Two things in Kell's defense for his current surroundings - one, it was bloody cold and two, with everyone focused on the festival in town tomorrow, this was really the only place he could be without causing alarm. So, he didn't feel too bad about having ducked out the second his jobs for the day were done (before he could get caught up in more. Not that he would've said no if anyone had caught him but...no one had, so hey), shifting down to a simpler form and bolting for the forest.
It had been a cold, wet day, and the entire week so far had been filled with an energy he just straight up didn't care for. He knew, tomorrow, it'd break and he'd be able to breathe a bit better, what with the festival and everyone just having fun, but, until then...well, no one would be looking for him, not for awhile yet.
So, while trees were, oddly enough, not his favorite things to climb and jump across (too easy with their rough bark and convenient branches, not to mention the goddamn squirrels that lived in them), they would do for now.
And he was in luck - the squirrels seemed to have been driven to their hiding places by the rain from earlier, and kept there by the chill (though that wouldn't last for long), so he had a generally clear route to run and jump between the branches. The only occasional problem seemed to be a bird or two - just as happy to get out of his way as he was to try to barrel into them.
He'd been running - looping, climbing, moving for the hell of it - for a good hour before he touched the ground again, breathing hard and content to walk for a little while, poking his nose around the underbrush curiously. It had been a long while since he'd been out and about in the woods. Last time he'd come out this way he'd found a still blooming twig - the flower of which was still being pressed in one of his books, now that he was thinking about it, whoops. Shame, it had been rather pretty. He'd have to see if it was still salvageable at this point when he got back.
And, maybe, he wasn't paying as much attention as he should've been. To be fair, he normally...didn't really need to. In town, he had to pay attention to humans, the occasional cat, the even rarer dog that caught interest in him, and was easily outrun when he had access to rooftops (and shifting back to two feet). On the estate, squirrels (nuisance, not danger. Unless they ganged up on him again), and horses, which he didn't need special senses to be aware of. Out here, he'd only ever run into...actually. He hadn't run into anything. He kept to low enough branches to deter the eagles and hawks, and tended to stay off the ground. While he did catch the occasional whiff of canine of some kind, it tended to send him running back up into the trees before he could parse actual details.
So, it didn't click what he was smelling until it was far too close, and getting closer, is the point of all that nonsense.
He probably should've been half-way up a tree before that thought even fully sank in. Instead, he stuck to one of the low branches - an easy jump from where he'd been on the ground - putting the trunk between him and the direction he was pretty sure the thing was coming from.
Practicality was calling him stupid. Curiosity wanted a look.