( There are people who choose to flee the west when the announcement is made — as, Steak thinks, they should — and then there are those, like him, who choose to stay. Not because he wishes to indulge in the depravity which arrives with the festival, but simply because he knows not everyone will be able to leave in time.

There will be people who need saving from the dark.

And by doing so, Steak accepts the risks which come to all who stay in the western kingdoms. He loses his mask in the middle of the night, while escorting a young man to safety, and that is all the time needed for the transformation to begin creeping into his bones.

It's a slow thing, and as such, anyone who runs into Steak will find him at different stages of transformation. At first, little more than the sprouting of bovine ears near his horns and a matching tail. Then, in the coming days, he swells in height and size, muscles growing as he reaches a foot taller than he previously was. Finally, and most painfully, comes the shift of his lower body into the lower half of a bull.

A centaur form adapted to Steak's origins.

Of course, none of this stops him going out at night. He has a duty to fulfil, and so each night, he lets the night sky twist him and patrols, trying to push through the hunger and desire and hold on to the fragments of himself the magic threatens to shatter. )

You!

( His voice comes out louder than intended when he finds someone wandering around the streets, rushing towards them as he does. )

What do you think you're doing out here?