♡ adapt.

if you’ve ever been in need of a quick hookup but just can’t find anyone? look no further! they’re here for the attention and adoration -- large helpings of it.

so long as you don’t mind and share the unending love for insects / or everything arachnid. whether it be on eight legs or a bipedal humanoid with shared traits they’re all over it.

hope you don’t mind birthday suits because they adore theirs. a body they’ve personally sculpted to their preferred ideal or ‘perfection’; don’t worry there’s nothing naughty to show -- they took care of that.

... but they do have a love for all things fashion. decked out in jewelry? flaunting in silks? or lounging in something short and showy. they know how to dress -- when they want to.

can you tolerate obnoxious persistence? clingy flirts? invasive personalities? ...no? that’s to be expected, in which case let me offer an early apology.

they’re just a body snatching, spirit-like light source inhabiting a human form with a scorpion preference and a need for all eyes ( their own included ) to be on them.

On their end, Kyrie was staring intently at a selection of accessories. Even more antiquated than their sense of style, they couldn’t decide whether any of them were something they could pull off despite their attractive details. Their focus shifted at the weight on their shoulder, and a casual look over turned into a full body freeze.

Should they be scared? Impressed? Intimidated? It wasn’t like they had much fear left in them at this point, and a compliment(?) interfered with that even more. While they were processing it, they didn’t take any action whatsoever. They realized this — yes, a pretty little head with nothing in it.

“Ah. Ah, yes.” Despite forcing something out, Kyrie didn’t look any less awestruck. They tore their eyes away to follow the claw and then moved their feet closer to the row. Their gaze fixed there, keeping some of their reddened face out of view. “They’re pretty, but um… it might be easier to add an opinion if I know what you want it for.” Might be.

    oh, that had the adapter giggling. a hand rising to rest against their lips and muffle the sound, lowering it into nothing more than a soft hum. how people tended to respond to them varied well enough; it was always a treat to witness. how others took their words made it all the sweeter.

  alarian’s tail gave a slow curl inwards, then slowly relaxed again -- a repeated motion in idle thought as they tried to think of what they would do with the bottle and its contents first. what would help a decision. hm hm hm.

    “well,” a finger comes against the scorpions cheek; lower eyes falling shut as the digit taps along to their thoughts. “which one do you think would leave a lasting impression were it to be let out?” a pause. “but then you have to wonder if it would stay around or float away... hmm.”

(”I wish it were that simple, trust me.”) Came a mumble as they pushed themselves up. It was freezing out here! The snow melting all over their clothes in the short couple minutes they passed out didn’t help matters.

“It wasn’t on purpose or anything, promise…”

As mildly unsettling as the stranger was, they didn’t seem to be hostile. Anda brushed some of the curtain of hair away from their own face, too.

“I uh, I don’t know how much help I’d be, but? What’d you need?”

    lips twist further into a wider grin, their hands clapping together joyously as if the question one what they needed was some form of agreement already. a habit they seemed no closer to breaking, unfortunately.

    “so glad you asked!” alarian chirped, moving in to brush at the wet stains left behind on the others clothes from the snow, as if to push away any left over. “in short -- i’ll need you.”

“I just don’t understand how humans do stuff with their weird ears. How do you hear anything.”

@luxscorious​ liked for a starter!

It’s not the first time they’d passed out in the middle of somewhere, and likely, wouldn’t be the last. Frankly, they didn’t even remember what they were doing either.

If they had to hazard a guess, something horribly tragic happened not too far off, and caused some sort of reaction… Hard to say, when they didn’t remember themselves. The joys of being at the will of other peoples’ misery, they supposed.

What they didn’t expect was a very strange looking person looming over them, and the empath wasn’t sure if they were having vision problems or if there were indeed six eyes on them.

“…Hi?”

Maybe they were in the stranger predicament here, lying on the ground.

“Uh. Did you come over here because I was here? I’m um–I’m good. Really. Are you uh, aren’t you… cold?”

Excellent conversation, Anda.

    oh, they actually came to. here the adapter was thinking they were going to have to call someone over to take care of a body -- or turn a blind eye, but curiosity tugged the leash well enough. they had allowed themself to squat down and get comfortable with arms atop their knees, half tempted to give a few nudges before that greeting left the other.

    “you tell me. someone just laying out here as if they passed out from one too many -- leaves you wondering, doesn’t it?”

  alarian offers them a low hum; more in thought than answer. they were good, huh? well, they seemed it at the very least -- and their speech was coherent. what a dull turn of events, frankly. they were hoping for a little... more. what more, exactly? that’s a good question.

The whistle was something enough in passing that it barely drew his attention. Towns and cities were busy; sounds would always flood someone’s senses, of course. A whistle was a whistle – with no other information to go by, he could only assume it was only that. It didn’t seem like there would be any ulterior motive to it. No sort of code. Too quiet for that.

Diluc was no stranger to attention. That didn’t mean he was a fan of it. He gave a soft click of his tongue and angled himself away so that the – (…? he didn’t know what they were) – wouldn’t be leaning up so close to him anymore.

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

He didn’t owe them a response, so he didn’t plan to give one. Diluc had already shifted his attention away again, raising one hand to the other to tug idly at his glove. He hadn’t been able to notice anything he thought would come in handy, so maybe he should just go. Not right now, though. Not because of whoever this was.

“If that’s all, you can be on your way.”

    the indents along their jaw threaten to split with how their smile seems to grow, their body joining with a curl of their tail as interest sets its roots deeper in place. there was less of a worry for if mister few-words was truly lost and more for the free space left vacant at his side. a lovely place for alarian to insert themselves, surely. ( for however long that would last. )

    “i could be, but ‘my way’ has lead me right where i need to be.”

    “unless i’m disturbing your vigilant scouting of the mall.” a step forward and they’re swinging themself within diluc’s view again, head given a curious tilt as they kept their eyes glued to that vacant face. how much would it take to get that to change, they wondered? “just standing around staring can’t be all you came here for, right? surely you had something in mind -- oh!” as an idea struck their form seemed to straighten with it.

  like fireflies in a jar, illuminated wisp-like entities sat afloat between the glass. they sat in varying colors; bright and pastel with how brilliantly they shined... and alarian wanted nothing more than to uncap each one. to set the contents free and watch them fly, to see what they did. unfortunately, they came with a cost -- they could only choose one.

   like a moth to a flame; a vibrant red to match their own. with a quiet breath, something  vaguely close to a whistle, the scorpion slipped away from the shop front to fall in to the passing crowds of the mall. matching a flowing stream of people made their approach just a little more subtle -- easier to approach their catch, because once they were in arms reach subtlety was tossed out the door.

@luxscorious​

What’s this? An unfamiliar creature is climbing the mountain. Only barely human-adjacent, Hisui reasonably assumes that they are another demon. But, they don’t look weak at all, there’s no way they can’t tell where they are–

S… six… six eyes? Did he not hear something about one of the upper moons having six eyes? Is this the one? He can’t see their pupils from here, can’t tell if any of them are engraved.

Hisui forces himself to calm down. If anything, they must be here to see Rui. That’s gotta be it. He’ll just stay out of the way…

Lower moons are bad enough. He’s never wanted to cross the path of an upper moon, and still doesn’t plan to.

  Oh, this mountain was absolutely putrid. Plenty of different scents had crossed their path over the years but they weren’t sure what would be worse -- all of those put together or the blanket of odor that covered this area currently? It was almost a miracle the adapter bothered coming this far as it were, but passing mentions of ‘spiders’ was a worthwhile reason to attempt the climb.

  At least... that’s what they had to keep telling themself. Growing curiosity was always a nice motivator, but it wasn’t certain how long it would last the further they went. The few trees smothered in webbing proved promising, as did the small bunches of skittering arachnids that caught their eyes now and again.

                          ... now, here was a question.

  Was the sound of crawling partially louder due to the amount of spiders, or did this forest hide something a little... larger? Their nose might need a new adaptation but their ears were more than familiar on the sound of spindly legs marching.

“Or you could just call me nothing. You could opt to not talk to me.”

He’d barely raised his voice in return, so whether they heard him or not didn’t matter much in the long run. He was fully content to carry on his way and never see them ag–they were following him. He wasn’t a fool to people trying to sneak up on him; Rui tended to be someone that people, well, underestimated.

Looking young would do that. It had almost been funny, once, had he been able to process that emotion.

Shouldn’t you be the one at home? Yeah, maybe. Ideally. Once upon a time, even. But the place he stayed here wasn’t home, even if he’d gotten more comfortable with it than he’d once been, and neither Mount Natagumo’s false sanctuary nor his parents were here. So what was home? He’d given up the right to something like that when he’d become a demon.

Rui stopped walking for a moment.

“… ‘Five.’”

It felt wrong, not putting the word Lower in front of it, but his mind had drifted to Owl and all Rui could think to do was give a title.

“Are you so stupid that you can’t take a hint? – no, not even a hint. I couldn’t have been any more obvious.” There was no conviction. Not even like how he’d once been able to deliver such words with his usual monotone, where it was obvious he meant it. Not that Alarian knew that. He doubted they’d be able to call him on his bluff. “What does it matter if I’m closed off? I gave you something to call me. Go away before I slice you to pieces.”

     ❝Ugh. Where’s the fun in not talking to someone? How do you know who you like and you hate if you don’t talk.❞

  Mouth curves downward with displeasure, expression soured by the mere thought of just ignoring someone -- or something -- that might catch their eye. Friends and relationships were made with communication, of a sort. So maybe they wouldn’t be able to buddy up with the kid. Whatever. He could at least give them a proper chance, get to know them a bit before not liking them. Or threatening to kill them.

  Is it so hard for people to wait for a valid reason to cut them off so violently?

  Alarian’s already mentally waving away the thought. They’re able to perk up a bit more at the given ‘Five’, head tilting as they processed what was said. They had asked for a name, not a title or... well, it was a bit small of a number to be his age from the looks of it. Beggars can’t be choosers, as the saying goes: Five it is!

     ❝Oh, your hint didn’t go unnoticed.❞ They simply chose to ignore it.

  Honestly, things seemed to have started fairly decently, or as decent as they could assume before plastering their own sort of nickname onto the boy; onto ‘Five’. It was true they had a name to give the face but that was hardly an interaction worth anything, they wanted a conversation. A means of feeding their curiosities and finding interesting company.

     ❝Hey, if you’re gonna slice me open at least have a good reason for it! I’m just talking.❞ There’s an irritated clicking that’s quieted by their tongue. ❝Why everyone focuses on killing and death is beyond me -- whatever! Your point’s to drive me away, blah blah...❞

  With a huff their legs finally still, cheeks puffed in a faint pout as they turn their gaze away. Given what they are ‘death’ isn’t much of a worry, but the topic itself, or the mere implication, is enough to sour the mood.

Image? Hardly. It wasn’t as if Rui thought of himself as some sort of tough guy. There was a point within memory that he would have loved to have been considered cute. It was just that he thought it didn’t fit him. Someone as vile as him wasn’t cute, didn’t deserve to be cute.

“You telling me your name doesn’t answer my question,” he replied matter-of-factly, though he opted instead of pressing further to just stare at his thumb, letting his threads dissipate. It was slowly starting to heal, at least, and the moment the blood stopped flowing Rui brought it up to his mouth to suck the worst of the mess away.

How irritating.

And they weren’t going away despite Rui’s obvious disinterest. He heaved a sigh. Maybe he could just ignore them.

… no, they were pressing further.

“… I don’t like you.”

“‘Little spiderling’. How condescending. I could kill you.”

If they were going to stay in front of him then he’d get up and just start walking away. He didn’t want to give them his name so he wouldn’t. He didn’t need to hear them saying it or figuring out how the phones worked if they didn’t and messaging him incessantly; they seemed the type. He’d just wanted to spend the night alone.

“It’s the middle of the night.” And they were probably nocturnal, but no matter. “Go home.”

  ... hm. Not quite the response to things they were hoping for but, sadly, not one they weren’t used to. 

  Alarian was always the type to show up uninvited, to press when they shouldn’t and linger when they weren’t wanted. Some cases had the tides turning in their favor with a bit of persistence while others... well. They were quite used to a series of unfavorable events.

   ❝... you know, a name could easily stop me from calling you that.❞                                                              ( ...sounded cute to me... )

Alarian had raised their voice a bit, enough so that the retreating figure -- always a shame when company left early -- could still hear them, whether he wished to or not.

  Up they went, patting down their coat and adjusting the angle of their tail to allow the fabric to cover them better.

     ❝That’s something that should be said to the kid turning his back to me.❞ The same kid they were idly following along with a generous distance between.  ❝Shouldn’t you be the one at home? You know, instead of sat alone in the snow.❞

  Breathing a sigh they watch as their breath becomes visible in the cold, keeping quiet for just long enough to give a gentle hum in thought. 

His attention was held fully on the patterns he was making with his threads, lips pursed in focus. He wasn’t having much luck so far – still only just being able to make webs – and truth be told, Rui had no proper answer as to why he was trying to make anything but a web pattern to begin with.

It wasn’t as if he was unaware of how bad he was at expressing himself. Maybe some part of him had subconsciously clued in to the fact he was starting to care about people, because on a more obvious level, Rui was still entirely unaware.

No matter the reason, he was equally unaware of anyone walking past or anything happening. He’d picked an out-of-the-way place to sit by himself as it was, and with night so upon the city, he doubted much of anyone would be walking out this way.

The sound of a voice much closer than he would have liked drew him out of his thoughts so suddenly that his threads sharpened instinctively and, fumbling with them, Rui managed to slice open the tip of one thumb.

“Oh,” he managed to say, looking up to see who’d talked to him.

Some – some sort of – bug … bug …

A bugbug…

“I guess. Does it look like anyone else around here is making th–” … mimicked… pattern? … oh. His clothes. “I wouldn’t call it adorable. Don’t do that. … who are you exactly?”

Most people didn’t normally care about his clothes. Or compliment his threads.

  As easy as it was for the adapter to freely butt in and speak up, it was equally as easy to silence them with a momentary interest. The shift of those fancy, little threads between the boys fingers doing just that. Plenty of webs had faltered in front of them before; drooping into pitiful clumps or swaying helplessly in the wind -- they’ve never witnessed them... tighten? It was hard to say exactly what had happened but they had changed and this kid had pricked his finger on them.

  They had to bite back that curious impulse to reach out and test them with a finger of their own. They’d hold their hands behind their back for now, and straighten up a bit while they’re at it.

     ❝Huh? Why not, they are! Don’t tell me I’m ruining some personal image for sayin’ how cute you look.❞

     ❝Oh, and the name’s Alarian.❞

  It wasn’t long until the scorpion was fixing their coat and kneeling into a squat in front of the child instead of their previous looming. Offered them a better viewing point, and just more comfortable overall. An arm is placed over their knees, an elbow propped up to allow their chin a place to rest against a palm.

     ❝--so, how about you, little spiderling? You’ve got to have a name, right?❞

     ❝They couldn’t have waited to snatch me up until after the holida-- Hey!❞ They’re catching themselves from falling, the poor soul they were leaning against having moved.