Chapter 6
No Choice But To Follow That Call

I ran. When turned into a wolf by the light of a full moon, that seemed to be the right thing to do. At first I felt very silly. Extremely silly, even. Several situations popped into my head that made me self-conscious enough to stumble over the two extra feet I had suddenly found myself burdened with. I considered, for example, the possibility that I hadn’t actually turned into any kind of wolf, and that I was just kind of running on all fours through the forest naked. The worst thing to happen, in that case, was for that particular delusion to wear off. Reality is what we make it, and all that. 

That was the biggest one, really. The idea of being watched while I did something as silly as running full tilt through a forest. What made me realise that that was probably not the case was the fact that I wasn’t really getting out of breath. My breathing increased, sure, and my heart thundered in my chest like a staccato drumbeat, but it plateaued fairly quickly, and I could just… keep going for much longer than I would’ve been able to if I’d just been human. 

And it really was liberating, too. At first that feeling of being watched refused to go away, until I realised that I was being watched. By me. The little person in the back of my head that scrutinised my every move, the one that told me that I was wrong or gross and not to try new things and for the love of god don’t you dare smile at people you know what we look like when we smile — that voice. It was watching me. So I gave it the very simple retort that I was a dog, thank you very much, and all dogs are perfect, no matter what size. 

It didn’t really have an answer to that and while I could still feel its prickly gaze, it just didn’t seem to have any real criticism anymore. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no real need for me to watch how I was going or how much space I was taking up, not running from anything but also sure as hell not staying in place either. 

So I ran. I ran my little doggie heart out, my breath trailing behind me in the air whenever I dared look behind me long enough. Not that I could really afford to do that much. At the speed I was going, there was a good chance I’d smack into a tree. So I kept my eyes ahead, and just went. Not really anywhere in particular, although I made sure to loop back around until the house came into view. It was like my senses were not just on edge, but like finding my way back was… natural. Instinct, I supposed. 

I paused from time to time, taking the time to let the world sink in now that it wasn’t actively trying to kill me as much. If it was, I was absolutely dealing with it way better this time. The night sky was different than it usually looked. Before, the description of a ‘wine-dark sea’ had been so silly to me, but the sky was dark blues and blacks accented by stars in a way that made the simile feel perfect. And the landscape, in stark contrast, was just blacks and whites, snow covering dark trees. It was beautiful. 

“Wref,” I said to myself, and realised that properly saying words without proper lips or the kind of flexibility the human tongue has would be difficult. That’s fine. I’d met dogs, they could communicate a great deal with their exceedingly expressive eyebrows. I was just going to have to train some facial expressions. That is… if I talked to anyone. 

I stopped. I’d just finished a quick run-back to the house, and came to a realization. If someone from the village saw me, there was a chance they would be less than friendly to me. Other than Pancakes, who had been found by my side, displaying all the ferocity and hunter’s instinct of a lethargic hedgehog, they probably wouldn’t be very fond of wild predators near their village. I couldn’t afford to be seen like this. 

Well, at least that meant not having to learn facial expressions. I frowned and looked up. The moon was high in the sky. How long had I been running? Would I turn back when the sun came up? I swallowed for a second. I sure hoped so. While this was all liberating and “returning to my roots” and stuff, if I was stuck like this I was going to be in trouble real soon. I had grown very attached to my thumbs over the past few years, and I wasn’t keen on learning how to clean myself using only my… blegh. 

I trotted back to the house, the whole “free spirit” fantasy thoroughly ruined by the idea of learning how to write by using my nose, and also growing quite hungry. I wondered briefly if I should wait until morning to eat, or if I should try my hand — paw? — at the home-made kibble prepared by the Witch. 

That was a strange way to think of the house and body’s previous inhabitant. Maybe I could look around the place, see if there were any books around, or a diary explaining everything in excruciating detail to make my integration into the place a little easier. Ideally one with his name on it, so I knew what to call myself. 

I hadn’t really given that any thought. I hadn’t wanted to give my name back in the village, because the chance was that someone would’ve gone ‘hey, why are you telling us your name is Mordreth when you told us last week it was Barry?’ and I just didn’t want to risk that. But I might be here for a while, and I had to say something in case I didn’t find a trace of the original Witch’s name. Should I use my old name? I didn’t like the idea. It had always been a very pedestrian name. It was no Eugene, thankfully, but it was nothing as easygoing as a Jack or as interesting as a Marcus. No, my old name belonged in the world where I’d left it. Which brought me back to the original problem.

As I was thinking to myself, I saw something speed across the snowy field in front of me. I was trying to decide if I should do something, or if I needed more information first. My legs, however, needed no such thing, and had kicked into high gear in hot pursuit of what my animal-brain had already figured out was snack-sized, and possibly a hare. I could tell because I had once taken the time to study the difference between rabbits and hares. Rabbits looked like a ball of fluffy cuteness that nonetheless had the capacity to blow up at everyone at the office. By contrast, hares looked like strung-out authors rapidly approaching forty who had just dropped a plate of food coming out of the microwave at 3 AM. 

This one had big “I missed my first deadline and I have five messages on my answering machine” energy, which was probably related to the fact that I was currently chasing it faster than I had ever chased anything in my life, and I didn’t even know why, though I could hazard a guess. 

Was I really going to just… do that? Take a life in order to sate my hunger? More importantly, could I also eat it raw? I’d considered going vegetarian at some points in my life, from an animal-cruelty and just a sustainability perspective. On the other hand, fake steak just wasn’t the same, so I’d also faltered on occasion. But like… it was one rabbit. Or hare. Whatever. But also it was raw. And I’d be killing it. 

While I pondered the ethical implications of killing and subsequently eating my kill for the first time in my life, we ran circles around the building. Every time the hare tried to run into the forest, I managed to get ahead of it, but I also couldn’t quite make myself actually strike the killing blow, well aware that all this was doing was getting the hare more and more upset, and I should either let it go or do something, but also-also I was kind of having fun? 

As I pondered these varying conflicting and confusing conundrums, a black shadow flickered across my vision, and the hare was gone. Well, not gone. It was eight feet to my right, and Pancakes was standing over it looking more triumphant than I had ever seen him look in his life. Oh no. He was going to eat it. 

“Waf,” I said, and realised it was going to be very hard for me to tell him to put it down and not eat it, without being able to say anything. But he was absolutely capable of being terrible at eating a hare and choking on a bone or something. But if I could take it from him, maybe I could put it somewhere and then when I had hands and fingers that could hold a knife, I could try and put myself to the less-than-ideal task of teaching myself how to prepare a dead animal. I took a step forward. 

Dead hare in his mouth, Pancakes took a step back. He had A Look in his eyes. It was a look that all animal-owners throughout history have known, and all of them dread it. It was a single word, expressed in the entire body but most visible in the eyes. 

“Play?” Pancakes’ eyes said. I shook my head. Even though he didn’t, Pan’s eyes seemed to nod yes in response. I shook my head again and took a step forward. Pan hopped backwards. Oh no. Maybe if I was fast enough, I could snatch it out of his mouth before he—

He sprinted away in a burst of speed. As I broke into a run after him, I realised to my horror he was running to the house, which was the worst place for him to run. He was leaving a trail of blood behind him in the snow, but inside the Witch’s cabin, the mess would likely be a lot worse. 

“Woof!” I yelled, in vain. This was going to be hell, wasn’t it? He burst through the door, and the speed of him running through the half-open door almost shut it behind him, and I had to paw at the wood for a second before I could even get it open. When I finally stepped inside, Pancakes was innocently sitting in the middle of the room, cleaning his paw with big laps of his tongue. “Woof,” I said with all the threat I could muster, and glared. He hopped up on all fours and took the hare in his mouth again. I grabbed the door handle in my teeth and pulled it closed behind me. There. Now at least he wasn’t going anywhere. 

I turned around, and immediately jumped for it, hoping to take the little bastard by surprise. Where had all this activity been when he’d been a kitten?! It couldn’t be that he was hungry, could it? I’d fed him when we got here, and that had been at sundown, which couldn’t have been more than… wait. 

I looked out the window. The sky seemed less ‘wine-dark’ and more ‘yellow snow’. When had that happened? I glared at Pancakes. “I’ll let it slide,” I growled at him, and realised I’d actually spoken. Good! That meant I was turning back into a human. Human meant hands. Hands meant I could grab Pancakes by the scruff of his neck and make him spit the hare out. It also meant that my clothes, which I had stepped out of when I’d turned into a wolf, were still in a pile outside, and I was going to be naked in just a few seconds. 

My heart started to hammer in my chest, like it was trying to power a locomotive, and my eyes rolled up into my head. There was the strange sensation of falling while sitting still against the front door, and my breathing became laboured. It didn’t last as long as the first time, the sensation of my skin being on fire subsiding quickly. I could feel the wood floor on my bare legs. I took a deep breath, my heart still pounding, putting my hand on my breast. Breasts. Chest. Lady’s chest. Breast. 

My eyes shot open. I looked down. I looked back up. “Pancakes,”  said, in a very light voice that sounded husky and musical at the same time, “what the fuck?”

“Mreff,” he said through the hare’s hair. Yeah, I wasn’t expecting him to give me any useful input. I was trying to get a hold of my situation. Okay. Okay. I had breasts. And a high pitched voice. And incredibly soft skin. And slender hands. But that didn’t mean anything, right? I mean, I couldn’t just have been turned into a woman, right? Oh god. My heart hammered in my chest like a fifty-ton-woodpecker, and my lungs were working hard to keep up. I closed my eyes. This was all too much to keep up with. Another world. Another body. Another name. Another body, this time a wolf. Another body, this time a woman? What was I supposed to do? 

I opened my eyes. Okay. I rubbed my hands on my legs and wiped off some of the wet snow and blood. From the hare. I hoped. First thing’s first. I had to do something I had t—

My train of thought was interrupted by a knocking on the door. WHOMST?

“Excuse me, Sir Witch!?” Octavia yelled. “You left some of your books behind, and I thought you’d want them! Oh lord there’s an awful lot of blood here. Is everything okay in there?!

Elamimax

I hope you liked this chapter! More soon!