OOM
Three years is not very long, in the scheme of things. When men and women live sixty, seventy, eighty plus years, a measly three is nothing.
In fifty years, maybe Rachel will feel that way.
It's been two months since her last morph. She's been human from the moment she stepped into Milliways. But on this frozen early-morning when she finally called up her wings and took to the sky, she felt another mind bubbling up beneath her own and welcomed it. The eagle knows how to fly. It doesn't need her help. And that calm utter confidence in the predator's mind was so comfortable to sink into. Like coming home.
So much better than bored and fretful and awkward and irritable.
Three years. And even if only a small fraction of it required her to count the minutes herself, Rachel can still make a decent guess at how much time has passed. Even riding backseat to the eagle, letting it soar and climb deep into the forest, heading for the mountains, the rocks and water the eagle craves.
Near to an hour and a half, she takes the wheel again. Forces a circle and land in the sturdy limbs of a bare tree. Talons sink into the soft bark and hold her in place.
It's a good thirty feet off the ground, but it's better than the three feet of snow on the ground.
Demorphing is quick, hurried - like the remorph that follows. She has to lie awkwardly, situated between two branches to make sure her twisting body doesn't fall but she gets her wings again - and talons, too.
The mind and wings are a familiar comfort and there's the draw to make them home, powerful like the pulsing beat of her own heart. But she isn't ready for that yet.
Not now. Not the eagle.
She drops from the branch, catches the air in her feathers, and soars.
She does not, it should be noted, allow the eagle to hunt. Scan for prey, yes. Look through the ice of the lake, yes. Drop into a screaming dive over a meadow, yes. But she always pulls up, talons never rake forward, blood is never spilled.
There are lines that shouldn't be crossed when you're lonely and scared and so angry you'd be trembling even without the cold.
Morphing sounds simple. The reality is annoyingly complicated.
Focusing on the shape needed is generally easy enough. It's not hard to remember what her human body looks like when she's ready to go back to it. It's not hard to envision the eagle when she wants her wings. And when acquiring? There is not better motivation to concentrate than with a hand pressed into a live grizzly bear's shoulder.
The process is disgusting. Rachel doesn't often worry about it, after so much time developing her skill, knowing that the shapes and sounds that result from it are nothing to be concerned about. But limbs shoot out and bones crack into place and fur and hair and feathers and thick hides pop into existence. To say nothing of compound eyes.
Even that is of little concern. A part of a necessary process. Over quickly and easily ignored.
The hard part is the exhaustion.
Whether it's the mental effort or the body's way of complaining about all the shifting around, multiple morphs in a day drain the energy drastically. The closer together they are, the worse. Three morphs in an hour is hard. Four is torture. More and it's a miracle if demorphing can be managed without a rush of adrenaline.
But that was never much lacked for.
Fly. Hour and a half. Demorph. Remorph. Fly. Hour and a half. Demorph. Remorph.
The sun is high in the sky when Rachel comes in for another landing in a tall tree and misses her mark.
Only the talons of one leg catch the bark, with the effect of swinging her body around like an episode of Looney Toons and slamming her, beak-first, into the trunk. The sensation is entirely too familiar, though at least when she falls, there are still talons caught in the bark. It gives her time to reorient herself, to squash the panicking mind of the eagle and figure it out for herself. It takes some flapping, some wriggling, but she frees her talons and soars (or 'gracefully falls,' maybe) to the ground, to the snow.
The demorph is shaky and a little slow. But the next one, standing in the bare protection of her morphing suit, snow up to her knees, is quick.
Rachel's halfway to wolf before she realizes her choice of the new shape. And by then, fur is sprouting from her toes to her nose and it's thick and warm and good enough.
She can always go back to the sky. And maybe the forest won't seem so empty.
It's getting dark.
How many times has she morphed today? What would Jake say if he knew she spent an entire day in morph?
...probably nothing. Who would catch her here? Who would care if they saw her change her shape at will? Who would bat an eye?
She pauses on the edge of the forest, breathing hard from her run. Milliways Bar in the distance, just a quick run across field and lake.
She lifts her head, nose high, and lets the wolf sniff the wind and analyze the smells. She doesn't need scent at the moment - just sight. Four stories up, there's a balcony with wide open doors.
She runs to a hill first, a notably steep incline. Flapping off the ground is hard enough without snow. And it's still difficult this way, partly due to her waning energy, partly because snow and sinking into it and having to flap hard in the way no bird of prey enjoys or is particularly good at.
But she makes it up, airborne and diving through trees until she can get above them. Soaring over the lake as the sun sinks and the stars begin to shine. Reaching her balcony.
Talons close over the railing and she hops down the rest of the way.
Demorphs, slow and deliberate, then takes her first shaky steps inside and forces the doors closed.
Looks around and simply stares, stupid, at the mess.
Granted, she hadn't been thinking much of anything this morning. But Rachel lets out a few choice curses at the snow drifts that had once been her couch, end table, and chair before she'd left the balcony open all day.
In fifty years, maybe Rachel will feel that way.
It's been two months since her last morph. She's been human from the moment she stepped into Milliways. But on this frozen early-morning when she finally called up her wings and took to the sky, she felt another mind bubbling up beneath her own and welcomed it. The eagle knows how to fly. It doesn't need her help. And that calm utter confidence in the predator's mind was so comfortable to sink into. Like coming home.
So much better than bored and fretful and awkward and irritable.
Three years. And even if only a small fraction of it required her to count the minutes herself, Rachel can still make a decent guess at how much time has passed. Even riding backseat to the eagle, letting it soar and climb deep into the forest, heading for the mountains, the rocks and water the eagle craves.
Near to an hour and a half, she takes the wheel again. Forces a circle and land in the sturdy limbs of a bare tree. Talons sink into the soft bark and hold her in place.
It's a good thirty feet off the ground, but it's better than the three feet of snow on the ground.
Demorphing is quick, hurried - like the remorph that follows. She has to lie awkwardly, situated between two branches to make sure her twisting body doesn't fall but she gets her wings again - and talons, too.
The mind and wings are a familiar comfort and there's the draw to make them home, powerful like the pulsing beat of her own heart. But she isn't ready for that yet.
Not now. Not the eagle.
She drops from the branch, catches the air in her feathers, and soars.
She does not, it should be noted, allow the eagle to hunt. Scan for prey, yes. Look through the ice of the lake, yes. Drop into a screaming dive over a meadow, yes. But she always pulls up, talons never rake forward, blood is never spilled.
There are lines that shouldn't be crossed when you're lonely and scared and so angry you'd be trembling even without the cold.
Morphing sounds simple. The reality is annoyingly complicated.
Focusing on the shape needed is generally easy enough. It's not hard to remember what her human body looks like when she's ready to go back to it. It's not hard to envision the eagle when she wants her wings. And when acquiring? There is not better motivation to concentrate than with a hand pressed into a live grizzly bear's shoulder.
The process is disgusting. Rachel doesn't often worry about it, after so much time developing her skill, knowing that the shapes and sounds that result from it are nothing to be concerned about. But limbs shoot out and bones crack into place and fur and hair and feathers and thick hides pop into existence. To say nothing of compound eyes.
Even that is of little concern. A part of a necessary process. Over quickly and easily ignored.
The hard part is the exhaustion.
Whether it's the mental effort or the body's way of complaining about all the shifting around, multiple morphs in a day drain the energy drastically. The closer together they are, the worse. Three morphs in an hour is hard. Four is torture. More and it's a miracle if demorphing can be managed without a rush of adrenaline.
But that was never much lacked for.
Fly. Hour and a half. Demorph. Remorph. Fly. Hour and a half. Demorph. Remorph.
The sun is high in the sky when Rachel comes in for another landing in a tall tree and misses her mark.
Only the talons of one leg catch the bark, with the effect of swinging her body around like an episode of Looney Toons and slamming her, beak-first, into the trunk. The sensation is entirely too familiar, though at least when she falls, there are still talons caught in the bark. It gives her time to reorient herself, to squash the panicking mind of the eagle and figure it out for herself. It takes some flapping, some wriggling, but she frees her talons and soars (or 'gracefully falls,' maybe) to the ground, to the snow.
The demorph is shaky and a little slow. But the next one, standing in the bare protection of her morphing suit, snow up to her knees, is quick.
Rachel's halfway to wolf before she realizes her choice of the new shape. And by then, fur is sprouting from her toes to her nose and it's thick and warm and good enough.
She can always go back to the sky. And maybe the forest won't seem so empty.
It's getting dark.
How many times has she morphed today? What would Jake say if he knew she spent an entire day in morph?
...probably nothing. Who would catch her here? Who would care if they saw her change her shape at will? Who would bat an eye?
She pauses on the edge of the forest, breathing hard from her run. Milliways Bar in the distance, just a quick run across field and lake.
She lifts her head, nose high, and lets the wolf sniff the wind and analyze the smells. She doesn't need scent at the moment - just sight. Four stories up, there's a balcony with wide open doors.
She runs to a hill first, a notably steep incline. Flapping off the ground is hard enough without snow. And it's still difficult this way, partly due to her waning energy, partly because snow and sinking into it and having to flap hard in the way no bird of prey enjoys or is particularly good at.
But she makes it up, airborne and diving through trees until she can get above them. Soaring over the lake as the sun sinks and the stars begin to shine. Reaching her balcony.
Talons close over the railing and she hops down the rest of the way.
Demorphs, slow and deliberate, then takes her first shaky steps inside and forces the doors closed.
Looks around and simply stares, stupid, at the mess.
Granted, she hadn't been thinking much of anything this morning. But Rachel lets out a few choice curses at the snow drifts that had once been her couch, end table, and chair before she'd left the balcony open all day.