A "Winds of Change" Story

By Bryan Derksen

It was a quiet dinner. Both Tim and I spent most of the time lost in private thoughts, and only Kim seemed willing to attempt to break our silence with occasional small talk. Brian kept watching me out of the corner of his eye, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right moment to broach the subject. I felt sort of bad about that.

I guess I should have felt hurt or angry too, but truth be told I could only feel an empty regret tinged with guilt. Brian’s concerns about me were quite rational; I had lied to him back at the rest stop by faking my inability to affect Tim, after all. I had done it in an attempt to gain his trust. Instead, I had lost my trust in myself.

After dinner was over, I made my excuses and went for a walk.

Before the Change I had always been able to think better when I was walking, and that was at least one thing which had remained the same about me. The refreshing coolness of the evening air helped to calm and focus my thoughts, and soon the relative solitude of Boston’s lesser-traveled streets helped too. I wanted to be alone right now.

Careful, shadows downwind, maybe predators lurking, the deer in my mind whispered.

I shook my head in annoyance and soothed its nervousness. "We’re in a city, idiot," I murmured. "There are no hostile predators here."

Could be following me, the deer said uneasily, apparently oblivious to what I’d just told it.

I sighed; even bits of my own mind didn’t trust me any more. "Idiot," I muttered. I wasn’t in the mood to be amused by it’s simple thoughts right now. My sense of unity was another thing I had worked hard to develop over the past few weeks only to have it shattered again in the past day; once again, I felt myself separated from an ‘animal nature’ that I knew should just be another part of who I was.

Ah, philosophy. I’d always thought of such questions of identity and self as being interesting but ultimately pointless mind games. Lately, though, I’d become quite deeply concerned with such things. Was I still the same person I had been before the Change? Were the bits of Jon still in my mind still separate, or were they a new part of me? I was tired of thinking about things like that. I was tired of all the guilt. I was just so tired.

I found a small park, almost deserted at this hour, and sat down on a bench for a breather. For several minutes, I didn’t think about anything. It was the happiest several minutes I’d had all day. Then I was interrupted by the sound of heavy hooffalls approaching on the sidewalk behind me, and I idly glanced up to see what it was. I did a double take. "Tim? What are you doing here?"

"I followed you," he replied quietly.

I could almost hear my inner deer crowing I told you so, but I ignored it for now. "Oh. Have a seat?" I shifted over to one end of the bench, leaving the rest for Tim’s massive frame.

He sat down with a heavy sigh beside me, then a sharp hiss of pain as he sat back up and pulled his tail out from under him. "Damned tail," he muttered under his breath as he settled himself more comfortably. I could understand his difficulty, even though my own tail was quite short compared to his it still got in the way on occasion. And Tim wasn’t used to his Change yet, either.

We sat there silently for several long minutes, neither of us able to come up with a conversation-opener. I didn’t really want to, myself; I still preferred silence right now. But at last I felt compelled to say something. "Lots of changes, eh?" I asked awkwardly.

Tim nodded. "Yeah." There was another long silence, and then finally he added "It’s all changed. My whole life is gone. How am I supposed to just start over, like this?" He tugged on one of his horns.

I sighed and shook my head. "I don’t know. I don’t think I know how to help."

"Like hell! Dammit, Bryan, you’ve been living here for months. You helped all those other sheep you told us about, in Morgansville. Tell me something to do now!"

Tim’s outburst made me flinch and shift uncomfortably in my seat, but not from fear of physical harm. He was right, I probably did have advice for him. I just didn’t want to give it. I didn’t want to tell anyone how to act, what to think...

I sighed again. Even leaving my Power out of the equation wasn’t helping me resolve this dilemma any more. "I don’t want to sound preachy," I told Tim at last. "I don’t want to sound like I think I know what’s best for you. I don’t, you do. I’ve sworn off manipulating people, Tim."

Tim’s hooflike hand gripped my shoulder and I flinched again, this time in alarm. But when I saw his expression my fear was replaced with concern. "Help me," Tim pleaded. "Maxine’s... well... I don’t have anyone else to turn to. You brought me back to face this world, the least you can do is help me live in it. I don’t know anything anymore. What should I do?"

I rubbed the bridge of my muzzle in indecision. I don’t want to get involved, I just wanted to take a walk... I thought wearily. Then I sighed one last time. In a way, I did feel responsible. "Okay, I’ll do my best I guess. But remember that I’m as much a lost soul as you are right now, I don’t know where my life is going either."

"I’ll figure out where I’m going later," Tim told me. "I need to know the basics right now. Like... ugh. That hamburger. What am I supposed to think about that?" Tim shuddered and swallowed hard at the memory, and I hid a slight grin myself. I could see that he was still really shaken up about it.

"I don’t think a consensus view has been reached on that," I told him, "though considering the number of predator-morphs out there that seem to need real meat society’s going to have to face it sometime. Want to know my personal opinion?" Tim nodded, his ear posture showing rapt attention. I checked to make very sure my Power was quiescent before continuing.

"Well, ground beef comes from real cows. And you’re not really a cow, I mean a bull, even when you’re in your norm form. Even when you were lost in norm form. And I’m not really a sheep. Genetically we’re all still 99% human, you’re still much more closely related to a chimp than you are to a cow. So even though it’s kind of creepy that people are eating meat from an animal that looks a lot like you, rationally speaking it’s not that bad." I grinned. "I think I’d be a little uneasy walking into a restaurant serving lamb chops too, rational or not. But you can’t take it personally, I guess, because people have to eat something."

Tim nodded reluctantly, though he was obviously still pretty disgusted by the idea. He swallowed again, then made a face. "And what about that? Hasn’t anyone come up with a cure for that or something yet?"

"What?"

"Cud. I hate having to re-swallow everything like that, it’s disgusting."

I almost laughed. This was something I was much more familiar with, both on a personal and an abstract level. "You can’t cure cud, it’s not a condition. It’s a vital part of digesting cellulose. Have you been rechewing it too? You’ll develop real problems if you don’t." I rubbed my abdomen ruefully. "I know that first hand. It was the hardest thing for me to adapt to myself, right after the Change." I didn’t mention that I was of a low enough degree that many foods bypassed my rumen altogether, since one look at Tim was enough to know it wasn’t the case for him. Jon had mentioned ‘meat cud’ to me in the past, and the concept seemed so awful that I didn’t want Tim to feel singled out.

With an expression of disgust and concentration so intense it was comical, Tim brought up another mouthful of cud and gingerly chewed it before swallowing. "Ugh. Can’t I just chew it twice as much the first time down, or something?"

I shook my head. "That’s not the point of it. The cellulose actually gets digested by the methane-producing bacteria that live in the rumen, it has to spend a lot of time in there first. It’s basically a big fermentation vat, churned and warmed by... uh..." I suddenly realized that I was probably going into way more detail than Tim could handle right now; he looked like he was about to bring up his cud permanently. "It’s not as bad as it sounds," I concluded hurriedly. "We’re ruminants. We’re built for it now, it’s natural. In fact, we need it."

Tim shook his head glumly. "I need a drink, is what I need. But thanks. It’s good to know I’m not the only one, good to have someone to talk to that I can trust..." Then he perked up slightly. "Hey, we passed a bar a block back that looked okay, how about it?"

"Uh, well..."

Tim slapped me enthusiastically on the back, interrupting my evasion. "C’mon, it’ll be a real Canadian-bonding experience with all these Americans around here. You can tell me more about what’s going on in a more comfortable setting than out here. What do you say?"

It took me several moments to recover enough breath to utter a polite refusal, but during that delay something within me had time to ponder. Tim must feel very alone right now, having finally let Maxine go. And I felt a little isolated myself, all things considered... "Okay, why not. I’ve never been to a bar before, should be interesting," I replied.

Tim grinned, and we headed back down the street.

Tim was singing the Bare Naked Ladies’ greatest hits when we finally arrived back in the hotel lobby, sometime after midnight. Not exactly high culture, but at least his mood was better again, I reflected. Actually, in Tim’s case I’d never seen him in a good mood before; despite his constant complaints about American beer, he seemed to have actually enjoyed himself tonight. And I felt pretty good about that.

A large bird suddenly leapt from an unnoticed perch in the corner of the room and swooped over to land next to us, immediately switching to a morphic bald eagle form. I jumped in surprise, and Tim actually stumbled to one knee; he had been a bit wobbly on his hooves the entire walk back.

"Brian!" I exclaimed as I instantly recognized the eaglemorph. He didn’t reply immediately and I began to worry that his glare might be partially real, rather than a result of how eagles always glared. "Um, hi," I added lamely.

"I was wondering where you and Tim had got to," Brian replied.

"Just down the street," Tim told him as he climbed back to his feet. "Little place, called the Wine Pig or something like that..."

Brian nodded. "I guessed that. Even I can smell the alcohol."

Tim grinned proudly and I winced. "Uh, Tim? Why don’t you go on up, I think Brian probably wants to talk to me about something."

Tim nodded. "Okay. G’night, it was fun," he told me, and then began singing again as he turned to head for the elevator.

"Quietly!" I called after him. He chuckled and started whispering the lyrics instead. I sighed and shook my head as the elevator doors closed, cutting even that off. "Sorry about that," I apologized. "Who’d have thought he was the musical type?"

"You said you’d just be out for a few minutes," Brian said, half-accusing and half-concerned. "What happened?"

"You were waiting for me?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah. I wanted to talk to you. How much have you had to drink?"

I grinned and counted silently on my fingers. "Four... no, five glasses of Pepsi. Neat, no ice."

Now it was apparently Brian’s turn to be surprised. "What?"

I jerked a thumb at the elevator. "He drank more than enough for both of us, I’m sure, and the last thing Boston needs is a drunk Janet-Jinxed mind controller wandering around. Not that I wouldn’t have minded having something a little more mind-numbing, though." I glanced around reflexively, making sure that Tim wasn’t somehow still in earshot. "Tim and I did a little bonding, we really got to know each other tonight. You know what I learned about him?"

"What?"

"Tim is the most mind-meltingly awful jerk I have ever met!" I started pacing restlessly. "Sure, he’s got his problems. His whole world’s been yanked out from under him, he’s having trouble adapting. I feel bad for him, really I do. I’m glad he got some weight off his chest, started attempting to face a few things. But that was probably the worst evening I’ve ever spent with anyone." I realized that I was ranting, and cut myself off with a heavy sigh. "What did you want to talk about?" I asked, trying to get back on topic.

"Um, well, I wanted to apologize," Brian began.

He got no further; I held up my hand and shook my head soberly. "Please don’t. You were right." Brian looked puzzled, and I sighed deeply. I’d spent a lot of time thinking about this while trying to hide behind a menu in embarrassment, and I knew what I had to tell him.

"I won’t lie to you, Brian; I’ve lied to you. Back at the rest stop, when I needed you to trust me, I faked being unable to control minds while being nullified by Tim. I didn’t trust you to trust me with the power I have, and I’m sorry."

Brian remained silent for a moment, mulling that over. Then he asked "Why didn’t you tell Tim you didn’t want to stay at that bar?"

I grinned sheepishly. "I’m too polite, I guess."

"No, I meant why didn’t you tell him? You could have used your Power and he wouldn’t have felt insulted." I hesitated, an agonizing pause while I tried to figure out what to say. Then Brian laughed. "Okay, okay, I trust you! Anyone who can stand four hours of Tim pouring his soul out at him without snapping, out of politeness no less, has learned self-control in my book."

I smiled in relief. "Thank you. I promise never to use my powers on you without your consent, whether or not Tim really can block me, and you won’t suspect that I have, deal?" I held out my hand.

Brian shook it. "Deal."

Then my smile widened as I pulled my other hand from behind my back to reveal crossed fingers. Brian laughed again.

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