Not What it Seems

[miss_sanguine]

There was blood, so much blood. It colored his hands and clothes with splatters of red. At this point he couldn't tell where his blood started and the blood of the girl began.

She was dead. She had to be. No one could bleed this much and still be alive. Yet he still tried, shaking her and calling out to her, staunching the wound whose continuous flow of blood was already waning.

The man that had killed her was long gone, having run off into the safety of the dark night. Kabe hoped the bite he had given him proved fatal. He knew for a fact he'd broken several of the man's ribs in the scuffle after he'd shifted into a wolf.

What kind of magic rent the skin in two like this? As he removed his hand from the slash in the girl's chest, he could make out the ghastly laceration. The skin visible through the blood looked rotten, black and cratered.

This had never happened to him before.  He'd failed to save her despite his best efforts. Even though he didn't know her personally, the fact that she had been in trouble had been reason enough for him to intervene. Had he known the man was a mage, things might have turned out differently.

Death was not something he dealt with, and when he did it didn't normally faze him. For some reason, the look in the young woman's eyes as she had lain dying had affected him. He felt lost, helpless, feelings foreign to him. She had trusted him, pleaded with him to save her. And he hadn't been able to.

It was only when a wave of dizziness came over him that he remembered his own wound. He stood back from the girl's body and looked down at his midriff. Besides the stains of the blood that weren't his, there was a dark patch just above his hip that was growing steadily in size. This was where the man had stabbed him. He vaguely remembered it having happened when they'd been fighting, but the adrenaline pumping through him had made him impervious to the pain at the time.

Now he felt it.

He put his bloodied hand on it, wincing, then laughed softly.

What a fine mess you've gotten yourself into this time, Kabeyage, he thought.

"Hey!"

Kabe turned. A flash of light illuminated the alleyway, blinding him.

A man stood at the head of the alley, a magical fire floating by his head which was the source of the light. He was wearing the uniform of the Moonspear night-patrol. "What's going on he—" There was a loud curse.

That was his cue. Without another thought, Kabe took the form of a wolf and bounded past the man, who was already calling to his fellows in alarm, giving commands. There was an assault of noise escalating behind him, but by the time they would have walked up to the body, he would be a fair distance into the nearby woods.


---

His travels didn't take him as far as he would have liked, though. Some three hours after his sprint he had to stop, his injury proving to be a bigger problem than he'd first thought. It hurt like crazy and he was still losing blood.

"Right," he said to himself after he'd wrapped the wound tight with his own shirt. "I've had worse."

Even so, he was weak. He didn't particularly like the feeling, but there wasn't much he could do except lie there in the woods and recover some of his strength. No doubt people were looking for him. The situation hadn't exactly been in his favor--him standing over the dead body of a girl in an alley, the girl dead and him covered in blood.

However, every time he closed his eyes to rest, the girl's faced flashed through his mind and he was filled with guilt and remorse.

He resigned to lying there against a tree, hand on his wound.

[Juno]

Everything had been just fine and dandy until a few officers burst into the place. The tavern grew quiet as a sullen man, clearly in uniform, barked at a bar maid. He'd caught a snippet, something about hiding someone, but his men didn't seem to wait for an answer as they rushed in, sweeping the place for whoever they were looking for. Their quick search didn't turn up anything, though, and they were on their way just as fast as they'd come, looking even more irritated if that were possible.

The room gradually slipped back into conversation. He heard "that girl" and "murder" more than once, which unsettled him, but he knew it happened. There wasn't a place in all the world safe from murderers, that he knew well enough. No longer having much of an appetite for drink now that the place was abuzz with talk of homicides past, Julian soon got on his way after leaving enough coin for the last of what he would have here tonight.

Once outside, he could see police crawling around. They were ants swarming the streets and he had no idea why. If they hadn't already found whoever, they weren't about to find them here. Figuring he wouldn't find anywhere to resume drinking in peace tonight, he turned on his heel, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and wandered off down the road in search of somewhere to stay for the night.

Alley cats eventually poked their heads out, as he drew further and further from the hoard of police down the way.

~A girl was killed...~

~...He's still out there.~

~Penelope said it was a wolf. She saw it!~

"Ladies, please," Julian pleaded, running a hand through his hair, pausing to cast a look out to the darkness the felines were hiding in. "Did anyone see?"

The calico raised her head, sniffing at him for a moment. ~Lots of blood.~

The orange just licked her paw, eyeing him. ~Pretty girl...lots of blood...~

~Yeah, lots of blood~

The cats weren't helping anything but to grate at his nerves. There was still someone out there, a murderer, whether it was human or wolf. Something had killed a girl tonight.

He continued on, suddenly not liking the idea of staying in town tonight. Heading off toward the woods, he quietly shifted to the goldish-yellow big cat he once out of the moonlight and bounded off down the road.

The jaguar was almost silent as he loped through the trees, relishing in the sense of relaxed power he felt when in this form. It didn't take him long until he caught the scent of blood in the air, however. Snorting, a low growl in his throat, he pushed onward toward it, curious as ever. His nose burned from it. No matter what he did it burned and raged and took hold of him tightly as if it would never let go.

It was getting stronger as he went along, picking up speed as he drew closer and closer to the source. Rounding a bend into a slight decline, though, he finally had what he was looking for. The strong scent practically pulsed in his head as he slowed to a lazy stroll, eyeing the man slumped against a tree. Yes, he was bleeding. The stains on the shirt wrapped around his hips was telling enough of that. And it wasn't all that old. He wondered...

This man was hurt, though, and Julian approached him to sniff at his neck, his shoulder, then the drying blood. Something smelled familiar about him, but he couldn't place it. There was something else, too. It took Julian a few moments to realize it was blood of another. He snorted, flickering his ears about before flattening them to his skull as he eyed the man's hands, which were also stained dark with a mixture of his own blood and that of another.

Not sure if he was even conscious or not, Julian huffed and sat back on his haunches, debating with himself over what to do. Leaning forward after a few quiet moments, he licked the man's cheek, testing him. Rumbling, he laid himself down beside the stranger, eyeing the bloody blotch again. Did he have something to do with it? If he could've frowned as a cat he would've. It was killing him not knowing what to do with this...thing he'd found, that his nose was tormenting him with.

He nudged at the man's hands, growling a bit before letting a short, snarling roar rip through his throat.

[miss_sanguine]

The time he spent there against the tree was lost to him. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. His mind was swimming in and out of focus, the shadows of the trees spinning around him. Pain was his only company, though at times he thought he heard things that he couldn't possibly be hearing, one of the more prominent being the screams of the woman he had tried to help.

There was no reason he could see as to why it bothered him so much, but her face kept popping in and out of his mind's eye, like a phantom. Had he known the girl? Was that it? Maybe someone from Arca, however unlikely that was? He knew quite a few women from his home city, some more than others—in a physical sense.

A snapping of twigs made him open his eyes despite the fact that he couldn't see very well in the dark. The trees were still revolving, dark shapes that didn't really exist flitting in and out of sight. And then his eyes locked onto two glowing orbs just a few feet away.

Out of the darkness came a large four-legged animal. The moonlight bounced off of its golden pelt, showing it to be a cat of some kind. A hell of a big cat. With splotched patters of black, like spots. A jaguar?

He laughed, the sound being more muffled and dry than he'd meant it to. Too much blood. He'd lost too much blood. His hallucinations were now taking on distinct shapes. Shapes that didn't make sense. Jaguars didn't live around these parts.

The great feline came toward him slowly, almost hesitantly, sniffing the air. Still smiling, he let it do as it pleased. Humoring a hallucination was the best way to get rid of it. Unless he was dying, this animal being some sort of spiritual escort. He didn't exactly know how ghosts worked, since it wasn't something he believed in for the most part.

It was interested in the blood that tarnished his clothes and hands, sniffing spots particularly heavy with the caked substance. Kabe waited for it to decide that he smelled like a tasty meal, or for it to speak and tell him it was time to move on to . . . wherever it was that people believed you moved on to when you died, but instead it sat back out of his line of vision and made a strange snorting sound.

Then it licked him, its tongue scratchy like most cats'. Warm, too. Its breath on his face made him realize how cold he was and he shivered against it.

Why it had to suddenly lie down and let out a terrible snarl was beyond him, but the sound made him laugh louder this time, almost witlessly. He was losing his mind. Even as his vision blurred and his senses seemed to play tricks on him, this one thing—this one non-sensual animal—was the only thing that seemed real.

"If you're going to kill me, kitty, you might as well get it over with. I'm not going anywhere."

[Juno]

The laughing was unexpected. Twitching his ears around, Julian just stared at the man for a long moment. Who the hell laughs at a snarling cat?! He must be mad. At least for the talking he knew he was conscious now, he hadn't been so sure before. It made him curious, though, if he was aware that he wasn't imagining things. He'd never seen anyone react this calmly to having a predatory cat in their face.

Standing back up, he nudged at Kabeyage some more, bumping his head against his jaw. He put a paw on his injured side, intending to put enough pressure to get some sort of reaction out of him, and the other on the tree for balance. Just as quickly, though, he slid himself off to stand on his own feet again, and huffed at the man, giving him a stern eye.

Something was definitely wrong with him. He figured he was definitely out of it to just talk to a jaguar like that, nobody he'd ever known would have reacted that way. Julian was desperately curious about him, though. What could have happened to have him laid up like this? He had his suspicions, but at the same time he didn't want to just assume the guy was completely innocent. It was confusing, he didn't know what he should do and grumbled for it.

[miss_sanguine]

In response to his offer, the cat started prodding him with its face. Real or no, it felt very strange to have a large predator pressing its head so close to his. He could feel its soft, warm fur, could smell its musky scent. He was starting to believe that this was no hallu—

The pain was excruciating and he let out a yell, instinctively grabbing at the giant paw to try and push it off. It had stepped on him! Right on his injury, which he could feel tearing open further under the pressure. His vision swam and he nearly passed out right then and there, bile rising up in his throat.

When it moved off of him, he lurched forward, hand pressed down on his once-again-bleeding gash. "What—what the hell—" But he couldn't get the question out, instead just groaning like a dying man. Why had it done that?!

This was why he preferred dogs.  No  idea why his brother was so into these temperamental animals.

[Juno]

He just rolled his eyes, as if he didn't really care much that he was the cause of the bleeding. Moving to sit back on his hind legs again, bright eyes flickered to watch the man's antics. He was getting kind of bored of this, just watching the guy sit there and not do anything whatsoever to entertain him.

Not caring at all that he was right next to someone, Julian shifted back to his natural form then. Instead of a great cat sitting, he was now a man crouching with those same bright, vibrant eyes watching Kabeyage between strands of hair spilling about his face and shoulders. He ran a hand through it to push it back.  "How did you get that?" he asked, the richness of his voice returning gradually over the sentence as he settled back into his human body.

[miss_sanguine]

Everything was a blur of pain and noise at this point. He remained huddled in the fetal position for several minutes, wishing death on this jaguar, along with any other hallucination that wanted to come make him suffer.

When he could breathe again without having to gasp for air, he leaned back against his tree with a grimace, turning his face toward the animal.

Only to find that it wasn't an animal anymore. It was a person. And it spoke to him.

Ha. This was getting better and better.

"Do you mean . . . before you stepped on it?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Oh, spirits. He was going to pass out at this rate.

[Juno]

He had a sense of humor. Good. Julian just grinned, chuckling and patting the man on the shoulder. "Oh, how are you sure that was me, hm?" He plopped himself down, snickering. The poor guy looked like he was in so much pain, but he was having his fun.

"But yes, of course before I stepped on it, silly. How'd it happen? Hm? Tell me? I'm just dying to know."

[miss_sanguine]

He'd have been in a better mood toward this . . . whatever it was, if it hadn't just stepped on where he'd been stabbed. Now he could barely even think properly, not that he could in the first place. He knew he was in trouble with how dizzy he was feeling, the massive amount of blood-loss curtailing his capacity to even move. Under his pressing hands he could feel his warm life's liquid trickling down through his fingers and onto the grass below.

The pat on the shoulder went unacknowledged, Kabe putting all of his attention on not blacking out from the pain.

"Interesting use of words," he said, trying to smile but failing. "Would you believe me . . . if I said that I'd tripped?"

[Juno]

His eyes flickered, taking notice of the blood seeping down again. "Ah, oops..." He was grinning, though. A sadist he was not, but he had no idea why it amused him to see this man laid out and bleeding when he suspected him to be a murderer.

"Absolutely...not. My, that is an awful lot of blood. Tell me what really happened, hm?" Julian reached for Kabeyage's hand in an attempt to pry his fingers off so he could get a look at how bad it was now.

[miss_sanguine]

Hazy as his mind was, he knew a hallucination from a living being, and this was no hallucination. No figment of his imagination could be so solid and unyielding. Nor could a figment step on him and cause him severe pain.

Despite him not wanting the stranger to touch him, he didn't have much strength to stop him from moving his hand from his wound. He could, however, still speak. "I'd really rather you didn't touch it," he said. For some reason he felt mild panic at not having something pushing down on the pain, immediately trying to place his hand right back where it had been.

Who did this guy think he was, touching him like this and treating him as though he weren't sitting here in the woods bleeding? As much as he liked games, this was no game.

[Juno]

After getting a quick peek, Julian let go and let the man return pressure to his wound. Straightening up a bit, he shook his head as he looked up to see his pained expression. "I can tell it's pretty nasty... And how did this happen, again?" No, he wasn't going to let up that easily. Not him, not right now, not when he was the one with the power.

"Don't you think it'd be good to see a doctor? Get patched up? You look like hell," he observed, quirking a brow at him.

[miss_sanguine]

Nosy, wasn't he? Kabe may have been somewhat delusional, but he wasn't stupid. This guy was probably from Moonspear, had probably heard about the death of the girl, and was probably looking for proof in order to turn him in to the authorities. That was the last thing he needed.

Nonetheless, a doctor was needed. Or at least wanted. If a vital organ had been stabbed, he'd have died long before now, so he wasn't worried about that. Passing out in front of a stranger that couldn't seem to keep his nose out of business that wasn't his? That was something to be worried about.

"I probably do," he said, laughing weakly. "I definitely feel like hell. But I'm not exactly in the best condition to simply get up and walk to a physician's." Just the thought of moving made him queasy. No, he would stay right here, thanks.

[Juno]

Julian frowned deeply, grumpy that this man wouldn't tell him a thing. He sighed, looking him over again pondering what he could possibly do. It felt weird wanting to help him somehow, but it wouldn't feel right just leaving him there. He'd been mean, sure, but cruel he was not.

"I could carry you," he teased, cracking that silly, toothy grin again. "Bet that'd be fine, hm?" He wondered if he could even carry him at all, but that didn't matter, he was still having his fun. He'd certainly help if he could, but it was just too easy to sit here and nag at the guy.

[miss_sanguine]

"No, thanks."

The stranger sure was taking this awkward situation well. Here he was, a guy in the middle of the forest bleeding heavily from a mysterious and suspicious wound, denying help of any kind. Even if the guy didn't know anything about the death of the girl, Kabe would have thought he'd be taking it a lot less jokingly.

Then again, he wouldn't have. "I can handle this on my own," he lied. "I'd be up and running around if I felt like it." Something about saying that made him feel like he'd contradicted what he'd said before, but his head was starting to drift again, so he couldn't quite remember what he'd said prior to it. What had they even been talking about? Cats?

[Juno]

Julian just clicked his tongue, shaking his head as he got to his feet to stand before Kabeyage. Leaning over, he eyed the blood before turning his head to look back the way he'd come. "Hm, but that is a lot of blood. I'm sure you'd appreciate me letting the police know there's been a stabbing, right?" His grin was absolutely wicked as he tapped the guy's leg with the toe of his boot.

"I'm sure you won't be going anywhere anytime soon," he sneered. "But I'm quite sure you can take care of yourself for the time being...if you don't move too much."

[miss_sanguine]

"I didn't say it was a stabbing," Kabe said. Or had he? The conversation was mixing around in his head like freshly made soup. He couldn't grasp what he'd said or hadn't said.

With an effort, he sat up straighter against the tree, ignoring the stabs of pain that accompanied the movement, sucking in a sharp breath. "Ah--! Ah. See? I'm fine. The police don't need to know about a random stranger with a minor wound in the woods. Waste of their time."

Gods, he shouldn't have moved. He could be so stupid sometimes. At least the bleeding was lessening. He'd have to clean it out soon, not wanting it to get infected. "You wouldn't happen to have any water, would you?"

[Juno]

Julian just shrugged. "You're right, you didn't, but unless you got yourself attacked by some animal...I see no other explanation for the blood." Watching as the man tried to get himself adjusted, he snorted and shook his head.

Eyeing him when he asked for water, he crouched down in front of him again, knowing full well it would pain him to be moved at all at this point based on the tenderness with which he'd been moving, whenever he chanced it. Julian figured this guy probably felt pretty sick, too, at this point. "No water on me, no, it's not something I can shift with easily," he said offhandedly.

"But, I'd be willing to help you get to a town somewhere if you're in need of it," he finished with a knowing smirk.

[miss_sanguine]

Funny the guy should say that, considering he'd been an animal minutes ago and had attacked him. Kind of. The bleeding had stopped for the most part before the guy had stepped on him.

All he could do was squint as the stranger knelt down in front of him. It was hard enough seeing in the dark as it was, not counting his swimming vision. The guy looked a lot like his cat form in terms of coloring, his eyes exactly the same, maybe less cat-like. "A shifter, huh?" he said, wincing. "Fancy that."

Was this a cat that could turn into a human, or the other way around? Was he a mage just like himself, able to turn into any animal he pleased?

His response to the next thing was cut short, however, when a strange sight caught his eyes. Someone was standing just behind the stranger, form somewhat hidden by the shadows of the trees. It was the silhouette that tipped Kabe off to who he was; a hunkering man with a Trilby hat on his head.

With only time to curse under his breath, Kabe grabbed his nosy acquaintance by the scruff of his collar and pulled him down with all the strength he had, just as a glinting something whizzed through the air where he'd been kneeling and embedded itself in the trunk of the tree.

Crap, crap, crap!

[Juno]

Julian grinned smugly. "Yes, yes, a shifter. I'm quite proud of my work, I'm just so very majestic, don't you agree?! I bet you would, you seem the sort to appreciate the beauty of such a powerful thing." In his ramblings, though, he was too unfocused on their surroundings, which he'd assumed were relatively safe. The lurker of the shadows was entirely lost on him, and he only figured something was wrong when he heard the injured man mutter something.

Cocking his head, wondering what had changed, he yelped in surprise as he felt himself pulled forward. Clumsily falling beside the man, his head smacking against the tree truck, Julian hissed in a breath as he turned to right himself. Rubbing the forming goose egg on his temple, he glared at Kabeyage until he realized something jutting out from the trunk where his head had been just a moment before.

Eyes widening, he scrambled into a crouch as he searched the tree line for movement. "What was that?!" he whispered, voice slightly strained as he began to realize he'd almost been dealt a fatal blow just a moment prior. "I... I'll go check it out! You stay here!" And just like that he'd launched himself into the shadowy brush, not caring what he might say about it.

Quickly taking his jaguar form again, Julian slinked along, teeth bared, as he paced back and forth between the trees and Kabeyage, his eyes flickering around to watch for any signs of movement and his ears twitching every which way as he strained to hear something, anything in the trees beyond.