Author's Note: An excerpt from Greg Weisman's Outline Memo for "The Mirror" states: "Conveniently, [Oberon's Children] are creatures of pure magical energy. When they cast a spell, the spell doesn't have the limitations imposed on the studied magic of human or gargoyle sorcerers. The subjects of their spells don't have to see and hear them to be affected. It's a more fluid, less structured form of magic". Which means, this chapter could very well have happened, my friends. We just never saw it in the show ;)


Being the companion to a blind human had always been full of surprises. When she first met the man who would become her charge, Gilly couldn't have been happier. He wasn't difficult to work with, he wasn't very active save the nightly walks along the beach they always partook in. But that was more leisure than activity, a fun way to pass their time together, not a concentrated effort to push their limits.

The first few years, he preferred her to lead him everywhere, which Gilly never minded, but he quickly got the hang of his cane and his surroundings so even that obligation dropped off. Outside of those instances, her charge was more occupied with feeling through books and newspapers, making tea, and listening to the TV box.

And occasionally, he would tap on his curious typewriter device to stack up papers. Certain occasions led them to riding long trips to cities where he met with hundreds of humans to pose for flashing lights and stamp in their books. A curious practice, but her charge was quite happy with these events, and she was never one to turn down a ride in a car. So she accompanied him on these outings and quietly kept a watchful eye out, though nothing ever happened that required her intervention.

And those occasions had stopped all of a sudden a few years ago, his days of tapping the loud clacking keys of his typewriter abruptly ended as well. A fact that did not fill Robbins with joy, she noted, but he remained in a pleasant, if not disappointed mood.

All in all, Robbins was low maintenance, despite the many different surprises and changes over the years. Their life had become relaxing, soothing, and at times, boring. The surprises had stopped altogether. Only recently had their comfortable lazy life shifted to excitement once more, thanks to the unexpected appearance of Hudson the winged man on their beach.

In all her time, she never met a being quite like Hudson. He wasn't a regular human, that was certain, but it wasn't clear what type of human he was. He had wings, a tail, claws, he smelled of stone and the skin of cows. He was very generous with petting and belly rubs, his smile was bright and warm, with teeth sharply jutting out like mini tusks, he appeared suddenly from the sky near every night.

He was a fascinating person that Gilly was always excited to see, due to his inviting and friendly atmosphere to her specifically and his willingness to play with her. Hudson was absolutely a dog's person, but she quickly realized that he was also a Robbins' person. Though her human was quite friendly and intelligent, the years she lived with him were mainly in solitude.

There were occasional visits from his fellow humans on the shore, fellow humans from his litter, fellow humans that looked through books. But they were few and far between, there was no regular inclusion of these humans in their daily life. They might have been Robbins' people, but they never stuck around long enough for Gilly to be sure of that fact.

Hudson, however, was different. Right from the start, he spent long hours into the night with them, talking about all manner of things, getting comfortable and settling into a routine. He kept returning, night after night, with more and more to talk about, to laugh about, and just recently sing about. Or she thought it was singing, it could have been a shriek of intimidation or pain, Gilly still wasn't sure. But she was sure of one thing, Robbins absolutely loved it. She'd never seen him so uproarious and excitable, she had to check and make sure he was still breathing as well as keep track of his glasses.

Gilly noticed that the longer her charge spent with Hudson, generally, the happier he became. The more energized he was the next day, the more bounce he had in his step. She would even hear him humming a pleasant tune as he went about his day. Hudson even revitalized him so much that he recently pulled out the noisy typewriter he had all but forgotten about, and he was back to stacking papers on his desk.

And aside from the dangerous old human that came to their home after Hudson's initial visit, it's been nothing but good times for Gilly and her human charge. She liked Hudson and Robbins liked Hudson. She just underestimated how much Robbins liked Hudson, it seems.

Because earlier that night, the most bizarre thing happened to her human. There they were, sitting in their usual places, Robbins at his desk playing with that typewriter and Gilly on her seat that she had been sharing with Hudson as of late. When without warning, a streak of light ripped through their home and hit Robbins! The mysterious light covered him on impact, pulsating like a heartbeat, as the human reeled from the impact. Gilly instantly shot to his side, barking and struggling to understand just what was happening to him.

He grunted in pain as he writhed against the strange light, she bit on his sleeve to try and drag him outside to the terrace. Maybe another human would see them and know what to do, if not she'd bark so loud the entire neighborhood would find them. But as she tugged, she felt a tightening of his sweater, a pull that was steady and unnatural. Gilly peered her eyes open and reeled back immediately at the sight that greeted her, for it wasn't her human's soft, but calloused hand. It was a massive paw of a hand with only 4 fingers and a claw on each one. She watched in an increasing panic as her normal human charge morphed, contorted, and changed into something else. Something much different.

Wings sprouted from his back along with a long tail, his feet expanded and his legs completely restructured, his shoes and socks instantly reduced to shreds. Horns sprouted from the sides of his head and wrapped around the back, his ears sharpened as his brow jutted out and lost its 2 little patches of fur. And just as soon as it came, the light had disappeared, unveiling its good work. Robbins was transformed beyond recognition, if it wasn't for his scent remaining largely the same, Gilly would have assumed she was looking at an entirely different human altogether. One from Hudson's particular litter.

But as Robbins came down from the shock of the magic light—there was no other way to describe it—he stretched his new arms and let out a monstrous yawn, like a jungle cat before its prowl, then calmly returned to playing with his typewriter. Like nothing at all had happened. Gilly was at an utter loss, standing there watching him continue his routine in this new body completely unaware of the massive change. Where could she even begin with this surprise?

Tentatively, she dared to stalk closer and get a better sniff of him. Figure out how much different he was from before. So with an incredible amount of care, she trailed her nose up and down his new form, studying every sensation and accent, as well as his reaction to her studying him. Gauging for any unusual responses from her subject. But all he did was call her name in that same voice she'd memorized, a gentle, light-hearted chide that meant he was a bit busy at the moment. Yes, he was busy, but so was she, so on she went.

As she continued down his new tail, sticking out of the seat of his pants and laying limp behind his chair, he giggled and the strange addition to his body wriggled in tandem, like a snake, causing her to jump back a bit. Gilly quickly resumed her investigation and moved to his wings, wide and expansive, ripping through the back of his sweater. Most of the cow skin smell came from them, just like Hudson's, she recognized. Again, Robbins called her name in that same tone, but she kept pressing on. She grabbed onto his pant leg and pulled to give her room to get under his desk and give his new massive feet a thorough study, but she felt his oddly foreign hands pick her up before then.

"Gilly, what's up girl?" he asked sweet and kind, but behind the face of someone she didn't recognize. "Daddy's tryin' to work on his book, okay? We'll do the nightly walk in a little while, promise. But I'm makin' some real progress on this thing so just lemme work, alright?" he said while he pet her, claws gently scratching through her fur, just as Hudson always did.

She took the opportunity to sniff out his face, the biggest change by far. As he tried to protest through small giggles, she investigated those horns that jutted right from his skull and even vaguely tasted like the bones she'd often gnaw on. And just as she instinctually began to nibble at them, strong hands pulled her away from them.

"Hey! No chewin' on Daddy's horns, Gil" he said seriously, raising his voice "We've talked about that, girl. Now go wait patiently and I'll get you a bone you can chew on, okay?" he instructed while placing her back on the floor and scooting her away with his massive foot.

Gilly simply looked him over again, tilting her head in confusion. She never knew Robbins to be forgetful, they certainly couldn't have talked before about his horns that he just developed tonight. Horns she just now, for the first time ever, were gnawing on. Something wasn't right here, that much was clear, but the poor dog still couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. Why couldn't Robbins tell he'd drastically changed from that light? And why did he think she had a history of biting horns he just recently acquired? A history she was supposed to be well aware of?

None of it made any sense, and it got even worse when the typewriter bell rang and he pulled the paper out. Robbins went to trace his fingers over the page and his newfound claws tore through the delicate paper instantly. He sighed in mild frustration before bopping his head with his palm.

"Stupid, always use the side of your thumb to read. Stupid amateur mistake..." he grumbled under his breath as he adjusted his hand to do just that, while putting a new page into the typewriter.

Gilly had seen him do this a million times and he never, ever caused a rip in his papers accidentally with his claws. His claws were never long enough to matter when it came to that delicate action... until today, when his regular human hands were replaced with massive talons just like Hudson's. And her human never used the side of his opposable finger to read, he always used his whole hand or his pointer fingers, not the opposable one alone. This definitely wasn't right, but she had no idea of how to make it right. Her training hadn't prepared her for anything like this.

"... need that other edition for that. Now where did I put that old...?" she heard before Robbins stood up and made his way towards the bookshelf, in longer strides than she was used to. Unfortunately, it appeared as though Robbins himself wasn't quite used to the longer strides either.

He stumbled and shuffled across the room, his tail arcing wide and accidentally slapping against several objects, knocking a choice few over. Gilly rushed behind him, catching the unfortunate few before they could fall to the floor, Robbins simply continued to the bookshelf and scanned his opposable finger across the wood. Her charge continued to think aloud as he plucked a book out, scanned its contents for a moment, then put it back, repeating the process several times until finally he nodded satisfied and moved back to his desk. Again she followed right behind him, to alleviate the damage he unwittingly caused thanks to his newly acquired tail.

Robbins nearly made it back to his seat, but his offending appendage wasn't done making his journey more arduous than ever before. Just as Gilly had put his Purple Heart back on the coffee table, the tail had managed to get underfoot and tangled around his ankle for a second, but that's all it took. Robbins went teetering forward, his head on a collision course with the edge of the desk! Gilly sprung into action, reaching out and biting on whatever she could on him to pull him back in time, and as luck would have it, her jaws clamped down on the cause of all his problems.

"Ow!" he grunted as his momentum stopped just short of the desk, his hands firmly planted on the surface. "Nice save, Gil! I owe ya one, girl" he sighed in relief as he regained his balance.

Gilly released his cumbersome tail, which now sported a memento of her quick reflexes and limited grabbing options. Her human carefully made his way back to his seat, before patting around the surface searching for something. She already retrieved the book he nearly knocked himself out for and raised up on her hind legs to plop it on the desk before him. Robbins' large hands made the rounds again and finally happened upon the desired book.

"There you are! Must've dropped it when I stumbled" he chuckled to himself. "I have no clue what's goin' on today, I'm never this klutzy in the house..." he wondered, scratching his horn absentmindedly.

Gilly couldn't help turning her head to the side as she stared at the altered form of her charge, she remained clueless on how or why he had suddenly become part of Hudson's litter. Her only guess was that Robbins had come to like Hudson so much he'd turned into a Hudson. It was ridiculous, she realized, but there was literally nothing else she could think of to make sense of this. So for now, ridiculous was going to have to do.

Robbins went back to tapping on his typewriter well before Gilly regained her focus and restarted her exploration of his new form. Up and down the recent additions, testing and analyzing until she was sure that there was nothing to be done. Sure that there were no other surprises coming. Her charge didn't seem to mind her prodding this time, possibly because he'd gotten into "the zone" as he called it, but it allowed her to finally finish her data gathering. That is, until she got on her hind legs and leaned against the back of his chair to reach his horns again and soon began nibbling on them.

"Gil," Robbins began impatiently, unknowingly stabbing the offending protrusions into the leather headrest of his chair. "We just talked about the horns, honey"

She barked back, communicating her confusion at which "talk" he was referring to, considering his mind had also gone through somewhat of a transformation. That change was by far her least favorite of the collection.

"Okay, I get it" Robbins said as he spun around to face her.

Gilly gave a light whine in response, a confused lilt clearly saying 'You do?'

"You're gettin' cranky because I put off our walk so long" he reasoned happily, causing her to snort and deflate. "Well don't worry, we can go if ya really need to. Just lemme grab my tape recorder, okay?" he jerked his head in the tape recorder's direction before swiveling back around.

Gilly brought a paw up to her face and let it slowly drift down her muzzle, her eyes lidded and focused on nothing. How was she going to make him realize what had happened to him? Explain anything about this in a way he would understand? Even she didn't understand much about it, a bright light came and shot him, then it made him look like he was part of Hudson's litter. That's all she could offer in a way of explanation.

Maybe Hudson would show up and explain it for them, she reasoned, trotting over to the glass doors across the room. He always came in that way, maybe she could catch him coming this time. But just as Gilly had settled and begun scanning the skies, a bright flash of lightning lit up the sky in a strange light. Before she could determine anything further, it streaked through the sky straight towards her!

She yelped and jumped away onto her chair as the light phased through the glass and straight at Robbins, who'd just gotten up from the desk. Again, he writhed against it and cupped his hands over his head as if he'd been overtaken by a sudden splitting headache. Gilly barked wildly, cursing the light for continuing to torment and distort her human, until she noticed how it was distorting him this time. His talons he used to cover his throbbing head shrank and dulled. His horns receded back into his head, the patch of fur on his head returning to its former glory. His wings shrank back into his body and his legs and feet regained shape. And that blasted tail that caused him nothing but grief, slurped back into his pants with the seat of his pants restitched.

As the light faded, the blessed sight of her human's normal form greeted her. He was back to his usual self, like the initial transformation had never occurred in the first place. Robbins himself stopped feeling pain and went to stretch again, grunting in satisfaction when he was done.

"Alright, Gil, you ready for our walk?" he asked in that pleasant warm tone she knew and loved, smiling that dazzling grin he always had.

Gilly couldn't contain her joy as she barked and rushed to Robbins, tackling him to the floor. She licked his cheeks and nuzzled against him, grateful that the bizarre night had returned to the mundane normality she had grown accustom to. Robbins laughed and petted her, wondering aloud what had gotten into her. He had no idea what she'd been through and she would keep it that way. For as lovely as Hudson was, she had no desire to substitute her Robbins with another Hudson. She wouldn't have him any other way than his normal self...

"Hey, uh girl?" Robbins asked as soon as Gilly settled down on the kisses. "You haven't seen my house shoes anywhere, have ya?" he pondered as he petted her head softly, Gilly's brow going flat in response.


Author's Note: So this one was a challenge. I've been trying to follow a pattern with this fic, one chapter from Robbins' point of view, the next chapter from Hudson's point of view, so on and so on. However, because of how "The Mirror" handled the transformed characters' minds when they transformed, they're brains were altered to make them believe they were always the form in which they were transformed to, thus their history, opinions, etc. are all altered unpredictably and illogically.

This is proven when the Gargoyles were transformed into humans and thought they could glide, despite believing they were never Gargoyles and didn't have wings. When Lexington points this out, they're confused and sort of realize the truth. But to write that sort of situation when there's no possible way for the person to put the pieces together is way too strange for me to write in a way that makes sense. So I just said "screw it, we're gonna look at this from Gilly's point of view" XD

Also, I'm not used to writing for non-anthropomorphic characters nor am I familiar with animal's consciousness, morality, judgement, observations, etc. in the Gargoyles Universe. So I really had to figure out how to do this without throwing a wrench in the whole canon. I certainly hope I managed to avoid disrupting the universe with this one, but I really didn't see any other way to convey this particular chapter.

The ending joke is always something I wondered about after "The Mirror". All those people who were suddenly returned to human would certainly notice that they had loss their shoes, right? That'd be a weird phenomena or something, how everyone in Manhattan's shoes just magically disappeared one night and everybody had to walk home barefoot. I dunno, it stood out to me so I figured I'd highlight it here, but with house shoes because Robbins wouldn't wear his normal shoes indoors.

Anyway, we'll be wrapping up "The Mirror's" story next chapter where I just might finally have the entire Manhattan Clan together for once! Who'da thunk it? XD See ya then C: