Raymond wagged the bladed tip of his tail against Asterion's telekinetic block like a parent's scolding finger, taking full advantage of the pause that his surprise attack inspired to squeeze a combat lesson into the midst of the conversation. "Spoiler alert: flinching will not keep this thing from cutting your eye out - so don't do it. You were so worried about your pretty face back there that you lost sight of the real threat."
The tail blade may as well have been an agitated serpent as it fell away in a looping arc.
Not that Raymond was irritated. He appreciated the chance to stretch his legs and make good on an arrangement long overdue, appreciated more the chance to get familiar with Asterion and Terrastella afterward. But the red stallion's bearing, like his tail, was always sharp and often unpredictable.
He fell back into step with the star-marked bay, at once the respectfully attentive listener as Asterion unloaded his private insecurities. He wasn't wrong - they did all sound yong, Florentine especially, but rarely in Raymond's experience were the weightiest decisions allowed to fall onto the most qualified shoulders. If there existed a great dungeonmaster in the sky, it must delight in presenting challenges for which the party was ill-equipped.
What hope had a third-level wizard against a mindflayer?
Asterion's thoughts turned toward the Riftlands. The red stallion pursed his lips, struggling with ways to describe a land that could honestly only be written as the last desperate fever-dreams of a mad god's dying brain. Nothing was certain, nothing was fixed, and everything was as likely to kill you as not. Fear and fatigue were far deadlier enemies than the infection ever was, but that insidious malice had been an ever-present threat in itself. Nobody got out of the Rift unscathed.
"It was hell," he replied blandly, "of a most degenerative sort. You cannot outmaneuver sickness and you cannot strategize in a world that changes with the wind. Calliope may delight in hunting monsters, but I know a lost cause when I see one."
Raymond glanced his way. "If we're lucky, it will tear itself apart in peace and leave the rest of us the hell alone."
His tail twitched as though readying itself for another swing.
and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
@Asterion
aut viam inveniam aut faciam
