WHO: Presto and Bast WHAT: Presto encounters Bast while his gender is bent, and he babbles a lot, as usual. WHEN: 07/24/2017 WHERE: Out and About WARNINGS: Mentions of gender issues, and confusion, and of a man being stuck in a woman’s body STATUS: Closed and Complete
Presto was out and about, trying to get used to being female, failing miserably. He’d been like this for about seven days, and he had no idea how long this might last. He only knew it was tied up in his magic in a complicated way, and he had to let it work itself out, one way or another. He sighed as he walked, trying to figure out his next move. He had finally started to gain some equilibrium, but still wished he was a man again. His hair was cut in his old style, which felt weird in his new body, but also comforting.
At least he was not working or going to school right now, in an immediate fashion. Business could be delayed, and hopefully, he could come up with something soon, if he did not turn back soon. He was avoiding people, mostly, and trying not to run into anyone he knew, but with an entire county of people he had run into at one point or another, he knew his time and luck, would run out soon.
As he turned a corner and came face to face with someone, he realized it just had.
Oh hell.
“Hey, .” He tried for casual.
***
Bast was out walking with Muffin. It was probably unusual for people to see someone walking with their cat instead of a dog, but Bast had never really been the normal sort of person. So she was out with Muffin doing whatever she pleased because she could. They’d been having a very interesting conversation. Not that anyone could tell.
So when she nearly bumped into a girl she’d never met before, she had to come to a quick halt. “Uh. Hello.” She looked down at Muffin for a moment, a questioning expression on her face before she looked back up at the girl again.
How could that be him? That’s a girl.
Haven’t you learned to trust me yet? She smells the same.
Fine. I’ll ask. But if you’re wrong, I swear I’m giving you off brand cat food for dinner tonight.
She could feel the dirty look Muffin gave her before she looked up at the girl again. “Presto?”
***
Presto blinked as he watched Bast glance between him and her cat? Yeah, that was a cat, right? With Bast, he was never sure.
Her saying his name had his mouth opening wider and he blinked. “Ah, yes. How did you know?” He stared at her then down at the cat. “Wait… did your cat tell you? How did he know?” He brushed his long hair back from his face.
“Uhm, hi.”
***
Cat goddess. She often spent time with cats, but Muffin was hers. Well, she supposed Muffin was Sadie’s, but that was if you wanted to place ownership like that. She smiled a little, all prepared to say that she couldn’t reveal all of her secrets. “Muffin is a girl cat and yes, she did tell me.” She tapped the side of her head. “She said you smelled the same. Apparently, that’s a thing she was aware of.” There was a shrug and Muffin sat, staring up at them with what probably counted as a bored expression before she started to clean herself.
“Hello. How are you?”
***
“I do? Huhn, that makes sense, I guess. Cool. Very cool that you can do that, and she can.” He grinned down at Muffin, and nodded to her, then looked back at Bast, his smile fading.
“I’m… here. A little distressed, a little flaily, a little resigned, and a little here.” He chuckled, but it had little humor in it. “I’m learning how to fit in this body, without becoming it, even as I am wishing to be myself again.”
He paused then smiled to her. “How are you?”
***
“We can talk telepathically. Well, I can do that with all cats. It’s sort of a cat goddess thing.”
She listened as he spoke, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Well, that’s understandable. If changing sexes were part of my generalized goddess abilities, I’d do what I could to help you with this whole situation.” But she didn’t have that ability. She hadn’t even managed to do get her avatar to work yet.
“I’m fine. Just taking a walk with Muffin and very much still in my own body.” She shrugged slightly, letting the disguise she normally kept up over her eyes down. “It’s been a nice day, though. Do you want to come with us?”
***
“Oh yeah? Cool!” Presto smiled at her, and blushed at her touch, feeling over-sensitive and liking touch a lot right now, a legacy of his one attempt to reclaim his own form. It had left his entire body more sensitive, mostly in good ways.
He smiled ruefully at her. “It’s okay. I tried to turn myself back once, and got hit by magical rebound, but discovered that whatever this is, it changed me at a fundamental level, and it slowly seeming to lessen in strength. I think that means it will end, itself, but I also can’t change it back before it is ready to go back.” Which freaked him out, a lot. A lot more than he was showing now.
Presto smiled on seeing her own eyes. They were beautiful as always.
“I would love to. Thank you” he turned to fall in next to her.
***
“Yep.” She smiled down at Muffin before reaching down for a quick scratch between her ears. Muffin responded by rubbing her head against Bast’s leg.
“I guess that would make for a complicated situation.” It was a good thing that he was possibly going to turn back, but she assumed there would have to be some manner of getting him back to himself if it took a while for him to turn back. But she also wasn’t sure how long he’d been like this. “I’m sure it’ll go over just fine, though. And we’ll figure it out if not.”
She gave him a quick smile. “Muffin says hello, by the way.”
***
Presto grinned wider at her. “Very cool. I love magic.” He paused. “When it is working for me, anyway.” He chuckled.
Presto nodded. He was not really sure he would be okay as a woman. He was finding ways to adapt physically, yes, but otherwise, no. he was really not. He just wanted it to be over.
“Thanks, Bast. I appreciate it.” And he smiled down at Muffin. “Hello to you, too.” He nodded. “Talking to you always makes me feel better.”
***
“Magic is plenty of fun.” Not that she did too much of it. She was going to get into the habit of doing more one of these days. She just had to figure out doing more of it. More than communing with cats and baboons. Though, she hadn’t done much communing with the baboons as she needed to actually make noise for that. She could do it just fine (she’d tested it), but it was still a little unusual.
Muffin glanced up at Presto before going back to cleaning herself. Very much the cat version of ‘we’ve said hello, now I’ve stopped caring’.
“If talking to me made things worse, I’d feel a little guilty about it.” She reached out to touch his shoulder. “Do you remember the magic you used when this happened? Perhaps there is a way to figure out where it went wrong.” The idea being that if he could discover what went wrong, he could keep this from happening again.
***
“Someday, when I am better at it, I am sure I will agree.” He nodded. He loved the idea of it, he was just not great at execution. He shook his head, then smiling at her. “What sort of things do you do with it?” Maybe he could learn more about that from her.
He laughed at the cat’s attitude and nodded. “I doubt anyone could ever claim that. You are smart, strong, and beautiful. Being around you is fun.”
Presto nodded, and took out a paper three sheets thick. He had been working on it since the accident, and had it mostly figured out. “Yeah. The details are all here, but basically I was trying to reverse the polarity of a couple of objects through basic transmutation. I got distracted by my thoughts and by the arrival of a friend, and the distraction plus brain going too fast, caused the spell to flare out of control.”
***
“Well, I can summon cats, talk to them with my mind, get them to fight to protect me. Though, they mostly want to do that. I have an avatar that I can use to fight, but I haven’t managed that yet. I can make people see what I want them to see.” She shrugged slightly. “Usually a magician can see through it, though. If they know to look past the illusion. I have seen it used many ways.”
She smiled at the compliments. She was no stranger to compliments and certainly she enjoyed them...if they were given by people she liked anyway. “Well, thank you. I agree. But then, that is part of who I am.” Fun was, in fact, one of the things she was a goddess of.
Bast looked over at the paper, reading what he’d written. “So you need to be more focused on the spell when you’re doing it. Something to work on. Focus is important.”
***
“Oh yeah? Cool! You have awesome abilities.” He grinned, listening to her. “You are always nice to talk to, too.” She had never been condescending or mean. Which was a definite mark in her favor.
“I’m glad. You make having faith in someone and something a lot easier.” He had never told her, but he had shrines he was building to her, in his home and in his main offices, as well as his annex office. Not where others could see, yet, but there, and being built.
She inspired him to do such things.
“Yeah. Focusing and self-control. I let myself get too distracted and too worried at the time when I should have been working. And if I was that distracted, I should not have been working magic.” he nodded sharply.
***
Bast was a lot of things, but mean wasn’t one of them. Well, at least not if someone didn’t deserve it. Probably not even if they did. Well...except for Isis and Set. But they had it coming. This fact was likely part of why she had been chosen to be the Eye of Ra after Sekhmet. “I don’t count my being able to fight as a magical power, but I have that in my favor, too. And I can talk to baboons. Also not magical. Just something.”
She was relieved that there were people out there that believed in her. She’d thought too much about what would happen if they didn’t. She’d thought about leaving the OC to see if that would change anything or keep her safe, but after her most recent dreams, she couldn’t. I am the queen of cats. I have many strengths. But to be honest, Carter . . . cats are not very brave. “I am glad I can make it easier, then.” She didn’t want to make it more difficult, but of the gods and goddesses to follow, she thought the goddess of cats, music, dance, joy, love, and protection was a fairly good goddess to keep from going senile. Biased didn’t begin to cover how she felt on the matter.
“No. At least the backfire of this spell was only on you. It could have been on others as well, but you were lucky.” Every Magician needed to learn focus and how to work with their powers in particular. “I’m sure it will be over soon. At least, I hope it is. For your sake. But remember when you are working magic, you need to only think about that. Which means working through whatever you’re feeling beforehand.”
***
Presto nodded, feeling chastised. This was not a lesson he would soon forget. “I won't forget this. I won't let it happen again.This week has been odd enough, weird enough, that I feel like it needs to mean something. So I won't let myself forget the lesson it is teaching me. Any lesson it is.”
He shivered, rubbing one arm.
Being near her, though, made him smile a little. It always had. “Thank you, Bast. Somehow, talking to you always intrigues me, and makes me smile.” And woke up his body in other ways, but he was steadfastly ignoring that as much in this body as he had in his normal body.
***
She nodded, deciding that he’d been lectured enough for one day. “Well, then I think we can stop with the lectures.” She gave him a small smile, doing her best to be reassuring.
“Cold?” She would have handed him a jacket or something, but given it was the summer, there wasn’t really much by way of jackets lying around. “I am an intriguing creature. Cat goddess.” Because that’s how she chose to describe all the best parts of her. Obviously it had to do with what she was - who she was. She suspected nothing out of the ordinary in the way he felt toward her. “It also explains the smiling. But I don’t think that’s anything unusual.”
Glancing down at Muffin, Bast made a small, thoughtful noise. “Do you need anything else? Muffin is determined to get friskies. I think it’s to torment me because of dream oddities.”
***
Presto smiled. “You are far less foreboding than most when lecturing. Terrifying, but not foreboding. And thank you, Bast, for being here..”
He chuckled. “The smiling? Ah, well, no, that is just you. You have that effect on me.” He nodded, cheeks red.
“I don’t, really. Thanks again. For a random encounter, you are amazing.” Of course, it might not be random, but he hadn’t intended to find her.
“I hope you two have a good day.”
***
Her brow raised just slightly at the comment about her being the only one that made him smile combined with the redness in his cheeks. For someone who had seen this before but with an entirely different someone, Bast felt the need to reach out and pat him on the shoulder. “Don’t linger too much on that.”
She gave him a quick smile. “I’m sure we’ll have a perfectly agreeable day. It was nice to run into you, Presto. Let me know when you’re back to yourself. Though, if it takes a while, we can probably talk again before then.”
Smiling once more, she moved to walk past Presto. “Have a good rest of your day. Try not to get into any more trouble in the meantime.”