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 Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 11:38 pm
Shakily the mantodea tried to open the door. The trial of getting to his room had been much better in his natural form, but his natural form was not precisely made for this task. He was grateful that he had not bothered with a lock for his room as it finally twisted the right way and allowed him in.
“Yip?”
Struggling Yǐn Cáng focused his eyes on the small fluffy creature in front of him. “Do not worry Princess Eva,” he hissed and clacked at her. “I am alright.” He nudged the door closed, debated collapsing in the floor, and thought better of it. Instead he made his way to the pipe running through the corner of his room and climbed up to find a comfortable perch. Eva followed him, making anxious noises and occasionally whining in distress.
This did not make sense. Skin was not meant to chunk off like that. Alexander had also eaten part of the JOY-infused rat, and while he had purged himself the effects should not have been that drastically different. He moved his arm awkwardly, using his claw to scratch at his shell and was rewarded when the outer layer began to peel off. Well, that was…actually somewhat normal.
Mentally he began running through the symptoms: his body trying to force himself into its natural form, the cramping, the shedding. During his first molt he had begun to feel light cramps and a very faint itchiness if he recalled correctly, nothing like what he had experienced today. After that molt his molts had been fairly regular, and if that was what this was it was definitely early by several months.
But I have been pushing myself more than usual since the incident with the hunters. And I do not know the full extent of what being ill did to me. He had been sick after all, and already experiencing cramps as his body tried to deny the rat that he had stubbornly refused to vomit while in front of ghouls. So he had ignored the symptom. And the painful itching? Not precisely normal, but he had tried to stay in his humanoid form.
So now his normally fairly clean escape from his old exoskeleton would probably be a messy affair as patches were already missing, especially as he had no emergence area planned. He would simply have to make do as best as he could with his dorm room.
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:20 pm
The downside about being stuck in his room molting was the time between his efforts to free himself from his old exoskeleton. The breaks from the struggle were welcome, the free time for his overactive brain were not. For one he had left his companions during a dire time, when creatures were invading the school. He had done little to fend off their attacks, his destruction of the Jr. Pep and Jr. Yeti were nothing to be mentioned, the creatures had been weak, and the icy mimic had already been weakened before he got any sort of decent attack in. No, he had to face what he had done, which was abandon the one of the only two friends that he had, as well as another ghoul. He had even allowed Miss Danny to be taken off by an unworthy boil who may have had impure thoughts toward her.
Restlessly he struggled to remove some of the bits of exoskeleton from his front legs, the peeling of his skin earlier leaving scattered bits of the old shell that would not come off during the normal emergence. But it was a mindless task, allowing him to drift back to what had happened before he had left. He presumed that he had abandoned a friend, but after what he had done it was doubtful that the zomboil would still feel anything akin to friendship for him. It was not as if he could blame him.
Yǐn Cáng liked to present himself as a fighter, like he had the strength to actually make a difference. He had offered to train Alexander, had even given him a lesson, but it may have been completely in vain. The zomboil had struggled in the fight. He could not be expected to perform in top conditions, but Yǐn still did not know if his lessons had made a difference. And as an instructor Yǐn must have let the zomboil down. Being ill did not excuse his poor performance.
Any further thoughts were shoved aside as his body signaled that it was time to resume the task of molting. It was more of a relief to go back to the physical challenge than to think about what had happened, but he knew that the matter was far from resolved. And he would still have plenty of time to contemplate the consequences.
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:23 pm
The actually molting process had taken a relatively short time, and by late that evening the mantodae had left an oddly translucent husk on the pole running through his room and had moved himself over to his training mats, simply resting. He was exhausted and weak, and his new exoskeleton would need time to harden in the air before he could risk leaving his room or shifting into his human-shaped from.
For the Mantodae molting was a routine process. They grew normally until puberty, and then the mantis growing cycles took over the nymphs. Each nymph had it’s own number of cycles, but they occurred steadily, typically during the teenage years. His own cycles came every 39th Moonday, as regular as clockwork. After five cycles he was accustomed to this, and it had only been 24 Moondays since his last cycle. Therefore he had none of the preparations in place.
There was no area carefully protected from intruders to offer security to him in his weakened form. No copious options of perches to go between, no one to clean up the bits of shell he had left, and worst of all, no provisions. The sink offered him water, which he had drank greedily when he had first emerged, but now his stomach growled at him in complaint. He had not eaten (if one excluded the chunk of rat) since dinner before the school play. Healing always took a fair bit of energy, and the extreme cold had also burned off a good bit of excess energy. Then there was the actual molting process, which had consumed a great deal of energy as he had struggled to pull his body from the old exoskeleton.
To put it lightly, he was starving. Had any prey come within reach it would still be doubtful if he could even catch it as he was now. He could try to distract himself, but the scent of a warm-bodied creature permeated his room. A creature he could not think of eating. But he did it anyways. Princess Eva has been well taken care of, he thought longingly. She was still young, tender still. And young creatures often have scareling fat.
Practically drooling he looked about, searching for the pretty little morsel, and was surprised when he did not see her. She may have fled during the molt he mused dejectedly. A muffled yip sounded behind him and started he turned as quickly as he could in his weakened form. There, sitting primly and properly, tails curled around and covering her dainty little paws, was the rabo in question. Even more fascinating was the limp body of an adolescent rat. Looking at him she dropped the rat and then cocked her head to the side. “Yip?”
Immediately he felt ashamed. He had been contemplating doing something as heinous as devouring the little creature and she had been hunting? For him? His shame did not control him for too long as he bent down and began to feed, strong mandibles clacking as he shoved the still warm body into his mouth as quickly as possible, bolting it down with no thoughts of manners. He had no idea how she could have hunted by herself, but he accepted it.
The rat had been small, but it took the edge off of his hunger. It would probably sustain him until he was strong enough to catch something on his own. “I owe you a debt Princess Eva,” he spoke. In response the rabo washed her face, somehow managing to appear graceful even doing such a mundane. Then she looked at him and got up to wind around his back legs, completely at ease of his natural form despite the almost feral way he had attacked the corpse she had brought back to him. He watched her, slightly in awe as she left to go settle on his bed, marveling at the creature. Now he had yet another debt to repay.
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:27 pm
The weremantis was swiftly making his way toward complete recovery. His outer shell was almost completely hardened, and he was no longer lurking around his room lethargically. Instead, he was busy weaving complicated patterns throughout his room, fighting invisible foes and forcing his body into ever more complicated positions. A brazen rat had wandered into his room earlier, thinking that he was still too weak to do anything as it searched for food, and he had gleefully proven it wrong. He had fed a haunch to Princess Eva, who had initially turned up her nose but eventually had resigned herself that it was the best he was able to give her. He had devoured the rest, tossing the pile of bones that had remained out of the window. The food and a nap had rejuvenated him, and it was likely that by the end of the day or the next morning he would be fit to shift back to his more hallway-friendly form and go back to life as usual.
Well, a revised life as usual. He was not the sort that could forget his debts, which would start with personal development to better himself. First of all he had devised a new training method, one that would not take up more time but rather would push him to new levels of difficulty. Then he would also focus on the intellectual side of things. To do this he would be more proactive about finding classes to attend, as well as forcing himself to read more. Now that he knew where the library was finding books to read would not be a difficulty. There was also the matter of ghouls. By holding back against the frosty assailant he had endangered others, he had to stop thinking like a Mantodae. Females were females, and he had to work harder at getting past that. From now on he would address them all as simply Miss, Mistress gave them too much respect and power. It would not seem like much to some, but it was a step, and he did not want to completely dishonor ghouls.
That left the personal debts to take of. For the reaper boil he was unsure if he should even bother him, though he had decided to give him a chance to explain his untoward actions toward Miss Danny. Mistress Mitzi he had abandoned in the cafeteria. I shall treat her as any Mantodae female is accustomed to being treated. It would be difficult to treat a ghoul with the high levels of respect, with all of the minute formalities that Mantodae females demanded, especially as he had vowed to himself to leave that life behind, but it was something he owed her. There was nothing else that he could truly give to an unknown female.
The other female he worried about he owed much more. Miss Danny had gone so far as to welcome him as her friend. She had sought out his advice when they had first met, and though she dressed scandalously she seemed to be an upstanding young lady. He had not left her precisely, but it still felt as if he had when he had barred himself off from the entire school. I shall not tell her, but whatever she requests, if it is within my abilities, I shall do without question.
Those three were actually the easiest to figure out, figuring out how to treat Alexander was much more complicated. For one, Yǐn Cáng refused to treat the zomboil, any boil, as well as he might treat a ghoul. Perhaps if he found a male to share a bond with, he would treat him with the same reverence as he had shown to ghouls growing up, but he could not treat the zomboil in such a manner. He had already promised the zomboil the best that he had to offer, training. It was what he was good at, and probably the only area where he could help Alexander. The zomboil in return was helping him in the library, and seemed to be a wealth of knowledge about Halloween.
Not to mention that he had not simply abandoned him. He prowled his room, twitching his claws in frustration. No, he had went so far as becoming angered as the zomboil had tried to help him, and then to top it off had shifted into his natural form during a fit of anger and stormed off. Alexander has expressed interest in the Mantodae, so as a start I shall answer any query about the Clan that I am able to. It was a start, but not enough in the weremantis’ eyes. He could protect him from harm if possible, though there was no telling if the zomboil would allow him to even be near enough to do so. I must resign myself to the fact that there is nothing more for me to do at this point. I owe him, and I shall not rest until that debt is repaid.
As an afterthought he remembered Princess Eva. Her debt is one easily repaid. She had brought him a rat in his time of need, and he would take care of her well enough that she would not have needs. Problem solved.
Supposedly he had everything worked out, but he still felt restless. Yǐn Cáng took a deep breath and began a new sequence of steps and attacks, flowing through the patterns with deceptive ease. For now it was enough. Tomorrow he would go out and survey the school, to see how it had fared in his absence. And begin his penance.
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