HEY MR CAGE MAN ; OPEN, JOINING

[center][fancypost=width: 500px; line-height:1.4; text-align: justify; padding: 2px; overflow: auto][size=9]/ the last two paragraphs are the only ones that really matter

His first exposure to independence is a strange one. If he had to give it a taste, he'd probably describe it as spicy — somewhat pleasant, but a bit overkill if you underestimate it. He keeps telling himself that this is something most kids'd die for — total freedom, the ability to police himself without nagging adults breathing down his neck, no bedtime. It's everyone else's idea of paradise, really, and he should be grateful for the lack of rules (he is, in a way), but there's something missing. He's got a feeling it's something important, too, something that'll come back to bite him later if he doesn't acknowledge it, but for all this, he refuses to look its way, keeps telling himself that it's fine, that he's got this, that this is all just an educational experience and he's hit a bit of a learning curve. Generally, he's always believed that 'mind over matter' is a powerful phenomenon, and that anyone can make themselves believe anything if they put enough work into it, but this time, he's not so convinced. Radicals and morons, his dad had once said, had made 'mind over matter' scary.

Robincub doesn't think he's a radical, and he's certainly no moron. He knows that his parents are [redacted], and he knows what that means. They're not coming back, not now — he spent enough time trying to rouse them before inevitably admitting to himself that it was pointless, and he's not about to change his mind now, backtrack and set off in the direction of his former home again, hoping that they'll be well, not [redacted]. It doesn't help that he can't say it, can't even think it — logically, he understands his situation just fine, but his mind refuses to comprehend it, refuses to come to terms with it. There's a hollow void in place of the truth — or perhaps there's a cover instead, a thin film smothering it with crude stitching. If it comes to other people, he can say it without issue — sometimes, people die. Some people are orphans — their parents are dead. It's the specification, the personalisation, that does him in, and he's left numb and aching without fully understanding why.

(Who's he kidding? He understands why. He just doesn't know how to accept it.)

Misery aside, Robincub has to face the other truth — and that is that he's lost in what looks to be somewhere straight out of a fantasy movie. There are worse places to be lost, he's sure, but man, who thought it'd be a good idea to make people walk this far just to get to potential civilisation? He's only assuming this leads to people because it all seems very structured — though he'd not be surprised if he lost his balance and toppled sideways to his death, not because he's naturally clumsy and only partially because this structure seems weirdly unsafe, but (mainly) because he's sort of tired from climbing, and he keeps unwillingly strafing towards the edges. "And I would walk five-hundred miles," he only half-mumbles, squinting against a particularly mean breeze, "and I would walk five-hundred more—" A bird flies below him, somewhere off to the side, and he stops to stare at it, at the view, because it is kind of amazing— "Just to get to the top of these stupid stairs and maybe take a breather, please." His voice pitches higher and louder, and he hauls himself up the last step, crashing at the top and letting his lungs deflate.

He allows himself a few moments of harsh, heavy breathing, maw gaping and tongue in the dirt, before he figures he might as well look around. First impressions leave this place abandoned, but a sniff of the air blows that possibility clean out of the water, because this place reeks of people. When his dad wanted to find out who was around, he'd always make this weird sound, but Robincub doesn't reckon he can do it too and scout out the place verbally — so his only options are either to stumble even deeper into unknown territory or to stay put and hope that someone comes across him. At first, his mind screams adventure, but then he decides to go for the smarter of the two choices, as though his parents are actually still breathing down his neck and waiting for him to screw up his first big decision, and remains right where he is.
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[center][fancypost=width: 500px; line-height:1.4; text-align: justify; padding: 2px][size=9]Personally, Robincub believes that more people ought to use the word spicy when describing a situation, for if something is truly spicy, then no other word has the same effect. He's pretty sure that bromidic is synonym for spicy, anyway — it's an impressive word, of course, and Robin would be amazed if he heard it used in Wintercub's daily vernacular, but it isn't the sort of thing he'd use commonly, not at this stage. Even so, he's particularly familiar with boredom, and boredom only seemed to lurk when he had his parents near — so for the other kid to feel the slow burn of nothingness is understandable, even if Rob has the sneaking suspicion that everybody takes their loved ones for granted, only to realise their mistake once everything's been snatched away from them. Is that dramatic? He doesn't think so, but then again, he's living it now, the almost theatrical sense of suffering that doesn't like to let go. It's a step up from envy, two steps from resentment, but that doesn't make it any easier. He's just glad the "where's your parents?" question hasn't been blurted out yet, but Wintercub doesn't seem like the type of person who'd do that. Robincub finds solace in that.

He's never considered looks to be a defining feature of relation, considering he and his mother didn't exactly have too many similarities, and he couldn't exactly say he'd gotten his looks from his dad, either. Truth is, he's got no idea why he looks the way he does, but the dark-and-brooding pelt of his is pretty cool, he's got to admit. Makes nighttime travelling easier, that's for sure, but that's only become something of import recently, and beforehand, all it used to do was make his newborn self difficult to find whenever he wriggled away. Now, though, he does note the vague similarities between him and Wintercub, although the structural differences seem to stand out more to him than what they have in common, as does the way he's being scrutinised as though he could possibly pose a threat. Hell, he can't even breathe right at the moment — and what's he meant to do in a place like this? It's big enough to house probably a hundred people, and those hundred know far more about the terrain than he does. He's practically powerless, and he knows that Wintercub (maybe, probably) gets that.

"Trying to breathe," Robincub answers after a few moments, glad he's been given a question rather than a flat "get out." That would've sucked, and he's not keen on trying to make the precarious journey back down again. He gulps in air again, trying to regulate his everything, before offering Wintercub a sort of smile. A few seconds pass with him searching the space behind the other lion, but eventually, he returns his gaze to the child in front of him, seemingly satisfied with what he has (or hasn't — it's hasn't) seen. "I'm Robincub — who're you? Where am I? I've never seen islands like these before." He reckons two is a good amount of questions to start with, particularly if he prefaces the first one with an introduction of his own — and he's not sure if he's expecting much of a reply to the last one, but a kid can hope, right? He just needs to get his bearings.
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[center][fancypost=width: 500px; line-height:1.4; text-align: justify; padding: 2px][size=9]/ do the homework, alloy

"Thanks." What else was he meant to say? His features twisted into something resembling amusement, but it only lasted a second, because look, there was another nigh-black lion cub on this island, and that was— okay, that was a little weird. Not because black lions were meant to be particularly uncommon in a place where far more drastic hues of pelt were possible, but because what were the odds of the first two people arriving to greet a black lion cub being... two black lion cubs? He imagined that they weren't very high, but here they all were, staring at each other with their bluish eyes, going about their daily businesses as if this wasn't totally weird. Not that any of this was normal, mind, considering they were currently stood on a floating island connected to the ground only by an awfully precarious staircase, and— "I must've taken a wrong turn, then." Heaven? Nah, this isn't heaven. Heaven is warmer than this, he's sure, and it has pillows and a massive TV and his parents. And, he's hoping, people with names a little more normal than theirs. He rolls his eyes to the sky, but does manage to lean in for the stage-whisper. Poor Winona. What an unfortunate name — ah, nickname, he's guessing. He wonders what sort of real name encourages that sort of moniker.

"B as in the letter, or as in the stripy thing that likes flowers?" He's guessing the letter, but considering that other guy's got the nickname Winona, he's not exactly going to take any chances. "Are nicknames mandatory around here?" See, Winona? He can use words with more than two syllables (that aren't his name) too. Gnawing on the inside of his cheek and letting his grin grow, shoulders relaxing, Robincub glances between the two a few times, before eventually settling back on Wintercub. "So, Winona, are you going to give me a real name, or am I gonna have to stick with what I've got so far?"

And— wait. "What's a BlizzardClan?" That's... probably pretty important.
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[center][fancypost=width: 500px; line-height:1.4; text-align: justify; padding: 2px][size=9]This influx of children is unusual, then? Good to know. Robin doesn't want to get himself into the habit of thinking that [redacted] like him have a habit of turning up at the top of these stairs, because he doesn't find much comfort in familiarity when it comes to things like this, doesn't exactly feel better knowing that other children's parents were, like his, [redacted]. He'll be able to say the words one day, he knows, be able to spit it out, but for now, he has a distinct aversion towards the notion as a whole, particularly when it comes him being one of many. It's... a depressing thought. Enough to make his shoulders slump, but he doesn't have time for shoulder-slumping now, not when he's in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar people, trying to eke out a living 'round here.

And there's an adult here, now, too. Robincub can't explain the way his mood shifts, because it's not obvious, and it certainly doesn't register in its entirety on his face. Instead, that easy grin fades, if just because there's no reason for it to remain, and while he continues to chew on the inside of his cheek, his bright blue eyes lose the interested wideness they'd possessed earlier, instead taking on something more contemplative than excited. "How specific of you," he says, countering her bluntness with a strange aridity not there before. He regards her coolly, as though trying to decide whether or not to show her the same eagerness, but his optimistic nature wins out, just, and he seems to relax into the situation once more. "So it's just a group? Is it big? Do you have a leader?" Probably, because anarchical rule never really lasts, does it? Not in the movies, at least, and considering movies are his world experience, he's inclined to believe they apply to reality. Mostly. He's certain that The Minority Report's Precogs wouldn't've gotten the "happy ending" that they did in reality— but he's also certain that Tom Cruise wouldn't've gotten himself into such an awkward situation in reality, and that the Precogs wouldn't've been enslaved in the first place, considering the sheer number of seers around these days.

His mother had liked Tom Cruise. Considering he was just another stupid human with a stupid human face, Robincub hadn't entirely understood it, but some of the movies had been good, he guessed.

Focusing on the here and now, Robincub rises to his feet, rolling his head from side to side. He's free to look around, was he? Huh. He's sure lucked out, but there's a gnawing on the back of his mind (or maybe that's his cheek? Is it bleeding? He sticks his tongue against the side of his mouth and finds that no, it isn't) that he can't really ignore. "What about when I've seen everything? Are you gonna kick me out? Do I have to climb back down that... really, really, really—" And jeez, he's getting tired just thinking about it— "big staircase?" If so, he's not too keen on exploring, considering all that walking'll wreck his feet before he has to think about leaving again. "Who're you, anyway?"
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[center][fancypost=width: 500px; line-height:1.4; text-align: justify; padding: 2px][size=9]/ don't worry about it! ^^,

"Woah." Robincub has seen some pretty weird things in his lifetime, but Mack takes the cake for being the best, he thinks. He's blue and green and yellow and white, and he has wings like a bird's, but he's a wolf— or so he seems to be. The lion decides almost immediately that Mack is an alright person — a little naïve of him, and certainly presumptuous, but he's good at putting his faith in people, even if it doesn't always seem that way, or if it doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do. He's a child — what do you expect of him? Wariness doesn't exactly come easily to those who have never been taught to fear others. "Nice to meet you, Mack. I'm Robincub." Smart enough to be polite, Robincub shakes himself out and smiles, noticeably perking up at the prospect of being given a place to stay.

Sure, he's never been taught to fear others, but he's not entirely unfamiliar with stranger danger (he supposed one could say that he's... no... stranger to it). That does tug at him a bit, the furrowed brow of his mother and the slightly-disappointed-stare of his father that'd undoubtedly be turned on him at this moment, but they're not stood with him right now, and he gets to make his own decisions. "Yeah, I'd like that. To stay." Not because he feels as though he can find his true self here, or something cliché like that, but because he really, really doesn't want to tackle those stairs again, and this is as safe as anywhere to bunk, right? These people seem nice, besides. He almost completely trusts them.
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[center][fancypost=width: 500px; line-height:1.4; text-align: justify; padding: 2px][size=9]Okay, so maybe he'd gotten ahead of himself and asked Luna six questions before pausing to give her chance to reply to even one, but three of them amounted to the same thing, and Mack had them covered, so Robin liked to think that he'd left her with a reasonable amount of inquiries to answer after all that. He'd never encountered people who hated children before — at least, not in the typical way, though he'd met those that assumed that children ought to be seen and not heard, and that they were, in general, a waste of time until they became adults who started to hate their former selves with a viciousness that surely left them feeling ashamed. Luna didn't seem as though she possessed that outlook, but she was dismissive enough that his ears shifted back and down against the sides of his head, the hopefulness in his gaze swallowed up by that former coolness. "Sweet-o-phe-li-a?" Man, that's a long name. Five syllables — not that he lacks the ambition to try it, nor that he's not smart enough to cope with it, but it seems a bit overkill to him.

Luna. Well, she's certainly got the enthusiasm of the cold, dead moon. (That's mean, Robin, you can't think that. Well, he is, and there's nobody to tut at him for it.) "Thanks. I'm glad to be here." He lingers on her for a moment longer, eventually tearing his gaze to Mack once he spoke — and that's a relief, because the Deputy, as he'd referred to himself as, is far friendlier. "Are you the one giving the tour?" Okay, now that sounded a little rude, but he'll be happy if the answer is yes. "Uh— yeah, I'd like that. Please." There we go. Crisis averted.
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/ batfam: baby edition

It wasn't that Robin's parents had ever been overbearing, but they had been... overbearing. If they'd not been around to watch him — and that had been somewhat frequent, come to think of it — then he'd had a babysitter hanging around, and he's certain that each babysitter had been told specifically not to let him go outside without them quite literally on top of him, and if they couldn't manage that, then he was to remain in one spot with nothing but human media to keep him entertained. And what about normal kid stuff, like climbing trees or making friends? Yeah, that rarely happened. Sometimes, if his parents were busy, he got to go out, but even then, he was largely isolated from his peers, and he loved his mum and dad, but having them as his only company beside a constantly-rotating cast of childminders had been understandably frustrating.

Not that he'd wanted freedom enough to celebrate them being [redacted]. He'd take the hours of boredom if it could undo the mess, just for a little while.

"Hi, Pierce," he responds brightly, glad to see another face that wasn't entirely apathetic. It's true that if unfamiliar ranks were thrown his way, he'd question their meanings, but that's curiosity, that's a desire to learn, and why is that so awful? "I'm Robincub. Nice to meet you." With that out of the way, he could dwell on that interesting choice of name — Pierce. He wondered why it had been chosen, and who by — the guy's parents, or himself? Either way, it didn't seem to fit the face, but maybe that was the point. Robincub wasn't an expert on names; he just knew that his was all he had left of his parents, now.

Robincub and silence don't always go together, particularly not when it comes to his gait. It isn't that he's a naturally loud creature — and regardless of what this encounter may suggest, he's not usually so talkative — but with no real development in his figure, no indication of whether he'll end up bulky or lithe, he's left to tromp around like any child, not particularly focused on graceful slinking unless he's somewhere in the middle of an attempted ambush during some sort of game. (Not that he's familiar with games — his parents were never the easiest targets.) Imperia may not believe herself to be special, but having never seen wolves and the sort before in person, only ever really surrounded by other lions and big cats during his childhood, she may just be one of the most fascinating things he's ever seen, even if she is, by her standards, plain, and certainly average next to somebody like Mack. (He reckons most people are, though.)

"Little ducks?" He's not multilingual, but he knows a few words in other languages, and as he is an animal, it's only natural that most of his knowledge also centres around animals. He's only ever seen a duck once in his life, but it was enough for him to copy the creature, its name (and, apparently, its name in French, presumably thanks to his mother) to memory. Weirdly enough, he doesn't mind the pet name. It doesn't make him wrinkle his nose in resentment, or... anything. It's just nice. "Uh, hello, Imperia." Not hi, because she seems too formal for that. He sits up a little straighter and attempts to smooth down any wayward fur, as though that'll make a difference. "My name's Robincub."
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[center][fancypost=width: 500px; line-height:1.4; text-align: justify; padding: 2px][size=9]An alliance litter? Robincub can't wrap his head around the idea of having children for the sake of politics and then letting them grow up away from home — what's the point, really? He can't imagine he'd ever feel comfortable knowing that he'd been conceived solely for the point of an entente, because that means he'd be nothing more than a convenience. If he ever left to do his own thing and explore the world, he'd be violating the terms of the treaty, combating the very purpose of his own birth. The concept is abhorrent, and it's fortunate that Robincub's wholly unaware of it, for his opinion of using children as bargaining chips is particularly strong. Perhaps it comes from his affinity towards his peers, his sense of belonging. Children are people, not... tools.

It's not that Robin enjoys being the centre of attention, but he's certainly not entirely averse to it. Sure, he isn't desperate for it, although approval is something he seeks out, but at the moment, he's not so afraid of it that he can't cope when the limelight is his. "Hi, Miss Sylmae," he replies, and he's not sure where the respect came from, but his mother had taught him manners, and sometimes, of their own volition, they make themselves known. "I like your wings." He's always liked the concept of flying, but being wing-less himself, he's never actually had the opportunity. He wonders if Sylmae's would be of any use to her should she choose to take to the skies.
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