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"I am here, they do not know," a raspy voice cackled. "Don't understand, they. What I am they fear."

Low hackles rose from the creatures throat while pale, olive eyes narrowed towards the village. Nights cloak of darkness draped over him, masking his appearance as his body hunkered within the thick brush awkwardly upon his rump. Unlike the celebration that seemed to saturate the air thickly, fragmented thoughts and cravings seemed to pulsate through his veins in a sickly manner which only summoned a wild grin to stretch across his face. What good was a festivity without a bit of surprise entertainment? Inside he could feel his heart racing, veins drowning with adrenaline as the thought of sinking his teeth into warm flesh and tongue lapping at the oozing crimson made him restless. There were scarce chances where he could make his debut, terrorize, maim and, like a shadow, dissapear into the night. Something about this night seemed to draw him closer, the tantalizing scents nearly pulling him by his nostrils as if baiting him to indulge himself senselessly in a night unlike any other!

Alelo'wehn, or Ale'lo for short, pulled his lips back as an array of pearly whites unveiled. Staring at the prospects who sat only lengths away, the skinwalker slid his tongue across his top row of fangs. The mere thought of maiming, mutilating and becoming a death bringer only made him delight as the prospect of feeding only caused his maw to ooze with saliva. With a slight stumble, the stallion rose upward on his paws as he began to silently pace behind the thick brush and entangling vines.

The moon above did little to disclose where Alelo laid in wait and, thankfully, it seems the villagers were too busy and oblivious to the danger of fang and claw that was silently calculating the great surprise to come. "At the call I will go," the skinwalker rambled, eyes stricken wide and twisted with more than a hint of an unstable, unpredictable mind. "Blood must flow, night has come and this time Alelo will dine." Already as his body was trembling with thrill, the skinwalkers paws rattled slightly as his tongue hung from the side of his mouth, nostrils intaking sharp breaths as he felt his lungs filling to the brim. The thrill of the hunt was intoxicating and this, Alelo knew, was only the begining.

He edged forward ever so slightly as a group of children began to chase around a small canine. Intently Alelo watched as their innocent nature caused them to follow the small canine closer to where he stood. A devilish grin, one that sought to stretch farther than his face would allow, slipped on his maw as the canine attempted to outsmart the children by wriggling into the brush. The children gathered around the shadowed brush as they had been told time and time again to stay within the boundaries of the village but with one of the village's animals going beyond the allowed threashold what were they to do? They listened curiously, whispering amongst themselves before they heard a sudden yelp and a gut wrenching snap.

Unknown to them Alelo was soon to invade not only their festival but their dreams.

Worried, few of the children stepped forward, pulling the brush aside to search for the noise but to their misfortune they were greeted with seeing the limp body of the canine within the maw of a great beast. The skinwalkers ears pinned against his head as hackles rose deeply from out of his chest as not only were they interrupting his meal but it was clear that he had company. Unable to contain himself and the need for unleashing a fury of bloodlust, Alelo gave a sudden snap of his jaws as the bones of the carcass crushed savagely before dropping it before the childrens feet. As his full appearance was manifested while blood oozed from out of his maw, Alelo lunged forward.

The first shrill cry sounded as Alelo commenced the surprise. Canines lunged into a childs neck, tearing with the sounds of snapping vertebre as his maw began to fill to the brim once again with the bitter sweet, warm crimson he desired. It didn't take long for alarm to spread throughout the village and like a whirlwind, the joy was stripped from the villagers and became an overwhelming state of panic. The scent of fear saturated the air so thickly that the skinwalker heaved a great breath as his meal was becoming a simple yet mangled play thing; the limp rag of flesh and blood followed the motion of his jerking head before dropping it onto the ground. Alelo's toy had stopped struggling long ago and with so many other lively guests he would be entertained for hours!

Fright soon was replaced with wailing, gnashing of teeth and a pathetic, hopeless attempt of fending him off. If only they realized that the party wouldn't cease until a good number of them truly laid to rest and his ravenous appetite was appeased. In all honestly, he'd probably take one for the road at this rate seeing that all of this running around was going to make him burn off more than he was actually going to eat- it was all for the thrill of the hunt, really, rather than stuffing his gut senseless.

But take out was always enjoyable well after the hours for that midnight snack attack. And no one would want to encounter a skinwalker who had the midnight munchies.

Amused as his fragmented mind was soon to appease his need for entertainment Alelo let a wild and crazed grin broaden across his maw.

"This is Halloween," he cackled.

Dark clouds hung in the sky, casting hazy shadows over the starlit lands. The coyote used these shadows to his advantage as he crept through the undergrowth, avoiding illuminated spots that might betray his ginger form. He lifted his scarred muzzle to the sky, green eyes sharp. The gent;e breeze, so very appropriate for the rise of autumn, would soon obscure the moon itself. Such perfect timing, Fafnir thought to himself. How appropriate to strike in the darkest hour.

The skinwalker had struck gold when he found the herd of simpletons milling about. He was a predator among prey, a calculating wolf among blissfully ignorant sheep. Fafnir almost chuckled at the truth of the thought, but to do so might have warned his wuarry of his presence, and the coyote did not make mistakes.

"I heard that there are skinwalkers about tonight," one of the mares whispered to another. Fafnir cocked his head to the side, twitching an ear in her direction.

"How foolish," her companion scoffed. "I think that skinwalkers are just a two-leg horror story. Such monsterous creatures don't really exist. They're a story to keep foals in line, nothing more."

Fafnir watched silently as a stallion joined the mares. "I saw a skinwalker once. Skepticism will get you killed one day, Maira."

The mare called Maira scowled at the male. "What did he look like, Tigan? A soquili with a pelt on its back? The stories say that skinwalkers have paws. A soquili with paws! Honestly, I can't believe you two are so naive."

"He had hooves, but the damn thing was a skinwalker, all right," Tigan grunted. "Big old coyote pelt on his back, like it was attached to his own hide, and the beast had fangs, too. You can claim he found an old pelt and put it on his back, but how bout them fangs, Maira? A soquili like you or me couldn't fake that!"

The fur on the nape of Fafnir's neck rose. Skinwalker my a**, he thought angrily. He had heard of the so-called skinwalkers that had once been normal soquili like the fools ahead of him. The coyote thought of them as wannabes, inferior to true-blooded skinwalkers. Nothing more than a scourge on the race.

"I believe it," the first mare said. "We all know about kalonas... who's to say there aren't other earthbound demons out there?"

"You, Loja? I expect such garbage from a superstitious old fool like Tigan, but I thought you had a bit more sense! I mean really, what do you... what was that?"

There was a rustle as Fafnir emerged from the bushes, no longer in his coyote form but as a tall, savage soquili with a warm pelt on his back. Maira shrank against her two companions, who had frozen in place. Fafnir's lips curled back, revealing his fangs in a gruesome grin.

"I suppose the trick is on you," he growled.

Night fell quickly upon the festivities, seeming to signal the party-goers into even more frenzied activity. The noise from the crackling fire, drums and loud singing and shouts covered up the first of the screams until it cut off sharply. The second, more shrill scream came from a closer distance, causing several heads to rise and listen carefully - unfortunately over the noise the soft gurgling sound made as someone tried to cry for help through a torn throat could not be heard. The strange sound was forgotten within moments and the celebrations continued.

As often happened during parties, men and women wandered away from the heart of the party, in pairs and alone and no one gave much thought to the fact that few of them returned. One woman however had waited long enough and instructing her children to wait for her she went toward the woods where he had gone to relieve himself and called his name, unaware of the creature that stalked her. In the darkness something reached out from below and grabbed her in a vice-like grip, causing a scream to tear its way from her throat as she kicked viciously at it, hearing a sickening crack the second time her foot connected. The grip slackened and then she realized what she had done.. it was one of the teenage boys from the village, now staring at her with lifeless eyes. She had kicked him hard enough in the temple that his skull had concaved slightly. She gaped in horror at what she had done, unable to breath until she felt hot breath against her back and looked up to see the massive looming shape of a skinwalker.

As the woman scrambled away with a soft strangled cry the skinwalker chuckled in elation.. this was what he lived for. He moved slowly, steering the woman toward other victims he had carefully arranged, most of them not dead but many horribly disfigured or immobilized. He enjoyed watching as they begged for help, clung to her and she would jerk away from each in her fight to get away, to survive. Knowing that in this tribe each member probably knew eachother made it even sweeter to watch the reactions of those left behind. His mood turned sour however when she stopped at finding his latest victim, a man who's tendons he'd sliced through not fifteen minutes prior. He lunged at her then, sinking his claws into her back and crunching his teeth low into her spine, paralyzing her lower half and watching her scream before turning away from her and her apparent mate and moving back toward the village. It was time to cause some serious damage, and the fear that he would inflict on the village would keep him smiling for months to come.

Moments later screams that could not be ignored ripped through the party, the music died and almost as one the people still celebrating looked to the south as a teepee came down and a small body was flung into their midst. A child, barely alive coughed its last breaths out and then spit blood as it died. A woman watching screamed and then chaos ensued. The drunken men made pathetic attempts to mobilize but were torn down one by one as they ran into the darkness away from the fire. A teenage girl ran toward her younger sister who stood frozen near the fire but was knocked down by a mighty claw and then dragged into the darkness screaming. The young girls nightmares would be haunted by the sights and sounds of that night for the rest of her long life.

Screams and cries rang out in the darkness but never did the creature step far enough into the light to be fully seen. Its eyes glowed and its massive jaws gleamed and too slow the people of the village learned that only in the light of the fire were they safe. The creature afterall was not there to feed or even kill. It was there to inflict terror, to create a legend that would be passed down for generations to come of the horror that had fallen that night, and only as dawn broke did the screams of the broken, tortured and dying slowly cease. No heart was left unstricken that night and there would not be a night for years to come when the village wasn't woken by terror-striken screams of those who's nightmares were plagued.

The creature relished those screams, happy in the knowledge that terror had so much more sway over these weak two legged creatures then dath did.

Name; Agashi
Username; noxilicious

Response;

The luminescent glow of the moon above was marred by a sheath of clouds. Pin pricks of rain beat the leaf canopy of the forest in an uneven rhythm, though the earthy soil of the forest floor remained parched. Agashi drifted in the shadows, circling ever closer to the cheers and music of the village outside his woods. Like a moth to the flame. Like a shark to blood. They seemed to call out to him, to sing to him. Their jovial festivities brought on such contentment that he could do nothing but seek to destroy it. It was his only nature.

He paused only when the trees thinned and parted, revealing a gentle sloping valley. Nesting in the crook of two hills lay the village. Even through the darkness, and even through the misty rain, he could see the fires of the village twinkling. Their joyous voices reached his waiting audits and he countered it with a low guttural snarl.

Our voices rise to the souls departed
Wander now, under sky closely guarded.

Then there was something about Hallow’s Eve and returning. And something else about a sacred something or other. Agashi snorted in disgust. They were singing to the souls that had been lost. In their simplistic, somewhat confusing way with undefined words and rambling phrases and nonsense. But a celebration all the same. Atop the closer knoll, he could see grouped shadows flitting back and forth. A vile sneer of anticipation worked it way onto his maw. The villager’s Soquili. Oh, this would be a fun night. A party of his very own. And they would all be invited. The vile grin he wore only grew more pronounced as he slithered out from the refuge of the trees and shadows and down the grassy slope when not even the moon could shed light on his chilled heart.

Agashi rolled his shoulders as he approached, his flexed claws leaving deep gorges in the earth as he passed. But before he could reach the gathered Soquili, a lone shape caught his eye. A mare standing alone, eyes closed, her face turned up to the sky. A single strand of light seemed to illuminate her face before it was enveloped by the rumbling clouds. But it was her coat that he noticed first. It was shadowed red, so dark it seemed almost black. The color of old blood. And as he approached, she opened her eyes and shifted toward him. Her iris’s crimson, her expression cold. She reared back though her hooves barely cleared the ground. A warning. Not an attack. “You are a cursed one.” She murmured. Her gaze narrowed warily as though not sure whether to fight or sound the alarm. “And you are mortal. A perfect match, no?” His lips pulled back in a sinister smile as he stepped forward confidently. The mare slammed pulled back her audits, pinning them tight to her skull as she backed away. “Give me one good reason not to warn everyone right now? You’d dead long before the thought of escape even got through to your diminutive brain.”

The skinwalker was surprised, and justly so. There was no false bravado to the mare’s words. Only anger. Disgust. Hatred. Poised and fully capable of fighting him to her last breath. And yet, her words still ran untrue. “If I had come across any other, I’m quite sure an alarm would have been raised. But perhaps, curiosity stays your voice.” There. That first flicker of uncertainty across her blood-red eyes. Sensing a victory, Agashi pressed her further. “You’re not like the rest of them are you?” He murmured with a smirk, his voice sultry and calming. “You’re different. Different enough that instead of celebrating, you wander alone.” He stepped closer again, and this time, she did not move away. Her gaze was hard, but distant. Pained.

“They aren’t worth it. Never worth it.” He soothed, stepping closer until his nose grazed her neck. She shuddered, but didn’t move away. Under his maw he could feel her pulsating blood just below the surface of her fur and skin. So easily he could kill her now, a single snap of his mouth and her sorry life would soon flow from her grasp. The rain would wash away the blood and evidence, and he would be left full for another moon at least. But he waited, he drew his nose up to just below her chin. “Name, darling?” He hissed. “Ovaltine. Or Oval.” Suddenly. she snorted and backed away angrily, the glazed look in her eyes replaced by refueled determination. “Leave. I may not be like them. And they may not like me. But here’s where I belong.” She snarled abruptly. Agashi only shook his head with mock sadness. “That’s what you don’t understand, darling. I will kill them. The question is whether or not you will be added to the body count.”

Oval blanched, her expression once again torn between hatred and diluted fear. “If I go with you. Will you leave them be?” Agashi hesitated. For perhaps the first time in his life. He could not understand the strange workings of this mare’s mind. They hated her. She had no love lost for them either it seemed. And yet… And yet, she would put her life on the line for them. Expressing a loyalty that ran deeper than mere friendships. Or lack thereof. But in the end, it was a loyalty he would never have. Furiously jealous, he reeled back, bristling. Oval's scarlet gaze widened as he started for the herd across the next hill. SHe stepped in front fo him, her eyes closed for the death blow he would surely deal her for her attempted blockade.

Agashi couldn't believe it. She had done it again. That loyalty. That deeply rooted love. He despised it. He would own her. Own that love, that loyalty. He remained pain-stakingly still for a wary moment as he calmed enough to not strike her down where she stood. With a breath of hissed outward air, he nipped at her shoudler. Oval squealed and spun away from him. He herded her towards the forest, towards the woods. Where she would be forever bound. His forest. His! The word was a hiss of power in his mind. For as much as her loyalty called to her, his jealously was a force to match. And surpass.

She would love him the way she loved that herd of two-leg puppets. Sooner or later. He swore it by the light of the moon as it broke through the shield of clouds.