[Jaykobell]

It was another one of those slow days, days when there was nobody around and nothing to do.

As a sentient animal who had the mind and soul of a human, it was hard for the red panda to feel at home in the wild, where she "belonged." Being able to speak, think and feel like an intelligent, grown human made it difficult for her to find her place in this wild area, where the animals were also sentient, but not to her level. As she had been raised by a group of humans since her early days, it was near impossible for her to adapt to a wild lifestyle. Animalistic rituals and mentalities were alien to her, so it wasn't uncommon for her to wander into another animal's territory without realizing it, for example.

She sat down besides a large tree, the leaves so thick and numerous that they covered the sun, just dappling the ground lightly with sunlight. It was the perfect mood to take a nice nap, and just looking up at the leaves above was enough to make her feel drowsy. The little sunlight spots moved slightly along the leaves as they wiggled in the breeze, and it felt like a sweet melody to her ears; just the soft breeze and the leaves whistling along with it.

She flopped on the grass slowly, letting herself drop until her belly was entirely flattened on the ground. Her light brown eyes weren't quite closed, but it became increasingly difficult to keep them opened.

[Redd]

Tarhiel stretched his claws out, watching the dirt fall through the gaps in his talons with huge, unblinking eyes and flicked his tongue lazily out tasting the air. The Tricky beside him slid a lazy eye over the great gouges in the dirt in front of the Insonia and snorted at him, before rolling from her side onto her belly. Tarhiel flicked his head to the side at the snort and shot Mary an affronted look, not sure what part of his behaviour had warranted the sound. He stuck his tongue out at her rudely and went back to his agitated digging; not that there was anything to be agitated about, the Insonia was simply on edge today and the fact that their ringleader Cetain was off to Xai're knows where wasn't hleping. If there was a territory issue or another minor dispute, their main game player wasn't there.

Mary on the other hand wasn't too bothered and was perfectly content with basking on the rocks beside the river. She wasn't too fussed with petty territory issues - she'd leave that chore up to the boys - as foraging and fishing was her main contribution to the group. Despite living so long in the forest that she was losing all 'civilised' sense and mannerisms, that thought and job had still stuck. As she inspected a flipper, Tarhiel hissed angrily. Mary raised one eye to glance at the Insonia who was pulling his large bulk up onto all fours and followed suite, sniffing the air. 'Mary. Follow.' He grunted, using the few words that particular head - Hiel, the wilder one of the two - knew.
The only thing that could have stirred up the lizard were trespassers and she really had no choice but to follow and appear intimidating, even if she couldn't have cared for fighting.

(FF. So crappy, sorry. xD <3)

[Jaykobell]

Everything was soothing and relaxing to her. The whistling of the leaves eventually got extra singers, with little birds chirping away from one tree to the next. The wind wasn't cold enough to make her shiver, and it felt just comfortable enough. Maybe it would be a boring day, but at least, she felt happy and satisfied right now. That was better than feeling like she could never fit in with the other wild animals, or that, despite where she went, there was really no home for her in this world, at this current time.

But with such a silent, serene atmosphere, it was easy to pick up other sounds. She had almost fallen asleep when she suddenly snapped awake, ears alert and her nose picking up unfamiliar scents. She sat up from her patch and backtracked a little, pressing her back against the tree behind her. She looked around a little, but she couldn't see anything nearby. The sounds seemed like they were coming from behind her tree, but she wasn't so good at picking up on predators and other animals, so it could really be coming from anywhere around her.

She stayed pressed against the tree, hoping the animals she heard and smelled would just skip this area and not see her.

[Redd]

Tarhiel dragged his bulk through the forest, occasionally flicking his tongue out from time to time and adjusting his angle. His mind was heavily set on ridding the intruder from his part of the forest and there wasn't much Mary could do except hope that maybe Tar would wake up and Hiel would doze back off. Tar was the one who possessed more of the native language out of the two and was the more reasonable one, but also the less dominant head.
Mary struggled to keep up with the Insonia, her small flippers suited more to rocks, ice and water than small shrubbery, but she kept going - hoping to at least be able to come between Tarhiel and the intruder just long enough for the intruder to get away.
If she wasn't so tired, she would have sighed - this happened at least three times a week and it was usually possible to know he Hiel would react. Suddenly, a flash of red caught her eye and she saw an odd little creature backed up against a tree. Backed up, that was... odd. Mary nudged Tarhiel with her flipper and gestured at the animal.

Tarhiel too was intrigued, initially. They both crawled over towards the animal stopping quite a few metres off. As they stopped, Tarhiel lowered his head and peered at the creature. 'Intruder.' He growled, again another word he had picked up. Mary snorted at him -animals don't talk - but made no other move.

[Jaykobell]

For a moment, she thought the other animals had just gone away and had missed her. She sighed a bit, slightly relieved, but still keeping her guard up. Even though she could hold her ground just fine, she wasn't a violent one. She often just apologized to any animal she insulted and ran off before they had a chance to pin her down or tackle her through a bunch of thick bushes.

She felt her heart skipping a beat — or two — when she heard a gruff voice speak nearby. She tensed for a moment, thinking the voice was just speaking to something else that was really... really close to her position. But that was wrong, since she noticed the Insonia and the Tricky right next to her when she started looking around again. They had talked to her, and not to something or someone else. Her first reaction was to get back on all four and back away slowly, but then she realized something.

One of them had talked to her. She had definitely heard a human word coming from them.

She raised her head just a little — which she had lowered to tell them she was submissive and not looking for a fight — and stared curiously at the two pets. "Did you... talk to me?" she asked questioningly, looking from the Insonia to the Tricky, wondering which one, exactly, had talked. Or had she just heard things in her half-asleep half-awake state of mind?

[Redd]

It was both the Insonia and Tricky's turn to be surprised. Mary definitely had not been expecting a reply, the animal was of the likes she had never seen before and had simply put it down to the fact that it was just some fey creature of the forest. The Insonia was too - half of it was that she hadn't simply run away and the other half was the baffling words she had used. Some he recognised, like 'you' and 'me', but apart from that he couldn't string meaning from her. He stomped and flicked his tail nervously not sure whether she was replying to what he said or simply was not afraid of him and was here to take his territory.

Mary on the other hand had understood what the animal had said but didn't trust her dwindling grasp of language to string a reply back. She pulled at best was a sympathetic look and nudged Tarhiel as a means of a reply to the animal. Tarhiel hissed an incomprehensible word back at Mary, who in turn replied with a disgruntled bark.
She turned back to the red panda and gently slapped her tail against the ground. What a confusing situation they had all been thrown into. She was curious about the animal though, it was out in the middle of a wild pet infested forest yet it showed strong human traits. She was almost tempted to scratch out a question mark on the ground - another symbol that had not yet faded into the back of her mind but that again would cause more confusion. If only Tar bloody woke up, she mused, before turning and barking at Hiel. Hiel cocked his head curiously and Mary gestured to the Panda, before pointing at herself and then at him, and then again at the Panda. Hiel hissed unhappily but understood.

"Mary. Hiel." He grunted, pointing at himself and then Mary in turn. Mary sighed hoping that was an adequate albeit unusual answer to the question.

[Jaykobell]

Despite carrying fairly human traits, the red panda carried nothing unusual appearance-wise. If someone didn't know any better, they would just mistake her for a wild red panda. It was her ability to speak and actually make human expressions that threw most people off; and obviously, this had thrown off the two wild pets as well.

Her ears curled back against the back of her skull when the two started exchanging a conversation in typical animal sounds, like barking and grumbling. Her expression changed from curiosity — and even a small hint of happiness — to disappointment. Even though she had heard a word, maybe it had really been her imagination. She wasn't really surprised; she was so desperate to finally fit in with someone that she had probably dreamed one of these two pets had spoken to her. She finally looked down at the ground. "Sorry," she mumbled as the two talked to each other and tried to understand what had just happened. "It was just my imagination."

She hadn't expected them to reply at all, nor had she expected them to understand her, but when she heard the same voice utter more understandable words, her ears perked up and she looked back at them. "Wait, you did speak to me!" They were only names; were those animals only capable of minimal speech, then? But how was that even possible? She got back on all four, tilting her head to the side. "You have names, too... Can you speak any more than that?" Did they even understand her? She had no clue how much they knew. "I... my name is Abigail," she introduced herself, tail wagging behind her slowly, a bit in happiness, but also in alert. She had never met pets that could speak just like her, so the idea was making her head spin.

[Redd]

Due to spending part of their lives amongst society, Mary and Tarhiel were also capable of pulling more recognisable facial expressions, though most were lost over the years. The one Mary was pulling at the moment was clearly frustration; Tarhiel on the other hand was highly suspicious of the panda and kept all eyes trained on her, even the ones on the other head, simply just to intimidate. Mary would have rolled her eyes if she wasn't trying to make sense of the situation with her fuzzy animal mind.

Obviously the panda wanted to communicate further but Hiel could only communicate very simple messages; such messages were usually designed to be one way. She almost wished Cetain hadn't gone off hunting, since the Scordrak possessed a strong enough grasp of the language to terrorise and bully merchants and travellers into paying up for a safe enough trip through the forest, though she immediately scrapped that idea. While Tarhiel was only territorial and nervous, Cetain was downright malicious.
Mary put a flipper on Tarhiel's claw and gave him a disapproving look - motherly instincts had habits still hadn't left her and the ability to disapprove and make Tarhiel feel like a naughty boy still remained. She at least still had respect around this place.

Tarhiel lowered his intimidating gaze and struggled to come up with words. It was obvious the long, unusual word - Abigail - was a name. He'd pulled that word from Tar's memory and it had been a name of someone he had met. 'Abigail...?' He repeated, awkwardly for the sake of getting the name right. Mary almost buried a flipper into her paw. Another human gesture. Another urge she had was to hit Tar over the back of the head to wake him up but she was short and stubby and wouldn't be able to reach it. If Tar was awake, they could converse intelligently and everyone would be happy. Tarhiel glanced at Mary for support at the other question and after some thought Mary shuffled about and picked up two leaves, trying to emphasise the smaller one. The pair had very little ability to intelligently communicate between themselves but the message got through.
'Uh... Little?' The word was hesitant and faltering but Mary made no comment so he assumed that he had gotten it right. Getting a little bolder, he added his own question though he wasn't sure if he'd be able to understand the answer. 'You. Why, here?'

[Jaykobell]

Abigail tried to keep her ground, despite their disgruntled faces. She smiled a bit sheepishly, hoping her words weren't taken the wrong way. She didn't know how much these two understood the human language, and how many words they knew. Just the fact they could understand some of it and even talk was amazing enough for her. Before her human group, Hiel and Mary were the first talking beings she'd met. She just hoped they didn't see her as an enemy; it suddenly came to her that the Insonia had called her an intruder, so hopefully they didn't want to fight or cause trouble.

When Hiel repeated her name, she brightened and her eyes glowed. Even if pronounce a bit awkwardly, he had understood that it was her name. She sat down and nodded when he said her name. She confirmed by patting her chest with a paw to show that "Abigail" did refer to her. She wasn't used to animal body language at all, so in her case, communicating without verbal language was extremely hard, if not impossible. She hadn't even grown in the wild, so even basic animal instincts were almost non-existent at this point in her life.

So it was no surprise that she couldn't understand the analogy with the leaves. When Hiel said the word "little," it took a while for her to understand what he was referring to. "Oh! You... speak only a little?" she asked, tilting her head a bit to the side. She was surprised to hear his second question, though, which sounded pretty good despite their apparently minimal ability to speak. "Oh, I..." She put a paw to her mouth, a generic human reaction when one was pondering something. "I... was just walking around. Uh..." She tilted her head to the other side, now wondering how she could translate this in something that didn't involve human words.

She eventually patted herself on the chest again to refer to "her", and then walked in place to refer to her "walking." She then looked back at them, wondering if the message had gotten through. She had no idea if this was just human charades or if they had actually understood her actions. At this point, she didn't really know the difference between the two; she just assumed whatever charade she did was also known by the other animals.

[Redd]

The whole interaction was fascinating Mary; rarely had she come into contact with an animal that seemed more human than animal and it was forcing the inner most parts of her mind to work at a level that had it hadn’t worked at since her life in town. Though, the interaction while fascinating was forcing her newly restored mind to haul up old, repressed and disturbing memories from her more sentient life. She wasn’t confident enough to try speech yet, fearing her words would come out in a grunting, mumbling jumble and she wasn’t confident in Hiel’s ability to restrain himself and would rather not have her words misinterpreted by either party.
In any case this game of charades amused her and it was getting more and more difficult to disguise the amused smirk on her face.

Tarhiel wasn’t overly amused by the game as much as Mary though. The encounter was making him nervous. She wasn’t a human, but an animal and that relieved someof his fear but she still spoke – suggesting some form of human interaction. And that never boded well. Plus the fact that she was some unidentifiable creature put him of somewhat too. If it wasn’t for Mary holding him back and attempting to use him as a message sender, he’d be long gone.

While Hiel was lost with the interactions, Mary was soaking in every word and movement and constantly devising strategies to reply. She didn’t know anything written – she was a simple creature from a rather disturbing pet store but she understood the Red Panda’s language though.
Mary nodded her head to show she had understood – an outright human action; one she was sure the Panda would understand, but she had to reply. And of course communicate such a reply to Tarhiel. She slapped her tail on the ground before actually scratching in a large enough question mark –albeit upside-down – for Abigail to see - to ask 'why'. She wasn’t able to communicate that she could understand every word that the Red Panda spoke but she hoped that turning the communication directly to her would imply that.

[Jaykobell]

Abigail got a bit nervous as the two pets didn't reply to her verbally after her little charade. Instinctively, her ears drooped and her tail remained low to the ground, to show both uncertainty and submission. She was far from being a fighter, so no part of her body showed anger or threat; no bristling fur or exposed teeth. On her side of things, Abigail was just ecstatic to finally be meeting wild animals that actually spoke the human language just like she did.

After she stopped walking in place, she noticed the grin on Mary's face, and Abigail blinked. Was the Tricky... enjoying this? The Insomnia was infinitely scary to her, to be honest, but Abigail felt a bit more comfortable when the Tricky seemed to show more interest. The red panda felt less invasive now that one of the two was seemingly not so alarmed by her presence.

Right after, Mary also scribbled a question mark on the ground. Abigail looked down as she drew him, tilting her head a little to read it right. Thankfully, she was used to watching her human companions write, while she looked from above; meaning, she was more used to seeing writing upside-down and then right-side up.
Since the question mark came right after Abigail's charade, the panda figured Mary was questioning why Abigail had been walking around by herself. Mary had also replied with a very human-like gesture, so Abigail felt less ridiculous using so many human gestures. "Um..." She put a paw to her mouth as she tried to word an answer that explained why she was here, while keeping it simple enough. "I... used to live with humans, but I thought I didn't belong. I'm trying to live here to be what I'm supposed to be."

Was that simple enough? Hopefully they understood some of it, because Abigail couldn't even begin to think about how to translate all this into body language.

[Redd]

Mary tilted her head quizzically at the Red Panda's reply. Again she understood it perfectly, but something was quite odd about the answer. Abigail had... no place among humans? Surely humans would have accepted a Red Panda? Especially one who talked. The forests were to Abigail, as land was to a fish, or from what she had gathered so far. It was... certainly strange to say the least.

Mary slapped her tail a few more times in thought before turning away from Abigail to scoop up a rock in her paw and flinging it at Tarhiel's sleeping head. She shot the panda a cheeky glance to reassure her that she wasn't... entirely crazy before croaking. 'Tar. Need you.' This broken communication was really making her feel self-conscious, and she was really quite curious about Abigail now and the only way to fix this was to wake up Tarhiel's more intelligent head.
She... was sure she had gotten the words right. Positive even. It was a long time since she had spoken human words, but after listening to Abigail, she was certain she could do this.

Both Insonia' head's snapped around to Mary, but the Tricky stood her ground and gestured to the red panda. 'Tar. Speak.' She croaked again, this time authority tinted her voice.

The newly awoken head regarded the question before investigating the environment, the question mark on the ground and Abigail. 'Mary, you really need to work on your pronunciation.' Tar retorted, still offended that he'd been rudely awoken. 'And... who is this?'

[Jaykobell]

Abigail stared when Mary turned around and flung a rock right at her Insomnia partner. The red panda was baffled, wide eyes and mouth opened, but not so much that her expression screamed, "what the hell?!". She was mostly confused rather than horrified, mostly because of Mary's sheepish smile right after hitting her poor companion with a rock. Abigail could only gather that this was either very common practice between the two, or maybe the Insomnia was used to being brutally stoned on the head.

Abigail's fur raised just slightly, alarmed, when the Insomnia snapped both heads toward the Tricky, and Abigail almost wanted to ask the reptile not to hurt his friend, that she probably didn't mean it (even though Abigail had clearly seen Mary throw that rock without even thinking twice about it). However, the Tricky had everything under control, even speaking and showing authority in her voice. Abigail was happy to hear the Tricky speak, even if her speech was a bit rough. Abigail was the last one to judge people on their speech pattern or knowledge, really; she knew how it was like to speak the human language when you, yourself, aren't human to begin with.

At Tar's clear and structured speech, Abigail blinked and opened her mouth just a little. She stared for a while, up until the Insomnia's head turned to her. "Oh, u-uh... Me?" she asked quickly, and it was only afterwards that she realized how dumb of a question that was. "I, u-um... I-I'm Abigail, I'm a... red panda," she replied, and again, she felt like her answer sounded ridiculous. Or perhaps it was stating the obvious just a little too much?

[.:Random Event 2:.]

A Common Rengosett perched in the canopy above the trio, curiously examining the odd conversation happening below. The monkey, being a just a simple monkey had no idea what was going on down there, but as a naturally intelligent and curious creature, it found the exchange so very interesting.

He naturally wasn't bypassing anyone's territory, since the world above the ground was a completely different matte, unless you could fly. But he had spotted something shiny on the ground behind a tree near the red panda. With wild abandon, he flung himself through the trees until he was no longer above the group, rather behind the tree that the panda had pressed herself against earlier.
Now with caution, the Rengosett slid down the tree, as to avoid the attention of the group and picked up the glittering object - a Golden Star that had appeared to be dropped by a traveller long ago.

The monkey sniffed at the object, nibbled on it and even licked it, but it didn't appear to be edible, so he flung the star over his shoulder with a dissatisfied grunt and ambled off to go find some real food.

((Congrats Shrewdie, you've successfully tamed a pet! You'll find it in your inbox shortly.))