Chương 74: Chapter 72: Sootpaw Zoomies

The change was never actually easy, but of the changes I'd gone through? This one was by far the easiest. In the inn's darkened main room, in the shadows and around the corner, my collar hummed a moment and I was suddenly free of my dress. From there, as heat blossomed through me like the worst blush I could imagine, as my muscles tightened painfully, they didn't actually cramp, and... things took a different pace.

Not slower, for that would have been worse, but there was more control, more of an agreeable progression to it that I'd never felt before. Wolf and I succumbed to it together, shared consciously in it, and we grew to sense each other's bodies at the same time as I swelled from inside and changed shape. All the while, my breathing came steady and my heart pounded, but... I still didn't cramp up.

Bones shifted, and they were painful as tendons stretched and joints popped quietly, but it wasn't as intense as it had been before. The Wolf wasn't trying to force its way out of me, and I wasn't trying to stop it manifesting itself into my human form, we were... In this together, wallowing in the abject misery of the change while it lasted... together. She was hurting just as much as I was as we both tried - and succeeded - in occupying the same space at the same time.

I kept my senses, and could sense the Burgermeister moving away from the hallway as he heard my labored breathing change notes, Gelidia and Roxala totally failing to react, and Fel and Torch, holding each other, ignoring what was happening completely. My friends knew what was going on, and that I'd be fine, and this time? That was more true than ever before, it felt like. What changed? We didn't rank up or anything after all. Wolf didn't know.

She didn't have the mental gumption to bring her impressions into words in the moment, to forge ideas and images and emotions into words. But she didn't know, and was amazed I could still speak at all! Once we were cooling on the wooden floor, puffing huge breaths and letting ourselves recover, she finally spoke up. WE ARE CLOSER NOW she said WE KNOW EACH OTHER BETTER We know where you came from.

YES she said You are my moonlight YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE My only sunshine~ you make me happy~ when skies are gray~ I sang into my head, and the wolf tilted her head at me, big golden eyes blinking. Mom used to sing it to me. I kissed Wolf's forehead in the mindscape, and her tail waggled! WE SHOULD SING You want to? I LIKE TO SING. YOU LIKE TO SING. WHY DONT WE EVER SING? Can we sing like this? And so we tried. Words were a lost cause - that we knew already.

As we pushed to our feet to walk out the tinglies, we began instead to hum. In this form, my voice was deeper. Still feminine, I could still hear myself in it, but it was a register or two deeper, and the old lullabye from my world filled the air around me as I walked the change off. In the other room, the others were noticing it, too, as I carried the tune as best I could and found... that I could indeed still hold a tune in both hands, er, paws if I tried. I hadn't sung a bar since the War. Not one.

It felt like... finding something precious that I'd lost long ago. Wolf was delighted in my heart, her tail wagging as she managed to join in, and I could feel her, our heart singing in the strange little moment of duality. Why shouldn't wolf be able to sing? She was... supposedly me, right? It only made sense. I didn't notice Gelidia's approach until she hugged me gently from behind, embracing my massive form around the chest.

Carefully, I turned to look into her eyes, and smiled at her, tail bludgeoning the woman I loved a little, as a treat.

"You are alright? That sounded like such a sad song." she said, and I found I could speak. Her magic was like spearmint on my tongue and throat, and I smiled at the gift of her spell. It was just too cool! I wished keenly that I could do it too.

"I haven't sung in years" I replied. She looked at me in wonder, and smiled at me, blinking in delight!

"Did not know you could, to be honest!" she kissed my snout on the side, and pet down my ear and over my chin, totally unafraid of me. I loved how comfortable she was with me like this, even as big as I was. She'd seen me do frightening things - attack people, rip down doors, bite a monster literally in half, and she didn't care a wit - she played with my ears and knew just where to scratch me to get my leg to wiggle helplessly!

"That is delightful - I can sing a little, and play a couple instruments as well. Do you know any?" she asked, and I smiled.

"I played the piano a little and - oh, you know that one? - and I could play a little guitar." I said. She nodded, delighted"I play the piano also, though I lost the Skill I had for doing so when I subsumed my Noble core. But... what is a Guitar?" she asked. It seemed such a strange conversation to be having as I sat there, in hybrid form, and held her in one massive hand against me while she pet my ears and stared into my eyes, as tiny and fragile as a precious porcelain doll.

"It's like an Oud, but-" I saw her blinking at me and aborted the explanation"A guitar is an instrument that makes noise with a resonance chamber under where you pluck the strings, and you change the tone by pressing them down on the neck of the thing at certain spots. Really it's very similar to the Piano, but instead of lots of strings, one for each note, you have six that can be made to fit any note." I explained.

She looked flabbergasted at me, not that she didnt understand, I didn't think, but that I'd come out with all that. Her mouth shut with a clop and she blinked a couple more times before giving me the biggest, happiest smile I'd ever seen on her face!

"It sounds a lot like a Lyre or a harp" she said and I nodded"But smaller, made of wood usually, and you hold it in your lap with your arm over it like this" I said, and mimed the motion of holding a guitar in my giant hands. She chuckled and slipped her fingers into mine on my extended hand, and shifted my grip.

"Like you are holding a dance partner~" She said, and I licked her throat, breathing in her strange, feminine, cool scent, tasting her with a soft pleased rumble. Wolf knew all about dances, but wanted none of that ballroom stuff. She wanted a Bedroom dance with our pretty lady! She flapped her hand at me like I was a duck and said"Nono, maybe later - we have guests and you need to take our daughter hunting tonight." She said, but...

captured my face in her hands and pulled me into a kiss just the same that lit up my world. Her tongue danced with mine, her lips so small and sweet against my own, and I couldn't help but make a noise very, very like a purr in her hands. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. She was right though. By now, Sooty would have changed! I licked my chops, enjoying the taste of my Duchess on my lips and in my mouth, and she gave me one final, very suggestive, look up and down.

"Off with you. Have fun, alright?" she said, and I nodded as her gift of speech vanished from me. It'd gone with her kiss, I realized. I didn't need to speak for what came next. At least, not like how I spoke when I was human-shaped! Turning, I made my way to the stairs as she made her way back into the room. As the stairs creaked and my claws clicked on them, I saw through my gifted senses as she made her way to Sooty's portion of the meal.

She asked Alfredo if he'd heat it up a little for her baby, and the man obliged, rising. I could tell something wasn't quite right when I reached the top of the stairs and found the door to Sooty's room... hanging open, moonlight spilling out. All at once my senses clamped down on high alert, pulled away from the scene unfolding below as my breathing hitched! A whine I couldn't control escaped me and I surged forward on all fours, expecting to see something dreadful!

I wasn't thinking clearly - if I had, I'd have turned my Wolf-Ren in that direction instead of just relying on my eyes like a dingdong but I was thinking in primary colors in that moment as I rounded the corner! The window had been clawed open - I could see how it'd been scored - and my wolf-Ren at last pressed out, feeling the cuts on the door near the handle as well.

My little girl was fully transformed, laying steaming on the bed as she panted desperately, every line of her tight and hard with cramp as she whined and whimpered helplessly, but... the change was over. I moved to her side, and she looked to me at last, eyes wild a moment before she calmed down enough to recognize me. MOTHER IT HURTS she said, and I set my great head on the bed, nose nearly touching hers. I KNOW IT DOES MY CHILD I replied, not daring to touch her for fear of hurting her in this moment.

She made no effort to reach out to me either, just... writhed like a half-squished little bug. RISE TO YOUR FEET AND WALK AROUND A LITTLE I suggested. IT WILL HELP YOU. She whiiiiined, but she was a brave little girl and my Sooty did just that. Even changed into her hybrid shape, she was still an itty bitty thing.

Her fur was almost all black and brown, almost all over, and it was sleek to her fuzzy little form, reminding me of a malinois, but now that I was close to her, and she was fully clean, I could see that there were little areas of dark, dark red that were almost like tiger stripes where they were visible on her face and body, broken up by cracked, splotchy coils of white downy fuzz where once her fur had been burned away to reveal the skin beneath, where magic, my instinct told me, had once bound her Wolf.

Why did I know that? The visual was so persuasive - and the white looked so strange in her coat of midnight and deep crimson. Her eyes were Sooty's though, and even if she looked a little better than she had when I'd first seen this form, she still looked way, way too thin. I could count every rib if I looked carefully. In the moonlight, she looked so gawky, her paws and ears almost too big for her. A puppy's proportions, I figured, with big eyes and little grunty noises as she struggled to master her balance.

A few steps along though, lifting her paws from the floor to curl and uncurl them, and she very obviously felt better. She looked to me, and her tail waggled a little. Mine responded in kind, and I scooped up my Sooty so I could hug her and lick her delicate little snout and bite her, just a little. Because I loved her. Some parents express affection with words. Some with gifts. I fed my Sooty, and tried to fit her head into my mouth. Hom!

She grunted like a puppy and squirmed out of my grip, her tail wagging a little more, and I motioned with my head for her to follow as I made my way to the door. I MADE YOU SOME DINNER I said in the lupine language we shared, and she actually yipped as she bounded to follow me! YAY! DINNER! I AM SO HUNGRY! Sooty walked paw in paw with me down the stairs and hesitated at the doorway to the kitchen.

Seeing me had been a shock for her, I knew, she'd just had one of our transformations - never a nurturing experience - and now... freshly stabilized, she was having to deal with people for the first time in hybrid shape. She whiiiiiined softly, eager to eat and move inside, but... reluctant to let people see her like this. She hunched down, pawing at the ground and making biscuits with them in agitation as she hesitated.

I hunched down with her, eye to eye with her, and rubbed my snoot into her ruff, and licked her awkward little form affectionately. My pup. I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU ARE NERVOUS I said BUT THEY WILL NOT HURT YOU. She whined again WHAT IF I HURT THEM? I smiled, and nuzzled her cheek, petting down her thin back a little. YOU'RE IN CONTROL. YOU ARE YOU. I rumbled softly, and chuffed. YOUR OTHER MOTHER IS IN THERE TOO.

THE ONLY PERSON YOU DONT KNOW IN THERE IS THE BURGERMEISTER, AND HE IS A MEEK LITTLE BUNNY RABBIT OF A MAN. Sooty chuffed at that and blinked at me, tilting her head at a 45 degree angle, one ear flopping adorably as she did so! My heart fluttered with amusement and joy and I upnodded her, booping our noses together a moment in a simple GO SEE My little girl rose, the size of an adult man in this shape, and...

pushed the cloth we were using as a door (I'd knocked Torch through the original wooden one just after we first met) aside, spilling golden light into the hall behind us. The conversation stopped, and Sooty's ears twitched a little. They stared at her. She stared at them.

"Aaaaaawraarrwraaa" my little girl proclaimed, and reached up to touch her snout!

"Haaa~ Rrrrrrawraarr weh!" She tried again, frustrated, and I poked my head into the room between her ears.

"Reeeeh" I added insightfully, and of all the gathered people, only James looked the least bit uncomfortable! Alfredo walked right up to Sooty, and offered her his hand, which she sniffed on instinct before straightening up. Recognition dawned in her eyes and she grunted up at the innkeeper.

"Hallo miss" he said with exaggerated warmth, and beckoned her inside"I'm just heating up your dinner a bit" As if nothing was off about this interaction at all! The young wolf didn't really know what to do with this situation, but food? She knew just what to do with that! Her tummy gave a growl that needed no special magic to translate into speech at all, and she followed him into the room easily. Unlike me, she was big enough to sit at the bench, and got a spot to herself.

Our paws weren't the best to hold utensils and a snout isn't good for spoons, but fortunately our tongues made for perfectly good scoopy bits and our lips remained clever, so as she lapped up her meal and monched the crunchy bread, she did so with all the gusto she'd shown when she'd eaten with fully functional fingers and all the limited help her spoon could provide when she had to grip it in a fist to hold it properly. She seemed to LOVE the bread especially!

That first nibble had her making a happy whiiiiiine that tugged at my heart strings and she began to use that to spoon it up instead, taking bites as she ate! Alfredo, World Bless, actually gave her another portion, and a couple more slices of bread to go with it before she actually ran out of the first bowl, and a cup of tea. The others just talked quietly while my pup ate, glancing fondly at the little girl enjoying her meal at each little cute doglike noise she made.

By the time she stopped eating, her tummy bulged a little! I licked her face clean as she whined softly, but she didn't protest, either. Without thinking, she lifted her face to Alfredo and made a sound like"Wra wraaaa" and I understood enough. So did he, because he smiled brilliantly and said"You're welcome, young lady" and gave her a nod.

"I'm told you two will go hunting tonight?" he said, and at the little werewolf's nod and mine, he gave a firm nod.

"If you could bring home a couple kills tonight, that would be grand. Lambstock has some stockpiles of preserved food, but I'm afraid it dates back to the old kingdom and most of it is not edible." he said, and I felt my tail wagging a little, mirrored in Sooty's response as well! I nodded to him, and Sooty, glancing at me, yipped once before bounding excitedly towards the door herself! I rose to a semi-bipedal gait, and made after my excitable daughter.

She clearly felt good after her meal and now that her body was accustomed to this shape, I could tell she was developing an acute case of the zoomies! I was an expert on these matters of course, having gotten my degree in walf-nyooms on my first night changed! The way she play bowed to me and darted out the door was a definite hint. Yeppo. W alf zoomie s. A bad case.

I bounded out after her, my golden furred form barreling at her, tail flagging merrily behind me and mid play bow she yipped and leapt into the air, all four limbs scrambling at nothing for purchase before she connected with the ground again and bounded out the door! I had to slow down a moment and shoulder my way sideways out the door or else I'd annihilate it, but then we were out in the moonlight, racing towards the woods. Two of the gate guards were on duty.

When Sooty blitzed past, panting, her claws and paws making clickytaps in a dopplaring blur, they seemed to jerk back to attention!

"W-what was-" And then buddapumclick, buddapumclick! I barreled past them as well, and we both plunged into the forest. The two skeletal guardsmen exchanged a wild surmise, then as one man, said"Musta been the wind." and resumed their vigil. It was going to be a great night!