legionworld | Getting settled in

Who| Tsunami and anyone she runs across.
What| Getting used to her new home.
Where| Legion World; the mess hall
When| Now!
Warnings/Notes| Dragons!

Tsunami was still reeling a little from her arrival here. It had been unexpected mildly speaking and the big dragon lashed her tail, then awkwardly curled it around her feet. All of the tiny, scavenger-like creatures scurrying around were off-putting, too! They'd told her scavengers were properly called humans and even if all of them looked very similar to her, not everyone here was a human. She couldn't tell them apart, though. All of them with their tiny little paws and furry heads and no tails...

She huffed, lifting her front leg to examine the bracelet that encircled it now. A flight ring? What did she need a magic ring to fly for? Still, it was pretty looking and it made her feel nice to have some treasure to call hers, even if she was stuck here for the time being. She hunched down and finally sprawled out, resting her head against one of the small tables as she watched the room. Even being quiet, Tsunami tended to take up quite a bit of space--dragons just did that naturally, what with all their wings, tails, and claws and all that. She grumbles, the noses the table away with a clatter--all this furniture was annoying! She sprawled her head out on crossed legs and glared glumly across the room. Even with all the crazy, shiny things they'd been showing her and telling her, she wasn't quite sure she could believe it...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tsunami let out an annoyed rumble. Of course she was a dragon? What else would she be. She tilted her head to examine Kubo a bit more closely. Squinted. How was anyone supposed to tell these things apart?

"No, I'm actually a rabbit--of course I'm a dragon!" Huff. She exhaled briefly, watching as Kubo began to pluck at this strange instrument.

"Scavengers make art?" This is brand new information.

Edited 2016-09-30 05:12 (UTC)

Kubo was trying to get a look at Tsunami's tail - yes, it was quite long, and those WERE wings! But when he looked up and saw the squinting, he frowned. It wasn't his fault he'd never seen a dragon before, or that it was likely the rest of the humans he knew hadn't. "I was just making sure," he protested, squinting back at Tsunami.

"I'm not a scavenger," he said, in a firm tone. He didn't sound very insulted yet, but his pride was a little wounded. Kubo worked for a living. "I'm a storyteller."

He whipped out a quick riff of notes on the shamisen, a tune rolling with a jump up the scale at the end, like something with a long, long spine rolling movement down to flick the end of its tail. The blue paper floating beside Kubo suddenly folded itself in half, then again and again, folds popping in time to the notes until it had folded into an intricate, unusually detailed piece of origami in a shape very much like Tsunami.

The color wasn't quite right, but Kubo only had a few blues on hand.

He played on, beginning a new song that the paper dragon flapped its wings to, and the boy's serious, proud expression lifted as the paper successfully glided around his head. In a second he was chuckling, a smile on his face as he sent the paper dragon soaring up to the real one. It moved as snappily as it had come into existence, darting up to Tsunami's eye level and fluttering there for a second.

Not a scavenger--that's right, scavenger wasn't their name for themselves. It was hard, getting used to this kind of thing. They weren't people where she came from. Or maybe they were and she just couldn't understand them, cute as they could be. She let out a faint sigh and settled again, watching as Kubo began to sooth his wounded pride. Storytelling was good, and she supposed that scavenger stories were as good as dragon stories in some respects. The music was nice, if a little strange--

She sat up straighter, eyes going wide as the paper began to dance and fold itself into a dragon shape.

"You're an animus? I didn't know scav--humans had animus abilities!" She sounded a little awed by this, following the little paper dragon as it danced in front of her eyes.

The paper dragon dove back to circle around Kubo, as his music made it hover, gape its jaws in a voiceless roar, roll and twirl experimentally. He was having fun with this new creature, but what sort of stories might he tell with a dragon -?

"I don't know what that is," he pointed out, to Tsunami's question. "My mother used her magic this way, and she taught me. She was a daughter of the Moon King." He wondered if that was an explanation to anyone, if dragons knew more about moon magic than he would. He looked at Tsunami a little hopefully. "Do you know more about that than I do?"

"An animus dragon, uh. Is a dragon that can enchant objects and do magic and that kind of thing. 'Cept it takes a little of your soul everytime you use it. That's uh, that's about as much as I know," Tsunami explained, then sat up a little, peering curiously at the scavenger boy.

"The Moon King? I didn't know the moons had a king. Well. Maybe your moons do..."

"I don't think it takes a little of my soul," Kubo said, wondering with a little shudder of horror what that would do to him. Would his vision fade slowly, would a shining blindness creep over his eye until he was as sightless as his grandfather had been? His magic couldn't possibly be something that horrible, or he'd already be a little bit blinder for using it. His mother never would have taught him to use it at all. She would never have let him disintegrate his own soul, not even to earn the money to take care of her. "So it can't be the same thing."

He pressed his lips together against a surprising amount of disappointment, even as he considered how to answer. Had a king would invite more conversation about the current state of the Moon King than he wanted to have just then. "We only have one moon," he settled on. "So . . . does that mean you're from THIS world? Are there more moons here?"

"No, I guess it can't be. Maybe scavenger animus is different from dragon animus..." She scratched under her chin for a moment with her front talons. She closed her eyes, then cracked them open after a moment.

"Oh, no. I'm from Pyrrhia! We have three moons and this is definitely not it. For one thing, I'm the only dragon I've seen." She sounded a little disgruntled by that observation. Being surrounded by tiny humans is disconcerting.

Oh dang. That sounded lonely.

"I hope more dragons come to join you soon," Kubo said, meaning it. More dragons sounded majestic to behold, and he hated to think of anyone else being lonely. He knew too well how it felt. "I'm from a place called Japan," he added. "I lived there with my mother. She was from the only moon we have. Do your three moons have their own kingdoms?"

The Moon King had been such a terrible, overarching figure dominating the night sky back home. Maybe three Moon Kingdoms would have spent their time bickering with each other, and kept too busy to interfere with the lives of mortals so much.

"As far as I know, the moons don't have kingdoms," Tsunami replied, then looked thoughtful.

"I hope I see some other dragons, too, but honestly I'd rather just get home." Another pause from the dragon as her mind clicked onto something that Kubo had been talking about.

"Wait, the Moon King? Why doesn't the moon have a queen? I thought everyone had queens. That's weird.." She tilted her head, trying to wrap her head around the idea of a king. Scavengers sure were weird.

Kubo nodded. "But would you go home before we stop the End of the Universes?" he asked, with a slight, curious frown.

Tsunami's last question brought Kubo up short. "I don't . . . I don't know if the Moon had a Queen."

He pressed his lips together. She would have been his grandmother, but . . . his mother had never talked about her, and Grandfather couldn't remember anything about being the Moon King anymore, so he'd never be able to tell Kubo.

He doubted she'd been any bigger on insight and kindness than his other lunar relatives had been. He moved on from considering this missing piece of his family. He never knew anything about his father's parents either - and he never would, just adding more to the very long list of things Kubo would want to know until the end of his days.

He shrugged. "There must have been a Moon Queen, but my mother never talked about her, and my grandfather has lost his memory, so he won't be able to tell me about her."

He really, really didn't seem to care.

"Uh, I'd like to? I mean, end of the universe is a big deal and all but I kind of have my own thing to do back home. I already stopped a war and all that stuff. You guys seem like you have it in talon." She paused as Kubo continued, brow knitting a little. No queen? Weird. Well, he said he didn't know, so there probably was one. She tossed her head slightly.

"That's too bad."

"She probably wasn't all that great," Kubo said, dismissively, casually for such sullen, fighting words.

Getting settled in | Open

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