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 Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 6:39 pm
On the Prowl
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This is a Private RP between:
Cordelia and Basil.
Where: Durem.
When: Late Evening.
Weather: Clear skies, the moon is bright but waning
and the stars twinkle like they know a secret or two.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 6:58 pm
Sleep wouldn't come due to violin lessons so close to bedtime. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have done it earlier, but there had been no time then. Ebby had kept the snake busy with chores and other studies, so she had to leave the most cherished of them for last. And now the smokey Frei was too sensitive to all the sounds of the night to even fake rest. An odd notion came to mind from seemingly out of nowhere, yet in reality it had always been there just below the surface thoughts, that Cordelia should take this time to explore the outside world more. And on her own terms.
Not gifted with the ability of flight like so many of her Raevan kin despite having wings just the same, the snake hoofed it so to speak, floating from one sound to another. Before she knew it, Delia had found herself in Durem, though she wasn't completely aware of it. The bustling metropolis was so different looking at night. Still as busy as it was in the day, the night seemed to bring out the town's wild side. There was a far greater abundance of people dressed in a variety of odd outfits for one, yet far more black, leather and metal adorned them. Cordelia would fit right in here tonight. Although she still garnered plenty of curious glances with her half a body, the glow of her dark rune only aiding in her attention. Of course as usual, the girl simply ignored these looks as she bobbed happily along the crowded sidewalks, careful not to get her wings snagged on something, or someone.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 2:35 am
Basil had vacated the Gregarious Arms apartment complex at approximately 3:30 in the morning. Basil did not regain awareness until 4:18 the following afternoon... Basil was certainly no stranger to the loss of time and memory, but only now was it beginning to burden him. Only now was he beginning to ponder the things he was missing, the things he could do to better occupy such time. He was losing hours of his life, and worse yet, he shuddered to wonder just what acts he may have committed in the period notwithstanding... And their repercussions. He had awoken firstly to find that his nose was bleeding; crusted into an unsightly black patch pinching the space 'tween his nose and upper lip. Extremely unaverage for his "blackouts"... Glancing around him, his eyes struggling to focus, he immediately felt very fatigued and his throat was sore... He was laying face-up atop a number of sagging cardboard boxes in the alleyway beside the loading dock of the Durem Dye Factory. He could smell the fumes in his uncongested nostril, hear the grind of the inner-city orchestra. Somewhere, a lonesome dog was barking. Several homeless men suspiciously eyed him momentarily as he stirred to rise and get his bearings-- Thorazine zombies that crawled the streets, occupying their lives as devoid of it's joys as a snake's dead skin.
From that minute onward, Basil had no other recourse but to wander the streets as blindly as they, his mind plagued by the anonymity of the night's events. Hours would come to pass as heavily as rain as Basil napped on park benches, crossed aimlessly across streets, lacking direction or incentive. A leaf, bumbling in the wind. At times he would take people aside, asking in his broken tongue if they may recognize him or point him home. Or both, ideally. After so many turn-downs, the sun began to set, and Basil had made no recognizable progress... The sky was pinkening like a ripened fruit, overcast by long, rolling cirrus clouds and giving way for the night's first inklings and twinklings that would soon be banished by the street-lamps. Basil remained orphaned. A prodigy of science, borne not of man, but of serpent and essence, left to meander among the mortals as heartbroken as they.... Until-- what was this? A beacon of feminine reminder... Even eyes as poor as his could distinguish the radiant, smoky samaritan casually encroaching on the territory of the skeezes and the street-wise. What sheer serendipity!
His forearms remained sheathed in a thin, crackled layer of dried paint, traces of fleshy peach showing through the plastery red. His clothes smelled faintly smoky and earthy, with a hint of rancidness borne of his tumblings and brushings of things found within the city that no decent man or woman should e'er have to encounter. Shoulders squaring and his arms outstretched, the very ground began to tremble at his bidding-- wave after wave springing forth from his body and assaulting the streets and people before him. Some merely lost their footing, while others took cover in fear of an earthquake. Thankfully the force of the vibrations waned the further they spread from where he levitated, but sure enough, his goal was met as nearly every car parked at the edges of the street began to sound their car alarms shrilly and out of sync; a loud orchestra signalling his approach like that of a Greek Elemental... With a rumble.
His powers were growing exponentially it seemed. He was not even winded from what months ago would have reduced him to a limp and bedraggled state.
Certain that he had caught her attention, he waved to her from the center of the street; blind and unconcerned towards the glowing string of headlights forming at his back. They hurtled his long, exaggerated shadow across the pavement as an ominous harbinger. In the space between their encounters, he had developed a very coy and unique sort of wave that was more the clenching, un-clenching, and wriggling of his fingers, the tips of which level with the bridge of his cheekbone. He smiled so sweetly, his flawless, uniform teeth darkened to a seedy yellow color in the umbrous evening...
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Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:25 pm
It was lucky she had no feet just yet, else the dark serpent would have found herself on the ground unceremoniously as a few humans had some feet away. Though she couldn't feel the Earth beneath her shake as they had, she was quite aware of a certain...buzzing as it were, vibrations in the air that made her turn towards their epicenter. Perhaps she should have been more defensive, razor-sharp wings fanned wide and fangs issuing a warning hiss towards this loud and quickly advancing unknown, yet...Cordelia simply held her head to the side in a gesture of questioning and curiosity. What was all this racket now?
Cloudy eyes finally zeroing in on the one responsible for so much havoc in such a small amount of time, recognition had begun to do its work in piecing together who this was. "Basil..." Delia said matter of fact, his name lingering on her tongue lazily.
Her hand lifted to return his wiggling of digits when it drifted to a stop, hanging in mid-air fingers half curled. A tiny gasp hitched in her throat at the oncoming vehicle, a metallic monster with two glowing eyes heading right for the infant cobra. It was the thought of him being in danger that propelled Cordelia quickly to him, quite literally throwing herself into him as a means to push them back to the other side of the road, out of harms way. At least...she hoped.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 1:54 am
At first glimpse, Basil was delighted to find that his message of salutations had been delivered so swiftly. From the bottom of his heart could he feel those great, dark eyes upon him with both recognition and fondness, alighting a flame within him both tender and reassuring. But what was at first a clumsy, over-eager greeting quickly turned into a matter of great dissatisfaction. What was only seconds ago a stationary target of his desire, was now a speeding, super-charged feminine bullet seeking to tumble him. Basil did not like unexpectedly fast-approaching objects. Or people.
Unlike she, his fangs were bared, lips pulled thin across his teeth and jaw nearly popping from it's bolts. Her body collided with his, to which he attempted to grasp hold of her shoulder in his predator's teeth, though unsuccessfully. He could feel the wind knocked forcefully from his lungs as his back struck flat against the pavement, the both of them sliding a good several inches across the sidewalk that had become their landing pad. Even as he scrambled beneath her did he allow natural inclinations to usurp his proper mind, hissing and snapping-- clouds of spittle erupting from his gnashing teeth before he finally broke free of her. By no means would he ever dare to intentionally provoke, nor injure her, but it was an inherent trait of eccentrics to not only break convention whenever possible, but be dominated by a long, never-ending chain of knee-jerk reactions. Namely, fast-approaching objects were always without question to be deemed threatening. Even Genevieve shouldered a rule-of-thumb that when vacuuming, she was not to thrust the instrument too quickly in Basil's direction lest she expect a tear or two in the bag.
Even as the car that had been idling behind him began to roll down the street and beyond the commotion did he fail to put the pieces together. As far as he could tell, he had just sustained a full-on tackle, seemingly without motive. With a twinge of a remorse for having lashed at her, he brushed a bit of debris from his clothing (disregarding the other innumerable and unmentionable stains and carry-ons), promptly offering a hand to lift her from the walkway. He was rife with a mixture of joy and approval. Unpredictability was the common language of the universe and himself. It was sweet, sweet music.
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 12:36 pm
As Basil squirmed and hissed, snapping his jaws at her haphazardly, Cordelia remained as calm as she had been prior, only giving into her own natural instinct to curl more tightly about the male. But not so tight as to kill him, no, just the opposite. She deemed it fit to protect this fledgling even if it meant baring his wrath at having been restrained. Lightly she hissed into his ear in that foreign tongue of hers, "Calm friend, I merely aim to protect. You are safe now. Calm." She had no real idea whether he could understand, but there was just something that told her deep down that maybe he might.
And with that the basilisk released her hold on the boy and watched as he all but broke and scrambled quickly away from her suffocating embrace. He may have missed it, Basil's back turned away from the road then, but Delia watched as the previously dubbed dangerous car slowly drove by before zooming off into the night. She tilted her head in confusion. Perhaps she'd been rash in her rush to "save" the cobra then. It seemed...the vehicle was going much slower than she'd anticipated. So there had been no danger, just an overreaction. How embarrassing.
Silver eyes looked up to the other Raevan from her "sitting" position on the ground and took in his overall appearance. He looked nearly the same from the last time she'd seen him, so many months prior, but...again she tilted her head back and forth in confusion. What was all that stuff on him? Most notably his red hands that matched a face in looks of rawness, his nose especially. And the smell! An undeniable odor of sourness hanging about the youth as he floated a mere foot from her.
Despite all this, the dark girl once more acted swiftly. Cordelia bounced up and placed an icy hand to his cold cheek, which technically to either of them wasn't exactly cold, but what one could think of as lukewarm at best. A temperature they were even and use to. "Are you okay Basil?" Delia asked, her eyes still very smokey in their gaze, but showing a glimmer of gentle concern for the other snake.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 10:55 pm
The cobra was otherwise nonplussed by her immediate decision to refuse the hand he had offered her. It was refreshing especially to be assured that her self-sufficiency was fueled by her sense of concern for him. With a small, involuntary sniff through his burningly sore nose, his shoulders relaxed in their sockets and his eyes grew cloudy in appreciation. Cordelia perhaps was one of the few memories that Basil's fragile and volatile mind adamantly refused to be robbed of. As was the touch of her hand upon his cheek--matronly and serene. He blinked a bit to break from his spell, his smile slowly fading a few tiers into a worried grimace. He pushed her hand away gently, chewing on his fingernails as he muttered,
"I don't know where I am... I'm scared-- the flies, a-and the voices. My head hurts and... and I don't remember." His voice trailed into a croaky whisper as he scratched his left temple, his eyes darting left and right like mosquitoes treading pond-water in their peculiar jerks and hops. "I feel bad... and sad. Something... the flies in my head aren't right. They're quiet. Something happened..." While his infant tongue was not able to conjure much in the way of intelligent (or sensible) conversation, his inner conflict was clear, as was his degrading sense of faith in his own abilities. He turned in place, looking down the street. As to what he was expecting to see, couldn't rightly be said. Basil was much more impulsive it seemed since their last encounter. Tonight, he was frazzled and frightened. He could not recall events that in the end seemed to reduce him to broken noses and broken thoughts. There was a twitchiness. A heady, shifty potency like an injured martin. The red rims beneath his eyes watered in his agitation and his teeth were audibly grinding. He turned once again to her to grasp her shoulder as if it were a lifeline for his own tenuous sanity, all the while muttering to himself a small mantra of safety.
It had not even dawned upon him that Cordelia could now speak.
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Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 7:00 pm
She didn't object when he pushed her away, but still Delia felt she needed to comfort him more. Something that came only to grow as the boy gnawed his fingers and rambled on. It wasn't hard to keep up with his words, yet the female Frei wasn't certain she'd understood everything the other said. He'd said something about flies, but then said something about them being in his head. Had Basil misspoken and meant the flies around his head?
When he grabbed her, Cordelia felt a bit of her own spell threatening to falter at the sudden and desperate cling, but it steeled its grip on her and she merely blinked slow, an even concern for the other on her face. His words could be broken and scattered as much as they wanted, his facial expressions and body language told her all she needed to know. Carefully she forced his grip loose and drew him in a hug. "It's okay. You're with me now. I'll take care of you." She smiled and pulled away, but held onto his hand. Basil wouldn't be going anywhere without her knowing about it.
The basilisk looked around and tried to think up a plan. Whenever Cordelia had been lost though Ebony wasn't too far behind and that's how she usually got found again. So then where was Genie? "Baz..." Branding the cobra with one of her affectionate nicknames, "Was your woman with you?"
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 1:51 am
Basil was once again preoccupied with his surroundings, looking about aimlessly in attempts to make sense of things, as futile as the endeavor was. Certainly while to a more affable and intelligent creature, the moniker would have been appreciated, Basil had only learned thus far to respond to his complete name, and his complete name alone. Titles were beyond (or above) him. As such, his attention was only captured by the feeling of eyes upon him, as clearly when one spoke, they were expected to gaze upon the other conversationalist. His eyes veered to hers again, a bit baffled by the question she presented... Genie. His woman...
Where was she indeed? Either the apartment had completely vanished around him in some trans-dimensional quirk of fate, or she was safe at home somewhere, worrying over his whereabouts. He could only hope for the latter. He scratched his head, trying oh so hard to recall the events before his memory gap. "My woman... went to bed. Yep. Bed. Yep. Went to sleep... I not sleep." He corrected himself last-moment in attempts to sound sharper, "I couldn't sleep. (Couldn't means could-not. Yep.)" Quite the Einstein. Genie would be proud. "I couldn't sleep, I don't like to. So I paint." He waggled his free hand to her for emphasis, revealing the identity of the mystery stains upon his forearms. "Then. Gone from my house... Wake up. Don't know. Something happeeeeened..." He throatily groaned, his scratching turning to a distressed tugging of his hood. His voice strained, then, to a thin, eerie whisper, like a secret in the dark, "Waked up somewhere I don't want to be."
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Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 7:29 pm
Though she was still listening closely to what the other was saying, Cordelia's keen serpentine eyes was carefully analyzing their current environment. A lot of things were closed up on this street, yet the ones that were still open seemed shady at best with their colorful neon lights welcoming many of the denizens of the night to their door steps. But in the distance (towards the end of the road they were on), the smoke Raevan could just make out a large structure flooded in light. The way the reflections seemed to move and dance in this light suggested the thing reflecting it was moving, and quickly at that. What could do that? Water perhaps?
Slowly Delia's dark lips lifted into a pleasant smile and she tugged the young cobra along to float towards this mysterious sight. If she was correct in assuming there was water then she could at least get Basil cleaned up a little, and hopefully douse some of that offensive perfume he was drenched in. "I couldn't sleep either. Too many...thoughts, ideas, feelings..." She shook her pony-tailed head. "I can't explain exactly. Just restless, needed to be outside."
At the boy's groan, her head snapped directly to him, afraid he was in some sort of pain. After all, he wasn't exactly in the best of conditions when she'd found him, or rather when he'd found her. Still, Basil wasn't latching onto a body part, only tugging repeatedly and rapidly upon that hood of his. He must be stressed about being lost, Cordelia reasoned as to his sudden amnesia, the girl unaware to that being a frequent part of the male snake's everyday.
"It's okay. When you remember you can tell me. Until then you can stay with me and explore. Maybe we can find a place you do want to be." the basilisk smiled more, giving him a gentle pat on his hand.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Jun 27, 2010 8:20 pm
Basil was somewhat calmed by her words, if only by very little. His chin bobbed in a subtle nod, taking his lower lip into the clip of his teeth while the corners of his mouth stretched and lifted into one of the most unusual and bewildering expressions capable. His trust in her was unquestioned. His loyalty unspoken. "'Kay..." He murmured humbly, allowing himself to be towed to the location that had caught her eye.
In the meanwhile, the cobra would be unashamedly picking at the crust of blood clinging to his upper lip, rubbing and plucking at it to eventually discover an angry gash -hot and throbbing- within his nostril where the blood was originating... As if someone had struck him in the nose while wearing a ring. This, in and of itself, added a new piece to the puzzle. He winced somewhat when he had plucked what was not purely blood, but part of the scab, a fresh river of droplets dribbling down to rest upon his lower lip. Basil had never tasted blood before. He did not approve. For lack of any better recourse, he began rubbing his face against the bare skin of his forearm in attempts to wipe it off (leaving only a long, messy smear). It was then that he blinked for a moment, thoughtfully contributing to the silence, "When did you talk?" Apparently only now realizing.
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 8:01 pm
His simple response prompted another small, fond smile from his female companion. If not for their outer appearance, onlookers would have thought it adorable seeing one child leading another so grown up like. Never once did Cordelia snap or become irate with Basil as she tugged him gently along the dark avenue towards the glittering goal beyond. Not even when he'd managed to make himself bleed again and had effectively smeared it all over his arm, to mingle nauseously with the red paint and gods only knew what else there. She'd be surprised if the boy kept from gaining an infection or two by week's end.
As they neared their destination, a giant stone fountain carved with mosaics of varying fish, mermaids and other such aquatic creatures (mythical or otherwise), Delia turned towards her hooded friend with a plain, yet contemplative look. Eventually the basilisk shrugged, "I don't know. Just happened one day, this speak. The hissing...that has always been and still is." Turning back to the reflective surface of the gushing water, "Let's get you cleaned up, yes? I bet you'll feel better after."
Carefully she pulled Basil over to the water's edge and...that was as far as the girl could make herself go. All thoughts and concerns had been for the disheveled cobra until now, her phobia of water rushing back to her. Silver orbs peered at him with a wide and slightly alarmed expression. Perhaps...perhaps Basil could take care of this part without her help?
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 12:15 am
While certainly there had been several instances wherein Genie had taken a damp cloth to a smudge on the boy's undimpled cheek, Basil could nary recall one instance in which he had been called upon to submerge completely beneath this shimmering surface that both enticed and befuddled him. To him it seemed just plain unnatural. The element itself had always confused him to no end, especially with it's incorrigible indecisiveness on a proper shape for itself, instead choosing to mold to the interior shape of it's container. Pardoning the pun, water was wishy-washy and Basil was hesitant to approve. At the thought of bathing in this bizarre and alien substance that could cling to fingertips in droplets or blast a claggy shred of lettuce from a dinner plate, Basil was compelled to glance at her in what had to be an expression of great confusion that borderline resembled anger for how tightly his brows knit. Her expression differed very little from his own it seemed. Was she frightened? In pain? Equally confused? To this day Basil's ability to read faces and gestures remained diminished at best. All he could conjure was that the expression was negative. Looking then to the water, he briefly scratched the top of his hand before experimentally plunging the tip of his finger into the pool and quickly withdrawing it. It felt luke-warm to the touch having spent a great deal of the day warming under the mid-afternoon sun, but had a bite of coldness underlying the immediate surface that made him apprehensive. He did not want to be one to disappoint, his deepening frown (or grimace, perhaps) as clear as day, particularly with the dribbling river of red that dipped and crusted in the crinkles forming in his tremendous visage.
Deciding to appease the girl's gentle and well-meaning request, Basil sighed. A congregation of pinkish opaque bubbles appeared briefly in the stream lingering between his lips as a result. Gently maneuvering over the low retaining wall in a rare display of grace, Basil began to maintain "sitting" in the shallow bath. The water made contact with the very tip of his ribbon, creating a reaction that would have been very much the same as if Basil had just been wearing swim-shorts in which the ribbon slowly darkened and absorbed the liquid. It hastily began to envelop him, moving quickly through the tattered coils as if it were a drop of clear nasal mucous on a clean tissue square faster than he could even submerge himself. When it unexpectedly reached the edges of his forming skin, he let out a quiet bark, seemingly incensed by the chilly, unfamiliar sensation.
Before he could start on whichever unpredictable but surely extravagant reaction he had in his arsenal, he then took notice of the glittering copper-bed of pennies beneath him to cushion his nonexistent bottom that seemed to make the discomfort far more bearable. He reached his hand underneath to scoop out a proper handful and sift through them with his adjacent finger. He leaned down to smell them, lick them, experience them. Perhaps this was a money fountain; not one in which people gleefully tossed their coinage, but one rather that produced them over time in the way an oyster would come to present pearls from a grain of sand. Basil would know a great deal of the marvels that could be created with sand. He carefully loosened his fingers, widening the gaps between each to allow the waterlogged pennies to stream downwards from his cupped hand, plunking and clinking as they went. It was lovely. He then removed his hood, an act as unthinkable as Santa Claus shaving his beard. He assumed he was expected then to submerge his face and head as well to cleanse himself of the blood and grime in it's entirety. While shallow, Basil was tactful and successful at laying face-down in the pool to cleanse himself, the water slowly tinting and clouding with the fluids and filth that had clung to his virgin flesh. They rose to the surface in swirling discs, the paint especially, tainting the fountain with his very habitation.
While floating on the surface of the rippling drink, Basil was quite unaware that it would be in his best interest to avoid filling his malformed body with the substance, and hence had continued to breathe in and out as normally as he would have on dry land. The thought had not occurred to him to withhold his breath, bringing him gasping and choking up to the surface in a matter of seconds. His hair plastered to his cheeks and flailing like a wounded fowl. God bless him however, after a sufficient period of gasping and choking and crying, he slapped his face down into the water a second time, despite his obvious aversion to doing so.
He insisted on doing this however many times it took for him to become clean. Even if it meant the unforeseen fate of drowning in a pool less than a foot deep.
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:07 pm
Thankful for the cobra's understanding, Delia let loose a tiny sigh of relief. It was strange, knowing she needed to help the boy yet finding herself unable to proceed. She was also grateful that she hadn't needed to explain her sudden paralysis just a moment ago, not that she was sure she could or that Basil would understand. Yet that was of no matter now, the basilisk quite content on watching (from afar of course) as the youth slowly experienced the fountain's small wonders.
Hazy silver watched the glint of copper and gold dance among the exaggerated lighting of the pool as they dropped slowly one by one back to the bottom. Cordelia enjoyed the male's experimental and explorative nature, only wishing that she could join him if not for the invisible chain holding her back. A chain that was soon to be broken.
The elder snake jumped when Basil began flailing around, sputtering and gasping for breath. Cordelia paced frantically back and forth along the fountain's edge, wondering what she should do. The fear of him drowning far out weighed the need to keep away from water then. Shouting his name, the dark girl threw herself after the other, a loud hissing sound not like that of a snake, but of perhaps a fizzed out fire hitting the air.
She could feel the cold quickly zapping her strength, but Cordelia pushed forth nonetheless and grabbed hold of the boy. "B-Basil! Are...are you all right?"
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 2:30 pm
At the time of her intrusion, Basil was aggressively conflicted between holding himself underneath the water in hopes that the experience would get better with sufficient discipline, or straight leaping out of the fountain and just telling his Delia straightaway that she was asking too much of him. Naturally, as he had very little discipline to spare, instinct compelled him to pursue the latter option. Ripping away from her grasp and clambering over the wall, heavy and dripping, he clumsily face-planted onto the street in his efforts to escape a watery doom. Startled beyond belief, the cobra snuffed and snorted his way around the concrete until he was capable of rising back to his upright position, a red mist spewing from his mouth followed by plaintive coughing to clear his passageways. His mouth tasted coppery and unclean... All the while he voraciously filled his lungs with air, despite the discomfort of his newly sore throat. He shut his eyes as tight as they would close. Doubled over, what had formed of his stomach seemed now to be doing acrobats, his rune pulsing with the quickened beat of his heart. Basil felt very sick inside... He'd rather have been filthy.
Naturally in the midst of his own episode, he had not forgotten that Cordelia still remained in the perilous fountain, in more danger than he had first realized. A heroine in her own right for tending to him, he would gladly return to the hellish basin to retrieve her against his own better judgement (what little there was.) He glanced at the shallow pool warily at first, contemplating whether or not to let her climb out of her own accord. Not out of apathy or cruelty, but merely because common sense dictated that there was no need for him to endanger himself a second time if she were capable of handling herself. After all, more often than not did he rely on her to defend him against his own blunders, let alone permit him to return the favor. It did not become apparent to him that if not for his flailing about like a jackass, she would not be in the state she was in, thus obligating his assistance at the very least. His aching lungs now filled with the odor of thickening smoke that he had come to associate with her, and it reaffirmed his decision. It was like the smoldering smoke of a battlefield that promised survivors in need of rescuing. It stirred inklings of benevolence within him. Slowly shaped his character, which perhaps made it one of the most moving and powerful forces on earth as would be love and knowledge. With a wet snort of his nose, he returned to the place of disaster.
It would be assumed that without the overcast shadow of his hood, Basil would not be quite as menacing to the general public as he was normally perceived. That perhaps underneath, he had a soft, gentle face that any given person could mistake for that of a kind, sentient being. And sometimes, this was true. It was merely that like his hapless, ignorant grin, the hood was signature to him. Nearly organic as would be his ears or eyelashes. But without it, in that one given moment as he advanced upon her, his expression single-minded and devoid of any joy or clarity, he was perhaps more terrifying than anything. It was the face of a boy, that had the potential to one day be a man that could take serious action. Sweeping across the water, he began attempts to heft her up. Carrying her not as a man would carry a woman in the so-called "bridal style", but as a parent would carry a child (or if need be, a sack of flour), gripping her tight where skin met ribbon at a slight angle so as to support her, encouraging her to wrap her arms around his neck. She was notably limp... Colder than usual.
In order to provide shelter and shade during the day for admirers of the fountain, a handsome gazebo was conveniently nearby where Basil and his companion could retreat to as the sky began to blacken. Already the street-lamps began to alight. To Basil, it looked like a tiny, open-sided house; an automatic icon of safety. It was here that he set the Basilisk down onto one of four tarnished benches. She too was heavy with water, and for this he felt sympathy, kneeling down at her front with baleful eyes with their reddened, bruise-colored rings underneath to imply his sleeplessness. Unable to remember exactly how to ask if she were alright, he could think only to inflict the gesture that had brought them together, reaching an outstretched finger to prod her in the chest. A gesture that conveyed unity and oneness. One of the few concepts that Basil could actually make sense of. He would not wait for her to inflict it in return, belching up a bit of water and drawing his hood. If there were one thing perhaps that the girl could be either grateful for (or appalled by), it would be that in Basil's company, even an act as pedestrian as bathing in a fountain could turn into an adventurous, life-threatening epic. She would never want for excitement.
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