Elega

**An Erotic Short Story Series

by R. Lyle (Resolute)**

Part One

"So, she's in the room with us right now?"

Blair nodded towards the curtained side of his studio apartment. "She's sitting at the foot of the bed."

His friends, Cam and Jordan, holding an armful of scrounged equipment each, followed his gesture. "Nope, still not seeing anything," Cam said first, then set her box down and padded over to the bed. "Not even a divot in the sheets. But you say you can feel her when she touches you?"

"Yeah," Blair said, bobbing his fist at the same time as his nod.

He was finally getting used to the cochlear implants after what felt like entirely too long of an adjustment, though without external ears like Cam's—the swiveling triangles were so expressive, he was sometimes jealous of the coyote—or Jordan's rounded ones, the processors tended to stand out against his black feathers. Still, it was nice to hear his own voice, even if he kept signing out of habit.

What he was still adjusting to was Elega, the subject of their combined scrutiny. Not that two of them could perceive her at all. Blair was the only one who could see her, and he could only describe her as wolflike. She wasn't a wolf: her muzzle was a hair too short, her ears were too long and sharply pointed, her feet more like bird or raptor talons than paws, and her tail was both less bushy and more prehensile than a canine's should be. Instead of a dark pupil and iris, her eyes glowed a faint teal. He'd never seen anything like her before.

She was also completely nude, so he continued his efforts not to stare.

Her hands moved. "Tell them I say hi." She spoke at the same time.

Or at least, he assumed she was speaking. He could see her mouth and tongue working.

"She says hi," he interpreted. "I'm pretty sure she can hear other people talking, and she picked up sign language way faster when I talked aloud. But, well, I don't know if she can't be heard at all? Or, you know." He pointed at his cochlear processors. "Maybe these things don't pick her up."

"Right." Jordan looked up from laying out various devices. "Were you able to test if she can hear things independently?"

Blair's mouth went dry. It took a moment for him to swallow, to trust the voice coming from his beak and hands. "I, uh. Sort of. But you know, I wasn't sure how much was... well, I wasn't sure about a lot."

"I'm sorry," Elega signed.

"It's not your fault," he replied to her. "We just have to figure this out."

Cam came over and smoothed back his feathers, then took his hand. "We will." She glanced at Jordan. "Sound test first?"

The possum's hands went right to a sound level meter and tape recorder, borrowed from the campus A/V group. "Should take just a moment. How about numbers, while I get these set up?"

"Oh, right," Cam said. "So, like we discussed? You look at her, and she'll tell you how many fingers I'm holding up."

Blair nodded. Elega was much harder to interact with in public, which had been something of a mixed blessing; it kept him from being distracted or seeming like he was talking to himself, but, it made it hard to see if she could somehow be sensed or affected by other people. She had been comfortable with being revealed to Cam and Jordan, even reassuring Blair that she wanted to help. She'd agreed to whatever testing they could come up with.

One of the first ideas, from Cam, had been simple: see if she truly was an independent being, or if her perception depended on his. He suspected the former from his own tests. But, if his mind wasn't sound...

So, he turned away from Cam, and towards Elega, while Jordan carried the meter over to the bed.

"Ready when you are," he said and signed to both of them. Elega gave him the thumbs-up, and then her focus shifted to a point behind him.

"First number," Cam said.

Elega held up four fingers.

"Four."

"Uh." Cam cleared her throat. "Second number."

"Two," Blair relayed. Elega's tail swished. "Six. Eight—three, she just dropped a hand. Six. Ten. Zero? Two. One."

Jordan had stopped his setup and was openly staring.

"Holy shit," Cam whispered, almost too quiet for the implants to pick up. "All of them. You... she got all of them."

"He didn't cheat." Jordan looked between the two of them. "Not that I'm saying you would, Blair. But..." He looked behind him, then around the bed. "No mirrors or anything. No way to see you, Cam. Elega is definitely a separate being from Blair."

Blair felt as if a constricting band around his heart had just snapped, and he sagged, sucking in air through his beak. He smiled through a shaky breath. "I mean, at least we know I'm not crazy?"

He'd more or less figured that out already, given how damn real Elega seemed, and from having her read out a menu he hadn't looked inside before. And yet. There was that chance, that not-so-little seed of doubt, that his mind was spinning up complex delusions.

He'd gotten a full medical checkup. He'd scoured medical and even paranormal sources to try and explain how he could not just see but feel a completely detailed being with her own personality. He'd even thought about admitting himself to an institution. Until now, he hadn't been sure the being he'd been seeing since the start of the summer was real.

Of course, this was now a different issue with its own wrinkles and anxieties: he was the only one who could see and directly interact with, well, something.

Some_one._

"You're not crazy," Cam said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Jordan nodded. "We considered the possibility."

"Jordan!"

The possum spread his hands. "Sorry. We did, though. You'd said yourself that you weren't sure." Jordan was about as close to eye contact with Blair as he got. "We weren't sure either. But we promised to help, no matter what. And we weren't, aren't, going to let you down. And now we have a better idea of what we're dealing with. Who we're dealing with."

"Sorry for snapping. You're entirely right. So, yeah." Cam turned to the bed. "Hi, Elega. Sorry we doubted you. Both of you."

"You had no reason to believe I existed," she signed, and Blair interpreted. "You're good friends to him. I trust his trust in you."

"She was the one who pushed me to reach out," Blair added.

He'd told them the day before how it had started. Not much of a home to go back to, so he'd stayed in his apartment for the summer, working nights at a local bar for spending money. At first, he'd seen glimpses in a crowd, or out of the corner of his eye while waiting a table. Never close enough to study, let alone try to talk to. Two weeks into the break, she'd appeared at the foot of his bed. Upon tossing a pillow through her, he'd been bewildered enough to not call for help, and the struggle for communication started not long after. He wasn't good enough at reading lips to pick up more than a few words, and she couldn't write or interact with his phone. By the time he'd gotten past the initial shock, denial, and borderline panic of having what seemed like a ghost in his apartment, she'd already started trying to mimic his reflexive signing.

So, he'd started teaching her.

After an urgent doctor's appointment, two days' absence from work, and going through a whole lot of questions to a new signer still expanding beyond the very basics, life started resuming a semblance of normalcy. She'd walked alongside him on streets and in quieter aisles of the store, and usually shrank into the background when there were people nearby. She didn't bother him when he slept. She made a clear effort not to distract him when he was working or conversing with others—even when he asked his doctor about hallucinations, half-inventing a story about waking up with sleep paralysis.

Gradually, he'd come to trust her to a degree. She didn't seem to know where she came from, just stating the time before was, well, 'before.' Or for that matter, how it was that she was now more or less attached to him.

She existed. He knew that now, for sure... unless he was somehow hallucinating everything that was happening. But if he was that far gone, would he even know to care? It was probably a thought that would fester if he kept poking at it, so he left it alone for the time.

"Right," he said, forcing himself back into the present. "So, we know she exists separate from me. Now what?"

Jordan snapped his fingers, pulling everyone's eyes and ears to the little device on the bed. "We test if—oh, sorry, just checking the thing. Sorry. We test if she can affect our environment at all. Can she move the bedsheet?"

"Nope," Blair said, not needing to wait for Elega to shake her head. "We've already tried having her pick things up."

Cam frowned. "But you said she can touch you? Can she move any of your feathers or anything?"

"Also no."

"She can walk through walls, though?"

"Yeah, or she can lean on them, like she can choose what's solid or not. It's like I'm the only thing she can't pass through."

Jordan's tail curled around his leg as his brow furrowed. "So she's basically incorporeal, but you can still see and feel her. Not hear, not smell."

"She's tried talking, clapping her hands. Nothing."

"Okay. So, everyone be quiet. We'll have her try talking, making noise, and see if it moves the needle. Or shows up on any recordings."

He nodded, and assumed Cam did too. Jordan clicked the recorder, tapped his phone, and gave a thumbs-up to the bed.

Elega gave an invisible thumbs-up in return, and to her credit, she kept signing. "Hi. Hello, I am speaking. Testing. My name is Elega."

"She's talking," Blair signed to Cam and Jordan.

"Nothing yet," Jordan signed. Then aloud: "Testing. There, it moved. Try more, Elega?"

The being—he hadn't quite figured out what to call her, species-wise—clapped her hands, then snapped her fingers, and then bent down over the devices and yelled. None of which he could hear, as usual. She started shaking her fists at it like one of the overdramatic meme videos he'd shown her once, and he put a hand on his beak, trying to keep his breathing steady, trying not to—

"Needle's moving!" Jordan signed.

"Blair!" Cam cuffed him on the shoulder. "You just spoiled the test!"

"Is he... Oh." Jordan tapped his phone and then the recorder. "At least we have a minute of sample audio?"

Blair was giggling madly, the kind that just wouldn't stop no matter how much he tried. The sight of her screaming at a couple devices, like a Saturday morning cartoon villain... He tried to talk, only succeeding in signing, "She... yelling at the little things... like they just foiled her evil plans..."

"Well, we lost him," Cam said, chuckling and patting his back as he doubled over. "R-I-P."

After a few minutes of laughter he hadn't known he'd needed, Blair was able to return from the dead. "Okay," he breathed, "I'm okay. So. Tape or phone first?"

"Tape." Jordan plugged it into a speaker as the little ribbon rewound, and then hit play.

At first, nothing. More nothing. "Testing. There, it moved. Try more, Elega?" Nothing. Even more nothing. A faint sound... "Blair! You just spoiled the test!"

Jordan hit stop.

"Okay, so nothing on the tape," Blair said. "Unless you heard something?"

"No. Phone next." Jordan opened the video. Same audio—and lack thereof. "I have a theory."

"You're our science-y guy," Cam said, pulling up a chair next to Blair. "Lay it out for us."

Jordan frowned, then nodded. "So, sound is just our perception of vibrations making an acoustic wave through a medium, like air. Any medium, really, sound carries much faster in water or cohesive solids... sorry. So, Elega is effectively incorporeal. You can see her, you can touch her, but as she either doesn't have a physical presence or is, I don't know, out of phase with normal matter? Either she can't even affect air molecules to carry any sounds she makes, or, if she can somehow make sounds through other means, your implants and our recording devices can't pick it up."

Blair digested that for a moment; Elega had her head tilted, looking quite canid in the moment. He shrugged. "I suppose unless she finds a way to appear to someone else, we won't have any way of finding out."

"There's a few other things we can try," Jordan said, gathering up the recorder and meter. "Do you want to turn your processors off and have us talk, see if she hears us?"

"Sure." He lifted the little gray devices from his head, and turned them off for good measure. A familiar, pure silence refocused his awareness. "Ready," he said and signed, though he could only feel the vibration in his throat for the former, now.

"Ready," Elega signed back.

There was movement out of the corner of his eye, so he turned his head away; it wouldn't do to have lip-reading spoil the hypothesis that she could, in fact, hear independently of him.

"Cam says testing, apple, chair... I don't know that word. Oh! Jordan just snapped his fingers behind me."

Sitting between them as she was, Blair hadn't seen it. He relayed the words and the snap before putting his processors back on. "I think that establishes that."

"Interesting," Jordan said, then raised four fingers. "Without turning around, Elega, how many fingers am I holding up?"

She tilted her head, blinked. Shrugged. Blair shook his head.

"Very interesting. So she can perceive the world independently, but not through you at all... she has to be interacting with matter, somehow, or able to sense photons and sound waves passing through her. Just not able to generate any of her own. Though, you're still able to see her. There has to be something measurable."

Blair frowned, and looked at Elega. "Does there have to be something there for her to exist?"

"Yes," Jordan said immediately. "Fundamental physics won't allow it otherwise, thermodynamics, the laws... sorry, sorry."

"Take your time," Cam said, patting the air. "Deep breaths, step by step."

Jordan took in a breath. "Right," he said on the exhale, and steadied himself for a few more. "Okay. First law of thermodynamics, in a system, energy can only be converted, not created or destroyed. So either she's part of our system, our reality... in which case she has to be getting energy from somewhere. Though I suppose she could be part of her own system?" He scratched his head. "Except she's interacting with our system, still, mainly through Blair. Or she's only able to interact with Blair... but that doesn't change that he's still part of our system. Sorry. Anyway.

"Second law, that's the important one. Entropy. Or, well, easiest to explain it with heat. Something cold can't heat up something hot; you can convert energy to heat something up, but left alone, the hot thing will warm the cold thing until they're the same temperature. Same with everything else in the universe. It's why we need to eat, to breathe, because we fuel ourselves." He gestured towards the bed. "You said you've never seen Elega eat, or drink. So, since she's not a hallucination, where is she getting energy from?" He frowned at Blair. "Have you been feeling more tired since she showed up?"

Well, there's another idea that'll fester, Blair thought. Aloud and by sign, he said: "Not really. It was hard to sleep the first few nights but that was more anxiety than anything." He looked at Elega, who seemed to be frowning. "Do you know where you get energy from? Like, I know you've said you don't eat. Do you ever get hungry, or tired, or anything like that?"

Elega shook her head slowly, and raised her hands hesitantly. "I don't know. I can let time pass by, but I don't feel weaker from it. The world gets darker if I get distant from you, so I move myself closer or go elsewhere. It's strange, but not frightening."

Jordan fidgeted while Blair interpreted. "Okay, Elega. What happens if you get too far away?"

"I go elsewhere."

"Elsewhere? Like, another place?"

She shrugged. "Elsewhere. I have no other words to describe it." Her eyes turned to Blair. "When I first appeared to you, you wanted to know if I'd leave if you asked. That's where I'd have gone."

Cam leaned forward. "What did you say when you made that offer? If you don't mind sharing."

"That I didn't want to cause him any distress. That if he asked, I'd go elsewhere, and stay there."

"Well, I hope it never comes to that." Cam glanced at Blair. "Not that I'm the one with her... well, around?"

"No, no," Blair said. "Especially now that I know she's not a figment of my imagination, I wouldn't want to do that." Elega smiled, and he smiled back. "I... never asked, Elega. If I had said yes, if you went wherever elsewhere is... or if you went elsewhere now, is there a way I could call you back? Can you come back from wherever there is?"

"I can come back. I... don't know if you could reach me there."

A pang of guilt shot through him. He'd been tempted at the time. Sorely tempted, if only to try and test if she was as good as her word. That had been when he was worried about going mad.

He was glad he'd opted for distance first.

"If you can come back," Jordan cut in, "can you still sense the passage of time in this elsewhere place? You could go there for one minute, and we can see if you can hear him or otherwise come back sooner?"

"I can't feel time the same way when I'm elsewhere," she signed, tail-tip flicking. "But I can try."

Jordan set a timer. "Okay, whenever you're ready. Blair, tell me when she—"

"Go," Blair said, staring at the bed where Elega had just disappeared. Jordan tapped his phone. "Elega?" He waited a moment. "Elega, can you hear me?"

Cam hummed beside him. "Try thinking it, maybe?"

Blair nodded. Elega? Are you there? Seconds ticked by. Blair calling Elega. Come back if you can.

Which raised the question: what if she couldn't? At least she'd know to return on her own volition, and seemed confident about it. But, what if he'd sent her away in those first days? How would she'd have known if he changed his mind without being able to hear him? Elega, come back.

"Coming up on a minute," Jordan murmured. "Elega isn't back yet, I take it?"

"She isn't." Blair tried to reach out mentally again. Maybe it wasn't like 'speaking' in his mind. "I'm going to try something."

He imagined her, right down to the admittedly fetching curves he didn't let himself stare at. She had fur to cover most everything, at least. With that image in mind—the whole of her, not the naughty bits—he tried imagining their connection as a rope between them. He hadn't imagined it glowing with the same faint teal as her eyes, so that was definitely something. He gave the rope a gentle tug.

Elega reappeared on the bed. "Was that close to a minute? I felt something."

Jordan turned his phone around. "One minute twenty-seven seconds. Hard to say if that worked, unless you want to repeat it?"

"I don't mind. Try again?" And at Blair's signed yes, she vanished again. This time, all it took was the mental pull, and she reappeared in the space of a breath. "Yes, I definitely felt that. Strange, not harmful."

"So there is some sort of connection between you two, that you can interact with," Cam said, chin in hand. Her ears perked a moment later. "Does it work in reverse?"

"One way to find out," Blair replied, and quickly signed how he'd imagined the rope to Elega. "Let me close my eyes, and then try."

The world went dark, just the impression of the kitchenette light above them seeping through his eyelids. He'd wondered what it would be like if he'd gone blind, instead; they were working on implants for the eyes but it was quite a bit more complex than a receiver on the auditory nerve. He'd learn and adapt, at least. Maybe if Elega had shown up, he could hear her, and she'd be his eyes—

It was subtle, and unmistakable. Like something tugged somewhere behind his heart and in his mind all at once, and his eyes flew open—startlement, or attention being pulled to Elega, he wasn't sure. "Huh."

"It worked, I take it?" Jordan slipped his phone back into his pocket. "Okay, so we've established she's an independent being, though that doesn't necessarily rule out her presence still being some sort of hallucination."

Cam frowned. "I thought that's what we just disproved?"

"Without an external frame of reference, the only proof of her existence is from Blair's senses. That she can move and perceive independent of his awareness doesn't preclude the possibility that the only reason Blair can see her is... I don't know, their bond having some sort of sensory stimulus effect."

"Like a phantom limb sensation?"

Jordan shook his head, and shook out his hands. "No, no, that's when the brain is still trying to register signals from... wait, I see what you're thinking. I mean. No? But that's not wrong. Sort of, I don't know, like an electrode on certain parts of the brain affecting a person's senses. Maybe more metaphysical." He blinked. "I have no idea how to read an MRI."

Blair tilted his head, catching up with the possum's chain of logic. "You think her interaction with me would show up on something like that?"

"I mean, they can see all sorts of things with brain activity. Even if she's not directly affecting your brain, maybe they could see you responding to her touch."

Well, something would definitely show up if she gave me a full-body hug, he thought, and then stopped himself in his tracks. Moving right along.

Cam held up her phone. "Wikipedia says there's about a million dollars on offer from various challenges to prove the paranormal exists. You could totally cash in on that."

"Is that a lot of money?" Elega asked.

"It is," Blair replied, after interpreting, "but, first person to prove the paranormal? That is a LOT of media attention. I don't think I'm ready for that." He looked between Cam and Jordan. "You two, uh, don't mind keeping this under wraps for now?"

"Lips are sealed," Cam said.

Jordan smiled. "Cone of silence."

"You have good friends," Elega signed; he almost didn't interpret that, feeling a flush under his feathers.

But, she was right. They deserved to hear it. So, he relayed it, and added, "I'm glad we can work on this. Who knows? Maybe spending time around her will mean she'll show up for you, too."

Jordan's smile grew wider. "You could make out like a bandit at poker." A pause, and then he frowned. "That would be cheating, wouldn't it?"

"A bit, yeah," Cam said, chuckling. "They'd have a hard time proving it."

"It'd still be wrong." Jordan glanced at the bed. "But... I bet she could be a lookout for trouble? Like, if you're crossing the road and you don't see a car coming, type of thing."

"Could be," Blair said, pondering the possibilities. "What else can we test?"

Cam stood and rifled through the boxes. "Not too much. She didn't show up on the recorder, but I guess we could try the video camera? Just in case. Then, to go all paranormal hunter, we've got an EMF. Laser thermometer. They had me use my full name to borrow these, so I hope you appreciate it. We..." She blinked. "Wait. Why didn't we think of seeing if she can touch us?"

"She's had people walk through her plenty of times. If any of them felt anything, they kept it to themselves."

"They also didn't know she exists," Jordan said. "Let's try it."

"Okay, Elega, I'll hold out my hand." Cam went back over by the bed. "I guess, pass through it, then see if you can touch me? Tell me when she does, Blair."

"Don't," Jordan cut in. "Cam, it needs to be a blind experiment. Think about it—"

"Oh! Right, right, sorry."

"Sorry for interrupting."

Blair patted the air, trying to stop the sorry-off before it got rolling. "It's a good plan. How about, Elega waits a few seconds, then tries to either touch or pass through you, and after a minute I'll tell you what she did? Actually, if you stay turned away, I can sign to Jordan so he can take notes."

"Ready when you are," Jordan said, also moving out of Cam's field of view.

Elega approached Cam, though she didn't reach out just yet.

"I've got my eyes closed for good measure. Don't you dare pull any pranks." Cam's ear flicked, and then she brushed her arm. "Did she do something already?"

"Nope," Blair said.

Jordan chuckled. "I haven't even started the timer."

"Go figure," Cam muttered, putting her other hand on her leg. "I see what you mean about not tipping me off. My imagination is trying to run wild already."

"Need to stop?"

"Nah. Start whenever. I'll say something if I feel something."

So began a minute of Elega alternating passing through Cam's hand, then arm, then body, and then trying to brush or push the coyote. Cam dutifully reported an odd shiver, several itches, and what felt like a faint brush on her leg fur... none of which matched anything Elega was doing. A silently signed conversation between the three came up with a plan.

"Cam, try moving your hand forward?" Jordan asked.

Blair watched as Elega's two-handed hold on Cam didn't stop what looked like a B-movie scene of reaching into someone's chest to pull their heart out. Thankfully, without the actual exsanguination.

"Looks like that's a bust." Jordan stopped the timer on his phone.

"I could touch her," Elega signed, "but it wasn't the same as touching you. She felt... very solid if I chose to? Otherwise I could pass through her."

Cam frowned as that was relayed. "So, she can interact with things and people, at least to not be falling through the floor constantly, but she can't affect anything other than Blair?"

"I'd say it doesn't make physical sense," Jordan said, "but, that does track with what we know so far."

Cam turned to look at Blair, her creased brow shifting to a raised eyebrow. "So, what happens if both of us, say, put a hand on Blair?"

Blair blinked. "What, to see if you can feel her that way?"

"Worth a shot," she said, taking the couple steps over to him. Elega followed, head tilted, and watched Cam rest her hand on Blair's feathers.

For Blair, of course, it felt like a hand on his arm. At least, until Elega joined in. He was treated to the sight of two overlapping hands like some animation clipping glitch. What was weirder was the sensation. Both of them. Two different sets of fingers, two different pressures, all right on top of each other.

"This is so weird," he said, then relaying the feeling as best he could to Jordan. Both for and against his better judgment, he turned back to the two ladies. "Okay, take it slow, but Cam, if you sort of pet me downwards, and then Elega, you go up?"

They did, and he was pretty sure his brain was, if not breaking, certainly leaking some steam. Elega didn't ruffle his feathers like Cam would, except he still felt a sensation very much like it... while also having them smoothed by Cam at the same time. The touches moved apart and his nerves' confusion lessened. It just felt like two different people stroking his arm. After a couple misses, Elega matched the rhythm, and they both worked the same area...

"I think I feel—oh." Cam giggled, now having to smooth down Blair's puffed-up feathers. "You okay there, floofy one?"

"It is so weird," he said, not sure if he should shiver, shake them off, or lean into the overlapping caresses. "I don't even, how do I describe it? It's both of you at the same time. Same spot. I just... aah?"

"Overstimulating?" Jordan added, eyeing him.

"Yes, and no... and yes? Okay, enough, enough. Safe word." He shook himself enough to resettle his feathers. Two sheepish expressions tugged at his heart. "No, you're both fine. That was just, really an adventure."

Jordan hummed. "It's fascinating to imagine, even if it sounds like hell to me. The brain wasn't designed to handle that kind of simultaneous, contradictory input. It's like an optical illusion... tactile illusion? Hm."

"I still didn't really feel anything other than you reacting to us," Cam added. "Great teamwork, though, Elega. I'm glad you want to help."

Elega smiled. "I'm curious, myself, and otherwise I'm happy to help."

Blair interpreted, then gave his feathers one more brush to settle them. "So, what's next?"