[Well you know what they say. Grass is always greener, and all that. They're two halves of a very similar kind of person, one who has been treated unfairly, grew up in unfortunate circumstances, and hardened their heart against the world. It only makes sense that they would find a weird sort of kinship in one another, even if they don't necessarily recognize it right away. Whatever the case, Rosso knows things that very few others are privy to...and it would be less still, if Adrian hadn't been forced to confront his past in such a raw, public way.
Never again. Not if he has anything to say about it.
Rosso is hardly the only one of them who feels often like they're a monster. But, well...that takes on a whole different kind of meaning, in this place. They're hardly the true monsters, here.
Adrian pivots underwater, using his massive tail as a rudder to turn himself around effortlessly without having to move his legs too much. It's honestly not all that different from flying, just even less effort to keep yourself aloft since water does half the work for you.
Rosos popping those bubbles is funny. He really is like a kid sometimes.]
Nah. I mean, I guess there's more glowy shit...
[He noses at the sand around the base of the coral, turning up a few chunks of various rocks and things. None of them look all that special on the surface...not until Adrian finds something that glints, reflecting the light in a way that immediately sets off his Mer brain.
...just. Going to pick that up as carefully as he can between his teeth (don't swallow it, don't swallow it) and pull back, paddling backwards until he's in front of Rosso again. Then, after a moment of deliberation and prodding with his tongue to see if his guess is correct, he'll deposit it in his hands.]
Sea glass. Maya told me 'bout this stuff. Most'a the time it comes from like, trash in the water n'shit, but this is like...molten glass.
[He looks over to where the bubbles keep coming from.]
...betcha that's some kinda heat source, down there. Not super strong or nothin', this is a lake, but yaknow.
[Okay now Adrian's just eating stuff he finds under the substrate here, cool, maybe there's a crab or something down there. Do crabs live in lakes under magical-glowing corals? Crabs where Rosso comes from are about the size of cars, so maybe it's a really tiny crab, like a baby—
Oh. Oh!!
The sea glass is deposited into his hand, and Rosso leans back a tad to hold it up to the light. Honestly, without that centerpiece coral tree, this cave might not be as well-lit as it is. The purple glints within the red, and Rosso finds that he suddenly wishes he had pockets just to keep this in. Invariably, there's going to be more shinies somewhere.]
It's pretty, [he muses aloud, quite nearly shining the reflected light in his good eye while he inspects the glass.] This is just a... thing that happens? The earth just... does that, huh?
[It's so hard to pretend he's not fascinated by the mere concept. Obviously the process behind making glass — by the hand of man or mother nature herself — is known to Rosso, who used to be able to burn so hotly that he very well could make his own. What he didn't know is that it could be so pretty, and that it could possibly be found underwater like this. He wants to dig around for more. Maybe a different mineral beneath the sand made some in alternate colours, or something?]
Back home, [he begins, unbidden as he clutches the tumbled glass in his palm,] Gaia and I used to fuck around with our powers and make our own glass when we had a break and didn't wanna do shit. He was always more responsible than me, so I couldn't pull him away for longer than five minutes, but he'd be able to manipulate sand 'n' shit into various shapes and I could cook 'em.
...
One time we made a glass pane and put it in the doorway and Ventus walked into it. [The El Masters are very mature in this essay I wi—]
Anyway, not like it compares to this kind of thing — that was all artificial. Made me think of it, I guess.
[If Adrian wanted to just eat shit that he found in the sea, he would have been snacking on these fish down here already. Easier than rooting around for tiny crabs that would be barely worth his time, at any rate. No, he does in fact have a cool thing to share, even if it's just a piece of glass. Though, "just" glass is easy for him to say, when that stuff has probably existed forever back home. He'd just never been near an ocean to actually see any of it for himself.
He watches as Rosso turns the piece of glass between his fingers, causing it to reflect the glow coming off the coral in a pretty dramatic way, honestly. It's glass after all, so it's behaving in the same way that a lens might above the surface. Mostly, not accounting for what the water ends up refracting along the way, of course.
Ah, there he goes. Adrian's noticed this about Rosso; sometimes he'll go on a tangent about his friends from home- friends, Adrian mentally likens them to, because the way he talks about them...yeah they're friends- about this or that stupid thing they got up to, and it's...good for him, he thinks. Rosso definitely struck him as a huge loner type when they first met, probably because he's exactly the same way, which means that making friends at all is likely a difficult to near-impossible task. He should know.
So. It's good that he has them, for better or worse.
The crocodile huffs, his teeth popping together dully under the water.]
What a dumbass.
[Sorry Ven.]
Well, maybe you can strongarm Mana into givin' you your fire back for real. Then you could try to make some again.
[Adrian doesn't mention how the only way he got his back was from the Fog...and it's not even his full potential.]
[No, Ventus is a dumbass. The smart things he does secretly notwithstanding.
At the mention of his magic, though, Rosso deflates a bit. He stares forlornly down at the sea glass as if trying to find a distraction somewhere within it, and then shakes his head.]
Wouldn't be a great idea, [he admits, softly, after a few seconds pass and he feels like he can find the words.] I can't control my magic. I was able to once, but I lost the ability to before coming here. It...
[...]
I'm not even the most powerful of the Masters, but I could burn an entire city to cinders with a wave of my hand back then — or even just by getting too mad and losing control or some shit like that. Spent the last while before I woke up here just in the training grounds at Elrianode trying to control it before I killed someone.
[He can be honest. Since it's Adrian.]
Here, I don't have to worry about that shit. I miss having it, but I don't miss all the problems that came with it. I can just be. I don't have to be the Rosso Clan's perfect little Fire Master experiment anymore, and I don't have to follow all the Elrian Kingdom's stupid rules or do the Old Man's stupid paperwork.
In the end, I guess I'm kinda torn. I like having it for defense, but the longer I think about it, the more I wonder if I'm better off without it. Don't have to worry about accidentally murdering someone else I care about. It's probably a good thing that Mana made me into a fish instead of some other monster with fire magic, 'cause half fucking Bavan would have been on fire by now.
[Yeah...Rosso doesn't have to get far into that explanation for Adrian to realize he's put his dumb, webbed foot into his mouth. Not like he knew, but still...his powers, they were genetic. His whole family consisted of pyros. Rosso, on the other hand...
I don't have to be the Rosso Clan's perfect little Fire Master experiment anymore.
Adrian lets out a hiss not unlike a sound effect from jurassic park, a noise that reverberates and undulates like he's growling with his head deep in an underground pipe. It's not a nice sound at all, but it's also not directed at Rosso, necessarily.]
...I getcha. I mean. All I ever wanted back home was to be "normal" again. Human again. It felt like half the problems in my life I had would just go away if I could just...go back to that.
[But they wouldn't. He knows that for a fact. Being a monster is just baked into who he is as a person now, having lived longer as one than as a human at this point.]
If not havin' it is better for you, then fuck it. You don't need it. I'm pretty sure you could fuck somebody up if you had to without the fire anyway, and at least then it'd be on purpose.
[He bothers to glance back at Adrian with those words, brow knit for a moment. Wanting to be human... yeah, he can kind of get that. He's only half-demon, so it's not like most Elrians even knew his identity and could tear into him for it — hard to see demon traits if none are presenting — but it still got tiring day in and day out to hear the "kill all demons" and "all demons are psychotic murderers" shit.
And, well, maybe they are that. Rosso's had blood on his hands since he was a teenager, after all.]
You're right about that last part. Dunno if I told you this, but a scythe was my weapon of choice.
[Adrian might've seen it in Felfri at least, when Rosso could summon it back to his command. He had to utilize it when the E+L lackeys kept attacking him out of the blue, and then one final time against Mary before it was lights out.]
If I could get that back... I don't think anyone would fuck with either of us again. No sensible person wants to have their head lopped off.
'sides, I like the Adrian I currently know, monster and all. He's a dumbass, and overly-combative, and a total dickhead, though.
[He remembers that scythe well. Honestly, he'd like to see Rosso wielding it under better circumstances, since he never knew how to use a weapon himself like that. Maybe in the Cube, someday...
For now, Adrian hisses again, but this time it's more...less angry and something else. Sort of like an embarrassed huff almost, but more deflecting than anything.]
Tcccchh. You're just sayin' that cause you want me to find you more glass.
[He knows you have ulterior motives, Rosso, you're just in it for the sparkly. Nobody REALLY likes him, not really.]
[Perhaps someday, Adrian will get to watch Rosso kick ass in real time. Rosso thinks he's the coolest when he's wielding a big fuckoff weapon.
Playfully, he wiggles to the lakefloor and settles against an empty part of the cavern where there aren't any corals glowing, lying on his stomach with his chin resting on his wrists. The glass shard from a bit ago is clutched in his hand still, for lack of anywhere else to put it.]
Exactly. Chop-chop, get to it, jagi. You're the one with the long claws, after all.
[Find him more glass so he can take it to a jeweller and get a necklace made!! It'll satisfy the fish brain and Rosso can say he's got a cool necklace with sea glass dug up from the glowing coral cave!!!
After a moment, his playful expression settles into something more serious. Still warm, but with far less of that teasing glint in his eye.]
[He might just end up doing that before they resurface, honestly. Not just for Rosso though. His dumb fish brain wants the sparklies too, okay.
For the time being though, laying down instead of treading water constantly sounds nice. He follows suit, swimming down to find a suitable spot to just lay flat on his belly in the sand. He's suddenly tempted to burrow in it, to just see how deep a hole he can fit himself into before he has to actually dig to displace the sand, but instead he settles with sinking a few inches deep into it.
He rumbles, watching Rosso out of one of those big, yellow eyes. They seem even brighter against all of the strange lighting in the cavern. For a moment he says nothing. Perhaps he doesn't know what to say.]
At least somebody did.
[.......ouch okay that sounded a lot more depressing than he meant it to, he takes it back-
What he will do instead is just, sort of...drag himself closer to the other Mer in the sand, close enough so that the side of his head is touching Rosso somewhere. Probably his side. Maybe his hand. Ignore how cold he is, please.]
[Stupidly pretty bright yellow eyes. Urgh. Yeah, the brightness of the cave really isn't detracting from those at all. It sucks. Adrian sucks. Rosso doesn't think he's ever stared into the guy's eyes before — not like this, anyhow — but what the fuck.
Ugh.
And now he's just— just swimming over and cuddling up, what the fuck. What the fuck!!! ("Rosso didn't you lay on him for like five minutes" yeah but what the fuck!)
For a moment, he doesn't move, like he's paralyzed. Like if he does move, it'll kill whatever moment they're having right now, or he'll make it so that Adrian's no longer comfortable half-burrowing into the sand, or... or something stupid like that. So, Rosso lies there, still with his chin atop his wrists, having a Whole Crisis about this.
Adrian sure is fucking cold. Rosso still somehow runs hot.]
Well, I doubt anyone missed you as much as I did, [haha. ha. he really just said that out loud okay—] so let all those other people who definitely missed seeing your ass around know. Throne's taken.
[Hilarious how pretty you think his eyes are when they're literally pointed in different directions right now, Rosso, but you do you.
And look he's not! Cuddling!! He's just sitting beside you okay it's not weird!!!! It would be weirder if he just sat in the sand halfway across the cavern.
And, Rosso is warm. And Adrian is cold blooded. He likes the warm, who cares what Mer instincts think about it.]
["No one missed you more than me" and "maybe I'm just soft for you" and "don't leave me again"... by the Gods, he's a goddamn mess. Today is a day of feelings and feeling them, and Rosso wants off of this stupid train before it crashes.
Unfortunately, the train is content to keep him trapped aboard, where he's now contending with the obvious struggle of having Adrian just Here. Here with him now, alive and fine and a little more physically affectionate than Rosso's used to.
Ugh. He wants to faceplant into the dirt and suffocate in it.
Instead of doing that, in a move so bold it may as well be considered a fluke with how Rosso's been acting this entire time, he reaches out and Casually rests an arm somewhere against Adrian's very crocodilian shoulders. Like a side-hug but he's trying to act Cool about it. Smooth.
[And maybe it's because Adrian gets that, that there's just...a lot of high emotions going around right now, that he doesn't call Rosso out on these less-than-cool things he's been saying.
It probably doesn't mean anything. After today they'll be right back to yelling at and hating each other. Surely. Just...not right now.
Which is also why Adrian is going to chalk up what Rosso is doing now to that exact same thing. It's not like Adrian is unused to the contact- Maya and Hanna hang off him constantly after all- but in this context when everything was so...upsetting and bad, it definitely rings differently. He opens his eyes when he realizes the weight against him is Rosso, looking up at him without moving his head.
Then...he exhales, a deep, rumbly sound as he closes his eyes again, bubbles slowly escaping his nostrils.]
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no subject
Never again. Not if he has anything to say about it.
Rosso is hardly the only one of them who feels often like they're a monster. But, well...that takes on a whole different kind of meaning, in this place. They're hardly the true monsters, here.
Adrian pivots underwater, using his massive tail as a rudder to turn himself around effortlessly without having to move his legs too much. It's honestly not all that different from flying, just even less effort to keep yourself aloft since water does half the work for you.
Rosos popping those bubbles is funny. He really is like a kid sometimes.]
Nah. I mean, I guess there's more glowy shit...
[He noses at the sand around the base of the coral, turning up a few chunks of various rocks and things. None of them look all that special on the surface...not until Adrian finds something that glints, reflecting the light in a way that immediately sets off his Mer brain.
...just. Going to pick that up as carefully as he can between his teeth (don't swallow it, don't swallow it) and pull back, paddling backwards until he's in front of Rosso again. Then, after a moment of deliberation and prodding with his tongue to see if his guess is correct, he'll deposit it in his hands.]
Sea glass. Maya told me 'bout this stuff. Most'a the time it comes from like, trash in the water n'shit, but this is like...molten glass.
[He looks over to where the bubbles keep coming from.]
...betcha that's some kinda heat source, down there. Not super strong or nothin', this is a lake, but yaknow.
no subject
Oh. Oh!!
The sea glass is deposited into his hand, and Rosso leans back a tad to hold it up to the light. Honestly, without that centerpiece coral tree, this cave might not be as well-lit as it is. The purple glints within the red, and Rosso finds that he suddenly wishes he had pockets just to keep this in. Invariably, there's going to be more shinies somewhere.]
It's pretty, [he muses aloud, quite nearly shining the reflected light in his good eye while he inspects the glass.] This is just a... thing that happens? The earth just... does that, huh?
[It's so hard to pretend he's not fascinated by the mere concept. Obviously the process behind making glass — by the hand of man or mother nature herself — is known to Rosso, who used to be able to burn so hotly that he very well could make his own. What he didn't know is that it could be so pretty, and that it could possibly be found underwater like this. He wants to dig around for more. Maybe a different mineral beneath the sand made some in alternate colours, or something?]
Back home, [he begins, unbidden as he clutches the tumbled glass in his palm,] Gaia and I used to fuck around with our powers and make our own glass when we had a break and didn't wanna do shit. He was always more responsible than me, so I couldn't pull him away for longer than five minutes, but he'd be able to manipulate sand 'n' shit into various shapes and I could cook 'em.
...
One time we made a glass pane and put it in the doorway and Ventus walked into it. [The El Masters are very mature in this essay I wi—]
Anyway, not like it compares to this kind of thing — that was all artificial. Made me think of it, I guess.
no subject
He watches as Rosso turns the piece of glass between his fingers, causing it to reflect the glow coming off the coral in a pretty dramatic way, honestly. It's glass after all, so it's behaving in the same way that a lens might above the surface. Mostly, not accounting for what the water ends up refracting along the way, of course.
Ah, there he goes. Adrian's noticed this about Rosso; sometimes he'll go on a tangent about his friends from home- friends, Adrian mentally likens them to, because the way he talks about them...yeah they're friends- about this or that stupid thing they got up to, and it's...good for him, he thinks. Rosso definitely struck him as a huge loner type when they first met, probably because he's exactly the same way, which means that making friends at all is likely a difficult to near-impossible task. He should know.
So. It's good that he has them, for better or worse.
The crocodile huffs, his teeth popping together dully under the water.]
What a dumbass.
[Sorry Ven.]
Well, maybe you can strongarm Mana into givin' you your fire back for real. Then you could try to make some again.
[Adrian doesn't mention how the only way he got his back was from the Fog...and it's not even his full potential.]
no subject
At the mention of his magic, though, Rosso deflates a bit. He stares forlornly down at the sea glass as if trying to find a distraction somewhere within it, and then shakes his head.]
Wouldn't be a great idea, [he admits, softly, after a few seconds pass and he feels like he can find the words.] I can't control my magic. I was able to once, but I lost the ability to before coming here. It...
[...]
I'm not even the most powerful of the Masters, but I could burn an entire city to cinders with a wave of my hand back then — or even just by getting too mad and losing control or some shit like that. Spent the last while before I woke up here just in the training grounds at Elrianode trying to control it before I killed someone.
[He can be honest. Since it's Adrian.]
Here, I don't have to worry about that shit. I miss having it, but I don't miss all the problems that came with it. I can just be. I don't have to be the Rosso Clan's perfect little Fire Master experiment anymore, and I don't have to follow all the Elrian Kingdom's stupid rules or do the Old Man's stupid paperwork.
In the end, I guess I'm kinda torn. I like having it for defense, but the longer I think about it, the more I wonder if I'm better off without it. Don't have to worry about accidentally murdering someone else I care about. It's probably a good thing that Mana made me into a fish instead of some other monster with fire magic, 'cause half fucking Bavan would have been on fire by now.
no subject
I don't have to be the Rosso Clan's perfect little Fire Master experiment anymore.
Adrian lets out a hiss not unlike a sound effect from jurassic park, a noise that reverberates and undulates like he's growling with his head deep in an underground pipe. It's not a nice sound at all, but it's also not directed at Rosso, necessarily.]
...I getcha. I mean. All I ever wanted back home was to be "normal" again. Human again. It felt like half the problems in my life I had would just go away if I could just...go back to that.
[But they wouldn't. He knows that for a fact. Being a monster is just baked into who he is as a person now, having lived longer as one than as a human at this point.]
If not havin' it is better for you, then fuck it. You don't need it. I'm pretty sure you could fuck somebody up if you had to without the fire anyway, and at least then it'd be on purpose.
no subject
And, well, maybe they are that. Rosso's had blood on his hands since he was a teenager, after all.]
You're right about that last part. Dunno if I told you this, but a scythe was my weapon of choice.
[Adrian might've seen it in Felfri at least, when Rosso could summon it back to his command. He had to utilize it when the E+L lackeys kept attacking him out of the blue, and then one final time against Mary before it was lights out.]
If I could get that back... I don't think anyone would fuck with either of us again. No sensible person wants to have their head lopped off.
'sides, I like the Adrian I currently know, monster and all. He's a dumbass, and overly-combative, and a total dickhead, though.
[(Affectionate)]
no subject
For now, Adrian hisses again, but this time it's more...less angry and something else. Sort of like an embarrassed huff almost, but more deflecting than anything.]
Tcccchh. You're just sayin' that cause you want me to find you more glass.
[He knows you have ulterior motives, Rosso, you're just in it for the sparkly. Nobody REALLY likes him, not really.]
no subject
Playfully, he wiggles to the lakefloor and settles against an empty part of the cavern where there aren't any corals glowing, lying on his stomach with his chin resting on his wrists. The glass shard from a bit ago is clutched in his hand still, for lack of anywhere else to put it.]
Exactly. Chop-chop, get to it, jagi. You're the one with the long claws, after all.
[Find him more glass so he can take it to a jeweller and get a necklace made!! It'll satisfy the fish brain and Rosso can say he's got a cool necklace with sea glass dug up from the glowing coral cave!!!
After a moment, his playful expression settles into something more serious. Still warm, but with far less of that teasing glint in his eye.]
I missed your dumb ass, you know.
no subject
For the time being though, laying down instead of treading water constantly sounds nice. He follows suit, swimming down to find a suitable spot to just lay flat on his belly in the sand. He's suddenly tempted to burrow in it, to just see how deep a hole he can fit himself into before he has to actually dig to displace the sand, but instead he settles with sinking a few inches deep into it.
He rumbles, watching Rosso out of one of those big, yellow eyes. They seem even brighter against all of the strange lighting in the cavern. For a moment he says nothing. Perhaps he doesn't know what to say.]
At least somebody did.
[.......ouch okay that sounded a lot more depressing than he meant it to, he takes it back-
What he will do instead is just, sort of...drag himself closer to the other Mer in the sand, close enough so that the side of his head is touching Rosso somewhere. Probably his side. Maybe his hand. Ignore how cold he is, please.]
...I missed you too.
no subject
Ugh.
And now he's just— just swimming over and cuddling up, what the fuck. What the fuck!!! ("Rosso didn't you lay on him for like five minutes" yeah but what the fuck!)
For a moment, he doesn't move, like he's paralyzed. Like if he does move, it'll kill whatever moment they're having right now, or he'll make it so that Adrian's no longer comfortable half-burrowing into the sand, or... or something stupid like that. So, Rosso lies there, still with his chin atop his wrists, having a Whole Crisis about this.
Adrian sure is fucking cold. Rosso still somehow runs hot.]
Well, I doubt anyone missed you as much as I did, [haha. ha. he really just said that out loud okay—] so let all those other people who definitely missed seeing your ass around know. Throne's taken.
no subject
And look he's not! Cuddling!! He's just sitting beside you okay it's not weird!!!! It would be weirder if he just sat in the sand halfway across the cavern.
And, Rosso is warm. And Adrian is cold blooded. He likes the warm, who cares what Mer instincts think about it.]
Wearin' that stupid crown with pride, I see.
no subject
["No one missed you more than me" and "maybe I'm just soft for you" and "don't leave me again"... by the Gods, he's a goddamn mess. Today is a day of feelings and feeling them, and Rosso wants off of this stupid train before it crashes.
Unfortunately, the train is content to keep him trapped aboard, where he's now contending with the obvious struggle of having Adrian just Here. Here with him now, alive and fine and a little more physically affectionate than Rosso's used to.
Ugh. He wants to faceplant into the dirt and suffocate in it.
Instead of doing that, in a move so bold it may as well be considered a fluke with how Rosso's been acting this entire time, he reaches out and Casually rests an arm somewhere against Adrian's very crocodilian shoulders. Like a side-hug but he's trying to act Cool about it. Smooth.
Meanwhile Rosso just wants to die—]
no subject
It probably doesn't mean anything. After today they'll be right back to yelling at and hating each other. Surely. Just...not right now.
Which is also why Adrian is going to chalk up what Rosso is doing now to that exact same thing. It's not like Adrian is unused to the contact- Maya and Hanna hang off him constantly after all- but in this context when everything was so...upsetting and bad, it definitely rings differently. He opens his eyes when he realizes the weight against him is Rosso, looking up at him without moving his head.
Then...he exhales, a deep, rumbly sound as he closes his eyes again, bubbles slowly escaping his nostrils.]
Guess not.