antivanleather | Eighth turn - turn turn, there is a season turn, turn, turn [Video/Action]

Eighth turn - turn turn, there is a season turn, turn, turn [Video/Action]

[It starts with the woods. OR rather the canopy as there is some muttering in a familiar voice, if in an unfamiliar meter. ]

I know this is somewhat difficult to grasp, but I am no more comfortable than you and as soon as we have done this we might go about hiding until the change has reversed itself. Yes? Yes. I suppose having the book facing us would help in the first place-

[The view shifts, swinging to reveal Isaac sitting cross legged and not quite glaring at Zevran, wings pressed flat to his back. The inherent strangeness doesn’t kick in until Zevran speaks- with a cultured, vaguely British accent rather than the warm tones of his native Antivan.. ]

Or, we can say nothing at all. [Isaac suggests, his restless frustration with the situation tamped down in favour of feigning indifference with a one-shouldered shrug. Then he’s looking away, considering his perfectly ordinary set of nails. He can’t quite remember the last time he’s had them trimmed blunt as an adult.] I don’t imagine anyone shall curl into a ball and die if they hear not from either of us in the coming days.

I’ve no intention to hide, we are going to explain what has happened- [A beat, Isaac’s lips pressing thin as he flicks his fingers at the feed in an aborted gesture.] I have those that worry for me and I know Hector will worry for you.

[He snorts, the line of his jaw sharpening as he stares cooly ahead as if expecting Hector to step out from the brush. He might, for all Isaac knows. With a changed body comes a complete disconnection from the thread of demonic energy that had bound them across great distances. The world feels quieter, stranger, emptier.] He won't.

[It comes without missing a beat, low-voiced and level but unwaveringly certain, neither it nor the flat look in his eyes leaving any room for discussion.]

So this is what has come to pass: Isaac and myself have found ourselves in bodies that do not belong to us. Isaac in mine, I in his. [A beat.] This is Zevran.

[Isaac rests his chin in his palm, dully amused.] Really now.

This is Zevran Arainai and this wonderful elf to my right is Isaac in my skin. Please do not mistake us for one another. Once this is over I shall make another announcement.

Oh, how very thoughtful of you. [A gently mocking smile hovers on the edges of his lips, never reaching his eyes.] As for the rest of you, [His gaze drifts back to the screen] do try not to soil yourselves until then.

I do try. As we are not in our proper bodies all leather goods shall be a week late, and any goods Isaac owes will likewise be postponed as I do not know his craft, he does not know mine, and I find working with nails like this most challenging. Honestly, Isaac, how do you get anything done with them filed to such points?

Oh, you poor thing. [His lilting purr drips with honey, though the effect is not complete until he has clasped a hand to his chest and given a pitying toss of his head with it, eyes soft in sorrow. If his theatrics don’t cement his identity than he honestly doesn't know what would. Some things never change.]

Rosso- [He sighs as he flips the journal closed, ending the feed. This would be a long walk home.]

[Both men can be found wandering back to the village from whence they’d woken in search of proper clothing. “Isaac” in something that isn’t quite so low riding and made entirely of leather, “Zev” in - more of the opposite. After a brief stop in the clothing store and weapons store they will make their way to House 51 for the duration of their transformation.]

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"Rosso-"

Zev Turns to not quite glower- he hasn't mastered this face and he doesn't truly have the right to be wholly upset with Isaac. Extensions of hospitality being what they are- he knows not all is well and it never shall be well between his boys and his friend. The sky is blue, the grass green, and Isaac excels in finding the darkest parts of a man and poking at them.

"That was harsh, even for you. He is trying to help. He means well. It may not be easy for either of you, but he means well. I'll not insist that we spend the night at the house but I would, at least, wish to be permitted some time to speak to my friends and husbands. And to pick up my knives. And some for you as well. Wherever we end up for the night? It is not going to be your cave. I'm certain there's a spare apartment somewhere we might hole up." As stressed as they both were, perhaps he had less reason to be so anxious. He had never had magics or the powers that course through Isaac's veins. To lose that along with everything else?

Warrants some harshness.

To Jack, he writes:

I will be home shortly for a short while to collect my blades. Take care of Savio while I am away.

Edited 2014-07-28 05:39 (UTC)

With little left to write he flips his book shut, meeting Zevran’s pale-eyed look with a flat, lidded stare of his own. "Never did I keep you from going where you would, so don’t you accuse me of cruel imprisonment."

He holds a hand out at his side, palm up, in a sort of one-shouldered shrug. “If there you wish to stay, then so be it." There's no promise of a threat in it, no glint of warning in his eyes.

"It is not a question of cruel imprisonment and more a question of respect. I would not have you sit idly by while I wandered about in your skin, no more than you would wish me to do so while in mine." Strange as the whole thing is, he's uncertain how to best phrase this. "If you do not mind a brief trip, I would like that we collect some food and blades, and perhaps a few furs from my home before we find an empty apartment. The furnishings provided often leave much to be desired."

At ‘respect’, he glances away, a muscle in his jaw flexing until his mind on the matter is made. That his wishes are being respected is all he had asked for in the end and he relents, reluctantly, with a quiet sigh through his nose. He’s not unarmed, having pocketed two of his best picks among the daggers from the weapons shop even if their make left something to be desired. But he could use furs, and if Zevran feels as ill-adjusted and ungainly as himself, he imagines they’d have little luck hunting quickly and successfully for meat and pelts.

“Very well.”

Isaac motions forward with a nudge of his chin before setting an easy pace, grass rustling underfoot.“I would best take the lead. The sight of your face shall have something of a disarming effect upon them -- even if it belongs not to you for the moment.”

Edited 2014-07-29 01:12 (UTC)

"You know the paths around the tripwires as well as anyone else." He motions for Isaac to take the lead, feeling worlds more comfortable wrapped on cotton rather than leather. IT was one thing to admire it on Isaac's body, another entirely to experience wearing it. How is it that he finds it comfortable? It matters little.

"As we do not have the key, you should knock. Savio will inform Jack of our presence if none of the others are inside."

The sun on his skin is hotter than it’s ever been, smells of the woods sharper and layered and more complex. He's quiet a moment, soaking it in, wondering absently how these heightened senses compared to those of a typical vampire, werewolf, or ghoul. Something he had no intentions of ever discovering first-hand.

"You say it as if you expect me to plunge through the windows first." He casts a glance over his shoulder, one corner of his mouth daring to twitch up in amusement.

Edited 2014-07-31 02:57 (UTC)

"That would be how I wound enter, normally. That is how I would get into the cave had it any windows and you given permission for me to do so." He shrugs, the gesture not as fluid, not as easy as it would be in his own skin. The bones too broad and the muscle too lean, too dense for what he remembers are the appropriate motions. It is frustrating to know how he should move and find himself...clumsy.

Being human is more difficult than he'd previously anticipated. He feels half deaf for how quiet everything is around him, how pale the colors to his bright eyes.

Isaac snorts softly, wryly. “Even if that I granted you, the seal would repel you yet… and most any man in the village.”

Spending any amount of time in the tunnels he called home is out of the question for the both of them for the better or for the worse. He’s not quite sure how he’d begin to explain bypassing the ward to someone unfamiliar with possessing and manipulating Dracula’s magic, and the process was impossible to properly guide in this state.

“...Has it been so long that you’ve forgotten?” He adds in a teasing lilt, gazing ahead.

"You've been sending out what I have heard called 'give me space' vibes." Complete with fingerquotes. "So space is what I have given you. Far be it from me to poke about where I am not wanted."

For once. Or rather at least with Isaac.

"‘twas in place long before that became the issue." The remark lacks an accusatory bite - though silence settles heavily in the moments afterward, every crunch and twig-snap with their step seeming painfully loud. The subject’s better left dropped and much more so when he hasn’t quite decided where he stands on potential house visits in the future. They have more important matters to contend with in the end, many barely more than a few paces ahead as the forest thins and the house pulls into view.

"Of course, you are no fool that trusts the doors and locks that we are provided for your safety. Explaining the WHYS of the traps I have about the house was a frustrating argument. The world they come from, you think they would understand. Max and Sabriel, at least, took no issue." Perhaps it has something to do with living around magic that makes people the right kind of paranoid. Maybe not.

"...could I set one upon the house while in your ski- no. No I am not going to attempt magic. Knowing my luck I will say the wrong thing and turn myself into a toad."

The remark turns his head.

“A toad?” He echoes, his voice sharp with amused incredulity as if this is the single most ridiculous idea he has heard in some time. It’s a terribly specific thing for Zevran to have suggested as far as gruesome fates go and, with any luck, there’s a charming story behind it. A distraction is sorely needed.

“Where ever did you get that idea…?”

"It is a common fear in my world, being turned into a toad. Though for all that the myth has become part and parcel of Magics in Thedas- I've never met anyone that could actually do such a thing. Turning someone to stone, how that I have seen! And even a frogs tongue- but never a toad in truth. I wonder if it has something to do with the size." He isn't about to try to study the strangeness. Just stand amused by it. "Though there WAS one wizard that managed to change a horse into a rabbit. It was a very large rabbit."

Frogs and toads - such harmless, curious creatures he had found friends in as a little boy. Creatures, he later learned, that were firmly believed to be of the devil’s sort. He chuckles dryly.

“A fine trick, should one be preparing a roast for a banquet." A beat. He lets the thought wash over him. "There are worse things into which one could be transformed.”

The idea of having the skin peeled from his back one lash at a time and being slowly and partially lowered into a cauldron of furiously bubbling saltwater had seemed like a kindness in comparison to the punishment Dracula had proposed for Hector’s betrayal. His lips twist into a crooked smile. Better to suffer agonies in one’s own flesh than to be changed and trapped within some twisted, misshapen mockery of a human body, every pain-soaked moment of eternal life spent dragging oneself across the ground to feed on sewage and rotten corpses.

“Transmogrification is not a subject I have read of at length…" He admits. "But I am aware of what the blacker magic flowing through me is capable of in that regard.”

A part of Dracula lived in his and Hector's veins yet, after all.

Edited 2014-08-10 16:48 (UTC)

"Such I have seen. Considering what it is to become an Abomination and the way a mage's flesh might be warped upon their possession it strikes me as odd that toads and frogs are what most assume to be transformative works. Shapeshifting is...wild magic. Not something often practiced or taught in the circles. At least none of the ones that I know of. Anything that would make Mages more difficult to contain is discouraged." Though they take no issue with training them into weapons for the use of the crown.

Not quite the same as being made into a crow, but he felt for them anyway. Twas no fault of theirs that they live as they do.

He remembers this, talk of church and Chantry and enslavement of mages, the grim through somehow unsurprising parallels between both their worlds.

“An uprising is inevitable…” Despite the calm of his answer, the thought has his eyes gleaming with a sort of vicious eagerness. “‘tis simply a matter of when." Then, his voice dropping low in his throat to something huskier and conspiratorial, he adds: "All it takes is but a push too far, one little spark catching... and then ‘tis begun.”

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Eighth turn - turn turn, there is a season turn, turn, turn [Video/Action]

Written / action / subprose

action

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action ok that was a shitty pun I tried

action it's okay puns we can live with

WELL GOOD [also, still action]

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[also, still action] tw: violence, 'cause castle-stuff

[also, still action] tw: violence, 'cause castle-stuff

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