The Shape of You

Maggie

AN: While I'm not doing the full Flufftober thing this year I got distracted wanting to write another Richaquie fic and combining days 14 (fantasy AU) and 20 (paw) worked perfectly. Also crossing off my Established Relationship square on my bingo card.

If you've read Halloween! from Day After Day you might recognize some things.

Alt title: So You're a Giant Black Cat, Huh?

"Hey, babe, you might want to steer clear of the kitchen for..." Jacquie starts to call out when she gets home from the market. She trails off when, instead of her girlfriend, she finds a panther (leopard, Richelle would correct, I'm a leopard shifter, panthers aren't shifter type, they aren't even a specific animal) curled up on their couch.

Richelle picks her head up and slowly blinks at her before tucking her nose back by her feet and covering it with her tail. From the front door Jacquie can hear the quiet rumble of her purring, which wouldn't be weird, except, Richelle rarely purrs when she's alone, unless she's injured or sick.

Jacquie slowly walks over but Richelle doesn't move except to track Jacquie with her eyes and wrap her tail tighter around her body. When she reaches the couch Jacquie kneels and reaches out to pet the velvety fur on Richelle's ear, a gesture that usually soothes her girlfriend when she's agitated, except this time she's greeted with purrs that turn into warning growls.

"Okay," Jacquie says. The growling stops when she pulls her hand back. "So, being close is okay, but touching is off limits today."

Richelle is still watching her warily but goes back to purring and it's then that Jacquie hears a second noise. It's like a weird mix of a squeak and a grunt coming from the middle of Richelle's body.

"I won't touch it, but will you let me see what you're hiding."

Richelle drops her tail so it's wrapped around her feet instead of covering her belly. And tucked up against her is the smallest guinea pig Jacquie has ever seen. She almost misses them because they're almost entirely black with a couple red patches that make them visible.

They have to be a shifter because most non-shifter animals don't like shifters. But they have to be incredibly young to be that small, even for a guinea pig.

"Can you shift back?" Jacquie asks the tiny shifter.

Richelle gives her a look that says Don't you think I've already tried that? when she gets no response other than a couple more squeaks.

"I had to try. I was planning on brewing other potions today, but I've got a recipe somewhere for helping stuck shifters. We should have everything, I just need to find it," she says, mostly to herself.

Richelle looks significantly more relaxed now that she's no longer hiding the child she...found, hopefully, and didn't kidnap.

Jacquie carefully stands up, leaning away from the couch, and heads back for the kitchen to find the appropriate book. Only to find the bags she'd abandoned on the counter when she got home. Right, she still needs to put those away. At least as put away as anything is in their kitchen.

Jacquie's been working in the kitchen for close to an hour when she sees Richelle get up off the couch. With the guinea pig in her mouth. That's a new one. She gently sets the shifter on a relatively clean area of their table and keeps her body facing the table but turns her head just enough to look at Jacquie.

"It's almost ready, once it stops changing color it'll be fully synthesized."

A couple minutes later Jacquie carefully transfers a small amount of the dark blue potion, salve is probably more accurate, to a bowl. One of her bowls that she's allowed to use for her witchcraft that Richelle isn't worried about her contaminating with potentially poisonous ingredients.

Jacquie explains what the salve is and what it's going to do and when the guinea pig doesn't run away Jacquie figures she either understands and is okay with it, or too young to know what's going on. She is very much hoping it's the former.

Richelle hops to put her front paws on the table to more carefully watch what Jacquie is doing. She leans forward to sniff the bowl and recoils immediately from it, hissing.

"Hey, don't give me that look. It's supposed to smell like that. You should know better by now than to stick your face in potions."

Jacquie takes a deep breath and gently rubs some of the salve into the back of the shifter's neck. She takes a step back after applying it and then suddenly there's a little kid sitting on their kitchen table. They can't be older than five or six and Jacquie is suddenly very out of her depth.

Richelle quickly also shifts back so she's standing by the table.

"Hi, I'm Richelle, and this is Jacquie. Can you tell us your name?"

"Maggie. Don't make me go home, I don't want to go home. I'm the only shifter and I'm too little and I'm too weird," she says, pulling her knees to her chest as she starts rocking and flapping her hands.

"Okay, Maggie. Can you tell me how you got to the park?" Richelle asks.

Jacquie lets the two shifters connect and goes back into the kitchen to clean up the dangerous ingredients and find something resembling food. She manages to find enough to put together a half decent sandwich for the kid.

Richelle has talked Maggie into sitting on a chair and she's stopped rocking quite so aggressively when Jacquie walks back over to them.

"We have a real rocking chair. I can show you after you eat if you want," Jacquie offers.

Maggie lights up at that and transitions from rocking to wiggling at the prospect of being in a rocking chair. That's where she falls asleep an hour later.

"I know, I should've asked you, but I guess some shifter pack instinct kicked in when I found her. I couldn't just leave her there," Richelle says, curled into Jacquie on the couch, her earlier touch aversion gone now that she's not protecting Maggie.

Jacquie cards her fingers through her girlfriend's hair. "A head's up would've been nice, but I think we can probably take care of her for a few days until we can find a more permanent solution."

Richelle whines at that.

Jacquie sighs. "You don't want to find a different solution, do you?"

"I don't know. I want what's best for her, but you know as well as I do that there aren't a lot of shifters around here. Is what's best for her really to be around people who don't understand her?"

"Is it better for her to stay here with us? We don't know the first thing about raising a kid. Isn't the best thing for Maggie to be taken care of by somebody who knows what they're doing? Nobody is saying that means you can't go see her or teach her what it means to be a shifter, but I just don't think we're in a place to take her in permanently."

Richelle leans further into her touch and Jacquie scratches behind her ear, getting a human approximation of a purr for her trouble. "I know you're probably right, but I don't want you to be."

"I know. And if I thought we could raise that little girl properly, I would help you find a way."

Richelle nods against her shoulder. Then she apparently decides that the conversation is over for the day because she shifts again and Jacquie suddenly has a leopard laying across her lap.

That's fine, tomorrow they can figure out the long term plan. Tonight this is good (Jacquie will ignore the fact that when she wakes up in the morning it's to a tiny guinea pig tucked under her chin).

AN: Yes, I am aware that leopards don't really purr, but it's close enough.

Please look up guinea pig noises because they are very cute and there's no good way to describe it and I know I didn't do it justice. The guinea pig shifter is specifically a reference to Sky High and the character Magenta (which is also where Maggie gets her name, sort of).