Re: Woods: Claire/Daniel
Daniel stared at the incoming warrior on wings of scarlet, not recognizing her and showing teeth in automatic reaction to the sound of a darting heartbeat and approaching quick breath. He had rotated fully to face her, not fully aware of how he looked and also hardly recognizing her in her Homeric attire. There was little sanity in the wild movement of his eyes, visible only as sticky lashes twisted into each other, pupils entirely hidden and the elegant line of his spine a long, forward lean of lethal attention. He barely registered the golden weapon in her hand as anything like danger, only that he could not see and the movement was as captivating to him as it would have been to any blind snake in the grass. He did not associate this fluttering red and gold bird with the quiet child of Rome, nor with the amusing diversion of text on his phone a few moments ago.
Daniel forgot his phone. He forgot the girl's pretty name, and the name she had chosen, and even the one she said was foretold. Now he was just a creature that hurt in the trees, and something that sounded like prey was coming at him at full speed.
At first, Daniel shied back, retiring around the curve of the trunk for a split second as he tried to identify the movement and the haze of the light made the landscape throb. Then something in him did identify whatever-it-was, which was blood and human, and blood-in-human. He came around again, fast now even in his weakened state, and lunged for her with an incoherent growl of mingled anger and confusion. Daniel wasn't hungry, and that was a good thing for both of them. Probably.