The Reckoning

1.4 PAST

"Please don't chose the dumb creature again." My brother's voice echoed in the chambers.

"It's not dumb. It is fast, intelligent and quickly breeding. I would say it fulfills the characteristics of an effective shift. Not to mention it is small and flexible, it fits effectively in tiny compartments."

"Quiet the both of you or I will have you banished from this temple immediately." The two of us kneeled before a giant white altar of marble with a brush of sage smoking on its smooth surface.

"Yes, holy sage" My brother and I responded in unison. He stuck his tongue out at me. We had been coming the to the temple since we were children to learn mediation. We kneeled inside a ornate building made of marble, vaulted ceilings with floors ordained with braided golden and maroon rugs. Brass lanterns lit up the room. The whiteness of our surroundings was meant toinvoke peace and purity, but at times it reminded me of the skeletons belongingto the creatures we tried to restore.

The sage slowly moved towards us as though it floated on the ground. It's thin frame without defining gender or feature. Occasionally glimpses of the figure's face peaked out in light revealing empty sockets of flesh for eyes, a rudimentary bump for a nose and no opening for a mouth. The sage spoke to the mind and could understand your thoughts. It was the perfect teacher because you couldn't hide anything from it. Your weakness was always apparent and eradicated quickly. It took no form so it would be infinite in its possibilities. It was considered the most holy and powerful among our species and was the most revered.

Sages were the most talented shifters among us, for they had cast away any attachment to this existence. They were the enlightened. It was rumored prior to the first raid, that the most talented sages among us lived in harmony with humans, often portraying various animals or people without detection. Only one sage who was foolish enough to fall in love with a human earned their place in earth's horror stories as the "slenderman". While rumors spread fierce among our people, our history is still unclear about what happened to them.

I closed my eyes as the sage gently placed its fingers on my face. "Picture that which you want to become Inara. Imagine the way things smell and feel for this little creature. Walk in its shoes, embrace its suffering. Become one with those past"

Slowly my bones broke and cracked in teal light as I felt the world grow vast and cold around me. My eyes migrated to the sides of my face, my fingers became paws and my toes claws. Giant ears sprouted the top of my head and I was enveloped in a soft bed of fur.