soft words ricochet

- You think that you're the man. I think, therefore, I am. -

Thal has never been one to swim in the same circles as leaders and politicians, but Dantalion isn't just the Theocrat of her new home, he happens to be her friend's 'significant other.' That alone is enough of a reason for her to feel like reaching out, although her quest is a pretty good motivator as well. But if she's going to be close to Asta, it seems like a good idea to get to know Danta a little better, if only to see for herself who's stolen into the Butcher's heart. 

She lounges against the end of the bridge that leads to one of the many islands of the Grounds, lazily flicking her dagger as she waits for him to appear. Her signature look hasn't changed, black on black on black with a hint of silver flashing throughout. The only difference is her lack of cloak, not feeling a need to hide and not feeling enough of the cold to miss the extra layer over her long sleeves. So when the Maverick appears, her dark obsidian-like horns are on full display around her head, catching the light as she nods her head in greeting. "Danta. Good to see you." Her smile is sharp and feline as she asks, "Ready to help me find some echo sharks?"

Thalassa

- I'm not your friend or anything, damn -

// I thought of angels choking on their halos //

Danta prefers to think of himself as the nuisance who yanks Asta's chain rather than his significant other, but regardless, there's no denying that his status in the butcher's life is... well... significant. And, as Thal is about to find out, his style of leadership is much like his personality; that is, kind of like aiming a loose cannon at something important and hoping for the best.

He arrives in what he assumes is good time for their little outing, the metal heel of his boots preceding his arrival in a series of leisurely clicks. Like his fellow Ancient, he's also dressed in his usual - a ruddy leather coat left open with nothing but pale, scar flecked skin on show beneath it, and a pair of dark pants good for hiding bloodstains. Raising a hand bedecked with rings and flashing her a fanged smile, he sketches a roguish little bow as he draws up before her.

"Even better to see you, Thal," he croons. "And I am, in fact. I've been craving sushi for a few days. We can take to the skies to look out for some if you've a shift with wings?"

Dantalion

// get them drunk on rose water //

- You think that you're the man. I think, therefore, I am. -

She pushes off the post, nearly rolling her eyes at his bow, but she contains herself enough for a subtle lift of her gaze. His attire doesn't surprise her after shopping with Asta, almost shocked to see his restraint instead, having expected some useless piece of clothing. Maybe that's just her own preference for practicality over style (most days). 

Chuckling low and warm, she shrugs her shoulders. "There's no fresher sushi than straight out of the water." She should know. 

Looking to the overcast sky, she sees no reason to waste time on the ground. "Wings work for me." After a moment of pause, she glares at Danta, recalling their first meeting. "I'm not going to be as easy to beat if you turn on me, so maybe stick to the echo sharks." And then she shifts, showing him exactly what he'll be facing if he chooses to use his lyvern shift against her again - blue-black scales spreading down her sides as her wings unfurled behind her, a low growl rumbling through her thick fangs in undisguised threat. A lyvern won't be as easy to push around.

Thalassa

- I'm not your friend or anything, damn -

// I thought of angels choking on their halos //

"My thoughts exactly. Though I'll do my best to let you hear the sharks echo a bit first before we take them to pieces," Danta says with a cheerful smile, the sunlight casting rainbows through his diamond horns as he follows suit and tips his head back to gaze up at the sky. "Ah, good," he says, his gaze dropping just in time to catch her glare, his eyebrows raising in a mix of curiosity and amusement.

"I'm not nearly hungry enough this time to turn on you," he croons. "Besides, I've a feeling I'll get in trouble if I start snapping at your heels." Regardless, he does take a step back to give her room to shift, watching with open admiration as she warps and changes into the winged reptile he knows is sleeping in his own blood.

In response to her growl, however - intimidation, threat, or whatever else she wants to call it - Danta merely offers her a fanged grin and proceeds to shift himself. His shape, though, grows smaller, feathered, and arguably much more obnoxious. Waggling his tail feathers at her as a gore crow, the Maverick lets out a croak and a chitter before taking to the air with a flurried flap of wings. Off they go, then.

Dantalion

// get them drunk on rose water //

Thalassa

They created the monster

"I'd greatly appreciate that, considering it's the entire purpose of this little field trip." She nearly rolls her eyes again, but contains it to a fanged grin that says she has every intention of them both getting their fill if they succeed in the original reason for the trip. It would be a miserable experience to have to tell Dygra, 'My bad. I didn't complete the quest because we ate the echo sharks. Oops.'

However, his following response is satisfactory, and she lets a hint of a smile peek through her glare, knowing that he's probably right. Asta would most likely side with Danta on most issues, but she has no doubt that he wouldn't like hearing that they'd been at each other's throats. So, with that potential problem solved, she watches the Ancient shift into his gore crow, reassured that a lyvern versus lyvern battle wasn't on the itinerary for the day. 

When Danta is ready, she follows him to the sky, her larger wings pushing gusts of wind into the trees below. She slowly gains altitude before leveling out to scope the area, lush greenery and gentle blue waters spreading as far as her eyes can see. Even as her eyes scan for gray blobs, her ears are more attentive, listening for the haunting echo that's indicative of the sharks. Meanwhile, her wings catch wind currents, guiding them around the edges of the islands like she'd been born for the sky. On occasion, Thal glances at the corvid to ensure he's keeping up with her pace, although she doesn't slow either way, her determination and impatience making her hasty. 

It takes longer than she'd like to admit before she hears anything, the wind roaring in her ears and the rustling of leaves and the crashing of waves all a little too loud to pick out the soft sound of 'voices.' Even when she notices the sound, it's too far off to make out the words, and she questions whether she's just hearing what she wants to. If only to confirm it with another, Thal drifts towards where she thinks it's coming from, letting out a low rumble to alert Danta of her possible find.

and then asked why I bite.

// I thought of angels choking on their halos //

Cawing and letting himself be buffeted playfully around by the gusts of wind created by Thalassa's shift, Danta is naturally a little further behind as they begin to use the skies to scour the water below. Were he not so easily distracted by the ease and freedom of flying, not to mention the mischievous glee of catching air currents and riding them a ways before fighting away from them, he might have worked a little harder to keep up with her. Alas, such is his nature.

Only Thal's low rumble alerts him to what they're actually meant to be doing, Danta straightening out in his flight and dropping a few feet to let his beady eyes scan the waves beneath them. He has to watch carefully to check whether he's merely seeing the water ripple or if there are a few dorsal fins protruding from the surface but, after a moment or two, he trills something back to Thal to confirm the find. Plummeting lower and arcing out towards the nearest shoreline, he'll leave it up to his companion to say when she's listened enough and it's time to have some fun

Dantalion

// get them drunk on rose water //

Thalassa

They created the monster

She descends with Danta, lingering just above the crashing waves and gray fins to listen. The sounds of old words and phrases overlap in a symphony of sounds, all meant to lure and trap ignorant prey. 'Come play with me!' 'Hi!' 'This way!' 'I found something!' They sound like innocent children or kind helpful souls with nothing but the best intentions. To someone unaware of the sharks, it would seem like a call to something exciting, almost sweet in its messages, but she knows better, aware that the echoes are much darker: the words of people caught in the web of deception, likely costing them their lives.

It's not until she's pieced together a few of the lines and tones that she determines it's enough, more than ready to silence the eerie noises. Danta will know it's time by the sharp dive of her form towards the water, the way she snatches one of the slippery creatures from the waves and tosses it onto the beachy shore of the island. With an impressive shift and roll, Thal lands next to it, already unsheathing her daggers for the attack in a scattering of sand.

and then asked why I bite.

// I thought of angels choking on their halos //

Perching on some spindly branch that really has no business holding his weight, Danta gets comfortable and fluffs out his feathers while he waits for Thal to complete her quest business. It isn't a long wait, as it happens, and his head cocks sharply to the side to see the lyvern suddenly divebomb at the waves. Croaking encouragingly (he'd make a great crow-cheerleader, he thinks) and hopping from the branch to flap up, as the echo shark lands on the shore, writhing and thrashing, already Danta is swooping forward, claws outstretched.

There's a reason gore crows cry for meat! and eyes!, and it's this latter appendage that Danta goes for, scraping out a ripe eyeball and taking to the sky with it, ensuring he's quick enough not to get caught by the wicked blades of Thal's daggers. After enjoying his snack, he also deigns to land back on two feet, brushing off his coat as he straightens up in the sand and absently licking his fingers.

Dantalion

// get them drunk on rose water //

- You think that you're the man. I think, therefore, I am. -

She doesn't fault the crow for getting in while he can, hearing the low keen of the shark as it tries to flick and flip its tail closer to the water, and away from the brutal assault that's already begun. Like a force of untamed chaos, blades and fire flick to life around her, a low hum in her chest as they connect with its flank, digging deep into the muscle to sizzle and sear in a pleasant aroma. Her blades crisscross along the side, the echo shark squirming helplessly under her violence. 

Grabbing the top fin, she flips from one side to the other with easy grace, shredding the other side in equal measure; but it's no fun when the prey just flops around - there's no danger or excitement in the hunt. A flicker of a thought makes her consider finishing the poor excuse for a fish, glancing up to its head. 

Thal attempts not to look surprised, but it's hard to do when she finds herself in a different spot that she'd just been, her dagger pressing against the creature's jugular. She hesitates for only a moment in her disorientation before plunging the blade into the soft tissue, the blood pooling around her hand, soaking into the sleeve of her black shirt and down to her pants below. It doesn't bother her as she watches the life bleed from the shark in a matter of seconds, the fight slowly leaving it, the beady eyes becoming dull in the sunlight, and finally the beat of its heart slowing to a stop at her fingertips. 

Not fazed in the slightest, she stands, letting the carcass drop to the ground with a limp thud of sand before turning to Danta with a sharp grin. "Sorry. Did you want to join in?" There's a wicked gleam in her eyes that says he should have been quicker if he did, her tongue reaching out casually to lick the blood dripping from her blade despite the splattering on her face.

Thalassa

- I'm not your friend or anything, damn -

// I thought of angels choking on their halos //

Smirking around the finger still in his mouth to see Thalassa suddenly dart! and seem surprised by it, Danta lets his hand drop as she speaks and the carcass bleeds out between them, the Maverick rolling his shoulder in a shrug. "Far be it for me to interrupt your hunt," he purrs. "I'm content with the snack I stole. If you'd indulge me in a bit of shark fin though, I certainly won't object."

Padding across the sand to crouch before the dead creature, he tilts his head with interest, as if to analyse its various wounds. "Your first time darting?" he asks, gesturing with a hand propped on his knee at the two spots she'd vanished between. "Scared the shit out of me when I first did it."

Dantalion

// get them drunk on rose water //

- You think that you're the man. I think, therefore, I am. -

Lowering the dagger from her lips, Thal scoffs. "You can have all the fins for all I care. They're too rubbery for my taste." She prefers the fat meat of the underbelly, the kind that melts in her mouth whether cooked or raw, hence the reason she'd slashed the sides, specifically choosing not to butcher the best part. She's not a monster after all. 

Her eyes narrow at the question, not appreciating that her confusion had been evident, that there might have been a momentary lapse in her defenses. She stills her body to keep from giving too much away, instead flipping her bloody dagger in her hand like it would make her seem more casually avoidant than nervous, her voice flippantly dry. "Maybe." Although she finds herself curious as to Danta's own darting experience.

Thalassa

- I'm not your friend or anything, damn -

// I thought of angels choking on their halos //

"Yeah? I like to gnaw on em a bit," Danta says with a grin, approaching the shark more closely now and removing a knife from his boot with the intention of relieving the creature of its fins. "Good in soup, too. Had some fin soup at Torchline once - it was pretty good," he says, sitting comfortably on the sand to lean back casually on one elbow and enjoy the spoils of Thal's hunt. (He figures he's allowed given that he's enjoying the bits she doesn't really like, right?)

Glancing sidelong up at her, he can't help the smile that sneaks across his face. "Yeah? Well... maybe you want to practice it, then, but not get too reliant on it just yet. I could only dart a foot or so at first. It's a little more distance now, but it felt more like a lucky jump than anything else before that point."

Dantalion

// get them drunk on rose water //

- You think that you're the man. I think, therefore, I am. -

Approaching the side of the echo shark, her face scrunches in distaste before a mischievous smirk suddenly spreads across her features. Her tone drips with sarcasm as her dagger digs into the underbelly. "Really? I've heard it's like eating luxere testes. Maybe you should give those a try." Ripping free the piece of meat, she props her arm on the top of the carcass, a fanged grin catching the sunlight while her eyes glitter like a pool of playful waves. 

On the topic of darting, Thal isn't as relaxed, although she starts to ease at the freely offered advice, secretly stowing it away for when she plans to practice. Her gaze runs over him, looking for signs of an ulterior motive, anything that might imply he couldn't be trusted despite Asta's resounding endorsement. But when she finds none, she remembers that she's supposed to be making 'friends' and gives him a demeaning smile. "Noted." That has to be close enough, right? At least she smiled.

Thalassa

- I'm not your friend or anything, damn -

Dantalion

how the fuck am I supposed to know

"Bold of you to assume I haven't already tried luxere testes," Danta says with dark amusement in his eyes, glancing across at Thal as she props herself on the shark carcass. "I never mind having balls in my mouth, besides," he adds with a smug grin. Maintaining eye contact, it's with all the enjoyment of a gross older brother that he takes an obnoxious bite of the shark fin, tearing at it until he can chew at a mouthful of the rubbery flesh.

Noted indeed, Danta ducking his head in acknowledgement and settling back on the shore to enjoy his testes fin, gazing at the still water where the remaining echo sharks have wisely decided not to stick around. "So how come you needed to listen to 'em anyway?" he asks, nodding out at the choppy waves. "Trying to learn how to throw your voice?"

if we're in love or if we're in pain?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!