Maybe it's the odd statue on her bedside table - some kind of canine, sitting at attention, painted in blue and black and red, the texture weirdly... Flat, almost. Like it's been drawn with pen and marker over a photograph of the world. 

Maybe it's the way the odd statue is watching her. 

This is probably the painkillers again, isn't it.

There's something... compelling about the statue, though. It draws the attention. Taylor wants to see its other side. Does the texture look... flat... while being turned round and round?

Exploring the consciousness-altering states achievable via IV in a hospital setting wasn't on her bucket list, but one learns to look for the silver lining.

She turns the statue around - it does indeed look like that from every angle -

And when she turns it back to greet her, it's grinning broadly.

She grins back. Nervously. It's an odd impulse but being left alone also seems to have left her very disinhibited.

And it's better to deal with a grinning statue than - no, not going there. Statue it is.

It was grinning all along, wasn't it. Must have been. She puts it carefully back on the nightstand. She has a feeling the statue won't appreciate being discarded carelessly on its side.

"Are you a dog," she wonders. But her mouth is dry and it comes out as a cough. "Are you a woof, whoof?" Very funny, Taylor.

Her father left a bottle of water on the table. She has to stand up to reach it, careful not to tug the IV tubes. It feels like whenever she moves her body, she has to remember to stop or she'll go flying off into the distance.

When she turns back to where the statue was, it -

- Has been replaced by a life-sized version, a living version, standing at her bedside, grinning face much too close to her.

That is rather *more* than she expected from hospital drugs!

It must be safe, if they left her alone... with a statue... that is now moving... Taylor abruptly decides she wants off this ride.

If she closes her eyes and lies back it will go away, right? Or at least she won't see it.

...The things she sees with her eyes closed are less pleasant than that. She does not want to be alone with her thoughts.

"Distract me", she says to the statue. Maybe this will be the fun kind of hallucination. Those exist, right?

"Certainly!" says the definitely-not-a-statue. "I will tell you my favorite stories!"

Taylor will listen to the hallucinated notastatue!

Stories aren't borderline scary the way visual illusions can be. And a good story can be very distracting. 

These stories all seem to be about talking coyotes doing fantastical things! Like being tasked with putting stars in the sky and then getting bored and scattering them everywhere, or stealing the moon, or inventing weapons so people could hunt animals, or inventing language so people would be divided and fight each other, or tricking and defeating great famine monsters in order to rescue grateful villages, or tricking people into helping the coyote steal their own horses...

Taylor is successfully distracted!

She thinks she's read stories like this before. A book chosen in the library at random, on a slow summer day, the year before her mother died. Back when life seemed to work. Traditional stories from... somewhere? She can't recall where.

She thinks gratefully into the memories. 

This lasts until her father comes back. He looks defeated. She's lying in the bed again and he doesn't look at her closely as he sits down, in the middle of a story about a coyote who wanted to keep humans warm in winter. He brought them fire, but they did not know how to keep it, and burned down their house. He brought them firewood, but they used it up to rebuild their house, and had nothing left for the fire. So he brought them stars from the moon-river, which would keep them always warm; but the stars did not spread like fire, so the humans fought over them and killed each other until only two were left.

Taylor wants to hear the end of the story, but her father talks over it, like he can't hear the coyote speaking. The school had offered a settlement. They'd pay her medical bills if they didn't bring any charges. He's talking to himself, not to her, working himself up into a righteous fury. Angry at himself for accepting. Angry at the world for giving him no choice. What good is his anger to her? 

"Stop it", she whispers. "I'd rather be in a story than here."

Coyote laughs, a harsh, jarring sound. "Do you want be in one of my stories then, Scarab Girl?"

"My life sucks and I don't want to go on living it", she says plainly.

Her father breaks off his tirade. He'll probably recover in a moment.

But a moment is all Taylor needs to take Coyote (who is not a statue at all anymore) into her arms and press him against her chest with all her strength. She presses her face into the top of his head for good measure.

The Coyote grins wide enough to split its face.

"Wish granted," it says, and the world - 

Lurches - 

And then Taylor's in her bedroom, sitting on her bed. The IV line and bag fall onto her covers with a 'thump.'

That is rather more literal than she expected from a bunch of steroids and painkillers!

Taylor looks warily around. It's hard to be scared, alone in her own bedroom in her favorite Miss Militia pajamas, except that she shouldn't be there.

Neither should the IV bag. Does she need to... hold it up over her head? Is she going to leak out into the bag if she doesn't? Did she imagine the bag falling into her lap? Where did it fall from?

She realizes the IV is not quite living up to its name at the moment: it has come free of her arm. On pure reflex, she scrambles to get it (and her arm) off the bed before she drips any fluids onto the sheets.

There's no mark on her arm where it was attached. In fact, all the wounds and abrasions from... yesterday seem to be gone. She feels fine, physically and - surprisingly - mentally as well. Centered, lucid, and even more or less calm. (This is a worrying observation that should perhaps make her less calm than she is.)

She looks around, feeling increasingly bizarre. It's clearly her bedroom, but some of the details are - not as she remembers them. There's a book she's never read on the bookshelf. It's one she wanted to read but never got around to; a perfectly normal book you would expect to find in a Taylor's bedroom, dog-eared with use. Anyone but her would probably be fooled.

She opens the book warily. It contains exactly what the cover promises, a fun romp through Arthurian legend with a side of Socialist commentary.

She's not sure what she expected. Blank pages? A subtly different text (that she wouldn't notice because she hasn't actually read this book)? The stained pages seem to mock her. She can be a messy reader, and hates that about herself - her mother taught her to love books - and it's unfair that she now has to blame herself for messing up a book she didn't even get to read.

She turns back to her bed - and jumps. The coyote hallucination is back. It's lounging in her bed, and grinning.

Taylor holds out the IV bag, as if to ward off an evil spirit. The coyote keeps looking at her. Eventually Taylor feels awkward enough (and her arms are tired enough) to put it down on the floor and pretend this was her intention all along.

"Am I really hallucinating this", she wonders out loud.

Coyote laughs. "No, Scarab Girl! You see things as they are - now."

"Are they going to stay this way? This is better than the hospital but if I'm hallucinating or dreaming or whatever this is, I don't want things to keep changing." Talking to a hallucination isn't crazy if you know it's a hallucination, right? Even if it disagrees.

"They will! Your wishes are permanent - and each may only be granted once."

This is starting to really scare her. She feels completely normal, like this is really happening! Did she get brain damage in there, with the insects - 

If she can't trust her own mind, what can she trust?

Her dad. Hah. No, actually, that's a valid idea. Danny Hebert might not be a good solution to school bullying, but she can rely on him to tell her if she's going crazy, or if... What? That's the only possible explanation, right?

Maybe they told him something at the hospital about this. She'd have just forgotten it, like she forgot the discharge itself.

Taylor opens the door and calls for her father. Loudly, before she can lose her nerve.

"Taylor?" he calls up the stairs, sounding like he's stepping out of the kitchen. "What is it?"

"Hi dad! I think I might have gone crazy after being stuffed in a locker with horrible rotting stuff. You don't see a coyote on my bed, do you? Well, I do, and it keeps TALKING TO ME" -

- is what Taylor doesn't say. It feels, suddenly, like speaking will make it real. She doesn't want to acknowledge it. 

If the coyote was real, her dad would have seen it. Back in the hospital room. On the ride home. She remembers now, how he talked and she couldn't hear him over the coyote making a joke. Is this going to be her life now, seeing things, hearing things, being too scared to admit it -

Stop. Breathe. She's better off than she was yesterday. She's up a coyote and down a hospital and isn't that a good trade, really?

"Taylor?" her dad asks, coming into view. "Did you want something?"

"Do you remember when I got that book?" It's the only thing she can think to ask, right now. 

" - Last week, unless I've gotten my dates mixed up. The afternoon of your first day back to school." He wrinkles his forehead like he's trying to do math about the exact date. 

Her first day back to school was also her last day back at school. Did she read this book when she was in the hospital? And forget all about it, like she has the trip home?

"I think I've forgotten some things", she says. Honesty is a process, not a destination, right? "I'm not sure what I've been doing since... the start of the school year. Can you sit down with me and tell me about the last week?"

Hopefully she won't have to mention anything embarrassing that didn't actually happen. Deal with shitty reality, before dealing with hallucinations on top of it. It's a plan, at least!

- Small frown. "Are you okay?" he asks with concern. 

"I feel surprisingly okay!" All her wounds and little scrapes are gone. She wonders if Panacea visited her in the hospital. What a thing to forget.

"I'm just... not sure about some things? Um. Like coming home yesterday, and anything that happened after that. And reading that book. And there's some stuff that maybe I already told you about but then maybe I forgot about that so if you let me know I won't have to tell you again!" Deep breath. "And also maybe you just want to talk, about last week?"

He still seems very unsure! Still, he'll hesitantly nod. "I don't think too much has happened..." he says, though he sounds a bit dubious. " - Let's talk over breakfast?"

"Good idea." If she starts a heavy conversation now, whatever he's making might burn. An excellent reason to delay! "Call me when it's ready?"

Once he's gone back to the kitchen, Taylor investigates her own room for Clues. Maybe she left herself a note when she came home.

The calendar confirms the date. It's Sunday; she went to school on Thursday. She lost three days, except for a few hours in between. The Panacea theory is looking stronger: there's no way all her scratches (or the IV entry point) healed without a mark in just a couple of days.

The IV pole is worrying her. Are there needles somewhere so she can use it if she has to? Did her father spend the last two days learning to insert needles? (A scary thought. She'd rather have a nurse who is a stranger, but she's not sure why, and not understanding her feelings after a memory loss is frightening.)

If she leaves it standing by the bed, it might fall again. She carefully moves it into the corner behind the closet, and hangs the bag the way it's probably supposed to go... she hangs it from the pole, anyway. Her father presumably knows what to do with it.

The coyote is still there. She can ignore it, but what if it starts talking again, and makes it harder for her to listen to real people? What if it blocks her from seeing something? In the hospital she took it in her arms and it felt real. 

She grabs her blanket and throws it over the hallucination. Can she convince her brain that it's not really there?

The blanket settles like she just threw it over a canine of Coyote's approximate height and build, and it laughs then tosses its head, causing the blanket to fall back around its shoulders - and then its neck grows and twists so it can look properly at Taylor.

"I'm as real as you are, Scarab Girl," it says with a grin. 

"What, just because we both live in my head?" she retorts before she can stop herself. No! Bad Taylor! Don't let your brain talk to the hallucination!

"Hah! Now you're thinking like Coyote! But perhaps we both live in my head. How do you know that I'm not imagining you, after all?"

"Maybe you're imagining me", she says, "that doesn't mean I'm not imagining you imagining me. And I want to stop." And she wants not to admit being wrong to her own hallucination.

"I wouldn't suggest wishing that unless you're very sure," it says with a dangerous smile. "I just might grant it."

"I'm very sure I only want to see things that really exist and not hallucinate anymore! Are you threatening me?!" Why is she hallucinating something that feels dangerous? Not physically dangerous, but - dangerous to talk to, maybe? Dangerous like a person, not like a gun - oh.

Oh.

This is a hallucination. It's caused by - brain damage, stress, maybe even those hospital drugs - but her brain doesn't know that. Brains learn by association. Ring a bell, give a dog a treat, it salivates. Ring a bell, kick the dog, it learns to fear the bell. The dog being her, of course, and the bell being - what, talking to people? 

She has been bullied for months and months, and she's definitely been hit sometimes but that was never the worst of it. She doesn't spend her time really afraid of having her bones broken or being cut with a knife. It would leave evidence that couldn't be brushed away as easily, and that thought had given her some comfort.

And then she was shoved in the locker, panicked, thinking she might really die in there, but even at the end her thoughts were about people, about how no-one was going to help her, everyone either ignored her torment or they enjoyed it -

- and her brain took all her feelings and her trauma and balled it up and what she got was - something that talked at her. 

Of fucking course her brain did not make up a friendly Tigger or, or some happy bunny. Those kinds of things don't live in her head. Even when she's alone she's never just uncomplicatedly happy.

The coyote had called her a scarab beetle and now she realizes it was an insult. An insect, a bug, pushing a ball of shit. Her brain is imagining someone talking to her and the way people talk to her is by calling her ugly names. 

Taylor is surprised to discover that she is furious. This is not an emotion she is used to; sadness and fear and pain usually take up all the space in her head, leaving no room for anger, and the rest of the time she tries not to think of the things that make her angry.

But now this - this illusion - is trying to claim the rest of her life. Her time alone, in her bedroom, the one place where she is safest. It's talking back to her while living in her own brain and that is the worst of it, the coyote has left her nowhere to run.

"I don't care what you are", she says unsteadily, "but I have to take that shit at school, and I have to pretend everything's fine to my Dad, and I'm not. Putting. Up. With. THAT. IN MY OWN HEAD!"

She's panting slightly, and has her fists raised. This is completely unlike her and right now she doesn't care. She doesn't think she can intimidate the coyote - she is the least physically intimidating person she knows, and her brain knows that - but she's so angry, she has never attacked anyone, and taking all that anger out on a figment of her imagination would be very cathartic. If she wins the fight, anyway.

It laughs - and moves, letting the blanket fall to the floor in a different place that where she threw it - 

"I like you, Scarab Girl! I like your fire." Grin. "Unfortunately, I'm not just in your head."

"After all, could a figment of your imagination have granted your wish, and given you a different life to live?"

"The life of a crazy person?" she says, and her voice catches. The blanket moved. It's not where she put it down. Is she imagining that? Did she throw it off the bed while thinking she was covering up the coyote? Can she even trust what she's seeing?

No. She won't admit defeat. Won't admit to being crazy. This may be denial but Taylor is suddenly discovering that denial can be very attractive indeed if the alternative is horror.

"Prove you're real", she says. "Tell me something I couldn't know, that I can check. Or admit you're a hallucination, and go away."

It twists, growing larger and curling so that its paws are cupping something bright - an image, odd and distorted by a sort of lens effect - and the image is moving, and there's sound - 

Looks like a university campus, maybe? That or some kind of government area. Multistory buildings that are very much doing a Traditional Architecture organized in stately shapes around large green lawns, without the pattern of roads she'd expect from a fancy residential area. Though there's smoke rising above it, and as she watches something in front of one of the more distinctive buildings explodes with a bright, showy flare of light. 

She doesn't recognize the buildings. The miniature explosions look better than any movie. The coyote is cool, she finds herself thinking, when it's showing her movies or telling stories. If she could only control when she sees it, she might actually choose to turn it on some of the time.

"It's a new Die Hard?" she hazards.

"It's something that should be making the news right about... Now." There's an awful lot of flashing lights building up as emergency response teams are activated.

"Turn that down", Taylor hisses instinctively at sirens that presumably no-one else can hear. 

Ugh. Fine. She goes down to the living room, turns on the TV, flips to the news channel. 

The image behind the presenter looks remarkably familiar. A building is on fire, people are panicking. TV news is not up to the standards of imaginary 3D cinema, but after some squinting she is forced to admit that the image does match what she saw in her bedroom.

The ticker says: CORNELL U BOMBING FOLLOWS THREAT. The newscaster earnestly promises that they will of course share more images and casualty numbers as they are received.

Her father comes in, balancing a stack of pancakes. "Good, you're here already", he says. "What's that?"

Taylor turns off the TV. "Just a bombing, dad. Not great for breakfast." But her thoughts are racing.

Taylor chews mechanically. The pancakes are delicious and she is in entirely the wrong headspace to appreciate them.

"You were going to tell me about last week", she prompts between bites.

He does, with some wistfulness - it sounds like they've been making an active effort to repair their relationship, and he's realized with some chagrin that he'd missed some of her growing up. He's been trying to get back into things like cooking, too - he used to really enjoy it, in hazy memories from her childhood it was him helping her with school bake sales and the like, while her mom could usually consistently not mess up pouring cereal out of a box - so they've been eating more meals together like this. He hasn't gotten a lot of gossip from her side, though he mentions entirely offhandedly that Emma and her family moved across the country over winter break due to her mom's work (he expects her to know this). She complained about a tough pop quiz in English over their winter break reading assignment? And she's mentioned having a lot of homework? 

Honestly sounds like a pretty uneventful week, except for how it's so much better than the week she remembers having. 

This is bizarre and she finds herself nodding along, and once she starts doing that she can't stop.

Her father wouldn't lie to her, it would be cruel and also very, very unusual. She almost blames the memory loss before she catches on. He's saying there was no hospital. No locker. No hallucinations.

No Emma.

"I've given you a different life to live", the coyote said. During the break she'd wished, oh, how she wished for Emma to be gone and the bullying to stop, and the coyote just delivered the best Christmas gift of her life.

Colorful coyotes do not normally appear in a girl's hospital room to retroactively grant her wish by rewriting reality. 

Did she get superpowers? Seeing and hearing things. Learning something she couldn't possibly have known. There's a name for such powers, she knows. Seer? Knower? Something like that, anyway.

Replacing the last week's events? Yeah, no. Taylor is humble enough (and sane enough) to know that kind of thing does not happen. Even Eidolon probably can't... anyone but Eidolon surely can't do such a thing. And if Eidolon could do it he would undo Endbringer attacks. Unless he has and this is secret - anyway, Taylor is wiling to bet that she personally cannot rewrite history in week-sized chunks.

Also, she's missing most of a week's memories, and that seems - unnecessary, if the last week was simply replaced.

The other possibility: she gained powers, lost her memory, and then hallucinated (dreamed?) that scene in the hospital. She already knows she can hallucinate things. This is much simpler.

Except it makes no sense. Do powers make up stories? Also, what about that IV pole?

Maybe Coyote knows. She hasn't tried asking questions, not really, but if it's really her power, and can give tell her things, she should start by asking. She hopes she can trust it. A Knower power that lies to you is worse than no power at all.

She thanks her father for the talk. Reassures him she's fine, really, yes she mysteriously lost a few hours and she'll tell him immediately if it gets worse, no she feels great, she'll go on a walk later...

And she goes back into her bedroom (the coyote is still there), locks the door behind her, and says:

"Tell me about yourself."

"I am Coyote, and I've told you many stories about myself already," the coyote says. "I'm the most clever and handsome and powerful of all - and I can grant your wishes."

"Are you my power? Am I a hero... er, a parahuman? What wishes can I make? I mean, is it three wishes, like some stories?" She hasn't missed that he said can and not will.

Three wishes ever doesn't sound like any power she ever heard of, she only said that because of the stories, but maybe people will only three wishes just don't make the news.

"Not just three! And you can wish for anything - but I'll only grant each sort of wish once, and not too many a day."

"What counts as sort of a wish - sorry, a sort of wish - and how many is too many? What's the biggest thing I could wish for?" Life, liberty, freedom and justice for all - she's mixing metaphors a bit - world peace and apple pie - an end to oppression and bullying -

"Depends on the day and the wish! And I could pluck the moon from the sky if you wished." That featured in one of the stories it told her. 

It's clearly isn't trying to be helpful. "Can I wish to know how the wishes work and how to make them and everything you're not telling me?" 

"If you wish to be Coyote."

Taylor has a brief vision of swapping places with Coyote. "If I were Coyote, I'd answer all of Taylor's questions", she says. "Unless you kept annoying me. Then I'd just sit back and laugh while you flail around saying help me, how do you operate this Taylor, I can't stretch my neck anymore, help I don't know how to walk on two legs." 

God, what a horrible sentence. Coyote is clearly a bad influence on her. It makes sense - he does live in her brain.

"Look. I don't know what you want, or - almost anything really. If this is like a game, and you want me to figure out the rules by playing - I hate it, but I'll do it" if you leave me no choice. "Is there anything you can tell me? Or are you going to speak in riddles until I make a wish?" If that's even how it works, and not some elaborate game.

It laughs at her impression of it as Taylor, then gives a liquid shrug. "What counts and what does not is hard to define. It's easier to gesture at by example - and I don't know what things you would wish for."

"Ask if you could make this or that wish. I'll say yes or no, and I might even say why."

Maybe she should start with something small that has no way to go wrong. "Can I wish for an apple?"

"Also, can you explain what happened last week?" She hopes that is the right wording, rather than what happened to last week. "I wished for something, and - you changed things that had already happened. Is that how it always works? Can a wish change history?"

"You could wish for an apple."

"And I looked at two timelines that could be - and picked which one you'd find yourself in. The other timeline no longer exists. And you've already wished to change your life."

This explains approximately nothing. "Having an apple would change my life a tiny bit. I wouldn't wish for something I couldn't see or check. I don't understand where you're drawing the line."

"If I wish for an apple, what other wishes will count as the same? Will I be unable to wish for an apple again, or any food, or any - small green things?" Or any objects, she doesn't say, because she doesn't want to give Coyote any ideas.

"Depends on why you're wishing for it - if you're craving an apple, or if you're hungry, or if you're trying to bargain with someone really obsessed with apples."

"What kind of wish was showing me that bombing?" She really hopes it wasn't something is broad as wishing for information, or for trust.

"None - you made a request, and I could've ignored it, or done something else entirely to prove my powers."

"So I can ask you for stuff, and you might do that, but if I say it's a wish then you have to do it, unless it's like something I've wished before? The same reason or motivation or something?"

"More or less - for very big things, like changing history, the same effect matters more."

"What do you want out of this?" If Coyote can decide what requests to carry out, he must have... Opinions? Goals? Things he wishes for? "Can you do stuff if I don't ask for it?" Do they need to agree for something to happen?

"I want to not be bored! And for interesting, unexpected things to happen. And I can do small things you don't ask for."

What do heroes do with their powers? Fight crime, obviously, but maybe that's just what makes the news. Feed the hungry, heal the sick? She knows Panacea visits the local hospitals. She doesn't think there's a cooking cape in Brockton Bay, but maybe all the soup kitchens are run by parahumans and it's just not flashy enough for the newspapers.

When in doubt, stick to tradition. She can go out and look for people she can help. Maybe inspiration will strike her on the way. And if it doesn't, it's still a nice day for a walk.

"I want to go out. Can you make it so I won't look weird when I'm talking to you?" She assumes Coyote can come with her and is not, like, stuck forever in her bedroom.

"I can appear to others, if that's what you mean."

Oh. Um. 

She could go out in costume? That's what real heroes do. Coyote can probably make one for her. She'd be... Coyote Girl? uh, no... Wolf Woman? Talker-to-Animals? Howler - nevermind, she'll think of a name later.

That leaves approximately one really big problem.

"I'm afraid you'll talk to other people." It feels very wrong to tell someone 'you can't talk to anyone but me' - even if he does live in her head - but. "And, um, tell them stuff about me." Unflattering stuff, probably. "Heroes have secret identities so you can't let anyone know who I am, OK? No hints or riddles or clever allusions."

She remembers something else. "And no calling me Scarab Girl, I know it's a play on bugshit crazy and it wasn't funny the first time."

"It isn't," Coyote says with a smirk. "I won't reveal your identity - but you should look up the legends of Khepri."

"I need a disguise - a costume and a mask - and then I'll go out and change somewhere no-one can see me, and tell you to become visible."

What should it look like? She doesn't really want to attract attention (and she is NOT wearing spandex). Coyote will probably be happy to be the center of everyone's attention, anyway.

Something concealing, so people can't see her face. But not like what she usually wears. She wants to be different. To feel different. Taylor Hebert isn't someone who fights crime. Really, she isn't someone who fights. If an old lady asks her for help crossing the street, she looks both ways carefully for the girls setting up the prank, and when she spots it she abandons the old woman in the road and runs for it.

Metaphorically speaking, anyway.

She always tries to avoid attention. Maybe Hero Taylor can be different. That would be a real superpower.

"How about a costume in your colors? Blue and black with red highlights. Something I can put over my clothes. And a mask" - a wolf mask in Brockton Bay means Hookwolf, and she's not sure most people can tell a wolf apart from a coyote, not if it's just a mask - "something abstract, maybe? Can you show it to me before making it?"

"You have good taste!" It laughs, and darts towards her bed, grabbing a sheet and throwing it over Taylor's shoulders like a kid's budget cape costume - and then the fabric settles around her, transforms into a black suit of armor with white spots like eyes ringed with blue and red at the joints. "But you need a mask still..." 

And it puts one claw under its chin - 

- And pulls its face away, showing a skull underneath - 

And the removed face turns into a mask. 

This is slightly alarming! But skull-headed Coyote seems to be fine, and she is more concerned with the clothes it put on her (without her permission, but she doesn't want to have an argument about that right now).

She has her own hero costume and it is amazing. It looks good and feels good too, smooth heavy fabric, like stretchy silk. There are no seams to be seen, no zippers or buttons (can she even take it off without Coyote's help?) and it is fitted perfectly to her body. It includes gloves and socks and even shoes (black, with little white claws).

The mask is made of the same fabric, only stiffer. She puts it to her face and it stretches, wrapping around her head and tucking itself into the costume's collar, with her hair flowing down her back and her ears tucked inside. The world sounds different through the Coyote-ears sticking out from the top of the mask, not muffled but clearly different - can she hear ultrasound now?

Taylor tiptoes out and to the bathroom, ready to dash back and lock the door behind her at the slightest sign that her father is anywhere near (this is much easier with her newly improved hearing).

And she looks in the mirror.

And stares.

Oh.

She is unrecognizable. Her mouth and chin are still visible - which is good, she won't have to learn how to smile with a coyote's face - but with the costume and the mask, she looks more grown up. More serious. Dangerous, even, if she frowns she can imagine someone (who doesn't know her) taking her seriously. She can confront villains, with a skull-headed beast at her side, and not be laughed at. She can be someone who matters.

She probably won't confront any villains. She'll hide behind a corner and sic Coyote on them, like a sensible girl. But she can imagine it, and it's a heady dream.

Back to the bedroom, lock the door. The mask comes off when she tugs at it. (She hopes it won't be that easy for someone else to snatch it off her face. Hopefully she won't find out.)

How is Coyote doing without his face?

Pretty okay! Though he seems to be rooting through the papers on top of her desk, until he comes up with a blank piece of paper right after she gets back to the bedroom, and places it over his face -

- Which transforms and restores his normal appearance. 

- and the paper changes color until Coyote looks just like before. Taylor reluctantly lets go of her dream of siccing a skull-headed monster on villains. There's still a skull under that paper face, of course, but it's impolite to speculate what lies under a mask.

"Please take my costume off", she says, "and then we can go." And despite everything that's happened recently, she can't help but smile.

Taylor wanders in a vaguely westward direction, with no particular destination in mind.

It's a nice day. The sun is out, the birds are singing, Emma is gone gone gone and she is a hero and she feels she could burst into song, right along with the birds. (Not literally, there are people nearby. She'd die of embarrassment first.)

Coyote is walking alongside her. Sometimes he does something stranger that still ends up with him being somewhere nearby. No-one gives him a second look.

A kitten is meowing in a tree. "Coyote", Taylor says, swelling up with pride, "please help it down." There are butterflies in her stomach. She is being a hero and using her power to help people. She can't climb trees, so she couldn't have done this as a normal human, and it totally counts. (Cats are people and she will send Coyote to fight anyone who says otherwise.)

"Of course!"

- And the kitten sprouts wings with a startled meeep! They're black and bat-like, with red and blue edges like Coyote's markings. The kitten surprises herself enough with a flap of her wings that she tumbles down - 

And then starts flapping properly, catching herself in mid-air and flying around a little with wide eyes.

(Luckily there's currently no one around?)

Taylor cautiously approaches the flying kitten. She can't just leave it there - it will probably get itself into trouble by chasing a whole flock of birds, or wandering the streets until some mad tinker takes it apart to see what makes it tick. It's her responsibility to put this right and make sure she doesn't leave it worse off than being stuck in a tree.

If she can get it to land on the ground (or in her arms), Coyote can probably take the wings back off. Will it let her come near?

Not if she looks like she's trying to get the kitten to stop having fun! The kitten is, in fact, currently having so much fun flying in complicated loops.

- That noise coming from her sounds almost like laughter. 

Watching a kitten fly in loops is honestly quite a lot of fun on its own, but she's still worried. "Coyote? What exactly did you do to it?"

"I gave her a minor gift, is all."

The kitten wings over and buzzes them. Then, in a high, feminine voice: "Hey weird dog you can't catch me!" 

This is followed by a kittenish cackling and a 'nyeh nyeh!' as she wings up. 

A talking, flying kitten. Who can see Coyote. Taylor definitely can't let her get away. She also has no idea how to catch even a regular kitten who doesn't want to be caught, let alone a flying one.

"You weren't supposed to out me!", she hisses to Coyote. "What if she tells someone she saw us together?"

She buzzes back before Coyote can respond. "You're being boring," she complains. "Come play with me!"

And then she dives at Taylor's ankles, tiny claws extended.

Taylor knows how to play with kittens! To wit: always use a toy, lest you become one. She yelps and darts behind Coyote.

Is there still no-one around? She almost asks Coyote for her costume, but she can't be sure she isn't being watched from a window.

Kitten pounces on Coyote instead!

Coyote seems alright actually with playing with kitten? He'll try to hold her down with one paw, at least, which gets a 'PLAY' response.

(There's still no one around, and nothing moving in the windows.)

This probably won't work for long; kittens are hard to keep down. You think you have them securely under your paw, and all the while they're digging an escape tunnel through your pillow.

"Can you turn it back?" she asks urgently.

"No!" says the kitten, giving up play and starting hissing. "I don't wanna be dumb again! And these are my wings!"

"Making her into a normal cat again would be very rude."

Oh no, it's an Algernon, isn't it. (Taylor is rather good at dealing with things that she read about, as long as she really liked the book. This is turning out to be surprisingly helpful.) Coyote just created a new BABY PERSON and now Taylor is responsible for her - because he's her power, and also because Coyote clearly isn't responsible, or a suitable parent at all - and this is NOT AT ALL how she expected her life to go.

Deep breath. "Coyote. Please don't do it again. Not without asking me first. Creating people is a huge responsibility and you shouldn't ever do it on a whim."

"Kitten - do you have a name? - I really, um. I don't want to make you dumb again. But I'm really scared that you'll tell people about me, or that they'll see you with me. I don't want anyone to know I have powers. This is really important. Can you promise me you won't give me away?" Trusting a kitten's solemn word and discretion probably isn't the WORST plan. But it's a start.

"I don't have a name! And I can be really sneaky, promise!" She lands and folds her wings down demonstratively - and they vanish against the black voice of her fur.

"Coyote? Do you think we can trust her?" This is mostly a delaying tactic to let her think; she doesn't trust Coyote - at least not his judgement of character. 

"She seems trustworthy enough!"

Of course. "Kitten - can I call you Kit? - no, sorry, that's not a real name, is it..." Um. Taylor's mind is firmly stuck on books and her mouth has a tendency to keep talking while she's stopped to think and what it comes up with is, "Kitiara, I'm going to call you Kitiara."

Is that a good namesake? "You're named after a knight. She was strong, and had a great sense of humor." Kitiara - the new Kitiara, that is - probably won't read the books to find out where the first one ended up. "Kit can be your nickname!"

"And I don't know how much you know about the world... but, um. There are some pretty scary people out there. If they find out you're special they'll want to lock you up and figure you out" and maybe run horrible experiments - no, Taylor, wrong book! - "or even hurt you, and you probably think you're clever sneaky enough to avoid them, and maybe you are, but you're really new, so I think you should be careful and come with us for at least a few days, and I'll protect you and help you learn about stuff and how to use your new... powers?" 

Wow that was a really long sentence and when she started it Taylor wasn't sure how it was going to end, but apparently she just offered to adopt - no, she said for a few days, didn't she. It seems important to keep her eye on this kitten, at least until she either comes to trust her or - she's not sure what the alternative is, she's not going to dumb it down (and Coyote might not agree even if she asks), but she'll think of something. Hopefully.

"If you come with us, you'll need to only use your powers when I'm in costume and use mine, and pretend to be a regular cat the rest of the time. Can you do that for me?" Even if I go away to school for the whole day and you're terribly bored, she doesn't say, because she suspects that would in fact make the kitten refuse. Baby steps, and then -

Taylor might have her own hero cape team. Three is a team, right? Even if Coyote isn't really separate from her.

"That sounds fun! And Kitiara is a really pretty name. I like it!"

The immediate crisis averted, Taylor remembers that she is talking to two animals in broad daylight. "I'm going to find a place to change", she whispers. 

A nearby park has some tall hedgerows. Taylor ducks behind one, makes sure no-one can see her (why does her brain associate this with changing clothes, she is putting more clothes on, not taking anything off) - and asks Coyote to give her her costume. Or, well, to recreate it, as the case may be.

The costume swirls into place around her, and he produces her very eerie mask with a flourish. 

Safely masked, Taylor steps out of cover. "We need a team name", she says.

Actually, she also needs a cape name. She's leading a team of animals who, in fact, have all the powers on the team. What would be appropriate? Ringmaster - ugh, no, they're not a circus show, and she'd have to call herself Ringmistress and that just sounds bad. Ringleader - no, that's a kind of criminal, isn't it. No rings.

What do you call someone who works with animals and talks to them? An animal whisperer? A beast tamer? A pet-ter?

Taylor is struck by an idea, and once again her mouth speaks it before her brain has finished processing.

"I will be The Ranger, and you are my Companions."

Bounce bounce! "Do we get our own cool names? I want to be The Devil Cat!"

Coyote laughs. "I approve!"

"Devil Cat, then. Coyote, do you want a cape name?"

"I'm just Coyote."

Yeah, fair.

"Team! We are going to help people and thwart evil-doers! Without bothering anyone too much! Do you think we can do that?"

"Absolutely!" Bounce! 

"Of course."

Then they will proceed vaguely sea-wards. Taylor isn't sure what's going to happen next, but she'd like to just relax and unwind for a bit. Things can definitely go wrong - later, and she would like not to think about that too closely for the next while. A lot has happened in too little time, really.

She can have that! For almost half an hour!

A cape in costume walking down the street (and a flying cat) draws glances; worried, curious, sometimes hostile. As they move from a residential neighborhood to a more commercial district, people become less worried about a cape fight outside their house, and more excited about a cape fights outside their cafe (this is Brockton Bay). Some people take photos. One kid asks for an autograph, making Taylor very happy and also tongue-tied.

Eventually they attract the attention of some named characters fellow capes.

Two men step into the road in front of them.

One is carrying an enormous sword. Unlike most Big Fucking Swords, which tend to be either very long or very heavy, this one is very broad - a whole foot wide - narrowing to an impractical-looking tip. The man swings it idly with one hand, as easily as if it's made of styrofoam. Two green glowing orbs are set into the sword's middle.

His head is topped by an absolutely ridiculous bright yellow wig. At least half its volume is gathered into one enormous spike sticking up like a unicorn made of triangles and hair gel. Taylor finds it hard to focus on his face or clothes, the sword and the wig absorbing all of her attention. 

The second man is big and muscular and has a gun for a hand.

Or several guns, really, a pepper-box design with six barrels welded together. It's not clear if they're meant to be a giant revolver or to fire together. There's no trigger, either; Taylor would think she was missing an obvious explanation that was not a gun at all, if she wasn't seeing it next to that sword (and the wig).

"Halt, intruders!" the first man booms. He has a theatrical, carrying voice; it would make for an imposing presence if not for everything else about him. "I am Cloud Strife, mercenary soldier" - he yells the last word - "and defender of this sector! What is your business here?"

"You're not very good at this," Coyote observes. "You have the voice wrong."

The two men go into a huddle.

"I told you to let me talk!" says the gun-armed one. His voice is surprisingly high-pitched for such a big man, and his body language seems... off somehow. "Cloud doesn't talk! He doesn't care enough, he's not being paid to talk!" 

"Every time you talk our viewership tanks," complains the swordsman, "I'll need to edit this out anyway -"

"We need to be authentic! True to the source!" And to Coyote: "You are right, you're so right, let me do this over", as he rapidly presses buttons at the base of his gun.

They flicker, and are suddenly standing on the sidewalk again.

"Halt, intruders -" the first man starts again.

"Shut up!", the gun-man interrupts. "Don't forget your skinny ass is working for me now!" 

"You!" He is pointing his gun-arm at Taylor. Alarmed, she steps back behind Coyote. "You call yourself a hero? The planet's dying! It's dying and it's all your fault!"

He presses some buttons again, and music begins playing.

The music is coming from a winged golden ball flying overhead! It makes a few circles around them, and suddenly everything Taylor can see swirls together like the world is being sucked into a giant whirlpool of color - she stumbles -

Everything snaps back in place, the two men standing in the road, pointing their sword and gun at Taylor with unfriendly expressions.

There is some kind of distortion, like a curtain of hot air, in a wide ring around them, and everyone else who was on the street is on the outside (and busy either taking photos or fleeing for their lives).

The golden ball continues playing its music, which sounds like an unholy marriage of cellphone ringtones and a bunch of one-note trumpets.

Is that a SHINY BIRD? It flies, it sings, and there's only one way to find out if it cronch -

POUNCE!

(Devil Cat is... Somewhat unnervingly good at murderizing flying things, actually. Cats with wings: every bird's worst nightmare.)

The golden ball tries to fly away and hide behind the two men!

Mwahaha you're going nowhere, little maybe bird! 

Now: does shiny maybe bird CRONCH? (Devil Cat, unbeknownst to her, now has a supernaturally powerful bite.)

Given enough bite, the ball absolutely CRONCHES!

It flops sadly in her mouth. Does she want to keep it up in the air?

Nah, she'll drop it - it does not taste good! - and bat it a little to see if it does anything interesting.

It beeps sadly but doesn't move. The music has stopped playing.

"Monster!" the big man roars. "How dare you break my - the free press! It's my turn!" 

The gun on his arm starts spinning with a whine, faster and faster until it's almost a blur, and he points it at Devil Cat -

And there's suddenly a large, grinning face taking up a good chunk of his field of view - neck winding around his arm from behind him - 

"Not very sporting!" Coyote says, laughing.