So. Much. Paperwork. Or, that’s what I expected, but there’s actually only a few things I need to fill in. One is an adoption form, another is an identification form, but instead of filling in with someone’s info like birth date, name and whatnot, it has species, sex, maturity, requested name and some other things.

Now, I was warned about the need for a name, which is good because we spent several hours discussing it. Sticking with Leda as her first name was obvious, but last name? She could take on mine, but however we name her will set a precedence, and also she’s obviously not biologically related to me, so I’d like to avoid that.

Other options include having no last name, but that would make certain things more difficult than they need be (what do you mean last name is a required field?) and in the long term could be confusing. Just using ‘Wyvern’ is a bit ehh, or we could go fantasy-style and mash two words together, like ‘Skywing’ or something. That’s also a bit ehh.

After a lot of thinking, talking and some pauses to clear the mind and let off some steam, we settled on ‘Eikeli-Draghev’. She really wanted to have my name in there somewhere, and the ‘Draghev’ part is a contraction of ‘drage heve’ or ‘dragon raise’. The idea is to allude to the fact that she has been ‘raised’ from a ‘mere’ animal, and norwegian has no word for wyvern so I went with the closest.

It also works nicely as a pattern others could follow. Precedence and whatnot. [Raiser’s last name]-[species/species group]hev/raise. It definitely works best for a single raised person at a time, but could apply to an entire uplifted species. That’d be pretty megalomaniacal, though, so for the wolves or something I’d instead go for some collective identity/trait.Or maybe not. Character names are 100% the hardest choice in any RPG. ‘cept when you go for shit like _xXx2L33T4UxXx_

And then it’s time for an verbal oral examination. I give Leda’s hand a squeeze to hopefully calm her growing nervousness. I made sure she knew how important this was and gave her some simple rules so that we don’t screw up, but I might’ve put a bit too much pressure on her. The aide opens the door to the examination room and we enter.

｢{Nervous, restless}It smells weird here.｣

｢{Reassuring, calming}Yeah. Sterile, but not in the clean hospital way.｣

“You’re here, good. How this will be done is that we will ask a number of questions. Most are for…” He shuffles some papers. “Leda, but you may help her. There are also some questions for you, Lars. Everything will be recorded with both video and sound for posterity. Now, take a seat.”

We do as instructed, with Leda sitting sideways to accommodate her tail, which she puts on my lap. I give it a pat before putting my hands on the table in front of us. ｢It’s fine, you don’t need to put them on the table.｣

They start by asking for my social security number and name for identification’s sake, then quickly go over Leda’s ID form. With those things out of the way they start doing a psychological examination (apparently two of the five examiners are psychologists), and I can feel her relax when the questions are similar to what she did with the researchers.

Sometimes she has no answer, looking to me to help her out, and occasionally they have to stop her from eagerly talking on and on and on. I kinda zone out, only listening halfway when a startled jolt from her in turn startles me.

“…someone hurts your friend, but they’re…”

｢{Startled}What was that?｣

｢Someone hit me!｣

Hit you? ｢{Confused}What?｣

｢He walked right into me, and then he punched me.｣

｢{Worried}Did the illusion//misdirection break?｣

｢He’s screaming now.｣

“Hold on for a moment.” I say, cutting off the speaker.

｢Can you share what you see with me?｣

I close my eyes, focusing instead on the shared images. Well, it’s not quite images; like with most things mind magic it’s more like suddenly remembering or knowing something which just happens to be going on right now, and it has the drawbacks of only having details where Leda notices them.

So I urge her to look around, and find that the guy who bumped into her has drawn attention to her presence. “Crap.” I didn’t expect someone to accidentally break the spell. Well, it’s still active, just useless after he made it null by screaming in panic. He seems to have calmed down now, and people seem more curious than scared.

“…Hey!”

I snap back to the room. “Huh, what?”

“Why did you ignore us?” He seems kinda miffed…

“Uhh, someone crashed into Leda and now people are staring at her.”

“…” He does the fish-mouth thing, and it strikes me that maybe he is not aware of the whole ‘multiple bodies’ thing.

“Oh, I assumed you guys had been informed about us, but the raptor-like girl you see here is not her main body, just what I call a puppet. Her main body is in the park at the other side of the street, and is pretty big and scary, since she’s a wyvern and all. She has a spell which makes people ignore her, but it’s not perfect and loses its effect if you draw attention to what you try to hide.

“ARE YOU INSANE? BRINGING A DRAGON TO THE CITY?”

Dude, that’s kinda the point? “Actually, wyverns aren’t-” wait no, not the time for that “Err, she’s not causing panic or anything. Some people are even cautiously approaching her.”

It takes a while to get him to calm down, which is good because Leda is more than a little distracted by the sudden attention. Ech, her main body is outside my mana range too, so I can’t summon a puppet to control the situation. Well, it’s fine for now and she’ll just gentle force-push people away if they get too close. And if persistent, lift them juuust off the ground so that they’re stuck there.

The rest of the examination goes off more or less without a hitch, with me telepathically repeating any questions she misses because someone got too close. She has let a couple kids close enough to touch her, amazing them with her telepathy. She probably shouldn’t do that, but if it stops accidents from happening I’m not going to stop her.

In the end the examiners conclude that she is fully sapient and actually quite intelligent, and understands enough of human laws and social norms to not be a massive danger to everyone nearby. And with that, all five approve of her becoming recognized as a person.

As we exit the room I grin to her. “Congratulations, you’re a real person now!” Provisionally until they get a system in place to handle it properly (ie. more bureaucratically), but still. And given how many times they repeated that fact, she should be very clear that I am now legally responsible for her, which means that ‘if you do something bad, Lars will be punished.’

I get one step out the door. “Leda. I know you like kids and all, but are you a playground or something?”

“I’m a wyvern! But they wanted to play, so we’re playing.”

…sure. Hmm, now that that’s done, I should get Leda’s introductory video out soon. But before that we’ll have to celebrate. For now I’ll just politely sit next to Leda until the kids or Leda takes the hint.

Note to self: Don’t try to out-patience kids who are having fun. Good thing I went to get Tåke; the situation doesn’t seem to have changed since I left. Actually, I think there might be more kids, and also she’s levitating them now. Not sure how she placated the parents. Actually, where are the parents? Whatever, as long as no one gets hurt it’s not my problem.

“Leda.”

“You’re back! Are we leaving now?”

“That was the plan, yes.”

“Do you have to bring the dragon?”

“I’m not a dragon, I’m a wyvern.”

“Yeah, the human-like body is just a puppet. The wyvern is her main body.”

There’s ‘aww’s all around, but one boy instead has a glint in his eye. “Aren’t you Lars the wolfman?”

“I am, yes.”

“Can you also make extra bodies?”

“Yep. I could even make a clone of you.”

“No way!”

“Yes way, it’s not even that hard.”

“Do it!” “Really?” “Yes!”

Uhh, I should probably not have joked about that, but… “Eh, whatever. This will take a moment.” Not that long, since I find human puppets pretty easy to make, but still. Aaand, done. I pop it into existence in front of the boy it’s based on. “Rawr!”

He lets out a small laugh, then makes a more powerful, but still unconvincing roar (he is a pre-teen kid). Oh yeah?

“I can do better!” I say via the puppet, which takes on a werewolf form. “RAAAWR!” Okay, still not amazing, but still.

“Are you done playing with the dragon? Let’s go.”

Ah, that’s a mother, let’s turn the puppet back as not to scare her.

“Aww, but I don’t wanna!” He cries, and in a moment of inspiration, I decide to play a little joke with the puppet. “Yeah, I don’t wanna!”

“Why is there two of you? Which one is real?”

“I am!” “Me!” “Also me!”

Oh, so that’s what Leda was doing. Let’s make more of them!

“Wh-what-why?”

The original looks around and, noticing the clones, laughs in a surprisingly evil manner. The other follow through, and one speaks up. “I copied myself!”

Okay, the woman looks worried, time to calm down and damage control. I start unsummoning them, one by one. ｢Leda, time to stop.｣

And then the woman notices me, or rather, recognizes me. I know I avoided getting my face in my videos, but with the interviews and the latest videos… Wait, am I forgettable? That’d be nice actually.

“Aren’t you Lars, the wolfman?” She says eagerly.

“Your son also asked that, and yes, I am.”

“Can I have your autograph?”

“Err, sure?”

The weather decided to rain on my barbeque/picnic, but luckily the apartment complex has a roof over the shared grill, so I can still cook some good meat. Leda’s main body doesn’t fit inside, but she’s waterproof so it’s all good.

I start by grilling some bratwurst and other sausages, quickly noticing that that the girls are practically drooling as soon as the smell starts wafting through the air. Well, I have to stop Tåke from actually drooling. Luckily it doesn’t take long, and while my warnings of them being hot falls on deaf ears, they stave off the ravenous beasts until the steaks finish.

The comparably pitiful amounts of human-portioned food is of course not enough for Leda’s main body, which is why I went ahead and hunted a beast while getting Tåke. I thought about it earlier, but figured having a corpse in my apartment for any amount of time would be… less than ideal.

The grill is obviously not big enough for it, even when cut into smaller chunks, but with liberal use of fire magic it is only slightly scorched and maybe cooked okay. Leda digs in happily either way. The little barbeque passes quickly as I grill and chat with Leda.

She gives rather uninterested answers about the process and how she feels about being considered a person now (I can sympathize with my mother all these years…). Her priorities are clear, however, when the topic of the kids takes all control of the conversation away from me. Tåke on the other hand is quite content just eating her fill and then relaxing by the warm grill now that summer gives way to chilly fall weather.

I make sure to clean up, then take a quick trip inside to drop off the garbage and such. The rain is valiantly fended off by an air umbrella spell, but it clearly needs more work given that I do in fact get wet. When I return I put down the gift, which I grabbed on the way out.

“Okay, that’s done, time for the next part.” I say more to myself than anyone else, turning to Leda.

“What’s the next part?”

“Do you know what a birthday is?”

“Yeah! Emil invited me to his birthday!”

Who’s Emil? “Are you sure?”

“He said he would invite me.”

“Oh, so he will invite you, not have invited you?”

“He has invited me!”

“Okay, okay, sure. Try to get a paper invitation next time you see him, okay?”

“Oh, he was making them, but he wasn’t done…”

“Well, if he wants to invite you, just say you need a paper invitation.” Now, what was I trying to say again…

Oh yeah! You might be invited to his birthday, but do you know what a birthday is, and what it means?”

“It’s a celebration, and it’s the day you make birth.”

“Err, not quite. You celebrate the day you were born. Most kids do it every year, but for adults they might not celebrate that much.”

“Adults are boring.”

“Boring, but practical.” I say with a smile, knowing that while I can avoid the worst of it by being self-employed (though that brings other problems), I will turn into a ‘boring’ adult myself. It pays the bills, and the bills keep you alive. Though at this point I could live off the land, if I were willing to give up modern comforts and conveniences.

“Anyway, you don’t know when you were born, and you’re not even sure how many years ago, but I figured the personification process would be a good milestone. Instead of birthday, it’ll be personification day.”

“That sounds stupid.”

“Yeah, the name needs work. ‘Person day’ sounds a bit too generic. ‘Nameday’, perhaps? Anyway, we’re done with all we need to do, but it isn’t quite done yet. They said it’d take up to a week. So whatever date that finishes will be your real ‘person day’. This time we’re celebrating it a bit early, though.”

“We’re celebrating?”

“Yeah. It’s not some over the top celebration, but the people are the most important part, especially for your person day. Ugh, let’s just call it nameday.”

“I thought we were just eating good food?”

“Well, that’s part of the celebration.”

“Oh. We must celebrate more often.”

“I can agree to that, but it costs money. Feeding your bottomless stomach isn’t cheap.”

“But don’t people give you lots and lots of money?”

“A good bit, yes. And they don’t just ‘give me money’, they buy things from me. I give them something in return.”

“So give them rocks, those are everywhere!”

“That’s not how it works… Ahh, whatever. Happy nameday, here’s my gift to you.”

“A package?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t need a package.”

“Open it you dummy. When giving gifts you often wrap or pack them up.”

“Oh.” She says, before plopping down next to the package.

It’s pretty big, being bigger than my head, and wrapped in a sheet of silk. Thankfully she undoes the simple knot and extracts the box within without ruining it. The box is what the store clerk joked as being a ‘lootbox design’ (so if it doesn’t have what she wants, she’ll need to shell out for more of them), being a roughly square cube with rounded edges. The top ¼ is the lid, and is attached by two latches. There’s also a hoop for a padlock.

She looks at me with a mild frown. “Open it!”

…This would’ve been easier if she’d been to that b-day beforehand, I think. Either way, she opens the box, revealing the contents. The lid has a rubber sealing, hopefully making it watertight, and the inside has soft padding. I wanted to make sure the box is sturdy and keeps the contents safe. Made it more expensive, but…

The looks of confusion, then recognition and then a beaming smile when she opens it and sees the contents is well worth it. I’m not surprised when she very, very carefully picks up the topmost item, looking kinda like giant earmuffs with a chin strap.

“Is this really for me?”

“Well I can’t use it, who do you think I made it for?”

“But you can shapeshift…”

“I can. But no, this is a gift to you. I think I will need to properly fit them to you, but they are yours now. Put them on the table for now, there are more in the box.”

She hugs it close to her chest while looking into the box again, then reluctantly puts it on the table. She sluggishly lifts the blanket separating the other things, then grabs both of the two remaining items in a swift motion.

“A phone and a headset!” She says, before devolving into a happy shrieking which is nonetheless pretty annoying. And then she slams into me in a tackle-hug. “Thank you! Now I can listen to music all the time!”

“Surely not all the time, what about sleeping?”

“Even then!”

Hm, battery life will come terrible news to her, since I always like to keep my devices charged, especially when she’s around. Oh well. “Happy nameday!”