A Portal Mix-Up

“Sky!”

Sky looked down and spotted a young red fox Seldnac—Lumi, if Sky remembered her name correctly.

“What’s up?” Some dust went flying when Sky landed, head tilted to the side. “Do you need help?”

“Well… Kinda.” Whenever Lumi opened her mouth to speak, Sky could see her tongue glow in the same shade of yellow as the flames on her ears. “My friends and I have a portal magic test soon, so we wanted to train tomorrow, but… We need some volunteers to practice. And you know people, right? Can you find some?”

“Sure!” Sky jumped up and flapped her wings a few times as she hovered in the air. “I’ll ask around! Anything I need to keep in mind?”

Lumi breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much! The others are asking around, too, so with your help, we should have enough volunteers. Doesn’t matter who, they just need to walk through our portals, that’s all. We’ll be on the meadow outside the city all day, so as long as they come at some point tomorrow, any time’s fine.”

“All right, see you tomorrow!” Sky circled above Lumi once before she zoomed away, sped up by her speed magic.

The first one she spotted—pun not intended—was Mikki. The hyena Seldnac was working on something; his head was blocking Sky’s view, but his rose-gold flames flickered high, and the matching spots on his fur glowed brightly, which meant he was using his magic.

“Hey!” Sky called out as she made to land, and touched ground right in front of him. “What are you doing?”

Mikki raised his head, causing the sun to catch in his ear piercings. “Take a look,” he answered with a grin, and nudged a small lump of silver towards Sky.

Well, at least it had looked small between Mikki’s paws, but for Sky and her fennec fox statue, it was pretty big. “What is it?” Sky asked, pawing at the item.

“It will be a locket when I’m done.” Mikki took the object back and got back to work.

“Ohh, for who?”

“Jamie, he’s visiting the city for a few days, and verycute.” The locket slowly took shape, turning from a lump of metal to an intricate flower. “And what are you up to?”

“Well, I’m trying to look for people to help my friend,” Sky answered, tail wagging excitedly. “She’s a bit younger than me, and she and her friends need to practice their portal magic before a test, but for that they need people to walk through them. Do you want to help?”

“I should be able to manage walking through a portal. When and where?”

“Tomorrow, at the meadow near the city. Lumi said they’d be there the whole day, so you can come as late as you want to, too!” Sky only now noticed that her paws weren’t quite touching the grass, and hurriedly started flapping her wings.

Mikki chuckled. “All right, I’ll be there.”

“Great! See you then!” Sky didn’t even wait for Mikki to say goodbye before she left, still on the lookout for new helpers.

Tall grass almost hid Lena from Sky’s view, but when she was right above her feline friend, Lena’s spiral-shaped blue markings lit up brightly, and Lena looked up at her.

Sky landed with enough speed to send some dirt flying. “Lena!”

Lena flattened her ears and raised a paw to clean off the dust that was now on it, courtesy of Sky. “What do you want to ask me?”

“So, my friend Lumi asked me a favor, and I need your help!” Sky started, tail wagging so quickly her butt moved along with it. “She and her friends want to practice portal magic, and—”

“And she needs helpers to use the portals, tomorrow, just outside the city.” Lena barely even glanced at Sky, her main focus still on cleaning her paw.

“Exactly! And I said I’d ask around to find some people to help!”

“Hm.”

“Come ooooon, it’ll be fun! Please?” Sky stepped closer.

Finally, Lena put her paw back down. “Fine, I’ll help.” Though her tone was flat, the tip of her tail twitched curiously, almost excitedly.

“Thank you!” Sky twirled around her own axis as if she were chasing her tail. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then! Gotta find a few more people before then!”

“Good luck.” Lena closed her eyes to stretch, and by the time she opened her eyes again, Sky was already far gone.

While Sky had no trouble finding volunteers in general—more than ten Seldnacs had agreed to come already, and she wasn’t even done yet!—she really wanted to ask Fantasia to come, too. It’d be so much more fun with them around! After all, they were her best friend!

And very hard to find, despite being one of the tallest Seldnacs Sky knew.

It was already evening when Sky spotted Fantasia’s glowing red markings, and immediately set course to pounce. Well, mostly just to land on Fantasia’s back, considering their size difference.

Fantasia yelped in surprise. “Sky!”

“Sorry!” Sky jumped off Fantasia’s back and chose to hover by his head instead. “I wanted to ask for your help!”

“Help with what?” Fantasia sat down, making her seem even taller. Skywishedshe could be that big!

The fennec took a deep breath and, once again, explained about Lumi. How many Seldnacs had she asked already? Twenty? Thirty? Not like she’d kept count.

Fantasia flattened her ears. “And you want me to be one of the testers?” She didn’t seem to notice that she was slowly ducking closer to the ground, as if trying to hide.

Sky just nodded enthusiastically. “It’s gonna be fun! Don’t worry, I’ll be right by your side the whole time, okay?” She landed, but only to step closer and lay her front paws against Fantasia’s chest; she could barely even reach that high.

Fantasia’s tail swished side to side as he thought about it.

“You can come and go anytime, too! So, maybe just walk through one portal, and if it’s too many Seldnacs for you, you can leave right away!”

Fantasia took a deep breath and sat up straight again. “All right, I’ll come, but I… I can’t promise how long I’ll stay, okay?”

“Sure! See you tomorrow!”

Sky was already flying circles above the meadow when Lumi and the other students were busy setting everything up. Deciding who was supposed to open their portals where and when, how to guide the volunteers, all that.

Of course, the second the first portal was open, Sky rushed downwards and flew through. That’s what she was here for, after all!

It took a few seconds before she came out the other side. “I thought it’s supposed to be instant?” She landed next to the student who made it, a Seldnac she’d only spoken to once or twice before.

“It is,” the student answered. “We just… Haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet.”

“Oh!” Sky gently nudged them. “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it! And maybe some of the Seldnacs coming here as volunteers know enough about portal magic to give you some tips!”

“I hope so.” The student smiled, but was soon called away to keep practicing.

More and more Seldnacs joined; Sky spotted Mikki, Lena and Fantasia among them, but also a fairly big bunch of Seldnacs she’d only seen in passing. Maybe this was a great chance to get close with some others and make new friends!

Not much later, Sky was asked to test another portal. As before, she rushed into it at full speed—and got caught on something, causing her to tumble to the ground the moment she left the other side of the portal.

Getting back to her feet was harder than usual, and somehow, her perspective was… Different. Had she grown? Could portals dothat? And why was she nervous about it? She’d wantedto grow!

But somehow, she felt different in general. Her tail was different, and flapping her wings was slower than before. Sky looked down—on black-furred paws. Could a portal have changed her fur color?

Sky noticed her left front leg pawing at the ground, and felt apologetic. What was going on?

She looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. There was, for a lack of a better word, chaos; the portals weren’t organized like they were before, there were Seldnacs talking to themselves—wait, were they? Everyone looked… Different. There was someone who looked like Lena, but with lighter markings and a thicker tail, and another Seldnac had glowing spots like Mikki, but looked way more like a wolf than he did. Sky couldn’t see anyone who looked like Fantasia, but there was a pretty tall Seldnac a bit away, too far to tell clearly who they might be.

“Everyone, please listen!” One of the students called out, though he was barely audible over the noise. “We’re not sure what happened, how you all got, uh, fused… But we’ll figure it out! We’ll find some way to get you back to normal! We promise!”

His panicked tone probably did not do much to help calm people down.

“So, I fused with you?” Sky asked out loud; whoever she fused with hadn’t said anything yet, but it’d explain why she looked different.

She felt herself nod.

“And you don’t talk much, huh?”

She flattened her ears to her head for a second, then slowly nodded again.

“That’s fine, I can talk enough for both of us!” Sky wagged her tail; it felt weird, as if a weight was attached to its tip. “Can you write? I need to call you something, so maybe you could write down your name!”

She watched as her own paw scratched letters into the dirt.

“Azrael? That’s a pretty name! I’m Sky! Nice to meet you!” She looked around—well, tried to, sometimes Azrael and she tried to look in different directions, which just made their head jerk side to side. “One of my friends is a student here. How about we go ask her how long it’ll take for them to figure stuff out? And then we decide what to do until then, okay?”

Sky waited until she felt a nod, then headed towards Lumi. She wanted to fly, but wasn’t entirely sure how to properly do it in this body; maybe she and Azrael would figure that out later on.

“Lumi!”

Lumi turned around, ears flattened and tail between her legs. “Sky…?”

Sky nodded. “Uh-huh. And Azrael. Do you know how long it’ll take for you to figure it out? Like, do you think we’ll go back to normal today? If not, Azzie and I will have to figure out what to do until then.”

Lumi shook her head. “We’re… We’re not sure, but I don’t think we’ll manage today. Some of us went to get our teachers, but there’s so many of you, and we’ve never learned about anything like this, so…”

Sky gently nudged her—or at least that was her intention, but she put a bit more force in than she’d planned and accidentally pushed Lumi a few steps away. It was weird being in a new body! “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out!”

Though she could feel Azrael’s worry, Sky trusted her friend; Lumi and the others wouldfind something! “Azrael, you and I gotta figure out what to do until then. Is there anywhere you have to be? Or anyone you need to tell about this before they get worried about you?”

She felt her head tilt to the side as Azrael thought. After a few seconds, Sky felt like she heard the ocean, and voices of two other Seldnacs.

“All right, we gotta tell those two? We’ll also need to talk to my parents, they’d worry if I don’t come back home tonight. Hm… How about we go visit my parents, tell them what happened, then head to your place?”

Azrael nodded.

“All right, let’s go! Let’s see if we can make our body fly!”