Chapter 11 #2
He shakes his head hard. “No, I—I mean, yes, it would… probably be easier. But you don’t have to do anything for my sake. I invited you.”
There’s that warmth again. That earnest, unguarded way he has of caring.
I sigh and roll my shoulders, feeling the tension bunch there. “If I stay like this,” I say, “I’ll spend the entire time worrying about crushing your table or snapping your chair or flinging a fork through your window. If I shift, I only have to worry about you being weird about nudity.”
His blush surges so fast and hot I can feel it from here.
“That’s a fair point,” he says faintly.
Before I can second-guess myself, I step back from the table, out into the slightly more open space of the clearing.
“Don’t panic,” I warn him. “It looks worse than it feels.”
Then I let the shift roll over me.
Changing shape isn’t a smooth process.
Bones shorten and grind, spine compressing, hips narrowing.
My center of gravity drops. Fur retracts along my limbs and torso, sinking back into skin that darkens, then lightens.
Claws blunt into nails. My hands reshape, fingers lengthening, palms slimming.
My face aches as my jaw and brow pull inward, nose sharpening.
I’ve done this plenty of times, but never in front of a human.
There’s a moment—brief but always a little exhilarating—where I’m halfway between forms, everything in flux. Then it finishes, and I’m just… smaller. Softer. Significantly less durable-looking.
My feet settle into the leaf litter, bare and human. The air feels different against my skin. Colder. More exposed.
When I open my eyes, Elias is on the ground.
He’s literally fallen over.
He sits sprawled in the dirt, one hand braced behind him, the other clutched to his chest like he’s manually keeping his heart from escaping.
His eyes are huge.
His gaze travels from my face down my torso, lingering for a beat too long on the fact that, yes, I am completely naked, and then snaps back up again so fast, I’m surprised he doesn’t injure something.
Humans are very weird about nudity.
In my sasquatch form, everything sensitive is tucked away, protected by fur and structure. It only… presents itself… when needed. Intentionally or otherwise. Here, though? Human bodies are just on display all the time. I’ve never understood it.
“Do you… need something to cover yourself?” Elias asks, voice a little strangled.
“If it’ll make you more comfortable,” I reply.
“It might keep me from dying of embarrassment,” he says bluntly.
“Then yes,” I say. “A covering would be good.”
He scrambles to his feet so fast he nearly trips again. “Stay there,” he says, as though I’m the flight risk in this scenario, and bolts into the station.
I stand in the clearing, suddenly hyperaware of everything.
The way the evening air brushes every inch of my skin.
The way this body, while still tall and broad by human standards, feels smaller, more precarious.
The way the scents of food and smoke mix with Elias’s scent wafting from the open door.
He returns a moment later clutching a towel.
It isn’t large.
He stops dead a few feet away, clearly realizing at the same moment that the towel might be… insufficient.
“Oh no,” he mutters. “I didn’t think this through.”
“It’ll be fine,” I say, trying not to laugh at his horrified expression. I take pity on him and relieve him of the towel, wrapping it around my waist. It fits. Barely. It reaches mid-thigh and strains a bit when I move, but it covers enough that he visibly relaxes.
“Better?” I ask.
He nods rapidly. “Yes. Definitely. Much better. So much better. This is fine. Totally fine. We are fine.”
He is not fine.
He’s flustered and pink and adorable.
I sit carefully in the camp chair he intended for me. It creaks under my weight but holds. He sinks into his own chair opposite, still staring at me with the intensity of someone watching a rare solar eclipse.
I pick up the fork.
This time, it feels more or less proportionate.
He seems weirdly pleased by that.
“So,” he says, in a tone that suggests he’s desperately trying to act normal, “this is your human form.”
“Yes.”
“And you can switch between them.”
“Yes.”
“And you do that… often?”
“Less often than you’d think,” I answer. “It’s inconvenient. Clothing is required in most human spaces, and frankly, shopping is a nightmare.”
A startled laugh escapes him. “I imagine so.”
We start eating.
I’m in the middle of deciding whether it would be rude to tell him the mushrooms are particularly good when I feel it—that familiar, infuriating shift in the air that means he has arrived.
A soft scrabble sounds at the edge of the clearing. Then a gray blur darts into view and hops straight onto the table like it’s been personally invited. The squirrel. That squirrel. The one who’s appointed himself my shadow, my auditor, and apparently my public relations nightmare.
Elias’s face lights up instantly. “Hey,” he says, delighted. “It’s you again.” He laughs, warm and unguarded, as if this is a charming coincidence and not an ongoing campaign of harassment.
I lock my jaw. “Do not,” I say flatly, without looking at either of them, “feed him.”
The squirrel chirps, loud and pleased, then scampers across the table with zero hesitation and launches himself onto my lap.
Onto the towel. Onto my bare, human thighs.
I freeze so hard I nearly lock my knees.
The squirrel settles in like he’s found his throne, tail flicking smugly, tiny paws clutching a stolen piece of food as he begins to eat.
Elias makes a startled, choked sound that is absolutely the beginning of laughter.
I glare at him, a flush crawling up my neck. “If you say one word,” I warn, teeth clenched, “I will shift back and pretend this entire evening never happened.”
The squirrel chitters triumphantly and flicks his tail directly against my stomach, crumbs falling onto the towel like an insult. I do not move. I do not breathe. I endure.
This is what I get for lowering my guard. This is what I get for sitting down. This is what I get for letting a human see me like this at all.
Eventually, the squirrel loses interest—either bored by my refusal to react or satisfied with his victory—and springs away into the undergrowth. I release a breath, straighten the towel with what dignity I can salvage, and pick up my fork as if none of it happened.
The food is very good. The meat is tender and flavorful. The vegetables are delicious. The potatoes are soft and buttery. I tell him so, and he beams like I’ve just written him a glowing performance review.
As we eat, the questions return.
He wants to know if all sasquatch can shift or if it’s unique to certain lineages. How old I am, how old I can get. If the blur is connected to the shift or something separate. If I always live in this region or migrate.
His enthusiasm is relentless. It should feel invasive—these questions poke at the edges of things I’ve kept secret for centuries—but somehow, when Elias asks them, it feels more like being invited to walk through a door I usually keep locked.
Sometimes I answer vaguely. Sometimes I say, “That’s a story for another day.” Sometimes I give him the truth.
“Yes, most of my kind can shift.”
“No, we don’t all choose to.”
“Yes, the blur is instinctive. It reacts to human perception.”
“Yes, I’m older than I look.”
“How much older?” he asks, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, eyes shining.
I hesitate. I shouldn’t tell him. There are thresholds of information that, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed. Age is a big one.
“Old enough to remember when this valley had no roads,” I say. “Old enough to remember when the first surveyors came through, arguing about what to name things.”
His eyes widen. “That is… wow.”
I shrug, suddenly self-conscious. “Longevity has advantages. And drawbacks.”
He sobers a little at that, then brightens again.
“Do you know other cryptids?” he asks.
My internal alarms immediately start firing. I shouldn’t have mentioned that word. I didn’t mean to. It slipped out, one careless label in a long conversation a couple of days ago.
He sees my hesitation and backs off a little, raising one hand. “Sorry,” he says. “If that’s too much, you don’t have to answer.”
I should deflect.
I should say no.
Instead, I hear myself say, “Yes. I know others.”
His eyes light up like a kid at a fireworks show. “Like who?” he breathes.
I press my lips together, but the damage is done. The wall has a crack, and curiosity is very small and very persistent.
“There’s a thunderbird who runs a very large event every summer,” I say carefully. “You would like him. He’s loud and dramatic and very good at making a spectacle out of everything.”
Elias laughs. “That sounds like someone who runs a festival, yes.”
“And there are… others,” I say. “Rex and Calder. They would never let me live it down if they knew how much I’ve told you.”
“Rex and Calder?” he repeats, pouncing on the names. “What are they?”
“That,” I say, inwardly cursing myself, “is classified.”
He makes an affronted noise. “You can’t just drop names like that and not elaborate.”
“I can, actually. I’m very good at it.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little,” I admit.