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[Noven]

They were running for their lives, feet hitting stone hard and breaths beginning to rasp. It was make it or break it. Getting caught was simply not an option.

Nov stayed in the lead out of sheer will and speed, but he knew it wouldn't be long before he would have no idea where to go. Fortunately, Keene was aware of this, shouting out directions as they shot past the dormant golem. The merc didn't even have time to grunt in pain as they nearly plowed into a pair of doors. He just pushed right through with the Initiate in tow and turned a sharp left in unquestioning obedience.

Several times, he could feel his companion stumble behind him. Those boots were still clunky at best and the ill fitting clothes couldn't have helped. Not to mention Keene was now running on completely foreign limbs, amongst other things. Noven veered from those thoughts about the same time he did another corner and tightened his grip around Keene's delicate wrist. If he left bruises, he would have to apologize for them later. There was no telling what kind of progress Overseer Telemeran had made so far and Nov sure as hell wasn't sticking around to find out.

The Initiate panted that they should run for the trees. Wasting no time with why's or how's, Nov ran right on, maintaining his grasp on Keene to ensure neither one of them stumbled. By the time they reached a copse of barren looking trees and deemed it safe to stop--or more like reached the limits of their burning muscles and lungs--the merc was about ready to fall face first onto the cold dirt. But he kept himself mostly upright, taking large, shallow breaths as he placed both palms against his knees.

"That's...kind of...the thing," he grumbled between paints in response to Keene's part accusation, part question, "I wasn't thinking."

Noven straightened and looked around dismally at their surroundings. His recovery had been phenomenally fast. He liked to fancy himself a rather active person, but this...this was a whole different level of wellness. This was a strength and speed that felt like liquid power and usually seen in things with four legs. Despite the brutal pace at which they'd just bolted from Vestibule to hills and valleys, Nov felt like it had only been a warm up. A preliminary stretching and activation of muscles made for this very sort of thing. Just a few chimes worth of rest and he was ready to go again. Itching to go again.

"These petching ears and tail..." he explained after a momentary pause, "...they make it hard for me to concentrate on things that aren't running and killing."

Upon realizing this, Nov looked over to Keene with a mildly apologetic kind of expression. "You alright there? I know those boots don't fit so well anymore." It was about the closest thing to a 'sorry I almost broke your legs and kind of maybe turned both of us into lifelong dungeonmates with Cryptly' as he was going to get at that moment.

The merc turned to check downhill behind them for the tenth or so time, ever paranoid that the next time he turned his head a hoard of Nuits would be chasing after them.

"Where is this place..." he muttered.

Of course, there was also that looming question of what they were even going to do, now that they were fugitives on the run. Noven's first priority on their imaginary list of agendas would have been to fix whatever the hell had one man looking half dog and the other a full woman. But if Keene didn't know how to fix it, or where they could go to get it fixed, then other issues had to come first. Like where they would stay, for how long, and if there would be anything to eat. Cause he was suddenly starving.

The man wasn't entirely sure everything they found within these parts would be edible. In fact, he wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they came across one or two things that wanted to eat them instead. But there was no turning back for the time being, and they needed something to sustain themselves until they figured out what sort of petched up sorcery got them into their current states. Well, Noven did. Keene might have sustained himself purely with stoic looks and icy glares from the way he'd been eyeing the merc all this time.

Nov checked his belt; he still had his Tamos, at the very least. Maybe if they hunted something down, they could skin it and cook it...but then the fire might give them away...

His stomach growled.

"You hungry by any chance?"

[Keene Ward]

Keene slumped to the ground as Noven replied, finding his legs and body weaker than it had been before - which was a feat in and of itself. His panting continued as he leaned back onto his hands, his calm stare the only stable thing about him for the moment. His shirt slipped down over his shoulder; his hair splayed across the ground to tangle in the debris of the trees; his legs stretched out before him in the epitome of one who had been pushed to the limits. Had his body not been so fundamentally warped, Keene had no doubt he would have been able to withstand the exertion. As things were, however, he merely tried to catch what breath he could as he listened to that man's explanation with a fair amount of passive disdain. His response wasn't entirely surprising, but it did little to instill any sort of confidence in Noven's problem solving abilities. At the very least he was willing to share that he was fully aware his mind wasn't nearly as rational as he might have liked it to be.

Not having enough free air to sigh, Keene merely let his eyes drift off of the infuriated - and surprisingly still energetic - fox-boy and onto their surroundings. The surrounding trees were, perhaps, about four in total, though one was barely more than a thick twig with some branches poking out of it. As far as cover and concealment went, the little grove was hardly at the top of the list of desirable contenders, however it served the purpose well enough. Keene doubted Overseer Telemeran would send anything after them and out into the wilds. The automata weren't much for fighting, and if there were ones suited for combat, Keene was certain they would be far too expensive to waste on a fox hunt. If anything, there was the potential for some of the Wardens to come looking, which was problematic, but not necessarily the worst thing. If any of the others did show up - and they were not those he'd already met - they were going to be in a considerably worse off position. Keene rather preferred that they might just lay low until he could get Atziri's attention without her incinerating them. The more he thought about it, however, the more he figured fighting the entirely of the Warden initiates sans Daren was a better and more potentially successful plan.

Noven blamed his foolishness on his new extremities, and Keene only stared back blankly. "I wasn't aware a tail could rob you of reason." There was no aggression in the statement, but a small amount of Keene's annoyance did make it past his filters. He knew little about morphing beyond the fact that it was a form of magic. How it all worked exactly, down to shared attributes and such, he had no idea. If the partial transformation had indeed altered Noven's psychology along with his physiology, Keene wondered if it had had a similar - though more subtle - effect on him. Finally having caught his breath, Keene arranged himself into a more comfortable stead position, crossing his legs and placing his hands upon his knees. Noven's concern was hardly touching, but Keene preferred the man worry about as little as possible. The more focused Noven was, the marginally better. "I'm fine." In respect to what Noven inquired about, he certainly was. As far as his current bodily predicament however, he was gradually finding it less and less ideal. The smaller frame was not only more petite but physically more frail. If he were stuck in the form indefinitely, Keene wasn't sure how many seasons it would take for him to be back to where it had taken him the majority of a single one. Starting over was hardly appealing, however if he were stuck, it was an inevitable future assuming they weren't killed before he could figure out a way to clear their now nefarious status.

Noven's second question, if it could be considered as such, was in the right direction. Keene turned to gaze between the trunks back towards where they had come from. He was surprised to note they'd traveled a much greater distance than he had thought, and no form of movement from the stony walls was certainly a good sign. He let his head slowly swivel, taking in the surrounding area and comparing it against the cognitive map he'd slowly built since his arrival and placement in the ranks of the Wardens. They were a comfortable distance from both the mountain as well as the Testing Grounds, and as far as he was aware, not in any particular jurisdiction of any of the Wardens. As for where they were exactly, Keene's guess was as good as Noven's. So having no useful reply, Keene let the man's flicking ears and twitching tail attempt to ascertain their location on their own.

Keene instead busied himself with the possibilities as to the how and the what of the magic they had been subjected to. There was no indication that morphing was not permanent, but both Kinapak and Daren had seemed to have a basic form that they used as a sort of neutral starting point. This meant there was a possibility the forced transformation was temporary, though it was just as likely it were permanent. Keene found no reason to get Noven's hopes up, at least for the time being. There was also the possibility it was a magic separate from morphing, a new school he had yet to learn of. If that was the case, however, his magical knowledge was completely useless. Deciding to allow the potential for a completely unrelated magic to float around his subconscious, Keene concentrated on what he did know of morphing to figure out a plan. As far as he was aware, the transformation process had been similar to what he'd seen Kinapak do at the beginning of the season. The initiate, however, had been in control of his magic rather than merely affected by it. Keene frowned deeper. If they had no way of controlling it, he wasn't sure if it could be reversed. He didn't feel a strain on his djed, which meant the transformation was either self-sustaining or incredibly subtle in its funneling. Either way it was problematic.

Noven's question came around the time Keene arrived at the conclusion that he had been right in assuming he was unable to do much for either of them. "Hungry?" His paraphrased echo had a tint of the bell like soprano chime Keene found to be highly counter intuitive to the gravity of their current state. He looked down at his stomach, pausing before he replied as if the organ would simply tell him how it felt. Looking back up at Noven with a blank stare, Keene heard the man's stomach growl. "I see." He had not packed any food with him beyond what sat in his room in the Quarters. Keene pushed himself to his feet, wobbling slightly before finding his balance. As his eyes peered about the grove, he spotted a familiar fungus and frowned. It was Waat's Nest, an edible mushroom, however one that Atziri had suggest he not ingest raw. Edible was edible, however, so he shuffled over and plucked them from the decomposing wood they grew from. Turning, he offered them to his companion with a slight frown. "You can eat these." He decided against full disclosure. Noven was excitable enough without the aid of potential side effects from eating questionable food found on an island that was surely as unnatural to him as Noven was to Keene. If the fungus would stay the man's hunger for the time being, it was all the better to keep his mind on the problem at hand. "There are more around if these aren't enough."

[Noven]

On any other occasion, Nov might have found the Initiate's snark striking the typical chords preceding the tune of a brawl. But as things stood he was too busy alternating between coping with his new extremities and fretting over the emptiness of his belly.

Grrrrooowwwwlll.

He clenched his hands into fists and resisted the urge to whimper. Eyes darting all over their barren surroundings, the merc finally understood why predators were so brutal. The only difference between the Citadel and the rest of the island was that there were less things in the former trying to eat you than the latter; he hadn't even had the time to scrounge up breakfast and the recent sprint was taking a massive toll. If only it wasn't so petching hard to find basic things like water. Did the dead really not need water, even for other reasons, like...laundry or something? Anything? And here Noven had spent his entire life thinking the daily struggle in Sunberth was bad enough. Now he knew better.

There was a stretch of silence before he'd asked his question and Keene answered. And when the Initiate spoke, it was with the crystalline timber of a young woman, forcing his companion to remind himself all over again the events of the day. Krysus, it was hard not to feel startled sometimes. The transformation was so flawless it was almost getting more and more difficult to believe Keene hadn't been female this entire time.

At the very least, the Initiate seemed to have a plan. He rose unsteadily to his now too-small feet and wobbled around a bit, scanning the ground as though she were scavenging for something. Noven's gaze tracked Keene motion by motion. He couldn't quite discern all of the bizarre compulsions fighting for control in the confines of his now partially alien body, but he firmly told himself that eating the only other person to share his predicament was out of the question.

When Keene returned, one hand full of what Nov could only assume to be the strangest mushrooms he'd ever laid eyes on, the merc gave the frowning blond an incredulous stare.

"You want me to eat these?"

Perhaps it was just the stress of the moment at work, but he got the funny feeling Keene wasn't telling him something. He knew full well that if the Initiate wanted to poison him he could and would have done it long ago. And likely without growing a pair of pert little melons in the process. Still, Nov didn't relish the idea of eating raw fungus. Even a city bred dog like him knew putting raw mushrooms in your mouth was generally a recipe for disaster. But they didn't have the luxury of making a fire, let alone the conveniences of cooking utensils. Smoke on this barren hill of theirs would be seen from miles away.

Sighing, Nov accepted the mushrooms and pocketed them for later. The idea of munching on fungus was about as appealing as eating grass was to a wolf. But circumstances were what they were. He would try to forget his hunger for now. What was a few more bells of an empty stomach when they had so much more pressing matters to consider?

Somewhere in the back of his head, Noven had the ridiculous hope that they might happen upon a rabbit or deer, and then he could have a real meal. But realistically speaking his chances for catching anything on four legs, weaponless save for his Tamos, were close to nil.

Depressed by the very thought, the merc gave in and withdrew one of the lumpy mushrooms from his pocket. He turned it round and round in his fingers, sniffed at it, tossed it once up into the air before catching it--everything he could do to delay the inevitable. Then, rubbing it against one of his sleeves to clean it a bit, he sank his teeth into the spongey flesh with all the eagerness of a criminal being led to execution.

Chewing gingerly and trying his best not to make a face at the strange taste, Nov asked, "Where to now?"

He looked around them one last time, already working on his second piece of fungus. "Think we should move...doesn't feel safe staying here for too long." Syna was already beginning her slow descent from her lofty perch. If they didn't find some sort of shelter before then, things could, against all imagination, get infinitely worse.

[Keene Ward]

Noven was not pleased with the offer of the only food available, and Keene wasn't surprised by the lack of confidence in his voice. When he'd lived in Zeltiva, he'd never ingested anything that he hadn't bought from the markets. Fungi had not been part of his daily list of foodstuffs, and the first time he'd eaten Waat's Nest had been a handful of days after he'd collected it. The flavor wasn't bad when it was cooked, but Keene could only guess what it would be like raw. He wasn't interested enough to try himself. At his question, Keene frowned, slightly retracting his offering hand some. "I want you to to focus." If the mushrooms would only cause problems, Keene was prepared to retract them. Noven, however, eventually took them after a few ticks of thought. His reluctance was nearly palpable as he stuffed them into his pocket. Keene nodded, satisfied that the man now at least had a way to quell his hunger.

Turning away to gaze around the immediate environment, Keene's frown deepened. He wasn't sure how far in any direction they could go before they would be in a more dangerous domain than the empty space immediately around the citadel's eastern ramparts. If they moved too far in any direction, they would wander into more dangerous areas where they would have to defend themselves. Noven had his strange looking weapon, and he had his magic if things escalated past the point of acceptable risk. Still, Noven didn't seem particularly inclined towards smart fighting, and in his diminutive body, Keene wasn't sure how much control he'd have over his res for precision casting. If he could help it, Keene wanted to avoid any unnecessarily obstacles until he could think of a way to get them back to normal, if it were even possible. Though he gazed out from behind the trees, his focus was much more inward as he explored the growing possibility that their transformation was permanent. If that were the case, their only choice was to leave on the next ship off the island, something Keene was nearly positive would result in either their interment in the dungeons, death, or both. The odds, if he could not reverse the magic, were not in their favor.

Noven's voice brought him out of his thoughts and back to the current problem at hand. The first question was more of a generalized inquiry as to their ultimate destination, and the latter a suggestion that Keene made a decision soon. Both were infinitely more helpful than much of what Noven had said so far, and Keene wondered if the Waat's Nest's side effects had something to do with attention or problem solving. If that were the case, however, he doubted Atziri would have grinned as impishly as she had. No, there was certainly something else about the fungus that had yet to present itself. Keene decided he'd just have to keep a closer eye on the young man to make sure it wasn't something like fits of hysteria or something else that would result in their capture. As the light began to drift from the light grey of the overcast midday to the dull glow of the evening, Keene looked back out towards the hilly slopes in the distance. "Moving would be wise." Turning to glance behind him back at the citadel, the stillness met his gaze. Telemeran still had yet to send anything after them, but Keene figured it would only be a matter of time before someone or thing was sent after them. Nodding, he took the lead, his stamina recovered enough to stumble along at a near regular pace as he set out from the trees towards the darker collection of what was the closest thing to a forest in the distance.

Atziri had never explained all the different areas or sectors of the island, and while the Forest of Thorns was the only named collection of tress that Keene knew of, the forest ahead of them was one that he supposed had a different name, as the trees were marginally more leafed and less prickly than its thorny cousin. He kept silent as they made their way onwards, not wanting to waste breath and energy on conversation that seemingly moved in a small circle of: how do we fix this, what is happening, what should we do. Nothing was getting accomplished between the two of them for the time being, and Noven was absolutely right in wanting to find somewhere more safe. Of course, the unfortunate fact about Sahova was that there was not true safety, even in the labs themselves. There was danger everywhere, and despite anyone's best efforts, it would always remain. What the two of them needed to do for the time being, however, was to find some place where - if danger presented itself - they could defend themselves and reach a favorable outcome. The cover of the acacia's would provide some shelter, and Keene had more than enough res to erect and icy barrier if it was absolutely necessary.

As they approached where the trees began to clump together in a loose conglomeration, Keene turned to his fox-eared companion. "Will this suffice?" He was not well versed in survival in the wilderness. Creating camps, starting fires, foraging for food and the like were all things that he had never had to learn. They had had no practical application during his childhood, and while he supposed it would have been nice to have learned such things back then, he didn't regret his lack of knowledge on the subject. His time had been well spent, and while it was inconvenient at the present, he wasn't alone. If Noven knew anything at all, Keene had no problem deferring to his judgment. He'd learned from his repeated interactions with the Scars that they were full of surprises. In the case of their survival, Keene preferred the surprise to be in their favor.

[Noven]

The first bite was the worst. Something like a cross between parchment and grass and a good dash of dirt. The second, just as equally unappetizing. But by the time he'd finished one whole mushroom and moved onto the next, the taste was at least a smidgen closer to remotely resembling edibility.

With an inward sigh, Nov gave up after his second helping and kept the rest in his pocket. Maybe if they somehow built a fire he could try roasting them. Or, at the bare minimum, locate some water and wash the dirt ridden pieces of fungi.

There was some measure of relief to be found in them moving again. He knew Keene was weary, judging from the way the Initiate was stumbling in the lead, but the restlessness in Noven's limbs insisted they press on. Move, move, move, don't stop moving... The fact that he was as alien to the island as it was to him only intensified his unease. For the first time since he could remember, the merc was walking on grounds he hadn't spent a whole lifetime getting to know. He knew almost every nook and cranny in the Berth. Dirty and dank and corrupt as it could be, the City of Slums was the only home he ever knew.

And now he was trekking through the darkest, most dismal landscape he'd ever laid eyes on. Life in Sunberth was bleak at best and fatal at worst, but there was still an undeniable surge of life that swept through the city each day, every person struggling to survive through their own ways and means. Here in Sahova, it almost felt like the complete opposite. Walking corpses and the like aside, there was a sense of restriction Noven had never before been forced to experience. Not the kind chains and laws necessarily induced, but the kind that came hand in hand with perpetual research and dry, humorless work ethic--the few things, it seemed, standing in between relative peace and the whole Citadel erupting in alarm over escaped monsters and whatever other sorcerous things the merc was lucky enough never to have met. No one ever burst out of a tavern with a chair flying over their head, or found themselves leaping from the second floor to escape the wrath of a jealous woman. No gangs, no spilling of blood every few chimes out on the open streets, no greasy merchants trying to milk all the coppers they can get out of something as mundane as an apple.

Some nights he wondered if this was maybe why he slept so well. Things were, in a way, much simpler here. He had one duty: to work with the Scars. And he had only one concern beyond that: find water and food. Everything else was so far out of his control that he didn't even contemplate trying.

At some point they neared a collection of ragged looking, low hanging trees and Keene turned to address him. Nov stopped to consider the location for a moment. It seemed good enough at a glance; the trees were in an area at a slight decline from the surrounding hills, which meant they could probably built a very small fire without being noticed from a distance.

Only one problem...the merc had never spent a night out in the wilderness before.

He had gone into the forests beyond Sunberth once with Seng and a few others. And that was only because they were all starving. They were willing to go through any dangerous lengths then to find some meat for their empty bellies. He knew at least a dozen different ways to incapacitate a man with nothing but his hands, but surviving out in the middle of no where...well, that was one skill Noven never thought he'd need to acquire. Life in Sunberth was hard enough on its own without the added pressures of becoming a cook turned hunter.

Fortunately, there was one piece of knowledge Nov's part time profession afforded. He at least knew how to start a fire. Granted, when he lit the ovens at the orphanage, there were usually already wood logs or coals placed inside and all he had to do was slowly coax the fire to life. But it couldn't be that different...

...right?

"It'll do," was the man's blunt reply. Where there were trees, there would always be wood. It was a shame he didn't have his pack with him. There was a flint and stone inside of it that he carried with him everywhere.

"Guess we'll need to gather some wood for a fire. Nothing too big. Just enough to keep us warm and maybe cook some of these mushrooms."

Noven didn't exactly want to admit to his utter lack of wilderness experience. But he figured if the Initiate knew what to do then he would do it properly. If not, they had no choice anyway but to improvise. For the first time that day, Nov was actually glad of his particular transformation. His overly sensitive ears could warn them of approaching intruders long before human ears did, should their fire manage to give their location away.

There was a strange, subtle feeling worming around in the pit of his stomach, but the merc ignored it. He went straight to collecting whatever bits of branches and twigs he could find, scavenging around for anything dry and brittle as well, like leaves, weeds, and grass.

[Keene Ward]

Noven was hardly ecstatic about Keene's proposed resting place, but he seemed content enough for them to stop. Nodding at the man's instructions, Keene didn't ask any more questions. Whether Noven knew what he was doing or not, he had taken on the role of responsibility. Keene was fully able to function on his own, but he performed best when tasked. A small amount of relief passed over him as he meandered his way into the forest, blue eyes scanning the "forest's" floor before him in search of kindling or other small bits and branches. He had been collecting food and firewood since he became an Initiate, and while it wasn't the most difficult of jobs, the trees rarely dropped branches of any use beyond the barest of beginnings for a fire. There were still clumps of Waat's Nest here and there, as well as a smattering of other fungi that Keene knew to be poisonous. As for sticks, he paused a few times to gather up some of those that had fallen until he'd walk enough of a distance that he realized he was quite alone.

The trees stood closer together the farther into the forest he walked, and by the time he realized how far he'd gone, he could no longer hear the crunching of Noven's own boots against the small amount of underbrush. He did, however, remember the way he'd come, the having been to his right on the way in. Instead of turning about to rejoin his now sole companion on the island for an indeterminate amount of time, Keene stumbled his way over to a cracked and weary looking tree, half of it a brittle mess of splintered wood. Stopping a few paces before it, Keene extended his hands, willing his res forward. He remained, hands forward, for several ticks before he realized nothing was happening. Blinking several times, he tried again, reaching down into his to soul to find... A small rush of panic pulled at his consciousness, his mind whirring as he realized the swirling substance of his very soul was as unfamiliar to him as the man he had wandered away from. He could find familiarities within himself, gusts and breezes that drifted through his person like old stories, but there were too many flashes of unexpected lightning, a rolling turmoil of chaos within him that was far too wild for him to tap into.

Sinking down to his knees, Keene shut his eyes, his small fists clenched as he forced himself to concentrate. He could not remember a time when his djed was so clearly different from what it should have been. Where once there had been placed cirrus now raged massive cumulonimbus thunderheads, throwing his inner calm into chaos. He had not noticed before, his mind too occupied with first the transformation and then their escape. The moment he had tried to summon his res, however, he realized just how deep the magic was woven into both himself and his fox eared companion. Their djed, the very basic nature of who they were, had been twisted and pulled, folded and stitched, shredded and reattached to achieve the forms they both now held. One unfamiliar with the concepts of djed would have simply found the transformation curious, perhaps bringing with it small quirks and shifts towards aberrant behavior. Keene, however, could feel the changes the more the focused upon the, the areas of his soul that had been twisted to accommodate the new, overriding information.

There was little he could do about it, however, as even the proper memory of what his djed should have been was patchy. He knew his current state was wrong, and that wrongness extended far deeper than the pair of pert breasts upon his chest or the shrinking of his legs. He had not been changed to look like a woman; he had been changed to be a woman. The alteration was incredibly detailed, affecting nearly everything about him save the majority of his mental processes. His emotions, however, seemed to have been strengthened one hundred times what they originally were, and panic was soon joined by frustration and fear, all three vying with his rationale for supremacy. As his mind raged, Keene's body quivered, small tears burgeoning at the corners of his eyes until he finally shoved the feelings down, farther and farther, until he was back in control of himself. The storm still raged within him, and no amount of calm breathing or forced relaxation could quell it.

As he let his eyes open once more, Keene wiped away some of the moisture that had pooled around the bottom of his eyelids. Drawing in yet another deep, calming breath, Keene stared hard at the split tree before him. There was little he could do without his magic in terms of chopping up the dried out wood and bringing it back to serve as firewood. The branches, however, were much more accessible save the myriad of thorns that lined their bark. With nothing but his shirt to protect his hands, Keene wiggled out of the near uselesss garment, wrapping it around his right hand before starting into the fallen boughs to remove a sizable amount of sticks for the fire. As he tugged against the branches, he heard the fabric in his hand rip several times before the snapping crack of the tree's weary release. As he worked, Keene felt the strain on his new body much quicker that he was used to. By the time he finished, a sizable stack of thorny kindling to his right, Keene sat on the ground, panting. His hair stuck to the exposed skin of his back, and he had gathered most of it, pulling it in front of him to let it pool into his lap. Pulling the string from his now mangle shirt, He wrapped it around the brunt of his hair as close to the back of the middle of his head as he could, tying it several times in a basic knot to make sure it would stay.

As he rose to stand, gingerly slipping back into his clothes, the tie held, though not nearly as tightly as Keene would have liked, slipping down a sort way to let the hair immediately around his head flare out in every direction, while the strands caught beneath the string cascaded down in a mess of tangles. The shirt had several holes, and without the string, he found it difficult to keep his chest covered, let along from keeping the whole thing from slipping off. Sighing, he knelt down to collect the wood, finding the pile to be much smaller than he had originally thought it to be. Frowning, he carefully gathered the branches into his arms, the thorns pressing against his skin, but not breaking it. With kindling in hand, Keene made his way back towards where he'd left Noven, keeping the sun to his left. His over sized boots in combination with his now obstructed view of the ground made the journey twice as long as it should have been, and by the time he reached the small clearing that he'd left, Keene let his bundle of sticks fall to the ground, blank face staring down at the clatter with little emotion.

He made a bedraggled image: torn clothing, haphazard hair, and a blush of red across his features from the obscene amount of effort it had taken to gather his share of the firewood. In his quiet tones - though still riddled with a melodic nature he found to be incredibly unappealing - Keene caught the other man's attention. "This was all I could manage." And it as true. He had, within the coarse of less than a bell, become nothing more than a very weak human being. The sun had already begun to set, coating the world in a soft, gold-grey light that carried with it the promise of darkness. The fire needed to be started soon.

oocSo, I was going to try to make a joke with an anime picture about Noven's case of the furries, but... You know what the fox say:

[Noven]

True to his nature, Keene went off to do as he was tasked without another word said. As quiet and industrious as ever. For a moment, Noven wanted to suggest they stick together, but instead he watched her wander away for half a chime, trying to discern whether the unsettling feeling in his stomach was because of the mushrooms or something more foreboding.

The merc shook his head and bent to pick up another twig. He looked down at the sticks in his hands, rubbing a thumb against their ashen surface as he wondered for the hundredth time in the past bell if they were permanently imprisoned in their current states. And, if that turned out to be the case, how long before they both forgot the Common language entirely. Being around the Initiate made Nov feel practically gregarious. He could just picture it now, the two of them holed up in some remote shack like the two outcasts they'd inevitably becoming, stewing in icy silence. To think that this day had started with every intention of just a couple of friendly drinks. Now they couldn't be further from that goal, the irony of which was not lost on him, ears or no ears.

An irritated scratch to the side of his neck later, Noven resolutely resumed scavenging for tinder. He would deal with the distant future later. For now, there was a fire to build and food to cook. At least the barren landscape made it easier to focus on his task without having to look over his shoulder every few ticks. It was dead quiet up here. Not much to see or hear, let alone eat, save for the crunch of his own footsteps and the occasional sigh of wind through bone bare trees.

Some of the branches did seem to have a few leaves left, though. Pitifully few and covered in thorns, but still good tinder nonetheless. Nov took advantage of these. He gripped the entire width of branches with gloved hands hands, making sure to pick off as many thorns as possible first, before using his weight to snap off the balding ends. His rather reckless method caused much noise, puncture holes in his gloves, and the loss of some leaves along the way, but that worried him far less than Syna's suddenly too rapid descent. Even if Leth's light shone strong tonight, it would still be hard to build their fire in partial darkness. Harder yet considering the fact that neither Nov nor Keene seemed too adept at surviving out in the wild in the first place.

He was just about done bring another armload to a rock he'd been using as a marker when his ears picked up a strange sound. Setting down the sticks, Noven stood still for a moment, listening. He could hear Keene some ways off, likely breaking off branches of his own judging from snaps and cracks, but why...

...was there also the faint sound of fabric ripping?

Feeling rather paranoid about how torn fabric could be related to the Initiate, Nov decided to investigate, make sure Keene wasn't in any sort of trouble. A part of him reasoned the blond couldn't be in any danger. After all, she had her ice sorcery and was still within shouting distance.

The merc slowed as he neared, seven different kinds of confused by what he was seeing. He'd kept his foosteps quiet and one hand hovering over his Tamos as a typical precaution, keeping himself just a hair's breadth away from leaping into a fight. Only to be greeted not by angry Nuits or depraved bandits, but, by all things, the pale, flawless gleam of a woman's naked back.

Nov balked at first. It took him a couple ticks to remember that the woman was in fact Keene. It took him another pair to remind himself why he came here to begin with. What the hell was Keene doing foraging for tinder with no shirt on?

Upon closer inspection, he could see that the Initiate had wrapped the shirt around his hands. Well that wasn't half bad for a plan...though it did make Nov feel a bit guilty. He could have offered one of his gloves and spared Keene's only shirt such a brutal beating. Come to think of it, he could offer one right now. It was only a short jaunt down the hill and Keene looked like he could use the help.

Nov halted mid step. The Initiate had abruptly stopped and sat on the ground, clearly exhausted. With clumsy but determined movements, she then began tying her mass of blond locks up in a tail, lifting both hair and arms out of the way so that a full, unobstructed view of her bare back could be seen.

Gods above, the pain that such a sight could bring.

He was back in the warmth of her cottage, flames blazing merrily and herbs covering every surface. Stacked on tables, stored in jars, hanging from the ceiling--the telltale traits of a doctor's humble abode. And he could see her there, her darker colors a stark contrast to Keene's, but still with the same delicate waist and long hair, all framed by the orange glow of firelight. Even their movements were almost identical, though her's had been quicker, more practiced. Always efficient. Always in a hurry.

And now, never to return.

Without seeing whether or not the Initiate had caught sight of him, Nov turned back in silence. He was no longer aware of the way his tail swished nor the dull ache in his belly. There was only anger, pain, and the deep desire to forget. He went so far as to consider going back to the Citadel and whisking away some more mystery brew. Consequences be damned. He just needed to get piss drunk.

He blinked and stopped. He was already back at the rock with no memory of the short walk back. Not knowing what else to do, Nov planted himself by his small mountain of sticks and began gathering sizable rocks. He hadn't the faintest idea how to cut down on the smoke of a fire, but he did know that while she'd still been alive, Old Hilda never bothered with proper placement. She either tossed in wood haphazardly or made one of the orphans do it. bothering only to fan the flames to life before setting straight to making more tasteless gruel. He'd followed her footsteps and there never seemed to be a problem with smoke. If that was because of the stove's doing or just blind luck, he might never know.

Well then...the trick now would be to make an open fire that produced as little smoke as possible. But how to do that? Clearly, the kitchen stove had been made of stone and iron, which kept most of the fire contained. Could they somehow apply that concept to a simple campfire?

The crunch of boots drew him out of his internal wracking. Keene had returned, slim arms full of thorny branches and looking like something had chewed him up and spit him back out. The fire wood practically tumbled out of his arms as the Initiate stared stonily down at the pile. She looked a right proper mess. If they hadn't been stuck up on some lifeless hillside--and if Keene's expression hadn't been about as emotive as a slab of rock--Noven might have thought the Initiate had just come back from a rough tumble. Her cheeks were red with exertion and hair sticking out every which way. Inside, the merc fought a dozen different emotions all at once.

He was male. The pretty, flushed blond with ill concealing clothes before him was not. They were also trapped out here in the wilderness with nothing to eat but mushrooms of questionable. And there might be one very angry, very high ranking Nuit trying to hunt them down at this exact moment. Plus, in order for them to have gotten here at all, someone had planted that petching cask of tainted ale, which brought on a fresh wave of anger just thinking about. And then there was that ever present, black-eyed ghost, haunting him every where he went, no matter how far he ran.

Yet, somehow all the merc managed to say in response was, "That's good enough. The fire won't be large."

He avoided the Initiate's gaze and went back to arranging fist-sized rocks. The man figured if they built their fire near the larger rock and contained it with smaller ones, it might at least shield the flames from wind and sight. Smoke was just going to be a problem they'd worry about as they went along. Forming a clunky sort of ring around his marker rock, Nov grabbed some extra dry tinder and a few twigs before throwing them down into the center.

"Alright," he mumbled, staring at the rather sad looking beginnings of what he hoped would be a reliable source of heat. "Now just to get this shyke lit."

Unsheathing a Tamo with one hand and picking up a small rock with the other, Noven stared dubiously at the mission before him. He'd seen one of his friends start a fire this way back in his youth. That same friend had been dead for years, but the magic of setting things on fire with nothing but a rock and dagger was not something a boy easily forgot. Only problem now was the man that boy had become still had no petching idea how such sparks were properly made. If only Keene's specialty had been something of the complete opposite nature.

"Well, here goes nothin'."

With a violent swing, Nov struck the rock against his dagger right above the tinder. There was a sharp clang and perhaps the tiniest of sparks. And, predictably, no fire. He tried this maybe ten or twelve more times before he stabbed the dagger into the cracked earth and swore under his breath.

"Why the fuck isn't this working?"

[Keene Ward]

Noven's gaze held within it something that Keene wasn't able to place. It was unreadable, but not in the sense that there was nothing to read, rather there was far too much. With his reply, however, came the aversion of his gaze, and whatever had sparked the turmoil of emotion and thought in the fox-eared man was lost to Keene's investigations. He didn't think to hard on the matter, however, as he staggered to stand off to the side to watch Noven construct a strange, almost ritualistic, gathering of stones. Keene kept out of what little light there was so that he was not causing Noven any undue stress, but his blank stare was intently focused upon the other man's hands.

Keene had only ever ventured into the wilderness around Zeltiva to practice his more volatile magics within the relative seclusion of the deciduous groves. Even then, he had had little interest in the outdoors themselves. Weather, however, was a different matter, but as Sahova seemed to defy the natural laws, weather had become too sporadic for Keene to know when it was a good time to watch the skies or when it was a good time to buckle down and hide. Thus, fire starting had never been anything he'd ever thought once about. Sleeping in the cave had been surprising enough, and even the use of flint and steel had taken some time to get used to, as Mella had almost always just used reimancy to start fires. While it wasn't necessarily the sort of knowledge that Keene had grown up pursuing, he still found anything new to be worthy of at least primary intense interest. Thus, as Noven arranged the little rocks to the side of the larger stone that had apparently become their base of operations, Keene's pensive frown shifted beneath his weary exterior.

It looked almost as if Noven were creating a little stone city, with the sticks serving as some sort of strange, haphazard forest. The rock, of course, was a mountain, looming over the village with a pallid severity. Whatever Noven's reasoning, Keene kept quiet as the man stated that it had to be lit. Keene had yet to master the element of fire, and in his pathetic state that he had only just recently discovered the extents of, he had only enough controllable djed to create a marble sized amount of res. Had he been able to transmute fire, it would have been enough. He had not, however, and he wasn't about to risk failure, as the res was the only defense he had. Even a small marble of the stuff was enough to dispatch an enemy, assuming it wasn't one of the automata that Thomas Cosa had spoke of. If the golems were after them, Keene wasn't sure all of his res would be enough to stop them.

What Noven did next, however, struck Keene as very odd. He began to slap his sword-like weapon with a stone, similar to how one might use the flint and steel. Keene had always assumed that the flint and steel just made the fire because that was what they were meant to do. There were many things he just took for granted, and that was one of them. Thus, the correlation of the qualities of both sword and stone and flint and steel weren't readily available for his consideration. To Keene, it simply looked like Noven had lost all reason and had begun to resort to the most obscure methods. The soft clang of rock against metal acted as a sort of musical prelude to the setting of the sun. By the twelfth strike, the heavy grey of the sunless sky had begun to set in. As Noven shoved his dagger into the ground with an exasperated expletive, Keene - who had shifted to a seated position, legs tucked neatly underneath him after he had removed the near useless boots - stared at the knife that had proven itself a useless fire starter.

Over the course of Noven's attempts, there had been sparks, which inevitably led to Keene's realization of the sword's association with flint and steel. Unfortunately, the correlation did not seem to guarantee their success. With no fire, they were better hidden from those who may have sought them, but without it, they were much more susceptible to whatever creatures lurked in the shadows of the night. Keene, having lived on the island for a fair amount of time, found he preferred the dangers of the known over the unknown. He let his consciousness fall to the swirling mess inside, the rolling thunder and crash of waves that had once sat so still and placed writhed as his djed. He could feel every piece of him tingling with the strange, alien script that had commandeered his body from him, his soul even. It was frustrating, but Keene slowed his breathing some, letting his eyes shut as he attempted to work his conscious around the foreign djed.

Instead of thinking of himself as he was, Keene attempted to think of himself as he had become. The concepts of "missing" and "gaining" were pushed aside for the time being. The obnoxious nature of his hair embraced, while the foreignness of its nature overlooked. It took him several chimes to find the proper mindset, the true nature of his new identity. When the twisting and writhing of his djed still for just a moment, Keene latched onto it. In the moment, she was Keene, and Keene was she. When she opened her eyes, there was a little button's worth of bright, shimmering res before her. It had glimmered just beneath skin in the middle of her chest before drifting forward like a lazy firefly. Blue gaze calmly regarding the res, Keene blew it forward with a soft exhale. The color of the res wasn't wrong, it wasn't different, it was the natural color. The pale blue his mind seemed to want to search for was quickly brushed away while Keene continued his concentration. It was difficult enough to maintain the proper outlook and understanding that she was Keene - with no reference to he at all - without having to control the res.

She did, however, and as it lazily traveled through the air, Keene let it alight on top of the tinder, shivering as it made contact. From there, she shut her eyes, the effort showing in her tight lips and crease of the brow. Flames danced in her mind, heat, smoke, the scent of burning wood. There was fire all around her, crackling and snapping within the confines of her consciousness. She pushed the thoughts, the memories, the expectations, all of it, onto the small, shimmering spot of res. In her meditation, she watched it ignite, roaring up into a steady flame before catching the rest of the tinder with its hearty glow.

What happened in reality, however, was slightly different. The speck seemed to quiver, shaking faster and faster before there was a little pop, and the res had seemed to pull itself into the appearance of fire. The more fire like the res became, the more it started to spread, catching the dried wood with a soft crackle before it began to descend into the depths of the mess of twigs. The color, however, remained a steady sky blue with dashes of white once the flames had begun to grow in intensity. As Keene heard the fire take root, he opened his eyes, shoulders slacking as he let out a tired sigh that had potential to be one of either relief or frustration. It had taken nearly all of his mental faculties to even create the res let alone to create the fire. While it may not have seemed entirely strenuous to the man across from him, Keene could feel his body tingling from the feat he had just accomplished.

Raising a gaze to Noven that held within it more emotion that most of his stares had held, the weary Keene regarded him with a straight face. "I won't be able to do that again any time soon." After which he raised a hand to pat at his upper lip, realizing that his nose had begun to bleed. The frown as he regard the blood up his fingers once he'd removed them from his face was one of poorly masked concern. He had not imagined that the basic spell, however strenuous, might have had the ability to send him into overgiving. Staring at the blood for several more ticks, Keene then inspected both sides of his hands. He searched for spontaneous wounds or bleeding beneath the skin, but neither presented themselves. Deciding that, for the moment, his only repercussion was the nosebleed, Keene moved his hand back to stop the trickle of blood for the time being. Wanting to make sure that there were no other surprises from his body, Keene rose to stand and was immediately met with a wave of vertigo. The sudden nature of the feeling knocked him off balance, and he could only manage a surprised, "Oh." before he began his fall.

For GradersI'm operating under the assumption that the morphing potion used Keene's own djed for the transformation. While he has enough djed for a full-body transformation, it would be difficult for him to be creating res in his current state, thus I'm thinking it would definitely push him into overgiving. Just wanted to explain the thought process behind that, thank you!

[Noven]

Upon hearing no reply, Nov looked up to find his companion sitting stock still before him. He had to fight the immediate compulsion to ask what Keene was doing; somehow, it didn't feel wise to interrupt. The very air around the Initiate seemed to have grown thick with severity and both of her eyes were closed in deep concentration.

Realization slowly dawned on the mercenary like the sluggish punch of a newborn Yukman. He'd seen this somewhere before. It had been a long time ago, but the memory had left such a vivid impression it was impossible to purge. Before he could stop himself, Noven was delving through his past again, dredging up things he had tried so hard to forget. He remembered the night in painfully vivid strokes. The foundations of a plan for murder, the harrowing arrival at Happy Endings with Isur in tow. Her face was a bit blurred now, but he knew her eyes had been closed and body intensely still, just as Keene's were in the present. Breathing in and out, the mesmerizing rise and fall of an ample bust...molten hair and pale skin...a trap being laid for Torgen the Butcherer...

Keene was trying to do magic.

Forcing himself to stay still, Nov watched with a mixture of awe and alarm. He'd never trusted magic. And probably never would, at that. But the few times he had been privy to witnessing its innerworkings--which consisted mostly of staring at its user until something happened--he had to admit, it was often striking and wondrous in person. Seeing magic with his own eyes produced an effect similar to an old friend creating fire with a dagger and rock. Nov himself may have had no knack for either, but he always found himself marveling at the mysterious nature of creation.

So it was with equal parts caution and wonderment that the merc watched Keene first produce a tiny, glowing wisp of a thing, then blow it gently toward the center of their fire pit. Noven's eyes tracked its progress with guarded fascination. How would this pale little puff help them start a fire?

As if to answer his question, the wisp began to quiver. Nov leaned away as though he expected it to explode. But it didn't, shaking faster and faster until there was a small pop and...

...Krysus. They had a fire!

A small grin broke across Nov's features as the flames grew larger and steadier. He was just about to glance up and congratulate Keene when the Initiate let out a shaky sigh and explained he would not be able to repeat that stunt anytime soon. Not that Nov was overly concerned with having to start another fire. He was too busy noticing the vibrant trail of crimson running down Keene's nose.

"Woah, hold on a tick, mate. You're bleedin'..."

Which the Initiate seemed fully aware of as he swiped his nose. Noven was just about to warn against moving around too soon when Keene got hastily back on his feet. Only to fall right back down, crumpling like a rag doll.

The merc managed to lunge forward and catch Keene right before her head hit the ground, dropping his dagger in the process. It was a clumsy effort given his initial shock and seated position, but he managed to keep the Initiate from suffering any unnecessary damage to the noggin. Placing Keene's tousled, blond head softly on the ground, Nov quickly shrugged out of his coat, bundled it up, and set it a safe distance from the fire. Then he moved around to Keene's side and, lifting her carefully with one arm under the knees and the other under the shoulders, re-positioned her so that her head rested right over the bundled coat.

"Keene, you alright? Can you hear me? Nod if you can," Nov asked calmly as he performed his task. The scent of the Initiate's blood fill his nose, all tang and iron, but he ignored it. If the nosebleed didn't stop on its own they would have to do it themselves.

Picking up his abandoned Tamo, the merc stabbed at a section of his tunic and sawed off a ragged strip. He then shuffled back over and placed the strip, which was conveniently dyed a deep shape of red, in Keene's hand. "You can use this if the blood doesn't stop, or to clean up a bit." Nov sat back on his haunches and wished he had something to lay over the exhausted Initiate.

Not knowing what else to do, if Keene was even capable of lifting the scrap of cloth to her face, he added, "We've pushed you too far...you've got to rest now. I'll keep the fire going and cook some of the mushrooms. Don't worry about anything else, just rest."

He was shyke at comforting folk and he knew it. But it was the best Nov could do in their current circumstances. Pulling the recently harvested fungi from his pockets, he began to spear them one at a time on various twigs before poking them into the ground by the fire. They would roast slow, but there were plenty of bells to kill. With this done, Nov looked to check and see how Keene was faring, wondering if there was anything they could do about the sorry state of her shirt. He kept on wondering as he scavenged around their fire a second time for more fire wood, making sure to keep Keene in his sights at all times.

Noven returned just a handful of chimes later. He dropped his collection of sticks, leaves, and branches into their sizable stash and tossed in a few more pieces of fuel to the fire. There wasn't much they could do about clothing at the moment, so he would just have avert his gaze for the time being. Which wasn't hard considering all he had to do was sit which is back to the Initiate as he turned the speared mushrooms to cook evenly.

His copper tail flicked now and then as Nov stared into the fire, torn between remembering and not remembering. He'd invested years in repressing his ill begotten past. Those damnable feelings of yearning, confusion, self loathing, anger, and isolation. It should have come to no surprise to him that what happened happened. Twice. When would he start to learn?

But it had been petching hard to resist, another voice insisted amongst the clamorous din inside his head and heart. Impossible, even. Who says no to the love of a beautiful woman with kindness in her eyes and adoration in her every touch? What kind of lonely mortal can shun that?

I can, Noven's own, mental voice trumpeted over all others. He ground a fist into the dirt as he clenched his jaw in a solemn vow. I can, and I will. Shoulders slumping, the merc released a bone tired sigh. I must...

He couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't bear losing another. To this day, he still had no idea where Mae had gone or who had taken her. What if she had been captured, tortured, any number of things worse than death at the hands his enemies, not hers? What if Chai had suffered the same fate? He had no way of knowing let alone protecting them. And he had cursed himself to oblivion day after day, season after season, for thinking that he could.

Because the terrible, terrible truth was that if he had to choose between them and vengeance, he would choose the latter. Every. Single. Time.

The fox-eared man was so lost in his own torment that he barely noticed his heart begin to beat faster and his face grow warmer. His first thought was that he was weeping. But that was bollocks. He hadn't shed a tear in ages, not since the death of Old Kay. A quick brush against his paper dry skin proved himself right.

But then a familiar surge of blood and fire renewed itself in his pants and drew his gaze downward in dread.

"What the f--"

Nov covered his crotch with his hands and shot a furtive glance backward at Keene. No, stupid. That made it look too petching obvious. Swiveling his head back around, he could feel a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face. What the hell was going on? He hadn't been thinking of anything remotely carnal. Well, okay, he had pictured a little of pale, luscious--

Godsdammit it burned. Nov inched away from the fire, hands still shielding his groin. He couldn't understand what had brought this about. Really, now of all times? the merc grumbled at his lower half. Well shyke. What was he supposed to do now? There was no where to go, no where he could hide and take care of...things. He was stuck here, a proper fugitive by now, with no choice but to watch over his only other companion, who had spent herself running, foraging, and starting their meager fire. His pretty, blond companion, whose ragged clothes barely hid her undeniably female parts.

And who used to be a man! Krysus, Nov berated himself. He needed to do something. Anything. Get some air. Without announcing himself, the merc stood up, back still facing Keene, and walked around the rock there fire blazed against. Syna remained in the midst of setting, now suddenly all too slow in her descent as Nov wished for nothing but the cover of darkness.

The man coached himself ruthlessly. Think of something else. Something awful. Something terrible and sad...

[Keene Ward]

Before he hit the ground, Noven had moved to catch him. The feeling of the man's hands pressing against him sent shivers of revulsion through his body, but he couldn't do more than let out a small moan and turn his head as best he could from Noven's chest. He moved with gentle motions, effortlessly picking Keene up and setting him a small distance from the flame, resting his head upon Noven's jacket. It smelled like him, like human. It was a strange scent, something that he was intimately acquainted with, but also something that he found sparked the patter of fear into his heart. He did not enjoy closeness, nor did he treasure tenderness. Noven was strong and powerful, while Keene was weak and frail in his current state. At the man's question, Keene nodded his head, his voice weaker than he intended but not lost to him. "I can hear." There was a small hint of frustration in his voice, though it was not directed at the man who seemed so concerned over his well being.

Keene loathed being a burden, and he loathed being useless even more. It had been a long time since he'd been unable to move very well thanks to magic, as he had always been careful, meticulous even, in his expenditure of djed. Whatever the ale had done, it had messed with his balance, his sense of self. His hand closed around the fabric, finding it strange that it was there as just a moment before Noven had been saying something he couldn't quite remember. Moving it too his nose, Keene pressed it against the bleeding. His headache throbbed against his temples, and he felt sick. There was a small line of whispers in the back of his mind, but they were hardly sweet. Weakling. Child. Useless. Pathetic. The hissed in a never ending monologue, growing louder each time Keene allowed his eyes to close and hide the vision of the murky sky from view. He heard Noven speak again, his voice sounding unbearably loud over him.

There was a softness to it, yet another uncharacteristic development that, as Keene stared up at him with his icy blue stare, his brows knit in confusion. He didn't understand the man. Keene knew he wasn't dying, though he was sure it appeared something close to it, but the way Noven spoke to him made him uneasy. Kindness, while perhaps not the best suited word for it, was never something that had been extended to him for most of his life. Thus, when it was presented, it was not trusted. As Noven moved away, Keene let his head loll to the side so that he could watch him, the hiss of voices growing quieter the more he focused in spite of the pound of his head. His hair tugged at his scalp, catching on a button or some such nonsense in the makeshift pillow that pulled a tear from the initiate's eye: a meaningless gesture, but a necessary bodily reaction it seemed. The mushrooms were skewered and set near the fire to cook, the blue flames shifting back and fourth in the small breeze that had begun to set in. While the Waat's Nest wasn't the most delicious of fungi, it wasn't the worst either.

Noven continually glanced back at him, his eyes reflecting the light of the fire, but his emotions hidden beneath that gleam. Whatever he thought, Keene had little idea. It was a situation he had hoped never to find himself in again after his accident, but as fate would have it, he repeated it then. When Noven stood up to gather more fuel, Keene turned his head back to the sky, clenching his jaw as he moved his arms under him to sit up. He wasn't sickly, merely exhausted, and his desire to take care of himself rather than to allow Noven to do so was enough to help pull him up from the jacket to a weary hunch of the back and shoulders as he stared into the fire. In a way, he supposed he had made progress on his magic, a small silver lining in a sky of grey. It was ironic, he supposed, that the first time he create fire be in the body of a woman. It had always seemed an element appropriate for the female gender, for he could not think of a flame that did not have the fiery glow Mella's fury or of Atziri's warming grin. The element itself possessed no sex, that was true enough, but it seemed correct that he did so then.

When Noven returned, he took a glance at Keene's way before turning to tend to the fire and the fungi. There had been a flush of his cheeks before he'd done so, which led Keene to cautiously gaze downwards at himself, moving slowly so as not to exacerbate the pain in his head. The shirt, if it were even such, had wrapped its collar around his bust, making for a risqué display for any woman. Fumbling with the shirt, Keene wagged his arms through the sleeves, subtly writhing within the fabric until he stuck his arms back through: the back becoming the front and vice versa. While was not nearly as comfortable, it served to cover his front well enough, though the dip of the "v" brushed just about the round of his hips. Content with his change, Keene drew his knees up so that he could rest his chin upon them. He was tired. His body ached, and while the bleeding had stopped, the headache had only grown worse. Whatever the consequences, however, he was resolute in continuing to serve his role as the Scars' watcher. Whether it entail everything he had done so far or not, Keene found he wasn't entirely concerned with the specifics for the time being.

Having found more independence, the voices in his head had dulled, repeating phrases over and over again in a muffled incoherent, almost smoothing. Though eyes had been dazedly fixed before him, Keene did not realize he had been staring at Noven until he let out a short, muted expletive followed by a glance back his way. Raising a brow, but unable to raise his head without absolute need, Keene returned the flicker of Noven's attention with a curious spark of his own. Whatever had just transpired, Noven kept it to himself, turning about with back hunched as he stared into the fire. For a moment, Keene wondered if it wasn't some surge of emotion linked to Noven's partial transformation, but as the man stood to stalk awkwardly away toward the other side of the larger stone, Keene disregarded the thought. Noven seemed plenty in control of himself, however strange his actions. A small thought crossed his mind that, perhaps, the man needed relieve himself and was uncomfortable in the presence of one in Keene's state.

Modesty had never been something he'd quite understood, but there had never been a time where Mella had allowed him to see her naked. "It isn't petching proper you little vagik!" She had said when he'd asked. He supposed it wasn't entirely unreasonable that Noven would feel the same way. Stirring some, Keene turned his head so that his words might reach the other man before he spoke, his voice soft and steady, ironically easier to meet his original manner of speech if not for the octave change. "Would you like me to turn away?"