#johas

She doesn't scream. She doesn't run. Oh, she's scared, but more yet than that, she's fascinated.

And when the sounds of the hunters after the creature come closer and it runs off, leaving her notably umauled?

She doesn't deny running into the werewolf; she is far too shocked to make a convincing act of it–

But she points the hunters in the wrong direction. "It went that way."

It didn't.

They thank her, promise to catch the beast before it harms anyone... But it already left her unharmed.

When a tall, dark stranger saunters into town the next day, she has her suspicions.

When her eyes meet his, she's all but convinced. There's a wildness about them, something beyond human lurking under the skin of a man.

Her thrill when he approaches her and... Chats her up. Just small talk, really, but he's charming, his smile outright disarming despite the sharp, dangerous edge to it, and he has eyes for no one else while they talk.

She thinks he knows she knows—or that she strongly suspects, at the very least—that he's no man. Not only a man. Something more. Something else.

He keeps visiting each day from thereon. Her father catches up to it quickly, of course he does—word travels and a wanderer coming and going so is a prime topic for gossip. Oh, he disapproves. "Who is he?" No one knows, no one's sure, and that's the problem. What manner of person of any repute has no trace, leaves no trace?

Maybe one with a wild, splintered soul, she thinks. His secret is safe with her, though, and neither does she listen to her father's warnings to stay away from him.

Instead she makes an excuse and heads out of town, just like that first day... Into the forest.

And sure enough—he comes. In the shape of a man, but the way he prowls into view bespeaks a nature closer to that of a beast.

Her heart beats faster, and she's not sure whether it's fear or excitement that makes it so unsteady. Likely a mix of both.

She's giddy.

"Are you stalking me?" she asks him, smiling, teasing.

"Depends," he grins back. "Do you want me to?"

"Oh, I don't know. There are more than a few fables about the dangers a lone maiden can meet in the woods." The innocent bat of her eyes doesn't fool either of them. He laughs... But keeps his distance.

Like he's worried of spooking her away.

...Or like he's a wild animal, curious but bound to instinctive caution.

She sets her basket down, slowly, never once removing her eyes from him any more than his leave her. He watches her, and watches sharper yet when she approaches.

Slowly. Step by careful step... But he doesn't tell her to stop, and he doesn't turn to aggression, and... He doesn't run.

Not even when she's close enough to catch the scent of him, all wild woods and nature and the musk of a man.

Not even when she reaches a hand out and lays it on his chest, over the dark, well-worn clothes covering him. He breathes deeply under her touch, nostrils flaring as if he's pulling in her scent in far more detail than she can.

His eyes...

"You have the heart of a wolf, don't you?" she asks.

He doesn't answer.

That's answer enough.

"What's your name?"

He inclines his head just so, a smile flittering on his lips just the same as the canopy above them makes sunlight dance in dapples around them. Handsome. Wolfish. "Johas. And yours?"