Power Troubles

Not at all," she smiled, happy he was taking interest in her powers, "Ever since I was little, birds would always follow me around like a mother. Even when my mom would. My parents only learned my powers were dangerous when, two years ago, I got angry at a bunch of boys and accidentally unleashed a murder of crows on them...or was it ravens?"


That was really cute, actually. Looking at the big birds sitting up in the branches, Loch could imagine a small Avian strolling around with a posse of feathered followers. The thought made him smile.

That was before he stood up, feeling sick, of course.

He stumbled away, further into the woods, and found a space where he was pretty much hidden from view to dry heave for a few minutes. He was feeling fan freaking tastic.


"What should I do, what should I do?!" she murmured in a panic to herself.

He could hear her mumbling and he was going to answer when it happened. The air shimmered and the ground fell away suddenly and instead of being Lochlann-the-person, he was Lochlann-the-horse.

"Uhh.....give me a minute," he said, his voice projecting right from the horse's mouth. He hated that expression."I'm okay, I swear, just a little embarrassed, and this is awkward but uhh...don't come over here for a minute."

Of course, Lochlann didn't realize that the back of his big horse butt wasn't hidden behind the trees.

He was freaking out because he couldn't change back.

"Oh!" she quickly turned around and looked away from the horse rump and said apologetically, "S-Sorry! I didn't realize you were so...sensitive about your powers,"

Lochlann was seriously freaking out. He'd never really thought about what went into being human, but it suddenly seemed really hard to do. maybe he should go for a nice swim instead--no, bad idea, think fingers.

To make matters worse, he was certain he was making poor Avian feel so awkward. She'd just told him about her life and here he was, messing up completely.

"It's not that, it's just that--" he sort of stammered, sighing. "Your powers are really cool. Mine come with a bit of a bad reputation, and in my case, it's probably well deserved. But I think you're nice, and I want you to like me, and I feel like I'll screw things up if you see me this way."

He couldn't believe he'd just told her all that stuff. It wasn't exactly like him to just confess all his feelings like that. But he was looking up at the hawks and he snorted, flicking his tail and feeling kind of sorry for himself.

He'd always wondered what it was like to fly.

Lochlann could turn into a horse and breath underwater and run fast....but he'd never been off the ground before. "when you look at your birds, do you wonder what it's like to fly?" he asked.

He was hoping to buy himself a few more seconds to try and change back.

"Almost every time I look at them," she replied, "I wonder what I look like to them from so high up. I wonder what you look like right now from so high up! Heehee!"

Lochlann couldn't help it--he laughed, because she had a cute laugh and it was contagious. He said, "You know, I've never really thought about what I look like from high up. It's weird that I'll never know, sort of like that it's weird that you'll never know what your own skeleton looks like."

He realized that sounded a bit morbid, so he gave another small, awkward laugh. "Uh. That's probably a bit darker of an example. But I've always wondered, every time I look at the birds, what it would be like. To fly, not see your skeleton, I mean.

"Er. I can always try to have them stop watching you though. I mean, I don't know if it will work but..." her timid voice trailed off as she clumsily tried to cover up what she said before.

"No, it's okay!" Lochlann reassured her. "The birds are fine. They've probably seen me this way before anyway I'm just Oh--"

He suddenly found himself back on the ground, with hands and feet, and he was leaning against the tree heavily. "Hey there we go!"

He stepped back out, human, and approached Avian slowly again.

He had no idea that in another few minutes, he'd be a horse again right before her eyes. He was limping a little bit, the sudden change made him forget to hide how badly his leg hurt him, and he leaned against the tree smiling. "I'm glad that's over with. So what are you doing out in the middle of the woods? Just hanging out with the birds?"

"I was just enjoying the warm weather and breaking in my new flip flops," she said, shuffling her feet awkwardly.

He hadn't noticed she'd been looking at his leg because he'd had his eyes closed as another wave of dizziness washed over him. What the hell was wrong with him today? It took a moment to respond to her.

"Breaking flip-flops in in the woods? That seems sort of risky, although probably a lot nicer than the beach or the docks. It's a lot cooler here during the day."

"Your leg...is it ok?"

He opened his eyes to see she was eyeing his leg carefully, and he punched himself internally for forgetting to disguise it. It was easy to forget out in the woods.

"What happened?" she asked, "Does transforming hurt you?"

"It's nothing," he started, but he was already caught. It was so easy to relax around her that he felt guilty for trying to lie. "Well, it's nothing like that. It's just that, well, the last girl who saw me transform sort of shot me. My leg hasn't really been the same since then."

he didn't want to elaborate further, but he really didn't have a chance to because another wave of nausea came over him and it happened.

Right in front of her.

Even if she was looking at him closely, it'd be looking at a desert mirage. one minute he was a person, and the next there was a sudden rippling in the air and surprise! He was a horse again.

As it was, he was a big, black horse, with a coat that looked like he'd just crawled out of the river at night. His mane hung over his neck and his tail flicked nervously. His face looked a little different, but the differences were subtle; eyes angled forward, teeth that were sharp instead of rounded.

"Oh...shit.." he said. If he were capable of blushing, his face would be red. He eyed the birds nervously, wondering how they'd react to his rapid change infront of their master.

Lochlann's ears flattened and he snapped his teeth at the birds, a clear warning that he'd bite them if they came near. It was mostly for show, though. Lochlann knew that if they swarmed, he'd be in trouble.

"So you really are a horse..."

She looked his horse form up and down, and Lochlann again would have blushed if he'd been human. "Yeah, uh, sort of."

He pawed at the ground, sort of like a guy would kick with his feet if he was nervous. He really, really wanted to be human again, but no matter what he did, he couldn't transform.

"Ah, shit, I can't go back to school like this," he sighed. He flicked his tail and lowered his head, angling his head to get a better view at Avian. .....and maybe also convince her harpy eagle he wasn't a thread. He looked warily at the birds and said, "They're uh,.....not going to eat me, right?"