Chapter 1 - Visitor

Vincent Badger was nervous. He sat in his office, alone and in need of distraction. It was the lull between semesters, and without papers to review or students to meet with he found himself quite without direction. A cup of tea sat on its saucer, cold and forgotten. He tapped his phone absently with one claw. His mind was elsewhere. He looked over the dusty book shelves lining his office walls, the worn chair opposite his desk, the table filled with books neglectfully left strewn about. His eyes wouldn’t focus on anything. He fiddled with the buttons on his vest. Took off his glasses, cleaned them with his handkerchief then put them back on his nose.

His nephew was going through his transformation. Right now. His sister had called him yesterday to let him know it was happening. He and his nephew, Dax, had always been close, and he wished he could be with him during this difficult time. Unfortunately for Vincent, his sister Belle, had asked him not to come. She insisted the transformation was best endured alone. It was a deeply personal and vulnerable time in any young person’s life and it was best for everyone to give the young their space.

It wasn’t just his love for his nephew that was bothering him. It was his curiosity. Transformation was not determined purely by genetics. Although, it was mostly agreed that genetics did play a role.  Vincent and Belle were both badgers, as their parents had been, but their younger brother Felix was a fox. Even when they were all young and neutral there was something different about Felix, he refused to fall in line with the rest of the family. His vulpine features had begun to show themselves early, when he was a young child, still hairless and fang less. When he finally transitioned, it only seemed right.

Vincent checked the time on his phone again. 10:30 AM. It had been about 24 hours since the first text from Belle, and about 23 ½ hours since the last one urging him to stay home and wait for news. Vincent  had spent the evening studying as many texts on the genetics associated with transformation as he could get his paws on. As a professor whose office was just down the hall from the Anthrogenetics office, he had plenty to occupy himself. Unfortunately, he’d understood only a little of it.

Transformation often took days. Sometimes as long as a week. Vincent’s own transformation had taken only two days. The worst two days of his life. Agonizing pain as his small neutral humanoid body stretched and rearranged itself into his badger self. The most excruciating had been when his facial bones reformed into his snout. He could still remember the way it had felt as his cheek bones broke and stretched-

There was a knock at the door. Vincent bolted up right in his seat and gasped. His visitor knocked again.

“I um… Uh… “ Vincent stuttered for a moment.  “Come in please”.

The door open and a small slender figure walked in. Her head and shoulders were covered by a long scarf that hid her face. Her clothing was modest to the point of being absurd, given the summer heat. She had to be roasting underneath.

“Doctor Badger?” she asked from under her scarf.

“Yes. I am. Do you have an appointment? I don’t remember seeing anything in my schedule for the day…” he trailed off as he began to rummage around his desk.

“No. Please.  I’m sorry, but I’ve come a long way and I need your help” She had her hands on the edge of the desk now. They were pink. Hairless. With no claws or toe pads. He looked up from her hands slowly.

“Who are you?”

“That’s just the thing” she said, reaching up to her scarf and slowly unraveling it “I don’t know”.

Doctor Badger had seen some extraordinary things in his lifetime. Tigers with antlers. Dolphins that walked on two legs. Dragons.  Every strange quirk of nature he’d explored in his life’s work paled in comparison to the woman standing in his office.

A fully grown human woman. She was hairless, save for some fuzz above her eyes and some long hair coming from the top of her head. She was  flat faced and fangless like a child. In fact her whole appearance looked like a small child who had not yet even taken the earliest steps of transformations. And yet she was a fully formed adult. Clearly passed puberty, when transformation happens. Or should’ve happened. And yet here she was, a grown neutral. As much of a blank slate as the day she was born.

“How…. who…..?” He searched for words, making small circular gestures with his paws.

“My name is Lumen. I was hoping you could help me find out why I am…” she made a sweeping gesture towards herself “the way I am”.