A few hours later, and Cadmus was still none the wiser and lacking any leads to follow, and by that time what calm the alcohol had given him had long since been burned away. This whole thing was horribly stupid, like searching for a needle in a haystack, and the part that made it all the more annoying was that he was searching for his own reasons, as well. It wasn't all the Elders; he had his own incentives, otherwise he would have just said screw it all, ditched, and remained here.
Hah, yeah right. He wouldn't do that, but he could fantasize. He may only be a leader in theory rather than practice, but he had pride. He wasn't going to run away with his tail tucked; he planned on turning the tables and tipping the scales in his favor. That's why he needed to find her, too. One of the reasons. The other reason was also a matter of pride.
Yawning, he meandered out of the village and toward the enveloping forest, intending to head into the deeper parts that few humans braved. A little hunting to wind down would be nice, a chance to stretch his wings and enjoy his true form for a while, not to mention he didn't really care for human food. All cooked, spiced up...blech. Besides, the idea of paying for food was just bizarre to him, and he wasn't about to order raw, bloody meat in front of everyone.
However, he hadn't gone too far before, mingled in with the woody, musky scent of the foliage, he noticed another scent close by. Two, actually. One was unmistakably human, female from what he could tell. The other was predatory...but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He wanted to say feline, but he got the vague impression of a sort of smokiness, like fire. Weird. What was a human doing this far out and at this time? Few humans were nocturnal, most slept at night, and that predatory smell...
Suddenly he tensed. A hunter stalking human prey?
They were close by...he couldn't hear any screams, couldn't hear the tell-tale thrashing of leaves and bushes that signaled a successful attack, so the feline creature must not have attacked yet. But it was probably close, probably almost on her. No need to be alarmed, no need to change forms; if he could get to the female first, the hunter should simply lose interest once it sees that she has company and that the hunt would expend more energy than it was worth. Moving quietly, he carefully picked his way through the woods, the scents growing stronger and stronger until--
"Well Sara, it looks like we are going to have to find a village."
Huh?
It was a female voice, no mistake about it, and young but...other than that, he couldn't tell what she was saying, the words foreign. But it sounded conversational, so maybe she wasn't alone? Blinking, he parted some low branches ahead of him--
And then very nearly palmed his forehead.
There was the girl all right.
And there was the feline.
A bloody housecat. Well. Four tailed housecat, but...still a housecat, and not the strangest thing he'd seen. After all, what was he? His true form was an odd cross between a lion and an eagle, after all, and--wait, what the hell was she <I>wearing?
Of all the things Cadmus could have found strange about this whole thing, it wasn't the four-tailed fire cat, but it was the...the...her clothes. Yellow with some weird pattern on them of strange, deformed yellow creatures, and the pants looked like whoever had made them had run out of material...either that or she'd just grown out of them, which was why they were now at her knees. Well. All right then. He knew humans had strange styles, but that was certainly wild.
Realizing he was staring, eyebrows raised and feeling rather stupid for being worried about what turned out to be a cat, he finally gave his head a shake and relaxed his posture. Right. He might have startled her bursting in on her like that. Time to smooth things over!
"Er...right. Sorry about that," he said quietly, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. His words had a noticeable accent that wasn't shared by the other humanoids here, a slight trilling of his Rs and hissing of Ss. Not that it mattered; he was completely unaware that she couldn't understand a word he was saying. "Thought you were in trouble and...right. Never mind. Guess you got it under control. Hrm...might wanna get some better clothes, though. It gets cold here at night. Now if you'll excuse me..."
Then, with a shrug, he turned to leave. Damn that was awkward. Ugh. But since she was obviously fine and he'd just made an ass of himself barging in like that, well, he had no reason to linger.
