and the stars in their orbits shone pale through the lightof the brighter, colder moon

The heat during the day had seen the city a relative ghost town with a haze rising from the ground distorting the buildings. While it was not the worst that Nadya had endured it was still rather uncomfortable being that their residence of the warehouses offered no modern-day amenities to offset it. Nadya dealt with such an irritation by taking to her animal form and hiding in the forests on the outskirts where the dense foliage blocked out the high-noon rays of the sun. The night brought with it the full moon and an ease in the heat with no clouds to hold it in, the low hanging engorged white orb cast a light so bright that the sun was hardly missed. It was the nights of the full moon that Were's were unable to deny their animal form, a wildness to them unseen during other nights, a sort of joyous celebration of the Goddess moon and the power that had been given to them.



Nadya been trailing after Tobias' path but had deviated when coming across a wide slow moving stream, traipsing through the cool water and lowering her body to settle on her stomach, letting the liquid rise and envelope her shoulders deep. It was a welcome reprieve from the lingering heat in the air, a low rumble of a purr in appreciation escaping from her as her body relaxed. She was well into dozing off, cool in the running water, listening to the crickets chirping, the rustle of prey in the bushes, and the distant call of wolves over the next hill...until a banshee-like wail broke the reverie of it all. Nadya's ears flattened immediately to her skull, golden orbs snapping open to seek out the source of such a horrid sound. It's notes lingered on feline, though on a note that wasn't natural and thus forced Nadya to raise from her spot and slink from the cool water to find where the feral child of their rag-tag team had gone off and gotten himself into.



The night air on her wet coat kept the jaguar girl cool as she weaved through the forest, following the path that Tobias had left, though slightly more difficult since she wasn't a tracker as Tobias was, his scent more familiar now and easier to pick out amongst the scents of the other wildlife. Her hunt took her only a mile off, the earth tilting slowly upward to bring her up the side of a hill, the foliage that pressed against her body thinning out until she emerged in somewhat of a clearing, sparsely grown with younger trees and rocks. Nadya stopped once passing the line of trees, fully exposed with the water clinging to her coat glistening under the night's glow, golden jaguar spotted coat fighting to be seen under the blanket of darkness that covered her, creating the black panther that allowed her to so easily melt with the shadows. What met Nadya's eyes was curious, Tobias' antics of playing about while odd to his human form was relatively easy to coax out when in his animal form, instead it was the wolf that was with him that bothered her. The Were population in the city seemed to be growing, or maybe they were just becoming more obvious the longer they decided to call this city home, and while Nadya wasn't fearful with her size overpowering most and her bite strength enough to crush through skulls, she held a certain hesitance when it came to canines. She stood tense, coat twitching to rid a few of the water droplets from her body, long tail whipping about as she watched Tobias' onslaught against the wolf in a playful manner rather than the wild nature he was prone to have against newcomers which indicated that he knew the wolf somehow. Her large head inclined back with lips wrinkled, parting her mouth only slightly to taste the scents on the slight breeze, if only to glean what she could about the newcomer from there before her mind reached out to Tobias, licking like flames for that familiar pack bond, holding neither reproach or concern...a simple statement of her presence.



"Tobias..."