ArchivedLogs:Jaguars, Pumas, and Bears

Jaguars, Pumas, and Bears
Dramatis Personae Dakota, Marinov, Nic
In Absentia	2017-04-20 "Oh phew"
Location <XS> Forest
Quiet and shady, the trees rise all around here high and thick. In stillness, woodland creatures make appearances, though sudden noises scare them back into the cover. Dappled sunlight filters down between the thick foliage, and the ground underfoot is heavily overgrown, though here and there paths have been worn, by deer or years of students wandering familiar trails. It's early in the evening and, despite the overcast sky, light still shimmers outdoors. The forest at Xavier's has begun budding with some excited leaves already starting to show. Green vines are underfoot as Dakota walks along one of the more worn-in paths in a pair of brown hiking boots, a pair of dark blue jeans, and a long-sleeved plaid blouse; the latter of which is hidden beneath a warm coat. Nic moves along with Dakota looking up into the trees he shifts in close to the girl "This forest is really pretty, starting to turn green little flowers popping up. I wasn't real sure about hanging out in the forest, but turns out it's pretty romantic hey sweetie?" Maybe this whole on campus before eight thing wasn't too bad, there were some pretty nice areas for dates on campus... as long as there weren't any bears around. Nic's wearing pre-faded jeans a green and blue plaid overshirt and t-shirt underneath covered under a navy blue windbreaker. There is some rustling in the trees overhead, scratching of claws on bark. Obscured by the shadows in the thick branches, bright glowing eyes look down upon the pair below. It is quite possible for one to make out the form of a darkly coloured feline creature, almost all black with some white markings. The sounds of scratching start down the opposite side of the tree as the figure descends. Though the teenager has a smirk on her face, she looks askance and rolls her eyes. "Romantic? It's a forest. It's cozy. And being outside is thrilling, isn't it? But this weather is stupid. It sucks. Maybe we can get a few nice days in a row sometime or something." Dakota's hands are in her pockets as she navigates over a bump in the trail and she nearly topples over when startled by the descent of -- "What is that?" There may be a -small- hint of worry in her voice as she narrows her eyes at the dark creature. "Fine cozy then." Nic sticks his tongue out at his girlfriend "The budding flowers and spring air is very cozy." the boy jumps when an unknown creature comes down "Whoa geez! There's actually bears?? Dakota bears we gotta..." He can't think what you're supposed to do when you encounter a bear play dead? climb a tree? No that was obviously wrong. Looking a little closer it's clear this isn't a bear. "Wait... that's not a bear... it looks cat-like. Ummm Dakota there aren't jaguars in this forest are there?" He carefully waves towards Dakota in a motion to call her towards him "Let's carefully back away." There is a soft thump as the creature lands softly on the ground, only barely audible. From behind the tree, Marinov raises their hands in the air, leaps out and says, "Roooar! Haha! "What?!" Dakota exclaims, whipping her head around to look towards her boyfriend. "You don't know what to do?! Aren't all guys supposed to be Boy Scouts? What is it?" This last part is said as a hissed whisper as she starts backing away following Nic's beckoning. When the creature suddenly attacks, she lets out a brief shriek, again nearly stumbling backwards, and fires a blast at Marinov's face. Nothing too forceful, but enough to potentially move the other mutant. "Of course I don't know how to deal with a jaguar!" Nic's thoughts are not only interrupted, but thrown into total disarray when the jaguar creature attacks all he can manage is a surprised cry. After a moment of hesitation his brain starts working enough again to let him know he should probably run, but he can't leave Dakota. He reaches for her hand hoping to grab hold and escape this savage attack together. Marinov is knocked off of their feet, not having expected the blast of force right in their face, and they land on their back. It only takes a moment for them to hop right up back to their feet, a throaty growl emitting from the teen, "Fuck! That hurt!" Marinov is wearing a tight black tanktop and a pair of workout pants, apparently nothing special. They don't actually seem angry, but still say in an animated way, "It's just me! Geez! I was the creature all along!" "Jaguar?!" The young man makes a successful grab at Dakota and manages to catch her by the wrist moments before Marinov speaks up. "What?! No, it didn't!" comes the teenage girl's immediate response, the tone a slight defensive. "But that's what you get for scaring people like that! What were you thinking?" About ready to run for the hills with his girlfriend Nic stops when he hears the jaguar curse he slowly turns back to see it is in fact a friend not an attacker "Wha? Geezes! Marinov? What are you doing prowling around dressed in black and dropping down on unsuspecting couples?" he sighs softly "Well I'm glad it is you, and not some jaguar trying to eat my girlfriend..." With the danger now past the young man has a chance to calm down, no longer looking to flee though he hasn't released Dakota's hand. "You scared the daylights out of us." "I'm not prowling around! This is like, a workout for me. Climbing and jumping and running... Just doing normal stuff! It's fun!" huffs Marinov, a bit defensively as well. "I come out to the forest a lot. It's nice out here... My head's not as noisy, I can just do stuff." They shrug and say, "I think there's more mutants in this woods than jaguars, though. Do... jaguars live this far north?" "Not just -dressed- in black, but ... all black! Geez, if I hadn't seen you around campus with that new ... look, I wouldn't have recognized you even now. And, yeah!" Dakota gives a nod, agreeing with her boyfriend. "You can't just ... do that. Geez. You can't expect us not to defend ourselves either. And jaguars could be anywhere, I bet. Along with bears and squirrels. That's what live in woods ... right?" It's clear she means the 'woods' in general, not just these specific woods. The girl has not yet let go of Nic's hand either. Nic shakes his head slowly "I don't really know the extend of their range... but I doubt black jaguars come this far north... I don't think they like the cold, but you clearly weren't a bear! When did you get all black?” Looking to Dakota when she add squirrels into her list Nic chuckles and moves an arm around her shoulders to lightly hug her against him. “Them along with a few others though I’m usually not that worried about squirrels. Anyway Marinov” the teen turns his attention back to his friend who is thankfully not a jaguar “I can definitely get behind a workout, but mine usually don’t involve giving heart attacks to my friends.” "Well, I didn't think I was gonna give you a heart attack, obviously! I just saw you from up in the tree and decided to come down and say hi. I didn't think my jump scare was all that scary! Not like I sprang for your face or anything," says Marinov, shrugging lightly, "But prosti, I'll be careful next time. Mostly what lives in these woods is like... mutants and bunnies. None of the wildlife I've come across is scarier than me. As for my look, yeah, got my fur coloured by Tag. Sort of going for a space look, see?" Dakota allows herself to be pulled closer towards Nic, reaching her own arm around his back. "Space look? Why? Camouflage? And you didn't scare me," she indignantly asserts. "It was Nic. Talking about jaguars and bears. I wouldn't have been so startled if it weren't for him." Judging from her earlier reaction, this is unlikely to be true, but she says it confidently enough. “Yes yes, it’s all my fault” Nic says in response to Dakota with possibly just a hint of sarcasm “But all I saw was a large cat-like being that I didn’t recognize jumping out at you. How was I to know it was in fact our good friend Marinov sporting a new space look?” He looks towards Marinov “Sorry for the misunderstanding, and if my darling Dakota hurt you in her overreaction.” The teen pokes his tongue out at his girlfriend. “So Tag gave you a change huh? I don’t think I’ve met Tag, how are you liking looking like space?” He says to Marinov once again. "I hope I didn't look like I was like... pouncing out or anything, geez, I must be scarier than I thought," remarks Marinov, scratching their cheek lightly with their claws. "And I think my usual colouration is better camouflage than space, like, most of the time. 'cause it's actually camouflage colours. But I think this looks real neat, yeah? I've been liking it." They pause a moment and add, “And it’s fine. I’m tough. I can take a battering anyways.” "It wasn't an over-reaction," Dakota informs her boyfriend by mumbling under her breath. "I was protecting us." Then, after Marinov finishes speaking, she continues. "Yeah, see, they're fine," she proclaims with a small shrug. "No harm, no foul. It -does- look neat. That's crazy that we can do things like that." There's a slight hesitation before she turns to Nic. "But there's nothing wrong with being human." Nic shrugs “I don’t think we were about to wait to see if you were pouncing, in the dark jumping out with jaguars on the brain… it was enough to key up my flight instinct.” The young man smiles with a small chuckle to his girlfriend “I was only teasing hun, it if really had been a jaguar I’d be more than happy that you were able to put up a defense and let us get away.” He looks back towards Marinov taking a moment to give them a proper look for the new colouring “It is neat, looks great Marinov, just not what I was expecting to run into on our walk. I had no idea you had changed your look.” Letting out a sigh of dramatic relief Nicodemus gives Dakota a light hug with the arm he has around her “Oh phew I was worried if you found out I was a human it would put me in your bad books, you wouldn’t want to hang out with me anymore… no more snuggling. I tried so hard to hide it.” "Mmhmm," says Marinov after Dakota finishes speaking, "So did I interrupt some kind of romantic shindig? Should I be getting out of here? You know, to let you two get back to... whatever it is you were planning on doing out here alone in the woods?" They glance up at the tree that they had climbed down from and add, "I just usually don't see people out here getting late, at least not people who lack, you know, night vision eyeballs." Dakota turns her body in towards Nic's hug, tension easing out of her body. She was, after all, fairly startled by Marinov's appearance even if she won't admit it. "You're a dork," she remarks with amusement to her boyfriend while rolling her eyes. "We were just ... doing a nature trek. It's a really common thing for couples to -- Okay, -fine-. I have to be on-campus by eight at night, so we thought maybe Nic would come here and we could spend a little more time together since classes have started back up." “Well the nature trek thing wasn’t really false, but the whole on campus by eight does put a limit on our options. Not that I’m complaining, the campus is nice, and there’s lots of cool people to meet.” Nic says with a smile, then with a shrug he adds “I understand they tend to frown on boys in the girls dorm though, so walk in the forest seemed a good option.” He offers Marinov a grin “But no worries you’re not interrupting anything, we’re glad to have you, you know as long as you don’t mind a little snuggling.” "Whoa, flirting while on a date with your girlfriend? Bold move," says Marinov, neither sounding approving or disapproving, but certainly seeming a bit awkward, "But I think I'll pass on snuggling myself. I've still got a lot of energy to burn off and I don't think that snuggling is gonna cut it." They add, "But in my travels, I'll make sure to shoo any like... pumas or bears that I come across, yeah? That's friendship, right there." "Yeah, no one feels bad for you that you're not allowed in the girls’ dorms," Dakota teases her boyfriend with another eye-roll, but she does offer a nod. "Marinov's one of the coolest. They've got this art show thing going on which is pretty awesome. You should come to it with me. It'd be fun. All mutant art, too. Something different." These last two words are spoken with a grin and a wink towards the felinoid teen. “Eh? Oh” Nic chuckles and shakes his head “Well I meant as long as you don’t mind Dak and I snuggling in your general vicinity, not that I don’t think you’d be a good snuggler, but I don’t want Dakota to kill me.” The teen looks towards the shorter girl that his arm’s around “Art show? That sounds really cool, of course I’ll go with you! Oh hey I met a guy doing sketches or… drawings of some kind anyway Alex was his name made some really nice stuff. I don’t know that I have the money to buy art though…” "Oh. Yeah, I guess I should have figured that you weren't inviting me to some kind've snugglepile," says Marinov as they rub their cheek a moment still more awkwardly. "Yeah, the art show is going to be really cool. Lots of amazing people are volunteering and participating and... if you want to volunteer, that'd be cool. I mean, volunteering is open to anyone, really. The artists are all mutants though. And I mean... I reserve the right to like... toss shitty people out on their butts, yeah? I'm not worried about too many bigots wanting to apply to volunteer for an art show, but there probably will be some who try." Dakota raises a brow at Nic's statement, an amused expression on her face. "Why would I kill you? Snuggling a cold corpse is not as rewarding as you might think." She then directs her attention to Marinov. "Oh! Yeah, Nic's mentioned him to me before. You should look into that." Nudging her boyfriend in the side with an elbow, she offers, "We'll keep an eye out for trouble-makers at your shindig, Marinov. You can count on us." Nic shrugs his shoulders “Well I admittedly I don’t have a lot of experience with the girlfriend thing, but as I understand from popular media they usually don’t appreciate their boyfriends cuddling up to other girls.” He looks curiously towards Dakota “Or did I have that wrong?” He squirms at the elbowing and grins at Marinov “Yeah of course we’ll volunteer, I think I can manage to put a hold on my bigotry enough to not get tossed out at least. I don’t know if I’ll be much of a bouncer though, what do you need us to do?” "Spasibo, Nic, I really appreciate you toning it down," says Marinov a bit wryly, "Juuust enough not to get thrown out." They nod a couple of times and say, "And... yeah. I'd appreciate you keeping an eye out. I mean, we have like... people volunteer to like protect the place. We've gotta like budget more than an average event for security. I think the Evolympics had some good security, so I've really appreciated having Shane and Dusk's inputs..." Following his statement about being in intimate interactions with others, Nic receives a sharper jab in the side from the elbow of a pouting Dakota. "That's not funny. You're not allowed to make me jealous either. I've seen -that- in popular media." She then narrows her eyes at her boyfriend. "What bigo--oh, you were making a joke, weren't you?" With a sigh, she turns her attention back to Marinov. "I'll keep him under control," the short teenager remarks as she gives the taller boy a squeeze. “Ack! Watch it with those pointy elbows.” The teen says squirming away from his girlfriend’s elbowing “That’s what I just said that I don’t want to you to kill me, figuratively of course, so I’ll keep away from potential jealousy inducing situations.” he sticks his tongue out at the girl “There no need to elbow harder when we’re already agreeing. Anyway.” he gives Marinov a salute “I’ll be on my best behaviour sir… which hopefully will be enough not to get the boot.” He puts his arms around Dakota to squeeze her back after saluting. "Alright then, well, now that I've spread the word and scared you all half to death, and intruded," says Marinov, looking back up towards the tree they had climbed. The teen crouches down, shifts a couple of times and then leaps up to catch a branch. They pull themselves up on the branch and gesture to themselves, "While you're in these woods, you are under the protection of the forest god! That's, uh, me." They start leaping away from branch to branch to leave the other two to their devices.