Magic of Ben Macdui - Ch.1 - Absolutely Impossible (Patreon)

*** content warning: near death experience in water ***

"What do you think?" I asked as I pointed out a pair of trees. "Looks like a good place to set up the hammock for the night?"

It had been another really good day, hiking north through Cairngorms National Park. Today was the hardest part of the hike, and also the highest. We'd come through the Lairig Ghru pass, past Cairn Toul and Braeriach to the west and Ben Macdui and Cairn Gorm to the east, before following a dry rocky ravine known as the Chalamain Gap that took us north-east towards Glen More.

Now we were in the foothills north of Cairn Gorm and Ben Macdui, and we'd found a picturesque spot to spend the night. We were a couple dozen meters away from the south shore of Loch Morlich, with a good view overlooking the lake. 

Tomorrow we'd set out north-east through the Glenmore Nature Preserve until we reached the River Nethy, where we'd pick up another rail that followed the river north to Nethy Bridge. Our final destination wasn't that much further away, Grantown-on-Spey was only another half dozen kilometres or so beyond. 

That's where we'd secured our bike back at the start. We took a bus from there, south to the village of Blair Atholl. Our hike began there, three days and sixty-something kilometres earlier. We likely could have finished the entire hike by now, but we'd been taking it easy and enjoying the natural beauty along the way.

Yuki's voice brought me back to the present as she responded, "Yeah it seems like a nice spot. And the weather looks good, I think we can skip the tarp tonight?"

"Agreed," I nodded as I slipped the backpack off our shoulders and pulled the rolled-up hammock from the side pocket. 

It didn't take long to get it secured between the two trees. We'd have a nice view of the loch from there, and the foliage above would shelter us from any light rain on the off chance the weather wasn't as good as we expected.

Next I dug out our sleeping bag and got that set up in the hammock. Late September nights in the Highlands were a bit on the chilly side, but our gear was rated down to zero celsius so it was more than enough to keep us warm at night.

With the sleeping arrangements out of the way Yuki and I had a brief debate about what to do for dinner, but considering I was the one fronting I got the final say. Not that we had a lot of options, but I went for the bangers and mash rather than the stew or the pasta. 

Our little camp stove didn't take long to get the water boiling, and I'd made sure there was enough for both the food and a cup of tea. Soon enough I was enjoying my reconstituted supper as I sat with my back leaning against a tree, enjoying the view out over the nearby lake.

"This is good," I commented to myself. "Quiet and peaceful. Nobody here but us. No manager shouting at us, no traffic."

My headmate corrected me, "Just us and our new friend. See? Hi Cara!"

I turned and looked, and sure enough that raven was perched on a branch a half dozen meters away. Assuming it was the same one, it had been following us since we camped near the River Dee two nights earlier.

"I can't believe you named it," I commented quietly before having a sip of tea.

Yuki sounded smug as she responded, "What? She seems like a friendly raven, and Cara means 'friend' so it all fits!"

I rolled my eyes as I enjoyed the rest of the meal. After dinner it didn't take long to rinse out our mug and bowl. 

As it finally got dark out I prepared for another night sleeping under the stars. I carefully removed our hiking boots and socks, then slipped off our jacket, shirt, and jeans. That left us in just a tight t-shirt and boxers to sleep in. 

Our clothes and boots were carefully tucked away in our pack along with the kitchen kit. For good measure I hung the pack on one of the trees that was supporting our hammock, and clipped the waist strap around the trunk to secure it. 

Getting into the sleeping bag on the hammock was a bit of an acquired skill, but both Yuki and I had mastered it. Once we were comfy I zipped it up then mumbled a quiet goodnight to my headmate, before closing my eyes and quickly drifting off to sleep.

• • • • •

I suddenly found myself wide awake in the hammock, wondering what just happened. My ears were straining to detect any nearby noises, but things seemed almost unnaturally quiet.

It was almost pitch black out, I couldn't see any stars overhead through the trees, and even though the moon was nearly full it had long since set. In fact the only light I could see was a faint glow in the clouds a dozen kilometres to the north-west, over the town of Aviemore in between the A9 and the River Spey.

After another half minute I closed my eyes to try and fall asleep again when the trees supporting our hammock lurched violently. At the same time the ground started to rumble, and a moment later an ear-splitting roar from the south nearly scared me half to death.

Despite the shock and confusion I somehow realized that this was an earthquake, as improbable as that seemed. And the way the trees were bucking and swaying I knew I had to get out from under them. 

My heart was racing as I scrambled to unzip the sleeping bag so I could get out of hammock, but the trees were shaking so violently that it was all I could do to hang on. Meanwhile the noise of the quake was all around me, with the sound of rock crumbling and shattering in the distance mingling with the clatter of branches breaking and wood splintering all around me.

Then the tree holding up the foot of the hammock came down and I felt myself drop. My back and head struck the tree behind me and for a moment there was just darkness and dizziness and a loud buzzing sound.

Time seemed to stand still and I felt like I was floating, until the sensation of ice-cold water snapped me out of it. 

Suddenly I was wide awake and panicking as I found myself completely submerged and being pulled by a current. I felt ground bump against my left leg so I pushed off away from that and broke the surface a moment later, coughing and gasping for air.

I found myself treading water in the middle of what had to be Loch Morlich, with no idea how I got there. I couldn't have fallen in from the hammock, I knew our camp was nowhere near the shoreline. 

The frigid water kicked my brain into survival mode, and I slowly turned on the spot to try and get my bearings. Strangely there was more light now than there'd been before the earthquake started. It seemed to be coming from the sky to my right so I turned that way, thinking I was orienting myself to the north-west towards Aviemore. 

Instead I found myself staring at something absolutely impossible.

The clouds had enough light in them for me to make out the lines of the mountain pass I'd hiked through yesterday. But to the left of that, where Cairn Gorm should have stood was now a crumbled mess of broken rock and boulders.

And most impossible of all, rising up out of the rocky landscape between me and Ben Macdui was an impossibly tall and impossibly narrow spire of stone. Its sides appeared almost unnaturally smooth and straight, and I was positive its summit reached a good five hundred meters higher than the surrounding peaks. 

This impossible spire had just become the new tallest mountain in the British Isles.

The thing that boggled my mind even further was how clearly I could see it. It was yet another impossibility, but the strange new mountain appeared to be glowing.

I continued to stare at it as I tread water, and while I watched there was a crackle of light somewhere near the base of the impossible mountain. Then before my eyes I saw what appeared to be lightning, crawling up the side of the mountain like some enormous stone Jacob's ladder. It only took about a second to reach the summit half a kilometre up, where it arced outwards and dissipated into the clouds. That in turn seemed to add to the glow in the sky above me.

"Aster!" 

Yuki's voice snapped me out of the daze I'd fallen into, and I blinked a few times as I glanced around to get my bearings once more.

"Yeah?" I asked. I had to cough again as my voice felt rough, before I asked "Are you ok?"

She sounded impatient as she responded, "I'm about as ok as you are silly! Now how about we get out of this water before we get hypothermia? We need to find our gear and we need to get dried off."

"Right!" I nodded as I glanced around once more then started swimming south, in the direction of that strange glowing impossible mountain.

Not that I necessarily wanted to get closer to it, but we'd stopped for the night on the south shore of Loch Morlich, and with any luck we'd be able to find our gear still there. Fortunately the loch wasn't that big, but it still felt like we needed to cover a couple hundred meters before finally reaching the shore. 

That's where I ran into the next challenge. Despite the light coming down from the clouds I couldn't make out any familiar landmarks. What I could see was a lot of devastation, which gave me a sinking feeling. Trees were down, the ground was churned up, and what had once been Cairn Gorm was now spread out across the landscape to the south and east of the lake. I couldn't help thinking the odds of finding our stuff were almost nil.

"Over there, to the right!" Yuki said. 

I got the impression of where they were pointing, and sure enough there was a wide swath of destruction that seemed to have been caused by a flood, like a significant volume of water had washed down the mountain and into the loch. It only took a moment for me to realize that's how we ended up in the lake. 

"Damn," I frowned. "All our stuff's probably at the bottom of Loch Morlich now."

Yuki shook her head, "Not necessarily? Our backpack was attached to the tree remember? It might still be there."

She had a point, so I swam over in that direction, then when I reached the muddy shoreline I carefully set my feet down and climbed out of the water. As soon as we were up out of the water I became aware of two things. 

First off the cold night air immediately gave me goosebumps, which was not unexpected. Our t-shirt and boxer shorts were completely soaked and clinging uncomfortably to our body, and I could feel wet hair plastered to my neck and back.

The second thing was much more confusing. I felt something wet and heavy hanging down behind our legs. The weight seemed to be attached to our lower back, and I could feel muscles back there pulling left and right trying to control the strange new sensation.

"What's -" I started to ask when I ended up coughing again. 

"Yuki I -" this time it wasn't a cough that made me stop, but the sound of my voice. It wasn't the normal voice our body made. It was my voice, the voice I had inside our headspace.

My heart started racing again and I forgot all about the cold and the wet, just like I forgot about the mountain and the earthquake. I suddenly knew exactly what those strange sensations were at the base of my spine, and why it felt strangely heavy. 

I was almost hyperventilating as I twisted around and looked behind me. Sure enough there was a tail back there. The black fur was all wet and matted down, and there was just one tail rather than the nine I had in headspace. But it was there, it was real, and it was part of our physical body.

With a shaking hand I reached back and touched it, then let out a little yelp of joy as my fingers felt the cold wet fur. At the same time I felt the contact of my fingers on my tail, and it started to slowly wag back and forth.

The next realization hit just a moment later, as I brought my hand back in front of me to stare at it. I raised the other one up next to it, and slowly wiggled my fingers as my eyes widened even more. They weren't the hands I was used to seeing when I was fronting. They weren't the normal hands of our body. 

My eyes slowly traced upwards from the slim delicate fingers past the small hands, the slender wrists and arms, until I was looking straight down. Those were my narrow shoulders, the mounds clearly visible under our wet t-shirt were my boobs. That was my narrow waist and those were my hips. My shapely legs, and my cute delicate feet.

I reached up to the top of my head and let out a happy laugh as I felt my triangular fuzzy ears ontop of my head.

There was only one more thing to check, and I tentatively felt around our boxers, which seemed to have grown a few sizes too large at some point. I didn't care about the ill-fitting underwear though, all that mattered was what I found underneath. 

We were only part-way through our transition, and bottom surgery was still somewhere off in the future. Except thanks to whatever miracle or magic was going on around us, we apparently didn't need it anymore. 

"Yuki?" I mumbled in my soft feminine voice. "I don't know if I'm dreaming or what's going on, but our body... It's my body. Just the one tail, but it's my body! I'm a girl, our body's completely femme! And foxy!"

She sounded surprised but happy as she replied, "I know Aster! I don't know how, or why, or what's going on. But I don't think we're dreaming? I think this is for real."

"Which means we still need to find our gear," she added a moment later. "Preferably before you let us catch cold or something!"

I frowned, "Can I have a minute here first? I might need to freak out a little, because this is all extremely impossible."

"Nope!" she insisted. "You save your freaking out for later, silly fox. We're still in survival mode right now."

I sighed, "Well how am I supposed to find our gear in all this -"

A loud 'caw' to my left interrupted me, and I turned to look.

"Cara!" Yuki exclaimed. "She's all right!"

"Of course she is," I rolled my eyes. "She can fly you know? She probably took off as soon as the earthquake started."

The raven made another loud caw sound and ruffled her feathers slightly. She was perched ontop of one of the countless fallen trees, and as I watched she stretched her black wings out then folded them up again. Finally she just stared at me as if waiting for me to say something.

We watched the large black bird pace back and forth along the fallen tree, then she seemed to shrug her wings as she glared at us. And I could have sworn she was trying to tell us something obvious.

"Come here!" the raven finally demanded in another impatient caw. 

"Oh!" Yuki exclaimed. "She's found our stuff! That's what she's telling us."

By that point I had no idea what was going on or what to make of any of this, but I started carefully picking my way through the downed trees towards the raven. It was slow going, between the muddy slippery ground and all the fallen trees and broken branches there was plenty of opportunity to get hurt. 

On the other hand I had absolutely no problem using my tail to keep my balance, and being in my own body rather than the one we'd been born with meant I was lighter on my feet and more flexible anyways.

As I finally reached the raven I spotted our backpack still attached to the fallen tree. Our hammock was there too, except it was half-buried in the mud beneath the tree. In fact it looked like the only thing we'd lost was our sleeping bag.

"Thank goodness!" I sighed as my tail started to slowly wag back and forth behind me.

That's when the adrenaline finally seemed to leave me, and I sat down heavily on the tree trunk and let out a loud sigh.

"Yuki none of this makes any sense," I mumbled. I looked up at that new mountain, in time to see another arc of lightning leap out into the clouds above. 

She replied quietly, "I know Aster. I don't understand what's going on either."

We ended up just sitting there quietly as it all started to sink in. We were cold and soaked, surrounded by broken and fallen trees. And somehow I knew that impossible glowing spire before us was responsible.

*** This chapter and story is brought to you courtesy of Aster & Yuki who commissioned it! ***