test.

[demanded]

in a few words: puppycat, born a cat, was raised by a pack of cannibalistic werewolves as a lure, drawing in all sorts of prey to stay fed. raised in relative seclusion with little understanding of healthy interpersonal relationships, puppycat was accidentally removed from the pack by a well-meaning police officer. he's been trying to find his way back since.

Comments

[dogflower]

[ They're not so different, Puppy and Puppycat... minus the part where they're basically complete opposites. For one, Puppy is a tree, for another he was raised under somewhat normal human conditions, by two human men. One of them is even pretty normal (no comment on the second). He's fully assimilated into human life, despite not being one himself, and knows how to interact with people comfortably and easily.

Hell, he even goes to school. Most days. Occasionally he skips.

He's skipping right now as he tries to drag a boy placed under his watch (for now) into a mall. It might not be the best idea to bring someone who has never been around a lot of people into a very crowded area first thing, but it's a lot to expect of Puppy to know what to do with this other boy. He's still young himself, and certainly no expert on assimilating magical creatures with the human world at large.

He grew up doing it, so it's normal to him.

Besides, this seems like as good a place as any to socialize in his eyes. ]

Did you want to start with the food court, or what?

[demanded]

[ twice every year, the packs convene for a hunt - and the presence of non-wolf companions were, while not uncommon, typically frowned upon during the hunt night itself.

so puppycat gets babysat elsewhere. usually it's with someone in town, but sometimes it's with other companions, all of them grouped together to form their own makeshift pack. a group of misfits, waiting for their wolves to be done running amuck in the wild.

this year's a little different, though. the host for this season is new, with even newer friends, some of them smelling oddly fey-like. like this boy, for example - puppycat's nose is nowhere near as sharp as a wolf's, but he's attuned enough to pick up on the scents of wood, earth, crushed leaves. it's not unpleasant, not exactly, but it makes puppycat miss the soft, grounded smells of home.

the city smells so acrid. unpleasant. oily, under a faint musty stench.

puppycat wrinkles his nose as an overly-perfumed teenager walks by. ]

I don't have money. [ there's so many people - so many people. ] Are there less people there?

[dogflower]

[ Puppy doesn't really understand the nuances of pack culture having never been part of one himself, but one of his dads was raised by wolves himself. Very literally. It's why he has the name he does, and why he had the slight connection that allowed this situation to come to play.

It doesn't mean that he has the knowledge needed to really help Puppycat acclimate to his new temporary environment, however, and he's not sure how to deal with someone who seems genuinely this upset to be around other people.

Especially when technically Puppycat is more people than Puppy himself just by virtue of being an animal rather than a plant.

He frowns a little at the question, looking around to gauge what the crowd seems like to him right now. ]

I'm not really sure, but I'm definitely going to pay for you. So you don't have to worry about that part.