in the pouch on my flank. I couldn’t turn around to check, but I could feel, with my mind, something in the pouch’s interior area that psychically felt the same way the parchment had looked and felt to touch. It was hard to describe the sensation even to myself, but it was the same way I’d felt the baking soda the night before. Even stranger, I noticed I could feel the individual components that were working together to make up that parchment medium.
Chemicals and chemical reactions, alright, I thought to myself, as I watched the ocelot’s nose sniffing around the ground through a gap in the leaves. I could tell she was having difficulty, but she still seemed to be getting closer. Unfortunately, while I found I could sense other chemical components of the world around me, they were hardened into old structures and, even if I could pull hard enough to separate them, I couldn’t tell what they were or what they were capable of. I wasn’t going to be getting out of this with my magic.
All of a sudden, I heard a loud cawing and the ocelot’s legs stiffened. I readied myself, prepared to take this if it became an opportunity to get away. My eyes widened as a word appeared in glowing violet letters in front of my face: “Stay”. I felt something happen around my body, not dissimilar to the odd sensations I’d felt when Yarpl had begun attaching the jaguarundi disguise to me. I saw several flashes of light around the ocelot, and as she turned around in confusion, the letters in front of me changed to “Fly”.
I burst out of the shrubbery as a sound like a trumpet blared, turning to the east, where the sky was still dark, and pumping wings frantically till I got off the ground. I lifted up my tail and angled myself as steeply as I dared, rising so far I could see the whole crater – city, farmland, and all – spread out beneath my body. Shaking my head a little to clear the vertigo, I folded my wings, turned my body upside down, and then rolled over to turn 180 degrees on the spot, before opening my wings again and thrusting as hard as I could in the same direction as the wind.
“A risky maneuver, lad,” Sigrun cautioned, appearing out of thin air beside me. I felt whatever magic she’d put onto me fade away. “Was that one of them?”
I nodded, feeling a little foolish for having thought I was on my own. Of course Sigrun would have figured it out.
“Where’s the town we’re heading for?” I focused on the moment, not wanting to think about what this incident could mean for our plan.
“Just follow me,” the bird said, and pulled ahead. “Remember what to do if you start to fall.”
“Glide,” I affirmed.
I quickly settled into the rhythm of the flight, thrusting for a few seconds while my tail was lifted, and then gliding for minutes at a time. The air started out cold, and the feeling of being insulated from that temperature without any clothing at all was another sensation I’d never really imagined before.
I was amazed when I realized how deceptively fast we were covering ground, but even travelling as the non-metaphorical crow literally flies, we still passed over patches of forest and grassy plains for what must have been at least a couple of hours. By the time we could see the tops of buildings poking over the lip of another crater on the horizon, I was squinting against the sunlight in my face, I could feel its warmth on my back even through the omnipresent cloud cover, and the two of us found ourselves needing to thrust upward less and less as we caught more and more thermal updrafts to lift our bodies instead.
Even though I was pretty sure Sigrun had laid some kind of partial invisibility over both of us as we took off, I couldn’t help wondering if Adolpha might have still managed to see and smell enough to recognize me and figure out where we were headed. I was under no more illusions as to how determined the cult would be to get this thing back. Even if it meant nothing more, the ocelot having tracked my scent specifically certainly indicated that they’d figured out who their enemy was.
We set down on a rooftop to survey the area, my empty stomach grumbling. Sigrun confessed to hunger as well, so we found an inn near the eastern road into the town, bought a meal, and settled down outside to watch for Yarpl.
“I hope he gets here before the cult…” I trailed off, still not wanting to acknowledge that final departure.
“He will,” Sigrun said calmly. “He’ll have started on the road just after we left the shop yesterday. Plenty of head start on them, and he’s got more tricks than he seems to.”
“Now, this is important, lad. Yarpl’s bringing us a sort of cream, a salve, that can help a winged flier to stay up longer, but your wings are still untested and you’ve already used up a lot of your endurance today. If you do end up heading for Fyridgea, especially if you don’t get much time to rest, stay grounded until you reach the edge of Caolanthia. Your wings will need every ounce of strength they have if you’re to finish the journey alive.”
I surrendered to the information this time. In my mind the trip already seemed all-but certain. I just asked, “Do you really think I can make it?”
Her black eyes seemed to sparkle just a little, “Yes I do, lad. That’s not to say it won’t be the most difficult and dangerous journey of your entire life, but it requires courage and determination more than pure skill, and I’ve seen what you have.”
I was surprised to hear what might have been a hint of respect in her croaky voice. I’d never thought of myself as a brave person. Even after everything I’d done in the last two days I still wasn’t sure I did. But, then again, I had done it. Isn’t that what mattered?
I steeled myself for what I was about to ask. “Can you give me those directions, now?”
“Aye, lad,” Sigrun said. “Yotun said the journey took him two-thirds of a day, though with your larger size and weight you might find it a little longer. Follow the wind currents, and make sure to rise around three hundred meters. Otherwise you’ll either pass under it or crash into the side. If you’re in doubt, higher is better. It’s a large island with plenty of hills and cliffs along the stormline, but once you get inland the terrain evens out, so, if you find yourself over an area that looks too rough for your paws to land on, just keep going and you’ll get to a better spot. Yotun will be waiting for you when you arrive.”
“How will he know where to find me?” I asked. “Can we even tell where on the country I’m going to end up?”
“We can’t, exactly, but you’ll have this,” Sigrun reached her beak into a dark pouch of her own, which I hadn’t even noticed amid her feathers, and pulled out the golden bauble she’d shown me before, the one I knew was the only connection she had left to her family. Before I could react she’d slipped it into my pouch with the scroll, and started fishing out the remainder of my coins.
“You won’t be able to use our currency there, and it’s only going to weigh you down,” she explained, but I was barely listening.
“Wait! Sigrun. I can’t take that.”
“Yes, you can, lad.” The bird said firmly. “I’ve thought hard about this, and it is for the best. I’m old, and I’ll still have plenty of people here. You’re going to be on your own, and in need of friends. Fyridgea’s stormline is long and Yotun might never find you if you don’t have a way to contact him.”
I was still uncomfortable, but I could tell the raven wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Evidently she thought I might need a little more assuring, because after a minute she added. “You don’t need to worry about me. Yarpl and his den are all the family I need.”

* * *

I napped intermittently until sunset, when we decided to get another meal. While we were eating, Sigrun suddenly squawked and told me she could see a coyote in the distance. I couldn’t, no matter how hard I squinted against the sunset, but I trusted the bird’s eyes.
“That’s Yarpl alright,” Sigrun said. “He’s here much sooner than I thought. There’s someone with him, too. A few someones.”
At first, my mind jumped to the conclusion that he’d been captured, and forced to lead the cult to us, but… on second thought that didn’t make sense. If he’d been captured, interrogated, and broken enough to bring them here, he’d probably be arriving late, not early.
We finished our food as the canine and whoever his companions were made their way down the incline and into town. Once he was in earshot, Sigrun let out three loud caws that made me instinctively lay my ears flat to my skull and try to cover them, only to remember I had no hands to cover them with.
Yarpl made his way over to us. The three creatures with him turned out to be large, dark-furred weaselfolk with bushy tails. Pine martens, or sables, I wasn’t sure which. I’d interacted with their kind only a few times before, as they tended to eschew cities and live deep in the woods. Like most other mustelids they were windcallers, and the few times I had seen them, they had been able to use their control over the air to fly the same as their smaller relatives. This gave me some idea how the coyote might have reached us so quickly.
“Sigrun, Fernald, these are Erm, Gluk and Kaa,” Yarpl told the two of us. “Old friends of mine. They helped me get here, though I’m not sure it’s an experience I’m in any hurry to repeat.”
Sigrun and I greeted the three of them, who didn’t seem to feel any pressing need to distinguish which body corresponded to which name. Their fur was scruffy and they smelled strongly of musk, with hints of evergreen trees, flowers, and other woodland plants, and a tinge of old blood, especially on their breath. I imagined, considering how their kind lived wild, that they must hunt nonsophont beasts and eat their prey fresh. The thought of that was… oddly appetizing.
One of them, who I thought was a male although his odour only gave me enough clues to guess, addressed me. “So you’re Fernald? The human who had the magic accident?”
“Yes,” I said. Yarpl must have filled them in. “Although, I think it’s just ‘Fern’ now.”
“I wish you luck with what you’re doing, for all our sakes. And, well, I think you deserve a thank-you from someone before you leave. And, hey,” he added with a quiet laugh, “From one unusual flier to another, welcome to the sky.”
I grinned a little at that, even in spite of the turmoil I was feeling, and the weasel smiled back. Or at least I thought that’s what his expression probably was.
One of the others, who smelled maybe female, was talking to Yarpl. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I heard her ask.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” I heard Yarpl reply. “I’ll probably stay here a few days, wait for things to quiet down. You keep yourself safe, and I’ll pass by on my way back. Say hi to the rest of the kits for me, in the meantime.”
The female jerked her head at the other two, and they gathered, then started bounding down the road the way they’d come. I felt a touch of air moving in the wrong direction on my whiskers, just for a moment, but I knew the wind they were calling would be much stronger around their own bodies. Since I couldn’t feel it myself, when the three of them lifted into the air against the prevailing currents it looked all the more magical.
“Bad news,” Yarpl said to us. “The cult’s already on the road. As far as I could overhear, they sent people out towards all our neighboring towns as soon as the storm broke yesterday. They’re using some kind of magic to coordinate, but they’ll be too far from each other to send reinforcements if they find you. I think they meant to cut you off before you reached here, but very few of them can fly.” His grin at that last was quite bloodthirsty, a seeming reminder that even the animal-people who chose to live in civilized society were fundamentally wild creatures.
Including me, that little inner voice added.
“I detoured a little to enlist those three in order to get here first,” the coyote continued. “But I don’t think they can be far behind. Let’s get you ready quickly.”
Sigrun undid the flap on the larger pouch Yarpl was carrying, and brought out a little tube. “This is the cream I told you about,” she said to me. “You’ll want to spread it, oh, between your shoulder blades, I should think. Do it right before you jump off the island, and it should ease your muscles enough to reach the next one.”
“How…” I asked, keenly feeling my lack of thumbs.
She finished sliding the tube of cream into my pouch, and then said “The tube is spelled, like a pouch strap. If you can maneuver it near enough to the area you want it, it will go the rest of the way on its own. Oh–” she started rummaging at something deep in the pocket, which was slightly uncomfortable but I trusted she had a good reason.
“Did you ever figure out what your magic does?” Yarpl asked me as the raven continued trying to extricate whatever it was she’d found.
“Chemical reactions,” I replied. “If I try, I can feel the… substances around me, for at least some radius, and move them – pull them apart or put them together. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I know how to make it happen.”
“That’s magic for you,” the coyote said with a little smile. “At least it sounds like it could make a potent weapon, if they come after you before you reach the edge.”
“I really don’t know how to use it as one,” I admitted. “I can feel what’s around me but that’s not the same as being able to tell what substance it is, or what it can do. And I don’t think I can feel living things, so I can’t affect their bodies directly.”
“I can’t help you there,” Yarpl said. “Just keep an open mind and try to figure it out if you can.”
“Did you know you have another pouch, lad?” Sigrun interrupted. I turned to find her clutching said object in her beak.
I suddenly remembered, at the rattlesnake’s stall in the market that morning, deciding it would be a good idea to have a backup.
“I… I completely forgot I bought two of them,” I admitted. “Do I need another, though? Everything I have fits in one. It’s just more weight.”
“Think about your magic,” the raven countered. “If you find some substance that’s helpful to you on your way, an empty pouch would let you take it with you.”
I couldn’t argue with that, especially if I managed to find a weapon more useful than claws or teeth. “Aaaaah, how’d Tanager do this?” I muttered to myself.
I laid out the pouch straps flat on the ground, then lay down on top of one of them. I tried to will the straps to fasten around the opposite side of my flank from the first pouch, even though I couldn’t feel them the same way I felt the chemicals in the ground or buildings around me. It didn’t seem to be working until–
I felt the straps pull on my fur as they cinched tightly around my right side, just barely in front of my genitals. I was surprised it had been that easy, and very glad I hadn’t laid down a few centimeters further forward and neutered myself.
I stood up. We walked in silence towards the west end of town. It must have been a good deal smaller than ours, because we got there faster than I would have thought possible.
“I guess, whatever happens from here, I’m not going to see either of you again,” I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. “Thank you for everything. I could never have survived long enough to get this thing safely away from here without your help. I owe you two a debt that I’ll never get a chance to repay.”
“I think it’s the other way around,” Sigrun said, with a glint of amusement in her eye. “What you’re doing now is going to save everyone in our town, maybe the whole country. I’m sorry we weren’t able to stop the cat from eating you, city mouse,” she cackled a bit at her repeated metaphor, “but you’re a brave lad, Fern. You can do this.”
“I know,” I replied. And then, steeled myself for the hardest word of all. “Goodbye.”

* * *
Last edited by Vertigo Fox on Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Make the World Believe (that it's literally a giant tornado!)[short story]

Post by Vertigo Fox »

Night fell all too quickly as I padded down the path westwards, between wheat fields, at the fastest pace I could keep up. I found I could still see a little, even under the dark and cloud cover, but not enough to rely on sight alone. I slowed down, quieted my footsteps, and tried to listen for the sounds of any other creature on this road, my ears twitching back and forth at the slightest rustling.
All of a sudden, from directly in front of me, a strong and unmistakable smell of meerkat. I darted off the path into the space between massive stalks of wheat. The cult had caught up with me already, but in the dark, maybe they hadn’t noticed?
I felt a pricking on the fur all over my back, and sparks illuminated the air around me. Sheep! Lightning magic. They know I’m here. I stopped and turned, but even in the flashes of blue light I couldn’t see anything moving in the murk behind me.
The discharges were getting closer to my face. I couldn’t stay in one spot like this. I ran off blindly, further into the field, the light from the sparks falling behind me as I moved.
Whenever I tried to stop, the weaponized lightning would start closing in. I needed to think, there was obviously some weakness in their approach that prevented them from zapping me instantly, but I didn’t have time to do anything other than run.
I bumped into a hard surface, and had to stop long enough to feel around it. Concrete. Low platform. The sparks were closing in around me. I gathered myself and leaped onto the hard surface, and… the sparks went out.
I stood blinking for a second as my eyes adjusted to near-total darkness again. I was safe, for the moment, but I suspected I was still pinned down. I considered stepping back out into the field to test this theory, but if they’d somehow lost track of where I was, I didn’t want to give them any clues.
What did I know that could help me? The lightning magic had to be coming from one of the cult’s sheep. Small, precise charges were the way they operated. I tried to keep this train of thought going, as I walked around the edge of whatever this platform was, feeling out its dimensions.
Back in the market, in the “computer lab” we had at the back, I’d seen sheep use small directed charges with such precision that they could operate the machines without using any of the input devices that the other species capable of running the machines needed. Control and precision, that was what the ovines had. Nebulosa cats might be able to create ball lightning or strike you with a bolt from the blue for all I knew, but the sheep could direct the finest charge to the exact location they needed it to go.
So, if they knew where I was when I was in the field, why didn’t they lay me out with their first shot? They’d come close, but they hadn’t even managed to hit me. If they could target me at all, they should be able to reach a current into my heart and stop it then and there. Shocking the air around me could not possibly be necessary.
And if they could detect me on the dirt of the wheat field, why not here? They obviously didn’t need to see me to know where I was.
There was a small wooden building in the middle of the platform. The door was ajar. I slipped inside– no sense in waiting for the enemy in the open when they could, for all I knew, be making their way physically over to the spot where they’d last sensed me.
The interior of the shack was lit with some kind of phosphorescent globe, and though it can’t have been putting out much light, I could see as well as if it were midday. It looked like some kind of storage shed. I searched the shelves for anything helpful, but all I could see were a collection of assorted farm tools, and bags of fertilizer similar to ones we’d sold to farmers at the market. I directed my mind back to the problem at hand.
The only explanation I could think of for why the sheep’s attacks were missing me was that they actually couldn’t tell where I was, so I decided to work from that assumption and see if I could figure out a way that any of this attack made sense.
If this sheep can’t tell where I am, then how would they be attacking me at all? Maybe it meant they were taking directions from someone else. I’d distinctly smelled the meerkat just before I ran off into the field. What kind of magic did they have?
I wracked my brains for an answer but the only one there was that I didn’t know. I rubbed a cheek against some of the wooden shelving, scent-marking the shack to try and calm down. It occurred to me that I could just fly out of here. The wind could guide me in the right direction even if I couldn’t see, and no meerkat or sheep would be able to follow. But Sigrun’s warning against it was still fresh in my mind. I was nowhere near Caolanthia’s stormline, and if I resorted to that option too much, my wing muscles would fail me and I would die in the storm.
Besides, though I could see a little in the murk out there, I knew I was going to be heading through a forest before I got to the edge. I’d seen it from above before we landed in town. I doubted my night vision would be enough to keep me from crashing into a tree if I misjudged my altitude.
So, even though I didn’t know there wasn’t a third creature out there, I decided to keep working with the information I had. What kind of magic could a meerkat be using that would allow them to detect me in a field but not on this concrete?
They could be detecting my footsteps through the ground and communicating that to their partner somehow. That could also explain why the lightning had seemed to fall a little bit behind me when I moved faster. I couldn’t run forever, though, and if I was right, as long as I was standing on some kind of natural surface, they’d be able to detect my position.
I could only guess that the artificial nature of the concrete was preventing them from detecting me here. I considered using my chemical power to try and create a surface out of some element of the concrete and move it with me, but that would be incredibly slow, and give them plenty of time to come up with a new plan. Flight still seemed like my only option, but it wasn’t an option.
I lay on the floor of the shed, out of ideas, waiting for something to come to me. I couldn’t hear any movement, so it seemed they were at least content to keep me trapped in here until daybreak.
I napped for a while, resting while still keeping an ear out for paw- or hoof-steps. If I waited for the sky to lighten I could at least try to fly, even if that probably meant I wouldn’t make it all the way to my destination. Or maybe some other opportunity I’d missed would present itself when the world was easier to see.
Eventually, bored, I got up to pace, stopping occasionally to rub my scent onto the various objects in the shed. I remembered Yarpl’s advice to keep my mind open for any way I might be able to use my chemical magic to my advantage. All that was in here were rakes, ploughs, shovels, other tools I didn’t know the names of, and fertilizer. I reached that magic elemental sense out anyway, just to practice.
Amid the complex organic structure of the wood, the simpler metal alloys, and richness of soil, I felt something simple, elemental, and intriguingly volatile.
Surprised for a second, I quickly realized the question I needed to ask, had needed to ask all along, the one place that this sensation could be coming from.
“What’s in that fertilizer?” I muttered.
Each of the bags was about twice my own size, so I had to carefully climb over one, looking for some mention of the ingredients. I didn’t want to risk pulling some volatile element into the air without knowing exactly what it was.
The ingredients weren’t listed in the same place on the back as on the bags I’d sold in my time as a clerk, but I did eventually find them on a sticker affixed to the side of one of them. The print was small and I had to pull back a little bit to make out the printed words.
My eyes made their way down the list, until I saw what I was looking for.
“Phosphorus,” I breathed.
Of course. If I hadn’t been such a city mouse I’d have probably realized that I had a weapon the minute I’d come into the shed. Phosphorus burns, hot, on any contact with the oxygen in the air. We were all taught about its dangers, back in school, because almost any food crop requires the element to keep healthy and growing. But, as a city boy, later a clerk, who could count on one… forepaw… the number of times I’d had to set foot in the fields, I’d all but forgotten.
Now this was something. I realized immediately I couldn’t just pull pure phosphorus into that empty pouch without setting myself ablaze, though. I felt it out carefully with that magic sense, trying to determine just how much of the rest of the fertilizer I’d have to move in with it in order to keep it inert.
Once satisfied I knew what I was doing, I concentrated, feeling that odd spark of energy pulsing just over my heart, and carefully, carefully scooped out the elements and compounds I needed from the fertilizer mix, all at once. I kept the phosphorus as pure as I dared, and worried the whole time that I would do it wrong and catch fire.
Once the pouch was as full as it could get, I set to figuring out how I would use this to get away.
Assuming it is just the sheep and the meerkat out there, I thought to myself, which one should I target first?
The sheep had the actual weapon, it was true, but it was still very much dark outside. If a feline like me could barely see anything, I doubted a sheep could see at all.
No, the sheep was no danger to me, not without its partner.
The meerkat, by contrast, could still be dangerous to me, even without directly attacking, if it used that earth-sense it must have to follow me and teamed up with some other creature later in the night.
I had my target. In fact, if I could get the meerkat out of the battle, I could just run for it without needing to waste any time or phosphorus on the sheep at all.
This strategy only held if I was right about there only being the two cult members out there. I doubted they could have sent many more, if they were trying to cover every road out from our city the way Yarpl had said they were. They’d be stretched thin.
Still, at least one of them, Adolpha, had probably seen which way I was going, even if that had been after the rest of them left. And I didn’t know exactly how thin they were stretched. If there was a way to figure out for sure how many were there…
I remembered when Adolpha had been looking for me, yesterday morning. When I’d cast around with my elemental sense, I’d been able to feel everything in the ground and air around me, but I couldn’t feel anything alive. I couldn’t feel the plants, I couldn’t feel Sigrun, and I couldn’t feel her. Living things were just like empty spaces.
There was plenty of life out there right now – the wheat in the field making up most of it – but I could imagine only the ones hunting me would be moving with any kind of purpose. Maybe I could detect them with my magic, by paying attention to what I couldn’t detect.
I reached out with my elemental sense, as far as it could go, the different parts of the world around me feeling as vivid as any physical contact to my body. It still took a few tries to wrap my mind around what it was trying to do. I hunted for empty spaces that were on the move, and eventually, I found two of them, prowling around the edges of the field.
I tried to reach a little farther, one more check to make sure there was no one else, but I was already straining to my limit. With every ounce of control I had, I focused in on the smaller of the two empty shapes, reached into the fertilizer bag nearest to me, and pushed volatile phosphorus into the air around the creature.
I heard the meerkat’s scream of pain, but I had to sit down, panting, for a couple of seconds, before I could gather my wits about me enough to run back into the field. I set off as fast as I dared to move, and there was no crackling or sparks in the air around me.
Having no idea where the path from the town actually was in relation to my temporary sanctuary, I just followed the wind westward, finding myself on the crater’s incline before I’d even left the field. This must have been the last farm on the road.
The scents around me soon changed to the complex and ever-shifting layers of plant, animal, and animal waste that signified the natural woodland, and I began to see the shadows of trees around me as I passed them by in the murk. I quickly realized that, prowling as I was on four tough-padded paws, I didn’t need a road to keep up a good pace, and decided there was no reason to try and rejoin it – it would just make my trail easier for the cult to follow. I continued to keep the wind at my tail for direction instead.
The sky was becoming light, and the ground damp, by the time the cult caught up with me again. This time I heard footsteps from behind, and turned to see the large and muscle-bound human I recognized from the church, carrying Adolpha the ocelot. They were still some distance behind, but I thought I still had some ways to go and knew I couldn’t keep up a human’s pace over a distance.
I found a bush to conceal myself and watched for a minute, looking to see if I could find something in their behaviour to take advantage of. The human would occasionally let the ocelot down to sniff around in the mud, before picking her up and continuing on at a jog. I realized they were still tracking my scent and hadn’t seen me yet. Not too much weakness there, I had to admit, even on this muddy ground. I could certainly still smell my own trail well enough.
Still… maybe I could turn their strength against them. An idea was forming in my head. I know what they’re looking for, I thought to myself. Let’s help them find it.
First of all, I had to find the right spot. I spotted a mud puddle that was big enough but not too big, with a sturdy branch hanging a good distance above. Perfect.
I guess fighting for one’s life doesn’t always leave room for the human brand of dignity, I thought to myself, after making my way over. I urinated into the mud, trying to control how much I let out of my bladder. I needed to lead them over here, but I didn’t want to leave an odour so strong they’d suspect it was a trap.
I headed back a few meters the way I’d come, so that my trail wouldn’t continue past the puddle. Gathering my legs under me, I leaped forward and beat wings to fly onto that overhanging branch, then climbed higher into the leaves of the tree.
The lower part of the tree they were able to see and smell wouldn’t show any evidence of having been climbed, and the leaves would conceal me from their view if they looked up.
My movement frightened a squirrel out of its nest, and the non-sapient scampered to a higher branch, chittering angrily at me. I swiped at it with claws extended, not wanting the noise to give me away, but the brazen creature refused to flee. I pounced at it, expecting to finally run it off, and… caught it under a paw.
Huh. I can’t be that good a hunter, I thought. Maybe this particular squirrel wasn’t too bright. I ended its noise along with its life with a bite to the neck, and settled in to eat this unexpected meal while I waited for my real quarry.
It took them at least a good half-hour to make their way to the mud puddle I’d claimed, and I’d already licked the last of the squirrel’s blood from my jaws minutes before I saw them. As I expected, they stopped curiously in front of the puddle, unable to tell why the scent trail had dead-ended. I waited, perfectly still, to see if the human would put the ocelot down to check around.
He did! She approached the most liquid part of the mud and I waited for her to step in it, feeling the puddle’s constituent parts with my mind. The human was leaning over as if to help Adolpha look, even though his senses couldn’t possibly detect what she was looking for. I guessed she was just the boss here.
As soon as the ocelot had all four feet in the mud, I acted, pushing almost half of the phosphorus from my pouch, and a little bit of air from the environment, into compressed spaces in the mud below both of their faces.
The effect was immediate, with jets of burning-hot brown muck spraying upwards into both their eyes and mouths. I heard yells from each of them followed by retching from the human, and before those sounds had even finished, I reached into the puddle itself and pulled out all the water I could, depositing it all over the human’s clothing.
I stayed just a few seconds to see if it had worked. They were both stunned and unable to see, and Adolpha seemed unable to move with her paws stuck in the dry soil. Satisfied, I leaped from the high branch and angled down to the ground, thrusting with my wings to gain speed. I only braked a little before painfully jarring my back paws against the ground, and running off into the woods.
I moved, fast as my body would allow, following the wind deeper into the woods and towards the edge of the country. With luck, the two of them would be stuck for some time, and the cold from the human’s wet clothing would slow them down further.
The sun was coming up over the horizon now.
I felt an intense buzz as if a lightning bolt had struck me in the flank. The shock froze me in place for a few moments. Was the sheep back? I strained my ears as I picked up the pace, feeling all my fur standing on end. I could barely make out hoofbeats, far in the distance. I must be right on the edge of its vision, I thought. If it was close enough to see me properly, that attack would have ended me.
I wondered if I could stay ahead of the ovine pursuit long enough to reach the edge, but another shock stopped me for a few more precious seconds. No. I couldn’t risk it. I turned and stood my ground.
Sheep fleece should be flammable enough, I thought, straining to make out the creature through the trees. But I knew once I could see it well enough to get a good shot at it, I’d already be dead. I strained to see if I could detect it with my elemental radar, but it was moving too quickly on the outer edge of my range.
I could definitely hear it now, though. Hooves were not good at moving quietly. My ears twitched to pinpoint the sound. Not precise enough to surround it with flame like I had with its partner in the night, but I could tell where it was.
This was a forest. Lots of heavy wooden things hanging over the path. I smiled to myself, remembering that first afternoon of flying. Time to show you how much trees can hurt.
My chemical control could be as precise as the sheep’s lightning. I pinpointed the sound of hoof-falls as much as I could, then created a tiny torch of phosphorus flame directed at the base of an empty space that I thought must represent a heavy branch hanging over that spot on my elemental radar.
The flame sliced through the base of the branch in seconds, and I heard a satisfyingly heavy crash followed by a bleat of alarm. The hoofsteps still came closer, though. The branch must have fallen behind the creature.
I darted farther into the woods, repositioning to give myself more time. I felt a third shock hit me under the tail. That one hurt a lot. That one made me mad.
I stopped and concentrated on the sound of footfalls and the biggest branches I could feel as empty weight around the area. Time to get rid of this guy.
Trying to combine the two senses together as best I could, while preparing my weapon in my mind… the sheep’s hoofsteps were slower and more cautious now. Less willing to get close. Pure instinct, maybe, but slowing down was a big mistake in this battle.
It stepped into an area I could feel was ringed by three massive limbs above, and a forked tree trunk behind. I set to work cutting through all four at once. It took more of my phosphorus supply than I’d expected to do it quickly, but quickly was necessary. I heard them drop.
I heard a panicked noise, and the hoof-falls backing up, then stopping short. I’d got them. Were they trying to retreat?
The hoofbeats started forward again, at speed. No. They were going to try to jump the obstacle.
I reached for my phosphorus weapon again, pulled the moisture out of the now-dead branches I’d brought down, and set the whole ring aflame.
I heard the hoofbeats skid to a stop as I opened my eyes to see the flickering orange light in the distance. The stink of the smoke was already reaching me. I doubted the fire would last long on such wet ground.
I considered going over there to give what was certainly my most dangerous pursuer a real funeral pyre, but realized the risk I’d be taking if it spotted me before I could sense it, or even managed to get one more shock off as I burned it to death.
The killer instinct was draining out of me already and I knew I couldn’t put my life at any more risk when I still had what the cult wanted. I had enough time to get far away from this creature, and it probably wasn’t a good enough tracker to follow me if I put enough distance between us. And I needed to save what little phosphorus I had left. I settled for reaching my magicc into the ground in the middle of my ring of fire, pulling out what little earth I could to make my trap deeper, and then adding a little more elemental fuel to the flames.
I licked futilely at my disheveled coat for a few seconds before setting back off.
I decided to alternate between a brisk trot and short flights the rest of the way to try and throw off anyone else who might still be following me by scent. I still had the wing-muscle salve, and I’d had a decent rest between my napping the previous day and being trapped in the farmers’ tool shed. I’d even managed a meal since this whole chase began. There was enough of a chance I could still make it.
The wind was getting stronger and I wondered if I was finally getting close to the edge. The trees ended without any real warning. There was a short stretch of ground that ended in a little hill, and at the top of the rise…
The ground ended. I couldn’t help looking down over the edge in awe, at the sheer drop, the sheer face of this whirling mini-continent. I knew the ground, the Earth’s original ground, had to be somewhere below, but I couldn’t see it through the wind and blowing debris.
I backed up, willing the second pouch with my weaponized phosphorus to detach from my body. No sense in bringing along the extra weight now that the battle was over.
I sat down to try and get at the tube of salve, and felt a pair of hands close around my body.
I twisted to look. It was the human, face muddy, eyes swollen.
“I’ve got him, Adolpha!” he called, in a deep, slow voice, as he squeezed my body.
I couldn’t breathe. I made the choice to go extra-limp for now, so I’d maybe still have some surprise left in me, while I tried desperately to think of what to do. I could still reach my weapon pouch from here, but there wasn’t enough phosphorus left to make more than a poof of flame around his face. With the air being strangled out of my body, I didn’t have enough concentration in my mind to concentrate the fire.
The ocelot stepped out from the tree line, looking even worse for wear than the human. I felt I had enough time left for one move before he could get me to her, before game over, but I couldn’t think of a move that would win the game.
The look of hate and disgust on the spotted cat’s face reminded me of the look she’d momentarily shown when I’d introduced myself to her the first time, flubbing my carefully-prepared cover story and saying I was a brown dragon.

Saying I was a brown dragon.

A dragon.

Suddenly, I knew that winning move.

I managed to get my wings under the human’s arms. One breath was all I needed. He shoved at me harder, cramping the extra limbs painfully, but I got that breath.
I snarled into the man’s face and hissed, pushing what little of my elemental weapon was left into the space between us. Blowing fire.
Breathing fire.
I saw the man’s flesh boil for one instant before he threw his hands up reflexively, shielding his eyes and mouth and letting me drop. Thinking only long enough to make sure I could still feel the scroll in the one pouch left on my flank, I sprinted with all my speed to the edge of the cliff, spreading my sore wings, and leaped towards the world-wind. I barely even heard Adolpha’s wordless scream of hate and rage.

* * *

I actually fell below the level of the cliffside for a second, cutting off the wind and needing to lift my tail and thrust hard with my wings to regain height, before opening my wings like sails.
And sails were all I needed. The wind was immortally, terrifyingly strong.
I think I might have voided whatever was left in my bladder when I felt it, but to this day I’m still not sure, because wind and propulsion were the only things my body could feel. Wind was all there was to feel. Wind was everywhere. Wind was the whole world, it was a god. Wind was going to tear me apart.
But as much as I felt like my body was about to be shredded to atoms, I was still, amazingly, in one piece.
I wanted to look back, to have one last glimpse of the entire world I was leaving behind forever, but I could see the blowing debris thickening in front of me already and I knew I would need every bit of mental power I had to thread the needle without crashing so hard I got turned to paste. Every bit of attention and concentration.
And somehow, I managed to steer through that first clump of boulders and wood and massive metal boxes on wheels from the old world, and other things I couldn’t even begin to find words for, without touching any of it.
In the clear for a minute, I tried to remember Sigrun’s directions.
“Follow the wind, climb at least a few hundred meters, and fly for at least two-thirds of a day…”
If my face hadn’t been covered in fur I know I’d have turned white as a sheet. I was going to be flying in this for much, much longer than I’d ever flown before. I’d only learned to fly the day before yesterday! How in the god-curse’s name would I ever be able to do this?
Sigrun had thought I could. She may have been a trickster, but there was no way that bird was a liar. I had a distinct feeling she’d have sacrificed herself to destroy this scroll if she hadn’t thought I could get it away and live.
I twisted my tail hard to dodge what looked like an entire house, broken apart into splintered pieces, and made, for some reason, of wood instead of stone.
The cyclone was far bigger, stronger, and more violent than I think anyone living on Caolanthia, or any of the other whirling islands for that matter, could possibly imagine. Even between the fields of debris, I had to constantly adjust the set of my wings to keep from flying out of control and tumbling.
Tumbling would mean certain death. The wind wouldn’t let me fall, but without being able to steer I’d be thrown into some hard object or other and mashed into a pulp.
On the positive side, I barely had to move my wings aside from making those tiny adjustments. Even climbing just meant adjusting the angle slightly so that the wind would push my body upward as well as forward.
My tiny, tiny body. Never in my life had I felt so helpless and small.
Eventually I realized it was easier if I thought of myself as another piece of blowing junk. Act as much as possible like a passive object, instead of an active creature.
Not long after that, I realized it was already midday. The sun had barely been up when I jumped into the storm, Adolpha hot on my tail. I let myself feel a little bit of elation that I’d actually survived in the storm for several hours, even if I thought I must be less than halfway there.
If I die here, I thought, during another empty spot between debris fields, at least I made it this far. That’s impressive, even for someone who wasn’t a human three days ago.
And it wasn’t for nothing, I realized, as if for the first time. Even if I die here, I’ve already saved everyone at home. Tanager, my sister, my parents… Yarpl and Sigrun… they’re all going to stay alive because of me. Most of them won’t know that I’m the reason they wake up tomorrow, and the day after. They’ll just think I got lost and died in a storm like so many others. And, hell, we’ll still see if they’ll be right about that part. But I did it. I did it for them.
What’s left is just for me. I deserve at least that, I guess. Get to be a little bit selfish. Staying alive for me.
My wings felt tired, just from staying open so long. I wasn’t sure when that had started. I banked hard to avoid yet another piece of random detritus, which still came scarily close to clipping me.

* * *

There was no rhythm of flight to settle into this time, but the act of threading the needle between and through different objects became so mindless I almost forgot to keep rising. The sun passed further and further behind the clouds till I could glimpse the vivid colours of the sunset reflected in front of me, and my flight muscles felt more and more tired. There was never any sign of land.
Until…
A bigger shape began to form on the horizon. At first I thought it was just another extra-large piece of debris, and I suppose I might have been right about that, since if you’d ever flown through the storm itself you’d know that’s all our little island worlds really are. But as I got closer it gradually became clear that this particular piece of sky-junk was one of them, all the same.
There was a moment of hope in my mind, until I realized, irony of ironies, I was going to hit the side after all. I wasn’t high enough. I tried to climb, but my wings would only work enough to keep me level. The muscles were too cramped to change my angle.
I suddenly remembered the salve. I’d been ambushed before I could put it on, and I’d never got the chance. I still had it. I could feel its molecules, writhing with their own magic, in the pouch at my side. And even if I’d had hands, I doubted I could reach the little tube right now. I certainly couldn’t twist far enough to get it in my mouth and not drop it.
It was my only hope, and it wasn’t any hope at all.
Or was it?
I could feel the molecules, just like I’d felt the baking soda, or the phosphorus, or the water in the mud puddle. It was far more complicated than anything else I’d tried to manipulate in my short time as a jaguarundi, and the magic attached to it would be liable to blast me into a million pieces if I misplaced even one element.
But what was I going to lose if that happened? I was about to die anyway.
At least the debris had cleared in front of me. Something about the islands prevented the storm’s detritus from getting too close to any of them. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the cream.
I concentrated harder than I’d ever concentrated on anything in my life and, feeling that spark of magic in my chest pounding in time with my little feline heart, I slowly, cautiously, grabbed the entire structure with my mind. My only chance to survive was slow and careful. If I screwed up one way or another, I’d be reduced to a fine paste stuck to the side of a cliff.
I made sure my grip on that molecular structure was tight, and I made sure it was complete. I couldn’t help the muscles in my chest and legs from tensing up, and I had to spend precious seconds forcing myself to relax at least enough that I wouldn’t curl into a ball and start tumbling, before I slowly pulled the enchanted concoction from the tube at my flank to the space between my shoulder blades, waiting for the inevitable explosion of power to rip me apart.
And waiting.
And instead, I started to feel the relief. Not complete, but enough of the cramp left me so I could angle my wings backward just a little. I could feel the extra lift, feel the drop in my stomach as my body’s center of gravity was momentarily outside of it, and see the cliffs of Fyridgea’s stormline rushing up to meet me. I was close to the top now, but I couldn’t tell if it was enough.
I forced my wing muscles to angle just a little further.
And I felt my hind paws literally brush the rock as I passed over the edge and into the sky of a new world.
I relaxed so much I nearly tumbled into the ground then and there. The wind was already starting to die down a little, but I forced myself to keep gliding, to find somewhere I could actually land without hurting myself.
It wasn’t actually that hard. I couldn’t move my wings anyway.
I managed to steer myself over a field of grass, and brake enough to shed the rest of my lift, a little too quickly as it happened. The crash landing hurt, but I was so tired and giddy from actually making it here, I didn’t care.
I lay there on my stomach for a few minutes, legs splayed every which way and wings still fully open, not caring about that either. Eventually, I managed to get all four of my natural limbs underneath me, and push into a sitting position. I nosed into the pouch on my flank. The scroll was there, as was the now half-full tube of cream, but neither of those was what I was looking for. My mission was, finally, over. Neither of those was important anymore.
I finally found the gold filigreed crystal ball, Sigrun’s final connection to her family, which she’d given up so I wouldn’t be alone. I didn’t know how to operate it, exactly, but I remembered how I’d willed the strap on that second pouch to close around my body, and tried to do the same. I tried to will the crystal ball to… connect.
I saw a hint of black feathers in the glass, which might have been my imagination, but then a dark-beaked, beady-eyed face came into view, and I knew it had worked.
“Is that Fernald?” a voice croaked out of the glass. “I confess I wasn’t sure you’d make it, but Sigrun told me to expect you.”
“It’s just Fern, now,” I said, still drunk on sheer survival. “I got these wings for a mission, and it was lucky I did. I run a marathon off a bunch of crazy people and they chased me right off my island! I got put under an illusion powerful enough to make the world believe. And,” I added, with a little giggle at the thought of breathing fire, “I think, somewhere, somebody’s going to be calling me a brown dragon.”
I collapsed into the grass, spent. “Please come find me,” I murmured, not even able to raise my voice anymore.
But the raven heard. “Aye,” he said, “I think I see where you are. I’m on my way. And I want to hear this whole story, boy, just as soon as you’re ready to…”
But I had already drifted off.






Epilogue

Caolanthia, Earth, 894 AT

The bell on the door of the little illusion shop tinkled. Yarpl had finally gotten it fixed. The coyote looked up from his work in the back room to see a large orange feline, with a face like warpaint, standing bipedal in the doorway. He noted a pair of well-shaped wings on the cat’s back, well groomed. She clearly took some pride in them.
“Can I help you?” Yarpl asked, making his way into the main area of the store.
“My name’s Tanager,” the cat began, “and I hear you specialize in making disguises.”
Yarpl started to object that he didn’t anymore, not under any circumstances, not since what happened the last time, but the feline raised a clawed hand to forestall him.
“I’m not looking for one,” Tanager said. Her voice shook a little. “I just… I want to know what happened to my friend.”
She paused, took a few deep breaths. Yarpl sensed she’d continue on her own, without any urging, so he didn’t say anything.
“His name was… is… Fernald,” Tanager continued, finally. “He went missing after one of the really bad storms, a year and a half ago. One that came and went very quickly,” she added, and then shook her head, as if wondering why she’d thought that was important. “His family, his friends at the market, they all think he got caught out in it and died. I wasn’t quite so sure, he was always very careful about the weather, the best-prepared person I knew… it can happen to anyone, yeah, but I couldn’t really see it happening to him.
“But… the other day, I was out in the woods, and I heard a clan of pine martens, or sables, they were talking about him. And I asked, and they talked about him like he was still alive. Like he was some kind of hero. And Fernald, he never went out in the woods, so it was strange they’d even have known his name.
“Anyway,” Tanager continued, still hesitant, “they told me to come find you, that you’d know more about what happened that night and the day after. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know for sure if he is… dead… I don’t want to lose him again.”
She paused, looking lost and a little confused, as if she wasn’t quite sure why she’d said that last sentence the way she had.
“And I don’t want to know, if it means finding out for sure that he’s gone,” she admitted. “But if there’s a chance he’s alive, I need to.”
The coyote considered her for a minute, taking some time to weigh his response, before finally choosing.
“We don’t know for sure,” Yarpl said. “But we think he’s alive. He is gone, yes. But we think he would have made it to Fyridgea alive.”
“Made it to–” Tanager cocked her head, “Isn’t that one of the other islands? How could he— Fernie’s human. Humans can’t– they don’t– They don’t even have magic,” she finished, irrelevantly.
“It’s a long story, Tanager, and I’m not good at telling those– Sigrun!” Yarpl barked suddenly, startling the golden cat, “Wake up! We need you down here.”
A black-feathered shape soared down from the low rafters, right over Tanager’s head, making her flinch slightly.
The raven alighted on a table, and peered up at the bipedal feline with curiosity.
“This is Fern’s old friend,” Yarpl informed the bird. “She wants to know what happened to him.”
“You mean aside from him saving all our lives?” the bird squawked, and cackled in amusement at the look of surprise that brought to Tanager’s face.
“Well, settle in, lass, you’ve got a long story and, if I pegged you right when you came in the door, an even longer journey ahead of you. We can help you with both, to some extent. Now, how good are you with tailwinds?”
Ship's Cat, MPSV Iberia
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Amazee Dayzee
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Re: Make the World Believe (that it's literally a giant tornado!)[short story]

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

I did enjoy all of the story that I read! Nice work!
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