Kevin Hearne - Trapped

“You must see so much more than I do,” Granuaile said. Her voice was small, as if she feared I’d stop talking if she raised the volume.

“No. If anything, I think it’s the other way around. The sight itself is the same for everyone; it’s how you filter and interpret what you see that matters, and it’s clear that you have an intuitive knack for interpreting what you see, now that you’ve had time to get used to it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have understood everything I meant when I said ‘thank you.’ ”

“It was more than keeping my pants on,” she said. “It was more than just us. It had something to do with the past. You’re afraid for some reason.”

That startled me. She’d seen even more than I suspected—it was akin to telepathy. Was that all it was, interpreting the bindings of consciousness? But I recovered and said, “Yes. I never got to bind my last apprentice, and I know I’ve told you that before. It’s just that we were interrupted and he didn’t survive the interruption. I don’t want history to repeat itself.”

“And you think a romance would be an interruption.”

“Wouldn’t it?” I smirked at her. “After twelve years of repression and denial, once we began, when would we stop?”

She chuckled softly. “That’s a fair point. Two people who can replenish their strength from the earth and heal the ravages of extended friction? It would be Homeric. Three books of The Iliad at least.”

I laughed at this, and she dissolved into giggles. I rested my forehead for a moment in the crook of her elbow and enjoyed the release of tension. Then, as we both wound down, I planted a soft kiss high up on her shoulder. She quieted and a question formed in her expression.

“Bear with my fears for a while longer?” I asked. “For your sake and mine?”

“Yes,” she said. Despite myself, I almost fell into the green of her eyes. Then she turned away and added, “Sensei,” and I shook myself and continued to bind her to the earth.

A month after that talk, unmolested by gods or men, we were past the merely painful part and into the part where a side dish of excitement came along with the pain. I’d faithfully stabbed every point of Gaia’s knotwork all the way up Granuaile’s side, past the curve of her breast, up to the top of her shoulder like a soldier’s braid, and then it began to fall to the shape-shifting loops around the biceps.

A Druid’s animal forms are chosen not by the Druid but rather by Gaia. During the process of the binding, Gaia gradually gets to know the Druid and determines for herself which forms would be most suitable. The first band at the very top of the biceps is always the human shape—necessary so that we can shift back to human form. Below that, the Druid gets a hoofed animal, a land-based predator, a flying form, and an aquatic form. Gaia doesn’t say ahead of time what the forms will be, so we both had to wait for the tattoos to take shape before we could tell what Granuaile could shift to.

She asked for updates about every three minutes once I began the second band on her arm.

“Can you tell what it is yet?” she asked.

“No, sorry.”

“How about now?”

“Not yet. A little anxious, are we?”

“Maybe a little. Can’t you at least guess?”

“You’ll have hooves.”

“I hate you.”

I smiled wryly. “No, you don’t.”

“No, you’re right.”

Gradually it became clear, the knots resolving into a shape. “It looks like it’s a horse,” I said.

“A horse! What kind? An Appaloosa? An Arabian?”

“A fast one.”

“Probably a red one. Chestnut coat, you know. Super gorgeous.”

“Without doubt,” I said, and continued my work as Granuaile’s eyes lost focus and she dreamed of running faster than she ever could as a human.

The next day began her predator stripe. It was a particularly dark one, requiring lots of ink and time. “I’m not sure what this is yet, but it’s going to be a dark coat,” I said, and that kept her guessing for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until the day after that I could discern with any certainty what the creature represented.

“Huh. It’s a black cat,” I said.

“A black cat?” Mild outrage colored her tone.

“A big one. Not a kitty cat. Won’t know if you’re a leopard or a jaguar until you shift.”

“Oh! That’s better, then.”

“I’ll say. It’s pretty badass.”

“What about a panther?”

“Black panthers are really black leopards. They’re not a different species. It’s just a recessive gene for melanism and a bizarre reluctance on the part of human beings to say the words black leopard .”

“Hmm. What an interesting choice.”

“Gaia wants you to be dangerous in the dark, I suppose. Your flying tattoo will probably leave room for guessing as well. It’s tough to differentiate species from these stylized knots.”

“I’m not going to be a mosquito or something like that, am I?”

“No. Druids are usually one of the larger birds. Gaia never puts you very far down the food chain.”

Once her flying stripe was finished, I could tell Granuaile would be a raptor of some kind, but whether hawk or falcon or eagle I did not know. She wasn’t going to be an owl like me.

Granuaile’s aquatic form was probably her weakest; it was a sea lion, and while she would be desperately cute, she wouldn’t have the manual dexterity I had as a sea otter. She’d be a far better swimmer, however.

It took another week and a half to finish her forearm, which would allow her to shift planes, and the circle on the back of her hand, which would give her control over her own healing. On the last day in mid-afternoon, she sat up to watch me complete the circle, her hand in mine, doing her best to hold back any noises that would betray how thrilled she was. I was pretty thrilled too; I’d healed fully by then and looked like my old self, with the exception of two months’ beard growth.

When I inked the final bit and Gaia’s glow faded from my sight and from hers, she looked at me expectantly, beaming with excitement.

“Congratulations, Granuaile MacTiernan,” I said. “You are the first new Druid on this earth in more than a thousand years.” I grinned at her, relieved that it was finally over, and she laughed with wonder and a good measure of her own relief.

I laughed with her and then watched as a strange demolition took place on her expression, as if someone had struck out the supports of the scaffolding holding up her smile. Her lower lip trembled and she sniffled. “I can’t believe it’s finally done,” she said, examining the back of her right hand and wiping away tears with the heel of her left. “Twelve long years.”

“Oh, nonsense. They flew by!” I said.

“Yeah, whatever.” She sniffed one final time and wiped her cheeks free of tears. Her grin returned, but this time it was mischievous. “So this means you’re not my sensei anymore?”

“That’s what it means.”

“Right. Well, I’ve waited long enough.” She grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me to her mouth. “Come here.”

I went there.

Oberon, please. This is not the time .

It’s not meant to mimic dogs barking! It’s mocking seventies’ funk music heard in pornographic videos, specifically the bass line. May we have some privacy, please?