Yet another story is done! This one's for
Lander, and it's still part of my
Want to become your fursona? thread. I like it when people say that I got their personalities down very well.
Incidentally, I am still taking requests! Feel free to post on the above-linked thread (there's also a link in my sig) if you'd like to become
your fursona. ^.^ And have fun reading!
The air was chill. The stars were bright. Toads
qwerk-ed down by the pond; bats rustled and clicked overhead. And the forest was abuzz with a chorus of crickets, a soft and melodious din that almost drowned the other noises out.
But the only things Christopher Lander could hear were the pounding of his heart, and the rustling he made as he fumbled for his flashlight in the dark. Grabbing it in his teeth, still balancing the heated bag with the pizzas in one arm, he twisted it into the "on" position and then shone it onto his bare arm.
Brown fur. Just for a second. Brown fur. It receded into his skin, half of it turning back to his lighter hairs and half of it drifting away in the breeze. Then it was gone, and all that was left were his goosebumps.
Lander realized that he had been holding his breath, and gasped. Then he sniffled, and fumbled with his pockets again, trying to turn his flashlight off and put it away and get out a handkerchief. He brought it to his face, trying not to knock his thick glasses aside, blowing his nose and sniffling against the cold. Then he gasped for breath again, shuddering and scared, his heart still pounding fast.
He looked behind him, and waited for his eyes to adjust. There it was, fifteen feet down the road -- the tree branch that he had just jumped over. And he remembered flying,
flying for two seconds, then landing and realizing
he couldn't do that. And stopping, and feeling itchy all over, and hurrying to grab his flashlight ...
He felt a draft. Then he whirled around to see what had happened, and his bare feet pressed onto rough pavement and loose pebbles. There was a hole in the seat of his pants. And he wasn't wearing any shoes.
Lander knew what had happened. That was why his heart was still pounding. He was so scared he couldn't think straight. But it had happened, and it wasn't happening anymore, and
the pizza was going to get cold!The crickets chirped. And a gust of cold wind picked up, and reminded him that he had bigger things to worry about right now. He shivered convulsively, and straightened his glasses back out.
How? That was all he could think. What had made
it happen? A latent mental disorder? The spoiled mushrooms he'd eaten on a coworker's dare? Those had given him a stomachache, but he hadn't
thought they'd caused any lasting damage. And they couldn't explain why he was barefoot, and why he was going to feel very awkward if someone suddenly drove up behind him.
He carefully went to the side of the road, afraid that he'd step on a bug or a nail, and faced away from the woods. Then he looked up at the sky. The moon was bright, and it lit up the logo on his pizza tote. But it wasn't full, and even if it
had been it was shining right on him, right now, and he didn't feel any different. Not even the fact that it was Halloween night explained things, although it did make him feel nervous about standing around in the dark.
Lander's stomach was tying itself into knots. He felt like he couldn't move, couldn't go anywhere or do anything until he figured out what had just happened, and then just as suddenly un-happened. Part of him was scared that it'd happen again, and wanted to know what had triggered it. But another part was scared that it'd never happen again, and that part was even more desperate.
He remembered the car engine had died, on the old, rusty station wagon with the parlor's sign on the roof. He remembered nervously calling his boss, and being yelled at to do whatever it took to get that pizza there on time. And he remembered thinking it out in his head, and deciding that he could
maybe get there if he hurried ...
And then he remembered jogging. He remembered it being hard at first, because he was slightly overweight and spent his whole day sitting down. He remembered sniffling, and feeling like his ears were going to freeze right off in the cold, and speeding up so he would get warm faster.
And then he remembered how easy it'd been, and how alive and full of energy he'd felt. And he remembered seeing the fallen branch up ahead, and thinking
I'm going to jump it. And then he had vaulted six feet into the air ...
His breath caught. He knew now what had caused his change, and he knew what he had become. Of
course he'd become that, he thought; that'd been his fursona for ages.
But
why?
Another cold breeze. Lander was shivering constantly now, and was covered in goosebumps. And he realized that
why wasn't important right now. Because he was between his car and the house, and he was going to catch hypothermia. Because whether he came back as a kangaroo or sat in a broken-down car all night, sans shoes and with a hole in the seat of his pants, he was going to have some explaining to do. And because as afraid as he was of what might happen, the one thing that scared him the most was that it might never happen again.
He stood there for another few moments, building up his resolve. He looked down the road in the direction that he'd been going, and closed his eyes. He counted to three, his voice barely a whisper. And then he took off.
Cold wind rushed past his ears. Cold feet pressed into a rough surface, and stung as loose pebbles pressed into his soles, and into his bones. He jumped and came right back down, and his feet stung even more. But he kept jumping, holding the tote tight against him, holding his other arm out to balance. And each jump was longer, and each landing hurt less, until he was bounding over the road, his clothes rustling in the breeze.
Two seconds of freefall. Jump. Two seconds of flight. Jump. A low-hanging branch got in his face, and he tasted bark, and he sputtered and reached up to brush off his mouth but felt a muzzle instead, and laughed.
He didn't stop. He kept jumping, all the way around the road that wound its way past the pond. He didn't feel tired, or cold. He felt great. And he was still scared, but was giddy, with an intoxicating mix of adrenaline and runner's high.
A car wound its way through the trees, somewhere ahead of him, somewhere down the same road. He saw it coming long before it saw him, and for second he thought
What to do? Then it was coming towards him, and he was going towards it, and he thought:
Jump. And then he did.
For a second he felt real fear, and as he flew at the car he thought
I messed up, I'm so dead. Then he was on the other side, and the car had screeched to a halt, and he looked back after two more jumps to see the door open and somebody looking back towards him.
Lander had to slow down a little, because his heart was pounding and his lungs were burning, and he was going uphill and thinking
He's going to turn around and come after me. This is it. I'm so dead. And he wanted to keep going, but couldn't. So he slowed to a jog, and then stopped all the way, and he looked back down the road from a bend on the side of the hill. Nothing was coming. The air was full of night sounds.
Moonlight shone directly on him, and on the pizza box and the guardrail and the grass at the edge of the slope. And way out past him were hills, and the countryside, and the lights of the cars on the main road. He looked out at them for a second, amazed at how real it all looked when he wasn't inside of a car himself.
Then he looked down at himself, and his brown furry arms, and around at his huge swishing tail. He looked down at his feet, and pressed one into the grass and felt cold and wet, on reverse-jointed shapes that belonged to him. He reached up and felt his muzzle again, and his tall ears, and his glasses that were now awkwardly positioned. He adjusted them, and it took him a second to get them on straight.
This was it, he thought. This was real; this was him. And there was no mirror, no heart monitor, no scientist with a transformation gun asking him how he felt. Just wet grass, and cool air, and him standing there as an anthro kangaroo. And somehow, it all felt perfectly natural. He didn't feel anything changing back, and he didn't feel disoriented or like parts of him were out of place.
Lander grinned like an idiot, thrusting his fist skyward in triumph. He didn't care what happened next. It was worth it. It was all worth it. Who said you couldn't live your dreams? The world was such a great place, he thought. And he had such a great life.
And his boss was going to kill him if he didn't deliver that pizza on time.
Lander took a deep breath, and took off down the road again.
* * *
It took him a few minutes to get to the house, during which he thought about everything. It didn't even seem
possible that anything bad could ever happen to him again. He settled into a steady rhythm, freefall and jump and flying and jump, and he almost missed the turnoff but for the Halloween decorations.
There they were, all over the lawn ... glowing pumpkins, and friendly-looking ghosts and black cats. Lander didn't need to check the address. He'd been past this house before, delivering to other places nearby, and they were decked out like this every year.
He looked down the road at their gravel driveway, imagined it on his bare paws, and decided against it. Then he looked down the grassy slope out at their lawn, and at the house more than a hundred feet away, and thought how small and far away it all looked.
Then he jumped.
He soared, for two ... three ... four seconds. Then he saw something dark on the ground, a row of small dark things, and for a split-second he wondered
What are these? Then his feet smashed into the uncarved pumpkins, and raw pumpkin jammed up his toenails, and he yelped and flailed into the air for a bit before falling face-first onto the grass. The pizza tote slid away from him.
Lander lay there for a moment, arms in front of his face, wondering if any bones were broken. Then his toes started to hurt, and his toenails started to sting, and both his feet turned into masses of pain. He curled them towards him, reached down and tried to get the pumpkins off of his feet, and the fragments were jagged and more painful than he'd thought they would be. Wet pumpkin innards slid over his stinging toes, and wet pumpkin smell reached his sensitive nose.
He got the pumpkins off and stood up, and had to keep from crying out. Both his feet hurt so bad, especially his big toes. And what was that dark shape on the ground in front of him?
It was the pizza tote. He limped over to it, and tried for a second to reach it without bending over. Then he finally knelt down next to it, and cried out and winced as he got it and stood back up. Then he looked up at the house, still halfway across the yard, and at all the cars in the driveway. And he didn't know what was going to happen once he knocked on that door, but he didn't think it was going to be good.
Maybe if I hold this in front of my face ... no.
I could tell them that it's a Halloween costume! Nuh-uh.
Maybe no one will notice ... No way.
Lander remembered a commercial he'd seen, where a cartoon character on a bottle of juice drink had come to life. The kids had both screamed, and the mom had cried "Run!" and the thing had chased them through the house. It hadn't been an ad for the juice drink. And
he wasn't a cartoon character. But he was pretty sure that that was how this was going to play out ... without the chasing, he thought, and looked down at his feet in the dark and winced.
He imagined being shot at by a desperate homeowner, or causing a panic and getting the party guests hurt. He imagined kids screaming, and horrified looks on people's faces, and someone rushing to the phone to dial 911. And he could see himself spending the rest of his life in a government research lab, or even a mental hospital, and never jumping again. Never flying again ...
A terrible thought struck him, and he got out his flashlight and shone it down on his feet. He had trouble telling the orange from the red, but he was pretty sure that there was a lot of blood on them.
Lander looked over his shoulder, up at the road, and at the miles between him and his broken-down car. Cold air blew across his wet nose, and the crickets seemed far away now.
He sighed, and looked back at the house. Then he limped towards the door, one step at a time, trying to think of what he could say. "This is not what it looks like ... " Ow. "I'm really not going to hurt you." Ow. "Please don't hurt me." Ow. "
Please don't h-ARGH!"
He stumbled the last couple of paces and put out his free hand to stop himself on the wall. Slimy footprints followed him across the patio, streaked with pumpkin innards and trickles of red liquid.
He tried to catch his breath. Inside the house he could hear music, and talking, and people playing a video game. Excited voices called out to each other, and somebody shouted above the din. People laughed in response.
Lander cringed. Then he closed his eyes, counted to three silently, and got up and knocked on the door.
There was no response for a second. Then he heard light footsteps clicking towards him, like high-heels on a hardwood floor, and held his breath.
The door opened. Lander squinted in at the light. And then he gasped.
On the other side was an anthropomorphic bird, with fluffy white underfeathers and brilliant royal blue backfeathers and wings. He didn't wear (and didn't need) any clothes besides a many-pocketed belt, and he looked cheerful and pleasant.
Past him, inside the house, was a whole menagerie. A gray tabby cat-boy played DDR against a human girl, holding onto his top hat with one hand. Two red wolves and two foxes, one red and one
pink, were crowded around a game console hooked up to a large-screen TV, and the red fox was shouting triumphantly and waving a Wiimote while standing up on the couch. And a young girl with pudgy looks and a cat's ears and tail stopped in the middle of the room, a bowl of ice cream in her hands, and looked up at the newcomer.
"Hello!" the bird said. "We were wondering when you would get here."
"Uh ... " Lander blinked.
The bird looked down at the doorstep, and jumped in surprise. He ruffled his feathers, and stared. "What's happened to your
feet?"
