Angelina saw the steady dusk as mocking her. The grayed sky being held up by the crown of treetops was so quiet and still, when in reality it betrayed the nature of its existence- in less than an hour’s time, it would evolve into the night sky, black and unforgiving to those susceptible to what it brought. Sometime in the next hour, she knew the moon’s shift into its next phase would be complete… and that before then, Ambrose would send her away. It was an absolute knowledge, but by no means a comforting one.

Ambrose came up behind her, standing at the window, and stared out on the sky she was so intent upon. “Isn’t it remarkable that in this strange world, the sky is so unchanged? The same heavens, with the sun and the stars.”

“And moon.” Angelina said, quiet with the knowledge that she couldn’t offer him anything better than her restlessness. She gave what she could, however- and it was a wry smile. He returned it, and for a moment she thought he was going to touch her face, or reach in to hold her- but if it was indeed what was on his mind, he contained it.

“Yes, we mustn’t forget the moon.” And he lifted his chin, motioning to the quickly darkening sky. Angelina knew that it was as good as a precursor to being sent away- Ambrose very rarely came out and said exactly what he felt, or meant. It was a direct result of his upbringing, and the world he’d come from- that of a verbose, symbolic nobility. Although he’d been evolving throughout this journey, and in the time Angelina had known and had such an effect on him, his was not an existence of absolutes.

Before he had a chance to say another word, a beast in the distance screamed- a violent swansong before it added its final link to the great chain of nature. In that instant both Angelina and Ambrose started, and his hand went to the tip of his rapier, an automatic gesture. After that startling moment, they realized what it was and their postures calmed. Ambrose let his hand fall back down to his side. Angelina had seen the gesture, however, and she reached out to touch his arm.

“It’s alright. …I’ll protect you.” She’d said it in jest, but as soon as the words had cleared her lips, it rang with a sort of truth. His response was silence, the only words passing between them the unsaid language of the eyes, those swimming, emotion-baring windows to the soul.

“You should go.” Angelina had known it was coming, but after that meaningful pause, she’d almost hoped he would allow her to stay.

“I’m not afraid; I could stay and help you.” She beseeched him, but he turned and shook his head as he went.

“No, it’s not safe. We’re too close to the city, and I don’t want you here with a confined…” he didn’t complete the sentence, and knew that he didn’t have to. It was still an uncomfortable subject for him, to say the least, and although recent events had done strides for his accepting what he was, it was still a long journey ahead.

It was his omission of the word werewolf that caused Angelina to agree she would leave, more than any of the reasons he’d given her. In their time together, she’d grown to understand him better than any other, and she knew that he wasn’t proud of what he was- in fact, it brought him a great deal of shame and confusion. His acceptance was… delicate, at best, and she wasn’t willing to force him into something he wasn’t ready for. She’d spoken the truth when she said she wasn’t afraid of what he was; she was fully ready to stand by him during his transformations- but knew that her presence would most likely cause him to feel more ashamed, and more like an… animal. It wasn’t something she was willing to risk.

“Alright,” she said, “but take care of yourself. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She picked up her travel pack, letting hair fall around her face in a brown curtain as she did so. When she rose, it was with a brush of her palm across her forehead to bare her features once more.

“If you need me, I’ll be with the others. We’re staying above the Horn Tavern.” He nodded, acknowledging the information, but she knew that he’d never venture into the bounds of the city while transformed- at least, not out on the streets. There had been a time when his transformation had come while they were in-town, and he’d been forced to shut himself up in an isolated room. However, in this instance, they’d been lucky to find the abandoned tower on the city outskirts. It was a single stone pillar of authority, the last remnant of a long-dead overlord’s reign, ravaged by the constant conquering that was by no means unique to the region. The entire land was unified only in its relentless power struggles and, in many cases, the only monument to the lords of the past were these ruins that dotted the expanse of this dark land.

Angelina turned on the steps and took one last look at him. Never before had she seen eyes to match those of Ambrose Maurlias- that haunted, hunted kind. He had done terrible things under the touch of his curse, but he was the greatest man she’d ever known, and she loved him.

She touched her fingers to her lips and inclined their tips to him, a silent kiss to pass through the emptiness of the room- and then, she was gone. Ambrose could not see her from the window, for her horse was waiting on the opposite wall- but her yah’ing cry and the rapid succession of hoof beats that followed met his ear and signaled that she was gone. And just in time, Ambrose thought, though he did not entirely relish sending her away, (even in such a situation as this) for he was already feeling the pull of the moon.

It was not a very telling sensation, or a remarkable one. If anything, it could be described as a sort of unsettled, almost niggling feeling- equal perhaps to that of a restless child, or a man who has the distinct feeling that he’s forgotten something… but doesn’t quite recall what it is. This initial sensation was so slight, in fact, that he wouldn’t have been able to distinguish it, had he been occupied with anything else. As it was, he had little else on his mind but to prey upon the impending transformation- pacing the stone floor of a ramshackle tower with the even, steady stride of a man possessed with thought. And so he was aware when the restlessness washed over him, and it caused him to breathe deeper and to quicken his pace- he wished to remain calm, and give himself over to the change so as not to let it overtake him.

It was in this restive state that he was suddenly reminded of the days in his youth- it seemed so long ago, and certainly far away, but the memories sprang up unbidden. They painted pictures of a sick boy, stomach queasy and threatening to lurch, more anxious with the knowledge of what those feelings meant than at their existence. He knew he was to be ill, and that he’d soon experience the terrible sensation of purging his stomach, and so it made him more upset than if he’d had no warning.

Ambrose pushed the memories out of his mind, ignoring their likeness to the current situation, and instead focused himself on another task- he would strip himself of his clothing to impede its cumbersome presence during the transformation. He undid his rapier and dropped it still sheathed to the ground, but not before his elongated fingernails gave him difficulty with the intricacies of the strap fastenings. After he managed to unclothe himself, he took a good look at the pointed nails that had been growing with speed all day- and took another set of deep breaths to calm himself. He couldn’t see the evidence of them, but knew that his eyebrows would have met and created a bridge of hair across his brow, and that his ears had grown into slight points. He’d already felt with his tongue that his canines had extended, sharp to the touch- his features had been manipulated in such a fashion during the course of the day as the moon moved closer into its shift of full, round cursedness.

A breeze, carrying the scent of the night with it, howled through the woods and into the proud little tower, whistling about its stones and inviting itself in. At another time, Ambrose may have shivered with its wintry intrusion, and wrapped his cloak around himself, but now, as the change was at hand, the animal in him sniffed at the smell and rejoiced at the scent of freedom it harbored. His appreciation was not lost on the wind, which kissed his naked flesh, a grey-blue in the fading light, and licked his hair into a gentle flurry before whistling back into the dusk. With it, it seemed to take the last remaining streaks of light on the horizon, for the tower was suddenly plunged into darkness.

The only sounds were those of the forest, lifting themselves up on a current of air to slip in the window and echo off the empty walls- and of the blood pumping in Ambrose’s ears. The sound was pithy and hollow, and spoke to the quickening of his heart. It was working at a double pace, pumping blood throughout his body with a fever, carrying the potency of the change as it went, as his blood was now starting to feel the pull of the heavy moon.

As the distressed life-liquid flowed through his veins, it incited a chain reaction of chills- the hair on his arms, which was coming in as a downy fluff even now, stood on end and then settled as a warm flush crept up his sides and gripped his chest. Ambrose inhaled deeply so as to calm himself, and, as if absorbing something from the incoming air, his canines (already scythed to the touch) grew even longer. It was a signal that the blood had reached his face- the changes there would now erupt in a more rapid succession. Ambrose still could not see, for the chamber was drenched in darkness, but knew by the prickling feeling along his hairline that it was extending, follicles cropping up beneath the surface where there were none before, and thickening in those areas like the sides of his face and chin. The prickling sensation was found even there- for the follicles in his skin were those of the course, blonde beard hairs that would grace Ambrose’s chin were he to not shave in a measure of days, not those of the transformation. They were downy, an undercoat of near-mouflon wool, soft and light. It was yet another reminder that what he was becoming… was not human at all, but something forged by a baser, darker face of nature.

The blood still pounded in his ears, the information that had been held in his cells since birth being recoded by the lunar draw twisting with alterations all throughout his body. The delicate organs in his inner ears were the first to feel the effects of the change, and to affect him. The same upright, steady sense of balance that is so key to a human’s everyday existence is not needed for a quadruped, but with the slightest change of the inner ear, the room seemed to lurch to Ambrose, and he struggled to keep his balance. He could have fallen to the floor, his hands serving as a faux pair of legs until his balance was reconstituted- but the thought didn’t occur to him to give over completely to the change- he had recently stopped resisting it- but hadn’t yet entirely grown beyond that monumental decision.

As he staggered to regain his vertical status, another sensation was born, blooming as a small desire and then reaching its maturity as a wave of need. He suddenly felt as if he’d been trapped in this tower all day, when in reality it had been less than an hour. All around him night swirled, and he propelled himself on unsteady legs to the window, feeling his way as he went. There was darkness outside as well, Ambrose noted, staring out with his hands grasping the stony frame- but the moon and stars emanated a faint glow that poured over the woods. He saw them, and was overcome with a feeling that he could run forever, were his feet set upon that earth. Everything about those woods seemed to beckon to him- the sweet smells of the air and the musk of the creatures that dwelt there lifting themselves up to meet Ambrose’s quickly heightening senses. The fur was cropping up more steadily, now, as well- the prickles were coursing down his back in a long stripe and eating two paths down the back of his legs. At his front, the hair that covered his arms in a blonde down had moved up onto his shoulders and then down a number of smaller avenues of his chest and into his groin, the hair thin at every point and no longer than a single digit section of a finger- cresting only at points such as his elbows, where it feathered out into a point, and at the nape of his neck, where a ruff was beginning to form. Ambrose did not struggle with the changes, and instead gave himself over to them, maintaining only his upright stance as his last measure of control.

It wasn’t easy for Ambrose, who had always preserved a control over himself and his situation, to give himself over to such an animal change. But he’d learned that the sort of resistance he’d offered to the transformation had allowed his bestial, inhuman side to… twist him, and to gain control over his mind and faculties. As it is with all things, magical or not, it can be devastating to deny what you are, and to attempt to exclude those things you don’t accept. Ambrose had firsthand, terrible experience with this, and his denial of lycanthropy as a part of his existence had thrown him headfirst into suppression that was both dangerous and fraught with consequences. He’d learned, mostly through the devastating effects of his inability to cope, that he couldn’t be cured by attempting to control his animal side- instead, it only managed to control him. His only course of action was to accept that he couldn’t be cured, not in that manner- and that he could accept the changes on his own terms. By deciding who would be around him during the changes, and where they’d occur, he found that he regained a measure of that control he sought so desperately, and that the changes would not affect his mind. He had not given himself to the beast- instead, he had allowed the beast residence in his soul- it would be part of him. It was the hardest lesson Ambrose ever had to learn- suppression came as naturally to him as breathing, so imbued had it been to him since birth. He possessed within him a veritable storehouse of bottled up emotions, the collection containing even those vintage, painful feelings of rejection that plagued him as a child. To continue to suppress those emotions was to lose control of his bestial nature- the more he attempted to fall into his old ways, the more the werewolf would twist his mind. But to express himself, and uncork those bottles, was to experience them all over again- the pain of his youth, the feelings of inadequacy and the doubt- they were, as most cellared things are, more potent with age. Lycanthropy was a terrible thing, and also a freeing one, for this poor, noble-born man, for it put him in a position of having to choose his own form of torture.

Ambrose continued to stand at the window, concreting his balance with the weight of his arms against the stone. The forest still called out to him, appealing to his lupine senses that he belonged amongst its trees. As if an answer to its calls, his eyes altered- shifting in a full, feral yellow, rimmed in black. In the same instant, his night vision erupted, bringing clarity to every feature that was bathed in darkness. The animal eyes took in his surroundings of stone and walls, and it was the last straw for the budding wolf- it wanted to be outside.

Ambrose ran- down the cold steps, and into the night air. His feet, on which calloused paw pads were beginning to form, pounded the night earth and took him swiftly into the forest. He ran, aware of the muscles that were tightening all over his body, but not caring as he slipped among the trees. It was the foretaste of pain- his musculature was shifting rapidly, twisting around crunching, spinning bones- and his blood pumping furiously- but he’d experienced it often enough to bear the throbbing ache, and his run continued, faster as the muscle fibers in his legs tightened and bowed, turning into those of a wolf.

In less than a minute’s time, that blonde downy fluff was joined by a scragglier, grey undercoat, spreading rapidly down his body from his neckline. That tender knob at the heel of his spine, which had been itching since before he escaped the tower, now elongated in a single, violent push, creating new skin over the bony appendage as it extended. The creation of this new, unhuman member caused a sort of switch to go off in Ambrose’s mind. He was now possessed of a tail, and the control of its movement was a distinctly animal sensation, further awakening the instinctive nature of the wolf in him. It was also a trigger for the physical- there was a furious spasm of his muscles, accompanied by a sickening crunch. His ribs were widening, and any bones useless to a canine form were being dissolved into the bloodstream at the same time that new ones being created from the pulsing blood that carried the curse throughout his body. Ambrose let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground as the muscles in his legs swelled and the cartilage in his knees fused, the kneecaps they supported liquefying.

The changes would not cease simply because he had- his hands and feet curled under into paws, the fragile bones of the dexterous human fingers snapping under with unforgiving cracks. They stretched out, and the paw pads firmed on their undersides. It seemed everything in his body was swelling, and the movement caused him to roll the last few inches into a clearing. He’d been unconsciously headed towards it, the center of the forest- and to the water that flowed through its heart.

The final changes were upon him, and up through the break in the canopy that the clearing provided, he could see the moon, staring down on its malformed creation. His jaw pushed outwards, new teeth cropping up, tearing through his gums and causing the rest of his teeth to shift to a more canine arrangement. Ambrose was drunk with the changes, the pain in his muscles beginning to subside as they quickly moved to make him quadrupedal. It felt… right, and natural, once he was this far along in the transformation, and he felt powerful and strong, and his senses were amazing. His sinuses bulged, and Ambrose was suddenly plunged into a world of engorged smells- he could almost taste them, heavy on the air, as his nose made the final push out and the glands in its leathery tip moistened the newly canine olfactory marvel. His lungs, attached to his still mostly human windpipe, were slower to change, and he gasped for air until they did, unable to stand yet for the lack of breath.

The final change to sweep over him was the receding of his own, blonde hair, and the last cementation of his wolf shape underneath the surcoat of coarse white and grey fur that covered every inch of his body- including the twitching, alert tail. By the time his new appendage was tipped with this shaggier coat, he stood on four legs, a wolf of the night. The moon still shone down at him, so he tipped his head back and howled a missive to the celestial body- it was the mother to this form he possessed.

He would have spirited off deeper into the forest, had his unearthly howl not caused an animal nearby mortal fear- it screamed an echoing whinny, and alerted Ambrose, who spun around. At the brook’s edge was the fearful creature- a horse, dapple-grey in the moonlight, terrified and pulling at its lead, which had been bound about a tree. In its desperation to run from him, it nearly broke its leg, stumbling over exposed roots and jerking its bridled nose away from the trunk that bound it, hoping to tear free. Ambrose took several steps towards it, inciting a peak in its panic, and its repeated cry filled him with a carnal instinct to feed. He moved closer to the tethered beast.

“Please stay where you are. If the man in you is still aware, please hear me. He’ll break his neck out of fear with any more steps that you take.”

The voice spun Ambrose once again, this time to face a hooded figure several feet upstream from the petrified mare. His lips parted slightly, but he suppressed the snarl that would have followed. His shock at seeing a person in these woods was extreme, and it was that, more than anything else, that caused him to pause in his gait.

The figure was shrouded in black, kneeling motionless at the water’s edge, a dark hood cloaking their features. It was only when Ambrose ceased all motion towards the horse that the mysterious stranger tipped back the hood to reveal- a woman.

“Thank you.” She whispered. Her voice was composed and serene, although Ambrose could see that her face was ashen- and not with the pale moonlight. She, too, was afraid of this wolf that she’d seen transform from a half-man, and it showed on her round, plain face.

“You poor man,” she said, still whispering with the force of her fear, “that God would punish you this way.” Ambrose, still overcome with the smell of the animal’s smell, took a step towards her, but was stopped instantly by the woman’s hurried clasping of her hands before her chest. Her lips blurred with a swift, furious prayer. She was obviously a pious, religious woman- the words were familiar to Ambrose, as was the plain, dark garb that she wore- he had often seen it on his brother Sebastien, who had pledged himself into the Lord’s service. The woman had obviously seen his transformation, and must be terrified, Ambrose thought. The human nature that dwelled, deep within the psyche of this wolf, was suddenly self-conscious. This woman had been swept up in the mists, and carried to this land- that enough was sure, for there were few native to Ravenloft that carried the principles of any god close to their hearts. Divine powers had always had difficulty reaching this dreaded demiplane, rendering the powers of priests nearly useless, and isolating the pious from their Saviors. Ambrose and his party had often come across those stranded flagellants praying in the streets, the words imploring their Gods not to improve their lives, or give them clarity and wisdom… but merely to answer them at all:

We ask for someone to ask

We pray for someone to pray to

Ambrose had always pitied them, as though he could feel their loss. He had always envied the religious, never able himself to give over to religion’s message or to the idea of eternal acceptance from your creator- even though it was an ideal sought by him all his days. Dreu had always had his father’s acceptance, and Sebastien had that of God’s… and Ambrose had nothing; and so had envied them both. And as for these poor souls whose Gods had fallen silent, wrenched away from their heavens- he pitied them, and was reminded of Feng, bound to this plane. He hoped that his God would find him, and spirit his soul home- and wished the same for this woman, praying on her knees in the midst of a cursed land.

He bowed his head to the woman and ran off in the opposite direction, the night calling him- but not before that wish resounded in his mind. It is what I wish for us all, he thought as he tore through the trees- to be spirited home.