My sight, smell and hearing sharpened instantly, painfully. If I was being honest to myself, that hurt more than the breaking and healing of bones. That pain was fleeting as soon as my body mended itself. But the senses were something that could easily overwhelm someone and knock them senseless for a moment.

I gave myself the grace to just be for a moment as I realigned myself with my new perspective. I looked over to Beans and I noticed he was staring back at me with big eyes. Most of the tension had drained from him, except for the small tell of the tip of his tail flicking back and forth.

I lolled my head to the side and noticed that Morph was fully alert, staring as if I had become an intruder. I gave him a large yawn and flopped over onto my back, exposing my belly.

I lay that way from a good ten minutes, calm and unmoving, before both cats edged forward to sniff and inspect me. They'd seen me shift before, just not often enough for it to stop being a Very Big Deal..

Morph sniffed up my neck to my nose before deciding to groom my chin. I held very still until he decided I was decent and slowly rolled back onto my feet.

Beans, on the other hand, circled around me several times as if inspecting my new look, tail still flicking. I gave a yawn and lazy stretch before slowly getting to my feet so as not to startle either of my fuzzy companions. With his signature purring meow, he hopped up onto my back, settling between my shoulders as though I'd shifted just to be his personal mount. His weight was warm, and his purr was as loud as a distant motorcycle as he cautiously kneaded my fur with his paws. I tried not to flinch anytime his claws dug a tad too deep.

Carefully, so as not to shake off my 'rider', I padded to the back of the den. When I moved in, I had a very large, heavy duty dog door added to the wall. Typically I kept it closed off since the time I left it unsecured, I came home to a pack of juvenile coyotes chowing down on the cat food. But, of course that posed other limitations since wolves don't exactly have working thumbs.

Instead, I rigged a handle that I could grab with my mouth and lift, pulling the security flap up into the unlocked position then out like a garage door. I had been absurdly proud of myself when I managed to McGyver it, and it's still a thing I'm proud of.

As the flap slowed to a stop, Beans hopped off my back to the floor, tail straight like an exclamation mark as if to say "finally" and darted out. Morph, on the other hand, trailed behind with slow, deliberate steps, ears swiveling to every small creak in the house. I tilted my head in a silent question, and Beans howled from outside in impatience.

Morph huffed in annoyance but also slipped through the opening. I couldn't help but roll my eyes with a mental chuckle before following after.

The air was still warm, but you could feel the threat of chill as the sun slowly set in the sky. The air smelled dusty but with hints of green.

In a few more weeks, the desert wildflowers should be exploding, I thought with a smile as my paws took me to the back fence. It would have been easy to clear the wooden fence, but I wasn't feeling like a high jump today. Instead I nudged the one purposefully hinged board and held it open for my two companions.

They didn't need an extended invitation, both cats took off like a shot, pausing only long enough to see if I was following.

Oh I see how it is,I chuckled, wiggling through the fence. Just you try to keep up, then.

I turned my muzzle to the left and began to jog toward a large stone outcropping. Both little shadows kept up without breaking a metaphorical sweat.

I angled left toward a jagged stone outcropping, paws sinking into the loamy dust. The shadows of my companions flitted at my flanks, keeping pace with effortless feline grace. Over dirt roads, past dusty houses, under brittle tangles of desert brush—they stayed with me like a two-cat honor guard.

At the place where the roads ended and wilderness began, they stopped. Sitting in the prickly shadow of a Russian thistle, they contented themselves to watch. Ears forward, eyes steady. No meows, no flick of tail—just a silent release.