Quote from Mae on September 23, 2020, 11:32 pm

The thought of the young pack members, too, compelled Kratos onward.

The shadows had appeared to flee westward, but whether they had truly gone or ever truly existed was unknown. The leaves were stirred up in their passing as if by the rushing of a great wind, but no sign or scent of passage was immediately prevalent. Kratos, however, too often minded to disenchant himself with optical particulars, ventured to find out. Once Logan was able to stand on her own, he passed by her a short distance into the wood, and lowered his head near the ground. Despite his size and heavy breath, nothing under his nose was disturbed by his breathing. He breathed in slow, deep breaths, and his breath exited through the slitted sides of his rhinarium. Five fresh breaths passed every second through his nasal cavity without disturbing a single particle on the forest floor. Then, at last he lifted his head and looked westward.

"Their scent is covered beneath the musk of that infernal plant," he said calmly. "But there are too many of them to hide. I suspect the passage of forty, perhaps less. They are mostly male individuals with few females among them. But I do not detect a human scent. It is possible it was an animal of some kind."
But Kratos knew of none that could move so quickly and so quietly in a large group. The scent was in its way disjointed, made complex by the Phantom flower, and getting through it caused a strange dizziness to briefly overcome him. When Kratos lifted his head, he found the mangled scent difficult to recall.

After a moment, Kratos turned his face eastward. "They do not seek our confrontation, so we shall avoid them; collect what is ours and remove ourselves hence."
Yet, finding the lost youths in a valley of clouds and mysteries would prove harder said than done, and with the passage of the full moon the night prior, the werewolves were not oblivious to the danger they were in.

***

Ulric listened and his countenance softened toward the stranger. He knew all too well the methods and means of the Pinerich pack. It was not unlike them to chase a loner from their land. The stranger spoke with raw, sincere emotion, and Ulric's sympathies moved him again in the way of compassion. Nonetheless, he was slow to trust a stranger with a link to his own past.

Ulric looked at Bianca, tired and careful, but willing to let her meet the stranger in their company. Then he looked at the man on the bed again and said softly, "We've prepared stew of elk and herbs. I'll go and get you some."

Quote from Skyelre on September 24, 2020, 2:24 am

" No-" The word escaped out of his mouth before Ulric had even finished speaking.

" No.." Saber repeated softer now, as his body seemed to shake from how tense it had suddenly become. Several breaths passed his lips before he tried to speak again, but they did little to stop how his body had begun to tremble. He somehow looked worse than before now, his pale skin growing beads of sweat, as if just the thought had brought him closer to his deathbed.

" I have severe food allergies." He began in his slow paced speech, brows knit. 

" I don't think I could survive a reaction if I had one here…. I need to go to the hospital."

Quote from Adriana on September 24, 2020, 12:41 pm

Bianca looked up and shook her head at Ulric, "No, you didn't get a chance to put the herbs in, just the meat." she interjected softly, before peering into the room.

"It's just meat and water... can you have that?" she asked, blue eyes peering into the room with a hand on the doorframe. "There's chicken noodle soup, too, it's about done - that has salt, pepper, celery, onion and carrots, and chicken of course. Those are all of the ingredients."

Now she retreated to her room and began to dig in her backpack, talking from the other room.

"I know you're scared but, it's not much safer to go to the hospital - the closest one that would be considered safe is Middlecrest, I know someone who works there and knows about, you know-our condition. But that's too far and you need to eat before then or you could die. You can't walk and we don't have a car. I could go into town and come back before we could get you to a hospital. What do you eat normally when you're not near a hospital?"

After the breathless ramble, she returned from her room and passed Ulric into the strangers room. She stepped up to the nightstand and sat what would be to Saber a familiar yellow cylinder down on it, along with a notepad and pen. "I have a clove allergy... usually I'd keep it on me for Thanksgiving or Christmas, since there's clove in everything around then - but we don't cook much here, and I don't think we even own clove."

The blonde looked at the dark haired stranger now but kept a distance from his bed.

"Anyway.. there's a notepad there," she stated, although it didn't need said, "you can write your allergies down as they come to you. Or give me five things you can eat - I'll go buy them." she was short of breath as she finished, and had turned a shade more pale herself.. the day was wearing thin and if they all didn't eat soon, they would be in no better shape than the sickly Saber... meanwhile, Timothy had the full belly among them and was resting..

Quote from Adriana on September 24, 2020, 1:28 pm

Logan wasn't convinced at Kratos' description of their watchers.. it only served to lend more weight to her theory - no matter how insane.

"Kratos," she began, coming up beside him, "What I saw, I know it was not man or a beast.. there are creatures also that, maybe do not belong in those mountains- before, there was ah, what do you call them? Plains cow, eh, not a deer-" she clarified quickly, "-up in the foothills.. why?" she pondered  out loud, "And, there was something found made from wood - beasts do not make things from trees, or fight with spears." she continued with a low voice.

Then she came around to the front of Kratos and met his yellow eyes evenly, taking on a careful tone of voice, her head tilted sideways. "Maybe it is not wise for you to wear that skin and appear as a hunter in this place.."

Quote from Mae on September 24, 2020, 10:31 pm

Ulric stood aside by the door and listened. His brows turn down as he tried to understand the exchange and what it meant. At last he came to his own conclusion.

"She's right." Ulric said. He looked up gravely. "It's not safe. The Pinerich pack has access to any information you give the hospital. They'd be here in less than an hour. You're only safe on this mountain."

With that, Ulric looked into the hall solemnly and breathed softly. "I'll get you some broth. You can decide if you'll eat it or not. It's all we have."
Thus, Ulric left the room and the hall... passing by his own room, where an ear turned out of the light and escaped his notice.

*****

Kratos met Logan's face and it seemed something soft was in his gaze, yet he turned his attention quickly over her shoulder and bypassed her attempt to meet him in the eye. After all, the last time a young woman stood in front of him with peril behind her, she was shot and killed from behind.

"The bison." Kratos replied, giving a name to the 'creature' Logan described. He stalked closely beside her, though his attention was focused outward. His ears continued to turn to and fro while his eyes scanned the woods. Then one white-tipped ear flicked back, and he said, "In all likelihood you are right. But, I have never been mistaken for anything less, regardless what skin I wear."

"Come." He said. The Alpha was eager to move on, but he would no longer abide any amount of distance between himself and Logan.

Quote from Skyelre on September 24, 2020, 11:17 pm

Saber exhaled sharply as the blue eyed girl began to explain the food they had available. His eyes fell closed as he continued to struggle to control his growing frustration inside. He only went to view the world beyond him when the girl placed a few things on the nightstand beside his bed, however he only eyed the motion from his peripheral view. Upon the young man in the doorstep agreeing with the blue eyed girl's concerns and walking off to retrieve food for him, he let out a sigh of frustration.

" You don't know much about anaphylaxis, do you?" He managed in a relatively calm tone. 

" It's always a medical emergency requiring a hospital visit. One dose of epinephrine isn't enough for me. You just said you don't have a car to get me there. I can't take that risk."

Quote from Adriana on September 25, 2020, 9:00 am

"Wait," Logan said quietly before they started. She dismounted the pack from her shoulder and opened the flap, reaching inside and withdrawing the flute from before. Once again she studied it in her hand, feeling it's weight, the craftsmanship. Did a beast truly make this? There were two sides to every story. Even in recent days, Logan had begun to forgive the ghost of her past - her first werewolf attacker - upon contemplating his own origins.

She untied the leather strap on the instrument and re-affixed it to the end of her spear so it dangled just before the point. When she had finished she secured her pack again, not by its former straps but by a rope to replace them that she arranged, so it could be tightened with a pull of the end and loosened upon transformation.

Then she rested a hand on one of the Alpha's great shoulder blades to indicate she was ready.

---

The accusation stung. The physical response could be seen in Bianca as a red blush that covered her nose and cheeks, but she collected herself with a breath before it spread to cover her whole face.

"You're right. What do I know." she stated evenly, every note in her voice a dead tone.

"I do know something, though. I know that, as a human man... of about what, one hundred and twenty pounds? You would need about, a third to a half of a gram of protein per pound of body weight, per day. About forty-sixty grams. But," she paused, resting against the wall behind her, "You're not a human man." then she continued.

"A weightlifter requires about one-point-five, to two grams of protein per pound of body weight, per day, or about one hundred eighty, to two hundred grams of protein per day with your body weight. But, you're not a human, male weightlifter." she paused, knowing the stranger had by now seen where she was going, but continued nonetheless.

"A male werewolf, after a full moon, requires at least a minimum of five grams of protein, per pound of pre-transformation body weight, after a full moon. In your case, a minimum of six hundred grams of protein. That translates to.. about seven or eight, twelve ounce steaks, or about five to six pounds of meat. A thirteen hundred percent increase of protein over what you would require, as a normal, human male. A two hundred pound male werewolf, could eat up to thirteen steaks after a change without blinking, or about nine and a half pounds of meat. That's about a twentieth of a processed bull elk, a sixteenth of a processed cow, or a fifth of a processed buck. It's why werewolves hunt during full moons, because there's not enough meat in a department store to satiate our appetites after a change."

Just talking about meat and appetites, Bianca was beginning to feel a growing pang in her gut.

"But, what do I know. Except, one more thing. To compensate for this insane increase in a need of food, and the inability especially of a newly changed werewolf to actually cook their meat before ingesting it.. our bodies gain a massive increase in digestive strength and immunity against disease, so we could eat raw, contaminated meat if needed. For the thirteen hundred percent increase in food requirements, there's about double that in gut bacteria and our stomach acids even change so we can consume bone and stomach. That increase has been shown to work to aid us against allergens, as well. So let's say before, you could eat one peanut before having an allergic reaction. Now, you could eat two thousand, four hundred and ninety nine more peanuts before having a reaction. Of course, allergens exist on a particle level, I know this. If I was a human, my clove allergy is sensitive enough that I wouldn't be able to enter a kitchen if someone was baking with clove, because of the particles in the air from the fine dust would send me into anaphylactic shock. Because I'm a werewolf, I'd have to consume at whole tablespoon before the same shock took me over."

She shrugged, "But, what do I know. I'm a thirteenth generation were, paramedic dropout-to-study werewolf physiology and behavior." turning on a heel, she began out of the room, "Go to the hospital, try to explain to them why you need the protein content of a small deer fed to you intravenously. Or eat the washed, cooked elk meat that couldn't possibly contain enough contamination to even make your throat itch."

Quote from Skyelre on September 25, 2020, 9:44 am

Saber's eyes remained closed as he struggled to control his growing anger. When Bianca finished speaking, all that could be heard in the dark room was a faint mumble, only the worst obscenities loud enough to be heard slipping out of his mouth. His body was tight and rigid, radiating an heated anger that words could not describe.

Quote from Adriana on September 25, 2020, 11:24 am

Bianca stepped out of the room and closed the door part way, covering her mouth with her back against it. She couldn't recall a time in her life she'd been so harsh with someone, especially someone who was only acting the way he was out of fear and vulnerability.

She was about to turn back in and apologize, when a deep rooted hunger pain twisted her gut. She doubled down to the ground outside the door with both arms crossed over her stomach and a low groan. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, "Just, please eat.. please trust us."