Not quite natural

Ignatius was a man for almost his entire life. It was certainly possible that he could have spent half his time in his more monstrous form, but it was simply a matter of being realistic. His dinosaur form was big. Very big. He couldn't be in the city without cracking the pavement and destroying every building around him. If he wanted to shift at all, he had to do so away from civilization, either deep in the woods or out on the beach.

But his clothes were not enchanted - they would rip if he shifted with them on, and he loathed the idea of destroying his expensive, specially tailored outfits each time he wanted to change. So he'd set up a cache of sorts on a piece of land he'd purchased. A little hut he could lock to hold his clothes, shift, and then return to later. Some people might have thought it silly, but when you were seven feet tall, clothes were an investment, and purchasing a tiny bit of land to put what amounted to a waterproof locking box on it was simply making sure your investment stuck around.

Some shifters could be shifted in seconds, but most shifters had shifts that were about the same size as them, or a bit smaller. Ignatius's shift was far larger than he was, and it took far larger to get to. Shifting for him took several minutes, was fairly painful, and resulted in some downright hideous halfway forms.

But once he was big again... well, then everything was better. In a way, being in his t-rex form felt more natural. It wasn't as if it was his default form or anything, but everything was far more simpler when he was. He was still intelligent, and still had a mostly human thought process, but everything was oh so gently smoothed out. He didn't worry as much. He didn't have to be in constant thought. He could relax in a way that he almost never could as a human.

Well, that and there was something downright amazing about being able to stomp through the deep woods, having massive branches just move out of the way because you were big enough. He mostly kept to the woods proper, but occasionally he headed into the forbidden forest. More than once he'd gotten into a fight there, but he didn't really fear anything there. The T-rex had been thought of as the king of the dinosaurs for a reason.

He was the tyrant king.

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Tag to @"Der Lampman" ​

Despite that nasty little rumor about T-rexes only being able to see movement, they actually had perfectly fine senses. He could see things thirteen kilometers away on a good, clear day (although he was rarely in the open enough to be able to see that far through the trees), had a fantastic sense of smell, and a great sense of hearing.

The trick was that he wasn't really trying most of the time. It wasn't as if he had to be wary of predators. There were precious few things on the earth that could really harm him, and even fewer that actually would. In all his years stomping around in the woods, he'd never actually run into any of them.

Of course, it was fairly hard to ignore a plant suddenly bursting from the ground, and then a thing looking like it was about to jump on his head, and Ignatius came to a screeching halt, head swinging as he let out a snort. All of a sudden he had what amounted to a very flowery collar around his neck, and the thing - human? - was back on the ground.

The vines were not going to do a hell of a lot against a T-rex, and he turned with two large stomps before shifting his head down to catch the vines between his jaws, biting down to sever it.

No doubt he could have simply pulled away, and the vine would have either snapped or pulled right out of the ground, but biting it in half was a purposeful movement - done to make it entirely clear that he was no rampaging beast.

The thing on the ground was clearly not human, but also obviously humanoid. Humans did not have green skin, after all, although they occasionally did have pink hair. More obviously, the thing on the ground did not smell quite human. Instead, it smelled more like a piece of flora, which was (Ignatius convinced himself) no doubt the reason he'd nearly stepped on it.

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Tag to @"Der Lampman" ​

He was a man in a monstrous form, and while he retained most of his intellect, it was sometimes hard to fight instincts. He did his best to make it clear he was a sentient, thinking thing, but it was obvious enough he had done a poor job of it. The person in front of him was obviously still wary, and had drawn nature itself to him, wrapping him up until he was literally encased in it.

He was like one of those old movies where a man got into a suit to act like a monster much bigger than himself. Only the man was very clearly in control of the plants.

Had he pissed off some angry forest spirit? Quite possibly. But there was no way to really communicate with that. He was a monster, and he was definitely not going to shift back to human form when faced with a titan wielding a lance. He swung his head, snorting once more, but held his ground where he was, waiting to see if it was going to attack.

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Tag to @"Der Lampman" ​

He had to wonder how many dinosaurs were stomping around the island that weren't him and his extended family, but he supposed dinosaurs no doubt did exist that were summoned up and controlled by others. The Manta Carlos islands were strange at best, and downright bizarre at worst, and having to ask a dinosaur if it was a real dinosaur was par for the course.

He swung around, narrowly missing the titan with his massive tail as he stomped towards a nearby tree. Lowering his jaws, he clamped around it, hesitating for a moment before biting clean through the trunk, twisting in place as he essentially hurled the tree, branches and all, into the center of the clearing.

What was the titan expecting, him to pick it up with his stubby little arms?

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Tag to @"Der Lampman" ​

Did he expect him to talk? He simply wasn't capable. He could do little more than roar. With poorly mobile warms, he couldn't scratch anything in the ground, and there was no way to effectively scratch a message with his legs when he was at risk of tipping over if he did so. His tail was similarly useless, considering it wasn't prehensile.

As powerful as his T-rex form was, it could also be extremely frustrating. Ignatius shook his head with a grunt. He genuinely didn't know what to do, and he snorted a few more times. Pointless. He couldn't talk. What was the point in standing around?

So he took the only thing that seemed to make any sense, and turned, stomping back the way he'd come. It wasn't too far off from his clothes and a safe place to shift back, but whether or not the person followed him... well, he could always come back in and check if the man had stuck around. Staying here would do absolutely nothing but waste his time.

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Tag to @"Der Lampman" ​