( done for the October cdc prompt of "afraid" !! And also just bc I wanted him to have another form lmao. If youre wondering how he looks, he's this, only with a little tiny button dog nose and floppy dog ears )

It seemed as though Wormwood and Moth were connected in more ways than one. Sure, the two of them considered each other siblings, and were inevitably close ever since everything had happened with Poetking, but it seemed almost as though their spirits were connected in some way, even though they were not literally connected. The reason he thought this was because now, so soon after Moth had transformed into her new little feline form, Worm found himself transformed as well. However, this time it wasn't as a result of some evil outside source or some forced malfunctioning of powers. Instead, it was just a result of his emotions getting the better of him, and his shapeshifting power reacting in response. The lion had emerged from his house that morning not expecting anything much, the familiar itch of anxiety that was nearly permanent in his mind these days thanks to Roy still being gone. He, as usual, sought to find something to occupy his mind so that he wouldn't do something stupid or reckless. The day went on mostly as normal, up to the point where he found himself returning from another successful hunting trip. His mind had practically gone into sleep mode as he had started the trek back from the swampland, and he found it being swiftly occupied by thoughts of Roy and stinging disappointment in himself, a sigh leaving his throat. As he placed his prey down in the stores that they had, his thoughts were a swirl of noise and unhappiness, certain phrases popping up and catching his attention as they bombarded him, "I can't believe you can't even defend your own son... how useless," "how can you expect to help your group if you can't even help yourself?", "you like to think you're so strong, but really you're just nothing. You're just small."

As he stepped outside into the light of the main camp area, Wormwood felt his heart ache from the daggers of his thoughts being shoved between his ribs, his eyes falling shut for a brief moment to just try and meditate the negative thoughts away. However, what he didn't notice was the fact that he was beginning to shrink as he focused on his meditating. His body shrank down, his wings sank into his back, and his form shifted into something else entirely – something very interesting to look at, at the very least.  He seemed to be a strange hybrid of creatures, along with a healthy dosage of a mutation from another creature as well, and aesthetic elementals. Rather simply put, he was... a little plant monster. He was a hybrid of dog and turtle, along with a little dosage of frog in his neck that made it so that he looked rather... squished together. He was all green, with the body of a dog, the feet and tail of a turtle, and the neck of a frog. The aesthetic elementals seemed to contribute to his earthy appearance, looking like a little plant that was just beginning to sprout. He had a huge leaf that sprung up from his head, dangling  behind him over his back, along with several little flower buds sticking out of his thick amphibian neck. His body was squat and adorable like a dog, and his face was squished with a little button dark green canine nose and a pair of dark green floppy ears. Overall, he just looked... extremely cute. Which wasn't exactly something he was used to, since most others in the past had thought of him as either handsome or scary because of his huge stature, with little to no in between.

When the former lion opened his eyes to glance around him, he found that the works was... much larger than it had been before. He was about the size of a medium puppy, and all of the npcs milling about around him now just seemed so... massive. Immediately he was struck with a raw feeling of fear thanks to the fact that everyone was so much bigger than him, and as soon as a serval npc began to approach him, cooing about how adorable he was, his fear skyrocketed, and he found himself rushing off as quickly as he could, his little turtle feet moving as quickly as they possibly could. He ran past several confused npcs and others, until he eventually reached his house near the edge of town, ducking down underneath his porch and hiding himself away beneath the wood. He wasn't sure why he was struck with such terror while in this form, but he found himself huddled beneath the porch for several minutes, trembling in fear. Before long, however, he heard someone's footsteps approaching him, and his eyes widened further in fright, quickly backpedaling further to press himself against the base of the house. From beneath the porch, he called out defensively, stamping his small frown feet against the soft ground as he did so, "G... Get the hell away from me! I'm not going to let you hurt me, I swear to God!" He sounded almost childish as he yelped, his body still faintly shaking, which made sense, since this form was actually only around 7 or 8 months old, when compared to his years old lion form.

It was honestly sort of a blessing that the first person to approach Wormwood after his impromptu form chance was the woman that he had already begun to see as a sort of replacement mother figure. If it were anyone else, Worm's new form probably would have just driven him further underneath the porch, shivering and shouting about how he wouldn't come out because then they would end up killing him or something like that. However, when he heard V's soft and concerned voice from out in front of the wood porch, he felt his small ears perk up with interest, and he hesitated for a long moment before moving a little forward, peeking out from beneath the porch with his one good eye. If he had been a bit more lucid and a bit less terrified, he probably would've been filled with disappointment that this was yet another form that didn't have both eyes, reflecting his permanent new condition thanks to Beck. Luckily for the poltergeist, Worm had no time to stew over that because of the fact that V was looking down at him with that kind and soft smile on her face, and he knew that he couldn't stay beneath the porch without feeling guilty. He didn't want to disappoint V by making her wait, so the hybrid slowly moved out from beneath the wooden porch, his leaf bouncing a little bit as he moved to stand in front of V, shifting sheepishly in embarrassment. He could feel a soft blush beneath his short green fur as he looked down at one of his little turtle feet, scratching them together as he mumbled quietly to V, "Hey V... sorry you had to come out here and comfort me. I'm not sure what scared me so much and made me run all the way back here... I think it's just the fact that everyone was so much bigger than before, and I felt like something was wrong and scary so I just... bolted. How childish." Of course, from the squeaky sound of his down voice, he had to estimate that this form was many months younger than his other forms, only really being the age of just over an apprentice, at maybe 7 months. It felt so odd to be so young again, and he found himself wondering if... whatever he was happened to just be particularly tiny, or if he was just a younglings of the species and needed to grow up some more to become larger. He hoped it was the latter, since this strange form could actually be rather useful for some things if it happened to get a bit larger.

Looking down at himself, Worm began to take stock of every part of different species that he had, looking over every limb and noting everything down. It seemed as though he had the base body of a canine, but his neck was extremely thick compared to a normal dog, reminding him more of a frog than anything, along with the fact that he had the small legs and short tail of a turtle. The large leaf atop his head made itself known by the way it bounced and shifted as he turned and spun, looking around at himself. Curiously, he pawed at one of the several buds forming a sort of collar around his neck, and was disappointed to find that nothing happened when he did so, except for the bud shifting a little. He had thought that maybe if they were roused or something, they would shift or bloom out into beautiful flowers, but that unfortunately seemed to not be the case. Overall, this form just seemed tiny, vulnerable, and scared. It was a little sad to take in, if he was being honest, but that didn't mean he would reject it. After all, being small sometimes could be useful, like when sneaking around. Plus this particular form fascinated him with the wide range of different attributes it had, seeming almost like a living plant. The thought made him chuckle a little bit to himself, since he thought that perhaps Beck would like him more this way – more like Audrey. Returning his attention once again to V, the now very young male yipped as he stretched himself out, the large leaf on his head falling over his eye and making him frown a little bit in frustration, "I'm not sure why I turned into this little... thing. It just kinda happened. I look like I'm a big mix up of a bunch of different things, cause I've definitely never seen an animal like this in a while, or any of my books... have you ever seen anything like this, V? Probably not..." He didn't want to answer his own question, but he was fairly sure if there was anything like this out there, he would've already heard of it by now. Then again, he had never heard about anything like Audrey before, either. He had heard of venus fly traps, which Audrey was sort of like, but on a much... grander scale. Perhaps he would end up growing into some huge plant monster as well as this form grew.