Chapter 5: Kazan Island

~~ Delta - Oct/02 - (Earth - April/2095) ~~

Nyoni looked up when she heard the noise.

Another machine was traversing the sky heading towards the north-east. She had felt a shift in the magical energies from that area and now believed that the visitors had found the Giants. She knew it wouldn’t be long before they found them too.

She sighed. Unlike the Giants, it wasn’t a spell that kept her people tied to their islands. It was their fear. Her people hadn’t fared well at the hands of humans in the past. While the Genteli were more tolerant of different races, even they had held some fear of her kind.

Many myths and legends surrounded them. It was a shame most of them were just that. Her race was made up of different clans of shapeshifters. They were heterogeneous and hermaphrodites. They called themselves the Therians.

They still reproduced sexually but had the advantage to decide if they would be the carrier of the child or the donor of the sperm. They could alter their sexual organs and appearance to take the form of a humanoid male or a female.

Therians could also mate with all of the other races and even with animals when in that form. However, their natural humanoid form dominated in their offspring. Some of her people who had very strong magical abilities could acquire new genetic material from other species. This increased their survival rate. It may or may not be used, but it was added to their DNA.

Their children were mostly born in the human female form. Most of her race generally lived in their human type female form out of habit. A select few were genetically inclined to default to the male form, and some, unfortunately, were born male.

Their basic bone structure was more female to allow for childbirth, but when they required strength, building muscle and increasing or decreasing height, wasn’t hard for most of them. But this also often took time unless the person had strong magical abilities.

Some of the clans preferred their animal form for day to day living. They only changing back to human to carry, deliver and care for their children until they were old enough to live in the alternate form. Their children had normally demonstrated their other primary shape by the age of two.

The animal forms varied from clan to clan. Each tended to like a particular animal form. Some chose wolfs, others choose ponies and some cats. A few could even develop a kind of dragon form. Some clans like hers, choose a Mermaid or Selke form. Her family tended to like the sea, and these forms were best for ease of movement in the sea.

She was unusual even for her kind, as she could pick any form she wished when she wanted. Her mother had indicated that her magical energies were powerful. Her father was a prince her mother had an encounter with some twenty years before from Queland.

Zan was going to be very surprised when he learnt he had a couple of Therian daughters. He had met Nyoni’s mother Selin when he had been on one of his trips, and his ship had to stop on their Island for repairs after a storm. The reefs around the island could be treacherous, and many ships avoided them as a rule. This suited the Therians.

It was actually Selin’s current mate Banta, who had attracted him while in his male form. As he had no qualms sharing, he had copulated with them both while on the island, never realising their true natures, or the gifts he left behind.

Banta had also changed on the night he left to receive his seed and produced Nyoni’s sister Yantell. She too was able to choose many forms. The Therians were not averse to acquiring new blood as it kept their people diverse. They didn’t, however, encourage the visitors to stay.

On the other hand, they did like to collect new technologies and those people who were born male, and who couldn’t change form would often travel to keep their people up to date with the outside world. They were careful, however, to not leave offspring behind, as there was a remote possibility that any female children they did produce, could carry the shape-shifting gene even if only for gender-swapping.

The Therians had been bought to Utopia by Wizard Que. He had been the oldest of the wizards at the time of the final shift at nearly 700 years. He had been fascinated by the Therian people for many years and had been quite happy to mate with them.

He had some kinky ideas, and one can only guess that at his age at the time and being jaded by life that he was happy to diversify his sexual interests. However, his Genteli family at the time they moved to Utopia didn’t approve of his fixation.

It had taken several centuries, for Rah, Jahn, Davin, Antali and Que to fix the portal ring in Wales so that it consistently took them to the portal in Jahnville in Utopia. It didn’t help that every so often they got sent somewhere else for a couple of weeks to a few decades at a time.

During this time, Que had located and acquired the transportation ring from Russia. However, he didn’t tell the other wizards that he had it. Once Rah got the ring in Wales working, and he had sorted out the correct spells to get to each ring on Utopia, they started building the small rings to link directly to the other portals on Utopia.

Que copied Rah’s notes on how to fix the rings, without telling him. He had to shift a couple of his Therian families to Jahnville. He was just able to transport them, a couple at a time, to an island just off the coast from where the ring was located. Here they created a small village so they could build a bigger boat to transport his portal ring and themselves to the large cluster of islands to the east of Jahnville.

Kazan Island was a large volcanic island, and it was surrounded by a dozen smaller islands. Que had excavated a massive cavern in the mountain. He was able to acquire enough of the crystals still covered in the bacteria to seed his cavern, making tripping to his island easier.

By the time he was ready to shift the ring from the boat and into the mountain, he was able to use his magic to move the ring the distance required. Once the ring was in place, he had been careful to hide it with spells like Rah so that only he could use it. He then moved the rest of his lovers and their families to islands. He didn’t tie the Therians to the islands though.

Most of his treasures that his current Genteli family didn’t know of, he stored on this island. Otherwise, he went along with the rest of the wizards. He dutifully set up the continent of Queland for the five main races that the others were collecting to transport.

He had planned to shift the Therians to Queland after he got the rest of the races and his new home set up, it was after all a big continent. But that didn’t happen after Jahn’s ring blew up, and his ring on Queland stopped working.

He couldn’t get to the Island easily as he couldn’t teleport to the ring on the island carrying anything and he couldn’t teleport his people back. He also found that their fear made them reluctant to leave, especial when he informed them, other people, now lived on Queland.

He had run into grief with his people on Queland when they found the place where the ring was located had become too hot for them due to a shift in the weather some years before. So, he had his people trek south to a mountain range that fed a large lake system.

He did, however, get back to Kazan.

When the faeries went to evict him, he pleaded to be sent to the Island.