You had been spending once a week as a shadow creature with the other shadow creatures for 6 months now. At least shadow creature is what you called yourself & them based on the shadow travel, seeing in complete darkness & sunlight blinding you all & your black color & crimson eyes. So you were checking Discord & Darko had posted "Meeting tonight." You looked at the window & saw it was dark already. You stripped naked & decided to change. The agonizing pain began. Your penis & balls vaporized as did all your body hair & toe & finger nails. 2 of your toes writhed away as your remaining grew equal sized & pointed as your feet elongated. Your nipples popped out of existence as your bellybutton filled in & disappeared. Your skin turned to smooth coal black. Your hands shifted to mirror your feet. Your knees reversed with a sickening crack knocking you down to all fours. Your eyes were already red crimson with slitted pupils as your ears became earholes & your nose flattened. Your shoulders, hips & back shifted making you four legged. A long tail grew into the space of your butt. Lastly your face pushed out to a beak shape. The shift done you panted some resting. You then darted into the nearest shadow. You came out into the forest to see the 5 other shadow creatures of your pack. "Nite all." you greeted them. They repeated it back to you. "I hope I'm not breaking the rules but does shifting forms hurt like hell for you guys?" you asked curious. Everyone nodded. "I also hope this isn't breaking the rules but have any of you tried to figure out where this forest is?" Ebony asked seeming nervous about her question. Everyone kind of looked at each other & Cinder & Fiend raised their front paws nervously. Then they looked at each other surprised. "I've tried to." Cinder admitted. "And so have I." Fiend also admitted. "Why do any of you care?" Darko snapped angry at them. "So...I want to ask a question unrelated to this." you said. "Shoot." Darko demanded. "Christmas is coming up & everything is going to be closed 3 days afterwards. Me and Reaper had found a large cave & we were wondering if you all wanted to spend take time together here?" you asked curious. "3 days straight as my true self? Sounds great." Cinder replied excited. Everyone agreed to do it. "So right after Christmas we'll spend 3 days straight here as our creature selves." Darko stated. "So let's get on with our night already. You know we all hate the sun." Fiend said getting impatient. And your truly started your night.