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

[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.