petcromancer | IC Inbox

[Perfect. Step one of Myr's diabolical plan has gone off without a hitch!]

we'll be out back,

[comes the reply after long enough to include a bout of nug-wrangling. Or nug-convincing, as it were, that neither the garden nor the sky above it were unsafe.

Even so the nug's secreted himself under the garden bench immediately on getting out there, inkdrop eyes peering out through the dead vines around with with wary suspicion. Myr's seated on said bench--and Crookytail the wormipede is out in front of the garden gate, waiting on Hector's arrival to see him in. Ahh, the cozy domesticity of a Faun household.]

[In the poor nug's defense, the garden and the sky and everywhere else probably do feel unsafe when coming from a world where everyone wants to make you into a delicious fried nug-get.

Hector circles around to the back, and lets the guide-worm lead the way. As he passes through the garden, he notes what plants Myr is apparently cultivating for next season. He was never that competitive before becoming a faun, but now that he is one, it is important that his garden be as good if not better than everyone else's. What's a little friendly floral espionage between friends?]

Myr, I'm here.

[He calls out as he comes near the bench, though he presumes Myr heard him coming. He hasn't yet spotted the nug hiding in the shadows.]

[It is a sad truth of existence on Thedas that everything meat-eating found nugs delicious. This particular nug, being from a dwarven farm whose produce often graced the table of nobility, is no doubt especially tasty. His caution is extremely warranted; he does not move as Hector approaches, trusting stillness to protect him.

(Even if Myr had told him, time and again, Hector had no intention of eating him. Oh well.)

Not all of the garden is slumbering even at this time of year; Caster's enchantments keep part of it (including around the bench) quite temperate. Cheery cyclamens still showing their flowers are by one wall, while a riot of strawberry plant graces a corner. Much of the rest seem to be edible varieties, whether it's fruits or vegetables or grains. Trust Myr to be planting with his stomach.]

Hello, lambkin! Our friend's under the bench here. [The deer gives the stone a firm pat in emphasis.] He was born in a cave and finds it the closest thing to home.

[Hector wastes no time. He steps up and kneels in front of the bench. Peeking down, he spots the hairless, shivering body...

...and instantly melts.]

Oh, look at you. [He coos, reaching out a hand slowly towards the creature. He tries to imbue his movements and words with a faun's nature magic to sooth its fear.]

Have you named him yet?

[The nug regards Hector's hand dourly from his impromptu cave. He remembers being told to expect this particular giant and that it wouldn't try to eat him, but instinct still warns him to be cautious around anything that big.

Finally he stretches out to lip at Hector's fingers experimentally. Maybe...food?]

I've not, [Myr says, smiling the wider for how instantly Hector's fallen for the nug. Called it??] I'd asked him for his own but, ah. He's from a farm, and they're taken from their dams too early to get names.

[He'd eaten farmed nug back home and thinking about this is upsetting in light of that. But!! They saved this one!]

"Schmooples" is traditional, [no it isn't it's just what the Nightingale called hers, which...is as good as a tradition as far as Myr and his intense hero-worship are concerned,] but I'd thought you might like to name him, if he suits.

((ooc: bonus nug whistling and party opinions.))

[Anything's food if you try hard enough, lil guy. Hector will find him a good snack soon.]

Poor thing. What does he eat?

[The little fleshy thing looks cold, even in the enchanted warmth of Myr's garden ~~or maybe he's still that afraid~~. Hector strips off his sash and wraps it around the nug.]

I can certainly help you come up with something better than 'Schmooples'. [Hector's not fully catching on yet, but there's no way in hell he's letting this glorious creature get saddled with such a terrible name.]

We could call him 'Miltos'. He's reddish and from the earth.

[About that...]

Anything. Even metal or stone, if he's hungry enough. Won't hunt anything bigger than worms or bugs, but not above scavenging.

[Myr's got a...weird kind of pride when he says that. Sure, nugs weren't really a large part of his life other than the occasional weird meal in the Circle when they entertained guests; but now that he's a year and a half away from Thedas, anything from home is special to him.

And, oh! Being bundled up in a sash...is awful nice treatment, for a nug. (Who was just a little cold, even outside.) The nug whistles his appreciation at the wrapping. ...Then he's trying to sample it, true to his nature.]

"Miltos," [Myr echoes, testing it.] That's--I've heard it before but I don't remember where. I like it, though; what do you think?

[This, to the nug, who makes a little grumbling noise. What is a "Miltos" and would it make predators not want to eat him, or sows want to breed with him?]

Has he seen your wormipede yet? He'll either be the happiest or the most confused he's ever been.

[The nug nips and gums at the fabric of his sash, but Hector doesn't have the heart to unwrap him. He looks around and snags a couple of fallen acorns from the path to offer him.]

It's a mineral that forms a red pigment. It was used quite heavily on my world in our antiquity.

[Hector can tell Myr is speaking to the nug, and he extends his faun magic to the creature as well, to hear the last part of the creature's protests. He chokes down a laugh.]

Oh, alright then. What do you want to be called, 'Venomous'? 'Big Cock'?

Oh, he was terrified of her at first and thought his food was out to eat him. They're on better terms now.

[Crookytail, who has disposed herself in a loose coil on the other side of the garden, gives a huff at that.

The nug meanwhile is delighted as any pig or ... possible weird pig relative could be about acorns and crunches them down with vigor.]

That's where it was, then, something on the arts. [Pity the nug's rejected it--though Myr snorts with earnest amusement at Hector's new suggestions.] Don't know that second one wouldn't frighten the sows off, you know? They rut more like rabbits than anything.

[It's the first name that catches the nug's attention though. He snaps up a last bit of acorn and whistles approvingly at Hector; he'll be Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth!! A real monster of a nug! All will cower in terror!]

A nug with delusions of grandeur, [Myr near-whispers to his fellow Faun, clearly trying not to laugh.]

[Hector keeps his hand completely flat so he doesn't lose a finger as the nug devours the acorns. Myr, have you been starving this poor creature??]

Well, unless more come through your mirror, it won't be a concern for him either way.

[Poor Venomous and Covered in Big Pointy Spines with Hugh Teeth, the lone representation of his species on this world. Hector gives him a scratch behind his ears. They will just have to make sure the other aspects of his life compensate for his loneliness.]

Oh, hush. He's a nug with ambitions. I wonder if we could make him a harness. Something studded and fearsome.

[Perish the thought! Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth is always permitted his fill of whatever he can catch in the garden. And the midden-heap. And...well. He might be starting to look a little thick around the middle, for a nug.

Exercise might be on order. For right now, however, he will take head scratches and look much less nervous than he had. This new Faun IS good people.

Myr's expression falls a little as Hector says that and it hits him, once again, how isolating falling through a mirror was. His bees at least were enough like the native sort they've already interbred and happily cast several new swarms, but a nug...]

It makes you wonder, [he says, suddenly,] if a Witch couldn't create another one, given an example. Like your hybrid plants.

[The mabari back home were bred through magic. Maybe...

Well, maybe that's also tampering with nature far beyond what's licit or ethical, on Geardagas. Another moral quandary for Myr to ponder when he can't sleep.]

Maker, like you'd put on a mabari for war? [Wait, did the mabari have spiked harnesses? He's pretty sure they do. He read that somewhere.] We've got to. It's the least we can do for his--ambitions.

[And, he's pretty sure it would look adorable. Fearsome, but adorable.]

[Hector has no frame of reference for how pudgy Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth should be, but he doesn't mind if he is fat and happy.]

Maybe. If I were still a Forgemaster, I'd forge Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth an army of spiny sows.

[But he's not, so all they can do is try to find a witch with a creative streak and a loose definition of what constitutes crimes against the laws of nature.]

Don't know what a mabari is, but I am completely serious. Something to make him feel secure when he has to come out from your garden.

[It will be The Most Adorable, Myr. Hector will describe it to you in detail so Myr doesn't miss out.]

[Myr's mind immediately goes two different directions at once when Hector says that.

The first thought that manages to make it to his mouth is:]

Are we going to call Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth that every time? [He's got composure enough now he can make it through the name without laughing, which would certainly startle poor Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth.] Not that he doesn't deserve the dignity of his full name, of course.

[Then, the second thought:] You could do that with your forging?

[Crimes against nature or not, that's the domain of Creation and he's intrigued.] And a mabari's an enormous dog nearly as smart as a man, or so anyone from Fereldan would tell you. You'd like them, I think; it's said a mage bred them from ordinary dogs Ages ago.

[As to the nug's continued tenure in his garden, ah... Myr takes a moment to rummage up one of the winter strawberries he's been so busy growing, to pass it down under the bench to Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth.] About that, actually--not the harness, but him staying in my garden. I was wondering if you'd be interested in his keeping.

Of course. Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth did not become the ferocious beast he is today for us to use a nickname.

[He is smiling so fondly at the little nug.]

I could have. Or something approximating them. They would have technically been reanimated, but my reanimation is a new life, not the facsimile the necromancers here enact, so they wouldn't have even noticed.

[Hi Myr, meet Hector: cavalier to a fault when flouting the laws of nature.]

Mabaris sound like a delight. That's the best application of magic I've ever heard.

[The final thing Myr says gives him pause, though.]

Do you really mean it? [~~maybe not after Hector's admission to his weird powers~~] Of course I'd be interested. Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth is wonderful.

[Hector can't understand why Myr wouldn't want him. Maybe it's only because Myr can't see how creepily adorable his beady little eyes and wrinkled hairless flesh are.]

Edited 2021-03-06 03:20 (UTC)

[That...is not at all something that would have worked on Thedas. At least, not to Myr's knowledge. If he had eyes to widen he would, as he thinks about that.] It's not how necromancy back home worked, either--that's about reanimating empty bodies with spirits drawn out of the Fade. Not the original spirits, either, [he's quick to amend; he'd thought the necromancy ban incredibly strange until someone had bothered to explain to him the absolute suffering any reanimated intelligent thing went through, with its native spirit stuck back in a rotting body,] just wisps who're happy to have any kind of physical form.

[It's ETHICAL necromancy. Mostly.] --We're going to have to talk more about this, you know, now that you've told me that. Creation didn't extend to dead flesh back home but that might've only been for want of trying.

[And it isn't an unethical violation of the Maker's law if he's talking about it in abstract! ...He'll be weirded out at himself later, in private.]

I'd never met one, but I've got to assume they're perfect for people who love dogs. Ferelden's gone to war over them, after all.

I'd always wondered if you could do the same thing with bees... [Because of course he would, though having come to Aefenglom and learned how smart a hive already was... Maker, the things he could do with that if he ever returned to Thedas and had his magic back...]

I do. [He absolutely trusts that Hector's weird powers would never be used to hurt a living animal. So, that's all fine.] We've got too many cats coming in and out of the garden for me to feel like Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth is safe out here, and the house isn't--"a big enough cave" for him, he says.

[The nug makes a wet noise of agreement into his strawberry.] So, if he suits--since you seem to suit him--he's yours.

Oh, I can do that too. That's devil forging. Use dead things to make a body souls from Hell can inhabit. It's a way of replenishing the populations of Night Creatures that have been hunted to near-extinction.

[It's completely ethical conservation work. Recycling AND restoring a balance. Nothing sinister or evil going on here, it's fiiiiiine.]

You and your bees. You probably could, but you'd lose some experimenting to find out how. Would you be willing to pay that toll?

[For all of Hector's successes, there had been many more failures, at least at first. Things that came out wrong, or that failed to awaken. It had been a hard blow, especially when he'd been a fledgling necromancer.

He watches the nug make a mess of his treat. Hector's house is crowded with animals, though most of the cats stay at the shelter, not in Everett and Hector's cottage. There's the army of rats, the velvet worms in the basement, and of course Cezar there.]

I think I could make a suitable cave for little Venomous and Covered In Big Pointy Spines with Huge Teeth. You don't mind sharing with some rats, do you?

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we love him anyway tho

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i'm 85% here for having to type the nug's full name out every time he's mentioned

It is what he would want

why else choose so glorious a name

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