There was laughter, and wood-smoke, and fresh-roasted meat, and young cubs playing in the center of the Hunter village that Skinhider called home. He sat among the Panthera that he'd known since his youth and shared flesh and grain and water with them in the day's meal, the sun hot against the back of his hooded cloak. Those around him were stripped to the waist in the summer's baking heat, smiling with sharp fangs as they crossed wrists and bumped shoulders in reaching for one platter or the next of foodstuffs.

There was a small black female seated on his left, and an empty seat to his right. They ate in silence with the cheerful, hearty conversation around them untouched. And then he felt a tap-tap-tap on his leather bracer, and he looked out from his hood with a blink of shadowed eyes. "Pardon?"

Keen yellow eyes returned his shaded gaze, narrowed curiously. "Why the armor? You think you'll find danger in Heart?" she asked in a low voice, one small hand gesturing around her to the Pantheran strongpost. It was Heart of the Hunter tribe, just like Kurajos was Den to Walkers. She peered closer, then drew back with a frown when he recoiled slightly. "I can't even tell what color you are."

Skinhider creased his muzzle in a courteous smile. "Grey, milady. As for the armor, better prepared tha--"

"Elkshit." She ignored his startled look after she cut him off. "My name is Mooncrier," she added brusquely, extending a gloveless hand across the few inches that separated them at the communal table. "Yours?"

"..." The warrior regarded the small femme for a long moment, both furred brows arched and ears back beneath his cowl. "...Skinhider," he finally introduced, clasping her thin wrist. "Bloodwalker, a few seasons away from mastery," he added in a slightly less friendly voice. He took his hand back quickly.

"Beastdancer," she returned with a wicked grin that made him recoil even more than the term. "A wanderer, originally a Walker." A pause as she eyed him up and down, and he would have bristled had his hackles been free to do so instead of pinned beneath a full-body covering of leather armor. "Skinhider. So appropriate. Wh--no, I won't ask why again, you'd give me the same rote response." Another pause. "Would you like to take a walk, 'Hider?"

A stiff smile, a last attempt at cordial politeness. "No thank you, milady. I'm afraid this is my last meal here for a while; I leave very shortly." Skinhider rose, claws leaving small stains of spice and juice on the wooden table, and slipped away from the bench. Mooncrier twisted to face him, unreadable with narrowed eyes. "A pleasure to meet you, lady. Good hunting."

The beastdancer watched him leave Heart, and then smiled to herself.

...

Skinhider knelt by the pond's edge and stared into the startlingly clear waters, his reflection a mere shadow on the crystaline surface. With a sigh that hissed between his fangs, he lifted his gloved hands to push the hood back and study his reflection.

Iron-grey fur, a deep shade, only visible on his muzzle and just around his eyes. His face was mostly wrapped in fine leather, a dark rich brown in color, and his head had a leather helm that barely left his ears free to hear. His eyes were peridot, a clear shade of yellow-green - eyes no one saw any longer. He'd not bared his skin to the world for seasons upon seasons, imposing upon spiritwalkers to cleanse him when necessary, lifewalkers to seal his wounds rather than bandage them.

The water rippled as he watched it, kneeling at the edge, and he found himself humming a tune he'd never before heard. A silver watersnake twisted within the pond, glittering in the sunlight that pierced the depths, and he watched and hummed, fascinated at how the serpent seemed to gyrate in time to the beat of ...

...what was he half-singing now?

Skinhider paused and clenched his jaws shut, and the silence lasted for three seconds before he was thrumming along with the tune that was swimming through his blood like the snake through the pond. And his eyes locked on the silver reptile again, and he heard laughter as he watched the streamlined body ripple like water and somehow become a black Panthera.

"'Dancer!" he cried accusingly, rising to his feet instantly and flexing his fingers as though about to strike. Mooncrier surfaced with a wicked grin and drew herself to shore, several yards away from the tense bloodwalker. "You cast this music upon me!"

The beastdancer purred a liquid laugh and shook the water from her ebony fur. Like most Hunters in the height of summer, she wore a loose kilt and then a strip of clothing across her breasts - no armor, no weaponry. "You sound so upset, Skinhider," she chuckled, yellow eyes glinting with something beyond amusement. "Think me a threat, that you bare your claws and teeth at me?"

With a forcefully stifled hiss, the bloodwalker retracted his claws and straightened out of his defensive stance. "What is this song, 'dancer?" he snapped, ears flattened to his leather helm.

"A song to make you think," she replied easily, sliding into a graceful crouch and splaying one small hand against the soil. "Sing it aloud and hear the words." Mooncrier paused, then smiled slyly at him. "Meanwhile, I'll disappear."

Skinhider opened his mouth to speak, but the black femme that was the beastdancer rippled into a silver-spattered black cat, and it snarled at him laughingly before whirling away into the underbrush. He tried to stop himself from humming, but the tune was embedded into his very scent and flesh it seemed, and he sighed as he continued singing through clenched jaws and walking along the water's edge. Perhaps if he put some distance between the 'dancer and himself, the music would fade.

...

A week. It had been a full week, and still the tune lurked beneath his skin and poured siren sickness into his blood. He had not sung it aloud, and he hadn't caught sight nor scent of the beastdancer since she said she'd disappear. Though he looked upon the wild animals in the wood with suspicion now, he could not find her.

And still the music tugged at his ears and tongue, begging release.

...

hiding from all of those who
cannot comprehend he
dances

up and down
to and fro
back, a highway to her soul

further back, clutching grass
dashes up and
dodges back
moving fear, disguised at best
he
dances

Two weeks, and Skinhider was maddened, unable to cease swaying limply, as though suspending on ropes from a sturdy tree bough like a carcass. Maddened, unable to think past the song, past the taunting memory of Mooncrier's silver-muzzled face, past the tune that swam through his blood like wine and fire.

The bloodwalker stumbled and did not fall, lean frame twisting bonelessly to whirl himself back upright, all in step to the drums that thundered in his head like a distant storm. His skin burned, too hot under the armor that had been his false hide for years, under the armor that had always kept the perfect temperature against the elements. His fur itched madly, pressed flat, and with glazed eyes, the Panthera found himself kneeling before a still, crystal-clear pond.

He could smell the spirits dancing on the water's surface with ethereal paws.

"Done hiding yet, Walker?" a soft voice queried, a mere purr at his ear, and he didn't have to turn his face to know that Mooncrier bent over him. He couldn't answer aloud, still silently mouthing the words that flowed and ripped through his mind like whitewater rapids and herons in flight. But he nodded, and when he felt her small, sharp claws curl into the tops of his shoulders - through the armor he wore - he didn't flinch. "Good," she whispered as the faint, fresh scent of blood arose from the miniscule punctures. They inhaled as one, and the bloodwalker bowed his head in resignation and submission as the beastdancer softly snarled her approval into his ear.

Skinhider did not resist when she drew him into the water, her claws still hooked into the flesh just beneath his leather armor. He let himself be led into the center of the little pond, hardly able to see, his body weak from malnourishment, his spirit captive to the music that the 'dancer had woven around him. A lesson she meant to teach that he had fought and fled... to which he had finally, finally surrendered.

Mooncrier raked her claws along the seams of the male's armor, drawing away his cowl and cloak, tugging off gloves and shin-guards. The mask across his eyes was unbuckled carefully, and after she tossed that, too, to float in the water, she had him down to the innermost layer of armor, seemingly closer than his own skin. "You fool," she swore softly, dipping a small hand in the water and bringing her palm to touch his muzzle, his cheek, his brow. He shuddered, not really seeing her, at the touch of cold water seeping past thin grey fur to dampen his skin. "You must learn again to live," she whispered to him, taking his face in both hands and pressing a kiss to his bared forehead. He shivered.

"Are you the pilgrim on the road? Are you the hermit in the wood? Have you followed what you know, what you want, or what you should?" the black Panthera sang softly, voice silvery, as she slowly stripped him of the last vestiges of his armor. At the touch of the gentle wind on his bared neck and shoulders, he cried out quietly, shuddering as his skin remembered what it was to feel his fur rustle beneath airy fingers. The tunic and arm-guards shorn away next and he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut, as the cool water of the pond sank past dulled fur to soak and chill his very skin. The touch was intense, painful in its fresh acuity, and he was shaking as the beastdancer stripped him off every last bit of his armor.

"And have you learned a thing or two?" Mooncrier whispered in tune to him, sliding her open palms across his shoulders and pulling him to her in a gentle, tight embrace. "And have you wondered at the tide?" He was shaking uncontrollably, sensation flooding him even more than her songs had, and with the ease of a master 'dancer, she took the siren humming from his spirit and wound it about her own. Her spine curled and then arched as the music sank beneath the skin and dove into her marrow, her flesh, burning and balming all at once. But her voice did not falter as she held him to her. "In the dark night of the soul, am I the one you thought you'd find?..."

Skinhider buried his muzzle in the crook of her shoulder and throat, eyes still closed, and let the waves of air and water wash his skin with the same sharp touch that honed steel had. The beastdancer soothed his whimpering and held him until he stopped shaking, and when his eyes finally opened and lost the glaze of song-madness, the black woman dissolved into a silver snake.

The bloodwalker curled long, steel-strong fingers around the serpent's middle, and when it wove itself around his hand, brought it to his face and pressed it against his forehead in humble gratitude. The snake hissed and caressed his forehead with a wedge-shaped head, understanding, and made no move to unwind itself from his hand as he stood in the middle of the pond.

The sun set, and the rising moon found his skin still bared to the world.