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Thrown together by fate they face some looming threat together. ", "count": "7", "submission_left_submission_id": "1089266", "submission_left_file_name": "1506699_Agent355_aimless.txt", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/1506/1506699_Agent355_aimless.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/1506/1506699_Agent355_aimless.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/1506/1506699_Agent355_aimless.jpg", "submission_left_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_huge_y": "133", "submission_left_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_large_y": "133", "submission_left_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_left_thumb_medium_y": "80", "submission_right_submission_id": "1156419", "submission_right_file_name": "1606678_Agent355_bleak_and_black.txt", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/1606/1606678_Agent355_bleak_and_black.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/1606/1606678_Agent355_bleak_and_black.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/1606/1606678_Agent355_bleak_and_black.jpg", "submission_right_thumb_huge_x": "300", "submission_right_thumb_huge_y": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_y": "133", "submission_right_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_right_thumb_medium_y": "80" } ], "description": "This took longer than I expected it to. One of the scenes in here proved incredibly difficult to write at a level I considered satisfactory. Not much practice writing scenes of it's kind I guess.\n\nOn the other hand it's nice because this chapter cements in alot of plot points that have been kind of floating around until now. Lots of things could have happened previously, depending on what I thought would work best, but now I know for sure where the story is going in.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "This took longer than I expected it to. One of the scenes in here proved incredibly difficult to write at a level I considered satisfactory. Not much practice writing scenes of it's kind I guess.

On the other hand it's nice because this chapter cements in alot of plot points that have been kind of floating around until now. Lots of things could have happened previously, depending on what I thought would work best, but now I know for sure where the story is going in.", "writing": "The world around Tarvor slowed to a halt but his pulse was pounding wildly in his veins. His head throbbed, yet as hard as he tried he couldn’t seem to move any faster. His heart screamed at him to panic. Shera lay injured and unconscious in an open clearing surrounded by dead men, nothing was okay. Every fiber of his being urged him to cry out in frustration, hang his head in his hands and weep, anything to cope with what he was feeling. However, there was no time for that and Tarvor fought against his instincts to do what needed to be done. \n\nAlright, Calm down. Take care of her first, panic later. We can’t stay here. Tarvor was suspicious that there had been a reason he hadn’t seen any travelers the morning before the ambush. Maybe a road block further down the road to stop any interruptions. Maybe more men guarding it to prevent entry, could be the weasel went to get them and would be coming back. Even if that wasn’t the case Tarvor didn’t want somebody to happen on him tending to a wounded lion in the middle of a pile of corpses. People might just get the wrong idea. \n\nTarvor settled his eyes on his unconscious love and wondered how to move her. Her shoulder still bled, that would need tending, and she was too damn heavy to carry. How to move her then? He could probably drag her but making a sled would take some amount of time, something quicker was preferable if he could find it. He glanced around the clearing. A large gray piece of cloth, crumpled on the ground where weasel had left it. The bastard’s cloak. Tarvor picked it up.\n\nLarge, heavy, he pulled at it roughly, strong enough to do the job. There was some amount of poetry to be found in the idea of dragging Shera to safety on the cloak of that man. It would do. He lay it on the ground next to Shera. He sneered at the cloak as if it was Weasel himself, then a small feral growl escaped Shera’s throat and he forgot all about the petulant man.\n\nThe cougar slept fitfully, he could see her claws slip from their sheaths and draw back in again. He grimaced but there was nothing he could do about fevered dreams. The bloody shoulder on the other hand he might be able to ease a bit, better to do something about it now before moving her. He kept some basic supplies in his pack. He’d only used them to tend to himself before, along on the mountain, but it shouldn’t be that different now. He glanced over what he had, clean cotton scraps, needle, thread, everything he’d need to bind the wound, simple enough.\n\nA pad of cotton on her shoulder and a tied strip of cloth around her leg to keep it in place, it would hold for now. Anything else would have to wait. The pad of cotton already showed a small splotch of red where Shera’s blood had soaked through, Tarvor refused to look at it, or at the red staining his fingers. He couldn’t afford to look, there were still things that needed to be done. The two of them couldn’t stay here any longer. \n\n\nLaying out the cloak was easy, getting Shera onto it slightly less so. Tarvor managed, just. He wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with lifting and moving the cat, their activities could get rather strenuous if they were in the right mood, but trying to do it without further agitating her shoulder was difficult. He felt bad every time he jostled her roughly, she would wince in her sleep, but it was necessary. \n\nHe shouldered his pack, spear and bow once again lashed to the back of it, and grabbed the edges of the cloak. If moving her onto it had been painful for the cat he truly regretted what came next. He stepped forward, carefully weaving between obstacles as he went, off the path and into the forest. The cloak slid easily across the ground with Shera riding on top. However, even trying as he was avoiding every rock and root was impossible. They didn’t have to go far, just far enough from the road that people would be unlikely to bother them, a thousand yards at most. All the same, every little bump likely hurt Tarvor more than it hurt his sleeping parcel. He winced at every one.\n\nEventually Tarvor found what he was looking for, a nice piece of flat ground. It lay between large trees and a rocky outcrop, enough to keep it safe from prying eyes. Tarvor dragged Shera into the center of the area and let the cloak slip from his hands. He set the pack down nearby and checked Shera’s bandages. Dark red, they had completely soaked through, they clung wetly to her fur when he tried to remove them. The wound hadn’t stopped bleeding, if anything the journey had only irritated it and made it worse. Tarvor’s brow furrowed, he’d been hoping to avoid it but there was no doubt now that it needed stiches. \n\nTarvor dabbed a fresh piece of cotton around the injury. In truth it didn’t look that bad, it was small but the edges were ragged. The bandit’s knife had been dull, it had not punctured cleanly. The muscle was pierced badly but it wasn’t bleeding heavily enough for a vein or artery. A small sigh of relief from Tarvor as his unsteady hands replaced the cotton and he rebound her shoulder more tightly. \n\nCould be worse, could be a lot worse. Though, why hasn’t she woken up yet? The words were a poison to Tarvor’s mind and his knees wobbled under him, threatening to drop him in the dirt. No, not yet. Still more to do. Keep it together, Tarvor. He ignored his doubts and focused on the task at hand. Shera needed stiches, and for that Tarvor needed fire, and preferably a bit of water as well. He shook himself, trying to steady his nerves. His face was set in grim determination, only the sporadic shaking in his hands gave him away. \n\nHe thought about trying to find a local source of water but it seemed unlikely he’d find one as quickly as he would want to, instead he just grabbed the leather skin from the pack. Wood for a fire was easier to find. In short order a pile of tinder and branches were smoking lightly. \n\nTarvor heated the needle over the newly built fire, sterilizing it. He sighed deeply, wishing he was anywhere but here. The fire burned his fingers but he felt nothing. His hands stopped shaking when he finally set to work, purpose guided them now. \n\nHer fur was long and obscured the wound so he cut it back. The wound was dirty with tacky drying blood so he rinsed it clean with water and a cloth. One step after another. His hands were deft and efficient; he was no doctor but he made passable work of it. He didn’t think about what he was doing, only about what needed to be done. He closed the wound and dressed it in fresh bandages. There was nothing more he could do for her. \n\nBut why isn’t she awake yet? There was nothing to push the voice away now, no more pressing matters that needed him. Just doubts and fear. He sat by her side and waited. The shaking wasn’t restricted to his hands anymore. As the hours passed he held his head in his hands and wept. Come back to me Shera.\n\n***\n\nDeep fog banks covered the land, so thick Shera couldn’t even see her own feet beneath her. Even the ground felt insubstantial, her paws sunk into it unnervingly. It squished between her toes, like walking on a bog. She padded forward quietly, taking every step with care and glancing around her. Trying to find something, anything, to tell her where she was or where she was going. \n\nFaintly a mote of light appeared ahead of Shera. While it was distant and dim it felt a shining beacon to the cat. She felt herself drawn into it. Unable to resist she approached it. The ground firmed up beneath her and the mist thinned. The world around her felt more real, substantial. The pinprick of light grew as she approached, larger and larger until it towered above her and she was only a mote next to it. It was so bright, so all consuming, and yet she felt nothing but comfort emanating from it.\n\nShe stared at the light unblinkingly, her eyes watered. She could spend a lifetime here in its glow, or maybe just days. She would stay until she grew weak from hunger and wasted away to a blissful death. She stood inches from the light, her nose nearly pushed again it, but still it called to her. She could get no closer yet she still felt compelled, this was something she had to do. There was no place else to be but here.\n\nShe reached out a paw to the light. The last moment before she touched it fear gripped her, her chest contracted. The fear in her fought the light’s pull. Her paw quavered in the air, she was neither able to draw it back or push it forward, stuck in limbo. The light pulsed, it’s power grew and her hesitation was overcome. She touched it. For one brief moment she and the light were as one and she glowed from within, filled with the light’s radiance. Then the light was snuffed out, darkness came, and the ground underneath Shera disappeared. \n\nSolid one moment, ephemeral the next, the ground swallowed her. The mists once again closed in on Shera and she plummeted ever downward. Oddly she didn’t panic, she fell but she felt… safe? Secure? At the very least she was unafraid. Whatever was going to come would come in time and there was nothing she could do about it. Resigned, that was it. She felt resigned. She fell and she waited.\n\nThe mist curled around her, images formed before her eyes. They twisted and shifted, seeming to roll into each other, denying true substance. At first she thought it was her imagination, that she was only noticing meaningless patterns in the chaos, but as the mist settled it became hard to deny. There were figures dancing around her, animal figures, human figures. Even things in between that resisted classification. They twirled and moved erratically. It was an impossibly intricate dance, Shera could not even hope to follow it, yet it was beautiful all the same. No two figures looked exactly alike. Though many were human even more were not. Her eyes spotted a dancing cougar figure and she traced it’s intricate twirls through the rolling fog.\n\nA larger figure appeared. Like the light it was faint at first, far away, but where the light had shone with intense radiance this figure was the antithesis. A void so dark it seemed almost a hole in space. The dancing figures shirked from it. The figure came closer, or maybe it just grew, swirling mists played fool with Shera’s mind. The figure was made of mist like all the others but darker, denser than any of the surrounding ones. Where the dancing figures inspired wonder Shera felt only fear when she glanced at the encroaching blackness. \n\nA solitary dancing figure continued to spin and twirl as those around it fled, as if oblivious of the fearful void. A tendril reached from the unknown shape, when it touches the dancer the figure ceases its carefree movement, it darkens and is slowly absorbed by the mass. Nothing remains of it and the dangerous mist beast grows. Deep unease fills Shera, her hackles rose, a brave but futile gesture as she helplessly continued to fall. \n\nOne by one the dancers were absorbed as they ran, to no avail. The shape grew with each one. Shera had long lost track of the cougar figure, she foolishly hoped it had somehow slipped away. The darkness became a great writhing mass, too large for the smaller figures to escape. At times nearly recognizable fragments of the dancers could be seen, as if trapped but still whole inside somehow, but soon the mist would swirl and the traces washed away. After a while not even the traces could be seen. When the last figure was taken there was nothing but darkness left, it surrounded Shera. The shade had grown large enough to completely encompass her, above, below, any direction she looked there was no light to be seen.\n\nSlowly the darkness began to close in, she could feel the life being drained from her. She struggled, but without solid ground beneath her there was nothing she could do. Her energy waned, her movement slowed. She thought she would die then, wrapped in unerring unyielding darkness, and her mind turned back to the weeks she had spent on a mountainside, at a small camp with a man she’d only just met, and she felt an odd sense of peace. She closed her eyes and waited, yet nothing came.\n\nMoments passed and Shera continued to exist. She dared not open her eyes for fear of what she would see, but eventually there was nothing for it. Taken by curiosity, unable to wait any longer, she dared a peek and the light of a bright spring day nearly blinded her. No more was she falling, instead she was standing in a small clearing on a mountainside. Nearby all manner of traps and snares stood, carefully maintained and organized, as well as a long hafted spear tipped with a razor sharp blade leaning against an old dead tree. In the middle of the clearing stood and odd sort of tent, a raised wooden platform with walls made of furs and hides. She was home. It was the only home she’d ever really known.\n\n“Tarvor!” she called. She searched about the familiar place for the man she missed. If his spear was here he wasn’t likely to be gone, he never ventured far without it. The furs of the hut stood closed, preventing her from seeing inside, she was sure he must be in there. She reached out her hand and pulled back the curtain and there, in the middle of the hut, sat herself. A mountain lion, but not just any lion. It was her, she knew it was. Somehow she just knew. She reached out a hand to it, and the lion mirrored her movements, reaching forward with its own paw. \n\nSomething wasn’t right. She looked down at her hands, her human hands. She was dressed all in leathers, tight fitting pants and a vest with a thin cloth shirt underneath. They were Tarvor’s clothes and Tarvor’s hands. The lion, herself, sat calmly. It watched her with her own piercing hazel eyes, one paw still extended toward her, a mocking mirror of her own posture. Curious, she reached further and the tips of her fingers touched the delicate fur of the paw. No lightning, no overwhelming experience, she was just suddenly herself again, now looking at Tarvor slowly taking his hand away as she sat on the floor of the hut. \n\nHis face was blank, a plastic face. He stepped away from her, around the corner, and out of sight. She panicked without him, she could hardly handle losing him when she felt like she’d been looking for him for so long. Instead of staying in her home she tried to follow him, trailing out of the hut in the direction he went. Only a moment had passed but he had disappeared. Where he should have been there was only forest, empty except for a dense smattering of trees. When she looked behind her the hut too was gone, along with everything else she knew, and she was alone in the woods again. \n\nFearful, panicking, she called to him. Screaming his name in her mind, but no response. She couldn’t even feel his presence, the very presence that had so often brought her a calm comfort these past weeks. She whimpered, she growled, she roared in defiance. The trees bent and swayed with her voice. Again she roared, louder, fiercer. Wood cracked and strained, smaller trees fell over entirely in the face of her fury, larger trees bent dangerously and shed branches that crashed loudly to the forest floor. Yet no hunter returned her call. Nothing alive moved in this wooded place.\n\nShe ran then, forward into the unknown forest. No living thing stirred, the dead land blurred as she ran through it. She covered ground at a superhuman pace, her footfalls sure and sturdy despite the speed. The air hung heavy and still, and even though she ran faster than any animal could no wind blew at her face. Even the air was dead in this place. \n\nA massive tree, wider across than two grown men with their arms out stretched, stopped her. The trunk was rent and torn, seemingly exploded outward as if struck by lightning. Great gouges ran through it, scarring its surface, but the tree grew on unimpeded. A hole, clear through the other side of the tree, stood in its center. Large enough that she could have passed through it with ease if she had a mind to. She peered through it instead, awestruck, and standing on the other side, gazing into the distance, was Tarvor. Standing calmly as if nothing at all was wrong.\n\nShe cried to him with her mind but he didn’t move. A roar failed to rouse him, though the trees around her shook he stood as still and quiet as the great rent tree in front of her. She ran around the tree, afraid that he would disappear again, yet he still stood there, unmoving. The forest she was in had dropped away, the great tree gone as mysteriously as her mountain home had before. Now it was only her and Tarvor, standing on the border of forest and field. Tarvor was staring into a grassy expanse so large she couldn’t see the other side of it. She approached him but he ignored her, staring intently into the field. She followed his gaze, trying to see what it was he was looking at, but only rolling plains of grass looked serenely back at her.\n\nA hand fell upon her shoulder, strong and sure, and again she became Tarvor. When she looked down though his eyes she could see her hands, Tarvor’s hands, and a lioness at her side. Now the cougar was the one staring off into the distance. Yet this time when she looked up she couldn’t help but see what Tarvor had been looking at. \n\nThe whole world was burning.\n\n***\n\nWhispering, chanting, praying, Tarvor’s head lay in his hands as he knelt by Shera’s side. He had done everything he could to help, all that was left to him was to stay near her and try and reach her. Mentally and verbally he’d call to her sporadically, between his own hushed ramblings. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his hands steady, they shook even as he tightly wrung them together. He had long ago stopped noticing.\n\nThe lion slept fitfully still, she tossed and turned, her eyes twitched behind her eyelids. Occasionally her lips would pull back in a snarl, tormented by whatever it was she saw. Once it had seemed she would roll over onto her bad shoulder, Tarvor held her down. He tried to prevent her from hurting herself further. His touch seemed to calm her somewhat, her lips relaxed and she twitched less, so he kept his hands there, caressing her flank. The sleep did not abate but at least she had stilled. Tarvor still couldn’t understand why he could reach out and touch the cat and yet her presence was gone from his mind.\n\nMinutes passed, hours maybe. Tarvor had lost track of time, it didn’t seem important. The sun was setting, at least the better part of a day had passed since the morning’s conflict. Not a soul had disturbed Tarvor’s make shift camp, hidden as it was, and Tarvor had never left it either. Logically, he felt, he should have been famished by now, having not eaten all day, but he couldn’t imagine eating ever again. Lower and lower the sun sank, shadows lengthened and the twitter of birds rose in great chorus as they sang their evening songs. \n\nStill Tarvor sat vigilant over the cat, a warden against whatever may come, though he feared it would not be something he could fight. He didn’t think he could return to his mountain solitude again having known true companionship, true love. If the journey ended here for Shera… well it was better to not think about it. It was this that kept him strong, more than hope or determination or belief. More than the conviction that nothing bad could possibly happen, it was the abject terror of possible loss that kept him faithful. An unthinkable outcome that he couldn’t allow to pass. His cheeks were dry, his tears long gone. His fingers wound tightly in her fur as he waited. \n\nThe moon rose above the treetops, hours had passed and still he waited. A clear sky and full summer moon shone down on him. There was still enough light to see by, though the fire had long since burned down to glowing coals from lack of tending. Soon he would himself have to sleep, indeed he found himself drifting from time to time, having to pull himself back from the edge and maintain his watch, until he was once again alert. Soon however his mind would inadvertently wander and he’d find himself thinking of the previous weeks and once again he’d list aimlessly towards sleep. \n\nIt was during just such a moment, as dreams threatened to drag Tarvor under, that he felt a shimmer in his mind. A small thing, easily missed, but Tarvor instantly recognized it for what it was. Sleep abandoned him and he sat alert with energy to spare. The dull thrum that had been all he could feel of Shera’s presence in his mind had changed. Where before it lay muted, lifeless, it now pulsed faintly, still distant at first but more strongly with time. \n\nTarvor had ceased breathing, so intently focused on the dim mote of consciousness inside him, he eschewed all other senses. His white knuckled hand still tensely wrapped in the fur of her neck, the hand that first felt her move. The lightest twitch in her heavy muscles as she tried to raise her head to him, eyelids still fighting open as she looked for her hunter. Trying to blink the sleep from her blurry vision.\n\n“Tarvor?” A single word skittered across his mind, a scarce whisper, barely heard at all. But it was enough, she was awake.\n\nThe paralysis that gripped him melted away with that word, like an icicle in the face of an inferno, he instantly leapt to reassure the cat of his presence. Kneeling at her side he stroked her head with a calloused hand and pushed his own face close to hers, whispering into her ear. “It’s okay, I’m right here. Don’t move, okay? Just rest, I’m not going anywhere.” Tears he thought long dry flowed again. \n\nPartially appeased, the big cat didn’t attempt to lift her head again, she was content with the feeling on his hands on her neck and his mind brushing against hers through their bond. “I’ll be fine soon, I think. I can feel the darkness receding.” \n\nHer words, stronger now though still faint, comforted Tarvor as much as his physical touch comforted her. “Darkness? Nevermind, I’m just glad you’re awake. You’ve been sleeping since the fight this morning.”\n\nShera twitched involuntarily and shook her head slightly. “I’d forgotten all about that, feels like so long ago.” She saw the confused look on Tarvor’s face, “Something happened. Honestly I’m not exactly sure what, we can talk about it in the morning though.” Shera struggled to get her feet under her as she lay down. She winced when she moved her injured shoulder, but she still managed to right herself, now lying on her belly and paws instead of her side. Gently she cast her head around the small camp. “Where are we? This isn’t the clearing on the road.”\n\n“Couldn’t stay there, had to move you so nobody could find us. We’re not far, honestly I don’t think I could have carried you far at the best of times.” Tarvor had watched with concern as Shera shifted her weight onto her injured leg. “You have some stitches in your shoulder as well, careful not to tear them. Probably should take it easy for a few days before we try and travel.”\n\nShera eyed her shoulder and gently flexed her leg, testing its limits. She snarled, “It’s tight,” craning her neck further so she could better see it “and shaved!”\n\n“Couldn’t very well stich through all that fur,” he inspected his work from earlier as Shera growled unhappily. “It’s holding up so far though, should be fine with time. I don’t think I can possibly say just how glad I am that you’re awake.” He wanted to hold her close but he didn’t dare for fear of hurting her. Instead he just shook his head and patted her shoulder. “It’s too big for words.”\n\nShera looked at him curiously, wheels turning in her feline skull. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her nose. Tarvor was about to ask her what she was on about when he felt a powerful surge from their bond. The point of light that he had come to recognize as Shera suddenly blossomed into a tidal wave. Rather than sitting serenely in a corner of his mind, radiating her thoughts and emotions, it rushed through him, seemed to fill him. As if the entirety of her being was trying to climb into his head. As suddenly as it had come it abated, leaving him feeling strangely empty as once again his mind was clear except for her gently blinking speck. His head ached slightly, he felt …. Stretched?\n\nShera looked at him with concern. “You’re starving!” she said, with some amount of accusation in her voice. As if to punctuate the sentence Tarvor’s own gut betrayed him with a hefty gurgle. Against his protests Shera rose to her feet, strong and confidant despite her injuries, and went over to Tarvor’s pack. “Too dark to hunt even if I wasn’t injured, you’ll just have to eat this.” She plucked a package of dried meat from the pack, holding it deftly in her jaws. She padded back to where Tarvor sat dumbfounded and dropped it in his lap. \n\nTarvor opened his mouth to speak but faltered under the withering gaze of the cat who would brook no dissent, she glared at him until his mouth closed around some of the food she had brought. A muffled “Mmmmff” was all he managed to say around the dry meat, but Shera seemed to understand anyway.\n\nShe didn’t respond immediately, instead settling back down onto her belly, her head draped across Tarvor’s lap. She stared intently into the darkened woods around them as she spoke. “You said you couldn’t tell me how much you missed me, it gave me an idea. I thought ‘maybe I can reach into him instead and feel it for myself.’” She shrugged, “If I can push words and emotions to you, why can’t I try and go a bit further and push more of myself in?”\n\nShera paused in concentration before continuing, searching for the words. “It was odd though, it wasn’t like it normally is. Instead of feeling like myself, and feeling how happy you are, I felt like you. I was the one who felt relieved I was back. I was the one who felt hungry.” She shivered despite the warm summer air, Tarvor’s hand found its way to her neck where it stroked her concerns away. “Honestly it was not entirely pleasant, everything felt far stronger, more real, than I would have thought. That’s why I know just how hungry you were, practically starving yourself.” She eyed him accusatorily \n\nTarvor would have disagreed but he’d already eaten the entire package of jerky and still wished for more. A testament to the truth in her words. “It’s not like I haven’t ever gone hungry for a day before, staying with you just seemed more important.” Still, it’s odd to be as hungry as that after a day. Tarvor dismissed the thought absentmindedly. “I’m still not sure about whatever it is you did though, why now? Did you ever think to do something like that before? What about me, could I do that as well?”\n\nShera shrugged once more “It never occurred to me before, though honestly I don’t think so. I think it wouldn’t have worked if I’d tried before today.” \n\nTarvor grimaced, he already had little trust in the bond between them. Not in Shera of course, he would place his life in her hands and think nothing of it, but of whatever had created the bond in the first place. Whatever power; god, man, or beast, that had driven the desire to find him into Shera’s mind. He couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was gently tying strings around him, strings he might find himself dancing on, or hanging by. \n\nCurious, he pushed against the bond between them. It did feel more pliable. It was something like the difference between pressing on the wall of a house, and the wall of a tent. Where it had stood solid before, as he pushed his thoughts through it, it now offered less resistance somehow. Tarvor wouldn’t be able to describe the feeling exactly if he tried, but he felt if he pushed hard enough it would give enough to let pass through as well. He pulled back before he did, Shera hadn’t made the experience sound particularly pleasant, and the shock on his side hadn’t been something he’d enjoyed either. \n\n“So why today then?” Tarvor asked.\n\nShera only shook her head and responded “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”\n\nTarvor only grumbled “You’ve been saying that.” He cast his eyes around the camp, no way to make anything resembling shelter quickly. He’d neglected to do that earlier out of concern for Shera, now it looked like he’d be sleeping in the elements. Not for the first time he thought as he grabbed the warrox pelt, the only one he still owned, and threw it on the ground for some measure of comfort. “Morning will come soon enough, hope you feel better about talking by then.” He slipped his hard leather boots off, relishing the warm summer air as he lay down. \n\nWith his eyes closed he felt, more than saw, Shera moving around beside him as she too lay on the pelt. Close enough to be touching his side. “Sleep already? But I just got up.” Shera’s voice skipped playfully in his mind. He opened his eyes again to find Shera not laying at his side, but sitting over him, her feline features watching him beneath her. A predator and her prey. She smiled.\n\nIf he didn’t know the cat so well he wouldn’t have recognized that gleam in her eye, but then again because he did know her so well he wasn’t overly surprised by it. He huffed in authentic exasperation. “I’m not really in the mood. Seeing you hurt today hasn’t really left me feeling amorous. Just lie down with me.” He used one arm to gently goad her to lay beside him, she went along meekly. \n\nShe lay her head on his chest, it was still covered by only the thin cloth shirt he wore underneath the heavier leather garments. When she sighed he could feel the weight of her rise and fall on him. “I’m sorry I made you worried. I shouldn’t have got hurt in the first place. I should’ve been more careful.” \n\nTarvor lay a hand on the feline’s head and stroked her ears. “Don’t go talking like that, it’s not true. People get hurt when they fight, it happens. I didn’t get my scars playing at hoops as a child. I was just worried about you, that’s all. Everything seems to have turned out fine in the end.” \n\nShera grew still and quiet for some time, thinking about what she had seen in her dreams and the unknown adversaries yet to come. “That’s not good enough, I need to be better that that. If every fight ends with stitches it won’t take long until we’re both cut to ribbons. This is far from over.” Tarvor lifted an eyebrow at her, she looked away to not meet his gaze. “I’ll tell you in the morning,” was all she said. \n\nEver stoic, Tarvor let it lie, “All the same, you shouldn’t feel bad about it. He got the drop on us. I don’t care if it’s man versus beast or man versus man, the one who comes in more prepared normally wins. We only got out because his men were shit at fighting, probably unused to fighting against spears and fangs as well.” \n\nShera let the words sink in. Given that Tarvor’s preferred method of hunting inevitably involved traps, snares, and ambushes he probably believed what he said. She couldn’t quite let it go all the same. Eager to talk about something else she changed the subject. “Either way, I don’t think I thanked you for taking care of me today, but it means a lot.” She lay her head on his chest, feeling it rise and fall with his breath. \n\nThe hunter stroked the cat’s ears, rolling the soft furred skin between his fingers, she purred lightly. “I’d have done anything I could. Nothing would be too much to give. I don’t think I could live without you anymore.” Shera rolled her head to meet his eyes with hers. “Maybe once it was easy, living alone, speaking and sharing with no one. I can’t imagine it now, and I can’t imagine doing it with anybody else either.” Tarvor squirmed slightly under Shera’s weight, suddenly uncomfortable under her gaze. He sighed, “I know it sounds silly but that makes it no less true.”\n\nWith feline grace Shera sat up, unhindered by her injuries apparently, and brought her face to Tarvor’s, pressing her lips against his. “It doesn’t sound silly to me,” she said, pushing herself bodily into Tarvor, who moaned slightly in spite of himself. He brought his hands to her cheeks. “I couldn’t live without you either.” She laughed to herself “Especially since, in a way, I only live because of you anyhow.”\n\nThe sudden love inspired kiss carried on, neither party showing signs of flagging. Tarvor forgetting, or stubbornly refusing, to use their bond to speak elicited only quiet mmmfs. Being under no such compulsions Shera continued to speak freely. “I thought you said you were tired, Tarvor. Yet you seem to have all this energy.”\n\nA muffled, somewhat irate, mmmf was all the response she got, unless you count a human tongue gently prodding at her lips, trying to encourage her to open her mouth. She gladly acquiesced.\n\n“In fact,” she giggled “I can think of a few much better ways to say thank you for today than just words.” She surprised Tarvor by placing her fore paw on his tented cloth underclothes. She rubbed him through the thin fabric, feeling his well hardened member with the sensitive pads on her foot. \n\nTarvor’s reservations melted as Shera had known they would, it was never difficult to get him to give her what she wanted. So often all she wanted was him and a few sultry looks and enticing touches would bring Tarvor around to her way of thinking. She continued her current enticing touch with excitement. New experiences were always welcome, feeling him beneath her foot gave her a sense of power, though her enjoyment was somewhat limited by his garments. \n\nAs if reading her mind Tarvor’s hands began to fumble at the cloth, the air was warm and it was all he had been wearing. Sliding his thumbs in the waistband he waited for Shera to lift her paw, which she regretfully did, so he could slip them down around his ankles before kicking them off, neither knowing nor caring where they landed. His attention was entirely on his lioness. \n\nShera returned her paw to Tarvor’s ever growing cock, now free of its cotton cage. A tender delicate area of his, caressed by her powerful paws. She relished the feeling of him, rock hard, as she stood over him. He was utterly at her mercy. She broke their kiss, what had started as loving and romantic had ended lustful and hungry. Tarvor leaned upwards, towards the cat, from where he lay on his back, eager for her to return her lips to his, but it was not to be. \n\nThe cat laughed down at him. “’oh I’m not in the mood Shera, I couldn’t possibly!’” she mocked, imitating his voice badly.\n\nHe just smiled up at her. “What can I say, you’re persuasive.” \n\nShera leaned over him, a feline goddess, yearning for what she wanted. She could feel the need rising in her nethers, begging to be filled. The possibilities rolled through her head, so many parts of him fit inside her so nicely. She imagined being crouched over him, his face underneath her as he explored her folds with his mouth and fingers. The thought of herself dripping on him while he worked to pleasure her drove her own excitement to new levels, but another thought enticed her even more. \n\nShe smiled down at him and commanded him to stay still, they often took turns controlling each other and he had to know that tonight was hers. He lay back and waited, his eyes and cock both standing at full attention. She brought her head down slowly towards her prize, he watched excitedly as she drew nearer. Shera let her tongue loll from her mouth, gently caressing Tarvor’s sensitive tip. Her nose filled with the smell of him, a uniquely deep aroma, complementing the taste of him on her tongue.\n\nA small drop of precum slipped from Tarvor, glistening on the end of his cock. She eyed it hungrily and dropped her head further, engulfing him entirely in her mouth. Savoring the taste of it. A slick texture, both slightly salty and sweet, a taste she new well. She wrapped her tongue around him then, rocking her head slightly. She felt him buck his hips, thrusting into her mouth, she considered telling him to stop, she was after all in control today, but it was a feeling she enjoyed as well so she allowed him to continue for a time. \n\nWhen Tarvor’s stiff member was soaking wet with Shera’s spit she deemed him good and ready. She suckled him hard while letting him gently slide free of her mouth. She could feel him struggling to stay inside her, in her warmth and wetness. He would get what he wanted soon enough, though not quite how he expected. She stood over him now, straddling the human, face to face. He visibly drank her form in, letting his eyes follow the contours of her lithe and powerful frame until they settled on the base of her tail. The base of her tail is all he could see from where he lay, but her pussy burned with desire as if she could feel his gaze on it nonetheless. She could feel herself, feel how ready she was, gaping slightly and slick with her own juices. There was no more waiting, the need was too great. \n\nAs she stood over Tarvor she let her hindquarters fall until she was crouching over him, ready to plunge down and impale herself on his spear. She locked eyes with him and he held himself steady for her, helping to guide his way inside. She felt the tip of him press against her tender lips and growled. As always he felt so large to her, nearly more than she could handle but never more than she wanted. She pushed and ground her hips downward, trying to coerce him inside. She purred as her feline lips began to spread apart, as his warmth began to fill her. Slowly she lowered herself onto him, impaling herself, getting exactly what she was looking for. Light danced in Tarvor’s eyes as he watched her work. \n\nHilted, full, she took as much as she could. Tarvor moaned beneath her while she snapped and growled in pleasure over him. His hands went to her hips, holding onto her as she ground against him, already he could feel some of their combined juices running across his balls, pooling between them. Shera rose slowly, getting a feel for him, testing how far she could move before he’d slip from her. When she felt she had neared the end of him she pushed herself back down with force, causing them to gasp in unison as he sank his length into her again. She could feel herself stretched taut around him, her insides quivering and leaking their approval, it felt so good to be so full. Tarvor’s hand’s grasped and groped at her as she began to pump her hips. \n\nIt was a new feeling for her, being the one to control the rhythm, and she reveled in it. She watched Tarvor’s face and listened to the wonderful noises he made as she moved, bringing him pleasure excited her but ultimately she wanted this. She gathered speed as she grew used to the motion, rolling her shoulders and dropping her hind legs, forcing herself upon him. The pleasure rose for her with every thrust. His cock scraped at her inner walls, driving her mad. \n\nHer thrusting grew wild and primal, her claws dug furrows in the ground on either side of Tarvor. Her mouth hung open and hot and humid breath washed across his chest as his cat fucked him. Yet another small orgasm gripped her, causing her knees to weaken slightly as she leaked all over her human. He slipped in and out of her easily now, lubricated well by mouth and lust. The lion growled and focused, sometimes grinding against Tarvor while he was fully inside her, sometimes pulling off him entirely before pushing down again, as she enjoyed the forceful penetration of her pussy. \n\nThe mountainous climax approached her as she sought to conquer the peak. Helpless below her, Tarvor just held on and whispered encouragement to her. She could feel herself approaching the edge and she found her rhythm, the perfect length and speed that touched her in just the right ways. Endlessly she repeated it, thrusting her hips into her partner, feeling him push inside her, before raising herself only to thrust down again. The quiet curses and cries of her name from Tarvor drove her onward, her only fear that he might finish first and deny her climax.\n\nShera’s knees grew weak, she felt as if she had run for too far and too long, on the verge of giving out, but she could feel how close she was and she would not abate. Each stroke brought her one step nearer and she could feel the pressure building. Tarvor’s cock made wet sounds as it slid in and out of her as she rocked over him. Suddenly she could feel Tarvor tense beneath her, and felt his cock begin to pump into her. He tensed in lover’s rictus but she needed just a little more. She could feel him, hot and sticky, in her aching passage, the feeling of him pulsing slightly with every new spray of cum was what finally did it.\n\nHer walls clamped down on him as she orgasmed but her motions didn’t slack, she continued to hit the perfect stroke. Each thrust caused her orgasm to deepen and pleasure rocked her body, her throat sang out in a powerful roar as the final waves coursed through her. She let herself relax and sat upon him, still tied together in a wet and sticky mess and waited for the feelings to completely ebb. \n\nMinutes pass until unceremoniously Tarvor, completely flaccid, slips from Shera and a last round of the pairs cum seeps from her. She moves off of him. “I guess you weren’t so tired after all,” she says impishly, but when she looks over at him the hunter is sound asleep. She sighs. She doesn’t sleep more than an hour or two that night. Mostly she just sits in the dark, staring at the sky, and thinks.\n\n***\n\nAs Shera promised when morning finally arrived the pair talked, in depth and at length about Shera’s dream. It was the thing that had prevented Shera from waking for such a long time the day before. The fact both comforted and terrified Tarvor. It was a relief to know that she wasn’t as injured as he had feared, in fact she seemed in fine spirits this morning, if a tad pensive. Yet it further cemented his fear of the power that had linked them in the first place. It was becoming more and more clear that they were unlikely to be free of it anytime soon, if ever. An unknown force had tight reins over his life and it made Tarvor’s hackles rise. \n\nDried meat and a simple flat bread made of flour and water was all there was to eat as the pair spoke in the morning sun. Tarvor looked at the pitiful spread with distaste, it was better than nothing but even a few days without fresh meat seemed to make him edgy recently, Shera was handling it with no more grace than he. He tore a corner from his bread and threw it at Shera, hoping to lighten the mood. It gently bounced off the lioness’ nose and landed in a small patch of light as the sun shone through the trees around them. Shera smiled at him playfully but only for a moment, before she returned to her quiet self-reflection. \n\nTarvor frowned and ruffled the cat’s fur then grabbed the bread before any hopeful ants could reach it. Bland or not it was still food. “So, what do you think it all means then?” he said, mouthing the words around the morsel of food. There was no need for table etiquette when the trapper spent most of his life in solitude. \n\nThe lioness took her time responding, still seeking an answer to that very thing. After a moment she merely shook her head, “I can’t be sure.” She stood up and stalked around the clearing uneasily, leaves crunching and snapping under her paws with every careless step. “Last time it hadn’t been like this. It felt like getting hit by lightning, over in a flash and more painful than anything I could have imagined. Yet it left me with a crystal clear image of what I had to do, at least at first.”\n\nShe meant her Awakening, Tarvor knew, the event that gave her intelligence and a need to hunt him down. It even told her where he was, how to find him and how to slip by the various traps that surrounded his home. It seemed so long ago, now weeks, months perhaps, later she was faced with more visions and they set her on edge. Tarvor watched her injured shoulder warily, the skin there still laid bare from where he had shaved her, but if it bothered her stride at all she gave no sign. \n\n“What do you think, Tarvor? I’ve been up all night thinking about it and I still can’t tell what half of it means.” Her nervous stride faltered and she slumped back to the earth. Tarvor reflexively jumped to her side, afraid for her, but there was no physical pain in her eyes, only lost confusion. He sat by her and held a hand out to her, she nuzzled her head into it affectionately. \n\n“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You said you switched bodies a few times in the dream, then when you woke up you didn’t hesitate to try it for real. That seems pretty clear cut.” Tarvor said. Shera nodded but seemed no more hopeful. “What about the first bit, with the light and the fog, and then the shadow monster thing.”\n\nShera let Tarvor cradle her head in his arms. “That seems kinda close to how I remember the first warning. It’s hard to recall though, it feels so distant now. The shadow monster though is definitely whatever we’re looking for. That much seems obvious. The rest though, visiting the camp, the forest, that gigantic tree, it’s all a mess.” Shera turned her head up to him to meet his eyes. “What about the parts where I had to go on without you? I don’t even want to think about it.”\n\nTarvor leaned down and kissed the cougar’s forehead, brushing his lips against the dark tan fur just above her eyes. Shera smiled up at him. “It’s not worth worrying about. I’m not going anywhere, maybe it’s just nonsense. You were pretty hurt after all, maybe some of it is just regular dreams.” She shook her head, not believing that for a second.\n\n“Where do we go now then? If we don’t know what this means do we just wander endlessly?” She asked.\n\n“Seems a good idea as any. It was good enough for us a few days ago, I don’t think this changes that. Either way we have a few days to figure things out while you’re recovering.”\n\n“I don’t really think we do,” the cat sounded almost sheepish. \n\n“I don’t think the end of the world is quite that near yet. Surely we have half a week still.”\n\n“No, I mean,” Shera stood up, pushing Tarvor away from her “I don’t think I need to recover.” She dangled her forepaw off the ground as if to demonstrate. “I feel fine. Better than fine even.”\n\nTarvor moved over to inspect the stitching. Sure enough while the stitches themselves looked like they were only put in yesterday the wound beneath them looked no younger than a month. More strangeness, he scowled inwardly. \n\n“Tell you what,” the cougar said, “if I catch more rabbits than you in an hour, then you take these stitches out and we leave. Otherwise we’ll do whatever you want for a few days. Even rest if you want it that badly.” She winked at him and tore off into the undergrowth, deeper into the forest, calling out as she left “And you have to skin the rabbits!”\n\nTarvor took a moment to react, he thought about telling her to stop being childish and come back, but truthfully she wouldn’t listen anyway. Instead he grabbed his bow and spear and ran in the opposite direction, “I would have to skin the rabbits anyway,” he yelled, feeling the distance between them widen with every step. “You’d just eat the skin!”\n\nSoon his heart was pounding, his arms and legs burning and yet at the end of the hour he only had one small hare to three of Shera’s. Sitting smugly staring at him she hardly looked winded. He fought the urge to argue further, at some point he had to recognize baseless worrying for what it was. Even beyond whatever unnatural forces were driving her, his cat was no paper doll to be easily torn. He used the same knife to skin rabbits that he used to dexterously cut and remove Shera’s stitches. His hand was rock steady for both jobs.\n\nThey left before the sun stood much above the horizon, four rabbits between them didn’t last long. Shera ate two whole and uncooked, though she waited for Tarvor to skin them first, gloating all the while. Tarvor surprised himself by picking the bones clean on the other two despite having already eaten breakfast, meager though it had been. The ravenous hunger from the night before still seemed to grip him. \n\nAll the while Tarvor was distracted by thoughts about what they could have been doing with a few days of no travel. From time to time he would try and sneak a look under his lover’s tail, tempted to get a late start no matter who brought in more game. Shera favored him with playful glances and posed seductively more than once but nevertheless insisted they leave.\n\nThey made good pace for the next few days. They broke camp early in the evening, rather than run themselves to complete exhaustion, and outside of a few tempting caresses kept their hands, and paws, to themselves. Finding the energy to enjoy each other’s company was often too great a feat after a full day’s travel.\n\nGame was plentiful, the weather was fair, and not a soul troubled their voyage as they kept far from the road and anymore possible conflict. Tarvor would often step away to make sure they were still following alongside the winding highway, returning half an hour, or more, later to straighten their course and continue. Even these short forays put Shera at unease, traversing an empty forest without Tarvor at her side was too similar to her dreams for comfort, even though she could feel him through her bond. \n\nTwo weeks however with nothing more than small peaceful villages, most of which they never bothered to enter let alone stay in, had left both of them feeling weathered and beaten. Shera worked to persuade Tarvor for just one day of rest at the next town. A night in a real bed, a comfort Shera missed from their time in Yost, and a day off their feet. \n\nTarvor needed little convincing, also eager for some rest, yet still managed to pull several lusty and personal promises from the lion before finally agreeing. He could never have said no anyway but after watching her tail swing in front of him for days there were some other, more vulgar, things he was desiring as well. He wanted it so bad he could almost taste it. Whenever the next town appeared he was damn well going to taste it, he thought to himself.\n\nThe next day again Tarvor left to find the road, perhaps ask a traveler when the next town was going to be. An hour came and went before Shera started to truly worry. When she felt Tarvor rapidly approaching from some distance it started to turn to terror. Faintly, at near the maximum range the two could mentally speak to each other he said only one word, ‘come’. \n\nShe ran towards him with no hesitation, dirt and leaves flying up from underfoot as she sped. Weeks of weariness from the road seemed to slide from her body, chased away by pure adrenaline. Her furred chest heaved and powerful muscles drove her forward. \n\nTarvor met her before she actually reached the road herself. He crouched in a low bush, weapon in hand, even with her keen eyes she would have gone right past if she hadn’t felt a beacon in her mind that led her toward him. Her sense of smell may have given him away, but to her surprise he didn’t smell afraid, like she was, he smelled angry, furious.\n\nSilently, with only his mind he commanded her to follow him and urged her to stay low as well. She wanted to know what was happening but he only insisted she should see for herself. Together they crept toward the road, or where Shera assumed the road must be. She couldn’t smell or see anything that hinted at trouble ahead. The breeze was at their back, blowing any smells away from them and, she realized with a shudder, blowing their own smells directly toward whatever lay ahead of them. \n\nTarvor stopped suddenly and motioned her down as well. She lay quietly, anxiously aware. The undergrowth was thick and obscured her vision, her nose began to bring her the details before she saw anything. Smoke, char, burning pitch, and something even more acrid, something she couldn’t identify but burnt in her nostrils. Tarvor pulled the foliage aside.\n\nDesolation lay before her. A town, or its remnants, in shambles. Houses fallen in, fences and signs trampled flat. Burning, everything charred. Here and there a few coals still glowed dimly, faint red lights in the blackened wood. And blood everywhere she looked, sprayed, smeared, covering the area. Not a single surviving soul, not if this much blood covered the remains of the town. So much that a thick coppery scent hung in the air, she could almost taste its tang.\n\nYet for all the destruction not a single body, neither animal nor man, was in sight. Vanished. Like an army swept through, slaughtered the town, burnt its remains, and somehow carried off the corpses like a grim trophy. How could less than an actual army do this. She could almost believe it until her eyes fell on the woods opposite, past the inn she’d hoped to spend the night in and across the village center. Monstrous footprints at least a few, deep enough to be seen from here and burnt black, and in the trees a wide path. Trees shattered, some still smoldering, carving a new road through the forest, wide enough for the grandest carriage. The trail of the beast. \n\nTarvor seethed. “There were people here, and children probably. They didn’t deserve this. I think we found your shadow monster.”\n\nShera couldn’t disagree, “It doesn’t look like this happened that long ago. Maybe somebody lived? We should search the buildings and the woods.” She looked to the left and right through the trees, the dense scrub could hide any number of things.\n\n“I searched the woods, at least on this side, before calling you.” Tarvor pointed toward the blood. Scattered to and fro in grotesque patterns, whatever spread it like that had involved considerable force. “Nothing survived that.” He started to stride forward, eyes fixed on the path of burnt and broken trees. \n\nShera hurried after him, equally scared of being away from him as she was whatever lay at the end of that path. She stalked at his side and tried to force her own primal side out, to suppress her more human fears and emotions. She may have managed it too, but in the corner of her eye a doll lay forlornly in the grass, its button eyes gazing lifelessly into the sky where the little girl who owned it had dropped it. Her predator instincts dropped away in the face of that.\n\nThe town dropped away and they entered the forest on its far side. Shera couldn’t help but stare at the massive footprints as they passed. Completely unidentifiable to her, but terrifyingly large. Where as she walked with great trepidation Tarvor cloaked himself in fury, an avatar for vengeance though he didn’t know a single soul who lived here. Shera could barely contain her fear well enough to keep from visibly shaking. \n\nSome fierce hunter I am she thought to herself as they picked their way between cracked tree trunks. She could hunt, she could reason, she could love, but when faced with insurmountable odds even the lion side of her shirked. Primal fears of fire and of predators bigger than herself combined with a very human sense of self preservation. Where Tarvor drew his own strength from she could not say, she hoped it was a bottomless reserve. I wonder what I would have done before the awakening. Probably be even more afraid, animals weren’t meant to fight monsters.\n\nWhile Shera tensed ever more Tarvor visibly relaxed. He held his spear loosely in one hand and rested a hand on Shera’s back. She flinched at the light touch before realizing what it was and allowing him to comfort her. “It’s okay, don’t worry.”\n\nHer voice was tinged with panic “Don’t worry? Look at the size of this ‘trail’, and did you see what happened to the town? How do we stop something like that? No plan, outmatched, and we’re marching straight toward it.” Her hackles raised, “I’m going to worry.” She bared her fangs at the unknown and snarled.\n\nTarvor stopped moving, Shera reflexively stopping as well, and he pointed to a nearby tree, “Look, the wood is dried out on the broken surface, not wet like a fresh cracked branch would be, most of these aren’t burnt at all. That one,” he gestured to another “looks like it stopped smoldering hours if not days ago. There were still embers in town. The trail is getting older, not fresher. It’s not here, whatever it is.”\n\nLess than mollified Shera looked behind her. “So it’s behind us? Back in the town? I didn’t see another path out of the town. Where could it be?”\n\nTarvor shrugged, “I can’t imagine we would have missed it in town, anything big enough to do this is going to have a hard time hiding. No idea what happened after that, but this trail is definitely getting colder.” He started walking again and Shera hurried to keep up, still pressing her shoulder hard into his thigh.\n\nShe kept any more worries to herself. Tarvor didn’t seem on edge anymore, his chance to face whatever creature having slipped by him for the moment. If they couldn’t at least see where the creature went maybe they could see where it came from, following the trail backwards seemed a good idea. \n\nIt didn’t take long, a few miles at most. Shera even managed to bring herself back under control by the time the trail dead ended, though what they found there very nearly changed that. A hole, yards across, torched to cinders worse than any part of the town had been, even parts of the rock appeared melted. A twisted black mass that no light escaped from. \n\nTarvor started to climb down into it without hesitation but Shera held him with her mouth, holding him back. “Tarvor, no. You have no idea whats down there.”\n\n“Probably nothing, but I’m not going to find out sitting up here and looking either. It might be important.” He pried her teeth open with a free hand, she fought him with failing determination. For all the control she had over him at some times he could lead her on a string at the moment.\n\nThe sides were steep and the charred ground left few good hand holds and far too much loose soil. Tarvor slipped and slid just as often as he controlled his climb, until he reached the bottom. Black as it was the hole itself was deceptively shallow. He looked up to see Shera staring down at him from the entrance, no more than twenty or thirty feet above. Her hazel eyes tinged with worry.\n\nThe place was almost perfectly round with sloped sides in all directions. At its center a large pile of shards of black stone, all smooth sides with jagged edges. Hundreds of cracked fragments, some larger than boulders. Others would fit in a vest pocket. Crumbled and cracked, a pile radiating from the center.\n\nTarvor picked one shard up, tossing it quickly from hand to hand, the stone still uncomfortably warm though everything surrounding it had long since cooled. He tried to figure out what it looked like before it all fell apart. He let it fall back to its brothers and sisters that lay scattered at his feet. Then turned and started his ascension back out. The climb up was far more arduous than the slide down, multiple times he lost his footing and found himself treading back over ground he’d climbed once before. His arms burned with effort when he pulled himself up over the lip and back to Shera.\n\nShe looked at him expectantly whilst pressing herself against him bodily. Unwilling to leave even an inch between them for the moment.\n\n“I don’t know exactly what it is,” he said truthfully. “I can only guess at what I think it might be, based on other, similar, things I’ve seen.” Shera made no move to respond, still trying to find a way to squirm even closer to Tarvor. Tarvor shivered and that, more than anything else today, scared Shera. “I think it’s an egg.” Shera looked at him. “The stones I mean, some kind of weird eggshell, the hole is a burrow? Or a nest I guess. Something similar at least.”\n\nTarvor threw his arms around Shera, enveloping her in strong embrace, then pulling away to stand up. He picked up his spear from where it lay in the dirt and weaved it into the straps on his back that held it in place. He started to walk away from the hole, not back to the ruined town, but south, in the direction they had been travelling. \n\nShera eyed him askance but walked easily at his side none the less. His voice didn’t waver, he was calm, resolute, “I think whatever did that to the town is a baby,” he felt a stab of panic from the bond, overflow of Shera’s emotions, “or at best an adolescent, who knows how fast it grows.” \n\nThe thought of facing something potentially even bigger than she thought was something Shera hadn’t expected. “Where are we going then?”\n\nTarvor’s voice was as cold as a steel trap. “You were right about one thing Shera. We need a plan.”\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "The world around Tarvor slowed to a halt but his pulse was pounding wildly in his veins. His head throbbed, yet as hard as he tried he couldn’t seem to move any faster. His heart screamed at him to panic. Shera lay injured and unconscious in an open clearing surrounded by dead men, nothing was okay. Every fiber of his being urged him to cry out in frustration, hang his head in his hands and weep, anything to cope with what he was feeling. However, there was no time for that and Tarvor fought against his instincts to do what needed to be done.

Alright, Calm down. Take care of her first, panic later. We can’t stay here. Tarvor was suspicious that there had been a reason he hadn’t seen any travelers the morning before the ambush. Maybe a road block further down the road to stop any interruptions. Maybe more men guarding it to prevent entry, could be the weasel went to get them and would be coming back. Even if that wasn’t the case Tarvor didn’t want somebody to happen on him tending to a wounded lion in the middle of a pile of corpses. People might just get the wrong idea.

Tarvor settled his eyes on his unconscious love and wondered how to move her. Her shoulder still bled, that would need tending, and she was too damn heavy to carry. How to move her then? He could probably drag her but making a sled would take some amount of time, something quicker was preferable if he could find it. He glanced around the clearing. A large gray piece of cloth, crumpled on the ground where weasel had left it. The bastard’s cloak. Tarvor picked it up.

Large, heavy, he pulled at it roughly, strong enough to do the job. There was some amount of poetry to be found in the idea of dragging Shera to safety on the cloak of that man. It would do. He lay it on the ground next to Shera.  He sneered at the cloak as if it was Weasel himself, then a small feral growl escaped Shera’s throat and he forgot all about the petulant man.

The cougar slept fitfully, he could see her claws slip from their sheaths and draw back in again. He grimaced but there was nothing he could do about fevered dreams. The bloody shoulder on the other hand he might be able to ease a bit, better to do something about it now before moving her. He kept some basic supplies in his pack. He’d only used them to tend to himself before, along on the mountain, but it shouldn’t be that different now. He glanced over what he had, clean cotton scraps, needle, thread, everything he’d need to bind the wound, simple enough.

A pad of cotton on her shoulder and a tied strip of cloth around her leg to keep it in place, it would hold for now. Anything else would have to wait. The pad of cotton already showed a small splotch of red where Shera’s blood had soaked through, Tarvor refused to look at it, or at the red staining his fingers. He couldn’t afford to look, there were still things that needed to be done. The two of them couldn’t stay here any longer.


Laying out the cloak was easy, getting Shera onto it slightly less so. Tarvor managed, just. He wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with lifting and moving the cat, their activities could get rather strenuous if they were in the right mood, but trying to do it without further agitating her shoulder was difficult. He felt bad every time he jostled her roughly, she would wince in her sleep, but it was necessary.

He shouldered his pack, spear and bow once again lashed to the back of it, and grabbed the edges of the cloak. If moving her onto it had been painful for the cat he truly regretted what came next. He stepped forward, carefully weaving between obstacles as he went, off the path and into the forest. The cloak slid easily across the ground with Shera riding on top. However, even trying as he was avoiding every rock and root was impossible. They didn’t have to go far, just far enough from the road that people would be unlikely to bother them, a thousand yards at most. All the same, every little bump likely hurt Tarvor more than it hurt his sleeping parcel. He winced at every one.

Eventually Tarvor found what he was looking for, a nice piece of flat ground. It lay between large trees and a rocky outcrop, enough to keep it safe from prying eyes. Tarvor dragged Shera into the center of the area and let the cloak slip from his hands. He set the pack down nearby and checked Shera’s bandages. Dark red, they had completely soaked through, they clung wetly to her fur when he tried to remove them. The wound hadn’t stopped bleeding, if anything the journey had only irritated it and made it worse. Tarvor’s brow furrowed, he’d been hoping to avoid it but there was no doubt now that it needed stiches.

Tarvor dabbed a fresh piece of cotton around the injury. In truth it didn’t look that bad, it was small but the edges were ragged. The bandit’s knife had been dull, it had not punctured cleanly. The muscle was pierced badly but it wasn’t bleeding heavily enough for a vein or artery. A small sigh of relief from Tarvor as his unsteady hands replaced the cotton and he rebound her shoulder more tightly.  

Could be worse, could be a lot worse. Though, why hasn’t she woken up yet? The words were a poison to Tarvor’s mind and his knees wobbled under him, threatening to drop him in the dirt. No, not yet. Still more to do. Keep it together, Tarvor. He ignored his doubts and focused on the task at hand. Shera needed stiches, and for that Tarvor needed fire, and preferably a bit of water as well. He shook himself, trying to steady his nerves. His face was set in grim determination, only the sporadic shaking in his hands gave him away.

He thought about trying to find a local source of water but it seemed unlikely he’d find one as quickly as he would want to, instead he just grabbed the leather skin from the pack. Wood for a fire was easier to find. In short order a pile of tinder and branches were smoking lightly.

Tarvor heated the needle over the newly built fire, sterilizing it. He sighed deeply, wishing he was anywhere but here. The fire burned his fingers but he felt nothing. His hands stopped shaking when he finally set to work, purpose guided them now.

Her fur was long and obscured the wound so he cut it back. The wound was dirty with tacky drying blood so he rinsed it clean with water and a cloth. One step after another. His hands were deft and efficient; he was no doctor but he made passable work of it. He didn’t think about what he was doing, only about what needed to be done. He closed the wound and dressed it in fresh bandages. There was nothing more he could do for her.

But why isn’t she awake yet? There was nothing to push the voice away now, no more pressing matters that needed him. Just doubts and fear. He sat by her side and waited. The shaking wasn’t restricted to his hands anymore. As the hours passed he held his head in his hands and wept. Come back to me Shera.

***

Deep fog banks covered the land, so thick Shera couldn’t even see her own feet beneath her. Even the ground felt insubstantial, her paws sunk into it unnervingly. It squished between her toes, like walking on a bog.  She padded forward quietly, taking every step with care and glancing around her. Trying to find something, anything, to tell her where she was or where she was going.

Faintly a mote of light appeared ahead of Shera. While it was distant and dim it felt a shining beacon to the cat. She felt herself drawn into it. Unable to resist she approached it. The ground firmed up beneath her and the mist thinned. The world around her felt more real, substantial. The pinprick of light grew as she approached, larger and larger until it towered above her and she was only a mote next to it. It was so bright, so all consuming, and yet she felt nothing but comfort emanating from it.

She stared at the light unblinkingly, her eyes watered. She could spend a lifetime here in its glow, or maybe just days. She would stay until she grew weak from hunger and wasted away to a blissful death. She stood inches from the light, her nose nearly pushed again it, but still it called to her. She could get no closer yet she still felt compelled, this was something she had to do.  There was no place else to be but here.

She reached out a paw to the light. The last moment before she touched it fear gripped her, her chest contracted. The fear in her fought the light’s pull. Her paw quavered in the air, she was neither able to draw it back or push it forward, stuck in limbo. The light pulsed, it’s power grew and her hesitation was overcome. She touched it. For one brief moment she and the light were as one and she glowed from within, filled with the light’s radiance. Then the light was snuffed out, darkness came, and the ground underneath Shera disappeared.

Solid one moment, ephemeral the next, the ground swallowed her.  The mists once again closed in on Shera and she plummeted ever downward. Oddly she didn’t panic, she fell but she felt… safe? Secure? At the very least she was unafraid. Whatever was going to come would come in time and there was nothing she could do about it. Resigned, that was it. She felt resigned. She fell and she waited.

The mist curled around her, images formed before her eyes. They twisted and shifted, seeming to roll into each other, denying true substance. At first she thought it was her imagination, that she was only noticing meaningless patterns in the chaos, but as the mist settled it became hard to deny. There were figures dancing around her, animal figures, human figures. Even things in between that resisted classification. They twirled and moved erratically. It was an impossibly intricate dance, Shera could not even hope to follow it, yet it was beautiful all the same. No two figures looked exactly alike. Though many were human even more were not. Her eyes spotted a dancing cougar figure and she traced it’s intricate twirls through the rolling fog.

A larger figure appeared. Like the light it was faint at first, far away, but where the light had shone with intense radiance this figure was the antithesis. A void so dark it seemed almost a hole in space. The dancing figures shirked from it. The figure came closer, or maybe it just grew, swirling mists played fool with Shera’s mind. The figure was made of mist like all the others but darker, denser than any of the surrounding ones. Where the dancing figures inspired wonder Shera felt only fear when she glanced at the encroaching blackness.

A solitary dancing figure continued to spin and twirl as those around it fled, as if oblivious of the fearful void. A tendril reached from the unknown shape, when it touches the dancer the figure ceases its carefree movement, it darkens and is slowly absorbed by the mass. Nothing remains of it and the dangerous mist beast grows. Deep unease fills Shera, her hackles rose, a brave but futile gesture as she helplessly continued to fall.

One by one the dancers were absorbed as they ran, to no avail. The shape grew with each one. Shera had long lost track of the cougar figure, she foolishly hoped it had somehow slipped away. The darkness became a great writhing mass, too large for the smaller figures to escape. At times nearly recognizable fragments of the dancers could be seen, as if trapped but still whole inside somehow, but soon the mist would swirl and the traces washed away. After a while not even the traces could be seen. When the last figure was taken there was nothing but darkness left, it surrounded Shera. The shade had grown large enough to completely encompass her, above, below, any direction she looked there was no light to be seen.

Slowly the darkness began to close in, she could feel the life being drained from her. She struggled, but without solid ground beneath her there was nothing she could do. Her energy waned, her movement slowed. She thought she would die then, wrapped in unerring unyielding darkness, and her mind turned back to the weeks she had spent on a mountainside, at a small camp with a man she’d only just met, and she felt an odd sense of peace. She closed her eyes and waited, yet nothing came.

Moments passed and Shera continued to exist. She dared not open her eyes for fear of what she would see, but eventually there was nothing for it. Taken by curiosity, unable to wait any longer, she dared a peek and the light of a bright spring day nearly blinded her. No more was she falling, instead she was standing in a small clearing on a mountainside. Nearby all manner of traps and snares stood, carefully maintained and organized, as well as a long hafted spear tipped with a razor sharp blade leaning against an old dead tree. In the middle of the clearing stood and odd sort of tent, a raised wooden platform with walls made of furs and hides. She was home. It was the only home she’d ever really known.

“Tarvor!” she called. She searched about the familiar place for the man she missed. If his spear was here he wasn’t likely to be gone, he never ventured far without it. The furs of the hut stood closed, preventing her from seeing inside, she was sure he must be in there. She reached out her hand and pulled back the curtain and there, in the middle of the hut, sat herself. A mountain lion, but not just any lion. It was her, she knew it was. Somehow she just knew. She reached out a hand to it, and the lion mirrored her movements, reaching forward with its own paw.  

Something wasn’t right. She looked down at her hands, her human hands. She was dressed all in leathers, tight fitting pants and a vest with a thin cloth shirt underneath. They were Tarvor’s clothes and Tarvor’s hands. The lion, herself, sat calmly. It watched her with her own piercing hazel eyes, one paw still extended toward her, a mocking mirror of her own posture. Curious, she reached further and the tips of her fingers touched the delicate fur of the paw. No lightning, no overwhelming experience, she was just suddenly herself again, now looking at Tarvor slowly taking his hand away as she sat on the floor of the hut.

His face was blank, a plastic face. He stepped away from her, around the corner, and out of sight. She panicked without him, she could hardly handle losing him when she felt like she’d been looking for him for so long. Instead of staying in her home she tried to follow him, trailing out of the hut in the direction he went. Only a moment had passed but he had disappeared. Where he should have been there was only forest, empty except for a dense smattering of trees. When she looked behind her the hut too was gone, along with everything else she knew, and she was alone in the woods again.

Fearful, panicking, she called to him. Screaming his name in her mind, but no response. She couldn’t even feel his presence, the very presence that had so often brought her a calm comfort these past weeks. She whimpered, she growled, she roared in defiance. The trees bent and swayed with her voice. Again she roared, louder, fiercer. Wood cracked and strained, smaller trees fell over entirely in the face of her fury, larger trees bent dangerously and shed branches that crashed loudly to the forest floor. Yet no hunter returned her call. Nothing alive moved in this wooded place.

She ran then, forward into the unknown forest. No living thing stirred, the dead land blurred as she ran through it. She covered ground at a superhuman pace, her footfalls sure and sturdy despite the speed. The air hung heavy and still, and even though she ran faster than any animal could no wind blew at her face. Even the air was dead in this place.

A massive tree, wider across than two grown men with their arms out stretched, stopped her. The trunk was rent and torn, seemingly exploded outward as if struck by lightning. Great gouges ran through it, scarring its surface, but the tree grew on unimpeded. A hole, clear through the other side of the tree, stood in its center. Large enough that she could have passed through it with ease if she had a mind to. She peered through it instead, awestruck, and standing on the other side, gazing into the distance, was Tarvor. Standing calmly as if nothing at all was wrong.

She cried to him with her mind but he didn’t move. A roar failed to rouse him, though the trees around her shook he stood as still and quiet as the great rent tree in front of her. She ran around the tree, afraid that he would disappear again, yet he still stood there, unmoving. The forest she was in had dropped away, the great tree gone as mysteriously as her mountain home had before. Now it was only her and Tarvor, standing on the border of forest and field. Tarvor was staring into a grassy expanse so large she couldn’t see the other side of it. She approached him but he ignored her, staring intently into the field. She followed his gaze, trying to see what it was he was looking at, but only rolling plains of grass looked serenely back at her.

A hand fell upon her shoulder, strong and sure, and again she became Tarvor. When she looked down though his eyes she could see her hands, Tarvor’s hands, and a lioness at her side. Now the cougar was the one staring off into the distance. Yet this time when she looked up she couldn’t help but see what Tarvor had been looking at.

The whole world was burning.

***

Whispering, chanting, praying, Tarvor’s head lay in his hands as he knelt by Shera’s side. He had done everything he could to help, all that was left to him was to stay near her and try and reach her. Mentally and verbally he’d call to her sporadically, between his own hushed ramblings. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his hands steady, they shook even as he tightly wrung them together. He had long ago stopped noticing.

The lion slept fitfully still, she tossed and turned, her eyes twitched behind her eyelids. Occasionally her lips would pull back in a snarl, tormented by whatever it was she saw. Once it had seemed she would roll over onto her bad shoulder, Tarvor held her down. He tried to prevent her from hurting herself further. His touch seemed to calm her somewhat, her lips relaxed and she twitched less, so he kept his hands there, caressing her flank. The sleep did not abate but at least she had stilled.  Tarvor still couldn’t understand why he could reach out and touch the cat and yet her presence was gone from his mind.

Minutes passed, hours maybe. Tarvor had lost track of time, it didn’t seem important. The sun was setting, at least the better part of a day had passed since the morning’s conflict. Not a soul had disturbed Tarvor’s make shift camp, hidden as it was, and Tarvor had never left it either. Logically, he felt, he should have been famished by now, having not eaten all day, but he couldn’t imagine eating ever again. Lower and lower the sun sank, shadows lengthened and the twitter of birds rose in great chorus as they sang their evening songs.

Still Tarvor sat vigilant over the cat, a warden against whatever may come, though he feared it would not be something he could fight. He didn’t think he could return to his mountain solitude again having known true companionship, true love. If the journey ended here for Shera… well it was better to not think about it. It was this that kept him strong, more than hope or determination or belief. More than the conviction that nothing bad could possibly happen, it was the abject terror of possible loss that kept him faithful. An unthinkable outcome that he couldn’t allow to pass. His cheeks were dry, his tears long gone. His fingers wound tightly in her fur as he waited.

The moon rose above the treetops, hours had passed and still he waited. A clear sky and full summer moon shone down on him. There was still enough light to see by, though the fire had long since burned down to glowing coals from lack of tending. Soon he would himself have to sleep, indeed he found himself drifting from time to time, having to pull himself back from the edge and maintain his watch, until he was once again alert. Soon however his mind would inadvertently wander and he’d find himself thinking of the previous weeks and once again he’d list aimlessly towards sleep.

It was during just such a moment, as dreams threatened to drag Tarvor under, that he felt a shimmer in his mind. A small thing, easily missed, but Tarvor instantly recognized it for what it was. Sleep abandoned him and he sat alert with energy to spare. The dull thrum that had been all he could feel of Shera’s presence in his mind had changed. Where before it lay muted, lifeless, it now pulsed faintly, still distant at first but more strongly with time.

Tarvor had ceased breathing, so intently focused on the dim mote of consciousness inside him, he eschewed all other senses. His white knuckled hand still tensely wrapped in the fur of her neck, the hand that first felt her move. The lightest twitch in her heavy muscles as she tried to raise her head to him, eyelids still fighting open as she looked for her hunter. Trying to blink the sleep from her blurry vision.

“Tarvor?” A single word skittered across his mind, a scarce whisper, barely heard at all. But it was enough, she was awake.

The paralysis that gripped him melted away with that word, like an icicle in the face of an inferno, he instantly leapt to reassure the cat of his presence. Kneeling at her side he stroked her head with a calloused hand and pushed his own face close to hers, whispering into her ear. “It’s okay, I’m right here. Don’t move, okay? Just rest, I’m not going anywhere.” Tears he thought long dry flowed again.

Partially appeased, the big cat didn’t attempt to lift her head again, she was content with the feeling on his hands on her neck and his mind brushing against hers through their bond. “I’ll be fine soon, I think. I can feel the darkness receding.”

Her words, stronger now though still faint, comforted Tarvor as much as his physical touch comforted her. “Darkness? Nevermind, I’m just glad you’re awake. You’ve been sleeping since the fight this morning.”

Shera twitched involuntarily and shook her head slightly. “I’d forgotten all about that, feels like so long ago.” She saw the confused look on Tarvor’s face, “Something happened. Honestly I’m not exactly sure what, we can talk about it in the morning though.” Shera struggled to get her feet under her as she lay down. She winced when she moved her injured shoulder, but she still managed to right herself, now lying on her belly and paws instead of her side. Gently she cast her head around the small camp. “Where are we? This isn’t the clearing on the road.”

“Couldn’t stay there, had to move you so nobody could find us. We’re not far, honestly I don’t think I could have carried you far at the best of times.” Tarvor had watched with concern as Shera shifted her weight onto her injured leg. “You have some stitches in your shoulder as well, careful not to tear them. Probably should take it easy for a few days before we try and travel.”

Shera eyed her shoulder and gently flexed her leg, testing its limits. She snarled, “It’s tight,” craning her neck further so she could better see it “and shaved!”

“Couldn’t very well stich through all that fur,” he inspected his work from earlier as Shera growled unhappily. “It’s holding up so far though, should be fine with time. I don’t think I can possibly say just how glad I am that you’re awake.” He wanted to hold her close but he didn’t dare for fear of hurting her. Instead he just shook his head and patted her shoulder. “It’s too big for words.”

Shera looked at him curiously, wheels turning in her feline skull. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her nose. Tarvor was about to ask her what she was on about when he felt a powerful surge from their bond. The point of light that he had come to recognize as Shera suddenly blossomed into a tidal wave. Rather than sitting serenely in a corner of his mind, radiating her thoughts and emotions, it rushed through him, seemed to fill him. As if the entirety of her being was trying to climb into his head. As suddenly as it had come it abated, leaving him feeling strangely empty as once again his mind was clear except for her gently blinking speck. His head ached slightly, he felt …. Stretched?

Shera looked at him with concern. “You’re starving!” she said, with some amount of accusation in her voice. As if to punctuate the sentence Tarvor’s own gut betrayed him with a hefty gurgle. Against his protests Shera rose to her feet, strong and confidant despite her injuries, and went over to Tarvor’s pack. “Too dark to hunt even if I wasn’t injured, you’ll just have to eat this.” She plucked a package of dried meat from the pack, holding it deftly in her jaws. She padded back to where Tarvor sat dumbfounded and dropped it in his lap.

Tarvor opened his mouth to speak but faltered under the withering gaze of the cat who would brook no dissent, she glared at him until his mouth closed around some of the food she had brought. A muffled “Mmmmff” was all he managed to say around the dry meat, but Shera seemed to understand anyway.

She didn’t respond immediately, instead settling back down onto her belly, her head draped across Tarvor’s lap. She stared intently into the darkened woods around them as she spoke. “You said you couldn’t tell me how much you missed me, it gave me an idea. I thought ‘maybe I can reach into him instead and feel it for myself.’” She shrugged, “If I can push words and emotions to you, why can’t I try and go a bit further and push more of myself in?”

Shera paused in concentration before continuing, searching for the words. “It was odd though, it wasn’t like it normally is. Instead of feeling like myself, and feeling how happy you are, I felt like you. I was the one who felt relieved I was back. I was the one who felt hungry.” She shivered despite the warm summer air, Tarvor’s hand found its way to her neck where it stroked her concerns away. “Honestly it was not entirely pleasant, everything felt far stronger, more real, than I would have thought. That’s why I know just how hungry you were, practically starving yourself.” She eyed him accusatorily

Tarvor would have disagreed but he’d already eaten the entire package of jerky and still wished for more. A testament to the truth in her words. “It’s not like I haven’t ever gone hungry for a day before, staying with you just seemed more important.” Still, it’s odd to be as hungry as that after a day. Tarvor dismissed the thought absentmindedly. “I’m still not sure about whatever it is you did though, why now? Did you ever think to do something like that before? What about me, could I do that as well?”

Shera shrugged once more “It never occurred to me before, though honestly I don’t think so. I think it wouldn’t have worked if I’d tried before today.”

Tarvor grimaced, he already had little trust in the bond between them. Not in Shera of course, he would place his life in her hands and think nothing of it, but of whatever had created the bond in the first place. Whatever power; god, man, or beast, that had driven the desire to find him into Shera’s mind. He couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was gently tying strings around him, strings he might find himself dancing on, or hanging by.

Curious, he pushed against the bond between them. It did feel more pliable. It was something like the difference between pressing on the wall of a house, and the wall of a tent. Where it had stood solid before, as he pushed his thoughts through it, it now offered less resistance somehow. Tarvor wouldn’t be able to describe the feeling exactly if he tried, but he felt if he pushed hard enough it would give enough to let pass through as well. He pulled back before he did, Shera hadn’t made the experience sound particularly pleasant, and the shock on his side hadn’t been something he’d enjoyed either.

“So why today then?” Tarvor asked.

Shera only shook her head and responded “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Tarvor only grumbled “You’ve been saying that.” He cast his eyes around the camp, no way to make anything resembling shelter quickly. He’d neglected to do that earlier out of concern for Shera, now it looked like he’d be sleeping in the elements. Not for the first time he thought as he grabbed the warrox pelt, the only one he still owned, and threw it on the ground for some measure of comfort.  “Morning will come soon enough, hope you feel better about talking by then.” He slipped his hard leather boots off, relishing the warm summer air as he lay down.

With his eyes closed he felt, more than saw, Shera moving around beside him as she too lay on the pelt. Close enough to be touching his side. “Sleep already? But I just got up.” Shera’s voice skipped playfully in his mind. He opened his eyes again to find Shera not laying at his side, but sitting over him, her feline features watching him beneath her. A predator and her prey. She smiled.

If he didn’t know the cat so well he wouldn’t have recognized that gleam in her eye, but then again because he did know her so well he wasn’t overly surprised by it. He huffed in authentic exasperation. “I’m not really in the mood. Seeing you hurt today hasn’t really left me feeling amorous. Just lie down with me.” He used one arm to gently goad her to lay beside him, she went along meekly.  

She lay her head on his chest, it was still covered by only the thin cloth shirt he wore underneath the heavier leather garments. When she sighed he could feel the weight of her rise and fall on him. “I’m sorry I made you worried. I shouldn’t have got hurt in the first place. I should’ve been more careful.”

Tarvor lay a hand on the feline’s head and stroked her ears. “Don’t go talking like that, it’s not true. People get hurt when they fight, it happens. I didn’t get my scars playing at hoops as a child. I was just worried about you, that’s all. Everything seems to have turned out fine in the end.”

Shera grew still and quiet for some time, thinking about what she had seen in her dreams and the unknown adversaries yet to come. “That’s not good enough, I need to be better that that. If every fight ends with stitches it won’t take long until we’re both cut to ribbons. This is far from over.” Tarvor lifted an eyebrow at her, she looked away to not meet his gaze. “I’ll tell you in the morning,” was all she said.

Ever stoic, Tarvor let it lie, “All the same, you shouldn’t feel bad about it. He got the drop on us. I don’t care if it’s man versus beast or man versus man, the one who comes in more prepared normally wins. We only got out because his men were shit at fighting, probably unused to fighting against spears and fangs as well.”

Shera let the words sink in. Given that Tarvor’s preferred method of hunting inevitably involved traps, snares, and ambushes he probably believed what he said. She couldn’t quite let it go all the same. Eager to talk about something else she changed the subject. “Either way, I don’t think I thanked you for taking care of me today, but it means a lot.” She lay her head on his chest, feeling it rise and fall with his breath.

The hunter stroked the cat’s ears, rolling the soft furred skin between his fingers, she purred lightly. “I’d have done anything I could. Nothing would be too much to give. I don’t think I could live without you anymore.” Shera rolled her head to meet his eyes with hers. “Maybe once it was easy, living alone, speaking and sharing with no one. I can’t imagine it now, and I can’t imagine doing it with anybody else either.” Tarvor squirmed slightly under Shera’s weight, suddenly uncomfortable under her gaze. He sighed, “I know it sounds silly but that makes it no less true.”

With feline grace Shera sat up, unhindered by her injuries apparently, and brought her face to Tarvor’s, pressing her lips against his. “It doesn’t sound silly to me,” she said, pushing herself bodily into Tarvor, who moaned slightly in spite of himself. He brought his hands to her cheeks. “I couldn’t live without you either.” She laughed to herself “Especially since, in a way, I only live because of you anyhow.”

The sudden love inspired kiss carried on, neither party showing signs of flagging. Tarvor forgetting, or stubbornly refusing, to use their bond to speak elicited only quiet mmmfs. Being under no such compulsions Shera continued to speak freely. “I thought you said you were tired, Tarvor. Yet you seem to have all this energy.”

A muffled, somewhat irate, mmmf was all the response she got, unless you count a human tongue gently prodding at her lips, trying to encourage her to open her mouth. She gladly acquiesced.

“In fact,” she giggled “I can think of a few much better ways to say thank you for today than just words.” She surprised Tarvor by placing her fore paw on his tented cloth underclothes. She rubbed him through the thin fabric, feeling his well hardened member with the sensitive pads on her foot.

Tarvor’s reservations melted as Shera had known they would, it was never difficult to get him to give her what she wanted. So often all she wanted was him and a few sultry looks and enticing touches would bring Tarvor around to her way of thinking. She continued her current enticing touch with excitement. New experiences were always welcome, feeling him beneath her foot gave her a sense of power, though her enjoyment was somewhat limited by his garments.  

As if reading her mind Tarvor’s hands began to fumble at the cloth, the air was warm and it was all he had been wearing. Sliding his thumbs in the waistband he waited for Shera to lift her paw, which she regretfully did, so he could slip them down around his ankles before kicking them off, neither knowing nor caring where they landed. His attention was entirely on his lioness.

Shera returned her paw to Tarvor’s ever growing cock, now free of its cotton cage. A tender delicate area of his, caressed by her powerful paws. She relished the feeling of him, rock hard, as she stood over him. He was utterly at her mercy. She broke their kiss, what had started as loving and romantic had ended lustful and hungry. Tarvor leaned upwards, towards the cat, from where he lay on his back, eager for her to return her lips to his, but it was not to be.

The cat laughed down at him. “’oh I’m not in the mood Shera, I couldn’t possibly!’” she mocked, imitating his voice badly.

He just smiled up at her. “What can I say, you’re persuasive.”

Shera leaned over him, a feline goddess, yearning for what she wanted. She could feel the need rising in her nethers, begging to be filled. The possibilities rolled through her head, so many parts of him fit inside her so nicely. She imagined being crouched over him, his face underneath her as he explored her folds with his mouth and fingers. The thought of herself dripping on him while he worked to pleasure her drove her own excitement to new levels, but another thought enticed her even more.

She smiled down at him and commanded him to stay still, they often took turns controlling each other and he had to know that tonight was hers. He lay back and waited, his eyes and cock both standing at full attention. She brought her head down slowly towards her prize, he watched excitedly as she drew nearer. Shera let her tongue loll from her mouth, gently caressing Tarvor’s sensitive tip. Her nose filled with the smell of him, a uniquely deep aroma, complementing the taste of him on her tongue.

A small drop of precum slipped from Tarvor, glistening on the end of his cock. She eyed it hungrily and dropped her head further, engulfing him entirely in her mouth. Savoring the taste of it. A slick texture, both slightly salty and sweet, a taste she new well. She wrapped her tongue around him then, rocking her head slightly. She felt him buck his hips, thrusting into her mouth, she considered telling him to stop, she was after all in control today, but it was a feeling she enjoyed as well so she allowed him to continue for a time.

When Tarvor’s stiff member was soaking wet with Shera’s spit she deemed him good and ready. She suckled him hard while letting him gently slide free of her mouth. She could feel him struggling to stay inside her, in her warmth and wetness. He would get what he wanted soon enough, though not quite how he expected. She stood over him now, straddling the human, face to face. He visibly drank her form in, letting his eyes follow the contours of her lithe and powerful frame until they settled on the base of her tail. The base of her tail is all he could see from where he lay, but her pussy burned with desire as if she could feel his gaze on it nonetheless. She could feel herself, feel how ready she was, gaping slightly and slick with her own juices. There was no more waiting, the need was too great.

As she stood over Tarvor she let her hindquarters fall until she was crouching over him, ready to plunge down and impale herself on his spear. She locked eyes with him and he held himself steady for her, helping to guide his way inside. She felt the tip of him press against her tender lips and growled. As always he felt so large to her, nearly more than she could handle but never more than she wanted. She pushed and ground her hips downward, trying to coerce him inside. She purred as her feline lips began to spread apart, as his warmth began to fill her. Slowly she lowered herself onto him, impaling herself, getting exactly what she was looking for. Light danced in Tarvor’s eyes as he watched her work.

Hilted, full, she took as much as she could. Tarvor moaned beneath her while she snapped and growled in pleasure over him. His hands went to her hips, holding onto her as she ground against him, already he could feel some of their combined juices running across his balls, pooling between them. Shera rose slowly, getting a feel for him, testing how far she could move before he’d slip from her. When she felt she had neared the end of him she pushed herself back down with force, causing them to gasp in unison as he sank his length into her again. She could feel herself stretched taut around him, her insides quivering and leaking their approval, it felt so good to be so full. Tarvor’s hand’s grasped and groped at her as she began to pump her hips.

It was a new feeling for her, being the one to control the rhythm, and she reveled in it. She watched Tarvor’s face and listened to the wonderful noises he made as she moved, bringing him pleasure excited her but ultimately she wanted this. She gathered speed as she grew used to the motion, rolling her shoulders and dropping her hind legs, forcing herself upon him. The pleasure rose for her with every thrust. His cock scraped at her inner walls, driving her mad.

Her thrusting grew wild and primal, her claws dug furrows in the ground on either side of Tarvor. Her mouth hung open and hot and humid breath washed across his chest as his cat fucked him. Yet another small orgasm gripped her, causing her knees to weaken slightly as she leaked all over her human. He slipped in and out of her easily now, lubricated well by mouth and lust. The lion growled and focused, sometimes grinding against Tarvor while he was fully inside her, sometimes pulling off him entirely before pushing down again, as she enjoyed the forceful penetration of her pussy.  

The mountainous climax approached her as she sought to conquer the peak. Helpless below her, Tarvor just held on and whispered encouragement to her. She could feel herself approaching the edge and she found her rhythm, the perfect length and speed that touched her in just the right ways. Endlessly she repeated it, thrusting her hips into her partner, feeling him push inside her, before raising herself only to thrust down again. The quiet curses and cries of her name from Tarvor drove her onward, her only fear that he might finish first and deny her climax.

Shera’s knees grew weak, she felt as if she had run for too far and too long, on the verge of giving out, but she could feel how close she was and she would not abate. Each stroke brought her one step nearer and she could feel the pressure building. Tarvor’s cock made wet sounds as it slid in and out of her as she rocked over him. Suddenly she could feel Tarvor tense beneath her, and felt his cock begin to pump into her. He tensed in lover’s rictus but she needed just a little more. She could feel him, hot and sticky, in her aching passage, the feeling of him pulsing slightly with every new spray of cum was what finally did it.

Her walls clamped down on him as she orgasmed but her motions didn’t slack, she continued to hit the perfect stroke. Each thrust caused her orgasm to deepen and pleasure rocked her body, her throat sang out in a powerful roar as the final waves coursed through her. She let herself relax and sat upon him, still tied together in a wet and sticky mess and waited for the feelings to completely ebb.

Minutes pass until unceremoniously Tarvor, completely flaccid, slips from Shera and a last round of the pairs cum seeps from her. She moves off of him. “I guess you weren’t so tired after all,” she says impishly, but when she looks over at him the hunter is sound asleep. She sighs. She doesn’t sleep more than an hour or two that night. Mostly she just sits in the dark, staring at the sky, and thinks.

***

As Shera promised when morning finally arrived the pair talked, in depth and at length about Shera’s dream. It was the thing that had prevented Shera from waking for such a long time the day before. The fact both comforted and terrified Tarvor. It was a relief to know that she wasn’t as injured as he had feared, in fact she seemed in fine spirits this morning, if a tad pensive. Yet it further cemented his fear of the power that had linked them in the first place. It was becoming more and more clear that they were unlikely to be free of it anytime soon, if ever. An unknown force had tight reins over his life and it made Tarvor’s hackles rise.

Dried meat and a simple flat bread made of flour and water was all there was to eat as the pair spoke in the morning sun. Tarvor looked at the pitiful spread with distaste, it was better than nothing but even a few days without fresh meat seemed to make him edgy recently, Shera was handling it with no more grace than he. He tore a corner from his bread and threw it at Shera, hoping to lighten the mood. It gently bounced off the lioness’ nose and landed in a small patch of light as the sun shone through the trees around them. Shera smiled at him playfully but only for a moment, before she returned to her quiet self-reflection.

Tarvor frowned and ruffled the cat’s fur then grabbed the bread before any hopeful ants could reach it. Bland or not it was still food. “So, what do you think it all means then?” he said, mouthing the words around the morsel of food. There was no need for table etiquette when the trapper spent most of his life in solitude.

The lioness took her time responding, still seeking an answer to that very thing. After a moment she merely shook her head, “I can’t be sure.” She stood up and stalked around the clearing uneasily, leaves crunching and snapping under her paws with every careless step. “Last time it hadn’t been like this. It felt like getting hit by lightning, over in a flash and more painful than anything I could have imagined. Yet it left me with a crystal clear image of what I had to do, at least at first.”

She meant her Awakening, Tarvor knew, the event that gave her intelligence and a need to hunt him down. It even told her where he was, how to find him and how to slip by the various traps that surrounded his home. It seemed so long ago, now weeks, months perhaps, later she was faced with more visions and they set her on edge. Tarvor watched her injured shoulder warily, the skin there still laid bare from where he had shaved her, but if it bothered her stride at all she gave no sign.

“What do you think, Tarvor? I’ve been up all night thinking about it and I still can’t tell what half of it means.” Her nervous stride faltered and she slumped back to the earth. Tarvor reflexively jumped to her side, afraid for her, but there was no physical pain in her eyes, only lost confusion. He sat by her and held a hand out to her, she nuzzled her head into it affectionately.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You said you switched bodies a few times in the dream, then when you woke up you didn’t hesitate to try it for real. That seems pretty clear cut.” Tarvor said. Shera nodded but seemed no more hopeful. “What about the first bit, with the light and the fog, and then the shadow monster thing.”

Shera let Tarvor cradle her head in his arms. “That seems kinda close to how I remember the first warning. It’s hard to recall though, it feels so distant now. The shadow monster though is definitely whatever we’re looking for. That much seems obvious. The rest though, visiting the camp, the forest, that gigantic tree, it’s all a mess.” Shera turned her head up to him to meet his eyes. “What about the parts where I had to go on without you? I don’t even want to think about it.”

Tarvor leaned down and kissed the cougar’s forehead, brushing his lips against the dark tan fur just above her eyes. Shera smiled up at him. “It’s not worth worrying about. I’m not going anywhere, maybe it’s just nonsense. You were pretty hurt after all, maybe some of it is just regular dreams.” She shook her head, not believing that for a second.

“Where do we go now then? If we don’t know what this means do we just wander endlessly?” She asked.

“Seems a good idea as any. It was good enough for us a few days ago, I don’t think this changes that. Either way we have a few days to figure things out while you’re recovering.”

“I don’t really think we do,” the cat sounded almost sheepish.

“I don’t think the end of the world is quite that near yet. Surely we have half a week still.”

“No, I mean,” Shera stood up, pushing Tarvor away from her “I don’t think I need to recover.” She dangled her forepaw off the ground as if to demonstrate. “I feel fine. Better than fine even.”

Tarvor moved over to inspect the stitching. Sure enough while the stitches themselves looked like they were only put in yesterday the wound beneath them looked no younger than a month. More strangeness, he scowled inwardly.

“Tell you what,” the cougar said, “if I catch more rabbits than you in an hour, then you take these stitches out and we leave. Otherwise we’ll do whatever you want for a few days. Even rest if you want it that badly.” She winked at him and tore off into the undergrowth, deeper into the forest, calling out as she left “And you have to skin the rabbits!”

Tarvor took a moment to react, he thought about telling her to stop being childish and come back, but truthfully she wouldn’t listen anyway. Instead he grabbed his bow and spear and ran in the opposite direction, “I would have to skin the rabbits anyway,” he yelled, feeling the distance between them widen with every step. “You’d just eat the skin!”

Soon his heart was pounding, his arms and legs burning and yet at the end of the hour he only had one small hare to three of Shera’s. Sitting smugly staring at him she hardly looked winded. He fought the urge to argue further, at some point he had to recognize baseless worrying for what it was. Even beyond whatever unnatural forces were driving her, his cat was no paper doll to be easily torn. He used the same knife to skin rabbits that he used to dexterously cut and remove Shera’s stitches. His hand was rock steady for both jobs.

They left before the sun stood much above the horizon, four rabbits between them didn’t last long. Shera ate two whole and uncooked, though she waited for Tarvor to skin them first, gloating all the while. Tarvor surprised himself by picking the bones clean on the other two despite having already eaten breakfast, meager though it had been. The ravenous hunger from the night before still seemed to grip him.

All the while Tarvor was distracted by thoughts about what they could have been doing with a few days of no travel. From time to time he would try and sneak a look under his lover’s tail, tempted to get a late start no matter who brought in more game. Shera favored him with playful glances and posed seductively more than once but nevertheless insisted they leave.

They made good pace for the next few days. They broke camp early in the evening, rather than run themselves to complete exhaustion, and outside of a few tempting caresses kept their hands, and paws, to themselves. Finding the energy to enjoy each other’s company was often too great a feat after a full day’s travel.

Game was plentiful, the weather was fair, and not a soul troubled their voyage as they kept far from the road and anymore possible conflict. Tarvor would often step away to make sure they were still following alongside the winding highway, returning half an hour, or more, later to straighten their course and continue. Even these short forays put Shera at unease, traversing an empty forest without Tarvor at her side was too similar to her dreams for comfort, even though she could feel him through her bond.

Two weeks however with nothing more than small peaceful villages, most of which they never bothered to enter let alone stay in, had left both of them feeling weathered and beaten. Shera worked to persuade Tarvor for just one day of rest at the next town. A night in a real bed, a comfort Shera missed from their time in Yost, and a day off their feet.

Tarvor needed little convincing, also eager for some rest, yet still managed to pull several lusty and personal promises from the lion before finally agreeing. He could never have said no anyway but after watching her tail swing in front of him for days there were some other, more vulgar, things he was desiring as well.  He wanted it so bad he could almost taste it. Whenever the next town appeared he was damn well going to taste it, he thought to himself.

The next day again Tarvor left to find the road, perhaps ask a traveler when the next town was going to be. An hour came and went before Shera started to truly worry. When she felt Tarvor rapidly approaching from some distance it started to turn to terror. Faintly, at near the maximum range the two could mentally speak to each other he said only one word, ‘come’.

She ran towards him with no hesitation, dirt and leaves flying up from underfoot as she sped. Weeks of weariness from the road seemed to slide from her body, chased away by pure adrenaline. Her furred chest heaved and powerful muscles drove her forward.

Tarvor met her before she actually reached the road herself. He crouched in a low bush, weapon in hand, even with her keen eyes she would have gone right past if she hadn’t felt a beacon in her mind that led her toward him. Her sense of smell may have given him away, but to her surprise he didn’t smell afraid, like she was, he smelled angry, furious.

Silently, with only his mind he commanded her to follow him and urged her to stay low as well. She wanted to know what was happening but he only insisted she should see for herself. Together they crept toward the road, or where Shera assumed the road must be. She couldn’t smell or see anything that hinted at trouble ahead. The breeze was at their back, blowing any smells away from them and, she realized with a shudder, blowing their own smells directly toward whatever lay ahead of them.

Tarvor stopped suddenly and motioned her down as well. She lay quietly, anxiously aware. The undergrowth was thick and obscured her vision, her nose began to bring her the details before she saw anything. Smoke, char, burning pitch, and something even more acrid, something she couldn’t identify but burnt in her nostrils. Tarvor pulled the foliage aside.

Desolation lay before her. A town, or its remnants, in shambles. Houses fallen in, fences and signs trampled flat. Burning, everything charred. Here and there a few coals still glowed dimly, faint red lights in the blackened wood. And blood everywhere she looked, sprayed, smeared, covering the area. Not a single surviving soul, not if this much blood covered the remains of the town. So much that a thick coppery scent hung in the air, she could almost taste its tang.

Yet for all the destruction not a single body, neither animal nor man, was in sight. Vanished. Like an army swept through, slaughtered the town, burnt its remains, and somehow carried off the corpses like a grim trophy. How could less than an actual army do this. She could almost believe it until her eyes fell on the woods opposite, past the inn she’d hoped to spend the night in and across the village center. Monstrous footprints at least a few, deep enough to be seen from here and burnt black, and in the trees a wide path. Trees shattered, some still smoldering, carving a new road through the forest, wide enough for the grandest carriage. The trail of the beast.  

Tarvor seethed. “There were people here, and children probably. They didn’t deserve this. I think we found your shadow monster.”

Shera couldn’t disagree, “It doesn’t look like this happened that long ago. Maybe somebody lived? We should search the buildings and the woods.” She looked to the left and right through the trees, the dense scrub could hide any number of things.

“I searched the woods, at least on this side, before calling you.” Tarvor pointed toward the blood. Scattered to and fro in grotesque patterns, whatever spread it like that had involved considerable force. “Nothing survived that.” He started to stride forward, eyes fixed on the path of burnt and broken trees.

Shera hurried after him, equally scared of being away from him as she was whatever lay at the end of that path. She stalked at his side and tried to force her own primal side out, to suppress her more human fears and emotions. She may have managed it too, but in the corner of her eye a doll lay forlornly in the grass, its button eyes gazing lifelessly into the sky where the little girl who owned it had dropped it. Her predator instincts dropped away in the face of that.

The town dropped away and they entered the forest on its far side. Shera couldn’t help but stare at the massive footprints as they passed. Completely unidentifiable to her, but terrifyingly large. Where as she walked with great trepidation Tarvor cloaked himself in fury, an avatar for vengeance though he didn’t know a single soul who lived here. Shera could barely contain her fear well enough to keep from visibly shaking.

Some fierce hunter I am she thought to herself as they picked their way between cracked tree trunks. She could hunt, she could reason, she could love, but when faced with insurmountable odds even the lion side of her shirked. Primal fears of fire and of predators bigger than herself combined with a very human sense of self preservation. Where Tarvor drew his own strength from she could not say, she hoped it was a bottomless reserve. I wonder what I would have done before the awakening. Probably be even more afraid, animals weren’t meant to fight monsters.

While Shera tensed ever more Tarvor visibly relaxed. He held his spear loosely in one hand and rested a hand on Shera’s back. She flinched at the light touch before realizing what it was and allowing him to comfort her. “It’s okay, don’t worry.”

Her voice was tinged with panic “Don’t worry? Look at the size of this ‘trail’, and did you see what happened to the town? How do we stop something like that? No plan, outmatched, and we’re marching straight toward it.” Her hackles raised, “I’m going to worry.” She bared her fangs at the unknown and snarled.

Tarvor stopped moving, Shera reflexively stopping as well, and  he pointed to a nearby tree, “Look, the wood is dried out on the broken surface, not wet like a fresh cracked branch would be, most of these aren’t burnt at all. That one,” he gestured to another “looks like it stopped smoldering hours if not days ago. There were still embers in town. The trail is getting older, not fresher. It’s not here, whatever it is.”

Less than mollified Shera looked behind her. “So it’s behind us? Back in the town? I didn’t see another path out of the town. Where could it be?”

Tarvor shrugged, “I can’t imagine we would have missed it in town, anything big enough to do this is going to have a hard time hiding. No idea what happened after that, but this trail is definitely getting colder.” He started walking again and Shera hurried to keep up, still pressing her shoulder hard into his thigh.

She kept any more worries to herself. Tarvor didn’t seem on edge anymore, his chance to face whatever creature having slipped by him for the moment. If they couldn’t at least see where the creature went maybe they could see where it came from, following the trail backwards seemed a good idea.

It didn’t take long, a few miles at most. Shera even managed to bring herself back under control by the time the trail dead ended, though what they found there very nearly changed that. A hole, yards across, torched to cinders worse than any part of the town had been, even parts of the rock appeared melted. A twisted black mass that no light escaped from.

Tarvor started to climb down into it without hesitation but Shera held him with her mouth, holding him back. “Tarvor, no. You have no idea whats down there.”

“Probably nothing, but I’m not going to find out sitting up here and looking either. It might be important.” He pried her teeth open with a free hand, she fought him with failing determination. For all the control she had over him at some times he could lead her on a string at the moment.

The sides were steep and the charred ground left few good hand holds and far too much loose soil. Tarvor slipped and slid just as often as he controlled his climb, until he reached the bottom. Black as it was the hole itself was deceptively shallow. He looked up to see Shera staring down at him from the entrance, no more than twenty or thirty feet above. Her hazel eyes tinged with worry.

The place was almost perfectly round with sloped sides in all directions. At its center a large pile of shards of black stone, all smooth sides with jagged edges. Hundreds of cracked fragments, some larger than boulders. Others would fit in a vest pocket. Crumbled and cracked, a pile radiating from the center.

Tarvor picked one shard up, tossing it quickly from hand to hand, the stone still uncomfortably warm though everything surrounding it had long since cooled. He tried to figure out what it looked like before it all fell apart. He let it fall back to its brothers and sisters that lay scattered at his feet. Then turned and started his ascension back out. The climb up was far more arduous than the slide down, multiple times he lost his footing and found himself treading back over ground he’d climbed once before. His arms burned with effort when he pulled himself up over the lip and back to Shera.

She looked at him expectantly whilst pressing herself against him bodily. Unwilling to leave even an inch between them for the moment.

“I don’t know exactly what it is,” he said truthfully. “I can only guess at what I think it might be, based on other, similar, things I’ve seen.” Shera made no move to respond, still trying to find a way to squirm even closer to Tarvor. Tarvor shivered and that, more than anything else today, scared Shera. “I think it’s an egg.” Shera looked at him. “The stones I mean, some kind of weird eggshell, the hole is a burrow? Or a nest I guess. Something similar at least.”

Tarvor threw his arms around Shera, enveloping her in strong embrace, then pulling away to stand up. He picked up his spear from where it lay in the dirt and weaved it into the straps on his back that held it in place. He started to walk away from the hole, not back to the ruined town, but south, in the direction they had been travelling.

Shera eyed him askance but walked easily at his side none the less. His voice didn’t waver, he was calm, resolute, “I think whatever did that to the town is a baby,” he felt a stab of panic from the bond, overflow of Shera’s emotions, “or at best an adolescent, who knows how fast it grows.”

The thought of facing something potentially even bigger than she thought was something Shera hadn’t expected. “Where are we going then?”

Tarvor’s voice was as cold as a steel trap. “You were right about one thing Shera. We need a plan.”
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