Thanks as usual to Eof for a great universe to play in and to Eof, Maggie F and Donjo for their input.

“Would you be my Warden?” It was the five words I had been waiting half my life to hear, and they had just been spoken by the girl I was more than half in love with. I was caught somewhat off guard by the question as we sat in the woods behind my house with a picnic lunch that Sarah had made on that cool day in mid-September 2011. My girlfriend Sarah was the prettiest girl I knew, though I may have been a bit biased.

Sarah Taylor had long brown hair with a bit of curl to it, bright green eyes that made me melt whenever I looked into them, a cute button nose and full kissable lips. She was five feet four inches tall, slender, and while she had a shapely figure it wasn’t exaggerated like the girls you see on TV or in magazines. We grew up together and last year when we were fifteen we had started dating, and even at sixteen I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I had been hoping for a while that she would ask me to be her Warden, her loyal protector, as there was nobody more loyal to her or that would protect her more fiercely than me.

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I framed my answer in my mind. There were no ritual words to this, but rather the ideas behind the vow were ritual while the words were deeply personal and shared only between a Witch and her chosen Warden. “Sarah,” I finally answered, looking deep into those emerald eyes, “I vow to be your Warden, your shield, and your companion. I vow to protect you from harm, keep to your path, and if needed forfeit my life for yours. Sarah, I accept.”

I wouldn’t be her Warden yet, we both still had a lot of training ahead of us, she in using her magic and me in how to protect her. Now the vow was made though, and I had never felt closer to her. Like I said I had been waiting half my life to hear those words. Being a Dud I was taught self-defense from an early age: I had been learning Akido since I was four, I was learning to fight with knives at eight, and I was shooting guns at the ripe old age of twelve. I had a good start knowing how to protect my future Witch but as my father was fond of saying, ‘A Warden can never know too much.’

Sarah leaned forward, kissing me lightly on the lips as I finished speaking. “Thank you,” she said though I thought I should be the one who should be grateful. We finished our meal in a comfortable silence, just being there with one another at that moment saying far more than any further words possibly could. After a while she looked up at the sky and sighed, “I should get going home Nate, mom wants to make sure I get plenty of practice and studying in.”

I nodded, getting to my feet and helping her to her own, “Yeah, I need to get some training in myself if I’m going to be a proper Warden.” I knew now that I would train twice as hard to be the Warden that Sarah deserved. With that we gathered up our things, making sure not to leave anything behind, and headed back through the woods to my house. Once there, Sarah and I shared one last kiss before she walked down the dirt road to her own house which was about a fifteen minute walk. Both our families were fortunate to have large houses with a large acreage of forest attached. They weren’t as big as Roseberry Manor or the Whitlock Mansion but they were comfortable and we didn’t have to deal with all the noise of being inside the town.

Our closest neighbors other than the Taylors were the McGreggors who also had a large forested acreage and a comfortable home. Jason McGreggor was my best friend and the only person who I was as close to as Sarah. Well my parents were close to me but parents are different, as are siblings. I have one of those too, my brother Rick, and he greeted me as I entered the house, ruffling my short black hair. “Hey Nate, how’d the picnic go?”

I grinned at him, “It was great, Sarah asked me to be her Warden.”

He slapped me on the back, “Congratulations Nate! I still remember the day Gwen asked me.”

I nodded, “You and Gwen have been together a long time bro, are you ever going to ask her to marry you?”

He made a show of looking around carefully, even though we were the only two in the house, before speaking in a hushed tone, “I’m thinking of asking her on Christmas. If she says yes I want either you or a buddy of mine to be my best man.”

I chuckled, “We’ll see. You probably won’t get the nerve to ask her. You do all that crazy flying and that extreme sports shit and you can’t even ask a girl a simple question.”

“Hey, I’m really going to do it this time. I have it all planned out. We’ll see how well you do when you want to ask Sarah.” He looked at his watch, “Speaking of Gwen though, I’m supposed to go meet her at ‘The Book Mark’ so I can take her to dinner. Mom and dad are both going to be late so you’ll be on your own for dinner.”

“That’s okay; Jason and I might go to Gino’s for some pizza. I want to try and get some more training in tonight anyway.”

Rick nodded, “Okay, try not to be out in the woods too late though, you’ve still got school tomorrow. I’ll see you later Nate.” He headed out the front door and as I heard his car start up and head down the road I picked up the phone to call Jason.

When I got home from my training session with Jason, Mom and Dad were home. Dad was sleeping on the couch while Mom was in the kitchen hanging herbs to dry. After taking off my shoes and jacket and noticing my father’s lack of consciousness I headed into the kitchen, “Hi Mom, Dad’s passed out on the couch, did you two have a long day?”

Mom chuckled, “Yes, we had to climb almost to the edge of the Valley to find some of the herbs I wanted and you know how your father hates that climb. So how was your day Nathan?”

I grinned at her, “Sarah asked me to be her Warden today Mom.”

She immediately stopped what she was doing and came over to wrap me up in a hug. “Congratulations, I’m so proud of you honey.” Once she was finished squeezing the life out of me she took me by the hand, “Come with me, this is an important day for you and I have something to show you.” I went with her, not that I had much choice with her dragging me along by the hand, until I noticed she was taking me downstairs to her workroom. She was literally dragging me into no-man’s land, to my knowledge the men of the family were not allowed in there for any reason.

“Ummmm Mom?” I asked, very uncertain about this.

“Nathan, it’s just a room and while we normally don’t allow the menfolk in here this is very important.”

I nodded and took a deep breath before following my mother into her domain. The room was large with stone floors and wood paneled walls. There were bookcases against two of the walls filled with books, scrolls, jars and various items which I had no idea what purpose they had. The third wall was blank while the fourth was decorated with four large portraits. In the center of the room upon a pedestal carved from redwood with intricate designs was a large leather-bound book, which I knew must be our family Grimoire. I stared at the book and pedestal for what seemed like an eternity but was actually only a few seconds before mom pulled me past it to the wall with the paintings.

“I have no daughters to carry on the family line,” she began as we stopped in front of the wall, “So I want you and Rick to know the family history in case either of you does. I already told Rick when he agreed to be Gwen’s Warden.”

She gestured to the paintings on the wall, each depicting a young woman. If it weren’t for the different backgrounds and outfits I would have thought they got the same painting in bulk. The women were near identical with long black hair and dark blue eyes, and they all wore a strange bronze-colored glove-like thing on their right hand. It looked like chainmail and went from encircling the forearm and wrist along the back of the hand to where it connected to three rings on the index, middle and ring fingers, while the palm, fingers and thumb were all left bare save those three rings. “These,” she said, “Were the first four generation of Witches in the Poole family to live on Sena Island.”

“They certainly look like us but they all look exactly the same, and what’s that glove thingy?” I asked as I looked over all of the paintings looking for any differences.

She nodded, “They all look the same but I’ll get to that later. That ‘glove thingy’ as you called it is something we called Titania’s Glove. The story passed down from the women in the family says that Elisa Poole, one of the town’s founders was out in the woods one day when she stumbled upon one of the Sacred. She performed some kind of favor for this Sacred who turned out to be named Titania. In gratitude Titania enchanted one of her gloves and gave it to Elisa, though the words of Elisa were that ‘It flowed like water from her hand to mine.’ The glove was bound to her until her death, at which point it was passed down to her daughter and it continued like that being from mother to daughter or sometimes grand-daughter after death.”

I looked at her puzzled, “So what exactly did this glove do and why don’t you have it?”

She took another look at the paintings. “Titania’s Glove is a magic amplifier; it makes the wearer more powerful with magic. It was bound to the Poole bloodline so that it could only be passed down within our family. Unfortunately it disappeared with my great grandmother in 1951. She went to pick herbs in the woods and was never heard from again, my grandmother was still a Novice Witch at the time. We keep hoping that the Glove will come back to our family someday.”

I nodded, “So that’s why you’re telling me, in case it’s ever found. Why do all the women look the same? It’s a bit creepy.”

She shrugged, “I’m not really sure, but some of us have thought it’s because of the Glove, something to do with the appearance of the first person in the bloodline it bonded to. It could also be a way for Titania to recognize the Poole line. Between the appearance and the glove it would be pretty easy for her to find us. The Glove isn’t just an Artifact though it’s a symbol. It symbolizes that we are bound to the Sacred and Titania in particular.”

“I guess that’s pretty important to our family then, no wonder you felt the need to tell us this.”

She smiled at that, “Yes it’s important, before the Glove we were a mediocre Witch family. The Glove made us a force to be reckoned with in the Witch community here. We might not have the natural raw power the Taylors have or the money and lineage of the Roseberrys but the Glove and thus our connection to the Sacred has made us into one of the three most influential Witch families on the island. We’ve been slowly losing that influence since the Glove disappeared.” She looked once more longingly at the portraits before ushering me back upstairs to do my homework, our history lesson over.

School the next day was boring as usual and I spent most of my classes that morning looking out the windows and wishing school was over so I could spend some time with Sarah and get some more training in. Lunch was a welcome break and as I put my books in my locker Jason leaned on the locker beside mine as we waited for Sarah. He suddenly frowned, “Nate, Eric’s at it again.”

“Damn,” I cursed aloud. He didn’t have to tell me what Eric was up to, I already knew. Eric Peters was a stereotypical jock; sandy blond hair, blue eyes and all muscles except between his ears. He thought he was every woman’s fantasy come to life and despite the fact that everyone in town knew that Sarah was my girlfriend and that she wasn’t interested in him he kept pestering her. It wasn’t just Sarah though, Eric hit on all the cute girls regardless of whether they were available or not. At the moment he was following a frustrated looking Sarah down the hallway as she walked toward Jason and I.

I slammed my locker shut and put my arm around Sarah as she came in range, “Eric, for the last time, leave Sarah the hell alone. I don’t give a crap if you crash and burn with every other girl in the school, but Sarah is off limits. You harass her again and I’ll kick your ass.”

Eric glared at me, “You wouldn’t be so brave if you didn’t have Jason there to back you up toothpick.” Despite what Eric might have thought I was not a toothpick, I may have been only five feet nine inches tall but years of training made me lean and muscular rather than skinny. Jason on the other hand was six feet two inches and a wall of solid muscle. Funny thing about Jason though was he was a gentle giant, he’d never harm a fly unless provoked. Eric though tended to provoke him.

I let go of Sarah, trusting Jason to keep her out of harm’s way, as I approached him. I was getting tired of his crap, hell everyone was getting tired of his crap. “Eric I don’t need anyone’s protection. Sarah is under my protection though so just leave her alone.” By this time a small crowd had formed and Eric wasn’t about to be made a fool of in front of a crowd so he took a swing at me. Typical I thought to myself. I moved in under his punch and grabbed hold of his arm, using his weight and momentum to flip him onto the floor hard.

Eric groaned as he started to get up with murder in his eyes. Meanwhile the crowd had gotten bigger and had begun chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” I sighed to myself thinking this was going to be one of those days as Eric brought his arms up in a boxer’s guard position while he looked for an opening. The thing about boxing is that they teach you to ‘guard’ the head and upper body so sure if I was going to hit him in the face, chest or shoulders I’d be out of luck. I had no intention of hitting him there. Instead while he took another swing while trying to keep his guard up I ducked and punched him in the solar plexus as hard as I could.

Being slightly less than average height can have it’s advantages. His punch barely grazed me while mine dropped him like a lead balloon. I may have been seeing a few stars but he was writhing on the floor. I looked down at him, “Now I’m not going to say it again Eric, leave Sarah alone.”

A cool feminine voice spoke up from behind me, “We are all very impressed Mr. Poole. I would like to have a word with both of you in my office.” I cursed my luck; yep it was definitely one of those days.

Eric and I glowered at each other in Principal Lawson’s office as she lowered the boom. We’d both have detention of course, and she made it very clear that we were lucky we weren’t being suspended as well. Mrs. Lawson soon dismissed Eric but asked me to stay behind. Eric had barely closed the door before she started in on me, “Nathan, I am well aware of your relationship with Miss Taylor but you know very well I don’t approve of fighting on school grounds. I know you want to keep her safe but you need to be careful with the Norms, your little stunt there could bring too much attention to you both.”

I frowned at her, “I just told him to leave Sarah alone. He threw the first punch, hell he threw the first two punches. It was self-defense.”

She gave me a sympathetic look, “Yet he was the one who ended up on the ground. People are going to talk about that, wondering how you took down someone much bigger than you so easily. Sometimes the best way to protect yourself and Sarah is going to be by keeping a low profile.”

“So what then? I should have let him hit me?”” That seemed downright stupid to me.

Mrs. Lawson sighed and shook her head, “No Nathan, I’m not saying that at all. You just need to choose your battles sometimes. I know Eric can be a jerk but you know you could have just walked away before it got to the throwing fists stage.”

“Yeah I guess so.” Sadly I knew she was right, but Eric just pissed me off. He was even getting on Jason’s nerves and that was saying something.

She gave me a sad smile, “Nobody ever said being a Warden was easy Nathan, and there’s more you need to master than just physical training. Now get going, I’ve taken up enough of your lunch hour, I’ll see you in detention.”

I left the office and headed to the cafeteria to join Jason and Sarah. Luckily for me Sarah had gotten my lunch for me and I didn’t have to wait in line. “How bad was it?” she asked as I sat down beside her.

I shrugged, “I got detention all week and a long lecture on keeping a low profile.” The detention part really sucked as it would really cut into my time with Sarah this week. “Sorry Sarah, I shouldn’t have lost my cool.”

Sarah kissed me on the cheek, “The jerk deserved it, everyone thinks so. Maybe now he’ll listen when he’s told no.”

Jason nodded in agreement, “Yeah, he had it coming. The whole school is talking about it by the way.”

“Damn,” I muttered, “Word travels fast doesn’t it?”

Sarah giggled at that, “I wouldn’t worry about it Nate, they’ll be on about something else by next week, besides the story gets more ridiculous with every telling. Nobody is going to believe it soon.”

Jason grinned as he finished his salad, “You mean the version where Nate has secretly been training to be a ninja his whole life?” I looked at him in shock, maybe Mrs. Lawson was right, that was frighteningly close to the truth and this was snowballing fast. Jason just slapped me on the back. “Don’t worry Nate, Becky Lawson started that one and nobody believes her wild stories.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, “You had me scared there.” Becky was Mrs. Lawson’s daughter and a Novice Witch. Since our first year in Sena High she’s been famous for telling these completely ridiculous stories and nobody ever believed her anymore. Sometimes I wondered if it was all just an act so that when she did tell the truth nobody would believe her. This seemed to prove my theory about that and it seemed she had taken the initiative on damage control. “I’ll have to thank her later for that one.”

I barely had time to finish my lunch before it was time for us to head to our next classes. Sarah and I shared a quick goodbye kiss before Jason and I headed to gym. It was kind of weird all the attention I was getting the rest of the day, guys slapping me on the back or giving me high fives as I was walking to class and girls coming up to say thanks for putting Eric in his place. I was used to just getting lost in the crowd so all the extra attention was making me a bit nervous about how this could affect Sarah and I. Don’t you just hate it when your principal is right? Detention was actually a welcome quiet time which mostly consisted of me getting my homework done, whenever Eric and I weren’t giving one another the evil eye.

The rest of the week passed much the same. I was suddenly Mr. Popular and I was spending much more time under the microscope than I was comfortable with. Sarah and I hardly saw each other with me in detention every day and when we could see each other at lunch it seemed like it passed too quickly and everyone was watching us. The only good thing that came out of the fight was that Eric finally got the message and left Sarah alone. All in all I was glad when the week finally came to an end.

There’s nothing quite like a charging bull moose to help you work on your speed and stamina. Well I suppose a charging elephant would be pretty damn good too but I didn’t have one available. I’ve always been a firm believer in working with what you have. At the moment I had a moose who was not letting me shake him. This was just what I needed after the week I had had. I was getting tired though, having been running full out for over fifteen minutes, so I decided I should end this quick. I stopped and stepped to the side, “Okay, time out!”

The moose skidded to a stop and snorted at me before shaking his head. “Hey,” I countered, “We don’t all have four legs you know.” The moose snorted again. “What did you call me?!” It might seem odd to most people arguing with a moose, but this moose was my best friend and training partner and we usually bantered like this. It’s not like I could understand him like this, just we had been friends since we were in diapers and I knew him well enough to guess what he meant.

I was about to say more when we were interrupted by an almost musical, quiet and feminine voice, “You two shouldn’t argue like that.”

I wondered briefly who, when confronted with a human and a moose in an argument, would come up and say something like that like it happened every day. As both the moose and I turned toward the voice I started speaking, “We’re friends, we do this all the…” I stopped as I was confronted with the image of a twelve inch tall teenage girl with wings and bright yellow hair. “Jason, do you see what I see?” I didn’t turn to see his answer though as I stared at the girl.

The tiny young woman gave a friendly wave and giggled, “Hello, I’m Dandelion.”

I just stared wide-eyed, “Ummm, I’m Nathan Poole and that’s Jason McGreggor.”

The pixie, at least I thought it must be a pixie, clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh! I remember now! I was heading to the big place with all the people to find something. It was something about a pool, a glove in a pool or something…” She bit her lip as she seemed to try to remember. “Lets see, her Majesty said something about a pool…”

Two of the words caught my attention, “You mentioned something about a glove?” I prodded.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, “That’s right! I was supposed to take a pool to the glove… wait that doesn’t make much sense. How would I carry a pool all the way to that glove?”

I shook my head. If this kept up I was going to get a massive headache, “I’m a Poole, you said you know where the Glove is?”

She looked at me curiously, “You don’t look like a pool, aren’t they filled with water?”

I sighed as Jason snorted beside me. He seemed to be finding this terribly funny. “No my last name is Poole, I come from the Poole family, remember.”

Her eyes went wide with realization. “Oh! I need to show you the glove then! Follow me!”

I nodded, as Jason and I started to follow her “If it’s the Glove I think you’re talking about I’ll have to take it home to my mom, she’ll want to see it. So Dandelion…” I began to ask her a question, though I was seriously worried about her getting sidetracked again.

“Call me Dani!” she said happily.

“So Dani,” I continued, “Was there a reason you got chosen for this job?”

“I volunteered!” she answered happily.

“It figures,” I grumbled. “So is the Glove very far Dani?” I asked.

“Oh I don’t know where it is.” She answered innocently.

Jason snorted again beside me, while I covered my face in my hands. “If you don’t know where the Glove is how are you supposed to show it to me?”

“Her Majesty said the glove is her magic and bound to the Poole, so if I found the Poole I should be able to find the glove, so I should be able to feel it.” She didn’t seem entirely certain though, and I had a feeling we could be wandering through the woods a long time. It was starting to get dark and we were getting further from home and closer to the Valley. I probably should have just gone home at this point and introduced Dani to my mom, but I wanted to be the one to find the Glove and give it to her. I was such an idiot.

We wandered around another half hour and we were starting to climb uphill, making me think we were getting close to the Valley. I should have just gone home, and I was about to give up and do just that when Dani gave a puzzled look. “I think it should be somewhere around here, it feels like we’re right on top of it.” I stepped forward to take a good look around in the waning light, and that’s when the ground collapsed underneath me and I fell into darkness.

“Ow my head!” I grumbled as I sat up. I looked up and saw that I must have fallen a good fifteen feet into a cave of some sort. I looked around but it was getting too dark to see anything really well. I started looking through one of the packs I’d been carrying for a flashlight. I’d always made it a habit to be prepared for just about anything on my training sessions in the woods, and it wasn’t uncommon for Jason and I to spend a whole weekend in the woods training, so being prepared was a must. The other pack had some of the things Jason had brought.

“You okay down there Nate?” I heard Jason call and I turned the flashlight I had found on and shone it upwards, only to be greeted with a sight I really didn’t want to see.

“I’m fine… cover up man! I did not need to see that!”

“You have my backpack, how the hell am I supposed to cover up?”

I quickly tossed up his pack and decided to look around now that I had the flashlight and I certainly didn’t want to look up until Jason was dressed. As I was waving the flashlight around through the dusty air something metallic reflected the light and caught my eye. I moved toward it and panned the flashlight slowly over the rocks, nearly jumping out of my pants when the light focussed on a human skull. I did drop the flashlight as I quickly backed away. “Holy shit!”

“What’s wrong Nate?” Jason called from above.

I took hold of the flashlight again, sweeping it over the skeleton, clad in the tattered remains of a dress and the head set at a strange angle. On its right hand was Titania’s Glove. “I think I found out what happened to my great-great grandmother. It looks like she fell in here too and broke her neck when she fell.”

“Hold on Nate, I have some rope in here, I’ll lower it for you.” Jason called down.

Meanwhile Dani fluttered downward to join me in the cave and looked excitedly at where the beam of my flashlight fell on the Glove. “That’s it! See, I told you I could find it!”

I groaned inwardly, “Yeah you found it.” I reached tentatively for the skeleton’s arm wondering if I could somehow avoid touching it while I looked for some means to remove the glove. My fingertip lightly brushed the chainmail on the forearm when suddenly I felt this warm tingling. The metal of the Glove seemed to turn to liquid, flowing from the skeletal arm and along my fingers up my hand. I tried to shake it off but to no avail as it slipped like quicksilver along my flesh, encompassing the back of my hand and my forearm and wrapping around my ring, middle and index fingers like three rings. The last thing I remember thinking before I passed out was ‘It flowed like water from her hand to mine.’

I remember pain, like my insides were being rearranged with a pitchfork. My bones, my muscles, every fibre of my being screamed out in agony as I felt myself being stretched pressed and pulled at like so much putty. I could sometimes hear Jason and Dani speaking to me or it could have been to each other. Sometimes I could feel Jason applying a cool cloth to my forehead and encouraging me to drink from the water bottle he’d put to my lips. At some point a fire was built and I was covered with something. All this faded in and out as I drifted from agony to unconsciousness and back again.

Daylight was creeping into the cave when I finally awoke, free from pain. Sometime during the night Jason must have put his jacket on me as it covered me like a blanket. I tried to move but there was a weight on my chest and at the moment I was warm and comfortable. I was a bit sore and stiff, but after the agony I had been in before even this was a welcome relief. Jason must have placed our spare clothes under my head as I didn’t feel stone beneath my head, turning my head slightly showed this guess was correct. It also gave me a glimpse of what looked like long black hair in which Dani seemed to be sleeping, at least until my movement woke her.

The pixie looked at me and smiled, “You’re awake! Good morning!”

Jason, having heard her, suddenly moved from the dwindling fire where he’d been half dozing. “Nate you okay? How are you feeling? You had us worried there when you passed out. You were fevered and looked like you were in pain all night. That couldn’t have been…” He quickly looked away not finishing what he was going to say.

“I’m a bit sore and stiff, but I think I’m okay.” My voice sounded hoarse but it also sounded a bit off, higher maybe? “I feel a bit weird though.” I did, aside from the soreness and stiffness my body felt off. Even my mouth and teeth felt somehow different.

Dani looked thoughtful for a moment, like she was trying to figure something out. “Oh, that’s probably because you’re a girl now.”

“What!?!” I sat bolt upright, knocking both the pixie and Jason’s jacket aside.

Jason face palmed, “Dani I told you we were going to have to break it to him easy.”

Dani blinked innocently as she fluttered up off the ground, “But that was easy. I had no problem explaining it.”

I was only half aware of this, as my primary focus at the moment was the two massive-seeming breasts on my chest. Okay they weren’t massive but they were a hell of a lot more than had been there before. “Oh no!” My hand shot down to check my crotch and to my horror there was no sign of my former manhood there. I freaked out for a while after that; crying, screaming, and trying desperately to get the Glove off. I didn’t need to ask how it happened, just as I didn’t need to ask what I looked like, it was the Glove.

After a while I managed to calm down a bit and examined the Glove carefully. There was no catches or clasps or anything on it at all seemed to be one seamless work of bronze chainmail and fit so snugly it was like it was a part of me. From what my mother had told me it probably now was, until the day I died. “That’s weird,” I muttered, as I looked it over.

“What’s weird?” Jason asked as he worked on putting everything back in our packs, “Because if you ask me this whole thing is weird.”

“Well,” I answered, “The Glove has been down here for like sixty years or so, and it looks like it was just made yesterday. It must have something to do with the way it transferred to me.” I suddenly felt bad for freaking out like I had, “Ummm, Jason, I’m sorry about the way I acted earlier, this is weird and it scares me shitless but it couldn’t have been an easy night for you. You stayed up all night watching over me didn’t you?”

He shrugged, “We’re buds, I know you’d have done the same for me.”

“Of course I would have,” and I meant that, he was my best friend and if it had been him I would have done the same. I looked at him concerned and fought off a shiver. How would this affect him? He’d spent all night watching me writhe in pain as I slowly transformed into a girl with only a ditzy pixie and my ancestor’s skeleton for company. “Thanks Jason, you’re the best. I’m a lucky guy to have a friend like you.”

Dani looked at me confused, “But you’re a girl now.”

I rolled my eyes and tried very hard not to think about that, “Please don’t remind me.”

Jason hefted both our packs and we used the rope he’d lowered the night before to climb out of the cave. Climbing was not easy for me. Even though I hadn’t seemed to lose any height I was even more slender than before and my clothes were hanging off me at odd angles as they were too tight in some spots and too loose in others. If I hadn’t securely tied my hiking boots, they would have fallen off, as they now seemed several sizes too big. There was also the issue of my center of gravity being completely different. Between all that and my new breasts constantly getting in the way it took a lot longer than it should have to climb out.

It was slow going walking back to town, the walk downhill was hard enough without my feet constantly shifting in my boots and trying to go down a steep slope while getting used to a new center of gravity is not something I recommend. We were almost at the bottom of the slope when Dani, who had been conspicuously absent for a while came flying quickly back to us. “We need to hurry,” she said, not at all in her usual chipper mood.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” I grumbled. This had understandably been a horrible morning for me and the blisters starting to form on my feet weren’t making it any better. “I want to get back to town so I can get turned back into a guy, but what’s your rush?”

“There’s something coming, we need to move faster,” She didn’t elaborate on what ‘something’ was but from the panic in her voice it was probably something we didn’t want finding us.

“I can’t walk any faster,” I grumbled, “Can’t we just fight if we come across whatever it is?”

The look on Dani’s face said that probably wouldn’t be a good idea, and even Jason shook his head, “Nate you can barely walk right now, do you really think you can fight?” My silence must have been answer enough because as soon as we were on more even ground he shrugged off his backpack and started taking off his clothes and putting them inside. “I can run pretty fast in my moose form and you can ride on my back.”

I did not like that idea at all but from the sounds of it we needed to move faster than I was currently capable of. If I had still been my male self I would have stayed and fought, damn being a girl sucks. “Fine,” I said as he shifted from man to moose. Once he was finished I awkwardly climbed on his back, placed his pack between my knees and gripped his neck tight as we tore off through the forest with Dani flying alongside us.

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived in the part of the woods that was owned by my family and we felt somewhat safe. Jason shifted back to his human shape and got dressed quickly while Dani tried and failed to convince me that being a girl really wasn’t so bad. I guessed that she must have heard me muttering and complaining during out long flight through the woods.

Once Jason was presentable the three of us headed for the rear of my house. It was a warm day for September and I was hot, sore, tired, and very uncomfortable and I had to lean on Jason a bit as we walked. Once we got within sight of the house I could see that mom was in the backyard weeding the garden. Jason walked up ahead while I hobbled along behind him miserably, using his large frame to shield myself from my mother’s sight. Mom looked up at the sound of our approach, “Oh Jason, thank goodness you’re back, we were starting to worry about the two of you.”

“Hi Mrs. Poole, sorry we kind of ran into a problem or two,” Jason responded.

At that point one of said problems, Dani, made her presence known by fluttering over to my mother, “Hello I’m Dandelion.”

Looking around Jason’s large frame I could see my mother’s eyes go wide as she looked at the pixie, though she managed to keep her shock in check as she answered, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Dandelion, I’m Nora Poole, Nathan’s mother.” This was good, maybe she wouldn’t react as bad as I thought. She frowned at me, “I see you hiding behind Jason, what sort of trouble did you get into this time Nathan?”

Well it’s now or never, I thought as I stepped out from behind Jason and shrugged off my hooded jacket, letting it fall to the ground. I waved at her with my right hand, making sure to display it long enough for her to see what was on it, “Ummm, that would be the other problem. Hi mom, guess what we found.” She stared at my face, and then stared at my hand, stared at my face again and then she fainted.