Prologue: Project Galdra (Corviknight TF)

Project Galdra

Prologue.

"Ravnens natt" ("The Night of the Raven")

The tranquility of the night was interrupted by shattering glass, followed shortly after by the familiar sound of screams.

In a nearby alley, a man seemed to have collided with several trash bins, causing used alcohol bottles to be thrown out upon impact and shattering into thousands of sharp shards upon hitting the ground.

That explains the sound of the broken glass, but what about the screams?

They came from the person who, by now, had gotten up and left behind the objects he had collided with. However, if anyone had been in the area at such late hours of the night, they could have undoubtedly said that the sounds didn't seem like something a human would make normally.

However, there was no one else in the dark alley who could help him.

He was familiar with the place since he spent his nights there, but under these circumstances, he felt nervous, which caused him to stumble into the trash bins earlier.

His breathing was rapid, and he leaned his back against one of the neglected brick walls in that part of the city as his body gradually sank until he sat on the cold pavement, trying to relax a bit.

But he couldn't.

"This... this isn't real," he thought as he tried to calm his mind.

The vagabond closed his eyes as tightly as he could, not wanting to see what was happening, although it didn't prevent him from feeling it.

From deep within his body, he felt it begin to move in an unusual way.

At first, he thought it was the result of some of the drinks he had consumed hours ago, but this internal movement was not caused by such substances.

He began to feel pain, one that was burrowing its way out of his body.

He quickly noticed that something strange was happening to his feet. They seemed to be made of red-hot needles as he felt thousands of pricks in them, as well as in all the tissue in that area.

He heard crackling sounds and felt his feet, strangely, extend beyond what they should have been, leaving his already broken shoes several centimeters behind.

He opened his eyes, uncertain about what he had felt, and observed how his feet had been replaced by two enormous legs, each with four digits and ending in huge claws.

He was able to move his front digits and noticed how the three appendages in front of his eyes moved, while he felt his fourth digit, where his heel used to be, also move.

He quickly kicked to somehow try to return his lower limbs to their original form, but only made it worse as the skin in that area began to be covered with a layer of black.

Upon seeing that, his heart raced, causing it to climb up his body even faster.

He screamed.

He screamed as much as he could, calling for help, but only the same sounds he had made before were heard.

His heart raced even faster as he watched that strange black tissue quickly spread up to his waist, and it only accelerated its progress.

Trying to somehow control what was happening to him, he removed his clothes. It wasn't difficult since they were corroded by time and the harsh conditions a homeless person must endure.

Once done, he touched what was growing on his body with his hand.

He felt how smooth it was, but it didn't calm him at all.

A few moments later, the finger he had touched was being invaded by the same darkness, and it began to change in the same way.

It extended, causing discomfort and pain in the now less human body. The same black tissue grew on his hand, and from it emerged what appeared to be dark feathers.

The man stared at them, equal parts amazed and worried.

He looked at them for so long that he didn't realize his whole body had already been covered by the black tissue, and feathers began to emerge from it.

They were enormous, larger than any bird the vagabond had seen in his long life. As he touched them with his other hand, he observed that the same identical process had repeated on his other limb.

With pain, he noticed his jaw pushing outward, and he saw the few remaining teeth fall, making small noises as they hit the ground.

The bone extended, forming something resembling a large beak, which was covered in black.

His eyes widened as he realized he couldn't breathe, but it didn't last long as he felt something growing inside his chest, allowing him to breathe again.

More feathers grew on his head and chest, and finally, his skull enlarged, and his eyes grew within their sockets to occupy the new space provided by this strange occurrence.

Their color changed from a cloudy light blue to the reddish eyes of a hunter.

Once the changes ceased, the now strange being collapsed to the ground, unable to bear the exhaustion caused by such an unexpected transformation.

The impact was cushioned by the resilient new feathers of the bird, which let out a sigh of weariness and looked up at the night sky from the alley floor.

"I'll wake up any moment... This has been the strangest dream I've ever had. I must have had alcohol poisoning and now I'm dreaming weird things," he recalled the pain he had felt moments before, now replaced by a strange calmness as he no longer felt it. "Although it's the most realistic dream I've had..." he thought, looking at his new wings.

He observed the few stars that could be seen through the light pollution caused by the city lights, and after a few minutes, he stood up on his new legs, examining his new animal body, although it was extremely massive. Unbeknownst to him due to the sudden changes, he now measured over two meters, whereas in his previous human form, he barely reached one meter seventy.

He took his first steps in this form, and surprisingly, it only took him five minutes to learn to fly with his new enormous black wings.

"Well," he smiled, "I guess now I can go wherever I've always wanted to go. I have no obstacles in how to get there."

He heard footsteps approaching where he was.

"Who's there?" he thought, as his body went into alert mode, causing the feathers on his chest to grow and make him appear even larger than he already was.

A man in a uniform approached the alley, as it was his usual job to collect and dispose of the garbage in his truck.

"Great, the vagabond's not here. Better, so I can be at peace without him trying to steal my wallet or throwing something at me," he commented to himself as he approached the bins on the ground. "He must have gotten too drunk and fallen here," he sighed. "Of course, since we clean up after his mess, he just leaves it here."

Those comments bothered the bird greatly, although he knew that the last statement was true. It seemed insulting that he would be accused of attempting to steal the man's wallet when he had never resorted to such practices, even in his dire situation.

So, he jumped out of the shadows of the alley where he had been hiding and began to confront the man about what he had said earlier, extending his wings and covering a large part of the alley with the black color of his feathers.

I've never tried to steal anything from you, you lying dog. I'd like to see you in my situation, living on the streets because life has dealt you a bad hand. So show some respect for what you're implying about me!
The man, upon seeing that strange and enormous bird with red eyes glaring at him menacingly and making that peculiar sound from its beak, ran away without thinking, screaming, as he hadn't understood a single word the former human had said.

"That's right, run, you coward! Maybe that's how you'll treat people like me in better way!" He remembered that he was no longer human. "Ah, I think I may have gone a bit too far," he smiled. "Well, he deserved it." He looked up at the sky again. "I'll go for a walk, or a flight, or whatever birds do."

A strange calmness washed over him, and as he tried to pick up the trash he had scattered, he began to hear strange things happening in his throat. Nervously, he stumbled upon those old trash cans, about twenty minutes or so ago.

He took one of the cans and started to position it properly, collecting the garbage and the broken glass that had shattered because of him, and he did the same with the second one.

Once he finished, he smiled and began to ascend higher and higher, thanks to his large wings.

"I may be a vagabond, but I know how to clean up the things I break," he commented as he took one last look at that alley.

Once he reached an adequate height, he observed his city from the air and started to fly away, enveloped in the darkness of the night.