She didn’t need to wonder anymore. She knew now. Knew that the magic had made her different. Had changed her.


    She was thinking in the rumbly words that Moose spoke.


    She hadn’t noticed when it started. It was only one or two words. Only when she didn’t have anything better to think. It was more now. Almost all the words she thought were the rumbly ones. She only went back to the other words when she didn’t know which rumbly ones to use.


    She couldn’t talk with them yet. The rumbly nature making them difficult for her to say aloud. She also didn’t know how they went together. She knew the words, but the words were always alone. They were all labels of some kind. Always the same magic. Find an object and use your finger to direct the word and its magic. It seemed so simple. Everything had a word. Every word had a place.


    She knew there were more words, of course. Moose always spoke in the rumbly words. There were clearly words that had not been given to her. Complexities she didn’t grasp. She always knew when he was speaking of a thing they had seen. Knew what was spoken about. But trying to understand what Moose wanted her to do with that thing wasn’t something they had managed to figure out yet. It always came down to gestures in the end. If Moose didn’t simply do it himself.


    There seemed to be some problem with the powder as well. Moose had stopped making the disks as often. When she had watched him eat part of the green stuff in the garden she hadn’t thought that much about it. She had thought it was expected.


    Natural.


    She had expected to return and to eat a disk, the same as any other time. When they returned and she was given some of the green thing after Moose had used magic on it, she had been very confused. She wasn’t a moose, why would she eat green things?


    But the magic had changed her. She couldn’t argue that.


    Had Moose been changing her into a moose?


    Could…. could that happen?


    The thought both thrilled and terrified her. It was terrifying to be changed. Made into something else. Something you didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. How could she still be herself if she was something different. But… that power. To be given the power that Moose wielded. To have that not as a follower of Moose, but at her own command. As a piece of herself. That sent a thrill through her that she couldn’t ignore or explain away. It left only one question really. Did she have to give up everything…


    …Or could she choose how much she would give away?


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    To never have to worry about other monsters again, that was worth a lot. She was more than willing to give up the parts of herself that were scared. That wanted to run at every surprising sound. That were lost or confused about what was happening.


    She didn’t want the parts of herself that made things feel bad.


    Moose could have them all. Anytime he wanted.


    She had no way to control things like that though. Even if Moose could speak the other words like her, she wouldn’t know how to communicate her desire. Didn’t know if Moose would even bother to listen. She was already being given magic and food. Already had the emptiness filled and warded away. Demanding more would just be…wrong. If even she didn’t want those parts of herself, how much value could they have?


    That was all assuming that Moose had control over what was happening. She thought he did, had believed he was directing things. But it could be like water, you could stop it going one way but that didn’t mean it would go where you wanted. Moose could just be giving it the right direction.


    She hoped so at least. Moose had seemed very busy lately and hadn’t paid much attention to her.


    If Moose had been directing things and suddenly stopped, she hoped it wouldn’t go out of control. If Moose had a plan and she was being changed for a purpose, she could enjoy the benefits. Even if they came with downsides. If she was just changing at random and she could end up any which way, she would just prefer to remain herself. It was a bit late to worry about things like that though, things had already started. They would end up however they ended up.


    She had thought the green things were the next step of course. That she had enough magic, she now needed to begin eating green things. Whether the change wasn’t as far along as Moose thought, or she had misunderstood why moose ate green things, she found that she didn’t much like the taste of the green thing. She didn’t care much for the texture either. She didn’t know how something could be both chewy and full of strings, but she guessed magic had something to do with it.


    Maybe they were a way to get her to hurry up. After a couple of meals with the green things she was ready to give up just about anything to make the change happen faster. Maybe if she was a full moose they wouldn’t be so bad. She didn’t think she had much hope there, as even Moose seemed to be looking for ways to make them less…everything.


    It was only after she had complained and refused to eat the green things, tried to make her own disks, that she had learned the problem. Had learned just how little powder was left. She truly regretted closing her room at that point, the stash of treats could have washed the taste from her mouth.


    At least she now knew why she had never seen Moose eat green things before.


    She padded into the new room that Moose had taken over. She didn’t know which monsters were creating the large walls. She assumed they all could, since Moose had been the first one she had seen do so. Following Moose, she had seen a handful of them so far. Moose had tested each of them. It seemed the large wall was enough to slow even Moose down. She guessed that made it a very good wall. They still fell to Moose if he chose to try though. That was probably why no monster attempted to reclaim them.


    Crawling into Moose’s lap, she wiggled into the warmth. She hadn’t been able to find any more pages in the area. Moose had spent a lot of time here, seemingly fascinated by the strange things in the room. She had wandered as far as she dared in that time and scavenged the area clean of things Moose would trade a treat for. Her scavenging this time had turned up nothing and had left a chill on her skin, so she did the only thing left to do.


    ‘I hope I don’t leak before we get back to the rain room.’