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+---- Thread: [Training] a conversation about identity (/showthread.php?tid=11697)
RE: a conversation about identity - Flora - 08-04-2025
Flora glances up at him, her brows lifting slightly as his quiet admission settles between them like soft underbrush beneath their feet. [say]"Did that bother you?"[/say] she asks gently, not prying so much as curious. [say]"Being raised by someone else, I mean. Or did it just feel like...a different kind of family?"[/say] There's no judgement in her tone, only interest—wanting to understand, to draw the thread between his story and her own.
She beams when he says he's still surprised by the thing he shares with Danta, her expression softening with affection. [say]"That’s part of what makes it so special, though,"[/say] she murmurs, nudging his arm with her shoulder. [say]"And you'll never be at risk of taking it for granted."[/say]
As they turn left into the thickening woods, Flora tries her best to match his focus—her eyes darting along the tree line, ears straining for anything out of place. She has no clue what she’s listening for. Everything sounds like something. But she mimics the poise, the readiness, watching the way his muscles shift with each step, the subtle tension that coils in his frame. All that to say, Flora doesn’t even hear the twig snap until Asta' stops.
Her breath catches as she nearly bumps into him, eyes going wide as the mood shifts palpably. She crouches slightly, weight forward, a whisper tumbling from her lips like a secret. [say]"Are you going to eat the wolf?"[/say] It’s not a joke—her tone is serious, if hushed. [say]"My daggers are poisoned, so—"[/say] She holds back from reaching for her daggers, hands hovering at her sides. If he plans to make it a meal, she'd rather not ruin it.
But that doesn’t stop her from darting after him when he moves. Her footfalls are light, careful, practiced from years of sneaking through cities and shadows—but they aren’t hunting steps, not yet. So when the wolf comes into view, sudden and sinewed and too close, Flora stumbles slightly, her breath catching as instinct floods her limbs. Her fingers twitch toward her blades—then still, remembering.
RE: a conversation about identity - Astaroth - 08-04-2025
“[say]Mm, I suppose it was like a different kind of family? Though, admittedly, it was all I knew.[/say]” So it hadn’t felt strange to not grow up with one’s mother because nobody else did. He wasn’t unusual until he’d learned that was out of the norm — of course that was long after he’d become Ancient. “[say]Though we were not supposed to know who our mothers were, but the matriarch had let it slip in her senile age.[/say]” He snorts at the memory, even if it was the beginning of more tribulations from his awful siblings.
Bypassing that and squeezing Flora’s arm as she offers her own quiet gushing over Danta and himself, he can’t help but to concede the post that it wasn’t something he’d take for granted. “[say]I do have you to thank for it, of course.[/say]” And how glad was he that they could remain friends in spite of the smear that had occurred.
It makes it easy to begin this hunt on foot, as Asta works to pinpoint the wolf in question. A predator seeking out his prey in all the precise movements the butcher makes looks as if it’s entirely made of grace and not decades of practice. He stops suddenly when he hears the twig snap, feeling her brush against his back with the abruptness.
“[say]Parts of it.[/say]” He confirms, and in a split second of his movement to break the treeline toward the wolf, he’s twisted to hand her one of the daggers he’d brought that wasn’t poisoned. And when he turns back to the wolf, it’s with the scent of iron in the air as he slices his arm deeply, the bloodbane reaching the wolf with enough of a force that it yelps in pain, completely dissuading it from running off.
Which allows Asta the perfect opportunity to rush it, one hand aiming to snag and grip at the nape of its neck with a flash of flame as it snarls its upset, while his other hand with the dagger slashes down the wolf’s side, bringing with it another angry snarl and a sharp twist that has the butcher slipping underneath the canine.
No need to worry, though, because the daggers still plunged quite deep and his teeth have already torn away a chunk of fur and flesh. But there’s a lot of wolf left as it still fights and struggles for Flora to stake her claim.
RE: a conversation about identity - Flora - 08-04-2025
Flora nods slowly, absorbing his words like puzzle pieces that almost—but not quite—fit her own. [say]"I’ve heard people say you can choose your family, or whatever,"[/say] she murmurs, her voice low and thoughtful as they walk, the point being that blood isn't necessarily all that there is. But for better or worse, she'd been stuck with hers, so how that played out in reality, Flora didn't know.
Her gaze flicks up to him as he mentions they weren’t supposed to know their mothers. Her brow furrows, curiosity overtaking her for a beat. [say]"Why? What would that change?"[/say]
She doesn’t press the point, though—especially not when he squeezes her arm and thanks her with that soft smile. Her grin returns easily, bright and warm. [say]"I’ll take credit for it for as long as you’ll let me,"[/say] she teases, though her expression says she knows full well her part was small. Still, she’s proud of it, tucked somewhere between mischief and meaning.
Then the hunt begins. She takes the dagger without hesitation, her fingers wrapping around the unfamiliar hilt as if it’s second nature, though the weight is different, the balance strange. She tests it lightly as she follows behind him, adjusting her grip, breathing slow. And then everything happens fast. Asta’s blood slices through the air with the burn of magic. The wolf’s yelp cuts through the quiet like thunder. Flame and fang and fur collide in a blur as the butcher throws himself into the chaos with no hesitation, no fear, only instinct.
Flora’s heart slams against her ribs, the air vibrating with tension and violence. For a heartbeat she freezes, hands twitching toward daggers that she'd mentally promised not to use. She’s not used to this kind of fight; not without her own weapons, not in a real hunt. But then she sees him—Asta, beneath the wolf, blood already slick across his shirt, fire coiled in his breath—and that single image wipes away her hesitation like morning fog.
Stalking forward, knees bent, feet near-silent in the underbrush, Flora draws back her arm with practiced precision. The dagger is foreign, but she knows how to make any blade sing. With a flick of her wrist, the weapon flies: not at the beast’s flanks or legs or some easy wound, not picking the safe option just because Asta was beneath it. No, Flora aims for the throat. The flash of steel is a clean, silver arc through the trees, and the moment it leaves her hand, her breath stills.
RE: a conversation about identity - Astaroth - 08-05-2025
He had subscribed to the belief of choosing one’s family, despite how it had not particularly been his choice at the time. The Ancients that had found him brought him to Dygra, which had been perhaps the best thing to happen in his youth, but he’d also been automatically invited into the clan of other Ancients whether he wanted to or not. But it had made him the man he is today, the one prowling through the woods with Flora at his side, a gentleman carver at the ready. “[say]My clan was very competitive. They wanted your success to ride on your own worth rather than whom you came from.[/say]” He explains quietly, flashing her a shark tooth smile.
They’d all had different fathers, so that part didn’t matter as much in the long run, but Astaroth’s mother in particular was known for her specific brand of brutality. One that he thinks he’d inherited, though it had not shown until he’d departed the clan.
The hunt is on, though, with an easy smile sent her way to say he’d let her take the credit for as long as he breathed for getting Danta and he to recognize what was happening and to be less afraid of it. It certainly would have made this season a living hell if he’d had the feirw shift back then if they hadn’t. And it’s with a lingering thought of that which has the butcher surging once the wolf is in view and he’s handed off the dagger.
He cares little for the blood that spills and spreads across his clothes, the way the bloodbane has torn into not just himself but the wolf in question as he launches. Fire and singed fur greet them as he does what he can to tackle it down, using every tool in his arsenal to try and bring it down further. A mouth full of fur and raw flesh is spat out in the struggle as he holds on as tightly as he can beneath the wolf, positioned in such a way that he evades the sharp maw as it snaps into the open air.
Flora, for her part, is a beautiful sight to glimpse through the struggle. All elegance and grace, even if he knows there’s some panic in there. He catches a stunning view of her as she flicks her wrist, as the dagger is sent soaring across the creatures throat, erupting through thick fur to find skin and carve open a new and fresh wound that streams and paints the butcher in blood.
Not that he’s ever going to complain, mind you. The butcher takes the opportunity while the wolf cries out to get a better position, to twist them and throw his body weight over enough to knock the wolf off balance. The second it hits the ground at his side, he’s twisting like a spider having just found a moment to attack, reaching out with blood slick hands to snap the wolf’s leg. Swiping the dagger from where he’d left it sticking out of the wolf’s side, he flips it with well practiced ease before sinking it in between the wolf’s ribs, aiming for its heart.
It struggles as Asta kneels beside it, panting with lips coated in scarlet as the aura of the hunt begins to grow more reverent. The blade twists, the wolf struggles less, and the butcher’s tail sweeps low and steady behind him through the pools of hot sticky blood. Flora’s dagger at this point is plucked from the ground with a free hand, handing it back to her with the handle slick with blood and an invitation for her to kneel beside him should she wish to as the wolf grows weaker and weaker.
RE: a conversation about identity - Flora - 08-06-2025
Flora laughs quietly at Asta’s admission, grinning shamelessly up at him with zero apology. [say]"No nepotism, huh?"[/say] she teases. [say]"Well, I definitely wouldn’t have lasted long."[/say] The smirk that follows is pure trouble, the kind that says she’s used exactly who she came from every step of the way—when it suited her, at least. [say]"I’ve never been above using my last name like a key when the lock’s too stubborn."[/say]
But then the hunt swallows them whole.
She watches her blade sink into the wolf’s throat with startling precision, blood fanning outward in a spray that paints Asta in red. And gods—he makes it look like art. The way he moves, all fire and sinew and instinct, wrapping himself around the beast with a violence so seamless it borders on sensual, steals the breath right from her lungs. Her chest tightens. Her stomach twists with heat. It’s beautiful. It’s brutal. It’s him.
Flora doesn’t move at first. She’s heard the stories—about how Ancients could be when the hunt overtook them, how the bloodlust settled in their bones like a second heartbeat—and so, even as her hands itch to be closer, she stays where she is until he glances over his shoulder and that single look is all the permission she needs. Crossing the blood-slick ground with quiet steps, she sinks to her knees beside him without a word, her coat soaking through at the hem. Asta’s hand offers her the dagger, the hilt slick with blood, and she takes it reverently. Her fingers curl around it like it belongs there.
The wolf is still breathing, though just barely. Raw might, brought low by something greater. She looks down at it, its body shuddering, foam and blood bubbling at its mouth, and for a long moment all she can do is stare. She should feel sorry for it, and maybe she does deep down, but the surge that rises in her chest isn’t grief. It’s something sharper.
Her hand presses lightly to the wolf’s muzzle as it snarls weakly, trying to fight even now. [say]"You needed to be stronger,"[/say] she whispers, the words not cruel so much as honest. Almost sad. [say]"That’s the only way you survive."[/say] She knows—because she had survived. When Dahlia crushed her lungs and Pierce drove his blade through her chest, Flora had somehow crawled out the other side. And this? This was just a mirror of that, of what she would have been if she hadn't fought.
With a breath drawn through her teeth, the Doubletake doesn’t hesitate. She draws the blade across the wolf’s throat in one smooth stroke, slicing it open with clinical ease. No trembling, no pausing, just pure precision.
RE: a conversation about identity - Astaroth - 08-06-2025
If Asta had nepotism, he might have managed to thrive longer in Whitebrim. As it stood, he’d fled as quickly as possible, leaving the rest of his clan to succumb to all kinds of brutalities they had brought upon themselves. He’d harbored no part in it, even if a part of him thinks he would have succeeded and came out on top. He would have become a king of nothing, though, and he’s found he far preferred being a creature of stone and blood in Dygra’s favor than anything the barren snowy wasteland Halo had been back then.
Either way, the butcher has always been one that preferred the hunt rather than ruling. And it’s no exception here as he lets instinct take over. He works the wolf with precision, partially from experience of being in possession of a canine shift, but also from the multitudes of times he’d spent hunting them. Take away the escape and it leaves them as a sitting duck, and proudly the butcher’s arrogance and ego takes him the rest of the way. It’s no match for him.
His hand sits by the wolf’s ribs as it gasps in sharp breaths, blood making his hand slick and hot as he waits, as he feels Flora sink beside him on her knees, the other dagger handed over easily. He catches his breath as he waits, watching her from a space of control over his bloodlust. Her voice reaches him before any of the sounds the wolf makes when she presses her hand to its muzzle, the whisper harboring more than just one meaning. And even in the state that he’s in – eyes made wholly black by the fight and the bloodlust, he can read it.
Before he can find a way to answer, to add his own tidbits, she’s slicing the throat of the wolf. Blood pours out in a red wave, a shuddering breath from the canine as it starts to succumb with a gurgled whimper. And with it, the butcher surges forward in the space Flora had just been, diving into the wolf’s throat to chomp down. Sharp teeth pierce through flesh and organs within the large wound Flora had created, and with it the butcher’s shoulders sink down as if in relief.
When he withdraws, his lips drip with deep ruby, his horned head bowed with his eyes shut, splattered everywhere with blood. His hands drop from the wolf and it looks as if he’s meditating, measuring his breaths, soothing a racing, originally unchaseable high of his pulse. “[say]And, you need not be alone.[/say]” Comes the thick accent, heavy enough to bring in the grit of Halo into spaces he’d often hidden like a coat. “[say]You aren’t alone, Flora.[/say]” You have me, you have Danta.
He opens his eyes then, looking over at Flora with a glimpse in his gaze that is perhaps the most open and raw the butcher has ever been with her. Understanding, because while he hadn't been killed, he had also been tortured and left to die. Alone, until he wasn't anymore.
RE: a conversation about identity - Flora - 08-06-2025
Flora shifts only slightly, not to recoil but to give the butcher space; graceful, instinctive, like opening a door for the sea to rush through, but not from him. If anything, there’s something sacred in the way she holds still, watching Asta lean forward to feed that hunger he’s held so carefully in check, something awestruck in the bloodlust wrapped around him like a cloak. He tears into the throat she opened, and she watches him, not just with awe but with understanding.
Rather than looking away, her gaze drops to her hands, to the blood drying in her palms like ink, like oil, like something older than language. It had been hot when it splashed against her skin—bright, fever-warm, pulsing with the last echoes of life—but now it cools fast, clinging to her fingers, thickening in the creases between her knuckles, sinking into the gold around her wrists and banding in a line across her cheeks. She breathes, only to find she’s been doing it all wrong. Too fast. Too shallow. Her chest is rising in quick little jolts, but she hadn’t noticed until she hears the sound of Asta's breathing beside her like the purr of a storm.
Swallowing around the taste of blood still clinging to the back of her tongue, not her own, but close enough that her body isn’t sure what to make of it. She’s never smelled death this closely before. Not like this. Not when it didn’t belong to her. And even though she doesn’t have a predator’s instincts, there’s still something ancient and quiet and visceral threading itself through her bones, curling hot and heavy in her belly.
When Asta speaks, it rolls through the hush like a drumbeat beneath the earth—low and grounding, the accent heavier than usual, roughened by memory and blood. And still, she almost misses the words, not because she isn’t listening, but because everything feels like it’s sinking. Not down, not away, but in; into her skin, into her ribs, into the hollow places she hadn’t realised were still waiting to be filled.
The way he says her name feels like a palm against the small of her back, steadying and calming. She doesn’t answer right away. Her fingers move first, reaching without thought to brush through the wolf’s fur. It’s still soft. Still warm. The blood on her fingers smears across the dark strands like warpaint, like she’s leaving a mark that only she will ever know the shape of. [say]"I...know,"[/say] she murmurs at last, voice low and perhaps a touch disbelieving as if some part of her knows that it's true in this moment, but that as soon as she's away, as soon as she's back by herself, the truth of it will seem a little less obvious.
She glances over her shoulder, drawn by the weight of him beside her, by the silence stretched thick between their bodies. Her eyes trace the curve of his jaw, the blood streaked across olive skin like paint left to dry, the dark of his eyes so fully swallowed in black that she can’t see the edges anymore. He looks like something carved from myth and dusk and bone-deep certainty, and for a breath she finds herself searching that darkness—his darkness—for a reflection of her own.
RE: a conversation about identity - Astaroth - 08-06-2025
She doesn’t seem convinced, as far as Asta can tell. And perhaps part of it is the block mentally from the bloodlust that has finally been sated, from the exhaustion that weighs heavy in his bones like lead. Not too heavy to where he can’t give her his full attention, however raw and primal and predatory it is. He can see it in her, even if she can’t quite come to grips with it herself. Because if she didn’t have a streak of black in that beautiful heart of hers, she wouldn’t be able to sit here with him as she does.
But she’s here. She’s right beside him, knee deep in the pooling blood just as he is, skin drying and flaking with scarlet that looks so devastatingly stunning on her skin. It’s a distraction as he scans her, studying her face as she murmurs, even if Asta is less than convinced she believes it. Perhaps now, when they’re within arms reach, but when she’s back home and they’re thousands of miles away, he imagines it’s harder to believe.
And there isn’t really anything the butcher can do to alleviate it other than try to prove to her that even when those dark thoughts slip in, staining the bright pages of her mind like a spill of ink, there might be something there to staunch it. He’s silent as they stare at each other, as she takes him in and searches him - really searches him, and he watches her back. Raw and unholy, a being made of chaos and nightmares who’s heart is made of nothing more than black obsidian, with channels carving through them for those he loves. Danta is there, of course, but there’s a portion carved out for Flora, too. Thalassa and Charlie, all networking tunnels through the pit of inky, oily black that makes up the butcher’s chest.
It's what makes him turn toward her, still harboring that gritty reverence, reaching up to cup her cheeks with his bloodstained hands, to draw himself in to press his forehead against hers as he closes his eyes as if in prayer. “[say]There are two sides to the same coin, yes? And you and I harbor both. The side everyone else gets to see and then there’s this.[/say]” He withdraws from her, keeping a hand on her cheek as he gestures to the wolf, cooling now that it’s succumbed. “[say]I can’t say I understand what you went through because I can’t. What I can say is that the anger you feel will not go away easily. It’s up to you whether you let it fester and take over,[/say]” the hand on the wolf finds the blade sticking out of its chest, twisting with expert movements to slice through the fur to get to the meat of the wolf, before twisting to carve through the fallen predator. “[say]Or you carve it out and embrace it.[/say]” And for him?
He is a carver. The gentleman butcher.
RE: a conversation about identity - Flora - 08-06-2025
As Asta’s hands lift to her face, Flora lets her eyes fall shut—not because she doesn’t want to look at him, but because she can. Because there’s safety here, in the blood-warm weight of his palms and the steadiness of his touch. Her body doesn’t brace, doesn’t tense, doesn’t prepare for pain or rejection; it simply rests, just for a moment, leaning into the quiet certainty of him.
When his forehead touches hers, she exhales like it’s instinct, like some hidden part of her has been waiting for the signal to release. He smells the way he always does—something sweet and sharp like cherries and sun-split bark, layered now with the metallic tang of blood and the warmth of fire long since doused. Flora leans against him as he speaks, forehead still brushing his, lashes lowering as though the closeness might help her understand the parts of herself he sees so clearly. Her breath is slow now, heavy with the kind of stillness that settles after something unnameable has passed through.
When he pulls back to gesture toward the wolf, she follows his hand, watches the way he moves, how easy it is for him to slip back into work, into motion. The way the blade answers to him, neat and clinical, carving through fur and meat like it was always meant to. There’s no hesitation in it. No guilt. Flora watches it all, something dull and aching curling beneath her ribs. A kind of envy. A kind of grief. [say]"I wish you could do that to parts me,"[/say] she says quietly, eyes still on the wolf’s torn-open chest. Perhaps if Asta could cut out the parts of her that refused to heal, that remained infected, that pushed her towards bitterness or pettiness, then maybe she could finally start to heal. She smiles, but it’s crooked, soft around the edges in a way that’s almost sad before her gaze drifts upward again, catching his face in profile; blood against olive, myth carved into the shape of something painfully real. [say]"Would you still be like this,"[/say] she murmurs, [say]"if you hadn't found Danta?"[/say]
She doesn’t ask it like she’s doubting him, she asks it like she’s trying to find the shape of something half-buried inside herself. Because the truth is, she doesn’t really know Asta without Danta, but certainly the butcher has told her enough and she wonders which parts of him would have remained calcified without love. For all he’s said about not being alone, about mastering darkness instead of letting it win, Flora can’t help but wonder if this—this peace, this control, this sense of direction—is only possible because he’s loved. Because someone stayed and because he loved them back.
RE: a conversation about identity - Astaroth - 08-07-2025
He holds her while she takes that moment to rest, where he can ensure that she knows he’s got her. She can crack herself open and yawn wide with the brilliance of Torchline watercolors and he wouldn’t shy away from it. He’s there for her, perhaps not in the way that she wishes he were. But sometimes presence was all you needed and that he can provide – at least for now.
Keeping her close as he carves through the wolf, the butcher hums a low and quiet sound to hear that she’d wish he could do it for her. And while he could carve and tear through her if she let him, it wouldn’t grant her the results she needed or craved. She had to do it herself. “[say]It’s something you have to do for yourself, unfortunately.[/say]” He sighs a touch wearily, as if he too was mourning the fact that he couldn’t help her more than he is at this present moment.
Her question surprises him, though, stilling the blade as he works it through the wolf, letting that raw, blackened gaze flit back to her beautiful face, rife with edges of sorrow and grief of parts of her that would never be the same. He meets her gaze, bright like the ocean but with the depths to prove that there was something dark and stormy underneath the waves if you looked long enough. And he doesn’t shy away. Why would he?
“[say]Yes.[/say]” He says after a moment, shifting slightly where they kneel in the blood to keep her pressed close to him. “[say]All it takes, darling, is someone to accept you for who you are and how you are. That does not necessarily equate to romance.[/say]” He pauses, as if considering, loosening his hold on her so that he can face her more fully. “[say]I was not open like this before with you, darling, because I did not know how you would react to the darkness that resides in me. It is a part of me that is accepted and acknowledged. The trauma, however?[/say]” He pauses, his shark tooth smile twisting apologetic. “[say]That had to be carved out. And it was only my shame in having to ask Dygra for her help to remove it that prevented me from going. And so, in a way, it was Danta who helped.[/say]” A laugh bubbles from his chest, warm and vibrant. “[say]Simply because he told me I was being stupid for not going to see her about it sooner.[/say]”
RE: a conversation about identity - Flora - 08-08-2025
Flora exhales, the sound a thin ribbon of air that curls between them before vanishing into the cold. Her eyes drift down to the torn pelt in front of them, to the dull sheen of blood where it’s already begun to thicken against the air. She doesn’t flinch, though something in her mouth tightens, a faint downturn at the corners as his words settle over her like frost. She knows he’s right—hates that he’s right—and still, a small, stubborn part of her aches for the easier version of the truth. The one where someone else could reach inside and take all the rotting, bitter pieces without her having to open herself up wide enough to bleed.
She wants to tell him she’s sure he’d be harder without Danta. Colder. That the sharpness in him might have cut deeper into everything if there hadn’t been someone to steady his hands when the blade slipped. But the thought curls behind her teeth and stays there. What’s the point of asking if she’s only going to disagree? And besides—there aren’t many people she’d even consider taking advice from. Asta is certainly near the top of that list.
Her breath catches and softens into another sigh, this one more surrender than protest. She leans into him, arms winding around his frame until she’s folded close, her cheek pressing against the heat of his chest. The blood there dampens her hair, clings to the fabric beneath her fingers, but she doesn’t care. [say]"I like all the parts of you,"[/say] she murmurs into the fabric, her voice muffled, the words warm against his skin. [say]"Even the ones you thought maybe I wouldn't."[/say] And it’s true—she likes him whole, the jagged edges and the smooth ones, the parts that smell of firelight and the ones still dripping with blood.
When he speaks of Dygra carving out his trauma, her head tips back just enough to see his face, the corner of her mouth hitching into something crooked and knowing. [say]"So you didn’t have to do it yourself,"[/say] she says, and though there’s a spark of teasing triumph in it, it’s softened by understanding. She knows what he means; that the act of walking into the temple, of asking, of laying yourself bare for someone to cut you open—that part still belonged to him.
Her arms loosen, sliding away as she leans back, the space between them filling with the copper-tinged air and the soft thud of her own heartbeat. Her gaze slips to the wolf’s body, the fur already stiffening. [say]"Do you want more,"[/say] she asks after a moment, eyes flicking back to him, [say]"or are you planning on bringing it back with us?"[/say]
RE: a conversation about identity - Astaroth - 08-08-2025
Perhaps he would be colder, sharper, more afraid and worried of letting anyone see the true Astaroth if Danta wasn’t there to thaw it. Or maybe it would have been an eventual thawing, that the man once born in the snowy recesses of Whitebrim might have warmth in him that isn’t derived from his mastery over fire. Either way, it’s hard to say, and a part of him is deeply glad that he doesn’t have to figure it out.
Life was far more interesting when he had experiences like these - like the queen knelt beside him in the blood of a spontaneous hunt, looking as though she belonged with the flecks of blood that have painted her blonde hair into shades of scarlet, the way the weariness weighs on her in a way that the butcher understands.
Her head is warm where her cheek presses against his chest, and there’s a smidge amount of tension that loosens from his chest. “[say]I am glad.[/say]” He murmurs softly, with all the honesty that settles in his shoulders. “[say]It is quite relieving to hear.[/say]” He’d already been burned once before when he’d thought to divulge with someone and that still ripples through him with the extent of waves reverberating now and then each tine she reared her head.
His chuckle is warm as he releases her and inclines his head with a hum of “[say]mm, I see now.[/say]” As a playful agreement to her teasing, and in the interim he takes a few moments to slice off portions of the meat to devour further, raw and bloodied, dark red. At her question, though, he swipes at his lips as he considers. “[say]I think we shall leave this for the rest of the scavengers. I do, however, want this.[/say]” He pauses, snagging the dagger again and working meticulously around cartilage and sweeping through bone and tendons to sever the wolf’s head - absolutely unapologetically - before he rises and flashes her a small yet smug smirk.
“[say]Shall we? We can get cleaned up and finally get you that drink, darling.[/say]” Because the two of them looked like an absolute mess, but with the wolf head in his hands at least it would make sense.
RE: a conversation about identity - Flora - 08-10-2025
Flora lets the matter drift for now, content to leave it where it’s fallen between them, though she knows she’ll turn the butcher’s words over later when she’s alone, rolling them like stones in her palm, trying to feel the edges until she finds a shape that fits into her own understanding.
His relief rumbles through her chest where her cheek rests against him, and she hums in quiet answer, the sound warm and unhurried. Part of her would be perfectly happy to remain here a while longer, kneeling in the cooling pool of blood with the carcass between them like some grim altar, but the air is already beginning to shift. The warmth is leaving the body, the copper scent growing sharper, stickier, on her skin. Sooner or later, the whole thing will start to smell.
When he decides to leave it for the scavengers, she nods, watching the way his blade moves, clean and purposeful. Her breath catches in a soft inhale as he slips it through cartilage and bone to take the wolf’s head, the movement efficient enough to be almost elegant. She rises when he does, the cold biting a little sharper now that she’s not folded against him, and flashes him a grin that’s all teeth and approval.
[say]"I can’t just burn it all off like you can,"[/say] she says, tone playfully apologetic as she glances down at herself, blood spattered across her arms, clinging in her hair. [say]"So you’ll have to be patient while I shower."[/say] Her gaze flicks to the head in his hand, a spark of amusement curling through her smile. [say]"Unless you’d rather have your drink with me looking like this. I doubt anyone would dare say anything to us about it,"[/say] she adds with a crooked smile.
RE: a conversation about identity - Astaroth - 08-10-2025
“[say]Ah, yes, however burning it off still leaves one with a mess.[/say]” The butcher hums with a tone that’s more lamenting than anything, dramatics returning through him as he glances over at her. “[say]It burns away to ash which is unfortunately far easier to smear.[/say]” A heavy sigh leaves him, like it’s the only thing he can imagine in this moment that would ruin it. It doesn’t, not really, because both he’s mastered a way of cleaning. But without fireproof clothes just yet, the butcher’s at a loss of ensuring he doesn’t lose some of his favorite attire (even if there’s far less of it this season).
Chuckling lightly and offering his elbow to her from the hand not holding the head of the wolf, the butcher’s head tilts curiously, as if debating whether or not anyone would say anything. He already knows the answer, but at times it’s fun to play along. Such that when he shoots his shark-tooth grin back over at her, he inclines his horned head with a nod. “[say]It is purely about your comfort, darling. I would not at all be opposed to having a drink with you looking as beautifully bloody as you do now. It relies on whether or not you think you could stand it?[/say]” A playful challenge shot back her way, the squeeze of her arm as they pick their path back toward the Dusklight.