Isn’t it always the way, gentle reader?
There you are, feeling on top of the world, flush with success and the next thing you know, you’re stuck in a trap with nothing but a stick to protect your dignity.
Catriona was grateful for the cover of the late evening darkness; it was the only cover she was going to get until the demon hunter, Mandalee, came along to rescue her. That was not a meeting she was looking forward to, but she knew it was the only way she was getting out.
Eventually, the young woman in white strode into view, leopard by her side. Her expression seemed to fluctuate between annoyed and amused.
“Hi,” Cat-as-Jacob said sheepishly with a small wave.
“I can’t wait to hear your explanation,” Mandalee said, hands on hips. “It had better be spectacularly good if you expect me to let you out!”
“It isn’t easy to explain.”
“I bet it isn’t!” Mandalee returned. “Well, while you’re trying to work that one out, let me ask you an easier one: Do you have a brother?”
“A brother?” Cat frowned. “No, why?”
“Because you look a lot like some guy I fished out of one of my traps this morning.”
Cat thought for a moment, and then realised who she must mean.
“Was he carrying a load of packages by hand because he’d lost his horse, by any chance?”
Mandalee nodded. “So you do know him.”
“Yes, that’ll be Jacob,” Cat replied, “and no, I’m not his brother.”
“Then how come you look so much alike?”
“Ah, well, you see, now we’re back to the part that isn’t easy to explain.”
“I can leave you for a while to figure it out,” Mandalee offered.
“No!” Cat cried. “Wait! You can’t leave me like this, it’s a bit cold to be naked.”
“Better talk quickly, then.”
“Alright, I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to believe me.”
“Try me.”
“Alright then, well, for a start, I’m not really a boy, I’m a girl.”
All trace of humour left Mandalee’s face. “What?” she demanded.
“I said you wouldn’t believe me, but it’s true: I’m really a girl.”
For some reason Catriona couldn’t fathom, Mandalee looked furious. “Are you trying to be funny? Why the hell would you say something like that? I've got a good mind to leave you in there for the rest of the week!”
“But it’s true!” Cat protested. “We met earlier,” she pressed on, quickly, seeing the demon hunter turn as if to walk away. “I’m Catriona. Cat. You said you always got on really well with cats, present situation excepted!”
Mandalee turned back around, her anger gradually giving way to puzzlement.
“You’re serious?”
Cat nodded.
“Not taking the piss?”
“No, why would I?”
“You honestly don’t know?”
“I’m sorry, I really don’t know what else I can say,” Cat admitted, “but if you let me out, I can show you.”
“Alright,” Mandalee accepted, “but if I find out you really are taking the piss, well, let’s just say Shyleen here’s feeling pretty hungry.”
With that warning, she deactivated her trap. Cat immediately felt her connection to nature restored and breathed deeply before shifting back to her natural form, ensuring her long hair fell strategically over her breasts.
Mandalee stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
“Sorry,” she apologised, turning away, “but if you’re really a girl why would you ever want to—” she seemed to catch herself, “—I mean, how did you change like that? Obviously, it’s shapeshifting magic, but don’t you lose a year of your life whenever you do it or something?”
Cat looked at her, quizzically. “You’ve been reading too many books! Basically, it’s something I’ve learned to do with my druid magic. Speaking of changing, do you mind if I put some clothes on? People don’t usually get to see this much of me unless they buy me a drink first,” she quipped, trying to ease the tension.
“Of course!” The demon hunter gasped. “Sorry, it’s just a lot to take in, erm…” she started to take off her backpack, “…I think I might have something you could throw on—”
“—No need for that,” Cat interrupted. “If you could just hold my staff for a minute…” she held it out with one hand as she started to open her pocket dimension with the other.
When Mandalee, trying not to look at Cat’s now fully exposed body, wrapped her hand around the staff, there was a flash of magic as they briefly held it simultaneously, sending them and the staff flying apart. At the same time, Catriona’s clothes fell out of her pocket dimension, along with Shifting Stars, and Mandalee’s clothes fell in – even the mask and bandana were gone. Now the tables were turned, with a naked Mandalee desperately clinging to the staff to try and hide something Catriona had really not expected to see.
All at once, Cat put two and two together. Things Mandalee had said, the mask hiding her face, her reaction to the idea that Cat might be ‘trying to be funny’ when she said she was really a girl. Mandalee had – biologically speaking – been born male, or at least with a male body. Something the demon hunter was obviously not happy about.
Catriona was abject in her apology. “Mandalee!” she cried. “I am so sorry!”
She immediately grabbed the demon hunter’s stuff from her pocket dimension and handed it to her, gently. She turned her back and retrieved her staff as Mandalee dressed. Cat didn’t trust herself to throw them straight on with her magic, nor did she believe that would be polite or acceptable to Mandalee.
“That’s what you were going to say, before, isn’t it? That’s why you were furious, because you thought I was…but I wasn’t, I swear! I had no idea! Dear gods, I had no right to ‘out’ you like that. I would never—”
Mandalee placed a hand on Cat’s shoulder and turned her around. “It’s OK,” she assured her. “I believe you. I’ve mostly learned to pass, and the clothes and mask help with that,” she was fully dressed, now, apart from her mask, which she was about to put on, “but without them…” she trailed off.
Cat gently touched her arm to stay her hand. “You don’t have to hide your face,” she said, “not from me, and you shouldn’t for anyone else, either. It’s not right.”
“It’s just easier when I’m interacting with people,” Mandalee shrugged. Even so, she didn’t put her mask back on. “Which, to be honest, I do as little as possible.”
Cat asked if she would like to go somewhere and talk, but Mandalee pulled a face at that.
“Well at least let’s sit down here,” Cat suggested.
“I don’t know, the ground’s still pretty wet from all the rain,” Mandalee pointed out.
“Oh, I can soon sort that out,” she replied dismissively and used her magic to encourage the grass, trees and plants to drink a bit quicker, effectively creating a dry patch large enough for two women and one leopard to sit in comfort.
“Shyleen says ‘thanks,’” Mandalee said with a smile.
Pulling on her experience of communicating sympathically with Pyrah, Cat tried to project, ‘Welcome, respect, friendship.’
Mandalee’s eyes widened in surprise. “What was that? You spoke to her?”
“Well, sort of,” Cat allowed. “I call it sympathic communication. It isn’t easy to explain.”
“Like how you end up naked, cross-gendered and stuck in a demon trap?” Mandalee laughed.
Cat joined in the laughter, “Yes, like that,” she agreed.
“Shyleen said it’s not like when I do it – I'm a Cleric of Nature, I speak just about every major animal language telepathically. She says she didn’t hear her language but still understood what you were trying to convey.”
“Well, that’s a better explanation than I could have given you,” Cat admitted.
“Don’t worry, her explanations are a lot better than mine, too. She’s a very philosophical cat, our Shyleen. She’s taken a definite liking to you and approves of our friendship.”
“Oh, so we’re definitely friends now, then?” Cat smiled.
“Shyleen says we are, so we must be,” Mandalee insisted with a grin. “She’s never wrong.”
“Well then, far be it from me to argue.” She held out a hand, which Mandalee shook, warmly. “Glad to meet you, Friend,” she said.
“Likewise, Friend,” the demon hunter affirmed. “Dear gods, I can’t remember the last time I felt so free talking to someone, without worrying about,” she gestured vaguely to indicate herself, “you know.”
Cat waved that aside and with a wink, she quipped, “Hey, I showed you mine, you showed me yours!”
Mandalee snorted. “We’ve certainly left ourselves with very little to hide from each other. How did that actually happen, anyway? Any ideas?”
“Ah, you gave me the final piece of the puzzle I needed to put it together.”
“I’m all ears,” said Mandalee.
“Not from what I saw!” Cat remarked.
Mandalee gave her a shove for her trouble and tried to look intimidating while stifling her laughter.
Cat then explained about her pocket dimension magic and how, although it was mostly under control, now, she’d had problems with instability in the presence of wizard magic.
“It seems your cleric magic was enough to confuse it, too. Just like your cleric-powered demon trap kept me stuck in a male body.”
With a grimace, Mandalee replied, “I know that nightmare all too well. Honestly, if I could shapeshift like you, I’d never go back to this body.”
Cat fixed her new friend with a serious look. “Do you really mean that?”
“I’ve meant it all my life,” she replied ruefully. “Unfortunately, miracles don’t happen.”
“Miracles can happen if people make them happen,” Cat countered.
“Nobody has that kind of power,” Mandalee insisted with a shake of her head.
“Power isn’t everything,” Cat returned. “With the right application of knowledge, skill, technique and imagination, people can achieve all kinds of things.”
“What are you saying?” Mandalee demanded, her heart rate accelerating. “That you could…” she wiggled her fingers, vaguely.
“Well, it’ll take a bit more than that,” Cat told her with a smile, “and I certainly can’t do it right here this minute, but with time and study, I really don’t see why it shouldn’t be possible.”
“Don’t do this to me, Cat!” Mandalee pleaded. “Not unless you’re sure.”
“I’m not sure,” Cat admitted, “and I won’t attempt anything until I am, but I am confident. Give me time and I honestly, truly believe I’ll be able to do it.”
Mandalee wrapped her new friend in a huge embrace. “That would be amazing.” She broke the hug, held Cat by the shoulders at arm’s length, staring into her eyes. “But whether you can do it or not, the fact that you’ll try makes us friends for life. That’s it, now. You’re stuck with me.”
“I’ll drink to that with pleasure!” Cat declared, then she realised something. “Hey, you don’t have a drink with you!”
“I only drink when I’m on duty. I’m done for the night. Let the Trickster do what it will!” she declared.
“Ah,” Cat remarked.
“What?” Mandalee asked.
“In the interests of having nothing to hide, there’s one thing I haven’t told you.”
“About the Trickster?”
Cat nodded.
“You know something about it?”
Again, Cat nodded.
“Go on, then. What is it?”
“There isn’t one,” Cat admitted. “It was just me. All part of my ridiculous radical plan to get this.” She held up Shifting Stars.
Mandalee screamed with laughter. “You spent two days running around as a Trickster just to get your hands on a book?” She was incredulous.
“Oh, you have no idea what I’ve been through to get this,” Cat replied, ruefully.
Wiping tears from her eyes, the demon hunter stood up and held out a hand to her friend, “I think this story is going to need a drink.”
Cat took the hand and pulled herself up. “I thought you said you only drink when you’re on duty?”
“I am on duty,” she replied, linking arms with Cat and sending a telepathic invitation for Shyleen to join them. “I just caught the Trickster!”
The two friends laughed as they walked together, heading for the FaerWay Tavern.