Author's note(13.06.15): Well, chapter two up to review. I might have to make some hard choices here, I'll see. I remember that this took me a month to write, during the time I tried to churn out a chapter each month. I kept this mostly as it is too. I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised I wrote so well. I had been under the impression that my fanfic writing was terrible for a long time.

This chapter is very Nidalee heavy. Nidalee has been one of my mains since S1 and it's a fanfic after all. On another note I find the interaction between two such dissimilar characters to be interesting.

As previously, thanks to Kiravu for taking the time to edit this chapter all two years ago :)

Chapter Two: Kumungu jungle

The sun had just begun appearing on the horizon, leaving the jungle covered in a sheen of refracted brilliance. Small streaks of orange light shot through the ceiling of branches made by the trees, and hit the ground below. A graceful deer stepped silently into the line of sunlight, leaving hove marks on the ground below. Its eyes on bush bathed in radiant glow.

A distance away, hidden in the dense underbush of the jungle, a set of soft paws made a silent approach towards the deer. The owner of the paws, an agile cougar tested its paws, firing the claws out before retracting them a moment later. It was waiting for the right moment to strike.

The cougar stopped up for a moment, very carefully poked its head out of the bush. From there it leered at its prey for the first time. It had tracked the deer for about an hour now, and it craved the taste of blood.

The deer was rather large, but still a size smaller than the cougar silently sneaking into position. It was covered by a brown fur that went to an almost white color on the front of it's neck and down on its legs. Behind, on its end, it had a small white tail, reaching no more than down to its abdomen. A pair of antlers that branched out into three and a half offshoots grew out of it its head, beside them were ever vigilant ears.

The cougar moved back from the weed it had hidden itself in, but as it moved backwards a single unnoticed twig appeared under its right paw. Not being able to stop itself it snapped, and the cougar cringed and crouched as low as it could. The sound had drawn the deer's attention, and it looked over in the direction with its ears set up. The cougar remained dead still.

In a couple of tense moments, with only the sounds of birds above, the situation was locked like that, but luckily for the predator, the deer went back to eating, after determining the fatal decision that there wasn't any danger to be found.

Having continued its sneaking, the cougar had arrived in position now, and it readied itself. With a roar, the feline launched out into the small orange tinted clearing with immense strength. The deer quickly turned it's head towards the sound, but could only see flashes of yellow fur before it felt a shot of pain rip through its throat.

The enormous force of the impact had knocked the deer over to its side, the predator took a hard bite on the side of its the neck, and held it in place, restricting the airway. The shocked deer made out a horrifying shriek at the sudden pain, but the sound came out muffled. It kicked and twisted with all its might in an attempt to free itself, but with each jerk the sharp teeth of the cougar only ran deeper and deer, until a pool of a red liquid began to appear on the jungle floor beneath them. The predator clenched its jaw tighter on the deer, and a loud 'snap' could be heard from the area between the feline's teeth.

With a last twitch the deer stopped resisting, and the cougar took stepped away from its prey. It tipped its head upwards, and closed its eyes. The exact moment it had done that, the air pressure around dropped, and a whirlwind of leaves from the ground began swirling around the feline. A moment later the cougar was gone, and in its place, a young girl, with sleek and toned muscles stood with her eyes closed and blood running down from the sides of her mouth.

The young woman had dark-brown hair, formed into a long pony-tail, held up by a strip of tanned leather. She wore a band of fur over her chest, and a loincloth made out of the same material ran down between her legs on both sides. On her wrists and legs she wore forearm-guards and boots made out of a rougher type of animal leather. Her name was Nidalee, the bestial huntress.

Nidalee cocked her head at the deer beneath her feet with a smile full of blood. She was hungry, and she now had her dinner. With a hand she wiped the red liquid off her face, and bent down to grab the deer by its feet. With strength seeming unfitting for such a small body, she threw it over her shoulders and began walking away.

She thought about the limp deer she held over her shoulders as she walked back to her camp. She silently thanked the deer for the nutrition it would serve her.

She always made sure to thank the jungle for everything it had provided her with. Even though she thrilled at the hunt, she would never do it if it wasn't necessary to keep herself, or the ones closest to her fed.

"The strong feed off the weak." Her words were directed at the deer on her shoulders, as an explanation for its untimely death.

It was true, it was the way of the wild. She herself had worked hard to put herself on top of the food-chain, and to make the whole jungle her territory.

It took her close to an hour before she arrived at the place she had made hers. Even if she called the whole of the jungle her home, it was at this very spot she really felt at home at. During the time she had used walking to her site, the sun had gone further up, away from the horizon. The light had changed from orange to a very light yellow.

Underneath a great oak on the other side of a small channel of water was a little tawny ball of fur slumbering in the morning sun. Nidalee made out a soft growl that might as well been a meow. The little cub beneath the large tree looked up at its cousin appearing with a big deer over her shoulders. It thought it was unsettling to see her in that other form, it liked the cougar one, so much better, but it was too hungry to pay it any heed.

With a happy meow, the little female kitten ran up to Nidalee, earning a smile from the huntress as she laid the dead deer down beside a fireplace made of a ring of stones and a sticks set up against each other. The cub began tearing away at the flesh the moment the bloody animal hit the ground.

Nidalee growled at the impatient cub, she wanted to try something else for breakfast this time, something she had learned on her adventures outside the jungle. "Wait," she snarled at the furry kitten. She stopped instantly, and took a step back while putting her head at an angle looking up to her cousin for an answer.

"I want to try something." Nidalee explained to the cub, who reacted by taking a seat in a sunlit area a meter away, and looking with disgruntled eyes at the huntress as she pulled out a knife from her belt and began gutting the deer. She paid the youngster little heed as she summoned up a fire with sparks from two stones that lit a number of dry logs inside the ring of stones. She cut some pieces of meat of and put them over the fire.

Shortly after, the cub was finally awarded for her patience. The huntress laid a leg of grilled deer meat in front of the cub, who quickly indulged herself in the sustenance. Nidalee had taken up a piece for herself and busied herself in eating. She smiled at the taste, "The stone-cave-dwellers had been right" she uttered to herself. "This is better!"

Beside the fireplace, a small stream of water rustled past, before ending in a large, dammed up pond. Another small channel appeared to be running away from the pond, but was nowhere as full as it appeared to be created for. Going along the edges of the pool, a tight wall of stones were set, leaning up against the dirt behind. A number of logs, bound together was lodged between the pond and the exiting stream, keeping the water prisoned.

The bottom of the pond could easily be seen through the clear water. It was only about a meter or so from the surface to the bottom. A big square stone was placed on the ground, against the stone wall, creating a seat. The floor of the pond was covered with an in-countable number of small pebbles with an unnatural purity to them. Not a single speck of algae was to be seen in the pond.

Nidalee looked over to the pool after taking a last bite of grilled deer. The cub had overeaten, and was now lying on her back warming her slightly swollen stomach in the sun.

With a slight yawn, Nidalee stretched her arms, and pushed herself off the soft grass she had been sitting on, earning a slightly confused look from her drowsy cousin. Without a hitch, her clothes fell limp to the jungle floor. The cougar cub, simply looked uninterested away from the weird creature that was her cousin and care-taker, and went back to slumbering in the sun. It wondered if her mother would be coming back from her hunt soon. The cub agreed that her cousin was a better, or at least more efficient hunter than her mother, and while she considered the huntress a part of the family, she never fully understood her. She was something more than her.

With her bare skin exposed to a slightly cold breeze through her, Nidalee walked over to the pond. She stopped at the edge, and slowly bent over to put her finger into the glass clear water. "Warm..." She purred to herself.

Having confirmed the temperature, Nidalee slowly lowered herself into the sunlit water. Goose bumps appeared all over her body as the comforting water embraced her, and warmed every centimeter of her skin.

She breathed out as the dried blood from the hunt began leaving her soft skin. Completely relaxed, she began thinking about her past, and with it, the future. It was an odd train of thought to appear in the otherwise so instinctive huntress, but her memories were guiding her, and she didn't put up any resistance.

Past

Darkness had seeped into the jungle. Enveloping the trees and vines with its all devouring mouth. Silence laid upon the ground, shy from the occasional critter using the darkness to its advantage. But not everything was silent, because the darkness also made perfect conditions for ambushes by hungry predators.

With a loud growl, the silence was shattered and out from the dark into a moonlight opening a large feline creature jumped out towards an antelope. But the growl was misplaced and the antelope jumped away. The hunter took up the chase with sneer towards its prey. Together they ran through the underbush, jumping over creeks, stones and deed trees.

Suddenly the antelope took an unexpected turn. It threw the predator of its focus, and in a split second of doubt, the hunter lost its footing. It sent the large creature tumbling sideways, before slamming hard into a tree. The impact stole all the air from its lungs and the feline groaned out in pain. In its peripheral vision it saw its dinner running away into the darkness.

It would be impossible to regain the chase now. It was far gone. With admitted defeat the cougar simply rose up and began walking away with its head down. It began walking towards home, but as it did a sound rippled through the jungle. The cougar stopped up. The sound, it was a sound that the cougar had heard before, but couldn't remember, shot through the jungle. Curiosity seduced it into following to investigate.

A distance away, in the outskirt of the jungle, two young people were busy gathering herbs. They were talking to each other about the toxicity of some. The discussion had almost turned to a heated argument when they were suddenly interrupted by a soft yowl. The words fell silent, and the two young adults gave each other a worried look before they slowly turned towards the source.. What met them, was something they'd never believe if they weren't standing right in front of it themselves.

A young girl, probably in her late teens, was sitting on the ground before them. She was barely dressed with scraps of leather. Her emerald green eyes were drenched in tears, and streams were running down her cheeks. By the roughness of her clothing and dirt in her hair, it was obvious she wasn't a part of any village, at least what they knew of. They both noticed the big red spot on her side, injuries sustained by a blunt object. Both were shocked at the sight, and neither knew how to approach the situation. The woman of the pair, however, decided for herself that something had to be done, and so, she broke the silence.

"Hey there, you okay?" The young woman stepped towards the tear-drenched girl that was staring at them with the most sad and confused eyes she had ever seen. She stopped only a meter in front of her. The young man stood back, keeping himself wary of the situation. He was suspicious.

The girl had pieces of dirt and leaves in her hair, she looked at the woman who had just made the sounds she felt she recognized, but couldn't make sense out of. She opened her mouth in response, but there were no words to be found in her mind. Only a soft yowl left her lips.

"Can't talk?" The woman tried a smile at the girl. She received a shaking head in response.

"It's okay, we won't hurt you." Her voice was soft as silk and not even the slightest bit of threatening, but the jungle girl backed away nevertheless.

"What are you doing, Keela?" The man grabbed the woman's arm and glared at her with his teeth, his eyes never leaving the young girl with the emerald eyes.

"I'm being friendly." Keela turned her head towards the man. "Can't you see she's injured?" She turned towards him.

The man let his eyes leave the girl for a split second to answer back. "She's dangerous!" The words were shot out of gritted teeth. "Look! Does she look like she lives in a village?!" He pointed a hard finger at the place the girl had been sitting on, but was surprised to find out he was only pointing at empty air.

"Great! Now, look!" Keela gestured with her hand in the direction she guessed the jungle girl had ran off in. "You scared her away!"

"It's better that way." The man turned on his heel, and went back to the herb he'd been working on prior to the interruption. Keela gave a worrying look into the jungle before continuing in suit, giving the man an angry glare as she passed by.

The girl was stumbling through the jungle on her feet. Feet... She hadn't seen them in years, much less used them. She was so scared for what was happening to her. One moment cougar, the next a form she only remembered as a past life. The memories flooded her mind at an alarming rate, all of them were painful. The pain it caused her, forced more tears out of tear ducts that would surely run dry if she continued.

The girl stopped running, and tried to catch her breath. Her eyes were going down on her body, the fur-less skin... It was so familiar, yet alien. She touched it, with her hands. She looked amazed at them, memories of the same hands, only smaller, popped up in her mind. She was reminded how she used them, what they could be used to. So much more fragile than her paws, but so much more flexible.

She looked up again, her eyes were staring at a nothing present, they were staring at her past, suppressed memories. They were drenched in tears, she had begun remembering, everything... Her name, her past, her parents. Her thoughts got locked in place at the last.

"N... i...da... lee." The broken words left her soft lips. The moment the last character had been vaguely uttered she experienced a flashback.

Flashing images of a young couple, so alike the one she had just stumbled into, but still so very different. The man in the memory, he was looking down on her from above Kind emerald eyes and smile of happiness on his lips. Nidalee felt her stomach clench at the eyes. She could remember a younger version of herself staring down into a pond, the reflection revealing the same eyes.

The woman was standing beside the man, her eyes was a grayish blue, beautiful, but unremarkable. What caught the huntress' attention was her hair. Fluent brown, almost black, it softly danced its way from her head, into a choke on the backside of the head, before falling down on the woman's back. Nidalee felt her insides lock up, more tears forced their way out, dripping silently on the jungle ground beneath her feet. She felt her own ponytail of dark chestnut colored hair, softly whip at her back as she started running again.

"Why did the memories come?" She screamed inside, clawing on the walls that kept her trapped in the mental torture. It was emotions that had been kept suppressed inside her for years, that finally saw the opportunity to escape. It felt so awful to think again, she'd lived most of her life as an animal of the wild, but now suddenly, she stopped being that. She longed for the thoughts to go away.

At long last she reached her home in the jungle, the place she usually slept at. Streams of blood were running down from scrapes she had sustained on her legs. It hurt, but not even close to the mental trauma she was in. Collapsing at her feet, she slowly began dulling away into sleep. What met her, was more images of the past she had lost. They forced themselves upon her until she finally submitted, and let them flow unhindered past.

Present

The memories were vivid. Like she had just gone through them. She had accepted her condition, learned to live with it, use it to her advantage, but it always made her feel alienated. She was, and would always be, different. A hybrid between a form she would never understand and a form she had lived the most of her life as.

Suddenly, a loud sound, muffled by distance, shot through the jungle accompanied with a wave of wind. The gust of wind hit Nidalee straight in her bare chest, and snapped her away from her thoughts. She looked around, down to the tiniest of ripples that crashed against her body, to the trees in the outskirt of the clearing that waved with their branches.

It didn't ring right, something was up and Nidalee pounced up and out of the pool. Another drop of pressure around her disturbed the waters even more, and then, on four muscular legs she took off into the underwood, towards where her instincts said the source was located. The cougar cub who had been asleep under the oak, looked up just in time to catch her cousin running off. She gave a soft meow at the figure now almost lost in the dense jungle. Unsure of what to do, the cub reset in her drowsy position, and hoped the elder would return soon.

Nidalee's paws carried her with graceful speed between the trees. When she had run for a small amount of time, she was met by a large amount of animals and critters running away in the opposite direction. She used their movement to get a closer pinpoint on the source.

Slowly the smell of fire entered her nostrils. The scent got stronger with each stride, and her nose twitched from the strong sensation, urging her to turn. Nidalee, however, ignored the protest her nose was making and began breathing out of her mouth instead. She quickened her pace now that her direction was so securely pinpointed.

It didn't take long before she had closed in on the source of the smell. What met her was something that set her off. The area she was looking at, was a small clearing with two grand trees standing side by side with tightly woven branches, reaching all the way to the ground. A big, completely round and charred hole was punched through the branches. Trails of smoke rose from the burnt leaves. Nidalee wished she could close her nostrils completely off.

Further down, she could see something else. A small fire, surrounded by even more scorch marks and blackened vegetation. A whole little clearing of black growth had been created. Whatever plants had been there before had simply vanished. Nidalee growled at the dark smoke. Her eyes scanned the environment, something, or rather someone had caused this, that she knew.

Without examining the first hole too much, she walked over to the blackened, round clearing. In between the burned grass she could see trails of something else she had seen many times before. Red stains of liquid, almost invisible on the dark charred ground. Blood. She wanted to smell it, to identify who's blood it was, but the smoke overwhelmed her senses. Instead she followed the blood, it seemed splattered in one direction, like an impact The way the splatter pointed was empty, and confused she looked the other way. There she saw another smaller, but not charred hole go through several branches, with blood dripping from some. At the far end she saw the silhouette of a black creature at the foot of a great tree.

She hurried over to find a creature she had never seen before, one that didn't belong in the jungle. It was black as the sky at night without the moon. The first impression reminded her of a cougar-like creature, a predator, but the creature in front of her was nothing like any cougar she had ever encountered before. A hard carapace covered its shoulders and halfway down to its legs, another piece of hard black bone protected its throat and connected with even more on its back. On each of its four paws it had disproportionately large black, ivory claws. A number of very sharp and very big teeth ran out of its mouth, along with a black substance with a hint of red.

She looked closer at the dark, somewhat charred creature. She didn't like it, that was for certain. Even with the wild magics running as veins in the jungle, she knew of every creature that existed. This wasn't natural, even to the jungle, and that fact made her worry. The jungle was her domain, her territory and her responsibility to defend from threats within and outside.

The creature however, was dead now, which was probably for he best, but the question still remained on what had killed it. She returned to the start of the scene. Maybe there was a clue there to pick up on. The fire that had been burning in the middle had luckily almost died out, she stepped on it with a wet paw as she walked by. The flame hissed for its life before disappearing.

She cocked her head to the side and looked around: The area was dark and charred, but nothing more seemed to be out of place leaving no clue to what had caused it.

Having given up on the black clearing she walked back to the first charred hole. Looking at the hole and the scenes behind, she could see a correlation between the first breach and the larger charred clearing. It all lined up to the dead creature further away. Like something had been shot in a straight line.

She looked around some more. A tree on the right of the hole stood out, on closer inspection she could see deep gashes run into the wood. Her mind jumped to the creature and it's claws, she figured it had tried to attack something. The ground beneath the tree was trampled flat, and a few steps away, just in front of the charred breach, a couple of weird, almost oval shaped prints dug into the ground. She had seen similar before, they were footprints.

Nidalee felt shocked at the revelation that had, in the end, seemed to be the only logical explanation. Someone had snuck into her jungle without her knowledge. The anger inside her began to boil. The last time someone had entered her jungle, it had only brought her great misery.

Nidalee noticed the footprints ran off in a direction away from the charred areas. She growled and pounced away on four muscular legs, chasing after them.

As she rushed away from the charred woods, her sense of smell slowly started to return. The footprints were loaded with the scent of human sweat, and something else. Like charred wood, but not exactly there. It was like a crackling smell, if she could use such an auditory word to describe a smell.

She didn't need to look at the footprints anymore, the scent alone, was strong enough to carry her towards her target. She wondered to herself what she should do with the intruder, kill it right off, or ask questions, then kill? She decided for the latter, it was important she got more information on the black cougar with the hard carapace.

Not long after she could hear the sound of footsteps, belonging to a person, run ahead of her, but she still was still too far away from seeing it clearly. She noticed a gleam of gold would from time to time strike off from an object the person was carrying. She let her hunting instincts take over and she stealthed as only a cougar could.

She darted around the way the person was running, always keeping an eye. From the side she could see the person carrying a big golden, metal object. It was a long and thin log ,with a big clump of square golden metal on the top. She noticed the person was not the same as her. It was a man. He wore clothes she couldn't recognize, metal and fabric that were bound together. There were clear signs of damage by claws on the torn fabric that danced behind the man.

Nidalee ran past him after seeing his course. She placed herself herself to the right, a distance in front of him, and waited for the person to appear. She had deliberately chosen a little clearing as her spot so that she had free way to pounce at him.

It didn't take long before the sound of boots hitting the jungle ground was accompanied with the audio of heavy breathing. She noticed the man had brown hair, and in his hands, he held the golden object she had seen when she had run past him. She decided it would be a wise move to separate him from it.

When he was only a few meters away from her Nidalee crouched down into the dirt and readied her muscles. A moment later she launched herself up into the air with a powerful pounce-turned-leap, leaving deep grooves in the ground behind. A loud growl split the air between them as the man looked with shocked eyes over at the fearsome cougar approaching in mid-air, only a moment away from flying into him. He tried to pull up his metal object, but was cut short by the immense speed of the cougar.

"Whaaa- AGH!" The man shrieked as she hit him. The golden metal object he had been carrying went out of his hands, and landed meters away from him. Nidalee used her fearsome strength to push the man down. She sat above him. Her paws holding him down by his forearms. She bared her teeth in warning to the man, and noticed the shocked look in his brown eyes. He was clearly distressed by the cougar, but they didn't seem scared. Only a moment after his impact with the ground the shock had faded, too quickly for Nidalee's comfort. He looked around himself and up to the cougar with the bared teeth, his eyes went over to the gold covered metal object several meters away from him. It cast shimmering specks of light on the trees around them.

Nidalee growled again, drawing his attention. She warned him to not try anything, eying his throat. The snarl took his attention away from the glimmering object to her, and he gazed at her with brown eyes. Nidalee opened her mouth to speak, and to ask the question that was lingering in her, but only a growl escaped from her throat. She had forgot she couldn't speak as a cougar.'

Jayce cursed mentally to himself, he had managed to mess up real bad. The ambush from what he assumed was a voidling had taken him completely off guard as he had been sneaking into the jungle. It had been pure luck that it hadn't managed to severely injure him at the first attack.

He had reacted on instinct and slung the creature off him, and then blasted it away with a shock blast. The creature had been propelled through the jungle along with the shot, before the ball of energy had exploded in a powerful shock-wave and left a big round scorched clearing. His plan on going silently into the jungle had been shattered in that instant, and now it was even worse, his eyes staring at the angry cougar on top of him.

He knew that if he tried to do something, the cougar would lunge at his throat it so clearly eyed. He actually wondered why it hadn't done so already. He had been shocked by the sudden ambush, it had been like it came out of nowhere, he cursed silently at himself for not paying more attention in his escape.

A slight growling sound came out of the cougar's throat before being accompanied with a look Jayce could only identify as confusion. He swallowed, if this was the one he thought it was, he'd have a load of trouble on his hands. He somehow wished it only was a wild cougar, and that he'd be dead soon. That way, Piltover wouldn't end up being involved.

But death wishes aren't always fulfilled and a sudden breeze starting running through the jungle, forcing Jayce to close his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked into emerald green eyes that almost seemed to glow with magical power. They stared at him with a wild ferocity he didn't think fit the beauty of the owner.

On top of him, a young woman with dark-almost-black hair and toned muscles had appeared where the cougar had been mere moments earlier. Her face was spotless and slightly tanned, faded white paint could barely be seen over her cheekbones. She bared her teeth at him as the cougar had done before, revealing white and somewhat sharpened teeth. He noted to himself that even though they were a lot smaller, they looked at least as dangerous as the cougar's had.

His thoughts raced, he wasn't sure what he should do, how he could salvage the situation. He knew that most animals were territorial, and her, being raised by a pack of cougars would probably have inherited that. To protect the jungle was her agenda for joining the league. She had claimed a whole jungle as her territory, and he knew from what he had learned about her, that she hated outsiders. He hoped at least some of what he had heard about her was exaggerated.

Nidalee moved in closer to the man, she felt a cold breeze run over her body, reminding herself she had forgot her clothes at the pond. She didn't pay it any heed, she didn't follow society's rules. Now only a hands length away, the wild girl pushed him further down into the ground. She held him down by his arms and had placed her knee on his chest. He opened his mouth as he was going to say something, but she cut him short.

"What are you doing here!?" She sneered in an accent Jayce had never heard before. It sounded like if a wild animal had suddenly gained the ability to speak.

He looked at her and calmed himself before answering. To show weakness towards a creature of the wild could very quickly end in his demise, and while he knew she was a human, like him, it was only on the outside. Mentally she was a wild animal, or atleast that was what he had heard. His eyes never left hers, but he noticed that she didn't wear any clothes. He pushed it out of his head. Bad moment to let desire take root.

"I'm on a mission," he tried his best to keep up his composure.

"What mission?" She moved in closer to him and bared her teeth again, again revealing her pearl white fangs.

He paused, trying to think of the best way to phrase his explanation, knowing full well the next words he said would have a big factor in the coming events.

"There's a disturbance, in the jungle," he figured that the huntress had seen the creature that he had blasted moments earlier. It would make it a lot easier if he could turn his intrusion towards that, instead of his own mission.

Nidalee moved a little back, her eyes growing a little. The words had their desired effect, and made the situation a little less strained, but Jayce was still not sure what to make out of the expression. He tried to keep his eyes trained at the huntress on top of him, but his eyes drifted away from hers as his got tired. He blinked a few times, and when he looked up again he noticed that he was looking down on the huntress along her body instead of to her face, which she had moved. There was a lot of bare skin.

He knew, from an animal's point of view, clothes were unneeded, but it still caught him very off guard having the huntress undressed on top of him. He didn't want her to see that he was looking at her, in fear that the situation would escalate, so he mentally kicked himself, and forced his eyes up to face her again. He felt his face heat up, but he kept his composure. Viktor was right in that regard, emotions could be troublesome.

Nidalee had not caught why the man she was sitting on top of had turned red after he had blinked with his eyes. Her curiosity pushed her to pursue, but she shoved it away and forced herself to concentrate on the situation. She needed to know more about what was happening.

"Explain." Nidalee glared angrily at the weird man. There was something about him that set him apart from most of the other humans she had encountered, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Umm..." Jayce started, not sure where to begin, or whether to tell her the truth at all. "T-there's a certain object inside the jungle I'm looking for"

"Mhm? What?" The she sneered at him.

"It's an object of great magical power, but I fear for where it might have gotten its power." Jayce explained, hoping the truth would pay off

"How?" Her expressions softened a little into something that looked more like confusion or curiosity.

"Have you ever heard of the void?" The huntress let go off him at the last word. She was just sitting on his chest now, her eyes staring bewildered into the jungle.

"Yes." She let a final soft word slide out of her mouth.

Dun, dun! So I might have given a not-so-very-subtle hint of where I'm going to take this story.

Hope you guys liked the flashback. I know it's a somewhat cheap narrative trick to include background, but frankly I didn't feel like removing it. It's not like I'm writing for a writing award here. I have a custom background to Nida. Giving a little more insight into her life, how she learned to talk and about her desire to protect the jungle. I'll see how far I'll take this background though. I need to make sure the story is moving forwards, not backwards

Comments, reviews and feedback appreciated!