All up in the blogs sayin' we met at the bar

[pacifisted]

WHO: Trowa Barton, A crowd of NPCs and 14 poor unsuspecting saps all under a curse, and anyone who sees this going on or gets dragged in by accident. ADD YOUR TAGS.
WHERE: Alllllll over the City.
WHEN: Thursday, July 22 (Day 1)
WARNINGS: Large amounts of hideous as the weekend wears on.
SUMMARY: The poor kid pissed off Aphrodite and then told her

Comments

[pacifisted]

Changing bodies doesn't take away his ability to understand spoken languages; he hears what she's saying, but the strange and unfamiliar is never something he's been able to approach without a large degree of paranoia and caution. Although she keeps attempting to reassure him, some part of him retains his training as a soldier, and so he continues to remain careful around this person he doesn't know.

The hand she's offered doesn't seem to be hiding anything that he can see. There are no small needles between the fingers, no lumps in the fabric of her clothing that signify hidden wristlets, and if she's got something deadly on her flesh that transfers by touch or by air then he's already doomed. At this point, he might as well go along with what she wants, while he still has the choice.

The warm cinnamon-red nose presses against the skin of her hand, the creature's nostril's flaring as he breathes in her scent and takes a moment to categorize everything. More plants, more wilderness--so much is green, here; he wonders for a moment if still remembers what other colors are like before scenting her a second time--and then something strikes him that is Wrong. This is a thing that looks almost human, and yet, she doesn't have the smell of one.

Quatre has a kind of fierce and vibrant warmth to him that reads into his scent, something that is predator/prey, meaty and unguarded but dangerous all the same, as if the faint chemical trace that means he has cleaned himself with soaps and shampoos and is supposed to wash away all the natural signs of this feeling or that status has not actually managed to fully erase who the other boy can be when pressed. It always reminds him of the gentle beasts he'd seen on his Run in the early months of this year--the ones that would greatly prefer to graze and be in the company of others, but could batter and break a great cat like himself to pieces when threatened. And sand. He can always smell the sand.

Most humans he's encountered give off something close to this impression.

The woman, however... well, to be frank, she reminds him of Shockwave's iguana, Grimlock. Even that isn't right, but it's the only reference point he has; he's never been crazy enough to go up and try to smell a crocodile.

Trowa backs up, distrustful of what feels like some form of deceit, hackles rising, and growls.

[ofthedream]

Ysera tilts her head slightly as he backs up and growls. She's disappointed that he broke contact. But then it occurs to her what he's noticed.

She laughs softly and warmly and inclines her head ever so slightly to him. "Ah, clever one, you need not fear me, truly." She would never seek to harm him. "It is true, this is not my real form. But that is not yours, either."

"I did not wish to frighten you on our first meeting."

[pacifisted]

...Hm. Then she knows. It doesn't matter how; he's been caught out, and there's no point pretending he's anyone or anything other than who he is. He shakes himself out, the bulky animal's mass thinning out in little more than an instant to the shape of a young man standing upright with his arms crossed, all concealing clothing and long, face-masking bangs.

"First?" Trowa parrots, putting an edge on the word that implied he believed she thought too highly of herself. After all, he'd never agreed to any repeats of the incident.

[ofthedream]

"I have not met you before, and you have not met me before. It is our first meeting. I would remember if we had met before."

She inclines her head politely toward him. "I am Ysera."

[pacifisted]

...Fair enough. He can't argue that point.

"Trowa Barton," he says, nodding his head once, watching her from behind the curtain of hair. "Why are you here?"

The boy didn't waste a lot of time on pleasantries.

[ofthedream]

She smiles again. "I wished to meet you. There are few in this world capable of waking and drawing forth the spirit of their inner beast."

She smiles more fondly, reminiscing a little. "It is like a breath of home in this world of stone and iron sprawls."

[pacifisted]

Trowa frowned, trying to put her words into a kind of sense. Capable of... what, the shapeshifting? That was what brought her? He'd had some unusual dreams about using his powers, like chasing down hulking great bovine beasts or tearing across enormous swaths of land, but this beat most of them by far.

Well. This was obviously just his own mind having a bit of fun with him, so he might as well play along.

"Where was home?"

[ofthedream]

"The Emerald Dream. The world that was, and is."

She tips her head slightly to the side. "Has this City always been your world?"

[pacifisted]

A shake of his head 'no', and a furrowed brow accompany his words as he answers her.

"For a year and a half. That's all."

Wouldn't she--well, he, really, if this was his own imagination--know that? Or was this one of those things he has to figure out himself, like... it's getting confusing, trying to sort these kinds of problems out. The mind has a difficult time trying to work in absolutes when the body is asleep.

"Emerald dream?"

[ofthedream]

"Yes. The Emerald Dream is my domain. It is a beautiful place - even more so now that the Nightmare had been driven back. It is the world untouched by mortal civilization."

She was speaking of more to him than she had to anyone else she'd encountered in this world. She wasn't sure why. But she felt she could speak to him as she could not to other mortals.

And she was so very tired of hiding herself from the mortal masses.

/lives

[pacifisted]

Fortunately for her, Trowa liked to know how to push other people's buttons--and the best way to figure that out was to listen to them and discover what made them tick. Focusing on someone else's story also made it so that they usually wouldn't remember to ask about his. By the time they realized they'd told him everything about themselves and got nothing in return, he was long gone.

Maybe he could do that here.

"Then you aren't a mortal," he replied, making it more of a statement than a question. It was the line of logic she'd provided him, after all--if she was of some form or other, and it was her domain, and her domain hadn't been touched by one... well, the conclusion was obvious.

[ofthedream]

Ysera smiles, amused at his question and his sharp intellect. But she wasn't about to play that particular game with him. Besides, she wanted to know more about him. Even for someone who reminded her of home, Trowa wouldn't get all his questions answered clearly.

"Even gods can die. And I am no god."

"Tell me of your world? I am curious. Is it much like this City?"