Hand in the Cookie Jar - Harlequin

[hawk]

Morgan sat easily at the edge of the cliff, feet hanging listlessly over the crumbling edge and his body supported by an elbow against a jean-laden thigh. He ate with his left hand and held onto his lunch with the right, anchoring the grease-spotted paper bag against the prevailing winds. He loved this place immensely...it was the sort of melancholy landscape that both inspired him and forced him to reminisce about his old life back home. He only came out when the weather was bad, or very early in the morning, when he could enjoy the monochromatic view in peace (and Ring boundaries be damned). Due to a very human brand of paranoia - made more prominent with a lack of information about the Carnaring members - he forced himself to hike in a wide circle around the warehouses and docks that made up the main establishment of the oceanside territory. Because he had to hike so far, he often started at four in the morning, well before the sun began to rise. Because he rose so early, he had to make his breakfast beforehand, and because he had to make it beforehand, he had to have somewhere to hide it, and he had to have an excuse for collecting the necessary ingredients. He always had a tomato-lettuce sandwich, with unsalted butter in lieu of mayonnaise, which was rare and took time to make. Sometimes he'd hunt in order to decorate the meal with a little something extra, and sometimes he'd spirit away more meat from a returned hunt than he was really supposed to take...but most of the time, he was perfectly happy with rabbitfood, and he preferred not to add meat to the pile due to the stronger smell.

His excuse today was a need for more soap...which was both a true necessity and a reason to hope he hadn't been seen when he'd left. The Carna border was in exactly the opposite direction from the Fulsiring's abandoned mall, and therefore he had no reason to be coming here unless he was stealing. He was, in a way...stealing an excellent view of the ocean from an unsuspecting and innocent Ring. But he had no urge to take any resources from the members of the Carna. Oh, he wouldn't turn away from a useful piece of clothing or bag of food left by the Keepers, if it crossed his path as he jogged home, but he would never be so stupid as to deliberately enter the hub of Carna territory, just to score himself some soap.

He'd never been to the sea before being taken into the M. He'd seen pictures, obviously, but his family hadn't even taken the trouble to travel out-of-state, not even once. And then they'd been incarcerated for theft, and he'd run away with Leo, and suddenly he'd ended up in Canada, doing illegal things just to get by. Soon, 'just to get by' turned into 'just to score more coke', and suddenly he was on a bus chugging straight back to Idaho, wearing handcuffs and a pretty orange jumpsuit. By that time he'd lost his respect for the law and for his own self, and he'd never really gained either of those things back. Morgan had a tongue like fire and a mind as sharp as a tack - even at thirty, he could out-smart an opponent in a fight, and he didn't know anyone else who could stitch up their own knife wounds without screaming in pain - but he was still an ass, a junkie, and a freak. His lack of respect had only turned into a deeply ingrained hatred for all human beings, but all else had stayed the same.

The rush of the sea muffled the stranger's steps until she was too close for reaction, so Hawk ignored the rush of adrenaline and the hand in the cookie jar feeling as he turned to stare at the stranger with one sharp blue eye. He didn't recognize her in the slightest...which meant he was in deeper shit than he'd hoped for initially. But, as there was not much he could do about that, he just held up the rest of his sandwich for her to examine.

"Want a bite?" Morgan asked, deadpanned innocence complete with a look that a spin doctor couldn't read. If he was going to be captured, he wanted to give her a good reason to let him go free...and kindness, however sarcastic beneath the façade, seemed to be the path to take.

Word Count: 762
Status: Finished
Comments: He ish a treshpassher...!

[Deleted]

For some reason, she loved the cliffs. She didn't know why. She hadn't spent much time around cliffs when she was on the Res, and her jaguar was built for dense, humid jungles, not cold, dry cliffs and mountains. Maybe it was the isolation that appealed to her. She didn't care for people all that much, and the jaguar was a solitary cat. She placed one booted foot in front of the other as she carefully made her way through the rocky terrain. One false move could send her hurtling over the edge and she wouldn't have to worry about survival anymore. She paused, sighed in annoyance and pulled up the baggy jeans that were making a daring attempt to slip off of her hips. She tightened the worn black belt before moving on.

She was supposed to be going on patrol soon, but she was sure that she could make it back in plenty of time without getting in trouble. A jaguar might not be built for speed like a cheetah was, but she was fast enough when she slid into her cat form. It would be easy enough, cliff dive into the water, shift into jaguar form and then swim back and dry off before going out to watch for any threat from the Fulsi.

And speaking of Fulsi, she could smell one now. While the Fallen and Carna had a truce, there wasn't any such matter with the Fulsi. Most of the time the two rings tore into each other at first sight, snarling and fighting. The Fulsi in front of her though, didn't look all that dangerous. He was older, and looked somewhat jaded, but that didn't make him a threat. After all, she never looked like a threat in human form. It wasn't true, of course.

As a girl, Harlequin Nicolette St. Claire was very small, just hitting the five foot mark with big, angry grey green eyes, long black hair and facial piercings. As a jaguar, however, she was huge. She was just an inch shy of being seven feet long, including her tail, and she stood at about three feet tall at her shoulder. She could hold her own in a fight as a human, but she was deadly as a jaguar. If anything got close enough to her mouth, all she had to do was bite down, hard. After all, that's how jaguars killed prey in the wild. They bit down on the skull, killing prey instantly. She quickly slid into Jaguar form, hissing softly at the intruder.

Oh, she wouldn't flat out attack him, no. True, he wasn't supposed to be in Carna territory, but he hadn't really done anything other then trespassing. For some of the other Carnas, that was a death sentence in and of itself, but Harley didn't start things without a good reason. She had shifted for protection and for intimidation. Sometimes, you could get out of a fight by showing just how powerful your shift was. Of course, people did call your bluffs and sometimes their shift would look just as powerful, but other times, it worked just fine. She was hoping the older man wouldn't call her bluff.

[hawk]

Morgan froze as the girl shifted, her small human form melting into a sleek black jaguar that was most definitely stronger - and larger - than his dog form. He just sat there as she finished with a nasty hiss, his left eyebrow raised and the hand that held his sandwich halted in the empty air beside his face. Then he gave himself a mental shake, considered his advantages over her shift form (which were, admittedly, few and far between), and decided that if it came to a fight, he'd just jump off the cliff. In truth, he'd probably survive longer that way. She hadn't attacked yet, but she didn't look particularly nice, either, and he had no intentions of doing something so stupidly male as taking her on. Hawk had to admit, when it came to idiots, men were some of the worst. He didn't count himself in that category - save for the drugs and the fights, but he figured those just made him a loser - and he was awfully proud of his reasoning skills. Still, what his mouth could contend with and what his body could stand against were two very different animals, and as much as he knew that, it was true idiocy that stepped in when he ignored the urge to shut the hell up.

Ironically enough, he felt so safe with the cliff nearby that he automatically skipped over his survival instincts and opened his mouth. "God, I was just trying to be nice," he said with a little snort. "I guess that's what you get when you try to share with ornery bitches...you earn a one-way pass to the curb." He took a bite of his sandwich. "I honestly didn't know that estrogen affected you animals, though...I thought that stuff was just for human beings." He hadn't switched to shiftertongue during his little dialogue, just kept on with the english. He knew from experience that human languages were harder to understand while he was shifted...they grated on the ears, and it always took an extra second or two to translate what had been said into something the animal mind could understand. He didn't know if that was the case for her or not, but he wasn't here to make things easier on her, so he opted to make them harder. Carna-Fulsi relations being what they were, it wasn't the smartest move to make, but he'd never really been good with authority or peer pressure.

When it came to survival, it probably would have been better for him to have learned the ways of the socially elite.

Word Count: 437
Status: Complete
Comments: Gaah, short post, sorry!

[Deleted]

She pulled back her ears as English assaulted them. She could understand English in her shift, it just took longer to process. For some reason, though, she could understand Cherokee just fine. Well, that wasn't true. She understood Cherokee better when she was in jaguar form, which made absolutely no sense. She hadn't spent much time around the Res when she was in her shift, and her father had died before she had found out she was a shifter. besides, her father spoke French and English, not Cherokee. She shook her head as the words slowly leaked through and began to make sense. She pulled her lips back and hissed again. She wasn't a bitch! Far from it! She quickly shifted back into her human form, her long black braid swinging slightly as she straightened up.

"I'm not a bitch," she bit out, her southern drawl thick in her anger. "I'm a cat, not a dog. Thought that would have been obvious." She then fixed him with a cold stare, her eyes narrowing. "Besides, you're in my territory. You're lucky I didn't gut you right out. If it had been anyone else, they would have." She snorted, shifting slightly on her knee high combat boots.

Oh sure, she'd put him down in a heart beat if he tried anything, but it didn't look like he was going to do anything other then smart off. Maybe she'd kick him off the cliffs and into the water if he annoyed her. Of course, Harley was usually in some state of annoyance, and the fall into the water wouldn't kill him.

"And what do you mean, estrogen?!" She growled out. She wasn't PMSing! Why did men always think that? Was it an excuse that was programmed into the brains from birth or something? If they thought women were angry before they said that, then they had no idea how angry they could get! Maybe she should do the Carna thing and disembowel him right here, right now. It would amuse her at the least. And now she was starting to sound like a sadistic, homicidal maniac...

[hawk]

Morgan smirked as the cat pinned her ears against the buzzing of his voice and shifted back into human form, complete with tall leather boots and multiple piercings. She was barely five feet tall, a foot and a bit shorter than him if he'd been standing flat-footed next to her, and his smirk turned into another rude snort as he realized this. In human form, she didn't stand a chance. She had an attitude, although Hawk couldn't say he was surprised at that; short people did tend to act nastier than the tall ones...and it was frustrating that she had such a strong shift to back up her piss-and-vinegar personality. It was probably the only reason she was still alive, come to think of it...you didn't act like that in the M unless you had a death wish, or knew you couldn't be touched. Morgan would bet that she was perfectly respectable back home, with her superiors around to threaten her into subservience. Then again, maybe she wasn't...he never acted any different in Fulsi territory, and he always got away with it. He was a medic, so that did help his case for survival - Fulsiring was a bit short on doctors at the moment, and that made his life quite a bit more valuable in his superiors' eyes - but the other half of it was, he had no desire to change his personality based on who he was spending time with. There was no good reason for it, and he really didn't believe that any one person was so much more important than all the others, they deserved a higher level of respect from the people they came across. Sure, he'd act differently if he was on the brink of death, but so far he hadn't encountered a situation so dire that he had to alter his morals in order to come out the other side. He'd been shot, stabbed, pounded into unconsciousness, threatened, robbed, chased from his home, and blackmailed, but there had always been a reason for the madness and he'd always understood that reason well enough to know that nothing had to change. Injury was always a product of his job, as both a fighter and a dealer; it came with the territory. It wasn't much different in here...the only difference was, there was no chance he'd be pulling himself out of the gutter in here any time soon.

His smirk disappeared when she mentioned disembowelment, replaced by a calculating frown. "Ah, but you didn't cut out my entrails, which tells me you're feeling more than just indifference and hate towards me right now. Either you're scared of me, you aren't allowed to kill me, or you like me." He moved to stand then, sighing before stiffly pushing himself to his feet. "You'd only be scared of me if you didn't know what my shift was...it makes me unpredictable, so I think I'll keep that a secret for now. Unless you're trolling for prisoners to interrogate, there shouldn't be any limitations on killing a trespasser, which leaves the limit there to a moral dislike for murder. But you're a Carna girl, so that makes no sense...you shouldn't be pitying me, you should be skinning me alive. And god knows why you'd have a reason to like me so far." Now standing, he stuffed the rest of his sandwich back into its bag and stuffed that into the ankle of his sweatpants, the corner of his shoe and the tight elastic holding it in place. "So you're either terrified of my great-and-powerful shift, you've got some unbelievably strong morals that can stand up to all kinds of peer pressure, or you think I'm attractive." He put his hands in his pockets. "I have a preference, and a guess. Care to find out which ones I've picked?"

Word Count: 646
Status: Finished
Comments: Yay, jerkism!

[Deleted]

She was't scared of him, she thought to herself as she scoffed. She usually wasn't afraid if the fight was one on one, which was a bit stupid. Her mother had called her Kahe, Cherokee for wildcat, and often told her that she had as much sense as a wildcat. Of course, her mother would point out, half wryly and half angrily, that the wildcat would have a higher sense of self preservation then she did. She would often point this out while she was bandaging her daughter up from yet another fight. It didn't matter that the fights weren't her fault, her mother was always upset and worried when Harlequin would come home after a fight. And the fights weren't her fault. She couldn't help being half white, that was her parents fault. It seemed that the boys always had a reason to start things with her. She was too pale, too different, her mother too proud, too 'good' to marry someone from the tribe, and her father had been too sickly, too foreign, and if Harley was too white then her French father certainly was. If she didn't do anything they would shove her down and give her a few good kicks, and if she did try to defend herself, it only made it that much worse. The Reservation boys had quickly learned to go in a pack if they were going to attack her, though. And after she had shifted the first time, in front of the group of boys, the pack would be bigger, when they did bother her. After seeing a huge black jaguar in her place they had left her alone, for the most part.

"Just because I haven't yet," she gritted out through clenched teeth, her hands balled into fists at her side, "doesn't mean I won't." Her grey green eyes narrowed as he listed the reasons why he thought she hadn't attacked yet. She chocked on laughter, shoving it down until it sounded like she was clearing her throat, when he suggested that she found him attractive. It took her a minute to calm herself. Finding him attractive wouldn't have saved him if she had really meant to kill him. if she wanted him dead, then a little thing like looks would be the last thing to stop. "And I'm far from being afraid of you."

"If you must know," she huffed out, angry at herself and at the Fulsi in front of her, "it's because you haven't done anything." She finished her sentence in a plain voice. "Yes, you're in my territory when you're not supposed to be, but you're not trying to steal anything, you're not looking for information, and you aren't attacking." She drew her black brows in together. Most of the time, shifters in other rings thought all Carna's were violent, blood thirsty cannibals. Manic, the Alpha was, but he didn't advertise it at all. And sure, Harlequin was violent, but she didn't go looking for fights. Well, not often anyways. And yeah, she'd killed before, it was hard not to in this hell hole, but she hadn't ever done it out of cold blood, though she'd been tempted to when her nerves were frayed and people insisted on annoying her even more then usual.

[hawk]

Morgan raised his eyebrows at the Carna's outburst, surprised at the source of her irritation even as common sense told him that all of Carna couldn't possibly be heartless, bloodthirsty criminals. The image that flashed through his mind at this assumption made him chuckle aloud: hordes of robotic shifters, cookie-cutter versions of the girl in front of him with unseeing eyes and bloody weapons in their hands. It said quite a lot about him as a person, that he thought such a thing was funny enough to cough out a laugh...perhaps he should have been in Carna himself. But he just shook his head at the cat and let her finish her tirade, pausing to let her catch her breath - and collect her emotions - before he picked up where she'd left off. He figured she'd probably be mad at him for laughing at her, but he didn't have a very good explanation for that, so he effectively pretended that it hadn't happened. If she really wanted to know what he thought was so funny, he'd tell her, but he knew she probably wouldn't appreciate any one of the answers he could give. He'd crossed paths with the Carnas before meeting her - he'd been a prisoner in the M since its inception, after all - but he'd never really considered his attitude towards the traditionally violent Ring, and he supposed his mind had taken a turn for the worse where they were concerned. Hawk had no idea why he hadn't ended up with them in the first place; he was a fighter, after all, even if he'd been off the floor for a good long while by the time their group had formed. Remembering things now, he figured he hadn't wanted to get into the violence again, and he'd avoided any sort of organized authority because it had screwed him over so many times. He'd been lonely as a rogue, but not unbearably so; he'd only joined Fulsi because he'd stolen their food, and it was either join or die after that. Really, he'd probably be happier now living the carefree life he'd had back then, but there was such a small chance that he'd actually get away with deserting, he'd never given it a try. And, considering that he wasn't getting any younger, he probably never would.

"So you do have a conscience," Morgan said wryly when the cat's eyes had cooled somewhat. "I really wasn't expecting that." He shook his head. "Who knew Puss In Boots was really such a freaky girl." He paused, studying her. "How do you know I won't do something insanely stupid any second now, and you'll look like a complete idiot when you go home tonight? I'd have killed you." Hawk had actually never killed a man...he'd shot and been shot, but it had never cost anyone their life. Still, common sense being what it was, if not killing a stranger meant he lost his home - or even his life - then the stranger had to go. It wouldn't even have taken a second thought. "Strong morals for being stuck in here." Morgan had to admit, he was a bit curious about the girl's past...but they weren't here to be friends, and if he never learned a note more about her, he'd go on as if the encounter had never come about.

After all, it was already erased from his permanent memory, just like all the other times he'd been here. In fact, he'd never seen these cliffs before in his life.

Word Count: 595
Status: Finished
Comments: Meh.

[Deleted]

She let the comments about "Puss in Boots" roll off of her without comment. It didn't bother her, even if he had meant it as an insult. All right, she didn't let it roll off, she just simply returned his comment with a hand gesture. Flipping him off wasn't really mature or anything, but she wasn't going for maturity at this point in time.'If you're going to kill me, then do it already," she snarled, her hackles suddenly rising at the threat. No one living in The M was a stranger to death. People died and people survived at the whim of the keepers. An accident of fate, or evolution had condemned them all to the hell hole they were all living in. Every day that passed was filled with the death of someone or the addition of someone else who was just waiting for death. Harlequin knew that she was going to die here, the only thing she could control was how, and even then she only had limited control over that.

She calmed down slightly when he mentioned her morals. She supposed that they could be considered morals. Yes, they were morals. "I don't start things," she said bluntly, crossing her arms over her chest. 'Of course, ask anyone from my home and they say that I always started things. That my looks, my parents, my name started things. Growing up and being different is hard on everyone, but growing up on a Cherokee reservation, where your whole world is different and has been for hundreds of years, and still being different from what they know is hard. You don't make many names with a name like Harlequin Nicolette St. Claire," she spoke her name with the same French accent that her father had used when he said her full name.

She was lost in memories for a moment. She could remember her father, all red gold hair, green eyes and pale skin, and her mother with her thick, black hair and dark eyes and copper skin. She remembered the first time that she didn't really fit in at the reservation. She remembered asking her mother why the other kids didn't like her. What she couldn't remember was when she had become to hard, but at least it had helped her survive there and here. She snapped out of her memories and fixed her eyes on the Fulsi. "Now, why exactly are you in Carna territory, oh great and powerful shifter?" she asked, her sarcasm coming back into her tone and she shoved her memories back down into the box that she kept them in.

[hawk]

Hawk raised an eyebrow when the girl flipped him the bird, but there wasn't much he could say in response to that. Rude gestures weren't really a habit of his - at least, they hadn't been for a good long time - and he couldn't really use his habitual response of get the hell out of here. That kind of thing worked on brain-dead addicts who weren't quite sure if their grumpy dealer in a top hat was packing a gun, but he doubted it would work on her. She was a prisoner in the M, and that tended to make you more dangerous (and more sure of your lethality) than anything in the outside world. It had affected him, too, of course, but in a very different way; thirty was considered old age in this place, and as he'd lost a fighter's strength the minute he'd gotten out of the ring back home, his ability to avoid conflict had stepped up to take the place of his fists. He could get away with a lot this way - he was wearing sweats and eating a picnic lunch, for god's sake, and she hadn't pushed him off the cliff yet. Hawk's wasn't an appearance that garnered him a high level of respect, on average, but if he played his luck just right and trusted his instincts, the clothes he wore didn't make much of a difference. His luck was turning, though...and as much as he trusted his skill at walking the line between Jerk and Dead Bastard, today was one of those days when he was just punchy enough to step into the Idiot Zone.

When the girl mentioned his shift again, Morgan noted her passion and figured he ought to be taking her more seriously. But figurative and realistic thinking were miles away from each other, and he was just lazy enough to ignore his own common sense. His eyes sharpened to the points of pins the minute she softened her demeanor, heightening his awareness of the glass shell she wore against him and spurring him to recall just what it was that set off her passionate little rant. Oh, right. Morals. Huh. So he had guessed correctly...and with his ego gleaming (he chose to ignore the fact that, out of the three possible options there were, the right answer was his last consideration), Hawkings let his mouth spread into a proud smirk until the sarcasm had returned to her tone.

"You really think I'd kill you?" he said it as a question, but his voice was a little too lighthearted to be enduring. "Aww, I'm flattered. I've never been a tough guy before." He cocked his head at her, still frozen in place save for the wind's incessant tugging at his sweatpants and the loose fabric at the back of his shirt. "Well, I have, but that's not the point. The point is...why would you tell me all that?" Hawk's sarcasm was gone now too, and it was clear how curious he was about her, if not in a creepy, mad-scientist sort of way. "I'm not going to tell you anything about myself, just because you got that off your chest. If anything, you've disadvantaged yourself...I know your name now." He narrowed his eyes and shook his head at her, both mystified and surprised by what he could only assume was mild stupidity. Then he snapped out of it, peering down at his trainer-clad feet before meeting her eyes again with a sharp lifting motion of his head. "I'm just here to enjoy the view! Isn't it gorgeous? The lightning's great this time of year, too...there's a good chance that each strike has the ability to teleport my dead body right back outside on the street." He grinned at her again, a slight manic twinge to his eyes that showed just how trapped he felt in the M. "Care to join me? If we hold hands and time it juust right, there might be room out there for two." There was no lightning on the horizon, and by now even most of the fog had been burned away, but Morgan didn't care. With a Carna at his throat, what could he realistically be hoping for here but imprisonment or death? "I won't kill you, P***y, but I would if I could." And when you had a shift as mundane as a sled-dog, there was really no more you could say.

Word Count: 747
Status: Finished!
Comments: Magical inspiration and sleep deprivation bit me in the butt XD

[Deleted]

Why did she tell him? She hadn't really told him all that much, but she'd told him more then she should have. She supposed it was because he had stereotyped the Carna to be a bunch of amoral, violent, murdering cannibals. Ok, maybe he hadn't gone that far, but still. She knew how the other rings saw hers. Sure, they were violent, and sometimes they showed no mercy, but they were a family and you could (almost) always count on one another. Of course, if she really wanted to, she could bring up the stereotype that all the males in the Fulsi were gay.

She looked at him, one black brow raised as he spoke about the lightning. She flashed a glance out over the water, but there was nothing there. He must be crazy, she decided with a faint nod of her head. of course, that wasn't anything unusual in the M. There were a lot of insane shifters, anthros, and retros in this place.

She was only paying half of her attention to then man when he spoke next. WHAT DID HE JUST CALL HER?! It didn't matter that it was interchangeable with 'cat', she didn't like being called that! She pulled her her lips back over her teeth, the rumbling of a roar working its way up through her throat. If she had been in jaguar form then she would have roared right out at that, but, as it was, she wasn't able to in human form. She let the rumble die down and settled for a hiss instead.

"Keep talking smart mouth, see where it gets you," she ground out, her drawl thick in her anger. She took a few menacing steps towards the old man, her grey green eyes snapping in anger. She was going to kick him off the cliff and watch as he fell to his death. No, she was going to shift and claw his eyes out before crunching down on his skull. No, she was going to slowly disembowel him and jump rope with his innards. yes, that one sounded the most painful. She'd let him watch, too, while the life slowly bleed out of him. She was in a very sadistic mood today...

(Ok, yeah I know it sucks! D: Sorry for the suckishness and the shortness >.<)

[hawk]

Morgan's spine straightened as Harlequin hissed and took a step forward; he backed up in two deliberate steps to avoid her once she'd shifted...and then, surprisingly, she didn't shift, making him look the idiot, and framing him to be a lot more fearful than he really was. He was cautious, of course, his muscles tensed to spring away and shift as he ran, but he certainly didn't want her to know it, and, well...now she did. It took away a certain advantage he'd had, one of unpredictability that he would have very much liked to have gotten back. But now he stood half-turned toward the trail home, paper bag gripped tight because he wasn't thinking about it hard enough to try to preserve the worn brown lunchsack. He realized that he was gripping it much too harshly when he could feel his nails digging into his palm through the thin paper covering; he considered dropping it and taking off, but he decided that he didn't want to be a coward--not because his flight would add to the Fulsi's already weak reputation, but because it would give his reputation a twist that he wouldn't necessarily like. Still, Morgan prided himself at taking off when the situation called for it, even when his ego would take a hit. He figured it was probably better to live with a lousy reputation than to die a martyr...and the weird part was, most of the people he'd met in here seemed to think that things should go the other way around. Stupid heroes, he thought to himself, his thoughts morose. He hated being a Ring member.

The worst part of it was, his shift was so much smaller than his human body that he had to get a running start, and be low to the ground, before he could shift and escape. If he just jumped, it was too far of a height for him to land safely, and he might hurt a front leg. He hadn't done that since he was a kid, but he had done it, and it hadn't been pretty. When he was in junior high, he'd loved seeing how far he could jump in canine form, how far he could go as a human, and then how far he could leap if he shifted while he jumped. He'd jumped down the apartment stairs one day--twelve of them--as a human, and he'd shifted midair and landed hard on his two front legs. They had both cracked audibly, and he couldn't stand on his own. His mom had taken him to the vet because she was afraid that if he shifted he'd screw himself up even more, and because the doctor had set his legs right then (on his mother's insistence, with no sedation or medication of any kind, in case it was bad for humans) in two plaster casts, he couldn't go to school for a month because he couldn't shift out of the plaster. Here it would have been worse, though...there was no plaster, no time to account for a break in this particular situation, and no way to cast a break himself if he broke both his arms. Hawk knew that he probably wouldn't hurt himself severely if he just ran, but he didn't want to risk it with such bad odds if something did happen, so he'd have to do it the hard way. And as daring a life as he used to lead, he could almost have laughed at the things that plagued him now.

"Hey, I didn't say I wanted any trouble," Morgan said in defense of himself, although his tone was defensive as well and therefore probably did little to back the other shifter down. "I called you that with the most diplomatic thoughts in mind that I can physically manage." He snorted. "Although, given the current circumstances, I'm feeling much more inflammatory than I usually would." He smirked, but his jaw was tight, and his body was hunched even closer over his feet than it had been a second ago. More likely than not, she'd take offense and pounce now, while she thought she had a good chance of catching him by surprise.

Word Count: 707
Status: Finished
Comments: Sorry again for the huge delay!