I walked down the cobble stone path with my daggers' hilts bouncing at my waist. I was warm under my black cloak that was lined inside with a soft wolf's fur. In accordance to the Queen's wishes I keep my face hidden from view with the hood of my cloak and I talk only to those who are trusted. I don't mind though, I speak little anyway and no one knowing what my face protects me from the unknown.
I'm part of the Elite Royal Guard and I'm always at my Queen's side. I'm known throughout all of the kingdoms as someone to be feared but every story told of me is exaggerated. One of the most famous of my adventures is told as though I'm some monstrous beast with glowing red eyes. The story says that I was sent out to slaughter a king and his elite guard that consisted of one hundred men. As soon as I plundered them of their gold I shed the Elite Guard and the king of their skin and I now wear the hides as a cloak. The story wasn't even close to that.
I was sent for a peace treaty and it went wrong. Some guards attacked me and I was forced to attack them back but no one was killed. I didn't steal any gold either, my kingdom is rich enough and stealing is a thief's job and not an Elite Guard's and wearing other peoples' skin is creepy.
"Lon," the Queen called me by my nickname. "I have a mission for you." I walked to my Queen immediately. "A king is refusing to let our tradesmen pass through his land. Could you deliver this message to him and this bag of gems?" I bowed my head to my Queen. "Travel alone and by foot. I need this done quietly. Oh, and I need you home for Princess Cindra's crowning ceremony tomorrow."
I nodded again and felt the fur within my cloak warm my skin and my transformation began. My skin rippled and my bones creaked and growled as they were pushed into an inhuman shape. When my body stilled I shook in my new form. My warm black fur fell softly into place and my large black ears flopped back and forth with each toss of my body.
As I settled I stretched out my four legs and yawned sleepily. I sat on my haunches and checked the booties on my feet. They were a light peachy color that were made from my human skin, just as my cloak was made from my own black wolf fur. The booties were the only reminder that I was a human only a few minutes ago.
I barked once and two Royal Messengers came to my side. One carried a leather harness that held a metal cylindrical letter holder. The other messenger helped me stand as the one with the harness helped me into the rough leather bindings that fit around my front legs perfectly. When everything was strapped together correctly the letter holder was laying vertical along my spine. As soon as everything was checked and double checked I was given the ok to start my journey to the Western Kingdom.
The wind ran through my fur and I could feel the power within me pounding with each footstep. I blasted through the castle and was soon out into the castle's gardens. There I ran through bushes and flowers just to get their scent on me and feel their leaves and branches against my skin. I didn't get to run around so freely like this that often. I was kept close to the Queen just as most Royals did with their Royal Guard, especially the head of the Royal Guard like me. Some people had multiple people in their Royal Guard but most keep only one or two G'Yokies, shape shifters, in the whole guard. My Queen has hundreds of people in her Guard but her Royal Guard there's only three of us. I'm supposed to be within a mile of the Queen at all times unless I'm on a mission so I usually spend lazy days at the right of her throne in my own, but smaller, chair.
G'Yokies like me can be any one animal. We're rare to come by though since it is only a genetic default that makes us extraordinary. These flaws are not inherited from parents. It's a DNA flaw that happens while the child is developing in the womb. No one knows how exactly it happens but when the child is born it is not a human, but instead it is its transformation animal. I was born a pitch black wolf with milky brown eyes, a few days after my birth I changed into my human form, a black haired baby girl with the same brown wolf eyes. There has never been a female G'Yoki recorded in history. My birth even surprised my family and so I was abandoned at the castle's front gate and adopted as a castle maid, at the time.
It would only take me a few hours to run to this nearby kingdom and hopefully not have to get into any trouble, like a wild G'Yoki. I'd have to run through a dense forest that most humans wouldn't even travel on the best of days. It was the safest and fastest route for me to travel but it would also be a perfect hiding place for any wild G'Yoki. Sometimes while going through areas like this I'd wish that I was a bird G'Yoki so I could just relax and travel fast and in complete safety. Then I'd think about how much I couldn't do in my animal form and it always made me appreciate the different things I could do as a wolf.
The first thing a G'Yoki must learn to do is fight as a human since our animal form takes awhile to master the beast within. After we learn how to use our animal form we have to learn how to use our instincts and abilities. One of the most amazing things is that all G'Yoki who master both human and animal forms can speak with each other in our minds. We can also sense other G'Yokies nearby but we can't tell what animal or gender they are.
The biggest way to spot a G'Yoki is to look for a G'Yoki item. The item can also be a way to tell what animal the G'Yoki is. All G'Yoki have something that represents their animal while they're a human, like my wolf cloak. While in our animal form we have something that represents our human form, like my human skin leather booties. Without these objects on us at all times we are powerless and can eventually die from a terrible sickness. That's why when we transform parts of our other body transforms with us.
The forest was dark and cool with small patches of sunlight every now and then. The run was peaceful and fairly quiet with only the sound of my pads crushing the foliage and a few song birds singing to mates for the coming summer. As the minutes passed I started getting tired and slowed my sprint to a slow jog. The first hour passed fairly quickly but a rest stop would be well deserved right about now. I found a larger swatch of sunlight and laid down to rest. I let my soft, baby pink tongue hang from my black wolf lips and cool me down. I tucked my paws under my legs and fully relaxed. I was about to fall asleep when I felt a G'Yoki's presence.
I stood up immediately and the hairs along my neck and spine bristled. I waited in the silence for the G'Yoki to contact me. Nothing came and the fear of meeting a wild G'Yoki struck me. I've only met one before but it was only a child. He'd only mastered his animal side and spoke none of the Royal Language. He had obviously been abandoned as a baby in this forest and eventually the beast within him overtook his human half. Luckily the small spider G'Yoki skittered along his way and I was able to continue along mine. Some tamed G'Yoki have been killed easily by wild ones.
Wild G'Yoki come in two forms. There's a rogue G'Yoki who hunt and kill humans but understand what they're doing and they have full control over both their halves and then there are untamed G'Yoki. These G'Yoki normally don't live long. Most are children who were abandoned as a baby and left to die in the forest. These untamed G'Yoki are normally very timid and have only control of one half of their body. The ones who tame only their human halves can sometimes move back into society and live a normal human life. The others are more rabid and take on the qualities and natural instincts of their animal. It's like the animal half devours the human half and along with the death of the human half goes the domestic, tame half.
"Hello?" I called mentally to any G'Yoki that would be near.
"Hello," the neutral G'Yoki voice called back. All G'Yoki mind voices are not gender specific and it's one of the reasons why I haven't been found to be a girl yet. "What's your business in The King's Forest?"
"I have a message to deliver to King Emiya," I replied. At least it was a tamed G'Yoki.
"Continue on then, I will send word that you are on your way from Her Majesty Lucinda."
He knew where I was coming from because Queen Luicinda is the only kingdom that boarders King Emiya on this side. As I felt the G'Yoki leave the area I relaxed. I had no time to waste now though. They knew I was coming and about how long it would take. I took a few deep breaths and then started racing through the forest.
The rest of the run through the forest was peaceful and within the half hour I had reached the end of the forest. A vast land of savannah and desert was just before me. It was a drastic and quick change. The next mile would change from a rich forest that was very populated with animals and it would become a deadly sand trap. Trees became rare and the color green was all but nonexistent except for the sparse oases that had mass populations of balmy trees and crystal clear water. Animals also highly populated these areas.
I was baking under the hot sun with my pitch black fur and I'd need to stop for water soon. I'd already passed a few oases and once I thought of their crisp cool water I'd regretted not stopping to get a drink and cool off at the last one I'd seen. My mouth felt like sand paper and the sensation got worse after each pounding step I took. In hopes of finding an oasis again I slowed my pace and focused on my surroundings instead of how awful I was feeling. As I looked to my right, almost five minutes after slowing down, an oasis came into view. It was perfect for me to get a drink and relax in the shade for a bit without a large hassle.
I sprinted for the oasis and once the cool grass was under my feet I realized how badly my front paws were hurting but my back ones were ok since they were protected with the booties I wore. As I saw the water glistening in the pool it was beckoning me to come to it. Before I checked the area to see if it was safe I was immersing myself in the cool liquid. The cold refreshing water bristled through my fur and pulled me into its depths. I swam freely in the crystal blue water and I felt at peace. I could never swim in public though in any form. Being in my wolf form would scare others and my human form would tell others that I was a girl. It scared me to have that figured out I didn't want to turn into some experiment. Only a few people know I'm a girl, the Queen is one of them. Not even her daughter knows that I'm a female.
I've been a part of the Queen's personal guard since I was found at her doorstep, just a year or so old. She got her oldest and wisest advisor to teach me the ways of the G'Yoki since he was one himself. I learned quickly enough and could soon defend myself. From then on I had to work to figure things out on my own. I still haven't learned everything. My trainer said that I had to learn the secrets to live a full life and that even at the end of his life he didn't even know everything yet.
Thinking about the old, gray owl G'Yoki made me realize how far I'd come since then. I'd learned that my booties and cloak could be other things that could be made from my body like a ring of my wolf skin or a necklace of my wolf's teeth. It took a long time to figure it out though and it took a lot of trial and error with trying to find my G'Yoki Item that I'd wear in my wolf form because nothing seemed to work well with the demands of being a wolf. If I were to make a new item it would have to come from skin near the area that I'd wear it. My booties come from the bottom of my feet and when I transform the skin from my booties actually become the skin of my feet, just as my cloak is actually all of my wolf's skin.
Making my current cloak was extremely painful. I had to have the Royal Butcher cut my wolf skin from my body and then have it fashioned into the beautiful cloak it is today. I'd have to remake my G'Yoki items immediately if they were to get damaged because without them I'd lose my strength and eventually die. If I were to lose my cloak my wolf form would grow new fur and I could remake an item. Another interesting thing about the G'Yoki items is that if the item takes damage it is transferred to the other body.
I've had to replace my booties many times as I've out grown them, lost them, or damaged them beyond repair. I was pretty sure that after this adventure that I'd have to replace them again. I grimaced, cutting flesh from my body was never pleasant and then I'd have to prepare them for rough journeys. The process could take a month or more so I'd have to do one boot at a time so I could always have one bootie with me and be safe.
G'Yoki items are very personal since they are actually parts of our natural bodies. The sign of each item shows the strength of each individual. My cloak shows lesser G'Yokies that I'm not to be messed with. I had ripped off my own skin to show others to respect me. Some G'Yokies would have their teeth pulled and made into a necklace. There are other more grotesque ways to show ones strength as well. One of the Great G'Yokies, who led the war against the Felenias that were a great race of cat G'Yokies, wore his own animal heart as a necklace. Although it was his ultimate downfall when a man pierced his human heart along with his animal heart and killed him, this procedure is still popular amongst Royal Generals or King G'Yokies.
G'Yokies bodies are far different than a human. A G'yoki's human body can heal while in animal form and when they transform back they can be almost fully healed. Greater wounds can take a longer time to heal though. If someone were to pierce the human heart and the human half dies a G'Yoki would transform and the animal heart would be perfectly fine. It's only when something is inside the body, like an arrow, that the damage will be transferred and even then a G'Yoki may live. Someone must kill both hearts to kill the G'Yoki forever otherwise the bodies can heal and be reborn. During this time it is impossible to transform or make G'Yoki items from the dead, or damaged, body. This state is what normally kills a G'Yoki. Being without proper G'Yoki items can cause a sickness and once a G'Yoki gets this sickness, their time has come. They say that dying like this is worse than anything that's imaginable.
I was so engrossed in myself that I didn't notice the nearby human. As soon as I sensed his presence I swam to the shore and stood in a defensive stance. Then the male human came to the shore and cupped his soft hands and dunked them into the water. From there he lifted the ring studded fingers to his rosy lips and drank from them. He was royalty and he hadn't even noticed my black fur present against the green grass. I barked at him roughly and he looked up.
He was beautiful, much more attractive than any man I'd see before. His hazel eyes starred at me in wonder. He stood up and took a step towards me and I yelled at him as a warning. He cocked his head and didn't understand me. Of course he didn't, only animals of our species understood our verbal speech. I guess it was time to ignore him and move on. I turned around to leave the oasis but stopped once he spoke.
"Come here," he commanded in a deep gravelly voice. I shook my head no and he called to me again. "Come here, you are in my father's land and I demand you to come." I couldn't deny a prince of a land and I didn't want to get on his bad side and ruin my mission. I slowly walked over to him and then stood on all fours and bowed before him. "Beast, please talk to him," the "him" he talked about was me. It was an assumed fact that all G'Yoki are male. "Since he can't transform into a human with this small of a harness on and I can't take it off since this is addressed to a king who I'm sure is my father." I nodded. Not even a price had the right to interfere with High Royal's business unless it's life threatening.
"Who are you," a G'Yoki called mentally. I looked around immediately but saw no G'Yoki.