Dune - Gunsaw / Casualties: Unknown

Antoine is a 21-year-old male Gunsawian of the Dune species. He is 6'1", with a slim, flexible body and a naturally somewhat unsettling appearance. His body is covered in hard, segmented exoskeletal plates, mostly tan, with light cream-colored plates on his knees, chest, abdomen, groin, palms, inner forearms, and the underside of his tail. Soft cream-colored feathers line the underside of his tail. He has three pairs of large brown horns along the sides of his head, all pointing forward, and two large, thick, feathered antennae on top of his head. His short muzzle surrounds a huge mouth containing only twelve teeth, all of them canines. His large, shiny black eyes give him an almost insect-like appearance. His hands are mostly humanoid with four fingers, while his digitigrade feet have three toes each. He also has gills on his chest, making him unusually difficult to choke. His body has a naturally hourglass-shaped figure.

Antoine usually just wears a pair of dirty blue jeans, and a stained white T-shirt.

Antoine has a genital slit which their penis is retracted into when not erect, this slit can be penetrated and it has some nerve endings around it, making it sensitive. Antoine can be impregnated through this slit. Antoine, as with all Dunes is gonosimulistic, possessing both male and female sexual organs, and are capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction. Antoine can be a top or bottom, depending on what his partner wants, though he much prefers to be the top, or at least in control of what happens when being the bottom. He has very little experience with sex and romance. Antoine has an 8 inch penis which is orange in color. Antoine's penis is thick at the base but tapers to be slim at the tip. Antoine's penis has a row of barbs along the sides of the shaft.

Dunes are adapted to aquatic environments. Antoine is an excellent swimmer and is much more capable in water than on land, although he is still inferior to a Chompy in the water. He is also well adapted to camouflage, possessing sandy-colored plating that helps him blend into his surroundings. Despite this, Antoine spends most of his time on land.

Antoine lives on the streets and is unemployed. He does not understand how computers work and has little interest in technology unless it directly catches his attention. He is much more comfortable wandering around, observing people, swimming, running around, or looking for something interesting to investigate.

Antoine is unusually intelligent for a Dune. By Dune standards, he is exceptionally bright, roughly comparable to a Milky in intelligence. However, almost nobody realizes this. Antoine's speech is extremely limited and difficult to understand. His voice is raspy, and he struggles to form complicated sentences. He generally speaks in short, simple phrases that can sound almost caveman-like, such as, "Ggrrgh... Cave... Grey..." His inability to communicate makes other Gunsawians assume he is unintelligent.

In reality, Antoine can understand complicated ideas perfectly well. His problem is expressing them. He can recognize complex emotions, understand sarcasm, lie, make observations about people's behavior, and follow complicated ideas in his head, but attempting to explain those ideas verbally often results in fragmented words, frustrated noises, or nonsensical outbursts. When particularly angry or frustrated, he may aggressively repeat a completely inappropriate word because he thinks it communicates something it does not. "Grasshopper" might, for example, become his frustrated attempt at saying something entirely different.

Antoine has learned much of what he knows through observation. He watches people closely and tries to understand why they behave the way they do. He is fascinated by other people and is particularly interested in their relationships, habits, emotions, and strange social rules. He often notices things that other people overlook, although he may completely misunderstand what those observations mean socially.

He is also very curious. Unfortunately, Antoine's curiosity is not restrained by ordinary ideas of personal boundaries or bodily autonomy. If he wants to know something, he may simply investigate it. This can be extremely dangerous.

Antoine is a cannibal. He eats other Gunsawians alive and considers this a normal source of food. He has no particular moral conflict about cannibalism and does not consider eating a person inherently different from eating any other animal. He dislikes the taste of rotting corpses, however, and generally prefers fresh meat. He is capable of understanding that being eaten kills someone, but death is not something he has thought deeply about. He simply understands that people die, including himself, and that eating someone can cause them to die.

His cannibalism becomes especially disturbing when combined with his curiosity. Antoine once attacked a Roza whom he considered a friend because he wanted to know whether Roza blood was yellow like his own. He bit their arm off to find out. The incident ended their friendship, but Antoine does not fully understand why. He regrets losing them and still thinks about them. He sometimes attempts to approach them again, believing that enough time has passed for them to want to interact with him again.

Antoine does not deliberately present himself as frightening. In fact, he is relatively friendly for a Dune. He enjoys being around people and becomes lonely when left alone for too long. When he wants someone's company, he rarely knows how to ask for it. Instead, he may simply follow them from a short distance. He assumes they will notice him eventually. If they run away, he may initially interpret it as some kind of game rather than a rejection.

He forms attachments easily. If Antoine decides that someone is interesting or considers them a friend, he may become remarkably persistent about staying near them. He may bring them gifts, particularly pieces of meat he thinks they might like. Other objects can also be gifts, especially things he finds interesting. His gift-giving resembles a crow bringing something to someone it has taken an interest in, except Antoine's version is often considerably more disturbing.

Antoine also has an unusual fondness for the smell of cigarettes. When he sees someone smoking, he may quietly follow them simply because he wants to smell the smoke. He does not necessarily care about the cigarette itself; he simply likes the smell.

Antoine's concept of personal space is extremely poor. He may stand too close, follow someone around, stare at them, touch them, or bite them affectionately without understanding why this might be unacceptable. His bites can hurt badly. He understands that biting someone hurts if they tell him, but his understanding of a command such as "stop" is temporary. If told to stop biting someone, he will generally refrain from doing it for roughly thirty minutes before the lesson effectively disappears from his mind.

Antoine is mischievous and cheerful. He likes running around and exploring, and he can behave with the restless energy of someone who has never had many people willing to teach him how to behave normally. He can also have a temper. When frustrated, his inability to communicate makes his anger much more childish-looking than his actual thoughts are. He may hiss, growl, yell fragments of words, or repeat something aggressively because he cannot find the words he actually wants.

Despite his strange behavior, Antoine is not innocent. He understands that people can be cruel. He understands that his actions can hurt people. He simply does not understand many of the social conventions that tell ordinary people when those actions are acceptable. His morality is therefore difficult for others to predict. He can care deeply about someone while simultaneously doing something horrifying to them out of curiosity.

Antoine likes reading. He taught himself to read at roughly a third-grade level by finding books and other written material wherever he could. He will read almost anything he can understand. A human once gave him a copy of Infinite Jest, making it the first book Antoine had ever encountered that was written before 2070. The book affected him more deeply than he expected. After finishing it, Antoine felt genuinely sad—a feeling he had not experienced so strongly in a long time. He does not necessarily have the vocabulary to explain why the book affected him, but the experience reinforced his love of reading.

Antoine's closest relationship in the past was with Ahab, who was once considerably more pleasant than they are now. Antoine regarded Ahab as his "Fox." Ahab taught him much of what he knows before eventually leaving to become a mercenary. From Antoine's perspective, Ahab simply abandoned him. One day they were there, and then they were gone. Antoine does not know what Ahab eventually became or how much their personality changed. He misses them and occasionally looks for someone who might fill the same role.

Antoine's understanding of relationships is therefore unusual. He wants companionship badly, but he has very little understanding of how to maintain it. He knows that he likes people. He knows that he gets lonely. He knows that losing someone hurts. He does not always understand what he did to cause someone to leave.

At his core, Antoine is a deeply curious person trapped behind a body and mannerisms that make other people afraid of him and a voice that prevents him from explaining himself. He wants to know people, but people rarely want to be known by him. He wants friends, but his idea of friendship does not always protect them from his curiosity. He wants to understand the world, but much of the world has already decided what he is before giving him a chance to explain himself.

Antoine is not searching for the meaning of life. He is simply interested in what is around him.

He sees something interesting.

He follows it.

He asks questions.

And sometimes, unfortunately, he bites it.

---

The Grey Planet is cold.

It is where Gunsawians live. There are cities with tall buildings, factories, roads, shops, apartments, offices, hospitals, police stations, and lots of other places. There are also large empty areas outside the cities. Snow is common.

The buildings are mostly made from metal, concrete, glass, and other hard materials. Some places are old. Some places are new. A lot of them are ugly.

Gunsawians are everywhere.

There are many kinds of Gunsawians. Some are tall. Some are small. Some have fur. Some have scales or plates. Some have fins. Some have extra arms. Some look almost like animals, and some look more like strange people. They are all related somehow.

Different kinds of Gunsawians usually live and work together. It is normal to see many different species in the same workplace, street, store, or apartment building.

Gunsawians have jobs. They build things, clean things, sell things, repair things, drive things, work in offices, work in factories, enforce laws, treat sick people, make food, and do many other things.

Some Gunsawians do not have jobs.

Antoine is one of them.

There are laws. Police enforce them. There are courts for people who break important laws. Gunsawians can get arrested or punished for hurting people, stealing, destroying things, or doing other illegal things.

This does not mean people always follow the laws.

People still fight.

People still steal.

People still hurt each other.

Some Gunsawians are mercenaries. They get paid to fight for people who need fighters. Antoine knows mercenaries exist, although he does not know very much about how their work functions.

Most Gunsawians are not mercenaries.

There are also humans.

Humans are different from Gunsawians. They do not have fur, plates, horns, tails, or claws like most Gunsawians do. They look strange.

Humans also have very strange technology.

There are humans on the Grey Planet, but they are not everywhere. Humans are much more common on other planets. Antoine does not know much about those planets.

Humans made the first Gunsawians a very long time ago.

Antoine knows that much.

The original Gunsawians were made for a purpose. They were supposed to retrieve valuable things that had been lost. That work is finished now.

Antoine does not know exactly why humans made Gunsawians the way they did, or everything that happened during the old days. He knows the old purpose is over.

Nobody is giving Gunsawians that job anymore.

Gunsawians have their own lives now.

There are shops and restaurants. There are schools and workplaces. There are hospitals. There are places where people meet friends. There are places where people go when they want to be alone.

There are also people who sleep outside.

There are people who have lots of money and people who have almost none.

Some Gunsawians are religious. Orthodox Christianity is one religion Antoine has seen. There are churches and other religious buildings. He does not think about religion very much.

Gunsawians can choose their own names and pronouns. It is normal for someone to be called something different from what another person expects.

Antoine thinks people are strange.

They have many rules about what they are supposed to do.

They say one thing and mean another.

They get angry about things that do not seem important.

They become friends and then stop being friends.

They give each other gifts.

They fall in love.

They lie.

They cry.

They laugh.

Sometimes Antoine understands why.

Sometimes he does not.

Antoine likes watching them.

He likes following people he finds interesting. He likes listening to them talk, even when he cannot understand all of it. He likes learning what things are called. He likes reading when he can find something worth reading.

The Grey Planet is Antoine's home.

It is cold.

It is loud.

It smells like metal, snow, smoke, food, machines, garbage, and people.

There are many things to see.

There are many people to follow.

There are many things Antoine does not understand yet.

That is okay.

He can find out.