Human cities were loud, crowded, stinky and otherwise just unpleasant places to be for a fae. Metal made up much of every structure, and pollution filled every crevice, it was for these reasons he rarely ventured there, instead opting to stick to the outskirts, in abandoned buildings he glamoured and charmed to be more comfortable, he even heard of fae living in the sewers below his feet. Even as a literal troglodyte, Vali could not stand such an environment. It was easy enough for him to simply glamour himself to appear more human, though something would always slip out as strange or non-human; maybe his eyes would flicker back to their original slits and deep black sclera, or his sharp ears would make an appearance, or his scales and carapace would catch the light in just the right way to expose his true nature for but a few seconds, enough for keen eyes to notice. For this reason he avoided mingling with humans, coming out mostly at night, during rainy or cool nights to excuse him wearing multiple layers of covering. Vali collected the essentials within the market -- sweet foods and meat, medicine, something to smoke. He cringed at how the plastic bag felt against his skin, he could feel every unnatural component of it, how far removed it was from the oil that it was technically composed of. Not only was everything covered in metal in human cities, but also more and more as time progressed, plastics.
He quickly retreated from the inner city, to the slightly more rural outskirts of the suburbs. An old, run down abandoned manor sat at the end of the street, the shrubbery overgrown over the gates and walls. A willow tree slowly set to work forcing it’s roots through the concrete of the driveway. Any scent of human habitation long passed, when Vali discovered this place a week earlier, the only remains of human life were that of squatters. He was half way up the driveway when he caught the scent of another -- not human, not animal. Almost---plant like? But alive, moving, he smelled them first but he heard them next past the willow tree and in a small forest of young trees opposite the manor. Vali dumped his groceries on the front step, staring nervously into the darkness. He could very clearly see a figure in the treeline, small and pale, hunched over against a tree. As Valeriu approached, it became clear why the figure did not move, attack, or really do anything. They seemed wounded, but he could not make out any outward injuries. But the stranger was definitely fae in nature, and obviously different from many he’d encounter, being slowly poisoned by human places or suffering attacks from other supernatural creatures was not unheard of when living in a city.
“Are you okay?” Vali started, making his presence known long before he came any closer. This still could be a trick. “Well, obviously not. But - uh, do you need help?”
