come_sailaway | mood in my tomb red moon heavy [OPEN & CLOSED]

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mood in my tomb red moon heavy [OPEN & CLOSED]

Who: Siffleur, Daisy, Jack Bioshock and you
What: Catch-all
Where: Quarters, Tommy Bahamas and Mikabo sushi bar
When: Early November
Warnings: Violence, gore, cannibalism, suicidal ideation, aggressive flirtations & sex

1. Home Sweet Home (cabin - closed to Daisy)

Siffleur goes back to the cabin maybe twice a week at most. It’s where the shower is, which is something he has gotten used to and enjoys. He can keep himself clean, but hot water works out the knots nicely.

Someone else moved in last week. Their scent is less than human, heavy and musky, and it’s taken a great deal of restraint from him not to ruin their things. But this isn’t his place - his place is in the Tommy Bahamas and he’s content to stay there most of the time. So far, he’s been lucky enough to enter the room when the other person isn’t in.

Today, he’s not so lucky, and as he opens the door, he’s hit with an even stronger version of her smell. He grunts to himself and steps inside, closing the door behind him as he finally gets a look at his roommate.

Siffleur pauses and tips his head to the side as he gets a good look at her human shaped form. “Hmm. Shapechanger, werewolf, something else?”

2. Life Is One Long Weekend! (Tommy Bahamas - open)

Outside the Tommy Bahamas is a large posterboard and a sign-up sheet with a pen on a string, and a selection of brightly coloured armbands made from various items within the Tommy Bahamas. Block letters in thick sharpie offer an explanation:

TIKTOK CHALLENGE: SURVIVE 1 HOUR IN TOMMY BAHAMAS
MUST WRITE DOWN NAME AND TIME STARTED AND WEAR ARMBAND TO PARTICIPATE
WINNER GETS TO PET A COUGAR
LOSERS AGREE TO BE EATEN

There’s no sign of Siffleur. He’s somewhere inside, waiting.

((additional rules here))

3. Tommy Bahamas Is for Lovers (Tommy Bahamas - closed to Jack)

Somewhere, over one of the various repeating men’s sections, Siffleur is bedded down in a selection of various throws. It’s comfortable and enclosed up at the top of the shelves, and he’s about to settle into a lull when a somewhat familiar scent comes to him.

It’s the man from the aftermath of the Halloween party. He raises his head, feeling a thrum of excitement. Siffleur slinks out of his hiding spot and makes his way along the tops of the shelves and racks, until he comes across the man.

Siffleur sits and waits, watching him and deciding his best point of attack.

4. greedy little kitty (Mikabo sushi bar - Open)

A regular at the sushi restaurant, Siffleur can be found sitting on a stool at the counter with a scattering of plates in front of him and around him on the floor. As always, he sits in his cougar form, content to paw selections off the belt and lap them up before discarding the plate.

Other entering passengers may get looked at, but not for long. After all, there’s always more sushi to eat. And perhaps most infuriatingly, he’s set up at the first position, so he always gets his first pick of the best sushi. If there’s a piece you want, you might have to speak up first.

5. Wildcard

As always, DM me to discuss.

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"Seems lonely," she says, so far content with what sushi makes it down to where she is. "But I mean. I guess you probably like it that way." Because he's a cougar, and she knows what they're like. She isn't like that, and can't be. "I was probably about that age the first time I met Daenan. The elf I mentioned. He tried real hard to make me a good elf."

Probably that age. She does not know for sure.

"I found out your name," Ylva says suddenly. She's not really sure why they're having this conversation as peacefully as they are, except that it's another way of feeling each other out. "It's Siffleur, right?"

"Loneliness comes and goes in waves. When it comes, I spend time as a man. When it goes, I spend time as a cougar." He licks his chops, and his whisker twitch at the ways she says it - tried real hard to make her a good elf. "Was that a good thing? Making you be an elf?"

At the mention of his name, he nods. "Yes, Siffleur. I was named after the river I was born near. And you are Ylva - I was told your name as well. I do not know why you are afraid the humans will turn on you. The ones who mentioned you speak highly of you."

Edited 2022-11-12 07:11 (UTC)

"I picked it out of a book, because I needed a name humans could actually say. But I like it."

Ylva pulls a plate of tuna rolls off the belt, and starts eating them with her fingers. "He meant well. And he taught me a lot of things I'm glad to know. But he was definitely trying to 'tame' me in a way that never really took." Mostly. Probably. "But I mean, humans have a lot of weird ideas about wolves, a lot of wrong ideas. And then they have ideas about werewolves, which I'm not, that's a different thing. I'm tough, but I'm not dumb. I don't want to fight the whole ship because of something that isn't even true. I wouldn't win against the whole ship if someone decided I'm a vicious animal that needs to be put down."

He wrinkles his nose. It seems his first thought was the right one. "Humans often mean well, but that does not mean they did well. I am glad he was not able to tame you in his way."

Even if he will likely fight and kill (or die to) Ylva in the future, he can appreciate that she is a wolf and did not need to be some elf's version of a human. She still does not need to be a human, but that is for her to decide, not Siffleur.

"Humans have wrong and selfish ideas about everything. They hold hypocritical views, and they invent reasons why a human can hunt a wolf, a cougar, a bear, but none of those animals can hunt humans." Siffleur nods to the rotating belt of fish in front of them, neatly organized on plates, made appealing to look at. "Why is this acceptable, but asking them to be part of the same system is monstrous? Selfishness, nothing more."

He glances at a bit of eel and decides to let his pass along to her. "But I do not believe this place would decide you are a vicious animal and put you down. For I am a vicious animal, and I have not been put down."

She laughs a little, soft. "Not yet, anyway."

Because there does seem to be an inevitability to that between them. Territory disputes are fine and normal, however. You defend your self, your home, and your pack. That's just how it is. You can have some sort of grudging respect for someone that way. Ylva takes the plate of eel, because eel is fine and good. "There's a cycle to life and death, and not everyone wants to admit they're going to die. So they take and they take and refuse to give back, and you can't do that forever. Even if you die quietly in your bed, they bury your body and worms and bugs and mushrooms eat you."

She pauses. "Well. Maybe not here."

"Not here, and I do not like their absence." His ears flicker as he wrinkles up his muzzle. "I am not used to my hunting grounds being so quiet, so empty. I wake sometimes and in that half-sleep before I am truly aware, I listen for the signs of the small things and the many sounds they make, and all I hear is... music from speakers. Human footsteps. That wakes me fully then, and I remember where I am."

He looks to Ylva. She of all creatures should be able to relate to this. The humans are used to a sterile and empty world, and Siffleur has spent enough time with them to expect the lack of sound when he wakes in a man's body. But not a cougar's body, not in the closest thing he can find to a forest.

Her expression turns to one almost of pain. She knows. Oh, she feels it, all her magic draws on nature and it's never quite the way it's supposed to be, here, and that's just on top of the sterile urbanity of this place. Even at home, she spent most of her time in the woods outside of town rather than living in it, where her friends stay. The ship is quiet in ways she hates, and noisy in other ways that she hates.

"It's a dead place," she says. "Nothing in the ocean, nothing in the wind, nothing grows. I hate it so much."

The shewolf may confuse him and infuriate him and make him want to torment her for amusement, but he does find a kind of relief in knowing that they both feel the same way about how empty this place is.

"I asked another about the excursions people take. I was excited to visit a forest again. But then he said that they aren't real forests, and there is nothing alive there. Now I wonder if it would be even worse to set foot in a dead place like that. At least on a ship like this, I expect humans to kill everything they consider a pest." He sighs, huffs, and sets his head on his paws as he watches the plates pass by. "I can't even catch pigeons to pass the time. It's just human sounds and human smells and human... everything."

"Mm. There was an island we went to. There were animals, birds, even these salamander-looking people. There was a chance to hunt, things in the sea I'd never seen before. It wasn't... it wasn't all entirely right, but it was more real than the desert we went to. Because yeah, the other excursion I've been on..." Ylva shakes her head. "The open space was nice, but it was all pretend desert. Nothing living in it. Just an illusion."

She gives a sigh, and pokes at her plate, having lost her appetite a little.

He huffs again. Worse news. All he can do is hope for the island kind over the desert. Even fake animals would be better than no animals...

"If the Captain can bring over people, why not bring over animals?" Though he thinks about it and his tail swishes a few times. "Hmm. Maybe not. They can't be talked to. Dying and coming back would break them."

And a prey too terrified to do anything but lay there and breathe is no prey at all.

"Mm. Yeah. I can't see a rabbit doing real well here. They're kind of in a state of panic at the best of times. And it would never have any place to dig a hole, so it'd just be exposed and panicking constantly."

Not a shape she's fond of being, honestly. Too stressful.

"And what would it eat? A rabbit can't get at the buffet table. So it would just be panicking, and starving, and then being killed by someone. I don't know if you can drive a rabbit insane, but that would probably be a good way to start."

"You can make anything insane if you torture it for long enough, but maybe not a rabbit. It would always drop dead first." Their little hearts give out so easily. He's felt them die from fear as often as from his jaws and paws.

He tips his head at Ylva. "You don't hunt people, which means you can't hunt at all in this place. Do you not feel the need to stalk prey? I know you are not like me, not exactly, but you and I are both wild. Do you not feel the burning urge to hunt?'

"Yes," she admits, and sighs. "I do."

And sometimes this means she will happily play fetch with someone, and she doesn't feel ashamed about that, at least not enough to overpower the brief relief of chasing something, in some form. "It's easier if I'm in this shape, you know. Different instincts. I don't want to do it all the time, but... it's easier. That, and this place is really easier if you have thumbs."

Ylva wiggles her fingers at him.

He chuckles a little. At least she isn't actually human, just using this shape to bind herself. And he nods. "There is nothing so useful as thumbs. But there are many things that can still be done with paws, so long as you don't mind doing them poorly."

And he pushes one of the plates onto the ground, listening to the satisfying clonk as it hits the pile below.

"I seem to be a different type of creature than you and the others who change shape. I am who I am no matter my body shape. But it is easier to resist some urges if they are inconvenient to do." He swishes his tail a few times. "But, there is nothing one body does that the other cannot do. I know this well."

"Mm. There's different types of shapeshifting, at least where I'm from. I mean, there's werewolves and things, which is contagious and a lot of people say it's a curse, but I guess only if you don't want it and I'm not that anyway. And then there are things like dragons, who just can shapeshift. It's just a thing they are able to do. And then I had to learn how to do it. It didn't come naturally. I mean, I'm real good at it now. Obviously."

Ylva shrugs. What shape she started in is not the point. Amaterasu said she's a wolf, and she is going to hold onto that forever.

"But yeah. I'm a wolf whatever I'm shaped like, but some shapes are useful in neat ways."

"Obviously." He agrees, having seen Ylva in action. She's very good at changing her shape. He lifts a paw to his mouth and gives it a few licks, working his tongue between his claws to give them a quick clean. "My kind of shapeshifting required practice as well. When I was small, I was loathe to do it. It hurt so much that I would choose one shape and stay in it for as long as I could, until I was forced to switch. But the joys that came with changing made up for any pain that came as well."

"Did you have a pack before you came here?" He tips his head towards the shewolf, pausing to chew on one claw. "Were you among wolves more often, or humans?"

"Mm. Humans, a lot. I had a pack I guess, but not a very normal pack. A human and a tiefling and a halfling and a lizardfolk. And there was a dragon we tried to take care of. He was just a pup."

Wait what's the right term for a young dragon? She isn't sure. Pup will have to do.

"We looked out for each other, and fought together, and they let me be more of a wolf when I needed to, and it was perfect. Not how you normally make a pack, but... it was still my pack." Ylva looks sideways at him. "But you're probably mostly alone, aren't you?"

"They sound like they were good for you." He might not know what a tiefling was, but the others are simple enough to picture and understand. No wonder she was so eager to adopt the whole of her ship as her new pack - she was already used to surrounding herself by assorted groups. Though he has to wonder - how often has she felt unsafe? How often did she feel sure that the people around her would turn on her, kill her, the moment they were afraid?

He swaps to his other paw. "It comes and goes, but yes, I am mostly alone. I am not a pack creature, but I have held company with others. Co-workers. Lovers. The mothers of my children. But I crave my solitude and by then, the humans and I are often ready to part ways."

Siffleur pauses in his cleaning, holding his paw somewhat awkwardly in the air as he thinks. "... this may be the first time that I will return to the same place when my season of solitude is over. That will be strange."

"Does that mean you'll hide out in the Tommy Bahama until you feel like being social again?"

It's... a solution, she has to suppose, to the need to be alone, but it's an odd one. And possibly not a very good one, considering how many people need to go in there in order to find clothes. Not everyone has the option to wear fur all the time.

"I think I will stay there forever. My roommate and I have come to an understanding but neither of us would be comfortable in close quarters together for long. The Tommy Bahamas is large, and I have built myself many nests. It is easy to be alone, and easy to visit with people as they pass through if I feel like it." And easy to find prey if he is unable to find enough willing volunteers. This is not said out loud because he is attempting to be civil here.

"It's strange. I should be at the point where even basic conversation has my skin rippling, but I have not reached it. Perhaps the difference this time is that I can speak as a cougar, and I do not need to be a man to be heard." Time will tell. For the moment, he's enjoying the novelty of it all. He sets both paws down again. "... and you? Do you ever feel the need to exist in your wolf skin? Or are you comfortable all the time in a human shape?"

"Of course I need that. Just because I'm comfortable like this some of the time doesn't mean I want to be like this all the time."

There are days she wants to be one, and days she wants to be the other. Sometimes she takes a nap on the deck in the sun, warming her fur or feathers (as the mood takes her). She sure won't be telling Siffleur where she likes to sleep in public, though.

"Don't you ever sometimes want to be your human shape, because it makes it easier?"

"I am often in my human shape. I wear it when I visit the buffet because it is difficult to serve myself without thumbs, or when I wish to smoke, or to drink at a bar. I sometimes wear it when I fight, since there are times when human hands are better than claws. I wear it when I have sex with humans. And sometimes, I wear it just because I cannot stand to be in my cougar shape."

But that is not one of those times, so here he is with all his fur and whiskers and paws, gorging himself on sushi since he doesn't need to pick up anything with fingers. Plates are so easily taken off the belt, though they are more easily discarded on the floor.

"I was human for longer periods before the ship, for months at a time. I'd live among them, work their jobs, talk with them, sleep with them, do everything humans do. Then it would be too much, and I would leave for the wilderness to be a cougar for months and months." He perks up as he spots another octopus rolling by, quickly pawing it towards him. "That is how I have lived my life before now."

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