Cry Wolf

[bb_wolf]

Who: Big Bad Wolf + Anyone
Broadcast: n/a
Action: Isakaulit
When: Any time from now on.

[Bigby found out about the Iskaulit. Namely, that it is large and has big, open spaces.

Big enough for him. And so his clothes are hidden away safely and there's a giant wolf on the loose, exploring everything.

And not frolicking. He's hundreds upon hundreds of years old. He's definitely not frolicking or anything like it.]

Comments

[bb_wolf]

[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.

[ecclesiophobic]

Where the water tastes like rust on a good day and a man can go nearly a year without seeing the stars, but the sunsets will take your breath away. [Despite the picture he's painting (and the bits he's leaving out, like how east Asia and half of South America are too irradiated for anything to live) his soft tone hints at wistfulness. His world was hell, but it was home. There are good memories amidst the death and pain.

The comment about seafood gets an impish grin, teeth catching the light first as he tilts his head up.] No? Don't like seafood, or don't like going into the ocean to get it and smelling of wet and salt for days? [He can empathize greatly with that pain. Even after scrubbing with soap, the smell was in his nose for ages.]

[bb_wolf]

[Home is home. Whatever sort of nightmare it is.

He shrugs slightly.]

Either. Both. Seafood is okay cooked and chopped out. Ripping it apart with your teeth is sort of revolting.

This pelt also doesn't dry easily once the wet gets inside.

[ecclesiophobic]

[The comment about his pelt gets a sympathetic, albeit subdued, wince.] Gott, I can imagine. My fur's a pain in the ass to dry, and it's hardly anything in comparison.

Bet the amount of times you've been truly cold is a short list.

[bb_wolf]

[Bigby snorts.]

I don't feel cold. Can't. Can feel heat, but I generally don't go very hot places.

[ecclesiophobic]

You're a bastard.

[There's absolutely no venom in the statement, just pure envy. Kurt feels cold very well; his fur isn't long enough to offer much protection, but more than enough for rain and snow to cling to. And then his mother went and built a castle in Antarctica.]

[bb_wolf]

So I've been told.

Asshole, jerk and wanker have also featured prominently.

[ecclesiophobic]

What, and you with such a gentle, unassuming personality? Perish the thought.

[bb_wolf]

[He snorts and flops onto his side for a long stretch.]

I had a lot of brothers to survive.

[ecclesiophobic]

So your mother was a wolf as well, or simply a prolific woman? [Bigby's a fairy tale, isn't he? A wolf cub being born of a human woman is hardly the most outrageous thing Kurt's heard of happening in fable and myth.

He pauses, watching Bigby for a moment to make certain the wolf isn't intending to move. Then he hops down from the wall, landing in a fluid crouch on the floor. Tail swishing curiously behind him, Kurt takes a step before straightening to walk on two legs and wander around the massive room, keeping out of easy lunge range (he thinks.)]

[bb_wolf]

A wolf. Winter Wolf. I don't remember a lot about her.

[He's not insulted at the suggestion he was birthed by a human. Weirder shit happens and he knows it.]

My father wore the shape of a wolf when he got her pregnant.

[Bigby stays where he is, shifting to lie on his side but nothing more threatening than any relaxing dog.]

[ecclesiophobic]

[Which is good, because Kurt was actually not trying to be insulting with either suggestion. It occurs to him, belatedly, that the suggestion of promiscuity might have been. With a human face it would've before leaving his mouth, but Bigby moves and behaves so authentically canine that it takes a minute for the possibility of prolonged exposure to human culture to sink in.

He opens his mouth to offer a curt apology, and is completely sidelined by the implied admission. The one about his mother, not the form his father took. That part notably doesn't phase him.] Even so, I'm sorry for your loss.

[Half-turning, the corners of his mouth twitch up at seeing the massive wolf stretched out on his side.] Are you going to roll onto your back if I continue keeping my distance?

[bb_wolf]

[He gives just a tiny incline of the head, acknowledging the compassion given, even if he doesn't reply with words.

Then, Bigby's ears prick forward with amusement and he makes a noise which, after a moment, might be apparent as a wolf chuckling.]

If I'm showing my belly, you're being lured in.

[ecclesiophobic]

You're saying I'm not already? For the big bad wolf, you're going to a lot of effort to look harmless.

[bb_wolf]

Maybe.

Maybe not.

[ He gives a lazy yawn. ]

[ecclesiophobic]

Didn't think you'd give a straight answer. At least you aren't a cat; they don't seem the type to speak outside of riddles.

[He pauses, then adds:] If you think I'm coming any closer either way, then I've clearly misrepresented my intelligence.

[bb_wolf]

I've known some very clever cats, but they don't really think like other beings.

I didn't ask you to come any closer.

[ecclesiophobic]

They wouldn't be cats if they did.

I know you didn't. I also know you could clear this space in a second, but that's more time than I'd have if I were in your reach.

[bb_wolf]

Mm.

[ That's probably an agreement that he could in fact do that. ]

I don't eat sentient things anymore. I told you that.

[ecclesiophobic]

Wasn't what I meant, actually. You clearly have more pent up energy than I do, and I don't fancy the prospect of an impromptu game of chase.

[bb_wolf]

Less pent up energy... Being able to be me is still novel. No lynch mobs, no fires, no being screamed at by Crane and Snow that I'm breaking the most basic and fundamental rule of being in Exile...

[ecclesiophobic]

Human beings do like forming their mobs, don't they? [He mutters something in German about overly religious idiots, tail lashing behind him angrily. There's a bit of fear under there, but not nearly so fresh or startling to Kurt as his reaction before. This fear is an old companion that saw him through adolescence and into adulthood.

Shaking his head, Kurt picks up the rest of the conversation.] Exile from where? You didn't come here from your home?

[bb_wolf]

Oh yes. They were much worse back in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds.

[ He notes the fear but it doesn't surprise him. Not with how the boy looks. ]

No. I was forced out of the Homelands some... six hundred years ago? We all come from there. I was among the last to leave. Not the last. But I did not leave until very late into the invasion.

[ecclesiophobic]

What the hell kind of thing managed to force you--all of you--out of your home?

[Good save, but it doesn't entirely cover the shock that anything under creation could drive out what Bigby claims to be. A sinking feeling in his gut says it was humanity.]

[bb_wolf]

You mean what horror could force the most primal nightmare out of his home.

[ He could see that on the boy's face. He blinked lazily, tucking his chin onto his paws. ]

The Adversary. I don't know what it is. No one does. But its armies never end. I spent centuries hunting them, killing them, laying waste to camp and army and caravan and there would always be more. They were so frightened of the wolf that they refused to enter the forests, but when started to demolish the forests itself...

I have limits. I can destroy an army. Not an ocean.