Thomas was on a war path towards Dawn's room from the dining hall. He had been humiliated at dinner by the duke and his own father and it was all her fault.
He didn't bother knocking when he arrived at her room and slammed the door open, the wood door swinging around and crashing into the wall. Dawn jumped from her spot sitting at the vanity. She looked over at him, her makeup partly removed, the bruise and the fear obvious in her eyes. She stood quickly from her bench.
"Did you complain to my father?" He shouted, stepping into the room and throwing the door closed behind him with an equally loud slam. He stalked up to her and Dawn quickly backed away but he was advancing too quickly.
"Did you, you little bitch!?" He grabbed the front of her dress in his fist. Dawn yelped as a necklace she had been wearing snapped, pulled beyond taunt by his grip. He shoved her back towards the bed, still gripping her by the dress roughly. She stumbled as he pushed her and lost her footing, his grip hauling her along despite it.
"I said nothing! I swear!" She rushed to her own defence with the truth. She never would have dared to speak out about her treatment. Fear filled her lungs, looking at him and he threw her to the bed.
"Then why, suddenly, has he told me you are to be treated better?" He hissed at her, undoing his belt and pulling it from the loops on his pants in a swift motion.
"I dont know!" Dawn was starting to hyperventilate. She knew what he was going to do and she pulled her legs up and under her dress to protect them. She tried to shuffle back away on the bed but he had already wrapped some of the belt around his hand.
"Or maybe you've been spreading your legs for the Duke you little whore!" He slammed the belt down like a whip on her shoulder and she cried out. She lifted her hands trying to block the whip. Her father had beat her before but he normally used his cane, the bite of the belt was a new stinging lasting pain. It was the first time Thomas had outright beat her instead of hitting her in passing. The tears were running down her face from the line of red across her shoulder and chest
"My father always liked him better! Have you been sucking his cock? Huh!? You slutty filthy bitch!" He brought the belt down again, the leather biting into the flesh of her hands and she shrieked at the pain. Instinctively she pulled her hands away, only to have the belt land on her bare chest.
"Stop! Please!" She sobbed and he slashed the belt down across her arms.
The change wasn't something she could control, not when the belt kept coming down, breaking her concentration to try and force the demon back in.
She hiccuped in her crying, her eyes flashing to be pointed and her body felt fuzzy aside from the white hot pain where the belt left its mark. She could see Thomas through watering tear filled eyes, his colours becoming sharper as her eyes changed. The rage on his face drained away suddenly and the belt froze in its arch downward towards her, stopping before it connected.
"What…. What the fuck!?" Thomas dropped his arm, the belt hanging limply from his hand, and backed away a step. Dawn was a sobbing mess as she felt the orange fur sprouting everywhere. She didn't want to change, she'd been able to keep it hidden for so long, but the searing pain in lines on her body sharpened the transition. She felt her body shrinking down and getting tangled in the material of her dress.
"Demon!" Thomas screamed, dropping the belt with a thud, his eyes wild with incomprehension and fear. The dress on the bed shuffled and moved, Dawn no longer visible beneath its fabric.
The door to Dawn's room opened in a rush again, Atlas standing in the doorway, eyes searching the room quickly. He had walked the long way around from the dinning hall to Dawn's room, finally agreeing to compromise with his want to keep her away from him and his want to ensure she was safe. He was only going to knock and check on her but he had heard the shouting and hadn't thought better of it before he rushed in.
Before him was a terrified Thomas and a fox struggling to untangle itself on the bed from the deflated form of Dawn's dress. His eyes widened seeing it. It was her. It was Dawn. But it was impossible.
Dawn whimpered in her fox form, the lines of pain from the belt still red beneath her fur. Her mind was still her's despite the change and it was screaming to get away from Thomas. To hide away her demon form till it would go back inside and she could talk again.
She jumped off the bed, out from the protection of her dress and went to sprint for the door. She didn't make it two steps before seeing Atlas staring down at her from the door frame and froze. No. He couldn't see her like this. Not him. He was the only one that had ever shown her kindness and now she had wrecked that too. Her eyes looked into his wide ones and she hated seeing the disbelief there. He would hate her like everyone else now.
In the moment of hesitation and distraction, neither saw Thomas jut forward quickly toward Dawn. He kicked her in the stomach, lifting her tiny frame up off the floor with his foot and sending her spiralling into the far wall. Her yelp was loud and pierced the air. Atlas lunged at Thomas snarling as he did it, driven by emotion, pushing him back before he could advance on Dawn again.
Thomas grappled with Atlas, till Atlas's right fist slammed into his jaw. His teeth clacked together and his head threw back and Thomas fell like a bag of rocks, collapsing to the floor on his back. Atlas hissed and shook out his fist, pain in the joints from where they had connected with Thomas's jaw bone. He knew how to punch better than that but the heat of the moment had made him act without thinking. He stretched his fingers then dropped his hand, someone else needed his attention more.
Dawn was getting up from the wall, whimpering and crying, her ribs hurt when she breathed. When she looked up and saw Atlas's eyes on her tiny fox body, she felt so much terror inside, that she did as she always did as a child. She scrambled under the bed, her paws skidding on the tile floor, till she was pressed up against the back wall. Her fluffy tail encircled her for comfort and she cried, the sound strange in her ears from her demon form.
Atlas knelt to the ground at the end of the bed, tilting his head to look under it. It was hard to make out the details of her, as the room was dark and under the bed was only shadows, but he could just see a ball of fur shuddering.
"Dawn." He called softly to her under the bed. He felt his chest clench hearing her crying. "You can come out, Thomas can't hurt you now." He said softly. He held back a gasp seeing her green eyes suddenly peering out sharply from the darkness.
"I'm not going to hurt you Dawn. I'm sorry I couldn't intervene sooner." He said sadly, regret burning in his eyes. He should have known Thomas was going to take his anger out on her. He should have been here to stop him. He reached a hand out to her under the bed, palm up, offering her safety, but she only pressed herself closer to the wall.
She laid there, terrified at the end of the bed and felt her skin become tingly. She changed slowly, her body stopping midway between, so she was neither fox or human. Her face was distorted and her skin fuzzy with patches of fur. She was smaller than her human form but larger than her fox form. Her ears remained furry on top of her head. She sobbed at the unnatural feeling, still curled in a ball under the bed despite the size change.
"Go away! I'm a monster!" She shouted, her voice more gravelly than normal, mixed with the fox. She had no idea how to control the demon beyond staying calm and she was not calm, she couldn't be. This had happened before, too many times, and she'd never succeeded in putting the demon back once it had come out, till she slept. But the secret was out now. Thomas or Atlas would tattle on her to the king or a priest and kill her or worse, send her back home to her father.
"I'm a demon. I have no soul!" She let out a strangled sob at the hopeless nature of her situation and fought the urge to lick her wounds from the belt, which were now leaking clear ooze and some a bit of blood.
"I don't know who told you these things but I want to kill them…" Atlas muttered before taking a breath and speaking softly to her again. "I'm like you, you know…" Something in the way he spoke was too soft, or perhaps it was because the fixing her life now and she was doomed that made her snap.
"Like this!?" She shouted, filled with a deep sorrowful anger. She crawled out from under the bed to let him see her fully. Her face and body were between shapes, and the result was horrendous smudge of human and animal, added in her sobbing and blistered marks from the belt and it was not the easiest sight to behold.
"Do you see now how horrible I am!? Do you see why my father tried so hard to be rid of me! I'm an abomination to god! A freak!" She screamed, her voice breaking as she put her face in what was between hands and paws and cried. He looked pained at her and stood, and hugged her gently.
"No, I see a girl who's parents failed her. Who neglected to teach her how to properly hone her gift and she's suffered for it… I see a girl who needs freedom, guidance, and patience to grow into herself how she was always meant to." He rubbed her back, careful to go with the fur and not against it. He didn't seem squeamish of her despite the way her body was unnatural in almost every way before him.
She sobbed into his shirt. Why did he continue to be nice! What reason could he possibly have that kept him from sneering at her with disgust. He held her so gently, her body even smaller in his grasp than when he had comforted her before.
"You don't have to be alone anymore. Say the word and I can take you somewhere safe." He couldn't leave her here, not now. He wouldn't.
"Please take me away from here." She cried into his shirt, not looking up at him, hoping he could continue to ignore the freakish form she was still in. He nodded only once.
"Let's get you dressed and then we'll go." He said softly, pulling away from her so he could fetch a fresh dress from her wardrobe.
She hugged herself looking at the floor, immediately missing the warmth of his embrace. The tears still fell from her eyes, the salt of them stinging in the marks from the belt, but she was also closing off. She was feeling so many things but also nothing at all. She was numb and her eyes reflected that, their expression dull and vacant.
He returned with a simple dress that was likely a nightgown and helped her slip into it, trying not to touch her more than necessary for her comfort. It was big on her when she was still between forms, the sleeve slipping off her shoulder slightly revealing more orange fur.
It would have to do.
He gently led her to the door of her bedroom and she followed wordlessly. He stopped her in front of the still closed door, positioning her so she was looking at the wood grain and not the room behind her..
"Wait here just a moment." He said softly. She didn't nod, but she also didn't move. He let go of her shoulder and she could hear his footsteps go back further into the room. There was no sound from him, only a stutter in Thomas's breathing, still she didn't turn. Atlas's footsteps returned to her side. She wondered for just a moment if he had perhaps killed Thomas, but she still heard his breathing after he had stepped away and the thought dissolved into the void her mind had become.
"Okay" He put a gentle hand on her shoulder, fixing her dress to cover some fur. "We leave now." He assured her, softly and opened the door. He led her out of the room and down the back routes of the mansion until they reached the stable, pausing occasionally as they walked to listen for footsteps of anyone but, thankfully, they left unseen.
"Are you alright to share a horse with me?" He asked her, directing them to a large black horse. She nodded only once not speaking, her body too tired to even form a single word.
He nodded and offered her a smile that was meant to be compassion but Dawn only could see it as pity. He helped her onto it then swung on behind with practised grace. He made sure she was steady in front of him before flicking the reins.
Pity.
It was the only reason her brain could use to justify him being the way he was with her. It was more than anyone had ever given her before, and she would savour every second of it. Most people would have thought it insulting but Dawn knew better. Pity was more than she deserved and a gift to her. She'd be a fool to reject it.