EliteCommander

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Ahnasha looked down to Rhazii and scooped him up in one arm. "Well, we're not going anywhere, but you can come up." She answered, raising him high enough that he could climb up on her shoulders.

Refocusing on Llarasa, Ahnasha felt free to move around more, since she no longer had to worry quite as much about intimidating the others. She moved forward, allowing Rhazii to look almost straight down onto Llarasa. "There are some lycans who are little more than animals. Can't separate the beast from themselves. They are very dangerous, and you'd be right to be afraid of them. But, anyone can learn control with enough time and patience. Lycans without control are usually ones without packs. Some kinds of lycans do have harder times learning control than others, though. Kaleeth had some trouble, and she is the largest and strongest of all of us. That was a bit frightening, even for us. Luckily, Janius has a way of calming her down."

"I'm a werecrocodile." Kaleeth added. "Crocodiles don't live in packs, so it was harder for me to get used to it."

---

Back inside Cheydinhal, at the hovel which Harriet called her home, there was a knock at the door, which quickly turned into a loud pounding on the door before there had been any chance to answer. Lorag had finally made the decision to pay a visit by himself, though it would be hard to tell what his intentions were, especially since even he was not sure what he was doing there.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"I know exactly what I'm doing." Ahnasha responded to Fendros, tilting her head towards him. Overall, she felt to be in a good mood. Calia's fearlessness spoke of some trust for her and the pack. Ahnasha was undeniably dangerous in this form, so some amount of trust was mandatory in order to be comfortable in the presence of a werewolf.

Since Ahnasha's beast spirit would be reluctant to transform back so quickly, Ahnasha decided to give a bit more information. "The amount of control a lycan has really depends on a lot of things. Training, experience, how recently we have fed. Our beast spirits, the part of us that comes from Hircine, they hunger to hunt. Some myths say we have to eat other people to sate them, but that is not true. Any animal will do, if it's enough of a challenge to hunt. The only other time we would lose control is if both moons are full. When that happens, we must hunt. We always plan carefully around those days. Only Meesei is the exception, because of her Ring. It gives her perfect control, so she can transform whenever and however often she wants."

After her explanation, Ahnasha looked particularly towards Llarasa. She did not do anything just yet, but she wanted to see how Llarasa would react to merely having her attention. If she was becoming less afraid, Ahnasha might approach closer.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Ahnasha slowly rose herself up onto her hind legs as she finished her transformation. In this form, she towered over all of the others, which, in addition to her sharp teeth, long claws, and distinctly muscular physique, made it rather difficult for her to make herself less intimidating. She was not the largest of lycans, but even so, was still likely the largest, most threatening predator that either Llarasa or Monderyn had seen alive, in person. Calia did not seem phased in the slightest, perhaps because of her inability to see her, but Ahnasha was worried about the perception of Fendros' siblings. And the caution with which Fendros was suddenly treating Ahnasha was not helping.

"Don't worry...husband. I'm perfectly fine. Perfectly in control." Ahnasha said in her deeper, gravelly voice. "No need to treat me like a stranger's dog."

Ahnasha largely ignored Fendros' obvious efforts to ensure she was calm and simply leaned in her head towards Calia to allow her to feel of her head and body as much as she wished. There would, obviously, be no doubt in what she was, and she did not expect too much more skepticism from Calia on their story

Ahnasha waited for as long as required for Calia to finish observing her. However, Ahnasha spent most of the time being worried about Llarasa and Monderyn. She could see the fear in their expressions, whether it be fear of what Ahnasha had revealed herself to be, or simple surprise, she did not like that they viewed her as something threatening to them. It was perfectly understandable that they would look at a lycanthrope with such trepidation, but Ahnasha still wanted to do something about it. Unfortunately, Ahnasha had few options. She could not laugh in any recognizable way, she could do little to change her voice, and could not make herself appear less "powerful." She had to be creative if she wanted to shift the mood. She could not make herself seem more normal, but she could take advantage of her canine features.

Turning her head towards Fendros, Ahnasha cocked her head to the side slightly, then suddenly leaned her head forward and licked his face straight up from his chin to his forehead.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Everyone collected outside the temple as their gathering was coming to a close, apart from Lorag. He had left the temple shortly before, and without explanation. Meesei could have confronted him, but she expected that he would end up back in their camp eventually. In the meantime, Meesei found herself surprised by Calia's sudden request. "You do? It is...irregular for anyone to actually desire to see that. Are you sure?"

"We talked about it earlier, Meesei. We can just go somewhere isolated on the way back to the vineyard, it should not take too long." Ahnasha interjected.

---

With Meesei's agreement the rest of the group had headed off out of the city and towards the vineyard. However, before reaching the Avarul family home, the group took a detour off into the forest. Meesei remained attentive to their surroundings, but there was nothing to suggest that anyone was near close enough to witness anything incriminating.

Meesei still had her gaze back in the direction of the road as they came to a stop. "So which of us shall transform?" She asked.

Ahnasha stepped forward into the clearest spot she could find. "I'll do it." She answered as she began to untie some of the strings on her dress. Modesty was not something that tended to cross Ahnasha's mind, though it was of course not relevant to Calia at the moment. Although, Llarasa and Monderyn could see her, including the very prominent scars across her torso that she had received from her torture in Black Marsh.

Regardless, Ahnasha did not wait long before beginning her transformation. She would not be aware of the reactions of Fendros' family while she was transforming, but she took care to seem as unintimidating as possible once she was in full control once again, as difficult as that would be for a werewolf.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Sorry for not responding yet. I'll make sure to do so before going to bed. Do you want me to go ahead and take us to the forest? Where would we be going, specifically?

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei shook her head. "No, unfortunately, I believe that would be beyond my capabilities. It would not be a simple thing to undo thousands of years of...honestly justified fear. No matter how much we want to keep to ourselves, untrained, undisciplined lycans are still very dangerous. It is the safe course of action to regard a lycan with caution and fear. What I intend to do is to stop the organizations hunting us. Then, we will not have to worry about everything we do being scrutinized and investigated."

Ahnasha could not say for certain what exactly Monderyn was going to speak to Fendros about, though she certainly had some ideas in her mind. Looking down to Rhazii, she put her arm around him and pulled him closer, up to her side. "No, little one. Monderyn probably just wants to talk to his brother about something in private. I don't know what about, but probably just something with their family. Why don't we go see your grandmother? She hasn't had too much time with you yet."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

We can move on to wherever you'd like.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei gave an understanding nod. "Hmm, I had heard he did not accept the situation as the rest of you had. There is a part of me that wishes I could meet him in person so that I might hear his arguments for myself, to have an open discussion on the issue, but that may not be wise. Regardless, perhaps there may be opportunity in the future for us to meet again. Perhaps one day, I will not have to worry about keeping our home's whereabouts such a closely-guarded secret, and we will not need to approach meetings with the outside world with such caution. If my work comes to fruition, that may one day be the case."

Ahnasha nudged Fendros' side and grinned. "Are you sure we can't say more? He might have some suggestions for what to do with all those dragon bones." She said continuing to laugh. Most likely, Monderyn would assume her to be simply joking, which only further amused her.

"I don't think even the Bosmer could do anything with a dragon, unfortunately." Ahnasha continued. "From what I understand, they're smart like us. They have their own magic language or something."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei let out a sigh. "Not often, I am afraid. We are not precisely going to be visiting my home; at least not my village. We are going to my homeland because we need to speak with someone specific, who may be of help to us. While, for our safety as well as yours, I cannot say where we have made our home in much detail, I can safely say that it is far from here, in Skyrim. I do not like being even that specific, but if you intent to write to Fendros, as I have no doubt he intends to write to you, then you will be sending your letters to Windhelm. If our travels bring us to eastern Cyrodiil, I can say that I am certainly willing to detour to the city if at all possible, but I can offer no definite answers as to how often that will be. I do wish there was a more convenient arrangement, but our safety must be paramount, and our home is the safest place for us."

Ahnasha gave a chuckle towards Fendros. "Well we'll have to do something with all those eggs. And we are at least going to have to train Leaps to get along with them, probably."

Briefly, Ahnasha turned her attention back to Monderyn. "When we send those ingredients, I might also send an extra box or two of chaurus eggs. I'll send a recipe for this chaurus egg omelette one of our chefs came up with. It is actually surprisingly good."

For Rhazii's guess, Ahnasha shook her head. "Not that small. Leaps is going to take a lot of effort to take care of. Besides, you still love Leaps, don't you? He has been your friend for your whole life. You wouldn't want to stop giving him enough attention and make him think you don't care about him anymore, would you? Maybe once Leaps gets grown up, you can have a pet." Ahnasha conceded, knowing fully well that it would be many years before Leaps became an adult.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"My accent is not as thick as it used to be, as I have been told. I have been away from the Marsh for a while; I do look forward to returning, if only for a short time." Meesei mused, giving a short pause before she continued. "If I were to be challenged, then I would face my challenger in singe combat, and the victor would bear the title of Champion, along with the Ring. Such challenges are not necessarily to the death, though they are of course dangerous. As I said, lycans can survive terrible wounds. I have not been challenged in quite a long time, though. The...atmosphere of our clans is not such that many people are particularly eager or willing to at the moment. Anyone who works with me knows of the depths of my responsibilities, and I do not believe many of them envy my position because of it."

Ahnasha shook her head, though could not help but to smile. "I think we're going to have enough problems with just Leaps by himself. Besides, birds are not easy to train, especially compared to something like a dog. There were good reasons that I didn't have pets as a cub. I would say that you could have one if you could take care of Leaps, but...that probably isn't a good idea. It would also probably be difficult to find the right kind of bird to begin with. You may end up having to settle for a chaurus." Ahnasha laughed.

Leaning forward to peer past Fendros, Ahnasha looked directly to Rhazii. "Do you know how big Leaps will get, little one?"