Courtesy of the Letter "Y" (Ellwood)

[Toviyah]

It was the quiet that woke him. It was the familiar stillness that old instincts had trained him to recognize; the silence in the night air that clamored louder than a full symphony of the host on a particularly enthusiastic day, demanding he sit up and take notice, and in short order progress to doing something about it.

The beagle padded through the foliage, nose low to the ground as he zig-zagged steadily deeper into the woods. Canine instincts sharpened the sentient mind within, calling to attention the myriad familiar scents, and the one that stood out from among them, coarse and predatory and completely unfamiliar. Moonlight puddled a half-inch deeper where the ground was soft, marking out the odd oversized footprint and rabbit burrow, fresh with the scent of

live prey find dig hunt hungry -

The canine shook its head and forced itself to stay on the new scent.

It crossed his path, coming into the woods from outside. Leading further in, but fresh, not more than an hour ahead; purposeful, not lost and stumbling blindly in the dark; and heading towards...

Well. He didn't know what was up ahead. His line of duty had never taken him this far into the woods, but he knew there was something to the way being near here made all his fur stand up on end.

Nothing to it, but to -

Call for backup? Old, human instincts offered.

Rabbit rabbit chase the rabbit, his beagle mind insisted of the creature now fleeing in terror, not even bothering to heed the new predator as it shot right between his legs and away from a worse danger brought to wakefulness.

He cocked his head, considering, then took a step, and another, and more, feeling his cautious way forward into a disaster waiting to happen.

[Ellwood]

There are a lot of reasons people go missing.

There are a lot of things that can give a screech in the woods.

Putting the two together doesn't really help him narrow it down in the slightest, but that didn't stop him from heading out alone into the general area of the woods when some of the townsfolk brought up the matter. If his brother or his teacher had been around, he may have been more prepared for the fight, and not in the middle of a pack of demons shaped like gnarled, furless wererats with dripping quills on their back and arms, with the one skybound figure giggling madly.

"You know, I've heard childbirth is supposed to be magical, but lady, that's fucked up."

The mostly featherless mockery of an avian specie screeched a cry out in a language he didn't understand, and he couldn't help but picture a cartoonic mouse being slowly run over with a steamroller. The others must have gotten the message though, because the circle started to encroach upon him. His eyes drifted from right to left. Fingers twitched at his sides, as if waiting for them to make the first move.

The acutely visible - and acutely disgusting - flesh of one's legs tensed, right before springlaunching itself forward. Quills at the ends of its arms were meant to be used like punching daggers, and the lone human was their target.

The glint of metal was a flash of starlight in the dark, before the demonic creature was intercepted by a blast of raw air pressure and sent slamming into the nearest tree instead. The figure held the sword at the end of the stroke pointing down and to the right, left arm reaching across his body, right arm gripping another sword from the carrier on his back.

The right side of his face slowly pulled wide in a toothy grin.

Fiercely feral eyes beamed their excitement.

"Now's the part where you rush me."

[Ellwood]

The pack of demons charged in on incorrigible prey, the line broken as different individuals gathered their courage faster than the others - or, put a better way, their desire to inflict harm outweighed their desire for self-preservation.

Two lines, right and left, crashed against a blast of chilling frost and hammering air as the swordsman slashed his swords wide. The former turned white with the powerful winter mist, backpedaling before slow motion came to a full stop. The latter blew backwards into their other companions, breaking up the left flank into piecemeal.

One rapidly approaching from the front, he brought the right back in immediately to hammer down at it. The blade never touched it. It was still coated in rime. A quick flourish sought to change that first part, and sent the demon's head twisting like a curve ball into the other half-frozen creatures.

Of course that didn't do anything. When the swordsmen blasted the wind sword at the ground, launched himself towards them and gave a vicious horizontal slice - that did something to them.

"Come on, guys!" the swordsman teased as the poison-dripping demonic monsters moved attacked with more feral rage in their cries, beating off the next wave with equal ease.

"At least make this something of a chall -" his tone dropped as the avian demon gave another piercing shriek, and the latest rat creature stopped in mid-charge. His sentence ended with a quizzical, "- enge?"

He moved to dive. His feet were only just off the ground, when the explosion went off right behind him. His body rag-dolled momentarily through the air, before he twisted, a strike of his wind sword countering the speed of his travel and letting him drop handily on his bare feet.

Eyes rapidly sought the threat down low, and saw kneecaps. He looked higher, equal to his height, and saw only the blood red abdomen and the ragged claws, each as big as a dagger. Eyes trailed higher, to take in the full image of the massive fiend, who was even then drawing his hands back for a second attack.

"Summoners," he said it was like a curse as the fiend's hands began to radiate red-yellow flames. "God, I hate summoners."

[Ellwood]

Wind and frost alike were brought together, and two solid streams of energy combined to counter the blast of fire. That might have worked, if the demon was only attacking head on. For the three other pillars of fire shooting forth, the swordsman had no defense. They crashed around him, each a small explosion. Bad aim saved him from the brunt of the attack, but raw force threw him back against a tree.

Pain and anger alike shot up into his mind from the sudden meeting of his back to a tree trunk, landing on his feet more for gravity than for any dexterity on his part. Snarky callousness bubbled away against the rising tide, as his hands gripped tighter to sword handles and all throughout his body, the veins burned for something just beneath the surface.

The fiend's hands glowed again.

The swordsman took off to the right, strafing and using swords like rifles to shoot small bursts of elemental magic, rapid fire. Remaining rat demons kept him aiming a few shots in other directions as well, while the greatest demon in the room slid along the ground with smoke-covered feet. The fiend launched his own attacks, shooting bolts of hottest flame that kept him constantly on the move, with terrain getting more limiting every second something caught ablaze.

He weaved left. A mockery of everything good about birds dived at his head, stopped his movement dead in his tracks as he leaned back to avoid it.

The swordsman didn't have time to feel the initial pain - just the aftershock, as the flesh cauterized solid around the flame-red lance blasting a hole right through the lower left side of his torso. Like the sudden explosion of a pressure release valve, the torrent of pain blew right through his mind and made anger the last of his thoughts.

A sudden feral roar of discomfort slipped his mouth as he staggered, knees almost buckling, before another explosion of pain hit him solidly in the chest and threw him further back into the trees.

There was only a split second of panic, before agony forced the collection of his thoughts, and he scrabbled on swords and knees to get up and run as best as he could.

[Toviyah]

The air stirred.

The foliage shivered.

The wind screamed.

The beagle stopped dead in his tracks as a sudden chill hit his sensitive nose. The air heated rapidly, then cooled again in similar measure. Battle was joined somewhere far-off, the distant shrieks carried on abrupt squalls that bore traces of smoke, ash, and the stench of all-too-inhuman blood. He concentrated harder, felt out with his magic, and mental fingers brushed contrasting surfaces of young, blazing fury and old, acidic malice.

He broke into an all-out sprint, bounding in a straight line over protruding roots, uneven bumps and the occasional scared-stricken woodland creature. He followed the light, now visible as it flashed between the leaves, all caution thrown aside in favor of full, desperate speed -

A flash of light. A rush of heat.

Pain. An instant of terror.

Two booted feet crunched leaves beneath them in lieu of four padded paws. Abandoning his practiced limp, the man jogged further into the undergrowth, faint wisps of light blue smoke beginning to glow from his form.

"Come here," he whispered in each exhale, the words borne into the night on a current of magic. "Get away from them. Don't get hurt any worse. Don't die. Come here..."

[Ellwood]

His left side was an agonizing failure at escaping, due in no small part to the gaping hole where a kidney should have been. Instant cauterization had ensured that he wasn't leaving a massive trail of blood, but that didn't change the fact he was missing a ton of stabilizer muscles.

Oh, and the mind-destroying pain. One can't forget the mind-destroying pain.

The sword in his right hand was quickly sheathed, the better to hold his left side as if his grip could somehow keep himself together. Another use of a highly under-valued sword blasted him bodily like a rocket to put further distance between himself and the trailing demons. It may not have been the best idea - his right shoulder slammed into a tree, and he ricocheted painfully off of it, ragdolling for the second time that night.

He scrambled up again, and raised the sword up into its sheath - another flash of pain, as the motion tried to pull on a muscle burned halfway to nothing. The swordsman's body almost collapsed on the ground from the motion. Another series of explosions rocked the forest around him, and his hands clawed at the ground to keep moving.

His hands clawed, and then his claws clawed - large, sharp, feline claws, attached to hands that were rapidly growing and darkening with brown fur, heralding the change to the rest of his body as everything about him got bigger. The buttons to his vest unsapped for an expanding upper body. The sensation of two massive fangs growing from his upper jaw was something he was keenly aware of, from gritting his teeth so hard together.

The ability to run on two limbs - his right arm and leg - suddenly became a much easier task. Left limbs did their best to support the idle shift in weight, but it was his right side that bore the brunt of the work as he ran as close to possible to "all fours."

"Come here," the wind told him. The part of his brain designed to be distrustful didn't have the time, or strength, to be paranoid. Self-preservation overrided the rest, at even the possible glimmer of help.

And if the sudden detour to the right was any indication, he needed help.

"Get away from them. Don't get hurt any worse. Don't die. Come here…"

Didn't have to tell him twice.

[Toviyah]

Scrabbling hands rasped through the leaf litter, desperate as their owner. The smell of smoke approached, now within even his human nose's comprehension, and beneath that rolled the worse stench of charred human flesh.

"Come on," Toby whispered, still pushing magic into his words. "Just don't die yet -"

The thicket ahead of him erupted, and Bigfoot lunged through.

On second thought, that wasn't Bigfoot.

Bigfoot didn't wear clothes, let alone a four-sword harness on its back.

The hulking creature in front of him was on all fours, its appearance distinctly feline from the twitching tail to the sharp, twin incisors. Too enormous to be a normal member of that species which died out millenia before humanity was born; the uncannily intelligent look in its wild eyes suggested something far more than an ordinary animal, or even an ordinary, feral Werecreature.

Then it saw him, and scrabbling claws wheeled into an ungainly reverse which saw it almost hitting the ground. It staggered, but barely managed to keep its body off the ground, left side dipping lower and drawing attention to the charred crater in its lower back.

Toby raised an eyebrow. "Am I... interrupting something again? Not another turf war over - "

"Fuck," it rasped in a deep voice, masculine inflections mixed with definite tones of barely-concealed pain. "I hope you're a good guy!"

"The lion's share of... baby squirrel... hearts..." Horrified fascination strangled his wisecrack into dead silence as the lack of a left kidney glared at him out of the burned orifice.

A sense of detachment, cultivated from decades of far more gruesome experience, took the wheel a moment later. He closed the distance in the next heartbeat, and knelt by the wound, lungs already primed -

His next breath ghosted orange mist into his cupped palms.

"Easy..." he whispered, bringing his hands down over the cavity. "You'll be alright... you'll be alright," he said, keeping his voice low and infused with magic. "I'm a friend... don't go freaking out on me... it's just a kidney; you'll grow it back just fine..."

Healing energy sank in, chased down by charmed words, coaxing flesh to live and grow again.

"What's someone like you," he asked offhand, in between a second regenerative breath, "Doing out here by yourself at this hour?"

[Ellwood]

Foliage receded from his sight as he ran, and opened the path to a distinctly non-threatening middle-aged man. Lanky, greying, and as harmless as appearances can go by - the were groaned as much for pain as for the disappointment of his potential reinforcements.

His body tried to put on the breaks. With only two functioning limbs, the very act of slowing down was like a trainwreck waiting to happen and set off the umpteenth explosion of pain throughout his body. Somehow he avoided flipping heels over head and crashing in a heap.

"Am I... interrupting something again?" the unknown God-please-be-a-mage started to ask. "Not another turf war over - "

"Fuck," he swore under painful breath, not even caring what kind of punchline he was wrecking. "I hope you're a good guy!"

The "at least" part of the sentence never made it out of his lips, as he heaved for another breath.

"The lion's share of... baby squirrel... hearts..." Horrification greeted the sabertooth's eyes, which themselves were sure they would have fully appreciated the joke, any other day.

"I really hope you're a healer," his chest cavity contracted painfully with air while gripping at the cauterized cavity, "Cause I'm missing a kidney, and not in the nice, wake up in a bath-tub, full of ice, way…"

A glance down saw the orange glow of what he really, really hoped was healing magic.

"Easy..." the unknown whispered, bringing hands and glow alike to the gaping wound. "You'll be alright... you'll be alright," he said, keeping his voice low and lyrical. "I'm a friend... don't go freaking out on me... it's just a kidney; you'll grow it back just fine..."

The magic sank in, and burnt flesh was suddenly a little less burnt and a little more alive - and screaming further for that fact, which made him gurgle on his own spit behind lock-jawed tension.

"What's someone like you," the older mage began to ask while magic continued repairing the hole that magic had made, "Doing out here by yourself at this hour?"

A distant explosion accompanied by a flash of light in the forest reminded the were that his extreme speed - hampered as it was - had only given him a slight lead, and he'd probably pissed them off significantly enough for them to still be calling for his blood, or his other kidney, whichever came first.

"Killing a demon," he rumbled angrily, and tried to stand - tried, and opted to remain kneeling for a few moments longer. Another explosion came nearer, along with a hellish roar of frustration at wounded yet escaping prey - i.e., him. The werebeast looked to the mage miniscule by comparison, and growled with his own frustration. "She brought friends."

[Toviyah]

Nearby, something exploded.

"Killing a demon," the were said.

"Oh dear," Toby said.

Boom, some other unfortunate part of the forest said. A furious roar, screaming wordless epithets to shake the air and turn it blue, told him the rest of the demon-slaying tale and how it had ended. Or hadn't.

"She brought friends."

"Oh dear," Toby repeated. "How many?"

Footsteps boomed closer. "Uh, how big?"

"Never mind." Another glowing breath chased healing energy down into the wound. "This doesn't hurt," he added to stem the pain evident on the were's features. "Think you're up for another round yet?"

"Or not. I'll deal with it." The ground was littered with small things to throw, and for a moment they brought to mind a tale of a boy who had faced down a giant with five stones and the backing of an angel.

I really could use an angel's help right about now...

Any takers?

Hello? Anyone out there?

Silence, in his head. Crashing, inhuman snarling, the sound of the were's ragged breath and his own beating heart in his ears, outside.

He puffed another shimmering cloud over the wound, and watched skin begin to close up over the receding color of dead flesh. Sighed, got to his feet, and stepped around the were to put himself between the casualty and the approaching infernal horror.

"Don't worry. I have a plan." Famous last words safely out of the way, he lifted a hand, and watched as a slight push of willpower made turquoise candle-flames dance at his fingertips. "And... just in case, get ready to make a break for it."

[Ellwood]

"Oh dear," the man repeated. "How many?"

The injured beast growled out, "Enough."

The big red approached ominously. "Uh, how big?"

The saberwere's eyes began to rise up and he was just about to spout out something witty and insightful when the middle-aged wizard amended his question with, "Never mind."

It was a pity. It was going to be really, really witty. And insightful.

The universe was cheating him out of a lot of snappy one-liners today.

Another small glow of obviously-magic was pressed into the wounded space, and was accompanied with the predictable grimace, slight though it was. An unexpected addition of"This doesn't hurt," by the wizard suddenly chased a tingle up his spine. The incantation took effect fast, to block the pain that he knew would have otherwise been reminding him of where flesh had been burned away whole.

The growl that slipped from his maw then was one less of pain and more of general anger again - which may or may not have translated well to someone not familiar with all his various shades of 'growl.'

"Think you're up for another round yet?"

He reiterated the growl, with a bit more edge.

"Or not. I'll deal with it."

The beast slowly - though less slowly then if he still had a hole where his kidney should have been - roused himself up from all fours, standing erect to the fullness of his height. One hand patted the space of wounded flesh, he followed it with tensed stretch of his large limbs, working out with violent rumble in his chest.

His hands squeezed into fists, and he wanted to hurt something. Conveniently, something was on its way.

Inconveniently, the middle-aged wizard stepped in front of him.

The rumble took on a slightly indignant pitch as his brain interpreted someone else getting in the way of his revenge.

"Don't worry. I have a plan," his backup - he remembered, almost resentfully - said while lighting up a green flame of magic. He really hoped that was good for more than setting things on fire, because he had a wound to prove the demon already had reign over that playing field. "And… just in case, get ready to make a break for it."

"I'm not worried," he growled out low, keeping his limbs slightly bent and his arms out, fingers flexing and eager to grab his swords at the first sight of trouble. A grunt broke out of his maw, and he somehow found it in himself to grin.

"I'm Ellwood."

[Toviyah]

Innocent trees were wasted to ash before Toby could think of an answer. From the abyss of pouring smoke, there came a... noise.

A horrible, jackhammer-on-pavement, nails-on-chalkboard ear-murdering screech of equal parts triumph, bravado and flat out hatred for all that was good and holy. Not an unpleasant sound, so much as an affront to the air particles and kinetic energy that made it; an abomination even to the concept of noise, as if everything foul that the five senses could be forced to witness had been taken and crammed into the realm of one.

And that didn't even begin to cover the source of that sound.

Toby looked up and down the red-skinned behemoth, vaguely humanoid and quasi-human and smoldering with fire and hate, with the skeletal mockery of an angel's wings sprouting from its shoulders and the river of unnatural flame oozing hungrily about its feet.

He breathed. "By God, you're ugly."

A gaggle of much smaller creatures, naked mole rats gone horribly, horribly wrong and bloated, trailed out of the clearing debris and chittered more profanity at them.

And then the sky opened and a Voice said, "Toby, you idiot."

He took a step forward, closer to certain doom. Took a breath, lifted his head to look the giant winged fiend in the eyes, and glanced past it to the scattered handfuls of fire that dotted the leaf litter beyond. "Stop that."

The pool of hell at the giant's feet dimmed for a moment, as the wave of magic rushed out and past it. Tiny flames went out, denied the chance to combine into a forest-consuming blaze, not even the lingering scent of smoke left behind.

Toby looked the giant fiend in the eyes once more. "Back off. All of you. Right now."

Uncertainty lashed out at them with the final word, a psychic nudge searching for intelligent minds to whisper that maybe toying with some unremarkable, graying, ordinary mortal wasn't such a good idea after all.

The pale green flames in his hand grew brighter, its texture shifting from wavy to spiky and slowly spreading along his arm.

[Toviyah]

Silence.

Deathly silence, with much less certainty as to whose death it was.

The lack of noise, the complete absence of it, where there had previously been blustering fury and fire and hunger for a mortal's painful oblivion, spoke volumes more - to the behemoth itself, and the smaller rodents gathered at its feet.

Twin red-hot coals focused on Toby once more. Narrowed, as the maw began to gurgle a retort -

"Now." Turquoise light flared ever brighter, spread beneath his skin, made the complex tracery of blood vessels shine through flesh and clothing until all of his form was a mass of the glowing, shifting blue-green threads. "Leave the child be, or I will judge you where you stand and cleanse your foul stain from the earth."

The tangle of light spilled out from his shoulders. It wove about his back, branched four ways and thickened into wings - sharp, jagged blades of wings, a far cry from the soft plumage his kind wore to children's bedtime stories. Hunter's wings, obscuring mortal prey from the demons' sight, though the smaller ones had clearly lost interest in him as they skittered away and chittered in growing panic.

Toby took a step forward.

The tension snapped. The giant recoiled.

They'd had a staring contest. It had blinked first, and it knew that.

It half-turned with an uncertain rumble. Toby caught the note of suspicion in the sound, traced it to the source and carefully siphoned it away.

The demonic, soul-searing rage, he took great care not to touch.

The misshapen pseudo-mouth moved, spilling the stench of sulphur and a guttural snarl that seemed to shake the ground.

"Steal our prey tonight, guardian. Delay our feast this day, or the next. We are patient. We shall devour your world, one morsel at a time."

It retreated, leaving puddles of glowing embers and another deathly silence in its wake.

The cold night air sighed in relief.

And then Toby did as well, losing the wings, the glow, and about a foot of unconsciously levitated height in that single breath. He dropped into a half crouch, turning to face the Were as he did, but kept his ears pricked for any unholy shrieks of fury as he spoke.

"That worked. Oh, thank god that worked. Come on. Let's make ourselves scarce before those idiots turn around."

[Ellwood]

The monster returned. Red skin spoke of bathing in blood, in rage and in fire, and in that moment, Ellwood's own insides burned with the same emotion. The beast that took over his shape cried vengeance inside for a kidney lost - it didn't matter if he had it back. Pain was pain, and must be returned. He growled for it. His fingers begged to use the swords in his grasp for something more than obstructing the wind.

The older man breathed, and it shattered the world.

"By God, you're ugly."

Wit broke through the beast, and a squirrel-killing grin inserted with a bit more humor, "I like to call him Fluffy, but sure, Ugly works, too."

The rat-like demons that might have passed off as were creatures themselves did their best to circle around them, as if to cut off their potential 'escape.'

Ha. Haha. Like I'd run from them twice in one night. That's funny.

And then the graying one spoke, and the world listened. Fire was put out, and then fire was put out. A werebeast's rage dimmed, if only a little, with the thought that maybe he really didn't need to help his elder after all, and then he cried out again.

"Back off. All of you. Right now."

Silence.

Fragile silence, waiting to be dropped a broken.

The second and tallest beast in the forest prepared to speak in a red language.

"Now," his sudden savior commanded again as unearthly flames grew brighter, spread underneath his skin like life vessels, making all his blood one giant mass of illuminating energy, burning light even through his clothes. "Leave the child be, or I will judge you where you stand and cleanse your foul stain from the earth."

The beast, indignant at being called a child, rumbled outwards from his chest, but suddenly quieted itself as the turquoise light exploded from the mage's back. Sky-cutting blades jutted out from someone unremarkable, scattered light in all directions, and caused the lesser demons to scatter just as quickly.

The light took a step forward.

Two large creatures, one red, one brown, both stepped back.

The red tongue succeeded in defiling the world at last.

"Steal our prey tonight, guardian. Delay our feast this day, or the next. We are patient. We shall devour your world, one morsel at a time."

And then … he left.

Silence.

His ears hurt with it.

The luminous glow faded, as the world released its breath, and his savior along with it. He turned, but the were's hands still gripped tightly at two blades that had been eager to do their share of the hurting, and now felt just a little cheated. The great saberwere grumbled at the other, looking at him with the indignance of a child who was separated from a fight with a bully just when they were about to teach him a lesson.

"That worked. Oh, thank God that worked. Come on. Let's make ourselves scarce before those idiots turn around."

Large paws planted firmly in the ground refused to budge even as an angry glare was still partially maintained, gratitude taking just a little of the edge off. Neck-piercing fangs on either side of his jaw were bared just a little more as seven and a half feet of fur and muscle bent down just a bit to bring himself closer to the old one.

He growled, and rocks slowly crushed tiny rabbits over and over.

"We're supposed to be killing them, not letting them run away," he exhaled his aggression, with so much more to spare.

[Toviyah]

"No." It wasn't even worth a moment's thought for Toby to shake his head.

"No," he repeated, fine-tuning his voice to reach that tone which balanced firm with unforceful. "We - "

He glanced behind, at where the demons retreated. "- can't be heard by anyone else until this discussion is over." Energy shifted out into the world, bringing the charm to life. "We can't take them out. Not the two of us. Not now, and definitely not like this."

He put on a thoughtful expression and let the other respond while he concentrated, ignored the words and carefully felt out with his Empathic magic. Rage, far away, was getting more distant. Rage nearby, inside the Were, smoldered like a fire, pulsed like a second heart, and it was hardly an effort to reach deep into the younger man's emotions and start to draw it out...

He stopped, and the blue-white light faded from his eyes. He forced himself to let go, and told his old habit to go away.

"We weren't a match for them five minutes ago," he said, abruptly cutting into whatever was happening outside his head. "That was a bluff. I don't know how well it worked, or for how long. What I do know is that I can't spend all night dodging fireballs and acid jets while I force your vital organs to regenerate. I can call in an expert to handle this, but we have to leave."

He gave the charred ground another furtive glance, and muttered, "And I'll know if they're coming back."

[Ellwood]

"No."

A rolled up newspaper swatted at his nose, and the beast of a man returned it with threatening growl. 

"No," he repeated, unbothered even if his form should have made him.

"No?" he growled out the word. "That wasn't up for debate."

"We - " the old one glanced back, at where angels feared to tread. "- can't be heard by anyone else until this discussion is over." 

A slight hint of magic on the air reminded the beast that he was talking to an enchanter whose words forced reality to obey. The rumbling mountain of fur kept his own magic brimming, angry, uncontained and just as eager to remove obstacles as abominations. 

"We can't take them out," his helper advised, reminded and reinforced into him. Self-assurance protested. A regrown kidney kept him from immediately ignoring him. "Not the two of us. Not now, and definitely not like this."

He smoldered. Logfires burned, and wanted to keep burning, to set fire to the forest again and wipe out every nasty thing inside it along the way. It was only collateral damage. The trees didn't matter. The mage didn't matter. He didn't matter. All that mattered was that there was evil in there, and anger in here, and the latter wanted nothing more to do than vent on those things most worthy of it. A small instinct for gratitude was all that stopped him from just storming past the minuscule figure before him. 

"Those things have to die," he said, lava brimming up within his own throat. He stabbed his sword viciously at the air, and red runes glowed bright, the air going wispy around the edges as the atmosphere refused to take the spark yet. "They're demons. Murderers. They prey on travelers and the lost. This place will not be safe until they're dead - I am not leaving until they're dead! You can either keep helping me, or -"

"We weren't a match for them five minutes ago," the other said, abruptly interrupting volcanic fumes. "That was a bluff. I don't know how well it worked, or for how long. What I do know is that I can't spend all night dodging fireballs and acid jets while I force your vital organs to regenerate."

"My vital organs don't need you," he glared with his words. His kidney knew he was lying, even if the rest of him didn't. 

"I can call in an expert to handle this, but we have to leave," the mage continued to try and reason with him, muttering another spell, "And I'll know if they're coming back."

Reason dropped a dab of ice into the lake of fire, and the animalistic growl dropped its intensity along with it. He opened his great maw to speak again, and air blew in to chill the fires a bit more. He tried again, and the small crystalline piece of reason fought with the were instincts to fight, kill, destroy. Fires slowly rolled back, but never died. 

"Fine," he bit the word, and only noticed how tight his grip had been when he moved to sheath the two swords. One finger moved closer to stab at the old one's chest as he demanded, "But this 'expert' better be as good as you say he is, or I'm coming right back out here to try again."

[Toviyah]

With the sound of his voice no longer in the way of his eardrums, he could hear it now.

Growling.

Toby hadn't been paying too much attention to the other's words. He could easily guess at them - something to the tune of they have to die and we have to kill them, those two ideas held with savage, practically murderous conviction. Things he'd heard before a number of times, from colleagues, from civilians-turned-vigilantes on the warpath, from himself.

It didn't usually come with a side order of animalistic temper. The low noise itched at his ears from the inside and set tiny hairs standing behind his neck, bringing to life primal, unforgotten fears of razor-fanged predators in the dark who didn't stop for sticks and stones and only blinked at fire. Suddenly, it wasn't so easy to remember that he was an agent of the Celestial Realm, not a very edible mortal in his late thirties who was probably good with sauce.

But the sound was fading away, and another careful peek at the man's psyche showed anger brought down from a boil to a mere simmer.

"Fine." Blades lifted, one blazing bright with scarlet runes, and rasped back into their sheaths as one. A thick finger drove its way into the center of his chest like a battering ram, piledriving out his quiet sigh of relief as a sharp grunt. He was able to salvage his dignity by not falling over backwards.

"But this 'expert' better be as good as you say he is, or I'm coming right back out here to try again."

"He is," Toby replied. "At least as far out of their weight class, as we are out of theirs." Another suspicious glance into the demon-concealing night. "I've got a cabin rented back in town. We can talk more there."

Skin was already blurring as he spoke. His form collapsed inward, lost height; two legs became four, grey hair spread and darkened in some parts, lightened elsewhere. Clothing faded, subsumed into his new form.

The beagle sat up, his brown-tipped tail thumping the ground. He raised his nose to sample the air, turned his head left and right, then seemed to arrive at a decision.

He nodded, and rose off his forepaws, body warping again as he returned to his human form. "Just trying to remember where I left it," he explained. "Let's go."

[Ellwood]

"He is," the other replied. "At least as far out of their weight class, as we are out of theirs." 

The sabertooth "Hmph"-ed to himself, as if to say "I'll be the judge of that." Courtesy was a foreign concept to the were mind, but enough of his humanity bled through to at least allow silence. It still probably didn't translate well. 

"I've got a cabin rented back in town," he continued after another moment of concern. "We can talk more there."

A grunt led into a very deep, annoyed, "Whatever." 

He was used to sleeping outside. He was used to sleeping all over the place, thanks to the last few years with a certain pair. Thoughts of sleeping led him into thoughts of them as easily as A to B, and C followed soon enough. 

C was regret. 

Frustrating, anger-arousing, ire-raising, and self-hating regret, about so many things. The fire inside was angry that he lost. He was angry that he failed to win, to beat them, to be walking away with his tail between his legs - he glanced back just to make sure the feline tail stub really wasn't doing that - and to have had to rely on another person. Again. 

He was accustomed to that - of others helping. A certain brother of his, he was supposed to be protecting him. Near the end... Well, that wasn't the case any more. Their old mentor had always been powerful, always there to rely on if they got in over their heads. He was swimming in the ocean, picking fights with big fish, and he'd lost the bigger fish that had been his safety net, his cavalry. 

His chest was rumbling intensely with the frustration of it, and his own inadequacy. The beast wanted to march back and punch that creature to death, out classed or no - to deny that he was outclassed and prove the old wizard a liar. 

He hated not being strong enough. 

Somewhere his arms had found their way crossing over his chest, until the no-longer-a-beagle offered, "Just trying to remember where I left it. Let's go."

He grunted, more quietly, more subdued. Flames cindered in the fire pit, as if unwilling to let go of something to be angry about. His own self just happened to be a valid target, compounded by an increasing awareness of his own bad attitude toward the man who quite literally was his savior. His long-legged stride and swaying trunk arms kept moving with them as he tried to talk and walk. 

"Hey," he said, with less animal in it. 

"Thanks." He kept walking. "Sorry."

Success. 

[Toviyah]

Anger smoldered away, still twisting and gnawing, but at least it wasn't hungry enough to bring feline jaws and nails down on fragile skin. Yet.

Yet was still good. It meant "not now".

For now, Toby took a step forward, and was relieved to hear the crunch of feet over leaf litter echoed moments after, somewhere behind. He kept walking, trying not to think too much about the tangle of emotions radiating from behind. Or how easy it would be to dip an invisible hand in, and draw some of the mess away, leave less tangled mental string for the Were to sift through...

"Hey."

He stopped, half-turned to glance at the Were from the corner of his eye.

"Thanks."

Sharp little pins dug into the other's ego, but chipped away at the weight on his soul.

"You're welcome," Toby said, holding off on the grandfatherly-ish approval he once kept for cooperative adolescent gangsters. He had an idea it wouldn't come across as anything other than condescending.

He turned back and kept walking, kept listening for footsteps and feelings.

The tangled ball of emotional yarn continued to writhe.

"Sorry."

He came to another complete halt, and schooled the surprise out of his expression. Fought down the arch of his eyebrow, kept from biting his lip, and turned again, this time to properly face the sabercat.

"No harm done." He offered the other man a slight smile. "Well... no lasting harm." His gaze darted to the bare patch of newly-healed skin on the Were's side. "I'll need a better look, but... you listened. You got out of it alive. You're alright."

He started to walk again, footsteps slowed by thought. Old memories, from a life that now wasn't, gazed back at him from the other side of a haze of time.

"You're like someone I know."

Knew.

It had been five years. What had changed since then?

"He was... bristly," Toby mused. "But not that bad, otherwise."

He took a bigger step to avoid planting his foot inside a rabbit hole. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in a while. But he was like you. We got along, in the end."

Moonlight shone brighter as the trees began to thin. In the distance, gas flames winked at him from within their street lamps.

"Almost there," he said. "Can you change back? Not a problem if you can't, but... you're a little tall to be a regular beastfolk. And the town guard have been paranoid lately."

[Ellwood]

The large beast gave its final grunt, and Ellwood stopped his advance. He rolled his shoulders back, the vest pulling with the motion to expose more of his thickly furred front while his head leaned left, right.

"Yeah," I said in neutral tone, shaking his fingers out. "I can do it."

His chest rumbled, as so often before, as he focused on the switch in the back of his mind - but the switch was more like a lever, and pulling it to the other side was a mental strain he couldn't muscle over. He started with a long, deep, torso expanding breath, and eyes that closed slowly up and down.

His jaw crunched slightly, and he felt the twinge run along his nerves, his blood. He pulled harder at the mental lever, and all at once, his body started to respond - albeit, unwillingly. Height was lost, but made him by no means short. Extra mass diminished, and still left him a well built young man in his prime. Fur rescinded and became body hair, baring most of his skin instead of hiding it. The long, tusk-like daggers shrank back into his canines, and the human's face took back its shape.

A human's hand, tough and strong though it was, ran back through shaggy hair, scratching a left over itch from the transformation. It took him another moment for him to readjust the vest, snapped open as it had been for his were form's size, and buttoned it back up for the sake of human modesty.

"There now," he said as he finished buttoning it up, then put his large arms out wide. "Still think they'd be paranoid about me?"

He grinned.

He grinned.

Animal light still glinted in his eyes. Lips tugged up like they were about to dive in on unsuspecting - or even just suspecting - prey. Long, bulging arms looked quite capable of winning more than a few wrestling competitions. Not two, but four distinct sword hilts were visible over his shoulders, and the sum totality of his expression told, dared him to answer "no."

[Toviyah]

A lot like him, Toby thought, as he watched the Were's frame shrink down and inward by the barest of few inches.

Then the beast who was now a man spoke. "Still think they'd be paranoid about me?"

And he grinned.

Never mind.

"Maybe not quite like him," Toby said. "He was a lot more grumpy." He smiled back into the grin, a little more openly, with a dash of lightheartedness thrown in, just to see what would happen. "I don't think the guards will be a problem."

* * * * *

The two men at the gate looked more than a little nervous at the sight of a hulking figure with four swords, strolling right out of the forest. Hands strayed, just a few inches, toward the pistols waiting in their belt holsters, but it only took the barest shade of magical persuasion to break up the tension.

The key turned. The padlock clicked open. The door creaked open, and Toby stepped into the log cabin, leaving the door open for his visitor to follow.

"I'll get the fireplace lit," he said. "There's food in the ice box. Mostly cold-cut meat and - I don't suppose you'd approve of salad, so don't mind the bottom shelf... bread in the pantry..."

He knelt in front of the fireplace, tinderbox at the ready. "Hilwich is a fun place," he remarked. "They're dragging their feet on the whole technology issue. If you'd like a look at what Alexandria was like a few decades ago, just step right in and leave your phone at the door..." A few sparks caught on the pile of logs and stayed there, dancing, slowly growing. "There we go."

"Come over here, when you're done looking around." He pushed the armchair back from the glowing light, and pulled a large rug over to sit between fireplace and chair. "With no offense meant, you don't strike me as the type who spends many of his nights indoors with a warm fire. A change might be good for you."

[Ellwood]

The guards at the gate made him laugh inside - silent emotion behind a woodsman's almost feral face. He loved guards. They were hilarious. They put so much hope in their guns. He'd seen enough monsters shrug off the little bits of metal to know how ineffective the average pistol could be, and he'd taken a few bullets himself. They pop back out after a little bit. 

Yes, guards were funny that way. At least people in the government were making a bigger push to modernize - or rather, enchant - more of the military forces' weaponry. 

The middle aged man and his younger companion were able to pass by without a fuss though. That was unusual to him, but he pegged the source of that change as the man with gray hairs. Another few moments saw them entering an older styled house. He wasn't picky about where he slept, but he still scrutinized the place with his eyes as he entered in. 

"I'll get the fireplace lit," the other said, starting a verbal tour. "There's food in the ice box. Mostly cold-cut meat and - I don't suppose you'd approve of salad, so don't mind the bottom shelf... bread in the pantry..."

"You had me at 'meat'," the were-blooded young man said aloud, even as he deposited backpack and sword harness next to the door. An over active metabolism - the same one that always saw him healing and had pumped his musculature full of dense strength - saw him often craving protein in the past, and he wasn't about to pass up an open fridge. 

An assortment of beef, chicken, turkey and ham existed at his mercy.

"Ah. The four food groups," he declared in victory, before claiming more than a fistful of the beef - and then the rest of the bag it came in. He kicked the door closed with his foot, digging into the meat already with a ravenous hunger. 

"Hilwich is a fun place," the mage remarked while knelt down, his back to the were. "They're dragging their feet on the whole technology issue. If you'd like a look at what Alexandria was like a few decades ago, just step right in and leave your phone at the door..." The fire finally took, and logs stood proud to give their undead lives in the service of their warmth. "There we go. Come over here, when you're done looking around."

Ellwood eyed rug and chair, and wondered which one was meant for which. One grin later saw him flopping down on his side, feet closer to the warmth, elbow supporting him even as he munched lazily on the claimed packet of slightly processed protein. "With no offense meant, you don't strike me as the type who spends many of his nights indoors with a warm fire. A change might be good for you."

"Not as often as I'd like," Ellwood said, managing to still sound light hearted about it. "Hotels cost. Hotels with fire places? Even more so."

Teeth, unfanged, tore into another slice of meat. 

"It's not every day someone welcomes the 'big bad saberwere' into their home," he said it as a joke. The joke was that it was true. 

"What about you?" he smiled to keep it light.

Somewhere, a puppy died.

"Do you often bring home big, strong guys, or is this a special occasion, Mr..."

[Toviyah]

"- Toby. My name's Toby."

He kept a straight face as he continued to speak. "Mostly from nine to five, and only if I'm not bringing children over. The introductions get... uncomfortable. The questions after that, even more so."

"It's my job," he explained. "Rescuing children, preferably alive. Delivering big strong men from evil? That's a hobby."

[Ellwood]

His features took a moment to brighten in the firelight, before he eventually scoffed a laugh when the meaning of the joke settled in. He blame the time of night and the loss of a kidney for the delayed reaction - and he had always been so on top of things before.

"Good hobby," he replied after swallowing more of strength-replenishing meat. "It's a lot better than collecting stamps. Tried that once. Then my brother sneezed."

He shuddered visibly at the recollection of memories best never imagined.

"So. Much. Glue."

He shook it off, and followed it up with his trademark squirrel-heart-eating grin.

"Slaying demons is a lot less painful," his voice smirked. A beat passed, then, nodding off to another corner of the room, he patted at his side. "Most of the time, anyway."

The fire crackled slightly, as if to remind him of the two ways he had gotten burned tonight. Joking mirth faded slowly, as the redness of the flames reminded him more of the monstrosity that got away. His feet drew back slightly from the fireplace, as if the good feeling had been slightly soured.

"Tonight wasn't supposed to happen that way," he said more seriously, with finality. His face, now more stern, tried to carry the conviction he felt inside. "Killing flying trash isn't a problem, not by a long shot."

"… But, pit fiends …"

He glared at the memory of the monstrous incarnation of hate and malice and demonic strength, a league or two above him, he knew. The growl accompanied a tightening fist on the bag of rapidly dwindling meat.

"I could have taken him alone, you know," he said adamantly, already playing out the fight in a dozen ways where the loss of a kidney never happened, except to the big red, but demons were notorious for ignoring flesh wounds. The rumbling growl rose up besides himself as he tried to stop it up by shoving more meat to feed the carnivorous appetite. "Wouldn't have had a problem, one on one…"

[Toviyah]

"Maybe." Toby sat still, eyes on the dancing fire, and waited for the sound of teeth rending meat to die away. "You're strong. You seem like you can move fast. But you're big - and that's before you get angry and sprout fangs. Not such a good target against a monster throwing fire around. I hear it hurts Weres more than most other races."

He leaned out of the armchair, turning to study the harness with its four passengers. "You've got more swords than you have arms, and your beast form doesn't look like it comes with prehensile feet or tails. I'm guessing those blades aren't just for slicing and stabbing." Back to the man - the human on the rug between himself and the fireplace. "You don't need the full moon to transform. You can turn back on your own. It sounds like you've at least two forms of magic well under your belt. Three might give you a better chance. One on one, could you have taken the giant ugly sentient nine-foot boil from hell, with the fire magic and size advantage and untold millenia of simmering hatred for all that lives and walks the earth? Maybe."

And that's high praise, he decided not to say. I know I couldn't.

"But you weren't alone," he said. "Well, he wasn't. You were, and... pardon me for saying so, but right up until you weren't alone, things didn't seem to be working out so well for you." The atmosphere got a little colder. Maybe he was imagining it. Just in case, he leaned forward in the chair and tucked his legs in, arms folding around to hug them close to his body.

He took in a deep breath, shut his eyes to the flickering light, and slowly let the air and tension out.

"I used to work in the police force," he went on. Eyes half-opened as he leaned back against the cushions. "Most of my adult life, right out of college. I won't bore you with the details, but... there's something we learned, working together."

He let the silence hang in the air for a moment after the last word, hoping the younger man would have caught the emphasis. "There's a guideline for our operations - arrests, searches, even simple foot patrols at night. Though the way we stick to it, it's become more or less enshrined in our code. We even quote it to the newbies - the young bright recruits, all ready to lick the world and drive back the darkness singlehandedly. It's from this old saying..."

He closed his eyes once more and let memory shape the words. "'Deny, deny, deny. Three times shall you deny you misdeeds before the rooster crows, and if that doesn't work, blame the other departments.'"

"Hold on." He frowned. "That was the one for dealing with the messy aftermath. The one I'm thinking of is 'Though a man may prevail against one, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not easily broken.'"

"We always went out in groups of three," he explained. "Which was at the very least. Trained to fight alone, because sometimes life just has to give you a dozen paper cuts and try to apologize with a nice, refreshing shower of lemon juice, but whenever we could, it was always three to one. Sometimes, the information was faulty. There might be more people in a gang hideout than we thought. You know, like one of those little cars where the door opens and fifty clowns stream out. But at the very least, we were never alone."

"You were out there on your own. I really don't think you should be."

[Ellwood]

"Maybe." Toby sat still and quiet, the better to avoid a beast's hunting instincts. "You're strong. You seem like you can move fast. But you're big - and that's before you get angry and sprout fangs. Not such a good target against a monster throwing fire around. I hear it hurts Weres more than most other races."

The man of a beast rumbled a noise in his chest, like a subdued growl. 

"It's a love-hate relationship," he said as he crumpled up an empty bag, corded muscles bulging under flesh and making short work of the unworthy opponent. 

"You've got more swords than you have arms, and your beast form doesn't look like it comes with prehensile feet or tails. I'm guessing those blades aren't just for slicing and stabbing." 

"I also use them for my juggling routine," Ellwood quipped, the arm moving instead to toss the once-bag, now-ball of plastic. It spread partially out mid air, before landing in the sink. "I've been accident free for ... Three weeks. That poor dog. That poor, poor dog."

"You don't need the full moon to transform," Toby continued with what sounded like an analysis that he wasn't going to get out of so easily. "You can turn back on your own. It sounds like you've at least two forms of magic well under your belt. Three might give you a better chance."

The were's eyes narrowed, and he gave another subdued rumble of annoyance. 

"One on one, could you have taken the giant ugly sentient nine-foot boil from hell, with the fire magic and size advantage and untold millenia of simmering hatred for all that lives and walks the earth? Maybe."

Ellwood snorted, smirking as if the critic was finally getting the message about who he really was talking to. 

"I've handled worse than him alone," he said, assured of himself and the nine ways from Sunday that demon flesh ended up dead and in tiny, tiny pieces.

Suddenly he was hungry for julienned fries. 

"But you weren't alone," Toby said back simply, driving a small dagger into his ego. "Well, he wasn't. You were, and... pardon me for saying so, but right up until you weren't alone, things didn't seem to be working out so well for you."

The dagger twisted around inside, digging and gnawing, making the feral look a little more menacing. 

"I was handling it," Ellwood cut back, knocking the metaphorical dagger away. "I didn't need your help. I heal. I always heal, even if some things take longer. As soon as I was done, I could have gone right back into it."

"He surprised me once. It won't happen again, and then he's just an oversized glow worm eager to get stomped. That's all any of them are: bugs - big, nasty, murderous bugs - and I'm pest control. I hurt things. I hurt things, dead. It's what I'm good at. And I don't need you, or anyone else to tell me how to go about doing that!"

His voice stopped with an angry huff, and only then, in the presence of crackling fire, did he realize how loud he was talking. It wasn't a yell, nor hardly a roar, but the man's large ribcage had still raised the volume quite a few decibels by the time he was done. His hackles had raised up like the animal he could be, and he willed his shoulders to relax even as his eyes focused more intensely at the firelight. 

Toby broke the uncomfortableness first. 

"I used to work in the police force," he said. "Most of my adult life, right out of college. I won't bore you with the details, but... there's something we learned, working together."

The beast grunted, and pretended not to realize he was pouting. 

"There's a guideline for our operations - arrests, searches, even simple foot patrols at night. Though the way we stick to it, it's become more or less enshrined in our code. We even quote it to the newbies - the young bright recruits, all ready to lick the world and drive back the darkness singlehandedly. It's from this old saying..."

He was obviously supposed to be paying close attention. He pretended like he wasn't. 

"'Deny, deny, deny. Three times shall you deny you misdeeds before the rooster crows, and if that doesn't work, blame the other departments.'"

He was getting better at pretending, of course, but that still broke up his frustration long enough to let out a smirking chuckle - if only for a split second, before he got back to looking properly annoyed again. 

"Hold on," Toby corrected himself. "That was the one for dealing with the messy aftermath. The one I'm thinking of is 'Though a man may prevail against one, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not easily broken.'"

The drawl expression slowly turned back to Toby, and he blinked twice, purposefully. The question, "Did I look like a man to you, earlier?" went unasked. 

"We always went out in groups of three," Toby explained. "Which was at the very least. Trained to fight alone, because sometimes life just has to give you a dozen paper cuts and try to apologize with a nice, refreshing shower of lemon juice, but whenever we could, it was always three to one. Sometimes, the information was faulty. There might be more people in a gang hideout than we thought. You know, like one of those little cars where the door opens and fifty clowns stream out. But at the very least, we were never alone."

He "hmph"-ed when he thought it was his turn to say anything.

"You were out there on your own. I really don't think you should be," Toby finally cut down to the heart of the matter. 

"Then you don't know me," Ellwood growled back, glaring once, then returning to losing himself in the fire. 

"'Alone' is better."

[Toviyah]

"No, I don't know you." It was a good thing he was already sitting. Toby didn't know how steady his legs would be under the staggering force of the emotional firestorm hidden by the smoldering exterior.

Faint blue light shone through closed eyelids as he reached for the other heart. He touched the anger again - anger directed inside, hiding pain, almost like... regret?

"'Alone' is better."

A piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

He touched the raw pain and whispered for it to settle. Just a little. Slowly. Carefully. "What I do know is... when you fight the abyss for too long, without someone else to pull you back... you'll fall in. Maybe not now. Maybe not next week. Give it some months. A few years. A quarter of a lifetime. Hunting demons, alone. Putting yourself between the universe and the forces that want to rip it to shreds. Alone."

He pressed a hand over his eyes, pretending to rub at his temples with thumb and forefinger to hide the brightening turquoise glow, as he reached deeper to draw away the rising indignation - or at least keep it from boiling over. It also served to hide his own quiet anxiety.

"Developing a murderous grudge against things with murderous grudges. Actively turning over every last rock to find every last trace of them, so you can stamp them out and obliterate the ashes. Hating, the exact same way they hate, until there's nothing you wouldn't do to see them go down screaming."

"You're not that far gone," he hastened to add. "Not by a long shot. I don't know you, Ellwood. But I know enough about people, to be certain that it's usually a bad idea to be alone - even if - especially if you're pitting yourself against the dark."

Toby waited a little longer, felt the other man gathering his words for a retort - and spoke again, to cut in right ahead of the were. "Who did you hurt?"

[Ellwood]

He rolled over during the middle of the sermon, to face away. The pleasure of a warm fire and the safety of a roof over his head was rapidly thinning out the longer the old man went on about demons and the abyss, and old lines that he'd heard somewhere else before. They didn't make a difference back then, and changing the speaker didn't change anything else.

At least he had a bigger reason to listen, last time.

It took him long enough, but when he finally got quiet, the simmering were finally opened his mouth to speak.

"Who did you hurt?"

Not all nerves are good to hit.

The dagger cut in deep in his back, a sudden shocking pain far worse than the kidney blown away earlier that night. The man, laying down as he was, began to rise up - a growl, insistent and letting out the anger, rose up with it. He stood, and he was barely standing a second before both hands took hold of the vest and ripped it off his shoulders.

His body was already beginning to change as he glared down at the figure, and simply said, "Learn this."

The shoulders, broad already, expanded outwards. Limbs, already long, lengthened and thickened. They stacked on the muscle, then added even more as fur hastened to cover up the flesh that had just been a bit hairy before. Canine fangs that had just been big before, extended into full blown daggers as his face contorted into something feral, something ancient and cat-like.

He growled all the way through, only half because of the pain associated with the transformation. The rest was all outlet. His different eyes stared down the small figure, and arms, so much bigger, deadly powerful, spread out wide. Toes and fingers alike were clawed, ready for the shred. He was one giant killing machine from top to bottom.

"Look at me," he commanded, even his voice changing, dropping an octave or two and seething the will of a predator. "Take a good, long look."

"I'm not trying to stay out of the abyss or whatever you want to call it, professor," he shot back in controlled anger. "I am in it."

"I am not developing murder in my heart. I have it," he slammed a clawed hand at his chest, at the meat layer over the blood-pumping organ inside. Flesh-ripping nails cut into himself to leave five small marks. He didn't pay it any attention. "It's what I'm built for, and unless you've got a fortune cookie phrase that's going to magically make me a normal person again, keep your sermons to yourself. I'm here because you know a guy, and I'm not leaving until those demons lie dead."

"I followed you out of respect, because you helped me," he bit the words out. "Keep pushing it, and just see what happens!"

[Toviyah]

It began as a growl. The younger man rose off the carpet and towered over him, one too many unwitting pokes at his pride taking their toll.

"Learn this."

In a heartbeat, Toby found himself introduced to a whole new definition of "hulking".

And the clouds parted, a Light shone down, and a Voice boomed, "You're not getting a new body this time."

He leaned back, listening to the Were as he menaced him, and tried to listen for a change.

"I am not developing murder in my heart. I have it." A thick hand slammed over the beast's own chest. Nails dug in and dragged. Blood welled, and flowed, and then stopped merely seconds later. "It's what I'm built for, and unless you've got a fortune cookie phrase that's going to magically make me a normal person again, keep your sermons to yourself. I'm here because you know a guy, and I'm not leaving until those demons lie dead."

It all sounded so very familiar. It all sounded so very new.

"I followed you out of respect, because you helped me. Keep pushing it, and just see what happens!"

He met the furious were's eyes, and waited, and counted out the number of times his heart slammed against his chest.

And, finally, he spoke. "You're right, again. This isn't getting us anywhere... me talking around you, expecting you to listen without doing any of my own." He sat up straight, daring to bring himself closer to the furious glare. "I don't know you. I shouldn't be assuming I do."

He swallowed. His heart hammered again.

"I'm sorry."

He brought his hands over his mouth and exhaled. Orange light blazed from between his fingers. His hands returned to his lap, both cupping more of the same magical energy that had last been seen regrowing a lost kidney.

"Maybe I should just take another look at your side, like I said I would..."

[Ellwood]

The beast simmered, and waited for the threat to take hold, to kick in. He didn't know what he expected. Most see a were, and find the best way to put distance between them and himself. It makes him smirk when they think closing doors makes any difference. To outright argue with this form took a heavy set of balls.

What he wasn't really expecting was for Toby to reply, "You're right, again," and seemingly sincerely at that. The were's features moved in surprise, before surprise moved right into critique a split second later. His nostrils flared with a pushed-out breath.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Toby continued, in a non-argumentative sort of way. "Me talking around you, expecting you to listen without doing any of my own."

Toby sat up straighter. An analyzing were moved an inch back. "I don't know you. I shouldn't be assuming I do."

The were growled once, softly. His hands, still hanging pendulously at his sides, made a fist and then relaxed again.

"No, you shouldn't," he rumbled out, though his own tone was far more subdued. Threatening undercurrents in his voice had disappeared, even if the rest of his body hadn't gotten that message.

"I'm sorry," Toby repeated. With a curt nod and another snort, the were turned around and slowly flopped down on the floor, laying on his right side and facing the fire. His right arm pillowed his head, and his eyes closed and half closed in the light.

"Maybe I should just take another look at your side, like I said I would," Toby said, a gesture like a peace offering to soothe the savage saberwere.

Ellwood gave a non-commital grunt, not turning around.

"I'm fine," he rumbled non-aggressively. The wounded spot in question was already indistinguishable from its surroundings, as much covered by fur as flesh, muscle padding the organs inside. An earlier kick-start to his own healing processes had put things back in order.

But some part of him, recognizing an effort to make up for early criticism, led him to grumpily mutter out, "Do what you want."

[Toviyah]

Glowing hands met the were's left side a moment later. Healing warmth seeped in, spread deeper than the muscle as it sought out something wrong to make right - and finding none, spread deeper still. The orange light rippled through dark fur and opaque flesh, reaching up, reaching down, reaching in.

The glow faded. Toby breathed again, and let another mist cascade down. His fingers moved. They carried the warmth, down over the furred man's stomach and back, pressing into the area just around the newly grown vital organ.

"Don't mind if I do," he whispered, another mist escaping with the words.

Fingers met the small of the were's back, dug in and started to knead.

Every exhale spread more of the warm, intangible mist over the surface. Working hands sank it deeper in. They progressed up the broad back, gradually reaching the shoulders, thumbs pushing directly against the muscle until the dense wiring lost its tension and started to relax.

"What..." Ellwood stirred. Not angry, not furious... body language simply spoke of confusion. Not recoiling. That was a good sign. "What are you -"

"Massaging you," Toby explained. "I think I added quite a bit to your blood pressure just now. Least I could do would be to take that away."

Clenched fists pushed forward, knuckles meeting skin just inside of the man's shoulder blades. "Tell me to stop... whenever..." he said. "Or... just roll over onto your front... if you want me to keep going..."