Argul looked at piles of random stuff in front of the inn, only illuminated by a few simple [light] spells. They had looted the building as much as possible, only leaving behind some of the chairs, tables and the pre-mana technology. 

Now dawn was readily approaching and, as a result of their effort, the street looked like somebody was about to open a flea market. Mattresses, pillows, blankets and towels lay around, forming a ginormous nest for a sleeping Mia; dozens of plastic sacks filled with all matter of miscellaneous things, books, games and artworks sat neatly next to each other; disassembled furniture encased by bedsheets to make carrying them easier blocked the entryway and a few other things stood around in the organized chaos. Next to this all stood a conflicted Luna, a confused, unsure Arthur and Alyra, who was sniffing an old glue stick she had found for the upteenth time. Argul was very tempted to shoot the thing out of her daughter's hand with a [magic missile], but she had done the same as a kid so she held herself back.

Arthur was the one to break their silence and end their break. “What do we do now that we have packed everything? I mean, you told us we would carry it all in one go to the house-cart, but how? Leaving strength aside, we can’t even carry that much volume!”

Argul ignored him and looked at her daughter, nervously clasping her hands together. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Mom, you are gonna be seen anyway, why do you care now? Just do it!”

“But-” Alyra glared at her and turned away, starting to whisper something to Luna.

Letting out a sigh, Argul looked around once again, pointedly ignoring the guy that was trying to be nondescript while he monitored them. Sucks for him that she knew his mana signature because he had been part of the rotation observing her for a while already and hiding that from her was difficult at best.

Argul was aware that she was stalling and that it was illogical to do so, but she had been hiding her other avatar form for months now and that somehow made her anxious. In reality it should be the church and government suffering from anxiety and not her, considering what would happen next.

She looked at Arthur and Luna, trying and failing to smile reassuringly. “To answer your question Arthur, a little thing is going to happen to me in a second that will solve that problem. Just don’t freak out okay?”

“Don’t freak out, she says.” Arthur grumbled to himself, unaware that Argul could hear him, not that she cared.

She took one more big breath, steadying herself and then let it all out, quite literally. Mana surged through the connection of her mind into her avatar and started to undo her physical form, releasing more mana in the process. Once her humanoid body didn’t exist anymore she pushed even more mana through the connection, not willing to risk her mind retreating back to her core and finally activated her [materialization] spell.

Argul’s new body formed in a matter of seconds and her awareness began to shift. Sounds became clearer, smells more vivid and she felt so much bigger. It was glorious and relieving; it felt right somehow and so much better than her humanoid form. 

During that brief moment she realized just how much she had missed that one day she had with her daughter and why she had wanted a clear cut from humanity with her new life. It wasn’t the physical body that was her problem, but all the mental baggage clinging to the concept of humanity and not being humanoid let her break away from that. It was because of that, she now knew, that she had felt burdened the last half year and it was because of that, that she enjoyed being in her core or inhibiting her current form that much more.

A low rumble of contentment involuntary escaped her throat and she simply enjoyed the moment for a second. Then she opened her eyes, took in the blank stare of Arthur and the pale face of Luna, before she lunged forward at her daughter, licking her with her giant tongue. Luna feinted right afterwards and so did their spy.

Argul didn’t care though and continued to groom the small form of Alyra who was pinned between her front legs, futilely trying to escape. 

Meanwhile, Arthur gave up trying to understand what had just happened and made it his task to tend to Luna. He… he didn’t even know what he had expected, but that certainly wasn’t it, Arthur thought as propped Luna up against one of the plastic sacks and listened to the frankly weird sounds that came from next to him.

He stared one more moment at Luna’s resting face and then, with a sigh of massive proportions, he turned around and really looked at the new form of Argul that his brain had yet to acknowledge as reality, and it didn’t want to do that at all.

Argul was, in all her glory, a massive wall of silver fur that blocked nearly the whole street and where she had been a human with a tail and feline ears before, she was now a frightening large predator. Even her lying form was taller than Arthur and with all the bulk of her length, he felt suitably tiny next to her. Argul had to be easily 4m tall when she stood, which meant she was taller than some of the one story buildings around them and was easily half as much as long again. Two tails were wagging furiously behind her, creating a localized storm that threatened to blow some of the cloth sheets away.

Arthur continued to look along Argul’s form, pointedly ignoring the muscular legs and powerful paws, and realizing that this is how it must feel like to swim right next to a whale, elephants just weren’t doing it justice, until his gaze came to a rest on her head. Her face looked mostly like that of a wolf, upscaled of course, but with a narrower snout more akin to a fox, her trademark caracal ears and the diamond embedded into her forehead.

Right now Argul was quite busy licking her daughter and Arthur managed to glimpse the occasional fang inside of her mouth because of that. Looking at those murder implements, he could fully understand why Luna had fainted. He would have too if the silver cousin of Fenrir suddenly barreled towards him.

Arthur raised his hand, hesitating for a moment and then stepped closer to Argul to touch her, only for his hand and a good part of his forearm to disappear in the fur before he found anything solid.

Argul stopped slobbering all over her daughter at the touch and turned to look at Arthur. “What is it?”

“Ah,” Arthur cleared his throat awkwardly. “I just, um, wanted to ask if you could tone it down a bit and try to wake Luna up with a bit of water. You kinda frightened her to death.”

Argul looked away from him at Luna, somehow managing to look bashful and then conjured a bit of water she dropped into her face.

At the same time Alyra used the distraction to free herself from her mother, scampering away. “Years upon years of torture, abandoned by all my friends and now I’m finally FREE again!”

Both Argul and Arthur ignored her hysteric screams, focusing on Luna, who awakened with a start, instead. She looked around somewhat panicked and Argul put her head on her forepaws trying to look small with only marginal success.

Luna froze again when she saw Argul, but this time managed to calm down with a bit of help from Arthur and after a minute or two Alyra. Argul just waited patiently until they were done, not moving so as to not frightening Luna again.

When Luna was ready, she opened and closed her mouth a few times, unsure of what to say. “I… Sorry Argul, that was a bit abrupt and I need some time, maybe a few days to get used to, well this.” She gestured at her form.

Argul smiled, baring her teeth and otherwise being generally unhelpful. “It’s okay Luna. I understand.” She didn’t really, but she didn’t care and could see that her true avatar was a bit much for the woman.

Luna and Arthur winced at her teeth, but didn’t react otherwise. That was enough for Argul already. Small steps, she thought to herself and smiled again.

After that they started to load all the stuff while Argul lay there, only moving to make securing their goods easier. It took them more than an hour for that, she might be able to carry everything easily, but she didn’t have hands and stopping their stuff from falling off her back required a liberal amount of rope. Thankfully Arthur had had loads of that for some reason.

The only interruption was when they had been forced to wake Mia up to get to the mattresses. Contrary to Luna and Arthur, she had looked with large round eyes at Argul for a moment before running to her, climbing on top of her while squealing about the softness of her fur and then sat down on Argul’s neck, looking through between her ears.

The small girl still looked like today was the best day of her life and her unrestrained smiles brought Argul a great amount of joy.

Once everything was packed away either on Argul’s back or was hanging to her sides, the group said their goodbye to the inn. It was a difficult thing for Luna to do, it was one of the few things back from earth that had come with her, and they all gave her some time and space, before they ultimately set off with the horizon brightening for a new day, not that anyone was able to see that behind all the houses beside Argul.