Beyond Evolution

The treatments had never gone smoothly for Warren. He supposed it was a nice bit of poetic justice for it to work that way, but he'd had nothing but complications with the injections since he'd first started receiving them. Beyond the simple (or, well, not-so-simple) complications of his wings themselves and all of the surgeries it had taken to try and get rid of them fully, he was also pegged by the gods for a whole host of other side effects. The migraines, the nausea, even the blackouts at times, they just kept coming.

And he felt like it would never end.

They'd started slowly enough. First just some headaches and soreness after the initial injection. As the months had gone on though, it had all escalated. It was one of the things that he had been dreading the most about the final injection, the not knowing what would come of it, how it would mess with his system in any myriad of new ways. Surprisingly enough though, nothing much had actually happened just afterwards. Even the now-normal pains in his back were gone. It was like the final nail in the coffin really had been just that. Now there was just...silence, from his body. He supposed it was a good thing. He didn't want random bad things continuing to happen to him out of the blue, after all. But, on the other hand, it felt like that was really it.

Stupid as it sounded, some part of him had always seen those adverse reactions as his body fighting tooth and claw against what was happening to it. Rejecting it so harshly that he was left hurting himself without meaning to. Until this last injection had come along and killed the last of the fight that he had in him. This was really it.

He was in English class when it happened. He'd finished the reading that they needed for the class, had even gotten a head start on the next paper that was due, but he still wasn't paying very much attention. His eyes had drifted to the windows, watching the sky and slow-moving clouds, thinking of the air currents. Maybe he really should take Annelise up on her offer to fly with her. He'd never flown with someone before.

It hit him faster than he'd expected. His skin went cold, and at first he just felt vaguely dizzy. His hands started trembling some, and he found himself unable to look away from where his gaze had locked. And then it was like a bolt of electricity hit the base of his spine and shot outward, all through his body. He wasn't sure what happened next. He was on the floor, and he couldn't make out what was around him. Something metallic was in his mouth. The seizure had knocked him from his seat, left his body shaking and convulsing on the floor, his jaws clamping hard enough that he bit into his tongue and caused blood to spill out of his mouth and onto the floor. His eyes rolled back, and he was out before the healer and trial doctors could be called.

[Narrative]

Some mothers and daughters went shopping together, or got side-by-side manicures. Some went out to lunch together, maybe caught a cheap matinee showing of a romantic comedy. Sharon and Harper went hunting. They were predators, after all, along with being women; they might look pretty and feminine enough to make that easy to forget, but they still had those instincts to chase and kill, even on the best of days. It was in their natures to be hunters, in their shared blood, and who were they to deny that? Ever since her time in that future hell, when she'd first really gotten to meet her daughter, Sharon had found those instincts running closer and closer to the surface, even as it had gotten easier and easier to fit in with ordinary human society. Odd, that she was more predator and also more human now than she'd been when she first arrived. Maybe she was just growing up - she'd been a kitten when she'd gotten to the school, and then she'd been a girl, and lately she felt more like a cat and a woman. Even her cat form was getting older, growing bigger and sleeker in the months since her marriage until the word 'kitten' didn't really apply anymore. Whatever it was, she'd never denied the animal side of her being - it might not always show in her girlish clothing or friendly behavior, but she'd always embraced her feline nature, and hunting was a part of that. Of course, she usually stayed in housecat form and hunted mice, maybe the occasional squirrel; her fellow students and residents could be easily forgiven for not realizing she hunted at all.

Harper preferred bigger game, though, as anyone who'd lived near her for longer than a week could attest to. Hunting by her side meant hunting in wildcat form, covering more ground, putting a little more instinctual fear into the local deer population. Sharon didn't get quite as much joy out of that as her daughter did, but the thrill of the chase was something they shared. Right now they were on the trail of something unsuspecting, low to the ground as they followed the scent, Harper taking the lead. Big game was her specialty, after all - or maybe Sharon just liked seeing how good at being a cat her daughter was.

(Harper!)