Pale light shone off of the young man's exposed skin, glittering diamonds of sweat dripping down his face and arms only to fall without notice or grief onto the mossy forest bed below. His body burned with the ache of something that he had never felt before. Or perhaps, that was not true. Was sitting close to a raging bonfire and feeling the heat dancing upon your body each flaming lick threatening to overwhelm it with its simple presence count? He was holding his hand above a candle's flame. No danger present, but feeling singed all the same.

A wisp of fire left from between clenched sharpened teeth and tight bearded lips. The spark drifting upwards to join the stars above in silent dying fury.

What was happening to him?

Claws dug into his clothing as he held himself, the sharpened keratin leaving nicks in the yielding fabrics while deepening grunts echoed from his throat. It was pain. It was pleasure. It was discomfort and relaxation all bundled into one inescapable moment as his muscles tensed and faltered with the waves of energy twisting his body into something else. Something unknown and exciting yet terrifying in all its intricate horror. And all the while the moon watched. His only spectator to an show unlike any other on Earth.

"Ninetails!" he shouted out in frustration as the pressure built within him, his feral voice holding a mere flavor of his former tonal resonance. He was going to explode and nothing was going to catch the pieces that would be all that remained of him. A human being bitten by a small creature on his way towards home.

Fur waved in the chill air as many shapes elated in a writhing dance within his clothing. They wriggled like snakes but felt like thunderclouds captured, each lash of their growing splendor reducing his changing body into greater feats of transformation. His back popping with exertion and his legs stretching up onto inhuman toes that split the seams of his cheap shoes.

Then they were released. A single piercing claw allowing them the freedom they demanded and deserved. Nine tails flowed into the air, testing out their newfound existence with waves and tugs against the creature's spine before rendering themselves into animal mimicries of fire in all its graceful and patient natures.

Slowly the aches died. Each moment of pain left with a certain excitement as the man came to realize that death was not coming. Ears swiveling atop his furred head the former man's nose snuffled as he turned his yellowed muzzle towards the woods before him. He was new yet still himself. A beast in body, yes, but a man in mind.

Elation dipped its fingers into his trembling heart. His body tightening not in pain but in traveling desire as he took his first wobbly step upon unfamiliar paws.

Though he did not know why and, perhaps it didn't matter, what he did know is that he was now something else. Something impossible that was struck awake by the light of the celestial sky.

And it yearned to explore.

---

You ever feel the need to escape the confines of the mundane? To feel the shreds of your humanity falling away to give way to something better? To feel paws upon soft earth and the wind combing through your fur?

To be a werecreature is a cherished secret because it is a personal treasure to the one who bears it. The forbidden made manifest in a transformation of circumstances that is impossible to boil down into simplistic concepts. For to try is to ignore the basis of what transpires, committing blasphemy against the overwhelming and reverent experience itself. It's not just a chance. It's both the birth and death of oneself made real in a manner that only fur and claws and fangs can demonstrate.

Perhaps that is why werecreatures change back. It's not because they are confined to the nature of their initial physical forms, doomed to walk the earth with only the lingering taste of what could be, but because the lust of becoming the beast is a sweet nectar that few can stave off for long.

And to share that... is simple agony.

Art by  FortunataFox

Rygone belongs to  Rygone