don't talk to me

Of course he wanted the real pronunciation. Logan squinted at Val—were the hands really necessary?—but shut up as the room practically vibrated. The hands did nothing other than warn him something loud was coming, but that was really all he could ask for.

Once his head stopped pulsing, Logan turned to Valsur with a bright, crooked grin. “That’s awesome. But, um, not really an indoor language, huh?” He turned back to the things on the shelf. They hadn’t actually been shaken off it, at least? (And seeing them reminded him—right, right, they had a job to do.) “God, okay, let me, uh. Get my notebook or something. How’d you get all this stuff, then? If you aren’t, like, sure whose they were?”

“Oh, absolutely not. It was used for flight, for all our large ornate halls, for calling to each other from the tops of mountains,” replied Valsur, his teeth bared in a grin for giving Logan some amusement. He liked showing off, this was known. “But lucky you! I have an indoor voice.”

Then, he tapped some long claws off the flat top of one of the shelves, making a little clk-clk-clk. He thought about Logan’s question for a moment, then shrugged a shoulder.

Here was where Logan might have made a joke, something like what, don’t like sticking bones in your mouth?, except for the way Valsur’s tone changed. He flinched back from the hand and let the dragon usher him on.

“Why does that make it from a parent?” The vampire stepped to the side and leaned in again, trying to look without accidentally shrouding the inscriptions in his own shadow. Dark vision was helpful, yeah, but not perfect, and he didn’t want to miss something. The runes running along the inside of the bracelets matched those on the bone flute, but still, they weren’t going to say the same thing…

… No. Not the same, in either sense. They were the same script, maybe with regional differences, or a difference like those between double- and  single-storey ‘a.’ But looking at the two was like looking at English and French, one favoring certain letters and word lengths over those in the other. Which, duh, made sense. His eyes darted back to the elven flute for a half second.

“What’s the dragon pronunciation of it?”

“Ah, it is a common phrase a parent, especially a paternal parent might say. ‘My burning heart’ is almost akin to calling your child ‘sweetheart’ or something of the same vein. It is not typically ever used in a romantic sense,” Valsur replied easily, as it was not about himself. When he could talk about facts, it was always easy to say, to list, to extract from his mind. “Wings up was also a common phrase -- dragons will often lift their wings high when they’re in particularly good spirits.”

It felt as if Valsur was talking about some weird, unknowable creature on the History channel, already fully extinct and far away. It was surreal to say the least. 

“Do you want the real or dumbed down pronunciation? Ha, I already know the answer. Worry not,” Valsur continued, then annoyingly reached up to cover Logan's precious, sensitive ears with the warm palms of his hands. The next words he spoke did not seem to come from his mouth, but they were almost loud enough to rattle the items on the shelves and, surely, Logan himself. “At ol von, et un, urava non.”

“Basilisk? Like a… snake thing?” Hmm, might have been better off just bluffing and pretending he knew what Valsur was talking about. Eugh. This was frustrating and getting worse by the moment. “I haven’t _lost myself_,” he insisted.

It was… technically true, unless you counted the part where he chose not to follow a paved fucking road to get back to where he’d come from. But he wasn’t here by choice at least.

Not that it mattered. The dirty, holey clothing, the faint pale stubble peppering his jaw… it was pretty obvious that he didn’t know where the fuck he was and hadn’t for a while.

“You haven’t lost yourself?” Valsur parroted, curious. His tail flicked through the mossy ground, dusting up leaves and twigs. “If not yourself, then who lost you?”

It was rare that Valsur saw anyone out there that wasn’t already with him, or wasn’t something that belonged, like the dryad by the lake, or the four deer that seemed to have too many eyes near the southern border. Things that knew the forest deeply, knew how to stay safe within it.

“They had good taste—they make that throne upstairs, too?” Logan stuck his tongue out at the dragon—nyeh— and did step closer, head tilting to get a better look at the runes. He wasn’t sure what they meant, but they were pretty (and there was no doubt that he could pry their meanings out of the dragon once they sat down).

“And, like… if it’s all that’s left, mass produced or not, it’s special now.” His voice softened and he glanced back at the dragon. The flat tone was uncharacteristic; since when did Val ever drop the theatrics? “Or if it had personal meaning.”

“Eh, I think the throne comes from Europe somewhere, unfortunately. I think most of the bones are real horse bones, as opposed to the fake horse bones you can get at the Home’s Depot,” Valsur answered without further explanation. “Unsure what you mean by personal. I certainly wasn’t putting my lips on that flute.”

The last sentence was delivered oddly. He waved a hand in Logan’s face, then pointed at some nearby jewelry. There are what appears to be some long, woven cords and specially made beads, and a few solid bracelets.

Isfet jumped at the sound, enough that he nearly fell off the tree limb, or at least felt like he was about to. He was leaning forward again, having now given up on sitting fully upright. There was enough to worry about without gravity entering the picture too much.

He shook his head back and forth as if it would clear the ringing in his ears. At least he understood the Fumblr URL now. The vampire’d had some quip about the mask lined up but it completely escaped him now.

“Oh you know. J- just, hanging out, enjoying the s…” He glanced down. “…Enjoying the scenery. Trying to avoid people and eh, not doing such a great job at it. That sort of thing.” His throat bobbed with nerves. Isfet truly had no idea how involved Valsur was with any of the anti-Reg activities, and it was impossible to gauge if he even knew he was ‘missing’ (or if anyone else did, for that matter).

“Dangerous in these woods, my little weak and fleshy friend,” Valsur commented, licking his front teeth. He did not look particularly threatening anymore, and his head was cocked to the side like a dog listening for the word ‘park’. “You might not want to be out here all alone next time that you think hiking is a good idea for your busied head. People go missing out here all the time.”

There are no further explanations of what Valsur was talking about for a long moment. His lips pulled into a grin and his eyelashes fluttered. Isfet was reflected in his milky, blind eye.

Isfet didn’t react too terribly to Valsur’s menacing, but only because he was already shaken and frazzled and there just wasn’t much room left to express more of that. And it lingered even as the dragon’s demeanor seemed to ease, only forcing himself to calm some as he continued speaking. The immediate danger seemed over, at least, even if he was far from out of the woods (ha).

“Skulking’s a good word for it.” A concession from a slightly hoarse voice. He quietly cleared his throat. Slowly and shakily, the vampire worked his way to a more upright position, though his palms still remained firmly on the tree branch for support. 

“Brimstone and ‘Head & Shoulders’,” he corrected. There was a little tremble of waning adrenaline to his posture but he was going to try and save face as best he could, what little there was left of it, by being shitty in the face of danger. “I think I still have the mask kicking around somewhere.“

“Disgusting mixture, nonetheless. What are you keeping it for? Did you have such a lovely time that you’ve been keeping it in case I throw another you’re invited to?” Valsur asked, pulling back his teeth in an unsettling smile. It was almost certainly on purpose. “Apologies that we haven’t formally met. I am your friendly, neighborhood V̴͚̍̐ä̴̧̲̘́̓l̷͈̤̺̔͐s̸͓͗̅u̴̱͗̔̈r̵͉̖̬̓̒.”

Whatever Valsur had just said would sound like the crack of thunder to Isfet, ringing his ear drums and making his teeth feel, without better words, oddly electric.

Valsur makes a move like his politely coughing onto a paw. He does a little a-hem for show.

Logan leaned in, searching the bone for faded paint—and finding it, after not long. The edges of the horns had chipped away with time, leaving only a faded fragment of what once must have been a complex pattern. He held his breath as he looked, as though it might blow away the remaining flakes, then stepped back again to look at the piece as a whole. It must have been beautiful. It still was, no doubt, but with that context… the art must have been heart-achingly rendered when it was intact.

“It’s gorgeous… If you want, there’s probably something compatible we could use to help preserve the last one. Is it elven-made?”

“Yeah, work your little magic fingers. I’ve been growing herbs but most of them only work on ink and paper, and I've got nothing that settles paint,” Valsur said, stepping back so Logan could get a closer look. Up close, Logan would notice the price, masterfully etched runes along the bottom, the trimmings and rings that appeared to be similar to an ouroboros. “It was elven made, I’d have to assume. I’m no expert on what techniques they used to make it or what it was used for, but it’s a pipe instrument that works similar to a flute.”

Valsur sighed. He held the air deep in his chest before letting it out again. 

Isfet could really only manage to stay curled up briefly, because apparently it took a lot of core strength to manage that while dangling. Instead, he used his ‘defensive’ hand to tuck his fingers into the collar of his shirt so it wasn’t pressed so hard against his neck.

He didn’t have to worry about it for long though, and next thing he knew he was letting out a rough whuff as he was tossed up onto a tree limb. He clung to it, now worried about falling and the… dragon watching him. Very pretty dragon, but dragon nonetheless.

It was only when it started to speak that some of the immediate tension left him. Some, not all. Still not confident enough to try and sit upright just yet, instead clinging to the branch, but it was a start.

“H… Huh??” His brow furrowed, and he licked his lips nervously. “Who the f… who are you?” The vampire put a few pieces together, and suspected that actually, if he thought about it, he did know who this was, didn’t he? Probably not a lot of folks around Maroa who fit the criteria. But he didn’t let onto this fact yet, for tactical reasons, and not because of any inconvenient social anxieties worrying about him being incorrect, definitely not.

“Your worst nightmare,” Valsur replied darkly, jabbing his bared teeth up threateningly close to Isfet’s thigh, but then threw his head back in a cackle. His wings fluffed out just a little, expressively. “Shit, I couldn’t resist. Augh, your stupid little face.”

Valsur shook himself out, sitting on his haunches politely. His tail wrapped around the side of the tree, the tip flopping around in the leaves like a giant feather duster.

Logan’s brow furrowed. Valsur had been vague when talking about what exactly they’d be cataloging, but… The drama, theatrics, all that, made sense now. He stepped away from the table to get a closer glimpse of what had caught the dragon’s eye.

“Strange kind of undersells it.” His voice caught. He cast another look around the room. It hadn’t seemed small, til now. The shelves, packed as they were, suddenly felt too-empty. Millenia of history, compacted into a room the size of a train car. And for each item and story behind it, there were thousands of others no one could recover. He wanted to ask how long it had been since Valsur had been down here, but dredging up memories of avoidance were the last thing he wanted to put the dragon through. “What kind of bone is that?” he asked instead, nodding at the instrument.

Valsur seemed glad for the question, and so he nodded his chin towards the bone.

“Ah, it is fala bone. They were similar to horses, perhaps. A herd animal that a lot of elven people in the south found sacred,” answered Valsur after a moment of thought. It looked like he wanted to reach out and touch it, but he knew touching it would only destroy it faster. “They were big, but stupid. Maybe they were more like cows then, but their fur was bright yellow and blue, with these huge set of horns that reminded me of a root system.” 

The paint, he remembered, once depicted little paintings of said fala, dancing and leaping in a line. Only one of them remained.

Isfet didn’t realize how absurd the situation looked in this moment (and probably never would) (and even if he did, he wouldn’t appreciate it). All he could comprehend was that he was being chased by a giant beast and he could hear it coming and maybe if he just pumped his legs a little faster he would get away or find a tiny cave to hide in where it couldn’t get him and then he could just wait it out until the thing decided to give up and leave and oh shit oh fuck he was in the air now huh??

He let out a panicked yelp, and while one hand reached up and around to attempt prying his shirt free (oh, big sharp scary okay okay okay) the other arm flew up instinctively toward his face, as if curling up into himself would protect him. “Shit don’t eat me aaaagh shit!–”

Valsur’s mouth was full, so as much as he really wanted to assure Isfet he wasn’t about to get eaten, nothing of the sort was said. Instead, he kept trotting forward, letting Isfet bounce around in his grasp for a few moments longer before he spotted exactly what he’d been looking for. With the toss of his big head, Valsur swung Isfet up over the fat middle of a tree branch so that he was straddling it.

Then, Valsur curled around the other side of the tree, poking his head around so he could observe Isfet shittily from his spot on the ground. Now in view of Isfet enough to comprehend, Valsur was long, ivory-toned and covered in fur-like feathers. Certainly not a t-rex, if that was still a concern.

The hallways were not in the same order they had been the last time Logan was shuffled down them. He, wisely, kept this thought to himself in case Valsur decided to set off whatever insane dragon mechanism had changed them in the first place.

Actually, it was probably magic. The same vein, or similar, used in his readings.

Cool.

He eyed the shelves. They were, honestly, less disorganized than he’d expected after all the hissy-fitting fuss the dragon had made. He’d seen far worse in old houses full of priceless 19th century artifacts that were really just fucking junk, barely worth the conservation work.

“I think they’ll manage. You know, when you said artifacts, I kind of expected stuff like a jar full of, like, moldy beetle corpses from 16th century Europe or something.” He had not thought Valsur would keep rotting garbage around, but two could play at this game.

(If he did have one, that would be extremely cool and they could find a way to recover something.)

Logan eyed a globe covered in a pattern of swirls and diamonds rather than either a grid or star chart. It didn’t look like elevation, either, with how the lines flowed. Tides, maybe? On a globe? He set down the bag he’d brought and began to unpack the contents on a table—cloth, for handling delicate materials, gloves so they wouldn’t leave a layer of grease on everything they touched, tweezers, PVA glue and a shitton of rubber bands for quick repair jobs, etc. A full professional conservation kit, at their disposal.

“You want moldy beetles? I could get you moldy beetles. I am sure I have something that would satisfy your sick perversions,” Valsur replied, stepping quietly through the room on his elegant little feet. It was like watching a crane silently step through water, graceful. “Sadly, I am not looking to catalogue my insect collection. I have been putting this one off for quite some time, and much of it is among the oldest in my possession, or at least the most precious. I find that it is rather forgotten and unassuming down here.”

Valsur stepped closer to one of the shelves, eyeballing what appeared to be an instrument made out of bone, carved beautifully and cracking with old paint. Next to it were a few rings, far too large to sit on a human’s fingers.

Isfet jumped as he first felt the heat, then the stinging of smoke in his eyes. What the fuck–

He froze, almost mid-step, feet keeping him only precariously upright as his head sloooowly turned to look behind him.

Oh.

Okay.

Well.

…

If Jurassic Park taught him anything it was that the best way to handle this situation was to remain completely still. He went a full second (and a half) without breathing or blinking.

After a full two seconds, his mind reminded him that his landlady really liked the author of the book that was based on, which was a very bad sign, and also, this was not a fucking t-rex.

At two-and-a-half-seconds, he instead decided to fucking bolt.

Excellent. The little man was running. It was humorous to think that Isfet thought his puny, stick-adjacent humanoid legs would carry him like the wings of a swan, high above the canopy and away from danger. Well, unfortunately even if that was the case, Valsur could fly, too. 

Valsur waited a beat, letting Isfet get some ground before trotting forward, lackadaisical like a dog at the park returning to its owner with a ball. No effort at all to keep up, but he remained at Isfet’s heels and made him feel as if he might, just might, have a chance of escaping.

It was very kind of Valsur, honestly. He could have just bowled Isfet over first thing. Valsur had restraint. He was beautiful and kind.

Valsur’s house had become, in the last month, much more occupied than it had ever been since he’d lived there. The change was… interesting, and he found himself excitedly unable to sleep at the thought of things he wanted to do the following day. Brushing off cobwebs of unused rooms and shittily (in personality only) making sure his guests were comfortable, he had been in a better mood than he’d been in a long time. Not that most people could tell, but it was still a weight off Valsur’s shoulders.

Still, it had been a while since Valsur had time to do things on his own, and there was catching up to do. That was the only, only reason (for sure) that he’d asked Logan along for help cataloguing the artifacts in his storage room, and absolutely not because Logan would love and enjoy doing this with him. He made sure to underline that it would be an awful chore and that Logan owed him (he didn’t) and Logan agreed without question. So, a successful ownage by Valsur.

Meeting At Last

Isfet really didn’t feel like he was making any progress at all. But hey! Apparently drinking blood from squirrels? …It was about as shitty as he’d anticipated. So that was a fun bit of validation.

Even though it was hot, he’d put his jacket on and turned its collar up, just to waste less energy on steeling himself from the sun. This evening was cooler at least than yesterday. Again with the shitty summer afternoons lasting forever, but at least his wakeup timing was better today. Sun lower in the sky, and if he hazarded a (nearly blinding) glance upward he could get a faint hint of the orange that would be taking over the sky soon. Maybe he’d figure out how to appreciate it again someday.

The world reminded him not to let his mind wander too much, though, when he nearly faceplanted stumbling over a tree root underfoot. He barely caught himself, luckily, but it kept his eyes focused downward for the next few minutes to keep it from happening again. Last thing he needed was to break a damn leg or something…

The woods were quiet these days.

Valsur slipped through the trees like a breath of fog, wings pinned tightly to his sides and each step silent on the mossy ground. It was almost as if he’d never been there, almost as if the forest had dreamed him up one day just to ghost him along the empty, eerie forest of early morning. He had been out there for an hour or more, easily, but still there was nothing new; no news, no broken trees, no signs of distress that he could find. Another empty search.

The schedule had been poor for his sleep, but perhaps he’d been through worse. Perhaps that’s why, when he noticed a figure stumbling through the middle of the deep woods, he had to pause and doubletake to make sure he was not hallucinating it. He hadn’t been, and the more his vision honed in on the figure, the more familiar they appeared. Valsur knew that face, pinned it to countless stories between his friends but… what was this guy doing out in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization?

Valsur was nothing if not curious, and an asshole.