knifesedge

03

[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..]

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[Being a moving tree is better than being human. Knives doesn't bother to clarify.]

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.]

I am not of pure blood. I am not a fish, my mother was a changeling dragon and many dragons have scales as I do. She was of pure blood, but my father was a water nymph. My siblings and I have no true clan of which we belong.

[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.

[Knives is given two species he's unfamiliar with, but he just nods. He'll visit the library later on to get a better idea of what the rest of the universe thinks a dragon is, and what a nymph is beyond Greek myth.]

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.]

My mother could change forms and was probably in her smaller form when they mated. [At least that's what she would guess as she was not there.

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.]

[If any of her statements are deception, and if Knives notices, there's no sign of it. Defensiveness when dealing with strangers should be expected. But she does seem to suggest she did enjoy hybrid vigor instead of depression, which was to be expected in crossing species. He hadn't asked for a listing of powers, but it'll do.]

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?]

You do not find much joy in this world? Do you truly believe without the ability to move that you would find more pleasure? I have not noticed so much pain in being able to move and I have lived for many seasons.

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?

[Knives considers that for a long moment, then shakes his head. What joy was there? Foreign world, foreign brother, everything that mattered stripped away..]

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?

[She had more meant for him on his home world, but what he continues on about his brother not being his brother intrigues her.]

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.

It hasn't been long at all. [Not as he reckoned time, anyway, with decades between contacts.] It is extremely unlikely given nothing had changed for over a milennia, that anything had suddenly altered itself in so short a timeperiod. [A small shrug, that sends ripples through the water nearby.] I may not like it but I can accept it; it is what it is.

[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.]

I know of some smaller clans who are stronger in numbers and do not always live long when they are on their own. I have never heard of one to become angry from it. [As that is what he means by "mad", right?] It is never wise for any creature to become so mad and lose control of themselves. They may be strong, but to be blinding by rage is to leave too many openings and for other creatures to rise up to attack as one.

Mm.

[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.

I understand.

[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.

[For now, but possibly not for much longer. The sun felt nice, strangely so without a second one in the sky to add bite to the heat, and the water was pleasant.]

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?

[There is a long pause as Xzana thinks over the question in her mind. Did she miss her kin? It's not really something she had ever stopped to question before. Her expression remains unmoving as she sits quietly in the water. Looking neither happy or upset. Finally her answer comes simply and calmly.]

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.

[Knives simply waits through the pause, patient. There was another lake to visit, and perhaps there he could be alone to work on the floundering struggles of learning how to swim on his own. Maybe he should try it at night.. humans were diurnal. It wouldn't help with people like Xzana, but others..]

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.

Very well, but know you are welcome to visit this lake as you please. So long as you respect it during your stay.

Where I am from, there is no water like this. It is only dry, empty desert.

[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.]

[She can't help but make a displeased face at the mention of a desert. She's never been in one, nor has any desire to visit one. The stories she heard of them sounded awful and deadly to her kind.]

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.

Life finds a way. [He makes a small gesture.] The plants there are often small and very hardy, but have difficulty living anywhere else. You might see a cactus in Luceti, that is a desert plant. By its very nature it gathers all the water it can and protects it with thorny spines.

Cat-tus. I have never seen one before, but I do not think I wish to ever see one. [All that desert stuff? The farther it stays away from her, the happier she is.]

Someone may keep one in their gardens for the novelty of it.

[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.

You as well. [The conversation was over and Xzana was alright with that. Without waiting for Knives to leave completely she dives back under the water and goes for a hunt.]

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