I roll my eyes with my entire body, then dispel the enchantments and start folding the sheet. Looking over the audience, some of them already look impressed, and I haven't even started yet… Then again I can fold this huge sheet of fabric better with magic than I tend to fold hand towels by hand, and I don't think I'm exceptionally bad at that…

“Right,” I start with an amplified voice after staying the stuff in my bag, “I guess I'll go through the ones I mentioned in order, and then get to the other ones.”

Aren't there more outdoor here now than there were during our panel? Eh.

A shimmering mist spell around my body later, I have grown my own Wyvern-based wings, quite different from the ones shown earlier. The overall body form of the shape is different too, in a number of subtle and more obvious ways,but it's most similar to Peacock's phoenix.

There's not really much to show, but I levitate myself and pose as if flying, and move my featherscales and wingtips in some of the myriads of ways I do while flying.

I came in for an imaginary landing, preen a bit, then revert to normal. Next up is the serpentkin form, which is the most clothes unfriendly, but… “Eh, screw it.”

In a moment, my body is covered in verdant green scales, and then I fall forward, slowing my fall with magic as my legs cease to be and body grows serpentine. Simultaneously, I sprout two nubs about twenty or so centimeters below my arms, which grows into a second, smaller, pair of arms. My head and neck change, too, and when done I make a mighty stretch upwards, slightly unhinging my jaw for a yawn, before relaxing into a coil.

Hmm, I could've made that more dramatic with some lights and levitation. Oh well, a lazily effortless shifting had a charm on its own, and if nothing else my show should impress most people familiar with aspect-based shapeshifting. The others seem to have instant or near instant transformations, though, so by comparison I guess I’d be less impressive.

These lights are pretty strong, and I find my coil loosening under their heat.

“So yeah. My go-to fun and cozy form. I'd probably use it more if stairs weren't such a pain. And I didn't fly or levitate most places.”

I make sure to gesticulate with all four arms as I speak. And sure enough, I'm pretty sure I hear someone use the words 'four arms'. And I'm certain it doesn't matter to me whether they actually did or not.

“I heard someone mention arms. Four arms. Have you ever wished you had an extra arm, perhaps to hold something while you used your others to do something you need two hands for?”

The audience murmurs, so I take that as a yes.

“Well, these would work for that. But if you envisioned,” I move my hands a if playing a piano, “something more dexterous, not so much.”

“Don't get me wrong, you could probably be a crazy drummer, and you could learn to use them to their fullest potential, but that's the issue, practice. And they have a slightly reduced range of motion compared to human standard.”

To demonstrate, I fumble my 'song' by my arms colliding.

“Also, it's mentally tiring, though less so as you get used to it. Like controlling multiple bodies. Then again, with multiple bodies I usually also have a brain for each, which helps…”

I pause, and the audience seems to await my next words.

“Uh, Eikeli rant over. I had no point I was trying to make. Just wanted to say those things.”

Ohh, a collective annoyed sigh, that's impressive.

“What about your last form? The space rock?”

“It's not a space rock.” I counter, turning to Peacock, whom I think said that. “Haven’t been to space yet.”

“You say that as if it's guaranteed that you will?”

“Well, the price of launching stuff to space is down to something like two thousand US dollars per kilo, and I'm earning decent money. Who'd have thought older rich people would be willing to trade some of that wealth to become more youthful?"

“But that's besides the point, I can transform to a form measured in grams, and have someone launch that, then just summon my main body up there. I’ll let the physicists figure out just how big of a middle finger to conservation of energy that is. And that's assuming the stuff we're working on doesn't pan out.”

“Anyway, it has a droplet shape, is made of metal and and some crystal, but mostly some rock-like stuff. Probably not technically rock, but I'm not a geologist.”

While taking I make an illusory model to demonstrate what I mean, and gesture towards it.

“The core is an almost pure mana crystal, aside for the seed, which- Okay I'm just messing with you. Here.”

I wave my left hands, and voila, one space-capable form, which is not a rock thankyouverymuch, floats besides me.

“Dunno what else to say about it. Can't do much with it without magic.”

“Like a rock?”

“It's not a rock!”

“Then what is it?”

I give my former (very temporary) familiar a deadpan stare.

“They're minerals, Marie.”

“That's not my name.”

“And there's only one of it, and that was a reference-slash-meme. Maybe both.”

“Say my name.”

“I don't know your name.”

She opens her mouth, then just stare at me incredulously before realizing, shaking her head.

“If you two are done flirting, I think we're done?”

Hmm, oh, yeah.

She looks like she would like to retort, but in the end we just thank the audience for coming and each go our own way.

For me, that means heading over to my own little audience and hearing what Leda and the wolfkin has to say.

They're not impressed, especially not Leda, who, like the others, didn't find the talky bits too interesting, but complain loudly that I didn't show "any of the cool forms".

“Speaking of,” I start, then shout: “Peacock!”

She turns around on her way out, scanning the smattering of people left until she spots me.

“Can't you use my name?” she shouts back

“Ehm,” I scratch the back of my head, “I would if I remembered it.”

“Are you really that bad at remembering names?”

“No, not really. But people tend to get annoyed if I use the 'close enough' version I remember, especially when less than half the letters match. Anyway, your phoenix kinda form looked interesting, and I'd like to study it closer if you have time some day.”

“Oookay? Well, come over here so we don't have to shout.”

We discuss a minute without deciding on a time, and end up trading phone numbers, to decide later. She was on the way to eat before the next round of talks, after all.

As soon as I return to them, Leda quietly asks,”Wasn't that the lightning bird lady?”

“Mhm.”

“Oh, so you want to learn her aspect?”

“Yeah, well, I already got it, but I think it's a separate one for her phoenix form, and I want to improve my affinity with them.”

“Really? I could only sense it!”

“You couldn't learn it?”

“I didn't want to use so much mana to her without asking.”

“Well, that's fine, it's good that you remember these things now. Oh, but I can probably teach it to you.”

Her eyes light up as I hand her my bag. And knowing her she'll stay like that until I fail or succeed.

Okay, so start with the new aspect, name pending. Create a mental model from what I know about it. The gaps… I think I need to weave in electricity here, here, and here, and… it's incomplete, but I think I can round it out with the superaspect of Bird.

“Okay.”

Open eyes. Revert to base form. Then, start at my core with Electromagnetism while turning my arms to proto-wings.

Err, suppress those sparks, if they make Leda flinch away…

I embody electricity, my body is covered in purple featherscales, and my arms are ready, so impose the mental model onto my self-model, and do the rest of my transformation in one go.

My legs shrink, my insides shift, and I emerge a beautiful thunder… bird…? Ugh, and I felt so majestic until I ruined it.

As expected, having not been let down Leda is already magically groping me, so I link up with her so she doesn't have to funnel all that mana from her main body. Anyone with half a sense for mana would be worried if they sensed that, but it's more effective for her to just read mine directly anyway. The mind bond helps too.

“Did you learn that from just seeing her transform for that short time??”

“Yes,” answers Leda for my currently nonexistent vocal cords.

Then she follows my lead in changing shapes, and the guy who asked looks like we just shattered his worldview, muttering something under his breath I can't quite catch.

Hmm, this form feels quite powerful, I should change back and try it out outside for a flight later. If I'm not careful-

There’s a flash, and the room goes dark, aside from my faintly glowing form and Leda’s constantly sparking form. I'm about to muscle my way to her mind to tell her to revert, but realize the easier and more ethical way, and prepare a load of mana to forcefully turn her puppet into something less harmful, like a non-electrical bird.

To be an example, I revert myself to human, then wait for her to do so as well, making an orb of light to join the magical lights of others

“Leda?”

“Yeeees?”

“Was that a power trip?”

“Nnn-” she catches my look “-nnyes.”

“Did you transform directly?”

“Yes.”

“Was that a good idea?”

“No.”

“So you know.”

“Yes, I'm sorry.”

“It’s not me you need to apologize to, probably. What did you do?”

“I think I zapped the roof.”

“Well, let's hope you just tripped a fuse, if you broke anything that could get expensive…”

We… better find someone to apologize to. I don't know who yet, but someone is either panicking or angry.

I have Leda give me control over her mana, and use that to boost my own range.

Yeeep, this room isn’t the only one that went dark, but it's not the entire building, at least.

Turns out, she damaged a bit more than ‘just tripping a fuse’, but thankfully not much, and apparently they should be able to get insurance to cover it. With how many magicians in the building the darkness isn’t really a problem for the hour it lasts, especially since it’s lunch break for most tracks, though a few of the stands showing off magitech got shut down.

On the other hand, a few enterprising ones went ahead and sold mana-electric generators of various kinds and sizes to the others, so even before the electricity went back on the majority were back on track. Leda’s not entirely happy about having to light up the rooms she darkened for that while, but I feel that’s one of the better outcomes this could have.

I end up going to that second panel I would possibly join, though as an audience member. The chief engineer of the space company is among the panelists, talking about using magic to improve existing technologies, primarily by means of combining them into magitech, but also using magic or magitech to make mundane items. It’s an interesting talk, but aside from Tåke who falls asleep at my side, the others go off somewhere else.

When the day is over I feel like a parent going home with a bunch of (very tired) kids, and it’s not that far from the truth. It really tired them out to have so many people around for so long, and they were stopped for questions more than once, to the point where I near the end would just step in and state they’re too tired for questions. A lot of the same ones came up several times, so I guess I’ll suggest that the Den makes an FAQ video. It’s why we have those channels, after all.

The next couple weeks I double down on looking at a new place to live, finally letting Leda convince me to spend that extra bit of effort to fly around and talk and look and whatnot, with her whenever she’s not over in the other world. She has… opinions about how it should be and more importantly, what needs to be (or not be) around it.

Parallel to that I’m talking to various construction companies about how we could go about building a hangar kinda building for her main form, how expensive it would be, how long it would take, etc.

I will probably end up using one of the companies that employ wolfkin or subcontract the Wolfkin Earthmovers, not because of quality, but a combination of their low price and to help them get their name out. The wolfkin are still highly dependent on us humans when it comes to the human world, and lack experience with humans to blend in well, but on the other hand they can live quite fine outside the concrete jungle.

Den members have taken to helping them get jobs in all sorts of things, one Den member who owns a landscaping company heard ‘wolfkin+jobs’, took one look at their magic and immediately started testing them to hire the best, and together with some others I founded the Wolfkin Earthmovers, who do exactly that: move earth and stone and whatnot. Their earthmoving magic allows for extremely time and cost-efficient excavation.

Given their lack of education and in general, understanding of human things, they don’t work well on their own, but as long as there is a human they trust that can tell them what to do and how to do it, they’re good workers. And given experience they should be able to work more independently, too.

At the moment all wages are split fifty-fifty, with half going to the Den collectively, and the other half going to the individual. We set aside half of that as savings, while the remaining amount they can use as they want. Unsurprisingly, they mostly use it to buy food, but they’re starting to move on to other goods, such as clothes and blankets.

Well, it’s a bit more complex than that, with the savings going into the shared Den account, though we have a skilled accountant making sure to keep tabs on how much each of them have saved. As for the money they get to use, giving them all of that in cash would be a bad idea, so it goes to an account managed by their companion, if they have any.

Otherwise, well, we’re discussing that. A few of the family units and sub-packs want to pool their money, and whether it’s because they just blindly trust us, don’t understand money, or realize we’re a better fit, most money end up managed by some human.

A lot of them have started living with or at least frequently visiting humans; Tåke for one stay over pretty often, though I can’t help but notice the pattern for when she comes to me. It’s when either I or Leda mention to her that good food will be had. Well, that’s fine too. For better or worse I have more or less taken on the responsibility for this creature, and holy cows am I glad I don’t have kids. Leda and Tåke are both independent, but dealing with their (figurative) shit is exhausting.

The parameters, so to speak, for the new place to live are quite different from those I had for the apartment when I bought that. It had to be in the city or give quick and easy access to it without driving, and my budget was the decisively limiting factor. Now, I want space, more specifically land to build that wyvern-hangar, and that means getting away from the city. I want it to be pretty modern, of course, but as long as it has the three utilities (water, power, broadband (or better) ‘net) it can be kilometers from any settlement of note.

I would never have expected that I, in this point in my life, would look at what Google translate helpfully calls ‘farms’ and ‘small holdings’, though I suspect that translation isn’t quite one-to-one.What would I expect…? I’d probably sit at a computer right now, either for work or as a hobby.

One thing is for sure though: get out of the city and you get a lot more for your money. What I bought my small apartment for is enough for a house outside the major cities, and leaving even towns behind…

Let’s just say that when this goes through I will own quite a bit of land. With both a stable and a barn I have lots of space that I have no freaking clue what to do with, but with minimal changes Leda’s main body should be able to sleep in the barn in relative comfort, and if I wanted to raise magical beasts or something I guess I could? Could probably refit the stables to keep a fairly stable temperature and use that for something too. If nothing else I have a few great places to set up a VR space.

Will have. Three days for potential bids, then they’ll let me sign. Doesn’t seem like they expect any, though. The current owners have already moved, so I could start moving there as soon as the paperwork is done. Hmm, with no mortgage I don’t even need to sell the apartment. It’s forty-ish minutes away by flight (and a lot longer otherwise), so it would be nice to have a more central place to sleep or just… do more central stuff.

Oh well. I’ll sort that out when the time comes.