Lance felt the needling grow more pronounced, and groaned as his back's movements grew vaguely painful. He realized that whatever had burned him had dissolved his shirt. Without warning, Lance felt both his legs snap, near his ankle. It wasn't painful, but he could feel where the bone had broken. His back arched again, and then similarly snapped, and though this wasn't painful either, it had had scary implications. Lance couldn't feel his legs or any thing below his chest. Then, abruptly, Lance felt all of his skeleton shift. It was as if his whole inner anatomy was a lurk of cockroaches, suddenly alive and moving over, under, around, and sometimes through itself. He laid there, paralyzed physically, but even if he wasn't fear of what was happening to him would have done the job.
'Tamrlaine........' Lance mentally squeezed out of his head. There was a pause before;
'If you wish..... to survive....... do not disturb...... concentrating.' said Tamrlaine in broken words. It gave Lance a little hope, however, that there was a chance he would survive.
The needling suddenly became less pronounced and more shouted, and Lance realized that is was coming form inside him, as if a thousand needles were trying to escape. Forcing his hand to flop pathetically onto his chest, Lance inspected it. Navy blue fur, instead of his normal brown hair was sprouting from his arms, and Lance suspected every other place that was needling him. He gulped, and sucked in a huge breath, and his chest expanded, and then continued to expand past it's normal parameters, his shoulders broadening with it, until, shoulder to shoulder, he stood about two meters. His torso tapered down though, his hips were less broad than they were before, about twenty five centimeters wide. Lance felt, in crystal clarity, his spine, perfectly shaped, reconnect to all his nerves and muscles, the disks sliding into their new place. His jaw dislocated, and he felt that, but it was hardly even a stubbed toe compared to the rest of his night. Lance never understood that phrase, since his toes were the most pain-prone part of him back on earth, when he had seemed invincible.
'Welcome to level two of life, master Wayne,' Lance heard Alfred say in the back of his head. He had said the line when Bruce Wayne first took up the role of batman and wasn't coping well with the sleepless nights. It seemed Lance, too, had had found level two. Although to Lance, it felt about level eight.
New teeth pierced Lance's gums, shoving the older, out-dated set out. Lance grinned, and felt the canininity of his smile. He felt his skull re-mold itself, his nose flattening but his face lengthening into a snout. Lance looked down at his body and almost forgave whoever had burnt him then and there. The best six pack he had ever seen was now spilling out of his fur, in a way that strangely both grotesque and normal. It had alway been a sore point of Lance's that his abs had never fully given up on their life-long game of hide-and-seek, but now, looking at himself, he took another breath and looked appreciatively as the muscles swam beneath the fine down that covered his front.
Lance stood, stumbled, and caught himself on a tree branch. When the world had stopped spinning, he let go of the branch, and looked around. Hard-skin-easy-climb-trees were all around him, as well as ripper-thorn-hedges, toothsome-blackberry-shrubs and rustle-in-the-dark-leaves.
He shook his head slowly, growing in speed until his whole body was shaking, and Lance realized that if he had been wet he would have dried himself this way. It was the best way of drying himself, Lance realized, towels were ineffective and less than useless. He looked at his legs, and realized he had four knees and two ankles. Flexing one left and then the other, Lance tested his new joints, and found that walking with four knees wasn't that hard, it was just more complicated. Like turning manual on for the first time in a driving game. Then Lance laughed at how fitting his analogy was. His laugh came out as deep waves of barks, and he jumped in the air. He didn't know why, but he marveled at the four meters that he achieved. He jumped laterally, clearing more than seven meters, almost knocking into the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.
The moon caught Lance's eye, and he stared at it for minutes, wondering if it were more mesmerizing than Leshy's eyes. He decided not, but not by far. Picking up a piece of bark he scratched a note on it with his foreclaw, leaving it at the foot of Leshy's sapling.
Lance-who-was-not-Lance then did something which he had wanted to do from the first moment he accepted himself as a werewolf.
'AAAAAAAARRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOO' He howled at the moon, and after a pause he heard the call of his race, though not from the direction of the camp. Without hesitation he ran, in the direction of the responding howls.
Alternating between four limbs and two, Lance-who-was-not-Lance ran, pounced, leapt, and charged in the direction of his race, needing nothing more than to look upon another wolf. He felt unstoppable, instead of blood, his heart pumped pure power, Lance-who-was-not-Lance fancied as he jumped from a felled tree, some two meters from the ground, to five meters up another thick tree, then launched himself over ten meters, all in about a second and a half.
Lance-who-was-not-Lance continued his instinct driven stampede through the night, through the forest, until after two hours of running through the forest, a clawed paw the size of a dinnerplate crashed into his head, his own momentum carrying him for a few more meters. His back hit the ground, but he rolled, turning. He growled, ready to try out his new body in a fight. In his normal body, Lance-who-was-not-Lance realized that he would be sprawled on the ground, unconscious, and was glad for the newfound fortitude. He was getting bored of being unconscious. He couldn't see who attacked him, so Lance-who-was-not-Lance smelt, and the smell of salmon and wet fur assailed him.
'I was attacked by the first ever giant pawed salmon!' Lance-who-was-not-Lance thought, then he barked in laughter. It was cut off, however, by the garrote that wrapped around his neck and grew tight, cutting off his air. Lance-who-was-not-Lance was instantly a ball of furry fury, claws, teeth and legs flailing at every single angle possible, and a few more that weren't. He squirmed around, so he was facing his attacker, and he didn't like what he saw. A massive bear, at least four meters tall and looking to weigh over a ton was holding Lance-who-was-not-Lance, but that hardly stopped him. Lance-who-was-not-Lance lunged forward, sinking his teeth into the neck of the Bear-that-was-standing-up. Red-juice-of-life filled Lance-who-was-not-Lance's mouth, spilling on his tongue, staining his palate. It made his head fuzzy, though not in a way that relieved the stress on his neck. He increased the force of his bite on the Bear-who-was-standing and he felt the garrote relax. He relaxed his jaw accordingly, the nasty-choker-garrote eventually being unwrapped by the Bear-who-was-standing, and then he released the Bear-who-was-standing. He leapt from the Bear-who-was-standing, using it's chest as a springboard. Then Lance-who-was-not-Lance stood in the-night-that-was-his, staring at the Bear-who-was-standing.
Slowly the Bear-who-was-standing lowered the nasty-choker-garrote to the cold-hard-ground and held up it's paws peacefully. Lance-who-was-not-Lance slowly rose from his ready-to-fight-and-bite-stance, staring at the Bear-who-was-standing.
'Follow me.' it growled, though not threateningly.
It was an order, Lance-who-was-not-Lance knew, and his instincts told him to follow it. So he followed the Bear-who-was-standing into the-night-that-was-his.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Some time after Lance was clotheslined by the bear, Luna realized that Lance had run off, again. She didn't know if it was her that scared him away, or if there was something else he was doing, or if something else had scared him. She had seen him running into the night, like the very hounds of hell were after him. She walked to Lance's cabin, and heard strange noises, and strange lights coming from inside. She opened the door and was puzzled what she saw.
'Back from your Dryad so soon, Lance?' Sparta asked without turning, concentrating on the scrying mirror in front of him. For Luna now saw that it held many similarities with the mirror that the vampire wizard, Cumquat, had shown her one day as a child.
'What's happened, vampire got your tongue?' Sparta said, turning. His face paled when he saw Luna standing there, and he quickly threw a black sheet over the mirror, and turning back he said 'That's nothing, just a toy a brought from home.'
'A scrying mirror.' said Luna simply.
'Y-yes. A scrying mirror. But I'm not supposed to have it in here. So, ah, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone.....' he sighed as Luna nodded.
'Do you have an idea where Lance is?' she asked, looking around the cabin, wondering at the many phenomena around the hut.
Sparta was about to answer, then meditated on the amount of trouble Lance would be in if Luna realized he was besotted with a dryad. 'He was in the mess hall earlier.' Sparta said, calculating the sentence carefully.
'I've looked there.' said Luna, poking a dial on Sparta's microwave. She jumped back as it made a sudden noise.
'Ok. Stop touching my stuff, if you can control your curiosity.' said Sparta, indicating a chair by the door, which from,he knew that the occupant could see nothing of his kitchen. Luna though, though he was pointed to the door, and made to leave, though she still wondered at the artifacts of Sparta's cabin.
She walked over the slightly inclined paddock which split Sparta's cabin from hers, and looked up at the moon. It was a beautiful full moon, and she marveled at the way the shadows of the tall trees played on the ground, and gasped as a large shadow, elongated to about twenty meters, and she mentally stripped it of it's extension, estimating the caster of the shadow to be at least four meters tall, and more than half that wide. She looked around, for even though it was dark, a few werewolves were still up, talking around the torch, playing a stealth game of their own, or intercepting the leftover dinner on it's way to the day's trash heap, ready for burning. None of the other werewolves had noticed the shadow, and Luna dismissed it as the full moon's illusionary tricks. Stranger things had happened.
Lance-who-was-not-Lance followed the Bear-who-was-standing for some time, but after two minutes, the Bear had found a path, and it was easy going. Not that Lance-who-was-not-Lance cared. His new body could handle anything nature could throw at him, and probably a bit more, he thought. The Bear-who-was-standing fell to all four of his limbs, and galumphed away, increasing the pace. Lance-who-was-not-Lance welcomed the change, though he just ran on his back legs. He was getting the swing of his second pair of knees, muscle memory developing, and he chuffed as he thought of a picture; him in this form, playing football. He chuffed again at the thought of the opposite team's aghast looks at his two-and-a-half meter meter frame, his excellent physical condition, and his gargantuan shoulders. He ran alongside the Bear-who-was-standing, the good-soft-paw-track widening to allow the two massive creatures to travel abreast.
'So, where ya takin' me?' Lance-who-was-not-Lance said, his misshapen muzzle slurring his words, and his canine, instinct-driven brain substantially limited his vocabulary and grasp of grammar.
'Emris, I have been told not to inform you of anything until we reach Holm. There, you will be provided for.'
'Whatchya call me?' Lance-who-was-not-Lance asked.
'Emris. It will be explained at Holm.' said the Bear-who-was-standing.
'What's your name?' asked Lance-who-was-not-Lance.
'My name cannot be translated into the tongues of your kind. But the literal translation is She-Who-Walks-Among-Men.'
'My name is -' Lance-who-was-not-Lance choked, just as he was about to say his name, and realized that it didn't fit him anymore. The word Lance had always held slightly more depth for him, because it was his. And ever since he had arrived in Avalon he had wanted to try wielding a Lance, for fun, but it no longer held that depth, that meaning that it had the day previous.
'Your name is Emris. I know.'
'What does Emris mean?' Lance-who-was-not-Lance asked.
'It will become clear at Holm, we're almost there.' said She-Who-Walks-Among-Men.
A/N: Sorry I don't update very often, but I try to keep writing in-between school and stuff. Hope you enjoy this new shipment!