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CYCLE 120Current time: Apr 04 2025, 03:37 PM


Prepare for trouble (and make it double!) IN Main Area
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Valk-fae Silkwyrm

#1
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Life as a child stuck in Draco was slow, painfully slow. There were plenty of people to bother, but they had a tendency to leave to where Opal couldn't reach them, which was most other places. There was talk of training on the wind, perhaps some new fresh-spawn to play with - but she'd have to wait for that, and she hated waiting.

If only she was big enough to fight in that war everyone seemed to talk about so much! He was already great at killing insects, and rats, and whatever animal small enough for it to put in its (bottom) mouth. Though, if he were being honest, most of those deaths were accidental - it would be a waste of food not to eat them, and it was getting kind of sick of gnawing at those crystals, as delicious looking as they were.

Finding no company, Opal had taken to running in circles, its first of tongues lolling out of its maw, as the second face whooped and giggled and made SO much noise oh my god make it stop

It would not.

@Nidhogg

 
 
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Nidhogg was an incredibly dangerous thing to leave around small children, in general. Thankfully, V-Opal-One was not that small--not by Nidhogg's standards, anyway. But still, he'd probably have tried to snatch it up and make his way off and eat it if not for one serious issue: it had too many faces.

He was, at this very moment, clinging high up on Draco's cave wall, fitting himself perfectly into a crevice that mostly hid his toxic glow. He'd been drawn by the sound of rushing feet and loud... noises, the sort he couldn't immediately identify. But as he watched, he couldn't figure out where the hell V-Opal-One was looking. He was an ambush predator, and the scream of prey would draw attention and then Vargas would beat him up and that would suck, and if he couldn't tell where Opal was looking he couldn't tell when to safely attack. Like the eyes on a butterfly's wings, the double face held Nidhogg firmly at bay.

At length, his perplexity grew so great that he gave up on any idea of ambush, instead scurrying down the wall and rushing toward V-Opal-One to question it with loud abruptness: "WHICH ONE'S YOUR REAL FACE?!"

It was an exasperated demand, as much as rapt curiosity. He didn't know who this one belonged to (if anyone), what they were doing here, or even truly if they were part of the Forge but.

...Which one was the real face??


@V-Opal-One
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16
Nidhogg attempts to use Tactic — Assassins Guise ( hide SUPER good )
Successful!



 
 
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Valk-fae Silkwyrm

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She continued her aimless galloping, fuelled by the pointless consumption of time and energy it was, like a dog chewing at upholstery. Good thing that Vargas didn't keep anything like that around, and all it had to gnaw on was the landscape. Which, at that moment, it was considering doing again - or perhaps it could find Jasper and chew on them instead. This thought filled them with a mischevious glee, which they expressed in an ominous snicker.

This sound turned into yet another squeal as all of a sudden, there was a green and slimy lizard barking at them for some inexplicable reason. Unable to register Nidhogg as anything more than a new thing to torment play with, the noise was one overflowing with delight. All four lower limbs did excited little stamps against the floor as it tried to answer a question that it was not equipped to entirely understand.

"BOTH!" Shrieked the upper face, "NEITHER!" Hissed the other (seeing the lizard's loudness as all part of the game), and he exploded into giggles, delighted by his own contradiction. "I can speak with all my mouths and see through all my eyes. Can you?" Continued the upper, head looking down to examine Nidhogg's own set of peepers with a wide-eyed curiosity. They blinked, recognising some of the creature's aspects in their examination. "You are slimy, like Lab and the Jaspers. Are you family?"

Nevermind that hardly anyone used that word here.

@Nidhogg

 
 
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"It can't be BOTH and NEITHER. It can't be both of those. It has to be one! Or the other!" he protested, and then--jaws gaping threateningly--hissed. It wasn't clear why he was hissing, or even what, exactly, he was hissing at. Maybe he was just confused and frustrated. "I only HAVE ONE MOUTH. Yes, I can see out of all my eyes." He was about to insult this stranger, maybe call it names, hiss again or something, but--family?

He paused, studying it briefly. He himself had rarely used the word--Dragon had, though, and that brought back to the forefront of Nidhogg's mind all the little lessons the fat alligator had so studiously tried to teach him. Some had stuck--some had not. But they were inclined to make him less aggressive, at the very least.

"Maybe," he answered slowly, all his eyes narrowing. "Who's asking..?" And while it was said in a low, sinister hiss, Nidhogg immediately broke any illusion of threatening menace by carrying on in a much louder voice. "I am Nidhogg!"

Truth be told, he didn't really know how he and Labradorite were related. He did have a vague grasp that it must be, that a bunch of the Forge were interrelated, somehow, but Nidhogg's mindset consisted almost entirely of the here-and-now and right here and now was this funny thing with its funny faces.

He craned his head upward, arching his neck to peer down at the upper face--then crouched, scrutinizing the lower one. "...Can that one bite?" he asked, at length, reluctantly admiring it. It was, all else aside, creepy.


@V-Opal-One

 
 
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"You can't say that, one-mouth-haver!" It hissed back, but with no real intent behind it - it felt none of the frustration Nidhogg might've, just a giddiness at having some kind of control and absolutely abusing it. It loved making this conversation more complicated than it needed to! "You are LIMITED. RESTRAINED."

She watched the cogs turn in his little green eyes - what multitudes did this creature hold, she wondered? What had he yet to see? Having a new friend was so exciting, and Opal cherished every moment. "Vee-Opal-One!" It was slow with its pronunciation, still unused to her own name. "But you can call me Opal - Like my stone, see?" An arm pointed to its gem, nestled between its tail and rump. "Its very pretty, maybe the Master thinks so too?" Maybe he held an enthusiasm for gemstones - it'd explain the names she had encountered so far.

Anyways. "Nid-hogg...", It squinted, looking to her side for a bit - though it was difficult to tell. He looked back to meet his gaze again. "You have a nice name! It is new to me. Did Vargas name you?"

And finally, an answer to Nidhogg's last question. As he crouched to observe the lower face, all six eyes blinked - before the lower face snapped at him fiercely, missing his nose by a thread. Both mouths mirrored each other again, the unpleasant clack of blunt teeth coming from above, though quieter. It giggled yet again.

@Nidhogg

 
 
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#6
 
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"BUT BOTH AND NEITHER ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS," Nidhogg pointed out--quite reasonably, he thought, though he'd entirely wrecked the concept in his attempt to put it into words. Then he was craning his neck up and his head tipped down, in order to better see the black opal at Opal-One's hip. It looked very pretty, actually. "It has colors," Nidhogg said, in the tone of one begrudgingly admitting that yes, it was pretty and cool.

Nobody'd ever called Nidhogg's name nice, before, and he puffed up, so abruptly that it almost looked like a threat display: jerking into a high-standing position, neck arched like a stallion's, quills rattling out from his skin. "I named me! -I found the name!" he answered, proudly. "It's mine!" -and it wasn't a possessive statement, not really. Just very pleased with himself, indeed.

And he'd earned it, too. "I was V-Chaos-One but that's stupid! It was stupid!"

The sudden snap took him by surprise; he didn't realize, at first, that it was a mischievous answer to his question. Instead he jerked back, suddenly not preening, and hissed threateningly. -Then realized. "...DON'T TRY TO BITE ME. If you BITE at me I will BITE BACK!"

Threatening a child? Yeah, that was about on-brand.


@V-Opal-One

 
 
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Valk-fae Silkwyrm

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The Hogg (Or the Nid?) was very intent in his assertions. Opal didn't mind, or care for that matter. "What does both mean, what does neither? What makes a face true or false? I don't think my faces are either. I don't think yours is too. Where is your true face, Nid of Hoggs?" Words were weird. Words were fun. Words didn't have to make sense at all.

"Where is your stone? Where you named for it as well?" Head tilted, six eyes squinting - the other two disappeared behind the crest and forehead, staring upwards at the ceiling. If only she knew of the sky.

"You found it? Where?" She whirled around on all for feet, a short little prance as he scanned the surrounding for names - in the dirt, clustered amongst rocks, reflected in the crystals, whispered on the heavy humid air - It would be a wonder if something as ethereal as a name could make it that far. (More games, he knew that names did not work like that. It was fun to pretend that they did.)

Its focus snapped back suddenly. "You were named once, and then you changed it! How did you do that?! Were names not forever? Could names be altered? It did not think its own name was stupid - it was maybe a bit offended that Nidhogg thought his old name had been, his original being similar to her current. But the way it stumbled over the syllables sometimes, it was like a different language. One V-Opal-One was growing increasingly familiar with - one that he was not sure he liked.

He began his circling again, steps bouncy, as if he were weightless (He was certainly not, having two torsos on one end, and the activity was quite draining. Good thing it had quite a lot of energy to spare.) "If you bite me back I'll bite you... back back!" Thats how grammar worked, right?

@Nidhogg

 
 
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He listened to this stream of babbling, deemed it nonsense, and snorted. "That's stupid. That's all stupid. You're stupid," he declared. Again: insulting a child; on-brand. He tipped his head back--but not a lot, eyes keeping close watch on Opal-One in deep suspicion. If there were any sign it might go for his now-very-slightly-exposed-throat, he'd bite it! ...But he was showing off the Oilstone, for now, at his chin. "Here. It's on my FACE."

He lowered his head a moment later, shaking himself so his quills rattled--not a deliberate thing, but more like a dog shaking off dirt. "What-? I GAVE MYSELF A NEW NAME. I didn't like mine so I MADE A NEW ONE. It was stupid! -The old one! I always had the new one," he added, immediately contradicting himself. Truth be told he'd had the name 'Nidhogg' in mind from hatching, but explaining literally anything in a coherent fashion was a little beyond him. (The irony.) "I was named for it. CHAOS is CHAOS. This is CHAOS," he added, clawing briefly at his chin-stone to indicate it.

He listened very studiously to Opal-One's questionably grammatical threat-retort, and thought about it deeply for a moment. Time for a truce, then-? "OKAY. HERE'S WHAT WE DO. WE SAY--WE AGREE! NOT TO BITE EACH OTHER. Okay!?" he demanded.

That made sense to him. Then neither of them had to worry about that shit.


@V-Opal-One

 
 
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Opal sniffed, apparently offended by his dismissal. "YOU'RE stupid. You couldn't tell which of my faces was real. I know which it is, and I know yours too." To be fair, the asnwer was difficult to parse, and she hadn't made it any easier. But he forgot his anger long enough to stare at Nidhogg's stone, leaning forward dangerously close to his exposed neck. "Pretty! It shines every colour, even though it is only one. Like mine!"

The explanation, if you could call it that, confused him further - it did not enjoy the use of contradictions on itself. Call it a hypocrite, but she's only a child. "And THAT'S stupid too. How do you find your name if you always had it? Did you lose it? I haven't lost MY name before." He huffed, clearly winning this argument. This Nidhogg never stood a chance against its wit - simply obliterated.

"I agree. NO BITING - but you wouldn't catch me anyways." Out of the lizard's sight, the upper face smirked.

@Nidhogg

 
 
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"You're stupid," Nidhogg answered, but after the complementing of his stone it'd lost some of its venom. "I didn't lose my name! I just found a new one. You don't have a new one yet. You have to earn it or Master Vargas punishes you," except the name and title were spoken with thick, disdainful mockery. "MaStEr vArGaS" might have been a more accurate transliteration.

"And YES I'd catch you. That's what I DO. I CATCH and I KILL things. -After I BITE them," he clarified. "Anyway, your faces are dumb." Devastating retort delivered, he found himself growing bored. Oh-!

IDEA!

"What if we bite something TOGETHER?!" he demanded. Well--it was a suggestion, but it sounded like a demand. "We can find something and chase it and kill it and eat it!"

That sounded like a solid plan. And then he could PROVE he was faster. And better at biting. And had a better face!


@V-Opal-One

 
 



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