FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

[b][u][center]The Beast of the North

for Rayoelgatubelo

by Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

The trees seemed to flee behind her as she ran between the trunks and under the branches. Everything faded as the Duchess Swanhild fled from her fate, the noblewoman running from her memories as well as from her dutiful death.

Despite her best efforts, some pieces still clung to her. Blood, fire, death, both those of her people and what she deserved, by her own vows. One hand clutched a wounded shoulder as she ran, feeling the wound close over with hardened blood. The Duchess pushed the thought of her attacker away, more afraid of who would come after.

She ran, and ran, and ran, her dress gradually falling apart as she squeezed between bushes and ran beneath low hanging branches. Her formerly shiny shoes fell apart as she ran through the rivers of the woods, but even as they fell apart, she never stopped.

Not until she tripped into a clearing, barely catching herself above the green earth. She panted for breath, her eyes wild as she turned her head this way and that, until she slowly looked towards the sky.

Tears filled her eyes at the sight of the moon. Full and round, it should have been a sign of beauty. Despite what she knew of the world, Duchess Swanhild still would have found it beautiful...had she seen it any other night. Tonight...tonight it was the harbinger of her death,

The young noblewoman lowered her head, the tears coming fast as she realized that there would be no more running. The moonlight beamed down on her hotter than the sun in summer, feeling like it was burning her through the remnants of her dress. Her fingers curled into the earth as she laid herself down, sobbing into the moss and the grass and the earth.

[i]The fires of hell can’t be hotter than this...And no other would take me now, sullied like this,[/i] she thought to herself. [i]None of the old gods, and not the new one on his cross, either. Only the monsters would take a creature such as me…[/i]

She kept crying as the fiery moonlight scorched her, leaving her feeling as if she had been set on fire beneath her dress. The Duchess shuddered, squirming from side to side as she tried to hold it back, but from the wound burst heat of another sort. It rushed through her veins, and she bit her lip as the tears ran down her cheeks.

“No...I can’t! I won’t!”

But her body had its own ideas of what she would and wouldn’t do. Already, she could see the hair coming up on the back of her hands, the blonde hairs turning white and lengthening. She cried until she was hiccuping in fear, raking her nails over her hands until she was bloody, but it had no effect. Instead, the hairs continued to grow, thickening along her arm in the spots where her gloves had been ripped apart, and making the sleeves swell in short order.

Duchess Swanhild remembered her oath, sworn before the order of redhoods when she had been invested as Duchess. To fight against the creatures of the moon, to give support and succor to the order, and to surrender herself should she ever be overtaken by one of them. She remembered...and she had fled from it.

Now, she almost regretted it. Death would be less painful than this, and perhaps it would have saved her from what was coming, what her afterlife would be after this. But there was no turning back, and even now, her hand shook too much for her to dare try with anything of her own.

A sudden lurch in her back threw her onto her side, and Swanhild whimpered, crying out as her body forced itself onto its back. She ground her teeth together to try and stifle the sound, but her cries of pain still slipped through.

Her hands reached towards the moon, trying to push it away, but all she managed was to hold her hands to the only source of light for miles around. Before her eyes, she saw and felt her hands crack, distorting as they were held above her. The Duchess winced, crying out once more as she saw the thin fingers crack and twist like those of an older woman’s, becoming more and more ‘wrong’ the longer that she stared at them.

One by one, they cracked, each one filling the air with the sound of her bones breaking and rearranging. She thought she must have been out of tears, but she found more as her hands thickened, her fingers shortening and fattening at the same time. The fur spreading out looked like it was the source, at first, but as she saw the blackening of her fair skin, she wept anew.

“No...no…”

She pulled her hands back, trying to smother them against her breasts, but she could feel them growing, still. From fair, fine-fingered hands that she’d had before, they were more like a deformed monster’s claws. She hissed in pain as her fingertips split open, revealing claws at the ends of her fingers. They joined with her nails with great heat, her body melting to accommodate what the wound was turning her into.

As she rolled onto her sides, she felt her arms thickening up, too. Her dress ripped, her dainty, tight sleeves no longer able to contain arms that looked like the hairy limbs of a warrior. She screamed, no longer able to contain herself as she looked at the white haired - no, white-furred - limbs that her arms had become. No lover would take her into their arms, with these; no, she was a freak, worthless, ugly!

She slammed her enlarged fist against the ground, and she felt a guilty pleasure as she saw the dent that it left behind. She shouldn’t have - she should have disdained it - but the fact that she could hurt, could damage something, just as she’d been...it felt good.

The Duchess rolled over again, and she groaned as her body throbbed, her belly suddenly feeling tight, as if she’d suddenly consumed far too much. She looked down, and immediately the tears returned, for her body had found another way to betray her.

She had heard rumors of the bestial nature of the creatures that had attacked, but had only seen the fair ones and the brutish males. Despite what was happening, she must have held out some small, glimmering hope that there would be some fate in store for her that would allow her to keep some semblance of her old self, some sign of her beauty.

But no. Her belly had already swollen, and the thickness was spreading up her chest and down her hips. Everything gained layers of fat and muscle, making her look less like a lady and more like some stocky war-maiden. Duchess Swanhild whimpered as she touched her fingers to her stomach - which had burst free of her dress, forcing the fabric further up her body - and felt how much it gave beneath her fingers. Not even a hard stomach, like some pregnant woman she could pretend to be, but the rolling belly of a glutton.

[i]What have I done? What am I becoming?[/i]

Her skirt pushed back as her legs suddenly bent, cracking and shifting around. They didn’t completely change, as some of the beasts did, but as she saw her feet flatten and widen, she knew that it was only for the species she was becoming. The Duchess looked away, falling flat on her back as her body distorted further, becoming a beast of the north, her legs too thick to ever look truly feminine again.

Her body was wracked with sobs as it continued to shake, some of the jiggles firming out while others became more...noticeable, particularly in her chest. The ripped fabric broke away completely, leaving only a line of silk between her stomach and her waist that was barely hanging on, and her skirt that no longer covered her legs. Her newly bared breasts were covered with fur - as was the rest of her - but more than that, they were growing.

The Duchess tried to ignore the feeling of them getting bigger, but it was impossible to not feel the swelling weight atop her chest, helping to hold her down with her despair. They grew bigger and bigger, jiggling more and more as she shook and sobbed and cried. With each increase in size, she felt more and more bestial, like the last bits of her proper womanhood were fading away to be replaced by the whorish animal that these creatures always acted like.

She arched her back suddenly as she felt a burst of pain go through her, and her breasts suddenly grew all the larger, nearly doubling in size from their already bigger state. They slapped her right in the face, her black nipples pointing down towards her lips. They had grown, as well, looking like things that were not just meant to nourish, but to tempt others to play with.

[i]I...I can’t…[/i]

Curiosity tempted her, but she resisted...that time. She fell back again, her white-furred body so wrong...so bestial...so round and -

[i]I’m a bear…[/i]

She realized it just as her face began to distort, her cheeks pulling outwards along with her mouth and her nose. The end of it began to turn black, and she ground her teeth together, growing in pain rather than crying as her face was changed to reflect her new body. Swanhild fell on all fours, her breasts swaying below her almost like udders as her face was pulled outwards. Her teeth sharpened, cutting into her gums momentarily before they healed over again, and her tongue almost spilled out of her mouth before the growing muzzle caught up.

It was then, as her ears went up the side of her head and her eyes finally changed color, that things shifted in her mind. She had lost everything: her humanity, her rank, her title, all that she’d enjoyed and taken for granted before. All she had left was her body, and while it was...bestial, it was also strong, and it had its own...needs.

Swanhild slowly pulled herself to her feet, feeling her body ripple a bit as she did. She could feel fat in places that she had never felt fat before, a jiggle in her hips and her chest that would have thrown her off-balance if it hadn’t been for the muscle that had come with the transformation. She shook her head a few times, trying to reconcile herself to it, trying to take it like a lady, like a noble, but there was something wrong, something that made it impossible to just feel disappointed.

Instead, she felt...hungry.

She pressed a hand to her bigger belly, but realized that it wasn’t hunger for food. Instead, it was like she needed something hotter, and more dear to people. Blood, almost, and a need to lash out.

She stomped the ground, groaning as she felt the inner beast taking more and more control. She was overwhelmed in seconds, and walked over to one of the trees. A single bash of her fist left a hole that a woodsman would have been jealous of, and she grinned a bit as she felt something else, a heat down between her legs.

Already, her mind was changing. The hate of the beast was changing to almost an appreciation. The knowledge that she would never be the same told her that she could take advantage of this, and no one would know it was her.

It was all rationalization. All of it was something that was offered by the beast, giving her a distraction so that it could take total control. In her grief, in her desperate need to latch onto something, the former Duchess didn’t mind. In fact, she encouraged it, riding in the back of the beast’s head as it ran off into the forest, to indulge its hedonistic ways.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]