...And We Will Have Snow

Chapter 7-5: Candidates

Zeke didn't mean the vote notion quite literally. He meant it more in the way that Jen meant it was a democracy. All that was needed was to bring it to their attention, let them form their own opinions, and see who would agree. But it wasn't quite that simple. It had to be done just right to give agreement the best chance. Zeke called in the four resident shifters.

Bear suggested they start small, with just Zeke and Jen as witnesses. Then they would have more agreement to convince the next candidates. They figured each new person could convince at least one more. Ryan pointed out that it would only take ten doublings of the size of the group to go from two to a thousand. And there weren't even a full thousand residents, more like eight hundred. Sedna suggested they should do it in the water, where native sea lions would add to the pool of willing believers. Bear snickered at the pun, but agreed.

So it was decided, and that very afternoon they were in the water, with natural sea lions all around them. Zeke and Sedna were there via their drones, Jen and the others in person. They were all swimming several feet below the surface. When the four shifters opened their sea lion dream, Zeke and Jen had no trouble drifting into it. They sensed that the wild sea lions were completely indifferent to the presence of humans among them, and not at all puzzled by the dream notion that some of them were about to become more like themselves. With Sedna there to back up the shaman dream and make it feel as natural as possible, Zeke and Jen found themselves easily agreeing with the idea that the shifters were about to shift.

It took only an instant of intensification of the dream state for the shifts to occur. Jen suddenly found herself alone in the sea with two drones and a gang of sea lions. Even with Sedna's calming influence, her heart began racing and she fought an urge to swim to the surface and breathe. She knew she could easily last another minute if she didn't panic, but her body was suddenly insisting that panic was in order. Then four of the sea lions began deliberately swimming toward her. Their shaman dream cut through the panic and she knew these were her friends. Rosita and Xayna slipped their noses under her arms and gently raised her to the surface. Bear and Ryan hovered nearby.

Sedna was with Zeke, who had bounced out of the dream and was mostly back in the Shell, only marginally aware of what his drone was seeing. While Jen floated at the surface leaning on her sea lion friends and got her heart and breathing under control, Sedna coaxed Zeke to follow them with the drone to make sure Jen was okay. That got him reengaged, and soon they were together again, ready for the next step.

This part was much easier. Again the shaman dream intensified for a moment and the four sea lions were people again, bobbing in the water and smiling at Jen. "You guys!" she exclaimed and splashed them all with seawater. As they released the shaman dream she began to laugh gleefully in her relief at things being back to normal. Then she realized that she was about to start babbling and got herself under control. As they all swam leisurely back to the dock, she said, "I guess we've got to rethink our approach to this demonstration business."

The others agreed they needed to change their plan.

"I tell you what," said Jen. "Watching sea lions turn into your friends is a lot less disturbing than watching your friends turn into sea lions."

Rosita said, "Then how about for the next round we all dive out of sight, shift and surface, then after everyone sees us as sea lions we shift back in front of them." Xayna liked that idea so they decided to try it. Zeke and Jen sat on the dock with Sedna, and the four shifters dove out of sight. Almost immediately four sea lions bobbed up. They cavorted a bit, acting completely like sea lions, then one by one they shifted back in plain sight.

Jen had no problem with that. Zeke didn't either. But after they all climbed out onto the dock, Sedna, watching Jen's reactions, said, "What is it, Jen? You look perplexed."

Jen said, "It's the swimsuits. They're all wearing swimsuits!"

The shifters laughed. Xayna said, "Sorry for laughing, Jen, but the swimsuits are the easiest part!"

"Huh?" Jen looked unconvinced. Zeke said, "Allow me."

After nods of assent from the shifters and Sedna, he turned to Jen. "I've known other shamans, and seen other forms of shaman magic. I've begun to understand. No shaman I've met claimed to have originally been a lion, or an eagle." He looked at Xayna. "Even the Haida stories assume a 'person' within. Fish in your microbiomes may shift to a related form in response to environmental changes, but I think only humans shift so fully in this way. Only humans have the capacity, or temerity, to fantasize about such things. And only humans define themselves with scraps of cloth."

Ryan said, "Jen, your reaction is pretty normal. Even many shifters assume the clothing has to stay behind, so for them it does. I was one of those. I used to always strip before I shifted, until Bear's mother Dema showed me I didn't have to. It's like Xayna said. If you can shift the reality of trillions of body cells, shifting a few scraps of cloth is easy."

Jen said, "Okay. You obviously know what you're talking about. But I think we need to include that little surprise in what we tell the newbies." All agreed.

So the four Sea Shell regulars each recruited a friend and brought them up to the dock. Jen went through the spiel she'd used on Zeke and when the new recruits were comfortable with the idea the four shifters jumped in the water. On a whim, Jen jumped in with them. After a moment Jen bobbed back up and four sea lions followed her.

Jen climbed out onto the dock. The sea lions did a few tricks for the new guys, shifted back and climbed out after her. The new people called it magic, and were thrilled. No problems with panic attacks. Jen said it was easy for her to watch her friends shift underwater now. It just took a little getting used to.

Now they had four new believers who went off to recruit four more, so next time there were eight witnesses, too many for the little dock. They lined up along the walkway while the four shamans jumped in the water. Again the show went off without a hitch, and the eight went off to find another eight. By this time, though, the news had spread, and there were plenty of volunteers, so many that Sedna stationed herself by the hatch to the deck and kept the numbers under control. She made sure that each of the newcomers was open to the idea of the shift, that none of them were too resistant. She also made sure the shifters were confident they could still control the dream.

There were now more like Jen who had seen the shift from sea lion to human and wanted to get in the water and see the first shift too. Bear and Ryan managed that end of things, and made sure there were no first-timers in that group. By now all the commotion had attracted a number of native sea lions, so when the shamans were ready to return to human form they jumped onto the dock in sea lion form first, so there would be no confusion about what was happening.

With the next group they had well over thirty witnesses, and Ryan reminded them that at the rate they were going they were already halfway to getting everyone in the dome to witness the shift. Zeke suggested that they might have to limit the numbers just to maintain crowd control. When the show was over and people were filing back into the Shell, someone hollered, "When are you going to teach us how to do it?" Everyone went quiet for a moment, then there was a chorus of "Yeah!"

Ryan and Bear high-fived each other.