<div dir="ltr">Here is my next story, with patched plot/continuity holes. A Place to Call Home May, 708 C.R. Cheep opened his eyes. He saw a wall of stone with an upside-down dresser mounted on it halfway between the floor and ceiling. Under the top of the dresser he could see the head of his monkey statue. He looked down, and saw his hands and feet suspended in the air, but his tail was stretched straight downward in a tight line and then curled around a wooden beam stretching across the room. He felt his tail loosening its grip, and before he could react he flew upwards toward the stones above and fell on his head with a thump. “Ow!” “Are you trying to hang from your tail again?” Kag’s voice was heard from the next room. “Maybe,” Cheep replied, rubbing the new lump on his scalp. “You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t stop.” “No way. I just started trying last week and I’m already up to twenty minutes! I’m completely fine.” “Says the guy who just took a blow to the head. Again.” Cheep grumbled as he got up off the floor of his room and walked out to the table where Kagmer reclined, reading. “Maybe you should stick with practicing fighting with your new body. Besides, we have scout training in a couple hours. You should go early and discover how the Curse has affected your abilities,” Kag recommended. “I already tried it and my skills haven’t changed from the longer arms. I want to learn to do new stuff.” “You may still be able to move your weapons the same way, but your body has drastically changed, and you are more agile than before. You need to learn how to use your new strengths to your advantage and compensate for any new weaknesses.” “Weaknesses?” “I don’t mean for bananas. You’re lighter than before, and longer arms may be great for reach, but you can’t put as much force on them. You don’t have as much muscle, so you will need to adjust your style to allow for more hits and less power. And more dodging; you seem to have a proclivity for taunting.” “What, you mean like this?” Cheep asked, and immediately began cavorting about in a ridiculous manner, blowing raspberries and clapping his hands as he jumped all over Kag’s head and the table and everywhere, shrieking happily in monkeyish laughter and occasionally pulling on Kagmer’s ears. The rhino man tried to grab him to keep him off his head and horns, but the effort was futile, as Cheep always managed to leap just out of Kag’s reach whenever he grasped at the monkey. “You’re a natural at that, and I’m not sure I mean that as a compliment,” Kag said, giving up. Cheep leapt off the rhino’s head, did a backflip, and landed perfectly on the floor, bowing. “Thank you, thank you very much.” “You’re hilarious. Now go practice on someone else. I’m trying to read.” “Maybe you should come too. It’s not as if you didn’t change.” Kag sighed. “I guess you’re right, although the only significant differences for me are increased strength, size, and skin thickness. Oh, and now I have horns on my face.” “Great. Let’s go.” ### As they made their way to the practice rooms, Cheep and Kag passed many animal morphs, children who were probably much older than they looked, and women (and men, too) who dressed androgynously because they weren’t comfortable accepting their new gender. This was no longer a surprise or a shock; they had been at Metamor Keep for a little over two weeks at this point. However, they still found it interesting to see all the different iterations of the Curse. “Oh, great.” Cheep muttered under his breath. “What?” Kag asked, confused. “Try not to look at the vixen walking toward us. We… um, may have met before.” “She’s not bad-looking. Why, are you nervous? Thinking of asking her out?” Kag grinned. “NO!” Cheep shouted, and then blushed heavily at the ears as he realized he had just drawn attention to himself. “I mean, we sort of met under less than favorable circumstances. The vixen turned at the shout and examined the speaker. “You look familiar. Have we met before?” she asked, looking at Cheep ponderously. “Umm- No. I’m sure we haven’t. I mean, um, I think we haven’t. I mean, you don’t look familiar at all to me! Nope. Haven’t met. Sorry,” Cheep stammered. “You’re a terrible liar, you know. You’re that nice boy who stopped my vegetable cart when those asses pushed it down the hill.” “I, uh, umm… Maybe?” Cheep squirmed. “Don’t be so modest. That was really a heroic thing to do. By the way, I’m Sasha.” Smiling fetchingly, she held out her paw. “I’m Cheep. Uhhhh… actually I was just wasn’t paying attention. It was an accident that your cart hit me.” Cheep dropped his gaze. “So? You didn’t get mad or yell at me or anything, and that’s a pretty big improvement over most of the guys I know.” “You must only know jerks.” “Maybe I just live in the wrong part of town; I inherited the shop from my dad, so I never thought to move.” “Oh. So you own a vegetable stand or something?” Cheep was becoming curious. “Well, fruits and vegetables. And sometimes spices, when I can find traders to sell them to me. There seems to be a shortage of them,” Sasha said thoughtfully. “So, you might not by any chance have bananas, would you?” Cheep queried. “Yes, actually, I do. Why do you ask?” Cheep was actually excited now. “Those things are fantastic! …Any chance you could give me a discount?” She smirked. “Do all monkeys like bananas?” Cheep smiled, blushing a bit. “Can’t say I know of any other monkeys, but I sure do.” “You know what? You can just have them. I only have a few left, and they will go bad soon if nobody eats them. It’s the least I can do,” the vixen offered apologetically. “That would be more than fair for such a small thing,” Cheep grinned. “Okay, where would you like them sent?” “Sent?” Cheep looked surprised. “Remember that cart you saved? Delivery cart. I was on my way to deliver those rutabagas to some rabbits when it got jacked and pushed down the hill. I didn’t think I had that many enemies…” “Oh. Well, I have a room in the Keep, but I don’t know how to explain how to get there…” Cheep started to explain sheepishly. “Don’t worry about that, I know how it works. You must be new here.” “Why does everybody keep saying that?” Cheep grumbled, getting a bit flustered. “Don’t worry, they’ll stop soon enough, once you get used to things. I’ll get a box with the bananas to your room later this afternoon, then.” “That would be great,” Cheep said, smiling again. “See you around, cutie,” she giggled. ### Cheep’s ears burned as he blushed heavily. Kag elbowed Cheep as they walked on toward the practice room again. “She’s pretty sweet on you,” he commented teasingly. “Shut up,” Cheep muttered. They arrived at the practice area and found a few other fighters practicing their art. Kag had just recently gotten clothes that were big enough to accommodate his humongous frame, and he had gotten a set of light but tough sparring garb, white in color, which he now wore. “I feel stronger; I think I’ll see how much power I’ve gained,” Kag said as he walked over to the side of the training room dedicated to strength training and picked up a large shaped stone two feet wide and one foot across, a weight he had lifted before only with difficulty. He lifted it above his head with surprising ease, flicking his ears, and set it back down. He looked at his huge hands, in wonder at how much stronger he now was. There was only one stone in the area bigger than the one he had just lifted, and it was twice as large. It should have been much too heavy for him (at least for his old body), but he lifted this with almost no difficulty as well. Cheep looked on in awe as the stone that had to be more than a dozen times his own weight was lifted again and again. Kag set it down after a few repetitions. “I need to find a heavier weight. That one is a lot smaller than I feel like I could lift.” “That’s insane. You just put that thing up a dozen times without any more effort than hefting a pack. It probably weighs more than you do, and you’re absolutely huge!” “Yeah, I know. I need to find bigger rocks, or at least something heavier. It’s amazing, being this strong. I can’t think of anything that even comes close.” “Yeah, great. We’ll go out and look for a quarry or something as soon as this quarantine ends. Hopefully it’s soon. All those cases that survived the Plague were cured, and no more cases have been seen. You’d think they would just open the gates or something by now; maybe they just think they have to be really sure or something.” Cheep moved over to the wooden dummies intended for practicing weapon technique and pulled his nunchukas out. He held them taut, horizontal and at arm’s length. He was surprised for a moment at the realization that they were quite a bit further away from his face than usual. He then went through his normal practice warmup slower than normal, swinging the rods around in tight arcs, switching hands, catching one handle under his arm. He proceeded to strike at the dummy occasionally, adjusting his technique as he grew used to his longer arms, gradually moving faster and faster until his hands and weapon were almost a constant blur. He thought he would miss and hit himself in the face or something, but he didn’t; impressed at his own newfound speed and agility, he finished his exercises and slowed to a stop. Kag stood nearby, nodding in approval. “I may have lost some speed with the change, but the strength I have now more than makes up for it. You seem to have gotten just the opposite; you’re a little weaker, but a lot faster. It’s like we increased our specialties at the expense of weaker attributes, almost like one of those role-playing games.” Cheep laughed. “Yeah. Hey, I think one of those specialty shops we saw in Euper sells those,” he said hopefully. “Yes, I saw them too, but they cost a good bit of gold, and we don’t have that high a pay grade,” Kag said. “Oh. It was just a thought.” The two finished their respective warmups and moved on to the place where they and the other scouts were scheduled to begin training now. ### Cheep was bored. He was in his room, hanging upside down from his tail again, trying to think of something better to satisfy his urge to climb. Immediately the forest had come to his mind, but being outside the quarantine made that out of the question. Or did it? The gears of Cheep’s mind began turning as he considered the possibility of breaking quarantine. Secretly, of course; he would certainly be stopped if he tried leaving openly. The guards patrolled mostly at the gates, as the walls kept most people from passing. All but the most skilled climbers- Cheep let go of the rafter with his tail, this time landing on his hands and flipping end over end to the door. He would probably need to find some rope, and a hook, and he needed to be sure to be back the next day in time for the scouts’ scheduled training session. He would likely employ some of the stealth skills he had learned in practice if this plan came to fruition. Cheep reflected briefly as he hurried through the Keep. All this effort just for some trees to climb. He shook his head and swiftly moved through the Keep to get outside. He would need to scout out the walls for places conducive to being scaled stealthily and procure a rope and hook. He made his way through Keeptowne as the sun began to set, stopping at a stable and paying the stable hand a few bronze coins for a spare coil of rope he saw in a stack. Rope in hand, Cheep tried to think of how to explain to a blacksmith why exactly it was that he needed a grappling hook. He shook his head, rejecting the idea, and found a pawn shop on the rougher edge of town, which was apparently open later than most businesses. He entered the shady-looking establishment, glancing around for his target, trying to appear nonchalant as he perused the shelves and racks. The owner, a mangy rodent of indistinct variety, watched him with beady eyes that made him uncomfortable. Cheep saw all manner of items in barrels, on shelves, and strewn across the walls in various means. The shop had everything from swords and pikes to rolling pins and jewelry. Finally Cheep found an old but well-made grappling hook made of iron and wrapped in black cloth. “How much for this?” Cheep asked. “Six bronze,” replied a gravelly voice from behind the counter and cage. “I’ll give you five.” Cheep said, trying to sound confident. “You can give me five if you want, but you ain’t taking that out of here,” the shop owner snapped. “You want it, you pay my price,” “Oh.” Cheep looked and felt extremely uncomfortable in spite of his efforts as he passed the coins across the counter. “Great. Have a nice day,” the unsavory pawnbroker sneered sarcastically. Cheep hurried out as fast as he could. He then continued on to the edge of the city, starting to use alleys to avoid sight as people were largely inside their houses now that it was dark, until he came to the high curtain wall that surrounded the city. He looked up, searching for a suitable catching point for his hook, and selected a merlon close to one of the turrets on the wall. Cheep tied his rope in the loop in his new hook, remembering how to tie the sturdy knot from his experience with the acrobat troupe. He fought back tears at the memory and returned his mind to the task at hand. After scanning the top of the wall for nearby guards, he gauged the distance to the top of the wall, holding the coils of rope loosely in one hand while swinging the hook from a short length of it in the other. He had gauged correctly; the hook sailed just a foot over the top of the parapet and fell into the crenel next to the tower, falling back and catching fast against the stones. Cheep checked the rope by tugging it firmly a couple times, and then surprised himself with the ease with which he speedily scaled the rope, clearing the top of the wall in seconds. He had timed his journey a bit close to the patrols, though: he saw a torch coming his direction from the next tower over. The watchman would surely see him if he stayed where he was any longer, so he hastily hooked the rope on the other side of the wall and dived over the battlement, softly impacting the wall as the rope went taut. </div>