“Okay, Morgan, let’s go,” Sable said, leading me back to the barn where the dragon had been contained. As we walked, her voice took a conciliatory tone and said, “I’m really sorry about how the dragon thing went down. My theory was off somehow, and you almost got stuck that way.”
“I want to give you a pass on that, but honestly I could have used a lot more briefing,” I griped.
“Yeaaah, I get you. I think I figured you’d be less nervous with less information to juggle, it’s how I work, but I guess it’s not how everyone works. My bad.”
”Thanks. Like, you could have told me about the mental space, the dragon probably would have killed me during the binding if Luna hadn’t intervened in there.”
“Mental space? Luna intervened? What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Right, I thought it was a dream the first time, but…”
I went on to describe the two mental encounters I’d experienced, first with Luna’s space and her intervention while negotiating with Zarexanya, and then again with Zarexanya’s space while ‘negotiating’ with the manticore.
“I don’t know what to tell you. That doesn’t normally happen with familiar negotiations. It just happens in meatspace if they’re conscious and able, or if they’re unable to negotiate you just win by default.”
“Please don’t call reality meatspace,” I asked from the depths of my soul, “But maybe it’s related to the way I connect with the spirit I’ve already got.”
She considered this carefully. “Re: meatspace, request heard and denied; and that’s a possible theory, yeah. The familiar you’ve, uh, let’s call it ‘mantled’ is intermingled with your spirit while you’re trying to make another bond, so it’s possible that has something to do with it.”
“Oh, there was one other weird thing. While I had Zarexanya… ‘mantled’, she also gave me some advice telepathically.”
Sable looked concerned. “Are you able to speak with her now? And for that matter, have you spoken with Luna?”
“Luna’s never spoken to me, and Zarexanya only spoke while mantled, but I could try just… asking.”
Zarexanya? Are you there?
Silence.
Luna, how about you?
There was no answer, but I thought I felt her spirit shift somehow, like I’d gotten her attention after a nap.
“Neither are responding, but I think Luna can hear me at least,” I reported.
“I’m not surprised on the Luna front, she’s never spoken to me either. My other familiars do speak, in case you were wondering. She’s just always been like that. My guess is you can only speak to them when they’re mantled, and Luna’s just giving you the cold shoulder like always. Cats, am I right? But I’ve never heard of someone bound as a familiar being able to talk to their familiar spirit at all.”
More mysteries. “Maybe I should try mantling manticore? Is that safe?”
“Maybe, but hold that thought for the moment,” she said, looking thoughtful. “Hey, your mom didn’t answer when you asked what the Owens family gift was, did she?”
“No, though that was just to distract her in the duel. I guess I could ask again. I… might try calling her tomorrow,” I said, uncertain. I considered sending her a text or something about it, and as if on cue, my phone buzzed, signaling a text message.
I pulled my phone out as we walked. It was from Sabrina: “how go?”
I thought a moment on how to respond, then tapped out, “Won the duel, became a dragon, fought a monster, corporate intrigue, gonna get therapy.”
The reply was swift: “??⁉️”
I texted back, “She’s heading home. Busy now, ttyl.”
Before I put my phone down, there were some notifications to compulsively clear. Several from the barrier gate camera that I recognized as being related to the manticore fight we’d just been in. One camera notification from “Portal Cave (Earth)”, then one from “Portal Cave (Ambar)”, both with the label “Person Seen”. Both seemed to have happened right after the battle concluded.
“Sable, we might have a problem.”
She took on a serious demeanor, hearing the concern in my voice. “What is it? More family drama?”
“I think someone crossed over from here to Ambar just after the manticore fight.”
“Show me.”
The thumbnails were a bit blurry, but it was definitely a person, and the same person seemed to appear on both sides. I loaded the videos and we watched them. She was a blonde woman, probably around my age, wearing camo and a pack and carrying a hunting rifle.
Sable looked a little relieved. “Good, it’s Astrid.”
“Wait, good?” I said, a bit confused. “Didn’t you lock all your staff out of the backyard? How’d she get in?”
“I locked the gates, but I guess she was already inside. And ‘good’ because this explains some things, like where the manticore’s PRISM came from.”
That… was a good point. With everything going on, I hadn’t really thought about how that PRISM had gotten there. “So she’s just been hanging out in there? Wasn’t she supposed to be out on medical leave?”
“Astrid’s my hunter, she’s a hardcore survivalist and probably my best combatant. I could believe that she’s already recovered enough that she would be willing to hang out in the backyard again. She’s also a fucking edgelord, so if she thinks she’s in trouble and at risk of getting caught she might go radio silent, like she did, and try to escape into Alfheim if she felt trapped, which is maybe what this was.”
“Okay, so what was she doing back there?”
“Most likely? She’s involved in smuggling portal crystal out. And if she had a PRISM on her there’s a good chance that she’s working directly with someone at SAT.”
“Do you think my mom’s involved?”
“No, probably not. Your mom does software, right? It didn’t sound like she was directly involved in the actual hardware production, and seemed surprised at the whole portal crystal thing.”
She made a good point. Despite doing it for years and years, Mom was a poor liar. I thought back to my early teens, when she’d suddenly started focusing on ‘girl time’ with Sabrina. She’d always looked so guilty whenever they had to go off somewhere after school and she’d made up an excuse for why I couldn’t come with and had to stay home with an aunt. We’d always done things as a family before that. Her poker face had never really gotten any better. Thinking back, up through high school, it wasn’t like I didn’t get enough time with mom. I got plenty. There were several nights a week dominated by “girl stuff”, but it wasn’t like it was all the time. While I had context on ‘why’ now, the shame that crossed her face every time I asked to do the girl stuff with them and she scrambled to find an excuse why I couldn’t made me feel like I was being wronged somehow. And I was, just not in a way that I could possibly have imagined at the time.
“So what do we do now?” I asked, shaking off the memories. There would be plenty of time for that in therapy.
“For now, we pretend we didn’t see that. I doubt she intends any real harm, but she doesn’t know you. If I sent you to hunt her down before she’s ready to talk, she might try to fight you, and she hunts monsters for a living. She’s much more used to dealing with enemies that fight like you do than your mom is. And with her skills, she’s not likely to be in much danger hanging out on the other side, so we can let her stew a bit.”
“Okay, so…”
“So, we’re here. Get in.”
We’d arrived in the barn. The floor with the containment barrier was still open.
“Uh, what for?”
“Sorry, right, I should explain. Need to get better at that. The manticore should be less extreme than the dragon. They’re physically strong, but they’re supposedly weak-minded creatures. I want to see if you can handle it without losing yourself, and we’ll see if you can talk to it.”
“And if I can’t control myself?”
“I’ll knock you out and turn you back by force.”
“Well that… sounds like a plan, I guess. Okay.”
Once again I hopped down into the containment, then tried calling out the manticore.
Reality lurched a little, though it was less than last time.
Looking myself over, my new build wasn’t entirely unlike my dragon form in terms of muscle mass and proportions. My hands and feet had powerful furred claws, and I now had bat-like wings emerging from my back and a tail like a scorpion that could extend over my shoulder. Pulling out my phone to put it in mirror mode, I saw that my cat ears looked a bit rounder and fluffier than what I had before, with a tawny fur color like a lion that extended through my hair.
However, I also quickly realized I couldn’t sense my mana properly anymore.
Sable called down from up above. “Morgan, how you doing down there? Want a nice rare steak?”
“What, now? Uh, maybe for dinner, if we have some? I’m more concerned at why I can’t feel my mana,” I said, a little unsure of why she was asking about food all of a sudden.
“Ah, yeah, that’s probably because the manticore you nabbed was male, so your mana expression is probably either male or in an indeterminate state right now.”
“All my… parts are still female, though,” I said.
“Mana expression isn’t really about your parts, not entirely anyway. Though in this case, you probably won’t be able to cast any spells in this form. We don’t usually use familiar spirits of the opposite gender for just that reason. Anyway, speaking of your parts, want me to come down there for a quick fuck?”
My eyes widened and I nearly choked, blushing. “W-what!? No!” I replied to her unexpected proposition. She was attractive and uh, my type, but this wasn’t the time or place. Even if we were in a coven together.
She chuckled. “Darn. Well anyway, I think you’ve probably got full control over that form. Manticores are reported to be fixated on eating and mating, and you turned down both of those pretty quick, so I doubt you’re being influenced meaningfully.”
Ah, that was a test. Okay. That was a good point. I probably still had new instincts related to using my new manticore abilities, but if it really was about willpower and manticores were weak-willed brutes, then maybe this form would be safe to use.
Sable began climbing down the ladder, and when she got down to the bottom with me she looked me over appraisingly. “Looking good. Nice muscles. Nice rack.”
I blushed a bit at this. It was true, I knew, but I still wasn’t good at taking a compliment, especially about a body I didn’t feel I’d achieved by my own merits. “So, how is it that I can have male mana with a female body? Lyris has the same thing going on, and I want to understand this better.”
“Lyris does, huh? Well, it happens from time to time. I gave you a bit of a simplified explanation before, but the reality’s not that simple. People’s gender doesn’t always line up with the sex they were born with, and the same is true of mana expression. Mana expression isn’t a pure binary, either, though people who don’t align closely enough with the norms tend not to be able to use sigils.”
Right. Trans folk existed, of course, but I hadn’t really thought about how that would interact with mana or being a mage. “So, is it possible I could use female mana in a male body?”
Sable considered for a moment before answering cautiously. “Possibly. Honestly, the link between all these factors is poorly understood. It’s kind of a taboo topic, I guess, or at least mages don’t seem to talk about it much. Wards have been doing gender-bending magic to make boys into witches for generations, but it’s kind of kept secret since it’s… not ideal. I only did things this way because it was a proven formula, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way. If you decide you want a male body, we can do some experiments, see if we can invent warlocks.”
The way mage families seemed to cling to tradition and secrecy, I could certainly believe them not wanting to talk much about concepts like gender theory openly with each other. Even mom had apparently tried something like that to give me magic, but she didn’t have the knowledge to make it work, and had resorted to a technological approach instead.
“Warlocks? Like, male witches, right? Cool.”
“Yeah, and in a lot of roleplaying games, a warlock is just a person who gets magic from making a pact with a higher power. Which also fits.”
“So you’re a higher power now, huh?” I said, smirking at her.
She chuckled and got a bit of a conflicted look on her face, but shook it off and changed the subject. Or got back on topic, I suppose. “Could you ask the manticore about itself? Who it is, where’s it from, why was it here, that sort of thing.”
“I’ll try… manticore who are you?” I asked out loud. While I didn’t think I needed to say it out loud, it felt less awkward than standing there staring into space for the whole conversation.
Manticore is manticore. Strong. Pride leader. Many lady mates. Your mates now, mistress.
Despite seeming to only speak in broken Draconic, before, it answered back in broken English now. I guess the familiar bond is like the marriage bond in terms of language sharing, but ‘dumb brute’ was just part of his personality. Didn’t want to think about the idea that I’d apparently inherited this dude’s harem or pride or whatever of… who or whatever he was mating with. “Okay, no name yet. And where are you from?”
Wide plains. Few trees.
“So you weren’t near the mountain? How did you get here?”
Shiny big purple rock appear. Touched bright light and was here.
“You saw a portal crystal appear and touched it… and was there someone calling you? Did you meet a person here before you chased us?”
No call, just shiny big purple rock… felt like should touch. Person, yes… smelled lady person fear, no saw. Lost trail after chasing you.
I turned back to Sable. “It sounds like Astrid probably didn’t call it on purpose, at least. She was afraid of it and apparently ran off before it fully emerged.”
Sable frowned. “It sounds an awful lot like the portal crystal manifested somewhere it shouldn’t have been and a portal opened for Fred here.”
Congrats, buddy. You’re Fred now.
Strong name, easy say.
“But, either way,” she continued, “that gives me something to work with. Alright, let’s try some stuff out.”
We ran through some tests in the safety of the containment cell. I tried out firing venom projectiles from my tail, lifting objects (there wasn’t really anything else down here, so Sable eagerly volunteered to be picked up, and giggled the whole time), and at my insistence Sable tried out some attacks on me, which mostly involved her pulling comically large hammers out of nowhere to whack me with. They stung, but I seemed to have a high level of toughness in this form. The hammers were apparently made out of the same energy that her barriers were, a slight deviation of her gift that she claimed was a result of watching too much anime growing up.
After a while, it seemed like Sable had learned what she wanted to learn from observing my manticore form. “Okay, let’s head back in. And, let’s maybe not tell Lyris or Taliornen about Astrid for now. She’s most likely trespassing in his territory, and I’d like to convince her to come back rather than having the elven legal system get involved. She can probably stay hidden if she wants to, but if you see some sign of her, I’d like you to encourage her to contact me.”
“If I see some sign of her? When would I see some sign of her?”
“You’ve got business over there, right?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I do need to give Taliornen some electronics lessons sooner or later. How do you want to handle that? Do I need to take PTO?”
“Well, that was a debt you incurred on company time, so consider it a business trip, as long as you need,” she said encouragingly, though after that she frowned, seeming to consider something, and turned away before heading for the ladder. I followed her up, making sure to keep my eyes forward. Something had been bothering her, and I assumed it had to be about me.
When we got out of the pit and she put the illusion back over the floor, I tentatively tried stepping on the false floor. It was solid, so I supposed it must have a barrier baked in. Once I was convinced it wasn’t a workplace hazard, I turned back to Sable, who was looking down at the floor.
“Sable, what’s up? Got something on your mind?”
She looked back up. “Hm? Oh, sorry. Nothing important. Nothing that can’t wait. Look, Morgan, it’s the weekend and you’ve had quite a day. Why don’t you take the rest of the weekend off?”
I nodded. Whatever it was, she’d tell me when she was ready. And, yeah, if it was some sort of drama or another startling revelation I probably would prefer to deal with that later. I was feeling emotionally drained and a bit tired, so putting that aside for now was probably for the best. Some downtime sounded good right about now.