[Wolfie_Barrow]

"Aw! I want a sword!" Wolfie whined playfully.

"You're already a were," Zur said. "What more do you need?"

"I was just kidding! Sheesh, Zur, you really need to lighten up. Oh, Kaj, I brought you a book to munch on." Wolfie reached into a bag that seemed to appear at her side. It was green, and covered in buttons. One of them said, "It's like a really big SciFi sandwich". Another said, "I smell strange things afoot." Wolfie pulled out a medium sized book, called Feed (ironic, isn't it?). Even though he had just eaten, Kaj Kat still scrambled to grab a hold of it, sinking his teeth in as soon as he could.

"You're so weird!" Dunnie said, scrunching her nose up in mock disgust. Wolfie patted her on the head, and she smiled, already completely forgotten about Kaj.

Meep jumped from his spot on Wolfie's shoulder and landed on the ground with a very faint thump that could only be heard by a field mouse a few feet away. He bounced over to where Indigo stood.

[Indigo]

(Yes, let's insert as many reminders of books we need to read as possible. XD)

Indigo reached down to pick up the Angst Ball, but decided against it. It looked pointy. "I could get you a sword. I know a good blacksmith in Vandermeer."

"What's Vandermeer?" asked Mintri. She was disappointed. No one in any book she'd ever read carried an umbrella. This was soon to be remedied--Indigo spent her free time writing.

"You know. Vandermeer. The country I created? Continent shaped like a piece of toast?" Indigo sighed. To Wolfie, she said, "It's so hard to finish good books these days." She pulled out her umbrella and planted the tip in the ground, leaning casually on it. "So, welcome to Evelon, glad you could make it, etc, etc. Good to see you're settling in well." She gestured to the small menagerie. "Did you bring everyone? That's not considered good form, you know. It gets confusing."

"And you would know sho much about it, would you?" Kartossa asked sarcastically. "For an ekshplorer, you don't get out much."

"A situation I plan to remedy." Indigo flipped the umbrella back into her belt.

"Hello? Anyone? I can't get down on my own, you know..."

{19-19}

[Wolfie_Barrow]

"I left my sprites at the cave, and not everyone was up to coming-"

"Because they were too lazy," Zur said, interrupting Wolfie.

"-so I just brought these guys. And I think I'll just stick with what I've got," she reacher into a small sheath on the side of her Celtic knotwork leather belt and pulled out a dagger that seemed to be made out of bone and sharpened very carefully. "Thanks for the offering, though."

She smiled, and put the knife back in it's place.

[8,8,7,3]

[Indigo]

"Well, if you change your mind, let me know." Indigo looked up. "It's raining."

"Really." Mintri may not have been good at social things, but she knew a lot about sarcasm. Or maybe she was quoting again. "By the way, you can have your book back. I finished it." She held it out.

Indigo tucked the book into a messenger bag that no one had noticed before. She was still staring upward. "Ah. That should work." She pulled out some matches and lit the fuse on a small box, which began to smoke. Then she tossed it up into the air.

It was swallowed by something large and black, with lots of teeth. "Ready to go already?" it asked, sounding surprised.

"No. I just felt like bugging you." The dragon rolled his eyes and flew away again. Indigo grinned. "It's so much fun. Almost as fun as climbing in windows at five in the morning. Uh...yeah."

"Can anyone hear me? Hello! I'd like to get down before it gets dark, please!"

{20-20}

[Wolfie_Barrow]

Wolfie grinned. "Awesome."

"Hey..." Kaj Kat said. "I, uh... I'm full now..." He yawned. "Can we... uh... go home?"

Wolfie turned to Zur. "Will you take him home?"

"But then how will you get home? I doubt Dunnie will remember the way and I don't trust your sense of direction!" Zur protested. He wasn't going to budge without reassurance.

"Send Scarlet or Kira. They're cats. They'll find the way." Wolfie shrugged as if it was very simple.

Zur hesitated before sighing and saying, "Alright. I'll send Kira."

"Thanks, Zur."

"Whatever."

[9,9,8,4]

[Indigo]

Kartossa poked Mintri. "You ought to get home, too. All your booksh are there." Her glasses slipped down her nose, and she quickly fixed them. Mintri nodded and walked off without a word. Indigo stared after her. "How'd you do that?"

"No idea. Who's that?" Kartossa pointed at something black and white. It was approaching slowly and rolling something blue in front of it as it walked.

Indigo sighed. "Sildry got out again."

The escaped Ursice sat down in the mud with a ploop. "Am here," she said brightly, smiling up at Indigo. "Tall." She pointed at Indigo. "Wuff." She pointed at Wolfie. "Like wuffs. Wuffs ni-sssse." She rolled her fruit around in a circle.

Indigo poked at Sildry. "Come on, Sildry, time to go home. We're meeting new people here."

"Like new people," Sildry said stubbornly, focusing on the fruit. "Want stay. Sides, I's fruitness wented. Not here." She looked up at Kartossa. "Come find it. Me not finding I's fruitness. Not go till fruitness come."

"I'm sorry about this," Kartossa said. She scooped up the babbling Ursice and flew off in the direction that Mintri had come from. Indigo threw up her hands.

"This is worse than the night-climbing. Kambret needs to keep track of his minis." She sat down on a suddenly dry rock.

"He-llo? Anyone? Please? I'm kinda stuck up here!"

{21-21}

[Mintri and Kartossa are out. *rummages in pen*]

[Wolfie_Barrow]

"Huh. I wonder where Kira is. Dunnie, d'you think you can go find her?" Wolfie hadn't seemed to have paid any attention to Zur before he left.

"Sure thing, Wolfie!"Dunnie bounded off, a streak of bright colors in the otherwise darkening day.

"Where's Dunnie going?" came a very small and barely audible voice.

"Oh, she's off to find Kira, who was supposed to be here by now..." Wolfie stuck out her hand and the tiny Shii shuffled onto it. "How are you, Mu?"

"Doing great, Woofie." Mu couldn't say her l's very clearly.

"That's good, Mu."

[9,5,1]

[Indigo]

Indigo sighed. "I'm almost lonely now. I wonder where Lysander got to...?" She looked up. "Oh." She braced one foot against the trunk and then scrambled up the tree like a squirrel to perch next to Lysander. "Easy as climbing walls."

"That's not how the expression goes," Lysander mumbled. "At least try to get it right."

"Climbing walls is easy," Indigo argued. "You just have to know where to put your fingers."

There was the sound of approaching footsteps. "Busy in here today," Lysander commented. He scrabbled to get a grip on the tree, then eased himself down to the ground. "And it's getting dark."

"I can fix that." Indigo snapped open her umbrella, revealing an approaching Battlefield Tali.

"Mintri mentioned a canis sapiens, or homo lupus, in the area," he called up to Indigo. "I thought it would be a good idea to see if it was true." Seeing Lysander's puzzled look, he added, "That's a werewolf, or a werehuman. It depends largely on environmental factors relating to the division of species in wolf and human, which is undefined in the eventuality of..."

Indigo shook her head. "Sorry about this," she said to Wolfie. "WW2 is kind of excessively scientific."

{1}

[Wolfie_Barrow]

"It's ok."

"Wolfiiiiiiieeeee!!!!!" A Wood Rexxel jumped out from behind a bush and began prancing around strutting as if she owned everyone standing before her.

"Hola, Kira, what took you so long?" Wolfie plopped down on the ground, pulling her knees up to her shoulders and unconsciously playing with the dirt on either side of her.

"Moon wanted to come, but he wouldn't hurry up!" she pouted and stamped a paw on the ground.

"Alright, BloodMoon, you can come out of the shadows now." A dark red face poked out from behind a thick tree. "Hey did you guys see Dunnie on your way here?"

"Nooooo..." Moon said, stepping farther away from the tree. "Why?"

"Uh oh," Wolfie said. "She's probably lost. We should go look for her. You wanna come, Indigo?"

[6,2,1,1]

[Indigo]

"Sure." Indigo jumped down from the tree. She glanced uncertainly at WW2. "Just a minute." She rummaged in her bag until she found a leather collar and a fairly thick chain. The chain was linked to the collar, which snapped neatly around the monologuing Tali's neck.

"...symbiosis. This symbiosis would be achieved in the most mundane of ways," WW2 continued, "such as a simple bite. It can also be caused through sheer magical ability pertaining to, and therefore in direct relation with, the place of birth. This should make sense to any mundane..." He trailed off in the face of Lysander's glare. "In layman's terms, the werewolf is a human that can become a wolf at will, and the werehuman is an uncontrolled change to human in normal wolves by the full moon. The subspecies canis sapiens casus is a human which turns into a wolf involuntarily during the full moon."

Lysander continued glaring for a moment. "If I had hands, I would hit you." Then he turned away.

"Lys, that's not nice," murmured Indigo, fiddling with her bag.

"He called me a mundane!" Lysander protested. "You heard him!"

"Yeah, yeah." Indigo seemed unconcerned. She pulled out a flare gun, fired one flare straight up, and put it back in her bag. "Which way do we go?"

{2}

[Wolfie_Barrow]

"Er..." Wolfie looked around blankly for a minute before seeming to dawn a lightbulb and saying, "Oh, yeah, she went this way." She hurried off in the opposite direction, not bothering to make sure that Indigo was following her. Coming to a complete stop just a few feet into the thick forest, she sniffed the air, and then turned left. Meep snagged onto her jeans and climbed up to sit on her shoulder; Mu merely drifted to the other one. Kira and Moon trailed behind, chatting to each other in a gossipy kind of way.

[7,3,2,2]

[Indigo]

Indigo followed Wolfie as silently as possible, out of habit. She really didn't spend as much time here as she should. She just left it to her pets to manage things. WW2 was dragged along behind her, and as he ran to keep up he launched into a detailed analysis of his speed and drag. Lysander silenced him with a glance.

About a mile above the swamp, just below the rainclouds, a large black dragon spotted the flare. He counted to five, then tested an air current. He began to follow Indigo.

Lysander had been right; it was beginning to get dark. Indigo considered drawing her umbrella, but it was still light enough to see.

{3}

[Wolfie_Barrow]

It was becoming too dark for Wolfie's less-than-perfect eyes to see. She stopped abruptly, squinting around at the shapes that were beginning to blur. She never liked to admit it, but she was slightly near-sighted, and it got the best of her at dusk. She would have to shift, but how would Indigo react? How would any of Indigo's pets react?

Figuring that the only way to find out was to just do it, she crouched down and, placing one hand on the ground and the other on the back of her neck, she began to chant in her head, Scarlet, Scarlet, Scarlet... She heard a faint snarl push it's way through her lips without her consent.

And then she began to change.

Opening her eyes, which had changed from an odd color of blue to a bright, golden brown, she looked down at her hands- which had changed almost instantly into white, furry paws. She looked around- everything was much, much clearer.

Sniffing the air again, she once again took off at a fast run.

[Indigo]

Indigo paused, watching as Wolfie changed. Hmm...interesting. She had nothing against werewolves or anything of that nature, but she'd never seen one change before. She really ought to introduce werebeings to Vandermeer; it would make things that much easier...never mind. That wasn't important now.

WW2, of course, barely even seemed to notice. He had already established the existence of a werewolf in his mind, and it didn't really matter whether or not he had proof. Lysander was also unperturbed, having met a few werewolves in one of the various worlds they'd traveled to. However, he still pulled back to talk to Indigo.

"I can't see in the dark," he complained. "Do something."

Indigo sighed fairly loudly and went to grab her umbrella, but stopped. An umbrella would only be in the way. She did some random finger-wiggling and several small balls of blue light began to circle Lysander. She didn't need them; excellent night vision was one of the benefits of all the weird things she'd done at night.

The dragon hesitated. He couldn't tell if they'd stopped or not. Then a faint blue glow began to pulse under the trees, moving steadily forward. He smiled; Lysander would complain about the dark. He flew lower now to keep track of the blue light.

{4}

[Wolfie_Barrow]

Wolfie stopped, sensing a warm presence nearby. It wasn't familiar, but perhaps whatever it was could aid her in her search for the foolish Fenling. Sniffing the air once, the darted in the direction of the warm feeling that could only be body heat. After a few feet, she caught the scent and recognized it as being the smell of a small mammal, probably a squirrel or rabbit. She chased the smell, and a few moments later, she came across a hole in the ground. She pawed at it, until it was big enough so that she could stick her head in. The occupant stared at her and flattened itself against the side of it's home, trying it's hardest to get as far away from her as possible.

Have you seen a brightly colored Fenling come through this area any time in the past hour or so? I can't find her.

The bunny sniffed at her and then, deciding she was harmless, answered in a very annoyed tone.

Yeah. Almost stepped on me. Not a very wise creature. It went east.

Thank you.

Sure whatever.

Wolfie stepped away from the rabbit hole and took a step to the east. She sniffed the air and, sure enough, she caught a familiar scent. She chased after it, the smell getting stronger... and stronger...

[9,5,4,4]