Chapter 12
The others settled down and watched as I morphed stag for the first time. I had been looking forward to morphing this one. The stag was a fabulous, stately animal, conjuring up images of majesty and grandeur. My own stag morph was a male fallow deer, acquired at my uncle's estate. It would be perfect for the forest. I pictured the deer in my mind, but as I did so, it occurred to me that Maggie, and to an extent, Philip could sort of control their morphing. I wondered if I could do that too. Wouldn't it be cool if I could grow my antlers first? I pictured the antlers in my mind, willing my body to make those changes first. They did. I stepped into a small clearing, where it was a bit brighter, and grinned as the others stared it me. I felt the hard, bone like antlers emerge from my forehead. They grew huge, over a meter from tip to tip. The antlers were different to each other - not symmetrical. I stood up straight and grinned. It must have looked spectacular.
Big mistake. The weight of my antlers was too much for my human neck and back! I stumbled forward, the antlers dragging me towards the ground. Oomph! I hit the ground with a thud, my face buried in the grass, my antlers stuck into the ground.
"Flawless, you muppet," laughed Philip. "What a thing to do!"
"Whoopsey!" I giggled, glad that it was too dark for the others to see my red face. I resumed my concentration on the stag and felt the changes continue. I was careful to focus on my neck and back so that they would grow muscular enough to hold up my antlers. Morphing the deer was a lot like a couple of other morphs I'd done. The very first morph any of us had done, apart from Maggie, was an Andalite morph. We'd acquired Eramas, the captain of our rescue ship in order to help us escape from Hork-Bajir Controllers aboard the Skrit-Na ship. That seemed like a lifetime ago now. Morphing the deer was similar to morphing Eramas, except I no longer retained my humanoid torso and arms, and of course, the tail wasn't as fun. It was also like morphing my horse - the first morph I'd performed on my own. That was pretty amazing. And now, I could feel the similar changes happening to my body. Reddish brown fur covering my body. My arms and legs elongating and switching direction. My hands and feet becoming the hard hooves of the stag. I was already on all-fours, and was now able to push myself into the standing position of the stag. My neck was fully deer now and I found I was able to hold my head with its huge antlers up again without much effort. My senses improved as I finished off the changes, making the forest come alive again. My hearing was great, although not quite as good as the owl's. My sense of smell was fantastic. I realised that I kept licking my nose with my little deer tongue. Maggie later told me that it was to keep my nose moist to attract more air molecules from which I could sense different odours. My sense of sight was decent, a little better than my human eyes for the dark. I was unable to see in colour though - it was like watching the world in shades of grey. Suddenly, the deer's mind kicked in. I was so preoccupied with being in a new body, I forgot that the instinct of the animal you're morphing is also part of the package.
Movement! What's that? New smells! Human? Ohmigod, humans, so very near! Right there - in front of me! I'd better run! Got to get out of sight! I powered my elegant deer legs into action and galloped away, out of sight of the foe.
"Ferdie!" A voice! But irrelevant to my deer mind.
"Hey, Flawless? What are you doing? Come back!" Another voice! And louder too! The enemy as approaching!
"Flawless - you need to get control of your morph! Ferdie! Can you hear me? It's Sam. You need to snap out of it - you have a job to do! God, where's he gone? He's disappeared and I can't see a thing in this darkness. I wasn't bargaining on this…"
Sam? Wasn't Sam… she not an enemy! She's Sam! Oh! And I'm Ferdie!
--Oh, god-- I blurted, in thought-speak. --Sorry, guys! Got a bit carried away there for a moment! I'm coming back now.--
I held my head high as I trotted back over to my friends, not letting the fact that I'd just embarrassed myself - yet again - in front of them all. Philip rolled his eyes. Maggie was smiling. "Got us a little worried there, Ferd!"
--Hehe,-- I laughed. --Yeah, just to warn you Sam, the stag is a little hard to control. Your reindeer might be too, Philip.--
"Doubt it will be that bad," sneered Philip.
Sam stepped in yet again to end our sibling squabbling. "Ok, Ferdie, no offence but we're going to try and get some sleep now. You watch out for any Controllers or whatever. After two hours, wake Philip up. Then you do the same, Philip, and wake Maggie up. You two can both morph wolves. Maggie, you wake me up at about six thirty in the morning. I'll wait everyone up at sometime after eight."
The others settled back and tried to get to sleep. I was glad I'd chosen to be on stag first. Unbeknown to the others - and I was surprised Philip hadn't worked this one out - I'd chosen to go on stag first so that I wouldn't get woken up in the middle of the night. Once I'd done my bit, I'd get my full, uninterrupted six hours. I kicked at the ground with my front hooves, already bored. I pointed my deer eyes towards the sky and tried to look out for helicopters. Nope. None there. What about in the forest? Not really. Just a tasty looking patch of grass. Maybe I could… no! I was slipping back into the deer's mind. I had to keep alert. I watched the others. Philip was already fast asleep. Lucky boy. He wasn't a heavy sleeper, but he could drop off anywhere - another skill he'd learnt in the army. I realised that, however difficult he could be to get along with sometimes, he certainly knew a thing or two about survival in the wilderness. I glanced at Maggie. She was already snoring. She obviously slept like a log. Sam took a while to get to sleep. She was probably going over the entire day in her mind over and over again. If not, she was probably trying to work out what to do next. I was glad I wasn't in her position. I'm not too good at leading things. I'm not sensible enough and lack the ability as thinking ahead. Unless it was about pulling pranks. The only thing I was any good at organising and carrying out was playing tricks on Philip and other unsuspecting, deserving victims. I could probably think of a good way to wake him up, I thought. I had two hours to think about it.
An hour passed, according to the stars. Sam stirred. I watched her turn over in her sleep. She had finally drifted off. I hoped she wasn't cold. It was quite a warm night, but she was only wearing her thin morphing leotard, and no shoes. I realised then and there that I had become rather taken with Samantha. I cared about her, and I was sure she felt the same way about me, if not in a romantic sense. She was the complete opposite of most of the girls I knew from back home. These were the rich and spoilt lord's daughters I'd met at polo matches, or parties in London. These 'chukka chicks' were the upper class equivalent of footballer's wives - perfectly able to put on the airs and graces when the need arose, but as wild and as vulgar as any boy when out of the sight of their fathers. As glamorous as Sam was plain. But as superficial as Samantha was real. Samantha was a class of her own. Smart, sophisticated - and perfectly capable of leading a straggly band of fugitive freaks through blood and battle to our unknown fate. This, I admired. And, despite the fact that I had only known her a couple of days, I loved her for it.