1 Week Post Ball Disaster - Fall Solstice Break
Laurel moved carefully as she drifted out through the woods, dressed in her usual clothes of tight athletic pants, no-show socks, brightly color tennis shoes, and a well fitted racer back tank top. Other than her shoes everything else was black and pristine. The woods were where Laurel felt freest besides the desert where she could run free. Güzel was beside her, trotting easily along in her the odd loping gait that distinguished hyenas from most other animals due to their equally odd anatomical construction. Her long tongue lolled out the corner of her mouth as Laurel jogged along one of the many paths that wound through the woods behind the school. Between one step and the next Laurel transformed into the black leopard that was her secondary form.
She tracked across, the dirt of the path rising up from where the pads of her paws impacted the ground. She was happy, at peace with her surroundings and even though the birds here still went silent from her presence, perhaps it was Güzel's presence that alarmed them. They chattered brightly ahead of and behind them but in their immediate area there was a silence. The silence that was only wrought by a foreign predator in their midsts. It was moderately warm outside this time of year and the leaves on all of the trees had begun to change color and fall, they crunched lightly whenever she stepped on one of them.
As Laurel moved up into an easy lope her crystalline eyes scoured the area around them for threats. She could see the Hyena's radar dish ears moving to investigate the sounds around them as well. It was easy to get caught up and as she ran freely she let her powers loose, letting herself be engulfed in the voices of the animals. They surrounded her as she loped through the forest amongst the animals. She relaxed as she ran, closing her eyes for a moment and feeling the sunshine on her black fur. It warmed her heart to feel the sunshine, made her feel alive. The sunshine and the fire that went with it was her safety despite the blackness of her fur. She revealed in the heat, the fire.
When she opened her eyes Laurel could see fire, it licked up around her body and Güzel was running several yards away now and looking strangely at her. The Hyena was unsure as to why Laurel was on fire but since she didn't appear to be in any distress so the hyena let it go as they ran. Laurel left big scorched paw prints as she ran full out now in an endless gallop, her excitement fueling the fire that rolled up around her body.