woah what a boona log without mer chaos

[broroona]

[Blades slice through the air with a whistle and get batted away easily. disappointing but still effective. The dog was catching on. In a way, that made it more fun. With a faint grin, Baroona follows up, darting under the glaive as it knocks the other blade away–his free hand snaps the cord back so the knife will return. With his other blade he stabs deep into the jackal's thigh and slices out. Tear some ligaments, muscles, something. By the way the creature howls and falters, it seems to have worked.

A snarl forewarns him–he looks up, the other side of the glaive comes down. Baroona leans back just in time. The blade enters his thigh–an eye for an eye–where it would've met his back. Fatal blow avoided, but he still barks in pain as the end is pulled out. It starts to swing down again; Baroona doesn't wait to move. Pushing off his back leg, he shoves the jackal to the ground in a tackle, wrestling and cutting with it until–with a knife buried in its throat–it stops moving.

With a heavy sigh, Baroona sits up straight, wiping the sweat from his brow and fixing the cloth around his face. On the corpse's armor, he wipes his knives clean, draping the cord around his neck as he pushes off its body to stand...

And promptly falls over into the sand. Great.

Frowning, he tries again; fails again. He keeps it up, if only because falling helps him close the distance between himself and the well nearby.]

Comments

[luxuriant]

[Every little motion says something, doesn't it? At least Zelos is lead to certain conclusions by the way Baroona reacts to his offer for help. He doesn't reply to the thanks or react to the use of his upper arm. He simply lets his eyes wander over in the direction of Baroona's nod, leaning just a bit that way (not enough to knock the poor guy off balance).]

Hmm? That rusty old thing?

[The why? is pretty implied there, but he'll shift his attention back down to the stranger's leg.] Hang on, I'll do you one better.

[Why hobble over to it when he can walk, right? That's Zelos' line of thinking, at least, and he doesn't wait for any opinion on the matter before calling up his spell. A magic circle appears below them just as Baroona will notice a warm, soothing feeling taking over his leg and healing the wound.]

[broroona]

[WOW NOPE SHOVING YOU AWAY. Which leaves him stumbling back and–thankfully–out of the circle. Sand gets into his partially... healed cut but he grits back the pain, gripping his knives and watching Zelos with a mixture of fear and anger.]

That's not what I asked.

[Also not what he expected. To see in his life. Ever. He stands with great struggle but manages, biting back the pain as he puts weight on the semi-injured leg. It's easier to do now, but that doesn't mean he's solaced. Readjusting his grip on the knives, he holds them out, glancing at the gash as well as he can before blinking back to Zelos.]

What did you do to it.

[luxuriant]

[The shove gets Zelos to take a few steps (or half-stumbles, really) back and blink in surprise. There's just a bit of a dry laugh at the question though, and he's raising both hands in a casually defensive motion.]

Whoa, come on, what's your problem? I healed it! [There's a pause, and he lowers his hands, staying firmly in place. He'd rather not have to deal with dodging knives right now, honestly. Too much effort.] And I would have finished if you hadn't shoved me away like that. You're standing, aren't you? Take it easy and I can do the rest.

[broroona]

No.

[YOU TAKE A STEP FORWARd ANd HE'LL TAKE A STEP BACK, SWEAR TO GOd. Also cut you. It's pretty likely with how warily he's regarding Zelos. Always facing him, Baroona takes slow steps back towards the corpse.]

How did you heal it? [Still, despite his fear, there's a bit of curiosity tinging the question. Or maybe it's just innocent naivety–something that increases as a thought occurs to him. He takes a moment to consider it before blinking up at Zelos.]

... Are you a god?

[Not that he believed in them but the jackals pretty much proved that this place was insane. Gods were the only ones able to use magic–what's to say a land this crazy didn't have any wandering around? Baroona lowers his weapons slightly at the prospect. Threatening a god probably wasn't a good idea by anyone's standards.]

[luxuriant]

[Over the time that Baroona is talking, there's a slow shift in Zelos' way of holding himself. By the time that question comes out, it's something of a radical change for the observant. The way he settles all of his weight onto that leg of the hip where his hand is resting and lets his mouth settle into a frown. The pause is brief after the question, but it's heavy enough.]

No. [And it's quickly shot down. Firmly, without any sense of joking, unlike the tone the rest of his words so far had carried.

Still, he stays put, free hand lifting in something of a conversational gesture. His tone lightens up along with it, but it's still not messing around in the way he had been before.] I'm a human. I've just had magic injections with the latest in Tethe'allan technology. ...It lets me use magic.

[broroona]

[The severity of how he says it is probably the most comforting thing he's done, to be honest. It erases any doubt of lying, gives him a solid answer and a small glimpse at what he was truly like. A basis to feel more grounded.

Not that the rest of his explanation shares that. Baroona's expression remains largely neutral but there is the slightest tension between his brows. Like Zelos, a clear sign for the observant at how lost he really is.]

That doesn't make sense.

[luxuriant]

Neither does showing up off of a train to another universe, or a desert cavern with its own sun under the museum.

[Just saying. His eyes move from Baroona to the jackal on the ground beside him and then back again.]

Are you gonna waste our time arguing about how it doesn't make any sense or can we call things fair and keep moving? I mean, it's up to you if you want to keep trudging along with some beat up leg like that. It just means you're going to have to rely on help again at some point.

[broroona]

[The words are true enough–(the moving on, bit. To hell with believing he actually was brought somewhere. denial is a land that suits him fine.)–and Baroona agrees with them, crouching down with a grunt and grabbing the glaive. He uses it to stand back up, turning it from a weapon into a walking stick, albeit a deadly one. When he relies on it to take his weight, walking becomes easier. No less painful, but it's not the worst he's felt.

Leaning on both staff and injured leg, he uses one of his knives to cut a long strip from the bottom of his shirt.]

"We"?

[The wound is big enough to need a significant amount of cloth. His shirt starts to become a belly-shirt, the majority of a large stomach scar now visible. He breaks off the strip when it looks long enough, padding and wrapping the wound while he speaks.]

You don't need to stick around.

[luxuriant]

[So he's going with the trudging on route, huh? Zelos huffs out a laugh, breaking from his standing still the minute Baroona relents to take a few steps closer and kick at the lifeless body of the jackal, observing it. His observing of Baroona is just as shamelessly obvious with the way his eyes trace over that scar, but at the very least he manages to stay silent as he looks out over the desert.]

Don't get all touched, now. I'm just saying that it looked to me like we're going in the same direction. [He shrugs like it's a normal thing to suggest, waving out towards the well and beyond it.]

Unless you've had enough, that is.

[broroona]

I've had enough of looking at your hair.

[He could be serious by the way he says it (he's not), tying the wrappings and looking up.]

You know the way out?

[Although Baroona's conflicted he wants to leave. The city he was brought to is new, confusing, and boring all at the same time. Here–however strange it is–he at least has the comfort of fighting.

Although his leg might make that a bit hard.]

[luxuriant]

[Rude. Then again, Zelos gets rude most of the time (and brings it on, in fact) and so he doesn't reply verbally to that first comment. He does, however, bring a hand up just to flip his gorgeous locks over his shoulder more properly.

Too bad, this hair isn't going anywhere. As for the question?]

More or less. [He mainly says that to be a jerk, shrugging lightly along with it. It's half true though. He knows the general direction, but he's been down in this desert for a while, and it's not exactly close.]

Have you just been down here wandering lost or something?

[broroona]

More or less.

[He speaks and moves casually but his eyes never leave Zelos. Tucking down the cloth over his mouth, he fishes in his pocket and withdraws a cigarette. One of his last ones. He tries not to think about that, tucking it between his lips as he pulls out a lighter. One modern invention that he's more or less embraced since his time here. With the cigarette lit, he takes a deep inhale, blowing the smoke out to the side.]

Is the exit far?

[luxuriant]

[That earns a wider smirk from Zelos, who seems less worried about keeping eye contact with the other. It's not a matter of trust or underestimating the guy; years of training with an exsphere and undergoing angel transformation make it so much easier to pick up on surroundings. He can look even more casual than he really is.]

It's pretty far. [He admits it with a shrug, pointing off in the general direction.] At least the one I know of is. A place this big might have several.

[broroona]

One's good enough.

[He needs more cigarettes, okay. That's pretty much his main motivation for wanting a way out.

Limping over to the well, he places a hand on the rim, turning his body towards Zelos.]

You got anything to carry water?

[luxuriant]

No.

[He watches Baroona for a moment before stepping towards the well himself. Keeping his distance but not too much of one, he leans against the rim of it and peers in before looking over to the guy.]

You didn't bring a canteen or anything? [Zelos personally doesn't need one, but he'd rather not focus on that part of it all.]

[broroona]

[Baroona shakes his head, watching Zelos from the corner of his eye.]

I don't have anything else but what I've got on me.

[And now, a dry look in his direction. Which is pretty much every expression of his so.] I wasn't planning on getting trapped down here, either.

[A beat. He uses his tongue to roll the cigarette across his lips.] Why didn't you bring one?

[luxuriant]

I don't have anything like that.

[To emphasize this and introduce something else, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little pouch. Taking a gel from it, he tosses it Baroona's way. It's red and like a jello type capsule.]

If you don't want to deal with magic, at least take some medicine for it. It's an apple gel. [He's really hoping at least that sort of thing is familiar (any of it? come on, any?) so that he doesn't have to explain or deal with more stubborn resistance.]

[broroona]

[Medicine, he can do. Catching the gel with ease, he looks at it, clearly confused. After a minute or two of staring at it, he looks up in disbelief at Zelos.]

This looks nothing like an apple.

[And looking back down at it in his hand, wiggling it a bit to test it. Nope, still doesn't look like any medicine he's ever had.]

Do you eat it?

[luxuriant]

Seriously? Man, all of this dealing with uneducated bumpkins is driving me nuts...

[He says it like he doesn't understand that people come from different worlds and cultures here. But alright, alright.]

It's a gel; it just tastes like apple. A little. Eat it and your wound will heal up.

[broroona]

["Bumpkin". Baroona frowns at the term but doesn't protest. It's true, more or less, and you can't protest the truth.

Looking back to the gel in his palm, he sighs softly, downing it in one go. It slides down easily, leaving both bitter and sweet tastes in his mouth.]

It's weird.

[Washing it down with some water that he scoops up in his hand before wiping his mouth clean and limping past Zelos.] Let's go.

[luxuriant]

It helped, didn't it?

[That sort of thing can't be denied. The mana goes straight to the wound to help in seconds. It's no life saver but it's a great substitute for a first aid in a pinch. He does move at the comment 'let's go', but there's a mildly incredulous stare that goes along with it.]

What did you come down here for, anyway? [Finally he voices a question like that, pointed stare not moving from the guy even as he relaxes with his arms behind his head.]

[broroona]

It was getting hard to breathe. Wasn't that the same for you?

[He asks the question but he doesn't really care about the answer, trudging on ahead with little care for the pain that's still shooting up his leg. The apple jell-o worked, the wound wouldn't get infected, the pain was less–what more could he ask for?]

[luxuriant]

So you were hiding.

[Casually enough. Just enough to seem insulting, probably, and that was done on purpose. Not like Zelos was one to talk, but he was curious. And that just leads to more questions.]

So why try to get out now? I don't think things are going to be improving any time soon.

[broroona]

Am I supposed to be ashamed of that?

[He pauses–mostly to exhale another cloud of smoke. The free moment does allow him to dig into his pocket, though. Withdraws the almost empty carton of cigarettes, jostling it so Zelos can hear how few are left.]

I'm running out.

[Pretty much the stupidest reason to place yourself in death's way, but whatever.]

[luxuriant]

Not really. Live to fight another day, right?

[He shrugs, though his eyes do fall on that pack only to laugh in disbelief. He has to stop in his tracks to wave it away and get things straight here.]

Wait, wait, wait-- you're telling me that you're about to deal with all that crap again for a lousy pack of cigarettes?