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--to be concluded--

Is was an odd few days, to say the very least. Looking after an unconcious Beryl who needed medical attention while being tied to the floor was a new and disturbing experience. It made him think too much.

When he changed her dressings and cleaned her wounds, Eamnonn's thoughts strayed to Kaelin, a rival the green god was sure he'd lost Beryl to. He was a decent enough fellow, if a bit wet (Damn Perri and her implanted need to pun!), and clearly cared about her. But thinking about him while tending to Beryl made a hollow ache start in his chest and growl to rise in his throat, so Eamnonn forced his thoughts in other directions. Beryl needed food.

The Hunt spent an entire hour trying to puzzle out hoe to get food and liquid down Beryl's gullet without waking her up, and ended up pretty empty handed. In the end, he resigned himself to making sure she was watered, had a little willow bark tea everday, and swallowed some broth. She was going to require fullout grazing when she woke up...

More wound cleaning, more poultice making for the wing that Eamononn felt responsible for every time he cared for it. She always bled around him, didn't she? Come to think of it, he bled quite a bit around her too, but he'd always seen that as a natural part of life. Why would you have blood if not to bleed occassionally? It was an odd thought, perhaps, but not a suprsing one for the Hunt to have. Still, while his and his prey's bleeding had never bothered him, Bery's did. The Wind was not supposed to injure.

That day's work and thoughts done, Eamnonn relaxed n his bathing pool, making a point to stare out the window and not at Beryl's bound and sleeping form. He was hungry, but had to wait until Trouble returned to have a meager dinner. He didn't want to leave his charge alone to hunt, since he knew he would get distracted and be gone longer than he meant to. He could have gone and found meat in the compound's kitchen, surely, but a god had his pride and Eamnonn would not eat what he hadn't killed these days. So he waited for a large catlike beast that resembled a red and black raccoon with a taste for songbirds to bring him dinner. The Hunt would probably be forced to go out tomorrow, his high metabolism already screaming for more food.

It was all a mess, and he didn't know how to fix it. Beryl was falling into some horrible past and another man's arms, and Ea wasn't even sure he disliked said man. And despite this chain events, which he should have been fighting tooth and nail all the way, he found the pull of the forest night irresistible and could get lost there happily for hours. Things were changing, and he didn't like them.

Trouble brought back three doves. Eamnonn went to bed hungry.

It was an odd few days, to say the very least.

Eamnonn had never truly grasped the human concept of feeling naked. He was comfortable in his skin, whether it be a temporary borrowing of Perri's flesh or his current camoflauged and winge'd form. To this day he wore clothing merely for the convience of others, and when alone stripped down to a loincloth. Wolves and deer wore only their skin - why should the Hunt act any differently than the participants? At that exact moment, though, standing loincloth and hunting knife-clad in front of an unfamiliar human female, male, and dog-like thing, he understood feeling exposed and vulnerable due to lack of attire. Today would have been a day to wear pants.

Their... dog, for lack of a better word, was first to approach, and by its smell Eamnonn suspected it might actually be a zombie dog called back from the dead to do their bidding. It ran up to him, barking, and narrowly missed smashing head-on into the Hunt's leg due to a lucky trajectory. Circling back, he barked and growled, trying to smell the intruder over his own personal stink. The Hunt growled back. The dog fled.

Jerry eyed this newcomer suspiciously, trying to decide whether to shoot or ask questions first. It seemed human, animal, and plant all at the same time, which was plenty to confuse him into glaring and clutching his rifle meaningfully without being able to decide what to do. God confrontation was not something he had experience with.

His daughter Liza, perhaps spurred by superior intellect or simply a mall-lover's wish to avoid extending her time in the woods, put her hands on her hips and spoke. "Who'er you?"

Eamnonn thought, trying to choose the best response from a list of one known and many unknown, eventually giving up and going for what he had. "My name is Eamnonn."

Jerry frowned at the foreign and hard-to-spell-sounding name. "What're you?"

This... this was a more difficult question to answer. He had a distinct feeling, left over from Perri, that saying he was a god probably wouldn't make things go smoothly. Was there anything else to respond with?

"I'm... male?" the Hunt tried. The man's eyes narowed more. Eamnonn suspected they were now shut.

"Not a fan of clothes, huh?" Liza leered, grinning, and Ea was greatful for her sarcasm. That he knew how to respond to.

"They're difficult to navigate, what with the wings." The humans looked suspicious. Oops.

"What wings?" Jerry asked, tightening his grip on his gun. Eamnonn sighed.

"Promise not to shoot them?" The man blinked.

"What?"

"I'll show you my wings if you promise to to shoot them. They're a real pain to heal." No pun intended. Perri wisp, you aren't funny.

Jerry and Liza glanced at each other, banding together due to unfamiliar territory. She shrugged and nodded. They turned back to Eamnonn.

The man raised is gun to his shoulder. "Show 'em slowly."

That was not a promise to deny bodily harm, but since it was nearly an assurance that a shooting would occur if the wings weren't unveiled, Eamnonn sighed and did as he was bid, crossing his arms when his leafy appendages were fully extended from his shoulder blades.

"See?"

The humans stared in silence. The god rolled his eyes. "May I lower them now?"

Jerry nodded, and Liza gave him a rather shrewd once-over. "Are you a nymph?"

Eamnonn snorted in disgust. "Nymphs are girls. I am not girl."

"Are you an Ent?"

Both the Hunt and Jerry looked confused and managed to chorus, "What's an Ent?" Although it didn't work perfectly as their diction was rather dissimilar.

Liza stamped her foot in annoyance. "I just want to know why you're a tree!"

"I'm not a tree!"

"You look like one! You even have leaves!"

"Those are wings, girly. The rest of it is camoflauge."

To demonstrate, the Hunt faded into the background. Jerry's drooping shotgun was remembered and aimed where Eamnonn had been. "Come back here!"

"I am here." Eamnonn said, still not visible.

"An invisble talking tree!" Jerry muttered. The Hunt chuckled.

"No, not invisible." He took one step to the side, and the gun muzzle jerkily followed his fluid blur of movement. "Camoflauged." Eamnonn faded back into the foreground. Liza was facinated.

"But human eyesight isn't based on movement. We should be able to see you when you're still too."

The Hunt shook his head, switching into a lecture mode he had inherited from the leftovers of Perri's brain. "Think of it more like military camo, just built into my skin. It's based on two principals: first that erratic color patterns can be used to break up a distintive shape of an object that would normally be recognized by the brain, and second that human mind has a tendency to look through or past things it labels as 'background'."

The girl nodded thoughfully, her bleached pigtails bouncing. She seemed worth talking to once something interested her, even if she had been attacked by maurading clowns and forcefully face-painted. And as for complaining about his lack of clothing, well... perhaps she ought to go find more of her own before she sniped at other people.

Still looking at Eamnonn like he was Jerry's own personal devil, the man shook his gun and yelled. "Enough fancy talk! Tells us what you are!"

The Hunt sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Liza looked vaguely like she sympathized with him. "I am a god."

Both humans looked incredulous. "You're God?"

"No, not 'God'. A god. Small 'g,' far less influence. God of the Hunt, specifically."

They clearly did not believe him.

"I'm clearly not human, right?"

Jerry spat. "That's for damn sure."

"And I'm not a tree."

"I suppose." sighed Liza.

"But I have wings, very good natural camoflauge, and plenty of other traits you two don't happen to know about." Eamnonn crossed his arms over his chest, raising his chin in a challenge to them to contradict him. "Why can't I be a god?"

Father a daughter considered this, father speaking first. "Because!"

"I don't know daddy-" Liza began, but Jerry cut her off.

"Oh shush girl! You don't know what you're talking about!"

Normally, Liza would have done what she was told and forgotten about the whole thing. But Eamnonn had got her thinking, and she was in no mood to embarassed in front of a possible god by her father.

"I know more than you, Dad! Besides, you of all people should be happy to meet a hunting god!"

Watching the family squabble over him begin in ernest, Eamnonn took the opportunity provided by a distracted father and daughter and ran. He was long overdue to look in on Beryl, and still hadn't managed to get food for himself. Damn woods. They were so distracting!

Still... they were interesting people. The Hunt would have to look on them again, this time hopefully unseen. Trouble would have to stay behind, of course, as the man would certainly try to kill him. That would be easier said than done once his pet smelt them all on him, but Eamnonn liked a challenge.

Speaking of smelling... after that dog the Hunt needed a bath.