STATE OF MY HEAD // o, feral monitor lizard (joining??)

[charrie graveyard]

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Freedom. It was a word Joanna had almost erased from her vocabulary. It had been a long time since she had used that word- or rather, thought of it. For the past 2 years or so of her life, she had been in captivity, only accompanying her master when he needed her for his hunting expeditions. Then, one day, he decided to flee the country, taking Joanna with him on a gigantic, floating monster of some kind. Of course- things didn’t turn out very well after that. The female monitor lizard wasn’t sure what happened. One moment, everything was normal- then the giant metal monster started shaking, a large booming noise coming from deep within it. After that, it was pure chaos, humans running everywhere, shouting and scrambling to escape. Her master was nowhere to be found- so, it seemed Joanna was on her own. The dusty red collar with her silver name tag still hanging around her neck, the monitor lizard had no choice but to follow the humans, who eventually lead her to the upper deck. There, she managed to slip into one of the wooden life boats, hiding under a tarp where the humans couldn’t find her.

When Joanna finally awoke, she was still underneath the tarp, except, they were no longer moving. What happened? Sticking her head out, eyes shut briefly in response to the sudden burst of sunlight, a hiss escaping her jaws. Once she had adjusted to the sunlight and her eyes had focused, Joanna was delighted to find that she was surrounded by sand- and water as well, but she didn’t care about that. As long as it was warm, sandy, and there were no humans here, she was fine with being stuck here- and this place seemed to meet all of those criteria so far. So, without any hesitation, she would ungracefully climb out of the hunk of wood and collapse onto the beach, eyes scanning her surroundings. Now that she was finally alone, there was only one thing left to do. Gazing down at the old collar around her neck, memories of her master flashed in her head, bringing a snarl to the monitor lizard’s muzzle. No- he wasn’t her master anymore. She had no master. Joanna was free. With that, she would use her sharpened claws to rip the collar from her neck, tossing it into the sand before leaping at it once more to rip it apart with her teeth. It took less than a minute for the collar to be completely destroyed, bits of red fabric surrounding Joanna. The only thing still intact was her name tag, which she promptly smushed into the sand.

Yes, she was truly free now.

/wow i didnt expect this to get so long but uhh yeh the last paragraph is the only important part- the rest is backstory
THERE’s a lot of inconsistancies but i’m so tired, i couldn’t be arsed to go back and fix them oof so,,,sorry abt that

[align=center]★ tags ★

[Verdigris]

  As of yet, Papercutter had had few pleasant experiences with reptiles. Daphne's pet mamba was the only one that hadn't attempted to kill him yet, and even then, he was keeping his distance. Regardless of whether or not Valentin was actually poisonous, her fangs could easily puncture an artery, and he didn't want to take a chance with her bite force either.

  As the jackal caught sight of the grounded lifeboat and the lizard tearing furiously at some sort of fabric beside it, he reflected that at the very least, his back leg and right eardrum had recovered. If it came to a fight, he could handle himself for long enough to defeat the lizard, to get away, or to retrieve help. Standing a few yards away, Paper waited for the lizard to finish squishing the tag into the sand, then asked, "Hey, who're you? And what're you doing here?"

[charrie graveyard]

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Had Joanna known there would be competition on this island, perhaps she would have thought twice about intruding on their beach- but to be honest, she probably wouldn't have cared anyway. Really, she was only concerned with three things right now- getting food, water, and making a nest. Everything else came secondary, but if anyone or anything dared to get in her way, she wouldn't hesitate to attack. After all, she didn't know if the creatures here, if any, were friend or foe. From Joanna's own experience, most turned out to be foe, things almost always coming down to a fight- but it was mostly because she had simply followed the orders of her master, who often used her to hunt down smaller animals or retrieve them from traps, bringing them back to him. While he sometimes gave her food as rewards, Joanna mostly followed his orders out of fear, as her master had been a rather... violent individual who didn't hesitate to shoot animals when they didn't do what he wanted them to do. In the end, this was the reason he had ultimately kept her around- because she had been "smart" enough to follow his orders. But now that she was on her own, and her awful master was nowhere to be found, Joanna had ultimately decided that she would never follow orders from anyone ever again- especially not from him.

Head whipping around at the sound of a voice, a growl rose in the goanna's throat, her gaze landing on the form of Papercutter. Yellow orange eyes narrowing, Joanna slowly turned around so that she was facing the jackal, a hiss of warning escaping her jaws. She didn't quite understand all of what he had said, only bits and pieces, but again- she wasn't concerned with what the male was trying to say to her right now. All she cared about was whether he was a threat or not- especially if he tried to get in her way. For a brief moment, her eyes slid to the undergrowth far behind the Typhoon member before they returned to Papercutter, her tail whipping back and forth behind her as she let out another growl, warning him not to come any closer. If he ignored her, she was already in a position to attack, claws curling to dig into the sand as she moved into a defensive stance.

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[Verdigris]

  As the lizard hissed at him, the jackal narrowed his eyes. He wasn't sure exactly what she had meant to say, but he could gather from her lashing tail and curling claws that it was meant to be threatening. She didn't seem to be moving to attack, though, and her stance suggested that she was on the defensive more than the offensive.

  Still, he reflected, he ought to be cautious. Even though she looked more like a regular monitor lizard than a venomous species, he preferred not to go back to the medic's quarters if he could avoid it. The strong got in a lot of fights, but having to get patched up a bunch of times in rapid succession showed a combination of both weakness and stupidity (or just really, really bad luck, and they weren't going to take that as an excuse at this point). "Alright, chill," Paper said in a lower voice, though his muscles were tensed in preparation for a fight should one break out. "If you don't mess with me, I won't mess with you. Deal?"

[ARGUS]

YOU'LL KNOW I WASN'T JOKING WHEN YOU SEE THEM TOO

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Argus was accustomed to feral. She dealt with it on the daily, but in another sense. Spirits who've gone rouge, left without proper burial usually lingered, and most turned feral quite quickly. But it was not her job to judge spirits, it was her job to send them off, to either the afterlife of their beliefes or... Or she could hunt them for herself. She could devour the spirit and indulge in her own feral beast in the quest for power.

But here, on the sand, tides brushing across the sands argus would have to judge. Dull red eyes watched the two converse for a while before she moved to join them. WIngs carrying her a little closer- quicker. "Smart little fucker, arn't you." Argus murmured, watching the other.

There was a fine line between sentience and feral. What separated their little group from the rest was a simple reason. Most animals- most ferals indulged in instinct. Argus herself has toed the line, has allowed herself to become feral only to regret it as soon as she regained her conscious mind.  Here, she could see reason in the other's eyes, could see instinct battleing it as well and she smiled at the other, the large wolf pushing closer, but out of the other's ability to lunge for. "You're safe here, for the most part. You gotta voice? Do you understand us?"

if you find this u are awesome