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."
"I'm fine. Like I said, if you were gonna hurt me-- for whatever reason-- you'd have done it by now." It seems like too much effort to carry on like this, for Bull to make himself so uncomfortable, just to attack him now. "Just seemed like you almost took a particular line of questioning there for a minute and now we're back to you bein' all unsettled. You can tell me more, if you want. If I'm gonna add you to our bestiary, I should know as much as possible."
Or if I'm going to sleep with you.
Edited (C'mon Eskel, you know you're coming around to the idea. . ) 2021-06-07 19:41 (UTC)
"I'm unsettled because of the storm. Big storms like this suck, that's not that weird." His tail lashes once before he focuses, calms that brief little defensive impulse down. This is easier if he focuses more on the witcher than himself, on what the witcher needs. And right now, with Bull's earlier question just sitting there still unanswered, it seems like what he needs is information.
"Uh, let's see. You want to know about my feeding habits, right?" He gives the witcher a faint grin, then looks up at the ceiling again. Easier for the guy, maybe, if Bull's not making eye contact. "Hardest part's always feeling out a new place. The girls can pick a night and sneak into town if they've got a good enough hat but, you know." He tips his head from one side to the other, one horn tapping on the floor. "With these, I've got to be more careful. Once I settle in, though..."
What's the witcher going to want to know? He thinks it over for a moment. "I like the older ones better. Less likely to get all starry eyed and, you know, want you to whisk them away to wherever. Easier for them to leave when it's time. Married ones too, or the ones that are just really into their jobs. Time constraints, you know. Got to make dinner, or round up the kids, or get that big project done for some important patron, whatever. Try to explain to people you've got to keep it sort of short so you don't suck their brain out through their dick and things get kind of awkward, you know? Better to pick ones where you can just remind them that they're busy and tell em they can come back later. It's not exactly how I was taught but a lot of the girls did used to tell me it's better to keep things bite-sized - smarter, even if you don't give a crap about anything else."
It's a risk, maybe, mentioning the practicality aspect. Bull wants to look safe though, yeah, but he doesn't want to look like he's twisting facts to do it. It is smarter, the way Bull does things, and maybe that could help reassure the witcher where just asking him to trust Bull wouldn't. "People start dying otherwise, and death attracts attention, and attention gets you-"
He looks at the witcher again to nod toward him. "You guys were scary stories when I was coming up, you know? Helped keep the ones like me focused on what they're told. Anyway, that's some of it. What else does your 'bestiary' want to know about me?"
Eskel listens carefully, filing things away to scribble down later. Bull is still being oddly delicate but Eskel is coming to understand that perhaps that is simply the man's nature. That's fine, he doesn't run need all the dirty details, it's just interesting to listen to him talk.
"Yeah, witchers make for scary stories no matter the species. I'm sure what you were told was something far worse than witchers coming to kidnap you if you strayed too far." He scratches the scar on his face. "So what you're trying to reassure me is that you're inordinately careful. You want to look out for them, take care of them. I guess that makes sense, if you were on good terms with people in the village. And other villages, presumably. Which explains why no witchers have come across you, probably. No bodies, only...gently satisfied villages with a secret."
"I mean, not they're not happy every time I have to clear out. The wrong person finds out, or catches sight of me, or gets jealous, or whatever. But I've gotten better at figuring out when my welcome's going to run out. And I, uh-"
Might as well mention it. The witcher's told him all kinds of personal crap, and been reasonable enough about everything that it seems like maybe he's less likely to take it as this dangerous thing and more likely to think of it like just another reason. Time to find out, he guesses.
"I've got some of those fiend instincts too, I think. Taught me early on that you can't do stuff just because you want to. What would that make me otherwise? Just some rabid animal that needs to get put down. No. That's not what I want to leave these people with. That's not the kind of monster I'm going to be. Don't know if that's going to make you feel better or worse about me, but-" He shrugs. "It is what it is."
"Instincts that help you know when you're going too far or instincts and impulses you've learned to control?" He asks. After all, fiends might be clever but it was an animal kind of cunning and they hardly knew the notion of restraint. "The latter is impressive, I think, and says a lot about you. Hell, seen plenty of human men who can't reign in their desires to do all kinds of heinous shit." Killed a few of those too, in his time.
He doesn't really think worse of Bull: the man is doing what he needs to survive and Eskel can go back and confirm with his previous "prey" that they were alright, providing he really felt like doing that level of due diligence, but maybe not. Maybe he'd just take Bull at his word, which while slightly evasive, seemed sincere in what he was willing to or trying to say.
"The latter one, yeah. It's helped me out a few times, but you've got to know when to put it away." He watches the witcher for a second, shrugs. "Don't know what else to tell you. I've never read one of those witcher books of yours, so I don't know what kind of details you're looking for. I give you everything you need?"
"That ought to be enough. It's not like there will be anybody who reads it to that can't just ask me if they think I left anything out." He shrugs. When was the last time any of the three other surviving witchers had even touched their bestiaries? Still, it felt right to make the effort, to clutch at some sense of procedure and tradition. He was such a good Witcher, Eskel of Kaer Morhen.
Until he wasn't.
"You got anything you need to say off the record, so to speak?" He asks, and there's something wry and glittering in his eyes. Not cruel, just amused and curious.
Bull smiles a little. If the witcher hasn't decided whether he wants to fuck yet and is hoping Bull will give him some kind of excuse to do it, he isn't going to get one. "Nah. Already told you everything you asked about. If there's some kind of decision you want to make, off the record, you've got everything you need to do it."
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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."
no subject
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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Or if I'm going to sleep with you.
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"Uh, let's see. You want to know about my feeding habits, right?" He gives the witcher a faint grin, then looks up at the ceiling again. Easier for the guy, maybe, if Bull's not making eye contact. "Hardest part's always feeling out a new place. The girls can pick a night and sneak into town if they've got a good enough hat but, you know." He tips his head from one side to the other, one horn tapping on the floor. "With these, I've got to be more careful. Once I settle in, though..."
What's the witcher going to want to know? He thinks it over for a moment. "I like the older ones better. Less likely to get all starry eyed and, you know, want you to whisk them away to wherever. Easier for them to leave when it's time. Married ones too, or the ones that are just really into their jobs. Time constraints, you know. Got to make dinner, or round up the kids, or get that big project done for some important patron, whatever. Try to explain to people you've got to keep it sort of short so you don't suck their brain out through their dick and things get kind of awkward, you know? Better to pick ones where you can just remind them that they're busy and tell em they can come back later. It's not exactly how I was taught but a lot of the girls did used to tell me it's better to keep things bite-sized - smarter, even if you don't give a crap about anything else."
It's a risk, maybe, mentioning the practicality aspect. Bull wants to look safe though, yeah, but he doesn't want to look like he's twisting facts to do it. It is smarter, the way Bull does things, and maybe that could help reassure the witcher where just asking him to trust Bull wouldn't. "People start dying otherwise, and death attracts attention, and attention gets you-"
He looks at the witcher again to nod toward him. "You guys were scary stories when I was coming up, you know? Helped keep the ones like me focused on what they're told. Anyway, that's some of it. What else does your 'bestiary' want to know about me?"
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"Yeah, witchers make for scary stories no matter the species. I'm sure what you were told was something far worse than witchers coming to kidnap you if you strayed too far." He scratches the scar on his face. "So what you're trying to reassure me is that you're inordinately careful. You want to look out for them, take care of them. I guess that makes sense, if you were on good terms with people in the village. And other villages, presumably. Which explains why no witchers have come across you, probably. No bodies, only...gently satisfied villages with a secret."
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Might as well mention it. The witcher's told him all kinds of personal crap, and been reasonable enough about everything that it seems like maybe he's less likely to take it as this dangerous thing and more likely to think of it like just another reason. Time to find out, he guesses.
"I've got some of those fiend instincts too, I think. Taught me early on that you can't do stuff just because you want to. What would that make me otherwise? Just some rabid animal that needs to get put down. No. That's not what I want to leave these people with. That's not the kind of monster I'm going to be. Don't know if that's going to make you feel better or worse about me, but-" He shrugs. "It is what it is."
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He doesn't really think worse of Bull: the man is doing what he needs to survive and Eskel can go back and confirm with his previous "prey" that they were alright, providing he really felt like doing that level of due diligence, but maybe not. Maybe he'd just take Bull at his word, which while slightly evasive, seemed sincere in what he was willing to or trying to say.
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Until he wasn't.
"You got anything you need to say off the record, so to speak?" He asks, and there's something wry and glittering in his eyes. Not cruel, just amused and curious.
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