Fur, Fear and Friends

[Gregory White]

With Adrianna having disappeared for what seemed like years (but was actually just several months), Gregory was keeping her house in hopes that she would return. However it was on days like this that he was forced to burn off nervous energy in lion form, and he was venturing further and further into the woods until he lost scent of his mate's old scent marks altogether. At this moment he was trailing a barely worn path that he was slowly hollowing out of the undergrowth; in human form, Greg was a person of routine. He could not bare to walk the other road, the one that lead to their anniversary garden that he had been so delicately cultivating in order to propose to Adrianna. After she had disappeared he had not visited. It was sure to be tangled with weeds, vines, nettles and all manner of unsightly, choking plants that would turn the bluebells into dust. He cared for the house but he had not the strength to care for the beautiful grove. It only reminded him of what he had lost. Gregory rubbed his white, furry nose against the last marking of Adrianna's snow leopard form. It was too much today. Today, he was going as far as he could and then some. Such memories hurt even the heart of his animagus form, and the lion dropped its head as it plodded on.

Soon though, Gregory came upon a strange opening that golden sunlight filtered through. It took great pushing and pulling, but finally he forced his way through the thorny thicket and wrenched his way into burning sunlight. Why, he was in a wheat field! It didn't occur to him that a field equaled civilisation. In fact, this area was not five miles from Obsidian and just behind a white picket fence separating a park and the farmer's land. The wind did not carry the smell of people to the white lion's great nose; as far as Greg knew, it was safe to frolic. So frolic he did! The five hundred pound beast leapt and pranced amongst the waving stalks of wheat, never noticing as it passed over a well worn path that cross the field and linked to another town. Greg simply bounded and rolled friskily in the dry plants. Sometimes it was better to stay in lion form where one could free your mind and forget the troubles of the human flesh.

 

[Izaak Finch]

Bondi seemed to practically thrive on Summer. It was amazing how like a duck to water, a suburban city built up on tar and bricks and inanimate right down to the very last groove in the cement could appear to lift in hand with a season. There was just something so enthralling about gazing up from the watery grasp of a perfect set to see the vicinity practically glittering with the sun’s reflection in every house window and shop front and car door. Even the scent of the tar as it melted gluggily in the heat and steamed up into your senses seemed sickly sweet in Bondi’s charm. And there was no heat stroke too big or swell too small that could ever tarnish its urban thrall, not on days like these, not for Izaak at least. Was he biased? Perhaps a little. But who could blame him really? The place was his heart and soul, his pride and joy, his home. But even Izaak Finch, when itching to break out of the restraints of his house, could not bear to stroll comfortably through an above forty degrees Celsius heat. It tested even his strong ties to his most beloved place in the world. So with a flash of longing in his rich, ocean blue eyes as he cast them out to the beach-goers braving the scorching hot sand and a blistered sunburn, Izaak huffed a heavy sigh and whisked away the perspiration on his forehead with the back of his hand. Then in a motion far too quick for the human eye to even comprehend he was gone, somewhere out across the pacific in a snap moment.

The cool nip of wind whisping up from the nearby body of water was like, well it was a breath of fresh air for the leanly built man as he reappeared some one and a half thousand miles east of his home on the very outskirts of Obsidian Harbour. The sun was still hung gloriously high in the sky, splashing his back with its ever stretching rays of gold, and there was not a cloud to be seen anywhere in the entire semi-sphere above his head. And yet it was infinitely cooler. But that was New Zealand for you, like Australia but of lesser proportions. He had teased many a Kiwi friend with this truth, even though they denied and denied it. But secretly, Izaak had always had a soft spot in his heart for this particular community. He'd never tell a soul, not his sisters or his friends or his lover but it was true. The rocky harbour shores, the local park and its spectacular water fountain, the meal upon good meal that the many taverns served up, even the standard drink that seemed to taste all the more better; it was all so familiar and so comfortable that Izaak would not think to hesitate in labelling it his home away from home. A delicious scent of a char-grilled meal taunted the young man from beneath his nostrils now as he stood on the grassy cusp of the heart of Obsidian and its neighbouring fields and in following his nose, Izaak shuffled a few steps inward. But whilst his nose was being tempted in one way, his eyes were being tempted in another. The sight laid before him was magnificent, a distinctive contrast of cornflower blue laid heavy upon a field of ochre brown, all framed neatly with a white picket fence. The young man didn't even think as he jumped the fence into a part of the vicinty he'd never ventured into before. Walk now, food later.

Before he knew it, Izaak had been walking for a good hour on a path that had obviously been taken by so many before him, with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company and only his legs to keep him busy. He thought of his fiancée, he thought of her quite a lot actually and perhaps this was where he had gotten carried away on his little adventure past the park. She was the girl that had stolen his heart of course and he wouldn't for a moment put it past her to impair his sense of time and dimension. Their future was never far from his mind and not that they had even discussed a date yet but each day come and gone was a day closer to marrying Alexis Marie Richarde. Of course it was a little unnerving and out of control to think that soon enough they'd be husband and wife but nerves did not even measure up to the love and the certainty of having themselves as just that. Izaak had been wondering flippantly about a best man, and how his best man might just very well have to be his best girl when an urgent rustle zipped straight through the stalks of wheat. Before he had even had a chance to wonder at what on earth might make such an entrance, a huge beast had pounced out barely three foot from his nose. His striking blue eyes caught only a climpse of the creature, all brute strength and muscle with a hide fawn in color and a thick mane of hair. Was that a... a... ? Now there weren't many things in life that Izaak feared, much less ran and ducked for cover from, but to be suddenly brought almost face-to-face with a lion in a place where his screams would most probably die unheard had Izaak shaking in his boots. The twenty year old stumbled backwards before freezing over with fear as another rustle scratched black and blue through his traumatised heart. Would he live to see his wedding? Would he live to see another day? So with eyes wider and more shockingly blue than ever against the white exposure of his fear, Izaak stayed glued to the spot and became deathly anxious even to take a breath.

 

[Gregory White]

Something didn't smell quite like wheat, Gregory's lion brain told him. It reminded him of when Adrianna was in human form and he felt a pang of longing for his lost mate. But no, this smell was not feminine yet most certainly human. Despite his lion self being so ridiculously large, Gregory himself was a shy person and almost instantly wary of the new smell. His rustlings stopped and all went quiet. Had there not been footsteps before? Had the human stopped moving as well? Slowly the huge white lion lowered itself in amongst the wheat and disappeared. Creep, creep. Where was the wind when he needed it ... Greg could stumbled right upon the man again without any warning and then there would be trouble, since he was too nervous to change back and too dangerous to be seen. Besides; if the man was a wizard then he might be cursed before there was a chance to reveal himself as a human and he didn't want to do that anyway until he was sure that the man was nice. So how was he to tell? The lion slithered forward to where the wheat grew sparsely and peeked out to see the human frozen to the spot. He smelt young and looked so as well, probably not much younger than Greg himself. It was time to take a chance and to do this the 'assertive' way.

Gregory took a great leap and shot out of the wheat like a cannon, aiming straight for the man's chest. His two dinner-plate sized front paws made a hearty thump into the man's chest as he pounced upon the poor bloke. Izaak was well and truly pinned under the lion's bulk. Greg's paws were trembling with nerves but he leaned in close regardless and sniffed him closer. Snuff. Snuff. Hot billowing breath hit the man's face as he was carefully inspected. Oh sh!t, thought Greg. What to do, what to do? Ahh ... "Prrr?" said the lion out loud as he tried to appear friendly. Just in case, he gave Izaak's face an enormous lick. Blech! he added inwardly. It suddenly occurred to him that it might look like he was trying to eat him. How the heck could a lion appear non-threatening? The only thing that worked in the animal world was rolling onto one's back in a gesture of meek civility. Dogs did so too when they wanted their tummy scratched ... That's it!. If the man gave him a scratch then he was kind to animals and therefore a nice person, thought Greg with childish naivety. The lion then rolled off Izaak as politely as it could manage and offered up a furry chest for a scratch. "Prr?" said the lion again.