“So, what is it that this Vlamir does? What kind of super powers can I have? Do we leave now, or do I have enough time to finish puberty first?”

Stacy giggles. “All very good questions. We need to leave now unfortunately. We have everything you will need waiting for you in the In-between. The Vlamir enhances a person’s craft exponentially once you know how to trigger its effects. It also is a form of consciousness. If you know about the Green Lantern ring, it’s like that kind of conscious, only less computerized since someone had to actually store their soul in it. I do not know what your ‘super powers’ are, we will have to figure that out once we get to the In-between. In this world, you cannot develop a craft, but once you establish one it can carry between worlds, zones, times, and dimensions.”

“Why can’t I just give you the Vlamir and wash my hands of the entire issue?”

Mandy fields this question. “The Vlamir is your ring and much more. The ring is only given to those who share the same blood, so it is passed through blood lines. While giving us the ring prevents it from being used, people will come in search of your blood so that they can use the ring. That is why we need you to go with us. However, there is one other thing that I need to tell you before you go with us. The wielder of the Vlamir must be….”

Mandy stares off behind me. I turn my head, look, and see nothing but a shadow being cast by my body. I turn back around to ask her to continue when I notice from my peripheral vision that my shadow is in front of me on the floor. Without warning, I am yanked forward by Mandy. I fumble to the floor face first. When I sit up I see Mandy with her hands up I assume making a wall between my shadow and me, which is somehow still where I was sitting when I am half way across the room. I look behind me and where Stacy was sitting is now a big grizzly bear. I back up from Stacy only to run into one of Mandy’s invisible walls.

My shadow, the non-moving shadow that is, starts to move directly towards me. It passes underneath the wall Mandy is projecting until it is right underneath me. I start to sink into the floor. Stacy, who is now Stacy again, grabs my hand and tries to pull me out. As is she pulling with one hand and losing the tug of war, her other hand breaks into flame. Her hand became flame, not her hand covered in flame! The flame fell to the floor like molten lava. When it touched the shadow, the shadow yelled in an ear splitting scream. I was sent flying across the room with the handless Stacy, while the shadow seemed to collapse in on itself and disappear.

I lay there on the ground trying not to freak out while the handless Stacy walks over to the flame still burning on the ground and pushes it around with what is left of her hand. The flame creeps back up on her skin and reforms a hand. That was just creepy. Mandy, I think reading my distress commented, “that’s disgusting, I thought you could only do living things?”

Stacy smirks,” I can only do living things, fire eats, breathes, and can die so it apparently is alive enough. I was trying for an Infernal Kavu* before when I became a bear. I forgot they don’t have those in this zone.”

How can they have a casual conversation without freaking out after what just happened? Yet it continues, “I thought shades couldn’t cross over because of the water on this planet.”

“They can’t. My guess is when you put up the barriers of yours to block in Steve you made a water free environment of sorts concentrated with magic. Oh yeah, Steve….”

Stacy walks over to me and extends her once fire hand to help me up. I just glare at it, who knows it could suddenly combust. I stand up on my own. Mandy, sensing the trouble I am having, grabs a dark blue crystal like egg off of a shelf and walks over to me. Stacy grabs Mandy’s shoulder while Mandy places one hand on me before speaking. “I’m sorry, Steve but we need to go before we find out something else came through with the shade. The first time can be a little tricky, but please try not to puke on me when you get to the other side.”

Mandy throws the egg to the ground causing a blue liquid that was contained within it to spread across the floor. We start to sink much like I had with the shadow, fight or flight kicks in and I go for running. My legs are no good, I can’t pull them out. I start to shift my weight to try to lurch out of the liquid. Just like quick sand, the liquid has now progressed rapidly up to my neck while still at waist height for the others. I take a deep breath before I submerge. The last thing I hear on what I like to call home of a ‘zone’ is Stacy yelling, “DON’T hold your br….”

Everything turned purple, almost like a kaleidoscope. It is about what I would think being on acid would look like, either that or mushrooms. However, being the good child that I am, I never touched the stuff, so I have no idea. All I know is that the whole display messed with my mind.

Then as if dropped out of the sky only backwards I am looking up into a purple sky while three suns and two moons are moving overhead without a cloud in the sky. I am certainly not in Kansas anymore. My body catches up with my mind and I let go of my breath I was holding. Only, that is not the only thing that came out. I spewed in what must have looked like a volcano like manner, as I rolled over onto my side in reaction to not choking.

My stomach starts to feel like I could release nothing other than my intestines and I collapse to the ground on my stomach. A very sharp pain goes surging throughout my chest, and instinct causes me to pull back and throw my hands on the perpetrating area of pain; hoping to see a bruise or even a knife stabbed through my heart to explain the degree of pain. If only life was so kind. My hands are the first thing to give me a clue what is going on because at this point my mind has stopped working. There is a giant ‘error does not compute’ sign flashing in my head. My hands feel two mounds that somehow I can feel on both ends of the contact.

My mind kicks in at this point, better late than never. I lift the top of my polo shirt and peek through the neck hole. I think I picked up something through this whole changing zone thing, because I don’t remember having breasts… ever. Then the real male part of my mind kicks in and panics. Junior!?!?! My hands fly and find nothing. When I find Mandy I am going to kill her. Just one thing you need to tell me before you cross over. This isn’t one thing, well I guess it is because you added two things and took one away but that’s beside the point. Switching genders is definitely not something you hide in the fine print, it warrants big bold letters, with several listings and even a waiver form or two with it listed in the title. I roll my head forwards towards the ground, I am not making the mistake of a chest first layout ever again. Just as my head reaches the bluish miniature fern carpeted ground, golden blonde hair falls all around me like a wall.

At least one thing didn’t change. I still have long hair. As my hand makes its way up to touch my hair and pull it into direct view, my hand touches a surface a few inches past my head. I feel the contact on both ends. I close my eyes tightly, praying to whichever god resides on this In-between that it isn’t some strange horns or something I have now. I trace the shape with my finger and notice it connects much like my ear, only it is much longer. If I had to guess, it’s more like a long elf ear. This is too weird, next thing you know I’ll be sprouting a tail or wings or something.

“The ears and the sex change are the only things that you will really notice that are different.” Who else other than Mandy would know what I was thinking and talk about it aloud. I looked up expecting to see her standing there with a smug look on her face, but she wasn’t. Smug look yes, Mandy, not so much. She looked like herself from the waist up, but from the waist down, she was goatish. Okay, so the technical term is satyr or something, but that is not right because the knees went the wrong way and the fur was an offshoot of dark green. Preventing myself from staring I try to change the topic in my mind.

“Where is Stacy, you and her have some explaining to do,” I say it in what I would call a threatening tone back home with the “I Love Lucy” accent, but here and with a new voice, it sounded more ominous and wizened. Almost like I knew what it is they were going to explain, but I wanted them to explain it nevertheless. Damn elves and their high and mightiness, apparently they get it genetically or it’s innate, who knew? Yet, somehow the voice isn’t freaking me out, too weird. My brain must not be up to full capacity after the big fry of having breasts or something.

“I am here,” says a voice that sounds exactly like Stacy only in a much more matter-of-fact manner. I look over to where the voice is coming from and see what can only be described as Stacy, only with long ears. Much like how I imagine mine look now. Her clothes however have changed to a much more rustic style. Leather battle gear covered with form fitting green cloths. Her blonde hair is the same as it was before, only now it is pulled back into a bun from its previous free flowing manner. Over her shoulder, I can see two sword hilts. To complete the ranger ensemble are soft sole shoes. A nature person if I ever did see one.

“Cool outfit, I definitely get the naturalist vibe.”

Mandy simply snorts, but Stacy graces me with a smile. While her beauty has not lessened, if anything it has increased, her smile does not make my mind turn to mush. My mind goes into a flurry, oh god, am I gay now. That is just messed up, new body, new mind, new powers, and now new lovers… well I guess when you are out shopping for new things might as well buy in bulk. Now I am thinking about shopping, this is just grand. Can I get anymore stereotypical?

Mandy doing what Mandy does, she breaks my train of thought. “You don’t receive the Star Elf charm since you are now an elf as well. Humans feel an unnatural attraction to elves; it is just one of those things you will learn about this zone.” Oh joy, oh bliss, learning yippee. I skipped class to visit a college so I wouldn’t have to learn. I suppose having one free day was too much to ask for.

“So how about this sex change, a little heads up would have been nice.”

Stacy gives me a knowing look, and I grow uncomfortable under her gaze. “Would you have come with us willingly if we had told you? Mandy was trying to tell you that the ring is usually passed through a female lineage, but since you are the only remaining person in the bloodline, it would have just skipped your generation since you are male. Since you were wearing the ring when you came here, the Vlamir’s magic must have transformed you in order to allow you to be a conduit. We knew that it was likely, but you being able to use the ring to defend yourself requires you being female. Once you go back to your zone you should turn male again.”

I scare at the word, “Should?”

“Yes it is only speculation since Vlamir knowledge was never shared or written down. As we said before, a Vlamir is a sorority ring of sorts, but it is not a sorority in your zone, but of the In-between. Those that wielded them were warriors and defenders of this zone. Those with powerful craft were able to traverse time, dimensions, and worlds to help maintain order in them. They had many names on many worlds, but here we just called them wielders or Craft Masters. This zone was the, as the name suggests, In-between point for all planes. Unfortunately, a man by the name of Arber Strauthcline worked to master many different crafts. He became power drunk and killed many wielders of Vlamir. Soon after they turned against one another suspecting a traitor, leading to their demise.

Arber learned years later that he could wield the Vlamir, if he had fused his blood with theirs. We suspect that there is something in a wielder’s blood that carries over through a transfusion. It wasn’t until recently that he found out that not all of the wielders have been killed. Now he is on a man, or rather a woman hunt to find you. He will not know you are the wielder with your changes unless he sees your ring. I suggest you don’t go flashing it around too much.”

I give her fish eyes at all of the information that was just thrown at me. I think I should be writing this all down. There is no chance that I am going to remember all of this. But, I am an elf now. I must be proud, heh. “Oh, is that all?”

Stacy takes a deep breath to give me what I’m sure is another long-winded speech. Mandy fortunately comes to my rescue. If your mental telepathy thing works like this, I am sending you my thanks, Mandy. “That’s all of the important stuff. The only other thing is we need to get to the Gryf Temple in Mountain Valley for you to learn your craft.”

“I know I am new in town and all, but wouldn’t Mr. Bad Guy shut down this temple place so he can stay as Big Man on Campus?” I look around, nope definitely not on campus anymore. “So to speak.”

“He kept the temple open as a way to train his soldiers and henchmen, but does not fear those with power since he was able to defeat those that wield Vlamir. However, you do bring up a valid point. He will be searching the temple for you, since I am sure that the shade will tell him of our encounter.”

Mandy gets a scared look, “Wait, you didn’t kill shadow man?” Ah, finally someone other than me who doesn’t know something. I mean duh, it’s obvious. Wait a minute, how do I know the answer when I have no idea what a shade exactly is. I guess this elf thing gave me some kind of knowledge too. I wonder if I can speak in elvish, that would be cool. I find a little switch in my mind and turn it on.

“Even I can figure this out, how don’t you know? Didn’t you say you lived here for a long time?” The words that were in my mind sounded like perfect English, but the movements my mouth was making were anything but. For instance, I did not know there was a letter in the alphabet that involved almost swallowing your tongue. It must be new, and I just didn’t get the memo.

Mandy gave me a surprised look, I only got a smirk from Stacy this time. “It is not polite to change languages during a conversation. Since your mind is new, I will not fault you this one time in the tradition. Now you understand how the language works both in the talking and listening.”

The words sounded almost like gibberish in a way, but when I tried to think about the words themselves, it was like the moment I tried to touch them they were English and I could understand them. I am going to have so much fun with this one. To be courteous to Mandy I go back to English, I mean if they were talking in some other language, I would hate it too. I mean, think about it, why is it that the second someone starts talking in a language you don’t understand you assume they are talking bad about you? Getting my mind back on topic, time to fill in Mandy.

“Correct me if I am wrong, but a shade is like a shadow, and fire is a perfect absence of shadow. So in a sense you banished it to a shadow, which could have been any shadow other than the one it was in. And since we are on the subject, why can’t a shade go across water? You mentioned that before.”

A smart look from Mandy. I know she is going to get her rebuttal. “A shade can move across solid surfaces, the dynamics of moving water makes a shadow too changing for a shade to be able to manifest within it. That means they have to cross at bridges or other solid forms.”

I cock my eyebrow, “Right.”

Ignoring my face, Stacy moves the conversation along. “Back to the clothes topic…. I hope you don’t mind what I am wearing, since that is what I have for you.” With a smirk she adds, “Either that or the skirt that I came to this zone wearing.”

“I think what you are wearing now will do just fine, thanks.” She opens her mouth giving me a shocked look.

“But you would look so much better in a skirt.”

“I think Steve is right, Stacy. If she wears the skirt, people will notice she’s not from this zone. It’s odd enough seeing two elves traveling together in this day and age. By the way, what are we going to call her? Steve doesn’t exactly work anymore.”

“Stephanie? No, no, Caiella. It’s the closest that elves have for Steve, but is a girl’s name so you will fit right in.” Stacy says with an etched grin. I take one look at her expression and just clasp my hands over my face. Today is just not my day.

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Authors Note: I do not know how long this story will be, or how much time will be between chapters. There will probably be a bit of a gap before I post Chapter 3 due to the holidays. Since this is my first story piece I hope you all like it, and any critiques are welcome to help improve my writing style. In addition, any questions you have about the tale, feel free to post them as a comment so I can ensure they are answered somewhere in the story if they are no incorporated already. Special thanks to djkauf for editing this tale.

*Kavu: Is a large Komodo dragon type creature, with the body shape of a bear that comes in many forms. An Infernal Kavu is one whose skin is made of drying molten lava. It has the ability to breath fire and it’s saliva is acidic. Just in case you wanted to know.