bolderfell | Prismatica Inbox

Ah...is that what it is. Green and red.

[He's breathing more slowly now, but his tone is still calm and alert, however meditative he might be otherwise. He's not letting himself drowse, not through this; oh, no, he's making sure he's roused enough to focus keenly on each slender sensation.]

Or is it something else, besides the colors?

[He says, more as an aside than an answer:] Maybe you would like the Riverlands.

[Since he's so fond of FISHING.]

It's... 'breathtaking' doesn't get it across. No matter how many times I cross those lands, I always... Sometimes I think I could never steal another thing, just look at them forever, and feel like that was treasure enough.

Don't be difficult.

[That's what he says by way of reply, because it's easy and it's light, and it spares him the opportunity to just sort of lie still and let the implications of Therion's words wash over him. The places he reminds him of, he'd said, and now I could just look at them forever, and it would be treasure enough.

If only he could capture this moment in solidified form, crystallize it in Kuwabara's place, preserve it in some way that he could pocket and carry with him. Somehow, he can't help but feel as though these words are his own equivalent of Therion's foxflower dagger, and what a shame it is that words are so much more transient than a weapon.]

I would let you, I think. If you wanted to look for that long.

[His voice is growing softer and softer.]

I should've stopped him. I should've known he would try to be a hero. But I didn't see it, and now...this.

[Therion ties off the end of the braid again, lets one hand rest beneath it, loosely cupped at the back of Kurama's skull, and leans over him a little so he can stroke his other hand between Kurama's shoulder blades.]

...I've only heard of people coming back from it. It doesn't last.

[He and Reimi and that girl selling to-foo at the market all made it. They all had worried people to pull them out of it, to soften the stone once more. Kurama's friend, whoever he is, has Kurama. So it won't be forever that Kurama's stuck with a hard, glittering statue of his heroic, worrisome friend.

Therion says it seriously, offers the knowledge he has as fact, not comfort. 'He'll get through it' is a hope. 'Everyone else has' is truth, more solid, less colored by what he wants for Kurama.]

Once he's back, you'll get to lecture him all you want for causing so much trouble.

Small favors.

[That's an awfully cynical answer considering he appreciates the reassurance more than he could possibly let on. It's just not so easy to let go of the stress and frustration he's got pent up, without finding an avenue for it somewhere.

Behind his closed eyes, the tension shifts to irritation with himself; that nagging youko voice in the back of his mind sneering gone soft and housepet and see what caring does to you. He knows better than to put stock in any of it, for all that it discolors the soft hues of the mood for a few fleeting moments.

He's allowed — this, whatever this is; fitting words to it would only mar it somehow. But he's allowed it. He doesn't have to justify it. It's neither selfish hedonism nor crumbling weakness.

However contrary it is to his nature, to his need to control and manipulate and decide, he doesn't have to do anything but sit still and breathe right now.]

You do, you know. What you said earlier — you do make it easier. On me.

Edited 2020-09-12 18:09 (UTC)

[Therion's hand pauses, briefly, and then comes back up to rub at the base of Kurama's neck.]

...It's what I'm going for.

[No getting Kurama's bangs into the braid, of course, so they're there across his forehead for Therion to toy with idly, now.]

Think you're the only one who's ever said something like that and didn't mean it at my expense. ...So I don't mind.

[He's quiet a little while, focused on the petting — because what else could he call it, really, except petting. His limbs feel heavy, weighted with tiredness and worry that has yet to unknot from his body. Funny how he felt much the same with the shimaneki sprouting in his veins, when the cause behind this malaise is something entirely benign.]

Can I ask you something, and have you give me a true answer? I'll pay for it in kind, or gift you something you want. All I ask is that it be the truth, not just something I might want to hear.

[...]

Sure. I can do that.

[Dangerous, dangerous. But Therion never was the best at lying, anyway. Not like this.]

Fire away.

[There's a beat of hesitation, just a fraction of it, and it makes him laugh softly.]

Nothing compromising. I promise.

[There was once a demon world plant, he muses vaguely, that made kitsune tell the truth. Foxes had cautioned their kits about it. Beware the scarlet berries of the knife-leaved plant, if you don't want to lose your tails — or worse. He'd sought it out when he'd grown powerful enough, hunted it to extinction. He'd thought he was so clever.]

I only wanted to know if anyone else makes you think of those places. Your Cliftlands, your Riverlands. Or are they just mine.

[Ah. Therion glances up to gather his thoughts, to sift out the truth of them.]

...One of the people with me, he's from the Riverlands. Born and bred there. I hear them in him every time he talks. Which is a lot.

[That warm, meandering ease, the waters' life-giving generosity, are so much part of Alfyn Greengrass, Therion can't easily unbraid the two.

But when he thinks of Bolderfall, of the red canyon passes at dawn, of a sky so high and distant between the towering walls of rock, each breath fills one's lungs with a desire to reach, to climb, to dare the scree and loose edges for freedom...]

The Cliftlands are all yours, though.

The Cliftlands, then. Good.

[Red stone, in different hues, so that when the light catches them just right, the whole world seems to set aflame. He'll remember that, each and every word in sequence like the combination to a treasure chest. When he repeats them all, in the proper sequence, spaced just right and fitted together properly, that vision of Therion's country will be unlocked.]

If I ever find my way to your mortal plane, that's where you'll find me.

[Okay, where? But in a sentence, Kurama's worked himself into the scenery of the whole region. As long as wherever he looks, Therion's eyes meet the rocks of the Cliftlands, Kurama could be there, in the world of this hypothetical visitation. It's... a sweet concept, really.

So his amusement gets diverted into an unexpected smile instead of a snort.]

Heh. You know, I'd like that. Have to show you around. ...Be interesting to see how you and Heathcote would get along.

[The politest, most self-assured, incredible bastards he knows. He scratches the top of Kurama's head again, pleased.]

Where should I go if I end up in your world first?

[Well, that's certainly a nice feeling. But Therion raises an interesting question — where would he direct Therion, if ever he were to find his way back to the dimension Kurama calls home? Not Spirit World, for certain. Makai might be better, but...no, all the human skills in the world still won't last him long in the demon realm.

That leaves the human world, and if that's how it is, then —]

There's a mountain named after me. It'll make it easy for you to navigate to.

[Unbeknownst to him, beneath Therion's fingers, strands of his hair are starting to turn silver-white.]

[Well, that's something Therion notices immediately, busy as he still is with stroking it. His movements slow a moment before he slides a finger under one of the silver-shimmering strands, lifting it across the red to see it better.]

...Kurama? Your hair's changing color.

[Like, not to alarm you, dude, but.]

...Ah.

[It takes him a minute before he's able to puzzle out the why of what's happened; the what is already self-explanatory. But upon reflection, he eventually concludes that it must be a combination of factors, the moonlacing to fuel his demon energy combined with the stress he's yet to be able to release, combined with the fact that he's consciously let his guard down and relaxed his own iron control of himself...

That's probably it, he thinks, and reminds himself not to let it get too far out of hand.]

If it's silver, then you needn't worry. Odd as it may sound, it's an inadvertent side effect of the fact that what you're doing is helping.

[...]

If it's a color other than silver, then I'll start worrying.

[Okay, cool. Kurama's not alarmed, Therion's no longer alarmed, alarm is not a state they have to be in right now. So long, Montgomery, Alarmbama.]

Yeah, it's silver.

[He was worried it had something to do with him, some new Cordis influence he didn't know about--because it is Cordis, this time, by the sky's account as well as his body's own reckoning--because the color coming in looks so like his own. He watches the change, following the streaks of it with deft, curious fingers until they join the braid, skipping down to see where they emerge at the end of it.]

Won't look half bad on you if it goes all the way.

Do you want to see what it looks like, when it goes all the way?

[It'd hardly be difficult. Not like this. Really it'd almost be too easy to do it — though he's not altogether sure what might come of it, if Therion were to meet the Spirit Fox side of him in a time like this.

On one hand, keeping it from him feels like keeping secrets. On the other...he likes being human around Therion. Will it change something, if suddenly he swings the other way?]

I'll wind up looking not unlike a Cordis fox, myself.

Sure.

[There's that saying, of course, about curiosity and cats. This time the petting is blatantly a scritchie up there at the top of Kurama's head.]

But only if it means you're having a good time. I like you just fine the way you are. No need to change on my account.

[Something something "you slipping into something more comfortable?" etc.]

You might as well see it now. You may encounter me in that form sometime later, unexpectedly...and doing it now would likely save us some awkward questions in the moment.

[These days, it's never hard to reach for that part of Youko inside of him. It's never difficult to embrace the wellspring of power that changes his form; in a way, it feels like coming home.

(He doesn't like that it feels that way. Home is a place with a warm kitchen and glass on the floor. Home is not the wilds of Makai, not any longer.)

But he embraces the power, and lets his form shift. Even lying down, the fact that he gains about a foot in his legs is immediately apparent; so too are the softly-furred ears that sprout from his head, the claws that grow on his nails, the way his hair bleaches instantly to silver-white.

And then, of course, there's the tail. No mistaking that. The change in his eyes would be similar, but for the fact that he's keeping them closed.]

There.

[Now his voice rumbles deep with the experience and severity of ages.]

This is as I was, centuries ago.

[He's so much bigger. That and the claws, the change in his voice, it all hisses this is a different person in Therion's uncertainly pricking ear, and he's a totally different beast. Redheaded Kurama, attractively dangerous as he is, never makes him feel as though a large, untamed animal's deigned to sprawl in his lap. Like touch would much more naturally be answered with a flash of those claws or teeth. He feels it keenly, now, as a wild, improbable grace to be met with closed eyes and steady breathing instead.

But that shock-pale hair still pulls into the braid Therion plaited, the round, four-stranded rope as familiar to him as his lockpicks. As he runs his hand across its length and picks the end of it up to weigh in his palm, it's still his handiwork gleaming up at him, silver caught neatly in a tough elastic band.]

And now.

[Couldn't say why it matters to him that Kurama hear it, that he convey some echo of the strange unity he sees now, looking at Youko Kurama in a worn, soft shirt that no longer looks so big on him. He's no Cordis illusion, no projection of the past. He's here, now, as he was then.

Therion rests his hand on his shoulder, rubbing a slower, firmer circle. Something about him now doesn't seem to allow for touch to be too light.]

Does it feel different?

Yes, of course.

[There's a half-chuckle in gravel of his voice now, and that in itself is another subtle tell that perhaps he's not entirely as he once was years ago; Youko's laughter always sliced through the air like a knife's edge, and this brand is warm with a touch of genuine humor that could only be the result of a human boy's influence.]

I know what you meant. More than just physically...yes, it feels different. Imagine the satisfaction of surmounting an impossible task. You've just cracked an unbreakable safe and your pockets are heavy with your prize — but your triumph is tempered with the knowledge that you have yet to escape the vault with it. Still, the escape is easy, and you're not unequal to it. You've not relaxed, not yet, but you still know you've won.

Cunning, ruthless, calculating...and superior. That's how it feels.

Right. That feeling, huh. [He keeps doing what he's doing, palm of his hand up and down Kurama's shoulder.] You know just how to talk to me.

[Of all the feelings in the world, Therion knows that one intimately. His perked ears soften forward again.]

So what's it feel like the rest of the time?

You mean when I'm not this? I'm not sure I know how to put it into words.

[Says the world's most eloquent man, with a turn of phrase for every occasion.]

When Cordis takes you — does it ever feel like it's...its own beast? Part of you, but also a separate creature in its own right?

[He frowns silently for a while, long enough that it seems the answer must be no. As he opens his mouth to say so, though, the thought hits a sudden swerve.]

Oh, do you mean... I'll want things, suddenly. Things that don't make any damn sense at all to the rest of me. Most of the time, Cordis just feels like me but more stupid, but that's... different.

As I said, it's not the easiest thing in the world to describe.

[His ears twitch, despite himself. Maybe they've gone too long unpetted, and now he's silently demanding.]

Try it this way. You, Therion, the person you are. You exist without Cordis. You're a whole person, a discrete identity. But when it is Cordis, there's that same identity, but a little bit more. Something that's part of you, but still...separate. Only it's not separate enough to be an individual in its own right; it's just an extra something of you added in.

Youko existed in his entirety long before humanity ever attached. But who I am normally...has never existed without Youko being a part of him. Youko is not a separate entity, exactly, he's me, but...I'm something more than just him, and I'm referring to him as his own thing only to make the analogy easier. I'm everything he was, but also something else. And that side of me, that fully-formed Spirit Fox...it knows full well that it once existed without humanity latched on.

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