The room seemed bigger to him. He looked straight ahead to see his teacher standing just as he had been moments before. He had to forcibly still a shockwave that threatened to wrack his body. Ares was always intimidating but now his teacher was massive.
He became aware of the lack of smells in the room. He couldn’t detect the scent of hair oil. The musk of his teacher was undetectable. He noticed that he could see less detail from the stone and the room itself. He looked down at his hands. They were human hands.
He was a little surprised to find himself disappointed and maybe just the slightest bit depressed. The world was so much less when he was in his human form. But at the same time, he knew what road thoughts like that led down. He had been born human and he would just have to deal with it.
He looked up at Ares. Was his teacher smiling? He couldn’t be sure of anything when it came to Ares’ emotions. William placed his hands on his knees and lurched upward from the bed. His human form was always just a bit awkward to him after he had spent time in werewolf form. He wondered if it would always be that way.
“Good, William. You see, you and I both know that you can do it.” Ares crossed his arms over his chest. “You need to become proficient at this. This is the most basic and important thing about being one of us. You have to be able to change from one form to another at a moment’s notice.” Ares looked off to one side. William could see his teacher’s hard profile superimposed on the glossy black of the far wall. “Change.”
The command was heard and understood but William still cocked his head to the side in a questioning motion. Ares turned his head back to stare down at his student. “You have to learn this before we can move on to anything else.” When William didn’t respond Ares took a single step backwards. “Are you questioning me, William?” Ares stance was no more menacing than it had been a moment before. However, there was something in his teacher’s voice that told him of the possible consequences for disobeying the order.
William was not a child, but he understood how this lesson was to be taught, repetition, analysis, and more repetition. It was the oldest form of learning and teaching. He understood that Ares was not patronizing him just trying to drive home the point. William mentally shrugged. If this is the way it has to be then so be it. It wasn’t like he was ever going to challenge Ares. He had no illusions of safety here. Ares had been born a wolf and he had grown up in the black and white of nature. He would have no scruples about putting William down, hard.
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He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. The void greeted him almost immediately. He let himself smile. The by now familiar colors and wind that didn’t move swirled around him. A pain assaulted him. It was less than what he had felt before, but the pain was nowhere near slight enough to ignore. He clamped his teeth down and locked his jaw against the sudden torrent that he found himself in.
When the storm passed and the colors ceased to swirl, he opened his eyes. He knew that he had been successful, and his surroundings mirrored that. He could sense the trace smells that lined his room. His wolf eyes could see clearly even the minute details of the wall and in his teacher. His happiness was tempered however because he had a very strong feeling that he knew exactly what Ares was going to tell him to do next.
“Very good, you’re getting a little faster.” If William didn’t know any better, he would have said that Ares was smiling at him. “Now, change back.”
For the entire rest of the day William did nothing but change from werewolf form to human form. Sometimes he had to really struggle with himself to change back into his natural human form, other times it was almost as easy as transforming into his wolf form. He knew that he was always going to struggle with that. His hatred of everything human was affecting his desire to be human. It was just one of the many things that he was going to have to deal with.
The day of exercise did not come without a cost, however. By the end of the day, he was hungry beyond all recent memory. He felt like he was going to die of starvation. Ares told him, “You are dying of starvation.” William looked at him with a gaping face. “William, changing forms for us has its price.” Ares looked down at William’s stomach. “The energy needed for us to change is substantial. Think of your stomach as a furnace for a reactor. The amount of fuel that is needed to change from one form to another is a lot more than any human or wolf would need even for strenuous activity.”
William nodded, the pain in his gut was getting worse and he knew that he needed to eat. Of course, what Ares was saying made sense. After all what was one of the first things he did in his forest after he had changed into his werewolf form? He always hunted.
Ares dismissed William to go get something to eat. William knew the day of training was over and as he left his room he heaved a huge sigh, one to ease the pain that was pulsating through his gut and lower abdomen, but also because he was relieved that the day was over. He had never thought that doing something so basic as changing from one form to another could be such an important lesson. In his forest, he never thought that. Since he had come here though, he had learned that even the most basic thing could carry serious connotations.