paradigmish | a post for psl/etc things

[ She's perfectly warm, even in her (objectively, for the weather) light coat.

But she taps a few more buttons, and the teleporter gives a happy little jingle distorted and by a speaker that looks to have been crept over with ice sometime in the last few decades. And she goes to step onto the platform, assuming he'll stick close. ]

You could say~ I'm a fan of old stories. And how have you come across the name Mailea~? My friend.

[He will stick close, actually, thanks! He closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head like he's trying to clear it; he's starting to lose his hold on the glamour, azure scales blooming across his temples.]

I have heard of it as well. [Four hundred years ago Kind Of. He wasn't even in his Vidyadhara form; he'd slunk to one of the more remote springs as the Azure Dragon, and soaked there petulantly for twenty years.] Where are we going?

I assumed you'd want to warm up. Your heart rate is low.

[ And as if on cue, the teleporter finishes calibrating the two of them upon it-- and with a sharp zippy noises, they're suddenly somewhere new. It leaves the skin feeling weirdly tingly; clearly an old, obsolete model.

Where it deposits them is a spring that's clearly been long abandoned by the few who remain to profit from the other bathhouses. The pool here is large, certainly enough for a few dozen people, and the glacial ceiling thin; there's a hole in the thinnest part, where the sky is visible, and the rest pure and clear and crystalline. The air is warm here, but not too humid, until one gets too close to the rising steam.

The lighting around the edges of the pool and few pathways strangely remains lit-- perhaps some element of magic present in the water, forgotten to time. ]

Go gently, my friend~. You wouldn't want to injure yourself. The water is very hot, near the vents.

[Dan Feng stalks to the edges of the pool - it's hot, and perfect, but.

He turns to his benefactor, makes his way over to her - and around, so she's between him and the water.]

A private hideaway?

[And he starts moving, to back her into the edge.]

[ She smiles, but keeps a careful distance between them as he begins to crowd her back. ]

Of course. Your scales are showing~...

[He lifts a hand to his face, brows drawing down - and crowds her further, anyway, the glamour melting off, horn and tail and blue-ringed eyes glowing in even in the light.]

You don't seem surprised.

[Frankly speaking, even for a cold-blooded creature, he looks like a frozen corpse. His lips are blue, movements sluggish, and there's frost still crusted around his horns.]

I could smell it~ the moment you entered my space.

[ She stops, backed to the edge of the pool, her tail brushing the surface of it and sending little ripples across its surface.

She does seem a bit surprised, though, when he's fully revealed. ]

... one of Long's?

[Unfortunately he has already bolted close and made the attempt to shove her into the water right after she's asked the question, so--]

[ Ah, so it's like that!

Perhaps strangely, she lets herself be shoved, falling the short way down to the water's surface...

But her tail lashes out, curling tight around Dan Feng's ankle, to drag him with her with equally powerful force. ]

[They tumble into the water with an almighty splash, and Dan Feng kind of just... floats there, submerged, before surfacing. It's not to breathe, but to look for his benefactor, if she's melted or- something, that would say this pool is not safe for organic lifeforms.]

[ By the time he surfaces she's already moved to stand by the edge, removing her clothing and squeezing out the excess water. She looks over her shoulder at him, with a bit of a pout. ]

Must you have~? What poor self-control for a dragon.

Excuse me?

[His white coat billows behind him in the water. It's like watching a flower unfurl, with a really offended bee in the middle of it.]

You cannot blame me for being careful, impudent thing.

As if I did not want to bathe as well~... What a terrible child you are.

[ wetly drops her coat onto the stone, before turning to him. The only notable unnatural mark on her body is a large pit of a scar below a breast; evidently from some sort of large impalement. ]

Undress. You look ridiculous.

A child? I beg your pardon? I will have you- know --

[What is she doing. Wait. When did she get naked. Wait. W-

He flails - sinks a little, floats again with his coat caught on a horn.]

You can't do that!

[ She stares at him, brows raised. And then smiles, advancing on him. ]

Clothing is filthy and not to be permitted in the pools~ you know. It's bad enough that you came in unclean to begin with~ but I was so very worried for your health.

[He will NOT be undressed by entities seemingly governing bodies of steaming water thank you?

Dan Feng floats back further away from the edge- his tail winds up and through the water, but he is too confused about what was happening to decide how to visit violence upon this hot spring.]

I do not really care about what is not allowed in here. [He kind of does, like with all bodies of water.] You took me here and that is your problem.

Acting as if you were not about to freeze to death out there~...

[ But she pauses, watching him move away, before shrugging and sinking herself down into the water, up to her fur ruff. ]

Or perhaps not~? The more I look at you, the more alike we seem. Undress, little one, if not for the spring then so you don't~ freeze solid when you leave.

[He already has frozen to death, thrice in fact, and it was extremely unpleasant to thaw and refreeze considering muscle and organs and tissue were soft things that grew sharp ice crystals. But she doesn't need to know this.

He drifts to the shore, hauls himself up on the edge. He then shrugs off the coat, and extremely pointedly wicks the water out of it with cloudhymn, before folding it neatly next to hers. In fact, he will dry her coat and fold it too, only because it is extremely annoying to see it crumpled like that.]

I am older than you. Stop that.

Oh, are~ you?

[ She watches him with half-lidded eyes, her head a curiously pale spot above the steaming water. It's not that she doesn't know, really, but it's fun to tease.

The skill is interesting-- and indicative. She hums. ]

It would be interesting if that were true. I had not realized the Vidyadhara counted their previous years among their current ones.

We do not, but even for my species, I am- far along in the years.

[He starts taking off his clothes, folding them neat in the same way, and he has to pause between taking off all his accoutrements on account of the mara making his muscles spasm painfully as it tore them apart and rebuilt them.]

Well, how old are you?

[ There's no response, for a long moment.

Then a touch; a flat palm, soft even with the scales, laid over one of the spasming patches of muscles. (in the brief moment before he'll flip shit, anyway.) ]

Tell me. What is it you seek on this dead world?

[That patch is on his upper shoulder, and he tenses immediately. He can't quite tell what it is but there is something about her that reminds him of Yaoshi but then again that might just be because most things remind him of Yaoshi because of Their unending grace and affection and Their hobby of not allowing him to rest ever fucking again-]

I told you. I am just passing by.

[His hand shoots up to clench around her wrist violently, hard enough to make a normal human's bones creak.]

[ The twinging muscle soothes, under her touch, the power all too familiar to him. It is the same, in some ways; the warmth of life unmistakable.

She lets him grab her wrist, smiling kindly. A normal human would certainly be yowling with pain, but she remains still and calm, even if her soft skin starts to visibly mark under his grip.

Her voice has lost some of its lilt, still pleasant but soft and even. ]

And wander the wastes like a lost foal, rather than come and go the moment your ship restocked. I see all who enter this world, and none stay so long as you-- or succumb to the freeze and return as themselves, and not~ monsters born of the Corruption.

[Dan Feng, whose existence bordered on divine, did not fare well with other creatures like him. All of her little tells added up to someone who was really uncomfortably like the god who unmade him, and she invoked the same disgust-attraction-worship Yaoshi did.]

The Ruin Author has no power over me. [Did- did she see him - how did she know - half-naked, he leans into her touch, like a lover, and tries to break her wrist completely.]

Perhaps not power~, but--

[ The words die off as he snaps her wrist-- with a muffled and sickening crack her clawed hand twisting at an unnatural angle.

The reaction this time is swift; heedless of her injury she uses his grip on her to twist his arm between both of hers, aiming to return his action twofold and snap his elbow backwards. ]

What a way to refer to Their Mercy.

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