where innocence is burned || eve

[Wanderer]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 475px; height: 469px; background-image:url(http://i48.tinypic.com/2d9d5ao.jpg)] Eden wished, for once, that she had been born like Hyza, with the ability to roar out her frustrations. But all she could do was groggily flail on the cold, cement floor in anger. It wasn’t too hard for her to realize where she was. Their scents surrounded her in a haze, along with recent and old scents from other captives who fates had been as unlucky as her own. They had drugged her heavily and her body and mind were still reacting horribly from it. She could hardly sit up. What they had done to her was unclear, but she knew no creature left this place the same as they came in. Her first attempt to stand was rather pathetic. It was as if her limbs were made of water, incapable of holding her body weight. When she finally was able to get her body up, she approached the metal bars cautiously. She heard other captives’ moaning, wailing and hissing in what was either in or fear. The hair on her neck stood she growled lowly. She stood that way for what nearly felt like hours, impatiently waiting for the drugs to wear off. Before, the idea of changing into her human form was out of the question. Eden had no idea what horrible things could happen if she were to shift while heavily drugged. So when Eden was clear-headed, she began to pace in circles, mumbling to herself at how she was foolish enough to even allow them to capture her. It wasn’t until she heard a strange sound from the other end of the holding cells did she pause in midstride, head tilted to the side was she listened to human voices. Quickly, she darted towards the metal bars, leaping up on her hind legs to see out. But once her massive paws touched them, pain shot through her body. Eden yowled as loudly as her larynx would able her to. Fur still sticking up, she bared her fangs for a moment before sitting in the center of the holding cell, tail wrapped around her feet as she glared at the door, ears back and eyes dark as she glared at the bars, waiting for her chance to escape.

[Charlie Haynes]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 800px; background-image:url(http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc21/HalcyonHavoc/Shifter/CharlieTable.png)] Another day, another eight hours of monotonous mind-numbing soul crushing boredom. It wasn't that he hated his job, oh no, that was far from the truth. He loved his job. Working at the Menagerie was like working at a really big, really fascinating, and really really dangerous zoo. Most of the time he was doing exciting things inside the dome like snatching up subjects for the doctors or escorting techies on maintenance runs to fix up surveillance equipment. Then there were those days when he was stuck in the Keeper's compound doing subject transfers to and from holding or crowd control outside the dome wall. Damn those protestors. There were the ones who wanted the shifters to be treated like animals, the ones that wanted them to be treated like humans, and then there were the ones who didn't seem to know what they wanted at all – they just liked yelling. Thankfully he didn't have to undergo any of that torture today, but there was still the matter of dealing with a few subjects ready to be dropped back under the dome. Being the lesser of two evils he wasn't about to complain – as it allowed him a chance to pop into the dome and wander around for a bit – but having to suffer the annoyances of groggy and disoriented shifters, retros, and other such creatures wasn't exactly on the top of his to do list. With one successful pickup and drop-off already checked off his work list for the day, Charlie lazily made his way back down to the holding cells for yet another. As he wandered past a few occupied cells en route to his assignment, out came the usual snide remarks, enraged outbursts, pleas for attention, cries for help – he'd heard it all. To the sarcastic quips he was quick to fire back his own clever remarks, a sly smile ever present upon his handsome face. To the cries and the pleas however, heartless as it seemed, he did well to ignore them as protocol dictated. Though he was certainly no model employee there were some rules he managed to remember and obey. Um.. sometimes. The all too familiar sound of some foolish soul trying their luck with the high voltage bars of their cage coaxed a soft snicker from him and he shook his head a little as he strode up to the still sizzling metal, peering in at the newly mutated cat within. He'd already been briefed on the subject – Retromorph, Female, Snow Leopard, recently spliced with Canadian Lynx – and was instructed to take her back into the dome once she'd slept off her sedatives and appeared "well-adjusted" to the new DNA in her system. He really didn't know what that meant, but judging by the expression on her face she seemed quite pissed, well, as far as he could tell anyways. It was a cat after all. Knowing very well communicating with a retro in animal form was a waste of time, Charlie went ahead and just wasted his time anyways. "Hey there snow cat, don't you look neat with your new splice?" His hand moved in a motion for her to stand, his head tilting slightly as he tried to get a better look at her. It was a pretty nice mutation, all things considered. Though he wasn't around for all of them, he'd seen enough nasty looking things come out of the lab when the science Keepers were feeling... splicey. "Well, c'mon, shift. I don't wanna have to dose you just to get you to talk." He made a motion to a tranquilizer gun holstered at his side, which at any moment could either be loaded with powerful sedatives or a shifting stimulant for the more uncooperative subjects. Though it was probably just his ego, he liked to think he had a way with getting subjects to cooperate without having to result to aggression and violence. Charm, as he liked to think, could be just as powerful as hostility when used correctly. At that thought, he offered her a warm smile. "I can't let you out until you shift snow cat. I need you to tell me you're feeling okay." Plus, he needed to make sure there were no funky side effects to the mutation. Better to find these things out now than put her back in the dome and have to recapture her when such problems arose later. Some Keepers would've been content with that, but Charlie knew better. He would no doubt be the one to have to go in and get the freakish misshapen thing if it did happen. No freakin' way was he going to deal with that nonesense.

[Wanderer]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 475px; height: 469px; background-image:url(http://i48.tinypic.com/2d9d5ao.jpg)] Eden wasn’t wrong when her assumption turned out true- the human soon approached her holding cell and began speaking to her, making motions with his hands. While his words made no sense in her feline form, his motions weren’t as complicated to understand. When he motioned for her to stand, she did, cocking her head to the side in feign curiosity. She eyed the guard before her, blue-green eyes narrowed as she eyed him from head to toe. Eden was no innocent child, which was for sure. He was rather handsome, even when she saw him in her retro form. As she mindlessly admired his hair, the man began to speak once again and she became alert, ears perked up as she cocked her head to the other side, causing the tuffs on her ears to wiggle slightly. But when he motioned to the gun, her ears lay flat against her domed head and Eden his loudly, tail flicking back and forth as she backed away from the cage. To better understand what the human was say, Eden leapt at the bars. In midair, Eden shifted into her human form and landed perfectly on her feet, inches away from the bars as he began to speak once again. Her normally tame hair was wild across her face, and her brows were narrowed in a deathly glare. What the gun was used for, Eden didn’t know, but she was no fool. Eden pressed her lips together tightly, and placed her hands behind her back, wishing she had her metal battle claws with her. “What did they do to me?” As calm as her words were, Eden was bubbling with fear and anger. Her heart was pounding and her hands were clammy with sweat. Fear was rarely something Eden felt, and she only felt it once before, when she was merely a year old, when she first was placed within the domed place she now called home. “And when are you going to let me out?” She could feel freedom itching at her back and she began to dance on the balls of her feet, waiting to feel the cool, moist ground of the Analoya territory under her feet. Her nostrils flared as she backed away from the buzzing bars, waiting for the guard to open her cell doors.

[Charlie Haynes]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 800px; background-image:url(http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc21/HalcyonHavoc/Shifter/CharlieTable.png)] Shifting his weight across his feet to stand more comfortably in his annoyingly stiff starched black uniform, Charlie watched as the cat went through her various expressions and mannerisms as he spoke, more than convinced she was just doing that to humor him as it was obvious she had no clue what he was talking about. When he drew her attention to his tranquilizer gun however, that at last seemed to rouse a more animated response. Half expecting her little charge and leap to result in one crispy little cat plastered against the bars, he offered a mildly impressed expression as she shifted mid leap and landed before the bars without incident. All the while his charming little grin did not fade, but as he shamelessly took a moment to allow those soft grey-blue eyes of his to take in the view of her curvaceous feminine form, that little grin shifted into something a little more noticeably devilish. As she spoke, he brought his gaze to meet her own momentarily, noting the mixture of emotions in her eyes. It was no secret she was angry and afraid and, all things considered, she was doing a pretty good job of remaining calm. He'd seen plenty of others take such a drastic experiment far worse than she did. "Think of it as..." There was a brief pause no more than a second or two long as he thought up an appropriate word. "An evolution. You're still you, just, better." His voice was low and calm, but audible enough that she would hear him easily over the din of voices echoing through the cell block. He really didn't know the ins and outs of what the science department did, only that a lot of them enjoyed it for some odd twisted reason he'd never understand. While he didn't necessarily hate shifters, he wasn't about to join the protest rallies to free them either. Charlie preferred to maintain an indifferent standpoint regarding the whole "plight of the shifter race" or whatever those weirdos outside liked to call it. While his job wasn't all that sensational or glamorous, it was exciting, and it certainly paid well. "Well, you tell me snow cat. How do you feel? Did the shift cause you any pain? Are you experiencing any dizziness, disorientation, or nausea? Vision okay?" He recited the procedural questions as best he could, knowing very well he probably forgot one or two. Whatever. He was never very good at sticking to protocol and practice and was far more accustomed to following gut feelings, which had gotten him out of some hairy situations more times than he could remember. As she backpedaled deeper into the cell, he smirked a little. Though this was his first time meeting her it seemed she was no stranger to the holding cells and the key behavior that would hasten getting out - keeping calm, cooperating, and staying back. Good girl. "Charlie." Came his reply to her final question. "And you're Eden, right?" OOC • Sorry this took so long! ♥

[Wanderer]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 475px; height: 469px; background-image:url(http://i48.tinypic.com/2d9d5ao.jpg)] An evolution. She let the words linger in her mind a little bit, cocking her head to left as she took in his words. A better Eden? My, that must be something rather wonderful. Her full, pink lips pulled apart to surprisingly white and straight teeth. “A better me? I can handle that. As long as there are no… after effects,” she mumbled with her eyes narrowed. “Then I don’t see the problem. But I feel fine, although I have a slight aching in the head. But I assure you that will pass. And don’t call me snow cat, or I’ll start calling you Dinner.” She brought her hands out from behind her back and stretched her fingers and curled them, testing them to see if there was any tingling or pain. She tested her other body parts, moving her arms and bare feet to see if anything were out of place or in pain, and she met Charlie’s gaze with a shake of her head. “Yeah I feel okay. But, Charlie-” She began to raise her hand in a gesture, but Eden stopped when he said her name. It was no surprise that they would know her name; it was the shock of hearing for the first time in…years. Eden was briefly dumbfounded, her rising hand slowly dropping to her side. “It has been many years since I have heard my name,” she mumbled with a slight smile. But as quickly as her amazement came, it soon disappeared and her once softened face grew hard. Eden was the girl she once was, who lived in the high altitudes with snow and others of her kind. “It was my name,” she corrected him. “I go by Wanderer now or Wanda as many humans and others like to call me. Pick either one, but not Eden,” she waved her hand in a “no no” fashion and rubbed her bare feet against the ground. As she waited for him to open the doors and escort her home, Eden brought her hands up and looked at the short ragged nails, unable to hold back those memories of her old home. Of the long, cold winters with endless snow against the horizons. She rarely found that kind of beauty within this dome. The mountains here didn’t come close to the magnificent beasts she was used to seeing, the mountains her ancestors once worshiped. Eden arose from her memories and brought her gaze up to Charlie’s. “Well?” she motioned to the bars. “Can I go now? I do have things to do.”

[Charlie Haynes]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 800px; background-image:url(http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc21/HalcyonHavoc/Shifter/CharlieTable.png)] When she expressed her disapproval of the nickname he'd given her, a small chuckle escaped him, thoroughly amused with her hostility. This was the kind of hostility he liked, the idle threats, the sarcasm, and the snark that some subjects liked to give. Though he was more than capable of handling the other more violent kind of hostility, he preferred this, since compared to the violent kind it felt almost friendly when someone didn't lash out at him with tooth and claw. Weird, right? She seemed surprised, or maybe confused, when he used her name, her real name. He was just going with what was in her file and wasn't aware of any change. Then again, it's not like anyone officially records any changes like that anyways. Whatever the subjects called themselves was of no concern to them, them being the people that mattered, not someone like him who simply did the grunt work around the compound. He nodded his acknowledgement of her correction and motioned to a nearby camera, signaling the cellblock overseer to unlock the cell he stood in front of. The bars discharged and slid to the side a few seconds thereafter and he took a half-step back, motioning for her to step forward with a move of his hand. "Oh yeah, you're one of the important ones huh? Leader of the cat retros, right?" He really couldn't imagine what could be so important, but he wasn't really aware of all the goings-on within the dome either. He was only called in when all hell broke loose, and thankfully it had been quite a while since any of that had happened. "Well, whatever's so important will have to wait until I'm one hundred percent sure I can cut you loose. Can't have you trying to shift and turning into a giant furball or something out there." He laughed a little, only afterwards considering something like that actually could happen. "Erm, not that you would. Just saying... Heh." He rubbed his neck a little with a smirk. Once she joined him in the hallway he nudged the cell door shut and motioned her forward, beginning their march out of the cellblock only after she started walking just ahead of him. "So, here's the deal. I take you home, you tell me you're still feeling good, you shift for me one more time and then you're free to do whatever you have to do." He summarized the routine he was sure she'd heard a million times already and then motioned her to stop just before the dome entry checkpoint. The guards ran a couple of scans to make sure she didn't leave with anything she wasn't supposed to and then scanned him for the same reason, clearing them both. Once they were inside he quickly surveyed their surroundings for a moment – Fallenring territory, right on the edge of the Analoya border with the desert – and after deeming it safe motioned for her to take the lead. "After you, snowcat." Said with a charming smile, knowing very well she didn't like that nickname. Well, at least he didn't say Eden. OOC • Sorry it's been forever Sar dearie! D| I hope you'd like to continue ~♥