Denouement [Eoin]

[Laute]

A chef? It disappointed him. An ordinary profession, for an ordinary man, and yet they still wanted him, those creatures. He couldn't understand the appeal. The man's eyes glazed over as he spoke, his words slurring and within moments stopped altogether.

As the man passed out on the cot once more, Laute snorted. Useless. Still, it was an opportunity to glean information. While the man was unconscious, Laute examined him. Leaning down, he sniffed his skin, free from the scent of fear and death that had clung to it earlier. A faint smell lay there instead, his own personal scent, and beyond that, nothing. When poked, his body, as suspected, was weak and soft. Barely any muscle lay there, most of it in the arms.

It was as he was prodding when the man woke up.

Or not entirely the man. He shifted before Laute's eyes, his voicing taking on a higher pitch, his hair growing longer. Berating him, yelling at him, he was a woman in an instant.

An angry woman who wouldn't stop screaming and blaming Laute.

He snarled in response, baring his canines as he did so. His right arm curved out, ready to fight if necessary, when she started crying all of a sudden. Tears streamed down her face and Laute paused, nonplussed.

The odor of Iron filled the air and as a clear droplet turned red, he understood why. But only one teardrop of blood came, and the smell was too strong for something like that. And the woman, the woman was changing once more, flickering between shapes. A man, a woman, her form was unstable as she screeched.

The sound was unbearable. Before he could shut the man up, he started retching on the floor and Laute quickly stepped back from the mess.

This must be why those creatures wanted him. This strange...skill, Laute didn't know what to call it. The only shapeshifters he met were Kelvics and Dhani's, and this fit neither of those races.

It transformed once again. Hair grew, shrank, lightened, darkened. Limbs elongated before shortening once more.

A grotesque monster. (S)he wavered between crying and yelling, and though he should have remained angry, he was more curious than anything. Was the woman yelling at him, or at the man?

He couldn't tell. Fixated, he watched, even as the dark vapours escaped the human's shell. The light grew dim and it was only when the substance started to stain his fur, sticking like honey, that he realized how dangerous it had become.

He couldn't see very well. Clawing the air, he stepped back, trying to reach the roof or the walls of the small hut. He should have touched one now. Should have hit something. Even the floor seemed hazy in the thick of this smog.

His eyes weren't working, his ears useless. Only his nose could sense something in this void. One scent remained clear, the herbs, the leather, and the the fur.

The scent of those creatures. Instinct told him to back away, to take the other direction, but the fur was not wet, and the leather was mixed with ink. And in this abyss, it was the only thing he could make out.

He had no choice. Resenting it, Laute made his way to the aroma, coughing as he did. A second skin of tar stuck to his lungs and he couldn't break it loose.

Just as he reached the source, a sharp sound filled the air. Clanging like a bell, it tolled thrice before ending entirely.

And then the darkness engulfed the room.