She was so excited, she barely noticed the incredulous stares the adults were shooting at both her and Annie. The kids, on the other hand, seemed just as excited as she was. Much cheering and screaming abounded. She joined in with a screech of her own but quickly stopped when the children flinched away and people's hands went to their ears. She ducked her head guiltily, looking around.

I screwed up. Annie told me not to do that.

Thankfully, the hiccup in festivities blew over fast. Annie reassured the adults and the kids recovered quickly.

“Wow, yer loud!” Tag girl (for lack of a better name) said, walking up to her.

“Annnnnnnnnd, yer it!” she shouted, giving Shadow a light slap on the side, before running away giggling. The other kids quickly followed suit.

I’m it? What does... Oh, I’m the tagger!

Shadow grinned.

Time to hunt!

She shot off after the children, locking onto one with pointier ears. It was one of the rarer traits and she needed some way to choose. Tag girl had red hair, which was also somewhat defining, but Shadow had noticed that none of the kids had ever tagged back the child that tagged them. She assumed that was against the rules of this game, so she didn't go after the redhead.

She was next to the pointy-eared boy in a moment, leaping through the air next to him. She thumped him on the side with a paw as she flew by. She saw the boy stumble a bit, staring at her with wide eyes as she landed and tore off away from him.

Tag!

After a second, she stumbled to a stop, realizing something.

Do I need to say tag?

Looking back toward the boy, she saw him in rapid pursuit of another child.

She grinned again, feeling some relief.

I guess not!

She threw herself back into the fray, noticing how the faster kids would deliberately put themselves in danger of a tag from the slower ones, only to dodge or jump away at the last moment.

She quickly found out she had them all outmatched. She had known she was faster, but she was also a lot more agile and sure of her body movements.

Kids would leap forward to snag her, as she taunted them just inside their tagging range. Right before the hand would land, she would duck, dodge back, or twist out of the way. They never really got close.

After playing around like this for a bit, she was starting to get bored. Most of the kids stopped trying to tag her and she was only getting to dodge once in a while. She started to let herself get tagged so she could do some chasing.

It was… not really any better. Even going after the fastest and most nimble of the children had her catching them in a second or two. They were just too slow and clumsy compared to her.

I need to make this harder…

She thought a bit about what to do.

Well, they’re slow and stumbly because of their two legs. I can just use two legs too!

She let herself get tagged, and then hopped herself up on two legs, using her tail to balance.

The kid stopped running and stared at her.

“Wow!” a little girl piped up.

She leaned herself forward and started into her fastest two-legged gait. The kids took off, screams and giggles redoubling in volume as the chase began anew.

As she rushed off after them, she was excited to note she was actually the tallest one in the group, now that she was up on her hind legs. That fact did not make her the fastest. She was, in fact, way slower, and she was also lacking the flexibility she was used to. So much of her maneuverability depended on her front legs. Now that she was up on two, she found she didn't really know how to... juke around. She could walk just fine, but she couldn't do anything fancy. She was frustrated to find she couldn’t catch tag girl, and broke off for easier prey. She found herself pouncing on one of the shorter boys after an intense chase, darting away after the successful tag.

The back and forth continued for a couple more minutes, things much fairer. She paid a lot of attention to how the older kids were moving, trying to emulate how they moved, now that she couldn’t use her forelegs. She leaned her midsection away when little hands came in for a tag, or dove to the side at the last moment when she couldn’t outrun whoever was ‘it’. She started to try to deceive the chasers, a technique she noticed the bigger kids using to good effect. She would feint dodging one way, leaning her now 'upper' body in one direction, but actually throw her weight in the opposite way, making the tagger commit in the wrong direction, leading to a miss.

That was the idea at least. It required some fancy footwork (paw-work? Eh, they could be her ‘feet’ as long as she was standing) that she wasn’t quite proficient enough to pull off. Most of her attempts ended up with her getting tagged despite her best efforts.

Even with all the fun she was having, she eventually noticed something was off. She was getting a lot of odd looks from the adults in the crowd. They looked more concerned and confused than hostile, but it wasn’t the mostly curious or excited looks she’d been getting before. Not all of them looked that way, but enough that it was clear there was some sort of problem. She glanced at Annie and as soon as she was noticed, Annie aggressively pointed down, with a serious expression to match.

She reluctantly fell back to all fours, getting the message.

Why is walking on two legs weird? They’re all doing it!

The kids seemed disappointed too. They had been having a blast chasing her around and running. They seemed to find the whole two-legged situation hilarious considering their giggling.

“No more walk?” a little boy asked, looking sad.

She gave him a regretful shake of her head before freezing, looking at the boy with wide eyes.

I didn’t mean to do that!

The boy, for his part, just nodded and went back to playing, not seeming to find her response unusual.

She relaxed, glancing around. No one else seemed to notice either, at least as far as she could tell.

Crisis averted. The kids seem to be a lot more accepting than the adults… I wonder why that is?

The game of tag broke up shortly after, with tag girl running up and giving Shadow a flying hug around her neck. The girl was so obviously non-hostile, she didn’t even tense as she was bowled into.

They both fell over onto the ground, landing in a heap, tag girl on top. The girl got back up on all fours, grinning down at Shadow who ended up underneath her. Shadow grinned back at her and give her a lick.

She burst out in giggles.

“Thank ye’ for playin’ with us, Shadow! I’m Maggie!”

Thanks for inviting me to play Maggie! Shadow thought back, wishing she could really respond.

She noticed Maggie’s face had shifted from happy to confused. She was staring at Shadow’s collar.

Shadow felt a thrill of fear, glancing down herself.

It was dark. Shadow's heart rate doubled in almost an instant.

What’s the issue!? Why did—

She saw it, the stone fragment had been bumped out of position. It must have happened when they fell.

She moved her forepaws to push it back into place, something like this shouldn’t be hard. As she did so, she could see the understanding crawl across Maggie’s face. Her eyes widening as she had a realization. She had heard Annie making the pitch earlier, so she knew what the collar was supposed to do. Following closely at its heels was an expression of fear, her eyes locking on to Shadow’s eyes, and then moving to her teeth. She still had her mouth open in a goofy grin.

Shadow snapped her mouth shut and felt her heart plummet so fast, she feared it would exit her back.

Her collar finally lit back up. The girl was already starting to scramble up, but paused after seeing the collar glowing again, more confusion flashing over her face. Her eyes locked on Shadow’s again.

She saw me readjust the collar.

Shadow saw her take a deep breath, like she was about to shout.

Shadow’s forepaw shot up to her own mouth, sideways as she extended a single claw. She made a low breathy hiss, the closest she could get the “Shhhhh” sound both Annie and Jonas made when indicating ‘be quiet’.

Shadow was terrified. Eyes wide, ears drooped, her tail pulled in. She was shivering.

Please don’t. She beseeched in her mind.

Maggie stared at her, her face rapidly flipping through a series of emotions. She didn’t yell. Thankfully her body was still mostly concealing Shadow under her.

Her face finally settled on wonder, and she slowly nodded. Then she glanced back down at the collar.

“Is that fake?”

She hesitated. Was it really ok to answer? Aside from that, was the collar fake?

Well, it really is a magic collar… but…

She made her decision. The girl had already seen her doing weird stuff. More shouldn't hurt.

She nodded.

Maggie looked both amazed and somewhat overwhelmed. Her brow scrunched.

“But why aren't ya attackin' me then? I thought shadies were monsters.”

Shadow didn’t really know how to answer that. She did her best impression of a human shrug, then moved her head and nuzzled one of Maggie’s arms.

Maggie’s face lit up with another smile and she sat back, freeing her hands so she could pet her. Shadow finally relaxed again.

Yes! See, still friendly!

“So do you—”

Shadow whipped up a paw again, putting back in the shushing position, before dropping it again.

“Oh. right…”

Maggie looked a little disappointed, but a couple of seconds later, Shadow noticed footsteps coming over.

She looked over and saw Annie and Jonas approaching. He must have gotten back at some point.

“Hello, dear.” Annie said with a smile, addressing Maggie.

“Would you mind getting up and letting Shadow go?”

Shadow noticed the girl was kind of sitting on her. She wasn’t putting on enough weight for it to hurt, though.

“Oh! Um, ok! Thank ye’ for lettin’ us play!”

“Of course. We’ll be back tomorrow, feel free to come again! Tell your parents! Shadow may not be able to play tag though.”

Maggie nodded and ran off, throwing one last glance back at Shadow.

“Shadow, heel. Let’s get to the inn. I’m exhausted.”