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Awen's eyes went wie and watered as she felt the claws pressing into her shoulders. A small sort of whimper escaped her lips as she looked into the feral blue eyes. Somewhere in her mind a connection was made, when she met Julian at the Halloween party she remebered also meeting his.. well Chesire. That same wild gaze was now reflected in Jamal's eyes. She knew that this wasn't Jamal....that similarity to Julian was the only way she could now keep in her mind that Jamal was still there. He was hiding deep inside, but..he had to be there. That was the only thought that kept her eyes looking into his, searching...

She was going to respond to his little speech when he then took his claws from her shoulder. She couldn't help but wince feeling the tough nail leave her flesh letting it bleed unhindered. She watched as he carefully licked some of the blood from his finger. No this wasn't Jamal. Jamal was the man on the beach that had regretted killing that man. Jamal may not think too clearly sometimes but he did not revel in that man's death, he did not hurt people intentionally like this.

As he tried to wipe the blood off of his claws all he ended up doing was tearing the bottom part of her shirt and cut into her skin, thankfully not very deep. She finally was able to take a full breath when Jamal moved away. For the moments where he stood up she just took in breath after breath staring up at the branches above her.

As he started to walk away Awen quickly flipped to her hands and knees. She winced as pressure was put on her wounded shoulder but she looked towards Jamal still walking away ignoring the pain. She tried to speak but all of a sudden she found her couldn't her throat was still locked tight from the panic of earlier.

Jamal, wait. She wanted to say. Don't do this..please don't leave. This isn't you... you're not like this. Don't walk away please stay. I want to help please.... Jamal...

"I still love you." The last part came out nice and clear just before he broke the line of trees away from the little area they had found themselves in. She didn't know what good that would do... she didn't know how much the instincts had taken over...

She just hoped... looking up at his back with her large purple eyes, tears stained her cheeks. Please.. turn around...

Awen knew he wouldn't turn around. She knew he was too far gone to let a simple thing like the word love stop him. Still she had hoped he would stop, that he would turn around that they could work things out together. Her eyes blurred as salty drops hit the dirt below her. Her arms grew much too weak to support her and she slipped, her cut stomach hitting roughly against the jungle floor. She gave out a soft grunt of pain as her laid there on her stomach sobbing softly as she brought her arms to hold her aching head.

She knew she couldn't stay on the ground forever feeling sorry for herself and Jamal. She slowly stood on shakey legs as she looked to where Jamal disappeared to. It would only be stupid if she tried to persue further right now. But she couldn't let him think she was abandoning him.

Having said it outloud only reconfirmed it in her heart. Damnit, despite everything that happened she still did love Jamal. And she would not let him sink so low. "Jamal!" She shouted to the darkness. "I won't abandon you! You give up on yourself but I have more faith in you than that! Just remember you're not alone, becaue I'm always here for you!"

She didn't know if he could still hear her or not, where he was or if he would have thought it was so cheesey. But she couldn't care about any of that right now... she just hoped he could hear her. She touched the wound on her shoulder and winced slightly. It hurt and felt slick with blood. She stumbled foward back in direction of her camp. Or.. at least what she hoped to be in the direction of her camp. She was so disoriented she could barely tell anymore. One thing she knew at this point though was the manta inside her wanted two things: water....adn solitude.

--New Day--

Jamal had basically cried himself to sleep the previous night up there in 'his' tree, sprawled into the crook of branch and trunk in a most precarious fashion. He was not an agile man in any means and his odd body changes made him even less so...thus it was no surprise that he had a rather rude awakening in the early morning hours of the next day.

CRACKCRACKSNAPTHUMP

An odd silence followed, aside from the distant cries of some flock of tropical birds before the black man gave a strained cry of pain and surprise from his new location underneath his tree. It took a few attempts before he was able to roll out of the rather remarkable imprint his form had in the musty earth below his bed. Once he had, it was as though the 'pissed off' switch had been jammed into the on position.

"Jesus ********' christ," he bellowed at no one in particular, kicking hard at fallen tree debris at his side like a tantruming child, then hauled himself up to his feet. He'd just woken up and he was already angry...lovely. A thick chunk of rotting wood was snatched into his clawed hands and heaved with as much force as possible at the offending tree whilst spouting a litany of offensive phrases, causing a rather spectacular explosion of wood bits and nasty bug larvae to spray into the air. No real damage to the living tree was caused, much to Jamal's dismay and irritation. He retaliated with more jungle 'trash' being heaved, wacked, and whipped at the tree, all the while letting loose yells and snarls of frustration. In the end, the tree stood...a bit more bruised that it had started, but stood just the same. Having little other options (unless an axe fell out of the sky), he gave the tree a double middle-finger salute, cursed at it again, and stalked away from it, rubbing the sensitive nub on his backside...an unpleasant reminder of the changes he had undergone the other day.

As he went, he inspected his scabbed up lower arms with some air of dismay and disgust, kicking away whatever got in his way with a careless flick. The paleness still brought intense feelings of anger to the black man and he almost considered drawing blood again to try and darken the hue to something more like his chocolate brown complextion. He decided against it, realizing that if they got infected, he'd have no way to clean the wounds, so instead he purposefully jutted his chin forward, lifted his head, and kept the offending limbs out of sight. He wasn't entirely sure where he was going, but hopefully there would be water there. Nothing like a good bath...the thought of water brought a strange flicker of pleasure to the otherwise irritable man.

Jamal tried not to think about the other day but it was hard...the tug of muscles in places that they didn't previous exist was difficult to ignore as was the new sensory input of his new whiskers, nose, and ears. Part of him thought that maybe he ought to go back and find Antony, maybe apologize...

No. Something in his mind snapped at the very thought of apologizing. He didn't apologize for anything. At least, he didn't now.

He laid his whiskers back against his cheeks and huffed a sigh of discontent as his stomach rumbled insistantly. Oh...that's right, he hadn't eaten for awhile.

There was meat back at the camp, right?

Again something bit back that thought. He didn't need help from anyone else. He would make it on his own. Jamal did not need to rely on others.

These battling thoughts accompanied the tiger-man as he walked slowly towards were he was sure the scent of water lingered in the distance...the soil beneath his bare feet growing more moist and mucky as he pushed forward.

After the whole episode of finding that... creature with Greer, Amaya just had to go out. Take a walk after having a nap. She had never ventured this far away from camp, even wading across the river. Though she made sure she had taken one of the spears and a knife just in case she ran across something and managed to kill it even though she herself didn't eat meat.

Using the spear as sort of a walking stick, the knife handle was placed between her scaley flesh and the pair of black panties she wore. Wether she liked it or not, she was starting to get used to being so... exposed. It wasn't like she could help it or anything. Sighing, she continued to wander about rather loudly. Right now she wasn't thinking of keeping quiet, her large appendenges never really aiding in that anyway.

It also didn't help that Amaya's green scales blended surprisingly well with the foliage. Even so, it didn't take long for her to come into view around 10 feet away. She didn't seem to notice him, having never really looked up at the trees unless she was sight seeing. Her face and clothing were dirty, though she would look a lot worse if she haden't crossed the river earlier.

With a sigh she pulled some weeds that had tangled around her long toes, using the spear to lean onto as she reached down. Her tail twitched as she stood up. Maybe it was time for her to take a break. Now her eyes went to the trees around her. Maybe she could find some fruit...

Unfortunatly for Jamal, the fruit on the large leaf caught her eye. Thinking it rather strange that a pile had been set up, she walked closer, eyes looking around and ears listening for maybe a camp nearby. She didn't hear anything, but her eyes certainly caught sight of something when she was a few feet away.

Green eyes blinked up at Jamal, recognizing him despite his change. "Jamal?" She asked, though stayed where she was. Only having met the man once or twice, she wasn't sure if he had seen her change last or not... she had certainly not seen him changed. Though despite this, she looked at him no differently then before... a little intimidated just by his size and demeanor.

The iguana-girl twitched, frightened by the cold look in his eyes. Still, she wouldn't leave unless she knew he was doing alright... despite barely knowing him.

"Yeah, I've been doing good. I'm in a camp with Ambrose, Emelyn, Vasile, Angelina, and Cassidy..." Amaya trailed off, looking to the side as she recalled whom was staying with them. "Oh, and Greer." She had no idea any of them had gotten under Jamal's skin. "I meet up with Awen a few days ago, she mentioned you were at the beach with someone named Antony..." Green eyes looked around again, seemingly nervously avoiding his eyes with the excuse of wondering where the beach was. "How are you guys doing?"

Man, she was babbling and didn't even realize it.

Amaya couldn't help but cower a little at the growl. Something in the back of her mind told her to run away and fast. Her tail gave a few nervous twitches behind her, but she stayed where she was and fiddled with the spear handle with her long claws.

"Well, that's good." She managed to say, trying to avoid his eyes still. "Though if you ever need anything you only havta ask. We'll all be better off if we can help eachother, y'know?" Was it her imagination or did she sound a lot like Ambrose? Or... was it the other way around? Oh who knew anymore.

"So you don't need any weapons? I could always give you this-" Amaya moved the spear closer, though kept her hand on it like a walking stick unless he decided to take it. "-if you need it. Our camp is by the helicopter crash, so we have access to a lot of the scrap metal." If knew about the crash or not, she didn't know but she had known for so long the fact that others might not just didn't cross her mind.