#i think evie did til she got lycanthropy

[iironwreath]

Children [Genevieve]

[121]

Evie ducked into the back room of the warehouse. She was used to lowering herself through doors instead of walking through them, hybrid form or not.

The children reacted viscerally. Tired but alive, they squirmed towards the far corners of their imprisonment, cages woven from wood and vines into shape. Like everything in the town before it, the cages were beginning to rot, riven with cracks and brittle with decay.

Evie knew how she looked. Massive, hulking, sharp-toothed and amber-eyed, all before she drenched herself in blood up to the elbow with claws that still crackled and sparked with lightning. She saw no doubt in their minds that she worked with the hag who put them there.

She could only see her daughter reacting the same way, in abject terror, that creatures that looked like her mother would hurt her. Werewolves begot fear, in adult and child alike. 

“Amelia?” she called, and her voice sounded even harsher than usual, grated like pebbles. The children didn’t reply, quaking.

Her hand relaxed and the energy dissipated. She could change back—but she didn’t know if they were in the clear yet, and she had to make the most out of her wolven body, even at the cost of their trust. She approached.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she tried to console them. Again, no change. She sighed. Their cage doors were torn off with ease.