"We'll need some supplies. Grab a sack and food that won’t go bad, rope, a few sharp knives, and whatever else you'll need," Kismet instructed.
Thomas blinked, shrugged, and dug in her closet for her backpack. She thought about bringing up her reluctance to just leave her parents and house behind, but not doing so would mean staying fur-covered and female the rest of her life, so she didn't have much choice in the matter. Complaining would only be whining, and so for the time being Thomas decided to grit her teeth and enjoy it, no matter how much she wished she this wasn’t happening.
Risking a peek between the blinds over her room's windows, she saw that her parents' van had gone again, probably off to some auction. Thomas worried as she began to pack: a few changes of clothes that probably wouldn't fit without help from Kismet, her laptop(Thomas's parents were surprisingly generous with money when it came to their children, possibly to make up for the lack of time they spent with them), a pack of cards, an old compass, a flashlight and some batteries, a spare blanket. Thomas pulled out her cash savings and put them in her wallet. Kismet seemed to approve. "Food that will keep, remember." Thomas remembered, and was on the verge of leaving her room with the backpack over her shoulders when a thought struck her.
What about my sister? She moves like a cat and if she doesn't recognize me she will notice I'm wearing these clothes... Kismet's reply was bemused. "You think those ears on the top of your head are just for show? Try listening for once..."
Thomas had never been able to wiggle her ears before, much less swivel them around and triangulate on sounds. She focused on the muffled sounds coming from the next room over... A clicking noise... Thomas blinked. Good grief, I can hear her clicking her mouse through a wall! This threw Kismet into a small amount of well-masked confusion. Kismet had never heard of mice being clickable, whatever clicking did to the creatures. Thomas's roving ears picked up more. She's playing a computer game... That must be the washing machine... That rustling sound is probably one of our dogs in the basement. And that hum... Thomas strained her ears, trying to locate the source of a very faint, omnipresent buzz. She stalked closer to a wall and put an ear against it. I can hear the electricity in the wires? My god...
Kismet shot him the mental equivalent of a smug smirk to cover her deepening confusion. Thomas kept using words she thought she knew the meaning of in ways that didn't make sense. She knew mice were small rodents, and thought that a click was the sound made when teeth snapped shut. Electricity was lightning, but Thomas seemed to think it was inside the walls of her house, trapped in wires. "Hurry up, kid. I'll let you know if we hear your sister get up."
Thomas carefully opened the door to her room and stepped out onto the landing, slowly shutting it behind her. She crept downstairs, with a few minor difficulties on the stairs themselves, owing to her reshaped and backwards legs. She had to admit, though, they were good for moving quietly and were very well toned... She reached the refrigerator, stepping cautiously lest her... her toeclaws, she christened them, click on the tile.
Meanwhile, Kismet was annoyed but wasn't going to show Thomas. She wished she had offered to do the sneaking, because Thomas wasn't looking at the right things. Her curiosity about the new world she had woken up to was sky-rocketing, but the kid was depending on her for confidence. So she stared into the chilly depths of the refrigerator, absolutely clueless as to how it was kept cold without use of magic, and didn’t ask her questions.
After raiding the pantry, Thomas borrowed a bread knife and added that to the backpack of things she was taking. Once again, she felt a grudging respect for the strengths of this body – her backpack was stuffed and she barely noticed the weight. Strong, flexible, incredible hearing, and, she supposed, beautiful in its own way... She sighed, wishing that it were her original body she could apply those adjective to, and stepped into the garage.
Kismet looked at what Thomas was looking at, and listened when Thomas mentally said, Er, Kismet, do you think you could possibly disguise me as a human? With magic? From, like, the waist, chest, or even neck up?
"No, I'm afraid not..." Thomas actually felt a growl in her throat. She felt that if she was going to have to... to go on this ridiculous adventure that she shouldn't expected to walk the whole way! Her car was less than ten feet away, and the keys in her pocket, and she couldn't drive it. Disgusted, she threw down the keys and stalked back into the house. She pulled the dangling medallion(it had been refitted with a new shoelace...it would not do to leave it behind) out of her shirt and shook it angrily. Magic us there, then! Isn't magic good for anything?!
"Not as weak as it is right now, no. It will get stronger as we go along, and luckily the one I want to head for first isn't too far away. Panicking isn't going to help us any." Kismet had been surprised by the question. What good would an illusion do on the top half of anyone's body? Why was Thomas so upset about the big metal contrivances? "Come on, let's get an early start."
With a little shudder of reluctance, Thomas opened the front door to her house. And stepped out.