glance across the garden air

The Changeling is wrist deep in damp fabric and diluted bleach when it hears the back door open behind it.

"I do not want help," it says firmly, and has no intention to waver on this resolution. It had planned this task specifically to begin the moment its mother had left for work so that it would not have to contend with her attempts to hover. A delay or change in her plans has no bearings on the Changeling whatsoever.

"Uh, I wasn't actually going to offer," it hears in response, and this time it looks back over its shoulder to see that it is Augustus stepping out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. She looks up to meet its eye and her nose scrunches up; she reaches around the motion to adjust her glasses, sniffing.

The Changeling echoes the motion back at her — pushing its sunglasses up with its shoulder, since it is stuck wearing gloves to protect itself from the aforementioned bleach.

"Do you not have work?" it demands, but returns to its task of pouring diluted bleach over rolled up shirts without waiting for an answer. Of all the people Changeling knows, Augustus is the only person it feels no need to immediately turn away, as she is the only one who ever seems capable of successfully minding her own business. Changeling's mother worries too much about it to ever truly refrain from hovering, despite the fact that the Changeling has learned to be diligent to follow the correct safety protocols just fine. On the other paw, Tiffany does not fret about potential danger so much as she simply has too many of her own ideas to view the Changeling's opinions and contributions as anything worthwhile. Two different dialogue trees leading to the same frustrating ending.

Augustus is typically the sole exception to this pattern. When the Changeling asserts that it is capable of doing something itself, Augustus always listens. It has not known her quite long enough to determine if this is because she is particularly literal-minded, or if there is something else at play. Changeling tries not to dwell on this ambiguity too long — it does not have the confidence to ask to learn the answer, so it does not bear getting its hopes up.

"No," Augustus is saying, giving the section of the porch Changeling is working in a wide berth as she walks past to reach the sun chair out on the lawn. She proceeds to sit cross-legged in the middle of it, rather than laying out flat as Changeling's mother does. "The schedule is different this week, because my boss wanted me to work on Sunday this week. And I cannot get more than forty hours. So, I got today off instead."

She settles her bag in the grass and digs out one of her many ragged sketchbooks. This, she lays open in the other half of the chair she had not deigned to sit on and proceeds to start looking for a pencil.

"I am too busy to talk," it warns her. Admittedly, it is not exactly 'busy' in a traditional sense — soon its only task will be to sit and wait for the bleach to settle into the fabric — but its head is too overfull of thoughts to find the space for speech. It does not anticipate this being a genuine problem, they have spent time in each other's company without exchanging a single word often enough, but it is good to be clear and specific when setting expectations.

"That's okay," Augustus replies, flipping through her book. "I don't really have much to say either. Your house is just better to work at."

Changeling huffs. "You always have too much to say," it grumbles without heat.

Augustus looks up from her sketchbook to smile across the yard at it, eyes blinking hard. The Changeling distracts itself from the way the tic and expression both push the skin around her eyes into soft little folds and creases by staring at the way the sun cuts a halo against the broad silhouette of her shoulders instead. Eventually, it glances away altogether — even with sunglasses on, it is too bright to withstand gazing directly at her for long.

"Now who's got a lot to say?" Augustus asks, poking her tongue out from between her teeth, and Changeling turns to busy itself with the bleach again, scowling.

There are three shirts that it had prepared to work on today, two of which have already been folded, tied, and soaked in bleach. By and large, the Changeling prefers the random, splotchy designs that emerge from scrunching the fabric at random and tying it in a tight, clumsy ball. It is universal in its variety — simple enough to use on graphic t-shirts without detracting from their preexisting designs, but solid enough to stand on its own on blank shirts as well. This method of preparation is also, conveniently, the easiest, requiring little forethought or manual dexterity.

For the third shirt, however, the Changeling has something else planned — a more complex design, requiring more attention to detail. An endeavor it does not undertake often, due in no small part to the over-ambition it had suffered from when it first began tie-dyeing shirts in its early twenties. The majority of these early, overzealous attempts had culminated in failure, and it had been forced to make several compromises in its goals after the time it had knocked over an entire bottle of bleach in its frustration.

(It had successfully hosed itself off before it had the chance to suffer any burns, but its mother had been too upset by the sheer damage potential to be swayed in her convictions.)

Now, it experiments almost exclusively with scrunching, save for the rare occasions it decides to attempt something loftier. The last time it had been almost good enough — the folds only slightly off-base, only a little too loose. The general idea had come through successfully, but the finer details had been lost to blotting and bleeding.

This time, Changeling has spent the past week practicing the necessary folds on a different, unrelated shirt in anticipation of today's attempt. The idea being to get itself accustomed to the specifics without feeling the amplified pressure of the next step in the process looming metaphorically over its shoulder — training at low stakes. It hopes that these efforts will pay off today.

It hesitates before it can begin, casting a wary glance over to where Augustus is still sitting in the sun, drawing. It does not mind if she is in the yard, but it does not want her to watch as it finally attempts this endeavor for real. Augustus does not make a habit of interfering, but does often habitually stare. If she is staring, it will have to ask her to wait inside until it is finished. Most days, Changeling does not mind this quality of hers, but today is different — the pressure of being observed will be too great to withstand, and it will make concentrating on its task more difficult, which is a variable the Changeling would rather avoid entirely.

Yet thankfully, Augustus is not looking. She is not even facing its work station at all, and is instead oriented out towards the back fence. Her legs are criss-crossed in front of her, and she has leaned her upper body over them to prop herself up with an elbow on the chair next to her sketchbook, chin in hand. It looks like the kind of sitting position Changeling's mother would claim to seem 'painful', but Changeling thinks it must give her a good view of her page while simultaneously keeping her back straight enough to avoid straining her trapezius. The sun catches off the arm of her glasses as she scrunches her nose in a particularly hard blink, lifting her pen from her page to bite along the side of it, swaying from side to side as she considers something.

Augustus thrives with these constant, slight, eye-catching movements. Not unlike the little tree in the back corner of the yard the Changeling often watches through its bedroom window: leaves rustling, branches swaying in the wind, teeming with little birds. Even the way the sun scatters and reflects through the leaves, Changeling thinks, is comparable to the way it looks shining through the messy snarls of hair that have pulled free from Augustus' low ponytail. A solid metaphor, it nods to itself, and permits itself another ten seconds to watch before turning to go back to its own work.

Changeling spreads the final shirt out flat over the porch and considers where to begin. It will be fine, it reassures itself. It has been practicing for this. Although, it must admit that it has been frustratingly difficult to measure its success during this training without being able to see how the folds would respond to the application of bleach. This has been a metaphorical thorn in its paw all week. Such is the nature of practice, it supposes. Things should go well. They should.

Instead of leaning forward to begin folding, Changeling finds itself reaching back to thread the length of its tail through its fingers repetitively. It is hesitating, which means that it must be anxious. Changeling smooths fur under its fingers, takes several deep breaths, and tries to determine why.

It is wary of becoming overwhelmed, it decides eventually. Changeling does not always maintain a good sense of body control when it becomes frustrated — it lashes out. If it were to spill bleach on itself again, its mother would undoubtedly find out about this incident and become upset, and once again require it to be supervised for all future projects. Changeling loathes the idea of this entirely.

(Its mother is not home, of course, but Changeling is not exactly skilled in deception. Augustus' presence only further complicates things. Certainly she would be willing to attempt to cover for it, but by all accounts she is a terrible liar, so this effort would likely be only the final nail in the Changeling's metaphorical coffin.)

Since it does not want this, it must try to be proactive.

It will try its best with the folds, Changeling decides, but it will only try three times. This feels like a good number; safe. If it cannot correctly fold and tie the shirt after three tries, then it will instead roll up the shirt and set it aside for another day, after Changeling has acquired more training to perfect the process. Two shirts are already in the process of bleaching, so it has fulfilled its goal for the day well enough already. It would be better to reserve the third shirt for a later time than it would be to risk undoing this sense of accomplishment and potentially cause itself trouble. This is a good plan, it thinks, nodding to itself, and then tucks its tail back out of the way, leans in, and gets to folding.

The plan was good, but ultimately unnecessary. The Changeling gets the shirt correctly prepared on its second try.

Satisfaction sets the Changeling's body to wiggling — a flash mental image of a dog stooped low in a play bow, tail wagging exuberantly. It shakes all of the giddy buzzing feeling out of its chest and arms like water from a pelt, and then re-centers, placing the folded shirt in a separate container and dousing it with the remainder of its diluted bleach. It flips the other two shirts over to check the fabric — the lightening color is just barely beginning to show. Changeling strips its gloves off carefully and disposes of them, rubbing the lingering texture of the latex off on its shorts as it paces a quick circle around the perimeter of the porch.

Waiting for the bleach to remove color is a part of the process, so the Changeling will be patient. It is also frustrated, since it cannot progress to doing anything different to pass this time, lest it get distracted enough to forget the shirts until the bleach has destroyed the fabric. This makes the time a struggle to pass.

It approaches Augustus where she still sits folded up in the sun, working on her comic. Right now, specifically, a shaky drawing of Shadow the Hedgehog.

"May I watch you draw?" it asks her, hovering awkwardly at the back of the chair. That would be basically the same as waiting, only it would be waiting with company, which would ease the passing of time.

Augustus straightens up to look back at it, her spine popping several times with the stretch. "Yeah, alright," she says, head twitching to the side. "Just don't loom over my shoulder, please."

So, Changeling folds itself down onto its knees beside the chair, and then almost immediately recoils back into a squat. The grass tickles uncomfortably against its bare skin, making its stomach squirm.

"Here," Augustus says before Changeling can determine an alternate course of action. She shrugs out of her flannel shirt and offers it to the Changeling, wiping sweat off her forehead with the side of her arm.

The Changeling accepts the offering. "Is it too hot?" it questions cautiously, hesitating. Heat stroke can be dangerous, if left untreated. It remembers once, from before it could speak to ask for help for things. It can be bad.

"No," Augustus says plainly, nose scrunching up. "I like sitting in the sun, especially when the wind is going like this. It's nice." Changeling accepts this, folding up the shirt carefully and laying it out to kneel on; it is much better. "I kinda wish I could do it more often."

"Can you not?" Changeling asks, curious despite itself.

She shrugs. "I'm stuck at work most days, so I don't get to go outside much. There's some benches outside the strip mall I eat my lunch at though, when it's not raining. So I guess I do get some time. Oh well."

Augustus returns to her paneling. The Changeling cannot think of what to say, so it says nothing.

Do not forget the shirts, it reminds itself, but knows it does not have to check on them yet. Changeling lowers itself a little further, to rest its chin on the edge of the chair like it has seen dogs in videos do. It is a little uncomfortable — its spine is not connected to its skull at the right angle to make the position as easy as it would be for a dog — but it is pleasant enough. An ideal angle to watch Augustus' hands as she works while limiting the amount of visible detail on the page she is working on, which is itself ideal for avoiding both plot spoilers and getting so engrossed it forgets about its original task.

What does prove to be more distracting is the array of other sensory experiences it is subject to. The heat of the sun bearing down on its back, the wind rustling through its hair, the subtle motion of the chair under its chin swaying with Augustus' movements. Since it is not using its hands, Changeling folds its elbows between its thighs and belly, tucking its hands under its shins, and that is also nice. There are no walls to trap it in the noisy echo of electronic humming, and it is instead surrounded by the wind carrying the sound of birdsong, pen on paper, and distant cars — something abstract in the quality that Changeling cannot define. Empty, perhaps? Regardless, it thinks, Augustus was right: it is nice to sit in the sun.

Truthfully, Changeling does not spend much time outside. When it does, it rarely ventures out past the porch, given that the yard is encircled with other houses that trap it under the oppressive weight of eyes peering at it through windows and over fences. Like a bug pinned in place by needles and pins: unpleasant. It feels different with Augustus, though — diffused between the two of them, less overwhelming. It would be nice to do this more often, with her.

"Don't you have to check on your shirts?" she asks after a while.

Wrinkling its nose, Changeling grunts, a little annoyed to break the quiet. She is not wrong, however — it does still have tasks to complete.

Since it does not feel like getting up, it does not bother. It lifts itself up onto all fours instead, balanced neatly on its toes and knuckles, fingers tucked in against its palm. Easier to trot over to the porch like that, and spare itself the troublesome sensation of pulling its body fully upright and bipedal. More comfortable by far; at least until it remembers that it is not alone.

Behind it, Augustus makes a noise so soft it is almost carried away by the wind, but Changeling hears it. The reminder feels like a metaphorical bucket of ice water thrown painfully over its head. Changeling freezes, lungs catching, its stomach clenching in a way that makes all of its limbs go cold and stiff. It had not been thinking ahead; it is not meant to do this where other people could see.

Changeling had been distracted by the feeling of the sun on its back and the wind in its fur, but it should not have let its guard down so thoroughly. People laugh at this, it recalls too late to prevent it from happening. There had been other feral children when Changeling was in its puppyhood, in elementary school, but they had grown up to find it something weird and intolerable. The Changeling had not understood the shift in perspective, but it had grown used to the mocking soon enough. Even its mother asks it not to, finds it to be unnerving. Changeling is meant to know better.

The noise Augustus had made was not a laugh, however. It was not the startled yelp Changeling's mother makes when it does not realize she is home either. It was almost more of a "woah", it thinks, but it feels it must have misheard. Feeling all-too-much like it is caught in the crosshairs of a hunter's scope, Changeling glances back at her over its shoulder.

Augustus is indeed staring, but still she is not laughing. "You're really good at that," she says, head twisting to the side. "I did not know people could move so much like dogs like that."

Changeling does not know what to make of the quality of her voice. What it does recognize is that her hands are stiff, fingers fluttering. Augustus does this when she is excited, Changeling thinks, poleaxed. It has seen her do so when she gets to talk about a good day, or that time she had told Changeling that there are Sonic games for the PlayStation, and it had said that it might one day be willing to try one out.

"I," the Changeling stammers, feeling off-kilter. In hindsight, perhaps, it follows that Augustus never would have laughed out of cruelty, but neither does Changeling's mother, and still their reactions are not comparable in the slightest. Changeling lacks an appropriate response to something on this level. It does not know how it is meant to act at this juncture. "I must wash the bleach out of the shirts before they are damaged," it manages, staring fixedly at Augustus' shoulder and reaching for the first impulse its brain offers to it. "But, after, I could, show you."

The words are very stilted in its mouth. It does not know the appropriate response to this situation; it does not know if this impulse was a good one. Despite itself, a part of Changeling is still braced for Augustus to recoil. A delayed reaction would very nearly make more sense than her current one — much more in line with the historical data the Changeling has been exposed to. Even its mother does not embrace this manner of self-expression.

Instead, Augustus goes on to shut her sketchbook so swiftly she nearly knocks it off the chair entirely. "Really?" she asks, voice much louder. The stiffness bleeds further up her arms; her head jerks to the side.

"Yes," Changeling answers, a little stronger this time, and Augustus squeaks high up in her throat. This is a good sound, it thinks tentatively; easily recognized from the times they have spent watching shows together. "After I rinse the shirts," it reaffirms.

At this, Augustus squeals — sharp and pitched. Changeling winces a little from the sudden sound, but the emotion inside of it catches pleasantly inside of its rib-cage despite the shock. "Oh, I'm excited," Augustus confesses, rising up on her knees, fists clenched and shaking. "I really want to play wolves with you."

That is a tremendously uncool way to phrase it, the Changeling cannot help but think, but neither can it seem to muster up genuine offense at it. Instead, it finds itself swaying minutely from side to side. Words feel beyond it again; it swallows the impulse to bark and nods once instead, solid and sharp, and hurries to bring the plastic containers inside to the kitchen sink before it can become too overwhelmed.

Already it is wiggling too much to be delicate as it dumps the shirts out into the sink to rinse them with water. Briefly, it forgets to put new gloves on in its haste to finish this task to move on to its new one, but thankfully remembers before it can get too far. It washes its hands to be safe before pulling a pair of gloves out from under the sink and putting them on clumsily. It spares a moment to be grateful that Augustus is waiting outside and could not witness the slip up.

One at a time, it scolds itself firmly. It is a little too overfull of something hot and buzzing and eager to take it to heart.

The pattern on the third shirt came out perfectly.