Worries of a First-time Werewolf

As they'd first been leaving the Royal Academy of Magic, Graham had kept his winter coat tightly drawn around himself to hide all the telanium-silver he was wearing. However, once they had entered the nearby forest, he had soon loosened his coat so he wouldn't sweat as the exertion of their hike warmed him up.

Resting against a nearby tree trunk, Graham pulled off his right glove and pushed up his sleeve to check his arm. His hand still resembled an animal paw covered in grey fur, but at least the transformation didn't seem to have advanced in the intervening hours since this problem had first occurred.

Lilly came to a stop as well. "How's your hand?"

"Doesn't seem to have gotten any worse, but it hasn't gotten any better." Pulling his glove back on, Graham pulled up his left sleeve to check his wristwatch. They had been hiking for about an hour now. Raising his voice, he called to Cray, who had still been walking ahead. "Hey! Cray, hold up."

Cray paused, and then he turned around and strolled back towards the other two. "Are you tired out already? This is a good enough place to stop, I think."

"Are you sure we're far enough?" Lilly asked hesitantly. She pointed in the direction they had been walking from. "You can still see the smoke signal from the academy."

Graham followed Lilly's point, and sure enough she was right. The clear winter sky was a pale blue shade with not a single cloud to be seen, but there was a thin line of grey smoke rising distantly up into the air. Even as he watched, a faint wave rippled up through the smoke and suddenly the entire smoke plume appeared thick and dark like soot, than another wave moved upwards and turned the smoke bright and white so it resembled a cloud. The waves kept rolling upwards, turning the smoke column black, then white, then black again in a clear pattern.

The Royal Academy of Magic was an institute for teaching and research in all things magical, and the smoke signal was a simple reminder of that. Thanks to some clever trick of alchemy, each tiny particle in that smoke column was a microscopic crystal that could flip between two states, either absorbing light or reflecting it. Therefore, although the smoke itself was only rising slowly, a simple magical spell would cause a state change to quickly propagate upwards, allowing the whole smoke column to be rapidly switched between white and black. It made for a useful long-range signal, and historically the academy had used it for timekeeping--the light and dark patterns in the smoke were a simple code of numbers to tell the time throughout the campus and even in the nearby city of Tiwani and its harbour. Such a signalling mechanism was centuries old by now, and modern advances with miniaturizing clockwork devices had rendered it obsolete decades ago. The academy still kept it running, though now it was just for show as a bit of history for visiting tourists, and to generally remind the nearby city of the academy's presence.

Graham counted the colour changes of the signalling smoke and did some quick calculations in his head. The value he got matched what he was seeing on his wristwatch--it was mid-afternoon. However, because it was wintertime, there were less daylight hours. "Sunset's in about an hour. You two should leave me here and start heading home, or you won't get back to the academy till after dark."

"Good point. At least we're a good distance away from the academy, and the perimeter protection spells will stop you if you go feral and try to come back." Lilly dropped her backpack onto the ground and raised her arms over her head in a stretch. "That was a good hike."

"It was! Ok, let's stop here. This is a decent place to set up camp," Cray said. Though the forest ground was mostly flat and even, here there was a rock outcrop that was about as high as a person's height. Cray put down his backpack and patted the rocky surface with his gloved hand. "This'll be good cover against the wind and snow. It'll be just like that camping trip we did last summer, except that you'll be all on your own and also it's the middle of winter--which is normally a very bad idea, but these are extenuating circumstances."

"That's one way to put it," Graham agreed. Eastwards from the Royal Academy of Magic was the coastal city of Tiwani and its port, but westwards was a large, forested region marked as a nature preserve. Just earlier that year, Graham, Cray, Lilly, and another five more of their fellow schoolmates had gone on a short, two-day camping trip to this very forest, but that had been during the summer where it was warm. "I hope it doesn't start snowing again."

"Don't worry. I'm sure you're going to have a great time. I'm almost jealous of you, getting to go on an impromptu camping trip. I would stay and keep you company, except for the huge risk that you turn into an uncontrollable werewolf and murder me." Cray reached into a pocket of his winter cloak to draw out his wand. "But check this out. Since that last camping trip we had, I learned a brand-new adaptive motion spell that will set up the tent easily." Cray waved his wand about, then he pointed it at the palm of his other hand. "Vitarozin exeleron nirro del!" A stream of magic poured from his wand tip and into his palm, forming a glowing sphere of crackling energy that shimmered and sparked.

"Uhh..." Lilly made an uncertain noise and she folded her arms, and Graham agreed with that sentiment. Magicians had a unique power to change the world around them, but the academy tried to impart the general ideology that magical talent was supposed to be a special gift meant for bettering the world and helping other people, not just a shortcut for menial tedious tasks. Of course, every magician still used magic for menial tedious tasks, but there was a limit to how lazy you could get.

More problematically, magic came in specific affinities which restricted each magician to a particular category of powers--Graham was a flame mage, whereas Lilly had a duality of air and lightning magic. Cray's main specialization was frost magic, but he also had a minor in stone magic and for a few months now he had been trying to expand into the closely related field of metal magic, with varying levels of success.

Which a flourish Cray tossed the ball of magic right towards his own backpack, which was the one where they'd packed in a small tent for Graham to use. There was a thump sound, then the backpack's top flap flew open as the tent's various components exploded up and out. The tent sheet folded itself into the correct triangular shape, but instead of sliding themselves into the correct slots, the tent poles violently scattered themselves around the nearby area.

Graham lunged backwards as a tent pole bounced off his boot, and the sudden motion made his winter cap fall off his head. "Hey!" Meanwhile the tent held its shape for a second, but without any of its poles it immediately collapsed back into a flat pile.

Lilly still had her arms folded, and she had not flinched. "Well done, Cray. Well done." She unfolded her arms to clap her gloved hands together--slowly, sarcastically.

"It worked when I tried it before," Cray replied. Looking slightly humbler, he started strolling around the forest and picking up the tent poles, then he began manually setting up the tent.

Meanwhile, Lilly had crouched down to open her own backpack. "Ok, Graham. You started transforming today, which is about a day and a half before the apex of the lunar cycle since tomorrow night is the full moon. We'll be come back for you in two days' time, when hopefully you'll have finished with being a werewolf and you're back in human form."

A nervous shudder ran down Graham's back. He picked up his cap and brushed snow off it before pulling it back on. "Alright. I... ok. I'll be fine."

"You'll be fine. You only need to stay out here for a few days, until the full moon has passed and you aren't uncontrollably turning into a werewolf," Lilly said. She gestured to the three backpacks, which they had hurriedly packed just an hour ago, after they'd decided on this plan and before they had set out. "You've got plenty of packed food, enough water to last you for a while, and you can always start a fire to melt snow into more water if you need to. It's the winter, but you're a flame mage so you shouldn't have any problem with the cold."

By this time Cray had finished quickly setting up the tent, and he walked over. "Alright! I've done it. I've got the tent ready, so that should be all, I think."

Graham took a deep breath, and he nodded at his two close friends. "Thanks for all this. I didn't... I never expected this was how my day was going to go."

Cray nodded. "That's what friends are for. I'm sure you'll get through this."

"You would do the same if it was one of us who was in trouble." Lilly put her hands in her pockets. "Take some notes on the whole... werewolf experience if you manage to fight the transformation and stay sane. I'll do some research at the library and ask some discrete questions. I'm sure there must be some way to cure or treat lycanthropy."

"Thanks. I appreciate all the help. This has been... I don't even know what to say." Graham raised his hand in farewell. "You should get going, or you won't make it back to the academy before sundown."

"Good luck, Graham." Cray raised his hand and gave him an encouraging thumbs-up, while Lilly just nodded her head.

"We'll be back in a few days. Try not to get into too much trouble." Then the two of them turned to walk back the way they had come from, retracing the footsteps they had left in the snow. And Graham was left alone, out in the woods.

---

Magicians traditionally used wands or staffs to focus their power, but it was entirely possible for them to still cast their spells without such tools. Some magicians even preferred not to use a wand or a staff--it required a bit more finesse to project power directly out from the body, but there was the advantage of not having to carry around a magical tool, or indeed even having to bother with buying or making one.

Graham pulled the glove off his left hand, then he made a swift cutting gesture towards a nearby tree at the edge of the forest clearing. "Moctus pricatan." A wave of magical power swept out from his extended fingers, and he focused it into a thin jet of flame. He kept up the flow of magic for a good portion of a minute, directing the flame jet against one of the lower, but medium-sized branches until he had sliced through the wood and the branch dropped it to the ground.

Nothing physically constrained him to this small clearing in the forest, but Graham had every intention to respect his brief exile. Until the full moon was over and he was sure he wasn't going to be transforming into a werewolf, he was to be stuck in this forest, right here in this little camp.

He strolled over and picked up the branch one-handed to drag it closer towards the rock outcropping and his tent. With more time and more exertion of magic, he carefully carved up that branch into a pile of firewood. Then with a snap of his fingers and another whisper of that same spell word--Moctus, meaning flame--he had a small campfire to keep himself warm.

Graham brushed away the snow from a small area next to the rock outcropping, then he sat down and leaned back against the rocks. The campfire was small, but its heat and light were disproportionately reassuring. It wasn't too late in the day, yet the sky was already darkening as the winter sunset got underway. The forest was cold and quiet, but then Graham heard a melodic chirp, and a small brown bird fluttered through the clearing in a blur of motion. The bird was gone in an instant, but the brief sight made Graham smile--most of the birds had migrated away for the winter, but not all of them, and he wasn't truly alone in the forest.

Grabbing one of the backpacks, Graham got out some food. Back at the academy, his two friends had helped him quickly pack some basic essentials for surviving the next few days out in the wilderness. Lilly liked to cook and prepare her lunches for the whole week all on the preceding weekend, before packing the meals into rectangular metal lunchboxes, to be conveniently reheated and consumed each day. She had given several of these packaged meals to Graham for him to tide him through his few days in lonesome exile, for which he was deeply grateful. Tonight for dinner, the menu consisted of stir fried rice with slices of smoked duck and some sort of crunchy green vegetable chopped into cubes. The food was cold, so Graham put the metal lunchbox close to the fire to let it warm up.

As he waited, Graham couldn't resist the temptation to look. He pulled off his glove and examined his right hand again, taking in that strange sight of a fur-covered animal paw where once he'd possessed a human hand. It was a stark contrast to compare his left hand to his right. Yet despite how different his right hand appeared, it was still his hand. His muscles responded exactly as he wanted them to, and he could easily move his wrist and wiggle his fingers, though his digits were now shorter and had claws instead of nails. Graham touched the back of his hand, and that point of contact almost felt like he was just wearing a fur coat.

"Weird," he muttered softly to himself. One thing he did notice was that the fur was far more insulating than bare skin--his left hand could feel the bite of the cold wintery air, whereas his right hand felt perfectly comfortable. Graham pulled his glove back over his left hand, but he didn't need to do so with his right because the fur provided ample insulation on its own.

Graham looked back towards the east and in the direction of the Royal Academy of Magic. In the fading sunset, he could barely still see the smoke signal rising high into the sky. Civilization was close by, waiting for him to return when he was ready for it.

---

There wasn't much to do. After eating his dinner, Graham cut down another low hanging tree branch to create more firewood. Then he spent about an hour casually practicing the magical spells he'd demonstrated for his senior apprentice examinations over the past week--focused jets of flame, superheating a tiny region of space between his hands, and various other complex ways of directing fire magic--but eventually he grew bored of that too.

With nothing much to pass the time, Graham decided he might as well go to sleep. Reaching out with his magic, he sent power into the campfire and suppressed it. First the flames got smaller and smaller until there was nothing but faintly glowing logs and embers, then through continued force of will, he extinguished the fire entirely and it went dark. The wood was still warm, but all combustion had halted.

The forest was dark and quiet, but not excessively so--towards the east there was a faint glow in the sky from all the street and buildings lights of the Royal Academy of Magic, as well as the city of Tiwani further beyond. Humans, society, and his friends were not too far away. The moon was slowly rising from the horizon, bright and full, and it too provided a source of light to see around the small forest clearing.

Graham unrolled his sleeping bag inside the tent and lay down to sleep. The tent's fabric walls would keep out the wind and the snow, though they weren't thickly insulated as it was meant for use in kind weather, not for the middle of winter. Nevertheless, Graham just kept his winter cloak on as he slid into the sleeping bag. He retained most of his clothing, though he did unlace and loosen his boots as well as pull off his gloves.

Graham was also still wearing all the telanium-silver accessories that were helping to halt his transformation. The metal necklace, belt, anklets, and bracelets made it slightly difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position, but the thickness of his sleeping bag and coat also provided cushioning against all the hard metal. Using his scarf and one of the backpacks as a pillow, Graham went to sleep.

It had been a long, tiring, and very memorable day for the young mage. Graham fell asleep quickly despite the unusual environment, with his thoughts meandering and memory mixing into dreams.

---

Graham woke up a few hours later. He had left the entrance flap of the tent slightly open, and he could see moonlight now shining downwards, casting dim, whitish illumination onto the snowy ground outside. Raising his wrist, he checked his watch--the timepiece's arms glowed in the dark, but they indicated it was still many hours from sunrise, so Graham rolled over and closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

However before he could return to slumber, he heard a faint sound again and immediately realized that was what had woken him up before.

"Ooowwwoooo!"

Graham jerked up into a sitting position. In an instant and without even having to use a spell word, magic danced around his fingertips, hot and bright. Graham's affinity to magic was for fire and he knew how to scorch, burn, weld, cut, and do all sorts of useful practical things with fire magic, and now he instantly conjured up fireballs, ready to throw.

"Aaawwwoooooooooo!" The howling came again, and Graham remained perfectly still. The only things moving were the magical fire licking at his hands as he kept his power at the ready. Faint, flickering shadows were cast by that fiery light source.

"Owowoooooo!" When the howls came a third time, Graham realized that they sounded distant. It was just some far off wolfpack making some noise. The howls came a few more times, but they sounded increasingly distant, and Graham took a few deep breaths. He vaguely recalled some fact he had once read about how the sound of wolf howling could travel very far because of something about the pitch or the harmonics, and perhaps the calm winter air was more conductive to transmitting sound.

It was no surprise there were other living things out in the woods, even in the winter. The wolf or wolves who were howling were probably far, far away, and regardless, Graham didn't expect they would bother him. Stray dogs and cats sometimes roamed the Royal Academy of Magic, but wolves and other wild things stayed away from humans. And Graham was a magician. He feared no wild animal.

Closing his hands into fists, he extinguished the magical flames and then slowly laid back down. His heartbeat eventually stopped racing and he calmed down fully again, but it took considerable time before he could return to his rest. And he did not sleep very deeply.

---

When the morning came, Graham woke up with a startle. He was lying on his side, and through the opening of the tent he could see that the sky was starting to brighten. Graham glanced at his wristwatch to check the time--dawn was approaching and it was a new day.

Because it wasn't very bright out yet and he was still not fully awake, it took him a few seconds to realize the problem. Graham spent a few seconds lazily watching the miniscule, delicately intricate clockwork mechanisms of his wristwatch whirl about as they kept time. But then he noticed, and his eyes snapped wide open. Thick greyish fur was covering his left arm--not his right arm, but his left. Hurriedly Graham raised both hands, and he now saw that they both resembled animal paws, with short claws and dark paw pads.

"Oh no." Graham pushed up his cloak's left sleeve, then his right, and on both arms he was still wearing the telanium-silver bracelets, but they hadn't stopped the transformation from progressing during the night. With no small amount of trepidation, he sat up and started unbuttoning his winter overcoat. His fingers were shorter and his hands had noticeably less dexterity than before, but with careful movements he undid each button. Shrugging off the thick, waterproof, insulating winter coat, Graham was left wearing a long-sleeved shirt and his pants.