Tall, red and handsome and currently quite tipsy, the six foot nine mutant had skin the color of a red crayon, he kept his black facial hair to a trim square goatee, his hair was a crown of black spikes He had a black button up shirt on when he left the sanctuary, but he managed to loose it somewhere, so he only sported a bright white tank top of several layers of mountain lifting muscle. His eyes were a even brighter shade of crimson and currently a bit bloodshot.He wore black slacks, that had to be custom tailored dew to his girth and the seven foot furry red monkey tail that followed him around all day. His teeth were those of a predator still broad like a human's but coming to atleast a dull point on all of them. His ears boasted several piercings on each of his pointed ears.

Jupiter had had a long day of drinking, brawling and drinking, he had been through more then seven bars and six restaurants that severed alcohol, he made sure they were all human dives too, he was having fun shaking the normal’s, he was waiting for anyone of them to say something about a mutant being in their bar, but amazingly enough he didn’t here any slurs, he wondered if a less bulky mutant would have been treated as well. He doubted it finally as he became a bit tipsier, the last bartender asked him if he wanted a bottle of their finest for the road. On the house no less, and at first he was just going take the bottle to the next bar, but then he saw the park and made the decision to walk across it. As far as the brawling went it was more the kind, that you thwapped someone playfully with a finger, while they hit you with pool sticks as hard as they could. A fun game while going to human bars, oh, it was also fun to kick over rows of motorcycles sending them bouncing about the parking lot.

Jupiter decided to walk a strait line from one corner of the park to the other and so far the park had been lucky, he had merely climb over obstacles, or picked them up and set them back down, however slowly but surely he made his way to copse of trees, that neither of the prior two solutions would work on. So as he got closer to the trees he had to decide how dedicated to his game he was. He had already made successions that he could have not made, climbing over that statue instead of tossing it to the side, setting the benches back where they went. Would it be so hard to step around a tree to let it live?

He supposed it wouldn’t, so he continued forward looking at the first tree in his way. “You are a lucky tree; I decided to play nice today.” He took a swig out of a clear glass bottle that held a large amount of expensive alcohol. “Really, you are, I could of grabbed you and tore you right from the ground, but I won’t.” he patted the tree gingerly on its trunk and stepped to the right of the tree moving around it, beginning to march once more. Now it took a pretty large amount of alcohol to get Jupiter anywhere near liquored up enough to talk to trees. He meandered through the trees and deeper into the less traveled area of central park.He began to whistle as he walked along and then he stopped dead in his tracks. Wait, What was he doing again? And where exactly was he? Was he in a forest? How the heck did he get to a forest!?

She was resting her eyes when she heard the sounds of a drunken idiot in the surrounding area. Humph, how dare the guy rip her from her un-needed beauty rest?! She quickly shifted her form from the ground into the upright position, and glared in the direction of the stomping oaf that was crashing through the trees, and even talking to them! Ugh! Xavia could smell the liquor fumes getting closer and closer, and gagged a little at the scent. Narrowing her eyes, she leapt from the bed of now, compressed grass, and tiptoed toward a rambling oak tree. Nobody woke her from a nice snooze in the park and got away with it!

Her form melded into the tree, her face visible, yet looking as if it were naturally carved in the trunk. As he got closer and closer, vengeful thoughts filled her head and she even smirked a little. She hardly blinked as she saw the darkened form of a large… very large… very red… um… ok, what was he? He had a monkey tail? Okay, so maybe she blinked a little. Her stay in NYC was turning out to be very interesting indeed, especially with this particular fellow intruding upon her personal space…

As he stopped to ponder, and was close enough to the tree that she had shifted into that she could mess with him. She gave an evil grin and reached a hand out from the trunk to tug that long tail of his with a quick yank, and then pulled her arm back in whether the yanking was successful or not. After she reached out, if he happened to turn around and whatnot, she would deliberately lift a root from the ground so it would form a loop and likely catch around his foot.

“Over here, monkey man…” she whispered, then shifted into the grass and into another tree, the only indication of her passing was the subtle movement of the grass beneath him.

“Hey!” he whipped around in what he thought was a fast circle and then held his hands out to the sides to balance himself. He had managed it, he actually got drunk today. It had been awhile since he actually accomplished it before he got bored of trying. Looking for who or what had just pulled on his tail. His tail was indeed yanked, but only because it was relaxed if it happened again his tail would do the yanking as soon as something touched it. He didn’t see anything until a face called him a name.

~~“Over here, monkey man…”

He looked at the tree who just whispered to him? “If I were you, I would run away now.” He took a step with his right foot and then caught his foot in a root on the left. His foot held for a second and where a normal person might have stumbled lacking the strength to do much of anything against a root. Jupiter yanked his foot, pulling the root out of the ground as one might come across a spider’s web. He stepped forward again trying to look around the tree to see who was hiding out there.

“Come out, come out, where ever you are.” The large man was annoyed, how could he punish someone if they were no where to be found? He took a swig of his amaretto, and weaved his way forward. Looking for the high pitch voice.

She had to purse her lips tightly to keep from laughing, but a small snicker escaped when he went looking around the tree for her, and she was not there. When he neared the next tree that she had slipped into, Xavia shook the branches up, and acorns began to rain down on his head, one after another. “You oafish man,” she taunted, “You smell of swine. Ugh, bathe before you catch me, primate.”

The plant mutant was more than a little grumpy, she was highly offended that he came tromping around like the giant red drunkard that he was. How dare he?? Really now?? She shook the branches harder and let the acorns rain down on his head, and then suddenly stopped.

She decided it was so much fun messing with his head that she shifted out of that tree, and deliberately ran behind him so he would hear the heavy thud of her footsteps just before she melded into yet another tree. Once in the maple tree, she bore down and began to spew sap from the core… And not just a little drizzle, either, but almost the same amount of pressure that came from a fire hose. Hopefully he had followed the sound of her footsteps and got his face directly into the line of fire!

Xavia was losing wind quickly, though, so she forced herself out of the tree as it was spewing, and made a run for it just as the stream of sap dwindled into a trickle.

~~ “You oafish man,”, “You smell of swine. Ugh, bathe before you catch me, primate.”

“ Oaf. Swine. Primate!” He was Livid now only if he had some where to take out his rage. The voice would have, could have been soothing if it had been telling him soothing things but no, was mean and told him negative things. He could almost swear that the trees were attacking him as the first few acorns fell, and then his drunken mind actually caught up as it began to rain them.His thumb covered the opening of his bottle and his tail twitched as he bent his head to wait out the rain of seeds that would leave tiny marks on his skin, as the little things came down He took deep breathes to cool his head. He considered decimating the tree right then and there, turning it into splinters. He refrained.

That was when he heard the steps behind him again not quite processing what he saw, was that a foot disappearing into the tree. His eyes widened as spay started to shoot from the tree…and that was it! The flow of sap hurt his skin, was being rubbed raw but he had stood all he could stand and couldn’t stands no more. Three or for slow but sure steps closed the gap from between him and the tree. He sent an open handed blow into the trunk and just as predicted the shrapnel of tree bits flew every where the top half of the tree collapsed to ward him and he shrugged it over his shoulder with ease toward the acorn tree the trunk got tossed into the trunk of another smaller maple. But some of the roos held it to the ground leaving like a giant earth tether ball. Luckily for Dryad she had ran.

And hopefully she would keep running. For her life. Jupiter’s head rounded toward the the faye thing that melded into trees and was angry at him for who knows what. His arm slid across his now stinging flesh to see if he could remove some of the sticky goo. And then he was off hunched over and chasing her as fast as his drunken sloppy limbs could go. If she stopped at a tree he would slam into it and tear from the ground, he was going to catch and punish, her if it was the last thing he did. Unfortunately for her, Jupiter wasn’t sexist in the least, a woman had every other right a man did in the world, so she also earned the right to die by his hands.

He loped after her trying not to fall when inevitably stumbled.

Man, was the monkey man drunk, or what?

She heard him stumble behind her and took a sharp turn as he was distracted, heading toward the left and under the stone arch. Thinking she had a good lead on him, she pressed herself against the mossy stone in the passageway, breathing heavily. She smoothed her hands over the skirt of the stolen Gingham number, and sought to catch her breath while he was probably trying to get off of his butt.

Xavia then tried to quiet her breathing down, and narrowed her eyes. He wasn’t that far behind her that she couldn’t hear him… After all, he was huge, and huge men lumbered when they were less than sober. If he had been sober, she was pretty sure he would probably be a lot more graceful than he was currently. Indeed, she could hear the man crashing through the trees to get to her. Ah, what fun it was to be sober and nimble while the monkey man was drunk and clumsy.

She started to move again, leading him in a circle. Once she was back to the spot he had stumbled upon first and blathered nonsensically to a tree in, she noted the uprooted and broken trees with more irritation. Although it WOULD mess with his head some more if she could just muster enough juice to fix the trees. An evil grin crossed her lips at that sudden idea, and she relied on adrenaline by that point.

Knowing she did not have much time to complete the task, she closed her eyes and doggedly set forth to fix the broken trees. If he caught up to her before she was finished, he’d see the nymph-like mutant flitting around and summoning her last bits of energy to mend what he had broken. If he did not catch up before she was done, the only indication that he had been there in that spot, was the sticky sap that pooled on the ground in front of the maple tree, and the massive amounts of acorns that littered the ground.

Rage was the only fuel that could compete with alcohol when powering the machine that was Jupiter, he was a man of basic primal emotion, The wooden faye creature was much more accurate calling him a primate, than she would have been his brothers. He pulled him self to his feet and tore the sap drenched tank top off of his chest. He leaned and ran as fast as he could after the little slip of evil that was trying to best him and flee for its life…had he ever been so drunk he started seeing things? Did someone drug him?

He turned the corner and went through the archway just as the corner of her skirt fluttered out of sight. He bound haphazardly after her, now leaning enough that he merely crawled until he lifted him self off the ground again when gravity and lack of balance got the better of him. the last ten minutes had treated him worse than the whole day had. He was covered in sap, muddy sap, mud and acorn bits…his shirt was torn and the hem of his slacks was covered in brambles and torn at the edges. His boots were now smeared in sticky brown.

He nearly frothed at his mouth when he came to the clearing again to see a sweet little form zipping around here and there to fix what they had damaged. She looked like she was wearing out, if he caught her. He would try to figure out a fitting bit of vengeance for the little wicked thing. He lunged forward , spreading his arms wide and his tail as well, giving it his best effort to in snare the lithe woodland woman.

She was saddened so much by the state of the trees that she stopped caring about the lummox following her through Central Park. Xavia did not turn around as she heard him come into the scene again, and she knelt down to place a hand on the stump of the maple he had knocked down to try and get to her, and popped a sweat for the first time as she put some effort into creating a sapling to replace the tree. When she was done, she turned around and looked at him with a defeated look, though he would probably not be able to tell while she was yet in the shadows.

Her gaze was on him for a moment, as he was poised to scoop her up, or so it looked like from her perspective. She simply didn’t say anything and walked passed him toward the little maple behind him, the moonlight briefly hitting her fae like face to give him a better look. When she finally spoke, it was over her shoulder, “All I wanted was to be left alone for one day.” Her voice was quiet before she knelt in front of the small maple and attempted to bring another sapling from the stump.

Failing with this second effort, she stood up again and tilted her chin up in defiance, “So kill me, that is what you want to do, isn’t it?” And assuming he turned around to look at her, she looked him in the eye and continued, “Well, go ahead. Do your worst.”

~~“All I wanted was to be left alone for one day.”

“I was just walking through, I did nothing to you! That tree would have been fine until you sapped it dry.” heh sapped “and this one you threw all those acorns at me. And for what? So you could call me names? If you wanted peace, maybe, just maybe you should have kept yours for a moment”

~~ “So kill me, that is what you want to do, isn’t it “Well, go ahead. Do your worst.”

He walked forward with a cold hard look in his eyes. His hand raised and closed on her throat, just getting a grip not yet suffocating her. “ You care so little for your life?” He raised her off the ground letting her feel the pull on her neck for only a moment before his tail wrapped around her center. “ should I see to your end as I did the tree, or should I show you that there is so much more for our kind? More to live for, more to the world than hoping to be left alone.”

The physical exertion had sobered him slightly and her passivity and lack of defense had robbed him of his urge to out right murder her..

When he lifted her from the ground by her neck, she didn’t really react at first. But then he started to run his mouth, and she seriously began to wibble. She choked out, “How would you feel if some great oaf came and crashed into the place you were sleeping when you had nowhere else to go?” The words didn’t come so smoothly, of course, they were broken up and spaced apart with every gasp of breath she took. She could feel his tail wrap around her and got even more frustrated and more angry with the man, and used every ounce of might she could to smack the bottle of alcohol out of his grasp, then continued to spew words out at him. “So I did some harmless things, I sprayed you with sap and pelted you with tiny little acorns, but you are the one going around acting like a fool as you gain courage from a BOTTLE. You can do whatever you please and you don’t CARE who gets hurt or insulted in the process.” This time the words were not so broken up, as he had let her throat go.

And then the tears came, “Well SCREW YOU.” She kicked out blindly and hoped she got him where it hurt the most just to get her point across and to get him to understand. Yeah, maybe she was taking her frustrations out on him, but he put the icing on the cake that was her miserable existence by waltzing in and being a happy drunkard. “I… Don’t… Want… Your… Help…” she gasped out, blubbering like some baby, but she had not cried since she had been in the infirmary and didn’t care what he thought about her crying.

~~“How would you feel if some great oaf came and crashed into the place you were sleeping when you had nowhere else to go?”

“Happens to me all the time. All the freaking time.” And it did too, his brothers were always coming into his room annoying him when he had no where else to go. Nowhere to escape, fight this fight that, so and so doesn’t think you can drink a whole bottle of this or that in less than a minute.

He allowed his arm and the bottle in it to move…he didn’t want the angry little thing to hurt her hand…tooo much. He felt like he had caught a squirrel, grabbed the think by the tail and was receiving its full energetic wraith.

~~“So I did some harmless things, I sprayed you with sap and pelted you with tiny little acorns, but you are the one going around acting like a fool as you gain courage from a BOTTLE. You can do whatever you please and you don’t CARE who gets hurt or insulted in the process.”

~~“Well SCREW YOU.”

His face darkened a bit as the kick landed square on his crotch, he gritted his teeth for a moment and then replied. “Harmless? The acorns would have been funny, my skin being peeled away with tree piss is a bit more than harmless.” he pointed to his stomach with the pointer finger of the hand holding the bottle she so disliked. “Tell me who I insulted here, you little crotch kicker!”

~~“I… Don’t… Want… Your… Help…”

“well….too…bad… you… are… going…. To… have… it.” He glared at the angry little thing in the skirt, oh and by the way. He heled up the sticky tank top that was held in the same hand as the bottle. He took his hands and wrung the clooth free of sap the way only someone with super strength could, right above her head.

He hefted the Dryad up to his shoulder where she could kick and scream all she liked. He started to march toward the street; from there he would go home. And see this fiery little wood nymph had a nice place to lay her head.

She gained great satisfaction in landing a crotch shot to the big monkey man, but the satisfaction dimmed when he wrung the shirt out over her head. Gnashing her teeth, she reached out and smacked toward his face, but missed as he spoke to her about her getting help whether she wanted it or not and hauled her over his shoulder. “Put me down!”

As expected, she began to kick his front and pummel his back like a rotten child who was not getting her way. She even bit at the small of his back and hoped she left a mark. When the opportunity presented itself to her, she grabbed a stout branch and shifted into that tree, but only for a moment. She stumbled out on the other side and began to book it, this time out of fear of being kidnapped again, and yes, she did misconstrue the situation and thought he was kidnapping her in the same manner she was kidnapped from her home town. No way, she thought, was she going to let it happen again.

She couldn’t shift back into a tree again, so all she could do was run. But then she saw the river, and did something quite retarded in her desperation. She was just going to cross it, but the water was so cold as she leapt in, that she screamed as the cold burned into her flesh. She pitched forward and everything seized up, and then she floated face down in said river.

He smirked at her as her little palm flew toward his face, he would have let land, he would simply flex the muscles in his cheeks so that they became hardened and let the sting in her hand teach her a lesson.

~~“Put me down!”

“Not until I put you down in your new bed.”

And then she bit him, she was feisty, he could get used to that. She was kicking and hitting and it did as much as the acorns she dropped on him earlier. She was running and he gave chase, the little woman wouldn’t be escaping free room and board not tonight, when she so obviously needed a home, meals and friends. He took off after her and she went strait for the river….no. no. no. NO!

Damn! What was he supposed to do now, Like he had any chance at all floating, he was made out of muscle, pure muscle he was going to sink faster than any rock….screw it. He tilted his large bottle up ward pouring the rest of the drink into his mouth and letting the bottle fill with air. He took for long strides and jumped, entering the water and catching her on the way down,… her face down body plunged under the water finding the bottom of the small river quickly, it was called the ravine and didn’t get too deep any where, he rushed as fast as he could toward the bank of the river, plopping the emptied bottle in his mouth when it became hard to breath, he scrunched down when it became obvious that hey were making little process. HE pushed off with his legs and they shott out of the water landing on the opposite bank. He landed with a thud and a curious jogger scrambled as far as he could away from the large wet creature tha emerged from the ravine. He didn’t even look back, it was hilarious.

He spit the bottle from his mouth and listened for her to breathe, he didn’t know if the natural water would be bad for her since she was a plant walker, but he had seen her breathe earlier and he was sure she should be doing so now. His breathe was terrible, but she didn’t deserve much better, she might even get drunk a bit from his particular application of cpr. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers pumping a sure slow breathe into and then thumping lightly on her chest with a finger. Mars had insisted that they learn first aid for their allies sakes, he was kind of thankful at the moment.


If she woke and still fought him, he might just knock the stubborn fae out.

One moment, she was face down in the river and losing all grip on reality, the next moment, she was face up on the other side, unable to move… Her eyes just started to flutter open as his face (two faces, because she was disoriented and seeing double for a moment) descended toward hers. She opened her mouth to scream at him, but it was too late. His mouth was on hers and he was forcing alcohol laced air into her lungs! She tried to struggle, but every movement hurt because she was so cold, so she just lay there as he tried to do unnecessary CPR on her.

Oh, how to stop the man from trying to save her life some more, she thought. She frantically wracked her half-numb brain for answers, and came to the conclusion that she had to do what she had to do. Closing her eyes tightly, she tilted her head slightly and meshed her mouth against his in a very deep kiss. Normally it would have just been a kiss, and done, but for some odd reason, she got into the act and sighed into his mouth, nuzzling closer and…. And…………….. Rut roh, hastily laid out plan backfired, she was now limply curling her arms around his neck and kissing.

Reality jolted into her brain, and she jerked away, staring up at the man with a wide-eyed stare, lips bruised and extra red, slightly slack with disbelief at her own actions. Then she did what came natural and looked up at him with accusation in her eyes, before rolling weakly to her side and coughing, pretending it never happened in the first place. Nope, not her, she was innocent. He was being a man and kissing her first when she was down, that was it!

Jupiter’s eyes widened as she came to life and was very, very thankful for his saving it, she kissed him deeply before he even realized he was reacting in turn, the kiss turned into Kisses and if he saw it he might have called out for the shirtless drenched muscle man and the soaked little nymph under him to get a room. She went to pull away and his teeth hung on to her bottom lip slightly longer. And let go as she settled back on to the ground.

The initial look of pleasure turned into confusion and then into…anger? Accusation?…he didn’t know what. He did know he liked it very much, however and he wanted more. However one didn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t and wouldn’t take what one wanted in this case. He was however absolutely sure that he was taking her home with him and so, after she stopped coughing, he scooper her back up and tossed her back over his shoulder, if more gently this time.

“Listen, Listen! I am taking you to a place that welcomes our kind, feeds and shelters our kind, it is called the sanctuary and if you will be sensible you can walk or we can take a cab. But if you are not sensible you
are going there any way. I am not going to keep you there against your will, but you sure as hell are going to see and know there is a place that you can have peace, shelter, food and friends. And if I have to force you to go there then tha is what I am going to do.”

maybe they could share a room.