\n\t\t\t\t\trexequinox illustrates Karen's first transformation into a gryphon from the rewrite of Reel123's Unveiled Legends series, Emergence, contained in Chapter 6: Many Nightmares.I fell in love with the story about 8 years ago when the original was written and fell in love with it again when he started the rewrite last year. He's currently on a hiatus with the rewrite but I strongly encourage reading all chapters or go back to the original and read all the way through Emergence, Existence, and Eldrus.
Emergence rewrite, Chapter 6: Many Nightmares
Emergence rewrite, Chapter 1: A Long Tail
Emergence rewrite, all chapters
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Three forty one.
Karen rolled over in bed, wincing at the static pain that woke her. The clock shone like daggers in her eyes. Her stomach gnawed with hunger. Hadn’t she already raided the fridge tonight?
Another surge of buzzing agony made her curl up fetal, praying yet another change in position would fix things. Instead her skin itched like sandpaper, dark needles of hair drilling through to rub irritably off pyjamas.
Nothing felt right. Not since she woke up at three forty, and it was only getting worse. Her every muscle sought to both expand and contract, jerking her around like a puppet. Her neck clicked, bones grated and ran like a wave down her spine, farther than it should have, building pressure past her end, physics and mass be damned.
Three forty two.
Karen’s eyes burned with the clocks light and nameless colours flickered in her vision like stars. She picked out every thread on her curtains, grain on her dresser, just as when she’d become a hawk. That was why it was so familiar; magic was changing her again!
Yet that was ridiculous! She hadn’t drank any Veil- had she? Karen squirmed, reaching back and felt a slender cord of spine and muscle growing from her back, pushing against her pants. The tails nerves burnt their way into her system, feeling the scaly hand, and it was certainly not that of a bird. Why then?
Her teeth were running together as she grimaced, molars and incisors forming two solid mandibles that clicked as she writhed. Karen slammed her head down, headbutting into the bed, trying to find a mote of clarity. She’d Veiled on saturday, four days past!
Her teeth escaped her mouth in two spikes and punctured the pillow. Feathers scattered and tickled everything as she flinched, feeling nose, lips and teeth merge into a predatory beak.
Three forty three.
Karen gasped. She ought to scream. Yet her lungs refused to exhale, only begging for more air in vast wheezing gasps that pushed against her ribs. Unsatisfied with that space, they forced her body outwards, swelling like when she’d been a mermaid. Her chest rounded into a barrel stretching the blue fabric of her pyjamas, and her tail wriggled, coiled and lashed until it split her pants.
More lightning-static surges rippled down her limbs too, muscles creaked and bones popped in her limbs. She felt her pinkies and smallest toes wither away. The other digits stretched and curled, long nails forming claws that kicked and bucked. Yet every motion tangled her in her blankets, pulling tight like a trap, a noose, a cage!
A disgusted growl preceded a clumsy lurch, before Karen managed to topple off the bed. She landed on her back, and felt tears blossom as volts of pain stabbed her shoulder-blades, claiming the hotly contested title of most agonizing sensation.
Her fingers cut through the duvet as she discovered them, armoured in black scales and inch long talons. Yet above the wrist, dark fur shrouded her body, weaving through the tears and rips of her night clothes. Like a wolfs?
Logan had mentioned wolves. He’d- what was it!? He’d pitied her. No? He’d talked about Halloween ideas earlier. Was this him? Had he spiked her? Could magic do that? Most mystics were pranksters, it made a mote of sense! She hissed and clawed her way of her torn blankets, lashing tail painfully against the wall, kicking the bed, and headbutting the cabinet. The clock fell on her skull.
Three forty four, said the broken display.
Karen struggled on all fours, seams ripping apart as her body exceeded the fabrics limits. Dark quills burst through the tears, unfurling into thick feathers. Her hair was no longer lashing in her vision and she hesitated against crying for help. What if her parents saw this thing?
Bad.
Thinking was a losing battle, her shoulders were bubbling with new flesh, the space was too small, too close, too tight, threatening to crush her like an egg. But screaming was bad and she bit her hooked beak down on the pillow, hissing at feathers like needles on her tongue.
The next surge threw her hard against the floor as her back split and punched the ceiling. Vast fans of flesh recoiled from the touch. Karen pulled them down tearfully, only to slam against wall and window when she turned, the motion scattering pens and paper, tearing down curtains, clothes and posters, as her body hit angles everywhere.
It was too tight. Across her new limbs, feathers stabbed outwards like grass after winter, a vast canopy that was still growing. She was still growing. It was too tight. Too close. A trap. A prison. A vice. A crush.
Karen leapt for the opening in the wall before it was too late.
Phantom colour stars flashed in her vision as she rediscovered glass and toppled backwards, dropping the pillow.
Her head thrummed, noises came in the house.
Bad.
She gathered her limbs, lunged up and smashed her body into the window.
The noise of shattering glass stung her ears.
The reality of broken glass scraped and slashed her hide. What vestiges of torn clothing had survived her change were sliced free as she tumbled out into the night, and down onto the grass outside in an undignified heap.
For a moment that was enough. Karen felt her wings spread, this strange body screaming from cuts and broken glass in her, trickling blood across the lawn. It was ridiculous and obscene- she’d been behaving! She’d seen how small she was, how pointless it all was in the face of magic, stayed quiet and reclusive all week ever since the massive dragon, Scevola’s gaze had landed on her. And still, and still, magic sought her out and shook her inside out like a chew toy! Damn mystic pranks, it was weeks till Halloween!
She planted her hands? No, talons, avian, scaled and strong on the ground, and repeated the motion with her hindlegs. They were not the same, but with a motion she stood, stretched and felt a hundred clicks and cracks sting her body. Not all pain vanished, her headache still rumbled and cuts wailed, but the magical change pain vanished like the sky clearing after a storm. It was done.
A light clicked on from the shattered window and her Pa’s voice broke in a shout, “Karen!?”
No. She had to lift this! Before she knew what she was doing, Karen walked- no, loped- across the garden, noticed the fence ahead of her and gathered her legs. Powerful feline hindquarters shot her clean over the barrier by several feet, and she landed on the other side in motion, building speed as another fence came.
Another leap carried her over, out of Mr Jenson’s garden, and directly towards thick thorny rose bushes. With a gasp, her wings lashed out, cracking to their full length and slammed down.
BOOM.
The pressure bent and ruffled the bushes, and lift gave her another six feet to clear the hedges, stumble, and topple over on softer grass. That was on her back and she hated it, so Karen rolled, daring another glance around.
She definitely wasn’t a wolf.
She was a big monster, reflected in the windows by the light of the street-lamps. Maybe as large as a bear or tiger? The latter fit better, she was four legged and rather feline. But her front was avian on a scale normally reserved for dinosaurs, with fierce avian eyes and wings like sails.
More noises came from further down the street. Shouts. Human parents.
She had to get this lifted- either Logan had done it to her as a prank, another demonstration of magics superiority over her feeble humanity, or he could help her all the same. And the fastest route was a direct line- not tracking around obstacles but over them!
Her lungs surged, deep breathes gathering cycles through her air sacs, and she bent, gathered her limbs, and ran.
She had to jump early to clear the next fence with its additional roses, but another beat of her wings brought her clear onto Caleb’s lawn. She was ready to land this time, charged across it, and took another jump before she was out of the gardens, crossing a road. Yet, another bound, another lope, then her muscles coiled like springs, her wings rose, and she threw herself upwards.
For an instant Karen felt the threat of gravity far more than she had as a hawk. This was a big creature, a heavy body, could something like this really fly? But Scevola had wings, and she was nowhere near his monstrous size so she hurriedly flapped again, and again and again and again and again, shedding blood and glass shards as she rose.
Roof tiles slipped underneath her. She tucked her legs, aware of how close she had been to slamming into a building. It seemed to help, and more massive strokes of the wings lifted her above the lights, and into the heavens.