Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kikue...just stared. Opening the door a little wider, she'd already completely forgotten what she was wearing, which wasn't very much...by normal standards. Her mouth felt somehow dry as she tried to say something to the person standing very awkwardly on her front landing -- "..."

She tried again. "...help you?" she got out, blinking suddenly out of confusion. Then the pain shot through her...and a faint itch. She grabbed her throat, only to look down at herself -- camisole and all.

Fur. Plainly, noticeably, fur -- it was growing. It was spreading over what could be seen of her stomach...reaching upwards, like a hand, over her chest and up her neck.

Kikue looked up at the boy, her eyes growing very wide in fear.

Changing -- oh -- gods --

Kikue tried to get out a reassuring word, but she couldn't. The pain ripped words from her throat too fast for her to even whisper something to him. She didn't even know who he was, but he looked human, and that...could only mean he had just arrived some short time ago...

She lost her grip on the doorknob, falling to her knees with a gasp as the pain redoubled. Her eyes began to water; the fur was still spreading, she could feel it. She touched her cheek carefully, feeling it there too. A sob caught in her throat. Oh gods. But she had only just changed. And --

The pain burned in her hands. She held them out in front of herself, shaking, staring while they began to grow...larger, bigger...

The boy had mumbled out something. Kikue looked up at him from the floor, a look of pure anguish on her face. There were no words, and she couldn't stop it. Her hands still grew, stopping as they reformed...and the ache, now it was in her feet. My feet -- !!

Kikue couldn't walk. She stumbled, trying to somehow help in guiding herself wherever she was even going -- the pain felt like someone was hammering mallots against them. Tears were streaming down her face; she could already feel them growing...growing...growing. The couldn't coordinate her own legs anymore; she tripped over what had once, at least, looked vaguely like human feet...but not anymore.

I'm changing, I'm changing -- It was a litany laced with panic playing over and over again in her brain. I'm changing oh gods I'm changing I --

An feline-like yowl burst from her mouth as her feet continued to stretch, only stopping to widen and thicken and...fur, fur that she could feel with a faint itch, spreading heavily across them.

And then she felt the pain in the base of her spine. NO --

She was back on the bed, she could barely register it. Her feet and hands were pounding with pain, but she couldn't feel them getting any better. It the pain at the back -- behind her -- and it pushed, it twisted -- her tail began to grow. Longer. Longer, down to her feet. Her back arched to make room for it; she was crying shamelessly from the sheer ripping pain slamming onto all sides of her body. Somehow her hand -- no, paw, it wasn't even close to a hand anymore -- reached down and touched the newly formed tail; feeling the fur on it thicken even more. She could sense it; could feel how long it was.

Her ears were ringing. No -- they were aching. Kikue's face twisted into a look somewhere between anguish and horror; she clamped her still-sore paws down on her ears, but it didn't matter. They were getting bigger, pushing at her hands, filling with more sensitive fur.

She could hear the boy saying things to her; talking about painkillers. "I don't have any medicine," she tried to say, but the words were garbled with tears and her heavy breaths as she struggled to breathe as calmly as possible. She failed miserably.

The stretching of her ears kept going for a few seconds longer, until the pain shifted again. The imaginary man with the mallot had just took a swing and planted the hammer right into the middle of her face.

She gasped, shoving her large paws over her mouth and eyes.

"My frrrace," Kikue barely got out. It was already happening. The paw that the boy wasn't grasping was being pushed out of the way. She shut her eyes tightly, her chest heaving. No no no no no --

She couldn't stop it. Right beneath her paw, her nose pushed out from her face, the moist tip pressing against the pads of what was once her hand. Instinctively she pulled away from it, to be able to breathe...then she could see it, filling out the space below her eyes. It pushed forward, her whole jaw realigning...the large teeth compensating, being pulled to fill her mouth better. The fur rippled across her muzzle, itchy and thick. With faint pinpricks of pain, she could see the whiskers growing from out of the fur ringing her face. And elsewhere -- growing, longer and longer. There had only been a few before, but now there were so many more. They twitched painfully.

...There was no pain that came with it, but the hair in her eyes seemed to change just like everything else. She didn't know what was happening to it, until she remembered what the rest of her hair looked like...bleached in patches, and now...now it was probably...

The rush of the pain ebbed away. Kikue sunk into the pillow and the blankets of the bed, staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes.

Kikue felt the hand shakily being pressed against her neck. With her changed ears, sounds were even more sensitive...but it was as if she couldn't hear anything; everything was white noise.

The...warmth. Her nose sniffed tentatively. Her eyes flashed, and without warning -- her mind screaming THREAT -- she balled up on the bed, twisting to launch herself clear off it and...right onto the enemy.

With a crash, they hit the floor, and Kikue stood on all-fours over him, pinning him down. Her chest heaving, teeth bared in a snarl, she bore holes right into the enemy. She could take him. He was weak. She had control; she was over him and could end it --

Her newly formed mouth slowly fell open. She began to shake as her muscles went slack. She pulled back immediately, looking horrified. "I'mm sorrry," she got out, her new muzzle and changed teeth garbling her words. "I'mm sorrry," she said again, whispering hoarsely. Tears welled up and began pouring down her face. It was like the mess hall, when she'd bit that man -- it had just happened --

Kikue tried to pull herself back onto the bed, but what strength she had had to get off it had drained away. She dug her claws into the covers, crying and trying to focus on one thing at a time. There was a boy in her room that she had just flung to the floor like she was going to kill him. Her whole body hurt. Could this possibly get any worse?

Kikue's heart just about broke watching the boy retreat from her, terrified. She struggled to be able to stand, but her feet would not work. "Iss not yourrr faulrt," she got out painfully, her own tears streaming down her face. She put a paw on the floor, wanting to simply launch herself onto it and cry until there was nothing left of her. It was just like the mess hall, no this was worse, at least that man had tried to pound her back, this was so much worse...

"Imm sorrry," she cried pitifully. "Iss instinctss that'r make me do'r it..." She put a large paw over her face in utter shame, looking away from him and just burying her face in the sheet hanging over the bed. "Imma sorrry..."