It feels like it's nighttime. Lilac finds herself alone and under a sky lit only by furious lightning, strikes placed so closely together as to keep the sky differentiated from the black of the horizon.

My butt hurts, Lilac thinks, laying back in the sand. She stripped to avoid destroying her clothes (again) as she practiced her transformations. As it is, she hasn't been trying her new technique long before her backside started to feel odd. Sitting up, she rubs her back.

Feeling around back there, the bardess finds smooth skin… and nothing else.

Shaking her head, Lilac flops down chest-first in to the sand again. She folds her arms under her head and closes her eyes. It must be my imagination, or maybe I've been sitting too much. Oh well. She takes a deep breath, then exhales. I should keep trying, I don't have much time to get this right. Okay, think Lilac. Kinny said to accept yourself You other self. But the other self scares me. But, I need it. She reaches up with her hands, grabbing her ears. This is ME. Then she touches her smooth skin. And this is, too! I have to accept it! The beast saved Kinny, and probably me too! I have to focus. I have to!

I have to … Wait a moment. Lilac suddenly leans back, then reaches back again. Smooth skin, … sandy butt … leg … ribs … Maybe it's my imagination, but something doesn't feel right here. She feels around some more, then sits up. Not able to place what's missing, she glances back – and her eyes go wide! "My wings!" She wraps an arm around to try and find them, but finds only smooth skin. "Oh no!" Her tail, too, seems to be missing! "Oh, I can't be cured now!"

Flickers of lightning illuminate milky skin and throw shadows around Lilac, her profile agreeing with what her hands find… the only thing marking Lilac's skin is the angry scar that runs down her chest. A little more searching confirms her pointed ears are gone now as well, replaced with normal round ones.

My ears too! I thought they felt a little odd. Oh no, this isn't good. She immediately stands up fully and clutches her hands to her mouth, breathing rapidly. I can't do this without my other side! I'm just an ordinary human woman, all I can do is play a flute and sing a song! I can't fight! Kinny won't want me around anymore, I'll be useless! She squeezes her eyes shut. Oh, oh, I know I prayed to make it all go away. but I'm SORRY! I can't go back NOW! Not when Kinny is already going in to danger! Not NOW!

Nobody answers Lilac's desperate pleas. However, it does feel like someone is watching, a prickling on the neck that breaks the sense of isolation under the thunderheads. It's not a feeling from the camp, the surrounding tents are quiet, but eyes are on her.

Desperate, Lilac can't feel her fear. Without her other side, she knows she's defenseless, but she's more worried about what its lack means for others than for herself. She whirls around, trying to remember anything Kin taught her about fighting – and dredging up none of it. "Who's there?! I know you're there! Xander, is that you? I'm really not in the mood right now!" She turns more slowly, searching. "Master Tooth? Long-Shadow? Anisa?" Gibson!

No answer. It's as if the tents are empty. The feeling remains. With the bardess spinning around, the silhouettes of stones and trees flash past Lilac's field of visions. There. A particularly bright flash of lightning picks out a figure on the edge of the camp, standing still and quiet. The sky dims for a moment as the thunderheads mutter, then another flash of lightning throws contrast into the camp, and the figure seems suddenly closer than before, but still standing quietly.

Lilac, taken aback, stumbles. "Who- who are you? Are you one of Hakuu's people? Are you his mage, or one of his handmaidens?! I, I grew up in Sylvania, I know all about wizards and the like!" She lifts her hands and makes a holy sign, followed by several others she's picked up in her travels.

Some seem to give the figure pause, and it remains where it is for a while… but then again, it might simply be standing there, watching. It blends with the pitch black of the land, Lilac's vision no longer as sharp in the dark as she remembers, and when the storm overhead cracks again, the figure is close enough to pick out some detail, the light playing off glossy black feathers, a long, pointed beak, and eyes of shining obsidian before it fades again.

"A, a Korv … ?" Uncertain as to what to make of what she just saw, if indeed that was what she saw and this isn't a dream of delusion, Lilac shakes her head slowly. She thinks of all the Korvs in her life, but they've never been more than just another race of people. Familiar people, to be sure, but she's never known a Korv well. She has heard stories about Korvs, though. "Am, am I … dead?"

The Korv doesn't answer, but suddenly she's close enough to see more easily, though there's nothing easy about seeing details on the black bird. Lilac is familiar enough with the Korv people that she can recognize this one as female, standing a little shorter than the human. Like Lilac, she's unadorned. Her body is covered in glossy black feathers. The ruff over her chest is particularly shiny, for some reason, as if it's wet.

Did I die? I read somewhere that Korvs take people to the afterlife. Lilac feels like her ears should wilt, and her tail tuck – but she doesn't have those anymore. I can't even be sad right anymore. Oh, when did I become so used to what I had become, that when I am sad, I feel its absence sorely? Lilac lets her hands drop, not feeling like fighting anymore. "Lady Korv," she begins, head tilting in that canine way. I may have lost what I had, but memories don't fade, I guess. "Are you here for me? Are you an angel? Or … " Other memories haunt her too, dark rooms and blood on her hands. She shivers, unwilling to say what she suspects the Korv may be.

As if in reply, the Korv crosses the remaining distance without seeming to actually move, standing in front of Lilac now, her head tilted back to look up at the young woman's face. This close, even Lilac's normal vision is good enough to make out hints of color, washed out by the dark as it may be. The crow's eyes aren't the obsidian they looked before, dark but slightly milky. A sheen of dark red clumps the short, fluffy feathers over her breast into wet spikes, and when the Korv tilts her head back to look up, Lilac can see that it comes from a gaping wound in her neck, her throat all but torn away. The Korv doesn't seem to notice, just studying Lilac, then slowly reaching up and out toward the bardess' collarbone.

If she were the beast, Lilac's hair would be on end. Frozen in fear, fixated, Lilac is unable to turn her head away from the bloodied Korv's face. Her body may as well be made of stone; she can present no obstacle to the Korv's reaching.

A bluntly taloned wing-hand touches Lilac just above where her new scar starts. It doesn't hurt, it just feels of rough texture, dry and cracked hide on soft and pale skin… The clawed fingertip traces Lilac's scar down, following the jagged wound to where it ends above Lilac's ribcage, the pace contemplative.

"I-I was fighting," Lilac stammers out, feeling the need to explain herself to this angel or demon. "I … " she swallows hard, the movement causing her to be especially aware of the Korv's torn neck, "I lost. I could only distract them, Kinny … " Kinny won't have me anymore, she always gets in trouble without me! Lilac blinks, feeling her eyes sting.

The Korv cocks her head, seeming to listen when Lilac speaks of defending Kin, though it has the seemingly unintended effect of opening the wound at her throat a little wider. Her talon goes up to brush Lilac's cheek just at the corner of her eye.

The move seems almost tender to Lilac, despite the gruesome visage the Korv presents. Staring down, unable to break her gaze, Lilac wonders. Them, in a flash like that of the lightning that surrounds her, an idea strikes the human. "Are, are you … ," her face pales, and her eyes widen. No, can it be? "Are you … The Raveness?"

The Korv looks visibly surprised by this, the crest on her head rising a bit, and she studies Lilac with renewed care. After a moment, she shakes her head.

"Oh." Lilac isn't sure if she should be relived or disappointed; she had hoped to finally meet the one who she suspects cursed her so. Then, at least, she might have found some closure. "Do you know what happened to me? I used to have a tail, and, well … " Trying to explain her condition to a person who may well be dead just seems a little too surreal. She worries she's insane, or, just as odd, sounding insane to a zombie.

At this, the Korv at least seems to recognize what Lilac is describing. She beckons, and begins moving away, walking this time rather than simply pulsing along. As she gets far enough away, she seems to melt to the ground. Her wings flick back up, but somehow she's still on all fours. When she looks behind herself again, the beak is gone, and her eyes seem to show in the dark as a dull violet, dim but enough to be seen. The fan of tail feathers is replaced by a bushy tail. The creature's chest still gleams with crimson, her neck still bleeding. She waits silently, expectantly.

"Oh," is all Lilac can say, repeating herself lamely. She hesitantly begins forward, head cocked to the side. She looks like me! The other me! But she's … The woman shivers again, not wanting to think too hard on what the Korv-were being dead might suggest. "Coming." Before she can even stop herself, she feels an urge to take the Korv's now fuzzy tail, like taking the woman's hand.

The once-korv tilts her head again with a puzzled expression, tail wagging. She paws at Lilac's knee, and the bardess might guess that creature would whine, if her throat weren't ruined. She beats her wings a few times, kicking up some sand and dust, then leaves them spread, looking at Lilac expectantly again.

"You want me to fly? But, I can't fly – my wings are gone," the human tells the creature. She gestures back where her wings were, to demonstrate.

The beast tilts her head in the other direction now. She seems to consider this for a moment, licking her nose thoughtfully. After a moment, she stands up on her hind legs, and the black of the beast melts back into the black of the Korv. She reaches out to take Lilac's hands, and places one on top of her feathered head, and the other on her side. She holds them there, for a moment, looking into Lilac's face, then gives the bardess' hands a little shake as if to keep them planted where they are.

She's much better at that than I was, Lilac muses as the Korv changes right before her eyes again. The more time she spends with the should-be-dead-but-not Korv, the easier it seems to be for her to accept her presence. For a moment, Lilac might have describe the beast's actions as 'adorable.' She wonders if she ever seemed that way. "Okay, I'll hold on," she promises, clutching the other woman's side and head.

The bloodied Korv nods, then moves Lilac's hands a little to stroke the feathers. After she does so, she touches the side of her temple, tapping it a few times. Then she reaches up and slowly places her taloned hands over Lilac's eyes, urging them closed.

Lilac nods slowly, but only partially in comprehension. "Feathers are all … in my head?" Her eyes close as directed, and she no longer feels the unrelenting dread of the other woman as she once did. She still makes Lilac nervous, but her instinct suggests there must be a kind soul beneath all that gore.

The Korv seems to consider this a little, but Lilac can't see whether she nods or not. There's a strange feeling under Lilac's hands, flesh rolling under hide, and feathers becoming soft fur. The creature moves under Lilac's hands, brushing her palms and fingers. The human can feel the outline of the beast's skull, then base of her ears that twitch and turn. The creature lifts her muzzle up into the hand, letting Lilac feel the profile of the long snout, and even baring its teeth her fingertips run across those rows of deadly daggers. The hand at the side can feel the monster moving as well, ribs, the base of a wing, a haunch, a paw being lifted up into Lilac's hand with long claws laying across the palm.

The whole sensation feels hauntingly familiar to Lilac, as if she has felt it before – and indeed she has. But not like this. No, she felt it when it was her body, her skin rippling and her skull changing. No feathers, but so very similar. I can almost remember it. Is this what she wants me to see? Maybe … to remember? Lilac searches her memories, trying to recall what changing felt like.

The creature shifts around, meticulous in passing itself under Lilac's hands, giving her paws, head, ribs, wings, tail, teeth, belly, haunches, even down to her paw pads. The memories that Lilac works at dredging up seem to be pulled together by the mental and tactile image that the bleeding monster weaves. After a moment, Lilac can feel a cold, wet nose prod her hip.

Lilac wobbles, and almost laughs. Still, the wound of the other woman keeps the situation too sober for laughter. Besides that, Lilac's lands are now coated in blood. "I remember. I just don't know … how. It just happens. I just change … " She tries to focus on what her own body felt like changed, reaching one of her hands from the other woman's side to her own head. Muzzle, bone, ears … It leaves a smear of blood across her face, but somehow, Lilac isn't bothered by it. She feels almost as if the blood were familiar, something shared between them on some level.

Like a jumble of shadows, the creature seems to reassemble into a Korv. She taps her temple again, and as Lilac runs her hand over her own head, it's as if the mental image of the beast juxtaposes her mental picture of herself. Her skin feels like it's crawling.

Lilac peeks in time to see the Korv tap her head once. It's all in my head? She thinks about what she was show: the change on another, feeling it out, and a focus on the head, on thought. It's all in my head. It's all in my head. Feel it, and … picture it? As her skin beings to crawl, she tries to sharpen then image, to feel her flesh change even when it isn't. To picture herself as the beast, as she once was.

It doesn't seem quite as easy as the Korv makes it out to be, but something is definitely happening. Picturing the beast in her mind seems to make strange sensations pass through Lilac's arms and legs, makes her skin feel like it's just about to crawl off her body. It's not painful, or even uncomfortable in a direct way, but it's disconcerting, and the image in her mind seems to want to slip around in parts, blending the two more often than not. Getting it to sharpen into the beast feels a bit like pushing it uphill, but as she wills it into sharper focus, something seems to take over, as if the effort of pushing this has gotten it to tip over the hill and start rolling down again. Soon, Lilac can't keep her balance upright anymore, and she feels her claws gouge the earth when she lands on all fours.

"Ooof," Lilac breathes when she hits the ground. Her body feels like a pudding, wobbling around in ways bodies weren't meant to wobble. Still, she lets it go. She lest the feeling slide, and take over, fighting the urge to resist it. Accept it, Kinny said. Accept who I am. With a little mental shudder, Lilac relents letting the beast wash over her like a tide. She falls back in to its ocean.

The Korv is back on all fours as well, dim violet eyes watching closely, the beastly creature dripping blood into the dust. She sits, sweeping her tail behind her approvingly.

"Rrrr-rr," Lilac 'says' disorientedly. Still, despite her unsettled feeling, swimming head and transformed body, she feels good. Better, in fact, than she has ever felt when changing. This time, it was her choice. I haven't lost it – it was just sleeping inside me. Her beast form feels familiar again, like it had always been there. She takes a moment to paw the ground, getting used to the feel of it, before she wags at the other beast and noses her.

The bleeding monster wags again, swiveling her ears, then hefts herself to her feet, beating her wings once more. She trots in a small circle around Lilac, then breaks into a lope.

Lilac sits on her haunches, watching the other beast run around until she, too, begins to run around. Used to the following game now, Lilac copies the other's movements, flapping her wings.

The once-korv's loping turns into a full-bore gallop. The occasional flap of her wings lets her put on little bursts of speed, helping her maneuver around patches of scrub with uncanny agility, even boosting her over a few stones. It's difficult to keep up, but she looks over her shoulder every so often, slowing down if it looks like she may lose Lilac.

I never thought to use my wings while running, Lilac considers as she lopes after the other beast. She reminds herself that, until very recently, she hadn't thought in her beast form at all, which she decides is besides the point. Chasing along, Lilac does need the other creature to slow now and then, making her wonder just how much practice the Korv has had at this – and if there are others.

The other beast never makes a sound aside from a ragged panting that seems to pass through her ruined throat, but she gamely charges on. Above, the storm gives way as the two shadowy creatures race it, rumbling thunderheads eventually giving way to starry sky. As the two speed along, it becomes easier and easier to keep up… Lilac can see how the other creature's wings let her maneuver tightly around and over obstacles, and at least two or three times she uses them like air brakes, making a sudden change of direction that doesn't seem like it should be possible at the speed the both of them are traveling. Eventually, the Korv-turned-lupine slows down, panting and with tongue lolling, somewhere on the edge of the storm.

Lilac uses her wings to slow herself to a trot, walking up beside the other beast with her tongue lolling. After chasing her this far, she almost seems like an old friend. Her ruined throat has gone from horror to disconcerting quirk, and her friendly way has put Lilac at ease. She walks to sit beside the other, wondering what they're stopping for.

The other beast shakes her pelt out, and sits as well, panting and licking her nose a few times. She wags for a moment or two, then tucks her head and shivers, dark fur widening into sable feathers again that stir with the wind from the storm some distance away. There's a smile around the corners of the Korv's beak, and she nods again, tapping her temple as she did before.

The flecks of blood that scatter over Lilac like crimson rain fan across her bestial hide. She doesn't bother to shake them off, no longer minding the blood. When the other woman shifts, Lilac watches, and when she taps hr head she takes it as a sign she should return to her humanoid body as well. Turning back, it should be the reverse. Rise from the tide, picture myself as I was, change and … She begins to focus inward, picturing her human body superimposed over her bestial one.

It takes as much effort as it did before, being a slippery and elusive mindset that almost feels like trial and error trying to get it to 'click', parts of both forms seeming to jumble together. The other woman is patient, however, simply waiting and bleeding as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Finally, Lilac finds the mental momentum to push the change along, and she finds herself in her pale skin once more, a chilly wind blowing across it from the storm.

"Brr, I think I miss my fur," Lilac jokes, wraping her arms around herself. She shivers, turning to look out at the storm. "I remember a storm was approaching," she says, watching he lightning flash. "Long-Shadow said the storms were severe here. Well, he didn't SAY but … " The shadow and light strikes Lilac as beautiful, and yet ominous. A coming storm – appropriate, she thinks, for their dire situation. "The storm's almost symbolic, like a foreshadow on some doom … "

The black bird looks up at the storm that Lilac mentions, milky eyes watching the clouds roil. She just nods, whether it's agreement or just to herself, it's not clear. The Korv reaches out again, patting Lilac on the arm, then bringing the other wing-claws up to attempt to rest them on Lilac's forehead.

Lilac smiles when she's patted, and decides from here on out she'll try and accept patting without feeling bad about her identity. She also lowers her head, allowing the Korv an easier reach than she had before. It's an offering of trust to this strange being, be she ghost, angel, devil, god or figment.

The Korv's talons lay over Lilac's eyes, urging them closed again. The bardess can feel the wind on her skin stop, and instead feels something different… soft fur against her back, and weight on her side. It's disorienting, but after a few moments it becomes apparent she's lying on her side now. She can feel her wings folded over something warm behind her.

"Mmm," Lilac murmurs, feeling comfortable. She lays there a moment, content to simply enjoy the sensation until, at last, her curiosity gets the better of her. What fascinating thing will there be, now? She opens one eye, squinting to see what might be seen.

Nothing overly fascinating makes itself apparent… just the side of a tent canopy that Lilac recognizes. Her wings apparently didn't wake Gibson, who breathes softly, his side rising and falling rhythmically. The human finds her skin clean, unmarked but for the stinging, cauterized scar on her chest.

Just a dream. Lilac's head shakes a little, staring in to the dark. She thinks about the whole memory, mulling it over in her head until, at least, she carefully sits up. Placing Gibson's arm tenderly back against him, she then reaches down to pat his foot. "For luck," she whispers. A little smile creass her face as she closes her eyes. A dream … Or, was it? Her hand moves to trace her scar, just as the Korv had done in her dream. There's one way to find out. Touching her forehead now, she begins to recall the motions the dream has taught her.

Dream it may have been, but the way of thinking she got from it seems feels right, even if it's still as challenging to concentrate on as it was when she first tried it. Just as before, she can feel that strange sensation welling up inside her and prickling over her body as she struggles to keep the elusive image straight in her head.

Have to focus, have to focus until it sticks, Lilac mantras to herself. That the thought process is working at all astounds her, but she keeps her amazement in check. She has to focus, or she may lose her concentration, and a part of her worries that losing her grip on this may cause her to lose her grasp of the dream. I won't forget you, I'll remember your lesson, she adds to the mantra, promising her phantom-friend.

The strange feeling crescendos, then seems to pick up its momentum, and all at once things seem to fall into place. The woman's legs elongate and bend, tangling up in the bedrolls, while her chest shifts and melts into a barrel shape, and her hands crunch into paws, deadly claws sprouting from them. Thick, dark fur clouds up from her skin, and perhaps most disconcerting of all, Lilac can feel her face elongating, her jaws filling with teeth and tongue.

Lilac can only ride the transformation as it happens, and for a moment she feels panicked. Old fears of her transformation fight to re-emerge, to urge to to cry out and run from herself. Challenging the fear is the thought of her new friend, the dream -korv that made her transformation and form seem as natural as heaven as earth. She urges her breathing to slow, her emotions to calm, and most of all: that she accept it. I must go with it. It's like … letting the tide cover you, falling in to the sea … She closes her eyes, and lets the change happen. Before it ends, she tells herself, "This is who I am now." Her mind quavers, her fears balk, until at last … "This is me, and these are my paws," … the fear relents.

Soon, the beast finds herself lying on her side, just as she had before. Gibson's breathing pauses with a snort, then continues its slow, slumbering pace. The buck didn't even wake up.

I did it! I did it! Lilac bounces on her paws, glad to have succeeded and, perhaps more so, that the terror that lurked behind her eyes has passed, I'm a beast! I have a tail, and wings again! I can chose, I can chose! A few more bounces, and Lilac calms. She'd laugh, but she can't right now. All these years I wanted to be rid of my curse, and now I'm glad it's here again. I don't know what you see in me, Gibson. But, thank you. And thank you, Korv, whoever you may be. Back on all fours, Lilac walks over and gives Gibson a big, long, slobbering across the face.

"Pffptptpt!" At this, Gibson DOES wake up. "AUGH!" He scrambles about in drunken, half-awakeness, and the pole near him gives, collapsing the tent on top of them both. This'll bear some explaining.

Explaining it may require, but for now Lilac's just happy to be who she is. Soon, she'll go in to danger, but for now … For now she can give Gibson wet kisses, and be glad she has such wonderful friends: be they awake or dreaming.