The trip up the mountain was so painfully inconsequential that it could be called “boring” and the label could not be argued. Orenda spent most of her time in the wagon talking to Anilla, and found that her travels had been relatively short. She had ventured as far as she could across the frozen north, but the consensus of her people had been that had the dragon been on that continent, it would have come to her. When it didn’t, she had set off, and found her way to the fire continent, but hadn’t traveled very far there, either. Orenda thought that for someone on a life-changing quest, she was not doing a very thorough job at it.

Anilla believed in the concept of a soul-mate, apparently all the halflings did, and she seemed to think that she could find hers by simply being in the same place at the same time, or… a similar place at the same time. Orenda thought that Anilla didn’t understand how big continents were, because she expected a dragon to travel over vast distances to find her. Of course, there were all different kinds of dragons, even in the frozen north, and most of Anilla’s people had dragons that were big enough to at least transport a halfling with no trouble. But not all of them were big enough to ride. Some species were as small as Draco.

On the third day, Falsie stopped the wagon to make camp far earlier than he normally did, and Orenda sensed the change in the air as they all piled out to set everything up. Bella was twitchy and nervous, and Gareth far more relaxed, calm, and accommodating than he normally was. He went off to scout, something Orenda now knew he did to make sure that no one was anywhere near them so he would feel comfortable taking off his mask, and left Orenda and Anilla in charge of staking the horses while Falsie set up the fire, as he always did.

Bella sat by the fire clutching her upper arms and staring at the sunset.

Gareth was gone far longer than he normally was, and Orenda had began to worry by the time he came jogging back to their camp.

“Well,” he said, “We’re a little close to civilization for comfort, but… it’s well hidden, I suppose. Besides, I don’t think anything will happen?”

“How close?” Bella asked.

“Not close enough for me to walk,” Gareth said as he slid his mask under his hat, “But, I suppose, as the wolf runs… one could get there and back easily in one night.”

“Gareth!” She snapped, “That’s… that’s not what… we agreed!”

Orenda followed her eyeline to the setting sun. It was hitting the horizon. The day was giving way to night, and any minute she would see something she had only ever read about. She had always wanted to see a shifter, to see it in person, the transformation. She had seen Bella before in her shifted state, but only in bits and pieces, not a good look, not a real look. This was something legends were told about.

“Darling,” Gareth sat next to her and took her hand, “It’ll be fine. It’s always fine.”

“I wish I knew how Xac did it,” She said.

“Xac was tortured until his psyche and body broke,” Gareth said matter-of-factly, “That’s how he did it. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

“I need to get out of these clothes,” She jumped up, moving with a mania that made Orenda sad. She had, she supposed, forgotten that shifters had been cursed. She had only seen it as a good thing, as something miraculous to be studied. But this was Bella’s life, this uncontrollable transformation every month that made her something she apparently did not want to be.

“I’ll help you,” Gareth got up to follow her and together they walked behind the wagon. They were gone for some time as the sky changed from orange to purple, and when they emerged Bella had her cloak drawn tightly around her; Orenda suspected that she was nude beneath it.

“Everything will be fine,” Gareth promised, “Everything is always fine.”

Orenda was drawn to Bella’s eyes, because- she did have two of them. Orenda had always thought that she didn’t. Bella always wore an eyepatch, but now she had taken it off, and Orenda couldn’t tell a difference in her eyes. One didn’t look injured or in any way different from the other. She was going to ask about this, but the moons began to crest the horizon, and Bella fell to her knees as if she was in pain.

Orenda had expected that she could observe the transformation in detail. She thought that it would be like in the stories, the tales that linked them to the demon Magnus, the horror books that spoke of shifters, that gave a step-by-step account of a person’s skeletal structure knocking out of whack, of muscles that stretched and snapped out of place so hard it made noises as they jerked bone and flesh with them, of hair growth that sprouted and could be tracked, of a face that moved slowly from a human to a snout, growing teeth and expanding in a way that made sense.

If any of that happened, it was over in the blink of an eye.

All Orenda saw was Bella falling to her knees, then Gareth kneeling to keep a hand on her back, to comfort her, and then she was… different. The woman was gone and the creature stood before them, on all fours- but it was not a wolf. It was the thing Orenda had seen in the city center in bits of pieces, the monster- for it was a monster, not a wolf, before her crouching on hands that she could see spread out on the ground beneath the cloak. They were hands more than paws, but ‘hands’ was not the right word. The nails did not come from a nail bed as they did on a human, but from the tip like a dog’s. But there were fingers, spread out in a configuration like a human hand.

Her face was decidedly canine, with the snout and ears that Orenda had expected. She used it to snuggled into Gareth’s chest so hard it knocked him off his feet, and Orenda saw that she did have a tail that threw off the style of the cloak and arched over her back as she licked Gareth across his scarred cheek, then threw back her head and let out a howl so long and loud that Orenda was reminded of her lungs, of her powers as a mage of the air.

“There you are, darling,” Gareth reached up and took handfuls of her hair on either side of her face, “You’re fine. You’re safe. I do wish you wouldn’t be so loud. You may draw people we wouldn’t like to see.”

Bella stared at him- huge, intimidating, monstrous, and he stared back, and Orenda was amazed to see no fear between them. Looking at Bella, at how much taller and broader she was in this form, she was reminded of how easily she tore through the crowd at the city center, of how easily she could rip Gareth, rip any of them, to shreds. But he held no fear of her.

Instead he asked, “Who’s my good girl?” He struggled backwards until he was able to stand, and Bella rose with him, towering above him as he asked again, “Who’s my good girl?”

Orenda watched the muscles in her arms flex as she lifted him by the waist and took note of the strange way that her legs bent. Her interest in biology told her that her back legs were far more canine than her arms, but there was no one part of her that was fully wolf or fully human. Gareth giggled and buried his face in her fur, which was much longer at the neck where it puffed out over the hood tossed behind her. She was trying to get Gareth onto her back, and he obliged happily. He was smiling when he slid the mask back onto his face.

“Have fun,” Falsie said.

“I’m sure we will,” Gareth said, “She never disappoints on land. Lots of places to explore tonight. We may come back with meat. Oh, I guess we’re leaving!”

This last statement carried back to them on the wind, because Bella had taken off at a sprint. She had spent Gareth’s goodbye sniffing at the ground, and she must have found something she liked, because she was gone in an instant, running so quickly that they disappeared into the night almost as soon as they set off.

“You smell like wet dog.”

This assertion dragged Orenda from her slumber, and had come from Falsie. She blinked the sleep from her eyes to see Gareth without his mask, plucking the feathers from a chukar that had apparently been gutted before it had been plucked, which seemed a backwards way to do things, but there were several other animals laid out beside him in similar states of disarray, and it was not difficult for her to put together what had happened. He was covered in dog hair. His outfit needed a good cleaning, and, in fact, he was no longer wearing his coat. His medallion stood out against his chest in the open shirt he wore, shimmering in the morning light.

Bella lay on the bedroll she and Gareth shared with her back to Orenda covered by her cloak, and her body rose and fell with the gentle rhythm of sleep. There was nothing at all canine about her; it was as if it had never happened.

“I can’t imagine why,” Gareth said in alarm, “We didn’t get wet. I mean, we did run through a stream, once, because we had to stop for water, but it was such a warm, dry night I can’t imagine it would cause a smell.”

“Right,” Falsie said as if he didn’t believe him.

“Gareth,” Orenda said as she stretched. She had meant to say more, she had a question, but she paused too long in an attempt to wake up, and he thought it was a conversational opening.

“Shush,” he said, and cocked his head toward Bella, “It takes a lot of energy to transform, takes a lot out of someone. Let her sleep. I only want to wake her to get her into the wagon. She should sleep all day, if she could.”

“Is there nothing wrong with her eye?” Orenda asked.

“No,” Gareth said as if that was a strange question, “Shifters regenerate from injuries. I mean, maybe not an entire eye, but it would take a lot to damage her in a way she wouldn’t heal from. Why do you ask?”

“She always wears an eye patch,” Orenda said.

“Oh,” Gareth said as if he had to convince himself that this was strange, “Yes, Rendy, humans can’t see in the dark. Their eyes have to adjust to different kinds of light. So if she needs to go below deck in a hurry she flips the patch from one eye to the other, so she can see instantly in darkness. Haven’t you ever noticed that she changes them when she goes below deck?”

“I wasn’t on your ship long, Gareth,” Orenda reminded him.

“Oh,” he said, considering this, “I suppose you weren’t. Well, humans have strange eyes. Shifters have better eyes than most, sometimes, but that adjustment period is still a killer for them. Elven eyes adjust almost instantly. I don’t know what the difference is. I’m not a doctor.”

“Impy doesn’t wear an eyepatch,” Orenda said as she moved to sit in the same circle that Gareth and Falsie made up.

“He used to,” Falsie said, “But now the poor buggar can’t even see in sunlight.”

“It’s all going for him, isn’t it?” Gareth said sadly, “I hate to lose anyone else…”

“He gave it up when he found it wasn’t doin nothin,” Falsie explained, “Time makes fools of us all, an all that.”

“It certainly does,” Gareth agreed.