Goddess Reborn

New Day, New Me?

"I did what you asked, there is an animal hospital about thirty minutes further that has accepted me into a position. I checked and all the Vet's are female, and the only guy working there is a tech, and he is a fifty-five year old married guy man. I wanted to tell you before we left for the party, since my last day at my old hospital was today." I explained to Marcus, trying to sound as excited as possible. The new hospital was not as big or cutting edge as my old one, but I knew he would be happy I had put him first and found something he would be comfortable with.

I woke up after what felt like I had slept for days, though when I looked out the window sunlight was streaming in and I was lost as to how long I had been there or even still able to understand where I was. As I lay there listening to the nature just beyond the window I remembered what was said to me, that what I saw outside was my own making. If that was the case I would be able to create something different in theory. As I started to think about a different surrounding I realized the chirping of birds and morphed from chickadees and sparrows to the sound of seagulls. The sun, though still at the same point in the sky, was now peaking through heavy clouds and the smell of salt was on the breeze. I had successfully changed my environment solely by willing it into existence. Again I focused on where we could be and this time the seagulls became the sound of car horns, I could hear voices of people walking by. The ability to change our surroundings astounded me, but also felt so familiar, like I it was such a natural part of my life. Suddenly, I found myself excited to see what the day could hold and I jumped out of bed to see where the guys were and what I could learn today.

As I looked around the room before leaving I became curious if the sounds outside were attached to real places, that we had somehow traveled to a new place or was it just a background. I knew I still had so much to understand, but I was eager to learn and see where it could all take me. As I stepped up to the window I could still hear what sounded like a bustling metropolis of people and cars, and it looked and smelled like it as well. The smell of exhaust as a car drove by, the sound of someone's cell phone ringing, but as I looked out the window it all seemed to be hidden away behind a foggy veil. As I watched the people walking by I thought again of the salty air of the coast, I watched the misty fog change from the colours of a cityscape into the soft outline of a coastal peir. The people now were gone, as was their noise, and it was replaced with seagulls and the horns of passing ships. I definitely found this to be a more comfortable setting for myself, something about the smell of the air made me feel free and at ease. With that final change I decided it was time to leave the room and see what I boys were doing.

As I walked toward the sound of voices it led me to the kitchen where the guys were sitting at the counter with coffee in hand. Just when I thought Deacon was going to hand me a coffee and I went to protest, he instead gave me a glass of chocolate milk. "Did you really think I would have forgotten that you don't drink coffee?" He chirped with a smile. "Even in all your human lives you could not bring yourself to drink it, though you tried every single time. Every time you would scrunch up your nose and complain about the bitter taste. Which then would lead to someone saying each time 'oh, you'd like it better if you drank it more.' I always laughed at you telling people you shouldn't have to force yourself to like a drink." When he stopped and looked up both myself and Roman were watching him with amusement. I do not think he realized that he was babbling, but it was cute in my books.

"So, now that miss 'salty breeze' is out of bed what should today hold?" Roman asked changing the subject. I scrunched my eyebrows together trying to understand what he meant before he gestured toward the window. That was when I realized the changes to the environment had been seen by them as well. Roman chuckled at my shock before adding; "I'm just happy you decided against morning city traffic. I don't think I could handle listening to that for long."

"I thought I was the only one who could see that? I just remembered what Deacon said last night and I was trying to grasp what it was and how it worked." I explained through my embarrassment. I had no idea they could see it as well.

"It's all good, we can all see it, but once you get used to it, the silence of where we are is it's own kind of peace. When we first were here all I wanted was the quiet of a snowy day in the mountains, Deac wanted a noisy rainforest. Seriously, monkeys and birds all day long. Your choice is way better!" Roman quipped, and it amazed me to hear how different we all were in the sounds we found comforting.

"Since you are getting more comfortable in your skin I think today we should spend some time reintroducing you to the rest of what you can do." Deacon said. It made sense but I wanted to get out and find out who killed me and why. He looked up and into my eyes causing my breath to catch in my throat. "How do you think your family and friends that are about to bury you would respond to you walking back into their lives and asking questions? You need to learn to control your ability to shift your image, create, control and to simply be outside of the humans range of vision. All of this takes time and practice. Once we have all of that mastered we will introduce you to what it is we all do, then we can start to understand what happened to you and why. I know it is hard to understand now, but the life you feel so attached to was not really who you are. It was a moment, a short blip in the grand scheme." Deacon finished, his words hurt me more than I know they should have. Of course I now knew that I was there as a punishment but for me I could not just look beyond the feeling I had about that life.

"It may be a 'blip' as you put it, but it is still fresh in my mind. It is still the life I remember having and I still deserve to know who had it out for me. So, if you are done being a jerk about it then I will see you when you're ready to help me not hold me back." I spat out, anger dripping from my words. I knew he was right but it did not make how he said it right. I got up and went back to my room to change into something else for the day. Behind me as I walked I could hear the guys arguing about the interaction, but I was too focused on my pain to care.

After some time, I'm not sure how long because there was not a single clock in this space, I decided that was enough sulking at it was time to get to business. As I made my way out of the room I found the guys lounging in the living room playing some video games, which they paused when they heard me approaching. "Really? Omnipotent beings play Mario kart?" I said with a smirk. They both smiled and laughed at me.

"Honey, everyone plays Mario kart and you know it. How are you feeling?" Roman asked, looking content but concerned for me. I reassured him that I am fine, but he was not so quick to take my brush off. "If you want to kick him in the balls I agree completely, I'll even hold him down for you." He quipped with a grin. Deacon in turn gave him the finger and scowled to himself about it. "Come on Deac, you know you were a jerk."

With a sign Deacon did agree, "I'm sorry, it's hard to remember that even though we all lived out our sentence you spent the longest out of the loop. Your transition back into thus life will be at your own pace, and right now you are still very much feeling the loss of your last human life. I'm sorry if I marginalized that, it wasn't right for me to do that." As he spoke his eyes maintained contact with mine. They held so much pain and I knew he was truly remorseful for what had transpired. I decided in that moment that he, and Roman, truly just wanted what was best for me. I accepted his apology wholly and wanted to move beyond it.

"OK, enough of this. Explain to me what you meant about 'What else I can do'. If there is more I want to learn it all. I do not doubt that learning about myself before will help me remember who I used to be. So, where do we start?" I asked the guys. They looked between each other before I remembered my question from this morning. "Earlier, when I was changing what was outside, is that real or is it just a picture of what is in my head? Could we walk out the door and be on the peir?" I asked, trying to hide my excitement at the idea of being able to be somewhere new just by thinking about it.

"What an awesome start!" Roman excitedly answered as he jumped up to wrap his arm around my shoulders bringing me into the room to sit with them. "No, it isn't real, it's what we call a glamour. You can do to the space around you, yourself, and to just about anything. Though I don't suggest doing it with something that needs to be interacted with. Those we have other options for. We can still travel where ever we want, it just takes a different skill. I do, however think glamours are a great place to start for the day. What do you think Deac?"

"I agree, they are the easiest to master and something we use constantly. With the space outside it is mostly an impression of a place, an idea but like you are seeing it through frosted glass. If we try something closer it will look real. Let's try..." Deacon stopped to look around the room to come up with an idea, then suddenly jumped up and went to the kitchen. He came back to the room with three glasses of water. "Here, start with these. Focus on the first glass, try and imagine it to be something else, not water. Picture it in your mind, while focusing on the glass." I did as he said, at first feeling silly but slowly saw the water becoming foggy before starting to look like milk.

"Did I really do that? It looks so real." I was so excited to see what I was able to do, when I picked up the glass I was amazed. Taking a sip however I found it tastes off, like it had been water down. "I guess it can only go so far, like it tricked my eyes, but it can't convince my mind because I know it wasn't milk before?" I asked.

"Sort of, if you hadn't seen it happen you would still be able to figure it out, but it would be more difficult. A Glamour is difficult when it is something that people need to be able to taste, think of it as you can't fool all the senses. What we are doing isn't a magical transformation but an illusion. Even when we do this to our physical appearance we can still be caught with it faltering. We will appear as our true selves to others like us, and can be caught in mirrors, photos, etc. however, for the average human they would likely be fooled by a simple food glamour." Deacon explained, and I know I should have been listening, but I wanted to know what he meant about a glamour on our physical appearance.

"You mean I can make myself look differently? Like a different person or just change my hair colour?" I asked, wanting to try something bigger. The guys looked at each other then Roman stood up and as he walked I saw him transform from the godlike man he is to the spitting image of Mags. It was amazing to look at, and he knew by my wide eyes that I could not believe how easily he had done that. "Is it the same process? I want to try this."

With that the guys spent the rest of the day showing me everything they could about glamours, from the simple to the extraordinary. We changed food, furniture, clothing and our bodies into whatever we could imagine, making ourselves laugh and just enjoy being together. They started telling me about their past lives by transforming into people from those lives and I was captivated by everything that was happening.

As I was telling them a story from my childhood the guys stopped talking and it took me a while and I did not understand what had them so stunned. When I stopped to ask what was happening Deacon explained with a smile, "Isla, that happened 150 years ago, in a previous life. I was there for it, but it wasn't in this past life." I stopped to think about it but then looked down at the outfit I had on and sure enough I was starting there in a dress pulled right from the last nineteenth century. It hit me like a wave that all of our playing had recovered all of my previous lives. I still could not remember my time before our sentence, but now I knew it would indeed come with time.

With a renewed sense of excitement and courage I looked at the guys and asked;

"What's next?"