Page 44 of Found in Obscurity

Each time he managed it though, Lorin would just flip the page back and continue reading from where he left off.

It was infuriating.

Kit was pretty sure he’d vibrate right out of his skin. And even then, Lorin might get to the part Kit wanted him to see and just…not realize.

He had no contingency for if that happened.

He could only sit around and watch it unfold, until Lorin had the nerve to close the book and reach for the other one The Owner picked out for him. Before Lorin could open it, Kit hopped onto the cover and slammed it closed. Lorin shooed him away and tried again, but Kit repeated the hop, refusing to let Lorin waste time on that book when they had more pressing matters to attend to.

But Lorin wouldn’t budge. He actually had the gall to scoop Kit up and put him down on the floor, before turning back to his stupid book.

Kit took offense to that, wandering off and pacing around in agitation and anticipation as Lorin flipped his way through that other book. He walked the path from one wall to the other, thinking about going up to the magic room again and seeing if anything up there triggered the shift.

But he hadn’t been in there last night.

There’d been no mirror and no magical ingredients around, and he’d still, for a split second, come back as his human self.

He tried recreating last night. That tingle in his bones and the stretch of his muscles. He tried getting to that same headspace again to see if he could shift in front of Lorin to make him understand. But nothing was happening.

He was too in his own head. Too desperate for it, it seemed. Because the two times he had managed it had been almost involuntary. Like someone else’s power had pushed it out of him. Like he had very little control of it.

He paced back to see where Lorin had gotten to with reading and found him slumped on the sofa, fast asleep. He whined at the sight, trying to paw at Lorin’s nails to wake him up, but the sleepless night had clearly caught up with him and he was dead to the world. No amount of effort from Kit would wake him up. And really, Kit didn’t want him to get sick because of him.

Kit flopped to the floor by Lorin’s feet, disappointed and tired of trying for hours to get someone to figure him out.

He closed his eyes and rolled on the floor, for all intents and purposes throwing a pretty spectacular tantrum.

His foot caught on something hard and he hissed in pain, looking down to assess the injury, only to be met with a very human-looking foot and a very red big toe on said foot.

Kit jumped up, uncoordinated as he overdid it and nearly catapulted himself headfirst into the coffee table. He caught himself with palms on the smooth wood.

Palms!

He had palms.

He turned to Lorin, opening his mouth to call his name, but all that came out was a scratchy-sounding little whine that felt like razor blades. He coughed and gasped, his vocal cords refusing to shape words. Like he had forgotten how. Like the years of misuse had frozen them.

His throat burned with the effort, but there was nothing happening no matter how hard he tried.

Desperate, he reached for Lorin, shaking him with arms that lacked muscle definition in human form. Lorin frowned in his sleep and swatted him away, but his eyes remained closed and he turned his head to the other side.

Kit tried calling out his name again, shaking him again. He pushed the book off his lap to the floor and yelped when it landed on the already injured toe.

He looked down and found his foot shrinking back into a paw, the fur tufting out of pale skin and nails extending into sharp little claws again.

No!

No no no! Not yet!!

He looked around frantically as the shift slowly took over his body, climbing steadily up, the animal trapping the human.

He spotted a pencil on the coffee table and scrambled for it, falling to his knees as the shift reached his spine.

His fingers wrapped around the pencil, stiff and uncoordinated. He attempted to turn and write in the book, but found it closed and pushed to the floor.

Cursing his impulsivity, he spun back to the coffee table, lifting the pencil up and putting it against the wood.

Hair sprouted from his shoulders, slipped down to his elbows.