Spirits of the Earth

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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?

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."

"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?"

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.

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!

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.

His eyes scanned his surroundings frantically, the shadow of his attacker gone, moved back into the safety of the darkness and trees. It was hard to make anything out, the world around him shifting, the hints of tree branches appearing as snakes, unreal figments dancing in and out of sight. What was real and what wasn't?

Then his companion did something really stupid and dashed off into the shadows as well. "No—nk!" Pain sliced through his side, jagged shards of misery running up to brain and making it reel, as he'd shot forward to try and grab hold of the cat-man. His hand immediately went to his wound, as if to block the pain by pressing on it. "Dammit!"

The man was gone, also lost to the darkness. He was going to get himself killed, running into danger like a blind kitten. And Kabe was too weak to transform for any hopes of a fair defense. Hell, he couldn't even move. But he would have to do something, for the other man's sake if not for his own.

Apparently the bite he'd given the mage hadn't been fatal, hadn't even left him bleeding like Kabe now was. That worried him, unless the man he was dealing with also had the power to heal as well as kill. The memory of the sick, blackened wound on the woman fought its way through his thoughts and his heart sank deep into his stomach.

Not again. The shifter man may have been a pain in the ass, but Kabe wasn't going to allow another death to taint his hands. Not a death he could try and prevent, at least.

Adrenaline once again pumped through his body, clearing his thoughts to an extent. He could hear the jaguar walking back and forth through the foliage. "Get back here, dammit," he hissed. "Stay where I can see you."

Having no magical means to defend himself, Kabe reached up and grabbed the knife above his head with his free hand, yanking it out of the trunk with a small cry of pain as the effort sent another volley of pain his way. It looked to be the same knife that had been used to stab him earlier, though the blood had been washed off of the blade, its silver glint untarnished in the moonlight as he looked at it closely.

 "Here, kitty, kitty," he heard a voice jeer somewhere ahead. "Come play."

Julian was on a mission. Patrolling, he initially paid no mind to the sound of Kabeyage's demands behind him. Instead, he focused on finding the intruder, whoever it was that had tried to sink that hefty blade of that knife into his brain. Remaining as quite as he could, he searched. No matter how much he strained to catch a glimpse of the attacker or hear whatever it was leaving the area, Julian wasn't picking up anything and began to worry that he'd lost whatever it was. Then, he heard his new acquaintance's cry back by the tree.

Hissing and flattening his ears back flat against his skull, he bounded back over only to find the man alone, but holding the knife. Cocking his head, ears returning to a normal posture, he eyed the man in confusion. He could've sworn he'd been in trouble. Only a moment later, though, he heard a voice calling. It was a voice he was sure he hadn't heard before, which put him back into protective mode.

Snarling and baring his teeth to the darkness ahead of them as he turned around, giving Kabe his back, Julian's eyes flickered around in his desperate search for the owner of the voice. Growling in frustration as he was not able to locate it, he looked back to Kabeyage with concern in his eyes before taking a few steps closer toward the brush. He wasn't about to leave this guy to die, but it was obvious that something was after him, or so he thought, and he needed to protect the injured man still slumped against the tree.

Not giving it much more thought than that, the jaguar dropped himself lower to the ground and slinked off back into the dark and the brush. He was ready to face this, whatever it was. He was a jaguar! Nothing was going to hurt him! With that playing in his thoughts, Julian let forth another threatening snarl.

Waiting in the undergrowth was another jaguar, this one made of the shadows in which it hid. It would have been a perfect replica of the real jaguar, except for its black, foggy pelt. Tendrils of darkness whisked off of its body like smoke, sinking low into the ground around it. No pupils glared out at Julian, just misted schleras, opaque and lustrous.

The new cat hissed wildly, hunched back on powerful haunches, ready to spring. When its foe, Julian, stepped into view, it pounced, mouth wide, full of blackness, ready to swallow its prey.

Meanwhile, Kabe cursed again. The damned man wouldn't listen to him! How was he supposed to be of any help at all, or at least keep a good idea on where his attacker was, if there was a jaguar moving around making noise and confusing his already dulled senses?

He gripped the knife tightly in his left hand, eyes darting around. His other hand held his wrapped shirt tight against his bleeding wound. His nerves were on end, practically on fire, even if every other part of him felt numb. Only now did he realize that his body was shaking from cold, despite how warm it was outside.

Snarls and angry cat noises came out of the trees, echoing around him.

"I'll be wanting that back." The man was suddenly in front of him, gesturing at the knife that Kabe held. Under the hat, the man was smirking.

Oh damn, oh damn.

He was blind. This trap was something he never could have anticipated, never even thought was possible. Slinking onward, he didn't notice the shadowy figure until it was far too late. Catching sight of movement in his peripheral vision, he began a rumbling growl that was cut short as he jumped to the side in an attempt to evade the pouncing creature. It only took him a split second to realize it was a jaguar, though, another surprise as it latched onto his shoulder instead of the throat it'd been aiming for.

Struck, Julian immediately dropped to roll them to the forest floor. He was in a bit of a frenzied panic because he couldn't make out any sort of definite shape as the shadows cast down upon them blended in perfectly with the cat attacking him. Yowling, he kicked at the thing's belly, or at least what he thought was its belly, and biffed and scratched as best he could as they tumbled around.

Practically fighting blind and having no points of reference really besides what he could already feel of the dark creature, Julian did his best to latch onto the thing. He bit wherever he could, not merely nipping but aiming to kill, to tear at, to spill blood if it had it. His claws scraped at whatever surfaces he could reach, but he felt earth and tree and plants just as much as the beast attacking him. He had no idea what damage he might or might not do, but he was certainly trying his best to strike where he could. This cat wasn't going down without a fight.

The shadow beast felt no pain, only fury. As hard as its foe fought, it fought back just as hard, screaming its rage in Julian's face as it scratched and bit and kicked. Each blow to its body damaged it more than it damaged Julian, shadows raked away from its form, leaving it incomplete, yet still it attacked.

It went for any part of its prey that it could, not caring if it nicked a vital point or not. A distraction was all it was, a snarling ball of dark distraction. On its paws were claws as sharp as needles, its teeth daggers. Try as it might, though, Julian was more experienced in his form, while the beast was not but mist. Openings for attack were often lost as it tried to avoid the assaults from the other cat. Its life force was fading away with each scratch and bite it received.

- - -

Instead of relinquishing his only weapon, Kabe pulled it close to his chest, grip still tight. He gave a small laugh, putting on a friendly face though he felt anything but friendly. "Did I ever mention that I like your hat? I think I did. Back in the alley. Before you killer her."

The man took a step forward, the same smirk still on his face. His dark eyes looked empty, however, not holding the emotion that his lips portrayed. He looked like he had when he'd entered the alleyway, not a single mark or tear on his body or clothes from the scuffle that Kabe had had with him.

There was a new weapon in the man's hand: a black dagger that Kabe recognized almost at once. It practically sang with hunger, an almost haunting high-pitched ring, the same noise Kabe had heard it make right before it slashed into the woman's skin and left her dying. It made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

Was this how he was going to die? He'd planned on kicking the bucket in some bar, drunk as a skunk, with three women draped over his shoulder. Even a sexually transmitted disease had been a possibility. Not this.

And where was Cat Man? Were the noises coming from the forest his making? It sounded like two rabid animals were trying to kill one another.

- - -

After minutes of fighting, the shadow cat was all but disintegrated. Too many hits to its intangible body left it fading away. It stood facing Julian, hissing and spitting, before fading completely, dropping back into the shadows from which it had been born.

Scratches and scrapes flared out all along his frontside as this shadow cat clawed and bit at him as it threw its weight against him. He never winced once, though, just fought on. He had to. He needed to. There was no way he was going to let himself die of this ambush.

Swiping his claws at the thing wherever he found room to, Julian attacked relentlessly. His screeching snarls of fury echoed through the forest as he continued to beat at his attacker. He noticed that it was gradually changing, that solid surface was turning to air, but he tried not to let it distract him. Eventually, though, his work paid off.

As the thing dragged itself away from him, he followed, but in the blink of an eye it had faded away and was nowhere to be seen. Panting, his bright, pink tongue showed as he tried to catch his breath even as he searched the brush for the mysterious creature. Strangely enough, though, it was nowhere to be found. Not wanting to stick around for it to return, though, he turned himself around to run back towards Kabeyage, intending to tell him what had happened and that they were safe now, or so he thought.

Weaving in and out of the trees as he loped onward, he could feel small trickles of blood along his body. He'd received blows all over. His chest and neck, his arms and legs, his shoulders, his belly, and his back all bore scratches, scuffs or bites. He knew he'd end up sore, but at the same time he felt great pride in feeling like he'd rid them of danger in dispatching the creature. Still, his focus was getting back to Kabe, who he knew would have trouble moving on his own right now.

As he neared, though, he felt something else, smelled something else. It was wrong. Something had changed. Eyes darting around unnecessarily as he drew closer and broke the tree line, they immediately settled on the stranger in front of his acquaintance. Julian failed to catch the glint of the knife's blade, though.

Lunging forward, he remained as quiet as possible. Planting his back paws firmly on the packed dirt of the road as he bounded onto it, Julian launched himself without thinking. Snarling dangerously, he aimed for the stranger's legs, hoping to take him out by merely throwing his jaguar weight around.

Sounds of a large, panting creature trekking through the bushes came to Kabe's ears. He hoped it was the annoying guy, that the Cat Man had somehow survived whatever encounter he'd had in the woods. But while the noises of the animal came loud to Kabe, his foe didn't seem to take notice.

"Not going to transform this time?" The man chuckled. "Or can you not, dying as you are? Have some restrictions to your powers?"

"Hardly a restriction," Kabe said, trying to sound like he knew what the heck he was saying while maintaining his smile. "I simply don't feel like killing you."

More smirking, clearly not buying his bluff. "That's all right. Makes it easier for me." The man held up the knife, twirling it through his fingers while staring at it. It still sang, louder now. "An unnecessary witness, but a witness just the same."

And then, out of the foliage came Cat Man. There was a sense of relief upon seeing that he was alive, but the relief instantly vanished when Kabe saw him get into an attacking position. He couldn't really be that stupid.

Kabe's attacker sensed the cat, too, eyes moving to the side without turning. He was waiting for the attack.

Yes. Cat Man really was that stupid.

Before Kabe could cry out a warning, the jaguar leapt, snarling ferociously. And just as quickly, the man in the hat twisted around, blade ready and poised to make impact with furry chest. But Kabe couldn't let him use that blade, not if he wanted any chance of saving either of them.

Not bothering to think, not bothering to breathe, he thrust the knife in his hand as hard as he could at the man's back--which, admittedly, wasn't as hard as he would have liked. It was hard to throw anything when sitting on the ground against a tree. But it had as much of an effect as he could have wished for.

With a dull thud, the knife made contact with the man's leg. The guy gave a cry of rage and pain, back arching, then swerved out of the jaguar's way.

Well. He'd managed to save Cat Man. But now he was out of a weapon himself.

Not the smartest thing to do, Kabe, he thought to himself.

Those critical seconds felt like slow motion as he became airborne. He saw the man turn ad finally caught the shine of the metal of the blade in the moonlight. Sure he was about die, seeing the thing aimed for his chest, Julian knew he had to do what damage he could in that precious moment. Suddenly, though, the man had turned again, twisting his body in such an unnatural way.

Seeing the look on his face, as if he'd been struck somehow, Julian's own expression faltered before he gave his fiercest roar and aimed to follow through, reaching with his front paws for the man's legs. His mouth of sharp teeth open. He threw himself down on the man, this stranger he now knew was armed. Going for his thigh, the great cat tore and scratched however he could.

He wasn't stopping there, though. Leaning back on his back legs again, Julian jumped up and aimed to grab at the man's neck with his big paws, his fangs poised to attack and bite wherever he could at his neck and shoulders. He didn't notice, though, that Kabe was unarmed now as he tried to drag the attacker, tried to get him away and to the ground if he could.

Julian had no idea he was dancing with such danger, no idea just what kind of person he was messing with.

Ah, damn it all. Normally he would find this situation funny, would have laughed as he watched a big cat attack a man that had more hidden power in his left pinky than the jaguar did in its whole body. He'd have practically peed his pants when the man's Trilby hat fell off his head in the brawl—and okay, he did almost smile at that one—but right now, right now as he lay there in terrible pain, bleeding to death, it was just annoying.

Sure, he'd attacked the man as a wolf earlier, but he'd made sure that weapon of his was no longer a problem. He used his brain in life-and-death struggles, however fun they might be. Cat Man appeared to go feral when it came to fighting. Did he lose control of his human self when transformed, or was he really that stupid?

Knowing he would regret it later, Kabe used both hands to get himself to his feet as angry cat noises and pained man noises continued on in the background. It was slow work, painstakingly slow, and almost too much for him. Everything—noises, vision, thoughts—focused on this one action that normally wouldn't have been so damned difficult. All that mattered was being able to stand. And it hurt like no other, too. He almost lost his resolve, wanting to simply pass out and let fate decide everything. The tree was his new, closest, most intimate friend, and he clutched at it like his life depended on it. He felt like a blasted tree-hugging vagrant, hand clutching at the bark with all his strength while his other hand tried to hold his side, which felt like at any moment his insides were going to spill out of.

Blackness welled up in his eyes, head feeling light, but he willed himself, forced himself with all the strength he could muster, to not pass out, nor throw up.

In front of him, Cat Man clawed and scratched and bit, all the while not taking notice of the black blade in the other's hand. The man, while screaming in terrible pain, had not gone down yet. Words of another language, thick with a strange accent, were coming out of his mouth through his grunts of pain, and Kabe saw, in the darkness, an indistinguishable shape forming up out of the ground, white, bloodless eyes gleaming.

Julian hardly noticed the man's mutterings, not connecting their importance to what had happened earlier. He was focused, attacking however and whenever he could and absolutely mauling his victim. It wasn't enough, though, not nearly.

The cat had underestimated this man's power considerably, surprised that he wasn't going down no matter how much he let him have it. Snarling ferociously between bites, his ears entirely flattened as his expression twisted to something entirely feral. Still beating at the man and digging his claws into him to get a better grip, Julian failed to notice something forming in the shadows again, at least until he heard unnatural hissing.

Turning his head, distracted for a split second, he caught sight of a gigantic python just as it was dashing over to the scene of fighting. Growling at it did nothing as it was upon him quickly, the thing latching onto the back of his neck as its body coiled around him. Panicked, Julian tried to beat the thing off of himself, rolling and rolling and rolling further away from the dangerous man as he attempted to crush the creature.

Roaring did nothing but help it, allowing it to tighten its grip further, but he was able to make swipes at it with his back legs. He ended up kicking frantically at it, determined to not die so easily as being suffocated. That was when he caught sight of Kabeyage standing by the tree. Narrowing his eyes best he could as a cat, he pounded a paw down on the ground in frustration. He was supposed to stay! He was the hurt one and he was supposed to be protecting them!

Chancing a warning growl, he stared Kabe down as he continued to kick and scratch at the shadowy snake creature, his eyes pleading with him to get himself away. He could see the physical weakness, though. The hand still pressing at his injury was not lost on Julian, but he could still hope at least one of them would make it out alive.

A snake? Was he hallucinating again? He couldn't remember shadow creatures in his fight.

"Right," he muttered under his breath, watching as Cat Man struggled for his life in the grip of the giant black snake. It was time to join the fray.

The effort might kill him, he knew. He didn't know if he could even transform when this weak, seeing as he'd never tried it before. All he knew was that he wasn't going to let Cat Man die. The way he saw it, the way to get rid of the shadow creature was to render the conjurer immobile. Or at least that's what he hoped.

With one last deep breath, Kabe closed his eyes and centered all of his attention on his body. Every detail pulsed through his mind's eye like heartbeats of color. There was his wound, a deep, sickly shade of red, a blight on his otherwise perfect form. His body temperature was low from loss of blood, his senses dulled. Common sense screamed at him to not do what he was about to do, but he pushed it aside.

Slowly but surely his body began to change. Weakened arms thickened into trunks of golden-white fur. Great bushes of thick hair bloomed all around his face as it stretched into a wide snout. Teeth elongated, grew to the size of his fingers. His hands became paws, wide as plates. He bent forward onto his knees as his spine realigned to fit his new form.

Now standing there in all its majestic beauty was a lion, its color pale. He shook his shaggy, white-blond mane.

What power he felt! Though at the same time it took all his strength of mind to keep the transformation. Every part of him wanted to go back, go back to his other form so he could rest. He didn't know how long he could hold it, so without waiting he bounded forward, ignoring everything else.

The man went down easily under his weight, swearing loudly as Kabe pressed one heavy paw on the man's chest and the other on the arm that held the weapon. It pleased Kabe to hear him flustered, made him bare his teeth in a wide grin. Didn't think I had the strength to join in, did you? he thought. Well, here I am! The great Kabe!

Nevermind that his knees were shaking from the effort of standing. Casting a glance back at Cat Man as he fought with the giant snake, he flicked his tail and growled.

- - -

The shadow snake, unlike the shadow jaguar, did not put its focus on fighting back. Instead it used its solid form to squeeze, to constrict Julian until he could no longer breathe. It aimed to break his bones, smother his lungs, wring the blood out of this cat body like a wet sponge.

It hissed, tightening its hold, striking at the cat's face as it held on, coils spinning around its prey while its grip became tighter.

Fighting the snake twisted around him, he snarled and hissed and growled his anger and rage instinctively, but it only aided the thing even further in its efforts as he apparently couldn't learn from the first time. The great python only constricted further, the pressure on his lungs a crushing force that he tried desperately to squeeze himself away from.

When the thing started striking at his face, though, he began swiping at it, claws occasionally getting in a blow. As he finally caught hold of the thing just behind its head, though, Julian let loose on it, tearing at it roughly. The snake didn't loosen up, even as the cat dug its fangs into its body, but as it was thrashed around by the jaguar dropping to roll again, the tables began to turn.

Yanking every which way he could, Julian was finally able to get the shadow creature to begin to fade out, its grip loosening on him as he shook it all about, thrashing and jerking around in a crazed and determined to kill fashion. Eventually, the snake faded all together, and as he tried to catch his breath, his lungs burning from all the pressure that had been weighing them down, he turned to look for Kabeyage. The man was nowhere to be found.

It only took him a split second to realize that there was a lion, though. A big one, and it was on top of the man with the knife. Unaware that this was Kabe, and for all he knew it'd eaten him, Julian launched himself over as soon as he'd caught his breath.

Bumping into the big lion, he trampled over the legs of the man on the ground, claws digging into his flesh. Wait...

He stopped. Eyeing the lion, noticing it had an unusually light color to its coat, he took a step back. Who was this?! And why was there a lion in the forest, of all places?! Growling, Julian figured he could figure this out later, though, as he knew he should be focused on attacking the creature who had already posed a threat to him first. Swooping dangerously close, Julian snapped up the man's wrist on his armed side and immediately dug his teeth in roughly before beginning to twist and yank at bare flesh.

The bump from the other cat almost sent him sprawling. Were he not on four paws, he would have fallen over.

In this form he could not only see Cat Man's high-strung persona, he could smell it. It was a bitter sort of scent that made him edgy, burning the back of his throat. The lion part of him snarled.

Then the spotted cat's short attention span wavered, and Kabe watched in horror as Cat Man bit down on the man's wrist where the guy still held the knife.

Idiot!

How the man wasn't dead after being mauled by this energetic feline was beyond him, but the fact that he wasn't meant that the two of them were dealing with more than just a mortal man, and it meant he was still as big a threat.

Screaming in agony, the man twisted the blade around in his mutilated hand and pushed it with what effort he could into Cat Man's face. There was a dreadful hissing sound, familiar to Kabe's ears, as it apparently made contact through flesh, and the knife seemed to sing in jubilation. Roaring, Kabe pulled back his front paw and raked it across the attacker's face as hard as he could, listening to him continue to scream over the sound of the singing knife.

Thinking he was feeling a sense of struggle as the man flexed the muscles in his arm to turn to knife around, Julian blindly kept at his task. He did, at least, until he felt a sharp burning sensation, and he realized he was being stabbed.

Roaring, he jumped away from the man, swiping pitifully at the side of his face where he'd been cut. He wasn't able to see it, but he could hear a sharp hissing sound beginning to die down. It was at the edge of his cheek, just barely forward of his left ear, and it burned like hell. Yowling, unable to get the horrid pain away, he sat back on his haunches and panted as his eyes darted to watch the lion attacking the man.

All at once he began to feel a numbness, though. While the cut wasn't as deep as it could have been, it covered a considerable distance that would be a few inches long on his human face. Gradually, the tissue was turning grey, and then black. The fur high on his jaw had disintegrated to reveal the darkening slash on him. The jaguar whined, unsure of what had just happened as he sat there, swiping at the odd-feeling spot on his head still.

The man was bleeding all over the place, his face mutilated, his wrist torn to shreds. He appeared to have been turned inside out, blood the only thing distinguishable. He was moaning and cursing, trying to recite more incantations through a gurgling mouthful of blood. Kabe wouldn't have thought it possible, but the chant did seem to be working, wounds healing themselves. It explained why the wolf bite Kabe had given him had disappeared earlier.

Having heard enough, Kabe closed his eyes and swept his barbed claws through the man's neck, feeling warm blood gush onto his leg and stain his fur. After five seconds, the man made no more noises, lying there on the ground as still as the night. He was dead.

Kabe still didn't understand why the man had felt the need to come back. He could have been long gone from here, safe, a free murderer. And he hadn't fought back very well, either, relying on his shadow creatures this time.

By now Kabe was once again human, crouched over the dead body, panting heavily.

"Are you . . . all right?" he asked, turning to face Cat Man, who was yowling and pawing at his face.

Not even paying attention as the lion put the man out of his misery for good, Julian whimpered and twisted all over as he sat there uncomfortably with the gash on his face turning to rotten flesh. When he heard a voice, a familiar voice at that, he snapped his eyes up and saw Kabeyage there. He just stared in confusion for a moment before shifting back to his human form.

The cut was clean and trailed from his hairline in front of his ear to just above his jaw, but the flesh surrounding it was almost entirely black now. "GODS this itches!! And where did you go?! Why weren't you around just now, I really could have used your--!" He looked over at the dead man, realizing the lion was gone.

"HEY! Where the hell did that thing go?! It was so big...and a weird color... ACK this hurts!" Julian still rubbed at his face, so uncomfortable with the skin gradually rotting away even as he spoke. "I think... doctor would be good... do you smell that?"

Kabe stared. The wound was an ugly one, all right. Black, dead-looking. The night did not help to hide how horrible it looked.

Yet despite how bad a night this was turning out to be, despite the fact that Cat Man was twitching around in pain and complaining, Kabe started to laugh. An irrational laugh that started low, like a growl, and grew until tears formed in his eyes. He felt no more pain, couldn't even feel his own fingers and toes.

Then his new-found friend asked about the light-colored lion and he lost it completely, hunkered down on the ground, long hair shielding his face from view like a cage as he faced the dirt and roared like a madman.

They were alive!

When his laughter died down, he did not look up from the ground. Still he grinned, wide. "I'm afraid," he said between light chuckles, "you're on your own . . . finding a doctor. Sorry." And with that, he promptly fainted, thudding to the ground.

Julian just stared at him in his puzzlement. Why was he laughing? There was absolutely nothing funny about all of this as far as he was concerned! He just glared at him until he realized Kabe was passing out. "AH! HEY!"

Scrambling over, he dragged him away from the dead body and the knife that he'd been stabbed with to deposit the limp body back by the tree he'd originally found him by. "Ugh...why now?" Torn between wanting to help and knowing he himself also needed medical attention, Julian's face tightened with indecision for a while as he crouched by his new "friend."

"I don't even know your name!" he whined after a while, ruffling his own hair in frustration as he stood. "But I'll do you one good...just don't die." And with that he was off back to Moonspear.

~~~

Intending to return with whatever doctor he found for Kabeyage, he covered his left cheek with a hand as he walked the streets.

After being treated, which had hurt like a bitch getting the rotten flesh cut out and the good tissue stitched up along the edge of his face, Julian began to talk to the doctor, hoping to coax him into going out and treating Kabe in the middle of the forest. As they were speaking, though, there was a knock at the door. It was the police. As the doctor opened the door, he saw that a couple of officers were carrying Kabe in and setting him on the bed Julian had occupied just a few minutes prior.

Surprised as he heard their short explanation about finding someone they were looking for, claiming Kabe to be a "second victim" of sorts, Julian eyed the limp figure on the bed. He wondered if his suspicions had been correct, that this man had somehow been involved in that murder earlier in the night. But then, the officer speaking with the doctor claimed that the man they were looking for was dead. Wait...the one in the forest? The one that attacked me?

Things were so blurred and mushed together, and he was having a hard time thinking through the dull pain of raw flesh being exposed right now, though he was sure it would hurt even more in the morning.

Crashing in a chair near the treatment bed, Julian eventually drifted off to sleep as the doctor spent a considerable amount of time that night cleaning out Kabeyage's wound and stitching him up as well. He could tell that this long-haired man had lost quite a bit of blood, which worried him, but he knew it wasn't going to be fatal for him.

It certainly was none of his business, but he wondered what had happened to these two men, as the first patient seemed to be connected somehow to the second, but he wasn't sure how. He would let them stay the night, to heal enough that they could walk out the next day if they wished, but he left them up in the treatment room when he was done to sleep off whatever it was that they'd gone through.

Voices hummed through his thoughts, indecipherable. His mind recognized the words but couldn't grasp them, phrases sifting away like sand through spread fingers. At times he thought he understood snippets of conversation. "Been here three days," and "lost a lot of blood," and even "stabbed clean through. Just missed the kidney, lucky devil."

But the words were meaningless to him. Whomever they were talking about was of no concern to him. He preferred lying there in the blankets of cloud which his mind had conjured for him, no worries, no pain, no thinking. Until finally his consciousness pushed to the fore, up through the haze, forcing him to wakefulness. He didn't like that very much. Being awake meant pain. Somehow he knew that.  

"Nnn." Yes. Pain. Down on his right side. It was faint, as though dulled by something, but it was there.

Unfamiliar noises met his ears: hums, a silence too profound for the outdoors, distant talking. He lay on something soft, something that rubbed between his fingers like fine silk. A tart, sterile smell came to his nose and made him scrunch up his face.

He couldn't be outside, no. He was inside. Inside where, though?

Kabe wracked his brains, trying to recall where he'd been last, but nothing presented itself to him. All he could remember was an alleyway . . . a knife that sang . . .

And then her face burst before him. The woman! The forest!

His eyes wrenched open. Everything was white, blinding. He couldn't be dead. Then he wouldn't be around anymore, right?

A room. He was in a room. A spotlessly clean room, metal objects glinting from suspicious-looking jars. A clinic, maybe? How had he gotten here?

He tried to sit up, but the pain in his side intensified, making him grunt. When he looked down at himself, he saw that he was no longer covered in blood. His skin was clean, bare. His stab wound was stitched up like a doll, though more professional.

That was nice of them, he thought to himself with a smirk.

Where the hell was Cat Man?

"Uh . . . Excuse me!" he voice was dry, weak, having not been used in so long. "Anybody out there?"

Julian had awoken that next day feeling stiff and sore, so sore. It'd taken a lot of self control to not rub at the healing skin, thoughts of how horridly it had itched making him feel like he should do something with it. He would be a good boy and let it heal properly, though.

He was concerned for his new friend, though. The doctor had told him how bad his injury was and just how much blood he thought he'd lost on further examination in the light of day. He hoped the man was resilient.

After a bit of pleading on his part, the doctor decided to let Julian stick around. Coming and going through the doctor's home as he went about his daily business, he'd returned for good every evening only to be disappointed and find the man still out. At least he was alive, though. Watching him every day, eyeing his chest as if he expected him to stop breathing at any moment, Julian had waited patiently.

Now it was several days out from there arrival. Sitting in the small kitchen down the hall, tapping away at the cup of steaming tea before him, Julian was getting nervous. What if this guy never woke up? What if he didn't remember anything if he did? He furrowed his brow at this thought. I really would like to know what happened with that lion.

It was then that he'd heard something faint in the distance. Eyes dialating as he lifted his head, he sure there'd been a sound at the other side of the hall, where Kabeyage was. His chair scraping against the wooden floor as he scrambled to his feet, the shifter trotted down the hall and cautiously opened the door, peeking his head through to look at the laid-up man. He grinned.

"Well, hello, hello!" he said, cheery as he committed and strode into the room, softly closing it behind him. The stitched, healing flesh along the edge of his face was neatly drawn up but still quite noticeable. "How are you? Feeling any better? Do you remember me? You don't feel sick, do you?" His eyes flickered to the empty bucket on the floor beside the bed.

"Or maybe you're thirsty?" He looked to modest, wooden platter on the small table in the corner, its contents a simple glass and small pitcher of water.

From his spot on the bed, eyes gazing up at the ceiling, he heard the door open. A soft sound, almost inaudible over the buzzing he heard. Good. Someone had heard him.

Then a loud, over-cheery screech crashed through the peaceful quiet. His ears rang from the disturbance. He cried out as his head nearly split in two.

That voice, as recognizable as it was agonizing, almost killed him. Or so it felt. No wonder the room had been left hushed—all of a sudden he felt like he was having the worst hangover of his life. "Stop yelling, would you?" he groaned, moving his hand to his head, which expounded far more energy than it should have. He was going to throw up if this guy wasn't careful.

But then water was mentioned and he realized how dry his mouth felt. His tongue lay in a waterless desert, the roof of his mouth made of sand. There was nothing more in the world that he wanted than water.

"Thirsty?" he said, laughing even though it hurt to do so. "I'm desiccated. Get me a drink, would you? And would you mind telling me how the heck I got here? Or even where the heck I am?"

Hearing his voice again was enough to calm him down, or at least enough so he wasn't speaking so loudly in his excitement to see the guy conscious for once. Something he'd said seemed to catch his attention, though, which Julian waited eagerly for. He just grinned that goofy grin at the request, crossing the room.

As he poured water from the full pitcher, he looked over his shoulder as he listened to the rest of Kabe's questions, which left him sloshing water onto his hand. Wincing, he looked back down to his task until he'd gotten the glass full. Bringing it back over to him, holding it out, he shrugged with his unburdened shoulder.

"Well, the police brought you, ya know. I was going to bring someone out to you." He huffed a bit for this, as if he were disappointed he hadn't been the hero. "But they found you out there, I guess, and had enough brains to know you were injured. We're in Moonspear. In a doctor's home. He's nice, by the way. Good man. Friendly. Gracious." He paused, looking down at him.

"Do you remember anything that happened?" he asked cautiously before his brow furrowed at a particular memory. "And who are you?"

Grabbing the cup, he downed the water in three giant gulps, some of it spilling down his chin and onto his bare skin. More. He needed more. Thirst gnawed at him, wrenching his stomach into a twisted fruit. He held the cup out sharply, though listened as his new friend spoke.

The police? Damn. They'd caught up to him after all. At least they were kind enough to let him heal before hauling his framed butt off to jail.

He laughed at the irony, arm coming back to his side. What would his parents say, knowing he'd be in jail again? And this time for a longer time than what was given to one for simply stealing.

"Most of it," he said, staring up at the ceiling with a smile. "Not much after the whole fight fiasco." He'd killed the guy; he remembered that. Wasn't too often he shed someone's life blood. "And how rude of me," he added, "for not introducing myself as I bled to death. I'm Kabeyage."

He glanced around, eyes landing back on the shifter. "So, Cat Man," he said. "What made you stick around? Your face seems to be healing nicely."

Rolling his eyes for Kabe's outstretched hand, Julian took the cup again to refill it for him. As he returned with it and held it out again for him, he felt a fake smile twitching to his lips. "Fight... Uh-huh. Yeah, you sure did fight so much." Please, you were just laying there while I got all scratched up! Hmph! And then wandered off while a lion finished him off!

As he listened to the man, though, this Kabeyage as he now knew, his face slowly twisted to an angry frown. "For your information I got this trying to rescue you!" he said shortly, pointing in an irritated fashion at the stitching along his cheek. "And don't call be 'Cat Man!'' he added, almost whining. "I have a name, you know! Julian..."

Ruffling his own hair and then smoothing it out again, the shifter's face looked quite the part of an unsung hero. "Well, Kabeyage, I wanted to make sure you actually bothered to wake up again, and, uh, there was a lion before... But it disappeared! I thought it'd eaten you, uh, until you came back... Did you see it?"

Again the water sped down his throat like a waterfall, nothing left mere seconds after the cup touched his lips. The final gulp satiated him, the cup now dropped to the floor.

His companions words confused him. He sounded bitter, sarcastic. What did he mean by it? Of course he'd fought, and well, too! For one on the verge of death, he thought he'd done even better than well. He was a damned warrior!

Kabeyage the Warrior. He liked the sound of it. He grinned.

"And what a fine battle scar it is!" he said enthusiastically, eyes closed as he smiled wide. "I thank you kindly--Julian, was it? Feh." He scrunched his face up. "I like Cat Man, myself. Catchy, cool. I bedded a girl named Julian once, and I'd rather not look to you as a woman. Though," he added, opening his eyes and staring out into space at the fine memory. "She had a lovely set of breasts."

He turned to Julian as the man finished speaking. "Very kind of you, checking up on me like that. A true friend." Then he stared. Could the man be serious? "A . . . lion?" A mischievous smile suddenly lit his face. "Can't say that I saw one, no. You sure you weren't low on blood as well?"

"Then don't look to me as a woman," he growled under his breath, huffy now at the ding to his pride. Such a silly nickname over his own, given name? Ridiculous! Now the man was saying he hadn't even seen the lion, though! How could that be? He was there, he was gone, and then back again. How had he not seen a large, odd-looking lion in the middle of nowhere in a forest!?

Lips twitching, unsure if he should scowl or smile for what he said, Julian ended up shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at the floor. Maybe he had been mistaken. Maybe there wasn't a lion. No! You bumped into it! You felt it, you know it was there!

"I wasn't the one bleeding half to death... I'm sure I saw it, though." His voice wasn't all that confident, though. "Are you...sure?" he asked, looking up to the man again. "I mean, it was huge! And it was so...light. Almost white, but not really. I'd never seen anything like it before, I was hoping..." Rubbing at his neck, Julian turned to pace the length of the bed for a short while, unsure of what to say about it now. Surely this man thought he was crazy. "Do you at least remember the jaguar?"

This was proving to be too much fun. Kabe had determined back in the woods that Cat Man wasn't very bright, and this only proved it further. How could he not have made the connection? The clues were all there!

And Kabe wasn't lying, either. He hadn't seen a lion, seeing as how he'd been the lion.

"I'm quite sure," he said matter-of-factly with a nod. "And of course I saw the jaguar," he said, a little more bitterly. "You stepped on me as the jaguar. How could I forget that?"

He reached up and tugged at his light-colored locks of hair. They were greasy from lack of wash. "Did the lion happen to have coloring similar to this?"

Smirking, glad he'd remembered him, never mind why exactly, Julian stopped his pacing as the man gestured to his hair. His hair? A color like that? Leaning closer, peering at him suspiciously for a moment, he nodded slowly. "Just...like that. Exactly like that, actually." How odd. What a coincidence this was turning out to be!

"Are you sure you don't know anything about this?" he asked, bright eyes flickering to look at Kabe's own blue ones. Somehow, they also seemed familiar.

He thought Julian might actually have caught on until the man asked his next question. Dropping the strands of hair, he stared at him, smile faltering, but only a little.

"Nothing at all," he said. How could man, a man who was a shifter himself, not recognize the obvious hints of a fellow shifter? "But how could I, if you say I left for a small moment? Perhaps the lion left before I came back."

Tiredness pulled at his eyelids, wanting to pull him back into sleep. According to Cat Man, he'd already slept for quite some time, but he felt like he'd only been out for a few hours. He blinked, trying to fend it off.

"When are they taking me to prison?" he asked, voice slurring a little.

Frowning, Julian wasn't quite sure what to think of all of this now. He must be hiding something! That must be it! Hiding...but what? Indeed, he wasn't the brightest, but the shifter had good intentions.

Staring for a moment more before he straightened up again, Julian walked back around the bed to sit himself in the chair on the other side of it. That was when he heard Kabe speak of prison. "Prison?" he perked up. "Are you needing to go to prison for some reason?" Well this was highly suspicious, indeed! He was definitely curious about this.

The insistent buzzing, like thousands of little bumblebees beating about the room, droned on, its sound swelling until it filled the whole space around him. Julian had made no motion toward making it stop, nor did he give any hint of hearing it. A normal noise heard in a doctor's house? He wouldn't know. All he knew was that it made him sleepy, his eyes drooping. He could barely keep hold of his consciousness.

"Yes, yes. Prison, Cat Man," he managed, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as he tried to maintain his speech. "The night patrol thinks I've killed someone, and you said they'd caught me. Usually when a man is thought to have killed someone, he goes to prison--and what is that atrocious buzzing?"

Now he couldn't open his eyes. He was falling into an open void, the buzzing all he could hear. Try as he might, he couldn't open his mouth, the effort too strenuous. All he could manage was a low humming sound.

Then he was out.

"'Cat Man' is not my name, goddammit! It's Julian! Julian!" he grumbled, crossing his arms and turning away as he listened to the rest of the explanation. Thinks he killed someone? Ah, so he really was the one they were looking for...but why didn't they say anything about it when they dropped him off? They just said they'd found him out there and...that other guy, too.

This was mighty puzzling. And what was this about a buzzing? Lifting his head a bit, he tried to listen, but he couldn't hear a thing that might be taken for buzzing. Turning back, opening his mouth to tell Kabe about what the police had said when they'd brought him in, he only saw that his eyes were closed. Stopping himself, he eyed him suspiciously for a few moments. "No, you aren't sleeping again, are you?!" Standing, he leaned over him, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. "Oh, for goodness sake! So lazy! How can you be that tired, you just slept for days! Literally!" It was no use, though, this wasn't going to get him anywhere.

Suddenly, though, an idea began to form.

He thinks he's going to prison? Fine. Quickly slipping from the room, he went to employ the doctor's help in his plan. He realized, though, that the man probably wouldn't be too keen for having his rooms rearranged and returned almost immediately. He would leave this one a mystery for him.

Taking out the doctor's equipment, armful by armful, Julian quickly emptied the room of all things it should have properly held save for the bed Kabeyage was on. Dragging furniture, he left it all strewn about the kitchen with no intentions of moving it anytime soon. So childish.

After rifling through drawers and finding none of what he needed, Julian slipped out to the markets. When he returned some time later, though, his arms were ladened with heavy rolls of the darkest fabrics he'd found and, his prize, a weighty two-way shackle. Ah, he was a child.

Sneaking back to the room, Julian stuffed the key in his pocket and snapped each cuff to Kabe's wrists. Shaking his head and giving a short snort, he made quick work of covering up the window near the corner to darken the room and then, with difficulty, drape the rest of the stuff along the walls to make it practically pitch black. Returning to the bed, he snatched up the blankets covering the sleeping man before exiting the room. He locked the door behind him.

Setting down his bundle with the rest of the room's things in the kitchen, he finally allowed himself a chuckle. He would wait. See if this holds his attention.

Several hours later he came back to consciousness. Or he thought he lay awake. Hard to tell. When he opened his eyes, it was to darkness, as if the clean white room he'd been in earlier--how long ago had that been? Minutes? Days?--had turned into a dark cave. It still smelled clean; the air sterile, never having met the outdoors, but everything else was different.

Where was he?

Upon trying to move his hands to pull some of his dirty hair out of his face, Kabe found that something hindered them. Something heavy, bulky, only allowing him to lift his arms a few inches from his body. It clanked with the effort as it moved.

Chains. His hands were shackled.

"Ah." Smiling, he blew what strands of hair of he could away from his eyes. Confusion bubbled up inside of him, laced with mild amusement. Movement of his legs, painful as it the action was, let him know that his legs were free. Only his hands confined.

If this was a prison, it was a nice one--and a stupid one. Comfy beds, no cellmates, stupid officers leaving him capable of escape.

Or they know I'm too weak to try and escape, he thought.

Damn, but it was cold. Nice beds, yes. Warm blankets to go with the nice beds, no. Cold, sterilized air bit at his bare skin, stinging the area around his stitches.

What was he supposed to do now? Go back to sleep?

Staying in the kitchen wasn't an option for long. Julian was fidgety with his giddy stupidity. It was only a matter of time before he crept back down the hall and hunkered over to listen for any sound from within.

Starting a bit for the sound of clanking chain, he found he was hard-pressed to not give himself away as he listened for more. But then...there was hardly any more. Frowning, the excitement of his fun lost, the man straightened a bit. What?! He isn't scared? He's not freaking out? Ugh...so much for that.

"DOOR! ...NOW!" he barked, trying to make his voice gruffer than it actually was and slamming a boot into the bottom of it for emphasis.

Kabe had just decided that sleep was the better option compared to staring at the dark ceiling when he heard someone outside the door to the room. Whoever it was, they decided to scare the soul out of him by kicking at the door as loud as they could and screaming. Not only did he feel like he'd jumped three feet in the air at the sound, the pounding kindly reminded him of the migraine he still had.

Since when did prison guards pound on doors like this? And he had no idea what the man wanted.

"Oi! Screaming at the door and kicking it won't make it open. It doesn't have ears. Why not try unlocking it and then turning the handle?" he shouted wryly, hand grabbing his forehead as it throbbed. "And keep it down! Injured man trying to recover, here!"

Was the town so low on funding that they hired idiots that didn't even know how to open doors and instead shouted at them, as if that would make them open?

Dropping his head against the door, Julian just stood there for a moment with wide eyes. Does he seriously think I'm that stupid? I am not yelling at the door! It's him! Stupid man, I should- INJURED?! You think they would care if you need to recover?! Ugh...this isn't turning out at all how I wanted. Huffing and rolling his eyes, he leaned back and gave the door another swift kick to rattle it in its frame.

"Injured or not, get over here! Laying in bed for days, YOU'RE SO LAZY!" he shouted, voice faltering when he heard a door open somewhere else in the house. Well, shit... I thought nobody was home.

Kabe moaned as his head continued to throb, pressing on his temple with the palm of his hand in the hopes that it might make it ebb--not an easy task with shackled hands. Where was that kindly black oblivion he'd fallen into earlier? It had been so nice there, no pain, no worries, no . . . anything.

And then the damned idiot guard had the nerve to call him lazy. As if he hadn't bled out nearly all of his life however many days ago it had been.

Something about the guard's voice sounded familiar, though, especially when it seemed to die off at the end, as if interrupted by something.

Even if he wanted to stand, he didn't think he could. As he sat up in his bed, it felt like the whole room spun around him, and he had to place both palms on his forehead in an attempt to make it stop. He felt another wave of nausea stirring deep in his stomach.

He wants me to get up, fine. I'll just throw up all over him, he thought with grim satisfaction.

"What the hell's going on in here?" he heard another man from beyond the door say.

A very good question.

The doctor had come down to find his precious instruments carelessly piled up throughout the kitchen. It equated to practically two-thirds of his equipment and he was livid, to say the least. Following the racket from down the hall, he'd found one of the two men he'd attended to banging on the door of his treatment room. "The gall!" he continued, arms crossed as he watched Julian back himself away with flailing arms. "I let you boys stay and this is what you give me?! Did you think you'd sneak out before I noticed you messed everything up?!"

"N-no! I didn't mess it up!" he whined, wincing as the man became increasingly red-faced.

"Oh, you didn't, huh? What's in there? Why'd you go and take everything out! Why is everything in my wife's kitchen, hm?!"

"....shit!" he hissed, wincing as he felt his back hit the wall. Julian had no answer he thought the doctor might believe, even the truth. With wide-eyed horror, he watched as the doctor moved away and flung the door open. Lurching forward, he grabbed frantically for it even though it was already swinging into the room. "N-no! You're ruining it!" he whined, though he only received a sharp glare for it.

Angry voices, then a blinding light. Kabe shielded his eyes from it with his arms as the door swung open. A man stood shadowed in the doorway, the one that had been doing the shouting.

A doctor. As unfocused as his eyes were in the sudden light, he knew a doctor when he saw one. And this was an angry doctor, though the man's eyes turned to concern when he saw Kabe sitting there—concern that quickly turned to fury.

"What in all the hells did you do?" the man demanded. At first Kabe thought he was talking to him, until he realized someone else stood just outside the door.

Someone he immediately recognized, and everything made sense.  Sort of.

The doctor rounded on Julian, face purpling. "What—why—do you realize--?" he was spluttering, though his anger made it difficult for words to form.

"Excuse me," Kabe interrupted, "but would someone mind telling me why I'm shackled in a doctor's office? And," he added as an afterthought, as his head began to swim again and his vision became unfocused, "could you possibly catch me, seeing as I'm about to—"

He'd leaned too far forward on the bed. Before he knew it, he was on the floor, slightly bemused, the momentary blackness that had fogged his eyes fading. Then came the pain and he swore under his breath, curling up in a tight ball. Never mind that he'd smacked his head on the hard ground. His side felt like it'd split in two! Again.

"Oh, Kia. Someone just knock me out," he said, hands tightening into fists. He didn't even bother getting up off the floor. That involved effort, and he didn't have it in him. Plus, of course, he was shackled. "Or kill Cat Man. I'd accept that as an alternative."

The light bursting in through the doorway illuminated parts of his patchwork prison, and Julian wasn't liking it at all. He was caught between the terrible feeling of his plan crumbling in his hands, being tongue-tied for the obviously angry, spluttering doctor before him, and a mild feeling of regret for shackling Kabe, who seemed wide awake now. With a sheepish little smile he looked between the two, his brain stuck now as he clammed up. He figured there wasn't any way now for him to escape this situation unscathed.

Everything seemed to happen too quickly for him to react: Kabe falling with a loud thunk, seeing him curl up, the doctor looking first concerned and then turning with eyes glowing of murderous intent. All he could do was scramble over to his friend to kneel beside him, far too late to save him from whatever new pain he was in. "Don't kill me, I haven't done anything wrong!" he hissed, fumbling in his pocket for the key. When the doctor saw the flash of metal in his hand, though, he stormed across to snatch the drapes from the window to bring a bit more light into the room, and it was only then that he realized that everything had truly been covered.

"You idiot!" he muttered.

"I didn't do anything!" Finally finding the key, he quickly unlocked Kabe's bonds before peaking over the bed with a rather helpless look in his eyes. "I didn't damage anything! It's all out there! And," he turned to look back down to whisper like the doctor might not hear him at such proximity, "are you okay?"

"Did you even stop to think what you might be handling?! It's all been touched by your grubby little hands and who knows what you might have broken, Kia forbid!"

"Kabe," he whined, shrinking down beside him now. "Help me! I'm sorry!!!"

The relief at having his hands freed was nothing compared to the pain he currently underwent, though that too was fading as he lie there.

"Oh, yes. I'm fine," he said with bitter sarcasm. "I love lying on the floor and feeling like someone's taken a knife to my side--which, ironically enough, someone has. Gods, Cat Man, what were you thinking?"

Then the doctor was shouting some more and Kabe winced. Once again his head pounded, each stressed word from the man's mouth barbed like a prickly plant.

"Stop shouting, man!" he said dryly. "If anything, he broke me, so you should probably get around to fixing that instead of adding the explosion of my very head to my list of ailments." Pain ebbing to something he could bear, Kabe rolled onto his back, arms splayed out beside him. It wasn't so bad down here, really. Maybe a bit hard and uncomfortable, but he didn't see himself getting up any time soon until he didn't feel like throwing up all over the place. The migraine didn't help.

He turned his head and looked at Cat Man, the man's terrified face truly amusing, making him smile. Oh, Cat Man. Full of new--if not a bit annoying--surprises.

"I thought it was a good idea!" he pleaded, trying desperately to keep defending himself, "You just- You just have no sense of humor!" Julian soon realized, though, that he was smiling, actually smiling. He wasn't quite sure what to do with this now. He had an angry, flustered doctor across the room and the injured, grumbling, yet smiling, Kabeyage right beside him. Normally he would have just bolted, but what bit of sense was in him said that he'd done a major no-no with all of this.

At least the doctor quieted enough in his fury for the pleading of his patient so that Julian was sure he'd at least live the next few moments of his life out. "Did I break you?" he asked slowly, tilting his head to the side to look down. His gaze focused on the side he knew to be hurt, briefly wondering if something had reopened amongst the nonsense he took as just fun.

The thought occurred to him that it would probably be demanded that he clean up everything and put things back and such and replace whatever had been broken or lost. No, he definitely didn't want to be around long for that and would probably find some way to weasel his way out if it came to that, sensible and mild a punishment it was.

No sense of humor! This made Kabe laugh, truly laugh--at least laugh as much as he could without bringing too much pain to himself than what he was already in. Oh, if this man only knew how much of a sense of humor he had. The moment he'd squeezed out of his mother's womb he'd had a smile on his face and a joke on his tongue.

"Break me? No, you didn't break me. I was already broken." This said, he reached up and grabbed the collar of the man's shirt, using the other's weight to pull himself up into a sitting position. Kia, it hurt, but that worried look on Cat Man's face was too much to bear. How could one relax on the floor when a man with huge kitten eyes was staring down at him?

"Don't you have any pain-killing herbs, doc?" he asked through gritted teeth, hands to his side once more. Something that'd knock him into another world, anything. He didn't need to think straight right now; he just wanted to feel better.

Closing this due to inactivity. If you'd like to start it up again, PM me.