Kaiya had grown so used to sleep broken by nightmares that the deep slumber she found herself in now was pure bliss. She fought hard against waking, dreading the return to consciousness and the real world. That world was fraught with danger and chaos. In that world she jumped at shadows. In this world, the dream world, it was warm and foggy. She was safe so long as she stayed wrapped in the dream mist.

But slowly, inexorably, she was being lifted out of her sleep and propelled back to wakefulness. Hearing was the first sense to return to her. Whining, eyes squeezed tightly shut, she flattened her ears against her skull hoping to keep the world out. Overhead, the clattering of skeletal branches in a frigid wind, stripped of their leaves by winter’s onset. Somewhere nearby, Glaesfaet’s steady rumbling, unimpeded by the thin sheets of ice that clung to her banks. She sighed. The memory of the river’s magical transformation was still fresh in her mind. Mere weeks had passed since the icy water had shone golden and magnificent, the magic within calling to her from across Blossom. It was a call she had heeded eagerly enough, and she had been gifted a beautiful ruff of feathers in return. But with the first falling snowflakes, her feathers too had fallen, leaving her feeling more vulnerable and shaken than ever.

She sighed again. There was no denying it any longer; she was awake. Begrudgingly she peeled one eye open, then the other, lifting her head to take a wary glance around. The motion felt strange, almost as though her head was heavier than it should be, but she put it down to the clinging of sleep. Far more concerning was the fact that she appeared to have fallen asleep in the open. Since arriving in Blossom she had made it a rule never to sleep beneath the open sky, always taking the time to find a suitably enclosed, safe den in which to pass the nights. Now, however, she found herself on the edge of a small clearing, curled amongst the fresh snow at the base of a large tree. She bristled subconsciously as she took a more discerning look at her surroundings, scanning the opposite tree line for any sign of motion. A quiet, nervous growl rose unbidden in her throat and she started at the sound of it. It was several registers deeper than her usual voice, far richer and full of a foreign menace. She cut it off abruptly, confused by this voice that was not hers. She coughed experimentally a few times to perhaps dislodge something that had stuck in her throat as she slept and tried again. The same deep stranger’s voice rose between her now clenched teeth.

Now thoroughly perturbed, she climbed cautiously to her feet and found herself looking out into the clearing at an odd angle. It was as if, somehow, she stood several inches taller than she had the previous day. The strange heaviness she had first felt in her head pervaded her entire body. Moving it was not difficult, but felt strange nonetheless. It was as though she was wearing a body several sizes too large. She glanced down at herself and nearly gasped aloud. Her coat was the same snow-white, but her paws! They were enormous, at least twice that of her own dainty feet. The forelegs, too, were larger, and wrapped in a thick layer of muscle. In the back of her mind she had the thought that the legs would be better suited to a large male wolf…

Beneath the fur of her face she blanched, and quickly swung her head down to look at her own underside. Impossible, yet there it was, so unmistakably male. She swayed slightly on her feet as the world around her spun. She could not make sense of what had happened. The coat was her beautiful snowy white, but the build, the musculature, and…that. That was definitely not hers. Was this some latent effect of the magic-suffused water? Was this the river’s real gift? Maybe it was meant as a replacement for the feathers she had for some reason immediately lost.

Or maybe she was still asleep. Yes, she decided, this must be some strange, perverse dream brought on by stress and her pervasive fear of the mate she had left behind. She endeavored to turn and climb the small rise behind her so that she might catch a glimpse of her reflection in the river’s water, but found it to be an awkward exercise. This body was bigger than her own and moved differently. She found that the hips would not sway in her customary sultry gait; when she tried her bulkier frame and longer step worked together to bring her staggering gracelessly to one side. She had to content herself with walking rigidly, with painstaking care, to avoid crashing to the snowy ground.

She could, however, appreciate the strength contained in this body. Once she got it moving, it moved quickly over the frozen earth. She was able to climb the small rise in the land more easily than she would have thought, the newfound muscles in her newfound hindquarters propelling her upward with surprisingly little effort. She reached the banks of the river in comparatively few strides, almost entirely unhindered by the snow. Perhaps, she thought as she approached a small pool where the water swirled calmly outside the main current, this would not be such a bad gift after all. She had though her feathers quite beautiful, but there was no denying the power in this larger body. Doubtless she would be able to defend herself while sheathed in all this muscle. Maybe she could even find a use for that , though her nose wrinkled in distaste at the though. Approaching the water’s edge, she began faintly to hope that this wasn’t a dream after all. She closed her eyes and drew a shuddering breath before leaning over the water’s still, reflective surface.

And then she screamed, for the eyes staring back at her were not her own soft amber orbs. They were red, crimson red. The eyes of a monster.

| . | . | Khett | . | . |