Eirik: New page: Category:Story Category:Eirik Category:Animal {{DEFAULTSORT:Trust}} {{title|name=Trust|user=Eirik|author=Eirik}} Elaine nervously turned the key in the lock and opened the doo...

2007-09-13T00:34:28Z

New page: Category:Story Category:Eirik Category:Animal {{DEFAULTSORT:Trust}} {{title|name=Trust|user=Eirik|author=Eirik}} Elaine nervously turned the key in the lock and opened the doo...

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[[Category:Story]] [[Category:Eirik]] [[Category:Animal]] {{DEFAULTSORT:Trust}}
{{title|name=Trust|user=Eirik|author=Eirik}}
Elaine nervously turned the key in the lock and opened the door
to her darkened home. The slightly cool night air gave way to the
warm, musty smell of her home, a mixture of dog smells and spices
from her kitchen. Even before she turned on the light, she could
hear the steady thumping across the entryway tile. The quickly
reached out and flipped on the switch.

Shadow was laying on the floor next to the stairs, his tail
thumping in welcome on the wood floor. She set down the bag of
groceries and the book bag she carried and stepped over to him.
As she did, he raised his head off the floor, an invitation to be
scratched.

"How are you doing, boy?" she asked as he licked her hand in
response. She laughed a little. "Is that affection or the pizza I
had for lunch?"

The big black Labrador simple kept licking her fingers.

She stood and anxiously picked up the bag from the entryway table
and walked into the kitchen. She started setting the items on the
countertop in anticipation of cooking them later. A steak, the
thickest that she could find, sat under it's plastic membrane
waiting to be cooked. The vegetables she dropped into a colander
to clean in a little while. She pulled out the two bottles of
wine from the bag and set them aside.

She could never remember what kind of wine to serve with steak.
No matter, though. Her guest had never had wine before. He might
want to try both.

She heard the slight click of nails on the white tile floor,
followed quickly by Shadow nuzzling her leg. She looked down into
his pleading eyes and smiled. Over the years, he had begging down
to an art form. His one problem was that he didn't know when to
quit. He kept the same look on his face no matter how much you
gave him.

She scratched his head and he closed his eyes in thanks. "Don't
worry, Shadow, you'll get your share."

Shadow started wagging his tail at the sound of her voice.

With a final pat, she pulled her hand away. She looked down to
see that he had resumed begging as she put the rest of the
groceries away. She intended to ignore it, but in the end, she
relented and handed a small piece of meat to him. He scarfed it
down gratefully and looked back at her like a starving puppy.

She sighed. "You're incorrigible. Hopefully that won't be the
same later." She walked back to the entry and picked up the book
bag. She could hear Shadow following her slowly as she walked
into the living room and took a seat on the couch. As usual,
Shadow jumped onto the sofa next to her and laid his head in her
lap. She absently started petting it as she opened the book to
the page she had inserted the red leather bookmark into earlier.

She read the page once more, looking for anything that she might
have missed. She wasn't sure if she could believe what she was
reading, but after years of being alone, save for her companion
Shadow, she was willing to try almost anything. She bent down and
kissed her dog on the head, patted him once more, and then
concentrated on saying aloud the words in the ancient book.

She concentrated hard on the words, hoping with each syllable
that she was pronouncing them right. She focused solely on the
yellowed page, the slightly faded letters, and never wavered.
After only a minute, a minute that seemed oddly longer, it was
done. As per the final instruction printed, she slammed the tome
closed and dropped it to the floor.

For a moment, she felt drained. It was a fleeting feeling,
though, that left her an instant later. Slowly, she lowered her
gaze down to the form laying half asleep in her lap. Despite what
she expected, it was still a shock.

Where Shadow had been a moment ago lay a young, black hared man.
With a quivering voice, she stammered "Shadow?"

The man's eyes slowly came open. For a moment, he lay perfectly
still. Elaine noted that he even seemed to hold his breath.
Abruptly he pulled himself into a crouched position on the sofa
next to here and silently began looking at his hands. He turned
them over and over again, tracing the fingerprints with his eyes.
A light seemed to dawn in those brown eyes and he twisted around,
seeming to confirm that he no longer had a tail. He turned back
and looked at Elaine with a look of panic. "What happened?" he
asked.

Elaine smiled, still herself a little in shock that the spell had
actually worked. According to the words written on the page of
that leather bound tome, the animal changed to human would become
something of a match for the person that changed it. The animal
would gain the spell casters level of intelligence and many of
her abilities, but would retain whatever general personality that
it had. The two words that he spoke seemed to confirm the first
part, to a degree. She silently prayed that it would all be true.

She reached out to him and hugged him tightly. "I made you human,
Shadow."

Still confused, he asked "Why?"

Elaine drew back slightly and regarded her companion. "Because
you've always been more than just a pet to me. I wanted to give
you more." As he regarded her with those same, brown, pleading
eyes, she sighed slightly, "And, because I wanted you to be more
than a dog."

He looked at his hands again, and then sniffed the air. "I can't
smell anything." He said in a dull monotone. "I'm cold."

For the first time, Elaine realized that he was naked and she
took a wool blanket from a nearby chair and wrapped him in it. He
started feeling his face with his new hands, seeming to take
inventory of his lost features. As he did so, Elaine had a
sickening feeling growing in her stomach. She looked at his eyes,
as expressive at they ever were, and tears started to roll down
her cheeks.

Shadow looked at her and gently asked, "What's wrong?"

"You're mad." She said quietly. "I've done something terrible."

Now, it was his turn to hug her, and he embraced her lovingly.
"I'm not mad. Confused, perhaps, but not mad."

Her tears stopped rolling, "You're not?"

He smiled lightly, "No."

She looked into his eyes a long time, realization dawning in
hers. "But, you didn't want this."

He sat back a little on the sofa. "Elaine, a few minutes ago, I
couldn't have even conceived of this. I was more interested in
getting you to give me more of that steak than anything else." He
stopped, seeming to weigh the words he was about to use. "But. .
.but now that I can understand it, I don't want to be like this."

"But, why? I thought that you would love it."

"Let me put it to you this way." he said gently, "How would you
have reacted if I had made you a dog?"

She looked at him for a long time, her mouth slowly dropping open
as the thoughts raced through her head. Abruptly, the dam burst
and she broke down in loud sobs. Stunned, Shadow couldn't think
of anything else to do but hold her tightly until she regained
control of herself.

After a couple of minutes, she said between sobs, "My God. . .I'm
sorry. . .Shadow. I had. . .no idea. . .I'm sorry. . "

Without knowing why, Shadow began to rock her back and forth
slightly, running a hand back and forth along her upper back as
she slowly calmed down. She pulled back a little and looked him
in the eyes. "You're not mad at me?" she asked, again.

Shadow smiled lightly. "No. I can never be mad at you. I may look
like a man, but I still have the soul of that four legged thing
that walked around here before. As a dog, I loved you
unconditionally, and even if I didn't realize it, I always knew
you had the best of intentions. I still do."

She smiled, her eyes red from crying. "I'm sorry." She whispered
again.

"Don't be. You never have to apologize to me. Besides, you can
always just turn me back, and all will be right."

As a dog, he had been an expert at sensing emotions. He could
tell when Elaine was in a good mood or bad and anything in
between. Looking into her eyes, she saw the growing panic behind
them. He sensed her struggle. He closed his own eyes as he
realized what it was she wanted to tell him, but couldn't.

"You can't change me back, can you?" he asked.

That brought a new flood of tears as he held her again. He rocked
her back and forth a long time, but every time she seemed to
regain her composure, there was a new flood of tears. He started
whispering into her ear, "It's all right, don't worry. It's all
right."

It took her nearly an hour to cry herself out. She had pent up so
much emotion over her years of loneliness that it all seemed to
come out in that one burst of regret. She wanted to be able to
turn back time, to put right what she had done to her one true
friend.

Shadow merely wanted her to stop crying. His heart was a little
heavy about his loss, but he was being honest when he told it was
all right. He knew that she didn't do anything out of malice, and
he couldn't conceive of ever hating her for it.

She finally stopped crying, her eyes puffy and red. She looked at
him again, with pleading eyes. "Can you forgive me?"

"Elaine, I'm being honest with you. There isn't anything to
forgive. I'm not mad. I know why you did it, and I suppose that
if our situations were reversed I'd have done the same. Please,
it looks like we are going to be companions for a long time, now.
Let's not start with you thinking I'm mad."

For the first time, he stood comfortably on two legs, surveying
his new limbs, stretching new muscles. He looked toward the
kitchen. "If memory serves, you came in with a bag of food. I
seem to recall smelling a steak in there. Am I safe in assuming
that it was dinner?"

She smiled for the first time in over an hour, seeing her first
opportunity to apologize in some small way for what she had done,
even if it wasn't required. "Yes! It is dinner! Care to give me a
hand at cooking it?" she asked as she stood from the couch,
wiping her cheeks.

He smiled, "I'll try. I've never cooked before, though."

"You've never walked and talked either, and you seem to be doing
that pretty well."

He nodded, "Good point. Why don't you get started. I'll be right
behind you in a minute."

She nodded and hurried to the kitchen, leaving him standing in
the living room. After she left, he knelt to the floor in the
closest approximation of a dogs stance that he could now manage.
He tried to turn himself back, tried as hard as he could to
imagine himself a dog again, but failed.

With a sigh he stood, brushed the stray black hairs off his bare
knees, and walked into the kitchen.

User:Eirik/Trust - Revision history

Eirik: New page: Category:Story Category:Eirik Category:Animal {{DEFAULTSORT:Trust}} {{title|name=Trust|user=Eirik|author=Eirik}} Elaine nervously turned the key in the lock and opened the doo...