Post by Ryan Littlewood on Sept 21, 2024 6:44:56 GMT -5
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[attr="class","Ryanlightpostlyric"]I'm on both sides of the fence[break]
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Ryan didn’t hate dogs.[break][break]
It was understandable why someone might believe the contrary, considering the singular form he could shapeshift into, but he really didn’t! Dogs were fun. Dogs were cool. He’d wanted to be a dog when his powers first kicked in. Or rather, he ideally would have been a wolf, like his younger sister, but he’d have settled for dog if the option were offered to him.[break][break]
But no. He was a cat. And while he knew many dogs to be well-behaved, friendly to or even subservient to feline companions… some of them just liked to chase things that were smaller than them.[break][break]
And so, he was running.[break][break]
Instinct had kicked in as it often did in these types of situations. The animal ‘winning’, as some Sector handlers liked to say. Grass blurred beneath his paws as he streaked down the slope towards a copse of trees, the dog's paws thundering in close pursuit while its owner yelled from an ineffective distance.[break][break]
The safest, most logical solution to this problem would be to shift. To be human again. Leaving both dog and owner dumbfounded as an adult man sparked into existence in place of the fleeing cat. The Sector wouldn’t have liked that though. So really, his manager would probably be proud that Ryan’s human-brain wasn’t working and his cat-brain was forcing him to make a mad dash for something to climb.[break][break]
He hurtled through a swath of ferns, running blind as the leaves whipped his face, and then there it was: a tree trunk. He shot up the bark like his life depended on it (and for all he knew, it might have) and clawed his way onto the first branch he reached, tiny heart hammering in his chest as he caught his breath.[break][break]
The dog circled below, whining and huffing, occasionally standing on its hind legs to look up at him. The owner arrived a minute later. Scolding her pet as she clipped its harness back on (one that Ryan had the misfortune of seeing the dog slip out of, ) and tugged it away, back to the path and out of sight.[break][break]
He was safe.[break][break]
Clarity slowly returned to him, helping him to flatten his fur and take stock of the situation. He was fine, just flustered – the dog didn’t even nip him. It could have been a lot worse, but it wasn’t. Lesson learned: he’d need to be more careful about cutting through dog parks when he was in cat form.[break][break]
Unfortunately though, that wasn’t the end of it. There was another lesson to be learned: make sure he didn’t pick a tree to climb that required him to drop at least twenty-five feet to get back to the ground. Because the branch he’d picked that day was pretty high up…[break][break]
Oh. Really high. It would seem he was stuck.[break][break]
He wouldn’t be telling his manager about this, after all.[break][break]
He glared at the ground for a good while, tail twitching without permission as it tended to do when he was annoyed. Eventually though, he had to surrender to the reality of his situation and start meowing. Loudly.[break][break]
He yowled and wailed for a solid few minutes, but no one came to investigate except for a squirrel – who only scampered down to sit comfortably on a separate tree branch and give him a judgemental look, before deciding he wasn’t worth its time and scurrying off again.[break][break]
Maybe he wasn’t loud enough as a cat. Or maybe anyone who did hear him weren’t cat people, and so they didn’t care to investigate.[break][break]
With an inward sigh he changed back into his human form, carefully shifting so he was straddling the (thankfully thick enough to take his weight) branch. “Hello? Anyone?” he called out. “I uh, need a little help here!”
[break][break]
Ryan didn’t hate dogs.[break][break]
It was understandable why someone might believe the contrary, considering the singular form he could shapeshift into, but he really didn’t! Dogs were fun. Dogs were cool. He’d wanted to be a dog when his powers first kicked in. Or rather, he ideally would have been a wolf, like his younger sister, but he’d have settled for dog if the option were offered to him.[break][break]
But no. He was a cat. And while he knew many dogs to be well-behaved, friendly to or even subservient to feline companions… some of them just liked to chase things that were smaller than them.[break][break]
And so, he was running.[break][break]
Instinct had kicked in as it often did in these types of situations. The animal ‘winning’, as some Sector handlers liked to say. Grass blurred beneath his paws as he streaked down the slope towards a copse of trees, the dog's paws thundering in close pursuit while its owner yelled from an ineffective distance.[break][break]
The safest, most logical solution to this problem would be to shift. To be human again. Leaving both dog and owner dumbfounded as an adult man sparked into existence in place of the fleeing cat. The Sector wouldn’t have liked that though. So really, his manager would probably be proud that Ryan’s human-brain wasn’t working and his cat-brain was forcing him to make a mad dash for something to climb.[break][break]
He hurtled through a swath of ferns, running blind as the leaves whipped his face, and then there it was: a tree trunk. He shot up the bark like his life depended on it (and for all he knew, it might have) and clawed his way onto the first branch he reached, tiny heart hammering in his chest as he caught his breath.[break][break]
The dog circled below, whining and huffing, occasionally standing on its hind legs to look up at him. The owner arrived a minute later. Scolding her pet as she clipped its harness back on (one that Ryan had the misfortune of seeing the dog slip out of, ) and tugged it away, back to the path and out of sight.[break][break]
He was safe.[break][break]
Clarity slowly returned to him, helping him to flatten his fur and take stock of the situation. He was fine, just flustered – the dog didn’t even nip him. It could have been a lot worse, but it wasn’t. Lesson learned: he’d need to be more careful about cutting through dog parks when he was in cat form.[break][break]
Unfortunately though, that wasn’t the end of it. There was another lesson to be learned: make sure he didn’t pick a tree to climb that required him to drop at least twenty-five feet to get back to the ground. Because the branch he’d picked that day was pretty high up…[break][break]
Oh. Really high. It would seem he was stuck.[break][break]
He wouldn’t be telling his manager about this, after all.[break][break]
He glared at the ground for a good while, tail twitching without permission as it tended to do when he was annoyed. Eventually though, he had to surrender to the reality of his situation and start meowing. Loudly.[break][break]
He yowled and wailed for a solid few minutes, but no one came to investigate except for a squirrel – who only scampered down to sit comfortably on a separate tree branch and give him a judgemental look, before deciding he wasn’t worth its time and scurrying off again.[break][break]
Maybe he wasn’t loud enough as a cat. Or maybe anyone who did hear him weren’t cat people, and so they didn’t care to investigate.[break][break]
With an inward sigh he changed back into his human form, carefully shifting so he was straddling the (thankfully thick enough to take his weight) branch. “Hello? Anyone?” he called out. “I uh, need a little help here!”
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[attr="class","RyanlightPostTag"]Tag: open!
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