Of Talks and Treasure

[Beaver Dude]

The first coherent thought that Xaldin had upon exiting the corridor was : ‘wet.’

His incoherent thoughts didn’t bear mentioning.

(_{GIVEITBACKGIVEITBACKGIVEITBACK-})

It dripped off the walls, licked at his feet and surrounded him in a humid embrace – not unlike the boggy swamp they’d been into and out of so recently. The pink, fleshy walls reminded him of something living though he couldn’t quite articulate that – just an instinctive ‘I can relax. I can relax. I can relax.’

His second coherent thought was warm.

Xaldin collapsed to his knees and breathed deep, letting it fill him.

He wasn’t sure what the horned creature from Prydain was (EVILEVILEVIL), but it could consume lives. He’d felt his own slip away – fragments of his very soul gone off to feed some sort of demon beast. The chill still hovered at his fingertips, threatening to consume him. For a moment of weakness and he just lay there, in the surprisingly clean waters.

Now where was he? And had the rest made it out of there intact?

[/blockquote]

[lysander]

Cow. Boy. Hat.

Lysander lay within the corridor, a wet and dirty mess of a prettyboy. He remembered only a few of the events on Prydain. Splotches of color that painted a whole picture. He'd arrived, chased a pig, and then he had been in a swamp and there was something very... bad. He didn't know how to describe it other than living evil. Something with the world that was very wrong in the natural world.

And then that world had been crushed, he was sucked through a portal, though he didn't remember making it, and now he lay on something that held a strange cushiony softness.

Pillows. He thought, Pillows in the rain.

And that was the thought that pushed him to force his muscles up, getting wobbly legs beneath him and falling back against the wall behind him. He hadn't yet even opened his eyes, and he could tell he was in some place that held an odd comfort to him. And then he doubled over and had a fit of coughing.

[Beaver Dude]

Xaldin dragged himself to his feet, leaning against the moist warmth that was – yes, his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him – flesh. Whatever beast it belonged to didn’t seem to mind – despite a firm grip on the inner linings there wasn’t the merest stir. A few related thoughts later and he realized what exactly he had, in his haste to escape, created a portal into.

He heard coughing nearby. Splashing. One giant heartbeat. Ignored all but the last.

“Of all the irony,” the lancer said, not entirely sure why it was he felt the compulsion to speak, “Eleven sought you for so long – we thought you’d disappeared completely. And here you are.”

“Lucky for you, I’m just here for-”

Xaldin had nearly stepped on the cowboy before he noticed him. A brief foray into his short-term memory and he realized that he had known he was there but had decided to ignore him. He checked his fingernails. Cyanosis. Shock.

Well, that would explain the sudden disorientation and lack of comprehension.

Was it a purely physiological reaction? Shock didn’t require an emotionally traumatic event to occur – blood loss, fractures and all other sorts of events could account for it. But without the associated physical event…

Fear?

Well, regardless, one pink cowboy accounted for.

Having nothing more intelligent to offer, the lancer managed a : “Hey.” Before nearly blacking out and forcing himself to grip to the fleshy walls for all he was worth.

[/size]

[lysander]

Lysander opened his eyes and for a second everything was dark; a sensation like blood draining from his eyes followed and with agonizing slowness the cowboy's vision cleared. His lips parted and he let out a wispy breath. Lysander had been living between life and death for far too long to have an overly obvious physical reaction, but despite that he was still shaken.

He would try to get a grip on himself, the only thing that a man could do in that situation. What's the first step? Find something and focus on it. And so he focused on the first big mystery; his surroundings. Where was he, and why did it look so strange, and maybe it would help to find out how he'd gotten here in the first place anyway.

A streak of mud was left across his cheek when a bony knuckle wiped across it. "Ah, hey."

[/color] A murmur rumbled past a throat. "You're that guy from the... from the... The pig."[/color][/size][/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Xaldin took a few steadying breaths. There weren't many situations that warranted losing composure and appearing weak but the after-effects of nearly losing one's soul seemed to warrant extreme reactions. Xaldin would have counted his heartbeats, had he one.

In its stead he merely listened to Monstro's - ponderously slow and incredibly large. He could feel it, through the veins and arteries that laced the walls.

Baaaaa..... dump..... Ba.......

The cowboy spoke.

He was not entirely coherent. Xaldin could not check on the size of his pupils in this lighting but expected them to be dilated. No doubt Vexen would have been fascinated: there were very few reported cases of near soul loss. Documented, anyway.

Xaldin was somewhat less sanguine about the whole affair.

"... the pig."

Well, all things considered, it was marginally less insulting than 'mutton chops' which was wildly inaccurate. He had actually given an order to chase after the oracular pig, Hen Wen, after all.

"Yes." Xaldin replied before realizing it was useless. It hadn't been a question, just a statement.

Huh, it appeared he wasn't entirely back together either yet.

He offered a hand up. He remembered that such gestures had inspired a sense of... camaraderie. Once upon a time. A useful thing to exploit.

And he had a passing academic interest in what the cowboy had done. He hadn't seen the faintest whiff of Wind magic, and yet things had moved anyway.

"Did you see what happened to the two others?"

[/size]

[lysander]

Lysander's red eyes caught the other man's glove, and after a moment's hesitation, his hand swung against the other's with a clap, and he smiled up at Xaldin with a broad grin. The grin of a soldier who had barely survived, and done so alongside another. Maybe this guy and himself were enemies, or maybe they were comrades, but either way they had evaded death together and that was something inexplicably important to Lysander.

Using the other as an aid to pull himself up, Lysander managed to shake off the last of what was majorly effecting him. Even so, the dreadlocked man's question caught him by surprise. Lysander couldn't really remember the events surrounding his soul nearly getting sucked out. "I... uh, no not really. But if we portal'd outta there, I bet they did."

[/color] He wondered how close they'd been. Lysander knew the closeness and distance between people, and he wondered what Xaldin was thinking, and he wondered exactly where they were.

"Ugh. Where are we?"[/color][/size][/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Ah. A smile.

Xaldin offered one of his own though he was certain that it'd appear nothing more than a rather unhealthy grimace. It was rare that his prior existence had smiled much at anything save battle and a rare word of kindness from-

Well. That didn't matter anymore.

"I bet they did." The cowboy responded, honestly, as far as Xaldin could tell.

And his gust instinct was to agree. Axel and Roxas had revealed themselves to be tenacious, if nothing else. It would no doubt be a poor expenditure in energy to contemplate 'rescuing' them when they likely required no aid whatsoever.

Still, he'd order out some of the lesser Nobodies the moment he was well enough to return to the castle.

"I believe we are in 'Monstro.' A giant, space-faring whale." The lancer replied. "It was rumored to be lost or possibly dead. Fortune seekers sometimes seek it out - it has collected the debris and remains of ancient civilizations and its treasures are supposedly vast."

There, a plausible reason why he'd know of it, and a distraction to boot.While there few things still sacred amongst the Organization - letting people know what their day job was, was still quite off-limits.

[lysander]

Lysander folded his arms over his chest, considering the possibilities of such treasure, and the implications it had on his future. Briefly he weighted the issue of morality, of removing expensive items from the wreckage of dead ships, and decided that morality held no sway in this situation. They were dead, he was alive, problem solved. And thus the plausibility of collecting riches sounded quite appealing.

"Monstro huh? Sounds like a fairytale."

[/color] Then he looked up and down the corridor of meat they stood within. "But, if we're inside it, then that means... Ugh-!"[/color] Mashing his fist against his lips and doubling over he almost lost the ether and eggs he'd had for lunch; much to the assured pleasure of both present, his meal stayed down, and he shook his head at the prospect of wondering around some giant monster's innards.

"I take it you're one of those fortune-seekers then? I don't think we were ever officially introduced. Pleasure to meet you. Feel free to call me Callix. I'm a traveling entertainer."[/color] The cowboy tipped his hat in greeting. Lysander didn't exactly trust this other with his life, and so the first name was, of course, the fake one. But there was enough sociable pleasantness in his eyes to move past that distrust."It's strange, don't ya think? How fate brings people together like this?"[/color][/size][/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Entertainer, ah?

Well, it was time he cleared up a few misconceptions of his own. Pig man was accurate but misleading.

"Xaldin. Fortune-seeker... of a sort." He considered the last bit. The Fates were a somewhat blurry memory, but he remembered the loom, a peculiar eyeball and stitches through space and time. He didn't shudder at the blurry half-memory. "The Fates have a bad sense of humor," he replied, dryly and yet still somehow managing to keep a somber, serious air. "I... uh... I pray that it was not they."

Technically true. On very rare occasion.

He hadn't been a praying man (or Nobody) but death changed certain things. It was helpful knowing that even if they didn't give a crap, someone could-be, maybe, perhaps, out-of-sheer-boredom-and-in-a-moment-of-inanity listening to what he had to say if for no better reason than to laugh themselves off their ass.

Still, he didn't make a habit of it. Embarrassing enough how he'd died the first time, he didn't want his last recorded moments as being a pleading, whiny, weakling.

But if they were to offer help - well, he wouldn't be adverse to the notion.

"But let's make the most of this meeting. I wouldn't mind an extra pair of eyes and ears - Monstro can supposedly protect itself. I am not sure how."

"Don't move. I'm going to get rid of any lingering... taint."

Xaldin flexed his fingers and focused for a moment before expelling a blast of air that would have cleansed his system of any lingering darkness as well as the cowboy's. He doubted there was anything, but it never hurt to be... sure.

There was a moment of dizziness, but that was to be expected.

In a weaker voice: "Any direction is as good as another."

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[lysander]

Lysander nodded at the returned greeting, his smirk gracing his face despite the small odds of survival in this strange place. The fact that this guy had a relationship with fate was both interesting and comforting. Even though the larger, wild-haired man was the stoic type, they both had a shared tentative agreement with fate. Lysander himself felt as if he was constantly living on borrowed time. Every day was another moment that something allowed him to live, and although he was searching for what that something was, a fear lingered that death was the only thing that could be found.

The offer of teamwork and the magical assistance followed quickly after, leaving little room for Lysander to deny or say no, but with the lingering stench of death lifted came a realization that even given the choice, Lysander wouldn't have said no. Clapping the other on the back, the telekinetic nodded. "Thanks partner."

And then, with perfect synchronization there came a scream from one end of the hallway. "I suppose that's where we're headed then?" He gestured, taking a few steps in that direction, while looking to Xaldin for agreement. Even if the other didn't want to go, Lysander had already waved his hand, and a black duffel bag swung from his fingers; ready to save the day.

[Beaver Dude]

Well well well. It looked like this wouldn't be a boring enforced bout of R&R after all.

There were myths about archaeology. One of them was that it was fun. Xaldin had been around his fair share of ruins and nine out of ten times it was - as might be expected from a dead place buried for a few millenia - horrifically, utterly, absolutely boring. Magic and technology rarely stood the test of time and the only traps that tended to still work were holes in the ground and most of the time you couldn't tell if they were artificial or an accident in geology.

And excavating... pfffft. Only Lexaeus had the patience for that sort of thing.

Oh, it would no doubt be novel to do something of the sort inside a giant, cosmic whale but on the whole, Xaldin suspected that it would be rigorously boring and not entirely all that productive. He had no interest in the ancient customs and habits of dead worlds, merely their arms and artifacts.

He ripped one of his spears out of the darkness.

"It appears promising."

[/size]

[lysander]

Lysander's smirk only grew as the other appeared combat ready on the drop of a hat. "That's what I like to hear."

[/color] The cowboy replied, going down the one hallway as they were bid by the forces of fate. And as he traversed through the inner anatomy (which really didn't make much anatomical sense) of the giant whale, he had to pass through a few membranous doors that parted before him. It was strange how Monstro's inner workings actually worked.

And when the screams were at their loudest, not something human to be sure, though it still had a softer tone that wasn't immediately threatening, Lysander led the charge through a final layer of membrane. And he was led out onto a ledge of cartilage that over looked a cavernous area, half submerged in water. The far end had what looked like a jagged zipper of faded ivory made to a massive scale. If it was any indicator those were Monstro's teeth. The entire room was surrounded by fleshy pink tissue, and beneath them where the pool of water lay, an entire cove of shattered gummi ships lay. Against one wall was a white mushroom with a red cap, waving its arms wildly as irritated and inflamed tissue spat a sticky looking substance at it. The mushroom was having quite a chunk of trouble avoiding the stuff, but surely there must have been a way to soothe Monstro's frustration.[/size][/blockquote]