Chapter Text
"I wish I could be a part of your world," Hana whispered as she extended a hand and gently caressed the fur on his neck.
"Staying even after I showed you what I am is enough." He pressed a paw-like hand against hers. "You already understand me better than a lot of people."
Hana shook her head. She allowed her hand to intertwine with his. The differences were stark up close. They didn't quite lock neatly. "I feel like there's so much that you can't really tell me. Like just the feeling of being both a human and a wolf, to be able to switch between the two... Just to experience both nature and the city from your perspective. I'd... I think I'd like that."
"Maybe you can't quite be like me," he sighed. "But maybe we can experience just a bit of it...together?"
Hana smiled, her eyes tearing up as she pressed her forehead to his. "I love you."
He breathed. "I love you, Hana."
The two were drawn closer until they entered a tight embrace, Hana nuzzling herself against the wolfman's fur. From the corner of their eyes, they caught a glint. Turning their attention away from each other for a moment, they noticed a streak in the night sky. A shooting star.
~
Tyler awoke as Hana stirred beside him. His eyes were slow to open. His body was even slower to rise; all of his energy having been spent by their first night of intimacy, though the night itself hadn't quite ended yet. The lack of light in the bedroom with the exception of the glowing light of the full moon outside the window was evidence enough of that.
The moonlight highlighted Hana's pale skin lovingly. But it also highlighted the beads of sweat slowly forming on her forehead. Her eyes were tightly shut, she was shuddering, and the blankets twisted around her body.
Sensing her distress, Tyler gently shook his mate. Her form seized up for a brief second like a frightened animal.
"Mmmhmm!" Hana exclaimed as she quickly shot up, her breathing ragged. Her head darted around in confusion before settling on Tyler's worried expression. Her body calmed, though it didn't look quite relaxed. "I-I'm awake... I-I've been awake..."
"Are you feeling alright?" Tyler asked. "You look a bit ill."
Tyler's concern only grew as Hana let out a gasp, a shudder passing through her body.
"I-I don't know h-how I'm feeling," she stammered. "I just w-woke up feeling kind of off. It's like there's this...something's squeezing my body! And my skin has just been tingling like crazy!"
She gasped again as she hugged her body tightly. This time, her shivers didn't pass through in a single episode. Tyler reached out a hand to touch her face, trying to detect if there was a fever. As he did though, something caught his eyes.
Hana's lips were beginning to twitch back as she grimaced. Her head was hung low, so he couldn't get quite a clear view, but he swore he saw a familiar glint. His hand froze along with the rest of him as his mate attempted to raise her head to meet his face. Four distinct fangs were poking out of her mouth, completely out of place among the rest of her human teeth.
No... It couldn't be.
Hana could easily see the shock on his face. "Tyler? Is something wrong? What do you se--nngh!"
Another violent shudder passed through her, causing her to screw her eyes shut. Her lips peeled back even more, revealing her new fangs in full. But that wasn't what Tyler's attention was on. Rather, it was on the twitching delicate points pushing out through her messy locks of hair.
"Why do I feel like this?!" Hana exclaimed as her pointed lobes only continued to grow larger and more triangular. The glow of the moonlight outside also illuminated patches of dark fuzz dusting the edges.
Tyler was at a loss how to even describe what was happening. He knew from her scent that she was human when he met her. Why was she now suddenly developing wolf-like characteristics?
His mate suddenly let out a cry of actual pain as she threw her hands off of herself. There were small slightly bleeding puncture marks on her arms where she was previously clenching herself tightly. And tipping the ends of her fingers were nails far longer, sharper, and thicker than any human's.
And this time, Hana took notice.
"Wh-What?" she gasped. "What happened to my nails? W-Why are they suddenly so sharp? Aaaahhh! I'm suddenly feeling so itchy! Ah!"
Her body suddenly twitched with a loud crack, causing her to hunch over the slightly. As she did, the same fuzz on her ears began to spread all over her shoulders. Unlike the fuzz thickening along her ears, it was peach colored, just a shade darker than her skin tone. From a distance, it would almost seem like patches of her skin were discolored.
Tears began to leak from her eyes. "What's happening to me?!"
"Hana... It's going to sound insane but..." Tyler steeled himself, fighting back against his tense heartbeat as he put his hands around hers, taking a position as to avoid her newly sprouted claws. "I think you're turning into a wolf."
Hana stared up at him with wide eyes. 'W-What? H-Hhhoooaaah!"
She was forced down yet again as her back went through a series of convulsions, just barely catching herself with one hand. With a groan, she arched her back up, revealing segments of her spine popping in and out of place just beneath the surface of her skin. At the same time, the fuzz along her shoulders began to thicken, more hairs sprouting along her back, though they barely hid the grotesque changes occurring to her internal structure.
"Hana!" Tyler cried out. "Are you okay?! T-That looked painful!"
He cursed himself for how uselessly stupid that sounded.
To his surprise, Hana let out a tearful laugh, revealing more sharpening teeth."I-It's funny... None of it actually does. Nngh! My bones are moving around, but it just feels all tight and tingly. Hahh!"
Hana's face suddenly twisted as she screwed her eyes shut once again as a thin layer of fur washed over it, starting with her cheeks before finishing off with her forehead. As her lips peeled back, revealing her clenched fangs in full, her delicate nose began to quiver into a different shape. Air blew out of her nostrils in bursts as they flared out, the bridge of her nose flattened with several cracks, and the skin around it grew progressively darker and more leathery. In moments, her nose more closely resembled a wolf's than a human's though not quite.
Her now large and triangular ears quite literally perked up in shock when she opened her eyes to see her new nose in front of her. "Ah! My nose! It's--Ah! My fingers! I-I can't feel them anymore!"
Both she and Tyler bore witness to the dark paw pads that had formed on her palms and underneath her broadening fingertips. Not a second later, her hands suddenly convulsed with a series of popping noises. Her fingers only swelled further as her palms stretched out at an erratic rate, shrinking down into mere nubs and her thumbs even further than that as they moved slightly higher onto her arms. With one last loud crack and a shudder, Hana's hands had been replaced by a set of canine paws.
But the sickening noises of bones reshaping and muscles stretching only intensified from there, quickly working their way up her arms until they more closely resembled lean front legs. As Tyler tracked the changes rippling up, he also caught a glimpse of her alert ears pulling up the sides of her head with a series of rapid twitches. Up close, even through the growing fur, he could also make out her skin tightening against her ribcage, the small shadowy indents indicating the structure.
None of this made sense to him. This wasn't how a transformation into a wolf was supposed to go, at least not from what he remembered. It was supposed to be one skin smoothly fading into the other, a transition that took mere seconds at most.
But then again, his body was built for both forms. Hana to his knowledge was human. It was like her body was trying to figure out how to even transform into a very different form.
His heart clenched as Hana stumbled clumsily into his chest, front legs failing to wrap around his waist, paws struggling to even touch his back as she no longer had the internal structure to perform any kind of traditional embrace. He could feel her nose against his chest becoming progressively colder and wetter.
"Please..." Hana gasped tearfully. "Hold me. I-I'm scared."
"I'm here Hana," Tyler whispered back as he wrapped his own arms around her back, the fur now completely thick and all encompassing. "I'll always be here."
She suddenly squirmed as her back let out another cascade of pops. To his surprise, she actually clambered further up his body, pulling her transformed arms over his shoulders. Tyler looked down, seeing the blankets fall away from her lower body as she pushed her rear further out. The fur was thick enough that he could only see the smallest outline of her still-shifting spine.
That was, except for the twitching boney appendage sticking out just above her rear.
"I-I feel something g-growing," Hana groaned. She buried her face further into Tyler's shoulder as she stretched her body out, the bristly nub steadily pushing out further and further into the air, the fur thickening until it stood bushy at several feet.
She gasped out a labored sigh as her body relaxed slightly, though it still shook. Her eyes focused back on Tyler, then traveled to where his line of sight had formerly been.
To his shock, she looked almost happy to see her newly-formed tail. "Ah! Ah! I have a tail! I can feel it wagging!"
Her brief moment of euphoria was interrupted by another sudden snap, and with a choked squeal, she went limp in his arms, like she had lost all feeling in her lower half. One glance and it became clear why. Tyler honestly couldn't believe her when she said the transformation didn't feel painful. The way her legs bent in and out of place as their joints rearranged made it look like they were being broken repeatedly, and the popping and snapping that accompanied each shift only further added to the sickening imagery. He swore he could actually hear her skin being stretched as her feet elongated, not helped by the constant twitching as her toes broadened, claws unsheathing from the tips. One loud snap and he somehow knew that her lower-half's balance had shifted to the balls of her feet.
"Auggh!" Hana cried out suddenly. "Let me go, let me go! My back's cramping up! Ah!"
Tyler quickly dropped Hana back onto the bad, watching in horror as Hana's form curled and stretched. Ripples passed along Hana's back, ironing out the feminine curves he had spent exploring and admiring just hours before. Her shoulders narrowed and hunched up. Her hips pushed closer together as her leg muscles shifted to her thighs, reforming them into flanks. New muscles spread down her midsection, thickening her waist. The fuzz along her underside proceeded to thicken rapidly, becoming a layer of off-white fur, just in time to obscure her rounding chest out, the furry outlines of her breasts shrinking beneath a stretching layer of broad muscle.
Hana's body now completely resembled a human-sized wolf, and only the basic shape of her head and her messy hair resembled her human self. The unpleasant thought crossed Tyler's mind that this would begin to change in a matter of seconds.
Suddenly, Hana raised her head almost inquisitively, her eyes not on him but on the moon outside the window. It was as though it had a hold of her. All of the distress that previously was marked on her face seemed to fade away as her eyes gently closed. Her disheveled hair quivered like it was hit by a slight breeze before steadily lengthening, portions intertwining with her fur, particularly melding with the fur across her cheeks and down her neck. Said neck was lengthening subtly, the muscles thickening becoming masked by the distinct mane that marked his kind.
Large twin triangular ears stood alert at the top of her head, the fur the same color as her mane of hair. Her nose had continued to quiver, now a very dark brown in color, moisture glistening in the moonlight, its shape now like an inverted triangle with particularly rounded edges. There was a sudden pop, and her jaws twitched, yet her closed eyes only tensed at most as her nose and mouth stretched out into a long and narrow muzzle.
The wolf who had previously been the woman he had fallen for raised her muzzle completely into the air, letting out a howl into the night sky. It was melodious, still retaining much of her pleasant human tones.
And with that, Hana's body final stilled. With a peaceful exhale, Hana's eyes opened. Then they widened when she recalled what had happened over the course of the past few minutes.
"I-I'm a wolf!" Hana yelled out, her voice still completely that of her human-self. She clumsily stumbled around on the bed, fumbling with her balance as she clearly hadn't worked up any muscle memory for her new position. "H-How do you keep balance? This feels so weird!"
Tyler just stared at his mate's new form, still unable to fully process what had just taken place. He could tell that her scent had changed. She was no longer human. It was now similar to his own kind.
She still did smell like a human before they...
He hung his head low, clenching the sheets in self-disgust. He thought he knew about his own kind and the ways that they were not like the demons portrayed in movies and old folktales. What they possessed was not supposed to be some kind of curse that could be spread, but then his kind had always gravitated more around other wolves than human communities.
"H-Hana," he said, unsure if any words could really convey his remorse. "I-I'm sorry. I never wanted you to lose your humanity..."
Hana halted in her stumbling, tilting her head over to him in bemused confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Now his guilt was mixing in with embarrassment. How was he even going to explain this to her? "My kind hardly ever interacts with humans to this...extent. When it comes to families, to my knowledge, we've always just pursued either wolves or others like us. I was told many times that my abilities were just a part of my species, not something to be treated as a kind of curse or disease..."
"Stop right there." He was suddenly cut-off as Hana stumbled over to his lap, craning her neck up to nuzzle his cheek. "This wasn't your fault. I wanted this. To be like you, to understand you better."
"But I didn't know I would--"
"You didn't do anything at all," Hana said firmly. "Do you remember when you first revealed your secret to me on that hillside? I made a wish."
The words echoed.
"I wish I could be a part of your world."
The shooting star...
Despite his very existence being considered by many a myth, Tyler honestly had a difficult time believing it. "Can something like this really happen from wishing on a star? Is this some kind of dream?"
Even with a muzzle, Hana's lips managed to curve into an almost sly smile. "Then this is a dream we're both sharing."
All of the shock and excitement had finally reached a conclusion, causing both to collapse back into the bed. He could see Hana's limbs awkwardly splayed about as her chest slowly rose and fell. Her lupine face stared back at his.
"I can figure out how to move around as a wolf tomorrow night," Hana said suddenly, "but right now I really don't know how to fall asleep like this. Does it take a lot of work to change back?"
Tyler couldn't help but chuckle softly. "Not at all."