Knowing that shapeshifting classes existed was one thing. Figuring out how that was supposed to work after they had given out all those warnings about how altering your body could do mental damage was entirely different—not that Guin cared enough to spend longer than a few seconds trying to figure it out.
[Fox Form] had a one-minute cooldown that lasted for 30 Seconds. It was a decent advantage compared to [Dash], which only lasted for ten seconds. Having a travel skill that could move that fast was worth it, and there was also a stealth factor.
As her body morphed, the world around her got bigger as she grew smaller. It was odd to grow a tail. Guin wondered if she looked anything like Tik-Tak. His shiny black eyes went wide as he wagged his tail. He went from cautious to excited as he pranced around her.
“Yii, yiiii!” he cried out. “Guin, you’re a fox just like momma and me!”
Guin chuckled and worked to adjust to her new form. Or tried to. The first time she tried to walk forward, she face-planted into the grass.
This was going to be more work than she’d hoped. Her four stick-thin legs were wobbly as she walked. Tik-Tak was still very excited, slightly amused at how hopeless she seemed to be at being a fox.
Guin clumsily waddled over to the shining lake and looked at her reflection in the waters. Her ears perked up as she looked at her form. Looking at herself helped her to grasp better how she should move, allowing her to make adjustments quickly. Tik-Tak pawed at her, lowering himself to the ground playfully. Snorting, Guin took a turn around the lake and tried for a trot around it. When she managed to do that, she allowed herself a steady jog and then broke out into a run when she was confident enough.
She laughed with a “Yip!” and broke out from her usual course, running around the glade. Tik-Tak let out his own “Yip!” and took off after her as she ran. It had taken a good hour or two of trial and error, casting the spell repeatedly, but she’d done it.
He new skills may not have been the best now, but if she took advantage of the tutorial zone’s leveling benefits, she was certain she could get them to a level where they would be helpful.
Morphing out of her [Fox Form], Guin happily fell back onto the ground, breathless. Tik-tak hopped into her lap and licked at her face. Giggling, she laid back. The stars were starting to come out. Why was this place so beautiful?
But as her alarm sounded, she sighed. All good things must come to an end.
“I have to go home, Tik-Tak,” Guin told him, rubbing his head. The little fox’s eyes were filled with sadness.
“You’ll come back, right?” he asked her.
“Of course!” she told him, placing a finger on his little nose.
Her [Spirit Armor] expired, so she recast it. Entering [Fox Form], she started toward the glade's edge. She looked back at the lonely little fox as he sat on the edge of the water, his beady eyes glimmering in the dim light of the rising moon.
She paused. He wasn’t actually alone, right? After all, he had the Webspinner, and all the kind spirits of the forest. Guin looked at her paws and then back up at him. He was still watching her. His head was lowered a bit, and his ears were leaning down a bit. Could she take him with her?
It would be impossible for her to do so now. The quest itself was about hunters from the village. If they saw the little fox, she was too weak to protect him. His sorrow hurt her heart, but she had to do the best thing for him, not her.. Protect yourself, little fox, Guin thought. She would be back before long, and it seemed the spirits sought to protect him. It eased the burden she felt.
Bolting toward the village, she pushed herself as hard as she could until the forest’s edge. It was much faster to travel by the foot of the fox. Once at the edge of the town, she morphed back into her human form and ran home on her own two, slow feet.
***
Dassah undid herself from her machine and stretched as she got out of the pod. It did feel a little strange to be back in her own body. The world swam around her, and her limbs felt weak. It was as if she’d just stepped out of a gravity simulator. She tested the ground with a toe and pushed herself up carefully, leaning on the pod as she walked around it.
Note to self, don’t ignore the warning labels. She cursed herself.
“Stella?” She called out hopefully. She wasn’t even sure what time it was; no one else was in their pods at the moment, so she couldn’t even tap on their doors. “Stell?”
With a deep breath, Dassah resigned herself to her independence and wobbled to the wall. She clung to it for dear life. Feeling sick, she pressed her back against the wall and gave herself a moment.
Relief washed over her when the door slid open.
“Stella, help me ou—out... would... you...?” Dizzy, it took Dassah a minute to figure out what she was seeing. “You?”
It wasn’t Stella. It wasn’t even Bahena.
Seven feet tall and staring at her was the oily, grey feathered garule from the monorail car.
“Am I drunk?” Dassah asked, legs feeling even weaker than before. “Or dreaming?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the garule said, looking her over. “You all right?”
“Why are you in my house?” She slid down to the floor.
“Ah. Sorry. I’m Bahena’s brother,” she said. He said. It said. Was her translator broken? Were they trans? But the Valkyrian had pretty good technology for that. Her head spun.
Dassah blinked and furrowed her brow, head flopping over to the side as she looked at his tail. “You aren’t a boy...”
The garule snorted. “And you aren’t in a state to have this conversation,” he said, offering her his hand. “How did you get like this?”
Dassah stared at his hand, wondering if it was safe to take it, but also too dizzy to think straight. So she did. It was warm. He pulled her up and held her arm.
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“Where’s Stella and Bahena?” Dassah asked. Even her own voice sounded strange to her.
“They went out to get groceries. I’m Sathuren, by the way. Sorry if I startled you.”
She shook her head as he led her to the couch. “She’s a he?”
The garule, Sathuren, opened and closed his mouth a few times before scratching the back of his head. “One thing at a time,” he decided to say, pulling a blanket from the back of the couch over her. “Are you sick?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“What happened?” Sathuren asked. “Did you do something weird in TheirWorld?”
Dassah nodded and rubbed her eyes. “I was shapeshifting. Maybe for too long? I think I’m just dizzy.”
“That explains the muscle weakness, too,” he said and got up to go to the kitchen. “How long were you shapeshifted?”
“On and off for the last hour or two,” Dassah reported as if he were a doctor. Strange, she thought, her eyes narrowed as she tried to focus on him. She knew the reaction she should have been having towards him, but at the moment, she didn’t care. “I don’t really like garule.” She said stupidly and cursed herself when she realized she had said the words out loud.
Sathuren didn’t seem to care as he handed her a glass of water. “I am aware.”
“...That’s it?”
“Would you rather I eat you in response?”
“It would be more in line with my expectations.”
“No thanks,” he said, sitting on the chair next to her and pulling a book out of his pocket. “Humans don’t taste very good. I don’t need the lecture I’d get from Bahena, either. Get through that water, and I might get you a snack.”
“Hmm,” went Dassah, and sipped at the water he’d given her. She didn’t realize how thirsty she was and drank the whole thing at once. Sathuren was peering at her over his book, and Dassah was conscious enough to flinch. “What?”
“More?”
“I can—”
“You can’t,” he said, then shrugged. “You’re welcome to try, but I’d rather not have to pick you up off the floor again.”
Ducking her head, Dassah nodded. “Please...”
Sathuren chuckled and got her another glass of water and some crackers before sitting back down with her again. “In the future, try to keep your shapeshifting times to a minimum until you’re used to it — and if possible, don’t do it just before logging off. I’m sure there are warnings in there about this stuff that you’ve eagerly ignored. I recommend you don’t.”
“I didn’t think I’d be like this,” she told him, nibbling on a cracker. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“I was supposed to be helping Bahena with something, but as usual, my sister has her own plans,” he said with a sigh. “I didn’t feel like carrying her bags, so I stayed behind until they returned.”
Smirking at the thought, Dassah said, “Before I completely come to my senses, thanks for your help. The other day, too.”
He shrugged. “I was just there at the right time,” he said.
“But not everyone would’ve helped me, especially on the train.” Dassah picked at her fingers.
“We all have issues we have to deal with somehow,” Sathuren said. The front door slammed open, and he twisted his head around. “One of my bigger ones is walking through that door right this second.”
Dassah laughed as Stella and Bahena came in with bags of groceries. Behana made a big fuss about apologizing to Dassah for her brother’s behavior, and she was sorry she left her alone with him. Stella was just impressed she hadn’t hidden in her room. After explaining to them both that she had pushed herself too much in the game and that Sathuren had only helped her out, the two relaxed and went to make dinner.
In the chair beside her, Sathuren was clearly unhappy with the situation.
“Why don’t you just leave?” Dassah asked.
“Because I won’t hear the end of it,” he muttered. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my sister is annoying.”
“She’s... well. I guess she’s just a garule to me,” she answered dubiously.
“You need to meet more garule.”
“I’d really rather not.”
“Then please just don’t use my sister as the benchmark,” Sathuren said, flicking his tail. “I’m probably one of the most unusual garule you will ever have the opportunity to meet, and I don’t hold a candle to her.”
“Speaking of... Your tail...” Dassah pointed. “Aren’t you...?”
Sathuren groaned. “Humans,” he scoffed, then seemed to reconsider his words. “I guess I can’t say that. Everyone sucks. To put it nicely without giving a lecture on the subject, garule have more than two sexes, it's just that their society—and therefore everyone else—only accepts two. I am one of the ‘extra’ sexes, a born female that changed to male upon maturity. Let your imagination run wild because I’m not going to go into details over dinner.”
Dassah could stop herself from glancing at his pants, but his book covered up anything she might or might not have been able to see. She cleared her throat and turned her attention back to Stella and Bahena in the kitchen.
“So... you look like a woman, but you’re a guy,” she said. “You didn’t control it?”
“I did not.”
“Wasn’t that confusing?”
“Immensely.”
“But... you still choose to be a man?”
He thought about that. “I don’t particularly choose to be anything,” he answered. “I just am. It’s everyone else that takes so long to figure it out that it's not worth discussing it.”
“Right, but... I don’t know. If I woke up as a guy one day, I don’t think I could handle it,” she said. “I mean... everything I know to be real wouldn’t be anymore.”
Side-eyeing her, he asked, “Are you genuinely interested in this? Or are you just asking out of some form of obligation fulfillment?”
“...I don’t really know either,” she answered, tilting her head. “If I could, I’d be hiding in my room right now, but I can't, and sitting in awkward silence sounds like a special form of torture.”
Smirking, Sathuren put his book down and leaned back. “I can appreciate that,” he said. “But in this case, we can save it for a time when you can handle it without the help of illness. It’s complicated and... personal. It’s not a light-hearted conversation for two people who just met and can hardly stomach each other to enjoy.”
“Sorry,” Dassah mumbled. “I wasn’t trying to pry—”
“Ah,” he said wryly. “You must be feeling better.”
“What do you mean?”
“What did I tell you before?”
“When?”
“On the train. About saying sorry.”
Recalling, Dassah went to apologize again but bit her tongue. “I just meant that—”
“I know what you meant,” Sathuren said. “I wasn’t scolding you; it’s just not something you need to apologize for. Frankly, I’m impressed. If you hated garule as much as you think you do, you’d never be able to speak with me like this. I’ll have to reevaluate my opinion.”
Before Dassah could answer, Behana scurried over and smacked Sathuren on the back of the head. The sudden aggressive movement made Dassah jump and try to disappear into the couch.
“What are you saying to her?” the bronze female demanded to know. “Don’t scare her!”
“I’m pretty sure the one scaring her is you,” he growled, slapping his book shut and shoving it into his pocket. “I thought you needed me to look at your feathers?”
“I do,” Bahena said. “But if possible, I would also like to eat dinner with my brother. Do you think that’s reasonable desire?”
Sathuren bowed his head and shook it in surrender. Despite being startled, Dassah felt for him.
Stella came over and helped her to the table, where she and Bahena had made several dishes for everyone to share. Dassah wasn’t hungry, but she managed to have some rice and something resembling chicken and vegetables. She listened quietly as Sathuren served as the center of attention. She envied his ability to handle both her roommates' overbearing personalities deftly, but she also felt bad that she couldn’t even begin to keep up. Now and again, his eyes met hers, and she looked away and disappeared into her food.