PYRES OF VARANASI (o)

[Wanderer]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i49.tinypic.com/3515onn.png)] Looking across the entirety of the Nilda territory gave Wanda a sense of hope. She had stopped her trek at the waterfall, too exhausted to continue any further. After taking a quick drink from the river, she turned her head to look the Bellator territory. She had a great view, although she could see the Nilda lands better. But it was there, and they were surrounded. By the Alliance. She had realized, looking out across the distance, that she had done the right thing by accepting Gaunt’s offer. In fact, taking the offer had saved her entire pride. She was still unsure whether the water running through the forest was safe for drinking so most of her pride had meandered over to Nilda territory for drinking. Soon, the blistering heat was unbearable for Wanda. She had begun to shed her winter coat and clumps of white fur had begun to appear around both territories where she had rubbed her body fiercely against the trunk of a tree. Instead of sending balls of fuzz down below, Wanda took a quick dunk in the river, emerging looking like a sickly creature from the deep. She shook the majority of the water from her fur before collapsing underneath one of the many great trees that like the river near the top of the waterfall, her eyes slowly dropping as she lay under the blissful shade. It had been months since she had taken Jet to the desert, and it was a day she could barely forget. But she was afraid to approach him publicly, afraid that her feelings for him were one sided. And that perhaps her pride wouldn’t approve of her choice. Wanda groaned loudly, her tail slamming with a loud thwack from its water weight. She decided a nap was in order.

[Belle]

[atrb=width,500,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][bg=82003D] She was going to do it this time. She knew she would. With her haunches wiggling in anticipation, Belle began jumping over the rocks of the steep hill, her claws scraping over the stone. After she had gotten stuck the last time and hardly gotten very far, the small pup was determined to succeed. It had been months since her last attempt and she had finally reached her full size, though there was hardly much of a difference. Her shoulders were a bit broader and she had grown some, but she was still the same small canine. Panting, her tongue hanging out from the side of her jaws, she scrambled up onto the surface of one of the boulders. She held her tail high as she looked around, trying to plan her next rock to conqure, but something else grabbed her attention. Snapping her head around, her deep brown eyes stared at the grey creature that lapped up the waters that rushed over the side of the waterfall. Ears pressing forward, the pup's curled tail wagged behind her as she shifted from one paw to the next in excitement. She had discovered a new creature! Was it like Percy, too? Did it like to play games? Jumping back faintly, she bowed her front end, pressing her chest against the stony surface of the rock she stood on before stumbling back onto her paws. Hardly wasting a moment, Belle bounded off of the rock she had just managed to climb onto and began fumbling over to this new creature. "Hi, person," she yipped as she came to a scuffling stop hardly a foot away from the feline, her eyes wide with wonder and excitement.

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[Deleted]

When Bastian awoke, he mentally reprimanded himself for being so groggy. For four weeks, every Sunday the Keepers had taken him back into their labs. Or at least he assumed it was Sunday – he didn’t really keep track of the days of the week any more. But the amount of time between each capture remained consistent; seven days, always at sunrise on the seventh day. If they had chosen a more normal time to disrupt his daily activities – say, noon – he may have been more successful in escaping their advances. Considering he was always sleeping when the sun rose, though, Bastian didn’t think he could really do anything about it. No way in hell was he getting up at sunrise just to escape the capture of some silly Keepers, who would catch up with him anyways. As he always did after awaking, the man felt the nail of his left pinkie finger. Still human nail. He heaved a sigh heavier than the situation merited. If they were going to continually capture him and do goodness knows what, couldn’t they at least change his last fingernail into a claw? He quite disliked how it ruined his appearance, disrupting the small brown crescents that grew from his other fingers.


Standing and sighing once again, Bastian gathered his tail in his arms. It wasn’t very nice of them to leave him in the middle of a forest where twigs and leaves caught in the bushy fur. Oh, shit, he was in a forest! He may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he was absolutely sure that Nakoma didn’t have any forests to speak of, or at least not of any significant size. Dropping his shoulders and rolling them backwards in preparation, the anthromorph set his eyes on the nearest true, a spruce of some sort. For once glad of the tough skin on his palms, Bastian took a running start towards the tree, pushing off the ground in a solid jump and grabbing the lowest branches. Using his combined upper-arm strength and the thick skin on his palms, the male climbed higher and higher in the tree, until he was unsure whether or not the branch above him would hold his weight. His mint hued eyes were wide and terrified as he stood up, surveying the unfamiliar lands. Standing up from his crouching position and raising his nose into the air, Bastian took a deep breath. Well damn. Not only had they not fixed his nail, but they had dropped him in another ring’s land. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure it was a ring’s land. The scent wasn’t quite shifter – if he was in the retromorphs’ land, he was screwed. The tribe’s land was all the way across the Menagerie, and there was no way he would be able to cross through whatever ring’s land lay in between here and there without getting ripped to shreds. He was courageous, yes, but he wasn’t stupid.


Surveying the ground through the fronds of the trees, all Bastian could really see was an occasional glimpse of the floor. It just so happened that a silver body happened to pass through one of the gaps in foliage. He crept carefully to the edge of the branch he was on, praying it didn’t snap as he sprang to the next tree over. He continued this dangerous dance, following whatever glimpses of silver he could see. When he didn’t see any more movement, Bastian carefully dropped down a branch, peering through the gap, eyes now curious instead of terrified. Draping his legs over the branch, he let his torso hang down, arms grabbing from the next branch down. Swinging down, he winced as the branches rustled. He heard voices, faintly, from his vantage point, and hoped that it covered up his rustling. He was content to stay up in the tree until he figured what the silver shape, what it was talking to, and whether or not either of them was hostile. Bastian combed his fingers through his ginger curls nervously, waiting to see how the scene below him played out and praying he was not noticed.