A "Winds of Change" Story

By Jon Sleeper

If there was one thing that the Change hadn’t changed, it was the quality of TV programming. I sat on the couch in the hotel room, flipping channels. Yes, there was a whole lot of nothing on. For instance.

The fourth re-run of "What Are They Now?", about what the stars had become. For instance: Billy Crystal was now a bull morph (A "City Slicker" he’s not, any more), William Shatner was a chimpanzee, "Weird" Al Yankovic was a rather imposing mid Degree Tyrannosaurus Rex and still manages to be funny. Among others.

Bad TV or not, I really didn’t care about the quality as long as Maxine was with me. We were sitting side by side, arms around each other’s shoulders. Every once in a while we’d nuzzle each other’s muzzle or neck with our noses. Just enjoying each other’s company.

After what had happened recently, it’s all both of us wanted. Tim had gone "out on the town", as it were. So we didn’t have to worry about him. But still, our talk naturally ranged towards him. Maxine was talking to me in a quiet voice the whole time about her life, growing up, and what had happened to her parents. "They went on vacation in Florida about ten years ago, and never came back. Their bodies were never found," she whispered between nuzzles, "I was only eleven at the time, and my brother was a couple years older. Our grandparents raised us until we were old enough to get out on our own.

"When he was eighteen Tim moved out and I went with him. I idolized him, and he was protective of me. It was as simple as that... and the $250,000 insurance policy my parents took out. I’m not rich, but I’m not poor, either. I’ve been living off the interest.

"I believe I’ve already told you what made me change as a person. But the fact remains, my brother hasn’t changed. He’s always been a bully, and now he looks like one."

I sighed and turned off the TV. "So, what do we do about him?"

There was a knock on the door at that moment, as well as a rather horrible odor of beer-breath mingled with bull-scent. Tim was outside the door, we could both tell. Maxine sighed. "I’ll get rid of him. Just give me a moment." She stood up and opened the door, while I watched them.

Tim was definitely drunk out of his mind. I was amazed he was even able to stand up. "What’re you doing with him, in his room?" He asked with a hiccup.

"That’s none of your business, Tim. Now get out of here," Maxine said.

He pushed her out of the way and stumbled towards me. His breath ranked and made me choke. I waved my hands in front to try to waft the scent away. "What sewer did you drink out of? You heard Maxine. Get outa here!"

In retrospect, it was probably a dumb idea to provoke a drunk bull morph. But with the Rut on I was feeling quite macho.

He glared at me a moment with eyes that didn’t look quite as bleary as before. Then he bellowed and knocked the coffee table away with flick of his writs. "I’ll kill you for touching my sister!"

He meant it. I could feel it. A rage boiled up from within me. Then there was only me and him. My Rival. With no real thought to what I was doing, I exploded into action, surprising the bull morph with a series of hard punches that sent him reeling backward towards the broken-down door.

But it only took a moment for him to his senses, and bring his rather larger mass to bear on my smaller body. I dodged, and shifted to norm, bringing my antlers to bear. That made him back up once more and shove the bed in my direction, causing me to dodge left and force me to resume morph shape. Somehow, that was enough time for him to get to me and grab me in a choke hold.

He hit me once in the stomach. "That’s for my sister," he bellowed. Once in the face, surely giving me a black eye. "That is for me!" Then his voice took on a knife edge to it. "I’ll kill you for touching my sister."

But the final blow that I was expecting didn’t come. Instead, Tim let go of my neck (I’d been gasping for air) and stumbled back. I fell to the floor, gasping and groaning, only barely conscious of what was happening. I heard Tim exclaim in a literally choking voice, "Maxine! What are... ack!"

Maxine’s tone of voice was pure ice. "Now that I’ve got your attention, Tim. I have to tell you something I’ve been needing to for a while." I heard a smack. "You are not my brother any more."

Silence. I groaned. I heard Tim bellow in rage and turn towards me again. But the bellow turned to a scream. A scream that grew higher and higher in pitch until it sounded very rodent-like. I heard some squeaking and the sound of something wooden being moved. Maxine’s voice came again, from right above me. "You’ll stay that way until I decide what to do with you. Now be a nice little hamster and stay under the bowl."

Hamster? Maxine held my head in her lap. "I’m going to see if I can heal you with my Power. But I want your permission first, since it may be Janet-jinxed..."

"No need for that," a familiar voice interrupted. My sense of smell was pretty much nil. My ears were ringing. But I recognized the voice as Fox’s. He sighed. "I see this is my fault. Your brother gave my people the slip somehow."

"What? Who are you, anyway?"

"Fox Cutter at your service, my lady." He snapped his fingers, and I heard somebody else enter the room. "And since this is my fault, I’ll have to correct it forthwith. This gentleman is a healer. He’ll put Jon back together... mostly."

"Mostly?"

I felt a pair of scaly hands on the sides of my muzzle. I suddenly felt warm all over. The pain lessened, the swelling went down. But the fatigue didn’t go away, it only got worse. I was panting much harder than I had been before the bird-man was finished. I opened my eyes to see a blaze of red and black. "Thanks," I said. "I feel like I’ve run a marathon. And what kind of bird are you, anyway?"

He was the flighted kind of morph. His wing opened a bit in an avian grin. "I’m a Vermilion Flycatcher! And you’re going to feel like that for a few days. No strenuous activity."

"Right," I replied, looking back up at Maxine. "So, what do we do about your brother?"

"I’ve thought about it. And I’m going to send him home. He’s not my brother any more." It was as it a door had been slammed. Right in Tim’s face. I heard a squeak from the bowl. Tim had heard. Maxine looked in Tim’s direction. "You heard me! And I’m putting you on the next plane home. Right now!"

Fox smelled surprised. "Do you need an escort?"

"No. This is something I need to do myself. Now that Jon is okay I can leave him here. I just wonder why hotel security didn’t show up right away..." She fixed Fox with a penetrating stare. "But I think I’ll leave that issue for later."

I blinked, and thought of something. "Wasn’t he following us for most of the afternoon? He was very obvious about it. But we could never seem to lose him. Until he just vanished..." I looked at Fox suspiciously.

He actually looked uncomfortable and reached into his pocket, pulling out a ticket pouch with "Air Canada" on it. "This is the least I can do. I’ll also be keeping a much closer eye on him so you’ll never be bothered by him again." He placed the ticket on the table. "I’ll be going now. My associates will clean up the mess."

"I have a question. How come nobody came running with all this noise?"

Fox grinned. "That, my buckish friend, I’ll keep to myself. Good evening." He left before I could say anything else.

The room was soon like it had been when we’d arrived two days before. Maxine was still holding me while I regained some energy. She scritched me on my neck. "I’m going to be gone for a couple hours, I think. But I want to leave you with something that’ll keep you warm."

She planted her lips on mine. And a different kind of warmth spread all over me. I felt like I was melting... melting into her arms. I didn’t want her to let go. It pained me to think of it. We both heard a angry squeaking from under the bowl. We only took our time and savored the moment. It seemed to last forever, but nearly long enough. "I’ll come back as soon as I can," she whispered. Then she carefully left me resting on the floor.

I wasn’t exactly "all there", because I didn’t hear her leave. I managed to pull myself onto the bed and continue to pant my lungs out. I heard a knock on the door. "Jon? I heard a noise. Maxine? Are you in there?" It was Bryan, sounding concerned.

My eyes opened slowly, dreamily. Then I realized that, given my current condition, it might be a Bad Idea to open the door right now. Maxine’s kiss had resulted in a quite natural reaction in points south. So I decided to spare myself any embarrassment. I walked up near the door. "I’m okay, Bryan. Maxine and Tim just stepped out to have a little chat. I don’t expect Tim to return, though."

"Oh? What happened?"

I sighed, feeling too hopped up on my own Rut-energy to really remember the details. "I’ll tell you in the morning. Right now I need a cold shower..." Really needed it.

"I’ll talk to you two in the morning, then."

The cold shower did the trick. I was at least modest again. Well, as modest as one that wore nothing except his fur could be, at any rate. I should at least consider wearing some shorts at this time of year... I thought. Clothing was really some odd "human thing" for me. But I was still part human, wasn’t I?

Wasn’t I?

I’d really come to doubt that. What was I? Was a deer or was I a human? Or something in between?

What questions! And no answers. At least, no obvious ones. What could I do? There were things that I’d probably do out of instinct, without thought that it might not be acceptable in Sentient society. Not everybody was a deer. In fact, there were even wolves. I’d have to deal with them sometimes in very close quarters. How could I convince myself that they wouldn’t be a threat?

I got out of the shower shook myself as dry as I could in norm-shape, and nudged the door open with my nose. I stood in one spot to let my fur dry, all the time thinking about my dilemma. When I was dry enough I got up onto the bed and laid down. Waiting.

I was still pondering this when Maxine arrived, minus her brother, of course. She was carrying a few things. Including a big plastic bag with "Circuit City" on it, and a couple bags from a supermarket. She smelled happy and rather like the scent of autumn leaves that permeated the air. I jumped to my feet and dashed up to her, nuzzling her neck with my muzzle. She laughed. "Stop that! And change so we can talk. We can nuzzle more, later."

Her words held promise, so I shifted to two-legs. I looked at the bags she was carrying. "What did you buy?"

Out of the Circuit City bag she took out a brand new portable CD stereo, still in the box. As well as several CDs that all seemed to have romantic titles. "Un-box that while I get the drinks ready."

I watched her out of the corner of my eye while I opened the box with my semi-sharp fingerhooves. It was a nice stereo, not a basic model, but not overboard. "Good choice," I complimented.

"Thanks. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. A long, long time." she replied, placing some plastic wine glasses on the small table. We looked at each other longingly for a few moments, then continued. She removed a couple bottles from the bag. "This isn’t wine or anything alcoholic. I know you’re not old enough to drink yet. But it’ll do."

I smiled, then plugged in the stereo. I found some good artists and put them in the 3-CD changer. The golden voice of Nat King Cole filled the air with its soft strains of "Unforgettable". I closed my eyes and took in Maxine’s scent. I turned to her while she was still setting things up, and hugged her tightly from behind. I sang along to the music a bit, "Unforgettable... that’s what you are..." My singing wasn’t very good, but it was sincere.

She took up Natalie Cole’s part without missing a beat. "Unforgettable, though near or far..."

Then, together. "That’s why dar-ling, it’s incredible. That someone so unforgettable. Thinks that I am. Unforgettable too..."

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