[ He scowls to himself when Jack's back is turned, following after Rousma who has now finally burst through the door, sniffing some invisible trail towards the bathroom.
Kahlil summons a plate of nachos and cheese for himself out of thin air, finding himself a seat at one of the tables. He calls over to Jack. ]
( He calls back, his voice just maybe like... one octave too high. He busies himself with filling a plastic nacho container with small amounts of slushee — probably easier for dogs to drink out of those than cups, right? The latter seems like a recipe for getting a cup vacuum sealed around her snoot. )
Also, doing like... so many magic lessons. Just. A lot of them, all the time. It's been keeping me pretty super busy, just so much... stuff, all the time.
[ The dog reappears from her sniffari to seat herself next to Kahlil. He offers her a glossy cheese glazed nacho that she practically slurps up without chewing. Then he summons a bowl of her own. ]
Are you really?
[ He sounds genuinely surprised - or at least unable to tell if Jack is being serious or not. But hasn't he noticed him hanging around Yennifer's classroom...? ]
( A moment or two after her nacho slurping, Jack sets the little plastic container of Blurple Drank down for easy consumption, then reaches up to absently give her a pet on the head and a quick scritch behind the ear.
As weird as this conversation is, he does suddenly understand the appeal of therapy dogs. She's totally making it easier just by existing adorably in his general direction. )
Sort of. ( He hedges noncommittally, and then abruptly pivots the conversation to: ) Hey, since when have you had a dog? Has she been here the whole time, am I really that oblivious?
[ The answer gets a frown. Between you and Wilhelm...
The dog leans into the scritch before digging into the slushee mix, lapping it up with a surprising daintiness that is leaving little mess so far. And because she doesn't need her mouth to talk, she answers first: ]
Blood and blood - sometimes fleshies and sometimes bones.
[ With that she hops off the seat to the floor, Kahlil's gaze fixed on Jack.
The dog lies down on the floor, head on its paws and eyes closed. At first it goes still, like it's sleeping, but after a moment it starts to shudder unnaturally, as if something is moving beneath it - and then something is, a child-sized, skeletal hand peeking out beneath the fur, then another, as it pulls itself up. Her head only comes up to just above the table, her bones held together with copper wire and carved with strange runes. Eyeless sockets stare at Jack. ]
( Kyle's eyes are fixed on Jack. Jack's are fixed on the not-dog. The not-dog that apparently decided to take a nap, and then immediately... have a seizure?
Oh, no, never mind. False alarm. That's not a seizure, it's just a skeleton crawling out of a dog's corpse.
He opens his mouth. He closes his mouth again.
My sister.
A beat. )
Well, now I feel a little silly for the cat in a dog costume guess, which I just realized I never actually said out loud and you never had to know about that. Cool. ( Look, he's processing, and he has brain damage. He doesn't have the capacity to do that and maintain a filter at the same time. Almost in the same breath as cool: ) Hey, um. Kyle? Why is your sister a skeleton puppet jaeger piloting a fur suit? Also, I'm not sure she should be drinking that much sugar. Also, what the fuck?
[ While this is all happening, Kahlil has slowly been breaking apart a single nacho between his fingers, snapping it into smaller pieces and then inevitably dust.
His mouth forms a line and he turns to Rousma. ]
Go play for a little bit, okay?
[ She gives a little nod, and scurries off toward the other aisles. The dog body remains motionless on the floor. Kahlil frowns at the crumb pile of nachos in front of him. ]
She appeared a few weeks ago when everything was... strange.
[ You know, right before you started avoiding being in the same room as him. ]
She looks like that because... I don't know. They made her into an oracle, living bones. I think it would be harder if she looked the way she did... before. But now that she's here, I'm not going to make her go away. Even if she's not real.
[ This is a bad explanation. Somewhere, her little bone heels click on the floor and bags crunch. He shrugs. ]
I think she might've jumped into a dog the last time I saw her. But I don't know if that's real either. When everything went wrong two years ago - I think she was destroyed with the rest of the church.
[ He forgets how much Jack actually knows about this. Either way, the point is that as much as he's recovered and gained some understanding of his memory, there are still things that contradict and he can't explain. ]
( So, he stands by the whole not in the top 50 weirdest things sentiment from a minute ago, but he absolutely can't deny there's something a little inherently unsettling about watching a child skeleton held together by copper wire go jangling its rickety way down the aisles on its own.
My sister and I were separated when the church took us. I promised to come find her one day.
He remembers that conversation. He might not be the most emotionally intuitive person, but even he can hazard a guess at how significant this must feel. Having her here, having her show up on her own, existing even if she isn't explicitly real.
Could he get rid of Sabine, if she showed up? If she felt just real enough to be more sweet than bitter? No. Of course not. He doesn't even need to spend any time contemplating the answer to that. He absolutely couldn't. )
I get it.
( Is what he settles on saying finally, just in case Kyle's expecting some kind of voice of reason about this whole situation. Sorry to disappoint, but rational, emotionally healthy counterpoints won't be coming from him. )
I have a pretty tenuous relationship with the definition of reality, and it's usually only ever in a bad way. If you get the chance to find some good in it for once... ( He shrugs a shoulder. ) Having something's better than nothing.
[ His mouth twists to one side and he doesn't seem ready to be wholly convinced of that - better than nothing.
He misses her, is what it comes down to. He forgot how much he missed her.
He wishes he didn't sometimes dream about her asking him not to go.
Kahlil leans back in the booth, looking out the window. Skittering little feet come around the aisle again, holding something in her small hands. She sets it on the table: a garden gnome. ]
( Agree to disagree. Jack just has a stronger than usual inability to let go sometimes. He's stubborn like that, and just mentally fucked up enough to accept a compelling delusion. At least, he is if it's her. )
Thanks. ( He says politely to the horrifying bones of a child. ) Just, um. Don't touch the ones with the green hats. They bite.
( It occurs to him he legitimately can't remember the last time he interacted with a child, or if he's even any good with kids. He likes them, sometimes.
...Sometimes.
The not obnoxious ones.
This one seems okay, considering she's a skeleton.
It also occurs to him that this is kind of a terrible place for a kid and... also most dogs. Other cautionary warnings start flaring up in his mind one after the other. The most pressing one: )
Also... don't go near the dumpster, the raccoons are pretty intense. Most of them are probably okay, but Rita might... ( What's the best way to put this to a kid? Probably not the way he actually does, aka bluntly blurting: ) Rita might try to eat you.
Rousma stares up at Jack, then to Kahlil who looks back at her. ]
Rahk-oon?
Like large ganal, with masks and sharper teeth.
[ She nods, then quickly scurries back under the sleeping dog. Its body shudders, and to look close at it Jack might notice something unnaturally moving beneath its skin before it opens its golden eyes again.
( Frankly, watching her squirrel her way into a dog corpse is just as unsettling as watching her bones jangle around. At least once it's on she's back to being super cute, but it's going to take a while to shake that mental image. )
Yeah. ( Said with the casual shrug of one shoulder. ) She's- well, technically she's not really a raccoon. It's kind of funny, actually, I call her my dog back home but she's definitely not a dog.
( Man, he misses her.
Wait. This is the Horizon. Technically, couldn't he...? )
( He sounds... mostly confident. At the end of the day, Rita's hardly a domesticated creature. She just happens to sort of listen to Jack a solid sixty-ish percent of the time. )
But either way, she's not real, so.
( You'll probably be fine.
He's less certain about Rousma, who even knows how that interaction works? One imaginary thing eating another, is that permanent or just as free of consequence as it is for them? Better to not find out, probably, and not let her wander around the dumpster alone.
If Kyle agrees, Jack will lead the pair of them outside and around the building. From the ether, he produces a hefty bag of dog food, which he gives a loud and pointed shake. Along with it, a short doggy whistle, and a call of: )
Rita! C'mere girl! Dinner!
( From beneath the building comes a stirring. A rumbling. Two massive paws bigger than Clydesdale hooves emerge, followed by a sniffing snout — and then bursting from behind the dumpster comes Rita in all her glowing green glory. Nine or ten feet tall were she to stand, two scaly wings folded against her back, practically more dragon than raccoon.
He splits open the dog food bag and dumps a hearty amount directly into a bucket. Rita grabs massive fistfuls in her thumbed paws and begins to shove kibble into her maw, grumbling and growling contentedly. )
Kyle, this is Rita. Rita, this is Kyle. He's good, okay? Kyle is friend, not food.
( If Rita absorbs any of that, she gives absolutely no indication. )
[ He's not sure what he's expecting. He recalls raccoons from old memories. Chores at a shared house. Taking a plastic bag of garbage outside, dragging a trashcan to the street. Getting startled by what at first he assumed was a cat, but turned out to be twice the size. It hissed at him and skittered into the dark.
This is... not a raccoon or a dog.
To be fair, Jack did tell him that...
His eyes have gone a little wide as he shoots a look at Jack, then back to the dragon-raccoon-creature. ]
Nice to meet you, Rita... [ Does she understand English? ]
( Rita lifts her eyes away from the pail of dog food, and levels them at Kyle long enough to let out a slobbery hiss in a way that isn't outright threatening, but also isn't... very pleasant. It could mean anything from if you come near my food I will immediately claw your eyes out to who cares, fuck off to hello.
He has no fucking clue.
Rita goes back to dunking kibble in a nearby puddle and stuffing it into her mouth.
Jack shrugs one shoulder, and offers an optimistic-sounding: )
I think she likes you.
( At the very least, she doesn't dislike him. That... that would be way more obvious. )
[ He doesn't have any particular animal handling skills, so - he's putting his trust in Jack right now with that response.
There's something almost... cute about the way she washes her food. And despite the slobbering, something strangely and horribly beautiful about her wings. The green is much more saturated than he's ever seen, but it faintly reminds him of the tahldi back in Basawar, a coloration that isn't found in furred beasts in Nayeshi that he can recall right now. ]
I'll remember to bring her food next time. [ French fries and bacon. Or whatever these little pellets are. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Kahlil summons a plate of nachos and cheese for himself out of thin air, finding himself a seat at one of the tables. He calls over to Jack. ]
Spending extra time in the library these days?
no subject
( He calls back, his voice just maybe like... one octave too high. He busies himself with filling a plastic nacho container with small amounts of slushee — probably easier for dogs to drink out of those than cups, right? The latter seems like a recipe for getting a cup vacuum sealed around her snoot. )
Also, doing like... so many magic lessons. Just. A lot of them, all the time. It's been keeping me pretty super busy, just so much... stuff, all the time.
no subject
Are you really?
[ He sounds genuinely surprised - or at least unable to tell if Jack is being serious or not. But hasn't he noticed him hanging around Yennifer's classroom...? ]
Is it helpful?
no subject
As weird as this conversation is, he does suddenly understand the appeal of therapy dogs. She's totally making it easier just by existing adorably in his general direction. )
Sort of. ( He hedges noncommittally, and then abruptly pivots the conversation to: ) Hey, since when have you had a dog? Has she been here the whole time, am I really that oblivious?
no subject
The dog leans into the scritch before digging into the slushee mix, lapping it up with a surprising daintiness that is leaving little mess so far. And because she doesn't need her mouth to talk, she answers first: ]
Blood and blood - sometimes fleshies and sometimes bones.
She's not really my dog...
[ She lifts her head to look at Jack. ]
I shows you if you promises not to shout.
She's not really a dog...
[ Kahlil looks at Jack, uncertain about this. ]
no subject
Yeah, he's not even going to put in the effort to guess what that's supposed to mean. )
I'm not really a shouter, so.
( He returns with a shrug.
Go for it. Whatever it is, it probably won't be the strangest thing to have ever happened in this gas station. Probably not even in the top fifty.
Although admittedly if this turns out to be a cat in a dog costume, it will be pretty unexpected. )
no subject
The dog lies down on the floor, head on its paws and eyes closed. At first it goes still, like it's sleeping, but after a moment it starts to shudder unnaturally, as if something is moving beneath it - and then something is, a child-sized, skeletal hand peeking out beneath the fur, then another, as it pulls itself up. Her head only comes up to just above the table, her bones held together with copper wire and carved with strange runes. Eyeless sockets stare at Jack. ]
... this is my sister, Rousma.
no subject
Oh, no, never mind. False alarm. That's not a seizure, it's just a skeleton crawling out of a dog's corpse.
He opens his mouth.
He closes his mouth again.
My sister.
A beat. )
Well, now I feel a little silly for the cat in a dog costume guess, which I just realized I never actually said out loud and you never had to know about that. Cool. ( Look, he's processing, and he has brain damage. He doesn't have the capacity to do that and maintain a filter at the same time. Almost in the same breath as cool: ) Hey, um. Kyle? Why is your sister a skeleton puppet jaeger piloting a fur suit? Also, I'm not sure she should be drinking that much sugar. Also, what the fuck?
no subject
His mouth forms a line and he turns to Rousma. ]
Go play for a little bit, okay?
[ She gives a little nod, and scurries off toward the other aisles. The dog body remains motionless on the floor. Kahlil frowns at the crumb pile of nachos in front of him. ]
She appeared a few weeks ago when everything was... strange.
[ You know, right before you started avoiding being in the same room as him. ]
She looks like that because... I don't know. They made her into an oracle, living bones. I think it would be harder if she looked the way she did... before. But now that she's here, I'm not going to make her go away. Even if she's not real.
[ This is a bad explanation. Somewhere, her little bone heels click on the floor and bags crunch. He shrugs. ]
I think she might've jumped into a dog the last time I saw her. But I don't know if that's real either. When everything went wrong two years ago - I think she was destroyed with the rest of the church.
[ He forgets how much Jack actually knows about this. Either way, the point is that as much as he's recovered and gained some understanding of his memory, there are still things that contradict and he can't explain. ]
no subject
My sister and I were separated when the church took us. I promised to come find her one day.
He remembers that conversation. He might not be the most emotionally intuitive person, but even he can hazard a guess at how significant this must feel. Having her here, having her show up on her own, existing even if she isn't explicitly real.
Could he get rid of Sabine, if she showed up? If she felt just real enough to be more sweet than bitter?
No. Of course not. He doesn't even need to spend any time contemplating the answer to that. He absolutely couldn't. )
I get it.
( Is what he settles on saying finally, just in case Kyle's expecting some kind of voice of reason about this whole situation. Sorry to disappoint, but rational, emotionally healthy counterpoints won't be coming from him. )
I have a pretty tenuous relationship with the definition of reality, and it's usually only ever in a bad way. If you get the chance to find some good in it for once... ( He shrugs a shoulder. ) Having something's better than nothing.
no subject
[ His mouth twists to one side and he doesn't seem ready to be wholly convinced of that - better than nothing.
He misses her, is what it comes down to. He forgot how much he missed her.
He wishes he didn't sometimes dream about her asking him not to go.
Kahlil leans back in the booth, looking out the window. Skittering little feet come around the aisle again, holding something in her small hands. She sets it on the table: a garden gnome. ]
It sneaky sneaks in the snackies.
no subject
Thanks. ( He says politely to the horrifying bones of a child. ) Just, um. Don't touch the ones with the green hats. They bite.
( It occurs to him he legitimately can't remember the last time he interacted with a child, or if he's even any good with kids. He likes them, sometimes.
...Sometimes.
The not obnoxious ones.
This one seems okay, considering she's a skeleton.
It also occurs to him that this is kind of a terrible place for a kid and... also most dogs. Other cautionary warnings start flaring up in his mind one after the other. The most pressing one: )
Also... don't go near the dumpster, the raccoons are pretty intense. Most of them are probably okay, but Rita might... ( What's the best way to put this to a kid? Probably not the way he actually does, aka bluntly blurting: ) Rita might try to eat you.
no subject
Rousma stares up at Jack, then to Kahlil who looks back at her. ]
Rahk-oon?
Like large ganal, with masks and sharper teeth.
[ She nods, then quickly scurries back under the sleeping dog. Its body shudders, and to look close at it Jack might notice something unnaturally moving beneath its skin before it opens its golden eyes again.
Kahlil gives Jack a funny look. ]
Rita?
[ You name your raccoons? ]
no subject
Yeah. ( Said with the casual shrug of one shoulder. ) She's- well, technically she's not really a raccoon. It's kind of funny, actually, I call her my dog back home but she's definitely not a dog.
( Man, he misses her.
Wait. This is the Horizon. Technically, couldn't he...? )
I could show you, if you want.
no subject
Also
He squints. ]
Will she try to eat me?
no subject
( He sounds... mostly confident. At the end of the day, Rita's hardly a domesticated creature. She just happens to sort of listen to Jack a solid sixty-ish percent of the time. )
But either way, she's not real, so.
( You'll probably be fine.
He's less certain about Rousma, who even knows how that interaction works? One imaginary thing eating another, is that permanent or just as free of consequence as it is for them? Better to not find out, probably, and not let her wander around the dumpster alone.
If Kyle agrees, Jack will lead the pair of them outside and around the building. From the ether, he produces a hefty bag of dog food, which he gives a loud and pointed shake. Along with it, a short doggy whistle, and a call of: )
Rita! C'mere girl! Dinner!
( From beneath the building comes a stirring. A rumbling. Two massive paws bigger than Clydesdale hooves emerge, followed by a sniffing snout — and then bursting from behind the dumpster comes Rita in all her glowing green glory. Nine or ten feet tall were she to stand, two scaly wings folded against her back, practically more dragon than raccoon.
He splits open the dog food bag and dumps a hearty amount directly into a bucket. Rita grabs massive fistfuls in her thumbed paws and begins to shove kibble into her maw, grumbling and growling contentedly. )
Kyle, this is Rita. Rita, this is Kyle. He's good, okay? Kyle is friend, not food.
( If Rita absorbs any of that, she gives absolutely no indication. )
no subject
This is... not a raccoon or a dog.
To be fair, Jack did tell him that...
His eyes have gone a little wide as he shoots a look at Jack, then back to the dragon-raccoon-creature. ]
Nice to meet you, Rita... [ Does she understand English? ]
no subject
He has no fucking clue.
Rita goes back to dunking kibble in a nearby puddle and stuffing it into her mouth.
Jack shrugs one shoulder, and offers an optimistic-sounding: )
I think she likes you.
( At the very least, she doesn't dislike him. That... that would be way more obvious. )
no subject
There's something almost... cute about the way she washes her food. And despite the slobbering, something strangely and horribly beautiful about her wings. The green is much more saturated than he's ever seen, but it faintly reminds him of the tahldi back in Basawar, a coloration that isn't found in furred beasts in Nayeshi that he can recall right now. ]
I'll remember to bring her food next time. [ French fries and bacon. Or whatever these little pellets are. ]