Breath loud and heartbeat deafening, Matiir still jerked halfway to his knees when the human started laughing. A sound too wild for him to understand. Noise was meant to draw in or chase away, she just sounded like it hurt...

The movement made every muscle twinge and pull as he twisted his head around to stare at her, and he grimaced, huffing out the breath that had hitched in his throat with renewed fear as he realised there was no greater danger to continue running from. But the growing ache told him that the river was no kind sanctuary just then. Cold water wearing at his bones. He didn’t want to move, lying in the shallows, chin brushing the rippled surface, wet grass and cool damp reaching his nose from the bank behind him, the water numbed his wrists and he almost forgot about the shackles still tying him to the woman resting on top of that grass and mud. 

Shaking his head with a snort as her laughter faded, he yawned widely, snorting again to keep his nose clear of old scents. If something else came near, he wanted to know before it reached them. But he also wanted to sleep, and hide, and hunt. And he wanted to do all that, somewhere she wasn’t. 

A steady look towards the human lying, quietly now, body dappled by faint shadows upon darker shadows, the moon barely present in the sky. He turned away again, and bent his head to lap at the water, though his tongue was less suited now to the chore, and raised his gaze to the opposite shore as he drank, watching and listening. There was nothing nearby, not that he could tell. The forest was quiet, but a bird was calling, and a fish jumped. Wind whispered. This part of the forest was still alive. No hunter hungry for more than meat. Good. He didn’t want to run anymore. 

When his throat was eased, and his stomach started to rebel at the too cool water, he forced himself onto his hands and knees to crawl back up the bank he’d slid down, longer legs a boon in that all he had to do was stand instead of jump to reach the top, though it still took too much effort. He left long scratches behind him in the mud, and was quite well covered on his arms and lower half when he came up beside Samaire and shook himself off. With no fur to hold the water, he accomplished very little, though his loose hair did spray more than a few drops about him. So he elected to roll in the grass instead. Not all of it had been watered by the storm, and the crushed stalks stole the human scent from him as he went. They also got rid of some of the mud, but he continued past the point of drying off and enjoyed the luxury that partial freedom had afforded him. 

Pushing away from a tree and curving his spine back as he rubbed his head against the ground, he only stopped when his forehead came up against the chain that followed him. He gave it a hard stare before rolling onto his elbows, back twisted and legs stretched out behind him, grass caught in his increasingly tangled hair. His only defense against it seemed to be ignoring its existence, so he did. Turning his head to attend to a scratch on his shoulder.