obscene and unnatural majyyks

Already the boy’s sass was getting to the wayfaring shifter, but he urges himself to remain calm. He can't  keep getting upset when on deliveries, especially if his own financial  situation is on the line. Every single bit and piece of bartering ware was crucial, and couldn't  be lost simply because he lost his undeniable cool whilst on a simple job. He breathes in, then out, mentally speaking a mantra thrice before taking a few gradual steps forward.

Hal speculates the small pool wherein the customer had taken residence and thought it was a decent idea for someone to do so, though he imagined the heat would require the water to be changed several times to remain nice and chilled in comparison to the very weather that elicited such an action. Nevertheless, he likes the idea. He brandishes his bag after a moment and flips it open, rummaging through it before tugging out a small, translucent  blue stone.

“For spells of protection and elemental, I think. I could assume blue stands for water or ice, but it could be any number of things. And you must simply forgive me for being so brash. Usually, I am faced with the chore of knocking on the door and waiting for someone to answer as opposed to finding someone lingering outside. My suspicions weren’t needed, of course, but I feel they are at least justified. You can call me Hal, I guess.”

Every word that falls from his lips sounds like a lie, and it’s almost too sad how thickly laid out his sarcasm is. For such a small form, he sure has a lot of it brewing around. His make-up is probably 98% sarcasm. “I forgot the name of the dude who ordered this for you, but I’ll assume his name’s in your head. Nice little set up, by the way. On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate how frozen your ass is.”

Dave raises his eyebrows, eyeing the dude and looking him over from head to toe. He approves, seems like, because he doesn’t respond with outright hostility to the amount of sass that the mailman is serving him right back to him, practically begging for the rapport that Dave considers himself to be so good at.

“Oh, yeah- I’ve been waiting for that for ages, I thought it’d gotten lost in transit.” He holds out his hands, one for the clipboard or whatever so he can sign for the item. “Thanks for asking- the water’s great, you should totally join me. I’m sure I can make it bigger.” There’s the general impression that he just winked, but behind his shades, Hal really has no way of telling. 

“In all seriousness, though, the water is actually pretty warm. I’ve been in here for a while- I was actually about  to cast a chilling spell when you arrived- although that might have actually like, literally frozen my ass, I dunno. Never tried.” His magic goes a little overboard sometimes; usually he’s able to control it, but sometimes he ends up with things like frozen asses and coats that catch on fucking fire because he wasn’t specific on how fucking warm he wanted to be.

Jake worms around in the pond a little, the big lion paws coming to rest on the bank of the pond. ‘Well, I went to the Outer Continent once and when I was scaling the cliffs above the waters, I saw this and I thought it was just soooo cool looking!’

His voice is more of an echo of thoughts resonating through Dave’s mind and bouncing off their surroundings, sounding like something from a dream more than from reality, deeper than his normal voice, sounding a little ancient.

“Huh. I’ve been to the ocean, but I’ve never seen stuff like that before.” He’s seen a couple of manticore-looking things, and maybe things that look sort of like wyverns, but bird-sized(it was at a distance; he couldn’t tell if they were actually birds or not), but not like this giant blue lion.

Fucking rad.

The shark’s mouth curls into something akin to a grin, teeth out and visible as he swims around Dave’s head in circles, trying to poke at the bubble with his nose a little, but carefully and not enough to pop it, his beady little eyes eying him all the time.

Once again, he swims away after a while, this time as far as he can so he can indeed try the last beast he has once met when hiking on the cliff above the ocean. He only saw it from the top, but it is enough for him to try and shapeshift into an exact replica of the very same creature. What appears to be a lion in deep blue colour with golden mane around his head and tail. The creature is very big and barely fitting into the pond, head about half the size of Dave.

Dave rubs Jake’s nose when he comes to poke his bubble, fingers trailing over his rough skin as he circles. This is so cool, gosh. 

The first thing Hal can’t stand is the fact that everyone and their whole family of twelve seems to be out and about. The crystalline beaches are crowded with several people, creatures, species. The dull roar of the mixed bag before him makes his head spin, though the reason doesn’t remain in noise alone. The second thing he can’t stand is the heat. The impossible heat practically drilling into specifically him, making him sweat an unhealthy amount and his throat parched for water.

The somewhat renowned shifter tries his best to walk past the invitingly cool waters, no doubt having the capability of cooling him down and making him feel a little less inadequate. He flicks his gaze toward the crowds and his nose catches the scent of various different sweets and snacks some vendors have set up along the rocky pillars to the sides of the beach. Colours shift like those of the water, most of them coming from unhappy magicians conjuring up a few strangely patterned umbrellas or towels. It seems to be the only thing keeping them occupied.

Without staring for much longer, Hal decides it is best to simply move on into town. Several cottages sit on the rocky faces of what could be mountains. The corrosive rains could have very well melted them down into the stumpy hill-like formations he seems to be looking at. The paths are not cobbled like the ones in his town, and are instead smooth, warming the soles of his boots and making him wonder if they’ll begin to stick to the ground. The sun continues to beat down on the pavement meant for crudely built automobiles, waves practically visible from where he walks.

Aside from the harsh condition of the light above, Hal finds the rest of the day fairly nice. With everyone occupying the beach, he’s hardly bumping into strangers. His hood is pulled up and over his head, though one can see the soft curls of his hair sticking out from under the protective cover. Brightly glowing carnelian eyes flick here and there, taking in his surroundings and looking for markings that matched the melting scrawlings on the palm of his hand. If it weren’t for magic, Hal would have lost his way, forgetting instantly which house to go to. His informants had told him that the residence wasn’t a permanent one, but Hal understood. Not everyone is able to stay in one place.

The shifter stops in front of a slightly secluded house, knocking on the door a few times. In his bag, the parcel he was meant to deliver shifts, signifying the movement of it’s carrier. After getting no immediate reply, he knocks again, attempting to locate the person’s current location. He couldn’t have been at the beach, could he? Hal swears he’s going to lose it. There’s an unfamiliar form settling beside the apparently vacant home, and he approaches this other being, quirking a brow. “And who in Earth’s name are you?”

It is another oppressively hot day. No surprise, since there seems to be a surplus of them lately- enough to officially call this a heat wave, he thinks. It sucks, which is why he’s been thinking about heading to the beach today, but.... thinking about doing something and actually doing it are two very different things, especially for Dave. Mostly he’s just been lying on his bed and wondering if he’s going to get heat stroke or something, fanning himself with a fan he made out of paper. 

Perhaps he could set up something in his yard? No, he forgot- his hose busted a while ago, so not only is the grass all yellow and dead, but he can’t blow up the kiddie pool or anything.

He gets the ingenious idea to use buckets.

Twenty minutes later, he’s in his swim trunks and chilling in the ridiculously-too-small kiddie pool, an umbrella stuck in the ground next to him and his shades doing their absolute best to do their job to shield his eyes. It’s heaven, basically, or at least until the water gets warm. He can probably just cast a cooling spell, but those tend to make things a little too chilly.

Jake parts away in his dolphin form and swims away once again, this time shape-shifting into one of the smaller reef sharks that aren’t even that much dangerous. He swims back to Dave, moving around him constantly, although slowly, letting his dorsal fin grace the surface of the water like in all those movies about sharks. Excluding Sharknado. That was a wreck from the start to the finish.

“Yeah. I though I was being obvious. I don’t think you would meet any of those here. And yes, it’s quite wicked, ” he keeps grinning and takes a deeep breath, using his hands to help himself submerge, swimming a little away from Dave, firstly shape-shifting into a dolphin.

As soon as his transformation is done, he jumps out of the water and over the rock, making dolphin sounds. He swims closer to Dave and circles around him, halfway in the water and halfway out so Dave can see him and if he wante, touch his smooth grey skin. After a while, he parts away only to fo more tricks he has seen dolphins do before, back on Earth, trying to figure out how they work as he goes before returning to Dave, poking his chin with his head.

While patiently waiting, he submerges the lower half of his face, trying to give himself gils as a shape-shifting attribute. Okay, wow..that works, but wow, even his lungs had to change for that. Also it’s kind of.. very weird to be breathing liquid.

For a moment, he gets distracted from his thoughts, catching himself staring at Dave stripping. Oh, uh, wow. He looks way to save at least some of Dave’s decency, blinking when Dave jumps into the water. He indeed doesn’t notice Dave’s eyes, too busy stripping. He tosses his clothes at another rock on the surface, slipping into the cool water with a rather loud ‘splooch! ’, swimming underneath the water’s surface.

In any case, it’s totally a pastime of a valued member of society. Pretty normal, by some peoples’ standards.

“Would you like to stay here for a while? I mean, after you are done disconnecting the skull from the poor fella’s body,” he grins slightly and moves closer to the water, jumping on one of the wet stones, surprisingly not slipping and keeping his balance well. “You know, sometimes I wonder how would it be if we lived underwater - like tideborn! By the coral reefs. Have you ever been by the reefs? I remember grandma took me diving several times.. it was so pretty.. ”

 (It feels basely /good/, to have someone interested in his weird hobbies and stuff. Of course, you would be hard pressed to get him to admit to the warm fuzzies he's currently feeling due to Jake's interest.) 

 He watches as Jake jumps from onto the rocks, humming softly to himself. After a moment of consideration, he peels off his shirt and pants to leave just his boxers on. He climbs on top of one of the rocks, a bigger one(more of a boulder, really), and jumps off, folding his limbs into a gangly brown cannonball on the way down. The splash he makes is somewhat impressive, and he resurfaces sans sunglasses. Fuck. 

 "C'mon in, the water is great," he calls, before diving down to look for his shades in the turbulent water. He hopes Jake didn't see his eyes, but it's improbable that he did, at this distance, so he isn't duly worried. Even in this world, eyes of his color are uncommon except as temporary aesthetic or fashion or costume choices, done through illusion magic by mages or witches and through shapeshifting by, well, shapeshifters. He's not going to expend his energy on an illusion spell to hide his eyes when shades work just as well, though. 

He runs back and crouches down to take several pictures from different angles, and then he jogs back over to Jake and hellllll yeah. Objective complete. He opens the camera up, floating it in front of him as he walks instead of letting it hang on its strap so he can keep it steady. He can just…. develop these with magic. Yes, it’s cheating, but he’s impatient and he wants to see how they turned out now.

He doesn’t even look where he is going, but he trusts his feet that they will lead them to the right place and yes, indeed, in no more than half an hour, they wind up by the place Jake was talking about before. A small spring - lake with crystal clear sparkling water and white sand on the very bottom - and a couple of cascading waterfalls all ending up in the spring. It is truly a sight to marvel and he steps aside to let Dave take pictures of it if he wants.

When they arrive, he packs the photos away, sending them home to his bed. He does indeed take a few pictures of the falls, but they turn out rather blurry, due to the sheer amount of motion involved in waterfalls. With a more modern camera, he could take a better picture, but he doesn’t really /want/ a more modern camera. He likes this one. 

Jake’s enthusiasm is infectious, and he finds himself smiling just a little. They’re doing this, bro. They’re making this happen.

"Alrighty then, mate!” It gives him a boost. He can feel his energy and happiness skyrocket and crash through the metaphorical roof. He is just so pumped to make a good friend out of this new acquaintance of his.

“Do you mind me asking, ” he starts walking with that, his head fixated on Dave’s figure,“ How long do you indulge in taking photographs? Can I see some? Oh, I hope - that would be a real blast! ” He talks and talks, getting more chatty the deeper into the forest they get, occasionally pointing out pretty plants or uncommon animals. He even goes as far as picking up a (apparently poisonous) thin snake, holding its head in one hand, its body around his shoulders and in his other hand.

He runs back and crouches down to take several pictures from different angles, and then he jogs back over to Jake and hellllll yeah. Objective complete. He opens the camera up, floating it in front of him as he walks instead of letting it hang on its strap so he can keep it steady. He can just.... develop these with magic. Yes, it’s cheating, but he’s impatient and he wants to see how they turned out now.

“You want to hang out with me?” The words feel kind of foreign in his mouth; he’s not got a lot of people that would really want to hang out with him, so the feeling of having someone say it is weird. “Uh, sure, why not,” he continues, his eyebrows furrowing slightly above his shades. “I wouldn’t mind, we can do that.“ 

His gaze follows where Jake is pointing, and he nods. "Yeah, I’ve been there before, it’s pretty cool.” He used to climb up into the rafters to sit there like a bird or something, but he stopped doing that when he nearly fell down the couple stories to the bottom. The beams are old and rotten, so they almost collapsed under him, and only some quick spellwork kept him from plummeting down towards probably death or grievous injury. 

"Oh? Damn, well, have you seen the waterworks deeper in the forest? There is a nice cleaning with a small pond and a waterwall. It leads up into the mountains so it isn’t uncommon to run into a mountain lion there! Have you ever seen one, or taken a picture of one? ” If Dave really wants to, yet doesn’t lile to run into direct danger that is meeting a real one, Jake can always shapeshift into one! Although they are quite big, he can manage!

"You want to hang out with me?" The words feel kind of foreign in his mouth; he's not got a lot of people that would really want to hang out with him, so the feeling of having someone say it is weird. "Uh, sure, why not," he continues, his eyebrows furrowing slightly above his shades. "I wouldn't mind, we can do that." 

His gaze follows where Jake is pointing, and he nods. "Yeah, I've been there before, it's pretty cool." He used to climb up into the rafters to sit there like a bird or something, but he stopped doing that when he nearly fell down the couple stories to the bottom. The beams are old and rotten, so they almost collapsed under him, and only some quick spellwork kept him from plummeting down towards probably death or grievous injury. 

Dave snaps out of it and takes the offered hand, shaking firmly and briefly and then letting go. “Right,” he murmurs, wiping his hand on his pants, as well. He’s just glad that Jake didn’t catch him on one of his dress days, because people sometimes get really awkward and weird when they see a dude in a dress, for some reason.

Dave likes coming here. It’s quiet, except for the animals and insects, and there’s no people, which is his favorite part. He’s not a fan of the bustle of the city, since his own home is in the outskirts of the suburbs, like most peoples’ are, now. No people means it’s quiet. Quiet gives him room to think, and helps him create spells or learn them from books or other places.

Plus, he gets really good pictures, here.