"What's wrong with it? Why didn't the ritual work?" an accusing voice snaps above her head.

"Silence!" Lycaon's gravelly tone bites back. "The ritual was performed correctly, all of the ingredients were checked beforehand too. It must have been the girl. There must be something wrong with her, blocking the connection to the Moon. That's why she's deformed, why she looks so hideous."

Percy sniffles, they're talking about her, she can feel it, but why do they say she is deformed?

Cracking one eye open, she is met with the intense bright light of the morning sun.

"What do we do with it then? Surely it cannot be allowed to remain with the pack? It would-"

"I know what it would mean!" Lycaon snaps over the other man, "it would be a weakness we can ill afford at the moment." They both fall silent, and Percy tenses, this is the moment when they decide to kill her. And quite frankly, she's not all that certain she opposes the idea. Her body aches as though her very soul has been tortured beyond any limits, and even as she lays there, phantom shakes wrack her small frame.

"We leave her here. Bind her up, either she'll starve or she'll become food, we can blame mortal hunters if we need to."

Rough hands grab her, manhandling her into a sitting position, kneeling on her knees with her legs tucked under her. Her wrists and ankles are bound together painfully tight, and as they fumble around her, packing up the few items the pack had used to make camp, her joints seem to freeze in place, somehow going numb while the fiery pain only ever grows stronger.

"Girl!" Lycaon's bark quickly snaps her gaze up to his face, he looks disgusted with her. "Your failure to receive the blessing of the Moon in full has resulted in your immediate banishment from the Pack. You are to be left to die as the Moon sees fit."

Wolves from all around the clearing bark and howl in delight, a cacophony of noise that thunders in her head, a rhythmic pounding in time with the gushing of her blood.

She thinks they will leave immediately, what reason do they have to stick around after all? But they don't, they wait for hours, coming and going from the clearing in small groups, never leaving her alone. She always feels at least one set of eyes on her. But after a couple of tense hours, she finally relaxes enough to take a look at herself. What did they mean by she was deformed? And hideous?

She's obviously no longer in the body of the wolf she had seen last night, that much is clear, but when she examines her hands, there seems to be bits that aren't fully human. Her wrists are a marble of her normal pale skin, and a dark sheen that winds up her arms. Her fingers extend into sharp claws, and her palms are black like the underside of a dog's paw.

Squirming a little so she can see the rest of her body is painful, and she chokes back her gasp when she realizes that her movements had caused the cloth covering her to slip a little. Not so much as to leave her exposed, but enough that she could see patches of fur and marbled black skin criss-crossing her body without pattern. She can feel something extending from her spine below her hips, something that she's been desperately trying to ignore the past few hours. But craning her head around over her shoulder proves her suspicions correct.

She has a tail.

A fluffy black tail with a little patch of white fur at the tip, and thick black skin at its base.

She can't even bring herself to panic, being too tired and in too much pain to make the effort. Instead she just flops against the ropes binding her, letting them hold her body.

Hours go by, members of the pack return with skins of water and a large deer strung on sticks between them. They don't even bother to cook it, just throwing it to the ground and pouncing on it, tearing through the skin with sharp teeth.

They do not offer her any, and even if they had, she would refuse. She may have a tail now, she may be an abomination, but she is not an animal, and she refuses to act like one.

The sun is setting when Lycaon returns to her, dried blood painting his face, a wild gleam in his eyes. "My kin!" He calls out over the clearing. "The Moon is rising, it shan't be long now before we gift our newest member, Faolan, to our creator!" The wolves give a thunder of noise, barking, yelling, cheering and howling, it gives Percy a headache, rattling her skull.

"But!" His voice silences the commotion, "before we do, we must give Faolan something to remember us by for when she joins the Moon!" The pack roars its approval. "Prepare the flames!"

There is a thundering of feet and paws as they rush to obey his words, setting up a large bonfire.

Oh dear lord, they're going to burn her alive aren't they? But didn't he say they'd leave her to starve? Maybe they changed their minds? Why are they building a fire? Please don't burn her… Luke please come… please…

She watches as the light the fire, the flickering flames washing over the darkening clearing. One of the men approaches Lycaon, presenting a long rod which the Wolf King inspects before handing it back. The rod is placed, tip first, into the hottest part of the flames.

The pack dances around the fire, singing, howling and laughing as they celebrate her imminent death.

As the Moon crests the hills, they fall into a hushed silence, staring expectantly at Lycaon. He says not a word, approaching the flames and retrieving the rod from where it lies soaking in the heat.

They crowd around her as he approaches, men and wolves at her back, hands on her, keeping her still.

He raises the rod high above them, and they roar their approval, but quickly hush again as he brings it down. Hands frantically move the cloth from her back, baring her marbled skin to the cool night air. Craning her neck over her shoulder, Percy can see the tip is flat in the shape of a crescent moon wrapped around a circle. The metal is red with heat, and she can feel it sizzling from where it hovers over her back.

"For the Moon." He whispers, and then flaming agony in her good shoulder.

The metal sears away her flesh, stinking up the air, and the wolves wince as her screams pierce their ears at an octave unnatural to the human voice. After a torturously long time, where she screamed without breath, he removed the branding rod, the symbol burnt deep into her skin.

She's sobbing, tears streaming down her face as her broken voice pleads for someone to help her. For anyone to help her. She lies there, begging as the wolves begin leaving the clearing. They spare not a second glance.

Lycaon stands over her the whole time, reveling in her agonized tears. "You will not be able to return to that camp of yours," he spits the word with venom coating his voice. "They will kill you now. You're one of us. You'll die soon, either by nature's hands or those of the demigods. Either way, you'll end up in the Pit… with the rest of us monsters," he says sinisterly, a twisted grin marring his face, eyes lit up in unholy glee.

"You belong to the pack now. Even if you tried to run, we'd find you. There's nowhere you can hide. We'll find you. Every. Single. Time." Each word is punctuated by his fingers digging into the open claw wounds he'd given her the night before. She's gasping for breath when he leans in and whispers in her ear "You're a Monster now. You're never getting away."

He suddenly releases his grip, turning and stalking off. Faolan, no, her name's Percy, is glad to see him leave, and this time she gets a feeling he won't be coming back.

The pain is nearly unbearable, striking deep into her core, but she tries to push it aside. Now that the Pack is gone, she can try to escape. Despite how she feels that she can barely move.

Deep breaths.

Slowly extending one clawed finger, she starts sawing at the ropes that bind her wrists, twisting her hands to get a proper angle. The rope is good quality, very durable, and it takes a while for it to release, but even then, her wrists are still bound. Those wolves know how to tie good knots.

So she starts the process again.

And again.

And again.

Over and over, sawing at the never ending ropes, until finally they fall free and she's able to release her arms from their awkward position behind her. She rolls onto her butt, bringing her ankles in front of her so she can easily see the ropes. Examining them, she quickly works out how to undo the bonds, pulling the rope away in sections as she slowly unwinds it from her legs. Her joints are stiff as she stands, her muscles screaming in protest, and her stretched skin feeling like it's going to tear.

Stumbling down to the beach, she falls face first into the cool water, flipping onto her back once she starts to float, just lying there as the water cools her skin. Eventually the heat in her shoulder gives way to an intense sting, not helped by the salt of the ocean. But she ignores it, the sweet cool relief worth the stinging pain.

The waves lap at her body, soothing it, and she doesn't realize, but the fur on her tail recedes into the skin, leaving smooth dark scales in its place. The tip flattens out, and turns into a fan shape as she splashes it gently in the water.

She does notice however, when the pain in her shoulder and back quickly diminishes after the salty sting makes itself known. She feels the water creeping up over her face, and she doesn't fight it as it layers over her like a second skin. A cool prickle in the skin around her damaged eye has her reaching a hand up, feeling the gashes in her skin as they knit themselves together. There are ridges in the skin where the claws had split her face open, but the pain is gone, as is the blood that had been dripping from her eye, even hours after the injury had been reopened.

She lies there in the water until the sun comes up. It makes her feel safe. They had avoided the beach for some reason, she'd heard brief mention of patrols, but she hadn't been able to focus enough through the pain to understand if they'd meant they'd been doing patrols, or if it was someone else. Faolan… Percy desperately hopes it's the latter.