Submission (#759) Approved

+5 shards (prompt)
+4 shards (409 words)

: +9 shards

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Having spent so much time training, it never dawned on Alorus that people may find him intimidating. At least, not really or truly; he'd never been a particularly large woolyne and his physique wasn't such that it was imposing. Quite the opposite in fact, and thus, it had never really sunk in, or quite reached the forefront of his brain that while his normal body was small, his shifted one was... relatively large.

That couple with the unpredictability of shifters in general, at least at the start of their masteries, and the few incidents he had been a part of, had earned him, well... not intimidation points, exactly, but something else he hadn't really been privy to before in the same way.

Respect.

It wasn't that people hadn't respected him before. He'd been a good cook, and had managed other skills, but the way people looked at him had changed. It was different, and it became so much more obvious when Akiko came and had that talk with him. She looked at him different now, and it unsettled him a bit. It took Alorus a while to find the words he wanted to relay, but when he did, she looked vaguely surprised.

It wasn't intimidation, she'd said. Not really anyhow. It was less that, and more... a good chunk of respect. After all, it wasn't just anybody that could do the work he'd done. It wasn't even about the physicality of it, or the fact he could now take on an adult lycore and make it think twice about what it was doing, enough to make it reevaluate its life choices, but also due to his mental stability.

It was mostly the later, she'd said. Very few woolyne had the strength of spirit and mind to train as hard as he had and come out on top. Almost anyone could throw themselves into a battle, she'd said. It wasn't about the reckless behavior, but rather, the fortitude of mind to reign in instinctual behavior while in shifted form and remain sound of mind. Alorus figured that while her words rung true, it was still difficult to process, that people that had once thought him weak of body, now thought him strong of mind, and respected him for that. It was a strange, and sobering thought, but one Alorus found that humbled him nonetheless. He liked the thought that it wasn't intimidation, but perhaps admiration that people had for him.