A "Winds of Change" Story
Like I thought, it turned out to be an interesting interview.
In truth, though, I didn't pay all that much attention to any of them. At least, not after Kim finished.
I heard and answered the other two reporters, sure, but I didn't think all that much about the answers. I think Jon sensed my distraction, and he took the bulk of the questions.
I do remember thinking that he was going to gore that guy for asking how he felt about killing that leopard. Can't say that I blame him.
The interview was interesting, but for me, it was afterward that got even more so.
Kim and I had been staring at each other for most of the time since Red left. I felt my heart beating fast. She seemed to be returning the interest. When she asked to come home with us to see Jon's place, I was ecstatic.
We all left the apartment. Jon, I noticed, had been getting short tempered all through the afternoon. I had thought that once the interviews were over that he'd go back to normal, but he still seemed more than a little agitated. He took off in a hurry, like he wanted to get away.
I looked at Kim. "Do you want to get into the air first?"
She nodded, "Yea, can you give me a hand?"
"Sure, how?"
She held my arm out parallel to the ground. "Like this." she said. I could hear the smile in her voice. She held it lightly and suddenly leapt slightly into the air. In a flash, she was full formed into a bald eagle. I ran my hand across her back lightly, and she playfully bit at it.
"Okay, Kim. Give me a second."
She answered with a light screech, and jumped off my arm and climbed into the air. I gathered myself up and leapt after her.
We flew pretty close together across the city. Unfortunately, we couldn't do much more than look at each other. In her norm shape, she couldn't speak. As we flew over, I was thinking about the last few hours. Why was I so enamored with her? I'd never met her before this morning, never even seen her on TV.
I thought back to Jon's experience with Grace. Could it be that? For months, I'd been unwilling to admit that there was something animal about me now. Most of the changes I'd written off to personality quirks, things that I started doing because I thought I should. It wasn't until the riot that I really realized that there was more to me now, that there was a predator buried in my brain.
Maybe my mind was just doing what comes natural.
Or, perhaps it's just classic love at first sight. It had happened before the Change, after all.
I sighed. It was going to be a long time before we all figured out our new bodies, and the baggage that came with them.
The advantage of flying is missing all the lights. We arrived at Jon's place sometime before he did. I landed on a perching block near the main entrance and held out an arm for Kim. She landed lightly on my scaled forearm, then jumped off and form shifted. "Don't you love that?"
"Definitely. Makes up for not being able to drive anymore."
She nodded, "Tell me about it. I bought a new car in June. I didn't have the dealer plates off yet when I couldn't sit in it anymore."
I heard a screech of tires and looked up. "Speaking of new cars, here comes Jon."
Jon roared through the parking lot and pulled fast into his space. Even before he got out of the car, I could tell something was bothering him. "You okay Jon?"
He breathed hard for a minute. "I'm...fine." He excused himself, and Kim looked at me oddly. "Is he all right?"
I looked back to the apartment. "I'm not sure. I think that the fight with Red did something to him. He's not usually like this." At least, I don't think he is, I though. After all, today was the second time I'd seen him fight another ungulate, and he did come close to charging me the other night.
I thought it best not to mention that to Kim, at least not before she edited her story.
Kim was about to say something when Jon rushed out of his apartment. "I'm going out for a run. I might be gone a while. I need to work out some of this irritation. So I'll see you later." With that, he took off down the street.
I held my arm out toward Jon's apartment. "We may as well go inside. I can show you around."
She nodded, "I'd like that."
As we walked into the apartment, I realized that I had my arm around her shoulders. She didn't seem to mind.
I started showing her around. We started in the most obvious place, Jon's greenhouse. She looked around in amazement. "He eats all this?"
I shrugged, "Sure. He's pretty resigned to being a cud chewer, now. Not much that he can really do about it."
She noticed the steelhead still swimming in the duckweed tank. "Are these his, too? I thought that deer were vegetarian, or are these pets?"
I grinned as well as I could, "He actually got them for me since I was coming down. I'm pretty high degree, and I've taken to eating fish since almost day one."
She nodded, "I know what you mean."
Jon's cat started rubbing against Kim's leg. She bent down, "Who's this?"
I grinned a little, "It's either Jon's cat, Cleo, or dinner."
"What?"
I shrugged, "I've been resisting telling him that she looks tasty to me."
Kim looked at me, her beak open, "You're not serious! You'd eat his cat?"
"I suppose I won't, but I don't think I'd have a problem with it if push came to shove."
She pet the cat for a minute looking at me. "I think that I'll leave that little tidbit out of my story..."
I showed her the other rooms in the apartment. It didn't take long. Jon didn't exactly live in the Taj Mahal. We were looking out a back window at the courtyard of the complex when I realized how close she was to me.
My arm was still around her shoulders, and she leaned her head in toward mine. I sensed that our beaks touched. For a moment, we rubbed them a little together. I knew in my mind that we were definitely doing something that was instinctive. Frankly, I'm not sure I cared. We started preening each other. Using out beaks, we smoothed the others feathers out. We were at that for a long time. I'm not really all that sure how long.
I suspect that, given time, it might have gone on beyond that. But, Kimberly suddenly noticed the clock on the wall. The pulled away slowly. "I've got to go, Brian. I need to edit that story for the afternoon news."
I felt my heart drop a little. I didn't want her to go. But I knew that she had too. I nodded. "Can we get together later?"
She leaned foreword and rubbed her beak against mine, the closest approximation to a kiss we could do. "Definitely. You'll be here?"
"If I'm not, Jon will know where I am."
I walked her to the front door. "You mind giving me another hand?"
I grinned. As we walked out, I held my arm out. She form shifted and landed on it. I rubbed her chest feathers with my hand for a moment, then turned to give her a better flight path out of the complex.
She leapt off my arm at almost the same moment that Jon started up the walk, panting heavily. He took a step or two back, but she didn't have time to veer off. Instead, she did a touch-and-go landing off his antlers before gaining some altitude.
Jon form shifted back, still panting pretty hard. He looked up at her a little annoyed, but I could tell he was in better spirits. "That's the second time this week..." he muttered. He gave me a bemused look, "Serves me right for hanging out with birds."
I just shrugged. "How was the run?"
"Pretty good. I'm going to have to watch it for a while, though. Or take up running a couple times a day." He noticed that I was still stealing glances into the sky. Even though she was pretty far away already, probably beyond where Jon could see, I still could. "What happened between you two?" he asked, a little concerned.
I just grinned evilly. "Oh, nothing..." and walked back into the apartment.
Copyright 1997, Brian Eirik Coe
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