Like a cat in the forest PV Ethen Emrys Closed

As ever, the outdoors proved a mind releasing escape from the toils of the school. Not that Ethen despised his education but being cooped up for the majority of his time only made him increasingly restless. In an attempt to avoid destroying too many things, Ethen had found the calm of the outdoors a necessary escape. Between Quidditch practice and his schoolwork, however, those instances were becoming few and far between. But when he did have a free hour and there wasn’t some planned escapade with Atlas, Ethen would invariably escape to the grounds to unwind his bustling mind.

Despite a deep regret that he had not brought a trove of treats, Ethen was happy to be in the relatively cool autumn air. There was the usual bustle of students in the courtyard and periphery but Ethen had found the farther he wandered and closer he wandered to the forbidden forest tended to have a more calm disposition. Maybe today will be the day some monster devours me, Ethen thought as he continued waddling his way down the grounds.

Reaching the edge of the forest, Ethen knew better than to actually wander into the looming trees. While he had no qualms about breaking rules now and again, he only did so if it was to make people smile or to bring a semblance of chaos. While exploring the forest did have an element of intrigue, the boy didn’t believe it would be worth it to be caught scuttling around the forest.

Keeping to himself as he strolled along the edge, Ethen was humming to himself while his mind wandered to the chaos of the past month. It had been a more eventful few weeks than he had anticipated but he was in good spirits about it all. Despite the increased responsibilities of the year, he felt as though the time was flying by and he was only more excited about the time to come. As a breeze passed Ethen by he let out a quick shiver but a smile spread across his face as he huddled in his robes. He adored the colder months and each day was bringing them ever closer to winter. Growing up in Africa, his experience with snow was minimal, and watching the blanket of white claim the grounds was one of his favorite experiences of the previous year.

Continuing his little bustle, Ethen jolted when he believed that he had heard something from within the trees on his right. Jolting his eyes into the woods, Ethen scanned for any sign of movement. To his surprise, it looked like a similarly young student was standing somewhat in the cover of the dense foliage. The barefoot girl seemed to be just enjoying the quiet sanctity of the forest and Ethen believed he wouldn’t interrupt her peaceful stroll through the woods. He doubted she should be in there but she was only just in the line of trees and supposed the mysterious girl wasn’t actually moving deep into the forest.

As Ethen began to walk again he caught a curious glimpse of the red headed girl and could have sworn that he saw a tail. Again his eyes darted after her with a renewed sense of curiosity. Very little escaped his keen eyes and after taking a tentative step into the treeline, he saw it more clearly. The feline-like tail was clear to see and Ethen couldn’t contain his sudden curiosity. He had no idea what type of creature the girl must of been, he couldn’t recall there being any half feline humanoids but he was hardly an expert. Popping his hood up and tromping silently into the forest to talk to the girl, Ethen halted several paces away as he was unsure if that was a safe course of action.

“Excuse me cat-girl, but do you eat people? Or just mice and fish?” Ethen called out with genuine curiosity as he stared wide-eyed at the girl standing only a few long strides away. A hand rested against his wand just in case it turned out to have a taste for blood. If he was to be devoured, at least he would die in the noble pursuit of discovery.

Medea was enjoying her little exploration quite a lot, so much so that she was being more careless with her surroundings. A sound of bushes moving made her focus her attention towards the depths of the forests, asking herself what little creature could be hiding her, as her tail was moving in excitement.
She was so distracted that she didn’t notice the presence who was getting closer and closer to her. So much so than when she realized, it was too late.

“Excuse me cat-girl, but do you eat people? Or just mice and fish?” she heard a voice say. Immediately, she stopped. Before even understanding what she had just listened to, before even turning to see who spoke, she thought that she was in trouble. Caught right when she was about to enter the Forbidden Forest. Not that she actually wanted to do that, absolutely not, but it didn’t look good.
But then, as she turned around, she saw that it was a young boy who spoke a moment ago. He had a Hufflepuff robe on, and very messy light brown hair. She was doubting she had ever seen him around, so he clearly could not be a first-year like her. But as soon as her brain registered the words she had just heard, and especially the “cat-girl” part, she almost jumped, her mouth opened in a mixture of surprise and fear, as her hands reached behind her, in a failed attempt to hide her tail, as she was still not too quick and precise to control her appearance and was afraid trying to change it now on the spot would not result into anything pleasant. Did he really see that? How damn embarrassing. What was he thinking now? Better play it cool.

After the first moment of fear and surprise, Medea did her best to recollect herself, trying to ignore the fact that that unknown boy had seen her sporting a tail and strolling around shoeless. Little things of no importance.
“I do not eat mice, I only eat very curious boys” she said to the stranger, walking towards him with the most fake-menacing look she could pull out in that moment. “I wonder if you taste nice” she added with a little laugh, wondering if he would believe it, even for a moment.

The moment the words left Ethen’s mouth his eyes continued to scan for any sense of danger from the seemingly young girl. He didn’t see anything that jumped out as a threat. No massive claws and it almost looked like she was a student based on her clothes. He was pretty sure there weren’t any cat-girl students but what did he know. For all he knew, there were all kinds of strange and unique types of students who bustled about the school.

As he examined the girl’s clothing he became almost sure that the girl was a student. Perhaps she was in the forest just because she didn’t like to be around others or generally hid her tail under her robes. For a moment he wondered if it was even a real tail but it sure looked like one. The girl seemed immediately startled by Ethen’s sudden words and that gave him more confidence as he believed that she likely wasn’t something or someone who would harm him. The flash of fear on her face told Ethen that she just hadn’t expected anyone to find her in the woods.

Despite the initial fear, the girl seemed to recompose almost immediately and began almost prowling towards him. “I do not eat mice, I only eat very curious boys” the girl said. The words initially took Ethen aback and his eyes widened but her almost laughable attempt to look terrifying ensured him that she was at least mostly harmless. “I wonder if you taste nice” the girl continued.

"I have heard that I am probably too smelly to taste very good," Ethen said shifting his eyes down to scan himself. Atlas had a habit of calling him smelly but Ethen had always believed it was more of a friendly term of endearment... at least he hoped so. If he was wandering around as a vile cloud then he believed he would have to harness that ability for something useful. His mind was quickly running away from him with thoughts of being some scent-based hero and he shifted his attention back on the 'intimidating' cat-girl still there.

Deciding he was safe enough, he decided to continue forward with his curiosity. Wandering up to the girl he tilted his head appraisingly. “You don’t look too much like a cat up close,” Ethen said inspecting her face carefully. Poking at her nose to be sure there weren't hiding whiskers, he gave another appraising nod. Beyond the tail, he didn't really think there were too many feline features and began to wonder if it was just some charm or potion that the girl had used to change her features.

Realizing that he was infringing on the strange girl's space he took a step back and scratched at his head. "Um sorry. I have never seen...well whatever you are. I am Ethen," he said with a warm smile and outstretched hand. Not only did he hope that the gesture would difuse some of the awkward tension but a handshake seemed like the perfect ruse to ensure whether or not the girl had cat-like claws as well. "If you decide not to eat me, I promise I wont tell people there is a cat girl who lives in the forest," he smiled.

Interacting with @Ethen Emrys

Medea could see the guy keep looking at her almost as he was analysing every inch of her being. She was not used to all that attention. Well, she wasn’t used to attention at all. And what if he was deciding that she was definitely a weirdo? And tell everyone around about it?
Ever since her older cousin, a couple of years prior had told her about some bullies she had troubles with during her fourth year. They wouldn’t ever leave her alone and she spent months being miserable, so as she had returned home for the summer, the only thing she would say to Medea was “You better blend in”. But what did that even mean? And why on earth was she supposed to do that with her hair jumping from a colour to another as soon as she would let her emotions run? That seemed just impractical. But what if she was right and that boy was now convinced, she was definitely someone to not have around?
But as soon as the boy got close enough, she realized pretty quickly that in his eyes there was no ill judgment, just sincere curiosity. Why did she have to assume always the worst first?

"I have heard that I am probably too smelly to taste very good" he said, still scanning her with his eyes. Medea chuckled at his comment. Maybe he was not so bad at all.
"You don’t look too much like a cat up close” he added, getting now dangerously close to her face. As he was doing so, Medea’s face started to turn red, as she had never been so close to a boy before. Well, a boy that she wasn’t related too anyway. He was way too close. And then, quickly, he poked her nose, and for the surprise, she almost jumped, with her mouth open.
He clearly saw her startled expression, as he quickly apologized and finally gave herself his name, Ethen. A fine name. As he assured her smiling to keep her presence a secret in exchange of not being devoured, she finally relaxed, bursting out laughing.

“Well if you keep getting this close, I don’t think I can make this promise” she joked to him. “And of course I am not a cat… I am a girl. This is just… well….” She turned around looking at her tail, for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then, to humour the situation, she let the tail disappear and decided to shift his hair colour from her natural red to a very electric violet.
“See? I can just change my appearance” she said pointing at her now violet hair. “Just… I cannot still do much, only one thing at a time! I’m a metamorphmagus… ” she explained, hopeful that maybe he would find her less weird with an explanation about her. Then, she realized that she still hadn’t even introduced herself.
“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Medea! Nice to meet you” she finally added, with a smile.

Interacting with @Medea Darkwaters

Ethen’s innocent fascination wasn’t meant to make the girl feel uncomfortable but his mind desperately scrambled for some recollection of human-like creatures with a tail. However, the longer he stared the more he began to realize how uncomfortable that had to be making her. The deep red hue of the girl’s face tool Ethen that he had definitely overstepped his bounds. But it was too late to retract to slight poke to the cat girl’s nose.

“Sorry about that… I forget sometimes when I see something interesting,” he said scratching his head. The girl then claimed she wasn’t a cat but a regular girl but Ethen was pretty sure there was nothing normal about a tail protruding. Almost a soon as the thought crossed his mind, the girl’s tail quickly receded and her hair shifted to a seemingly unnatural violet color. “Woah…” he mumbled in awe as his eyes widened.

“Metamorphmagus...why didn’t I think of that?” Ethen asked more to himself than the girl. When the girl finally introduced herself, most of the awkward tension seemed to have dissipated and Ethen gave a warm smile. “Hi Medea, it is nice to meet someone with such cool abilities. I wish I could do that,” he mused as he looked down at himself. “Are you able to change into whatever you want? Like can you grow wings and flap around...or do you just have tails pop out from your butt,” he snickered. He knew that it was something people were born with and believed it was unlikely that he would be able to learn something like that.

Popping his head back up, Ethen peered into the girl’s eyes and narrowed his own. “What are you doing sneaking around here in the woods? Is there more of you hiding in here?” he asked peering around the woods for any other cat people. “I don’t think I see any other tailed people. Seems suspicious if you ask me,” he said playfully. Leaning against a nearby tree, Ethen was interested in the strange girl. He had hear of and read a bit about metamorphmagi but he had never actually seen one.

“Also are you like a student? Or … do you live out in here, seems like a spooky place to spend all of your time,” Ethen said tapping an inquisitive finger on his lip.

Interacting with: @Ethen Emrys

As she said what she was, she could almost physically see a lightbulb turning on in the boy’s mind, and while she would usually dread changing in front of people, seeing his eyes wide in awe gave her quite a pleasant sensation. It was nice to be admired from once in a while. And it was funny even for a moment to have someone to think of her as a proper cat girl and trying to inspect her instead of running away. Quite the curious situation to be in, but in a funny way.

After a bit of surprise to her no very violet hair, the boy finally started to talk again, and he sounded quite curious about how her transformations would work and about the extent she could transform. “Ahm… of course, I don’t only have a tail up my butt! Excuse me!” she replied to his latest comment about it, unsure if she had to feel offended by the remark or not. “I was born like this but usually I cannot control this at all, which is quite embarrassing as you can imagine. If I get a burst of emotion everyone will know because I just… change. But as of now, I can only change one thing at a time. My grandma said that with time I’ll be able to do more, even transform into a completely different person… but that looks almost impossible to me” she laughed. “I never tried growing wings… I bet they are a bit too much for me for now, but you gave me an excellent idea. I will try to grow a pair for sure” she added, nodding seriously, could she really fly? Without a broom? That would be so incredible… maybe she should ask her grandma about it. She was so knowledgeable on the matter.

As Ethen asked her why she was there and if she was really a student, she could not avoid a laugh. If she was a student? She literally had her uniform on. Even if… it was getting quite dark outside. Autumn days were so short…
“Well, first of all, I just love forests. You don’t? I mean… they are so nice. And I should ask you the same thing! You found me here, so you clearly decided to sneak around here as well. Maybe I should call you suspicious. Sneaking up on girls like that near the forest…” she clapped back, with a chuckle. “And I thought Hufflepuffs should be all loyal and nice… not shady and suspicious” she added, joking, and referring to his school uniform.
“But of course, I am here because this is my home. I actually stole a uniform from a poor and unsuspecting Ravenclaw first year. She didn’t know better you know. So now I just dress as she and I live suspiciously near the forest. Because you know, spooky places are the best! Why... are you afraid to stay here?” she concluded, with a wink.

Interacting with @Medea Darkwaters

While Ethen wasn’t a foolish boy, he could be admittedly quite oblivious and perfectly enjoyed his endless state of confused curiosity. And meeting a metamorphmagus was the perfect instance for his curious confusion to take over. But he wanted to make sure that he didn’t make the girl uncomfortable or feel like he was studying her. He would need to casually gather his required intelligence. She seemed a good sport after the initial awkward moment and Ethen was pleased that he decided to approach the strange girl.

“Well, how would I have known? My people with tails experience is very limited!” Ethen said with a sudden chuckle. He supposed having a tail from her butt would have only spawn a bunch of more confusing questions. But happily he listened to the girl as she began to break down some of the confines of her abilities. All of it sounded fascinating and he slightly wished that he was able to have such a seemingly unique set of skills. “You could do all sorts of mischief with abilities like that!” Ethen said with sudden excitement. A multitude of chaotic ideas began flowing through his head as he imagined having someone who could change into other people on their side. “If you do grow wings you have to show me! That would be so cool! I hope that you learn how to control the ability soon, there are so many amazing possibilities,” Ethen said tapping an inquisitive finger on his lip.


Despite seeing the girl’s ravenclaw uniform, Ethen was still curious if the girl was truly a student. For all he knew, she had just morphed into one for something. “Hm, I see your point. I am quite suspicious,” Ethen said with wide blank eyes. “We Hufflepuffs are loyal and nice, but we have to be very sneaky. That is how we learn how to get close to people,” he said with a maniacal smirk.

As the girl offered confirmation that she was actually from the forest and stole the uniform, Ethen was sure that the girl was just being playfully sarcastic. Again a warm smile spread across his face and he nodded his understanding. “So there is a poor raven waddling around with no uniform. How unfortunate. Of course I am not afraid to stay here! On the contrary, I was looking for a perfect place to put a little bungalow before I stumbled across a most curious neighbor,” Ethen said, correcting the girl and trying not to laugh at the word bungalow. “But should you ever choose to visit the school pretending to be a student it will be very nice to see you sneaking around.”

Interacting with: @Ethen Emrys

While feeling completely ignorant of the girl’s potential abilities, Ethen was thoroughly enjoying learning about the talent. He wasn’t sure if he was being rude with his line of questioning and knew that he could be rather abrupt at times but he still had yet to develop better sense when it came to talking to others. There was much that he remained ignorant of and he undoubtedly didn’t understand the negatives that could come from the emotional changes that a metamorphmagus may endure. But his ever curious mind would slowly begin to remedy that distinction.

As the girl continued to describe some of the wisdom passed down from her grandmother, Ethen couldn’t help but let his mind run free with crazed notions of transformation. “Transfiguration is one hard class,” Ethen said scratching his head with the pained memory of trying to figure out the complicated subject. “Well, I am sure you are doing better than me at least. I really want to become an animagus some day but that...seems like way more work than I am prepared to do… I get hungry just thinking about all of that endless studying…” Ethen grumbled as he did feel a sudden influx of hunger rumbling through him.

Ethen gave a wide, almost menacing, grin as he played along with the girl’s description of the dark Hufflepuffs. If anything, Ethen couldn’t actual think of a single fellow hufflepuff who didn’t radiate kindness. “I am glad I could warn you before you just started taking cookies from random people...In fact, it might even be best that you give me any cookies you may get just in case. It is a sacrifice on my part but at least you will remain safe,” the boy smiled with a convinced nod.

Ethen imagined some poor Ravenclaw robbed of her robes and scurrying about the school. He chuckled softly and thought it might make a good prank if it wouldn’t get them expelled. “If you keep the supply of cookies coming, I promise I will keep your secret safe! It will be good to know that I have a dangerous cat lady ready to send my enemies to. No one will suspect a thing,” Ethen chuckled malevolently before suddenly ceasing his maniacal outburst. “I will definitely keep an eye out though, I haven’t met many dangerous people before so I am sure there would be much to learn from you,” he said with a smile.