The Family that Plays Together, part 03 of 10

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“You’re not too uncomfortable being of the opposite sex?” Dad asked us. “My first time, I panicked when I realized I was a girl.”


The Family that Plays Together

Part 3 of 10

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is set, with Morpheus' permission, in his Travel Agency universe. Thanks to Morpheus for his feedback on the first draft.

I'll be serializing it here over the next few weeks, but if you don't want to wait, the whole novella is available as part of The Weight of Silence and Other Stories, along with thirteen other stories, including several that haven't previously appeared online.



The next morning I woke and found Taylor had already left our room. In the sunlight from the window I could see my scales better, and appreciate the banded pattern, alternating blues and greens. I also noticed that I had no belly-button; I later learned that that was because naga hatch from eggs. I got up and slithered down the hall toward the room we’d had our tea in during the night — the door across the hall was closed, and I didn’t knock to see if Mom and Dad were awake. I found Kinuko and Taylor eating breakfast, laughing and talking.

“Good morning, sis,” Taylor said. “Kinuko’s been telling me about us kitsune... watch this!” And his nose and mouth started protruding, and the red hair shortened and spread over his whole face and neck and arms, and all the while he was shrinking; his robe collapsed and a fox squirmed out from under it.

“Awesome,” I said. “Can I do that too? Turn all the way into a snake, or maybe all the way into a human?”

“I don’t know,” Kinuko said, as Taylor grew into his near-human form (still with fox ears and two tails, though) and got dressed. “Your host was the first nagini I have ever known, and she was quiet and secretive. I have never seen a naga or nagini transform, but that does not prove anything.”

Taylor tried to describe how he’d transformed, and I tried it myself, but nothing happened. Later on I found out I was wasting my time; naga don’t transform like kitsune.

A little later Mom and Dad came down the hall, rubbing their eyes. Mom ate with us, but Dad said she wasn’t hungry; she just wanted a small cup of water for her tree, which Kinuko gave her. She came back a couple of minutes later, and Kinuko told us what she’d planned for us.

“I think it best, perhaps, to travel up the river. There is much to see in the city, but the longer we remain here, the greater the chance that you will meet people who know your hosts, and that is an awkward situation it is best to avoid.”

“But they’ll see the bracelets and know we aren’t really them, right?” Taylor asked.

“If they are familiar with the Gray One’s work,” Kinuko said. “The Gray One has only been offering his services in this city for a couple of years, and not everyone knows what the bracelets mean, as in his homeland where almost everyone has visited your world or knows someone who has.”

“There was that time we were centaurs,” Dad reminded Mom, “and our hosts had gone off to our world without telling their husband where they were going...”

“Oh, that was awkward,” Mom said with an embarrassed laugh. “Even though he knew what the bracelets meant, he was mad at his wives and wanted to take it out on us... Our guide had some work to do to protect us from him. Yes, let’s go up the river if that will keep us away from people who know our hosts.”

“Then that’s why Chad was going to take the people in our bodies to San Francisco?” I asked.

“Among other reasons,” Mom said.

“But we can see a few things here in the city today and perhaps tomorrow,” Kinuko continued. “I will begin attempting to secure us berths on a riverboat, but it may take time to find a suitable one. In the meantime you can see the city. Let us begin by going to the riverfront, and if we cannot find suitable berths on the first riverboat we try, then I will escort you to a public garden or some other place where you can amuse yourselves while I speak with various riverboat stewards.”

So after we finished eating, we set out. Kinuko delicately suggested that I ought perhaps to cover my breasts, and I said sure; did she have anything I could use? She went to the room I’d first woken up in, and showed me some long strips of cloth that my host had used to wrap around her breasts, loop over her shoulders and tie off; it took me two or three tries to get it right. My host apparently hadn’t brought anything with her to Kinuko’s house, except for the jewels she’d paid for her trip with, and two of those camisole-saris. Dad’s host had nothing but her tree, but Taylor’s and Mom’s hosts had each brought a small bag of clothes, combs, brushes and so forth. They each got dressed in fresh clothes, and Mom brushed my thick hair with a brush he’d found in his host’s bag, and they declared we were ready to go.

When we set foot outside Kinuko’s house, we saw that it was a long, rambling structure separated from the neighboring houses and set in a garden full of cherry trees; we’d only seen a few of the many rooms, apparently. Most of the houses in this neighborhood were like that, but we could see taller buildings in the distance, and she led us in that direction.

Mom, Taylor and I took turns carrying Dad’s pot. Dad’s short legs couldn’t keep up with their stride and my slither, so after a couple of minutes Mom gave her a piggy-back ride. It was a long walk to the riverfront. The buildings got denser and taller, and so did the traffic; there were rickshaws, and donkey- and horse-drawn carts and carriages, but mostly people on foot. There were more kitsune and humans than anything else, but a few elves and dwarves, and when we first saw a group of short greenish-blue skinned people with frog-like faces, Kinuko turned her nose up and said we must be closer to the river than she thought, if there were kappa around. We didn’t see any people like me that morning, and I noticed that a lot of people stared at me — maybe they were surprised at the diversity of our group, since most of the groups of people I saw traveling together were all of one kind, but I think they were looking at me in particular.

Then, when we were close enough to the river to see the masts of ships in the distance where there was a gap between the taller buildings, Kinuko cried “Look!” She didn’t point, but we followed the direction of her eyes, and saw a white dragon, long and sinuous, with feathery antennae or whiskers or something trailing from its head. I don’t know how far overhead it was, but it was either flying low or really, really big. It wove through the sky as though it were floating and its wings were there just for decoration. We all stood still and watched until it was gone.

“There will be a storm,” Kinuko said. “I hope it does not delay our departure, but I fear it will.”

“You didn’t mention dragons last night,” Taylor said. “Are there a lot of them around?”

“I’m surprised to see one in such an urban area,” Mom commented.

“It was probably one of the royal family,” Kinuko said, continuing toward the river. We followed her as she went on: “Perhaps one of the emperor’s cousins or aunts or uncles... Undoubtedly they were on an urgent mission, or they would have left the city in human form and then assumed dragon form when they were safely away from populated areas.”

Of course that raised another ten questions, and we asked them. She explained that the founder of the dynasty, the current emperor’s great-grandfather, had married a dragon, and the family had continued intermarrying with dragons and half-dragons in the last few generations. The emperor and his children were more than half human, and couldn’t assume full dragon form, but a lot of their cousins were at least half dragon and could shift back and forth more or less easily. But because dragons tend to cause thunderstorms when they fly, the emperor normally didn’t want his relatives flying into or out of the city.

Sure enough, as the dragon disappeared over the horizon to the west, storm clouds gathered in the east, and soon covered the sky from horizon to horizon. But it didn’t start raining, at least not where we were, until later. By then we’d reached the riverfront, with its long array of docks and wharves extending out of sight in both directions, and ships pulled up to more than two thirds of them. I’m not nautical enough to be sure, but I think there were a mix of riverboats and sea-going ships; the river was pretty wide and deep at this point, Kinuko said, just a few miles from the ocean, but only the riverboats could go much farther upriver. So the riverboats and ocean-going ships would swap cargoes here in the city.

Kinuko led us along the wharves, pausing in front of certain boats or ships (I couldn’t always tell the difference; it wasn’t just a matter of size, though the very biggest were all “ships” and the very smallest were all “boats”) and calling out questions to the people working on deck. In a couple of cases someone would come down the gangplank and talk to her, and look us over, and they’d haggle over the price for five berths, and she’d say she’d get back to them soon. All of them said they wanted to wait and see what the weather did before they set out.

And then we heard thunder, and Kinuko said we’d better get inside somewhere. She took us to a tea-house near the river, but it was already raining hard by the time we got inside. Mom and Taylor were looking pretty bedraggled in their soaked clothes, but Dad looked invigorated, bouncy even, and Kinuko still managed to look graceful though she was as soaked as Mom or Taylor. I’m not sure what I looked like to them; the strangers in the tea-house might have stared just as much at a nagini who wasn’t wearing a soaking wet camisole-sari that showed her erect nipples. I think my tail looked nicer when it was wet, though, all shiny and glistening.

Kinuko suggested that we all go to the privy, one by one, and take off our clothes and wring the water out of them before putting them back on. We did that, all except Dad. While I was back there I tried to figure out how I’d pee or poop in this body; it wasn’t obvious. I didn’t need to go urgently, but I situated myself over the hole in the floor and tried to go. But the pee came out further down my tail, where I wasn’t expecting it, and I made a mess on the floor; I apologized to one of the waitresses when I came out. She nodded resignedly and said she’d go clean it up.

After we’d eaten (all except Dad), when most of us were drinking another cup of tea, Kinuko spoke to the proprietor (a human) and borrowed an umbrella from him, and went out, saying she’d return soon. It was still raining hard out there, and the thunder was sometimes near and loud enough that we had to ask each other to repeat what we’d said.

“What do you think so far?” Mom asked.

“Best vacation ever,” Taylor said with a grin.

“It is pretty awesome,” I added. “It’s a lot to get used to, but being a nagini is starting to feel... well, not normal exactly, but a lot less weird.”

“You’re not too uncomfortable being of the opposite sex?” Dad asked us. “My first time, I panicked when I realized I was a girl.”

“Why?” I asked. But then I thought about the way the guys at school talked about girls, and the way they’d made fun of me when I came to school wearing barrettes or even a pink shirt, and I realized Dad had been subjected to that kind of conditioning his whole life, not just for a couple of years.

“Most boys are raised to think that they’re better than girls because they’re boys, and that the differences between girls and boys are hugely important. They might not be explicitly taught that — nowadays they’re often explicitly taught the opposite — but they see grown-ups favoring boys over girls and treating boys' concerns as more important, and that implicit message is what really soaks in. I had to come over here several times in female bodies before I really unlearned most of that, and it still pops up in the back of my mind once in a while.”

“I guess it would be embarrassing to have Daniel or the guys at school seeing me like this,” I said, “but then, if they were here, they’d probably have strange bodies of their own to get used to.”

“I’d like to bring Jarrod over here,” Taylor said. “He’s a pretty cool boyfriend most of the time, but there are times when he acts like you were saying — like being a boy makes him more important. Having a penis is kind of convenient, but it’s not as big a deal as he makes out.”

“Maybe you could invite him to come with us next year,” Mom said. “Or if you save your money, you and he could go on a shorter trip later this summer.”

“You’d let me and Jarrod come here without you?” Taylor’s eyes got wide, and I immediately asked:

“Can I come over here with Daniel sometime, if I pay for it?” I had no idea how much Mom and Dad had paid the Gray One for our vacation, but it couldn’t be too far out of reach if they were talking about Taylor paying for it with her wages from McDonald’s.

“Probably when you’re as old as Taylor,” Dad said to me, and to Taylor: “And we’d want to talk with the Gray One about the hosts he’s matching you with, and where you’re going, to be extra sure you’re safe.”

“Merfolk should be good,” Mom said, “since they aren’t interested in sex outside mating season, and the Gray One doesn’t swap people with them when the mating season is coming up.”

“Aww,” Taylor pouted, then brightened: “It’ll be fun to see Jarrod as a mermaid.”

“Too bad we can’t bring home pictures,” I said, and then: “Wait, if Mr G. — I mean the Gray One — could bring over Maella in her own body, couldn’t he send us a camera, and bring it back loaded with pictures? We wouldn’t be able to recharge it during the trip, but a couple of days worth of pictures would be better than nothing.”

“Let’s ask him next time,” Mom said. “I didn’t know he could transport physical things until yesterday. I suspect it will cost far more than the soul transference spell, though.”

Just then Kinuko returned with more umbrellas, and returned the one she’d borrowed. “We can go now,” she said.

“Have you found us a boat yet?” I asked.

“Not yet; there’s no sense trying to talk to the stewards or captains while this rain keeps up. I could escort you back to my house, to wait out the storm, or we could go to the greenhouses in the Autumn Garden.”

“The greenhouses sound neat,” Dad said, and we set out. Dad rode on my shoulders — she hardly weighed anything — and held our umbrella, while I held her tree, extending my arms way out at first so it would catch some of the rain. But Dad told me she’d had enough to drink for a while, and I pulled the pot back in under the umbrella.

It was a fairly long walk to the Autumn Garden, though not as far as from Kinuko’s house to the riverfront. There were a lot of people in the greenhouses, both gardeners and visitors, but they were vast, built on multiple levels, so we weren’t too crowded. Most of the people there were humans and elves, but there were a few kitsune and others I couldn’t readily identify. No kappa, though; they seemed to like being out in the rain. And then, when we’d been walking (and slithering, in my case) around the roofed garden for an hour or more, I saw a naga. Another naga.

He was older, with wrinkled skin — about as dark as mine — and white hair, but his scales were still brightly colored. His snake-tail was about twice as long as mine, and had alternating bands of pink, yellow and blue scales; he was bare-chested except for a sequined sash that slung from his right shoulder to his left hip. When he saw me, he approached me.

“Good day, Miss. There are not many of our kind in the city, and I do not think I have seen you before. I am Soradhapam.”

“Um, hi. I’m Leslie — I’m not from around here. This is my Mom and Dad and my sister Taylor, and our friend Kinuko...”

“You were adopted and raised by kitsune?” He looked shocked, and I realized I hadn’t been very exact in my gestures when I was introducing the others.

“No, see, we’re all visitors, borrowing these people’s bodies...” I held up my wrist and pointed at the gold bracelet, and Kinuko explained further, going into a sales pitch and telling Soradhapam how to get in touch with her if he wanted to visit our world.

“I see. I hope you enjoy your visit... May I ask who your host is, whose body you now occupy? Is she new to the city?”

I looked questioningly at Kinuko; for some reason I’d never asked her that. She said: “Leslie’s host called herself Nenikha. She told me very little about herself; however, she spoke with a strong accent, so I suppose she was not born here.”

“Thank you. Good day.” Soradhapam bowed low, then turned and slithered away.

We continued going through the greenhouses. Dad kept wanting to stay longer at each exhibit than the rest of us, especially the trees; she’d brush the tips of their branches with her fingertips, if there were any low enough for her to reach, and close her eyes. The first time she did that, Mom said: “I didn’t know you could tap into trees you’re not linked to.”

“I didn’t either,” Dad said. “I think it’s a kodama thing, something they can do that dryads can’t. I can’t get as strong a feel for them as I have for my own tree, but I can feel whether they’re healthy and happy... This one is. She likes the gardener who smells like sage and mint; she likes living in the greenhouse where the gardeners don’t let deer come along and eat her leaves.”

After that Dad told us something interesting about most of the trees she touched — or at least it was interesting the first ten or fifteen times. Long before the rain stopped, Taylor and I got a little bored. When the rain finally stopped, an hour or two after our encounter with Soradhapam, Kinuko said she would go back to the riverfront and try again to arrange passage for us; she suggested we walk around the gardens until she returned. We left the greenhouses and started exploring the outdoor gardens.

We’d seen from the trees in Kinuko’s garden that it was autumn, though you couldn’t always tell from the trees in the greenhouse. But out here the changing colors of the leaves made a fantastic spectacle; a few unfamiliar trees' leaves were turning shades of purplish-red that you never saw back home, and though most of them were the usual reds, oranges and yellows familiar from Earth, the trees seemed to have been planted in a deliberate arrangement so that their leaves would make neat patterns seen from a distance, or from a hill or observation tower overlooking the park.

Before long, we came to a large oak; Dad, who was riding Mom’s shoulders while I carried her tree, reached up to touch one of the lower branches, and then jerked her hand back as if she’d been shocked. A moment later a naked woman stepped out of the trunk of the tree — she looked a lot like Dad, except that she was nearly as tall as Mom and Taylor, and she was proportioned like a normal human, not dwarfish like Dad. And her features were more European or Middle Eastern than Asian.

“You’re a bonsai kodama, aren’t you?”

“Yes — for the moment. Are you a western dryad?”

“Yes, though I have lived in this garden nearly my whole life. I was a small child when explorers from this country dug up my sapling and put it in a pot, like the one this snake-girl carries, and brought me on a ship to this garden. But they did not keep me in the pot forever, like you; they planted me in the ground here so I could grow tall and strong. Sometimes I have wished that they had kept me in the pot, so I could travel freely.”

“I wish I were as pretty as you,” Dad said frankly. “Having one’s growth stunted is the cost of freedom, for our kind. But there may be another way you can get the freedom to travel, at least for a time.” Dad held up her wrist with its bracelet, and she and Mom explained how we were visiting her world.

The dryad, whose name was Tiranella, and Mom and Dad got into a long conversation; they told her about our world and about the various places in this world they’d visited, and she told us more about her homeland and the trip across the ocean. Taylor and I listened with interest at first, but after a while, when Mom and Dad were telling her a long story about the time Mom was a ghoul and Dad was a cyclops — a story which they’d already told us last night, and which wasn’t as funny the first time as they seemed to think — Taylor said: “Is it okay if we go explore that section of the garden over there?”

“Sure,” Mom said. “Meet us back here at Tiranella’s tree in... well, we don’t have watches here, but I’ve seen several sundials around the garden. Meet us here before they show the third hour after noon.”



Three of my novels and one short fiction collection are available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format.

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes Smashwords Amazon
When Wasps Make Honey Smashwords Amazon
A Notional Treason Smashwords Amazon
The Weight of Silence and Other Stories Smashwords Amazon
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Nagini!! ''

Ameria's picture

Nagini!!

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Another message from Hissy the Snake.

Wow! Interesting World!

Not knowing what or who you might wake up as could be a bit scary though! At least for their counterparts, they know that the bodies they will inhabit will all be human. Nice story so far Tris dear! Loving Hugs Talia

It's Morpheus's world

Please give Morpheus credit where it's due: he created this world, though I created this particular region of it. In his stories and mine, we tend to focus on those rare vacations when something goes wrong. Probably 99+% of Mr. G.'s customers visit the other world and return to their own bodies a few days later without the slightest hitch.

Quite the vacation

Jamie Lee's picture

So far, the only event which might have cause problems was the heavy rain. They've met new beings, seen a few sights they'd not see on earth, and shared where they're from. So far they've done the usual tourist activities. But as many have found, vacations seldom go as smoothly as one would like. But what might cause real problems for the family?

Others have feelings too.