okay. transformation process seems to be over. it was only a few minutes (i think, time kind of got away from me in the midst of it, too focused on the Ow) but usually the transformation process takes a minute maximum for us, so the amount of time made the pain extra agonizing. claws are able to be retracted now, so we can do things without scratching shit (ourselves, our belongings, etc) up.
we appear to have transformed into a cougar. we're still in a somewhat "monstrous" shape (halfway between anthro and feral). it would appear as though over time, we're able to transform into more and more animals (starting off with dog, then wolf, then other canids in general, then black bear & mustelids, seals at one point, and now leaping all the way over to felidae of all things instead of other things in the caniformia family, but whatever).
it's cool and interesting and blah blah blah that we can be a cougar, and it's not so bad now that things are settled down, but the actual experience of transforming into one? 0/10. painful and disorienting and, frankly, terrifying because i had no clue what the fuck was happening. a little more consistency would be awesome but i guess that's not possible. also, now we've got a lot of muscle aches and pain pretty much everywhere. which is not normal for us & our transformations. so that takes away an extra point. -1/10
(it seems like this isn't out of the blue, though, since we've been feeling as though we were gonna transform into something we don't normally for... a few days now? ugh. time.)
In regards to someone liking a post from a little while back, here's the chapter that inspired that post
**Night Fall** Gordon was walking out to the hollow where the Wolves started their transformations. He held a hand up to pause the Clan as he stopped to scent the air.
Something wasn’t right. There wasn’t any one thing that made him sit up and take notice like this though. Just the prickling on the back of his neck. He turned on the spot, checking the surrounding area. The Wolves began to pick up his unease.
Dani leaned against a tree inspecting her fingernails, “Evening Gordon,"
His focus snapped towards her. As she turned her palm up towards the sky, an apple fell into it without a sound. The first bite broke the silence like the hammer of a revolver locking into place. The red of the apple, dark as spilled blood in the shadows, seemed all too jarring in contrast with the moon glow of her skin. Gordon felt as if he were in the presence of some Ancient Beast. A Fae Lady, or a Forest Guardian. His gaze locked on her and he couldn’t look away. His skin prickled with goose flesh.
"Dani?"
None of the Wolves had seen her appear. The new Head Wolf could tell that through their ties in the Clan. No one noticed the scent of her. Hadn't heard any hint of movement. Not from skies above, or the forest floor below. An old Pack proverb said, “Beware the Wolves on Moon Called nights,” They should have noticed her. During the full moon, their senses were at their peak. Gordon caught the flinch of his Clan in his peripheral. They hadn't noticed her nor any other shifters. Not even signs of recent shifting. Dani’s transformations all carried a primordial scent to them. On a full moon, they would have, should have smelled that. And yet, here she was.
Dani leaned naked as the day of her birth against an elm tree. Like a cowboy against a wall having a cigarette. If the bark of the tree digging into her bare skin bothered her, Gordon couldn’t tell. The Wolf Clan had approached her from her right, and the side glance she sent their way chilled like autumn nights on the cusp of winter.
"What brings you to our territory?" Gordon held on to his composure like a drowning man to a floating log.
He felt like a young pup of a Wolf again. Dani took another bite from the apple, the sound like a gunshot in the still night air. She chewed slow and methodical as if the Head Wolf hadn’t asked a direct question. A third bite broke through the air and Gordon saw a few of his Wolves recoil further at the sound. A smile. A predator’s smile on her lips. She’d noticed it. She’d liked the way his Clan flinched.
"I need you to put your Clan on a shorter leash. My people don't deserve cruel pranks and undue stress. We are not an outlet to vent frustrations. Do you understand?" She asked sounding bored and disinterested.
"Your people-" Gordon was cut off by the gunshot crack of another loud bite.
His mind recalled the snap of bones and goose flesh danced across his skin.
He saw Dani's eyebrow rise, a silent question of whether he should continue that sentence. He took a moment to consider his next words.
"The beast walkers don't need to be a Clan."
"Oh, really now?" Dani gave a go on gesture waving the apple as she did.
Even crossing the moonlight back into shadow, its skin looked like spilled blood. ‘Flee. Run. Retreat. Not Safe. Not Safe. NOT SAFE’ The Wolves instincts screamed through the Clan ties to him, doubling down on what he felt.
The moonlight glinted off a sharpening fang at the corner of her smile.
Gordon hadn’t noticed it till that gleam. There was something ethereal and dreadful in her presence. It bore down on them as if they carried the oceans on their back.
He knew she could see it. He couldn’t explain how. Gordon fought for breath and words against it.
"You don't have the power and strength of Weres. Or the magic and guile of the druids. You don't belong anywhere except as tools of the Pack. You're fodder to be sacrificed as the Shepherd wills it."
Dani stretched her arms over her head exposing the soft skin of her stomach. It didn’t read like an act of submission to the Wolves. To Gordon it felt like a threat. A trap. He couldn’t look away, though, as she inspected the apple; making certain she hadn't missed any of it.
“To be sacrificed as the Shepherd wills, is it? Do you wish to make a sacrificial lamb of me?” She hummed to herself at the thought, “Please, try.”
A sense of dread shot down his spine as adrenaline flooded him. Gordon couldn’t speak. Couldn’t bring himself to do more than nod. Why was he feeling like such a fresh, young Wolf again? He didn’t understand.
“Aren’t you such an old Wolf, Gordon? So well lived. Yes?” Dani murmured without looking up.
She waited to see if he’d say anything and smiled when he didn’t. The Wolves behind him took a step back. He wanted to himself. Fought against the urge. Gordon knew his second in command was no longer behind him.
"How...right...you are. We don't belong anywhere. We belong everywhere. From the forests, to the oceans, the skies and the cities; you'd never be able to tell if a beast walker was around. Would you?"
"Beast walkers always give themselves away,” Gordon fought to keep his voice even, “There’s… a tell. And you. You can’t even-"
He would have said more but she moved. A slight little adjustment to face them. And his focus broke. Words failed him. He took a step back. His eyes shifted to the apple Dani held. He could smell the crispness of the fruit. The scent of her saliva mixed in with it. The shine of the white apple core, glistening with its juices. The odd marks from her teeth.
She tossed the apple core up and caught it. All of the Wolves tracked its path back down to her hand. They couldn’t pull their eyes eyes away from it. Dani repeated the motion as she regarded the Wolf Clan before focusing on Gordon. Her eyes dug into him. It bore into his composure like a shovel clearing the way for a sapling. Everything in him was screaming to run. He was about to. His calves tensed.
"That's where you're wrong, Gordon. I am their Queen," The apple core flipped up and a tennis ball landed in her open palm, "Now. Do yourselves a favor. Keep your dogs from hounding my Clan."
Dani threw the tennis ball at the Head Wolf and he caught it on reflex. The Wolf Clan fell backwards, dodging away. Sprinting for anywhere else but there. Gordon stumbled and landed on his rump. When he looked back at her, she was walking off into the forest. The moonlight dappled by the boughs of the trees danced across her bare skin.
"Blessings of Artemis," Nick swore, reverence thick in his voice.
The shadows of the forest took her greedily in their embrace. The light shied away as if it felt the same fear the Wolves did.
The beast walker’s Queen called over her shoulder, "It's not too late for you Ella. We'd welcome you back."
The Wolves couldn't pinpoint when the shadows took Dani. The Wolf Clan sat spellbound trying to process what they'd seen. There was no scent of magic or people on the air.
"Gods…how?" Gordon's voice seemed to drop to the forest floor and carry no further than himself.
Nick spoke up, breaking the silence, "That’s an elm tree she was leaning on..."
The Head Wolf didn't answer. He stood transfixed, staring at the spot where Dani had vanished. There was an odd feeling swelling in him. Terror in its truest form. In his eight hundred some odd years, he hadn’t felt the like. Not until tonight.
cougar time. also porpoise time. internal porpoise external cougar time.
we hated being a cougar at first because it was different but now it's just comforting being something other than ourselves. cougar isn't part of our self-perception, so it feels safer/more comfortable than other things.
we also WANT to be a bunny but we feel weird & bad about it for some reason. as though we're not allowed.
wanting to transform (into anything, truly anything--cougar, dog, wolf, coyote, dolphin, Anything) because simply existing as the shell form is more energy-intensive than existing as any other forms vs not being able to transform because the actual process of transforming in the first place is so incredibly energy intensive, so we can only painfully manage a few sparse patches of fur and maybe a brief change in our fangs or claws before it immediately recedes, because it would take too much energy to "solidify" into something else
able to semi-control cougar transformations by... looking at things that trigger transformations lol. i was trying to put us to sleep by daydreaming about our zombie story but unfortunately the lore of the story makes it so that thinking about it makes us anxious and agitated, such that we've effectively killed any ability to sleep until we can get our mind off of it. hence: cougar time
wonder if the reason we aren't transforming is because we're in a different location. we don't have access to our own bed, or our own side of the couch, or our normal food. it feels unsafe.
