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Though he had only recently been a captive of the very same facility, Cristoval Ramos sauntered into the stables with an ambient confidence. Inside he was feeling something more towards turmoil than such confidence, but when dealing with the outside world, Cristoval felt one must always exude a calm yet assertive presence.

Continuing along the wide corridor to the small stable he had been in, he peeked over the top of the door. Salmacis lay on her side, sleeping contently, which was just as well, because Cristoval had had some hard times trying to get into the stable while she tried to claw her way out. The strong scent of prey had only worsened her recovering state. His hopes were that now that her injuries had healed, she would be able to properly asses the situation, and her deep slumber seemed to affirm those hopes.

Carefully, Cristoval crept inside, closing the door behind him. Like a magician, though he could only be entertaining himself, he drew a stool and a small bundle from under his mantle, the stool he sat on, and the bundle he opened up into his lap. Most of what was inside was Cristoval’s lunch; a small flatbread, covered in a nutty paste and some jam. As Cristoval had promised, there was no meat for him either.

The man ate as he waited for the beast to awaken.

Hearing the footsteps, Cristoval looked up from his meal. Salmacis roused, agitated, so, setting the parcel on his stool, Cristoval crouched nearby, nipping the base of her skull with his fingers to discourage her. He began to whisper to her, though more to himself, he whispered to assure Salmacis that the problem was being taken care of, what he said was of no conciquence. “Uthted huele a otra mujer fuerte. No podría ther ninguno otro...”

When Salmacis lay still, Cristoval stood and quietly exited the stable, and with a needless measure of stealth, Cristoval approached the stall he heard the visitor was in, knowing it could be none other than Mrs. Moreau that had aroused Salmacis’ aggression.

Lachlann heard the movement where he lay awake in his stable, the cooler night air more tolerable than the heat of the day. Lately his thoughts had been odd, instinct coming up against new barriers, pain intermingling with thoughts that confused his normally straightforward brain. Normally new things fell under one of three categories, food, enemies or a mate, now he was finding other incomprehensible conflicts arising in his stream of logic. However, for now, they were of no consequence.

The sounds sounded like they were enemies, after all for the time being, all humans were.

He let out a low but quietly agressive wuffle, in his case at least, pain was all the more motivation towards fear addled agression.

The Spaniard launching himself at the door like that causes the wood to bang nastily on Alva's shoulder. She inhales sharply through her teeth and suddenly finds herself quite angry. That was going to leave a lovely bruise, and whoever is responsible is going to pay for it. She pushes the door sharply the rest of the way open (probably giving Cristoval a hearty smack) and slams it behind her pointedly. This shocks Caligula quite a bit and causes him to whinny loudly and irritably, much like he did more often when he was only a horse and not a little more than. One might imagine that it doubles as a response to the noises of the other animals.

Alva stares pointedly at the ground at the Spaniard sprawled before her, a look of what could quickly become rage stretched across her face. Crossing her arms in front of her, she says, "Are you going to stand up and explain why you felt the need to catapult yourself at Caligula's door, or are you going to continue lying there being an ingrate?"

From a covered cage on the far wall of the stables, something shifts. A crooked hand peeks out from between the bars and under the blanket, feeling around before clumsily grabbing hold of the blanket and pulling it down onto the floor in a crumpled mess.

"Noise," says the creature gruffly. It hobbles to its feet and clutches to the bars of its cage for support; it was a small, deformed humanoid creature with stark green eyes and dirty red hair.

"Sssshut up woman," says the former dog with a growl, its expression curling into a sneer. It seems to have picked up certain speech patterns from its caretaker. "I sleep."

As the Spaniard keeps on speaking, Alva's expression becomes more and more wrathful- add to the fact that she finds this man familiar, and then finally realizes he is the idiot from the lake, and you have one extremely angry woman. She is about to interrupt him herself, but the Thing at the far end of the room does it for her.

There is something vaguely recognizable about the voice coming from the Thing- true, this is one of Moreau's pet projects (pardon the pun), but it is the only one so far along and Alva is even more annoyed at the fact that she was wrong about none of the beasts-to-be-men being able to talk yet. The completely Alphonse-ish speech patterns put the final piece in place. This must be the "dog" that he had spoken so proudly of on the day of her arrival.

"Dog," she addresses the Thing as, not knowing its name as a project or as a human, while briskly walking up to the cage. As she gets closer it becomes more apparent how grotesque It is, still looking eerily canine. As such, she does not get as close to the cage as she would otherwise, not wanting to be overly shocked by the sight and possible smell and making a fool of herself. Her footsteps stop very close to the hyena.

"What authority do you think you have, telling me to shut up? You are a dog," she continues with an authoritative scowl over the growl of Salmacis. "If nothing else, I should be telling you to shut up, and perhaps deny you permission to continue sleeping for your behavior."

Suddenly, the stable filled with a horrific sound of guttural laughter. The kind of sound only uttered in the human culture by a man who has lost all but the faintest strands of sanity as he realizes that even those strands are slipping from his grasp. It seemed to quickly and effectively fill the stable with a palpable sense of terror and discord. Every other sound seemed to stop for a moment; Cristoval could even feel his heart slow as he listened ever more intently to the cackle. When the sound subsided, Cristoval barely had time to realize what was happening before he saw Salmacis’ door swinging open, and the massive Matriarchal Hyena diving for Alva. Cristoval could only hope that Alva would not fight back. If a female retaliates against the matriarch, the fight does not end until someone is dead.

Rowan's hand clutches the bars again as the beast glares out at the approaching woman. She stunk. Her stench was different than what the dog was used to, masking the normal familiarity that she picked up those odd nights when the woman visited the Doctor's home.

"Stink woman," bellows the dog, gnashing its teeth as a garbled snarl sounded from its throat, "shut up stink woman. Rowan know secret about stink woman."

"Rowan call Master 'Father' also. No slave no dog call man Father," the dog-creature laughs dryly, shaking its head at Alva. "But you come, you cover self in Father's stink. You below Father..."

The dog pauses. Alphonse had not yet taught it the words it wanted to say to Alva, right in front of this other two-legged that it didn't recognize. Its sullen green eyes dart around the stables, the base of its ears twitching in frustration before it comes to a conclusion.

"You put self below Father," it howls, waving its hands in attempt to try and emphasize what it was trying to say upon the backdrop of the hyena's shrieking laughter. "Stink woman have no place. Stink woman is b***h. Rowan is no longer b***h! Stink woman is below Rowan, is below Father."