The Bear and Barnacle

Xel comes in to work one day early in the month with a thick black leather bracer under his shirt, wrist to elbow, moving as through peanut butter. The rate at which he puts dishes together is as fast as ever, although he doesn't seem to be moving much. Unblinking and taciturn, his pupils blur-edged rather than shifting, he replies politely when spoken to, and stands there, and watches the candles on the tables, and burns cigarettes like incense under the counter, and stands there with a vague and distant little smile, and when the lights go out for the day and everyone goes home, he stands there, and lights a new cigarette and a new candle, and absently squeezes his bracer from time to time in the silence until the blood runs down his jeans. The sun rises: wash, rinse, change of shirt, smile vaguely at a surprised Ivonka who doesn't expect to see him on her shift, repeat.

The first time it happens he smiles with more delight than surprise. Chaos moves, after all. Random things changing form around him unexpectedly, well, that's something that happens to mystery priests sometimes. And greyhounds are lovely dogs.

A dalmation and a bloodhound later, he's no longer smiling, although his mouth is still curved up. An experiment that results in a wolf, a fox, another wolf, and a beagle, and an attempt to mitigate the damage that turns one of his most comfortable work shirts (the ones he wears to mediations in the morning, unlike the fun t-shirts he wears to the pub, have long sleeves) into a corgi and a pair of gloves into a Jack Russel terrier and a dog he's never seen before that frankly looks more like a bear.

The obvious solution is to clothe himself astrally, as he always did when purely an astral creature. His tendrils don't change things, so that's safe, and his old uniform, with the turtleneck and gloves and his hems wrapped, that should keep his skin locked away without his having to think about it. Two years away have barely touched the surface of that old habit.

It doesn't feel strange enough to be wrapped up from the world in this way, to have the part of him that hungers standing between his human skin and the rest of the universe. His newish stick--the willow one with the lump of amber up top--is completely the wrong color scheme, but at least it's the right weight in his hand, and will prevent him falling on his face and turning a square of pavement into a poodle with his unprotected nose. Long before the end of the first day, he's forgotten to keep his eyes open behind his glasses, and has developed an almost entirely internal tremor and a quietly cheerful (but possibly slightly disconcerting) smile. Staring into his new sunlight spell for ten minutes doesn't help much, either.

Obviously this thing where he's revived instead of undead is upsetting the universe in some way. If the universe is so sensitive, maybe it should have its nervous system ripped out. Then it would feel better. Probably a good idea to feed the not-pack first, though.

ETA: No, Xel has not yet noticed that his metal-and-glass glasses and the cotton T and jeans and socks he changed out of are still inanimate.

It's a very pretty day; fluffy clouds and birdies chirping death threats at each other and woodland animals scampering about and all that. Unfortunately, Xel has just gotten back from the physical therapist (having sworn up and down to allow no needles whatsoever), and is therefore in no mood to appreciate it.

Oh, her slack-jawed complete failure to even understand the shape of the muscles around his leg was entertaining. He didn't try to explain; telling someone that your leg was broken when you were three and magically healed by someone too green to understand that it needed to be set properly first, that your medium-soft tissues had grown into place around a knobbled, shelf-like structure of bone-scarring as a result, and that you'd just re-broken it and whittled away said structure without leaving a scar and the muscles were now going to have to adjust to a tibia that is suddenly the correct shape--well, it would just take too much explaining. And there would be follow-up questions. So he'd just smiled at her and said Ahahaha, well, it's complicated, but this is how things are, you can see the problem, ne?

So, yes, the reaction had been amusing, but the following hour. Just. Well. The break had been painful, a delicious tide of crimson, but...

The thing is, Xel wasn't born a masochist, but Zelas-sama knew how to remedy that before he'd been mazoku even a few years, and now he has both the mazoku and the normal human reactions to pain. And that hour. And. And. He'd decided to keep trying to take evening shifts at the pub. Meaning spending hours in public and putting on at least two shows at once before getting any alone time with his person. Or chickening out, which is no shame for a Guildsman but would mean spending the entire day completely alone. Which might be even worse.

So the mood he was in, carving banister posts someone had ordered into giraffe heads to focus himself before heading over to the B&B, when the doorbell rang, was really a little bit indescribable. Especially since the birch-wood is warded to keep the uninvited out. Taking all that into consideration, it's probably understandable that he somehow failed to put the carving knife down.

When he comes into the pub again for the first time in (Lady Bright, it must be) months, his smile is not a sociable one, but the serene little closed-eyed Metallium smile that isn't worried about how to fulfill any unexpected orders to kill (or worse, incapacitate) any given person. The pink glasses are not in evidence (they're in a pocket), and neither is the frilly apron with the chickie on it.

There's a minor ruffle in the kitchen when one of the new staff demands to know who he is and where the Dragon-Lady's gone. Only a few moments of being silently and blandly smiled at sees the man re-assigning himself to dishwashing duty, though, and Xellos spends the rest of the evening on the hibachi displays of knifework and blending across from the bar that the pub hasn't seen in a good, long time, during weeks of sandwiches and pastries and pub food, his face in a pleasant mask. He shouldn't be angry with Ivonka-san for letting the place forget what it ought to be, but by the third time one of the waiters asks him what today's specials are, the third time he says (snarls, by this point, however frozen in polite tones), whatever they ask for, he is.

Every so often, he pulls Iago away from the bar, click-clicking away on his new cast into secluded corners, and just folds himself into his arms, breathing him in with their fingers laced until he's steady enough to face all the eyes again, sliding his fingertips for reassurance into the pocket of Iago's apron, just big enough to snugly contain one little hiding cat, just in case. To keep from doing that every five minutes or so, he spends a lot of time with his weight all on his newly re-broken leg, occasionally bouncing gently on it. Sometimes he turns the night before, the night of breaking it, over meditatively in his mind as his hands fly (and, if the truth be known, his ethereal tendrils, because two hands alone, however fast, really can't whip together multiple dishes at once), and sometimes he just laps gently at the sweet, sustaining pain of it.

Although he hits every bench in town (inside and out, and not a single one outside the borders), he doesn't hit every chair. That's a more random spattering. None belonging to anyone he's ever called family; don't draw attention there, and besides, eurgh. So there's just, here and there (and there, and there, and there) a chair that, when sat on, begins to silently rumble and purr pleasantly against its occupant. The shadowing spell will eventually wear off the little stones worked into their legs, but not, he thinks, for a good, long time. Not if the little snatches of astral body (mere grains, replenished every meal, less than is burned off with laughter) they take from their occupants in payment and to fuel their movement keep being renewed with sitting.

So: the innocent pleasure dispersed, the cleansing, pleasing deaths to follow, those without even a trace of his astral scent. This should give the little hell-brat a headache at the very least, drive him to distraction, in the best case, and out. Gadfly was always his role; he can't really hurt the prince of hell, but he can, maybe, annoy him enough to leave him alone.

It's dark when he finishes. He's heard about some winter deity-saint who touches every house in the world (of one faith, anyway) in a night, and spares a moment for admiration. But it's interrupted when he sees a certain store still open. Some temptations aren't worth resisting. With a candle in his pocket, smelling of autumn and spice, and two seals in the form of a fox and a smiley-face, he wends home. After all, he hasn't hit home either, knowing how well that would be received, and that's just not fair.

Ivonka-san, he writes, handwriting a bit more stilted than usual, as he's still having a bit of trouble holding a pen steady.

Thank you for taking good care of the restaurant while I was--

He pauses, thinking of ways to end that sentence. 'Held captive by the Lord of Hell' is not something to toss into a work-related memo in his current career, and the marginally more credible 'abducted by aliens' is if possible even more problematic. To say nothing of untrue. 'Unwillingly out of body while encased in a life-sucking, magic-strangling lump of ethereal rock' ( would at least be accurate, but... )

I regret how gone Xel has been recently, and apologize about any threads he would otherwise have taken up. He's been having an absolutely nightmarish couple of months, and since mine haven't been appreciably more bearable (with thanks to anyone who might have asked, it's not something I want to talk about), I haven't been in any shape to try and force him to be social (not that I can ever make him do anything anyway).

It's wrapped in lengths of clean rags and soft leather, the long, thin parcel, all bound up in brown paper and string like something shameful, and it's tied to his doorknob, dangling down like a bell to ring.

The card with the gift reads:



Cesare-kun,
May the happiness and good fortune this bat carries on her wings prevent you, in this coming year, from knowing again the death of softening hands.
Fushigiihoushi O-kage no Xellos

P.S.: You mustn't think the fortune it brings isn't real just because I was able to acquire it. It's only that the Elemekian Dominor who owned it last thought that luck would be enough help against a priest of my size.

P.S: It's enchanted to return to my holding space (has been for ce years) if it tastes more than a drop of pure blood free of death-thirst, so judiciousness for all during sparring matches is recommended if you don't want to have to ask me for it back.
X

Open your present
This link will make the page very small, but just needs expanding. :)

Xellos stands at the window, staring into the punishing grey skies, beating the pavement down and whipping the earth into submission, the drumroll of water elbowing other thoughts from his mind.

As though in a dream, he walks upstairs to the bedroom, takes off his boots, twitches back the curtains, and steps out into the nook below the roof. Instantly drenched, he turns his face up, hair plastered to his face and nearly black with water. Opening his mouth to drink down the heavens, he breathes in great gulps of fizzling, tangy ozone, guzzling down the air until he's lightheaded and it hums in his blood.

He climbs up onto the railing. Stands there a minute, arms spread wide. Then, in a whirling, gold-speckled explosion of purple-grey, he jumps.

When life gives you thunder, make love to the sky.

The walls are decked in harvest leaves, mellow-bright gourds on the tables, nuts and dried fruits scattered in glass bowls. One table is loaded with mead, cider, wines, and sake, fruit and loam-tinged, another cozily cluttered with cups, dry tea and strainers, and an enormous, bubbling carafe of water. He steps out for a moment, leaving the others setting out plates of frosted gingerbread and pfeffernuesse, glowing-ripe fruit and cheese, pulling tables into a loose circle.

The largest tree in the area is an oak, and at this moment, a glorious vibrance. No Flagon tree-forest, spreading forever and smelling of holiness and spiced sap, but it will do. What he hangs on it, a cluster of dark berries and bright red on a small wreath of supple birch branches wrapped, for the first time, with coppery-bronze ribbons along with the gold, has no precise meaning, wasn't crafted for the look, and his prayer, as he secures it on a branch and rests his hand on it, is no paean or plea.

He opens his heart to the year, and to the gold.

And then, at an easy pace, he moves back to the restaurant, and hangs the sign up on the door.

POETRY EXCHANGE
Tell your favorite
Ad-lib your own
Play off each other
Be absurd
No holds barred

Kouma Sensou (War of the Monster's Fall)

He's been lashed--verbally, and with salted rope and with white holy fire--for this one. Which is monstrous unfair, anyway you look at it, ahaha, monstrous, get it? Guard, they said. Not the job of a Priest, really, not even here, where mostly it means seneschal, but they were stretched tight, and he'd by the Eyes guarded! All those beautiful, righteous, golden-shining flying lizards, those overbearing philocidal genocides, trying to ambush his new home at four in the morning... And this after doing a job on the first one whose thoroughness he can admire with his new detachment, but still has no desire to see repeated. ( This time, he was determined, they wouldn't just do as they pleased. )

The responses this month have been incredible. <3
(this one originally posted to voices, but fits this prompt, too. vOv)

cont'd from here
cross-posted to journal

Xellos phases back to the restaurant, where he bombs through customers in a blind fury of pleasant smiles and graceful quips on his way to the cellar, grabbing several sandwiches, a pie, and two velvet bags full of pebbles (many semiprecious) on his way.

He spellcasts and chews his way through the lot, and when there are only crumbs and a pile of round-edged, polished-looking stones incised with runes and arrays left, he rests his forehead on his laced fingers and groans quietly to himself, "Why do I let him get to me?"

And considers finding more food.

Xel's eyes pop open in the dark, and he finds he's covered in sweat. Ugh. There are dreams a person just shouldn't have, and that was one of them. ( The fluffy pastel lambikins were bad enough... )