2023.03.21 Alien Emotions

2023.03.21 Alien Emotions
A heart to heart between two alien creatures
IC Date	03.21.23
IC Time	Afternoon
Players	Wulfra, Trishna
Location	Windstorm Isle - Meadows
Spheres	Bygone

Coming in from the south, silhouetted over the now sunny sky, a large black bird reels in its wings and lands in the meadow.

A few moments after the bird lands there is another addition to the meadow. A black stag emerges from he woods, pacing slowly, its steps strange. Deliberate. Head high like it might be scanning for something. A decidedly undeer like gait in its steps..They're moving towards the bird. Slowly..

The bird lifts up its wings, turning its long, white-feather-tipped head around as its black feathers star tto go hazy, smoky... but then one of its side eyes spots the black stag, and it quickly goes still, staring intensely at it.

IT SEES YOU TRISHNA! BE VERY STILL! The stag freezes. Staring back at the bird. Eyes wide, glassy, and devoid of color. No movement. Just stares. Waiting for the bird to move. Waiting to charge. Flee? Waiting to do something! Its cross species stare off,it would seem..

The bird's head twitches this way and that, and it eventually, it breaks the staring contest, slowly starting to walk towards the great black stag to get a better look....

<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======---> Trishna rolls Intelligence + Biology vs 6 for 4 successes. <-------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============------------->

Why is it getting closer?! Trishna isn't very well versed in 'real world' applications of her knowledge but she was fairly sure tiny things did not usually trot up to larger stalking ones in nature. Trishna yields ground. One step back... Then they rear back on back hooves, slam the front one into the ground in a warning to the bird. Go away, bird! I was just going to EAT you okay?! This was the first time something she had been hunting had done anything but flee from them.

The bird's gaze looks from the stag's face to its stamping hooves, as if examining the gesture very closely... then right back to its face. And it just *continues* walking forwards, though still about 20ft away, ever closer, seemingly showing no fear at all.

The deer snorts loudly and lowers its head, snout in the dirt now so it can be eye level with the bird. Now the stag is pushing forward. She has no intention of backing down now. Fuck this bird! Who does it think it is?! How DARE IT! They'd keep pushing forward until the bird gave up or they where break-to-snout...

The two blackened creatures slowly trot up to each other in such a strange display that, if any bystanders were here, would surely have them scratching their heads, backing away slowly, or pulling out their phone cameras. Closer, closer, closer they get... until there's only about 10ft separating them. Right when the curious stag is *sure* that the stupid bird will go away... it instead suddenly explodes into a cascade of cloudy black, like its feathers had disintegrated into dust... and in its place, a black stag just like the one the bird was facing, albeit more malnourished and thin looking, appears.

The original stag bucks up, recoils... Then it does something hard to describe. Its flesh ripples, the meat along its spine peels open like someone undoing zipper, revealing slick, oily blackness within. No bones. No flesh. Just void. Deep and black. Gossamer threads of ink bloom from the 'wound' filling the air with thousands upon thousands of impossibly thin strands that wave and writhe about in the breeze for a scant second before they weave themselves together, forming a large black bird almost identical to the one that had just turned into a stag...There is a moment where the new 'bird' is projected, connected like a puppet to the now melting deer... But its only a few seconds before the body mass has shifted, as if sucked through those thousands of tendrils like liquid through a straw to condense into the bird that is 'hovering' with powerful flaps of its wings before letting out a harsh CAAW

The newly-formed stag's fur sways in the wind, silky, shiny, and black--almost as if it were wet. Its eyes shine with an otherwordly fire as it stares blankly at the changing creature, letting out a huff in response. It looks down to its own hooves after, poorly mimicking the same stomping movement the previous incarnation of the stag did earlier. Following that, its bony, macabre frame shakes as it lets out a deep, unnatural-sounding whinny-moo right back at the 'bird'.

The bird flaps and flutters, still hovering, though its spot was wobbly, and eventually he drops to the ground. Straight down in a decidedly unbirdlike maneuver. "ARE YOU THE NEW DRAGON?" The voice is booming, again, several overlapping human voices ranging from light and girly to deep manly booms. "ARE ARE YOU AN INTERLOPER?!" These seemed to be the only options for Trishna. A denizen of the island? Or something that must be... Removed.

The stag's eyes go wide as it hears the definitely not-bird start to yell. The throat of the stag-creaturee goes a bit sludge-like, fur around it wicking ever more before it speaks with a broken, half stag-half growly voice. "It is... Trishna... yes. I am... Wulfra... yes." Its head tilts. "Are you... trying the forms of these creatures... as well?"

"Wulfra.." The bird says before its body melts into a thick, dripping sludge that oozes into a thick puddle, the puddle then twisting and lifting upwards, forming into a pale young woman. Shes small, dark in the features that aren't bone-white, eyes like a shark. They are nude. Not that it matters. Because they seem to have absolutely no describable genitals. Not even nipples. Barbie doll smooth like a mannequin. "Trishna, yes. You are... Sarks friend? Or has he simply taken you in on charity." She sounds almost smug...Lets not forget /you're/ the charity case here, Trish!

The stag, if it could would smile... but, soon, its wispy fur fully starts to sublimate into smoke, the flesh of the creature melting into sludge within the smog until the two are indistinguishable before the shape comes to form a more uniform column-like shape. Then... the smog clears, revealing a 'human' woman with pale, never-been-sun-touched skin and black-as-the-night-hair... the blackness and smoke condensing into clothes unlike the naked one before her. Only *then* can she give the toothy smile, eyes like that of an ambush predator. "Friend... yes... I think that is the correct word. Tell me... where are you from?"

Trishna stares without blinking. No rise and fall of the chest, curls bobbling and weaving in a breeze not nearly strong enough to make them move in such a fashion, almost like tentacles or the multi-fanged locks of a Medusa. "My first memory was in a country called Afghanistan." Trishna states slowly. She sounds unsure. The look on her face a deeply perplexed and concerned one. "...Where do you hail from, Wulfra?"

Wulfra stares blankly at Trishna, as if they triggered some kind of deep, forgotten memory. Curiously, they don't seem to breathing either. "Well... I am from somewhere very, very far... a wasteland. So much, much different than here... of smog, dredged up black rivers, scorching, hungering flames... only barren, scorched peaks reached the sky."

"When I was first dragged into the sun, we thought it would consume is. The plains of our home were vast. Hot. Death thick in the air. We know of wastelands. We know of scorched earth.." Trishna says softly, voice growing lower as she speaks. They aren't bragging. No. It is something they recount in a grim tone. "Did you... Flee? Do you seek a better existence here, then?"

Wulfra lets out a huff of black smoke, despite being in human form. "Yes... I did. A... human... a special one... came and... showed me there was something else. He showed me pictures, but it was hard to believe... I knew only my dreams and buried visions." She glances up to the sun, squinting, before sighing. "I sought a... better existence indeed. But it strange...."

"It is very strange.... Everything is so fixed. So set in a way. So soft and so hard and so sharp and so harmless all at once. Giants of steele that shatter like glass... The human world is... Confusing, at times. i has taken me a long time to learn to navigate it... I had made a .." She trails off, scowling. "..A life for myself. It is quaint. But I walk amongst them now. There is... Room. Room to grow. Room to become. Room for... A better existence."

Wulfra ponders this, looking over in the direction of the city. "Before I met the human... there was just being. No name, no she... just me. He told me I needed that, that I was, and that I would be in order to function. A name... a shape... a rigid stone mold. I did not get why... but I did it... but... now I see, I think. It... tugs at my churning core... things I've never felt. It is... overwhelming. My strength carries only so far...."

Trishna stares with cold eyes that do not betray the flux of emotion inside her. If she had tearducts she might be getting watery eyes. She'd heard those words, such similar sentiments, pushing from her own freshly formed throat. "The knowledge of ones own existence is a great burden. And a beautiful gift...A drive to Become. To be. We are still Becoming what We Shall Be." Trishna says softly. "...You speak as I feel." Trishna adds in an almost flustered yet hostile tone. "...We have never known from where we truly come. We do not belong /here/. But we will make here accept us.."

Wulfra looks away, a rumbling growl escaping under her breath as her face clenches up. "I... do not know what I am feeling. This is not my world, but... my world is not my home... it is not what they tell me a home is. I was not *living* as they say." She looks back at them, holding her hand up and moving the fingers around. "How... how could they ever accept us?"

"There is magic in this world, Wulfra... There clings to the edges true /wonder/. It is in the hearts of those touched by this... That... I have found acceptance.." She says softly, taking a few slow steps closer to Wulfra. "..I can help you? If you need it." she says, lifting a hand to clutch it to her stomach just below her breast. "I know how it gnaws. The pit than can open within you. The feeling of Otherness.." Trishna is not a great speaker. Its obvious from the hitches and pauses. But they're trying to muster up some sort of emotion in the form of words. Alien concepts all around.

"Help... a foreign concept as well, until I met the human." Wulfra glances down at Trishna's hand, not pulling away, but rather having her head slump down, hair shadowing her face as she looks tired, beaten. "I know it is something you can ask for, but for some reason... I cannot bring myself to with them. Not in this way. But you... I... yes... I would like help." As she says that, the place where Trishna's hand lies starts to smoke... edges around what's covered sublimating into the air as the underneath shifts with gossamer threads poking out of sludge and shifting scales.

Trish slinks back at the smoke, staring at their hand for a moment before nodding slowly. "Have you tried yet? To wrap yourself in the human guise and walk amongst them enmass? I find the city is good for this. So many of them. So many they do not see eachother. Only the throng and pulsing throb of accumulated flesh... Do you have a surname chosen? A lie about your place of birth? They /will/ ask these things."

The human flesh quickly returns when they pull their hand away, Wulfra not even seeming to notice it had happened. "I... no. Sark told me something about having to make up... everything. Just for things to work. What is a surname?"

Trishna nods once. "Yes. They have many customs. Many regulations. I will...Need to explain Implied Social Contracts..." She frowns again. "A sure name is a second name. That denotes your parents bloodline. Blood ties are very important to The Colony." A pause, a correction. "The Humans."

Wulfra growls to herself, stepping away from Trishna, turning around, and letting their human skin go up in smoke while their flesh melts into a mass of overlapping scales, silky fibres, and sharp edges. Now in their dragon form, they fall to their belly under a shadow of the trees, limbs splayed out in exhaustion. Only then do they glance at Trishna again, multiple sets of alien eyes barely open. "How am I ever supposed to keep track of all this...."

"It is hard. At first. But it gets to be... More of a second nature. I like to keep my faces separate. I am... Not me... When I am this." She says, making a sweeping motion to the human body. "I am Nassia'Trishna. When I am a snake? I am not me... I am not Trishna... We are Many. We are Seperate. But we are never anything but ourselves, are we?" She moves to sit next to Wulfra then. "May I touch your scales?" She asks softly, eyes narrowing slightly as if unsure of her own question.

Wulfra the smoky dragon does not even turn their eyes to look at them, just giving a low rumble of acceptance. "Touch? Yes... you may."

It is a light touch. Not pressing or fondly or rough. No, its a single finger press..A drag of said finger and a low grumble from Trishna. "Curious.." They mutter. "Tactile sensation is... Difficult for me." They think out loud. "Do you have this issue as well? Or do the scales transmit feeling as a humans skin does?"

Wulfra's head moves slightly so they can look at what the not-quite-human is doing. "Tactile sensation? I cannot feel much of anything with you touching me *that* softly. I... suppose the human flesh is a lot softer, putting on their garb over it for the first time felt quite strange...."

Trish furrows her brows slightly and draws back the finger to press a splayed over one of the scales as that low rumbling sound of curiosity pushes from somewhere deep in their chest. "I do not like human clothing.It feels... Strange. So disconnected. Can you not form your scales into an approximation?" Trishna asks, as if molding your flesh into something that looks and feels like a sweater should be easy.

Wulfra ponders the thought for several moments. "I developed a technique from the *other* way... I figured out how to incorporate things into myself. I could probably mimic something, yes, but it could not be separated... not in the way they like to do often. You don't see those clothes I was wearing before on the ground now, do you? They are still with me... just one... as things should be."

Trishna nods slowly. "I dislike that..." She murmurs. "I have stored things within my flesh, when I must... But I find it..." Eyes narrow. "...Uncomfortable." A nod and a soft hnnn. "What are you?" Trishna asks softly. "Do you know?" There is a... need... to that question. Something gnawing deep in it.

"What... am I?" The black, alien dragon's claws dig into the soil as they think on that. "The... human told me I was a dragon, but... I do not think one word of this tongue could ever be accurate. Especially with how... unusual I am, even compared to Sark... and the others I have seen. I came into being with nothing... no one... just the churning, oily, scarred..." she stops mid sentence, a growl caught in her throat. "I do not know. I do not know why I came from there. I cannot explain it, and therefore myself."

Trishna nods slowly and then very suddenly presses against the dragons side. Her 'skin' is cold. Soft and rubbery. Like a latex stretched thin over a human frame. "...You are like me.." She says softly. She isn't...But God Damn is Trishna isn't so thirsty for any clues to her own origin that she won't grasp at straws. "...We are without true form... All you see is lies. We are darkness.... We are change in flux... We are nothing, yet all we care is to Be.."

Wulfra wraps her tail around, curling up in a circular shape so that she simultaneously hugs Trishna gently between her tail and her side where Trishna presses against but also such that Wulfra can look right at Trishna. "You said you came from Afghanistan... and that you knew of wasteland, of scorching... what is it like? And... do you have any idea of when you came from in the human time frame?"

Trishna shakes her head slowly. "Before... I did not have thought, as I have come to know it. I do not know how long the mass that comprises me exist. For a day? For a thousand years? I lived in the blackness. My only kin the rats.. I WAS them..For a time... It was all I knew, so pressed myself into a shape they would accept." she says with a scoff. "After so long of nothing... Anything... Was of comfort." She frowns then, thinking, almost unreactive to the tail and the hug as she's shifted and moved. It matters not. "When the soldiers came to the depths of my caves the sound of their weapons drew me... It was when I merged with my first human that concepts started to become... Solid. Clear. But it was not long before they came, more and more, with brighter lights and horrible sounds... And.." They trail off then, falling silent.

<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======---> Wulfra rolls Perception(3) + Lore Bygone(3) (6 dice) vs 6 for 3 successes. <-------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============------------->

Wulfra listens intently as Trishna describes their home, their life, their everything. Their fiery eyes eventually close, not in sleepiness, but rather in deep thought. Even Trishna can get the sense that there's something more going on... the long, gossamer fibres making up the dragon's mane blowing this way and that seemingly at random, the smoke swirling from their nostrils seeming to form many different half-shapes in the air. When they finally open their eyes again, some time after Trishna's last words, they give them a knowing look. "Darkness... flux... Entropy... Prime... when that is all you are, what it is to be and to not be can only be defined by something else... the giver of the form. I... I understand you. You may not see, but now you know what it is to *be*. What is lofty can also be simple... did you mimic the humans, or did the humans mimic you?"

<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======---> Trishna rolls Enigmas + Intelligence vs 6 for -1 successes. <-------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============------------->

Trishna frowns slightly. it is the best face she knows to express confusion. Head cants to the side. "Entropy... Prime... Do you know these things? They are alien to me. Strange. I know the words as they are used. I.." A frustrated grunt. "We /are/ and that is ALL that matters." She declares in a frustrated hiss, lips peeling back in a snarling sneer that shows off far too many teeth. More than should fit in any human mouth. Trishna gleamed... Something from that... But it confuses her more than anything. And god knows she'd never tilt her hand to the depths of her ignorance on purpose.

Wulfra pushes her snout forwards and bumps it up against Trishna's head as if to say 'hey, here's another thing, don't think about that previous thing'. "They are only alien as words, not as being... but do not worry. You... have done so very well to get to where you are now... and it inspires me." She gives Trishna a very close look of her many eyes, all swirling with a mesmerizing flame that seems to stretch farther and farther back the more one looks into them, contrasted only by the inky darkness of the scales. "We may not *know* our true origin, but now... we know each other."

Trishna stares back. Her own eyes black pools. At least, at first... But the only they stare into each others eye the more Wulfra might notice her own gaze being reflected. First in a deep, reflective way. Like staring into mirrors..But the images seemed to 'settle' after a moment. Burning the same patterns and swirls into Trishnas eyes in an approximation of Wulfra's, only without that 'depth' to them. A Hollow imitation that happens subconsciously. "..Yes. We know." She says softly before very suddenly standing up. "I have to go." she blurts, a well of something swelling up in her chest that she did /not/ like and did /not/ understand. Ugh. Feelings. Body crunches silently, explodes outwards again and a black raven is taking to the sky.

Wulfra does not make any attempt to stop or follow Trishna... instead remaining oddly calm. The moment itself stretched on beyond time... and within it, Trishna was seen. They felt. And, more than anything, they know what it is like to be oh so tormented by such feelings.

Feeling that contentment, Wulfra lays her head down to slumber.