Submission (#568) Approved

+ 5 shards (prompt)
+ 4 shards (+400 words)
: 9 shards

459 words
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The first time that Alorus had managed to Shift successfully had been a bit of a disaster, really. He had a nebulous recollection of the day unless he sat down and looked inward. The most prominent thought was that he could recall overwhelming fear and then, anger. A loss of control, really.

He recalled the way he'd been camping with a friend, and the fact she'd been most appreciative of his cooking skills. They'd fished some food and had managed more than just a simple roast of said fish over the fire. Alorus figures it had to have been either the scent of food, or perhaps the way Aiko had been playing on her banjo that had attracted the wild creature. Whatever the cause, he'd not managed to get away from the initial attack.

The poor creature wasn't really to blame; at least not entirely. It had clearly simply been hungry, and the fact neither wool managed to move out of the way cause it to snap, first at Alorus, missing, and then at his friend, landing a solid hit on her long tail that had scared the young shifter. He remembered his emotions getting the better of him, and a flurry of feelings and movement that he couldn't quite place. A whirlwind of chaos, and when he'd finally been able to center himself again, he'd been in his shifter mode, panting harshly over the body or the poor wild animal that had had the misfortune of attacking them.

It had been the first time Alorus had hurt another creature without the conscious decision to hunt or feed.

It had frightened him beyond words, and the feelings had been amplified in the shifted form, a sort of feedback loop that nearly sent him into a state of sheer panic, and had it not been for Aiko and her banjo, which had pierced cleverly through the red haze in his feral mind, Alorus figures he would have likely ran away and maybe hurt himself in his state. Sprained an ankle for sure.

The music had soothed him enough that he'd managed to control both his panicked breathing and exhilarated heart beat. Once he'd calmed down enough, he'd been able to shift out of the form, and thankfully, Aiko had not spoken to him yet. She had simply kept on playing her music, and later on had offered him a smile, telling him not to worry; the animal carcass could be added to the stores and would feed more than one wool later on down the line. It would not go to waste.

Still, the experience had shocked him, given technically, he should have done his first shift under the strict supervision of his grandfather. That had not been the case.