Sable looked around the imposing gatehouse with wide eyes and a bushy tail. ::Wow, this place sure is big. Bigger than I thought it would be, anyway. Besides, I always heard they lived in trees and stuff. Why do you think they built this place on the ground, anyway, Mack? Think they got tired of living in the trees?:: The ferret continued to balance on his shoulder and chatter in his brain. ::So are ya really gonna tell em what happened? Are you gonna sign your real name in their book? Hey, that reminds me, you'll have to sign for me, too, since I can't hold a pen like this.:: Sable paused and started nipping at a particularly irritating itch on her back. ::Do you think they have baths here?:: she asked between bites. ::I really am starting to feel quite itchy.:: Then she gasped aloud and there was a tone of horror in her mind-voice. ::Oh NO! What if I have FLEAS?!::

Mack sighed as he plopped down on a seat the table, gently lifting Sable off his shoulder and placing her on the table in front of him. "Macken Vandross. Call me Mack. And my sister is Sableana Vandross. The story's kinda long, so I'll just give you the important parts, sir. We lost our parents young, and, like most of the street kids in our part of the town, got snagged by slavers. Some Pit boss saw us and bought us for training. I fought, Sable waited tables for the richer set. I'll spare you the humble routine. I was good at it. I ain't proud of that fact though." He paused and looked down at his hands, flexing them slowly. "Too much blood on my hands. Way too much......." He sighed and went on. "I was too good. Caught the wrong person's eye. Some big potentate warlock with a taste for ladies and blood. We seemed like the perfect combination, so he made us an offer we couldn't refuse. And we refused." His brows knit together under his bandana. "He didn't take too kindly to that, and shocked me out. Woke up in the pit, faced by two o'the biggest, ugliest goons I ever saw. Warlock was up on a platform, holdin' Sable, told me he had a new deal. I won against his goons, he'd let us both go, no harm no foul. I lose, he does, nasty, things to my sister. So I fought." The hands clenched into fists. "And I won. Problem was, he went back on his word, tried to kill us both. I got a really, good, punch in. All the way in." He pulled an imaginary blade across his throat. "Bad luck was, one of his spells hit Sable an', " He motioned to the ferret. "Here she is. I grabbed everything we thought we'd need, and ran for it. That was, monthes ago?  Lost track of time when you run long enough." He sighed again and looked up at the elf. "So now I need someone to change her back. Please." His voice was soft, and tinged with defeated hope, like someone who was far too used to the word "no".

Mack didn't like him refering to her as "his rodent" but held his tongue. He tried to think and rubbed the back of his neck in embarassment. "Well, yer honor, I, uh, don't. See, I grew up learning how to survive in a fight, so when I get angry, an' I mean really angry, really really angry," He was trying to reassure them he wasn't going to snap at a moment's notice. "Which takes alot, but, I see red, an', then, I wake up." He shrugged. "I remember 'im throwin' glowin' stuff at us, an' then, bam, he's on the floor and not even twitchin'." He hung his head. This was not fillin' 'im with 'ope an' joy.

Sable fluffed up once she was set down on the table and diligantly scratched with a hind leg at the itch by her ear that had been bugging her all day. ::I am not a rodent:: she thought with an indignant sniff and squirrel-like chirp at the elf who had said it. ::I'm a ferret. And...what did that guy call them, Mack? The ranger guy? Must...e...lids? Something like that. Anyway, I'm not a rat, thank the gods.:: She stopped scratching and skittered across the table to where the duty officer was writing in his ledger. The weasel stretched out her fuzzy neck and sniffed at the inkwell, sneezing at the pungent smell of it. Then she sniffed the ledger and began to nose around under one corner of the page in which the elven man was writing, generally making a nuisance of herself. ::I think it was a ring, Mack:: she thought at her brother. ::I'm not sure, ya know, but he was wearing a bunch of 'em. And I remember one flashing just before...just...before...:: she stopped and her head popped out from beneath the book page. Her little black eyes watered and she sniffed again. Mack could tell that remembering what had happened was just as stressful for her as it was for him.

Mack reached over and gently picked her up, stroking her head and back softly as he relayed the message. "She says he wore alot of rings. Coulda been one of them."

Another Elven officer observes the encounter from across the room.  He casts a rather mundane spell on himself before moving to the duty-officer's station.  Lantern-light glimmers against his chainmail and his silvery hair.  He looks at the ferret and begins speaking - in a chittering language that she can understand.

 

"How long have you been like this?" he asks.  "Are you comfortable in your fur or shall we change you back?"

Mack's ribs hurt from holding in laughter and he looked up at the guard. "I'd be rather thankful too, sir. I'm gettin' a tad tired of little bitty sharp claws doing a wake up dance on my chest first thin' in the mornin'." He couldn't hold back the snort at the dark look she shot him.

The officer speaking with Sable listened to her chattering.  "I can talk with many animals," he explained.  "My Faith makes it possible - I am a nature-priest.  I asked if you wanted to be changed because after a time, some people who are transformed like you were prefer their new form.  Assuming you were polymorphed, it can be dispelled - our own Gate-captain has the ability to do so." 

 

He switched back to Common to speak with Mack.  "Your sister wishes to have her innate form back.  I will recommend that she and I speak with the Gate-captain."

Mack wondered if he should say something about knowing that already, but figured it best to leave be. Maybe the thought speak had nothing to do with the transformation, maybe it did, they'd find out soon enough. "Thank ye, yer honor. Uh, not that I'm being picky or ungrateful, but you say, you and she. What am I supposed to do?" He was trying to keep from overstepping boundries. Assumptions could hurt.

Sable listened intently to the elf speaking to her. Then she chittered at him in ferret-speak. "A nature priest? Wow. That's so neat that you can talk to animals! Can you talk to plants, too? Are all elves nature-priests? I guess you must be, since you live out here in the woods and are so close to all the forest beasts. I didn't know that some people actually liked being animals after they had been changed. Even if they never wanted to be changed in the first place? Do you think someone would change into an animal on purpose?"

 

Sable realized she was rambling and asking lots of unimportant questions of the man. Not wanting him to lose patience with her, as Mack sometimes did, she stopped and sat up on her haunches, kind of like a squirrel. "Yes, I'd really like to be human again, sir, please."

 

She heard Mack's question and looked over at him. ::Oh, Mack, you come too! I don't wanna be here without you! Besides, I need you to tell him if he gets it right. He doesn't know what I looked like before. What if he changes me back and I don't look the same?::

The duty-officer nodded to where the nature-priest and Sable were chattering.  "If she wants you with her, you can go.  I think Bael-van is checking with your sister now."

 

The priest kept up with Sable's running comments.  "Only some Elves are priests, and only some priests are nature-priests.  All Elven priests tend to love nature in general, but I have some specialization in that sphere.  Communing with plants is different - they think differently than animals, but it is still possible. 

 

Mack gave a mental sigh of relief. First of all because he'd rather not be seperated from Sable for any real length of time. The second reason was, while he doubted they'd be so, he worried that not all the inhabitants of this fortress would take kindly to him. He'd had a few fellows on the road decide they simply did not like him. It had ended rather badly, as the rest of the gypsies had decided his beating thier two brethren to a pulp, warranted or not, meant he needed to be relieved of the burden of his hands. That had been an unpleasant run through the woods. He stood, stretched, and waited to follow the priest.

Sable gave the guard what approximated to a friendly smile and sent a thought to her brother. ::Mack, he's gonna take us to see the Captain, and he's gonna change me back! Isn't that great?! C'mon, bro, pick me up, okay? I want you to make sure he gets it right.::

 

Looking back up at the handsome elf, Sable twitched her whiskers and gave a chirp, then spoke again in ferret-speak. "I'm ready to be myself again, if your friend can manage it. And if you need some kind of payment, maybe we can work something out."