When Billy reached for the food, Bane smoothly pulled it out of his reach. Like she wanted to be reminded of her time as the lab. She was less than a human being there, she was an expensive toy that the scientists were intent on playing with until she broke. There was fond memories, but she was refusing to acknowledge them. Not now, not when the hurt was still so close.
"Yes, and you sure as hell aren't eating any of it."
It was then that Taki stood, amd Bane carefully watched him. She had learned to take her cues from the two, both of them were much better at sensing trouble, and were probably better at dealing with it, too. At least Bane was proud to say she wasn't some helpless fool in a fight. She planted the stick with meat in the ground, hand snaking out to grasp the hilt of one of her swords, half rising.
A critical grey eye took in the scene that followed. At least they were close to a town, and a final push would be easy. Even though she did say, Bane would give most anything for a nice warm bed right now. Too many days had been spent on a hard and cold ground. Screw the people who said adventuring is fun and cool, and that living outside is the way to go. Sure, maybe in her time when they had sleeping bags and cushions. Never in this time.
Concern flashed through her eyes when Taki collapsed. The poor guy had worn himself out. Standing, she broke camp with a queit effencincy. While she wasn't born to this, she was a good learner. Bane paused by the fire and grabbed the biggest chunk of meat she could see off the bat, scarfing it down with one hand while stuffing everything she could see into the pack. Shifting took energy, and she didn't want to show up in a new town hungry.
She got her pack together and loaded it into the wagon, the grabbed her blanket and tossed it over Taki, making sure it settled ok. He deserved that much, working so hard to make life a little easier for the group. FInishing with that, she walked up next to Jack, simply saying,
"Hook me up to the wagon after I shift, if you want."
At that she carefully placed her glasses on top of her pack, and backed away from the wagon. Gathering herself together, she shifted. It was more than a hand becoming a knife, or steel. Her entire body changed. Shaggy and fine hair sprouted along her entire surface area, bone changing their arrangement and shape, muscle growing and bunching. Her clothes were absorbed into the change, helping make up for some of the change in mass. In less than a minute where a girl stood was a small horse, powerfully built and a black color matching her hair. Bane couldn't manage much larger than this, she was already nearly seven times the mass before. Changing shapes was easy, changing her mass was difficult.
With a couple stamps she git herself situated into this new anatomical arrangement, walking in a circle a couple times and kicking a leg to make sure everything worked and was in order. Accidents happened, the programs inside the nanomachines didn't always cover every detail. It had been proved time and time again, though they were much more reliable than when she was young. Her eyes were a perfect example of that.
While Jack was probably perfectly capable of pulling them all for a couple hours to Le'marri, he didn't have to. This is one of the practical sides of having nanomachines inside her body. Something told her he would pull, after all, Shadow was going to be riding in the wagon. To hook her up and let the sudo-horse pull involved swallowing a certain amount of pride. Either way, it would be a hundred and thirty pounds that Jack didn't have to have to haul across the plains.
