Chapter 5: The Panther and The Wolf

I had spent forever in the Tower Room, re hanging the crystals, fiddling with things, and constructing my new look. There wasn't actually a tower in GateWay House, the giant lens window of mine and Kieran's study-cum-bedroom was the highest point in the house from both inside and out. Unless like me you knew the way to ascend the winding stirs that led up to the tower room. I stood and looked out of the window down on the sloping lawns that ran with the glittering rope of the stream down to the ocean. Such a magnificent mirror, the sea shone flat and beautiful, an unmarred surface. And there, sitting on the little wooden jetty of dry sun hardened boards, was my lover, the shadowcat who ruled my heart. My Kieran.

He sat away from the water, surrounded by it but without contact, his tail swaying softly in time with the little waves. I smiled to myself and stretched, palms turned up to meet the ceiling. I tied a short blue kilt-wrap around my hips and locked the door with a thought pattern on my way out. I made my way quickly through the house. It was a warm day, and the house was cool, much of the thick pile carpets replaced by stone flooring during the summer, but I was eager for Kieran, to show him what I'd done. I appeared out on the grass and began to wag my tail as I approached him. He knew I was there, he could feel my thoughts, half excited and wanting. And I knew the flavour of his as well, a dark wondering murmur, a touch of longing, of curiosity. Though my pads were soft, my nails clicked and scraped against the wood as his retractable did not. He turned.

Eyes, wide and of a clearer blue than the faultless sky turned on me, examining my form, my presence, and then he smiled, ice white teeth in a black muzzle and beckoned me over.

"You changed your hair."

"Yeah," My hand went quickly to my head and I grinned, "You like it?" I had, in times now past, worn my hair long, as I still did as a man, but I had decided it was time for a change and now I sported a mane much closer to my feral form, my head and neck fur longer and red copper tinted. As I went to kneel before Kieran he reached out and stroked my head, delighting n the feel of my skull under his fingers.

"Very much. No blue though?"

"Nah. Dying it back in was just hassle."

"I approve."

"So what you doing out here?" As if I don't already know the answer. The one I get is just what I expect.

"Thinking about the sky."

The gaze upward at the endless blue. Kieran really is a summer person. All the time the sun is out and it's warm he'll be out here looking at the sky, wishing for wings. Me, I'm a winter person. I want the ice and the snow and the sky white, the sun hanging like a disc of thin ice. Then it is time for the hunt, to race across a frozen world after the scent of warm red meat. But Kieran wants wings, and it's the one thing I can't give him.

"Do you want to go for a run?"

Kieran laughed and ruffled my mane.

"You're never gonna outdistance me like that." Kieran's most envied ability is to run on all fours, giving him, what with his dizzing seven foot height, an incredibly long gait. I stood up and casually untied my kilt, Kieran's gaze magnetic, as he followed my fingers in the folds of cloth until it fell. I laughed as he sighed at my sheathed form and it was my turn to stroke his long glossy hair as he nuzzled my crotch. I pulled away and he growled softly. I dropped onto all fours and shook from nose to tail like a dog, and once I was finished I was on four good feet, tail curving up like a husky and feral. This way my legs were longer, narrow like the wolves I took after, and my mane redder and more pronounced. I scented the wind and Kieran stood up, and ran his fingers through my fur. I snarled at him, but it was a soft noise, ears up and friendly. Like this I could give Kieran a fair run, but that didn't mean we had to play fair. I didn't warn him, I was off.

Four legs is no match for two, and I knew that Kieran had to get started before he could drop down into his longer strides. I put everything into that first burst, pleased at the response from well conditioned muscles, the wind in my silky coat. I knew, with the purest certainty, that there wasn't a spare ounce of flesh on me, everything was muscle and bone and skin and fur, a feral beast of sinew and fangs. I raced up over the lawns and cleared the low wall between the end of the flat green and the rolling hills where the orchards started and went flat out, racing for the horizon. If I reached the glacier then I knew I'd win, shadowcats weren't made for ice and snow and I knew that I was swifter on that ground, lighter too, which mattered went the ice crust was thin.

I raced along. Sleet Foot my wolves called me, and with good reason. I was through the orchards, picking the roughest ground where Kieran would have to navigate more carefully. I couldn't yet feel his presence behind me, but I didn't spare a glance back to see where he was. Finally I was out in open country, heading right for the wasteland of grey that lay like a graphite line between the grasslands and the beginning of the snow.