Doctors’ visits were nothing new to Kyle, though her last few years had been dominated more by psychiatrists. Even so, she knew the basic procedure. Yet she’d never endured anything like this. At least those medical professionals had pretended to care about her comfort.
The nameless doctor started with measurements, which he took from anywhere and everywhere. Areas of her anatomy Kyle had pretended didn’t exist were rigorously investigated by a total stranger. Honestly, that was worse than the needles.
“And you’re positively certain this transformation doesn’t reverse according to any regular cycle?” The doctor asked, tossing a set of latex gloves casually into the bin. “You don’t revert at certain hours of the night, perhaps? Or maybe the effort of holding it strains greater and greater each day?”
I’m feeling one kind of strain right now, she thought angrily, tail whipping back and forth behind her. “Nothing like that,” she said, keeping her tone neutral only with great difficulty. “I’ve been up late, I’ve got up early, and I don’t feel anything that would suggest I’m changing back.” She backed away, and for the second time her rear bumped into the wall. These human rooms just weren’t big enough for her to feel like she had any personal space. “Is that something that happens?”
She might not know this doctor’s name, but she’d begun to read his reactions. He shrugged one shoulder noncommittally, an indication that he knew more but wouldn’t share it with her. “I have to rule out every potentiality. We begin with the irrational, and eventually only the factual will remain.”
On an empty section of a dusty bookshelf, the doctor had an open binder, where he attached samples and scribbled in his measurements. Presumably all those empty spots would hold photographs when he was done. And the more information he got, the less confident in his motives Kyle became. I’m not supposed to let anyone see me. There’s no way this doesn’t backfire.
“I’ve never encountered anything that includes such a bizarre inversion of biological sex,” the doctor went on, donning a fresh set of gloves and removing a set of sample containers from his bag. “Tell me, is your experience merely an alteration of phenotypes, or are there accompanying physical symptoms as well? Given the climate, I expect summer will be a very interesting time for you, all else being equal.”
If she could back away any further, she would. Backed up against the wall, Kyle could only feel like the eyes of an invisible mob were melting into her. What the hell are you talking about? “They’re functional,” she said flatly. “I guess you didn’t hear, that was the whole reason this happened. The baby, she… needed a guardian?” The words were like pulling teeth, but those giant eyes just kept staring. Did that man ever blink? “She was hungry, I guess. I gave her milk when I found her, but she didn’t want to drink it. Once she changed me… that was the first thing she wanted.”
The doctor just nodded knowingly, as though her impossible story was something he dealt with all the time. “That did seem likely given the sensitivity we measured. We’ll need to determine what the creature required that she was not obtaining through other means.” He gestured with the sample container, like a gun pointed at her chest. “It will be a shame to wait for the lab results.”
Oh god, are you going to try and fill that? Without any apparent prompting from her, Kyle’s horn started glowing. The doctor slid away from her along the floor, until he’d been pushed gently against the far wall. He didn’t try to resist, just stared with his mouth hanging open.
As soon as the danger faded, Kyle’s horn stopped glowing, and the doctor shook himself out, tossing the little sample container aside. “Well you didn’t tell me about that, Kyle. What did you just do?”
I’m pretty sure everyone knows I can do this. “I don’t know what to call it,” she said, settling down on her haunches. Please don’t remember what you were about to do. Let’s just pretend that never happened. “It just sorta… The baby was doing it before she attacked me, using an unseen force to move objects around. I guess maybe because we don’t have hands? It took me a few days to figure out how it worked, but it seems pretty easy. Makes sense, if a baby can do it. It’s like the wings, though. My level of control is… weak.”
Just thinking about them was enough for her wings to half-open of their own accord, spreading slightly to her either side.
“Telekinesis,” the doctor muttered. “Clearly your limits are more substantial than might otherwise be obvious, if you can push me around so easily.” He selected a few books from the shelf, tossing them onto the floor at her hooves. “Lift those both at once, and hold them as steadily as you can.”
The demand seemed stupid, but compared to where the test had just been going… she obeyed. Holding more than one thing was harder, but holding them steady meant even her flagging concentration wasn’t tested too severely. It got worse over the next few minutes, as the doctor added other objects, then asked her to arrange them in different ways.
Finally, he tossed an old globe in with everything else, and the strain was just too much. A headache began pounding in her head, and everything spilled out onto the ground in front of her.
“I don’t understand how this is supposed to help fix me,” she said, rubbing one hoof against her temple. It didn’t help. “I can move some stuff, and it’s made things way easier with no hands. But I don’t think I’ll be able to lift objects around enough to change back.”
“Of course not.” At least the doctor didn’t look bothered by Kyle’s failure. He just scribbled down a few more specific details about it, then set the notebook aside. “The more data we can gather about this body, the closer we are to identifying what you have become. That information will allow us to examine and perhaps even discover a way to reverse this, if that is the most desirable outcome.”
What do you mean ‘if’? “How?” she asked instead. “How do you change a horse back into a person?”
“Unicorn,” the doctor corrected, as though she’d misspoken some technical medical term. Certainly not something she’d ever expected to hear from a doctor. “Possibly something more. The addition of the wings confuses anything I’ve studied, yet you clearly do match at least some of what is said. Telekinesis implies the existence of other abilities, though we would know to expect them even without it. After all, the infant changed you. It suggests a high likelihood that you have similar if not entirely identical abilities.”
And yet the baby has control of hers, and I don’t know anything about myself. More importantly, why was a doctor entertaining all this talk of the supernatural as though any of it made sense to him? How did Grandpa make his money?
“I don’t have the experience for a full examination,” the doctor continued. “My colleague will probably have more questions for you on that subject, when she’s finished with—”
A scream cut through the house, echoing so loudly that Kyle thought for a moment Fay had somehow appeared in the room with her.
No, the scream wasn’t coming from beside her, she was down the hall. One scream was soon joined with several more familiar cries of terror. Her parents.
Kyle didn’t hear what the doctor said next, but she didn’t really care. She ran, kicking the door open ahead of her and darting straight back towards the kitchen. There was a… pile of rocks on the floor near the counter, near some ripped cloth. Medical equipment rested on the kitchen table, more invasive than anything her doctor had brought.
A bundle on the table twisted and squirmed in sterile cloth, the obvious source of the crying. Kyle peeled it away, lifting Fay up against her chest. It didn’t mean quite the same thing as it might for a human, but it was the only thing she could think to do.
“What the hell did you do?” She spun, glaring around the room. She intended to scream at Kara—she should’ve known better than to let them touch Fay without her around! Hadn’t she seen just how powerful the baby was?
She didn’t see Kara, only another doctor—a woman slightly shorter than he was, with skin a jaundice yellow under her jacket.
She held a tablet under one arm, and her strange eyes were wide with horror. “Shouldn’t be in there,” she breathed. “She’s unstable! Killed the girl.”
Killed the, what? Kyle was only dimly aware of another figure standing in the doorway behind her—her mom, her skin stark white.
She stroked Fay with one wing, not needing to think about it. The baby’s heart raced, and she had at least two bandages wrapped around one limb. What had they expected from a baby?
“God, she shot me,” someone croaked. Kara’s voice, coming from the floor. Was she hiding behind the kitchen table? “Someone get me some morphine or something.”
Kyle’s head was already spinning from the magical exam. But the longer she stood in front of them, the more confused she became. No one had died, that was obvious. There was just that pile of rocks, maybe a piece of furniture Fay had shattered? Her magic could be scary.
“Well that’s entirely horrifying,” her doctor said, emerging from the hall behind her, taking in the scene with clinical disinterest. “I did suggest it would be better to wait until the surrogate mother could be present, Mars.”
“She was supposed to be sedated,” the woman argued. “Must have some resistance. Dosage was off…”
Maybe that was why Fay was calming down so quickly. She kept trying to fly herself towards the door, probably back to the stable and safety from so many strange people. But her magic wasn’t working, and Kyle could hold her without too much difficulty. She just squeaked and moaned in frustration, little wings flapping impotently.
“What’s the proper dosage for an extinct animal? Forget the rest of your tests, Mars. It’s clearly not safe to remain here.” He glanced down at the disordered pile of rocks, then stepped pointedly backward. “I’ll gather my findings and retreat from the front. You do the same from the back.”
“Kara, did you really get shot?” she called, no longer caring what the strange doctors had to say, or caring about interrupting them. “Don’t go yet! You might need to treat Kara!”
“Feels about like that,” she said. Except the voice wasn’t coming from behind the table. Kyle hadn’t seen it, maybe because her eyes didn’t know how. But now she could, and she stumbled back, her grip on Fay faltering for a moment.
There was no broken glass in the room, no collapsed furniture. As she watched, a shape that was transparent and glassy solidified before her eyes. Slightly yellow glass became opaque, and suddenly she sat up.
Not broken furniture at all, but a little horse shaped very similarly to Kyle herself. There was no sharp bone on the head, no wings… but everything else was about the same. Except for the butt, Kyle didn’t have any tattoos, and this one did.
The horse looked down at her forelegs, then touched one against her chest. It clicked like a pair of lead crystal glasses tapped together. Then she spoke with Kara’s voice. “Oh god. I thought she’d just shot me. It’s so much worse.”
Fay groaned, sticking her tongue out and hissing at Mars. How did she still have enough strength left to light up her horn like that?
“As I said, an expeditious retreat,” the male doctor said. “We cannot interpret the results if we too are destroyed by the animal, Mars. Meet me outside, if you would.”
She nodded, backing further away from the baby. Fay watched her go, like a soldier aiming a rifle with every step. Only when she was finally gone did she squeak happily, then start to snore.”
“Mom?” Kara asked, her voice desperate. “Please tell me this isn’t real.”
Mom shook her head sadly, then shut the door.
They were abruptly alone, with a kitchen full of fancy medical gear and a peacefully snoring bomb.