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park-ranger-is-my-comfort-animal · 8 months

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A Little Off (The Grid) || Jerry, Parker

TIMING: Mid-August (The Day After The Persistent Edge) LOCATION: The Pines, near Jerry's cabin PARTIES: Jerry (@park-ranger-is-my-comfort-animal and Parker (@wonder-in-wings SUMMARY: While aimlessly wandering in the woods, Parker gets a little too close to Jerry's unfinished cabin and the latter confronts him. Then he offers him a beer and a place to hang out while it rains. CONTENT WARNINGS: None

The shower of tiny water droplets caught the sunlight and sparkled like airborne diamonds as Jerry flicked his head back out of the plastic bowser he’d just submerged it in. The captured rainwater had a welcome and invigorating coldness to it after a hard morning spent working on the lodge had left him feeling hot, grubby and tired.

Stripped to the waist, his broad chest and rounded belly were streaked with dirt and sawdust from the labour, but everything was coming together. Jerry looked at the part-built log cabin and smiled broadly to himself, his eyes brimming with pride. Alex would probably expect a housewarming party or some such when all was done, but he really just wanted to enjoy the space on his own for a while. Off-grid, alone, disconnected from the modern world and built at the edge of The Pines between civilization and the wilds of the forest, it felt more like a reflection of Jerry's Self than any other place where he'd tried to put down roots.

Another couple of months of hard work and she'd be finished, a place of his own to finally call 'Home'.

Water continued to drip from his unkempt beard onto the mat of brown & white hair that covered his chest and belly as he crouched to pull a beer from the cooler. His tool belt clattered at the motion and a sudden breeze made Jerry shiver. Lifting his head, he sniffed at the air.

"Smells like'a storm coming," Jerry muttered to himself, twisting the cap from his beer bottle. "Prob'ly best t'call it for today, I reckon."

But there was something else under the scent of pre-rainfall; the all-too-human mélange of body odour, digesting food and day-old cologne. It was a smell that made his nostrils itch.

Jerry shook the water from himself and took a long swallow of beer as he watched a figure break through the tree line. Tall and lean, like a welterweight boxer, dressed in a henley shirt and denim.

"HEY!," the Park Ranger bellowed, grabbing his discarded plaid shirt from a pile of pre-sawn timber as he passed. " 'Don't know where y'all think ya headed, but th'quickest way is back up th' way ya came. This here's private property."

—

Day 11.

The more the days progressed, the more Parker realized how often he had swallowed the disdain he held for a lot of things, letting them slide off his back because ultimately it wasn’t worth the effort of protest; he didn’t like the way something tasted. He thought someone was laughing too loudly and their laugh was annoying so if they were going to laugh loudly, it should be nicer to hear. The light took too long for him and seemed to let other rotations go twice as quickly for longer.

He couldn’t stand to be around any of them today. Parker still hadn’t gone back to work yet and the sensation sent shivers of discomfort and… what did his brother call it when they were younger and Parker always had the feeling of eyes on him. The word “paranoia” was certainly in the Warden’s vocabulary but not once had he ever applied it to himself. There were a great many words like that in his databanks that he never used on himself. He wasn’t any of those things that other people called him; he hated labels, descriptors that he didn’t carefully craft and curate himself. …He missed having control. No, he had control. This was him having control. He chose where he was today after having other people tell him where to go and what to do since they were all experts on things. Parker often found it fascinating how people whose lives were in shambles somehow had the audacity to give others advice. Though the hunter radiated these amplified emotions that weren’t his, he still valued his abilities of observation and somehow knowing these things while being told in a voice molded with a fake smile just incensed him. He had control. So when Parker, who was minding his own business in the Pines, saw an unfinished cabin and his curiosity took hold on him and caused him to carefully emerge from the treeline only to be barked at to leave, of course he felt a ripple of elevated irritation. Simultaneously, his blue eyes snapped to the source of the command, a burly, shirtless man with facial hair and a walk that held purpose. The Warden resisted the urge to either turn and storm off to avoid an altercation or wordlessly rush the stranger, instead pausing where he was and clenching and unclenching a fist in the soothing gesture he first tried a few days ago. Breathe deeply. In. Out. What was the first thought that Parker would’ve had if he wasn’t like this? “...Is this your creation?” He asked, keeping the stranger in his peripheral vision as he now observed the cabin.

—

As Jerry got closer, he could make out the scar that ran down the side of the man's face. It had the shiny pink quality of a new wound freshly healed and resembled a tear's path carved into his skin in the way it extended from under his eye and down along his cheek.

The man's agitation was obvious. The way this stranger flexed his hand compulsively and didn't meet Jerry's eyes could be signs of other things, but there was also a smell about him; not fear exactly, but vaguely within a similar spectrum. Anxiety maybe? Panic? Whatever it was it didn't match the calm voice which asked the question and that just served to put the Park Ranger even more on his guard.

"Yeah, tha's my place..," Jerry answered, stopping short of where the man stood. Better to give himself some space to react, just in case. "...But she ain' fit for visitors jus' yet."

Keeping the loose shirt in his hand, Jerry weighed up his options. He didn't trust anything human-shaped that just happened to stumble out of the woods, but he could just as easily be wrong and if that turned out to be the case, well then Jerry would apologise to the fella and offer him a beer - but his mother had always told him that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Jerry could feel the reassuring weight of the ballpane hammer knocking against his thigh from where it hung on his tool belt and there was a lockbox back in the cabin with his revolver safely inside. He'd rather not shift while out in the open, but throwing his shirt at the stranger might buy him a second or two to make that decision. He'd have to concentrate to summon illusions, and didn't trust that there would be enough time.

"You interested in off-grid livin'?," Jerry asked, trying to make his tone more relaxed while he measured up this man and his intentions, innocent or not.

—

While Parker always anticipated being attacked apropos of nothing nowadays, the past couple of weeks giving him a rather perpetual nervous edge to his gait, movement and body language, surprisingly enough he wasn’t ignored and subsequently punched in the face by the burly stranger. And when he wasn’t, the Warden found himself frustrated, again, as usual, about why he assumed that nowadays everyone would attack him apropos of nothing. It was cyclical, an ouroboros of a feedback loop with every single thought, every single strange emotion that didn’t belong to him. The stranger with the unfinished cabin answered him easily enough and Parker gave a small nod of affirmation that he was listening even though he kept his steely blue eyes on the building, dancing over its features, admiring the beauty of the creation from afar. “I used to.” He replied before tearing his gaze off of the structure and regarding the other man. “Live off the grid. When I was a child.” He explained with a somewhat stilted cadence and an implication that not all the thoughts had arrived at the same moment. “I didn’t know you were here.” He added after a pause between the two men. “I just… saw the house and was curious.” Not dishonest. Parker was rarely dishonest, for what it was worth. Not that it was worth a lot, apparently, considering how people got mad if he was honest and mad if he lied.

—

There was something in the way in which this uninvited visitor spoke that gave Jerry pause. He had a very direct turn of phrase, precise even, which offered little room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation. The stranger’s gaze moved everywhere, seemingly taking in everything around him, but rarely settled on Jerry himself. It was almost as if acknowledging Jerry with eye contact wasn’t something that the man was inherently comfortable with.

As Jerry’s brain slowly sorted through his initial impressions of the trespasser, added these new observations and made its own connections, the big man physically relaxed. Jerry had been a Park Ranger for a long time and had been involved in leading trail groups and presenting conservation programs to all kinds of schools & organisations over the years. He’d seen more than his fair share of unruly kids, elderly curmudgeons and entitled Out-of-Town-ers, but he’d also met with those whose curiosity about nature had been borne from viewing the world in a way that was free from the preconceptions of (so-called) normal society.

Humans used terms like ‘Special’, ‘Autistic’ or ‘ND’ as if they really wanted them to be insulting or deeming labels, and people like that just made Jerry thankful that he wasn’t human.

“Well now, I’d be real interested in hearin’ all about that,” Jerry said, finally slipping his arms into the shirt and running fingers through his damp hair. “Look, I’m sorry for goin’ off at ya like that, in my experience not everythin’ tha’ stumbles outta these woods is lookin’ t’be friendly.”

“Say, d’ya fancy a beer?,” The Park Ranger asked, smoothing down his moustache and offering his visitor a disarming smile. “Then maybe I can give ya a lift back inta town, or wherever y’all coming from?”

—

It wasn’t until the burly stranger expressed interest in whatever Parker had said that the latter’s sharp gaze snapped to the other man. Though the eyes were icy, the expression somehow wasn’t as the Warden took a few moments as though trying to figure out if the man was serious. People didn’t… People weren’t interested in aspects about him. That was something he long since grew accustomed to, especially when he broke unspoken rules, stepped over a line he didn’t know was there until after the fact. Then an apology accompanied with another sentiment Parker understood. Granted, he didn’t fear anything in the woods - as far as he was concerned, he was the apex predator - but the longer he stood there, the more his mind acknowledged that it could’ve been considered ‘strange’ that he just showed up out of nowhere. ‘Whoa! Parker’s actually learning!’ his brother said. ‘Why wouldn’t he? You might have more charm but he’s got more brains. Somehow.’ his father replied in that way he did. What was he supposed to do? From what he could gather through the thick manner of speech the man had, he was offered an apology, a beer, a smile that Parker couldn’t interpret immediately and a ride. One of his hands clenched and unclenched in its same rhythmic pattern, feeling some of the wound-up energy that consumed and corrupted his robotic nature and habits dissipating slowly. The other hand rested on his thick utility belt, still stained with blotches of faded black like someone had sprayed ink on it carelessly as he tried to think about what the best course of action would be. ‘It could be a trap. A guy lookin’ like that out here in the middle of the woods, off the grid? Kinda weird.’ Parker wasn’t about to deny the possibility that it was true, but then again… ‘It’ll be okay. You’re strong and very smart. Be gentle.’ The Warden exhaled softly with a small nod. “Okay.” He replied. “I… apologize for intruding.” He added. “My name’s Parker.”

—

“Jeremiah, but most folks jus’ call me Jerry,” the bigger man said by way of an introduction, “an’ it’s somethin’ I’m gonna have to get used to, I reckon. Buildin’ my place onna edge o’th’ State Park an’ all.”

Turning away from Parker, Jerry started walking back towards the cabin, keeping his pace leisurely until the other man fell into step beside him.

“Looks like ya found me at th’ right time too,” the Park Ranger continued, glancing at the sky where grey-tinted clouds were starting to gather overhead. “There’ll be’a storm breakin’ before long, I reckon. Don’t wanna get caught out in that, am I right?”

He could smell it in the air and sense it in the marginal drop in temperature. His bugbear instincts were telling Jerry to find himself a cave, get comfy and wait until it passed, so he was doing the next best thing; taking shelter in the tarpaulin-shrouded cabin and cracking open a beer.

After holding back the plastic sheeting for Parker, Jerry crossed to the oversized blue cooler in the corner and pulled out two bottles of domestic beer as the first, heavy drops of rain started to fall on the shingle roof and taut plastic.

The sound of the rain was unexpectedly loud inside the part-built cabin, without all the finished walls and furnishings in place to absorb the noise, but it was dry and a small air blower gave off enough heat to make it almost cosy.

“Might as well make yourself comfortable, I don’ reckon we’re goin’ any place until this passes,” He said, holding out the bottle towards his guest.

— The moment that the man (now formally known as Jerry) turned his back to Parker, the latter was able to make an educated guess that the animosity that was between them had reached a safe, low point. The unspoken tension, both internally and externally, was unravelling, the pendulum in his mind settling down as he took controlled breaths through his arrow-straight nose. The other hand found his belt and he fell into pace easily, still subconsciously treading lightly though he was now missing the previous underlying aggression that the two would get into a fight.

Maybe it was the weather. As he followed behind the other man, he himself looked up at the sky where steel blue met stormy grey - he hadn’t realized how full the clouds were at the start of his aimless wandering. Parker wasn’t averse to getting caught in the rain, but then again, that was on a normal day and right now, not only was he in an unfamiliar situation as he followed Jerry into the makings of the cabin, but he had walked from wherever he started and that was an indeterminate number of miles. He remembered learning about the pressure changes in the weather possibly altering the behavior of both animals and fae but sometimes he wondered if that played a part into human behavior, as well.

Probably not. He was just held in the vice grip of whatever the hell was energizing those crystals.

‘Stop thinking about it.’ Parker gave a small shake of his head as though getting water out of his hair as he instead turned slowly, looking at the interior of the cabin out of a sense of gaining familiarity with where he was spatially. It was a work in progress, more obviously now that they were inside but while he wasn’t a carpenter, once more, he could appreciate art and the effort of making something oneself. His gaze, seeming to soften as the rain battered the exterior of the cabin, eventually turned to Jerry and he took the cold beer, feeling the contrasting temperature nice when paired with the weather and the warm comfort of where they were.

It was then that he actually looked at Jeremiah’s face without the lens of judgment or latent aggression. And he didn’t understand a lot of what he saw, admittedly, but it was… ‘Nice? It feels good to just see someone, isn’t it?’ “...I appreciate it.” Parker said, one of the corners of his mouth turning upward and it was his turn for a small half-smile, genuine for what it was worth making its way onto his face.

Yes. He supposed it was.

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park-ranger-is-my-comfort-animal · 8 months

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Clean Up On Murder Aisle || Nora & Jerry

TIMING : Late June / Prior to the events down in the mines. LOCATION: 'Whitlock's Wares', Downtown Wicked's Rest PARTIES: @honeysmokedham & @park-ranger-is-my-comfort-animal

SUMMARY: Jerry goes to Whitlock's Wares to get some axes sharpened. Nora goes to the same store to steal things. The two bugbears face off and blood is spilled!

CONTENT WARNINGS: Knife play, Injury, Physical violence, Blood, Mentions of parental death, Mentions of parental abuse,

The flat, but comfortingly familiar tone of the dented bell above the door of Whitlock’s Wares clanked as Jerry entered the store, a large canvas holdall at his side. Unlike his usual attire of Park Ranger uniform and padded jacket, Jerry was dressed in a pair of dirty, well worn jeans, red plaid shirt and rigger boots. Covered in sawdust and wood shavings, he resembled a lumberjack who’d just come in from the deep woods.

Simon Whitlock gave Jerry a broad grin as he approached the front desk and dumped the holdall between them, the contents clanking metallically.

“How’s the cabin coming along, Jerry?,” the proprietor asked, opening the canvas bag and taking a look inside. “You need these sharpening?”

“Well, it’s coming,” Jerry said, nodding as Simon took a large axe from the holdall. “Hoping to have it weather-tight before winter. You got them SPAX log screws I ordered?”

“Should be here Thursday,” Simon replied, checking the rest of the tools in Jerry’s bag.

“25% off if they ain’t.”

“You don’t have to remind me, it’s been the rule here since the dawn of time!,” Simon laughed, lifting the holdall off the desk. “I can sharpen these now, if you’ve got time to wait?”

“Sure. I can’t get on until they’re done anyhow,” he agreed, grabbing a fistful of candy from a bowl on the desk.

“Those’re 10 cents each,” Simon called from the back of the store, still laughing.

“I know the rule!,” Jerry countered, turning away as the bell clanked again. He couldn’t see who’d just walked in, there were too many shelves and stacked paint pots in the way, but they brought a strange feeling with them, whoever they were. Something familiar, but elusive… like someone Jerry had met before and whose name was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite remember it.

Moving further into the store as the grinder fired up behind him, Jerry lifted his head and inhaled, searching for a scent to track.

Nora needed tools for an important project. That project was vandalism. So far, her weekly terror of the local college campus was going well, but not great. It could be better. Bigger. More organised. Nora needed to make a show piece. Something that would really get people talking, start a buzz, make them nervous. Unfortunately, Nora was lacking in, well, everything. That came with having walked for the better part of two years. Everything she wanted she needed to be carried, and carrying things got tiring.

Normally, Nora preferred not to steal from mom-and-pop businesses. Big corporations could digest the cost of their loss easier, but Wicked’s Rest was a small town with small stores. Which meant today, she was committing the cardinal sin of stealing from a small business. Maybe she could steal some money from someone with enough to cover the cost at a later date. Her extracurricular activities couldn’t wait for monetary acquisition.

The bell let out a soft ding and Nora slipped into the store. The first thing, upon arrival, was the notice of a scent. Animistic. Weird. Nora thought nothing of it. She’d already met a few shape shifters in this town, and other sorts of monsters. Everyone was rocking their own weird vibe here. Who was she to judge? Nora noted two men talking at the front of the store and wound her way around the back.

Nora perused the shelves, hands shoved in her pocket as she went through the mental list of items she need. Hammer. Nails. Paint. Duct tape. Probably needed extra duct tape. They were always running out in the office. God, what was she doing thinking of work during her free hours? Was she becoming a workaholic. Disgusting. Nora slipped a hammer in her pocket. Nora flitted down a different aisle, catching sight of the man who had been talking at the counter. Nora stared him down, deadpan, revealing nothing. It wasn’t hard to stare people down like that, Nora wore her emotionless mask at all times. Today was especially easy cause the only thing she was thinking about was wanting him to leave the aisle so she could continue stealing.

Jerry stopped at the top of the aisle, opposite the diminutive figure who appeared to be glaring at him. The shelves between them were stacked with spools of ropes, chains and plastic hoses of various kinds, alongside a veritable rainbow of duct tape in many different colors and a variety of dust sheets, oil cloths and tarpaulins.

Simon would sometimes joke about it being the store’s ‘Murder Aisle’, which seemed oddly fitting right now with this young woman staring at him with her large dark eyes, as though she were willing him to drop dead on the spot.

That oddly familiar scent which had drawn Jerry to this area of the store was strongest here, as if emanating from somewhere down this aisle. Maybe when the girl moved away, Jerry could take a better look and figure out what - or who - was making it.

But she didn’t move. She just stood there, staring at him with that blank, almost disdainful expression on her face. It was like the girl was trying to stare him down, like an animal in the wild might, waiting for the other to acknowledge their dominance and back down.

The Park Ranger returned the stare, his face settling into its own expression of passive aggressive irritation. In his time, Jerry had stared down moose and sianach, wolves and phobids, and he was not about to let one little child think she could intimidate him.

The light hanging over the aisle swung softly, the light flickering every now and then. Not enough to be annoying, but enough to set a mysterious scene in the hardware store. The aisle around them held an assortment of tools, all of which could be used in a fight against the man standing at the other end. Nora was used to her stare being unsettling, a predator staring at prey. The instinctual fear of humans to move away, their skin warning them with goosebumps. This man, taller than most, gruffer than others, didn’t play by those rules. Oh, he wanted to play. Nora could play.

Magic tickled at Nora’s fingertips, that access to the illusionary magic tucked deep inside of her longed to come out to play. What kind of monster would make this man pee himself? His lack of leaving the aisle during Nora’s initial stare down made her think he might be a figher, not a flighter. Those always went for the illusions, which meant Nora had to be on top of them to make sure contact wasn’t made. If there was a trick to tangible illusions, she hadn’t mastered it.

Something about the man made her think he was the outdoor type. He had the scent of pine trees lingering on him, as well as something… What was that? Nora knew that smell. It was at the tip of her tongue, like something she’d smelled before often but why couldn’t she put a name to it in the moment? The mystery frustrated Nora. She didn’t like the secrets this town held. She especially didn’t like that she was supposed to uphold the secrets. Even now she could hear her mentor’s voice reminding her that this could be a ranger, and she needed to be careful with what she did.

Nora had never been good at careful.

The light flickered again; an idea formed. She waited. Staring. As the light flickered once more, Nora twisted an illusion across her features. Turning her eyes black, and her smile into something twisted and demonic. It lasted for the beat of the flicker then it faded into nothingness. Returning to her blank, expressionless mask, a challenge once more in her eyes. Would he leave now?

Jerry raised a single eyebrow in surprise as the horrific change flickered across the girl’s face. It wasn’t that her altered appearance had shocked or scared him - Jerry had been able to see through fae glamours for most of his life and was well versed at meeting the beautiful & horrific equally with an expression of neutral disinterest - but the fact that he hadn’t noticed it before that moment disturbed him.

Was this something new? Some kind of creature that only looked like lost children to draw people in? Maybe some variation on the anglerfish that used a child-shaped lure? It clearly wasn’t one of the fae, but there had been so many other things in this town that could pass for human. Things that would crawl from the forest, swim out of the lakes and rivers, or climb up from the deepest shafts of the old mine to disturb the peace.

…or maybe she really was just a little girl and he was overreacting to nothing more than a trick of the light.

In Jerry’s opinion, he wasn’t great at interacting with human children. It wasn’t that he actively disliked them, but he just didn’t have the same kind of shared life experience that made it easier for humans to relate and connect with the young of their own species. The formative years of Jerry’s cubhood had been spent living in an extended sloth with other bugbears, not that it had been the happy time in his life that most would expect. Those first six years were filled with memories of being either rejected or abused by his father in equal measure, not to mention the near constant mocking and bullying he’d experienced from the greater community who’d learned his father’s example. Only his maternal Grandsow had shown him any kind of affection, and even then it was with a deep sadness in her eyes for the loss of her daughter to Jerry’s birth.

Ultimately, it was his adoptive human parents who had worked hardest to show Jerry a different world than the one he’d tried to run from that snow-covered night.

Slowly and deliberately, without breaking eye contact with the girl, Jerry lowered himself down until he knelt on the aisle floor, as if he were being approached by a nervous and potentially dangerous animal.

“You lost, kid?,” Jerry asked in a low, calm voice when he was closer to her level. “It’s okay. I ain’ gonna hurt ya none,” he continued, holding out a single piece of foil wrapped candy towards the girl on the open palm of his rough, paw-like hand. “Your parents know you’re here?”

— There was no fear. Surprise had marched across his face, come, and gone in a moment, but no fear. Annoyance flickered across Nora for a brief moment. It never made it to her face which remained impassive and unamused. A tough customer, but Nora was no stranger to people who needed an extra push into terror. Nora could play the game. It was her favourite game, after all.

Above them the light continued to flicker. For a hardware store, perhaps that wasn’t the best advertisement. Or perhaps they were waiting for the right customer with the right questions to come in so they could display just how easy it was to fix a flickering light.

Across from her, the man was lowering himself, kneeling and offering his hand like she was some sort of animal. If Nora was expressive, she would have laughed. She would have keeled over laughing at the sight. The man didn’t know just how right he was, but Nora wasn’t any kind of animal, Nora was a monster and the difference was important. The difference was she wasn’t trying to scare him because she was lost and scared herself. She was trying to scare him because it was fun.

“Help me.” It was an illusion, Nora could never will her monotone voice to hold such vulnerability. The illusion echoed around them, more specifically, the illusion echoed around him. Nora wanted it to trigger the hairs on his arm to rise and goosebumps to cover him with the sensory shock of the word being floated around him from all directions. To activate a primal fear that this human could be surrounded, and now he was kneeling on the ground. He looked old. His knees were probably bad. Old people were always talking about how bad their knees were. Maybe he’d struggle to get back up. Maybe he would fall. It would be funny.

Nora only moved forward with the flickering of the light. The movement was enhanced with illusions, and honestly it was a tribute to the amount of work and practice she’d put into her illusions. From the angle where he sat on the ground, Nora could create a perfect square of art. It showed her, Nora, as she was standing in place, but since the illusion was placed close to the man’s face, Nora was able to walk forward, closing the space between them, while appearing like she was just standing there. Then, as the light flickered, the frame reset, and Nora was closer. As if he blinked, and suddenly she teleported forward.

Flicker.

She was in front of him. He had been kind. He had said he wasn’t going to hurt her. Perhaps he was a concerned citizen, set on helping everyone. But the only help Nora needed was food, fear to sustain her. “I’m going to hurt you.” Nora whispered, her monotone voice holding no emotion behind. No malice. No glee. Empty. Nora pulled a knife from her jacket, letting it catch the light, so the blade sparkled. “Then you can join my parents.”

The illusion – which Jerry was now certain that it was – was undeniably impressive. The words felt as though they echoed from the walls and whispered in his ears at the same time. They had just the right intonation and pitch that the voice could have belonged to a child or a young adult, depending on how the listener was inclined to perceive it, and imagination would do the rest. Someone might say that they heard the voice of their young daughter or son in that whisper, maybe their wife or sister, but every impression would be as valid and as false as any other. It was an unnerving effect to be sure, or it might have been if he were someone else.

For Jerry it was more akin to being a magician, sitting in the audience at a theatre while another magician performed on stage. He could appreciate the artistry and skill involved in every trick, even enjoy the performance itself, but he knew how it was all done. There was no real magic to any of it, just manipulation.

Jerry had never liked stage magicians. He didn’t much like being manipulated either.

He watched as the little girl wove her next illusions and she was so quick in doing so that Jerry almost missed it. In a moment there were suddenly three of them; the girl and her two ghost twins, painted on glass that hung in front of his face. It was undeniably clever and he would have congratulated her, if not for what came next.

The knife in her hand wasn’t another illusion. It caught the flickering artificial light and danced the beam off of its cold steel blade. Her next words made the effect even more chilling.

“I’m going to hurt you. Then you can join my parents.”

It is a fact that most humans would focus their attention on the knife in that situation. Maybe they needed to know where death was coming from and in what form it would take, but that was a mistake. It was an instinctual prey response and in that moment of fearful hesitation, the predator strikes.

The Park Ranger knew this, not least because he wasn’t human, but also because he was a predator. He’d hunted and brought down prey in both man-form and bear. He’d chased for hours until his quarry stumbled with exhaustion. He’d closed his ursine jaws around necks and waited until the light drowned in their eyes. All the while drinking their fear until his appetite was sated, and then gorging himself on the still-warm flesh that was left behind.

His father had disapproved. Told him that there was enough fear in the world for him to feed on without needing to create more. He hadn’t understood… hadn’t wanted to understand.

Jerry fixed his gaze on hers. He ignored the blade, ignored their surroundings, ignored the voices and the illusions. He focused his attention on her, and waited.

One breath.

Two.

...NOW!

A subtle change in her eyes. A shift in focus. His hand snapped out immediately and grabbed for her throat, pushing himself up to full standing height at the same time, momentum carrying him forward and closing any remaining distance between him and his prey.

“Not today,” the beast whispered in Jerry’s voice.

—

The first warning was the lack of fear. Nora had put on a full production, maybe it wasn’t her best work. It might not have brought a grown man to tears as he was confronted with the horrors beyond his comprehension, but it had been a solid display of supernatural horror. It should have been enough to gain a morsel of fear, a treat, a little snack to sustain her power and carry her over into something more terrifying. Instead, there was nothing. The only scent surrounding her was that of her own and the strange man, the man who treated her like a child and wanted to help her. The kindness of strangers was only an exploit for her. She was fear. This would be his downfall.

The second warning was his lack of movement. There wasn’t shock or confusion in his face. Instead, it was a neutral expression of confrontation. If he had tensed a little, Nora hadn’t noticed it. The coiling of muscle ready to react had slipped past her attention, because Nora had the knife. She assumed she was in control of the situation.

The third warning was the split-second Nora saw the movement and assumed he was about to bolt away and not at her. Nora had never been good at heeding warnings; it was one of her downfalls. Today it was her downfall. A hand wrapped around her throat. A tall man, hand wrapped around her wrist and a scowl on his face. Nora stared back at him, her mask of blank expression not failing her. It held.

So, this was it? The consequences to her own actions come to meet her at last. It took Nora a moment to get past the confusion of the moment to realise she was being threatened. Her. Threatened? This man did not know who he was messing with. Nora was the author of her own story. She had spent every night for the last three months training her body to fight. She had sparred partners far better than her and been knocked on her ass time and time again just for a situation like this.

For a moment Debbie’s face flashed across his. The memory. The feel of the hilt pressed against her palm. Nora had to pull herself away from those memories. They haunted her at the worst moments. There was a real knife pressed into the palm of her hand. She had stabbed someone before, and she would do it again if she had to. Nora knew that about herself now. But the guilt of Debbie’s death was still an anchor wrapped around her heart. Those nights of training weren’t just to improve herself, but she couldn’t sleep unless she wore her body down to the point of exhaustion.

“Today.” Because Nora was no victim who would let a man grab her by the throat and get away with it. Because she had never needed saving before and wouldn’t wait to see if she needed it today. Nora was fear and he would fear her. Nora aimed a slash across the arm holding her neck in its grip. All the while she kept her face plain and expressionless. Let him see how much she did not react. Let him fear her. Let him tremble because she was a murderer and what was he? A man trying to prove himself a predator to a monster?

The knife was far sharper than Jerry had expected. It sliced through his half-rolled shirt sleeve like it wasn’t even there and felt like someone had drawn a line of fire across his skin. Blood immediately began to flow, soaking his clothing and pooling on the aisle floor.

Jerry released the girl and let her drop, withdrawing his hand with a wounded growl. Part of him wanted to shift, to take his bear-form and tear her apart for challenging him. Who the hell did this cub think she was, baring their claws at him? Trying to draw out HIS fear?? Spilling HIS blood?!!

The anger drew Jerry’s normally placid, disapproving expression into a furious snarl and the beginnings of another growl rumbling deep in his throat as his ursine eyes flashed dangerously in the flickering light. His heart pounded as adrenaline flooded his body, preparing to fuel the transformation and expanding his already heightened senses even further. Everything became tangible to him at that moment; the taste of his own blood mixing with the residual oil on her blade, the feeling as beads of sweat soaked into the shirt on his back, the familiar pungency of the girl’s scent…

…her scent.

It was the scent.

The one he’d noticed when she’d first walked in. The one that smelled elusively familiar. The one he’d tracked to this place, only to be set upon by this… what even was she??

The illusions she’d summoned. Her words and her actions. Was she… like him?

“What are you?” Jerry whispered to himself, unaware that he’d spoken out loud as the growl died in his throat, his heavy brows knitting into a mix of confusion and consternation.

The knife did its job. Nora was freed and she steadied herself with low breathing. Still, no fear came from the man in front of her. To be honest, Nora was impressed. It wasn't every day that a stranger fought back against her illusions. Much less posed a physical threat to her. "Fear." A one worded answer to his question. She could have said bugbear, but people who knew what that was were few and far between.

Her mouth remained open, ready to congratulate him. Her knife was still clenched in her hand, but it had been fun. Hadn't it? An unexpected encounter in a normally expected answer. Her interest was piqued. Questions danced in her mind. Why wasn't he scared? at the forefront. All those questions fled within a moment.

A new scent, flavored of peppermint, fresh linen, and wood carvings. Nora's eyes flickered as a new man walked up. Curiosity twisted into horror on his features as he saw the knife and the blood. Of course, this was what he'd see. Not the man holding her by the throat just moments before. Being fear had its advantages and its disadvantages, Nora supposed. She was here to shoplift anyway. Nora grabbed a roll of duct tape, the item she'd been after and shoved it in her pocket. She was sure she'd already made the not-allowed-in list and might as well cement her fate.

"This was fun," Nora told the big man in front of her. Honest, even if it sounded bland in her monotone. "We'll do this again." A promise, a threat, whatever he wanted to take that as. For whatever it was worth, he'd earned some respect from her. Their next meeting wouldn't be a game of fear, but an outright questioning. She had his scent and she was sure she'd track him again. The man worker was saying some words about calling the cops or whatever, Nora gave him a salute. "Catch me if you can." She announced, diving into an illusion of darkness that did not cloud the sound of her heavy boots slapping against the ground.

“What the hell was that?!” Simon yelled at Jerry, his expression a mix of confusion and anger. “Jeez man, you’re bleeding all over the place!”

Jerry didn’t answer at first, his focus instead on the diminutive figure in the oversized coat as they ran into the street, quickly disappearing into the crowd. “Yeah, she was waving that knife about. I was jus’ unlucky that she caught my arm is all,” Jerry lied, turning his attention to Simon as the illusionary cloud of darkness began to dissipate. “Jus’ panic. More scared of me than I was of her, I reckon.” He offered the proprietor an apologetic smile. “Sorry ‘bout the blood.”

Simon waved away the comment dismissively. “Pfft… Don’t even worry about it. I’m just glad that they wasn’t better with that thing, or she could’ve done you some real damage.I’ve got a first-aid kit in the office, we’ll get you patched up so you aren’t bleeding all the way to the hospital.”

Grunting his thanks, Jerry followed the store owner back through the aisles and behind the sales counter, doing his best not to drip too much all the way there. It didn’t take Simon long to dress and bandage Jerry’s forearm, stemming the blood flow before pouring them both a drink from the half drunk bottle of whiskey he pulled from a filing cabinet.

“So what was that all about?,” Simon asked, after emptying his chipped ceramic mug of its liquor. Jerry shrugged, staring at the amber liquid in his own mug.

“Damned if I know,” he replied, “Probably jus’ a stupid dare or some such.The girl grabbed a roll of your duct tape an’ ran out with it. Reckon she was put up to it but didn’t expect t’see me down that aisle an’ jus’… panicked.”

“Well, she’ll definitely be the one panicking if I see her in here again!” Simon muttered, pouring himself another. The Park Ranger kept quiet.

There hadn’t been any panic. Whoever that girl was - whatever she was - she knew how to wield a blade and, while she might’ve been angry, there certainly wasn’t any panic. No panic. No fear.

Jerry sighed to himself and thanked Simon for the drink, placing his untouched mug on the other’s desk. Collecting his sharpened axes, Jerry left the store and began to wander aimlessly through the streets of Downtown. He’d lost her scent almost as soon as exiting the store, despite its ethereal familiarity. His arm began to throb beneath the bandage. With another sigh, Jerry turned to head back to his truck, unable to shake the feeling that he’d be seeing that girl again before long and may not come away from the encounter entirely unscathed.

END.

#Jerry-Nora-01

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