To say anger came easy to the dragon was true: in all her years she could blame for the tempering of that anger. It was an emotion that was often felt- better it be anger that were to be harness rather than a directionless emotion that drained at her limbs and left her feeling nothing static. She was good at not showing that anger. Instead enjoying the petty revelry in getting even; their days of getting their claws bloody to even the ties were grim. It brought with it ghosts that haunted- dogged her steps. It brought back the regret and the loss of control; a quick downward spiral that turned petty anger into a deep seated rage

Rage she knew how to handle, and only certain kinds. It... often led to a dangerous and a precise extraction of getting even. It led to loosing herself completely in favor of returning to something not lesser- but baser: no longer them self, (too many names: each with it's own ghosts). It all started out the same, this anger crept up their spine and reached their head with a static that fell to numbness. Argus felt it slowly, a creep over the weeks into a single moment that the static rung out between ten different eyes and she could no longer see, no longer think beyond the feeling of static.

The morning had started out quiet, the large behemoth of a dragon raising from kicked sands- too large to find a home beyond the beaches that faced north-east ward. The smell of salt and the cloying taste of salt in her jagged maw as she rose. Wings coming from lax spread to once again cover the large sprawling scar along her back. The sun had come and now hung loosely in the sky just above it's highest peak.

Argus moved towards the mainland of the isle; it's jungle-esque tree's creating a sea of green beyond the sense of static that took over her vision. They hummed lowly, looking towards the creeping ravine that pointed the marker straight towards the typhoon- the crack that split the isle in two as well as the sea. Argus remained on land, prowling deeper inland. She walked farther in- closer towards the peak that laid center of the isle and when reaching the top she stopped short, noting a similar feline in front of them.

[member=2040]ninazu[/member]

It was still morning to the beast, even well into the afternoon in reality. With static in her ears, and shade pressing between her eyes: an emotion stepping on their throat with enough pressure to be felt, enough for their breath to stutter, or maybe that was just the sight in front of them. Ninazu was enough to catch their sight- their attention on a way that few others did. Such open flaunts of power such as the mane of fire along their throat- it caught their eye.

Under the mask, the static that settled in them eased if only slightly: argus able to push aside a great many things, their emotions, hunger, need. They pushed their own morals for simple petty pleasure and found a family amidst the crumbling of their own headspace. They found- not love but a fondness, When all they once looked for was blood and ruin.

What would Argus find here, amidst the outcasts? This already crumbling place? Was there anything worth the rot, the static that plunged Argus’ frenzied mind- was there ever such a thing as peace? For beings such as her, there was little doubt that nothing would come of this, of… anything. Argus lived as other’s took their last breath, they would tell the tales of the fallen with blood, with vengeance.

“The view is beautiful” Argus agreed, not looking away from Ninazu as they spoke this, only turning to look back towards the island and the sea that surrounded them after the glance was returned. The grin snaked it’s way up the lion’s maw and Argus did’t feel unsettled by it, no more than they were expecting it. Many asked- many wanted to know the question. Who truly knew Argus’ wants, not themselves.

They wanted their family back, that single nebula thing that once reached back towards them as much as Argus had given. Wanted the loyalty of a clan behind them, wanted their faith. Not the second scored exile they got for simply recovering. They wanted their first love, they wanted to rip their own father to shreds.

Argus has lived many lives, and each one was directed by a want, Family, bloodshed, revenge, peace. Argus wanted nothing. They did not get to come into this world and crave- demand from it. That was not how the world works. They didn’t get to want, they could hope, and prey- but their life was suspended in the void, it would never cease by the curse of the Shinigami, they would never meet up with those who had died and Argus would never find peace.

There was a silence, past the unanswered question, too long to be considered meerly consideration of thoese words. Even past the point of Argus’ lack of words she shifted. Wings spreading from her back to reveal along the underside of her wings, and above them, the fur along her spinned riped and shredded by the dark scar of a burn that took most of their back and the edges of the underside of their wing. Tender wounds that had yet to heal. Great lengths of pain that the dragon soldiered for the fact that they couldn’t do much else about it. Scales did not heal like fur, there would be no covering this for quite… quite some time.

“I came for the view, in truth” Argus spoke up again, just before Ninazu could interject herself. Argus’ voice was a growl in their own throat, some emotion cutting it short, whether it was strangled rage or…. Or something deeper. It was the one thing they could do, watch the world, they still had a ways to go before they would ever tired of the world of the… connections they wanted to create and that would decay in equal measure. Argus looked out beyond Ninazu’s form before a pair of their eyes looked back downwards towards the lion. “In part, I came to see you, as well.”

Out of the reactions Argus had expected, confused, if not flustered- delighted them in a heady way they have not been in a while. Argus was not unaware of the nature of Ninazu and Stryker, it would be ignorant to misremember their own legacy of children either. It is what amused the dragon to blink, deliberately slowly, allowing that delight to manifest in a short hushed laughter that bubbled out of their scarred from.

It was a deliberate move- to remove the mask hat was always suited across the beast’s from. Careful claws pinch at the edges of it and in a gesture that seemed simple- the mask crumbles like chalk. White marrow dusting around their similarly- white frame. Revealing ten eyes, serrated mars, and scars outlined in black. The revealed the gesture in a crooked grin, one that seemed to make the subtext Ninazu had picked up on all that more… predominate. “Introspection. So it’s not only me picking up on it.” The dragon cut’s her laughter with the words curling around her tongue.

Argus did not mean it in part- Ninazu is someone that would attract her- attracts her in such a way. Yet Argus has not gone much in the way of ‘chasing’ someone in a while, but now that it was said it was. Argus wouldn’t take it back, take back that delighted feeling it brought to the dragon and the lioness both, from the looks of it. There is a hesitance for a moment before she moves to lay- one wing tucked under her body as her chest pointed towards the lioness.

As many eyes as the beast has- they don't have eyebrows or anything similar enough to them. Yet the features on their face morph to something similar, a cocked head. "Would it bother you, truly?" There were more being said with those words that Argus allowed to speak. Stryker was their leader yes but; Argus never much cared for doing what they were told but the sincerity- the steal in the undertones would hint that Argus would allow the implications to drop, if Ninazu wished it.

It hurt, to be known as a friend. How many had considered Argus a friend- a sister- family had been burned by it? Argus knew… they have hurt their own family. Memories of pinning down their own sister with the intentions to kill… Argus was not in the right headspace then, but the horrors of those lingering days still echoed in the back of their mind like a wave of force. Static. Cloying. A name whispered trying to take control.

Yet Argus was no longer that who they had been. A friend, it was an honor, and Argus offered a soft smile in response to it, mayhaps a tinge late in comparison to their initial words to the other making it fall flat, fall stiff along the soldiers of them both. Friends, and only thus? It would be a gift to be considered such, but even argus could not ignore the taste foul after the earlier suggestion.

Instead the beast took to another look outwards. The sight truly was remarkable, and not only because of only what Ninazu saw- or thought seen by them. Along the edges of the mist was the uneven waves crashing against distant sands. An island shrouded in mist- but Argus had ten eyes, and could see past the distance, the fog- if only in the vague shadows of such… The Typhoon. “The Typhoon was a home for the longest of times. I found… Family there. Loyalty- or what I thought was loyalty.” Argus could not hide the scorn in her voice, and the mannerisms of her birth form showed as the beast bared their fangs down towards the sight that was hard to see beyond the shore. A low rumble like thunder suddenly strikes their throat. A crack of a snarl as Argus lsot themselves to the memory. Luciferus, he didn’t even ask- Goldie- betrayed, burned- scorned for what- healing? It hurt, it hurt horribly.

That anger, the feeling of static washed over the beast then, and she felt reckless with the power. Such fine motor control slipping as the dragon turned wolfish for a split second. Argus felt the need- the itch for blood, and her claws curled along the paint caked along their limbs- a reminder: Grounding. They were here, the flash-flicker seconds that anger fizzled out, a trust to Ninazu to at least not comment on it as Argus, subdued after the display- or simply trying to return to that calm- pushing the anger, the need for blood aside for a simple moment. 

“An unspoken story is a dangerous one, and you deserve to know it. Ninazu” Honnestly wasn’t a struggle anymore. It was a curse to lay at someone else’s feet, this honestly. Argus would not divulge the entirety of their past- they both may have had the time but Argus did not have the heart for such a harrowing tale much these days. They let out a huff of air, smoke billowing as their own electrical powers woke up at the edges of their throat- the want to billow a storm between their scarred maw was strong. “It’s not as simple as wanting their world to burn for me. If so I would have scorched the islands and been done with it.”

Argus wanted… They hoped for a family, yet they had held that. Raised one- two- too many that had rotted under their care the both of their attempts. It made any want of that turn sour in their mouths. It made revenge so much easier for the dragon to grasp. They had lived beyond their enemies and friends alike before, and felt no satisfaction at their enemies natural- sometimes peaceful deaths. No, Argus preferred to grasp their revenge with their claws, to rip it from the throats of those who had wronged her and gorge themselves on the prize of such victory.

In part it came with the upbringing of living on the cusp of war. Luciferus was in truth from a peaceful clan, and while he had adapted to the blood- the war: it was not a part of him the way it was a part of the beast: Argus thrived in war, thrived in conflict. Yet they wanted… wanted more than that.

They wanted that nebulous thing, to kill for another and in turn be someone to kill for. Wanted Loyalty, strong and bone deep to etch in another’s form as it did their own. They never had that. They wanted trust and friends and- a family found, forged in bone and ash and in death. Love, was subjective, Loyalty was concrete, it lay in the bones and couldn’t be crossed.

It shouldn’t be crossed

And the Typhoon- crossed it.

“They say revenge is a life well lived” Argus mutters, looking towards the lioness, imploring them to understand the want, the need for something they cannoy name. It was not a wish that should ever be named, to name it would break the tender thing they both were building here the the misted island. “But I have lived, outlived, and loved and lost”

“The best revenge- or so my uncle had once told me- is bullshit.” And this was a lilt of humor, the only Argus could give in such a topic turned towards them. “I prefer the more… carnal route.” Call them old fashioned, or barbaric-  monstrous and yet never be farther from the truth. Argus was tired of being the monster, of extracting revenge against thoese that wronged them, yet they couldn’t find it to forgive… forgive the Typhoon. Forgive Goldenluxury. The Typhoon turned their backs on a supposed ‘traitor’ and Argus turned thiers on the same.

After a breath, a moment of silence they allowed their true reason to reveal itself. Argus “I haven’t meditated in years. I find myself a little loss to start back up” They looked towards the lioness then, an open offer left lingering in their body form “would you like to join me, in a guided meditation?” Argus offered, and the lilt in these words preluded the next offer “It’ll get you a Birdseye-view of the island afterwards.”