Valiel gestured towards the food. "Please, eat till you're full. What you don't eat, I'll finish off."
An astonishing claim from a girl her size, but when you could shift to be a 15 foot bear, you tended to put away the food.
"I know that sounds like a lot, but honestly, it's just to keep up my strength. I want to make sure you get food before it's all gone."
“A… are you certain?”he asked timidly.
Phalakros didn’t really react to how much she could apparently eat. After all, his own appetite was actually quite small for an Ahkrethian. Most full-blooded Ahkrethians could eat an entire deer by themselves, if not two. And even some Strangelings could eat a whole deer on their own.
Phalakros nodded at her words, and stood to grab himself a couple legs. He then waved for her to have the rest.
“I understand well having a large appetite. Most Ahkrethians eat more than I do,”he mentioned quietly, glancing at Valiel with a shy gaze.
"I'm very certain, Phalakros." She smiled and bit into the chunk on her claw. She gestured at the food when he mentioned understanding. "Don't be shy. Eat as much as you like."
He was shy, and sweet, and her heart wanted to help him. His timidity made her feel the need to protect him.
She was glad they had run into each other.
They sat and ate for a while, before Valiel heard shouting in the woods. It was well into the dark of night, and they were far from any towns, so she had no clue who would be out now. "Do you hear that?"
He nodded, smiling back for a moment. When she gestured at the food, he politely shook his head, and tapped the legs next to him.
“These will do. I do not eat much, simply by nature,”he said, shrugging afterward.
He ate peacefully, surprising himself by how content he was next to Valiel. He almost never ate next to someone else, but Valiel seemed to genuinely care about his well-being, and she wasn’t very threatening, directly or indirectly, except in her panther form. It was quite pleasant actually.
When the shouting started, Phalakros reflexively stiffened. For a moment, he thought it was the serpents again, but they rarely shouted. When Valiel spoke, he nodded in reply, secretly relieved that he wasn’t just imagining the shouts.
After a moment of looking around, Phalakros moved forward and patted out the dying fire, unfazed by the heat. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and he looked around some more, listening carefully to their surroundings.
Valiel flinched when he put out the fire, but he didn't seem fazed, so she relaxed. The shouting was coming from off in the woods a ways. It was a man's voice, interspersed with cries from what sounded like a child or a woman, high pitched and weak. Valiel shifted to an owl and flapped up into a tree silently.
"I'm going to go check that out… sounds like someone is in trouble." She said quietly. "You coming with?"
Phalakros heard the voices, wondering who they could be. When Valiel morphed, he hesitated to move. But, he didn’t want to risk Valiel getting hurt again, so he nodded at her question and morphed, joining her in the tree. He looked around, continuing his search for signs of activity.
Something caught his eye, a flicker in the trees. Valiel saw it at the same moment and took off towards it. She landed high up in a tree, looking down over the situation.
There was a pitiful group walking through the woods. Young children, teenage girls, and women, all chained together at the rear and ankle. Many were dressed in rags, some of the girls had nothing on but a cloak, and all of them looked hungry.
The three men driving them could be more accurately described as monsters. Ogres. All of them easily 7' tall and over 400lbs, fat and slow and very strong.
One was arguing with a woman, slapping her around the head and shoulders. Her cries and his shouts were what they had heard.
Valiel looked over at Phalakros, her eyes saying everything.
I'm gonna end him.
She dived out of the tree, shifting midair from owl form to the massive reddish bear she'd been thinking of earlier. She landed like a lightning bolt on top of the ogre, only roaring when he collapsed under her weight.
The other two turned, growled, and pulled weapons.
Phalakros quickly followed Valiel, landing on a nearby branch. He did his best not to make a sound as he watched the group, though he was already shaking. His feathers became instantly ruffled at the sight of the ogres. He hadn’t really encountered one before, but he’d heard tales from Lucitius, and didn’t like any of them.
Seeing the one woman getting beaten greatly upset him, and he nearly followed Valiel down. But, a familiar rise of power stopped him. Phalakros curled up, chirping to himself. That rise didn’t go away, and tears of grey ichor were already starting to leak from his eyes.
However, the moment the other two ogres turned and brandished their weapons, Phalakros couldn’t leave Valiel to fight alone. He dove down, snapping at one ogre a few times before morphing on top of him.
Phalakros grabbed onto the ogre, imbedding his claws into the beast. Then, as if something within him had snapped loose, he abruptly went into a crazed frenzy, slashing at the ogre with abandon. One of his eyes had turned black, the other quickly turning as well, and a mixture of tar and ichor oozed from his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and claws. The mixture was steadily coating his body, and some patches of scales were slowly starting to ooze as well.
Valiel dealt a killing blow to the ogre she had landed on, squashing his head like a melon under her paw. She turned to face the other two, only for Phalakros to land on one of them, and begin slashing at it. She shifted to a huge dire wolf and lunged for the last one. He was a ways away, and had started running when she first dropped out of the tree, but this form was fast and she easily caught him. He was slow and clumsy, and it took her all of 30 seconds to tackle him and tear out his throat.
She turned back, and saw Phalakros still slashing at the ogre. His body was attempting to morph, and was oozing ichor, or whatever that stuff was. She immediately knew, whatever darkness he had feared so much, had broken loose inside of him. She quickly shifted back to her human form to try to calm him down, but getting his attention was going to be hard enough without him attacking her.
Phalakros continued to slash at the ogre until his head was nothing more than a bloody mess. Then, with claws completely coated in tar, he scooted up some of the mess and ate it, licking his claws afterward.
By the time he finished cleaning his claws, almost all of his body was slick with tar and ichor, and his other eye had fully changed. He then turned toward the captives, grinning wide to show black fangs. A gurgling laugh left him when the people scattered.
When he finally bothered to pay attention to Valiel, his laugh had died down to a simple, gruesome smile. A moment later, he teleported, appearing behind Valiel and wrapping her in a tight bear hug, sniffing her neck with great interest.
“You must have me mistaken for another, woman. Phalakros is gone. And, good riddance,”he said in a menacing, gurgling voice.
He then kissed her neck.
While Phalakros was licking his claws clean, Valiel had gone and cut the chain keeping the women and children in place. She'd had to focus her magic on it, but it had cut cleanly. The women had looked at her in fear, but she managed to convince them she wasn't going to hurt them.
About that time Phalakros turned and scattered them all. Valiel was about to try to calm him like she had before, when he grabbed her and kissed her neck.
She flinched, and white light shot from her skin in all directions, pushing at whatever foul beast had her in its embrace. The light of the white magic was bright in the darkness of the night in the forest, and anybody watching them would have been temporarily blinded by it.
Phalakros, or the thing that now was Phalakros, gave a haunting howl as the bright light hit him. He released Valiel, stumbling back with burns on his body. With a fierce growl, he formed a large ball of tar in his hands and threw it at her.
Then, he charged past her, heading for the more innocent, and more appealing, folks that Valiel had just released. He moved much faster than Phalakros normally could, and left clear footprints of fallen tar and charred dirt.
Within moments, he had already caught up to one of the fleeing women, tackling her and slashing at her face, grinning the whole time. He then spit on her, before standing and charging at another innocent victim.
Valiel snarled as she shifted to the panther, ducking under the tar projectile. She lunged after him, but the speed caught her off guard, and she wound up trailing him a bit.
She watched in horror as he attacked the poor woman, and she yowled at him, the panther scream echoing off the trees. She caught up to the woman just as he moved to attack another, and she could see the woman was already dead. Her face was slashed open, and the spit was burning her like acid, but she no longer reacted. Valiel said a split second prayer over the body, before shifting to the dire wolf from before. This form was faster, and she quickly caught up to the beast that had been Phalakros.
She leapt and tackled him just before he got to the next victim, and bit down on the back of his neck with her vice-like jaws. He tasted foul, and she wasn't sure this would even hurt him, but she knew what would.
She pushed the light out of her soul again, allowing it to envelope them both as she kept her grip with her jaws.
Phalakros howled again, this time in anger, when Valiel tackled him. He howled again when she bit him, then screamed in agony as the light came.
One of his arms reached up, bone breaking as it twisted backward in a way it wasn’t meant, and his claws dug into her side, holding on even as his body burned. He then teleported, appearing several feet away, stumbling to the ground.
“You… cannot get rid of me… as easy as you think. I am Phalakros. I am the part he fears most,”he hissed, his gurgling voice making it a bit difficult to understand him.
He then tried to crawl away, but he only got a couple feet before he flopped to the ground, groaning and growling in pain.
Valiel yelped as his claws ripped into her side. When he teleported out from under her, she dropped to the ground, her body shifting randomly to various shapes as she dealt with the pain. She finally stopped, back in her human form, and listened to what he was saying. She fully expected this dark being to be able to shake off her damage, and was surprised to see him so badly affected. She started to try to push the light again, but then something Phalakros had said to her earlier stopped her.
Calm me down…
She swallowed hard, and went through with the sudden idea. She shifted to a female of Phalakros's species, making sure she looked as familiar and non-threatening to him as possible. She limped over and around the dark being, staying out his reach, and finally knelt in front of him.
"Phalakros… I know you can hear me in there… It's going to be ok." She reassured, pushing the calm his direction with as much power as she could.
As Valiel was considering her idea, he was quickly recovering. He groaned again, rolling to his knees and exposing the extensive marks where it seemed like the tar had hardened in the shape of a burn scar. The hardened spots cracked as he moved, allowing fresh tar to cover the wounds.
When Valiel came over, he turned to glare, unaffected by her words. But, her calming magic did seem to have some kind of effect. He didn’t seem as hostile as he was only a few minutes ago.
“Phalakros does not hear you. We are separate beings, though we have the same body,”he crowed.
He then started crawling toward her, moving slowly, his black eyes inspecting her. He stopped within arm’s reach, sitting up on his knees.
“You are fascinating. How about a deal? Give me a kiss, and I will heal your wounds, all of them. Phalakros knows no healing spells, yet I do,”he purred.
Valiel closed her eyes, feeling the dark from the being wash over her. She snarled quietly.
"You would not want the kiss I would give." Her eyes opened, and they had disappeared in orbs of blinding light.
"But." Her eyes returned to normal. "If you will let Phalakros back in control of his body, I will give the kiss you're asking for." Not a deal she wanted to make, but the timid Ahkrethian was worth it to her. "No healing. Just his body back in his control."
He flinched at the light, blocking it with a hand until her eyes returned to normal. He then growled at her, and snatched her by the throat.
“That, is a deal I will never make,”he snarled.
He squeezed her throat, but paused before his grip truly tightened, a cruel thought coming to mind. He then grinned lewdly, his thumb delicately caressing her throat.
“Tell me, have you ever been with a male before?”he asked, licking his lips. A new pair of fangs had appeared on his bottom jaw.
"Tell me, have you?" She shot back, not bothering to pull away from his grip. "Because if you're offering, I'd like to know if you've had examples of what you'd be doing." Her eyes blazed again, and her skin began to heat. "Trust me, I am not the woman you would want to learn with."
He leaned forward, his face nearly touching hers, his breath stinking of tar and death.
“I have experience, woman. And, you are in the correct form,”he hissed.
He flinched at the light in her eyes again, then tightened his grip on her throat, battling pain with anger.
“Yet, you are becoming increasingly unworthy of mine attention!”he snapped, his hand tightening more.
The hiss tipped her off. He was getting annoyed, and annoyance led to mistakes in her experience.
His hand tightened, and Valiel knew she needed to figure out whether to fight him or try to fudge this.
He snapped, and she went with fight.
"You were never worthy of mine." she growled back as she shifted from the Ahkrethian form to the 15' reddish bear, towering over him. She snarled and slapped him across the face with a paw the size of a small boulder, and reached for the light again, letting it stream from her eyes and her jaws.
He snarled at her words, then grunted in mild surprise when she morphed. Her slap threw him hard to the ground and he groaned, momentarily stunned.
He yelped as she let loose her light, gaining a few more burns before he could escape. Teleporting away, he appeared in a tree nearby, the tar in his hands quickly growing into thick balls. He then threw the two balls at her, both exploding into a scorching hot, gooey mess.
Valiel saw the tar coming and managed to evade one of them, shifting to the panther form to climb the tree behind him.
The second one hit her square in the flank, burning her badly. She yowled and shifted again, becoming a cobra and whizzing along the ground towards the tree. Her scales nullified a lot of the heat, so she began spiraling up the trunk towards him like a bolt of coiled lightning, her fangs dripping venom.
He burst into gurgling laughter when the tar ball hit her. He wasn’t even disappointed about the miss. He then giggled as she became a cobra and rushed toward him.
“Come! Come! Kill your companion!”he sang with glee.
A moment later, he spat on the tree branch he was perched on, leaving a sizzling patch that was steadily eating through the branch. He didn’t seem concerned at all by the likelihood of falling.
Valiel focused and launched herself off the trunk at him, shifting to a massive harpy eagle as she did. She dug her talons into his shoulder as she went past, lifting him off the branch and into the direct moonlight. In the forest, the light was dim, but up here, above the tree cover, it was a bright night. She made sure to keep flapping higher, into the clear air, exposing him to more and more light.