This Time
Chapter one
Kain looked up at the threatening clouds above him. He knew that the sky called out for him, cried for its master. And he knew it was only a matter of time before he became it again. He sighed and went back into the shabbily half-restored building to remove his clothes. He wasn't going to lose them like last time. No, it would be too uncomfortable anyhow. The transformation hurt badly enough as it was, without his wings trying to spread and having the confines of cloth to break through.
"I wonder why she chose me, of all people?" he thought, not realizing that he voiced it. Not that there was anyone around to hear.
"Grooo, grum." Except Valediction, the blond thought with a slight wince. "Gro? Brrrammbara?"
Kain looked at the huge eye, peeping through the broken window, regarding him with curiosity. "Yes, her, you pervert." He chuckled as the huge dragon tried to comprehend the human word. "Grum?"
Kain winced as he realized that the transformation was beginning. He felt his face twisting, and his limbs beginning to shift, as the buds of feathered wings forced themselves from his broad shoulders.
"I will not explain it to you, because you are the very definition of the word, watching people taking off their clothes." He spoke, his voice dripping with something that only the dragons have bothered to name. He found Valediction's quirky habit of intently watching him as often as possible to be amusing, if quite irritating.
The dragon's befuddled expression did nothing to ease the pain the man felt. "(But you are funny, Val.)" he focused on that thought as he collapsed to the floor, his body now covered with thick, curly gold fur, his forehead bleeding from the emerging horn, which created a headache so furious, that it always surprised him that his skull was ever left intact.
Then it all stopped. The world swirled about him as he struggled to get enough oxygen into his system. He lay, panting, for several minutes, before stretching his tremendous pink wings and, wobbling, stood on his paws.
Valediction had watched every moment of the transformation, quite in awe that his master was so tolerant… what had he called him? In any case, the majestic winged wolf that now stood in the room where his master had been only moments before, shedding the strange extra skin that humans always seemed to have, was not a beast to be trifled with. He left the window, knowing that the time had come for him to go to the clearings in the deep forest. The Sky Guardian did not need him to watch where he went, and most certainly… would be… what did humans say about this anyway? He lumbered off.
Kain walked through the doorway of the broken building that had become his lair in the past six months, following the discovery of the dragon's nest. He was far from hungry, yet there was something, some insatiable hunger, that he felt must be filled.
The rain had come on, suddenly, and he saw the lightning crash nearby. He felt the desires of the beast come on, as he heard a pathetic wail, barely perceptible to most, yet even louder than the thunder to him. He smiled in the way only a wolf does. Yes. That was what he sought. And tonight, he would hunt.