Odin mentioned as being bisexual- (rarely mentioned, but said to practice “sejd”, a form of magic only gays, lesbians, or bisexuals were said to use.)
Sköll ~ (“treachery”) chases the horses Árvakr and Alsviðr, that drag the chariot which contains the sun (Sól) through the sky every day, trying to eat her.
Skoll (treachery”)-> chases Sol (sun) (woman) (SOL: “In the stanza that follows, Vafþrúðnir responds that Sól (here referred to as Álfröðull), will bear a daughter before Fenrir attacks her, and that this daughter shall continue the paths of her deceased mother through the heavens.[7]” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir)
Hati (“he who hates, enemy”)-> chases Mani (moon) (man)
“At Ragnarök, both Sköll and Hati will succeed in their quests.”
Geri & Freki: Odin’s wolves, (both names mean “ravenous” or “greedy ones”) eats people who’ve fallen in battle
Ravens; Huginn (“thought”) and Muninn (“memory” or “mind”) (fly all over earth (“Midgard”) bringing current events to Odin)
Nott: personified night- a dark, sultry lusty woman
Valkyrie:
Crimson froth pooled down its jaws, riveting into the mass of scarlet fur knotted on its neck. Velvet gloved paws padded through the burgundy muck, leaving red puddles of liquid in its wake as blood mixed into the mire. Tawny, wild eyes surveyed the wreckage, withheld proudly on a fox’s leering face. As far as I knew, foxes had never played a role in Nordic mythology. They were just common scavengers- nothing to be feared or revered. There were just foxes.
This, however, was a fucking fox. The beast was the living image of hell. Its body was easily three times the size of its usual scale, large enough to dwarf my common ancestor. Its total height came up to my human body’s shoulders, but it’s span was quite a bit longer.
Odin fuck it, hunger was a bitch. I prayed for this immortal life of mine that Ragnarök was coming soon, because the starvation in my body felt like it was searing through the lining of my stomach. It had burned so for centuries, but today it was particularly outspoken. It was true I could’ve eaten Midgard food, as my brother, Hati, so often indulged in, but the taste had always been so repulsive. As the human years drew on, the mortals’ food quality seemed to drop. The chemicals they injected into their meats often made my tongue sour and metallic for weeks, and even the wild, natural selection was tainted by pollution. Deer and elk no longer held that wild power in their blood, and their muscles were scrawny and too lean.
Even their pain was bland, their fear the only thing remarkable in their bodies. I’d eaten human many years before, when they still were pure and defenseless. Only the wicked had tasted good- their sins and guilt spiced their blood, delicately flavoring it. Now, I doubted they’d even taste like guilt anymore. So much media and chemicals, they probably didn’t even feel true fear or guilt anymore on top of porn, drugs, blood, and war.
No, food had never sated my hunger, and I doubted it ever would until I caught my Sol. I longed to feel her blood and flesh in my mouth, to see that brilliant skin give way to my jaws. The wolf in me twitched in anticipation, raising his head. I pushed him away, smirking. I could hardly hunt here. I could only imagine it unfolding- my human skin ripping away, giving away into an explosion of muscled mass and gray and black brindled fur.
The humans would be terrified, no doubt. To see such a massive beast in the mall parking lot- it’d be bad for business, I grinned. And the best part was, even if I did shift right here, surrounded by people in broad daylight, not a single person would believe there was a wolf between the Toyotas and the Kias, maybe not even the witnesses themselves. If the stupid public actually did believe the witnesses, it wouldn’t change a thing either. Maybe a handful of people in this whole lot knew a shred of Norse mythology, and I highly doubted they could connect the dots and make it sound plausible. And if they made it through that obstacle- hell, there were at least five wolves in my particular brand of mythology. Besides, who can really do shit about it? I was surrounded by Americans. I’d be lucky if they could tell apart a wolf from a wolverine.
I raised my head to the filthy air, nostrils flaring. A clump of teenage girls scurried past me, eyes wide and nervous behind their acne and appraising while flashing overly flirty glances. I smirked, making eye contact with the closest one. Immediately, her tanned skin flushed, and her head shot to the side, looking to her friends for support as they all simultaneously burst into grins and giggles. The girl on her left straightened her head defiantly, looking me in the eye. Her A-cup swelled out, back arching in a charade of sex appeal. Brown eyes confidently meeting mine, they faltered. Stupid bitch thought she wanted me.
She should have known better. Even the most single minded of mortals found me at least a little ominous. I was dangerous, sure, but hell- I was attractive enough to make up for it despite it all. The black of my hair was richer than anything from a bottle, and though I’d never admit it, I was as vain as a peacock about it. As a rule, anyone from anywhere vaguely near were I’d come from had practically white hair. My eyes, generally hidden under the mess of my bangs, were perhaps the most unnerving thing about my body- one was a dark, unreadable black. The other was the wild amber of my more lawless, untamed brethren. I’d grown my bangs over my hair to cover them, but it was kind of surprising on its own to see how many people were willing to overlook the fact my eyes were each two different, unearthly colors just for the sake of attraction.
My human body was long and tall, and would be bordering on lanky if not for the lean muscles of my torso, legs and arms-all of which were required of anyone capable of the shifting I did. If you were to turn a wolf into a man, he would have the same body I did; no more wiry, and no less. I was meticulous about the way I looked, though perhaps not as much so as my little pack-brother. Despite being shorter than me, his ego was absolutely massive to the public eye. The whole of the Jotunn world saw him as a stuck up, pompous ass. As his brother, I knew better, but not by much.
My left eye winked back at her and she looked away, suddenly nervous. The black of my right eye stayed still, studying her, so contrasting from the vivid yellow of my left one. She wasn’t unattractive for her age- in a few years, she’d be at the top of her game. After that, it might as well be over. Humans really were pathetic. Their potential was almost nonexistent for their body size. For now, I could smell the adrenaline in her system.
The male wolf hormones in my system flared, and I found myself with a different type of need. She had nowhere near the sex appeal of my beloved Sol, whose breasts were flatter than this mortal’s, but still held five times the passion. No, I could wait. The last time I’d indulged myself with a human, I’d been sloppy with the remains and left her carcass without making an effort to hide it. The mortals had found her then, and the newspapers, blogs, YouTube videos, and tabloids had gone haywire with the discovery of human remains, half ingested and mutilated, in the woods of Höllental, Germany.
It’d been satisfying enough to read it all, but Master Fenrir had been furious. His wrath had sent me into solitude for a decade, to hunt Sol from the shadows. The pain from his fury had been excruciating, burning my veins for every step I took. In turn, I’d been accepting to his dominance. He was the great Alpha, and for his approval I would yearn and do my best to full fill his wishes, and until he was strong enough to resist, he wanted his pack to stay low, and hunt quietly. But it was days like today when his word didn’t seem quite as terrifying as it really was. Last night’s Dream made me shutter even now though, instantly killing any thoughts of recreational mating. Again, I’d found myself in his place, seeing what he saw, but with my body instead of his, making it so, so much worse.
Rage and pain burst through my heart, stinging and pressurizing it all at once. Its ragged beating pounded in the barrel of my chest, heavy and laden to my stomach with angst and anticipation. My heart was Fenrir’s, and he was angry, angrier even than usual. The silken bonds on his and my flesh stung harshly, pinching and pulling gray and black tufts of rough fur. C Rusted, rouge gore crackled around the ropes, tugging at the delicate, mending skin beneath. My paws scrabbled wildly, straining not to succumb to the tingling of my circulation sluggishly pulling its self away. I was Dreaming again, and I absolutely hated it. No, I didn’t hate it- I was terrified of it. I had no control whatsoever, and I was once again swept into a much greater struggle than what I was capable of facing.
I knew Hati faced the same Dreams and flashes I did, but sometimes I wondered if I somehow had it worse. I hadn’t seen him since the last eclipse, but when we did have time to reminisce and bond, we did. We didn’t talk about the flashes of Fenrir and his messages much. It was best to forget and just enjoy each other’s company while we could. I knew he got the Dreams though, just as I did. We were brothers, and so we were bonded, however vaguely.
Sometimes when stalking my Sol, I’d get flashes of Hati’s angst, passion, and frustration. They were essentially just strong instances of emotion whenever he was particularly strung up about something. We’d both wondered guardedly if the bond was in case Ragnarök ever did come, like a universal signal to kick us into action and prevail. It was forbidden to talk of the coming of Ragnarök, so we kept usually our thoughts to ourselves, but the bond was something controllable. I could usually tell when he was Dreaming- his emotions were too strong and fixated to be lust or a hunting wound, but they were never as powerful as my own. I’d been born first had had always been more powerful, so it only made sense, but it was hardly something I was proud of.
Like now. Fenrir’s rage was a force all on its own. The silken bonds on my and his feet strained and pulsed with our movements, but never enough to free us. His hate seared my throat and sight, until the freezing rock was shaking and bucking through our trembling eyes. Even the air was too cold. Our massive body heat couldn’t even warm the frigid, icy air. It was painful to breathe in, and painful to breathe out. Frostbite had turned the tip of our delicate black nose a sincere, unhealthy gray and white combination, and we could scarcely feel it.
As we writhed in pain, jaws furiously snapping, there was a flurry of black feathers on our right side. Fenrir snapped his massive head to the side and my true body cowered in my bed. A raven sat on an old, weather worn excuse for a tree. His oily feathers glistened even in the weak light, black but not at the same time. It was hypnotic to watch them- one second they were black, the next they were blue and green. Fenrir wasn’t impressed. It took to the air the second we lunged, our bulk shattering the parched, frozen tree to pieces. The raven’s responding scolding was none too gentle on its own, but it flew off just the same, powerful wings beating the frigid air. A chill shuddered down my spine as I watched it, but Fenrir was unperturbed. He’d seen this particular raven more and more frequently as the years went by, and Odin’s messenger didn’t give him any reason to fear.
But me? It’d been many centuries since I’d looked into the face of any of the gods. I wasn’t sure if Odin’s raven had seen my soul through Fenrir, but I didn’t want to find out. Fenrir’s wrath was hell on its own, but Odin’s? He’d be livid to find that Fenrir was communicating with his pack-children, and Odin had quite a few more forces at his disposal then Fenrir did.
I’d slept badly the rest of that night, my dreams dark and full of angst. As a result, I had purple rings under my eyes, but most humans seemed willing to overlook that. I inhaled as the girls passed, absorbing their scents again. The pounding of their heartbeats accented the whirr and squeal of the parking lot and highway nicely, almost disturbingly so, like an additional drum beat layered over an old, worn record. Humans really weren’t meant for this world, but the fit in so perfectly. They’d made Midgard to suit them. ‘Bent it to their own will and liking. The other animals and beasts struggled, following in man’s shadow. I envied man, so badly it hurt sometimes. My kind was superior, in a cage fight sense. One on one, humans were weak. But as a whole, only their creators had power over them.
Yet, even the creator, whoever he or she was, had no control. The human’s belief systems were jagged, rocky, and unfinished. No two could agree on one thing if there was something to disprove it. The old beliefs merged with the new, and a fresh, twisted product was resulted every few mortal years, whether it was with religion, science, or the environment. I’d been raised on our ideas of creation, when the lands were half ice and half fire. But here, the rules seemed to no longer apply.
I remembered the very moment my pack-brothers and I had been granted our human shells. For quite a few centuries, Hati and I had observed the humans from the shadows with dark distaste. Another decade later, Fenrir had called us in our Dreams for the first time in thirty years, telling us of a necessary change and a greater gift. We’d been nervous of course, but eager at the time. At the moment of Waking, we’d been jumpy and exuberant. We’d stalked earth with particular precision that day, even though each of our quarries had been finicky to the extreme in avoiding us for the last few years. Sol and Mani had slowly been sidling closer to the mortal public at the time, as though to hide in the crowd. For us though, it had only made the game interesting again. Humans were a fun, new expendable quarry to hunt on the side, and their terror was almost a lifeblood source. We’d forgotten then of Odin’s law- neither beast nor Jotunn was to interact with the humans, whatever the reason. They were the Valkyrie’s charges, and were to be left as such.
Fenrir knew this, but also knew that for us to successfully hunt Sol and Mani again, we’d have to interact with mortals. Fenrir compensated with manipulating the only loophole he could find in Odin’s law, and doing so gave us our “gift.” It’d been mid-day at the time- Hati had been sleeping, waiting for Mani. I’d been hunting Sol in northern Canada, just on the verge of the time when she’d have to stay open and defenseless for half a year, when the sun never set. I’d been so, so close to her. Her scent had been hot in my chest, almost burning. The drive in my heart pushed me forward, pulling like a compass. Adrenaline had been pumping through my legs, heart, paws, lungs, and jaws when something else had come over me.
The pain had been excruciating, worse than anything else than I’d ever felt. It was like my own massive, dense frame of skin and flesh was being forcefully collapsed in on its self. The Canadian tundra had crumpled underneath my massive paws, the ground rushing up to knock the wind out of my chest. It must have been quite a sight- an immense, brindled monstrosity of a wolf, collapsing to the ground mid-stride. The fur on my flesh was suddenly itching and burning, my body was flailing mindlessly as I struggled.
There was nothing to fight against, and for the first time since being a pup, I was helpless. Yips and cries exploded throughout my throat, inflaming a voice box that was suddenly far, far too small for my volume. The bones of my tail were pressurized and sharp, like the appendix had fallen asleep, and suddenly been lit on fire. All over my body, bones crunched and split. The pain was dominating- even my skull it’s self was splitting, melding, and compacting. Froth spilled out of my open jaws, running down my neck and throat again, clogging my esophagus with spittle until I coughed it up, spasming wildly.
My body was formed through pain and it was not something I was unaccustomed to, but this was something different entirely. My tendons were folding in on each other, my muscles cramping as they compacted. Even as my gut collapsed on its self, another more terrifying development was inching from the pads of my blackened paws to my ankles. Mismatched eyes wide, I’d scrambled as best as I could to look at my paws.
The rough, calloused padding, usually brown and black, had began to spread up my ankles and legs, squeezing them into a skinnier, ugly hairless version of what they once were. As I watched, the skin paled to an unhealthy purple, then even further into a pale, insipid pink. My paws themselves lengthened and shrunk in scale, long claws thinning into a frailer, rosy shell over my now twig like, agile... fingers. To say I was horrified didn’t cover a thing. I was disgusted, agonized, disturbed, enraged, cowed, and terrified.
The new skin continued to grow over my fur, splitting in places where it wasn’t flexible enough. Under that, I could see my beautiful, black and gray brindled pelt molding into the underbelly of my new, naked skin. Where it had split under stress, a fresh, salty crimson smell heralded blood a second before it rolled down my new, raw flesh. My tongue, now cramping and shrinking, struggled to lick my cuts, to almost no avail.
I’d howled then, guttural agony rocketing throughout the expanding, flat plains. The sound wasn’t wild and beautiful anymore- bit by bit, the wild, restlessness of the wolf subdued it’s self, draining into my considerably smaller body. Eventually, it didn’t sound even like a canine anymore. My baying gradually shifted into screams, and the pain lessened.
It was fading now, but I was only relatively aware of it. Every bit of my new body was aware and flushed with adrenaline. Underneath the new, delicate pink sheathe, my old pelt was uncomfortably warm, and did the son of a bitch itch. My old form hadn’t been replaced, it had been covered. My new fingers clawed wildly at the naked flesh, scrabbling without me realizing it. I was as fresh as a babe now. Every movement was a discovery, albeit a terrifying one. Even as my blood began to rivet down my back, I couldn’t stop the impulse to scratch.
Bleeding, dirty, and naked, I struggled to my new feet, only to stumble sidewise onto the suddenly icy ground again. I had the tools to move, but not the skills. Dumbfounded, I stared down at the reddened muddy permafrost below my spider-like hands. Agonizingly slowly, I dragged my new body westward. The soggy ground embraced my form, plastering wounds and healthy skin alike. I was dimly aware of my head being unbearably heavy, and something wet on my lips, but my eyes were fixated only on a small puddle of water a few feet away. It sat cupped in the mud, and I found myself praying that it wasn’t urine. That was another thing- I couldn’t smell it. I could barely hear myself breathe, and the lack of scent scared me. My eye sight had sharpened considerably, true, but I was essentially blind without my other senses. I was entirely defenseless.
For once in my immortal life, I was entirely susceptible to any attacker, human, god, Jotunn, or common animal. I didn’t need to fear the cold at least- although this skin was naked, the wolf underneath it burned at a steady temperature, the human skin at least acting as an insulator. Aside from that, there wasn’t a single other advantage I could think of. Yes, I could walk among the mortals to hunt now- but what could I really do in this body?
By the time I’d lowered my new, surprisingly heavy head to the muddy pool, I’d already discovered a number of things that could easily kill me on the spot. One particularly ominous threat included the idea of a curious bear, come to investigate the smell of blood. As a wolf, I could have taken one on- and killed one- in a second. However, I wasn’t a wolf anymore. That was obvious the second I saw my reflection.
The man stared back at me. His eyes, ringed in thick, dark lashes, were wide and… scared. It was shocking. I’d seen that expression a thousand times hunting, always on another’s face. Full, flushed lips parted to reveal two rows of flat, relatively dull white teeth. His-my- cheekbones were high and prominent, developed and proud. This new face resembled almost nothing to those of the humans in my homeland. It was angular, manipulating, powerful, and downright predatorial. My eyebrows were set high, arched, and hawk-like. My Norwegian nationality was almost invisible in my new face, but the more I looked, the more I recognized, and it sure as fuck wasn’t Norwegian.
I only rarely ever paused long enough in my hunt to watch the human face, but I had been raised from a pup to know and be wary of the face I wore now. It wasn’t a man’s face- it was a god’s. I’d seen these features a thousand times. I’d feared them, scorned them, loathed them, and now I wore them. In the human’s eye, I would be beautiful. My skin would be ivory, smooth, warm, and sensual. The pure, rich black of my hair would be soft and thick, and hide my mismatched eyes perfectly. My body was long and muscled- I was in every way, the embodiment of beauty.
But only on the surface. Underneath the sex appeal was a hunter. I was in every aspect a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The itch of my flesh, fueled by a blanket of dense wolf pelt, was a constant reminder. And more importantly, the purpose in my heart tugged. The strength of Sol’s presence still called to me as strongly as it had previously. Apparently that was mental, not physical.
I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t sense her anymore. You can give a hunter a life’s supply of weapons, provisions, and medicinal services, but it’s not going to make a damn ounce of difference if he has no idea where his quarry is. I’d been born with the mental compass in my chest- it had always been there, gently guiding me. I had been created solely for Sol, and would never die unless I caught her first. I had no doubt whatsoever that it would be worth it, for both her death and my own. By herself, she was a vision. Coupled with my purpose, she was an obsession.
I’d seen her only a few times, but when I wasn’t Dreaming, she was all my subconscious thought about. In a crowd, even a mortal could have picked her out in an instant. There was something distinctly inhuman about her, but not at the same time. It wasn’t something you could easily put your finger on. I’d spent millennia thinking about her, and I’d never identified it.
In her own way, she was luminous. For someone who looked as delicate as she did, she was surprisingly successful at evading me. Her body held a surprising amount of fight for the slender build she was born with. Maybe that was just fear and adrenaline though- as long as she was prey, she would run. Her skin had always been almost translucently pale, no matter where in the world I’d chased her. I’d never once seen her even burned, let alone tanned. For being the personified sun, Sol’s charge had no effect on her in the slightest. And as much as I would have loved her to be an ebony muscled warrior goddess, I took what I could get.
The long, fine strands of her hair were an ash-white shade of blond, and as soft as silk. The fierce, intense blue of her eyes were proud and regal, balancing out the delicate mold of her body beautifully. The strength in her eyes was a solitary thing. In an odd way, I was proud of that stubborn spark. She was in every aspect, a prey animal. She wasn’t even built like a hunter- the gods didn’t give victims’ fighters’ bodies. More than anything, she reminded me of a pristine fawn. But every day, she held herself like a queen.
That day, staring at myself dumbfounded at the puddle’s edge, something changed. It wasn’t an obvious thing- it started slowly, from the pads of my newfound fingers to my gut. True, I was hardly the powerful, monstrous beast of myth and lore anymore, but aside from my body, I was now fully equipped to kill. The knowledge of the world waited at my fingertips. Man had never been necessarily helpless. They were nosy, inquisitive, self righteous bastards, and they knew it. They had the smarts to do whatever the hell they wanted, common sense be damned. As man, I could rival anything. As wolf, I could conquer it.
Since then, I’d discovered so, so much more. My body was better than I’d originally thought. I’d found shelter eventually, after blindly stumbling around for two days. A human family had taken me in, feeding me, clothing me, and unwittingly helping me learn and recover. They harbored me for months- I was an oddity to them, and them to me. Not including my general lack of motor coordination, my habits were strange and foreign. I barely ate at all, and when I did, I ate in pounds. Eventually I stopped eating in front of them entirely, instead disappearing into the tundra for days at a time. It was obvious they were curious, but they never asked me about it. They only rarely looked me in the eyes, and spoke in quick, hushed sentences.
I made sure I learned more about them than they did about me. Their lives and interactions were a constant study to me. I learned swiftly, and soon I was treated as family, even taken out to local trading posts and villages. Their language was different than anything I’d heard before, but I picked up their tongue quickly, delighting the youngest of their children. She was just sixteen, the youngest of four. Her brothers and sister kept their distance, but she had no such qualms. She was fascinated by me, occasionally even trying to follow me when I left to hunt. I always lost her, but she never gave up. Near the end of my stay, I grew tired of her effort. I’d confronted her instead of just escaping, and she’d taken the whole thing as a joke. We’d been miles away from her home, and for the first time, I’d lost my temper.
I’d grabbing her arm and hissed against her, issuing a threat. That close, I could smell her body’s natural musk, sweat, frozen rain, and something tangy. The last of the scents was entrancing, almost stopping me in my tracks. As I froze, the smell increased tenfold. The scent was familiar- as the son of a Jotunn, I’d been raised around it. As it permeated the air around us, another recognizable feeling reemerged. I’d sated my hunger on the surrounding wildlife only a week ago, but the then current state of ravenous hunger and passion had hit me like a flash flood. Under that lust had been hiding, teasing and testing the boundaries of my hunger.
I’d never felt the raw pangs of sex before, and I was entirely helpless in resisting myself. My body had taken hers then, unbridled and unrefined. Her fear and horror had played a role too, saturating the cold bite of the northern spring. My passion had taken me a step beyond the role of a man, and into a wolf again. I’d torn into her flesh while her body had pleasured mine, continuing to do so until I was sexually satisfied, and until the life had drained from her broken body. Half of the action in taking her life had been pleasure, while the other half had been hunger.
Done with the act of sex, I’d shifted my attention to the near-broken body of the girl. She’d fallen unconscious, either through the pain or the overload of mental stress. Her body was still beautiful, even more so if possible. She’d been no great beauty, but the standard, almost bland mold of her body was a snare. I could never have that normality, and she had been the essence of it. Her blood had already begun to crust her legs and the inside of her thighs by the time I killed her. The passion had overtaken my body yet again, the burning hunger so intertwined with sex.
Her death had started slowly- my lips wandering to her neck, testing the bruises my hands had left. Slowly, I was aware of the broken blood beneath her purpled, warm flesh. It wasn’t long before the pulsing beat of it had entranced the rest of my senses, the very look of it seeming to lead my teeth to her neck. The choice to kill her had been obvious then. Why not? At the moment, it seemed the most logical thing in the world to feed, and I did it as naturally as any born predator. My dull, flat human teeth worked slowly on the flesh of her neck, crushing her windpipe leisurely but competently. To this point, I’d been keeping a good hold on my hunger, or I had been until the first taste of blood.
At the first drop of saltine liquid, my minimal grip on self control slipped away. I’d hidden the wolf well during my stay with the mortals, but now he flooded back, clawing his way back into my human body. It was the oddest sensation- my current body craved her blood, certainly. But the other, animalistic force in me was starting to swell in a way that could only be called vicious. And it wasn’t just an inner predicament- my teeth weren’t cut out for sawing through tendons and flesh whatsoever, and my body knew it.
Inside and out, my flesh was rolling and boiling. I couldn’t get to her body fast enough. Every part of my body burned to feast, and I was entirely incapable of doing so. After minutes of frustrated tearing, I was coated in blood, flesh, and my fingers were entangled in knots of her dark hair. The delicate flesh of my fingers were coated in fine cuts, and the nails harbored saline-liquid and bits of skin alike. I was almost on the verge of just beating her body apart when an old, familiar feeling raised its savage head to the surface of my gut.
I hadn’t noticed it at first, as the bloodlust had entirely and easily blanketed it. But the wolf was back, and mere human skin wasn’t going to stop him. It was almost exactly like my first transformation from wolf to man, but in reverse, and infinitely less painful. I hadn’t bonded with my human skin half the way I had with my canine body- I was awkward, and didn’t know how to respond to the new, human urges and emotions. Somewhere, my subconscious welcomed the feeling as my human flesh stretched and snapped. It was almost like returning back to an old den, or to nestle beside my mother’s breast after years of being separated.
