A Glance at "Fury"

Since I've been trying to get in the mood for Fury again (so I can actually get around to querying for agents and the like) I thought I would post the first chapter. So, tell me, does it spark you?

One: Driven

Fury wanted to die.

An inescapable call, it drove her through the forest. She slid around a tree and angled for the river. The earth pulsed like a heartbeat beneath her. Its heat shimmied through her paws, up her legs and into her brain. Trees called to her, trying to distract her from her mission.

She wouldn’t stop.

She leapt over a fallen stump. Not pausing, she ran on.

The forest pulled at her, saturating her senses with its dark and bittersweet smell, until it was as if she were an integral part of the leafy underbrush, the stately trees, the mossy ground. But if that was the case, why did her heart thunder? Why did pain wrack her soul?

The wind whistled behind her, spreading through her fur like stroking fingers. The sensation urged her faster, drove her harder. To her left, she could hear the Yastire River raging. To her right, birdsong, and before her, she could see a break in the trees. Ahead of that, the jagged edge of a cliff. The river raced ahead, cutting her off, lurking at the bottom of the cliff like a frothing leviathan.

The crumbling shelf loomed closer.

She ran harder.

The shale disintegrated beneath her claws. The ground gave way until there was nothing but a brittle layer supporting her weight.

She gathered her strength and jumped.

She closed her eyes. This is it. I’m going to die.

But instead of the peace she had hoped for, panic filled her. Against her will, her form shuddered and twisted. Her flesh rearranged, her bones shrank, snapped, reformed. Feathers sprouted over her feline muzzle. Her nose became a beak, and between one instant and the next, the snowy mountain lion became a hawk.

She screeched and thrust the air beneath her wings, once more rising to the level of the cliff.

She had wanted to plummet to the water and let her body be smashed among the rocks until the river foamed with her blood. She screeched again.

The wind shifted, carrying the smell of soil and green, growing things, clearing her mind. She circled and glided to the other side. Landing on a lichen-splotched boulder, she quivered. Horrified, she shook her head.

What is wrong with me?

This had not been the first time she had tried to end her life, and like the times before, she felt that it had not truly been her decision–but an outside influence.

It had been a risk to try to switch from one animal to the next without using her natural form as a buffer. Something that outside influence had not known she could do. She hadn’t known that she could do it. But something within her, some instinct, had enabled the transformation, saving her. Her body refused to succumb to the whispers that originated from the recesses of her soul. The dark influence lashed out, making her wish that she hadn’t succeeded.

Fury tried to shake off the twisted desire.

She closed her amber eyes, once more focusing on the shape she wished to take. The familiar ache trembled through her body, almost painful, but deeply satisfying. Heat accompanied each transition, cleansing her soul. Even when she took the most dreaded form of them all.

The feathers retreated into her skin, leaving it naked to the breeze. Goosebumps raced across her arms. Once the process was complete, she straightened to her full height and stretched toward the sky. Keeping her eyes closed, she momentarily enjoyed the feel of her shape, the long limbs, the slender torso, the strength and grace of all her movements, the slight sting as the wind flung her hair against her bare skin.

She opened her eyes.

Scars shrouded her skin, leaving no expanse unscathed. They zigzagged over her arms, her torso, her thighs. Even her toes. But the worst of them split her face until none of her features could be distinguished beneath the ropy mass. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to adjust.

No matter how many times she shifted back, the scars still caught her off guard. When she wore the shape of animal, the scars did not mar her body. Beneath the fur and feathers, her skin was as smooth as a length of satin, and she prowled the forest as a beautiful beast. Returning to the carnage of her human body was like receiving a dagger in the gut, and it had the power to bring her to her knees.

Fury didn’t collapse, but stood straighter. She had lived her whole life with these scars, enduring them for many years before she discovered how to make her body obey her shapeshifting whims. It was her true form, her natural shape, who she really was. She touched her face, and her fingers flinched away.

Most would have ended this living torture long ago, and, oh, how she’d wanted to. The seductive thoughts whispered, and she looked for excuses to end her life. But she continued to survive. Even though she was worse than an outcast.  Even though humans shunned, abused, ridiculed and even hated her for how she looked.

Only the forest accepted her, both as a beast and a human. It had kept her spirit strong, kept her from giving in to those dark murmurs. Or perhaps she had been born to be fiery, to have a passion for life so great that no amount of scorn, despair or malicious influence could quench it. Not even her own. After all, what else could be expected of a shapeshifter called Fury?

A hawk’s cry pulled her from her morbid musings. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she padded away from the cliff’s edge. The trees’ girth blocked out the river’s deadly song, and her fragmented heart softened a little around the edges. The insanity that had compelled her to seek death returned to its whispering state, replaced by the murmurings of the trees. She cocked her head to listen. Relief, joy, worry and fear muddled the message, but she understood. The trees were glad she was alive. Glad that she had not gone to a place where she could no longer hear their words. For who would listen to the forest if not her?

It was a consolation that she was able to speak—and listen—to things that normally ignored the animated. Something to keep her from shattering with loneliness. She sighed and placed her hand on a nearby elm. The bark scraped at her palm. The heart of the tree hummed a slow, steady song.

“I’m fine now,” she reassured. “It’s gone.”

The tree’s song thrummed in response.

Yes, it was gone. But how long would it stay away? These fits—for that was the only word she could use—had been coming upon her more and more frequently. At times she felt as if she no longer had control over her actions, like it wasn’t even her that desired oblivion, and she could only watch her life be consumed by something that had the power to make her feel all the hurts of her past as if they were in the moment. Every childhood fall, every cruel slight, congealed within her.

To escape it, she fled to the deepest parts of her soul and cowered, making it all the easier for that outside influence to seize control of her body. She shuddered again as she thought of how close she had come to losing the battle today. A few more seconds and…

She wouldn’t finish the thought. Angrily, she shook her head. She wouldn’t succumb to those whispers again.

She retrieved a small, sharp stone and placed its point down into the flesh of her palm. Clenching her fingers around it, she forced it into her skin. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. Only when the blood began to well around the rock did she release the pressure. The stone tumbled from her hand, red now from her blood. She let the wound bleed.

She prayed it would scar.

That scar would remind her of her promise: She would not give in. And even among the other scars, Fury would be able to pick it out, because it was one that she had actually earned. Curling her fingers around the wound, she placed it over her bare chest.

I will not give in.

e f

I will not give in.

It screamed in rage as the girl’s soul-promise carried through the currents of the dreamscape, smashing against the magic that had made it possible to carry out its influence. The power lashed back and bit into its skin, lacerating its flesh and revealing the horror beneath. It hissed and devoured one of the souls writhing within it to gain control of the magic. Another consumption restored its pleasing appearance. Only one soul remained. It would have to hunt again soon.

Its enemy was growing stronger. Did she know? Could she tell? It fretted for a while before calming itself. No, she didn’t know. She couldn’t know. Not yet. Not when it was so close to finding the key to destroy her.

It allowed itself a smile.

So close. The key was so close. And it was getting closer. Even now it could feel the key approaching its domain. What shape would most likely snare it? It smiled again.

It knew.

Twirling away from the edge of the cliff where it had woven its dream-power, it once more focused its magic and allowed a small fragment of its host to return.

The years had tainted her, made her more susceptible to its whims. It was grateful that it had preserved her. It would need her pain, her love, her regret and her thirst for vengeance to defeat its enemy. Her enemy. Our enemy.

“Yalei,” it said in her voice, “I am Yalei again.” Her lips curled up, revealing the tips of her fangs, and her jubilant laugh echoed like death’s screech.