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Travel-Sized Lion
Topic Started: Jun 28 2015, 12:55 PM (277 Views)
Blueraven

Naral was a town at the end of things—like many towns were at the ends of things. It was the last place with real roads, real roads—ones with onix and golems running over the dirt every few months. There wasn't a drop of cement or grain of gravel—which was just fine by Ebele. Whyever would someone willingly walk on rocks? It was almost an impediment.

Almost.

She had seen cars before—simply never paid much mind to them. She never had to drive them, only hitch a ride on them—in the back of a truck, on a roof with a dozen others, very rarely in a threadbare and insect-chewed backseat. It always turned into a bouncing, jostled ride no matter what—it really made her wonder at how off in the head humans must be to enjoy that sort of thing.

They also enjoyed nearly naked figures posing in front of things for flashing cameras, if that temporary deal she scored was any indication. Exquisitely proportioned, chiseled ones—just the sort some company or another needed to fill in the gaps for calendars or advertising or whatever unimportant garbage monkeys amused themselves with. Some hustler had walked up to her, chatted her up—and she punched him in the eye, of course, until he said what he actually wanted. Blah blah some studio blah—they wanted her to pose in front of a camera—several cameras? And would pay her up front? Fuck, she was going to ride that for all it was worth.

Twenty bucks for just walking in the studio—more for posturing in front of a bar. Whatever. Extend, flex. Bright lights, exposure—cash in pocket. Shirt optional? Fuck yes. Look at those rippling abs, the scars, the lovely black skin. Arch her back like the lion she was—get a good lens-full, camera—round her shoulders, exquisite. She'd earn a phone at this rate. Pose with a coat rakishly slung over the shoulder. Extend, flex. Display.

It took some four hours—five, maybe? They took their sweet time finishing up, made noises about hiring her. Part-time, of course—a tether, miserable hours, worse pay. Ebele wasn't stupid, listening to their shit. She could read; did they think she was stupid? It'd only be something chaining her to this sun-blasted ground at best. No thank you.

They didn't seem to understand "no" very well. Nothing a few broken doors wouldn't fix. Try to keep her in a cage? Please.

Ebele kicked the nearest door open, slamming it backwards on its own hinges—and strolled nonchalantly out, fiddling with the settings on her newly claimed phone. The people in the back alley skulked away rather than raising a fuss, and the dark skinned woman strolled on nonchalantly, humming something tuneless. She kicked a crumpled up beer can away from her still-bare foot as she went.

She supposed she should try to find some ticket out of this town next. And relatively soon.
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Steel Cerberus
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The Dog in the Machine
(The end of the desert has way more people than I was expecting it to.)

The town was dusty and old, dilapidated and sprawling, but absolutely full of people. There were way more people than the psychic had been expecting, so the world (and his head) was buzzing when he had been looking for quiet. And it was hot, though not the same kind of hot that he remembered from Opaddeka. He'd never traveled into the desert, though, only the coast where the city sat between the desert and the sea. Regardless, the heat didn't bother him.

(I wonder sometimes if I should miss Opaddeka, but I really don't. I wonder if that's normal.) Raziel realized he wondered a lot, but it was preferable to doing other things that started with a w. Like worrying. Waffling. He was sure there was more. Worrying was the big one. Worrying if she was going to be furious when he finally decided to go back home. That he didn't doubt, actually. The degree of furious was what concerned him. (No no, stop that. Let's not descent down that train of thought again. Ugh, I'll be so happy when I finally start feeling normal again,) the psychic thought bitterly to himself, squinting a little in the shade of the awning he was under, in front of some cafe or store or something. At this point, he wasn't even sure what he was doing here. It was too loud for him to think straight and all the people only served to make him more anxious. But then, where to? He'd just been at Central... he supposed he could get his map out and look.

His espurr sat placidly next to him, watching people pass through huge wide eyes. Her ears twitched a little at the sharp sound of a can hitting the pavement, and she hopped to her feet in response. Raziel snapped out of his thoughts and looked down at the tiny pokemon as she trotted over to the can Ebele had kicked to pick it up and look at it curiously.

Raziel had been watching his pokemon, but his eyes roamed to the woman who had kicked the can, which unintentionally left him staring for a few seconds more than he normally would have. (You... oh huh, you must be a morph of some kind. I can't hear a bit of what you're thinking.)

If the luxray-morph happened to look down at the espurr, she would chirp merrily and head over to the nearest garbage can to try and throw the can away.
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Blueraven

"Eh?"

There was a sound by her feet; sounds, really, that hadn't been there before. Unless beer cans could chirp and chitter and squeak now.

There was a small creature sitting at Ebele's feet--an espurr, a ball of fluff with ears. Not really prey, not really a pest. She was mindful enough to step around it, though she stopped soon after anyway.

"You looking at my arms or my tits, boy?"

She'd seen Raziel, too.
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Steel Cerberus
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The little psychic pokemon had to hop up and down a few times to get enough air to pitch the can into the bin she was aiming for, and by the time she turned around, she saw the luxray-morph staring down her trainer.

Raziel froze like a deerling in the headlights, suddenly realizing he'd been staring. He was so used to having warnings and subtle indicators from people that not having them completely threw him off. So the sudden attention not only simply surprised him, but what she actually said made him even more alarmed.

"W-what?" he stammered, not finding his voice again right away. By now his espurr had scampered back over and tugged on his pant leg, squeaking until he looked down and crouched to pick her up. She tried to comfort him by patting his arm where he was holding onto her, and it worked a little. Enough where he was finally able to get out an actual answer.

"I- neither. Sorry," Raz looked at the ground, resisting the urge to shrink down smaller and try to disappear. That didn't work when he was younger, he was fairly certain it wouldn't work now.
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Blueraven

Ebele just seemed to puff up like some displaying bird until he looked away; then she stopped, slightly disappointed and mostly bewildered. Ultimately it didn't deter her, though.

"You sure? They are pretty awesome." Ebele extended one arm and curled and flexed the other in the same direction, the same sort of pose the camera-snappers had asked her to.

The lack of response just made her approach further, leaning on the ramshackle fence that was all that separated the cafe's seating area from the rest of the street, and did little to keep out the dust. The shifter tucked the phone into her pocket, crossed her arms, and said, "Thunder Lord, do they make monkeys any smaller?"
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Steel Cerberus
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Raziel glanced up cautiously as she flexed, and his expression turned thoughtful instead of impressed. (Compared to most people, I guess. I'm so used to Windy that muscles don't really impress me anymore. Though it makes me wonder who has a higher percentage of muscle mass, since Windy is nearly a foot taller than you. I think you might, actually, but not by a lot...) he mused quietly to himself. So distracted her was by his own thoughts, that she leaned over the fence before he realized she was there.

The little psychic jumped away upon realization, ducking down before he realized himself and forced his spine to straighten again. "Ah..." he stopped as the word 'monkey' filtered into realization with the rest of the statement. (Well technically most of the monkey-like species of pokemon are smaller than-that is not what she meant and you know it.)

"I've seen shorter," he admitted, shrugging and finally looking at her. Technically, he hadn't; he'd never actually met Eisen, but based on Steely's perspective, the fox-shifter had been quite a bit shorter. Not that it mattered anymore, because Eisen was dead.

(I'm at least fairly certain now that you're a shifter, at least. Can't imagine anyone else making a comment like that.)
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Blueraven

Was he trying to make himself look like prey? She knew humans tended to have a smaller-than-average sense of self-preservation, but she'd never seen it up close and in person.

"Cubs don't count. Unless you're actually a kitten." He was sort of acting like one too.

There were times Ebele wished she had a tail in this form. It seemed an appropriate moment to have it flicking irritably in the dust. Still, she didn't move from her spot lounging on the fence.

"Not too talkative, are you?"
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Steel Cerberus
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(No, no, she was an adult woman. A shapeshifter, but still an adult. I guess you wouldn't count that, would you? Come to think of it, what do you change into? I'm inclined to think some kind of cat, with that kitten comment. Unless it's some kind of local expression or something...)

Instead of saying anything he was thinking, Raziel instead shrugged a little, "No, I'm not a child."

His espurr was still sitting in his arms, patting him comfortingly whenever he finally spoke. Otherwise, she seemed perfectly happy being as unobtrusive as possible, though Ebele's presence didn't seem to affect the tiny pokemon at all.

The human psychic was trying to study Ebele as subtly as possible, since he was curious but still too nervous to really engage, when she spoke up again. He startled a little. "No," Raziel blurted out immediately, and mentally kicked himself for it. (Yes, just make your defects as obvious as possible why don't you. I should have stayed in the wilderness.)

"I..." (Feel stupid whenever I open my mouth? I'm waiting for my medication to settle in so I can feel normal again? I don't deal well with people?) "Tend to keep to myself, I guess."

His espurr peeped, as if in agreement.
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Blueraven

So. Experiment time.

Ebele leaned over the fence a little more, then a little more--and started wiggling her fingers close to his face whenever he got that strangely distant look in his eyes, to see if he noticed. Sometimes it looked like his mind was sliding somewhere outside of his head between sentences; she wanted to see if it was actually or if she was imagining it.

...or it'd just confuse and/or irritate him, both of which were at least different reactions from trying to blend into the plastic seating.
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Steel Cerberus
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She didn't respond to him right away, which put him right back into wondering what stupid thing he'd done this time. (And this is one of the reasons why I keep to myself. I-)

Ebele didn't get very far in her little experiment; as soon as she wiggled her fingers, he refocused and jumped back a little in reaction. Once he realized she was just waving her hand in front of his face, his shoulders visibly relaxed and he sagged a little.

"Can I help you with something?" Raziel said finally, sounding tired. (I have way too much stress in my life right now.)
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Blueraven

Ebele briefly looked somewhat disappointed--and then snapped her head around to glare back up the street she just wandered out of. She could hear voices there, angry ones.

The people she stole this phone from didn't seem to appreciate that terribly much.

But the kitten was still talking, so it was the least she could do to answer him. How generous of her, right?

"Actually, yeah."

The shifter vaulted over the meager little fence, bent, and scooped the boy off of his feet, out of the chair, and started to waltz away further down the street and away from the commotion behind her.
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Steel Cerberus
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The angry voices were accompanied by angry thoughts; normally Raz wouldn't look up at noise, but this time he looked up and frowned. He didn't have time to make sense of the jumbled web of thoughts before the muscular woman was suddenly reaching down to scoop him up. The psychic didn't even have time to jump in surprise, and didn't fight it once he realized what had happened.

(I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened to me, but nope,) he was still holding onto his espurr, who also looked surprised but wasn't doing anything about it. Raziel shifted; not to escape, but to peer over Ebele's shoulder at the angry folks behind them. He was quiet until he pieced together what was happening. "Really? Really?"

He went back to being a cooperative sack of potatoes. "So am I a hostage here, or what?" Raziel asked dryly, looking at the pokemorph carrying him. Hostage or not, he didn't seem terribly concerned with the whole thing. As far as his 'shit that's happened to me' list, this was pretty low-key.
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Blueraven

"Sort of! You're an accomplice now." Ebele, for her part, seemed entirely undeterred. She zipped around the corner before the people behind her got a very good look at where she'd gone, even though someone started to shout an alarm--and shifted the human upwards until he was sitting on her shoulder.

"Stay right there," she said, voice echoing a bit at the end as her jaws began to change--like everything else. Dim white light began to glow from her body, a radiance that spread like smoldering paper as her posture changed and slumped forwards out of an upright humanoid stance into something that padded on all fours. Her hair lengthened into a mane, a star-tipped tail lashed behind her, and a rather large luxray paced languidly out of the alleyway into the busier street beyond with the human hopefully still on her back. She didn't feel his weight topple off yet.
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Steel Cerberus
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(I've been an accomplice for worse things,) Raziel thought distantly, his mind wandering to days long passed. It seemed like a lifetime ago, before he'd met...

The small man made an alarmed squeak when she shifted him easily to one shoulder, one hand holding onto his espurr and the other trying to keep him stable and not falling off. That was nearly thrown out the window and he had to keep himself from leaping away in alarm when she started to shift under him. "You are a shifter!" he said aloud before he could stop himself. Fortunately, riding on the back of a giant cat wasn't too strange, and he slid over so he was sitting on her back, gripping with his knees.

"Soooo, now what?" he figured if he was going to be an accomplice, he may as well know what the plan was, if any.
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