Curiosity Killed The Owl [Adley]

[Royce Raider]

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[atrb=background,http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i319/sketchedesigns/ROYCETABLEBG.png] The inky black eyes of the barn owl glanced up to the nearly full moon that hung high in the night sky. Royce had been in and around the Fulsi territory for quite some time now, and in that time, the environment had turned cold. He always dreaded the time for winter. Good things almost never came out of the harsh season. But it wasn't like the Fulsi had a choice. The owl's eyes scanned the many streets that lie in ruin below him, unconsciously searching for any creature that may have been running the city. There were some shifters that were nocturnal like Royce himself. Or, at least, Royce tried to be. The daylight was too much pain for him, and the cons outweighed the pros. So he was perfectly fine with having a life only at night. The bird rounded the large skyscrapers toward the center of the city, dipping his wings down to soar more comfortably through the thin winter air. His lower ribs still hurt whenever he rotated his wings in their sockets, due to his previous interaction with that crazy Fallen girl. . . After that, he made a promise to himself that he was never going to help anyone again. Even if he wanted to, he would probably be afraid to do so. Now, anyway. Royce easily drifted through one of the broken windows of the large skyscraper in front of him, floating through the large room he had entered and over the lines of sleeping Fulsi. He'd been making it a habit (not a very good one, he thought) of looking over the members of his Ring at night. It was a gentle, caring gesture, but for Royce (in his own mind) it was something that he never did. Making a circle around the large room once, the barn owl alighted on the sill of the window he'd come in, and chose to observe the shifters, fast asleep, at rest. This room was not as full as some of the other ones that Royce had seen, and there was a lot of empty space within it. The owl hopped down from his perch on the window, onto the hard floor, and waddled over to one of the sleeping shifters, his talons making soft clicking noises the entire way. Royce examined their at-peace facial features, and made a game of trying to guess what their shift was. He'd seen so many different shifters, as his time already spent in the Menagerie was extensive. He absentmindedly guessed a canine, and made his way across the floor. But then, Royce stopped as he saw a hunched figure in the corner. From his view, he guessed that the person was sleeping, but they didn't look very comfortable. The owl hopped over closer, and Royce almost did a back flip in surprise at the Keepers' coat the person was wearing. Startled, he automatically flapped his wings a few times, completely silent. Still, he worried that he would wake one of the Fulsi in the room. Royce quickly unfolded from a barn owl into a tall, lanky, boyish-looking young man to take careful steps toward the Keeper-coat clad figure in the corner. He tried to step as quietly as possible, but his new, bright green tennis-shoes had not been broken in yet. It was quite difficult to move in them. The lanky shifter kneeled beside the sleeping boy, his hair messy and windblown. The kid smelled like a new addition, and he reeked of the Keepers. But why was he in here? Royce's curiosity overthrew any indication of just walking away for his own survival, and the thought of what he might be getting himself into flitted only momentarily through his mind before he was dipping his fingers into the large pocket on the side of the clean white coat. They wrapped around an object, and Royce pulled it out to find it was a small notebook. Naturally, he flipped it daintily open to the first few pages, turning the pages as carefully as possible, trying to create as little sound as he could. His grey eyes went wide when he realized that the pages held information about shifters currently in the Menagerie. And then, he flipped to his own page, somewhere toward the middle of the book. Royce glanced warily back at the sleeping shifter. This kid had to be crazy or something. . .

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[bg=02000e] Legend had only given Adley a mattress. An old, lumpy, bedraggled, God-forsaken mattress. It was missing half its springs and there was a large tear in it, which seemed to have no purpose other than to swallow Adley’s hands while he was sleeping. During the first night some kind-hearted soul had taken pity on him and covered him up with a blanket, and the next morning a young boy who had been sleeping in a cot near the owl shifter had given him a spare pillow. It wasn’t just those two, either; many of the Fulsi children acted as if he was their age and offered to lend him their toys. They were being uncharacteristically generous, which had shocked Adley enough to make him muster up the effort to track down a pen and write some notes in his book. Of course, the fact that he’d cried himself to sleep (quite loudly) his first night had helped the children develop an image of Adley as harmless and helpless. Not that their perception of him was entirely false. Despite the poor accommodations, though, Adley wasn’t finding it hard to sleep soundly through the night. As a new Tenderfoot his jobs were not hard or dangerous, but it was far more physical activity than he was used to. He carried supplies to more experienced Fulsi rebuilding parts of the city that were still ruined from the Carna raid. Often times he’d grudgingly bring food (which looked far better than anything he was served) to the working Omegas and received a dirty look instead of a thanks. Not that Adley should be surprised; he’d spent his whole three days with his nose in the air and was forced to keep the Keeper’s coat on for warmth. He’d unthinkingly made a few controversial comments, too, and was half expecting one of the less restrained Fulsi to slit his throat while he slept. With that fear at a constant level in the back of his head, it was no wonder he had one of the worst frights of his life when he rolled over during the night and opened his eyes to find a dark figure leaning over him. His eyes caught first the dark object in the other man’s hand, then flicked up to his face. The moonlight cast strange shadows, giving the other a frightening air of mystery, which Adley’s imagination twisted into many possible, gruesome features and intents. Fear had stolen his voice, but his body jerked into action. He scrambled off the mattress and pressed himself into the corner, grabbing his blanket and pulling it up over himself as he did so. His heart beat was pulsing in his ears, out of control, and panic made his thoughts run wild. What had the man been holding? Was it some kind of weapon? A knife? Something more serious than that? The panic peaked, then, and for a second all emotion seemed to disappear. He was only aware of a tingling sensation that was sending pricks all the way up his body. His vision blurred out and he could almost feel his form shifting. For that second, he was sure he was shifting. He could feel the excitement and anticipation, floating somewhere around in his body. His body had to be reacting with its last defensive strategy—the shift. Adley could only wait and see what he would become. He hoped it would be something strong, ferocious, fast, maybe a tiger or a crocodile or a rhino, anything to protect him from the man out there. But, as quickly as it had begun, the feeling stopped. He was still human, still cowering under a blanket. His fear returned full-on, along with the frenzied thoughts. Before he could come up with much of a plan, though, a gust of wind from the broken window caught the top of the blanket and pushed it away from Adley’s face. A cloud that had been partially obscuring the moon moved away, and Adley recognized the man’s—no, boy would be a better word—features with a jolt. The boy had three entire pages in Adley’s book, as Adley found him another no-less-than fascinating experiment. Royce had been in the Menagerie for almost as long as Adley had been observing it. Adley knew Royce to be a non-aggressive, fearful boy with an owl shift, but he still felt unexplainable fear. The fight-or-flight instinct was urging him to choose, to pick a way to survive, but as he was in no position to do either he was forced to come up with a different solution. “Royce Raider!”

[/b] Adley cried out in desperation, not quite sure what he was hoping to accomplish, or why he was so afraid of the docile barn owl shifter.

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words; 792
ooc; Is a bit long XD Sorry <3 Also, sorry if those aren’t words that could describe Royce. Just MSN me and I will edit 8D
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[Royce Raider]

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[atrb=background,http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i319/sketchedesigns/ROYCETABLEBG.png] The barn owl shifter sat on his knees with a blank, unreadable expression on his face, staring at the pages of the book he held. He took a hand away from the back of the book to trace the letters of his own name, and over his own picture. Was that really what he looked like? He hadn't seen himself in so long. Hello, me, he thought absentmindedly, I'm you, nice to meet you. He read over the the main points that the pages displayed up top, such as his age, shift, and skills. Everything was exactly correct. The more he looked at the writing, the more he became increasingly wary of the person lying next to him. So he was already very on edge when his sensitive eyes caught the first stirring of the boy on the mattress. Royce froze, his icy grey eyes going wide, dilated pupils fixed on the figure rolling over. He almost winced and recoiled when he could see in the dark the other's dark eyes catch his own figure in their gaze. Royce instantly knew he had been caught. The Fulsi Scout jumped equally as bad as the formerly sleeping Fulsi, both of them scrambling away from each other in the same second. Royce, however, leaped fluidly to his feet, making minimal noise, and pressing the book he held protectively against his chest. The breeze that came through the window by means which Royce had entered stood the hairs on the back of the barn owl shifter's neck on end, and also succeeded in whipping away the blanket that had been covering the scared boy's face. Royce's cloudy eyes met with those of dark brown, and he could swear he saw a new expression come across the other's face. Something along the lines of recognition. It would only pop into Royce's head that it made sense right before the brunette cried out his first and last name. He turned his head sharply to look over his shoulder at one of the other inhabitants in the room as they stirred. When they stopped, Royce looked back to the odd person that he'd found. He crouched down once again so that his eyes were level with the other's. "Shh. You're going to wake the others." he whispered softly, "That would hardly be good. You probably know how they can be." He shifted grey eyes down to the book still in his hands and set it slowly and silently right in front of the other shifter's cowering frame. A barely whispered apology came off of his lips as he sat down, criss-cross style, to observe carefully the other boy's facial features, and to see what he would do. His interest in this particular person had just heightened by tenfold, and he wasn't about to let it go.

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[bg=02000e] He flinched back when Royce knelt down, cracking his head none-too-lightly against the wall as he did so. Thankfully, though, that seemed to knock a bit of sense into him. He shook his head sat up straighter, gathering his blanket and pulling it around his shoulders as he did so. “Shh. You’re going to wake the others.” Adley looked blankly at him as he spoke, then watched the other set his book down. His book. The fear washed out and was replaced with a feeling of indignation; what was this shifter doing with his book? Angrily, he snatched it up and pulled it against his chest. It was an overreaction, he knew, but he had precious few belongings nowadays. He was glad for the anger, though. It washed away the fear, that silly, irrational thing. He frowned at Royce, but turned away and scanned the walls and ceiling around him, looking for a camera. His cheeks reddened; what if they caught his attack on camera? The Keepers might be watching him, right now, laughing. Making fun of him. Maybe they were storing that clip for later use, for the Adley montage. A sour taste filled his mouth as he imagined all the Keepers—his old friends—sitting around the computer screen, playing all his worst moments back and laughing their cold, harsh laughs. He couldn’t find a camera, of course, but he knew that meant nothing. Some of the cameras were small enough to fit on a thumbnail. It was with a darkened expression that he turned back to Royce. It wasn’t Royce’s fault he was in here, but that wouldn’t stop Adley from taking out his frustrations on him. He’d been doing that to everyone lately; it was easy, because he still saw the other shifters as inferiors. He still saw himself as one of the Keepers, one of the elite, one of the men he longed so much to be. The boy opened his mouth to say something, but faltered and glanced around the room. Royce was right. If he got too loud the others would wake, and he had no desire to see what they’d do to him in their annoyed, tired states (well, okay. He wanted to know, just a little bit. Not enough to wake them himself, though). “Come with me,” Adley whispered loudly, then stood up and walked out of the room, taking care to avoid the squeakier boards. He paused outside the entrance and slipped the book back in his pocket. At first it seemed he was going to wait there for the other owl shifter to join him, but he saw the stairs out of the corner of his eyes. He walked over and began to descend them. He hesitated when he reached the next floor, considering, before continuing on. Down and down he went until his legs ached and his breath came out in gasps. Whether or not Royce was following he didn’t know. He was sick of being in the skyscraper. He must’ve gone down forty flights of stairs when he stumbled into the cold night. Adley sat down on the steps of the building and looked up at the fake stars. He was surrounded by an army of looming buildings, all more or less identical. He could lose himself easily lose himself in them, in all the floors and flights and windows and crawlspaces. He could lose anything there. --- words; 570 ooc; lol went a bit emo at the end 8’D

[Royce Raider]

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[atrb=background,http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i319/sketchedesigns/ROYCETABLEBG.png] The lanky boy that was Royce jumped and recoiled impossibly fast when the other snatched up the book that Royce had borrowed (stolen) from him, but he did not run or get up as much as his frightened instincts told him to. He realized that there was more information on himself in that book than he had seen, and he wondered why this person was here and how he had so much information about the shifters in the Menagerie. A Keeper himself wouldn't be in there like this. And that made Royce wonder. The barn owl shifter unconsciously followed Adley's gaze along the walls, wondering what he was looking at the entire time, because even with his enhanced vision, he could see nothing that the other could be looking at. However, when his gaze was turned back to Royce, the Fulsi Scout's eyes widened a bit and he leaned away instinctively. Royce continued to look at Adley in suspicion until a harsh whisper came to his ears. Come with me. At those words, Royce instantly perked up and leaped fluidly to his feet, walking silently after the other shifter, and trotting down the stairs after him. After the first flight of stairs, he paused as he watched the boy in the Keepers' coat descend the others. Standing on the top of the flight in front of him, Royce decided just to jump into the air and take this descent on his set of wings rather than legs. The barn owl flew obediently behind Adley, silently flapping, and sometimes soaring. Every once in a while, the owl would land on one of the steps to rest, but propel himself right back into the air. Eventually, Adley reached the end of the steps. Royce flew gracefully out of the door, this time right next to the peculiar individual that he was following. He ended his flight by circling Adley's head closely after he had sat down, and alighting softly beside him, his sharp talons clicking on the cement of the building's steps. Shifting back to the long, impossibly thin human that he was, Royce sat down and wrapped his arms around his knees, pulling them to his chest. "I think it would only be fair for you to tell me your name. As you obviously already know mine." Royce turned his head to look over at Adley with wide grey eyes, his pupils dilated more now that they were out underneath the blackness of the sky.

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[bg=02000e] The night was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of wind or creaking of old buildings. It seemed that no other creatures, Shifters or otherwise, were awake and outside but the two Fulsi, which suited Adley just fine. He’d always found comfort in being solitary. Others had called him an introvert, but he didn’t mind. No matter how hard he tried, he’d never been one to thrive in large crowds. Talons clacked against the cold concrete, and Adley knew that Royce had landed beside him. He didn’t look over at the other, though; he twisted his hands together, entwining long finger over long finger, and bent over. No longer were the stars appealing to him. Before, when he was younger, he’d marveled that science could do such miraculous things as creating an entire new universe. In the expansive faux-sky were the same constellations one might see in the real thing, almost exactly to scale. He could remember begging his father to let him create his own constellation, just one, but Pele had been dead set against it. Back then he hadn’t understood, but now he did. The Menagerie was designed as a way to test the experiments, not as a kingdom where little boys could play God. Adley still wished he would’ve been able to put in just one star that had no twin in the outside sky; that at least would give him – and anyone else wishing to know – a way of telling fact from fiction, of differentiating the real sky from the Menagerie’s. Now any of the other experiments could look up and think that they were seeing the same stars they’d always known, the same ones that their families and friends were looking at, and that, to Adley, seemed one of the cruelest lies of the place. Royce spoke, and the other boy gave a slight jump. He sat up straight and peeked at Royce, barely concealing his shock. When had he shifted? Though he’d been observing Shifters for some time and had been in the Menagerie for a short while, he’d never had the opportunity to observe the shift with almost no background noise. Without really realizing it, he pulled out his book and his pen and made a note: – Shifts are silent, seem to be neither exothermic nor endothermic He then clicked the pen closed and tucked it back in his pocket, but left his book and thumbed through it to find Royce’s pages yet again. A strip of pictures at the bottom caught and held Adley’s eyes for a moment. They made a short timeline of Royce’s years in the Menagerie, from the time he had entered to almost present day and showed all the changes he’d undergone. Adley closed the book and, for the first time since they’d gotten outside, turned and acknowledged Royce’s presence. The owl shifter’s question had hung in the air for almost five minutes before Adley finally gave answer. “I’m Adley Halifax,” He said. He found himself a bit unnerved by Royce’s clear grey eyes, which reminded him of himself in a way. A bit of the anger and tension he’d been feeling melted away; he had always liked Royce a little more than all the rest of the experiments. He’d always found parallels between the kindly owl shifter and himself. And for some reason, perhaps due to fatigue and the fact that he wasn’t fully awake yet, he was almost glad to be in the position to have a conversation with him. With a Shifter. Adley leaned back against the wall of the skyscraper. To say he was pondering Royce’s words is a cliché thing, but there’s no better expression for it. At length he tapped a finger against the step he was sitting on and spoke, stripping most, but not all of the superior tones from his voice. “You’re correct; I know you are Royce Raider. But who are you, Royce? What is your place in the Menagerie?” In the morning, when he would remember the questions he’d asked the other Shifter, as if they were equals and, heaven forbid, acquaintances, he would come up with excused. He could easily say it had been for psychological research, to find out what really went on inside the minds of Shifters and how near human they could appear to be. But, really, in his tired state he was giving in and finding himself what he’d been yearning for since he’d entered the Menagerie: a friend. --- words; 749 ooc; Sorry about the wait x-x

[Royce Raider]

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[atrb=background,http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i319/sketchedesigns/ROYCETABLEBG.png] Royce was almost startled by the way the other was startled, once again, and flinched back when the dark haired boy jumped and sat up quickly. He seemed shocked, though the barn owl didn't know why. He watched closely as the other Fulsi scribbled something down in the book that Royce had taken from him earlier, and he did everything he could to try to look over and read what it was without getting too uncomfortably close. Before the Fulsi scout could read even three words, the other was flipping through pages again. Royce noticed pictures of himself. And so he leaned back, not wanting to be concerned with the kind of things that were written about him in there. He didn't want to relive anything, after all. I’m Adley Halifax. Royce said this name over and over in his mind, studying Adley's face and trying to memorize it. He had a feeling that he wouldn't want to forget this person like he had many of the other shifters he'd seen or talked to. Sometimes, he didn't want to remember. But this one, he didn't want to forget. The barn owl shifter listened carefully to this boy's words, and he had to think about it for a second, because he had never been asked something that deep, so to speak, before. He wasn't even sure if he had a place. . . So he voiced his thoughts. "I don't think I have a place, to be honest." he started simply, looking down to the cracked pavement that his bright green shoes sat upon. "I've been here for some of the most important stages of my life, and I've never done anything spectacular." It was true. He couldn't even remember what he did in the war between the rings that seemed like forever ago. The only way he knew it had actually happened is from the scars it had left. "I don't know many people, and I don't have any friends. The last person I tried to help ended up cracking my ribs." Royce was starting to realize how sad his life was. It was almost laughable. "The Keepers apparently like me as their lab rat, as they keep injecting me with sense-enhancing. . . things." He reached up and rubbed at his eyes with his wrist for emphasis. "And you?" he asked, turning his gaze back to Adley next to him. "You wear the Keepers' coat, and yet you're in here with me. Just a shifter." Royce knew how the humans felt about shifters and other species of the same nature. He knew how they were below any other animal, especially themselves. So why was Adley appearing as a Keeper, but living as a shifter? "I would like to say that we're just as human as they are, but that's not true. I know it, and so do they. But what they don't realize is that they're no more human than we are. They're monsters to do this, you know." And Royce truly felt that. It was genocide, what they were doing. And people didn't care. Because shifters weren't actually human.

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[bg=02000e] Adley followed Royce’s gaze down to his electric shoes. Even in the dark Adley could see them, like they were made of neon or something. Which of course they weren’t, as true neon was orange. His shoes were funny, though. They seemed out of place on someone so quiet. Adley pulled at a weed poking through a crack in the pavement and smiled to himself; docile Royce and his effervescent shoes. “You’ve stayed alive. That’s an achievement in itself; I’d like to inquire how you’ve done that,”

[/b] There was no sarcasm or falseness present when the Tenderfoot spoke. The other had been in the Menagerie practically since it opened, and yet he was still alive and seemingly whole. If Adley wanted to be able to boast the same thing years later, he’d have to humble himself and accept help and tips. And, tonight, he was in just the mood for that. He perked up at the mention of Royce’s enhanced senses and flipped his book open yet again. “Your abilities and skills? How are those working for you?” He became animated as he transitioned into scientist-mode. No longer was he Adley, the sullen, introvert of a Shifter; he’d become Dr. Adley Halifax, the passionate, nerdy Keeper, who he’d always wanted to be and always would be at heart. “Would you mind describing your empathy, especially? That’s a more difficult one; when an experiment has an ability that acts upon another experiment, the abilities tend to have more complications. Have all the bugs been worked out?”

All the spark went out of his eyes at Royce’s next words. Just a Shifter. He deflated like a balloon, the hand holding the pen sagging down and making a mark on the page. He turned his head away from Royce, away from the reality. Just a Shifter. For a brief moment he felt the panic, the denial, before it faded away quietly. His fingers squeezed tightly around the pen. Just a dirty, rotten Shifter. Adley listened to the rest of Royce’s short monologue. He felt the stirrings of something inside him as the Scout spoke of themselves as less than human and as the Keepers as monsters. He was feeling that closed-up, defensive feeling that came when he felt insulted, but who did he want to defend? And what was he supposed to say in response to Royce?

I’m just a Keeper reject, don’t mind me, Adley tugged on the hem of his jacket and thought darkly. But, no, he couldn’t speak those words yet. It was hard enough explaining things in euphemistic terms to Legend. “I don’t have any friends either,” He responded coolly to an earlier comment of the barn owl shifter’s, trying his best to appear like he’d disregarded the latter conversation entirely.

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words; 463
ooc; Eh, sorry if it gets jumpy XD HAVE BEEN WRITING THIS FOR WEEKS XD
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