Mickey Reichert - The lost Dragons of Barakhai

Collins had never fully understood many of the details of the change, including digestion. He did not question Prinivere but drifted toward the makeshift table and the food it held. He realized the woman tending to lunch could only be Aisa, and her appearance surprised him. lie had expected someone more like Ialin: thin, androgynous, and flitty. Aisa seemed like a perfectly normal thirty-something, with swarthy skin, finely detailed features, and a calm manner that seemed almost slow. Her only exoticisms were brilliant golden hair, short-coified, and steel blue eyes. She gestured him to a spot, and he sat, cross-legged, in front of it. He waited until Zylas joined him, then Aisa, and finally the squirrel, who leaped to his place but did not remain there long. Throughout their lunch, he skittered to and from the table, taking a nut or a raisin, then scampering to a safe place to eat it.

Korfius dived into a similar plate on the floor, eating it clean before Collins could do more than examine his own food. He discovered a mixture of nuts, dried fruit and vegetables, and shriveled bugs like those he might find on a windowsill. He picked out what he liked, particularly avoiding the insects, then looked to Aisa for conversation. "Prinivere would rather eat in the form that more easily fills her belly, and I got used to having a rat steal my food. I know Falima prefers to eat in human form. Am I right in assuming the smaller, lighter form is usually preferred when it comes to meals?"

"Not necessarily," Zylas said around a mouthful. "Depends on what the animal form eats, personal preference." He swallowed. "Though it is her lighter form, Falima actually chooses to eat in human form as much as possible because a continuous diet of grass gets dull."

Aisa piped in. "And Zylas eats anything anytime in any form."

Zylas smiled, shoveling in another scoop of the mixture with a hand. "That's about right."

Collins crinkled his nose at the thought of what a rat might eat. "Do you prefer eating like a… well… like a bird?"

Aisa gave a small heave at the shoulders. "Have you ever eaten like a bird?"

"No," Collins admitted. "Is it hard?" He remembered his aunt's cockatiel working on an apple slice, its beak shaving off miniscule pieces while most of the fruit wound up on the cage floor.

Aisa took a drink. "Just constant. We eat just about our own weight in food every day." She set the mug aside. "Between flying and opening seeds, we still have trouble keeping up." She placed her free hand on the bulge of her belly. "Obviously, that's not a problem in human form. I forget and eat like a bird, then wind up heavier than I like."

Collins laughed.

Aisa looked affronted, and even Zylas gave Collins a glare.

"You know, Ialin uses so much energy and needs so much food in hummingbird form, he can starve to death in an hour."

"I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at Aisa or Ialin." Collins resumed picking through his food, separating out the bugs. "It's just that we have an expression where I come from. Eating like a bird means just pecking a few tidbits out of the plate. Eating very light." He laughed again. "Boy, do we have that backward."

Now, his companions smiled.

Zylas swallowed. "Your people wouldn't be as in tune with animals."

Korfius whined and flopped a paw on Collins' knee.

Collins scraped the tidbits he had selected from the rest of the food on his plate, then dumped the discards on the floor. Immediately, Korfius pounced upon them. "Oh, we're in tune with some animals. The ones we keep as pets."

Before Collins could take a bite of his own meal, Korfius had finished and placed his head on the man's thigh, begging more.

Collins' own words reminded him how much he looked forward to Korfius' transition, to the chance to ask the boy his preferences while in dog form. Korfius always seemed as happy as any dog, though smarter; but Collins worried that he might be missing some important need or desire. Like being human sometimes? He cringed at the thought of losing Korfius, though he would do whatever the dog/boy preferred… and like it. Absently, Collins dropped his hand to Korfius' head and scratched around and behind the floppy ears. The dog closed his eyes, in clear ecstasy.

Zylas watched the whole display as he cleaned his own plate. "I see that."

Aisa also studied Collins' every action, exploring other details. "You're not as skinny as Zylas and Falima described you, but I can see how you stay trim with Korfius around."

Collins just smiled, thinking it better not to explain that he usually did not give the lion's share of his dinner to his dog. He did not wish to risk insulting Aisa's meal preparation, as unappetizing as parts of it were to him. It made practical sense that a parrot would construct a mixed plate of seeds, pieces of fruit and vegetables, nuts, and small bugs, even in human form. "All dogs in my world eat like that."

"Ours, too," Zylas acknowledged. "But we common folk don't get to see them a lot, unless they commandeer our larders in the name of the king."

Aisa made a sound, half-snort, half-squawk, that startled Ijidan. Dropping his nut, he sprang to a chest and scuttled across it to hide, flatly pressed, against the opposite side.

Collins thought back to the meal he had taken among the servants in the king's dining hall but could not specifically recall being able to distinguish the dog guards from the horses. At the time, his need to investigate the royal bedchambers without getting caught overcame idle curiosity. The system itself seemed to preclude manners given the communal serving bowls, lack of utensils, and stale bread slices used as plates. He did recall some eating their plates, soaked with the juices of the stew, and others slipping their sopping bread-plates to the dogs beneath the tables. Collins continued to scratch Korfius' head as he considered, then dropped that line of thought. More important matters took precedence. "So, when are we going to do this sneaking-in thing?"

Zylas sat back, folding his hands across his abdomen and exploring his teeth with his tongue. "I'm thinking tomorrow, immediately after I switch. That'll give me the most time to work before I have to worry about lapsing into switch-form in an inopportune place."

Collins nodded. "I could see how that might cause a problem." He could not imagine any disguise that might allow a rat to pass for a horse. "Isn't it more important to know when the guard you're impersonating changes?"

"Same times as me. That's why I'm the best one to go with you."

Collins suspected the coincidence was none at all. Likely, they had chosen which guard to pose as based on the timing of his switch. "And my guy? The one I'm supposed to be. When does he switch?"

Zylas glanced at Aisa, and they both smiled. "Perfect switch time."

Wondering about the private joke, Collins looked from woman to man and back. "What do you mean by perfect?"

"Eight in the morning," Zylas explained, and Collins appreciated that, this time, the translating spells turned the words the rat/man actually spoke into specific "clock" times he could understand. "And six in the evening. Human by day; animal by night. People would take some pretty daunting drugs to rebalance themselves to that schedule."

Collins recognized the two extra hours the guard spent in animal form, which confirmed him as a Regular. A Random would split the time equally in half. Though Zylas' description implied that the other guard spent half his time in each form, Collins believed that one a Regular, too. Random horses, like Falima, were exceedingly rare, and Regulars who preferred their human form often took herbs to become more like Randoms in this one regard. He even remembered the Barakhain word for them: masuniat. The lesariat, like Korfius preferred their animal forms. There was also a word for those who embraced the dual nature of their lives, seeing it as right and natural, but he could not recall it. "So," Collins guessed, "we go in when they're in animal form, so no one sees two Teds or Maxes."