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There was the scent of a third Mavka, but Ingram couldn’t see or hear him.

“You almost hurt Reia,” the wolf Mavka growled. “I told you not to approach!”

Ingram darted his sight to the female named Reia before focussing back on his skull. He snarled and held Emerie tighter when he tried to approach, and the wolf Mavka backed off.

He was injured, stressed, and was surrounded by humans that, with just one claw swipe across their supple skin, could send him back into a rage. They were wise to not touch him or try to pry the female in his arms away.

“I’m fine, Orpheus,” Reia weakly laughed. “He just surprised me.”

“Speak for yourself,” the second female he’d pushed sneered. She pointed to her flat stomach. “Carrying precious cargo here. Last thing I need is to fucking fall over, then Faunus would be furious.”

He figured by the scent on her, the Mavka named Faunus was the one who was currently hidden away nearby.

However, that scent did cause his sight to morph to dark yellow in curiosity. It was familiar, and the only one he was truly... comfortable with.

“Kitty?”he asked, tilting his head.

She smelled like the feline-skulled Mavka with curling ram horns.

“Faunus now,” she answered, her brown eyes narrowing on him.

He has a new name?To be fair, he hadn’t really known what names were until only a few months ago – when he and Aleron had received their own from Merikh.

They all have names.He wanted to learn them all, liking that they had individual identities past their skulls and horn variations. His being the best, obviously, since he was the only one he’d met without fangs, instead having a beak.

“Fox Mavka,”Ingram said to gain his attention.“Your name. What is it?”

“Magnar,” he answered, wrapping a clawed hand over the shoulder of the dark-brown-haired female next to him. “This is Delora.”

There was a little flame hovering between his imposing deer antlers. Upon inspection, it looked like it was a flaming woman, who, oddly enough, had the same shape and hair as the female he was touching.

He turned to the wolf Mavka and noticed he also had a flame woman between his backward-spiralling horns. It was the same shape as the female in his arms.

He didn’t know what they meant.

“Reia,” the little woman said, placing a hand to her chest before doing it to the wolf one. “Orpheus. And the one over there with the frowning face is Mayumi.”

He looked back at the tiny woman, since she appeared to be the shortest of the bunch, and saw she had her hands on her hips. She was still annoyed with him, made evident by her furrowing brows.

“Ingram,” Emerie whined in his arms, although rather muffled since her face was cushioned against his chest. “Can’t breathe!”

He loosened his hold just enough to give her some room and turned his skull down while tilting it so he could see past his beak.

“Sorry, Emerie.”He moved his arm from around her shoulders so he could brush his claws into the side of her hair.“Are you in pain?”

“She is fine,” Orpheus firmly stated from the side. “I have taken her wounds for her.”

“Taken her wounds?”he curiously asked.

“I have healed her, and in doing so, I must bear her wounds for her.”

Oh. So that’s why he could scent Mavka blood coming from him.

Ingram’s sight shifted to a reddish pink as shame nagged at the nape of his neck.“Did I hurt you?”

“No, but a Demon did get me pretty good when I was in the water. I think you saved me, though.”

“I see,”he hummed, before shifting his form into his more humanoid one now that he knew everything was... okay.