Imagine Danny discovering her new animal form
For the next weeks or months Silas is still a battlefield. Carmilla and Mattie prefer to fight standing on two legs: Mattie is the schemer, the strategy; she can’t afford to turn off her mind, not even for a second. And Carmilla prioritizes agility to strength, is steadier as a human, better at acting quick.
But Danny, oh god. Danny loves the full weight of her step on the ground, loves charging her way through the crowd, faster than ever before, but most of all she loves how her human train of thought just... stops. On four legs she thinks in sounds and colors, in shapes and scents. It’s a nice change from the constant streaming of words in her mind that never, ever stops.
So she doesn’t stop shifting, not even when the war is over. It’s not like she has to scrounge for excuses: Silas was never the safest place to begin with. Danny names herself unofficial protector of the campus and patrols through the forest every day. She stays a wolf for a bit longer each time, hours, days even.
One time she shifts back after a particularly long period (four days and a half; new record) and she gets scared. Her human senses startle her and the words in her brain don’t string together, they don’t form coherent thoughts. She gets scared and runs to the forest (not fast enough, not nearly fast enough), she shifts and she can make sense of her sorroundings again. Sounds, colors, shapes, scents.
Danny becoming more of a wolf than a girl. Danny forgetting to turn back for days, Danny not thinking in words anymore. Danny forgetting her human form, and loving it.