Fur, Scales, and Tails (Yuuthayn)

[Hijinks]

Jink did not enjoy being chased around by bounty hunters. What the hell had he even done to call a bounty down on himself in the first place? He'd just been flying around, minding his own business... killing some slavers... Y'know, normal cat-man behavior. He was a bit of a jerk most of the time, and he enjoyed beating up on people like those.

The main problem was the lack of open areas in the lower streets of Axxila. Unless he came up on a terrace, or a bus station, or somewhere similar with an open area to fly off from, Jink would keep on getting stuck running up walls to get away, and that still hadn't worked yet. Eventually, they'd get tired, though... Long before he would stop...

Unless he crashed into the woman standing right in front of him.

[member='Yuuthayn Di'cantos']

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

It was a good thing I could sense with the Force now. Otherwise, some guy would have made me into a pancake. I quickly jumped out of the way before he collided with me, noticing the pink cat ears as I did so. Interesting...​

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I was currently in the form of a Falleen female, so I ever so slightly adjusted my height and my muscular build to appear a bit more threatening as four men rounded the corner in hot pursuit. I placed my hands on my hips and called out to them.​

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"And just where do you think you're going?"​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

Jink thought he vaguely recognized this woman. Enough that he wanted to stop and see what her reaction was to him rushing past. He jumped straight up into the air, creating a telekinetic platform under himself, which he lazily laid down on. He rested his head on one hand, and let the other hang off the platform like a cat resting on top of a ledge.​

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"They're bounty hunters, girlie... I just had to get out of their reach- oh, hell no..."​

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He leapt to the ground and grabbed the woman as one of the mercs started up a jetpack.​

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"Sorry, but those other two are packing more than the first guy."​

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And so, the purple-furred cat man leapt back up into the sky, this time with the familiar-ish Falleen woman.​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

I should've seen something like this coming. I should've known that the cat-man couldn't be trusted. But I foolishly turned my back to him. And now, I was rocketing into the air with him. I'd never been off the ground without something underneath my feet to keep me from falling. So, in this situation, I couldn't exactly keep calm.​

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"W-what the Hell are you doing??!! PUT ME DOWN!!!!!"​

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I cried. I made the mistake of looking down, and it sent any notion of calming down out the window. My form couldn't hold, and I began having a sort of spasm in which my body began shifting continuously into different things all at once. It was embarrassing, but I was too traumatized by the height to notice.​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

Jink looked down. Any vague idea of possibly giving in to the woman's wishes faded completely when he saw that below them was a drop straight down to who-knows-what. He wrapped his arms around the rapidly shifting woman and held tight.​

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"You. Need. To. Calm. Down."​

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A building was coming up in front of them, so Jink leapt straight up again and landed on top of it. He gently sat the woman down and took a seat next to her.​

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"Are you okay? I've never met anybody who reacted so violently to flying before."​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

Calm down? Calm down?? The minute the cat-man sat me down, I backed as far away as I could from him so he wouldn't do that again. I managed to revert back to the Falleen form as I gave him a sharp glare.​

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"Yeah, well maybe that's because most people aren't ripped off the ground by a strange man with cat ears!!!"​

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I was still shaking from the experience. I couldn't even bring myself to go over to the building's edge because he'd scared me so badly.​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

Jink rolled his eyes at the shapeshifting woman and very visibly waved his tail through the air as he walked over to her and poked a finger into her shoulder. His face looked totally calm, as always, but he was annoyed enough that some of the fur on his tail spiked up.​

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"Deal with it. I probably just saved you a lot of trouble by doing that. Plus, I'm not that strange."​

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The half-furred man shifted and resolved into a dark pink cat, that leapt up five feet in the air and stayed there, laying down as he had before in his humanoid form. The cat seemed to smile as it rolled over and looked at the woman.​

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"We've met before, miss. You looked different."​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

I glared at him. Easy for him to say! He was used to flying around! I crossed my arms as he turned into a cat. The tugging of familiarity flared up somewhere inside my brain as he did so. So, he was a Shi'ido too? And I'd met him before.....​

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"I want to agree with you. But I don't think I remember your name."​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

The expression on Jink's cat face grew into a sort of teasing smirk, and the same expression remained as he turned back into his humanoid form. His hand stretched out in front of him as he pointed at her.​

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"You were blue... You... Yu... Yuu! That was your name!"​

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He wagged his tail happily as he rolled over on his back again, and his skin turned Chiss-blue. His now-red eyes widened as he stuck out his tongue and his voice became sing-song.​

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"Yuu was blue, and now Jink-y is, too! So much fun."​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

Wait... Jink? I vaguely recalled running into a Jink while I was pretending to be a Twi'lek dancer. But... He knew what I really looked like? I'm not entirely sure I ever showed him that.​

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"Yuuthayn. My name is YUUTHAYN... And could you stop imitating me? It's a little disgusting."​

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I was never going to get used to how I looked. Having Jink constantly parade me around wasn't going to help that, or the fact that I needed to keep a low profile in cities and such.​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

"Your form disgusts you? How sad."​

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Jink smiled a bit more gently as he shifted back to normal and sat up on the little telekinetic platform. He reached out his hand again, putting it on Yuuthayn's shoulder. A little bit of pity, and a lot of sadness blew through his mind at the memory of this girl and her scaly blue skin.​

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"You shouldn't feel bad about your true form, Yuuthayn. Everybody's a little bit strange. Besides, your scales were rather nice the time I saw them."​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

I lightly shrugged off his hand. It was easy for someone else to say they liked you. They didn't have to live in your skin. Jink was a full-blooded Shi'ido, no doubt. He didn't have two people who claimed to be his "parents" trying to track him down and make him their little assassin. When I looked in the mirror as my normal self, all I could see was those two horrible people, merged into one and staring back at me.​

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I decided that I would rather change the subject then continue a pointless argument.​

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"Why are there bounty hunters on your tail? I thought that was just my problem."​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

"Oh, everybody is always on my tail, Yuuthayn. I imagine that it's simply because my tail is a rather nice-looking thing to be on."​

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In reality, Jink knew perfectly well that some major criminal must've had a bone to pick with him by now. In the year and a half since he'd woken up from his 'death', the catty Shi'ido had managed to use his shape-shifting and telekinetic abilities to make life all sorts of hell for whatever crime lord he could get his purple-furred hands on. He was kind of an nerf herder that way.​

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"Okay, maybe it's not simply because I'm good-looking. I might or might not have strangled some important slavers to death."​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

I rolled my eyes when Jink mentioned his "good-looking" tail. Sure. Bounty Hunters came from all over the Galaxy just to ride his tail. Now the killing slavers part? That was a better reason to chase after someone's tail. I put my hands on my hips, shaking my head.​

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"You know, when you start doing something like that, it's wise to change your looks every time you finish the job. That way you can't be recognized later."​

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Had I been the one doing the killing, I would've been much safer right now. It was hard to believe that a Shi'ido who once boasted how much older he was than me didn't know how to hide in plain sight.​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

Jink grinned even wider at the mention of transforming himself. It wasn't like he didn't change after his jobs, but he did so in a non-humanoid form to hide, rather than risk being arrested as himself.​

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"Oh, but I do love this form... I've been in it for centuries, after all. Besides... I can use my animal forms to hide."​

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To illustrate his point, he shifted into his cat form again and leapt up onto Yuuthayn's head, craning his furry little body to make eye contact.​

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"But I don't use them to escape because I can control the Force much better in my normal form. Flying takes a lot of concentration, y'know?"​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

"You always claim that that's your 'normal form'. But shouldn't it be... scalier?" ​

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I gently picked up Jink-cat and sat him on the ground, giving him a single pat on the head. I'd never actually seen Jink's Shi'ido form. Or did he even have one? I couldn't be sure. There was another thing I didn't quite understand, either.​

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"And how is it that you can shift into a cat, but not your Shi'ido form? Better yet, why a cat?"​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

"As far as I remember, or care to know, I've had my cat-man form forever. It seems to be my base form, too."​

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Jink shifted back and stood up in front of Yuuthayn, grinning. She must've thought all Shi'ido were walking around with scales like hers. Probably not, as far as he knew. His parents had always been partial to more mundane forms, and he could never figure out why. He'd basically chosen his cat form when he was very small, and kept it when he'd found out it annoyed his parents.​

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"I like cats. Ears, tails, fur, weird noises. Even when I'm human-ish, I still feel like a cat. It makes me feel happy, especially around all the weird things I see at home."​

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He shrugged and wagged his tail as he stood there talking.​

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"Besides, sticking out in a crowd helps me feel comfortable. I don't like being anything other than a cat."​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

"And you wonder why they keep chasing you..."​

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I replied, shaking my head again and grinning. Just out of curiosity, I shifted into a cat-woman similar to Jink and considered how it felt. I bent my ears up and down, and felt the swish of my tail. I meowed a couple times, and ran my tongue along my pure carnivore teeth.​

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"I will admit. It feels kinda nice. But I'm not quite feeling it as a normal thing."​

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I shifted into my human form. Or, at least, what I think I'd look like if I were human. If I could get comfy with any form, it would be this one. I was always taught that being fluid with my form-shifting was what I should consider "normal". But I'd always questioned that. I still do.​

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[member="Hijinks"]​

 

[Hijinks]

Jink playfully poked Yuuthayn with his tail as she shifted into what looked like her normal body, except human. He hadn't seen that form before. Grinning, he held out a hand to her and floated a couple of inches off the ground.​

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"While we're talking about good weird stuff... Maybe we should get off this building?"​

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He took her hand and pulled her up onto the telekinetic platform.​

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"I'll try not to go slow enough for you to look down."​

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[member="Yuuthayn Di'cantos"]​

 

[Yuuthayn Di'cantos]

I was going to refuse, but Jink was faster. I don't like standing on things that I can't see. It makes me dizzy, and it also feels like I'm going to fall at any moment. The minute he pulled me up, I practically latched myself onto him. I wasn't one to be uncomfortable with close-quarters, even when I was necessarily attracted to the person. But I was only doing this because it felt safer than not holding on to anything.​

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"I'm going to close my eyes now, so you better make sure you're fast, Jink."​

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I was already nervous, even though we hadn't even started moving yet. I just squeezed my eyes shut and held onto him very tightly.​

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[member="Hijinks"]​