It was late in the night. Maybe an hour after midnight. I had told my friends about my successful Class evolution earlier. Circe had pestered me for details but I had kept them for the time being. I did not want Jane to overhear my descriptions. And I had an idea that needed everyone to be unaware. I just hoped it would work out.
We had found an inn on the main street of some tiny village. It had eleven houses in total, four of them belonging to a farm and sitting a bit outside. I was out over the fields, looking for a potential target. The important thing was that it was sleeping.
There was a small river not too far off with a few trees lining the bank. A few of them had nests in the branches. With it being early autumn, quite a few were empty. But not all of them.
Silently, I closed in. There was a songbird sleeping soundly in one of them. I did not know what kind but it had a light coat of feathers with a splotch of colour on its chest. And it was alone. The perfect test object.
I felt for my new Skill. [Distant Dreaming] was completely unresponsive. It needed a target I had killed in its sleep with [Winged Dream], after all. So I activated that. Before my evolution, I would create one or two feathers of essence with a flap of my wings. Now, my whole limb changed colour. It glowed purple under the strain of flux from all the energy suddenly funnelling into it. I made sure to push primarily aer vis but a bit of vacuos was dragged along. Then, I swung.
It truly was a swing rather than a flap. My wing shot forwards, ripping my body along. My joints were not made for such a motion after all. I quickly realized I could have struck with my wing instead, having it rip through anything physical in the way. Not because of the vacuos but because it was immaterial right then. A swathe of shadows replaced it and my consciousness split momentarily. Instincts drove my body to catch its fall and land on a nearby branch while my mind followed the energy wing. Then, it struck the bird.
There was no noise. No sound at all. No impact. The ethereal object simply passed through the songbird and dissipated right after. My mind stuck to my target for just a moment. I felt the soul flinch back into the Empty and the next moment, it was gone. It had fled from me.
A soft pull from my real body was already starting to drag me backwards. I could see myself like in an out-of-body experience. Before I could be dragged too far away, I activated [Distant Dreaming]. Then it was dark. A hint of vision saw the tiny songbird in its nest but it was all muddy. With a start, I jumped up. The songbird moved and looked around. My eyes saw… me. I was sitting on a branch. Yes, I remembered. I let out a tweet. My body’s head tilted. The large eyes observed me. Instinct told me to flee. Then I was looking at the songbird again.
This time, it was much calmer. I felt a connection to its mind but I barely received any information from its senses. Someone flicked my forehead.
“What?”, I asked. My beak moved, deforming to produce the words.
“Stop it”, Catori said.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like I’m food.”
I looked away.
The little songbird took to the air. Then it was sitting on my head, sunk into the feathers. I closed my eyes.
My fingers flexed. I yawned. I looked around. I… looked around. Without turning my head. There was a TV in front of me. I was lying on a couch. Next to me was a low table with a bowl of popcorn on top. I reached out and picked up one of the snacks. Carefully, very slowly, I rolled in between my fingertips. Then I opened my mouth and put it on my tongue. It had no taste.
“Yeah, I haven’t figured out how to do that, yet”, Catori said.
I blinked and looked at the TV. Her voice had come from the speakers. It sounded very close like one of those inner monologues from characters in a movie. The screen showed the dark night. I could barely see a few stars and a sea of feathers in front of me.
“This is weird”, Catori thought.
“Yeah.”
“No. I mean being this… what even am I? Some kind of songbird, right?”
“I… I’m going to try going back to our body.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
I closed my human eyes, enjoying how they rolled under my lids one last time. Then I was back. My superhuman eyes saw every little detail in the dark fields. Every little branch and leaf was clear as day. And the tiny feet resting on my head. The songbird tweeted a tiny noise. I hooted back softly.
“I don’t think this was intended”, I said. Through the arcane speaker, this time.
There was an affirmative tweet from my head. Then a few more. I moved the speaker up. The songbird, no, Catori touched it.
“I can still see through our eyes but it’s a little foggy.”
“Do you want to go back inside?”
“Yeah. You try to control both bodies at the same time, okay?”
I nodded. The bird fell off, now completely quiet. I caught it in a blanket of darkness.
“So”, Catori asked from inside my head, “Can you hear me, now?”
“Yes”, I thought back, “Wait. Did you try talking to me before this?”
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“All the time. I’ve gotten really good at commentary, you know?”
“I’m not a let’s play series.”
“I know. Try the songbird before it fully dies.”
I shook my head. All of … this was a little much to deal with right now.
My vision shifted once again to the top of my head. I felt my body still underneath my ‘new’ feet. Soon, soft breaths came from below.
“Well, now we’re sleeping.”
I shook my tiny head and flexed my tiny wings. This was so weird. My arcane speaker had dropped back to my body’s chest. I closed my eyes again and when I opened them, I was back to seeing things. This time, the soft breaths came from the top of my head.
“I guess it’s called [Distant Dreaming] for a reason”, I thought.
“Makes sense. But we can overcome that problem!”
A sense of vertigo overcame me and I was back on the couch in our mindscape. I shook my head.
“Don’t do that so suddenly!”, I complained.
With a little effort of will, I was back in… our body. The bird on my head tweeted. I activated [Telepathy] and tried to connect to her but there was nothing to connect to but me.
“Hey there!”, Catori sent.
“Oh, it worked”, I said.
“Yup. I think we just needed the little push from that Skill.”
“I see. So…”
“Hm?”
I could feel her smirk through the connection.
“What about… us?”
“What about it? You recognized me back when we met Truth, right?”
“I did. But you’re me.”
“I am you, yes. But I Am. You see?”
I blinked.
“Oh. Right. I’m Catori just as much as you are.”
“And I’m Fio, just like you. I think Truth might have his fing… tentacles in there somewhere. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be as clearly separate as I am.”
That made sense. We were not different enough. We both considered ourselves owl and human at the same time. We both had the same name: Fio Catori. Would it be a problem if we pushed the separation further?
“That might be”, Catori thought at me, “But I like this.”
The songbird smacked my head with its wing.
“I could use a bigger body, though. Maybe not a human…”
“Makes sense.”
I took a deep breath. Then another. My racing heart was trying to win some kind of world record for beats per minute. But I managed to slow it down. Then, the bird on top of my head tipped over. No. I tipped over.
“You good?”, Catori asked.
“Yeah”
I stopped trying to control my heartbeat. Of course it would be fast. That was how tiny songbirds were. I stood up again. The soft feathers underneath my feet felt comfortable.
“Oh. We switched”, Catori remarked.
“I noticed.”
“I… think we should take this slow. Try to get used to it. We can surprise Circe some other time.”
I nodded. My tiny beak almost got caught on my head feathers. No, Catori’s head feathers.
“They’re our feathers, dummy!”, she laughed.
I giggled.
“Let’s get back?”, I suggested.
Our heads nodded.
It was a struggle to fly with these tiny wings. Especially when we still switched perception randomly every few minutes. Eventually, we decided to carry the songbird in a pouch of darkness while only flying with our real body. That was much easier. The tiny thing fell asleep, not even our magic able to keep the body going. It looked like it really was still alive. No, it was. It just relied on my soul… our soul to keep going.
This whole thing with being two people was weird. At least we were getting along. I could not imagine what it would be like otherwise. But we were the same, mostly. Just that she had more of our human side while I had more of our owl side. Still, she wanted to have some time as well. She knew everything I knew. The gaps between us had been closed when I first saw our human form and remembered our human life.
That meant right now I was in the little cabin in our nest. Catori was moving our owl body while I was in the human form we had in our mindscape. That was simply how it had worked out. I was chewing on papier mâché popcorn and a tentacle was resting on my lap, my hands slowly petting it. A mind spider was doing... something with my hair.
It was still mostly dark, the sky just turning a soft blue-grey as dawn approached. I watched the TV and the images our eyes saw as Catori flew. She was squealing in our mind. Sure, she had our memories but that was not the same as experiencing flight for yourself. She had activated our [Sgiathan Dorcha] and was already past the capital of Eterios. The only thing keeping me calm was the smartphone in my hand that showed our inn from the windowsill. Our songbird body was sitting there to keep an eye on things. We had somehow figured out how to place it and hold it still and with me inside our mind, Catori was free to fly as much as she wanted without the constant swapping. Though I was confident we would be able to figure out a solution for that as well.
"Catori", I said, "Alex is getting up. You should probably turn around."
"Alright", came from the speakers, "How far is it?"
"Half an hour? One at most."
"Tell them to go ahead if I'm not back in time", she said.
"Alright. Enjoy your flight!"
A giggle came from the sound system.
"You needed that", the eye outside my window said.
"I really did", I answered, "I'm glad I realized it."