The Evening Light (OPEN)

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Kyrie smiled grimly as he surveyed the world from the first mountain peak of many. This pit was a hole of contention and misery; it would be his job, no, his holy duty, to fix it in any way possible. Up to and including killing all those who opposed him and his agenda. Peace would fall if he had anything to do with it.
As he watched, his wings flared reflexively with each gust of breeze. Frankly, he was blessed. He had all the benefits of being an Anthro, yet he was human enough he could conceal his oddness if he tried. All that was needed was a cover for his wings and some large shoes for his talons. Then he would fit in.
Of course, there was still the small fact he was Zulu. As far as he knew, he was the only Zulu in this place. Certainly the Nakoma, who had taken him in after he was released from the lab. He might even be the only South African. That was daunting; he came from a unique culture which was significantly different from the other people here. That might prove an obstacle to him building a network of confidantes and friends.
He scratched his chin. He knew this was no small task; it would likely take years, if not decades. And it would be hard, slow, work the entire way. But he was up to the task; he had nearly stopped the gang violence in his old school, now, hadn’t he?
But he turned to more immediate concerns. He needed to train, to gain experience to move up within the Nakoma. In fact, that’s why he was up here. He needed to acclimatize to thin air; unfortunately, he hadn’t gained that trait from his old shift. So he sat here, and he knew soon he would have to go still higher.

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 426px; height: 600px; background-image:url(http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll192/_Kamora_/kenntable2_zps79035de0.png)] She had never seen the mountains before. It wasn't a thought that had ever bothered the young woman before - she had never dreamed of traveling the country and instead found solace in her desert home. However, the moment she first opened her eyes and found the odd slopes growing from the ground she had become interested. The snow had seemed so clean and sparkly and the fox wanted nothing more than to run through it. She had smelt the mingling scent of creatures around her, but chose to ignore them for now. Instead the black furred animal had picked herself up and stretched her sore limbs from the journey of being held hostage to being set loose. The sudden overwhelming sense of grief had befallen the vixen as she snuffed at the snowy ground, and she remembered how Flora would often times remark about snow. There was none of this cold stuff in Phoenix, but the young woman understood why her owner had declared her nostalgia for it time and time again. She stuck out her tongue to taste it and shook her head quickly as the coldness burned the upper roof of her mouth. The fox let out a few yips of excitement as she took bounding leaps in a circle, letting the tingling cold numb her paws. After a moment the ever looming presence of the mountains caught her attention again and she swiveled her head to stare in awe. Taking one last sniff and look around the fox decided she really didn't want to talk to other creatures right now, and instead set up the sides of the rocks. She slicked about, taking her time to inspect every nook and cranny with vigor. She really didn't want to stop her exploring, because she knew thoughts of the past would weigh down on her shoulders. Memories of the past - of Flora's cold hand and panic-stricken face before Kennedy had nuzzled her sweetly, the metallic poles that had pressed her up against the wall, the lose of bother her owner and a goodbye she never got to tell an old friend in the desert, or alcohol smelling tables that had awaited her in the keeper's laps - would resurface and cause the small fox to mourn. She didn't have time for that, so the canine boldly pushed on. She didn't really have a destination in mind, all she wanted to do was get to the top and stare down instead of up. Excitement built in her muscles and the fox easily flitted across the landscape, carefully and cautiously she preceded even if her movements said otherwise. She wasn't just a dumb pet fox and she owed that Daniel. A little whimper escaped the animal as flashes of memories of the lizard-shifter echoed in her mind. She'd grieve later. The wind changed direction and the young woman caught the scent of something odd. It smelt like fowl but at the same time human. She cocked her head as she quickly scurried across the ground to find the source of this oddity. The fox stumbled across a young man standing near the edge of a peak, and something was coming out of him. The fox's eyes widened as she realized those were wings! Was that even possibly? She let out a little surprised squeak as she studied this stranger. "Wow! You've got wings!" Came her whisper as she let the fact sink in more to herself than him. Her eyes pricked forward as she took a small step forward, hoping this stranger was kind.

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Kyrie drew in a deep breath, and for a few moments, everything was silent. Then it was broken by a squeak. “Wow! You’ve got wings!” This was quiet, but it was more than enough. Kyrie whipped around. If this female had friends from a ring, he was as good as dead unless he was swift enough to escape. So he took a step closer to the edge, ready to plummet off and soar back to Nakoma territory if need be.
But he needed not worry. It was a singular fox, and by the tone of voice she had had as she spoke and the wide-eyed look of wonder, she was new. And her experiments had been relatively painless. You could tell the amount of pain you were subjected to by how jaded you were. That and how many times a day you cursed the Keepers. That was a fairly good estimate for pain, too. Or maybe just duration of stay. But they both really amounted to the same thing. Not to mention he was larger than the fox, significantly slow, and he was confident that wings and his talons would see him through a fight with either her fox shift or her human form.
He could use this girl. Befriend her. Get her into a ring, then see what information he could get. That befriending her would also have the nice side benefit of keeping her alive and sane until he could get her, was an extra bonus. Softening his posture, face, and attitude, he said, “Why yes, I do happen to have wings. I can tell you’re new here.” He stepped off the precipice he was over and to solid ground, a half-dozen feet away from the fox. “My name is Kyrie. What’s yours?”

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 426px; height: 600px; background-image:url(http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll192/_Kamora_/kenntable2_zps79035de0.png)] The little fox shook her fur out as the wind picked up for a moment and she realized the coldness on top of the mountain was different than when she had been on the ground. It was dry and stung her eyes slightly as it whipped about and she ducked her head on instinct. Goosebumps prickles across her skin as the young woman realized her fur should be thicker. She understood she was warmer in her animal form than her human one though, but was still annoyed that the desert sun had caused her fur to be thinner. "Maybe it'll start changing with the seasons after awhile…" She thought wishfully as the wind slowed down once again. She turned her focus back on the stranger and watched as his muscles tensed before he turned around. "Perhaps most here are not kind." She realized with a slight ripple of fear. Kennedy somewhat knew defense techniques but she was no fight by the long shot. The most her and Daniel had been able to practice in her animal form was hunting and stalking, but never fighting. Instead the older man had shown her how to do that as humans since their forms were better matched instead of a fox versus a lizard. The overwhelming sense of homesickness bottomed out her stomach, but then the words of the stranger pulled her back out. The vixen was happy for that. She nodded excitedly as he introduced himself and had to exert much control to keep from bouncing about. She had never had a conversation with a stranger besides Daniel and the occasional stray shifter passing through the desert, and so her excitement was understandable. A grin pulled up the lips of her muzzle as he assumed correctly. She wondered how long he had been here, but bit her tongue from asking. She had talked longed enough to Daniel and listened to Flora to know that there were things called manners. Kennedy felt quite proud of herself for knowing that. "Yeah!" She tucked her tail slightly as she called some of the more enduring tasks she had put through during her stay with the Keepers. She supposed it hadn't been hurtful even though at the time she felt as she was going to die, but that was only because she didn't have any endurance. They had been curious about her ability to fend for herself seeing as though she was a pet fox, and had cruelly tested her to her limits. But Kennedy chose not to dwell on the negative, and was happy she had to find and utilize every wit and strength she had or she knew she'd be a goner already. She perked up after a moment, pricking her ears as the stranger stepped off the precipice. Her brown eyes met his as he introduced himself and immediately they lit up. "I'm Kennedy!" She yipped excitedly as her tail flicked back and forth. The thought that Kyrie might find it odd that a twenty year old woman was behind the over-excited face of the fox never once crossed her mind. She had no idea how humans matured correctly, and even Flora had been surprised that her pet - old for a fox - was still active. "Can you tell me about this place?" It was probably best if she learnt from a friendly place about the Menagerie before she ran into unknown danger.

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Kyrie couldn’t help but grin at the innocence and interest represented on the fox’s muzzle. New arrivals always had this look. He should know; only a few short weeks ago he had nearly the same look plastered on his face. A wince shot through him as a particularly hard gust of wind bent his wing, and so he folded them and sighed as the drag cut down majorly, along with the urge wind brought to fly.
As she introduced herself as Kennedy, he continued to smile. Enthusiasm rubbed off on others. She was nearly prancing back and forth with excitement, he could see. She asked, “Can you tell me about this place?”
He thought for a moment, then nodded. “Of course I will. But perhaps we could get off of the top of the mountain first? It’s rather cold up here for a long explanation.” He started to stride towards the end of the mountain closest to the Nakoma Tribe’s land; it was also the easiest to scale, and he assumed, descend down.
However, a thought hit him. She was rather small, and with his stature and muscular build, it was quite possible he would simply be able to carry her to the bottom of the mountain, or at least a ways down. Always pick the path of least resistance in unimportant decisions.
He asked, “Would it be fine if I picked you up? If I can fly down the mountain, it will be a lot faster than if you attempt to climb down.” He cast a gaze to the sky, and to his consternation, he saw a single, circling bird. He had heard rumors of the flock of Retros that had occupied these peaks; a few other Anthros had come back with some nasty cuts.
If they got ahold of the small fox, however, there wouldn’t be much left when they were done. He motioned with one hand. “Quickly, we don’t have much time. There might be some Retros above.”

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 426px; height: 600px; background-image:url(http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll192/_Kamora_/kenntable2_zps79035de0.png)] She held her breath as she waited to for the verdict. Hopefully Kryie would help her gain some insight on what not to touch and what was okay to eat. Her stomach rumbled slightly as she realized she hadn't been fed in awhile. It wasn't that she was tubby, but the simple fact that her meal plan she had been on for thirteen years had been destroyed and her body still wasn't use to the lack of food. However at his agreement to explain this strange new place the little fox let out a few yips as she expressed her happiness, instantly forgetting about the slight hunger that was currently growing. "Yeah! It is pretty chilly." She agreed quickly, bouncing her head. She picked her way across the ground after the Anthro, and stopped in her tracks as he did so. Her ears swiveled back at his offer and she tracked his gaze to the sky. Daniel had always cautioned her about large birds that could swoop down and 'snatch up your pretty little head', so she was no stranger to the possible danger that predator birds brought. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should shift, but decided that Kyrie had given her no reason to distrust him yet. When he mentioned the word 'Retros' she couldn't help but repeat it, trying to get the taste of the foreign word on her mouth. "It must be slang for some type of creature," she decided. She was excited to learn about all the new things that inhabited the Menagerie but was also slightly alarmed at the risk of having new dangerous to face. Kennedy wasn't much of a fighter and was more nurturing in nature, so she had an extreme dislike for conflict. Her ears flicked up as she rationalized Kyrie's offer, having finally decided on an answer. There really wouldn't be any good reason for him to drop her out of the sky, so after a moment the fox nodded. "Yeah but, um, promise you won't drop me?" Her laughter held a certain nervous lilt, and the fox shifted her weight between her paws. Kenny didn't know if she was afraid of heights, but no time like now to find out.

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Kyrie grinned wider as she mouthed Retro. Obviously an unfamiliar term; she had to be fresh out of the labs. He watched as she thought, before shifting from paw to paw. “Yeah but, um, promise you won’t drop me?” asked, then laughed nervously.
“Of course I won’t drop you. I’m not a Carna.” He unfurled his wings once again, this time with the intent to use them. “Good. Now, stay very still and be careful. I’m going to grab you with my talons.” He brandished one foot, but it was no longer a foot. Now it was the talon of an eagle. “It might hurt at first, but not for long. I’ll need to adjust my grip. Then we’ll be nearly falling. Don’t lose your lunch; it’ll hit you, and then me in the face.” He made a little face. “And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
He glanced to the sky one more time, only to find a trio of birds now circling. Squinting against the afternoon sun, he grimaced. He couldn’t tell what kind of birds they were; simple birds such as ravens, or hawks or falcons. He wished he knew.
Kyrie flapped a couple times, stirring up some loose dirt, before coming a few inches off the ground. As he slowly gained height, he flew off the edge of the cliff, catching an updraft. Soaring closer to the birds, it became apparent it was a pair of falcons and a raven. Not as bad as he’d thought, but worse than he’d hoped. Looking down, he saw the girl, Kennedy, below, looking up at him. He slowly descended, as careful as he could manage, and hooked his talons firmly around the fox’s torso.

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She nodded furiously, completely serious of the entire situation. The fox squeaked a bit when the the talons wrapped around her torso, and she was confused as to why the boy hadn't just picked her up in his arms; it wasn't like she was heavy. She tried to hold very still, but the cold wind caused her to squirm a bit and the talons slightly pinched her. The vixen kept from crying out and instead watched as the ground zoomed past her. This was crazy! Her eyes were wide as she tried to take it all in, and the girl wished she could fly. However, the adventure was short lived and soon the the duo were on the ground. Kennedy's legs felt weak when she touched down, and was relieved to have stable ground. She bounced up and down excitedly though as she stared up into the sky.

"Dude! We just, wow! We! Oh wow, I actually flew!" She squealed in delight as she bounced around, her body wriggling. As a pet, she hadn't really had much adventures, but the young woman had decided she loved the adrenaline rush. After a few more yips of excitement, the fox finally regained control of herself and settled down on the ground, her head cocked slightly as she watched Kyrie. She sucked in a breath and exhaled as she calmed herself. "Okay then, can you tell me about this place now?"

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As Kyrie lifted off of the ground, picked Kennedy up, and swooped down the mountain, he laughed. He loved flying; it was the best feeling it was possible to have, that feeling of freedom, of wind.
As he dropped Kennedy to the ground and landed several feet away, watching as she bounced around in pure excitement. It practically oozed out of her pores, the feeling was so evident in her manners.
He chuckled as she began to calm down. “Flying, it’s the greatest sensation, isn’t it? Even after doing it dozens of times, it still gives me a rush.”
He sobered as she asked, "Okay then, can you tell me about this place now?"
He smiled slightly, no longer in that peculiar mood of adrenaline-induced happiness. “I can indeed. However, you might want to settle down. It’s not the shortest of explanations.”
Kyrie folded his wings, swung his arms around a few times, and then plopped down on a nearby rock.
“This place was once a city, somewhere around the early 21st century, about 200 years ago. For some reason, it withered, died, became abandoned. But it was resurrected into this place, the Menagerie.
“Basically, this is a place for dumping people like you. Like I used to be. Shifters; with the ability to change between animal and human form at will, we scared people. At first they clamored to have us exterminated, but the scientists thought better.
“’No,’ they thought. ‘Why kill such interesting specimens? Let’s just experiment on a few, and then put the rest into the greatest experiment of them all: Survival.’”
He leaned back on the rock, waiting for her reaction to that first morsel of exposition.

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The vixen's large ears swiveled forward as she took in the young man's explanation of her new home. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she recalled the lessons her parents had taught her as a child. She had learned that her kind was sought after by the government and that had been the reason her family had kept a low profile over several generations worth of shifters. That had been thirteen years ago, and that life seemed almost distant. She doubted her parents' way of making sure to secure her family's identity, and believed it was silly to sell their own children as house pets when they could have just lived out in the woods or in the middle of nowhere, but it was too late now to hunt them down and explain their flaws.

She paused in her memories when Kyrie continued his explanation. The fox wrinkled her brow when she tried to recall why the government was so keen on hunting down their species, but couldn't recollect. She knew they were different from 'normal' and wondered why that was such a problem. It wasn't like shifters had more of an intention of doing harm than humans did. She sighed a bit, annoyed with the violent and brash nature of humans. But the fox quickly shook it off her sudden irritation when she heard the next bit of the Menagerie's history.

Her eyes widened at the mention of experiments and late-night black and white horror movies replayed in her mind as she tried to comprehend what he was saying. Was that why he could still have wings while in human form? Even though Kennedy hadn't had any interaction with other shifters, except for Daniel, she knew that they couldn't be half in shift and still function. When he paused for emphasis and to let her gather her wits, the fox desperately craved the rest of the story. "Wow..." Was she all she managed to whisper as she waited for Kyrie to continue.

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Kennedy was captivated. With wide eyes, mouth open slightly, the fox looked pretty hilarious sitting there and staring at him. But this conversation killed humor like only a few other choice subjects did. Like the Holocaust.
“As I was saying, they threw the first shifters in here, and before long they formed three groups, called Rings: Carna; the vicious, Fulsi; the ambitious, and Fallen; the hidden. The Fulsi and the Fallen held an uneasy peace with Carna for many years, though skirmishes were common. I don’t think many of the original Ringholders are still living.
“But then the Keepers—the scientists responsible for the Menagerie—threw in another cruel twist. While experimenting on one man, they discovered that through a series of dangerous injections and gene therapies that they could permanently stick a Shifter into a form more or less halfway in between their human and animal forms.
In a sick joke, they named these after the nickname for the cartoon characters of old, which they closely resembled: Anthros, or Anthropomorphics. And so they took some of the Shifters, changed them, and threw them in here as Anthros. The slow but steady stream of such people continued and still does to this day.
“Now, there’s something you should know about anthros. There’s a spectrum with three main types of anthros: nearly human, halfway, and nearly animal. I’m a near-human—as you can see, the only things about me are my wings and my feet. If I tried, I daresay I could pass for a Shifter with some disguise work.
“The halfway ones look just like those old cartoon characters; animals that can walk upright, with thumbs capable of their full range of movement.
“The near-animal ones are the saddest. Most can’t function, and generally, they don’t last long. When you can’t use thumbs and you look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame mixed like a Werewolf, you’re vulnerable and visible—the two worst things to be here. Stay away from these at all costs.
“The anthros were not accepted within the rings for the most part; the Fallen were tolerant at best, and the other rings disliked them intensely. Within a few months of the first Anthros, they formed a group of their own, the Bestia.
“But tensions grew with their introduction, and soon a full-fledged war broke out between Carna and the others. In the final battle, nearly the entire Bestia Tribe was killed, them being the special targets of the Carna’s hatred. The few left after the peace turned rogue.”
He paused. “I need a drink. See a stream around here?”