Snag-Stitch Mountain

"That doesn't make any sense, Alvis," Shulk says reproachfully. "If Fiora were a werewolf, she would have told me."

"I do not disagree, Shulk. But have you not considered that, though she may want to, Fiora may not be able to tell us?"

Shulk opens his mouth to retort this, too, getting momentarily stuck on Alvis's ever-dreamy enunciation of his name and of the invocation of "us" rather than just the individual, original, object of Fiora's affection. But of course Alvis is right. The circumstances of such a strange turn of events are no doubt complicated. Anything could be true.

It could also be true that the mysterious disappearances, piles of shed fur, and apparent period cramps that Fiora had never had as a youth are all linked to some other, as yet unhypothesized phenomenon, or multiple. A surprise, perhaps.

Wouldn't that be nice? Fiora's surprises are always the best.

But when Dunban reports his sister missing yet again and Sharla confirms that she's not been seen at the clinic, nor with Reyn in the Military District, nor even with Melia, when they check with their friend across the not-so-endless sea, Shulk begins to accept that Fiora really has been taken from them, transformed again.

The fierce glint in her eyes when they finally find her, coughing up fur and reposing weakly in Lake Magdalena's cave, shows that she's not so worried about it.