Prelude / Growing pains

A tall man walked through the woods holding a squirming bundle to his chest. "Hush little one. You will have a place soon." The figure kept walking but stopped when he heard wailing in the distance. Not the screaming of a fully grown human, but the wailing of an infant. The figure steps away from the houses and goes more into the woods.

He went several hundred feet and stopped when he saw the little bundle of cloth that was making all the racket. He stooped down and picked up the bundle replacing it with his. After he did this he simply walked away. Fading from existence like a dream, leaving only his bundle in place of the other.

13 years later

Chrysler woke up with a start. He woke to the sound of cracking bones and pained screams coming from down the hallway. He took a cautious step out of his room and walked towards the source of the noises. What he saw shocked him even more than anything that he had seen in his many years of life. His son whom he had thought was human was clearly not human. He could tell simply from the shredded clothes lying in a heap around a shuddering lump. The lump was large and human-ish in shape. The lump was covered in a thick layer of fur and sobbing quietly.

"Sky? Is- is that you son?" Chrysler's voice was now the only noise in the room. The sobbing had stopped from the lump. A series of growls came from the lump as it tried to stand, and tumbled. Chrysler moved to help but decided against it, if the creature was hostile it would be better to keep his distance he thought. The creature managed to stand at long last, its frame towering over Chrysler who stood at a towering 7'2''. Chrysler looked up to see the face of the creature and saw a stout snout with a pink tongue lolling out. Chrysler put a hand to his mouth, "The mighty below it's you Sky." he said. Sky and Chrysler stood in this amazingly awkward scenario for a couple minutes. After a couple of minutes Sky started to shrink down, shedding most of his fur and his teeth going back to normal. When Sky had finished shrinking, he looked at Chrysler with a depressed face and then collapsed.

The next morning Chrysler woke up early to prepare for Sky. He sent the kitchen staff into their workplaces early and requested a breakfast for lords. The kitchen staff gave him a couple odd looks but said nothing as he was the Fae of the manor. Chrysler was waiting at the table when Sky came down the stairs. He had thankfully changed into some proper clothes, but still retained some facial hair and muscles from last night. Sky made eye contact with Chrysler which was not something most people could do. His voice came out clear, crisp, and heard by everyone in the room.

"What in the great below am I? Chrysler what the fuck am I? Because no human could do what the hell I did last night." Chrysler winced at the harshness in Sky's voice. He also regretted teaching Sky those human swearwords.

"That's no way to talk to the Fae of the manor! Even if you are his changeling son you have no right as a human." the last word was sneered coming from one of the cooking servants. This caused Sky to explode, quite literally in fact. He expanded so rapidly that his clothes ripped into pieces and fell to the floor. After the split second of his shift ended he launched himself at the cooking servant. Chrysler moved in front of him to protect him. It took all his strength just to push Sky back 2-3 feet. "What in the great below is that?!?" the kitchen servant shrieked. His voice went almost high enough to shatter the few glass panes in the manor.

Chrysler looked at the servant, "That's Sky, he shifted last night. I was going to explain it but your yelling aggravated him. Don't you know that newly shifted are extremely volatile?" the servant hastily shook his head. "Why don't you go take a permanent vacation? You can say on your next application for work that you were removed due to negligence and rudeness to the Fae of the manor." the servant nodded and hurriedly left. Chrysler turned to look at Sky, "Now, where were we? Ah yes, I was going to explain about what happened last night. You," Chrysler pointed to Sky, "are a werewolf. A mystical creature that can shift into a wolfoid. You get jittery on the full moon and so on." As Chrysler was saying this Sky was shrinking back down to a more normal size. Sky glared at Chrysler and went back to his room to get dressed. Again.

Sky slammed the door shut to his room, the sound echoing down the long hallways of the manor. Sky ran his hands through his hair and got dressed thinking all the while about what happened in the dining room. 'You are a werewolf. A mystical creature that can shift into a wolfoid.' Chrysler had said that. Why hadn't he told Sky earlier he wondered. Sky also wanted to know more about what he was and what he could do. He decided then and there that he would work towards managing his emotions and learning about his species and culture.

At the same time Chrysler was wondering what he was going to do to help Sky. he had dealt with many problems being the leader of a group in the Fae, but never something this big. I mean how do you accidentally grab a werewolf instead of a human? He had grabbed the child from under the stars thinking it was a human baby abandoned by the family because they didn't want it. Although now that he thought about it he did remember that werewolves left their newborn out in the wilderness in the hopes that they would get a powerful wolf. He smacked his forehead. How could he have been so stupid? They were very close to a werewolf pack! There was no hope in trying to swap them now. The werewolves would raze this place to the ground if they found out about this. Maybe he could explain this to Sky and work things out.

And at another final place the Alpha and Luna of the nearby pack were wondering why their young boy hadn't shifted. They wondered if maybe his wolf was too strong for his body and it was waiting for a time when his body could support it.

As the day was almost everyone started to get ready for bed, Sky mentally preparing himself for a night of possible nightmares, Chrysler made a list of things to talk to Sky about, and Lance nervous about being found out that he wasn't a wolf.

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-TinyRedLeprechaun