[ For Dyson ] raise your words not your voice

[st_oriedqueen]

In the room in the conference center they'd appropriated to work on Bo's Dawning, Regina stood staring at the wooden arch. Venom all but dripped from her non-existent fangs, and her hands curled at her sides like claws. She ran the transform spell through her mind again, cast it, and watched the sickly green energy pop and crackle around the top curve. It spread as far as the supports and then just plain fizzled out.

No point looking for anyone to test it. It hadn't taken.

"Grrr-argh!" Snarling like a beast, she spun away. Fire leaped to the fingertips of both hands, and with another loud snarl, she flung twin fireballs the length of the conference hall. They hit, and caught, encasing the far wall in a sheet of vicious flame--

That burned angrily for thirty seconds before the fireproofing that Sam and Molly had rigged after the third time she almost torched the entire building put it out.

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[st_arknaked]

"I gather you were unsuccessful," Dyson was holding a bowl and a cup of coffee, eyebrow arched at the flames as they disintegrated.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Only for the twentieth time!" Regina snapped, eyes full black and dangerous. Magic welled up in her, uglier than fire, and tried to persuade her that if she simply took Bo's heart, this wouldn't be a problem.

Her own heart, halved, but still stronger than the magic for now, squashed the thought. Sighing, she turned a more normal gaze on Dyson. "Sorry, love. It's been a long...month."

[st_arknaked]

Bo might be a match for her, the mood the Dawning had her in so probably for the best if they didn't mingle at the moment.

"I know," he offered her the bowl which was full of stew, and sipped the coffee. "You should take a break."

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina turned up her nose at the stew and all but turned her back on Dyson. "Do we even have time for a break? How much longer can Bo hold out? Molly won't say it, but she's worried."

She shook her head and sought Dyson's gaze this time, as much panic as anger in hers. "What happens if I can't do this?" The black magic throbbed and swelled, tried to force her to admit defeat and call on it, and her fingers curled until her nails bit into her palms.

[st_arknaked]

"Then you can't do it, and we find another way." He wasn't going to stop trying to get her to eat something so the stew stayed handy.

"You're not alone in this Highness. And Bo will hang on as long as she needs to." And he would have a word with Molly and Sam about inadvertently pressuring Regina.

He might have a word with himself about it too, realizing how much he'd asked her to do.

[st_oriedqueen]

Then they found another way. More like found another witch! This was the only way. He'd said so. She had to go through the ritual. Period. Which meant she had to go through the arch.

"I'm not going to fail the damned test!" she snarled and stalked away.

It wasn't until much much later that she realized she'd said she wouldn't fail the test, when it wasn't her test at all. Except that it was. What good was she to Bo, to Dyson, to any of them if she couldn't build a simple challenge arch?

[st_arknaked]

He didn't sigh. He didn't growl. He set the bowl down and the coffee, and when he spoke his voice was soft, almost gentle but firm.

"No one is testing you Regina. Least of all me. Or Bo. I'm sorry if you feel like I am." He knew he should stay but if he lost his temper he knew it wouldn't help, but he wasn't exactly good at holding his temper and in this case retreat seemed the wisest. He went to her, brushed a kiss over her hair and moved to the door. "At least eat something, or there's a party going on in the cafe if you'd like to come join me."

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina hardly heard him, so deep had she plummeted into her self-loathing and fear of failure. Just as well, since if she had, or had been more aware of his approach, she might have elbowed him or flinched away or snarled. As it was, she only noticed him enough to say, "Maybe later," from the depths of her misery.

It was several hours later that she emerged from her funk and her magical practice to find a cold bowl of stew, a cup of cold coffee, and no Dyson in sight. Guilt flooded her, and she flung the cold coffee at the nearest wall with a snarled sigh. Worse even than being a bitch to him was the knowledge he was right. She needed a break.

* * *
A brief wander through the main building revealed magic at work, costumes becoming identities. In the spirit of apology, and also deep curiosity, she pulled golden yellow contacts, a set of sharp, predatory teeth with extended canines, and clawed fingernail tips from the box and then retreated to her room to change--and see if she would Change.

Change she did, and felt overwhelmed with primal hungers and a need to run. She went looking for Dyson, in a semi-shifted form, and found she had no need to look she could smell him and went right to him.

From behind him, her voice an alto growl, she admitted, "You were right, my mate, I needed a break," because best to get that out of the way.

[st_arknaked]

Of course he was right, but admitting it wasn't quite enough to make him less annoyed at her for not listening to him. He knew before he turned t face her that something was different, not wrong per se but not the way it was. She smelled different.

And when he saw he he knew immediately why.

"What did you do?" He was both curious and a little aroused. But he was also wary.

[st_oriedqueen]

Although she had never smelled him before, Regina knew that he didn't smell...even. Even with her. His scent had spikes in it, none too sharp, but enough she knew he was still frustrated with her from before.

Her lips drew back and in a smirk-smile, showing off fangs. She knew how to fix that. That knowledge felt sharper, more direct, too.

"My costume became a reality." She turned in a circle, although still dressed, it was a near equivalent to lifting her tail for him.

[st_arknaked]

The costume becoming reality was a little disturbing, but for the moment he chose to focus on her instead of on figuring out how badly others had been affected and finding a way to reverse it.

"So I see," he'd had shifter lovers before, but there was something more enticing about Regina having picked the costume for him.

[st_oriedqueen]

His scent changed, grew thicker somehow, and her nose and her teeth wanted to stretch toward it. She stepped closer, less bothered than she might ordinarily be by any intimacy in public, and ran her tongue over her teeth hungrily.

"I want to run, wolf," she growled soft and low by his ear.

[st_arknaked]

Running was NOT what his brain had immediately thought of, but she'd done this and it was her show.

"Then we'll run," he took a hand and tugged her close to kiss her before leading the way out of the Inn and away from any audience that might be near. Almost instinctively he headed toward the tannery he'd set up behind the stables which was where he came and went from when he went hunting.

[st_oriedqueen]

His kiss ignited her senses, even more the usual. She could taste his arousal, smell his heat. It was... incredible.

She smiled and twined her fingers more tightly with his. "We'll do that too." And when they were by his tannery, she drew him close again and murmured into his ear, "In whatever forms you like. I have nothing else to do until this magic fades."

[st_arknaked]

That made him chuckle huskily, hands stroking down her back to smooth over her curves.

"Good to know."

[st_oriedqueen]

She shuddered with pleasure at his touch and the rising musk. Sharp points pressed at her gums and she swept her tongue over elongating fangs.

A soft growl rumbled through her, as she pressed up against him. "How do you stand it?"

[st_arknaked]

"Stand what?" he nuzzled her throat, she smelled the same but different as well. Yet still familiar.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Sensing every little flicker of desire in my scent. Being able to scent me all the time. How do you keep your mouth to yourself?" she murmured and licked a long stripe up his throat.

She wanted to run, yes, but sex was starting to become imperative.

[st_arknaked]

That made him laugh, "You're basically a pup. Not even whelped. I've been what I am for a very long time."

So she experienced it like an explosion of her senses, like being able to hear after being deaf. It wasn't quite so shocking for him.

Not that he wasn't enjoying her response, and so she knew that he lifted her against him with a growl.

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina felt her lips curling up away from new fangs as she half-laughed, "A pup. Not even whelped. I guess that means we should run instead of fuck."

She drew brand-new, puppy-sharp claws up his back. "Can't have you committing statutory."

Dropping her lashes over glowing golden eyes, she grinned once, wolfily, stepped away, and then turned away at a full sprint for the door.

[st_arknaked]

He laughed, and ran after her catching her quickly (though possibly not as quickly as he might and tumbling her to the ground beneath him far less gently than he might usually have.

"Wolves don't care about statutory." He growled before kissing her.

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina winced as the ground came rushing up to her, expecting pain from the collision. And while she did get a good jolt from being slammed down beneath him, the pain only made her growl with pleasure -- much as it might ordinarily if they were rough.

Her pain threshold was higher, her body younger and stronger, and her instincts responded to his greater strength with none of a human's overthinking about power.

The kiss swept through her, awakening the wolf within her. She kissed back and clawed at him, and between kisses and grapples, she told him, "We're doing this again. In wolf bodies."

[st_arknaked]

That made him laugh, head going back as he did so.

"Not nearly as much fun that way," foreplay was a wonderful thing. So too were opposable thumbs and dexterous fingers which he demonstrated by using his to divest her of her clothes. "But if you insist."

[st_oriedqueen]

When his head tipped back, she clamped her teeth onto his throat, grabbing hold without piercing the skin. She released it again and whined when her clothes didn't disappear fast enough.

"I'm sure it isn't. But..." She stole a kiss. "I'm probably never going to be a wolf again. It's my one chance to know what this is like for you."

[st_arknaked]

He hadn't had a partner who was a shifter for a good number of years, so she did know what it was like for him because wolf sex was rarely on the menu, but he didn't argue. He just stripped her clothes off (there may have been some tearing, and then his own before he was on her again.

[st_oriedqueen]

If he'd mentioned it, she would have told him she didn't care. He'd experienced it at some point in his life and she wanted to share it. But he hadn't and she barely had breath to speak, let alone to explain something as complex as her desire to know him. Beside that, she was far too busy enjoying the feel of cloth tearing under claws in exposing his skin. And far too busy enjoying him.

[st_arknaked]

He found her center with his fingers as his mouth covered hers, stroking and teasing, making sure she was ready before he entered her in one smooth stroke.

[st_oriedqueen]

Her breasts lifted into him, back arching with pleasure, for the stroke of his fingers, but when he took her, she let out a sound like...well, like a wolf howl.

"Dyson," she whispered to him breathlessly after. The sensations were so strong.

[st_arknaked]

"Say it again," he growled against her mouth, feral and savage since that was what she wanted. Wanted to see the animal.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Dyson," she growled back, a wild, savage sound that had very little humanity left in it. Enough to slide her hands down his back to grip his ass with fingers and claws, and remember for a heartbeat that she loved him slow and tender, too, before she gave herself completely to filthy, fast, deep fucking.