New Meetings{~Open~}

[Dragonyxie]

As Addax was walking away from the stream, contemplating her next visit to a village, she became aware of a faint ringing. Creamy eyes darting up, down, back and forth, Addax sniffed the air. Her chin tilted up ever so slightly, and as she did a twig cracked. Suddenly, dry lighting accompanied with loud, booming thunder cracked cross the length of the now dark, cloudy sky. The wind picked up, died, and repeated. Addax took a step forward, hunching down low, ready to shift into a dragon when she started falling down. The grass dissolved and soft, warm rain trickled down her cheeks. She screamed.

What if I'm crying? Addax thought.

Blackness enveloped her slender, graceful form as she fell toward the end of the darkness gracelessly. Water welcomed her and she found she had trouble breathing. Opening her eyes, one thing stood out... Red. The color red. Her eyes began to burn. She quickly closed them. She found air was scarce in her lungs and she tried to take a breath. Something coppery slunk into her mouth and she began coughing underwater. She snorted through her nose and began to panic, struggling to leave the liquid.

Was she writhing and coughing in blood?

Swimming to the surface, she sputtered and coughed remorsefully and paddled to the shore. Weakly, she crawled into the muddy reeds, coughing up all kinds of water and gunk. The water was freezing. She continued to cough and hack as the water left in her lungs a deep burning, sore sensation that she didn't like. Looking up into the sky, now on her back, the sun warmed her. It was setting a deep red, like blood on a piece of neon yellow craft paper. Soon, though, the process of cooling took under way and she began to shiver. She needed warm clothing.


After stripping out of her neon clothes and shaking out her brunette hair, making sure her backpack was in place, she shifted into a cat. Slinking along the growing shadows, she made her way to something that looked like an old-style building. Someone was walking by what appeared to be a back door. They were dressed in old clothing. A suit? Who wears a suit on a night like this? Where am I? She couldn't place where she'd seen it before. Slowly inching forward, she stopped and darted across a gravel path and ended up behind an old, rusty piece of junk-metal. A voice sounded.

"Who's there?" Addax whispered fiercely. She waited, and decided to shift into her human body. Backpack full of clothing, she took out a black bandana and tied it around the numerous tattoos on her wrist, not wanting to take chances. Addax also took out a grey pair of jogging pants that gave her room for vast movement and a white long sleeved shirt with a black button up goose-down vest. She slipped on some underwear and socks and put her clothing on. She left her hair, which was still wet. No makeup was on her face, and her hair was in tight and dripping curls from exposure to the water. She crouched and surveyed her surroundings.

Green grass played in the wind, and trees were sparse up until a deep, dense forest attacked the land with its roots. There was an iron fence with some kind of crest every ten or twelve bars. Addax was on high alert. This place was strange... The aura was wrong, and nothing was modernized. Everything was old and run-down looking. Except for...
She turned around. A magnificent old style building loomed before her intimidatingly. A cough echoed through the now dark yard and she yanked her jaw back, turning her head and pursing her lips with surprise. Somebody was in the process of walking down a dark, unlit pathway towards the house she stood at. She couldn't make out who it was.

Turning away, she noticed an old-looking, dusty barn. An owl made a call. Moving away from the place and jumping over the fence, she saw a building with lighted windows. Laughter came in deep bellows and music played quietly. The music wasn't anything from the time where Addax came through; it was older. Even older than the 'grooves' from the sixties and early seventies. This place isn't right! Addax blinked and turned around, standing up straight for the first time in half an hour. She stretched her back and swallowed, cringing when her sore throat burned in protest. Not wanting to be too conspicuous, she walked up the the building and immediately noticed it wasn't a bar like she'd thought originally. No smell of wine or even alcohol.
She switched directions to the barn and opened the creaky door on the side to walk in. It smelled of hay and scat. There was a door that looked well-kept so she ventured a try. The door was locked. Slowly closing the door she entered the barn through, she took a bobby pin off of the side of her backpack. Tickling the lock with the pin, she managed to turn it and unlock the door. Once on the other side, she closed it and found she was unable to lock it again. Oh well. There were stairs along a hallway that went upward. She sighed and silently hopped up the stairs. Every board creaked slightly. She reached the top and heard somebody yell. Startled, she shuffled back and began falling down the stairs.
She screamed loudly and then before she could realize what was happening, everything turned black.

Addax was unconscious in a strange world where nothing was modern, save from herself.

[Krepta]

Krepta woke in the night. The air was moist and dark around her, like the inside of a cave. For a moment, she felt the reptile inside her mind shift in response and felt like the beast she sometimes was, warm and safe inside her own den. She often had such moments just after waking. She knew, though, that this was not a cave, but a barn, the barn she had been sleeping in for the past three nights, far from safe, far from home.

That wasn't why she had woke though. The danger to her here was not in the barn. It was a secret danger, a mystery she hadn't quite puzzled out yet. And dangerous she knew it was-- every last one of her instincts screamed it. Someone, though, was moving in the darkness. Someone unfamiliar; someone new.

Instinctively Krepta tensed and eased out from under her covers. Still human, she was blind in the dark. Her sense of sight was useless to her here. Her other senses, however, were not. She felt the cool wood of the barn floor beneath her feet, heard the whisper of cloth against skin, smelled the musk of the barn in the darkness-- and even now, even human, she scented the intruder too. Be it an enhancement from her powers, or a result of a lifetime of using her nose, she could smell her-- Yes, her. The scent had a distinct feminine softness to it. It smelled human too--- not animal. Wild animals smelled musky, like fur and earth and feathers and scales. The tamed lot weren't too different, though there was an almost homey warmth to their scents.

And yet, there was something not quite right about the scent as well. It clarified as the darkness did, and as Krepta's human eyes widened and reshaped into fierce, reptilian ones, eyes capable of piercing even this thick darkness. There was someone moving at the top of the stairs.

Just beyond her sleeping place, one of the horses in the stalls caught her scent and started. It shied and screamed, banging about in it's pen. The intruder at the top of the stairs startled too, losing her footing. There was a scream as she tumbled, and Krepta thought she could catch the girl if she really tried. Something stopped her from coming forward though. That wrongness to her scent was still there, and it held her rooted where she stood. She watched as the girl tumbled from her perch above and hit the ground hard. She could tell by the way she lay sprawled that she had been rendered unconscious upon impact.

She watched silently, almost holding her breath while she waited for the girl to stir. She didn't, but even from where she stood, Krepta could see her chest rising and falling steadily. She was alive, at least, and she didn't smell any blood, so she couldn't have been hurt too badly. The stairs weren't too steep, and at the worst she maybe had broken an arm or something. It could have been worse though, far worse. Why hadn't she moved to catch the girl?

And yet, Krepta didn't move. It took a force of will to step forward and approach the fallen figure. The strange scent that clung to her was still there--- almost palpable in the way it felt. What that feeling was though, Krepta didn't know-- only that she didn't like it. It was almost... evil.

At last, Krepta bent her head and nosed the arm of the girl gently with her snout. Perhaps that would rouse her. If not, there was a bucket of water in the corner she had no issues with dumping on her. After all, she was the intruder here...!

[Dragonyxie]

Something was pounding loudly near Addax's head. No, inside. She shifted her weight and found she was sprawled on a cold, hard surface with something sticking into her back. A pain shot through her spine and her left hand. Addax tasted coppery blood in her mouth, but she couldn't smell any outside of her mouth.

Blinking her eyes open, pupils frantically dilating, Addax tried to moan. Her throat felt more raw than when she crawled out of the pond and sputtered. Moving her elbows behind her back, she attempted to get straight up. Whatever was sticking in her back really was IN her back, and suddenly the smell of blood spilled over the air. She felt the warm liquid slosh down her back, and the pain in her spine returned worse. Addax gasped and rolled onto her stomach, panting and sobbing. Where was she? Why did she hurt so much? Trying to lift herself up, she stopped. There was something in front of her. No, someone. Bright eyes caught and reflected some distant light that Addax couldn't see. The somebody blinked. Those eyes were reptilian.

Addax thought of shifting, but then realized she likely wouldn't survive it due to the thing in her back. Her head dizzied and she became nauseous. She fell back on her stomach and her head knocked onto the ground loudly. She heard footsteps somewhere far off and what little she could see was no longer visible. Addax panted and gasped helplessly and the pain became immense. Lying on her stomach, she tried to speak.

"Help," she half-whispered. It was barely audible, but the best she could do under the circumstances. She closed her eyes, scrunched her eyebrows, and screamed again. Not that her screams and gasps were very loud, but they were enough to hopefully attract somebody else's attention. Addax sighed and soon became out of breath. Her chest rose and fell in erratic patterns with her shallow breaths. Soon she could no longer feel or smell anything at all. All she could hear was the pounding of her overworked heart.

Addax seemed to be, from the outside looking in, semi-conscious and in a nearly-fatal condition due to blood loss.

"Dang," was her last conscious thought, "I'm screwed."