|
|
Diane huffed out a bit of breath, the air was cooling as the sun set, she could see faintly the plume of condensation as her warm breath met cool air. She enjoyed the briskness. Her shoulder blade started to itch badly, and she tried rubbing it against a tree, but that wouldn't alleviate the itch. She just couldn't reach the spot properly. Frustrated, she concentrated and managed to shift one paw into a hand, reached round and gave the spot a proper scratching. She whuffed, contented, and watched the sky quietly until all the color had leached out of it and it was a warm grey twilight.
Still she didn't notice the watcher. He was there, though. Utterly fascinated by her, by the strange shape of her ears, by the familiarity of the oddity of a human hand on a wolf. He knew she was Garou, but that didn't explain his reaction. Maybe it was something he'd seen in a movie...
Diane thought she heard something, it sounded to her like a wolf, very near, whining softly. She looked around but saw nothing, so she walked toward the sound. The watcher and his companion melted away and she found nothing at all. Oddly uncurious, she returned to the caern, feeling tranquil from her walk and the vision of the sunset, and a little something more she did not yet comprehend.
Diane traveled quickly through the woods toward the town whose name sounded like it was in the woods too, though it wasn’t, of course. There was a moment, when she shifted from lupus to homid form, that she was sure she was being watched. She looked around, but saw no one. This feeling of being watched had got more and more frequent of late. Diane wondered if she was getting paranoid. It wouldn’t be too hard to figure out why, if she was; she was terrified of going into Dallas now by herself. Well, maybe not terrified, but she certainly wouldn’t do it.
A Pepperidge Farm store was open in the small Inwood shopping district. Diane went inside and found what she hoped were enticing snacks for her packmates. She decided rather than get them specifically for the ones who’d got her gifts, she’d just buy enough for everyone who wanted some. She walked out with two large sacks of cookies, cheese, crackers and jerky.
Looks like Garou. Smells like Garou. Maybe tastes like Garou… He smiled to himself. Long time now. A week. Long time to stalk prey. Hunt, run, watch. Watching… watching this one. Would she be like the others? Easy kill. Sometimes they hurt, sometimes they cried and screamed – beat him with their fists. Maybe different. Maybe same. He wanted to find out.
She was trying not to feel paranoid. Not to feel watched. Trying too hard, because it wasn’t working. Diane swung the bags back and forth. No point changing forms, might as well give her human form a bit of a workout since she had to carry stuff anyway. If it got too much of a drag she’d try Glabro. But a smaller form was easier to slip between the trees and made smaller footprints. She looked down. Strange – her paranoia kicked up a notch. There were small human footprints around and along and sometimes on top of her own lupus ones heading toward her. She knew she hadn’t walked to Inwood in two forms at once. That was kind of a relief – someone really was watching her. Well, maybe relief was the wrong word for it.
She sees the prints. Good. Wary prey. Very good. Not stupid Garou… some forget instinct. His smile widened a bit, though it wasn’t really much of a smile at all. He growled softly, watching… See what the Garou does.
Diane heard the growl, dropped her shopping bags and froze for a moment. If she hadn’t been in homid form her ears would have twitched as she tried to figure out what direction the sound came from. “Who’s there,” she asked, in case it was someone rather than something.
Babble. He snorted – perhaps he had been expecting something else. He could smell her tension. Her fear. Good. He moved quietly through the trees to one side of her, grunting softly for the wolf to stay. He sniffed again, warily. Maybe not alone. She was in a pack – he could smell them on her too.
Diane caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. There – a figure behind the trees to her left. She turned and took one step, then another, in that direction. She wondered briefly if she should change forms, but decided not yet – especially if it was a human, that’d be a bad thing to do. She thought for a split second then pulled a stick of jerky out of her bag, opening it. Maybe someone? thing? hungry. If so she could try to make friends…
His nose twitched. Meat. She offered him meat. He chuffed softly, tensing his muscles for a spring. The only sound was air parting as he launched himself at the meat wielding Garou in a blur of motion, his body unwinding in one fluid movement. The woman sprawled beneath him, lying on her back on the ground. He rested the greater portion of his mass against her chest to hold her prone, putting his hands over hers. He growled again – watching. Waiting.
The air was knocked out of her for a moment. She tried to breathe, managed a shaky breath. He looked like a strange Garou in Glabro form, awfully small though. And covered in reddish fur, which was unusual. His crystal blue eyes held a watchful expression – he seemed to be waiting for her to do something, she didn’t know what. She stared back. He wasn’t hurting her, just … staring. She wondered what she should do. She tried not to blink.
The female did not resist. He could not gauge her strength. He pushed against her hands for a moment, grunting as they pressed into the dirt. Alpha contest. She pressed back, but lacking the force of Garou. His eyes narrowed. She played with him. He grunted again, exerting a steady force against her hands and lowered his head, sniffing.
Must be a lupus breed, she thought. She’d thought the small size might be a metis deformity, but there were lupus that small, a few anyway. A who’s-dominant game. Maybe he was Red Talon. He was certainly red. Diane didn’t really like these kind of games, though she’d been forced to play them enough to know how they went. She shifted to Glabro to match without seeming to trump his form, and with her greater strength in that form, pushed him off her and sat up.
He felt her push him away, felt the sinews of her shape alter beneath him. She resist. Good. He twisted to his feet, leaping back towards the now larger form, using his shoulder this time to push her to the ground, growling, “No move.”
Diane sighed. She really didn’t want to do this anyway. “Ok, no move. Want some snacks? There’s stuff in my bag… I was shopping.” Why couldn’t this lupus type have stumbled across someone who’d enjoy this kind of thing… maybe Shad?
He glanced at her, not trusting her completely. Garou were tricky. They use words to confuse. She didn’t move. He relaxed a little, lowering his head to sniff her again. He began with her hair, and moved down to her neck, glancing up every so often to see if she was going to push him off again.
Diane held still, reasonably patient as the red-haired glabro sniffed her from head to toe. His shoulder-length hair swept across her face for a moment and she caught his scent too – wood smoke, and bleach. Strange. Her nose wrinkled a little. Then she almost laughed as he got to her stomach. She shook her head slightly. “I smell pretty much the same all over.”
He listened to her babble, uncaring of the meaning of the words – like water, they always flowed around him. He didn’t mind. He lowered his head again, wondering if she were in season, and, smelling only tiny variances, continued his investigation, memorizing each scent, just as he memorized the patterns to her muscle movement – even as she held herself motionless, every tiny shift was catalogued in his mind. He was still curious – this was the first time he’d ever interacted with a Garou, not in combat. He studied the differences between them, looking at his own hands, then hers.
She didn’t think he was hostile. He seemed more curious than anything. Maybe he had only just learned to shift. She tried to be patient. It wasn’t like she was in a huge hurry to get home, after all. She could just lay here and let him sniff her till he satisfied himself as to how she smelled and looked (and who knows, felt too) all over. Too bad he didn’t seem to talk much though. She thought he might be interesting to talk to for some reason.
He picked up her hand and held it against his own. Bigger. Not biggest. Not yet. No fur, unlike him. He frowned for a moment. No claws. Soft. He held his own hand in front of his face, slowly curling and uncurling the fingers, feeling the hard, sharp edges of the claws against his palm. He glanced back at the female, satisfied, for the time being. She did not smell of aggression. He could wait. Watch more – but first, questions.
“You Metis. What tribe you?” He growled the words with exaggerated care, trying to form his mouth around them with difficulty.
“That’s right.” Diane frowned. There were lots of Garou with prejudices against metis. She wondered if he were one of them. “Diane Steepcliff, Galliard Child of Gaia. Nice to meet you…” She paused, wondering if he’d caught all that. He has trouble with language, from the way he speaks. She repeated herself, more slowly and clearly.
He listened to her words, his forehead furrowed in concentration. Children of Gaia – peaceful. Non aggressive. Galliard – word keeper. Singer. Not a threat. He relaxed a bit more, pulling himself away from the female and sitting beside her, cross-legged.
“HunterKiller.”
Diane sat up when he moved off her. She went back to her homid form, since it was closer to his size. “HunterKiller?” She thought he was telling her his name, but she wasn’t quite sure. “Are you alone out here, or do you have a pack somewhere?” She continued to speak slowly, though not exaggeratedly so. She didn’t want him to think she was making fun of how he talked.
He nodded, pulling one of his hands to his chest to indicate himself. “HunterKiller. Others dead. Just us.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the wolf who lay crouched behind the trees.
She hadn’t noticed the wolf before. Just the two of them. Sad that the rest had been killed. She wondered if the wolf were his kin or even another Garou. “You and I, friends, ok? Diane and HunterKiller?”
“No kill Die-anne. Hunt others.”
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “What others?”
“Other Gar-roo.”
Diane shook her head emphatically. She tried to think what to say. “You should not hunt other Garou, you should be friends. Like with me.”
He shook his head as well, having second thoughts about speaking with the female. “Made to hunt.”
Diane interpreted this to mean someone had been forcing him to kill other Garou. “Who made you?”
“Whitecoats.”
She nodded. “The white coats are wrong. Killing Garou is wrong. We want you to be our friend, not our enemy.”
“What wrong? Garou not enemy. Garou prey.”
Diane was not sure how to answer that. She thought for a bit, then said, “We can help you find better prey than Garou. Since you are such a good hunter.”
A cautious tone entered his voice. “Hunt what?”
That was a good question. Since she wasn’t sure what. “Well, the most recent thing was this giant silver centipede thing… “ She paused a moment. “And there’s bane spirits, and ah… well… it just varies a lot. But definitely better than killing Garou. Maybe…” she thought better of what she had been about to say, and just stopped. “Let’s just stick with not killing Garou.” She added after a hesitation, “Please?”
Her words washed over him like an endless deluge. “Why no kill Garou?” He focused on the few parts he caught.
Diane didn’t think he’d actually understand the reasons she could give him. She considered her options. “You don’t kill Garou. And I will teach you to talk better. And then I can tell you why. I can’t tell you why now. Too complicated.”
This he understood. He’d had teachers before. He didn’t really know whether he wanted her to teach him to babble. Words mean little. Action mean everything. She did not attack. She was not aggressive. She was not a threat. He judged her on her actions. “You come back. You teach. You speak. I listen. Maybe learn, maybe not. Maybe Garou good, maybe not. You show. I no kill.”
Diane smiled, feeling like she’d made progress. “That’s so good. I’ll come teach you. Here?”
He looked around and sniffed the air. Man was far, Garou were farther. This was a good place. He took his finger and scratched an X in the dirt. “Here.”
“Okay.” Diane tried to make sure she could find this exact spot again. She looked around at trees and judged the slope of the land beneath their feet. It would not be easy but neither would it be as difficult for her as for some; she had been raised in a forest, though with quite different species of trees and plants in it.
He rose quietly and walked over to a tree, raking one hand across it and leaving bone-white gouges in the bark. He looked over at Diane, nodded once, and disappeared into the trees.
Diane walked over to the tree and ran her finger along the gouges. She was pretty sure she’d be able to remember where this was. She picked up the items that had spilled out of her shopping bags, hefted them both and headed back to the caern.