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 Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:24 am
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Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:26 pm
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Sabin Duvert Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:44 pm
((I can move this post to allow you to fit in your interem RPs if you need me to)) After who knows how many days out in the wild, and going to sleep fearing an attack on an uncomfortable "bed" of rock in the caves, Zach awakens the next morning... on a mattress? Even more, he's back inside his duplex. There is a heaping stack of hamburgers and hotdogs beside his bed. On top of the hotdogs is a note. Quote: Zachary, I apologize for your.. extended stay in the wilderness. However, I can do nothing when Moreau takes punishments for other deeds into his own hands. But I must advise you, however charitable you might have been feeling, to take Moreau's warnings to heart and not to challenge the man. I have been able to, since then, speak to him and grant you entry back into the village. After all, it was but one steak, and Moreau has even spoken himself with Alec since then. So, welcome back, and... I have seen to it that your justice was carried through. ~Sabin Duvert
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Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:59 pm
(( I can squeeze two short RPs into one post, I think. ))
The weather on the island had taken a turn for the worse, and Zach was nervous about it. There were very little times now in which he wasn't nervous, so it was hardly a surprise. His eyes never wandered from the entrance to the cave, wondering if at any moment the snake or someone similar would come... Thanks to how far along he was in his changes, Zach did not do well in cold. While he was not cold-blooded to the extent the rest of the reptilian islanders were, the gusts of wind and lashes of rain that sloshed into the cave that night had been more than enough to make him feel lethargic. At some point during the night he fell asleep, cold and wet and thoroughly miserable.
The next thing he knew, he was sprawled somewhat awkwardly somewhere, whether in a dream-land or reality. Coming back to consciousness was a funny feeling, heavy and senseless. Everything seemed really strange - for instance, the hard rock floor of the cave felt soft, almost like a bed. He wasn't about to ruin a perfectly good illusion, and tried to stay sleeping for as long as he could. If he woke, the hunt was on again, and he would soon fall back into his usual routine, picking out suspicious sounds from everything. But something seemed odd about the cave today, and it just wouldn't let him rest comfortably. It was the smell of meat that really woke him up. He opened his eyes halfway, waiting for his vision to clear. Flickering sunlight streaking in from between drawn blinds. How odd. His cave didn't have blinds.... but his duplex did. The shock of such a possibility was enough to get him upright, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He swayed, vision swept up in a vibrant sea of color as the blood rushed out of his head. When it cleared again, he got a good look around him. The place seemed clean, save for a couple strewn clothes, exactly where they had been the last time he'd been in his duplex. Was it...? It had to be.
There was that smell of meat again, giving him an odd sense of deja vu. He located the source pretty quicky, a plate next to his bed. His stomach growled. He'd barely been able to find much of anything to eat for the past couple weeks, making the food look almost too good to be true. The plate's contents seemed to be decorated with a lonely piece of paper, which he picked up with a grimy hand and skimmed in the faint hope that it would assure him this was no desperate dream. Without even glancing at the bottom of the letter he knew who had written it. Sabin. It was hardly surprising. He felt somewhat indignant at the accusatory tone of the letter (the Alec incident had been an accident!), but as long as he was really back in his duplex he wouldn't dare to complain. He couldn't remember ever being this glad to be in a duplex.
He continued through the little letter, mumbling the words under his breath as he read them. The last line brought a twisted grin to his face. He'd seen what had become of the snake-man firsthand, and while he was still rather terrified of ever meeting him again, Zach would have to ask the doctor for some more details on what exactly had been done to Rex and the snake. Sabin had definitely kept his word. The note slipped through his claws and fluttered to the floor. He felt... grateful. He glanced over at the duplex door and saw that it was locked, and even his strongest fears ebbed away temporarily at the sight.
Still sitting on the side of his bed, he reached to pick up a cold hotdog and chewed on it thoughtfully with the side of his mouth, wiggling his long toes over the carpeted floor. No more having to live like an animal. No one could sneak over in the middle of the night and strangle him here. He devoured the rest of the hotdog and two more, soon feeling full, before he turned back to the bed. He was still utterly exhausted. Another few hours of sleep would do the trick. Gracelessly he clambered completely into the middle of the bed and curled up on his stomach, slipping his long tail close around him and letting his wings fall to either side. He closed his eyes and everything became distant. He forgot about the dirt and blood of the past few weeks that he hadn't scrubbed off. He didn't even bother to take off the torn-up jeans that loosely gripped his waist. As long as he didn't open his eyes to the inside of the cave the next time woke...
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Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 2:24 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:15 pm
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Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 7:53 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:48 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:27 pm
Zach stumbled into his duplex with the unconscious girl. He didn't know how he'd managed to get up the flight of stairs, but he had, and if he didn't put her down soon his arms were just going to give. Where? The bed, in all its totally unadorned splendor. Right. He moved with all the speed he could and set her down on it carefully, making sure to keep her from crushing her furry tail. Some months ago, he'd stuffed the pillows into the closet, not needing them much. He'd shredded a few already on accident and though they did get replaced every so often, it made a huge mess of stuffing everywhere.
He shook his arms out a little bit to get some feeling back into them as he went to retrieve the plate of burgers down at the bottom of the stairs. Experience definitely paid off - Sabin had left Zach some pre-cooked food after some violent incidents, which helped stop them from happening for at least a little while. Up the stairs and back into the room he went, grabbing the doorknob as he moved so that he could close the door behind him. It was sweltering outside, but he guessed that with so much fur she didn't need the extra heat. The plate was set down at the bedside table, and he moved to go into the bathroom to really get all the blood off. When that was done, he settled down in a corner of the room with a borrowed magazine and read, making sure to right his hat between the horns with a now-clean hand.
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:41 pm
Kikue stirred slightly. Without opening her eyes, she felt a pounding headache move in. And yet...there was a metallic taste in her mouth still. She still hadn't eaten anything. The whole of neck and the back of her head ached. Wha...
She could feel a bed around her. She must be back in her duplex... She remembered, faintly, what she had been doing. The thought alone forced her eyes to snap open, and she jerked up into a sitting position on the bed almost convulsively with a gasp. Her vision brought her images -- wait, not my room -- wait --
The taste in her mouth. She licked her lips, her paw-like fingers brushing against the whiskers. She was dazed. Her paws still had blood on them. Blood. Kikue's fur rose slowly, and she turned her head around her. The room looked back at her -- and someone in it, too. Lizard. Man. From the mess hall.
Kikue's rationale felt blurred. She didn't know whether to be afraid, or angry. But she was not in her room; had he attacked her after she'd bitten the other man? Oh gods I -- I bit him!
Her cat-like eyes stared dead at the lizard in his chair. Her tail had begun to lash slightly on the sheets. She had no idea what the hell was going on.
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:54 pm
Zach continued flipping through the magazine, pausing between the rustle of pages when something briefly caught his interest. The sound had almost completely masked those of the cat girl getting up, but the bedsprings groaned just enough to warrant a glance over the reading material.
He stared back at her for a little bit, fearing that the silence meant she was still as feral as when she'd bitten the newcomer. His tail stopped dead in its lazy movements. Slowly, carefully, he put the magazine down in his lap. Sudden movements would be bad. Already he regretted the idea of bringing her somewhere "safe". What about his own safety?
"Uh, hi." He gave a tentative wave at her. A clawed finger was pointed at the bedside table, where the plate of burgers had gone cold. Predators were predators - he'd figured a cat couldn't be that picky about meat. "You really should eat sssomething."
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:15 pm
Kikue turned to follow Zach's clawed fingers. Her ears pricked up at the mention of "eating" something. Forcing herself to swallow -- but then the taste of blood only spread out further in her mouth -- she glanced at the plate of hamburgers. Her stomach made a pleading sound, even as she tried to squash the hunger before it made itself known.
Her eyes kept flicking between the plate and the man. Her expression crumpled, as she attempt to say something. She'd just bitten some man she hadn't known, hadn't she. And the pounding headache -- although probably from lack of food as much as anything else -- was probably a remnant of the chip shocking her. That had been what had happened, right? She'd lost herself...they'd knocked her unconscious...
"Um," she whispered out hoarsely. She scratched her neck carefully, although the claws still left small lines since there was no fur there to protect her... "I, um..." She begant to pant, only catching herself after she had started. "I...I bit that man, didn't I?" Only the stupidest question. Yes, of course she had bitten him. Bitten him?
"Excuse me," she got out, moving along the bed to the plate of hamburgers. The blood on her paws was still fresh. Seeing the meat -- tasting the blood in her mouth still, and smelling it on her hands -- she grabbed the plate to herself, sitting on the bed as her tail curled around her. She began to eat ravenously, ripping off large chunks of the cold burger and gulping it down. It was the only thing she could do to keep herself focused; to keep herself from doing anything else insane. Just eat and make the instincts stop --
She licked her mouth and her paws with her tongue, large and rough now. She hadn't even noticed from the last change...
In-between stuffing down the food, her eyes would rise guiltily to the man in his chair. He had a funny kind of outfit on...and one could almost say he looked less like a lizard than Kikue had thought. He looked like a dragon. In fact...he had wings. She had overlooked it completely the first time.
She swalled a very large piece, hard. Her stomach yet called for more, but she took a few seconds to look at him. How strange...
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:32 pm
She talked! It was a relief that he wasn't dealing with a psychotic islander after all. He couldn't have been happier to hear English. Her question seemed straightforward enough. No sense lying to her about what she'd done, if she could make an effort to avoid doing it again. "Well, yeah. But I think he'sss okay." He gave her a dismissive gesture. "Don't worry about it, they haven't solved the inssstinct problem yet."
He bobbed his head once in a nod, completely understanding, and went back to reading. Every once in a while he looked up, studying her with equal interest until they locked eyes and he returned to what he was pretending to do. Most of the time, the catlike islanders were too dangerous for him to get a good look at and appreciate how their changes looked. Rex and Jamal, namely. This girl, as of yet nameless, didn't seem quite as terrifying.
His tail had resumed its slow movements, hanging off the seat of the couch and bunched on the floor. There was no way he could sit normally in a chair any more, so he was curled across it instead, legs hanging out over one armrest and wings half-spread over the other. After making eye contact a few times too many, he grew nervous enough to fiddle with the hat, gripping it lightly by the brim and shifting it so that it didn't fall too far down his head. Oh, did he hate being bald...
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:51 pm
The way the man talked was like he understood exactly what Kikue was talking about. That, and the dismissive way of his hand -- she relaxed somewhat, seeing these gestures. He had taken her into what could be assumed was his duplex, after all... Kikue had lost count of exactly how many hamburgers were on the plate. She was just eating. Her stomach was grateful for the meat, unlike the vegetable she had tried to get down over the past day and a half. Yet while she licked the burger from her hands, there was still that longing for warmth.
She was fairly disgusted by the thought, and tried not to think about it for very long. The blood...the rush, when she'd been in the mess hall. But that had been a person! What was she thinking?!
She cleaned her face experimentally, doing it badly as only the flattened strip leading to her cat-like nose had any fur on it. No...I can't think like that, either. If I start trying to stay exactly to my thoughts as they were before...I can't! I'm changed...I'm different...I can't stop this from happening to me. If I don't stay attentive to these things, then something else like what just happened might happen again... Don't I have to be aware of these feelings? I have to...try to live with them, not against them... Okay, so I need to eat meat now, it doesn't matter what, even if it's this...which means I have to do it.
I can't play around...someone else could get hurt because of me... She hung her head at the thought. The shame was plain on her face. It had been stupid to stay locked up in her duplex after waking up. She had half set up the situation for this... But I didn't think I'd...really...actually...do something like that...
...But it looks like I will. She raised her head tentatively, catching the man's eye again. He fiddled with his hat.
Kikue curled her tail tighter around herself. She glanced at the now-empty plate of food, and cocked her head slightly at the man. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "For the trouble..."
She swallowed, forcing herself to keep looking at him and not away. "My name is Yamamoto Kikue." She did her best to keep her voice as steady as possible. "I...I had just woken up...from a change." The thought surfaced in her mind that, technically, she had been changed for some weeks now. But...I only just woke up, from the labs...it was the labs, wasn't it? It had to be...
She put one hand to the side of her head. The headache was still pounding. It had to be the labs...
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Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:31 pm
"Ah, don't worry about it. I've... had a few 'animal' problemsss myssself." By the way he spoke it was apparent he wouldn't elaborate unless asked to. He dropped the magazine on the floor. Now that she was awake, there was no need to pass the time so introvertedly. Though most of his animal thinking was already pretty strongly against a random person being in the room, his territory, he did miss having simple conversations with people that weren't skewed by strong emotions. "The only thing you can do that I know of isss to make sure you have a full ssstomach."
"Oh, I'm Zach. Nicsse to meet you... Yamamoto?" he repeated her name, hoping he'd pronounced it right. At least it had no S's in it, or the way he said it would have sounded weird. His expression grew wearier at what she admitted, coupled with seeing the sad expression on her half-cat face. Changing seemed to trigger some kind of craziness in everyone. It would have been rude not to impart a little advice to her. No one should have to deal with unintentional murder, or anything close to it. "It'll probably go away pretty sssoon. You haven't gotten like thisss a lot, have you? You should asssk if you can get your injectionsss at the lab. That way, you can't hurt anyone." His tail quickened a little in its swishing, as though guiltily.
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