Disclaimer: This idea grew from a drawing done by @Gymno_bot and @egabdraws. I've asked permission, and was given free reign, so this AU likely isn't exactly like what the public imagination has shown so far. 

This story will also be containing a lot of characters adapted from different mythologies. As this WAS intended entirely a fluffy romantic comedy sorta piece, I ask you all to suspend disbelief, and just accept the realities presented to you. In other words, I'm not going to be doing a lot of research. If you're looking for a story that stays true to the mythology, 1) why tho, and 2) please look elsewhere. 

Every act of support is deeply appreciated! You can also find me on Twitter @fireroastedmoo :)
 

Chapter 1

Welcome to Archangel Island University for Women!

On a sweltering April morning, Moon Byulyi woke up in heat.

Sweat ran off her brow, her body lead against her mattress, and a distinct staleness of the hot air seemed to weigh heavily on her chest, but none of these sensations quite compared to how she felt that morning.

She was no stranger to the discomfort of the morning after a few awkward dreams, but this sensation was beyond anything she had experienced before. Worst of all, she could smell her own arousal mixed in with the dead air, yet it was far too hot for her to move. It was, needless to say, one of the hardest mornings she could remember in a very long time.

Little did she know that it was only the beginning.

Eventually, she managed to roll out of bed and into the bathroom. Unfortunately, she was, like the rest of the neighbourhood, not prepared for the magnitude of her own screaming when she discovered the pointed ears on top of her head.

This was the day that Moon Byulyi discovered that she was a werewolf. She was, as her grandmother so graciously broke the news to her later that morning, a descendent from a long line of werewolves.

“Your transformation will be a little unstable, but you’ll be alright,” her grandmother said as she calmly sipped her tea. “Everyone on your mother’s side goes through this. There are very few changes you need to be aware of.”

“Grandma, I smell everything.”

“And you will need to cut a hole in your pants for your tail until you learn to hide it.You’re lucky it’s summer right now. Oh, and you’ll have to withdraw from your current college and I’ll have to pull a few strings and get you into Archangel Island. Fortunately, they start in a few weeks so you have some time to get used to your powers.”

"What? Where is that? What about my credits?" she cried. 

"I'm sure they'll sort it all out."

Byulyi buried her face into her hands. “What is happening?”

“Did you want to go to regular school with a tail?”

“N-no, but—”

Grandmother’s eyes hardened. “It’s not up for debate, Byulyi. You can transfer to another school if you really can't stand it.”

Her tail curled dejectedly in time with her wilting ears as she slumped down in her chair. She groaned, and resigned her fate. “What is happening?” she whispered again.

Her grandmother quirked a brow. “Look, I let your mom figure things out on her own and she turned out fine. You just need to try and figure out who you are--like a regular college student--and the school will teach you everything else.”

“But, grandma, is Mom…? Are you…? Can’t you teach me? Do I have to go?”

Her grandmother took another sip of tea. “There’s a lot to be learned about surviving and thriving in this world as a supernatural,” she said. “Too much for a little old lady like me to teach you, Byulyi. Besides, I’m busy. And ArcIsland is a nice place. We can't realy talk about it though.”

Byulyi frowned. “Grandma, all you do is play Go-Stop with the neighbourhood ladies.”

But the old lady simply changed the topic and continued sipping away like everything was fine.

In reality, nothing was fine. 
 

That was how Moon Byulyi ended up at ArcIsland Women’s University, an innocuous-sounding name for a beautifully ancient campus on an island far from the main peninsula. As far as anyone knew, it was built by a mysterious and secret group of benefactors long before Dutch contact with Korea. It was a place so completely hidden from society, that even cell towers could not break the barrier.

“There’s no Internet here?” A girl beside her screeched as they disembarked from the ferry. A few people turned to her in horror, and quickly dropped their suitcases to check their own cell phones.

“How horrifying,” Byulyi heard someone drily comment. When she turned in the direction of the voice, her eyes widened in awe of the nine silver tails floating behind the girl. With one hand resting casually on her suitcase and the other on her hip, she was every inch the kind of person no one dared to mess with. She was stunning, and striking past 200% on the intimidation meter. The girl’s heavily made-up eyes slid over to Byulyi for only a moment—she couldn’t look away fast enough. Byulyi backed away, her single, lonely tail curling up nervously. And the girl wasn’t even talking to her. “To think that you’ll all have to get a life for a change,” she finished with a roll of her eyes.

It was quick to see why all the other girls gave her a wide berth. All, except one. A girl with a brown bob and a cute smile—one of the few seemingly “normal” girls on this island—strode up to the fox-tailed girl and gave her a slap on the arm—Byulyi held her breath. “Play nice, Hyejin!” She said.

“Whatever,” the fox-girl mumbled. “Let’s go.”

Her friend sighed. “How are you going to make friends?” She said, shaking her head.

“I don’t need other friends. I have you.”

The girl giggled, and the sound left Byulyi realizing that she was very much alone. All around her people were talking, either catching up or meeting new people, having had the day's journey to bond them together. There were a few lost souls with a dazed look in their eyes, but none of them seemed interested in being friends. Byulyi had, in a burst of fear and courage, attempted speaking with a sleepy girl on the ferry, but the girl had ignored her when she opened the conversation with, “Are you normal?”

Byulyi sighed and tightened her grip on the handle of her suitcase. Why did she have to be so awkward? She’d long accepted that social cues were hard to read, and now, with her senses overwhelmed and confused by her new were-powers, she can only hope she doesn’t start suddenly sniffing under girls’ skirts.

Who needs friends? She thought sullenly.

“Hello.”

Byulyi looked up, pulled from her thoughts in a split second when a beautiful girl with red hair and an angel’s smile approached her. Unsure of what to say, and overwhelmed by how good she smelled, Byulyi simply stared.

Did she have...fangs?

The girl shifted uncomfortably. “Um, hi. I’m volunteer guide here at AIU, and I’m here to help if you have any questions.”

Byulyi continued to stare. Her cheeks looked so soft, and she was just so, so, so adorable.

“Um, well, do you...need help with your bags?”

Byulyi shook her head, and mentally gave herself a small pat on the back for executing a normal human function without breaking herself.

“Okay,” the girl said slowly, looking increasingly uncomfortable under Byulyi’s intense gaze. “If you need help finding anything, just look for someone with a red band on their arm like this one.”

She was long gone by the time Byulyi had the sense to blink, leaving her alone on the docks, surrounded by the rolling fog and the hushed voices of a few passing girls giving her a weird look.

Byulyi sighed. She had hoped that becoming a werewolf would make her a little less awkward and skittish about social interactions, but she was an idiot to think anything would change. The only difference now was how intensely her senses distracted her, and that certainly didn’t help.

She followed the rest of the students deeper into the fog, off the docks, onto the shore, then up the stone steps and into the forest. They walked down a wide dirt path lined by a grove of massive green trees, a few stopping every few minutes to snap a photo of the iridescent leaves cutting through the fog. It was a long walk to the main building, but it was also a scenic route filled with trails to, as Byulyi would later find out, the clusters of buildings hidden in the woods. Including two two-storey brick and mortar mansions that doubled as dormitories.

Along the path, a flash of red suddenly caught Byulyi’s eye. She looked around, but the other girls simply kept moving. She glanced up at the green, yellow canopy—nothing. Perhaps she had imagined it. She had barely taken five steps when deep blood-red appeared and disappeared from the corner of her eye once more. She twisted around and narrowed her eyes—still nothing. What was it? A hummingbird? It seemed to be the right size.

When the red came around for a third time, Byulyi stood her ground and kept her eyes wide open. She did not, however, anticipate whatever it was to hit her square in the back of her head. And it was soft.

A gentle thump hit the ground, and she turned around just in time to catch a moment’s glimpse at a furry, red creature with ears larger than its body. Its wings folded, and poof! A cloud of red smoke revealed a very familiar face.

The senior from earlier, born from the smoke of what seemed to be a bat, suddenly appeared, sprawled on the ground as she clutched her nose. “That hurt,” she mumbled.

“A-are you okay?” Byulyi stuttered, scrambling to pull the girl to her feet.

“Yeah,” she said, flashing a shy smile that sent Byulyi’s heart racing out of her chest as she offered a shaking hand. The other girl continued to smile, but she shook her head and ignored Byulyi's hand as she pushed herself up. From what Byulyi could tell from her expression, the other girl didn't hear her heart break. 

The senior chuckled sheepishly. “Sorry for hitting you, by the way. I can’t see very well when I transform, and I’m just not great at being a bat. I'm still trying to get used to echolocation, but I don't realy like it”—she straightened out her skirt and pulled out a pair of glasses from her pocket—“Contacts are a bit complicated too, so I have these.”

Byulyi’s jaw slowly unhinged as she watched the girl put her glasses on, as if in slow motion. Innocently, she looked up into Byulyi's eyes with a crinkled smile, as if she didn't know her own charm. Unbeknownst to Byulyi, her tail began to wag.

The girl cleared and took a step back. “Erm, my name is Kim Yongsun. What’s yours?”

Byulyi blinked.

Yongsun blinked back. Then she waved a hand in front of her face. “Hello?”

“Ah! Uh, erm, ah, me...I’m...I...Byul,” she stuttered, her words rushing out and tripping over in pure terror. “My name is Byul Moonyi. Yi Moonbyul. Byul...uh, I-I mean Moon Byulyi!” Her ears fell flat as she let out a sigh. “My name is Moon Byulyi.

Yongsun smiled. “That’s a pretty name, Moonbyulsshi.”

Byulyi fidgeted uncomfortably, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. Fortunately, Yongsun showed mercy. “Anyway,” she said, “we should get going. You don’t want to miss the opening ceremony.”

But of course, Byulyi couldn’t just let it go and move on with her life. Of course, she had to keep trying to speak to this vampiric goddess who was clearly just trying to be nice and helpful. 

“I-I’m...I’m sorry!” Byulyi cried to the girl’s retreating back.

Yongsun turned, her red hair transcendently beautiful against the curved canopy above them. “For what?” she asked. Byulyi averted her eyes before her beauty could pull the words out of her.

“I’m, uh…” Byulyi ran her fingers through her hair—her right ear began to twitch every few seconds if only to compound her nervousness. “I’m...you’re...ngh…” The girl watched her expectantly. The rest of Byulyi’s peers were long gone, leaving the two alone in the fog, waiting for the frazzled werewolf to remember how to function.

Eventually, the girl—more confused than anything else—turned away to resume her trek up the path, but not before Byulyi reached out to grab her hand. “Wait!” she cried. It took only a moment to realize how strange it must’ve been to suddenly grab this stranger’s hand, and another moment to drop it like it was on fire. Much to the other girl’s mounting amusement, she quickly apologized, and finally stuttered out what she wanted to say: “I’m awkward.”

The red-haired beauty confirmed with a slow nod.

“You’re beautiful,” Byulyi blurted.

But before the senior can reply, Byulyi darted off on all fours, faster than she had ever run before.
 

Moon Byulyi arrived with haggard breaths at the front entrance of a grand stone citadel at the end of the dirt path, where the rest of the girls had gathered in front of a pair of massive, iron doors. She dashed up the steps, and everything seemed perfectly normal save for her racing heart.

Normal, that is, until women suddenly started screaming as she approached.

In her urgency to get away, she had fully transformed into a brown wolf, larger than any that anyone has ever seen. Byulyi, feeling no different, however, was oblivious. Confused and exposed, she shrunk back down to the bottom step in a panic.

To make things worse, the fox-girl from earlier suddenly appeared at the top and descended upon her, tails flaring in all directions, eyes aimed to kill. Behind her, the girl with the brown bob followed, attempting to pull her back. “Hyejin, don’t,” she pleaded. But Hyejin shrugged her off, and Byulyi could feel everything shrink inside of her as she got closer.

Byulyi cast her eyes to the other women with a plea for help, but they simply watched the scene unfold, horrified and unblinking. She heard a whine—was that her own voice?

“Well, aren’t you cute,” Hyejin said, strutting toward her like the angel of death. “The big, bad wolf—think you’re the , huh?” Her nails—long and threatening—glowed blue; her eyes glowed murder. “Think you can scare the out of my Wheein and get away with it?”

“Hyejin, stop! I’m okay, seriously,” the girl cried, pulling her back desperately. “I’m fine!”

Hyejin said nothing, her eyes still trained on Byulyi.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Wheein whispered. “Please. Look, I’m sure she didn’t mean it. She looks more scared than I am...please, Hyejinie.”

“Oh, she better be scared,” Hyejin growled.

Byulyi shrank back until she had no where else to go. She could almost see her life flash before her eyes, as they say, and lamented how little she had done in this short life. She was ready to resign her fate when--  

“STOP!”

A great gust of wind seemed to sweep through the entire island as a great shadow loomed above them. Byulyi dug her paws into the earth, and squeezed herself against the ground. Hyejin lifted an arm to block the rush of air, but found herself tumbling into Wheein behind her as shrieks and screams pierced the air.

Then it was still.

When the dust finally settled, a beautiful woman with a grand pair of wings had settled between Byulyi and Hyejin. Small as she was, she exuded nothing but power as she folded her wings behind her. Even her red arm band seemed ominous.  

“What is the meaning of this?” She said, her voice soft but somehow fearsome as she watched the women with flashing eyes. 

Byulyi, naturally inclined to apologize, bowed her head. In the midst of her panic, she transformed back into her half-human form and muttered a string of apologies. Hyejin stayed silent, one arm wrapped protectively around Wheein’s shoulder as she glared at the winged woman.

Suddenly, the bushes rattled beside them, and a blur of white leapt onto the scene. What seemed to be a rabbit sporting a pair of antlers bounded up to the winged woman, then transformed into a girl with antlers keeled over trying to catch her breath. 

“Joohyun...unnie,” she rasped between gulps of air, “Why...didn’t you...wait for me?”

Joohyun crossed her arms. “I hardly think this is the time, Seungwan.”

Seungwan pressed a hand to her chest, inhaled deeply, exhaled, then straightened her back. “Unnie,” she said sternly, “please let me handle this.”

“Seungwan…”

But the girl was impervious to the daggers in her eyes. “You’ll just make it worse,” Seungwan said simply.

“You—“

“Please, unnie?”

Joohyun opened to protest, but when her wide-eyes, pleading puppy charm didn’t work, Seungwan’s two hands boldly smothered out her reply. “Sorry, unnie, but I’m not taking no for an answer. And if you sing at me, I’m going to be really mad! Are we clear?” Seungwan explained patiently. Her eyes narrowed at the younger girl.

Their audience watched with bated breaths as Seungwan’s hand came down. Arms slowly went up to shield from impending doom, but the winged woman merely huffed, and flew off.

“Sorry about that!” The woman with the antlers said with a grin. “My name is Seungwan, and I’m one of the guides,” she pointed to her red armband, “and that person was Joohyun. She seems scary, but she’s really nice! Just be careful if you feel like she’s getting upset. If she sings, you’ll fall in love with her for an indeterminate period of time, and that...can get messy sometimes. She’s one of the dorm supervisors here, so you want to stay on her good side. Ah, but you two,” she paused to give Byulyi a sympathetic smile, “let’s just hope you’re in the other building. There are only two dormitories here, so your chances are pretty good! Ah, anyway, I’m rambling, aren’t I? Let’s just apologize so we can all be friends!”

Hyejin stared, dumbstruck, at Seungwan, then glared at Byulyi, who finally recovered enough to stand up. “I’m not apologizing to her,” she said firmly. “She should be the one apologizing for rampaging around in wolf form. .”

Byulyi sighed. “It’s okay, it’s my fault anyway. I didn’t...I didn’t know,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “Sorry, everyone.”

Hyejin rolled her eyes. She had a whole slew of things she wanted to say, but Wheein tugged at her arm with a warning look. So she sighed. “Whatever,” she mumbled. “Can we go now?”

“Ohh-kaaay,” Seungwan said slowly, “we’ll work on this later. Well, look at the time! We better get going, or we’re going to miss the welcome ceremony.”