We were patrolling with Quil, as we did lately. Nothing really changed apart from the fact that Quil had an imprint now and I didn’t. Yet, Quil was respectful enough to not think about him and Claire for as long as we had to patrol, and I appreciated his efforts. I couldn’t say the same from the other members of the pack; with the exception of Sam, who always kept a clear mind during patrols, everyone else but Brady and Colin, were thinking about their imprints andthe patrol.
‘You’re okay, man?’ Quil’s voice echoed in my mind.
‘Yeah, just thinking. I would really like to get away from here. There does not seem to be a danger around, and I would really like to get away from here. You know, go away for some time, I don’t know how long.’
‘No, you won’t, Embry.’ Sam growled. ‘The pack still needs you. There are still vampires in the area, and we don’t know how many others will be tempted to come here. You will stay with the pack, and that’s final.’
I sighed. I was given no choice, no options, and I was pressured into staying somewhere I didn’t want to. I felt trapped under someone else’s orders. I was angry at Sam for not letting me get the hell out of here. He couldn’t make such choices for me.
‘I’m your Alpha, Embry. Whatever I say, goes. Now, continue patrolling, and I want no more complaining and whining by any of you. Focus on your duties.’
Without another word, we continued patrolling around our territory. I kept my thoughts to a minimum, ‘cause I knew that whatever I thought of, Sam or any of the others would pick on it, and start pressuring me once again. It was actually nice when no one was thinking about anything at all. Involuntarily or purposefully, we were all usually thinking about, at least, one thing, so not hearing anything at all, brought me some peace.
However, our peace was short-lived the moment we started hearing Jacob’s thoughts. He was informed Bella was back, and he went to see her. Only Bella was changed, but she was not a vampire. Bella was pregnant! How was that possible? Jacob kept playing their argument in his mind. He tried to convince her to stay human, and get rid of whatever she had inside of her, but she wouldn’t listen.
Jacob was running angrily through the woods, howling for us to meet him at the usually unoccupied lumber mill that was just a few miles south of La Push. We all howled back, promising to meet him there. Everyone was calling for Jacob through the mind link, not knowing or not believing if what he involuntarily showed us was true or not.
Words were thrown around. ‘Dangerous.’ ‘Monstrosity.’ ‘An abomination.’ And then, everyone - including me - were shouting ‘We can’t allow it. We can’t allow it.’ over and over, circling Jacob, like he was the perpetrator and accused.
‘We have to protect the tribe. What they’ve bred won’t be able to control its thirst. Every human will be in danger.’ Sam growled, using his Alpha voice. ‘We must destroy it before it’s born.’
‘You mean, kill Bella?’ Seth sounded terrified, not believing what Sam was proposing.
‘Bella’s human. Our protection applies to her.’ Jacob tried to reason with Sam.
‘Bella made her choice a long time ago, Jacob. Get ready. We have real enemies to fight tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ Jacob and I said at the same time.
Sam moved towards Jacob menacingly. ‘You will fight with us, Jacob.’
Sam was pushing Jacob to bow down and follow his orders until Jacob snapped. ‘I will not! I am the grandson of Ephraim Black. I am the grandson of a chief! I wasn’t born to follow you, or anyone else.’ Jacob growled before he ran away, cutting the mind link between him and us.
Seth was whining, sad to see Jacob go. Seth, like some of us, knew that killing Bella was not right, even if she was pregnant with the vampire’s baby; killing her would only cause more harm and hatred between us and the Cullens. If (Y/N) found out that we killed Bella and attacked the Cullens, she would never forgive me. The Cullens were there for her when I wasn’t.
‘Will you stop with (Y/N) already? I get it, you miss her, we all do. But if she were to side with the Cullens on that, you should not have hesitated to fight her, as the rest of us would.’ Jared growled at me.
I growled back at him, furious that he even dared to say that I would attack my imprint, even if she went against the pack’s beliefs and actions. I couldn’t stand this attitude coming from them. My imprint was above every single one of them, even my own mother. I would never do anything to hurt her, not anymore. So, I ran away, following Jacob’s actions, as I heard Seth and Quil calling my name.
I continued running through the woods, unsure of where I was going. My mind was no longer driving me; it was my feet that drove me towards the Cullens’ house - the only place I knew Jacob would go right now. Looking and smelling around, I tried to catch Jacob’s smell, as I couldn’t hear his thoughts anymore. I found him a couple of hundred feet away from the house, so I quickly ran back to a tree where I had hidden some clothes, changed, and ran back to Jacob’s side.
“What are you doing here?” Jacob asked me annoyed, without turning around.
“I left Sam’s pack. I couldn’t stand behind what he wanted to do. Bella is still human. And I know (Y/N) wouldn’t support getting rid of her or the baby. Whatever that baby is, it’s not right. If Bella wants the baby, nobody can take that away from her. Not Edward. Not the Cullens. Not you, or me, or the pack.”
Jacob didn’t say a thing back, rather just turned to look at the house. “I’m gonna go give the Cullens a heads-up. You can stay here, or follow me.”
Without saying a word, I followed behind Jacob, walking closer towards the house, where we saw Edward standing on the balcony. “Get ready. They’re coming for Bella.”
“They’re not gonna touch her.” The vampire replied.
“Agreed.” Both Jacob and Edward nodded at each other before the vampire nodded towards me, then went back into the house.
We heard a few branches breaking, and we turned around to see Quil, Seth, and Leah. “What are you three doing here now?” Jacob shouted annoyed.
“We’re not gonna let you two get yourselves killed. We left Sam’s pack. We wouldn’t agree with his plans. We’re not gonna kill a human, whether she’s carrying a demon baby or not. Your stand on the issue made us look at things from a different perspective. Sam’s on his own now. Jared, Paul, Brady, and Collin won’t be enough for him to stand against us. He will eventually have to back down.” Quil announced.
“Did he send you? Does he know you’re here?” I asked all three of them.
“He doesn’t, but he will figure it out soon. Thankfully, we left after he told us what his plan is.” Leah replied.
“What’s his plan? Are you sure he’s not going to change it after you three left?” Jacob wanted to know, to make sure that Sam wouldn’t change his plans.
“We don’t know if he will, but his original plan was to get the place surrounded, leaving no margin for any of the Cullens to get out. He wants them weak, unable to feed, thus unable to resist an attack. He’ll be waiting for his opportunity, and when he finds it, he will strike.” Quil narrated Sam’s whole plan, and we knew we could trust them. Quil and Seth were our friends after all, and Leah was (Y/N)’s.
“Alright, I’m gonna let the Cullens know, and I’ll check up on Bella. You can wait here, or you can come with me if you can keep the formalities.” Jacob informed us, before walking away.
We stood back, looking around the “enemies’” territory, waiting for something to happen. There was tension in the air; we expected Sam’s next move, but also didn’t know when that would be. We were filled with anticipation and nerves, as we had nothing to do in particular.
We hadn’t realized that the buff vampire came out of the house until we smelled him. All four of us turned around to look at him, as he waved at us to follow him. Though Leah protested at first, she came with us, as we followed Emmett into the house.
It was a big house, surprisingly warm and bright. We could smell Bella in the living room, on the upper floor, as we followed Emmett up the stairs. He led us to the kitchen where Esme had prepared food for us.
“I thought you might be hungry, so I prepared something quick. I hadn’t done that in a while. Bella cannot keep food down, so it’s of no use to try and force her to eat anything.”
We silently thanked her and dug into the food. Even Leah seemed a bit more trusting of the vampire mom. (Y/N) had mentioned two or three times that Esme was like a mother to her, making sure she was okay, even if they were far away from each other. So, I supposed Leah was more open to trusting Esme, just like (Y/N) always did.
“So,”, Quil broke the silence, “did you have any news from (Y/N)?”
“Unfortunately, Quil, we know as much as you do. She hasn’t contacted us yet, and we’re getting worried. We hoped she did, but it’s been too long and she hasn’t. We don’t know what to think of it.” Esme replied sadly, looking down at the floor. The doctor came by her side, hugging her around the waist, as she leaned on his shoulder for comfort.
“I’m sure she will call us soon. She just needs a little time to think. She was probably hurt by your argument, but I think she’ll come around. You’re too precious for her, Embry. And the pack is her new family, so I’m sure she’ll come around.” The doctor tried to comfort me and my packmates, though there was still uncertainty lingering in his words.
“I really hope you are right. I.. I just miss her so much. Every day I miss her more than the previous. She’s also the reason why I couldn’t follow Sam and his plans. I knew that (Y/N) would never forgive me if any of you got hurt by one of our own. You’re her family too, and she asked me to get along with you. I’m gonna keep that promise for her sake, even if she never comes back.”
“That’s really sweet of you, Embry. We want you to know that we never meant to hurt any of you. We recently found out the reason why your people transform into wolves. We never wanted to cause you the pain you had to go through during your shift. We found comfort in this place, and we wanted to come back, looking for that comfort. We are truly sorry for any bad thing we caused you.” Esme was feeling genuinely regretful for them coming back here, and causing us to shift. And I believed her that it was not their intention to cause us harm.
“We know you didn’t mean to. Well, not all of us do, but some of us are okay with it now. We learned to live with you. Besides, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have met (Y/N), and Embry wouldn’t have imprinted on her. And I would have never become the first female werewolf.” Leah chuckled. I would have never thought she would ever be accepting of the Cullens’ existence in the area, but life was full of surprises.
“That’s really sweet of you, Leah. We were indeed surprised to hear about your transformation, but you’re a strong woman, so there was no doubt why you carried the wolf gene. You were meant for great things.” Esme smiled at Leah, looking like she saw a new daughter in her. Leah smiled back, looking down, blushing.
The Cullens were actually quite nice if you got to know them better, and if it weren’t for Bella’s pregnancy, we would all sit back, relax, and enjoy their company and food, instead of worrying about the baby and Sam’s upcoming attack on the Cullens.
“Don’t worry about Sam, Embry.” Edward mumbled. “He won’t get near Bella, whether you all are there or not. I won’t let them hurt my family.”
“We have no doubt about that. But Sam is unpredictable, and we don’t know how he’ll react after all 5 of us left. He’s outpowered and it would be a suicide mission, but we still don’t know what he’ll do about it; how he’ll react. We’d dread to see Brady and Collin by his side.” Quil was saddened at the possibility of Sam putting the younger ones into a fight he would most probably lose. They didn’t deserve that; they were too young and too inexperienced.
“Well, whatever he chooses to do, I think we’ll be even. We haven’t hunted for weeks. We can’t go out of the house. So, we may not be fully capable of fighting Sam.” Emmett sounded desperate; his eyes were a dark sand - almost black - color, and there was no doubt that he was hungry.
“No fights. We won’t be the ones to break the treaty.” The doctor quietly replied.
“The treaty is void, at least in Sam’s mind. From the moment Bella got pregnant and there’s the possibility of the baby killing people, Sam can only think of one thing: getting rid of the baby, even if he has to go through Bella.” Jacob’s voice broke a bit, at the thought of his best friend getting killed by his pack family.
We were soon done with our food, and left the house, preferring to go patrol the perimeter, making sure that Sam can’t get near. We were torn between shifting or staying in our human forms, especially since we got a glance of Sam, Paul, and Jared looking at us from afar. Thankfully and expectedly, they didn’t come near us, rather they stayed watching us.
Days were going by like this. We would patrol for a few hours, eat at the Cullens, then go back to patrol, as we took turns sleeping and patrolling, just to make sure there were always at least two of us each time. In contrast to the Cullens, we needed sleep, but they needed to hunt, because, after some time, it looked unbearable to them.
Jacob had a thought that the baby would most likely crave blood, and the doctor, having some spare blood available, was feeding it to Bella who seemed to be a bit healthier and more alive than before. She was finally able to slowly start eating again while drinking blood for the baby. But that meant that some of the Cullens would regularly leave the house to avoid attacking the blood bags or Bella. So, they would come with us, and we would walk around the area, not straying too far from the house, in fear of Sam attacking unexpectedly.
However, the closer Bella was to deliver, the more intense everything would become. There was the fear of her giving birth way earlier than expected - could be today or the next day, no one knew for sure. We were on the edge minute after minute, waiting for Sam to make a move. The Cullens were getting more anxious and hungry, and the prospect of Bella giving birth with hungry vampires around put a toll on everyone’s psychology.
Jacob had been thinking constantly, trying to find different ways to somehow distract Sam and his pack. We needed just enough time for them to get distracted so that the Cullens could go hunting. Jacob thought of calling Paul and Jared over to negotiate a sort of return of the rest of us to the pack - a white lie to earn us some time.
However, that turned out to be unnecessary, when, that same afternoon, Sam, Paul, and Jared, along with Collin and Brady came by the Cullen household. Sam asked for a truce, declaring that waiting for something that would inevitably happen instead of focusing on everything else was meaningless. He promised he wouldn’t hurt Bella or her baby, as long as the Cullens made sure that the baby would not cause a problem to the humans.
A new truce and some small talk later, Sam and his pack left the Cullen household. Jacob had officially established his own pack which would work alongside Sam’s for the better of the tribe and the humans around, so none of us had to go back to Sam’s pack. We were all glad that this part of our reality was arranged and done with.
We now had to look out for Bella giving birth, but, as Sam and his pack were no longer a threat to the Cullens, Carlisle proposed that we returned to the reservation. They would make sure they fed in groups, and Carlisle would make sure everything was ready for Bella, so none of us had to stick around through a what-was-expected-to-be painful birth.
Though he didn’t want to leave Bella’s side, Jacob was finally convinced to stay away from Bella and the Cullens for just enough time for her to give birth, get changed, and get used to the vampire life. Her change was always something she wanted, and now, it was the only solution if they wanted Bella to stay with them. So, we just picked up the few clothes we had left back at the Cullens, along with food Esme prepared for everyone, and returned back to the reservation.
Surprisingly, the transition from all this tension to the more calming environment of the reservation was easy and smooth. Our families were still waiting for us, and nothing seemed to have changed around. Now, we would go back to patrolling, visiting Emily and Sam’s house, and everything else we used to do before all this chaos as if nothing happened at all; as if we never argued about Sam’s decision; as if we never abandoned the pack.
I returned back to my house quietly, now that my mother had no issue with me going out at odd times, still convinced that I was working instead of what I was actually doing. The house was dark and quiet, but there was my mom’s smell still lingering in the air. I entered the kitchen, taking some leftovers from the fridge and eating them directly from the Tupperware, not interested in heating them up. I was uninterested in the food, but I knew I had to eat to remain strong and maintain a clear mind.
As I was finishing up my meal, I heard the front door open, and my mother entered the house, walking towards the kitchen. We locked eyes and she must have seen the pain and tiredness in my own, as she came closer to hug me. I didn’t expect her sudden affection - not that it was uncommon of my mother; she was a loving person. I hugged her back, missing the simpler times, where we would spend most of our day together, whenever she didn’t have too much work at the souvenir shop. The old times, when I wasn’t a wolf; when I was just a teenager, free of responsibilities.
“Embry, I’m sorry to intervene, but you’ve been looking a bit sad lately as if you are not present. I’m not gonna lie to you, I am getting worried about you. Please talk to me. You know you can talk to me about everything.”
“It’s nothing, really. I’ve just been feeling a bit under the weather lately, but I’m sure it will be over soon. Don’t worry about it.”
My mother took a few seconds to herself, not saying exactly what was on her mind. She gulped a bit before she voiced her concern. “Embry? Is it about the shifter thing?”
I froze in my place, not knowing what to say. “The whatthing?!”
I’d been getting more and more worried about Embry lately. He was not his usual, happy self. He hadn’t been himself for almost half a year now but at first, I attributed it to him being a teenager who just went through his rebel stage. However, the more time went by, the more worried I would be about him being out at odd hours, sneaking out of the house when he thought I didn’t hear him, and sleeping in the morning. I felt like he was wasting his life away.
That was until (Y/N) (Y/L/N) came by my house to see me. She was the niece of a local businesswoman, Esme Cullen, and she worked for her aunt’s construction company. I was suspicious at first, but the more we talked, the more she made me feel at ease. She told me that Embry was working for her aunt’s company, and that was the reason why he was out all the time - she confessed that Embry himself asked her and her aunt to not tell me anything about his whereabouts.
(Y/N) seemed like a wonderful girl, sweet, innocent, and gentle, and I wished Embry would find someone like her, or get closer to her. Mrs. Cullen was the wife of the local doctor, up in Forks, and (Y/N) herself seemed to come from a respectable family. I didn’t actually know her family, but her gentle nature and sweet personality managed to win me over and make me trust her. Though we didn’t talk for too long, I could sense her kindness and beautiful soul.
Unfortunately, I had not seen her ever since she came by. When I mentioned her visit to Embry, he was puzzled, and he slowly started getting angrier and angrier before he eventually stormed out of the house. He came back a few hours later, still angry, and he wouldn’t speak to me for a few days. After that, he would just look miserable. He would still not say a word; he would only mumble occasionally, and that was it. I was getting worried about my only son. What could have upset him so much that he was feeling so down and sad?
I was searching back and forth, looking for answers all over the reservation and the surrounding area, but nobody seemed to know a thing, and if they knew, they wouldn’t tell me. For anyone who “knew” me, I was an outsider, I wasn’t a Quileute, so I assumed that was why they couldn’t trust me with the tribe’s “secrets”. And I also assumed that Embry himself must have been feeling that sense of alienation, compared to his friends who were born of Quileute parents, and felt more connected with the reservation and the tribe.
Between working and looking for answers, I was getting too tired. I had to search for answers from the ones who were the closest and at the center of the action, and who, most likely, knew what was actually going on with my son. I went to the Elders of the Quileute tribe, the council that was responsible for all the major decisions taken within the tribe.
Currently, they consisted of Billy Black, Quil Ateara the third, and Sue Clearwater, the late wife of Harry Clearwater. Billy’s son, Jacob, and Quil’s grandson, Quil, were Embry’s best friends, so they must have known if something had happened to Embry, and what he wouldn’t tell me.
It turned out that getting close to the council was not easy; I already knew that I wouldn’t be let into the tribe’s inner circle, but I needed to know. I would try to approach them with my questions every chance I could get, and every single time, they would do anything to avoid me. I was getting tired and frustrated, so, one day, I decided that the only thing I could do would be to go by Sue’s house. She couldn’t deny me if I insisted on her giving me answers.
And so it happened. I went by Sue Clearwater’s house one day, prepared to get the answers I sought for. This time, she wouldn’t be able to dismiss me. I knocked on her door, and she opened it, not knowing who it was. The surprise on her face was evident when she saw it was me. She mumbled something about being busy, but I wouldn’t let her dismiss me this time. It was time I knew the truth.
“Please, Sue, don’t kick me out. I need to know what is going on with my son. Please, mother to mother, you must know how I feel. Please, tell me what’s going on.” I pleaded with the woman, touching her arm to stop her from leaving me out of her house. She sighed and silently invited me into her house.
“Would you like something to drink?” She pointed at the couch for me to sit, seemingly hesitant to talk to me.
“No, thank you. I just want to ask you a few things if you don’t mind.” I sat down, looking straight at her.
“Of course. What would you like to ask me?”
“I just want to know if you know what is going on with my Embry. Apparently, he’s been working at a local construction company, but lately, he seems a bit off, like he is not present, like he’s sad and depressed, and I don’t know what to believe anymore. Do you know what is going on?”
“Uhm, I’m not really supposed to talk about these things, you know. There are some things that happen within the tribe and affect everyone in a different way, but I’m not the one to talk to you about them. It’s not my secret to tell, though I’m directly and indirectly affected by them. You may need to talk with Embry about it. He should be the one to explain everything to you. We wished we could tell you, but Embry did not wish for that. And even if I am a member of the council, there’s only so much I can do. You better talk to Embry. He will or will not let you know what is going on with him.”
I let Sue’s words sink in my mind a bit. I had been thinking about it for a long time, but I was never completely sure if that was the case. However, the way Sue presented everything made me seriously think about the possibility that I was rightfully thinking what I was thinking all this time.
I lifted my eyes to look at the woman sitting across from me, with certainty in my eyes. “So, the legends are true, huh?”
Just offloading some year-old art here while we’re doing Morgan things. Started to do a lineup of his most notable forms and then totally didn’t.
Morgan is a ludicrously OP shapeshifter who can force his body into virtually endless organic forms with few limitations. It has granted him demi-god levels of reverence and hatred from his world.
His primary weakness is being basically MADE of dark magic, the kind of ugly energy you only get from sacrifice and death. He’s technically undead. This makes him weak to the myriad spells already developed to fight such apparitions. Most attacks he can shrug off, but so-called light magic rips holes in him that he often can’t even shapeshift his way out of. Enter his bff Magda Alder, who specializes in such magic and so really has the upper hand on him, and also the ability and- for some reason- inclinationto patch him up when he gets torn apart. She can also, uniquely, turn off his shapeshifting entirely, rendering him his very rare and secret true self, a very grumpy noodle of formless slime that used to be a human body.
The dark magic thing is not his fault, by the way, or choice. When Morgan was a seventeen year old farm girl she found, or perhaps was found by, a lost spellbook penned by one of the nastiest warlocks of antiquity… the Mef. The entire BOOK is actually all one giant, uber-complicated, ridiculous spell. Morgan had no idea. Morgan thought the shiny swirly ruby-red circle on the last page of the book looked fun to touch.
Now Morgan has a fricken BOOK embedded in his being, all the rewritten rules of physics, the great written alibi that allows him to do what he does. He can pull it out of his flesh if you wanna see it, but mostly he keeps very quiet about this. Magda is obsessed with it. Makes him lay on his back for hours while she flips through it, taking down copy, it drives him to distraction.
Not pictured whatsoever are Morgan’s actual favorite forms: any number of giant winged dragons, which utterly do not exist in his world but he insisted on crafting them up for himself. Also enjoys being a winged cat and a giant snake. Annoyingly, the forms he usually needs to take on the daily to blend in and do his job are shit like pigeons, cart horses, dogs, and an endless march of boring normal people he cooks up on the spot.
Using Morgan for some quick and dirty action poses!
Even in his ‘default’ form the shapeshifter’s appearance changes constantly on a whim. He might throw on some wings for some drama, a tail just to reach something when he doesn’t wanna get up, his cape and collar come and go as they get in his way, even his nails and teeth drift into fangs and claws, sometimes without him noticing. He’s somehow juuuust slightly taller than whoever he’s talking to.
Can’t actually fly in human form, just thinks the wings look impressive. He can glide for a bit, and likes to throw himself off high places this way, morphing into something actually made for flight within a few flaps.
Spending so much time as animals has affected Morgan’s movements in human form. He loves to perch on things (preferably the highest thing in the room), never sits normally in chairs, has a tendency to prowl short distances on all fours like frickin Gollum instead of getting up if he doesn’t have to.
Not normally shirtless, I just forgot how his tunic works and was too lazy to find reference :p
Morgan the hard-working farm girl and Morgan the gleefully-wicked warlock. Amazing what a few years and being consumed alive by an ancient evil spellbook can do to a person.
Few who know rambunctious shapeshifter Master Daubenmire are aware that prior to the accident which reanimated him with god-like control over his form, Morgan was a girl. A rando country girl in her teens, dividing time not spent working the family farm between entertaining her army of younger siblings with fairytales and disappearing up trees with her banjo.
Morgan Foust enjoyed her life. Always one to work hard and play hard and loved her sisters and brothers. But the valley of Honeywell, while charming and beautiful and sleepy, can be a challenging place to grow up. It’s a place of tradition, your role largely predetermined at birth. The blacksmith’s son will replace him. The eldest son gets the farm. Everyone attends the single church, the single school.
And nobody leaves. Except Morgan’s uncle, who, they say, has seen even the other side of the sea. He took no wife, had no family, and would come and go with the seasons, watched with reservation on his returns as he lugged along his sea chest loaded with god knows what morally-questionable foreign paraphernalia.
Little Morgan was his shadow when he was in town, begging stories and exotic trinkets off him. He inadvertently introduced thorns into her soul, a travel-lust destined to be denied. Conventional wisdom said a woman wasn’t safe helping drive livestock to the distant port let alone travel. Did she have a deathwish? Do you have any idea what they will do to you alone?
No, the world was too dangerous. Her place was at home. There were mouths to feed. The farm needed all hands. Honeywellers don’t leave.
So, abruptly and violently acquiring what Morgan touts as ‘perfect liquidity of form’ was at once dream come true and waking nightmare. Cruelly, Morgan’s fantasy of leaving the valley suddenly wasn’t just a very real possibility… it was her only option. Black magic is punishable by death in Honeywell.
–
At first, Morgan was horrified. Clumsy with her new ability, struggling to hold any form without melting grotesquely between shapes, Morgan hid in her uncle’s empty house for nearly a week, stealing supplies at night and forming a panicked plan to find him, the only person she knew who might not freak out at her accidental bumble into the evil occult.
For days straight she lived in front of his dressing mirror, practically vibrating in total horror and pure love with the limitless march of faces and creatures in the glass. Claws, wings, large and small, birds and bats and made up beasts of pure imagination. Men, women, old and young, herself, her siblings, in clothing from roughspun to filigreed silk. What was she not capable of?
Outside the walls, this sudden arrival of some dodgy stranger claiming to be 'house sitting,’ the eerie break-ins at night, and the disturbing disappearance of Foust’s daughter had put the village on high alert.
Morgan was caught breaking her house-sitter disguise one night, and the men, led by the priest and her own father, attacked the house to drive out the demon now believed to have kidnapped or killed Morgan. In the torchlight, the hatred and fear on her father’s face, her brothers, and all the neighbors who made up her world, destroyed her. She lost shape immediately, melting into a formless wide-eyed half beast in her terror, guilt, and grief.
She barely escaped, snatching her pack as she hurled herself out the second story window, bursting into dragon form and screwing up her first flap, the great Morgan Daubenmire debuting into the world with a faceplant as rocks and arrows wizzed by. The abomination rolled into a run, failing several times to jump into flight before the wind lifted it away into the cold, empty night.
Evidence of Morgan was found in the house, but never her body. Her family mourned her deeply.
Over the next days, an unknown number of kids were paddled and marriages threatened as people across the countryside reported a winged monster passing overhead towards the sea.
—
Morgan has the drawling, lilting, prowling, oily accent of a cat-stroking British tv villain. This is entirely an affectation he started doing for his ‘Daubenmire’ act during his downswing into villainy that became habit.
Morgan’s natural accent is rural American, discernible when he’s emotional and betrayed by the odd choice of word or cuss. (Tarnation! Dagnabbit! Shucks!) He drops the Daubenmire act entirely around his brother Tobin, who cannot take him seriously otherwise. (Magda feels the exact opposite.)
Other remnants of the warlock’s surprise upbringing become obvious once you know. His fiery disdain for kings, nobility, and politicians. Tendency to drop a “y’all.” His bizarrely out-of-place knowledge of cookery and household chores and tendency to just start doing them at friends’ houses. His talent with banjo and fiddle. And of course his natural way with children, who invariably think his one-man zoo is the best thing on the planet.
Until he’s reunited with Tobin, Morgan rarely takes his birth form. It carries the crushing weight of leaving her family thinking she’s dead, and the horrifying specter of possibly returning home… and having to explain the big bad infamous murderous anarchist she’s become. If you catch Morgan in her birth form, she’s in a very strange and dangerous mood indeed.
—
Morgan is as literally gender fluid as it gets. Constant shapeshifting has washed away any concept of physical identity. Male, female, old, young… Morgan doesn’t even identify as HUMAN anymore let alone any subflavor of it.
That said, one does need at least a few shapes ones human friends can recognize one in. Morgan’s ugly old warlock form is his ‘default’ human shape, the one in which the average person would know him. And fear and hate him. (So a few years after his reformation into a decent being he invents a new look, one that’s suspiciously smack between his birth and warlock forms.)
The only time Morgan cares about pronouns is when one of his friends effs up and uses the wrong thing for the body he’s in and blows his cover. Otherwise doesn’t matter to him in the slightest.
I default to male for him because that’s how he’s known to people in his story for the bulk of it, unless she’s female at the moment or I’m talking about her pre-shapeshifter days. Join us, it’s fun!
Lunch quicky of these kids. Shapeshifter extraordinaire and occupational mess Morgan Daubenmire and his necromancer bf Magda Alder (also occupational mess).
