She glances at them, makes brief eye contact and an acknowledging nod, and, since he wants them back, starts the process of skimming through them and copying anything that looks particularly important into shorthand in her own notebook. Fortunately she's already read the book they're currently working on. She's going to be lucky if she makes it all the way through math, but English she has down.

He smiles a bit when she returns them. It annoys him when he has to remind people. Then goes back to paying attention. If she wants to zone out, that's entirely her choice and notes man is not going to judge her. He's taking notes for two, considering how his sister tends to ignore the class. So he doesn't get the luxury. Write, write, write.

When class ends, Bella frowns at her map in confusion. It has room numbers on it, but she doesn't know how to avoid getting turned around in between the little identical buildings.

"Thank you," she adds as she follows him through the rain. "For the notes."

"You're welcome," says helpful notes man. "I moved here mid-term last year, it sucks to play catch-up."

"At least I know the town," she says ruefully. "It's just I've only been here summers before -" She stops. She starts looking at room numbers as they pass doors.

"If you don't mind. The buildings look all alike."

"Hi again. Thanks."

Again he gets them back before the end of class.

"Thank you. For the notes, for not interrogating me like everybody else and their cousin," she murmurs.

"You're welcome. I do know what it's like to be on the other side of 'new student, bring into the gossip collective' syndrome and it's quite annoying. Would you like me to try to help? My sister and I tag-teamed to distract them when one of us didn't want to talk. I could do something similar?"

"Maybe. If it wouldn't be any trouble or make me look more antisocial than I do anyway."

"If you're going to - run interference - it's not that it's a secret, I just don't want to say it fifty times -" She's briefly interrupted by the teacher saying something moderately important, she writes it down. "I'm here," she says when it's back to droning filler, "because my mom died."

"...Thank you."

"Bella," says Bella.

They sit, notes are exchanged, and then Savannah says, "Hey, Darren, preferences on how she finds out about the why we're here thing?"

"Damn. Right, then. Before the gossip mongers show up and you get the wrong story - our mom is cray-cray, her baby-daddy is long gone, and we're happily adopted. There, that was easy. I'm getting better at this."

"Makes sense," says Bella. "I've pretty much been - just not saying."

"Completely understandable. I'll explain if anyone asks."

"I'm not going to, by the way. 'Cause Darren would make a face and get huffy with me if I did," says Savannah brightly.

"That's clearly the best reason not to ask. Fraternal disapproval."

"Hey, you haven't seen some of his faces. He's got a mean glare. That shit's what nightmares are made of."

Darren snorts. "Language. We're in school."

"Thanks, dad."

"How uptight are you on the subject of swearing exactly?"

"He mostly just likes to give me grief about it."

"Okay."

"Only after that spat with your ex-friend in the hallway. Before then I just politely ignored it," challenges Darren.

"... Yeah, okay, some of the things I said there were pretty bad," laughs his sister. "But you love me anyway, right?"

"Right, so," says Savannah, glancing between all parties involved. "Want me to go - gossip and spread the news since you are a pretty wallflower, Darren?"

He gives her a look. "Not a wallflower, but by all means. I'd appreciate it."

"The nonexistent ones that you like to imagine me in where I pretend to be a pretty princess? By all means, your strange fantasies are your own."

She snorts. "Right, whatever. Going to go feed the gossip-zombies. Bye, nerd."

"Can you?" she inquires.

"No. That's what would make it a comedy show."

"I will do without. But I appreciate it."

"You're welcome. I'm afraid I can't sing or dance either, so - I'm really quite terrible at this."

"It's your fault for missing all those extremely comprehensive and well-designed lessons in which they teach teenaged amateurs how to comfort each other in response to delicate highly emotional situations without losing sight of the fact that everyone processes things differently. Why is your attendance so bad?"

"It will serve you right when you get a D in Impromptu Counseling and have to take Remedial Decency. They will walk you through the correct use of 'please' and 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' five thousand times. Then come the standardized tests."

"Oh no, not the standardized tests. Bubble in the correct letter for the action you should take in a situation. Choices between, 'Question a person incessantly' or 'Leave them alone if they seem to want you to' are so difficult, I'm doomed."

"No, no, that's clearly too advanced for you. Skip too many classes and that's what you get."

"Yes, it is, I'm lucky if I pass at all, even with a D. I might have to get a tutor. 'This is how you small talk without being a twit.' Maybe Angela will help."

"Angela? I met her in gym, she wanted to know if I was okay after I got permission to sit out and do yoga and situps. She seems nice."

"She is. We're study buddies, if you're looking for someone who will leave you alone when you want them to, she's a good bet."

"Being bothered by people paying attention to me isn't actually a typical problem for me. Although having to sit out of gym is. I can just about walk without falling over and breaking my nose; running is out of the question."

"That sounds painful. Ow. Have you seen a doctor or something?"

"I meet the diagnostic criteria for a disorder that is basically fancy acronym speak for 'you are really clumsy and we have no earthly clue why'. Since they have no earthly idea why they can't really treat it. I tried a cane in the doctor's office once, and promptly tripped anyway and thwacked a nurse in the face with it, so that idea was abandoned; more significant interventions aren't worth the hassle. I'm fine ninety percent of the time if I don't try to run or climb trees or whatever."

"Makes sense. Sorry that's a problem. Wish I could help, but unfortunately - not omnipotent. Despite notes in high school being some kind of cheat code where everyone wants to talk to you."

"Is there lots of demand, should I start offering to sell mine when I'm caught up enough?"

"Maybe, but I think I'm underselling you if you sell them. It started when someone asked, I gave them notes, and it kind of spiraled from there when their friends read said notes and wanted in. Now I am Earth Science guru and the Notes Man. I mean if you do, go for it, it might get some of them to shoo from me and go to your theoretical better product. I won't complain."

"If I were going to make a business of it I don't know if I'd claim my notes are outright better, but I might preemptively run them through the school copier so they wouldn't have to give them back or avoid spilling beverages."

"... That's a good idea. I should use that. That would be very helpful."

"I don't actually know if they'll let me use the copier. But I know they have one. I was in the office this morning getting my schedule and my map."

"It's a good idea, nonetheless. Thank you for sharing it, I'm borrowing it."

"Well, there goes my ability to corner the market on selling a class's worth of notes for fifty cents."

"Yup, that's what happens when you tell your competition, 'Hey, photocopying is a thing that you can do.' I don't know why you thought any different."

"Next time I'll have a patent lawer."

"Good, good. Glad this has taught you well."

"Even though I'll use my knowledge to defeat you? Mwahaha?"

"Hey, my entire motivation for getting into this business is, 'Let's everyone try to learn things' so.... Yes. Knowledge for all."

"Well, there's learning Earth Science and then there's learning - marketing and manufacture."

"Are you personally in a position to hamstring the entire world? Should I be polishing my resume for you to get in on whatever cool world-changing thing you are doing?"

He snorts. "I wish. No, sorry, but if I find something I will keep you in mind. There's lots of things I would fix if I could."

"Me too. Haven't picked one yet. I have a list in order by ratio of upside to likelihood with margin notes about fallback positions from the requisite college majors and skillsets."

Darren smiles at her, then replies, "That's pretty impressive. My goals on the matter are, 'I don't know, science or social services or something, I guess.' Science because I'm good at it and it can be used to improve lives everywhere, social services because it's kind of a mess."

"My list could be summarized as 'medicine or politics or something I guess'."

He snickers. "Both good things, if used right. I don't have the backing to get into politics, you need either lots of money or lots of charisma and I don't meet either requirement, I think. But it's an option, if I ever become incredibly rich. Or charismatic, I suppose."

"I wasn't necessarily thinking elected office, although I could easily fail hard enough at charisma to be hedged out of appointed positions, too. 'Politics' also loosely covers things like working for activism organizations. The ACLU or whatever."

"Aha. My mind went to, 'Gets up there and speeches at things and is hopefully not horrifically corrupt' instead of other options. I need to think more outside of the box, apparently."

"Yes. What are you even doing in that box? Is it nice there?"

"Sure. You can just keep a little nest in your box."

"I'll come back to visit with trophies of my outside-of-the-box explorations, and put them on the walls or shelves or something. The box will end up very nicely decorated by the end of it."

"Sounds crowded, with all that stuff."

"Well I'll have to get the box renovated, of course. To make room."

"Expand the box according to the findings of your explorations."

"Exactly. Anything less would be a waste."

Bella giggles.

Darren giggles, too. "It won't even be recognizable as a box when I'm done with it."

"It will look more like an entire apartment complex or something."

"Little restaurants on the ground floor. Lounge with pinball machines. Rooftop garden, or does that start to count as not being in the box-cum-complex anymore?"

He snickers. "Yes, each room gets its own cool thing so everyone who ventures out of their room gets a pleasant surprise. I guess the rooftop garden would count as partially not in the box, but some people can take it, I think. That's probably a preparation to help anyone that would like to get out of the box but isn't quite ready, yet."

"And when they've gotten used to the garden they can stretch their metaphorical wings."

"Yup! Then off they go, to decorate their own boxes, and my job is done," he laughs.

Bella laughs. "Well, that sounds pretty straightforward. Get on that, what are you waiting for?"

"What's a high school diploma going to do for you on the box decoration front?"

"Mostly gets people to take me more seriously and not say 'Oh you are in high school, you are automatically wrong. About everything.'"

"Yeah, that's annoying, isn't it?"

"Very. But I can be patient, so it's all right. Kind of."

"I'm not patient at all."

"Can't blame you. It does get quite annoying, being patient."

"...If you're annoyed by being patient, by what definition are you patient?"

"Not letting the annoyance get to me."

"Oh, then by that definition I'm patient too. I'm good at managing my annoyance whenever it would only be in the way."

"See, there you go. That's the spirit."

"But I don't consider myself patient because when I'm making plans I heavily negatively weight having to wait a lot."

He snorts with laughter. "I don't, if I get what I want in the end, I don't mind waiting a while for it."

"Well, no plan is a hundred percent guaranteed. Trying the ones that fail fast first is more efficient."

"True. Still, some plans can only be implemented once and if you mess them up, you're just doomed. So I'll wait to improve the odds for those."

"Yeah, I'd make the same call in that case."

"Savannah and I have it, too," pronounces Darren, smiling a bit. "So we can keep people shooed."

"Thanks."

"You're quite welcome. Though I don't have notes for Art, so you are on your own there, I'm afraid."

"Well, that bodes well, if it's more of a 'projects' than a 'theory and history' art class."

"Projects. I hope you like charcoal and acrylics."

"I'm not a particularly miraculous artist, but I will get an A for effort."

"Good, though I don't think anyone can fail Art. I'm not even sure how they'd get to trying."

"Cutting class?" Bella suggests, dropping her lunch trash into the trash can and following Darren to the correct building. "Deliberately drawing nothing but those S-shaped things you make with two rows of three lines? Bringing glitter gel pens from home and putting mustaches on their paintings of apples."

He giggles. "I kind of want to do the glitter gel pens thing, now."

"It'd be cute in a sort of weirdass-modern-art way."

Bella does sit next to him. He's comfortable and the exact right brand of distracting; she wants to be friends. "What project did I show up in the middle of?" she inquires.

"Sounds it. Do we have still lifes or are we doing portraits or what?"

"We get to pick what we do, but the teacher's got like a stack of things we can use as still lifes if we've got no idea what to do. Mine is a piggy bank."

"I'm having trouble with the nose," he says. "And the piggy bank would like you to respect its life choices."

Bella snorts.

Savannah bows to the piggy bank. "Sorry, piggy bank. I'll try."

"Yes, thanks, I am so enlightened by your girly piggy bank," laughs Savannah.

"Good. Because it's not girly. It just happens to be purple with flowers."

"Mhm. Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Wallflower."

Darren snorts. "Don't know why you keep calling me that, nerd fits better."

"Because you are a special snowflake so you get lots of words to describe you and I find it funny."

"He was perfectly friendly to me. Did he glue himself to a wall at a dance once and you've refused to let him forget it?"

"He's actually really shy. Let me guess. Was his version of friendly 'Here have some notes now we shall work in silence for the rest of the class'?"

"Well, yes, but I kind of welcomed that. And he got chattier at roughly the rate I wanted him to."

Darren grins. "Ha," he says.

"... Huh. Okay, I stand corrected, Darren, your wallflower status is rescinded. You made one school friend without help. I'm proud."

"Today is the happiest day of my life," drawls Darren.

"Usually Savannah brings home the friendly prey to your den?"

"Yes, where he circles for ages, then finally awkwardly shuffles towards them in lieu of actual pouncing."

"It's called being polite. You should try it sometimes, it's nice."

"Aw, but then what would you have to do?"

"Take over the world, obviously," he says dryly.

"It is actually possible for multiple people to be polite."

"Oh, no, half of my brotherly duties are 'translate for Savannah because she has no filter.' So I'd have a lot more free time if she were polite."

"Ah, I see."

"Yeah, so obviously I have to keep not having a filter or Darren would move on to saving kittens full-time and I would never see him."

"Nonsense. We have art together."

Bella giggles. "Also maybe if he got very good at kitten-saving he'd run out of endangered kittens."

"He would then move on to puppies, I have no doubt. Maybe endangered gerbils, after that."

"No, no, after puppies are lizards. I don't discriminate based on fluffiness."

"How very forward-thinking of you."

"I try," he snickers.

"Also I would punch him if he wasn't."

"It's true, she would."

"Really? I wouldn't have pegged you as a - reptilian rights activist."

Bella is quite ignorant of that unspoken part. "Well, congratulations."

"Thanks. I reserve the right to punch my brother if he is being a twit."

Darren snorts. "Thanks. I can feel the love. It's just radiating off of you."

"I register my probably easily ignored disapproval of violence as a treatment for twithood. It underperforms in controlled studies."

"Brothers are different. Because of reasons. I get rights to punch him for twithood."

"I think my argument against it was, 'How in the world would that help' and that didn't work, either. She's just going to punch me if I'm a twit, it's how the world works. Apparently."

"Um, at the risk of totally killing some entirely healthy sibling... thing... you two are doing right now, my dad gets called to a lot of scenes of 'somebody is hitting their family member' and it's not cute?"

Darren raises an eyebrow. "I should actually clarify - she doesn't punch me."

"Nope!" adds Savannah. "We should probably stop joking about it, huh? Whoops."

"I mean, I have no siblings, maybe all people with siblings think it's hilarious and I'm the weirdo, but yeah."

"Eh, more like we are just really comfortable with each other and know when each other's joking so we play along. At least in our case. I dunno about other siblings, twinning it up might make things different."

"Maybe."

"Sorry," apologizes Darren.

"It's okay. I didn't really think it, it just - wasn't funny."

"So to update you on the gossip from the gossip-zombies - Lauren is trying to get her ex jealous, again. Hey, Darren, want to play rebound?"

Savannah snorts with laughter. "Yeah, thought not."

"Am I missing interesting context?"

"He isn't the dating type and he doesn't like Lauren."

"I am curious about the why to both facts."

"I don't like Lauren much for a variety of reasons, all adding up to her just being rather unpleasant to be around. I haven't dated because I haven't met anyone I've wanted to date."

"You could try Angela. She's nice."

"She is, but I'm not going to date someone just because they're there and nice."

"Do you have a list?" wonders Bella.

"Of requirements for someone to have before I date them?"

"Yeah. Must have Nobel Prize, must wear tulips in hair, must have Don Giovanni memorized?"

He snorts. "Um, no? It's not like - a list of qualities a person must have to be dated. It's the end-sum of their qualities and if I think we would work together if we date."

His sister stage whispers, "He's a romantic."

Bella giggles.

Darren sighs. "Thank you for the commentary, dearest Savannah."

"I'm here to help. Well, sometimes. When I feel like it."

"Is she only teasing? Are you not in fact 'a romantic'?"

"He is, but he's really embarrassed calling it that, so he can't manage it on his own."

"So it's not just teasing, but it is still teasing," provides Darren.

"Understood. Why's it embarrassing?"

"I have no idea, but it is."

Bella snorts a little when she spots the mark.

Bella snorts more.

Savannah laughs. "Thanks. Do we count as identical twins, now?"

"Yes. That is how biology works. Obviously."

"That's not even Lamarckian inheritance, let alone Mendelian."

"Shhhh we are now identical twins. We'll wear the same outfits and people will mix us up all the time."

"I am so glad you don't like wearing dresses."

Hee.

"I might, now that you mention it."

"Well darn," says Darren. "Now I have to wear a dress. Great. Thanks, charcoal. Thanks."

"It will be frilly and you will be gorgeous in it."

"My heart, it leaps."

Hee hee hee.

"I will need a hat to match. And someone will need to do my hair," says Darren, in a deadpan. "Bella, do you know anyone who can do something to match a frilly dress with short hair?"

"I don't have a lot of hair accessories. I might be able to dig up some barrettes."

"That will have to do," he says gravely. "If I am doomed to wear a pretty dress, I must pull it off extremely well."

Don't mind Savannah, she'll just be over there laughing uncontrollably at the mental visual of her brother in a pretty dress.

"I don't have a lot in the way of fancy things to loan you. I'm a jeans and t-shirt person."

"Ah, a pity. Savannah, this endeavor might be impossible, I need to accessorize."

This sends his sister into another round of uncontrollable laughter.

Heeeeeeee.

Darren giggles, as well. Then he says, "But seriously, not wearing a dress."

"Fine," snickers Savannah. "Worth it, just this was -" (Giggle.) "- was funny enough."

He snorts. "No. But there was a - thing. A magic thing."

"A magic thing," says Savannah. "Specific."

"Vana, this is important," sighs Darren. "It came from the woods and I don't know what it is. Help me look for it?"

Darren is still staring. He recognizes the voice. "Bella? What...? You must have just- this isn't a dream," he says, some mixture of stunned and in awe. "You're a sphinx."

"Thank you, Obviously Figment Of My Imagination Darren," says Bella, attempting to get all her feet under her, "as you know I never read old plays -" She fails at the "feet" project. "This dream would be more fun if I just magically knew how to operate a sphinx."

"Nope, you've got the real one, promise. Er - remember when I mentioned the apartment complex instead of a box?"

"What in the world does that have to do with anything?" She manages to stand up on all fours and starts experimenting with moving one foot at a time, carefully supporting herself on the other three. She unfolds and folds her wings.

"Welcome outside of the box. Do you want help with - um, learning how to walk in your natural form?"

"There is nothing natural about this! I'm a fucking sphinx!"

"What the hell kind of dream is this?" She seems to have the hang of her feet well enough to take cautious steps toward him, circling around. "Why am I a sphinx and you a peryton? Is Angela a dragon, is Savannah a unicorn?"

"Unicorns don't exist, dragons are extinct, and my sister is also a peryton," he informs her. "As far as I know Angela's just a normal human. But I thought you were, too, so I could be entirely wrong. Also, not a dream."

"How did this happen? Do people just randomly turn into mythological quadrupeds all the time and nobody happened to mention it?"

"Er - kind of? Though we go through some trouble to make sure it's not mentioned. Okay, in the past - day or so, did you touch any weird amulet necklace things? Did it feel like it gave you some kind of shock? Like an electric shock, that's usually what it feels like."

"A lady in the grocery store dropped it and I couldn't catch her to return it, and it shocked me."

Darren is confused! "She just - dropped it? Wh- you know what, nevermind, that is not the thing to focus on right now. We'll figure whatever that is later. Keep the amulet safe, please, you'll really, really regret it if you don't. They're really old magic, they let - people like us look and feel like humans."

Bella facepaws. "Okay, I'm going to pretend that this isn't a dream for a while. Within the parameters of this magic system - I need the necklace and it'll let me be human-shaped again?"

"So you're saying one of my parents is - or was - a sphinx."

"Yes. But it's probable that they would have absolutely no idea, because - if they just stay human, if they never find an amulet that breaks the spell, it passes on to their kids, too."

"Secret sphinx parent. Right. So if I take this off I can't turn human again, but with it, I can? Somehow?"

"What happens to your clothes? For that matter, my shirt is still on even though I've got these enormous wings now," says Bella, flicking her tail out of the way to sit on her haunches, "which is convenient, I suppose."

"Very convenient, considering," says Darren, blushing and looking really embarrassed. "They just - go... Somewhere when you're in natural form. If it - I think it works by what you consider decent, if it seems like it would be improper for you to lose articles of clothing, like your, ahem, shirt, then it will stay, but otherwise they'll go to where ever the somewhere is."

"But my shirt isn't actually shaped like this, or it wasn't when I bought it, I don't go around in backless garments, yet it's accommodating the wings. Also folded into the medallion spell?"

"Apparently. The magic to make them's been lost, so I don't know the specifics. I'm trying to learn them, though, it's really, really inconvenient that there's a cap on how many we have."

"...Yeah, that sounds like it'd be a problem. So if Charlie's the sphinx parent it's ungodly expensive to get him to turn into one too and he'd better never touch mine? Is that lady who dropped it going to be after me for hers, am I kind of screwed?"

"That's the thing. They only work for one person at a time. They just - kind of attach themselves to people, so no other amulet would work for you, and yours won't work for an un-turned sphinx. So she wasn't using it, but you see why I would be extremely confused at how she just dropped it."

"...Okay. That is indeed strange. So I am now basically dependent on and the only possible beneficiary of a rare and valuable item that a lady dropped in the grocery store. I am glad I didn't turn it into the lost and found, I guess."

"Yeah, that's why I was jumpy about 'Do you know where it is keep it safe' because when Savannah turned for the first time she left it in the woods somewhere and I went on a panicked expedition with my dad after he explained what was going on while she hid in the attic."

"I blacked out for a while after I decided to go for a walk - which is why I'm still reasonably confident that this is a dream, though less so all the time - but I do seem to still be wearing it, yeah." She concentrates. Slowly, her various parts are restored to humanity and she's just sitting crosslegged on the forest floor. (Fully clothed.) "Can you explain that part, or do I also have weird symptoms that are unrelated to secretly being a sphinx?"

"Um. Well it didn't happen to me or my sister, but it might still be related to you being a sphinx. Because sphinxes are supposed to be extinct. And you are not."

"I don't see how anybody could be very confident in any of these species being extinct with billions of humans to disappear among."

He snorts with laughter. "Pretty much. If a dragon shows up in five minutes I won't be as surprised as I was to find out you're a sphinx. I did not think I would meet a sphinx."

"Is this basically the weird-magic-quadruped equivalent of being a fairy princess?"

"Kind of? A super magic fairy princess," says Darren, with just a hint of squee. "I am really, really excited."

"What can I do, then?"

"Vague things, it's been centuries since the sphinxes went supposedly extinct - healing's usually mentioned, being super magic is also mentioned. Anything other than that I just don't know."

"Okay, do you have a general idea how I do it?"

"I will happily follow you as close to epic wizard as you can get me before you run out of knowledge or I wake up, whichever comes first."

"So this isn't sufficiently top-secret that I shouldn't tell him at all, then?"

"I don't think you should go and tell anyone you don't trust about it, but generally if you trust the person enough and know they're not going to react by throwing you to be dissected - yeah, it's fine. It's how my dad knows, he's human and was told."

"Okay." She smiles slightly. "You can fly inside your house? I'd think that'd be awkward."

"Oh, cool. How finely controlled does 'any point' get? Like, could I draw extremely specific designs in lion fur on myself?"

"That one depends on you, it's a little tricky but if you want to do it I think if you practice a lot you can get it. I got enough fine control to get antlers and wings, but not the fur because I think I look silly as a human with fur. Or as a half-human half-deer-man with fur."

"I don't have any immediate application for drawing things on myself in fur, I was just curious if I could." She bites her lip and concentrates and manages to get the wings - and accompanying shirt adjustment - without changing anything else. "Can I fly like this? Can you? Or do you have to have the entire designed-for-wings body plan at the time for that to be advisable?"

"You can fly in midform, but the wings need to be fully in. It's a bit awkward, though. I got it because hooves and stairs do not make friends so if I'm flying indoors it's going to be like this."

"Makes sense. How did you find out about all this, then?"

"Well, our dad knew our birth-father and suspected he'd had some kids somewhere, so when he died he went investigating and found us. He had our birth-father's amulet, but wasn't sure what to do with it, so he was trying to think of a way to explain things when Savannah got curious about an amulet that supposedly belonged to our birth-father. Mind you we were like eleven, so, don't judge her too much, please. She went and investigated, ran off to the woods with it to inspect it because dad was not happy about her grabbing it, for obvious reasons. She turned, dropped it, came home freaking out as a peryton, dad explains what's going on and he and I go looking for it. And that was how I learned about this."

"Where'd you get yours?"

"We went and bought one in the Avalon nearby. Perytons are kind of commonish, so it wasn't too expensive. I wanted to fly, Savannah was having a lot of fun with it."

"...Avalon," prompts Bella.

"Right, sorry, uh - place where mystical creatures can mystical creature it up with no problem. The one I went to was in a really big warehouse complex thing, but some others aren't. People live there, have shops, hotels, so on."

"Where's the nearest one to here, then?"

"Seattle. But the one I went to was in Detroit, so I couldn't tell you what this one's like."

"She can answer the phone while flying? Where does her phone go?"

"She took off in fullform and switched to midform once we split up, so she could have thumbs and the phone."

"Makes sense. Is it hard to learn to fly?"

"No, but it takes some practice. More than walking or running, as a quadruped."

"I'm pretty terrible at walking even with the feet I'm used to. Although I guess having more feet is probably a help all else being equal? I didn't feel exactly catlike and acrobatic, though."

"You'd be able to at least glide, gliding's easy. Just keep your wings open and steady and bam, gliding. Having more feet usually helps, but not with stairs. Or at least my four delicate cloven hooves don't work with stairs, a lion's limbs might be different. They take practice, though."

"Practice. Right. At least there's lots of wilderness around. This would be harder if I were still living in Phoenix..."

"A bit. The wilderness was one of the reasons we came here. Along with general out-of-the-wayness and pretty scenery."

"It has all three, yes, the traits are related. What time is it? I don't know how long I spent unconscious."

Phone is checked! "Five thirty-four. I don't know when you fell unconscious, but I felt the - magic whatever it is that made me come looking about forty-five minutes ago."

"Okay. So this will have been a long-for-me but not ridiculous walk to take in the pleasant not-rain if I start back now. Don't want Charlie to worry."

"Yeah. And I guess I'll be over at your house a lot, at least until and unless Charlie takes the sphinxy news well enough for mine to be open."

He nods. "Do you have your phone or should I try to find something to write on? I think I have a pencil, but I don't carry paper where ever I go..."

"I have it." She pulls it out, hands it over for him to add himself to her contacts.

"I'm excited too, but I want to, you know, try taking a nap and see if this is a weird dream I tell your actual human self about next art class, or what," says Bella. "If I wake up from my nap and I can still sprout a tail on demand, I'll call you then, unless you go to bed super early Friday nights?"

"Fair enough. No, I don't go to bed super early Friday nights, but if it's after eleven I might be grumpy with you."

"Short nap," she assures him, "leftovers for dinner, phone call."

"Does Savannah not supply much outlet for magic geeking?"

"She really doesn't, no one will magic geek with me and it's terrible."

"Well, I'll fix that. If any of this is real." She turns one hand into a paw, extends and retracts her claws, then turns it back and stands up. "It looks like I didn't get too far from where I was when I blacked out, but in case I'm mistaken about recognizing the place, can you steer me back to town?"

Darren's now grinning. It may or may not just be his new permanent facial expression. "Yeah, sure." He points. "That way's to the closest road, if you take a left when you hit it you'll be back at the main town in no time. I forget the name of the road, sorry, I just saw it flying here."

"Thanks." Pause. "Do you know any other mystical creatures hereabouts?"

"Aside from my sister? Off of the top of my head there's a few griffins around, decent people but kind of dull, and I think one of the teachers is a bugbear?"

"...one of the teachers is a bugbear. Right, that makes perfect sense, of course that's a thing that happens. Is there a list of the kinds of creatures there are someplace?"