A Summoning: Part XXII

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Part XXII
~Emperor, Part 1~

On the way from her bedroom to the kitchen, Onida encountered a small, dark-haired wolf-girl sleeping curled up on the couch with a quilt draped over her. Peacefully asleep like that, it was impossible to distinguish Sam from a harmless, cute girl who'd looked that way her entire life. It felt almost wrong to disrupt such a sight. Weird, she thought; Damon was—objectively speaking—cute too, but didn't make her feel quite the way this friend of hers was at the moment.

“Uh..morning?” she said quietly, not actually sure how a startled werewolf waking in unfamiliar surroundings would react. Sam barked once, a quiet, high “Rrf!” that enhanced her adorableness tenfold for a second, and then fidgeted and twisted around before sitting up with her legs still across the couch as she opened her eyes and looked around.

“Aah, hey again,” she said, spotting Onida. “Damon got sleepy, so I led her to bed for a nap and came down here to take one myself.” She yawned, stretching her arms out and dropping the quilt off in the process; it was unfair for sharp teeth to be so adorable, Onida thought, listening to the high “Huuawah” sound from her throat. “Thought, you know, it'd be way more obvious I'm not doing anything, weird, if we slept totally separately.”

Despite herself, Onida briefly pictured the two of them curled up close to each other in Damon's bed, and felt...what?...jealous? No way. Outwardly she just shrugged. “That's fine, I guess. Could you go get her up? I'm gonna make breakfast.”
“Sure!” Sam hopped onto her feet and scurried toward the stairs, pausing just before the first step. “Oh aah..am I invited? My hotel does have a breakfast...”
“Please. I'd be ashamed to leave you to endure what the 'hospitality' business passes for a meal,” Onida said.

“Heheh, if you say so. Thank you,” Sam nodded once, then continued upstairs.

At breakfast, Damon paused eating for a moment to speak. “Hey Sam.”
“Yeah?”
“Um, this is kinda a weird question buut...do werewolves, like, worship the moon? I mean—you say stuff like 'oh, moon', sometimes, and I think I always thought it was just a weird quirk, buut..”
“Well, yes and no,” Sam said. “We don't worship the moon itself, but rather the moon goddess La Lune. And—not all werewolves, strictly speaking, really just the more traditional types. But, aah, you know, when you grow up hearing your parents use certain expressions you tend to pick them up for yourself.”

Damon blinked a couple of times, taking another bite of bacon while she thought about something. “What's La Lune like?”

“Oh, aah, let's see. She's supposed to change with the phases of the moon. But she's always a woman and a wolf, or dog, that are both, like, the same being. Except she can also take on the appearance of a werewolf? Usually when she communicates with mortals, though, it's in a dream where she just shows up as 'the moon'.”

“Oh. Hm.”

“Something on your mind?” Onida asked, although she was now practically bursting with questions about the literal, provable existence of a deity herself.

“Well—I had a dream about the moon, not long after I was, uh, made like this,” she said, and proceeded to recount that dream for them, quite a bit more calmly and less emotionally than she had to the ones who'd first found her.

“Yeah, that—sounds like La Lune to me,” Sam said. “Not that I've ever had the privilege of a 'visit', but that's pretty similar to other accounts I've seen or read from people. I guess she wanted equal parts to apologize to and comfort you.”

“Apologize?” Onida asked. “For what?”
“Well, aah. La Lune is supposed to have made werewolves in the first place, out of some willing humans. But, they say, we inherited her wild nature, which makes it easy for freshly-bitten wolves to lose themselves without the right kind of help.”

“Why would a moon goddess have a 'wild nature'?” she pressed.

“Well—she's not just the moon goddess. She's also the goddess of like, untamed nature, mystery, the night, and all beastfolk, to some extent. But since other kinds of beastfolk have their own gods, it's more like she's the 'chief' of the fuzzy people gods, and also especially the goddess of werewolves.”

Onida said, “So you're telling me that not only is there a real moon goddess, but others too? How many are there?”

“Well, aah..I don't, know, exactly? Which should maybe tell you 'a lot'. The thing is, most people only really know about the big ones, and there's supposed to be a whole lot of smaller ones that only people who are specifically loyal to them tend to know about. Aand, even the big ones I don't really know that much about myself.”
“So what are the ones you do know?”
“Let's see..” She began counting off on her fingers. “There's La Lune's brother Sol, god of the sun. Both of them are supposed to be the oldest gods, who were around in some form before humans even existed. Then there are other beastfolk gods like Bastet, the Fox King or whatever it's called..the god of love, who has like six different names I can never remember...”

“Do we have any war gods?”
“Not—specifically, that I'm aware of?” she shrugged.

“I just can't get over that they're real. What kind of—like, how do you worship La Lune, for example?”

“Aaah..byyy, being, a, werewolf?” Sam answered very slowly, word-by-word, clearly uncertain that this was the right way to put the answer. “Our gods are kinda weird this way: It's like, not so much that they need specific worshipers but more like, they get 'power' or 'praise' or whatever from just anyone doing or feeling certain things. It's supposed to 'please' La Lune when wolves run wild and free on the full moon and stuff, or just when people respect or appreciate nature in general, orrr, like, writing poems about the moon might even be enough? So, there are people who say they specifically worship this or that god, but it's not something any of them demand.”

---

Graham rose early, as she usually did, and after breakfast went for a walk. This had been her habit before the doctors found the cancer, and it was nice to get back to it. However, the brief sort of walk that would have sufficed to tire her out was far too little now; for as slim as her new body appeared, it had quite a lot of stamina. She far outpaced her old self, much more than making up for her smaller paces, effortlessly, and so rode the sidewalk to parts of the neighborhood she'd never been up close to before. In little more time than the usual hour or so, she had covered all that distance and returned, not even short of breath, to her house's front door. Perhaps a jog or something else more energetic was needed to really challenge her new physique, she thought, but that was work for another day. For now, she headed back inside to go relax and read.

Reaching the end of the latest book, the catgirl stood up and stretched, feeling a vague kind of impatience. There was another book to read, but she felt a bit restless and wanted to do something else for a while. It wasn't unreasonable to guess that the youthful body came with some more youthful impulses, and anyway she now seemed to very much have the time to develop a new hobby. It was rare, she thought, for a person to have this dilemma—thinking they were at the end of the road, only to find themselves young again and in search of something to do. But maybe someone, at some point, had experienced something like this; if not a magical rejuvenation, perhaps someone had simply decided to take up something new anyway, without regard to how long they did or didn't have left to live. And...the best way to find information, any young person would say, would be the Internet.

She had an old desktop, rarely used since a certain old friend who corresponded by email had passed away. But it had a browser and could handle basic functions, if at least it would boot. Thankfully, it did, and so began the youthened Neko's search for some new way to occupy her time.

Going back to work, now there was an idea. Bringing in more money was always attractive, and Graham had been a librarian for many years, but the city library probably wasn't looking for more help, having long since replaced her—him, rather, at the time—on retirement. She would have to poke around a bit for something like that. For now, she put that aside and sought more leisurely activities to take up.

The next thing that caught her eye was video games. Neither Graham nor his granddaughter had ever had much use of those, apart from the odd phone game. What people 'in the know' seemed to consider real video games, however, were an entirely different beast. She'd read articles, now and then, about the interactive medium; the idea was interesting, but seemed like a lot of trouble, and very expensive besides. Well, if she got a job to make more money, a little could go toward something like that, perhaps. What was it really like, though?

Continuing down this rabbit hole, it was astoundingly easy to find footage of people playing those games. Watching wasn't quite the same as experiencing it firsthand, she felt sure, but listening to someone else's experiences would at least give some sense of what it was like. For now, watching a bit of that to evaluate this potential new interest was good enough. Anyway, some of these players made a performance out of it, with quite a lot of personality or even humor at times. Without even fully understanding what they were doing or talking about, it was still captivating to watch, she thought. This was how she lost no less than two hours sitting at the computer with her tail flicking back and forth behind her, occasionally chuckling or giggling in appreciation of the humor of strangers she'd never met, and possibly never would. When her eyes drifted off to the clock and she realized this, the catgirl wondered if the inexpensive act of just watching might not suffice for the use of time she'd sought. At least, it had proven itself quite enjoyable.

---

Prama's classes were over by lunchtime, and she wisely decided to eat and carefully tie her hair back before heading out to the alchemist's for her test. Because of that, it was the early afternoon when she pulled up to the lonesome building and saw that he apparently had some customers, judging by the presence of a few cars nearby. She elected to wait for them to leave, which they thankfully did before long; she caught sight of a couple of very demonic-looking people, not unlike Zotha's appearance except these were probably the real thing, and what seemed to be an ordinary human in a very unusual getup. After they drove off, she got out of the car and came inside.

Boreas was facing the door to the back room when she opened the door, and turned to face her as she walked inside. “Oh, there y'are. Wondered if you'd ever come out of your car,” he remarked.

“Well, among the things I traded for brains was the ability to be comfortable around strangers,” she said. “I'm still working on that.”

“Hmn,” he grunted neutrally. “Well, come on back then.”

With a slight wave, he opened the door and behind the counter and continued the way he'd been going before, and she followed. What was inside was very much what one would expect of an alchemy lab: Tubes, vials, bottles, shelf upon shelf of various ingredients ranging from unidentifiable to commonplace. The center was taken up by a few cauldrons of varying sizes, only the smallest of which wasn't currently filled with a liquid of some unusual color or property (such as constantly fizzing or smoking). It reeked with a mixture of scents: Something fruity, burnt meat, something rotten, just plain smoke...the combination was exquisitely terrible, and made her wonder how someone with an even more sensitive nose worked under such conditions. Maybe that was why he thought someone needed to start young to be an alchemist: To get used to the smells.

“I got things together to make a simple potion, like I said,” the werewolf stated, indicating a table with bowls of various indistinct, differently-colored powders lined up on it. “Same sort of thing Steph usually buys, just helps the body's natural magic regeneration catch up to a more expensive spell or such. Before we start, you need some safety equipment...here.” He went over to a coat rack she hadn't even managed to notice before in all the sensory overload and pulled off a stained leather coat that appeared to have been roughly cut at the lower hem and a pair of very new-looking leather gloves; Prama slid the coat on, the uneven hem trailing to her ankles and the sleeves covering half her hands, then the gloves, which fit perfectly. It smelled too, but there would be plenty of time to shower and launder what she had on under it later.

Boreas examined her wearing the getup for a second, his eyes clearly drawn to the sleeves. “Hmm. Hold still a sec.”
“Okay?”

He came closer, reaching down and grabbing a sleeve in both of his hands, each on one side of where her wrist was, and then yanked it hard enough to tear the leather. Tossing the discarded piece aside, he did the same to the other sleeve, the end result being some rough edges that covered only a bit past where the gloves started, and stood no risk of getting in the way. Then he stepped back to examine the fit again, and nodded once. “...There.”

Was that how he'd gotten a coat short enough for her, she wondered, trying not to think too hard about how this level of strength was likely enough to pick her up, crumple her up like a sheet of paper and throw her through a wall. It seemed he'd gone to the effort of buying new gloves, though, which struck her as unusually nice for someone he hoped to be rid of by the end of the day.

Next, Boreas went over to the empty cauldron. “Now, I'll explain the basics of alchemy. Listen close and ask any questions you got.”

“Alright.” She followed him over there, feeling a little better already as her drive to learn something new began taking over her mood.

---

Being an earth dragon came with a certain 'sense' for what was on, and in, the ground. That sense was largely passive, but all morning today Thomas had felt small patches of freshly-disturbed dirt with..something small she couldn't quite identify buried underneath. Once her last class, after a meat-heavy lunch, was over, she decided to try and find the source of it. Maybe it was just some landscaping or sprinkler repair or something...but knowing what it was would make her feel better.

Instinct seemed to tell her what to do. Standing near the middle of the quad, which was reasonably close to the center of campus, she 'reached out' and felt for anyone presently disturbing the earth. Fortunately, this turned up a result, a single place with some notable motion going on, and it wasn't too far from her current position. She moved swiftly in the direction of the disturbance, some relatively weak new predatory instincts driving her to catch the person doing this in the act, and soon arrived—not long after the earth was placed back on top of another object freshly lowered into the ground.

Well—the only person here was a black-haired guy in casual clothes, who looked to be another student. Thomas was fortunate enough to come in behind him, and had a clear view of him looking around for potential witnesses before waving a hand upward, pulling at some loose ground in much the same way her own powers could work, but on a far smaller scale. Then he set the pile to one side, reached into a shoulder bag and pulled out something small and tube-shaped.

He certainly didn't look like anyone who should be burying things on campus to her. So: “Hey.”

“Gyeeaii!” The guy jumped, clearly expecting to have heard anyone approaching, and turned toward her. It occurred to her that she'd been having the ground beneath her feet damp the sound of them hitting it from the moment she'd begun trying to sneak up behind him. Apart from the surprise at her voice, no sooner did he catch sight of her than his eyes went wide and he stumbled back a couple of steps. “Wh-hiiii,” he said. “M-ma'am?”
This was a new one. Thomas was hardly the kind of person people would call 'sir' before, and didn't feel much like a 'ma'am' now either. She crossed her arms, deciding to take it in stride for now. “What're you up to?”
“N-nu-nuh...nothing,” he mumbled, still completely flat-footed.

“Really? So you're not burying whatever you've got in your hand there all over campus?” she said, pointing.
“I-I don't have anything in my hand,” he said, spreading his arms and opening both his hands to show them empty. Neat trick—she hadn't seen him put that thing back in the shoulder bag. Maybe he'd slipped it up his sleeve, or employed some kind of magic to hide it?

“Okay.” Well, she had some tricks of her own, and waved a hand upward, pulling the ground up from under the last thing he'd buried and using the surrounding dirt to float the whole mass up next to her. “What about this one?”

“Uh—um..” He shuddered for a second, and then drew himself up. “Okay, fine. I should know better than to try to put anything over on a dragon, right?” Then he put his hands in his pockets, and something happened to his appearance: His ears flipped up past his hair, growing into tall, black-furred spikes, and a black tail spread out from his back. “I'm terribly, uh, sorry for my impertinence. Milady?”

Thomas sighed. “Cut that out, I'm just another student here. Toma, if you like,” she made up on the spot—deciding, somewhat arbitrarily, that one deception attempt brooked another. “So, what's this thing?” she held out her hand and neatly caught the tube out of the air as the floating earth dropped it before returning to obeying gravity itself.

“It uuhh, it's for a harmless trick,” he said. “You know what tomorrow is?”
“Thursday?”
“No no, I mean—April first,” he said, waving. “It's like a holy day for my people. I'd really appreciate it if you'd, uh, allow me to celebrate it properly.”

“You didn't answer the question I actually asked,” the dragon-girl pointed out, waving the tube in her hand a bit.
“Hey, hey, careful!” he said, somewhat involuntarily holding out his hands as if to catch something.

“Okay look, that's a simple machine. If you soak it in enough water, it pops out a little flag. But if you keep shaking it like that, it might also pop out then.”

“I see.” She looked at it carefully for a second, confirming that at least one end looked like it was supposed to pop open. “Surely you can spare one just to show me,” she said.
“Eehh, fine.” The guy with the fuzzy tail pulled another of the tubes out of the bag and waved his hand over it, sprinkling some water out of his palm somehow (more magic, she supposed). With an audible pop similar to a bottle of wine being uncorked, a little blue triangular flag with a cute red cartoon fox-face on it shot out, its pole parallel to the tube. “See?”

“Hm.” Thomas nodded, and set the tube in her hand on the ground in front of her carefully. “And they all do the same thing?”
“Well—there's a few different flag designs, but yeah,” he said, nodding. “Look, I know my kind isn't exactly known for honesty, but I swear, what we have planned for tomorrow is totally harmless. I'll, uh, I'll even fix the ground after if you want!”

The dragon tilted her head slightly. “'Your kind'?” It finally occurred to her that his fuzzy parts matched those of a fox, perhaps, and that was why the flag had a fox-head cartoon on it too—and Zotha had mentioned Kitsune among the types of magic people who were actually real. Which meant this was probably one of those. “How many of you are involved with this 'trick'?”
“Uh—how many? J-just me,” he said nervously.

“You said 'we' a second ago,” she replied, pointing.
“Oh...yeeah...whoops. Look, if something does happen you don't like, I'd appreciate if you just treat it as my mistake and turn your wrath my way alone. O-okay? I did uh, most of the planning, anyway. Deal?”

“Fine with me,” Thomas shrugged. “Guess I'll look forward to seeing whatever the rest of your prank is tomorrow.” She wandered off after that, satisfied that whoever this was probably had no intention of hurting anyone in the first place anyway.

Gods, Steph thought as he watched Toma leave. A dragon on campus? As a student? Since when!? Last I checked there were no dragons awake in a hundred-mile radius from here! Wait... It came to him rather quickly, now that he wasn't flustered by the presence of a being with terrifying, immense magical power, and his ears lowered in something like annoyance. Zotha. That girl was probably human last week. Yeesh. Shaking his head, he went over to retrieve the flag dispenser Toma had pulled out of the ground and start the work of putting it back in and hiding the evidence—or at least hiding it from people who weren't dragons, anyway.

---

“Well.” Boreas sniffed the cauldron, and used a teaspoon to carefully draw out some of the liquid inside, bringing it up to smell more closely and then taste. “Looks like you weren't bluffing.”

“Indeed,” the bespectacled girl said, wearing a victorious grin. “Not only have I made it successfully, but I've also memorized the steps, so I could make it again without any help at all if you'd like.”

“That won't be needed,” he shook his head once. “This is enough to last a while, and I'd consider our bet settled for now. Welcome aboard, I guess,” he said, offering her a gloved hand to shake—which she did.

“Excellent. I'm eager to learn more, of course, but I'll defer to your judgment on how and when.”
“Hm. I'd say you should get a hairnet first,” he said. “Didn't think of that. For today, I have some projects in the works I could use some grunt work for. But don't worry—I'm sure you'll learn just from watching me and doing some of the basics.”
“I'm sure I will,” she agreed, nodding.

“Then I'll keep you back here for now, and handle customers myself. We can work on your stranger issues later.”