[Log] Things that go bump - Kash and Angua, backdated to June

[st_ingofthehundred]

Kash and Angua collide with dubious results. Backdated to early June because I suck.

Since Vex had told him Z was okay last she knew, Kash had lightened up, he thought. He'd introduced himself to a few people, and just today, he'd picked wildflowers for Caroline, Rey, River and Joanna. Sure, he hadn't stuck around to deliver them in person, but it was a start. Right?

Kash sighed.

It was nearing nightfall and he had at least another few spells in him. So he headed back out onto the grounds and up the mountain to watch the sunset and try talking to Z. By now, he knew better than to think the Sending would work. But trying was like keeping a vow. He'd try every day until he saw her again. Forever.

As the colors smeared across the sky, Kash sat cross-legged on a flat rock. Thinking. Mostly. And occasionally jotting notes into his strategy journal of things he wanted to remember to tell Z.

With the spa back in use, the lockers were no longer a good place to stash her clothing when she went out 'plainclothes', so Angua had had to find other options. She didn't have enough clothes to risk losing any, after all; the boutique was regularly picked over before she got there by those who cared more about clothes than she did. (In fact, she hoped another room would turn into a larger world, so she might find a way to get cloth at least, before her current outfits became too threadbare for human modesty.)

The flat rock near the mountain was recognizable enough, generally private enough, and had a few decent stashy-holes, so she'd been using that. Tonight, however... rock-blocked. One of her fellow 'guests' was sitting there, writing and/or watching the sunset. Angua sighed internally at that, but it wasn't a full moon night. She didn't have to Change.

Best to at least let the fellow know he had company. "Oh, hello. I'm disrupting your solitude."

"You are now," Kash said, somewhat pointedly. She hadn't been disturbing him on her path up here or even being nearby, but now that she'd decided to talk to him, she couldn't be ignored. He noted 'interrupted by blonde' in the middle of the note he'd been writing about people who had no effing clue what a cleric was or did, and then folded the pages back together. "It's fine. I wasn't doing anything that can't wait."

"Good." Angua climbed onto the rock, but didn't sit down. It was easy to ignore the cranky tone, since ignoring it would probably be the most annoying response. "How do you feel about being blindfolded for a minute or so? And might you have a blindfold?"

"...what?" Kash hoped he didn't look as poleaxed as he felt. Because he felt like... "Are you...inviting yourself to give me lady favors? Because you're hot, sure, but I'm trying to contact my girlfriend here, and I think that would put a damper on things."

"Aren't you sweet." Angua almost laughed, despite the fact that she'd come out to not be a person for a while as a sort of comparative temporary lightness. Who knew that annoying the ... yes, actually attractive man rock-blocking her would do much the same thing? "But no, and is that a no on the blindfold?"

"Children's games?" There had been children in his life for the first fifteen years. That just seemed like a lifetime ago. Even then, "play" hadn't been part of his vocabulary. "Sorry. No. Not interested. Don't care about your sales pitch. Don't have a blindfold. Wouldn't put it on if I did."

Angua rolled her eyes and dropped into a sitting position nearby. "No games, just wanted to not chance being Looked At for a minute or so. I'll wait 'til you get annoyed enough or finish what you're up to, then."

"Or hey, how about this," Kash said sarcastically. "You could ask me if I'd close my eyes or turn my back." No, he wasn't the most approachable guy, but leading with a blindfold? Come on.
"I could, but I wouldn't believe you." She shrugged slightly. "Humans are curious, you peek."

"That sounds like a you problem." Although now he really was curious. But because proving his point was more important than his curiosity in the moment, he simply turned his back to the woman and busied himself with his notes. "Do what you've gotta do."

Angua tilted her head for a moment, watching him, then shrugged and pulled her dress off over her head. "Don't say I didn't warn you, then." The dress got wadded up and shoved into a chink in the rock, which didn't hide it so much as make sure it wouldn't blow away and also make sure any would-be thief would have to go to a little effort to get it.

That done, she Changed. The texture of the air changed for a few seconds, and she'd know promptly if the human peeked. It was, she knew, an existentially upsetting sight for most people.

For a few seconds, before visual color faded as wolf-eyes asserted themselves, the world seemed made of rainbows and symphonies. Beautiful... but then only scent really lit things up. She bounced a couple of times on the rock, nails clicking, then padded past the human and his ink-thing to consider where exactly to jump off the rock.

True to his word, Kash didn't "peek" or otherwise attempt to figure out what was going on when the air suddenly felt charged. It was magic of some sort and it didn't feel cold, creepy, or evil. He hadn't gotten a vicious vibe from her, and non-human only inclined him slightly in her favor.
When the wolf padded past him, he placed the sounds he'd heard as her nails clicking. Kash actually almost smiled. Keyleth had as much fun in her animal shapes as this one did. "Could've just said you wanted to wild-shape."

Anuga whuffed and rolled her eyes. That sort of casual attitude told her he thought she was some non-monster thing, rather than a werewolf. Hello, terrifying monster doing monster things around you, pay me no mind wasn't... it didn't work.

Kash didn't speak wolf, but they'd had Galdric around Whitestone long enough that he recognized "dismissive" when he saw it. He had his spear, never went out into the 'wilds' without it, and picked it up. He'd thought about challenging her, but instead, spoke the phrase of the cantrip to light it up and tossed it a few feet in front of him. "I know darkness. You're not it."

Angua bared her teeth, but only briefly. It wasn’t really worth arguing with someone who didn’t even realize that a werewolf wasn’t whatever he thought she was.

Also, the big thrown stick that started to glow was a lot more interesting. She bounded over to it, sniffed it, then sneezed and shook her head at the doubled-up sharpness of magic on it. Just for fun, she started trying to lay across it to cover over the light. I can be darkness!

"Even if you cover it, it's going to glow for eight hours or until I put it out," Kash observed with unusual mildness. She was amusing. Zahra would like her. "Besides, that's not being darkness. It's making darkness." Which he could do as easily as he'd made light.

Angua stopped rolling, then stood up and very deliberately sliced open one paw on the spear’s point. There would be no mistaking it for an accidental misstep, especially once she sat down and held up the injured paw to let it drip blood on the rock.

And drip.

And then stop, as the wound closed up neatly on its own. All things considered, it had been a tiny nick and only a couple drops of blood, but a wolf that healed that quickly could be an implied threat. A little closer to being darkness, perhaps.

"Regeneration," Kash said thoughtfully. Probably not a druid, then. A shapeshifter by race or curse. He felt for her abruptly.

Kash took out his belt knife, rolled back his sleeve, cut his left arm. As she had, he let the blood drip to the ground. And then spoke a healing word, and -- in a glow of golden light edged by a darker, defining black -- the cut healed as though it had never been.

"If it's a curse, I can remove it," he offered, quite certain she understood.

Angua shook her head, awkward since it wasn't something a wolf neck and head were easily built to do. Twice, in fact. No to removal, and no to the curse. Which made the first refusal moot, but eh.

What was more interesting was the scent of magic over the scent of his blood when he healed himself: it was magic, certainly, but instead of being that odd undefinable octarine color, it was gold and warm living green. Pure life, as a smell, and not something she'd smelled before. After shaking her head, she tilted it to one side and let out a querying whuff. (Yes, she could Change back, but she wanted to see how far she could get without.)

Fortunately, Kash had the experience of Keyleth's expressions while in wild shape to compare. But watching a wolf shake its head like a human was still hilarious. He snorted with amusement. The "whuff" sounded sort of inquisitive, so he replied, "Cleric. Life magic," and then, "I'm a healer."

A priest? Remarkable – on the Disc, priests didn’t have much power at all. Angua tilted her head the other way, then sighed and padded back around to pull her dress (carefully, making sure not to tear it or stress it too much) out from where she’d hidden it. Once it was laid out on the rock, she barked sharply. Back turned please!

"Don't Change on my account," Kash said, but did as she'd bid him and turned around. He was even less tempted this time than before, knowing what he did. So spent the moment finishing a note to tell Z that werewolves here seemed different than at home.

The Change took a second as usual, readjusting to human senses a few seconds more, and then Angua shook her head and pulled her dress back on. “Hardly. Just on mine, since it’s difficult to communicate with humans when I’m on paws.”

Kash didn't turn around, since she'd not said he could, and replied, "Communicating with humans is difficult no matter what your feet look like."

“Speaking the same language does help, though.” She moved to sit on the edge of the rock, dangling bare feet, probably just in his peripheral vision.

"Maybe. Safe to turn around, since you're not 'on paws'?" he asked and waited for her to give him permission. Picking an unnecessary fight with a werewolf just because he could heal himself if he lost wasn't his style.

“If I’m speaking human language, it’s safe.” At worst, he’d see her naked, and that didn’t bother her. Werewolves spent enough time nude that ‘modesty’ had never really caught on. Clothing was human social language and prevented inconvenient bouncing, that was all.

"You were speaking human language when you told me to turn around," Kash couldn't resist pointing out. He did turn, though, so he could see her face again. Huh. Her eyes were the same as when she was a wolf and her coat was the same color as her hair.

Angua sighed a little and when she spoke her voice was the sing-song of someone who’s had to say the same thing dozens of times in her life. “I don’t mind being seen in either shape, but the transition between is private. If I’m Changing to wolf, wait until I bark. If I’m Changing to human, wait until I talk.”
Kash ignored the sing-song of annoyance. She'd started it with the blindfolds. "I'd ask how I'm supposed to be sure both forms are you, but the eyes and hair are obvious. So--" He shrugged. "Sure. Fine. Whatever."

"Also, if you're close enough to me to worry about it, you'll know. One less girl one more wolf, or vice versa." Angua shrugged. "Of course, it's not likely to come up again. I'll find a new hole now that this one's been claimed."

"And risk having to explain it all to someone new? Seems counterintuitive," Kash observed with a bit of suppressed amusement. "You're not likely to run into me again here anyway. I try somewhere different every night."

“No, I just move whenever I lose a place. It’s far safer.” Angua shrugged. “I can mend rips from teeth and such, but I don’t have enough clothes to risk them getting stolen by people trying to be funny. Or people who think ‘oh, free cloth’. You have no idea how many times I had to buy new armor back in my world.”

"Armor?" Kash blinked, surprised at the turn of the conversation. "Shit, that would be a pain in the ass. And expensive. I hope you tracked the thieves and gave them what-for."

“I was a sergeant in the City Watch,” Angua replied dryly. “There was a limit to how much what-for I could really give. And it was only unlicensed, unprofessional thieves. So I couldn’t even complain to the Guild about the interference with Watch business.”

"Weird choice for a werewolf, but okay." He was getting the sense her world and her werewolves were a lot different than his. "Lawful and lycanthropy don't go together in my world."

Angua shrugged. “It was that, seamstress, or splatter. I saw a poster saying ‘THE CITYE WATCHE NEEDES MEN. BE A MAN IN THE CITYE WATCHE. It was decent regular pay, enough for food and living indoors, so I thought why not? I’d only have something to gain.”

"If you passed as a man," Kash said, tongue and lips curling wry with dark humor as his gaze rolled over her. "Either they City Watch was blind, or you can shapeshift into more than a wolf."
“I did not. I took advantage of a minority hiring initiative.” Angua tossed her head. “To show that the Watch was a modern and forward-looking organization, the Patrician mandated some diversity hires. A dwarf, a troll, and an undead.”

"...you're undead?" Abruptly, Kash looked and felt intensely uncomfortable. She didn't come across as a revenant or evil, so maybe it wasn't the same, but on some level, undead was undead and he was a Life cleric.

Angua pointed at herself. "Werewolf. Anything that doesn't stay dead when you kill it is undead, where I'm from. And I've died... oh, a half dozen times at least. Gunshots, swords, a pitchfork one time."

"Vax doesn't stay dead when you kill him and he's not undead," Kash observed not quite darkly, but still with evident unease. He found himself, abruptly, in the unusual position of actively wanting to speak to the Raven Paladin, or whatever title he went by. "In our world, undead is things that come back after you kill them that definitely aren't still alive."

"Magic and gods are different, that's something else bringing you back. I just come back, it's part of me." Angua shrugged. "It's just a definition. You're not actually going to convince me I'm not what I am, like I'd never convince you you've got black hair."

"I'm not..." Kash shook his head. "Your world and my world are different. Obviously. In my world, you wouldn't be undead. In your world, you are." And it was better for both of them if he could keep that firmly in mind.

Angua just rolled her eyes. "I am what I am no matter where I am. Reality doesn't change just because my location does. Believe me, I've been enough places to know."

Kash gritted his teeth. "Do you want me to feel like I have to try to kill you? Because I was kind of hoping I could avoid that." Since she wasn't likely to get more helpful, he gathered his things and stood.

"I'm fairly certain I haven't actually done anything to warrant killing. If someone existing in a way you don't like warrants killing, that sounds like a you problem, but... no, it doesn't matter much to me. Cut my throat if it'll make you feel better. My heart's in the same place as anybody's and you've got a spear, that'd work." It wasn't a silver spear, she'd already healed a cut from it. "For a few hours, anyway. Leave my head connected to my neck if you feel like being polite."

"That. Was my point." Kash honestly wanted to smack himself in the face for that. She'd come looking to pick a fight and found one. He hadn't wanted one, so he was going to leave. "Maybe next time we meet you won't be so committed to pissing me off, but I'm not holding my breath."

"I doubt it will matter either way." Anyone who had to resort to ignoring reality in order not to be 'forced' into killing a near stranger, whose default was apparently 'I'm going to kill you', was going to be pissed off even if she was the sweetest creature in existence. Which she wasn't.

It was a relief, in a way. Someone reacting normally to the monster. "Have a nice evening."

"Yeah. You too." Kash nodded once and left her to find someone else to pick a fight with.