The Burning Wolf

by Ssendam the Masked

On Fire

When the rain came I was seriously annoyed. I glared up at the falling raindrops angrily. "Ah, come on! Really? Just, just now?"
The rain continued to fall, ruining an otherwise okay walk home. I just sighed. It just had to rain whenever I didn't have my umbrella. "Yay me, I don't have an umbrella because it was supposed to be sunny today."

With that I hauled my coat overhead, made sure that my books were actually secure in their bag and ran for it, trying not to get too wet. Thankfully, I wasn't wearing my favourite hoody out, otherwise I would have been in more serious trouble. I jogged along, thankful for the fact that I had small boobs. If I'd been a couple of cup sizes bigger, I would be suffering from some serious back pain right now.

I glared at the traffic light. "Gah, come on! Change you stupid light." I started frantically pushing the button in an attempt to get it moving. It never works, but hey, you have to try. Meanwhile, the rain continued soaking through my flimsy, non waterproofed jacket. I looked around, just to check if there were any cars coming for my head. When none really came, I was about to step off the curb when I heard footsteps behind me. I moved my boot back onto the curb and turned.
"Naaah," I moaned as I watched a couple of kids and their parents come up. Now I couldn't just jaywalk. Their accusing eyes would follow me home, and I'd feel awful for doing so, as opposed to just 'meh.'

After what felt like an hour, the light finally deigned to change. "Gee, thanks your lordship," I grumbled, running across as quickly as I could. I had work to do, lecture notes to review, that sort of thing. Actually, it was going to be more like thinking about doing work and reviewing lecture notes while I sat around the apartment playing video games.

Eventually, I managed to reach my humble abode, a rather dingy apartment that was probably going to become a haven for the cockroaches and mice that inevitably lived in these cheap-as lodgings. I sat down for a while, just plain bored out of my skull. It was only then that I remembered about work. I quickly turned on my phone to check the time- I had about half an hour to get there. Now that I was home, I could run over to the nearest bus-stop and catch a ride back in.

I had to think fast. First, I put a change of clothes into my backpack, a T-shirt, jeans and my hoody. Quickly throwing on my uniform and covering it with a waterproof jacket, I gripped my umbrella and stepped out into afternoon sunshine. My jaw dropped and I gesticulated. "What... but..." I pressed a finger to my forehead. No way was I getting out of this outfit now. I ran over to the bustop,
"Come on, bus. Don't fail me now." I tapped my foot and waited for the bus to come.

By the time I'd managed to get in, I was precisely on time, which was a nice piece of good fortune that you don't often get around these parts. I walked into the cafe's staff entrance and waved.
"Hey, I'm here. Let's get this over with together."
The guy on the counter, Mike, waved me in. "Nice to see your smiling face too, Ash." He raised an eyebrow. "Or should I assume that saving your niceness for the customers?"
I grunted, throwing off my jacket and hanging it up. "Laugh it up, ya bastard."

He rolled his eyes. "Your mastery of Australian slang terms wounds me so."
I grunted. "Yeah, whatever. I almost forgot I was supposed to be here, so let's get in there."
With that, I smiled nicely and stepped up onto the other counter. I was ready for what the evening had to throw at me now that I'd had my routine banter with Mike.

We've got a fairly nice hipster cafe going on here. Well, it's better than most cheap coffee places, in that I'm making an attempt to be friendly to people rather than being all angry all the time. Normal evening- a couple of students like me, working late on important stuff that they should have done a week ago. A couple of hipsters, wearing combinations of colours that watered the eyes and ordering the most bizarre mixtures in their coffee. Normal clientele.Then, the door opened and this little old lady came in. She kind of looked like a gypsy lady- brightly coloured headscarf and a thick duffel coat. Some sort of ring glimmered on her finger dully. Well, not usual clientele for this time of evening, but whatever.

I smiled widely. "Hey, how can I help you?"
She smiled. "Ooh, I think I'll have... just a normal coffee."
Alright, I got that a lot. "Large or small?"
"Oh, small shall be enough for me." She looked through her purse, then checked it again.
I got her a standard black coffee. "Here you are, that'll be three fifty."
She checked her handbag frantically. "Oh, my, somebody must have stolen my wallet! This isn't good at all, dear. Not at all." She looked so despondent that I felt a bit bad for her.

"Well, I guess I can put it on your tab, I guess?" I handed it to her, but she pushed it back.
"Oh, no, I couldn't."
I smiled. "Don't worry about it, just pay when you've got your wallet back, alright?"
The little old lady frowned, then leant in. "Thank you, dear. Here's something you'll like." She slipped off the ring on her finger and handed it to me.

I took it hesitantly and looked at her. "I'm not sure I can take this."
I leant down to get a pen out. "I mean, it looks a bit big for me, and it's just that alternate payments aren't really allowed."
With that, I got her details and slipped the ring into my pocket. I'd take a closer look at it later.

The rest of the evening passed as normal. When my shift was over, I walked out, just in time for the other guy to come. Tall, blond, kind of pale and with an expression that screamed 'I'm better than everyone else.' Must be a new guy. I waved at him.
"Hey there."
He frowned at me. "Would you mind getting out of the way? Some of us have work they'd like to be getting on with." With that, he pushed past me. I looked at his back and flipped him off.
"Bastard." I mumbled, heading outside, where it was, surprise surprise, raining. I got my umbrella out (so glad I'd erred on the side of caution) and walked through the rain to the bustop.

Once back in my apartment, I took out the ring, turning it over in my hands. Stylised, dull iron, the ring had a simple, reddish green jewel. Said jewel was held in place by a wolf's head. I shrugged. "Never seen a gem like this before."
With that, I slipped it on my finger. No real reason why, just curious.

It fit on my thumb reasonably well, though it was still too loose-
"Ow!" I tore the ring off as something sharp on it drew blood from me. I glared at the ring, sucking at the tiny pinprick of blood that had resulted. Weird that it had happened like that.
"What the heck was that?" I picked up the ring and checked it over. No obvious sharp bits- the entire ring's inside was as smooth as could be. So where had the blood come from?

It was at this point that the abdominal pain started. I winced as the pain in my gut built up. "Gah, and I'm sick as well? Stupid riiingaaaaAH!"
The pain was crawling all over my body! I staggered up as it pulsed through my body, every cell in my being protesting against whatever monstrosity of microbiology had just invaded through the ring.
"Note... to-ah! Note to self... never, ever accept a ring from a weird little gypsy woman-AAH!"

I screamed out as the pain shot through my body. Parts of my skeletal system were now aching, for some reason. What kind of disease was this, for it to act so quickly? Was it some sort of secret government experimental bioweapon? My hands and arms, especially, were itching. I looked at them and screamed even more.

I was growing hair on my arms. Not only that, but I seemed to be gaining a significant amount of muscle. This was like something out of some really, REALLY demented horror movie! I watched in horror as my arms were now coated in a fine pelt of black fur, nails elongated into vicious claws. With the pain in my arm dying down significantly, I flexed my new fingers, still in shock over what was happening to me. My body changed next, my limbs and torso elongating significantly, causing yet more pain and bewilderment on my part. Next came my face.

I tried to scream, but it's pretty hard to scream when your jaws spontaneously decide to restructure themselves while in the middle of doing so. My jaws and mouth elongated, seemingly fusing. I staggered over to the mirror, on legs that seemed to be about to break. When I looked at myself in the mirror, that was when I really screamed, this time with my rather new mouth, which I could see along if I really concentrated.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" I screamed. That wasn't even a human face staring at me! Sure, it had my eyes, but it was indubitably a wolf's head on top of a female body. It even had my scruffy, unstyled hair, albeit much longer and shaggier. I had a deeper voice now, it kind of sounded like I'd gargled gravel for my whole life. It was really weird, hearing that voice coming from my weird wolf-mouth thing. Even my ears had joined in on the fun- I hadn't noticed them restructuring themselves into long, upwars pointing ears during my freak-out about my new wolf-snout.

Cracks and a tearing noise down below alerted me to another problem.
"A tail? I have a FUCKING TAIL?!" Yep, there it was, thick black fur and wagging happily. I glared at my tail. How dare it be so happy.
"Stupid-WHOA!"
Why did I scream? Because my legs chose that great moment to spontaneously break themselves, dropping me to the floor. I watched the process happening in my rather daggy jeans- my legs bent at right angles to the knees, a process which I hated the sound of, by the way- and then set. My feet burst out of my shoes, turning into what looked like wolf pads, complete with thick claws.

And to cap it all off, a purple portal opened underneath me. I quickly gripped onto the floor, watching as my newly acquired claws tore into the cheap wood. For about three seconds, I was alright. Then the floorboard gave way.
"No no no nononononononononono- FUUUUUUUUUUU" I howled as I was dragged into the gaping maw of the portal.

When I came to, it was to find myself in some sort of forest, in the middle of the night. I lay on my back for a while, breathing heavily.
"Haa...haa...haa..." I discovered that my tongue was lolling out of my mouth through heat. Great, still got the wolf head. With a grimace, I shoved it back in.
"Get back in there, stupid tongue." I was still in shock over my 'turning into a wolf-lady' thing.

Then, what had happened to me really set in. "AAAAAAAAAH! OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK?!"
I scrabbled at my body, trying to pull it off, or something. My new wolf claws scrabbled at my significantly larger tits, a slightly widened pair of hips, my new girl-abs- everything about me had changed, not for the better. I was never a furry, never interested in that particular chunk of the Internet at all. Imagine that you've just had your body go through what basically amounted to puberty, but faster and producing even more hair in places where you never thought hair would grow.

Eventually, I managed to calm myself down, having worn my throat ragged with my screaming. I panted for a bit, exploring my new musculature a bit more.

I was now rocking a significantly more muscular body now, which was pretty good. My breasts, I was both slightly disappointed and relieve to discover, hadn't actually gotten bigger, it was simply that my pecs beneath them had grown wider as well. Hips had actually grown slightly wider, and I had a fair bit more muscle on me now. Overall, I looked like I'd been some sort of martial artist for my life, instead of a skinny girl who had the fortune of being rather tall and possessing a good metabolism.

Getting onto my new wolf feet proved to be an interesting challenge, especially considering my new reverse joints. After the tenth time, I just screamed. "FUCK YOU, LEGS!" I then resumed my efforts, eventually standing up and balancing. My victory was short lived as soon as I took a step forwards, planting myself in the ground face-first. I sighed.
"This is going to be a loooooong evening..." I mumbled, gravelly voice muffled by the grass and dirt beneath my new snout.

Eventually, I had the art of walking down pat. Running was still a bit beyond me, but I could walk now! I walked around with a smug grin on my wolfy face. Man, life was looking up for this girl! Sure, my bra was tight against my slightly larger breasts, and I was pretty sure that my panties and jeans had been torn by the rather rude growth of my new tail, and I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to reverse this, but what the heck.

It was at this point that I stumbled across the castle in the middle of the freaking forest. I paused, staring up at its rather Cyclopean dimensions, its rather grim and gritty colour standing out amongst the mostly foresty landscape. My tail drooped down along with my ears. This was pretty bad. If I was a wolf-woman thing-

That really brought me up short. I was a werewolf. I was a freaking werewolf.
"Not sure if awesome." I walked forwards, cautiously. It was either approach the freaky castle, or-
"OWWWWWWW!" I howled in pain as something snapped around my unprotected leg. Looking down, I saw that it was a freaking BEAR TRAP. Who leaves one of these things out here?

And like that, an alarm sounded. My new ears couldn't handle the intense new sounds and I tried to block it out. I really had to get out of here! With that, I gripped the jaws of the beartrap. After a slight struggle, I'd torn the bear-trap in half. I didn't really ponder my freakish strength that went along with my new body, so I limped off into the underbrush.

Unfortunately, my pursuers were quite diligent. I sneaked a look behind me and what I saw almost made me take pause. Almost.

My pursuers were anthropomorphic horse-people. Like, seriously. Horse-heads, horse-legs, short fur, the works. A couple of them even had unicorn-horns! The sight was so surreal that I almost stopped right there and then. It was only the fact that they were carrying spears and had rather angry expressions on their faces that I didn't just stop and stare at them. Instead, I just kept limping on.

"HALT, IN THE NAME OF THE PRINCESSES!" One of them bellowed, leading the charge. I didn't turn around, I just kept limping forwards, trying to outpace him. Thankfully, their heavy armour wasn't exactly conducive for running, so I was able to stay ahead of them.

It was at this point that I was tackled from the sky.
"Ow..." I grunted, looking up at who had pinned me down. Blue fur, three-toned hair, an angry frown on his face and holy shit he has wings. No fair! They have pegasi as well? Why couldn't I be a pegasus instead of a wolf? I mean, one's a dog and the other can fly.

My captor's face changed when he heard me speak. "By Hurricane's beard, the beast doth speak."
The other guard looked at me. "Why should it matter to you, Chrome?" I looked at his hair- green, yellow and red, and in what looked like some sort of bowl-cut to boot.
"Chrome? Seriously? As in, Google Chrome?" I started barking with laughter. His scowl returned and he pressed hard on my wounded leg.

"GAAAH!" I howled out, not that I got any sympathy.
Chrome turned to the soldier. "In all my years, I've never seen such a beast. Almost like a timberwolf, methinks. Thou!" He was addressing me now! "What manner of beast be thou? Speak, lest I tear the answers out of thy guts!"
Oh great, death threats. Those only work if you're intimidating. I was about to respond along the lines of 'drop dead, you Shakespearean opium dream,' when an authoritative female voice rang out. Loudly.

"NOBLE GUARDS, WHY DO YOU ABUSE THIS POOR BEAST SO?"
I howled in pain and tried to clutch my ears to deaden the sound. Chrome looked up at her. "Pri-princess Luna!"
He scrambled off of me and ducked into a bow. The other guard-like people also did so. I looked up in a haze of pain.

This 'Princess Luna' was at least two feet taller than the rest of these chumps, about seven foot tall, with a pair of breasts that seemed ridiculously huge, even for somebody of her stature. Wearing what seemed to be an awesomely pimped out Elizabethan dress, sable black and dotted with tiny white pearls, she was certainly a figure of authority around these parts. Blue eyes stared down at me imperiously, with a deep blue mane that almost reached the ground.

"THIS ONE HATH SUFFERED MUCH. BRING IT TO MINE CHAMBERS, AND DO NOT HARM IT FURTHER. UNDERSTOOD?"
They all nodded, though Chrome had some token reluctance. "Milady, art thou sure-"
She fixed him with an imperious glare that silenced him and caused him to shrink in on himself. He quickly helped me up.

I brushed myself off and, wanting to be polite, attempted to kneel at her hooves. It didn't work, needless to say- I fell over on my side. I quickly scrambled into a kneeling position.
"Thanks a lot, Princess." She raised an eyebrow, but offered no further comment. She walked off, signalling to the Guard to take me with them.

When we reached the chamber where she was, I turned to them. "No hard feelings, right?"
Chrome sniffed at me. "I do not trust you, beast. Still, this is Luna's folly, not mine. I bid you adeiu, beast."
"The name's Ash, got it?" He didn't reply, storming back off to whatever he'd been doing.
"Dick," I muttered, sitting down and waiting for the Princess to return.

Author's Note:

I am going to need an editor for this one.

Comments

[Isaac3924]

..... Meh. Let's see where this goes.

[Death2205]

I like it

[Dubious]

Intriguing. More.

[Imperium Bedlam]

Premise: interesting.
Protagonist: possibly hot-headed, not unusual. Female, slightly rare. Anthropomorphic werewolf, I think maybe one other time. In all, I've not seen her before and you've dropped her into a fantastic point in time that hasn't been used as far as I can tell.
Introduction to protagonist: very well done actually. Often writers will either make this period incredibly long (and consequently dull) to establish their character or incredibly short so they can hurry up and get to the fun stuff. This however has an almost-perfect balance with some minor comedy points that were actually funny. Good show.
In totality: This story is good, which is quite an assumption based on chapter one, and I can't wait for the next chapter to come out .
Oh, and if you need an editor then I wouldn't mind lending a limb.

[werewolf435]

In all my years, I've never seen such a beast in all my life.

also, that 'thou' afterwards is entirely unnecessary.

out of your gizzard!

Thy, and I'd say go with guts... gizzard was more colonial than Elizabethan. Also, did he just threaten her with a dissection? Because I'm pretty sure that was considered near blasphemous by non-scientists back then.

Lastly, slow down and take the time to describe more. Your pacing is pretty fast here.

~Ware out

[Mosqueefo]

more

[Rhodesm96]

Woo! Another Ssendam story! Definitely going to see where this goes.

[Greenlink]

I would totally be down for lending a hand with editing this

[ponyclaws]

Love it. love the idea. More please

[Dragonlover553]

Is it weird that I was expecting her to shift completely to wolf form, then go back to human form sexy as hell? That is kinda how it happens in this kind of story.

[LegionCenturionMaster]

4743558

...too cliché