>>5789508It had been your heartfelt feeling that, based upon your vision and upon your genuine desire to understand and help Izirina, there was no good reason not to speak with her directly on the subject. So it was that you approached her after the first day of classes—mostly a formality, to familiarize you with Mage Proctor Durante and his expectations—had concluded.
“Hey,” you’d greeted her. “Thank you for watching after Muffins… I hope he wasn’t too much trouble?”
“He’s always troublesome when you go away,” she’d replied, then quickly appended: “But, um, you can still leave him with me. I don’t mind! It’s worth it.”
You smiled a little at her fondness for the natural chimera, then frowned a little. Was it because she saw something of herself in the animal?
“Can we talk?” you asked her. “You know, in one of our usual spots.”
Izirina had looked a little concerned at your serious demeanour, likely confused as to what you needed to speak with her about. She nodded, though, and the two of you traveled in uneasy silence to one of the Tower’s scantly-used classrooms—this time, one under repair. There, once the door was closed, you fixed her with your gaze and got right to it:
“So, you know that party I went to, at Pearce’s family farm? Well, something happened there…”
You told her everything: about the mysterious Eastern ‘shirin’ powder you ingested; about the mid-bending, reality-warping effects of the greenish-white ‘study aid’; about the vision of Izirina beckoning you outside, and of what had happened in the field, and—
“I w-was NAKED?!” she balked, wrapping her arms around her robed body as if to shield herself.
“That’s not---that’s not the point!” you protested, feeling your ears heat up. “You also had a jackalope’s head, and were full of snakes!”
Izirina’s expression shifted, then, from embarrassment to something… Else. Something unreadable, closed off. She said nothing, and after a moment’s hesitation, you continued.
“They were… Filling you, crawling through you,” you continued. “You didn’t.. there were no breasts, just scaly, bulging glands, so don’t… it wasn’t THAT kind of dream, or vision, okay?”
You took a breath, and went on to tell her the rest: how the snakes were sinking fangs into her organs, squeezing heart and lungs, envenoming liver and womb.
“And the head… it’s head, YOUR head… It wasn’t just any jackalope’s head. It was the head of the… The jackalope I MADE. A chimera.”
