IC CONTACT

[forswore]

[ If you know to reach him, you probably know he doesn't suffer small talk for long. Be to the point and maybe he'll deign to respond assuming he can work the damn thing. ]

Comments

text, late on the 11th

[redwhaling]

You still in the City?

[ City of the Free People is a very long name to think and she's not inclined to think extra right now, alright? ]

a million years later

[forswore]

[ there isn't a response for a bit, but perhaps unsurprisingly, it's tense. ]

who's asking?

[ there's only so many people it could be, but. these things have fucked with them before. extensively. ]

[redwhaling]

Are you seriously going to make me prove that I'm Billie Lurk?

[ The answer is probably yes, so she just cuts to the chase. ]

I literally stole a wolf for you like last week. Good enough?

[forswore]

[ The answer is definitely yes. Daud could demand a voice, too, but as his own isn't exactly steady right now, well, he's going to leave it alone. Instead, he'll be even more direct and ignore the snark: ]

where are you?

[redwhaling]

Didymos. Waiting for an airship back.

[forswore]

what happened?

i couldn't reach your courier for days.

[redwhaling]

A cult happened. They were the ones who drained the bay and made all those armies.

[forswore]

[ Cults are bad civilization. Like, definitely the worst. Anyway, it's Daud, so he doesn't say any of that. There's a few seconds before he responds. ]

tell me everything. starting from when you disappeared.

[ And don't make any excuses about it being too long of a story or whatever, Billie, the couriers respond to thought so you literally only need to think it. ]

[redwhaling]

[ So she's right back to giving reports, huh? Some things never change. ]

I was out running a few errands for our furry friend when some assholes in masks showed up straight out of the fog. I had heard that people had been going missing but I didn't expect me to end up amongst them, all things considered, but they had some kind of trick to it. Some spell, possibly. It sapped any fight I might've given right out of me. I couldn't even transverse.

[ No magic, no anything. It sucked. ]

When I came to, they were already shoving me in with the rest of the people they'd grabbed. Not sure how they got us all to Didymos but they were set up in a pit in the bay.

[forswore]

[ Not being able to use any magic immediately sends the alarms ringing in Daud's head because yeah, that shit's no good. ]

so it was planned from the start. i hadn't heard anything about a pit, but i haven't heard from anyone else who disappeared. were rocket and the rest there too?

[redwhaling]

[ There's a short pause between him asking and her answering. Not that she's planning on skipping that part, it just isn't one she's happy about. ]

Rocket was. We got separated towards the end and I couldn't find him after I made it to shore.

[ If that means anything, she doesn't know. ]

No idea about anyone else but, to be honest? We have bigger problems. When they were done kidnapping, they marched us all down further into the pit. City ruins. Not sure if it was just old parts of Thalassa or not. Anyone who wasn't like us, they killed. Ripped their souls out or something. I have to assume that's what it was since they said they couldn't us the same way.

[forswore]

must have needed permanent deaths. which means they recognized what you were.

how did you get out?

[redwhaling]

They ditched us, so I fought my way back out. Still almost drowned when the sea collapsed back in.

That isn't what's important, though.

Daud, they put all those souls into a dragon. A real, living dragon.

thought, the free city

[redwhaling]

While there is something you really need to hear about, I have to ask first. Are you the one who's covered the house with really poorly drawn circles on paper or did we just experience one of the weirdest break-ins of all time just before I got here?

[forswore]

[ Daud's out somewhere, obviously, though what exactly he's up to right now, who knows. In any case, the reply is still prompt. ]

red must have gotten into the writing box again. thought i'd locked that down well enough this time.

[redwhaling]

[ ...is that a joke? ]

Dragons don't draw, Daud.

[forswore]

no, but they imitate what they see. i've been writing in the evenings, and he's already stolen a few pens and bits of graphite off my table already.

[redwhaling]

[ Right, so it takes a few minutes -- eight or nine -- before Daud is getting a reply to that. Billie needs to call Red over and, inevitably, hand him something to hold. While she has noted his foreclaws looked more like actual hands before, she's just never heard of a dragon like that before.

Dragons never held things.

Dragons didn't have thumbs.

But Red does indeed hold the graphite she ends up handing him. He takes that as her wanting to see him draw circles and immediately does so.... on the table. That's another two or three minutes of getting him to stop and do that on paper again. Oh boy.

Finally-- ]

So. Fun story. I don't know what kind of dragon Red is anymore.

[forswore]

did you ever really know?

[ This is a Daud Joke. ]

[redwhaling]

He has the right number of limbs for a true dragon. I figured that had to be it.

[ Yes, Daud, she did know. Or had a very reasonable guess, okay??? ]

[forswore]

[ Sure, Billie. Regardless, Daud's going to put aside the banter now, because he never actually forgot why she contacted him in the first place. ]

you didn't actually contact me to discuss your dragon's artistic career.

what happened in didymos?

[ Because something obviously did. He thought she was off having a relatively calm vacation, and now coming back with 'something important' to say? He has no illusions it's anything good. ]

[redwhaling]

[ To be fair, she would really much rather discuss draconic art, because it really, really isn't anything good. ]

You're right, I didn't, but if I had led with Didymos possibly being wiped off the coastline, we wouldn't have discussed Red's terrible circle art at all.

[forswore]

whose shrine did you knock over this time?

[ But seriously, Billie's just had the worst luck following her around, huh? ]

[redwhaling]

Very funny.

[ Really, though. ]

Not me this time, though. The merfolk say Logistykon's skeleton has lost all its power. It's all broken up down there now and, apparently, it was keeping something called the deeper sealed. It's awake and pissed and blaming Didymos for its troubles.

[forswore]

that much power doesn't just get 'lost.'

how did you learn all this?