…

𝕱𝖑𝖆𝖗𝖊𝖘. Až-breath and aspen branches.

An evening lit in celebration. Smell of incense and cooked fowl.

It is a fearsome crowd of politicians and pedestrians alike. And everyone, even those embittered rivals, are calling her name--

“Afra, get up...! Oh-hh Heaven-above-I-request-a-divine-light, a-divine-light..."

“Afra! Afra! You said you'd do something! Please!”

“Why the hell— Some ‘protector,’ this one. Get up, Afra! Afra! Damn-ation!”

She rolls onto her back, stretching wide and felid as a murmur escapes in a half-conscious delirium: “About damn time I'm recognized.”

Before them — the priestesses and the little shaman girl, huddled around the Goldoan ambassador who has finessed half the floor space of their wagon — sheet tore; the head of a tawny beast glares against the night sky.

There is what would be a domino effect from youngest to eldest: Pie screaming bloody murder out of habit; Maiden Cecily clutching her habit and spewing prayer; Sister Way spewing swears. Afra swears, “I said I’d keep my word,” bounds off (shifts) hind legs, plants her weight (shifts a tail), balances — the big cat, struggling against the cloth, takes a backhand to their snout, that (shifted) oversized arm like a whip.

The bandit cartwheels, caterwauling, backwards through the gash they made.

Afra rips it further in pursuit.

Zephyrs run with her. The air in Palmyre is dry but not cold. The thrill of the chase is like an ember in her chest and it is the perfect night for a fight — when the chance is a literal ambush, when you are half-asleep and intoxicated on silly dreams, when the ‘arena’ is but a ring of wagons and dirt — SMASH! The cat upturns a water barrel and Afra splashes through its splintered pieces — when the world fades into sensations: colors, feelings, sounds. The moment you disorient your enemy, the moment you win.

The thrill of the hunt, it has a venomous likeness to the instinct which wills her kind to transform. Afra is trained, however, and knows the difference between craving and choice. So she takes a hard right, letting the fearful bandit bound into hiding.

For the first time that evening, Afra stands on her two legs. No scales and no claws, she claps dust from her hands before fussing over some simulacrum of professionalism in her kirtle — explains the night chills. Finally, in the intersecting shadows of the residence wagons, there is time for breath against the muffled backdrop of battle-cry. When Afra exhales, her nose teems with smells of cat and wolf; of blood and death.

An unacquainted Beroc mage, gnarled like a ringed tree, bronze-skinned and bearded and ultimately beaten. His teeth gritted; his final articulation like a “hss.” He rests on his knees. In his final moment, his hands have fallen unclasped and palms first onto the ground in prostration, an abject acceptance, perhaps a forgiveness. Perhaps Afra is projecting. Corpses look different on your side. This one, at least, makes her feel vulnerable; he isn’t that old for as antiquated as tomal know-all tended to be. There is a lot of blood under him. When she nudges the body supine, Afra beholds a stomach wound, gaping and festering, shredded by fangs.

The killer is close. She keeps low and rounds the corner, her body flat against the wagon closest. There, the heaving silhouette of a blood-hungry wolf — she is just in time. Haunches turned towards her, they seek a new target. Some nearby light spell crescendos and effervescence gleams off his stately armor. Afra sights confidence in his countenance. Then that he is empty-handed — no, that he is holding someone’s hand. Someone so small, she could have missed her; a child.

What a ridiculous… though she can’t finish that thought as something hot and boiling comes surging up bile-like inside of her. All the fuss about focus and concentration and ignoring the heat of battle goes ignored as the dragon comes, ablaze, out from the shadows.

Afra roars, “Bastard!” At her waist hang blackening arms ringed with off-white scales and tipped with gnarled claws. “Dare to face another Laguz!”

Spun around, the wolf regards her with circumspection. Those eyes have a look that is either cocky or calculating. They pick on smaller prey; she’d presume it’d be cowardice. Nevertheless, this bandit is not afraid, and after a beat’s time of insufferably stalling on their terms, she charges first.

She should have taken a low stance and held; in some gallant headspace, she’d expected her opponent to clash with her. Of course, now their composure made sense. Now, their support hurtled at her, vulnerable, from the dark — before an eruption of ethereal flame and they collided hard with another wagon in the boxed-in arena. Afra would make do with it, sticking her charge, her opponent dodging cleanly to one side before rebounding, those stained jaws hinged far apart.

A tail manifested underneath the wolf Laguz’ hind legs, rushing their ankles aside — they gallivanted into the ground. And Afra, whipped around with the momentum, drew her claws to slice across shoulder to tail — ended it.

The other wolf, with knowing gaze, kicked and drug itself beneath the covered wagon. Gilded embers fell from their flank as they disappeared to the other side.

Pack logic!

Afra’s thoughts came rushing onto her. “If it’s just Laguz, they’d be outmatched if I transformed. They’d need to recoup quickly”— to herself, then she adopted imperialism in stance and tone. “Mage! I can’t stay here. The wolves will return and there will be more of them—”

Not-so-distantly, a bandit howled at the moon.

Afra’s commandeering air revealed itself to be half-so — half frustration. And between avoiding the body and avoiding eye contact with the child and her father (Daein armor?), her eyes were flashing in all directions, her senses were clogged with foreignness and blood-smell and she looked to teeter towards panic. “The damn dogs are more organized than us,” she cursed.