Man...

excepted from Werewolf;the Forsaken

The First Change

The First Change is what makes a werewolf. Before it happens, a werewolf knows littles of what she is. She knows that she's frequently prone to fits of terrifying anger, and her life seems to be more strange and troubled than it should be, but she still considers heself human. Yet when the moon hangs in the sky and Change begins, she dicovers how wrong she is.

The time just before the First Change is terrifying. Peculiar, inexplicable things begin to occur around the young werewolf. While she lies in bed at night, she hears whispers in a language she doens't recognise, but can almost understand. Squirrels and rabbits literally flee screaming in fear, while strange dogs saunter alongside her on the street, ignoring their masters' commands. Time and space lurch. She walks for five minutes and travels five miles, or she finds herself in horrible nightmare-spaces like eternal hallways or burning buildings with no exist. In the middle of the afternoon. For no reason.

And then there are the others. She catches a glimpse of a stranger watching her, or she wakes up in the dead of night to see what looks like a huge dog sitting on her lawn. There in comes - the attack. Something that might be a dog, a wolf or even a crazy human with too sharp teeth knocks her down at night - maybe even in the safety of her own home - and bites deep into her flesh. The wound doesn't seem infected; in fact, it heals more quickly than it should.

For days, her life breaks down. The world twists and shudders around her, and finally instinct takes over. The only escape from the wildly whirling world is to change to match it.

When the First Change comes on her, her body ripples uncontrollably between all five forms. She goes through partial transformations. Her face and skin might remain human while she extends an enormous bloody muzzle, or her legs might turn into weak wolf's legs while her body's mass remains the same. Many think they're dying or going insane. They're wrong.

And overhead, the moon. Whatever her birth mother was life, the werewolf doesn't ever truly understand a mother's love until she rests, weeping and exhausted, in Luna's embrace after the First Change is complete. Then, for that point on, her soul is marked. The phase of the moon influences the Change itself, just as it influences the werewolf's life thereafter. A werewolf whose Change occurs under the gibbous moon might experience a flood of frightening, surreal visions that demand expression, while the full moon almost always triggers a killing rage in the werewolf whose Change occurs under its gaze. Regardless of the moon phase, the First Change takes control of the werewolf, and she acts on instinct until she collapses into total exhaustion.

When she wakes, she has more sense of identity, although that sense has ... changed somewhat. Changing shape becomes a little more natural, though it takes practive at first. She has also been marked by the phase of the moon with an affinity known as an auspice, though it will take her some time to comprehend what that affinity means for her. She has been initiated through blood and moonlight into the path of the Uratha, one she will follow for the rest of her life.

Why is this happening?

But why? What about the First Change so powerfully distorts, even destroys a werewolf's life before it even happens?

The imminent First Change is a source of subtle turmoil in its own right. Like ripples in a dark pond, the forces churning in the werewolf's heart send pulses of supernatural emotion through the area around her. The fury rising to the surface begins to warp the spirit world around the Uratha, perhaps even temporarily weakening the wall between flesh and Shadow.

Other werewolves notice as well. Most know what's going on when they see the signs, and its often too easy to find their target. At this point, the young werewolf is strung out and like to break down at any minute. She might also have been born to a human parent that posessed a small measure of the blood of a wold. Sometimes the wolf blood can ran strong in a human family, with the result that more werewolves are likely to be born to such a bloodline. A family with true wolf-blooded members is the sort of resource that werewolves watch a bit more closely.

It doesn't take the while pack to catch a pre-Change Uratha. Usually just one or two members can do the job. One might change into monstrous form and wait for the reaction. This close to the Change, most werewolves aren't affected by the Lunacy - the mind-warping supernatural terror all humans feel when confronted by a werewolf - but if they are smart, they're still terrified. They run to the best of their ability, dodging and weaving and making hairpin turns. All the hunting werewolves need to do is get a bit and a little taste of the blood, then they leave the frightened "human" alone until his First Change. In some ways, that chase is the young werewolf's first unofficial rite of passage into a larger world.

Spirits whirl around the nascent werewolf, revolving through her existence, and the others in her life can't just ignore what's going on. She's just inches away from the hidden world, and her proximity draws the spirits out. Some of them manifest. They haunt and howl. The spirits can sense the imminent arrival of one of their ancient rivals - and sometimes they choose to act pre-emptively.

What's worse, the spirit world gets close to a nascent werewolf's friends and loved ones, too. The Hisil is a place and a thing, and it doesn't discriminate. Its not just the werewolf glimpsing strange bloodstains where her cat's been hungting, or twisting through foors that open from the dining room to the park down the street. These things happen to her family or her neighbours or even the guy she invited home from the bar. The spirit world itself is a place where symbolism and poetry are more important than geography, so its possible that significant people in her life find themselves closer to the spirit world than they want to be, even if they're a thousand miles away. And if that's the case, they'll have no earthly idea of what's going on. If they're lucky, they'll only think they're going insane. The unlucky ones...