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nWoD: That Savage Coast

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zxzx24 said:
Lastly... a fetch is always missing something of the hosts personality. Be it a flaw, such as narcissism, or laziness. Or an essential human component like empathy, or a sense of right and wrong.
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Or, in this case, snakes. Based on the description our fetch has a terrible lack of snakes, and as a result almost assuredly has a cuteness deficit.

Such a dreadful fate to suffer.
 
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The shower is a Sacred Time. The shower is a sanctuary of solitude, quiet, and the delight of hot water running on your skin. It is a moment private, intimate safety from a hostile world. People who bother you during shower time go a special circle of Hell, where they are stuck in an eternal cold shower while their grandma calls them to talk about her digestive trouble.

[X] Go bother the guy in the shower. You're bored and you want to talk, and it's not like either of you have any reason to be super shy at this point. Besides, you did tell him not to.

So of course, this is exactly what Levi would do.
 
[x] Check out some of the framed pictures he's got around. You've been meaning to give them more than a glance but you somehow never got around to it the last three visits.
 
Levi, no. Bad!

[x] Check out some of the framed pictures he's got around. You've been meaning to give them more than a glance but you somehow never got around to it the last three visits.
 
TenfoldShields said:
You've seen other Changelings around and they're beautiful, almost as beautiful as you.
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Damn, Levi. Glad to see you have a positive body image, but this a bit much.

TenfoldShields said:
Seat of the Spring Court, stretching along the southern shore of the city as it juts into the bay.

This odd coral reef grown on the bones of the rotting city, this strange wetland where the fast-flowing asphalt rivers meet the ocean. The Boardwalk curves along one flank, a rainswept bulwark. Winding walkways fork and divide within, linking the district in a tangled snarl of rusting steel-framed bridges and corroded rails; of cracked concrete paths, with plants growing between the pavers. Apartment complexes with green algae clinging to the side. Aging bungalows with wild gardens. To outsiders there's a sense of claustrophobia, the streets are so narrow and the lots so small. The buildings so tightly packed, crowded together and looming overhead. Yet for the denizens, mortal and supernatural, these are signs of safety.

Angler's Light is a fortress-town, well guarded and well defended against the depredations of the monsters without. It's strength comes from the sea and the guardians the sea has seen fit to bring it: in the distance you can hear the waves, crashing on the shore. You can smell the reek of piscine flesh, rubbery seaweed and salt on the cool wet wind. The fisheries and trawler-fleets keep this place alive, keep cash coming and the heart beating. And it is only through the grace of the Lost that this is so.

Angler's Light borders Harrow to the North-West, Monarch and the Vampire Ramparts to the North, Metropole to the North-East, and New Eden to the East.
The keystone of the Boardwalk, almost a half mile of cement, metal, and wood. A Ferris Wheel rising above like a titanic prayer wheel, below an indoor market with a public auditorium and dilapidated ballroom; all four part of the covered complex that sprawls nearly the entire length. It's the one part of the whole ensemble that never really shuts down, never really dies: even in the offseason there's always fishermen along the edges with coolers by their calves. Always joggers trotting past and couples pacing a slow circuit; restaurants that run all throughout the year. It's a liminal place, a space caught between land and sea. Public, busy, and perfect for all kinds of diplomacy with all manner of creatures.
Yellow light filtering through a thick glass window, plastic letters lovingly set in the center. Grand Endeavor Reality is a small two story building sandwiched between a nail salon and a furniture store. The space within is cramped; battered desks all but jammed together on the first floor, a meeting room with mismatched chairs on the second. But don't be fooled by crumbling plaster or the owner's kind eyes, for all that she looks like someone's kindergarten teacher Dolores Nyman runs this place with an iron fist and has made a fortune dealing with the fae. Within her safe lays the deeds and documentation to all kinds of properties throughout Angler's Light. Safehouses, store-rooms, and stranger locations all for sale, provided you come pre-approved.
It's an oddity, a two story sprawl set back from the Boardwalk and beach, closer to the docks that shares its name and the fishing fleet at berth than any tourist spot. It's old too: all age-darkened wood and tightly fit planks; the whole structure creaking and groaning like a ship at sea when the wind lashes the walls and the rain pounds on the roof. Storm-tossed but utterly unbowed, indomitable. The food here is hale and hearty, greasy and hot, the drinks could scorch your throat clean. Bright eyes watch from every table, every seat. You know if you belong here or not, you know it the second you walk in. Others might call it a decrepit pile but the throne of Spring has never wanted or needed their approval.
It runs beneath the district, built into a mossy storm channel separated from the greater sewer system and largely forgotten. An algae choked river rushes through the the center of the concrete canyon. Pearls of white light softly glow in place of dead maintenance bulbs, cradled by green tendrils, illuminating the strange marketplace within. In the dry drain-pipes and painted side-passages the Lost have set up a bevy of little shops and small stalls. The courtiers of the Antler Crown and allied hobs peddling everything from curiosities and curios to relics of real, tangible power. Of course few can manage to regularly make the journey and fewer still can afford anything more than the Emerald Court's trinkets and trash. Forcing the Pearl Satraps who manage this place to set forth across the city instead.
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Someone liked Damnation City. Fair. It's a great book.

[X] Go bother the guy in the shower. You're bored and you want to talk, and it's not like either of you have any reason to be super shy at this point. Besides, you did tell him not to.

Eh, why not?
 
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Chapter One Part Two: Wax Mask
  • Threadmarks
    • You've always been shy; anti-social. Even now, even after...everything something of that still clings to you. Some part of you squirms in the pit of your stomach, anxious and self-conscious, half-demanding half-pleading that you sit on the couch. That you sit and politely wait because you're a guest. Because this isn't your house. Because you can't just make yourself at home in somebody else's apartment. And you, Levi, calm and rational take a pipe and beat that part of your brain into a bloody ruin. Drag it back down the steps to the basement of your subconscious and kick it into the darkness below.

    You don't have anything to be ashamed of. You have never. Ever. Had anything to be ashamed of.

    And you will do as you fucking like.

    Rain drums on the window panes, the heavy blue-black curtains half drawn over the glass. The material so long it almost trails on the floor, the world beyond reduced to a narrow slice, an arrow slit in a castle wall. Overlooking the fifty foot drop to the street below. You drift to the edge of the living room, dripping from the hem of your sweats, the bottom of your jacket; tracking damp footprints across the rug. Tweak the drapes aside with your dainty claws. The world outside is lost in a sea of fog, an ocean of mist drowning the district Metropole. The sign in the deli window across the street shining like a lighthouse beacon, staining the air with electric blues and bloody rare reds. In the distance a darkly forested park is just a smudge of oil, a blur of brown and black and green. Water rushes down the hillside in miniature cataracts. Thunder rumbles and you feel the glass rattle. Outside it's cold but here? Here it's warm, here it's safe. A little island keep floating above the storm-tossed waves.

    Let the curtain swish shut and lean against the wall, surveying Sebastian's apartment. Pushing yourself off the plaster to pace through the suite of rooms. It's small but sumptuous for all that. Stuffed, soft couches pulled around a sleek black entertainment center. A well worn cocktail table made of dark wood. He has art, actual art on the walls; fantastic figures captured in soft oils and suggestive shadows. It takes you a second to realize the subject matter: a circle of wax-masked Changelings in matching dapper suits, a great hall with the ceiling open to the frozen night sky, some odd goblin with a canid head and a naked bone snout. Little fragments of the secret world, captured on canvas.

    The real monster of the main room is the series of shelves, broad and sprawling and all but groaning under the weight of the shit packed on top of them. A disorganized jumble of dog-eared pages and cracked spines, packed with everything from eighties pulp fantasy to academic texts on East Asian International Relations. There are cheap books. Handsome books. One lays splayed out on the armchair, it could've been just put down ten minutes before you showed. You lift it, turn it. November Unit: the Dragon Factory is splashed across the cover, framing a military guy in nearly skin-tight hazmat gear. Half-painted scenes from the story bleeding into the white wall behind Masked McSchootydude. You take a bookmark and slip it between the pages, resting it on its back. He wasn't that far in, must have just started.

    There's a hush here. A softness to the silence. The heater kicks in, the vents rattling. The shower runs in the distance the noise muted, music barely audible beneath the stream. The warmth suffusing you, soaking through your skin. Trail your talons along the wall, over the cracks and crumbling pieces. Scuffs and injuries patched up and painted over until you can barely see the scars. Tap your black nails to the glass on a framed movie poster (In the Mouth of Madness, that's a good one, you watched it with him the first night you were here). Let your touch linger on the framed picture of a couple: a younger, spectacled man, hair a sandy brown-blond. Stubble on his jaw, a second away from blinking. A woman beside him, softer and smiling. Taller, her arm draped over his shoulders. A hand to her round belly.

    Down the short hallway towards the bathroom, shivering a little as your damp clothes leech heat from your body. It's not a conscious decision, not really anything you'd call a complex thought. You've learned that it's better not to question your instincts too much, the flicker and flashes of impulse that bubble up through your brain. It's like muscle memory: if you think too much about what you're doing you'll fuck it all up.

    Strip out of your jacket, peel it up and over your head, drape it over your arm. Roll your bare, brawny shoulders; work some of the stiffness out of your sinews. Your serpents squirm: uncoiling from around your hips, your belly, your chest, with muted chirps. More of those soft, mewling, cries. One flops across your collarbone, it's forked tongue flickering out as you walk. Long body bobbing in time with your stride. A slight stumble in your step as you slip your sweats down to your ankles. Shake them loose, kick them off, sigh in relief as the soaked fabric comes free. Your lean, finned tail swishing back and forth like a cat's. Tip batting against either side of the short hallway. Palm to the bathroom door. You can hear him singing along. Nirvana of all fucking things.

    Open it and step in, steam billowing around you. Pulled out into the hall by the sudden draft. You can see him now, that shadowed, blotchy shape just visible through the fogged glass. Huge and hulking, barely fitting in the tile-walled cubicle. He's standing there frozen, hands on his head, horns peeking over the panes. The music blares as you close the door behind you. Unceremoniously dumping your clothes on the counter. The shadow reaches out and the music shuts off, you can see him cradling the phone in one palm, checking the time.

    "...I set an alarm. I swear." His voice is wet, a raw, wounded rasp edging up into a snarl with every syllable but shy for all that. Embarrassed and a little ashamed for all that. Smile to yourself, rub a spot on the mirror clean of fog. Tilt your head this way and that, your reflection raises a hand and points to a stray lock hanging over your forehead. Your hair's short and sort of spiky. Just long enough to hang down your neck when wet, stand up in a feathery nest like you just rolled out of bed while dry. There's really nothing you can do there but you smooth it down anyway. Mouth a thank you to your reflection.

    "I didn't forget," he tries again, half-panicked by the silence, "I really di-"

    "Shshshs. Put the music back on."

    A second of stillness, the water dripping from his body, gurgling as it rushes down the drain. He presses play and gingerly sets the phone back, the song starting up again. Grunge: it isn't your thing but relationships are about take and give right? Even this one, this casual...thing you have. Besides, he's cute when he's flustered. He flinches back a bit when you join him, slouching your way over the metal threshold. Your feet splashing in the warm puddles of water. His hands half-dropping to cover himself before he stops, forces them flat at his sides. It's adorable, like a Great Dane shying away from a cat.

    Sebastian's older than you. Aged ten, fifteen years from the picture in the hall; it's softened his stomach some, blurred a bit of the definition on his arms, his legs, his back. His sandy hair is dusted with grey, matching the scruff on his heavy chest. He never got a chance to finish his thesis but he still nails that professor look. It's a shame he doesn't actually teach anything and you're not in any classes, you feel like you should be getting bumped up a few letter grades from all the work you've been putting in. Step in closer. Butt your head against his sternum, reach up his spine to stroke his shoulders. His hands slowly, tentatively, drifting to your waist.
    The near permanent five o'clock shadow is gone for once, baring a lean jaw. How does that even work you wonder? Does the Mask just translate modifications to the Mien? Does it mirror how he feels, the sentiment of getting yourself nice and neat for a very special guest? Or did he just stand there in the bathroom, carefully shaving a phantom projection, razor gently stroking empty air. Heh, you like that. Let's go with that.

    Pull your face away from his breast and smirk up at him. A monster smiles hesitantly back down at you. It's not cruel to call him that: it is what he is, a monster just like you. But where you're sculpted, shaped and made to be beautiful he was made to be horrifying. There's something of a wolf to him, something of a deer, something of a man but it's all just details. Impressions and traces in the mix of features. He's built predatory, like he could rip you apart bare-handed and strip the meat from your bones. He's built tall and emaciated, starved but strong. His skin ash grey and charcoal. His arms stretching nearly to his knees, his backbent legs settled into a half-hunch just fit in the shower. His stomach is sunken, the skin drawn tight over raised blue-black ribs. A shaggy grey pelt spills down his back like a cloak and feathers the rest with sparse locks. Claws like spars of glacial ice crook and gently press into your soft, sensitive skin, your sleek, glossy scales. A rack of jagged, broad, bone horns that nearly scrape the ceiling. He has no eyes. Just a sleek expanse of wintery-blue wax dripping down that too humanoid-muzzle.

    "C'mooon, what's with this shy shit? Gimme that smile."

    He parts his jaws, the wax stilling, cracking and breaking as he bares that maw. Those purple gums bursting with too many fangs. Naked and exposed because he doesn't really have lips. A snake curls over his neck like a scaly scarf, dragging him down into a kiss. He grunts in surprise but gives way easily, melting into it. Forgetting himself as you guide him through it. His Mantle slowly bleeds into the world, flaring, melding and mixing with yours. Half the stall a steady, drumming, freezing black deluge. Half the stall a thunderous tempest, whipped by hurricane winds. Both mingling with the actual, tangible, stream from above.

    Break away, reach up to cup his jaw, rub a black claw over the bone. Your tail absently coiling around his calve. Your serpents winding through his sparse, shaggy fur. Yawning happily, pink mouths stark against their dark hide, their bony snouts. His hands are moving to your haunches, slowly, like he's waiting for you to slap him away, smack him down. You don't, just lean into the attention. Murmur a gentle "go ahead dumbass". You feel the tension steadily ebb out of his body and that's its own reward. Almost as sweet as the admiration.

    "Busy day?"

    "Not really," he murmurs, voice buzzing in your chest, scraping against your ears, "made breakfast for myself. Watched television. Bought some new books."

    "Pick out a movie?"

    "...Yyyyyeeesssss. I did that. Yes."

    Dig your claws into the meat of his back, biting into the cold skin. Just enough to sting. Just enough to hurt. He huffs, hunching down against you. Eager and needy and relishing it. You know what he likes. Poor guy, just wants someone to take charge, take him out of his head. You can do that. You can do that as easy as breathing.

    "Sebastian~."

    "We'llpicksomethingoutafter."

    Release the pressure, pat the base of his spine. Hear him swallow. Feel him shiver.

    "Attaboy," a pause, a second of quiet like you're probing tender tissue, bruised flesh "but, really, are you holding up okay?"

    He nods once. His breathing deep, steady, forcing himself to be at ease. You look at him and just wait, that crooked smile in place. He hesitates. His long tongue tracing a circuit of his teeth, licking his chops as he shakes his head. "I wasn't. But I'm doing better, now that you're here."

    "D'aw, dumbass-cutie."

    "I mean it!" He's head and shoulders taller than you, easily got fifty plus pounds of muscle on you, but you lead and he follows. Step by step through the shower. Pressing his back to the wall, suds dripping down his legs.

    "I know," you murmur back as you step in, as you turn and lean against him, his chest to your back, your body shameless and warm and inviting, and you can feel it: how much he craves this contact, craves you, and sure Bishop Lai probably didn't expect this but hey. This is good for you. You need this too. "That's why it's cute. Now be a gentleman and make sure I don't slip alright?"





    You slipped. Turns out keeping your footing on slick stone is pretty hard, giant pent up monster-man at your back or no. He caught you and stopped for a second, flustered and apologizing and you just laughed cause on balance it was pretty funny. Now you're leaning back on the couch in a borrowed bathrobe. Bowl of ice cream in hand and pair of boxed up pizzas sitting on the table, breadsticks and everything. Saurian snakes dozing, soaking in the heat as they splay out on the back of the couch, your long tail wrapped around your bare leg like a candy-cane stripe. Your head cocked as you idly take in the view. Sebastian in a bathrobe of his own, on his hands and knees as he carefully places the disk on the black tray. One claw through the center ring. Another two to gingerly prize it off. It clatters in and you can hear his sigh of relief.

    He settled onto the couch beside you and you immediately sprawl over his lap like a cat. He strokes your hair with a hand that could palm your entire skull, curved nail tracing a line over your scalp. You're pretty sure he picked something scary just to have an excuse to get cozy. He really is a dumbass huh? Doesn't he know who you are?

    The movie starts and against all odds it's actually one you've seen before. You remember being hunched over your laptop in the dorms on a Saturday night, screen illuminating your soft face as the John Carpenter's name flashed on the blue backdrop. But you don't mind and to be honest you don't think Sebastian does much either. You get comfortable. Have a few slices from the plate balanced on the cushion. Stretch out a little more, your serpents steadily going limp, already dozing the lazy shits. At some point between Bennings being burned alive and MacReady trying to take charge you start to nod off. Warm and comfortable. Safe and...something like happy. Clarion-Roar cupping your bare chest and drawing you close, gently rubbing a taloned thumb over your collarbone as you sink below the surface. Into the darkness. Into the black.

    You dream of rubbery spiders tearing their way off corpses on an autopsy table. You dream of flamethrowers sparking off in the night. You dream of a giant pizza shop where Kurt Russell won't serve you slices of pepperoni until you put on some pants.

    You drift and it's perfect. Like floating on the surface of a briny bath, the waters bearing you up, washing over your body. It's nice. It's easy. But you can't help but feel as if you're forgetting some-

    You forgot to check in.

    The thought is like a taser to the base of the spine, you surge up tearing yourself out of your sleep, gasping, fumbling for your phone in-

    In the dark.

    The apartment is dark, empty. Your phone sits on the armrest, black and silent. Outside the rain drums on the window. You're alone.

    [ ] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
    [ ] Sebastian's apartment building is pretty grim, even when you take the stairs like a normal person you barely see anyone around. But you can hear movement now, people walking past. Go talk to the neighbors.
    [ ] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.
    Adhoc vote count started by TenfoldShields on Jan 26, 2018 at 11:44 PM, finished with 40 posts and 17 votes.
    • [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
      [X] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.
      [X] Go bother the guy in the shower. You're bored and you want to talk, and it's not like either of you have any reason to be super shy at this point. Besides, you did tell him not to.
      [x] Check out some of the framed pictures he's got around. You've been meaning to give them more than a glance but you somehow never got around to it the last three visits.
      [X] It doesn't look like he's picked out a movie yet. Browse his collection and make up his mind for him. You're thinking...gothic horror or over the top action-violence.
    Click to expand...

    Adhoc vote count started by TenfoldShields on Jan 28, 2018 at 12:20 AM, finished with 41 posts and 18 votes.
    • [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
      [X] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.
      [X] Go bother the guy in the shower. You're bored and you want to talk, and it's not like either of you have any reason to be super shy at this point. Besides, you did tell him not to.
      [x] Check out some of the framed pictures he's got around. You've been meaning to give them more than a glance but you somehow never got around to it the last three visits.
      [X] It doesn't look like he's picked out a movie yet. Browse his collection and make up his mind for him. You're thinking...gothic horror or over the top action-violence.
    Click to expand...
     
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    • [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.

    Our boy can use some company, and maybe a few new faces would be fun. People he may never see again if he doesn't want to. Maybe they won't understand exactly what we're dealing with but sometimes a dip into the deep end of someone else's pool can be what a body needs.
     
    [ ] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.
    @TenfoldShields What would we be calling for help for? This option kind of confuses me.
     
    AWW YISS. MUTHAFUKKIN SPARKER'S BAY

    TenfoldShields said:
    You've always been shy; anti-social. Even now, even after...everything something of that still clings to you. Some part of you squirms in the pit of your stomach, anxious and self-conscious, half-demanding half-pleading that you sit on the couch. That you sit and politely wait because you're a guest. Because this isn't your house. Because you can't just make yourself at home in somebody else's apartment. And you, Levi, calm and rational take a pipe and beat that part of your brain into a bloody ruin. Drag it back down the steps to the basement of your subconscious and kick it into the darkness below.

    You don't have anything to be ashamed of. You have never. Ever. Had anything to be ashamed of.

    And you will do as you fucking like.
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    Mood.

    You've kind of god to love how Levi's old personality starts resurfacing wringing its hands and making stammered excuses about the bathroom and then new Levi just says "bitch I'm fabulous" and it fucks off.

    Rain drums on the window panes, the heavy blue-black curtains half drawn over the glass. The material so long it almost trails on the floor, the world beyond reduced to a narrow slice, an arrow slit in a castle wall. Overlooking the fifty foot drop to the street below. You drift to the edge of the living room, dripping from the hem of your sweats, the bottom of your jacket; tracking damp footprints across the rug. Tweak the drapes aside with your dainty claws. The world outside is lost in a sea of fog, an ocean of mist drowning the district Metropole. The sign in the deli window across the street shining like a lighthouse beacon, staining the air with electric blues and bloody rare reds. In the distance a darkly forested park is just a smudge of oil, a blur of brown and black and green. Water rushes down the hillside in miniature cataracts. Thunder rumbles and you feel the glass rattle. Outside it's cold but here? Here it's warm, here it's safe. A little island keep floating above the storm-tossed waves.

    Let the curtain swish shut and lean against the wall, surveying Sebastian's apartment. Pushing yourself off the plaster to pace through the suite of rooms. It's small but sumptuous for all that. Stuffed, soft couches pulled around a sleek black entertainment center. A well worn cocktail table made of dark wood. He has art, actual art on the walls; fantastic figures captured in soft oils and suggestive shadows. It takes you a second to realize the subject matter: a circle of wax-masked Changelings in matching dapper suits, a great hall with the ceiling open to the frozen night sky, some odd goblin with a canid head and a naked bone snout. Little fragments of the secret world, captured on canvas.

    The real monster of the main room is the series of shelves, broad and sprawling and all but groaning under the weight of the shit packed on top of them. A disorganized jumble of dog-eared pages and cracked spines, packed with everything from eighties pulp fantasy to academic texts on East Asian International Relations. There are cheap books. Handsome books. One lays splayed out on the armchair, it could've been just put down ten minutes before you showed. You lift it, turn it. November Unit: the Dragon Factory is splashed across the cover, framing a military guy in nearly skin-tight hazmat gear. Half-painted scenes from the story bleeding into the white wall behind Masked McSchootydude. You take a bookmark and slip it between the pages, resting it on its back. He wasn't that far in, must have just started.

    There's a hush here. A softness to the silence. The heater kicks in, the vents rattling. The shower runs in the distance the noise muted, music barely audible beneath the stream. The warmth suffusing you, soaking through your skin. Trail your talons along the wall, over the cracks and crumbling pieces. Scuffs and injuries patched up and painted over until you can barely see the scars. Tap your black nails to the glass on a framed movie poster (In the Mouth of Madness, that's a good one, you watched it with him the first night you were here). Let your touch linger on the framed picture of a couple: a younger, spectacled man, hair a sandy brown-blond. Stubble on his jaw, a second away from blinking. A woman beside him, softer and smiling. Taller, her arm draped over his shoulders. A hand to her round belly.
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    This is dripping with so much mood, I love it. The environmental symbolism, the orgy of evidence that Sebastian is a gigantic dork, the melancholic touch of his old life with his Prego wife, the fact that he has good taste because he likes Mouth of Madness...

    Strip out of your jacket, peel it up and over your head, drape it over your arm. Roll your bare, brawny shoulders; work some of the stiffness out of your sinews. Your serpents squirm: uncoiling from around your hips, your belly, your chest, with muted chirps. More of those soft, mewling, cries. One flops across your collarbone, it's forked tongue flickering out as you walk. Long body bobbing in time with your stride.
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    sneks eeeeeee

    You can hear him singing along. Nirvana of all fucking things.

    Open it and step in, steam billowing around you. Pulled out into the hall by the sudden draft. You can see him now, that shadowed, blotchy shape just visible through the fogged glass. Huge and hulking, barely fitting in the tile-walled cubicle. He's standing there frozen, hands on his head, horns peeking over the panes. The music blares as you close the door behind you. Unceremoniously dumping your clothes on the counter. The shadow reaches out and the music shuts off, you can see him cradling the phone in one palm, checking the time.

    "...I set an alarm. I swear." His voice is wet, a raw, wounded rasp edging up into a snarl with every syllable but shy for all that. Embarrassed and a little ashamed for all that. Smile to yourself, rub a spot on the mirror clean of fog. Tilt your head this way and that, your reflection raises a hand and points to a stray lock hanging over your forehead. Your hair's short and sort of spiky. Just long enough to hang down your neck when wet, stand up in a feathery nest like you just rolled out of bed while dry. There's really nothing you can do there but you smooth it down anyway. Mouth a thank you to your reflection.

    "I didn't forget," he tries again, half-panicked by the silence, "I really di-"

    "Shshshs. Put the music back on."

    A second of stillness, the water dripping from his body, gurgling as it rushes down the drain. He presses play and gingerly sets the phone back, the song starting up again. Grunge: it isn't your thing but relationships are about take and give right? Even this one, this casual...thing you have. Besides, he's cute when he's flustered. He flinches back a bit when you join him, slouching your way over the metal threshold. Your feet splashing in the warm puddles of water. His hands half-dropping to cover himself before he stops, forces them flat at his sides. It's adorable, like a Great Dane shying away from a cat.

    Sebastian's older than you. Aged ten, fifteen years from the picture in the hall; it's softened his stomach some, blurred a bit of the definition on his arms, his legs, his back. His sandy hair is dusted with grey, matching the scruff on his heavy chest. He never got a chance to finish his thesis but he still nails that professor look. It's a shame he doesn't actually teach anything and you're not in any classes, you feel like you should be getting bumped up a few letter grades from all the work you've been putting in. Step in closer. Butt your head against his sternum, reach up his spine to stroke his shoulders. His hands slowly, tentatively, drifting to your waist.
    The near permanent five o'clock shadow is gone for once, baring a lean jaw. How does that even work you wonder? Does the Mask just translate modifications to the Mein? Does it mirror how he feels, the sentiment of getting yourself nice and neat for a very special guest? Or did he just stand there in the bathroom, carefully shaving a phantom projection, razor gently stroking empty air. Heh, you like that. Let's go with that.

    Pull your face away from his breast and smirk up at him. A monster smiles hesitantly back down at you. It's not cruel to call him that: it is what he is, a monster just like you. But where you're sculpted, shaped and made to be beautiful he was made to be horrifying. There's something of a wolf to him, something of a deer, something of a man but it's all just details. Impressions and traces in the mix of features. He's built predatory, like he could rip you apart bare-handed and strip the meat from your bones. He's built tall and emaciated, starved but strong. His skin ash grey and charcoal. His arms stretching nearly to his knees, his backbent legs settled into a half-hunch just fit in the shower. His stomach is sunken, the skin drawn tight over raised blue-black ribs. A shaggy grey pelt spills down his back like a cloak and feathers the rest with sparse locks. Claws like spars of glacial ice crook and gently press into your soft, sensitive skin, your sleek, glossy scales. A rack of jagged, broad, bone horns that nearly scrape the ceiling. He has no eyes. Just a sleek expanse of wintery-blue wax dripping down that too humanoid-muzzle.

    "C'mooon, what's with this shy shit? Gimme that smile."

    He parts his jaws, the wax stilling, cracking and breaking as he bares that maw. Those purple gums bursting with too many fangs. Naked and exposed because he doesn't really have lips. A snake curls over his neck like a scaly scarf, dragging him down into a kiss. He grunts in surprise but gives way easily, melting into it. Forgetting himself as you guide him through it. His Mantle slowly bleeds into the world, flaring, melding and mixing with yours. Half the stall a steady, drumming, freezing black deluge. Half the stall a thunderous tempest, whipped by hurricane winds. Both mingling with the actual, tangible, stream from above.

    Break away, reach up to cup his jaw, rub a black claw over the bone. Your tail absently coiling around his calve. Your serpents winding through his sparse, shaggy fur. Yawning happily, pink mouths stark against their dark hide, their bony snouts. His hands are moving to your haunches, slowly, like he's waiting for you to slap him away, smack him down. You don't, just lean into the attention. Murmur a gentle "go ahead dumbass". You feel the tension steadily ebb out of his body and that's its own reward. Almost as sweet as the admiration.

    "Busy day?"

    "Not really," he murmurs, voice buzzing in your chest, scraping against your ears, "made breakfast for myself. Watched television. Bought some new books."

    "Pick out a movie?"

    "...Yyyyyeeesssss. I did that. Yes."

    Dig your claws into the meat of his back, biting into the cold skin. Just enough to sting. Just enough to hurt. He huffs, hunching down against you. Eager and needy and relishing it. You know what he likes. Poor guy, just wants someone to take charge, take him out of his head. You can do that. You can do that as easy as breathing.

    "Sebastian~."

    "We'llpicksomethingoutafter."

    Release the pressure, pat the base of his spine. Hear him swallow. Feel him shiver.

    "Attaboy," a pause, a second of quiet like you're probing tender tissue, bruised flesh "but, really, are you holding up okay?"

    He nods once. His breathing deep, steady, forcing himself to be at ease. You look at him and just wait, that crooked smile in place. He hesitates. His long tongue tracing a circuit of his teeth, licking his chops as he shakes his head. "I wasn't. But I'm doing better, now that you're here."

    "D'aw, dumbass-cutie."

    "I mean it!" He's head and shoulders taller than you, easily got fifty plus pounds of muscle on you, but you lead and he follows. Step by step through the shower. Pressing his back to the wall, suds dripping down his legs.

    "I know," you murmur back as you step in, as you turn and lean against him, his chest to your back, your body shameless and warm and inviting, and you can feel it: how much he craves this contact, craves you, and sure Bishop Lai probably didn't expect this but hey. This is good for you. You need this too. "That's why it's cute. Now be a gentleman and make sure I don't slip alright?"

    You slipped. Turns out keeping your footing on slick stone is pretty hard, giant pent up monster-man at your back or no. He caught you and stopped for a second, flustered and apologizing and you just laughed cause on balance it was pretty funny.
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    Holy shit it's an adorable Cleric Beast dad. Who gave these two the right to be like this?

    (yea gurl, this quest protag fucks, and it's classy and sweet)

    ((Also the mental image of them in the middle of the scene from this update only preserved in the Questionable Questing simulcast getting hot and heavy and then suddenly Levi loses his footing and just blurts out "CHRISTFUCK" and Sebastian lurches forward and they both bang into the tiles and make complete asses of themselves is just phenomenal))

    Now you're leaning back on the couch in a borrowed bathrobe. Bowl of ice cream in hand and pair of boxed up pizzas sitting on the table, breadsticks and everything. Saurian snakes dozing, soaking in the heat as they splay out on the back of the couch, your long tail wrapped around your bare leg like a candy-cane stripe. Your head cocked as you idly take in the view. Sebastian in a bathrobe of his own, on his hands and knees as he carefully places the disk on the black tray. One claw through the center ring. Another two to gingerly prize it off. It clatters in and you can hear his sigh of relief.

    He settled onto the couch beside you and you immediately sprawl over his lap like a cat. He strokes your hair with a hand that could palm your entire skull, curved nail tracing a line over your scalp. You're pretty sure he picked something scary just to have an excuse to get cozy. He really is a dumbass huh? Doesn't he know who you are?

    The movie starts and against all odds it's actually one you've seen before. You remember being hunched over your laptop in the dorms on a Saturday night, screen illuminating your soft face as the John Carpenter's name flashed on the blue backdrop. But you don't mind and to be honest you don't think Sebastian does much either. You get comfortable. Have a few slices from the plate balanced on the cushion. Stretch out a little more, your serpents steadily going limp, already dozing the lazy shits. At some point between Bennings being burned alive and MacReady trying to take charge you start to nod off. Warm and comfortable. Safe and...something like happy. Clarion-Roar cupping your bare chest and drawing you close, gently rubbing a taloned thumb over your collarbone as you sink below the surface. Into the darkness. Into the black.

    You dream of rubbery spiders tearing their way off corpses on an autopsy table. You dream of flamethrowers sparking off in the night. You dream of a giant pizza shop where Kurt Russell won't serve you slices of pepperoni until you put on some pants.
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    thank god nothing could ever ruin such warm and fuzzy fe-

    You forgot to check in.

    The thought is like a taser to the base of the spine, you surge up tearing yourself out of your sleep, gasping, fumbling for your phone in-

    In the dark.

    The apartment is dark, empty. Your phone sits on the armrest, black and silent. Outside the rain drums on the window. You're alone.
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    SHIET

    Okay so uh, this is worrisome. Very extremely worrisome. I have no idea what's going on or how to fix this immediately so that precious Cleric Beast dade is not kill. If he is not already kill. Which I extremely hope not.

    [ ] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
    [ ] Sebastian's apartment building is pretty grim, even when you take the stairs like a normal person you barely see anyone around. But you can hear movement now, people walking past. Go talk to the neighbors.
    [ ] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.

    But even so those first two options are kind of... I dunno, weird? It's strange that a bunch of neighbours and a party would just spring into being overnight (or however long it was) without being mentioned previously, especially when the choice itself points out the building's usually pretty desolate. I think something fucky's going on. I just don't know what. In any case...

    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.

    The way he is now, I think a party is pretty much what Levi would instinctively try first. He's not got a flawless relationship with the guys back at the Court. For the most part he's been kinda pissy they keep bothering him and making him check in iirc, he's wired to just Go and Do and lead and it's probably still chapping his asshole how the Big Bad Wolf kept him from being a huge hero on the beaches. I don't think he'd try and call is what I'm saying, and that'd be my close second preference. Parties, socialising, charming and teasing information out, shit like that is what the weird seacucumbus is made for.
     
    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.

    I like Seb

    Let's not have him die pls
     
    zxzx24 said:
    @TenfoldShields What would we be calling for help for? This option kind of confuses me.
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    zxzx24 said:
    I am confused. Could someone explain what happened? Why do we need help? What happened to our sex friend?
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    It's pretty simple really. Levi's tied to the officials at the Court in what is a fairly thinly-veiled pastiche of a mental health facility and he's supposed to check in on the hour every hour to keep his 'fuck about in Sparkers (sometimes literally)' privileges. As far as he and we know, barring some suspicious shit, he just missed his deadline and is now alone in a darkened apartment. So this option is calling them as he was supposed to and saying, y'know, "Sorry about that I fell asleep and Lawrence must've stopped fearing the old blood enough while I was out so now he's gone too".
     
    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
     
    [X] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.
     
    Such a great thing to quote out of nowhere to someone:

    "D'aw, dumbass-cutie."

    I support this wholeheartedly! :smile:

    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
     
    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
     
    [x] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.
     
    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.

    hey @TenfoldShields

    hey tenfold

    did you like mother! ?
     
    Omicron said:
    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.

    hey @TenfoldShields

    hey tenfold

    did you like mother! ?
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    Frankly I'm appalled someone on Youtube hasn't already cut out the clip of Jay going "D'youGEDDIT"
     
    Bestiary Updated!
    These are its names: the Silent Arrow, the Onyx Court, the Court of Sorrow. It is Cerberus in black, the hound who guards the frozen gates of hell; born of the raging, broken storm and keeper of the Earth's cold secrets. The icy blade that slips between the bone to kiss your heart. The silhouette barely seen in the driving Winter rain and chill fog.

    Once the courtiers of Winter were the executioners of Typhon; more than spies, more than intriguers, more than political agents, they were justice from on high. The sanction of sovereigns, the fell hand of the Freehold dispatched against enemies within and without . If Sparker's Bay was a walled garden they were the gardeners; carefully, lovingly pruning the branches of rot and dead limbs.

    But now they are scattered, lost and adrift. The complex networks that supported their endeavors shredded, their secret vaults looted and ransacked. Loyal to the city they have suffered the least from the exodus but are crippled and contained, and newly arrived refugees form a full quarter of their number.

    Urban flesh liquifies, the body politic rotting away to bare the malformed bones beneath. It forces people to expose themselves, to take risks, to be sloppy. She slumps against the wall of the safehouse with her palm to her ribs. Watching the empty street outside on a ghostly blue screen. Eyes searching the electric glow, watching the space between burned out streetlights. Once there was grandeur and glamour, ceremony and ritual: a high society touch to the bloodshed and terror. Now she's just a well dressed shadow alone in the dark.
    Grand galas, private parties, lavish festivals and secret ceremonies: the social burdens upon the Courts are many and varied. Some are of strategic importance and are supplications to powerful entities or part of established Pledges. Others serve the no less critical purpose of providing entertainment and catharsis for the Lost. And each and every one is part of their sprawling Domain.

    A noble order that serves to offload the immense organizational effort and research involved in such endeavors, the Magistrates of the Wax Mask style themselves as civil officials. Humble officers of the Freehold who serve at the people's pleasure. The truth is more complex: opportunities for personal advancement are many and in lax Freeholds the Magistrates may exert enormous leverage on the Monarchs.

    Questors oversee the manual labor and administration of contracted events and are of the lowest rank. Curule Aedile are the lieutenants and act as liaisons with the upper echelons of the Courts. The Magister Equitum is the guiding force and highest authority while lictors are non-ennobled Lost taken on as personal bodyguards. The sign of the Magistrates is an endlessly flowing wax mask their members may don at will. Their boon is a flower pin upon the breast, the scent is intoxicating but eventually drugs the user into slumber.

    He sits in a silent apartment and stares up at a portrait of better times, their true forms captured in oil. They look dapper don't they? Their glasses raised in a toast to the new year. Masks gleaming in the painted light. Did he really ever look so strong, so hopeful, so...young? Two of the people in the portrait have long since left, one for Portland, the other for Seattle. The third is dead. The fourth won't speak to him. So he just sits and stares. And sometimes, on bad days, he wears that suit again, just so it won't get too musty.
     
    That was adorable. It'll probably end in blood and tears, but to be fair a lot of adorable things do.

    [X] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.

    Always call for help!
     
    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
     
    [X] Flip your phone open, it's a cheap thing and you kinda hate it but the keyboard lights up and the screen seems to work. The Winter Court saved all the numbers you'd need on it. Dial one. Call someone for help.
     
    [X] A light is shining under the door at the end of the hall, you can hear people talking, people laughing, the clink of glasses and the sound of...music? Walk past the silent, half-cracked doors. Go to the party.
     
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