I walked until the sun was high over my right shoulder. Then walked some more as it sank towards the horizon. Afternoon brought new problems as the glare of the sun made it hard to see the distant smoke.

When it got too much for me, I hid behind another stone outcrop. It wasn't noticeably cooler in the shade, but the dimmer light was welcome, regardless. After hours of motion it felt good to be still and to stretch my tired legs. I started with a standard runner’s routine, then moved on to the extra muscles I didn't even have a name for. The ones between my heels and the thick paws that had replaced the balls of my feet.

Once the worst of the pain faded, and numbness had set in, I lay back on the stone and stretched my arms up to the sky. I'd been experimenting with my claws all day and now extending and retracting them was effortless.

Change, I thought. This time the pins and needles began at my center and burned their way outwards. I rode the burn, eyes squeezed shut and jaws clenched.

As the pain faded, I felt half deaf. I could still feel the wind, but the rustle of the bushes grew muffled. It felt like someone had covered my ears in cotton wool. Stones pressed into my bare skin, one digging into my bottom, and another caught between the rock I was lying on and my left shoulder blade. As I sat up, sand which had been trapped in my fur fell away in all directions.

I cleared a patch of stone of rubble and shifted over to it sitting now with my legs pressed up against my chest to minimise my contact with the still hot stone.

So shifting back to human meant muffled hearing and no protection from the environment. But the colours made it so worth it. The sapphire of the Eastern sky shifting though blues and purples towards the west where the bright red sun kissed the horizon.

Cat hearing was amazing, and the sense of smell was something else. But so far, cat vision was a real letdown. Looking at the blooming desert again with human eyes was a veritable feast. Flowers in every colour of the rainbow as far as I I could see. After a day looking at pale yellows and blues, it was amazing.

Even without bending down I could smell the sweet nectar of a thousand blooms. My sense of smell in car form was tuned differently. It made sense seeing as cats where not attracted to sweetness, so the perfume of flowers meant little to them.

My toes sank into the burning sand as I stepped away from the rock outcropping. This valley was different from the one I'd emerged in. it was more arid for one with longer expanses of stone and less sand. The valley floor here was free of vegetation. Instead the ground was hard backed and cracked, the tell tale signs of a dried watercourse.

I tracked it with my eyes until the creek bed disappeared between two sand dunes. This was worth investigating even if it took me off course a little. With that I stood, brushed the rest of the sand off my skin and resumed walking.

The hard backed sand crumbled under my bare feet as I walked along it. It felt odd to place my heels down instead of balancing on my toes. Still, if I followed this path it would lead somewhere, maybe even a water. And it was still meandering westwards so it wouldn't pull me that much of course.

In my old Life I'd never been this alone. In my old life I‘d never been more than an hour or two from civilization. Here I didn‘t even know what passed for civilization. I kind of assumed when I got there I‘d find a medieval village, but then I had assumed that I‘d be an adult when I spawned here. Hopefully, they had something passing for cities in this world, or most of my new skills would be of limited use. It was the silence that was getting to me. A whole day gone and no one to even say hi to.

My stomach twisted, reminding me I had not eaten or drunk anything since breakfast. Now that I thought about it I was thirsty too. I hadn't felt the need in my cat form but now as a mere human I was parched, my skin was moist with sweat and I needed to pee. So much water wasted just because I’d shifted back into a human.

I stopped short, then shrugged my shoulders. It wasn't like I'd find a toilet out here. With that I squatted down and relaxed my abdominal muscles.

The sensation was the same as I remembered and yet different. Once the stream stopped i wiggled about to get the last drops off my skin. The dry baked ground sucked the moisture up so quickly that by the time I stood there wasn’t a trace of it left.

The valley walls grew steeper with every step, showing more and uneroded stone. Here and there small bushes stuck out of the dried sandy soil, their thin silver-green leaves curled up against the heat. I started to sing as I walked, "The snow glows white on the mountain tonight."

My voice grew louder with every line as I worked my way into the ballad. Some snow sure would be nice, I thought. This song had been my personal anthem ever since the movie came out. But then I wasn't alone in this. It had become an anthem for everyone who was hiding their true self from the world. "It’s time to see what I can do "

Something landed behind me with a thump. I spun around only to be confronted by a cross between a lizard and a chicken. Only it was huge. its legs longer than I was tall and its body at least as large as a compact car.

It stalked towards me with its maw held low to the ground. Its feathers puffed up and flashing in impossible patterns. Magic, it had to be magic. A giant magic chicken was trying to eat me!

Still trying to clear my vision, I sidestepped. Just looking at it for a moment made my head hurt and my stomach twist. just then my foot landed on a rock and I stumbled, twisting as I fell. Change, I thought with all my will.

This time the transformation was near instant, and about as pleased as being dunked in boiling water. The bones in my hands and feet creaked and popped as they shifted and my skin burned. Behind me the monster rustled and hissed as it lept forward.

The yellowed talons brushing through the fur on my arm as I rolled to the left and regained my feet. My cats nose detected a stench of rotting meat, but at least I could look at the thing without being nauseated.

Still backing up I I half crouched, hissed in return. My own fur bristled in a futile attempt to make me look larger too. As I moved, I chanced on a stone a little larger than my hand. Remembering my poor grip, I took a moment to press position my hand fingers before yanking it upwards. then twisted spinning all the way around before hurling the rock at the monster’s head.

All the while I kept spinning until I was facing away from the monster, then I lept forward, using my claws for traction. There was no need to look back. I knew the monsters bird was chasing me as I zigzagged down the canyon.

The good news was that it wasn‘t a stealthy hunter. If anything, it relied on shock and awe to paralyze its prey. Its huge talongs hitting the ground with audible thuds, its feathers rustling as it chased me. Best yet every time it was about to lung forward it hissed giving me a second to change directichasedon. The bad news was that already my paws hurt something feirce and my diagram felt like it was about to burst.

The valley swung to the left and dropped rapidly, the walls turning to cliff faces on either side. I leapt down the slope in something of a half controlled fall. For an instant I saw a shadow moving on the valley floor, then I was pass the corner. I dared a glance back to see a giant of man leaping towards the monster bird. Olive skinned and muscled like a body builder, he flew through the air with a long club held in both hands. At the last moment he twisted sending, and the club cracked against the birds head with an audible smack.

Even before he had landed I'd changed direction, sprinting back towards the bird, and under racking my clawed hands down its belly.

At first all I could feel was feathers brushing through my fingers. They were dense enough to serve as armour. I pressed harder, willing my claws to dig through the fibers. Finally, I felt skin then hot blood weeping soaking into the fur on my fingers as I dug deeper into its neck.

The birds screeched in shock and pain and then my rescuer hit it again, hard enough to make it stagger. He was not quite human, but then again neither was I. The skin colour was wrong for one. Though that could just have being my cats eyes. To me he looked a dark grey with a greenish tinge. For another, he had fangs protruding from his mouth.

Focus Tony, I thought, fight now, ask questions later. With that I leaped again, grabbing onto the bird’s tail and pulled myself up onto its back. Here the feathers worked to my favour as they were surprisingly easy to get a grip on with my claws. Soon enough I manged to pull myself up towards its neck, which I grabbed tight and squeezed.

The bird reared, trying to buck me off its back, This gave my rescuer an opening to dart in and club its vulnerable ankle joint. The bone snapped sending the bird lurching sideways beneath me. With a whole of anger I dug my claws in, tearing a long bloody gash in its neck. Blood squired in bursts, covering my rescuer from head to toe.

Holding on with one hand I dragged my claws down the birds neck again even as it fell to the ground. It spasamed a few more times then grew still, the blood now dribbling lazily from its open corroded artery.

"Damn it, I'm soaked." he said as he brushed the blood out of his eyes. I imagined it was red, but to my cats eyes it looked very much like black ink. The man himself had to be close to seven feet tall, his skin looked gray green and his mouth stretched wide to accommodate protruding tusks. Other than that he looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. Considering that his only clothing was a loincloth, that was a lot of muscle on display.

I pulled myself off the now dead bird and wiped my paws on the feathers. then shifted away, turning my body to hide the important bits. Suddenly, fur didn't seem like adequate cover.

"That’s a lot of blood. Linda, is that you?"

"Um, no I'm, To, Tabitha. You can call me Tabitha."

"Damn, I've been waiting for days and when I heard that song. My Linda is always singing or humming it. Come on, I've got a camp nearby, there's water too. The name's Dan by the way."

"Thanks, but what's the catch?" I said, not moving from where I was crouching. "I mean I'm grateful that you came and distracted this thing, but."

"But I'm a strange guy with big teeth and you're a little girl, I get it. Look, I swear, I won't try anything. I'm guessing where in much the same situation here, you know died, met a god and got reincarnated, right?"

I nodded my assent then followed as soon as he turned his back. The view from the back was nice too, like I said Arny in his prime, so what if his skin colour was unusual, who was I to complain? "Shouldn't we, carve up this chicken?"

"Nah, it's too magical. If we had the right tools, we could probably harvest some valuable ingredients but, without preservation it will fall apart in no time."

"What about the meat?" I said still looking back at that carcass.

"Eating magical creatures is not a good idea, The raw mana can have all sorts of side effects. Don't worry I've got some stores back at the cave."

The valley had become more of a canyon by this point, and the ground was still descending as we walked. Here and there sand had collected in drifts against the walls but the center remained clear.

"So Linda's your girlfriend?

"Wife. Linda's my wife. We'd both be on Broadway now if that Bus hadn't crashed." He said.

Something about his voice seemed odd. It wasn't the tone, which was pleasantly deep with the occasional rumble. No it was the word Bus, it had come out in English rather than whatever language we were speaking. "I think we were on the same bus, how d’you know I was Like you, anyway?"

He stopped walking and gave me a big grin over his shoulder. "Disney doesn't have an inter dimensional division."

I stepped up beside him and sighed in wonder. The shadowed valley before me had to be several miles across, and it was positively filled with vegetation. As the last of the suns rays faded, everything seemed to glow. Bio-luminescence was defiantly a thing here. I suspected that this nighttime display was just as rich as the flowers. Even in shades of blue and Yellow it looked impressive. I was tempted to shift back and look again, but then I’d really be naked. Being Naked "Wow."

"Tell me about it, really hammers home that we ain't in Kansas anymore doesn't it. We couldn't have been on the same bus. I don't remember no kids, just us the driver and one other dude."

"Yea, I was heading for MIT. So you said there's water?"

Dan lead the way pointing out a cave as his camp on the way. Before long we arrived a largish pool, shaded by fern fords and surrounded by a thick carpet of moss which squished under my paws. Dan tossed his club down on the bank then walked straight into the water until he was waist deep, then dropped straight down.

Moving with a little more care I scanned the area, surprised that I could still see in the dim light. But then wasn't that another well known feline ability. I crouched at the edge of the water and dipped a hand in, letting water soak into my fur.

Dan surfaced not far from where he had ducked under the water. "Well, damn, Hod really did a number on you didn't he."

"I met a goddess named Katia, and I kind of asked for this, well not the cat part but the girl part."

"Seriously?"

Looking away form Dan I slipped into the water and also dove under, and surfaced with hair covering my face. I brushed it out of my faced and looked up at Dan. Just breath Tabitha, I thought, time to open up to someone. If he freaked out I could always find somewhere else to spend the night. But then he said he was in musical theater and theater people did have a reputation for acceptance. As long as he wasn’t some Kirk Cameron wannabee, but then would someone like that have even agreed to come here? Worse case scenario, I’d keep heading for where I saw the smoke trails in the morning. "I’m transgender. Or I was, back on Earth?"

"Now you have the right body. That‘s cool, guess it worked out then," he said with a shrug. "I hope Linda shows up soon, this valley is getting kind of old."

I waded deeper in and stated washing in earnest, brushing fingers through my fur to work out the sand. I had pick up a fair bit of it tussling with the killer bird. "How long have you been here?"

Dan said he'd hatched form a giant egg, a good eight days ago right here in the valley. He'd been exploring the area ever since, waiting for his Linda to show up. I told him my much shorter tail in exchange.

Once I felt clean enough, I dragged my waterlogged self out of the water and started squeezing myself dry, or at least dryer. Dan then led the way back up towards a cave he'd taken residence in. It looked rather comfortable considering that he’d only had a week to set things up from scratch.

There was a stone lined fire pit, a stack of dried wood to burn, and a cache of smoked meat. Stone tools were arranged neatly beside a stack of hides, some scraped and others with the fur still on. He even had a bed of rushes to sleep on. Dan said his class was Ranger, and it came with a bunch of useful survival skills, not to mention leather crafting.

We sat by the fire chatting for some time while I dried my fur. Somehow being naked around him got less awkward as the night progressed. He was so head over heels in love with his wife that he wouldn't even look at another woman. And even if he wasn't, Dan didn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd try anything with a kid.

My yawns grew wide while he worked by the fire, sewing several soft hides together with a strips of hide cord. Sewing without a needle was quite the operation. First, he would cut slits in the leather, with a bit of sharpened bone then feed the cord through.

"Past you’d bed time I think," Dan said.

"You known I'm not actually a kid right?"

"Sure, but does your new body know that.
Looks to me like your ready to drop. You can take the bed, and I'll finish this off."

The bed of rushes sure looked inviting. I scooted over to it and tested it with one hand. It was much softer than I expected. With a glance at Dan I slipped in and lay down with my back to the fire. "What you making anyway?"

"An outfit for you, " he said, giving me a toothy grin, "you seemed a little uncomfortable earlier."

At first I tried lying down to sleep, but it just didn't feel right. I tossed and turned and then curled up into a ball just like a kitten and I fell asleep nestled deep in the rushes. I felt safe, and I couldn't help smiling. "purrrr"

It was a strange feeling for me. My real old man had been an ass. He never got violent but he was still a mean drunk and liked to yell. Now here I had a real life Conan worrying that I got enough sleep and making cloths for me.

"Tabby, are your purring?"

"No."

"OK, goodnight."

I dug deeper into the rushes hugging my knees up against my chest. "Night."