Friendly Competition? [Dragonfly/Lukasse/Open]

[Twilight]

[meixiaotian]

Kota had left to go to the Orchard, leaving Dragonfly and Lukasse to wander the River Garden until he returned. They were staying in the same area so Kota could find them when he returned, but they otherwise had no specific plan or destination. Of course, they hadn't for a long time, and they'd only recently decided to move on to land unknown. The prospect of exploration was more than enough to keep Dragonfly in a good and excited mood. Then again, she was rarely upset, so it wasn't too much of a change.

The coppery reptile wandered along the land with no true purpose. She was enjoying the lovely afternoon with a belly full with plants and a fish. She absentmindedly wondered how long the reeds would survive out of water. Would they become gross and weak, or remain strong though dead, like a branch? Why this mattered, she didn't know. It wasn't like she planned on taking a reed with her to remember the River when they left.

As she walked aimlessly, she came across another reptile, one she didn't know. This other reptile was cleaning herself with her tongue. Dragonfly had personally never considered licking herself to remain clean. Canines and felines did it, she knew, but it wasn't something that she did. Maybe it was because scales didn't grab dirt as much as fur. They didn't hold onto water after a bath, so she'd always taken a short swim to clean. The other reptile was obviously strong, with impressive muscles all around her cream and gold body. She was wet, her feathers clumped together. Cleaning herself with her tongue suddenly made more sense. Swimming wouldn't dry her off, after at all. Basking in the sun would, but maybe she didn't like being wet.

Dragonfly walked up to the stranger. She'd never seen her before, so she had probably come from the Orchard recently. "Hello, I'm Dragonfly. Who are you?"

[Twilight]

Kuno had her head tucked under one outstretched, feathered arm when the first sounds of something approaching reached her ears, however there wasn't any creature large enough to badly hard her in these forests, as far as she knew. The gold and cream reptile just focused on getting her feathers dry and getting stray bits of dirt and leaves off her wet scales, until she heard the greeting from the other reptile. Kuno turned her head quickly to look at the coppery colored female and made a soft curious noise, her long top teeth making her expression more snarly then she intended. She rose to her feet and gave a small nod of greeting, "Good evening, Dragonfly," she said and walked a bit closer, taking in the other female's scent. Dragonfly appeared well muscled, though Kuno was tempted to tap on her tan scales to see if they were really tan glass. It was glossy and pretty but in her experience, such things were fragile. Like the rainbow colored shells that occasionally washed into the river from the seas beyond. She had tried to pick one up and it cracked to pieces in her claws.

"My name is Kuno," she said evenly and then moved back a few paces, looking around at the surrounding trees and tall grass. "Are you here all alone? You smell like you are part of a group," she noted, smelling the lingering scent of other individuals on Dragonfly's feathers and scales. Then her stomach made a low rumble and the reptile hissed softly at her own traitorous belly, her drying feathers ruffling and standing up from the indignity of the sound. "Crow feathers," she spat bitterly, like it was a curse, which it was to her since whenever she caught a crow to eat, she would be either plucking feathers from the carcass for hours, or she would be coughing them up or picking them from their teeth for hours later.

[meixiaotian]

The other reptile observed Dragonfly for a moment before giving her name, Kuno. Somehow she had smelled others on Dragonfly, which she hadn't heard of before. Well, she knew canines and felines had good noses, reptiles had okay ones too, but she hadn't smelled anyone before. Kuno must have had a good nose, the same way Dragonfly had a poor one. Her remark reminded the tan reptile that she hadn't seen any other groups of travelers before. It was a natural concept, so she never really wondered how common groups were. Kuno probably wasn't with any others, but she didn't really know.

"I've lived here for a while with my friends Kota and Lukasse. Are you here with anyone?"

Kuno's stomach suddenly rumbled, a noise Dragonfly hadn't heard much. She still knew what it meant, the other reptile was hungry and had been so for a while. It seemed like something a newborn would experience, but something about this reptile didn't seem young and inexperienced. Perhaps she was just unlucky in getting a meal that day. Maybe she had gone into the river to go to a good fishing spot, or had fallen in chasing something smaller.

The best thing to do in response would be an offer to hunt with her. Something told her Kuno wouldn't react happily to the idea that she couldn't catch something like a fish herself. It would still be fun, hunting with someone else. For whatever reason, she'd never done that before. Probably because something as small as a bird or rat didn't need two creatures chasing after it. Something bigger, though, could probably be defeated by two. Then again, she was already full, and there was no way she could stuff half of a large animal down her throat. She could store it for later. The challenge of hunting something large was very appealing, and Dragonfly was suddenly determined to do so, whether she ate anything or not.

"Perhaps we could hunt together, two could bring down something larger than one."

[Deleted]

(([ For now, picture the markings on my avatar covering this image. Aries needs to do the pic yet, but she’s been really busy with her snakes.

My posts aren't normally this long. x.x))

Water.

She hated water.

She didn’t even know why. She’d loved the river garden when she first came to it, hadn’t she? It was nice to have a ready source of water and fish. But then came the change…had that been it? Maybe…ever since her body grew and morphed into this new, weird shape she’d been sensitive to sounds. They gave her headaches and made her sense…things. Things she couldn’t ever put into words, except in a case or two where the things actually happened later in reality. Quite frankly, it scared her. It scared her that she could tell that something would happen before it happened. It scared her that she was so much larger than her companions. It scared her that she’d had to learn how to move her body all over again – what was she going to do if she or her friends met with danger? Just…everything. It was amazing that she hadn’t broken down yet.

But now she was at the river garden, trying and failing to block out the sound. She was being stupid. She knew this. She couldn’t help it, though. She needed to eat so much nowadays, and fish were the easiest things to catch.

The occult reptile hissed as she stumbled. She supposed she should be grateful for the change. This new body was stronger, which meant she could better protect her friends once she mastered moving around again. It was getting to that point that bothered her, though. Her old form was small and quick and graceful on a single pair of long legs. She still had the long legs, she supposed, but now her arms were about equally long. If she tried walking on just her hind legs, her arms hung awkwardly and she was prone to falling, so she’d taken to walking on all fours. It was a steadier but slower method of walking, but it was better than hurting herself in a fall, so she did her best to adjust. At least it kept her head fairly low to the ground. Everything still seemed smaller than it should be, but she felt about the size of a tree when she lifted her upper half off the ground.

Voices up ahead caught her attention. She recognized one, and was bounding clumsily toward it before she really even knew what she was doing. Dragonfly would be very welcome company at any time, but especially now, when Lukasse was feeling particularly awkward under her scales. She continued forward until she was in hearing range and slowed to a stop a few of her paces away from her friend. With her size, she could do some serious damage if she collided with anyone.

She then noticed that Dragonfly wasn’t alone. Her first thoughts were of Artemis, but she dismissed those immediately. This new female smelled and looked wrong, and she thought she might recognize Artemis’s voice even after all this time. She inched a little closer to Dragonfly and eyed the strange reptile, torn between caution and curiosity.

“Well…hello…” she hissed after a moment, flinching at her tone. Even her voice was bigger and harder to control now. Hopefully, her companions would know she didn’t mean to be harsh. Dragonfly would know, at least. Lukasse was a lot of things, but fierce was not one of them. Not unless she was forced into violence, and they weren’t quite there right now.