She could just kiss Lee's brain. This was brilliant. Absolutely perfect. This night was perfect. Everything was just... good.

Delaney was pretty sure she hadn't stopped smiling since the moment her tall, gangly friend had bent down and whispered in her ear, "I've got this idea. It starts with the woods and it ends with the both of us enjoying relations." He'd waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively, shooting glances at Sparrow and Nolanna, then back to Delaney, those eyebrows still going. She'd laughed and nodded, fluffing his hair.

"Sounds good to me! Let's talk about it later." With a parting swat on the butt to Lee, she'd pulled Nolanna away again. That wasn't the sort of thing you discussed around the ladies.

Later, in the Magnus dorms, she and Lee sat on the couch under a blanket, legs all tangled together. "Okay, okay, get this," Lee had started, "we take the girls into the woods for a night of makeout tag, they'd be up for that, right? So yeah, we take them out into the woods, and while one of us is with our respective lady--here's the best part--the other starts making a racket. Howling and being loud and shaking trees, yanno? It'll scare them. Right into our warm, tender embrace." There he went again with those eyebrows. She'd briefly entertained the notion of them wiggling clean off his face and wriggling beneath the sofa and giggled.

"Lee Argot, you beautiful creature. Just--c'mere, you." She'd grabbed his face and kissed his cheek, which had been received with a little guffaw. She'd giggled and patted his head, settling in beside him. This was going to be amazing.

A month later, and there they were, standing at the edge of the forest. The moon sat high and full above the treetops, illuminating the grounds nice and clearly for their escapades. Curfew was coming up soon, but that was the best time to be out! Delaney had her arm around Nolanna's waist, having smuggled her out of the Magnus dorms, with her darling Gal at her side. Lee stood with Sparrow and Lindy, who'd been invited along merely for being there when the idea had been conceived--that was what Gal was for. Poor Lindy had been jumping at everything with a heartbeat (and were it not for the incident in phys ed, probably at least one thing without), and Delaney had decreed that Gal needed to get laid. It was perfect! This night was perfect. She'd already said that. She didn't care. It bore repeating, so repeat it she would.

She looked at Lee and grinned broadly. "Shall we, then?"

Big furry ears tilted and twisted about, awaiting Laney's approach. Lee was, after all, terribly impatient, and had made his way out by the forest rather early. Sparrow and Lindy were there soonafter...so why was Laney not here, Laney with her dear sweet Lanna and a friend she had mentioned bringing? They couldn't very well start without her, after all. He pouted and sighed, tail swishing with a bubbling anxiety.

Finally, the crack of a twig landed in his ear. Lee nearly gave himself whiplash turning to look at Delaney. His mouth stretched from ear to ear, and his showed all his pretty teeth, the silver of the moonlight catching on the gold of his cuspid. "Well well, decided to join l'il ol' us, hm, love?" He slunk over, with an almost snakelike fluidity of motion. One hand patted Laney's cheek, before the tall redhead went back over between Lindy and Sparrow, putting one hand on each of their lower backs. He ducked a little and looked closely at first Lindy, then Sparrow, his gaze keeping to the latter. "How 'bout it, are my dears ready?"

"I am!" Sparrow piped up.

Of course, the little brownie still wasn't entirely certain exactly what she and the others were going to be doing in the dark, creepy woods tonight. She figured probably just a nice walk, maybe some scary stories. Since Lee and Laney were involved there would probably be a few pranks, as well, but neither of them had ever pulled a particularly mean-hearted one on her so she didn't think she had reason to fear.

Not that even the scary forest was giving her any jitters thanks to the tall redhead beside her. How could she feel anything but the most ridiculous infatuation while he grinned at her like that? She met his gaze with her brightest smile, then caught herself and put a less idiotic and more casual, aloof, and oh-were-you-looking-at-me-I-hadn't-noticed sort of expression on her face.

"I mean, er, yeah."

Lindy looked around nervously, not quite registering what was going on around her. Every nerve was on edge, every sense poised and ready with thousands of years of instinct kicking in in case of danger. Her shoulders itched, ready to sprout wings at any moment in case of an attack from the ground. She felt a bit weak in the knees, her bones becoming less dense in the event that she could slither into some water and fuse her legs into fins. She swallowed thickly and turned to Lee. "What? Oh, um...sure?"

Honestly, she felt a bit like a third wheel, trapped between Sparrow and Lee like this. It made her both very happy for her friend and wildly jealous.

Gal really hadn't been expecting the knock on his dormitory door--of course, it had to be Delaney, though. Who else would bother? Luckily, he wasn't very high-maintenance, so Delaney didn't have to wait long for a bleary-eyed satyr to get moving.

But now that they were out by the forest and he was a little more awake, Gal was starting to question things. Like, why they were out by the forest. And why Lee was there. And why there were a bunch of girls, too. He recognized Lindy from his music class and waved uneasily. She seemed nice, but in all honesty, she sort of creeped him out. He was pretty sure she'd sniffed him while he was adjusting to make room for his cello one day. That...that wasn't cool.

However, he didn't like Lee, didn't know his companion, and Delaney seemed busy with Nolanna (who he didn't like simply on principle), so his choices were fairly limited: either spend the night by himself, or spend it with the girl who thought he smelled nice.

...at least she liked him?

He decided he'd try to glare a hole through Nolanna's head while they waited to go. He didn't even care what they were doing any more. He was grumpy. He'd been woken up by Delaney to go gallivanting about with her stupid girlfriend. Tonight was awful.

Lanna didn't like saying she was nervous, since she wasn't very often, but the thought of going out into the creepy forest near the school at night truly freaked her out. Surely there was some rule against it? There had to be. There was no way this was safe. 'But...' the faery glanced out of the corner of her eye at Delaney, 'At least I'm not alone,' That thought alone pacified the small girl enough to start her breathing once more. Nolanna shook her blonde head lightly, attempting to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.

She looked around, inspecting the people with them. She knew of Lee, how could she not, and had met him the one time. He seemed alright, if a bit off his rocker. Sparrow and Lindy both seemed nice, and Lanna hoped she could get to know them better. The only problem was Gal. The faery didn't know what she had done to offend the boy, but he hadn't stopped glaring at her since they had left the school. The small girl had no idea why he wouldn't like her, and hated that he did anyway. Hunching her shoulders against the intensity of the stare, Lanna leaned into Laney, hoping that the night would get more fun soon. Or at least less awkward.

((MAN it's been a while since I wrote Lanna...sorry if it sucks ^^;))

A laugh bubbled up from Delaney, and she squeezed Nolanna as the girl leaned into her. “Right,” she said brightly, her eyes beginning to glow dimly, “are we all good to go? Nothing last-minute we’ve forgotten? No candles left burning or unattended ovens? Good!” She reached behind her to grab Gal’s hand and gave him a wink. He smiled back at her a bit—until she swung him around next to Lindy.

That taken care of, Delaney turned a bit to wink at Lee, as well, but this was much more suggestive than the ‘Don’t worry love, I haven’t forgotten you’ wink she’d given Gal. Because she and Lee essentially considered themselves the world’s gift to women, she didn’t feel at all guilty about their planned escapades through the woods. From the way their respective girls looked at them, she didn’t think they’d mind much, anyway. With an arm around Nolanna’s waist, the fire-headed puca began leading their group off into the woods, quite proud of herself and Lee for such a cunning plot.

((Shitty and short and super late but MOVEMENT IS BEING MADE FINALLY))

Sparrow's simply adorably chipper answer caused Lee's face to break out into a great big grin. "Are you?" he asked playfully, as though he were talking to a child rather than the girl he would be spending his evening with.

After a subtle 'heheh' and uncomfortably friendly elbow nudge to Gal's ribs, Lee turned around back to Sparrow, placing a hand on her midback and steering the little dear off towards the woods. "Alrighty, then, let's go all."

He strode happily into the trees, his brush sweeping gleefully from side to side. He kept his hand lightly touching Sparrow, directing and influencing, but not pushing her. His ears swiveled at the loud hoot of an owl. Something snarled somewhere to the left. He turned and grinned at Laney. Boy, could that chick throw her voice or WHAT?

Soon enough, he found it necessary to tease, and started in on all members of the party. He ran a finger up the back of his little companion's neck with a theatrical "OooooOOOOooo~" before snickering, BOO-ed at a few of the others, pretended to see something (it was a dead tree). Finally, he tapped Sparrow's arm, shouted "TAG!" in his biggest voice, and dashed a little ways off.

Sparrow was actually glad it was dark out; that way Lee wouldn't see the blush blazing behind her freckles when he grinned down at her and placed a guiding hand on her back. This action on his part was probably for the better, because instead of thinking about the scary woods and the monsters that dwelt within, Sparrow spent the entire walk thinking about the fact that the tall sweet adorable popular four-years-older ginger currently almost had his arm around her. She tried not to let her hopeless glee show too much (there was, after all, always the possibility that he was just being a gentleman), but the huge smile on her face seemed impossible to tone down and she couldn't stop wondering every couple minutes if he would put his arm all the way around her if she chanced to "stumble" a bit closer to him...

Before she could gather the nerve for anything like that, however, the games began. She squeaked and arched her back when Lee snaked his fingers up it, giggling and bouncing a little ways away from him out of ticklishness. She continued to laugh at his continued tomfoolery, and then he commenced the hated game of tag and ran deeper into the scary woods.

Which were actually starting to look kind of scary now that Lee wasn't standing next to her.

"Wh - hey wait!" She tore after him, still giggling breathlessly and mentally cursing her significantly shorter legs. "You can't just dash off like that! I'll get eaten!" she called jokingly after the lanky trickster, half-hoping that would stop him. She needed to be distracted again so her brain would quit making every noise and shadow a threat.

((I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE))

Lee's feral instincts had awakened. He flitted among the trees and underbrush, sometimes a man, sometimes not. He laughed at sweet little Sparrow's sweet little concerns. "Eaten?" He flew over some dry leaves, letting their rustling unsettle the poor girl's mind. "Why, whatever do you think is out here, that would do such a thing as to EAT you?"

More rustling, more creeping; silence just before his teeth softly grazed close to her neck. What a fun game this was! "Though you DO have a rather tempting taste, I must admit." He leered at her from animal eyes, awaiting his partner's next step in this little mating dance.

((YEEEEEEEE))

Any ideas of sticking together flew out the window as soon as Lee ran off. Delaney grabbed Nolanna's hand and giggled, pulling her away and effectively abandoning Gal and Lindy--not that she thought of it that way. She was doing Gal a favor as far as she was concerned! He needed to get laid, and Lindy seemed to think he was cute, so why not? Even if it stayed innocent, at least he'd be socializing.

And besides, the night was young (enough) and Lanna's cute little face in the moonlight was too much to resist. As they got farther and farther away from the others, she started to tease her more, tickling her sides, her neck, kissing her cheeks, the occasional peck on the lips. Once they were sufficiently secluded, she dashed away, giggling loudly, looking back over her shoulder to make sure her date was following.

((ADKFaeKLRHGAREJFHSAJKREHF?REJAKLG))

It wasn't long before Sparrow was completely disoriented, so she stopped running, giggling nervously. She jumped at every sound, always whirling just too late to see whether the thing disturbing the leaves and branches was Lee or some nameless monster with a taste for brownies (and not the chocolate kind).

She took a couple steps toward Lee's playful voice the first time he spoke, then gasped and spun around again as something broke a twig behind her. She tried to keep her voice calm and cavalier when she answered: "I dunno. It's a big forest. Surrounding a school full of rare treats. There's probably..." she gulped, "all sorts of... scary things..." She shook herself then, putting on a determined face and crossing her arms over her chest. Don't be ridiculous. If you're going to be a scaredy-cat, at least be afraid of something reasonable. "And even if there's not, there might be wolves or bears or something!" she called defiantly.

Seconds later she felt warm breath tickling at the back of her neck, followed by a low voice informing her that she tasted tempting. With a short yelp she stumbled frantically away from the looming creature with the reflective eyes, only realizing that it was Lee after she'd fallen backwards over a tree root and landed hard on her bottom. She didn't give him the chance to help her; she jumped back up immediately and shoved him as hard as her twiggy arms would let her.

"GIT!" she yelled, but even now she couldn't stop a lopsided grin. Because at least he was back. Already the shadows seemed less menacing. Her grin became more of a smile. "You should be taking this getting eaten thing much more seriously. I'm just an appetizer - anything that gets me is going to want a main course."

At Sparrow's reaction, Lee simply laughed. Before he could even go to help her, though, the little brownie had hopped back to her feet and shoved him with all her might. He laughed again as he tottered back a few steps, and yet again when she suggested that something might eat him. "Don't worry about me, dear Moineau. There are a thousand different ways I can get away or dissuade whatever thing might come after us! And bears ain't shit, I been one before."

Lee hopped up onto a large rock, raising his fists to the sky and defiantly shouting his immortality at the dark disinterested trees. "I am a Reynard! Not a thing in the world can outwit, eat, or beat me! Of course, that goes double for my companions. In short, Moineau, you won't get eaten, because whatever has a mind to eat you would have to eat me first, which it can't, because I can be a man and a fox and a porcupine and bear and hawk, and unless if can fit itself in its belly, no bear or monster or any other beastie will so much as touch a hair on your sweet little red head." He beamed at her, swishing his fluffy brush proudly as he wallowed in his own ego.

Sparrow applauded when Lee was finished with his soliloquy.

"Don't hurt your hand patting yourself on the back!" she said. Then, after a beat of twittery laughter: "Only joking. I feel safer already!"

She sat down at the base of Lee's Pride Rock before looking around, noticing for the first time that they seemed to have lost the rest of the group. She couldn't even hear their voices, no matter how much she strained her ears. Which led her to wonder... where exactly in the forest were they? And how would they get back?

"... So, Lee... are we... lost?" she asked as casually as she could.

Lee laughed with her, before laying down on his belly, propping his chin on crossed arms. He watched Sparrow closely as she sat, and kept his eyes tracked on the little ginger for a good while after.

To her suggestion that he be lost, the reynard scoffed. "I certainly am not lost. Maybe you are, but I can find my way back even if I don't know where I am. The castle has its own smell, and even out of nose-shot I can sniff out our own trail to backtrack. There's nothin' to worry about. Unless I decide to withhold information or somethin', I dunno. YOu don't have to worry about that either, I'm not tough to ransom. 'Specially when I'm bein' convinced by a pretty thing like you~" He grinned and gave her a light nudge, flashing his golden tooth with as much charm as one can in showing off poor dentistry.

Sparrow thanked the darkness once again for hiding the incredible blush that flooded her cheeks when he smiled at her and called her pretty. She averted her eyes and pushed some of her ginger-gold hair behind her ear.

Then her large green eyes grew even larger as she put on a pleading expression that would have shamed a week-old puppy. She turned back to Lee. "Withhold information? From me? Oh, you wouldn't, would you?"

Are you flirting? Sparrow, you might be flirting.

But I don't even know how -

JUST KEEP IT UP. YOU'RE DOING GREAT. I'M PRETTY SURE YOU'RE DOING GREAT.

((Due to this thread holding us back in regards to moving the plot forward, it has been decided that it be considered finished and we move on. For those interested in how it would have ended, something will be written later finishing out the events.))