The longer she lay in the cool needles, the colder she became. Her pelt stopped sucking up the light like a hole in the material atmosphere and began to shimmer, glitter, reflect. She turned silvery and crystalline despite the rising sun and the little warmth it brought. Tucked between the monstrous roots of some ancient tree, Felicity barely moved; were anyone or anything to come by, they would likely not even have seen her, and if they did, they might have thought her dead.

No matter how low the temperature sank around her, nor how still she lay, the frosty wolf was not even asleep. Her icy eyes shone like cut glass from beneath lids that were half-mast at most. She let her senses wander freely while her mind fell silent and blank.

She became part of the forest.

For a long time, nothing stirred but small prey animals which incited no interest in the unmoving wolf. When finally something stepped within the range of her senses, Felicity's ears and nose and her skin pressed against the earth raced to snatch up every breath, every scent, every footfall.

It was a prey animal.

Tiny ice crystals crackled and crunched and shattered like glass as the wolf finally stirred. She stood up slowly, turning her face in the direction of the creature as it glided toward the sound of water.

There were several things keeping Felicity from stalking the creature in a hunter's manner. She tracked it, of course, but not with the intent of chasing and catching it. One reason was that it was not in a prey animal shape; it was a human, just like Felicity was sometimes a human. It was not just a stupid deer. Another reason was that, despite her nose telling her it could be food, she knew a horse was not good food, even a lone one. Related though they may be, deer were mindless and helpless and horses were clever and dangerous. Felicity's human side had once spent time with them, and had respect for the creatures that was not lost on her lupine side.

No, she would not be hunting this so-called prey animal.

But she would be watching it.

The cold followed her as she drifted silently toward the creature. It was displaying interest in the water of the stream, seeming oblivious to its bitter chill, and it knew Felicity was there. There was not much to confirm this aside from the fact that the man moved like someone who knew he was being watched and was thus amused. She moved forward until the veil of forest between them was only a few trees thick.

He spoke.

Felicity visibly flinched, pulling her lips back and snarling loudly. She did not like that voice. She might not have liked any voice, for she had not heard voices in so long that the sounds were painfully wrong in her ears. She didn't even register what the words had meant.

With some difficulty, she began to shift. Only humans could communicate with humans, and she didn't want this creature to go away. Perhaps, also, her human ears could better receive the voice.

For several minutes she sat on the cold ground, naked, her body underfed and ugly after the more majestic vision her wolf form had presented. She hugged her legs, sharp-angled and hard with strings of wiry muscle, to her white chest as she recovered from the shift, something she hadn't done in months, perhaps a year. Perhaps many years.

"Don't talk," she finally said, wincing at her voice and resting her forehead on her knees for a moment so that her matted and tangled hair fell in a dirty curtain down her shins. She swallowed and had to steel herself before she spoke again. "And toss me your shirt."

She wasn't cold, but she felt her nakedness in an uncomfortable way, as though there was nothing to protect her papery white skin from the autumn air. Fear tickled her throat and made the taut flesh along her spine crawl, and she regretted immensely her foolish decision to shift. She had no idea who this creature was, and even though it hadn't seemed very aggressive in the first place, she was in no position to risk it becoming aggressive now. She swallowed.

"Please," she rasped. Then, more quietly, "I am a fucking idiot."

Felicity Crow

I'm rusted from the rain