recession | scawwy ✦ karlach cliffgate

[ Who needs a pyre when you've got Karlach!!

He does look a little conflicted for a moment. ]

...Right. Thanks.

...

Speak up if your shoulder is bothering you. I've got two hands -- must be better than you trying to reach it with one.

[yeah!!!]

Sure thing. I think it'll be alright, he didn't get me that bad.

But I'll come find you if it gets infected or something. I figure if we're all cut off from whatever it is we can normally do, I've got to watch myself a bit better.

Don't wait until it's infected, come by even if it's still sore. Better to be careful than sorry.

Don't want to go to the old-school solutions for dealing with infections if we can help it.

[a pause]

-- Oh, you mean like chopping it off. Yeah, no. I like my arms.

Yup.

[ Yeah. ]

I'm sure everyone likes having two arms. Even if you don't, you'll learn once you lose one.

[she finds this funny for some reason.

she also looks him over like she's expecting him to somehow be missing an arm even though she's been talking to him this entire time.]

[ Wouldn't it be so funny if he was missing an arm.

No yeah, it's the only reason why he's able to turn his robe into bandage strips. This would be really hard with only one.

Her looking him over like that makes him weirdly nervous though for some reason, doing this cloth fragment-making chore with More Purpose. ]

[yeah she just misses his missing arm the whole game like we did with owner

anyway, she's pretty perceptive, so when she notices him getting nervous she knocks it off. she does not however have tact, so:]

You don't like people looking at you much, huh.

...It wasn't that, but I guess you're probably not wrong.

But not a lot of people like being stared at too closely, right?

Guess not. I'm used to it.

[tilts her head.]

Oooh, you're just a nut to crack. I wanna ask you all these questions, but you're about to take off like an imp that's sat on a geyser.

Then chalk it up to my lack of experience of the same.

...I'm not going to flee, and I have the power of agency. If you asked a question I don't want to answer, all I'd have to do is refuse.

Well, alright. Then what was it that had you fidgety just now?

Just was wondering what you were looking at...

Like you were expecting me to be missing an arm myself.

You never know. Maybe you had a prosthetic I missed, yeah? You've already got the -- [gestures at his eye.]

We match a bit, either way. [thuds her fist against her chest, which makes a metal sound. clank clank.]

[ He does kind of turn over his lesser dominant hand, flexing the fingers and looking at it. Nope, flesh and bone.

Then he glances up at the noise. What the fuck? ]

I wasn't sure how to ask, given I'm not sure how much of anything is just due to your default constitution...

The glowing chest isn't typical then?

Nah. Not for tieflings. The tail, teeth, skin, eyes - yeah, that's all tiefling business, but the engine's all me, baby.

[she says it cheerfully enough, but if he's looking at her tail, it's wrapped around her ankle.]

An... engine? So it's artificial?

[ He does note the position of tail. He's not an expert on that particular body language, but he can read a vibe. He's treading carefully. ]

Yeah. Here, shh.

[and if they sit in silence for a moment, he can probably hear the soft chugging of the engine in her chest. it's that sort of steam train type sound, with thudding pedals and steam vents.]

... It's handy, sometimes.

[ He sits quietly, letting that sound go on.

The sound of a steam train...

It feels so far away by now. ]

...

Can't think of anything handy to be had from a missing eye. Not much there in terms of similarity.

[she flops down and pulls her knees to her chest, peering at him.]

Guess not, but we're both missing something important is more what I was after.

[ Oh... ]

Can't deny that one.

[ She's so tall even when sitting. ]

...

How'd yours happen? You can refuse to answer too, of course...

[she is SO tall. all of you are so short.

there's... a pause, as she thinks about how she wants to answer.]

I got sold to the devil. A specific one, actually - her name's Zariel, so if you ever hear that name, turn and fucking run. You want nothing to do with her, promise.

[a little huff of a laugh.]

Cross my heart and hope to die.

Let's do neither of those, shall we? Keep our hearts beating and alive.

I'll keep it in mind... I try to steer away from anything occult these days anyway.

Nothing but bad news... bad news all around...

[ Quietly, but sympathy does leech into his otherwise normally flat and exhausted voice. ]

[keep our hearts beating and alive, huh. there's another pause, and she reaches to pull her tail away from where it's still curled tightly around her ankle. none of that, now.]

Well, hey. It's not all bad news. [she says, glancing at him with a little smile.]

We've got good people here. New friends, new allies. New memories, even. That's something. Nice to know there's still a little bit of goodness in the world, right?

[ Man. He wishes he had a cigarette right now. Lowe stop playing smokers 'this is the second one in mg' it somehow feels like I've played a million. ]

...

Sure, yeah. I can agree with that.

It's the little things... so hang in there.

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