by Tempe O'Kun
Those pointy ears swiveled. “I still hear it out here.” His head whipped from side to side, mouth a thin line. “I think it’s coming from us.” He lifted the wristband to his ear. His gaze flicked to her. “Is yours—?”
A brilliant flash seared their every nerve.
Max’s howl vanished in her own squawk of panic.
Vertigo churned in her stomach as she found herself an alarming distance from the ground. Through blurry vision, she saw the horizon at a wild tilt. Her limbs felt distant. Her tail felt light, her chest heavy, and her whole body plummeted.
A heavy thump later, Kylie found herself sprawled on the ground. Her head throbbed. Her ears rang. Her limbs numbed. “Okay, maybe he did set a booby trap…” The leaves and branches of the forest rattled with a painful clamor. She opened her eyes to an intolerable brilliance, struck through by a tangle of red lines. “Augh!” She threw paws over her face. “Something’s wrong with my eyes. It’s like kelp’s growing in them.”
“I see it too.” Behind her, she heard him sit up and croak through his words. “I think we’re seeing blood vessels.”
Her paws gripped the doorframe to help her stand—she looked around, mystified. The door had shrunk. It stood just above eye level now. She squinted at her surroundings, but her nose kept getting in the way of seeing it. She gripped her nose, then noticed her paws. Blocky and white, with blunt claws. “…Max?”
He grumbled through an usually high-pitched growl. “Yes?”
She looked back at a fluffy, monochrome tail. “I don’t wanna freak you out, but I may be a dog.” Her gaze, still obscured by veins, found a small, hazy figure beside her.
“That’s reassuring.” Max nodded, studying his webbed paws. “I’m pretty sure I’m an otter. You, specifically.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Not going to freak out.” Her ears popped up as she realized a quick way to verify if she wasn’t in Max’s body. She grabbed her crotch. Pain spiked up from her testicles through her entire body. “Oww!?”
Watching her, he sighed. “Please refrain from punching yourself in my nuts.”
“Shut up! I haven’t totally figured out what I’m doing yet.” She staggered and almost fell over. “And why’s everything blue?!”
He shrugged his tiny shoulders. “Because I have blue eyes?”
Pressing massive paws to her eyes, she groaned. “Seriously?”
Max tried to cross his arms, but was impeded by his breasts. “Do I look like an ophthalmologist?”
She grumbled, which came out rather growly. “I’ll tell you once I can see.”
Wind blew through the leaves. Birds sang in the woods. Crickets chirped in the rustling grass. They sat, breathing and not freaking out, as their vision slowly returned.
“Okay…” He took a deep breath. His webbed paw grasped her fallen flashlight, which still threw a cone of light across the forest floor. “Let’s not panic.”
“Actually, let’s.” She barked in his general direction. “This seems like a panic situation.” One of her giant paws rose to her chest. “Wait, this is how you sound to yourself? Your entire chest vibrates when you talk.”
“It does. That’s normal.” Propped against the wall of the steel shack, Max sat up, then inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Theory.”
“Yes?” Her gigantic fingers ran down her arms, bumping into the abstract-patterned bracelet.
He held up his wrist, clad in identical neon fabric. “The snap bracelets have betrayed us.”
She barked a laugh that was only slightly hysterical. “I never thought I’d see the day.” Even through blue-tinted vision, she could see he still wore his. “Maybe we should take them off?”
“Hmf.” He tugged at it with obvious unfamiliarity toward both hand and bracelet. “Are they always so hard to take off?”
She woofed, then flinched at the unfamiliar sensation of the sound in her vocal cords. “No, you dork. They just pull right off.” She pulled at the bracelet on her heavy canine wrist. It wouldn’t come free. It felt like the spring steel and turned into cast iron. Her thick, blunt claws scrabbled across it, but found no seam, only a continuous abstract retro pattern. “What the…?”
“Forget about the bracelets for now. Maybe we just suck at motor skills now.” Unsteady, he managed to stand with the help of the doorframe. “Maybe something in the shed set them off?”
With a heavy breath, she struggled to her overlarge feet. “How about you figure it out while I stay out here and scream for a bit?”
He paused, then nodded. “Okay.” He waddled inside.
Yelling as Max felt pleasingly loud—it made birds scatter from treetops. Walking took more getting used to, but she figured it out. Once she was done pacing in front of the entrance, screaming at the wilderness, she realized the spots had cleared from her vision, though the world remained stubbornly blue. This revealed her own now-colossal hands clearly. After a smidgen more screaming, she got ahold of herself and returned to the shed.
There, she found Max picking up and setting back down a jar of tacks.
She gripped the doorway, finding it had surprising give under her claws. “Any clues?”
“No.” He turned to face her and his tail knocked over a bin of paint stir sticks, which he ignored with eyes closed. “Feeling better?”
“Yes.” Her hands balled into fists so hard they hurt. She hadn’t thought that was possible. “You seem to be taking this pretty well.”
Walking toward her, he shrugged, though the motion got out of control and sashayed down his body. “I’m in shock.”
Kylie nodded. She was starting to feel better. Probably from the screaming. Always nice to know you can still scream. “Do you need to lie down?” She looked at her enormous dog paws again. “It helps to close your eyes, when the weirdness builds up too much.” She took her own advice for a moment, then looked back to him.
“I’m okay.” He shook his head so hard his whiskers swished. “Though I’m having trouble with the…” He gestured toward his chest.
“Boob jiggle?” She snickered. It came out like a pant.
“I was going to say ‘different weight distribution,’ but that is distracting too.” He shook his head, ears dipping shyly. “Were these bracelets with anything else? Something that might be controlling them?”
Kylie glanced down at the wristband, then back to the shelf. Only a faint outline in the dust revealed they’d ever been there. “No.”
“Hmm.” He tried to stroke his chin, but finger webs outsmarted him so he gave up. Again, his eyes slid down to the bracelet on his dainty wrist. He strained to pull it free. It didn’t budge.
“Let me try!” Kylie seized on the wristband and yanked, grunting with effort. No effect.
“Stop. Stop.” Max waved his tiny paws at her. “If you break them, who-knows-what will happen.”
Letting go, she shook the tension from her hand. She panted a little. “Aside from how distracting it is that your breath shoots out the side of your nostrils…” She stretched and touched the ceiling. “I think I’m getting used to being you.”
“Then you’re a couple decades faster than I was.” He peeked into boxes, one after another, then finally wheezed a weird half-chitter, half-groan. “I don’t know. Maybe, if we get away from this Quonset hut, we’ll go back to normal?”
She finished poking at every centimeter of the bracelet, finding no hidden buttons. Her next impulse was to gnaw the fabric layer off, but stopped herself. Probably a bad idea to chew on the supernatural, especially with somebody else’s teeth. “Worth a shot.” She nodded, still distracted by the muzzle obscuring the bottom half of her vision. “Before we go, we should grab anything else that’s obviously supernatural.”
“Good idea.” He surveyed the shed. “Well, nothing is glowing yellow and made of bone, so I’m not sure how we’d know.”
“Okay, so maybe anything of value?” She propped her fists on her hips.
“You do your mother proud, but I don’
t see anything to burgle. Aside from her long-lost cabinet doors.” He gripped the edge of an old shop table, lowered his muzzle and closed his eyes. “I might need to lie down.”
Her tail felt super light, just flying around like a rogue feather duster. No wonder Max was such a slow swimmer. “I guess all this stuff won’t go anywhere.”
Nodding, Max staggered for the door. His top half wobbled like an unstable jelly. “I don’t know if we should try to carry anything in this state.”
Kylie nodded, her head jolting about unsteadily. “Ugh!” She lumbered after him. “I feel like I’m made of stale licorice.”
“That’s what we non-otters call ‘having bones.’” He grabbed a length of heavy-gauge wire on his way out and jammed it through the latch, then tried to bend it. It sprung back into place. He tried again, but only managed to get it to bend a few degrees, in spite of a mighty squeak. He sighed. With a look of defeat, he stepped out of the way. “Kylie…”
She stepped up to the door. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just bend it so the door won’t blow open.” He grabbed her giant paws and wrapped them around the ends of the wire. “We don’t need rain or wild animals getting in.”
She twisted the steel wire like taffy. Tough paw pads even kept it from hurting. After a few more twists just for fun, she stood back to admire her work. “Huh! It’s pretty cool to be strong.”
Max rolled his eyes. Bracing himself against the occasional tree, he picked his way back down the hillside.
She snatched a woody pine cone from the forest floor and pulverized it in one paw. “Ouch! Wow, I totally just crushed that. I’m bleeding a little.”
He gave her a sidelong look.
Dusting herself off, Kylie realized her gigantic form had considerable strength and durability at its disposal. After a few experimental bounces, she figured out how to keep her balance with a much lighter tail. She closed a fist around a pine cone and pulverized it. As the dust trailed from her hand, a smile lit her face. She stomped merrily downhill, hefting rocks, breaking branches, smashing underbrush. “This is great!”
Max traipsed with care. His newfound booty seemed to throw him off balance with every step. “Slow down.”
“I’m a monster truck on legs! I’ll never have to slow down again!” Turning back to look at him, her heavy paws fumbled and flung her face-down into the dirt. She tilted her muzzle up from the ground, shook the leaves off, and grinned. “This is amazing. I’m barely even hurt.”
“Be careful with that body.” He offered her a hand to stand up. “I need it back.”
She took it and yanked him off balance. “Sorry.”
He staggered and swept long hair out of his face. “Just take it easy. This won’t get any easier if we’re also dealing with a broken leg.”
Getting borrowed feet under her, she proceeded through the woods at what she considered a normal pace. Sure, this situation was really weird, but soon noticed her boyfriend wasn’t keeping up.
He tromped along, tripping over his own tail. Almost falling again, he growled. Then he giggled.
She slowed. “What’s so funny?”
He bounced along the game trail, ears low. “Nothing.” He simpered again.
“Tell me!” The bark came out much louder than she expected.
His tiny balled-up fists popped out to either side. “Walking as you really tickles, okay?”
“Tickles?” She snorted. “How can walking tickle?”
He squirmed in place, hips waggling as he tried to put it into words. “It just does.”
“What are you even talking about? This could be a clue.” She threw her arms in the air, almost flinging herself off balance. “Why does it tickle?”
“Because I’m not used to having a vagina, Kylie!” He sputtered, irritated and manic. “I don’t know how you just scamper all over with all the feedback coming from this thing.”
A howl of laughter echoed through the trees, a blast of sound she could never had made as an otter. Those wide, white paws zipped to her mouth, too late to stop the sound. “Sorry, Maxie. I don’t mean to laugh. I’m just here, bouncing along.”
Adjusting his jeans, he trotted along, bow-legged and self-conscious. “Let’s just keep going.”
Plowing through another patch of shrubs without slowing, Kylie barked with glee. “Man, I can just run forever.” She jogged backward to face him. “See you back at the car.”
“No! Wait! Carry me!” Several meters back, he flailed through the underbrush after her. “I always carry you!”
“Ugh, fine.” She trotted over and picked him up. The effort flung him into the air like a pillow, if a very squeaky one. When he landed back in her arms, it hardly took any strength to keep hold. “Ha! You’re super light like this. No wonder you’re always picking me up.”
He grumbled as she threw him over her shoulder, then twisted around to see where they were going. His tiny paw splashed the beam of the flashlight around the dim woods.
At long last, the ground leveled out, and they reached the edge of a twisted gravel road, on which perched a tiny aquatic automobile. Night had seeped out from the shadows of trees and onto the paths between them.
Kylie set down her boyfriend. “Okay. I think we can say getting away from the shed didn’t help.” She looked back up the slope. “Let’s just go home and regroup. I don’t wanna climb the mountain again.”
His dark pelt almost invisible in the dusk, Max brushed himself off, having particular trouble getting dirt off his fishing vest.
Free from the worry of tripping and flinging him down the mountainside, Kylie bounded along through the grass. Her body demanded more oxygen, so she decided to practice panting. She bit her tongue instantly with the next step. “Ow!” She stuck it out to check if she was bleeding. She was not.
“That’s my tongue.” Waddling up, he squinted in the fading light. “And I’ll thank you to be careful with it.”
“It just goes all over the place.” She waggled it out of her muzzle to demonstrate.
Arms crossed, he stumped across the unmowed ditch. His tiny ears sank flat against his red hair, which was still largely contained in a ponytail. He looked cute like that, all serious and tiny. She then realized that’s how she’d looked all her life and huffed with pique.
An electronic chirp rattled through the seaside air. Searching through the countless pockets of her fishing vest, he pulled out a phone and failed to unlock it. The screen glowed against the dark, a sharp rectangle of civilization in the wilderness.
She stuffed a paw in her jeans pocket, pulled out his phone, and handed it to him. “Phone trade?”
He nodded. “Phone trade.” The device looked gigantic in his borrowed paws, almost a tablet.
“It’s just mom wondering what we want for dinner.” She scowled at the sleek device, which almost vanished in her big white paws. “Ugh, this phone is tiny and impossible now.”
His hazel gaze flicked up to her. “Then you’ll understand how I feel.”
“About my phone?” She propped wide white paws on her hips. “Or about me?”
Max said nothing, only casting her a look as he waddled toward the car.
Hands on her hips, she stuck that large canine tongue out at him. “You can’t be having that much trouble if you’re sassing me already.”
Finding the car locked, he searched through a few pockets before securing the keys, mostly because of the attached plastic oyster with googly eyes. He unlocked the door before tossing them to her and slipping into the passenger’s seat.
Max watched as she contorted herself into various configurations to fit behind the steering wheel. He said nothing. A faint amusement touched his otherwise distant expression. The smirk grew over time, until he stood grinning.
After her fourth try, she climbed out and shook a heavy finger at him. “Shut up, you!”
He rolled his eyes. Seated in a now too-far-back seat, he clicked it forward several centimeters, then several more, until
his tail wasn’t pressed to the back seat.
Her efforts to enter the car resumed, rocking the vehicle back and forth.
In the face of such disturbance, her boyfriend began locating the various parts of the seatbelt. “You’re going to tip the car over.”
“So I’ll just use your body to roll it back on its wheels.” She looked fully over the car, which itself was an interesting perspective. “It’s not that deep of a ditch.”
“Not something I’ve tried…” He peered with concern out his side window. “…though it’s unlikely to improve the car.”
Arms flailing, she heaved the most gigantic sigh of her life. “Look, do you wanna drive?”
“Not especially, but if it gets us home alive…” With a sigh, he unbuckled himself and exited, then rounded the car and slithered into the driver’s seat.
She dropped the keys into his webbed paw, stomped to the passenger’s side, and folded herself into the confines.
“Don’t shut your tail in the door.” He clipped himself into the four-point harness, feeling a bit like a race-car driver. After checking that Kylie had compressed his entire body into the car, he fired up the engine. “You’ll want to adjust the seat.” He watched her fiddle with the levers for a moment before continuing. “Then you’ll want to adjust it more, but you can’t. It doesn’t go back any further.”
The seat clicked back a few centimeters. Then it stopped. His girlfriend cast accusing looks at everything around the seat. “Are you sure?” Knees braced against the dashboard, she rocked back and forth in the seat.
“Oh, I’ve checked.” In his voice lingered a deep weariness.
Scowling as she banged her knuckles on every possible surface, she mouthed the words back to him.
Coaxing the transmission into first, he puttered off down the road.
At every bump, she hit her head on a rod in the convertible roof. “Okay. I think I see why you resent the ottermobile…”
The boat-car drove admirably until it reached the slightest gravel incline, at which point it handled like a greased surfboard down a staircase. He trampled the brake with both feet, but only made it fishtail. Teeth clenched, he didn’t dare look to her. “It’s even worse behind the wheel.” Trying to turn on the headlights, he activated the propellers. “Why can’t anything in this car be normal?”