"So I don't necessarily need to go on a scavenger hunt, good. Can the staff be made smaller without The Small? I don't think it'll fit in my backpack like so, and carrying it around openly would be needlessly attention-getting."

"You just need to will it to return to its Key shape."

Staff: Become key.

"I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow's Saturday so I can go out to the middle of nowhere and practice with Float and Windy some more. Our family doesn't do dessert at breakfast, fair warning." Because sweets are blatantly obviously one of the best paths to Cerberus's goodwill. "Though pancakes with syrup and chocolate sauce might count."

"They dooooo!"

"I'll try to swing some then."

And he gets ready for bed, and then sleeps.

Cerberus finds a comfortable-looking soft spot and sleeps, too.

At breakfast the next morning, Terry does manage to get two pancakes with syrup and chocolate sauce and whipped cream for Cerberus. He includes a fork.

Cerberus wakes up, yawns, looks around blinking and—

-screams.

"Augh, shh, shush!" He pokes his head out the room door. "I'm okay just stubbed my toe!"

"What's wrong, Cerberus?"

"Who's Cerberus? Who are you? Why are you huge? Where am I what's going on-"

"Oh hell. I think a card got you. Um. I'm not huge, you're small. I learned about magic yesterday when I found these magic cards, some things happened, long story short most of 'em are out there loose causing havoc. One got you, I think. Time would cover amnesia, change if you and Cerberus got swapped..."

"What are you talking about?!"

"Magic exists. Surprise. You are an unsuspecting victim of same, and I'm going to fix it. Allow me to demonstrate." He finds the key-staff and wills it to be big again.

It very unhelpfully remains key-shaped!

"I know magic exists, and it'd be obvious anyway now that I suddenly woke up in—" He looks around. "Your room instead of mine."

"Someone else who knows more about this stuff than me. I should have quizzed Cerberus more. Hm." The activation phrase yesterday was something like 'Oh Key, grant him the power.' ...Half of tech support is trying the obvious thing.

"Oh, Key, show your true power. Release!"

That works.

"I presume Cerberus is," he looks down, then behind himself at his tail, then up at Terry, "this stuffed bear's name."

"Yes. Did you happen to interact with a strange card, looking something like..." He searches for the Clow Book, aiming to take out Float.

Float is exactly where he left it.

"...This? Clow cards. Very powerful, currently most of them uncontrolled due to an accident that scattered them everywhere when I tried to use one."

He peers at it. "Never seen anything like that." Pause. "Oh, duck, Cerberus is in my body, isn't he."

"Duck? Anyway, probably, yes. Which is why we have to fix it as soon as possible. I don't think he'll deal with it gracefully. I can supposedly detect the loose cards while they're active if I meditate, so I'm going to do that."

He sits cross-legged, staff in hand but cards off to the side since he's looking for something else.

...well, he looks like he knows what he's doing. Whoever-it-is that's inside Cerberus' body will watch.

His meditative trance will come to him a little bit more easily than the previous day.

Looking like you know what you're doing is a valuable skill.

He carefully doesn't think about determining in which direction might he be feeling something that's not Cerberus-y, Windy, or Float. It really is getting easier.

It's easier but still not easy, and kinda slow going. Whoever-it-is that's in Cerberus' body seems to glow somewhat less brightly than Cerberus himself. The more he waits, the farther his consciousness expands.

Calm. Calm. Reach out and out and out...