welcome to your new hell, Welcome to the Menagerie. Or as we like to call it, Dome Sweet Dome! We are an eight-year strong futuristic shapeshifter and sci-fi creature roleplay, dedicated to bringing you a world unlike any other; a world in which your character has become an experiment and must fight for survival in a domed city, cut off from the rest of the world. Choose to be any animal in your fight for survival in an artificial world built by the Keepers as they subject you to experiments beyond your control. Choose to wander the world inside the walls alone, as a Rogue, or find safety in numbers in one of the groups known as Rings. How will you survive?
60 - 65 ºF
blustery with scattered showers spotty sunshine
YEAR 2309
shift bans.
» Cougars (aka Puma, Mountain Lion, Panther)
» All Tiger Species
» All Lion Species
» All Wolf Species
» African Leopards
group bans.
none.
encouraged !
FEMALE CHARACTERS! create a RETRO or ANTHRO and get 250 CP + a free skill! read me for more info!
last updated: april 19th, 2016
Click on each Ring or Retro group image to view their ranks!
GROUP UPDATES
CARNARING
Jocelyn Edelwolfe is the new Alpha! Seija Mulviene is the new Beta, and Grey is the new Delta. Lead Hunter is now Boone Haywood, Head of Border Patrol is now Noelle Ndango!
FALLENRING
-
FULSIRING
Fulsi has a standing treaty with the Nakoma, granting limited access to their fresh water.
NAKOMA TRIBE
-
ANALOYA PRIDE
a while back, the Analoya suffered a suspicious poisoning of their river, luckily with few casualties; the Bellator are suspected of having taken part in it, and there are whispers that Pride leader Wanderer is talking alliance with the Nilda for access to their clean water.
BELLATOR HERD
As new leader of the Bellator, Loril has instituted some rank changes. See this thread for more information!
LAWAII FLOCK
no updates!
NILDA PACK
no updates!
CARNARING QUICK STATS
ALPHA -- Jocelyn Edelwolfe, Clouded Leopard, played by IronChild
BETA -- Seija Mulviene, Spotted Hyena, played by Seija-chan
DELTA --Grey, Mackenzie Valley Wolf, played by Kriss
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That night it was easy to slip away. They were preoccupied with the girl, Husher's child, not Cole. Her walk had cooled her some, and by the time she returned to Hush it had been arranged for them to stay the night with the horse-man and Hush's daughter. But she did not want to stay. The idea of being confined to the small space terrified her, and as soon as she was certain everyone was asleep, she managed to slip out with as much silence as was possible.
She did not leave immediately. She tracked down Grey and confronted him a second time, looking for answers that he did not have, searching desperately for something to make things right, or to at least clarify what had happened between them. But there was no clarification. Their job of politics and murder had always been so complicated, built upon lies and impulse. Seeing him again evoked memories she had tried so hard to forget, and had succeeded at pushing away, for the most part.
The murders, the arrests, the human woman that he killed. Human, a word that he said like a curse, like something horrible. And Cole wanted to argue. I am human. But it was not plausible, because she could no longer say that. It was what the dome had robbed her of--her humanity. Grey had only been the catalyst to so many downfalls for her. Their conversation had been long and bitter.
She had always tried so hard to do what seemed to be the right thing, and wasn't that her fault? Now she didn't care, but even that was a lie. She still cared too much. Cole trotted down the railroad tracks, using them to guide her out of the damned desert (she wasn't about to get lost again). The wind had whipped up once the sun had set, and she felt... Cole didn't know. It had been a long time since she'd let herself feel. She'd always tried to mimic Grey with his callousness, but she had never managed it. In the past, it had been her hamartia, and thus it was now. She was overwhelmed, uncertain with the days events and... well, herself.
Now she knew that she would be of no use to Hush. He had found his daughter, and Cole had discovered that a life around others would not suit her well. She would end up being anxious and paranoid, or she would resort to violence. She had not been able to withstand the way that the fox-child had talked, or the way that the horse-man had looked at her. More than that, however, was that she could not stand the thought of Grey.
"I'm sorry." Two words she had never heard him say before, and they didn't sound like a lie. But was that her being hopeful? Trying to see beyond the monster that he was? Cole remembered how sweet he could be, how misleading. Because he had said that to her tonight.
The thoughts choked her, plagued her. She could not get rid of them, nor the feeling of inadequacy. She had run. That was all there was to it. She was finally leaving Hush, and for good. She had resolved herself to this. He no longer needed her. And what made Cole think that he needed her in the first place? They had made a deal, and they had both withheld their promises, and now there was no longer any reason for them to stay together.
She ignored the fact that he had been the one to calm her earlier, and she him.
She was drawn out of her thoughts when she stumbled, her paws dragging. It had caught on the railroad track, and just like that she gave up on walking. She collapsed onto her haunches, staring first down the endless line of tracks, and then up towards the fake stars.
Maybe it was for the better--
No. No, it would never be for the better
[/i].
When she shifted into her human form, it was with a sort of terrible, terrible resolve. She sat in the sand, and looked down at her hand, reading what Grey had written there with ink mere hours ago.
STARK SIVIS. He had said it was his real name. And then, besides that; NYCOLE SIVIS. He had seemed so gentle and so sad when he did it, holding her hand like it was a delicate as a bird. "I don't want you forgetting yourself." She couldn't believe she had forgotten her whole name, and now the idea of losing it terrified her. And that was why she had loved him--because he knew the things that she was afraid of without her admitting them, or needing to. Before she could think better of it, Cole pulled out her knife.
Just do it. Don't be afraid of it. The blade looked more threatening than she could have imagined, but the idea of forgetting was worse than the idea of remembering. She began to carve into her left forearm, the letters crude. Within a matter of minutes, she had the two names written there, one after the other.
Her blood was inky in the dark, and all she could think of was now that she would never, ever forget them. The pain was irrelevant. The promise of something tangible was worth it. Nycole Sivis. She read it over and over again before the first sob hitched her breath.
The evening was painful. Husher and Akane had gone on a long walk, then a much needed run. Between time they talked and cried, raged and embraced. There was so much they needed to catch up on, so many conflicting emotions. The one subject they stayed away from as much as possible was the kid … man … Kirov. He didn’t ask, and Akane didn’t offer an explanation. Though his daughter was young, she had always been mindful of her abilities and after all they had been through he couldn’t treat her like a child now. But she was a child, his child – and it was hard to let it go.
Eventually, they had returned to the train car and at the request of Akane, Cole and Husher had stayed with them. To say there was tension was an understatement, things needed to be smoothed out and Husher was at a loss what to do about most of it. It did not pass his notice that Cole was deeply unhappy, and he worried over her. Still, they were all tired and eventually (after an eyebrow lift and grumble from Husher about Akane sleeping with Kirov) they all settled for the night.
Husher shifted into the dark form that was his Tundra Wolf and curled up near Cole trying his best to ignore that his daughter slept in the arms of a man that was closer to his age than hers. They had found her though, Grey too – though he was unsure now whether or not Cole had truly wanted to find him once she had.
It was late. Husher didn’t know what woke him, but in the night his head lifted and his ears swiveled to catch the breaths of his sleeping companions. Akane and Kirov had taken to sleep in a tangle, and before he thought too much on it he realized Cole was gone, and that was bad.
Through the weeks that they had gotten to know one another, Husher had found Cole to be a bright young woman. His regard for her had landed somewhere between a little sister (which he often called her), and a niece. It was often when they had been traveling that Cole would wake up through the night for some reason or another and take some time to herself, but this time it was different.
There was a completeness, an emptiness to her absence that echoed a farewell that Husher was not ready to say and in fact had not gotten the chance to. He had seen the ache in her gaze, felt the tremble in her fingers when her hand and touched his ruff and now …
”Akane,” she heard in shifter-tongue. His voice was one of the few things that would wake the girl at any hour.
Immediately she sat up. ”Sir?” she replied, covering a yawn as she looked at the large black beast in the darkness.
”Stay with-“ he broke off. ”Here, stay here. Cole has left and I must fetch her,” his light eyes shifted to Slansky who had sat up almost before Akane had. Husher might have said something, or bitten his head off but he had no time. Cole moved fast and if he lost her scent he’d never find her. His ears pinned as he fixed the man with a purposeful look and issued a growl, and then he was gone.
Once he hit the sandy ground, he moved fast. An alarm went off from the watch as he bounded out of the camp in a black streak hot on Cole’s trail. If that bastard has any sense, he’ll tell them it’s just me before the whole damn ring is after me for no reason, he thought harshly. He had to admit, if there wasn’t part of him that respected and trusted Kirov even in the tiniest amount, he would never have left Akane with him. The realization fueled his temper, but he shoved it away to concentrate on the hunt.
Cole had been there when she did not have to be, and in the light and drama of finding his daughter and Cole finding Grey – he had never gotten the chance to thank her. She deserved to be thanked, she deserved to know she was not alone.
The night was cool. Once he hit the tracks and realized she had followed them he leveled out into a dead run. Once in a game Husher and Cole had run across a field, and had found that Husher was the faster of the two - though not by much and he had to half kill himself to do it.
His nose caught her scent before he had gone more than three miles, and he slowed in a lope. His tongue lolled from excursion. Sustaining such a speed had taken a lot out of him and he’d had to stop to catch his breath. It was then he heard the soft noises, and his ears perked. Blood hit his nose, and he licked his chops to clear the sensation. It was Cole's blood, and anxiety washed over him.
When he reached her, he knew where the soft noises came from. His ears flattened, and quietly he came up behind her. She had cut herself up on one arm, and a whine escaped the large lupe as his muzzle dipped low to lick her face of tears. This was why he had needed to find her, for all her strength she didn’t deserve this.
The delicate inside of her arm was crossed with her own blood, now, and the pain of it was fierce. But not so fierce that it evoked her tears. No, that was something else entirely. The look in his eyes, his damn eyes, when he had said those two words. I'm sorry. That's what had her crying.
She wanted to hate him, and instead she only found disdain for herself, and her inability to do it. To hate him. She did not hate--Cole glanced at her bloodied forearm--Stark Sivis.
Cole didn't think she would ever be able to. As much as she wanted to, it was impossible. She had gone looking for him, half with the intention of talking it out and half with the intention of ending it, forever. Getting revenge. Call it weakness, but she could not muster the desire to hurt him, when he had looked at her with such contrite and said that. "I'm sorry." He had twisted his wedding band, and she had seen it, and he had seen her watching. "I guess this is over now, isn't it?"
[/b] But there was no such thing as divorce in the Menagerie. He merely handed her the ring.
Cole blinked away her tears, and looked at her arm again. The names looked like something terrible, and broken. Her blood was dripping into the sand, now, and she watched it with a sort of sick fascination, letting her tears fall. Maybe if her breath hadn't been hitching, she would have heard Hush approach. Or maybe not.
As it was, the sight of the wolf struck her with something like regret. She didn't want to hurt him, but Cole didn't think she could stay anymore, either. It was obvious that she would not fit in his little... what was it, a family? Of him and his daughter? Cole let him comfort her, for a few seconds, before she turned her face away and faced him only with her shoulder.
"We've finished our deal." She forced her tone to be quiet, resolved. Or tried to, but it cracked midway. She wiped her tears furiously with her right hand, resheathing her knife as she did it. Cole pushed herself to her feet, heedless of the fact that she was smearing blood on her shirt. "Thank you for everything, Hush."
Instinct told her to flee, but she was rooted where she stood out of a sense of duty. He deserved closure, if nothing else.
Husher’s nose worked out that there had been a self-purpose to the cuts, but in this form he could not quite read what it said. Instinct pushed him to lick her wounds, clean the blood and protect her but his human mind knew better. Her movement was flighty almost, and if he made the wrong move he’d be chasing her again.
Instead, he shifted into the form of a man. He was much taller than her, and in order to feel as though he did not tower he lowered to the ground in a squat. His fingers touched the sand where her blood fell, splotches of black against the grey dirt and wood. The moon was only a sliver, but his sight had always been good.
”You know, my wife use to not let me do laundry,” he said lightly. He had never spoken about his wife to anyone in the Menagerie past the fact that he had been married, and that she had died. A smile touched his lips, and he shook his head and chuckled. ”I always managed to ruin it somehow, and it got to the point that she yelled at me that I was costing us more money forcing her to buy new clothes than helping her in any way.”
His fingers began tracing letters in the sand slowly through her blood as he cracked a smile. ”I’d, heh – I’d tell her that was okay by me I liked her without clothes anyway,” he chuckled again. ”I always had a knack for embarrassing her, and she’d tsk at me and tell me ‘Hush’ in this kinda mad whiney way that made my knees weak,” his own voice cracked as his free hand rubbed the rough stubble around his chin and he paused.
”God, I miss her,” he whispered. After only a second, he sniffed loudly and coughed as he stood again and his hands slapped the sand and blood from his digits. On the ground, in the sand it said Little Sister.
”No one ever called me that but her, and the first time you said - it almost killed me. Not even my daughter calls me that,” he said matter of factly. He was unsure where he was going with this, but he looked down at the letters and pointed.
”That, is you. My wolf decided a long time ago that you are pack, and I agree. There is no deal when it comes to family. You either are, or you not - and you, Little Sister …” his fingers lifted her chin to look her in the eye. ”Are. No deal.”
She wanted to run. Leave. But she had been taught of duty, and respect, and although these things were no longer priority to her, the memory of them had her lingering despite her urge to flee. She waited, looking at this man sidelong (but never directly, for she felt that if she were to lock eyes with him she would be forced to remain there, fixed).
Cole was surprised when he launched into a story about his wife. Cole knew that he had been married, and simply assumed that his wife was either outside of the Menagerie or dead, and the end result was the same, really. Hush didn't have her anymore. Cole listened, quiet, her body not relaxed but on the verge of being high-strung. Her demeanor suggested that she was ready to launch herself away, dissolve into the desert, or just... collapse. She felt as though she stood on the uncertain, newborn legs of a fawn, trembling with a mixture of anxiousness and simple tension.
She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to think. Hush had had a wife that had called him Hush, as Cole did. It did not take any meaning away from the nickname, nor did it add any new "meaning". His movement, him drawing in the sand, finally forced Cole to look at what he was doing, just as he finished. Little Sister.
Cole swallowed, and almost thought to say that that was what her oldest brother had called her, with a tinge of affection as well as annoyance. All she could remember about him were his eyes, green, and how he had been one of her best friends and worst rivals all at once. Hush was nothing like that. Hush was just Hush. "-- and you, Little Sister, are. No deal."
To be claimed in such a way rooted her feet. Her eyes were narrowed some, distrustful and she wiggled in his grasp before stilling. She wanted to tell him something, then. If she was suddenly "family", him making it sound so simple, why not tell him exactly what that implied?
"I killed people for a living." The words were just cold, a report of information. "Outside of the Menagerie, I hunted down people like you and your daughter who could endanger the world-wide secret of shapeshifters. It was my civic duty to my species. If we could not sway an individual to join our cause, they were terminated for being a threat to the entire breed. If a human witnessed the shapeshifting of a friend or relative, it became my job to either erase their memory or kill them. Normal, innocent people. People who were just unfortunate, maybe at the wrong place at the wrong time. Shapeshifters who were only being what they were born to be, but careless about it."
She blinked, a lethargic sort of motion, but for a second there was nothing flighty in her. She was not that creature that ran and hid, nor was she that self-absorbed one that merely focused on survival. She was rooted fast, a self-loathing woman that resorted to a more animal mindset to live with herself in the Menagerie, with the thoughts and memories of her past actions. Her informative voice became thick with contempt. "I am not family material, Hush. By, I have been betrayed or persecuted. Towards family, I have only done the same. Grey found me because I wanted him to, on my terms, so I could kill him. My only fault lay in the fact that I had not managed to out-fight him. I left my group of people because I could not live with myself, but I could not live without that lifestyle either. It was their laws that I still followed, even if I was no longer with them." That was a part that she always struggled to forget--that her "escape" from that group had not just been her running, and hiding. It had her been continuing her work. The only difference had been that, when she found shapeshifters that "endangered the secret", she had turned them in to the steps of the Menagerie doorfront, where they could no longer hurt people. "I am a monster."
Now she tore her chin from his grasp and moved away a few paces, before turning to regard him, arms crossed, a brow arched. She was daring him with her expression. Daring him to say that he still wanted her in his life. Maybe he wouldn't care. But if he didn't, he was a goddamn fool.
Husher was still, listening carefully to the burden she had refused to release for so long. It weighed her down, every step and every breath - an Atlas with the world on her shoulders, and completely unable to forgive herself. From what he had heard when she spoke with Grey earlier and the words she offered now, he could only cobble together a vague image of her life before the Menagerie.
Many pieces fell into place at once. The memories of those weeks holed up in the den while Cole healed came away clearer, and while Husher had had many speculations; he’d never had any real answers. Her suspicious looks and weary manner had not been out of the ordinary when a stranger would help another (especially in the Menagerie), but the detached cold look, shotty recall, her skill, and regard were. Now he knew why.
He had heard about these people before, and once or twice they had even run across them (or rather, the damage they had left in their wake.) They were indeed one of the many reasons Husher had feared for his daughter every single day since she had shifted as a child. Taken. He paled.
She ripped from his light hold, and he let her go. I am a monster, she whispered but it did not settle onto Husher as it might have. No, he would not insult her by saying that it wasn’t her fault, or that she could make up for it. She was in the Menagerie now, and anything she did currently could never help those she had harmed. Nor would he give an eloquent speech on duty, or talk about time and it healing all wounds.
This man had been a soldier, a warrior; Responsible not only for the death of his enemy, but for the lives of his brothers next to him in battle. Husher had not always able to protect them, what was more – they often hunted their enemy as game. Like animals. The military had trained Husher not to see them as his equal in order to separate any duality in the jobs he’d had to perform, but he could not push back the memory of killing the husbands, fathers, and sons. The light vanishing from their eyes with their blood still warm on his hands. You can run, but you’ll just die tired.
He knew about being a monster, and he thought about the many times his men had put a hand to his shoulder in solace but had nothing to say. There were just as many times that he’d had nothing to say either. He took a deep breath, and looked to the moonlit landscape. It was quiet out, the wind whistled across the bare expanse in the dome and his light eyes lifted to the fake silver moon in the fake night sky.
Several minutes had passed and when Husher looked at her – arms crossed, bold expression, set jaw, she reminded him for all the world of Akane. Countless times she had given him the same hazardous countenance of demand and Cole’s was no less intimidating. For all the world it made the corner of his mouth lift in a not-quite smile.
”Well, it’s a good thing we’re monsters too,” he said slowly. The look in his eyes flickered, showing more than many had seen from behind his consistently closed expression. ”You’ll fit right in.”
He took a step forward, gauging her reaction and when she did not move he stole another one. Looking down at her he really did smile this time - a sad and genuine smile. ”Us monsters have to stick together,” he said – voice rough.
Cole did not want this. She did not want his acceptance, nor his companionship. She was fine. She would be fine by herself, and so would he, so why was he accepting her? Why wasn't he just... realizing that this was goodbye, and let her go? Cole shrugged under his eyes, feeling the heaviness of that gaze, and she was reminded indefinitely of a wolf looking down at her. The effect was unsettling, and so was the rawness in Husher's expression, with which she was so unfamiliar.
Her jaw reminded set, or at least she tried to keep it that way. But her lip was trembling like a little girl's, and she thought that she might cry again.
"Fallen wouldn't be able to handle us all." It was a weak argument, because his proximity had not made her run. If she were being honest, she was so tired of running. Isn't that what she always did? It was as if the fight went out of her after those words, because her shoulder slackened and her body melted--it was defeat for her.
Because she was tired of running. Tired of trying to get away from other people, from Grey, from her past. She said the only thing that there was left to say. "I'm tired, Hush." It was like a plea. She met his eyes, looking for an answer, but as a soldier he would have none. She knew it never got better. It just became bearable.
Cole thought of a thousand horrible things she could say to get him to leave. Arguments, insults, cruelties. She could get him to leave her alone if she really wanted to, but the want had gone out of her. He had become home in a strange way. Hush had. He was her safety, her solace, even if words never said as much. So she did not use words now. Her lip merely continued to tremble, and she took that last haphazard step towards his sad smile, pressing her face into the fabric of his shirt, her body pressed into his, seeking something stable.
The desire to run had gone out of her, and her legs were as weak as fawn's in its absence.
The man watched her carefully, gauging whether or not she might take off – but something changed. There was an expulsion in her that spoke of aching and smelled of exhaustion, and for a timeless minute it was dead quiet.
Her argument was like a soft ripple that moved her forward on the water. I’m tired, Hush. she said quietly, her voice imploring, her eyes doleful. The tremble of her lip hitched the corner of his mouth up, and as she stepped into him his hand came up to the back of her head. A strong arm wrapped around her shoulders to pull her into an embrace. His chin rested atop her crown as his fingers moved slowly in her red hair.
”That’s okay Little Sister,” he rumbled. ”It’s okay. Those two words were weighted, releasing a paragraph of permissions. It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to have family. It’s okay.
Without realizing it Husher had begun to sway, gently rocking in a soothing motion. How long they remained that way he did not know. Her arms remained limp by her sides and she made no noise or movement. After a while, he levered her into his arms.
Cole was small, and light like a doll. She needs to eat more, he thought distantly as he began slowly walking back to camp. If she slept or not he could not tell, nor cared.
