Spritely Fellow Ch. 04

"Where is the Feral? I'm not very comfortable with a giant, insane wolf hunting me." I turned from her to check the surrounding woods with a cautious eye. I changed my stance to make as little noise as possible as I started to move away. Just like hunting foxes. Cassandra floated silently beside me, slowly fading to her ethereal form as she returned to the soultree.

Normally hunting a large predator unarmed was unwise, but normal didn't really apply to me. I channeled more energy into my extrasight to scan the area. Off in the distance, near the ravine was the soul of the feral. It had changed significantly since I last saw. It remained the same as a lycan soul, only the color had turned to sheer white and the wolf and human parts had merged and were both completely solid at the same time. The change seemed negligible, so I crept silently towards it.

As I came closer to the ravine edge, the trees began to thin out. I could finally see directly to where the feral was, but the its soul was blocking my sight. I turned off my extrasight and saw the feral's human form for the first time. At least a part of it anyway. It seemed stuck in mid transformation as it sat awkwardly on the edge. Its left arm was still full lycan and its ears were still completely wolf-like, but the rest was human. It looked to be around my age with smooth, unnaturally white skin to match its new silver hair.

I was so intrigued by the changes she had gone through I almost came out of hiding to see the feral from up close. I even took a step towards it before I remembered my track record with lycans. First one tried to maul me, the next five tried to systematically kill me, and the next group jumped me on a mountain cliff. With a new appreciation for stealth and caution, I returned to my hidden position. I still wanted to get a closer look though.

I snuck to a bush on the cliff edge off to the feral's side to get a better look and noticed something. Something that I had not noticed before, but was incredibly apparent now that I could see its front. The revelation was so sudden that I couldn't help but blurt it out.

"You're a girl!" She was startled by the sudden noise breaking the silence I had painstakingly maintained. Given my experience with lycans so far, I was expecting her to spin around and prepare to maul me. The response I got made me tense up even more. She quickly turned her head and relaxed when she saw me. A warm smile spread across her face as she recognized my face.

"You must be Mykris Hale, right? Fenrir told me you would be coming. He said you saved me from my pack while I was transforming." She got up from the edge, careful to not lose her balance with her lycan limbs, and slowly walked in front of me to sit. It was impossible for her to cross her feet because one of her legs was a bulky wolf leg, so she set her human leg straight and bent her other one beneath it. There was something disarming about the way that she came over. A comfortable sort of clumsiness that felt like something close friends would show to each other. That subtle feeling gave my curiosity an edge over my caution, allowing me to come out from the bushes and into the clearing where she sat. I thought over what she had said for a few seconds before responding.

"Wait, who is Fenrir? And how does he know me?" Just once I want to meet a supernatural person and not have the first words out of my mouth be a question, but they never seemed to present the opportunity. She tilted her head at my question and looked quizzically at me. Her eyes had changed from the yellow she had as a feral to the pale blue you see in arctic wolves. Now that I was this close and actually looking her over my curiosity disappeared and embarrassment rushed in to take its place. She was completely naked in front of me and the positioning of her legs let me see her most private parts. She opened her mouth to answer me before I cut her off.

"You know what?" I said as I spun around and turned beet red, "You find some clothes and we can figure this out later. Sound good? Yes it does. I think it sounds great don't you?" the words came flying out of my mouth as I completely stiffened up. I wish I had kept talking because the silence that followed seemed to last forever.

After what seemed like forever she finally made a noise. It was muffled so I couldn't quite make out what she was doing. Then she inhaled loudly and started laughing. She laughed and giggled until she didn't have any breath to keep it up anymore. I could hear her breathing heavily after that as there was a rustling sound behind me of her sitting upright again. She cleared her throat and spoke with mirth still evident in her voice.

"I don't have any clothes. Lycans usually stay close to home because we have to come back nude. We don't have a problem with it."

"I do. So where do you live so we can get you dressed?" the silence that followed wasn't very comforting. "You do live around here don't you?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You said lycans don't change away from home so they can get clothes so you live nearby, right?"

"That doesn't apply for ferals. I don't remember half of what I did and that means I don't know where I went. I'm sorry that this doesn't help." She sounded genuinely disappointed that she couldn't help me. That put some ice on the heat coming into my voice.

"Ok, I guess that makes sense. Um...oh I know what we can do!" I took of my shirt and threw it behind me. "Put that on. You look a little shorter than me so it should work to cover everything. My parents just left like a week ago, so we can head to my house and find you some clothes. Maybe Aur-" I froze as I remembered that I was supposed to meet Aurora at my place. She was going to kick my ass for this, but I didn't have any other options. I sighed and slumped my shoulders as I turned around to check on her. The shirt went to about the middle of her thigh. IT might have looked indecent, but the shredded arms took attention away from the lack of pants. Or at least I hoped it would.

"Okay you need to change to full human form before we can go."

"I can't."

"What?" I looked her dead in the eyes.

"I've been trying but I can't get the fur to go away. I could usually just dig inside for my human form, but I feel all jumbled right now." She scrunched up her eyes and tried again to no avail. She let out a small sigh before looking at the ground dejected. "I'm sorry master..."

I decided to throw the "master" remark onto the ever growing pile of questions. We needed to get this fixed and soon. It was going to be night again soon. Knowing Aurora, theres an ambush waiting at my house. I was supposed to meet her for our weekly video game contest and I was a day late. I started sweating when I imagined what cruel and heinous tortures she would put me through.

"Sorry to interrupt, but it is getting really cold out here." The feral was hugging herself to stop from shivering. I felt the cold, but it didn't bite deep at all. It was actually refreshing to feel on my bare upper body. Resigning myself to my fate, I started leading the way to my home. As we trudged through the woods to the main road, I asked her one last question.

"What is your name? I can't keep calling you 'the feral' forever."

"My name is Valeria Lowell, master."

"Hmm, Valeria...It's a cool name. Oh and drop the master bit please."

"Yes, sir."

"That is even worse."

"Master it is then."

The woods echoed the noises of my frustrated yells and Valeria's barely contained giggles. When we made it to the road it was completely dark out, which really helped to calm me down. I was worried that someone might see me walking with her and tell Aurora. She would bring another level of ass whooping if she found out I ditched her for a girl. There I was, walking with a half transformed lycan down a suburban street and I was worried about my friend getting pissed at me for not playing games with her. Twelve year old priorities are truly top notch.

When we got to my house I kicked on my extrasight to scan the house. I could see Aurora's sky blue soul in my room in the closet waiting. She had the patience of a sniper. I pushed my senses into a tree inmy front yard to look in my window and saw what could have been confused for a real life mousetrap game board. She even built a makeshift cage for me to fall into at the end. It scares me how much time she put into this. I turned the trees eyes towards me to see how we looked. My soul looked just as imposing as it was in the woods so that seemed permanent.

Valeria's soul had changed however. While lycans had the mist surrounding their soul, Valeria's soul was crisp and solid. I realized that there wasn't two separate souls in the mists, but rather a single entity that would have parts of itself change into either a wolf or human variant. Her soul had become similar to my new one in that it was now shaped like a human with clearly defined limbs and head. Where her body was still transformed, the soul was shaped like a lycan and everywhere else was human and...womanly. Her soul looked like a twenty-something year old lady. There were no defining features as her soul was smooth, but the size and curves were readily apparent. I realized I was looking at what shape she would take in her prime.

An idea popped into my head to fix her transformation problems. If her soul was anything like mine, maybe she could control it the same way. I motioned for us to go through the side into the backyard. IT was further away from my room and had ample room to test this out.

"Valeria, we need to get you to be fully human before we go in. My friend Aurora is waiting inside and doesn't know anything about people like us yet. My dad said we shouldn't let other people know about our abilities. We need to look normal." I summed up the situation as best I could so that she would understand. She had sit down on her knees and her wolf ears were perked up attentively. The moon light seemed to accentuate everything about her, especially her silver hair and pale wolf eyes. It gave her snow white skin a glow. I needed to focus. I turned around and began to pace as I described my experiments with my own soul. When it got to my first time meditating, I skipped over the emotional details.

"Basically, you have to imagine your soul looking like a wolf in all the transformed parts. It helps if you look at your soul and pull your human soul over the wolf part." She looked realy confused at that. She looked down at her wolf arm and back at me. "What is it?"

"Master you said to look at my soul. I can't do that."

"What do you mean you can't?" Déjà vu.

"Only Watchers can see a soul without any tools and those tools are only handled by the governments and higher ups."

"But that can't be true. I can see your soul just fine." I activated my extrasight to demonstrate my point. I could see the light from my eyes reflecting off of her hair. Her eyes widened in shock and she resisted a gasp.

"You are a Watcher? I saw you manipulate the wood to your will! How can you be a Watcher and a Treant?" So apparently I had the traits of a Treant and a Watcher. I knew Treants were people who could manipulate and pull nature into themselves. I thought that Cassandra had made me one when we merged together.

"Hold on I need to ask Cassandra about this."

"Cassandra?" I had already looked away to try and contact her as I responded.

"Yeah she is a...never mind." I needed to figure this out now before I could do anything. 'Cass do you know what a watcher is?' I had learned a while ago that the best way to get answers was to ask the questions one at a time.

'I remember a Watcher roaming into the woods near London a few years ago. He was able to see me when he focused, but it took a great deal of his energy away from him. The knights he traveled with were attempting to hunt the sprite of those woods after she had slain a small group of loggers.' Knights? I feel 'a few years ago' was an understatement. 'He is the only one to ever enter the woods and he seemed human beyond that. Even when the sprite retaliated against them, he never showed any other power. I would assume that Watchers cannot do anything else.'

'Couldn't he have been hiding it as a trump card?'

'The knights formation focused on keeping him alive, and even as he died he did nothing extraordinary.'

'Alright, what about Treants?'

'You aren't a Treant.' Normally I would be upset with a short answer, but Valeria was getting cold. I needed a solution for my current problem, not my identity crisis.

'Do you know how she can change back? I'm out of ideas.'

'I will not intervene with, nor change your life.' If I had a nickel for every time she said that, I could afford locks for the windows that Aurora kept slipping in through. I needed to figure this out by myself and soon. I scanned my backyard to find a good place for us to sit down and work on this.

My backyard had a small swimming pool in the center with lawn all around. On the far wall was a cluster of trees with a bench in the middle. I used it as a place to talk with Cassandra and meditate. The fence was lined with vines and rose bushes that my mom kept meticulously cared for. I figured the trees would be a good place to rest and get Valeria off of the grass. I walked over there and sat down. Valeria sat where she was until I patted the seat next to me. She dutifully got up and sat next to me.

"How do you usually change?" I figured I could use what I see as a starting point to figure out what she needed to change to transform. Valeria was silent for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. When she began speaking, her eyes were focused on her transformed claws.

"We have a tightness inside of us when we are in human form that we just sort of...release. To change back we just imagine packing ourselves up tight. It's hard to explain." She looked like she was searching for the right words before she gave up and looked at the floor.

"Hey it's okay. I'm just as lost as you are, but I think we can figure this out together." She seriously did not like letting me down. Why? Add one to the pile o' questions. "Do you feel the tightness now?"

"No but I feel like I have springs in my muscles. It's like how I feel as a wolf, but now it is there all the time. I also am more in control of my wolf bits." To demonstrate she swung her relatively massive limb in front of me and wiggled her fingers. I noticed that her human upper arm was able to support the heavy claw and forearm. So she is stronger than any human and in more control than any lycan.

"It sounds and looks like the two forms have merged into a single form that has the best of both worlds." I looked at her again and noticed something else. She was only like a wolf at her extremities and ears. Just like when I had accidently turned my arm to wood. I snapped my fingers when the realization hit me. "Your energy is pooled! You just have to pull it back into yourself, hopefully." As in 'hopefully wolf energy is less stubborn than wood.'

"How do I do that?" I was silent as I tried to figure out how to describe it.

"Imagine that your fur is water or light or something. You have to suck it back into your core through your arm. Not your torso, but the core. The same place that tightness was, I guess." Fucking top notch explanation skills right there. She thought over what I said before looking at her arm and trying to stare it down. She was too tense. "Try closing your eyes, it helped me my first time."

She closed her eyes and let a sense of calm wash over her. After a few moments like this, I saw the fur begin to pull back into her body as her limbs shrunk. Her wolf ears dragged down to their normal position and reverted to their normal shape. After about ten seconds, she was back to normal. She opened her eyes and smiled when she looked herself over. She got up and ran in circles. It was nice to see her move without having to throw the weight of her limbs around. I cheered after she stopped and stared at me with pride bright in her eyes.

With the physical problem solved, I now had to worry about the mental part. Valeria continued running around and doing cartwheels as I tried to sort out all the questions in my head. Maybe I could peel a few off the pile if I tried. How do I explain this to Aurora? How do I avoid her wrath? Wait, not getting her mad might be a bad thing. With all my questions, I missed the really important one.

"Valeria, when will you be able to head home?"

"My home is with you, master."

"WHAT! WHAT THE HEL-", I clapped my hand over my mouth and looked at the house to see if Aurora had heard. No lights had turned on and no footsteps stomping downstairs so I was still good. Valeria was cowering in front of me with her eyes wide. If she still had wolf ears, they would be flat against her head. I clamped my mouth shut as I pushed emotions down a notch. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before I opened them and looked directly into her eyes.

"What do you mean that your home is with me?", I spoke in a controlled whisper. Valeria had fallen backwards and was inching away from me with one hand in between me and her defensively. She was still scared from me yelling. This girl who could transform into a massive killing machine was absolutely terrified of me. She managed to gather enough courage to actually say something, even if it was in a shaky whisper.

"Fenrir told me that if I was saved from my pack during the transcendence, I had to be loyal and subservient to that person until I could rise to my destined role. This person would watch over me and help me grow in power until I was capable to take my position." She saw the question in my face and spoke quickly to avoid anymore yelling. "Fenrir is the god of the hunt and the primary deity of the Lycans. You spoke to him when you entered his realm." When she finished talking, the silence made her start fidgeting in place. I was not comfortable with this fear she had of me.

"You don't need to be scared of me. I'm not going to hurt you. Besides you can turn into a giant lycan and smack me across my yard, so why are you afraid?" I slowly reached for her hand to help her up. She looked up at me and searched my eyes. I smiled until she finally relaxed and gave me a small smile back. "I remember a frozen mountain and fighting some lycans there, but I don't think I saw you or this Fenrir there."

"He was the one who led the pack against you. I was instructed to watch from the ridge above to witness your power."

"You were watching? Why didn't you help me?", I said with my hands on my hips. I could see her beginning to look back at the ground again. "Don't get all mopey on me. I told you I wasn't going to hit you or anything. You are a lycan so be more...strong or something. You even got the attention of your god which I'm pretty sure doesn't happen often, right?" She thought about that for a moment before she nodded to herself held her chin up and looked me directly in the eyes. She even puffed out her chest to try and look bigger. That's more like it.

"Fenrir was testing you to be my master. If you failed you would have died, but you managed to impress him and so I became your omega. I could not intervene under his orders. You did not seem like you needed it either."

"Isn't an omega the shunned member of the pack? Why would he put you there?"

"It is only that way for wolves, master. Lycans put their youngest or pack members in training in that position." I was quiet as I mulled that over. This silence felt more comfortable than the last and served to calm us both down. I figured could use this to get on more level terms with her.

"I did need your help, by the way. I nearly died in that fight."