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"I hear you. You have no idea how many hours I've spent talking to myself, just to stay sane. Being a people person in the apocalypse kinda sucks." He finished his meal and sat back. "The worst is getting a song stuck in your head and not knowing how it ends. I almost ran myself off a cliff once trying to remember the last verse of "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
Tanrial let out a laugh at the cliff thing, “What’s Christmas? I’ve never heard of it?”
"Oh, you haven't? I guess it's been quite a while since anyone celebrated it. Basically it's a winter holiday that celebrates the return of light, and also the birth of this really spiritually significant guy named Jesus who lived a long time ago. People used to decorate pine trees and hold family gatherings and give each other gifts. It was fun. I still sing Christmas songs around that time of year."
“Oh, so it’s like the winter solstice then? Except with our gods instead…” She shrugged. “I haven’t been to any of those celebrations in years.”
"Yeah, like that." Bernon nodded. "What kind of gods do your people have?"
“I guess there kinda like yours, only with different names and they look different,” A shrug, “On the winter solstice, there are three gods, Heris- god of hunting, Kiketh- goddess of birth and Yarra- god of light. We pray to different ones for the summer solstice as well.”
"That's really cool." Bernon fished out his notebook and jotted that down. "Do you still follow those gods, now that you're sort of estranged from your community? Sorry if that's personal."
“A few, Yarra and Heris mainly but there are.. others,” She sighed, “One year I snuck into the winter solstice celebrations, to pray with everybody since I hadn’t for a while. After to was over someone spotted me and tried to kill me,” Her eyes glazed over, “I haven’t celebrated it since.”
Bernon set down his pencil. "That's terrible. I'm sorry."
“Eh, it’s in the past now, I don’t think about it that often, so it’s fine. Don’t feel sorry for me.” She smiled.
"If you're sure." Bernon smiled back, pocketing his book. "Well, shall we had back out? I'm looking forward to learning how this shifting business works."
Tanrial nodded, “I’m actually pretty excited to see what your shift is.” She stood up.
Bernon held the door for her."I hope it's something cool! A wolf maybe, or a cougar. Do you have one? Did you already tell me?"
“Mines a cross between a… wolf, lion and… doesn’t matter about the last one, you’ve probably never head of it anyway.” She shook her head as she walked out.
"Ah c'mon, try me. I've seen some weird creatures in my life."
“Alright… a Marrati.” She walked onto the field and turned back towards Bernon.
He blinked. "Um….nope, never heard of it. You were right." Sighing, he drew himself into a ready position. "Alright, so, do we start this the same way as the others, with my well?"
Tanrial nodded, “Fast learner. You’re not gonna be able to picture the shift this time, you just have to trust the well.”
"Oookay." Bernon drew in a deep breath and started in. By now it was easier to find his center and get into that odd, floaty feeling. After a few minutes, he spoke. "Trust the well, huh? Should I try to…talk to it or something? Ask it what my form is?"
“In your head, maybe. But if you think about shifting it should happen.”
"Here goes." Bernon sank even deeper, trying to figure out what it might feel like to change form. Would it be painful? He hoped not. What if his form was something dumb, like a cow? Cows loved him. Maybe they could tell.
Bernon shoved those thoughts away and tried harder. His head felt heavy, and the air around him was uncomfortably warm. He should have found some shade before he started. He did his best to ignore these distractions, but he still couldn't make anything happen.
Frustrated, he began to ask Tanrial for help, but then stopped short. He hadn't spoken. He'd growled.
Opening his eyes, he looked down. It appeared that he was a giant brown bear.
“Nice, a bear. Do…” She instantly regretted this “you want me to shift into my form?”
He tilted his head, then sat back on his haunches and shrugged as if to say, "If you want".
Tanrial’s shift was quick, luckily the darker part of her shift was… asleep so she shouldn’t have any trouble. It looked much like a wolf and with the build of a lion and much, bigger. She was a pale grey colour, from the Marrati and her tail was more serpentine then anything.
Bernon stared at her, impressed. Her form was so graceful and majestic looking. He probably resembled a giant gopher with a big nose compared to her. He tried to change back into a human so he could compliment her, but realized he didn't know how. He huffed, a little annoyed.