Chapter Text
Sasha paced back and forth within the once-abandoned barracks, rubbing her aching jaw. Her growing pains were worse than usual on this night, and she could feel the fangs poking against the roof of her mouth. The sun had already set, and it was only a matter of time before the full moon began to rear its ugly head. It had been a few days since her encounter with Anne at Toad Tower, and her blood was still rushing from the thought of it.
Anne disobeyed me. Anne replaced me. With a bunch of talking frogs.
Sasha suddenly began feeling very hot. Too hot. She unconsciously scratched at her arms, where golden fur was already growing in short clumps.
Anne doesn’t need you anymore.
A rumble settled low in Sasha’s throat, threatening to leave her in a harsh growl. She needed to leave, needed to get as far away as she could. Before someone got hurt.
Taking a deep breath, Sasha made a beeline for the door. As she began to slink out of the barracks, a hand gripping her wrist stopped her.
“Grime, Let me go. Now.”
“Sasha, I know about your transformations. I can handle it-”
“No, you can’t! Not this time- ugh,” she moaned, clutching her head. She squeezed her eyes shut as her vision began to swirl. When she opened them again she was seeing red.
“Grime,” she snarled, the fear in her tone giving way to an inhuman yowl. “Anne-” Sasha felt Grime withdraw from her arm as though burned. He slowly backed away as her body began contorting violently, her flesh and bone giving way to abnormally long limbs and a whining, gaping maw. The beast within her registered first pain, then hunger, then fury. Finally she sat up, panting and stumbling slightly with the strain of her transformation. The top of her head grazed the doorframe and she crouched through, her ears flattening in annoyance. Grime watched, stone-faced, as Sasha turned towards the full moon and howled into the night.
The werewolf leapt from the barracks into open fields, where a few toad guards were keeping watch. With a savage cry she began charging towards them, saliva dripping from her jaws. They screamed and scattered, disorienting Sasha for a moment before she gave chase. She raised one gnarled paw at a soldier, who hopped out of the way just as sharpened claws came raking down. Her claws buried themselves into the dirt with a dull thunk. Sasha roared, struggling for a moment to free herself from the earth. Her long limbs flailed as she pulled herself free, reeling backwards with a yelp. With one last growl in the direction of the fleeing toads, she bounded into the woods.
“Anne, what are you doing?”
The brush collapsed beneath Sasha as she ran, the branches snapping like bones beneath massive paws. Tiny creatures obscured by the trees screamed in discontentment as the beast rattled their homes from below. She was following the scent of a large creature, the scent of prey she recognized. Thorns and jagged rocks dug into her paws and pierced her thick fur, but Sasha kept running, pure instinct driving her towards her goal.
“Something I should’ve done a long time ago. Standing up to you!”
Sasha leapt from the cover of trees into a clearing, where a few young herons were resting. She landed on the back of a juvenile, her teeth immediately sinking into the animal’s neck. The heron barely had time for a squawk before it fell, its neck fatally severed. Its young mother panicked, desperately lunging at Sasha with a razor-sharp beak. The wolf howled in pain, blood gushing from her mouth and side. She whirled on the mother heron, teeth bared and claws outstretched.
“Hey Anne?”
As the full moon hung high in the midnight sky, Sasha lounged by the riverside, licking her wounds. Two mangled herons lay beside her, barely touched save for fatal bite wounds on their necks. Sasha sat up on her haunches, standing over the heron’s skull and tossing her head to the stars.
“Maybe you’re better off without me.”
From his post outside the old barracks, Grime could just make out the solemn howl of a monster.
