Off the Under City Grid *Aryk/Pack*

[Natasha River]

Tasha was opinionated, but she was not beyond reproach. This territory belonged to the males, and Tasha would ultimately conform to the plan they felt best for their pack. Tasha didn’t want to interfere in the affairs of their home. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t voice her concerns and opinions. Ultimately, however, the conviction with which the younger male spoke reached her. Before Tasha could move her lips to respond darts were drawn against the hodgepodge collection of prisoners. She felt one prick her skin and gave out a growling snarl as the world began to shift and grew dim.

Rattle, rattle…. clank, rattle… scrape, rattle…

Tasha’s ears perked at the sound but she was out of sorts. How long had she been unconscious? She tried to move and found herself still bound, pressed against others in a small dark space. The chains were tight, pinching into the tender flesh of her wrists and along her elbows. The containment unit was designed for discretion and strength, not comfort. Judging from the sounds outside and the scents wafting in, Tasha could only assume one of two things. Either they were going to be loaded up for a longer journey, or taken into a private location within the city. In either case there would be only a small window of opportunity for her to act. She needed to escape and reach the sewers to alert the male’s pack.

Tasha took in a deep breath, the scent of the males strong in the narrow space they shared. The younger one was close to her and she made a point of taking the components of his scent into memory. The lingering traces of his pack and home would help Tasha identify his friends. She nudged him, whispering. “Wake up…. Wake up!” her thickly accented voice was hushed but insistent in Aryk’s ear, her lips close to his skin and her thick white hair brushed against him. If words were not enough to stir him then she would lick him as well. “I will only have one chance to run and find your pack- when they first open the door. We must work together.” Tasha shifted her weight so that she was close against the young male. The room stopped spinning for her as she realized that she did not feel the pup in the crate with them. His scent was nearby though. “I’m going to press my ear near you. See if you can get my earing out with your mouth. I will need it to get loose.”

Tasha’s voice left no room for argument. The time for action was now. The dangling jewelry that pierced one of the many places along Tasha’s ears was a modified lockpick. With a lot of wiggling and a little luck Tasha intended to free her hands, and those of the males if she had time. When the door opened she would (ideally) scoop up the pup and make a break for it. In the back of her mind she said a silent prayer of thanks to her brother, with whom she had spent countless hours as a child playing assistant to his magical act. While her ability was no where near the level of professionalism that Stefan had reached, it was still a very useful trick for the old lycan to have. Provided someone was able to help her retrieve the pick anyway.

((Tag: Hom))

[Hom Dae Ken]

Hom had not attempted to dodge at all when the darts started flying; his body was too large to do so effectively in the confined space and as he had already discovered, if he concealed his vulnerable human skin beneath his coils that the darts could not penetrate, the keepers had a tranq spear that served the same purpose. That certainly could pierce his scaled hide and the overdose of the drug from it had nearly killed him. His genuine and then continued feigning of weakness seemed to have bought him a reprieve however as the vastly reduced dose they used this time, though it left him entirely helpless, did not quite render him unconscious.

His metabolism was now in hunting mode, early evening being the time he was ordinarily most active, and the drug flushed away rapidly on this occasion. His first impression of the under-city was absolutely terrifying and if he had been able he would have been writhing in panic. He had since had opportunity to calm himself however and Hom had begun to pay careful attention to the scents and motions of their prisons as they jostled onward; he would need to know which scents to follow if he were to escape from here himself in the hopeful confusion that would follow whatever the strange three and their friends had planned. Hom could be patient and he was fully alert again long before they reached their destination.

Still he continued to lay motionless, even his breathing did not give away his wakefulness as he used his primary lungs hidden deep in his coils. The strange smelling female with the pretty patterns on her skin was one of the first to wake. He could hear her whispering furtively to her companions, trying to wake them too. Hom opened his eyes to stare at her a moment, blinking so the faint light caught the gleam of his eyes to betray his observation to her and he smiled showing his fangs when he caught a glimpse of scales again in the design of her tattoos as she squirmed closer to her friends. He hoped that the trail they had laid down had been followed because he did not see how they were going to seriously attempt an escape without help.

The little group of conspirators seemed to have discounted receiving any assistance from any of the other prisoners for some reason. Hom did not know why. Perhaps, he thought, he should take a risk and offer? A brief undulation of his body and his hands were, though still chained, now in front of him not behind and he was beside the female in one smooth graceful motion. “I assssissst youss?” he hissed very softly to her.

((Tag: Jasper))

[Jasper Hyde]

Hyde felt his world shift as he opened his eyes once more. He had been awake a while, not horribly long, but enough for his head to stop pounding. He had been part of this horrible caravan too long. A sarcastic smile lifted one side of his mouth as his words growled low. "We can't afford to be too diplomatic here, and I understand. If the...man..." He gave a slight nod to Hom and his colorful scales, " wants to help, I say we let him. Aryk, heard any more from your brother or the pack?" He shifted, pulling himself up into a sitting position, back against the bars with a groan.

"I'm getting too old for this shit." Hyde said softly to himself.

He looked down the line, watching Aryk and Tasha as well as the multicolored naga with exotic looks. They were a hodgepodge of failure, but Hyde had done better with worse. At night, he had dreamed such sweet memories. Memories of a run through the bayou and a slow and easy talk by the water as they watched the moon. He had even remembered her name. Tasha. Surely there wasn't another lycan wrapped in the same inky colors with that stark white hair.

"Calm down. He feeds us first, and I'm sure we could all use a little bit of slop even now. It's not the best, but it'll give you some strength." Hyde didn't mention that their captor loved to give him to worst cuts and potions. He liked to watch Hyde suffer as his full strength deteriorated. These people wouldn't be too bad, Hyde was still his favorite to cut and beat until an inch of his life.

[Aryk Twyla]

Aryk was silent. His dreams had been both disturbing and erotic at the same time. He did not want to wake up from it and he fought it ever second. He came to consciousness but fought completely waking. He listened but he did not stir. Everyone seemed hell bent on doing their own thing but they did not seem have any idea of what working together meant. He finally let himself be roused but just as he was about to speak, the world around them shook with a distant explosion and he immediately felt an intense separation, a global and terrible loss.

“RAYVN!!!” he cried out and jerked with pain and agony. He curled into a ball and sobbed for a moment before he let out a howl of total and utter devastation. “Oh Gods, NO!” he moaned. “I…. I have failed you…AGAIN!” he wailed. All thoughts of escaping, plans and heroic valor left his mind as he dove into a deep and agonizing sadness of the loss of his sister and several other members of his pack. “What is it??!!!” he cried, not quit understanding what had happened. It was then that he heard his brother mimic his cries, “RAYNY!!! She’s gone!!!!” he heard in his head, “NOOOO!!!” he wailed. He could feel hands on him, comforting, petting. Somewhere deep inside him he was able to fight back the darkness that threatened to consume him.

“I failed.” He cried softly. “I failed her ad now she is gone.” He did not know how to feel other than the extreme sorrow he was experiencing. The only comfort was the lips on his forehead, the hands petting his hair and cooing soft words of understanding. The whines were not from one, but from two. His hands gripped the ones that took his, one masculine, one feminine.

[tag: Natasha]

[Natasha River]

When the Naga offered to help Tasha nodded with an approving smile “Nais tuke” she offered in Romanian and moved so that she would be in reach. Who helped get her out didn’t matter, so long as progress was made. When the lockpick reached Tasha’s hands it did not take long for her to maneouver the lock and get her fingers free. With a bit more wiggling she got the rope off from around her wrists and body too. She was more flexible than the average person, a perk to her former circus life that came in handy at times like this. “I don’t care if they plan on feeding us Tochitură, I don’t trust those gadje as far as I can throw them.” Tasha uttered with a growl under her throat.

Just as freedom was within grasp, however, the earth shook. For Aryk much more had been broken, and it was easy to see. Tasha pressed her lips to his forehead and stroked his hair, shushing him sweetly. “Now is not the time for grieving.” She said gently, pressing her palm to his cheek and wiping away a tear. Her tender manner suggested that she would grieve with him when the time came, but not now. “Let us secure freedom first.” They were words of wisdom. The explosion had been big. Big enough that it would prove a very useful distraction. Tasha kissed away another of Aryk’s tears and then worked on his bonds, making quick time of them and pausing only for another gentle caress before tending to the others. Tasha had always been level headed in the face of crisis, and now was no different. She knew opportunity when she saw it, and it had just come calling.

She looked to the Naga man and the scruffy older lycan as she moved to work on the latch of the container “I think we can use this to our advantage”. The outer lock would be far more difficult. The gauge was different and would take more time to figure out, especially at this angle. “If the pack is just below I should be able to reach them. With the commotion outside I may have a better chance. But if they come to check on their cargo? Well…” She grinned a bit, which was a little lopsided for sake of her swollen eye. It was still quite purple, but at least it was not quite as bad as earlier. “You might need to orchestrate a little distraction.” She took another piercing from her ear, a second tool. There were quite a few of them, including an industrial bar across the top. But Tasha used such accessories practically when she could. You never knew when you’d need them. There were a few more clicking noises and then she growled, her face determined. “Almost…. Almost… Got it!”

[tag: Hom]

[Hom Dae Ken]

The female accepted his help willingly enough and although Hom did not understand her words they seemed kindly meant. Still however he had no real idea as to what their plan was and how he could help or at least take advantage of it when they acted. He had made careful note of the route they had travelled to reach their current location and he was relatively confident that he would be able to find his way back out of the city assuming that there was some plan in place to prevent pursuit, which was looking like a very big if indeed.

Hom suddenly stiffened his upper body and dropped flat to the floor. He felt the first tremors of the blast resonating through the rocks around them and using the base of their prison as a sounding board. Moments later the thunder of the explosion and its airborne pressure wave reached them and Hom hissed in fear; never had he felt anything like that before. It was a little like a rockfall or a flash flood but much, much bigger. He could feel rocks falling like rain across the city beating out a terrifying tempo and the sudden shifting of shear waves as subterranean caverns collapsed under the barrage. That was when the younger man began to scream.

This was all going horribly, terrifyingly wrong. The screaming was sure to bring the guards running and they might all be drugged again. Hom thought he could sense running feet now past the general background rumbling as the earth continued to settle, sound waves bouncing and vibrating wildly throughout the strata of the under-city. Three pairs of heavy boots. “Guardssss. Sssree” he hissed in warning as he attempted to disappear into his own coils; he did not want to be shot with the darts and it would take them time to come back with something stronger.

((Tag Jasper))

[Myka Diamandi]

[Thread Moved <3]