joining : you're a true romantic wreck

[callisto]

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"woah," aoife mewed, her words trailing at the edge of a shaky, incredulous exhale. the thick-furred tortoiseshell stepped gingerly, as if afraid that the damp dirt underpaw would fracture like ice under the weight of her body, moving slowly as not to disturb her fluorescent forest surroundings. this was the strangest place that aoife had ever seen— her mismatched gaze danced around her surroundings, never settling on one place too long. it's so beautiful here, she thought. she mouthed the words as they appeared in her mind, and then her dainty lips curled into an "o"-shape; at her feet was a large, glowing mushroom. it seemed to glow, but it was untouched by sunlight — the canopy was far too thick for the rays of the sun to reach the forest floor — and there was no other source of light anywhere nearby. it seemed to emit light of its own accord. but that's not possible, aoife told herself. her brows furrowed as she considered it, and she moved closer to study the fungus further. the tortoiseshell-pelted she-cat knew that the radiation could have strange effects on flora and fauna, but she'd never seen ( or even heard rumors of ) it inducing bioluminescence. maybe it's lit from underneath? it doesn't make any sense! i've never seen anything like this be—

just then, she was interrupted by a sharp pain in her lung. it felt like someone had taken a knife and lodged it deep within her pale chest; she tumbled backward a few tail-lengths, and elicited a wounded cry. instinctively, a white-tipped paw moved to touch the place where the "injury" was, examining it for depth and blood loss. as she pulled the paw away, however, she noticed that there was no blood on it; aoife craned downward to look at her chest and there was no wound, either. what on earth...? her head shook rapidly from side-to-side. she was suspended in disbelief, and was beginning to regret her expedition into this forest. first glowing mushrooms, and now phantom pains? fuck that, i'm outta here. aoife managed a dry chuckle, before turning on her heels in the direction she had come from. it was time for her to take her leave...

shit, where's the clearing?
...i came from that direction, right?
no, hold up. it had to be that way.

...i'm lost.

the longer she spent wandering aimlessly, the stronger and more frequent the pains in her chest became. a sense of foreboding crashed into her like a noxious black wave; a freezing, tingly sensation of desperate terror slowly crept up the length of aoife's spine. her vision — now misty and clouded with the formation of tears — took on a red tint. it was almost as if the forest itself was poisoning her from the inside out; the notion frightened her, so aoife clung to her flimsily-held belief that she must be hallucinating. the tortoiseshell-pelted she-cat was crying hopelessly now, so afraid that she might steal her last breaths from the forest's toxic air. if aoife had a home or a family, perhaps she would be crying out for them; but, alas, she was alone, curled in a half-moon position on the mossy floor of this strange somewhere.

ooc: aoife's injuries for any medic characters: travel exhaustion & sickness as a result of being unused to the paelex suaviums

[eliza]

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yani liked the light. not the light, but the little glow that emitted from the world beneath her paws, creating a foreboding sort of glow beneath her, illuminating her jaw, her teeth when her lips parted, but little more on her facial features. the panthress liked the ominous glow it offered, liked the haunted way it made her look. troubled, dangerous, like she felt something. it beat nothing at all. but that was a lie, right? because she did feel. she just didn't know how to show it to the world, how to be something other than apathetic on the outside. expression wasn't a strength of the femme fatale; she dwelled within her own mind in a quiet sort of stasis, feeling and never saying.

it was the cries that drew her nearer, and a part of her did feel a sort of concern for the small feline. but yani didn't know how to help, and she sure as hell didn't know what was causing it. the poison, it didn't seem to affect her - why, exactly, was unclear. but she was alright, and this fem was not, so she was naturally concerned the creature might be infectious in some way. she wasn't about to put her life on the line for, what, a stranger?

"what's wrong?" she'd demand sharply, unsure as to how else she could handle this situation. what, curl around the fem and coddle her like a baby? this was yani, that wasn't exactly her department. she hurt, she killed, she twisted and ruined and won. there was a damn fine reason the black feline didn't have children of her own, and it was because she didn't have those sort of instincts, not that she knew of at least. all she knew was that there was an issue here, and she didn't have the slightest idea as to how to solve it.

[QUIETUS]

[align=center][div style=" background-color: transparent; border: 0px solid black; width: 500px; min-height: 9px; font-family:; line-height: 110%; text-align: justify; color: black; padding: 20px"][sub]A lot of strangers seemed to be showing up either beyond the mountains, or beyond the great lake; either way, they came, and he accepted them, albeit reluctantly. He needed them for muscle, but it did not help the fact that he was still roughly navigating social situations by what he had learned as a pup. It was a shame that he did not grow up as a flamboyant bloke - a waste, really. He could've used it here and there, and by the time he reached this place, he would've had a loyal mass of followers.

Either way, it was unwise to dwindle on what could've been. In the present, he tried to focus on the now, and the now lead him here, to Yani and the cries of an unnamed soul. It grated on his ears, and he willfully managed to ignore it for some time as he approached. "Were you in the forest?" he asked, leaning down to inspect the furry feline. He was much bigger than her, and made sure to keep a safe distance. "What did you touch?" he didn't bother lecturing her on the fact that she should've waited on the beach - he knew nothing of the forest, and thus explained his apprehension. This was the first he'd seen wander inside, and the results weren't startling at all.