[Catchall] Settling In

[pyrodulia]

Who: Agnes and You
What: The process of getting acclimated to a new body and a new world
When: October
Warnings: Mention of Agnes' canonical death (no details), discussion of gruesome use of human remains, cult activity, fire used to destroy important things.

She never actually put any milk in it. She never even drank it. She’d just take it over and sit there, staring out the window into the street for an hour or so, then stand up and leave. I’d go over to clear away her coffee. It was always scalding hot.

The way she always used to order the coffee, it always sounded like she was enjoying it. The order, I mean. Like the phrase “one black coffee with room for milk” was a delightfully novel thing for her to say.


1. Coffee
There was a cafe back home, the Canyon Cafe. Agnes started visiting in 1991, and she was certain that the staff noticed she didn't seem to age a day between then and 2006, when she...before she arrived here in Bottlecap Bay. She'd gotten into a habit, ordering a black coffee with enough room for milk, and then setting with the cup and not drinking a drop. It was the normalcy of the act of ordering she craved.

Here, though, adjustments need to be made. As a Ninetales (what a silly name), she can't exactly hold a mug, so the coffee is prepared and put into a shallow bowl for her. And as a Ninetales, rather than what she was before, she can actually drink it.

She's surprised, with the first sip, exactly how bitter it is. In fact, the look on her face might be comedic for onlookers. There is absolutely sputtering happening, and her tails all standing up straight like a row of exclamation marks.


2. Canopy
For some reason, Rimbombee went out of his way to ensure that Agnes's living quarters up in the Canopy are water-resistant, if not completely impervious to rain, making her more comfortable than some of the other Cheri Berries. In the meantime, though, she can be found exploring the Canopy as a whole or bringing messages from those standing watch to the main building.

There's a restlessness to her that's obvious if you watch her for long. But that restlessness was one she had since she was anchored by Gertrude Robinson. Then, she existed unable to fulfill her purpose. Here and now, she doesn't know what her purpose is.

If you're around the Canopy, perhaps this is a good time to meet the new recruit? After all, she's fully herself instead of Froslass's pet bitch now.


3. Chitin
Agnes has no issues with bugs, in the abstract. But the first time she sees a spider web bridging the gap from the branch of a tree to its trunk, her response is more than a little 'kill it with fire'. Which is especially dangerous considering she's capable of launching a Flamethrower without even thinking about it.

And now the tree's on fire, and the Joltik whose web she just immolated is very upset. Someone should do something about that. Like, now.


4. Wildcard
Catch me on darkersolstice, wherever you get your social media, to plot.

Comments

[wolfcut]

"Nice?" he huffs, sliding back toward a slightly amused expression. "I see you've never made it to New York either. Nothing ever nice about a city that big."

He's joking, even if, maybe, there might be some truth for him in his words somewhere. Carefully, he swirls his cup with both paws — a funny motion to watch a small rodent like him do, perhaps — before he looks at her again. He almost looks like he wants to say something, about the way she laps up her drink. There's a small trick to it, to keep it from spilling too much on your muzzle, but he stays silent.

"... Still need milk and nutmeg?"

Better than asking about her feelings on the archives here, he imagines.

[pyrodulia]

"No, I suppose not. The sugar helps, and you get used to the bitterness over time."

And if that's not a metaphor for something...

"But next time, I might try something else."

[wolfcut]

"Hard to have it any other way after a while."

A pinch of sugar to handle the bitterness, he means. Metaphors abound, but that's neither here nor there.

"... So I was right about the hot cocoa from the start?" he adds, glancing at her dish again as he drinks. There's still quite a bit in his own cup, but he sets it down to fold his arms. "A slice of pumpkin pie might help you finish that for now though. You have that across the pond?"

[pyrodulia]

"We have it. I've never eaten it before, but I'm up for trying it."

She gives him a serene look, this time inviting the obvious next question, in whatever form it takes. Yeah, they're doing this, aren't they?

[wolfcut]

So much for all that talk about pumpkins and coffee. He catches her expression with a slight furrow in his brow. Then, he looks past her before standing.

"Give me a minute."

Briefly, Bigby takes his leave, not looking back as he makes his order at the counter. His ears remain alert instead. A few moments more, and he comes back with a single slice, already cut into distinct, bite-sized pieces. He places it beside her coffee.

"First time for everything, huh?" He takes his seat across from her again, pulling his cup closer. "Lucky for you this place has more than coffee and pie. I'm sure they could make your usuals from home, if you ask nice."

The inevitable question stays at the tip of his tongue.

[pyrodulia]

Her ears perk at that suggestion, but it's more wry amusement than anything.

"I find that rather unlikely. My diet was very specialized, back home. What fed me wasn't what normal people consumed, in their ordinary little lives."

A glance at the pie, and then back at him. "Thank you, Bigby. You're being very kind to me. I don't understand why, but...it is nice."

(1/2)

[wolfcut]

Huh. Now that is definitely more than just something. There's a look in his eyes, curiosity mixed with a strange sense of recognition. He doesn't know her, not really, but he feels more familiar with that sentiment than anything else.

"Well? What was it, then? Sacrificial lamb?" Facetious. He already knows she's the type to keep the details close to her chest. So, he diverts with a soft smile before she can even answer. "... I'm partial to goat myself."

Humor aside, he follows up with a quiet sigh, his eyes wandering as she continues.

"But don't mention it. You're the one that helped me out first, remember? A promise is a promise."

(2/2)

[wolfcut]

"Not that I'm only doing this because I owe you or anything. I mean, you're also new around here so..."

Suddenly, he seems to lose a bit of his composure. Nice. What a strange word to get tripped up over.

[pyrodulia]

She lets out a hint of laugh when he suggests sacrificial lamb. No, in a sense that was what she was, as the messiah of the Cult of the Lightless Flame.

"Try this: tallow candles made with human fat. Priceless books prized for their rarity or the secrets they contain. The last photograph of someone who was once beloved. Letters confessing love, never delivered. That which burns, with lost potential or great pain in the losing."

She looks right at him, the glow in her eyes intense. "I never ate food, drank coffee. I consumed hope and fed off of fear and anguish."

[wolfcut]

"Hm..."

He didn't expect an answer. A misdirection, a distraction, even now he wonders if her words are steeped in some sort of doublespeak he can't quite pick out yet. As she looks at him, he looks back at her with eyes narrowed. If Agnes speaks as sincerely as she seems to, then she truly would be an archivist's worst nightmare.

"... And did you enjoy it? The taste of fear and anguish?"

His curiosity turns morbid. For a creature who ate and ate and ate, he can't say he really grew tired of it himself. Meat tastes better run ragged, heart pumping, adrenaline flowing. Even if only by metaphor, there will always be a part of him that can say he loved that taste most all.

[pyrodulia]

She allows that question to sit in the air for a moment, considering whether it would be wiser to draw her line here, to stop talking about herself. But after a moment, she lets out a huffy breath that inexplicably smells like incense smoke.

"I did. It was everything for me. Bitter as the coffee may be, it will never match the intensity of pure fear."

[wolfcut]

"No," he starts, nose twitching as the smell of smoke fills the air. For a moment, he wonders if that scent is unique to her species, or just her. "And nothing else ever will either."

With that, he glances at her slice of pumpkin pie. It must feel humbling, to eat the food of ordinary people for once. He thought so himself, anyway.

"But that shouldn't stop you from trying something new. Who knows. Maybe you'll even like it more."

[pyrodulia]

"Speaking from experience?"

But she dips her head to take a bite, glad for Bigby's foresight to have the pie cut into morsels that are easy to eat while maintaining dignity. It has a flavor that isn't nearly the same as her usual fare. But it is good, warming, spiced.

"It's a lot of change, all at once."

[wolfcut]

His ears flick. At first, he stays silent, choosing to sip at his coffee instead. It's already gone cold, but he gives no indication of such.

"Mm. My diet wasn't quite that special." He pauses, taking in a deep breath. "But close enough."

His eyes wander before landing back on her. Bigby is nothing if not sympathetic, watching Agnes take her bites carefully. A part of him has to wonder how he must have looked using a knife and fork for the first time.

"It takes some getting used to. Like learning to walk all over again."

[pyrodulia]

"Even more fundamental. Learning to breathe on another planet." There's something that could almost be the ghost of a laugh in those words. Almost. Shit, she never expected sympathy.

Licking her chops, she sits a little straighter, looking down at Bigby. She's been so vulnerable and uncomfortable, and he's been...gracious. Very gracious. She doesn't know what to do with it, and it feels a little like a splinter right under the skin. Out of place and gnawing at her.

People weren't like this, when they knew her.

"How have you adjusted?"

[wolfcut]

Bigby scrunches his nose at the thought, clearly more taken with her description than his. So fundamental, yet so easy to forget before your chest grows tight. He knows the feeling well, enough to offer a soft laugh of his own.

“What, to this?” he asks first, gesturing at himself with a swoop of a paw. It’s not something he spends much time thinking about despite the constant reminders that this body is not his own. “I’m not sure I have yet. It’s only been about half a year for me.”

Insignificant for a Fable like him, but admittedly he’s felt every second of it.

“Or do you mean before?”

[pyrodulia]

"I'm not certain what before meant to you. It...might be time to lay cards on the table in terms of what we are."

As pants-shittingly scary as that might be to her, even though it shouldn't be. She's strong. She's powerful. Bigby is just one person. And he might not hate her immediately for everything she was.

[wolfcut]

That’s a fair thing to question, he’ll give her that. He’s had himself plenty of before-and-afters at this point. Before Bottlecap Bay. Before Fabletown. Before the Adversary—

As for what comes next, he glances away from her, setting his cup back down but keeping his paws firmly wrapped around it. There’s something nice about knowing without needing to say it. There’s also something nice about finally letting go of pretense and secrecy.

“If that’s how you want to play it, sure. I won’t force your hand.” He’s giving her a second chance to think about it. One last out before fully committing. “Funny thing about places like these: no one has to know what you really are.”

[pyrodulia]

"I know that. I'm not going to be telling everyone. I assume you won't be telling everyone else what I am, either. Right?"

It feels vaguely unnecessary to ask. She doesn't think Bigby's that type, to go panicking the moment someone is open about being an Avatar. So she's going to go all in.

"I think of everyone here I've met, you're the most likely to understand. After all, we've already talked about it, in abstractions."

[wolfcut]

"Won't be my secret to tell, no," he notes with a voice so matter-of-fact. He doesn't make it a point to sound overly reassuring when it seems she's already made up her mind regardless. But, he'll even the playing field; it's the least he can do, if she trusts him this much already.

"When you've lived most your life as the unrepetant lord of monsters, it's hard not to be a little understanding of someone with the same tastes." It feels strange, saying that out loud again. Like visiting your hometown after what feels like a lifetime away. "So, go ahead. Hit me."

[pyrodulia]

Her ears and tail perk as he introduces himself and she parses it rapidly as him being of the Hunt.

(Which makes their first meeting even more ironic, no?)

He's like her, a monster in human Pokemon form.

"I'm an Avatar of the destroying flame that Robert Frost wrote about in his poem. I was born to end the world."

[wolfcut]

He lifts his head at her reaction, curious as to what she may be thinking. For titles, his leaves little to the imagination, even if he was quite proud of it back in his day. Hers, meanwhile, wraps itself up in poetry.

Avatar. It's not a term he's deeply familiar with, but he can make his guess all the same. A being powerful enough to end the world in fire. Some kind of deity then, if not close enough to it. He never really got himself involved with the all-powerful, until they encroached on his territory.

"No wonder you've made an enemy out of an archivist of all people," he hums, finally making that thought known. Nothing more damning to records than a fire out of control. "Wasn't born for anything myself though. I'm what you call a self-made wolf."

He says this like he's not the son of a god himself.

[pyrodulia]

"Can anyone truly be self-made, completely? We're all shaped by the forces that bring us into existence on some level."

Wolf--yes, definitely the Hunt, a derivative of the fear of being chased and attacked by a predator. Not the same as her fear, but close enough to be a fear, to feel some sort of kinship.

"The archivist made an enemy of me, though. Not the other way around. She performed a ritual to anchor me, to make me unable to serve my purpose. She thought I was some sort of demon summoned by a cult. Inaccurate, but close enough to move her to act."

[wolfcut]

"What, like fate? That shit's got nothing to do with me."

His brows furrow the more he thinks on it. The so-called forces that brought him into existence. If he let them have their way with him, he would have died a long, long time ago. A runt left alone in the woods has no purpose, until he made his own, again and again and again.

But, just as suddenly, his expression softens, their previous conversation still on the back of his mind. Does anything matter in the long run, if all of life's choices have already been ordained from the start? He's getting a fuller picture now.

"... Fear's a great motivator," he huffs after some silence, not realizing how close he really is. "She had everything to lose. Didn't concern her if she had to take everything from you to protect it."

Just the way it goes with their lot, he almost adds. The hero always gets their monster in the end.

[pyrodulia]

"So it goes. I'm dead now, in that world, so none of it matters to me anymore. Here, I'm not what I was."

Her ears perk slightly, as she pauses to nibble another morsel of pie.

"But that shouldn't stop me from trying something new. Who knows. Maybe I'll even like it more." It's not quite throwing his own words back at him, but allowing him to hear them again with more context applied.