Fat, round and brown, with a short afterthought of a tail, the field mouse paused at the edge of the small lake. A long search for grass seeds, grown rare in the ravaged fields of late winter, has taken it far from its nest. Now, with night coming on and the specter of the silent-soaring terror of owls imminent, a narrow arm of water promised the shortest route to sanctuary.
The mouse was a capable swimmer, but dreaded the cold touch of the lake, only recently coated in a skim of ice, which its fur was poor proof against. It paused there, round ears turning to the constant symphony of woodland sounds, black bead of its nose twitching in indecision. And then, from deep in the adjoining trees came a faint "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all," the sorrowful query of a wakening owl. With a shudder, the little mammal flung itself into the water.
Nearby, behind a submerged rock near the point at which the ripples of a feeding stream lost themselves in the calm of the still water, a young trout rested. She had only just reached physical maturity, but was already an accomplished predator. She knew that the habitat edge where creek met lake was a prime feeding location. Hidden in the shadow of the rock, with her eyes marking the water above and in front of her, she waited for an opportunity.
This time, however, it was not the cone of her vision but the lateral line, that stripe of vibration-sensitive cells that marked her silver sides, which first alerted her to the rhythmic paddling of the rodent. Her long form unbending, she used the paddles of her pectoral fins, beneath and behind her head, to slowly reposition her until she faced in the correct direction, until the tiny ripples of the mouse's wake were picked out for her, setting sun drawing them bright against the mirror of the water's surface. With a single snap of the chrome-steel spring of her body, she shot forward, momentum carrying her in an easy drift along the narrowing angles of that wake.
Close to the shore now, the little rodent could not possibly have detected the silver death drifting behind it. More likely it was the creature's proximity to land that urged it to greater efforts, that caused the appearance of fear and flight that triggered the trout's strike. She came up beneath the mouse, mouth agape, tail thrusting, in an attack that carried her fully out of the water. Airborne, her body turned, silver scales gleaming gold in the sunset. She had a moment of primitive triumph to savor the struggles of the small mammal in her jaws, before it became apparent that she was too close to the bank, that her leap would carry her onto the land. Before she changed.
She landed hard on her side, body snapping in instinctive panic. The mouse, little the worse for wear, escaped as her mouth gaped open, as she drew in the thin poison of the air. It took her long moments, her length thrashing on the spring-rotten snow, before she realized that she was not dying, that she was able to breathe. It was only then, after the primitive survivor-brain had reluctantly relegated authority, that she began to take stock of the other differences. The change in her mass, the limbs that had replaced her pectoral and pelvic fins, and most of all the changes in her mind.
It took her five minutes to stand, ten to master the mechanics of walking. From there to running was a single click of instinct. She hovered in the darkness at the edge of the clearing surrounding the first hut she came to. As she observed the warm ones finishing their chores, she noted that they clothed themselves. She understood their speech, completely unaware of the miracle of that comprehension. When they retreated indoors she stole a simple green shift from a clothesline. Fading light on one of their windows gave her a first glimpse of herself: Whiteskinned woman's body, shapely and soft; long, dark hair that seemed to be in constant weave, moving of its own volition. And then her face: blackmoon eyes, lidless, dark stones in which the light seemed to go to die; the hard, bony line of her mouth, hinged high on her cheeks; her smooth forehead unbroken by eyebrows; the twin, delicate holes of her nostrils bereft of any supporting nose.
Still forming, her consciousness gathering itself like a pearl around the grain of sand that pains an oyster, she could not comprehend her relationship to the warm ones. She was able to see only how she was similar to them and how different; knowing only instinctively how far she had come from what she had been, how distant she yet was from those it seemed she was doomed to live among.
A motion alerted her, wingbeats talking to her skin, the most intimate parts of which were still dusted with exquisite silver scales. Forty feet above her, a magpie beat its way in scalloped flight, following the dusk to its woodland nest. Without thought she leapt, head back, mouth gaping beyond the physics of flesh, black eyes rolled back to white. The bird startled, thrashing its wings for lift before she reached it, before it disappeared into her closing mouth.
The hinges at the peaks of her cheeks worked easily as she landed on her feet. Nary a feather drifted down as she swallowed; as she proceded, graceful, effortless, quick, to seek out the places of men.
The mouse was a capable swimmer, but dreaded the cold touch of the lake, only recently coated in a skim of ice, which its fur was poor proof against. It paused there, round ears turning to the constant symphony of woodland sounds, black bead of its nose twitching in indecision. And then, from deep in the adjoining trees came a faint "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all," the sorrowful query of a wakening owl. With a shudder, the little mammal flung itself into the water.
Nearby, behind a submerged rock near the point at which the ripples of a feeding stream lost themselves in the calm of the still water, a young trout rested. She had only just reached physical maturity, but was already an accomplished predator. She knew that the habitat edge where creek met lake was a prime feeding location. Hidden in the shadow of the rock, with her eyes marking the water above and in front of her, she waited for an opportunity.
This time, however, it was not the cone of her vision but the lateral line, that stripe of vibration-sensitive cells that marked her silver sides, which first alerted her to the rhythmic paddling of the rodent. Her long form unbending, she used the paddles of her pectoral fins, beneath and behind her head, to slowly reposition her until she faced in the correct direction, until the tiny ripples of the mouse's wake were picked out for her, setting sun drawing them bright against the mirror of the water's surface. With a single snap of the chrome-steel spring of her body, she shot forward, momentum carrying her in an easy drift along the narrowing angles of that wake.
Close to the shore now, the little rodent could not possibly have detected the silver death drifting behind it. More likely it was the creature's proximity to land that urged it to greater efforts, that caused the appearance of fear and flight that triggered the trout's strike. She came up beneath the mouse, mouth agape, tail thrusting, in an attack that carried her fully out of the water. Airborne, her body turned, silver scales gleaming gold in the sunset. She had a moment of primitive triumph to savor the struggles of the small mammal in her jaws, before it became apparent that she was too close to the bank, that her leap would carry her onto the land. Before she changed.
She landed hard on her side, body snapping in instinctive panic. The mouse, little the worse for wear, escaped as her mouth gaped open, as she drew in the thin poison of the air. It took her long moments, her length thrashing on the spring-rotten snow, before she realized that she was not dying, that she was able to breathe. It was only then, after the primitive survivor-brain had reluctantly relegated authority, that she began to take stock of the other differences. The change in her mass, the limbs that had replaced her pectoral and pelvic fins, and most of all the changes in her mind.
It took her five minutes to stand, ten to master the mechanics of walking. From there to running was a single click of instinct. She hovered in the darkness at the edge of the clearing surrounding the first hut she came to. As she observed the warm ones finishing their chores, she noted that they clothed themselves. She understood their speech, completely unaware of the miracle of that comprehension. When they retreated indoors she stole a simple green shift from a clothesline. Fading light on one of their windows gave her a first glimpse of herself: Whiteskinned woman's body, shapely and soft; long, dark hair that seemed to be in constant weave, moving of its own volition. And then her face: blackmoon eyes, lidless, dark stones in which the light seemed to go to die; the hard, bony line of her mouth, hinged high on her cheeks; her smooth forehead unbroken by eyebrows; the twin, delicate holes of her nostrils bereft of any supporting nose.
Still forming, her consciousness gathering itself like a pearl around the grain of sand that pains an oyster, she could not comprehend her relationship to the warm ones. She was able to see only how she was similar to them and how different; knowing only instinctively how far she had come from what she had been, how distant she yet was from those it seemed she was doomed to live among.
A motion alerted her, wingbeats talking to her skin, the most intimate parts of which were still dusted with exquisite silver scales. Forty feet above her, a magpie beat its way in scalloped flight, following the dusk to its woodland nest. Without thought she leapt, head back, mouth gaping beyond the physics of flesh, black eyes rolled back to white. The bird startled, thrashing its wings for lift before she reached it, before it disappeared into her closing mouth.
The hinges at the peaks of her cheeks worked easily as she landed on her feet. Nary a feather drifted down as she swallowed; as she proceded, graceful, effortless, quick, to seek out the places of men.