Wolves and mountain lions move around Circe’s house like nothing should move around a house. They nuzzle, they lean. They press against legs the way dogs do when they want a hand on the head. They were not always animals. Hermes does not say it outright and Circe does not either, but the implication walks through the clearing on four legs. These were the strangers who came before. The violent ones, the ungrateful ones, men she could not stand to keep as men. Now they are her quiet company. The detail that lingers is the gentleness. They have outlived whatever cruelty brought them through the door. Whatever Circe is, she does not waste her transformations on simple punishment.
Circe's Wolves and Mountain Lions
The big predators of Aeaea, tame as house dogs. They press their heads into the strangers' thighs and watch from the shade. They were men once.