Based on activities in the Red Dragon Inn, 07/15/2007, approximately 11pm-1am It was a quiet night in the Dragon. S'jira had turned in already but he was feeling restless and had gone out wandering about the city a bit. The common room was about half-full when he returned, and he spent some time just watching for a bit. There were so many new faces of late, so many new scents.

Jewell had wandered in, glowing from a battle in the rings, and from her mood it was a victorious night for her. As he followed her across the room towards the bar, she was intercepted by one he had been watching earlier. He didn't seem to speak, and just radiated heat.

"He uses hand words like Danae...." he called over to Jewell after a couple of failed attempts by her to talk to him in different tongues.

She replied with a questioning look "But I don't know that."

He started to turn and order a drink, his gaze shifting to Des and Gav behind the bar when she made a third attempt, speaking in a sort of high-pitched whistle that was like a mix of bird songs....and something he had never quite heard before.

And it sent a piercing, sharp pain right through his head.

His ears fell flat to his head, trying to shut out the sound, but it wasn't working and his head started swimming. A hand reached out to grab ahold of the edge of the bar, even as the fingers on the other hand reached to rub his temple. Slow deep breaths were taken, pressure point near his temple was stroked and his eyes closed as he tried to shut out the ....no....not the sound, he was beyond hearing the sound from without. It was the sounds from within that were rising now. He tried to calm himself, but he knew it was already too late. He could feel things changing.

"Panth..you okay?"

He heard her, smelled her, then felt her as Jewell's fingers brushed his shoulder. He could also feel the muscles under her touch moving of their own accord. "What's going on..." she quietly asked.

He reached out, fingers fumbling to untie the band of braided leather at his wrist, he nearly shoved it in to her hand...

If she answered, he no longer heard it, the sound of blood rushing through his body was all he could hear.

He tried to speak, and it was harder than it should be. "Tell 'jirrrrra...." it came out as a rumble...."back as soon as can...." He pried his hand from the edge of the bar, the gouges in the wood left as an indication of his tight grip. That hand clenched to a fist as he turned. "watch herrrrrr...."

His eyes no longer truly saw, but he smelled, and as he turned a past Jewell the female felines scent hit him...full on and right before him. All he could manage was a guttural snarl before he was moving for the door. By the time he was halfway there, a chair or two had been knocked aside and he was nearly running. As he hit the door way, he practically lept out in to the night on all fours. And a second after that he was swallowed up by the darkness surrounding the Inn.

Get Away. Run.

Those where the only things in his mind at the moment....and even then they were not thoughts in the truest sense, merely feelings....impulses....instincts.

The half-man, half-cat had barely made it to the tree line across the road from the Dragon when his body nearly doubled him over in pain as it started to change. Muscle, bone, flesh....extending, contorting, defining.

The loose fitting shirt was the first to go, ripped off before he even made it across the road. The leggings didn't slow him as he practically lept right out of them. The bracers, slid from his arms as he came to run on all fours rather than just two.

And all he could do was keep running. Chasing, or chased, it didn't matter. That was all that was in that feline mind that took over when ever he was in this form. No longer Panther in name, he was panther in form and mind, fully and completely.

After a minute, maybe two, his pace slowed to a gate. The thoughts of fleeing were slipping from is mind as if whisked away by the breeze blowing across his fur, to be replaced by other, more baser thoughts. Food. Drink.

It was dark, though the feline eyes had no trouble seeing under the ample moon-light cast by the dual moons overhead. Dark meant time for food. It did not matter that he didn't hunger, it was time to hunt.

Lifting his nose a bit and breathing in he slowly turned, getting aquainted with his surroundings. Something familiar tugged at the recesses of his mind, but that thought was interrupted as he tasted, then scented the water....nearby. Turning and moving nearly silent across the forest floor he followed the scent and soon heard the babbling sound of running water. A myriad of other scents started hitting him....all of them prey, all faint and old, nothing to be concerned with as he continued towards the water. Even with the faint scents about him, water meant not only drink but often food as well.

He approached the brook cautiously, ears up and turned outward as his listening for sounds to the sides and even behind as his eyes pierced the darkness for the movement of anything noteworthy, food-worthy. Even as he crouched slightly and lowered his head to drink his ears remained up and moving, ready to pick up the faintest of sounds about him.

He drank, his tongue lapping up the cool water, and drank some more....he just about had his fill when he smelled it. A scent both familiar and not. Not food....but what? He stopped drinking but did not lift his head as he tried to further pinpoint the scent...a slight swivel of his head, it was getting stronger.

Seconds rolling on toward minutes, as black mask and pale mirrored each other across the gurgling melody of the water. She drank slowly, and he, having already quenched most of his thirst, watched her with a beast's stare. In that glare, she saw the death of a small, unlikely hope - the desire for a hunting companion, friend, a cat other than her Beast who ran upon four legs with a mind greater than that of an animal. Not here, not now, not in the creature who crouched opposite her. There was nothing home in those wide, luminescent eyes. Nothing that would recognize her as being anything other than competition and threat.

The hot scent of deer, rich with panic, pain and blood. A wounded doe, evidence of some hunters' poor skill and carelessness. Desperate for water, the doe had been following a low ridge, and it was only in cresting the slope to head for the stream that the wind caught her scent.

It was in reflex, in the nature of her race that she failed herself, her beast, and her training. Ghost Cats are, by nature, solitary and suspicious creatures - not so Beastwalkers. Designed by nature to not only desire, but need the presence of other shapeshifters - their own kind, preferably - the scent of the deer struck a chord in Shriss that it didn't touch in the beast across from her. What greater pleasure than to hunt beside another great cat, to share the stalk, the chase, the kill with one of her own" But that only works if your companion shares your pleasure in the partnership.

The scent of the deer hit her in a wave, bringing unsated hunger to a peak. Consciously, she knew that the other was no friend. Subconsciously, she still thought of him as Panther - and, though not a friend, still an intelligent companion. Pale paws sent diamond spray to bedew her coat as she struck down in mid-stream, on a jutting stone that she knew would be there. A surge of velvet-sheathed steel, and her next impact was on the bank, not far enough from the black beast.

For Shriss, the target was the deer - the hunt, the pulse of hot blood across her tongue and teeth, the salt sweetness of warm meat sliding down her throat. For the panther, the target was a competitor encroaching too near, too fast, when prey that he would have as his own was at stake. Surprise struck her, but didn't slow her, as she heard the snarl. Not a sound of warning, but of attack, a form larger and heavier than her own lunging at her from too close to avoid, too fast to go incorporeal.

She dropped, flattening herself in hope that he would overshoot her and miss. It kept him from taking her throat, but it was a charge, not a leap, that he'd made. Powerful jaws hit her neck, locking onto the side and back. For just a moment, shock freezes the Spook in place. Not that he would attack, or even that she was in a very precarious position. It was her own, instinctive reaction that left her passive, flat on her belly as jaws locked onto her neck. It was the overpowering sensation, not of fear, but of peaceful resignation.

A moment, no more, as instinct surged to the fore. A bare second, before she tore herself from the shock and from her primal reaction, aided by not only fear, but the sensation of sharp fangs sinking deep into the heavy muscle of her neck. Yet that second was all it took for his claws to find purchase, shearing through fur, skin and muscle in a savage rake from shoulder to hip on the side away from him. The damage would have been worse, had she not dropped as fast as she had.

A second, more than long enough to die in. But she hadn't. She was hurt, yes, and possibly badly. But she was alive, and reflex took over now to keep her that way. As his claws came loose from her flesh, she twisted herself around, mud slathering the long wound as she rolled to her back beneath the panther. Hind legs slash at his belly, jaws rake at his shoulder without finding purchase, in her efforts to get loose from the hold on her neck. Neither does harm, though. The beast apparently knew enough about fighting not to hold on, when doing so would leave his belly exposed to her claws.

Again, it was only a matter of a second, as he sprang aside and prepared to come back at her - but this time, she was ready. Prepared, that second was time enough - barely - to force herself incorporeal. Still, she wasn't done Spooking when he came back in, though the claws that rake at her hip find only a thickening of the air for purchase. Deep welts rise along that flank as she goes fully Ghost.

To her feet, and away. Already hurt, there was no way to win this fight, and she wasn't fool enough to stick around and try. She fled, he stayed - there was still the doe to hunt, and she'd gone away from it. As well, she left no prints, made no sound - but scent, yes. Blood was shed freely from her wounds, and where it fell from her body, it returned to solid form. No sign of paws to tell her path. Only a crimson rain, rapidly cooling in the night air.

Gone. She would not bother him again while he walked upon four legs " not this time, and likely not any other time.