The first thing Bitterbark registered was the feeling of loam beneath her paws. Hooves were sturdy, keratinous things, covered in horn-like scale or shell or... whatnot, and while she could feel the give and squish of a material underneath them, there was something unique about the sensation of bark chips and moss pressing against leathery pads.
She had toes. The doe had been running-- but running why? Her breath was quick and even, lungs pulling in air ever drier even as she walked further north, no longer feeling the inexorable pull of the lodestone of the swamp behind her. Things were different, and she was free.
It took her only a few moments to recognize her shadow.
It was kin to her, named after the lichen-like spatters across the bark of its intangible fur, except this time, Lichen was here, and Lichen was hers, and Lichen was kindred. He was both kin and kind, and the name of her new shape was wolf.
She raised her head, throwing it back for a lusty howl, before setting her paws back before her, seeing just how fast her new body could run-- just how far she could reach into the stands of trees growing ever thinner on springier, less waterlogged soil, white bodies peeling with papery curls and spattered with mosses and lichens. She jogged around one stand of trees, then charged at another, feeling a strange sense of weightlessness as the doe slipped through not just the space between the trees, but the trees themselves.
Lichen yipped in encouragement, and she charged playfully towards him, before turning her gaze towards the direction the green on the trees and her ghostly wolf-brother pointed-- North.
Away from the swamp, and towards a land of new smells and unsung promises.