“Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnuguh.”
That was not the noise I wanted to make, but it was the one I did.
Sleeping with this new body had been a bastard of a challenge until I had figured out that the good ol’ fetus position worked like a charm. Nice and comfy on my side, not turning my wings into pain-filled pancakes. That and I had always slept like some kind of caveman anyway, even when I was human so it wasn’t that much of a difference. That is, as long as I had something to molest against myself. Hello pillow.
I pressed my face deeper into my almost forgotten lumpy garbage-something of a cushion and breathed in the smell of home. It had dulled while I had been traveling and I felt like my nose wasn’t what it used to be either. Another thing that was in that weird limbo of ‘kind of not better, but not really worse either, but still kind of shit in its own special way’. I had to admit, I hadn’t really spent much time with my new body. Too busy with… stuff. Probably should figure that out while I was still here.
Wait.
Where was here again?
I shook myself out of my sleepy musings. I was on some kind of bed. I vaguely recalled going somewhere to sleep, but then again I had gotten my face thoroughly plastered last night so what did I know?
Blinking open my eyes against the bright sunlight pouring through the gap in the sheet nailed to the wall I tried to get my bearings. It was at that point that I realized I was in heaven.
At least for the ten-year-old inside me.
A good three mattresses stacked atop one another and lathered in fluffy, fuzzy and ever so soft blankets of all kinds - knitted and fleece and wool and silk and the white poofy ones with the diagonal stitches. There was a sea of pillows on every side of all shapes and sizes I didn’t even know what to do with.
Letting go of my pillow, I rolled onto my back and stretched, letting out even more noises as I crackled my spine. That felt pretty damn good actually. Then I rolled over to my other side.
And screamed.
.
.
Well, not screamed-screamed, more like a loud, startled yelp, but it was enough to wake bird-horse and have her yelp too, whilst throwing her hooves over her ears. I stopped my heart from having another fit, loudly gasping for breath and awkwardly shuffled backwards to the edge of the mattress, making sure the pillow wall was between us.
We stared at each other in confusion and slight embarrassment for a while more.
“O-oh right, wait I remember-” I started talking, but that only made Kaja curl in on herself even more. “We were talking and you guys decided to have me sl-”
“Shush.”
?
“Well that’s kind of-”
“SHUSH.”
I didn’t try talking after that, just kind of glaring. She breathed hard for a few more seconds like she was in pain or something before rising up her head to look at me. Man her eyes were fucking baller. Glowing bright gold, or maybe neon-something-yellow with fuckin’ slit pupils like a damn cat or dragon or something. Like, seriously, they were even cooler than my red ones and as we all know I have a fetish for epic eyes.
I was too busily telling myself how amazing they are I almost didn’t notice her motioning to something off to the side. I looked and there, on one of those ‘breakfast in bed’ trays atop a pile of fluffy were her read headphones and a bottle of water.
I took a guess and grabbed those shitty things, considering how Kaja was cupping her hands hooves over her earholes. I kind of awkwardly held them out to her, spread open and I guess she appreciated the help since she turned her back to me and shuffled into the headphones. I gently cupped them over where I figured the earhole was and let go. She took a bit to adjust them before turning to face me.
“Sorry.” She mumbled. “My ears are very strong. Big noise hurts.” She pointed at the side of the device. “Carl say this are ‘noise can-cuh-ling’. But I can hear all with it.”
I blankly stared at her for a bit before getting enough sense to nod.
“So, uh, how, how good can you hear anyway?” I stumbled out a question. She took a second, I swear I saw the gears going in her brain.
“Very. Before… ehh-head-phones I can hear very far and uhh… loud. Carl talking hurt to hear. He thinked up giving me his old this.” She pointed at her head. “Then found better this. Very nice.”
Well she seemed chipper about it. Honestly I felt kind of bad for her, I mean, Carl was basically as close to human as we could get and I at least had fingers and despite the winged quadruped thing was also pretty human-esque. And she was just… horse…
We sat there in horribly awkward silence for a while before she motioned to move before hopping out of the nest we apparently called a bed. Without another word she walked around the corner and down the sta-HOLY SHIT I JUST REALIZED WHERE WE WERE.
Okay, okay, so near what was basically the main entrance to Old Town proper, right near the Monument square was this little plaza-place. It was flanked on the left by some fancy hotel and was always filled with street musicians and Asian tourists. But that didn’t matter right now because on the right, sitting right on the corner of one of the more mid-timey buildings was the first McDonalds’ that had ever opened in the country.
I had just slept in a McDonald's.
Holy Mc’fucknuggets(tm).
The revelation filled me with a burst of giddy spunk and I hopped around the second floor of the ‘restaurant’. Looking out the windows I saw the empty plazas of my hometown and that fun spunk deflated very quickly.
I decided to look around the inside for a bit. Most of the tables on the farther end (where the ‘bed’ was) seemed to have been cleared out and the booths where the chairs had been screwed to the ground had been turned into beanbag nests or just stacked with boxes of who knew-what. There was a lot of stuff everywhere and it didn’t exactly surprise me. What did surprise me were those tiny, solar powered garden lamps that you stuck in the grass by the walkways stuck by the windowsills with, you guessed it, duct tape.
Whelp, that was one way to get light, I guess.
I looked around the edge of my side of the bed and found my plastic-y blue jacket and shoes/gloves. It felt pretty warm so I decided against the jacket. One problem is that I felt kind of naked. Thankfully it seemed Kaja had had similar problems since I spotted a pile of kid-clothes in the corner. After rummaging through those I came up with shorts that didn’t chafe for once so I ‘borrowed’ them.
By ‘borrowed’ I mean I wasn’t going to give them back even if she asked.
Eventually I forced myself to go downstairs. I had feeling there was going to be some awkwardness between us.
‘Some.’
…
Fucking ‘some’.
.
.
The ground floor of the place was just as I remembered, except the not-nailed-down tables and chairs had been vanished and everywhere was absolutely full of all kinds of useful looking shit. I felt like I was on an episode of Hoarders…
There, right by the stairs and to my left I saw my two companions. They were sitting in a window booth, the booth next to them having three of those one-ringed camper stoves and a bunch of cooking stuff on it. Carl was lazily spread across one of the seats, an entire cooking pot of what looked like oatmeal in his lap. Meanwhile Kaja was neatly sitting on her butt across from him. Well, as neatly as one could whilst face-deep in a bowl and making slopping noises.
Carl was the first to see me coming down the stairs. Well, more precisely, my ass, and the rest of me followed as I reverse-wildebeest-ed my way down. When I saw him looking at me I may have given a small smile, but with my beak I wasn’t exactly sure anymore. He smiled through, pretty widely.
“Morning’ Dian’.”
I just kind of made a noise at him. I stood at the base of the stairs, barely even seeing the two people over the bar-counter-things dividing the room. I heard a yap and Bella shot around the huge support pillar in the middle of the eatery.
Man, I fucking love this dog. She was like zero maintenance and all she ever needed from me was petting. Perfect.
Stumbling over to what I now dubbed the kitchen on three legs (the third molesting Bella as we walked and she tried to bite my fingers) I began looking through what we had. Eventually I came up to a plastic container full to the brim all kinds of variety and brands and flavors of ramen.
Fuck yea’.
The Knorr brand had always been my favorite so I dug up one of those with cheese. Grabbing a bowl from a stack of them under the table I threw everything from the package in it and emptied the still half-warm electric kettle over it. Picking a plate I placed over top the bowl and let it seep.
Now. The question was, as I continued absentmindedly rubbing Bella’s ears, weather to stay here staring at my bowl for five minutes like some kind of serial killer or go the table over and sit in silence by the others like some kind of serial killer.
Choices, choices.
I gave up midway through my train of thought and walked the five steps necessary.
Kaja scooted to the side, making room for me to rest my ass on the cushion. The two didn’t even talk among themselves and I think that just made it worse. The awkwardness was thick in the air and most of me I just wanted to die because of it. I mean, I know I partly brought it on myself but still…
“Soooo~” It was more of an exhale than a sentence but, ya’ know. An-ohgodpleasestopstaringatme-
“A-anything on our agenda today?” I asked.
“Ahh-gen-duh?” Kaja tried to mimic the word with… mixed results.
“You know, to-do-list? Plan?” I tried to offer something. Dumb people frustrated me to hell and back and to hell again a second time, but it was kind of dickish to call her that. I mean, I was basically retarded when it came to Russian so I couldn’t really blame her for not speaking English that well.
Ah, language barriers, the best thing about being European.
“Well,” Carl started, with his mouth stuffed full of the vomit people called oatmeal, “we’ve been doing just a bunch of random stuff mostly. Gathering food, clothes, tech. We did a gas run last week, we might have to do another soon.”
“Wait, doesn’t that need electricity or something?”
“The gas stations’ yea. I mean, I think so…” He stared off at the ceiling. “Honestly, I don’t know how any of that works, Kaja just works her magic on whatever and I do the heavy lifting.” He shrugged. I had just realized Kaja had stopped slopping down her breakfast.
“Then where do you, like, keep it or whatever, I didn’t see that many cans in the booth outside.”
“We have drums and tanks and stuff back at the stations. It’s not safe or anything, but ya’ know… making do and stuff.” he trailed off.
“Yes, because explody things are ‘making do’.”
“Do you have a better idea?” He raised an eyebrow at me.
…
“… No.”
“Neither do we, welcome to the club.”
Silence continued. Carl stared at me for a bit before returning to his breakfast. I just realized I could faintly hear the anthem still playing in the distance. Wow, Carl was right, you really did tune it out after a while. I sighed and hopped to the floor and the second I had all fours on the ground Bella was already between them, nuzzling herself under my stomach.
I sauntered over back to the kitchenette and lifted the plate off my bowl of breakfast, making sure to drip all the condensation back in the bowl. Then I came upon a problem.
“Ah.” I made a noise out loud. The quadruped thing.
I stared at the very rather hot bowl for a bit.
“Ah…”
I can't say I thought this through.
And then suddenly, an angel descended from the heavens to lend my damned unfaithful ass a hand. Or maybe it was just a gray mountain of muscle and testosterone named Carl.
“I gotchya’.” He said softly as he picked up my bowl by the sides and walked back to the ‘dining table’ and set it down next to Kaja who looked to be having seconds. I might’ve blushed but it didn’t exactly show through my feathers. (At least physics dictated it shouldn’t but I was a griffon so what the fuck did I know). I picked up a stray spoon from a box of silverware beneath the table and slinked to eat my food.
And then I tripped over Bella because I’d forgotten the scraggly fuck was tangled between my asscheeks.
Fuck everything.
.
“You okay?” Carl sounded concerned and the slopping had stopped, so I guessed Kaja was probably concerned too. I wouldn’t know, I was facedown on the floor.
Fuck you floor, what the fuck did I ever do to you?
“Diana? You okay? I would very much like it if you hadn’t broken your face and died.”
I gave him a thumbs up.
Like that movie with the lava and Arnold Swarchinager. Was it Scwarchneigher? I don’t remember if it was Swharchneahgger.
…
Schwarzenegger.
.
Anyway.
It got weirder.
Mr. Minotaur picked me up off the floor like I was a doll. That was an experience.
I think my brain blanked at some point because I came to, sucking up the last remnants of my noodles and for the first time in a long time the silence was comfortable.
I mean. It was pretty nice actually. It was warm inside and the sun was shining and summer was only halfway. I could smell the breeze passing through a propped-open door and it made me feel all weird. I was eating food I liked sitting in a place I liked and people around me were minding their own business. I was warm but breezy and just for a moment everything was nice.
Then Kaja burped like a motherfucker and all that went away.
I gave the horse-woman my blankest of blank looks while Carl giggled like a thirteen-year-old boy hearing the word ‘penis’. Kaja just licked her lips without a care in the world. Then she looked between the two of us, beaming all the way. In hindsight it was a little funny.
After Carl had regained his ability to breathe he tried his damndest to clear his throat and get our attention, but we were just lost to the world.
“Ahem, anyway,” he began, “Now that we have some food in us we should probably think up what we’re doing today.”
I had enough sense in me to respond.
“I thought you said fuel?”
“I was mostly throwing it out there, we don’t actually really need it. And honestly, it’s not like we’re going anywhere or anything” He started picking up our bowls. “And now we have you here, so that’s an extra pair of hands. Well, fingers at any rate.” He scooted himself out the booth, dirty dishes in hand. “Honestly, I'm really glad, you’re a, whaddaya’ called yourself? Griffon? I was afraid I might end up mushing Kaja when I helped her around, so I'm hoping you don’t mind being her fingers until we figure out…” he trailed off.
I did mind. But I didn’t say so.
Wait no.
Me, what the fuck were we talking about yesterday, eh?!
“I do… kind of mind, but whatever, we’ll be fine. Right bat-horse?”
Damn dem gold eyes looked nice rolling into the back of her skull via the power of sheer annoyance.
Yes, I have a cool eye fetish. Sue me.
…
Wait could that have actually been a thing?
“-?”
“What?”
“What?” Carl what-ed me back. “You zoned out, you okay?”
“Yeah, just thinking about dumb shit, what did you say?”
“I guess I wanted to say, you’re free to go look around the city but then I remembered you're from here so now I just feel really stupid…”
“No doubt,” I flatly responded. “But don’t we all?”
Kaja was over by the ‘kitchen’ busy rubbing Bella’s head with the bottom of her un-socked hooves while the rest of us had found ourselves by the actual food-ordering bit of the Mc’Dicks. It had been cleared off, the cash registers gone. I did a double-take while Carl vaulted the counter like he was some kind of fucking Olympian. Showoff.
In hindsight trying to get up over the counter whilst being barely a meter tall and with basically nonexistent upper body strength wasn’t my brightest idea but I wanted to be cool too~
“There’s box-stairs by the wall!” Carl called out from already deep in the kitchen.
Oh shit, there were. The wall to my left was one huge window but the right end of the counter had a little plaster wall and around it were chairs and a small table staked up to be perfect little stairs for someone my size. I hopped over to where it was right by the employee doo- wait a minute.
“You have a closed door, you fuck, why not prop that open?” I half-jokingly asked whilst climbing over.
“It’s electronic. When the power went out it basically deadlocked.” Carl called back from… somewhere.
“Oh.” I blinked. Maneuvering through the metal whatevers’ of the eatery I found our gray mountain between two sinks of water and a lot of water bottles. “Can't you just bust it down?”
“Well I don’t want to rip it out with the fucken’ wall, geez.” The amount of confidence that he used when saying such a hypothetical thing concerned me.
…
Eh, fuck it.
“You say that with such confidence.”
It was supposed to a bit jokey but the way he looked at me, there was something in his eyes I didn’t understand.
I didn’t understand people.
.
And then Carl did something… just…
He picked out the spoon I had used from the sink and…
.
.
…crushed it.
It just crumpled in his palm like paper and he let it fall to the tiled floor with a clank. A little ball of metal that once upon a time was a utensil. It was at that point where I realized how much of a paranoid pussy I was because I took a solid three, shaking steps backwards until I hit my ass on a grill.
I would have taken more.
“There… there's a reason I'm worried about hurting Kaja.” I couldn’t see his eyes anymore, brick red hair falling over them as he moved his head.
“A-and you too… but I'm guessing we won't be getting as touchy…”
He returned to washing the dishes and I finally noticed the bumps and dents in the pot and how the spoons were a bit wonky, like they had been bent back and forth too much, and the way he took his time placing everything down like it was made of, of, of- something fragile, but it wasn’t…
My eyes darted between his bare back and the room and I slowly crept backwards to the counter and vaulted the steps in one go.
Bella yapped at me as I ran out the open glass door and into the warm summer daylight. Clouds drifted above and there were birds singing along to the anthem still blasting from the park. And I ran because at some point my brain had flicked the ‘fuck’ switch.
My hands hurt from hitting the cobblestones and my footsteps echoed through the streets and my breath hurt my throat. My wings twitched by my sides and my feathers twisted all weird in the breeze.
As good as my stamina had gotten my body hurt and I slowed in the shadow of the mountainous buildings closing all around me. My head was jumbled and my thoughts didn’t work right. I had lost track of where I was, all I saw were flashes of architecture from my art history classes. The road was cold and my tail coiled under my stomach and I still couldn’t breathe. There were spots in my eyes and I leaned against a tree.
Hello, tree. Where did you come from? Where did the sky come from? Oh, I guess I was in one of the Squares. How peculiar. Wait, what was touching me.
Hello white blob. What is that in your mouth? Why are you making noises at me?
“Wh-what…”
Oh, that was my own voice. I sounded like shit.
“How did you…?”
My mouth moved before my brain.
Bella pushed my jacket harder against my chest. I took it from her to get her to stop. At some point I had lain down because the mutt curled up against me. I placed a shaking hand on her back.
She bit the edge of my coat and moved it in my direction. What? Oh. Pocket.
I pulled out a mess of wires and my banged up MP4.
Bella continued nudging my hand as I tried untangling my headphones. It took a long time and at some point I forgot to breathe but eventually I evened out.
By the time got the bastards into my earholes I could think again.
I looked down at Bella and stared into those black little eyes and I saw… I don’t know what I saw other than the slowly solidifying realization that this world wasn’t what it used to be. That the place I was in was never going to be the same home I had grown up in and the people I shared this world with now were nothing like humans.
And neither was I.
.
.
But at least I still had music.
I switched on my Walkman.
Music would still be the same.
And for now, that would be enough.
o.O.o