the moonlight shows us for what we really are

[Hunter]

She didn't know what she was doing.  Oh, she was fully conscious, alright, she was aware of her actions -- but she had hardly a clue where to go and whether she was far enough from town.  It was evening, on the cusp of sunset, with long shadows among the culstered pines, and night would fall soon.  Then Akita could say goodbye to her human hands and her familiar bones, the only ones she ever thought she'd know.  What would happen to her then was anyone's guess.

It was with that brooding anxiety in the pit of her stomach that she trudged out into the dark depths of the woods, much farther that she would otherwise go, holding her forearms folded over a backpack and tucked close to her chest.  The light was dimming, and she was almost worried about running into a spiderweb or tripping on a tree root, but there were much bigger things on her mind.

The transformations themselves were one thing -- they hurt at first, but she always blacked out before long -- and more than that, the real problem was making sure she didn't hurt anyone or run out in front of a car.  She was averse to the idea of chaining herself up, too afraid of what could happen if anyone found her that way, and she'd heard rumors of lycans holing themselves up in the ramshackle old warehouse downtown, where the drug dealers lurked, but she didn't want to set foot in that place.  It was the forests outside the city that seemed like the most natural solution and appealed to her the most.  But the forest posed dangers of its own, and she knew better than to not stay on her toes.

Who knows what could be out here?  Vampires, nymphs, fairies -- they couldn't all be friendly.  What's more, she didn't know what would happen if she encountered another being that was a wolf as well.

Her plan, or what little of a plan she had, was to remove her clothes so that they didn't get torn apart like last time and store them away somewhere, somewhere that she could find them again but they wouldn't get raided or torn apart by any animals -- including herself.  But still she was hesitating, holding it off, walking around nearly lost -- okay, to be honest, completely lost -- and not sure where to leave her things.  Everything out here looked the same.  At this point, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to find her way home come morning, and the sense of dread was starting to send her toward the fringe of panic.

[Devon]

This was where he so often came. In the shadows of the trees he could be sure that the chances of him harming anyone else were kept to an absolute minimum, and even though the woods contained things far scarier than he, Theo felt far safer changing here than he did anywhere else. The old warehouses and abandoned buildings on the outskirts of town had been his turning place for so long, but they often had far greater risks than benefits. He could board himself in, stop himself getting out and risking harming anyone else, but it did little to stop anyone else getting in. A few close run-ins with drug dealers, prostitutes and other unsavoury types who sometimes frequented the buildings had made him wary of them, only using them when there was no other choice.

The woods were hardly safe, but they were the best he had for the time being. Certainly far safer than shutting himself up in his apartment and just hoping and praying that no one came to investigate the strange sounds.

This time of the month was always tough for Theo; even after all these years it was still unnerving and worrying and he always feared that this time would be the time that something went horribly wrong. He'd avoided major disaster so far, surely it was only a matter of time until his dumb luck ran out. Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult blasted through Theo's headphones as he walked, trying to keep his focus calmer and stop him fixating too hard on what was going to happen. Despite the bitter cold he only wore an old and faded shirt, scruffed up slacks and sneakers as he wandered deeper into the woods, a bag on his back containing everything that he would need when he changed back. It would be stashed away up in a tree, safe out of the reach of wildlife, and he could retrieve it in the morning.

After a while Theo found himself in a familiar copse, the trees low and shadowed and far enough away from civilisation that he would pose the absolute minimum risk possible. He knew better than to let his guard down though; he wasn't the only monster that lurked these forests. Daylight began to fade and Theo took out the earphones, switching off his mp3 player and tucking it into his bag. That was when the shuffling of long-fallen leaves caught his attention.

Slowly inching his way out of the copse, hoping to see nothing more than perhaps a deer or large rabbit, Theo was surprised when he saw a young woman not all that far away. Shit. “Hello? Umm... You look a bit lost. Do you need directions or something?” The chances of her being this far out after having simply taking a wrong turning were minimal, and Theo was wary of every little move she made. He just hoped she would leave before the sun set and the moon rose fully.

[Hunter]

Even though she didn't know where she was going, Akita kept walking, twisting at the ends of her cheap sweater sleeves. There was a noise, she could've sworn, somewhere nearby, but even though she jumped at the sound, this forest was full of wildlife and she didn't let it slow her until she saw him, a person, staring at her. The girl froze stock still as if she'd stubbed her toes against a threshold, almost falling forward.

The question would have sounded innocent if there were any reason for him to be out here himself, and she was too startled and cognizant of the situation to bother with an answer to an inquiry that was plainly just toying with her. He was a white man, and he looked far older than her.  Somehow, in her wandering, she'd managed to stumble right into the path of a serial killer.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, her eyes wide, her tone far more harsh than she would have ever let come out of her mouth in other circumstances, but she was stressed and on edge and there wasn't time.

[Devon]

The woman seemed instantly frightened of him and Theo could not blame her at all. If the situation were reversed he was certain he would be terrified too, and even now he could feel a quiet murmuring of fear turning in his stomach, but he was not frightened of her. Not really. He was far more concerned about what would happen if one of them didn't get away from here very soon. She could run and he would not stop her, and if she didn't get out of here soon enough there was the very real chance that he would have to chase her away himself. That was a deeply saddening thought but one that he could not let settle completely. It would be for the safety of both of them, if it came to that.

“Woah, easy there.” Theo spoke softly but there was a trace of the uncertainty in his voice, the man holding up both hands to show they were empty. If push came to shove he could always run, but he had no idea how far he would be able to get before the moon took its hold over him. Would he be able to get somewhere safe before he changed? He honestly had no idea, and that was a terrifying prospect. “I'm just out... tracking. I watch animals an' that; I heard there's some opossum’s around here. I was hoping to catch sight of them.”

Theo's accent would clearly place him as not originally from around here, and he was quietly proud of himself for coming up with that on the fly. Still holding his hands in clear sight, he addressed the woman again. “Sorry, is this your land? I didn't know if I'd be trespassing here or something.”

[Hunter]

She didn't know what kind of luck to call it that tonight of all nights she had run across some wild foreigner out in the woods looking for opossums. "You must be really lost," she told him, certain there was no good reason for him to be all the way out here, even if his claim was true, and she continued with the same urgency as before, "You need to get out of here. As far away as you can." She was still slightly hunched over and clutching her arms close to herself with her empty backpack pressed between, watching him closely as she backed away.

She wouldn't explain if she didn't have to, and there was no particular need to dispel his notion that the land was hers. This "animal tracker" was about to get a lot more in the way of animals than he'd bargained for if he stuck around.

[Devon]

The woman's posture and obvious agitation was putting Theo more and more on edge and he actually found himself backing away from her a pace, his hands still out and up in the air. “I don't think I'm that lost – this isn't my first time out here.” He backed away slightly towards the low copse of trees where his bag was stashed, keeping the woman clear in his field of view and his posture as low and unthreatening as possible. He could feel it brewing, that oh so-familiar tightening of his chest, and he knew that he did not have long to make a call on what to do.

Her next words sent a freezing chill down Theo's spine, the phrasing of what she said causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise even more than they already were in the cold. “Why? What's happening? Are you running from someone?” Even if she was there was very little he could do about it now, but he had always classed himself as a good person and if this woman was in trouble he would do whatever he could to help, even if it was just point her in which direction to run before he bolted off the other way as fast as his legs would carry him. He ducked into the low tree gathering, grabbing up his bag. Perhaps tonight he would have been safer boarded into one of the abandoned buildings.

[Hunter]

Akita swallowed and glanced around. "You could say that," she answered. It was true, if you thought of her wolf side as a "someone". God knows she'd run from it if she could, even fly around the world all night to avoid the moon if she'd had the money.

But he'd distracted her, and now he was trying to drag her into some sort of clarification that was eating up the minutes she had to spare. Why was he being so damn stubborn? Why wouldn't he just go? She grimaced and thrashed her arm to wave him away, yelling, "Run! Go! Before--"

It did cross her mind that he might be an animal trapper in a different sense, the kind of man to hunt werewolves and skin them alive, but she'd have to take her chances if she didn't want innocent (or at least partially-innocent) blood on her hands. She started backing away faster now. "I'm a lycan. Just go, while you still can."

[Devon]

Theo could feel the pull of it, working its way slowly through his frame. The tightness across his chest, the pull of muscles in preparation, the quickening surge of adrenaline through his veins. He didn't fear the pain, not any more. It was agony but it ended soon. His far greater fear was the fear of the unknown; not having a single clue what he did while he was in that subconscious state and not knowing how many lives he endangered every single month.

As the woman started to yell Theo grabbed up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder and backing away from her quicker. “I'm going! If you run that way, you'll ge-”

Her revelation stopped the Brit short and he almost dropped his bag in shock, hazel eyes wide as he stared at the woman. “No... Oh shit!” Terror gripped at his stomach, his face paling as he backed away quicker. He wasn't frightened of her at all – he was terrified of what would happen next. He'd never met another lycan, not that he knew of, and he had no idea just what would happen if they were anywhere near each other. Would they be okay and avoid one another? Would they track each other down? Would they try to kill one another? “I am too! Fuck. I don't... I don't know... Run!” That was the only option he could see. Run, get as far away from each other as possible. Hopefully they wouldn't follow the scents. Hopefully they would stick to opposites sides of the woods. Hopefully their paths wouldn't cross...
That was a lot of hopefully's...

[Hunter]

He was too? Well that would explain his pathetic excuse for being out here, but-- A million new thoughts and questions were racing through her mind about that might mean for her, and there was time for none of them. She looked up at the sky and felt a sinking feeling as the itching feeling begin, the same as it had for him.

She turned and ran.

He'd better not be lying about himself, he'd better not be a creep who-- who-- she actually didn't know what, she just felt there was something awkward and vulnerable about tearing her sweater off and pulling her pants down as she ran, vines and branches scraping her face and legs. She stumbled and fell as she yanked her ankles free. It was cheap and old and raggedy, this outfit she had, but she'd really wanted to avoid tearing up her clothes this month and she was committed to that even now, even as the pain started and she felt that first jarring lurch in her bones.

Still stumbling forward, hopefully putting distance between them, she wadded her clothes up and fumbled with the backpack's zipper to close it, her hands slowly losing the shape of hands. There wasn't much time to figure out what to do with it, so she scrapped some dirt and leaves over it against a tree and, despite her shaking, tried to make a marker for it with an overturned rock.

He'd had a bag or something too, hadn't he? Where was he putting his? What kind of plans did he make before coming out here? Did anyone else know? Her parents didn't even know she was out here. Maybe she ought to have told them before meeting a would-be serial killer in the woods.

She was reaching for another rock when the agony of the shift overtook her, tearing a painful yell from her throat, a yell that eventually took on the sound of a pure howl, and then she was lost to the fur and fangs of her other form.

[Devon]

As the woman turned and ran Theo spun on his heels and bolted in the other direction, putting as much distance between them as he possibly could. The adrenaline both from the encounter and the oncoming change were propelling him hard as he rushed through the trees, pulling his shirt over his head and pausing only to toe off his shoes and take off his pants and shove them into the bag. Then he kept on running, cursing under his breath as his head began to throb and the fine hair on his limbs thickened and spread, crawling over his skin.

The bag was launched high into a tree, settling between the boughs of the old pine, and Theo had just enough time to scuff up the earth around the trees roots as a marker when he felt the first surge. The sudden pulsating racked through his bones and the store owner dropped to his knees. His last conscious thoughts were of the woman, hopefully far enough away by now. Would he see her again with these eyes? Or a far more worrying thought – what could happen if he saw her with the yellow eyes that he wore but once a month?

The soles of his feet were bleeding from his last mad dash through the trees, pine needles and small stones having taken their toll on his soft human skin. The pain of them was numbed by the endorphins flooding through his system, but even they did very little to diminish the agony once the change took its hold.

Theo's agony did not last long. It never did. Within moments the scream became a guttural, sombre howl, and the large wolf sniffed at the ground before trotting off into the deepening darkness of the trees.

[Hunter]

What happened after that, she didn't know. Akita awoke on her back to the soft sunlight of the dawn filtering through the trees and the stench of death in her nose. It took her a moment, drawing her aching body up into a half-sitting position, before she glanced around and noticed that she'd woken up not far from the carcass of a dead muskrat.

As soon as she noticed it, she gasped, flinching, and scuffled away from it, on her back at first and then transitioning onto her side and getting to her feet, spinning to face it. It had clearly been dead for a long time, but she wouldn't have been surprised if she'd been nibbling on its bones only a moment before.

She felt tired, as though she hadn't slept all night -- which was only accurate -- and there was still a lingering throb from the recent change. If she could just gain control over it, she had to hope it wouldn't continue to feel like this. There was a sharper pain with her today, too; there were some scratches on her shoulder and on her cheek near her mouth, as though from another animal.

And that guy, from last night, was he still around? God, she hoped not. She was going to have a rough time of finding her stuff now, and Akita wished she'd had more time to scope out a place and remember it -- she would have, if it hadn't been for him. It wasn't fair to just blame him for it all, though. This wasn't her first transformation. She had the chance to learn the lay of the land all month. What stopped her was that she was afraid of her parents getting suspicious if she sneaked out to the forest too much. She was an adult now, sure, but they still paid the bills.

She slunk up to a tree and peered around it, nervous about crossing paths with him again, especially like this. Looking further up, she was confused to see some sort of bag hanging from the branches above her.

[Devon]

Theo awoke coughing violently, feeling like he was being suffocated and panic quickly took hold. Despite the lingering ache in his body he fought off the choking thing that was covering his face and chest and managed to shove it aside, quickly shuffling back through the undergrowth to try to get away from whatever it wa-

He couldn't help the tired laugh that escaped his throat as he flopped back down onto the cold earth, hazel eyes looking over at the grubby dark grey pelt that had been covering him. He could only assume that, at some point immediately after the change in his not-quite-conscious state, he had grabbed hold of the pelt and try to cover himself with it in some sort of effort to stay warm. As he lay on the ground, trying to get his bearings, snippets of the evening before started to come back. There had been a girl... another lycan. She was afraid, panicky. They'd ran opposite ways... she must have changed not too far away.

Eyes did a check over his body but he couldn't see any actual damage. His feet were tender and swollen from the run through the forest before the change and he had a few nicks he put down to scuffs gained throughout the night, but there was nothing really worth noting. A deep growling in his stomach told him he likely hadn't eaten during the night, and after a few moments stretching out the aches he stood and rolled up the pelt. Now for the embarrassing part – walking through the woods to find where the hell he'd thrown his bag.

Despite the fact Theo knew he was alone save for the wildlife, he still carried the pelt in order to try to provide some little shred of dignity. The area of the woods was not completely unfamiliar to him, and as he followed the landmarks of distorted trees, rock clusters and stagnant pools he eventually came upon the disturbed earth around the roots of the tree he had thrown into the tree. Unfortunately that was not all he found.

“OH! Oh, I umm!” Theo quickly turned around to face the opposite way of the woman that was stood peering around the tree, then realised that standing with his arse to her really wasn't helping anything either. Ducking behind the nearest tree, out of her line of sight, Theo pressed his back against it and cursed under his breath. Of all the trees she could have found. He gave a tense laugh, more out of anxious nerves than any actual mirth. “We should probably stop meeting like this.”

[Hunter]

Akita craned her head around the trunk just far enough to catch sight of a nasty surprise. She grimaced and closed her eyes at once, sucking in air through her teeth as she hid her face. He had seen her, too. "You again," she spat, hardly happy to see him. Naked men: not something she ever, ever needed to see.

Her newly-shed pelt must be around here somewhere... if she could just get it before that man made things anymore awkward, as he was bound to do. She was naked, too, and he was bound to know that. Her heart was pounding in her chest at least as bad as it had been last night -- and it didn't get any better when she noticed that her fur was a ways away on the ground, too far to reach from her hiding place.

She was going to have to get rid of this guy somehow.

Then again, she'd been wanting to meet another lycan for some months now, hadn't she? He hardly seemed as though he had any better control over himself than she did, though, and if she were to make any sort of positive connection with him, well, they were off to a rough start. But what she did know was this -- she didn't want to let an opportunity this scarce to slip through her fingers.

Oh, God, what was she even going to do, though? Akita pressed her head back against the bark and rolled her head upward, swallowing as she held onto the tree trunk. "Is... that your bag?" she asked, looking again at the thing up in the branches.

She'd always been pretty good at climbing trees. It helped her get away from people on the playground, but past a certain age, she didn't like letting anyone know how good at it she was -- because everyone, even the well-meaning people, always compared her to monkeys, and after being made fun of that way for so long, there was nothing she hated to hear more.

"I need help finding mine," she told him, "but I could climb up and get it for you if you promise not to look." It was foolish of her to even ask -- she knew, as soon as she'd said it, he was going to laugh at her, the way men always did when they knew you were powerless.

[Devon]

In truth the sight of a naked woman did nothing for him, no matter how relatively pretty she might have been if not quite so monumentally antagonised by the situation, but he had absolutely no want to spook her any more than she clearly already was and he leaned his head back against the rough bark of the tree. He tried to keep his voice neutral, bordering on upbeat, but it would have been tough to miss the note of wariness on the edge of his deep tones. “Yep, me again. Lovely morning for it, ey?”

The anxiety was slowly beginning to subside as he began to realise that this woman was likely just as nervous of him as he was of her, if not even more so. If she was going to attempt to actually do anything she likely would have at least made a move by now, beyond hiding behind the trees in much the same way as he was doing.

In all his years Theo had never met another lycan; not in these circumstances anyway. There was every chance he'd met one day to day around town and just not known. It wasn't exactly something he advertised about himself and he knew that many others were the same way. Getting to speak to this woman was a rare opportunity he didn't really want to pass up on, but it wasn't worth the risk of getting a rock to the side of the head or something

From where he was stood Theo couldn't see where she might have been indicating, but he could only guess that she was referring to his own. “Up in the tree? Yeah, that'd be mine. Safer than hidin' it on the ground.” He gave a slightly mirthless laugh, thinking of what his excuse had been for being in the woods the evening before. “Stops the opossum's getting in it.”

Theo did not laugh at her request but there was a soft exhale of breath, a slightly befuddled sound. “I have no interest in looking... Not that you're not pretty or anything. I mean, I suppose you might be. But you're not my type.” Theo realised he was rambling and let out a frustrated sigh, banging the back of his head lightly against the rough bark. “I mean... women are not my type. But I wouldn't mind a hand getting the bag down, thanks.”

If she was going to make the effort to get his bag down for him then he would at the very least offer to help find hers. Thankfully he'd been doing this for a while and knew how to pack his bag in case of unforeseen events; like the first set of clothes getting shredded. “There's two sets of clothes in there. You can borrow the clean ones until your bag gets found, if you want?”

[Hunter]

She didn't appreciate the sarcasm, not at first. It was her weapon of choice as well, sometimes, but she already had a bad feeling about this guy and all his attitude made her want to do was take a sardonic jab at him herself, just to take out on him all the stress this situation was putting her through.

Akita had braced herself for more sarcasm and jeering, maybe some lewd comments, maybe worse. Of all the things she had expected, the very last on the list was that.

"You're a lycan and you're gay?" It was the softest she'd ever spoken to him. In spite of everything, she turned her head toward the sound of his voice, not for wanting to see, but because that comment had, to say the least, captured her attention. It appeared they had more in common than she would have thought. She smiled for the first time in almost a full twenty-four hours. "I... I am too. I'm a lesbian, I mean. I-- You know what, you just hang tight there, you hear? --I'll get it down, just you wait." He might be lying about claiming women weren't his type, but she'd already made up her mind by that point. Still, she added, just to be clear, "Don't look."

She had to scurry over to a different tree, one with lower branches, because pines were too difficult to scale. A live oak, though, that was a different story. Akita hoisted herself up with practiced ease and was climbing along one of the branches in no time. The bag was difficult to reach, and as she reached out for it, it quickly became apparent that her best option was to simply knock it down; it would be too difficult to get a proper grasp on it and bring it with her. Still, down was down, and gravity would do the job well enough. It landed with a thud, and she followed soon after, her skin all scuffed and scraped in some places from the abrasions of the bark. She was used to doing this in clothes.

"Just a second--" She pulled the bag behind a trunk with her and started pulling things from it: a pair of jeans and a shirt, both way too big for her (a pair of underwear fell out with them, too, but she stuffed those back in without a second thought; no way was she putting those on -- and besides, these jeans were loose enough that it wouldn't matter).

"Okay. Here. I'm tossing it over to you." All dressed, she twisted around and did as promised. "Thank you, by the way. I mean it."

Looking away, she stood there with one arm crossed self-consciously over her chest to cover her breasts, the other one holding the jeans up at the waistline so they didn't fall down to her knees, waiting for him to give the all clear.