A males fate in the beast world

Wind of change

When the first rays of the morning sun started to announce a new day, Winston suddenly opened his eyes. While he lifted his head from his front legs, the white ears moved vivid as his blue-grey eyes scanned the surroundings.

He was dead certain, he felt eyes on him. Immediately the tiger stood up and positioned himself over the awakening female.

As she sat up, her face was greeted by the soft fur of the tigers abdomen and instinktiv her hands clutched after it. In this strange position crouched under the tiger, Kathy's brain finally got the grave situation.

While crawling out off her tiger tent, she whispered: "What happend Winston?"

The tiger continued the watch the nature around them and gave her just a low growl as an answer.

Kathy nodded and grabbed her skin to stuff it in the backpack. Meanwhile Winston layed down on the floor, his senses still focused on their surroundings.

Right after the female sat down, he stood up and started to run as fast as possible. Carrying Kathy limitied his speed, but non the less he tried for two hours to shake off the observer.

As Winston felt Kathy's hold getting weaker, he decided to leave the observer be for the time being and get her a late breakfast. 'Females need to eat regulary or their health will decline.', he reminded himself.

He stopped by a small river and let her down. While the tiger transformed, Kathy got some dried fruits out of her backpack and shared them with Winston. After the late breakfast the female seemed at ease on the other hand the tiger was anything but relaxed. He checked the surroundings nonstop and made sure that nothing escaped his attention.

The observer settled at a safe distance, where the female did not notice him. Still, Winston felt uneasy. He calmed himself with the fact, that it was just the presence of one and likely a weaker beastman than him.

Yet the tiger did not want to find out, if the observer was part of a beast team and urged the female to continue the journey. Hopefully he would lose interest soon and stop following them.

While the duo traveled the surroundings slowly changed. The green plain grew hillier with each passing hour and at some point they even needed to leave their way near the river. The hills got to high so Winston started to circumvent them to save time.

Meanwhile Kathy enjoyed the different scenery around her. She would not would not call herself a nature lover, but right now it gave her the opportunity to occupy her mind. So the female continually looked from left to right and back to pass time.

Like this she noticed the grass getting a yellow touch until it complety changed color. Kathy was puzzled as she saw sand between the yellow-brown grass. At least the difference made sense now.

Of course the change did not slip Winston's attention. With his good nose he even noticed the changed in humidity before the visual facts.

It seems like there was a lot wind from the east this year, so the desert expanded a bit to the west.

With the growing amount of sand around them and still a follower, Winston relucant decided to take a longer path.

Just as he turned to the left, a sandhill to his right started to move.

///

Just as i wanted to take the new path, i saw a sudden movement in the corner of my eye. Out off the blue or better out off the sandhill came three scorpions, which attacked us immediately.

To counterattack i let the female slide down my back and parried the first attack with my claws. Dammit. With the dessert the scorpion territory moved as well.

Face to face with scorpions some unpleasant memories emerged. How i hate scorpions. I had enough off them for a lifetime in the city of flames.

There i fought everyday against them to the death and got scratched from head to toe by their stingers, until i even developed some poison resistance. But that's not the only thing i gained in this scorpion lair. I also got my fourth stripe as well as some little-known information about them.

Scorpion, like the ones in front of me, with small pinchers bank on their strong poison and are hence nothing without their stinger.

So my tactic was concluded. While thinking, i tried to avoid the stingers to the best of my current abilities and the female meanwhile crawled a few meters away to give me more fighting space.

With already a few superficial stinger scratches i attacked the first and brought my claws between the segments of his shell. Like this i got access to the vulnerable body under it and easily seperated the tail from the rest of the body.

If you know how the do it, it takes only a few second to kill a scorpion. Especially when you refined your technic during a few hundert scorpion killls.

With my still not completely healed body, it took me two minutes to have them down. I guess i should have stayed a few days longer in the cave to recuperate.

A sudden bird call let me turn around towards the female's position.

I saw the shaking female standing maybe three meter away and a scorpion running towards her. Realising that the others were just a distraction to abduct the female, i started to sprint.

Faster. I must protect her. For a male a small dose may not be life-threatening, but for a female it would be deadly.

Despite my desperate try the be faster than the scorpion, he reached her a blink of the eye before me and manage to wound her.

A second later i burrow my claws in his shell and pull him away from the female. Within a minute the whole attack was over, but the damage was nonetheless enormous.

With huge effort i transformed and kneeled down next to her, gasping for breath. Seems like i got more poison in my body then i thought.

While my body steadied himself, i already gave the female a look over.

Her upper body was bent forward and with her right hand on her thigh, she tried to support herself. The left arm on the other hand was motionless. From the cut across her left shoulder blood constantly seeped out. Her face was twisted with pain while beads of sweat started to form on her forehead.

"I hate scorpions!" ,she growled out between clenched teeth.

'That makes two of us.' I chuckled.

She slowly lifted her head to look at me with questioning eyes. I wanted to answer but i needed to hurry and get the poison out off her system.

After carefully putting her on my lap, i tried to suck it out. But there seemed to be no effect. Instead she grew weaker and even vomited. Her body started to shake and her eyes shut tight.

What should i do? I can not let her die like this. There is no doctor nearby and just a miracle can save her now.

I would run to the next town, but unfortunately my body is in no better situation and i am barely able to stay in the beastman form.

We need help. Right now.

///

Suddenly Winston remembered a certain follower and without vasting more time, he called for him hoping that he was still nearby.

A minute later a hawk landed next to him with a few strong vines in its beak.

The tiger got up and tied the meanwhile unconscious female on the hawk's back. During the process he told the bird about a village named camel hump, which is a day away from here for a strong flying beastman. In this village lives a brilliant doctor, who hopefully can save the female.

Without further delay the hawk started towards the told village. He had watched this female for only a short time, but she already piqued his interest. So he at least needed to try saving her.

On the ground remained a now violently shaking Winston, looking after them until they got out of sight.

Finally he indulged the urge to shift and roared loudly, before he started to run, following his instincts, towards an unknown destination.