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 Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 6:06 am
Zar listened patiently to what Calder had to say. He appreciated the attempts to convince him that he was something other than a monumental failure, but all in all his opinions remained unchanged. Being alive was not an achievement when it was the only thing you had to your name, and sleeping with one demon was hardly an achievement either when the essence of what you were was focused around predatory intercourse.
"I would not be a good parent." he said. "I would not know where to begin, and no doubt would end up resented in the same fashion I am by many individuals by even my own scarlings."
Calder's enthusiasm for the subject was contagious, and Zar could almost believe, caught up in the kelpie's emotions that it was something that was possible. Once he looked at it logically however, the optimism faded away, no single individual could create scarlings, and what relationships he had were complicated and had staked claims elsewhere.
He took a moment, looking thoughtful and unhurried as he tried to reasonably imagine what he'd been asked, but all he could envision was many locked doors, resentment and reasons why it was simply not a feasible outcome.
"No." he said, with just an edge of wistfulness. "I cannot imagine it, even if I try. I have nowhere to go or to be, I have no solid partnership with any creature where it would be a reasonable outcome to entertain. It is simply not something I can conjure up in my thoughts, despite what a pleasant thing it would be to see." Imagination was something he was still slowly learning, sharing in the dreams of others and using his abilities to experience their emotions was his classroom, but even that was slow work when everything beyond the known felt so utterly hopeless.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 6:56 am
Calder stuck out his tongue as he sighed out loud. "I would think a incubu would have some ability to fantasize! You don't need to have a reasonable partner just to imagine it. Even if you just think someone would be hot to be with or interesting, you can fantasize about how it would be to have a life with them. Do them. Have scarlings with them. It gives you and idea of what you really want in life and helps you go for it. Maybe the problem with not seeing a future is because you don't even entertain these ideas and just have fun with then as fantasizes. I fantasize all the damn time. I even fantasizes about -" He stopped in his ranting, not about to get upset again over the fantasy he had of Barth and Zar together and the reality of it happening. If Zar heard that and questioned why he was the upset, he'd have to admit that part of it was his absence in the party - among other things.
He brushed it off with a wave of his hands as if it wasn't important to mention, and the started to comb his hair with his hands.
"You should have some fun in your own head at least. Things could happen. I dreamt up a life with Barth in my head before we even admitted we liked each other."
He looked around and then back at the shirt Zar was wearing. "You can't say you don't have anyone to dream up a life about. Barth clearly thinks you are something. He doesn't give shirts to just anyone." Calder's voice dropped, less energized now and more somber.
Barth liked Zar.
"Blue incubu would look cute."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:30 am
"I can certainly fantasise." he volunteered. "But it is within a very narrow area and I try very hard not to do so." He fought fantasies with everything he had, thinking about other people in that manner triggered deep rooted and deeply predatory instincts and could end in truly horrendous fashion if he allowed it. He had no brakes for what he was short of never permitting himself to think about it in the first place. "The kind of fantasies that I am capable of do no translate to genuine future planning. In my life imagination is a dangerous thing." He had even felt his anxiety levels spike at Calder almost sharing his fantasies with him, knowing that too could rapidly turn down uncertain roads.
His tail curled around his hooves in a defensive gesture. "Everything is dangerous, when one dreams up a future, it is easy to fixate upon it, and when ultimately you cannot attain it, there is nothing but despair left." He'd allowed himself once upon a time to dote on someone and plan ahead and when everything crumbled he'd almost be unable to reconstruct his life.
"I do not know what Barth thinks about me other than that I am useful. He is certain about what he thinks about you. There is nothing for you to fear from me."
He didn't understand why Calder was being kind to him, altruism made no sense to him. He couldn't understand why the kelpie would encourage him to aspire and dream, to consider that something as wild as scarlings would ever apply to him, could ever apply to him. All he could think was that it had to be a trap to draw him out of his walls, leave him vulnerable and remove him from the playing field forever.
"Fantasy is dangerous." he repeated, as if it was a mantra he'd taught himself.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:12 am
he just looked confused now, his hands paused in mid comb through his hair and his ears up but slanted as if hearing a strange noise. Zar could fantasize yet he didn't due to his fear if not attaining what he dreamt about, and for that Calder wondered if he was missing the point. "Are you just...afraid if failing? You know that's part if living? Being thrown in the river if life, you are going to hit rocks. I bit them all the time and it hurts. Doesn't mean it's stopping me from dreaming big. The world is hard enough without me adding to it."
He finished messing with his hair and looked at Zar again. "You should at least have one dream, even if it's vague right now. Something. No one should live otherwise." Though Zar seemed to be missing the point on this. It wasn't a unfamiliar struggle he had to explain. Christof had the same feelings about a hopeless future. Calder just knew by now to use scarling steps.
"Like, to start, what do you even like aside from..paper stuff?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:28 am
"I do not fear failure, it is a simple fact in my life. I simply exist logically, there is no point in making any investment when there is a high percentage chance that it will never work out in an ideal fashion." he waved a claw vaguely. "I know from experience that if I wander too readily into the realm of imagination that it can trigger unfavourable instincts in me, old, unpleasant instincts. I do not savour loss of control, it is unbecoming of a demon."
He looked Calder over again, this time more slowly, as if testing his own statement, his tail raised itself from the floor to flick behind him, hovering like a scorpion sting when it stilled for even a moment. He tried to push himself away from the thoughts.
"Sex." he said, matter-of-factly. "Emotions. Particularly those belonging to others." There was a scuffling sound under his desk and he inclined an ear in its direction. "Goats.", he added.
"I am hardly what one could ever term a party animal."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:37 am
"But just because there are high odds, doesn't mean you should stop before you begin. Then you really are going from nearly no chance to no chance at all and NEVER get anything. You aren't doomed to failure for everything you want to do. Geez. No wonder you're so depressing. If you think that way."
He turned to the noise as Zar listed his interests."What do you get out of emotions?" He asked curious. He stood up as he asked this to go investigate the desk. Zar really didn't give him much to work with when trying to suggest future career paths or life goals. Goat farmer maybe? It might be insulting to suggest prostitute.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:46 am
"Being depressing appears to be in my nature." he said with a faint smile. "It is not intentional, I simply do not relish taking risks." He seemed to reconsider. "Unless they are very specific, very gratifying risks."
In the dark under the desk was a small white demon goat. It bleated eagerly at Calder as he wandered over and darted out to prance around his legs. The desk itself had not one single piece of paperwork anywhere on it, not in the in tray or the out and was polished to a shine around the deep claw gouges on it's surface.
"What do I get out of them? Touching upon the emotions of others is like reading a book that discusses exciting far-off places I have never been and could never go, it is an exotic experience when I permit myself so few emotions of my own."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:02 am
"So you deny yourself from feeling anything because....it's dangerous....because....why again?" He really wasn't getting why Zar would shut himself from feeling anything yet enjoy feeling it from others. "It's like you really want to feel and enjoy yourself but you won't let yourself."
He knelt down, giddy and glad for a happier distraction. Goats were adorable with hooves and stubby horns. On all fours, Calder went to press his hand on the goat's head to try and get it to shove back. "What's it's name?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:17 am
"Because I will snap." he said, looking away almost guiltily. "Because I will try and either murder or seduce people, sometimes both when I permit myself to slope off into an unrestrained, uncouth frame of mind." His tail wouldn't stop flicking behind him, a fact he found both irritating and unsettling.
The tiny valiantly tried to headbutt Calder's hand, the result was more pathetic than intimidating.
As if sensing the commotion, four or five other goats emerged from various hiding places in the room to sniff, nibble and headbutt Calder intermittently. "They don't have names, they are goats." he said, as if this was common knowledge. "They have scents though. I suppose one could name them according to scents. The one that is at your hand is called not-like-grass, if he had a name."
He shook his head. "They make a sufficient snack when there is nothing else left to eat."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:25 am
Calder grinned wide at seeing more goatlings, and tried to pet and play with each one that wanted his attention, leaving him a bit distracted. "I get that way near water. Same thing. Sorta I guess." He sat and picked up the nearest one to smell it.
"It's your nature. It shouldn't be something you stop. It should be something you work with. Shitting down yourself isn't helping you live. Have you talked to your clansmen on how to deal?"
He too another sniff of goat before holding it up. "What's his name?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:35 am
"Demons do not have clansmen. My parents want nothing more to do with me at this point either. I have been effectively disowned." He had never run into Calder's reactions near water, so automatically he doubted their severity in relation to his own manic responses. "I doubt that it is the same. You sound much more in control of whatever it is than I could ever be of my own responses."
He raised a brow and looked deeply sceptical. "Shutting it down is my only option most of the time. There has only been one occasion where I could unleash it thus far, and that was because the other individual could handle anything that I threw at them." He didn't specify when that was, but he presumed Calder was smart enough to assume.
"He's erm. Some of these names just do not translate well into actual words. Flatulence. I'd say."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:17 pm
"Hi Flat!" Calder shortened and picked up another. He would learn all their names, even if some might be gone for dinner later.
As he petted another goat, he mused on what Zar thought. "I tried drowning a girl in a boiling cauldron in front of Red, and then tried to challenge her for interfering. Hellma herself had to put a restraint on me until I could at least not murder someone near water." He turned, smiling in embarrassment. "So I don't know how bad it can get for you, but I was pretty bad." He looked down, petting the goat. "Still am."
"If you have someone who can handle you, why not continue with them and learn control?" He looked up. "What's his name?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:48 pm
Flat gave a happy little wiggle as another goat took his place, this time a sandy coloured little buck. "He's dust-sneezes." he said, as if it was common knowledge. Not as attractive as it sounded, hewas represented in Zar's eyes by a scent that was one part dust, one part snot.
He listened to Calder's tale about when he'd lost it before and raised both his eyebrows, it certainly sounded significant, far more than he'd thought. "I have never run into a scenario like that fortunately. I keep a firm leash on it and do not even entertain anything in detail, or get too close to other people either, the tail has a mind of its own."
Zar gave Calder a grim look before shrugging. Why not, he figured. "It was Barth. The thorns are tough enough to stop me from harming him. It is not something I feel he has the energy to do often nor something I would ask of him, especially after you made abundantly clear you want his energy and need it more than I do."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 1:23 pm
He sniffed dust-sneezes and then set him down before looking around for another, picking it up and walking over back to the couch with goat in hand. "Barth can call his thorns even in his sleep and has a lot if control over them but....if this was a issue, wouldn't your old boilfriend have had the same issue to deal with?" Calder was luckily did have enough control to not drown Barth when they were together in the tub, but even then it was tempting.
But Barth wasn't a fighter, so how violent did Zar get and what did he do?
"Is that why you said Barth could take care of himself and didn't need protection? Because you were wild with him?" He set the goat down and looked over.
"I never said you couldn't be with Barth. I just have claim. Barth wants you and he is his own person to give his energy. I just want to sort out those details. You can still be with him. I just - was surprised it started. I knew Barth was open to others from the start. We talked about that. I just... Want to make it clear Im Lead, and if we won't fight, then I guess it's just known. I am ...sorting details since I'm making my herd work in this world with demons to make sense. I don't know if it's working. A lot of stuff doesn't." He sighed and watched the goats.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 3:11 pm
"I never let myself go with my old boilfriend." Zar said casually. "It was fairly straightforward not to since I was never really permitted to top. I fought it every step of the way for his sake."
He nodded. "But yes, that is a part of why I said that, the rest is innate in his nature, he is not vulnerable, he is cunning."
The prospect of Calder being lead rankled his pride a little, but what did it matter? It was simply a word, it was a meaningless concession which ultimately would not affect him if he did not desire it to. Words came easy to Zar, it was the actions which were more difficult to secure.
The only thing that he questioned was Calder's concept of a herd and wether it was distinct from his own.
He couldn't keep the grin away as he asked. "Doesn't the lead sleep with whoever he wants?"
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