Bear in the woods.

[Anonymous]

She had been wandering in the woods of Ravensway for a good while now, shivering. Of course, she didn't know it was called Ravensway, but that's where she was. It was cold on her skin, and she wasn't sure where her hair had gone, or why the pads of her feet were so tender. She was also curious as to why her claws were gone, or why her rear paws were the wrong shape.

Eventually, she stopped at a familiar tree that she remembered for its cozy roots, and settled in the lee, below last week's claw marks. She was shivering, arms crossed over the body that had never been this cold before, and had never, as far as she knew, looked like this before, either.

[miss_sanguine]

Ravensway sat near the bottom of Kabe's usual haunting grounds. Nothing but forest; not a place for attractive people. He liked being where people flourished, where women flaunted themselves to passerby and men laughed. Where alcohol priced cheap. Here, the only things that moved were the trees and the wildlife, and while those were all well and nice, they did not appeal to his personal interests.

Be that as it may, this wooded area proved to be the only growing grounds for a particular rare flower he had need of. He didn't know its name, just that women liked it. When he bore the beautiful, vivid purple flower on his breast, the women drew near to him like hungry bees, all ready to harvest his sweet, male "nectar."

The only problem was that he had no idea where to look. It grew randomly this time of year, sparse, and never in the same spot as the last time he'd picked it. He searched every nook and cranny, every space where the sun split through the canopy of trees overhead.

Nothing.

Something did catch his attention the further he wandered, though. Old bear tracks. These grounds seemed to be the stomping grounds to a local bear.

Maybe I'll run into it, he thought, trudging along. It might prove interesting. He'd only come across a few bears in his lifetime, mainly for purposes of wanting to know what one looked like in order to transform into one himself. Never seen a Ravensway bear. Might prove usefu--

Kabe halted in his tracks, brows high up on his forehead. Up ahead, right against a tall tree, lay a naked woman.

Was he seeing things? Had thinking of beautiful women sparked his imagination beyond its usual limits?

Pulling his hair out of his face, he continued forward, making a beeline for his new target. When he stood over her, he took in all that he could of this strange but most definitely appealing sight.

Hair the color of fawn fanned around her pale face. Her arms wrapped around her upper torso, shielding her chest from view, but the rest of her--the rest of her was stark naked and pale as moonlight. Shivers wracked her body, even though the temperature of the day hit well enough over warm.

"Hello, little fawn," he said as he knelt down. "What brings you to the middle of the woods? It's dangerous to be lying naked out here in the trees. There are bears around here." His eyes traveled over the slash marks in the bark of the tree above her.

[Anonymous]

She Blinked upwards at the sudden apparition that was the man kneeling next to her resting place. Her first reaction was one of confusion, as to why the man had come so close; then the proper reaction arose, that of anger mixed with fear.

For a while now her thoughts had been confused, shifting to thinking in new ways, pathways never before explored inside her head. Therefore when she snarled at him, she was not very surprised when her snarl of anger issued from her mouth in the form of words. "What are you doing so close to me, human?! Are you here to steal my territory?!" She flinched away from him as she snarled, having never been this close to one of them before.

[miss_sanguine]

Eyes as blue as the very sky peered up at him, confusion clouding their natural sheen. She reminded him of a lost dove, fragile, vulnerable--until the befuddlement turned into a storm of terrified fury. Now she resembled something more of an angry hawk than a dove.

When she let out a feral snarl of words, he stared at her, a little amused and alarmed at the same time--though mostly amused. He'd never had a naked woman snarl at him like some kind of wild animal, and he found that he rather liked it. It was erratic, unexpected. It was downright attractive. Even if the snarl had come out in words, the action and sound had been anything but normal.

He held his arms out, palms up in as a sign of non-hostility. "Beautiful lady," he said, his smile sincere, "I have no desire to steal your territory. Why, I simply saw a young woman in need and I thought I would come to help." Her insinuation toward him being human gave him the idea that maybe what he was looking at wasn't entirely human. Could she be a fae? These woods housed fairy-folk, he had heard.

Looking to her shivering body once more, he ignored the obvious signals she was giving to him to go away and started to unbutton his light blue silk jacket. It wasn't much in terms of warmth, but it was all he had, and she needed any sort of warmth she could get. And, as much as he hated to cover up her lovely nakedness, a woman deserved a little respect.

"Here," he said, the jacket finally removed. He placed the light material over her, covering her exposed lady parts and arms. The blue went well with her eyes, he noticed, which made him smile all the more. How lovely she was.

[Anonymous]

The human didn't go away when she told it to, and it in fact came the tiniest bit closer. When its arms rose, instead of appreciating it as a sign of peace, she flinched slightly, seeing it only as an implement that, those few times she had seen one, had usually held an instrument of harm.

The explanation given made some amount of sense, she supposed, but it was odd that such a man would approach a bear with so little worry in his face, some other expression she'd never seen before on his face instead. I guess he isn't trying to steal my territory. He hasn't hurt me ye-!!! Her inner voice is chopped off as if with a knife as he began to peel his bluish skin right off, then she realized that it is merely one of those outer layers humans commonly wore over themselves, for some odd reason. For that little episode, her eyes had gone nearly as round as marbles for the duration of her terror.