Niles // Zero (
cyclopticsadist) wrote in
middaeg2020-07-10 02:16 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Entry tags:
1/3 open post
Who: Niles, Azura, Henry, and anyone in the Outpost.
When: Backdated to the 5th.
Where: The Outpost, then Aefenglom
What: Full shifted form shenanigans!
Warnings: Painful tf description in first prompt.
The Change: Closed to Henry
As far as Niles is concerned, every monstrous change he's "endured" has only made him more sexy and powerful. The social stigmas associated with being a chimera were frustrating to the extreme, but honestly the othering, mistrust, and suspicion he's all used to. So this month, as the moon rises and he feels it's pull on him dragging something more out of him, excitement easily wins out over apprehension. And whatever change is coming is big. Bigger than gaining his tail even. Remembering that night vividly, he quickly kicks off his pants. He liked that pair and wished them no ill will. He breathes deeply, preparing for the tingling of rapidly growing fur to build into the ache and burn of shifting bone and muscle.
As his last act before he's incapacitated by the rearranging of his spine and limbs and skull he scrambles into bed, and tugs the band of his eyepatch loose. Through all of it, his expression holds a smile. Or at least until his face stopped being human enough to convey it. Once he weathered this storm he was about to have a fun night.
The Outpost: Open
The blissfully cool night air ruffles the thick fur of his newly comprehensive coat. Now that Henry's put his eyepatch back on, (tied a little clumsily but they made it work), Niles is ready to go. New powers came in waves here, and he's sure he's not the only one needing to give a new form a test run. All that chaos, and the added anonymity of being plausibly mistaken for a turnskin if he stuck to the shadows, meant that this was the best time to risk a trip to Azura. But that would be a very serious conversation, he needed to be composed and contritious, and with all this energy buzzing in his veins he's not going to be able to think through the right words.
So he'll just take a hot minute to blow off some steam first. He leaps off the platform with a an absolutely delighted bounce, bouncing off of the lower limbs of the massive trees with ease. He is taking 0 fall damage. If he gets the sense that someone's watching him he'll turn back at them, claw at the side of the trunk vigorously, then jump down to the ground. How about you meet him in the pit?
Aefenglom:Closed to Azura
[The trip to Azura's home in the coven was more perilous than he anticipated. This absolutely infernal heat. And so when he finally arrives at Azura's door he doesn't have the patience or energy to find a less obtrusive way to get in. As he found out earlier with Henry, language isn't really in his wheelhouse yet but he does his best.]
AArruuhhaahh..!!
[His ears go flat. Shit that was way too loud. He doesn't try again, opting instead to reach up and scratch pitifully at the doorframe.]
((Sketch by raptorscribbles.))
When: Backdated to the 5th.
Where: The Outpost, then Aefenglom
What: Full shifted form shenanigans!
Warnings: Painful tf description in first prompt.
The Change: Closed to Henry
As far as Niles is concerned, every monstrous change he's "endured" has only made him more sexy and powerful. The social stigmas associated with being a chimera were frustrating to the extreme, but honestly the othering, mistrust, and suspicion he's all used to. So this month, as the moon rises and he feels it's pull on him dragging something more out of him, excitement easily wins out over apprehension. And whatever change is coming is big. Bigger than gaining his tail even. Remembering that night vividly, he quickly kicks off his pants. He liked that pair and wished them no ill will. He breathes deeply, preparing for the tingling of rapidly growing fur to build into the ache and burn of shifting bone and muscle.
As his last act before he's incapacitated by the rearranging of his spine and limbs and skull he scrambles into bed, and tugs the band of his eyepatch loose. Through all of it, his expression holds a smile. Or at least until his face stopped being human enough to convey it. Once he weathered this storm he was about to have a fun night.
The Outpost: Open
The blissfully cool night air ruffles the thick fur of his newly comprehensive coat. Now that Henry's put his eyepatch back on, (tied a little clumsily but they made it work), Niles is ready to go. New powers came in waves here, and he's sure he's not the only one needing to give a new form a test run. All that chaos, and the added anonymity of being plausibly mistaken for a turnskin if he stuck to the shadows, meant that this was the best time to risk a trip to Azura. But that would be a very serious conversation, he needed to be composed and contritious, and with all this energy buzzing in his veins he's not going to be able to think through the right words.
So he'll just take a hot minute to blow off some steam first. He leaps off the platform with a an absolutely delighted bounce, bouncing off of the lower limbs of the massive trees with ease. He is taking 0 fall damage. If he gets the sense that someone's watching him he'll turn back at them, claw at the side of the trunk vigorously, then jump down to the ground. How about you meet him in the pit?
Aefenglom:Closed to Azura
[The trip to Azura's home in the coven was more perilous than he anticipated. This absolutely infernal heat. And so when he finally arrives at Azura's door he doesn't have the patience or energy to find a less obtrusive way to get in. As he found out earlier with Henry, language isn't really in his wheelhouse yet but he does his best.]
AArruuhhaahh..!!
[His ears go flat. Shit that was way too loud. He doesn't try again, opting instead to reach up and scratch pitifully at the doorframe.]
((Sketch by raptorscribbles.))
no subject
He's lucky she was in the living room, otherwise she might not have heard him on the first yelp. She does, though, and it's...spooky? What the fuck was that? Who even is at the door? She gets her lance and looks through the peephole.
It's a giant cat? Actually, that looks like the same kind of cat that Ni--
......
This fucking guy.
She sets the lance down again and opens the door just wide enough for him to slip through. ]
Gods above, you nearly gave me a heart attack!
no subject
He makes a quiet, breathy sort of grunt, trying not to repeat the dissonant yowl earlier. He feels like he should be able to talk. Myr could back last October...He'll just have to keep working on it. He rolls on the ground until he's looking up at her from the floor, then repeats the noise, trying a little harder to get the right sort of vowel.]
uhhrrrra.
no subject
Ice magic is handy when your boyfriend is a giant snow cat. ]
Hmm? Can you not speak?
no subject
He leans into their bond in a sense, letting himself feel his gratitude loudly, openly. Not just for the helpful spell, but simply for her. Coming here today he did have an agenda and he'll get to communicating it in a moment, but apart from that he wanted to show her that he would come back for her, as often as he was able without dragging her down with him.]
no subject
Do you have any idea why you happen to be stuck as a cat, at the moment?
[ a yes or no type answer will do, she figures he can manage that much without speech
(sorry, she's stuck on that part right now. why is he full cat?? what happened???) ]
no subject
Mmooo..rmm [Well that was higher pitched than he expected. And not quite right.] Mooo..hhn.
[Okay that was close enough, right? He paws at the air again, vaguely in the direction of the moonlight coming in through the curtains.]
no subject
The full moon? [ an eyebrow quirk ] I wonder why now. You've been here longer than I, haven't you? And I haven't seen you turn wholly into a cat before.
[ --okay fine ear scritches commencing why is he like this, he knows all of her buttons to push. god, man. ]
no subject
He sort of wiggles on the floor, the best approximation of a shrug he can do. The bottom line was he didn't really know either. Then he flumps over to his side in order to push his head up into her hand in clear feline delight. Ear scritches feel even better in this form somehow.]
no subject
Although, seeing all of this prompts her to think of something that hasn't occurred to her before. Azura taps his nose to hopefully snap him out of whatever feline trance he's slipping into. ]
Niles? Ah, there's something I'm curious about, though I presume it's a bit odd. [ a light tilt of the head ] Is having animal appendages comfortable? Do you ever yearn to have human ears and feet back?
[ ...... ]
If, er, the response is one you're able to convey.
[ picked the wrong time to have the navel-gazey question for him ]
no subject
He then sticks a foot out forward, and gives his back paw a few licks. This time he nods. Hooves were...not always the most convenient.]
no subject
[ rolling it around in her head a little
actually that makes her want to touch his cat feet, now. can she touch the beans a lil? she's going to poke but look like she's not interested. ]
no subject
Go ahead. His new feet are broad and gloriously fluffy.]
Outpost
Agitated, he shook his deer-head. Lorenz had taken to the outpost in an attempt to escape the heatwave that had beset Aefenglom, but he hadn't expected... this. The rising of the moons had found him transforming into a deer with a proud silhouette... and a very purple coat.
Words will still difficult for him, but he stamped on the ground with his hooves and shook his head vigorously. Watch it!]
Re: Outpost
He springs back at the stamping hooves, but rather than backing off, he crouches low to the ground. His wide snowshoe-like paws keep him from sinking too far into the snow, meaning that the way he's shifting his weight on his hind legs is plenty visible. He telegraphs his pounce, but it's not a playful feint. He's aiming to get his forelimbs fully around Lorenz's neck, although he'll be...sparing with his claws if he lands true.]
no subject
As it were, all Lorenz could do was spring backwards, unheedful of his surroundings, and throw himself into a snowbank in order to get away from the massive feline. Without his legs, without his lance, he had no idea what to do.
He didn't know who this was to attempt to divine what they were doing... if they were Mirrorbound at all.]
Closed to L
He's out, but it's the characteristic light and highly alert sleep of a cautious feline.
no subject
Even those who truly care for him feel like they're gritting their teeth, going through the motions, fulfilling a duty that they must in the form of a broken mess left behind after a disaster, while delicately not voicing that perhaps it might have been better if the disaster had left nothing at all. These days, L's fantasies occupy two distinct moods: smudging away Myr's burden like a dream upon waking, and making Niles' life as miserable as possible with every available moment.
Opportunities, now more than ever, shouldn't be wasted. And on this oppressively hot day, his scrying basin shows him one that's rather too good to pass up, and when the Sun is still in the sky but beginning to set, he ventures out, overdressed for the weather, but with plenty of pockets to conceal what remains of his hands.
He knows who to find, and where to find him. It's almost pathetically easy, but wasn't it pathetically easy for L to Niles to divide him into pieces when he was drugged, silenced and tied down? One is one, and he approaches the panting animal in silence.
He keeps a safe distance at first, steps soft. A leather strap is tightened around his wrist, useful for holding implements. Typically it's most useful for meals, when slipping a fork between the strap and his flesh is the most elegant solution... but it can also hold a blade. Not that he's likely to need one, when Niles is shedding so generously.]
no subject
He rolls to get his feet under him, but doesn't lift himself off the ground. His lips draw back in a snarl, but soon he has to break it off in favor of panting once more. He's staring L down, but his gaze is unfocused and dim. His time in the shade had built up some reserves of energy for him, but clearly not much.]
no subject
Shhh.
[Would would sound soothing in someone else's mouth sounds sinister in L's. Maybe it's the forked tongue, courtesy of Niles' claw. Rather than speaking in his new and imprecise way, Niles will hear a familiar voice in his own mind, smooth and soft and integrating very naturally with his gray matter.]
This'll go so much more easily if you don't fight it.
no subject
If L wanted to throw away all of Niles' considerable effort to keep him breathing, then so be it. He would not let L get even half as far as the Squip had.]
Get out, get out, get out or I'll lay you out just like I did him.
no subject
He remains outside of striking distance, while still standing his ground, making it clear that he's not going to back away or quail away from the chimera's lashing out.]
You won't. Recall that I'm not a sadist; I didn't go outside in this heat just to torture a dumb beast.
[He takes another step closer. He suspects that just pulling a clump of hair out would be easy enough, even without shears or a knife. Convenient, given his limitations.]
You actually took that on, yourself, making you something of a masochist, perhaps.
no subject
Maybe he's lowering his weapon, but on the other hand, a lateral strike from the ground had a broader target. As for that accusation, Niles does his best imitation of rolling his eye. It's more of a roll of his shoulders and a tilt of his head. If that doesn't get the message across, he follows it up with a dismissive snort.]
I don't exactly try to hide it, and if you think you're doing a good job of hiding that yourself, think again.
[He's seen more than enough to peg L as the pot diagnosing the kettle.]
no subject
[L's pretty adamant. Even if there's more truth to it than he'll ever admit, he seems genuinely convinced that it's not the case.]
One is one. I care about justice; you're still alive, not serving any kind of sentence. Someone has to make you pay a fair price for what you did, and while you took away a lot of what I could do, I can still punish you while enjoying no part of the process.
[The words fly by more swiftly and smoothly than they would if they were being spoken aloud, and he takes a step closer, testing this. Niles seems exhausted, but he doesn't put it past the one-eyed chimera to rally for one or two snarling surges of energy. Better if he can avoid that, crippled as he is, angry as he is.]
no subject
Oh but you will enjoy it. The self satisfaction of retribution isn't some noble pursuit. You just need to have someone you can say has earned your cruelty before you indulge yourself.
no subject
Things are different now. Still powerful, just volatile. He wants to be sure that works in his favor if Niles does decide to pounce, and if that happens, he can at least be certain that it will hurt. He just has to take care that it won't kill the already-enfeebled chimera.]
You know as well as I do that you've earned cruelty. Maybe you'll feel better, too.
no subject
Go on then, make your move.
[He'd promised no torture earlier, although they've previously had wildly different definitions of the word. No matter what other parts of this whole thing had collapsed, the refined illusion magic, the encompassing memory recreation was gone. Whatever he did now would be some gesture, some petty torment.
The thing at the lake was hardly more than tricks of the light after all. All smoke and mirror, shadow and darkness. The cloth awkwardly wrapped around the newly shaped scar and socket beg to differ.]
no subject
He reaches out. Grasps bluntly with a fingerless hand that folds into a shape adequate for the unspecialized task, twists and pulls more hair than he needs from Niles' flank.
He didn't have to be here for this, even to obtain these things. Niles' missing eyepatch is also proof of this, L's last trophy. His audacity is born of restlessness and desperation, these days, because freeing Myr from the ugliness of his oblivion can be as kind and inevitable as possible. Men like L meet their end all the time, actively court it, in fact... and while he can't feel entitled to the love of someone better than he is? He already feels that he owns a piece of Niles, something sharp and sinking that clutches bloodily and doesn't let go. It's awful, and gruesome, and probably deadly, and it's undeniably his without guilt or shame.
It's a heady thing to not feel those things, when they permeate every other aspect of the detective's current existence. Addictive, even.]
no subject
Instead of any stinger based retaliation, (he really wanted to just slap L across the face with it more than anything), he pushes off his front legs with his head bowed. He feline instincts might dominate his personality, but the rage and impudence of the goat was strong in him too. This wasn't a goring or venomous strike, just a hard blow to the gut. Insult and injury together packaged neatly together.]
no subject
...only for Niles' horns to punch him squarely in his bony midsection, with no protective pad of muscle or fat to cushion it. A rib might have cracked; he's not sure, but he's rather winded, regardless.
Reflexively, one of his mutilated hands shoots out in Niles' direction. Physical contact isn't established, but an absolutely searing cage of electricity bundles and constricts the chimera. While the electricity is intentionally weak (since cardiac arrest isn't L's aim), the already oppressive heat will doubtless feel unbearable so long as it remains intact.]
no subject
The suffocating heat was the kind of overwhelmingly uncomfortable that even Niles can't quite get behind enjoying. The searing crackle of electricity however is quite the opposite, and Niles' eyes brighten for more than one reason. His body seizes and thrashes as it instinctively throws himself away from the thunder's source. Laid out on the ground, body aching and head clanging with mixed signals from senses addled by lightning, he can't quite laugh at L's outburst, but the tone of his mental voice is mocking.]
Ah yes, punish the masochist with a slap on the wrist. I'm sure that'll teach me my lesson.
no subject
By the time it breaks, he's a bit more breathless, but far from spent, if Niles really wants to test him again. It's all a matter of making sure he has enough in him to teleport away, when the time comes.]
You should really phrase things more carefully. Suffering isn't universally appealing to you, as both of us are quite aware.
no subject
You do love your semantics.
[And then he pulls himself up to a sitting position. He lowers his head again, but slowly and smoothly. His horns are pointed squarely at L again, but the purpose of the gesture is to drag his tongue across the now static-prickled fur of his front leg.]
no subject
He can resist further parting shots, though; he never can.]
I'll test that, you know. Just how much you may or may not love pain.
[There's a reason he came for the fur, after all. It'll go nicely with the eye patch.]
no subject
You won't be the first person determined to find my boundaries for the sole purpose of crossing them.
[He sounds bored. This is a game he's played before, a dance he knows the steps to. ]
no subject
[His elbow presses against the smarting spot on his ribs, applying subtle pressure. It's just bruised, if he's lucky. If it's cracked... well. He'll just have to come up with something that doesn't endanger his ability to keep coming after Niles this way, both in-person and remotely.]
We both know that's where the similarities end.
[L is entitled to this; he has every good reason, every grudge and every debt belongs uniquely to him. His pursuit won't end until he does; they both know that, too.]
no subject
No, you want that to be where the similarities end.
[The cool shadow of the alleyway he'd tucked himself into now stretched further down the street. The air was getting lighter and cooler, and in equal measures Niles is becoming more alert. L's big move was underwhelming so far to say the least, he almost wants to give him another pass at it. Each strike that L takes that are even slightly less hideous than the illusion he'd lived through feels like a victory to him. So he sits again, laying down on his right side and idly stretches a paw out towards the end of the alley where L stands.]
But I've seen all manner of monsters, and you're just familiar parts in a new order.
no subject
He'd be insulted, at least, if he knew that Niles believed his attack underwhelming when it was, by design, not intended to cause catastrophic damage. He'd pulled his punch to avoid killing the smug chimera, but now? He thinks that maybe he should have poured it on harder, put pain in his voice in the place of languid pleasure.]
For being a monster, yourself? You don't understand them well, at all.
[The air around him collects a charge. He can attack Niles again, if he needs to, but it might be a choice between that and escaping to a safe distance. He'd rather relish the slow burn of a victory where he can prolong Niles' suffering, rather than one where someone's misery ends today.]
no subject
[He rolls fully onto his back now, and his rear legs he keeps tucked up. He's at an angle to the wall, his feet aren't lined up with the plane of it, but with a quick and flexible twist he'll be able to brace his back paws against it to launch forward across the ground if he wants to.
But for now he holds the fake surrender posture, brandishing the white flag of his stomach like bait. He's confident in his ability to endure now. Now that he's taken using his past against him off the table, whatever L could fling his way could be outlasted or adjusted to.
So bring it on.]
no subject
It would char his chances to get away, as well. The choice is still one that lingers, seems somehow uncertain even though the correct and wise choice is clear.
He makes it, scuffing a simple rune with his heel.]
The fur's all I needed.
[Not all he wanted.]
Enjoy relative peace while you can.
[The last of his mana goes towards vanishing from the spot.]
no subject
The Outpost isn't big, but it only makes sense that Niles, his Bonded, is close by. (Temporary Bonded though it may be, it's still something, especially way out here.) The dark mage's steps are with a practiced stealth as he crawls across the elevated Outpost on feet that may as well belong to a bunny, they're so soft... Or, as close as a clumsy human could manage.
He's sure Niles can hear him. Not that he expects that his Chimera friend is going to have shifted.
Henry peers into the dark of the area Niles occupies, scarcely breathing in his advance. ...His teeth, however, chatter. He's not pumped full of adrenaline enough to stop that.
no subject
He knows who it is immediately through bond recognition. Having him near calms him after the ordeal and leads, after a moment, to him relaxing on the bed. Then in fully feline fashion, he streeetches out before rolling to stand, (a little shakily), now on four legs.]