Hurricane #20: The Transformation (Patreon)

Serrano stared at the pancakes after she took a bite, then across the table at Sarah. “These are fantastic.” They were sitting around the kitchen table in the wolf’s hotel suite. Serrano had been woken up to the sound of her temporary roommate starting some coffee brewing and offering to make a breakfast of pancakes and sausage.

“I’m not sure how to take you sounding so surprised.”

“Sorry, it’s just…I don’t know.” She pointed with a fork. “You’re a badass magical warrior, a stone-cold killer, and you know how to cook. You even make great coffee.”

Sarah shrugged, flashing a wry grin. “I’m a few centuries old. You can get good at things even by dabbling in them if you have enough time. Besides, I’m just an adequate cook. Pancakes are easy.”

“Tell that to the rubber coasters I usually get when I try. I’m going to have to hear you sing, you know.”

For a fleeting moment, the wolf looked uncharacteristically self-conscious. “I don’t think either one of us has time for musical interludes. Besides, you had enough of one yesterday.”

She held up her hands. “Look, I’m sorry Chiltepin didn’t have much family information for me, but it was a long shot. But I’m not sorry I took the time out for the jam session, because it was fucking awesome.”

Sarah looked across at her silently a few moments, then smiled, genuinely. “Good.”

Serrano blinked a few times, then smiled back.

“All right.” Sarah took a sip of coffee, then leaned back, crossing her arms. “Let’s work with what we do know. First, we know a tremendous amount of power’s being pulled through you passively. Second, either you can access that power subconsciously to protect yourself, or it can act to protect you on its own or through divine direction.”

“But that didn’t happen with Bob and his Drain-O gun.”

“No, but you accessed the power intentionally to transform back. You need to understand how you did it—and how to do it again.”

“Then go after Ward and Sarge, even if it means smashing their whole fucking buildings under my paws,” Serrano muttered. “Maybe especially if it means that.”

“If you do get a handle on your power, you’re going to be a dangerous one, aren’t you.”

Serrano cleared her throat and took a large sip of coffee herself. “Sorry. Probably not the right attitude.”

“Why not? If you can save the world by sending your enemies sliding helplessly down your throat, so much the better.”

The coyote rubbed her ear. “You’re a bad influence, aren’t you?”

Sarah grinned. “I’m not your faerie godmother, Serrano. I’m the faerie your faerie godmother warns you about.”

• • •

The Magical Arts building looked far more like something out of a medieval romance novel than anything else Serrano had seen on Mensura’s campus—at a ridiculously grand scale, of course. She and Sarah were on their way toward a side courtyard, although it felt like they’d been walking around the building for at least ten minutes after the fifteen minutes it had taken to get there—most of which they’d spent on the underground train system. At least the path was properly sized for “little” students and staff and set off from giant walking areas. Signs like towering billboards warned giants to stay on their own paths and watch their step. In the distance, giant students sauntered or hurried past occasionally.

Sarah pointed ahead and to the left. “There it is. I think.”

“Good.” Serrano winced. “My paws are starting to hurt.”

Sarah grinned. “An hour ago you were fantasizing about stomping buildings, but now you’re sore from a little walking?”

“Yeah yeah yeah. I’ll practice on Legos.”

“Don’t. They actually hurt much more than most buildings do.”

“Like you have that much experience crushing buildings?”

Sarah replied in a sing-song. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”

“Oh, now I really want answers.”

Sarah’s grin grew, but she jogged ahead without saying anything else.

There were a handful of other students in the courtyard, but only one they were there to see: Professor Snep had arranged for them to meet Stavan the otter again. He was hurrying toward them, waving.

“Hey.” Serrano waved back and gestured at the wolf as he walked up. “This is Sarah, the faerie I’d mentioned.”

“Hello again, Serrano. And it’s a pleasure to meet you, Sarah. Also a little frightening.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said, perfectly deadpan.

Stavan’s smile wavered.

Serrano rubbed her muzzle. “So tell me. Did Snep not deign to come out himself because he thinks this is a waste of time?”

“I wouldn’t put it so harshly as that. But he is skeptical about whether it’s possible to somehow teach you to use storm god powers.”

“But I’ve used them already! Sort of.”

“That ‘sort of’ matters a lot. Speaking extremely broadly, there’s learned magic, like what they’re teaching here, and innate magic, like what Sarah has. Innate magic can’t be taught.”

Sarah tilted her head at the otter. “These might be innate powers, but they’re not innate to Serrano. Doesn’t that make them more like learned magic?”

“I don’t…I don’t know. Natural magic uses the powers that exist in the world, across the universe, as its foundation, but I don’t know how similar this is. Talking to a god seems more like talking to a spirit, which is more ceremonial magic. Or a prayer.”

Serrano sighed and shrugged. “Look, no matter what you call it, there’s a fuckton of power passively flowing through me. It would help with the whole saving the world thing if I could control just a little of it.”

Stavan rubbed his ear. “‘The whole saving the world thing?’”

“If Professor Irsaw’s right, Ulohne’s responsible for the hydrologic cycle for the whole world, and if all her power gets sucked away, then, poof.”

Sarah added, “According to your professor, and to what I’ve seen myself with Serrano, that’s precisely what’s happening. And we don’t have much time.”

He swallowed, silent for several long seconds, then took a deep breath. “Okay. We can’t compress years of study into just a few months, but on the other paw, you don’t have to learn how to draw the power to you. On the other other paw, I don’t know if we can just…skip ahead and have it work with a whole different kind of magic.”

“Teach her something small. A weather control spell.”

“That’s not small,” he protested.

“It’s skipping ahead, right? Maybe any connection to the weather that’s done with intention on her part could set things in motion the way even a completely botched summoning spell could with a faerie.”

Serrano gave her a sulky look. Sarah fluttered her eyelashes.

“All right. Um. Let’s try some envisioning practice first. Look around the courtyard. Really get a good look, fix it in your mind, then close your eyes and picture a light rain falling.”

Serrano turned around slowly in a circle, trying to memorize everything she saw, from the courtyard stones to the grass and trees to the sidewalks. Then she closed her eyes and imagined the rain.

“Think about not just the look but the smell, the sound, the feeling against your fur.”

She nodded slowly, doing her best to hear the raindrops hitting the pavement and blades of grass, to feel the tickly splashes against her arms and shoulders, to breathe in the mineral earthiness of the scent.

“Now repeat after me: Hic venit pluvia iterum.”

“Hic venit pluvia iterum,” she murmured uncertainly.

“Say it again. Keep repeating it. Hic venit pluvia iterum. Every time you say it, let the scene in your head get sharper.”

“Hic venit pluvia iterum.”

“Hic venit pluvia iterum,” he said, gently correcting her pronunciation.

“Hic venit pluvia iterum.” She took a deep breath and said it again, trying to bring the movie in her head into sharper focus. And again. And again.

By the eighth or ninth repetition, the phrase had become nonsense background noise, her mind starting to drift. If she were Ulohne, what would she do? Imagine rain? Possibly in the way a sculptor imagined a finished statue, sketched it out first. The work was building it, making it. She needed to move the wind from there, to lift particles from there, to bring in moisture from there. Yes. Now she could almost feel it. Just—reach a little more—

Thunder cracked overhead, and nerve-searing pain surged through her, head to tail. Electricity? Had she been struck by lightning? It felt more like—like waves smashing against rocks. Like her smashing against rocks, like her first dreams, like being carried away by a raging storm. She screamed, crashing down to all fours, and the scream sounded almost as loud as the thunder to her. All the balance in her body was off again.

The heavens opened up. Not a light rain, but a squall. She spluttered, opening her eyes, expecting to see the ground. But she didn’t. She was looking straight ahead. How was that possible? Wasn’t she on all fours?

She looked down, seeing Sarah and Stavan shockingly tiny, running away from her—her forepaws. She was giant. An unevolved—no, she could see her chest, her torso, unclothed. How—

Serrano turned her head around, looking back at herself. A taur. She was a taur!

An enormous taur. Not as big as Ulohne in the old illustration, she didn’t think. But—

The moment she realized it, she lost her balance. Her eyes widened, and hundreds of tons of six-limbed coyote fell over onto her side with the force of a small earthquake.

Sarah and Stavan stopped some distance away, turning to stare. Stavan looked shocked and a little terrified. Sarah was grinning incredulously.

“How—” Stavan’s voice quavered. “How did you—”

Serrano tried to push herself back upright. “I don’t know! Three Lords, how do all these fucking legs work.” She wriggled back and forth, grunting. “I just…just tried to think about what I would do if I were Ulohne.”

“And apparently step one is to become her.”

Serrano looked down at the currently toe-sized faerie wolf and narrowed her eyes. “Sarah, I am not a fucking storm god.” Thunder rumbled overhead as if to contradict her. She glared daggers at the sky accusingly.

“I’m going to go get Professor Snep,” Stavan stammered, and ran off without waiting for a response.

“Hey, could you make it stop raining now?” Sarah said after a few seconds had passed.

She stared up at the sky, uncertain. Could she break up the clouds? Maybe. She just needed, well, more wind, didn’t she? Different directions, different force.

Deep breath. Focus. Exhale. Okay, yes. Find the wind there, direct it there…

Sunlight began to filter through the clouds as they rapidly became wispier, lighter.

Serrano looked down at Sarah, swallowing nervously.

The wolf gave her a too-wide smile and both thumbs up. “Thanks, your divine grace!”

“Fuck you,” she muttered, running a hand through her soaking hair.