driftfleet | (no subject)

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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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[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.]

Well. That's one way of settling things, I suppose.

[He keeps peering up at him-- up and up and up, because he's so big. Ridiculous, how large he is, but Remus supposes you wouldn't make a legend out of some skinny thing.]

And now . . . what do you do when you have to eat?

[Because that's another point of contention between he and Moony: their diet.]

Well, usually I make a fry up for breakfast and order take out for dinner, but all they give us on the ships are those weird gel things. Luckily, one of the crew cooks and scrounged up some real food.

[And here, he's been chasing and hunting and eating whatever's big enough to satisfy him for a fight or food.]

So you don't have to eat live things. Humans. Any of that.

[Maybe he can shut Moony up about eating humans, then.]

Have to? No. When I'm human, I eat human things. When I'm a wolf, I eat wolf things. My appetite at this size is considerably larger.

I ate people for a long time, but I haven't done that since... the seventeen hundreds, probably. Condition of joining the other Exiles. No eating anything sentient. We all had to agree to that.

[He chuckles slightly, the sound rumbling through him.]

Gren's still shitty about that some days.

I'd be as well.

[A beat. He glances down at his shoes. This would be far more difficult if Bigby was in his human form, but even like this, Remus hesitates. No matter how many questions he's fired off, they still don't know each other-- but who else would understand?]

Perhaps you can . . . I don't know . . . help with that. I can't-- he always wants to hunt humans. It isn't hunger, he's eaten rabbits before, it's nothing to do with that-- he just-- he always wants to go after humans, and I don't know if there's a way to stop it.

It's why I lock myself up.

Of course he wants to hunt humans. They're a natural prey of werewolves and Fable wolves. He's around them all the time, they smell good and they're easy.

[He thinks it might also be the nature of the curse. All cursed werewolves seem to want to hunt and eat human, but usually only half a partially successful kill rate, meaning more survivors to become more werewolves to spread the curse.

Lots of curses want to spread. And lots of wolves want packs. Lot of instinctive reasons to do it.]

Don't know if there's a way to stop him wanting to hunt them. I still feel it sometimes, but I'm aware. Like a person. I can reason. He can't. I can stop him hunting them by being there.

All right. Thank you.

[A beat. He wrinkles his nose and adds:]

You make it sound so simple. As if it's not-- I mean, my god, they're humans, they're-- it's not like hunting a rabbit.

[It's transparent, the way he's asking for assurance-- from who? The wolf who just told him he'd eaten everything and everyone in his path? But he doesn't take it back.]

I'm a talking, self aware wolf. People hunted me. Why shouldn't I have hunted them?

[He also tried to eat three talking pigs.]

Look, he's not going to change in a hurry. And you're not doing anything that dissuades him. He doesn't understand why you lock him up. He doesn't know why you keep him in a little cell and that you don't want to hunt and eat people.

Far as he's concerned, it's prey. And it's big enough to satisfy his hunger and it's plentiful enough to be easy to catch.

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