Author's Note:
2020 certainly was a rough year. I haven’t made the chapter updates I wanted to, but progress has continued apace with the back end of the fic. I have an increasingly comprehensive outline, even more buffer material, and at long last, this chapter. It was a tough one to get right, due to how many elements I’m balancing within it, but I trust my efforts were worthwhile. I hope you enjoy it!
N.B. If you’re an older reader and you’re confused to be getting a notification for Chapter 2 when you’ve read further on than that already, please be aware that last year I began redrafting the fic according to a new outline. You may need to double back and read the new prologue and first chapter
Chapter Changelog:
2021/01/28: Tightened up the prose a little and added chapter art!
Dusk
“Let me in.”
“What? No. Only staff—
essential staff—are allowed in for this.”
“I know. Let me in any-way.”
The human shook his head and shooed Dusk away, with that insufferable facial expression the guards in the facility all seemed to wear. She signed furiously at him, trying to explain that a morph should see someone like them when they wake up, that she could
help, that she could better put the new morph at ease, but his face maintained blank incomprehension, and he put a hand to a pokéball at his waist. She made a sign with one finger that he’d definitely understand, and stormed away.
Or at least, she began to. Alisha was coming the other way down the corridor. So, she was the purrloin’s recruitment officer as well as Dusk’s. They met halfway, with Dusk already calmer.
“Al-i-sha. Hello.”
“Hey there, Dusk. Figured you’d keep me company again today, huh?”
Dusk offered her a sharp grin and shrugged. “Don’t care about that. Want-ed to give new morph some-one good to look at. Ha?”
Alisha chuckled. “Of course. Well, you already know I can’t let you in. Sorry, mate.”
“O-kay. What can I do?” Dusk frowned at the vagueness of her own words, and resorted to signing: [I am frustrated. I cannot enter this place. I don’t know what to do.]
Alisha smiled gently and hefted her satchel bag. “I’d talk this out, but they’ve been waiting on me awhile now. Hey, how’s this: if you want me to pass anything along to this morph, you just let me know, okay?”
Dusk tilted her head. “Pass things. Give objects?”
“I was thinking messages, but yeah, gifts are fine. Just don’t take it the wrong way if she doesn’t like them.”
“O-kay. Yes. ‘Gifts.’ Let’s do gifts.” Dusk put her claws to her chin and thought for a moment. “What is her name, Al-i-sha?”
“Oh, I’m not telling,” Alisha teased. “I mean for one, don’t you remember what I told you when
you woke up? You should have the opportunity to choose a new name to go with your new identity. I'll give this one the same choice when she’s conscious. Once she chooses, then you'll get to know.”
Dusk rolled her eyes theatrically, but she smiled, too. Alisha was right, of course. Dusk was glad that other morphs didn’t know her given name, and it
was only fair.
“Alright then, mate. You take care, yeah?”
Dusk nodded and gave Alisha her casual salute, which the human answered with a peace sign before approaching the ward.
Gifts. Okay. She could do that. It wasn’t the same as making an impression in person, but it was a first step toward friendship, and she’d given gifts before. Sneasel typically gave gifts of choice meat cuts, carved tools, or beautiful stones, but none of those were available. What she
did have was a lot of saved credit at the rec store.
Yes, she’d find something a morph going through recovery would enjoy.
XxX
Salem
I hear you.
That’s what she
tried to say, as she emerged at last from the hazy half-consciousness of the tank. Instead, it came out as messy, useless noise. Was she not trying hard enough? She tried again and made a strangled yowl. Her throat felt hot from shame, and dry from the air rushing into her aching lungs.
Her head hurt. No—everything hurt.
She opened her eyes. Blinked against the brightness—
Not brightness. Colours?
The world was different now. New colours. Bright colours. Her eyes swivelled in her head, jolting from one alien hue to another. That shirt. That hair. Colours she’d never seen. Never could have imagined. To see so many of them, all at once—too much to take in. She didn’t even face towards them, her eyes just raced—she was dizzy. She felt sick. Too strange. Too new! Too much!
She screwed her eyes shut and wailed against the visual din.
Alisha was talking, but she couldn’t get the meaning of the sounds over the pain and the panic and—
That feeling. That difference. Even with her eyes shut against the world, she could tell.
Her body was not the same.
It felt distant. Stretched-out. Heavy. Impossibly heavy.
She looked down, and saw her altered form laying before her. Human sized. Human shaped. Covered in fur as always, in patterns she knew well. Her body. Yet, not.
This was it—the whole point of being here. Her wish.
She stared at it. Tried to move all at once and found she didn’t know how. She needed to see. Her head spun as she lifted it.
That was her arm, right there. Human-sized, aching bone-deep, pierced by a tube full of liquid. But certainly her arm. Her arm, and at the end of it, her hand. Right? She raised it. It took more effort than she expected, as if it were someone else’s limb. She held it still until it began to shake with the effort. She tried to splay her fingers, and they twitched in front of her, useless. Out of her control. She tried yanking out the tube and found she had neither the strength nor the pain tolerance.
What if… Could she get up? What if she couldn’t move? She needed to be upright. Now.
She tried to flip onto all fours, something she’d done countless times. Pain. Failure. Her body lurched and spasmed; her muscles screamed at her. She gasped, fell back with an audible thump, flinched, cried out in a voice that wasn’t her own.
Around her, someone was talking, but she couldn’t think, she couldn’t listen, she needed to get up—
—a hand pressed gently against Salem’s shoulder, and brought her collapsing down again. Flat on her back, her limbs jerked weakly against the padded railings at the side of her bed. She was exhausted within moments.
“It’s gonna be okay, Salem.”
Above her was Alisha’s face. Smiling widely, with muscles relaxed and eyes creased. That was good, right? Salem checked again. She didn’t trust her intuition. Yes. Alisha was happy, not distressed. Maybe this was normal. Other pokémon-humans must have struggled too! Things were okay, she would get to speak. Soon she would speak. Next to Alisha were the humans from her medical tests. How could she know that? Had she really recognised them by sight alone? She’d only seen their faces once before, and hadn’t even got their scent at the time. She didn’t understand.
Behind the small crowd of humans were clean white walls, equipment she recognised from pokémon centre checkups, and several beds much like her own. They were clearly visible at a surprising distance, more in focus. The contrast between light and shadow sharper. The colours richer. She shrank back from it all. Her vision was drowning her.
“It’s okay, you can close your eyes.”
No. She was weakening, but so was the feeling of wrongness, of being in a body she didn’t understand. She fixed her eyes on Alisha and wished she could read human faces the way she could read feline body language.
“How are you feeling, Kitten?” asked Alisha.
She started to reach to sign, then stopped. She wanted to speak. She forced her mouth into the shapes that she thought were right. What was the thing Alisha had done when she said “feeling?” Teeth against her lower lip. Something with her tongue. She wasn’t sure.
“Fee— oh— I—”
The words died in her mouth. She was so close! It hurt to be so close. But even if she knew how to make the sounds, how could she have explained herself? She felt too much, too many things at once—a storm inside her head! Each sound and scent raised more thoughts and more memories than she could cope with, and emotions too, flowing and flooding and breaching every part of her brain with the weight of her feeling. Too much; too much!
“Take it steady, Salem. You can stay calm, just keep still and you should start to get used to it.”
She gasped and panted, clutching at the bed as if she was about to float away from it. Should start to get used to it? Only should? ‘It’ was her entire existence. If she couldn’t ‘get used to it,’ would she feel this awful forever? Overwhelmed. Breathless. For the rest of her life! She needed to escape, escape from her own lungs—
Please— A way out, please—
“Salem, try to take big breaths. You can do it. One at a time, now. Slowly.”
She tried. Breathe in, more, breathe out. Her breath rattled. Inhale, and somehow exhale. Again, again! Slower?—she only knew quick, sharp breaths. Her lungs were so much larger now. She gasped to fill them. Strained. Failed.
“It may not feel like it, but I promise, you can learn to control your breathing. I promise. Keep trying, Salem.”
She took the deepest breaths she could, as if it would brace her against the sensory tide, but could only manage shallow gasps. Fear sunk its teeth into her. She wouldn't manage to handle her new eyes, new body, this was a mistake, she couldn't go back. She wasn’t adapting, she couldn't adapt. She didn’t know how to breathe deeply, contrary to instinct and habit.
Alisha kept speaking to her, but Salem lost her grip on the words. She wanted to feel nothing. Be nothing. She turned to curl into a ball—but couldn’t. Not quite. Was there something wrong? Her back wouldn’t curve all the way. She couldn’t pull her legs all the way up. Why? Was she broken?
Yet, to her tearful relief, turning on her side did help. It took pressure off her chest, allowed more air in, let her breathe easier.
It took time and continuous coaching from Alisha, but she did it. For the first time in her life, she breathed in, deep, held it. And out. What more might she be capable of, with time? She wasn’t her old self; she was new. Maybe with her new eyes, body, brain, she could adapt. There were unfamiliar difficulties in being half-human, but there were also new strengths.
She found something behind the fear. Something different. And it let her breathe.
Alisha talked to her, guiding her breaths and inviting her to control each part of her body in turn, to understand how it had changed, to take her time in experiencing the strangeness of it all. To welcome each thought and feeling one at a time.
She tried. It seemed to take a lifetime. Somehow, she managed.
Once the tide started to subside, it became almost… fun. Now fingers. Now toes. Now ears, still able to pin back against her skull and turn towards Alisha’s snapping fingers. Now tongue, strange and unfamiliar in her mouth, but nevertheless under her control.
It was going to be alright. She was going to be okay. This was really happening. All she’d hoped for… within her reach.
She opened her eyes.
“Feeling better now, Kitten?”
Speech could wait. An affirmative miaow would do. She sounded mostly like normal, but… her voice had deepened.
“Sounds like you are,” said Alisha, smiling.
With some coaxing, Salem rose from the bed and from her stupor. Sitting took effort. Her body felt heavy and distant. She’d much rather be curled up in a ball, but sitting helped with communication, so she struggled on. She felt stable, at least: her faintness subsiding; her breath even; her exhaustion possible to bear. She did, however, have to make several adjustments to her tail’s resting position before it became tolerable.
“Feels like nothing else has in all your life, right?” said Alisha.
Salem blinked slowly and nodded. Alisha blinked slowly back.
“Trust me,” Alisha told her, “it might be pretty overwhelming now, and you’ll need time before everything feels normal, but it’s worth it. It’s so worth it. You’re gonna be able to do almost anything at all. There aren’t many people like… many people like
you, you know? With your potential. Mind and body both somewhere between human and pokémon… it’s exciting, right? You’re in good company, Kitten. You’ll be just fine.”
Salem drank it all up, wide-eyed.
Everything would be okay. Everything would be fantastic. She could handle herself. Learn. Even be special.
She raised a weary arm and signed: [Thank you. Friends.]
Something went wrong along the way, because her hands didn’t go where she expected them to, and the motions were vague and amateurish. She could sign better than this. She tried again and just barely got the signs to form. Was she just tired? Yes, she was only tired.
The clumsy signing must have amused Alisha, because she looked down and to the side, and chuckled. “Sure, Kitten,” she said.
Salem concentrated. Aligned her arms with great care. Thought it through. [What will happen–?] she managed, before her hands cramped up, and she wrung them, wincing.
“What happens next depends on you,” said Alisha, softly. "You should rest for a good while. Once you're well enough, then we can try teaching you to walk, use your hands, even talk. But first, rest as long as you need. Most morphs take several days to get their strength up. Minimum."
Salem had no energy left, but she wanted to do those things so badly she felt she could substitute the sheer intensity of her desire for actual bodily strength. She concentrated on bringing her hands up in front of her face and making the right movements. She knew what she wanted to say; it was the physical actions that strained her. Her arms now spoke another language, moving in ways she wasn’t used to, and aching as they did. Were they even the same limbs as before? Why was it so hard to make familiar signs? Somehow, she managed.
Paw to her chest, then a clutching motion. [I want.] A motion from her mouth, moving forward. [To speak.] Hand-over-hand motions. [To walk.] More subtle motions now, ending in a raised paw, high as it could go. [I will try as hard as I can.]
They were halting, cautious movements. Her hands hurt and she couldn't figure out how to move her fingers separately yet. It wasn’t anything like what proficient humans like Alisha could manage.
It was still some of the proudest signing she'd ever done in her life.
“Sorry, Kitten. Even bipeds take a few days before they can hope to walk around. You need rest!”
Her tail repeatedly thumped the bed in quiet anger. [Walk. I want to walk. I can.]
“No way.”
She yowled, signed. [I will walk.]
“Not now, Salem–”
[Now!] She hissed as she signed, showing off her fangs.
Before Alisha could decline again, Salem grappled with the guard rails, preparing to throw herself off with or without help.
"Alright!" said Alisha, hauling Salem back over before she hurt herself. “Alright. Let’s give it a shot.” Was she impressed? Concerned? Her expressions escaped Salem. "We’ll start by standing upright. Let's get those legs carefully on the floor, okay? And I do mean
carefully."
She unfastened the rails at the bedside and pulled them down. It took time, but Salem managed to swing her hind paws off the bed and dangle them over its edge. Sudden movements made her feel faint and unbalanced, so she placed her pads on the floor and gingerly pushed off from the bed. Alisha steadied her to prevent her toppling over, hands on her torso. Salem stood, tail and arms thrust away from her body to find a precarious balance.
"You’re a purrloin, so you might think this'll be easy just because you've walked on your hind legs before. It's not going to be easy. Your muscles are exhausted, and your centre of gravity is different. If you were another species, I wouldn’t even let you try standing. Okay, follow my lead..."
With Salem’s arm over Alisha’s shoulders, the human took much of Salem’s weight as she took her first steps in her new body. They were shaky, difficult steps, but her swelling pride was worth it. Her chest heaved, and in a moment of surging confidence, she pushed off to take her own weight unsupported. Instead, she fell to the floor like the contents of a jellied meat packet, clutching at Alisha’s arm. Alisha didn’t even wince as Salem’s claws dug for purchase. Salem looked up at her, her throat burning again. As much as it stung, there was no denying that she wasn't ready.
“Don’t worry, Kitten. You did well.”
Alisha helped her back into the bed to do some light sulking, and reassured her that the emergency call button on the bedside table would bring someone if she needed help. Salem raised an arm to sign her thanks, felt faint, and sank back into her pillow.
“Get some rest, Kitten. You’ve got a tough journey ahead of you.”
XxX
The first thing she asked for upon waking was water, realising as she tried to punctuate her signs with miaows that her throat was still painfully dry. A nurse fetched her a cup. Salem signed a small thanks and held the thing between both hands, lapping carefully at the surface. Her tongue wasn’t so altered that she’d lost that ability. She was just about dexterous enough to tip the water level towards her face, but her arms were still weak, and she spilt some in the effort. She refused help drinking it, of course. There had to be
some limit to what she needed assistance with.
If she couldn’t walk, she'd need something to do besides lying in bed. Some mewling and charades earned her a magazine belonging to a human, something with pictures to look at. Mostly pictures of humans. The nurse offered help turning the pages, and she signed a perfunctory [NO]. If she needed help, she would ask. She touched it with her fingertips, and pulled them back as her claws punctured the material. She tried to slide the pages over with only her pads. At first, she couldn’t get the hang of it, and she tore the paper more than once. Gradually, painstaking pawing at the pages taught her how to turn first one, then the next.
She stared at the pages for an age. It was a joy to see fresh colours revealed to her, to soak them all up at once with her newly-altered vision. She cajoled the nurse over to ask him what colours things were by pointing at them and making the sign for [question]. It took a little while, but eventually he found the right answer.
She discovered ‘red’ from the magazine by pointing at a man’s clothes and being patiently answered by the nurse. Red. It had always been there, at least for humans. Now she could actually see it, really see it, instead of perceiving it as identical to orange, brown, even some purples. The change really was not in the world, but in herself. The thought was strange, that her eyes were different now. Forever. She decided she was okay with that. She chose this. She wouldn't regret it.
Although this moment had no precedent in Salem’s life, the nurse seemed to think that he had more important things to be doing. It was a struggle to correct him on this point. It didn’t matter, she was busy grappling with the dawn of a world in full colour. Brighter, richer, more whole. Brimming over with colours she’d never dreamed existed. Like
red.
XxX
She had barely been introduced to this body, and she could get to know it a little better, even bound to her bed as she was. She became consumed with consuming every sensation, even discomfort and pain, that her new form afforded her. Her body’s greater weight pressed her down into the bed. Her fur had the same texture, the same sensitivity. Her pads remained pads, but were more sensitive, softer, and hadn’t grown quite in proportion with the rest of her hands. Neither had her claws, which were broader than before.
She held up a hand and licked the back of it to find that her tongue had lost some of its rasp, and her sense of taste had changed. Her fur was not exactly pleasant to wash, but if her more human-like tongue could afford her the power of speech, it would be more than worth it.
As time passed, Salem kept moving her attention to another change, another hurt. Her eyes hurt, her paws hurt, her belly hurt. None of them felt like they belonged to her yet, but they soon would. She struggled to relax, but she was still a cat, and persistent at achieving comfort. Eventually, she found a position to curl up in that put less strain on her overtaxed body, and managed to sleep.
In her dreams, Salem was running; running on two legs; running for miles and miles and miles; running, and never getting tired.
XxX
Salem’s second day as a morph—hard to tell how long exactly without seeing the sky—was less intense an experience on her poor eyes, ears, nose and body. With the lack of intensity came boredom, and with boredom came repeatedly scratching at the side of her mattress until the white-coated humans came to perform more of their tests. She knew how they went from last time, during her pre-morphing checkup, but it was a different experience altogether in her new body. She found some satisfaction in forcing them to ask politely for each cooperative movement, rather than letting them
handle her as they’d done when she’d been merely a purrloin.
They moved her to a room of her own on her third day, explaining that she needn’t stay in the ward with her health stabilised. She suspected it may also have had something to do with her shredding the mattress, as her new one was resistant to her claws. Though she would have preferred a room with other morphs, or any other people at all, the advantages of her own space were considerable. She could do as she liked, request everything from an illustrated encyclopedia to soft, warm blankets, and as warm as she pleased it to be.
It almost made up for the solitude.
XxX
Her uniform consisted of dark grey shorts and sleeveless white shirts. They were elastic, fit comfortably, and often had pockets, in which Salem had taken to keeping loose items, when humans left them unattended. She didn’t care for the constraining sensation of fitted clothes, but they also made her feel very
human. On balance, that was a positive, so she consented to wear them.
It also came with a hexagonal badge, black with gold trim (Perihelion put gold trim on
everything) and a series of flowing white lines in the centre. It looked a little, but not entirely, like a ‘P’ shape. Salem wouldn’t have paid the thing any attention, but it made a pleasant
‘clink’ when tapped with a claw, and it reflected light as a tiny dancing spot on the walls. Making the little dot of light swim around the room provided considerable entertainment.
XxX
She stirred on what she estimated to be her fourth day as a pokémorph and began by hitting the emergency call button. Nurse Taylor brought her a plate of soft meat first, which she vanished immediately, but she continued to fuss in exaggerated sign to be taught human speech. It took many tries, but since he always answered the button, and she had more persistence than he had patience, he eventually agreed to schedule her first, solo, speech therapy session. It turned out that getting what you wanted from humans wasn’t so hard, once you got the knack of it. If you made enough fuss, and persevered, they’d figure out what you wanted and let you have it.
This technique worked for many things, but it didn’t make it any easier to
learn. Learning was what really mattered. Physical therapy tasks were completed with dreamlike slowness. When she held things she generally either dropped them, or crumpled them. Her pencil wouldn’t go where she wanted it to go. Progress was so
slow.
XxX
At first, she was moved around in a wheelchair. Once she stumbled out of it enough times and the nurse pushing her grew tired of lifting a wriggling cat-person off the floor, she was given her first physical therapy session in the hopes of getting her to walk.
She spent hours learning to put one foot in front of the other, supporting herself by leaning heavily on support rails. She spent hours watching television, trying to piece together fragments of spoken language she was unfamiliar with. Hours practising her sign. Hours clasping her hands together and pulling them apart to develop grip strength. Hours learning to make different sounds with her mouth, so she could finally say real words out loud.
Her first word was ‘hello.’ The first several times she said it it came out as ‘HEYiao,’ trailing off at the end like a miaow. Saying it more clearly, with the second syllable clipped and the central consonant clear, took a whole lesson on its own. But it was still recognisably ‘hello.’ It mattered, her teacher told her. It was very important to know how to greet a human using this word.
Lots of things were important, because of what humans wanted. And because humans wanted them, so did Salem.
Her ‘speech therapist’ was a human woman who smiled often. Her name was Jo, which Salem could only say as ‘Yo’ at first, to Jo’s amusement. When she smiled or laughed the skin around her eyes would crease all the way up, like crumpled fabric. Salem tried smiling back, and learnt quickly that smiling was desirable only if you did not bare your fangs excessively when you did so.
She started counting the small victories, since she couldn’t count the moons from these windowless rooms. Walking from one end of physical therapy to the other, supported the whole way. Her delighted discovery that she could substitute a trilled purr for the ‘rr’ sound. Drinking from a cup without dropping it. Her first time drawing a straight line between two points. Her first time making three steps without holding onto the rails. Five steps without rails. Ten. Twenty.
Saying ‘Salem’ properly for the first time (with an actual ‘mm’ sound!) made her so happy her eyes prickled at the corners. Seeing Jo’s delighted smile lead to tears. Another lesson: tears could come from joy.
XxX
Often, she would stand in front of her bathroom mirror, and practice expressions in it. Some were easy, because they were similar to what she was used to. A snarl was a snarl, even to a human. Smiles were a little harder. Humans had been giving her odd looks when she smiled at them, but lately they’d been smiling back. More subtle expressions were more challenging, even frustrating, but there was a knack to them, and she was determined to get it.
XxX
Salem pushed herself to learn with such intensity that it left her exhausted each night, though it hardly felt like night when she couldn’t see the moon. Her small victories had become more significant: Her first sentence without pauses. Her first circuit of physical therapy under her own power. Saying ‘Jo’ with a real ‘j’ sound. Understanding a full conversation between two members of staff, without missing a word. Her first step walking entirely unaided. Ten steps unaided. Thirty.
How many moons were passing as she continually exhausted herself and slept each day?
“This is tay-king so long,” she complained to Jo during one session, hating her tongue for every mangled syllable. She lisped a little if she didn’t concentrate, she drawled half her vowels, and she still paused awkwardly on difficult syllables. It was a wonder Jo understood what she was saying without sign. “Wuh-enn will I speak fast-er?”
“Salem,” said Jo with a smile, “it’s only been two weeks. Take it steady, now.”
Two weeks.
Pokémorphs, it turned out, learnt
very quickly.
“It’s a temporary benefit of the morphing process,” explained Taylor. “It’ll wear off in a few months, but for the time being you’ll pick things up like crazy.”
‘Like crazy.’ Figurative language, another quirk of human speech.
The following day, she hit two more milestones: walking a full circuit of the physical therapy room unaided, and pronouncing a whole sentence comprehensibly. She took pains and far more time than she could bear to get out the syllables one by one, but she managed to say aloud: “hello, my name is Salem, and I am a pokémorph.”
My name is Salem. And I am a pokémorph. Saying it in the human tongue made it real.
XxX
Salem’s room was fast becoming covered in posters, providing sorely-needed staring spots. One of the magazines given to her contained a pullout of a map of Galar, which she’d obsessed over for hours. When Taylor noticed and decided to stick it up on her wall, she demanded more like it. The staff were happy to oblige.
XxX
“Hey, Kitten.”
“Ah-lee-sa!”
“Nice one, you’re really getting those vowels down, huh?”
“Yes!”
“I’ve got a gift for you. It’s not from me, it’s from another morph. A friend of mine. They know you’re having a rough time in physical therapy and wanted you to have this.”
“Oh?”
Alisha took an object from out of her satchel.
It was soft and colourful and flopped when handled. The outer surface seemed to be a loose skin over something rubbery inside.
“Wha-at is thiss?”
“It’s a hot water bottle. You press it against your body. Good for staying warm and soothing sore muscles. Want me to fill it up?”
“…Yeh-ess. Pluh-ees.”
“Okay, Kitten.”
Alisha took the object to the sink and brought it back swollen and warm. Salem took it carefully with both paws, rested it on her abdomen, and sighed contentedly with a little rumbling purr as its heat seeped into her.
“Who…?” she asked.
“Who sent it? Another morph. She said not to make a big deal out of it, though. Guess you have a secret admirer.”
Another morph had sent her something. To help her.
A restlessness built up in Salem’s limbs as she tried to figure out how to ask to
see this morph, to thank her. To meet someone going through the same things as her.
“I want… to see the ad-my-ra.”
“Your secret admirer? That’s a hard no, I’m afraid, not until you’re further along in training. Program policy. Your admirer has to stay secret for now.”
“See-kret?”
“Something you don’t know about. Something hidden.”
“You know many seekret?”
“So many secrets, Kitten,” said Alisha, winking.
XxX
They gave her toys. She expected little squeaky things and dangling ribbons, like Laura used to play with, but these were not that. One was a cube, each face bearing a different novelty—a switch that clicked when pressed, a disk that could be pushed around in circles, a set of wheels that turned with little noises.
She played with them often. Almost constantly, in fact. Even when asked to stop. Her brain was so
fast now, speeding from thought to thought, and clicking and pressing and fidgeting helped her focus. It gave her brain something to preen over while she focused on individual ideas. Even so, it was like being cooped up back home, understimulated, with insufficient company, with not nearly enough to see and do.
Any time her mind went unoccupied, it was like she was back there, with Laura gone,
waiting.
Well, Salem might not be able to see Laura here, and (she realised with a crushing feeling around her chest) she might never be able to again, but there were plenty of other humans in this place, and they were willing to tend to her. She decided to make the best of it. She took every opportunity to complain and make demands, and the human staff patiently supplied her with diversion.
XxX
Dreams continued to be her merciful escape from the sustained agonies of physical therapy. In the waking world, she could barely support herself even by gripping railings on either side. She could manage a step or two more with every bout, but it was barely any progress at all.
“You’re doing excellent work. You know, a human in your position could take weeks or months to make this much progress.”
It wasn’t enough. She wanted to run,
now, not push through walls of pain and fatigue just to stand unaided.
XxX
[Good,] signed her pokésign tutor. [Now make all of those signs, one after the other.]
Salem moved her arms and hands and fingers, making the human-specific signs with the same confidence as the imprecise feline signs she’d used since before she could remember. Now, a series of gestures with digits. Now, a sweeping movement. Now, a twist at the wrist and a certain flick.
[Hello, it’s nice to meet you. My name is ‘Pickpocket’. How are you?] they signed in unison.
[Very good!] signed the teacher again. [You are talented at signing. I’m pleased to see it.]
Salem shrugged. That was another human sign she’d learnt. It meant [I don’t know.]
Maybe she
was talented. It didn’t feel like enough. She still cringed at her own slowness, her clumsiness.
More practice. She’d get it.
XxX
“You need to slow down. You’re pushing yourself faster than we have guidelines for. You’re catching up with morphs that completed the Shift weeks ago.”
“That’s good! I want this.”
“I know you’re proud of yourself, but you’ll wear yourself out. You need rest too.”
“I want to learn everything fast. Then I can be happy.”
“I know. I know you feel that way. I’m asking you to be gentle with yourself. To take it steady.”
“I will try.”
XxX
Salem decided not to ‘take it steady.’ If she was only going to learn at this pace for a few months, she needed to make best use of it while she still could. She started practising something, anything, every spare moment she had.
She did circuits of her room while talking or signing to herself. She counted out the steps, making the signs for each number. She made fuss at one of the staff until he gave her adhesive putty to stick pages from her books and magazines up on the wall, which she would stare at as if she could will them into comprehensibility. It was exhausting, but her teachers seemed impressed. So she kept it up.
She couldn’t bear to stop.
XxX
“Put your finger to this part of your neck. Okay. Now say ‘ah’, draw it out, yes. You feel the vibration?”
“It isn’t a purr.”
“No, no it isn’t, ha. Well, that’s where your voice is coming from. If you change your voice, you can feel it differently when you press your fingers to your throat.”
“This is so hard.”
“It will feel that way sometimes. Just keep up your exercises. Especially the breath work”
[Okay. I will try.]
“In Galarish, please, Purrloin? This isn’t a pokésign class.”
“Oh-kay. I will try.”
“You’re getting there.”
XxX
“When will I meet other morphs? When have I made enough progress?”
Alisha shrugged, but she smiled too.
“When I say so. Which I will when I think you’re ready. What do you think, are you ready?”
“Yes! I’m ready.”
“Well, what do your therapists think? What does Taylor think?”
“They… They keep telling me I’m do-ing well. Very well. Al-so, I need rest. But Al-ee-sha, I can rest and
also meet morphs.”
“I’ll consider it.”
XxX
She still couldn’t read. Literacy lessons weren’t to begin until she’d become fluent in spoken language. She did not know how long that might take.
Alisha told her to be patient. Taylor told her to relax. She did her best.
XxX
Speaking, it turned out, was addictive.
“Salem, say, lemm, say-lemm, Salem Salemm Salemmm-” she hummed to herself as nurse Taylor brought her some supper.
“I see you’re having fun,” he said, with his soft voice she liked to imitate.
“Having fun,” she agreed.
Taylor laid down her plate and said “I have a surprise for you, Salem.”
“A surprise,” Salem murmured, eyes wide.
He revealed a cylinder of paper, unrolled it, and presented it to her outstretched. It was covered in large, brightly coloured letters, each accompanied by a pokémon. Below it was some text, at which she peered as if she would spontaneously understand it.
“It’s an alphabet. It’s for when you start learning to read.”
“Learning to read…”
Taylor explained it, how each pokémon’s common species name began with the letter beside it. ‘A’ for ‘abra.’ ‘B’ for ‘bewear.’ How the sentence at the bottom read “Cyndaquil's job with fake camps vexes Zygarde” and how that was a pangram. How he knew how excited she was for literacy classes and wanted to help.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“Like it…” She reached out and touched it, to make it real. “Yes. I like it very much. Thank you.”
Taylor smiled, and leaned over her bed to press it against the wall, where it held in place.
“Will I learn to read very soon?” asked Salem. She felt out a longer word silently with her tongue before attempting it. “I want to learn to read
immediately.”
“Yeah. Tomorrow, actually. You’re being moved up. Not just lessons in reading, but in all sorts of other things, too. All that fun you’ve been having is paying off.”
“Paying off,” she echoed.
“Plus you’re getting moved to the residential wing. You’ll get to meet other morphs.”
“Other morphs…”
Other morphs!
XxX
“Hey Kitten.”
“Hey, Alish-ah.”
“You looking forward to getting moved up?”
“Yes! Looking forward to it
especially.” [Been waiting!]
“Good. So, there’s just one especially important thing to decide before that happens. Every morph gets to choose their name. It’s important. I worked very hard to make sure that was one of the rules, so think about this seriously.”
“I choose my name?” [Really?]
“Yeah. Both your spoken name and your sign name. There’s nothing wrong with keeping ‘Salem’, of course. That’s fine if it’s what you want, a lot of morphs prefer the name they were already used to. Or they keep it to remember the human who named them. But it should be your choice.”
“My choice… I could keep it to remember Laura?”
“If you want, yeah. Or like Church, you could even name yourself after your human. Go by ‘Laura’ yourself. Bit weird if you ask me, but you do you. Pretty sure there’s even a couple morphs here who go by their species names. You need some time to think about it?”
“No, I’ve decided already. My name is Salem. I’m Salem.” [And my sign name is Pickpocket.]
“Sure thing, Salem.” [Good for you, Pickpocket.]
XxX
Salem’s nights as a morph were often dreamless, but the night before she got ‘moved up’ she dreamed that her words spilled out of her mouth as brightly coloured clouds, which burst against her forepaws, staining them pink. When she woke, she looked at them with a start, and saw that they were still her normal paws.
‘Normal’. They weren’t even paws any more, but hands, right?
She couldn't decide. She flexed her fingers, interlocked them, fanned them, pressed them together, curled them into fists. It felt right. It felt wonderful. It felt powerful.
It did not yet feel
‘normal.’
She didn’t look up at the footsteps that signalled Taylor’s arrival, but her ears swivelled towards first that sound, then the sound of the door handle clicking as he entered the room and saw her still going at her dexterity exercises.
“They’re still the same hands as yesterday,” said Taylor, not unkindly.
Salem nodded, but kept her attention on her hands save for a brief smile in Taylor’s direction. She appreciated the gentle conversations he always offered, but right now they were a distraction from her dexterity exercises. She didn’t know how to explain this to him, but perhaps she’d be fluent enough someday soon. Humans had such powers of communication. Surely they didn’t have problems like hers.
“How are you feeling, Salem?” asked Taylor as he gave her some breakfast.
Salem received the plate with both hands. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth for a moment, getting her verbal bearings before her first sentence of the morning.
“I feel fine. Thank you, Taylor.” It was slow, stilted, but oh! So exhilarating!
Taylor, tale, lore, tayyy-lorrr,” she trilled, playing with the syllables and signing a needle and thread motion as she did.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” recited Taylor, in the same patient tone as he’d used the last dozen times.
“Won’t wear it out,” she said, before muttering his name a few more times under her breath.
“Group speech class doesn’t start for a little while yet, but a lot of morphs like to turn up early to get some extra practice in, I guess. Most of them might already be there, so I bet you’ll want to set off now, huh?”
“Yeah!”
Taylor nodded and began unfolding her chair.
“I don’t need that,” she said, immediately.
“Are you sure? You aren’t resting much.”
“Yeah,” replied Salem. “Sure. Yes. I want to walk!”
Taylor didn’t seem convinced. She growled softly and switched to sign. [I know you’re supposed to ask me if I am sure, but I am always sure! Always!]
“Alright, alright! Let’s go, then,” replied Taylor, who could read her animated but truly fluent signing just fine by now. “But I’m bringing your chair along just in case.”
“Yeah!” she said again. It was such an easy word to say that she could say it without pausing to think. It was barely a step up from a miaow, really.
Taylor helped Salem to her feet and once she’d taken a toy from her bedside table, he walked her out.
Salem lifted herself off the bed with haste, before Taylor could walk around to assist her. She put out a hand to press against the wall, steadied herself, and approached the door.
Door handles. So much easier than doorknobs.
She pushed the door wide open to prevent it closing on her tail, and left her room to stand in the corridor outside, arms outstretched, triumphant.
“Did you saw me?” she said to Taylor, behind her. “You should be impressed!”
“Yes, Salem, I saw that,” he replied, laughing.
“Saw that,” she said, under her breath. She’d made an error. Salem had not yet learnt the word ‘embarrassed,’ but she knew what shame felt like.
“Watch me!” she said, resorting to a favourite stock sentence. She slowly performed a 360-degree turn, arms held out for balance.
“How was my thing?” she asked, eyes wide.
“Perfect, Salem!” Taylor laughed again, so perhaps she’d made another error, but his eyebrows said ‘worry’. He probably expected her to topple over, or something equally humiliating. Still, he followed her out. She waited for his cue, and trailed him along the corridor with her fingertips pressed against the wall to aid in balance.
She could walk. She
could. Soon enough she’d be running.
Taylor led her further through the facility than she’d ever been. Since her morphing, she’d started to think about space and the relationship between places, and in an afternoon’s focused concentration she’d realised that the whole facility must be enormous. She’d seen only a small part while cooped up in the recovery wing.
They exited the wing into a large, round room, doors spaced along its walls. As they walked across the room, Salem glanced about for scraps of information. Free-standing computers, benches, humans talking, a water cooler, a few pokémon, even a scaled pokémorph passing by.
The residential wing. Where morphs lived after recovery. Where morphs interacted with one another.
She followed Taylor down a corridor smelling of that particular pokémon-human blend, so different after the sterile halls of the recovery wing. She detected a dozen distinct scents, and her body tensed. She was about to be surrounded by her own kind. Her ‘own kind,’ of which she knew almost nothing.
She’d grown fond of Alisha and Taylor and even some of her instructors, but… none were like Laura. Not even Alisha, with all her kindness. Maybe only Laura was like Laura, out of all humans. Morphs, though… Another morph could be like that to her. She felt such a tugging in her chest at the thought of finally meeting someone who could be her
friend.
“We’re here,” said Taylor, brightly.
“We’re here?”
He pushed the doors ajar and let her look past them into a space
filled with
pokémorphs.
XxX
Dusk
She was the first morph to look up at anyone entering the room, the first to analyse everything she could about arriving humans and morphs and what details she could glean from their appearance, body language, scent. That meant she was the first to see the new morph enter the lounge for the first time, freshly released from individual recovery and accompanied by her handler, that human boy with the soft voice. It had been longer than Dusk had hoped, but she hadn’t forgotten. This was the ‘purrloin’ from the tank bay.
She was a complete morph now, with fully-formed hands and an upright posture and regulation clothing. She’d opted for the basics: shorts and sleeveless shirt. Just like Dusk. The purrloin was broadcasting her anticipation in every possible way: her ears perked forward, her pupils dilated enormously, her tail held high. She was even doing that same head tilt she’d done in her sleep, going through the Shift. She was as expressive a creature as Dusk had ever seen, and her whole body was signing [Huh?].
Dusk tried to catch her eye, winked at her, and made a beckoning sign. [Come here.]
The other morph noticed, and exchanged a few quiet words with her handler. A nod. A couple small signs.
Dusk gestured again, and smiled warmly. [Come here!]
Then the purrloin smiled—a cat’s smile, with mouth and eyes closed—and walked over, a little unsteadily. Dusk kicked out a chair to make it easier for her to sit down, which she did, her body broadcasting ‘inoffensive sociability’ as hard as she could. She signed [thanks,] and waited for Dusk’s lead.
[Hello, welcome,] signed Dusk, grinning.
[Hello,] replied the cat. [Are you a friend?] Then, hesitantly, “Are you… a friend?”
Dusk’s grin got bigger.
“Yeah. I’d like to be, anyway. You got a name?”
The purrloin paused, and flattened her ears ever so slightly for a moment. Then:
“Salem.”
“Salem, huh? Nice to meet you, Salem. I’m Dusk.”
