Come bother my boy...

[wolfborn_were]

Who: Emery Deluca (wolfborn_were) & ANY OF YOU
I'll take you all on!
What: new character meet and greet?
When: any time in November, before or after member event
Where: Lockwood Forest
Warning(s): May include some animal death, since... werewolf. Hunts for his food.
Note: Just the one general open prompt, so no cut. I can add some closed prompts as well -- feel free to hit up my inbox.

You've probably got your reasons to wander around in Lockwood Forest. Making friends with those cute little ghost animals, maybe. Wood-cutting, since this island is pretty low tech compared to home. Foraging for helpful plants or hunting for wild game to supplement your groceries.

But there's something... someone who is making his home in the forest. Did your plans include running across a wolf? Or, worse yet, a werewolf?

Comments

Bother bother bother

[thelatechrisfreeman]

Speaking of cute ghosts... it's probably going to be Rowan who runs across the wolf first. They do wander in the woods on their own when Chris is busy working, because the clinic can get boring if you don't have work to do. And right now, Rowan is the only ghostie bonded with Chris.

So, uh... how do you feel about a possible nap being interrupted by a curious haunted tree stump, Mister Werewolf?

[wolfborn_were]

"Vrrr?" Em the wolf reluctantly opens his eyes. He can feel something looking at him, and it makes the fur on the nape of his neck rise.

He's seen ghosts like this little one -- dark, smoke-like essence swirling around and out of a tree stump, bright red eyes watching. This one seems... only curious about him, so Em goes to close his eyes again.

The being watched feeling doesn't go away, and when Emery opens his eyes again, the tree stump ghost is much closer. Like, almost touching his snout with the wood of its mostly featureless 'face'.

Em jerks back with a yelp of surprise.

[thelatechrisfreeman]

Rowan gives a startled cry of their own, and it sounds like the wail of a lost child. A moment later, the little ghostie is hiding behind a nearby rock and obviously trembling (given the way their stump head is rattling against the rock).

"Phantump?" Rowan ventures, in a small voice.

[wolfborn_were]

....

How is it that Emery keeps getting into these situations where he has to make a doggy fool of himself to calm people down?

The wolf crouches low to the ground, to make himself look smaller, except for his tail, waving like a flag. A surrender flag, maybe. And he 'says' to the Phantump, "Arwoo?"

They didn't try to hurt him, after all. Not like the gang of Sableyes from before or the bigger tree ghost that nearly stepped on him once. And Em doesn't want to hurt the little thing, even if he accidentally scared them.

[thelatechrisfreeman]

It takes a while for Rowan to be brave enough to peer over the rock that is their hiding place. But that sound wasn't angry... and there's no follow up fright, so...

"Phan phan?" Rowan wonders. They float closer, cautiously, and if Emery doesn't move too suddenly, they will reach out a little hand to pat at one of his front paws. "Phan-tump!"

What Rowan is wondering, at the moment, is if Emery will be a friend.

[wolfborn_were]

Emery is down for being a friend, especially since the Phantump hasn't been a little shit like some of the ghosts sharing the forest with him. He rolls over onto his back, still feeling a bit like a silly dog, and wriggles to scratch an itch between his shoulders.

See? No threat here!

[thelatechrisfreeman]

Rowan is happy to realize that Emery is nice, and goes give a hug, lightly bumping Emery's shoulder with one of their branches. It shouldn't hurt, but it is the most solid part of them.

Then Rowan zooms upward, does a loop in the air, and looks back at Emery. Invitation to play-chase? Please?

[wolfborn_were]

Emery leaps to his feet, and gives a short bark before chasing after Rowan. He's pleased that someone here knows how to play a proper game.

It's an odd feeling, when he goes to nudge at Rowan after closing the distance, and his snout passes through the ghost creature's body. It's cold, most reminiscent of breathing air thick with snow flurries, and Emery basically screeches to a halt and sneezes loudly.

[thelatechrisfreeman]

"Rowan? Are you out here?" a faint voice calls out.

For a moment, Rowan looks torn between going toward the voice and checking on their new wolf friend. They opt to stay with Emery, looking at him worriedly and patting him all over his fur, as if trying to find what made him make that funny noise. They haven't put together that it was themself.

Footsteps, coming closer. "Rowan?"

[wolfborn_were]

Better to stay in wolf form or take the were form? The were at least can talk.

After a moment of indecision, Emery shifts into the bipedal hybrid form and sits down on the ground. If Rowan isn't scared by this, he'll give the little creature a reasurring pat on the head.

"If Rowan... is a little tree ghost... he might be over here!" Emery calls out, in the low, growly voice of his current shape.

[thelatechrisfreeman]

Chris hasn't heard that voice before, and they approach with some caution... and stop dead in their tracks (haha) at the sight of the hybrid beast-man.

"Rowan, dear, are you okay?"

"Pha-an phan!" Rowan replies, with smiling eyes looking out at Chris from the tree stump.

The relaxed state of their friend makes Chris relax as well. They address the beast-man, "I've been looking for them. I hope they weren't bothering you too much!"

[wolfborn_were]

"They startled me... but no harm done," Emery replies. When he looks over at Chris, his eyes narrow for a moment, and he slowly rises from his seated position into a crouch... preparing to move.

One step closer. Another step. Another.

[thelatechrisfreeman]

"Um... is something the matter?" Chris asks nervously, as the beast-man approaches.

The Feasting Begins

[tisnotthehouse]

A newcomer stalks the forest, laying traps out of sticky webbing and shallow burrows dug under the leaf litter. Tarantulas hungers, his fleshy parts need fuel, but funds are limited. He does not want to wait another minute to begin his research -- but that kind of study needs tools. And to purchase tools requires brass, so...The fuel must come from elsewhere.

He won't bother the competition if it doesn't bother him. It's a large forest, after all; neither of them can possibly eat all of the prey available. But if the wolf draws close enough that he hears its footsteps through his clawed little feet, his setae set to vibrating...he will look up from his bloody feast, clicking his fangs together in annoyance as he asks --

"Do manners differ so greatly in your home universe? Where I come from, it's considered rude to stare."

[wolfborn_were]

"You're a funny sort of were," Em says. (And that's said like 'where', as in the first half of werewolf.) "Talk like a fancy moon sister... eat like the messiest of wolf-kin... an' yer blue! Never seen the like. An' my mother would hit me 'round the head if I dared take my eyes off somethin' I ain't sure is a threat or not."

It's a different manner of speech than he's used when speaking with others -- with the humans and the mercenary and the vampire, it was most important to establish himself as a thinking, reasoning creature. Same with the shiny doctor, because he was around a bunch of humans. This way of talking is far more relaxed, the way he'd speak with any other shapeshifter, because he can trust those to know appearances aren't everything.

[tisnotthehouse]

Tarantulas raises one of his legs, as if to check that it's still purple. Don't tell him this talking wolf is red-green colorblind? Not even he was that married to veracity when he was upgrading dear old Carnivac.

"You're throwing around a lot of cultural terms that I'm afraid I lack the context for," he points out. "For that matter, how am I to know that you are no threat to me? You're the one who interrupted me in the middle of my meal, after all...And had the audacity to criticize my table manners, tsk tsk..." He chuckles quietly, putting a delicately clawed foot on top of the rabbit carcass he'd been feeding from. "I do hope you don't expect me to share? Real animals might steal and bully each other, but we are of a higher order of life, are we not?"

[wolfborn_were]

"Handy way to test if a were is from my world or not, yes?" Em's laugh in this hybrid form is a breathy thing, more like a dog's whine, but recognizable as an expression of amusement. "The rattlesnake makes its sound when it doesn't want to strike. The wolf growls as a warning of danger. What else would talking to you be?"

Em crouches and drags a single claw in the dirt, drawing a few different loops. Then, on the side closest to the spider-shifter, he draws a slightly wavy line.

He points to each drawing in turn, calling them "river", "train tracks", "lagoon", "good lake", and "bad lake". Lagoon is to the west of the train tracks, the good lake is to the east, and the bad lake is within the loop created by the tracks.

"Deer are mostly here, where they can get to the good lake. Feral hogs are mostly by the lagoon. Animals tend to avoid the bad lake, and I haven't been close either... just climbed a tree to see what had them so spooked."

How's that for acting like a higher order?

{OOC: So I actually just decided that Em has varying levels of green-blindness. Deuteranopia, completely green blind, for when he's in his hybrid or wolf shapes; deuteranomaly, partially green blind, for when he's human-shaped. See here for the differences.}

[tisnotthehouse]

[Thank you for reminding me to look at the setting map <3 And I looked at those charts; Tarantulas is normally a dark purple, at the left end of the purple-to-magenta range on the Normal Vision chart. So to Emery he is indeed blue. Currently a rather nice cobalt, in fact XD]

"...Good point," Tarantulas mutters, reflecting that he has always relied on stealth to avoid trouble -- and when it finds him anyway, he usually reacts with an overwhelming show of fatal force. Some kind of warning system would probably be better, since he'd like to avoid getting into fights or killing anyone here.

The map goes a long way towards soothing his hackles, although he has to transform into his humanoid body to view it properly. His spider body is good for many things, but it's not really built to look down while standing on the ground.

(And it really is a transformation, more a rearrangement of existing parts than a smooth shifting from one type of body to another. If Emery has ever seen First Aid shift from robot mode to vehicle, he might recognize the types of movement involved. Or he might be distracted by the strange sight of a humanoid covered in light, stiff fur, with eight eyes and eight spider legs rising out of their back. It's a little different from his type of were, isn't it?)

"Another mystery," he murmurs, finger tracing the 'bad lake'. It could be as pedestrian as pollution from the train, but wouldn't it be nice to know for sure? Something to put on his growing to do list, maybe. But other needs must take first priority.

"I've never taken down a deer before," he remarks casually. "But my webs should be up to the task...it's just a matter of figuring out which routes they favor through the woods..." And larger meals should mean less time hunting, at least in theory...

[wolfborn_were]

The transformation, while different than Emery's own, does make sense to him. Spider the size of a yearling wolf, and then spider-humanoid hybrid. He asks, "Do you have a third shape? Other than this hybrid form, I can be a true wolf or human-passing. I know we're different but I wonder how different."

He regards that interest in the 'bad lake' with some worry. But he won't speak up on it just yet.

"If you like, you can observe me on the hunt. The next time I go after a deer."

[tisnotthehouse]

Tarantulas titters in amusement. Oh Emery, you have no idea what you just asked.

"No, I'm entirely inhuman," he says easily. "Even this --" His fingertips brush over his human mouth, "-- is a recent modification, a little compromise to avoid frightening my new neighbors. My old face was much more monstrous." He says the word with pride; it was meant to be monstrous, to inspire terror and disgust in anyone who saw it. He'd very much enjoyed scaring the oil out of Prowl and his Wreckers -- until he realized that against all expectation, beloved Ostaros had also fallen into his trap. But how could he have known?

Anyway, Emery shouldn't be too worried. Tarantulas doesn't want to do anything bad with the bad lake, he just wants to know what's wrong with it. Maybe lead poisoning? It sounds like lead poisoning.

"You're being much kinder than I anticipated," he comments casually. "I'd be very pleased to accept your invitation -- and I do apologize for my earlier hostility." It costs him nothing to say a few conciliatory words, after all.

[wolfborn_were]

"Good. I don't trust humans. They can stick to their city and I'll stick to the woods, and we won't have any problems."

Emery shrugs. He doesn't really want to get into his own history before coming to the island. Why would this new person give a damn about Emery being betrayed, nearly cursed into a human shape permanently, and then fleeing from his pack? What he says is:

"Nothing in this forest smells like you, so you're alone. I'm alone, too. Waste of both our time and energy to be fighting. If you're going to be out here when the snows come, you'll understand why it's important to conserve your energy."

[tisnotthehouse]

"I'm trying to save my brass so I can buy tools and a proper lab for my research," Tarantulas says frankly. "So yes, I expect I will be out here, regardless of the discomfort." Real tarantulas rarely range far enough north or south to endure much snow, and even the semi-tropical ones usually hibernate through the winter...but the idea of wasting so much time sleeping makes his carapace itch. He loves his spider body, but science was his first calling.

"Wolves are social predators, are they not? It might be to our mutual benefit to cooperate regularly." Tarantulas could build larger traps for the deer or wild hogs, Emery could chase them into them...it wouldn't be a bad arrangement. "I used to know a wolf-former...actually, hyeh hyeh, I was the one who designed and gave him his wolf body, and in return he and his teammates provided security for my old lab. It was a most satisfying partnership, for both of us I do believe."

[wolfborn_were]

"Brass? Is that their word for money here?" Emery looks only mildly interested. "You have to get a job for that, right?"

"We usually are, yes." Emery figures that 'wolf-former' is a word that's closes to what he is, which is why this other person was brought up. He doesn't know how one could design a body for another person, but clearly they are from very different worlds. "My last partnership didn't work out so well for me. But you're not Hollis, so I'll give you a chance. I hope you're not the sort to play games."

[tisnotthehouse]

"Mm-hm." For comfort's sake, Tarantulas transforms back into his spider-body. It has slightly better resistance to the cold, and this conversation shows every sign of continuing. "I've been working as a junior electrician of sorts...a temporary state of affairs, I dare to hope. In my last life, I was an inventor and scientific researcher. I already have several ideas for improving the town's infrastructure..."

He sighs heavily. He's already been shown much more trust than he expected by the townspeople. It would be silly to expect yet more. But he's so eager to start making things again. Spinning snares and fixing frayed wires isn't enough.

"I once spent centuries spinning a web to trap an old lover, who had betrayed and abandoned me and stole my child from me besides," he says, voice flat from his effort not to betray the lingering depths of his anger and pain. "I wanted to force his repentance, or if not that, then to have my revenge. But those days are behind me now. I'm trying to become a better person now, hyeh...In any case, you have nothing to fear from me so long as you give me no cause to fear you. Does that sound fair?"

[wolfborn_were]

That description of his past actions doesn't quite inspire confidence. But... a stolen child... Emery's never had children of his own, but can still understand the protective instinct that they inspire. In any case, it's not like Emery is looking do do anything close to that.

"Fair enough." Pause, then, "I'm Emery."