Disintegration trailed after Callisto like a lost pup as she strode through the skyless forest. A muted hiss tugged on her hearing as her infant ability ate through ancient wood and stone, and she was almost completely comfortable with it, with what it could do. She hadn't been at first, but she learned to be. She also learned how to broaden her new ability's range a little beyond what she could naturally reach, and how to trigger it with the slightest of movements (a twitch of her lips, the furrowing of her brow). Soon she would learn how to utilize it to return home, but for now, it did a sufficient job of clearing up some space in the tangled depths if she was willing to wait a few seconds. She wasn't. Instead, she drove through it like something beyond a force of nature, wrenching forward until gnarled branches bore down on her no longer. Freed, the dark female took a good look around.

“Oh,” she said softly.

There stood a wolf, all ivory white and incandescent violet, caught in a deadlock with the forest’s native oddity. For a moment, she was familiar, but Callisto quickly noticed the distinct lack of spiraling horns and crystalline eyes and terrible magnificence that was characteristic of him. No, she wasn’t him, but something far more familiar. The soft hiss of complete and utter destruction heard only by her ears silenced itself, stubborn fragments of disintegration continuing the eat away at the world around her until it too died moments later. The annoyance felt by the fact that her destructive radiation had ceased without an explicit mental command was swept aside for later, when she would hone the treacherous ability for finer control.

Her ear twitched, imperceptible in the gloom. The stranger had spoken.

The rogue emerged from the darkness, features illuminated by the dim glow of the nearby crystals. She lowered onto her haunches, pink eyes trained on the stranger with all of the intensity of a severely overgrown pup. “You want the crystals to go away,” she asked, the barbarous nature of her voice blunted by her bemusement. A pause almost budged her tongue as she thought to ask “Why?” but she tucked the word away disinterestedly. Perhaps this strange wolf would answer that question without her urging, perhaps she wouldn’t. She found that she didn’t care either way-- it wasn’t her problem. Still, she remained in her sitting position and stared, awaiting the wolf’s response if she had any to offer.

tags: Lirriel
words: 420 blaze it
notes: callisto's here to stare at you too lmao-- hope you don't mind me throwing her in here! gonna go ahead and say that this is set further back in her timeline as well (before her magic effect and #ruin to be precise) since she should've already left the black forest by now

The stranger sprang into the air with an exclamation of shock, movements like a startled doe's. And a humorous, almost derisive smile flew onto Callisto's lips at the apt comparison. The girl's manner was just as skittish, but not nearly as attentive--she hadn’t been paying any attention to her surroundings, after all. The surprise that inspired that little jump shifted into a sort of girlish bashfulness in a matter of moments as the rogue gazed on. Was this wolf embarrassed, to have gotten caught yelling at an inanimate object? She knew that she would've been, had it been her. But it hadn't, nor would it ever be. She would never allow herself to get swept into such vulnerability, where anyone could see her.

To her satisfaction, the stranger explained the apparent standoff with the forest's crystals. The explanation had failed to make things any less fucking weird, but she found that she was more curious than anything else. “Well, what do they look like to you?” she asked. The other female was harmless, so she found no problem in rising to her full height and approaching. All it had taken was two nonchalant strides to almost close their distance. At this range, Callisto could see the delicate black patch that rested over one of those violet eyes just as clearly as the stranger could see her sardonic countenance. Her large head tilted away from the other female to level a vivid pink gaze on the nearest crystal. Had it been living, it might’ve flinched away from the intensity of her stare.

At last, she said, “You said that they look. So, a face, perhaps? Or maybe a disembodied pair of eyes?” A bland amusement clung to her voice as she spoke, but the bottom of it held something entirely humorless. She lapsed into yet another pause before pinning her gaze on the stranger once again. “Or do you see nothing at all?” It was entirely possible that the female’s perception of the crystals wasn’t grounded in anything that could be interpreted by a sane mind. Maybe for her, they looked because they were. Callisto herself hadn’t seen anything in the glassy, glowing surface of the crystal after all, besides a reflection of her own face. And what a face that was, she thought with a fresh shot of humor.

But then it occurred to her that perhaps the female was simply having a hard time coping with the oddities of the land. Had this wolf involuntarily teleported to this twisted land, just as she? At once her humor faded, her lips almost pulling themselves into a snarl. Fuck. She was getting far too comfortable with this land, to assume that another was insane for being disturbed by what should be impossible. Keenly aware of her company at that moment, she asked, “How long have you been here?” There, that ought to crack down on this wolf’s eccentricities completely.

tags: Neith Zahrani
words: 493
notes: this is gross but i didnt want to keep you waiting any longer!! so sorry for the wait </3