driftfleet | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Bigby and anyone silly enough to be out in the mountains
Broadcast: No
Action: In the deep, wild parts of the planets where there is the promise of giant, fierce animals.
When: Any time after planetfall is made.

Normally, his skin doesn't chafe so much.

He knows it's because of the lack of options. There are places in the city he can shrug it off and be himself. He can always catch a cab and go out into the forests. He knows he can get out if he wants or needs to.

But here, he can't. The ship is literally not big enough for him, he would struggle to fit in the corridors, let alone his cell.

But this planet, this is like home. Not Fabletown, but the Homelands, his father's lands, where the winds cut to the bone and the snow is so thick that it reaches his belly as he walks through it.

He sets off on foot out of town, dressed in his usual slacks and shirt and tie with the concession of having rolled down his sleeves. It's cold, but it only has to last until he gets out of sight.

Because out of sight of the population, he strips and then he claws his way free, a nightmarishly huge form of black brown fur that quickly lopes off in search of prey. He's already communing with the wind spirits, trying to prove he's one of them, that they should help him.

You can try and catch him on his way out of town, before he shifts.

If you're game, you can find him out in the mountains. Maybe your hunt team makes the mistake of thinking that thing is prey.

((OOC: If you want to hunt Bigby, please message me to work it out, but he won't be aggressive to anything vaguely sentient. Anyone lost in the snow can be found by the giant mostly friendly wolf.

Action spam welcome, but I didn't want people trying to read a block of tiny text.

Spoiler pic for TWAU showing Bigby's wolf size and another one.))

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Well, when a mummy wolf and a daddy North Wind love each other very much...

[Yeah, that's the best explanation you're getting on that front.]

You can just say don't ask, you know, you don't need to be sarcastic.

[He wrinkles his nose up at him.]

Ours is a passable condition. Even if I had a human wife, there's a good chance my children will be like me.

[Which means no children, which is . . . not something he wants to think about, actually.]

[Bigby huffs slightly and his tail thumps the once, sending a rush of wind and snow from it.]

And the change is painful for you. Very painful. You don't want children suffering.

Precisely. It's also rather a stigma; I keep my condition a secret. I, ah, rather have to if I want to be able to do anything.

[He doesn't want to sound as if he's whining. He's done that enough so far and they barely know each other.]

What is it like at home for you? I mean, what's the standard? We're mostly witches and wizards, with supernatural creatures on the edge of society.

Huh.

[Eyes closed, Bigby listens to the winds and thinks.]

Home, or where I live? Home is the Homelands. I was one of the last to flee, four hundred years ago. Now, I live in Manhattan, with the other Exiles of the Homelands. We have several cabals of witches.

[Well! An American, which is rather an odd juxtaposition to the odd fairy-tale setting Remus had been imagining. And he'll ask more about both in a bit, but first--]

How old are you?

[He doesn't sound American. In fairness, Americans had English accents when he started living there.]

Don't know. One of the oldest of the Exiles. Probably nine or ten centuries, I guess.

You--

[You guess, but he supposes after the first hundred years you tend to lose track. Good grief, he really must be a child in Bigby's eyes. Remus blinks up at him, taken aback by that answer.]

My god.

[And that's all he has to say for a few seconds, really, because how do you even continue conversing with a creature so old?]

I moved to New Amsterdam in the early seventeen hundreds, I suppose. I lived in Salem during the witch trials. I lived in the Carpathians for a century or so, before that.

[He stretches out his front paws further.]

I didn't keep track of time before that, in the Homelands. Snow told me there was a long time between helping her and actually moving to the Mundane world. So I'm guessing entirely. Time didn't mean much.

Well, yes, after the first few centuries who can keep track.

[SARCASM but that's mostly to cover for how enormously taken aback he is. Remus watches him stretch out, something itching between his shoulder blades as he does. Not an actual itch, but something familiar that aches to do the same. Ah, well.]

My god, I'm only twenty-one and I'm rather exhausted; how do you keep going?

Counting years doesn't come naturally to wolves.

[His head came to rest on one forearm and his eyes half closed.]

I wasn't aware there was another option.

There's always another option.

[Simply said, and he copies Bigby, slumping down a little against the great bulk of him.]

In any case: where were the Homelands?

[To a wolf, there isn't another option. You live. You fight to live. That simple.]

Another world. A set of other worlds, outside the Mundane world. I know how to get there and back, I can't tell you where it is. It's across the space between the worlds.

Oh. Oh.

[He'd be stupid not to understand-- magic is all about secret things like that, Hogwarts itself is very nearly another world (or at the least, very well hidden from the world).]

That's brilliant! Is it entirely populated by people like y-- like us, then?

With Fables.

[He shouldn't be telling. He fails to give a fuck.]

Humans, witches, ogres, trolls, princesses and princes, beasts, dragons, giants... Fables.

A far better term for it than Dark Creatures, I have to admit.

[He tips his head, regarding Bigby above him. Two fingers press to his chest absently.]

You said before Moony was inside me, wanting to get out. Can you sense him?

Edited 2015-12-18 04:29 (UTC)

I don't understand 'Dark' creature. We are the Fables. Our stories are so much part of the Mundane world that I can taste it. You are a werewolf.

I am the Wolf.

[He gives a soft chuff and yawn.]

Yes. I can smell him. Not it. Him.

[He shivers. That's a bit alarming for someone so used to keeping Moony a secret, but it isn't as if Bigby is biased. He's not about to go shouting it around for the entire fleet to know. And yet there's something awful about Moony being so obvious to Mal, to Bigby, to anyone with any kind of supernatural ability.

Anyway. Remus tips his head, perhaps putting things together a little too late.]

The Wolf, as in . . . what, Red Riding Hood and the like?

Yes.

[All of them. He is The Wolf.]

Three Little Pigs. Red Riding Hood. Peter and.

Colin stills holds that over my head when he wants to stay in the city with me. "Oh, Bigby, you blew down my straw bales that I pretended were a house, you should let me stay in your apartment and drink all your whiskey and smoke all your cigarettes."

[All legends come from somewhere, he thinks, he knows that as well as anyone, but it's one thing to know it intellectually and quite another to be confronted with it. Remus huffs out a little laugh, as amused as he is taken aback.]

You oughtn't be smoking anyway.

[What a stupid thing to say, but he's still processing all this, thanks. Finally:]

And if legends-- your legends, say, or anyone else's-- die out . . . what happens then?

[Really, Remus? Really? You shouldn't be smoking?]

I need something to block out the smells of the city. I can't survive being able to smell everything inside several blocks. And I'm immortal, what's it going to do? Kill me?

[He thinks about it. Rose Red's story is less well known, but she's still just as feisty and sharp as ever.]

Nothing. We exist outside our legends. Some people just... I dunno. You'd need to speak to one of the witches about it, like Totenkinder. I'm just a really big wolf.

Ah, but how will you huff and puff if your lungs are crap, hm?

[Now he's just teasing, and he smirks up at the wolf. A touch more self-consciously:]

Tell me if you tire of the questions. I have a tendency to go on and on.

[Bigby does the raised eyebrow thing again and softly, for him, blows at a tree, which shakes and loses a branch under the pressure.]

I suppose I'll do okay.

Look, the last time anyone bothered asking me questions, it was just to complain about the fact that I was locking him up for murder and exploitation. Ask away.

Point taken. You seem remarkably patient for someone described in legends as-- no offense-- the, ah, bad guy.

[A beat, and Bigby will be able to smell the prickle of fear that runs through him-- but surely if the wolf was to eat him, he would have already.]

I was the bad guy, kid. No described about it. I hunted and ate anything I could. Had this anger, like a fire in my gut. That was a long time ago. Back when I was still small and a pig or a little girl was a decent meal.

[He got bigger and started hunting soldiers for the challenge. Hunters for the fun of it. When you live in a world where a lot of things are intelligent enough to talk, you don't think much about eating anything and everything.]

Our Homelands were invaded. I started hunting those forces instead. They scared off my prey, weren't good to eat, I hated them. So I terrorised them. Started freeing prisoners because it made the Adversary mad. Started helping his prisoners and slaves escape to other worlds.

Eventually, I moved worlds too. And all those critters I saved were grateful that I'd done it and gave me a chance to come and try being part of them. Their Sheriff. Because they all fought and bickered and there was only one thing that everyone knew to fear.

[Him.]