The air was thick...

Patrolling the city was all well and good. Leon was used to the scent of car exhaust and ancient oil mixed with hot asphalt. He was familiar with the mangled mash of too many bodies, too many footsteps over the same stretch of concrete, of metal and glass and a dozen different foods all on one street corner. He knew those scents, and in their way, they were comforting and comfortable.

But there was no denying that the wolf beneath his skin also craved the world away from civilization. Fresh--or fresher--air and the loamy scent of dirt underfoot. It wanted to watch small animals scurry for their burrows, wanted to hear the squeaky flutter of a dove's wings and the creak of ancient trees still settling their weight on roots delved deep in the earth. Sometimes, the wolf pushed the man out of the way and Leon excused himself from the modern world to prowl through the forest, breathing it in, letting it's wildness leech tension from his skin.

When he was alone, that was. He wasn't alone tonight. He'd thought he was, had been about to grit his teeth and set the wolf free for a while, but the sound of a body falling -- falling from that far up? -- to earth stopped him in his tracks. He froze, for a moment, then started moving toward the sound. A flashlight, clipped to his keychain, came off the carabiner holding it in place and he snapped the light on. If it was an animal, it would run. If not... no, a deep breath told him. Not an animal. Not one with more than two legs, at least.

He stepped around a thick tree trunk. "Someone out here?"

Female. He'd known that before he got a good look at her. In the glare of the flashlight, he had enough time to see 'slim' and 'blonde' before...the light winked out. So that was how it was going to be? Leon held back a sigh and pocketed the now-useless flashlight. Perfect. "Better be," he answered wryly, "or you're going to have a bunch of questions to answer you probably don't want. Like what kind of question is that? And what did you do to my flashlight?"

Though it took a second or two for him to fully regain his vision with the light going out that fast, he recovered quickly. "So I'm going to guess you're not."

Elsie rose an eyebrow as the man spoke. She laughed at his response. I wouldn't just go off and ask a person if they were human, if I hadn't been 99.9% sure that they weren't she smiled and looked him up and down. Hm, you're not a vampire so...You're either a shapeshifter or a werewolf. she grinned.
She'd always been good at guessing, most of the time she was right. Sighing, she held her hand out, she was in no need of pushing away any potential associates. I'm Elsie, I am a witch. she winked.