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knifesedge[Adjustment to Luceti hasn't been particularly smooth or easy.
Knives gave little sign of it. The entire enclosure got under his skin in a myriad different ways, from the inability to put hundreds of miles between himself and humanity, to knowing the Malnosso used them as toys and experimental victims. This latest bout of weirdness, mundane for everyone familiar with Luceti perhaps but deeply disturbing to him, was one more blade scraping across already raw wounds of unfamiliarity and strangeness. It disrupted his iron determination to maintain control.
Although Knives has claimed an apartment in Luceti, he spent almost no time there, either before the recent shift that gave everyone wings, or after. It was a place to keep his dog when he wished to be alone, and furnished for that purpose, more for a dog's interest and comfort than a humanoid's. He didn't need a place to sleep, he rarely slept. Since a long consideration of Hyt and its influences, and the subsequent loss of the broad white wings, he spent most of his time outside the town, looking for places people rarely went. Distance was needed, from his brother, from the people who called Luceti home, all of it.
Knives measured his tolerance of other beings around him in very short incriments, and he's long since crashed into that threshold. Solitude gave him time to think, or more accurately obsess over his current situation, and the agonizing weakness that came with it. He hadn't been so ...so helpless against external forces in a hundred and fifty years, and that didn't seem like it was going to change any time soon. He couldn't go after the Malnosso and exact bloody retribution for what they'd done ... and might never be able to. It didn't sit well.
So he takes his journal, and sometimes his dog, and leaves Luceti as far behind as he can get. It isn't as far as he'd like.]
[Encountering Knives over the course of several days won't be as easy as spotting someone in town, but isn't impossible, for those who don't hang around the town constantly. He can be found most anywhere else, sooner or later, from the beach to the mountains, the lake or the forest, or even trekking the long path directly at the barrier that keeps them all trapped, stymied only at the water's edge. There's even a farm out here, he discovers eventually. Time of day is meaningless, as it doesn't seem Knives bothers with things like sleep..]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-16 11:43 am (UTC)Just in case she stays quiet for now. Waiting to see just what might have brought him to the lake this day. Just in case he was looking for the woman who had been willing to die protecting this area not so long ago.]
[Action] [..spammy action.]
Date: 2013-06-16 06:07 pm (UTC)... But now that all that was over, and small wings replaced the large once more, he's back to bloody crimson. He doesn't mind it much.
Nor does he seem to notice anyone under the water. Why would someone be under the water? There's no air under there. It seems, from an observational standpoint, that the plant might simply be curious. He paces along the lake's edge with mild curiosity and a stick he probably fetched from the woods hearabouts, occasionally poking at the silty shoreline. When he does actually venture into the water, with what looks like extreme reluctance, he never goes deeper than about mid-thigh.
One does not learn how to swim when one spends a century and a half on a desert dustball.
Eventually he seems to find a spot he likes, with the bottom more sand and rock than silt and clay, then retreats to the shore again to carefully deposit his jacket, shirt, and shoes. Then ever so cautiously begin working his way back out into the water.
It really is curiosity. The ocean had waves he didn't feel up to challenging, but this had teeny little ones he wasn't worried about, and the shore was right there and not a soul was around to see him poking about and very warily working on this whole 'swim' thing. Surely it's safe!]
[Action] [Mmhmm! I love the taste of spam after a hard day at work! 8D]
Date: 2013-06-17 12:11 pm (UTC)She swims up silently closer. Finally arising out of the water a couple arms length away to not startle the man too much. She's learned that a startle animal can become dangerous quickly.
It's clearly no human that stands up in front of Knives. Besides coming from under the water, her facial features being much too long to be human. Then there's all those blue scales dotting her body to give it away.]
Why do you come to the lake this day? [Nice and blunt. She's calm and hoping he's not here looking for a fight, yet she's ready to dive back under the water if she needs to beat a hasty retreat.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-17 05:40 pm (UTC)Eventually, he's aware there's something far larger in the water with him, a shadow beneath the surface. Smaller than himself, but not by terribly much. Were predator fish in these waters? ..Well. He could handle a fish.
Instead it comes up as a person. A .. fish person maybe, given the scales and the whole underwater for an alarming length of time thing; not a soul had been here when he'd arrived and looked around. At least, not on the surface. It is a testament to sheer iron-willed self control that her sudden appearance doesn't make him jump out of his skin, flee for shore, or otherwise do anything beside wiggle a finger beneath the water to see if he can lure a smallfish closer.
It works. The nibble of fishmouth is just as weird on fingers as on toes.]
Obviously, to be in the water. Is this your lake?
[Blunt in return. There's no hostilty to speak of, or much apparent emotion at all yet. If it is her lake, well, he'd just have to find another one. Being around other people while trying this swim thing would be too embarassing.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-20 11:44 am (UTC)[Action]
Date: 2013-06-20 08:56 pm (UTC)It translates, eventually, to deciding she had no actual claim to the lake. This made his issues with not wanting to be watched while trying to swim no easier, however.]
What respecting a place means, differs from person to person. But I have no intention of destroying everything in view, and that is the best I will guarantee.
[Especially given he's encountered people where respecting 'their' things meant not touching, or looking at it. Knives will just not rampage around, that's enough isn't it? He settles a little better into the water.]
I hope that's the fish you're studying so hungrily.
[He wiggles one hand a little, and they all scatter. It doesn't take long for them to begin circling back around. It's a strange feeling, to be nibbled on. Stranger yet to be immersed in water.]
Is the lake itself your home?
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-21 11:30 am (UTC)The lake - [A pause as she thinks over what the word home tends to mean for humans.] Yes. I would call the lake my home.
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-21 07:49 pm (UTC)There's something in how she uses language that strikes him as a little odd. Likewise the pause about 'home'. What was there to misunderstand about it? Home is where one sleeps, and occasionally collects stuff.]
Is since sunrise a long time to go without food?
[He's gone a lot longer. Maybe she was a warmblooded fishgirl and needed to eat at mammal rates.]
... Have you considered trying the ocean. I've seen things there as long as I am tall. One might keep you for a few days.
[Even a dragon could eat their fill out of the sea, though he doesn't know what she is. Oceans aren't a closed system, and more things can always swim in from outside.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-21 09:50 pm (UTC)[And then there's the mention of the ocean. A small chill of excitement runs through her.]
I have never before seen an ocean. One day I would like to see the ocean this place has. [Her eyes flick towards the direction of the mountains. Those pesky mountains she dislikes so.] I live long. One day I shall travel over the mountains to see it. [Because she is not telling some stranger that she is somewhat afraid to travel over mountains.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-22 07:04 am (UTC)[And frankly the sheer size and unknowable unfamiliarity of the ocean was a bit intimidating, but Knives liked it anyway. There was something comforting about the waves.]
Why not go sometime soon? The path is quick. There is even a teleporter, I am told, to make the journey swifter. ... Unless you have difficulty breathing air for long.
[That COULD be a problem, if she's mostly aquatic..]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-22 08:57 am (UTC)[Action]
Date: 2013-06-22 05:14 pm (UTC)I'm ...uncertain. All I know for sure is that there is one, and that it brought my ... sibling from town to the beach far faster than even he would be capable of moving.
[And Knives knew they were very fast when they chose to be.]
Are you worried about traveling across the mountains? I have, several times, while looking for a location to set up a proper den.
[Den. He shakes his head, frowning.] Home.
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 06:33 am (UTC)I used the teleported to go to the hot water. It is a strange feeling, but not a bad one. I can travel across the mountains if I wished it. I do not wish to do so right now. A teleporter to the ocean I would wish to see. That is the only reason.
[She speaks the sentences quickly together one by one. Hoping to get out all her reasons without Knives thinking she could be weary of traveling the mountains. Nearly dying due to reckless traveling on a mountain peek in her youth was enough for her.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 06:58 am (UTC)Hm. I don't know if it goes that far. I prefer walking it, myself.
[Knives weighs quietly for a moment, moving back in the water, almost as if he's backing away from her - but no, it's to settle seated in the lake, shoulder-deep. Any further would be too far for comfort.]
Should you decide to try to walk there yourself, and wish company, I could offer an escort. I'm familiar with the way there.
[It's not something he'd ever even think of offering to a human. But she isn't human, is she? It's not quite the same generous friendliness his brother displays, but it does seem he actually means it. A dry mountain crossing for a fish would be a difficult thing indeed.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 07:14 am (UTC)She surfaces a couple arm lengths away from Knives and listens to his offer with a curious ear.]
An escort... [It is not a word she hears very often. There is a brief pause as she digs up the meaning from her memory.] A... guide? [She looks to Knives for conformation that she is onto the right meaning.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 07:18 am (UTC)More or less. A guide will often only show the way. An escort, or in some places a 'guard' is much the same, will also offer aid and protection should the need arise.
[No, he certainly wouldn't offer if she was human. He'd more trail along to see if she might kill herself somehow on accident, if she were.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 07:30 am (UTC)[Kind of. Healthy worry is different from fear in her mind at least.]
You have been on the mountains in this land. Tell me, is there mountain rivers the run through them? [Unlikely she knows, but she's also seen mountains with very nice waterfalls back home.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 07:34 am (UTC)I take it that's a no, and you would prefer to go alone. Suit yourself.
[Knives isn't particularly upset. If she was so sure of herself, she could go on her own. Or choose not to, either way.]
Nothing I would call a river, no. A few large streams at best, likely winter runoff.
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 12:40 pm (UTC)[Action]
Date: 2013-06-23 05:41 pm (UTC)[It's a struggle to remember what he'd learned about weather phenomenon on more temperate worlds, it had been quite a long time. But it sounded right, and he'd heard people mention snow and winter here.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-24 12:19 pm (UTC)[Action]
Date: 2013-06-26 04:44 am (UTC)I will see how I feel about it when the seasons turn, I suppose.
[It seems he's content with that much, and watching the dart of small silvery fish through the water. He'd wanted to practice swimming, but that won't happen now. Instead he's just going to deal with the odd feeling of immersion, otherwise silent.]
[Action]
Date: 2013-06-26 12:57 pm (UTC)Belated Action
Date: 2013-07-01 05:20 pm (UTC)[He frowns faintly.]
Though if it lasts a terribly long time, hibernation does seem like a better option. I'll look into it when things grow colder again.
[Humans don't hibernate! ..Then again, Knives isn't human. Where the hell is he going to find a safe place in this place to sleep for months on end?]
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Date: 2013-07-07 05:00 am (UTC)[And here she thought humans couldn't sleep that long! So they were all just stupid then. The only reason she decided to stay awake this winter was due to the Malnosso being able to get at her even when she slept under the frozen lake and it was so boring staying awake that long.
Not to mention, hungry. Luckily there were magic boxes that would randomly fill with meat that she could eat without having to go outside.]
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Date: 2013-07-07 05:55 am (UTC)[He makes a slight gesture beneath the water, sending fish scattering.]
I look human, but I am not. Some horrible twist of irony decided the males of my kind should look human instead of like the rest. My species are called 'plants'. If you have senses beyond human, you might be able to tell our scent is different, and likely also our taste.. but I would prefer you not put the second to the test.
[He doesn't clarify that he's not a vegetation-type plant. Though it WOULD explain how he can consider just hibernating for the winter, all kinds of vegetation did!]
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Date: 2013-07-07 06:14 am (UTC)I understand. I have never met a plant who looks so much like a human before. Or one that could move and speak. Only those who have a connection with plants as I do with water.
[Sorry, Knives, but she is currently thinking of you as a walking, talking tree.]
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Date: 2013-07-07 06:28 am (UTC)I have a brother as well, who looks as I do. But if you ever met any of the females of my kind you would never mistake us for anything close to human. ..It can't be helped.
[Knives accepted his appearance a long time ago. It didn't bother him now, and well, if she thought he was a veggie, and was a fish-eater, he'd be permanently off the menu.]
Though if I may ask, as looks obviously can be deceiving.. what are you? I had assumed some sort of fish, as I have seen.. very, very few types of fish but they too have scales and live in the water, but that doesn't seem to quite match up.
[Possibly the wings. Maybe.]
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Date: 2013-07-07 06:41 am (UTC)[She doesn't bother to explain past that. Someone being confused over exactly what she was she was use to. Not knowing or seeing a dragon and nymph before is not something she's as use to.]
If it must be stated simply then I am just one of mixed blood.
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Date: 2013-07-07 06:46 am (UTC)I had no idea vastly different species could interbreed. The only dragons of the world I know are.. great worms of a sort. Very intelligent, desert-dwelling hive creatures.
[And now mostly dead for trying to stick a mind control bug in his ear. Knives wasn't terribly forgiving.]
It will be interesting to discover more about other species as time goes on. Do you enjoy hybrid vigor, compared to your parent species?
[This last is a touch cautiously; if dragons and nymphs didn't get along well she might well be an outcast, and might not be interested in discussing it much. Knives wouldn't ordinarily bother with any concern but well.. there's no human in her at all.]
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Date: 2013-07-07 06:57 am (UTC)The other question Knives asks is a tricky one for her to answer. She was not very keen above giving out her strengths and weaknesses to a complete stranger. Who knew when she may need a trump card.]
I am as strong and swift as a dragon. [Only not nearly as strong as a pure blood should be, but a lot swifter because she doesn't have the same mass as they do. Then again, swift is a bit of a stretch when talking about the speed of a dragon when in her large form.] I have the ability to listen and request control over the water as the nymphs are able to do. [Only her attacks are much weaker than they should be and there are some things she simply cannot do.] I am as strong as any pure blood and should not be easily crossed. [More of an outright lie. Her body is weak and will probably end her life sooner than any pure blood, but it's something she says easily to Knives.
He doesn't need to know her real strengthens and weaknesses after all.]
What of you? A plant that is capable of walking and speaking. Does that make you stronger than that of your- [pause] parents? [Asked a bit awkwardly as she's not exactly sure how she should word that. He didn't say he was a mixed blood, but he can move so that's something above most all other plants that she could think of.]
no subject
Date: 2013-07-07 06:32 pm (UTC)I see. It seems a decent enough exchange, then. You are capable of things both parents are not.
[Likely hybrids weren't completely uncommon, she didn't say or do much to suggest otherwise. Perhaps it was done to keep the bloodlines fresh with new genetics.. He wants to ask, but Knives isn't certain she'd know what genes were.]
While most of my kind don't enjoy the same freedom of movement and communication my brother and I do.. [Which was true, the rest were bound in atmosphere-controlled bulbs and didn't speak english. ..It's not going to help the perception that he's a moving veggie.] ..I'm not sure we have the better end of the deal. Our kin live in a state of communal thought and emotion and by and large are reinforced and supported by each other in times of stress or pain. They know far more of peace than we do simply by how they live, don't hold grudges, accept the sorrow with the joy and live for the moment. I'm only part of that if I actively try to be, and holding on takes effort.
[Knives leans back a little, brow furrowed.]
I'm not always sure communication with outsiders and freedom are worth not being able to enjoy that as well. My brother and I in comparison live alone. Isolated in our own minds unless we force our thoughts on another. There is... no peace. No cointegration or cooperation, no kindness, no unity simply because we are the same kind. We have difficulty letting go of the darkness our kin so easily lets slide past, perhaps only because of our differences. We can move when we wish to, but that means we can see all the sorrows and pains of the world, and happy things are much more fleeting. I think it limits us, instead of frees us.
[It's said with thoughtfulness, and something like sadness. None of the independents could live like their bulb bound sisters, in all its limitations and all its unique joys. What could have been averted, if they did?]
no subject
Date: 2013-07-10 10:56 am (UTC)Have you lost all connection then with your siblings? You said you have communication that your other siblings do not have. Is it simply being able to speak where they can not?
no subject
Date: 2013-07-10 05:35 pm (UTC)Not in this world. Life here is to be endured, until it is over.
[He hadn't wanted to die like this.]
It isn't a matter of simply not being able to move, as all things my kin enjoy that I cannot. My people are very... very far away. I can no more communicate with them than you can pass beyond the cage we're forced to dwell in.
My one remaining sibling is not the one I remember. He thinks differently, acts differently. [Ice blue eyes narrow slightly.] To try to speak to him, aloud or otherwise, is to deal with a stranger in my brother's skin. And you? Are your people so solitary that being cut off from them doesn't trouble you at all?
no subject
Date: 2013-07-11 11:39 am (UTC)Has it been some time since you have last talk to your brother? Many things can change in the course of even just one season. There may have been something that happened to change him from the brother you remember.
We dragons do have a connection with our close kin, it is weaker for me and my mixed blood, but I felt the severing of that link when I awoke here. While it is an odd feeling to not hear their calls anymore I have been prepared to live on my own all of my life and it is no struggle to continue without it.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-14 06:49 pm (UTC)[And in a short time it wouldn't matter anymore anyway. He didn't have another century and a half to work on repairing whatever bridges Vash had decided were burned.]
Your people and mine are perhaps a little different in that respect, then. It's good you manage on your own well enough, and have found a location you like to call your own. Not everyone can enjoy such a thing, no matter their species or age. The 'dragons' of my own world would likely go mad from the isolation in short order.
[A sandworm wasn't a winged thing, but not all dragons had wings. To break one off from the hive would be an entertaining and short-lived experiment.]
no subject
Date: 2013-07-15 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-16 04:05 am (UTC)[Knives stands then, picking his way delicately to shore. It's not far to go but he really isn't going to get much swimming done and further up on land he can enjoy the incredibly mild sunshine and the water at the same time.]
'Madness' in this case is insanity, not wrath. Driving beyond reason without fury's involvement. To be cut off from their collective is a death sentence, perhaps. It's.. been a while since I talked to them at length, and never with one broken from the others.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-16 11:32 am (UTC)[When Knives moves away, Xzana makes no motion to follow or to leave. If he wished to leave she cared little either way. If he was to leave then she could return to her hunt, but it seemed for now the plant man was choosing to stay. Mild curiosity and only a very light hunger keeps her nearby in the water to continue their talk.]
Insanity is even worse then blind range. If a mind is that far gone it is at times best to simply kill the creature. I have a close connection to my family, but I am glad that I can live without that connection.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 03:28 am (UTC)I agree. Sometimes an insane being can be healed, but oftentimes it's more merciful to end their suffering. Doing otherwise prolongs their pain and puts too many at risk, no matter what the origin of the insanity.
Do you miss your kin?
no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 11:59 am (UTC)No. I do miss the connection I shared with my kin that alerted me when they were in distress, but I am fine without them. My kin will be fine without me in my homeland and I shall survive this place without them.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-20 12:03 am (UTC)It seems you are well suited to the solitary life you've chosen for yourself, then.
[It's said without malice, without judgment.]
I shall leave you to your lake. There is another I would like to investigate before it grows too late.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-20 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-20 05:53 am (UTC)[An odd thing perhaps to mention, but as Knives collects his belongings, it's for a reason.]
A resource such as this lake is something to always be honored and cherished.
[Others might not realize just how vital it IS.. until it's gone.]
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Date: 2013-07-21 06:31 am (UTC)I have not heard of many creatures who could survive the deserts. I did not know of any plants that could make their home in such waterless environment.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 08:03 pm (UTC)[Knives wasn't a gardener but that didn't mean nobody would be keeping such things. There is a pause before he nods, slightly.]
Have a nice evening.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-27 10:44 am (UTC)