Part One here

Colored version here

Concluding the story of my alter-fursona, illustrated for me by brilliant artist and stellar boyfriend TK Dye.

***
I reach the end of the outcrop. Stop. Close my eyes and meditate briefly, calm myself. Then step out onto the deep sand. Two quick light steps away from the safe stone, and then I place my feet together. Hold my head high. And begin to go down.
The sand runs up between my toes, closes cool over my feet, round my ankles, rises up my shins. No going back now: the rock is out of arms-reach behind me, no branches or creepers out here to grab, nothing to step on but sand. I'm committed. I stand to attention, hold myself calm as I slip down into the pit and into the grip of the earth-Magic concentrated there. The sand rises up leg and thigh, soaks through my fur, swallows my hips without rucking my kilt (which has its own small magic woven in the pleated linen). It flows over my waistband, into my navel, holds my arms comfortably but firmly at my sides. The force in it makes me feel very small indeed. I'm a tiny disappearing creature in a vast forest, an instant of life in the planet's huge history.
Emotions are rattling my calm now. Fear that the Magic will grip too hard and mangle me, fear that it will abandon me to ordinary drowning, sadness at knowing my old life is ending; but against these my awed excitement at the Magic's presence, my new wonder at the world's hugeness, even a perverse delight in my own helplessness as I feel myself taken. All blend into a strange aching joy. I lift my head for a last long look at the sky, watch a tiny speck of a bird move against the whiteness, hear the nearer birds swear at each other, smell the forest.
As the sand presses under my chin I finally relax and let go, say goodbye to my old life, fill with a great peace, feel the Magic running in like water into a scuttled ship. The sand covers my muzzle; I close my eyes and feel it cool over my eyelids; it blocks my ears and I feel it close finally over my head. A brief brief moment of panic as my lungs make a last grasp for air, then subside into final calm as I slip down, and down, and down...
Nobody knows what happens to the sinkers. I've been trusting the Magic to embrace and transform me, make me into something wonderful and new. I may well be deluded; it may be about to suck out my soul-juices and dump what's left in the void. Nothing to do about it now either way, so I'm not worrying, taking it as it comes. Living in the moment. Well, a single moment is all I've ever had to live in.