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Chapter 2

The Spirit Pact

I'm awakened by the sun finally getting bright enough that it is bothersome, even with my eyes fully clothed. I try to turn away from it only to realize that I am no longer back home sleeping in a rather low-quality bed but rather on a very hard surface. It takes me a moment or two to fully process what all is going on and I open my eyes and sit up, trying to get my bearings. I look for the priest while trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes.

"Good morning, little Fox," he says, tending the fire.

"So it wasn't a dream," I say groggily, somewhat despondently.

"Fraid not, my child. Come, get some food in you, we still have a long way to go. Though I suppose first thing is to find out how much I need to be teach you. Can you cook?"

"Not really, no."

"Not surprised. Can you sew?"

"Uh, no. they never had me do any stuff like that. I was mainly just manual labor and cleaning."

"Shame, sewing is a very useful skill to have, especially when your body can change and you're a long ways away from being able to just buy new clothes. So what all did they have you do at that place if you can't cook or sew?

"Manual labor. Moving things around, digging up weeds, feeing the livestock. Cleaning. Pretty typical behavior for any of the Forgotten."

"My child, you were never forgotten. I just had not found you yet. Still a shame your guardians weren't better caretakers for you."

"So what was that thing inside me? That thing you called me Fox over?"

"That is the very nature of who we are. We are the anomaly. We are the monsters that become monsters, but we are no more terrible than anyone else. We are born with a single spirit attached to us. It is always watching and always wants to help protect you from anything that may threaten you. In time, you may gain other forms. That form you saw me in last night was not my main form, but it is an effective form. In time, some may offer you a spirit pact. Agree to their terms and have the qualities they require and you can gain their form as well."

"How could I possibly do that? Does that mean I've sold my soul or something?"

"No, heaven's no, child. It's all on the very nature of what we are. It. You're probably a little too young to fully grasp all the details about it. But let me tell you these few things to help put your mind at least a little on ease. No, you did not sell your soul, this is something that's been with you from the day you were born. They aren't things of evil. You'll understand once they start asking you questions. Quite a few of them will not let you use their form if they don't agree with your sense of morals. In fact, if it's the one I'm thinking of, your little fox form is one that is particularly morally inclined. Always about doing the right thing. And if it is, then I'm sure we'll get along just fine. And finally, in all of my travels and all of the stories I've heard about our own special kind of existence, there is only one person whose base form is a particular species at a time. Thus why naming on what you turn into. But whatever form of Fox you got, there will not be a single person where that is the form they can shift to the easiest and quickest. Sure you will likely run into some that can turn into your form, but you are the only one that can call that form your first one."

"Do you have that fox thing as well then?"

"I did, once," the priest says, staring off in the distance. Not understanding what he meant about that I press for more information.

"What do you mean you used to? Is there a limit to the number of forms you can take? Did you have to give it up for that thing from last night."

"No, nothing like that," he half chuckles, though it's clear that he forced himself to do so. "No, as far as I can tell there is no real limit to how many forms you can take at any one time. It's just there was a disagreement of sorts. I did something a long time ago that did not sit well with that particular form. And I've not been able to take that form again since then. The thing is, each form has its own personality of sorts. They have things they like or don't like. Do something they particularly don't like and they can choose to reject you later on. There are theories for why this is the case, but that is a bit beyond what you're probably ready to hear at this point."

I stay somewhat quiet for a moment as he finishes up and starts putting things away. Eventually my mind reflects on what started all of this, something that had been bothering me for all of this time.

"Why didn't I burn in that fire?"

"You can burn just as easily as you can set a burning log on fire, or to freeze an ice cube or liquefy water. All of those like you and me who have the capacity to take on multiple forms have been blessed by the elements and are protected by them. As such it is almost impossible for us to actually be hurt by them. I would imagine that whatever force allowed for us to be and gave us our power made it so that we would be immune to the elements, for whatever purpose. A fire can always get hotter than it already is and there is almost always the potential to make an ice cube colder and the same is true to us. We can be affected by aspects of the various elements but we also aren't immune to everything. There is a force that is more powerful than any of the elements that we have access to, but it is not something that anyone can be resistant to as far as I've seen, let alone be immune to it."

His entire form begins to shift again and I can feel something coming from him. Instinctively I try to draw away from him, for all the good that it would actually do me.

"Now you do have still far more magic being stored up than your body really wants. And what better way to deal with that as to also help you learn how to use your other form, so let's draw that out, shall we, my child?"

As his entire body is starting to darken back to that green form and nearly double in size he holds out his arms at me. And I can feel a strong pressure building up in my entire body. It's very similar to the sensation from last night, in forcing a sort of paralysis upon me, but this time it's getting so much stronger. As I watch his feet start growing and expanding I find myself struggling even to breathe and that reaction from last night is also starting to take place. I try and fight the sensation again with the intent on stopping myself from becoming a monster, regardless of what he had claimed thus far. And yet as I'm focusing on fighting it changing my arms and head and stopping the hairs from growing I can feel a very strong pressure coming from above my butt and also on my feet, as if both are cramping up.

I try my hardest to try and fight against this sensation but it's a battle between the need to breathe and the need to be human and the more and more the priest transforms the stronger this binding is becoming. Either one would be bad but having to deal with both at the same time means I know that I'm fighting a losing battle. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't want to just give in and let myself become a monster. My hands reach up and clutch at my chest, trying to help gather my own strength against this force. I can feel the skin on the back of my arms starting to grow longer and thicker and my heels seem more and more insistent at rising up into the air. I fight it with all I have, though I'm struggling to breathe and my head is starting to swim as a direct result of it.

"All right, then. I think it's time for a slightly different strategy. I apologize for this, my child."

So wrapped up in trying to maintain control over my own body that I had half forgotten about him. I half gaze up, losing focus a slight bit as my heels rise up quickly. I can see the priest half transformed already rushing towards me and hitting me just below the ribs, knocking the air that I couldn't even get out of me. I collapse onto all fours as my body tries desperately to get my lungs to work correctly. As a response the thing trying to change me doubles its efforts and while I'm stuck trying to get air my body is changing all around me. My entire body is growing what looks like fur all over. And as I'm able to get one good gasp of air into my lungs I can feel that my chest has barreled out quite a bit. At this point it isn't so much an issue of me trying to fight it as trying to endure it. It's like trying to climb a smooth wall. If you could get something to grab, maybe. But this thing changing me has given up listening to my own desires and is changing me without any say on my part.

I can feel a hand gently clapping me on my back, not so much in a congratulatory sense but rather trying to help me recover. I can feel a little bit of something flow into me with each tap, enough that I can get a little bit of air but not enough that I can gain full enough control to try and stop my transformation. My eyes water up as I'm able to cough out one big breath before my chest locks up on me again. I can feel my mouth extending with the cough and I barely avoid biting on my tongue in the process. My entire mouth feels strange and wrong in some regards

"Just focus on your breathing, my child," the priest says gently into my eyes, which feel like he's grabbing them and trying to pull them off my head if not for the fact I know he doesn't have more than two hands and I can feel one on my arm and the other patting me on the back. "Just breathe, nice and slow. Everything will be okay."

With another gasp I realize just how strange my body is already starting to feel. I'm starting to feel almost a bit too warm, sounds and smells are coming to me far more acutely than before. I can feel something curling up around my backside, wrapping around feet that seem far too long to be mine. I look down and see my chest has barreled out somewhat on top of that, seemingly covered in a thin coat of a whitish colored fur, though that's growing thicker by the second. I can feel something flowing through me, an awareness of my surroundings I had never had before. And yet for the moment all that matters is trying to get my breathing to return.

Finally, after an excruciating amount of time I find myself able to breathe again, at least to some degree. Air flows quite smoothly into and out of my lungs, though I can still feel it threatening to seize up on me again. And it is only from just recovering that I noticed that I can no longer feel my body changing. And yet, when I stare down and see my arms covered in a fine pelt of dark brown fur I realize that I had completely failed in my efforts to prevent myself from becoming a monster. And I have no idea on if I'll be able to ever return to being human again.

"There you go, Fox. Is that so bad?" he asks in a somewhat patronizing manner, mocking my attempts to try and stay human.

I look down at myself. My clothes didn't seem to survive the change which is definitely unsettling. I seem to be covered in a mix of white, brown and orange fur, with the brown more on my feet and hands. And I got this very long appendage sticking out behind me. The priest takes off his cloak completely and wraps it around me. His stature so much taller than me that it actually covers me completely, all the way down to the ground. I grip it tightly, trying to keep at least some degree of decency. I try to stand up but find that my legs don't seem to want to work right. More specifically my balance is shot when I try to stand normally, not to mention that my feet feel really awkward trying to stand. I get about halfway up and then start to fall down again. The priest catches me so I don't land all the way and he pushes me forward, my heels forcing themselves to raise off the ground in the process.

"There you go. Your legs are somewhat different now. You're going to need to learn how to handle walking on your toes with this form. Trust me that your form is balanced, it can walk just fine. You're just trying to stand like a human when that doesn't work anymore."

"Well it would still work if you hadn't done this to me," I complain.

"That's fair," he shrugs, an act made all the more alien by his wings following through with the motion. "But let me be quite plain, child. Your body has built up far too much energy. And it'll continue to keep having far too much energy until we have expelled it from you. Now forcing you into this form did drain a small bit, and I could just drain all of it. But the fact of the matter remains that unless I teach you how to control your own power and get you to know when it needs to be expended on your own, then you'll keep running into situations where you're setting everything on fire without meaning to. And next time, my child, you may not be so luck as to only be burning an empty barn. Would you feel okay with yourself if you caused the deaths of dozens of innocent lives all because you were too prideful to use one of the forms God has granted you by birth?"

I somewhat pout in response, still not liking the situation but not being able to really argue with his logic. Personally, I'd rather he just figure out how to remove this power from me entirely. But for the time being I suppose I don't really have much choice in the matter as regardless if I want to be a monster or not. Regardless if I want to have this power or not, the fact remains that he isn't going to simply just turn me back and let me walk away. Meaning at least for the time being I'm going to have to do as he says and try and figure out how to walk, even if only temporarily. And then later on I can figure out how to expel my energy and regain my humanity, hopefully, then, for good. I grit my teeth, attempt as best I can to not pay much attention to how my body seems to move and instead try and walk as I would imagine it'd be like to have to wear super high heels. At first I had thought that the long appendage sticking out behind me would aid in my walking but it doesn't really seem to do much of anything other than mirror my current mode or sway back and forth.

But that can come later. For now it's simply the matter of trying to relearn how to walk, which feels both silly and uncomfortable at the same time. I know that I don't really understand how to walk as I haven't done it yet but it almost feels like my body is just silently judging me for not doing it right. That I can almost feel something hidden deep within me that is watching me struggle to walk and is getting frustrated at my inability to do even the most-simple of actions. And that brings all sorts of questions that I don't really want to try and consider for the time being. For now it's about survival, regaining my humanity and then freeing myself from this power. I eventually manage a sort of walk by shifting to one side, raising my other leg up and forward then falling forward onto it before moving forward onto that leg. It's extremely strange feeling and rather halting but I am at least moving now. The priest, for the most part, simply lets me learn and only does something if I'm about to fall over or something, which as I get a sort of hang of it becomes slightly less and less frequent. After an hour of doing this I actually manage to get to the point of walking at least somewhat normally, though I still struggle to stay upright whenever I'm standing still.

Once I get to this point of starting to be able to move without too much effort he begins to try and train me on how to use magic. The vast majority of the information I am being given goes way over my head. And this entire time I can definitely feel that presence within me judging me quite harshly for not being able to instantly get it. I am able to get a bit of a glow to my hand, and the priest seems quite content about that level of progress, but I still get that feeling of disappointment from within and the fact that I'm unable to simply get rid of this power all that easily.

"Right," the priest eventually says as we settle down for a break. "I think I need to go about this in a slightly different way."