#nallywolf

[nojackaleatsgrass-blog]

Headcanon 70

It has never occurred to Nalimir that lycanthropy is something curable under any circumstances, mostly because he thinks of it less as a disease and more as the physical manifestation of his blasphemy. Sure, there was that whole thing with a giant terrormonster trying to bite him in half, but that situation was probably a result of the fact that he was a terrible treasonous blaspheming monster. Obviously.

At this point, if someone introduced him to the possibility of curing himself, he would be actively hostile to the idea. He now relies on the wolf to handle things that Nalimir is himself less capable of dealing with. "Curing" his lycanthropy would feel equivalent to deliberately maiming himself, and Nalimir has more-or-less made his peace with being a pact-breaking traitor.

[nojackaleatsgrass-blog]

Headcanon 59

Werewolves are much easier to starve to death than normal people-- their accelerated metabolisms don't tolerate scarcity very well, and they consequently gorge themselves as often as possible to prepare for the possibility of declining food in the future. (Natural wolves can go up to two weeks with little to no food, but although werewolves store fat and energy reserves in a similar fashion, they burn through it much more quickly, particularly if they have to undertake any serious healing.)

Nalimir is particularly bad about this, having been brought perilously close to starvation before and subsisting entirely on the results of his own solitary hunting. He's always interested in food, even when he's not particularly hungry, because you never know when all the food might suddenly not be available anymore. His metabolism requires him to eat a lot more than you would expect to look at him just to keep operating at a normal level.

If he had friends, the phrase "where do you put it all" would probably come up. As it is, discussions of Nalimir's dietary habits tend to be more of the "oh fuck oh shit oh fuck don't eat me" variety.

[nojackaleatsgrass-blog]

Headcanon 53

Nalimir's transformations are not as traumatic as those of many other wolves-- he stopped fighting it a long time ago, which helped, and he was already accustomed to ignoring various levels of physical discomfort for the sake of completing an objective-- but they do still involve a substantial reorganization of his body structure, including rapidly shifting internal organs, bones under constant pressure and flux, and changes to every sensory organ. This is not pleasant to undergo at the time, and after repeated transformations Nalimir's body has undergone so many rapid and stressing configuration changes that it no longer settles quite back into true at any point. It's as if his joints have given up on ever quite fitting together they way they used to. There are micro-errors in the arrangement of his body in both forms, none of which are sufficient to be problematic in his conformation or movement, but which are just enough in combination to create the physical awareness of incorrectness.

Basically, his body has been in a constant low level of pain for the last fifty years, and that's to say nothing of his actual injuries, most of which now heal quite quickly but the more serious (and silver-inflicted) of which may leave lasting traces. This pain is entirely manageable for Nalimir, who has a high natural tolerance for pain only amplified by training and beast blood, but it is always on some level present. For the most part he doesn't pay any attention to this pain, because it would inconvenience him and he can't do anything about it anyway. When it does reach a point that he becomes consciously aware of it, he rarely acknowledges it openly and is loathe to modify his behavior in any way to accommodate or mitigate it. The only concession he'll make is that he tends to sleep more often and for longer periods, generally until the pain has faded back to a level he finds acceptable to ignore.

Pain is part of being alive. He continues to be alive, ergo he is in pain. He sees no reason that this should interfere with his goings-on.

[nojackaleatsgrass-blog]

Headcanon 46

Nalimir remembers what he gets up to when he's a wolf-- one of the perks of playing nice with his other half-- but it's not like normal memory. The wolf has different priorities, and different senses, and it not only remembers different things than Nalimir would remember, but it remembers those things differently.

When Nalimir goes through a place, what he remembers of it is its exits, its escape routes, its value in hunting and foraging, its potential dangers. He remembers in brief clips of vision and tactical overlays, intuitive impressions, and whatever sounds were prevalent or caught his attention most.

When the wolf goes through a place, what it remembers is the smell of the place, all the individuals it could track through it, all the best lurking places and future ambush spots, where it would build a den if this was its land, what the ground felt like, whether it could see the sky. It remembers in scents most of all, and sounds after that, with brief chaotic impressions of color and shape, and simple wolf-thoughts, hunger and safe and not-mine.

Sometimes Nalimir will retrace his own wolf-tracks, even though he remembers where he was and what he did, so that he can have the right context to understand what he remembers.

[nojackaleatsgrass-blog]

Headcanon 44

Nalimir wasn't in the habit of sleeping for more than a few hours at a time before he became a werewolf-- Sifina liked to keep her terrorists alert to any potential danger, so they slept in short shifts, and Nalimir has never gotten out of that habit, especially now that he doesn't have anyone watching his back while he sleeps. He mostly takes catnaps, of a few hours at most, whenever there's a lull in his day. The wolf's restlessness barely registers to him next to his own.

[nojackaleatsgrass-blog]

Headcanon 33

Nalimir's beast blood is not what makes him dangerous. Nalimir was always dangerous. If anything, the wolf makes him safer to be around. It gives him enough strength and confidence that he doesn't feel compelled to kill everything that looks at him "just in case", and it came with instincts and habits that Nalimir didn't have. The wolf wants companionship, and to make a home, and to play with puppies, and to enjoy life. Nalimir just wanted to be away, and he hadn't given anything else much thought. A great deal of Nalimir's personality is being built on the bones the wolf gave him.

Sure, being a werewolf comes with some murderous urges and a hideously fast metabolism. But Nalimir already had murderous urges.

And he's never been picky about what he eats.

[nojackaleatsgrass-blog]

Headcanon 14

Nalimir is thinner and more delicately built than most of the werewolves in Skyrim. Valenwood's strain is built for navigating dense forests, all agility with comparatively little bulk. They also tend to be taller than Skyrim's strain, the better to snatch prey out of the branches, but Nalimir is naturally small even when transformed, and remains a little shorter than the typical Skyrim werewolf. Valenwood werewolves are also skilled climbers, with longer claws that usual, and will not stop at treeing their prey. They have slightly elongated muzzles, which allows them to stick their faces in the hollow of a tree and eat whatever's inside without any trouble. Despite their more fragile appearance, Valenwood werewolves are 100% capable of ripping your face off and eating you, and are arguably more inclined to do so than other strains-- in the deepmost parts of Valenwood the ecosystem is very eat-or-be-eaten, and the werewolves would rather eat. But in a straight-up fight with a Skyrim strain of werewolf, Nalimir would have to either be smarter or more vicious than his opponent, because he wouldn't win on brawn.