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 Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:10 pm
"I have a right to know who's been spreading rumors about me," he huffed. He didn't give any indication to Oz of whether he'd actually hunt down whoever it was. It should have been obvious he wouldn't and couldn't do something like that. There was no need, after all.
He was curious, though, in an annoyed sort of way. He knew there were a few unsavory truths about himself divided among a small number of islanders. Those would be more damning than these idle insults if they got around to people. It was so easy for islanders to be led astray and confused, but so difficult to force them to think straight. The sooner he could pinpoint the source of the rumor, the sooner he'd find a way to... silence... the offender somehow.
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:38 pm
"Not when you look like you could tear them apart," Oz muttered, saying the comment much louder in his head, with a lot more confidence too.
Oz now battled inside with whether to apologise to Zach, in the hopes of diffusing the matter slightly, or whether to supply a false name just to spare Nita the inquisition of a pissed off red dragon. And his inner deliberations were obvious by his silence and the twitching of his nervous fingers.
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Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:20 pm
"Tear them apart?" he repeated slowly as though the notion were absurd. He struggled with his more bloodthirsty instincts frequently, but it was easy to block such memories from his mind when they didn't help his argument. He wasn't some kind of thoughtless animal, or even a murderous human. His expression returned once more to one of haughtiness in response to an apparent insult. "Don't make me laugh. I've got self-control, unlike most everyone here."
"And besides, violence isn't always the answer. Or is it the only one you can think of?" he jabbed. His tail switched back and forth sharply. There was something going on that generated the violence, some unfortunate process that made escape worth all costs. He spoke aloud what was on his mind, though it sounded more like a tangent. "This is the problem here."
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Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 4:16 pm
Was it too late for an apology? Could Oz even apologise and still walk away intact? Zach was insistant that he wasn't some uncontrollable beast, but it was hard to think otherwise with a set of teeth and hands full of claws staring back at you.
But he had a point. Violence was almost always his first port of call in sorting a problem. Oz looked like he wanted to say something, but it was an instinctual response to the challenge laid down by Zach and would have got him in deeper trouble. He had to avert his gaze, unsure of how to chew through an aceptable answer.
"I can say...I'm sorry...for the pet thing," he stuggled to phrase in a good manner, and it seemed a little forced.
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Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:15 am
Zach smirked at the fidgeting Oz. It satiated some desire whose origin he couldn't place. It was the feeling of a predator about to rip out the throat of its prey. The eagerness was in his blood. If only he didn't feel so under the weather today. "Better."
"By the way," he started curtly. He suspected the silence in regards to his accusation meant a grudging admission of guilt, and went with it. He wasn't fond of the crazy islanders, and so far as he could tell this was one of them. His tail continued to sweep the ground. He stayed where he was standing, then paced a little closer to the hairy man. "If you think attacking someone is the only way to get your point across to them, then I pity you for being so... so primal. For your sake and everyone else's, I'd hope you control yourself."
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Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 4:13 pm
Oz was forced to take a cautionary step back as Zach advanced a little. Call it 'instinct' maybe. Or just the fact that Zach as a dragon was intimidating, even to one like Oz who could probably floor him if he summoned the courage. Had they both been similar in the advancement of their stages, this scenario probably wouldn't be happening. But likewise, had the brute known about Zach's 'power' with the labs and Dr Sabin, this situation would be no different.
He was stuck either way.
"I'm not an animal...and I won't be one either!" he said with an angry conviction, his fists balling up again.
He didn't have to prove to this guy that he'd stay 'human', that he'd stay sane. His statement was more for himself than for anybody else. But...if Oz was still human now, and he thought with his fists first, it threw into light some rather difficult self-reflection that he would rather not think about. Perhaps thats why he was so quick to accuse Zach of being a beast, and why he was so angry with himself to think of that fate.
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Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:21 am
"Oh, you're an animal, all right. You might want to look in a mirror sometime soon if you don't believe me." His tail wandered along the ground aimlessly, something between a cat's idle flicking and a snake's purposeful winding. His amusement with the situation dwindled quickly when the other man began to show signs of violence. His eyes flickered briefly to the fists, so he stayed where he was, wing fingers twitching in preparation to spread. Getting punched in the face was the last thing he needed today. "There's nothing wrong with being an animal. But you can be one and still be civilized, if you really want to. Giving in to every violent whim makes you no better than that crazy wolf in the jungle."
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:52 pm
Oz took a strange sort of solace in the fact he no longer had a mirror in his duplex. He had no daily reminder of his grotesque appearance, and could take pride in his choice to obilterate his mirror and distance himself one step further from the horrible truth.
Which was that Zach was right.
He WAS becoming an animal whether he liked it or not, and would most likely succumb to those things, those instincts that would separate him from fellow man.
"You're friggin insane. Only a madman would agree to being turned into an animal," his voice dripped with hostility.
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 7:22 pm
For a moment he wanted to say that it wasn't about agreeing but adapting. Changes were something everyone on the island went through. Dangerous, painful, but they happened whether or not one wanted them to. The thought of them still scared him, but they were in the past now. He no longer had to expect and dread them. He was complete, and all the better for .
But he had consented to his later changes without a fight, and that was what the other man was getting at. Throwing insults was better than punches, but they led that direction most of the time. He'd have to leave before things got ugly. If he'd still been able to, he would have curled his lip at the comment. Without thinking, he bared his teeth, his frill fanned to its full extent. There was a loud thump of air when he raised his wings up wide behind himself and darted forward one step to fake the man out.
"It sounds more like you're jealous. The way you talk, you hate yourself more than you hate me."
"I don't know how I lived with myself when I used to think like that. It's depressing to be afraid to look in a mirror." Most islanders who were angry about the island hated mirrors. He'd seen it firsthand when he'd found that spidery lizard, Victor, in a duplex. He pulled back after shaking his head with a smirk. Folding his wings, he turned to walk away. This man wasn't worth his time.
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Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:43 pm
Oz fell back onto his large rump as Zach took that lunge forward and put on that impressive, and terrifying, display of animosity. Even if the moves were highly thought out and calculated on Zach's part, they seemed like a warning display to Oz and it was enough to keep him quiet. He was too stunned to react to the dragon's comments and instead, they filtered through into his thick skull to torment him later.
Breathing heavily as he tried to regain composure, he couldn't face to look at Zach as he turned his back. Oz felt so much shame in himself, where was his masculinity now? At the pit of his stomach, hiding behind that morning's overdose on fruit and muffins.
He waited until Zach was far enough away, then slowly hauled himself from his lowly position on the ground. His ego had taken a bashing. He wasn't sure how he could recover, or if he ever would. Feeling somewhat deflated in his mission to sabotage any further repairs to the cameras, Oz picked up the bean bag that he'd 'borrowed' from the entertainment room and began a slow walk back to his duplex.
Zach's words floated around the inside of Oz's skull like angry bees, just growing louder and more painful as time went on.
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