on the outside [open]

[redwhaling]

Character(s): Billie + whoever else is lurking around the wilderness.
Status: Open
Location(s): Marshlands near City of the Free Peoples
Date(s) Early March
About: With tensions and fighting within the city on the rise, Billie's opted to keep Mr. Werewolf fed through somewhat more wild means.
Warnings: She's hunting, so animal death and potentially more violence.

With winter on the run and the snow and ice ebbing away, the marsh isn't necessarily the safest place to pick off rabbits and the like, but the point is that the animals know that, too. There's less foot traffic outside of the road that edges around the swampy parts out here, meaning creatures popping up to pick at what greenery has begun to show through are far more common.

It also makes it a good place to hunt through less conventional means. Why waste arrows when you can literally turn into a giant rat? Or in this case, a cross between a human and a rat. She's shed her coat and boots to go skulking through the marshland in her black-furred shiftling form. At a distance, it's easy to assume she's one of the beastfolk. Though, at a closer range, the much more wild traits of a wererat are obvious to someone who knows what they're looking at. She isn't a wererat in actuality but for lack of a better word...

All that aside, for whatever reason you're out here on your own, your trek is about to be interrupted by a hare bolting out of the rushes and across your path. This is followed immediately by the shiftling leaping after and landing directly on it with a sick, soft crack of bones underclaw.

Comments

[exaomori]

Billie isn't the only one out on the prowl. Shura has taken the chance to take Shishi out to hunt, but as usual, she's not having much success. It isn't that the lion can't find and kill his own food, he just prefers Shura to do it for him. It's not stopping her from trying to take care of his own business, dragging him out to marsh and trying to find something for him to at least pretend to stalk.

For a moment, Shura thinks she might be in luck when she hears the sound of something moving in the rushes, but that hope is dashed quickly. A hare is a good sign, something else crashing down on top of it is definitely not. Just what the hell was that thing? Well, so long as she didn't try to take its food it would be fine, right??

"See--that's how you do it, lazy hairball." Shura will take a very cautious step back, though, just in case.

[redwhaling]

That thing's kneejerk reaction to realizing she isn't alone is to whirl around towards Shura and her lion, baring teeth and hissing at them. It's their luck that a very particular tern arrives after the fact, landing in a tree and making scolding noises at all three.

That brings Billie up short of, like, charging, since she instead twists around to glower at the bird. What Shura won't know is the back-and-forth between the two is very much like you were supposed to be the lookout! and I saw something more interesting! via their shiny new pit trauma induced telepathy. That, sadly, is the limit of Billie's communication in this form.

Well, unless Shura knows signs but she doubts it.

So, with a snort, the rat beast -- still in a shirt and pants, albeit very muddy ones -- turns back Shura's way and steps off the now very dead hare. She eyes the woman and her lion a bit longer, then hooks the animal corpse on a foreclaw and tosses it to Shishi. It's not like she doesn't have more where that came from.

[exaomori]

Shura does not need or want a fight with anything right now. She has plenty on her plate as is, risking getting injured over a dead rabbit was the last thing she needed. While he wasn't interested in the wererat in particular, Shishi picks up on Shura's tension, moving forward to guard Shura and letting out a low growl.

The sound of a squawking bird diverts Shura's attention, though she won't actually glance towards the bird until the wererat turns to look. Hey, wait, that's--

"Do I know you?" Shura asks, not dropping her defensive stance. The lion's tail lashes out behind him, once, twice, then stills as he recognizes the bird's scent. And then there's a rabbit being flung at his face and this is suddenly THE BEST DAY EVER, fuck yeah!! Shura doesn't get a chance to try and snatch it it before Shishi leaps to catch the dead bunny in his paws, chowing down as soon as he can. "You--don't just eat somethin' cause it's given to you!"

A wererat, wearing clothes. A familiar bird. Billie's knowledge of shapeshifting. Well, this was all pointing towards something.

[redwhaling]

It's probably answer enough that the rat settles back on her haunches and makes a reedy kehehehe noise — very much a laugh of some sort, just not particularly human — at Shura yelling at her lion. It isn't all that off from how it went down back in Didymos, too, if only lacking in birds fighting over that very same hare there.

[exaomori]

Shishi is just having the time of his life and going to town on his dinner, making a terrible mess of hair and blood and everything else that's included with a fresh dead bunny dinner. Shura is clearly Not Impressed with this whole thing, especially not with a damn rat that thinks this whole thing is funny. Shura turns her wrath to Billie, now much more certain of the identity of the wererat, jabbing her finger in Billie's direction.

"Laugh it up, Fuzzbrain! Ugh, seriously! I brought him out here to make him hunt, no so someone else could feed him." There you go, Billie, you've gone and ruined all of Shura's plans for the day by feeding her lion.

[redwhaling]

Billie gives a huff and shrugs like it isn't her problem. For real, it really isn't! But she isn't going to get anywhere in this form, even if it does free her from the general obligation of actually having to hold a conversation. Dropping the form is as easy as breathing for her, so she does.

Not that shapeshifting is particularly pretty. Shura will just have to live with witnessing a rat monster twist back into a human form, which leaves the Billie she actually knows sitting on the ground in place of the wererat.

"Yeah? Well, lead with that next time, maybe I would have kept it."

[exaomori]

It might not be pretty, but it's at least shiftling changing and not werewolf changing, so it could be a lot worse. Shura isn't that well-versed in shiftling culture, so she's not entirely sure whether or not she should look away while she shifts, but at least she knows better than to stare. And at least Billie has clothes on when she returns to her human form, hooray.

"Next time I'll let him wrestle you for it." They can do that an call it training. Yeah. That works.

[redwhaling]

Ultimately, Billie wouldn't care if she stared or turned away. That she's wise enough to keep tight-fitting clothes to survive low-impact shifting like this makes it more or less a moot point to worry about, although one would never know with each and every other shiftling. As it stands, the worst thing about this situation is being covered in mud. Not really her preferred way of appearing in public (even if it's only a public of two).

"You really that willing to put your soul on the line like that?" Billie answers that with continued amusement. "Because I'm not afraid of any lion, especially not that one."

And Deirdre makes another racket, more scolding, to which Billie rolls her eyes and cranes her head up to look at the tern.

"You already ate! Don't even think about swooping in."

[exaomori]

"Considering that he might double in size again, he might be tougher the next time you run into him." Really, though, since Shura had put enough together to assume that it was his revival that seemed to have cause the change, she hoped he would stay the same. He was problem enough as it was with his current body, no need to add on to that.

Ultimately, Shish was a lover, not a fighter, which would explain the way he growls when he hears the bird hollering. If there's a chance that damn bird might try to snatch his food, he'll tighten his jaws around the carcass, slinking behind Shura, who he assumes will be a great shield. Shura clicks her tongue, looking between the lion and the tern.

"I outta make you give that up. Jeez, don't put me in the middle of this."

[kingsroads]

You can take the elf out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the elf. Though Strange will happily tell anyone that he enjoys cities, loves them, cities are great and wonderful places of learning, the fact remains that he's spent a lot of time in cities for the past few months. Add in spending more time than expected in a basement due to people getting kidnapped (how inconvenient of them!) and Strange's woods hobo tendencies are getting a little excessive. So, he bows out of spending yet another morning in the basement and goes out to explore the marshes instead.

Besides, there's some magic he wants to practice out here, by himself, with less chance of hurting people. Just him and Bell, out in the open. There's so much less that could go wrong out here than could go wrong in the city.

...is what Strange thinks right before some rat creature pounces on a hare. And his hare interprets something that big killing something her size as a potential threat, hairs raising as she moves to a defensive stance. And by now, Strange has pieced together the trigger for Bell's sudden act of aggression during the orc fight and really doesn't want to try and explain how this possibly feral beastperson got murdered.

"No no no, Bell! Bell, calm down!" He scurries forward to quickly pick his hare up, holding Bell to his chest in a way where she can't really see Billie—though Strange is giving Billie a slightly affronted look in the process.

He's not doing anything to fight back or escape just yet. Maybe they only see movement? Is that how rat-things worked? But unknown to Strange, the air around him is crackling in an oddly static-like sort of way.

[redwhaling]

Of all the animas to end up out here, it just had to be the one shaped like a hare. Billie freezes where she's landed once Strange rushes forward to grab Bell, waiting until he's gotten her in hand before actually turning her head to look at him straight on. She can't talk in this form, so, naturally... she bares her teeth at him and doesn't even try to back down.

Not that she's doing anything particularly threatening towards him right now, aside from standing on an incredibly dead animal. If anything, considering it's Strange of all people, she's pretty much in the camp of thinking he's the one who should be backing away.

[kingsroads]

It isn't trying to maul him? How odd. Wasn't that how wild animals worked? Part of Strange is really tempted to cut and run. However, he can feel Bell's anxiousness and her tenseness at this whole situation: if he had to guess, he'd guess that she wanted to take that thing out.

So, might as well try and knock whatever this is the hell out before Bell gets a chance to. This is a terrible decision and Strange is trying to keep the look of panic off of his face but for all he knows, this thing would chase him if he tried to run! There aren't many options here! The air around him is audibly crackling with static electricity as Strange murmurs a spell. A moment later, a large gust of wind shoots in Billie's direction. Hopefully, this will at least knock it over and give him time to...what, static shock this thing to death?

This plan obviously needs work.

[redwhaling]

What in every hell is Strange doing? Is he actually going to attack h— yep, that's wind. Here it comes. She knows because she can feel it hitting her and bowling her right off of her hard-earned hare (the dead one, not Bell). Okay, maybe Billie shouldn't have expected him to bolt so easily after all.

She doesn't make any humorously startled noises, though, as she goes for a tumble through the muck. She rolls, then keeps rolling, and then rolls right back up to all fours, voicing her irritation at Strange in a high-pitched, screamy way that makes no sense because she can't really do words. Chances are it would be a lot of cussing him out if she could.

[kingsroads]

All right! ...now what? He's still loathe to actually kill the thing, just because Strange doesn't really know where it lies on the man versus beast spectrum and he's rather not get arrested or deal with that thing's family (plus, there's a part of him that's still a little squeamish about outright murder like this.)

Still, he knocked the thing over so that's good? The further the animal gets away from him, the less staticky the air around him gets, and the less on end Strange's hair is standing. His panic is abating slightly now that the rat whatever isn't going for his throat and his hare isn't going to maul the rat whatever. This doesn't change the fact that he really doesn't want this thing around him...and he really doesn't know what to do now that the animal's screaming at him.

"Go on!" Strange calls out, pushing past the hesitation in his voice. "Shoo! Otherwise, I'll knock you into the swamp." Can this thing even understand words to begin with?

[redwhaling]

Oh, this is ridiculous. She isn't about to get run out of a swamp by this guy, but they're also still technically working together, so leaving him dead in the mud isn't an appealing option. That and it'd be a little overkill for frightened showboating, to off a mage over that.

"Keh," Billie's shrill rat noises trail off with a displeased sound and then... she vanishes. The air around her seems to twist for a second, then she's gone. It's exactly the same way her teleportation while as human worked if Strange happened to be paying attention.

It puts her right behind him, bones cracking and shape changing as she steps out of one spell and releases her hold on, well, not quite a spell. She imagines a shiftling's talent is a magic of a sort, though the change is instinctive, not something calling for a magic word or learned from a book. It just is. Anyway, it'll be as a human Billie that she makes a grab for his pointy ear, to yank it and his head down if she gets it.

"What in the abyss do you think you're doing, just harassing anyone you stumble across?!"

[kingsroads]

Strange was paying attention to the way her teleportation worked. However, by the time he puts together what happened and where he saw that magic before, Billie is right behind him. He spins around, spots the last few moments of her transformation, opens his mouth to say something, then lets out a yelp of pain as Billie yanks on his ear.

"I was trying to scare you off!" he indignantly responds, as if he's perfectly in the right and Billie's the one who's being ridiculous. "I've figured out the trigger for Bell's rage. It's—ouch! It's fear!"

And Strange doesn't have to point out the obvious: watching something about your size get quickly murdered is a pretty good reason to be afraid. Bell wriggles out of Strange's arms to hop down at their feet. She experimentally sniffs Billie, but that's about all she's doing. Apparently now that the rat beast is gone, Billie doesn't count as a threat anymore.

[redwhaling]

"So? That's your problem, not mine," Billie replies, still annoyed. She does let go of his ear, though, after the initial yanking of it. "And the problem of anything else she decides to be afraid of, I guess, but I can generally take care of myself."

Ear released, she steps back again and moves to brush... well, she pauses part way realizing mud isn't really something you brush off while it isn't dry yet. That means she looks down and wrinkles her nose at it instead. This wasn't exactly a state she anticipated having to explain to anyone.

In any case, she looks up again to eye him.

"Is she going to flip out if I go and pick up the one I killed? I'm not just out here chasing rabbits for fun, you know."

[kingsroads]

"I don't think she will," Strange responds, as he shifts Bell's position in his arms slightly. The hare looks over at Billie, blinking in a far too innocent 'look at me, I'm super cute and not murdery' sort of manner. "But wait until after we leave before shifting back to that other form of yours."

Because he did see that, right? That rat-thing was Billie. There's all sorts of questions that Strange wants to ask her (are you a shiftling? is this an enchantment? were you born like that?) but instead, he loosens his grip on Bell slightly and waits to see if Billie's going to mention anything about her other form.

He doubts she will. But he'll just be persistently nosy if that's the case.

[fuga]

Hunting is second nature to Lauralae; she had spent decades of her own life, before her first death, stalking and crawling through the undergrowth of the forests outside the cities. She slips through bushes and rests against trees, using the connection she has with her raven to help guide her - she can breathe, she can see, she can hear from him what lies ahead, and when he shouts beast in her mind there's a flare of panic.

Her hand rests on the dagger on her waist, her eyes dark as she moves forward, looking between Rav'ahm and the area in front of her, prepared to attack, to defend herself. What she sees is the rabbit, and she grits her teeth, moving forward, weapon raised -

if she screams when she sees the beast come forward it's a short, aborted sound. Her teeth are bared and there's something sharp and dangerous as she moves forward, lifting her hand up ready to attack if necessary.

[redwhaling]

A short sound, even cut off as it is, is all Billie needs to react. The rat creature — while still dressed in shirt and pants, all muddied from slogging through the marshland, she still does look more a monster than any rat beastfolk could possibly be — snaps her head in her direction, baring her own teeth in response to this strange person moving towards her in, what she can only assume, is an attack. With a dagger raised like that, what else could it possibly be?

But then, right after that? Then she vanishes.

There's a flicker of motion and shape where she once stood, looming over the dead hare, and then nothing. Chances are it'll be Rav'ahm that spots her first since Billie's transported herself to the reeds behind Lauralae. She may not be able to speak in this form, but that hardly keeps her from her magic tricks.

From there, there's no telltale hiss or screech, just the rustle of something vaguely human-sized rustling over mud and through tall grasses, then she's leaping at Lauralae's back.

[fuga]

Lauralae has lived decades alone in the wilderness; she knows how to hunt and she knows what it means to be hunted at the same time. There's something sharp and dangerous about her as she moves, her eyes dancing over the creature in front of her before she shifts forward, seeing it disappear. Magic, the kind she is not as familiar with, and she breathes in sharply before she begins to listen.

The voice in her mind alerts her - Behind!

Jerking forward, she presses herself down into the ground, pressing, burying herself into the dirt and the grass before she, too, transforms. The small, lithe shape of Lauralae transforms into a wolf, fur on edge, teeth bared as she turns, sharp, to twist and look back at the other creature.

There's no hesitation, at least, as she gazes back, growling. She manages to duck down enough to avoid the attack, she hopes, but she can feel how the hands almost scraped over her, leaving her wiggling to get herself back into a position where she will not be weak again.

[redwhaling]

That leaves Billie landing on the other side of Lauralae, immediately whirling back around to face the woman-turned-wolf. That, at least, gives her pause rather than launching right into another attack. If she's dealing with another shiftling, she isn't really inclined to pick fights, but what kind of shiftling stumbles around a marsh knife-first?

Even though she doesn't charge again, she does still hiss and prowl to one side, still on all fours as she landed, never taking her eyes off the wolf. Given the chance, she'll start circling, trying to get a better look.

[fuga]

Body pressed low to the ground, teeth bared, the wolf version of Lauralae stares forward at the creature in front of her, tense and uncertain as she keeps herself defended. It's clear that she cannot turn her back to this beast, that she cannot risk what might happen if she relents for even a moment, and above her the raven she calls her own squawks.

Slowly, she moves to the side, eyes gold and searching, stepping. Fur raised, she tilts her head, watching and waiting. She's not inclined to give up but it's clear that she has no intention of attacking either, no matter what Billie might do at the moment.

[redwhaling]

Which leaves the two of them circling for a long, drawn-out moment. When no attack comes from the wolf, Billie is left wrinkling her nose and lashing her tail in irritation. Not for the lack of attack but for the waste of her time. She has questions she can't ask and an unwillingness to reveal her human form. Though the raven overhead isn't completely ignored, there's no real tell between an animas, a familiar, and a pet up until it either rips someone's throat out or does something else wildly outlandish.

From a gnarled tree, leaning halfway into the swamp, her own bird — a tern — watches but hasn't been called on yet. That's a second pair of eyes that stay on the raven for now. Without further action, though, all that's left to do is for Billie to make a scoffing noise at Lauralae and rise up, though only to settle back on her haunches. She makes a few motions with her hands, some of them certainly rude, and ends with a shooing motion.

'Go away', she tries to get across. This isn't exactly her territory but she sure hasn't seen markings around making it some wolf's, either!

[fuga]

Lauralae is not inclined to simply give up; it seems silly for her to give into a threat in the middle of nowhere over nothing. There's a sharpness to the way her eyes narrow, something dangerous, something a little awkward - but she stops herself from lashing out, from wanting to rush forward and do something to defend herself. She will not put herself in harms way if it can be entirely avoided. She might be able to survive a fight, but it would cost her a great deal.

Slowly, carefully, she adjusts her weight and moves, wiggling just a little before she settles back on her own hind legs, careful. She cannot hold her form for too long and she knows that makes this all the more dangerous - that she might turn back into a person and be even more at risk. She cannot give this up, even as her head tilts, her eyes careful, unthreatening. More curious than ready to attack.

Above her, Rav'ahm caws, soft and sure, a warning - another bird, perhaps, or another animal. She cannot turn to look now.