He had heard tales of the strange creatures from the far-off desert of Hira-Suu. The possessed four ears, a thick tail, and a mixture of dusty fur and tough scales. For the males, they had a long mane running down their neck while the females held even stranger anatomy.

Of course, he had shunned such talk. "Creatures like that could not possibly exist and if they did, they are probably worse than humans are!" he had remarked with boastful pride, sure of his own human supremacy.

There really was no certainty as to what caused his changes. Perhaps his words had caught the ire of the very desert that the Hirith worshipped or maybe a trace of their ancestral spirits had chosen to make an example out of the young man. Whatever the case was, as soon as those words left his mouth he could feel a wriggling in his pants.

It was a tightness that he was not used to. The feeling of his trousers growing tight though he had not recently eaten a big meal. Stranger still, however, was that he could see his nose.

Instead of the pink mound that he had grown familiar with, it stretched out before him as a blue-tinged lump. A rough sniffer capping the end of a trail of brownish scales.

He cried out, his voice echoing strangely in his longer mouth as he brought up his hands to verify what he could not possibly be seeing. However, instead of his normal five-fingered human hands, what was presented before him were four-fingered claws. Fit more for a monster than a human being, he could only watch as dusty blue fur covered his exotic paws, the color changing into a tan as it crept up his arm.

Everything about him was changing. Faster than the confused man could keep up with. He could feel a mane of fur racing down his neck as his shoes split to reveal clawed paws not too dissimilar to his transformed hands. Beneath his shirt he could feel a hardness take his chest and belly, a quick peek of which showed that tough brown scutes had taken over his tender skin.

However, this investigation was cut short as his entire world seemed to change. While not physically changing, its sounds were coming through to him in a strange way. As if he were hearing it in several different ways and was merely splicing the sound together. Trembling, he held a paw up to his ear and found two flicking at his touch. Pointed and covered in a thin fur, his four ears swiveled upon his head, catching every noise without his input. Before he even had time to process his change in hearing, his four ears cupped downwards at the sound of ripping cloth.

Yelping out in pain and surprise, he stared back as the cause of his tight pants revealed itself. Tearing through the flimsy material of his trousers, was his TAIL. Thick and covered in a mixture of dense fur and underlying scales, it whipped back and forth as if to free itself of the scraps of cloth still hanging onto it.

As the changes slowed, the young man, now Hirith, could only whimper at his fate. Crouched upon his knees, his pants ruined and his body strange to his senses, he wondered who or what he could turn to. What explanation could tell him why he had lost his humanity?

Nothing but silence answered back.

---

Male Hiriths can come in a large variety of colors though this can be both beneficial and harmful depending on the situation. While partners can always appreciate having a handsome male decorated in exhilarating blues, silvers, and red, for example, it does make it harder to successfully hide their presence within the desert landscape of their home. Too often has pride been the fall of flashy-looking Hirith males, their sense of self-confidence leading them to want to show off their natural looks as opposed to staying hidden. Unfortunately, the predators and enemies of Hira-Suu rarely care about how pretty you look.

A wonderful Hirith transformation made for me by  KaitoFletcher as part of a Christmas Special they held a long time ago. At some point, I'll have to get more Hirith transformations while allowing artists to make their own combinations of fur colors and scales as noted in the lore. I think that would be a lot of fun.

Art by  KaitoFletcher

Hirith belong to  Rygone