Critters System

The following story was started on the eve of Cohost entering read-only mode, as an attempt to summarize our emotions, build hope for the future, and make sure we could keep our creative energy going past the end of that site. Please enjoy.

The door was locked, the apartment all cleared out, and the woman watched as one of her friends drove away with the last load of her things. Two years. Two long years of making it to the first apartment she could get with a terrace (The one thing she was constantly told she needed), of finding new friends and community... And now, the place looked as barren as the first day she stumbled in.

She looked at the kitchen, and the scorch marks on the wall from whoever lived here before her. She’d sworn since day one she’d paint over them, and still they persisted. Maybe the next inhabitant would do something. She looked at the half-open door to her bedroom. Her safe haven. The place where she finally invited someone in to know her, and found a companion who saw her for herself. Who, despite all her fears, found a way to love her.

As if on queue, a loud howl rang out from close by the apartment block. The woman smiled.

Because, for all this box of cramped rooms and shelter from the world could’ve been for her, despite the wave of melancholic nostalgia resounding from rooms filled with life only days past... This was gonna be a new beginning for her. These years, though heavy at times, found her friends she could trust. The very same friends that had volunteered their time and car to help move things to her new house. She had found a full community, one that, when she finally found the certainty to show who she was, celebrated her on and helped her along. She found a new love, one similar to herself in the important ways, and it was because they’d found a house perfect for the two of them that she was saying goodbye to this apartment.

The woman breathed in deeply. It was a goodbye, despite everything. A part of her still feared for the future. Would moving in with her girlfriend cause their relationship to fracture, as she’d seen so many times? Would the new house feel like home to her, like this apartment did?

She looked up to the sky. The full moon, a familiar friend, shone down on her. She felt the sparks of incoming change flourish through her body, across her skin, into her soul.

If tonight was goodbye to the life she had clawed out for herself... Then it was also hello to a new life, one framed in love.

All across her skin, deep black feathers started sprouting out. She’d made sure to wear loose clothes without sleeves, and it paid off as the black growths became larger and larger. What had felt close to falling off previously now fit with a little bit of leeway, perfect for flying.

A familiar ache started in her arms, and she felt as her fingers grew longer and feather-coated too, no longer meant for grabbing things, but rather for controlling her freshly grown and massive arm-wings.

There really was a time when she was afraid of these wings, wasn’t there? Those terrible few months before moving here, of uncontrolled changes and the overwhelming feeling of being alone and a monster. She blinked, eyes night-dark as the eyelids opened again, and smiled. Well, at least tried to smile, as the changes had already started shifting her lower face into a sharp corvid beak, stretching out longer and longer. She chortled at the timing, a dry sound.

Talons had taken the place of her feet by now, and she felt the familiar hint of breeze as growing tail feathers pushed aside her not-quite-so loosely fitted top. The wereraven stretched her newly changed body. It was full of energy, lithe yet powerful in a way her human form could never match. It might’ve taken her the better part of two years, but now the coming of the full moon was a celebration and not a looming horror. She cawed at the top of her voice, a loud scratching call that was met by the same howl from earlier.

She took one last look back at the place that is, was, home. Perhaps she’d cry some more in the morning, once the keys were handed back and everything was final. But tonight? Tonight was for the future.

With a powerful kick of her talons, she launched herself first up onto the railing, and then over. There was only the air.

Wings caught onto the loose air currents surrounding the apartment block, and she flew.

Even after practising flying with her own wings for almost a year now (It took some time for her to feel safe to try it), the rush of wind around her and kick of temporarily usurping gravity remained just as exhilarating as that first time. She dived, catching speed as the ground approached her with its lethal embrace, and caught a draft to launch her along the road. It was freedom. It was a burst of speed that sent her flying down the road, away from her old apartment at inhuman speed. Behind her, she could hear claws strike at the road, clearly fighting to keep up with her. Ahead, a path split away from the road into the forest at the side of the city.

With a few flaps of her wings, she angled towards the forest instead of the rest of the city. Streetlights and buildings gave way to trees grabbing at her sensitive feathers, and she had to push up to grab some extra altitude. It was enough effort that the wereraven’s wings started to groan from the exertion, and as a clearing approached, she knew it was time to take a break. Especially as that was where everyone was meeting up.

Landing was thankfully simple. The clearing was free of debris, and after a couple loops above it to kill off speed, she made touchdown with a gentle jolt through her entire body. She noticed some more of her friends walking through the forest ahead of her, and as one of them raised their hand to greet her, she replicated the motion with her wing to the sound of giggles.

Rather traitorous giggles at that, because her focusing on the friends in front of her left her unaware of the threat behind until the moment a wall of fur and muscle crashed into her from behind.

A panicked caw came as the world span for a moment, and the next thing she knew she was on the ground, in the middle of receiving a licking wash from the creature that had hit her. She looked at the culprit. A giant wolflike creature with dark slate-coloured fur, larger than both her own bestial form and that of most of her friends as well. The wereraven rolled her eyes (At least as well as she could in that form), and touched her beak to the side of her girlfriend’s muzzle as a form of a kiss.

As the rest of her friends showed up, they all laughed at the tangled mess of creatures that was the wereraven and her werewolf girlfriend. The two had been uncertain at first with regards to coming out to them about their creature habits, but it had worked out. So much had worked out. Their friends brought along chairs, snacks, food (Which both werecreatures immediately tore into, to the sound of even more friendly laughter), and good company. Even if the two couldn’t speak human in these forms, they didn’t have to. Tomorrow, they’d formally be living together, in a just large enough house near another part of this forest. The boring human stuff could be handled then. For now, underneath the full moon and together with all their friends, they could relax and be themselves among the people they loved.