Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » The Outskirts (1x1)

He lounged around on the thick branch of a mighty oak tree, directly overlooking the walls of the nearby town. Guards stood posted at each of the three gates encircling the houses, twice as many at the big gate connecting the town to the main road. His white with red spotted tail swished back and forth lazily. He was glad the creature made no attempts to dominate the vessel and both of them could relax. He was only fifty yards or so from the 'civilized' world, but the foliage hid him well from such a distance.

All sorts of scents tickled his nose, but he was more interested in some of the scraps tossed out into large, collective garbage bins situated right at the outside of the walls. People threw away all sorts of meals that were still good to eat, although it had taken him quite some time to get used to the fact he ate garbage. Unfortunately, humans didn't serve meals on platters to over-sized felines. And while he knew the creature needed to hunt and eat fresh meat, he didn't want to lose his touch with humanity. Scavenging the garbage bins may have seemed like a lowly thing to do, but it was the closest he got to a human meal.

He looked up at the steadily darkening sky and slowly got to all fours, stretching with flexing claws before dropping to the ground in the shadows. Time to investigate tonight's dinner.

Mapache had no such worries about eating from the trash, in fact, one might even go as far as to say, it was her very favorite place to dine! The food was usually more then fine, and with the palette of a small scavenger, it could be said that she rather had an affinity for stale breads, and old leftovers. Besides, people didn't converge and hang out in front of garbage heaps, and they didn't chase her away, or yell at her when they did happen to catch her in the act.

Not that it was much of an issue these days. Since her accident two weeks prior, and the ownership of her very own, disgusting human body, the people of the town had mostly left her to her own devices save the occasional man, who felt the need to tell her to put on more appropriate clothes for a woman. She ignored them, or ran away mostly. What did human's know? She wouldn't have worn anything at all, had the air not been so cold without the cover of her (Greatly missed) fur.

Small of stature, brown of skin, with a coarse mess of black hair and the oddest black eyes, Mapache stood out all on her own, even without the odd clothes, (a man's tunic two times as large as herself) It didn't help that She occasionally dropped to all fours while walking, finding it difficult to break the ingrained habit.

This was how she approached Restaurant A La Dumpster, on all fours, tearing towards what was sure to be a satisfying dinner, she wouldn't notice the other until she was practically on top of the pile. When she did she froze still and stared at him with wide, wild eyes, as if she thought perhaps, that he could not see her if she did not move.

Vhoth was keeping up a very casual pace. He didn't worry about being seen, and so he noticed the woman at the very last moment. He froze as well, returning a fixated gaze in wonder. He was pristine white with a scattering of red flurries all over his coat. Only his ears were a dark grey, and matched the dark tagged collar around his thick neck.

He must have appeared at an imposing height to her, standing only seven inches shorter at the shoulders even though she was at a raised position. His red eyes always held a fierce look, no matter the emotions he felt; they simply didn't transfer through the emotionless beast's features.

Eventually he reclined to his haunches, still stunned. He gave her a gentle, mental prod. "What are you doing?" The voice, if she allowed it in, would be heard inside her head like a thought with a difference voice than her own. His query was filled with wonder, humans in this town generally didn't rummage through garbage bins out here. Although she looked... odd and out of place. He wasn't one to talk however.

Mapache looked at the large feline for a long moment, even after his voice had sounded in her head, as if she was not quite sure how to deal with this situation. She'd never heard a voice like this before.

It was however easier to understand him she supposed, she had a hard time following the chatter of humans, she much preferred animal communication... not that many animals wanted to commune with her anymore, she was too different now.

This one didn't seem to have an issue though. Finally she ducked slightly, hiding slightly, behind what had at one time been a wicker chair.

"Eating, Away Big Kitty!" She said, or rather yelled... followed by a strange gurgling noise, that had been intended as a growl, but was far less threatening coming from the mouth of a human girl.

His ears flattened and he cringed slightly at the yelling. That hadn't been necessary and hurt his sensitive ears. Then his attention perked up again at the attempt to growl, and although he was brimming with a thousand questions about her behavior, he decided to do what the creature would do; eat and ignore.

He moved his massive shape over towards the garbage with nonchalant body language, pretending she didn't exist, and grabbed a leftover cooked ham chunk that hadn't started rotting yet. He let his eyes linger on her for just a few moments before retreating, perhaps ten paces away, and laid down comfortably to slowly eat his meal. In other situations he surely would have wolfed down the meat and grabbed more, but he was hoping to observe her more.

It was almost comical, really, to see such feral behavior in a human all things considered. It just drove the ever so passionate curious mind in him to find out more, but he knew that a strong approach was more likely to chase her off than aid him. "This is good meat," he 'said' out loud, not really addressing her in particular.

After she's told the large feline off, she turned her attention to digging through the piles for food, trouble was, she kept finding odd objects that would distract her from her goal.

Take for example the tarnished silver spoon she now clutched in her hand, for the moment, completely intent on looking her new prize over. Why, it had even distracted her from the very large predator to her side. She turned it this way and that, watching the sun light reflect off it's surface. Eventually she shoved it in the pocket of her tunic, and moved on, but she stopped like this several times. Not always keeping the item, but it would appear she had very little in the way of attention span.

All she'd found was a rotten pear, by the time the Feline had spoken up. Curses to her pathetic human nose, and the loss of her ability to sniff out the good treats.

She looked longingly at his meal, of (finely aged) ham, and wondering how worth trying to steal it would be.

... Of course, it became much more worth it when he seemingly started to taunt her, commenting on how good the meat was. It was all she needed to send her edging slowly towards where he sat, still on all fours, her body tensed and ready to spring away should she need to.

Vhoth actually stopped eating a few times to stare at her now more than strange behavior regarding a spoon and all the other items she came across. Well then... His life was already quite bizarre, but this was the icing on the cake, wasn't it? When he caught himself staring at her, he quickly turned back to his own prize.

Not too long later, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the woman slink closer and closer. He was rather relaxed and held up the appearance of indifference, when suddenly the creature's instincts kicked in. A low growl started to build in his belly, lasting a whole of two seconds before it died abruptly. That had not been his intention, damned beast!

Provided she hadn't been scared off or outright attacked him by that point, he got to his paws and made a wide arch around her to get back to the garbage, leaving the half eaten ham behind. His tail began to swish nervously, nosing through the thrown away food. "What's your name?" Things were already so weird, why not add a little chit-chat? "I'm Vhoth."

As she neared, the large feline let out a warning growl, which made Mapache skitter back several feet, and make a rather ridiculous warning noise of her own, in the form of that same, rather unimpressive and certainly not threatening growl.

He got up and moved away from the food, as he moved to look through the pile once more. When he was a safe distance from it, she darted forward, and dug into her half eaten prize, with animalistic vigor.

Her head darted up, and if she'd had her own ears, they would have been perked, as he spoke within her head once more. She didn't answer for a long moment, but finally she did, not seeing any harm in it.

"Name?.. name.. Mapache" Well, it was the local word for Raccoon, but it was close enough, certainly the closest she had to an actual name.

Using one of his huge paws, he moved some of the trash around until a loaf of stale bread emerged. It was a little soggy on one end and really hard on the other, but he pushed it aside so it purposefully rolled onto the ground. His body couldn't digest wheat products, so it was useless to him, but the woman may find it appealing.

His ears swiveled and perked to the sides. "Mapache? Is that because of how you look?" He hadn't quite noticed her eyes yet, but the 'mask' around them was very visible. He couldn't find anything else to his liking in the garbage, so he left the pile and moved around her. His attention was drawn to the wall, with voices and scents carrying over. Usually they didn't care much for scavengers, but he had to be careful not to be spotted.

He laid down nearby and groomed his paws while she chose to remain silent or answer his question.

Mapache abandoned the ham for the stale bread that Vhoth had rolled down to her rough location. She nosed it like an animal would, even though she had perfectly good hands. Eventually she picked it up and started to brush the dirt off of it, before she took small nibbles.

She looked up when he he asked about her name. She shrugged her shoulders. "Mapache is Mapache, that is why." Well, that must have cleared things up... Truly she had a way with words. "Just like talky kitty is talky kitty." Clear as mud.