by Kyle Olson
Sophia flailed about, arms and legs and tail going every which way until she calmed and sagged into a boneless heap, pleading to Yf with her eyes.
“As I said, it’s in your blood. Remember Lorithyl? You’re descended from him. Quite a few generations, but you are.”
“Hah? How do you even know that?”
“I just can. Knew it from the moment I saw you. And when you were able to use my portal—well, that just confirmed how thick it was. The books, too. Downside is it does mean your family tree came back in on itself at some point. Good chance your parents are first cousins and don’t know it.”
“Yeah great, so I’m a lion because I’m an incest baby. Really great. Making me feel loads better, Yf.”
Yf gave another few pats to the stricken half-lion, half-girl. Even raked her fingers through Sophia’s fur, fingernails caressing the skin underneath. As much as it annoyed Sophia, it wasn’t a terrible sensation, though it did make her leg stretch out against her will.
“You wanted to know. For the rest, well, I may not be the best healer, but when it comes to working on the soul of a feline, I am the best,” Yf declared, chest swelling, “You’re lucky I was here, or else you’d have been gone for good.”
“I… see.” A paw twitched, a leg moved. She even managed to wiggle her paw-toes and make the claws appear and retract. “This is lucky?”
“Better than dead,” Yf said, bouncing off the bed to her feet, “Come, you’ve been asleep for days. You need something to eat.”
Food hadn’t occurred to her until mentioned, and now that it had been, her stomach rumbled. Or stomachs. The noise came from the usual place, and then a deeper growl reverberated up through her from the lion part. It’d been a long, long time she since wanted to cry.
But, crying could wait. An urge for food compelled her. Worryingly, one that demanded meat above all else.
Without any extra thought involved she padded to the dresser, opened a drawer, and put on a shirt. She opened the drawer next to it for her underwear and pants. Sitting down on her hindquarters, she stuck out a forepaw and got one hole of her panties over the paw to the ankle before she froze.
She ripped the small clothes off her leg, balled them up, and hurled them to the floor with all the weight and fury a small bit of cotton could contain. “Come the fuck on!”
The sound of Yf snickering snapped her head up.
“Yeah, real funny, oh look at Sophia, she can’t wear pants anymore.”
Another dread revelation struck her in what was to be a chain of thought long enough to encircle the globe. “Wait, if nothing’s there, then…” her torso twisted and her gaze traveled down her lion’s spine towards the base of the tail, where she sought to pierce its veil.
“Yup, ‘fraid so. All your business has been moved to the back of the bus,” Yf said, unable, or perhaps just no longer caring to, hide her amusement, “Don’t worry about it, really. I promise neither me or Tarkit care about seeing your bits. But if you’re that bothered about it, we could drape a sheet over you.”
Sophia cast a prayer towards the heavens, “Just kill me now.”
The journey down the stairs and to the kitchen was both eventful and exceedingly uneventful. At the top she’d had the sort of reservation about the descent that might be expected of a kitten, yet once she took that first step the rest came naturally. The sheet wrapped around her lion-half in an impromptu dress was a bit awkward, but she couldn’t go bare. As well, she was constantly afraid the rear of it would blow or sway, revealing everything, even though no one cared about a nude lion. That phrase alone was odd, ‘nude lion.’ Yet it was still her, and she was a person, not a lion.
Right? Or did being a sphinx usurp both human and lion?
Tarkit had been overjoyed at her recovery, wrapping her up in a bear hug that took her forelegs off the ground. He cooked lunch for the three of them, extra steaks, hold the vegetables. She was never one for the greens to begin with, but now the thought of leaves and stems and that odd, bitter scent threatened to kill her appetite.
Chomping down on a hunk of red meat, she added this to her growing list of considerations.
Once lunch had been devoured and the aftermath cleaned up, during which Sophia found herself moving in the kitchen with greater alacrity than she’d have imagined possible from a shape with four legs, Yf called her over to the spacious living room.
“Now that you’ve eaten, how are you feeling?” Yf asked after inhaling from an after-meal pipe.
Sophia prodded at the fur below her waist. What could she even call her new anatomy? “Like I want to lay down and cry. But hey, at least my stomach is full.”
“Come now, you’re alive!” Tarkit declared, delivering a back-cracking blow that was, ostensibly, meant to be physical comfort.
Instead of bowling or pitching over, she just sort of remained. Sophia’s new form possessed a great deal of stability. Small miracles.
“Yeah, I am,” she said, rubbing at her shoulder.
“Could be worse, I suppose,” Yf said, tapping the end of the pipe to her cheek in thought, “I was thinking about my explanation earlier and realized it probably wasn’t very explanatory, yeah?”
Sophia eyed the sofa. If chairs were out of the question, then she’d just have to pick something with more room. Slinking over with her tail low, she tested the cushions with a paw. Satisfied nothing strange was going to happen, she bounced up in a short leap and settled in, her big cat-body sprawling out to take up all three cushions. Took some effort to twist herself in just the right way to allow her upper-half to lean against the back like a normal person.
“I died, you brought me back to life, I’m apparently related to a god, and that’s why I’m this way,” Sophia said, ticking off the points on her finger tips.
“More or less,” Yf said, puffing on her pipe, “But the last bit, about why you’re a sphinx. I mentioned it before, but it’s your spirit, soul, or whatever you feel like calling it. See, when you die, your incorporeal self begins to crumble away from that moment. I was pretty fast in getting a hold on your wriggly ghost, if I do say so myself,” she said, bursting with self-satisfaction, “Alas, even in scant seconds the damage had been done. So, I had to coax Lorithyl out. But, even with the patches of his spirit that were hidden within you, I still needed a bit more… plaster to make you whole again. Enter Samsa and Gregor!”
Their names uttered, they glanced over from their spots on the sunny windowsill, but seeing there was nothing interesting going on, they returned to the interesting world on the other side of the glass.
“So if the spirit needs to be whole, or whatever, how come they’re still fine?”
“Because they’re whole, but slightly smaller.”
“Uh-huh,” Sophia nodded, pondering if it meant their lives had become shorter. For some reason, she felt confident the answer to that would be no, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re telling me all this, but I’m surprised. Sejit and Tess never bothered to explain shit to me. I feel like…”
“Yes, there is a reason,” Yf conceded, “Lorithyl’s heritage came out strong in you.”
“And that means, what? I’m a god or something now?” Sophia said, arms crossed. Her tail twitched impatiently.
“Yes. Or at least, a demi-god.”
“Huh,” was all Sophia could manage.
“Welcome to the club,” Tarkit beamed, “I hope you’ve brought your dues!”
“Thanks, I’ll have Sejit send them over…”
“Oh-ho! No worries about a change in personality. I’ll have to send the bill, then.”
“Anyways,” Yf interrupted, “The important part is that, if you have that form, it also means you have a mote of his power.”
“That was, what, knowing?”
Yf leaned back, “Exactly. Thing is, no one knows how he knew. You should be able to know, too, but,” she shrugged in defeat, “All I’ve been able to glean is he knew things that could happen or could be, but I couldn’t te
ll you how. It’s something you’ll have to figure out on your own, unless he cataloged it in his library somewhere.”
The ability to know. It was, at once, possibly one of the vaguest godly powers she’d heard of, yet specific as anything else. She may be half lion, or maybe two-thirds if going by weight, but to hear there was such a potent upside! The possibilities! Instead of all the tedious work involved in knowing—especially when it came to prying information out of Sejit or Tess—she could just… know.
“Really? You’re sure?” Sophia rushed to say, her whole body leaning towards Yf, pointing not just with her eyes, but ears as well. Which brought with it a new sensation, a sudden itching, like insects crawling up the side of her head and then—nothing, at the same time as something.
Sophia slid a finger up the side of her head. In place of an ear halfway up, there was smooth skin. She grimaced and urged her hand upward. Further on, hair—that was normal—and then, short, soft fur. Her ear wiggled and twitched under her caress.
“Why.”
Tarkit constrained himself to a deep chortle, covering his mouth with a hand as he looked away. Yf, however, had no compunctions about laughing openly.
“What? What the fuck is so funny!”
“The look on your face! Why are you getting so worked up? You’ve already got a lion snatch, so what’s a pair of ears to go along with it?”
“Not. Helping! I don’t want to be more lion!”
“Aw, there, there,” Yf said, wiping away a tear from a corner of her eye as her laughter died away, “I’ll tell you a little secret that should make you feel better.”
Sophia smoldered like a rudely awoken volcano. “What.”
Yf shook her shoulders, cricked her neck, and then in the span of three deep breaths, became a white-furred cat on two legs, then upon four, and back to the diminutive human form Sophia had thought her to be.
“See that? A bit of practice and you’ll be able to change just as easily.”
“Really?” Sophia said, flashing a suspicious eye, “You’re not fucking with me?”
“Well, 99% sure, anyways. I just have to think of how to teach you…”
“What about Tarkit?”
The man in question shook his head, “I may be the son of a goddess, but I’m unable to transform into anything. Unlike you kids these days! Back in my day we had one form and we liked it!”
“I… can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”
He grinned, “Neither can I. Old age, eh?”
“I dunno,” Yf said, voice filling with smokiness, “You’re still pretty spry for a 130-year-old guy.”
“Only because I keep in shape,” he said, deflecting her innuendo.
“Easy to keep fit when your mother is a goddess,” Yf said, then brushed away that conversation with a sweep of a hand, “Bullshit aside, I’ll attempt to teach you how to shift back and forth so you can leave the house at some point.”
“Attempt?”
“Yes, attempt. I rather imagine it’ll be like trying to teach someone how to breathe…”
After a long and full day and evening of transformation practice, which consisted largely of standing around and straining without a whole lot happening, Sophia flopped into bed. She was grateful for the large bed, gave her four legs room to sprawl out and get comfortable.
So far she’d managed to get her ears to shift back and forth between human and lion, make some fur grow where it hadn’t, and remove it where it had. Oh, and she’d even succeeded in sort of squishing her lion half together, which was supposedly the first step towards getting it to all compact together and have some nice, normal human legs appear.
Somehow, despite most of her energy being focused on making awkward facial expressions, the whole experience had left her drained. Could also be related to the fact she’d been dead. A brief death, but not many people lived to tell the tale of how they’d died.
Her cats flopped up after her, settling in the crook of her body.
Sophia scratched under their chins and behind their ears, eliciting content purrs.
“You guys gave me pieces of your soul, huh? Guess I’m flattered you think so highly of me,” she chuckled, then sighed.
With that thought she turned off the nightstand light and pulled up the covers. Whereupon she discovered another small problem. The calming, sleep-inducing lack of light she’d been so accustomed to was not there. She could still see everything, though it had all gone wispy-blue monotone. A little like using night-vision goggles, she imagined.
“How helpful,” she grumbled, forcing her lids shut.
Seconds, perhaps minutes, floated by, all the while her brain was abuzz with thought, with questions. Why and how chief among them.
Remember not to forget.
Wait, what?
…That’s right. Right before I woke up, I think.
Remember not to forget what? What was I supposed to remember?
She chewed on the question for a while, with not much for it until something sprung a leak—as if she’d asked someone else the question and they returned with the answer. A little babbling brook of answers weaved a path through.
Oh. Tess, the massive jackal. Huh, now that I think about it, I’ve never seen her completely changed like Sejit. She does seem to prefer being human all the time…
Wait, I’m getting distracted, here. Remember not to forget. Tess told me that. Why? Wasn’t there something else? She seemed to know about all this. I wonder how…
Images began to float up from the deep recesses of her mind, where conscious thought dared not tread. Plucking them from the top of the mental waters, she found they were faint and faded, old sun-beaten photos. Photos of Tess and Lorithyl, together.
Because they’d been close. Friends? Lovers?
…How did I know that? Where did those images come from? Is this what Yf meant by knowing? Or…
She wanted to think they had been that close, but really, the images were subject to interpretation. Understanding was different than knowing. That’s right.
Wait, how did I know that was him?
Images faded, a mirror took their place. A reflection, but it didn’t belong to her, she didn’t think. Not with that face.
The reflection nodded at her and pulled back, showing off his full form—that of a true sphinx. Like someone had taken Sejit’s upper half while she was in her half-human, half-lion form, stuck it on an actual lion’s shoulders, and as the final piece of over-design, added on a pair of massive, white wings onto the lion body’s shoulders.
Two points on her own body began to itch; she promptly slapped them away.
“No, no way! No wings!”
Her cats gave her concerned faces but went back to sleep after a few long seconds.
The figure in the mirror faded, then so too did the mirror, leaving her to stare into the nothingness where it once was. A black-framed window to another world inside her own mind. There was nothing inside, yet she got the impression it was empty because she didn’t know what was there. Much like her new eyes allowed her to see in the darkness, she had to rethink things.
Despite the grip of fatigue squeezing tighter with each passing minute, Sophia was determined to probe the unexplored depths.
I just have to know!
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sejit awoke to a reverberating thud. In its wake came car alarms and screams. She couldn’t hear the screams, but she knew screams always followed. That and the press. And the questions. Always with the questions, demanding answers when they’d not even had the opportunity to investigate.
In a flash she was dressed and heading for the elevator when her phone rang, the frantic voice yelling over wailing sirens on the other end telling her what she already knew: There’d been a bombing.
While the majority may have voted for her, it wasn’t unanimous. Many of the traditionalists had money, and some of them had connections to certain groups. Some of them had a distinct lack of morals if it meant getting their way.
The sort who would burn it down in the name of protection.
It may have been sheer idiocy when one looked at it logically, but when emotion gripped a person, there was no room left for logic. A lesson she’d learned first-hand on more than one occasion.
Then again, it may not have been them at all, she had to admit.
As the doors of the elevator whispered open, they stepped out to greet her, to shield her. That was one thing she’d forgotten about—the guards. Should something happen, she was going to have to play the part. In all likelihood, that was not going to happen, which would raise questions after the fact. She hated questions.
Perhaps having a little chat with her head of security would be in order in the near future. Just like Ifon had done.
After a brief car ride to the capitol and a quick catch-up in the flurry of activity and politicians, Sejit learned the full of it: A car bomb in an underground parking lot had collapsed a large portion of a new six-story commercial center. Some hundred dead. No group had claimed responsibility.
Thus begins my reign, hardly a week in.
Quite the distance north of Yosel, Ifon received a tidbit of news in a short text message.
It is done.
Half an hour later came the same news over official channels.
A reporter talked about tragedy and terror while the plume of smoldering ruin roiled in the background. There were cuts to rescue workers digging through rubble, bystanders gawking, others, held back by police, screaming how their loved ones were inside.
“Vulgar business,” Ifon grunted while watching the news stream.
Just as he was about to switch off the broadcast, the cameras and microphones had found Jasmine Reith.
They all bustled around the woman in her pantsuit and slightly unkempt, mane-like hair, having to thrust their microphones up as well as out. Even surrounding her as they did, it wasn’t difficult for the cameras to get clear shots of her face.