NOVEL NEXT Reverie – Bonus Chapter (1/2)
Sky had told them that as far as staying for supper, they were free to dress up, down, show off their new changes or cover everything, whatever they preferred, and if the temperature changed they could just move inside—with the caveat that they did have a seven-year-old daughter who would be present.
Once Claudia had enough of admiring her silver skin in the mirror, she put her bra and shorts back on, then her comfortable olive-green T-shirt dress, and helped Marisa pack up the cameras and mic.
Marisa swapped her minimalistic black for a cream-and-green pullover top and a loose knee-length skirt that was black with small scattered green and white flowers, and pulled her knee-height boots back on.
Harley had worn jeans and a baggy sweatshirt on the way there, but out of her backpack she produced a calf-length dark-grey jersey dress with slits up the side hems and half-length sleeves. She’d tried it on in the thrift shop and had immediately disliked how it fit her, but had bought it anyway; now, it draped in a completely new way, and Marisa saw her smile as she smoothed it over her hips.
“Much better,” Harley sighed.
“That looks great,” Claudia said. “And shopping for clothes is going to frustrate you a lot less now.”
“You look happy,” Marisa observed.
“I feel...” Harley started, then paused. “Like my own skin fits better, even if I didn’t let myself realize how poorly it did until a couple of months ago.”
“Good!” Claudia dragged Marisa towards Harley so she could hug them both at the same time. “I am so giving Darin a huge hug as soon as I see him. Probably more than one. All set?”
“One other thing.” Harley fished around in her backpack and brought out a small package wrapped in pink tissue paper, which she handed to Marisa.
It kept tinkling while she unwrapped it.
Inside was a woven collar, large enough for a human, in a simple pattern of rose and blue and gold, with a pink jingle-bell hanging from the ring.
“Just as an accessory,” Harley said. “For now, anyway.”
Claudia laughed. “Oh, that’s perfect!”
Blushing a bit, Marisa snapped it around her neck, and smiled when the bell jingled. Her own purr startled her, but felt just as good as the first time.
With all three bags, they left the room and backtracked towards the office.
Sky was behind the desk, Tavi on a chair doing something on her phone, but both looked up and smiled.
“Nice job,” Sky said to Tavi. “I like the collar, Marisa, it looks just right.”
“You,” Claudia told Tavi, while Sky shut down and got up, “are an artist beyond compare.”
Tavi shrugged, slipping her phone into a pocket of her loose pants and standing up. “Art always was my thing. But this kind is always a collaboration.”
Sky cleared his throat pointedly.
Tavi giggled, and suddenly looked much younger and distinctly mischievous. “With exceptions. Nah, seriously, it really is. There was a TV show that asked me to do a dozen morphs, to be reversed whenever the show was cancelled...”
“We checked it out,” Harley said. “Your work and the acting were a lot better than the writing. I’m surprised it lasted three seasons. Although good writing doesn’t seem to be much of a necessity for TV shows these days.”
“A lot of what kept it going was the audience being fascinated by Tavi’s changes,” Sky said, shooing them all out the door and switching off the light.
“I can see that.”
“We got mail about it, actually.”
“The producers got a little annoyed with me,” Tavi said, “because one of my conditions was that the actors got a say in and a final veto on anything I did. They weren’t entirely happy, to start with, about some of the modifications to their plans I insisted on, based on what was going to be realistically feasible for the actors to live with for a while, physically and mentally. I don’t care what the actors’ contracts said, I will not do any changes that will make the person most directly involved miserable. And in the long run, it worked better, because the actors were all more comfortable with it and it looked more natural. Always negotiated in as much detail as possible, always with consent, and always with the understanding that consent can be revoked.”
“Safe, sane, and consensual?” Harley said innocently.
Sky laughed, foxy tail twitching. “In everything.”
They paused to drop the various bags in Harley’s car, including Claudia’s laptop, then turned towards the huge old farmhouse itself. Marisa figured their house could fit into it at least twice, maybe three times. She kept finding herself checking on her tail, that it wasn’t drooping too low or about to get caught on anything or trip anyone.
“Proprioception hasn’t kicked in yet, hm?” Sky said. “It will, then you won’t need to keep looking for it, and once you get more used to it, it won’t feel so much like it’s in constant danger.”
“That obvious?” Marisa said sheepishly.
“I’m familiar with the process,” Sky said, with a deliberate flick of his fox tail. “Just try to be a little patient, and trust that the people around you are also going to be trying to avoid hurting you or ourselves. The patio’s on the far side. I wonder whether being outside all day has worn Aria out yet.”
“I doubt it,” Tavi chuckled. “Worn Ben out, on the other hand, probably. It’s a PA day, she’s been home all day. Ben made sure at the start of the school year that he’d booked PA days off, although in an emergency if they desperately need another nurse, we can always find a grandparent willing to step in and watch her. How on earth do people raise kids with only two parents and without a lot of grandparents and a few aunts and uncles?”
“With a lot of stress?” Claudia suggested.
“Probably,” Sky said. “My family all think I’ve lost my mind, but my parents and brother all adore Aria, so they put up with my weird lifestyle so they can see her. And she knows she can get anything out of them by being cute, I swear. Well, except my dipshit cousin who keeps trying to tell us all that Aria’s not really mine, but he can go to hell and stay away from my daughter.”
“Not because she’d believe it,” Tavi said. “She’s decided recently that she feels sorry for people with only two parents, except when she’s mad at us because ‘But Baba said I could...’ failed. Mostly he can stay away because she really doesn’t need to be anywhere near that kind of attitude. Anyway, I took March Break off except for some negotiations, Sky kept doing the office stuff, just like at Christmas, and we’re all taking some time this summer for an extended camping trip with Ben’s sister and her husband and their kids. It takes some epic-level juggling even with three, but it’s worth it. To us, anyway. But with only two, or worse one, I really can’t even imagine how hard it would be.”
“She sounds like a lucky kid,” Marisa said. “Lots of love on all sides.”
“That’s the plan,” Sky said.
They rounded the corner, and from there, could see just how spacious the back yard really was, dwarfing a generously-large wooden patio built onto the house. Interestingly, there were no stairs up and down, only broad ramps. Utilitarian purposes? Or were they used to having someone with mobility limitations around? Or did some kinds of physiology just not work well with stairs?
The yard was studded by a trio of enormous ancient trees with great spreading branches that must cast extensive shade in the summer; a branch of one had a hammock-chair dangling from it, and a full-length hammock had been set up between the trunk of the same tree and a sturdy-looking post. In a more open area was a rather impressive miniature wooden cottage, complete with a window next to the door, and near it was a child-sized picnic table, a sandbox with a canopy over it, and a variety of toys, including a miniature red mountain bike.
On the patio, three mid-sized dogs were sprawled, all of them panting. Marisa was less of an expert on dogs, but she suspected that all three were mixed breeds, extremely diverse in colour, coat, build, head shape, everything. A pair of cats, one tabby, one black tuxie, each wearing a collar, had claimed a particularly sunny bit of railing and were face-to-face in that trancelike relaxed-but-not-asleep zen state that cats were so good at and Marisa wanted to master, absorbing the warmth.
In one of the metal-framed, cushioned patio chairs was a fairly handsome, and definitely fit, Native man with a few threads of silver in his drawn-back black hair, in faded black jeans and a grey T-shirt with an unfamiliar logo on it—maybe a band? He had his phone in one hand, but his attention was on the open patio doors.
“Don’t get carried away!” he called. “Otherwise they won’t eat their supper!”
A small girl, her black hair straggling out of its braid, her dark-grey track pants and royal-blue T-shirt both showing evidence of the ground still being spring-muddy in places, appeared in the doorway with a plastic box in one hand.
“But it might take me a lot of treats to get Easter to sit!”
“Then do what you can for today and try again tomorrow. Too long a training session isn’t good for him. I know Uncle Elliot told you that. And Wolf and Fox will get jealous if you give Easter all the treats.”
The little girl heaved a dramatic sigh. “Fine. But Uncle Elliot said to train him consistently right away so he knows where he stands with us.”
“He’ll be happier if where he stands doesn’t include an upset stomach from too much doggie candy and not enough supper.” He looked away from her and towards the group that had come around the corner. “Hi!”
Sky immediately perched on his lap for a kiss, which he seemed perfectly happy to return. “Heya. Having a fun day?”
“What did you give her for breakfast, a bowl of straight sugar? Even the dogs are tired. The older two, at least, Easter’s still game every time she calls him. She’s been trying to get Wolf to bounce the ball back at her like he did the one time by accident, which is completely confusing him but they all had fun tearing around and she’s not all that upset that he has no idea what she wants.”
Tavi leaned down to steal a kiss of her own. “If only we could all have that kind of energy when we’re adults and need it,” she chuckled. “The cute cat is Marisa, the awesome cyborg is Claudia, and the scary-sexy dragon-lady is Harley. This is Ben.”
At some point during the warm greetings—during which Ben showed absolutely zero indication that there was anything remotely odd about their trio of guests—Sky checked preferences and vanished into the house.
Aria paused only long enough to say hello and be introduced. She was far more interested in her efforts to teach their newest rescue dog to sit for treats. The dog was far more interested in his efforts to teach her to throw his ball for him. A fluffy and probably still juvenile mongrel that might have golden retriever blood somewhere given the shape of his head, Aria had apparently named him Easter because her uncle had given him to her on Easter weekend.
“My brother and mother are both animalists,” Tavi said, sprawling in one of the chairs with a deep sigh and kicking off her shoes so she could rest her feet on the porch railing. “They’ve been teaching her how to train the dogs, and she’s good at it, but I’m not sure who’s going to win this time.”
“The battle of the ages,” Claudia laughed. Marisa noticed that she kept angling her right arm so the sun reflected off the new shiny silver.
Harley settled in a chair where she could brace her own feet much like Tavi’s, angled so she could see the yard; the tabby on the railing stood up and expanded into a dramatic Hallowe’en-cat stretch, yawned, and hopped down to the patio, only to stroll over to investigate. Harley offered a hand, and the tabby sniffed it, rubbed its cheek against it, and reared up to plant both forefeet on the edge of the chair. When Harley patted her lap invitingly, the tabby took her up on it, leaping up and settling in comfortably. Smiling, Harley stroked the cat gently. She looked profoundly content, Marisa thought, not wildly euphoric and excited like Claudia, just something quiet and peaceful, and had ever since Tavi had finished her work.
Marisa, personally, couldn’t stop trying to figure out how to move her ears and her tail. Reverie had done its best, but this felt so much more vivid and so much better even if it also included a learning curve. She was fairly sure that within a couple of days, she’d be wondering how she’d ever managed with human ears and no tail and boring single-coloured skin of any hue and no purr.
Plus she had a jingly collar. She reached up to touch the bell, saw Harley watching her with a smile, and felt her cheeks heat a bit, but she returned the smile as she let her hand fall.
“I doubt it will last long,” Ben said. “And between us, my money’s on Easter. Thanks.” He accepted the platter of raw burgers and large stainless-steel bowl of potatoes Sky handed him, and headed for the barbecue while Sky ducked back inside.
“I do have a specific question about Reverie,” Tavi added. “Along with some general curiosity. There’s no hurry, but I’d love to know, for future reference and because I imagine I’ll eventually need the information, how my changes compare to Reverie’s as far as experienced reality. Sooner or later that’s going to come up. I’m more than happy for Reverie to give people a starting point, but you probably figured out from the million questions I asked, I’m not willing to just accept ‘this happened in Reverie and I want it for real’ with absolutely nothing else. Some people aren’t very introspective and some people have very little familiarity with witches or understand how it works, and real life includes a lot of situations that aren’t going to come up in any game. But I do respect boundaries and in this household, no absolutely does mean no.”
“I probably can’t give you much of an answer,” Claudia said regretfully. “My avatar’s a full-on sci-fi cyborg, completely robotic arm and leg. Or the steampunk version with clockwork instead. The comparison is kind of apples-and-oranges.”
“Fair enough. I think I told you that organic and non-organic get rather fuzzy with high-level morphs, but my experience with deeper cyber-style morphs has been that for anything but very short-term, it isn’t all that successful. Partial ones are actually even less so. Sky loves a full robot form for short periods, but more than about forty-eight hours and he tells me to swap for something else, and it might not come as a surprise that Sky absolutely thrives on frequent morphs, the more novel the better.”
“We’ve spent some time trying to figure out why,” Ben added. “Morphs that include non-organics like clothing are fine, as long as it’s possible to keep clean around them and that kind of thing. Tavi’s range is about as ridiculous as you’d expect from someone who didn’t hit neoarcane until long after everyone had given up and she was well into her twenties.”
“Twenties sounds brutal,” Claudia said, with a wince. “I was eighteen. Actually, it was less than six months before the car accident.”
“Which counts as even more brutal, I’d say,” Tavi said.
Ben nodded. “Definitely. As for cyber-morphs, well, anything she does is based on her perceptions and visualizations. And if it’s more complicated tech than using a phone, she’s at a total loss.”
“I’m, um, really enjoying watching your videos, Marisa,” Tavi said, a hint of colour rising in her cheeks. “Some things actually make more sense now.”
“Glad to hear it,” Marisa said.
“So,” Ben said, “you can just imagine what Tavi’s visualization of the actual functional details of a cyber-morph might be.”
“Sure, make me sound like an idiot in front of three people who are all really into tech,” Tavi said good-naturedly.
“Everyone’s different,” Claudia said. “World would be boring as hell if everyone had the same skills and interests.” Her forehead furrowed. “I wonder what info I’d get, if any, trying to read someone you’d changed to even a partial cyber-morph.”
“Easy to test, but give me a while. I just did four morphs in an hour, and even though Sky made sure none of them were extreme, it’s going to take me time and food to recharge. Some people get really cranky if I push myself.”
“Isn’t that what you keep me around for?” Ben laughed.
“Oh, definitely, the only reason. Just like Sky’s just my secretary.”
“See? We’re all clear on roles. How many treats has Aria given Easter?”
“Six,” Tavi said. “And I’m not seeing much luck on the training. They’re not big treats and he’s probably worked off a lot of calories today. What do you think, stop her at a dozen?”
“Yeah, around there.”