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"I always wanted / to feel like I hold my own reigns / my future's on the rails of freight trains, not daisy chains..." (-Ferry, Parties Are For Losers)
The Golden Guard was a persona made of confidence and suave competence. When Hunter slipped on the mask, it was easy to relax into that version of himself. He could handle anything, when he was the Golden Guard, and not just Hunter. So, that fateful day, when he found himself grappling with a witch that smelled of wet barnyard animals and had a wild, fearful look in his eyes, Hunter felt an awful lot like he was going through the motions. Sure, he was technically on a supply run gone wrong, but still. He could handle this, had been handling this for a long time, now.
The witch put up a brief fight, as most criminals did upon realizing they'd been caught, and scratched and bit and and all but hissed at Hunter. But the fight was, as stated before, brief. And soon enough, another criminal was off the streets and into the conformatorium, all thanks to the Golden Guard. He had to go back and pick up the supplies again, which ultimately took more time than it should have, but he got the job done.
Hunter paused between that chore and the next to slap some band-aids on the scratches where they had broken skin, and a proper bandage on the bite (which was rather deep). And then he didn't think about the minor injuries again, until he finally flopped down onto his bed that evening. He'd gotten back from an overnight mission just yesterday, and Emperor Belos was soft on him, so he'd be guaranteed at least a few days of rest until the next one.
The bite was on his forearm, which Hunter thought wasn't so bad. It wouldn't limit his mobility, or force him to take time off to recover. He could continue to earn the lenience that Emperor Belos treated him with. There was nothing to worry about, he told himself as he shed the several layers of clothing that made up his usual uniform. So why did the sun disappearing over the horizon make him so anxious?
Normally, he didn't even notice the darkening sky until it was too dark to read by, but as he sat in his rapidly darkening bedroom, some animal instinct- the same one that makes you drop a hot pan, or swat at a spider on your clothes before you consciously register what's happening- was tucking its tail between its legs, its belly all but on the floor. And then he felt his skin tearing.
It burned, unexpectedly and terrifyingly, in the cartilage of his ears and nose. His body, his traitorous muscle and sinew, ripped itself apart and swelled anew. It was all he could do to breathe, and keep breathing. As his legs turned to jelly and then to ice and then to something like what they once were, he panted, short, pained breaths. Only a single pathetic whimper managed to escape.
He laid on the floor for a long while, though he wasn't sure when he got on the floor or how long exactly he didn't move for. Something was terribly wrong, that much he knew. Nothing else seemed certain. His own body had betrayed him in a violent revolt. Something was wrong with him. He might be dying. Slowly, he gathered the will to move.
He flexed his hands, first, which did as they were told. The nails were sturdier, not quite claws but close indeed. The hair there was thick and white. There was no blood. He had thought, with all of the pain he had just been in, surely there would have been blood. He got his arms underneath of him, and heaved himself upright.
In the mirror, there was an image that his brain could not quite believe was real, was him. His ears were long, and looked remarkably like a white rabbit's. He flicked them back and forth, transfixed by the motion he was not capable of making just a little while earlier. He twitched his nose, and then realized he could twitch his nose, and did it again. It was a little pink triangle (though the bridge was still there), and he was starting to wonder if he'd been cursed to be half-rabbit or something.
There was a knock at the door. Hunter jumped. Emperor Belos opened the door, stepping inside without waiting for a response. Hunter wished he could disappear. Wordlessly, the Emperor cupped Hunter's chin in one hand, tilting the boy's head from side to side. (Examining him like a show horse.)
"You've gone and gotten yourself cursed, haven't you?" The Emperor's eyes were kind, and his expression almost quelled the fear curdling Hunter's stomach with acid.
"I don't know what's happening to me," Hunter nearly whispered.
Emperor Belos withdrew his hand. "Put on your cloak and helmet. You can stay in one of the private rooms in the infirmary until further notice."
Hunter nodded. He said, "Yes, sir," and fetched those things. He heard the Emperor's footsteps as he left, though they were normally nearly silent. At least he could hide the worst evidence of the curse under his hood.
Everything was too loud, in the long, empty corridors of the palace. The echoes of his footsteps might as well have been earthquakes, to his oversensitive ears. (He wondered how he would manage on a busy road, or crowded street. Oh, titan, he was never going out in public again.) His heart was pounding, and he thought he might just die of fright then and there. But, somehow, he survived the five-minute walk to the infirmary, and then was directed into a small, private room for examination.
Hunter had not regularly visited a doctor growing up, so he wasn't sure how a normal checkup would go, much less a... special case. (More like basket case, really. He kept having the strange urge to bite something. Preferably leafy greens, but he feared he might go for flesh if his self-control wavered.) So, he let the doctors poke and prod him, shine a light in one eye and then the other, and other various things. For the most part, the doctors did an excellent job at pretending this was all routine.
They asked him a whole slew of questions, and then finally decided they had enough for one night. One of the doctors stayed behind, because being a special case apparently meant you couldn't do so much as sleep unmonitored.
"I know it's a little silly," she said, fiddling with a strange plastic toy, "but it's just part of my job, really. Just get some rest, alright, kid? You look like you need it."
Hunter, too tired to do anything else, nodded. He put his head down to rest, and the nurse tucked him in. As he drifted off, he felt her run her hands through his hair. He dreamt of running for his life from a threat he never had the chance to look back and see.
He jolted himself awake the next morning. In a half-awake blur, more nurses and the prick of a needle and voices, some polite and subdued, some urgent and angry, all swam around Hunter's consciousness and past him. Eventually, what brought him back to awareness was that same nurse from the night before, who sat with him and let him lean on her.
The transformation had apparently reversed itself just an hour before he woke, and so the doctors had concluded that it was a form of lycanthropy. The man who had bitten him yesterday must have been a true were-rabbit, but because it had been during the day, Hunter had a comparatively mild case. He was able to retain most of his mental faculties when he transformed, but it would happen every night, and not just on the full moon.
In the end, Hunter was ordered to resume his duties as normal. Potions and pamphlets were foisted on him, and he was sent to his room to get ready for the day. He never did get that one nurse's name. He thought of her, sometimes, when he drank the burnt-tasting potions he'd been prescribed to ward off the transformations. But he had more important things to worry about in his day-to-day life.
The next day, in a fit of childish indulgence, Hunter bought himself a soft toy rabbit. Its beady black eyes and floppy yellow ears were oddly endearing, and he almost felt bad shoving it into the bottom of his bag. That evening, as he tucked it under his pillow (next to his frog), he decided to name it Softie.