1/29/2025, 4:45 PM
Rozabela believed in things that were real. The guttering of failing neon lights. Her paws against the hot concrete. Shady bars, worse men. Those were things that were real. Those were things that made sense.
This? This didn’t at all. When she looked around her, it was ruins. All of it. Ruins she didn’t recognize, and a swamp she had never stepped foot in before. She would know, she hated the smell that wafted off those that did. She felt her lip twitch as the smell reached her. Dead fish, decaying plant matter, and the faintest wiff of the desolation of stone around her from the water’s ceaseless war. She was atop a dias, like a priestess addressing a crowd. Roza, who’d never been particularly religious, recognized the blasphemy and quickly scrambled down the steps.
Of course, that’s when she noticed the figure. Red and brown, brawny, laid among the stones, groaning. She slowed.
This? This didn’t at all. When she looked around her, it was ruins. All of it. Ruins she didn’t recognize, and a swamp she had never stepped foot in before. She would know, she hated the smell that wafted off those that did. She felt her lip twitch as the smell reached her. Dead fish, decaying plant matter, and the faintest wiff of the desolation of stone around her from the water’s ceaseless war. She was atop a dias, like a priestess addressing a crowd. Roza, who’d never been particularly religious, recognized the blasphemy and quickly scrambled down the steps.
Of course, that’s when she noticed the figure. Red and brown, brawny, laid among the stones, groaning. She slowed.
Pardon!Her snappy voice rose, the itch to find the bastard she’d been chasing near overwhelming.
You haven’t happened to see another wolf nearby? Perhaps running?She refused to believe this was happening. Perhaps a hallucinogenic gas. Or she’d been knocked out, and this was a dream. That would make more sense than transmogrification.