Over The Last Star of Morning

It was the hard thunk of the floor meeting Chin’s head that woke him. Shaking his head groggily, he blinked back the gray fuzzies of sleep that hung in his vision. He hadn’t fallen out of bed while sleeping since he was twenty-two and spent the first full night sharing a bed with a woman. He didn’t have anyone in his bed to kick him over the side like Malia had that time, so he wasn’t sure how he had ended up on the ground.

Pressing his hand to the floor Chin moved to get up, only to freeze. His hands weren’t hands. They were hooves! Shinny silver cloven hooves.

Shit.

Twisting his neck to look over his shoulder Chin was not surprised to his that his tanned skin was now a rich, dark midnight black. The silver spots on his rump were a bit more startling. He couldn’t remember Danny having spots.

Letting a great whoosh of a sigh out, Chin began the arduous task to trying to get to his feet. Danny made it look so easy, Chin though as his back legs slipped out from under him on the polish hardwood, dropping him back to the floor. He tried again, this time raising his front half up first so that he was now sitting. After taking a moment to make sure his front legs were steady he carefully started to press his back feet down as he raised his rump up. The legs wobbled a bit under him but this time he did not fall.

He stood there a moment long as he got used to the feel of having four legs and no hands. It was a distinctly odd feeling. He was taller than he had been as a human and his neck was longer, allowing for a greater rang of motion. Chin almost jumped at the soft wack against his side. Turning about he caught sight of the flick of his long tail behind him, swinging about wildly. Tail. Of course. Why hadn’t he remembered that?

Ears laying back in irritation, Chin took several careful steps around his bed towards his bedroom door. Silently grateful that he had left the door open when he had gone to bed. He couldn’t imagine how irritated he would be if he had closed it and ended up forced to try and kick it down. He was already going to have to kick down his back door so he could get outside. He had to get to Steve’s house before he lost his mind to the animal instincts and the call of the forest that Danny had described.

As he made his way out of the bedroom, Chin paused to look himself over in the mirror. He didn’t look exactly as Danny had. The color of the fur being the big tip off. But he also noticed his mane was different. It wasn’t the long, curling mane of a horse that Danny had sported. No, his was long and fluffy like a lions, starting at the top of his head, flowing down his neck along his spin and wrapping around his neck and growing shorter as it reached his jaw. The ends of his mane twisted into curls over his shoulders and Chin realized that Grace was going to go into excited fits when she saw him and would likely have bows and flowers braided into his hair just as Danny had earlier that very day.

In truth that was probably the least of his worries. It was dark out, and from the sounds coming from the other side of his window, it was also raining. Not a pleasant night to walk to Steve’s place from here. Not when the walk was likely to take a couple hours if he wanted to try and avoid any people that might still be up. Still it was a walk he was going to have to make. His home just wasn’t set up to hold an animal the size of a horse and his neighbors were close enough that they would be able to see him going in and out of the house.

- - - H50 - - -

Three hours later found Chin standing on Steve’s deck, his thick mane still fluffed up, the ends of the hair covered in dew like raindrops. He gave his body a shake from the tips of his ears to the very tip of his tail, shaking off as much rain as possible. He couldn’t feel the cold he knew he should feel after being outside at night and soaking wet. Instead he actually felt fairly warm. It was strange, but not really anything bad. He felt calm and comfortable. Safe.

That was strange. He shouldn’t feel safe or calm considering he had been turned into an animal. He should be in a panic, running back to the spring where this had all started. Trying to convince the spirit of the spring to change him back. Instead he had calmly walked in the opposite direction, out towards the beach and Steve’s house. He didn’t understand why. Not at first but he was starting to think maybe it had to do with Danny having been a unicorn. Or maybe it was how his animal mind was whispering about Steve being the lead stallion of the herd.

The herd. He was part of a herd.

Fuck.

Sighing as dramatically as a unicorn could, he circled the lanai once before walking back to the glass doors leading inside. He could see something inside the dark house but it was hard to make it out past the reflection of the full, heavy moon in the glass. All he could really tell was that it was something large, white and moving. He thought there was something familiar about it but whatever it was too distorted by the glass for him to be sure of.

Maybe it was Danny? Could he have changed into a unicorn again? Or was it Steve? Steve had gone in the water too. Steve could have gotten stuck like this. He would deserve it to. Maybe it would calm the SEAL down a bit. The team could certainly use the break it would afford them. Heck, it would almost be worth being turned into a unicorn if Steve was changed too.

Several quick flashes of bright light startled Chin out of his musing, causing him to let out a loud exclamation of shock and to rear up on his hind legs. A similar sound echoed from inside and Chin dropped back down to all fours.

“No,” Danny’s voice came from the other side of the glass. So much for the white shape, which was now sure was a unicorn, being Danny. “Steve,” Danny asked incredulously.

The white unicorn on the other side of the glass nodded its head excitedly and whinnied loudly. Irritated that the other two male members of the team were ignoring him, Chin let out a bellow of a whinny, startling both into jumping and spinning around to face him. Danny’s mouth dropped open and if unicorns could laugh Chin might do so at the look on the other mans face.

“Oh God. Another one.”

Danny glanced back at the Steve unicorn then back to Chin. Licking his lips Danny set the camera he had been holding, down and reached for the phone. Chin was fairly certain Danny was calling Kono. Not that Chin blamed him. He was kind of hoping his cousin would pick up. If she picked up then she was still human. Chin really didn’t want to know what Kono would get up to as a unicorn.

“Kono. Its Danny.” Danny looked nervously between the two unicorn’s, tugging absent mindedly at the shoulder length white blond curls of his hair. “I would but there are two unicorns standing in Steve’s house with me.”

He looked close to hyperventilating for a moment and Chin worried about Danny’s blood pressure. “Yeah…I think its Steve and Chin…As I can be.”

Releasing one of the curls Danny pressed his thumb against the bridge of his nose. A second later whatever Kono said seemed to have calmed him down. “Amen, sister.” Danny smirked at the two glaring unicorns, his own horn catching the light and sparkling. Reminding the two newest unicorns what awaited them when they made it back to being human.

Damn. Chin shook his head and gently nudged his hoof against the glass, asking to be let in.

How were they going to hide their new non-human features?