Catboy, pickpocket

He glanced at the ears, quickly moved his eyes towards his hands to check for a remote controller, then glanced back up. Nope, definitely not remote controlled. Those really were the real deal after all… He watched as the other swished his tail around, it didn’t seem like he needed much force to move it either. It really was like it was part of the body, almost like another arm.  To conclude, this was a real hybrid after all. The only other thing he knew thus far was what the other told him, that he might’ve been mixed with the traits of a cougar too. Snapping back into reality away from his theorizing, he replied to the other’s comment. “I have seen a cougar, yes…” He mentioned awkwardly, “But I’ve never seen those traits mixed with a person.”

Nessus had been in this strange city long enough to understand that his kind was something of an...anomaly.  He decides to hold the comment about the faint smell of fox on this man to himself.  If he wants to reveal it, he will.

“It’s pretty common where I come from,” Nessus says, “but it seems like there’s not a lot of people like me here...wherever here is.”

—✕ █ ▌To consider him a STEELY individual would not be an exaggeration of the truth. Eyes are hard and narrowed as they take in the young man with great scrutiny. It is not as if he’s particularly VIGILANT anymore, but he needs whatever money he has — Gaster needs whatever money he has.

❝If you are not SUSPICIOUS lad, you’d best not slink around in the shadows.❞ He steps closer with heavy footfalls. The more he looks at the youth, the more FAMILIAR the possible pickpocket is. ❝Talk about deja vu … ❞ Words slip out quietly.

He’s been around Hive City to know that the memories of the citizenry can be JUMBLED UP into a twisted puzzle, but he can’t help but feel skeptical — it isn’t as if he’s never seen anyone with animal ears before!

❝What’s your name, kid?❞

There’s something familiar about this man that Nessus had been trying to pickpocket just a few moments ago.  But not familiar enough that he can place a name on him, or anything else.  It’s like he saw him in a dream.

And the whispering about deja vu didn’t help.

“Slinkin’ around is what I do best, old man,” he says.  He’s on his guard though, because he can’t shake the feeling that he knows this man, and he’s not exactly going to be able to fight him if he wants to come to blows.  “It’s what cats do.”

“I do not wish to get into too much detail, but…”

She sighed.

“A certain military force backed by another government occupied my country, which had no army of its own, and no way to force them to leave. I wandered too close to their base, and…”

“…Held there, until I managed to escape.”

Nessus wonders for a moment if he should have gotten into this conversation.  Who was he, asking these kinds of questions to a complete stranger?

Still, it felt a little nice to have that kind of contact with someone else...

TO: NESSUS MELSHENA. FROM: TAVROS NITRAM.

[ TXT ] oH! [ TXT ] nESSUS TO MEET YOU,

ba dum TSS.

[ TXT ] aRE YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH SMARTPHONES? [ TXT ] i CAN TRY TO HELP, uHH, uNLESS YOU HAVE IT COVERED,

TO: TAVROS NITRAM. FROM: NESSUS MELSHENA

Sigh.

@nessusaryevil​

“Still on the same old story, still, huh?” Hands in his jacket’s pockets, he stands not but a few feet from the other, shoulders turned up in an amused demeanor. “And I thought you were giving up the addiction to your kleptomania. Looks like I was wrong.” His head tilts slightly forward, using his nose to point to an innocent resident, who doesn’t even notice that their pockets were checked and continues to churn a concrete mixture. “Anything to say for yourself?”

Nessus is shocked for a second, because somehow, he hadn’t noticed the approach of this man.  Something about this city had dulled his senses, it seemed.  He wasn’t as sharp as he used to be.  

Maybe it was that he was still trying to figure out.

He jams his hands in his pockets, hiding his ill-gotten gains.

Oh - he must’ve heard what he said. This was embarrassing… Clearing his throat, he worked to fix the awkward situation he walked himself into. 

“My apologies. Your ears caught my eye, it’s not the usual you see anyone with cat ears unless they’re dressing up. However, yours do seem rather life-like to be fake.” A little bit of a lie in his observations there, but he did want to keep much of his demon realm expeditions a secret. The same goes with his demonic abilities and his past form, whom also had similar fluffy ears and a tail. He actually wasn’t sure himself if this person he just met was from the demon realm or if they were possibly just a cat person. But he didn’t sense true bad vibes from the other, they did seem good so far but either way… It’d be best to stay a little on guard.

That was a different reaction than what Nessus had been expecting.  He had been expecting this stranger to say something...meaner, to be frank.  Most of the reactions that he’d had were...not this polite.

As he processed the response, he examined the man he was speaking to. Young--a few years younger than him--but he was polite.  Very polite.  And there was a faint smell of fox on him, distant, like he’d touched one a few weeks ago.

Odd.

But all the foxes Nessus had known were cunning and crafty, so he’d file that away and stay on his toes for the moment.

A cougar? Some kind of animal-human hybrid, then; which only made sense. Not the first time Cloud had run across the concept, though he couldn’t really say for certain that he’d met very many. Certainly not another cougar. Wait, wasn’t that also a word for -

“I don’t think so, no.” Cloud shook his head, clearing the cut-off train of thought from his mind. Not something he really wanted to think about. “I think I would have remembered that. Though… it was a few years back, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“Sorry to bother you,” he added, a bit awkwardly. “My name is Cloud. Cloud Strife. Guess I was wrong about that.”

Cloud Strife.  That was kind of a silly name as far as Nessus was concerned, but it was far from the weirdest name he’d heard so far.

“So, uh...Cloud,” he says.  “How long you been here?”

“From this little village named Mentiras. Grew up with mom and pop out in the sticks. Had a little hut we lived in as we took care of this rancher’s livestock.”

He smiled as he told the story of his past, scanning the ground around them looking for his lost money.

“Decided I didn’t want to live in the country. Moved into the city at sixteen. Joined the service at eighteen. Now I’m here.”

This was going to be difficult, Nessus thought.  But he had gotten himself in this situation.  He would have to focus on making an illusion and moving away as fast as possible.

All while maintaining a smile on his face.

He could probably do that.  Right?

He smiles and nods in response to Mercuto, even though he has no idea what anything he’s really saying.  Instead, he thinks hard about twenty Stars, and he thinks hard about them being about...10 feet away from where he and this unfortunate mark are currently.

he was about to agree with the others statement when he really, truly got a good look at him. didn’t he…know him? he was pretty sure he’d seen him somewhere before, at least.

“Hey– Have we met before or something? I’m gettin’ the strangest case of deja vu.”

Nessus looks at Titus for a second.  There’s something...something vaguely familiar about him, like a person he saw in a crowd once upon a time, or a face in a dream.  The hair reminded him of Nakyu, the eye patch and skin tone of Tamara, but...

“Do you mean… being held captive for no fault of your own, at the mercy of some unknown force?”

“I suppose it is similar, then.”

“I mean, that’s one way to put it,” Nessus says.

@nessusaryevil <3′d that rp ad! (wouldn’t let me tag you? Most likely gonna IM it.)

Blending in with crowds proved difficult in this world, having been filled with just about every misfit possible. This included Jack Morrison. Of course, he looked…normal on the outside - your average man, blonde hair with slight muscle. However, what was hidden was that strangeness, perhaps his superhuman abilities - ᶠᵒᵘⁿᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ˡᵃᶜᵏᶦⁿᵍ ᶦᵐᵐᵉⁿˢᵉˡʸ - or his overwhelming desire to overwork and never take a god damn nap. That isn’t even beginning to cover his monumental history. 

He hadn’t exactly bothered to strip himself of his coat - after all, the piece of large fabric was trademark, without it, he was no longer Strike Commander Morrison.

After a previous interaction, the man knew there was a possibility of recruits stepping in by fate, and again, looking average meant that his presence might just slip under their nose.

On top of that he felt naked without like. Like he would ever admit such, though.

Engulfed in a large group of passerbys, he walks among them, heavy tapping of his boots drowned out by the various chatter and noises those around him made. Jack didn’t particularly mind, even if his social anxiety existed - much to his dismay. As long as he made no effort to speak, and thing went his way, a problem might not persist. 

Keyword. Might. 

Which is why luck didn’t seem to stay by his side today.

A hand shuffled around in his pocket. One that wasn’t his. Of course, this struck a rapid sensation of alertness in his mind - oh it had to be him! No one else, what could he expect! Things just wouldn’t go his way, would they? 

Hands jump to clasp down on where the intruder’s limb had been sneaking as his steps come to an immediate stop, head darting into a direction so fast, that if he were quicker he might just snap his neck. However, his reflexes proved to fail on him, unable to apprehend the stranger as they slink away into the crowd. A hand pats his coat pocket.

His wallet! Oh, there wasn’t much in there at the moment but- god dammit, he just bought that thing!

Jack escapes the crowd he was seemingly trapped in, jumping off the sidewalk as blue orbs tracked a hooded figure. Cars pass by the tar road, but he doesn’t care too much, not bothering to mention even a sorry to the cars he practically jumps over. There were more important matters at hand, like getting his only means of currency back. 

The soldier steps onto the sidewalk he’d been opposite of merely minutes ago. A gloved hand is cupped to the side of his mouth, and he quickly yells out - “Hey! Get the hell back here! Didn’t even ask if you could have it!”

Nessus had never been a thief for petty reasons.  Theivery had come to him as had breathing, eating, and drinking.  It was necessary for him to survive in Correllan, and it was necessary for him to survive in Spirale.  It wasn’t like he had any other skills anyway.

Today was no different.  He’d accidentally spent literally all of his money on some raw fish with Blake, and he knew that if he was going to survive for however long he was going to be here, he’d have to make more money.

And there was only one way to do that.

Pickpocketing was easy, once you got the hang of it.  You just had to slip into a crowd, make yourself as unnoticeable as possible--which was very difficult when everyone seemed to find cat ears and a tail odd--slide your hand into someone’s pocket when they were distracted, and you were done.

Sometimes there were issues.  Sometimes a mark realized what you were doing.  Sometimes that happened during the pickpocketing, which was always awkward.

Sometimes that happened after, which is why Nessus could run so quickly now.

It had taken about 15 seconds from when he grabbed the wallet for his mark to notice that he had been riffling around in his pocket.  Plenty of time to make an escape.

Oh, he hears the commotion--he hears the man’s footsteps and he hears the man shouting at him.  Everything in his head is telling him not to say anything, to just keep going with his ill-gotten gains, but...

There are eclipses on a regular basis, and Nessus has come to understand that they are a normal thing that show that more people are coming to the island.  He doesn’t like them, because something in his head, something in the small, animalistic part of his brain that’s been buried with the trauma, tells him it’s wrong.

But he carries on.  He copes as best as he can.

The day/night cycle seems to make sense when there’s not an eclipse.  The sun rises, sets, the moon rises, sets. 

Nessus is a crepuscular creature by nature, and the sudden change in situation has him moving towards the dawn/dusk nature of the beast that lives inside him.  But sometimes he can’t sleep.

A lot of the time, actually.

So he found himself a nice patch of green somewhere in Spirale--Yirral, he wasn’t even sure if he could find it again--but he was laid on his back, staring up at the stars.  His ears twitched at the approach of someone else.

Symbol Meme

Not accepting!

A can’t can’t change its stripes.  Nessus knows this just as well as anyone else, and even here in Spirale, on this island, he finds himself up and wandering out at night.

But he’s accepted that he’s in a place that isn’t full of people like him, and that he often finds himself accompanied by other people when he’s wandering at night.

Symbol Meme

Accepting!