They are our friends and teachers but will never be like us.
He looks up into the darkening skies, smiling and beginning to to turn his thoughts inwards, but even as he does, once again Pista's words float to the surface, how to shift more easily, forcefully, to shift without worry, to use every wrong done to him, to his kind, his every frustration, and, like a projection on a screen, he brings to mind his problems with his parents, all that he is losing, being forced to do because of what he is, the pains of failed attempts to shift and the pain that he had to go thru..
And deep inside, like an erupting volcano, something red, hot angry bursts forth and he can feel it, feel his body flowing, changing, muscles bones, flesh, growing, moving, parts erupting even as he feels his senses changing, like a terror of old his body his body molds itself to his desire, to what he wants more than anything..
Where one had stood, now there are many..screeching greetings to the nightm they take flight..