Its not as easy as it looks, nor as shallow as it seems.

From a thick undergrowth was a rabid rustling and then out popped the black dog with the strange, eerie aura and stiff walk of a rabid animal. He stopped the second it saw Addy and cocked his head to the side.

With one sneeze and the swift shake of his head, Jett returned to his regular shape. Often in the Forbidden Forest, he took to his larger, scarier Skinwalker form, but the dog was easier to switch to and from.

"Can't say I expected this." Jett wasn't usually caught off guard, but he was right then. Normally he might have leered and made some offensive comment. This was, after all, his domain. "Why the hell are you reading in the Forbidden Forest?"

Jett would have said something along the lines of 'maybe you just can't turn into a cat', but he sensed.. whatever that was. He wasn't empathetic, in fact, he had no empathy, but he was smart enough to notice the signs. Right. Okay.

"Oh, me? I'm always in fuckin' creepy places. My being here shouldn't be a surprise at all. I question your choice of surroundings." He rubbed his jaw, inspecting the girl in front of him. Jett wasn't typically helpful. Or when he was, there was always something self-serving behind it, even if that was as simple as boredom.

"Aren't you supposed to do this kind of shit in calming places? So your mind is all free of worry and what not?"

"Who would pick peas over corn?" Jett immediately shook his head, having dismissed the rhetorical question the moment he'd asked it. "What would there be to question about you trying to turn into a cat? Fuck, you're twenty-five percent there already."

He took it upon himself to sit across from her, crossing his legs at the ankle and leaning back. "What's it feel like when you're trying to shift? Mine's kinda on the spine and when it happens I just let go and follow the good feeling. I was never good at shifting only one part of myself at a time."

The corner of Jett's mouth quirked at her comparison. He'd never heard that one before, but he imagined the feeling. Jett nodded. "Sounds to me like you're trying to force the feeling rather than just following it." He opened his eyes and rubbed his hands together, thinking up an example for her. "You know how to swim in the ocean when the tide is pulling you away, don't you? Don't fight the waves, follow them. When they pull you back, relax and when they push you forward use your energy to swim. That way you don't tire yourself out.

Think of your shifting like that. When the magic feels farther away from you, don't fight it, just relax and when you feel it surging up, concentrate harder. Yeah? Try that."

For Jett, things had been simpler than that, but he hadn't exactly been born with the ability to shift, either. He closed his eyes, breathed in and let his transformation take him. Sitting in his place was a large black dog, only a little bigger than a German Shepard and with an aura that matched the eerie mood of the Forbidden Forest.

Jett's tongue rolled out of his mouth in a comical laughing expression. The dog snorted and shook, returning to his human form to talk again. "I know I do," he said, pride laced in every word.

He scooted so he could sit beside her and leaned over her only a tag to look at her face. There was something close to frustration in his expression, but that could easily just been concentration. "Close your eyes and try again, but this time, don't focus too much on the magic. Focus on your other senses. Smell, hearing, touch. Feel the world around you. Feel the magic and just pull it toward you, slowly. Imagine it belongs there."

Jett laid back with her, not close enough to touch, but enough that she knew he was there. "Fuck, I'll even imagine with you. Just for the funsies."

There was the question of his actually helping her. Truthfully, Jett didn't know why he did everything he did, either. Most of these things came in impulses for him, but secretly, Jett just liked teaching things.