A mere thought sent her gently to the edge of the jungle. She walked without fear, knowing nothing would hurt her. Within the throes of R.E.M., Cathy indulged in the phantasmal life. Her medallion bathed the room and her flesh in a soft golden glow, disturbing her just enough to do its task as gently as necessary.
Deep within the lush land, the living man-tiger sigil awaited her. She found this as no surprise; she loved tigers (Bengals specifically) above all other wild cats, and often dreamed of running with them, or even AS them. It stood upright and bade her to move with it, and Cathy did, resting her hand gently upon its broad back.
As Cathy followed the man-tiger in her dream, she shifted and writhed in her sleep. As her dream hand swelled in size and grip, expressing pads and patterned orange and black hairs across its thick skin, her real hand followed suit as it rested upon an imaginary being beside her. She grinned in her sleep as in her dream, flexing forward her curving thickened black claws from sheaths forming within her fingers. She dug them slyly into her companion’s fur and her mattress.
The pair walked through the jungle, their jungle, surveying their territory. As the man-tiger sniffed the air, Cathy did as well, through a blackening nose. Her ears were keen, well aware of every natural misstep. The scent of prey caught her attention, and she growled with hunger and licked saliva from her sharpening teeth. A deep yawn showed the otherwise empty bedroom four tiny fangs within Cathy’s black-lipped mouth, coupled with seemingly random twitching of her ear points through her tangled hair.
The gazelle’s ears perked up! It knew danger was near, and broke into a run. Cathy and her companion followed suit, her footsteps finding greater purchase in the dirt each moment with her rising ankles and expanding paw-feet. The bulging muscles beneath her furred legs made following her meal so much easier. Cathy rolled to her side on the bed, keeping the swinging momentum of the chase up as she moved her own digitigrade legs and tore her hind claws through the fabric.
The prey began an earnest evasion, necessitating greater maneuverability. The medallion man-tiger found it with a leap to four paws, and Cathy followed suit. Though her still-human hand and lack of a lithe tail made balance difficult, such inequities were remedied seconds later. Cathy remained on her side while she moved her arms and legs in a run, snarling hungrily in her sleep and salivating onto the pillow as the mattress began sliding from the motion. Her strengthening limbs covered themselves in a thick pelt of black-striped fur while the extension of her coccyx and hips tore away her jeans.
The predatory pair prepared to pounce, as Cathy’s dream body readied itself to enable a crushing landing. The line of fur along her spine spread upwards to the neck and outwards to her torso, thickening bone and muscle in transit. Cathy felt herself being readied for nursing cubs later, as the fur grew over her enlarged and more stable breasts (made bare by the snap of her inadequate bra), including the additional two sets ballooning in sequence down her chest. Cathy’s bed finally succumbed to her added bulk, as the box spring and wooden struts lost their battle to hold the transforming woman, being crushed beneath her weight. She did not wake, however; the medallion saw to that.
The leap was made; the prey was brought down quickly. Cathy plunged strong, thickened fangs into its jugular and her pillow, using her sickle claws to snap its neck and her headboard. It fell, allowing Cathy and the man-tiger their meal. She devoured both catches hungrily, using expanding jaws and budding whiskers to full effect. So hungry and lost in sleep was she that her rolling ears and billowing mane of striped fur/hair drew little of her attention. Even her green irises and their accompanying altered pupils were dismissed as natural transitions.
By the time the carcass was stripped bare and grooming began, Cathy the dream woman-tigress disappeared, leaving Cathy the tiger-woman amidst the wreckage of her clothing and bed.