[FUR] AFiW: A Change to Four (2/2)

[Fox Cutter]

"It's good that you worked it out yourself. You physical
therapist wanted you to see a psychologist."

She blanched at the idea. Romana had never liked the family
therapist, and was glad to avoid a visit to him.

Adric smiled a bit and stood up, looking back at the table
where she had spent most of the day. "You moved yourself all
the way over here?" he asked, a bit of surprise coloring his
voice.

The lioness nodded her head as she unwrapped one of the
hamburgers, tearing into it with zeal. She hardly took the
time to chew the food before gulping it down.

He shook his head, a smile crossing his face as he reached
out and ran a hand down her flank. "Did you actually walk?"

Shaking her head, she made a worm like movement with her
finger. Her muzzle was far too full to allow her talk at
that moment.

"It's more than you've done in quite a while. I think you're
going to master this yet," he said.

She nodded, and then gulped down the last of the first
hamburger. "I could use some water," she said.

Adric hurried to retrieve a glass of water for her, handing
it to her as she started on her second burger. "When you're
ready, I'll get you to bed."

"Thank you," she said again before retuning to her food.
This time she went slowly, to better savor the taste of the
burgers. She had no idea where he had gone to get them; they
weren't something you could find on Prid, but she was
thankful he had made the trip, even if it was out of guilt.

She thought as she ate, turning ideas around in her mind.
That day, whatever it's many problems, had been one of her
best since she had been soul sick. If only because she had a
simple drive to get herself moving. Something that she
hadn't had before, when she had just been angry at her
Father.

Now she was angry at herself, but that anger could be shaped
into something constructive. Including some of the things
she had been avoiding.

"Tomorrow, I think we should try some of the water
practices," Romana said between mouthfuls.

He looked a bit surprised at this. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," she replied, almost meaning it. She had hated
her time in the pool, it was too small for her form. They
now had the lake to use, and she could practice there.

Even if she had to wear a bikini,

* * *

May 30th, 2020

Salie tisked a bit as she turned the pages in Romana's
notes. The middle-aged squirrel mage looked both annoyed and
disappointed as she read over the cramped scrawling
handwriting. The tight look on her face made her look older
than she really was.

Romana shifted a bit, feeling very uncomfortable with the
occasional glances her teacher gave her. In addition her
legs were starting to ache. She was resting with her rear on
the floor, with her upper body propped up by her forelegs.
She had enough skill to hold herself up, but wasn't quite up
to walking yet. She could manage a few steps, but still need
support to move herself.

"You have created quite a mess with this spell," Salie said,
putting the notes down and giving the lioness another
critical look.

She blushed a bit and lowered her ears. "I know. I've been
trying to work out what I did wrong, but I can't find it."

"I'm not surprised; you have a lot of complicated
interactions. The seven pointed start configuration is
highly unstable, and has a lot of interpositions between
different magics. Not to mention you have the wrong closing
symbol on the spell. It's too tight, it would create a
resonance effect."

Romana closed her eyes and places her hand over her face.
The wrong closing symbol? That made sense. The type of magic
she was using in that configuration would need a loose
enclosure, one that would allow the excess magic to bleed
out. She had been so busy trying to hide the spell from her
family she never thought about the effects of keeping all
the magic inside. "Creating enough extra power to transmute
my soul," she said.

"You never did pay attention when I was trying to teach your
about you physical spell configurations," the older squirrel
said with a sigh.

She said nothing.

Salie returned to the notes, spreading them out on the table
in front of her. "From the look of some of your corrections
you knew there was something wrong before you cast the
spell."

"I had my suspicions, but I thought it was perfect."

"Hubris is the enemy of all mages."

The lioness'taur nodded her head and allowed her hand to
drop back to the table top. "As you tried to teach me
before," she said.

A small smile crossed her face. "I believe you have learned
that now. Why didn't you at least allow me to look over your
notes?"

"I didn't think you would have let me even try the spell.
Then you would have told my parents," she said, bouncing her
paws a bit to try and relieve the pressure on them.

Salie slowly shook her head. "I would not have approved, you
are far too unskilled to safely create a transmutation
spell. I would not have stopped you, but I would have
insisted on performing the spell myself."

Romana folded her hands on the table top. "Things would have
been better if you had. Though I doubt I would have been
willing to admit it.'

"The fact that you asked me to help shows me that you are
learning. You've always had an issue with overconfidence.
It's why you failed in some of your studies."

The lioness winced at the directness of her teacher's words,
but said nothing to refute them. She had never looked at
things in that way, but now that it had been said, she
believed that it was true. "Maybe we should go over some of
the parts I missed before," she suggested.

A smile played over the squirrel's muzzle. "Maybe we should,
but that is for a later time. Today we have other things to
work on," she said, emphasizing her words by tapping at the
pages on the table.

Romana took a moment to allow her mind to drift back to the
spell. "Do you think we can repair it?"

"I can't fix what you did to yourself, but I believe I can
correct the majority of your errors, though I am confused as
to why you mingled the blood magic with the runic?"

"I wanted to use my existing ability to shift forms. I can't
learn new forms like my father could, I've tried. It was the
only way I could think of to make it more than just a
temporary transformation. That part actually worked, I can
shift between forms at will."

The older mage leaned over a bit took look at the lioness'
transformed body. "Then why have you not simply shifted into
your normal form to meet me?"

"I'm form-locked until I can learn to use this body. I
didn't get the instinctual parts of the spell down
correctly," she admitted.

Salie flipped though the pages and shook her head as she
read over the notes. "No, you had that correct, you even
compensated for the integration of the blood magic. The
resonance effect just shorted it out. Ironically it's only
because of the resonance that your spell worked in the first
place. The parameters you have would never had allowed the
connection to your natural shifting ability.'

"Oh," Romana said, a little dejected by the news. "We can
fix that, right?"

A short look of concentration crossed over her face. "No, we
can't. You can't add abilities like that, your natural magic
is counter to it. The only way to make any change powerful
enough to work is to change your soul."

She closed her eyes a bit, and swore softly under her
breath. "That's not what I wanted to hear."

"Why? Are you planning on using this again?"

Romana looked outside though the glass door, towards the
dock where her brother sat, engrossed in a school book. "I
was hoping to. This was something we both wanted, at least
when we younger. I wanted to gift it to him."

The elder mage followed her gaze. "As noble as that maybe,
you can't do that, not without what happened to you
happening to him."

With a sigh the lioness nodded her head. "I can't let that
happen to him. I suppose we can just make it a normal
transmutation spell, maybe on an artifact?"

Salie pushed the notes around then nodded her head. "We can
put it on an artifact, but you won't be able to cast the
spell until your form-lock has been removed."

"That gives us time to work out the kinks," she replied.

"Yes it does," the squirrel said, moving the papers back
into there proper order and pulled out her pen.

"One last thing," Romana said, reaching out to touch her
teacher's hand.

She looked up, a bit surprised.

"Thank you for helping me, and for teaching me."

A larger smile passed over the mage's face, and she nodded
her head. "You're welcome."

"Now do you mind if I lay down, I need to get off my
forepaws."

* * *

July 8th, 2020

"Good morning," Romana declared as she carefully walked into
the kitchen. She was moving one paw at the time, making sure
each one was stable before she moved the next one. It was
slow and complicated, but she was walking, and it meant more
to her than anything else she had done in quite a long time.

She was just glad that the house had only a single story;
she still wouldn't be able to manage a set of stairs. At
least not for a few more months.

Adric looked up from his breakfast, his eyes dark from too
little sleep, but a look of relief was on his face. He had
spent the last week taking his finals and hadn't gotten a
chance to see her.

"You're looking good," he said.

"Thank you," she replied, moving slowly over to the counter
to make her own breakfast. "How did you finals go?"

"Not easy, but I think I did pretty well. I'm a little
worried about my hypospace engineering class, but I should
at least squeak through," he admitted.

"You'll do fine. I couldn't understand anything that you
take, but you're smarter than me."

He shook his head a bit. "I'm nothing more than you are," he
said, a touch of distaste crossing through his voice, but it
quickly faded away.

"I couldn't do what you're doing. I couldn't even finish my
own college classes," she admitted, walking over to the
table and settling down next to her brother.

Adric smiled a bit. "You're a mage, you'll always have a
job," he said, and then pushed his empty plate away. "I
should get to bed. I was up all night celebrating the end of
finals week," he said, standing up.

"Then I'll walk you to your room, now that I can do that,"
she said, offering him a hand.

He looked up at her for a moment, and then took her hand in
his. Standing up next to her, he looked up into her eyes.
"I'm proud of you. You had us all worried for a while, but
you proved us wrong."

"I think I proved myself wrong as well," she said. Together
they started walking back down the hallway, going at
Romana's slow pace.

They were halfway to the room when they both heard a key
turn in the front door. The pair of them stopped and Adric
pulled away. "I'll go see who it is. Are you up to seeing
anyone?"

A short nod of her head was the only reply she needed.

He nodded and let go of her hand then turned back and
hurried to the living room. While he was gone she slowly
turned herself around, her rear end scraping against the
wall.

When she was turned about she was rather surprised to be
face to face with Emmitt. Her younger brother was looking
her over with a bit of interest on his face, his black mane
pulled back behind his head in an attempt to hide how small
it still was.

"You startled me," she said, smiling at the teenage lion.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well you are easy to sneak up
on. I'm impressed with the body, but I never thought I would
see you as a 'taur."

"I've been working on it for a while."

"It does seem to suit you. I'm glad to see that you're up
and about. Everyone was worried about you. Dad, Mother Rhea
and Mother Oriana were throwing a small fit when it came to
what you did."

She nodded her head. "It was pretty dumb."

"Well you're better now. Come on, everyone is in the front
room," the young man said before turning around and walking
back down the hallway.

Romana shrugged her shoulders and starting after him,
wondering who exactly 'everyone' was. She had her
suspicions, but wasn't going to make a guess until she saw
for sure.

She took it slowly as she walked into the room, not
surprised to find that her father was sitting in a chair,
talking softly with Adric. Emmitt had moved to the kitchen,
making himself something to eat.

Her father stood up as she came in, resting much of his
weight on the cane held tightly in his left hand. A smile
quickly crossed over his human face as he looked her over.
"Romana, I'm glad to see you," he said.

There was a moment of anger rising inside of her, but she
pushed it back down. Even though she knew better, a part of
her still believed that everything was her Father's fault.
She fought that part down so she could return his smile, and
not have it be forced.

"I'm happy to see you as well," the lioness'taur said as she
walked to him, looking over his face and into his ice blue
eyes.

He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Your PT
was right. I'm so very proud of you," he said.

The lioness shook her head. "For hurting myself? That's not
much to be proud of," she said.

"I'm proud of you because you have moved past that and that
you can walk now," he answered, moving his hand to run it
over her hair, pushing a few strands out of her face.

"Thank you," she said.

He nodded his head and returned to the couch. "I've removed
the form-lock, you can shift again," he said. Relaxing on
the couch he placed his cane on his lap, trying hard to hide
the shakes in his hands.

A feeling of elation crossed though her as she touched her
shifting power, feeling it move like it hadn't in many
months. "Thank you," she said in a whisper.

"You earned it," he replied.

"I'm not as able-bodied as I should be. It will be months
before all of my muscles return to full capacity. I'm
looking forward to being able to run. I think that will be a
wonderful experience.."

Her father nodded his head and smiled at her. "You can do
whatever you want to now. I'm not going to force you to do
anything, and I'll admit I overreacted to what you had
done."

"No, you didn't," she said, dropping her hind legs and
relaxing her weight onto her rump, tucking her tail around
her body. "You could have said it better, but you did what
you needed to do, as much as I hate to say that."

Fox smiled at her and steepled his hands under his chin,
resting the puckered scar that crossed the underside on the
tips of his fingers. "You are a very strong woman, I'm glad
to finally see that finally coming out."

"She's surprised all of us," Adric added.

"You can come home if you like. It was never my intention to
exile you from the family."

"I never thought I wasn't invited, I just didn't want to,
then it became familiar," she said, motioning around the
room. "I think I'm going to stay here, at least through the
summer. Swimming in the lake helps my strength."

"Then you may have to put up with the rest of us. This is a
vacation house," he said with a thin smile.

"I would love that," she said, and meant every word of it.

-----

This story (AFiW #X001) is copyright 2007 by Fox Cutter.
Hardcopy reprints limited to one per person, all other
rights reserved. This story may not be distributed for a fee
except by permission of the author, and this copyright
notice may not be removed.