Missing Pieces [Analia]

[Alastair]

+13th Day+
+October+
+21st Hour+
+Year LVI+

.Alastair.

A tall man, broad shouldered and fair skinned, stood beneath an old yew tree. His rugged features sported several days worth of stubble and fierce amber eyes gazed out from beneath shaggy, wind-tossed hair. He wore but a thick woolen traveler's cloak and worn breeches: his muscled chest was bare and laced with scars. One hand resting on the thick tree's flaking bark, he looked out along the path that ran by the yew's spreading branches and into town. It was a quiet night, with but a chill breeze and the brittle brightness of the stars mirroring the hoarfrost underfoot, to remind one that the valley was still held in winter's white hand. There was no sign of Gewin, none of Guardian and no movement to be sensed in the village houses. Nature was in perfect balance; the dark cobalt disk of the sky and hush of the fertile slumbering earth dazzling in their serenity, a serenity that is unique to the Old World and will be left no place in the future.

The Guardian Alastair was caught in it, for once not minding his human form. He was at ease and uncommonly so...perhaps it was the full moon high in the sky, the second full moon of the month. A blue moon. He was wrapped in the splendor of the night and for once, made no effort to disentangle himself. He drew in a deep draught of the night air. Blair... he dropped to his haunches in the shadow of the tree, chin tilted upward and face to the breeze, Is it quiet there, Blair? Is there war? What will I do, Blair, without something to fight for? What else do I have? No war....Heaven will drive me mad. The golden eyes fluttered shut for an instant. If you get there, Alastair. If you get there at all. Gods, Brother...where are you? Without you here I...I forget what my own face is like. An owl's cry summoned him back to the night. He was not accustomed to becoming lost in thought.

Irritated, the big man shook his head and snarled quietly to himself, a feral and catlike sound. It didn't do to be letting his mind wander, even if he did not need to be at Elencastel tonight. Letting his guard down was what failed Blair once and to let danger slip past, to allow sorrow tonight, would be to fail him again. Alastair never makes the same mistake twice. Rising to his feet, he berated himself mentally at his momentary stiffness and slight imbalance. He should shift more often, for he was woefully out of practice in his human form. Selfish of him to get soft simply because he did not favor his appearance on two legs...Not that you remember what you look like anymore, anyway. And what you don't remember can't offend you, so swallow your pride, Alastair. He glanced down at his hands, big things with strong and finely made fingers, blunt tipped and battle scarred.

He exhaled, squeezing every scrap of stale air from his lungs, studying the hands that were somehow his with a new found curiosity. They were the one thing he considered an advantageous difference from his feline form. As he breathed in, the breeze changed direction and in an instant, his mind was afire, for he knew was not alone. The breeze had brought to him a scent; one decidedly feline and like a Guardian's but none he had ever known (for Alastair knew the scent of every Guardian by heart) and decidedly wild. He cast his mind out into the shadows, his thoughts moving like amber mist into the Other, touched a mind lurking there and shied away. There was definitely something there: he could sense it and then a moment later his eyes caught a movement in the shadows. Gods dammit all! he swore to see that it was already so close. For if he had seen it, there was a chance it had seen him and without knowing precisely what the creature was, he could not shift - would not risk the chance of being seen. Hidden in the umbrage beneath the ancient yew tree, Alastair sank to a fighter's crouch, muscles tensed and ears tuned, blood humming. He was, though perhaps minutes later than normal, acutely aware and as he always was, ready.

[Analia]

Analia was running, heading in the direction the rumors told her the cat-village was. She stuck to the trees, to the dark forests where she'd made her home for the last seven years, using her midnight pelt to her advantage as she darted in and out among the thick trunks. The only thing on her mind at the moment was finding food, and finding a place to sleep for the night. She had a feeling in her gut that she was getting very close, but she didn't want to rush things. Better to wait for the light to come and still be living than make a mistake and never again see the silver eye that glinted through the branches at her. She purred lightly to herself as she moved, nose and ears alert for the sound of a small nocturnal animal with a death wish. Sometimes she imagined that the silver eye belonged to the calico female in her dreams, watching over her and guiding her home... There! She pounced, just grabbing hold of a small mouse and making short work of it.

Satisfied for the moment, she looked around her. The trees were different here; a wayward pine was no longer an option. She was just wondering how close she was to the two-legged creatures when she caught wind of something that was not food... it smelled of two legs, but... with a shock, she could sense the smell she associated with the black figure in her distant memory, masculine... and feline. Her senses reeling, she stepped forward, just catching a glimpse of a tall figure in the moonlight, but just then the wind changed, blowing her scent directly in the creature's direction. It sensed her, she could tell, and she felt a tendril of thought slither towards her, and leaped away from it, mentally and physically. That had been her special talent, reaching out to the minds of others... what was this thing?

Cautiously, she stalked forward, hissing threateningly, looking for whatever it was in the dim light of the night.

[Alastair]

.Alastair.

For a tense minute, there was nothing but the wind sighing thinly through the trees and the murmur of insects in the underbrush, nightbirds in the air. Then he found it again, the scent holding the unmistakable signature of a female Guardian but none of the village Guardians smelt so strongly of other places and instinct, of fear and forest. This could not be a Guardian: it was so improbable as to be preposterous! No Guardians ever came from beyond Benevolence. They did not exist elsewhere: here was the cradle of their small species. Branwen's Cauldron was the world of the Guardians and mercifully, it seemed, of the Gewin as well. At the valley's steep edges their ancient, lore steeped world ended. She was something other, for how could she be a Guardian if she was not of Benevolence? There are no Guardians elsewhere! His mind insisted; logic rebelling against everything his senses told him and while one could not drown out the other he knew one thing for certain. He must use extreme caution. The night's silence had lost its soft edge, the giving quiet an edge honed sharp as broken glass. Settling his weight into the balls of his feet, he felt his warrior instinct take hold and thanked the Gods, his ancestors and the spirits that were for the fighting blood in his veins. He moved carefully and soundlessly: one wrong move could shatter the night. Still there was, infuriatingly, nothing but shadow and then his keen eyes found it! A fluid motion in the dark even his slitted pupils could but barely penetrate. It moved further from the shadows and he could make out now the shape of a cat: small and slender with fur black as raven's feathers.

Though human, his hackles rose in apprehension, exposing his canines. For a human man, they were just so much more unusually sharp and pointed than they should be. For a shifted Guardian male, they were to be expected. His silent snarl was not one of fear but of frustration and challenge. Before his eyes and there in his scent he registered what was unmistakably a Guardian and yet there had never, not once in the history of the Council, been a Guardian from elsewhere! His reason battered against his senses but his senses refused to give. The effect sent more adrenaline coursing through his veins, but he remained motionless, letting this creature come to him. As a feline, it would not match his strength but would certainly be more agile. If he hoped to catch it, to determine if it were a danger, to determine just what it was at all, he would have to let it come close. He was not about to shift in front of a creature that was neither obviously Guardian nor Gewin...thankfully he was much stronger and faster than a human male. Most creatures could pose little threat to him even when he was without his fur and fangs. The black cat hissed at him in challenge and remaining still as stone, he hissed back. It had certainly seen him and if his size had not frightened it away, a challenge certainly would not send it running but would only draw it out...and this was exactly what Alastair wanted.[/size]

[Analia]

Coming closer, still hissing, Analia realized just how large this thing was. He was much larger than the peddler she'd grown up with; in fact, she guessed this one could have picked him up and thrown him in a tree if he'd wanted to.

The giant hissed back at her, and she stopped, sharp teeth still exposed. That was a reaction she hadn't expected. Most of these big things were afraid of her teeth, and she'd learned that showing them off was the best way to get other creatures to leave her alone. But this one seemed to know her game; not only know it, but play it better than she did, for he was much more threatening than she could ever hope to be. If there was any time to turn into one of those things again, the way she had that night under the pine, she might have a chance. But maybe there was another way...

She reached her thoughts out quietly toward his, resuming her hissing in an attempt to distract him. As her thoughts glided forward, so did her paws, claws out as she began closing the distance between them, quicker and quicker as she came closer, still trying to keep his focus away from the tendrils snaking in his mind. She tried to use her influence to convince him that he had no chance against her, that she could rip him to shreds in seconds.

It was a desperate attempt, and she knew it, though she wouldn't admit it to herself; she simply focused on what she wanted him to do. She almost hoped he'd try to pick her up; it would be amusing. She was quick, her reflexes sharpened from experience and danger. If he tried, she'd dart off to the right, making a break for the shadows, where she could crouch in the underbrush, watching for his next move.

[Alastair]

.Alastair.

As he had expected, the slim cat advanced, her motions fluid in a way he could never be in this body and he wished he were in his four-pawed form. The she-cat would be no trouble if he had his paws and claws and fur. She would still be quicker: more agile by far, but he could tell she was a young creature with years less experience. No doubt she was a survivor, for she seemed to be totally feral, else he suspected she'd have spoken by now. All the myths he had ever heard rushed through his head as he locked eyes with hers, brilliant gold to bottle green. Perhaps she was a pookah or a sort of kelpie that was cat and not seal....she hissed again and sent raging green blue tendrils of thought at him that made his pulse quicken. He threw up a wall in his mind, the kind he used when fighting Gewin to keep them from turning his thoughts. +Out! Stay out!+ He thought fiercely as she advanced on him, a little ebony shape in the shadows with eyes of emerald fire.

He was faster by far than any human could ever be and stronger, but not quite as quick as a cat...this he knew. So he would not trap her by force but by wit. She was clearly a creature of intelligence and no mere animal, but fighting skills were both born and learned. Alastair had come from the womb with them and had so far had forty years to hone them to deadly perfection. His slit pupiled eyes fixed upon her, as they would upon any foe and he shifted his shoulders, the muscles in them rippling and sending the cloak about his shoulders ever so slightly aflutter. Then he jerked his head up, nose testing the air in a decidedly feline gesture. Shoulders tensing, breath quieting, he waited: his eyes narrowed and fixed on a point in the shadows to her rear right flank, as if on some threat he could not ignore, though he kept the small black cat in his peripheral vision. The wind was behind them, so she would scent nothing from the underbrush at which he stared...for indeed there was nothing, but with the wind the wrong way she would have no way of knowing this. But the elder Guardian painted such a convincing ploy, it would be foolish for any wild creature to ignore his signs, all of which screamed danger. Sometimes the simplest tricks, when executed with skill, were the most effective.

[Analia]

She cursed wordlessly. She couldn't get into his mind; he'd figured out how to block her entrance somehow. It made her nervous; it was her best defense against anything bigger, and this was the mental equivalent of kicking her carelessly away. He stared at her, and she stared back, silently wondering how she could possibly intimidate this thing enough to get it to go away. She was about to jump at him, claws out, just enough to scratch at his face before running off, when suddenly his attention shifted. His entire body screamed of another threat, greater than her, but she could smell nothing. However, judging by the wind, whatever was there could probably smell her. She backed up, but to her left, keeping him in her sight as she glanced back and forth between the old danger and the new one; seeing nothing, but blindly trusting her adversary's senses.

Body language didn't lie.

[Alastair]

.Alastair.

Quickly, she backed up, fur shimmering in the moonlight like water and as he had hoped she would, turned the bulk of her attention to the fictitious distraction. She was, he noted, too woods wise to let him slip completely from her attentions. This would make things more difficult but he still held one last ace: it seemed as though she knew nothing of Guardians, not that she was like them, not that they could shift and not that they retained much of their catlike speed and grace even in their human forms. He focused his mind upon the brambles, letting his mind form an image - the shadowed bulk of a Gewin. Experience was a hard teacher and she had taught him that when creating a diversion, you have to believe it almost completely yourself. For if you yourself are not sure of your illusion, neither will your opponent be. He could not make her see things that were not there...but he could make her positive there was something to fear and she would look. She would search in earnest and this was all he needed. So vividly did he picture the Gewin, its eyes like flint and its coat like umber peat moss that a soft growl rumbled in his throat and had he a ruff of hair about his shoulders it would have risen.

Despite his instinctive reactions to his self-imagined second opponent, he maintained his peripheral vigil on the dark furred stranger. She seemed fully concerned about the new danger, but still he did not move. The tall man did not tense, did not alter his stance. He gave no indication of his intentions, then without warning lunged out towards the small sleek form of the black she-cat. His hand felt fur and sleek muscle but the sliver of her attention that she had reserved for him served her well and while his palm fell nearly full upon her back, his fingers were unable to gain purchase on the twisting, leaping feline form. A guttural and thoroughly feline growl of frustration burst from his throat and he threw himself after the cat, all six feet and three inches of his body extended in powerful motion.

[Analia]

Still she watched the shadows for the new opponent, and still she saw nothing. But the tall male thing still stared into the trees at this invisible danger, and so Analia would still keep an eye out. But she let down her guard for a brief moment, forgetting about the original threat in her haste to trust senses other than her own, so when he leapt for her, she only just saw in time. She leapt nearly out of the way, but he managed to touch her on the back, and she flinched in midair, and felt that familiar wrench of pain. She yowled as her bones rearranged and restructured themselves, and as her vocal cords changed her yowls morphed into a kind of hoarse yell as she fell into a snowbank with a whump.

She turned over, already shivering from her bare skin in the snow, breathing hard with adrenaline and shock from her fall, and barely had a chance to look down at herself and realize what had just happened before she looked up again to see the creature flying above her. She wondered vaguely where his wings were, but then he landed on top of her, his face landing directly into her stomach. She kicked him away, not caring where her feet pushed, and tried to back up, away from him. It didn't work well, as she had no sense of balance in her new form, and she clumsily scraped at the snow, staring at him fearfully as she tried to assess him as a current threat. What did this thing want with her?

[Alastair]

.Alastair.

He felt the she-cat's fur beneath his hand, then felt her spring away and utter a yowl of distress that was strangled abruptly. While he was not as agile in his two legged form as he was in his four legged one, he was accustomed enough to his current shape to be able to track the slender dark form of the fleeing feline. Had there been time for his eyes to widen in amazement as her form rippled and twisted, fur melting away to expose creamy skin, he might have been able to alter his course at least slightly. As it were, his fall was a slow enough one that it gave him time to register the shock; for here was nearly incontrovertible fact that she was of his kind. How this could be when she was so obviously a stranger to Branwen's Cauldron he could not fathom and truly, did not have time to fathom, for in a swirl of heavy wool cloak and flying snow his flying tackle ended. Instead of grasping the squirming form of a cat in his big hands, he found himself atop a slender young woman; dark haired, green eyed, white skinned and very much naked. Though she was but a slip of a woman, barely out of maidenhood, the burly Guardian's warrior instincts had kicked in and he was not yet going to dismiss the possibility that she could be a threat. The blood was singing in his ears and his eyes had taken on the metallic golden hue that had meant death for many unfortunate Gewin. So when she beat at him with both arms and legs, her slender hands doing little damage but her feet unfortunately finding purchase on certain vital male bits, he grunted in pain and closed his eyes involuntarily, his pale skin losing its soft dust of peach and bleaching bone white, but did not roll away...the pain was still so that he was unsure if his legs would support him at the moment anyway. He only folded his arms about her and gripped her tighter, pulling himself further up along her to pin her arms to her sides; while she was a wiry thing and strong for her size, she was little match in brute strength for two hundred pounds of muscle and bone.

As she wriggled desperately beneath him, her nails scratching at his cloak and his arms, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, noting gratefully that the pain was easing. The late winter snow was wet and cold against his elbows, but his blood was still humming with fight and when it was so, Alastair was always and ever impeccably focused, inexorably driven. He paid the winter cold and wet little heed. When at last he could breath easily, he turned his fierce amber gaze on her, pinning her as much with his eyes as with his weight.

+Who are you? And what are you doing in Benevolence? I cannot let you up till I know for sure your intentions.+

He asked, the warm husky tenor of his voice slightly raspy from infrequent use.

[Analia]

She was ferociously pleased to see that she'd injured him, though she'd been too frantic about it to notice how. His skin paled and his eyes widened, but to her frustration, he did not release her. Instead, his arms wrapped around her tighter. She struggled and fought against him desperately, but she was no match for his size and strength. He pinned her arms down, and she whimpered, finally stopping the struggle, knowing it was no use.

She closed her eyes and relaxed, waiting for death.

When it didn't come, she opened her eyes again, watching him warily. He opened his mouth and began to spout sounds, the ones she'd come to recognize as a language among the people of his kind. The peddler had spoken to her often, having no one else to speak to; the villagers she'd managed to scrounge food out of would speak to her sometimes, or about her. She'd learned to recognize certain sounds, place them with different objects, even the one the peddler had given her as a name - but she'd never before been in a position to make an attempt to replicate them.

She recognized a few of the sounds: "Benevolence." That was what the villagers whose minds she'd entered had called the cat-village. She blinked in surprise. Did that mean she was close?

She sent out another tendril of thought, the bright filament of it belly up in calm surrender, but showing him images from her own mind. The vague shapes she knew as her family; the peddler man, in his cart, in different cities, asleep the way he'd looked the night she left him; flashes of the forests she'd stolen through, the roads she'd crossed, the villages she'd seen. Again she sent him an image of the large calico she-cat, and how Analia would play with her tail, jumping up to chase the black tip.

She wanted to play with her mother's tail, curl up with her father. She wanted to go home.

[Lexi]

.Alastair.
She did not respond immediately, but then, he did not expect her to. It was entirely possible he had knocked the wind from her, so there would be no surprise if it took her a moment to gather her wits about her. Mercifully, the pain had entirely subsided, though he suspected that standing again would be somewhat uncomfortable. His eyes had yet to lose their hard fighting glint, but his blood had ceased to simmer and merely flowed hot and ready in his veins should she prove a threat. The broad shouldered man was not quite ready...call it paranoia, call it experience; to dismiss that possibility just yet. He fixed his gaze steadily upon her wide green eyes and waited for a response.

Then, from where he least expected it, came his response. He felt a tremulous sending enter his mind: a trickle of soft-hued surrender. There was no hint of ill will and none of deception in the mind from which it came and he reached back with strong and gentle russet, his breathing coming quick and quiet and shallow. While all Guardians spoke in sendings while in feline form, they sent in common English and rarely in images. Visual sendings were kittens' things, for young ones without a command of the language and he had not used them in years: words were more practical and less revealing. For a youngling, there is little yet in their lives that they would want to hide and so they spoke in telling pictures and candid colors. Visual sendings were much more soul bearing things than spoken ones. It was heady contact to sustain, to be so near the essence of another, if one was unaccustomed to it. Why? he wondered, At her age, would she send visuals? Why will she not speak?

Before he could ponder his own questions further, she returned to his mind with more sendings; vibrant images this time of people and places he did not know. A gypsy man, foreign towns, strange smells and sounds and then most lovingly rendered: the memory of a calico she-cat and a small black kitten. He tensed in surprise, his breath catching in his throat and every muscle in his body jumping against her in shock. The calico cat! He knew her face - had known her face. Riona. Before she died, she and her mate so long ago...he could not remember when. He had been young at the time; Blair's loss an open wound in his mind and heart and so he had little time for the tragedies of others. But he remembered they had had a kitten, a little black she-kitten and that the Council had realized shortly after the death of Riona and her mate Cairan, was missing. The kitten had never been found and after numerous searches, all assumed she had been claimed by either the Gewin or the forest. Alastair found his breath again, his slit pupils flickering as he peered at her, seeing for an instant the shy little kitten he had, as many of his fellow Guardians had in their turn, cared for while her parents were on duty. The Guardians of Benevolence were a small community: every birth and death was important. Every life was likewise important: just as any Guardian of age could find themselves called to duty, so could any Guardian be asked to help a family with a new arrival or an ailing elder. He had only watched the little kitten a few times and she had naturally been wary of him at first but had, on his later visits, loved to roughhouse with the husky grey tom. How she had been taken away he did not know, how she had found her way back he did not know either, but he knew he could not scare her away and could not let her leave now that she was home. She seemed to react to the word 'Benevolence' and so he sent her a hazy image of the town just visible down the path and searched her face for recognition.

"This is Benevolence." he said, his voice softer now, like warm woodsmoke, though he did not let her free. He was afraid she would panic, run and it did not seem as though she had much experience with her human shape. It would be bad if she were to become lost in her state. And, the warrior in him never quite went to sleep; just because she had been born here did not make her harmless or a friend. Though he doubted now that she was a threat, he did not want to let her out of his sight till he was certain she was not. Again he met her gaze, seeing (now that her memories had made more sense of things) an echo of the young she-kitten he had played with in his youth and realized with a bit of a jolt that she was naked, her slim body pressed down by his own weight. Her back was against the snow and he grasped a generous fold of the traveler's cloak and slipped the arm gently beneath her back, levering his sinewy body up on his other hand and with the arm around her pulling her close to his battle-scarred chest. The cloak beneath her now, he lowered her softly back to the earth, so she would not be exposed to the snow. Slowly, he lay himself back down, ever the focused fighter: he saw no reason to move away as he needed to prevent her from bolting in fear and as he knew they both must share the cloak, for she must to be kept warm.

[Analia]

He accepted her surrender, and quietly watched the sendings she gave him. He tensed when she showed him the image of the calico, and she nervously tried to shrink away from him, until she realized it wasn't anger or hostility; it was a shock of recognition.

"This is Benevolence," he said. Benevolence. She must be home, then. Her heart started pounding. She wanted to get up and run there immediately, but resisted the urge; he might see it as trying to bolt from him, and give chase; and she certainly didn't want an angry thing like that on her tail.

Suddenly she felt herself being lifted off the ground. She started to squirm again, but he picked her up and was placing that cloth thing underneath her, to guard her from the snow. She'd forgotten about it, and realized her bare back, no longer protected by her usual layer of fur, was completely numb from the cold. How... thoughtful of him. Instinctively, she curled closer to him, sharing body heat in an attempt to warm herself.

She curiously sent him another image, one of her own creation - he and the calico, together. Had he known her?

[Lexi]

.Alastair.
She curled against him, all soft skin and feminine scent against the crisp nose of the snow and the damp blush of the earth beneath it and his breath lodged in his chest at the unexpected gesture. How well he remembered now how she had done this very thing when she was but a kitten and then fallen asleep at his side exhausted from play. The male Guardian's amber eyes glanced the short distance down at his new found charge and his mind, not to mention the pit of his stomach churned. It had been so long since he had held any female close he had quite forgotten the feeling of it and the presence of any instinctual feelings at all startled him deeply. There was, he thought, no way any part of him could even consider anything, for she had been his kitten sister. Male instinct did not awaken for kitten sisters. But, he thought to himself with a start as he glanced down at her dark hair and high cheekbones, breathing in the decidedly womanly scent of her skin, she was not a kitten anymore. Without realizing it, in an action part brotherly protectiveness and part age old instinct, he drew her closer with one strong arm.

A sending from the young she-Guardian beneath him came floating to his mind: an image of him in human form (he winced at his features which had not gotten less rugged with age and so, in his estimation, had not improved) beside the calico Riona. Yes, poor thing. he thought sadly, I knew Riona. Concentrating on an visual sending, for he was unaccustomed to making them, he slowly but accurately painted a tableau for her of her dark furred father Cairan and himself in his human form, for she would not recognize his cat-shape and he did not wish to confuse her. In his sending, Cairan led him to Riona, who lay in the hay of the Bell barn loft with a young black she-kitten by her side. Riona stood and the little black kitten hid from Alastair behind her mother's legs, but the calico moved to join her mate and gave a meow of thanks. Then she and Cairan disappeared into wisps of thought. Alastair stood with the kitten who slowly and cautiously made her way to him and presently began to tumble about him, batting at him with her paws as he sat beside her on the ground. He finished his sending with the little green eyed kitten falling asleep in the crook of his arm. Skin shivering over taut muscle from the effort of his longest and most complex sending in years, he cast his hazel eyes down to meet her green ones, hoping against hope she would understand, for it would draw his attention away from the whispering in his blood and the tingling in his skin: sensations he had long forgotten and which distracted and confused him terribly at the moment.

[Analia]

He pulled her in closer, and she sighed softly in the warmth of his body, his strong arm around her shoulders. He smelled of pure masculinity, and she wondered in a sleepy, comfortable sort of way why her stomach was trying to tie itself into knots. She felt safe here, as safe as she'd ever felt in her life, and it confused her. She didn't know him, she didn't know his intentions, and she certainly didn't know why she didn't feel like running anymore. She blinked, trying to shake off her confusion, but there it stayed. It didn't help that her animalistic senses could practically feel the pheromones coming off his body as well. Her body told her this was a good thing, but she didn't know what to do about either of these new sensations, so she left them alone.

And then she got a sending back from him, a series of images longer than the one she'd sent. In them she saw her mother, and her father, and the creature that now lay on top of her... and herself. The woodswise feline was a little proud to see that even as a kitten she seemed to assess danger before relaxing enough to play. Whether or not that's actually what her kitten-self was doing she didn't know, but she preferred to think of it that way. So she had known him, to some extent. He had taken care of her while her parents were... somewhere. Not there. Where had they gone? Was that why they'd...

She had nearly convinced herself that her family might still be alive, that she might actually have something to come home to like everyone else she'd seen. But the shock of the memories came rushing back, and as they did, she felt that all-too-familiar flash of pain and suddenly she had fur again. She curled up around herself under him, thankful to be in a body she knew again, wanting to shrink up as small as she could, and forget about... well, everything. But to no avail. Everything flooded back to her; her mother running off, Analia chasing after her, finding the bloodied bodies of her mother and her father...

She managed to look up at him as the images came, and his eyes were sad. He shivered with effort, and it worried her. Was it hard for him to send those visions? It had gotten fairly simple for her over the years, and wasn't much of an effort anymore. How could she tell him that he could speak those strange sounds to her? She usually got the general gist of what was being said, though it would be a slower conversation for them. She sent him another thought - an image of his face, his mouth moving as he made those strange sounds, and an image of his arms trembling with effort. She cast him a worried glance again, wondering where these protective instincts were coming from all of a sudden. She had a feeling it had something to do with the way he smelled of safety and pure manhood, and the way her stomach churned happily, though she couldn't be sure what either of those meant.

[Alastair]

.Alastair.
He felt her shift beneath him and shrink to her furred feline form. She did not seem to know much of shifting and even less of her human self and so he intuited she must shift purely at the whim of her emotions. This must not be easy for her, to journey alone for so many years and to know next to nothing of her own origins. She must be as lonely as I. He thought and rolled over onto his back in the snow, cradling the slight form of the she-cat in to his chest. With her shift her scent was purely feline and only faintly and factually feminine and the thrumming in his blood calmed. Alert again, he glanced about, testing the wind to ensure that there were no Gewin about that might have come near since the newly-arrived Guardian had shifted. There were none, but he stood anyway, taking precautions to keep his movements fluid and slow, so as not to startle her. In truth, he didn't feel that this was necessary, for she seemed to have calmed herself considerably.

Still, for reasons he could rationalize to himself as being the only ones (even though they were not), he felt protective of her. +We're going to walk now. Some place safe.+ He told her softly, knowing her hearing was good enough to catch his words. The night sky purple above them and freckled with ice-white stars, he stood and stretched back, the muscles in his torso rippling against her fur before he drew the thick cloak around them both to shield them from the chill breeze. Amber gaze sweeping the moon-silvered landscape, every sense alert, the tall man strode towards the nearest guard tower and climbed with one arm up the ladder rungs, holding the curled form of the black she-cat in the other. When they were in the tower, he set her down softly in the corner and proceeded to remove his traveler's cloak and fold it. He did the same with his breeches, trying not to remember that the black cat seeing him naked now was also a lovely green eyed young woman. It was not that Alastair had any societal scruples. In truth, he would rather go about his business without the annoyance that was human garb; but first and foremost, the winter weather did not permit him this luxury and secondly, the burly Guardian had grown up in close enough proximity to human beings to understand the concept of modesty. While he did not care much for himself, he worried that he might offend her and also Alastair you're acting like a fool! Let it go. He berated himself as he realized that a large amount of his discomfort was due to his own self consciousness about his human form. Quickly, he tucked the folded garments beneath a loose floor board, then glanced in the small she-cat's direction. He didn't want to scare her If the sight of a naked human man hasn't already! he told himself, and send her an image of himself in feline form, then patted his broadly muscled chest and told her quietly. +That is me. Please...don't be afraid.+ It wasn't another cat he thought she might spook at but the transformation itself.

Closing his brilliant eyes and dropping to a crouch, he reached out with his mind, body and soul to the moonlight, letting it claim him and course through his veins. He felt the dull ache in his bones as they shifted and shrunk, a pain so familiar he barely noticed it there. In moments, he stood a few paces away from her, on all fours: fully furred, fanged and clawed and grateful for his feline form again. His muscles were now covered in dusty grey fur and he weighed but fifteen pounds (large for a cat but a fraction of the size she had met him at) but his eyes, strong and vibrant hazel as they looked at her, were still the same.

[Analia]

He began looking about for danger again, and she realized she'd forgotten all about the other opponent he'd sensed. She was about to send him a hurried image of the brush where he'd seen... whatever it was he saw, when it occurred to her that it very well may have been a trick, to catch her off guard. She felt a little slighted, but promised herself she wouldn't let it happen again. In a way, she was glad he'd managed to pin her. She liked him.

He spoke to her. Something about walking, and safe. All right. She would be ok with that. She started to get up when he swooped her up in his arm and stood up to his full height. Analia was not afraid of heights by any means; she'd spent plenty of nights nestled in tree branches. But she definitely preferred to remain on her own two feet as much as possible, and being carried was not something she had ever been a big fan of. A small noise came from her throat, and her claws dug into his arm as she tried to get her own footing. After a minute or two she began to relax, pulling her claws back in, but her body still tensed, and eventually she just stuck her head in his chest and pretended not to think about it.

When he finally set her down, she sat down in a rather dignified way and cleaned herself up. It was just as much composure cleaning as it was actual cleaning; she'd been tromping around in a snowy forest all night, and had the longest amount of contact with another creature she'd had since she'd left the peddler.

She watched him as he removed the strange fabrics he used to cover up his body. He seemed slightly nervous, but she couldn't quite figure out why. She wondered idly if it had something to do with the way creatures of his kind usually wore that kind of protective fabric. It made sense for them to wear it, she supposed - after all, they had no fur, and they'd get cold otherwise. Her short stint as one of them just now had shown her that. But it didn't explain his nervousness. He sent her an image, a brawling grey feline, and patted his chest. Analia squinted cynically at him, not sure how he could be that, and the tall, decidedly two-legged thing standing before her, when he crouched, and...

became that feline in the image he'd shown her. Analia was shocked. Only the hazel of his eyes told her this was the same soul standing before her, furry and full of sharp points. So he was like her! She blinked rapidly, trying to take it all in. She shot him an image, lightning fast and insistent, shoddily pieced together in her haste. She and he stood together, popping in and out of those strange two-legged forms. Then her parents appeared, doing the same thing, and then as many more cats as she could think of, all moving in and out of a feline shape much more rapidly than either of them had just done. She stared at him fiercely, waiting for an answer. How many of them were there?

[Alastair]

.Alastair.

She had tilted her head at him in obvious puzzlement before he shifted and now he could practically hear the shock rioting about in her mind. Quickly, she sent him a sketchy series of images: of themselves shifting and of other cats doing the same. For a feral woman, he thought to himself, she is remarkably quick to catch on. Not, he amended, that a life amidst human society necessarily makes one intelligent. But if his guess was correct, she was not accustomed to social groups and he had not expected the possibility that she might be part of an entire race to be the first thing to enter her mind. Clearly, though, it had and he sat a few paces away from her, golden eyes pristine and unfathomable as they usually were.

Despite the fact that her scent, now that they were in both in feline form, was decidedly distracting again, he was more focused than he had been in his human form, as he was more accustomed to standing on four paws than two legs. It was another reason to shift more often, as much as he preferred this body to his taller one. His life and the life of another might someday depend on mastery over both of his forms. The tip of his tail twitched and he turned to look at the slender black cat beside him, drawing his thoughts back to her and their situation. He had exchanged more images and words with her in the past hour than he had with any living creature for nearly two months...and Alastair had ever been a man of few words. He had virtually exhausted his monthly dialogue quota in one night, be it visual or verbal and did not much feel like answering any more questions. But nagging in the pit of his stomach and in the back of his mind, there was a sense of responsibility for this young lady; one which, as a protector born, he could no more ignore than he could disregard the fact that he currently had fur and a tail.

He did not answer for a moment, instead hopping up to the tower's window ledge and surveying the woods beyond. But presently, he glanced back down over his shoulder, his remarkably still amber eyes finding hers and without a sending of any sort, beckoned her to sit upon the sill beside him. Then he sent her a series of images, of himself and of her, of the Guardians of the Council and Leonard and Finley and Maggie. All of them he stood in his mind's eye beside each other beneath the golden light of the sun and then he changed the sun to the moon and all of the felines shifted to their two-legged bodies. Our kind only lives here. He sent her as the image vanished to smoke. His presentation complete, he turned his gaze back to the woods, ears tipped forward and alert, nose testing the breeze and the rest of his body still as a piece of cemetery statuary. It occurred to him that he should tell her of the Gewin and what they meant to their kind and the village, for he was almost certain she remembered none of the Guardian lore her parents had surely recited to her every night, as did all Guardian parents. But he was largely through with speaking for the night and resolved that he would, as her de-facto guide to life in Benevolence, have plenty of time to tell her such important things in the near future. He liked this young she-cat; she was quiet and reserved but not weak. He admired that in a woman. But that fact wasn't about to (for it never had) transformed him into a great conversationalist.[/size]

[Analia]

Had Analia been human the subtle tail flick would have likely been lost on her; but as feline communication relied mainly on body language more than anything, she caught the meaning behind the imageless thought pattern, and the feral feline followed her new companion up to the window ledge when he motioned for her. She sat on her hind legs, curling her tail up against her body like a small skirt, just in time for another sending of his.

The two of them as their far more attractive (in her opinion) feline selves, along with a few others she didn't recognize, male and female. They stood under the giant golden eye that lit up the sky, but when the silvery-white eye appeared, making the sky go dark, they all shifted to those strange, two-legged and bare versions of themselves. Analia blinked once in understanding, emerald eyes locking once again with the golden hazel, so intense she had to look away after a moment. Now that they were in forms she was familiar with, his scent was stronger, more... appealing. She jumped down off the ledge again, trying to pretend for the sake of her pride that she wasn't vainly trying to shift at will. It wasn't working however, and after a few minutes she gave it up with a frustrated rush of air.

Turning to him again, she tried to pretend she wasn't embarrassed, or that there was anything to be embarrassed about in the first place. He had obviously done it because he wanted to at that moment, not because he got spooked; why was she different? She would have asked him, but her fierce pride and independence prevented that option as soon as it occurred to her. She'd just have to figure it out herself.

So, looking in his direction, trying hard to make eye contact and not always succeeding, she sent him another image, a simple one of herself. Analia, she added. She had just been learning to answer to her own name when she was taken, and though the peddler had called her something else, she had always kept this one with her. She realized with a start that he was the first living soul she'd ever told. She sent one more image, of him, the way she saw him now, with the moonlight reflecting off of his gray pelt, and looked at him questioningly.

Somehow, he seemed more important than anyone else she had met so far in her young life. Important enough to want another way to categorize him in her mind.

[Alastair]

.Alastair.

He thought she understood what he meant, for she pattered down off the window sill and paced a bit. Presently she turned her attention back to him, trying with all her might to hide her frustration and he guessed she had been trying to shift. Alastair did not let on that he noticed her frustration, as much out of consideration for her pride as for the fact that he had a large chunk of his mind, as always, on the woods and their darker citizens. While she was obviously not taking to shifting as easily as most young Guardians, it occurred to him that without a fellow Guardian to explain the transformation and guide her through it, it would have been difficult for her to understand what triggered her shape-shifting. This was something he would have to assist her with later, he thought. But that would take words and he had all but exhausted his supply of words for the night. The veteran tom cat wanted his peace and quiet and his routine watch over the woods. Elizabeth Bell was with her family this night and so he was not obligated to remain at Elencastel. While he would return to the castle if Elizabeth made the trek from the township by morning, it was not worth tempting fate to return to the keep alone and at night should Miss Bell choose to return home in the late afternoon. Alastair was a fierce fighter, but it was just plain idiotic for a Guardian to take a midnight stroll in the woods when they didn't have to. It was asking for trouble. She had chosen to return in the afternoon this time, so today they had arrived in town as the sun had begun to set and while the moon was still a ghost in the sky and not yet tugging at his blood. If it did not call to his blood, he knew it would not be courting the Gewins' either.

{Analia.}

The sending rippled through the Other and into his mind and he startled slightly, the muscles beneath his ashy coat twitching and tensing for a brief instant as he whipped his head to her. His gaze, which before had been simultaneously fierce and detached, was now surprised. She had not used any words in her sendings thus far and so he had assumed she knew none. Then how was it she understood most of what you said, Alastair? he asked himself and felt a little foolish. Using his feline talent for quickly regaining composure, he sucked the shock out of his eyes, but she threatened to upset his control again by forming another sending for him. An image again, of himself as she saw him: a tall brawny tom with a pelt of moonlit silver and eyes of cool fire. Am I really so imposing? He thought briefly before realizing that she had given him her name and was now asking for his own. To any other who had so commanded and demanded his attention for the better part of the night (not to mention compelled him to engage in so much conversation) he would have answered with a curt, "Does it really matter?" and resumed his watch. But for some reason, he let that response wither in his mind and told himself it was because she probably wouldn't understand him or the sarcasm anyway. For a moment he considered not saying anything at all but there was something in her voice and in her images, something that intimated importance, that would not let him stay silent. He tilted his head, regarding her with an unreadable expression before responding.

+Alastair. My name is Alastair.+