Beauties and Beasts

Shay's Epilogue

Here is LoweFantasy's official good-bye to "Beauties and Beasts" because she writes too much: Some years later, at least four, but we're too lazy to do the math--and so are you, don't say otherwise. We know how our kind roll.

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To no one's surprise, Lazy Boi was the first to transform.

He took to his deep and elaborate den in his small territory and didn't come out, according to his helicopter younger brothers Freckles and Stars, for three days. And when he did come out--"He had two hairy peepees!" shrieked Stars.

Not that Shay heard Stars say it directly. She heard it through the giggling mouth of her teenage daughter, Luna, who still found anything to do with private parts and the toilet to be hilarious.

Shay could only take a moment to hold her head in grief that, though her children may look like young adults, that didn't mean they acted like them.

Granted, Lazy Boi had always been the exception, and she ran to meet him when he walked over the hill, already wearing the clothes she had made him in anticipation for this moment. Not use to legs, he lost his balance when she threw her arms around him and ended up on the ground, laughing, and oh what a sound his human laughter was. It didn't sound like Curtis's at all. It sounded like hers.

"Mom, we've got so much to talk about."

She had already scrambled off him, aware of her husband watching from behind her, and pouted.

"I thought I could understand snake well enough."

"No. No you can't."

She put a hand to her chest in mock hurt, but couldn't help but beam as she took a closer look at her newly transformed son.

His chin-length red hair and eyes and his slender figure made him look overwhelmingly like Curtis. But, looking into his face, the minute details of his ears, and the soft way he smiled, brought to clarity her old memories of her father and grandmother. They came back so vividly that her eyes instantly swam with tears.

"You look like me," she murmured.

"I'd hope so," he said. "I'm your son."

"And what's this son's name?" asked Curtis curtly, speaking up for the first time.

Lazy Boi paused only for a moment.

"Lester."

She wanted to drag him into her home and just listen to him talk and talk and talk. But, now that he was a full fledged adult, the main house was where Curtis drew the line. Curtis had gone leaps and bounds in changing to more comfortably compromise with her cultural differences, but she had to always be aware and accept his limitations.

So she settled with the outdoor firepit, where the girls joined to jabber away with their favorite brother and coo at the shed skin he'd brought with him. Shay loved how her son's eyes--Lester's eyes (that'd take some getting use to)-- sparkled as he ran his hand down his first shed skin, knowing he thought of the mate he'd always dreamed of and prepared for since he was a child.

All the while, Curtis watched from beside Shay. His eyes were hard, wary of his son forgetting himself in the rush of memories from the legacy and turning on his mother.

But he never did. In fact, as a few days went by, Lazy Boi--no, Lester-- came to Curtis to admit that he'd gain very few new memories from the legacy, and they all pertained to caring for a mate. Curtis spent an entire afternoon testing Lester to see if this was indeed true and found, to his alarm, it was. His son had only inherited a small part of the legacy.