THAT IS WHAT THEY ALL SAY — JOINING

[guts]

[glow=#000,1,400]YOU PUT UP YOUR DEFENSES WHEN YOU LEAVE, YOU LEAVE BECAUSE YOU'RE CERTAIN — ｡+ﾟ.[/glow]

The ground shifts and reels. A buzzing closes in in the back of her mind, ears ringing with the ache that runs through her body, though it's mostly from exhaustion. Her paws are stinging, pads blistered and bleeding and she needs to rest. But she was never one to listen to her own advice--much less that of others--and instead trudges on, heavy breaths entering her nose and then leaving her lungs. The scent is heavy now and she can't stop just yet.

Finally. Finally, she stops, steps paused at the border. Her fur is stained, a large gash in her side leaking blood of iron, glowing a bright yellow hue and sticking to her pelt. It stings, the pain seeming to wash over her body. But she barely moves a muscle, face poised. She has been through worse.

Talons, sharp and impatient, tap against the ground in wait. Her eyes, pupil-less yet sharp, study her surroundings warily, tensed as if she was waiting for an attack or ambush that would, hopefully, never come. She wasn't sure who she would meet here, nor was she too eager, but nevertheless she was standing there now and it would be of no use to turn back. She would only be met with hostility, fists and rocks.

So she waits and listens, ears perked forward. Her wings fold at her sides, dripping with the same consistency as the halo that somehow hung above her head. No, she was not looking forward to this, but there was little else for her to do.

[arcy]

[div style="margin: 0 auto; width: 65%; font-family: timesnewroman; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"]/mobile!!!
Jim wasn't particularly fond of trudging through the mud. He'd learned to avoid the traps and the alligators, but the mus was always there, slick along his paws. And, rude. .. But he was pretty much obligated to patrol the borders for newcomers, now that he was a Chaser. His searches weren't always fruitful.
... but this one was. The scent of iron and a strangeris noticable juat under the stench of the swamp he's slowly learning to ignore. .. It seems he had some luck, then. The wolfdog picks his way through the awamp, a bounce in his step.
The gal on the border isn't any stanger than the ones he's met during his stay, despite the dripping fluid. .. in fact, she's kind of pretty, in a weird, dog way, even though she easily dwarfs his large size by .. quite a lot. The kind of girl he'd take for a fling if he weren't a fucking dog.
"Hey, you okay?" He worries. He doesn't ecen note the shade of blood -- Spock's had been green, and he'd seen a lot of that. She doesn't seem on the verge of death or anything though, just impatient, so Jim withdraws and continues, ".. Right. I'm Jim. What're you doing here?" even if she was some eight feet, he doubted anybody would come to this place without intentions. I mean, it was pretty awful, territory-wise.

[glow=black,2,300]— ✰ —[/glow]

[guts]

[glow=#000,1,400]YOU PUT UP YOUR DEFENSES WHEN YOU LEAVE, YOU LEAVE BECAUSE YOU'RE CERTAIN — ｡+ﾟ.[/glow]

She wasn't quite used to being around others of her kind. At least, other animals, anyways. As far as she knew, there were none like her, the closest to her appearance being her parents. So, when someone finally approaches, she finds herself quickly on guard, eyes darting him up and down. He didn't seem to be much of a threat, and even if he didn't have such a neutral disposition, she knew he wouldn't be difficult to get rid of. She found herself towering over many other creatures.

She notes his concern, a figurative brow rising. She's intrigued, though still uncertain. It was unusual to her to be fretted over in such a manner. She stares at him quietly for a moment, registering his words, then assessing how to respond. She wasn't going into detail, of course--just something to get her in.

"Hello. It's a pleasure, Jim." she begins smoothly, only now noticing the dry state of her throat. "I've heard of a group that lives in these parts, correct? I was hoping to join, if you would have me." she keeps it curt and polite. She was left hoping that they would allow her, as she hadn't really come up with any back-up plan.

[beck.]

    A coppery tang in the air wasn't unfamiliar to the boy exposed to gore nearly every day, be it spilled from his own tar-filled veins, prey, or occasionally his peers. Blood meant injury and with his volunteering to step up as a medic, injury no longer meant oppurtunity, but rather, a plea. Nostrils flaring as he tipped his head towards the lazy wind, Beck pinpointed the source drifting from the direction of the border, not too far from his usual route of checking traps. His jaws clenched tighter onto the measly rabbit collected from a snare, hesitating to abandon the possible meal for someone else before relinquishing it to approach the bleeding creature instead.

    Creeping through the marsh reeds, his ears twitching at the snippets of conversation between Jim's familiar voice and a unrecognized female. The scrawny feline stumbled from the undergrowth, eyes scanning her face before locking onto the obvious gash along her side. Momentarily forgetting her question that hung in the air, Beck straightened from his slouch, tearing his blurred gaze away from her wound to rasp, "I co-ould clean that for ya, ya know. And, and maybe stitch it, too." Although blood shrouded his view of the gash's edges, it seemed ragged and deep enough -- "How'd ya get it?" he asked, already beginning to reach inside his apparition to retrieve a washcloth he preemptively stored. Was he doing everything right? Murky fragments of past medics served as his instructions alongside the encyclopedia diagrams he memorized until the early hours of the morning, but he had hardly any clue how to behave. Sympathy wasn't exactly his forte, to phrase it gently.

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[arcy]

[div style="margin: 0 auto; width: 65%; font-family: timesnewroman; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"]Oh thank god, now that Beck was here, he didn't have to worry about the newcomer's injury. Jim may be the type of person to fret and worry about people, but he wasn't a healer by any shot. He just ... passed people off to Bones. And Beck now, apparently. The wolfdog shuffles back, content to let Beck handle that part of the whole thing while Jim himself deals with the joining process.
"Yeah. You too. This is Tanglewood, by the way, and yeah, you're welcome to join!" He almost does a dramatic flourish with his paws but ultimately thinks better of it. His balance is too ... off, to even consider it. Ugh. He misses his dramatics. He'd pout, except he doesn't have the facial structure for it. "Youu'lll .... have to tell us what to call you, though." It's probably not a requirement, but like hell is Jim just gonna let somebody slip by when he doesn't even know their name. The joining process was loose enough as it was.

[glow=black,2,300]— ✰ —[/glow]

[guts]

[glow=#000,1,400]YOU PUT UP YOUR DEFENSES WHEN YOU LEAVE, YOU LEAVE BECAUSE YOU'RE CERTAIN — ｡+ﾟ.[/glow]

She turns at the new face, eyes narrowing as she watches him closely, her attention quickly grasped at the mention of helping with her wound. It was an offer she was cautious about, but would be a fool to decline. They had no reason to help her, and even so, she lifted her wing to expose the gash in her skin.

"Thank you. I'm grateful for your help.

She herself didn't know much about healing, despite her age. She knew a few basics, but the topic didn't interest her much, and so she never bothered. She's caught off guard, though, when he asks how she came up wounded, finding herself at a slight loss. She didn't quite feel like telling them that she had been chased out of a human village just moments before, not wanting them to ask any further questions. Instead she settled for something much less suspicious.

"I just ran into an unseemly creature is all. He wasn't much trouble, but he still left me with this nasty wound." it was an easy excuse. Then, at Jim's asking for her name, she looks back over to him, eyes staring through him as she racks her mind. What should she go by here?

"I go by many names, but you may call me Feverdream." her response is kept curt, her attention returning to Becky. The female didn't want to miss any funny business should he try to pull it.