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 Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 6:38 pm
It had been ages... months even, since the horse-man had freely wandered around the jungle. Not since Annie had ripped out Fiona's throat, though he'd still walked around. But after the wolf-girl had come down to the beach... he'd locked himself away in the village, going out only on rare occasions, and always passing through the jungle as quickly as he could, sticking to cleared paths. Now, that wanderlust the first injection had aroused in him was resurfacing with a vengeance. He couldn't stand his little cramped duplex, and he needed to get away from the stale, uniform atmosphere of the village. So now, Vixen held on a tight leash as she struggled to chase after the many critters living in the bushes, Gaius wandered beneath the trees. He didn't know where he was going, and didn't really care. It was enough to have the light breeze pick up his hair as he passed between trees. Here he had time to think, about Cody and Sophie, Newt and Liamh. Time to analyze, to reflect. To come to grips with himself.
As it was, he didn't put any great effort into moving silently. There didn't seem to be anyone else around that he could hear, and his nose was still too new to be any good to detect anything but the flowers nearby and avoid the boar dungpile he nearly stepped in.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:03 pm
"Where to start, where to go, where to start..."
These were the questions that were repeated over and over in Seth's mind during the last number of days. As solid as some of the ideas in his head were, he was still lost on many of the finer details. Though out here in the jungle he had plenty of time to ponder his planning, and his situation in general. He found it much easier to think when he was out on his territorial run. Not to mention that something inside of him just seemed... content.
Today though, something was making the animal within feel nervous. The man couldn't conciously work out any differences, but something was obviously wrong. Seth tried to shrug it off as best as he could, and went on his way.
After a short time though, he stopped dead, his ears raised as high as they would allow despite their current limited movement. He heard movement nearby. Movement in his territory. Seth himself didn't care too much, but the instinctive desires within him were on high alert. After a moment, he found himself sniffing the air cautiously, the half-animalistic nose only being able to pick up some of the scent. He smelled the scent of a dog in the air, that was immediately apparent. It was definitely unfamiliar but he felt a strange desire to go investigate.
He left the path he was travelling down and changed direction to follow, his feet half-walking, half-bounding across the terrain as he moved ahead. He saw two shapes up ahead as he moved faster. One of them seemed to be bipedal, and the other was a quadraped. That one was obviously the dog. Neither of the two rang out as anyone recognisable or anyone he remembered, so Seth was quite nervous and attentive to their prescence.
He kept fairly quiet as he stalked after them, keeping behind them, and keeping his distance for now.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:31 pm
Gaius continued his trek through the jungle, unaware of his company, but Vixen wasn't so clueless. The dog paused in place, lifting her nose to the air and snuffling. It was nearly impossible to pick up the scent, being mostly downwind, but a change in the air brought enough for her to recognize. It was a scent she'd been familiar with around the construction site, that of the funny yappy-man who liked to play hide with the tools.
Vixen gave a bark, but Gaius had continued on and pulled at the leash to get her to follow. Still she held back, glancing around, and let out a whine. She wanted to say hi! It wasn't until he'd had to forcefully get her to follow him several times, enough to draw him out of his thoughts, that he took notice of her strange behavior. His own senses went on immediate alert, ears up and twitching around, and nose flared.
Could... could it be Annie? Or maybe something else, something worse... If that was the case, then he'd best avoid their detection and stay as quiet as possible. He began walking, picking his footing carefully to muffle it as best he could manage, and bobbed his head as he went, swinging it back and forth as his wide eyes scanned for any signs of movement.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:45 pm
"Urrrrr..."
Seth growled in response to the dog's barking. The sound was like a sensory sledgehammer to his sensitive ears and he winced, his eyes squeezing shut momentarily in response to the pain, and he needed to take a moment to recover.
He darted out of the immediate path behind the two and progressively moved closer through the more dense underbrush of the jungle, walking at a faster rate. His back feet crunched through leaf litter and his legs caused the leaves of bushes to rustle as he moved by them. Certainly no stealthy predator was he.
Seth still didn't recognise the one he was stalking. He saw the wings on the biped's back now, the long-hair on his tail. The wings seemed vaguely familiar, but it didn't click. Was this a new islander? He didn't recognise him. What was he doing here? His curiousity was driving him crazy.
The half-marsupial crouched down and stopped once he was close enough, his striped tail stiff and raised behind him. He stayed as hidden as he could, using the plants as cover, his eyes wide and attentive. He was half tempted to just blurt out his questions, but instinct told him to stay quiet for now.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:05 pm
Gaius' lips drew back from his teeth as he began unconsciously panting, drawing in gulps of air to power the heart hammering in his massive throat. There was something there, he could tell... the first crunch of leaves practically sent him bolting. He stumbled forward but managed to catch himself and continued on, but he could hear it, his hairless ears twisting until they were almost facing backwards.
Oh God, oh God. He didn't want to die. Something was there, he knew it. And it was going to spring any moment and tear out his throat and no one would be the wiser... Was that a glimpse of movement? No, a bird. Was it behind him? He couldn't tell in here...
His hackles were all raised and feathers puffed up when the noise suddenly... stopped. Just stopped. Gaius slowed his own pace, possibly even more afraid now than when he'd heard the stalking. Lifting his head high, he scanned the area, trying to see any flash of brown fur that might warn him of impending death. A low, agitated knicker escaped his lips.
"Wh-who's there?" Unable to take it any longer, he called in a strained, almost braying voice.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:34 pm
A small grin slowly snaked it's way across the marsupial-man's maw as he watched Gaius panic. Instinct was taking over, the animal temporarily taking dominance of his mind. The animal within was pleased that it had the upper hand and that this entire experience had become fun. The fact that he could strike fear into the other man made him feel quite superior and predatory. If he wanted to, he could move in and strike. But that was not what it wanted to do right now.
"Urrr-rrr... urrr rrrr." The thylacine growled warningly, wanting to see the other off his territory.
Seth's eyes widened suddenly, as he began to realize what he was doing, and he promptly shook his head. The growing animalistic feelings that kept coming over him were getting stronger, but this was the wors of it so far. He had never temporarily taken leave of himself before...
He stood up, making himself as clear as day, and brushed the bits of leaves and dirt off his clothes.
"Uh, sorry there, mate...." He said, looking rather sheepish. "Er, what are you doing in my territory?" Seth was silent again and stiffened his jaw. Had he really just said that?
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 1:16 am
The horse-man's head arched down, ears flicking back and wings spreading as he took up a clearly threatened position. That was growling, unmistakably, and to his adrenaline-pumped mind, there was little difference between the odd, almost comical sound, and the throaty, wet growl of a she-wolf.
So, when the man suddenly rose out of the bushes behind and to his left, it wasn't surprising the horse bolted forward with a panicked whinny, only catching himself enough to spin around and face the would-be attacker once he was a couple feet further. His heart was still pounding so hard it threatened to jump right out of his chest, and his hands were raised in defensive fists.
Vixen, however, stood up on the end of her leash and barked happily, recognizing the silly shovel-man from work, her tail wagging.
Gaius blinked, taking several moments longer to come to some recognition of the man. "Y-You?! What... You... What do you mean your territory? I was just out for a walk!"
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 5:10 am
Initially, Seth couldn't help but stare at Gaius as he watched his reaction. The noises that the other man was making sounded very horse-like - which would have explained the strange ears and the tail. The thylacine-man couldn't help but snicker at the scene - the whole sight just looked completely daft to him.
Inwardly however, Seth was rather surprised by the fact that he had invoked such a powerful reaction from another. He had scared people by jumping out at them in his younger days, but... never anything like this. He wasn't sure if he liked it either, although the animalistic side of him seemed rather pleased right now, and felt a sense of dominance.
"Well uh..." Seth began pondering how to answer Gaius's question without sounding ridiculous, scratching the back of his head. He pointed to several of the strange paw prints that he had imprinted into the ground when it had been soaked and softer from rain.
"You see those? I don't see anyone else claiming this area or any of this stuff, so I've been walking around making a whole lot of ground mine." He pointed to more of the prints in the half dried ground, ones that led to various other paths that he had been walking over the past several weeks. "This entire area is mine, I marked it all out with my feet prints." A clawed index finger motioned to another path that led back to the village. "That bit's mine too. But yeah, that's what I'm doing - walking around, making note of where the paths go. And then if I like them, I claim them as mine."
"Except that one," He made an inhuman noise in the back of his throat to express his distaste as he turned his head towards the area of the beach. "I don't want that bit, someone else can have that. But yeah, territory." He was about to add more to his sentence, when his sensitive ears picked up a sound, causing him to freeze. He narrowed his eyes and slowly turned his head, looking around the area, ears attentive. He heard an electronic 'whrring' noise, probably a camera refocusing its lenses. Seth snarled to himself and made a mental note to sniff those out later, and to take them out.
He shook his head again after a moment, shrugging it off. "Sorry I didn't recognise you," He turned his attention back to Gaius and offered the man a friendly lopsided toothy grin. "Just out for a walk, ey? Be careful. There's a crazy wolf out there somewhere, although I've personally never seen it. Thank bloody god for that, but... you can't be too careful now, can 'ya?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:54 pm
The horse didn't lower his fist as the marsupial man explained, though he watched as the footprints were pointed out. What in the world did this guy mean?
"Wait... you mean, all of this..." He waved at the jungle around them, "is yours? You've... claimed it by walking around? Leaving paw-er, footprints?" The eyebrow he raised at Seth communicated how very implausible he found that idea.
His long ears twitched up as the marsupial man froze, and he caught the end of something buzzing... a bug? But it sounded mechanical. The horse-man was suddenly on alert again, and shrugged as Seth warned of the wolf woman. "Yeah, I know about her... but, that sound just now..." he glanced over his shoulder and up above. "What was that? I thought I'd heard it before, somewhere..."
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:53 am
"Yeah," Seth nodded simply at Gaius's question, answering it casually as if declaring something like this was part of ordinary every-day conversation. "Wherever you see the footprint marks, it's marked as mine."
"The sound," He frowned, attentively glancing around the area once more. "I hear it in my room all the bloody time, but haven't found a way to wreck it yet. I heard there were cameras all over the island, but there's a higher concentration of them out here for some reason. Going for a walk? Some idiot up at the HQ building is probably mapping out where you go, all your favourite spots. Are you going anywhere in paticular, or just on a walk for the hell of it to see where you end up?"
He made a hiss in frustration as he turned his attention back to the direction of the nearest whirring camera, then muttered in a quiet voice, more to himself than anything. "Gotta smash that little b*****d later. Really gotta get out of this place..."
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:08 pm
Gaius gave the man a long look, still unsure of just how to take this 'claiming' issue. It was almost ridiculous, but part of him just shrugged it off, figuring that as long as he kept proper etiquette while being in someone's 'territory,' it'd be fine to pass through. Either way, he made a note to be careful in this part of the jungle, unless he wanted Seth stalking him again.
As Seth spoke of the cameras, Gaius nodded slowly. That would explain why it was familiar. He'd only noticed the cameras a couple months after his arrival, first when his larger ears had made the whir of the gears in them much more apparent as they followed him. Over time, he'd gotten used to it, even forgot about them. Now, talking about them, it made him feel oppressed, like there were little glass eyes watching him from every bush, every tree.
His ears perked up at the growling, and he took a step forward, speaking in a low tone. "You mean... they can be broken? You've done that?" This... why hadn't he thought of this? They were out there, it couldn't be too difficult to take a hammer or a rock to the delicate machinery...
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:51 pm
"If it's mechanical, it can be broken." Seth replied in a loud deliberate voice. "Finding them is the problem though. You can hear 'em, but I've never actually seen one so they must be pretty little. Or well hidden."
He flicked an ear. "Quick, do something irrational. They'll have to refocus the things and then they'd be easier to spot and locate."
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:53 pm
Gaius blinked at the striped man. "Wait... what? What do you mean 'irrational'?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:57 pm
"I don't know. Anything?" Seth stood there, looking thoughtful for a moment, tail stiff. He sprang up suddenly and leaped into the bushes, his marsupial legs propelling him further than he had initially intended to jump.
There was a loud rustling noise and a thump as he fell in amongst some bushes, as well as the sound of some plant branches cracking.
"Ow, geeze..." He took a moment to recover, then stood up again. "Hear anything yet?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:00 pm
Gaius was too busy staring after Seth to pay attention to the sounds around him until the older man told him. "Oh! Right!"
Craning his ears around, he could hear the clamor of birds up in the trees, disturbed by Seth's movement, as well as the sound of bugs nearby in the humid air. And there, faintly, was the whirring. But where it came from, he hadn't the darndest.
"I, er, think it came from over there," he said, pointing to the right, "but it stopped moving before I could spot it... maybe you should jump again?"
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