Valefar (kleptologist) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2020-12-15 19:31:00 |
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Riffling through the sad contents of the pantry, Valefar let loose an irritated sigh. Three different types of granola and not a single cookie? Who the fuck lived like this? Pushing away from the door jamb, she settled for liberating a can of Pepsi from the fridge and huffed her way over to the couch, where she flopped down and switched on the TV. While the commercials blared, she scrolled through the contacts on her phone. The voice on the other end of the line was audibly apprehensive, but Valefar greeted it like an old pal. “Heyyyy, Chazzy. Quick Q, bud, did you move your candy stash? What, no, no reason. Oh, B. T. dubs, there’s something freaky going on with the water pressure in your shower. Hey, look, man, I’m just telling y— oh, motherfuuuuuuuuu—” It started, every time, with that lurch of the stomach, like seasickness, like the sudden yank of an invisible umbilical. (Valefar had no idea what an umbilical cord felt like – she didn’t even have a navel in her natural shape and rarely bothered to go to the effort of approximating one; more entertaining to soak in the revolted fascination whenever any mortal glimpsed the unnervingly smooth skin of her belly. So maybe it was nothing like an umbilical, she didn’t know, but it was better than calling it what it was, which was a fucking leash.) Imagine being squeezed through a keyhole, clammy hands pressing in on you from all angles, unrelenting and uncaring. Either you’ll find the will to bend to the pressure, condense yourself down small enough to fit through that impossible hole, or you’ll be splattered across the door, and nobody else is gonna shed a tear either way. Imagine your body ceasing to be your own, your legs moving of somebody else’s accord, your very features becoming putty, reconfiguring to another’s expectation. Imagine these things, hold them in your mind, and you’ll be nowhere close to conceiving what it’s like to be instantaneously wrenched out of corporality, dragged across town against your will, and recorporated inside a summoner’s circle. In Chazaqiel’s apartment, Val vanished mid-curse, the phone dropping through her disintegrating fingers to land on the couch with a soft thump. Valefar’s landing was less forgiving, gritty concrete rushing up to slam her full in the ribs, knocking the breath clean out of her. “HEY,” she yelped, indignant. “Fucking OW.” She had a disorienting moment climbing to her feet – having found herself quite abruptly with double the number she’d had only seconds before – but after a couple of wobbles she was able to get her new-old limbs to cooperate, and she stood. With a hiss of displeasure and a flick of the tail, she padded to the edge of the summoning circle and scrutinised the handiwork. It was an inexpert, lopsided affair – more a summoning oval, if you wanted to get critical – but it was also, annoyingly, unbroken. Bitchcakes. It was only then that she bothered to turn her attention toward her would-be masters. Put yourself in their shoes. A couple of dropkicks futzing around with chalk and candles and a webpage of medieval rituals (the internet was worst thing that had ever happened to Valefar, seriously). Both of them now staring with eyes bulging, one clutching his tablet as though it was liable to catch fire, the other frozen with a beer bottle tipped to his lips, cheeks puffing like a chipmunk’s. What, seconds ago, had been a bunch of lines and scribbles on the floor of the garage, now held an ungodly creature, live and pacing. A lean, leonine body, golden-furred, tail whipping side to side, mane bristling about – impossibly – a human face. Currently, the face was cursing them out with a vengeance. “Uggghhhh, come onnnnn, I’m missing my stories here.” Futz 2 took a deep gulp of his drink, eyes darting sideways to catch his pal’s, clearly none too trusting of his own senses. “Dude,” he hissed, voice pitched low and frantic. “Dude, what the fuck. What the fuck is that?” Futz 1 was hastily scrolling on his tablet, flicking through lines of archaic text that he was beginning to think he ought to have taken the time to maybe read. Or, like, understand. “Uh… yeah. No. Yeah yeah yeah. It’s here, right? Listen: Valefor comes forth in the shape of a lion with the head of a man.” This reassured Futz 2 not at all and he stared in perplexity. “Dude,” he said, frowning hard. He seemed to be grappling with a thought, struggling to give it words. “Dude, that’s not a dude.” Val bared her teeth. “Fuck you, I’m a lion, I can be any gender I feel like.” Oooh, it really shat her when conjurers talked about her like she wasn’t in the room. Not that these deadbeats were real conjurers, they were just a couple of schlubs with wifi, but they still held the reins, and had she mentioned fuck them? Ugh. Well, stupid was something she could work with. Keep ‘em talking, keep ‘em distracted, keep the guy with the iPad from realising he hadn’t completed the binding yet, only the summoning. It was a shitty excuse for a circle, there had to be some imperfection she could use, like a back door. She pawed experimentally at the chalk, getting a sting of magical feedback for her trouble. “Look, what do you want? I’m kind of in the middle of some important stuff.” The Futzes exchanged uncertain looks. Yeah, apparently they hadn’t thought that far in advance. Futz 1, who was either the brains of the outfit or the less wasted of the two, was the one to take matters into his own hands. “Okay… for my first wish, I want a hundred million…” “Each,” Futz 2 put in swiftly, getting a nod from his buddy. “A hundred million dollars each.” Val scrunched her nose in irritation. “I’m not a genie, you dumbass!” Christ on toast, she was actually starting to get offended here. On the other hand… yes, shit yes, here was something she could use. Right here, where the lower edge of the circle dipped messily outside of the triangle, where the barrier juddered like a TV with bad reception? That was it, that was her loophole. She distantly heard one of the Futzes ask a question, but by then she’d stopped paying attention. Discorporating wasn’t quite as shitty when it wasn’t sprung on you as a compulsion, but doing it voluntarily took actual concentration, and she had to time it to the fluctuations in the magic barrier. This time, it was less like being mashed forcibly through a keyhole and more like taking a running dive into it. She twitched her tail once, twice. Watched the barrier flicker and spasm till she’d found the pattern in it. Waited. Then she threw herself at it. She handled this landing with more grace, her body her own again, moulding back to the shape she currently preferred, fair-haired, fox-faced and navel-free. Also: buck naked. Fuck her life. The two mortals gawped. Mostly in the direction of her chest. “No,” she said sharply to Futz 1, “And no,” this to Futz 2. “Whatever you’re thinking, no. You,” rounding back on the first guy, “are gonna get me some clothes. You wanna be millionaires? I’ll make you millionaires.” Briefly. Probably. For a good five to ten seconds, before bank security came raining down on them. Futz 1 dumbly shrugged off his hoodie and passed it to her, Valefar took it between pinched thumb and forefinger, wrinkling her nose at the skunky smell of weed and BO. Another thought occurred to her: “Where are we, by the way? What city?” “Uh. Jacksonville? Florida?” Val tossed back her head and groaned aloud. FUUUUUUCK MY LIIIIIIFE. |