The first thing Thomas did on stepping outside was to dart around the side of the house, feeling a little stupid. I really should have used the back door... Luckily, the dim street had been deserted. She looked down at the sticky mud she had stepped into that was oozing between her toes. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but no shoes in existence could possibly fit those paws. She squelched around the house and into the backyard, grumbling.
Which way am I supposed to be going, Kismet? thought Thomas. She slinked, half crouching, to the fence marking the boundary between her backyard and a neighbor's.
"Just a second, I think I've worked something out that'll make this easier on you... Yes, there we go." Thomas blinked. A fox had just flickered into existence a few paces from her, very faintly edged with luminous blue and somewhat transparent. If this had been a normal day for Thomas so far, she would have been quite bewildered, but in view of earlier events this was met with stoicism. The fox spoke.
"This should work better," said the four-legged creature. "I'm not actually here, I'm more like a figment of your imagination. A hallucination, if you will, but it might give you a little easier time having something to talk at. Only you can see and hear me," she added. Thomas was inclined to agree. Having a voice coming from a little fox was probably better than having it come from inside your own head. Maybe.
Kismet sniffed the air a few times, just to show she was locating something. She turned and nodded in a direction that looked just like any other. "That's the way we want to go. Hold still." Kismet leapt onto Thomas's shoulders, and though she felt no weight, she could feel the tail curl around her neck. There didn't seem to be any danger of her passenger falling off, so she peeked over the appropriate fence, vaulted it, and dashed across that backyard.
For half an hour, Thomas was only a russet and cream blur, clothed in blue, flowing across backyards and clearing fences with ease, leaving only abnormally large pawprints behind. She started paying more attention to being annoyed at the mud caking her footpaws than to the physical aspect - this body seemed tireless. The cool evening air was refreshing, and the sun was just setting and the streetlamps flicking on across the neighborhood when she ran into a problem. A major street of the subdivision fell right across her path. Hiding between a fence and a playhouse, Thomas and Kismet peeked over the fence.
The sidewalks were empty, but the street was not. An unmarked white van was cruising down it, slowly, and Thomas couldn't help but notice an excessive amount of antennas. Her sharp eyes picked out another van on a side street, a different model and color, and a subtly different array of...things on the roof, but it had the same slow, searching trawl.
Kismet had an entirely different interpretation, though no less sinister. Her first encounter with advanced technology had shaken her badly. So this was why Thomas had wanted her top half illusioned... She felt very slightly sick. This was a very different world, and seeing those big lumps of metal glide down the street had her doubting that magic would be able to make a return at all...
Thomas didn't know about Kismet's dilemma, though. Focusing more at the task at hand(or possibly paw, came a rueful thought), she judged an opportune time and bounded over the fence, whisked across the road and dived over yet another fence. No one had seen he-- Voices!
Sensitive ears had picked up the approach of a group of people. They sounded young... Five of them... Coming from the nearby alley. She could retreat back into the street and hope no one saw her, but if she stayed here they would see her for sure. Indecision clamped down on her mind.
"Jump!" advised Kismet. What?! "Jump! Like, up! Oh, for crying out loud, like this!" Thomas felt herself yanked backwards into her own head, the same receding sensation... She felt her legs coil under her, and a sudden rush of air and a small amount of grappling with a gutter, and then she was lying flat against the sloping, abrasive roof of a house.
I just jumped onto a two story house. Thomas heard the group pass below her. And Kismet just yanked control of my body away from me. An attack of rationality allowed Thomas to think of this as a good thing. That means she could, if she wanted, control me full time... And that if I freeze up like that again, she can help out. A gentle rushing sensation propelled her back to the forefront of her brain. She hopped off the roof, landed awkwardly but hardly felt it, and resumed her travels.
The rest of the journey across the subdivision was uneventful, though she did once see one of those curious vans in the distance. Kismet did not seem to be talking, even when Thomas crept into a bordering small forest, unconsciously drawn to the type of territory foxes prefer. She took one last look at the lighted streets, and then turned and ran into the leafy darkness.