driftfleet | Cry Wolf

We all put in for our own benefit. Single, larger bunk rooms to ourselves was good.

[He seats himself down, settles to lie down and then folds his paws one over the other.]

You sound like you're reciting a party line. Personally, I'm much fonder of the rather large kitchen on mine.

[There's an implosion of brimstone and sulfur from where he was, and an explosion of same above a near doorway. In the middle of the latter stands his stalker in decent lighting, as though gravity means nothing to him.] You are as massive as you looked from there. Careful that someone doesn't mistake you for a fairy tale monster.

[Anything Big is about to say gets lost.

Because he starts laughing.

Honest laughing. Whole frame shaking, tail perking, ears relaxed laughing.]

[That was not the reaction Kurt had been expecting. He was prepared to dodge some kind of angry outburst, not be faced with a sudden wave of nostalgia. Victor Creed had laughed like that, whole-body with his mouth open to show every tooth.

Kurt raises an eyebrow, the spade of his tail twitching in the air.] Care to enlighten me as to what you find so amusing?

[He settles with a couple of trailing sounds of amusement, much more wolf than human.]

I am the fairytale nightmare.

The hell you are.

[His tone doesn't match the conviction of his words, pieces already starting to fall into place. He'd mentioned fables as though it were a race instead of a genre, and the wolf of the stories was, among other things, supposed to be the quintessential hunter. Something like that could theoretically know and remember the scents of all their people. Most importantly, Kurt's been to worlds where purported gods walked among men.]

[Big shrugs.

He feels no need to prove himself.

Well, maybe a little. He rests his chin on his paws and takes a breath, then blows.

It's not much, not compared to what he can do. It is enough to blow most humans, trolls and ogres off their feet.]

[And Nightcrawlers, at least this one. The wind knocks him off his feet and flat against the wall he'd been standing on, the force keeping him from moving much while it lasts. Then it's done, and for the seconds until Kurt remembers to press his bare feet and hands against the wall he slides downward.

Then he just hangs there, unabashedly staring at Bigby with wide, shocked eyes. His expression begins to open up with what looks like the bare beginnings of a brilliant, joyful grin, and then he remembers himself. His heart's still beating double-time in his chest, but Kurt schools his face and offers the closest to an apology that he's giving.] Never thought you'd look so similar to an actual wolf.

What do you mean so much like a real wolf?!

I am a fucking wolf.

[Mostly.

But there's no sign of real annoyance, despite the loud words.]

Do forgive me for picturing the embodiment of man's fear of the dark and predation as looking a bit more chthonic!

[Honestly he'd always pictured something like his mother, a shape-shifter whose natural form was blacker than the sky with teeth and eyes as its only defining features.]

I'm still a fucking wolf, even if I'm a bit... bigger.

[A wolf with a potty mouth, apparently.]

I don't need to look any different. Humans have feared wolves since they first encountered them. And I can snack on a human with very little effort...

Of course you're a fucking wolf, the hell did I say you weren't? You wouldn't be the fucking wolf if you were human!

[They would never make the cut in any movie rated below R.

He doesn't look very impressed with the implied threat, though Kurt does quiet after, looking down at the floor. His next words are soft, his tail twitching in small, chastised loops. He's being an asshole and he knows it.] When I was a boy, growing up in the Black Forest, they used to say that was where your stories took place. Little Red, Peter, the pigs. Suppose that's one reason I liked the stories so much.

[Big settles down, looking for all the world like a relaxing, regular sized canine.]

Maybe they did.

I was very young when I tried to eat the pigs. Not much bigger than a regular wolf. Colin still doesn't let me forget it.

[Kurt snorts, shaking his head as he raises it to look at Bigby again.] Maybe in your world, not in mine.

[He opens his mouth to ask who Colin is, but is distracted by the other part of what Bigby had said.] Tried. You didn't succeed in eating a trio of pigs? [His expression hasn't changed, but he sounds vaguely amused.]

I ate some trios of pigs. I didn't eat others.

[It's the nature of Fables, especially one like Bigby. He plays out the same stories sometimes. Over the millenia, it stops mattering.]

Fucking Dun locked me in a cauldron of boiling water. I was young at that stage. Not really as big as any of them at the time.

[Darkholme's head cocks to the side, more than a little like a curious feline or bird. There's a slight tightening in his expression when Bigby mentions being boiled, the restrained beginnings of a sympathetic wince.]

I suppose everything was a child once. You're immortal then, or simply very hard to kill?

[The wolf shrugs again.]

Not died yet. Guess we won't know if I'm killable until something manages it. Until then, I'm assuming unkillable.

[Kurt murmurs an acknowledgement, his chin dipping slightly as he thinks over those words a minute. On the one hand, theoretically if Bigby proved to be a threat to other living beings, he could teleport his head (okay, part of his head) off like anyone else. But it hurts, right in the remnants of him that remember being a little boy who believed in fairy tales, to think of the wolf of the stories dying so easily. If he's telling the truth, and not insane or fucking with him.]

You know, in the stories I heard the wolf was only agreeable when he was trying to get someone's guard down. [He lifts his chin, wanting it to be absolutely clear he's staring Bigby right in the eyes.] How hungry are you, wolf?

[Bigby gives a low chuckle at the statement, ears up and forward. He's confident in his dominance of this situation and it shows.]

Shouldn't that be Mister Wolf?

I don't eat sentient beings anymore. Unless there's exceptional circumstances.

Or they really fuck me off.

No. [He punctuates with the hint of a cheeky grin.

Kurt draws in breath to make some quip about who's stolen Bigby's balls, then pauses. His head tilts again, unabashedly staring at the wolf; comparing his posture now with his actions of earlier, noting the lack of tension in him. Surely if someone was keeping him from being the monster he used to be, surely there'd be resentment bubbling under the surface. Something.] I want to ask what you're getting in return for behaving yourself, but I suspect that might be too personal a question.

[Kurt will never know how close he came to losing a limb today. Bigby is much more relaxed than he used to be, older, wiser, no need to prove anything...

He can still be pushed. And that might've been a step too far.

Instead, his tail flicks slightly with interest.]

Pup, I'm thousands of years old. I have hunted and killed monsters that never made it into your stories because words couldn't describe the horror of them. I have eaten cities worth of people and three armies of soldiers.

I have nothing to prove to anyone. I am the Big Bad Wolf. I am the fear that haunts every heart that something implacable and unstoppable is out there, in the dark, waiting.

[He is calm, confident. Not the young wolf who needs cunning to not die. Not even the older wolf that ate an entire city because they boasted their walls could keep the wild at bay.]

[Kurt never will, and probably for the better. Even with the return of a dear team-mate lost in the first war, listening to the call of the void has always been a character flaw. He bit his tongue because he's honestly starting to believe Bigby, despite telling himself every inch of the way that he's being gullible. Bigby reminds him too much of home when that meant a house built away from mankind, so deep in the forest that Kurt never met a non-mutant until they came to kill him. He reminds Kurt of the stories he begged his mother to tell as a child, and of Victor Creed who he always thought was more canine than man. Especially when Bigby calls him pup.

His chin lowers, the shadows cast by his hair turning unnaturally deep.] I know. Wasn't questioning it, that time. I do know a few things about creatures that hide in shadows; know a few things about people, too. No matter how highly evolved my species are, most of us are still deeply afraid of what hides in the dark that we can't see through. Which is good for me, because that fear was invaluable to me during the wars. [He pauses, then continues with the non sequitur of:] Do you happen to be familiar with Lovecraft at all?

[Most of the time, Bigby keeps his full self shackled in. It's not just about keeping all the muscle and fur tucked inside a human skin, it's about keeping everything dark and sinister about himself hidden behind carefully built habits. Light up a cigarette, adjust his never properly done up tie, the things that make him seem more human.

Here, he's starting to indulge in not being like that.

With someone who knows his stories, who positively revels in the thrill of being a bit scared, it would take a stronger willed creature than him no to be himself.]

Humans are often the worst monsters. I am what I am. I don't hunt my own kind and eat them. Never have.

... yes, he was a writer.

[When Bigby mentions hunting and eating his own, that's when fear shoots through Darkholme. His face remains perfectly calm, the end of his tail twitches only a little, but the memory of his wife's murder is strong enough that the smell of terror breaks through the brimstone scent that hangs around him always.

His voice is remarkably even.] You're not telling me anything I don't know. My world is dead because of two men who decided it was a fine idea to commit genocide. I think even you would choke on the air there; I nearly did, after spending a few months in another world entirely. [And then a snicker, because what even Bigby?] Yes, yes, he was a writer. Was wondering how much worse than his monsters what you fought were.

[Interesting. He makes a mental note, but says noting about the spike of fear.]

I choke on the stench of a city. A dying world...

[He can imagine something like it. And it turns his stomach.]

His monsters never scared me. Though I never had a big taste for seafood.

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