Midsommer's Night Run

[cian_oneill]

It was almost as regular as clockwork, heading up to Searchlight on a Wednesday night for a few beers and a game or two. Cian went to the Golden Nugget, probably the most regular watering hole, for someone who didn't have regular places. Sometimes he went all the way to Vegas, but usually didn't bother. The noise of the big casinos usually hurt his ears, and the smell of fumes on the strip was something he could do without.

Like this Wednesday, when he just went up to the bar and ordered himself a beer, taking it over to a table and sitting down. After taking a long swig he leaned back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him, as he continued to survey the other occupants of the place.

Comments

[cian_oneill]

"Depends. If they deserve it, yeah, if not," he shrugged the rest of the answer. He knew how to use his fists, and that had sufficed on more than one occasion. But when he'd found they were a little less human it had been Siofra who had carried out the justice.

"C'n show you if y' like, just so's you don' be making any mistakes about who's got your back," he added, a small arch of the eyebrow asking the question of whether she'd make that mistake.

[rhiannon_lee]

Hard to know if she’d make the mistake, not knowing what form he took. So with that logic and a penchant for discoveries, Rhiannon decided to say yes. She lifted her hips and dug a wallet out of her pocket. She counted enough bills to cover her portion and their combined tip, and then tucked them under the condiment caddy. “Alright. Show me once and I won’t forget. As for whether or not you’ve got my back…” Her shoulders lifted. “Guess you’ll have to prove it, won’t you?”

The brunette watched him over the lip of her beer as she finished it off.

[cian_oneill]

"Y' got wheels?" he asked, slipping a simple money clip out of his pocket and tucking a note under the money she'd left. "Or y' up for a run?" he added with a grin.

"I try 'n make sure I don't startle the locals if they happen by 't the wrong time."

[rhiannon_lee]

Oh, she liked his cheek.

She grabbed her keys and smokes and stowed them in her pockets. Her palms flattened on the tabletop. “Wheels are a little easy, don’t you think?” Rhiannon asked with a sly smile. “C’mon, Cian. Let’s have a race.” She scooted out of the booth. The slayer could make Cian launch one hell of a chase while in his human form. After the transformation, however, when he became a quadruped, she knew all bets were off.

She didn’t wait for him to acquiesce. The slayer hit a sprint the minute she passed through the diner’s front door. It slammed shut behind her.

Her boots pounded the pavement as she rounded the corner of the building and took off for the desert beyond it, hard surface transitioning to sand and pebbles in the darkness. For the first time in her life, Rhiannon was running with a stupid grin on her face.

[cian_oneill]

Cian chuckled to himself as he exited the diner, watching the Slayer round the corner. As tempted as he was to shift there and then, he didn't. "Just a minute," he muttered as he started running, a long loping stride that covered the ground quickly.

Even as a kid, on his football team he'd been the fastest, and it was why the talent scouts from the national league were at the game he was playing that fateful day his family were killed.

As they neared, then quickly passed the town's perimeter he stayed behind her, enjoying the view, and the challenge.

[rhiannon_lee]

Just a minute, my ass…

After a couple hundred yards, Rhiannon looked over her shoulder and saw him keeping up. It made her laugh. He was fast even on two legs. “I haven’t got all night!” she shouted and picked up the pace into a full-blown sprint as they ran toward the old mining hills. Many a slayer had cheated her way onto athletic teams and crushed the competition without realizing the source of her abilities, and it was this fast gear that Rhiannon shifted her body into now, a superhuman powering her way through the loose desert landscape, a blur of arms and legs in the moonlight.

[cian_oneill]

They were far enough out of town now, along the deserted road, that when she shifted into high gear Cian decided to pull that card as well. He'd started stripping off his clothes, pausing to quickly drop them behind a bush and once clear of all hinderance, let Siofra out.

It still hurt a little if he hadn't taken the potion Annie had spent years making for him, but it wasn't as bonebreaking as he knew it could be, and was for others. His eyes clouded for those few beats, then vision cleared and he could see the running form of the Slayer ahead. It had taken even longer for him to learn to link the two consciousness minds, and most of it managed to transfer, but sometimes some things didn't.

Fur, bones, teeth, eyes, tail, all moved as lungs that had changed started working within the shifting chest. Where breath had begun to be laboured now air was easily inhaled. Silently the gap started to close again, her trail easy to follow with the scent he had already taken. Ahead now he could see the chase laid out.

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon let the wind play havoc with her hair. She ran until the elevation changed and the ground became treacherous underfoot. When the climb into the hills began, she looked back. Cian was gone. In his place she saw an animal galloping toward her and gaining quickly. She slid to a stop in a cloud of dust and caught her breath.

“Oh my god...”

What had she expected? She didn’t know. She wasn’t afraid, though she might have been. An animal so wild could rip flesh from the bones. However, she had faith that Cian could control himself or he wouldn’t have shifted on command without the sway of a full moon. She stood with her arms loose at her sides as the cat came closer.

[cian_oneill]

Siofra saw the woman stop, and slowed his own pace, coming to a slow lope, then walk as the woman stopped. Mouth open and nose twitching the large cougar slinked in a slowly closing circle around the Slayer, until it gained the higher ground. A large stone, on the edge of a rocky outcrop, afforded a perfect position and the animal stood atop it, eyes still on the Slayer.

Slowly haunches lowered, and finally, once seated, the eyes closed for a moment, head turning slightly, the domination now finished.