4Summary: A perfectly normal werepanther girl runs a perfectly normal, if somewhat messed up life, until she runs into people whose idea of perfectly normal is rather incompatible with hers. By then there is no going back.
My life had always been something of a mess, but it was quickly turning into something even more confused. After an embarrassing incident drove me from my childhood home, I moved to a cabin in the woods some distance from my home town, and had been doing odd jobs for a while.
My current job as a carrier in the market was keeping me incredibly busy, as I struggled to make a good impression in order to keep it for a change. My back was complaining almost daily of its mistreatment, but I did not feel comfortable enough to ask for lighter loads quite yet.
To top it off, a few days ago a promising relationship - one that I had managed to entertain for almost a month already - ended with him deciding that I'm too engaged with my work to be a partner. At this point I was quite ready to declare my life to be an official disaster area.
The next morning, I found a letter on the table of my little cabin. It had apparently gotten there somehow past all the bolts on my door. I opened it, and only got more confused: "We know your secret. It is past time for you to be reunited with your own kind. Fill in the information requested below and leave the letter on your table."
To anyone else reading the letter, it might have seemed just a strange joke. The list included questions like "What is your clan?" next to the slightly more normal questions of parentage and suchlike. But I grew worried at it, and by the time I got to the final question, I was certain that the letter was no joke: "How much time do you spend in form, and how often?"
I was getting late from work, so I hid the letter carefully, lest any other unwanted visitors spot it, and left. I could hardly concentrate on working, and kept listening in on all conversations around me, almost convinced that word of my little incident had reached this remote village as well.
My secret? I am a werepanther – you know, a creature from fairy tales! I cannot remember a time when I could not change into a panther. I found out relatively early that it was not something I should do in public, however. No one ever talked about any other people changing into things, so driven by my curiosity, I'd rummage through the library of my home town and find old texts about werewolves and vampires. Needless to say, I ended up rather convinced that my kind is not too popular in the world.
I had been living in a relatively secluded house with my somewhat strange aunt Millie. When she once saw me in panther form, she screamed and ran off, after which I decided to stick to being human whenever she or anyone else could see me.
Once it was time for me to go get some schooling, I was already well-prepared for a life full of secrecy. I always snuck far away from people to change, and stayed away until I was ready to come back.
It felt good, being a panther; it was nothing like the tortured and forced change at full moon that the werewolf writings were going on about. I felt the strength and freedom of the panther me was in some ways present in my everyday life as well.
My embarrassing little incident involved a friend who followed me one time, out of curiosity. She saw me enter a cave and then watched a content, full-grown panther come out some time later, with no trace of me left beyond some dried-up blood at the back of the cave from my earlier nightly travels...
I spotted the smell of the unexpected visitor when I was heading back, and barely missed the group of hunters that my thoroughly loyal friend had brought to track down me, as the horrible beast, and thereby to avenge my assumed death, as the girl known as Otter. I fled the town in the quiet of night, not even daring to stop to gather my belongings.
Until now, I had been rather certain that people would just think me dead, and not suspect that I was a shapeshifter. But who could know my secret, and then come demand this strange sort of information from me?
For a few days, I was exhausted enough coming back from work that I simply did not feel like I could face the letter again. It almost felt like it had been a dream. Then I suddenly had half a day free, due to an expected delivery failing to arrive. When I got home, I decided I should finally do something about this strange ghost from my past. I have to admit I was almost a bit disappointed to find out that the letter had not vanished like a dream during its wait.
I sat down by the table gingerly, to avoid annoying my poor, strained back, and began to fill out the information. I could not for the life of me figure out what some of the questions meant. When I was a child, I had occasionally pondered if my aunt was really related to me or not, but I was not aware of being a member of any "clan". Maybe werepantherism was the curse of some ancient noble family? The thought was not completely unpleasant. But in that case, would the question of clans mean that there were so many people with the same condition that they needed to be arranged into clans within that family? This sounded extremely unlikely; it would be expected that more of us would get caught and become conversation items.
I hid the letter again, deciding that the final few questions would require more thought. I moved to arrange dinner instead, but found myself idly pondering how much more rewarding it would be to go hunt in the woods. The letter's questions had managed to touch something within me that I almost had pushed away, while scrambling to be distracted by everything and anything else.
I suddenly felt eyes on me and turned. There was a huge black hound staring at me intently through the window. Its yellow eyes glinted with malicious intellect, and for a while I could only stare at it in horror. Then I realized that a mere window would not hold the hound back, and that I would have to defend myself.
I began to change into a panther. As my mind began to fuzz over momentarily to adjust to the new body, I retreated to the corner furthest from the window. All my aches and discomfort faded away, to be replaced by the expectation of a fight for my life. The knot that had formed in my stomach at the sight of the hound turned into anticipation as the panther me took over.
When I opened my new eyes, the hound had disappeared from the window. I remembered I had left the door unbolted until I would go to sleep. The hound was just stepping through it. I was more confident of my chances in this more capable form, and leaped at the hound with a ferocious growl.
There probably were a few things that one could say I certainly was not expecting. I had seen an ominous glint of intelligence in the hound's eyes that certainly put me on my guard. Even then, I was taken aback by the mind-boggling strangeness of what followed. One of these things was the sheer speed at which the hound moved. My eyes, usually excellent for tracking movement, could not keep up with the beast! When I tried to turn to face my strange foe again, it suddenly slammed into me with bone-breaking momentum. We rolled on the floor, a mess of claws, teeth and fur, and when the ground stood still again, I found myself pinned down.
The hound growled, "Yield, or I'll tear open your throat!" I was so stunned by the words that the teeth around my throat were not really necessary to make me stop struggling at once. I was furiously trying to decide what to make of the situation, when the hound stood up and continued, in a more human-like tone: "Now why did you attack me like that? And why didn't you answer me?"
My ears turned back in shocked disbelief. I rolled to lie on my legs and get my belly-side safely against the floor. "You were staring at me like I was dinner! Don't even try to tell me you're here just to welcome me into the neighbourhood."
The hound sat down on its hind legs, and I could have sworn it was chuckling. "Honestly, girl, you must have a serious impairment in people-reading. How long have you been living like this?"
I wrinkled my face. "Like what?" It suddenly felt inappropriate to be using any human-like expressions, but the situation just made me want to roll my eyes. Instead, my tail twitched nervously from side to side.
"Like a human! Haven't you heard of civilization? You're really a pushover for being a panther, too. I wouldn't be surprised if rabbits outwitted you."
I resisted a nearly overwhelming temptation to furiously start cleaning my fur. Most of his words weren't making any sense, but the comment about rabbits did strike a sore spot. I had not dared to hunt freely in ages, and rabbits had never been that easy to catch.
I decided it was time to change the subject. "You didn't tell me why you are here."
The hound lolled his tongue, and for a moment managed to look somewhat less feral despite its size and its black fur that looked like it had seen more dense woods than combs of any kind. "I'm Kariya, and I'm here to call you to the tests." Seeing my totally blank look, he continued slowly, "The tests to determine how you could best serve the shifter community. Honestly, where are your parents? How did you make it this far while remaining so ignorant?"
My ears pulled back again, and I felt my hackles rise. "My parents are really none of your business," I growled, "but I was raised by my aunt Millie and I've never seen a talking animal in my life. I haven't even tried talking myself; unlike you, I know I shouldn't be able to. Why aren't you growling and barking? Or are you claiming I understand you even though you are? I can see your lips aren't really moving, but I can hear your voice."
Kariya stood up and partially turned his back at me, dismissively. "Cub, I'm talking human at you, because apparently you are incapable of understanding real speech. Now get your act together and follow me, and I'll give you a few examples of the tests we'll have for you tomorrow."
I pondered stating exactly how interested I was in taking some stupid test for entry in the crazy talking-animals club. However, I figured I might as well humour the hound in order to be left alone for the rest of the day.
After we had snuck a little deeper into the woods, Kariya had me demonstrate how fast I could climb a tree, and how high I could leap, after which he raced me for a few distances. Despite my severe lack of faith in the sensibility of the activity itself, I felt quite liberated from seeking my limits for my own sake, not to mention I immensely enjoyed the long-awaited time as panther. When Kariya told me he had seen enough for the day, I felt a bit disappointed in my ability. My tail drooped, and I dropped my head down. Kariya cocked his head at me, and I wondered in passing what kind of a stream of mockery I'd have to endure at the end of the session. To my surprise, there was no sarcasm in his tone.
"There'll be more testing tomorrow. Don't worry, we'll find your strengths and weaknesses to assign you a place in the community."
I sniffed the air. "We've got a slight problem there. I have to work tomorrow." This mysterious community would hardly be able to pay me wages for jumping up and down or climbing trees, and I couldn't live on raw meat for the rest of my life - at least I was pretty sure I couldn't. In addition, the stories of werewolves said that you could lose yourself if you stayed in form for too long; I didn't want that to happen, no matter how much fun panthering around could occasionally be.
Kariya snorted. "Work? Ignore that, it's an utter waste of time."
I decided not to argue the point; how do you make a mystical creature understand life in the real world, anyway? I would have to find time eventually to get to know this community the hound - Kariya, I corrected myself - kept talking about, but right now I had a life filled with more pressing matters to think about.
I bid him good night and got back to my house, this time taking more care to check that no one would see me arrive. Once inside, I crept into a corner almost invisible from the outside, and changed back.
The dull ache in my back immediately returned, and I was so overwhelmed by the change for a moment that I could only sit down on the floor. For a moment, I was rather tempted by the idea of living a crazy life as a talking animal, but then reason overcame the pain and I got back to thinking rationally.
I changed out of my day clothes, went to sleep and had a truly disturbing dream about not managing to calm down aunt Millie, who was on the verge of fainting at the sight of a panther in her living room. It did not help that I was just about as bewildered as the old lady. No matter how I shouted, my words could not reach her. I woke up feeling horribly frustrated, but could not remember why.
For the next few days, I had to work long hours due to being slowed down by the unyielding pain in my back. I tried to avoid putting too much load on it, and the carefulness made me need more time to do everything. Luckily, my employer did not seem to pay that close attention to the timing of my work, as long as the job got done.
One night, when I was heading back from work well after sunset, I almost walked into a night-black hound in front of my door. In the poor light, I could only hope the hound was Kariya; it let out a low growl that made me suddenly feel very vulnerable in my human form.
"Kariya? Is that you?" I realized that even if it were Kariya, I had no idea what he was up to. The hound repeated the ominous growl when I took a few slow, careful steps towards it. "Kariya - I really, really hope it's you - would you please let me go in? It's cold, I can barely see you and you're scaring me witless."
The hound made a sound somewhere between a snort and a bark, but when I got closer, it stepped aside enough to let me slip in. It followed me through the door, and I bumped into it when groping around for light.
When I could finally see again, I was reasonably convinced that the hound was Kariya. It certainly had a similar knack for staring at me unnervingly. I pulled out a chair and sat on it, to which Kariya responded by another low growl.
"Kariya, I must assume you're pissed off about something, but it would be a lot better if you'd just talk to me. I'm sorry I told you I think it's impossible, alright? I can't help you if you won't tell me what's wrong." A horrifying thought passed my mind: maybe he had spent too much time as a hound now, and had forgotten how to speak. Maybe he wasn't even thinking any more, and had wandered here out of instinct only. Strangely enough, I was quite convinced that my memory of hearing him talk previously was no dream or hallucination. Being strange yourself makes it easier to accept some strangeness in others as well.
He grabbed my pant leg with his teeth and yanked it. I felt relatively certain he was not indicating that the next yank would be at my leg, but I put my foot down. "Kariya, I'm not going anywhere with you if you don't start talking. I'd like to trust that you're sane and all, but I'm rather worried that you've lost yourself in form. And if you're going crazy, I'd just rather have you go crazy here." The thought of possibly getting killed from Kariya going berserk seemed a touch more endurable indoors than outside in the dark and cold of the night.
The hound let go of my leg and shook itself all over. Then it started to shimmer, as if a cloud of another reality formed around it. I stared at it for a moment, then realized that this might be what I looked like when shifting. At least I sincerely hoped he was shapeshifting and not exploding, fading or whatever other things runaway magic could undoubtedly do to you.
When the shimmering stopped, a man dressed in somewhat woodsy wear stood before me. I'll underline that he was dressed; this did not come as a particular surprise to me, since I knew I held on to my own clothes whenever shifting, but it was something I had occasionally wondered about - the werewolf stories involved dropping or tearing any clothing, after all. These thoughts aside, if I said he looked handsome, at least half of it could just as well come from the infinite relief that I was dealing with a person and not a soon-to-go-feral beast.
His features did suffer a bit from the thoroughly exasperated expression on his face. "Honestly, girl, I swear I get more response from yelling at rocks! Change back to panther, and stop this obtuseness, or I'll haul you to the council in a sack!"
I have to admit that I have trouble talking back to a big dog, while a full-grown man who has had his teeth on my throat the last time we've had a conversation is even somewhat more authoritative. I stood up hurriedly, almost fell down on my knees from the sharp pain in my back, and promptly pushed the pain aside to focus on shifting. Kariya watched me for a moment, then began to shimmer again and shifted back to a hound himself.
My pain melted away, but I was still somewhat troubled. I would have preferred him to remain a human and was about to summon the courage to comment on it, when I heard his voice in my head again, clear as day. "Out we go, we have a lot of ground to cover tonight."
I followed him out, but when I looked at the door, wondering how to bolt it, he nudged at me. "No more delays; the house is the least of your worries right now." I followed him meekly, as he turned and dashed off into the woods.
Had I imagined that the words we exchanged moved through our mouths somehow, the opposite became quite obvious when I realized I could go on speaking without gasping for air while straining to keep up with Kariya's speed. I always thought of myself more as a sprinter than a long-range runner, while he seemed capable to go on running like this for all eternity like it was nowhere near his peak performance.
Questions like "Where are we going?", "Could we slow down a bit, my lungs are burning?" and "What about my job?" bubbled in my mind, but I kept them to myself. Kariya might be a crazy talking animal, but the look he had given me back in the cabin convinced me that I should keep running if I did not want to get literally stuffed into a sack. The more convenient options which did not include a total disruption of my old life were simply out of the question.
Instead, I thought out loud: "Kariya, I'm sorry I didn't come to get tested the other day." I had a dozen good reasons for it, and I could have recited them, but I was rather convinced this was not the time.
I couldn't turn my head to watch for any facial expressions, but I think he sighed. "It's really too late to feel sorry for it now, but for my part, I'm sorry as well."
"What do you mean?" I knew he was not apologizing for tearing me out of my cabin into the night now.
"When I came back the next day to find you gone, I intended to wait until you came back and drag you with me. But something came up, and I couldn't stay." He slowed down just enough for my burning lungs to adjust to the steady running rhythm again. I took it for a sympathetic gesture, and was grateful for it. "I should have sent someone for you," he continued, "but I got... distracted, and it slipped my mind."
I had an ominous feeling that he was not talking about any small "distraction", but I let it go. His tone had been grave enough throughout that this did not seem to be the most pressing of concerns at the moment. "I'm not sure I should ask, but I'm in some kind of trouble, aren't I."
He almost chuckled. "You thought that up all by yourself, now?"
"You keep assuming this is all obvious to me," I bristled.
He made a small sound of agreement. "There are certain rules, and I think you have managed to break quite a few in your ignorance. After you failed to show up to the tests as well, the council decided that it was time to make a warning example out of you."
I did not like the sound of this, and furiously wondered how far this mysterious council was intending to go to make its point.
"It does not help that you happen to be descended from a rogue clan that is apparently deep enough in decadence by now to have abandoned a cub to isolation." He let out a growl, and it wasn't coming from his hound mouth.
I was so stunned I almost stumbled before I managed to separate the rhythm of my running from the jumble in my thoughts. "Abandoned? You know who my parents are?"
"No, I don't, but they're panthers." He paused, maybe to adjust to my lack of comprehension again. "We don't cross-breed."
I had not given the question of offspring the slightest thought. But come to think of it, if he was a dog and I was a panther, there could be other animals out there. The question about clans suddenly seemed to make more sense, if parentage determined the form we could take. There was something peculiar here, however, and the puzzle seemed to provide a distraction from worrying about the faceless council that awaited. "But... if everyone can turn human, isn't there bound to be, um, accidents at least?"
I think Kariya missed a step at my question, but I may have imagined it. "Yes, it's possible. But the offspring is cursed, unable to enter its real body and doomed to a half-life of isolation as a human. Few are so overcome with lust that they do not stop to think about the consequences."
"Isolation? You herd these children to be caged somewhere?" I hoped I had misunderstood. "This sounds rather harsh."
"You tell me; you've lived with them all your life."
I blinked. "You mean... aunt Millie?"
"No, silly cub, I mean that the sorry souls you've lived with are either the result of horrible mistakes by their parents, or the offspring of such. Their numbers are growing, and they are happy to forget about their curse among each other, but it does not take away the fact that they are broken, stuck with a single body. Just because some people somewhere in the past failed to think about consequences." His tone was bitter, but then lightened up a bit. "So, you understand why we're so anxious to pull in poor lost souls like you, to be properly trained and taught?"
I was not so sure. "What I don't understand is why you first take so long to contact me in the first place, and then all of a sudden there's this horrible rush."
I felt a wave of frustration from Kariya. "From the point of view of everyone else, you're the one who's been ignoring the constant call. You have been hiding in the shadows. The call is not that easy to ignore, in or out of form."
"You've been calling me?" I was incredulous. How I had searched for any signs of others like me back in my home town! I would have jumped at an invitation from anyone, if it held any promise of finding out what I was.
"We call out to everyone; it was not directed at you in particular. We only started to focus on you separately when you wandered in out of nowhere."
I could have told him that it should not be that easy to miss an entire town, but it seemed that he might have a personal issue with human communities, so I decided to focus on other things. "Why the letter, then? If you don't consider the human form the real one of the two, why deliver me something only usable in that form?"
He mumbled something about experts on human handling, but I missed what it was exactly. Right then, a clearing was opening before us, and it was filled with animals. When we arrived, it seemed that everyone stopped what they were doing and turned their eyes, ears or both at us. I sorely wanted to turn and flee, but there was no way out of this. The fur standing on end on my neck and tail must have made me look like an oversized kitten more than a panther, but I was acutely aware of being the only one of my kind in the entire clearing. Kariya's words about a "rogue clan" rang in my head.
There was some movement at the other end of the clearing, and Kariya urged me towards it. I obliged, with unsteady steps both from the run here and the staggering amount of attention directed at me. The relative silence was eerie; I suspected that if I was deaf to what these people considered normal talk, this must have been the first good thing to come out of it. I really preferred not to hear what kind of talk my arrival might have generated; it was hard enough to fathom that this group of predators and herbivores, pack animals and solitary creatures all in one big mix had gathered at one place for a rational purpose. How on earth could they do all this without any humans noticing that there was more to these creatures than met the eye?
I was still gaping at my surroundings when I heard a rustling and my attention was drawn to to a handful of creatures standing separate from everyone else. I was also partially outside the crowd, as if on stage - or like someone with a contagious disease.
I looked around and saw Kariya being escorted aside. It looked ominous, and I remembered how he sounded so grim about not leading me to the tests. Things connected in my head: I was not the only one being judged here! I shouted at the top of my lungs, not knowing if I'd even be heard: "Don't take him away! I am the cause of the trouble, don't punish him for what I've done!" With that, I prepared to run to him.
"SIT." Kariya boomed; his growl made my ears turn back, and I noticed I had sat on my heels before I even had time to consider it. "You are not helping yourself."
I sensed a sudden turn of attention from me to Kariya and back. No words reached me, but I could feel a strange buzz in the air. Kariya would not look at me, he seemed to be busy focusing on the group that looked like judges.
Another voice croaked in my head; it was shaky, as if seldom used. "Why do you not answer when spoken to?"
I was confused, but less so than I would have been a day before. "I'm very sorry, it appears that I cannot hear you most of the time. You are the first voice I've heard here besides Kariya's."
A third voice joined, this one stronger. "Lies! You claim to be deaf, but you heard him fine just now. Are you wilfully ignoring us?"
The bombardment was overwhelming. I looked at Kariya for help, but he said nothing for a moment. Then, after a pause that seemed like forever, Kariya spoke to me, or growled: "Get down. NOW."
I hit the ground without thinking. I was brimming with questions, but only dared to open my mouth for one: "What is going on?"
Finally, Kariya spoke so that I could hear. "Uh huh. I've seen this thrice, now. It seems that sometimes I get through to her when I have her full attention; at all other times, she has been as responsive as a wall of stone. I do not think anyone could be this selective by choice, let alone an untrained cub." His voice was amused; that heartless bastard was laughing at me, and making sure I knew about it. Even if it were to defend me, I wanted to give him just one good slap.
My ears twitched nervously; the conversation had moved away to where I could not hear it again. Every now and then, someone dropped a question at me, like "Have you had any contact with others of your clan?" or "Where did you live before coming here?" or "How much time have you spent in human form?", and whatever I answered, a silence followed as the questioners discussed it.
It ended as strangely as it started. A strange wave of hush passed through the clearing, and the group of judges scattered again. Apparently I was not the only reason everyone was here, since the crowd was not dispersing anywhere; I made a mental note to ask about that later, should there be a later.
To my relief, the one with the fragile voice told me I was Kariya's charge now, since he "seems to be a good influence". I was more than happy to swear on my honour and a bunch of other things that I would be good, do as I'm told and take his teachings to heart. That is, right after I'd punch him proper for laughing at me. They didn't need to know that.
Author's Note (updated): I'm at the moment working on a "historical" prequel to this story, What Really Happened, which might give some idea of how shifters work; I have a plan to get back to this one afterwards. Yeah, this first chapter is a cold shower to understanding the world, but I thought that starting out with the arcane biology book on the topic of how the world works would be a major bore. I'll switch point-of-view to third person in the next chapter and start filling in the blanks. (But in case you're furiously wondering: yeah, her name's Otter, and she pretty much looks like it. We'll get to that too.) For some acute help against disorientation, I pasted the story summary to the start too. Any ideas on sneaking in reader helpers without violating the first-person mode or otherwise dropping into flow-wrecking exposition are welcome. :) While at it, I incorporated changes based on the very helpful reports from gigglebug and my fantastic offline beta reader FB.
Oh, and if you now feel you want to go around shapeshifting into a panther as badly as I do, you want to start up a character on the text-based role-playing game known as Ancient Anguish (anguish dot org). That's pretty much where this dream came from. As well as the dream with the mad king of opossums. But that's quite literally another story. Sorry about the shameless plug! O:)