Touching the Moon part 1

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Touching the Moon part 1
By
Morpheus

I usually prefer to only post my serial stories on my Yahoo group until they are finished, and only then post them to Fictionmania and Big Closer. However, this time I decided to try something different and post my new story here in serial format as it is written.

Part 1

All through history there have been stories of beings who could do things that that were far outside the normal, things that would be considered miraculous or even impossible. Nearly every culture has legends of people who could transform into animals or perform unbelievable feats of magic. Gods…demons…monsters…witches… There were almost as many names for these beings as there were stories. And as with most stories, these ones contained a grain of truth.

For the most part, these old stories are filled with gross exaggerations and details which have been vastly twisted from countless retellings. And of course, there are even bits of intentional misinformation in order to keep people from discovering the truth.

The truth is that these beings are neither monsters nor gods. The truth is, they are just people…with all the good and bad that entails. These people are not otherworldly creatures but are your neighbors…your friends…and sometimes your own family.

To any outsider, we’d appear to be a perfectly ordinary family with a working mom, a stay at home dad, and a slightly nerdy sixteen year old son. And for the most part, that was exactly what we were. However, there was also much more to us, though we were very careful to keep any normal from discovering this.

At the moment, I was in my bedroom, playing on the new laptop that my parents had given me for my birthday two weeks ago. I was intentionally trying to keep myself distracted and not think of what was to come to night. Or what might not come tonight. I felt a mixture of excitement and nervousness, made all the more potent due to the uncertainty.

“Aaron Erland Morris,” I told myself aloud, using my best impersonation of my mom’s tone of voice when she was exasperated with me. “Focus on your homework and don’t worry about tonight.” But then, I couldn’t resist adding my own side of that argument as well. “But how can I not worry about tonight?”

With that, I leaned back, adjusted my glasses and stared at my monitor without actually paying attention to what was on it. In spite of my talk about doing my homework, that wasn’t at all what I’d been working on. In fact, I’d just spent the last hour watching Doctor Who…the Tom Baker version.

After a minute, I decided to go see what my dad was up to. He worked from home doing editing work for some publishing company, and at this time of day he was probably busy doing that in his office. Dad usually got annoyed when I interrupted him while he was working, but today was a little different from normal and I knew he’d understand.

Tonight was the full moon. Specifically, tonight was the first full moon after my sixteenth birthday. For most people, that didn’t really mean anything. For a Were…it meant everything. For a Were, the first full moon after they turn sixteen is their Changing Day…the coming of age when their special nature is revealed for the first time.

Every Were transforms into an animal under the full moon and has the ability to change every other night if they choose. However, every Were also changes into a different animal. Their Changing Day…the first full moon after their sixteenth birthday, is when they transform for the first time and discover what animal it is that they will become. For a Were, their Changing Day is very special since it is the rite of passage that proves they are a Were. Unfortunately, I still wasn’t even sure that I was going to have a Changing Day.

My dad is a Were who can turn into a bear. Not a big and powerful grizzly but a much smaller and somewhat less intimidating black bear. My mom on the other hand is not a Were at all, which means that I only have a fifty percent chance of being a Were, hence my mixed feelings about tonight. I was honestly uncertain as to whether I wanted to be a Were or not.

“I hope I don’t turn into something stupid,” I muttered, knowing how much trouble it could be to turn into the wrong animal.

Dad always had to be very careful when he changed, because people tended to get antsy when they saw bears running around loose. That was one of the main reasons that we lived well away from any other houses. Dad still had it easy since one of his friends turned into mouse and he had to be extremely careful of being seen by cats or owls.

“A bear wouldn’t be too bad,” I mused, though of course I knew that wouldn’t happen. Weres didn’t inherit their animal forms from their parents and whatever they turned into seemed to be completely random.

I was going to my dad’s office to talk to him about my worries when I heard his voice coming from the living room. Someone else was talking as well, which startled me since I hadn’t realized anyone else was here besides us. I went to the living room doorway to see who dad was talking to and then paused as I recognized her.

Dad was sitting in the recliner and the woman sitting across from him on the couch was about his age with reddish brown hair. Vivian Carrol was dad’s cousin or second cousin…I wasn’t completely sure which. She was also a fox. Literally. Or at least she was under the full moon.

I didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but when I heard my name, my curiosity got the best of me. I took a step back, further out of view, and listened intently.

“I’m glad you came by for a visit,” dad told Vivian, sounding rather proud. “It’s Aarons Changing Day…but I suspect you already know that.”

“I do,” Vivian agreed pleasantly. There was a pause before she added, “To be honest, that’s why I’m here instead of waiting.”

“What do you mean?” dad asked cautiously.

“Well, you know that group I work with,” she stared her explanation.

I peeked around the corner, and though I couldn’t see dad’s face very clearly, I could see him nodding his head. “Yes,” he responded thoughtfully. “I remember you telling me about it before. You’ve been doing surveys at all the gatherings…recording what other forms we have and tracking family trees to see if you can find a pattern in what animal forms we develop.”

“Right,” she said. “We’ve been especially interested in mythics.”

At the mention of mythics, she suddenly had my full attention. A mythic is a Were who changes into an animal that doesn’t really exist in nature…a mythical creature. They are very rare, and as a result, a subject of great interest for most Weres.

“I’d imagine so,” dad told her, sounding even more curious. Of course, mention of mythics was enough to do that to most Weres.

“Well,” Vivian explained with clear excitement in her voice, “we’ve found that over the past ten years, the percentage of new mythics has increased greatly. This isn’t an increase of ten percent…but over three hundred.”

“Three hundred?” dad exclaimed in surprise while I just stood there gaping. “Maybe there are just more mythics reporting it…”

“No,” Vivian assured him. “It’s more than that. Most of these new mythics are actually humanoid mythics…something that was almost unheard of before this. I mean, we have a dryad, a mermaid, a pixie… There are twin sisters who became a naga and a centaur respectively. And just last month, one girl became a satyr on her Changing Day.”

“A satyr?” dad blurted out. “I thought satyrs were supposed to all be male”

Vivian chuckled at that. “They are. From what I hear, she’s extremely embarrassed by it. Not surprising.”

“That poor girl,” dad said sympathetically.

“Well,” Vivian continued a moment later. “We were tracking down the family trees of these mythics to see if there was any family history of it…when we found something that caught our attention.” There was a long dramatic pause before she added, “A lot of them…especially all the ones with the humanoid mythics...intersect.”

“What exactly does that mean?” dad asked.

“It means,” Vivian responded excitedly, “If you go back just a few generations…they’re related. Most of the mythics in this new surge…and all of the ones with humanoid or partly humanoid forms are all descended from the same bloodline. We estimate that the common ancestor may have lived only two hundred years ago.”

“Unbelievable,” dad responded while I nodded along, desperately wanting to step forward and ask some questions but not wanting to admit that I was eavesdropping.

“We aren’t ready to make this general knowledge yet,” Vivian explained in a grim tone. “Before we release this, we wanted more evidence…not to mention the identity of the common ancestor. The reason I’m here telling you this is…well…you’re descended from this bloodline too…on your father’s side.”

“Aaron,” dad blurted out my name, and for a brief moment I feared that he’d realized I was listening in. Then he continued, “You think Aaron is going to be a mythic?”

I gasped at that and had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from making a sound. The idea of being a mythic was hard to imagine, not that I hadn’t tried doing so countless times while growing up. Being able to turn into something like a dragon or a griffin would be unbelievably cool. Among the Were community, being able to turn into a mythical creature of any sort meant bragging rights for life.

“I don’t know,” Vivian admitted. “But if the pattern holds true, then he’ll probably have a higher chance than normal.”

“You forget,” dad pointed out after a moment, sounding almost disappointed. “He might not even be a Were at all. He might take after his mother instead.” Then he quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Helen is an interesting woman,” Vivian responded with a chuckle. “Most women would kill to have a talent like hers.”

“I am a lucky man,” dad agreed happily.

I listened for another half minute but the topic of conversation had drifted away from me and mythics and was no longer of much interest to me. I already felt a little guilty for listening in like this so turned and made my way back to my room, my thoughts still dwelling on what I’d heard.

When I reached my room, I sat back down in front of my laptop and removed my glasses to rub at my eyes. “Imagine,” I told myself with a chuckle. “Me…a mythic.” The idea seemed about as realistic as picturing myself as a rock star. Of course, that never stopped me from doing so before. And with that, I turned my attention to my laptop and searching the web again. This time, I wasn’t searching for humorous videos but for descriptions on all the different types of mythical creatures.

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Comments

Ver r r r r y In.ter.es.ting g g g ....

A nice lead into, and nice twist on this plot, I'm already looking forward toward the next installment.

Great you are doing a were story again.

MadTech01's picture

Morpheus your stories were what lead me to Fictomania and Bigcloset Topshelf. I was reading your Legacy Universe stories and then discovered your other works you have so many stories it is not funny to me I read every one I can but prefer universe stories and stories that have multiple parts. Through more searching I was able to find and join your Yahoo group. I check it every so often just to see if you are writing anything new. I have thought about writing in some of your open universes but I have to come up with something first and alas when you have 50+ ideas bouncing around in your head at a single time it gets hard to focus without help.

"Cortana is watching you!"

Ahh,

Another of your very entertaining Were tales here. Good to see it and I'm glad you decided to post it as you write it here for all of us.

I guess the only real question here is what kind of Mythic Aaron will become, isn't it?

Maggie

Okay, Morpheus. What type of

"WERE" will Aaron become? Or is it more than one? LOL! :)

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

Were Moon!

What a very nice surprise! I'm happy you decided to revisit this series. The other stories were fun. I also liked the little mystery you inserted about all these Mythic weres being related. Just who was that ancestor?

I'm happily waiting for more.

Grover :)

Same here

I like the first version of this tale and this new version seems to be even better.

Wow there is another

Wow there is another were-world story again. I actually thought this series was dead. Good to see it back.

Thank you for writing this captivating story,
Beyogi

Touching the Moon

Morpheus,

I've just started to read this series and like all of your stories the great plot instantly draws the reader in, I can't wait to read the whole series!

Cheers
Zapper

Que sera sera

what will Aaron be ?

SJH

Hmm

Sammi's picture

Not a big and powerful grizzly but a much smaller and somewhat less intimidating black bear

I think I'd be equally intimidated by both types of Bear, but then Aaron has a some what different view of black bears.


"REMEMBER, No matter where you go, There you are."

Sammi xxx