I wasn’t much younger than the two shifters. Vienlin told me without a fuss when I asked her that she was thirty-five. Geran was thirty-eight. Yet the way they treated me was a strange mixture of being their peer and being a kid. I understood. When it came to my beast self, I was inexperienced, to say the least. I may have accepted my beasts and let my instincts guide me in many ways, but I never learned what it meant to be a beast like them.
Seriously, they took it to another level. After learning to shift, which meant embracing their inner wildness and learning to follow the beast of their heart, they spent over a year in their beast form. Not only that, Geran spent it among a herd of wild cows, while Vienlin stayed in a jungle with a pack of beasts close to her heart.
Naturally, they urged me to do the same, saying that the year plus in the wilderness gave them the most, that it taught them to break free from the stuffy rules of humans and learn to live freely.
It sounded nice, yet it was easier said than done.
I could vividly imagine Miros kicking me out of the nest high up in the mountains at the first opportunity to “learn to fly”. Even though he wasn’t locked up, Rairok wasn’t exactly a shining example of freedom, living between cages and all. Besides, I had absolutely no idea where the witty dears in my presence resided, not to mention where to find the Empress of Poison, if the beast even lived in that era. Drakes were out of the question. And so that left me with mossbears. Not the worst option. I could imagine living among them - still, the thought sent a shiver down my spine. Even young mossbears were twice my beast size.
And it was the thought of their size that made me inquire about the size of the two of them. I knew how much a full shift took out of me, so in their case, the amount of energy and nutrients must have been enormous. And it was. But it turned out that the trick was to learn not to throw it all away when shifting back - which I was doing.
As a result, neither Geran nor Vienlin had to eat all day for just one shift.
“Tit up,” Vienlin, in her beast form, nudged me with her hip. “That’s something every new shifter does. It took me a while to learn not to.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Geran said, taking a few steps toward me. “When you shift into your beast, your body feels the need to take what it needs to do so, and it will. But it does not work the other way around. You have to learn it, instill it into your body, make it part of you.”
The obvious question. “How? What actually happens to the nutrients I’m wasting?”
He smirked. “Haven’t you ever felt the need to take a dump after your shift? As for the how - that’s more complicated.”
“It requires remembering what your body needs during the shift,” Vienlin continued. “How you feel when you feed, fill your stomach, digest, and try to replicate that when you shift back. Basically, you have to learn to devour what you put into your beast form.”
“Don’t expect miracles, though,” Geran warned me. “It’s a slow learning process, and even now I am not able to get everything back. In fact, I don’t know any shifter who can.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” Vienlin argued playfully, determination in her voice to bust those old beliefs, something I would like to believe she eventually succeeded in doing. It was all the more heartbreaking to have a hunch that neither she nor Geran would ever get the chance to realize those dreams.
Anyway, Vienlin and Geran taught me breathing techniques and mana circulation that would help me recover nutrients and energy from shifting, as well as digest food. They went into detail about which meals were best, most of which I had no idea what to make of the names, while emphasizing one thing in particular. One thing I wasn’t too thrilled to hear.
That was that in my beast form, I should heed the habits of the beast and thus feast like a beast. In my case, feasting on raw meat, preferably still warm from the prey, I hunted myself. Not something I could do every day, but they still insisted on not eating prepared meat in my beast form.
Raw meat. Just the thought of it in my mouth made me sick. The reason I gave up [Fierce Pounce] in the first place as sinking my teeth into something alive went against my entire being. A mistake I saw now. I was clinging to my human self while defying the beast within. Freedom, that’s what it was all about, not limiting either side and finding a balance between the two.
Not that fully understanding the issue of my diet made it any easier.
I loved meat. The meat Deckard fed me. Meat prepared by excellent cooks. Not raw meat. I’ve never eaten that - or have I? Sushi was raw meat and I liked it. As my mind began to race with the kinds of meat that were eaten raw on Earth, my thoughts went back to my first encounter with Deckard when he offered Esu a piece of meat, raw meat whose very smell made my mouth water. Maybe if it was that meat . . . it might be to my taste, and I’d be able to swallow it, but who knew?
My taste and my senses in general were another thing to tackle.
The beasts were simply more perceptive than humans, one of the reasons Eleaden was such a threat to them. I had my hearing figured out and was halfway there with my sight. I didn’t have whiskers yet, but I was fairly good with my sixth sense. My beast sense of touch seemed no different from a human’s, and if there was any difference in taste between my forms, I did not notice it. That left the sense of smell.
“Come on, smell me,” Vienlin urged as the two of them tried to teach me to discern more in the scent. With her feline beast backing her up, she was apparently better at it than Geran as a bull-like beast-shifter. Even so, I could only dream of being able to detect with my nose what he could with his.
“Well, what do you smell?” Vienlin asked, eager to know, as after a moment’s hesitation I ventured to do as she asked.
“A beast.” That was all I could smell, or more accurately, the best description I could give of the smell.
“Not wrong,” Geran laughed heartily at Vienlin’s frown at my answer. She wasn’t pissed about what I called her smell; she was annoyed about my incompetence. “What about me, Korra? How do I smell to you?”
“Like a beast, too,” was my answer as I sniffed him.
“The same as her?”
“No.” There was definitely a difference.
“Good. Believe it or not, some beasts have a terrible sense of smell. Worse than humans.”
“That’s an understatement. Don’t you remember old Herhston, Geran? He couldn’t smell smoke even when he couldn’t see through it.”
“Obviously not her case. Korra just hasn’t trained her sense of smell.”
“There’s nothing to train.”
“You know what I mean, Vienlin.”
It was damn strange to see a huge bull arguing with a slightly smaller, scaled cougar - in human language.
“So what should I do?” I asked as their bickering turned into a staring contest.
“It’s the opposite of the issue you had with your ears.”
“The problem most shifters have,” Vienlin added. “The human brain just isn’t wired to deal with something like that, so it just ignores what you’re sensing through your nose.”
“Give it time, be patient. Sniff what you can, note the difference, rely on your own instincts, and it will come to you, eventually.”
“Bullshit. You have to give it a good push. Smell something strong.”
“Vienlin, you don’t mean . . . ?”
“Yes, you have a problem with that.”
“Not really. It’s just . . .”
“It works, that’s what it is.”
“Not every beast habit will bring you closer to your beast. This is one of them; there’s no need to do it.”
Vienlin growled, annoyed. “No need to do it? You’re dead wrong, Geran, and you know it. Damn it, I’ve seen you do it.”
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He didn’t deny it. “I’m not saying it’s not useful.”
“Then what are you saying? That she shouldn’t make the most of everything she’s been given? That’s not how I was taught, that’s not how I live, and that’s not something I’m going to withhold from others I mentor.”
“Fine, fine,” the massive bull gave up with a sigh. “In the end, the decision is Korra’s anyway.”
Vienlin nodded, proud to have won, and turned her head to me. “So what do you say? Will you give it a try?”
“It would help if you could tell me what ‘it’ is.”
She stared at me, confused, before realization flashed through her feline eyes and she chuckled. “Sorry, I didn’t realize . . . ass sniffing.”
“A what?!” I must have misheard, because it sounded to me like she was talking about sniffing butts.
“Sniffing each other’s asses. It can tell you so much about the other.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Look, I know how it sounds; it stinks even worse. But you get a full dose of the other’s scents. Fuck the subtle nuances. You can learn to look for them in someone else’s scent if you know what to look for. Besides, it’s a sign of trust when someone lets you smell their ass. Beasts do that when they’re looking for a mate.”
It didn’t strike me that she was lying - besides, dogs did it, I knew that much. Still, I didn’t particularly like the idea. It was - disgusting.
“Look, I’m not saying it’s classy stuff; it requires you to drop your human scruples. But if you do, it’ll give you the kick you need. All you have to do is . . .” She moved faster than I thought a beast that big could, and before I knew it, I had her snout under my tail. She took a whiff.
“See, nothing too complicated,” she said with casual ease, only to pause in bewilderment. “Damn, I wasn’t sure before, but now . . . is one of those beasts you are made of a drake?”
I froze like a deer in headlights, basically admitting the truth.
“Tits! The fucker who made you was really nuts,” she uttered, her voice cracking. “That’s just one step away from bringing dragons down on you.”
“Not just on you. They’d burn down the whole city if it came down to it. You see, they’re very touchy bastards. Are you sure, Vienlin? It’s only a drake and not a dragon?”
She growled. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can tell the difference. It would be awesome to be able to shift into one of them, though.”
My ears perked up. “Is that possible?”
“In theory,” Geran said. “A shifter has to get in tune with the beast he wants to shift into, but that’s hard to do when the beast in question won’t let you near it.”
“I tried once, sneaking close enough to see their lair. I didn’t even get a peek, and I was lucky to get out alive. But that’s a story for another day. Back to you, Korra. Are you willing to try?” She asked, wiggling her hips. Her lack of wonder and dismay at me being part drake was baffling. Nevertheless, I was glad about it.
“I can’t say I’m thrilled.”
“Believe it or not, it’s not my thing either,” she said, wiggling her ass again.
“It’s up to you, but it’s a way to go,” Geran nodded when I gave him a glance, looking at him for - I didn’t really know what. I guess I was hoping he’d tell me not to. On second thought, it allowed Vienlin to see right away that I was a drake, partly, so . . .
“All right, I’ll give it a - sniff.”
I moved closer to Vienlin’s butt, which she held out all too willingly. “Any advice?” I asked, hesitant.
“Don’t try to find anything in my scent,” to my surprise, it was Vienlin who gave me the advice. “Let your first shot be at overcoming your human scruples.”
Taking a whiff of the fresh, damp air, I made my resolve, closed my eyes, approached her butt, and . . . a mixture of smells assaulted my nose. I whimpered, wrinkled my nose, and instinctively buried it in my tail to drown out the stench of shit with the familiar smell of apples. Sure, it poisoned me, but it was worth it.
When I managed to refrain from puking and looked up from the bristles of my tail, I found the cause of my suffering rolling gleefully in the mud, yelping. Vienlin was not laughing at me, as I had expected. On the contrary, she seemed happy that I had overcome my “shyness” about butt-sniffing.
“Go on, try it,” she dared me playfully, as if to make amends - or to make me forget the horrible experience. When I didn’t, she lunged at me, leaving me no chance to escape, and rolled me into the mud herself. “Just have fun; let your playfulness out.”
It wasn’t as easy as just making up my mind and doing it, something I could do on command, but Vienlin had her ways, and soon I was rolling in the mud, yelping along with her, while Geran just lay there watching us. It was a nice moment, something Idleaf would surely enjoy - or Ria, any kid, really. The thought of those two saddened me, though.
“You know, I was expecting you to fart, Vienlin,” Geran said to divert my attention elsewhere, sensing the change in my mood. I was glad for it, baffled too.
“You didn’t?”
“I wanted to - I couldn’t.”
‘Bitch!’ I growled in my mind, all too aware of how strong she was. Friendly now, in a way, but should I step on her tail, I was sure she’d have no trouble getting me back in line.
“It was a kick, no less, wasn’t it?”
There was no question about that, so I nodded.
“Sorry you didn’t take it slow, huh?” Geran grinned when he saw me not so keen on talking about it.
“I wouldn’t say . . .”
“Don’t say anything,” Vienlin cut me off. “ Simply don’t dwell on it too much. And when you feel like trying it again, or not, do it, or not. But only when you’re comfortable enough with sniffing other people’s asses, when you don’t get such a kick out of it, and you can concentrate on more than not throwing up; only then can you start looking for the nuances in the scent.”
Vienlin was hard for me to read, no matter what form she took. At one moment, she seemed to be here just to make fun of me; because she found me interesting, while the next she was giving me serious pointers. Maybe it was just her being her, or just the way she dealt with the place.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Be that as it may, I sensed no ill will on her part.
“Good. You do that and I’ll take a bath,” she said, stood up and tried, not very successfully, to shake off the mud.
“Wouldn’t it be enough just to stand in the rain for a while?” I chimed in jokingly, toying with the idea of a bath myself, a real bath, not that fake magic trick that could peel off your skin.
“That would hardly get the dirt out from under my scales,” Vienlin growled.
“Then how about a dip in the lake?”
She froze at Geran’s idea; her eyes going wide. “That’s a fucking brilliant idea.”
Her enthusiasm obviously appealed to him. However, his gaze fell on me. “Have you ever swum like this?”
“In my beast form?” I asked dumbly, and shook my head, berating myself for never thinking to try. In my defense, there were no lakes or rivers big enough around Castiana, courtesy of Fallen’s Cry.
“No? Then it’s decided. Let’s go,” he rose from the mud and, without another word, took off in his beast form through the encampment, with Vienlin and me at his heels.
At first I thought the lake was somewhere in the encampment itself. After all, there was no lake to the rear of the army that I knew of. But as we walked on, the mutterings of the knights reaching my ears, some of them swearing at the damn shifters, more and more of the feeling that this was not the case began to well up in the pit of my stomach. That dread proved true as we passed through one of the front side gates and I found myself gazing for the first time at - I actually had no idea what I was staring at. “Is this the battlefield?” As far as I could see, the landscape was dotted with tree stumps, while wide furrows scarred the terrain. In the gloom of the pouring rain, it looked truly desolate. On the bright side, I didn’t see any rotting corpses.
They both laughed. “No, Korra, this is just where the last battle will take place when the front line moves over here. The fighting now takes place a few kilometers ahead of us behind those hills,” Geran tossed his head towards the barren hills in the distance.
The thought that this might be the final battlefield, the place Stella and I were looking for, crossed my mind. This wasn’t the center of the Echo, though, not where Traiana’s fate changed. That much I could say even without her.
“Why aren’t you fighting there?” I asked thoughtlessly, my eyes fixed on the distance.
“Because it’s not our turn,” Vienlin replied. “Without the troop rotation, our lines would have fallen long ago.”
“No matter how strong you are, no one can fight for months, let alone years,” Geran added, and moved. “Come on, this way.”
After a few minutes of running, a lake appeared before them. It was neither large nor small. Just big enough to have some fun. Without much hesitation, Vienlin dashed straight to one of the boulders on the shore, bounced off it, and dove in with a loud yelp and a mighty splash. To be honest, I had a strong desire to follow her example. And I would, if I were sure that the beast-Korra’leigh could swim. I wasn’t, so I followed Geran’s lead and walked with him to the shore, where I slowly stepped into the cold water.
Glad I did. When I reached a depth too deep for my legs, I sank.
Like a stone, I trod on the bottom, panic gripping my guts. I was drowning, running out of air. Just as I began to gasp for breath, my beast instincts kicked in and I found myself swimming. My dog paddling beginnings weren’t exactly graceful, but in time, as I added the sway of my hips along with the wave of my tail, swimming turned out to be something my beasts had a knack for.
I had a good time.
***
That could not be said of Stella. I had sat in the mess tent for a while, enjoying a good meal, when she showed up, looking dreadful, tired, barely able to walk. As soon as she got her ration and came to my table, she slumped into the chair without a word.
“I guess you didn’t have a great day.”
“Don’t even get me started,” Stella growled. “It was a nightmare.”
“That bad, huh?”
She nodded, closed her eyes, sighed, and shook her head with a weary smile on her lips. “No, not really. Those guys are awesome. If only you could see what they can do with a sword, it’s just . . . I haven’t felt this beat down in a long time.
“What about you?” Stella asked as she took her first spoonful of soup.
“You know, beast stuff,” I said, feeling a little bad about telling her the truth.
“What does that mean?”
“I was told what it meant to be a shifter, what to eat - I rolled in the mud and then swam in the lake.”
The look she gave me could kill. “You know what? Fuck you! I’m out there sweating blood and you get to swim in the lake? So fucking unfair.”
Yeah, it kind of was. However, as I learned, being a shifter was supposed to be the freest profession. “If it makes you feel any better, I sniffed a butt.”
She almost choked on the spoonful of soup she had just swallowed. “Y-you did what?”
It was a little awkward, but I enjoyed telling her about my day and hearing about hers in return.