Breaking the Sky (M)

[Lion]

"Living most of my life in a hole, I think I can manage," Castor said, shrugging.  "Where are you from?" he found himself asking.  "Or hatched, as it were?"

[Draconian]

Xala rose an eyebrow at him.

"Hatched? We hatched out of our mother in the thunderblacks. A remote tribe. We're the odd one out," she shrugged and found a comfortable place to sit, rolling her shoulders. "And you? Where were you hatched?"

[Lion]

"Born.  I was born in Serendipity.  Or was it Adela...  I guess it doesn't really matter.  It was a shit hole.  Maybe I'm better off dying in here," he said with a nonchalant shrug.  "What was life like growing up in your tribe."

[Draconian]

Xala tilted her head, frowning slightly.

As far as she was concerned, she wasn't too keen on her new... Companion... dying. At least not in here. They probably had burial things to do and while she was strong, it would just be plain tedious to drag his dead body back out of here.

"Bad. Twins aren't wanted in our tribe. They're incomplete people because they only have one soul." Xala tilted her head, "We're vessels for dragon souls and if there's two bodies and one soul..." Xala shrugged, looking off to the side, "We didn't stay there for long. Tala went and did bounty hunting. Xana joined a gang of bandits and now here we are."

She went silent not long after, the room heating up from the fires below.

"We don't want you dying in here, Castor." Xala stuck her tongue out at him after a moment, scrunching her face up in the process.

[Lion]

Castor listened, quiet during her story.  She did say something like that before.  But there wasn't much he could do more than that.

"Why?" he asked, curious on her last statement.  "Why does it matter?"

[Draconian]

Why.

Xala frowned, looking at him a little confused.

"Well, it doesn't. Not really. We would just prefer not to have to drag your body out of here to bury it." A long look up and down his body, appreciating all the little things that made him so... Not a small human.

"That's what humans do, right? Bury their dead?" Her scaled hand moved to tap at her lips thoughtfully, "or do they burn them?"

[Lion]

Castor snickered at her explanation.  Oh, how very appropriate.

"Burn me, please.  I don't want to be buried.  If I wanted to die caked in dirt, I'd've stayed in the mining business.  Although I guess being here under a mountain...or wherever this is, isn't all that much difference."

He chuckled again.  "What about you?  What if you die?  Would you want me to bury you?"

[Draconian]

Xala smirked at him before giving a pleased clap of her hands.

"Burning! So easy. We can do that for you," She made a kissy motion with her mouth before she shook her head violently at the idea of being burried.

"Just leave us. We'll return to the earth. Or something will eat us," Xala shrugged, looking around, "The body is just a vessel. A thing that... traps souls of greater beings for a while." She shrugged and leaned in slightly, giving Castor an odd look, "Unless it's different for humans." She eyed his gauntlets, "Humans other than you."

[Lion]

Castor shrugged.  "Well, if that's what you want," he said, nonchalantly about it.  If that was really her desire, then so be it.  He wasn't going to argue semantics with a reptilian dragon woman thing, whatever she was.

"I wouldn't really know.  I haven't died yet.  But I'll let you know when I do," he said.  He gestured to the hole.  "Should be burned up by now."

[Draconian]

"Ha ha ha," she spoke, giving Castor an amused-but-not-really smirk. "We hope you do let us know when you die, it might be interesting." Xala stared at the gauntlets, before looking to here he'd pointed. Off to find more keys. Hurray.

"Do you suppose your soul gets sucked into them?" She stared at them, reaching out carefully before snapping her hand back before she made contact. A brief look over her shoulder at him before she made her way down into the hole.

[Lion]

He didn't answer that question.  And the truth was he didn't want to.  Castor had vaguely thought of what would happen if he completed this task, if he wouldn't just die in the process.  Or if the gauntlets wouldn't just adhere themselves to him even moren. Would he really be free?

Dwelling on such matters sullened his mood further, and after venturing down into the hole, he needed to keep a clear head.  "Looks like it's just straight ahead from here," he said, leading the way.

[Draconian]

"Well, it is a tunnel," Xala supplied helpfully, tagging along closely. The sour mood didn't go unnoticed and Xala, true to her strange self, didn't let it bother her. If he didn't want to ask the right questions, she supposed he wouldn't get the right answers. Though, she supposed the whole 'soul' business was a sensitive subject for some people. "So, are we headed to your salvation or just a puzzle piece of it?" She nodded to the gauntlets again, standing behind him oh-so-slightly.

[Lion]

"Another key I think," he sighed.  At least Xala was useful when she wanted to be.  He wouldn't say that about anyone else.  She could have the gauntlets when he died, but he wouldn't tell her that now.  With the oil removed, the tunnel opened up to a large cavern.  What else was new, he thought.

"I can't say I know what I'm looking for, but a key is a key right?" he said, smirking at her and started to look through the skeletal remains of those that died here.

[Draconian]

"A key is a key," Xala confirmed, frowning ever so slightly and looking around, pupils wide to catch in all the light. A quick lick of her teeth under her lips and she gave a little nod, "Except there's one lock for one key." Another smirk, "Unless she's a slutty lock. Then there are many keys."

She kicked over a skeleton, frowning at the bones before she rested her hands on her hips, "So... Bone key, maybe?"

[Lion]

Her jokes just glossed over him. 

Castor stayed focused, honing in on the details of the bones around them.  "It seems like a good enough start."  And he scrounged around for something that remotely looked like a key.  With so much little light in the cavern, he was having little luck until his foot stepped on a hand.

And a finger there looked twisted and gnarled, unlike any finger he'd ever seen.
Picking it up, he held it out for Xala to examine.  "Looks like a key to you?  Hm, a skeleton key.  Maybe it'll open the rest of the locks."  He certainly hoped for.  He was tired of wandering around in the dark.

[Draconian]

Xala's face fell almost instantly.

"Skeleton key?" she frowned, reaching forward and snagging it from Castor's hand she frowned at it, pupils going tiny in her badly veiled anger.

"Skeleton key." She confirmed, looking frowny.

"This one better get all the locks," She grumbled, putting it into a pocket, "We'll hold onto it, you lead us back to that stupid door." What were they even looking for again? Some arms? Castor's old arms? No... Some sort of wizard or something. Xala wondered, glaring at him, why she followed him, and then she remembered.

The entertainment factor was sky high.

[Lion]

"I don't suppose you're having fun are you Xala?  As much fun as a two-souled Xala can have?" he asked with a quirk of his brow.

[Draconian]

"One soul," she snapped, "we have one soul now. It was always one soul. Just in two bodies." Xala frowned at Castor and stuck her tongue out, "no. Not having fun the thing that owns your arms is going to get our fist in is face, we'll tell you that much."

[Lion]

"Fist in it's face. I thought that was my job?" he murmured, chuckling.  "You're not planning on taking all the fun and keeping it for yourself are you?"

[Draconian]

Xala snarled, an animalistic sound.

"We plan on punching who ever did that to you in the goddamn head!" A glare at his arms, "You're..." She frowned and looked at the key, remembering the door but... Damn if she could remember where it was. "Yes. How about you find him and then we'll skin him alive. That sounds better. We can just make you meat gloves to wear over your weird metal hands. Sound good?"