There's a low rumble that might be disagreement. "They are now." There was of course other purposes behind his asking but they can take a side seat to what's actually waiting when he showed up.
And Sephiroth is keeping a very blatant eye on where she is and what she's doing. Aside from regularly pared down talons, his feet were still perfectly fine, and adapting to different weight distribution was ended by simply folding his extra set of limbs like crossed arms. "..I don't think so. The shape is wrong. The covering is wrong." It's all.. just not right.
He shakes his head slightly, returning to scrubbing. Getting out all the vinegar was now the primary challenge. "It was so long ago wouldn't everything be rumor and conjecture?"
There's a reason he's keeping that blanket on and its' because he's learning to hate winter really, really fast. If he tugs the tub a bit closer to the fire it's completely incidental. "Raw meat is a delicacy in a lot of places. You have to pay good money to get it." Isn't that a good thing? "It's just finding a type you like first."
"Hmph. You know, Sephiroth. It's okay to be a little selfish at times like this," Gaia says. She's not angry. Concerned would be a far better word for it. Time and again he seems to put his difficulties on hold to help her and it's not gone unnoticed.
"So don't think I'll forget so easily why you came here." She has little forgetful, absentminded moments so this will probably be a readily referenced joke by now also.
Eyes watching her closely, they'll see that after a trip for two more logs to place beside her and picking up the poker to stir the coals a bit, she's slipping into a seated position. legs bent at the knees. Something seems to stir under the cloak independent of two legs.
Couldn't be a start of a tail, surely. Either way she seems to be stable. She then frowns.
"Well, we don't know how that works. How old do people get here? And books... stories are important, even if they aren't completely true. They might hold a grain of it." Gaia seems somber about this subject; serious than most. "The worst part is having nothing at all. In my world... in Novrandt, the city I live in has a repository of books. Everything they've found that survived the Flood. Full of stories and references to animals that don't exist any longer. Just because they might have been recorded with some bias... does that really make them less important for what they can tell us? And with other books, you can cross-reference the facts. Same with stories."
Gaia's rambling a little but it's definitely important to her, not just as a narrative to help Sephiroth understand what possibilities lie with asking about his strange wings.
"We also come from other worlds so maybe that's a factor. Why you look different from what the creature says should be there. But that's something we can also ask about." Gaia tilts her head so she can look at him.
"Maybe if Charlie doesn't have the answeres, we can ask the Ascians. They used to make things you know. I saw that Emet-Selch was gathering details about our transformations." Maybe some of the others were too. "...Well, I'd be inclined to talk to Elidibus first." Mostly because Obsidian has vouched for the Ascian.
...But also because last time she sort of used Emet-Selch as a distraction to escape Popp and she's not sure if he was aware of what she did. Ahem.
"...That sounds like a fad they'd try in Eulmore," is added with the typical wrinkled nose that indicates Gaia might have had an interruption in being serious. "And I hate I can't refute your claim because of that."
"Very well, I wished to speak to you because I'm reasonably certain I'm becoming a female dragon." He lifts the blanket, frowning, checking for stain. "Apparently we can look forward to living thousands of years once our transformations complete, which sounds too long but I only have a mortal perspective on that matter." Wait there's something he just sort of skipped over back there-- "...And I won't argue that the books of your destroyed homeland aren't important."
Even if it might only be a repository for the lost, notes kept for things that never would exist again. Plants, animals and cultures which wouldn't even leave relics behind. It ... just didn't apply to himself.
The face he makes at the idea of asking the Ascians is mixed alarm and dread; while Elidibus has nothing but kindness to him so far, they're all old, adult, and still strangers - not people to be bothering about cosmetic deformations. "... If it helps to demonstrate I am not exaggerating." The poncho-blanket shifts as he releases the loose hold around his own chest, uncoiling one wing at the edge of the fabric and extending it in an awkward twist so it's palm-up.
It looks like a massive hand more than a wing, studded with little black quills. He can touch the thumb to each of the other three 'fingertips' easily enough, it flexes thoroughly under his control but limited by its own inherent range of motion. "I have four arms, not two arms and two wings." It tucks back out of sight; there's something of disgust in his voice.
That too may distract from that first statement.
"...Angeal may know ways to prepare raw meat to that level of quality," he adds, cautiously. "If you'd like."
cw: talk of body horror, hint of emeto, uncanny valley
"Well then surely there's some sort of better record around if Charlie himself doesn't have the answe-- what?" Gaia looks up from stoking the fire. One can argue that this isn't a task to look away from with surprise. But at least the iron is left still as she stares with widened eyes- the change in them absolutely conveyed in this gesture as it's clear there is no whites remaining- at Sephiroth. Any protest that she'd not expected him to argue over the world of old books is going to be completely forgotten at this point.
"What did you just say? As in a female like me?"
With breasts and other various lady parts? This had clearly not occurred to her as being an option. Well, now it does. So much so that she's lost in the mental loops of wrapping her head around this new and very interesting variation on What It Means To Turn Into A Dragon that she wholly misses what Sephiroth is saying next.
Something something visual demonstration and that could have been just as much about a display of observed gender changes. It is certainly going to draw Gaia out of the thoughts quickly, pulling the heating poker out of the fire in a belated action to be set aside. There is a beginning of maybe protest that they can certainly be a little more delicate about... er, comparisons. And then the strange limbs are brought into view. Once more, Gaia nearly forgets what had been going on and sucks in a breath.
What might have once been the start of an embarrassed flush at the idea of Sephiroth sort of just... being naked in the middle of her common room is arrested as the strange and indeed malformed-seeming limbs that have been cut free from his back near the same time her own 'blades' cut out.
Her skin is generally pale and what remains of her human skin goes ghostly with a mix of fear and horror. Fear that has a name, by the look of recognition flickering past. Horror at the sight.
It can't be. Not here. No, Gaia realizes. It can't. It wouldn't pause like this, Sephiroth would be... it wouldn't be blood, but it would be seeping. She'd recognize its searing light against the cool and familiar dark that, though muted since her arrival, is still present. She swallows against the lump of bile. Yet it seems too late to talk. The disgust in Sephiroth's voice, the way the limb goes back out of sight quickly and she can't speak in time.
And then he sounds so normal offering the suggestion of what Angeal might be able to do on the subject of preparing raw meat to look a little less horrible to consume that Gaia almost lets out a bark of laughter because she doesn't know what else to do.
"No, wait. Wait. I'm sorry," she starts to try and get to her feet. Despite her earlier remark it seems she can find the impetus to stand if she's given enough space and time. She slips and unbalances once but thankful falls forward and to one knee, rather than back into the hearth.
"Let me see it again. Please." It's clear she thinks her reaction is to blame and as if to prove she's not trying to keep her distance, that she means what she says, she starts to wobble toward him.
Ah, that's a more familiar expression. And one he was expecting, because it's what he felt, he simply hid it better. It doesn't make it any easier to see though, and after a moment he turns back to scrubbing, expression carefully blank. He had invited that reaction, deliberately, to spare himself pointless platitudes about how everything will be fine and it had worked, he can't complain about the results.
"Stop that, you're going to get further injured and I'll have to call someone to assist." And though it's sidelong, he's watching to make sure she actually CAN get back up. There's a fine line too with being willing to demonstrate exactly why he's not willing to keep just deludedly hoping everything is nice and fine, and being willing to put himself back on display afterward. "I have ... never been normal. It would have been stranger if that changed here, than it staying the same."
Of course Gaia regrets it. She had wanted to see and then had not been ready; Sephiroth is paying the price for that. She bites at her lip and that might be taken as part of her effort to right herself; it's not just that.
It's Gaia's shame and the other teen's words regarding how hopelessly resigned he is to the experience of being unnatural. She manages to right herself at least and then eases to the floor. "I doubt you want others here any more than I do. Come over here then for a minute. The washing can wait."
Stains are suddenly just not important.
But instead of trying to insist again that he show her, the young woman is patting the floor near her. Come sit with her and at least show she's not rejecting him. Whether he does or not, Gaia continues to speak.
"The sin-eaters I've told you about." Spoken of in vague terms as being living creatures overwhelmed by the 'element' of Light. But the details... "It's... when you see something, someone change into a sin-eater, it's horrible."
Has she seen a transformation that she can remember? Not... really. But since then she's read stories, seen pictures, witnessed sin-eaters. A ripe imagination does the rest. Though the teen seems to have struggle putting it to words, it's clear where she's going with this.
"I can't tell you that what you just showed me didn't remind me of that. Or that these transformations in general are never good things for the people who have to go through them. Whether or not they're normal."
She might have pretty blades for wings but that's not normal by any means. None of this is normal.
"I'm sorry. None of this is really helping, is it?" Her voice is sounding a bit shaky even if she makes an effort to sound like her normal self.
This rates as less important. It's uncomfortable to start with and he knew what he was doing when he demonstrated it. The point hadn't been to encourage her to ask more things though, it had been to make her stop asking. Focus on other things. Like washing. And up to his elbows in soap, he's reluctant to leave his chosen task, frowning.
When he does finally move it's to settle closer, but inevitably not too close; there's a line of nearness that inevitably seemed to encourage people to reach out and he's not going to get that near for almost anybody without a good reason. "..Mm. Not sin-eater at least. I'm definitely gaining no association with light, and my scales are still very dark." They hadn't in fact changed much color at all.
It's .. not exactly a reassurance, she knew he wasn't becoming one anyway, but the association.. would apparently be hard to break.
Though it's not the most comfortable to sit with his knees pulled to his chest with the way his body's reconfiguring itself, he manages anyway. The long fingers of his seconary arms were useful for that much.
"I don't think anything is really going to help." The admittance is reluctant, slow. "Nobody's treating it like they should be. I don't know how most are so calm, acting like it's normal to be covered in scales and having a voice in your head telling you to remember to wear warm socks."
Angeal was not taking it as calmly as it looked. Who else was hiding? Maybe nobody. Maybe everybody. "We're not supposed to be upset. We'll get told we're not really losing our humanity, we're still human.. but there isn't a human in the universe that looks like this." He turns a hand palm up, the scales there small and dark and fine, rubbing the tip of one blunted claw across them. "If we were slowly turning into sin-eaters instead of dragons would we still be expected to just accept it?"
After a moment it's shaken off. "I would like to be snatched up by a foreign power and tossed onto a strange planet where the result is you become completely ordinary and nothing exciting ever happens again."
She gives Sephiroth a tiny smile when he finally chooses to join her. There's no attempt to reach out again; maybe inviting him closer hadn't been about that at all or the fact that he didn't exposure the 'wings' again was a hint she didn't miss. But she's glad he came over to sit down with her. Gaia herself does something similar to how he hugs his knees close. Yeah, that seems good right about now.
The appendages had sparked a memory of the terrors of transformation. They didn't mean sin-eater and the young woman nods with confirmation. "Not of Dark, either. I may not have all my strength, but I can at least tell that much." But what this energy is that's changing them, she doesn't know.
Born of the First, she doesn't have the insight of Ishgard's blooded history with dragonkind to relate to even in the barest of fashion.
"It seems to be something thought of as honorable to this world. And I get what they're meaning. This legend of their heroes." Gaia shakes her head. "But that doesn't mean anything really. Where I came from, this sort of rapid transformation is bad. Even if you can hope to keep a sense of who you are or what you are."
And they're supposed to still be what they are? The teen gives a not-so-delicate snort of disbelief.
"No, you'd be expected to fight as much as you can against it. Even if it's inevitable. Or was until recently." She corrects that last bit before sighing in frustration. "There were some that were afflicted with the condition but didn't change right away. They were tended in hospice until just before the end."
It need not be said what happened just before the end.
"A method's been discovered to undo it. But without the knowledge of what this energy is, much less a way to remove the source? I doubt we'll get so lucky." She shakes her head before looking over at the other teen and with a dry manner speaks again.
"Not that I'm saying we should end it ourselves, of course. It looks like people are still arriving so if... things don't turn out how we're told they are, if someone can find a solution to this, I want to wait as long as possible."
And if that means waiting as a huge, territorial dragon without her human mind, well... well.
Gaia laughs. It's not really amusement but there's a faintly lighter tone to her next answer.
"If people could go around wasting power like that... well, I suppose I wouldn't mind either. Unless of course it's to keep us from being able to save our world and the people we care about."
"I don't think there's a poison element." It's a mutter, more than a touch sullen; Light or Dark would be more acceptable. There were implications to being poisonous, venomous .. toxic, whatever the base affliction was. "Any kind of forced transformation is bad. If they could bring people here they could ask if they wish to become monsters first."
Some might. He has only scorn for being expected to walk in some hero's footsteps. He knows what he is - and a hero, he is not.
The lack of agreement on her statement they shouldn't end it themselves suggests a little perhaps on how that is viewed. It would be better than becoming a beast, wouldn't it? Normalcy was always an impossibility, now it seemed even further away. "I've.. been working on and off on devising a way to at least make us safe to the people here, should we inevitably become animals."
Planning ahead for an obvious future though, that wasn't hoping for the impossible. "In lieu of whatever method your planet uses to undo this kind of thing.. mine.. can occasionally tame monsters."
That's what they're becoming after all. "They use them as we do military dogs, and it mostly seems to be about socialization. Dragons.. are by and large, territorial in the extreme, and will defend anything they think of as 'theirs'." The laundry will need to be tended to soon. "There's a chance we can fool our base instincts into deciding the people of this town, and the town itself, is our territory. We won't be safe for visitors, but the ones who belong here.." Maybe it would be better than nothing?
The vague flickers of reassurance don't make it better. The dragon had every reason to want them not resisting.
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hammerbearer) wrote2024-10-01 01:20 am
no subject
And Sephiroth is keeping a very blatant eye on where she is and what she's doing. Aside from regularly pared down talons, his feet were still perfectly fine, and adapting to different weight distribution was ended by simply folding his extra set of limbs like crossed arms. "..I don't think so. The shape is wrong. The covering is wrong." It's all.. just not right.
He shakes his head slightly, returning to scrubbing. Getting out all the vinegar was now the primary challenge. "It was so long ago wouldn't everything be rumor and conjecture?"
There's a reason he's keeping that blanket on and its' because he's learning to hate winter really, really fast. If he tugs the tub a bit closer to the fire it's completely incidental. "Raw meat is a delicacy in a lot of places. You have to pay good money to get it." Isn't that a good thing? "It's just finding a type you like first."
no subject
"So don't think I'll forget so easily why you came here." She has little forgetful, absentminded moments so this will probably be a readily referenced joke by now also.
Eyes watching her closely, they'll see that after a trip for two more logs to place beside her and picking up the poker to stir the coals a bit, she's slipping into a seated position. legs bent at the knees. Something seems to stir under the cloak independent of two legs.
Couldn't be a start of a tail, surely. Either way she seems to be stable. She then frowns.
"Well, we don't know how that works. How old do people get here? And books... stories are important, even if they aren't completely true. They might hold a grain of it." Gaia seems somber about this subject; serious than most. "The worst part is having nothing at all. In my world... in Novrandt, the city I live in has a repository of books. Everything they've found that survived the Flood. Full of stories and references to animals that don't exist any longer. Just because they might have been recorded with some bias... does that really make them less important for what they can tell us? And with other books, you can cross-reference the facts. Same with stories."
Gaia's rambling a little but it's definitely important to her, not just as a narrative to help Sephiroth understand what possibilities lie with asking about his strange wings.
"We also come from other worlds so maybe that's a factor. Why you look different from what the creature says should be there. But that's something we can also ask about." Gaia tilts her head so she can look at him.
"Maybe if Charlie doesn't have the answeres, we can ask the Ascians. They used to make things you know. I saw that Emet-Selch was gathering details about our transformations." Maybe some of the others were too. "...Well, I'd be inclined to talk to Elidibus first." Mostly because Obsidian has vouched for the Ascian.
...But also because last time she sort of used Emet-Selch as a distraction to escape Popp and she's not sure if he was aware of what she did. Ahem.
"...That sounds like a fad they'd try in Eulmore," is added with the typical wrinkled nose that indicates Gaia might have had an interruption in being serious. "And I hate I can't refute your claim because of that."
no subject
Even if it might only be a repository for the lost, notes kept for things that never would exist again. Plants, animals and cultures which wouldn't even leave relics behind. It ... just didn't apply to himself.
The face he makes at the idea of asking the Ascians is mixed alarm and dread; while Elidibus has nothing but kindness to him so far, they're all old, adult, and still strangers - not people to be bothering about cosmetic deformations. "... If it helps to demonstrate I am not exaggerating." The poncho-blanket shifts as he releases the loose hold around his own chest, uncoiling one wing at the edge of the fabric and extending it in an awkward twist so it's palm-up.
It looks like a massive hand more than a wing, studded with little black quills. He can touch the thumb to each of the other three 'fingertips' easily enough, it flexes thoroughly under his control but limited by its own inherent range of motion. "I have four arms, not two arms and two wings." It tucks back out of sight; there's something of disgust in his voice.
That too may distract from that first statement.
"...Angeal may know ways to prepare raw meat to that level of quality," he adds, cautiously. "If you'd like."
cw: talk of body horror, hint of emeto, uncanny valley
"What did you just say? As in a female like me?"
With breasts and other various lady parts? This had clearly not occurred to her as being an option. Well, now it does. So much so that she's lost in the mental loops of wrapping her head around this new and very interesting variation on What It Means To Turn Into A Dragon that she wholly misses what Sephiroth is saying next.
Something something visual demonstration and that could have been just as much about a display of observed gender changes. It is certainly going to draw Gaia out of the thoughts quickly, pulling the heating poker out of the fire in a belated action to be set aside. There is a beginning of maybe protest that they can certainly be a little more delicate about... er, comparisons. And then the strange limbs are brought into view. Once more, Gaia nearly forgets what had been going on and sucks in a breath.
What might have once been the start of an embarrassed flush at the idea of Sephiroth sort of just... being naked in the middle of her common room is arrested as the strange and indeed malformed-seeming limbs that have been cut free from his back near the same time her own 'blades' cut out.
Her skin is generally pale and what remains of her human skin goes ghostly with a mix of fear and horror. Fear that has a name, by the look of recognition flickering past. Horror at the sight.
It can't be. Not here. No, Gaia realizes. It can't. It wouldn't pause like this, Sephiroth would be... it wouldn't be blood, but it would be seeping. She'd recognize its searing light against the cool and familiar dark that, though muted since her arrival, is still present. She swallows against the lump of bile. Yet it seems too late to talk. The disgust in Sephiroth's voice, the way the limb goes back out of sight quickly and she can't speak in time.
And then he sounds so normal offering the suggestion of what Angeal might be able to do on the subject of preparing raw meat to look a little less horrible to consume that Gaia almost lets out a bark of laughter because she doesn't know what else to do.
"No, wait. Wait. I'm sorry," she starts to try and get to her feet. Despite her earlier remark it seems she can find the impetus to stand if she's given enough space and time. She slips and unbalances once but thankful falls forward and to one knee, rather than back into the hearth.
"Let me see it again. Please." It's clear she thinks her reaction is to blame and as if to prove she's not trying to keep her distance, that she means what she says, she starts to wobble toward him.
no subject
"Stop that, you're going to get further injured and I'll have to call someone to assist." And though it's sidelong, he's watching to make sure she actually CAN get back up. There's a fine line too with being willing to demonstrate exactly why he's not willing to keep just deludedly hoping everything is nice and fine, and being willing to put himself back on display afterward. "I have ... never been normal. It would have been stranger if that changed here, than it staying the same."
no subject
It's Gaia's shame and the other teen's words regarding how hopelessly resigned he is to the experience of being unnatural. She manages to right herself at least and then eases to the floor. "I doubt you want others here any more than I do. Come over here then for a minute. The washing can wait."
Stains are suddenly just not important.
But instead of trying to insist again that he show her, the young woman is patting the floor near her. Come sit with her and at least show she's not rejecting him. Whether he does or not, Gaia continues to speak.
"The sin-eaters I've told you about." Spoken of in vague terms as being living creatures overwhelmed by the 'element' of Light. But the details... "It's... when you see something, someone change into a sin-eater, it's horrible."
Has she seen a transformation that she can remember? Not... really. But since then she's read stories, seen pictures, witnessed sin-eaters. A ripe imagination does the rest. Though the teen seems to have struggle putting it to words, it's clear where she's going with this.
"I can't tell you that what you just showed me didn't remind me of that. Or that these transformations in general are never good things for the people who have to go through them. Whether or not they're normal."
She might have pretty blades for wings but that's not normal by any means. None of this is normal.
"I'm sorry. None of this is really helping, is it?" Her voice is sounding a bit shaky even if she makes an effort to sound like her normal self.
no subject
When he does finally move it's to settle closer, but inevitably not too close; there's a line of nearness that inevitably seemed to encourage people to reach out and he's not going to get that near for almost anybody without a good reason. "..Mm. Not sin-eater at least. I'm definitely gaining no association with light, and my scales are still very dark." They hadn't in fact changed much color at all.
It's .. not exactly a reassurance, she knew he wasn't becoming one anyway, but the association.. would apparently be hard to break.
Though it's not the most comfortable to sit with his knees pulled to his chest with the way his body's reconfiguring itself, he manages anyway. The long fingers of his seconary arms were useful for that much.
"I don't think anything is really going to help." The admittance is reluctant, slow. "Nobody's treating it like they should be. I don't know how most are so calm, acting like it's normal to be covered in scales and having a voice in your head telling you to remember to wear warm socks."
Angeal was not taking it as calmly as it looked. Who else was hiding? Maybe nobody. Maybe everybody. "We're not supposed to be upset. We'll get told we're not really losing our humanity, we're still human.. but there isn't a human in the universe that looks like this." He turns a hand palm up, the scales there small and dark and fine, rubbing the tip of one blunted claw across them. "If we were slowly turning into sin-eaters instead of dragons would we still be expected to just accept it?"
After a moment it's shaken off. "I would like to be snatched up by a foreign power and tossed onto a strange planet where the result is you become completely ordinary and nothing exciting ever happens again."
no subject
The appendages had sparked a memory of the terrors of transformation. They didn't mean sin-eater and the young woman nods with confirmation. "Not of Dark, either. I may not have all my strength, but I can at least tell that much." But what this energy is that's changing them, she doesn't know.
Born of the First, she doesn't have the insight of Ishgard's blooded history with dragonkind to relate to even in the barest of fashion.
"It seems to be something thought of as honorable to this world. And I get what they're meaning. This legend of their heroes." Gaia shakes her head. "But that doesn't mean anything really. Where I came from, this sort of rapid transformation is bad. Even if you can hope to keep a sense of who you are or what you are."
And they're supposed to still be what they are? The teen gives a not-so-delicate snort of disbelief.
"No, you'd be expected to fight as much as you can against it. Even if it's inevitable. Or was until recently." She corrects that last bit before sighing in frustration. "There were some that were afflicted with the condition but didn't change right away. They were tended in hospice until just before the end."
It need not be said what happened just before the end.
"A method's been discovered to undo it. But without the knowledge of what this energy is, much less a way to remove the source? I doubt we'll get so lucky." She shakes her head before looking over at the other teen and with a dry manner speaks again.
"Not that I'm saying we should end it ourselves, of course. It looks like people are still arriving so if... things don't turn out how we're told they are, if someone can find a solution to this, I want to wait as long as possible."
And if that means waiting as a huge, territorial dragon without her human mind, well... well.
Gaia laughs. It's not really amusement but there's a faintly lighter tone to her next answer.
"If people could go around wasting power like that... well, I suppose I wouldn't mind either. Unless of course it's to keep us from being able to save our world and the people we care about."
no subject
Some might. He has only scorn for being expected to walk in some hero's footsteps. He knows what he is - and a hero, he is not.
The lack of agreement on her statement they shouldn't end it themselves suggests a little perhaps on how that is viewed. It would be better than becoming a beast, wouldn't it? Normalcy was always an impossibility, now it seemed even further away. "I've.. been working on and off on devising a way to at least make us safe to the people here, should we inevitably become animals."
Planning ahead for an obvious future though, that wasn't hoping for the impossible. "In lieu of whatever method your planet uses to undo this kind of thing.. mine.. can occasionally tame monsters."
That's what they're becoming after all. "They use them as we do military dogs, and it mostly seems to be about socialization. Dragons.. are by and large, territorial in the extreme, and will defend anything they think of as 'theirs'." The laundry will need to be tended to soon. "There's a chance we can fool our base instincts into deciding the people of this town, and the town itself, is our territory. We won't be safe for visitors, but the ones who belong here.." Maybe it would be better than nothing?
The vague flickers of reassurance don't make it better. The dragon had every reason to want them not resisting.