Pets [Closed] - Printable Version

Pets [Closed] - Printable Version

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Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 05-03-2017

~A Pooch Poaching AU~

RE: Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 05-03-2017

Bree had faced off against werewolves twice.

Well, twice since the incident. She'd found out, after the fact, Jean had solved her werewolf problem by brutally murdering the alpha in front of half of his pack. She didn't know for sure, but she liked to imagine he'd emphasized it was because of her, or that she was his… turf, or whatever, however werewolves thought about these things. She didn't know. (She did. She did know. She was his property.)

But since then, werewolves had not just avoided her. They'd actively shied away from her. She found it worked better if she wore something of Jean's, like they could smell him on her or something. That was definitely the reason why she'd taken to making sure she did that every single day. That and no other reason.

Sometimes an article of clothing. Sometimes just the ring, around a chain on her neck, left outside her clothes instead of hidden inside. She couldn't quite bring herself to wear it on her finger. It was too grand. It looked like an engagement ring.

Sometimes, very rarely, when she wanted to feel… an adjective she didn't want to think about, she'd wear a pair of shoes he'd given her. They were very inconvenient. She wound up thinking about him with every wretched step.

Honestly. She was aware. She was her own worst enemy.

Today, she'd woken up a human from a very… interesting dream, and she'd wanted to feel very that-adjective-that-didn’t-bear-thinking-about. She was wearing heels, the sort of sharp needles Jean loved best, even though she still struggled to walk long distances in them. Strappy, stupid things, but they had a little lock around the ankle, purely decorative, but... She liked the way it felt against her skin through the thin hose she was wearing. Also, she'd...

She was wearing a dog collar. Around her wrist.

No one would know what it meant but her. Jean would certainly never see her doing this.

Today, werewolves were avoiding her so hard that one walked into a class they both shared, took one look at her, and turned around and walked out. It made her feel… some kind of way.

It was after class. She was walking, quite frankly, through werewolf territory, taking advantage of the unclear source of the repulsion to do some exploring that was normally too risky. She looked like a million dollars, she knew, although her outfit had probably cost significantly less than that. But she couldn't wear heels with her normal wardrobe. No, she was wearing nice black slacks; tailored, at that stupid--she was actually a very nice woman--tailor Jean had insisted on. One of her regular blouses, but over it, a tailored leather blazer that she absolutely adored, not that she'd ever tell Jean that. She supposed she told him by actually wearing it. Even her hat was fancier, one she normally reserved for work or better.

That was when she saw it.

It was a… goddamn hyena, yes, that was what that was. A goddamn hyena, in Valesport. Being menaced by what she could only presume were werewolves, because literally no one else would menace a hyena. It had to be a shifter. Literally had to be. It was a hyena, in Valesport, being razzled.

She didn't even think about it. She was that far into her own headspace, that she just assumed it would work.

“There you are,” she announced, putting every inch of exasperated regality into her voice. She'd learned from the best. “They've yet to invent a lead a hyena can't chew through, I see.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a very fancy, thick leather collar she would never admit to having, let alone to having on her because she has woken up thinking about Jean, and had been thinking about Jean all day, and wanted to be thinking about Jean while he wrapped it around her neck and pulled.

It was person sized. It fit a hyena. She squatted down slightly, kneeling, but without sullying her pants by letting them touch ground. She tied the collar around the hyena’s neck, giving it a firm sort of “play along” look. Then she stood, looking into the faces of the five somewhat dumbfounded werewolves.

“I don't suppose any of you boys have a lead?” she asked, frowning. “Oh well. Come on, then, heel,” she said firmly to the hyena, which must have been sentient since it hadn't mauled her yet. And then began to walk away, heels clicking on the uneven ground like the beat of a snare drum.

RE: Pets [Closed] - skiesofpurple - 05-15-2017

Okay, so, in retrospect? When your lease is up and you're considering moving just to change things up a bit and get a new perspective on life, accepting advice from a cryptic old man selling newspapers featuring articles about all the dirt cheap seriously come move here housing in a random ass city you hadn't even heard of until that day was probably not the best life advice. I mean, if you'd just taken that advice well salted and did some research of your own first before deciding that, naw, this place probably wasn't for you? That'd be okay. Heck, even if you'd decided that a visit wouldn't hurt, just to check things out, and took a weekend trip to explore some apartments for rent before returning home and just renewing your fucking lease like a sensible person who doesn't jump at the slightest impulse to, that'd be fine too.

What you don't do? What you really really don't do in a situation like this is stuff all your essentials in a backpack, store your most prized (and heavy) possessions in a small storage unit, sell off the rest of your possessions and fuck off to some city you'd never heard of to go apartment hunting while virtually rendering yourself homeless. Even if you're a fucking hyena who figures that you'd be able to sleep in some alleyways, anyway, and no one would even be the wiser! Or bother you!

But this is a city you don't know. And when the wet-dog smell that you couldn't seem to escape turns out to not belong to a really uncontrollable stray population, after all, and that werewolves are actually real, well. That's when shit starts to get hairy. Heh. Literally. Hairy. Get it?

Axel giggled hysterically. He got it. The werewolves didn't seem to understand what was so goddamn funny about all of this, but he was borderline cackling, as much as he could in hyena form, which was really pretty impressive. Whatever. They were werewolves, not werehyenas, they probably didn't even get that he was laughing half in preparation for battle and half for amusement at the weird-ass situation he'd found himself in. The werewolves growled in return, probably thinking they were being mocked. Which, to be fair, they were.

This was bad. If they were normal wolves, he'd be fine. Normal wolves were chill as long as you didn't fuck with them and their family. Werewolves? He didn't even know they existed before a couple of guys who'd stumbled across him furry and quadrupedal started hassling him to hand over his backpack. Which, you know, it had been confusing at first? Because why the fuck would you mess with a hyena, for one, and for two, why would you tell an animal to hand over anything? Because they don't understand english? But then the dudes started getting furry, too, and, oh, that's when it clicked.

They knew he wasn't just a hyena.

This realization would have been really fucking cool if it wasn't followed up by there suddenly being five of them and one of him and they had a pack while he had no clan. To be honest, he was still pretty sure he could take them, but it would hurt and it seemed so fucking pointless. Why the hell were they even bothering him to begin with? All he wanted to do was ask about one billion questions but their priority of the night seemed to be robbing the new kid on the block.

What assholes. He could definitely take them. They were nothing like the clan he'd grown up in, they hadn't even stopped spewing out threatening noises to actually attack him yet.

Axel was just gearing himself up for his very first supernatural show-down (holy crap would it be a good story after it was all over and he'd healed up from whatever horrible wounds he'd probably get!!) when the click of heals and a woman's voice dragged his attention away from the werewolves and, more importantly, the werewolves attention away from him.

What. Who was she talking to? Him? Did he know her? No. Did she know him? No way. Axel let her collar him purely from shock, to be honest, even if he probably would have let her collar him any other time, too, because hot damn. His eyes widened in response to the look she gave him, probably making him look more like a lost cub than it should, but he chanced a glance at the werewolves when she addressed them next and, heh, their faces were priceless.

He didn't even think twice about following her. Axel only paused to snatch his backpack from the ground where he'd been standing over it, guarding his possessions from the would-be-were-muggers, and trotted after the mystery woman like a well-trained mutt, tail erect and ears forward. He never could resist a woman in charge, call it his nature. Considering the welcome he'd just gotten at this end of town, he'd probably follow her wherever she damn well led him, too.

RE: Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 05-15-2017

Where she led him, in fact, was Old Town. It was the safest place in Valesport, so long as you were well-behaved and in the clear with Jean. And while she was hardly well-behaved, she was certainly in the clear. She would even go so far as to say, perhaps, that Jean was a bit fond of her. Er, no, that was probably too much. He liked her? Hm. He enjoyed her presence, at times. Yes, that.

And in any case, he'd put her up in an apartment ominously abandoned by a witch. A nice one, in Old Town. Close to his house, and also closer to campus than she'd lived prior. Not that she was taking this dog there, or to Jean's. He collected enough strays on his own without her bringing them to him. And besides, the last time she'd done it, the girl had wound up a pet that Bree was fairly sure Jean liked much more than her.

Not that she could blame him. Bree made a terrible pet. Except for the whole, turning into a literal pet 50% of the time thing.

"Alright," she said with a sigh, only relaxing her posture once they were safely in Old Town and she could be certain they weren't bein followed. "I dunno what you're up to, and honestly I don't really want to, but the werewolves won't follow you here into Old Town, so you should be safe for a bit or whatever." She squatted down next to the hyena to fetch her collar, because it had been expensive and he sure as hell wasn't keeping it. "You're lucky I really hate those wolves," she told him matter-of-factly. She paused, running a hand under his chin, then grimaced, knowing it was rude. "Sorry. I've never actually seen a hyena before. Anyway, if you're involved in a gang-war or something illegal, do me a favor and leave me out of it. I'm pretty sure werewolves are too scared to come after me no matter what I do at this point, I don't wanna keep pushing my luck."

Then she took her collar, straightened herself up, and continued on her way, heading towards her apartment.

RE: Pets [Closed] - skiesofpurple - 07-16-2017

Not gonna lie, Axel was more than a little relieved when the surrounding area began to smell less and less like wet dog and more and more like... a sneeze waiting to happen. There were still plenty of human-like and city smells, but now that he was more aware of other possibilities, he was picking up on something underlying that he hadn't paid attention to in NYC or any of the other cities he'd been to. It wasn't just one new scent, either, but rather the jumbled whiff of something different.

Whatever it was, it was making his mane raise. It was also distracting him from paying as much attention to his "rescuer" as he probably should be. One minute, they were walking along side-by-side, the next, she was standing there while he wandered a few paces ahead like an asshole. Upon realizing said mistake, Axel lowered his head and sheepishly turned towards the mystery woman, head tilted slightly as he started talking at him again like he was an actual person.

Geez. That was going to take some getting used to.

Axel's ears twitched at Mystery Woman, his head tilting to the other side as she talked about the werewolves not coming to this part of town. He let out a short series of yelps that ended with a snort of frustration when he remembered that he couldn't talk in this form. He had! So many questions! It wasn't fair! Because he was pretty sure that even if werewolves existed in this city, the residents as a whole probably wouldn't take kindly to him wandering around naked in the middle of a public area just because he wanted to bombard Mystery Woman with so many questions. So many. Cities were weird like that.

Wait and now she wanted to leave him??? Alone?? He didn't care if she took off the collar and, frankly, he probably leaned into that random petting a little bit, but then she was going to leave him! Without answering any of his questions! And he wasn't even in a gang war!

After a long, pitiful, heartfelt, puppy-eyes accompanied whine from the very depths of his soul, Axel realized that nothing was actually stopping him from following Mystery Woman until she got to a place where he could transform and ask her some very important questions. So, he did. Follow her that it. He didn't even try to be stealthy about it, either, he just trotted right back to her side and kept following her like they'd planned this the entire time.

RE: Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 07-16-2017

Bree paused after a few yards, realizing very quickly that the whiny hyena was following her. How could you miss it? It was a hyena in a city.

She turned around and glared down at it, hands on her hips. "Uh-uh. No way. I see where this is going, buddy. I'm not in the market for a pet hyena. And you smell like trouble, on top of it." Actually, he smelled utterly unlike anything she'd smelled before. She could only assume that was what hyenas smelled like. It was sort of like a dog, but also not at all like a dog. Or a fox. It was its own thing. But that was besides the point.

The hyena just sort of tilted its head and whined, as if it had no idea why she was mad at it all of a sudden. Her frown deepened. "Shoo." He did not. "Goddamnit. Don't follow me!" She spun back around and stormed off.

The hyena, of course, followed her.

All the way back to her apartment, by which point she was quite sour about the whole thing. She stopped outside the back door, which was back away from the street some distance; parking was out to the side, and this back area was sort of like a tiny, tiny little park for people to walk their pets. She glared down at the hyena. "Look. I cannot just bring a hyena into my apartment. It's not like I own the whole building! I am absolutely certain that you are not covered under the pet clause, at all." She squatted down so she was more on level with him, frowning. "Don't you have somewhere to go? Somewhere that isn't here?"

RE: Pets [Closed] - skiesofpurple - 07-16-2017

Axel snorted at the RUDE comment on his smell. He even went so far as to do a full body shake at her and gently bump his shoulder into her leg. Maybe contact would make her warm up to him more quickly, she HAD pet him a little bit. He honestly wouldn't bite if she'd tried it again, he knew his limits and he knew that he was more than a little touch-starved. Being without a clan would do that to a guy.

Once they reached the apartment complex, Axel sat his rump down and tried his best puppy eyes at Mystery Woman. She had to let him stay! At least for a little while! He could narrow himself down to a few questions, he promised! He let out a tiny, pitiful whine that he'd learned from the cute street dogs who straight up hustle people for food. But maybe that wouldn't be enough. Next, he dropped his backpack and, very carefully, grabbed at the strings he'd tied to the zippers to open the thing with his teeth. He nosed the bag open, showing her the clearly human clothing inside and not much else. Maybe, just maybe, she'd at least let him in somewhere he could change without getting a public indecency charge. Even if she didn't let him into the apartment! He just wanted to ask a few questions, honest!

Then, to seal the deal, Axel flopped down onto the ground and rolled over to show his belly. This gesture was universal enough, especially when he did the dog version and not the hyena version. He didn't show her his penis, that is (well, not anymore than it was already on display) since he figured she'd probably find that weird. After two decades navigating human culture, he had learned that there were a number of species-specific social cues that really, really, REALLY did not translate well. That was one of them.

RE: Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 07-16-2017

The hyena stared at her. Then it whined. Then it set down its backpack and unzipped it... which she was honestly sort of impressed by. She knew how hard it was to navigate things like zippers with a mouth meant for biting and eating and not much else.

She pulled it open further, frowning. Human clothes, not a lot else. "...You want to change without having to be nude in public," Bree realized immediately. She was intimately familiar with this desire. "Yeah, alright, that's fair, but I can't just take you into my apartment. If someone sees, how am I going to explain where the fuck I found a hyena? Just because it's Valesport doesn't mean the cops overlook everything that--"

He was rolling over on his back now.

It was adorable.

She was also intimately familiar with this trick, because she had, on rare occasion, employed it. Her mouth formed a long, firm, unimpressed line.

...

With a sigh, she gave in and rubbed the stupid hyena's chest. He--and it was definitely a he--was kind of dusty feeling but warm, with short, slightly rough fur. Probably pretty different from herself. She was all fluff. "If anyone asks, you're a Ghanaian Wolfhound," she said with a scowl, then stood up, shouldering his backpack. She pushed open the door into the building, holding it open so he could shoulder by her. "Let's do this very quickly and very quietly. Come on, I'm up on the third floor."

She ushered the hyena very quickly up the stairs. By some miracle, they didn't pass anyone on the way up, and she practically sprinted down the hall to her apartment. She shoved the key into her lock, flung the door open, and practically shoved the hyena through the door before slamming it shut behind them.

She'd made the apartment hers in the time she'd been there. Most of the furniture was still what had come with the place, because why would she replace it, but there were little tassles on a lot of things that let her pull open drawers and the fridge, and enough little stairs to give the impression she almost certainly owned a small dog or a cat.

"The bathroom's on the right past the kitchen," she instructed, pointing, and then handed his backpack back to him. "I don't think you can close the door, but I won't go in. Don't try to go in my room and please note that I recreationally throw werewolves down stairs and this apartment was given to me by the strongest thing in the entire town." She gave him a sort of condescending pat on the head, but it was mostly because she wanted to while he was still fuzzy. "Off you go then."

RE: Pets [Closed] - skiesofpurple - 07-19-2017

Haha! His fool-proof plan had worked! No one, not even terrifying grumpy ladies who chase away werewolves from hyenas they didn't even know could resist belly rubs! He tried not to look too smug about his success, but in this form everyone always seemed to think he was laughing at them anyway, so he probably didn't have much success on that front.

Axel quickly rolled back onto his feet while letting out a soft, excited "wuff" noise that he had likely learned to mimic from dogs. it could have been in agreement or excitement, it was up to Bree to decide that one. Before she could change her mind, he quickly trotted past her into the building and waited politely for her to lead the way. It wouldn't due for him to run off up the stairs ahead of her for anyone coming down the stairs to find a seemingly loose hyena set loose in the building.

Thankfully, he was able to refrain from any nervous giggling until he was being shoved bodily into an apartment, by which time he was practically vibrating with high-pitched sounds of relief and belated fear of getting caught. Not that he actually thought anything bad could happen to him here? He was just reacting strongly to Mystery Woman's air of urgency.

Once he got control of himself, Axel accepted his backpack with another soft "wuff" noise and made his way into the bathroom, acting as if Mystery Woman patting him on the head like that was a perfectly normal for someone to do to a strange shifter they'd only just met. Once in the bathroom, he didn't even bother closing the door, considering what she'd told him. It wouldn't have even been that weird for him to shift right there in the living room. But they were in a human city and he'd learned to make a habit of human modesty, so he waited until his claws were clicking on the bathroom floor before shifting into his other skin.

In one fluid motion, Axel stretched out his limbs, lifting his arms as high as he could above his head to stretch out his human form. It'd been a while since he'd been a hyena for more than a night or couple hours at a time, he'd been starting to miss having thumbs. Once settled, he studied himself in the mirror. He might have spent a couple nights in an alley as a wild animal, but that sure as hell didn't mean he had to look like it.

....Clothes might help.

With a sigh, he opened up his backpack and pulled out a black, worn cotton band shirt, fitted black jeans, and some boxers. The thought of actually putting on clothes, especially after having fur for a while, made his nose wrinkle in distaste, but with a sigh he got dressed. That was the excuse he'd given Mystery Woman to get her to let him inside. It wasn't like he could just go walking "naked" around her apartment. Oh- oh! Plus! If he was dressed he might be more on her good side and then she might answer some of his questions! Holy crap! He had so many questions!

In his excitement, Axel crashed into the door frame of the bathroom while he tried to exit said bathroom and finish putting on a shirt at the same time, his backpack forgotten on the floor. Somehow, he narrowly avoided straight up faceplanting on the floor through supernatural reflexes alone and managed to actually have all of his clothes on (sans socks, because there was no way in heck heaven or earth he was putting socks on right now) when he burst back into the living room to say in breathless excitement,

"Werewolves are REAL??"

RE: Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 07-21-2017

The hyena managed to wait until they were in the apartment to erupt into a fit of high-pitched... hyena-giggles. Whatever they were called. There was probably a technical term, but Bree, frankly, had no idea what it was. Hmm... She had an old set of mammal encyclopedias around here somewhere, didn't she? She wandered idly over to one of her bookshelves--they were growing in number now that she had her own space--to try to remember where she'd put them.

Her ears flicked back under her hat to listen to the rustling sounds of the hyena-who-was-probably-not-a-hyena-anymore in her bathroom. It was then that it occured to her that she'd let an absolute stranger--a strange MAN, at that--into her apartment based solely on the fact that she understood the plight of not wanting to be nude in public. She ran a hand down her face. She was an idiot. An idiot with like ninety minutes til sunset.

She had just located the encyclopedia she was looking for and pulled it off the shelf when she heard a loud thud. Alarmed, she spun towards the hallway, only to see a young man stumbling out of it. He was only mostly dressed, still yanking a shirt on. Hence the crash, from the way he was stumbling all over the place.

He was dark skinned, far darker than her. She was the darkest in her family by far, but considering her family was Irish, that wasn't saying a whole lot. He was somehow taller than she expected--what was it with tall men lately? though compared to the ones she was used to lately he was basically short--and practically vibrating with excitement.

She crossed her arms across her chest, encyclopedia tucked between them. "You're literally a hyena-man. How are you surprised by werewolves?" As far as she was concerned, he was the more unusual thing by far. "This is Valesport for god's sake. Sometimes I feel like I can't spit without hitting a fucking were-something." Or some sort of shifter, really. They all sort of got lumped in together, to her infinite displeasure.

Bree gave the man a brief up-and-down assessment, as if visibly judging him. Her face was unimpressed. She was actually just getting very sour about a range of tall, attractive men who didn't know when to quit tripping into her life. Every time she thought there couldn't possibly be another one on the horizon, there one was, being razzled by werewolves. She had only herself to blame for this. "You new, then?" she said finally. "I'm hardly the one to be giving the welcome-to-Valesport-home-of-the-very-old-and-very-strange speech. I'm not quite French enough."

RE: Pets [Closed] - skiesofpurple - 08-03-2017

Man, this Mystery Woman acted like seeing a werewolf was totally normal and not for any reason weird or exciting at all. That seemed to imply that that kinda thing was normal around here! And that there were more werewolves and may even more weird stuff LIKE werewolves around here! Damn! He wanted to know about EVERYTHING she'd seen! This was so cool!

"I thought I was the only one!" Axel burst out with a wide grin, actually bouncing on the balls of his feet like an excited child. "I've never seen another shifter before! I didn't even know they existed! What else is out there, can you tell me? Are they all assholes like the werewolves or are there some that're friendly? Can you introduce me?"

Axel finally paused for breath and, at the same time, took the conscious effort to take a step back and restrain himself. Jesus he'd gotten too excited there for a minute. This was how he got kicked out of places, he needed to chill the fuck out and not be such a totally weirdo. ....Even if this was still so totally awesome!

"Sorry." He said with a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I got a little overexcited there. My name's Axel." And here he offered a hand to shake, "What's your's?" It'd probably be an improvement if he could call her something other than 'Mystery Lady' in his head. Although, chances were now that he was in human form she'd kick him out sooner rather than later. She didn't seem to happy to have him here. ...Not that she'd been happy to have him around the entire time he'd known her so far. Oh well. He could go find other shifters himself. It couldn't go badly twice in the same day!

...right.

RE: Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 08-05-2017

Bree's expression--permanently dour and unimpressed--softened somewhat, eyebrows raising in a sort of surprise.

Thought he was the only one.

She was intimately familiar with that sensation, as well. Although, in a sense, she probably was the only thing just like her. But Jean was probably the only thing just like him, and god only knew what Ren was... She'd found people like her, if only for the fact they were like her in the fact that they were so unlike everything else.

With a reluctant sigh, she shook his hand. "Bree. I don't know how it is that oddballs keep drifting to shore in Valesport, despite having no idea how many other oddballs there are here. Some stupid sort of magic, probably." She idly wandered towards her kitchen, a Jean-like instinct to give a visitor something to eat or drink kicking in without her really thinking about it. It's not like she'd ever had visitors, but it's what she'd seen him do.

"There are a lot of different kinds of shifters here, and more elsewhere. I'm not really an expert, though. Most of them operate down towards the docks. I avoid that part of town. Old Town... That's where we are right now, and up towards campus, that's pretty much considered neutral territory. Vampires are downtown, fae are in Brighton. You should avoid both." She pulled out a jug of... fruit, essentially, but with water in it. She was pouring it into a glass as she spoke, when she paused. "...Do you have any food allergies?" she asked, eyes narrowing. She had no idea what hyenas could and could not eat. "This is just watermelon and rosemary."

She poured one for herself, regardless, and one for the hyena--er, Axel--if he didn't protest, pushing it across the counter towards him. "I'm most intimately familiar with werewolves, because we have... history," she said with a sigh. "But I've heard there are whole packs of different kinds... it's just that all the ones I know of are involved in these... crime family things. I'm sure there are others..." She spun her finger around idly in her cup, just breaking the surface, clinking ice against the edges. "I just don't know of them, or how to find them. And you're the first hyena I've ever seen or heard of." She pulled her finger from the glass, pausing to stick it in her mouth and suck the moisture and flavor off, still eyeing the stranger.

"I hope your apartment isn't by the docks, where I found you," she said with a sigh. "You'll run into no end of trouble being a shifter on that side of town."

RE: Pets [Closed] - skiesofpurple - 01-13-2018

Axel eagerly accepted the drink as offered, taking a polite sip before saying happily, "I haven't found any food that can kill me yet!" Just as he hadn't found anything he hadn't been able to chew through, but he kept that thought to himself. He tilted his head to one side and then the other as she started talking about town, the seemingly permanent smile on his face slowly fading as she listed off pretty much every part of town as a no-fly zone. "So..." He paused, nails clicking against the glass in a contemplative gesture, "The docks, downtown, brighton.... Is everywhere dangerous but Old Town?"

He lifted his big, hopeful eyes back towards her, although they strayed momentarily to her mouth as she tasted her own finger. Gosh, she was less intimidating now that they were standing in her kitchen drinking fruit juice, but the memory of her walking right up to him and collaring him flashed through his mind. Which was quickly replaced by yet more sad news, "Oh." He said on a sigh, looking down at his drink again, "I guess it was too much to hope that there'd be other hyenas."

He turned, leaning slouched back against the counter, thinking about what he should do next. He'd come here without much of a plan, all truth be told, just an expired lease and a desire to see a different part of this strange country. He'd never expected that the place he'd end up would have him feeling like he'd woken up from a dream. Now that he had seen werewolves and smelled all these strange, itchy smells, it felt like New York had never been real and this was where he was meant to be, with other shifters and all the other strange, wonderful things she'd said was here!

....but most of them probably wanted him dead. Or, well, at least beaten up. Then maybe dead.

"I don't have an apartment." He finally admitted once he spent enough time feeling sorry for himself. He glanced back over to her with a bashful smile as he admitted, "I sort of hopped on a train... and then a bus. And came out here to see what it was like? Because I read about all the cheap housing in a newspaper article? ... That sounds really stupid when I say it out loud. But, uh, yeah, I don't have anything back there."

Or anywhere.

RE: Pets [Closed] - SolitareLee - 01-14-2018

"Lucky..." she muttered quietly under her breath. For a while there it had felt like she was nothing but made of things she couldn't eat. How her great-grandparents had managed not to kill her with garlic when she was a child was beyond her.

"Yeah, pretty much, although Old Town is only so safe." After all, Jean was here, and he was arguably the most dangerous thing in the city in a few ways. Axel was objectively pretty so he'd be safe from any real danger from Jean, most likely. But death was very much not the worst thing Jean could inflict, as Bree well knew. Her eyes snapped to the collar around her wrist, which she quickly straightened to remove.

"I mean, it's fine once you learn what to look for and what to avoid, but if you're new..." She shrugged. "Downtown is fine during the day, mostly, just don't follow anyone into any alleys and try not to get mugged. They keep it subtle, but not if they get a whiff of supernatural on you. Weres will be able to smell it on you, definitely. Fae can probably see it. Vampires, kinda depends on the vamp." She shoved the tiny collar in the nearest drawer. She should have thrown the stupid thing out ages ago.

"I mean, no hyenas that I know of," she said with a shrug. "Jean might know more? But he also might not, he's kind of a homebody..." she mused to herself. Also, the information would cost, and she neither wanted to do that to this poor asshole or put herself on the line for him. She had much better things to ask Jean for, if she was going to be putting herself through that. "There's a lot of shifters around, but they stick in their own species-groups, mostly, from what I can tell, and a solid like eighty percent of them are involved in gangs and organized crime. It's bad blood." Bad blood that she had spilled on several occasions.

She stopped what she was doing, turning slightly to stare at the man, dumbfounded. "Oh, shit, are you homeless? Here?" Well, she supposed he was better off than the only other homeless person Bree knew. "Well, I guess at least you can turn into a hyena, although you better watch out for the cops if you're gonna be wandering around like that..." She knew from hopping randomly on a bus to come to Valesport with almost no plan. She couldn't throw a lot of stones there. "So, what, like, you weren't homeless, and then you randomly came to a new town to be homeless? On account of cheap housing?" She sat back down onto a stool, leaning onto the counter and staring at him in horrified fascination. "That's all downtown, you know, and like eighty percent of it is lures by vampires. My mom lives in like one of the few non-vampire run apartment buildings downtown, and let me tell you, vacancies do NOT come up often."

RE: Pets [Closed] - skiesofpurple - 01-14-2018

He couldn't help but smile a bit at the thought of imminent danger. It was like something out of a story or a video game! Every area had a different type of challenge for the hero to overcome! Every area required a different set of skills to navigate successfully otherwise you'd fall to the dangerous mechanics of the game! Unless you were so strong you could just overpower everything and go around punching everything that got in your way.

Except this was real life. And he was really in danger from the stuff of fairy tales that he thought didn't exist until today despite technically being one.

...it was still cool. Scary, but cool.

"Let me guess, Old Town is protected by the really strong things and that's why it's considered neutral and mostly safe?" Axel couldn't hold back another grin. He tilted his head to the side, curious about the first person she'd named since she started explaining this whacky place, "Who's Jean? Is he one of the ones who live in Old town, too?"

From the sound of how the different factions had divided up the city, it didn't seem as if he'd actually want to have any part of it. Axel wrinkled his nose and shook his head at the sound of it, a bit disgusted, but not exactly surprised that shit like species-groups had divided something as cool as shapeshifters up into gangs, of all things. "It sounds like even if there are hyenas out there, I wouldn't want to meet them. I've lived with actual hyenas before and if there's a species-only group of shifters out there... I can see that going wrong in so many ways."

Natural instincts were one thing. A group of sentient hyena shifters who'd fallen back on a species-only mindset and allowed human thought to bastardize hyena instinct... was not a game he wanted to play.

"Sounds like I have to learn what all these things smell like." Otherwise he was going to be at a disadvantage for however long he was here. If nearly everything could tell what he was, it was only a matter of time before he got himself into more trouble. An exciting, but potentially painful prospect.

Oops, but it seemed like he'd manage to still surprise her.

"Uuuh, technically?" He couldn't help but smile and wince at the same time. The way she'd said it, well, it sounded like it was a whole lot worse a situation than he'd thought it'd be. When he'd been planning this whole trip in the beginning, it had seemed perfectly reasonable to get to the city first and then look for a place to live, but he was quickly coming to see the, er, reality of the situation. The supernatural one. He'd found himself in.

"My lease was up and I'm between jobs!" He was feeling the strangest need to defend himself, all of a sudden, "So it didn't seem like a bad idea to... sight-see a little? Before finding a new place? I have enough saved up to eat for a little while and, uh..." He couldn't probably put together enough for a downpayment on an apartment. A cheap apartment. Somewhere. He wasn't completely broke! He'd been doing well for himself! He just, uh, left most of his stuff back in a locker at the train station. He didn't think it'd take this long to find someplace safe! Or that he'd be jumped by werewolves! It'd sounded like apartments were easy to find in this city!

...if you want your blood sucked, apparently.

"I guess you don't know of any non-vampire-infested areas that are available?"