voice testing this sulky jerk

[smilederek]

Just so we're entirely clear on this: You do not need an icon of me rolling around on the floor shirtless, and no I do not do it all the time.

And just for the record? There is a difference between undergoing involuntary bodily spasms due to being electrocuted and "rolling around".

Comments

[smilederek]

[There's a tilt of his head, and his tone changes very slightly, as he replies:]

Selkie, I have absolutely no intention of going looking for your skin, or trying to use you as a sex slave.

[He's not being flippant. He doesn't say it as if it should be obvious, he's just straight out saying it.]

[selich]

I know that! [it's snapped in reply.]

But there's some things where you just don't fucking go there and saying that I like the thought of - [he's not even going to say it] well that's fucking one of them!

[smilederek]

I did think you were being flippant. Making another innuendo.

I'm sorry.

[Tone's not changing here. He mistook a genuine concern for another attempt to make him feel uncomfortable, Lochlann's pretty thoroughly entitled to snap at him for that shit.]

[selich]

[breathe]

Look, I like winding folk up and messing with straight guys as much as the next person - 'cause let's face it, if we were both human, you could boot the shit out of me and get away with it.

But I'm not some sicko. That's just... Yeah, I know what the stories make it sound like. But stories lie.

[smilederek]

I could do that and get away with it anyway.

[DEREK NOW IS NOT THE TIME.]

I don't think you're a sicko, and at no point in this conversation have you given that impression. You just seem like a flirt.

Have people made those decisions about you before?

[selich]

Oh, fuck off.

[That time it was flippant and jokey. The Art of Swearing.]

Not me. [Someone close to him, then.]

[smilederek]

[You get the smallest, ghost of a smile, before it gets chased away by seriousness again.]

Someone else, though?

[selich]

Yeah.

[But that's about all he's getting out of someone who's usually chatty. So, non-sequitor.]

Is it just wolves where you're from? We've got the whole lions and tigers and bears thing going on.

[dum-dee-dum, because they're not talking about that.]

[smilederek]

[He'll leave it for now. But yep, he's putting this conversation in his little book of memories to be pried into later.]

You hear about other things, from time to time. Occasionally something else'll come passing through and need to be dealt with, but I've certainly seen more wolves than anything else.

What else is there?

[selich]

[He cay try, anyway. In the meantime, Lochlann starts to reel off.]

Vampires and werewolves are sort of like America and Soviet Russia - the two main superpowers and a Cold War going on. Then you've got every other were-being you can think of. And I mean that. Bears, birds, big cats. Even spiders and elephants, I've been told.

You've got the Fey, although there's not many that interact with the human world. Most of us hate cities. They stay within the Seelie and Unseelie courts in their own realms, but now there's a faction called the Abseelie court, which is just a huge clusterfuck.

Oh, and witches. They won't let you forget them in a hurry.

What you encounter depends on where you are. Edinburgh has more ghosts than a couch has spare change. Not a lot of vampires - that's Glasgow. We attract an international crowd, what with the universities and just the world being what it is today. Not as big as London obviously. Fuck, don't even get me started on London.

[smilederek]

Interesting. I'm starting to wonder if I've only seen werewolves because I live in such a backwater.

How do you deal with each other? Is it like an entirely separate community, or do you all just blend in with the humans?

[selich]

Sort of both? Let's stick with werewolves as an example. Now, wild wolves died out in the UK a long time ago, so most werewolves have to assimilate with humans. But there have always been wolves in, say, Romania. So some werewolves there live mostly as wolves. And you get some purists who won't even have anything to do with humans or those who live amongst them.

As with relations with the rest of us... It depends. Wolves and other were creatures generally get along okay? I mean you lot boss around like you own the place. The ravens have a laugh about that, but they're not going to do anything about it. Witches and wolves have a good relation, especially the covens that practice moon magic.

I mean, you're always going to get some knob-ends trying to spoil it, but what can you do. It's kind of like rival football teams. Sometimes a match ends well, sometimes it's like Celtic versus Rangers.

[smilederek]

[Well, damn. He's actually starting to feel just the tiniest bit daunted by how much he straight up doesn't know.]

And what about you? Do you live in one of the courts, away from the human world? Or when you talk about Edinburgh are you speaking as one of it's residents?

[selich]

Selkies are kind of...seperate. There's small colonies of us between Shetland and Orkney, around Scandinavia, and the waters between Ireland and Scotland. We don't interact much with humans.

I'm the exception; I was found on a beach when I was a baby. Social services picked me up and I was adopted by a human family. Didn't even realise what I was until I was about sixteen. So yeah, I live in Edinburgh. [jokingly:] Student by day, but at night I fight crime.

[Which is kind of true, despite the way he tells it.]

[smilederek]

It sounds like you got extremely lucky.

How did you find your skin, if you grew up thinking you were human?

[Derek should feel guilty about how one-sided he's letting this conversation be, but he's a man of few words when he's not telling people off...]

[selich]

[Lochlann is the opposite - blind people with inconsequential shite that will stop them from looking too closely. Derek, unfortunately, has a knack for asking all the questions he'd rather not answer.]

I didn't. It was like a change; painful and messy and it put me in the hospital after.

[Which is as close to the truth as he feels like telling.]

[smilederek]

[It's his inner Alpha coming out. He wants to know exactly what he's dealing with in Lochlann, and all the gory details that come with that.]

Sounds familiar. I'm sorry to hear it went so rough for you.

Did it take you long to adapt?

[selich]

Yeah, well. [There's some closed off arm-folding. If there's one thing that grates it's those kinds of apologies. Even if Derek is being well-intentioned.]

Something like that. [Enjoy him being purposefully evasive.]

[smilederek]

People around here seem allergic to giving straight answers.

[selich]

Some people don't like explaining their whole life story to someone they just met, bossy knickers.