[FOX] WHAT COMES AROUND

[dakota]

"Thank you, ma'am, and have a nice day," a noncholant voice
behind Dakota said, but she wasn't much paying attention. She
never really did. She had maybe... Ten minutes before somebody
noticed that the money she used wasn't American. That was at
least the good things about shopping in one of those stores
where the music was too loud, and the cashiers didn't really
care. You could get away with it until one of the managers came
through and counted the money. If she was still here then they'd
suspect her. So Dakota swung the bag over her shoulder and
turned around into the mix of the mall. It wasn't that busy on this
day, but it was still easy to get lost within all the groups of
people. As she neared one of the bathrooms, she peeled off.

Slipping into one of the stalls, she took her new pair of shoes out
of her bag and put them on. Then she slung around her backpack
and changed her outfit. From her punkish appearance to help her
blend into that store, she pulled out a long sleeve purple shirt, a
few bracelets, and a pair of jeans. Stuffing the old outfit into her
bag, she pulled off her wig, black hair with bright streaks,
shaking out her dirty blonde hair. She knew the whole outfit
thing usually wasn't nessacary, but that's what the store
manager would be looking for if they figured out that she did give
them improper money, it wouldn't be the same girl. No, it would
be a girl by the name Cadence with black hair wearing skinny
jeans and a tank top. She gave herself points for that.

She flushed the toilet so that people would think she had just
gone, zipping up her backpack as she flung it over her shoulder
again, going over to the bathroom mirror and combing through
her hair with her fingers. Her hair was starting to look limp again,
but it wasn't as if somebody was going to notice unless they
knew her pretty well. Some people just had flat hair. Washing
her hands, she threw the paper towel away, and stepped back
into the flow of the people. Dakota wasn't really here just to go
shopping. She was really scouting, too see if there were any
other packs or flocks nearby. She knew there was another flock,
but seeing as she knew of two including her own, there had to
be a pack hunting them down. It was just how it worked.

She sighed, slipping off her backpack and putting it on one of the
seats. Flopping into it lazily and putting her feet up onto the
table top, before rolling her eyes and trying to get attuned to the
emotions around her. Excitement, curiousity, a few sharp pains of
anger and sadness... Nothing that followed a bird-kid or one of
the wolf kids. There wasn't wariness, bloodlust, or the tune of
searching except for those that were also worried. A friend
missing and whatnot. Would today's scouting just end up
another fruitless search, or would she actually accomplish some-
thing today? That was what she asked herself nearly everyday
but it wasn't like she had anything better to do, right? She leant
back again, waiting for something to come around.

[Fox]

Fox entered the mall for the first time since entering NYC and stopped and the entrance to examine that mall. He had seen bigger but he wasnt going to complain seeing as how he could smell the foods scent wafting from the food court and seeing as he needed food, urgently, he was not gonna complain about any place with food.

Fox kept a close watch on everyone as he walked through the mall towards the food court, keeping a close hand on his small sword he had in the nape of his back, always ready for any fights that could erupt against bird kids, erasers, or white coats hitmen. It had been a long year, with more blood then he could ever remember being spilled, but it was the price to pay to be free and he was content with it.

After walking for five minutes, he finally found a food stand selling
nearly anything, he quickly smashed a 100 bill he stole from some unlucky person in the city, "Give me everything until it amounts to the hundred" he said, his low voice suprising the cashier, due to the smile he had directed at her. "Sure, give me a minute" She replied and hurried back after checking if the hundred dollars were legit or not and returned a few minutes later with her hands full. Fox muttered a thanks and walked over to a table and started diving in, not caring of the stares he rose from the amount of food he was eating by himself.

After finally finishing, fox looked down on his clothes and realized how much of a tattered mess they were. He got up and disposed of his mess and walked over to the shopping area, looking for a clothes store. However, before finding one, he stopped, feeling a feather of something touch his mind, and quickly sent up a happy thought, unsure of what else to through at it. He looked around, suspicious before his eyes fell on a girl that rose the hair on the back of his neck whenever he saw a bird kid. He stared at her from across the hall, unsure if he should approach her or not.

[dakota]

Dakota twirled a strand of her blonde hair between her fingers,
scanning the crowds like one would do while looking for a friend
who was supposed to show up. The smell of cheap mall food
wafted towards her, tingling her nostrils and triggering a small
sound from her stomach. When was the last time she had really
had a full meal? One... Two weeks? She couldn't be sure, but she
knew that the scientists had meant for them to consume more
than just a few scraps. She still had her caches of foriegn money
she had collected, but she didn't have any more outfits to switch
into after a purchase. And food companies were more prone to
check that the money was given to them, and Dako was tired of
running from the cops. She was trying to take a day off.

She looked over at one of the nearest food stalls, and she
realized that her location, though good at the moment she had
sat, was bad for her sense of smell. She'd have to rely almost
completely on her sixth sense to catch the Erasers before they
caught her. That was another thing she didn't like to do. Her
powers wore her out if she continued to use it extensively, and
most of the time when she was concentrating on the emotions,
she started altering a few on accident. But something was weird
about the boy ordering food at the shop. The cashier, Dakota
could tell, was flustered by him (she didn't need to read emotions
for that), and she was a bit concerned about that. The people
here were used to being tricked out of pay and money.

Dakota tried to catch a misplaced emotion from the boy, but all
she could get were all the things related to hunger. She was
about to turn away when the cashier came out with an extremely
large amount of food. Her stomach gave another half-hearted
growl, but she didn't pay much mind to it. Her curiousity was still
rising about this boy who seemed to be inhaling the food at an
alarming rate. That could only mean two things. A) the boy was
extremely hungry and rich, or B) he was a well feed Eraser/Bird-
kid. She felt her muscles tense absently, concerned that this was
going to be a fight or flight situation. These days, it was
impossible to tell what packs and flocks were together. She could
get along pretty well with the Zeeve, but the Faolin... No...

She felt a pain of happiness come sharply from the boy, and she
automatically withdrew her power. She was in trouble. There
weren't many people who could sense that she was picking at
their emotions, but it typically was a bird-kid or an Eraser if any-
body could notice the little feathery touch that would pick at their
heads. The boy would've reacted somehow with his posture if he
would've seen something with reason, but she had a feeling that
he had noticed her. Dakota usually didn't worry much about it,
but she felt a gaze land on her, and had a feeling that the boy
had turned towards her. How had he choosen her, if he had no
experience? She was a bit worried now, waiting for the hint of an
attack so that she could get out of here.

[Fox]

Fox watched her reproachful look as she realized that he was on to her and wondered how he would approach the situation. On one hand, he could ignore the bird kid because she hadn't attacked him yet. Or he could go and attack her. Fox mused over this for a few seconds and chose the third one. Ask her questions. He might as well make use of this situation and learn everything around this area seeing as he was new. And if she attacked him, he was getting pretty good at quick drawing his sword.

Fox nodded his head and steeled himself, and walked forward, visibly relaxing from his previous position and walked over, leaning towards the girl. He paused for a moment in front of the girl, his right hand bent slightly ready to draw and looked down at her, "Hey, the names Fox, what's yours?"

ooc- lame, i know, but im tired, sorry

[dakota]

Dakota watched the boy out of the corner of her eye. He had
noticed that she noticed him, and that made her on edge. That
meant that the boy, whoever he was, did have sharper senses.
She bit her lower lip slightly, going over the escape routes, the
distance between her and the next table over, and the speed
she would need to jump up and fight or flight. The nearest exit
was down the hall, curving to the left. If she banked sharp
enough, she should be able to barrel right through the doors
before anything could think of catching her. But no, Dakota
wouldn't run if she didn't have too. She was that kind of girl who
would rather die than flee from the scene if she didn't have too.

She saw the boy nod as he walked forward out of her peripheral
vision, and she forced her muscles to not noticably tense. The
last thing she needed was a peaceful Eraser to change his ideas
because he thought that she was going to fight. Of course, she
could tell he was a Wolf Boy this close. She saw his arm tense
towards his belt. He's armed. Proceed with caution, her
mind said cautiously, but she shook it away. She was armed too,
it wasn't like she couldn't break a jaw with a good roundhouse
kick, right? He introduced himself as Fox, and asked her for her
name. "Dakota," she said briskly. Now, this would've been one fo
the places where she could've lied, and probably should've. She
didn't need another Eraser on her tail at this moment.

She did another look over at the boy, and he was definately not
just living from meal to meal. He didn't look like he'd recently
gone hungry, and he looked like he was once pampered too all of
his needs. Already knowing it probably looked like she was much
more successful than she really was. She liked to call herself the
Master of Disguise. She could easily slip under the safety of other
identities, and was able to get her clothes clean, and have one
spare for missions like this. She flexed her toes in her new
shoes, looking over her shoulder too see if the boy called Fox
had brought reinforcements. Seeing none, she smirked. This
would be easier than she thought. "What brings you here, Fox?"
she asked casually, an innocent smile playing on her features.

[Fox]

Fox shivered slightly as she looked him up and down and asked him what brought him here. There was something off about this girl, something that screamed in every nerve in his body that she would be one hell of a fight. He smiled and said, "Just wandering, happened to hear all the hype was here so i decided to stay here a little longer than i had planned. Then i got hungry, so i swiped a guy wallet and took some money." He said, completely at ease talking with her. From what he'd seen, she looked like she was alone otherwise she wouldnt have needed to look behind for more erasers.

"What about you? I heard there were groups in this area but im not yet sure were to go for my particular persuasion." He said, a smile flitting his lips. "I've seen tracks of three or four groups in this area but i've yet to see more than a single person from the groups, and they always attack or run away and will never answer my questions." He looked over her one more time, noting how clean she looked, "Perhaps your from the more organized flock that i heard was in this city a long time ago? Although chances are that the group changed since two three years ago."

[dakota]

Dakota smirked. She knew that that Fox, if that really was his
real name, was not going to fight and had noticed that she had
been good at fighting. As he smiled, she listened to his words. As
he said that this was where all he hype was and that he had
swiped a wallet. Well, that probably would've been more
effective, but she hadn't been working on her pick-pocketing in a
while, and her stash of foreign money wasn't close to running
out yet. But if she had to continue stealing from these punk
stores, she would be running through shoes quicker than usual.
And the more times that she repeated it, the easier it was to
track her down. She didn't want to deal with that kind of crap
right now, not when she had bigger problems to handle...

Like this Eraser. He was new. It would be so easy to say that
this place was dominated by bird-kids, but she wasn't one for
lying. Especially about stupid things like this. "Well, Mr. Fox,
welcome to New York. There are two flocks and two packs, that I
know of. I--" because if she was going to go ahead and tell him,
she might as well be thorough about her description "--am the
leader of the second flock, the one of misfits if you will, called the
Circe. I know the leader of the Derynn, but I have yet to cross
paths with Erasers that weren't loners," she held up one slender
finger, as if saying that she had more to tell. "The packs are the
Faolin and the Zeeve. The former is the first set, the Zeeve are
the mix of bird-kids and Erasers that want war."

She put down her hand, crossing her arms and assessing Fox,
though it wasn't obvious that she was. It was going to be tough
battle if this Eraser was actually part of the Zeeve or Faolin's.
Especially the former, because they were always bitches about
starting fights. Sure, so were the Circe, but she only had a few
members, and they just didn't want to deal with the other packs.
She saw him look at her appearance, asking if she was in the
more organized flock. She laughed outloud, shaking her
head. "Oh, you flatter me," she pulled out a stack of bills, flipping
them easily onto the table and spread them out. There were
notes from Europe and all over the other continents. She smiled.
This Fox kid amused Dakota, and she didn't know why.

"A bird-kid doesn't get paid to hunt, and to get paid is to get
killed. It's much easier to get notes from other countries, as our
money is much more than others, then trade in for those stores
where the music is too loud and they don't care." Sure, she had
just given up her secret, but as she pocketed the money, she
knew the Eraser wouldn't go to those kinds of lengths to get the
bills. "Food, on the other hand, is much harder to get these days.
They're so picky about their money," Dakota complained, rolling
her eyes. She really didn't care that she had opened up to this
Eraser, for this was much further than she had ever gone with
her other members. She was tired, and hungry. If she got on the
good side, maybe she could get something to eat...