[ WP ] Were-humans ...

She twitched. 
 
 Most hounds bayed at the full moon, welcoming the bright light of the night to run down coons, the late-walking stag, the skunk they'd regret later... but Blackberry dreaded it. 
 
 Her brain was not what you would call primitive. A coonhound is a complex creature, constantly analyzing the bouquet of scents riding the wind and the earth in front of her, with something akin to a second consciousness tracking her pack or her Master running along behind as she sang the song of the chase. 
 
 Blackberry was not stupid enough not to realize the torment she was about to experience. 
 
 The sun sank orange behind the Blue Ridge. She'd dug out of her kennel hours ago, and could hear, almost a quarter mile away, her master calling her name, and more than that. 
 
 `` Gawdammit, Berry! Ah swear to gawd Ah'll beat yer ass with a two bah four when I git aholt of you!'' 
 
 He did n't mean it. She heard the panic in his voice. Their bond was strong; her monthly escapes tortured him. 
 
 She felt her own panic rising. 
 
 *I know what a two by four is, * she thought, the verbal thoughts themselves making the panic rise harder and faster. *It's begun. * 
 
 It was barely dark -- a strange grey-blue twilight in the hardwood forest where she'd collapsed panting after her sprint from the cabin. Her claws tensed, seemingly grasping the earth around her; the seizure rolled into her body like the waves of an ocean she'd never set eyes on, throwing her onto her side, and for a moment she was mindless, the slender head curved so far back along her spine it seemed her neck would break itself. 
 
 And then the world blinked sideways and she was panting again, in the dirt. 
 
 The petite, dark, red haired girl wiped away the sheen of sweat that covered her face. 
 
 `` Disgusting,'' she'd said out loud. The water-leaking-cooling-mechanism that her two-legged-form favored never ceased to make her feel sick to her stomach. She scrubbed her small hands dry in the oak leaves around herself, then stood and felt in the hollow of the tree beside her for her stash. 
 
 She pulled on a pair of Master's old jeans, and one of his v-neck t-shirts. 
 
 Tonight was the night. 
 
 She had no need of shoes; her human feet had somehow inherited her woods-running calluses. 
 
 Master had wept when she'd returned home the last time, begging her not to leave again. 
 
 Her heart was his; how could she keep hurting him? 
 
 Her human mind knew how difficult making him believe would be, but her canine heart no longer cared. She loved him with every cell of her being, dog or human; he was her father, her brother, her Master, her God. 
 
 She would beg for his forgiveness. She would beg him to love her in this form, as he did in the other. 
 
 She took a breath and wiped away the tears that were coming now, as she gathered her courage, irritated once again that this body would n't stop leaking water. 
 
 She began to walk back home, by the light of the moon.
