May 2022: Augustine the First catch-all

[butnotyet]

Who: Augustine the First and ____________ (This could be you!)
What: A little bit of everything, including Event threads, and who knows what else
When: Throughout May
Where: Specific locations listed in TLs.

Content warnings for this character: Explicit gore/body horror as a baseline, probably omnipresent (high-level necromancer); callous and amoral outlook on life (jaded AF); very high likelihood of mentions of death/suicide/weaponized-sexuality in basically any and all interactions.

Specific warning for this post: A profoundly offensive number of conversational lyric-drops in the thread with Anna. It's fantastic.

Comments

[mehanizovati]

Well, that's just more moths instead of a hat. Viktor takes a moment to just regard the moths flying off, wondering now if this is a Trench thing or a this moth guy thing. In a way he's a little worried for the guy, the last time bugs were around the Trench they were those butterflies that drained people like hope vampires, and this man seems... well, a little out of it?

Again, hard to say, since he doesn't know the man. No skull face paint so not one of the Ninth people people, probably. Not a teenager, so not one of Pal's gaggle of unruly teens. Who were the others... maybe that emperor Palamedes mentioned?

"She may be whatever a 'hellbender' is for all I know, I've never been given a proper explanation for what exactly her species is," Viktor answers with a one shouldered shrug as Rio's tongues do indeed dart out, tasting the air but so far no, not long enough to be a problem. "She's my omen. Usually she does not cause trouble."

Usually. He does have to squint at moth man a moment before his vague concern compels him to ask, "Are you well? Given the butterflies last month your eh... your flock of moths is a touch concerning."

[butnotyet]

"Type of salamander, I think," answers Moth Man On Porch, sitting up slightly to peer down at Rio and her tongue...s? "Usually only one tongue, though, so far as I recall. You've seen her like before, though? Before you were here?"

Slightly belated, relative to his shifting, several of the moths rearrange themselves; some of them fly up to join those first two in the porch ceiling. "And these? These are just death's-head moths, I think... Terribly peaceful, actually."

A thoughtful pause. "More like the little orbs that were dropping around last month's lepidopterae — they eat, I don't know, plants or some such, I think. Not human flesh." He picks one up and examines it briefly, and if his eyes are glittering almost as much as its are, well — who's going to be able to see that, from all the way down by the fence? "Not sleeper flesh, regardless," he amends. And back to Rio: "What kind of trouble does she cause, when she feels like it?"

[mehanizovati]

"Hm, close then. I've been told she's a pixiemander but, in truth I think the man might have been eh... fucking with me, would be the term." Viktor shrugs, then, "Yes, I met her when I was young, and this is certainly the same one. She is a rare mutation, there are no others like her."

Well, as long as they aren't eating him that's probably good. They look simple enough, and eventually he'll see for himself that it's just the darkblood thing of the month with how many bugs Palamedes will make.

"Hopefully not your blanket either," he points out, before glancing to where Rio is still trying to follow the skeleton from behind the fence. "She forgets her own size and sometimes will jump on people she likes, for one. She likes to chase things that interest her, like your eh, your skeleton. If there's water nearby she will climb into it if possible and make a mess, things of that nature. "

[butnotyet]

"Presumably just as well, then, that there aren't any active water features in the yard," he observes, as he continues to observe the giant amphibious omen. Can omens be amphibious? Are they even in the same plane of existence as Sleepers, on a day-to-day basis? Alfred seems to swim through the air as readily as he moves against physical objects, whether they're the floor or some sort of three-dimensional option — furniture, humanoid bodies, whatever. If he's tried moving through water, he hasn't told Augustine about it yet. "Although at least water usually doesn't make too much of an irreparable mess — so long as you aren't ending up in a fountain at a library, or something like that...?"

He trails off suggestively, inviting the tale of the time that was absolutely the sort of trouble Rio caused — mainly because he still hasn't actually done anything to, say, open the gate, or actually invite the sidewalk-man and his amphibifriend inside to pester the skeletons more closely.

"I don't actually think this thing can be destroyed," as he flips the edge of the blanket about demonstratively, peering down at it. "Whether or not they want to try."