A "Winds of Change" Story
I had always been a light sleeper, and since my half-transformation into a prey animal it had only become lighter. I lay awake for a long time despite the wonderful comfort of sleeping in my own room again, listening to the sounds of the others in the house. I didn't mind the mild insomnia, I usually used this time of night to ponder the deep mysteries of life anyway. That, and to work on ideas for a story I was thinking of writing. It was hard to come up with anything that seemed truly fantastical these days...
My ears swivelled slightly as I picked up Jon and Maxine turning off the TV, their viewing of "Bambi" concluded, and then the sound of them chatting softly with each other as they headed up to the bathroom. My ears weren't as sharp as a whitetail's, though, and I couldn't make out what they were saying.
Not that I wanted to intrude on their privacy, of course. But I did feel somewhat lonely with Jack's sudden departure; we'd talked an awful lot as we'd compared notes on our telepathy, mostly by telepathy, and there had been inevitable personal spillover during our conversations. I sighed. It was the closest I'd come to opening up to someone in a long time. Perhaps ever. I hoped we'd meet again sometime soon.
Jon and Maxine went back downstairs, and after a little while longer I heard them go out the back door together. I settled back and tried to get some sleep myself; the house was quiet now, my somewhat troublesome instincts could let their guard down. But something still made me nervous and attentive, still felt wrong... I flinched at the sound of muffled laughter out back, and sat up.
Something was wrong, I could feel it. I quietly got out of bed and walked softly into the hall. Tiptoeing was automatic for a digitigrade form such as mine, but I somehow managed to do it even more than usual. Thankfully the carpet muffled my hooves, though, or it would have been moot.
Collin and Dad were both asleep in their rooms, Princess was at the foot of the bed. Satisfied that everything was alright upstairs, I headed down to check on the rest of the house. Brian and Kim were asleep too, and undisturbed by the unsettled feeling in the air. I wondered if perhaps my horns were going on the fritz or something, the last time I'd felt something even remotely like this was when I'd subconsciously picked up Reimer's signal...
Tim. I sighed quietly to myself as I looked down the stairs at Jack's old bed in the basement; obviously, here was the source of the strange feeling. The huge high-degree bull morph was gone, replaced with a smaller but equally high-degree bird morph lying sprawled in his place. A few weeks ago I would have simply suspected a stranger in the house, but by now I was so used to the game of musical forms my companions seemed to be playing that the only explanation which occurred to me was another transformation. What a strange life, I thought to myself. I considered heading back to bed and trying to ignore the situation, let someone else deal with it in the morning, but with another quiet sigh I went slowly down the stairs. Somehow, Tim felt like my responsibility.
He was still asleep, but obviously very uncomfortable lying in that position; he was built for perching now. He shifted and groaned, his wings caught under him and his feathers in total disarray from his tossing and turning. I sat in an out of the way chair to wait for his inevitable awakening. I didn't have to wait long. "Hmm... grunf... whuzzah... what!" Tim abruptly flailed and managed to roll over, freeing his wings and being jolted wide awake as his situation dawned on him. His beak hung open in astonishment as he stared at his hands and blinked. "Uh..."
"Stay calm," I suggested preemptively, gently applying a little mental pressure to help convince him to comply. I seemed to be doing a lot of this sort of thing lately...
Tim jerked his head up to look at me in surprise, not having noticed me until I spoke. "What happened... what did you do to me now??"
I shook my head. "I didn't do anything. I was just passing, and saw you like this."
Tim just continued to stare down at his hands and body for a while, clumsily trying to coordinate his movements and figure out where all his bits were. I didn't say anything, waiting for him to make the first move. "I... I'm a bird," he mumbled at last.
I nodded. "Looks like a bluejay, to be precise."
A stricken expression passed over Tim's face. "A bluejay? Oh no, it just had to be that didn't it? Who did this to me?"
"My first guess would be Maxine," I said with resignation. "She's been behind most of the weirdness lately. She's too reckless with her power, I would have thought she'd have learned her lesson by now..."
Tim cut me off, his voice rising furiously as he struggled to his feet. "I bet that Jon put her up to it! I swear, I'll kill..."
"Sit down and shut up!" I hissed, suddenly just as furious. Tim deflated instantly under the force of my command, and there was a moment of stunned silence. I listened to see if anyone had been woken by the outburst, and then relaxed slightly when it seemed that no one had. "Alright," I began again, still terse but somewhat more restrained this time, "I've had just about enough of you. It's time we had a little talk."
"But what about...?" Tim gestured angrily at his wings, flexing them clumsily and nearly knocking himself over.
"It can wait a moment. I want to talk about you and Jon right now."
"Fine. What about him?"
"Funny, I was just going to ask you that same question. What exactly is your problem with him?"
"What do you think? He comes up here with his oh-so-superior American attitude, looking down his stupid deer nose at their 'retarded giant' neighbor to the north..."
I sighed again and shook my head, hoping to avoid another of his hateful diatribes. "Look, just quit it, okay? You don't even know the guy!"
"I know enough," he maintained sullenly. "They're all alike."
I was momentarily at a loss for words; never had I encountered such a dedicated bigot, let alone tried to reason with one. This guy was enough to single-handedly give Canada a bad name! I decided to try a different tactic, wearily rubbing the bridge of my nose and trying to clear my mind. "Okay, Tim, let's drop Jon for a moment. Tell me, do you remember your Change at all?"
"No, not really. What does this have to do with anything?"
"You were in a computer lab at the university, in the Biological Sciences building. It was early in the morning. Do you remember that?"
"...yeah, kind of." I had to be very careful with this sort of use of my power; like hypnosis, it tended to cause false memories if I pushed too hard. But the truth was in there, I knew he remembered at least this much.
"There was one other person in there, at another computer. You probably didn't pay much attention to him, I suspect, but I'm sure you noticed him. He was sitting at the far row of computers, you were between him and the door."
Tim nodded, slightly more confident; he was remembering more clearly now. "I think I remember him now. Yeah, he had glasses I think."
"And then the Change hit, remember? Right there. Remember how..." I suddenly trailed off, caught up in an extremely vivid vision. I saw myself, the old me from before the Change. The image was weirdly distorted, seen through the filters of Tim's memory and perceptions. Someone who was in extreme stress. Fear. Horror. I saw the feelings mirrored in my own face as he staggering to his feet, falling to all fours as his body twisted and bulged. His vision blurred, and he retreated howling into the depths of his mind as raw bestial anger burst over him...
The vision faded as quickly as it had broken on me, and I was left staring at Tim with newfound understanding. "...wow, I had no idea what it was like for you," I whispered. "What Reimer did... it was nothing compared to that, wasn't it?" Despite all the progress I had made, I found myself shaking after the actual experience of my worst nightmare. But it wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been a few days ago; I could control the fear now.
"That was you there, wasn't it?" Tim asked in an equally subdued voice. "I didn't really remember too much about that... oh, man. Did you get out of there okay? I hope I didn't hurt you..."
I snapped out of my reverie and grinned slightly. "Yeah, I guess. I've never run that fast before or since, though. But in another way, you really got me; you mentally died right before my eyes. I've gone through months of hell since then, scared out of my mind that it might happen to me too. I put so many constraints on my actions and thoughts I nearly had a total breakdown while trying to keep sane. Finally, a... my... psychiatrist convinced me I had to get out of the prison I'd built for myself and take a vacation. Visit an old friend that had just popped up in the news. That was Jon, and he helped me pull myself together."
"So... you're saying you're not a very objective judge of his character, then?"
I nearly screamed in exasperation, but managed to hold it in. Instead, I asked "do you have any idea how annoying it is to have gone through so much over a person, faced so many demons to rescue him, and then find out what a total jerk he is?"
"Hey! I'm not saying anything about you here."
I stared at Tim for a moment, wondering what was going on in his mind to cause this incredible prejudice. He obviously cared deeply for his sister, his love for her had been the hook I had used to drag him back, and this hostility toward Jon was undoubtedly tangled up in that. What was the best approach? Maxine didn't need his physical protection, I could point out that she could zap Jon into a chipmunk as easily as she'd turned him into a bluejay...
"Ah, the hell with it," I grumbled. "I've faced my demons, I'm done for today. Go to sleep, Tim; we can talk with Maxine about this bird thing in the morning. I'm going back to bed." I got up and headed toward the stairs. Tim started to protest, but hesitated as I paused to toss a final comment over my shoulder. "By the way, if you try to hit Jon again you'll trip and fall flat on your face before you get anywhere near him. Consider it a curse, okay?"
"Aww, no way!" I continued up the stairs, leaving him to bluster to himself. Despite my frustration and disgust with Tim I had a slight grin on my face; post-hypnotic commands like that had been something Jack and I had discussed, and from the disappointed tone of Tim's voice I suspected it had worked. He would trip if he tried hitting Jon, just as I had promised, because he believed he would trip. I had just prevented any future fights between them from getting physical without altering Tim's personality in the slightest. Despite the nature of said personality and how much he annoyed me, I felt quite pleased with that.
Then I put it out of my thoughts; I was too tired to deal with more than one thing at a time right now, and as I passed through the kitchen to grab a quick drink I had something else to ponder. Somehow, I'd managed to access Tim's memory of the Change. I'd only been able to do that with Jack before, with him doing most of the work; how did I manage with Tim? I hadn't even been trying to receive anything, I'd just been prodding him to remember it for himself. I sighed and glanced out the kitchen window as I sipped a glass of milk. I guess Jack and I hadn't figured everything out yet, after all...
I frowned and peered out the window more intently. I saw Jon sleeping out there as he normally did, but lying next to him... Maxine? But if it was, then she was in norm form. She couldn't do that! What was going on here?
"I've read about some Shifters who need to see their own reflections in a mirror in order to Shift. Maybe you're one of them."
I spun around, spilling the milk on the counter. It had sounded like Jon speaking, but he wasn't here; a quick look confirmed that he was still asleep outside. I rubbed a horn in confusion as I reached for a paper towel. Was I hallucinating? I wasn't that tired. And it hadn't felt much like an hallucination, more like a very vivid memory... as I thought back to what I'd 'heard', I realized that it might hold a clue; perhaps Maxine needed a mirror to norm-shift, and had only just now figured it out. Perhaps that's what she'd been doing in the bathroom. Yes, that was it; I remembered it now.
Shaking my head, I put away the empty glass and headed back upstairs to bed. It was just one more thing to mention tomorrow, when I asked about what she'd done to Tim. It was terribly irresponsible and reckless of her to have transformed him out of petty annoyance like that, especially after all the bird-form screwups she'd had involving Jon and Brian. We didn't know anything about how Powers really worked, after all. And with such a disproportionate number of them represented in our little group...
A question tickled at the back of my mind, but I couldn't get a clear grip on it before I wandered on to other things. I fell into an unquiet sleep, my dreams disturbed by strange images.
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