"You know, I think I'd like that. Something to take back home to our library this winter."
The library, where it will probably never be read because there are no more children who are taught to read and write out of the bestiary as old as humanity's presence in this world. But still, it will feel like a contribution of some kind, and he can still talk about this with the three other witchers who will (if the world is not too cruel) be waiting there for him. "It'll have to wait til after whatever this is we're about to do in town is sorted though, didn't bring anything to take notes on." He tips his head back thoughtfully, considering Bull's question.
"I mean, we can track a lot of things by scent. So, I find some leg fur at a scene where a succubus was, sometimes I can find her that way. And usually I try to convince her to let her unfortunate human companions go and leave the area."
Once, this had resulted in...Eskel wasn't sure how it happened. Had he bribed her, traded himself for some unfortunate human knowing he was more likely to survive the encounter? Had she simply demanded his company for the promise to leave and not trouble the settlement? Had she just pounced on him? The fisstech and the exhaustion and a lot of mead and wine had robbed him of a lot of his memories of the encounter.
But Bull doesn't need to know about that, and Eskel tries not to remember what little he does. A witcher's body does not betray arousal easily but he would hate for some stray element of the succubus' memory to show in his face. He does his best.
"Yeah, usually goes alright. Only one or two encounters have ever come to blows."
"So, those unfortunate human companions are... what, victims or something?" He says it neutrally, curiously - the guy not killing the shit out of him's still a surprise, so he's not about to expect a witcher to see the whole thing the way he does. And it's important to sound neutral, anyway, try and get an honest answer so he can guess at where he's going to stand with this guy once the witcher finds out about Bull. If he's going to have to keep this dry spell going the whole time they know each other - not that that's going to be too tough, with things like they are - and if he's going to have to avoid him if they ever see each other after this. Not killing someone when they're in front of you having a conversation and being cool with the stuff they do afterward can be two totally different things, and it's pretty important that Bull figure out if that's the case here. The witcher's relaxed, but surely that only really goes so far. "The way I hear it, they usually really want to be there."
(ooc: This might turn into them talking about consent, if that ends up not being where you want it to go let me know and I can edit)
"People really, really wanna do shit that will kill them." Eskel points out. "Me? I drink too much. Always seems good at the time, so my point is, humans might enjoy being reeled in by a succubus, might enjoy her attentions, but in my experience they tend to die or go mad as a result. So...gotta extricate them, if I can."
{{Alright with me! It's kind of nice to have it in a casual on-page conversation!}}
"Noble. Saving people who don't wanna be saved. Bet they don't ever thank you for it." Bull studies him, then tells himself to focus. Yeah he likes picking people apart, figuring out how they tick, but there's a specific direction he needs to take this in, here.
"So, the succubi you meet, they always kill people? Or, what, drive them out of their minds with lust or something? The girls all tell you that when you talk to them?" Because, guy like this, he does talk to them, Bull's mostly sure. He responded to Bull talking pretty well, although some of that might have been the curiosity thing, and most of the succubi Bull's known don't really tend to be quiet.
"Seen it happen. The guys come back all wasted, die of exhaustion or hunger or thirst. Or they do something to displease the lady and die that way. But sometimes they just come back messed up in the head: sex-addled, lust-drunk. Depends on the succubus I guess." He shrugs, his wolf's yellow gaze shifting away and over Bull's shoulder. An evasive expression amidst all his candor. "I've met one or two outright violent ones, but most of them seem...well, not harmless because the humans do die or get hurt but more like cats with mice. They cripple them, have their fun, get whatever they need from the experience and let them go, maimed but alive. Very...playful attitudes about it."
Bull frowns down at the floor, obviously not liking what he's hearing. His tail flicks hard enough to hit the hand draped over his hip. Sure, it's fine to hear that the witcher doesn't think it's safe in general terms, but once you start getting specific...
He sighs.
"I guess it's been a while since I've seen any of them work," he admits unhappily and then, because it's right there off the bare hint of what might have been an evasive look, off the topic itself, and because if there's any witcher who's not going to get violent the moment you aim for what might be a sore spot, it would probably be this one: "What's that code you mentioned say about letting them go? If you're right about all that crap, they're just going to move on and keep hurting people somewhere else. Your witcher friends back home let them go too, or you just really like a nice pair of tits?"
"I guess I'm just supposed to take them at their word." Eskel says. "I didn't say the Code always made sense, just that I'm supposed to follow it." And from what he's seen, even the most devout and studious witcher was known to bend the Code. "I mean...okay, let's say you have a panther, right? A panther needs to eat, it needs to hunt. Can't hold that against them. But when they come into a human settlement, you need to chase them off or, if they pose a real danger and can't be moved then sometimes they have to be put down. It's like that. I just try to convince them to go somewhere they can't hurt humans or maybe convince them to be more careful. Or ply their charms with other sentient nonhumans, who are usually stronger." Much stronger in some cases-- how long had he been in that succubus' lair before she'd finally exhausted him enough that he could no longer satisfy, but still healthy enough that he could stagger away with his life? Longer than any human man could ever hope for, certainly. He brow furrows and he shrugs. "And I guess it's like panthers too with the forests and caves and human settlements getting closer and closer by the decade, causing problems." He hangs his head, shaking it. Feeling bad that he's agitated his new companion, judging by the the tail. Not worried about him getting aggressive, but unhappy that he's offended.
"I'm not good at explaining this shit. These days I'm alone more often than I'm not, and a person kinda gets caught up in your own head, and the talking bit makes 'em sound like a halfwit." He sits back and heaves a sigh, reaching for a more light-hearted remark.
"And, in all fairness, I'll admit that they're real pretty for something so dangerous."
That last comment gets a low, appreciative chuckle out of Bull and he looks up at the tent, quiet a moment to give the agitation some time to start to fade.
"I know what that feels like, the caught up in your head thing. You know, there used to be this guy, came out here to hunt, tan, makes these beautiful furs and sells them to the higher ups in town, ships some of them out to cities. Fancy stuff. He's good. Has this place out at the edge of the wood, lets me stay in it to wait out bad weather."
Right on cue, more of that too-loud thunder makes Bull fold back his ears, grimacing a little until it's passed. This crap's a little quieter when you've got more between you and it than a little canvas.
"Or, you know, used to. If I'd known the last time we talked was going to be the last time he wanted anything to do with me, I would have talked him into giving me one of those furs. A memento, you know? I have this friend, never lets herself stop and enjoy nice things, I was thinking maybe she'd like-"
He stops, sighs. "Doesn't matter now, I guess. So, these pretty little succubi, they just - don't know they're hurting these poor dumbshit humans, right? Or is it just that they don't care? Or a little of both, they just get led around by their wants too much? A panther doesn't know any different, but these succubi, they can talk to their meal first, right? You'd think that would make it different."
So Bull is...or at least was friendly with the locals. Something must have changed, and abruptly by the sound of it. Maybe something to do with Bull smuggling women and girls out of the village? But if things really were as suspicious-- if not outright bad-- as Eskel was starting to suspect, then surely that wouldn't be a bad thing? Then again, it's not like Eskel didn't know how quickly a human could turn on a nonhuman, usually to protect their own ass.
"Suppose some of them don't care. I don't know what motivates some to let the men go--damaged but alive with some hope of recovery-- and some to take from their prey until the body gives up and the human dies. But they do talk to them first, obviously. Get the guy to agree to go away with them. Don't just jump them right there in the road against their will and all that."
"So, no chance that changes things for the succubus at all? She talks to these guys, gets all intimate, spends that time giving them what they need, but there's no chance she just lets the guys go because she kind of likes them? Why those monsters do what they do, it's all just a big mystery?"
Yeah, he's leading the witcher pretty hard here. That's going to be even more obvious to the guy once Bull tells him what he is, what he does. But sometimes 'blunt' is the only way to make your point, and if Bull's going to tell him, it's a point that probably needs to get made. Even if it might make it even more obvious that, for Bull, this is getting personal. He guesses he'll find out what the witcher makes of that.
"You focus more on the what than the why when you talk to them, right? Makes sense, you want to make sure everyone's safe and get out. But you ever think maybe you just don't see the times when it goes right? I mean, if a succubus is good at what she does, there's no reason to stick with one guy at a time until she takes everything he has. Unless she's just... a mindless animal, like you guys think, taking just because that's what she is. You think there's not any other explanations?"
"Whoa, easy." Eskel holds up his hands, though no magic charges in his palms. "I'm not writing a book on them or anything, just trying to do my job." He says. Bull is right: at the end of the day he just wants to solve the problem, collect the coin and go before he finds himself the object of the pleasantry's rage. But the stranger is really driving at...something here and Eskel feels like he needs to tread carefully or do something to take the pressure off.
Well, if he's relying on Bull to not tell anybody that he let him go when this is all over...what's another secret. Even if it's incredibly embarrassing.
"Look, the one time it happened to me I didn't exactly stick around to interview her about why she was letting me go, I just left."
Letting himself get worked up might not be the right move right now - the witcher trying to calm him down tells him that, tells him the guy sort of expects Bull to go off on him the same way Bull sort of expects the witcher to change his mind, say Bull needs to die after all - but in the next few seconds that stops mattering, as all the momentum Bull's been building abruptly drops. His ears face front, alert, and then swivel to the side to dip again, not pressing flat to his head but getting close.
Well, shit.
Any hint of a frown disappears into a neutral expression and for a moment Bull goes quiet, studying him. Then he lowers himself so he's half lying down again, leaning on his forearm, low down enough so the witcher can look down at him.
He sighs.
"Guess I've got to be impressed you're still letting some of them go then," he says, tapping a couple fingers on the tent's canvas floor. "Not everyone would after something like that."
"Well, she didn't kill me. And I don't bear her any ill will or anything." Eskel says, quietly. "I went with her willingly enough. Don't remember the particulars anymore 'cause we were both on piles of fisstech and my memory's full of holes-- whether I traded myself for one of her human pets, or asked what it would take to bribe her into leaving or if she asked me to escort her somewhere safer and shit just got weird but I know I put myself in that position readily enough. She had a good time. And...maybe I did too, when I think about it. This had just happened." He gestures to the long furrows of scar tissue that spoil rough but handsome enough face. "I was more than willing to do what she asked of me, because she wasn't scared when she looked at me."
This is more raw and vulnerable than he wanted to be about this incident. Ever. With anyone. He's not sure it's not making things worse.
"I know well enough that you can go with one of your own free will, maybe even have a good time. But humans have very different limits and succubi have different temperaments. Maybe you've met more kind and gentle ones than I have, probably because your sort don't leave trails of bodies for me to follow. I promise that I spare them more often than not. I try to do my best, just like I'm trying now with...whatever it is you are."
Bull watches, alert, listening. Nods when he gestures to the scar. When the witcher seems done, Bull looks down at his hands. His ears twitch back, and he forces them normal again. "Yeah. I know you are."
Everything else aside, this might complicate things; how does a guy like that feel when he finds out he's been in this tiny space with one of those things - more or less, one of those things - this whole time, just having a conversation? He won't get violent, Bull thinks. Probably. But still, feels kind of shitty, springing the fact on the guy now.
"Been a while, right? Looks like the scar's had time to heal up pretty well. You dealt with succubi a lot since then? How was it?" Stupid question probably. Too general, but asking anything more specific feels like a dick move, too. Still, important to keep trying to feel this out if he's going to decide how to handle it.
"Not really. Here and there. None like that. Plenty of them don't like witchers, wouldn't touch one. Which I can't fault them for, obviously." He shrugs, scrutinizing the floor, and then turning his attention to Bull. "I'm starting to suspect," he begins, gingerly. "That you're going somewhere with this. Or trying to. I'm about to trust you with my life, getting mixed up in this shit with the missing girls. I need you to be straight with me, like I've been with you. What are you after?" He wonders if maybe there is a succubus mixed up in all this. A friend of the creature? How did that factor in the matter of the missing women and whatever was going on with the mayor and his cronies?
"Not really. Here and there. None like that. Plenty of them don't like witchers, wouldn't touch one. Which I can't fault them for, obviously." He shrugs, scrutinizing the floor, and then turning his attention to Bull. "I'm starting to suspect," he begins, gingerly. "That you're going somewhere with this. Or trying to. I'm about to trust you with my life, getting mixed up in this shit with the missing girls. I need you to be straight with me, like I've been with you. What are you after?" He wonders if maybe there is a succubus mixed up in all this. A friend of the creature? How did that factor in the matter of the missing women and whatever was going on with the mayor and his cronies?
Bull frowns, taps his fingers on the floor again, sighs and then he looks up. "Not after anything. Just wanted to feel things out before I answer your question. Know I'm going to have to eventually. I already led up to it too hard to try and lie. Not that I think you'll try anything, you seem like a really decent guy. Just seems kind of mean to tell you now, after all that. I don't know."
He looks at the canteen, wanting to lean up and drink out of it, but he remembers the witcher trying to calm him down, like he thinks Bull might fly off the handle or something, and knows the way he's going about this right now probably isn't the most reassuring way he could have handled it. Better not to make too many moves in case the guy starts feeling twitchy.
"I was asking you what you witchers know about the way that monsters have kids because I'm pretty sure I'm some kind of crossbreed. Really sure at this point, I guess. None of the uh, women who brought me up knew about anyone else like that, so there's got to be more to it than just who sleeps with what. By the time I got old enough to start asking questions, though, I couldn't find the one who actually did the deed. Kind of wish I could, just to meet whoever had the balls of steel to fuck a fiend. Shit, can you imagine?"
Bull sighs. That would be a nice little detour, if he had the wiggle room to move the conversation down that road instead. But he was already giving the witcher weird vibes by being all indirect and crap, wasn't he, and it's not like the guy's just going to stop asking. Just got to grit his teeth and do it - gently, though, if he can. You know, considering.
"I figure something almost wanted me to be a satyr, but then that something got... confused, I guess. Almost got there. So, you mentioned how some of the people in town knew about me, right? They just didn't want to tell you. They were holding stuff back, and some of it was about me. What kind of monsters you met that can get that close to people? That friendly with them? Sure, they all dropped me now-"
And if there's a little bitterness when he says that part, so what? It isn't the first time. He'll get over it.
"-But they liked me just fine when I was giving them what they wanted. What they needed." He pauses, still watching the witcher, then goes on almost gently. "And none of them even seemed addled, I'd bet. Or exhausted, or dehydrated, or maimed, or any of that other stuff you've seen. I like to think they're better off but, you know. Guess I might be a little biased."
It's...a lot and he can tell Bull is still dancing around things, but the dance is a little easier to see now that there are more facts available. It's just...a remarkable set of facts, if he's following correctly.
Those unnatural eyes widen as the pieces he has falls into place.
"You're a hybrid. Fiends, chorts, satyrs and succubi are all related, I guess there's no reason they couldn't cross-breed. I mean, apart from the mechanics, but let's not think about your mom that way, huh?" Bull's right though, Eskel had to admire the mysterious succubus' ambition and sense of adventure. He follows this thread to where he thinks Bull is trying to get him to go without saying it.
"You're...more succubus than satyr or fiend, you're saying?" He attempts to confirm. "In terms of powers? The people in town aren't talking to me because they've had a very graphic--if pleasant-- demonstration of what you're capable of and they're embarrassed." Fair enough, he certainly preferred to keep his little encounter close to the chest." He rumbles thoughtfully deep in his chest. "Am I following you a little better now?"
Bull gives a slow nod, wary. The witcher looks okay with it, doesn't seem worried or anything, but still-
"Not going to try anything on you," he says, because whether or not the witcher needs to hear it right at this moment, Bull wants to make sure it gets said. "My uh, the whole succubus pheromone thing, it doesn't come as easy with me anyway, not until someone's really thinking about it. But it sounds like you don't trust that 'wanting to' part either, at least not with us."
He takes a moment, eye darting over the witcher, assessing him. "Doesn't seem like there's a lot of chance of this, but if you ever decide you are interested, you want me to say no? Never shut someone down before we've even done anything but we're covering enough firsts here already, right? What's one more?"
"Sure. If you were gonna try something, I'd wager you'd have done it already. Does explain why I keep faintly catching the scent though, in close quarters like this." He draws his legs up but only to rest his elbows on his knees. Still relaxed, neither threatening or fleeing. His expression and his words are cautious, but it's more deference to how delicate the situation seems to have become.
"Have you been alone a while?" He asks. "Haven't gotten what you need?" He turns his face away, and for a moment Bull can see the half that might give some idea of how handsome (in a heavy, rustic kind of way) Eskel had once been. His expression is thoughtful, curious. "Makes two of us, kinda."
Bull keeps on studying him, taking in the man's face in profile. "Yeah," he says after a moment, quiet, the word coming out a little rougher than he thought it was going to. Then he stops. The lack of an answer there is loud, not what Bull expected to be hearing right now, and most of the ways he can think to answer the witcher's own questions could probably read like some kind of come-on, on his part.
He opens his mouth, reconsiders answering at all, looking thoughtful. Then he closes his mouth again. This is new to him, sure, but encouraging the train of thought it looks like the witcher might be taking himself on might make the offer Bull just made kind of pointless. If the witcher's thinking about it, let him think about it.
"Said you go home in the winter, right? To see your witcher buddies?" He pauses, imagining. One of them got to be someone to somebody, for a while, even if the kind of needs Bull's so good at sating never really last. He's had to keep to himself for a while, yeah, he's been feeling it more than he wants to think about, but winter - once a year - feels like a long while away. Weird, to think about a witcher that way, in a way he understands. Always wandering, never settling down, never belonging enough to stay.
He wants to say it out loud, tell the witcher he gets it. Share that with him. Any try at some kind of intimacy on Bull's part right now, though- well, maybe he's thinking too hard about this, but he's never done things this way before. "You ever meet up with them outside of that?"
"Yeah. Every winter." The dutiful son, turning up to brave the cold and the quiet, to tend to the vast and crumbling wounds of his home, to mediate almost hundred years worth of disputes between the last four witchers of the wolf school. Be everyone's steady, sure, predictable Eskel. He shakes his head. "But after? We work on our own, but sometimes I'll travel with another witcher from home, split up when we get to a city. Sometimes you cross paths, out in the world. Sometimes not everybody comes home for the winter, turn up in the middle of next hunting season with some story about supposedly getting snowed in someplace. With or without somebody." He shrugs. "It's complicated though: a lot going on with my brothers while I'm out here in the world just trying to do my job." So, still lonely, in a way, even when they're all sitting around drinking by the fire, when he's surrounded by the only people who don't shrink from his face, from his voice, from the inhuman yellow of his gaze. "Hell, staying here with you for a while, to ride out this storm might be the craziest thing I've done since I hooked up with that succubus." He attempts a grin.
Bull gives a little grin back, still watching the witcher closely, trying to gauge his mood, think of something to say to test it out, try to get him talking a little more without outright asking. Keep things casual. "Shit, and I would have thought witcher-crazy would be a pretty high bar. If sitting in a tent talking's the craziest thing to happen to you in that long, maybe the rumours about you guys are all bullshit after all."
"The work isn't what I count as crazy. Monsters, curses, renegade mages, that's just the job. But outside of that...you don't live long by being unpredictable and not minding your own business." Eskel says. "Or so I think, anyway." He rubs the scar on the side of his face, a guilty twinge making his cheek ache. "Besides... you're telling me you just told me you're basically starving, as far as succubi go, just for us to sit here and stare at each other and not address that at all?"
"Not starving," he points out, but his gaze darts over the witcher's body as he says it, down and back up and then, with another one of those flicks of his ears where they want to swivel backward unhappily and he wants them to sit forward, normal, he lets his arm slip out from under him and lies on his side, as rolled over as he can get without flattening his tail underneath him. He looks up at the ceiling, allows himself a frustrated little sigh.
"Not yet, anyway. You want to address that, though, go right ahead. I get that you don't have a lot of reason to believe I'm not some kind of mindless animal that just does whatever it wants, so- What would it take, you think? For you to feel- not safe, I guess, but something. You want to know how I operate? Or go outside, so you've got room to swing your sword around?"
Before Bull can even congratulate himself for not saying that last part like an innuendo there's another rumble of thunder and now his ears get to lay back flat like they want and he grimaces, unhappy, till it stops. "Be great if we could wait on that one. Guess it depends on how cooped up you're feeling right now."
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The library, where it will probably never be read because there are no more children who are taught to read and write out of the bestiary as old as humanity's presence in this world. But still, it will feel like a contribution of some kind, and he can still talk about this with the three other witchers who will (if the world is not too cruel) be waiting there for him. "It'll have to wait til after whatever this is we're about to do in town is sorted though, didn't bring anything to take notes on." He tips his head back thoughtfully, considering Bull's question.
"I mean, we can track a lot of things by scent. So, I find some leg fur at a scene where a succubus was, sometimes I can find her that way. And usually I try to convince her to let her unfortunate human companions go and leave the area."
Once, this had resulted in...Eskel wasn't sure how it happened. Had he bribed her, traded himself for some unfortunate human knowing he was more likely to survive the encounter? Had she simply demanded his company for the promise to leave and not trouble the settlement? Had she just pounced on him? The fisstech and the exhaustion and a lot of mead and wine had robbed him of a lot of his memories of the encounter.
But Bull doesn't need to know about that, and Eskel tries not to remember what little he does. A witcher's body does not betray arousal easily but he would hate for some stray element of the succubus' memory to show in his face. He does his best.
"Yeah, usually goes alright. Only one or two encounters have ever come to blows."
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(ooc: This might turn into them talking about consent, if that ends up not being where you want it to go let me know and I can edit)
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{{Alright with me! It's kind of nice to have it in a casual on-page conversation!}}
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"So, the succubi you meet, they always kill people? Or, what, drive them out of their minds with lust or something? The girls all tell you that when you talk to them?" Because, guy like this, he does talk to them, Bull's mostly sure. He responded to Bull talking pretty well, although some of that might have been the curiosity thing, and most of the succubi Bull's known don't really tend to be quiet.
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He sighs.
"I guess it's been a while since I've seen any of them work," he admits unhappily and then, because it's right there off the bare hint of what might have been an evasive look, off the topic itself, and because if there's any witcher who's not going to get violent the moment you aim for what might be a sore spot, it would probably be this one: "What's that code you mentioned say about letting them go? If you're right about all that crap, they're just going to move on and keep hurting people somewhere else. Your witcher friends back home let them go too, or you just really like a nice pair of tits?"
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"I'm not good at explaining this shit. These days I'm alone more often than I'm not, and a person kinda gets caught up in your own head, and the talking bit makes 'em sound like a halfwit." He sits back and heaves a sigh, reaching for a more light-hearted remark.
"And, in all fairness, I'll admit that they're real pretty for something so dangerous."
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"I know what that feels like, the caught up in your head thing. You know, there used to be this guy, came out here to hunt, tan, makes these beautiful furs and sells them to the higher ups in town, ships some of them out to cities. Fancy stuff. He's good. Has this place out at the edge of the wood, lets me stay in it to wait out bad weather."
Right on cue, more of that too-loud thunder makes Bull fold back his ears, grimacing a little until it's passed. This crap's a little quieter when you've got more between you and it than a little canvas.
"Or, you know, used to. If I'd known the last time we talked was going to be the last time he wanted anything to do with me, I would have talked him into giving me one of those furs. A memento, you know? I have this friend, never lets herself stop and enjoy nice things, I was thinking maybe she'd like-"
He stops, sighs. "Doesn't matter now, I guess. So, these pretty little succubi, they just - don't know they're hurting these poor dumbshit humans, right? Or is it just that they don't care? Or a little of both, they just get led around by their wants too much? A panther doesn't know any different, but these succubi, they can talk to their meal first, right? You'd think that would make it different."
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"Suppose some of them don't care. I don't know what motivates some to let the men go--damaged but alive with some hope of recovery-- and some to take from their prey until the body gives up and the human dies. But they do talk to them first, obviously. Get the guy to agree to go away with them. Don't just jump them right there in the road against their will and all that."
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Yeah, he's leading the witcher pretty hard here. That's going to be even more obvious to the guy once Bull tells him what he is, what he does. But sometimes 'blunt' is the only way to make your point, and if Bull's going to tell him, it's a point that probably needs to get made. Even if it might make it even more obvious that, for Bull, this is getting personal. He guesses he'll find out what the witcher makes of that.
"You focus more on the what than the why when you talk to them, right? Makes sense, you want to make sure everyone's safe and get out. But you ever think maybe you just don't see the times when it goes right? I mean, if a succubus is good at what she does, there's no reason to stick with one guy at a time until she takes everything he has. Unless she's just... a mindless animal, like you guys think, taking just because that's what she is. You think there's not any other explanations?"
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Well, if he's relying on Bull to not tell anybody that he let him go when this is all over...what's another secret. Even if it's incredibly embarrassing.
"Look, the one time it happened to me I didn't exactly stick around to interview her about why she was letting me go, I just left."
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Well, shit.
Any hint of a frown disappears into a neutral expression and for a moment Bull goes quiet, studying him. Then he lowers himself so he's half lying down again, leaning on his forearm, low down enough so the witcher can look down at him.
He sighs.
"Guess I've got to be impressed you're still letting some of them go then," he says, tapping a couple fingers on the tent's canvas floor. "Not everyone would after something like that."
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This is more raw and vulnerable than he wanted to be about this incident. Ever. With anyone. He's not sure it's not making things worse.
"I know well enough that you can go with one of your own free will, maybe even have a good time. But humans have very different limits and succubi have different temperaments. Maybe you've met more kind and gentle ones than I have, probably because your sort don't leave trails of bodies for me to follow. I promise that I spare them more often than not. I try to do my best, just like I'm trying now with...whatever it is you are."
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Everything else aside, this might complicate things; how does a guy like that feel when he finds out he's been in this tiny space with one of those things - more or less, one of those things - this whole time, just having a conversation? He won't get violent, Bull thinks. Probably. But still, feels kind of shitty, springing the fact on the guy now.
"Been a while, right? Looks like the scar's had time to heal up pretty well. You dealt with succubi a lot since then? How was it?" Stupid question probably. Too general, but asking anything more specific feels like a dick move, too. Still, important to keep trying to feel this out if he's going to decide how to handle it.
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(Anonymous) 2021-06-06 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)Which I can't fault them for, obviously." He shrugs, scrutinizing the floor, and then turning his attention to Bull. "I'm starting to suspect," he begins, gingerly. "That you're going somewhere with this. Or trying to. I'm about to trust you with my life, getting mixed up in this shit with the missing girls. I need you to be straight with me, like I've been with you. What are you after?" He wonders if maybe there is a succubus mixed up in all this. A friend of the creature? How did that factor in the matter of the missing women and whatever was going on with the mayor and his cronies?
God replying on mobile is a disaster, sorry.
Which I can't fault them for, obviously." He shrugs, scrutinizing the floor, and then turning his attention to Bull. "I'm starting to suspect," he begins, gingerly. "That you're going somewhere with this. Or trying to. I'm about to trust you with my life, getting mixed up in this shit with the missing girls. I need you to be straight with me, like I've been with you. What are you after?" He wonders if maybe there is a succubus mixed up in all this. A friend of the creature? How did that factor in the matter of the missing women and whatever was going on with the mayor and his cronies?
it's all good I knew it was you
He looks at the canteen, wanting to lean up and drink out of it, but he remembers the witcher trying to calm him down, like he thinks Bull might fly off the handle or something, and knows the way he's going about this right now probably isn't the most reassuring way he could have handled it. Better not to make too many moves in case the guy starts feeling twitchy.
"I was asking you what you witchers know about the way that monsters have kids because I'm pretty sure I'm some kind of crossbreed. Really sure at this point, I guess. None of the uh, women who brought me up knew about anyone else like that, so there's got to be more to it than just who sleeps with what. By the time I got old enough to start asking questions, though, I couldn't find the one who actually did the deed. Kind of wish I could, just to meet whoever had the balls of steel to fuck a fiend. Shit, can you imagine?"
Bull sighs. That would be a nice little detour, if he had the wiggle room to move the conversation down that road instead. But he was already giving the witcher weird vibes by being all indirect and crap, wasn't he, and it's not like the guy's just going to stop asking. Just got to grit his teeth and do it - gently, though, if he can. You know, considering.
"I figure something almost wanted me to be a satyr, but then that something got... confused, I guess. Almost got there. So, you mentioned how some of the people in town knew about me, right? They just didn't want to tell you. They were holding stuff back, and some of it was about me. What kind of monsters you met that can get that close to people? That friendly with them? Sure, they all dropped me now-"
And if there's a little bitterness when he says that part, so what? It isn't the first time. He'll get over it.
"-But they liked me just fine when I was giving them what they wanted. What they needed." He pauses, still watching the witcher, then goes on almost gently. "And none of them even seemed addled, I'd bet. Or exhausted, or dehydrated, or maimed, or any of that other stuff you've seen. I like to think they're better off but, you know. Guess I might be a little biased."
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Those unnatural eyes widen as the pieces he has falls into place.
"You're a hybrid. Fiends, chorts, satyrs and succubi are all related, I guess there's no reason they couldn't cross-breed. I mean, apart from the mechanics, but let's not think about your mom that way, huh?" Bull's right though, Eskel had to admire the mysterious succubus' ambition and sense of adventure. He follows this thread to where he thinks Bull is trying to get him to go without saying it.
"You're...more succubus than satyr or fiend, you're saying?" He attempts to confirm. "In terms of powers? The people in town aren't talking to me because they've had a very graphic--if pleasant-- demonstration of what you're capable of and they're embarrassed." Fair enough, he certainly preferred to keep his little encounter close to the chest." He rumbles thoughtfully deep in his chest. "Am I following you a little better now?"
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"Not going to try anything on you," he says, because whether or not the witcher needs to hear it right at this moment, Bull wants to make sure it gets said. "My uh, the whole succubus pheromone thing, it doesn't come as easy with me anyway, not until someone's really thinking about it. But it sounds like you don't trust that 'wanting to' part either, at least not with us."
He takes a moment, eye darting over the witcher, assessing him. "Doesn't seem like there's a lot of chance of this, but if you ever decide you are interested, you want me to say no? Never shut someone down before we've even done anything but we're covering enough firsts here already, right? What's one more?"
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"Have you been alone a while?" He asks. "Haven't gotten what you need?" He turns his face away, and for a moment Bull can see the half that might give some idea of how handsome (in a heavy, rustic kind of way) Eskel had once been. His expression is thoughtful, curious. "Makes two of us, kinda."
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He opens his mouth, reconsiders answering at all, looking thoughtful. Then he closes his mouth again. This is new to him, sure, but encouraging the train of thought it looks like the witcher might be taking himself on might make the offer Bull just made kind of pointless. If the witcher's thinking about it, let him think about it.
"Said you go home in the winter, right? To see your witcher buddies?" He pauses, imagining. One of them got to be someone to somebody, for a while, even if the kind of needs Bull's so good at sating never really last. He's had to keep to himself for a while, yeah, he's been feeling it more than he wants to think about, but winter - once a year - feels like a long while away. Weird, to think about a witcher that way, in a way he understands. Always wandering, never settling down, never belonging enough to stay.
He wants to say it out loud, tell the witcher he gets it. Share that with him. Any try at some kind of intimacy on Bull's part right now, though- well, maybe he's thinking too hard about this, but he's never done things this way before. "You ever meet up with them outside of that?"
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"Not yet, anyway. You want to address that, though, go right ahead. I get that you don't have a lot of reason to believe I'm not some kind of mindless animal that just does whatever it wants, so- What would it take, you think? For you to feel- not safe, I guess, but something. You want to know how I operate? Or go outside, so you've got room to swing your sword around?"
Before Bull can even congratulate himself for not saying that last part like an innuendo there's another rumble of thunder and now his ears get to lay back flat like they want and he grimaces, unhappy, till it stops. "Be great if we could wait on that one. Guess it depends on how cooped up you're feeling right now."
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