She Shifters

Shay dipped her left wing and glided around the bow of the cruise ship. She flew by the next row of windows, glancing in each as she searched for Tala’s cabin. In her human form, she would have laughed at these people who were here to experience rugged Alaska. Out of one eye Shay could see the fjords carved by glaciers, and the dense forests that reached to the shores of the deep channel and provided a home for wildlife, independent settlers, and native people who still knew the old ways.

Her other eye scanned the passengers who lounged in their rooms in silk pajamas and merely observed a tiny edge of the wilderness Shay called home. They would snap photos of an orca with their cell phones, eat crab legs and salmon at endless buffets, and take home a few Native American trinkets to remind them of their brief brush with nature. They would never understand what it was like to live the beauty of Alaska inside and out like Shay did. She only hoped Tala wouldn’t be one of them—that she would choose to stay.

One more circuit of the enormous ship and Shay finally found the woman she was looking for. She perched on the far edge of the balcony and crab-walked along the railing until she could see past the heavy green curtains and into the small stateroom. Tala wore a towel, and her hair was damp from a shower. Shay hadn’t seen her since she left college eight years ago, but the familiar rush of longing hit her as if they hadn’t been apart for more than a day.

When Tala dropped her towel and reached for a pair of simple white panties, Shay nearly flew smack into the window in her longing to touch her mate.

Shay guiltily knew she was spying, but she couldn’t resist sidling further along the rail so she could see inside better. She realized with a start that in their two years as lovers, she had never seen Tala naked in daylight. Theirs was a relationship that had belonged only to the dark screen of night, but Shay wanted nothing more than to have Tala know her in the day as well. Greedily, she watched Tala’s slight form, her pale skin that too rarely left the confines of the museum, her nipples that puckered in the cool air.

They were the color of soapberries, but Shay knew from experience they would be sweet, and not bitter, on her tongue. She knew the other flavors of Tala as well, from her mouth to the skin of her neck to the moist heat she was hiding under those plain undies. A gust of wind coming down the channel caught Shay in her moment of distraction and nearly knocked her off the smooth wooden railing. She fanned her black wings and teetered for a moment as she struggled to regain her balance, talons scratching the teak rail.

Shay’s hopes of remaining undetected were dashed as Tala’s attention was drawn to the balcony. A four-foot wing span was difficult to hide when you were flailing all over the place, she thought with a sigh as she finally settled her wings back against her body. She knew she should simply fly away and confront Tala later, on shore and in human form, but their eyes locked and she was unable to move.

She saw the exact moment when Tala’s green eyes widened in surprise and recognition. Tala hastily pulled on a shirt and jeans before sliding open the door and stepping onto the balcony.

“Shay,” she whispered, as if it were a struggle to speak. As if voicing Shay’s name in the presence of this non-human raven would turn her suspicions and fears into truth.

Shay sighed into her shift and felt her wings stretch, her thin legs lengthen and grow, her beak and feathers retract back into her soul. She perched precariously on the narrow railing, her knees drawn up in an attempt to protect herself from the rejection she knew she might face.

They stared at each other. After stating the obvious, Shay found she had forgotten all of the speeches, the propositions and declarations she had practiced in her mind. They had sounded so convincing and irrefutable in her daydreams, but faced with the real Tala—the woman with shock and confusion etched over her delicate features and in her expressive eyes—all of Shay’s words vanished as if she really were an animal incapable of human speech.

Shay nodded. “You always knew they were.” She and Tala had been unlikely roommates at Seattle’s University of Washington, probably placed together because they both had Tlingit roots. She had been rebellious and wild, changing majors and girlfriends with equal rapidity. Tala had been—and clearly still was—serious and quiet. She had followed her lifelong goal into the field of museology, with never a step off the path she had chosen for herself. By day, the two barely spoke—and barely tolerated each other’s presence. But at night, when Shay first began to shift and was terrified and confused without any tribal elders to explain her new abilities, she had turned to Tala instead.

She remembered that first time when she returned to their room after a frantic wolfen run through the shadows of the campus and stood mutely by Tala’s bed. She smelled of wet grass and moonlight and fear, and Tala had wordlessly pulled the covers back and allowed Shay into her bed. From that night on they were lovers, unknowingly imprinting on each other every time the studious and introverted Tala opened her heart, her soul—and her legs—to a disheveled, half-wild-with-need Shay.

Shay laughed at the banality of the question in this situation that was anything but common or everyday. Besides flying around cruise ships and peeping in at the passengers? she wanted to ask. Instead, she followed Tala’s lead and answered in as normal a way as possible.

“I’m an Alaska state trooper. I was in the bush for a few years, but I’m stationed in Sitka now. I’m planning to return to my people soon.”

When I’ve chosen my mate, Shay added silently. Her grandmother, the clan’s shaman, was getting old and Shay knew it was time to claim her birthright and reveal her ability to shift through her totem like her mother and grandmother could. But she didn’t want to go alone. “You’re still at the same museum,” she stated. She knew the answer already since she had addressed her first tentative letters to Tala at the Pacific Northwest native art museum where she served as curator. Tala had answered with equally brief and impersonal notes, wavering indecisively over Shay’s suggestion that she come to Alaska and see some of the art she catalogued and displayed in its real life setting.

Tala reached out and plucked at Shay’s flannel sleeve. “Can you get down from that railing?” she asked nervously. “You might fall.”

Shay stepped closer and curled her hand around the nape of Tala’s neck. “Here I thought you were concerned for my safety,” she said with a mock frown. “But all you really care about is what other people might think.”

Tala shook her head and Shay’s fingers tangled in the damp ash blond curls. “I don’t want you hurt,” she whispered as Shay’s mouth hovered over hers. Tala was the one to bridge the distance, the years, between them as she pressed her lips to Shay’s. The kiss was everything Shay remembered. Open and soft, inviting her inside, reconnecting a confused and untethered Shay back to her human body and spirit as only Tala had ever been able to do.

Shay reluctantly pulled away. She had read in novels about people drowning in kisses, but the opposite was true for her. Without Tala she was unmoored, sinking and helpless. With Tala at her side, in her home, Shay knew she would have the quiet harbor she needed to give her strength to be a tribal leader. But if Tala wasn’t ready?

“I’ll see you on shore,” Shay said as she stepped back and pulled herself onto the railing. She wanted to stay, but she needed more than hidden kisses and secret trysts. Her one consolation as she slipped backward off the balcony and stretched her fingers until they feathered was that Tala watched and didn’t turn away from her transformation. It was one step toward acceptance.

Shay stayed within the tree line, easily keeping pace with the small group of tourists who obediently followed their guide through Ketchikan’s forest of totem poles. Tala was among them, listening intently to the lecture and looking as serious as she had in college. Shay was surprised she wasn’t taking notes in case there was a test following the tour.

She snarled her impatience and waited until Tala looked her way, as if sensing her presence, before she slipped out of the cover of the woods and stood panting in plain sight. Tala’s mouth opened to call attention to the large gray wolf before recognition again showed in her eyes. Shay dropped into play posture before she turned and sprinted a couple of yards into the woods. She returned and repeated the process a couple of times until she coaxed an actual smile from Tala.

It took several feints before Tala, with a last guilty look at her guide, broke away from the rest of the tourists and casually walked toward the stand of trees that hid Shay from view. Shay loped along happily, her tongue lolling out, as she made enough noise so that Tala could easily follow her trail. Lovingly, she guided her prey toward a small clearing. She pushed through the low branches, gradually drawing more erect, until she walked into the clearing in her human form. Then she stepped behind Tala, who stared at a lone totem pole.

Shay slipped her arms around Tala’s waist. “This is my totem,” she said quietly, nuzzling along Tala’s neck while her wolf senses were still acute.

Shay stared at the red cedar pole that depicted the special totems of her grandmother, her mother, and all of the females in their lineage. Raven. Wolf. Seal. “Yes,” she said. “And once I take my place as shaman, I’ll be able to shift into any of my clan’s spirit guides.”

She turned Tala in her arms so she could meet her eyes. “I want you to be with me when I do,” she said, opening her soul to the woman she loved.

“I’m Tlingit, too,” Tala reminded her as she stepped away, “but I don’t change into animals. And I’m not going to give up everything I have in the city just to go back to some tribe.”

Shay growled her frustration. Tala just didn’t understand. She was Tlingit, but for two generations her family had been away from their clan. Now her only contact with them was behind glass, on velvet pedestals at her museum.

Shay had spent the first eight years of her life among her people before her mother was killed in a fishing accident. Her Russian-American father left the tribe with young Shay, raising her as Natasha Golikov in Seattle, but she had never forgotten her early years with her grandmother or the stories about shapeshifting she heard around the evening fires. Tala’s idea of myth was her reality. How could she convince her that the Tlingit way wasn’t just a fictional story, but a liberating, achievable truth?

Words failed Shay after a long few days of shifting. All she could do was grab Tala’s upper arms and pull her close for a kiss. She kissed like a wolf, her teeth rasping against Tala’s unprotected lips, snapping against the tendons on her neck. She fanned her arms around Tala like wings, wanting to protect her and rip her apart at the same time. Her skin slid along Tala’s like the ocean, fierce and glorious in its power. She managed to unbutton Tala’s blouse without tearing it, wishing she could as easily break the shell of civilization that surrounded Tala like a coffin.

She shoved Tala against the totem pole and dropped to her knees, leaving long, thin scratches along Tala’s abdomen as she zeroed in on the denim barrier denying her access.

Daylight. Public. Those thoughts raced through Shay’s mind as she slipped Tala’s jeans off her hips and down to her ankles. It was the first time Tala had trusted her like this, the first time she had let desire and need overrule her sense of propriety and acceptable behavior.

Shay’s tongue delved into Tala’s warm wetness and a sense of gratitude overwhelmed her. Gratitude for the fingers tangled in her hair, urging her on. For the thighs that parted, opening to her and surrounding her at the same time.

When Tala came with a rough cry, Shay’s tears mingled with her wetness, forming a bond that was deeper than any that could be formed by blood or legal ties.

Shay stood up and pulled Tala against her. She could feel Tala’s rapid heartbeat, her labored breathing. But worst of all, she sensed Tala’s almost immediate withdrawal. She was going back, Shay realized with a stab of pain. Back to her protected world, back behind her museum glass.

They stepped apart. “I’m sorry,” Tala whispered. She continued, her voice growing stronger as she spoke. “I love what you are,” she said, gesturing at the totem pole behind her. “I love you. But I can’t live like this. I can’t leave my job, my home, my world just to follow you.”

“They’re your people too,” Shay said, turning her head away since she was unable to face the conviction she knew was in Tala’s eyes. Tala wasn’t from her clan, but her roots were tied as deeply to the Tlingit people as Shay’s were. They had to be.

“It’s not the same,” Tala said with a shake of her head. “You’re closer to them. You’ve lived with your tribe, with their legends as your reality. My reality is in Seattle. In the museum.”

Shay kept her eyes averted, her face as emotionless as the painted animals carved on the cedar totem pole. She had no more arguments, no more pleas. If Tala couldn’t accept what tied them together, she couldn’t force it on her. Tala waited in silence for a few moments before she struggled into her jeans and walked back to join the tour.

Shay couldn’t resist following the cruise ship as it left Ketchikan’s dock. She easily kept up with its slow pace, resurfacing occasionally to glance at Tala’s empty balcony before arching into a graceful dive and ducking below the surface. She usually felt her most playful when she shifted to her seal totem, but today she only knew sorrow as her sleek body undulated through the icy ocean water. She both hoped for and dreaded one last glimpse of Tala as she watched the ship aim toward Juneau—and away from her. She believed Tala would easily recognize her in this form, but there was no sign of life in her stateroom.

Shay slowly swam back to her Cessna Skywagon. She reached a flipper toward the seaplane, her fingers lengthening and grasping the struts. She half slithered, half crawled onto the pontoon as her body slowly morphed back to human.

She had planned to resign from the state troopers and study with her grandmother until she could take on the role of shaman, but with Tala gone her confidence wavered. Perhaps another year with the force, either on the remote Aleutians or back to the isolated, expansive deep north. Shay grabbed a uniform shirt and pants off the pilot’s seat of her plane and slipped them on. Then she sat on the pontoon, resigned and defeated, her feet dangling in the frigid water, when a flicker of movement made her look toward the shore.

With a body suddenly come to life, Shay hopped from the pontoon to the dock. She walked to the shore, to Tala, and came to a trembling stop a few feet away.

“I…I couldn’t leave you,” Tala said quietly. Shay didn’t have to be told what a sacrifice that was for Tala. She couldn’t leave Shay, so she chose instead to leave behind the world she knew. Shay silently vowed to make sure Tala never regretted her decision.

She reached up and cupped Tala’s chin gently in her hands. “Welcome home,” she said, kissing her with all of the fierceness and gratitude her totem animals inspired.

“No,” Shay said firmly. “This world, these people are inside you too. Don’t tell me you’ve never felt it, that urge to run, crawl, and swim right out of your own skin.”

Shay slipped her hand to the nape of Tala’s neck, tangling fingers in her hair, tugging gently as she stepped backward into the lapping waves. She could feel Tala’s skin grow slick under her hand, see the dawning awareness in Tala’s beautiful eyes, as together they dipped below the ocean’s surface.