Welcome to Gaia! ::

Richard replies without picking up her head from the bar. "Adapt... right. Wear dresses and take up sewing? God knows I need a tailor. Or maybe I should just move into the jungle? Like Newt, never think about being human again. Hunt guards and villagers like Jamal? Give in to eccentricities?" The voice was soft and dripping with bitterness. She could feel the tears coming and hated herself for it.

Appearently alcohol doesn't help depression. Go figure.

With a deep but very human sigh Richard pulled herself back to a sitting position. She tried to wipe her eyes with her handpaws but found that her claws were stuck in the counter firmly enough that a light tug refused to budge them. She rolled her eyes, this was just one more difficulty she didn't need. "God damnit," she growled at her hands a tugged harder and then gave up for the moment, afraid of snapping them off. She lowered her head to let the small hands wipe the water out of her eyes.

"Keeping busy you mean then?"

There was an eerie sense of Deja vu building in Richard's mind. Those words were very familiar. And also right a little voice in her head informed her. The irony was enough to illicit a small giggle. "So easy to say that." She shook her head little as she began prying her claws out of the table, one by one. "I've said it quite abit myself."

She breathed in and licked her nose, cleaning of an errant drip. "Depends who you ask, an animal surgeon, a indirect activist of the civil rights movement, a blogger/reporter and the author of the village newsletter." She shrugged, the newsletter needed to be finished but lately she simply had no motivation to work on it.

"Of course for the movement, well thats what she told me anyway. I stayed home and worked overtime while Cathy directed the funds. She rented buses and organized protesters." Richard talked about her deceased wife with a light fondness but none of that old grief stirred within her chest.

Richard focus intently on getting her left hand unstuck as Dee asked about the newsletter. "Yup I wrote a newsletter. Heh My motivation hasn't been what it was lately," She frowned at that. Normally she'd be excited about getting a contributer but she was still rooting about in the darkness of the depression. "I think only about four people read the damn thing. I've got to finish it soon though. Been almost two month since the first."

During all of his she was extracting the claws from the counter and Dee could see that the black claws were nearly indistinguishable from the claws of a large cat. They were about an inch and a half long and wickedly hooked, made for holding prey and climbing trees. If she was familar with felines she might identify it as a jaguar claw.

"The newsletter requires news. Of which there is little that reaches my ears." Richard glanced up at the labs which were visable on the hilltop, over looking the village. "Not alot happened in the last two months, besides Jamal's attack. That I know about, not sure if Newt going feral is exactly news worthy." She snorted at that.

"I'm quite sure Cathy thinks the same thing she's was thinking the last time I saw her." She frowned then, a bit of saddness as she remember the funeral swept over her. "Absolutely nothing." She gave a weak, laugh like sound. "She died over ten years ago."

Dee's hanging word drew her attention. "What did you tell them about the trip?"

Hands now free, Richard reached for the bottle again. More from a desire to do something than actually drink more. She was definitely buzzing from what she manage to get down. "Jamal has killed two guards and driven a Jeep into the front of a duplex." She announced as she refilled her glass. "But that was almost a month ago."

She looks at Dee inspecting the claw marks, her eyes narrow slightly. "If your that curious I can show them to you." She shoves a massive pawhand under Dee's nose and flexes a muscle that she had not had two weeks ago and the claws appear. Two of them have had their tips broken off in the wood.

"As for the family, I hope they are persistent in trying to find you."

She lets Dee get a good long look, although she combines it with an annoyed expression on her face. She didn't like any part of her body on so many levels. She secretly longed for fur to hide her twisted digits, the sparse covering made it only look diseased. She was also aware that she herself would be fascinated by the blending of anatomy if it wasn't happening to her. Dee would be sharing Her fate so Richard tried not to begrudge her curiosity.

She then turned her attention to the drink in front of her, careful not to sniff it again. She picked it up and paused to answer Dee's question. "No. They probably just hacked my blog and told my readers I went back to Baghdad and never updated it again." She downed the drink, and managed to swallow it all before another fit of sneezes seized her.