It was the third time that first week Benjamin had caught sight of the proud ambassador, cursing and dodging through the castle corridors wrapped only in a curtain torn from a wall or a swiped table cloth, that he took pity on the man. Perhaps the fellow was deserving, perhaps he was a snooty aristocrat, but, having himself been through the rigors of adapting to a life wherein one is not always assured of making it to the end of the day the same size, shape, and/or species, Ben felt a sense of duty to help a new brother along into the modern world of shapeshifting. Especially a brother as pathetically clueless as Cornelius Montrey.

“Are you mad? I can’t be seen in public! Not in the city.” Cornelius panted, marginally keeping pace with Ben’s long strides.   

“Oh no?” Ben grinned, sidestepping his way through the early morning bustle on the streets of West Altalamatox.

“No! They’ll--”

He was cut off from Ben by a group of laughing women hauling colorful chickens in crates. “Excuse me, madams,” he huffed, stomping around the gaggle, meeting squarely with a line of carriages hauled by those large, long-faced animals they were ever so fond of on this infernal world. Resisting the urge to tear out his own eyeballs, he trotted around the plodding procession. He made the other side of the broad roadway, feeling more like a man who had swum a river not crossed a city street, to find Benjamin loitering under a shop awning serenely reading the morning paper. He threw himself flat against a building to avoid a gang of boys rolling barrels down the walk and shut his eyes for a long moment. Then he jerked his hood low, swallowed the horrible, horrible liquid rising in his throat, and with a twirl of robes stepped back into the street and made his own way under the awning.

“Ah,” Ben raised an eyebrow at the other man and shook his paper shut. “Fancy meeting you here. We ready?”       

Cornelius gave Ben’s thick braid the dirtiest scowl he could manage as he pushed on behind him. “I had thought we were going to Amoth-Elarg.”

“And we are,” Ben stopped abruptly, almost impaling Cornelius on his sword as he gave a group of elderly ladies the right of way with a flourish and a bow, “just as soon as we get to a crossing station.”

Cornelius hissed as he stepped in something soft in the gutter. He kept from looking down with an effort. “Are there not cruisers on this terrible little world?”

Ben’s laugh was like a deep bell. “Oh, heavens no.”

“Cars? Busses?”

“Not a one.”

“And good god why not?”

“Vehicle Code. ‘Tis a tourist thing. ‘Course, there are some for emergencies and such, but, on the whole,” he faced Cornelius for a moment and winked, “we’re a quaint, charming little get-away from life in the fast-lane.”

Cornelius snorted and cast an eye over the colorful, rambunctious citizenry pounding up and down the brick streets on widely assorted limbs, wondering who exactly thought this was anything like a welcome break from life ‘in the fast-lane.’ Speaking of which, he felt the melting in his stomach again as he thought of where they were headed. Back to Amoth-Elarg, the capital of the system, the most massive, prestigious, dazzling city in the network, where he had spent all his adult life painstakingly etching out a name for himself in the very heart of the government. He had been High Commander Montrey (Only a month ago- how could it have been only a month ago?), second in command of the entire system- him! The cringing, hooded man being jostled in the streets of a cute, third-rate world by steaming creatures hauling carts and snot-nosed boys chasing dogs. For a furious moment he longed to throw back his hood and show them his face, make them bow to him, make them step off the walk to avoid him. If they knew that here was the man who practically ran their system, who, a month ago, could have abolished their ridiculous little vehicle code with one swipe of a pen and had actual modern cars and jets in these streets, they’d, they’d…

He inhaled with a swoop of horror as a long, hot sensation bled through his clenched fist and he felt his fingers melt into each other, pulling apart again into webbed talons, growing and pushing his fist open. Oh god, not here, not now! This is why he hadn’t left the privacy of home, this is why this was the stupidest thing he’d ever been convinced to do!

“Brackenbridge!” he gasped, snatching at the man’s sleeve, “Stop, I, I…”

Benjamin glanced down at the hand gripping his shoulder. So did Cornelius. He pulled it back quickly. It was normal. He turned it over. Perfectly normal. He blinked at the knight, who gave him a grin that said he was mildly worried for his sanity. Cornelius coughed and tugged down on his hood. They plowed on.

Here Ben turned them abruptly down into a maze of pressed-dirt alleyways that were relatively deserted, quiet, and cool. They passed people here and there carrying baskets of herbs or piles of laundry. There were dozens of cats slinking about under stairways. There was a small courtyard stinking of ale with a group of dwarves sharpening tools, another with a tree and the sound of panpipes, though apparently empty. Often locals would hail Benjamin (‘Ello, Master Ben! ‘Ow’s the Library?), and once Cornelius met a smiling laundry woman’s eyes from under his hood, but averted his face hastily.

They plunged back into the city streets for a moment just to step out again into an ancient, tiny shop made, ridiculously, of white marble, with nothing apparently for sale. A bored-looking mat of fur curled up in a corner blinked at them once with wicked cat eyes. Cornelius glared back and folded his arms. “Now I know you’re just making this up. We’ve been wandering this town for half an hour, where’s this bloody crossing station?”

Ben hopped the counter, pulled a large key from his belt and unlocked the door. He kicked it open with a sly grin and a bow. “Thou art here.”

Cornelius stalked past him, watching cautiously. “This is your crossing station?”

Ben chuckled and prodded him forward in the back. “Just keep walking.”

-----

The hallway was icy cold and completely lightless. The definitive booming shut of the door did it for Cornelius’ frazzled nerves, and he finally decided that this was all some kind of ruse and he was a horrendous idiot for trusting this man. But before he could even turn, he felt the familiar feeling of insubstantiality and being zapped over vast and nonexistent distances through infinite dimensions, and that tiny, tiny moment when, just for a hiccup, one feels like one had momentarily ceased to be entirely.

And then he was wincing in the blazing light of a huge window. Ben dropped out of the air beside him into a squashy armchair behind a huge and cluttered desk. Cornelius gave him a look. Benjamin gave him a grin.

“What in Saint Laningee’s name was that?”

“A… crossing station?” Ben pulled himself out of his chair and busied himself about the room.

“Obviously, but in the middle of bloody nowhere? And where…” he trailed off, taking in the room’s generous fireplace, many bookshelves and potted plants, an umbrella stand with a battle axe innocently glinting in it, and what looked like a massive dog’s cushion. “This, this wouldn’t be your office?” Ben nodded, stuffing books and parchment into drawers of the desk and tossing the morning paper into a chair. Cornelius stared at him. “You have your own portal.”

“That’s right,” he said cheerfully.  

“And it just goes from the business district to your office.”

“Yup.”

“That’s not even a half mile.”

He winked. “Aye, but ‘tis a superb way to get past the morning crowd.”

“Uh-huh.” He hushed his inner lawyer who was peevishly quoting paragraphs on the illegality of secret portals.

“Yes, and I’m not done yet! If you shall look just there…” he prodded with his cane at the shadows in the end of the room.

Ah. At least it was a proper portal this time, all carved stone and gold metalworking, twin pillars with garlands of stone ivy and the stern owl of the Greater Altalamatox Library scowling down over it. The portal itself was a tall golden mirror. With Benjamin still bent over his desk engaged in packing his bag, Cornelius tentatively pulled back his hood and regarded himself.

He had lost a lot of weight. Stress and the terrible thing that had been done to his body had aged him years in weeks, the hair on his face and temples growing in quite grey and his eyes had pouches kangaroos would be proud of. He set his jaw and straightened his long robes, experimenting with holding his head up high in his accustomed manner, but a punishing twinge in his chest prompted him to let it fall again. He looked into his own dull green eyes from under lowered brows. Who was he kidding, after all? He was worse than scum now. Any man in the street could spit on him. Any boy. Any creature. He was underclass now, and all his wealth, ability, experience, it would bring him nothing. It didn’t seem fair to him, but, then again, it had seemed fair to him then, before he was the one in the dirt. The breeze from Ben swinging his long travelling cloak over his shoulders ruffled his hair and seemed to hiss, wereslug. He shivered and dropped his hood back over his face.

A moment later, Ben appeared in the mirror behind him, tall, dark, and getting on in years, his cane in one gauntleted hand, book bag at his hip, and his heavy cloak over his broad shoulders. He feigned primping his mane of dark hair in the mirror for a moment and grinned. “We done here, dahling?” Cornelius said nothing and strode through the mirror, leaving the surface rippling. Benjamin drew a ragged breath, strode promptly away from the portal, snatched up a pillow from one of the chairs, held it over his mouth, screamed, put it back gently, and followed.

-----

And there it was, vast, shining, sleek and smooth: Amoth-Elarg, the Capitol City. Cornelius could have kissed the glittering silver tiles of the rail station with relief, if only he wasn’t so conscious of the fact that he shouldn’t be here. For the nth time he felt his hand pulling his hood down farther. Benjamin, the medieval knight, in his tall, scuffed riding boots, long rugged tunic, and sweeping cloak, looking as out of place here in this world of polished glass and metal as could be, was perfectly at ease, cheerfully saying his good-mornings to the other passengers and consulting the electric-crystal projection of the train schedule. He returned to the panel of silver benches where Cornelius was staring out the glass and across the endless cityscape below.

“Well.” Ben declared, dropping into the chair next to him. “Lovely day, even with the rain, what do you say?”

“Yes.” His eyes swept across the buildings. There was the colossal capitol building. That was his office on the peak of the second spire. How many hours had he spent on the other side of that window? He felt again the now familiar vertigo, an out of body experience. It was High Commander Anthony P. Leon’s office now.

His companion clapped his leather-gloved hands together. “So, now that we’re here, what say you we first drop by the Courtyard and-”

“No, not the Courtyard. Nothing else. I want to do this one thing, then get the hell back.”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Ben said maybe over-enthusiastically, “breakfast is by and large over-rated anyways. We’ll to the tailors, then get you straight home, so that you may return to your business of kicking puddles, moping about in the rain, and generally-”

“Watch it,” Cornelius growled from under his hood.

Chimes signaled the arrival of their train. Cornelius made to stand but Benjamin thumped his arm down over his. He was surprisingly strong and pinned his arm very firmly to the armrest. It occurred to Cornelius that he might just be much, much stronger, and the magma boiling in his stomach simply begged to be released. He shut his jaw firmly and tried to think about deserts.

“Alright. Cornelius?” Ben said quietly and stonily, staring straight out into the sky, “I understand that this is hard for you. You’ve always been on top, and whilst you were up there you made life rather miserable for some of us below you. And now you’ve come down to join the mortals and you’ve found it’s no cup of tea.” The train glided away. “We’ll take the next one.” He removed his arm. “Now it would seem to me that you’re going about this in all the wrong way. Forgive me for saying it, but frankly, it’s over. You’ve hit rock bottom; this is it. And you have something now that few have; and that is nothing to lose. Nothing but life itself, and you can either live that life or you can plod it out alone in dark rooms with drawn curtains.” He stood and folded his arms. “Embrace it. You know you’d less than a hundredth of a chance of avoiding a fate far worse, and yet here you are. Sure, many doors have closed on you, and, sure, perhaps those that have opened are not as glamorous as you would have them, but they are doors. And we are trying to help you through one of those doors, which is extraordinarily difficult when you, sir, refuse to stop dragging your bloody feet.”

Cornelius wanted to say something to the effect of, ‘then why don’t you give it the hell up, Sir Noble Intentions?’ but hardwired into him, just as it is into every child, was that innate sense of when one is on one’s final straw, and he didn’t care for the thought of traversing the network back to the castle alone. Then, quietly, abruptly, that rigid, prickly something that had been the shaky thing holding him up this past month broke, was dissolved, and exhaled, leaving Cornelius with a void. Maybe it was seeing it for the first time since, there in the distance, the building that had been his very symbol of command, now with all doors locked against him. Maybe it was being back in the city itself, with its upper-class in which he had lived his life, where his connections, his allies, his blood-line belonged and all of whom would never now accept a thing like him back, and its underclass, his new peers, who would want bloody revenge. Maybe it was the rain over the city, rain reminding him of his twisted new form. And maybe it was Benjamin’s words, and maybe it was him, and all the others in Altalamatox who couldn’t seem to understand that he was a waste of matter and didn’t deserve…

He sagged. God, when was the last time he’d laughed? Years ago? Smiled? Ever? Could he do that anymore?

For a time Ben leaned against the glass, eyes averted over the city, as under his hood Cornelius took himself apart and shoved himself back together. Eventually, with a rustling of silky robes he stood. “Let’s go. I am sorry I’ve been all-”

“Ah now, don’t be, don’t be. I wouldn’t expect a man who’s gone through hell to not have a few demons still left in him, hmm?” The chimes rang. “Oh, quickly now; let’s hop this one then we might beat the ten o’ clock to Poorcup before the last morning rail out to Pather’s,” Ben said, hastily throwing his bag over his shoulder and heading for the platform. Cornelius grabbed for his own and trotted after.  

“Pather’s?” Cornelius asked, stepping into the train and sliding into a seat between Benjamin and a fat, sleeping creature in business attire. “As in Pather’s Bridge? There’d be a tailor for shapeshifters in Pather’s Bridge?”

Ben leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Takes all kinds, don’t it?”

“But it’s, you know, rather an… elite district for such a thing, don’t you think?”

“Oh?” He opened one eye. “So now you can’t be respectable and a shapeshifter, is that it?” He grinned, showing some wicked canines that definitely weren’t native to the human mouth.

“Gads, no, and put those things away. What I meant was, you know,” he dropped his voice, “for my particular case, you don’t think they’ll turn us away?”

“Nah. Owner’s an old mate of mine. Very open minded regarding such things. We’ll be fine n’ dandy.”

Cornelius looked out the window. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, the whole animal thing, it’s…?”

“A dreadful hassle at times, on occasion useful, and more comfortable to sleep in than nightclothes. Mostly it’s a fine parlor trick, and ‘tis a cup of tea next to what you’ve been dealt.”

“Ah. So, how’d it happen? Or, have you always been… you know?”

“Oh, no. Did a good turn for a faerie clan once. They thought t’would be a most wondrous gift to grant a human a path back into nature, didn’t even occur to the dear little things to ask first. Must’ve spotted the beast on my shield, else I don’t know why they would cause a native to become something completely foreign to England.”

“England?”

“It’s home,” he yawned, snuggling deeper into his seat.  

“A world?”

“A country. Lost in a dimension no-one has seen hide nor hair of in centuries.”

“Gods. I’m sorry, I had no idea you were displaced…”

“Ah, course you didn’t, it’s alright. Home is here now. Or rather, Altalamatox.”

“I see.”

-----

Half an hour later saw Cornelius and Benjamin walking through the rainy streets of Pather’s Bridge, a well-groomed district with wide walkways, electric streetlamps made to resemble old-style lanterns, and a predominance of tulips. They walked silently, enjoying the rain that reminded both men of home, Ben quietly nodding the direction at cross-roads from under his oiled hood. Cornelius’ cloak and robes, his habitual dress, marked him clearly as a native of Aaigea Ki, a lush world (and an extraordinarily wet one) where the inhabitants had quickly devised ways of making comfortable, light cloth that repelled water almost miraculously. He wondered if this tailor would be up to the task of recreating his wardrobe. He rather hoped he might be, as it would be a comfort, when everything else in his world had been turned on its head, to have at least one thing in his life remain constant.

It was on the corner of a large, open square with bronze statues that they arrived at their destination. The storefront was all brick and red wood, with lamplight pouring out the windows and open doorway to gild the puddles in the rainy street. Before they stepped into the noise and bustle of the shop, Cornelius caught the flamboyantly molded name on the hanging sign: Brogan and Branagan’s Specialty Tailoring.

The interior of the shop was handsomely done up in wood with an abundance of crimson velvet and an upper balcony to the second floor. Cornelius’ clothes were dry almost immediately after his feet hit the mat but he lagged cautiously behind with Benjamin as the later worked off his heavy, dripping cloak. A teenage girl in a smartly cut black outfit recognized Ben and gave the pair a big smile as she welcomed them over to the waiting area, telling them that Mr. Brogan had almost begun to worry about them and that she would fetch him around immediately. They took seats in two soft armchairs, where Ben was almost instantly set upon a tall black fellow in a top hat who was apparently an old acquaintance. Cornelius shook his hood lower over his face and spied on the bustle of the shop through it.

Assistants trotted back and forth behind the counters and curtains, now and then retrieving someone from the waiting room, now and then biding someone take care out there in the rain, often calling out jovially to some of the sitters in the waiting area who were presumably regulars. But it was his fellows he was more interested in. At the far end of the room was a pair of what he took to be fully-transformed werewolves in raincoats, cuddling on a sofa and cooing at a fluffy little were-puppy between them. Next to them, a perfectly normal-looking fellow engrossed in a gardening magazine, beside him a very red-faced young man in only a towel (“Ah, Derek, got caught out after sunrise again did we?”), and then a pale, sleepy-looking lady who was almost certainly a vampiress. Beside her, an extraordinarily beautiful young woman in almost the same situation as the red-faced boy was winking and smiling at any man who made eye contact. She smiled at Cornelius who paled and averted his eyes out the window, forgetting she couldn’t see him anyways under his hood. When she winked at Benjamin he grinned roguishly and winked back, sending the young woman into giggles.

A voice boomed out over the shop abruptly as the head tailor bounded into sight. “Benjamin Brackenbridge, yeh sorry dog! Yer an hour late, what happened, eh? Hell freeze over, no?”

Ben jumped to his feet and met the tailor halfway, “Cruinn Brogan! Good to see you too, mate!”

The tailor was a large, leather-hided creature somewhere between a kangaroo, a small dinosaur, and a draft horse with a mane of ginger hair and tufts on his muzzle like a bushy moustache. He seemed elderly, but energetic, bounding about the shop on his powerful hind legs, chatting with Benjamin while booming out orders to his assistants. He tried to imagine him human and got a strong impression of a heavyset old gentleman with a walrus moustache. Ben then called out for Cornelius to follow and he was led to a back room filled with miscellaneous tailoring supplies.

Brogan clapped the door shut with his tail and turned. “Well, well, Benjamin tells me we’ve quite a special guest today, no?” He cocked his head to the side and raised a bushy eyebrow. Cornelius obliged, setting his jaw and removing his hooded cloak entirely. “Aye, so ‘tis ye.” The tailor nodded gravely and set himself down in a wicker chair which creaked despondently. Ben found a pile of cloth to sit on. “Ahh, we were wondrin’ we wouldn’t be seein’ yeh ‘round here ‘ventually. I were inclined not t’believe it a’first, but seems to be true enough. Galatini… yer a lucky devil, though I won’t lie to ye, I wouldn’t trade me lot fer yers in no hurry, no sah.” He peered at Cornelius, who, without his hood, fell back on his second defense, haughtily surveying his surroundings.   

“Now, Cruinn,” Ben stepped in, “shall we to business?” He pulled a book from his bag and slid a piece of parchment from its pages which he slapped into the tailor’s broad palm. “Cornelius, your bag please?”

“Aye,” Brogan rumbled, reading the list, “jist toss yer lot on the table there, an’ we’ll ‘ave us a look-see.”

Cornelius hoisted his bag off his shoulder and began laying out his suits. Brogan stalked up the row, poking through things. “Ahh, Aaigea silk, ‘tis a fine thing, t’be sure, an’ this, this is fine quality you got ‘ere Commandah!”

“And completely and utterly useless.” Cornelius stood by the table.

Brogan smiled, “Weeeell, that’ll be why yer ‘ere then, wouldn’t it? Now what’re we looking at ‘ere?” He turned back to the note. “Fer complete invert-transformation, yeh says, Ben? That’ll not be fer cheap, not fer threads like these...” He turned a ruby-red eye on Cornelius.

“I am not concerned about cost,” Cornelius said, “I believe I can afford it.”

“Aye, Commandah, it’s ye, a Montrey, we’re talking ‘bout, so I’m sure yeh can, I’m sure yeh can. Nevah dealt with a galatini afore, that I can say. We’ll try yeh first with the usual, don’ see no reason a galatini don’ shift like any other shifter, no?”

Cornelius resisted the urge to flinch each time he heard the name of his new species. “How exactly does this work?” he asked, watching the tailor gathering up his clothes.

“Well, t’all has to do with paramagical resonances, no? Released from the internal or external reservoir of the bein’ in question, no? It’s the perfectin’ o’ the pitch that really-”  

Ben coughed. “Cruinn, please, just the here and now.”

The tailor wrinkled his muzzle at Cornelius and grinned. “Right. It’s a potion, yeh see. We need to sample yer resonance, that is, the sort o’ magical field yeh creates when yeh shifts, to make up a batch o’ brew that’ll match yer unique frequency. Then we jist soaks yer threads in it and yer good t’go; any shifting yeh do will trigger a shift in yer effects as well.”

“And what is an invert-transformation?”

“Ahh, ‘e is clueless innit ‘e?” Brogan said to Ben. “Well, yer mate ‘ere’s got a fine example of wha’ is not invert-trans, don’ yeh Ben? Show the good fellow would ye?”

Ben swaggered in front of Cornelius with a mischievous grin. Then all in a whirl the man’s face pushed forward into a heavy muzzle, his hair grew thicker, rounded ears poked through his mane, and a heavy, tufted tail hit the floor behind him. Lion Benjamin threw back his head and laughed out loud at Cornelius’ shocked expression. Brogan moved forward.

“Ah, ah, now see ‘ere,” he clapped the glasses off of Ben’s snout, ignoring his protest, and held them up. “Fine work on these; yeh’d be hard pressed to fit yer usual specs ontah that great furry nose o’ yourn without a little sparkle, no? Had to work in readjustments fer length n’ width for all o’ this,” he said, circling Ben, big tail dragging behind him, “note additional ‘oles fer claws, tail, that sort o’ thing. But this, this ain’t invert-trans, no sir, that’s a whole ‘nuther animal, ‘tis. Makes yer effects disappear entirely, it does. Pocket universes ‘n all, yeh know, an’ that I could well imagine may be the only solution fer such a creature as yeh, Commandah Montrey. An’ now, if ye will, I need but one more thing from yeh and that is to stand o’er this bit o’ floor here, aye, like so, an’ give us somethin’ t’take a reading on.” Brogan then bounded out of the room for a moment hollering for an assistant to stand by on the second floor, returned, and gave him the good-to-go with one paw.  

Ben shifted down, snatching his spectacles back from Brogan. He thumped Cornelius on the shoulder. “Doesn’t have to be a big shift, you know; just enough that it’s something.”

Cornelius looked at the ceiling. “You know I can’t control it like that,” he muttered.

“Come on now, just this once and it’ll be no more tablecloths and-”

“Alright, alright, alright,” he snapped, “but how in blazes do you think we’re supposed to get back with me all…” He clawed his hands and hissed.

Ben laughed. “You do yourself well, Cornelius.”

The big creature cut in. “Ah now, yeh don’ think we don’ deal wit’ these sorts o’ things all the time, no? Wot? Sending a vampire out inta a sunny summah day, no? A banshee inta rush hour? We ain’t proud; we got us a nice, shady backdoor n’ deep passages fer those what can’t afford ta be seen, fer those wit’,” he winked one cat-slit eye, “secrets.”

“Thank you for telling me about the backdoor, Brackenbridge.”

“Oh, heaven’s sake, for what? I’m sorry, but barring the deaf, dumb, and blind, the deceased, and those living under rocks, I rather doubt there’s a soul in the entire network who doesn’t know exactly what you are.”

Cornelius ground his teeth so hard it was audible. “Enough,” he spat. He paced the circle of floor agitatedly, ran his hands through his hair, gave a final hearty round of muttered curses, irately yanked his robes around himself, and shut his eyes.

And he was on an ocean. He was on the very last piece of land in the whole, vast, dark ocean. It pulled on him, constantly, the depths. The pulsing, rhythmic, twilit depths. His body and mind re-wired, his instincts unwound. His disease, his virus, he could practically feel it squirming in his every cell. It had taken him, instructed his body to take him apart from the inside, to reconstruct a new thing in his place. He could resist it, he could cling to his humanity, but it was so hard. God, it was so hard. He felt a shiver through his body. How fine it would be to just let go, let go of the headache, unclench his aching fists, relax his body, stop forcing the entire ocean into a single dry outcropping, and to sink down… down…

Up? He felt his head press against the rafters with some surprise. Large, pale eyes slid open. He was twelve feet off the ground, blinking around a long, wicked snout at an indistinct Benjamin below him, arms folded, looking up with a devious grin, and Brogan, fur on end, long jaw hanging open.

“’Oly, ‘ell.”

Cornelius moved drowsily, still in the euphoria of having the weight of the ocean lifted from his spine and taking his first real breath of sweet air in hours. His serpentine body curled beneath him, his tail, that strikingly unfamiliar fifth limb, coiling around his feet. He stared hazily at what was usually a hand. A fin was maybe what it was now, a huge, webbed dragon’s paw. He could make out the pattern on the floor through his translucent, watery flesh and shivered. There was rain outside; he could feel its joyous humidity like the radiant warmth of a fireplace. His reptilian head turned toward the curtained window, generously fanged jaws open just a touch, pure water welling up from his throat and pooling in his mouth. Benjamin was speaking to him, his words deep and soft and distant as sounds heard from underwater. He turned back and shook his head slowly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t… hear you?” His voice was strange, louder and deeper, with a lisp from speaking through needle teeth with a long, forked tongue, his words dripping from his fangs like water.

“I said good work, mate. Put your head down for a while.” He turned to Brogan.

Cornelius needed no second bidding. The frustration, the uncertainty, the anger of the day melted away, ebbed like the tide, and he felt his head drooping, falling, sinking down. He was the ocean now, and though he knew he would be back to clinging to the dry rocks in an hour or so, just now he didn’t care, didn’t care that he was a half-blind, room-sized, amphibious nightmare. He was the ocean now, and the universe was at peace.     

-----

When he awoke, the room was empty, dark, and lit only by a crackling lantern. Someone had put a quilt over him. For a few minutes he just lay there, staring at his human arm draped over his chest and listening to the rain. When he stood, he found his robes draped over a table with a parchment note pinned to them, ‘Try These.’ He rooted through the pile for a sock, and, feeling a bit silly, pulled it over one hand. The transformation was ridiculously easy after having let go so recently, and he felt his hand and arm elongate under the sock which, he blinked, was suddenly quite absent. He twiddled his claws. Gone, entirely. Just to be sure, he checked under the table as well, but no, it was gone. He braced himself and forced his hand back into a more acceptable shape, and to his wonder and surprise the sock melted back into being around it. For a bizarre moment there was a stinging in his face before he realized that his smile was forcing some neglected muscles back into service. He pulled the rest of the clothes on, grabbed the lantern, and cautiously opened the door.

He followed light and the sound of voices and cutlery to a room on the second floor, where he found Benjamin playing cards at a table with a heavy man in thick glasses and a slate blue heron with a bandana about its neck and what must have been about two dozen necklaces. This was obviously the tailors’ living quarters, with paintings on the walls, a den with tall lamps and half a dozen armchairs, and a kitchen visible around the corner.  It was the heron who noticed him first, standing and welcoming him inside with a woman’s voice.

“Ah ha; he awakes!” Ben boomed, pulling up another chair. “Refreshed?”

“Is it really night?” Cornelius asked incredulously, sitting. “You let me sleep the entire day?”

“Yessir,” he said, clearing the table of cards, “looked like you could bloody well use it. You are feeling better?”

“Much.”

“Lovely! And speaking of which, may I introduce the lovely lady Máire Branagan, co-proprietor of this shop? Mind your curtsey, m’dear, this is our very own High Commander Cornelius Montrey.”

“Oh, Benjamin, knock it off,” the heron smiled mildly, nudging Ben with her long beak. She turned her eyes to Cornelius and spread her large blue wings in a bow. “Nice to meet you, Commander.”

“Now,” Ben said, pushing back from the table, “you must be starving. Come, you must try some of Cruinn’s beef and lentil stew-”

“Ah, now no yeh don’, Ben,” the heavy man said, standing and pushing Ben back into his chair, “we won’t have guests servin’ guests under our roof, now will we, Máire?” Cat-slit eyes crinkled under bushy brows at he grinned down at Cornelius.

“Brogan?”

The man only tapped his broad nose and winked before disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a tray heaped with bread, a bowl of stew, some fruit, and a mug of amber liquid. Cornelius dug in gratefully.

“Ahh, eats like a wolf, this one ‘ere,” Brogan laughed.

“Oh, speak for yourself, Cruinn,” Máire said, batting him gently with a wing. “Besides,” she said, watching Cornelius, “listening to Benjamin it sounds as if he’s had a time of it lately. It can be so hard at first, dear, but you mustn’t let it get the best of you. It was hard for all of us, but with time you’ll learn.”

“I remember,” Brogan drawled, leaning back in his chair, “the firs’ time we ‘ad dear Benjamin in the shop, don’ ye, Máire? ‘Ow many breeches ‘ad yeh gone through afore ye hauled yer sorry arse to us, I wondeh?” Ben chuckled and took a deep drink from his mug.

“So, Mister Brogan,” Cornelius said between bites, “forgive me, but I have to say you’re almost exactly as I imagined you.”

“Oh, aye, I get tha’ a lot,” the tailor said, stroking his moustache. “Makes me wonder from time t’ time if that makes me an ‘andsome monster or a damn ugly man, it does.” Ben snorted into his ale.

“May I… ask exactly what you are?”

“Yeh may, Commandeh, yeh may,” he said.

“Alright. What are you?”

“I,” he said, “am an excellent example o’ why coegi cogo comentum is now ‘eavily restricted by central law.”

“Oh dear.”

“’Oh dear’ is damn righ’! Back in m’ day yeh could find coegi in any ol’ potions shop, jist sittin’ there on the shelf ‘tween the butter-water an’ the frog’s eyes, pretty as ye like. When I were jist an apprentice I would show off ta the other lads, take a swig o’ the coegi an’ a dash o’ whate’er distillation they chose an’- POOF!” he snapped his fingers, “A horse! A serpent! A gryphon! A horse-serpent-gryphon! Oh, aye, t’was good fun, aye, ‘til one day the bloody shift sticks on m’ permanently, no? T’wasn’t long after tha’ tha’ somebody looked inta coegi cogo an’ found the critical point n’ ‘ad it off the shelves in a shot.” He chuckled and drained his glass. “Now I spend me nights a man n’ me days a mess o’ whate’er me mates- n’ meself- took it inta our silly little ‘eads t’put inta that last batch so long ago.”

“Tisk. And all for lack of proper research and standards. A pity is what it is,” the heron said, idly smoothing the tablecloth with a talon.

“And what about you, my lady?”

“Oh… me?” She put her head to one side and sighed. “Nothing so colorful, I’m afraid. It’s all a little sad, really… You see, during the war, when they couldn’t make my father talk, they took my sisters and me one night and turned us into creatures to torture him. But then he was killed when the fort was stormed, and we… we had nothing left for us in Gallyheim then, and so we left to find new places in the network. We’re each human two days in every seven, but it’s not enough to live a normal life, of course, you know. My sisters all found work in non-humanoid dominated areas, but I met Cruinn while passing through Amoth-Elarg and stayed here to run the business with him. He knew the potions and I knew tailoring, and so we taught each other everything we know.”

Cornelius put down his spoon. “Gallyheim? This must have been the North Valley War, then?”  Máire bobbed her head. “I remember that, I-”

“You would have just been appointed leader of the Senate then,” she said quietly, shifting her teacup.

There was a long and awkward silence during which Cornelius stared down his empty bowl.  

“Oh my, you may have hit a nerve there, my dear,” Ben said quietly over his mug.

Cornelius spoke, addressing the tabletop. “I am sorry.”

Brogan leaned towards Ben, “Wot’s this all?”

“We didn’t send aid.” Cornelius looked up at Máire. “Could’ve, but didn’t. Didn’t think it was important, not in the long run, in the grand scheme of things. Let some die so that others may live and all…” he seemed to deflate, “…all that tripe. Damn it,” he spat suddenly, pounding the table, “what’s wrong with me?”

Benjamin sipped from his glass. “I believe you are growing a conscience.”

“Bah. Well, I was bloody wrong about one thing, that’s for damn sure, and now I’m paying for it. Bitterly. This is the end of Cornelius Montrey, just the dregs left to pace out his days in…” he glared at Ben, “in dark rooms with drawn curtains.”

Brogan coughed. “Surely yeh don’ mean tha’, do yeh? Yeh have yer ‘ole life ahead-”

Cornelius stood suddenly with a screech of his chair and shot him a searing look. “Look. I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this, and I don’t understand you. And it’s making my head hurt. Benjamin, it’s far past time we were gone.”

His companions leapt to their feet.

“Whoa, Commandeh, ‘old on a moment, ‘old on- didn’t mean t’offend!” Brogan said, moving between him and the door.

“Oh yes?” Cornelius said haughtily. “My god, are you completely ignorant? Look at me! Who am I? Did I not blatantly speak against the Equality Act of 3.26.90? Did I not again and again vote down measures designed for the betterment of your sort? Yes, yes, yes, I said it was for tax reasons, for the best of the economy, but really, in my black heart of hearts the real reason is that society just needs someone to sacrifice, someone to suffer, to fill the bottom tier and be the lowest filth in the barrel just so no one else has to be. The underclass, those- those werewolves from this morning, that vampire, your back entrance, it was all in my hands but what did I do? And now, now I’m trapped on the flip side, eating the very gruel I dished out while king. I can’t show my face in the streets without starting a riot, I can’t get an honest job, I can’t go home, and I cannot rest, not with this burning- burning!- in me night and day that it was ALL MY DOING. Do you understand that?” He whirled on Benjamin. “And you, with your doors. What do you propose I do now, hmm? Find some quiet corner to amuse myself in until I die?”

There was a rattling of ceramic as Máire pounded a bangled leg on the table. “No. I think it’s you who are ignorant. What on holy Torise have you been doing for the last month? While you’ve been holed up in your mansion silent as the grave, Commander, the entire network has begun talking. Seems to me all you can think about is how you’ve been thrown to the wolves, yes? Well, maybe the underclass isn’t as blood-thirsty as you give them credit for; maybe they have schemes of their own, yes? Did it ever occur to you what this might look like to them? We have them in here all the time; monsters, weres, the undead, and all they’ll talk about is you, Montrey. You and how you are one of them now, how you have more power than any underclassman ever had. They’re getting ready to stand up again, everyone can feel it. They think you might be their new voice. I dare say they might want you to lead them.”

Cornelius only stared, though his hands shook on the back of his chair. “Who… who says these things?”

“Everyone does, Commandeh. Not jist the underclass no more neither, it’s the higher-ups now. ‘Tis a shock t’hear yeh… weren’t even considerin’ it, really. We thought yeh were p’raps already on the move. Many do. Thar’s already a movement forming ‘mongst the Coalition o’ Lords to counter yeh. They’re scared o’ ye, Montrey.”

“And you haven’t even made the slightest move,” Ben said.

Cornelius’ brain was ablaze. He slowly lowered himself back into his seat, long robes flowing around him. He took a deep drink from his glass, closed his eyes and idly twisted the ring on his finger. Then he leaned forward.

“Tell me everything.”

The exclamations of relief from his hosts were lost on him, as for a moment he was conscious only of that tiny ache in his face again as the corners of his mouth began to rise.