Beast took a deep breath in through his nose; he was not far now the smell was strong indeed. He pushed away a large fern and reveled a small quotation mark ( “ ) foot print in the moss. He continued his pursuit very careful not to rustle any leaves, step on any twigs or touch one of the many large mushrooms that gave a nasty rash. His ears perked as he herd a stick snap, slowly he moved in its direction vaguely aware of the noise he was generating as he slid through the ferns. There was no avoiding the ferns they where everywhere they clung to the moss, hung from every crevasse in every tree but most of all they almost completely covered the forest floor making it almost impossible to move with speed without making the amount of noise equivalent a burning fairy. Some ferns where almost as large as he himself while others where so small they could be growing inside your ear for all you’d know.
Dam ferns he thought, then checked himself, what was he doing thinking about ferns, he certainly was distracted today. He came to clearing and there was his prey, a large male deer. It stood on long slender legs; it was light brown with newly growing antlers and a little white tail. A few rays of light Illuminated the mossy clearing reviling a small stream filled with pollywogs (tadpoles) of all sizes. The stag lowered its head to drink the cool water and Beast tensed, this was his chance. Beast began creeping ever so slowly over the logs and under the ferns. The deer seemed to sense something because it rose took a few steps back. Beast stopped and waited for the dear to forget its fear. And, as the deer bent its head to drink again he began to inch forward once more through the twilight of the forest. This deer was a young one indeed; he was hoping for a larger, older one, this dear was scrawny with not a lot of food on it, plus the youthful ones where fast and agile. A deer's a deer he reminded himself, plus he had been tracking it for almost fifteen minutes now, he had no intention of giving up just because the dear might be harder to catch.
His foot came down on the ground, a stick snapped underfoot, he stopped, the dear looked up again and for a long moment nothing moved. Beast tensed, the dear made a run for it, Beast leapt, the dear dodged, he swung and his claw connected with the dears rump. But the dear recovered fast and took off into the forest. Beast was close on its trail, he was gaining but tiring fast, the race normally would be over in only a second (with Beast victorious) but beast was not himself today and this is how it was with beast, some days he was as fast as lighting but others he was more human and it was truly so today, he stood upright and his fur was much less thick, in fact all round he looked more like a man and less like a beast. But the pendulum swung both ways once he awoke to find himself unable to stand on two legs and had to walk on all four like a wolf, on such days he felt good. He found himself more aware stronger faster but less in control of his actions. He was beginning to be able to control his shape but it was hard when he had nothing to be mad about. He knew why he was so week today, he had been thinking about Bella. He remembered she used to call them the beauty and the beast, even after he had become human again, it was a pet name she had for them. Then he recalled her face when she saw her own heart lying on the ground beside her. He recalled how he wept after he killed her and sometimes just for a second he felt a feeling of deep regret and longing for the emotion now lost to him, love.
He flew through the air and landed directly in front of the dear. The dear dodged, almost hitting a tree in the process, and took off in the other direction. He sprang back into the air and flew feet first into a tree his claws dug into to moss covered bark, in only a split second he was jumping toward another tree while the stag ran beneath him. He flew from tree to tree until he was slightly ahead of the dear and quick as a fox he dropped. By the time it took him to fall the dear had run right under him and he fell on top of it, in one quick motion he cracked the dear’s neck killing it instantly. After he caught his breath he tied its legs together, picked it up and began the long walk back to the castle.
“Stop” cried a voice from nowhere. Beat turned and searched for what made the noise, beside a tree stood a small figure there was just enough light to see a scrawny old man with a long white beard leaning heavily on a stick. Beast took a step forward “cease” the old man said in a rather strong voice. He pointed his walking stick at beast and muttered something, immediately an object on the end of his stick shook. A piercing shriek spit the misty air and white light exploded from the end of the staff hitting the ground in front of beast.
“Who the hell are you” Beast roared his voice crackling with lack of use.
“I am MERLIN! Creature of the forest, do not disobey me again or you will suffer the consequences” Merlin threatened. Disgusting, beast thought beast he really did resented magic; even the smallest old men could wield great power over him.
He fell on to all fours not because he was wounded from the blast but because he was transforming he was becoming more beastly than he had ever been before. He could feel his new found strength and the animal blood coursing through his veins, he was stronger than ever before and was wondering if he could kill the old man before he could react.
“You can’t” Merlin said, “I would kill you before you even moved, that’s the beauty of reading minds. Let’s dig a little deeper” he said with a little smile. Immediately beast felt great pain in his head, he collapsed to the ground, the dear still on to his back. After what seemed like forever the pain stopped “interesting story, mine is similar” Merlin said and walked forward until he was not a three feet from Beast. Beast examined Merlin in full, he was very old his face severely wrinkled and scarred, he had very thin white hair that reached almost to the small of his back, he didn’t appear to have any teeth but the most striking thing was his eyes almost completely white except for the very pail grey pupils.
“You’re blind” Beast said.
“Very observant, it is a pain, yes but I can sense thing by other means.” Merlin replied. Beast's eyes shot to the staff in his hands, there appeared to be an infant's head impaled on the top. The head had no eyes only bloody sockets, the skin on the head, in most places, was gone especially on the scalp and the whole thing was crawling with maggots but the worst thing was that it was or seemed to be alive, there where patches where the skin was growing back but as dead as it seamed it moved, it shook its head and screwed up its face. As Beast watched it, the head opened its mouth as if trying to cry, as it did so Beast saw worms midway between crawling through the roof of the mouth and the bottom of the mouth. (OOC: I hope you’re having spaghetti tonight) BIC: Some of the worms snapped and writhed. Below the head was a spiky neck completely covered in quills which stood up then lay smooth seemingly at random, finally the rest of the staff was smooth and white excepted for a few veins which all pulsed sporadically. Beast’s eyes followed a particularly large vein down the hilt to the wizard’s wrinkled hand; the vein seemed to be attached to Merlin’s wrist.
“You two look very similar,” Beast said nodding at the head “are you related” Beast asked. Absent mindedly snatching a curious fairy out of the air and squeezed it harder and harder the more it struggled.
“He’s my son” Merlin replied. Beast wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. He was applying a fare amount of pressure to the tiny fairy and with one last squeeze something it the fairy broke and it fell limp.
“Well, I best be going now” Beast said taking a step back and throwing the dead fairy on the ground.
“You are going no where; there is something I want to talk to you about. You see, we both want the same thing, revenge, but we can only achieve our goals by working together” Merlin explained “enough out here where any one could be listening” Merlin pointed his staff at an enormous tree and muttered something unintelligible. There was the creak of wood and the tree opened into a kind of doorway. “Come inside, would you?”
OOC: Me grammar and speling are bad need to edit (LOL)