to the riptide . joining

[GRIMNYTE]

[align=center][div style=" background-color: transparent; border: 0px solid black; width: 550px; min-height: 10px; font-family:; line-height:110%; text-align: justify; color:; padding: 20px"][size=8pt]The earth around me was short. Clipped. Not unlike the fur around my ankles, splendid cashmere cut short to make way for hooves that did not ache or tire but instead clop'd and clok'd determinedly on harder surfaces. My mouth tasted of isolation - not loneliness - and if I were to speak, an activity I would doubtlessly participate in in a few short moments, such a thing would give off the idea that I was frail and quiet. How little they knew. I was a storm. A fucking tornado. Everything in my wake would eventually get torn up and thrown out in the chaos, and I would come out just the same, as I always had. Always would. This was not my first time interacting in advanced civilizations. The past landed me in too many places to count, before I got up and left when the body count got too high and the big men upstairs grew suspicious.

I was a master at adaptation, putting on different faces and blending into a crowd. I was a nothing. I had no personality albeit a few defining quirks. One could not unmask me and find some repressed version of myself. Nobody had gotten close enough to be able to find this out. If the discovery were to be made, it would surely end in collective misery for both parties. Fear of the unknown on their part, and cruel disappointment in myself on mine.

I waited as was to be expected on the border of this unknown land, feigning hesitance and playing at uncertainty in what was to come. In my mind, if I were another animal, I would be wondering: will they accept me? Am I good enough? But I am not just another animal and I do not care what they thought now. It would change as time passed, for better or for worse. In truth, I did not require their praise, just the approval of someone better than me in hopes for a nicer seat in the hierarchy of this big, wide world. These underlings were to be my accomplices, and I had no illusion that they would be the palatable individuals I had discovered in the last town over. They could be - they most likely would be - indigestible scum scraped from the bottom of the barrel, bright-eyed and bushy tailed in their pursuit of feel good nonsense that came with the belief that everyone had a happy ending. Every time I encountered one of these creatures I had to assault the bile rising in my throat and restrain every fiber of my being from doing something I would regret.

For these people deserved the worst in life, and it brought me immeasurable pleasure to be given a front-row seat in their inevitable depression.

[agathe.]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11px; color;"]Could anyone really fault Agathe for regarding this joiner as prey? Very little did the Ascendants encounter anything that was not feline in nature and, to the hungry snow leopard, this unsuspecting goat struck her as an easy meal. It was by mere chance that she hesitated, cloak catching on a particularly rough stone as she did so. The huff of frustration that tumbled from ebony lips could not be ignored, even as she turned her golden stare onto Little-Horn and expected to see him have gone running- especially after revealing herself so crassly.

Was this goat... sentient then? Or had she simply lost her wit and intelligence in the few hours her stomach had been plagued by hunger? Agathe very quickly stole a suspicious look about her before daring herself forward, trying so desperately to ignore the mouth watering scent of food. "Can you understand me?" The Lunar Lieutenant inquired, a brow rising ever so slightly in what could be read as obvious skepticism. She didn't say anything more though, not when one question would determine whether or not this creature became her next meal.