Magic of Ben Macdui - Ch.5 - Emotional Support (Patreon)

"Was it a good convention?" the bus driver asked as we moved for the door.

Yuki frowned as she tilted our head slightly in confusion, "Convention?"

The driver nodded, "You're the third one I've picked up at Nethy Bridge today, wearing those costume ears and tails. I had two lads on earlier with cat ears and tails, dropped them off at Carrbridge a couple hours ago."

It took us a second to parse that and figure out what to say. Then the little arctic kitsune smiled, "The convention was small, but exciting. Anyways we have to go now. Bye!"

She scurried us off the bus before we could get drawn any deeper into that conversation. Meanwhile in headspace I was still struck with that latest revelation. It wasn't just us, there were others. Two catboys at Nethy Bridge a few hours ago could only mean more hikers or backpackers had been affected by the impossible mountain and its magic. 

Except there was probably no way for us to find them, or figure out who they were. 

"Aster?" Yuki asked as she wandered along High Street towards the parking lot where we left our bike a few days earlier. "What should we do now? Should we get our bike and start for home?"

I sighed, "As much as I'd love to do just that it wouldn't be safe. We've have what, about four hours sleep last night? After hiking all day yesterday. And since then we've been half-drowned, climbed up a mountain, nearly got hit by lightning, almost drowned again, climbed down a mountain, and spent another full day hiking."

"Honestly Yuki it's a wonder we're still upright," I grimaced. "We need a good meal, followed by a good night's sleep."

She slowed to a stop in front of a shop window, and we could just make out our reflection in the glass. For a moment I was completely captivated by our new face, but Yuki was actually focused on something else. 

"I doubt we'll get into a restaurant like this. We look a mess, and we're still barefoot. And we smell kind of ripe too," she added as she wrinkled her cute little nose.

"You're right," I agreed with another sigh. "Clothes first, then maybe we can find a hotel or an inn with a restaurant attached? We'll get washed and changed, get food, then sleep."

Yuki took a deep breath then let out a deep sigh as she continued staring at our reflection in the store window. That was it though, she didn't actually make a move to do any of the things we just discussed.

After another half minute I asked, "Yuki? Would you like me to take front?"

"Yes please," the little arctic kitsune mumbled quietly. "I think I've had enough."

No sooner had she said the words when our body's eyes closed and she was suddenly in headspace with me. She didn't even say hello, there was just a huge yawn then she curled up and wrapped all her tails around herself. A moment later she was sound asleep, a little ball of white floof making sleepy fox sounds.

I couldn't help smiling at her, as I quietly wished her a good nap. Then I stepped out into our body, and when I opened my eyes the sight that greeted me sent my heart soaring. I was still standing in front of that shop window, and what I saw reflected in the glass was me. My face, my black hair, my black fox ears. And behind me, three black floofy tails slowly flopped back and forth in a feeble attempt to wag.

That's when the exhaustion hit me, like a ton of bricks. Every part of our body ached, our backpack felt like it weighed a hundred kilos, and it took all my willpower not to retreat straight back into headspace again.

"Ok Aster," I said to myself as I mustered up all the willpower I could find. "Yuki got us this far. I just have to do three things, then we can sleep."

I didn't even have a chance to begin though, before I was distracted by movement in our backpack. In my weary state it took a few moments to realize it was our raven friend, and apparently she wanted out.

"Just a moment," I whispered as I slipped the pack off my shoulders and set it on the ground in front of me.

I barely had time to carefully open the zipper a little further when Cara practically forced her way out of it. The large raven almost seemed to explode out of the pack, then she hopped down to stand on the sidewalk next to me. She ruffled her feathers and stretched her wings, while I couldn't help glancing around worried that we were about to get arrested by wildlife police.

"So what are we doing here?" the raven asked as she looked up at me. "Clothes food and sleep?"

There was just a brief moment when I thought to question the bird about how she could talk, but before I could even formulate the words I realized I was too tired to care. Instead I just nodded, "Yes, in that order. I don't know how we'll get you into a shop though, let alone a restaurant. Or a hotel."

"I can wait outside," she cawed, before launching herself up into the air.

I glanced around again, but despite a few people staring at me and my tails it seemed like none of them wanted to ask me about the big black bird I'd just been talking to.

In fact there weren't actually that many people out and about, and it seemed like traffic wasn't that heavy either. I chalked that up to the time. It was early evening, and while Grantown-on-Spey was a tourist town this was very much the off-season. The place would have been much busier if this was the summer months, or the middle of winter. 

We were right in the heart of town too, where High Street turned into Castle Road. It meant we were practically surrounded by shops and pubs and restaurants, and I knew there were at least a dozen hotels and inns within a short walking distance. Unfortunately being early evening in the off-season meant it was going to be difficult finding shops that were still open. 

I was just about to start searching, when Cara swooped back down and landed ontop of a car parked on the side of the road nearby. 

"Found a shop," the raven reported. "It's this way."

She took off again, and flew in low slow lazy circles that gradually led me to the south along High Street. I probably passed a half dozen little shops that were all closed, before Cara swooped down again to indicate the one that was open. It was an outlet for one of the national chains, and they had longer hours than all the little local places.

I walked in through the automatic door, but only made it a few steps before the middle-aged woman at the counter addressed me. 

"Excuse me miss," she stated, which sent another little wave of euphoria through my weary body. "You can't bring your er, bird into the store. No pets."

"Huh?" I frowned as I turned to look.

Sure enough Cara had followed me in after all, rather than waiting outside like she said. She was standing on the floor a half meter behind me, looking up at me as if expecting me to say something. My brain blanked for a second or two, then I said the first thing that came to mind. Even though it was kind of ridiculous.

"Oh uh, she's a service animal. She's my emotional support raven," I told the woman.

I could tell by her expression she didn't buy it, and for that matter even Cara was giving me a disappointed look.

The raven sighed and ruffled her feathers then looked up at the woman and apologized, "I'm sorry ma'am. Don't mind her, she's always telling the craziest stories. The truth is she's my service fox. She helps me take care of chores and run errands and the like. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her while we're in your shop."

"Now come along Aster," the bird said as she hopped past me towards the clothing section. "We need to get you some new shoes. Hopefully you won't lose this pair."

For the next few seconds neither I or the woman behind the counter seemed to know what to say or how to react. Then Cara called my name from the women's clothing section, and that seemed to snap me out of the mild shock I was in. I hurried after her with my tails down between my legs, then spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes being bossed around by a bird to maintain the lie that I was her support animal.

The crazy thing was it actually worked. I was able to get everything Yuki and I would need in the way of clothes for the next two days, including some cute little sneakers to fit my smaller feet. I also got a couple pairs of panties and bras, leggings, some cute tops and some warm socks. Most of that went into the backpack for now, but I put on some socks and the shoes right away.

From there it didn't take long to find a place to eat and spend the night. It was a hotel bar and restaurant all in one, in an old stone building right on High Street. Cara didn't follow me inside this time, she flew off as I approached the place, which saved me another round of embarrassment.

I had a brief moment of panic when I went to book a room for the night, since the picture on my ID no longer looked anything like me. Fortunately they didn't ask for that, and I'd already updated my name so there weren't any awkward questions about the name on my credit card when I checked in.

Even though the plan had been to get washed up and changed into clean clothes before dinner, as soon as I got to the room I knew if I got undressed I'd just go straight to bed without eating. So after extracting my wallet and phone I left the backpack in the room then headed down to the restaurant for some supper.

They actually had a wide variety of cuisine on offer, but I wasn't in the mood for anything fancy. Fish and chips sounded perfect, with a glass of cola to drink. The staff were friendly and the food was good, but the soda hurt my tongue so I ended up just drinking water instead. And while I attracted a few stares with my ears and tails nobody questioned me or said anything about it.

After dinner I headed back to the small room, where I found Cara waiting. The raven was perched just outside the window, and she started tapping at the glass with her beak the moment I turned on the light. The place was old enough to have the kind of windows that opened, unlike newer hotels where everything was sealed up tight. So a minute later I had a large bird in the room with me.

"Please keep quiet ok?" I half-whispered to her. "I don't want to get kicked out for sneaking a pet in here."

Cara hopped up on the bed as she replied, "This hotel allows pets. They won't even charge extra if I asked them to provide a water bowl for you."

"I'm not your pet fox," I grumbled as I headed into the bathroom. 

I closed the door before she could follow me in, then proceeded to have a very hot, very long, and very relaxing bath. I was weary enough that it wasn't until I finally got out and started towelling myself off when I was hit by another huge wave of euphoria. The full-length mirror on the back of the door helped, and I found myself staring at my reflection with a wide happy grin as I watched myself get dried off.

Except that took a lot longer than I was expecting. The downside of having three tails was it took three times as long to get them all dry. So I wrapped a towel around my body and another around my ears and hair, then used two more to work on my tails as I sat on the bed. I also put on the television and tuned it to the news channel, since I was curious to see if they'd say anything about that impossible mountain.

It turned out they did, plus a whole lot more. In fact I almost forgot about my tails as all my attention ended up on the TV. 

The top story was about the dozens of impossible mountains that had appeared all around the world last night, along with all the unusual earthquakes. There were long-range shots of the mountain here in the Carngorms, as well as equally-distant images of mountains from America and Canada, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere around the globe. 

They had some geologist on from the University of Edinburgh who talked about how it wasn't unusual to have earthquakes all around the world, but it was strange for there to be so many similar quakes at the same time and in so many geologically stable locations. 

Next the news anchors talked about how lucky it was the quake here in the UK was in a relatively remote location, and how damage had apparently been fairly limited. The only ongoing situation was a power outage in the area, that impacted a number of small villages and hamlets inside the national park.

They also mentioned that both landline and mobile phone coverage was out in that area as well, and hearing that inspired me to check if our phone might be working now that we were further away from that mountain. In the back of my mind I knew it wouldn't make a difference, the phone didn't need coverage to power up or use the camera. I gave it a try anyways, and to my surprise and relief it actually turned on.

It took a few moments to go through its startup routine, but everything appeared to be working correctly. Then it connected to the carrier network and suddenly I had a couple notification pings telling me about the texts and emails we missed.

I opened up the messaging app and found three texts there from our sister, all dated today. One from first thing this morning, another from around noon, and the most recent was just an hour old. Shirley knew we were hiking in the earthquake area, now she was worried and wanted us to let her know we were ok.

Which left me with another big question. How was I going to convince people I was really me? Our body had changed so drastically, nobody would recognize us. What would I tell our sister, and our parents? What would I do about work?

Those questions were still on my mind as I finally put out the lights and turned off the TV a few minutes later. And despite those concerns and a hundred others that had come up over the past twenty-four hours, I was sound asleep within minutes of my head touching the pillow.

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