The Fae World: Quindil: Whittaker: Magical Changes
If we hadn’t wanted the humans to know what had happened they wouldn’t. It really is as simple as that. Those who truly understand us know that it’s true, but those who don’t… well, they still want to believe that they have some control over the world they live on, and won’t accept that it faded away with the arrival of the griffins. When the griffins came they brought magic with them, or caused it to blossom in this world as it hadn’t before, which changed us as well, although that isn’t something any of us are going to complain about. Not the way the humans do, anyway, because there are so many of them who aren’t at all happy with what’s happened, and don’t seem to be able to come to terms with the fact that everything has already happened. Even if they’d known what was coming there was no chance of them being able to stop it from happening in the first place, as they never would have been able to stop the griffins from travelling here.
Some of the humans wanted to own the griffins - saw them as status symbols, as pets that could be shown off to their friends, and proved very quickly that they had no understand of what it was that had stepped onto our world. To begin with we didn’t either, but they chose to talk to us. We didn’t try to capture them, the way that the humans did, although there were about four of the griffin couples who originally arrived here that chose to let the humans own them, for a little while, because they were searching for someone. It isn’t something they talked to us about much, because they had different priorities.
They had to prepare us for the changes that were going to happen. I’m glad they did, although it isn’t something that happened to all the animals here, just the ones who were already close to the humans - the dogs, the cats, the rabbits, and all the other creatures they thought of as pets. Some, of course, treated us better than others. When it happened it was those we already trusted that we chose to talk to, because we hoped they would be able to cope with the changes that the magic had caused. Fortunately there were a lot of people who did, although it took us all a while to convince them that we were talking to them and it wasn’t them going insane, but eventually we did.
Of course then there were those people who viewed us as status symbols too. Nothing was simple any more, for us or for them, and we had to work out how to deal with that. The griffins chose to help us, during the time they spent searching for that someone, but we were certain that once they found whoever it was they’d abandon us, so we were prepared for the day when it happened. It took them years of searching as it was, which gave us plenty of time, and when they had we were certain that they would focus entirely on themselves, on what needed to be done to make the griffins strong one more. They didn’t.
Even though the majority chose, after a long court battle in which the griffins got themselves, and us, the legal right to call ourselves a race. The griffins, of course, were the griffins, while for us it was a more difficult decision. All of the new animal races works slightly differently, so we each decided we wanted a name. The dogs because the pack, the cats became the pride, we became the collective… which means I have come to the point where I need to tell you what I am. I am a rabbit, a member of the collective, and an ambassador to both the pride and the pack. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why we chose to call ourselves the collective.
As I mentioned before the magic affected each of us differently. For the dogs and the cats things were pretty simple. The littler creatures had it slightly more difficult. When I say littler creatures I mean us, the guinea pigs, the gerbils, the hamsters, the chinchillas, the degus, and all the other small animals that people like to keep as pets. Before we realised quite how much the magic had changed us we all had very short lives, during which we made the best of being kept in cages and brought out every so often to be petted, because just having someone there to care about us made life a little better. Once the magic made us… I want to say sentient, but we were always conscious, it was just a different type to you humans. It was more that we become more aware of what we were and what it meant that we were different.
So, for safety, we all gathered together, and called ourselves the collective. Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses, and we also have help from members of the pride, who accept our help in return. The most obvious difficulties are between the pride and the pack, but that’s something they’re learning to work around, and we’re a part of that, because of who we are. Sometimes it’s difficult for the mice and the pride to get along, but we’re so different now to what we were before. It’s really hard to describe, to be honest, and right now I’m not going to try. Maybe in the future, when I’m better at putting my thoughts down on paper.
Now you’re probably wondering how I’m writing this. Well, before, there was a technology that permitted someone’s speech to become words on the screen of a computer. It didn’t always work well, but now that we’ve adapted it to work for us and for the griffins it’s used to get our thoughts from our mind onto paper. Part of it isn’t really technology though, it’s magic, because it is possible to use magic and technology together, as long as you’re careful. The fae, who the griffins once lived with, never could, but that was due to the way they… work, for want of a better phrase. We’re very different to the fae when it comes to the way our bodies use magic, so it’s simpler for us to do something with technological magic than it would be for them. Which is exactly how I’m writing this now.
The question then becomes whether I should be? We’ve all taken a step away from the humans, for now, and I’m hoping that they will begin to understand what we are because I’ve chosen to tell them more about what we have become. Really they should have begun to understand, but nothing that has happened recently has been easy for them to deal with. First they had the arrival of the griffins - creatures they didn’t believe existed and that changed things, more than I think anyone realised it could, due to their magic. As I wasn’t born then I don’t know what it was like, although I’ve heard stories, that makes me feel a little sorry for them. Mostly, though, I’m angry at them for assuming that they could simply take control of the griffins because they assumed that the creatures they’d found out about couldn’t possibly be anything more than animals.
It took a while for them to find out how wrong they were, but once the griffins had found the person they were hunting for… well, it was almost funny how quickly things changed then. Then they took the steps they were always planning on taking, at the right time, when they had someone to fight for them, and having someone to fight for them also gave them the chance to fight for us as well. Having them on our side was one of the best things that could have happened, so I will always be grateful to them, even though then I wasn’t as much as a thought in my mother’s mind, because she hadn’t been born then either. One of the things that didn’t change for a long time was how we bred, until we realised how much the magic had actually changed us.
Before we were hunted by humans, by foxes, by some cats and dogs, but now we’re different. The griffins have told us that it will be a slow process, as it was for them, and until it’s finished we won’t be certain how many changes we’ll actually be going through. So far we have much longer life spans, in comparison to how long they were before, because we don’t have the same purpose. Before a pet was to teach humans how to love and how to lose, but we don’t feel like pets any longer. Well, the majority of us don’t. A minority still wish for things to be the way they were, even though they have no idea what it was like to be one of those creatures, because they aren’t them. They are changed by magic.
Even though I sometimes wish I knew what life was like back then I am glad to be who I am. Life then sounds like it was very difficult, especially for those with the shortest lives, and I am grateful that they have the chance to live for longer. I’m not going to compare though, because living with magic probably isn’t really any easier. We just have problems to deal with that they wouldn’t have known, especially as they were never thought of as people, the way we are. Now we have to follow the same laws as everyone else, which makes a cat hunting a mouse and killing it murder, which it wouldn’t have been in the old way. It would have just been nature.
So, there are advantages and disadvantages to what’s happened. I will write more about what laws we have to follow and how careful we have to be, for your understanding, but the longer I spend writing this the more certain I am that I’m making a huge mistake. How can I teach you what it’s like to be one of us when there are times when I’m not even certain? I feel like the longer we are in this limbo, where we’re learning how to live with humans again as equals, I guess, instead of creatures that they owned, the more confused I am. Do I ever want to work with humans? I know the pack does. They miss their humans, which is understandable as they were always closer than we were. As much as we were loved we were also apart.
For the dogs, and the cats, it was different. They lived within the house, would almost be treated like family, and we were more like pets. Some people viewed us as little more than food, the rabbits that is, because they hunted our kind in the wild. Now we are the wild kind, although we were once house pets, so they don’t really know what to do with us, although they know that if they hunted us once more they would be arrested for murder. I’m certain that’s something that isn’t going to stop them, not if that’s something they really want to do, in the same way that it isn’t a problem for humans who really want to hurt another one of their own race. Fortunately we can fight back.
That is one of the huge advantages of having magic. If the humans want to hunt us they have to get past the wards first and that isn’t an easy job, before getting past the sentries who have all been training to use offensive magic by the griffins. We’ve been safe since we set up this warren, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be complacent. A time of change is coming, the griffins have said, one much like the time when they changed the world before, and we need to be ready for it.
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.