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ANTIGONE INBOX: username ANTIGONEIGUESS
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KNIFE INBOX: nonexistent (for now)

You do not always seek permission.

[ Has she so soon forgotten shaking him like a maraca?

He remains a flat dragon hat. ]

[well, now that she's scared herself by the sound of her own voice, she's not as wigged out about the little presence on her head. she doesn't like it, but the spasming has stopped. mostly. there is a slight squirming of skin where contact is made - like a changeling bit of heebie jeebies, if you will.

this isn't resignation, however.] On your head? Yeah! I do! Ass! Fuck. Ow. [she nearly rolls her ankle in climbing back upright, shoulders drawn up in discomfort.] Does turning into a lizard turn you into a brat, too? Goddamn.

You are the first to call me such, to my recollection.

[ He sounds ever so faintly amused to realize this, but it's gone by the time he speaks again. ]

Are you hurt? I can heal a little.

What, a lizard? Or a fuckin' brat? You sure are both right now. [she dusts herself off, standing stiffly.]

Both, actually. Bahamut is a divine servant of the goddess in my world.

[ And so, not a lizard. ]

But are you hurt?

A divine pain in my divine ass. No. I'm fine. Just don't...dig your feet in or whatever. It's weird. You're like a mayfly if it were a hat.

[she starts walking again, though progress is a bit wobbly; heels on forest terrain are not the best, but she's dexterous enough to manage it.]

What is a mayfly?

[ He's taking the most essential of details from this, now that he knows she isn't hurt. ]

A bug.

Do you think so lowly of me?

[ He tries and fails to sound wounded by this. ]

Hey, you're the guy floatin' around all tiny-sized. You're already low...er...to the ground!

[...]

When you're not flyin'!

[Or on my goddamn head!]

Man, whatever. Fuckin' weird when people are so goddamn fine with changing their shapes all willy-nilly n' shit. Cannot relate.

[ His tail flicks, somewhere behind her head. This is his only indication of what he thinks about that.

X to doubt, Scarlet. ]

I awakened to my powers in my infancy. Should I not be accustomed to them?

That's not what I mean. [hand flap; an echo of the classic Antigone arm-flap, but...y'know. just hand.] I mean like! Around other people. But like, that's what people want from you, yeah? So I guess that's different. They want that. [not her. no one wants a changeling unless they want some fuckin' subterfuge or assassination shit not linking back to them.]

Yes, that was my value to most.

[ The tone is far lighter than it should be for the implication of it, yet Dion is long accustomed to that truth. Foremost, what mattered was that he was Bahamut.

He knows his father would never have wanted him otherwise. ]

So it's no sweat then, huh. Lucky that. I guess. [she huffs, scowling at the ground ahead of her, pausing every few paces to check for traps.]

Aside from the assured early demise, I suppose.

[ Dion considers it an honor and a privilege to serve his people, but he's keenly aware of the toll. He had to be. ]

Except for the part where it's not taking here? Doesn't that mean staying here buys you time?

I was speaking of home... But yes, all of this is borrowed time.

[ In more ways than one. ]

I meannnn... [she's carefully stepping over upturned roots for the duration of that stretched-out syllable, picking back up once she's cleared it.] Think you can solve that bit of problem before you get back? While you're stuck here.

Somethin' to do. I dunno.

[ He's silent for a long, drawn out moment. ]

If my comrades succeeded, others will not have to suffer that fate.

[ There isn't more he can do, certain he has met his end, and Joshua after him. ]

Translation beinggggg...you don't give a shit about living there? Just do your job and poof, huh? [she hates that, honestly, but like...if that's his perogative, what is she gonna do? force him to think a different way? she can barely force herself to stay true to one course for too long beyond a sparse few!

he's not. one of those courses. won't be. shouldn't be.]

[ He knows he told Antigone, back when she had a crisis over chicken nuggets in his car. The last time he indicated that he recognized her led to something of a crisis though, so he merely huffs, a wisp of a breath from his little dragon body. ]

How I feel about it is irrelevant. My end had already come.

[that clenches at Knife's heart in a familiar and unwelcome way.

You aren't him, but you're talking JUST like him...!

just how many of these beautiful, sad-eyed, ill-fated men are gonna drop into their life - they can barely handle the one!]

If you heard me or someone talk like that, wouldn't that sound like some real horseshit to you?

...Er, birdshit?

I would mourn them, yet it isn't my place to argue with the choice they have made.

[ It pained him to learn that he'd bought Joshua mere minutes. He'd wanted to hope for more and better for him, despite everything.

Yet Joshua was every bit as committed as he had been, and chose to see their time here as time they wouldn't have otherwise. ]

[she scoffs, ducking some branches; dragon may need to smoosh to duck as well, given she's not accounting for the lizard hat.]

Not worth fighting for, huh. Got it. Right-- [she crouches near some bushes, picking at the leaves.] Lookin' for leaf-shapes like these? But with berries. So not these, but...looks like 'em.

[ He huffs, his flexible spines bristling at the comment... Only for that very thing to be what scrapes against low-hanging twigs.

There follows a small hiss of repressed discomfort. ]

What power have I to change what has passed, and what right to deny their agency?

[ But even as he expresses the thought, he's cautiously lifting his little dragon head to peer around. ]

Might those bushes to the northeast be what you seek?