Inbox for ryslig

[toaflame]

I FORGOT TO MAKE ONE OF THESE BC ADRIAN IS DUMB

WILL MAKE THIS LOOK NICE LATER

Comments

action; July 28ish probably; just after dusk

[missleadingquestions]

Pssst. Adri. Adri!

Hey, are you up?

[It's probably far too late for anyone normal to be getting visits. Unfortunately for Adrian, some of the friends he's made are anything but normal.

The whispering is coming from a pair of black-and-teal eyes peeking through Adrian's open window, orange fingertips braced on the sill as Maya looks in.]

Hey.

cw: teeth stuff for passerby

[toaflame]

[It's too late for visitors, but also too late for anyone to reasonably be in bed unless there's a problem...and Adrian is, in fact, in bed. He's not sleeping though, instead laying facing the wall with his paws cradling an ice pack against his face. It's not the typical timing for changes to be occurring as far as he understands, so he has no idea why he's got the toothache from hell now of all times. It's a pain that's settled deep into his jaws, all while the roots of each of his teeth feel like they're itching, somehow. It's not...fun, and it's not exactly put him in the greatest of moods either on top of everything else.

So when he hears a voice behind him, his shoulders hunch and he stiffens.]

Oh no.

[He grumbles under his breath, rolling over to just...lay face down on his pillow for a second before moving to lay prone on his back, eyes shut as he drags the ice pack away from his face for a moment.]

Maya, you didn't have me scheduled today....can't this wait?

[...]

Also, couldn't you just...message me?

[Instead of creeping in his window, so he could have just ignored it-]

During Wasteland Event | August 15th | CW: EVENTUAL VIOLENCE AND MONSTER-CANNIBALISM

[sharpiewielder]

[Every creak of a treelimb above, every hiss of dry leaves rustling across the forest floor, every unaccounted-for noise seems to have Hanna on edge. On top of being in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by bizarre and angry looking monsters, and being hungry as fuck, Hanna is... dry. Dry, anxious and hungry are quite possibly the worst feelings in the world for him as of late, which in all accounts would normally rate pretty low on the Things That Matter scale, but... he has nothing else to focus on.

Survival as a twenty-something working for minimum wage and keeping a roof over his head is nowhere near the same thing as survival in the bloody fucking wasteland. If he's not panicking about not being seen by Creatures or worrying about food, then he's got nothing else to do! This is the first time in a while he's missed the lame 9 to 5 retail thing. Anything is better than this absolutely mind-numbing boredom.

On the one hand, at least he's not doing the survival thing alone, but on the other... his grumpy bestie roommate is no less grumpy in this environment. Sure, Adrian is an expert at surviving in the wilderness and that's a huge plus, but if they don't find food sometime soon, then this survival thing could turn ugly...

Says Hanna's highly anxious horse brain.

His rational, trusting human brain is still sure they've got plenty of time to find sustenance and can continue taking care of each other in the meantime. It'll be fiiiine, it's all gonna be okay. Nothing to worry about. They'll evade the monsters, find food and shelter, and figure out what they can do about this situation from there... tomorrow. Tonight, they can rest.

Sitting outside his tent, Hanna chips at the ground in front of him with a stick, digging a hole into the dirt. His stomach growls and is met with a grumble in return.]

Dude... I don't think I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna eat that last jerky stick. I gotta.

[toaflame]

[See, that would all be well and good, if there was any food to be found out here. It's been days at this point of the two of them working through their meager rations, and despite Adrian's best efforts, he's found nothing to forage. The land itself has been blighted, to the point where it's a miracle even grass grows. There probably was no hope for finding something edible out here to begin with, but that's all he knows. So then it came to searching buildings for supplies, and still...nothing. So they're stuck here, starving (and thirsty), with seemingly no end in sight.

Adrian, meanwhile, feels on the verge of something bad. Really, really fucking bad. But he's not going to tell Hanna that. If Hanna doesn't notice, then all the better. His attempts to get away and separate himself from the other thus far hadn't worked, so there was really nothing left for him to do but hope the jerky would be enough. After a while, though, even that ceased to satisfy. It was like eating cardboard for all the good it did.

That's why, when Hanna mentions eating the last piece, Adrian barely even responds. He just grunts, staring blankly into the distance at nothing in particular. The only other sign of like...living on him is the fact that his tail has not stopped moving, lashing as it whips through the dirt behind him.]

sept 9-ish <psydekick>

[missleadingquestions]

so do gargoyles like burn through pants or is it a fire-proof situation?

<pyro>

[toaflame]

[For a good couple of hours, he ignores this. Half because most hours of the day he's in the sky, not checking his laptop, and the other....well, he saw Maya's post. He knows what this is about, and he knows Maya knows what and where he is (thanks Nanami).

But while he's feeling like shit about a great many things, he knows that just ignoring her will result in Maya hunting him down faster. That doesn't mean he won't continue to try to evade for as long as possible, but for right now...]

i aint in the mood for this

wolf delivery; some time after the maze plot || <firemaster>

[flammadecinis]

Hey. Someone told me about this amusement park on the coast.

Come with me.

I'm not asking.

[He's definitely asking.]

<pyro>

[toaflame]

[Unsurprisingly, Adrian is having about as good of a time after....All Of That as Rosso is. Never mind he's still all tangled up in interpersonal problems, the worst of which involving a certain other redhead that he hasn't acknowledged since...The Incident.

So when this message comes in, it's while Adrian is once more in Lager Woods, surrounded by wooden planks after having scoped out what seemed like a reasonable tree to work with. He has his laptop just for emergencies, really...so of course he gets a message as he's working.

It's. Baffling, what the message is.]

uh
did something happen
are you okay

[Like. Like is this a cry for help, or]

[ September 7th ]

[sharpiewielder]

[A note written in fine red sharpie is left on the kitchen counter whenever Adrian decides to check the apartment next. Some lines are scribbled out, but probably still readable if he squints hard enough. He will also find that while not all of Hanna's stuff is gone from his room, a considerable chunk of the pile of brightly colored clothes he keeps in his corner is gone, along with his toiletries and bed dressings.]

Adri,

I'm giving you some space. I know you've been asking for that for a while and I didn't listen and I was rude and all up in your business all the time anyway. You're a solitary kind of dude and I should have respected that more. I just wanted to be your fr Getting forced into a roommate situation has to be hard when you've lived the kind of life you have. I totally get it.

Also, what happened back there can stay there. I'm not mad at you for any of that. I know if you *really* wanted to eat me you wouldn't have waited until you were starving in the middle of nowhere to do it. :P (It's a joke I swear.) So no hard feelings there, I promise. Survival is survival! Besides, I lived! Booyah!

It's just probably a better idea that we finish growing into our new monster bods separetely seperately separately? We just ended up on opposite ends of the predator-prey monster spectrum and it sucks but it's nobody's fault. It's just (obvs) not a good idea to put a horse and a lion in the same pen. :P Not saying I don't wanna try again (if you want) just after we both know what we're capable of, you know? Who knows, one day I could completely freak out and horse you to death! Nobody wants that!

Anyway, if you read all of this: you're still a good guy. I like you and care about you a lot. I want to spend more time with you I've really enjoyed the time we've spent together and I want to patch things up if and when you want to. You know how to get me if you need me, and hell I'll probably see you at work in a few weeks after my legs finish growing in (this shit hurts yo) and I hope you'll have a pretty easy time growing into your sickass manticore self! (fog gave you the coolest roll idc what anyone says!)

Love,
Your friend,
Sincerely,

Take it easy.

Hanna

some time between flower crowns & 2nd half of felfri

[flammadecinis]

[Whatever shit they normally serve in the Fog caves, Rosso wants absolutely no part of. At some point in the week, he goes out and buys one of those little camping stoves and some actual healthy ingredients so that he doesn't have to eat sludge — seriously, the Fog can't even bother to feed them proper meals? What kind of stupid warmonger...

Anyway, at some point when Adrian passes by this particular section of the caves, Rosso will pspsps him over (not literally) (but almost literally).]

Hey. Come taste this sauce. Is it too spicy?

[Something-something demon with fire magic likes it spicy, so it might be.]

[toaflame]

[Adrian is pretty much in the same boat in not really wanting or trusting what's being handed out to them. Of course it means his options for food are far more limited, but they always have been when he's like this. He physically can't eat meat, which makes things a hell of a lot more complicated than they need to be. Who even knows what's in the slop they're being provided either...

So when Rosso does call him over, Adrian...already is pretty hungry. Probably kindof cranky because of it, too. There's a moment where he pauses mid-step, his wings fluttering as if he's considering whether to approach or not before he decides on coming over, all four arms folded grumpily as per the usual.]

...what's in it?

[He asks, even as he's already waving a hand for Rosso to bring it over for him to try.]

<TheCoolestTurtle> - After Red Haze event ends

[makesascene]

Dear Fursona guy

I am really sorry I attacked you during the red fog thing.

Could I make it up with a pizza? Like, a normal one. Not a blood one or anything.

-Leonardo

<pyro>

[toaflame]

[Leo won't get a response to this for some time. It's not his fault or anything, Adrian is just...very dead.

But he has to revive eventually. He has to try to go back to living "normally" eventually. But, man, does it really suck this time. Knowing that he's killed dozens more to add to the count that was already sky-high from the Wastelands is only half of it.]

ill be real i barely remember who i attacked half the time
so its fine
im sorry too

[The apology comes borne of exhaustion. Adrian does not apologize lightly, yet in this instance...what is he going to do, not apologize when he so clearly fucked everything and everyone up?]

sure if you want
i dunno if i feel up to it right this second but
consider it a rain check or somethin

: )

[flammadecinis]

[Whenever Adrian gets around to checking his laptop... Hey, have fun with the notification of "50 unread messages" from one Ainen Rosso, spanning over the entire 2 weeks Adrian is, uh, dead. I'm not making up 50 messages so have a Taste of the things Rosso's sent.]

Hey. You busy? I'm bored out of my fucking mind.



Made extra curry. Bringing you lunch.

You weren't home when I showed up at the treehouse. I set it in the windowsill, it's in a tupperware. Have fun with your cold curry.



The haze shit sucks. There's some safe havens set up if you haven't left the city yet. I'm camping out in one, I'll tell them to save room for you.



The fuck are you ignoring me for?



If you're pissed at me for cancelling our plans a week and a half ago because I had to work a double shift that night, first of all, not my fault someone got sick, second of all fuck you.



You're an asshole



You're still not home??? The food I left you days ago is still sitting there.



Oh my god you did fucking not go after that bitch from Felfri



Adrian Cinnabar if you don't respond to this message with confirmation that you're alive I'm going to fucking kill you again



YOU DID GO AFTER HER DIDN'T YOU
YOU MOTHERFUCKER
I LITERALLY TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT



if and when you come back from the dead, expect my fucking fist in your eye. i hate you so fucking much.


[There are no more messages from there - that's the last one - and it comes in maybe 3 days before the next Fog happens. One can only assume that Rosso is rightfully pissed/upset/going to tear Adrian a new one.]

HA...HAHA...Dec 4th...also cw: torture mention

[toaflame]

[Adrian had revived in Dyster, oddly enough. Which was a particularly pointed sort of dig in the already-festering wound, considering the fact that 1) he'd never been to Dyster and 2) he didn't exactly revive early like Fog followers were supposed to. No, he'd been dead for half the fucking month apparently, but he guessed reviving there was better than waking up wherever that bitch dragged him off to...

Nevertheless. By the time Adrian drags himself back to his home, he's had a few hours to properly bitch about the state Mana made sure he revived in, because of course that's how his request was interpreted. "Take away my cat face" did not translate to "give me a new one", but sure. Thanks. He's a crocodile now, Maya will get a kick out of it he's sure.

At least dwelling on the stupid parts, like being a reptile now and Mana backfiring on him, means that he has less opportunity to fall down the slippery slope of thinking back on his last moments before death. Adrian would like to say he doesn't fear death, but that doesn't mean he wants to die either. He'd been lucky, managing to skirt it by the skin of his teeth all this time...but for it to finally happen the way it had? Even he was left shaken by it.

Mary didn't just kill him. She made sure he suffered as he died. Brought him out of Bavan so he would recover from the Haze long enough to realize that he was dying. Long enough to actively feel the pain, and eventually succumb to it despite taking her down with him. Not that it had mattered, in the end. She'd come back, just like he came back.

Needless to say, when Adrian finally circles around to checking his laptop and sees how many missed messages he has and who they're from...he swears, an uncomfortable, hollow feeling settling within him.

For the first time since what happened with Hanna, he doesn't know what to fucking do.
Should he stay here? Should he try to go to Rosso's apartment?

In the end, it's actually the change itself that makes the decision for him. It's December, so it's cold now on the peninsula. If he were still a Manticore, being in the woods would be nothing short of miserable, but now? The fact snow has begun to fall doesn't bother this form. Instead...he finds himself needing a water source, desperately. Like, emergency levels of desperate.

So he makes a snap decision and finally sends a single reply, not really giving himself much time to deliberate.]

at lake dala

[He'd be there, come hell or high water. Even if he's unrecognizable, the top of his head the only thing visible on the surface of the water as he remains there, waiting.

It isn't a good feeling, waiting for what's to come. But he knows he deserves every excruciating second of it.]

dec 12th; threatening messages ahoy | <firemaster>

[flammadecinis]

[After the fucking nightmare that was kissing Adrian's cheek and then being weird for the entire night... a couple days later, while Rosso's on lunch break at work, he decides he's gonna do it. He's gonna stop beating around the bush, he's gonna ask Adrian out, just not in person with flowers or anything like that because he's still got the anxiety jitters.

Asking someone on a date over the internet is romantic. He can do this. He's very cool and good at emotion things and needs to stop bringing his laptop to work.]

Hey. Have you ever had sushi? There's a restaurant that just opened up nearby that sounds pretty good. And boujee as hell.

[Off to a good start so far. Surely he can't wreck this from here.]

<pyro>

[toaflame]

[So for the last...few months now, whoops, Adrian has been playing hooky from work. It's not like he did it on purpose, he just had...a bunch of Things going on that made going to work difficult. Now that he's a Mer though...going to work is less of choice, and more of a requirement at this point. He will get into those tanks for Maya if it's the last thing he does, and honestly he only really has himself to blame for it.

It's probably for the best anyway. Going from Merain to Bavan and back as a commute isn't great, but at least still possible for a monster to manage. What it does do, other than give him some extra cardio, is give him something else to think about. Why confront your emotions and how weird and confusing they are if you're drowning in work, right??

Right.

Unlike Rosso, Adrian doesn't care enough not to bring his laptop to work- and it's not like he has a phone for emergencies or whatever- and happens to notice a new message pop up as he's walking past while he works to sweep the floors. He's already a terrible employee so like....

Time to check that real quick while he's still on the clock, oops.]

this place i go to sometimes has it
but ive never ordered it cause its too expensive
i always just got the same thing anyway so i didnt bother tryin anythin else

[AKA he'd get the same ramen and takoyaki order every. Single. Time. He was at least a good customer for the family running the place since they didn't have to ask him for his order anymore.]

dunno how much more expensive it is if youre sayin its boujee though

<KrisKringle>

[getmeoutofthedraft]

Ho ho ho! Your Secret Santa giftee is GIORNO GIOVANNA, who you can find as "Harmonia" on the network.

Buy or make Gigi a gift by December 26, or Santa will come down your chimney and box your ears.

If you need more information, contact me C/O Hawkeye Pierce at Crowe Clinic, and I'll delegate him to tell you to do your own research.

SECRET SANTA

[endlesspastability]

[HAPPY NATTESNFEST ADRIAN, your Secret Santa this year is none other than Sonic the Hedgehog!!

.... wait who?

Eh. Doesn't matter.

Sonic's gift to Adiran is a thick and enormous sherpa blanket (literally, this thing could cover a King sized bed with room with spare!) and a bundle of mosquito netting. There's also a long, handwritten note inside of a store-bought Nattensfest card.]

"Hello Adrian aka pyro,
I heard from Maya you live in a tree house. That's a terrible idea but whatever floats your boat I guess. I got you this blanket because its super warm and I bet it gets drafty up in a tree. I also got this bug netting cause the bugs are real bad here in the summer, and if you have blood, they will try and take all of it from you.

Though this would not be a problem if you did not live in a tree. Why live in a tree??? The ground is right there!! A hole in the ground is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. You can block off the door and NO ONE (except maybe worms and moles) could ever hope to find you!!! You can steal electricity from nearby houses!! It will NEVER BURN DOWN because there's nothing TO burn and you will never have to worry about getting struck by lightning, ever.

In fact, here's a list of all the reasons why an underground house is better than a tree house."

[true to his word, Sonic includes a whole LIST of reasons... most of them are about as dumb as the aforementioned "you will never get struck by lightning" factoid, though. There's also drawings. Lots and lots of drawings and diagrams of burrow-homes and their amenities. Not incredibly convincing, but his heart is in it -- probably the first time his heart has been in something in months.]

"I hope this makes you reconsider your choice of living arrangements. You should ask a pooka or a troll to help you out when you are ready to move.

Stay warm, and hopefully one day death will come for us all without the Fog god messing it up,

Sonic."

[well. it was ALMOST normal.]

<pyro> I'm so sorry

[toaflame]

[Adrian isn't expecting anything from anyone, really. Even though somebody had signed him up for Secret Santa, it never actually occurred to him that he'd be getting a gift in return. And, honestly...? The blanket is really nice. It's thoughtful, and it covers even more space than his futon/bed/etc situation needs, so he can literally just throw the entire thing across where he sleeps and be fine. It's going to make his cat brain extremely happy.

The mosquito net is...fine. He doesn't quite even realize what it's for at first, though...not until he's reading the letter.

He really should just accept the gift like a normal person and ignore the parts of the letter that rub him the wrong way, but...he does not have anyone here right now to be his subconcious telling him no, so!!

Adrian's gonna figure out Sonic's handle (thanks to Maya) and Sonic will be getting a message from good ol' pyro himself...]

listen
im a manticore
a cat
have you ever met a cat that lives in a hole in the ground????
no i didnt think so
i moved from my apartment cause my old roommate bailed on me and i figured id be happier with my own place anyway and i was correct
i lived in a treehouse i built myself for five years so i think i know what im doin when it comes to livin in trees
also did you maybe consider i liked it? maybe i dont like livin in holes cause ive been livin in a cave in a desert for the last three years?
and guess what
its demoralizin
maybe id have liked it better back then if i wasnt forced into it (this is the part where id underline this whole sentence if i could figure out how to do that on this damn keyboard)

anyway
thanks for the blanket and shit thats not a bad gift actually
but like idk maybe consider that i built the treehouse on purpose like yea it aint a house but its mine and its all i got now

ps

wouldnt a hole in the ground get flooded like immediately

Nattensfest

[waitingforplayer2]

{ Adrian receives a housewarming present from Nanami: a set of dark purple curtains to go on his windows. ]

new years eve

[flammadecinis]

[The next time they're hanging out at the tree house, with Rosso actually dressed decently for once in his life (rare, cherish it)... it's on New Year's Eve and, he's brought that expensive wine over that he kept promising to dig into and hasn't yet. They can sit together and watch the sky and sip wine out of glasses that are too fancy to be in a treehouse. You're welcome Adrian.

Rosso hands a glass over full of some pinkish-coloured wine, but alongside that is a small, red-coloured satchet that he places into Adrian's opposite hand.]

I tried to get you a gift on time for the holidays, but all the places I looked couldn't get this done 'til today.

[Like he didn't already take Adrian on a super expensive date that gouged his wallet and all — but yeah, more gifts are necessary.

He makes himself comfortable next to Adrian and tucks his legs under himself.]

Open it.

[If Adrian does, nevermind the impatience from Rosso's end... he'll find a bracelet within made of red sea glass beads with smaller, silver beads in between, polished but still with that opaque sheen that makes them recognizable as sea glass. Adrian may or may not remember digging these chunks of glass up from the coral caverns on the day they reunited after his death, and how Rosso bothered him to go hunting for more as they swam through the caverns.

This wasn't entirely his plan all along, but Adrian had surprised him with that necklace and all — so he shook the fish-brain grip off of him long enough to turn the glass over to a jeweller and get that made.]

[toaflame]

[Adrian isn't sure if Mana did it on purpose just to be poetic, or if it's just a wild coincidence at his expense (it's definitely the latter), but this morning was when the magic for his temporary monster change had finally worn off. Back to being a Manticore he'd gone, and honestly he was just not going to take the advantages it had for granted for...at least a week before he immediately starts complaining again about how itchy it is or how hard it is to drink shit with a muzzle. Whatever the case, it does make living in his treehouse home again easier. Sure, he can't go swimming deep anymore, but it's probably just as well...it's only going to get colder before it gets warm again, and he just wants to bundle up and be miserable until it's over, thanks.

Right now though...he guesses this is okay. He and Rosso are currently perched on the porch of his place, allowing them to watch the night sky which is blessedly giving them a few empty patches free of clouds to look at. It's still stupid cold, mind, with snow on the ground and on pretty much everything else, but...since they're both furry again and Adrian has that honestly massive sherpa blanket Sonic sent him for them to sit on, it's honestly not bad at all.

He takes the wine-glass readily, planning on downing half in one go- you know, like a gentleman- before he's stopped by the satchet Rosso hands him. He sort of looks at the were sidelong with a quirked brow, already starting to pull the string open with a claw.]

Get this "done", huh...

[...

Adrian absolutely does recognize the glass, even though it's been carved, shaped, and polished so as to be made into proper jewelry. It would be one thing if it were similar, like the necklace had been, but this is...the actual glass they'd dug up. And all Adrian can really do at first is start at it in his paw, the distant light of the moon and his subtly glowing horns glinting off of it as he looks it over.]

...what the hell, Ainen.

[He mutters that, all while he's setting the glass on the wood planks next to him so he can grip the bracelet between both hands. He's only not put it on yet because he's still sort of just...marveling at it, because nobody's really. Given him anything like this before? Ever? It doesn't matter if it were expensive, or expensive to make, or whatever, it's just...]

Tryna'...fuckin' one up me over here...

some time after they get kicked out of the grocery store

[flammadecinis]

[Some time ago, Beat told Rosso about "The Cube", which is just an extremely ominous name to call something. He never really knew what it was until now, other than something to "simulate going home", and at the time he felt too homesick to go. He might still feel that way, but curiosity is now getting the better of him, the more and more he hears people talk about it and explain.

So, next time he and Adrian are out doing Something and near to where the damn thing is located...]

Hey. [He kicks a stone in the middle of the sidewalk, sending it skittering through the accumulated snowfall.] Wanna check out that Cube thing with me?

[...]

I wanna— [here he waffles for some tsundere excuse, not that he wants closure or anything, he just wants—] I wanna show you those eyeball lemons I mentioned.

[...........]

And maybe see something from your world, too. Obviously.

[Rosso just say you want to show simulations of your friends to him, it's okay, it's normal buddy.]

[toaflame]

[The cold is back, and Adrian is...also grumpy about it, but he is at least dressed for it this time. He's wearing that fur-lined jacket he got too, his hands in his pockets as they pad through the snow. He'd been content to let Rosso lead, at least until he suddenly brings up the Cube.]

...huh? Wait, you ain't been to it before?

[Which you know, implies Adrian has.]

[Action] Nai'a Nights

[luckless]

[Not long after their conversation, Komaeda does his final checks for 8/12 before turning the store over a young man, probably no older than eighteen, who looks like he spends his life playing games at Insert Coin and staying awake by the graces of the energy drinks the konbini provides. He spends little time changing out of his clerk's apron and into a light, knitted sweater in the employee break room, before saying his farewells and heading to the nearest bus stop.

It's a familiar route, from 8/12 to Nai'a Nights. One he's taken often enough that he could do it without even thinking about it. By the time the bus arrives at his destination even, he's hardly noticed the passage of time. Nervous excitement for meeting someone new, that'll potentially be a coworker at two jobs, hums through his limbs as he makes his way into Nai'a proper.

But that's the thing, isn't it? He knows he's looking for a manticore, but he doesn't know what this manticore looks like. And who knows how many manticore have actually started working here since he's been gone. So Komaeda resolves himself to walk over to the bar, to glance around for what might match the guy he's supposed to be meeting, and hopes he doesn't make a fool out of himself.

When he sees someone with a lion's tail and wings from behind, he perks. Is it...?]

Are you— [Oh, he never got the guys name—] P...Pyro-kun?

[toaflame]

[Adrian may have neglected to give Komaeda any sort of identifiable information, but it's fine. He is definitely the type of person you just...know when you've met them. And judging by the figure the Mer has walked up on now...it's easy to assume he's found the right guy.

Adrian's been- what else- tasked with sweeping up behind the counters and under tables, a menial but easy enough task. He knows he's been slacking, which is why he didn't complain when Maya asked him to clean. And cleaning, at least, he can do in relative solitude. He doesn't really have to worry about dealing with customers much this way.

So when he hears someone's voice behind him, his ear flicks as he turns to face him. Stocky but not overly burly, a mix between a lion and a tiger with deep brown fur. He looks back at Komaeda with eyes that flash a bright yellow, his fangs perpetually bared due to how long his incisors are.

He looks Komaeda over before stopping, propping the broom up against his shoulder.]

...you the store owner?

[mail] Feb 14th

[missleadingquestions]

[Planning a delivery ahead means, conveniently, that no matter what happens, a teeny little package still manages to make its way awkwardly outside of Adrian's treehouse on the morning of February 14th. Inside it is a short, cute message;

Happy Valentine's Day!

♥ M. Fey

Scrawled in well-practiced calligraphy. The little parcel is filled with chocolate dolphins, clearly made of remelted confection into a store-bought mold and nestled in pink and black tissue paper.]

Happy Valentine's! [Feb 14th-17th]

[luckless]

[On the morning of the 14th, and every subsequent day after so long as the groundhog week persists, Adrian will open the front door to his home to find a gift of boxed chocolates and a card, reading:]

Happy Valentine's day Adrian-kun,

I didn't know if you liked chocolates or not, but I wanted to give you something to show my thanks and appreciation for all that you help me with. Please enjoys these, people tell me they're very good!

-Komaeda Nagito

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT || idk like the 6th or 7th time is fake

[flammadecinis]

[Going to Mana together to ask for her to get Rosso his scythe back before he heads off into the Wastelands to hack shit to pieces had been a pretty good idea, but like always Mana is cryptic as fuck when it comes to the "when" of things being delivered. Rosso's on a bit of a time crunch here, he needs that weapon like, Now, but... "it'll arrive when it arrives" is what he gets. So he and Adrian leave to go do whatever they had to do that day.

Anyway, the next day while Rosso's at work, he flicks his wrist a certain way and suddenly in his hand is a fucking scythe. When he said "hey give me my scythe thanks" he hadn't expected Mana to actually give him it in the most literal sense of the word.

So, Rosso goes home after work (and after giving another chef a heart attack he's sorry he didn't mean it) (his apology by the way was "IT'S NOT MY FAULT THIS THING JUST SPRUNG INTO MY HAND!") and changes into not-work-clothes, and then books it for Adrian's place as he normally does. This time, though, he doesn't come inside, because he's too busy standing outside the window shouting.]

Adrian! Come outside now! I have to show you something!

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT-

[toaflame]

[Adrian isn't surprised when Mana is all weird and cryptic about when the Scythe will arrive, if at all. He has to hope it will get here by the time Rosso needs it but, for now...not much they can do other than be annoyed. Whatever Mana!!

Adrian worked most of today doing deliveries for Komaeda, and since he usually heads on out as soon as he's finished them for the day, it means he's home earlier than he would be if he was working a shift at Nai'a. He'd actually been in the bathroom cleaning a clog out of the sink...it's his own fur, this is a problem he's created, when he hears Rosso shouting outside one of the treehouse windows.

There's the thump thump thump of paws against wood before Adrian pulls up the blinds and pokes his head out.

...he looks like this right now, with horns. He's practicing his shapeshifting, shut up he's not stuck-]

Right now? I'm kinda up to my elbows in shit in here...

[Not actual shit, but sometimes you just don't know...

He's already heading for the door even after saying that though, because like. Rosso could be showing him a frog, and he could also be showing him a dead body. Ryslig is unpredictable like that.]

let's share emotions and stuff! || some time during the event idk

[flammadecinis]

[The city is in shambles. Rosso's glad he moved out probably like, a week before this, because hearing that the apartments are befuckened is uh... it doesn't bode well.

...

But who cares? Rosso's thoughts are soup and everything is soup and he's in Elrianode with his boyfriend, except it's real this time and not in the Cube (it is not real they are tripping balls). Here, he clings to Adrian's arm as they walk, ignoring the way that the space around them warbles and warps (it's clearly hot today) and the people just standing in the streets (Elrians like to look at important stuff all day, it's not weird).

The reason he's clinging? Because they made it back home, obviously! (They did not do this.) Rosso never would have thought it would be possible, because as far as he knows, getting out of Ryslig isn't doable, but here they are. They're together, with the edges of the forest Adrian spent his life in looking at the city from over the horizon. Where is Misha? Where are Rosso's idiots? To be determined when the memory-squashing gets worse.

(In reality, they're walking down the streets of Bavan, and all the people stopped dead staring are having their own whacky mind-melty times. Rosso has substituted them with various Elrian races. If you squint long enough, some of them might look like El Search Party members that he's dealt with in the past. Pretty soon, they'll start warping into people from Perovskia... or perhaps they have already. Hard to tell.)]

Lunch first? Or did you wanna head up to the Tower and see if our old room's still intact?

["OUR", he says, having effectively gaslit himself into thinking that they're from the same world now, ignore the plotholes in this there's no plotholes what are you talking about. Apparently he's gaslit himself into the fact they were together before Ryslig, too, which...

You know, that could be called into question, but why would it be? Not when they're not only sharing memories, but sharing emotions. Adrian's going to get slapped in the face with a disgustingly un-Rosso-like amount of love... because that's what he feels about Adrian, dammit, even if he acts like a tsundere brat all the time.]

Hell yeah it's time to get weird

[toaflame]

[Unfortunately for...well, both of them really, Adrian is just as consumed by the Pale as Rosso is, and it shows. They are no longer in Ryslig, and Adrian isn't...really all that concerned that they're somewhere they shouldn't (or couldn't) be, because where they are doesn't exist. The streets of Bavan have become a strange sort of blend of both Elrianode and Perovskia combined. The Idai forest overlooks the city, and the Tower sure also looks a whole hell of a lot like the Minthia castle too. A place where Adrian never once would have been allowed unless it was behind bars, and maybe that will come up and cause problems later, who can say.

For right now, Adrian is letting Rosso cling to his arm because damn if he isn't glad to be back here too. He's not a giant cat anymore, but back to his "old" self, wings, antennae, extra arms and all. Rosso is currently holding onto one while the other is wrapped around his waist...but in the real world it's just Adrian's tail.]

Let's go to the Tower first. We can get lunch any time.

[He replies as they go, and yes Rosso may notice that it isn't just Elrian species they're seeing. The residents of Perovskia are of a unique sort, with fair skin and fair hair due to the mountainous region they hail from. They're mostly all human, but they're dressed in your typical sort of pseudo high fantasy fair. Adrian's world, as it turns out, is a sort of blend of magic and technology (not quite magitech as Elrios knows it, but similar), and thus the environment it's created blends well with Rosso's world. The two have become seamlessly one and the same.

And yes, Adrian feels that sensation. That love, and initially he...can't quite tell if it's his own, or coming from some other source.

Weird!]

oops all rossos! || <firemaster> out in the wastelands...

[flammadecinis]

[The Wastelands have the weakest connection out in the city ruins, just enough for Rosso to think it's a good idea to pull his laptop out and update Adrian that he's still alive, because he does not trust Adrian to not go looking if he doesn't. "I'll be back at the end of the day" he'd said, but still.

He's also injured but he's not speaking about that. The Fog won't heal him out here; She wants him only to destroy, to frenzy, to go mad and sink his teeth into the nearest person.]

hey. everything good at home

connection out here sucks

Just wanted you to know I'm alive

[Those messages will send like, five minutes apart each. They might even double-send because of how many times Rosso hits the RETRY SEND button. Sorry.]

<pyro>

[toaflame]

[At this point, it hasn't been long enough for Adrian to really be worried at all. Rosso is an adult who can make adult choices, and he trusts that he'll get back when he said he would. If not, then...well, that's a problem for future Adrian, isn't it?

He hates the Wastelands. He never, ever wants to fucking go back, because it's what caused him to really lose his mind for the first time here. He still has nightmares about it, so unfortunately Rosso had to take this one on his own...not that he's super thrilled by the idea of him going to begin with. Getting Rosso's Scythe back helped in that regard, but only so much...

Fortunately(?), he's been too distracted by watching Alisha to sit and worry. Even now, when Rosso's messages finally come through multiple times, he feels like he's only just now getting to sit down properly.]

hey.
yeah its fine
alisha keeps tryin to float out the window
sayin shes gonna look for you
its annoying but i got her back in

["Got her back in" has resulted in Adrian literally wrapping her up in a blanket so that she can't fly off. It seems to be working, for now at least.]

watch your back out there okay
ill order in for us when you get back
we can watch a movie

action, March 27th, late | cw: cannibalism, gore, dissociation | ST4 spoilers

[zoomingupthathill]

[ Since getting back from the wasteland, Max has felt...off. A hazy feeling in her head. Muscles stiffer than usual. And, strangest of all, moss mixed in with the velvet of her antlers.

Stranger when it's on her fur. Or...instead of her fur, slowly creeping down the back of her hand, across her cheek, and through how dazed she feels, Max is scared. This has never happened before, after all. The closest is when she was first transforming and she figured out she already needed human meat, but... She's been eating constantly. Constantly! She went through three whole bags of jerky, but she feels distant, and she feels empty. Like...her senses are far away. Like, if she blinks, she'd be gone.

Perhaps that's a side-effect of today. She hadn't realized what day it was until she woke up, because she hasn't been thinking about it, aggressively not, but—

Well. Anyone would be put out to wake up and discover it's the day they died.

It hasn't been a year. It's like her birthday, she can't really count it as an anniversary. But it's still March 27th. It's still the day she called out Vecna in the attic of the Creel House and lost. It's still two days before her dead brother's birthday. It's still there. Nothing can make it all go away.

So. It happens like this:

Max goes for a drive to clear her head, but she finds herself drifting. That's a sign to stop, isn't it? She's out further than she usually goes, inching towards the woods, leaning over the hood of the car and staring blankly at the backs of her hands, overcome with brown and grey moss. It drips from her bloody antler too. Max wonders if she's pushed herself too much. If the world's just decided she's had enough time, and even though this doesn't happen to other monsters, she's an exception. That she's just going to fall apart and that'll be it. Wouldn't it be poetic? For the borrowed time she's been existing on to run out, just now? Wouldn't that be the perfect tragedy?

A twig snaps and her sensitive ears shoot up in the direction of the sound. Her head follows a few seconds later, delayed and so stiff.

Standing nearby is a human. A woman, perhaps fifteen years older than her, with a walking stick and a large backpack. Max must look horrible, because she looks at her with—

With...concern? ]

"What are you doing out here, sweetie?"

[ Max wonders if she's hallucinating. There's no way anyone would look at her, this gross, rotting corpse, and call her that. Especially not someone who's supposed to be afraid of her. Why isn't this woman afraid of her? ]

What... What are you...?

[ The woman approaches, and Max's mouth waters. ]

"I'm camping just up the way." [ A chuckle. ] "I know, it's a little early for it, but it's the best way to get out of the city when things get...hectic." [ With a knowing little roll of her eyes. Talking to her. Just like...she's a person. Like she's still real. Not like so many humans, who look past her out of fear. ] "I really haven't seen many of you out here too often, though."

[ No, wait, stop. Closer she gets, easier Max can see her. She's got a bob and a friendly smile. Some early crows feet at her eyes. A large nose, looks like it was broken and healed wrong in her youth. Dirt under her broken fingernails.

Camping Lady continues, close enough, getting a look at Max's dazed eyes, ] "Are you lost? I can give you directions back to the city. I should probably be heading back, myself, after all. I've been out here for longer than usual, it's... I'm sorry, what day is it?"

[ Camping Lady stands just two feet away from her when Max leaps with a ferocity she's never felt before. This is an energy she's never felt before. Legs should be giving out, but they don't. Not like she needs them. The force with which she tackles Camping Lady brings them both to the ground. Her fangs sink into the soft skin of the woman's neck, around her ear, as her claws rip shreds from her face. Her shoulder. Everything. Anything. Her body sings, it's so warm. It's nothing like she's been subsisting off for almost five fucking months now, it's juicy and beautiful, and Max needs it, all of it—


How much later is it? That's...unclear.

Everything is unclear. How'd she get here? She drove? Max remembers driving?

She walks slow and unsteady, hooves struggling to find their footing in just the simplest of underbrush. That's strange. There wasn't underbrush. Nor roots that she nearly trips over. Max places a hand on a tree to right herself, and she peers out into dark woods, in every direction. A thick blanket of fog reaches out in front of her, and if she walked into it, Max feels like she could just...disappear.

That thought inspires her to turn around. She removes her hand from the tree, only to find to her shock she leaves behind a perfect handprint in bright red blood.

Because it's all over her. Not just her hand. Everything. Her shirt, her arms, torso.

Her face. Sinew stuck in her teeth.

Max falls against the tree and slides down it, leaving more blood in her wake. ]

No. No, no-

No, no, no— No! No...!

[ She wraps her arms around herself, and she screams. ]

[toaflame]

[Adrian is exhausted.

Between the turmoil that had been levied upon the peninsula thanks to another jackass too deep in the Fog's clutches to care what kind of damage they cause, and Rosso staggering home last night bloodied and broken, he's exhausted. It truly does feel like you can't catch a break here, no matter how different his life in Ryslig is compared to the one he lived back in Perovskia. Back home, he was a wanted fugitive. He had nothing. No one. Life wasn't entirely worth living, as far as he could say, looking back on it now. Here, at least, he has something. A place. People he'd like to protect.

But it's all so much harder. He has to constantly ask himself in the wake of these sorts of things if it's worth it.

He's reminded of the vision he saw, of Misha dying in his arms, and he reminds himself that yes, it fucking is. Even if he has to bite and claw until his last dying breath, it will be worth it.

On days when he's feeling like this- raw and anxious and powerless- he goes for a flight. Flying is the one thing that he's had across worlds, and it's the only thing he really enjoyed about his previous form. But even then, his wings were weaker, brittle and easily injured. In this world, they're powerful and hardy, and he can fly long distances without breaking a sweat. He can fly high up in the clouds, or swoop low over the tree canopy like he is now, just barely able to touch the treetops with his claws. It's a wonderful, freeing sensation. Like it's just him up here...and nothing else in the world matters, just for a short while.

He hears a blood-curdling scream from within the woods, and he nearly plummets from the sky.

Adrian banks a hard left before pulling back, hovering for a second in midair as his ears swivel to catch the echo of the screaming cry. He knows what bleating deer sound like, or hogs that squeal as they fight in the brush. Yelping, howling dogs, or even that of a human being attacked, which happens often in Lager. But that...that scream sounded different. Something cross between human and non, and distressed beyond compare.

He moves without thinking, like he had when he dropped to all fours and ran for Rosso in the trees. He plunges through the boughs with his arms pushing them aside, listening for the direction the sound came from. Eventually he lands heavy in the top of one of the trees and takes to his paws, jumping from bough to bough with speed rivaling what he could manage on the ground. It's easier than trying to fly, and that scream was close enough that he doubts he has far to travel.

He spots Max up against the tree long before she ever could see him, coming to a quick stop about five or six trees off. He grips the branch with all fours, eyes flashing as he peers through the leaves. It takes him a moment to realize that he recognizes who he's looking at- that isn't a deer having collapsed after a hunt gone wrong, as was his initial thought- causing him to drop from the branch with a barely-audible impact into the leaf litter. It's her...that kid from the attic.

He hates how he can't tell if she's hurt, or if she's......]

Hey. Kid. Easy...

[He's just going to get up, now, and while he'd thought about shape-shifting his face to make himself...he doesn't know, more approachable, it isn't like she could see him before. She didn't know what he looked like, so him being a fuck-off huge tiger man isn't going to change things very much.

Maybe she'll recognize his voice, at the very least.]

HONK HONK HAPPY MAY

[flammadecinis]

[Good evening love of his life, guess who just showed up to the treehouse after work on a Fucking Motorcycle, it's your boyfriend! He's been working on this for a while and therefore has this three months later than I intended for him to, and so... now, he's off-roading to the treehouse and revving the engines until Adrian comes to see.

Surprise asshole the traffic has come TO YOU (he's traffic). Also he has his hair in a braid over his shoulder so that the wind doesn't whip it around too much. Ask him how he found out having his hair loose was a bad idea.

Anyway, he's not yelling or saying HEY BABE or anything, he's just being fucking annoying until Adrian comes and pokes his head out the window because that's the nature of their relationship. Sorry not sorry.]

[toaflame]

[Most of the time, Adrian and Rosso's workdays overlap, but there are some times when one or the other is home while the other is at work. This is one of those latter instances, and for once Adrian isn't doing some kind of mundane household chore. He's doing what cats do 90% of their day: sleeping. He's curled up in the loft of the treehouse among the pillows and blankets and just fucking knocked out, sleeping hard because the last month was exhausting and he is so tired of being exhausted by every insane thing that happens in Ryslig, he spent so much energy keeping idiots from drowning or getting ripped apart by fish, please just let him rest-

...

He is awoken by the sound of a motorcycle revving its engine hard just beneath the tree, prompting Adrian's bloodshot eyes to snap open.

He doesn't just go to the window like a normal person. No, he takes the path of least resistance: he clambers out the top window of the loft onto the roof, his claws digging in as he leaps to one of his usual perches on the roof's edge.]

Who. The FUCK-

[He is about ready to bake the person alive who thinks doing that is funny- and for a brief moment he does wonder if it could be Max, but her car certainly can't rev like that he's pretty sure- only to be stopped mid-sentence when he catches that shock of red hair, more crimson than auburn.

Adrian blinks slowly, much like a cat that just woke up, his extended claws slowly receding back into his fingers.]

....what. The fuck?

E-Vite!

[i_am_emmet]

[When the message is opened there will be an invitation to a surprise birthday party for Ingo on May 22nd, with the location to the train house in it at 9PM. There is also a note about being able to bring friends if you want, contact Emmet if it will be more than 2 people!]

[Also, 'SURPRISE PARTY' is bolded and underlined, and there is also an amazingly ugly ASCII artwork of a Litwick.]

recent, probably after Merlin's post

[missleadingquestions]

[At some point toward the night, a voice calls out from below Adrian's window.]

Adrian! Hey!

[Well, that should be familiar.]

Are you up there??

[toaflame]

[It's not quiiite bedtime yet, even though Adrian could 100% sleep right now. He feels like ass. Concentrated ass. But at least the mushrooms never leeched their way into his brain, like they did to Rosso, who is laid up in the opposite fashion to Adrian. Adrian's dragging himself around like an elder while Rosso is laying face down because his brain is soup. Everyone's fine in this tree.

That said, Adrian isn't so discheveled that he misses the voice calling out to him from outside. He groans under his breath, and honestly if it were anyone but Maya right now he would simply not bother. But......

He drags himself out of the futon, the TV playing a movie that he's seen a hundred timees at this point. He's regained a lot of his motor function, so he can at least walk, but he's still limping as he makes his way over to the window.]

Where the hell else would I be?

[Hi hello it's Adrian]

end of month camping trip time

[flammadecinis]

[So. Escape to the mountains doesn't actually happen until super late in the month, on account of shit keeps happening and they can't really escape until then. Like, Rosso nearly became a tree, that was bad. And Adrian spent half the month paralyzed in bed (also bad). Maybe out in the fucking mountains, they can't be gotten by whatever the hell the world wants them to be gotten by.

Maybe.

Up here, though, it's peaceful. It's inconvenient for work and going to the store, so Rosso can't feasibly see himself living here unless he wants to go no-contact complete-hermit (which. he might), but damn is it nice to just be for a while.

They've got a big, fancy tent for shelter. A wide, flat area to roam and set up little outdoor cooking items and those stupid folding chairs and a picnic blanket. Lots of trees to climb. The weather is pleasant, too, and other than birds and the sounds of the nearby river, there's nothing out here to bother them. Rosso could genuinely curl up in a patch of grass and snooze here and feel like he won't fucking die.

It takes this much to realise that he's incredibly fucking stressed, clearly, but anyway. Not the point. This is their little vacation. It's nothing ostentatious, but it's peaceful and nice and it's perfect to Rosso, okay.

Currently, Rosso's setting up a little fire pit so that they can make whatever the fuck a s'more is supposed to be, something they can't do with camping cookware (according to. what he heard about s'mores. the magic is in using real fire apparently?) and Alisha is... well. Stealing all his rocks and taking them elsewhere (Adrian's lap). So it's going great.]

[toaflame]

[Adrian is so, so, SO glad to be away from the city. Hell, away from Lager. As far away from everything as they both can possibly get without getting booted back into the Peninsula's arbitrary "boundary" that keeps them tethered to it. The bullshit has been extra bullshitty thiis month in particular, and now that it's finally worn off...he knows they've got about a week and some change before it starts all over again. So, he actually put in for time off at Nai'a and 8/12 like a normal person and now he will proceed to pretend the rest of Ryslig doesn't exist. It's just him and Rosso, out in the middle of nowhere.

And honestly? It's like being back home again, only when things were better. Not great, because being alone without a family kindof really sucked, but at least his time in Idai was liveable, and full of enough positive memories to not taint his recollection of it so much. Camping was a good idea.

In fact, Adrian is feeling nostalgic enough that he decides to blow some of his magic today on giving himself his human face back, at least for part of their trip up here. Makes it seem that much less like they're still in Ryslig, as long as he doesn't pay attention to his paws or tail-

Camping stuff has been set up and Adrian is ready for a week of being off-the-grid. Hell, he doesn't even care as much about losing basic necessities as someone else might, he did this shit for ten years you'd better believe he's going to be fine. And, well. It is nice to feel like they're not going to get murdered at every turn, out in a place as remote as this. The only thing they might have to worry about is, he doesn't know, wild animals or something. But they're monsters, so.

Anyway. Adrian is currently sitting with his legs crossed, watching as Alisha methodically puts Rosso's campfire rocks into his lap. He just...sighs, watching as she puts yet another on his knee.]

Why. Why are you doing this.

[WHY are you weird.]