The next morning Luna joined them in their room after breakfast. Dexter was out scouting the roads and looking for tracks confident that if anyone were to find any 'in this muddy mess' outside that it would be him. So Vivian capitalized on the situation to have Luna investigate her mark on her back. Micheal had little luck describing the new mark in her skills other than saying it matched his own on his hand. Vivian was having Luna check just to be sure and to discuss the implications of what he had done.
“It certainly seems to be a unique quality spirit mark Vivian.” Luna said. She had been blushing since she came in and wrinkled her nose every now and then. She rolled her eyes at Micheal's sheepish shrugs. “It matches Micheal's mark perfectly from what I can see. It has the passive attribute built in off the base rune of soul though I do see the mind and body runes inside the lines of that rune. If I had to guess it has a specific range of effect, and a number of benefits, but we'd need a mark ritual to expand the lettering so I could read it properly.”
“What benefits?” Vivian asked curiously. She eyed Micheal suspiciously, but smirked at his raised hands and pleading eyes. She didn't seem exactly angry, but had been a little startled that his first manifestation of magic had taken hold on her. It had been going so well too.
“Uh..” Luna said, squinting and pulling at the skin holding the mark on Vivian's back. “I think that's a rune for magic resistance, but it's an odd one. There's runes for all the physical attributes too actually. I think what he manifested was some kind of unique reinforcement magic coupled with a spirit bind. It's kind of like a more complex and specific version of my music spells. Actually I think I could use this to improve my magic if you two let me study it. It's incredibly intricate.”
Micheal raised an eyebrow. “You could learn the spell I manifested?”
Luna immediately shook her head. “The skill is unique for one, specific to you, and even if I could do it perfectly the rank is still too high for me besides. I don't even have a silver rank skill, and this is beyond gold level. I've only ever seen one other skill to show Rainbow like this and it was a unique skill too.”
“Xeradin's skill from Ynneria?” Vivian asked her friend over her shoulder.
Micheal coughed on the water he had been drinking as it went down the wrong tube.
They both looked at him, but he waved them off telling the truth for the most part. He hadn't realized Xeradin would be here too. Were all his characters going to show up? What about the ones his friends made for the Dungeons and Dragon campaign he had made? Could he even stand talking with Beskar in real life?
“Yeah he showed me in the Capital when we were working with him. I know the rumors say he's short tempered, but he really is nice. I meant to tell you about him yesterday and was excited to tell you about it on my way back to the guild before I learned you had all decided to take on that raid. There's not enough support roles in our guild. The fact you only brought Pellana as your healer was crazy. I meant to give Hans an earful about that.” Luna said, growing more and more into a lecturing tone that only brought out more of her cuteness as both her ears shot forward toward Vivian and she stood on her toes for extra height. Both looked to be unconscious actions as Vivian was still facing away, but it was still very cute to watch.
Hans, as Micheal had learned during the talks of who would play what on a baseball team made up of their guild members, was the leader. His grandfather had led the guild for the longest time until his mark finally faded and he was able to retire to the farm he had bought his family with his earnings from adventuring. Hans had been the only one other than his grandfather to bear the mark of an adventurer and had the entire guild raising him along with his parents as a child when his grandfather was busy. It had turned Hans into a seemingly unstoppable force even before some ruin had come to the guild and Hans stepped up to lead the guild from then on. From the sounds of the tales they spun about the man he could stop wars with a conversation, and fight off both armies too if he needed to now.
Vivian was pulling her shirt back down when Luna rounded on him.
“You!” She said with her flute pulled from her belt and waved it about like a wand or sword. “You are going to be a part of our guild! You are going to use that powerful talent you showed making that mark to be one of the best support class adventurers in the history of the guild or my name isn't Luna Wildroot.”
Vivian gently poked her in the temple with one finger.
“Your name isn't Wildroot, not any more.” She said, her voice a soft and sad reminder of what must have been her own pain.
Luna went scarlet in the cheeks and her ears wilted.
“Right. --Well I stand by what I said all the same. By my honor then! Vivian can teach you to fight, but I know I can teach you at least the basics of support magic or get you started until we run into Ameallia or someone. If you can make a passive spirit bond like this you should be able to manage all sorts of basic battle wide or squad wide support spells. We just have to find what you'll use to channel it all.” Luna said looking confident again in a flash with her hands on her hips and her ears standing straight again.
Vivian gave Micheal a sly playful look and leaned over to whisper into Luna's ear.
Luna's ear twitched while listening and then the scarlet came back in full force from the neck up. Actually Micheal half expected steam to come from her ears.
“I thought that was coming from your room last night, but it really happened like that?” Luna asked in a continuous tiny squeak.
Vivian laughed at her friend's embarrassment and pulled Luna into a hug that covered her eyes and brought the young woman against her chest. Vivian kissed her friend's hair as she protested and waggled her unsheathed flute about.
“Not my hair Vivian! Vivian!”
Vivian took a deep breath and snuggled her face into Luna's incredibly soft looking ears. Micheal gave her a jealous look and she smiled at him broadly. Meanwhile Luna protested all the more, pulling at Vivian's arm over her eyes, and failing to pull herself away.
“Viviaaannnnn!”
“We'll find a way to deal with his manifesting magic as we go. Maybe he'll find something a little more appropriate to share with everyone. Besides after our talk last night I think it's probably an emotional bond that sparked that power.” Her voice was level with the tone of a report, but even with her head against Luna's fluffy ears her eyes shone with warmth as she looked at him. “For now just be his friend and stick close with him. Teach him what you can of mana control when we have time, but don't stress anything other than the basics.”
“Okay. Okay. Lemme go Vivian. Enough with my eeeeearsss!” Luna whined, but Vivian just took another deep breath and cuddled her face and nose directly into the plush fur between the two long ears. She let out a long contented breath from her nose within the soft fuzzy patch.
Later Mrs. Arlee gave the three of them skeptical looks as she set the three breakfast plates on the table. Vivian gave the woman an insufferable smile as she sat beside Micheal, and Luna tried to look anywhere other than at anyone. Micheal and Vivian had a little bird bath from the wash basin and toweled off when they got up and before they called Luna into the room. Yet Vivian's hair was clearly in a much simpler braid than it had been the night before among many other subtle signs. Micheal really only noticed because of how fast Vivian had put her hair together in their room then and now with Mrs. Arlee had eyed them both head to foot once more with one eyebrow raised.
Then Micheal caught a glimpse around her to the kitchen doorway where Mrs. Arlee's daughter was watching them blushing as she did. She disappeared behind the door when she saw him looking, but it still made him sigh.
They all ate breakfast and paid to keep their rooms for another day since they would likely return today whether the hunt was successful or not. It meant they could travel a little easier and a little lighter without so much in their packs and would make a cross country trek after the problem Bear Dog a little easier. Farren, Micheal had no idea why Vivian called him by his last name, had done much the same according to the Innkeeper.
They made their way out of town together before the heat of the day had taken hold. Not far out of the village they found Dexter Farren's little camp beside the road where he was finishing his own breakfast or perhaps his lunch depending on when he got up. He wore his full gear now unlike when Micheal had met him before.
An unstrung longbow and quiver not quite bristling with arrows lay on the ground beside the fire, and he wore a long handled and wicked bearded axe on his hip. The arrows were thicker than he expected, heavier and longer than perhaps anything he had dealt with in his world; no advanced plastics or fiberglass shafts to be seen. These were hardwood war arrows with great big broad heads on each of them.
The grip of the axe was wrapped in thin strips of leather that looked to afford a nice one or two handed grip a little ways up the two and a half foot shaft. It hung in a worn leather frog attached to his belt and looked as though it would make no noise at all as he moved.
He had on dark chainmail pieces sewn neatly to the leather beneath, sleeves of a single combined piece worn over the shoulders under an open vest of mail, and even had two pieces of the same stuff belted tight over his tall knee high boots. Sheathed knives decorated the wide belt under the hanging ends of the mail vest and a pair of gauntlets lay on the ground beside him, their wrists and the top of the hand done in the same way of the rest of his chainmail.
His thighs seemed only protected by the thick leather chaps and his green wool trousers within the cutout. The chainmail itself had an earthy dark color that made it blend in well enough with the shadows of the forest with no luster at all, though the outfit looked like it might be hot in the sun. Laying over a log nearby was his odd cloak of leather and forest green cloth. It looked to belt around him over one shoulder somehow, but Micheal hadn't seen him wearing it yet. Honestly his outfit seemed to defy normal designs to the point of being something like an anime character's outfit. He made it work though.
Luna unsurprisingly wore another pretty, lacy dress though she had a case holding a few wands on her belt now as well. The first of her four wands were simple things of wood with carving around the handles, but the others were unique to say the least. One looked to be made from a branch of a blue crystalline tree with sprouting buds included as if they were cast in ice. The other looked to be a blighted root, frail and close to falling apart everywhere but near its little leather grip. The last was a thing like a glowing ember at its tip and the entire thing looked scorched. On the other side they were balanced perhaps imperfectly by the sheath that held her flute, with a proper case for her harp hung on her back. She had a cloak too, but she had it hung on the branch of a tree nearby. It was velvet lined and fit well with her fancy dress.
Vivian was in her full gear once again. She walked gracefully and confidently into the camp behind them and raised an eyebrow at Dexter and his little camp. She tapped her spear staff in her hands as she looked about.
“You placed all the traps already?” She asked. “You weren't supposed to do that alone. A Bear Dog is more than dangerous enough to have someone at your back while you're doing something like that.”
He shrugged. “I didn't bait them so we're all good.”
Vivian made her hands into fists and put them on her hips spear in hand. She narrowed her eyes down at the sitting man.
“So there's bear traps out in the woods where we have to go put snares for bait.” She said blandly.
Dexter waved her off. “We can use your boy's fishing skill. That way he'll be useful and I can get some rest from being up so early and scouting it out.”
Luna's ears perked forward. “You found it already?” She asked excitedly, then suddenly she shuddered and her ears seemed to try to turn every which way at once.
“Oh yeah, it's nearby. I actually found where it must have hunkered down during that storm. It'll be hungry after that. You warned the people in town that we'd be commencing a hunt down this way right?” He asked, he was arrogant in a way, but also seemed to have things well in hand.
“Yes...” Vivian almost growled. “So much for a team effort.” She said with a roll of her eyes. She unstrapped her pack and slung it onto the ground to pull out her fishing rod, and her little can of bait. “Here Micheal we'll stick with his suggestions for now, and have you catch some fish. It should be no problem with your bronze fishing, but I only have so much bait left. Maybe if you catch something small you can use it for bait to catch others?” She asked looking up to him with a pleasant smile. There was a light of warmth and growing familiarity there.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He was caught up a moment in her gaze, but she pushed the telescoping rod toward him with the little tin her smile growing a little wider. She seemed a bit calmer than she had the days before, but then he hadn't really seen it. There was a tightness that was only significant to him now that it was gone.
He tried not to over think things and took the rod while returning the smile.
Dexter was picking at his teeth with a small metal toothpick from one of his pouches, but managed to say; “Stay on the little game trail to the stream and you won't find your leg in a trap.”
Vivian frowned at him and looked like she was about to motion him to follow after Micheal, but Luna piped up.
“You two are better with snares. I'll go with him and watch his back while he's fishing. You two can discuss how we'll bait and trap the Bear Dog. You can tell us about it when we get back.”
Vivian frowned for a moment, but then nodded and glared at Dexter who smiled back at her with his arrogant manner. He even managed to lounge a little more as he sat.
Micheal shook his head and flicked out the rod after losing enough line out the spool. He tilted his head down the little game path when Luna looked at him and the two of them walked together down that way. He checked the line with his thumb and forefinger and found it had been damaged a little by either the storage or traveling. He took out the knife Vivian had given him, and used its sharp edge to clear the knot from the eye of the nice steel hook. The ones Vivian had were a little bigger than what he had, and nicer to boot. He stuck the end of the hook in his mouth as he walked with Luna down to the nearby stream.
It was a nice little water system about eight or ten feet wide at the most, but the water had cut deep through the top soil down the bedrock anywhere from two to around six or maybe even eight or ten feet down from the bank depending on where one came to it. He wished he had some polarized sunglasses, but he did manage to make out a few fish hanging in break waters here and there, and there was good structure made from fallen trees and what might have been an old cart that was now buried in silt and other natural debris. He pulled out the line and checked it with his thumb and forefinger again just to make sure, and found no other frays or nicks in it after he cleared the damaged line. He retied the knot with a practiced motion holding the eye of the knot open with his middle finger while his others helped alternate the line around the mainline to form the easy knot. He pulled it tight by both ends and then eyed Luna who was watching him work.
She looked up at him curiously.
“What?” He asked while he fixed a single lead weight to the light line.
One of Luna's adorable bunny ears flicked from half folded to straight and back.
“So you're the kind of man that makes a woman like Vivian fall in love?” The way she said it made it more or less a question. He eyed her up and down and she did the same to him taking in his simple clothes, leather pack, gear, and quarterstaff like she hadn't had all morning to do that.
He looked at her and shook his head. “Well...I don't know if I'd say that just yet. We're trying maybe? We just met after all.” He said as he popped open the tin and fished through the dirt for the last of the mostly dead worms inside. He impaled it through once, then again, and again and noticed Luna wince each time.
“You don't think so?” Luna asked. She brushed hair from her face as she turned a bit red. “She certainly seems to like you, and you did seem to lose yourself in her eyes back there.” Luna continued with a nervous, but genuine sounding laugh. “Are you sure you don't love her?”
He shook his head and pitched out his first cast. It didn't quite land where he wanted to, but he had a rule to fish where it lay each cast. He let the bait drift down the current and past the break water and wash into the calmer stuff. He wished he had a proper set of jigs and twister tails, or even some buck jigs. They would have to be small to work if these fish were some kind of trout, but it would work. He wasn't too sure about using small crawlers on a big hook. Maybe a smaller hook was what he needed.
“She's certainly beautiful. Stunning really.” He admitted absently. His focus was on the shadow behind the rock that moved after his bait and then turned back round. He let the bait drift on a little while before he felt it reach bottom and he pulled it back in. The spool of the fishing rod was somewhat like that of a fly rod, all one to one and simple. There was no anti reverse and he ended up resting his thumb along the back of the spool to control either. If he had some time and a machine shop of some kind he could make these reels at least a little better, and maybe a spincaster like he was used to back home if he got a little creative and was willing to troubleshoot his own design through a few iterations.
“But you don't love her?” Luna asked, tilting her head and directing one ear at him while the other went back toward camp. Micheal could only make out muffled shouts rising from that direction.
He glanced back and shook his head. “Hopefully this bear isn't afraid of people's noise or just really likes fish.” He said before pitching the bait back upstream. He found working the rod like a fly rod was best, leaving line out to sometimes fall on the ground before he cast out. Casting with the open spool could mean backlashes and he had avoided doing that so far, but he wasn't casting as far as he would have liked. Still these were the furthest casts he had made using the rod.
Luna nodded, but looked up at him with serious eyes. “Yes, but you didn't answer my question.”
Micheal sighed a little as the bait passed the rock holding the two shadows and neither of the fish went for it. “I would say I might be falling in love with her, not in love with her. It's a little too early for it to be love right? We're trying and that's good enough for now right?” He asked.
Luna moved both her ears toward him as he spoke and they wilted as she seemed to take on a confused, but thoughtful expression.
“Why would it be too early to be love?” She asked earnestly. “Adventurers don't have time to court like nobles. Not all of us anyway. It's hard to stay in one place very long, and sometimes its hard just to stay together with the people you like. I think you and Vivian have a chance, call it a gut feeling if you have to.”
Micheal nodded, but then raised an eyebrow at Luna. “If its that easy are you and Dexter a thing? Now that I think of it you might be the only one I've seen him give a proper amount of respect to.”
Luna's cute plump cheeks went bright red and she shook her head wildly. “No way I would do that with him. He's pretty much the worst match for me, he's violent and mean.”
“But he's nice to you.” Micheal countered looking at her with an expectant raised eyebrow.
“It's not because he likes me all that much. He just appreciates that I'm one of the guild's few support adventurers. It's hard to find people like us because everyone who gets the mark is always thinking they need to be the one in front or doing the talking by the time they are looking for a guild to help them out. He looks out for me. That's all.” She explained with a bit of heat to her voice still.
Micheal smiled at her and that managed to cool her a bit before he even spoke. “I'm just teasing you a little I guess. Blame Vivian for rubbing off on me, but you are fun to poke. You're just too cute.”
The Bunnary blushed and her ears wilted down until they almost touched her head. His enjoyment of her embarrassment was cut short as the line went from slack to tight under his finger. He cursed himself at first thinking he had let the weight snag, but no, as he pulled the line in hand over hand it came up on the weight of a fish, its jerking head shakes, and its sudden struggle against the line pulling it to shore. He gave it a little jerk to set the hook properly and worked the reel with one hand while the other held the line tight above it until he caught up. Then he worked the little reel and Luna was bouncing on her toes beside him in excitement.
He pulled up the little fish. Some sort of creek chub, not good for eating, but it would make excellent cut bait. He slipped out the hook from its mouth with a little wiggling and then with his bait gone took out his knife. Luna frowned, but watched with disgusted interest as he slit open the bait fish and hooked some of its organs out as bait. He knelt down and worked the rest of the fish into small sections of cut bait. He didn't think those fish would take large chunks, but he left some pieces big enough for that.
He left the pile of bait beside him and started pitching his weighted hook back upstream to drift it back down in the current. Drifting wasn't his preferred method of fishing, but it would work. With that cast he hooked into the first of the perch looking trout. The fish organs survived the encounter and served to fish up another of the trout before he had to move onto the cut bait. Luna mostly watched while he pulled in the two fish, but she did help secure the stringer and held it for him.
The first casts of the cutbait had the odd trout's noses, but they didn't go after it like they had the organs. He was starting his third cast with the cutbait when Luna spoke again.
“Your spirit mark had the rune for love in it.”
He nearly fumbled the rod out into the stream as she said it right when he was letting go of the line for the pitch.
“That.” He said thinking back. “I don't even know what I did. Why didn't you mention your little love rune to Vivian?” He asked when he thought about it, giving Luna a meaningful glance. Her ears wilted, but she smiled innocently.
“Well...” She hesitated and ran a hand over her ears before snapping them back up. “You see that's not the kind of thing you tell Vivian. Or wasn't. I thought it would make her angry, but I see the way she looks at you, and it makes a little more sense now. That's why I asked.”
Micheal let his eyes swap between his new friend and the line drifting down the stream trying to keep the sudden heat from his face. He didn't know why it would embarrass him, but maybe it was just the sudden realization of how quickly his affections for the elf woman were growing.
“Yeah and how does it make more sense?” He asked her.
“Well I think your bond is cooperative. Most spirit marks I've heard of are used by powerful mages or wizards or even beastmasters to bind a being to their will; it's all based on the soul. Usually its monsters, elementals, spirits, familiars and the like, but its rare to see them on people because usually people's souls don't submit to that kind of thing. It's something I deal with using my song magic. It's some advanced theory I have been trying to learn about. Magic and the soul intertwined and worked together in harmony within the notes of my music. Seeing that spirit mark made me think of that.” Luna provided, one of her ears wilting again as she looked to be in thought. The other seemed to be on a slow rotation backward before it turned back again. Her ears seemed capable of doing just shy of one hundred and eighty degree turns without scrunching up the opening. There must have been a complex system of muscles on her scalp to make her kind able to do that. He wondered what her skull must have looked like. She was clearly human enough, but how did the ear canals work? She caught him staring at her ears again and her face went defensive. She put a hand over them as if to protect them from his gaze.
“Sorry. Rude I know. They are just fascinating. Can you really turn them front to back without changing the quality of what you hear?” He asked as he pulled in the line once more. He frowned at the empty hook that came out of the water.
As he knelt Luna came close to him smiling shyly, but nodded at his question, and even knelt down slightly to him at near to the same level as he.
She turned her head and let him watch them turn back and the other way. There was indeed a system of muscles there all around the ear canal which was shielded from debris with fine supple hair like a cats. He watched as the complex system moved the whole ear canal as the ear turned.
“Can you get sunburned on the inside?” Micheal asked, gesturing toward the pale skin visible there.
Luna nodded her head gravely in response, her expression quickly changing back to friendly excitement. “Getting water inside when it rains is really annoying too.” She said, twisting her ears back and forth and then let them wilt down to cover the opening.
“Do you have full conscious control of their movement?” He asked.
She smiled at him conspiratorially as she flicked her ears up and down from wilted to fully erect in response. Then she put her tongue between her teeth and made the two ears cross and made them wilt and stiffen in turn enough to almost form the first steps of a square knot. Her eyes had crossed doing it, but she snapped back to normal and her ears flew apart and upright. She giggled with a warm light in her dark eyes.
“I haven't done that since I went back to see my newborn brothers.” She said, stepping away as Micheal laughed and fixed another piece of cutbait onto the hook. “It's always a good way to make babies laugh.” She went on.
Micheal stood and Luna watched as the reflex took over and Micheal made a long cast. He was just able to keep the spool from back-lashing badly, but pulled out a few arm lengths of line before reeling it back in a way to fix the spooled line. Luna's eyes went a little wide as she followed the line up the stream to where Micheal had expertly cast, and all he could do was shrug at her questioning glance.
Then the line got absolutely thumped. He could feel the big fish hitting, first going hard to stun its prey and then clamping down. Once, twice, and a third time before it turned away with the bait in its mouth headed for a log he had been able to cast near up the stream. He looped the line around a few fingers and set the hook. His fingers protested as the large fish fought back and shook its head violently, but failed to spit hook doing so. Micheal frantically reeled up the slack line and Luna was actually hopping on her toes in excitement again.
He had a light line of unknown weight so he carefully fought the heavy weight down stream finally relieving his fingers from the line after a time to fight the fish with the reel and his hands as both drag and anti-reverse. Luna cheered softly and bounced on her toes as he fought it downstream and then into the current. The line felt like it would snap with every shake of the fish's head, but he worked it hard giving line when he needed and kept good tension until the fish finally tired.
He worked it into the shallows near the bank, its long length and whiskers reminding him of a channel catfish though it had the coloring of a rainbow trout. He was unsure of whether or not he could lip the fish so he went for a gill grab once he was on his belly on the bank. He fished his fingers in and found a good purchase and thankfully no teeth or slicing gill plate waiting for his fingers. The heavy catfish came up still wriggling in his grip though it was quite clean and not very slimy.
“A Rainbow Barker?” Luna asked, clearly amazed.
Micheal frowned at the name of the fish until it started to stridulate with its mouth gaping. It was more of a short croak, but he supposed someone could call it a bark if they wanted to.
“Isn't it some sort of catfish?” He asked as it whipped its tail about still trying to escape. He managed to grab his momentarily discarded quarterstaff from the ground and clubbed it twice viciously before he noticed Luna wincing and recoiling at each blow. “Sorry. It's safer to just have it dead than to lose our other catch with it.”
Luna nodded, seeming to understand, but still she pulled the stringer up from the water and pulled the nail from the ring so he could add the uh-- Barker-- to the string. She returned them to chill water with the end of the string firmly in hand.
“What's a catfish? Or a 'cat' for that matter I know what a fish is.” She looked somewhat disturbed.
Micheal was confused. He almost pointed at the stringer, and Luna did catch that as he hesitated. She eyed the fish on the stringer and looked back at him.
“You don't have cats here?” He asked in disbelief. He loved dogs, but cats were tied for best pets in his mind. It just really mattered on what a person was willing to do for your pet and how involved that person wanted to be. Cats and dogs were two sides to the same coin in his mind.
Luna shook her head with an open innocent look on her face. Or maybe that was just the way her ears wilted as she seemed to be trying to put together something in her head. He gave her what he knew of them.
“They're efficient predators, or at least the ones I mean are. Four legged like a dog, tails, ears, the whole bit, but they have retractable claws and purr instead of wagging their tails.” He explained with images of his big cat Dennis in his mind. Dennis was far from a prolific hunter as he never went outside, but he did seem to assume he was the boss of whoever entered Micheal's apartment and entitled to much petting.
Luna's one ear fell limp and she smiled nervously at his energy. He went on hardly noticing lost in the memories of his cat and the numerous facts he knew about them.
“The common house cat is a lot smaller than most dogs, and in the wild they mostly survive on catching rodents like mice, rats, and rabbits and things like that. They're actually a huge problem in some places where I come from since they're so good at hunting they wipe out native species of birds and insects that are critical to some environments. I've had one named Dennis for years; he--” He cut off as he watched Luna's ears wilt down to almost lay flat. She looked to have been trying to be encouraging of him, but that was replaced by pale faced rictus.
She spoke after a moment.
“You-..you raised some kind of tiny Tiger?” Luna asked amazement mixed with pure terror in her voice. She backed away from him a little unsteady. She laughed nervously looking up at him. “Those apex killing machines?”
Micheal was about to say something in defense of his lovable cat Dennis when he saw the chain connected to the tree behind Luna. He lunged forward to take the startled young woman by the arms and pull her hard into him and away from the cluster of leaves she was backing into. It had looked natural enough before, but when he spotted the chain he had noticed how some of the leaves were last year's fall, a little rotten and wet, pulled up and spread about.
He heard something snap shut as he pulled her away, but she didn't shout or scream as they stumbled backward onto the bank of the stream. Micheal just barely kept Luna from spilling over top of him and into the stream as he looked over top of her to see in the mix of the old leaves the trap she had about to step into yet to be triggered. She caught on after a few words of embarrassed protest at how he clung to her and she looked back, ears flashing left and right and all around back at the trap.
“Thanks. I didn't even think he would put one that close to the water.” Luna said as they got up. She fussed over her dress, but fingered a rip in the lace only enough to mutter about something about sewing. “What was it that snapped then?” She asked just before a barking roar broke the relative peace of the forest. They glanced at one another for a short moment before they both sprung into action.