A "Winds of Change" story

by Doug Linger

"For the last time, Michael, get up."

"You promise?"

"No."

"Damn." I struggled against the covers as my I heard my mother's hooves clomp away. I am not and never have been a morning person. Nevertheless, it has been enormously difficult for me to get started lately.

Eventually I managed to get upright, and started my usual morning routine. I took a hot shower, which helped a lot in getting me to some semblance of alert. Still no First Sign in the guy in the mirror, though. I sighed and got dressed, and made a wild stab at my hair. I was looking forward to the day when I had fur, which was generally more manageable; my hair generally explodes by noon, no matter what I did in the morning.

"Oh, so you are alive," the low-mid horse-morph that was my mother said when I finally entered the kitchen. She had already set up a bowl of cereal ("Frosted Honey Sugar Balls! Makes kids so hyper, they bounce around like Superballs!" as Todd once said.), which was a major hint, since I always get my own food.

"Sorry Mom," I said. "Still not hungry."

"Michael, I'm worried. I'm calling a doctor." She picked up the phone and started punching buttons.

I rolled my eyes. Parents. "I'm fine, Mom. I'm just not hungry."

She looked at me, the phone against her slightly equine face. "This is the third day you haven't eaten. That's not fine."

I rolled my eyes dramatically and grabbed a section of the paper and started rifling for the comics. There was no sense in arguing further.

A few minutes later I was interrupted from the latest adventures of Dilbert by my mother telling me she'd completed making the appointment. It was scheduled for immediately after school.

"But Mom! What about band practice?"

"I thought that was on Saturday."

"This is marching band," I said, rolling my eyes again. I couldn't understand how could you work at school and not know when marching band practice was. "The first game of the season's this weekend! Which is why David moved the band time around, his was Sunday. Remember?"

"Well, there's a few other practices this week, right? You can catch up then. I really want this checked out."

"Right. Whatever." I sighed. "Look, I gotta go, if I want to get to school on time. Luckily I don't want to get to school on time, so..."

"Get." My mom's actually kinda cool in some ways; she knows a cue when she hears one. I got. 

I got to school a bit early, as usual, to allow me time to socialize before classes began. I locked my electric bike in the rack and ambled over to where the band, minus Todd and myself, were assembled.

"Hey, Jim! Think we'll get that math test back today?"

"I think so. You worried?" We were in the same math class.

"Nah." Actually, I was, a little. I tend to be good at math...which makes me overconfident. I didn't study anywhere near as much as I should have for that thing. Oh well.

The four of us made small talk for a few minutes, keeping a close eye on the giant clock above the school entrance. Finally, not long before we'd have to split for our homerooms, Todd showed up.

"Hey, Todd! You finally made it!" Jim called out.

"Hi, guys." Todd's smile as he replied seemed half-hearted.

"What happened to you yesterday?" Stripes inquired. "You weren't..." He trailed of as Todd waved a hand at us. It was gray and furred a little; starting at the wrist it was furred a lot heavier, though, with black and gray hairs covering his arm up to his jacket. "Whoa..." Stripes breathed.

"How far up does it go?" Mano asked, as wide-eyed as the rest of us. Todd pointed at his arm with a hand that was nearly a mirror image of the first. Assuming where he pointed was where the fur ended, it went up about halfway to his elbow.

"This is cool. Congratulations!" I enthused, clapping him on the back. "So what are you gonna be?"

"Raccoon." He didn't sound enthusiastic. Heck, he sounded kinda upset about it.

"Ah well, better than being bovine, right?" Jim said, to which we all nodded. We'd long ago agreed that bull-morphs were just soooo ordinary, and thus the animal we'd least want to Change into. "And heck, maybe you'll have Polymorph or something."

"Hey, yeah, Todd. You know if you have any Powers yet?" I asked. Maybe demonstrating a Power would cheer him up.

"Dunno."

I think we all blinked in unison then. "What about Norm-shifting? Can you even do that?" Mano asked.

Todd fidgeted nervously. "Dunno."

There was a long few seconds of silence before I blurted out, "You don't know?" He shook his head. "Why not?"

"I, uh, didn't try." Todd evaded.

"Why not?"

"I just didn't." Todd's voice rose defensively on that, and he looked a bit harried.

"Well, try now!" I retorted, exasperated. Why the hell would you not check for Powers?

"No, goddamnit! Now shut up and leave me alone!" With this he stalked off towards the main entrance. The rest of us watched him go with our mouths open.

The school bell rang, cutting of anything we might have said. 

"Um, hi." I said, as I slid into the seat across from Todd. He nodded at me and returned his attention to his burger. Damn. He's not gonna make this easy. "Look. Um. I'm sorry. For pushing you like that, you know? You're obviously worried about the instincts in norm, and—"

"No," he interrupted.

I blinked. I'd taken all morning to script this apology out. "Huh?"

He hadn't looked up from his food once while I was talking, and he continued not to as he said, "You're wrong. That's not it."

"Uhm. What, then?" He just shook his head slowly. I opened my mouth, and closed it. Then, "Look. Todd. What's wrong?"

He looked up, then. "Nothing," he said, but his face testified otherwise. He looked...haunted. "I'm just a little...overwhelmed by the Change. I'll be fine in a day or two."

He was lying through his teeth. I knew it, and I'm sure he knew I knew. But I remembered this morning; having something like that happen out front was bad enough. "Right," I sighed. He looked grateful.

The rest of lunch was eaten in silence. 

 

The bell rang, ending the last period. The halls quickly filled with hordes of humans and various other things. I pushed my way through to my locker and extracted the books necessary for the night's homework. Then I went down to my mother's classroom.

I had to wait a few minutes as she packed her materials and locked the door, then I followed her to the office where she checked out. I grumbled as I put my bike in the backseat; I much preferred it to the car, but the doctor's was too far away to make my appointment by bike. Especially since bikes aren't allowed on the freeway.

By car, though, the doctor's office was only a short ride away. We arrived right on time. But just because we were on time doesn't mean he was; we had to wait for a half hour before we got into an examination room that was a bit too chilly. They must have turned off the conditioning, though, because by the time Dr. Cromwell—a middie rabbit morph—saw us it felt fine.

"So how are you feeling then, with all this?" he asked me when he finally entered, indicating a clipboard that was filled with the information my mom gave at the counter.

"Fine. I'm just not hungry."

"Let's see what we can figure out." Thus began a barrage of tests. They were just standard procedures administered in any checkup, like blood pressure, heartbeat, and eye/ear/throat checks, but because I felt fine it was annoying.

The doctor frowned as he read my temperature off the digital thermometer. "That can't be right." He reset it and stuck it back in my mouth. A few seconds later it beeped and he removed it again. And frowned again.

"What's wrong?"

"Your temperature is far too low." He glanced at a thermometer on the wall, this one analog. "In fact," he continued thoughtfully, "it's only a few degrees warmer than this room."

My mother looked startled, but I was confused. "So?"

The doctor turned back to me, smiling slightly. "So this room is about 70 degrees." Now I was startled.

"Tell me, Mike," he said, not noticing my wince, "have you had your First Sign yet?"

"Nope."

Dr. Cromwell paused. "Well, it's uncommon (though not rare) for the First Sign to be internal. I'd like to scan him, with your permission," he said turning to my mom.

"Shouldn't the Change Doctor do that?" she asked.

The doctor shook his head, making his long ears flop around a little. "If it turns out this is his First Sign, we can just send the file over; his scan would be the same as mine, and there's no need to pay twice. If it's not a First Sign, then the Change Doctor would have sent you back here anyway."

A few minutes later I was looking over the doctor's ears at the screen displaying my body. Like Dr. Chin did with Stripes, Dr. Cromwell viewed various portions of my anatomy. Everything looked textbook to me, but the doctor was occasionally making interested-sounding noises.

"Anything?" my mother inquired.

"Hm? Oh. Well, I do believe it is his First Sign." He turned to address me. "Congratulations. You're cold-blooded."

I felt my face break out into the most idiotic grin, and didn't care. "Yes! Cool! Which one?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. And I won't, without some external clue or a tissue sample. We could get that sample for you, but with the changed portions of your body entirely internal, it would be...uncomfortable."

"No thanks. Pain has never been my thing."

He nodded, obviously expecting that answer. "Being cold-blooded, you should probably do a few things. Put your bed in an eastward-facing room, near a window, and/or get an electric blanket. That should help you wake up. You'll have to get a special coat come winter." He grinned. "But these costs will be offset by the savings to your grocery bill. Which reminds me, you'll probably get hungry again in a day or two. With a few exceptions, cold-bloods generally eat once every five days or so." We were nodding as he spoke, trying to absorb his advice.

"Should we go to Dr. Chin's now?" Mom asked.

The doctor considered for several long seconds. "Well," he began slowly, "he should certainly be notified, and I'll send the scan file and other such things over. To be honest though, there's not much he can do for you that I haven't already. He might be able to tell you a few things extra things, though."

We thanked the doctor, paid up, and left. After a little discussion, my mom decided not to actually visit the Change Doctor. We'd get any extra information through the phone. It might not sound proper, but there really wasn't much he could tell us that we hadn't already been told. The only official thing I'd be missing would be the Powers test, and I could take that when my next surge showed up and I did visit Dr. Chin.

When we got home my mom began a series of phone calls. First to my dad, since he wasn't home yet. I declined to get on the phone, reasoning we'll be talking face-to-face soon enough, but from what I could hear on this end it had made his day. Then was the call to Dr. Chin, who told us pretty much what Dr. Cromwell had, only in more detail. After that came a long chain of relatives.

Somewhere in there I managed to call my friends. "A cold-blood, huh? Pretty cool!" was the general response. Even Todd sounded happier, a little, at my news.

That over with, the rest of the night was pretty normal, except that my mom didn't even put a plate in front of me at dinner. Despite all my pleas and logic, I still had to sit at the table to make conversation. "Dinner is one of the few times we all get together, and I don't want that stopped," I was told. Sigh. Then it was homework, followed by playing on the computer.

As I drifted off to sleep that night I mused about what exactly I'd be. Well, what I'd most like to be, anyway. Newt? Nah, boring. Snake? Well, maybe, although I find it difficult to imagine not having legs. Alligator? Now that would be cool. What about...

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