Midnight on the Plain

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

7/18/98:

"Wake up!" I heard someone say, almost yelling into my ear.
It woke me up instantly, though I didn't show it. I just
twitched my tail and slowly opened one eye.

I was expecting Oria, but to my surprise she wasn't there.
Instead, standing in front of me, with a smug look on her
muzzle, was Rhea! She was currently a lioness morph, just
has she had been for the past month and a half.

The question was how she got out of her cage.

Opening both eyes I lifted my head to look at her. We were
out someplace on the grass plain, well away from the
campsite.

She crouched down to look at me. "Enjoying my body?" She
asked with a smile

I gave a mental shrug as I got onto all fours. I was, as she
said, in her body. I couldn't return to my own form until
tomorrow.

She patted my on my head with her paw, right between my
ears. "I suppose you're wondering how I got out of the cage
you put me in?"

The thought had crossed my mind.

She laughed, folding her legs under her as she sat in the
grass. "I've always had a key, I just didn't know how to use
it until a few days ago. I just needed for you to be in the
right state of mind so you wouldn't notice."

This was a dream, there was no way I could talk to her face
to face like this otherwise. Some times I'm a bit slow on
the uptake, it should have been obvious.

Rhea nodded. "You never were very useful right after you
woke up. Even having my reflexes doesn't help."

Of course she could read my mind, she was right there in it.

"You could read mine as well if you bothered to, but I would
rather talk. Here," she reached out and touched my nose.
There came a sudden shift in perspective and I found myself
on my paws and knees.

"It's like looking in a mirror," she said with a smirk.

I gave myself a quick once over. I had become a lioness
morph. From her comments I looked just like her. Which made
sense if both of us were the morphic form of the same body.

"So," I said, ignoring the changed sound of my voice. "What
brings you into this dream of mine?"

She smiled. "I've been thinking."

I withheld my first response to that comment. Instead I
tried to be a bit more direct then usually was. "You still
claim my body as yours?"

"My claim is just as valid as yours Foxy," she answered.

I snorted, "I was born in this body."

"And so was I!" She said, suddenly nose to nose with me.

I moved back a few inches. "And what do you expect me to do
about it, vacate?"

She just smiled.

"I already fought you once for this body," I said, putting
more force into my voice.

"And you lost," She answered back, the tone of her voice
hadn't changed.

"You had a head start," I countered.

She sat back a bit, her ears flickering. "We were not one at
the time either."

I was brought up short, I hadn't expected that responses and
didn't know what to make of it. "How do you mean, 'we were
not one'?"

She laughed. "Just what it sounds like Foxy! When you where
cursed, when I was given this body, we were separate in mind
and soul. Once you pushed me back, once you stopped one from
take the other, our minds slowly became one."

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

"I can see that," she answered. "Let me try and explain.
Remember how I was becoming more morphic during our dealings
in the the first weeks after you woke up?"

I nodded, not sure what she was getting at.

"That was also when you stopped over compensating for the
changes in your body." She continued, "You see, some how we
became one, I have access to your thoughts and your
memories. You have the same access to my instincts and my
natural abilities."

Slowly I shook my head.

She nodded. "Oh yes, I am right, and you know it. You're
talking to yourself, my original mind with yours backing
it."

"How can that be?"

She smiled. "I don't know, and frankly I don't care. I'm
here because I have proposition for you."

"What is it?" I asked with a frown.

Rhea leaned forward, tapping me on the forehead. "I want you
to close your eyes and think about me, think about seeing as
me."

I started to protest but she put one of her paws on top of
my muzzle. "No Foxy, don't say anything, just do it,
please."

Pulling away I looked her over slowly, there was something
in her eyes, concern maybe. Some worry, but also hope. There
was something else as well, sincerity, I didn't think she
was trying to trick me.

I nodded, closing my eyes and thinking about her, sitting
just accost from me. I felt a chill run down my spine all
the way to the tip of my tail. I jumped back suddenly, my
eyes flying open. Rhea sat accost from me still, not moving
at all.

In fact she started to fade away, breaking up and vanishing
into the dreamscape. I growled out loud, she HAD tricked me!

"I have done no such thing," she whispered into my ear.

I spun around on my heal, searching for her, my eyes
scanning the now empty plain.

"How do you feel?" She said, her voice still a whisper.

"Angry," I whispered back.

She laughed in my ears. "And what do you want to do about
it?"

I felt another growl rising in the back of my throat. "I
want to hunt you down."

"Precisely," she said with soft purr, "you've become me."

"What?" I hissed.

"This is my proposition, you are now me." She said, her
voice growing softer, "you have my mind and what comes with
it. You can change back to yourself just as easily. All I
want is to be you when we're me. For those three days I want
my body, it will be yours the rest of the time."

I felt a slight shiver pass over me, suddenly I was back to
all fours, a normal lioness again. Her voice was gone now,
but I knew what she said was true, I was her. Right now I
was a human made a lioness, not a human playing a lioness.

"Agreed," I thought as the dream world faded out.

* * *

This time I came to awake in the real world, not just in my
dreams. I was in the tent with Oriana, she was curled up
next to me, sleeping deeply.

I had this overwhelming urge to go out and run over the
plain. I quickly decided that I should do so, I only had a
few more hours as Rhea, I wanted to enjoy it.

Slowly I moved away from Oriana, nosing my way under the
tent flap and out under the stars. My night vision pulled in
the light from above easily, making it seem more like dusk
then midnight.

I padded away from the campsite, keeping myself low to the
ground to prevent anyone who was awake from seeing me. Once
I felt I was far enough away I rose to my full high and
started through the grass at a brisk pace.

With each time my paws landed on the soft ground I increased
my speed. Running hard, the wind whipping through my fur as
my tail moved behind. This was amazing, more so then I had
even imagined, it was almost sensual.

I just wished that this world had some kind of prey on it so
I could hunt. Yes, Oriana had brought some fresh meat for
me. It was her surprise, but it just did not compare to the
taste of hot blood from a fresh kill.

Suddenly the night was broken by the sound of hooves
pounding past my side. They were attached to a large white
horse, the unicorn I had been seeing before.

She turned her head back to look at me as she keep her pace
a few feet ahead, her horn catching the starlight. 'Looking
for a hunt?' She asked, her voice echoing in my ears.

'Of course,' I answered back in the same fashion. Neither
one of us used any words, we just knew what the other was
saying.

She laughed, throwing her head back, sending her mane into
the air. 'Then catch me!' She yelled, running faster as she
started to pull away.

I pushed myself harder, each pace bringing me closer to the
limit of my speed. Slowly though I was gaining on her, inch
by inch as I closed in on her tail. Then with all my
strength I put on a burst of speed and leaped for her. Paws
wide apart, mouth open, I came down on her rump.

Then I did and swan dive into the grass as she was suddenly
gone. I landing face first, tucking myself and rolling over
a few times before I slid to a stop. I couldn't have missed
her, there was just no way I could have!

'Well you caught me,' she said as she lowered herself on to
the grass a few feet to the side of where she had vanished.
'Sorry about disappearing though, I wasn't in the mood to be
eaten.'

I snorted, licking one of my paws. 'Why call it a hunt if
I'm not allowed to catch you?'

She waved her horn to one side. Now, lying next to her in
the grass, was a freshly killed horse. 'You did catch me,
but you may eat from her'.

I rose to my feet, padding over and smelling the body. It
was a fresh kill, the heart had just stopped beating. It
even had my sent on it. I licked my lips and dove into the
beast's belly, ripping through the flesh and gorging myself.

Some time later, when my belly was full and I was cleaning
the blood from my paws I saw that the unicorn had not left.
She had moved away a few feet, but was still there, watching
me.

'You don't usually stay this long.' I commented.

She nodded, 'I usual can't talk to you Fox,' she answered.

I shrugged my shoulders, stretching out in the grass.
'We'll, we're both animals now, does that help?'

'We're both smart animals,' she responded. 'That is why I
can talk to you without hurting you.'

I nodded my head, then went back to cleaning my paws. 'This
is the fifth time you have appeared to me. Why do I
fascinate you so?'

She laughed softly, a sound that was like nothing I had ever
heard before. 'I've been sent to watch you and help you at
times.'

'Then why am I like this to begin with?' I responded, not
even bothering to look up.

'Because there was nothing I could do until you awoke. If
you did at all.'

I nodded, moving to my other paw. 'I see, so you did help me
in the caves on Draz's world?'

'Yes, that was all real.'

I looked up at her, narrowing my eyes. 'How could all of it
have been real?' I demanded.

She shook her head. 'I'm not allowed to tell you that.'

I felt a growl starting to build at the back of my throat,
'by who? Who sent you to watch me?'

'The Neverending,' she said, the echo's of her voice almost
a whispered. It sent a shiver down my body, that was the
same word that had been in Becky's journal.

'What is it and what did Becky have to do with it?' I
demanded.

She shook her head again. 'The pantheress, the one you saw
in the caves. Becky was a friend of hers.'

'And the Neverending?' I again demanded.

'The Neverending is who left the Wyrm in the caves for you
to go around, as a test. It is older then some of the
universe in the multi-verse.' She seemed to smile, 'and it
saved my life.'

I rose to all fours, I understood what wasn't being said.
'What was the cost of it saving you?' I asked.

'My service,' she said with a laugh, then suddenly was gone.
The grass was not even bent from her presence.

I growled softly, looking around me for any sighs of her.
The only evidence that she was even there was my full belly.

In the distance the sun was starting to peek over the
horizon. Oriana would be waking up soon, and she would be
worried if I wasn't there. Slowly I turned around and
started walking back to camp, so I could become human again.

-----

This story is (c) 1998 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.