[The heat billowing out, the taste of smoke and fire in the air - Stocke gets the flash of a thought of (burning), and his form jumps like a rewound VHS just set to play, all distortions and broken lines. He shoves the memory away, stabilizes, ignores the phantom sting of letters across his back - all there is there is bone, and it's not solid bone at that. And there's nothing to fear from heat, nothing left of him that can burn or vaporize, only get drowned out by light.]
[But what the temperature is doing is setting off sparks of concern; normally, Stocke's seen Greed keep it more... contained. The slice of a superheated spade-tail or claw through ice, wafts of steam tossed up by a boot, flakes of ash. This time, there's smoke, metal brightening as if held over flame, and combined with that groan -]
[He lets his sword free from his telekinesis; the wooden sheath clatters lightly against the floor, falls to stand tilted against a corner of the corridor. Stocke glides through the doorway, tendrils pulled warily against his back against any future blazes of red glow, some winding through vertebrae. But what he actually says is a careful:] —Are you alright?—
[He sets his own problem aside for now. Greed still needs to be told - if Stocke's lost a physical presence permanently, (as, deep down, he fears,) there are some jobs he won't be able to do. Greed will need to figure out new uses for him. But it's not within-the-next-minute urgent, or even the next ten, twenty, thirty. It can wait.]
no subject
[But what the temperature is doing is setting off sparks of concern; normally, Stocke's seen Greed keep it more... contained. The slice of a superheated spade-tail or claw through ice, wafts of steam tossed up by a boot, flakes of ash. This time, there's smoke, metal brightening as if held over flame, and combined with that groan -]
[He lets his sword free from his telekinesis; the wooden sheath clatters lightly against the floor, falls to stand tilted against a corner of the corridor. Stocke glides through the doorway, tendrils pulled warily against his back against any future blazes of red glow, some winding through vertebrae. But what he actually says is a careful:] —Are you alright?—
[He sets his own problem aside for now. Greed still needs to be told - if Stocke's lost a physical presence permanently, (as, deep down, he fears,) there are some jobs he won't be able to do. Greed will need to figure out new uses for him. But it's not within-the-next-minute urgent, or even the next ten, twenty, thirty. It can wait.]