dazlious | Call me animal.

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Call me animal.

WHO: Heather Mason and Maurice Hutch (OC)
WHERE: Dogtrot, Texas
WHEN: Just easing into spring.
WHAT: What probably would have been a night spent loitering around the drug store and breaking bottles in the alley like generic malcontent youths takes several unexpected turns when a vampire hunter interrupts Maurice while waiting for his friend from up north.
RATING: Probably PG. CW for violence, mild body horror and transformation.

awsum ill be outside where the rentareel used to be

Maurice had put out the call and now he was in his place, hands in his coat pockets. He hadn't seen his friend for a while now. One thing or another would come up (said things including worrying mothers, various injuries, and plain bad weather) and now that at least the weather had calmed its bad self down, the world was ready to be trampled again.

And what a night for it! It was clear with chilly breezes sneaking around buildings and down alleyways. An orange moon hung low on the horizon and kept the clouds far on the edges of the horizon. It wouldn't rain for two more days. Spring was coming. The tiny green shoots had just barely started poking out of the ground where there was enough actual soil instead of the red clay of Dogtrot. Crispy dead leaves still hung in the corners where the buildings met the sidewalk. Easter candy all but overflowed on super market shelves.

The vampire thought of all the things they would do once Heather got there. They could graffiti the old building marked to be torn down the following week since it was technically not illegal anymore. They could eat pizza at Tod's until they were sick. And DRANKS. And Sega. If Meranda hadn't taken over the sofa for the night. An outlet in her room had blown (or so she said) so she spent a lot of time on the sofa during her WoW raids.

Something interrupted his thoughts. He had lived in Dogtrot for years now and not a lot surprised him. He knew the local vampires, he even knew a local spook or two. He knew the drug addicts and the few homeless and what they sounded like. What he heard on that empty chilly street was none of those things.

"Quack quack!" It was mechanical. Grainy.

Maurice lifted a brow and tugged his phone out wondering if Meranda had passive-aggressively changed the ring on it again.

"Quack quack!"

"The hell...?" It wasn't his phone. Maurice pocketed it and looked all around. The quack came from an alley across the street between a now defunct QUICK CASH and what was going to be a shiny new laundromat. Maurice looked both ways and ventured forward into the gloom.

The garbage can at the end of the alley quacked. Maurice screwed up his face in thought. Broken toy that suddenly came back to life? Stranded cyborge duck?

Up above on the rooftop, a long and lean and very crafty hunter was watching his prey fall for his trap hook, line, and sinker. His father had been a hunter--a normal hunter. Deer, ducks, rams. He had watched him make odd noises to get the attention of the deer. A whistle or a click to make them stop in just the right place. Sometimes to even lure them in.

Humans were the most curious animals that he knew of and though the thing in the alleyway wasn't human (not in the slightest) he had to watch it in fascination and amusement before he made his move.

Maurice peered into the trash. There was an old Talkboy straight from the eighties in the trash quacking away.

"Oh, man, sweet!" It was all his! He reached for it. Something dressed in full army camo descended upon him and drove a thin knife into his shoulder. Maurice screamed like a wildcat and the fight began.

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"Well, if you hadn't turned the lights out on me, I wouldn'tve had to resort to this."

That didn't explain why she didn't turn BACK, but the truth was, she was a little scared her jeans had ripped a little too much in the wrong places and turning back might mean being in the middle of the woods in a bunch of shredded clothing. Next to a haunted pond.

Not Heather's idea of fun.

She lifted the sandwich to her beak, but hesitated. She'd munched on things in this form before, but nothing that ever really required biting chunks out of it.

"Well if you had minded your own BUSINESS and left things well enough alone I wouldn'ta had ta turn out the lights!" Maurice barked back.

He wasn't truly angry but it made him feel brave to sass something that could fit his entire upper torso in its mouth.

"Well if YOU hadn't gotten so worked up over a pile of shoes in the woods, I wouldn'tve been so interested!"

SO THERE, MAURICE.

She gave up wondering and made a first attempt at sinking her beak into the sandwich. ... Beaks were not built for sandwich-eating.

Maurice jutted his jaw out but his grouchy expression soon dissolved because the image of Heather biting into that sandwich like it was a cheez-it was too funny. A jagged grin crawled across his face and the vampire started to snort. He tried to make it look like he was coughing.

The spiky feathers on the back of her neck bristled slightly. But she didn't say anything. If she opened her beak, the food would just fall right out of it. And then he'd laugh even more.

So she just flicked her eyes over to him as she tilted her head back, trying to get the lump of sandwich into a position where she could actually maneuver it towards her gullet.

Tears started to prickle at the corners of his eyes. He fake-coughed louder but the coughs were turning into yips of laughter. Then he stopped caring and slowly slumped over his packpack hee-hawing at his friend trying to eat a damn sandwich.

Heather lifted a monstrous paw and gave the most impressive middle-finger she'd ever displayed to anyone. Bigger was better.

"Shh'dup."

Finally tossing it into position, she gulped hard. Chewing wasn't really an option-- the sandwich went down whole.

In the shadow of the most colossal bird to ever be flipped Maurice burst out laughing and fell to his side holding his stomach. She was so mad.

"Please don't choke! I'm not big enough to give you the Heimlich!"

Her shaggy throat bobbed as she swallowed, glaring at Maurice the whole time.

Then she said, thickly, "You're gonna need the Heimlich in a moment, buster."

"No-ho I'm not because I can chew!"

PLONK!

That's the sound an entire fishing rod makes when it's jerked into a pond-Heather's pole to be exact. The surface rippled where it went down and a dark shape sank down into the depths.

"Yes you are, because I'm gonna shove that sandwich down your--"

And then came the splash.

Eyes widening to circles, Heather's head whipped around fast enough that a human's neck would have snapped had it attempted the same thing.

She stared at the spot where the fishing rod had been for a second or two, bristly neck feathers standing straight up, before figuring out what had happened.

Letting out a harsh squawk of indignant surprise, she leaped upright and hurried over to the spot.

"HEY!!"

Maurice was still laughing when she turned away from him. When he didn't get buffeted with a giant claw hand he leaned up and noticed that she had tensed. He followed her with his eyes to where she stalk-jogged and noticed that her pole was gone.

"Dadgumit." That was one of the poles he'd brought home from Tworock! He leaned up, briefly caught his foot on the skeleton of the lawn chair he'd busted through earlier and walked up beside Heather.

"Well...I can see if I can find a long stick and dig it out of there."

"What the hell! It took the whole THING? What?"

She stalked back and forth a few feet at the water's edge before stopping and staring at the ripples where it had gone in.

"Dammit!"

Either deaf to or ignoring Maurice's suggestion, she lifted one foot and put it in the water, resulting in a low hiss of steam.

Maurice tensed up and reached out but caught himself. At the hissing and steam he clenched his teeth. What if his friend went out like a candle! But-- she didn't seem to be screeching or writhing in pain.

"Heather be-- be careful! There could be snakes!"

"I dare a fuckin' snake to mess with me."

The pointless bravado wasn't entirely stupid-- just ignorant. Poisonous snakes weren't really a thing up north.

But ignorant or not, she was determined.

And when she failed to like... evaporate, she took another step. The water hissed again, but didn't bubble or boil. However much heat was radiating off of Heather's strange new body, it didn't seem to be enough to do much other than make a noise like when you stick a hot frying pan under a faucet.

Maurice worried with a twig that he'd snatched from the bank. He eyed the murky water but decided that she was right. What was a snake going to do to Heather? If it sank its teeth into her it might just burn up. Or perhaps she would poison it back.

"Well o-okay..."

In the sooty blackening water something moved against the birdmonster's feet and slithered deeper into the center of the pond.

"If you can't find it you can use mine..."

The spiky hair-feathers on Heather's neck stood up again as she felt something brush against her feet, which were seemingly hypersensitive to creepy-crawly sensations once they were hidden from view under murky waters, scaled though they were.

"No, I'm getting it-- ah!"

Baring her teeth, she leaned forward to plunge her enormous hands into the water, trying to grab for what was slithering past.

Shining in the moonlight, barbs broke the surface of the water and they belonged to something that was bigger than any pond fish had a right to be. If Heather's big meaty claws had sensation in them they would feel slick skin writhe between them. Whatever it was was strong.

A hesitant "Did you find it?" came form the shore.

When the glimmering spines rose above the water, Heather froze.

Despite her size, despite her power, despite the fact that this body was radically different than the hapless girl who'd once been dragged into a moat of sewer water and ripped to shreds, she froze.

Giant, slimy things in murky water had killed her once.

Why had she thought this was a good idea again?

But all misgivings aside, the only answer Maurice got was a growl. Because Heather's ego would not abide turning back now. She grabbed for it again, wings unfurling to make herself even bigger.

Something else broke the surface of the water this time.

It was Heather's fishing pole and the creature that had hold of it brought it across her big ugly bird face as if it were a lion tamer's whip. A loud hiss followed.

The mudmaid was a long, glistening creature all catfish spines and wet grey skin. Her hair was pondgrass and her four eyes were murky and brown--narrowed at the abomination that hold of her. This monster did not belong in the wood!

"BE GONE!" It was an ugly, guttural sound.

Maurice, back on the bank, let out a loud squawk of surprise. WAS IT THE HOOKER!?

"Heather!"

The rod let out an audible whipcrack as it struck Heather's beak, and she recoiled in surprise more than pain, splashing clumsily in the water as she stumbled a few steps backwards.

She didn't let go of the creature's shiny tail, though-- but judging by the perfect, baffled circles that her glowing eyes had become as the stared at the mudmaid, this was less out of tenacity and more that she might have forgotten she was holding onto something in the first place.

Such a comical dumbfounded look didn't seem like it belonged on the face of a creature like her, but there it was, and she did nothing but gape for a few seconds.

When her voice returned, she put it to use immediately, saying exactly what you'd think a giant demonic bird in a situation like this would.

"Ohmygod. MAURICE, COME QUICK!! I FOUND THE HOOKER!"

Maurice loped around the side of the pond to get a better look at what his friend was fighting with. The mudmaid came into sight just in time for him to see her try and land another blow against Heather's face.

And then she said that.

"HEATHER, LET HER GO! YOU CAN'T JUST GRAB HOOKERS LIKE THAT! THEY'RE PEOPLE WITH JOBS!"

Now that Maurice could see the creature it looked like no ghost he'd ever seen. Then it became obvious that it was not, in fact, the hooker's ghost. It was the mermaid he thought he'd dreamed up and that meant that they were both in trouble. He quickly clapped his hands over his ears.

"Heather, let her go, oh my God!"

The only thing the mudmaid had to say to all of this was another loud, indignant hiss.

Probably too late, Heather dropped the giant fish tail into the water with a splash.

She still looked utterly gobsmacked more than scared or angry-- this time her head bobbed backwards to avoid the blow, still with those comically-round eyes.

"She has my rod though!"

Mud and water flew as the mudmaid's tail hit the water. She writhed away but did not retreat. Rising like a great snake, clasping the rod in her sticky, three-fingered hands, she opened her mouth.

Instead of a horrible hiss, this time an oddly beautiful sound came out. It was trilling and mournful and alluring at the same time.

Maurice, even with his hands over his ears, found his shoulders going slack. He wanted...to walk out into the water. To go to her.

At last, Heather's lamplike eyes squinted. The deep melodic sound washed over her like a wave, making the earlike tufts of feathers on her head splay out. If her beak were still a nose, it would have wrinkled.

She was still somewhat baffled, but there was something deep down in her that knew what that sound was. And what the creature was trying to do. And the mostly-ambivalent flabbergasted surprise was replaced by a flare of indignant anger.

How dare this creature try to pull its tricks.

"Wh-- ... hey, shut up!"

SHUT UP GHOST HOOKER.

"That's MINE! Give it back."

She didn't see Maurice.

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