"I would like to be able to shift fully one way or the other, and be able to do that by my will." It was Kenji who spoke. "I like being more in tune with the wolves, like you said, but I miss my people too. And even if they got over their silly fear, they'd still look at us oddly."

"Yes, I agree. I'd like to be able to go home without being too different in their eyes." Despite how she'd thought to say it, it still came out sounding like she wanted to be accepted, even if it meant being the same as the others in the village. Which was odd, since she normally stood out, mostly because of her oddly colored hair, but also because she always wanted people to laugh and be happy. "Though, we are of an age where we don't have to stay at home all the time. There were a few elves of legend that went on adventures."

Kenji nodded, "but they were great warriors, and that was before the people turned to peace and nonviolence." He knew how he sounded when he said that, and he couldn't keep the mild disgust from filling his voice. "Nothing good ever came from absolute peace."

"Maybe our odd changing will turn out good for us?" Merisa was hopeful again, her tail, which had been drooping on the ground, was active and swaying back and forth in excitement.

"That's just it, there are no peace keepers. There haven't been any need for them. The sword on my back is an ancient relic from a time long passed. No one could even show me how to properly use it." Merisa was looking into the wolf's eyes as she spoke, slowly running her fingers along his head between his ears, the way she would if he were a real wolf. The packs seemed to like it, so why wouldn't Krinn.

Kenji shifted uncomfortably at having the male wolf so close, something inside him that he'd felt before rose to the surface. It was some kind of alpha wolf instinct he'd picked up by living on his own in the forest. He had his territory, and the other packs that Merisa spoke of, had their territories. The feeling he was having was the same as when he fought the pursuing parties that had followed Merisa before. He hoped he wasn't being obvious to the wolf, he didn't want to offend their new friend. "You mentioned something about curses earlier. Do you think that's what has got us? Could it be a curse on us that made us change? Or was it something different? Another form of magic?"

"Kenji, it could just be something odd that no one has seen before. Our people have only been in the plains for a few hundred years, maybe something like this happened before. Something that would cause our people to move to the plains to begin with." Merisa stopped stroking the wolf while she spoke to Kenji. It was like she gave him her full attention.

It made his heart swell, but he was still somehow jealous that she was petting the cobalt wolf. Which is odd, since he's just a wolf. Besides, we're fated. The elders said so.

"Shh, he's tired. I don't think he's slept for days. Lets let him rest." Merisa shifted slightly, getting herself comfortable so she could lean back. When Kenji sat down behind her, his petty jealousy cast aside by the wolf's whimper, Merisa was able to lean back against him. "I think I could use a nap too."

"Don't worry, I'll watch over us. Nothing can sneak up on a dragon, tiger and two male wolves." Kenji's heart was bursting with joy, this is what he'd missed most by being away. Having Merisa so near to him, somehow, put his instincts to rest. "Just sleep, Risa. You haven't slept once since leaving home, so sleep."

They were whispering, but even so, Merisa thought it might be disturbing the tired wolf. She nodded slowly, her own eyes falling shut as she leaned against Kenji, her rock, her support, the one that kept her from being lonely as a child. She fell asleep quickly, her ears drooping, and her tail wrapping itself around Kenji's waist, almost as if her subconscious were making its claim on him.

"Unfortunately, no." was Yuzo's short reply before Merisa cried out for joy at their companion's sudden ability to speak. The dragon was also grateful that the blue wolf could communicate with them in their language and sat down beside Krinn. He quietly listened to the stories of the Plains Elves, wondering how their transformations began. They told Krinn about the stone they were searching for and that they were told it could help them control their forms. Yuzo also wished he could control his ability to morph. He could only turn into his original form when he is in his element although his younger brother could already change at will. The horned teen sighed at the thought. When they talked about their peaceful village, it reminded him of the villages around his lake. They weren't as pacifistic as the elves though, and started to think the pair's people might be a little too cut off from the world.

After the tired wolf moved over to Kenji and Merisa and fell asleep on her leg, the group lowered their voices to a whisper. The prince thought it would be strange that they should rest in the middle of the road but since that's where Krinn had fallen asleep and the area was practically deserted and unused, he thought it wouldn't be so bad. Since he had already rested, Yuzo decided to look around for food for the group.

"Hey Kenji, I'm gonna look for something we can eat." he whispered. His stomach growled softly causing him to give a nervous laugh at what he was taught was rude. "Sorry. Hopefully I can find something." He stood up and looked around them. The whole area looked like a vast grassland and Yuzo became unsure if he would actually be able to find anything. That is, until he turned around. He wondered why he didn't notice the beginning of a forest behind the hill earlier and made his way towards it. With luck, he would find some berries or edible roots.

While Merisa slept, Kenji kept watch on their surroundings, just as he said he would. When the dragon offered to find food, he merely nodded, not wanting to waken Merisa from her much needed sleep. At this point, he really did wish he could fully shift to wolf, maybe it would sharpen his senses and allow him to smell things he couldn't detect normally. Maybe he'd be able to hear better, though he wasn't sure about that, given that he already had the ears of the wolf.

When Krinn growled in his sleep, Kenji almost had a heart attack, thinking he'd finally turn violent, but the wolf was merely sleeping. If he believed what the animals of his forest told him, he had the tendency to talk in his sleep, though he could never remember about what.

Nothing much happened while Yuzo was off finding food, nothing that would cause Kenji to mention later on, that is. No one approached the sleeping party, though a couple of rabbits did drop by to chat about the season. Such is the life for an elf, being able to speak with animals about how the weather was that time of year. They were skittish near the blue wolf, but Kenji assured them he was asleep.

All he had to do, mostly, was wait until the others awoke in a couple of hours. He wanted Risa as rested as possible, especially if the rabbits were right, and it was going to rain.

As he wandered through the green woods, Yuzo realized he didn't know exactly what to get for his companions. He knew a wolf would definitely eat meat but he wasn't sure if Krinn would since he was by no means an ordinary wolf. As for the other two, he had never met a Plains Elf before and wasn't sure if they were vegetarians or if they survived on dew like some he had encountered before. Finally deciding he would just bring both meat and plant, he busied himself with gathering the food. When Yuzo was satisfied with what he had found, he made for the edge of the forest. He stopped halfway, however, as a great white blur caught his eye. But looking at the area where he had seen it only showed nothing but trees and a few birds. The dragon shrugged it off as merely being the light reflecting off a birds wing in flight. He emerged from the forest half an hour later, having caught three wild hens and harvested some hopefully edible fruits and mushrooms. He didn't eat meat but strangely consumed fish from time to time even though they lived in the same waters his people did. It wasn't unheard of for Water Dragons but it was an uncommon food preference.

The smell of fresh meat triggered something in Kenji's stomach. It was a feeling he'd had several times since his change. It was a hunger that no normal plains elf would ever feel. A craving for fresh blood.

"Yuzo, you brought back meat. That's good, it would have been hard to hunt for it while being used as a pillow." Kenji couldn't help but grin slightly at the thought of the impending meal. He was rather hungry after all, and since he wasn't a normal elf, fruits and vegetables wouldn't sate his hunger. "Did you get some fresh fruits for Risa? She's not at the meat eating stage yet. I don't imagine that will take awhile for her to come to grips with."

Merisa gave no warning that she was awake, but she did wake shortly after the pressure on her leg vanished. "You forget that we eat fish back home, Kenji. Fresh fish is little different than a dead hen, though you are right, that's not what I crave." She looks up to Yuzo, feeling more rested than she had expected to feel after such a short nap. "Did you find any apples?"

Kenji looks to the other wolf knowingly. In the language of the wolves, something that Merisa would only grasp the barest meaning from, he spoke to Krinn. "Do you smell that presence? It doesn't sense like anyone here. Can you tell what it is?"

Merisa, who caught the barest gist of what was being asked, said nothing to hint that she understood.

((Can we assume this post is after Vanidar's post? That way we won't have to go through deleting and reposting it...))

Krinn hadn't been wrong. He had been being watched, but not by who he suspected. As soon as she realized that her gaze was being felt Adamina had turned her eyes away. She'd looked, rather, toward the other male. The dragon. He was holding rabbits in his hands. Her stomach nearly began to growl and she immediately clenched her stomach muscles to stifle the noise.

In that moment Adamina's mind was made up, not by her brain, but by her stomach. She was hungry. Simple as that. She wanted to eat but was too tired to do her own foraging. She'd not been able to follow the small party (the plains elves) as close as she would have liked. She'd had to travel all that entire day without rest to catch up and was now feeling the burn of exertion in her muscle. She peered down from her tree branch hiding place, her pale skin and white hair and fur miraculously hidden in the deep shadow. She pondered the best time to make her appearance and figured it better to literally just 'drop in'.

Taking a single, calming breath, Mina rose from her crouch. Her agile, lithe frame reached to its full heighth and her tail extended out behind her; like a squirrel or a bird she often used her tail for balance. She released the hand that she rested on the trunk of the tree and took a single step forward as if she were walking across solid earth. Seconds later she landed with a very quiet, dull thud on the ground in exactly the same position she'd fallen from. One foot slightly in front of the other and raised onto its toes, she landed gracefully and bent her knees to recieve the brunt force of the gravity. She followed through with the motion and her final resting position ended up as a kneel. One palm she lay flat on the ground, the other rested on her knee. Her head was bowed so that her fine, wispy hair fell in a curtain around her face, concealing it. Her tail arched gracefully up behin her where it curled over her back, looking like a scorpions tail, but rather than a sting she had a white puff.

Adamina raised her head just enough that she could see. Her ears were positioned forward (she had full control over them) and her hair parted just enough to reveal her solid white eyes. "It smells like me" Her voice was high clear and precise. The words weren't in the wolvish language but it was clear she'd understood it.

((Oops. I started to post after Kry but you got there first...))

"Glad you like it. I wasn't sure if you guys actually ate meat. Not many elves I've met before do." It seems he was right to have assumed they would eat meat and now he wondered if there was going to be enough to share between the two wolves. He had tied up the hens to the staff he carried with woody tendrils of vine. In his free arm, he cradled the vegetarian meal. Yuzo stuck the wooden staff into the ground so he could properly sort through the fruits he had gathered.
"Well, these aren't as big as the apples that grow around my lake," he said, picking out a small red and green apple and looking it over, "But I guess it would be just as good. I also found some berries. Just red, black and gray ones though. These were the only kinds I knew were edible. I'm not really familiar with most of the plants in these parts." The dragon laughed quietly at his own lack of knowledge.
Even though he volunteered to look for food, not knowing the local fauna and flora could have earned him and his friends a bad stomachache or worse. At least he had enough common sense to take note of what foods he and the townspeople he had met have eaten before. "And here's some mushrooms as well. But these kinds taste bland when their not cooked."
He was busy looking through what he had found and didn't notice that Kenji and Krinn were both looking at each other in communication. But it wasn't like he could have understood what they were saying anyway. Yuzo did notice, however, when a newcomer jumped out of a tree. Yet another being whose species he had never seen before though her appearance did remind him vaguely of the fae peoples living in the east.

Adamina smiled at the wolf. Animals were always good judges of character and if this one said she was alright the others would probably believe him. Especially since they seemed so close to him.

Raising her head and cocking it slightly to the side she pondered the question. It was definetely a strange one but still warranted a simple answer. She shook her head back and forth exactly three times. No. She hadn't seen any white tigers laterly. She'd sensed a presence similar to that of a tiger, but hadn't seen one. "If there were a tiger in my forest I would know it, but these are not my forests." She let her keen senses 'taste' the atmosphere around her. The wolfs energy seemed a bit tense, as if the tiger were something to worry about. His energy also interested her greatly. It wasn't completely animal, but wasn't something she'd ever felt before either.

Cocking her head again to the side, her white eyes bright, Mina let her tail lower to the ground at her right side. The white furred end twitched back and forth much like that of a cat. "What are you strange fellow?" She asked bluntly.

Kenji glares at the newcomer, sensing her out as much as he can. "What forest did you say was yours?"

Merisa goes to Yuzo's pile of food and plucks out one of the apples. "You can't eat this. It's a crab apple. You'll get sick." She takes out another apple to show him the minute differences. "This one is ok though. What are those gray berries? I don't think I'm familiar with them."

"Just to let you know, it will rain tonight. If you want to avoid getting wet, we'll have to find shelter of some kind." Kenji was still staring at the odd looking female as he spoke, but he directed his voice to everyone.

"Oh, those...." he pauses, thinking back to whether he was told what they were or not. "Ah, actually, I don't know the name myself. But it's pretty widespread and some of the travelers I passed by ate them so I'm assuming their ok. It didn't bother me when I tried it but they taste a little tart." Yuzo started setting aside the apples that looked like the crab apple Merisa had just told him but he was still unsure of the differences. He decided to take a bite out of the brown mushrooms he picked up hoping they would taste any different from what he had said they would. But it seemed the species' uncooked flavor would not change no matter where it grew. "If there isn't any convenient cave nearby, we might have to make our own shelter. Making a fire would also be great." he said after swallowing the very distastefully bland piece of fungus.

Kenji smiled at Krinn, his own thoughts on the meat. "Yuzo, I think our four-legged friend wants one of the hens. I'd appreciate of them as well, if that's alright."

Merisa shakes her head, moving a couple of the apples back to the pile. "No, these are good. The crab apples are these ones. They're kind of squat and sour smelling. If it smells sour, it's a crab, if it smells sweet, its a normal apple." She looks back to Kenji, still marveling over his ears and tail. The features really suited him, actually. But then, he might say the same about her own ears and tail suiting her, and she supposed they did, in a way. "Rain? Well, I don't melt, but a fire would be nice."

"Yuzo, you're a dragon, can you breathe fire?" Kenji really didn't know much about dragons, but he'd already acknowledged that factor before.

"Oh, pardon me." he said with an embarrassed laugh. He took the hens off his staff and gave them to Kenji and Krinn. "I hope it's enough." He wasn't sure whether they would want it cooked or not but didn't think to ask.

"If only." Yuzo replied in slight dismay as he stared at the half-eaten mushroom then at the apples. "I'm of the Water Dragon family so what I control is water. I'd avert the rain if I could but I'm not as powerful as my older relatives. I'm only 19! One of the youngest in the family. I'm like..." The prince stopped again. He wasn't sure how to say he was practically a baby in dragon terms without making it sound so embarrassing. Sure he had already amassed a good amount of knowledge about the world, but it was still only 19 mortal years' worth. "I don't have enough experience controlling great amounts of water at the moment."
He thought of how much more years it would take before he could conjure up a storm like his older brother. Hopefully he wouldn't have to wait another 50 years before he could at least make it rain. But control over the waters in the sky was divided between the Water Dragon and Sky Dragon families. If one side needed water to fall on the earth, the other needed to ask permission before making it stop.

"Oh, your family must be like elves then. Until you reach at least a hundred, you're seen as being a baby. That's the way it is back home, at least. Which is odd, since anyone over a hundred doesn't want to leave the village to seek out the stone that could help us, not like they'd know they found it even if they did find it, unless they could shift with it." Merisa picks out three good apples. "May I have these?"

Kenji takes his own hen a few yards away, and turns his back on them to shield them from the way he devours meat. Merisa didn't need that tainting her view of him. It took him slightly longer to eat the hen than Krinn took, but his jaws weren't yet wolven. When he was done, little was left aside from bones and feathers. He never could get up the guts to eat the heads of his kill, nor could he eat some of the inside organs. He wasn't fully wolf yet after all. Kenji gathers up what he won't eat and presents it to Krinn. "I won't eat these parts, but from the looks of your feather pile, you will. Do you want it?"

The teen sighed as the word 'baby' rang through his head. No matter what, being referred to as a baby bothered him, even if it was true. Still, he kept a cheerful disposition. "Be my guest." he replied, watching the girl bring the apples closer to herself. He decided to leave the mushrooms for later and started with the more flavorful fruits. He ate some of the sweeter black berries, occasionally eating a gray one. He was about to carelessly bite into an apple when he remembered what the tiger-like girl just said. Luckily for him, this apple was sweet scented and the dragon enjoyed the meal. Yuzo then realized that he had forgotten about the fluffy tailed stranger and offered her some food. "Would you like some?"