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mystique-peach · 2 months ago

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Title: Dog Days - Book of Mythos (Chapter 4) ☼

Start of story = Previous Chapter = Link to Ao3 Mirror

===

He gets caught in the rain again.

He sees the storm clouds beginning to gather when he wakes at dawn, so thick that they black out the pale morning sky. It brings with it the first chill he’s felt in days. While the air is still humid, the atmosphere itself is cool and kind on him, and so he gets greedy with his travels.

It’s not that he does not know it’s coming. He has ample warning - The tree’s begin turning over their leaves, a heavy breeze sweeping through to shake and pull at their branches. Occasionally, the sound of thunder rolls through the sky.

(It always succeeds in putting his fur on end. The thunder. He hates the way it sounds and the way the world feels against it)

No. He has ample time to find shelter, if he’d taken everything into account. It’s just that he’s...

Well, he’s a fucking idiot, really, ignoring his instincts and gut like he does. As bad as some humans are. He’d’ve figured that he’d at least have a warning that the rain was about to come down. He’d’ve been fine walking through a small shower, or even a mist. But when the rain comes, it comes down hard, hitting the ground like frigid arrows.

And so finds himself caught in the torrential downpour.

He originally considers continuing on through it (If he’s already soaked, there’s no point in stopping) but it takes some amount of effort to fight the wind, and that the chill he’d enjoyed the company of works against him with the storm. As such, he must find cover under a rock overhang. The shelter is deep enough to get him immediately out of the water, but not so deep that it stops the water from pooling in around his feet. He sets his clothing off to the side and shakes what he can of the water out of his fur. And then, when he’s done what he can of that, he rights himself, turning paw to hand and fur to flesh.

In the past, he’s found that skin dried faster than fur, especially on miserable days like this where. Skin didn’t hold water as well as his fur did, though it also did little to keep it off him. Water sat on top of it, sort of. He runs his hands down his arms to scrape the water off of it, but he still feels damp. Skin was - Well, it was less comfortable to sit around in overall. Water sat colder, rocks dug in harder. He feels the way mud sits under his nails and grinds into the little crevices of his skin. He didn’t blame the humans for inventing clothing, when it felt like that.

(He wonders if it even felt like that for all of them, or if he’s just doing something wrong.)

He considers dressing, if only to better sit. But his clothing is a lost cause, ruined in his rush to find somewhere to wait the storm out. He thinks they’d probably only work to worsen the cold he’s in.

He’d need to wash the mud off of it when the rain let up. It was one of the more inconvenient things about carrying that around. Supposed he could just find a way to mimic clothing in whatever form he decided to take, but he’d never managed to get the texture of clothing right. Something about the way the light hit it, and the smaller grains of fabric and how they shifted and moved when he did. It was an art he’d master eventually, he knew it was.

For now, however, he sits on his knees and works at squeezing the water out of his hair. Specks of water drop onto his face, brought in by the wind.

“ Fuckin’ stupid ,” He mutters, to no one in particular and about himself, and squeezes out his hair again. A few rocks dig into his knees.

Thunder rolls above him.

He rubs his hands together until heat sparks a flame up, blue and sticking on the skin between his palms and fingers. It runs hot enough that the water burns and steams away, and while the warmth is welcome, it causes his stomach to do an odd churn, and saliva to gather in the back of his mouth in a warning of nausea. This kind of magic had always troubled him, though he’d had it long enough to know how to use it well enough. It was just the way it ran through him. It lit up his nerves, traveling down his spine and turned over in his gut. It was a heavy, unavoidable feeling. Nothing like the comfort shifting gave him, or the cool ease the illusion magic offered.

But he learns it. For moments like this, where it’s helpful to get a fire in an instant.

…

He doesn’t hear her coming, this time. The rain is so loud (And her steps, perhaps, so light) that it drowns out her approach. Instead, he sees her legs pop into view. And then, as she tilts her head down to investigate, her hair stringy, but not nearly as wet as he expects it to be from the storm. She looks at him. He looks back at her, the flame still running against his skin. It causes a gentle glow against the both of them. She’s wearing the fur she’d had back in the little human-spot, which is odd, because when he thinks about it he doesn’t remember her wearing it the last time they met. She’s wearing it a little different this time. The fur is facing towards her, the rain dancing off the wool stitched to the outside of it.

Her gaze travels down to his palms.

“... Fire?” She asks, plainly.

“... No hello this time?” He asks, baring his teeth towards her. It’s not as threatening, when he’s all human-like. She stares at him.

“Alright,” She says, a little deadpan, “Hello little fox. Didn’t I tell you to stay on the main roads?”

His smile widens. It’s all teeth and not very kind, and he’s not really trying to make it kind for her sake, “Hello Laelia. See - I would have stayed on the roads, but there ain’t no good huntin’ in that direction,” he says, and then, feeling a sudden burst of energy, he props his elbow on his knee and his chin on his palm, and he says, “‘Sides - Those roads aren’t exactly what I would call functional. Really - you’re really out here stretchin’ the definition of roads there to me, aren’t ya? Barely even footpaths out there. I’d even accept a- Like, a trial, maybe. But a road? It’s - …”

He gives some halfhearted hand gesture as he prattles on, but eventually, the chill gets to him, and he loses the sort of passionate opinion that he’d had on the matter of road definition technicalities moments before hand. If the outburst surprises Laelia, or even really phases her, she doesn’t make much of a show for it. (Then again. He feels like that’s something he always seems to tack onto his thoughts around her. He’d like to get a decent read on her, even if only once.)

Laelia tilts her head, though whether inquisitive or considerate he’s unsure, “There's… signage,” She offers, helpfully, as point of contention.

He opens his mouth. Closes it. And he -

“... What?” He asks.

“On the… roads…” She trails off, and points. It’s a slow, leisurely gesture, off in some general direction that he imagines goes off to the road. She looks almost statuesque with how still she is, “... They’re not hard to follow.”

And it occurs to him that she sort of looks… Well. Absurd like this. Whatever tension that she normally carries with her is washed away with the rain.

He can’t help himself. He laughs.

“Yes,” He says, and sits up a bit straighter. He leans forward to better hear her over the rain. She speaks so softly that it almost drowns her out, but for some reason he still understands her just fine, “I know how to follow basic road signage. It’s - I mean it’s not a hard concept to grasp.”

“It’s not, no,” She agrees. Then, after considering him, says, “... I didn’t expect you to listen, really. You don’t seem like the type to have much of a sense of self preservation.”

“Yeah,” He says, immediately and absentmindedly, because he’s still thinking about how awful the rain is and how harebrained it had been to try and beat it. But he eventually does punctuate it with, “I’m good enough at takin’ care of myself. Been through more dangerous areas than this and came out of it all fine,” He runs his hands against his legs, still drenched and muddy. Then, “Look. Are you just gonna stand there like that the entire time?”

She lowers her arm. When he gestures to the spot next to him to get his point across, she simply tells him that, “The rain doesn’t bother me.”

“Yeah. So that was less’a offer n’ more of a… an ah… Ah. Right. Yeah, a stipulation for me to keep givin’ half an ass about this conversation. Take it or leave it.”

She raises a brow at him, hand lowering back down to her side. Her lip twitches, amused, though her gaze momentarily travels up to stare past the overhang he’s using for shelter. Then she makes a face. Shrugs. And she shifts to sit next to him, her motions smooth and careful. The ground being as wet as it is seems to bother her about as much as the rain does, and she does not even attempt to stop her hair from dragging through the mud, brushing up the grime against the tips. She spares him a glance as she settles into the spot next to him, one leg folded up by her chest, the other hanging out to allow the rain it’s continued assault on her person.

Her gaze travels, momentarily, back down to the flame on his skin.

“You look cold,” She points out.

“I got into a fight with the rain and the rain won. That felt pretty fuckin’ obvious,” He says, baffled, but his humor carries the word. His grin, something already quite crooked, widens considerably.

She looks him over, head still but eyes not, “Obviously. I meant despite the fire,” She says, “You’re in a bad mood today..”

“I -” His jaw snaps shut, “I am. Because I’m cold ,” and, if he’s being honest, a little hungry. Really hungry. Hunting hadn't been good, exactly.

“Because you’re wet,” She says. And she doesn’t miss a fucking beat, “Not very good at taking care of yourself, then.”

He whips his head to glare at her. She’s not phased by him.

“It seems convenient,” She tells him, “The fire.”

He considers not answering her as punishment for making his mood worse, but he’s always been sort of bad at letting silence sit uninterrupted. He takes the time to warm his thighs, rubbing his now-dry hands against them to rid them of water.

“... My ma knows how to manifest electricity. I always sort’a figured it too loud to have much use. Never learned how to do it,” He tells her, as though offering a bit of casual information.

She thinks about it. Shrugs. As if on cue, another flash of lightning, and then thunder, “Reasonable,” She says.

His hands slow to a still, and the flame he’s maintaining grows a little brighter. Figuring that if she’s seen it, he might as well put on a little show for it, the flame travels off of his skin, instead coming to float out in front of him in an orb. It takes a little more concentration (and energy, really) to maintain it like that, but it works in getting her attention back towards him. Her eyebrows raise, and she looks at it - And then him. And then the flame again, sparkling despite the way water intrudes on it’s presence.

“... Reminds me of will-o-wisp,” She says.

“I .... Don’t know what that is,” He admits to her, both the playful-like tone he’d been carrying and his irritation both dropping to reveal that little bit of sincere curiosity that he allowed himself to have. She looks a little surprised. Doesn’t bother to hide it herself. Though, he’s surprised himself.

“It’s- I supposed it’s not a common name for it around here,” She rubs her chin, leaning back again. But her eyes stay on the flame, “It’s ah…” She searches for her thoughts. He’s not sure if she’s struggling to find an explanation of it entirely, or if she feels the need to dumb it down for his sake. He’s a little insulted that it might be the second, “Sometimes when things die, they release a gas. Under the right circumstances, it catches on fire. It looks a bit like your flame there,” and then she props her hand up on her chin, “Doesn’t happen very often around here. It’s too dry. I haven’t seen it for a while.”

That was, in fact, appropriately dumbed down enough for him. He looks at the way his little flame dances about. He’s beginning to feel an itch under his skin for it.

“But it’s more complicated than that.”

“It is,” She says, “Gets a mind of its own sometimes. Sometimes it’s caused by other things. You know how magic is,”

He does. Know how magic is. It was hard not to, when he existed with it so close to his pelt.

She reaches out to poke at it. He grimaces, about to warn her that the flame has taken out men far scarier than she is. But he sort of… Stops himself. Closes his mouth, and narrows his gaze towards her. He’s not trying to be mean or anything, he just sort of figures that she’s not dumb enough to put her hand in fire. She seemed to have a good enough head on her shoulders.

“Humans tend to assume magic,” She tells him, her voice lowering a touch. Impressive, with how low a tone she already spoke in. She brushes her fingers through it with the sort of ease and care that one would a running stream, with this gentle, experimental sway of her fingers. The flames lick and run around her touch. The water on her hands sizzles and steams, and though she does not flinch at the feeling, her fingers eventually curl. It’s a notion that causes a shiver to go down his spine, deep and rooted in his bones. His shoulders rise, suddenly quiet tense, and he feels a sort of… metallic taste on his tongue. He takes a deep breath in to steady himself. Checks that he’s not bit his tongue - Tastes like blood, but it’s not, cause he’s not bleeding.

She raises an eyebrow, “It’s hot,” She tells him, matter of factly.

“Yeah. Uh,” It breaks him out of his stupor, but he finds that he doesn’t have the words to actually finish the thought.

She looks at him.

And then, she motions like she’s attempting to grab it. No. She does grab it. She closes her hand around it like a first, the flame spilling out from between her fingers, and through her palms. He jerks forward, almost instinctual in its speed, and smacks his hand against her wrist to get her to release it. The fire goes out as he does, and his nails digging into the skin of her wrist. He shivers. Not from the cold, but from this ugly, nauseous feeling thats struck him. Like a rug being pulled out from under his feet.

Her skin is hot - The sort of hot that burns meat and flesh, and almost burns him. His nails don’t sink into her like he expects them too, scraping against her arm. She lets him, not bothering to fight the way he moves her hands.

“Can you be burnt…?” She asks him, inquisitively.

“I’m not - I mean obviously ,” He says, baffled and strained, and he swipes the flame out himself, “It’s not gonna hurt me, it’s mine . How are you not hurtin’?”

She goes quiet at his own questioning, which he thinks is a little unfair. Here he is humoring all of her questions, and then the second he wants to pick at her mind she’s gonna go and clam up?! She tugs her wrist out of his hand and, while looking at him, pokes it out into the rain. Her fingers uncurl. A bit of steam rises off of her skin.

“There are worse things,” She tells him, and turns her fingers over. He presumes to cool them, but he’s not sure at this point.

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he defaults in saying nothing at all.

A small layer of fog has begun to form, hiding the roots of nearby trees and distant vegetation. She turns her gaze out towards it and he, not really sure what else to add, follows it. The rainfall is so heavy by this point that between it and the fog, he can’t see beyond the immediate horizon.

She says, “It doesn’t normally rain this much this time of year. You just got unlucky in your travels.”

He doesn’t have the sort of mind to begin thinking about what she just did, so he buries it. Decides to unpack it later, when she’s not sitting next to him. He watches the dark grey silhouettes of the tree’s on the horizon sway against the wind as one, cracking and creaking under the pressure. A pool of water just outside of their shelter bubbles.

He really hates storms.

“If I tell you how to get back on the road, will you listen,” She asks him.

“No,” He says immediately, his throat a little dry, “I don’t think I will.”

“Figures,” She says, “I won’t waste the energy, then.”

And then they both go quiet.

They sit in silence long enough that the worst of the wet is gone, but his hair still sticks to his skin in uncomfortable little clumps. He reaches up to twist it. At first, over his shoulder. And then, when gathering it all together like that doesn't help, shakes his fingers through it to mimic the sort of thing he does with his fur, trying to shake what he can of the water from it. He feels the weight of Laelia's gaze on him, but doesn't actually try and get a look at her through his hair until he hears her moving as well. She grabs the fur off of her shoulders, and, as though it's something she knew she'd have to do, drops it in his direction. It’s heavy enough that it keeps itself sat upright long enough for him to grab without it getting too dirty or wet.

He glances up at her, raising a brow in her direction. She shrugs.

“I told you. The rain doesn’t bother me,” She says again, without looking at him, “Warm up.”

His fingers twitch against the fur a little. He hadn’t actually been able to appreciate the fur for what it is before. He’d sort of thought her to be more of a bare pelt type, wearing the skins of whatever she hunted like macabre trophies. Instead, he finds it to be intricately done, as humans were apt to do. The fur acts more-so as lining along the inside of the cloak, the outside some tightly knotted, fiber that he’s not keen enough to know the exact of. He runs his hands over it for a moment or two, appreciating the texture and the detailing of it all. It’s the same, pretty green that her shirt is. Clearly something lovingly dyed, and tended to.

He doesn't put it on. He sits like that, laying it across his lap.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to accept her offer. Frankly, the most animalistic, instinctual part of his mind that nags and bites at him wants to curl in on himself till his limbs turn proper and fur comes back out, and he can hide under it like a makeshift shelter. But he’s not so foolish as to go about doing that in front of her, and he’s good at ignoring that nagging instinctual feeling.

It’s more-so. Well. He’d owe her.

Letting her buy a meal for him was one thing. He’d’ve been fine getting the meal for himself, and she’d taken half the booze he’d’ve drunk anyway. It was something he could justify as equal value. She wasn’t doing him a favor if he didn’t need the help to begin with.

But putting himself in debt to her? Over some minor inconvenience? That was another thing.

He doesn’t like owing people, and he really didn’t like owing humans any kind of favor or gift or protection in turn. He was just cold. The cold would not kill him. Not here. It’s not like it’s snowing. Not like it’s iced. It’s something to be negged and annoyed by until he dried off and the rain stopped and he was able to get back moving again.

His grip on the fur tightens.

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. She’s not looking at him. Instead, she’s settled back against the rocky overhang, her arms crossed over her chest and legs finally folded up and out of the rain.

Then again. She didn’t seem like a bad person to owe a favor towards. Not a small one.

He runs his fingers against the grain again. Wolf fur. He'd know that from anywhere.

Slowly, he pulls over his own shoulders, appreciating it for how soft it is immediately. For as uncomfortable as skin was to sit in, it was also good for this. Appreciating the little bits of texture they'd he'd've missed against his own fur. It isn’t as warm as he expects it to be for having been something she’d been wearing ‘till now. It doesn’t carry much of a scent on it, which also surprised him. Humans tended to stink, and their smell stuck to anything they touched. They didn’t even know it. Now that he thought about it, he doesn’t think he’s caught her scent properly since meeting her. It wasn’t like it was something he was trying to do. But he was good at that. Smelling. And all that.

The cloak, while of reasonable size on her, dwarfs him in a way that feels planned in its comedy. But it’s dry, and offers more protection from the elements then even his clothing would. He cozies back against it, shifting around under it so that he’s no longer on his shins and knees. He takes the time to rub away the dirt.

And to his surprise, she moves.

He’d sort of been expecting her to wait out the storm with him, especially now that he'd accepted her offer properly. But - True to her many, many words, she doesn’t seem particularly bothered to be pulling herself back out into the rain, even without the safety of her pelt.

“I have work to do,” She tells him, simply, raising her voice to be heard over the rain. And then she says, “Keep it for now. I’ll get it back.”

His lips curl.

“And if you don’t see me again?”

She looks down at him.

“I will.”

And when her eyes meet his, her gaze direct and heavy, he feels a shiver go down his spine.

She begins to walk away from him. Unable to help himself, he pokes his head back out towards her.

“Humans aren’t indestructible, you know!” He yells out, waving in her general direction. She pauses, long enough that he could finish speaking. There's fog around the base of her feet, and rain blocking his view.

“They aren’t. I find them to be quite fragile, personally,” She says, and she sounds almost.. Amused? When she says it, “Then again. So are you.”

And again, she leaves.

#original character #original story #ddbom #book of mythos chapters #Fantasy #Kitsune #writers on tumblr

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mystique-peach · 2 months ago

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Asa sticker to thank people with

#Original Character #OC #artists on tumblr #asa #BoM Character Art

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mystique-peach · 2 months ago

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still waters

#Original Character #Asa #bom character art #Kitsune

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Savior

#Original Character #oc art #Laelia #bom character art

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mystique-peach · 2 months ago

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Title: Dog Days - Book of Mythos (Chapter 3) ☼

Start of story = Previous Chapter = Link to Ao3 Mirror

===

Traveling is slower than it otherwise should be.

It’s the heat, mostly. It’s the time of year where days are hot enough to be suffocating, and the rain only really works to make the air stick between his fur. He works around it, traveling mostly during the dawn and dusk hours, sleeping around the height of the heat and hunting mostly at night.

Thing is - Hunting is bad this time of year, and scavenging is worse. Takes more energy to find food in the heat, and everything he could hunt wants to be out and running around as much as he does. Grabbing off humans isn’t really an option. They’re smarter than he is, huddling up their shaded dens and spending their days around their little stream settlements.

Nothing wanted to be out and moving.

...

And it’s for this reason that he is so surprised to run into her again.

He sees her again because he stops by one of the little roadside altars that humans like to erect.

He only takes interest in it because sometimes they leave food and booze atop the altar, and if the food was left recent enough and the drink was packaged well enough, it made for an easy (albeit often lackluster) meal. They come in lots of different looks and styles, some so large that they had to be tended to and lived in, and others so small that they were little more than flat stones with decorative engravings, no different than their graves.

The one he comes across today is a funny little thing. A tiny house, sheltering an even smaller humanoid statue, both made of rough-cut white-aged stone. In front of the little human statue sits a bowel, made of some kind of deep, tarnished metal. There’s engravings on the outside, some carved into the metal, some casted, and there’s shallow, stagnant water inside of the bowel. There are horses cast into the bowel, each one in a different stage of gallop, with some scenic mountain scratched deep into the backdrop of it.

The little human statue holds her hand out as though beckoning him.

Despite the clear signs of aging, it’s something that's been otherwise well tended to. He knows the signs of human touch. The little white flowers growing around it are cultivated to be, and though currently over-grown, the grass around the statue is noticeably shorter than the long grass behind it.

There is no food left for him at this shrine, only the dried wildflower pickings and the stagnant rain water. It shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does. The roads around the area were being choked out by wildflower and long grass, and the only indicator of a pathway being the little spotting of bare dirt and indented roadway. By the time he finds the little altar, the sun is at its highest point in the sky. There’s no breeze, and while the shade of the trees keeps the sun off his back, it does little to temper the weight of the humidity that seems to haunt the worst of his travels. He places himself up in the lower branches of the trees, finding one thick enough to rest the clothing he travels with on.

…

Laelia emerges from the thicket behind the altar with a few leaves in her hair and mud on her pantleg. She gives an irritated sounding sigh, fussing her hair back and out of her eyes.

She mutters something under her breath that he’s too far from her to make out, and drifts to a stop in front of the statue. Her shoulders fall. Though she’d already looked irritated, the thing doesn’t make her any happier to see. Her hands rest at her hips, kind of close to where her main sword is sheathed, and her free heels dig into the dirt. It’s the kind of look he’d have expected her to give of a predator that abouts to attack her, posture heavy with that sort of… sticky, apprehensive stiffness. Unkind, maybe, if you can be unkind towards a statue. She drifts toward it slow enough that her hair doesn’t move with the motion, sticking to her arms and face like it had post-rain.

“Hey jackass,” She says. She rests her toe against the base of the statue, makes this odd, clicking sound with her tongue. Then with more irritation, “Don’t... rupture a blood vessel now. There’s some trouble in the area. I have to come through.”

She sits like that for a while.

It had not been something he'd noticed at first, but the forest is silent when she's around. Where he expects the familiar comfort of bugs and rustling of leaves, he finds nothing. There are no cicadas singing, no birds chirping. Though the breeze had been stiff, it is only in it's absence that he realizes that it had been there, enough so to move the leaves.

He doesn’t like silence. Not the kind that comes as heavy as the humidity does. Forests weren’t supposed to be still, let alone silent. They were places life moved through. If the rabbits were asleep, then the bugs were moving. If the bugs were still, then the birds flapped their wings. Little lines of connections that kept the world moving and kept the sound alive.

He raises himself on his branch, stalking a little more toward the middle of it. It groans under his weight. It cuts through the silence like a knife, but holds his weight without any other trouble.

She jerks back in surprise, her fingers wrapping around the handle of her sword. Her eyes meet his through the leaves. Recognition flashes across her face immediately.

“Are you-” Laelia opens her mouth to say something, then cuts herself off. Her hand moves off of her sword, but not away from it, “You’re following me..?” She says, sounding more like a question than an observation. She looks miffed at the thought.

His ears twitch back at the accusation.

“How many paths do you think we have to follow?” He asks, giving a stretch to show how very unthreatening he intends to be towards her. She seems to understand it for what it is, as the tension leaves her shoulder. But she does not take her eyes off of him. He’s beginning to pick up on the fact she never seems to want to, when he’s around, “Suppose I need no introduction, by this point."

And that's really all he has to offer her.

Her eyes narrow. She doesn’t believe him, which is smart, because he wouldn’t believe himself either.

"I suppose you do not," She says, scoffing, "Though a name would be nice."

He laughs. It sounds shrill, when he's like this.

Giving an irritated sounding sigh, she puts down her defenses. Suppose she'd finally figured him harmless enough, by this point. He didn't know about that. He sure didn't think she was harmless. Maybe unwilling to attack immediately, but harmless seemed beyond her.

She gestures up towards him.

"I thought you'd be gone by now."

His ears flatten, "In this weather..?" He asks her, a little baffled, "I didn't even want to be this far in. Considered stayin' back in that little human-place, but it uh-" His tails twitch. He doesn't want to admit that he doesn't particularly want to be on her bad side by screwing with people that were clearly her people.

She does that little thing she seems so good at doing, body and expression stiffening up. His ears flick, irritated at his inability to read anything past that.

What was her fucking issue. Human body language was normally so easy for him. Even the humans that thought they didn't reveal anything revealed a little bit of something. It was just in their nature. No amount of self control could hide the little tells they had. Sure, they could practice hiding their hands and holding their tongue, but it was all in the eyes, and the way they breathed. How they held themselves.

But talking to her was like talking to a brick wall. It wasn't like she was showing nothing. It was just... it was the only thing she was showing. Like it was all she had to.

She takes a step away from him. Her hand moves back towards her waist, far from her weapon. Taking that as an invitation, he closes the distance between them with the same apprehensive stride she’d given him, still not entirely confident that she isn’t going to turn on him and make him into a nice pair of slippers. Humans were unpredictable, unkind things like that sometimes. Instead of regarding him with the same kind of danger that he regards her with, she rifles through one of the few leather packs she has strapped to her side, until she eventually pulls out a drawstring pouch. It looks heavy in her hand, and weighs in her palm. She takes the time to thumbs out a few coins and drops them into the bowel, not really counting out any particular kind of coin or paying any mind to the water she’s dropping them into.

“... Seems a little disrespectful,” He says, gesturing with his snout towards the shrine. He figures she'd know what he meant.

For all her suspicion and all of her skepticism, he still manages to earn a snort for that remark. She turns back toward the shrine, “She’ll deal with it. I pay well for my passage,” She says. And then, under her breath, “ Lucky I pay at all, frankly... ”

Huh.

She puts the pouch back in her pocket.

“Does it work?” He asks her, lifting his head up towards her, “Paying them like that. I always see humans doin' that. Leavin' food n' drink. Never really seemed to be much of a point to it all,” Maybe there was something he didn't know. He figures there are a lot of things he doesn't know about.

She tilts her head back. Her lips turn to a grimace. And he isn’t going to pry further, because that feels like an answer in itself, but she does eventually clarify that, “Any threat worth being wary of is not one a goddess will intervene with, let alone a human god. They're as worthless as they are arrogant.”

The answer causes his whiskers to twitch. Seemed appropriately pragmatic, but humans weren’t known for being either reasonable or practical, especially within the matters of the divine. She eyes him through his amusement.

“Yeah,” She says, eventually, and turns toward the thicket, “That’s how I feel."

And then she turns back towards the thicket, waving at him from over her shoulder.

He gives the dish another look, and the little grubby coins tucked within it.

The cicada's continue to buzz around them.

==> Next Chapter

#original character #original story #ddbom #book of mythos chapters

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mystique-peach · 3 months ago

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A first go at some design idea's I had for something I want to do in the future. Consider these a first draft - The designs might change a bit as I play with them, especially when it comes to color and direction.

#Original Character #Alice in Wonderland #Laelia #Asa #Ida Innes #BoM Event Designs #BoM Character Art

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mystique-peach · 3 months ago

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☼

Title: Dog Days - Book of Mythos (Chapter 2) ☼

Start of story = Previous Chapter = Link to Ao3 Mirror

Description:

It only takes two days for him to run into her again.

===

It only takes two days for him to run into her again.

It’s because he stops at this little drinking spot. It’s the sort of place humans (That is - The stationary ones, the ones that concern themselves with planting things) make for their travelers, far enough into the forest to provide rest, close enough to the road to be noticed. The small kind, that has food and booze and a firepit that always seems to be burning. He knows it’s a place he does not need to be invited into because they have signs indicating as much, cute little illustrations of food carefully painted on them.

Not that needing to be invited into would have stopped him. Generally speaking, he finds human kindness to border on foolish when he plays his cards right, and human cruelty to be a worthwhile night of amusement when he plays them wrong.

He wasn’t going to stop inside of it, originally. He wants to make good time on getting to the next spot, something he can only achieve by moving quickly. But the rain comes suddenly, and without warning. And despite himself, he had taken the sword-human's warning in mind. Rain made for real bad traveling in the safest regions of the world, let alone forests that were supposedly dangerous this time of year. And with clouds that are that dark, and the night getting so close, thunder and lightning tended to follow.

He doesn’t risk it.

He takes the appearance of a woman. Not any woman in particular, but a design of his own making.

Shapeshifting had always come second nature to him. Most of his type had to work hard for the skill, but he was always good at adding the little details that made his bodies feel lived in. That was the thing his type always forgot to do. They made their bodies too - Well. Too graceful. Too inhumane. Human’s had a knack for being able to pick up on the ethereal as suspicious, and the suspicious as uncanny.

But he knew how to add the little knicks and calluses to make it look more natural. He knew where to add the little lines in their skin, how to make the nails more rough at the top and smooth at the bottom. He’d spent so long practicing and observing, and in many ways it now came second nature to him. He twists and warps his body into the pretty, soft faced kind of human he’d grown up seeing a lot of, because other humans always seemed to like that one more. Got less defensive around it. He doesn’t know if they know it’s a thing they do, but he’s good at picking up on those things.

Illusion work give him a bit more trouble.

He knows enough to be passable - Little tricks he liked to keep up his sleeve to make traveling easier, nothing he would consider particularly fantastic or intricate. Coins, mostly. Rings and precious stones, sometimes, when they saw no point in coins. He doesn’t know why they like them - Just that they do. He is not so good that it is effortless, nor so accomplished that he can produce it from air. So he folds little leaves into squares and turns them over in his hand until they catch the light and look just right, holding them up and shifting them around to make sure he’s gotten the weight and feel of it right. Close enough, and “Close enough ” tends to be good enough for coins, even if he doesn’t get them entirely right.

The building is small. There’s a few sleeping spots set up around the fire. The bedframes are made for convenience rather than comfort, made of a plain wood frame and leather base and low to the ground. The fire itself is probably forever burning, tended to with more care than Asa himself could ever plan for. There are logs lined up along the back wall, hiding the brickwork and wood-shuttered windows. Some kind of drying herbs hang from the rafters, though he isn’t familiar enough with the area to know what they are or what they could be used for.

There’s only two humans here at the moment. Sitting close to the fire pit, there’s a girl. She’s on the younger end of things (He can tell by how small she is, and that's about it.) She has an instrument in her hand, and is plucking awkwardly at its strings in practice. She hums under her breath, following the notes of a song or hymn. It doesn’t sound good , but it also doesn’t sound bad enough to leave.

The barmaid is an older woman who sits behind a small table, and works a bone needle through some yarn. She patiently knots it with unstable hands. Her chair is cushioned, and, like the beds, low to the ground.

“Hello,” He says, in the politest greeting he knows. He asks, “Do you have space for the night?” Despite seeing the bare frames laid out around the fire. He’s found it’s not really smart to come in assuming these things.

She looks him up and down, as though appraising him. His clothing is foreign to them. He’d grabbed the clothing a long way away, when he;d been closer to home, and had managed to keep them safe (Threadbare, and a little dirty. But safe.) He’s not carrying a lot. He generally does not need to. He thinks that might be suspicious to them, in some way.

The woman then looks beyond him. She looks out toward the doorway. He is not suspiciously dry, but he is also not soaked as thoroughly as he perhaps should be. The little motions she’s doing to work the yarn slow, the otherwise absentminded actions pausing with her thoughts.

“Just one bed?” She asks.

“Just the one,” He says.

He moves to take a seat across from her. She has a few things stored under the table, so he has to keep his legs tucked close to him.

“... You’re traveling alone?” She asks, more bluntly, seemingly surprised.

“Sure,” He says, and smiles at her. They always seem surprised by that. He doesn’t understand what is so suspicious about that, but he never stays around long enough to deal with the repercussions of that suspicion, “I take care of myself well enough,” He adds on, propping his chin on his hand.

She gives a small, “ Hm… ” And another look of appraisal. The kind of expression that tells him that she doesn’t entirely… like she’s about to give him a bed for the night. But when he thumbs a few wet coins onto the table, she changes her mind. She holds it up to the light, suspicious of it. But the illusion holds up, and she eventually nods, setting it off to the side.

“Do you need to board a horse as well?” She asks him.

“I only require food and a bed,” He assures, with a small raise of the hand.

They have wine. This doesn’t surprise him. Wine and Beer seemed to be the only kind of booze the humans in this area had, and many of them didn’t seem to like the beer. (He didn’t like either, minded. It was the taste of it all. But it was strong enough booze to still be worth drinking, especially on nights like this.) She gives him a cup that is less shallow than it looks at a glance, terracotta and adorned with embellishment. He turns it over, both curious and fond of the little trinket, much to the bemusement of the older woman serving him.

…

He hears her before he sees her, her footsteps heavy and entrance abrupt.

Her entrance into the building is all but comedically timed, the door opening being followed by a flash of lightening and a roll of thunder. The music player spares her a far kinder glance than she’d been willing to him, familiar and warm.

His first observation, here and now, is that she feels marginally less threatening than she had the last time they’d met. With her weapons put away and her hair heavy with water, she looks a little smaller than she had. She takes the time to squeeze the water out of her hair with her hands in a half hearted attempt to dry herself off, but it’s something that doesn’t seem to be helping all that much. She has more layers on then she had when they’d first met, but even with the layer of fur over her shoulder her clothing is soaked through. Her shoes make this ugly squelching sound when she walks. Like her hair, she makes an honest attempt at wringing her clothing out in the doorway, but eventually seems to decide that there’s no point to trying any further. She sighs, like she’s only marginally inconvenienced by this, and mutters something under her breath that she’s too far away for him to properly hear. And then she looks up at him and she -

She stops, when she sees him.

She goes still, like she’s been caught off guard by something. Then, her brows furrow, and her eyes narrow. And because she goes still, he goes still. That feeling of ease he’d originally felt upon her coming into the room passes over him in favor of an instinctual discomfort. It's the kind of feeling he gets when he stumbles across wolves or wild cats or big birds of prey. Ones that are hungry enough to hunt things that eat meat, and stupid enough not to sniff out his magic before they try it.

He does not think she is stupid. It causes his hair to stick on end, and his fingers to twitch at his leg.

And his first thought is, of course. There’s no fucking way she knows. His shapeshifting is precise and thorough. He casts no incorrect shadows on the walls, he keeps his ears and tails tucked away and fingers hidden behind his sleeves. Humans around here had no warning of his kind, and kept no precaution against him. And there were sometimes humans that could see through even that, but she hadn’t seem like the sort that could. She’d just seemed weird.

Their gazes stick on one another, and he shifts the tension from his shoulders to his feet. He lifts a hand to greet her like a stranger would. Not unfriendly, but with notice. Her head sort of.. tilts at that. She finishes finger-combing her hair with a casualty that feels performative, straightening herself back up to her full height. She strips the fur from her shoulder, and places both it and her traveling pack on the bedframe closest to the fire.

He turns his gaze away from her, not so quick as to draw suspicion. He feels the ghost sensation of his ears and tails curling and flicking. It’s an unpleasant sensation. He doesn’t like being aware of his own body.

The human he’d given his coin to comes back into the room with a pitcher of wine. It is also terracotta. He wants to appreciate it like he did his cup, but the one with the sword is still staring at him, and it burns into his neck. As the older human pours his wine, she asks him something that he doesn’t catch entirely, but he thinks translates to, roughly, “What is the purpose of your travels?”

Sword-lady stalks around the edges of the room, inching close enough to him to observe.

He answers the closest thing to honest as he can, which is, “What else but pilgrimage ,” He raises his glass in thanks to her, before throwing back the first glass in its entirety and all at once.

When she is close enough that he can do-so with some amount of subtly, he spares sword-lady another glance. She takes a seat at one of the tables. He hadn’t paid much mind to them, pushed off to the sides of the room as they were. They’re close to the ground, but not so close that she sits on the floor with them. Instead, she folds herself into one of the cushioned chairs, and rests her feet up on the table. She crosses her arm over her chest, and stares at him with far less subtly than he’s granting her. Again, her head tilts.

He looks away again.

“Ah. You travel under the gods?” She asks him, and it seems to bring her some kind of ease. He does not. He makes a note in his head that the word pilgrimage might have a meaning he’s not entirely familiar with, but does not bother to correct her. Instead, he smiles at that. And she follows it up with, “You’ve come from far away, then?”

“Further than you can imagine,” He says, lowly, like it’s a secret between them, “And I aim to go as far as I can.”

This seems to amuse the older human, “And all on your own?”

“No . Under the gods,” He says, again, repeating it to appease her.

Sword woman snorts. It grabs the older-humans attention. Asa wants another drink.

“Ah! Laelia. Excuse me, I didn’t see you come in,” The older lady calls out. “ Laelia ” looks in the direction of the barmaid, raising a hand in greeting like Asa had to her. Then, she crosses her arms and looks back to him again. The woman, picking up on this, looks between the two of them and says, “A friend of yours, dear?”

Laelia, presumably, continues to appraise him.

“We’ve met before,” She says, eventually. She closes her eyes, tilting her head back as though she must put deep consideration into what to say next. It feels like an eternity before she speaks again, but he is aware that it is realistically a few seconds, "She is trouble, and it would do you well to treat her as such.”

He feels every hair on his body bristle at the assessment of his character (Not incorrect, but hey. What the hell did she think she knew about his character?) The older human must take it as a joke. One that was lost on him, but a joke. She laughs.

“I will mind it,” She tells Laelia, and sits back in her chair. To give his hands something to do, he reaches out to grab the wine pitcher, “You should have said as much, dear. Here I was giving you trouble….” The woman trails off, shaking her head at him, and reaches for her needle and thread. Laelia speaks before he can.

“It’s as I said. She is trouble,” Laelia looks at him. He looks back at her. The immediate panic is beginning to wash away, more because Asa is beginning to suspect she has no interest in betraying her lie then any actual comfort he has in her presence. She sits up straighter, “She deserves no kindness for my sake.”

The older woman spits a sound close to bah , then says, “You are too reserved,” The woman says, waving her off. The woman clicks her tongue, “Hospitality. That is what you lack.”

“... You were the one that was going to kick her out,” Laelia shrugs.

She goes back to looking at him.

…

Asa pours himself another drink.

Now that Laelia is here, the woman he’d been talking to doesn’t seem very interested in him. Laelia, in return, doesn’t seem very surprised to have the ladies' attention. The older-human works her in this hypnotic, even-paced way. He watches it in lieu of the two of them, because the practice fascinates him, and he’s trying to figure out how it’s done. He doesn’t have a needle to follow the motions himself, so instead his fingers twitch against the cup.

“Well. Since you’re here…“ The older one starts. She hesitates, “There’s been some trouble a little ways north… Ah. Up by the old travelers shrine. I’m sure you’d know the one.”

“I do,” Laelia says, not missing a beat.

“Right, right… A little was past it, just a little off the road. I’m sure you’d be able to find it.”

There is silence. The music has stopped, and so in the silence there is only rain, and the sound of the fire cracking.

Laelia says, “I would. What kind of trouble is it?”

The woman works her thread. Asa is only now beginning to recognize the silence as tension, rather than a natural sort of lull in conversation that always seems to follow humans and how they speak. Laelia, on the other hand, seems to take the silence as an answer on its own. She sighs, heavier this time. She’s not irritated. He knows irritation on humans. She doesn’t even seem surprised.

“I suppose it’s that time of year. Lots of trouble popping up in places it normally shouldn't,” She tells the woman. And he thinks to himself that he's probably the trouble she's talking about, considering everything else about this interaction. Finally breaking her gaze away from him, she looks to the doorway. He feels it when her gaze leaves him, a weight that just seems to shift off of him and to the air instead, “I plan on traveling in that direction. I can take care of it on my way out.”

“Thank you, dear.” She says, and her voice softens a shade. She puts her needle down, “I suppose I couldn’t offer you a drink for your troubles, then?”

Laelia does not consider the offer.

She raises her hand and points at him.

“There is no need to trouble yourself. I will be sharing drinks with her tonight.”

“What?” Asa’s eyebrows furrow. He opens his mouth to tell her he is not interested - His own personal itinerary for the night was something closer to drinking in silence and sleeping until the worst of the thunder had passed. But Laelia stands. She’s still so waterlogged that she leaves wet footprints on the floor behind her when she moves, and he almost forgets her to be a threat.

But then she approaches him. She places a hand on his shoulder. Under its weight, he is silent.

The coin that he’d given the human in exchange for a bed and wine is still sitting on the table between them. She’d never bothered to properly tuck it away. Laelia gives it the same look she’d given him. He knows, somehow, that she’s seeing past it, not unlike how she’s seen past him. She does not bring any awareness to the matter. Instead, she reaches out to gather the fake-coin in her hand and take it from the counter.

“My treat,” She says, and pats the spot her hand had been sitting, “Come on.”

And he thinks to himself, with more fascination than panic.

Okay. So she knows.

Laelia grabs the pitcher of wine in its entirety, and gestures for him to follow him. He hesitates (He presumes that she’s less willing to kill him around people) but eventually follows (unwilling to test the accuracy of that presumption.) She sits herself by the fire, cross legged on the ground. They’re far enough from the older-human not to be heart. The human that had been playing music earlier had, at some point, rolled over to lay on the bed instead and the rain is loud enough against the roof and walls that it drowns out their voice at a mutter. He opens his mouth to speak, but she holds up her hand to stop him. She holds out her hand, as though expectant. It takes him a moment to realize she wants his cup. He places it in her hand, still half filled, and she drinks the remainder of it without a second thought.

“Okay,” She says. She pours herself another glass, “What are you.”

He gives her a blank look, “I’m a fox,” That felt pretty obvious. Maybe she was stupid.

She gives him another weird look. He sort of prefers when her expressions are unreadable, because the ones she gives him now are irritating him. It feels almost patronizing.

“ Just a fox, ” She scoffs, so low he almost misses it. She goes to take another drink from the cup. This time, she doesn’t take her eyes off of him as she drinks. She holds the cup a bit oddly, by the lip of it rather than by the handle. Her wrist is crooked, keeping her hand away from her eyes. Then, looking a little baffled, she lowers the glass, “... You’re not lying.”

It’s not a question. More musing, above all else.

“Honesty ain’t in my nature,” He assures her, proudly. He slips into his own tongue for it, more comfortable, and she doesn’t miss a beat, “But about this? I’mma fox through and through.”

She places the cup down, closer to him then to herself. Understanding implicitly that it is an offer, he takes the cup carefully within his hands. He uses both hands to hold it and, after sparing her a glance, takes a large gulp of it. While he drinks, she considers.

“Okay,” She says, as though she’s decided something. She holds her hand out for the cup. He gives it to her, not because he’s had his fill, but because she kind of scares him. She lifts the pitcher that she’d taken. Then, she proclaims, “I think I will be needing far more wine than this tonight.”

And then she drinks directly from the pitcher.

….

They spend the next part of the night sharing their drink in silence. At some point, she reached over to grab the fire poker, and has alternated between tending to it with some amount of diligence, and stabbing it into the logs to keep it propped within reach. Fire does not make him wary, like it does other animals. He thinks it is, in many ways, his friend.

“It’s unusual,” She tells him, once she’s another drink in. He opens his mouth to say something, but she cuts him off, “Not unheard of. But unusual.”

He wrinkles his nose. She’s being vague and enigmatic, and he’s under the impression that's on purpose. He leans forward to steal the pitcher from her. She’s drinking it faster than him, and he is on a personal mission to keep up with her. She’s bigger than him, but he sort of likes his chances here, “I thought human language was supp’sed to be more complicated than that.”

She takes it back from him, but only after he gets the chance to fill his cup, “What?”

“Y’know,” He raises it to her, “Need more than a few words to have a conversation n’all’a that. Even I know that.”

At first, he thinks that very much might have been the wrong thing to say. She raises an eyebrow at him, her expression unreadable, but very much different then it had been when she’d been musing to herself. He does not, however, apologize for the audacity he has. He doesn’t like being left in the dark. Certainly not by strangers.

“Okay. I get it,” She places the pitcher at his side, “Your magic, I mean. Illusions and - What is that,” She pauses. Then, after a moment, reaches out to brush her finger against his hair, and then (as though to be sure) his jaw, pinching at the skin there. Her touch only lingers for a moment, not even so long that he has time to react. It kind of hurts, but he doesn’t think that's the goal. Then, under her breath, “Shapeshifting..?”

That’s what she’s confused about? He grins at her, all sharp toothed and big. And it is very much sharp toothed, “It’s my talent,” He says, with some amount of pride.

“You’re not bad at it,” She says. It’s neither with kindness or disdain - just observational, “It’s unusual,” She says again, annoying him. It must show on his face, because she raises a hand to stop him from speaking, and shakes her head, “For animals other than humans to be blessed with that gift.”

“I wasn’t blessed with it,” He says, feeling a little frustrated, “It’s mine .”

“It’s yours.” She repeats, considering it.

“It was the first thing I learned,” He says, like that should help at all. And he’s very proud of that, preening a little when he says it. Humans didn’t know how impressive it was. He didn’t even need anything to do it. He just could .

“Hm…” She looks a little troubled. She looks down at the wine they’ve been drinking, already almost empty. She shrugs, “Stay here. I will grab more to drink.”

“And if I leave?” He asks, mostly to try and frustrate her.

She looks at him. Then, she looks absentmindedly towards the window, where the storm has worsened and the night has gotten darker. She says, with very little concern to her tone, “Then you simply would not be my problem anymore,” And walks to the back of the little house, a little too steady on her feet for one that has drunk as much as she has.

He’s beginning to think he will not, in fact, out drink her.

…

“Are you getting me drunk to loosen my lips?” He asks her, when she returns with the pitcher fuller than it had been the first time. He holds his hand out to take it from her, and she shakes her head.

“I’m under the impression you like to hear yourself speak regardless,” she says, with this kind of… unimpressed air about her.

He says, “It’s practice. I don’t get to talk to people all’a that often.”

She holds her hand out for the cup again. Begrudgingly, he hands it off to her. She takes the time to pour herself another glass, the pitcher so full that she has to place the cup on the ground and balance it with both hands. She takes a sip of it herself. Pauses, while looking him in the eye. And then, content with that, returns the glass to him.

She places the pitcher at his side.

“Listen,” She tells him, and there’s a shift in her tone. She speaks like she’s wary of the topic she’s about to approach, or maybe wary of giving him the information that she’s about to. But she braces herself, “Around here, there are only three things that have your gift. Spirits, gods, and those blessed by the gods. And - You’ll have to excuse my wariness. But I know you’re none of the three,” She raises a hand, and with each word, counts it out, “At least, none I would be familiar with. I don't like that. I would like to find one of the three to fit you into.”

“I did say I come from far away,” He rubs his eyes. There’s a roll of thunder overhead, low and heavy. It makes him uneasy.

“You did.” She agrees.

"Maybe you should make another category," He says, shrugging, "I can be the first one in it."

"I'll consider it," She says, like that's not at all something she will be doing, “... What else can you do?”

The answer is, of course. Quite a few things. He’d been around long enough to have three tails. Not that she’d know the importance of that, but it was long enough to have picked up on a few things here and there.

But he also likes to keep his tricks up his sleeve. Especially against humans that dealt with swords and carried themselves with the sort of wariness that came with predators ready for an attack. He thinks, if she decides to turn on him and lay her blade in his direction, he wants as many tricks on his person as he can.

He frowns, and answers honestly, “I don’t really want to answer that.”

He prepares for her to push it. People that knew how to look past his illusions and his shapeshifting always did try and push it. Because people, like him, were wary of what they didn’t know. It only made sense to be.

But she doesn’t. She nods, a little stiff and with narrow eyes, but a nod nonetheless.

“I suppose that makes sense,” She says.

And it’s as easy as that.

Having decided he’s had his fill of wine, he pushes both the cup and the pitcher towards her, and goes to lay on his side. She takes it from him. Seemingly having had enough for herself, she places the cup atop the pitcher like a cap, and moves it away from the both of them. As he moves to lay on his side, he says, “Y’know. You’ve been talkin’ a lot at me. I got a few questions ‘fer you as well.”

She seems surprised. Like this is at all an unfair thing for him to be pointing out. Her surprise shifts, confusion, then amusement. She makes an attempt to hide her amusement, her hand coming up to hide her lips. But he sees it in her eyes. Human eyes always revealed a lot like that, “That would be fair.”

He nods, “Yeah. So how’d you know it was me?” He asks.

“Intuition,” She says, immediately. This does not sound like a lie to him, but logic and reason are telling him it’s not an entire truth, either. He sees no reason not to call her on it. So he does.

“Bullshit,” He says, jabbing a finger at her, “My shapeshifting is - It’s flawless. Intuition my ass. You’re lying to me. Like a liar does. You can’t lie to me when I answered all’a your questions.”

She laughs. It’s so soft he doesn’t hear it, but he sees it in the way her shoulders shift, and the way her lips twitch through her fingers, “… Well. It’s something like intuition, at least,” She says, a little more vague. But there’s more honesty in that vagueness. She follows it up with, “Consider it a gift of my own. Like your shapeshifting.”

“Hm…” He tilts his head. But, if he doesn't want to give her the directory of his own self defense, he supposed he wasn't in a position to ask the same of her. Not any of his business, in the same way his own was not hers. But, because what she can do does make him a little unease, he asks her, “... Are there any other humans like you?”

She grabs the poker.

“None that you’re likely to encounter.”

Enlightening.

His eyes drift over to the fire, where little fly-aways spark up and around the pit. It occurs to him that he probably should have gotten something in his stomach by now, but the booze has him so tired that he does not care to fix that. It was something that would have to be tomorrows issue.

“One more question,” She says, "You know my name. It is only fair I have yours?"

He does not want to do that, either.

"I'll tell you eventually," He says, waving her off, "If it's important."

And that night, she doesn't ask him anything more.

=> Next Chapter

#original Character #Original Story #ddbom #book of mythos chapters

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mystique-peach · 3 months ago

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Cover art for Act 1 of Book of Mythos.

Read on Ao3 or Tumblr

#Original Character #Original Story #ddbom #book of mythos chapters #Laelia #Asa #BoM Character Art

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mystique-peach · 4 months ago

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Some reference and design thoughts for the first part of book of mythos.

#Original Character #Laelia #Asa #BoM Design Notes #BoM Character Art #Design Notes

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mystique-peach · 4 months ago

Text

☼

Title: Dog Days - Book of Mythos (Chapter 1) ☼

Description:

He meets her because the village he’s in has decided that he’s a “problem.” And. Well. To be fair to them, he is, in fact, a problem.

A story about the end of the world, but only kind of.

============

Link to Ao3 Mirror

============

The first time he meets her, he’s going by the name Asa.

He doesn’t keep a last name. Not a lot of people did, let alone critters like himself. But he does have a name, because it’s one of those things humans seem to concern themselves with, and he does like to try and exist alongside them when he can get away with it. He’s taken refuge in some dilapidated building at the corner of town, made with rough cut stone and rotting wood. It’s got ivy-creep across the outerwall and termite damage on the inner support, and lets in more sun then it keeps out. These types of buildings are a dime a dozen in this place, dotted between overgrown grassfields and forgotten mountain crevices. They’re useless to anyone with a brain, too unstable to feel safe, and too decayed to protect from anything more than a light rain. But he’d never claim to be either smart or concerned with his own safety, and so to him they offer easy shelter in the periods between travel.

He meets her because the village he’s in has decided that he’s a “problem.” And. Well. To be fair to them, he is, in fact, a problem.

Rather, by human terms, he’s a problem.

It had been the chickens, he thinks, that had gotten their attention. He’d killed two of them roughly a few days back, and he’s learned that they tend to notice their critters dying faster than they notice their crop gone. (As far as he’s concerned, if they didn’t want the little suckers killed, then they shouldn’t make it so easy to get into their enclosures. But that's neither here nor there, on the matter of them sending someone to kill him.)

But he’d been hungry when he’d gotten here, and a chicken feeds him longer than their berries would. So, he’s not surprised they send someone to come looking for him. He’s not even startled by her appearance in the hut. He hears her coming from the base of the path. She’s not being careful, but he also doesn’t think she’s trying to be. She walks with the sort of confidence that only comes from arrogant fools or tactless douchebags.

He’s small enough that he can duck up into the rafters. They’re thin planks of wood, one of which fell to the ground and broken through one of the old corner tables that had been left abandoned

She, on the other hand, is tall enough that she has to duck under the doorframe to get into the room. There’s a sword dangling loosely in her hand, something he personally thinks is hard not to notice with some amount of immediacy. Actually- There are three, if he’s counting right. One in hand, two strapped to her back. Though he can’t see any other weapons at a glance, he presumes, of course, that she probably has more. On the whole, he thinks it’s good to assume people willing to carry around three swords are willing to carry around three swords and a knife. It seemed a little excessive, if you asked him. Three swords and all that. Exactly what kind of threat did she think she was walking into?

The biggest one - that being, the one she’s currently holding, is so well-polished that it shines when the light hits it. It’s bent at an angle. He finds that odd. He can’t imagine what purpose the bend in it serves, but weapons had never exactly been his “Thing.” (Not that he had many “things” that humans would consider worthwhile knowledge to begin with.)

Besides the swords, she doesn’t look too out of the ordinary. Her hair is black. Long enough that even while thrown into a haphazard braid over her shoulder it sits well at her waist. The braid is struggling to hold. There are a few flyaway strands here and there, and a clump that's escaped the style and sticks to her forehead in the humidity. Her clothing is a bit threadbare, something that's both clearly had an attempt at maintenance, yet still inevitably wore down to time and travel. It’s an otherwise plain outfit (Something of which disappoints him a little. Asa had always figured that If you were going to go through all the effort of making and wearing clothing, it had best be something interesting to look at.) She’s wearing dark trousers (He knows that fabric too, wool) and a loose fitting green shirt, half haphazardly draped over her shoulder and fastened into place with a rough looking cloth belt. The look is boxy-like. It leaves one of her shoulders and part of her chest exposed, revealing some isometric looking tattoo (The specific details of which he is still too far away to appreciate) wrapping around her arm.

His tail flicks with interest. Now that was something you didn't see everyday.

Her gaze wanders around the shack, heavy and critical of her surroundings. After a moment of investigation (there was not, in fact, a lot to investigate. He’d made sure of that himself.) She crosses the room, picking up one of the old ceramic shards and turning it over in between her fingers. The small table it was once sitting on lays on its side, missing a leg and in the beginning stages of being reclaimed by nature.

“Hm,” She holds it up. Nervous about being seen, he flattens himself further back at the corner end of the beam. As if on cue, the moment he steps back, her gaze snaps up to where he’s sitting. Comparatively, however, she turns with no amount of urgency, dropping the shard back to the ground and dusting her hand off on her trouser.

“Oh,” She says, more to herself than him. She doesn’t sound surprised. She doesn’t sound like much of anything, “A fox…?” She says, under her breath, her brows furrowing. Yes, yes. He’s a very rare and beautiful creature. Pack it up, swordlady. She doesn’t do that. She tilts her head, presumably to try and get a better look at him. Her eyes wander down to his tails, as though instinctive, and he swears he sees the way she counts them in her eyes.

Momentarily, she’s silent. But then, she leans back on her heels, resting a hand on her face in some show of exhaustion. She rests it there momentarily, exhaling past her fingers, and then runs her hand up and into her hair.

“... Alright,” She says, eventually, pointing the length of her sword up toward him. It’s not exactly a threatening gesture, and the sword is just clunky enough to not pose much of a threat to him from the angle she sits at. Nevertheless, he stands in surprise, which he feels is reasonable. Given the sword pointed at him, “Let's get on with it, then. Say your piece.”

Inquisitively, he sits up. His ears perk as he does, “What?” He asks, acting more out of surprise than anything. He doesn’t think he’s hearing her right. He’s not the best at this language yet - He’s been in the area long enough to pick up on a lot of it, but some of it still hurts his head to sort through.

She gives a loose gesture with the weapon, something that looks almost impatient, given the rest of her posture, “You heard me. Say your piece.”

Oh. He had heard her correctly. He doesn’t like that.

Sitting back on his hunches, he looks down at her rather skeptically. Humans, as a whole, didn’t expect him to be able to speak to them. He could, of course. Most of them didn’t know that, but he could. Curious, he sits back down, and does so slowly. The kind of action that he fears reveals more than he means for it to, shows off his apprehension more than it should. His tails hang off the rafter, and he flicks them closer to himself as though for protection.

“Sorry,” He says, not politely. He paraphrases his thoughts like this, “Most people come into these kinda things lookin’ to kill. Didn’t exactly expect… Ah. Y’know.” He trails off. She takes it for what it is, tilting her head in the same, instinctive way another fox might when curious. It looks odd on a human. It does work to calm him somewhat.

“I do know,” She says, lazily shoveling the tip of her blade into the ground. Then, after a moment of consideration, decides to add, “I was sent in here to kill you.”

His tails betray him, flicking again with unease at the news. She doesn’t say anything. But she also doesn’t move to try and grab him or anything like that, and she doesn’t look like she’s priming to do so. Human’s have pretty obvious cues on those kinds of things.

“Well,” He echo’s back, breaking the silence. He tilts his head back at her. Had he taken the shape of a human, he’d’ve probably been laughing a little nervously right now. Fortunately, he had not, and so it’s just everything else about his posture that gives him away, “If I’m being honest with you, I don’t really want to die.”

“I don’t imagine you do, no,” She says, and rests the whole of her weight on her blade. It sinks further into the wood like it’s going through mud. Oof. Yeah that wouldn’t be a pretty way to go. Finally, as though a half assed attempt to soothe his nerves, “I don’t really want to kill today.”

“Oh,” He says, and it does not, in fact, work to soothe him. She does not look like someone who does not want to kill. Nevertheless, he says, “That’s good. For the preservation of my life n’all that. Not tryin’ to kill me does help with the whole, living thing.”

Her lip twitches up. Oh good. She has a sense of humor.

“They thought you were ….” She seems to need a moment to search for her own words. Though, like him, she seems to lose her train of thought, and eventually just ends the whole of it with a “... Well. They thought you were something else, is all. Not that I’m sure they’d be particularly fond of having pests running around,” Her expression doesn’t betray a lot. He doesn’t like that. He likes how expressive humans are, when they are.

“I’m not a pest,” He says, though he doesn’t take much offense to it. To show it, he stretches himself across the rafter, and with some amount of pride decides, “I am a problem, though.”

“... I see no difference,” She says.

Like her, he likes to think he has a sense of humor. “Most humans are problems,” he points out, with some amount of poignancy.

She makes another expression, thin lipped, and gives a shrug, “I see no difference,” She says again, tone falling to mild-mannered agreement. He does laugh this time, a high pitched yelp sound in this body. He stalks forward on the beam - Mindful of its age, and careful, and in deciding that she’s moved from the category of ‘threat’ to the category of ‘neutral party,’ decides to re-assess her.

Upon closer inspection, the sword in her hand has an engraving along the side. That doesn’t surprise him. Humans had a fondness for decorating their murder-tools in all sorts of interesting ways, and he’s inclined to believe it doesn’t serve much more of a purpose than looking nice. Her tattoos, which he’d at first taken to be strictly isometric in nature look more like are up close. There’s a sun on her shoulder, iconographic. The rays of it bleed from her shoulder, to her chest.

His ear twitches. A soldier, maybe…? It would make sense. Even little settlements like this generally had one or two of those sitting around, and the ones that made their skin all pretty-like were either criminals or warriors. She didn’t feel very criminal to him. Too… well. It was the way she was holding herself.

But something in his gut didn’t scream solder to him, either. The ones in this area wore more protective gear, and were awfully stupid too. Well. Most humans were pretty stupid, if you asked him, but the solders especially so.

His tails flick.

“You’re not from here,” She says, conversationally. She’s looking at him again, like she’s looking through him rather than at him, and it makes his fur stand on end. His ear twitches, uncomfortable. Still. He humors the question, because he hasn’t actually spoken to anyone in some time, let alone in this tongue, and it’s good to stay in practice with these things.

“Not really, no.”

“... Hm. Traveling then,” She shifts her gaze away, bringing her hand up to rest at her chin. It’s odd. He’s a good read of body language - better than humans were with one another, maybe. And something about her felt…. There was really no other way of saying it, but she felt fake. Like she was a statue forcing the little movements for his sake. It’s the kind of thing that feels obvious to him. Not that a person couldn’t move like that, but they generally didn’t. He didn’t know why, he wasn’t that kind of smart, but instinct and experience told him so, and he trusts that. He’s always trusted that.

Because of this, he’s unsure if she’s asking him, or simply saying it for the sake of doing so, he simplifies his situation down to a scant, “It’s complicated,” because it is complicated, and he doesn’t need or want her to know the details of those complications.

A small breeze flutters the reed-like grass growing at the end of the room. She gives him one of those inscrutable looks, the irritating kind that refuses to give more information then it takes. She sighs, propping her hands on her hips, and looks out the fragmented window. The one in the direction of the forest, that is, and tells him that, “... Well. Stay on the paths the humans have made. The forest gets dangerous around this time of year.”

He bites back pointing out that most old-growth forests are dangerous, a child would know that, he’s not stupid and doesn’t like being patronized. But then she’s looking back to him, kind of out of the corner of her eye, and it halts whatever thought he had.

Hm.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” He says, because he will. He might not listen, but he will keep it in mind.

Deciding that it’s been settled, she turns to leave. About half way across the room, where the charcoal remains of an old firepit she adds, “I would leave soon, if I were you. Or at least stop killing their livestock. A few people here have hounds, and the dogs aren’t as understanding as I am.”

Well. Fair was fair. He didn’t like dogs all that much. They were dumber then the humans. Curious, he leans forward and asks, almost conspiratorially, “.... the ducks?”

She stops. Looks over her shoulder at him, expression one heavy with bemusement, “What?”

“Can I at least have those?”

Then her shoulders fall, and as though strained, she says, “.... No,” and, as she begins walking again. She raises a hand at him and says, “Take the eggs next time.”

And then she walks away. He doesn't even get her name.

==> Next Chapter

#original character #original writing #DdBoM #Kitsune #Book of Mythos Chapters

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