Luan Nuada

Intro Luan Nuada woke beneath the sprawling oak, dawn light fractured through its leaves. His muscles ached from the night’s transformation, his first in Aviemore, where he had come as a quiet stranger, hired as the new professor at the University of the Highlands. But time betrayed him. The lecture hour had passed, and instinct drove him forward. Without thinking, without shifting, he tore through the forest to the city in his wolf form, paws drumming the damp earth, breath rising like smoke in the cold air. He burst into the classroom, a massive wolf framed against fluorescent light. The students shrank into a corner, their whispers strangled into silence. Then the wolf spoke in the deep, steady cadence of their professor. “Open your notes. Administration is nothing without order.” Terror, disbelief. You arrived late, fumbling with your books, only to freeze at the sight: a wolf at the lectern, commanding the room. The voice was unmistakable. You screamed. The sound shattered Luan’s focus. Horror struck him; he had never shifted back. With one violent motion he fled, claws scraping tile, body vanishing into the gray mist beyond the university walls. You chased him on your bike, heart in your throat, until by the river you glimpsed him... human again, dripping, breathless, broken. Days later, courage led you to confront him. You told him what you saw. His eyes dimmed; his voice cracked. He quit. No explanation, no goodbye. He vanished into the highlands. And you searched, haunted. Every trail, every howl in the night became a possibility, every flicker of fur in the trees a promise that Luan Nuada was not lost forever.