Excerpt One
Lauriel
Within
I remember the light, and the void. I remember the stabbing pain in my knees as I dropped to the stone floor, then the absolute lack of feeling after that.
Then it becomes as a dream. Darkness. Complete and utter lack of light. I knew I still had a body, but I did not know where I was. There was no wind, no sound. I could have been floating in water but felt nothing.
But suddenly I was not in the void, but standing in the dark of a forest. I looked around, and felt dizzy. My vision blurred, then in sharp focus. It seemed normal vision was wrong in this place.
Piercing pain slashed through my head, just behind my eyes. I screwed them shut and cried out in agony, my voice sounding alien to my ears. I put my hands to my temples to shut out the sound, grimacing, and sank to the moist ground.
Immediately I felt better. The pain vanished, and I found I could open my eyes. The view was still different, but more natural. It was like I had a new pair of eyes.
I could see, even in the darkness of the undergrowth. A new nose, maybe, for I could smell things I had never smelled before; and my ears heard every rustle of the leaves on the trees, the scatterings of small animals in the bush.
A branch shifted, letting a shaft of moonlight fall to the turf a short distance away. I reached for it, drawn to the irregular patch of illumination, but when my fingers touched the border, I screamed. My muscles spasmed, launching me into the light, and in a frenzied glance I saw my fingernails morph into claws and fur moving up my arms. Every needle piercing my skin could not conceal the pain of my bones reshaping, making me into something other. The sensation moved amazingly fast but excruciatingly slow, letting me feel every ecstatic throbbing, a pain that bordered on pleasure.
I couldn’t tell what I was becoming, but I only screamed for a second until the sound became a shriek of a very different sort.
*****
I ran. I ran faster than the darkness, reaching the prey before they could hide in it, faster than I ever could have been in that other life. Faded remembrances flickered in my sight when I slowed, so I did not. This body was not that one, and I wanted to forget. So I ran.
*****
But even in this body I tired. I stopped eventually, having no concept of time, or how long I ran. This body had no care for things of that sort. I stretched, and remembered hands; blinked, and remembered day.
Something form my other self reminded me I was not really as I was now. There was another life, one I must go back to...
nonono. this is you. you live this way.
you are this. this is you. beastanimalhungerdesire
No! I am not a beast! I was...human! Human! Let me be! I don’t want this life, I am human!
beastbeastbeastbeast
It isn’t true! I am human, HUMAN! Leave me, leave me my own shape! I don’'t want this!
*****
‘"Lauriel, please, come back to us. Lauriel, it’s over.
It’s over! Why does she not wake? This did not happen to me...what is wrong?" A worried female voice over my head.
‘"I don’t know. I’ve never
seen this. Perhaps...—no.
Not that.
She wi’ll wake. She must. Her body has never known the Change. I could
be that she
is lost. If she proves strong enough, she will find her way.’" Another
voice, this one male, familiar as the other had been. But why, I could
not say. Darkness claimed me again.
*****
Blackness. I was...not. No feeling, no senses, altered or otherwise. Did I have a body? Floating. Was I blind? No light. I touched my face. Human, then. But underneath, an endless primitive array of hunger, power, desire. Myself as other. Can’t think of that. I might go back, and there was something I had to do, someone I must be--
"Lauriel, please. Come back, sister, anarae--"
Wake up. This is a dream. Wake UP!
I struggled through layers of awareness, unsure of my direction. The world was out there, and I needed to be in it. But how?
*****
“"Lauriel."”
I felt them then, the hands on my temples, human hands, cool. A real-world perception. I clung to that anchor, pulling out of the darkness. As I breached the levels of consciousness, awareness of the beast fell away. I was only Lauren--Lauriel. I remembered the Change, all the emotions and feelings, but I did not remember the beast. I should have.
“"Lauriel."”
I was back.
*****
“"Lauriel."” Relief in Cat's voice. "“We did not know if you would come back to us. Chief said it was because you had never Changed, and your body had to accept it. Are you,"” Cat paused, concerned, "“whole?"”
I did not remember.
"“I feel different, Cat. Am I still me?" I asked, voice rusty with disuse. How long had I been Changed?”
“"You are an etoiline, Princess. You always were. You have just now come into your inheritance. Aria mandii fortinus*, Etoiline,"” said the Chief.
“"I can’t believe how that
felt...I was something other--" I tried to explain.
”
“Cat smiled benignly at me. "You needn’t explain, sister. I can remember it well.”"
But I did not.
*the world is your future