Lycanious
Junior Member
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Oscar Cecil Corbin
It was happening again.
There was some small part of Oscar that had wanted to talk about it with someone. As to who that was exactly rarely deviated from the one option it had been for over a century. But the wiry old twit had been poorly as of late, and focused on his latest experiment with such a ferocity of devotion to it that Oscar was reluctant to break any of the being's concentration beyond a sharp reminder for when the sunlight was expected to peek back through the curtains of their shared home.
His roommate, Axel, would solve whatever self-proclaimed problem he was looking into eventually. Probably. Maybe. It was either that or he'd collapse onto the floor after three weeks of no fresh blood coursing through his haunted remains, and Oscar would get a chance to tidy up the damn workstation for once before tossing the man over his shoulder and lugging him over to the nearest Hidden medical specialist to be rejuvenated.
Maybe then, Oscar could bring up the morbid painting he'd just awoken to. Maybe then he could mention that the trembling itch in his hands to fashion more of them had returned, after several decades of believing himself to be finally free of the otherworldly compulsion. He could brainstorm with the man over what he thought it meant. Axel wouldn't have any assured answers. Neither of them ever really did when it came to the odd afflictions they had been born with. But at least Axel would listen.
You could talk to me about it. I could listen. Came a second voice to echo about in his skull. Oscar emitted an audible sigh in response. As usual he didn't try to engage with the voice, even when it projected a sense of disappointment before finally fading back to the deep dark crevices of his mind once more. To respond to it was to acknowledge it, and after a lifetime of trying to masquerade as a relatively stable individual Oscar wasn't about to change the habit any time soon.
As part of that, he had decided to go for a walk. And he'd taken one of the dogs, Cordelia, as a vague excuse for it. It wasn't always that Oscar needed a reason to go outside in the wee hours of the morning. In fact when you were a sleep-deprived werewolf with your equally sleep-adverse vampire for a roommate it was almost expected that at least one of them would be out and about at this time of night. But the excited trotting of the borzoi at his side made him feel like he had some vague purpose for it beyond the poor attempt to bury his worries for a few hours.
Green eyes behind round-rimmed glasses squinted down at the watch upon his wrist. 3:14 am. Few would be outside this late at night. And yet, to the same token, in a city like Greyport it was difficult to ever assume that you were truly on your lonesome. Oscar twitched his head, eyes scanning from side to side and ears pricked, picking up the faint rustle of clothes moving and footsteps in the distance as others passed by on the streets parallel to his own.
He inhaled deeply, inhuman senses alerting him to the corpse-like stench of a vampire in the adjacent alleyway and the smoky scent of what was likely a demon of some description somewhere in the area. Both worth noting. But nothing that leapt out at Oscar as immediately alarming even if his grip did tighten a little on the support cane he held at his side as he passed on by the alleyway. A brief glance was made in its direction. The dim glow of a cigarette and the pale visage of the vampire smoking it met his gaze, but the two merely nodded in greeting at each other before Oscar had passed back out of sight. Oscar wasn't a Grimclaw, and the vampire wasn't a Ravenwood. It was a shared relief for sure.
Instead, the portly man continued his slow amble towards The Literary Brew and Cafe Shop. It was one of the few locations Oscar tended to haunt in his spare time, and the only one that he suspected would be open at this hour without having to deal with the noise of the local pubs or bars. He wasn't entirely sure what the owner's policy on pets was, but he suspected they'd at least be fine with him taking a seat at one of the outdoor tables. He'd see if he could also get Cordelia a few dog biscuits or similar for her to munch on while he drank his cup of tea and pondered what next to do about the latest little incident that he had just created.
Abruptly, Cordelia tensed as they both rounded the corner. Oscar likewise felt a wave of anxiety suddenly prickle at his form, causing the hair at the back of his neck to stand up and his ears to strain. He shifted from pensive concerns to alertness, checking his surroundings once more, before his eyes trailed down to the jittery dog at his side. "What is it?" He asked her, a frown etching onto his features. She turned to him with a look of concern, before her snout pointed itself back towards the cafe. Oscar took a few more tentative steps forward, trying to figure out the source of the sudden unease. Was it coming from the street? Or the building before him?
As he approached the front door, he realised it was the latter. Though the warm lighting of the cafe remained as bright as ever and cast a pleasant aura of warmth against the chill of the early morning, it took Oscar a moment to realise that a few had short-circuited near the window of the cafe. One of them flickered as he neared, casting a split-second glance over upturned tables and the remains of several ceramic cups and saucers shattered upon the floor. In the corner, pressed against the wall, was a large mass crumpled against it.
Shit.
"Shaldrani?!" Oscar hissed, after a cursory scan of the interior of the cafe convinced him that it was otherwise unoccupied. It looked as if the mass had twitched at the sound of his voice, though it was hard to tell in the dimmed lighting. Cordelia skittered ahead as he approached, whimpering, as Oscar hooked the arm of his cane over an arm and started to fish out his phone. It took a moment for him to fumble over the controls, but eventually he remembered how to turn on the torch as he'd been shown and cast it over the debris before him.
"Bloody hell...what happened? Do you need a doctor?" He asked the mass as he shone the light into the eyes of one head, then into the other to check the response. Could a two headed dragon still function with only one head currently conscious? It looked as if the right-hand one was still knocked out. Oscar's light then trailed along to the floor once more, trying to piece together the puzzle of the scene before him before Shaldrani answered him.
Across the floor was a sludgy smear of a viscous fluid. It looked to be black at first, like ink, but when Oscar shone the light of his phone upon it then it took upon an iridescent, glistening hue. His immediate thought was that of a demon's ichor, comparable to the lava-like sludge of the one who ran the bakery across the road or the actual ink that constantly seemed to seep from the fingertips of the local librarian. An attack by one wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. But why would they want to go for a dragon of all beings? One that, Oscar was fairly certain, he had never even seen outside of the premises of 24/7 coffee shop they owned.
Oscar continued to survey his surroundings for a few breaths, finding little else, but noting briefly that a security camera sat in the far corner of the store. Judging from the amount of abandoned utensils and broken ceramics littering the floor there had been others in the shop with Shaldrani that had fled the scene. He could only hope that they'd all been Hidden of some description, otherwise...
A flutter of wings caught his attention, and Oscar turned to glance back towards the entrance door that he'd left propped open. In its frame stood a seemingly ordinary pigeon, head cocked to the side with a curious expression. It was only when he saw the brief glint of glowing, white light flash from said eyes did he register that the animal was a Watcher for the City Watch, just before the bird took to the sky once more.
"You're going to have to shift back to human, if you can." Oscar then grunted. With verbal protest he gripped onto his cane and gingerly eased himself down into a more hunched position, ignoring the ebbing pain in his hip in favour of patting his hand sharply at one of the muzzles of the coffee-coloured dragon before him in the hopes of snapping them into focus. "City Watch is going to be here any minute. And you know they're going to start hounding you on any possible human sightings before they actually give a shit about what happened here."
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