[Misty Peaks] Stalking the Mist (Emeric)

[Haeli]

Timestamp: 25th of Summer, 511 AV
Purpose: Hunting
Continued From: By Dawns Early Light
Status: Closed, Emeric Please


It was such a unique feeling, padding through the main gates of Lhavit and out into the wilderness that surrounded the city with the stranger she'd decided to befriend. They didn't take the main pathway that lead down the mountain to either the bay or the road beyond. Instead, Haeli turned them off the path onto a smaller one that was less traveled which wound them well up into the misty peaks. Here, they were alone together in a sea of trees that grew incredibly slowly and lead out onto stone flanks that stretched high into the sky. There were alpine grasses and high mountain lakes dotting the countryside where Haeli lead them.

But that wasn't the feeling she was thinking of as she traversed the landscape beside Emeric. Haeli had never had a hunting companion. She'd never matched her stride with someone else's and struck out with a mutual goal to find food. Even in her days with Ozantha, the pair had never hunted together. Ozantha had gifted her with a snake form so she could mouse and never go hungry. But she'd never taught her to mouse. Instead, she'd withheld food from the girl for days and days until hunger drove Haeli to take another life. Caiyha's mark, especially for one marked so young, often made the first few kills hard. It was hard to kill something you could talk too. It was harder still to kill something that could talk back. Haeli needed that first blood to spill in order to understand how everything was interconnected. Mice were food for snakes just as the ripening grass seed provided food for the mice. Snakes were taken by larger birds and fanged predators and they in turn feel to otehr things. It had been a painful initiation for the girl.. one she'd had young. But it was something she now understood and never lost sight of.

She wondered if Emeric understood such links. There was a lot she was starting to wonder about when it came to Emeric. What was he thinking about? What was he feeling? Why did he play his instrument? What was the mark on his hand? Why did morphing in front of him with him watching her so intently make her feel so strong, so powerful, like she wanted him to keep watching? He was dangerous to her, Haeli knew, because she formed fast attachments with people and those attachments could hurt her. Starved for attention and craving all things human - conversation, touch, companionship - made her vulnerable for the wrong sorts of things. And even if she knew it did, she let the craving overwhelm her common sense because she'd spent so many years of her life alone. Crowds bothered her. Large numbers of people bothered her... but contact like this, one on one, was amazingly healthy for her ability to learn in leaps and bounds in terms of understanding people.

Haeli glanced up at him, then back at the path before them. She huffed, sniffing the air, but found nothing remotely interesting and the scents on the trail old. Glancing back at him, she watched the way he walked and thought further about connections.

She wished she could talk to Emeric as she trotted along beside him, but what would she say? How much she liked Lhavit? How much these rugged mountains spoke to her? How she hadn't been down to the sea yet and would like someone to go with her for the first time? Perhaps Tamsin and Akari would be game for such a trip. Haeli would suggest it. She didn't want to drive Emeric off by needing too much from him, or rather, showing him too quickly how needy of a person she really was.

Her head bumped his thigh again. She was truthfully only a little larger than a big dog, and blocked his next step. Haeli glanced off the trail and glanced up at him. There was a pathway, all but hidden in the underbrush, that was a deer track that lead off down the flank of the peak and towards a tiny valley with a small lake in its center that steamed as if heated from within.

Rabbits or deer. Haeli wondered which one Emeric would want to try? The witch stepped off the main trail, skirting down the treacherous deer trail and slowly lead Emeric on. It was rather steep for a few moments, forcing them in single file, then went onward leveling out and disappearing into tall grass. Just before the trail leveled out Haeli froze, crouched, and then bounced off the trail in a leap that would do a house cat proud before doing a great job of flattening tall grass on his left side. She scurried after something in the tall grass in a series of leaps that completely resembled a barn cat mousing until a final pounce rendered Haeli growling in pleasure. She caught something in her paws, bit down on it, and then turned, wading through the damaged grass to reunite with Emeric. She laid a juicy, rather plump, field mouse at his feet her entire expression pleased. Mice were good luck. And if they were in abundance, one would never starve. And where there were mice, there were bigger things; rabbits, coyotes, raptors, even wolves.

Haeli sat down to see what Emeric would say.

[Emeric]

The transition from city to woodland was immediate and blatant, and Emeric found himself looking down dumbly. Where the steady thud on stone had been was now the stifling crunch of baked peat beneath them. The day of sunshine had left the leaves and twigs dry and caused a crunch with every step. Which he knew would be fatal when it came to tracking and hunting, so he devoted a conscious effort to lowering his feet slower, spreading his weight across each leg and landing on the balls of his feet. Haeli’s nimble form put him to shame, darting around him and flitting away into the surrounding trees as they made their way through the Peaks. Barely a sound could be heard from the jaguar as the paws struck ground, he studied each step she took and noticed how the paws seemed to roll onto the ground. Rolling being the only way he could describe the subtle action, but clearly designed to lengthen the contact time between animal and earth. They were surrounded by the sounds of nature and yet nothing felt close, as though the animals had cleared the area intentionally – or been tipped off by one of the prying birds who frequented All Thing’s Wild. Emeric shook off the thought, not enjoying the feeling of paranoia. The pair padded along in contented silence, the occasional snapping of twigs as Emeric missed his footing and slipped in concentration. When Haeli paused he almost strode straight past her, with his eyes glancing up toward the tree tops. She lifted her nose to the wind, he assumed to try and pick out the scents of anything to hunt. As he thought on the matter he realised that the wind was blowing into them, giving Haeli a better chance of picking up the scent of particular prey and possibly hiding them from their potential victims. She turned off the path and Emeric had to look for a few moments to even see a path available to them, when in truth it was just a natural route free of trees. She looked to the ground briefly and began to descend the slope. Emeric hung back a few moments and crouched to the ground, trying to see what Haeli had noticed. His intensely amateur knowledge caused him to struggle to pick out anything in particular, she began to pull away so he cast one last glance at the ground to see two narrow, parallel imprints. Emeric didn’t think they were Haeli’s paw prints, but couldn’t quite place what they might be. Despite the heat of the day, the ground on the slope still carried moisture and Emeric moved far slower than Haeli, always keeping her in sight. Twice he felt his boots lose grip on the layer of detritus and had to hold out an arm to the ground to stop himself falling. Haeli, ahead, was pacing forward low to the ground – and in an instant had launched herself from just above the level ground into a large expanse of tall grass, the coarser type that discouraged most men from wading through. Haeli had no such inhibitions, and bound and leapt with abandon. Emeric came to the edge of the grass, watching keenly as she pounced at some particular prey. A slight movement caught his eye to the left, and his head snapped around, seeing the slightest rustle of vines at the tree line. He assumed Haeli would sense any dangerous creatures nearby, but still shifted his cloak to reveal the hilt of his falchion sitting behind his right shoulder. Haeli emerged contently from the grass with a small, blooded corpse in her jaws. Every inch the animal she inhabited exuded with the carnal joy he could sense as she dropped onto her haunches and looked up at him. He was still at odds with what to say to her, so grumbled out. “Good start.” Looking back to the flattened and snapped grass behind her, and then examining her more thoroughly – thinking of the practical benefits he’d have if he too could morph. Pulling out his knife, he flipped the corpse over to reveal the pointed head and large round ears of a field mouse. Larger indeed than most he’d seen, however drastically paling in comparison to the rats that lived around Ravok. Entirely unconvinced at the taste of fieldmice he nodded to her, “You have this one,” he said. Sheathing the knife and standing up again to survey the area. “Smell anything interesting, then? If so, lead on. If not… uh… blink twice?” He laughed to himself and struck off around the edge of the grassy clearing without waiting for her blinking response. Emeric glanced over to see her already forging a new path, so he fell in step with her and they carried on through the mountainside.

[Haeli]

He didn't really give her time to blink twice, though there were all sorts of interesting smells. She was too busy still crunching the delicate morsel she'd offered but he'd refused. Mouse was delicious, especially fat field mice overly portly from the abundant Lhavitian summer. Haeli liked the mountain summers. There was a magic to them that spoke of frail transient beauty and abundance. Berries ripened on vines. Fruit burst forth and then was gone in a feast of frenzy as everyone stored food and fat preparing for the winter that was always so long.

She swallowed the last of the mouse, rising to her feet to follow Emeric. Either her excitement was infectious or he needed a break from the city because he laughed for the first time she'd met him and started off without waiting. Haeli trotted to keep up with his long strides, setting off parallel to him, letting him take the pathway.

Her nose was assaulted with smells, old and new, some teasing her with the promise of food and others that she was unfamiliar with. There was the lingering scent of berries in the distance, growing along the edge of the grassy alpine clearing in bushes that reached Emeric's human waist and was well over Haeli's head. Scent came from that direction, something unfamilar to her. Musk laced hair with a distinctly mammalian tone to it teased her senses. Perhaps it was something as interesting as a deer or rabbit, which was actually what she was here to hunt. Haeli skirted rocks that were strewn here and there, twisting sideways along a pathway only her padded feet saw clearly and headed in that direction, leaving Emeric to follow perhaps by skirting down into the clearing itself and flanking her motions.

She could smell the ripe tang of the berries and it caused her mouth to water even though she was in a jaguar's body. Her mind wasn't a cats. Her mind was ultimately human and knew how good fresh fruit could be. Three scents mingled then, all alike, musk over skin - definitely something with hair - nothing she'd sensed before.

When she saw the first of the three scents, she relaxed a little. Small, bumbling? Either young or awkward by nature, the creature had four legs and stood about half her size. Instinct, most likely the cat form, told her it was edible and delicious, so she set about flushing it out for Emeric to have a look at. Growling, she pounced, knocked it hard once with a paw, and caused it to start bawling. The creature scurried away from her, even though she hadn't even raked it with her claws because she could judge by its movement that it would be no effort to catch and kill.

She had no idea what it was. Haeli just knew she wanted the man to be pleased that she'd found something larger than a mouse to feed him with. It was a strange sensation, the need for approval, as she herded the creature away from where it was lingering and out into the grassy clearing where it was vulnerable.

Emeric, on the other hand, saw the moment Haeli flushed the bear cub from the near edge of the berry thicket. She drove it towards him by growling at it and giving it a vicious glare that would set any decent prey in motion. When it slowed, she batted it again, trying to make it run. She was intent with it, busy, but holding off killing it or even remotely attempting to until Emeric gave some sort of sign of recognition. What she didn't understand, and what would be clear to any observer, was that the creature was more than likely not alone. Not knowing what it was exactly, having grown up in a swamp where no decent bear would life, Haeli was oblivious. Silent, hidden from Haeli's perspective which was focused cat-like on a toy, was the enormous form that rose straight out of the berry patch on the edge of the clearing at the first instant of the cub bawling.

It was a grizzly, brindled with color and looking absolutely alarmed at the prospect of a jaguar driving her cub into what looked like an armed human's range. The bear roared its rage, which sent a second cub bawling out of the thicket from a bit of a distance away. Two cubs, one mother bear, and Haeli bearing down on one looking for all the world like she was going to pounce and snap the cubs neck at any moment spelled disaster.

The mother bear dropped down on all fours, roared again, and began her charge. Haeli, belatedly realizing the roar meant trouble, halted, whirled, and flattened her ears against her head while lashing her tail, watching. She didn't seem to know what the huge creature was bearing down on her was. Haeli froze, then leaped sideways, twisting in the air to get out from between the mother and the cub.

The mother, however, wasn't about to let her off that easily. She twisted just as nimbly for such a big creature and kept after Haeli, fully intent on killing the cat for menacing her baby. The bear also kept an eye on Emeric. He'd be the next target for sure. Haeli could easily outrun the bear as a cat, but she refused to leave Emeric behind with the enraged creature. Not knowing what to do exactly, the witch circled, keeping just out of the bear's reach and kept looking over her shoulder as if studying the creature wanting to know what it was and if it looked vulnerable anywhere.

In an instant, Haeli had gone from being graceful to panicked, tripping over stone and boulders, bursting through bushes, all the while the bear gaining. Haeli went down hard once, was slow to recover, and the bear almost had her, reaching out with a claw and swiping at the cat as she scrambled back to her feet. Haeli screamed as flesh opened along her hip, turned on the bear, and with a hiss and growl leaped at her.

There was a tangle of fur teeth and claws, but the dust and swirling grass did very little to help him sort out what was going on and who was winning.

[Emeric]

As Emeric watched the jaguar, he noticed how much more comfortable she seemed to be outside of the city. Her head often swivelling back and forth and looking up at him wide eyed and with a toothy, feline grin. He paused briefly, to drop down a particularly steep incline and looked up again as she furrowed onwards. Her nose pitched up into the breeze and scanning for signs of life, her eyes were pitched far ahead. He knew that most animals could smell far better than he could, but didn’t know how good her other senses were. Whether she could see what he could, although he assumed her hearing was keener than his from the arched ears atop her head. He followed where she seemed to be looking towards a line of bushes at the edge of the clearing, speckled in black, blue and red – alpine berries, he assumed. Though wouldn’t dare to try them, he had heard many stories of innocuous looking berries causing illnesses, and even death, in travellers desperate for food. They ploughed onwards into the clearing when Haeli seemed to focus momentarily, her whole body stiffening in the direction of some small movement ahead. She tore off immediately, and Emeric’s mind flitted to another image of her trotting back with a mouse or a vole between her jaws. Sensing no immediate need to rush after her, he crouched to the ground and looked at the imprint she had left in the ground. A large, shallow central groove – her paw, from what he could tell. Crested by four, small deep impressions into the peaty ground. He studied it for a few moments to try and memorise the print, though he didn’t think that he’d ever need to be tracking a jaguar. When he rose again his heart froze, at the edge of the clearing Haeli was recklessly pawing and scratching at a small animal. It only took a moment for him to recognise it, a bear. He’d seen them a few times before, beaten and bloodied and forced to dance by the mummer groups which hung around in the seedier outskirts of some cities. But even this small cub was larger, healthier and stronger than those he’d seen before. And in the wild, it couldn’t be alone. She pounced after it and struck it again, glancing up in his direction but unable to meet his eyes. Foolish girl, he thought. Shifting his body immediately, and tensing up with anxiety he focused on the edge of the clearing where there was a rustling and cracking of leaves. The cub began screaming in fear, a high pitched, ornery sound that hurt to listen to. And at that instant, the great bulk emerged from the grass and bushes and looked directly at the jaguar. The brown beast, with mottled fur and a dull face, flared in anger and dropped onto all fours. Emeric found himself frozen with inaction as the bear roared and began to charge. Haeli, too, was slow to react. Looking at the bear charging her and seeming to study it for a moment before darting to the side at the last minute. Emeric snapped out of his reverie and roared at the girl, “RUN!” He found himself running towards the cub, unsheathing his sword as his feet pounded through the grass. His attempts at stealth gone with the wind. Haeli was darting back and forth, keeping just out of reach of the bear which moved with deceptive speed and agility. Every time she got a moment she spun on the spot and looked at the bear, almost trying to work out how best to beat it. To Emeric, the solution seemed simple – she couldn’t. The size difference between the pair was staggering, and he felt that the realisation was beginning to dawn on Haeli as she moved with less practiced ease and more frantic jolts. Dropping down off a large root she paused momentarily, and that was all the bear needed – slashing with her great paw and catching Haeli along the midriff. Emeric could almost feel her pain as the scream pierced through the clearing, he continued running towards them. His mind was blank, but for the overriding notion that both of them needed to escape. Haeli seemed to defy all logic, however, as in her anger she turned and leapt straight into the waiting paws of the bear that stood on her hind legs and stretched up a little taller than Emeric. And looked altogether more fearsome. The pair of animals crashed onto the ground, and Emeric was closing in. The bear’s long arms almost nullified, but the jaguar finding it difficult to cause any damage with her shorter claws and small jaws. As if on autopilot he drew out the blade, bought for the specific purpose of being able to slash and pierce he held it with both hands as he came closer. The bear caught Haeli and positioned itself between the pair, Emeric seized the chance. He slashed with all his might, horizontally across the back of the incensed bear and screamed in tandem with the bear herself. “Run, now!” He shouted to Haeli, already on his heel and darting into the trees, not even stopping to see what damage – if any – he’d caused. Knowing he wouldn’t have a chance at outrunning the bear in the clearing, he made for the thickest growth of plants, vines and bushes – with a dark embrace of flora behind. He daren’t look behind, already feeling the hot and heavy presence looming up behind him.

[Haeli]

There was always that point in a a serious situation where it went from dangerous to life and death. Haeli was no stranger to such things. But in the Gyvaka she'd had a guide, someone to tell her what was what and how things were. Here, she was feeling things out blindly. It was easy for the witch to mistake a bear cub for something more like the beaver and large rodents that lived in the swamp instead of something that grew huge and menacing. Running from the creature did no good. There were survival tactics and that was the first and foremost of what she knew. But she was not alone and her actions had consequences on someone else besides her. Emeric would die if the bear turned on him. Even the sword might not be enough to protect him. And she didn't want that, not after just meeting him, not after just finding someone who could potentially be a friend.

The cat ducked under the bears claws and got in close. She cut the sow up slashing with teeth and claws while taking the same sort of damage herself. Litheness saved her more often than not because the bear couldn't get a good grip on her flesh. And while Haeli could get a good grip on the bear, the massive folds of loose thickly furred skin protected the bear from the Jaguar locking her jaws around anything significant.

Had she been alone, she'd had studied the new animal. She'd have scouted the area for more of them. She would have realized that it was a young, there were two, and that a mother lingered nearby that could break her in half with a thought if the bear could get her paws around the jaguar.

Haeli didn't see the slash across the bear's back that Emeric made with his weapon. Bears had padding, thick fur, and all of that tangled in the slashing blade saving the bear from all but the shallowest of cuts. Had he made multiple slashes, the sow would have probably felt metal against laid-bare spine and went down. But Emeric had the same problem Haeli did. Too much thick skin, too much fur, too loose of a wrapper.

Haeli broke off from the bear at Emeric's slash because it distracted the bear enough to give Haeli a chance to do so. She heard Emeric's words and saw him turn to do the same thing. But she didn't live in the world he did. She'd seen the claws on the bear, its size, and its power. It was a mother defending its young and it would never stop defending its young. That meant it would never stop coming for them. And if they truly ran, they would be dead.

Emeric ran.

Haeli wanted to yowl out her frustration jaguar style. It was exactly the wrong thing to do. Enraged animals chased things that fled, though she didn't blame Emeric one bit. She'd have ran too in his place.

But she'd been close to the animal, touching it, and now she had to get even closer - close enough to touch again. Because the animal wasn't going to stop unless it understood a few things. Sometimes Nura worked but sometimes when things were too angry it was like trying to catch every raindrop before it struck the ground in a rainstorm - useless. Haeli darted back in, bleeding in numerous spots with a left hind leg that wasn't fully functional where the bear had taken a good bite of her femur in their earlier tangle. If it boiled down to a footrace now, Haeli wasn't going to win. So it couldn't be a race.

Haeli circled again, got between Emeric and the sow as her friend fled, and stopped dead in front of the charging bear, letting her come. The bear rose up at the last minute, meaning to strike and Haeli did the same thing. To an outsider it looked like the two met just at the edge of dense foliage for a hug. As the bear wrapped her paws around Haei and tilted her head to get a good hold on the jaguar's neck, Haeli grabbed her with her own paws, digging claws into the bears' shoulders. She tapped her gnosis mark, Caiyha's gift, and let Nura flow out of her and into the bear, bridging the gap between the two of them.

Haeli could speak to the bear with it, through it, and the bear could speak back if she chose too. There were no words, no sounds, no true and set way to exchange knowledge. Instead, all with that singular touch Haeli told the bear what she was, who she was, the mistake she'd made, how sorry she was, how she had never seen a bear to know what the cubs were, and how beautiful and powerful and strong the bear was for protecting her children. Haeli locked her gaze with the chocolate brown of the grizzlies and the two hung there suspended, locked in Caiyha's power.

At that moment, one of the cubs bawled and another bounded into view, caught in the moment of the exchange where the violence halted immediately. Haeli broadcasted with every beam of who she was and her intentions to walk away and leave the sow and her cubs unharmed forever. The bear roared again, released Haeli even as Haeli released the bear, and both stepped away dropping back to all fours. Once the contact was broken, so too was the communication even though both animals still faced off. Eyes locked, Haeli made the first move, crouching down submissively and backing away slowly... towards the direction Emeric fled. The bear held her ground and her pride while the two cubs frolicked behind her oblivious after just a few seconds of the drama before them.

Haeli kept backing, her walk a limp, until she stepped through the brush into denser cover and turned. She trotted off, her gait out of beat, and went to look for Emeric. Every bone and muscle in her body hurt, and she was bleeding from several places. Haeli had no idea what she'd do or say when she faced Emeric. Her embarrassment ran deep and so too the shame of getting him in a dangerous situation. The creature was more than she expected, whatever it was called...whatever it was. She knew its true name, of course, from the Nura, but that wasn't what humans called it.

Nose to the ground, limping, Haeli began to track Emeric's trail.

[Emeric]

The darkness consumed him as he crossed the threshold from orange sunlight to dense shade. Fear ran through his veins, along with the energy that flooded his body on the edge of life. He burst through a set of bushes, and cracked his sword through a thicket of vines which blocked his immediate path. He leapt through, and darted up another steep incline. Clawing on hands and knees for added speed and balance, all decorum lost in his immediate concern to leave. Ahead of him, he could see a small stream snaking its way between the trees and down a much shallower slope on the other side. As he reached the top, however, the sound’s of the bear had ceased and he chanced to look about in the gloom. The thick canopy above rustled in the breeze but his eyes were drawn to the path behind. He had run with all haste, but his legs burnt from the brief sprint and he couldn’t see whether Haeli had followed. His mind flashed with horror, had he left her to fend for herself? Had the bear struck her while they were on the ground? His stomach turned in knots and all thoughts of escape evaporated with the heavy guilt that suddenly weighed upon him. He turned and dropped down the hillside at a pounding gait, narrowly dodging overhanging branches he made his way to the clearing. Though he’d forgotten his previous path he could see the glimmer of light ahead and made his way towards it, fractured through the knot of leaves and bushes which lined the clearing he’d fled from. As he came upon it, the bushes caused him to pause – high as his waist and covered in spiked leaves that would cause him more damage if he tried to plough through them. He slashed at the leaves above and cut open a window onto the clearing and had to crane his neck to spot the bear. Now on all fours and seeming to stare at the route he’d escaped through, it was bristling with anger. He leant over the bushes further, trying to spot Haeli and ignoring the stings of the plant. He only caught a glimpse of orange as she disappeared into the woods, but she was alive and he sighed with relief. The bear continued to stare after her, and sniffed at the air around her. He didn’t know what had happened, but both were alive – and Haeli had escaped. Emeric figured the bear still wouldn’t be best pleased to see him again, so he ducked back into the tree line and began circling along to try and catch Haeli again. It only took a few moments for him to come across the jaguar, following where he’d run – at the foot of the hill he’d clambered up. “Haeli!” He hissed, with palpable concern. Emeric’s eyes were immediately drawn to her leg, the fur mottled with blood and still bleeding. “You’re hurt.” He said dumbly as he approached, kneeling on the ground behind her. The canopy above whispering in the wind, and all around he became keenly more aware of the life which surrounded them. And which may well have been attracted by the commotion in the clearing. The jaguar turned and looked at him with wide eyes, Emeric couldn’t help but feel them pierce into him and a red flush crept across his face. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have left you.” He locked her gaze with sincerity and then looked back at her leg. Grabbing the hem of his cloak he brought it too her leg and brushed across the wound – trying to clean it up so he could see how serious it was. Haeli was clearly in pain, the novice cleaning job causing it too hurt even more. “Sorry,” he muttered. Emeric didn’t know anything about medicine, especially when concerned with a jaguar. He thought to everything he’d seen of the medic who patched his old caravan up after their occasional skirmishes, always staunching the bleeding first with tightly tied canvas strips. Unfortunately, Emeric had nothing fit for purpose. “You’re bleeding a lot,” He said, once again pointing out the painfully obvious. There were With a quickness of thought that even surprised himself he untied the cloak around him, laying it flat on the ground. His used his sword to cut a long strip along the bottom hem and pulled it free. He then unhooked the hunting knife at his waist and slipped off the leather belt which had held it. With a careful hand he placed the strip of cloak onto her leg and wrapped it around delicately, trying to avoid any unnecessary pain. The forest was beginning to darken further as he worked, not waiting for Haeli’s assent or input – merely concerned at patching her up enough for them to get back to Lhavit in one piece. Emeric thought fleetingly of the dangers of the mountainside, and worried that the bear may not be the last of their problems. He grabbed the broad belt and slipped it around her leg. “This is probably going to hurt.” He said grimly, waiting a beat before pulling the belt tightly through the buckle and clipping it in place. He peered closely at the crude dressing and felt embarrassed at how bad it looked, but he couldn’t see any blood creeping out the sides so he felt it would do. He slipped the knife out and sawed at the large stretch of belt left unused, dropping it to the ground. The tourniquet he’d created was large and ungainly on the relatively small animal in front of him, and he wondered if he’d made it more difficult for her to move. “Can you walk?” He asked, expecting her to nod or shake her feline head. Not knowing how the morphing worked, he even wondered if she could morph the leg back together.

[Haeli]

She'd heard the expression recently about feeling stupid enough to crawl under a rock. It had been a customer who came in with a rash from a vine she'd mistook as one that would sooth sunburn but instead turned out poisonous. Haeli had made the corrections immediately, sold her herbs that were just right for soothing the sunburn and the rash from the plant she'd used to sooth, and the woman had used that expression. Haeli hadn't understood it. Now she did. She knew exactly what her customer felt like.

Coming face to face after coming to somewhat of a mutual agreement with the bear had left her shaken and feeling less than adequate as a witch. It was one of the dangers of being a morpher as well. Sometimes the shape took control and overruled the brain. And everyone knew cats were stupid brave. Haeli felt so too, when she could move like a cat could and see and smell like one could. She just didn't count on those babies being babies.

And now she was hurt and just a little ashamed.

Even as Emeric began to fuss, Haeli began to change. There was no sense keeping the cat form when she needed to talk to him and answer the questions that kept coming out of his mouth. Even as she lost her shape, reverting back to her original human form, he was winding a long strip of cloth around her leg from his cloak hem.

"Don't waste the cloth!" She growled, her voice still slightly cat-like in its tone as her throat hadn't quite finished changing. Long blond hair gave her some sense of modesty as she looked up at him. "It hurts but its not that bad. She was just gnawing on it, not trying to tear it off. We came to an understanding. I'm not to even look at her cubs again and she'll leave us alone." Haeli said, shifting awkwardly to look at the bandaging job on her leg.

"That wasn't very wise of me. I thought it was a creature like a beaver or muskrat, maybe even something like a pig. It smelled like it tasted good. I shouldn't have stalked something that I didn't know." She said softly. It was nothing truly akin to an apology but she wasn't exactly the sort that knew about such things. Haeli rose then, brushed off her rear, and picked up the remains of Emeric's cloak. Before she wrapped it around herself, he could see her skin darkening in multiple places from heavy bruising and slash marks across her shoulders, back and ass. Some were bleeding and some were only scraps. The worse wound was on her hip, which was bleeding openly, but the girl immediately put pressure on it. She was no stranger to fights and loosing them. Big Jaw got her in more trouble as a child before she could change up her size than anything else. Crocs were always running each other out of the best holes for feeding.

"Mice are a lot easier. Half a dozen and you're full for hours." She said suddenly. Tossing her hair which was tinged pink in a few places, she looked over Emeric with a critical eye. "You are not hurt?" She said. Haeli hadn't seen him run. She was too busy trying to stay alive and keep the bear off him. "Do you want to keep hunting or do you want to skirt the edge of the clearing, picking berries, and then take a swim in the lake? I'd like to wash the blood off before I smell too much like prey." Haeli said. There were berries in abundance, and perhaps that was the hunting her and Emeric should do before they tackled other things. She'd flush out some rabbits on the way home, well away from the bears territory, and at least they'd have meat for a stew that night.

But first she wanted a swim.

[Emeric]

The only way Emeric could have audibly described his thoughts and feelings at that moment, was liquid. The anxiety and fear seemed to slide away, out of his chest and into the ground - to be replaced by a palpable sense of relief. Relief that they’d survived, and especially relief that his cowardice hadn’t left this young woman more seriously injured. Despite her protestations, he was glad he’d been able to staunch the bleeding where the bear had caught her on the leg. A brief glimpse at her bare form as she morphed back into the figure of humanity showed him how much of a beating she had taken, bruises were already showing on patches on what had been utterly unblemished skin. Her hip was a dark red from the deep scratch, deep enough to cause blinding pain and freedom of blood but short, it seemed, of cutting at her insides. He’d had similar injuries, mainly caused from falling off horses and being dragged by the stirrups – much to his embarrassment. “That should heal up quickly enough,” He said, motioning to her hip, “It’ll probably sting like Krysus’s arse for a while though.” Once again her unashamed nudity took him aback and he looked away for the briefest moment as she rose unsteadily, sweeping his cloak up as she went. The cloak had been well below the knee on him, and even with the strip he’d cut the heavy woollen garment seemed to swallow Haeli beneath its folds. Emeric passed a habitual hand through his hair and pulled up the sleeves of his shirt. She began to explain what had happened when he ran, or explain as much as Haeli was wont to do. “You… had a chat with the bear?” Emeric asked, temporarily forgetting how little he knew of the witch’s powers. His senses dipped into a liquid state once again, as the forest around them slid from foreboding to welcoming in the shifting of the breeze. Darkness had crept upon them quietly and his eyes were already adjusting, even with the regular opening in the canopy allowing Leth’s moonlight to bathe the pair. She seemed ashamed as she spoke, and her regret was apparent in her tone - and the way her body seemed to shift in a fashion more human than she had appeared all day. “You couldn’t have known.” He replied, in his own peculiar acceptance. “The shame lies with me. I should not have left you.” The moonlight peered through the trees once again and caused a glint off Emeric’s sword. Which he picked up and looked at more closely. Coarse hairs, black and brown were stuck to the edge - he ran his gloved palm over it and removed them in one stroke. There was the barest hint of blood, or flesh, showing how little damage he’d caused the bear. He closed his eyes and struck the ground lightly at his foolishness, wishing he had driven it point first through the beast. Regardless of the words Haeli had shared with it. The forest was never truly silent, though the moments where the pair’s eyes met seemed to sunder it such, an unspoken chorus of regret and acceptance passing between each. As he looked around again, the rustling of leaves in the distance catching his eyes and the call and response of birds high above, he felt immediately better for the experience. Hindsight seemed awfully quick at removing the horror of the past to Emeric, but he didn’t mind. The pair rose together and Emeric offered Haeli an arm for if she needed help ascending the slope before them. He was relieved when she slipped back into the comfort that allowed such outbursts as her fondness for mice, “I’ll take your word for it.” He muttered, listening again as she asked after his own health. “No, I’m fine.” He said, wanting to dismiss the direction of the conversation away from his craven actions. “Come on, over this hill is the stream; we can follow it to the lake.” He had seen the small body of water as they descended, a small thing from what he could recall - and he had only managed to glimpse it briefly through the blanket of vegetation. “The berries here, they’re safe to eat?” He asked, as the pair passed a pitifully small bush with small black berries growing close to the ground. “Tell me about them.” He said, softly. Emeric was genuinely curious to understand the world as she saw it, and to learn anything that would help him survive in places like this. He also hoped that she would lean on her rhetoric to push the pain to the back of her mind, at least until they got to the lake where she could clean out the wounds. The sword remained alert in his left hand, for the spectre of danger still hung over Emeric - despite the relative ease at which he’d avoided it thus far.

[Haeli]

She watched him as she rose. First his eyes were on her injuries as were his attentions, but when presented with the entirety of her without clothing, he seemed to grow uncomfortable and glance away. Haeli was good at reading body language and picking up details, even if she was stupid about what a bear cub was, having never seen one before.

"Bare flesh bothers you. Why? It shouldn't. My flesh is the same of yours, even though you've taken enough caution so yours isn't bleeding and mine stupidly is." She said, pulling the cloak away slightly to get a better look at her hip. "It doesn't hurt, not that much anyhow. Thank you for wrapping my leg. It's sore but usable." Haeli said, testing it by stamping. It was the same of all wild things to ignore the pain of an injury unless it was life-threatening. She touched his arm in thanks, but did not take his assistance. Her limp was only pronounced for a step or two until she caught the rhythm and matched steps with him. She was shorter, and her stride was smaller, so she had to move faster to his long gaited hike.

"Yes, I talked to the mother. I should have talked to the smaller one first, then I would have known she was a child and there were more around. That was stupid of me. What was that thing called? A bear? You must know about them then. I have never seen one." Haeli said thoughtfully, shame creeping into her voice. She gave Emeric an apologetic look.

They made quite the pair. Here she'd just wanted to impress him and she'd ended up putting him in danger. Sure she knew how to Morph, but magical ability did not trump brains no matter how one looked at it. Ozantha often pointed out she was reckless and stupid. Maybe the old witch had been right.

Haeli sighed.

She followed Emeric, then smiled when he asked about the cloud berries. She waited until they got deeper into the patch before she paused, showing him the fruit near the ground. "Here, this is them. They start out green, turn yellow, and then go to white when they are ripe. They are called cloud berries because they only grow up high like this. There are stories about them, lots of stories, but my favorite one is that Zulrav blew seeds in on a storm wind that stubbornly took root in the thin soil. They came from the lowlands, but were endangered of disappearing because everyone - all the animals and people - loved their lush ripe red juices and the sweetness they burst with in the summer. They tried to grow, but could not, because there was nothing up here for them to eat in the dirt. Zulrav blamed himself, having promised them the lure of an easy life by taking them to a place where they could grow and no one would eat them. They began to starve, just as soon as they sprung from their seeds. Zulrav was upset. So he talked to Caiyha and she agreed to help him. She stole a strand of knowledge from the clouds with Eyris' help, a strand on how to live in high places, and gave it to the berries. The knowledge turned the berries white to reflect who taught them to live so high, and they've grown sweet and wild up here ever since." Haeli said, looking pleased that she knew the story. "I know its true too. The berries themselves told me. They used to have another name, back when they were red, but they've long since forgotten it." Haeli said, smiling at Emeric.

Haeli paused, letting him eat his fill, and take more if he liked. They were well away from the bear flanked on one side by a stream and the other by the patch of bushes

Haeli bent, harvested a handful of the snow white berries and handed them to Emeric for him to try. She took a few more for herself, and kept moving. The hot water of the volcanoic fed lake would probably burn at her scratches, but the heat would feel good on her bruises, making it a decent tradeoff. Emeric would probably know such bodies of water as hot springs, but to Haeli they were just lakes - dead swamps that hadn't gotten overrun with life yet. Time would see changes, if elevation or temperature did.

She limped off, heading for the lake again, moving more easily than before once she was clear of the berry bushes growing along the clearing by the lake. Pausing at the confluence of the stream to the lake, Haeli dropped Emeric's cloak, neatly folding it over a boulder, and looked at him. "Can you swim?" She asked, stepping into the water, yet still watching his reaction. Would he be nervous about her lack of clothing again? Would the water make him antsy? "I've swam here before. There's nothing to fear in the water." She said softly. The witch waded all the way out until she was waist deep, then ducked under slowly, rose, then begin rinsing the blood off her skin.

[Emeric]

She shifted the cloak, revealing bare leg to him again and he ran a patient hand through his hair. Her views were so alien to him, but he could understand them - amongst the many different races he had met passing through Mizahar each had different rules of propriety and custom, especially in regard to sexuality. Some lived most of their living lives entirely covered up, but for the sanctuary of their partners bed, and Haeli was on the complete other end of the spectrum. With no social compass directing her, she lived as was most natural to her. Emeric, however, was bound by half a lifetime of social regimen. “It doesn’t… bother me. It’s just…” He stopped, looking around at the forestry. Emeric struggled to put into words, in ways that she would understand. “What do you know of sexuality?” He asked, “For me to look upon your body like that, implies… an intimacy.” He cared little for most forms of propriety, and was glad when she let go of the cloak and moved on with the subject. “Aye, a bear. There are different types, from what I recall. Never seen one in the wild before. Outside of Syliras though, a circus troupe had caught one. Came across on our journey west, they played instruments and jabbed it with their spears to make it dance. It was wasted away and dead behind the eyes; couldn’t rightly say how they found it so amusing; it was just painful to watch…” He listened intently, the paces they took dissolving and his mind being transported to a vague memory of sitting at the foot of a man dressed in swathes of beige and brown - telling a story of the god’s folly and making him laugh. Emeric frowned at the picture in his mind, not knowing where it was from or if it was a true memory or his imagination playing tricks on him again. The story of the berries was interesting enough, he filed away the information on how they ripened, but it was her last comment that made him curious. As she stooped to the bush and ran her hand through the stems, collecting berries as she went, he asked, “How is it that you can talk to animals and plants, alike? Is this the gift of your god-mark?” He took the berries into his open palms and plucked a few, throwing them into his mouth. He had expected a bitter taste, but was pleasantly surprised – although sharp, they were sweet edging on sour. Definitely agreeable, he could sustain himself for a time on them. He leant over, behind where she crouched, and plucked a few more from one of the more populous branches. As they approached the pool he could see the distortion of the air, the heat of the pool shimmering in the moonlight. Leth’s gaze clear of any overhanging trees and casting the lake in milky white light. Haeli peeled ahead, keen to sample the hot water and clean herself of the evenings earlier failings. Emeric slowed up, attempting to open his senses to the sights and sounds of the secluded pool. There was a tangy smell, not entirely unpleasant, emanating from the water, and he spied a pair of birds at the far side with their nest built into an overhanging tree. She slipped off the cloak and placed it neatly upon a large rock, which sat at the bottom of the stream which they had followed. Emeric traced the stream and saw it was almost separate from the pool, skirting around the edge and continuing on the other side. His hand went to the stream and felt the cool water running across his fingertips, at odds with the steam rising into the night from the main body of water. Entirely nude, once again, Haeli moved sideward’s into the water, watching him keenly - gauging his reaction. His eyes kept stoically upon her own, she moved slowly into the water. Clearly feeling the effects of the water on her cuts and bruises alike, she asked if he could swim and he reflected on the many years he’d spent in the city built on a lake. “Badly,” he admitted. Though he was sure there was nothing in the water, he was still reluctant to join her. She turned her back to him fully and dipped beneath the water, rising again to pour water onto her wounds and rub the dirt out of them. Emeric plucked off his boots and left them with his cloak; he rolled his trousers up just above the knee and sat himself on the edge of the pool. Hot springs seemed generally to descend very steeply from the bank, so his calves were almost wholly suspended in the water. With his arms splayed out behind him, he leant back and looked toward the stars. “I’m glad we came out here.” He said, with a note of assurance.