[1x1] Shapeshifters

((Again, we moved from an messenger to here.))

~The Situation~
Two shapeshifters wake up on a clearing in a forest. They don't know where they are or how they got there, but they're sure they have to save someone. Wolves howl and foxes bark, and they realize that it won't be easy to get out of the forest. Will they make it? Will they be able to save their friend?

~The characters~
~Aidan~
23 years old, can turn himself into a roan stallion. Red-brownish hair, green eyes.
~Evelyn
Female
Age: 21
Able to turn into a raven
chin-length black hair, slim, dark blue eyes

What we've written so far
~Aidan
Water dripped on his face and woke him. He opened his eyes and looked around, wondering where he was. His hair was tangled, a stick poked him. When he got up, he saw that he was on a clearing. What did he do on a clearing in a forest? He turned around himself and realized he wasn't alone. On the other side of the clearing he could see someone lying...

~Evelyn
Slowly her dream faded away. Strange images, but to unspecific to remember anything. She yawned and got up. If she did not hurry, she would miss the breakfast. But suddenly she say HIM. A young man, not much older than her, stared at her. What the hell was he doing in her bedroom? She must still be dreaming...

~Aidan
It was a young woman, maybe the same age as him, maybe younger. She looked as if he has surprised her.
When he walked up to her, a smile made its way onto his face because he noticed her hair was shorter than his. He did not know why he thought that was funny.
"Good... morning, or whatever time it is," he said. "May I ask who you are?"

~Evelyn
" What do you think who you are? Just walking in my bedroom and ask me... Oh." She stopped when she realised that she was not in her room but somewhere outside.
"If you kidnapped me, why are you smiling? Are you laughing at me?"
She would not show this man how scared she suddenly was. Slowly she stepped back, looking for something she could use as a weapon. "What do you want from me?" she tried to keep on talking to distract him from what she was doing.

~Aidan
"What I think who I am?" He laughed again. "I'm Aidan."
She backed away and he stopped walking.
"I didn't mean to surprise you. I'm surprised as well for I don't know where I am. Do you have any idea what we're doing here?"
He hoped she could have an answer but she didn't look like knew anything about their situation. He put his hair back behind his ears and turned his head to gaze between the trees to his left. He had never been here before. Nothing looked familiar to him.

~Evelyn
"Evelyn", she answered shortly. This branch on her right seemed to be thick enough to knock Aidan out. But what next? If she got lost in the forest, she would starve or die of thirst.
"I have no idea where we are. You're the kidnapper, remember? You'd have to know how we can get out of here".
She would not knock him out. He was the only one she could talk to at the moment, and she did not want to be all alone.
"I've never been here before. I don't recognise anything. I even don't REMEMBER anything!" She tried not to burst into tears.

~Aidan
"Hey, calm down," he said. "I didn't kidnap you. To be honest, I first thought YOU kidnapped me."
He tried not to laugh because you looked just as lost as he felt.
"I remember who I am. But I don't know how to get out of here either."
He started walking around the clearing, thinking about how they could get home.
"Do you have something useful with you? A knife?"
The forest didn't seem to be friendly and they would have to go through there for sure.

~Evelyn
"Why should I have kidnapped you?" She murmured something incomprehensible and started to dig in her pockets. Three mint bonbons, a handkerchief, her little wooden talisman. "I've got a box of matches", she said to Aidan. "And - I've found this. Look!" She showed him a silver star-shaped disc. "It's no knife, but at least a weapon. You can throw it on an enemy. If you hit him, the wound can be deadly, especially when the throwing star - we call it Shuriken - is poisoned." Evelyn looked at Aidan. "I know. I've never liked these kind of weapon. They are... nasty. But I can use them. Hell, for the first time of my life I'm happy to have one or two of them in my pocket."

~Aidan
"Wow," he said. "I didn't expect you to have anything useful."
While she had told him about the throwing stars, he had searched the pockets of his cloak. He had everything with him, needles, little iron buttons, a hat made of wool, even rotten leaves. But he couldn't find his dagger anywhere. Have I lost it in my sleep? He wondered.
"You have two... Shurikens, but do you have poison?"
He looked through a few of his many pockets again. "I don't."

~Evelyn
"In fact, I've got four Shurikens, but no poison. Maybe we can extract it from venomous frogs or insects, but I don't like the thought to kill little animals without any reason. Er... Why do you have leaves in your pockets? Do you have anything useful, too? Like a water bottle, a knife, maybe a map of here?" Evelyn realised that she sounded more snippy than she had planned, but she was thirsty, her throat was burning and her back hurt because she had slept on the uncomfortable forest floor.

~Aidan
He couldn't help but to laugh. "I would like to see you catching a frog!"
His eyes sparkled with amusement when he finally managed to be serious again.
"I have got a few needles," he explained. "But I never have a bottle of water with me. Usually, I drink from a brook when I find one. But... Wait a moment..."
He looked into the pocket with the leaves again. The rotten leaves must have been in there for ages, he thought when he took them and threw them away. There was a grey cloth under them and when he lifted the cloth, he found even more leaves. But these weren't rotten, they were just dried. One of them was mint. Perfect, he thought.
"Here, chew that. Against your thirst."
He handed Evelyn the mint leaf, waiting for her reaction.

~Evelyn
"What's that? Are you gonna poison ME?" She laughed, then she took the leaf and sniffed at it. "Mint? I hope for you that it's mint. If it kills me, I promise, I'll kill you, too". She did not know why, but she was smiling. Maybe a hysterical reaction since her mind could not handle the whole situation? Evelyn started to chew the leaf. It was mint, and it helped against her thirst immediately.
"Er... Aidan, I'm sorry. I should have been more friendly. I don't know what has come over me. Usually, I'm not like this... " She paused and looked at him. "And, well - thank you"

~Aidan
"If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead," he said. "It's okay," he replied when she apologized. He knew she had no reason to trust him for he was completely strange to her.
"You're welcome," he said, smiling at her. "We should go now, shouldn't we?"
He closed his eyes and concentrated on his feet. Slowly they started to change their shape. Little by little they hardened and became hooves, as well as his hands. He could feel his trouser turning into fur and his legs and arms getting stronger. Then he stopped his transformation for a moment.
"We'll be faster this way," he explained to Evelyn.

~Evelyn
"Oh, I didn't see you're a shapeshifter. But you did, didn't you? Wait... " Evelyn raised her arms and felt how they transformed into black, silky feathers. Her shoes disappeared and her feet became to sharp claws. "Did you think I would ride on your back? Never. I'll fly"
Then she concentrated on her face, started to turn her nose into a beak. She would still be able to speak if she had to, but it would sound a bit like... Well, as a raven which was able to speak human language. Raspy.

~Aidan
"Fine then, do what you like, fly away, out of this forest and leave me alone..."
He wasn't sure, but he thought he could hear a wolf howl. With his horse ears he would know. His ears became longer and more hairy, until two leave shaped ears were pointing at Evelyn.
"Can you hear the wolves, too?" He asked.
When he had finished his transformation, a great roan stallion was standing at the clearing. He walked around Evelyn, showing the muscles under his silky fur.
"Doo foo fill fonna fyy?" He asked. His words weren't easy to understand because his teeth and his tongue were much too big to pronounce the words the way that he wanted to.

~Evelyn
"Yes, I fill fonna fyy", Evelyn imitated him.
"I've never said that I was going to leave you alone. And of course I'm hearing the wolves. Even if you don't see them because they are covered by feathers, I do have ears. So I thought it would be safer for me in the treetops".

~Aidan
If he wasn't a horse, he would say "well then" but he didn't. He just glanced at her with his big back eyes and then turned around to leave. His ears turned back to where Evelyn was standing.
He carefully watched where he put his steps because he didn't want to make loud noises. That was really not easy with his big hooves.
What should he think about Evelyn? First she had not trusted him at all, then she had told him about her weapons without thinking about that. She had even eaten the mint he had given her. But he liked her. Somehow.

~Evelyn
'If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead'. The thought circled through her mind when she spread her wings and headed for branch above her. Even in his inhuman shape, he didn't look very threatening. Was this guy really able to kill somebody? Apart from that he had given her the mint, she had no reason to trust him. Now would be the right moment to fly away, leave Aidan, and to forget him.
I won't, she suddenly recognised. I don't know why, but I'll stay with him, at least until we're out of this terrible forest.
With two beats of wings, she had catched up with Aidan.
"Any idea where we're going? Just blindly straight ahead, or do you have an better plan?"

~Aidan
He had forgotten to look for his dagger on the clearing. Damn, he thought. He had already gone to far to return.
"Wew woin' foo easf", he replied when he heard her question. The forest couldn't go on forever and in the east was the ocean. Maybe they could get out of the forest there. If they could find the coast, he would know how to get home.
Right in the moment he wanted to look up to see if she was still following him, he heard a sound next to him. He stopped to see what it was and turned his head. I could have smelled it, he thought when he saw the wolf.
"Fyy away!" He yelled. If Evelyn landed now, the wolf would get her. He had to do something, but he didn't know what. When there was one wolf, more were coming. A wolf never came alone...

~Evelyn
She had heard the wolf, too, but she would not fly away and leave Aidan alone. If the pack of wolves got him, they would tear him apart. What could she do? Her claws were sharp, but to hurt the wolf she had to come very close above the ground. It was dangerous if there was more than one wolf, but she could not just wait and look how Aidan was being attacked. With a raven-like howl, Evelyn entered the fray.

~Aidan
It was a Greywolf. Literally the big bad wolf, Aidan thought. It stared at him with its big blue eyes, making no move. He stared back at it for a moment, then he made his decision. As a horse he actually was strong enough to defeat it, but there was not enough space for him to move like he wanted to.
Greywolfs never were alone. Lonely Greywolfs were to weak to attack a horse or something else as big as him.
He turned around quickly to run away when he heard Evelyn getting down between the trees.

____________________________________________

Your turn^^

~Evelyn
She lunged at the wolf, trying to hurt it with her claws. She hoped Aidan would help her if there was more than this one. She would be able to manage a single one, but not a whole pack. Since she didn't hear any noises from Aidan, she turned around. He was just standing there and looking at her. Idiot.
"If you don't mind, could you please help me? I was trying to save your life, but it seems that you don't want to be saved", she shouted angrily, thinking once more about just leaving him here alone.
For a moment she was distracted and the greywolf used the time to attack her. She groaned with pain when its teeth dug into her shoulder. Fantastic, Evelyn, really fantastic...

~ Aidan
It was an unusual sight. He was sure that no one has ever watched a fight between a raven and a Greywolf. It was thrilling and it took him a few seconds to realize that he should help her. What should he do? Try to attack that beast as a horse? Or turn back into human shape and use his dagger? I've lost my dagger, he remembered.
With a shriek that was unlike a horse's sounds, he leaped forward, trying to reach the wolf's throat. Hitting down his hoof on his enemy's back, he felt bones breaking underneath. The wolf howled in pain and turned his head towards Aidan. Before he was able to react, his left leg was caught between two rows of pointed teeth.