#beast divinity

[lady-ihcobob]

Sebille, Divinity: Original Sin 2

[youngster-monster]

"You should eat it."

Canine draws back in outrage, scaly egg held tightly to his chest. "Why would I eat it?"

"Usually we're the ones askin' you that," Beast chirps, obviously amused. "It's not like yer a picky eater."

"I only eat dead things." Canine pauses for a moment, noting the long-suffering looks he gets from most of the party. Fane, as he is, struggles to convey as much skepticism as the rest with only his eye sockets to work with. "Granted, sometimes things that have either been dead for too long or not long enough. But. If this is a phoenix, then he's still alive! And eventually he's gonna be big. I can't eat him."

"That's where you draw the line?" Fane asks, wisely ignoring the fact that he's seen Canine take a bite of live people before.

Ifan elbows Beast and grins. "I wasn't even aware there was a line."

To be fair, he's seen Canine put a lot of questionable things in his mouth in the short time they've known each other. They all have, and no sooner than an hour ago, when they were in a graveyard and he ate a dead man's kidney to endear himself to said dead man's pet carrion bird. The presence of a line, culinary-wise, was not evident until now.

Canine grins, baring the teeth that got him his name, and carefully stows the egg away in his bag. He'll find somewhere nice and warm in the Lady Vengeance to keep it until it hatches.

"Screw you guys. Wait until I have a phoenix friend and you don't."

"Are you gonna eat it then?"

[canonlgbtcharacteroftheday]

The canon LGBT+ character of today is:

Beast from Divinity Original Sin 2 who is bi/pan

[lady-ihcobob]

Beast, Divinity: Original Sin 2

[youngster-monster]

Canine stumbles out of the realm of the gods with the phantom ache of teeth in the meat of his arm, blesses his way through a small herd of cursed pig, and ends his morning knee-deep in a pool of clear water, sobbing his eyes out over someone else's grief.

He's having a rough time of it.

"You alright, lad?" Beast asks, as bemused as he's concerned.

Sniffing, Canine wipes his face until he only feels a little damp and raw, rather than flayed open with the deep sorrow of a mourning mother.

"I'm fine," he croaks out.

Beast makes a skeptical sound, and somewhere deeper in the magical mist of the pool he hears Ifan mutter "For sure" in a way that doesn't so much drip with sarcasm as drown in it.

"You want a drink?"

"Yes."

"Alright."

[youngster-monster]

Canine will speak to anything.

They all know this. Firstly because that's how they all ended up tagging along — each and every one of them talked into following this half-feral elf on his quest to save the world. Secondly because there isn't a day that goes by where their travel isn't brought to a stop because Canine saw a lonely woman or a rabbit or a magister and just had to chat for a minute.

Beast is a sociable guy, and infamous enough that most dwarves will recognize him on sight and try to make conversation with him. But even he finds Canine excessive in this.

Currently they are all standing very, very still, as a giant spider shifts on its many legs and Canine settles cross-legged nearly in-between two enormous pedipalps. He's nodding along as the creature chitters in its blood-curdling insectoid language, rocking from side to side as it talks the way one would agitate one's hands animatedly to punctuate a story. Beast's hands itch for his weapon but every time he shifts one of its eight eyes focus on him and he won't wager his survival on his reflex being better than the spider's.

Its attention snaps back to Canine, all of the weight of a predator finding a fly caught in its web, and the elf recoils a bit before lifting two placating hands.

"I can give you something to eat," he says lightly.

The spider reaches forward, impossibly close — he must be able to count the hair on its hideous head. But he doesn't budge, not even when the spider hisses something that sounds menacing even to Beast's untrained ears. His hands come ever closer to his ax. Ifan and Fane are still on the lower floor, picking Ryker's mansion clean, but he's confident that if it comes to a fight Canine and him could hold the spider off until the two of them got there to help.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I don't carry much meat on myself — it's better raw," Canine says in reply, and chuckles at whatever the spider's response is. "But see, if you eat me—" Beast didn't know eating anybody was on the table and isn't keen on the possibility— "You'll get one meal. Two at most. But if you let me leave, you get multiple meals."

The spider considers this, rubbing its first pair of legs together. Then, in a surprisingly human gesture, it nods, and Canine grins up at it before jumping to his feet and walking calmly out of the web-covered room.

Beast hurries after him, boggling.

"I know you like to pick up strays," he whispers once they're back on the stairs landing, "But a giant spider seems a bit much."

The black cat that has been following them around since Fort Joy, a testament to Canine's stray-picking tendencies, mews approvingly at Beast's remark. Canine bends to pick him up and pets him absently.

"I didn't want to have to kill her," he says after a moment. "Just because she's hungry. Ryker trapped her here — do you know her kind lives in the desert? She's so far from home. If we don't feed her she'll starve."

"Or escape the mansion and go eat some of the townsfolk before a magister or a paladin puts it down."

"She has no reason to know she shouldn't eat people. They're like chicken to her. It's all meat that talks."

Sighing, Beast considers the fact that Canine is apparently drawing a lot of parallel between himself and the spider, and decides not to comment on it. He's seen the man eat a lot of human (and other) flesh in the past few weeks. He'd rather not know how much he's enjoyed it, or if they're all like chicken to him too.

"Fine. Ryker's been collecting dead bodies anyway. Might as well... make use of 'em."

Canine gives him a blinding smile. "And if all else fails, there's still the graves!"

"Let's not turn to grave robbing quite yet."

[youngster-monster]

The Lady Vengeance is large, but it’s altogether not difficult to find Canine in its depths. The elf hates enclosed spaces, so he’s unlikely to be found under the deck, even at night. He would rather sleep under the stars than in Dallis’ bed, unless someone — usually Ifan, sometimes Beast, one memorable time Fane — drags him there and agrees to keep him company in the room which, by his own words, “give him the creeps”. There are only so many places one can be on the deck, so it’s never too much of a hassle tracking him down: if a single glance around the deck can’t pinpoint his position, it’s pointless to go traipsing through the hold.

One needs only to look at the figurehead.

The skeleton crew of the Lady Vengeance give the dragon-head a wide berth. Knowing the ship is alive is unnerving enough; knowing it can, and would surely like to, kill you is even worse. Beast has been on enough ships to know that most kind of want to kill you anyway, but there’s something about this one’s thoughtful eyes and living movements that send shivers down his back.

Canine, meanwhile, has latched onto the living ship like a beloved, long-lost relative. Which it is, in hindsight. Beast isn’t all too sure what the deal is with the Ancestor Trees — elves are a cagey bunch about their traditions — but Canine has told him enough that he understands some of what it means, to have a ship made of one. To have a ship haunted by one.

It’s a bloody cursed situation, for sure, but Canine is making the best of it.

Indeed, when Beast approaches the bow of the Lady Vengeance, the elf is there, sitting precariously on one of the figurehead’s curling horns with his back against the rough surface of its draconic skull. His mouth moves as he speaks but his words are snatched away by the wind before Beast hears what he can possibly be saying to the ship.

He’s about to call out for the man’s attention when a great shudders passes through the wood, nearly shaking him off his feet. The wooden dragon creaks and turns, twisting in an oddly graceful motion to bring its head above the deck. Canine smiles, lays his hand above a blank, unblinking carved eye for a moment before he slides off his perch. The figurehead resumes its habitual position: at rest, curled into itself in grief or supplication.

“Canine, just the man I was looking for,” Beast says, well past feeling unnerved by this. All ships are ladies; theirs is simply a particularly lively one. “And how’s our favorite vessel?”

The man’s toothy grin softens into something melancholic and tender.

“Peaceful.” He says it like a blessing. Maybe it is.

“Must be nice to have one of yours around.” Especially one who’s not screaming in pain all the time. All the trees they have seen in their travel — the haunted log in the sawmill, the bloated corpse of the demon tree on Bloodmoon island — were suffering, writhing in an agony beyond death. To Canine, who clings so close to his people, it must be a balm to have been able to help one, if even the slightest bit.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is. She’s been through torture, and it has no real end, but.” He shrugs. “At least we stole her from the worst of it. And she likes me, I think!”

Well you don’t see Beast hanging off her face like seaweed, so he assumes she likes Canine better than him at least.