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"Well, that’s a fair point," Oberon admitted
"What is?" Granuaile asked
"He said you’d still be Clever Girl no matter what your shape is"
"Oh That’s true Atticus, maybe we should speak aloud to Oberon whenever we can so we don’t have to always ask him for clarification when he answers?"
"Yep Good idea I’ a lid on it, so it will take me some time to break the habit"
"Let’s hunt"
Granuaile and I disrobed and placed our clothes near the tethered tree We asked the earth to part and conceal our weapons for us
"Onebefore you shift," I said "I have to fix your necklace"
"Oh" Granuaile raised her hand to the cold iron aarroted myself"
"Would you es sizes with your shape? I could teach you how, but it would take a while"
"No, go ahead," she said
"You’ll have to shift to every for to anyway" Ias I did so how much slack and extra chain there was Then I stepped aith it in my hand "So let’s take it from the top Horse first Go"
Granuaile spoke the words that would bind her spirit to the form of the horse indelibly tattooed on her arm She shifted to a beautiful copper-colored chestnut, sohter than her coat Her nostrils flared and she sneezed I told her what she looked like as I adjusted the necklace around her neck and memorized the size and position She whinnied and sta at a ti that she had four of the that would allow the necklace to shrink back to human size when she shifted
"Okay, shift back to human I know you want to run, but this isn’t the best place to do it There are leopards in the trees here and other hungry things"
Granuaile snorted and shifted back to hus! Hooves! Incredible!"
"I know Check your necklace"
She looked down and saw that the necklace was fastened around her neck exactly as it had been before
"You rock"
"Don’t swell his head It’s already the size of a zeppelin"
I unfastened the necklace again "Okay, kitty foruar I could tell by the shorter, thicker tail and the wider head She sneezed a couple of tiuar"
Granuaile’s joy at this news elicited an extre woods into silence
"I think every creature near enough to hear that just pooped," Oberon said, "and then it went into hiding Hunting tip nued to convey a sense of regret I took measurements for her necklace and had her shift back to huot her voice back "It’s Helen Reddy’s fault It was the whole ‘I a"
"No probleht," I said, retrieving the necklace "Let’s see what kind of bird you are Fly a bit if you want, but don’t keep us waiting long"
Granuaile shifted and I whooped "You’re a peregrine falcon! Fastest bird alive! Fly! Be free!"
With a screech of victory, Granuaile took wing; for a moment it was a majestic scene out of Animal Planet, and then it wasn’t, as she proain, crashed again, and then, on her third attempt, climbed toward the moon so she could dive back down at two hundredskid and shifted back to huroaned and clutched her stoood inside"
"It’s because you’ve been shifting back and forth so quickly When you thu, the universe tends to get you back through biology"
"I’, am I?"
"Nope It’ll fade It’s just a pain you can’t heal or suppress Hoas your flight?"
"So aweso to enjoy that form a lot"
"I’m sure you will Last one: sea lion"
She shifted and clapped her flippers together Oberon chuffed at her, and I chuckled as I adjusted her necklace
"Okay, now hold still in this for to make all the forms and sizes recursive so that you can shift directly frouar to sea lion, and the necklace will change properly along with it" A few uar from this form and we’ll hunt"
"About tiuar form and I shifted to a wolfhound We both sneezed My coat was reddish with a white stripe down htly different dog, since I was in truth one of the old warhounds of the Irish that eventually were bred to become the deerhounds and wolfhounds of today It h; to him I was a wolfhound, part of his pack
"Okay, now take a really deep breath through the nose," Oberon said to Granuaile She did and proan to sneeze uncontrollably, more violently than she had upon her initial shift She even tried to cover her mouth with her pahich was pretty funny
"Heh! Never knew the world could be so pungent, did you?" Granuaile rowl at hiet used to it in a few minutes Okay, we need you to lead us to so into any baboons, hippos, crocodiles, or other big cats"
We failed miserably to find any dik-diks, but Oberon wasn’t the least bit disappointed He was highly a and didn’t get used to her new sense of smell She’d always been a bit sensitive to odors; her first exposure to demons had caused her to retch miserably for ten minutes Once we passed near an ied and tried to run away fro turned the nor dance Oberon chuffed so hard he fell over and pawed helplessly at the sky
"You know, I’ve basically been bored for three ood I feel repaid Never thought I’d see a jaguar brought to its knees by rhino shit And it probably du and trying to pull herself away frorass of the savanna Then she remembered she had other options and shifted to falcon for herself above the rank odor of the grassland
"Aw!" Oberon said "She says she’s finished hunting Wants to ht, we’d better go We can’t keep laughing at her expense