Submission (#727) Approved

+5 shards (prompt)
+4 shards (410 words)

: +9 shards

Training had been long, hard and arduous. While Alorus had initially been banned entirely from shifting at home, on in his room, he'd reached a point where he no longer thought of the two forms as separate bodies, but rather, extensions of one another. It was almost bewildering to realize he'd managed to come so far, from the times he could barely shift while keeping himself on the driver seat, to now, where he barely even noticed the difference.

Not only that, but he had noticed he could maintain a shift for much longer now, finding it both relatively easy to shift back and forth, or simply maintain a shift for long periods of time. It made the new form quite useful for even day to day routines.

His normal body was rather small, and not exactly muscular, which meant Alorus now used his shifted one to reach higher shelves at home, and to carry more weight while simply working around the house. It made doing chores and cleaning a lot easier for him, and he tended to finish things faster and smoother, in turn leaving him more time to practice and train. It was a cyclical thing, and as time went on, he got better and better.

He'd taken up a job in town, carrying goods, taking them from place to place, and he recalled the owners of the place looking him up and down skeptically when he arrived, urged by grandpa, who figured it'd help keep him in form to move around a bit. Now, he barely even felt the strain, given he could easily carry and transport goods not just within town, but outside of it. He was comfortable enough in his own skin to actually take things from town to town, and he felt mostly safe out in the woods.

All in all, while he'd been slightly reluctant to start, it was quite clear that shifting had really only helped make his life a better place, and he was better off for it.

He still had... things to work through, granted. He hadn't forgotten the extreme reactions he'd had near the start of the process, nor the underlying true cause to them; grief. But he was also sure that given time, so long he kept addressing them, things could only get better and better.

Alorus was most thankful he'd taken up the time to learn, and hoped he would get stronger and better in the future.