Welcome to the Jungle

[Kojo]

The sun was high in the sky, bright and warm, but even the sun wasn't quite enough to pierce the darkness completely. In many way this temperate forest reminded him of the tropical forests he had come from. Who is he? He is Kojo a shape-shifter from the tropics to the far south. And He was curently a gigantic snake, easily 30 feet in length and a foot in diameter the thickest section of its body. It was obvious that he wasn't a local animal.

Kojo was hungry and in the current era there where only three ways to get food. One way was to buy it at a market, but he had no money. Another way was to steal, and he wasn't a thief and would never be one, and finally you could hunt it yourself. And that was his choice. He decided he wanted to use his powers to hunt. So he became an animal that didn't waste food and began his hunt.

He sat coiled and still as a log as he waited for prey his prey to find him. The only movement from him was from his forked tongue as it flick out to taste the air. After a few hours of waiting his tongue picked up the scent of something warm as it wandered closer. When he came into view he was it was what looked to be a large wild dog, only its ears where shorter, its snout was longer and it was definitely bigger than a dog. Strange, yet elegant a creature as he was such things wouldn't matter for long. He silently prayed to the spirits thanking them for their sacrifice of one of their animals so that he may see new days and then fixed his mind to his task. Once the animal was within range, the giant snake lunged its powerful jaws opened nearly a 180 degrees its dozens of teeth bared and redy to grasp its prey as the coils did the rest.

[Orca]

When a regular soldier had a day off, they spent it carousing with their buddies, usually drunk as a skunk by the end of the day. When Orca had any long period of break, however -- one that wasn't shared by his boss, because then he just spent it with him -- he would turn into his little bird form and fly off somewhere to explore. He'd grown up in the wilderness, after all, so more than a handful of people about got him feeling itchy. Sometimes he braved the city to try and find Gabriel, who, while not a friend, exactly, was human company he could turn to when he got lonely -- which wasn't all that often.

He'd chosen the forest today, or rather, the forest had chosen him, calling out to him (it seemed) as he soared above it. A good place for the wolf, he'd thought then, and immediately dropped down, landing in the undergrowth on four paws, ears flicking every which way for signs of danger. A moment later he was trotting off, enjoying the heightened senses the wolf employed. He smelled small animals scurrying away at his approach, but he wasn't all that hungry, so he did little but turn his massive head their way, watching with an impassive yellow stare.

The wolf was never afraid, always cool, always in command. That was why it was Orca's favorite, because it was such an opposite of how he was normally. Like this, he didn't care about the city, or his exiled life, or any of that. He was content just living, moving, breathing. Life was good.

And then something huge came hurtling his way, something that seemed endless in its length. Before this, the biggest snake the mountain wolf had ever seen was a stone-colored poisonous one that had reached maybe as long as he did from snout to tail. They were dangerous, sure, but they never made meals of wolves, and there had always been a sort of truce between the two, a sort of I don't eat you, you don't eat me kind of deal. Evidently, this monstrous serpent did not feel the same.

He saved himself only because he jerked back into the finch form on complete reflex, the mammoth coils curling on nothing but air as he darted skyward, up and up until he caught himself on a high branch and peered over at the thing. His puffy little chest heaved, beaked mouth caught agape.

What in the name of the gods above was that?

[Kojo]

His mouth snapped shut on air and about half of his coils fell on his head as there was nothing for them to wrap around. The wolf had vanished and as his head slipped through his muscular length he saw a bird, a very small bird, less than a mouth full flew up into the trees in a panic. So Kojo an untangled his body a bit and peered up at the bird. The gigantic snake vanished becoming Bright red bird with a curved beak and long blue tail feathers. The bird was pretty big about three times the size of the finch but nothing about it looked dangerous. It hopped up and flew the branch that the other bid had. "QUAWK, Another shifter?" came a loud raspy voice from the bird that stuck out like a sore thumb. He cocked his head side ways to show curiosity."

[Orca]

The snake looked up at him, and Orca got ready to flee, but then-

Again. What in the name of the gods was that? So, so colorful, it hurt his little bird eyes. An alarmed chirp left his squeaky little beak as it flew up to join him, but shock had frozen him to the branch. It had been a snake, right? So that meant... Something like him?

And then- It spoke!

He was back human in the blink of an eye, his plain-clothed boy form light enough to do no more than bend the branch slightly; the shifting was necessary, as the mountain finch couldn't speak besides in whistling bird tones. How had this other shifter -- if it was a shifter -- managed to talk, then?

"I, what, yes!" he blurted out, blue-green eyes wide. Shaggy brown hair fell in his face as he leaned forward to get a closer look at the bird, and he pushed it back absently. "You tried to eat me," he said, but his tone was more awe than accusation. "That was -- wow!" Unlike him to be so outwardly excited, but this was a special case, was it not? "The snake was so biiiig."

Yes. Yes it was.

[Kojo]

"SQUAWK, SORRY!" The bird flew to an adjacent branch, and became a man. a man who's skin was nearly darker than the bark. The only bit of clothing the man wore was a bit of leather that covered his family jewels. "Maybe if you didn't look so delicious I wouldn't have tried." He said with a grin on his large lips.

"I'm glad your impressed with my snake. I am called Kojo," He said extending a hand to the boy, "and what about that dog? a bit sleeker than the ones I'm use to."

[Orca]

He watched, wide-eyed, as the talking bird became a naked man -- oh wait, thank goodness, he was wearing underwear, or something. Not a lot, but it was at least something.

"Delicious?!" Orca exclaimed. "Nuh uh..." Wolves weren't delicious. They were fierce, strong, deadly... and a whole lot smaller than that snake had been. Hmm.

He accepted the man's handshake, blinking at the comparison of his skin -- which he'd originally thought tan -- so pale against the man's own. "I'm Orca," he responded. "And, nono, that wasn't a dog. That's a wolf, a mountain wolf from where I grew up." His eyes again flicked to the man's skin, so so so dark, then back up to his face. "You, uh, ain't from around here, are ya?"

[Kojo]

"Not sure how you guessed that, but no I'm not from around here." He said thinking about the wolf, it was as much an apex predator as the snake the only predator higher on the food chain was man, within its own habitat anyway.

"I'm actually from the south. It gets much warmer and the jungles become much bigger and so do the creatures that live there. So what can you tell me about your jungle, I have yet to run into many people yet."

[Orca]

The south? Did that make this guy a foreigner? Ma and Pa had always taught him that those types could be almost as bad as cityfolk, but despite that, he felt just fine sitting here, conversing with the guy.

Maybe because despite the distance where they'd grown up, or their ages, or their skin tone, accents, nearly everything, they were kin in a way. Fellow shapeshifters. How could he feel nervous around someone who had gone through the same trials as he had? This guy could (most likely) understand him on a level no one else could, not even dear Azrael or Gabriel.

"Warmer sounds nice," he commented. "I'm from up north, up past those mountains." He turned to gesture, but the distant behemoths were hidden by the treeline. "Well... they're up that way, anyway. It's real cold up there most the time, though summers can get kinda warm."

But, the guy had asked him about the 'jungle' here. Orca laughed, the sound, for once, more than simply a nervous chuckle. "We call it a forest, actually. You been to the city, yet? It's off that ways a bit," he gestured in the appropriate direction, "an' it's full of people." A grimace accompanied that statement. Too many people, if you asked him. "Why'd ya come all th' way up here, Kojo?"

[Kojo]

He really didn't see a reason to call this place a forest and not a jungle, but such an argument wasn't worth the the breath it would take to make it. So, he just went with the correction. "Warmer is nice if you can if you can handle the insects. As for my reasons for being here... it is because greed wreck my home. People with white skin came in promising gifts for the gold in our caves. We agreed. They over stepped the bounds we set, war happened and we lost. I'm hear in search of a new home really, a fresh start." He said

[Orca]

He didn't know what Kojo meant by needing to be able to handle the insects, but he went with it. There were bugs back home, there were bugs everywhere. What was the difference? Then again, he remembered what the dark-skinned man had said about creatures being bigger where he came from. Orca held in a shiver, imagining giant flies buzzing around, carrying off children and livestock. No, thank you, he'd stick to the Avaren-common horseflies, annoying as they were.

At Kojo's story, a sad look passed over his young face. "I'm sorry for your troubles, Kojo," he told the man. "Cityfolk, they ruin everything. Killed a lot of my family, too." To be honest, they'd never been sure if it was people from the city who had done it, exactly, but even bandits had to originate somewhere, and it was easier to just lay all the blame on the city, since he disliked it so much already. "A new start sure do sound nice! Where you gonna lay your land?"

[Kojo]

"Most likely here some where. Its not too far to fly to the city if I sorely need supplies and it would be nice to learn the ways of your forest. Maybe learn more about the creatures here to expand my talents." He explained

"So Orca, I've noticed that the weather here is much colder some days it seems ridiculous and from where I come from its not even the colder rainy season yet. Tell me that the weather here doesn't get any colder." He said hopefully.

[Orca]

Yes, this area was a good place to settle down. He'd thought about it more than once, himself. The wolf was at home here, the other forms less so, but still quite capable of eking it out in their own various ways. But he'd sworn to follow Azrael, hadn't he? No going back on that. And he was fine with that, really. Things would probably be easier if he wasn't such a wimp, but...

Anyway.

It piqued his interest that the man had to learn about an animal before he could shift it, just like he did. I mean, it didn't make sense to just be able to transform into something you'd never seen before. How could you get everything right if you didn't know what you were turning into?

"Ah, yeah, the weather switches around a lot, here. I've seen it snow before in the city, but I'm not sure 'bout the woods." He cracked a wry grin, shifting a bit to get comfortable. "You think this is cold, you should see where I come from!"

[Kojo]

"So this isn't cold, and what is snow?" He asked one rarely saw snow in the jungle, and before his village was sacked he wasn't much for exploring. He had much to learn. "So where do you come from I know you said the mountains is there anything wrong with showing me? You don't have to if you don't want to." He assured Orca.

[Orca]

"This is warm compared to how it can get sometimes," he assured the man. "Snow is... you never seen snow?" Disbelief reigned high on his face, always one to show his emotions easy. "It's like... water, frozen water. But not ice?" He puzzled a moment how to explain this. He was no scholar. "Like... powdery ice, I guess. It's white, cold, falls down in little flakes." He shrugged. "It's kinda fun really, long as you're bundled up."

Or had a thick coat of fur, but for the two of them, that just kinda went without saying.

"I don't mind showin' you where it generally is, that ain't it. It's just... far?" He shrugged, slightly uncomfortable. "I'd take ya to my village, but I ain't really welcome there no more." The grin from before came back. It'd taken a few years, but he was finally starting to see some humor from it, at least. "My people ain't too big on the whole... shapeshiftin' thing. Well, magic in general, but... yeah. Oh well."

Oh well indeed.

[Kojo]

Hmm. Sounds like their ill informed, but what exactly stops you from going there as a bird. Can they tell difference between you and another bird. I've never heard of a problem like that." People just accepted magic as power from the gods where they came from and they worshiped those that could communicate and act as gods. Such people where a link to the spirits. so the idea of people hating magic was quite foreign.