This was an entirely different sensation. Not the one that came from overtaxing the use of magic till he was nearly empty, or the fact that he had given just as much as he got from the other demon; but rather how the contract had worked in reply to him taking the shift against its allowance. No permission and it meant it was going to ensure that pieces of him were effectively lashed, beaten and felt every node of pain within it.
And he felt it. In ways that were so strange, so different that for once when she had settled and was pushing that means of energy to heal; there was no refusal of it. It was snatched and held close. Feeding it into every unseen bruise and gash and twisted bend of bone that could repair while somewhere in his mental desolation, he could use it as a bobber on the water.
There was not a very good clue how long either of them were out. It could have been minutes or weeks for all he could fathom.
Just that when he began to move from where she had tucked him, he nearly fell out entirely. Scuttling sideways to plop onto lap! Little limbs scurrying uselessly in an embarrassingly long moment till he could right himself over and take a dull consideration to their little hidey hole. Not that there was much to look at but boy his brain needed a chance to recalibrate itself into fathoming!
It took time. More time than he’d ever liked but eventually rearranged himself to crawl back up her form from which he tumbled off of. Settling on shoulder to use the damn feelers to prod at cheek and neck. Checking to ensure what he could before he might feel even inclined to test his ability to be at least mostly as mortal as a demon could get. “C… Calia?”
“Still alive,” came a whispered murmur, somehow oddly cheerful considering how hoarse her voice still sounded. Oddly, she was actually glad to find herself awakening to the living world instead of being lost to the bliss of black silence. Maybe because she could hear it in his own voice how much he needed to still be alive.
They’d slept an awfully long time and yet not nearly enough. The magic she’d used to keep the stones warm for their little den had long since faded, so the place was dark and cool once again. Calia tested her limbs, starting first with her toes and finding which much regret that her leg was no longer numb, now it was full on burning fire and she didn’t like that any better! Some bone somewhere was absolutely still broken, but she’d been laying there for so long she was too stiff to do much more than shift awkwardly.
She flicked two fingers at the circle of stones, reigniting that burst of orange glow, settling back again to stillness with a heavy sigh.
“We’re okay. Go back to sleep.”
A soft sigh was due to the relief that she was still as she said, alive. Granted the way she sounded, it could be highly debated. Warranting a stronger means of concern to be reflected without borders. Eyeing her as much he could at this level, “I would debate that of the okay thin’s.” Arc shuffled and settled still on that of shoulder. Yet not too interested in letting himself tumble back to sleep now that he’d come back to the living realm.
What time, unknown.
“I…” He started and then had a kinda hard stop. Pausing and frowning in spirit. His head hurting in a dull pinch, “What happened to yah… I mean…” Nope, he was sitting on fuzzy recollections of his own thoughts and realizing that in it all, he had no idea what happened really to her besides taking a tumble on a mini ice city. “Besides yer whole achin’ pain situation bleedin’ through the tether.”
He needed proof she was okay to which… that was fair. Incredibly inconvenient when all she wanted to do was resume sleeping like some hibernating bear. His following question at least gave her enough of a clue to realize that he actually had no idea how she ended up in such a state anymore than she knew what happened to him. Hard to trust things were okay, when you didn’t know what happened in the first place.
Calia took in another deep breath, running it through her head.
“There was a second demon and it dragged me through a maze of underground rivers to… I guess their nest. Wasn’t too keen on that so I buried it all in molten rock. ” Concise simple facts. She could have just left it with that and it would’ve explained plenty enough. Yet there were bits she remembered that begged for curious questions of her own.
“…I was happy for a whole minute and they’d ruined it. Furious enough in the moment that I was find burying myself in that cavern along with it because I am so tired. And then there was you…”
Another sigh and she dug up just enough energy to slide so she could properly lay down, wincing with the effort but it didn’t much matter at this point! All she really needed was sleep and and a twelve course meal.
“You needed me so I went to get you, and then I couldn’t get to you so I had to call for you right back. Thinking now of about a dozen different ways I could have done that without ending up half dead, kinda embarrassing really.”
Then she moved an arm to rest her full hand on top of him, effectively flattening the beetle so he wouldn’t get too far out of her reach.
“Now you. What happened to yah,” there was that mimic of his accent again, with all due fondness mixed in. Not a single hint of mischief or teasing, just the gentle tap of her thumb over a tiny beetle head.
There was a lot of uncertainties which did leave him wondering what the hell happened. Granted they really ought to know there was no way in hell that any calm moment wasn’t going to be rudely snapped away by something else. Honestly, shame on them for thinking otherwise.
And shame really because listening to Calia not only express she had taken an forced invite into another demon’s nest only to fight and potentially die with it, well, he wasn’t sure what to think of it all. Doubly so that he hadn’t been present with her to aid and just, “Fuckin’ hell.” Arc huffed knowing that wasn’t exactly the most useful of replies but honestly, what the hell was he supposed to say. That was more than either of them could have expected and he wasn’t the largest fan of her expressing that she had been keen enough to murder herself in that moment either.
Fingers rested and kept him a compliant hostage, feelers twitching under fingers as she was doing that mimicry thing as he paused about the question. Mentally feeling it out while searching for the most effective reply. “Was gettin’ my ass kicked by a fuckin’ demon. Clearly I need to fuckin’ work on more of my abilities rather than relyin’ strictly on magic.” Antenna vibrated in annoyance, “And did stupid shit by breakin’ against the contract’s allowance to take my demonic form which…” The said demon winced, “It’s kinda fuckin’ fuzzy. Just pain and rage and… nggh…” If he wasn’t already being squished down, he would have done it himself. “I didn’t have control as I usually would and I felt yah pull on the tether. To get to yah as fast as possible but thinkin’ wasn’t easy… I don’t think I even did.”
A sigh exhaled as he was getting tapped on the head, “Just… all in all got my ass kicked seems like the most valid and on point statement of what happened.”
“Okay,” she breathed out the acknowledgement, now settling things down in the right perspective. It helped she was too tired to start thinking anything wild and miscontrued. They’d certainly come long strides too in learning how to communicate with each other when both of them tended to get into their own feelings, battling their own internal demons… in this case, literal demons internal and external.
Second hand went down on top of the first, holding firm but not so much as to crush. Just that unspoken desperate need for physical contact.
“So then we will agree that I’ll stop being so damn ready to die, because if I had just stopped for two seconds to remember someone was waiting for me, you wouldn’t have had to summon up that demon form at all. And while you start doing pushups and learning some fighting skills outside of magic, try to remember next time you go bucking up against the weird contractual rules of our binding, that you have my pre-emptive permission to go all out demon style if it means saving one of our dumb asses.”
It might been a little bit of faeish bending and twisting of a contract, but Calia had never intended a limit on his power in the first place. Whatever that part was in their binding, it sure as hell hadn’t been from her end. More liable to be Queen Ashera’s addition in making sure the demon was managed.
“Ack!” Being sandwiched closer wasn’t horrible but it did make him shift a bit to avoid accidental squeezing. Whilst being grateful that he had no features currently, “I have fightin’ skills Calia.” Arc pointed out, “Their just bloody rusty and admittedly apparently in desperate need of being unrusted.” Sighing and squirming out of her grasp so he might at least freely move around as she was laying down, “Pushups, pah.” Apparently finding all that to be the strangest thing said.
“Weird contractual rules are part of the bindin’, it doesn’t work typically for a demon to have full range of their abilities if they are under contract. In case the whole, decide to kill the pact owner shit.” Fit of plenty came to the ground so he might willingly and properly shift back once more to the whole proper appearance. Sore, stiff, still somewhat bruised and what not; he gave his neck a pop.
No sooner rubbing it, “Now… it’s yer turn.” His attention rested upon her, “Yah figured out the emotional means of shiftin’, yah might as well make use of it this time. Heal, mend and we best keep movin’ for the time bein’. Ain’t too keen on any other ugly fuck’s of my own species comin’ up wantin’ to nibble on any ears.”
As tired as she was, apparently she still had energy enough to immediately give a cheeky grin about his protest on pushups and fighting skills. Oh, she didn’t doubt he had them at all. Didn’t mean she wasn’t going to harass him about it until she got to actually see it. As now that she thought about it, Calia tended to be well focused on other things every time they seemed to get into these dangerous situations. Just because he was magically powerful, didn’t mean he could kick someone’s ass bare handed!
He’d left her grasp, though, and that had her giving a sound of protest to go with her sudden frown. They had a good thing going her, sleeping in the dark with nice hot rocks. Putting out the suggestion that she ought to start taking advantage of this new skill of hers, to use a smaller form to heal faster. At first being reluctant, as if seemed far too exhausting to even deal with more magic in the moment!
He was right, though. They needed to keep moving, especially if demons were back on the hunt for her. Faeries and demons, oh joy.
“Don’t wanna drag me by the legs?” came her teasing question, hiding the fact she was eyeing him carefully and debating if he was even okay to travel. After a beat caving in with another sigh.
Calia cringed at first, having to dig somewhere deep for the magic this time if only because she was hurting and so tired. But after a long moment she finally rolled to her side, slipping away into a shimmer of misty sparkling breath. Disappearing into a whole swirl of nothing before a long slender new shape took her place.
Slinky and snowy white save for the very tip of a shadowy tail, for the first time not mimicking something he’d been and instead choosing herself a fuzzy ermine. Calia skittered up his arm and around the back of his neck, where she then flattened and went limp like a furry scarf. Giving the quietest, softest little huff.
“Save some thin’ for yer mountain men, love.” Giving her a quick look at the whole jest about dragging her by that of her legs. By no means remotely interested in doing so anyways. Granted it seemed she wasn’t in the mood to at least protest but rather allowed herself the means of that newly acquired ability to change one’s appearance. A little less demonic than his own but when she shifted, of course she chose something that might be equally as mischief orientated as that of a little weasel. And helped herself up to change places with what he usually would.
Slipping around to settle in and a huff exhaled him. Lightly testing her location with a brush of fingersa long that of spine. “No bitin’.” A jesting warning that was admittedly was half assed while thoughts moved forward.
Naturally having muscles protesting this very effort but easily ignored for once when it came to ensuring that the mountain faeling herself was given the proper chance to rest. Never mind that he equally took solace in the close proxy of her existence. He’d have to move a bit slower since he didn’t understand said doodles on the walls but well, he was still at least perspective enough generally to know when something bad or good could happen.
“Better not be any fuckin’ trolls to run into next, otherwise that’s what the next meal is guna be.”
Oooh, she liked that. A little stroke of feelings across the spine was quite nice and discovering in the moment that ermines could actually purr and rumble. Just as quick to nudge her nose against his skin and give a chickchickchick with her teeth to suggested he couldn’t stop her from biting if she wanted! Very much being the little weaselly minx true to form and to Calia’s own wit.
I’m not eating any godsdamned trolls!
The sound of her voice was soft in the way it graced his thoughts just as much as it was vehement about not eating any trolls. She’d froze in the moment, realizing that she’d not spoken out loud the way he always did in his beetle form, but rather had accidentally fallen into that strange means of communication that fae creatures always seemed to do. No movement of mouth or disembodied voice, something gentle across the mind without being invasive to the senses.
Or at least, wasn’t invasive when they weren’t being a damn nuisance, anyway.
…just stay away from symbols that have legs. We’ll be fine.
Well colour him surprised that apparently talking about feeding her trolls was enough for her to discover a sort of whisper telepathy so she might speak in utter disgust. “Comin’ from the lass that said she’d feed me squirrels.” There was a light tapping to her noggin at the clicking of her sharp little dagger teeth that spoke loud enough that he’d be able to do very little about stopping her if she felt like it.
Something in which he would be very sure she would get paid back for, but for now he merely smoothed the glide of finger over brow to neck in a effort to keep her calm. Which his gaze was considering the only way out with caution.
Truly not about to get snuck up on again so soon. Pushing tendrils of unseen feelers out to sense as it were and listen with the sharp ears since they did have more of a purpose than just decorating the sides of his face. Tilting and bending focus to hear that nothing was standing out as potential problems besides wet dripping somewhere in the sprawl of tunnels. “Okay remember when I said these were just doodles on the walls, they are doodles on the walls. How the hell do I know what is a leg and not an artistic choice of giving a person an tail?” Arc motioned softly, “They look like scribbles to me, just so yah know.”
Squirrels are perfectly edible, she protested. Squirrel actually sounded delicious right then in the moment, but Calia wasn’t sure if that was her instincts as an ermine to hunt fresh meat or her completely drained body starving for just about anything to replenish herself.
Regardless, she wasn’t so hungry she wanted to eat a damn troll, anyway.
Instead she was stretching out her long furry neck just about as far as it could go and arcing her head a bit to try and get him to do that little petting thing again. Curling her long puffy tail around his neck to help keep herself well balanced as a fuzzy scarf.
It’s art! Art tells you everything you have to know, came her persistent defense. Two legs is fine, three legs is a tail, more legs than that, then we have problems. …Besides I still have eyes. I can tell you the way to go.
“That can be said about anythin’.” Her protest was met with his own. Of course his was true it also just meant some things were only edible once. Granted it was not something he was about to really get into due to the fact that honestly, if a troll came out now well it was liable to find two souls who could be put into a pretty foul mood quickly.
Whether or not he noticed that she was being a needy little pet monster, the whole commentary about art could tell him everything they needed to know was enough to warrant a mere huff. Or it was her attempt to point out that the amount of legs would offer different solutions or problems. “Then can’t wait for my next rage induced fury to be hangin’ on the walls for others to decipher that I was pissed off. But if yer guna be the scout, then who am I to bitch about it.” Immediately he smoothed fingers across her back once more.
Yeeeessss.
That was a thought that wasn’t meant to be shared, or else it had meant to be a reply but not said with the pure absolute delight of having a nice stroke. Calia must’ve realized she was being weird, cause all that minky fur bristled when she paused… then melted back to being a limp noodle around his neck. Tempering the tone of her voice, and being very, very wary about how this new form shifted her.
Animal instincts were apparently a hell of a lot stronger of an influence than she might’ve liked.
I’ll have one eye scouting, the other eye sleeping. And should you find a bare wall I’ll paint a warning of Archimedes for you. Somethingsomething angry demon, with the violet eyes and just the right crooked fangy smile. Beware.
There was a pause to the way she crooned a yes that had him momentarily pausing said attention. Thankfully sparing the look down to her to consider just what she was blissfully happy about to spare some potential risk that she might leap at his face in a earnest intention of stopping him from remarking about it at all. Instead he settled in perhaps a very sly way to scoot fingers under chin slowly, and softly brushed the soft fur she decided to dawn; as quietly as he could muster.
“As much as I would love to see what sort of horrible drawin’ of me that yah might muster to ensure I never have a larger ego than I already presently do, I don’t think any walls need my likeness spread across them. Even for a warnin’.” Idly smoothing thumbpad between nose and brows up along between little ears.
“Why don’t yah just sleep, bunny. Or minky—” Technically incorrect seeing as ermine and minx were actually different weasels but whatever, that was so specifically semantic that it wasn’t necessary to call upon. “I’ll go slow enough for now that if we have any danger, I ought to be able to make it into a blazin’ inferno. And then whenever we get to yer mountain man village, suppose I best actually look like I use the muscles I have for somethin’ other than attemptin’ to beguile any mountain ladies unsuccessfully.”
Yes, yes, yes. This time she managed to keep the thought to herself, stretching out chin for a soft brushing and leaning in head to the stroke of a thumb. She made a little weaselly sound that must’ve been a laugh about terrible cave paintings of him – true that. Calia wouldn’t be able to resist giving him googlie-eyes, no matter how well or realistic she painted his portrait.
One day she might just paint one so she could cackle as he torched it.
As much as she wanted more and more of scritches, Calia had to accept the fact that even in this tiny form she was still aching all over and as tired as could be. It was a reluctant movement when she settled at last, perfectly curled around his neck and tucking her up into the crook under his chin.
Minky sounds just as silly, she lamented. Wake me for food… non troll ass food.
A little wriggling and adjusting and Calia was so perfectly comfortable that recognized real quick that it may just be her new favorite way to travel. Giving off that quiet, pleased rumbling from her tiny chest and practically radiating that safe comfort in a way that was very definitely a fae aura accidentally seeping out. She got to soak up the warmth of him and listen to his heartbeat the same as if he were in her pocket. Only now she didn’t have to do all of the walking! It didn’t take her long to doze away, her body slowly going just that much more limp. Her own heartbeat slowing to something steady, signaling she was well lost into her slumber when that faint rumble stopped and there was only the soft sound of her breathing through a tiny pink nose.
Oh he was going to forever store away the fact that she had a penchant for scritches even if she was back in her normal every day appearance. This little tidbit of knowledge was blackmail worthy if he ever did have a thought but thankfully, he was typically on her side. So just teasing material that he could use for future reference for if and when she wanted to try to poke holes into him.
“Well, we’ll see. Either troll ass or rocks, I’ll see how adventurous I feel about cookin’ later.” Smoothing once more along her head to back with every intention to lull her into shutting up for now. Guessing well enough that she really did need the change to leech on the tether to mend every ache and pain present.
And he didn’t mind a temporary role reversal, not very fond of often sporting more bloody rents in himself because of things getting wild. Lulling into silence as he paid heed to the means of her slowing to eventually settle into the means of proper rest. And leaving him to simply navigate the tunnels as best he could. Slowly but with due cautionary care.
So he walked in silence, letting her tiny breaths steady against his neck, letting the soft rhythm of her heartbeat coax him into a calmer stride. The tunnels wound endlessly, the air growing cooler, the rough stone narrowing and widening without rhythm or reason. Down here, time felt like a loose thread; something that slipped between his fingers whenever he tried to grasp it. He let it go, following instinct rather than any sort of deep memory, letting his mind wander just enough to keep from worrying.
He only snapped back to attention when the dark began to shift—when a distant glow brightened ahead like a lantern reluctantly waking. He slowed, narrowed his eyes, then stepped out of the tunnel.
And the world yawned open.
Great pale shafts of light speared down from fractures in the cavern ceiling far above, so high they vanished into a haze of drifting mist. The illumination washed over terraces and toppled structures clinging to the cavern walls, shaping the ruins of a vast underground city. Stone walkways spiraled downward into the fog, disappearing and reappearing as though the land itself breathed. Tower silhouettes rose like forgotten monuments, softened by centuries of silence, half-dissolved by time.
The cavern floor shimmered with faint green light—bioluminescent moss spreading like a carpet of fallen stars. He crouched without thinking, fingertips hovering inches above it. The glow rippled when the light touched it, droplets of moisture refracting color like shards of stained glass. For one suspended heartbeat, he looked nothing like the chaotic, storm-fed demon-elf who broke curses and flung lightning at problems. “Well not bad place to step into… so long as it ain’t home to somethin’ that wants to dig its teeth into either of us.”
Calia was glad to be sleeping through the mountain tunnel traveling, she’d sure as hell hadn’t enjoyed it the first time. How cavern tunnels started to blur together with brown, more brown, occasional grey, and more brown. You’d be lucky to see bugs and cave critters or any kind of underground plant life once you were deep enough in. It did make time blend together and become nonsensical altogether, made worse by the fact they’d had strange detours and had the kind of stamina that let them travel farther for longer.
Although it was a great deal easier too being with someone of comfort. Sometimes Calia would wake for a second, peer a single open eye around before nuzzling her head into his neck and returning right back to sleep. He hadn’t lied at all that healing this way came faster, both because she was in a smaller form and because the proximity closed the gap of their tether. To have her heart beating in time with his.
The shift of light had her coming to awareness before his voice did, though once he spoke she’d perked up immediately with interest. Popping her head up and lifting higher on her two front paws to peer around.
Where the waytown between Caeldalmor and Edelguard had been an abandoned wooden town, this one was a great deal larger. Massive and certainly more than just a short term stop between the mountains. An ancient people had lived here.
Do you think it’s still home to anyone at all? she questioned, scurrying from his neck to scuffle through his hair before curling her long body on one of his horns for a better perch. Did you read the signs?
Calia dangled her head down in between his eyes, knowing full well he hadn’t read a damn thing, but was asking anyway with that tinge of amusement to her voice.
The itty paws that had arisen so one could peer at the spread of unusual but welcomed appearance of both light and something other than dull open tunnels of the same hue! Curious as he was about it, he didn’t glean any lost scholarly details to express what this place was. Its purpose, who it belonged too and yadda yadda. Rather he was just as unfamiliar with the existence of an underground abandoned ruin city as the next guy.
Only looking around as she made herself comfortable in the bird’s nest that became her newest loft. “If it is, they better be friendly. I ain’t guna give two shits to absolutely demolish the place if somethin’ comes out with more sets of teeth than I can count.” Stepping forward by the pull of earnest curiosity, this would work for a momentary time to sit and rest. To regain bearings as it was and in turn, see if there was anything around that could either be foraged for food or hunted if it was living and not a troll’s ass.
Looking up as she dangled down to question if he read the signs at all. “I counted the legs on ones I seen.” Reaching up to rub an ear between thumb and forefinger with intentional care. “Yah didn’t say I had to do more than that, love.”
Calia leeaaaaned into that soft touch with a stretch of her neck – a little too far, for she lost her balance and grip altogether. First splatting against his face as a long furry noodle, swinging from his hair before landing on his shoulder with another scrolling scramble.
Apparently that was embarrassing enough that she was done using him as her personal transport, circled her way around his torso, down one leg and then bounced onto the rocky ground where the shook herself out to fluff her snowy white fur. Pretending in all her serene and faeish beauty that she hadn’t just been a complete dumbass and was still just as majestic as ever.
It looks like it was made with wings in mind. Flyers. she suggested, not hiding her own interest in such a place. With a trusted companion and no longer being in such a bleak mental state, her natural curiosity was now allowed to be free to reign. Ancient ruins inside the mountains was plenty of something to be interested in.
If there is a food, I will hunt it. She also seemed to be deep within her current form of a snowy ermine, already leaping ahead of him to bounce down the path that was winding and leading up to the ruins themselves. Unlike the snow fox, where it’d taken her a bit to fill into the shape and know how to move – something about having chosen this one for herself had her far more seamlessly blending in. Whatever it was about an ermine spirit, it was something kindred to Calia.
And, down she went. Making him make a very awkward attempt to catch her as she took a sudden fall from overstretching into the touch –she was only giving him ideas because apparently she was truly a greedy little minx for soft affection in ways he highly doubted in the past she knew of!
Thankfully she managed to snatch herself around that of his face –warranting a muffled bit of surprise- even as she scrambled and eventually made her way down to the ground to where he was raking fingers through the mess of blue and eyeing her suspiciously. Her attempt to look oh so regal now was only affirming her embarrassment and, her intent to ignore commenting on it making it difficult for him not too!
“Suppose if that be the case, then there would be exits skyward because those tunnels we walked were way too narrow for anythin’ massive enough to fly through these areas.” Steps began to move watching her when she started forward and seemed intent on hunting. “Try to not fall down any ravine sides, eh? How else am I suppose to lavish yah with attention if yah nosedive suddenly.” A wicked grin appeared, “Yah sure yah don’t wanna just ride a bit longer and be pet more, Lia?”
Calia paused so suddenly that all her little legs sprawled out, then gave a chittering noise that may have very well been ermine cursing. After a beat, continuing on in that soft skittering sort of way, fastly scooting a couple of feet before pausing to sniff the air or swivel her head to observe what was around them.
I know that I am irresistibly soft now, but food first and then the pettings. I am ravenous enough to eat the first leg that gets too close to my mouth.
She knew he didn’t take kindly to threats, but in this case it was less a threat and a potential truth if they did not settle somewhere to eat soon. After such an expense of playful magic, followed by rageful magic, and the costs of shared healing for the both of them, Calia could eat an entire herd of deer all by herself. She’d done her sleeping, now it was time to eat.
There is natural skylights for certain, she then pointed up. Hopping up onto a pillar of tone to sniff her button nose off towards the extraordinarily tall stone pillars those rose all about the caverns. That is where fully sized dragons would perch. You remember the cave drawings? A kingdom of dwarves, dragonkin and drow…
“And yah’d be feelin’ right awful after if it happens to be someone that yah want said pettin’s from that lost their leg to such a beast.” Arc met that commentary evenly –tempering down any spike of irritation that could have arisen- so he might follow her lead. Not sure what they would find down here besides moss and maybe a few cave dwelling roaches.
Waiting till there was a clue of recollection that the Arcanum hollows between the two of them likely had some morsels of proper food that she might want to devour. But he wasn’t pointing that out, far too interested to see just when that wit of hers would kick back in and be less driven by the furred form she opted to remain in.
In familiar fashion suited to him, hands rose to intertwine behind that of neck. Considering the great place for all it was worth and considering the shafts of light peering through the roof in ways that either were great slippery columns of rock and ice from the upper portion of the mountain, or angled light that entered from reflected angles. Not that it matter, at least it wasn’t stuffy and stale too much here.
“Yah think dragon’s themselves would have wanted to come into a place that is an error to their hot blood?” Arc asked her obvious with incredulous belief. “What they may have thought were dragon’s may as well have been simple flyin’ rats.” He wasn’t convinced any dragon that he knew of in legend would risk their hides in a climate that was liable to make them freeze.
I might feel a teeny tiny little bad if I ate your legs, admitted Calia with such a tone of amusement that it didn’t sound like she’d feel bad at all! Although, you would still have hands to pet me with.
If she were going to be embarrassed about the petting itself, it hadn’t hit her yet. For now other instincts taking dominant control of her thoughts. With the light coming down from somewhere so high above that one couldn’t really see the sky until they were deeper in the city, at least it was casting enough of a glow to see by. Outside of the mountains it was somewhere midday. Calia followed the mossy stone paths until she caught a whiff of something.
Stalking mode began. She slinked, she slithered. She took off into a bounding run until she pounced on a big fat cave beetle. Calia cronched it down in a few quick bites. It tasted a bit like those shrimps on sticks down in Tir Elas, and might’ve fine had it not given her a shudder down her long spine at the crunchy carapace.
Dragons are like fae, they come in many forms and elements, she told him in the moment she’d paused trying to blem beetle wings out of her little teeth. Cragjaw was a drake of ice and snow. Besides, don’t they-
She stilled and her teeny bitty ears flicked. The off she went like a shiny white dark, disappearing down the side of the cliff walls chasing fresh prey. Whatever it was she caught, there was a squeaking, chittering scuffle. When Calia reappeared up the side, she had a cave skink near twice her own size in her mouth, proudly dragging it along.
Dinner!
“As if I would pet yah then.” Arc pointed out surely knowing that if it happened, she wouldn’t be surprised that he wouldn’t be very friendly at that point. A unlikely scenario as it was.
Because even as he was considering the means of the world they had stepped into, she had found herself something crunchy to try and eat. Earning an arched brow and a telling step around to leave her with that of her roachy meal. Not at all interested in that but rather he had the intention to find someplace suitably secure just to pause. To get one’s bearings and fathom all that had happened. “Yah so she is the one of knowledge now about dragons and drakes, even if I was the one who warned her about that of Cragjaw in the first place.” He glanced back at her only to catch the tail end –practically literally- as she was off once more.
Finding some new bit of prey to harass and left him a chance to look outwards amongst the stone city.
Silent as the grave itself. There was no pulsing residue of life anywhere that he could tell, no magic, no demonic presence. Although he didn’t move too much away from where she had scooted off from as he wasn’t about to be that risky seeing as they had enough trouble with two bastards of the underearth already. And there was still the suggested threat of this loser fae that had lost his crown, but he was still curious.
Looking amongst it all whilst filling some quiet part of intellectual scholarly desire. Wondering in a broader term to when this place had stopped housing any soul within it. Mattering none what their flesh was made from but the wonders of why. How, when.
Ears lifted slightly at the telling sound of something occurring that was not requiring him to be surprised to know Calia’s hunger was likely the dominating force, for when she reappeared dragging along a fluffy but dead skink, she declared dinner. Something Arc was surprised she didn’t just lean into those overpowering instincts to start munching promptly with little regard. “Well don’t waste yer food now.” He offered.
You know more than I, but I still know some things, she defended on the topic of dragons. Cragjaw himself was a sore subject for both of them in a variety of different ways. Calia’s massive disappointment that such a beautiful ancient beast was such an asshole for one, when she’d have loved to speak with something that breathed magic in it’s blood. But he had crushed and killed Archimedes, and she’d yelled at Arc and now it was all locked into this painful moment of time.
Regardless, that didn’t matter right now. She’d caught them some dinner and she hadn’t clued in yet on why he wasn’t nearly as thrilled with it as she.
It is OUR dinner, we need a place to cook it, don’t we? she insisted, trotting after him with that dead skink in her mouth. Already staining the snow white fur around her jaws with a bright red. Then we can explore the ruins until nightfall. Maybe there are old books for your library.
It was cute that she was clearly missing a pretty large issue with that of her claim that it was their dinner. Never mind the fact that he was aptly aware she likely was starving –if she was threatening to take his own legs from him- and needed the lipids after such an arrangement of magic flinging of various degrees. Secondary, he wasn’t so stupid to even believe for a second that she would even share had the meal been more suitable for two fully grown adults.
The third was obvious to him considering she was trotting down with red staining her white appearance on four legs. A skink was a mighty catch for a little ermine but it was no meal suitable to silence one’s hungry belly as a six foot some woman, let alone an additional six and seven demon. “Love, as cute as it is yah even suggest somethin’ I know I’d pull a bloody stump back from, there’s a evidence of appearances that may need to be relayed for yer meal.” Eyes followed her triumphant walk a bit longer before looking around and shrugging indifferently.
“What would I need more books for in the library? I don’t read half of them and it seems just a potential trade off for it to rest in permanence here for someone better suited for such a discovery or just wastin’ away in that of my tower. Ain’t no reason to go and deprive proper explorer’s of such maybe finds.”
There were a few snarly sounds from her, more ermine cursing? Disgruntled annoyance? In her opinion he was being needlessly difficult and contrary just for arguments sake, which was fine if she weren’t trying to look after them both with a meal and entertainment. All he had to do was settle down and fine them some nice shelter for starting up a fire, so they could roast this skink!
Somewhere in her tiny ermine temper tantrum, Calia was coming to a slow realization that perhaps she was thinking in too small of scale. Leaning into the wrong instincts to serve her – which had done her well to speed up her healing processes but otherwise may not be helping in the realms of using the right brain muscles to understand he was a grownass man that probably didn’t want to eat something she was currently dragging around in her mouth.
The problem was that she did not want to shift back to her human form. Being small and fuzzy felt safe from the world – as safe as she did in his tower. And unlike hiding away in his protective little bubble, at least she was still out in the world instead of giving up and hiding from it.
Too many difficult choices when she was so damn hungry.
….I will accept this as my snack, so I don’t accidentally devour you. Find us a safe place to nest, rest, and eat. This thing is heavier than it looks.
“Accidentally.” He remarked giving her the eye that expressed he already suspected he would be on the menu if she could make it work. Whilst doubly expressing that she really wouldn’t have any issue making him into a meal so long as it served her in some way, shape or form. Jesting or not, it did annoy him somewhere deep within and thankfully it didn’t bleed out in any way. So it would be impossible for another to feel when he was already stepping over the subject to do as he was told to do.
“Yes yer majesty.” Bowing in turn to express he had heard his commands what he ought to be doing next. Aka, find her a space to settle so she could scarf down what she was calling a snack and continue to rest as she needed too.
Clearly she really had expended quite a mass of energy.
Once he was straightened up and leading the way a bit slower so her legs wouldn’t have to pump so heavily with her conquered beast in mouth; ears were flicking. Listening to subtle noises and checking through his own channels pressures present. Being alert, being mindful as the sprawling structure of stone effectively hollowed into buildings, came closer.
It was already massive from afar but as they drew closer to its very self, it was utterly enormous. Dwarfing even titans from under its stoic presentation. Quietly musing to that same clever part of his mind that still enjoyed being flexed from time to time; till vision flickered to one of the smaller –said lightly- abodes that was chiseled into the rock. Earning a inspection that determined it was dry, sheltered from any stray breezes and had no seemingly other exit so there was an unlikelihood of being snuck up on. Unless they came from inside the rock itself!
Regardless, he made himself useful as required. Materializing a fluffy blanket that could be destroyed as she wanted with a showy gesture that she was able to use it as a nest. Tucked safely within as he stayed out, mostly to marvel at the view around them. Mentally taking it in and filing away all sorts of theories just what the place was used for. Certainly it wasn’t a mining place, there was too much about it that he couldn’t explain that indicated it was not that.
But Arc didn’t remain in his private reverie for long. Not when he was opening the Arcanum hollow attached to him to pull out some stowed away items for food. And setting them down near herself to ravish herself with to whatever bursting capabilities she wished. Paired with a waterskin and a made material little bowl so she could drink once he poured it for her.
Shoved away and the demon took to being his dramatic self as to float in midair as a sort of chair so she could snack and he wasn’t liable to be bit in turn.
Calia made another little growling sound at him, but otherwise kept her words to herself. She wasn’t going to actually eat him! She would never! Even if she were starving and dying in her final hour, she wouldn’t. He was just being difficult. Nor did she mean to sound like she was ordering him about enough to earn that majesty, there was just an urgency to fill her stomach and- something, something, something.
She pushed all those thoughts aside, every single last one of them. Focused on trotting after him with her prize until he’d found a space safe enough to make them a nest. No rage, no frustration, no curiosity in the grand and strange new place they’d found. Calia narrowed herself down to the single desire of a safe place to devour her fill.
Eating a raw dead skink as an ermine was certainly a new experience. Shredding through skin with her teeth and chomping down on the good fleshy parts. There was nothing pretty or elegant about being such a feral thing, almost evening thriving off the sheer brutality of ripping the thing a part, chewing up juicy organs and licking blood away.
She’d not taken it to the blanket for eating, not wanting to make a mess of what was meant to be her cozy nesting space. That skink, though, had every last bit of good stuff chomped right off the skin and bones. Until all there was left was a mangled carcass and a snowy ermine princess with a surprisingly full tummy.
Calia skittered to the bowl of water, stopping short when she caught her reflection. White fur now stained with red, unrecognizable as such a beastly creature had it not been for fir-green eyes staring back at her. Her real self, regardless of what form she took. Still Calia under the skin.
She realized in that moment why she yearned to stay in this form. Ermines couldn’t cry. All of those emotions were in her deep down under a thick layer of weasel-brain. She didn’t have to deal with her beautiful ice city and moment of joy being shattered by reality crashing in. That overwhelming despair and wish for death. The guilt of knowing she’d been ready to die when he needed her, and that he still powered his way through the mountain to come get her. Too many feelings she did not want to feel.
After a long, long pause of just sitting there staring at her furry self, Calia finally moved. Using the water to help wash away the red rather than drinking it. A little strange to do with small ermine hands, but she scrubbed and licked and rinsed until her fur was damp but back to it’s snowy white.
Then with a reluctant blur of mist and shimmer, she was back to her human form again, dressed in her usual assassin’s traveling garb though with a few furry embelishments. Calia reached then for that blanket to wrap tightly around herself, heaving a heavy sigh.
“Thank you…”
As he rested in the most unnecessary sort of way whilst the woman of the fae lived in the body that was made by her craft. Unbothered by the means of devouring –it would be a little hypocritical if he had considering he devoured organs of particular demons without a single thought. Letting his thoughts wonder as they wanted too to everything and nothing.
Mentally scouring over the tales he knew once upon a time ago. Ones from his singular parent. Ones from the bitchy ass mage mentor that was Omai. Ones that were from the Edelguard grand library and ones from smaller places that were all in quiet contemplation of just what such a place could be.
Calia may have been able to read the walls but unless she was a professor of cave doodles and understood it to the letter… drawing… then he suspected there was translation lost. Akin to when anyone was trying to decipher old histories no longer part of their world and had no idea what the real context was.
In his lazy float, nothing was coming to mind. At least nothing that felt suitably on par for what they had stumbled into.
Eventually he gave a sideways glance to the ermine returned to faeish flesh. Maybe a bit surprised as he suspected she was going to contently exist and boss him around for the unforeseeable while. A few days at least until they found those of her mountain warriors and would have to be the diplomat. So when she was back with her own form and using the blanket he had provided –doing an obvious take to the other morsels of food left for her that weren’t making after images from how fast she was gobbling them down- she wrapped herself up. “Aye.” Was his reply, “As long as yah can rest as yah need, then its grand. Might as well make use of the scenery as somethin’ half decent before we follow yer next direction.”
Calia followed his pointed stare at all the other bits and bobbles of food items he’d pulled out for her, and somehow it twist and prodded at those raw feelings she hadn’t quite yet wrangled. Eyes moving to take a better look around them – mostly empty and devoid of any furniture, though the layout seemed to suggest it was once a home. It’d been abandoned long enough that anything left behind had long since been scavenged.
They were safe. Safe. Even better than that cave she’d dragged them into for a long sleep. He didn’t need her to draw him out of a forbidden demon form, and she had successfully use an alternate form herself to be a limp furry noodle and heal her broken bones.
That wasn’t quite enough, though, was it. Calia wrestled with the acknowledgement of it, turning the thought over in her head. He’d said she was allowed to ask – that didn’t make it any less embarrassing!
“Do I need to be delightfully soft and fuzzy to get those promised after dinner pets?” she asked tentatively, trying her best to mask both the interest and the awkwardness of it and failing spectacularly.
Ears rose slightly. Gaze falling sideways once more to the breach of voice that was no longer disembodied from the rest of her but part of the whole woman. Where she looked perfectly uncomfortable daring to voice in a very roundabout way to wanting to be nuzzled up with him once more. Instead the query of whether she had to be soft and fuzzy to be saturated in pets, Arc absolutely wore a look that proudly expressed he thought her efforts were amusing.
Impressively had added commentary that could have followed such a look was contained.
Dropping feet to be where they belonged on the earth. Dusting invisible dirt from his decided attire as he meandered back towards her little hollow to shift any rogue items out of his way. So one might sit in the most casual way that wasn’t laying into the means that she was being a goober about simply asking to be close. “I don’t think pets feel the same when yer no longer wee widdle but if yer needin’ the means of proxy and comfort, then that I can oblige with.”
Sitting down with legs stretched out and crossed at ankle’s, leaving his form presently open and inviting without added commentary to make her even more potentially awkward. Even if a strong part of him would have found terrible humour in it.
Oh, she could see that look on his face. Narrowing her eyes ever so slightly almost holding her breath waiting for his usual zippy, teasing commentary. Not that she was going to be mad about it – as embarrassing as it was to admit she needed these moments of close proximity, he himself was always so quick and accommodating for them. In a way that wasn’t simply allowing of it, but one that made her suspect Archimedes craved a sort of closeness with someone that wasn’t just him rolling around in a bed with someone pretty.
So it was immediate that when he settled, she didn’t just scoot next to him, Calia plopped herself on his lap with no care taken whatsoever. Throwing arms and blanket around his neck to bury herself into the crook of him. Taking in a big deep breath and letting it out in a slow, slooooow released.
Safe. They were both in one piece, body and mind. Neither of them mangled, nor furious with each other. Whatever magic it was to just hold him for a minute and to be squished by him – that physicality that somehow tempered the storm inside – it did it’s work one muscle at a time. Being an ermine and curling around his neck to rest had been comforting in it’s own way, it just didn’t have the same… something. Whatever this was.
“I don’t know why you were so against being something cute and furry in a lap, because I found it divine. Riding around on your shoulders and getting scritches might be my new favorite way to travel.”
Okay so he was a little surprised when she didn’t just lean into him but made him into her nearest throne. Squishing in close and tucking herself in so deep that there was no place for his arms to go besides looping around that of her back. Holding fast and adjusting chin so it might act as its alcove to hide in but not to limit his own mobility.
Training attention outwards on the means of ensuring that he could in fact keep a vigil out. Not about to be caught off guard by someone else deciding they were on the menu, whilst simultaneously giving her a chance to just seep out the means of wanting comfort from himself without a complaint.
At least about that but she seemed highly curious about why he didn’t just turn into something fluffy rather than his beetle appearance. “Yer welcome to do so but what yah feel, that animalistic instinct and drive, is not something I feel. Plus that beetle form is part of my demonology, it’s not shape shiftin’ the same way as being an ermine or a fox is. Add on, why? I don’t need to be cute and furry, because that invites hands where I may not want them.” Smoothing claws up and down that of blanketed back, “I ain’t meant to be cute. Demon’s ain’t cute.”
A small laugh escaped whether she meant it to or not, burying her face all the further and squeezing him tighter. Calia understood well that he’d might not want to invite petting hands where they weren’t wanted. She only found it amusing that he had no intentions of being cute. As if demons couldn’t come in deceivingly adorable shapes and sizes.
“Alright, not for being cute. Pretty only.” she conceded.
After a beat she did finally pull back far enough to give him a concerning frown.
“You do know I would never actually eat you, right? Wilde instinct or not, I know the difference between what is mine and what is food. Being an ermine did… make some thoughts a lot stronger than others. You were never going to be on the menu, though. …petting, yes. If I hadn’t shifted back, I’d be too tempted to stay an ermine forever for the petting alone.”
Deep in the base of his throat did he muse a chuckle at her adjustment that he was on point for not being cute but pretty was acceptable. Practically recalling in that strange moment then and there that she had called him something akin to a dumb pretty boy at some point in their adventures. Likely one of the first times and met with all sorts of snide barbs that were intended to assure he was just someone’s version of a total igit.
Which may have been right and wrong all at the same time.
What he wasn’t expecting was her to comment about being not actual dinner. Paired with her means of detailing that she did know the difference between what was hers and not. Such a statement would and should have had him pointing out she was calling him something like he was more than just this strange parody of friendship that really wasn’t friendship. At least not in the same original root.
Although he didn’t want to spur up some potential argument. “I don’t know, yah were pretty convincin’. Enough so I was manifestin’ mental semantics of ermine proof boots to keep sharp little teeth from findin’ flesh.” Smirking all the while he said it, but something about it all stood out. “Yah really were that deeply affected by the instinct of the creature yah took the form of?”
At Calia had sense enough to actually look like she felt bad! Grimacing with a wrinkle of her nose and a soft sigh. Not about to tell him she might’ve bitten him, even gnawed on him in some weird weasel-brained idea of friendly nibbling. Even moreso because she still had thoughts about biting him with her own normal teeth!
“It was like… activating parts of my mind in an entirely different way,” she tried to explain. “Same thoughts, only filtered through different priorities? Intensities?”
Now that she’d at least gotten her fill of squeezing him to death, Calia retracted her arms and tilted enough to claim some of the food he’d left out for her. Keeping her claim of his lap as her perch for the time being.
“As a fox, play was paramount. To run and chase and yip. It was fun and freeing and delightful. I could’ve ran for hours.” It was, as she’d stated to him directly after shrinking herself down to a tiny size in following his cues, brilliant.
“To be an ermine,” with such a dramatic sigh, one would think she was purely in love with the form. Maybe she was! “Do fae have a true shape? An animal spirit? It was so natural to me I sank deep down in it. Everything about it felt peaceful, safe. I could drape on your shoulder and feel your heartbeat. Being stroked was more than nice. …it is a predatory form, though. A tiny hunter? Hunting was thrilling and I had this calling of needing to feed us both.”
“It was tempting to stay in that form… a little too tempting,” she admitted with a frown. “I’ve got a bad habit of pretending I’m fine when I’m not, and ermines don’t much care about complex feelings. Or at least, I don’t quite have full control of my furry self just yet.”
“Well,” Arc started having listened to her express how the form she took absolutely highlighted parts of herself that were often held back or dimmed. Things that weren’t necessary to control when one was influenced by animal drive that hardly cared about much of anything save their own existence. A fine one at that but it wasn’t what she was. At least not entirely. Because her rhetoric about whether a fae has a true shape or spirit, it wasn’t even something he could provide insight too.
Because he certainly had no idea.
“Yah don’t have to tell me that yah have a habit of pretendin’ yer fine when not. We both are experts on that.” Arc hardly was about to not include himself on that portion since he was just as guilty. The difference was, he couldn’t outrun it by slinking into some smaller, cuddlier form. “I suspect that yah being fae, have more of a kinship with animal aspects than I as either a former elf or current demon ever could. So I don’t have much of even a guess towards that, not that I know yah be lookin’ for one.” A horned crown tipped back so it might rest on the back surface present, “Yah may not ever have full control on that part, if it is part of the fae bloodlines. To shut it off would be like turnin’ a piece of yah off. Not any better than ignorin’ thin’s, aye?”
“That’s great, I’m going to be a hot mess no matter what form I take,” she grumbled. Damned no matter what she did, and that wasn’t surprising. The curse of her existence would follow her in any shape, any form. To every realm and beyond. Calia would die and no doubt it would follow her to the afterlife too. Plagued her as a ghost to haunt all of eternity.
Calia bunted her forehead against his cheek, a soft press of affection before she finally slid off his lap altogether. Let him be free while she made the world’s weirdest sandwich to stuff in her face. No longer starving to the point of it twisting her guts, and now without the feeding frenzy of a tiny ermine.
How were they going to make any progress if every other day some crazy shit happened and Calia wanted to go into hibernation afterwards. It was ironic in a way, that now she was trying to deal with her flurry of emotions instead of burying them deep down, that it was making it harder to keep pushing forward. The more she allowed herself to feel, the more exhausted it all made her. With no way of knowing if it were a faerie problem or a Calia problem.
Her eyes slid to him in a quiet assessment. He’d gotten to heal and rest himself in his beetle form, and had tried to tell her a dozen times now he didn’t need the same things she did to recuperate. Still…
“And are you okay?” she dared to ask outright. No beating around the bush or trying to be subtle about it. “What do you need?”
“Sounds like a invitation to be a menace to any and all that yah feel like then,” he offered to her complaining about being a hot mess in whatever form she took. All the more reason to use that means of chaos to echo it outwards in mischief and play and whatever else you personally wanted because if life was just going to be a mess, then why not return the favour.
A low hum as she nudged once and slipped back after so she might make the remainder of the items he gave her, disappear in a whole other magic act. Giving him freedom to shift that of posture so it wasn’t just a sled of a living throne, but something a little more relaxed. At least for himself.
Perching elbow over risen knee, and found her green stare upon him. In time too because she was asking whether or not he was okay and if he needed anything. Typically he would have just rolled his eyes at her or made some joke. This time there was thought that did drop down into a easy shrug. “Ain’t nothing broken anymore and I know not to push on the contract in ways that will just influence the aura of madness back at myself.” Arc meant it too, there was no frivolity to his comment. “Ain’t needin’ anythin’. Perks of bein’ what I am.” Offering her a crooked grin to affirm his point.
Calia was actually a little surprised he took a second to think about it, instead of outright doing his usual song and dance. A genuine answer made all the difference in the world, so instead of eyeing him with suspicion or trying to sus out what he was holding close to chest, she loosened her own posture and accepted him at his word.
A relief and a comfort, to not be wrapped up in so much anxiety about how things were between them. Which wasn’t to say Calia wouldn’t screw something else up along the way, but at least right now in this moment they seemed to have grown into an understanding.
“Hmn, good,” she answered easily with a breath. Leaning back just long enough to peck a quick kiss to his cheek. He’d done it to her often enough, the gesture was affectionate without being strange. Matching his crooked grin with one of her own. “I’d rather you not fall into madness and tear yourself apart.”
“Hmm, I can confidently say that what bits of pain weren’t dullin’ the hell outta my thoughts, it was not a pleasant experience. The whole ebbin’ aura of madness is supposed to attack those nearest to my vicinity, not me.” It was something to learn from, that much was certain.
Knowing how the contract worked and feeling exactly how it liked to invoke its just desserts when one forced against it in such a way that wasn’t permitted; yeah he was not interested in repeating.
Thankfully he seemed to be able to learn from his mistakes.
Yet once more his attention flitted outwards to the state they were sitting amongst. “I bet this damn place has all sorts of old traps and trip wires if yah still be intendin’ on explorin’. Somethin’ about this place seems like it may have been important or at least hidin’ something half decent for the more treasure hungry folk.”
Exploring this ancient city had multitudes of an appeal. Disregarding Calia’s natural desire of snooping and discovering things, it felt like a good way to shake off wretched events and do something interesting. They weren’t likely to discover some grand secret of lost treasures, but at the very least they might find the next direction to hike through the mountain tunnels.
When it felt like life was pushing her several step backwards, what choice did she have but to keep trudging forward? Peering over her shoulder at the demon sitting close by, it didn’t seem so bad anymore, even when things were going wrong.
“Doubt there’d be any treasure with how old this place looks, but it’s got to be fascinating seeing how a city is made with dragonkind in mind. I don’t think there’s been dragon sightings for half a millennium, so this place has to be what? A thousand years old? Two thousand? Maybe we’ll find some old petrified dragon nests and some dwarven axes.”
Hastily Calia made herself one last demented looking sammich before she was sending objects ti be stashed away in her hollow. At this point they were practically just swapping things back and forth, depending on who settled down first, which prompted all sorts of curious thoughts about how a mage might make a shared space for these sorts of things. His tower could be shared, yet that wasn’t exactly an open door situation as far as she could tell.
Once she was up on her feet, stuffing that sandwich half in her mouth, she was reaching down with both her hands to pull him up too.
“Hrmpher, mer pherrrrl,” was her next helpful statement.
Instantly at her suggestion that there wasn’t any treasure left in such a place, he offered her his best squint. Tainted and deep with the searching sort of presence that was trying to determine if she was merely devoid of any whimsy or if she was trying to behave. Whatever it was, he didn’t seem to particularly care. “What sort of attitude is that, yah gotta be willin’ to look through all the nooks and crannies.” He offered though of course they were both probably aware he was far more the sort to give less of a hoot about such things.
Regardless as she was making her newest rendering of a sandwich and suggesting there might be some dragon nests or dwarven artefacts, Arc shrugged. “A smart dragon hides, but they still be around. Ones who are stupid are the one’s that are hunted.” He offered and made no effort to exposition any sort of knowledge if he had any.
Instead letting her look the part of food goblin with the arrangement sticking out of her mouth and intending to pull him to his feet. One he obliged and took hold, certainly helpful because she was talking with her mouth full.
Warranting a series of violet blinks, “What?” Arc stood, brushing off his rear. “Surely yah were taught not to talk with yer mouth full.”
“Lighrr mrprhrr grrr,” came her spicy little reply to that, warranting an extra bite and swallow even for the efforts to go along with that mysterious grin that appear to still have a bit of ermine cheekiness to it left over. At least Calia waited long enough for him to collect himself before she was turning on a heel and gently leading the way back into the abandoned city streets.
With a swipe of her thumb after some crumbs, she finally graced him with an actual reply.
“I know that Demon Archimedes doesn’t care much about old rocks and ruins, but did Mage Archimedes ever study something other than magic?” she asked, finding herself genuinely curious about his former life, especially in the wake of their time in the tower and this new understanding they seemed to have. He had a life before, quite a rich one filled with events and people. Some of those people even still being alive! Yet not a single one had told her who Arc had been then, and even the man himself was occasionally dodgy.
The eyebrow hooked up still not quite catching what sort of muffled attempt to sass him was. Simply having to accept that she was being her faeish self and live with the ease of not entirely caring what was said either. Not when it was clear that she did in fact want to search around and well, it was better than sitting here with their thumbs up their asses.
Waiting for whoever was lying in wait to strike, next.
Once he was suitably collected and moving to align stride alongside her own with the lead into the very much empty streetways, ears instinctively tilted backwards when she started to ask questions. Nothing vague or just about something she was wanting to learn when it came to magic based items. Rather things about his past that honestly, she wasn’t wrong when her own thoughts were claiming he was dodgy about it.
Tilting focus pointedly over to a lump of stone that could have been a building or was just a lump of stone! Purposefully drawing the moment out as to seem like he was thinking about it.
At first, he wasn’t.
Then he honestly did start thinking back to scrub and scratch at old memories collecting dust to dredge up anything that might be on par with her query or close enough to it that she would find it amusing regardless. Eventually a singular iris was directed that of her way from profile, like looking at Calia just might reveal something of interest. Looking up no sooner with a quite smack of lips, “Swordsmanship.” His stare sort of narrowed and hand flicked out. “The Bloodworth family was that of swordsmen. I was… curious for a bit. Didn’t have the knack for it.” Tongue poked into cheek, “Most of my interests beyond magic came when I was older and absolutely were aimed in the whole charmin’ the feminine sorts.” Arms bent upwards to cup around neck, “Or just generally knowin’ how to piss others off in ways that I could manipulate. Such past is about as deep as a puddle.”
Well, that was the most bullshit non-answer he could have possibly cooked up. Yet he was right in that it was just enough of something to draw that amusement out of her. So even as she gave him that pointed I know what you’re doing squint of her eyes, it shifted just as quickly to the up and down scan of someone who had spent their life practicing weapons craft. Hunting for whatever signs it was that belied a skill or talent and in the end simply finding that while he had a very pleasing physique it didn’t give much away beyond being nice to look at!
And he already knew that, didn’t he.
“So I am going to have to teach you how to use a weapon and supervise pushups so you can win demon fist fights a little faster,” she mused, full of teasing mirth and making sure it did in fact come across as just a gentle tease by way of weaving close to shoulder check him in the sort of style a cat might to show affection. Soft and lingering before taking several quick steps forward to spin around and walk backwards.
With the breath she took in, it was clear that Calia was trying to let whatever worried were rolling around in her head to fall away, giving space for something lighter and focused in on him instead. Or rather, him and the very interesting new space they’d found themselves in. Gesturing with her arms and open hands up towards towards the towering stone buildings with a shrug that was a little too casual, a little too vulnerable.
“All of those things you studied and you never wondered about the first peoples? Ancient kingdoms? Old magics? I didn’t care much for being trapped inside reading dusty books. I’d spent hours snooping outside, though. Walking along the cliff sides looking for any hole in the ground I could find. Crawling into caves and being thrilled if they farther than a bear nest. A place like this would’ve been a dream to find.”
He gave her his best mock annoyed look when she suggested she was going to have to both teach him how to handle a weapon and pushups, making a shooing motion at her that was about as dangerous as a passing breeze. “I know how to use a weapon still and well, in the spur of the moment, a feral drive does take over. Just spell flingin’ kinda ought to be the first thought and it becomes the third when I just wanna punch someone’s face in.” Well aware that was absolutely some re-wiring that came with his adjusted biology.
Punch first, think second. Because if he thought first, he likely could have dropped the fucking feisty fuck with a strong electrical current while keeping himself from also being fried. But he also didn’t exactly know where Calia was so, whatever.
“Yah might find a hard time gettin’ me to be interested in wavin’ weapons about. Yah ain’t a fan of readin’, I wasn’t ever a fan of bein’ told to take this here pointy stick or blunt club and smack that thin’.” For effect, eyes rolled away. Shortly looking once more at that of their location with a varying bit of interest. Maybe a bit curious but that could have been because Calia was being spritely.
Querying and prodding in such a way that he was aware she was trying to engage him while learning something about him. For what use, that remained an utter mystery. Whilst pairing on little tidbits about her and how he was absolutely not surprised that she would go poking around into things because she had the innate nature that screamed she fit the phrase; curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Snorting a bit Arc once more rolled his eyes. “I got stuck in shit all the time when I was wee little. Before movin’ into the capital, was able to certainly poke and prod around. Climbed up into a knotted openin’ of a tree and my vara had to figure out a way to get me out while both not takin’ my head off if he had to cut the damn thin’ down.” But he doubted that was what she was looking for as well.
Sighing a moment whilst he was weighing out his thoughts. “Yah gotta understand, love, it wasn’t terribly interestin’ to me to do thin’s that wasn’t focused about my magic. Being a tempest in a bottle was already frustratin’ and if I couldn’t exercise it, learn about it or somethin’ else, I practically rolled over and started snorin’. I liked readin’. Either because I could try to prove whatever was scribbled down was right or wrong. Expertimentin’ was half of my fun. Pissin’ off elders thrice my age was just an added bonus.”
Attention veered a little, “Learning about the first peoples benefited me little. Ancient kingdoms were a dime a dozen, especially when elves live so damn long.” A hand rose to knock on his own chest, “I liked to learn what I could do, alter it and then well… there’s tales of all sorts in Edelguard about me goin’ against what was ordered and doin’ thin’s I wasn’t supposed too. Did it anyways. Bein active and in the moment is far more interestin’ than scrapin’ half a consideration about shit that is dead.” Gesturing no sooner around them, “This, looks cool. Environmentally, its astonishin’ but I ain’t no philosopher. I’m a tourist with the attention span of a gnat. The moment somethin’ starts moving, Imma be focusin’ on it more than the fancy rocks.”
It never failed to surprise Calia just how much of their lives had been similar. How they seemed to share the same experiences, same thoughts, same interests, and yet somehow had transformed into the two faces of the same chaotic person. Born of wild magic that no one around them really knew or understood, desperately seeking out answers on how they were supposed to fit into a world that was not made for them. The only real difference between them was that the people in his life had tried to control and temper him, only to fail spectacularly and give spark to that very monster they were trying to avoid. While Calia had placed all of that rigid control onto herself, to be smaller, unseen, something harmless to fit into the mold of what everyone expected her to be, until she’d disappeared so far into herself that she hadn’t recognized trouble until it was too late.
Hindsight was a strange thing. Self discovery even stranger.
“Learning about ancient people has a certain kind of appeal when you’re not sure if you’re an actual person yourself,” came her unsurprising reply along with a slight shrug of her shoulder. Calia did stop her backwards walking to turn back to walking forward proper, giving the buildings around them the proper attention and awe they deserved.
“I played with magic when I was alone and could safely do so, but as soon as I knew how to glamour, I was off trying to figure out how to exist.” she flashed him a sudden wicked sort of smile. “Flirting turned out wonderfully easy. Probably the only thing that was easy.”
That gentle shrug of her shoulders came again as she flicked her fingers to point out a particularly interesting dwelling. A place designed with winged occupants in mind, for there was a place for landing neatly up on the balcony and shifting size to scuttle inside.
“Figured maybe if I could see how other people lived, even ancient people, maybe I’d find out what I’m supposed to be doing with myself. Then I get my heart stolen and pickup a demon, so fate has a very funny way of making itself known.”
Mouth parted and ceased because he immediately understood her completely with that unsurprising comment. After just referencing himself as a tempest in a bottle, he had known from a very young age that he was explicitly dangerous and wild. A sort of being that was more magic than mortal, not terribly that different from a fae. But different enough to be considered something that had to be tamed. Where instructors tried to contain what they seen as both a firestorm and a measure of power. If they could train him to be compliant, then they in turn would have had what he was.
She was the very embodiment of wild magic that did as it wanted, learned quickly and stretched in ways that didn’t and wouldn’t be contained by mere force. For she was that force. Only where he had people encouraging him, she didn’t.
As noted by how she said she played with what she could do when she was alone. Her family didn’t know a damn clue and that was worth a little sorrow. He wouldn’t have been able to even imagine what he could have been without his father’s care and influence. Might not have turned out the way his vara wanted but he damn well that Atticus had never not loved him. There was always that knowledge in his head, Calia had a quiet uncertainty that her own family wouldn’t. So it would have been natural for her to search at all sorts of things to determine who she was. Why she was, where did she fit in. Answers to give reason and understanding to just it all.
“Fate,” He huffed at her. “Yah be givin’ that too much credit.” Much like soulmates, he didn’t believe in fate.
“Granted, yah may not have known what yah were prior all this but yah have found out. Stretched yer fingers, both figurative and literal to discover just what more yer capable of. And what yah be.” Arc considered the dwelling she had found interesting. “Let me be askin’ yah this then. As one flouncy bed jockey to another…” Arc considered this a moment longer than probably necessary. “When yah found the means of flirtin’ and the ease of slidin’ into another face… did it help yah alleviate that compounded sensation of awkwardness or not?”
“I can’t say it made me feel any less of a volatile bottle of liquid lightnin’ liable to burst at any moment. Just taught me how to temper thin’s in ways that probably didn’t help my slide down into demonhood.”
Another of the very few differences between them reared up in his single huff about fate. Drawing an immediate cheeky grin from her, all unapologetic and strangely uncharacteristic sunshine. Maybe it was strange that Calia did seek some sort of meaning in all of the chaos and mayhem that was her life. She should be bucking up against unseen strings and destiny, and yet somehow the thought that all of this had meant to come about was oddly comforting. That it meant something. She meant something. That Calia and her entire existence wasn’t pointless, worthless nothing.
At least she understood why Archimedes wanted nothing to do with fate. It’d make his suffering seem inevitable, as if he never had a choice or could never choose differently. Calia didn’t think fate worked like that, though. Otherwise neither of them would be there right in that moment.
“I’m still not sure if I’ve found out at all,” she admitted with a mutter. Calia might know what she was now, didn’t mean she knew who. His following question somehow perfectly made that all the more apparent to. Stunning her into a thoughtful quiet while he revealed that sleeping around with anything pretty hadn’t ever done him a lick of good.
“It’s nice being close to someone,” she did start slow, soon to wrinkle up her nose. “and multiple someones. Every shape and size and personality of someones. Just to feel something other than anger, or loneliness, or existential dread. A great deal of fun too, getting to do whatever I pleased without having to be Princess Calia, or even Calia in general.”
“…but none of it is ever really real, is it?” she admitted with a heavy sigh of breath. Loosening in the shoulders to tilt her had back in an exasperation that was probably a long time coming. Had been building up since… well Tir Elas, maybe, as that was the last time she’d slept with someone, but if she were truthful it’d started long before that. “It was just a different mask to wear. Yet in classic cursed me fashion I am both exhausted with existing while still wanting to be. I want to feel something… and I want to slip into a dark void and feel nothing ever again.”
With that admittance, a sigh and a shrug it seemed she was fine with this. As fine as she could be anyway. In classic Calia fashion planning to keep chugging on ahead despite it. There was something else there though, in the way she gave a quick flicker of a gaze in his direction. A thought uncertain before her mouth twist to the side and she decided to voice it.
“…that aura of madness of yours, it doesn’t affect me, you know. I mean… I feel it, but it doesn’t get to me. You can’t make someone mad if they’re already chaos.”
That little reply warranted a patient look to her. And a small but perfectly Arc smirk –just lacking any bite with it. It was a little more gentle than it ever had been and surely not something he showed any other. “I think yah found steppin’ stones to it and in the choice, yah have the option and have been makin’ the choices to find out who yah are. Y’know,” He stopped himself with a flick of hand to indicate he wasn’t about to get too mushy on her. “In a sense, I think yer lucky. Findin’ it all out now hasn’t been a piece of cake but at least yah be strong enough to resist those who keep on tryin’ to put a leash on yer neck. It might not feel like it,” Arc stated to make it clear he knew enough that she would have countered him on that. “But it’s better surely than feelin’ like an outcast amongst the crowd.”
Of course his thoughts were open. A part of him was rebelling like the petulant child that really didn’t want to be associated with. Seen or perceived because it felt as if saying anything was a staple of being a whiny little bitch in some capacity. And it meant being vulnerable. But at this point, it would be sliding back into shitty habits that he was tired of using when it came to the feisty dame that found this old abandoned civilization interesting.
So he asked. Wondering quietly if she had simply just wanted to chase freedom behind a different face, or if her leaps into the arms of another had something more about it.
Was he really surprised when she admitted that it was simply nice being close to someone. That there was more to feel in the moment than everyone prior. That whatever noise was in your own head could be silenced with the joy, the thrill and the washing sensation of giving in to ever base desire than having to feel a second more as the odd thorn amongst the field of daisies.
He knew his own reasons for using such methods and it did scratch at portions of himself that felt temporarily wanted. Chosen not because of what he could do, what he could offer, what marvels or powerful creation he was, but just as a person. Something of blood, flesh and passion. Picked. And he was pretty damn aware of how stupid such things were but it was something he could control.
Attention was peering up at the balcony of that one abode before making a vague motion that made green vines appear over its top. Adding colour besides brown, beige and dust. “Well yah got a better place to slip into than that void, petal.” Arc glanced to her with such a tone in his stare that suggested if she needed to disappear for a bit, it was better to use his tower than anything else.
Once more looking at his whimsy and adding nonsense to it. Draping foliage to crawl down and spread further till it was hanging in fantastical portions, letting the little buds of unopened flowers stay as is.
Mostly cause he was distracted by her voice when she spoke of the ebbing madness that rolled off his demonic form. Listening. Frowning. “Yah got that shitty habit still,” Arc huffed at her, deep and unimpressed. “That belief that yah be somethin’ less than what yah are and yah voice it. Gotta correct it and at the rate yah be goin, Imma have to start makin’ yah say two nice thin’s about yerself every time yah say something shitty and untrue.” The demon met her with a look that spoke volumes, that he wasn’t kidding. “If I can’t say shitty shit about myself, yah gotta try the same. Yer not chaos.. well… not bad chaos. Yer fae, yer just a feral little daughter of the wind. It’s different.”
Calia wasn’t quite seeing how being hunted down by all walks of life that collectively wanted to steal pieces of her for themselves could be lucky, her expression even said as much and he caught on quick enough before she opened her mouth to counter. She wondered if he recognize that his own history was repeating itself within herself – with differences, of course – yet still. Calia was a monster in the making, and every time something came crashing in she found herself caring less about the right things.
…though maybe she was lucky after all, because she hadn’t faced it all alone, had she. His pointed reminder that she had something to escape away to better than a dark void landed somewhere unexpectedly squishy. A vulnerable place in that empty chasm of her chest that Calia really didn’t know how to deal with or what good it was going to do her. Truly, though, if he hated being called a soulmate so much, he shouldn’t be saying things that only made that feeling so much stronger.
Thank the gods for the distraction of frivolous magic, for she watched the entwining green grow and shape itself over the balcony canopies with a faint amusement up until it sparked a sudden inspiring thought into her mind. Straightening up with a subtle sort of excitement as emerald green eyes started searching around the immediate area along the streets and the ground.
“It’s not untrue just because you don’t like it,” she countered, pausing then to turn back and close in the distance. First seeming intend on arguing about it, before something in her expression softened. Not in defeat, or even exasperation. Something softer, if still a little petulant.
“Alright then, not bad chaos,” she muttered, detouring then to where the unopened flower buds hung to hold up her palm and blow her breath gently across it. The magic wasn’t quite visible, not without the right direction of light to gleam some hint of glittery sparkle. The blossoms unfurled into large violet morning glories with icy blue in their centers. Not a googlie-eye in sight, though she was tempted!
“It’s chaos that matches your chaos, like say… a soulmate might have! You can be the very essence of madness and know that I’ll be fine.”
“There’s lots of true thin’s I don’t agree with or like. I can accept them even amongst that but yer ability to talk crap about yerself at any given moment is in fact untrue and I will continue to bitch about it like some lamenting widow that lost her husband.” Meeting her look a moment just a bit longer, “If I didn’t think otherwise, I wouldn’t say anythin’ remember. I’d just let yah keep talkin’ that way, but yer the one that started this whole wanna be friends stuff. So deal with it and understand that I’m not lettin’ yah talk about yerself that way out of consideration and care. It bothers me that yah talk about yerself that way. And I know damn well at this point, yah wouldn’t let me do the same. So,” Arc shrugged at her in the way that said, argue against me.
Because holy hell all the shit they’d been through, she had made it abundantly clear that she wouldn’t let him do half the stuff she did to herself. If she had, she would have left him to stew in his misery already and she tended to put herself in the way of it.
Thankfully she accepted that she wasn’t bad chaos. Before adding to the whole means of opening the flowers with her own intention while leaving her signature icy blue once more. And devoid of anything more though he was smart not to comment about that! Because it would just incite that said chaos.
Only for her to immediate cause him to roll his eyes so hard, “Ugh, fuckin’ soulmates.” Sticking a finger in front of his mouth and making an actual gagging noise! “I might be the romantic most of the times, but that is just vomit worthy more and more each time yah say it.” Hands shortly tucked against that of either side of his hip, looking at the addition to his work and sort of waited for her to expand further. Knowing well enough that if the option was there to be frivolous and wild with the magic, Calia was going to take it, run and not stop till she hit a wall.
“Well… said madness at least yah can handle. One thing less for me to potentially uncharacteristically worry about.” Head tipped, ears lifted before, “Well, we lookin’ more around this dust pot or are yah make mud people to newly inhabit it?”
If he didn’t want her to argue with him about all of her faults, he probably shouldn’t be squaring his shoulders ready for a fight. At least she was quickly recognizing that she might just have a strange… predator instinct for bickering? Bickering for bickering’s sake. Some stupid desire to argue even though there was nothing truly there to argue about!
…and it seemed to bother him on a level that sent her a little off-kilter. As well as being painfully true that she would not like him speak ill of himself either.
Luckily for the both them she found a great deal more amusement in his dramatics about soulmates. Rolling his eyes so hard they could’ve popped out of his head, leaving Calia quickly blooming into a wildly silly, joyous smile.
“Then stop thinking about it as romantic! It’s not as if I am singing you sonnets and crooning at you from balconies. Although…” There was the mischief and chaos he was worried about, right in the way her eyes turned upwards towards the very picturesque little scene he himself had started, of gorgeous vines and blossomed flowers.
If she had intents of taking magic and running, it wasn’t going to be here though. Calia erupted into a sudden laugh, turning on her heels and striding forward down the street with a new purpose. Clearly now looking for something specific.
“Funny you say that, though… reading my mind as a soulmate might. Do you know what is vital for every city? The very thing this ruined city is missing?”
Thankfully she didn’t seize the chance to start nattering at each other about who didn’t like who talking about themselves in what way. Settling and accepting –which was growth- and perhaps had she not mentioned stupid soulmates again, he might have been keen to praise her for said growth. But there she went.
And being a ham about it. “Do yah even know any sonnets?” Partially as an act of defiance and partly because well, she might pull out some useless ability that surprised him. Though he was going to point something out to her, “I don’t think yah realize my strong distaste to soulmates, romantic, plantonic or whatever middle ass ground there be.” Meeting those bright green eyes as they were looking up at said balcony. Nearly ready to meet her challenge and made a staircase up for her to help herself to be some crooning swamp damsel.
Just that she was giggling and turning about face.
Good, then he wasn’t going to have to explain himself for now. Aligning to step up once more. Tucking each hand behind neck yet again while she asked him what was vital for every city. Where he made a show of thinking though it was likely caught that he was likely about to be a very big smart ass. “A village idiot. A grungy bar and a brothel. I mean if yah want a start to a successfully halfway village.”
Very briefly there was a turn and spin on her feet, that tilt of her head back and a mysterious, secretive smile all for him that suggested perhaps she did in fact, know a sonnet or two. Were her thoughts not already occupied with a new inspired idea of whimsy, she might’ve even revealed a song or two. Alas, that was something to menace him with on another day. Maybe to provide a little ambience the next time he was trying to woo a damsel into his bed.
“If you don’t want me as a soulmate, that’s fine,” she told him easily. “Doesn’t mean you’re not mine.”
He didn’t have to agree. How she felt was how she felt…. even if she was still mulling over exactly what that meant beyond the complicated swirl of different thoughts.
“Regardless, you can’t have a village idiot, grungy bar, and a brothel without a few more vital things first,” came her vague explanation. After a few beats, a couple turns around bends and a street or two it was becoming clear she seemed to know exactly what she was seeking despite having never seen this ruined city before. Ever so often casting him a side glance to see if he even noticed what she was following, for it sure wasn’t street signs or ancient written symbols. Grinning all the more because he hadn’t noticed and for some reason that tickled and amused her more than anything else. Archimedes was a man of high intelligence and an obscene amount of knowledge, the fact he didn’t know everything was a marvel.
When the streets opened up into a huge plaza square, it became clear that she’d led them straight into the heart of the city. A large stone fountain rose at the very center, where it’d been meant to spill directly into deep groves – aqueducts for waterways that spread alongside the city streets as manmade streams and rivers. The entire city of stone had meant to be like a giant fountain, fed by melted mountain glacier ice.
Calia snuck a tap to his nose, gesturing his attention towards the very cavernous walls high above in the distance. Where enormous dragon heads had been carved into the rock with the maws wide open. At some point they’d been natural water spouts, feeding the city a steady supply of fresh water.
“Can’t make mud people without water. I bet it was beautiful.”
His mouth turned into some childish scribble of a wobbly line when she so casually both expressed that if he didn’t want her as a soulmate that it was entirely fine, but he was hers. And it made his chest twist in a way that was entirely uncomfortable. Bitter and sour. Bile and threat because while he could tell she found it all to be some big jesting amusement, that niggling note of distaste ever lingered.
Yet he just gave her shit for making terrible comments about herself and he would have pointed out the same things about himself. Still that was a mountain in his skull which was probably all the more reason why it was best he said nothing at all. As not to start some grand feud that didn’t need to be started simply because well, soulmates or whatever sort of version you wanted to comment on was very much an elf trait.
So with a second or three to swallow down the comment that wanted to either gag again or huff like some angry chicken, focus went to the means of thinking about her question. And his reply.
Which was by far not the answer. And she, would show him exactly what she meant because there was something else that was required for this place or any other to properly exist. Warranting a dry look even as he went to toddling after her in his best bored sort of saunter. Practically feeling the vibration of her amusement falling off her shoulders . Nearly becoming a beckon of unbridled delight that brought them to the final plaza and some giant arrangement of a fountain that was absolutely unnecessary detailed for being a water feature.
Scrunching his nose up at the tap, arching a brow at her dramatics and the dragon heads above –as if that was proof this place used to house the very things.
Brushing a thumb across bottom lip, Arc turned slightly around in place. Looking in every cardinal direction for an added moment that was clearly unnecessary. Eventually returning to his original position and simply made a motion that materialized a long laid chair that he shortly helped himself into. Stretching legs out, arms behind his head and, “Well…?” Giving her the absolutely unnecessary sort of allowance that indicated if she wanted to show and tell everything, then he was her partially interested audience member.
“Well?” she repeated the word, eyes going wide as she rest her own hands on her hips. Watching him stretch out and nestle in all languid like, as if there was meant to be a whole lot more to this reveal. Was the secret of this ancient city not enough! Regardless of what befell the civilization – the old dragonkin, gnomes or whomever else walked these streets, the lack of water would’ve been a final killing blow.
Calia thought it was interesting, anyway.
Still, she found herself turning back to the empty fountain, tilting her head in consideration. What did he expect her to do, bring the city back to life? It wasn’t the same as their elegant magical city of ice and sparkling blobby people. This was a place that existed long before either one of them had even the potential of existing and it was liable to remain like this forever more.
Although… for those exact reasons, who would it hurt if she played with it just a little. The city was already dead, it couldn’t be deader. It could, however, become alive once again.
Even if it was just to bring back that potential beauty Calia knew it must’ve been in it’s golden days.
“I suppose if you need the entertainment,” she muttered, dropping her hands to her sides and wiggling her fingers. Gently reaching out with her senses and she began a slow, winding walk around the public square. Brushing magic again stone, sinking it deeper. Letting it float in the air past the tall abandoned buildings into the cavern at large. Upwards towards the very sky where the mountain had cracked open to shed light and give that perfect opening for ancient dragons to glide their ways in.
Her path had no rhyme or reason to it, almost seeming random at first. She’d come closer to the fountain itself to touch her fingers to it, brows furrowed in thought as she considered what was there and what wasn’t. When she was angry or in a fit, Calia could so thoughtlessly drag the very elements out of the stone. The molten magma from deep down below. Summon geysers and springs up to the surface. Those forces were sudden and destructive, though, and she didn’t want to send the city into ruin.
When she figured it out, it seemed like a light flicking on her eyes. A widened delighted grin before a flourish of her hands, a step of her foot and pop! Disappearing she went, using that spacial blinking he’d taught her to jump such a great distance that she was all the way across the city landing on top of one of the stone dragon heads. Hands laid to the stone, Calia reached and searched until she could find the source of water – understand why it wasn’t pouring forth as it used it.
A blockage. That’s all it was. And as soon as she shattered the stone inside the maw of the old stone monolith, the natural fall was released. Jutting and pouring and falling yards down below until it hit the pools and aqueducts.
She blinked from dragon’s head to head one after another. No two having the same easily solved issue. Some were blocked, some she couldn’t draw water from at all anymore, for their wells had been run dry. But with each one she did, it created this enormous cascade of rushing water. That by the time she was finished and standing on the last head, the waters were starting to flow freely through the city once again. It’s fountains starting to bubble and a great dewy mist filling the air casting rainbows where the light hit the mist just so.
As expected. Beautiful.
Calia had a good ten minutes to stand there admiring her work and preening about it, before the reality of messing with natural forces quite literally came crashing down. After centuries, the mountains had changed vastly and some areas were not as strong as they once were. The very head she stood on started tilting forward as a great rumble in the stone heralded a crack.
She squealed out a shit, shit, shit! when the rushing waters from that particular fall split open the side of the cavern wall – a gorgeous monumental new fall it was! If she weren’t standing there as rocks and boulders came tumbling free in a watery landslide, sending Calia into a freefall towards the abyss miles below!
Did he ever need entertainment? Shockingly, no. He really didn’t, but with all this leading to have this reveal that this place they had stumbled upon may have met its final nail in the coffin because of water, then it was a massive well. At no point had it ever become suddenly clear that Calia was a simple soul. Honestly, she was entirely on her way to being far more theatrical and dramatic than he was.
As long as she didn’t turn into one of those naked mages in a tower she mentioned, then it should be fine.
Regardless, as he took to his lounging position looking up at her with the level of expectation that had been influenced by the means that she really really never truly ever sat still at all when she was all vibration and influence and unregistered interest to herself, to the world, to magic. He just accepted that she was up to something more and provided the eyes so she might show off.
Watching for a few seconds whilst she went about this wandering portion and feeling the stones. Making his expression wink wonk unevenly before she was seemingly getting that mental motor going. Coming to life with something and disappearing from sight –tugging on the tether to tell him that she was still nearby and just a little more vertical than previously.
It was there that he did, in fact, will one of his books into reality. Scooted himself into a better lounging position and flipped open the cover. One ear present on the current situation and both eyes scrounging over old text that was in no way anymore interesting than what she was up too. Especially when she freed a cascading fall to come barreling down from the heavens! Forcing him to quickly abandon chair and get to higher ground, because there was no telling what sort of nests and crap had blocked up in the fountain itself. And he didn’t want to be water logged, again.
Making his own scale to a higher plain that was building roof to rematerialize himself into that former position. Just a little more dry and with an added unnecessary squat table and drink with a funny little umbrella. Licking thumb as eyes cast upwards whilst she was working on her next dragon head, so he might turn the page.
One could have probably had a field day pointing out that her chaotic nature was only currently influencing the land and likely helping parched portions of it feel alive once more. Likely to bring out animals that went scavenging that of water and would encourage the plant life present to flourish once more with a suitable source of refreshing liquids.
It wasn’t until the herald crack and gravity falling stone that had been too unfamiliar with the built pressure of its original purpose, that drew his attention properly upwards. Blinking certainly more than a few times but unusually, or perhaps a newly learnt trait was he didn’t make an immediate rise out of his chair even as Calia went into a new sort of acrobatic freefall. Why? Well, thus far it had become pretty apparent that she would figure out a way to save herself and honestly, as she stated numerous times, she was no damsel.
Not to say it didn’t make his stomach twist some but well, she just discovered the whole animal shifting thing. She could turn into a bird, a fish. Mist herself away. Blink, or even freeze the water with her emotional torrent if it took over.
Calia freefell to her death!
Or at least she fell until the sudden shock of surprise wore off and instinct kicked in. With a few squealed curses along the way and being perfectly predictable, at least for the waiting demon who seemed to know her plenty well enough by now to understand when she was in real trouble and when it was simply Calia stumbling through her own created disaster.
Ice always had been the first thing she drew up, casting it over the tumbling water until instead of falling down into the deep caverns, Calia was slipping and sliding along. It might have even been fun if it hadn’t been at the speed of oh shit! and just kept going down, down, down, winding around the entire expanse of the risen stone city, around it’s towering basement and even further still until she was so far down the light from the caldera above could no longer reach.
Her icy slide came to an abrupt end at the very bottom, leaving her ass hitting the floor with an uncomfortable roll. Until she lay there breathing heavily and taking quick stock of herself to make sure she was still all in one peace.
That relief, open and unrestrained, sang through the tether.
Calia sat up and in her bewilderment found that she was very much not alone. While the city up above had long since died, apparently it had not been the only one to take advantage of the cavernous space. Here down in the lowest bowels there was a city of darkness, untouched by the rays of the sun and lit up by many of the same looking crystals they’d stumbled over in the singing cavern and lanterns of magic flame.
And it was very much alive for a pair of dwarves, a few orcs, and a whole crowd of drow and… kobolds?! were staring at her like she’d just come raining boulders of the sky.
….which turned out to be an unfortunate thought, for several did in fact suddenly land and crush what she hoped was empty buildings behind her.
…it lives…! came the most excited, thrilled, a little horrified statement that could have ever brushed the back of his mind. Without her realizing she’d managed to speak to him through the very tether itself.