Private Tales Dealings in Duality

Kilien bided his time with his smoking pipe, using it as an excuse to leave the socializing to Zinnia and the creature. The feeling of being ill-at-ease would not abate despite the congeniality of the conversation between them. And he, like Zinnia, did not loose a relaxed breath until it was well away from their campsite.

"It sure was," he agreed, his pinned gaze still tracking the area where it had disappeared to, now sauntering off into the forest as the oddest looking deer you ever did see. Brows furrowed, Kilien finally broke his stare to look at Zinnia, "I need a favor, Boss."

His pipe tapped out clean against one of the campfire stones so the embers fell into the flames, he stowed the pipe away and rose to his feet.

"I need to borrow some of your mana." Borrow was the wrong word but he found saying borrow was better received than saying take. "Not much - I just want to set up a few more defensive spells for the evening..."

"I just need your bare hand," Kilien replied and lowered his own as if offering her a handshake.

Well color that one of the first times someone in connection with the Academy so willingly obliged touching him. It wasn't so much that he cared others treated him like a leper, but after a time it became more annoying than anything. Especially when it came to exercises that required team effort. Zinnia had proven to be a breath of fresh air he'd not been expecting - something he rather suddenly became aware of as he found himself hovering in the idea that he'd fully believed she wouldn't do it.

Kilien blinked, dumbfounded, and then quickly cleared his throat as he leaned forward to close the deal.

Take her hand in his own, that is.

Normally just skin-on-skin contact would suffice, but those instances were often abrupt and sloppy. He took advantage from time to time during sparring lessons when pitted against others who took pleasure in doing him harm. Every hit landed sapped them of mana. Small amounts, usually, but sometimes things just happened in the throes of being bludgeoned. Sometimes instead of a pinhole amount, he burst a dam.

Sometimes he just really didn't fucking care about the consequences. Draining mages of mana in large bursts could get messy. Their eyes sunk in and their veins popped out like.

He didn't want that for Zinnia. "It won't hurt," Kilien shook his head, brows lowering faintly, "at least it shouldn't."

So he took her hand gently but firmly and smoothed his fingers past her palm until his pointer and middle rest snugly against the veins of her wrist with his myriad rings settled warm within the grasp. The sensation of siphoning mana was different for everyone. So far as he could gather, it came down to the nature of their own magic. Sometimes it tickled, othertimes if felt like a creeping cold or a spreading heat. A sizzle of energy or a pricking of pain. He hoped it wasn't unpleasant for her, at the very least, when she had been nothing but friendly toward him.

It only took a few moments. A small sip of her reserves would be enough for what he intended.

"Yeah, that's it," he said, releasing her hand back to her before righting himself, "good. Sometimes it's not a friendly thing to do. I can never tell. Feels the same to me every time."

Like drinking water when thirsty. Or, at the very least, that was the closest he could think to describe it. He didn't actually feel it in his gut so much as his entire being. He'd run dry of mana earlier with his previous spells around the area and while he'd never been particularly powerful in magic or held deep mana reserves, being parched of mana didn't bother him nearly so much as most mages.

Some became physically ill.

"I'll set a few stronger wards this time to hopefully keep ... more new friends from finding us. Then we can get some shut-eye."

And with that, he headed back out into the thicket, withdrawing his wand from his inner pocket and mumbling something under his breath about weird fucking cats.

Half an hour was about right.

Kilien took greater care in the spells chosen this time. The ones he'd used before had been rather basic, all things considered. This time he layered the effects of the wards.

One that deafened the sounds of the campsite. Another that covered their more immediate site in what equated to a hiding glimmer - camouflaging them as if they weren't even there. A third that repelled interlopers through mental means; either by creating distracting thoughts that would lead them elsewhere or engendering a sense of trepidation to avoiding the area entirely.

When he returned his boots carried him in through the opposite direction of the way he'd left and he found Zinnia huddled on the ground as if someone had just kicked her puppy.

Odd.

"Everything alright, Boss?" Maybe she was just tired?

That question stopped him in his tracks and for half a second he considered turning and walking right back out to the perimeter. He could do patrol rounds all night if it kept him from those sort of questions.

"What... really good at hiding my abs?" He made a non-committal sound, one hand idly itching at his middle. Wavering in a stance that suggested some kind of confidence in his build, though he knew compared to other Initiates like King he just looked scrawny.

"Yeah."

He knew what she meant but he wasn't certain giving her an answer was the right choice.

The humor slowly drained from his face, his eyes casting away and about as she spoke as a means of keeping any hint of truth or truths unspoken. So far his humor and self-deprecation had kept the Initiates of the Academy mostly off the trail - though he could not help those that simply swung the rumor mill for their own amusement. There would always be bullies, he'd grown accustomed to that fact.

"You don't owe me... anything," Kilien replied to her, "and you're perfectly easy to be around."

His brows rose as he swung himself up onto the balls of his feet. To make his point, Kilien shifted back to his spot by the campfire again and let himself down to the ground with a sigh. Zinnia was still sitting like a mistreated child, all drawn up to protect herself and her secrets.

"Listen," Kilien leaned back into a lazy repose, propping himself up on an elbow and settling comfortably to face her, "I don't know what I don't know." About her. About weird fucking cats. "I can wake up in the morning and just believe the last hour was all a fever dream. I get those sometimes."

It was easier to believe the outlandish shit he experienced that way.

"So before you say anything more, think real hard about how much you want me to know it and if it's really worth it to you," looking her in the eyes, he gave her one of those very same self-deprecating smiles he gave others to get himself out of trouble, only this time it was for her own benefit rather than his, "I'm just a Shit-nitiate from the Academy. You don't have to tell me nothin if you don't want to."

Kilien Basmarc went very still and very silent.

He watched and he listened and he digested every bit of it. His expression shifted very little, mobile through his brow that slowly raised toward his hairline.

"Sheeee-iiit," the word slurred from his lips and he wasn't certain if he'd thought it or actively spoke it, so lost in ... disbelief? Surprise? Wonder?

Damn. And he'd been so focused on her hiding her abs. Turns out she was hiding a lot more than that.

Several moments passed him by as he stared at her, wordless for her big reveal. He knew what it meant to be what she was and knew well enough that this likely was a massive secret she'd kept to herself for many years, if not her entire life. He understood it on a baser level. Knowing her plight was only the half of it, but it was half more than likely anyone else she knew had.

"Ahhh-" a blink broke him from his stare and Kilien lifted a hand to idly scratch at the ruff of his jawline.

Fuck it.

"I'm a werewolf."

Whoa.

The Lady moved fast when secrets started flying. Kilien looked at her, eyes bugged, and blinked as she rather suddenly was right there. Beside him. He barely had to lean to sniff at her.

"Yeah, I'm serious..." he blinked at her, warily.

"Mmm- it's uh, it's fine. The story is true. My Ancestor was cursed by druids in the falwood and the curse passes down through his bloodline. Any direct child descendant born under a full moon contracts the curse." He offered a shrug, "I was born a mongrel."

The Initiate's brow furrowed as he learned of her origins. The way she had described her change did not lend well to what she actually was. At least he could not place the creature...being...thing that she became in his mind. It sounded like a dragon of sorts? Scales, horns, wings?

Could she fly?

That she was an orphan did not help her case, either, much in the same way being of Rovani descent did not help his. Though, he thought to himself with a renewed sense of gratefulness, he knew his family and he believed most of them still lived. Where they were in the world now, though, was a mystery.

Kilien couldn't help but pity her. It was clear she was screaming for help silently into the void that would not allow her words to air. It was a bad place to be, but he was glad he could offer her something akin to comfort. In his weird way.

To her question he gave a vague nod, "Yeah, mostly."

"It depends."

His gaze shifted away from her own, the weight of uncertainty about how much to divulge. It wasn't for the same reasons that most Dreadlords did not speak on their powers in great detail - revealing too much was always a risk. No, it was more that the more she knew, the greater risk he put her in. His status was carefully guarded at the Academy, though he didn't fully understand why. Kil just assumed it was for the safety of the other students.

"Since I've lived with the condition my entire life, I have matured into the beast on my own terms and have some scope of control over my normal change with the full moon. I am ... aware of myself for the most part, and can stay calm long as I'm well fed and unthreatened." Contained. The Proctors had worked out a system to keep this portion of his life hidden from the Academy. Every month he was always to be away from the campus under the pretense of a mission. Every full moon they locked him away to endure the change, to feast, and then to ride it out through the night.

"But eh..." his fingers drummed on the ground between them, rings catching the light of the fire and glinting. "There's times when the change is outside of the cycle. Ways I can force it to happen, ways it can be forced to happen, and those...mmm," a frown pulled at his scruff, "well it's best if I'm not around anyone during those times."

Kilien made a thoughtful sound, now idly playing with a bit of kindling that had somehow tumbled away from the campfire unscathed, "Don't apologize," he said, wadding it up into a loose approximation of a ball and casually tossing it into the flames, "I'm not ashamed about what I am."

A rueful sort of smile carved its way into his scruff, "I'm not Anirian, remember? Rovani are dog people. I'm like some kind of deity to them." That was certainly not quite the truth. Even among his own people, being a werewolf was as revered as it was feared. At least his family's clan was used to the idea of it and had learned to live with the fact seeing as how he was the third in his line to carry the curse after his great-grandfather.

"What about you, though?" he wadded another ball of kindling and tossed it at her in a playful attempt to lighten the mood, "You some kind of were-dragon?"

Hadn't expected her to go full-bore into a shift and as she did so Kilien felt himself stiffen in slight alarm. He knew for himself, even if he was well-fed and turning under the appropriate moon, the shift to his beastly self left him agitated and unpredictable for a short while after. It always felt a bit like he wanted to tear out of his own skin after an itch he couldn't scratch until he put paw to dirt.

To hunt.

He never really was able to get that itch when he was locked up by the Proctors.

Blinking at her as she grew scaley and pointy, gleaming like gold, hazel eyes took it all in with two-parts-wariness and 98-parts-curiosity.

"Sheeeeit," said Kilien, "you look like a spicy komodi!"

Then he remembered that most people didn't take kindly to komodi and he threw his hands up as best he could from where he lounged, "In a good way, I swear! They're said to be descended from elder dragons so, yeah - definitely dragon-like. You even got a tail!"

He supposed he hadn't though about that part of her plight. The whole... not being able to hide it from others, part. Frowning at the thought, he continued looking up at the young Dreadlord from his spot on the ground, half admiring and half relating to her struggle, "How bad could it be? You bring a whole new meaning to chasing tail, amirite?"

The smarm on his expression couldn't be helped, though it dissipated quickly enough as he tried not to downplay the seriousness of the situation. That would have just been rude.

"Is it only your horns then that you can't get rid of?"