westwhere | [ CLOSED ] Twisting, constricted

Wei Wuxian froze at that sound, the rumble that could have been a growl, but wasn't. His heart skips a beat, and fear almost rushes to fill the hollows of his lungs, until he steps forward, until he sees the entirety of Wrathion's unfamiliar, bestial form.

"Thank everything," he says in a sudden, sharp sigh, hand pressing to his collarbone, "You're not a dog." Or a wolf, or a fox, or anything that looks like one, because the fear that had started, the fear Wrathion might scent, dies off as quickly as it came, only lingering as the ghost of its own memory. On its heels, Wei Wuxian continues forward, holding up a cloth satchel with supplies that are... suddenly seeming much out of proportion to what he's met with.

"I had no idea I could have gone regular hunting before this, but again, are you even sure you want to eat anything out of these woods wright now? I wouldn't, it's made for an unremarkable diet, but there's enough trouble with everyone gallivanting around chasing each other or being chased, and the huntress being..." He shrugs, declining to ascribe one sentiment or motivation to her, just as he refuses to do so with any of the undead lords they know. Anurr included.

"Anyway, water? There were wolves in that village. The dogs here aren't bad enough, all the foxes aren't enough, they had night wolves. Who were villagers in the day!"

Night wolves who were villagers in the day? ... Worgens, perhaps?

Wei Wuxian is babbling.

Wrathion tries to push himself more upright, struggling to his feet and stretching his wings in the limited space he has. They brush against the cave walls.

"I am not a dog," he rumbles, a strange resonant quality encompassing his voice in this form. He moves closer and lowers his head to Wei Wuxian, which is as large as the man himself. "You did not have to come."

Wei Wuxian owes him no debt. He is aware it is dangerous.

"Let's say I sympathise with having to hide away in caves." Ignoring that the Huntress spends half her time in the same situation, because he has no sympathy for her, frankly, until there's demonstrable proof to feel otherwise.

As it is, he holds out a hand, quirking his brow. Can he touch you, Wrathion. He wants to touch the giant creature that you are, because even if animals don't find him their favourite, he usually doesn't much resist a casual display of affection with them anyway. If they're not dogs.

"Learned most everything I knew about working with resentful energies from my time in one."

Ah --

Wrathion recognises the gesture, and quite honestly it isn't usually one he'd indulge. He isn't a horse, or a pet dog. He isn't a creature to be pet. He's a sentient person.

Wei Wuxian has, however, brought him supplies and appears to be in quite the state. He can... tolerate this, if it will help calm the man. After a few seconds of hesitation he lowers his head down, and draws on his limited patience.

"You are unsettled," he observes, hoping perhaps the man might share... why. Is there something specific that has happened? Hopefully not a long train of creatures that was following him, shortly to invade this cave now?

Wei Wuxian had borne up under the pets people seemed insistent on giving him for his time trapped in a fox's body, though here, he simply presses his hand against the presented nose, or above it. Danaeyrs had her small flying dragon, but Wrathion is a different scale, and a different assortment of parts.

He's also real, and warm, and reassuringly not furred. People having more than one form feels hysterically apt these days, but it was also acceptable, and easier to swallow.

"I'm not fond of being chased around by wolves, or wolf-men, or harassed by foxes. Call it a character quirk," he says, as if it's a jest, his hand falling away from where it had pressed against Wrathion's face. (Don't ask. In human form, it'd simply be a hand to the top of Wrathion's head.) "This is not a region friendly to many of us for many reasons, mm? Here. The water container's full from the well of the town that's supposed to help with the callings."

Such a small amount for Wrathion's present size, but he shrugs out of carrying what he's hauled along with him. There's a level of scaling here, where his own husband he had qi locked and hidden sword away so he could prowl, being too certain of himself to drink of waters or wear stone or wood from a shrine that Wei Wuxian might not even make it to himself. At Wrathion's size, there's no lack of collateral damage which could occur.

That's a feeling Wei Wuxian understands, albeit for vastly different reasons.

"There's also pickled cabbage, it's been spiced."

Hm.

Pickled cabbage is not his usual sort of fare, but anything decently spiced has his interest. As does the water.

He's in rather the wrong shape for this, however. No fingers, and overly large head full of sharp teeth that cannot handle things delicately.

"One moment," he suggests, shifting uncomfortably to slump a little more. "I have expended a great deal of energy, and this shape is... inconvenient."

He doesn't expect Wei Wuxian to hand feed him, but he might just need a minute before his reserves build back up.

Wei Wuxian inclines his head toward his young companion, though he's visibly curious.

"Take your time," he says. "I can add a few different wards and talismans to help somewhat, if you'd like, but nothing much helps energy return but taking time." Or having the right kind of energies taken in, but here that's less something he'd trust even if he were a cultivator with a core.

As it is, his energies could be bolstered by death-linked energies, if he were so inclined to fill himself like some particularly overreaching, arrogant fool. Today does not appear to be that day.

"Your two shapes, do you have any others?"

"I have one natural shape," Wrathion corrects, "anything else is a visage."

Wrathion tilts his head a little, equally curious about Wei Wuxian.

"You do not seem afraid of me, nor surprised."

He hadn't warned him, after all, what he was. He only learned this upon seeing him. Were dragons common where he is from? Friendly? Did he sense something about him? Or was he simply so exhausted and busy running from other things he had not the energy to worry about anything else?

"Then this is your natural shape?" Visage to him treads down the path to illusion, but compacted down, an affectation: not natural, but a choice for what, blending in? Dealing on smaller levels what a larger creature simply cannot?

As for the rest, he shakes his head, offers a smile as he settles into a waiting stance.

"You're surprising, but I've heard or seen things, and Daenerys has a creature of similar form, much smaller. Have you seen him?" Irrelevant if he had or hadn't: he shakes his head.

"There's nothing like you alive where I'm from. There's nothing like the dead rising, bodies being reinhabited by outside spirits, time magic or so much of what defines this world in my own. The water-swimming maids, people who take form of human and wolf, cold winds and vengeance taking form and calling itself Anurr. Anyway, you lack killing intent. You don't presently want me dead."

Which is a well honed instinct based on energy signatures that were used to a great many things, living or not, wanting him dead.

"This is my natural shape," he confirms, "and I have seen Drogon. He and I are... different."

Drogon has none of the natural, immediate intellect and talent Wrathion had at his age. Wrathion drags himself more up onto his feet, sways a half second before smoke begins to curl around him. Flecks of gold glitter through it, and as the smoke shrinks and disperses Wrathion's human form is left propping itself up against the wall with one hand. He clears his throat, trying to pull himself back together.

"I'd say you'd know about if I wanted you dead, but in my present state perhaps less so."

Normally, being big enough to eat someone gives you a degree of confidence. Less so when you've been run ragged already.

"Mm, in many ways." Acknowledgement for the statement on Drogon, because it's self evident, from where he stands. Even if it weren't literally in a cave speaking with a much larger, obviously sapient dragon, like he is right now.

He doesn't blink so much as squint a touch and watch the process, fascinated by it. He didn't see anyone shift form at the village, or outside of it, barely can remember the whole situation. He has no recollection of how his form felt when forcibly shifted by that curse when he'd knocked into and over part of that fox spirit's shrine, in weeks earlier.

The gold flecks catching light in all the smoke, however, is a nice touch. The performative part of himself appreciates it, just as he steps forward, less offering to steady Wrathion than offering over the water satchel, unstoppered.

"I don't doubt I would, as would anyone. Cultivators, ah, what would you say... that kind of desire has its own energy. We'd feel it like a blade against our skin, ah? Or like a cold wind cutting through a warm day."

"A useful talent, knowing when someone desires you dead. Gives you some warning before the blade strikes, I imagine."

He exhales slowly, making sure he feels together before he releases the wall and takes the water -- squints at it thoughtfully as he lets his senses read it.

"This is from across the bridge? The village?"

He smiles without commenting on the awareness of being desired dead. There are limitations, mainly distance, and how controlled someone's energy was in the end.

"The village with people suffering a curse of a different kind. The water's safe."

Not that it means much, when safe is a relative term. "Does make his pull lessen, even splashed on your face."

"This place suffers an unusual quantity of curses, self-inflicted and otherwise."

He's curious, but admittedly more curious about the water for the moment. Giving it a last read over with his senses he takes a sip, lets the gentle wash of magic slowly muffle the uneasy energy he'd had crawling underneath his skin.

"The signature on this feels the same as the shrines."

He's been given pieces from them, although Hermione forbade him from experimenting with them.

"Likely it's all the same source. Makes me more curious about the Raven's House sitting up on Brother Sanwon."

Given the one who made the shrines, that wanderer, is attributed with the ravens, but what is he to say? Mysteries call to him, and he answers, because here, nothing solves itself without investigation.

Ones which should continue once this threat of losing one's sense of self due to the machinations of one undead lord, versus the one being hidden, finds a momentary gasping breath of a break.

"Have you felt that signature anywhere else?"

"Beyond the shrine pieces, no."

He frowns in thought, tilting his head slowly as cogs turn.

"There has to be some connection, between the water of that place and the shrines. Perhaps touched by the same source, a source which gentles the touch of the Beastmaster. If we could better understand that source, it would useful. I know the Huntress has controlled members of our party before, and it seems we are putting our trust in her. Always good to have a back plan, however, in case this cooperation is short-lived."

Leaving thinks to chance seems... dangerous. He may have sympathy for her, being pursued by the Beastmaster, but people who have been hurt are just as capable of doing damage to others.

He smiles, wan. "No, trusting her beyond this particular moment of her convenience isn't wise. Anurr making that request, ah, the benefits fall to him without the cost."

Not having to deal with the Beastmaster in the interim, fighting instead those same forces at a distance, while the lord himself wanes. Wei Wuxian looks towards the volcano's peak, or it's direction, given the current cave hardly leaves that open view.

"Both have come for the volcano as it grows strong, and they, for the moment weak. Each time Brother Sanwon releases his earth and fire, those around are changed in part. A link between the people's, the magic perhaps of the mountain, and what both lords of death hope to achieve in being here when soon there mountain stirs?"

He looks to Wrathion and nods.

"Yes, there's some link, or several. I'd like to get to this House of Ravens to see what we may find there that reflects on the rest, before the mountain goes."

"It seems questions may be answered there, although more may come to light."

Nothing seems clear, everything he learns only seems to invoke more questions. He lifts one hand to rub at his beard, restless. Frustrated.

"The volcano feels as if it will erupt soon. I would prefer to understand how all this connections before that showdown, which means any further ventures would need to be soon. Difficult, when we're not even certain what we'd be walking into."

Is the House of Ravens itself dangerous? Or peaceful? The only way to know appears to be to go look.

"If you've a mind for it, once this present hunting situation is resolved, it's what I'd wish to do. More than one way to sound out a situation, but I prefer to face it and gather information directly than only rely on word of mouth."

He lifts his shoulders in something like a shrug, lips thinning to a line as he glances in the direction that is currently cave, but which feasibly beyond lies higher parts of the volcano.

"Do any of your enchantments reduce the presence or energy signatures of an individual?"

"Nothing I am well practised in," he admits. "My talents lean more towards making an impact, not reducing one."

A shame, given being able to reduce his own presence more right now would be quite useful. It's never really be an requirement until now, unfortunately.

"Then I'll continue putting my mind to it, I should have a functional talisman that doesn't truly inhibit our energies... mah, by the end of a handful of days, perhaps."

Tapping his chin, then shaking his head after.

"Are you willing to test its efficiency when I do?"

Needing different people's energies for testing is part of the reality. Plus, thinking forward might help when the now is presently not the most comfortable state... in this lovely cave, with the Beastmaster's influence uncoiling, insidious, across the landscape outside. To think he's at his weakening, and still.

"Of course."

Testing is all part of the process, after all. There is little point waiting for the most dire moment of need before using something, better to test first and adjust as necessary.

"I'm disinclined to stay in this cave forever, but anything that can keep it suitably quiet while I'm here -- or keep my journeys out of it more peaceful is... appreciated."

Relying on other people is hard, but as Chi-Ji once said: with the help of friends, nothing is impossible. Wrathion isn't quite sure if Wei Wuxian would consider him a friend, but he's certainly helping. It's a... new sort of experience, accepting that.

"If we don't stand with each other, then who will?"

A smile, wan, but the earnest truth beneath it: even the Merchant, he of the funding and strings pulling and erstwhile Plans only sees them useful in keeping them out of enemy hands, and in allowing them to burn down whatever catches on their fires as they move, shuffled along and away on a hope of finding a gate that can sustain opening, that can send them home, or to someone's home, even if it's not theirs.

"Would you like company for a while longer, or is Anduin or one of the others due in before long?" Not a man to feel the need to be around people in the same ways he'd been as a youth, letting it be invitation, not expectation, and at ease with himself. More and more, the horror that'd kept him tense in the memories of the teeth, the claws, the shape of the wolves and werewolves bricks off again, to the place where all bad things linger, swallowed and partially digested and left buried in his mental woods.

The question is somehow embarrassing.

He knows it's an obvious suggestion -- Wrathion was visiting Anduin frequently, something Wei Wuxian is aware of -- yet somehow the predictability of it is unsettling.

Especially given he's absolutely right, Anduin is now someone who is frequently visiting him here.

"He has been bringing me food from the village. I haven't seen him yet today, so he might come. Don't feel you need to stay, if you have things to do. I am quite use to my own company."

The idea of this man staying out of obligation is almost as awkward as the idea that he knows full well Anduin will visiting to check on him. It feels like a vulnerability, and Wrathion dislikes those immensely. He prefers to maintain an image of strength and indifference.

[ CLOSED ] Twisting, constricted

brings this fool over

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