(Un)Welcome Intrusion II
The man with the rifle gazes intently at the footprints that you and Ali left behind. Obviously, he will likely start to follow them, and if he does, he will end up coming right to where you and Ali are currently hunkered down trying to hide. You don’t know what to do with yourself - nor do you know what this guy would do if and when he chooses to stumble on over toward where you both are. Although, you know you have a few possible choices.
‘I don’t know if I want to change forms yet,’ you think. ‘But, I don’t know if being in the body of a wolf when there’s a guy with a gun literally right there is a good idea, either…’
But then, something pops into your head.
‘Ali, you can change your form at will into five different animals, right?’ you ask. ‘And you can swap without any sort of time limit, so long as you keep it in those forms you choose… and you’ve only been a vixen and a wolf today?’
Ali stares at you for a moment before she catches on to what you’re trying to get toward. She grins deviously at you.
‘That’s right,’ she replies. ‘I can still pick three different forms for the day, besides my normal human form. Shit, I didn’t even think of that - I can probably turn into something that can get us out of this jam a little easier…’
‘What about something fast and small?’ you suggest.
‘I think I know what you’re getting at.’
Without a word, you watch her body start to morph - and she starts to abruptly transform into a new animal before your eyes like before when she went from vixen to wolf. Only now, her shifting is in reverse since she starts to get small.
Her long snout scrunches backwards into her face, while her pointed ears extend up toward the sky. Her body, meanwhile, shrinks down, and with this brisk shrinking, her legs and feet become smaller, though her feet do remain relatively ‘big’ overall. Her tail retracting back into her rear is perhaps the most amusing sight to witness throughout this, since the long, floofy tail becomes a big, rounded puff on her rear within seconds.
Her fur grows lighter, shifting in color to a woodsy light brown, and once her body has finished shrinking and her ears now stick up, whiskers pop out from her cheeks, while her fangs become little more than little nibbling teeth.
And thus, she is now a bunny, sitting and looking so small compared to you.
‘Ugh,’ Ali says. ‘I forgot how much I hated being in such a tiny little body…’
You don’t get a chance to respond because you can hear the muttering of the man with the gun - the hunter (you suppose that’s what he is) is starting to stalk toward the spot where the two of you are, his gun at the ready just in case.
‘Okay,’ Ali says. ‘I’ll distract him, and you duck out of here. Get somewhere far enough where you think he can’t follow.’
‘Are you going to be okay?’ you ask.
She snorts. ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. I went with the fastest rabbit I could think of, and while this bozo has a gun, he stinks like he’s been drinking. Bet I can use that to my advantage to keep him busy. Don’t worry about me, just get your wolfy butt outta here!’
She takes off without giving you a moment to respond, and like a little bullet, she sprints through the grass - this rustles the grass loudly enough that the hunter halts his gradual movement to stare in bewilderment. He immediately raises his gun up and starts to follow, stumbling after the source of noise without even pausing to look your direction.
‘Dear God, she’s crazy,’ you think.
But, you don’t dwell on it - you turn your attention to focus on the hunter, waiting for him to hobble after Ali, and when he’s far enough you think you can make your move, you do: you bolt out of there as quickly as you can.
You run back the direction you came from, wrapping around the perimeter of the large lake. Once you make it to the spot where you both dived into the lake to catch fish, you keep going, retracing your steps as lightly as you can manage (since making heavy indentations will only spur on the hunter if he decides to keep searching for you). You don’t stop until you’ve made a good distance from that area, by which point, there are more trees for more cover.
You slow down and eventually stop, halting yourself between a few trees where there are a few large enough bushes where your wolf form can relax.
You let out a shaky breath. ‘Hoo boy. Definitely not what I expected when I started this whole thing, that’s for sure…’
Of course, now you are on your own. No Ali, and when you glance about, you don’t see any sign of the two genies. You imagine Shira would be keeping a close eye on Ali since the two are apparently in a relationship together, but, as far as Akam goes…
“Right here, Master.”
You blink and glance up to see Akam hovering about in mid-air a few feet near you, sitting cross-legged in the air with the vase floating beside him. He smiles wide when you make eye contact, then he floats on down to where you are.
He lands, and the vase lands on the grass near you.
“Quite the narrow escape, if I do say so myself, Master,” Akam remarked. “Though I am quite pleased that you are unharmed. I can imagine the fright you must have felt seeing a man with a gun, as, well, the nature of humans when faced with the wilds is fairly unpredictable. I was watching the whole time, mind you. Both Shira and I were, until you two split up from one another.”
‘I imagine Shira is keeping an eye on Ali?’ you ask.
“Oho, for certain,” Akam says. He pauses to scratch his chin. “You know, it’s not often I come across an example of a djinn falling in love with a human. I’m actually very touched when I see it, because it takes a great deal for one of us to develop any sort of genuine connection to a mortal like yourself.”
He smiles wider. “Fortunately, that also means Miss Ali will be the most pampered, protected mortal in existence, I’d wager. No way will Shira allow anything to happen to her - Hell itself would tremble in terror at the wrath of a djinn in love if they felt their chosen paramour were in danger.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “At any rate. She will be fine. That means you can choose what you wish to do next, Master.”
You let out a quiet breath and flop down on the ground. ‘Right now, I just want to rest and see if that guy decides he wants to come after me… though I guess he may not. Never seen him before.’
There’s a moment of silence - you think a little to yourself, and, after pondering, you can’t help but be curious. Since it’s just you and Akam now, you feel you can use this time to ask him questions and learn more, but you can also choose what topic you want to ask about. There are a few on your mind, yet you want to pick one to start off with… and so you muse over what to ask.
Do you want to find out more about djinn society and lore? Do you want to ask him about the djinn in the vase beside the two of you? Or something else?
Choices…
Written by Hollowpages on 17 December 2020