The ferret-woman moved at an easy pace. Though there was an obvious difference in their gaits due to height she did not need to truncate her stride at all. The Phoenix moved with a inner energy and seemed well accustomed to walking at a faster pace. In her former incarnation Eliza would have been hard-pressed to keep up with her. She had noticed the slight hesitation and dip in mood when Eliza had requested more information about her family, but choose not to focus on it.


Phoenix was quiet for a moment, as she thought. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Once, the girls were angry at their brother's for something. I can't remember what now. They decided that they were going to get back at them. I remember them scheming for days, to figure out the best way to pay them back...I wish I could remember what the boys did...they would huddle together in the corner, and look at them with dark, darting glances." Phoenix chuckled at the memory.

"It was like out of a bad movie," she squinted her eyes, and looked around the street furtively, her head turning from side to side in jerky, paranoid motions. "At this point, the kids didn't have their own beds, we all slept together in my bed. So one night," she made her voice soft, obviously enjoying the story, "we all cuddle in the bed together, sort of in a pile. Well, in the middle of the night, I feel this tickling on my back. I didn't think anything of it, you know," she shrugged, to show her nonchalance, "just an itch in the middle of the night. Then i felt another one, and another one, then I felt them on my legs, and my neck, and head. I reach up, to scratch my head, and this big, round spider is burying itself in my hair!" Phoenix put her hands by her sides in fists and shivered at the thought.

"Then touching all the other tickles, they were all big, round spiders too!" Her voice rose higher as she spoke, "The girls had collected a bucket of spiders, and stuffed them in the boys' fur. Of course, they didn't stay in the boys' fur. They crawled out into the middle of the pile, which happened to be where I was sleeping at the time. They boys didn't even know they had spiders in their fur, they didn't even wake up until I screamed!"


It was very comforting to listen to a mother talk about the exploits of her children. It reminded her very much of the circles of women she would interact with on a daily basis before her transformation. At work, volunteering, church or even the plethora of people she would bump into at the grocery store. It made the ache for her close-knit rural community burn more intensely. She missed the kind and genuine people, something she had grown to love, all living their simple but happy lives. Not for the first time she regretted that fateful decision to come back east, though she never could have prepared just how strangely her life would come to be changed.

It was impossible to hold to her heartache for long. Phoenix was so animated in her storytelling. It was obvious that she would have been excellent at bedtime to her little ones. A skill that her own daughter possessed, loving to add inflection and drama to her recitations, though for some reason she was annoyed when Eliza herself tried to do the same.

She didn't hold back occasional snicker at the tale of sibling mischief, and Phoenix bearing the brunt of the reprisal. The ferret-woman's laughs sounded more like nasal huffs and sniffs unless she was was really letting go. She would have to work on that some more, it was not appealing when what used to be polite titter of amusement now came across like she was trying to get a crusty bit out of her nose. Eliza, did that a lot. Identified quirks and refined them in private to replace her lost human equivalents. Ear flicks and head tilts had begun to fill in for once expressive eyebrows and dimples.

"It sounds like you had your hands full!" She smiled while she continued to follow the animated Phoenix. "You're a better woman than me. I only ever had one in the house and she didn't even have fur or scales." She laughed again trying to picture the scene though the image was fuzzy at best only knowing that one was a snake and the others had fur.

"Thanks, she'll love that story. Thankfully for me though she won't try to repeat it. She doesn't like bugs beyond butterflies and ladybugs." Eliza huffed in amusement "I may have to skip the bit about your snake child for my own sanity, though." She looked down through the pavement they walked on, imagining the tunnels underneath.

"It can get chilly below sometimes and Gwyn seems to believe that one of the perks of having a mutant mom is that she gets to flop on top of me as her own personal warm spot. Guess our girls have something in common." She shook her head and looked at the Phoenix. "Don't get me wrong, it's nice that she's not scared of me anymore, but the physical attention can be overwhelming occasionally. I can never be sure if she's looking at me as mom, a throw rug or the coolest pet ever!"

Eliza put the back of her hand to the side of mouth and leaned down conspiratorially. "Though just between you and me I don't ALWAYS protest when she starts scratching behind my ears." She wiggled said appendages for emphasis and smiled.


The street in front of them opened up to trees and the asphalt was replaced with mulched walkways. In the cool air, the flowers of the ornamental cherry trees quivered gently, letting a soft fragrance sift down among the smells of the city, for those who were sensitive enough to smell it. Phoenix took a deep breath, the smell only on the edge of her awareness, but enough of it was there for her to be able to smell it. The mulch was still thick with the beginning of the season, it had not yet been kicked off by joggers or the weather. A few of the trees had not yet leafed out, and many little spring plants and flowers littered the ground underneath them, still able to get enough sun to bloom.

Hearing Eliza talk, Phoenix was suddenly struck-someone else was talking about their own child! Not hers, not a child that was once theirs, but a child that was with them now, here, only at home, wherever her home currently was. She had a host, she was staying with someone as a guest. He must be babysitting while she was out.

Another mother. Phoenix bit her lip as Eliza talked, so as not to interrupt her with a babble of questions: where is your daughter? How old is she? She's with you? What kind of mutant had she turned into when she touched the mutagen ooze? A ferret also?

She nodded when Eliza mentioned about her 'snake child', it was not an uncommon reaction among the mutants she helped. Snakes were the natural enemies of a great many species, and for new mutants especially, it was difficult to control the fight or flight response. She laughed at Eliza's ear wiggles, looking into her eyes delightedly.

She had caught enough of the subtle cues to figure out that Eliza's daughter might not be a mutant herself. The thought slightly disappointed her, she had not met another family unit in all her time in this society, and meeting a mother was thrilling beyond any medical oddity the woman in front of her might represent, even if she had just now realized it. She ran through her brain for an appropriate question to ask to get more information out of the ferret woman. The ones that were running through her head weren't even close to being so: She was afraid of you?! But you're her mother, how could she be afraid of you, no matter what you look like? What do you do when she treats you like a throw rug? How do you respond when she treats you like a pet? Doesn't it get you angry? Don't you find it disrespectful?

She settled on a simple and safe question, "Your daughter isn't a mutant then?"


It was nice to be doing something as casual as walking and having a chat with a friendly ear. Eliza could feel some of her earlier anxiety draining away. Not that the fear or issues were gone by any means, but rather that they were subdued in favor of enjoying a pleasant experience. So caught up she was that she didn't immediately realize that they had entered the park till the scent of growing things assaulted her. The wave of sensory input crashed over, the explosion of life was so glorious that she became lost in it.

Of its own volition her arm stretched up to capture a single new leaf and pluck it from it's perch on the end of a green laden branch. She reveled in the slightly waxy feel and the texture of the raised veins. The aromas filling the air were heavy and she was having a hard time sifting through them. The earth and flora were absorbed and soon pushed aside by more active scents. From the base of a tree was the pungent smell of a tom cat claiming his territory, though it came across as old, possibly even from a few days ago, she could see the scratch marks on the bark. More recently two or three dogs, she didn't have enough experience to tell for sure, had passed over the path they were traveling.

More tantalizing was the sound and smell of birds, chipmunks and squirrels in the trees. They were not active, it still being night and not yet close enough to dawn to rouse them completely. But she could sense them all around and it almost brought her appetite back. It wasn't tempting enough but at least the thought wasn't accompanied by the usual self revoltion that normally quickly followed.

Eliza was so caught up in her own little sensory world that she almost missed Phoenix's question. "Hmm... what?" She quickly backtracked her brain to retrieve the query. "Oh, sorry. No, no she isn't." The ferret-woman fiddled with the leaf in her hand. "Like I said, help came that night. I am eternally grateful that it came in time for her to keep safe." She smiled softly as the ferret-woman allowed her mind to be filled with thoughts of Gwyn. "The thought of her is what kept me sane that night. She was the first thing I was able to remember when I came out of the darkness and she kept me fighting afterwords." She looked down at the Phoenix, eyes soft with emotion. "It's a blessing to be able to complain about her now."

She allowed a chuckle to escape. "And there is a lot of complaining. She's been a trooper but the novelty is wearing off and she's ready to go back home. Obviously, that is a bit of a challenge at the moment. She'll be 12 next month and we were planning this huge party. Gwyn would never be so cruel as to say anything about it, but I know she's missing her friends, and her room and her life." She sighed, feeling the troubles of being unable to fix the problem at hand. "I am hoping that she'll be in a better mood after tonight. Our hosts have a human connection, a teenage girl, that Gwyn practically idolizes. They are having a sleepover right now. The time spent above and doing something 'normal' should help her attitude." Eliza smiled, "At least that's the plan."