THE ELEVENTH HOUR [ ✧ ] LOST/JOINING

[ICARUS]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]/ basically he's stuck in a tree

Perseus is unsure of how he got here. A dry, endless desert grew slowly more humid and lower to the ground, and the young cub had followed the dips of the ground with an aimless curiosity. As the desert bled into canyon walls, rocks tumbling down steep slopes with every less than cautious step he takes, the boy finds himself chasing after the bottom. It doesn't quite register that there could be trouble down there, or that anything could change with this wandering. Really, the whole world seems to fly over the tiger cub's head. Life as he lives it is a simple sort of thing, a cotton-wrapped heart not fully registering things that should worry him. But he's young and there's an entire lifetime ahead of him to spend worrying. For now, there's none of that.

He comes tumbling down the ridge like a trotting horse then a bouncing rock, paws just a little too broad for his body catching on outcroppings and then settling on the canyon's floor. Cream wings spread and beat uselessly in the air for balance in a moment of shock, and warm eyes turn back upwards. He was farther down than he'd expected, but there are lots of green things down here and the humidity is starting to make sense. When he turns around again, away from the slowly sloping wall that he came from, his eyes widen even more. There's an expanse of green stretching out as far as he can see, and the slow roaring of waterfalls settles in. A short, giddy laugh drowns in the noise, and although his paws and sides are sore, it feels kinda perfect.

The tiger's claws dig into wet bark as he climbs, higher and higher up a tree until he settles on a thick branch only halfway up. From here, more branches crowd down on his head, leaves parting cream feathers and pressing into his fur. He ducks his head and crawls along the branch until he can stand a little more, searching out for something new he could go explore. But the longer he crouches there and searches, the more... well. It's a little scary, isn't it? It's a long way down. Fluffy wings extend again, slowly this time, as Perseus crawls to the end of the branch. His stomach presses against the bark, fluttering and clenching with a strange sort of fear. The world is different up here, and maybe — maybe not for the better. He was used to trees, he'd spent most of his life climbing, but the trees here are different. The world feels smaller and more distant, crowded instead of free.

The boy clears his throat, though he can't see anyone close to him. Not like he can see much. "Hey?" he calls out. "Is anyone here?"

[JAILBIRD]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]Well, Cicero was fucking dead, and Jailbird wasn't, somehow, so might as well kick back for a bit, right? Maybe. The dark feline wasn't so sure how he felt about this place, the foliage pressing in on him from all sides, humidity almost suffocating- some people might consider this the ideal vacation location, but he definitely didn't. Too much...life. Too crowded. If he were to vacation somewhere, it'd be cooler, more open without being too open. Mountains, maybe, but he'd been on the road for a while already, and he didn't know how close snow-capped peaks would be to a fucking desert-encapsulated oasis. Then again, who knew, right? This place existed.

So he dealt with it, beat back the urge to jerk every time leaves caught him in the wrong places. Stupid to get jumpy around plants, but he couldn't say he was a fan of anything or anyone touching him. People'd nearly lost a paw for it in the past, reaching out for a brush against the arena's infamous champion on days when he was tired of the ogling, the touching without permission. But they were just plants. Not malicious people drooling for entertainment. Just going about photosynthesis.

Trees could go fuck themselves though. At least these trees, all competing for sunlight, massive and terrible, shitty landing zones, but not everyone got the memo. Jailbird had, sort of- he'd just ignored it, because how else was he going to get down? He couldn't climb walls, and hadn't seen any convenient stairs. Jailbird could forgive a kid, though; that was the only reason he didn't just turn around and leave the tiger to sort himself out. "If I fall on my ass, I'm leaving." Not really, but Jailbird wasn't a tree-climber. Gravity had it out for him.

He squinted up the tree, and could just barely make out the kid through the leaves. Backing up for the second time today, Jailbird catapulted himself at the trunk, claws leaving thick gashes in the bark as he scrambled up to a branch. From there, he went jumping, praying he didn't crack the boughs with his weight. He really didn't want to risk it, so he didn't say anything, snatching the kid by his scruff and sprinting down the trunk, leaping down from it as soon as he could land without breaking anything.

Jailbird set the kid down, huffing, a burn in his shoulders and haunches. "Had to find one of the taller trees, didn't you?" He wasn't going to mention the wings. He figured if the kid could use them, he would've. Hopefully.
[align=right][i]INFORMATION

[arcy]

[glow=#000,1,400]UNDERNEATH THIS BLACK, BLACK SKY — ｡+ﾟ.[/glow]

Eddie .. didn't like heights. This was an understatement -- the bone-chilling terror whenever he was on the walls, knowing that he could fall. This was, of course, rather inconvenient for a raccoon, and was also something Venom frequently ribbed him about. His species was practically born for climbing, and Eddie steadfast refused to. This could be traced back to his younger days, of course. In a similar place as Perseus, even, except nobody had come to collect him from the trees. So, it hadn't ended well anytime.
.. Seeing somebody else stuck in a tree was, though, a rather jarring experience. It was a kid. A winged kid. They couldn't get down themselves? Maybe they couldn't. Eddie could relate. Maybe a little too well, judging by how his heart was thudding as he stares up at the tiger cub. WE COULD GO GET IT, Venom suggests. Eddie doesn't reply, just staring up at the tree somewhat blankly.
In the end, a decision doesn't have to be made, as Jailbird launches himself into the tree. This is a very good thing, in Eddie's opinion. He doesn't have to let Venom take over(eddie was much too small to fetch a tiger cub himself), and the cub was down. The ragged-looking raccon skirts around the smilodon to peer at the cub.
".. You aren't hurt, are you?" Eddie asks. He imagines the kid fell onto the branch, since climbing that high would be .. a little too much for a kid to manage. They must've fallen. Like the smilodon there did. And that wasn't exactly the safest activity. "And where are your parents?" The raccoon's nose scrunches. He couldn't fathom the idea of this kid just .. on his own. Except that he kind of could, which sucked. So he'd ask, just to be sure that the kid wasn't .. abandoned, or something. .. Hopefully they weren't.

[sephiroth]

SEPHIROTH

MALE — ROSEBLOODS — PHARAOH — HOVER FOR TAGS

[div style="background-color: #292727; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; overflow: auto; width: 500px; height: 340px; padding: 10px;"]Well.  Sephiroth hadn't exactly seen this in recent memory.  A tiger in a tree wasn't exactly something one saw everyday.  The Pharaoh would approach the scene with a tilted skull, staring at the mildly comedic scene in front of him.  His eyes betrayed his amusement as he walked foreword, looking at Perseus and his groupmates that helped the feline down.  A rumble echoed in his chest, something edging close to a chuckle.  The muscular lion would study the scene and then the object of attention, flicking his silver tipped tail thoughtfully as the tip curled into a semi circle behind him.

"Do you have somewhere to go even?" Sephiroth would rumble deeply, adding onto Eddie's inquiry about parents.  He did have a soft spot for young children unable to fend for themselves.  If Perseus had nowhere to go Sephiroth would welcome them into the group gladly, his protectiveness befitting a father not wanting to see the cub hurt or lonesome.

#psychosocial.

[ICARUS]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]The world Perseus had grown up in had always felt perfectly Perseus-sized. He slept in a neat bed that hugged him with just enough space left over, the trees were only decently tall, and he only sorta had to tilt his head to look up at people. With one quick tumble down a canyon slope, that had all changed. Had he paid more attention to his surroundings, he would have noted the way the trees towered over his head and how small his paws seemed on the ground. It was a strange thing, for even the ground to feel bigger when it should technically say the same. But the lesson here was that suddenly, out of the blue, the world was so, so much bigger than it should be. At the appearance of Jailbird below him (though he was not as far below as Perseus would have thought he should be), the tiger cub's heart speeds up a little bit and he tries to shrink back until one hind paw slips a bit. Then there are teeth in his neck.

The contact isn't too rough, and thick, blunt teeth slide over either side of his scruff instead of in it. His wings flare as he squirms, smacking back against the side of the stranger's neck until he's set down. He immediately flips around to stare at the claw marks scored into the bark, then up at the smilodon himself. His head cranes almost to the point that the boy tips over, though he steadies himself at the last moment and rocks back to all four paws. "I would've gotten down!" he protests shrilly, though the pitch is more due to indignation than panic. He's not sure why he needs to defend himself against what was at most a dry remark, but... he's, yeah.

He settles quickly enough near Jailbird's paws, and the next person he sees is not quite so massive. Still, the questions he asks manage to press a bruise that the other large cat hadn't. "I'm fine!" The happy chirp gives away to an intense sort of frown, paws kneading into the dirt. His parents. "They're —" Nowhere. He doesn't know. Though the child turns around to stare at the cliff face he'd stumbled down, there's predictably nothing there. Unsettled and a little bothered, he shrugs at Eddie and frowns. "It doesn't matter, okay?" His throat is tight and his wings keep fluttering anxiously, though his worries once again don't quite make it to the front of his mind. It doesn't matter. Another question manages to push it further from his mind, warm brown eyes on the lion that isn't quite as massive in comparison as Jailbird. He hesitates still, but this question isn't quite as offensive. "I don't think so," he answers slowly, brow furrowed as he looks to the ground.

[Grey]

[div style="margin: 0 auto; border-width:0; width: 70%; text-align: justify; line-height: 1.5; font-family: arial; font-size: 9pt;"]There were very few things Perry would do on impulse. He was normally a careful planner, one who planned his next moves before even making his first one. He didn't work well under time restraints and he knew that spontaneous decisions often meant he would do things he would come to regret. Usually when he found himself in unknown places, stuck and without a way out, it was either because something unsuspected happened or because he had been kidnapped or mugged. Otherwise, he couldn't think of any other time he rushed himself to make a decision. At the same time, he was also realistic. He would never climb a tree because he knew that he has never been fussed with the idea of being arboreal. He liked the ground as it was, akin to different types of soils and textures. To sink his own claws into bark and heave himself upwards seemed like wasted efforts because sooner or later, the male would come down, most likely having gotten very little from the experience. He was an adult too. At almost two years old, he thought it to be rather embarrassing if he decided to try and climb one now. It was during Perry's younger years that the coyote enjoyed the idea of trying out new things, but even then he had been a little shy of the idea of failure.

Seeing others squabble around a tree, talking with their heads facing upwards into the trees, was a rather funny sight. He found himself almost giggling if it weren't for the fact that he still felt tense around them. Questions. They were asking so many questions. But he doubts whoever they were talking to had a difficulty speaking to others, eyes cast around to see a child brought to the ground, wings fluttering in a sort of struggle. His paws fidget at the mossy ground, standing atop the large roots of a tree. He observes the tiger cub in a silent manner, noting that not only was the child alone but also uninjured. It was an awful way to go about thinking but Perry thought it was strange for the youth to be unharmed when he seemed to be fending for himself. Maybe it was a decision the boy took on his own. The coyote, after all, left his parents as soon as he knew how to hunt. It wasn't because he hated them but because he longed to be his own individual, to work independently rather than be held back by the different views of his parents. He simply could not share a world with them. That was the reality they both came to a mutual understanding of.

The coyote frowns a little at the child's dismissal of the question regarding his parents. If he was looking for them, wanting to find them, he might have asked if they had seen some figures walking about. Or maybe, just maybe, he might have asked for directions. Then again, he doesn't know if the child feels his own pride hurt from having so many adults staring back at him, wondering if he was alright. Perry too would have dismissed all those questions to fend off so much attention, not wishing to engage in such conversations. He might also just be overanalysing. "Y-You could-could just s-s-stay h-here with us u-until one o-of u-us finds them," he offers, wincing at little at his butchered words. Funnily enough, he looked more afraid of being here than the kid. It should have been the tiger cub who was panicking. Well, to be fair, the coyote wasn't afraid himself. It was his meek appearance and voice that made him look like that. "I-I'm-I'm Perry."