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It wasn't often that Oz rebelled against authority in such a calculated way. In fact, he had rarely rebelled against authority unless drunk. He'd always got more attention from his family through achievements rather than bad behaviour, so the display of masculinity and sheer thugishness he'd shown when destroying cameras days before was a new feeling.

A good new feeling.

Furthering his desire to try it again, just to make himself a nuisance to the labs, he had started paying more attention to the location of cameras and other things that could ultimately strengthen the control of the labs over the Islanders. Over Oz. But he'd stayed mostly in the village.

To satisfy curiosity, he ventured along the river this day, confident in stride and quite happy in his ignorance of the bigger picture. For a while now, he'd sort of forgotten his situation. The backaches and awkward stiff movement were a part of his life now, almost like he'd always had them. Although shirtless, and barely wearing trousers, Oz still became quite hot in the clammy atmosphere.

He walked until he got to a fairly shallow part of the river, with a good stretch of jungle providing a scenic backdrop, and then waded in a short way. He dunked himself in the cool water, scrambling back out to sit on the bank's edge.

This wasn't the first time he'd been alerted to someone else's presence via scent. Although his nose was far from being as powerful as Maryke's or a majority of the other Islander's, it was still sensitive to the unique pheramones that only a female would give off. Scent came before sound, but it was the sound that consciously got Oz's attention.

He looked straight at her, quite stunned at first. He couldn't pin-point what animal she was, she looked like a fox with the colours of a badger. Dear lord, anything was possible on this Island. Horses don't normally have wings and neither are dragons in existance. So a badger-fox wouldn't be a great leap.

"I don't believe I've met you before," he offered a smile on his lumpy face. "My name's Osbourne, usually just Oz for short."

Now, more than ever, was Oz painfully made aware of his appearance. Despite the age-old battle inside of beast or beauty, he couldn't deny that she looked hauntingly beautiful.

She didn't recoil in horror. That was a good sign, right?

Maryke's slight hesitation didn't go un-noticed though but didn't create any immediate or visible reaction on Oz. It was just another thing for him to chew over late at night when trying to sleep. When faced with her question, he broke the glance for a few moments to look out on the river.

"Nah, I think I'm too heavy to swim anymore," he said, looking back to Maryke and evidently quite sorrowful at another thing he'd lost as a result of changing.

With little warning, he slipped back into the water, standing quite easily with the water coming up to his mid-chest.

"But its shallow here, I can at least touch the bottom. Why? Were you thinking of joining me?" he asked with a cheeky grin.

It had taken a while, but Maryke's femininity had sunk into his brain and switched on the instructions to start 'impressing' her for his would-be harem.

Oz still wore that playful smile as he watched her and followed her line of sight as she glanced into the jungle. He almost thought maybe he had interrupted her in something, or was keeping her from being somewhere.

"Going for a walk on your own is risky isn't it?" he asked her as he waded back over to the bank's edge. "Need a jungle body-guard?"

He'd had boyish fantasies of exploring these jungles even before he knew the Island's truths, but it would be a little while longer before he too would start feeling the same need to be near trees. His brain was working on other things at the moment. Thank god the water masked his 'silverback smell.'

Oz hauled himself out of the river, splooshing water out onto the grassy bank. He had little regard for whether Maryke got splashed in the process or not. Straightening his posture to the best of his abilities, and fighting all urges and laws of gravity to stoop slightly, he towered over her, sopping wet and a less than regal expression gracing his face.

"Sounds like an invitation to me," he replied, quite chipper.

Although he should have showed more restrain in his good mood, it was hard to surpress after recent accomplishments. And there was something else he should have been surpressing as well, but to no avail. His eyes occasionally glanced over her rear end or her bust, followed by a quickly masked smile.

"So how long have you been here?" he asked in idle chit-chat as he walked slowly beside her.

Oz was never very good at picking up on feelings, but he couldn't shake a sense of...maybe shame? or dismay?...about Maryke and her urge to be with trees. And he wouldn't blame her. He didn't even want to think about what he tried to do to Sayuri's tail a few days after his change.

Despite Maryke's attempts to prevent Oz's wandering eyes, he somehow managed to find other parts of her that gathered his interest just as much. But these were driven by the animal in him. His eyes seemed to linger and return many times to her fur. Luxurious fur, very soft looking...it required many mental reprimands to shake himself away from what he felt to be signs that might lead to a repeat of the Sayuri incident. If Maryke was observant enough, she might see the odd nervous twitch as he told his inner gorilla 'no.'

"I've been here since Halloween...so thats at least 2 and a half months if I haven't lost track of the days," he said with much the same tone as Maryke, but less angry.

Oz was actually quite glad the jungle wasn't so dense in this part, the ground was at least relatively easy to shuffle along on. Like the swimming situation, he feared that he had become much too heavy to manouevre safely when climbing.

"Do you know what...er...you're going to be?" he asked, starting confidently but then faltering slightly.

So many people had asked him this very question and in such a calm manner as to cause much mental suffering. It was like a common quetsion like 'How are you today?'. And here he was, asking the same to someone else.

Oz hadn't been around many Islanders with a tail, Antony being the main one. Her multitude of tails just seemed to move in one great mass though, so Maryke's delicate long tail caught his startled attention briefly before he corrected himself and continued to look forward, watching where he stepped. The high-raised tail kept catching his eye though.

"Well, I can't say I recognise the animal. I think David Attenborough would be the only person on this Earth who'd be comfortable here," he smiled awkwardly, seeing the irony of what he said, but also seeing the truth - this Island was practically a floating zoo.

"But its funny you should say monkey - Marshall's got it into his head that I'm that...err...whatsit...King Kong thing...gorilla! Thats it," he tried to recall.

Oz watched Maryke's interaction with her own tail almost enviously. At one point, his sanity had ebbed so much as to let him actually consider which animals he would have LIKED to be. And something with a tail was definitely in his top five. The idea of having a fifth limb greatly amused him. But seeing as Maryke was like himself - not totally changed yet - and she alreayd had a working tail, it seemed that he wouldn't be getting one afterall.

"Well I suppose if you used to like fur coats and stuff, its like a moving accessory I guess," he mused idly, the inner gorilla just wanting to groom it. "Can you pick things up with it?"

He was quite truly fascinated. But maybe his questions were not as senstive as they could be. Oz had only managed subtlety maybe a maximum of two times since arriving on the Island.

"Heh, the only good thing I can see about being a gorilla is being able to smash things and carry away fair maidens," he chortled, casting another cheeky smile over to Maryke.