Becoming monsters is the creation of AiLovesToGrow, setting used with permission
This idea comes from Amethyst Dragonfly. An enormous thanks to Agathon of the Quaranteam Writers Room for reviewing my medical scene here.
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Due to popular request, my Dramatis Personae:
Abbey "Dee" Williams: A Marid genie presently employed as a bank teller, who found herself bound by one of her Wishes to be a good girlfriend.
Justin Majors: Human student pursuing an art degree, described as looking like he belonged on the beach. Accidentally Wished for a good girlfriend, and it turned out to be Abbey.
Todd Reed: College student visiting from Yellowstone University, a fairly skinny and nondescript Bard. His team stars in Tidbits, though what happened in the intervening two years is a mystery.
May: Todd's Greater Succubus wife, mother of little Alex, and the reason their group was visiting.
Ghata: A petite Indian woman and shapeshifter, friend of Todd and May as well as one of their fellow students.
Song: Another shapeshifter, this one a Korean woman.
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Chapter 15: Sun and Sand
The temptation for Justin to give posing directions to the seagull like he was taking a photoshoot was, to say the least, intense. Ghata, in the seagull's body, was strutting like she was on a catwalk. Not precisely the most natural behavior for that kind of bird. Then again, Justin was quite sure that if a seagull knew what a catwalk was and somehow associated strutting on one with french fries, they'd do it.
They did eventually get her into a more natural, if dramatic, pose. Which she then held for longer than wildlife would have to give Justin the chance to get his sketch and skeleton done. At that point, it was all downhill for him, so Ghata changed back into Human form and dried off. Then, since the only other people left in the house were a fussy baby and a breastfeeding mother trying to fix that "fussy" thing, she decided to catch up on some sunbathing. There would be time for her to do homework and compile data later. For now? It was time to relax a bit, for the first time in what seemed like forever. Between school, drama, extracurriculars, family, and this excursion? Free time was precious. She set herself up on a slice of beach a bit away from Justin so she'd be out of sight, then got to soaking up some of that good sun.
Then promptly dozed off, fatigue unexpectedly catching up to her. This was not the best idea for several reasons, but to be fair the Indian woman didn't realize quite how tired she actually was.
Justin, for his part, hit his stride and was eagerly charging forward with the traditional media piece. Wildlife Study didn't demand it, but he felt that it was more appropriate to do his art piece on the spot where he had been observing what he drew. The paper could be scanned into a digital portfolio later. It wasn't long before he looked up, stretched out, and realized that any further work on the piece would be overdoing it. The idea was to do a study of the wildlife, not the way the sand sparkled in the sun or the clouds in the sky. Even if they were particularly interesting and fluffy clouds. Though he idly wondered where Ghata could have gone off to, the first priority would be to get his newly-completed homework scanned and safe. That, in turn, meant he needed to run back to his dorm room.
It wasn't hard, not really, but he found the place to be stuffy and overly warm. Physically, anyway, despite the temperature the spiritual warmth of it was gone. It just wasn't home anymore. His computer whirred more loudly than he remembered, the tap had a certain screeching sound he only vaguely remembered from seemingly a lifetime ago, and the blackout curtain didn't seem to be blacking out as much light as before. It took until the scanner finished its work for him to realize why. More than just comparing it to his magical manor, more than being by the seaside, this was what the room was like before... all of this. Before his love had come into his life, by means of devastatingly powerful if accidental magic.
The scan of the art piece completed, some brief touching up to make the file presentable. A little bit of rotation, a little bit of smoothing off-white paper marks or stray sketch lines. It was done, and in two hours rather than twelve, from the time Ghata started modeling as the seagull to the time he scanned it in. That left him time enough before Abbey got back. Time to get ahead of things.
It was the work of only a few moments for him to grab his planning notebook. In a few more moments he was back out on the beach, glancing at his Status screen and feeling one of the two Mana Potions in his pocket.
Forty-six percent on Mana. Gotta make sure I stay safe in case of the house suddenly draining something from me. Call it twenty percent as a minimum? Okay, if I get close or hit that, I'll stop, chug the potion, and see where I'm at.
Justin's footsteps carried him to a patch of somewhat lighter sand on the beach. Probably a bit purer than the stuff around it, though it took him a few moments to remove some extra bits of plant life, shells, and pebbles from the area. Granted, the first time he did this he didn't take anywhere near this many precautions... but then again, he'd been facing down a dragon, so he didn't have many choices. And it shattered, too, so there were obviously imperfections in the process. This time, he could do better.
It started like a lot of sand art does, by lightly tracing outlines as a guide. The blade would be about 30 inches of gradual taper, the last inch or two much sharper to a point. A handle sized for his hand, small flare at the end to hold it. The guard was relatively small, a figure-eight. Three shallow divots up the flat, the middle one longer than the other two. Fullers, that's what the website called them, meant to lighten the weapon and reduce the needed materials.
Katzbalger
, a short sword. One known to be used by the Landsknecht of Germany to good effect, both in combat and in display. Which made it perfect for his project.
His graders at school wanted something that would look good. His mentor didn't want him making a katana. It worked.
He started by calling a whisper of his power. Enough to turn the outline into something more solid than powder. More, and he had a flat pane of glass in roughly the right shape. It wasn't more than a couple of millimeters thick, but it was THERE. Justin checked his Status, still at a solid 33 percent for mana. Enough to give this a couple more layers before drinking the potion. This time, he buried the pane of glass in the sand, making sure everything was in proper contact with the right places. He focused once more, this time adding more substance onto both sides.
It didn't take long until he pulled his hand up out of the sand, and in it was... well, it wasn't a sword. Not yet. Call it the glass equivalent of wooden sword-shaped toys handed to kids. What it was supposed to be was recognizable, sure, but that was about it. Blunt edge, cloudy and rough material, there were even visible planes of inclusions shot through it lengthwise where the layers met. And yet, his heart soared. He has something. He had progress.
And his headache reminded him to check his mana, which told him he had about ten percent left. Oops. He shook his head, wondering briefly both where the time went and where Ghata went. What was more obvious was the gnawing hunger in his belly and dryness in his throat, as though he had been chewing on the sand instead of transmuting it.
The kitchen was empty of people, which was also a bit of a different feeling from the last couple of days as well. A quick sandwich, some water, a painkiller, and he suddenly found himself looking at the tiny bottle of blue liquid. He'd heard stories before, of what they tasted and felt like. Not something he'd ever had occasion to do himself. No time like the present, though.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Justin unscrewed the cap and tossed back the shot glass sized potion like he was at a bar. It most certainly did not go down smooth, both bitter and burning on the way down. The taste was as if a kimchi sandwich had been buried in a compost heap for a few days before being dug up for his dubious enjoyment. When it hit the back of his throat, it did so with the force of a punch from a martial artist. An angry one.
Justin had thankfully swallowed before his taste buds, pain receptors, and good sense caught up to the action. He got to wait in dread anticipation as he felt the concoction descend his esophagus, feeling thicker than cold molasses yet somehow as fiery as the time he'd used menthol pain relief cream and then went to the bathroom without having washed his hands as thoroughly as he'd thought. When it finally struck his stomach it felt like every lost bet of his college career.
Standing in the shower and wallowing in misery was very high on his list of things to do from there. Were he a superstitious man, Justin might have taken it as a hint that he probably should cool his jets and keep his hard-won MP to himself. It was a bit of a superstitious age, after all. Yet, in the end, Justin felt that more than five or six minutes of the aforementioned wallowing in misery would merely mean he'd wasted the suffering he'd gone through.
The Status screen read 73%. Enough for this next bit with the agreed-upon 50% to spare, but only if he hurried.
I can refine things later. What I need right now is to add all the mass and glass, in roughly the right shape to be able to do the finer work afterwards.
The sun was beating down on him, glittering off of the sand and glass and water. Once again he sifted out a section of beach sand, and once again he buried his work in progress in it. He visualized his goal, and with the sun riding high overhead Justin sharply focused his will once more.
With a flash and a boom, there was suddenly darkness.
Miles away and to the East, a certain blue woman in a sharp business suit had been feeling uneasy for a while. Even besides realizing that her boast to Alan might not have been the best of ideas, even besides gathering literature to possibly pass a test she'd thought she had no business ever taking, something was wrong. It felt for a moment like she was... unbalanced. Tired. Things were just taking more effort, like she suddenly had less in the tank. Or like the house's pull was getting harder. Then, almost as suddenly, she was hit by a brief wave of nausea as her energy picked back up.
If the doc hadn't JUST told her she wasn't pregnant, she'd have had some suspicions.
