I Feel Like a Monster

[heatblast1996]

(June 19th, for anyone who can change into animals, including werewolves)

It was night, the stars were out and the moon was full. A wolf sat on a small hill under an oak tree. Its brown fur was shaggy and mussed up. Blue pupils stared at the orb in the sky. He was trying to resist it, wanting to stay human at least the slightest bit. Sokka, the unknowing werewolf was trying to remain human. He had no idea that he could change into a human and back willingly, thinking that he was stuck forever as a wolf. He bowed his head and started moving his paw, drawing in he dirt semiconsciously. He was depressed.

"How could anyone like a monster like me? It's not natural to be a wolf with the mind of a human."

[Tigress]

Tigress lowered herself onto all four legs. The night had brought relief to Tigress most of the time. Going out in just the shadows of night as a beast had usually helped her mind keep itself at ease. Her orange flame eyes glistened in the light of the stars and the moon. Everything was so different from another's eyesight. Flipping from a tigress to a human woman was... strange. She had grown used to the feeling of an animal, but a human? So many different things. Awkwardness to stand on four legs as a human was one thing, unlike the natural feel as a tigress.

Senses were another. Her whiskers twitched with her nose. Someone else was around. To give herself just a tad bit of a human appearance in the dark, her eyes flickered towards a tree. A small hill, not much of a special oak tree. She dropped back down to all four legs again, creeping up ever so closer towards the werewolf just in time to hear his words after she had done her best to climb up the tree quietly, hoping that he'd think it was just some bird.

How could anyone like a monster like me? It's not natural to be a wolf with the mind of a human.

Tigress could relate to those words. Mostly the first sentence. Sent away at such a young age by her parents, it was a question she constantly asked herself when she was alone. When she finally felt acceptance, that thought had drifted off. The next sentence however, startled her. Wolf with a human mind. She was a tigress with a human mind deep down. Maybe... maybe she wasn't the only shapeshifter after all.

"You get used to it I suppose." Tigress whispered, desperately hoping that the wolf didn't hear.

[heatblast1996]

His ears perked. He swung his head in all directions, searching for the new prescence. He then realized his nose worked better in situations like these, so he took a sniff. It was strange, feline, yet bigger than a common house-cat, but it carried traces of human as well. What type of wild animal hung around humans? His muzzle instinctly brought him to look up, following the scent. The only thing he saw was yellow eyes looking at him. He stared at them for almost a minute before realizing what they meant. Only predators wanted to strike from above

With a yelp, he took a step back, his paw landing on his tail, causing him to fall backward. He landed belly-up. "Please don't eat me! My muscle's very stringy, doesn't satisfy the stomach at all!"

[Tigress]

Tigress stared at Sokka for several moments, climbing down from out of the tree. Not a very graceful creature now was he? Falling backwards on his own tail. Once Tigress made her way to the ground, her orange irises finally blinked, finding no harm to be found in the wolf. She stood up on her hind legs, lowering her gaze down towards the wolf. "Even if I was searching for food, you don't look like you'd be very satisfying. I don't even eat dog." she said, a hint of annoyance in her tone.

Her arms, or front legs if you'd prefer, crossed against her chest as she kept watching the wolf. She hadn't fallen back on her tail for years. Many, many years. It had been since she was a mere child since she had fallen on her own tail. "A word of advice. Actual predators wanting to catch you would look at you as weak. If there wasn't a larger animal around, you'd be dinner by now."

Tigress figured that wouldn't be the best thing to say to him, but she couldn't really care less at the moment. "I was just on a late night prowl. You can't exactly walk around like this in the day. Not like you'd understand where I'm coming from." He was a polar opposite. A male canine, and a female feline. The only similarity that Tigress could see was that each was an animal. For now, anyways.

[heatblast1996]

"Hey! I'm not a dog! At least, I don't think so...." He looked down at himself. He then rolled over onto his stomach and sat up.

"Well, guess I'm just lucky like that then!" His muzzle pulled up to make a small grin. This animal was wierd, giving him advice when he thought for sure that he would be eaten by her.

He sombered up. "Try me. Just the past two weeks, I wake up as something I'm not, find out that I probably will never turn back to my former self, find myself sucking at hunting with paws and teeth, almost get drained of all my blood by two vampires, and then get whacked on the head with a falling tree!"

(If you read RP posts as I do and you've seen the show, His voice cracked at least three times during that outburst at the end.)

[Tigress]

"Dog, wolf, canine, relatively the same thing." Tigress said. She decided not to look into what he meant by he thought he was a dog or not. Best not to ask too many questions to him, right? He didn't seem to be entirely capable of thinking right anyways. Perhaps... nah, he probably wasn't a shapeshifter. The feline cast the thought from her mind. It'd be a stupid thing to ask if he wasn't, anyways.

Luck? It surely must have been more than luck that he were still alive after telling her his life story of the past two weeks. "Sounds like you haven't been here for too long." Tigress didn't vaguely recall something about a vampire hunter, which didn't surprise her much on the vampire part. Then the female feline stopped her thoughts, realizing he had said something that was familiar. Never being his normal self. "Hold on. Never turn back to your former self?"

Her expression? A straight line. Her face showed something. Memories, nostalgia, disappointment. It momentarily took over the look of stone she often carried and died after a few moments.

[heatblast1996]

He raised an eyebrow. Why was she interested in something lke that of all things? "Well, yeah. I tried averything!"

He raised a paw and counted off the claws he had. "I tried pinching myself to see if I would wake up, thinking about it, I even tried banging my head against a tree to see if that would work! It didn't."

He rubbed his head to emphasize it.

[Tigress]

Not the brightest wolf ever, apparently. Her heart skipped a beat as she listened to him. It made her wonder how she ever turned back human. "Concentration. Concentrate hard enough on what you look like normally. Concentrate on something of your normal form. A memory, looks, a feeling." Tigress said, her eyes darting to the ground, her arms easing to her sides. That was how she had been able to flip back and forth between man and beast.

The meteor had brought back memories as a child. Fairly vague memories, but enough to remind her about being a human. Maybe that's why it had become easier to be human and beast nowadays. She just had to concentrate a bit, and she could be someone completely different. Someone with no name, someone she didn't recognize anymore. She continued speaking.

"Try it before you give yourself a much more serious injury than a whack to the head. If that doesn't work, I've got some other ideas that shouldn't result in your death."

[heatblast1996]

"Concentrate? Ok..." He closed his eyes and begin to think. A memory formed in his head.

Lightning. It flashed across the sky. He was seven years old. He sat with his sister, Katara, on the small log in front of the fire. They were under the cover of the igloo, but they could still hear the booming thunder. His sister scooted closer to him. He put his arm around her and smiled comfortingly. "Don't worry. I'll protect you."

His boomerang. He was six. His father stood over him, sun behind the man's face. "This has been in our family for generations, my father gave it to me and now I'm giving it to you." The man handed the metal object to him.

His face with camoflauge paint, being reflected to him by the icy water below. He was about to hunt.

He opened his eyes, blue no longer surrounded by gold. In the place of a wolf, a 15 year old boy sat there, cross legged. He wore an oriental version of a long sleeve, its sleeve ending around his two middle fingers and held down with bandaging, with saggy pants, both blue outlined in white. Around his neck, a thick necklace made of bone hung. His brown hair was shaved down the sides while the top was pulled back into a wolf's paw. He had a sheath that was strapp to his back by leather going down across his chest. It held a sword with a black blade that was supposedly made from meteorite metal. A white boomerang was attached to his hip. His boots were made of brown leather. A small bit of his shirt came down on the front and back, making a type of skirt. "Did it work?"

(Do you know how they change? Is it physically shifted or does it happen in a flash of light or something?)

[Tigress]

((I... am unsure. I'd say the former, but I think you can work it around whichever way you want.))

Her orange eyes looked back over to the wolf- not a wolf any longer, but a fifteen year old boy took the wolf's place. It worked. "If you're really a human, than it must have." she said with a shrug. Or, as much of a shrug as she could as a tigress. That's when it occurred to her. If he were a wolf, that meant he wasn't a shapeshifter most likely. There was a difference between a shapeshifter and a werewolf. Sokka was a wolf and changed back. Highly doubting that he could turn into anything else then a wolf, it was highly likely that he was no shapeshifter.

He was a werewolf. He had to be. "Seeing as how you turned into a human, you must be a human." Hopefully, he wouldn't pester how she had known that concentration was key and just assume it was pure luck. With her luck, however, that probably wasn't going to be likely.

[heatblast1996]

The teen stood up, rather shakily though. It had been a while since he had used two legs. He stared at his hand, wiggling his fingers slightly to see if they were there. He then curled it into a fist and pulled it downwards. "Yes! Sokka is back!"

He glanced at the tiger. "Thanks, I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. I mean, who would have known............ wait, how did you know?" He scratched his head, confused.

[sinbad]

A dark brown timber wolf made his way over to the group. The new smells were taking getting used to. He snorted at the tiger before looking at the new wolf. "The change takes some getting used to but eventually it will be as easy as climbing a tree."

he scratched his ears before taking a seat

[Astrid]

Another wolf seemed to slide from the shadows, appearing out of no where. It was odd, seeing as she was a light blonde thing, her blue eyes having been watching the werewolf and tiger for quite a while now. Astrid wouldn't admit she'd never noticed the larger werewolf male though. Her eyes wandered over the park, a little edgy being in wolf form near the town. Blue orbs turned to the werewolf, he seemed to be her age, but clearly from a different place. Than her eyes turned to the large timber wolf.

"Funny. Wolves can't climb trees." She smirked eyes now studying the tiger. If anything, she was harmless, she hadn't hurt the boy so she didn't want to hurt werewolves... but she was still a felines, much larger feline, and her hackles were still slightly raised. Her fluffed out fur making her look a tiny bit bigger. Her tail was erect, not down in submission or fear. She was still somewhat tense and decided not to sit as the older wolf had done and remained on all four paws.

(( lazy post ^^; ))

[heatblast1996]

It was strange, a wolf just popping up like that. He had been surprised by the first, really surprised. Because of the short burst of fear, a brown furred tail popped out of his pants. "Where did you come from?"

He sighed, calming himself. He lifted a hand to his head, only to realize it was a paw. He stared at it, then down at the rest of his body. His legs shifted to that of a wolf's, and his clothes disappeared, his nose longened to a muzzle. He dropped to all fours. "Great, I just got back to being human and look what happens. I change back immediately. Anyways, I don't know how to climb a tree. From where I'm from, we don't have any, just a bunch of igloos and cliffs made of solid ice. Now climbing those are fun."

His eyes turned to blonde one, his brown ears drooping in submission. He may have been new at this, but even he could tell a challenge when he saw one. It may have been for the tiger, but it still got him to sit down and be quiet.

[Tigress]

Tigress opened her mouth to resopnd, but the new company crowding around forced her to clench her mouth shut and become fairly tense now. A dark brown timber wolf. A blonde she-wolf. Then finally, Sokka returned to his wolf state. Ambush? Lies? Perhaps, but Tigress was getting better at not being that quick to judge someone. Or more like judge a wolf. Besides, if there were a challenge to be had, she could easily beat any one of these wolves. One was still getting used to his new wolf body, and the other two could probably be defeated.

Tigress felt her tail flick for a moment, showing slight irritation and anger. Just when she thought she had the chance of telling someone something that nobody else would ever know, everything flopped down south. Her arms crossed against her chest, sunset eyes flickered towards the blonde female before looking back to Sokka. She leaned back against the tree, quiet a few moments longer before finally speaking up. "I suppose you two know each other, but not that one." she said, glancing at both Astrid and Sinbad as she said this.

If they began conversation without her amongst themselves, she had a chance of leaving. Climbing up the tree, running away. But the chance of that happening was slim. Tigress was stuck in a possible ambush now. She looked back to Sokka, deciding to answer his original question. "It worked for me. That's how I knew."