The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

47. Running Free

"Really?" I nearly yelped.

"Absolutely," Jerr said. "I'm not sitting on another horse with you in this lifetime."

"Yes," Aven confirmed, and I could even see a small smile edging the corners of his mouth. "After you shift, you will track down the bags that are awaiting you at the edge. There you will shift back." His silver stare at me intensified as he empathized, "Do not enter enemy grounds in your wolven form."

I excitedly nodded my head, trying my best to contain myself and not come off as an overly excited pup, who got to celebrate its first honoring Moon with the grownups. By Lotta's joy, I knew I failed miserably.

Aven nodded again, before he disappeared behind a wooden structure, a small wall of some sort. He came back out the other side, as a big wolf, with fur as black as the night and eyes as bright silver as our Moon. Seeing him like this, and knowing him, I only found it fitting the people everywhere referred to him as the Black Night.

"It's your turn," Jerr ushered me, as he gently pushed me towards that wooden structure.

"What?" Wasn't anyone going to tell me how to do this? "I don't know how," I exclaimed.

"No," Lotta giggled. "You need to undress unless you want your clothes to shred to a thousand pieces."

"Oh," I said quietly. So that was why that wooden structure was there. I was surprised they were this set on their privacy after I had seen how everyone acted on the night of the Wolf Moon.

"Some of us don't mind," Jerr said, as he once again peeked inside my mind. "Some of us prefer to keep our bodies private. Either is fine, but I don't really care when there are not too many people around." He looked at me with that cunning grin as he took off his shirt and revealed his sun-kissed, muscled torso.

My cheeks reddened even more as he started unbuttoning his trousers, and I took that as my cue to disappear behind that wooden structure and hesitatingly begin undressing.

Much to my relief, all the wolves near me respected my wish for privacy.

I heard Aven's wolf growl shortly after I tossed my last piece of clothing on the ground. The calm wind caressed my body, sending chills to cross my spine. My heart was beating in excitement, and my breathing fastened. I was too full of adrenaline to notice how the coldness of the early morning blanketed my naked frame.

As Aven's growling intensified, I instantly felt my limbs molding themselves into longer, more animalistic body parts. I instinctively dropped to my knees, my hands on the ground. My shoulders cracked as they put themselves in the correct position for a wolf's anatomy, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as on the night of my Ascension.

My body was adjusting itself to its new form as if it was the most natural thing it had ever done. Before I knew it, I saw my hands transform into paws, covered in grey fur, and claws instead of nails.

Everything intensified, as I placed my newly created paws on the soft ground. I felt everything more intensely, I felt every leaf under my soft padding, every grain of soil in the ground. I smelled everything around me, in a way I never had before. I could smell Jerr, Aven, and Lotta, I could smell some deer running in the distance, the daw that had almost disappeared now the day had broken.

My nose prickled as I smelled something... Itchy. I instantly knew it was some mushrooms I could see in the distance. And by the smell of them, I knew not to eat them.

By the Moons, I could see those mushrooms. I could see everything more clearly, but it was... Different. I couldn't quite name what was so different about my wolven sight - this felt just as natural. But everything was sharper somehow, even if the colors were duller than they had been before.