Disclaimer: I own none of Tamora Pierce's characters.
Thanks to all my reviewers. You gave me the motivation to keep writing this story.
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Typan looked around at her stone walled room. There was little light this far back in the cave, but her eyes worked like those of a cat, so she could see well enough. The room held a locked trunk opposite a pile of blankets and worn clothes.
As much as she hated to leave this place where she felt safe, Typan needed to see a healer. She'd had a cough for nearly three weeks and it was getting no better.
The light was becoming dimmer and she knew the sun was almost down. Typan moved a bag from under the pile of clothes and put a set of clean clothes in the bag along with some dried meat and fruit she had in her store.
As Typan tied up the sack she felt the change begin. Her bones began to creak and pop as her body stretched. White fur to match her white hair sprouted over her body with stripes that gave her the pattern of a tiger. Her hands and feet grew to the claws of a cat as her head became that of a large cat. The final changes, the flattening of her chest and large bat-like wings erupting from her back, Typan accepted with a growl of pleasure.
She stood fully transformed, nearly seven feet tall, and stretched her wings to their full twenty foot span. Typan removed the remnants of her shirt, but kept the breeches on.
This was how Typan spent her time from sunset to sunrise.
A body wracking cough brought Typan back to the present. She pulled her pack on to her back and took the tunnel to the front of her cave.
She surveyed the area to see if there was a chance a person could see her. Typan's cave stood halfway up a cliff that was all but impossible for the most skilled human climber to scale.
The area seemed clear and Typan launched herself out of the cave and felt the wind pick her up as she spread her wings.
I took only a couple of hours of flying before Typan could see the lights of the village. She banked gently to the left, towards the sea and continued for another quarter of an hour before setting down in the woods, out of sight and still miles away from the village. Typan felt she could never be too careful. She set out along her own path parallel to the well used dirt road.
