Magic of Ben Macdui - Ch.4 - The Best Thing Ever (Patreon)

"You know what's strange?" I commented as I slowly stirred the dehydrated breakfast mix into the pot of boiling water.

Yuki replied in a snarky tone, "I can think of a few things Aster, from the last six hours alone. So maybe you could narrow things down just a tiny bit?"

"I'm wondering why nobody else has come to investigate yet," I explained. "We're guessing it was somewhere around midnight when all that stuff happened last night, right? It's almost dawn, any minute now the sun's going to be coming up over the horizon to the east. But we haven't seen any helicopters, no emergency services people. Not even a single news crew."

I gestured to the north-west, "We can see Aviemore from up here, we can even see car headlights on the A9. And they have to be able to see this new mountain. Even if they can't make out the details they'll be able to see the weird lightning that keeps crawling up along the outside of it. And the strange glowing clouds overhead. Plus they couldn't have missed that earthquake last night, right? Not to mention, it would have lit up half the seismometers in Scotland!"

"Except I can't see a single set of headlights coming this way," I stated with a frown. "According to the map there's a road that leads in from that direction. It goes past a couple villages then passes along the north side of Loch Morlich, before heading south towards the base of Cairn Gorm. That's how people got to the funicular, so they could visit the lookout station and go skiing right? We know there's access, so why isn't anyone coming?"

The little arctic kitsune was quiet for a bit as the two of us continued staring towards Aviemore while I gave our breakfast another stir. 

She finally suggested, "The police have probably closed that road in here, for public safety. That's why there's no news crews or curious locals coming to investigate."

"Ok," I frowned. "But why no emergency services?"

Yuki didn't sound entirely convinced of her own words as she replied, "Probably waiting for sunrise? It's obviously a big deal when a mountain range reorganizes itself and a lake gets drained. Safer for them to come in the daytime, so they can see any hazards in their path."

That was at least plausible, but it didn't cover everything. 

"Why no helicopters?" I asked. 

She shrugged, "Budget cuts?"

I rolled my eyes, but by that time our food was ready, so I let the topic go for now. I carefully set out a couple spoonfuls of egg incase our new friend was hungry, then sat back to enjoy the rest of it with my headmate.

The three of us hadn't moved past that point where Cara stopped us. Yuki and I were sitting on a relatively flat comfortable piece of rock next to the stream, no more than two hundred meters from the base of that impossible mountain. Our pack rested atop another rock just to our left, and I had our little camp stove set up on a third rock to our right. Honestly it was rather convenient having all those rocks around acting like tables and chairs.

And our raven friend spent the past while circling overhead, presumably keeping an eye out for any new dangers. At the sight of food however, she swooped down to join us. Then as soon as she'd landed she began quietly pecking at the little pile of scrambled eggs I left her.

Once again it struck me just how surreal the whole situation was, how strange it was sitting in between a brand-new mountain and the ruins of another as we took breakfast with a raven who'd befriended us. Still, there was an odd otherworldly beauty to the place. 

The new impossible mountain was faintly glowing, and every few seconds it would light up even brighter as lightning would seemingly bubble up out of the ground beneath it. Then the discharge would crawl up along the side of the spire, before arcing out into the low clouds overhead. And the clouds in turn would glow with energy as the lightning dissipated into them.

I found myself staring at the light show as I quietly ate my reconstituted eggs, which I was surprised to discover tasted unexpectedly good this morning. It was the same thing we'd eaten the last few mornings, but for some reason it was just better today. Perhaps I was just that hungry, after the midnight hike and climb. Or maybe it was because of the near-death experience in the lake. Then again it might have had something to do with my new body. Maybe food just tasted better now that it wasn't seasoned with dysphoria anymore.

My tail started wagging and a smile played on my lips as those thoughts played out in my mind again. 

I was a foxgirl, a one-tailed kitsune. Our outside body was just like my body in headspace, apart from being a few tails short, and my heart surged with joy at the thought. It was enough to make me momentarily forget about all the fears and troubles and questions. All that other stuff was almost irrelevant compared to the fact that I was finally me!

When I finished eating a few minutes later my tail was still wagging, and I had a wide smile on my face as I set my dish aside. Cara was already finished her food and hopped over to pick at the few bits of egg I'd left behind.

In addition to the food I also made us some tea, so I had a sip of that next. It tasted better than ever too, but I wasn't surprised by that point. I was all but convinced it wasn't the camp food or the tea bags that had changed, it was me. 

I let out a contented sigh as I relaxed on our stone seat and had another sip of tea, then looked over at that impossible mountain once more. As I watched, the water around the base of the mountain glowed brighter before another flare of lightning emerged and began its climb upwards.

That's when I finally noticed something I hadn't spotted before. My smile faded as my tail slowed to a stop. 

"Look at that, Yuki?" I commented quietly. "It's not just the mountain that's glowing. See the water around the base of it? It's faint, but the water's glowing too."

A moment later I frowned as I added, "Even the stream's glowing softly, right here as it flows past us into that pond."

It was admittedly hard to see, and with the sun cresting the horizon off to our right it became all but impossible to spot the faint glow in the bright dawn sun.

"I don't see it," she replied a few seconds later. "But it sounds pretty cool."

I grimaced, "I'm not sure cool is the word I'd have used. And now I'm wondering if it was safe to use it for cooking?"

"That's probably why it tasted different," I sighed.

"It tasted great," she reminded me. Her tone was a little impatient as she added, "You were sitting there grinning with your tail flapping around while you ate. It made you happy Aster, so don't go pretending now that it was a bad thing."

I frowned, "Just because it tasted good doesn't mean it's not poisonous or radioactive."

The little arctic kitsune rolled her eyes, "Whatever. Anyways now that the sun's up and you're finished breakfast, can we get out our phone? I want to take a bunch of pictures while we still have the place all to ourselves."

"Fine," I sighed. "At least let me wash the mess kit first."

Glowing or not I used the little stream in front of us to clean up. Then my headmate insisted we should fill up all our water bottles with it, just in case. After that was done I pulled out our phone, but to our dismay it wouldn't turn on.

"I sure hope it's not broken," I frowned. "I don't see any damage, and I'm positive it didn't get wet."

Yuki pouted, "This is so unfair! We're the first ones here, we have the place all to ourselves, and we can't record any of it!"

The two of us tried for another minute or two, but the phone refused to turn on. 

I ended up putting it away in our backpack again as I sighed, "There's still no sign of emergency services, so we need to make a decision. We're low on supplies, our sleeping bag's gone, we're barefoot, and we're halfway up a mountain. I don't want to stay here anymore."

"What do you want to do then?" Yuki asked.

I looked to the north-west again, where the town of Aviemore was just visible. Then I looked north, but Grantown-on-Spey was a little too far away to see, even from our vantage point. 

"I want to get out of here," I finally responded with another sigh. "Honestly, I just want to go home. So let's get down off the mountain, let's take the fastest most direct route due north. It's probably going to take us all day, we've got a good twenty kilometres to cover. Then maybe we can find a hotel or an inn where we can stay tonight? We have to get a good night's sleep before we tackle the drive home."

"But..." The little arctic kitsune started to protest, only to give up almost immediately. 

Instead she nodded slowly, "Ok Aster, you're right. And even if we don't have pictures or anything, at least we'll know we were here. We got to see this up close and personal, before anybody else did."

I smiled, "Yeah. We did."

Then an idea struck me, "Actually, we can at least leave proof we were here!"

It took a few moments of hunting around but I found a small hard rock, and used it to scratch on the rock we'd been using as a seat. It was crude but I left an "A + Y" scrawled onto the stone, as proof the two of us made it that far.

"Caw!" Cara added in a pointed tone.

I rolled my eyes but scratched a "+ C" into the rock as well. 

"There," I stated when it was finished. "All done. Can we go now?"

Yuki grinned, "It's perfect Aster. And yeah, I guess we..."

Her voice trailed off as we both felt it. Like a charge in the air, suddenly all my hair was standing on end, and the fur on my tail poofed out even floofier than normal. All three of us turned to look at the impossible mountain, where another charge of lightning was just boiling up out of the ground. 

It didn't climb up the side though. It sort of stuck where it was, crackling against the base of the tall grey spire. Then Cara let out an alarmed squawk and leaped into the air, but neither Yuki or I had any time to react before the lightning arced out towards us.

I was positive it didn't actually hit us, but it struck somewhere close enough that the shock knocked us off our feet. There was a brief sensation of sailing through the air, followed by water. Then everything went dark once again.

• • • • •

There was a feeling of motion, and for a moment I felt a shock of panic that we were falling off the mountain. It was enough to startle me awake, only to let out a sigh of relief. I was safely inside our headspace, curled up with my nine black floofy tails wrapped around me.

"Yuki?" I asked quietly. "Are you ok? What happened?"

She giggled softly, "Well well, look who finally woke up!"

"I'm ok," she added. "Better than ok, I'm awesome! How about you?"

I stifled a yawn as I sat up and stretched. My arms were out to either side, my legs in front of me, my ears pointed forward, and all my tails splayed out in different directions behind me. Then I shrugged, "Doing ok I guess? How long was I asleep?"

"Where are you?" I added as I realized she wasn't in headspace with me. "Wait, are you fronting?"

Yuki giggled quietly again, "I sure am! And guess what?"

"What?" I asked as I focused my attention outside, but it took me a couple seconds to parse what I was seeing.

We were sitting on a cushioned seat in the back of what looked like a bus. Our backpack was on our lap, and I could see fields and the occasional building going past outside the window to our left.

"Yuki where are we?" I gasped. "And how'd we get here?"

The little arctic kitsune was grinning happily as she announced, "Surprise! You've been out cold all day long, so it was up to me and Cara to rescue us. And we did it! We'll be in Grantown-on-Spey in less than ten minutes!"

I ended up listening in amazement as she filled me in on everything I missed. After nearly getting zapped by the lightning we ended up thoroughly soaked again in that little pond. And I was unconscious in headspace, so Yuki had to take over. She got us dried off and into our last change of clothes. 

Then Cara scouted ahead from the air to find the safest way back down the mountain, while Yuki followed behind with our backpack and everything. The pair of them took a more or less straight path north by north-east, following the River Nethy until they reached the village of Nethy Bridge. 

It was about a twenty kilometre hike just to get that far, and it took Yuki all day to get us there. It was about half past five in the evening, with another eight kilometres between us and our destination at Grantown-on-Spey. Instead of pushing our body even further or giving up and spending the night there, Yuki bought us a bus ticket. Now it was ten minutes to six, and assuming the bus was on time we'd reach the end of our trek by the top of the hour.

"Wow," I finally said when she was done. "I'm sorry I slept through all that. You did a great job Yuki. You and Cara."

A moment later I frowned, "Wait, where is she? Did you leave her behind?"

"As if!" Yuki laughed. 

Our backpack shifted slightly then a black feathered head popped up through a gap in the partially-open zipper at the top. I found myself staring in surprise as I realized the raven was basically hiding in there while we were on the bus.

"You know how much trouble we'll get in if we get caught with her?" I asked. "She's wildlife, not a pet. If they find out we've taken her from her natural habitat..."

Cara seemed to roll her eyes as she ducked back down into the pack again, while Yuki just grinned. 

Then my headmate commented quietly, "I have one more surprise for you Aster. Check this out."

I watched as the tip of her tail wrapped around from the right, and to my surprise it was pure white. She was out in the body, she should have had a black floofy tail since our body looked like me. Only it wasn't my tail, it was hers. Which meant...

Before I could even finish that thought her other white floofy tail wrapped around from the left. Then a third one poked over our left shoulder.

"Three?!" I gasped. "You have three tails? How?!"

The little kitsune stifled another giggle, "I don't know! Maybe it was from getting dunked in the water again? Maybe it was the lightning? But when I ended up out front our body became me! I only have the three tails out here, but it's better than one! And it's me!"

"Don't ask me how I know," she added, "But I bet when you take front again it'll be you again. I think our new body's going to keep changing, to match whoever's fronting."

I gulped as my heart raced and a wide smile settled on my face. "Oh my gods Yuki! That's literally the best thing ever!"

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