Before Alec could answer, a little rustle from the underbrush was all the warning they had as a human-shaped figure quickly sprinted toward them from the forest. In the second it took them to see its approach, it had already crossed half of the distance between the forest and them, despite that distance being about a hundred yards away.
"Shit!" Vivian exclaimed, her eyes wide and panicky as she hastily stood up and prepared to evade their attacker. "Quick! Possess it!"
She leapt to the side and put the fire between her and their attacker in a timely fashion, using the fire to discourage a course correction toward her destination because she knew that the creature would otherwise be able to outmaneuver her. She kept her gaze on the creature while it began to slide to a stop as it passed her by, knowing that it was positioning itself to reverse course and pounce on her.
Alec, seeing how she had reacted to the threat, didn't think twice about following her direction. It was a good thing that all he had to do was look at his target and say one word, because he was still paralyzed from the sudden danger that had interrupted an otherwise safe and uneventful journey. "Possession!"
"Oof!" He exhaled, suddenly finding himself falling chest-first onto the ground. Thankfully, whatever creature he had possessed had been low to the ground, so the impact wasn't too bad. And with its arms having been overhead at the time, he had been able to save his chin from a similar meeting with the ground.
Approaching him warily, Vivian asked, "Alec?"
"Yes?" He responded with a sultry, feminine purr as he looked up, his borrowed face showing surprise upon hearing it.
Vivian visibly relaxed. "That was close. I thought we were far enough away from the mountains to encounter a nekomata, but apparently not."
"A nekomata?" Alec asked, who pushed himself up into a crouching position before he began to inspect the body that he found himself in.
Aside from being completely covered in grey and black-patterned fur, much of his body still had a very human shape, very womanly yet with powerful, lean muscles. Turning over his hands revealed one of the exceptions, something between what he was accustomed to seeing as a human and feline paws, including pads and deadly-looking claws. The area between his knees and feet looked entirely feline, while his backside was now adorned with a tail that was forked at the base, effectively giving him two. He had a single pair of breasts, and despite being fairly hefty they seemed to be designed for strenuous activity, projecting outward with little sag. The rest of the differences resided on the head, where he found softly-triangular ears, a feline muzzle that didn't protrude too far, whiskers between his nose and mouth, and tousled, white hair that came down to the middle of his back.
"Yeah," Vivian answered, bemused by his inspection. "They're a female race who typically reside in the mountains. While they're dangerous in general, they're especially so to human women, who they see as competition because they reproduce by mating with human men."
Remembering how alarmed Vivian had been, Alec forced his attention away from his body so he could ask, "How dangerous are they?"
"Very," came the immediate reply. "They're stronger than most unaugmented men, but it's their dexterity and senses that are the real challenge to deal with. It not only allows them to enter and exit melee range fast enough to deal injuries and escape unscathed from even seasoned adventurers, but it's even harder for ranged attackers to score a hit on them; especially if they're in a large enough party for a nekomata to weave around their companions, who they won't want to hit."
Knowing that he was currently possessing such a force of nature made his tails sway with excitement. It had been such a letdown when he had learned of his physical attributes; if he'd had the ability to choose, he would have become a much more capable man, possibly with some actual fighting skills. Instead, unlike many people who decided to become adventures, he'd had no opportunity to train his body or skills before reaching adulthood.
He really wanted to give this body a spin, to see what it felt like to be strong and agile, but he knew that they had priorities. "Okay, so what do we do now?"
Vivian worried her bottom lip. "How far apart can you be from your body before you can't return to it?"
"...I don't know," Alec replied, feeling sheepish for not doing more testing before he got himself into situations that might require having a good understanding of his special skill. "All I know for sure is that I need to be able to see my body."
Adopting a more contemplative expression, Vivian asked, "What if you fall asleep? Will you return to your body then?"
Alec shook his head. "I have no idea... Why?"
Vivian sighed, her shoulders slumping. "She'll probably attack again if we free her, and track us down if we can't put enough distance between us, which line of sight isn't going to accomplish. We can try to kill her, but there's no telling how aware she, and thus how quickly she can recover if you leave her body before I strike, and I'm not so sure we should find out what happens when the body you're possessing is killed."
Alec shuddered at that last idea. "Yeah. I might just die along with them, for all I know."
After thinking about it some more, Vivian said, "I can only think of two things we can do that have a good chance of success, taking into account that I don't have time to backtrack and that we'll reach the witch tomorrow. The first option is that you stay in that body and use it when we go up against the witch, because she's mostly a ranged attacker and weak against physical attacks. Plus, you should be able to carry your body without issue until we get there. The second is that we wear that body out before we leave in the morning, so she'll be too tired to pursue us."
At first excited at the idea of being able to attack the witch with a nekomata's capabilities, rather than with his weak and largely unskilled body, he felt a heat begin to rise from his core at what "wear that body out" meant. "And, um... How would we, uh, wear her out?"
Vivian responded with a lascivious smile. "How do you think?"
Mouth dry at the prospect, despite knowing that he shouldn't be anticipating such a thing, Alec struggled to stay on topic. "But both ideas require us to sleep either way, right? What about, you know..."
"You'll have to be tied up," Vivian nonchalantly replied, with a helpless shrug of the shoulders. "But don't worry: I'll make it as comfortable for you as I can."
"Hold on," Alec said, his head clearing in light of the question he had. "If we can tie her up, then why not just leave her that way instead of doing one of those other ideas?"
Vivian regarded him with hard eyes and an expression of mild disappointment. "And allow her to be defenseless for at least a day and a half? It's one thing if we kill her in self-defense, but we shouldn't be cruel; the vulnerability alone will be traumatic for a nekomata."
Alec bowed his head in apology, suitably cowed, and agreed to be tied up. Thinking that it would be wiser to decide on a course of action after they got some rest, they opted to hold off and got ready for bed. Once they had prepared themselves to sleep, and made his prone body more comfortable, he laid down and allowed his arms and legs to be bound together separately. When Vivian was finished with that, he was surprised when she laid down beside him and pulled him close.
"Mmmmm," she hummed her approval, "you're just as cuddly as I'd hoped." She sniffed audibly. "You smell nice, too; like cedar and rain."
Alec blushed beneath his fur, uncertain of how he should react to being taken advantage of like this, partly because he was liking it. "Um..."
Vivian reached up and began to scratch behind one of his ears, which made all of his tense muscles relax and sent a wave of warm fuzzies throughout his body. Before long, he began to purr; not that he cared by that point.
"Sorry," Vivian whispered, as her other hand began to stroke his head. "I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to do this to a nekomata, since they're so hostile to women."
Alec heard the words but didn't register their meaning. It wasn't long before he drifted into a pleasant sleep. When Vivian noticed, she chuckled and settled in to fall asleep herself.