III

It was like drinking Melon-flavored Pop Rocks. In summary, ten out of ten: Pax would drink mysterious liquids from witches again.

What was better: when Axel went to swat Pax's head, his hand barely touched Pax's twisted black locks. As Pax had hoped, something spooky was happening. The world was getting HUGE. So was his clothing. The flannel shirt collapsed from his waist. Although Axel always towered over Pax, his older brother looked like a giant now.

"Is there tree nut in that?!" Axel had asked before he realized how small his brother had gotten.

Alabaster withdrew a mini flip notebook from a vest pocket and clicked out a pen. "An allergy? Noted. Tree nuts are the least troublesome ingredient you'll find in here."

By then, Axel panicked for another reason.

Or, Pax assumed it was because Pax, himself, was now at Axel's ankle height. His oversized band shirt had settled in a nice, warm blanket around him. He felt very warm in general and enjoyed the sensation of burrowing. When he glanced around, Pax was elated how easily he could focus on subtle movement around the room: the way Alabaster flicked his pen back and forth, the way Lou Ellen held her hands over her mouth to repress a giggle, the slightest twitch of Mercedes' lips, and the way the vein in Axel's forehead pulsed as he demanded Alabaster fix his brother.

Pax reached out to pat Axel's foot and assure him that he was honored to have been miniaturized in the name of magic. His paw didn't reach far enough.

Paw?

If Pax could have grinned, he would have. His facial muscles didn't react. What did react were his short, clawed paws. His body felt different. He tried to glance down and bopped his face into the floor. After shaking his snout, he glanced to the side to find a furry, long, almost-serpentine body.

And, the best thing ever.

He. Had. A. Tail.

Pax jumped. The end of his body reflexively straightened and his short, black-tipped tail followed. Pax turned, sprinting after his tail, and curled in on himself to grab it.

This new body was way more flexible than his boring human one.

"You turned him into a ferret!" Axel panicked.

"Actually, I believe that's a weasel," Mercedes said, watching Pax roll on the floor and bat at his tail.

"It is," Alabaster said. He frowned, crossed his arms, and gave his sister a chastising scowl. "It was supposed to be a polecat."

The girl sheepishly shrugged. "At least it's the right family."

"Genus," Alabaster corrected absently. As though that was the part upsetting Axel, he apologized, "Sorry, she's still learning her classifications."

"I don't care about—what is in this stuff?!" Axel demanded. He took a threatening step closer to the witches, shoving his vial at them, the one Alabaster had poured from his science beaker.

"Yours is a new brew of tea," Alabaster said, staring thoughtfully to where Pax tried biting through Axel's boot. Alabaster swallowed. "I think."

Axel looked about ready to start throwing punches.

To prove that would be an unnecessary show of aggression towards the two coolest people Pax now knew (and because the black cat had noticed his movement and was doing an excited cat-butt-shuffle with a hunter's pair of dilated eyes), Pax darted at the girl's lab coat. He stood on his hind paws, rising much taller than he'd anticipated. As he had hoped, his claws effortlessly dug into her canvas material. Easier than he ever could as a human, he clamored up the front of her jacket.

The girl giggled in delight when Pax sat on her shoulder and snuggled into her black locks. That was not the typical reaction he got when he snuggled against people he didn't know. Pax wondered, passively, what else he could get away with in weasel form. She smelled richly of cooking herbs and sandalwood. Her brother's scent was even stronger, almost overpowering, as Alabaster reached to rub between Pax's ears.

Pax's heart thudded in his little chest as those beautiful, emerald eyes leveled with the girl's shoulder. "Huh, her heterochromia remained," Alabaster said, tilting up Pax's snout with a bent index finger. Pax was pleased to hear his clothing had confused at least one person today. "There must be some sort of magical interference."

"Maybe mixed magic in her ancestry or maybe a previous curse?" the girl suggested. The idea seemed to excite her.

"She's remarkably calm. Has your sister been turned into a weasel before?" Alabaster's questions were more to himself than Axel.

Axel's rage melted at Alabaster's question about mixed magic. Although Pax was preoccupied staring at Alabaster's emerald eyes, Pax could guess that his brother had paled.

Without waiting for a response, Alabaster glanced at Mercedes. "Where do they come from?"

"Jack," Mercedes answered. "Their names are Pax One and Pax Two."

"That's awfully convenient for records—wait—Jack doesn't care about new comers," Alabaster muttered. His eyes focused on Mercedes like he only now registered her as a living thing. "And who are you?"

"Someone who is about to be late for morning prayer. Is there a meditation room aboard this ship?" she asked.

Alabaster's eyes flicked from her shawl back to her eyes. "There is for people who have names. Unless you'd like to be Pax Three."

Pax liked listening to the two of them talk. It was quick and dangerous like dangling a stringed mouse in front of a jaguar.

"Mercedes," she answered, struggling to keep her lip from twitching.

"Like the Count of Monte Cristo," Alabaster said thoughtfully. "A beautiful name."

Mercedes opened her mouth. Pax had to wonder if she thought Alabaster was going to make the "Benz" comment and had a witty retort. Instead, she smiled.

Pax wanted to be able to make everyone in the room smile like that. He had a feeling Alabaster and Mercedes didn't often enough, similar to how Axel didn't smile often enough. Maybe he and the green-eyed, giggly girl needed to start conspiring.

"There is a chapel on the top floor of the ship, two floors above the deck. You will pass Luke setting up his sword training. He will be in a foul mood this morning," Alabaster said it like it had nothing to do with him. With Pax's enhanced eyesight, he noticed the slightest quiver in Alabaster's hands.

He flipped a page on his little notebook and wrote something. Once done, he tore off the page and handed it to her. "Lou Ellen and I take advantage of the sunlight in the chapel for a small garden. You will find instructions here that say you are to help tend to my sick herbal ingredients five times a day. You will find that not everyone aboard the ship is comfortable with the idea of genuflecting before deities other than the titans. If they do, show them this slip of paper. There are clean towels rolled beside the garden lot that we use for tending. They are not ideal, I know, but can be used if you need."

Mercedes stared at Alabaster for a moment. Pax didn't understand most of what Alabaster said. As far as he could tell, he'd just given her a lot more work.

Carefully, Mercedes took the paper from Alabaster's hands, folded it, and slipped it inside her pocket. "Thank you," she said. Her voice shook a little. She cleared her throat. "I am quite capable of teaching people tolerance if need be. I'll set Axel's sister's clothing in the corner so Pax can get changed whenever she morphs back."

Although the motion was fast and subtle, Mercedes winked at Pax. If weasels could grin, Pax would have. At least someone appreciated his game.

Alabaster blushed at the mention of a "girl" being naked around him. Pax liked his blush. With how pale the boy was, it made his face look like a tomato. He waved Mercedes off.

Axel sighed, seeming much calmer after observing the conversation.

She gathered Pax's things, set them in a corner behind an ingredient shelf, faired Pax One and Pax Two well, and left the room for to wash for morning prayer. Pax would have to ask her what religion she was later. They didn't have to wash before going to mass—well, unless they got into a fight. Pax's eldest brother, Kouta, liked to smash people's faces into the dirt and sit on their backs to get the point across.

Axel nodded after Mercedes. "That was good of you to do that for her."

Lou Ellen giggled. She shoved Alabaster's shoulder. "Look at you doing something nice for someone. Has your opinion on the All Powerful God changed?"

Alabaster snorted. "Praying is wasteful when your god is too cowardly to show his face directly. However, I am not one to tell people how to waste their time if false security comforts them."

Axel stiffened at those harsh words. Pax wondered if Axel prayed beyond when Chiich or Frasco made them say meal and nighttime prayers or when they went to church. "Would you say that to her face?" Axel snapped. From the sound of Axel's anger, he did pray.

"Verbatim, but she's not the one that mentioned all powerful deities. Lou Ellen did. So I'm saying it to her." Alabaster didn't seem to notice Axel's flexing muscles. He gestured towards the vial in Axel's hands. "Now, hurry up and test that tea, Pax One—"

"Axel," he growled.

"I don't know, Al," Lou Ellen said. Pax clawed at some of her stray hair so he could better see her face. She was blushing at his older brother. Her hand looked enormous when it reached to untangle Pax from her locks. "If his little brother reacted odd due to mixed magic or a curse…"

"True," Alabaster said. He shook the thought off. "Lelly, that wouldn't affect how tea tastes." He looked annoyed.

Her laugh was light.

Alabaster turned back to Axel, tapping his chin with his pen. Those emerald eyes examined Axel with a new interest.

A sense of foreboding made Pax bristle out his fur. He almost slipped off Lou Ellen's shoulder and had to dig his claws deeper in the canvas to stay mounted.

Yea, these were witches, but they would never be able to undo the Mayan sorcery that Axel had worked—they couldn't undo what Axel did to his face. Frasco taught him how to do it years ago, and Axel had spent years perfecting—

Neither Pax nor Axel realized what Alabaster was doing until it was too late.

Alabaster snatched Axel's illusion off his face like it was a physical mask.

Axel reared backwards, like he thought Alabaster had wanted to punch him. When the illusion dissolved under the witch's fingers, Axel took an additional stagger backwards, like he'd been hit.

"Stop!" Pax tried to shout, but it came out a high-pitched squeal. He reached a paw towards his brother to calm Axel and tell him it was okay. But, his paw only reached out a few inches.

Axel covered his face with his hands. A low growl emitted from his throat as he backed a step towards the door. Pax knew that look. Axel was scared. Scared and humiliated.

"Fascinating," Alabaster said. He flipped the shimmering image of a normal fourteen-year-old boy's features in his hands. It looked weird and floppy without Axel's face to rest against. Pax didn't know it could maintain itself when not obscuring his brother. "You know how to use the Mist. You know how to use the Mist well."

"Told you my Mist weakening ward would come in handy," Lou Ellen said gleefully.

Alabaster poked at the distinct dents in the mask that represented a pair of brown eyes. They looked like contacts sewn into rubber. "Monsters use the Mist like this all the time, but I would have never thought about using it on a human—"

"Give. It. Back," Axel snarled. As best he could while covering his face, he rose to full height and took a step forward.

Pax needed a distraction and he needed it fast. While his brother was awesome and infallible, Pax wasn't sure how he'd fair against these two Ravenclaws in a brawl. And he didn't want to fight with their new friends.

Like the Greek gods had been listening and generous for once, a distraction was exactly what Pax received.

He lunged towards his brother. His intention was to prevent a fight. Unfortunately, weasel paws weren't as good at propelling forward as human paws. He began to fall short by several feet.

Then, his weasel hind legs slammed into the floor higher than they should have. The fore paws, that he intended to extend between the two parties, reached the full span of both witches. He stood to human height, his butt exposed to the witches and his front to his brother.

All Pax could think about was how everything felt much colder. Why didn't humans have fur? Fur seemed like such a great idea. Pax realized, belated, that wasn't what he should have been focusing on.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! Pax *ehem* has a bit of a nudity problem. Matthias recently told him nudist colonies were a thing, and now he won't stop submitting it in Jack's suggestion box for Ways to Make Camp Othrys Better.

Stay tuned next week for the final segment of this short story!