Don't bark at me![cathan]

[Jokor]

Winter 63 510 AV Jokor's eyes quickly looked over the crowd trying to decide a target that was worth the risk and effort he had to take every time when he tried to steal in this town, those damned knights had this entire city, castle, whatever it was completely under their control. Still the small job he was giving only paid him out on the end of the seasons and he didn't know any other ways of making money besides snatching it form others so stealing was the most obvious choice of getting some easy money. A grin came over Jokor's face as he saw a large man standing out in the crowd wearing simple but practical clothes. But the thing that really caught his eye was the stuffed purse hanging from the mans belt. Having found his target Jokor mingled into the crowd following the man while looking like just another citizen that was walking around in the corridors of the great city/castle of syliras.

[Cathan]

Syliras was alive with sound. The noise of boots treading, strolling and clicking over cobble stone, the sound of conversation and laughter lingering in the ever winding streets of the inner city. Knights in clanking mail wandered through shadowy corridors, merchants and saleswomen cried attention to the goods they sold at the bazaar and children played tag in the wider hallways, between the legs or family and strangers alike. High shrieks of joy mingled with the exotic melody of heated negotiations, casual greetings and gossip told behind risen hands - the bustling of fortress knowing of its own safety.

It was terrible. At least for the Kelvic seated in a corner within the bowels of the castle's fourth tier. Few paid attention to the the tall man in his rabbit fur coat, but some did, looking over to him curious or indifferent, starring or in passing. The loudness made his skin crawl, his ears ring and still he craved the presence of creatures more intelligent than the small vermin he usually liked to pass his time with. Rats. Cats. Dogs. Only with the later he could even communicate and they there were not many topics you could talk about with a canine, their interests could be narrowed down to a handful base instincts. Where to find food. What areas were save to sleep and which were claimed by larger dogs unwilling to share. What bitches were currently in heat.

Cathan had lost interest in them quickly, seeking out humans instead. In a way they were more fascinating than animals and the Kelvic could not even say what. Something drew him to them, to talk and watch and find a place to their feet. It could be rather pleasing to help one of them, in the same turn his own dependency made him feel uncomfortable. Despite better knowledge he had the wish to turn, to grow his natural skin. If to bite the next one starring at him or if to roll over to get his belly scrubbed the shapeshifter was not quite able to tell.

Finally he pushed to his feet. Originally he had wanted to buy something, but his picture of what he actually wanted to buy had not been very clear to start with. Something for Kendall. Or Sondra. Maybe even both of them, when he found a worthwhile gift. Right now he did not quite feel like plunging into the roiling mass of loudness to find out what he might feel like acquiring.

Long strides carried him from the fringe of the market deeper into the castle. He knew there was a staircase up into the third tier close by, as well as the exit into the courtyard, but the Kelvic was not quite sure where to find either. Around him the city grew more quiet, although the sound never vanished completely. The noises became a persistent whisper in the background, to silent to make out since words or even voices. Breathing out, Cathan could feel himself relax.

[Jokor]

Jokor got a feral smile on his face as his victim walked towards a less busy center, giving him just what he needed to make his hit and get away without those pesky knights breathing down his neck and doing whatever they did to thieves here. Quietly stalking the man, making sure that he couldn't hear his footsteps, there was almost nothing to hide behind in this corridor and the man looked like he could easily break him in two if he wanted to. So being quiet was of utmost importance. Jokor silently stalked the man as the noises of the market became harder to hear every second. Jokor began to get a bit nervous as it dawned on him that he didn't have any cover to make it look inconspicuous. He would have to go and get it the hard way. He picked up his pace to a full blown run and collided with the man head on, letting them both fall to the ground and using the moments of confusion to snatch some miza out of the mans purse and stuffing it away under his cloak. "ack! I'm sorry you alright?" Jokor feigned compassion as he wrested himself back on his feet.

[Cathan]

He had been thrown to the ground before. Usually in fights or during the hunt when he had the odd luck to run into another predator while following the trail of a smaller quarrel. In a city this happened considerably less often however. Instinctively the Kelvic stretched out an arm to ease his impact on the ground even though he fought the reflex to change at bite whoever had been careless enough to run into him.

Cathan was used to touch from years being more dog than wolf, and he was more tolerant to it than most wild animals would, yet sudden, unexpected contact still made him nervous. The urge to tear into those thoughtless enough to reach out for a wolf was hard to resist. Today he managed, albeit barely so. Amber eyes narrowed, the shapeshifter rolled around to look into the face of the figure running into him.

It was no man. It was a boy. Smaller than Cathan and somewhat meager, he did not seem like the kind of individual who would run into others deliberately and yet...

Annoyed the Kelvic breathed out. He was not aversed to fighting or challenges, at times he was even looking forward to the thrill, yet the youth before him hardly seemed like a worthy opponent. Chances were good Cathan could have beaten him in his human form without difficulties and those were always the most boring fights. After a moment of consideration the shapeshifter decided even his friend Kendall would have had a good chance against the guy, even without using magic. At least unless the scanty boy could do some arcane tricks as well. The Kelvic could not imagine that to be the case. His newest acquaintance did not seem the kind of individual who would spend hours over books or studying in university the way he knew Kendall had done. No, he was almost sure to bet the fellow before his nose was of the harmless sort.

Finally Cathan shook his head. "I am alright."

Without much hurry the large man worked himself to his feet. He tilt his head to the side. "Are you alright?," the Kelvic continued with an expression which could have almost been a smile.

"However – I believe you took something rightfully mine."

It was not actually his money. His last owner had given him the money bag to have an eye on. It was money they had made trading fur and other goods and after the man's death Cathan had kept it. In many ways it was practical and while the Kelvic found it was a waste to buy food with it – he was well capable of hunting for himself – there were other things he could have acquired with it. Or not, as rarely something caught his fancy. Truth been told, he could not even have said how much money he possessed. He had never counted it and had he not decided to spend some of it today, he might not have mind the young man running away with a good portion of it. Alas, today he needed his money.

[Jokor]

Jokor couldn't help to mentally laugh at the sucker he just scammed, the poor sod looked like he didn't have a clue that he had just took a chuck out of his earnings. If there where more people like him in sunberth he might have had a meal every day instead of digging trough the trash to get something to eat. He couldn't keep the smugness out of his grin as he watched the man clamber to his feet and asked if he was alright. "Yeah,I'm fine. I'm used to much worse then such a simple collision." He answered when the man asked if he was alright. Jokor's facade almost fell when the man said he noticed his attempt at thieving, keeping the face in place he reached into one of his many secret hiding place underneath his cloak. "Well you are a perceptive person to say the least, I don't want any trouble with somebody that can break my body in two." He said as he let out an embarrassed chuckle. He pulled out a fistful of copper miza from under his cloak and let the faced fall of, a foxish smile on his face before he threw the coins right in the man's face. "Here it is, and keep yer change sucker!" Jokor hollered out as he bolted away from the man a grin on his face as he ran towards the empty corridors, fairly confident that he could let that guy eat his dust.

OOC= I hope I am not the only ones that throwing a fistful of heavy coins into somebody's face does distract the person...

[Cathan]

Mizars were neither especially large, nor heavy coins. Their impact in Cathan's face stung still. More than that – it let sudden, hot anger rise in the Kelvic. Had he not tried to be reasonable? He felt he had been just t that. A low growl escaped his throat, the sound better befitting a wild animal than a man. Rather unlike a dog which might just tug his tail to hide under the next table, the shapeshifter did not feel cowed. Instead his ire drove him forward. The coins forgotten on the ground Cathan started after the thief.

The young man had quite the head start on him. Already the Kelvic could only make him out as a small figure in the distance, turning around a far away corner. Cathan tried to catch up still. Wolves were good runners, yet their strength was endurance, not speed. They could run miles and miles each day without growing tired, but could keep a high speed only for a few minutes. His human body was even less suited to close the distance between him and the fleeing criminal. For a while he managed to remain on the man's trail despite of lacking speed. Again and again the Kelvic rushed around corners only to see his prey vanish around another. He kept up pace still.

Until he found himself in a deadlock. A curse poured from his lips, heard from the sailors in Zeltiva and eligible to make a whole lot of woman pale – had they heard it. Cathan found himself alone however. With a frustrated gnarl the man turned around once, but there was no narrow alleyway no hole the man could have slipped into.

A moment past then he continued the corridor down to its very end. With a serenity surprising himself the man started to undress, quickly and with frequent glances down the hallway. In the end he was naked only the pouch he had worn at his belt now danging from his neck on a short leather cord. With a foot he pushed his clothing in a dark corner, then the air around him shimmered and the ground rushed closer. Half a second later a large wolf slipped from the impasse, nose at the ground.

A minute later he had returned to the spot he had his encounter with the larcener. No coins were to be seen, picked up by a random passenger, a child playing. Cathan was unable to tell. In a gab between two cobble stones he finally made out a last one. Sniffing first at the small chopper piece and then at the ground, the canine once more started to search the corridors ahead. He did not have a particular hurry anymore, his chagrin paled to cool determination.

Tale risen he started trot down the hallway, not minding the rare few people he came a cross. Some starred, some jumped out of his way, a rare few even ignored him. He did not care. He knew who he was looking for, knew how he smelled.

After a while he believed to hear him too.

[Jokor]

Jokor effortlessly found his way in the less used corridors of the castle mentally patting himself on the back for familiarizing himself with most of the castle before trying his hand on pickpocketing again, escape routes where necessary when you tried to steal in a city like syliras. He heard stories about the tank and he wasn't especially eager to go and find out if they where true though. He slowed down from his run looking behind him for any sign of his pursuer a impish grin on his face when he didn't see him anymore. He sat down with his back against the wall in the middle of the alley feeling completely safe as he dug out his loot from this attempt and slowly began counting them out. Jokor might not know how to read but that didn't mean he couldn't count, it was more or less a neccity that you knew your numbers in a city like sunberth, or you where just begging to be ripped of. OOC: its short but hey I didn't know anything else to say, and this gives you a chance to sneak up on me.

[Cathan]

The trail, faint first grew easier to track with every new street entered, every corner turned. It was easy to guess why. Cathan's prey had slowed down, confident to have lost the man he had robbed earlier. He would have gotten away had his victim actually been human. So the Kelvic was catching up with every second the young man spend counting his loot. Soon smell was not the only indication of the thief's whereabouts.

The quiet clicking of metal on stone rung light in the wolf's ears. The sound of his coins in another man's hand. For some reason the thought did not make the canine as angry as it had in the beginning. He was still determined to get back whatever had been stolen of him. How much it had been he was not even to tell, only that it was rightfully his. And that he intend to spend it on things he wanted to gift to his friends.

As the sounds grew louder the Kelvic slowed down, his nails clicking softly over cobblestone as he slunk closer. There was not other sound, only the noises coming from the man piling money on the street. Cathan was glad about it, the idea to catch the thief alone drawing an all to human smile on his animal features. He had no desire to kill the other man, not even for taking his possessions, but he wanted to scare him, show him what it meant to steal. Of course, the shapeshifter also enjoyed to hunt game much more clever than the beasts he usually stalked. It made the chase all the more interesting.

Head lowered he peaked around a corner. Sitting in the shadow of a narrow hallway, the wolf could make out the familiar figure of the boy he had run into earlier. Studying the snatcher the Kelvic came to the conclusion that the young man was hardly what some would call a worthy opponent. Skin and bones, that was what the criminal mostly seemed to be, hardly worth a fight. Cathan could not imagine that there would be much of a fray had he actually decided to attack. Second passed and the canine merely watched. The lad seemed as if he could have need a good meal. Some better clothing too. The shapeshifter shook his his head. He had never been one to pity his quarry and he had no intentions to start now.

Lowering himself to the ground some more the large animal took aim for the thief sitting unsuspecting just a few yards away. With a growl erupting from the depths of his broad chest, the wolf dashed around the corner, teeth shinning white in a half opened muzzle. With two, three powerful leaps Cathan crossed the distance between himself and the young man, ready to tear some fabric. A sleeve preferably, but the bottom of the boy's pants would do as well if the Kelvic was to be asked. Again he snarrled.

[Jokor]

Jokor was completely unaware of the wolf lurking right around the corner, both because of his attention was focused on counting the coins in his hand and because he didn't pay any attention to the sound of the wolf's feet on the stones dismissing it as a stray dog that was wandering around in the alley's looking for food, if he noticed it at all. The loud and dangerous growl that was heard a moment after that however did get his attention. Quickly snapping his head to the source of the noise seeing a large grey wolf jumping straight at him. Darting out of the way with as fast as he could Jokor narrowly avoided having a few new holes poked in his skin, though his cloak wasn't blessed with the same luck as the wolfs teeth clamped down both ripping the cloak a bit and pulling him off balance, Barely preventing himself from slamming face first into the stones by putting his arms in front of him and worst of all, the coins he had painstakenly stolen where scattered all over the place. "You stupid mut!" Jokor growled out scampering back on his feet and glaring at the wolf. He wasn't about to lose his well deserved stolen goods!

[Cathan]

Prey was supposed to run. It was knowledge deep rooted in the wolf’s mind. The strong fought, the weak ran - it was the way nature worked. Hares did not fight the lion, wolves did not run from mice. The occasional hind might fight for its young, but this was hardly the case with Cathan’s current quarry. It was alone. And male.

It should have run. The Kelvic knew as much.

Still, the boy remained staying, shouting at him. The noise rung in the animal’s ears but it did not yet jump forward. The situtation was odd, not as it was meant to be - had he really wanted to kill the youth. Did he want to however? Almost belated Cathan remembered he had just wanted to give the boy a scare, that he just wanted his money back rather than hear the other one’s bones breaking between his jaws. The shouting had rilled up his instincts.

Now they slowly died down to a lingering anger. Golden eyes lingering on Jokor the wolf moved, strolling in a circle around the thief, head lowered and teeth showing. It was almost a grin.

The Kelvic had been called worse things than mutt in his life. Considerably worse. The word did not hurt him. Words never did. Unlike most humans Cathan believed words to be rather harmless. A sword could bite you and flames could burn one, words were just a consequence of sounds. More than he managed in his current form, but overall not too special. Or hurtful.

Without any particular hurry the animal put a large pawn on one of the coins, pulling it back towards himself. Another coin followed and yet another until there was a little pile between the wolf and the boy. All the time the Kelvic watched Jokor, making sure the young man would not get close to the hunk of treasure scratched together in the middle of the street. If he did Cathan would move back to the pile as well, growling softly until the youth backed away once more.

The wolf could not deny the his opposite showed courage. In face of an animal able to tear large junks of meat from his slender frame even. Either his quarrel was stronger than it seemed - which Cathan deemed unlikely - or the boy was rather careless. A trait human’s showed rather frequently in the Kelvic’s opinion.

Or maybe his pickpocket was just a little desperate? With most of his coins scraped together again - and really he did not care so much for the few smaller coins still shimmering here or there - Cathan sat down beside his belongings, studying Jokor. He did look like he could need the money. The Kelvic was just not sure why the other one should have the mizas he had, well, not rightfully earned, but inherited from his late bound mate? He yawned, round head tilt to the side, thinking.

He could turn back and pick up his money. Or he could wait for the boy to walk of. Or he could try to scare him down the alley just to teach him a lesson. Decisions, decisions.