The gryphon woke up slowly, his thoughts churning as lazily as the warm muggy breeze against his bare fur. Where was he? How did he get here? The last thing he remembered, he was watching some documentary on frilled lizards when it began speaking to him... telling him he was a frilled lizard, eater of tasty insects... he was a frilled lizard, eater of tasty insects...

Nick rubbed his head, his shoulders stiff and resistant, his fur thick and flaky. He... he knew he didn't eat insects, though they did sound very tasty. And he wasn't a lizard, he was a frilled gryphon... wasn't he?

The wings on his back stretched, pulling free a spine that ran over his shoulders and into his neck. Every part of his skin itched, but it was worst around his neck, where the layers of feathery fur broke free from the skin underneath, casting a few errant hairs aside and down towards the ground.

Nick finally realized that he was high above the ground, perched on a large tree limb. But his heart was barely racing. He felt safe up on this branch. This was exactly where a frilled gryphon should be. High off the ground, away from the predators, and close to the sun beating against his scales...

No... no, a gryphon was supposed to have fur, right? And it wasn't the sun, just a heat lamp. He blinked and shook loose another strand of fur that fell over his eyes. This was a massive terrarium, he could see. The glass was there, in the distance. There was probably a door or a vent somewhere along those walls. If he could just get over there...

A flicker of movement caught his attention. A small roach had pulled itself up onto the branch ahead of him. Nick's eyes fixed themselves like arrows on that morsel. Licking his cracked beak, he began to edge himself forward.

His fat belly protested at first, ensnaring itself on the bark under him. But his legs took action, spreading themselves outward, further and further apart, until they were nearly perpendicular to his body. Planting his feet against the wood, Nick shuffled forward, thrashing his hips back and forth as he climbed downwards towards his quarry. With each swing, his thick butt became flatter and flatter, hugging the branch while his legs and tail seemed to swell with mass, knocking even more fur loose from the base and his tuft, letting even more of his fine scales show through.

What... what was happening to him? The mugginess seemed to return, but Nick's claws were too engaged to bother with his head now. The roach stopped, as if aware of the mighty predator before him, and turned aside. Nick's tail twitched as the hungry gryph-zard opened his mouth, and lunged.

----

Just a sketch I drew and wrote a while back, featuring my gryphon character turning into a frilled lizard in a zoo. Heavily inspired by   blackrobedmage 's Exchange Program story.