faderift | I Got Better

WHO: Merrill, Wysteria, Coupe & YOU
WHAT: Let's turn into some animals.
WHEN: Don't make me look up what month this is.
WHERE: Wildervale, the Free Marches.
NOTES: Full OOC info. Please feel free to make your own top-levels.

Something strange is afoot in Wildervale.

Those who venture into the forest will sprout fur and scales, transforming into animals. The locals believe a witch to blame, but it may have something to do with the rift at the heart of the woods.

OOC NOTES:

You can choose an animal, or randomly generate one.

Animals must be native to the area (no pokemon, no dragons).

Leaving the area will return characters to human form. Re-entering will transform them into a different animal.

Characters will keep their minds, but gain new senses and instincts.

Clothes will rip or fall off.

They can't talk.

They can't use magic.

Anchors will still function in their cute, itty-wittle paws.

Please feel free to make your own top-levels for whatever you, personally, want to do.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

paw patrol.
Pew, zap, crackle: there's a stoat eating a roll. He's down among the brush and leaves of the forest floor. Sleek, dark brown, his paws are a little overlarge, furred white, like he's wearing tiny gloves. He's eating right off the roll, his tiny jaws working quickly, furtively, his nose twitching.

All at once he stops, and goes stock-still. His round ears remain in place. He blinks his black button eyes, rapidly. Then he snatches up a big bite of roll and, holding it in his sharp rice-sized teeth, goes scampering to a nearby rock. The rustle of leaves is the only marker of his passage. He's otherwise impossible to detect, too fast and too well-concealed by the shadows--and his short legs that keep him low to the ground--and his coloration--until he pops up on top of the rock, still holding the chunk of roll in his mouth.

There's something coming along. He can hear it. A crunching of feet--boots, some sensible all-too-human part of Matthias reminds himself, boots, they're boots, there are other people here--but stoat ears hears only--

Well, it's a threat, maybe. Or prey. Either way, the stoat drops the bite of roll and goes streaking down the rock like a slip of water, liquid and boneless and fierce. The war of thoughts--his stop stop stop up against pure instinct and aggression--all of it mixes like a confused cocktail, fueling him, pushing him to attack.

Hiding would probably be the smarter choice. But this is Matthias, as a stoat. So whatever's coming, the stoat goes for it, latches on to a leg or whatever it can reach, furious and feral.

Sorry about your ankle. Or your haunch.

fight or flight.
Poised like a statue himself at the edge of the clearing, the green light of the rift is reflected in the black of the stoat's eyes. He's just watching.

Well, for now. Tension bristles along his tiny spine, which is loaded like a spring, ready to launch him forward. His haunches are bunched, his tail is very still, and his whiskers ruffle with his every breath as his little nose works at the air.

This might be his life now. A stoat, instead of a mage. And he's resigned himself to that, actually, written off the possibility of ever being what he was before. If there's no changing it, there's no changing it. He's still here to do a job.

So, then, all at once, like a very small soft arrow launched from the world's weirdest bow, he's off. Running, running, running across the forest floor, heading for one of the bizarrely immobile spirits.

The spirit doesn't see him coming, its sickly translucent face turned toward the rift, just as Matthias' face had been mere moments ago. With a snarl, the stoat dives for the spirit. His every intention is to kill, and he leaps forward.

Casually, almost lazily, the spirit backhands him out of the air, and Matthias goes flying in the other direction--hits a tree--and then falls with a quiet phud and rustle of fallen leaves, right to the forest floor again. Dazed, he stays still, as the roused spirit looks around with a horrible hiss. The others begin to look about as well, stirred from their silence.

Well, shit.

misc.
for WILDCARD options. get it, wild, because wild animals.

I Got Better | OTA

matthias || ota