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A weak yawn escaped Ian as he stumbled down the side of a path, ignoring the aches and pains in his fin-like feet. He missed shoes. But unfortuantely, his feet couldn't fit into his sneakers comfortably anymore, or at all, for that matter. But all in all, he didn't really noticed the deformities as much as he had the first few months of it. Except for the fact that he hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep in weeks due to the fact that the bulb thing on his forehead had the lovely tendency of ligthing up the moment he tried to go to sleep. Given, it was a bit of an advantage in the dark, when the probability of him falling off of something from notseeing it, was extremely high due to his terrible luck. But the lack of sleep was visible upon his face from the dark circles underneath his eyes, which, with his pale skin, honestly could have made him look like a raccoon if there were alittle darker, and bigger.

But he didn't care. He didn't care until he was misfortuned enough to have to see his reflection.

Ian shivered, and uncomfortable sensation running down his spine. He paused, forcing himself to stop along the path as bit down on his lip, glancing around for sight of something that caused the uncomfortable, anxious feeling he had yet to see.

After a second or two, instantly he moved without thinking, and dodged behind a tree.

The slight hold on his lip with his teeth quickly turned violent, and a small trickle of blood dotted his lower lip as he starred in horror at the figure approaching. He flinched, curling back a bit as his tail took the tendency of wrapping itself around the treetrunk out of anxiousness. He started to move to untwine it to flee from whomever the person was, but suddenly, as the features became visible, a gasp caught itself in his throat.

"Al-Alcine?" He said, thinking that it was just a solitary whisper to himself, and was completely unaware to the fact that he had said it loud enough to be heard from a distance away.

At first, the urge to run to avoid Alcine was extremely strong in Ian, but he resisted-his urge to see her was greater.

It was impossible to keep from starring- wasn't she shorter than him, a while ago? And now she was...Taller than him by how much?! Ian flinched. Well, wasn't this akward. He bit down on his lip, trying as hard as he could to keep from puncturing the skin, as he normally did.

"You had a bad change?" Ian murmurred, the sarcasm that he had almost forgotten about reviving itself in his tone. He grumbled underneath his breath, and folded his arms across the rings circling his torso, which had more than obviously tripled in number. "At least you didn't have bone protrusions grow out of your bloody torso." Ian said in a frustrated tone, annoyed that he had to remember the worst part of the change.

But, the frustration in his voice and facial expression faded as he noticed Alcine's distress. His heart melted, and he looked at her, ignoring the fact that his heart seemed to skip a beat and become faster. "You aren't scary," Ian said, frowning as he furrowed his eyebrows.

Light was absentmindedly drifting through the jungle as it did so often between encounters with the islanders or it’s sessions of observing them from afar. Between that, its thoughts clouded somewhat, today was no exception. But they did focus towards a certain train of though.

The snake, Alcine. She could be perfect for what it had in mind now. Kate had already received the mark, and Hailey and turned to its side. But it needed more of the islanders to understand.

It approached the base where Alcine was. Intend on turning her as well, by force if necessary.

As Ian moved closer, Alcine shied away, her eyes closing to avoid his gaze. Instead, she only saw blood, and imagined she could hear screams among the darkness, the acrid smell filling the air...This was all that was left for Ian if he came near her, and she hissed as he sat down beside her, wringing her hair with webbed hands as she curled away. She wondered if she opened her eyes right now, if they would be like Breena's again, and maybe that if nothing else would scare him away, for his own good--

And yet, any such thoughts dribbled from her existence the moment he touched her cheek, and she forced herself to look up at him with wide, confused eyes, thankfully rounded pupils and all. She froze as he came closer, until the moment of realization came as his lips grazed against her cheek. This had gone way too deep for her to get out of. And suddenly, Alcine wondered if that was such a bad thing.

With her awkward arms, she reached up and wrapped him up in an embrace, leaning forward to hide her face in the nape of his neck, shaking her head. This was wrong; Ian would get hurt staying with her, and she knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself if that happened. And all the same, she never wanted to leave. Why couldn't her mind just take one side or the other?!

Sighing, she looked up from her hug, hesitating for a moment. Was she supposed to kiss him back, now? A blush crept across her face, and if her hands hadn't been interlaced in a hug, they would have gone to hide her fangs. Could she kiss him, knowing that danger? Slowly, she inched closer to his cheek, but she stopped once again as she froze up, looking out into the woods where she'd seen movement.

Her eyes caught the glimpse of some sort of mask, and her body stiffened. Finding herself only capable of a frightened whisper, she moved her lips up to Ian's ear as if to share a secret and murmured, "...Wuht issssssssssss that?"

A weak grin formed across Ian's face-one that seemed almost impossible to bare and difficult to, since he hadn't found a single reason to smile about in months. But it wasn't strained in a bad way--it was a sign of hope, or just an attempt at hoping for better things.

Which for Ian,
was a rather difficult task in itself.

The boy's fin-like ears twitched and moved slightly a few seconds before Alcine stopped, and turned her attention towards something he hadn't noticed before--A figure with a mask of some sort had appeared before them. And he didn't notice this how?

Oh, well, the kissing part might have distracted him a bit.

Caught off-guard when the strange figure spoke, a shot of fear burned through the small ounce of hope that had dared to emerge in his heart, and instantly he was on his feet between the girl and the..thing.

"What the hell? Are you kidding me?" Ian growled between clenched teeth, his anger overpowering the fear in him. "Who are you to come barging in and start telling her what to do?"

Light looked at the seahorse, only briefly. (Not that it would have been very noticeable even if had stared at him) It labelled him as not important, for the moment. His own transformation was drawing near, he could send him on his way if need be.

“Light” it answered, very unhelpfully at Ian’s growl towards it.

“Come with us…Alcine…it’s for the better”

In the vast complex though patterns of lights mind, there was laughter.

The more Alcine stared at the thing, the more Breena urged her forward, the less she found she was in control of herself. Without thinking, she stepped forward, and had she not bumped into Ian (who was short enough that he'd dropped from her line of sight), she would have found herself walking straight into the clutches of the thing. As it was, she held onto Ian from his shoulder as she looked at the thing in fear.

"Whare wuld yuu tayke mee? Ah can't jussssssst leeve," she said, looking down to Ian with a sad stare. Seeds of doubt came in her argument to stay; maybe she was being offered a chance at freedom, maybe the things it would teach her would help the others...

...Maybe she could find a way to change them back.

Breena hissed at the idea, but Alcine's eyes lit up with a dim hope, and she looked back to Light, suddenly deciding that she would go. And yet, to look into those blank sockets sent fear through her once again, and she stepped away, shaking her head. "Ah can't leeve. Ah wun't leeve...Naht unlesssssss yuu fix usssss...naht unlesssss yuu mayke ussssss rhyght."

It was a compromise. Little did she know how subjective 'right' was.