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"Massster..." this came from a disembodied head floating in front of Raistlin's desk. The archmagus didn't look up immediately, busy scratching writing onto a piece of flattened parchment, the quill in his thin golden fingers practically vibrating with the speed of his notes.

Genessia was a land of fascinating marvels. He'd be sure not to forget a single one.

"Masssster pleasssse," the head tried a second time.

Finally, Raistlin glanced up, impatient at the interruption. "What?"

"Therrrre is an intruderrr in the Grrove."

That. That was interesting, and Raistlin's hand finally stilled. "In the Grove, you say?"

"Yesssss. The defenderrrssss have not been able to kill it..."

Extremely interesting. Something from Genessia, no doubt, nothing else would make sense. The blackrobe dabbed the last of the ink off the feather quill onto a pad and set the instrument aside, and then took the time to carefully close up the inkwell. This could take a while.

And so it was that whatever this stranger was doing, he suddenly wasn't the only living creature in the dark, ancient grove. Raistlin lurked in the deepest shadows, silently watching.

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Naturally, the conversation was extremely one-sided. And Raistlin didn't join in -- he didn't speak, nor move, until after the strangely-dressed stranger had crumpled to the ground again with three skeletal phantasm hands locked onto a leather-clad ankle.

And yet...

When Wade next had his senses about him, he'd find himself towered over by the blackrobe, Raistlin leaning heavily against his staff watching the stranger resuscitate himself with rapt attention.

"Fascinating."

"Fuckin-" DOWN. Which death was this one? Seven was two ago, was this ten? Ten or nine? The things a dying brain puzzled over were just amazing, wasn't it? Beautiful.

Once more, he'd not be out for long, jerking sharply as his heart began to beat once more, hammering frantically in his chest the way it'd been going since he got into this stupid fucking woods. No he didn't have to be in here, this was self imposed torture but shut up.

Also-

"... Well you're not Grandma Wilson." Which meant, not dead. Well shit.

"Gimme a... sec, I just... gotta get up and... Ten heart attacks in a row is my limit I just-" Alright no never mind, legs haven't turned back on yet. With a grunt, he gives up trying to get back to his feet, flopping back into the dirt to stare up at Raistlin.

"So uh... Are these your haunted woods? Very lush, the gibbering shrieking ghost heads are a nice touch."

A single, rather elegant gesture with one bony, golden-skinned hand, and the undead defenders of the Grove essentially vanished into thin air.

No arguing from them!

"I am the master of this place," Raistlin's voice was a perpetual raspy whisper, which surely helped the general ambiance of the Grove by leaps and bounds. His eyes, glossy and golden and shaped wrong, remained fixed on Wade through-out, seemingly unblinking from beneath his large hood.

Shadows on shadows.

"How are you yet living?" If the stranger was undead, then the defenders wouldn't be bothering to drain the life from him. Yet, here we are.

"Soooo that's a yes? I played Dungeons and Dragons, I know the lingo. Sweet crib, man." Oh now the dead fucks go away. Grand, he could have used the personal space ten deaths ago.

This wouldn't be the first time he'd looked at someone radically different than the norm. All things considered, compared to Colossus, the Juggernaught, and a good chunk of the rest of the X-Men, gold skin and hourglass eyes weren't too strange. At least he was normal human sized, that was a bonus.

"Hey, I'm fine, thanks for asking. Feel great, absolutely don't actually have several brain clots I'm working on dissolving right now, and how are you?"

Every other word out of this stranger's... mouth? We'll assume there's a mouth under that mask... was gibberish to the mage. But that was fine.

This was still bounds more interesting than almost anything else he'd ever encountered on Krynn. Raistlin bent lower and reached one attenuated hand down for the mask. It is a mask, right? Right? Let's find out.

UH WOW. This whole fucking forest was rude, he regrets coming in here. Not because it's horrifying beyond all reason.

It is.

But everyone here's a huge jackass, also. Objectively worse. Well, his legs weren't working and his arms weren't listening that well, probably because of all the multiple brain deaths. Frankly it was a wonder he could get right back into speaking properly so quickly, normally it'd take at least a few good minutes for the language center to rebuild itself.

So Raistlin's toasty hot wizard wrist is going to get a few weak baby slaps before the mask gets pulled off. He's only offended because UH-

"At least buy me dinner first, Jesus shit man-" That's... one meatball of a face under there. Lesions and raw flesh, fresh scars and old scars, there's almost no tissue there that looks smooth and unmarred. Not a single hair either, no eyebrows nor eyelashes, as if the follicles themselves had long ago been scarred away.

"Alright there, happy? All you ever hoped and dreamed? Gimme my mask back, asshole, come on, I'm not kidding."

Meatball face and yet, not aging. Raistlin stares for a good long while, too, mask dangling from his fingertips just out of reach. That whisper of his was just as raspy and creepy as before, but hurried now, like the words can't wait to get out--

"You do not remain dead, you do not age...! What manner of creature are you?"

How are you doing this?!?!?

"You are not helpful, I'm rating this place one star on yelp, worst haunted forest ever." Yeah he only lay there a few seconds before going to try and get his mask back again, stupid noodle flailing and all. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been stared at, and he was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last. But uh...

"Little awkward here, this moment we're having. Right now. Just staring at me, with my whole tube man in the wind impression here. Not really enjoying the tension-" Oh there we go. And it's only partially the weirdest fucking thing he's heard in his life!

"Mask, in my hand, over here, now preferably."

Raistlin, of course, just straightened up to his normal level of hunch, mask in hand. And he sneered, just faintly. "Answer me, first."

Otherwise enjoy laying here all exposed in a supernaturally terrifying Grove with an evil wizard watching.

"Or else what? You'll kill me?" Bitch, his legs will start working again.

"How about we come to a compromise, and we get a please up in here? Maybe 'Could you please tell me what manner of horrible mutant flesh goblin are you?'"

And in response, Raistlin tucked the mask into one of the many cords of pouches around his thin hips, and bent low again.

This time reaching for Wade's actual face. The skin of his fingertips was soft, but searingly hot as though a lethal fever burned inside the man. That heat radiated from all of him, but skin contact was easily the most intense. A ginger poke at a lesion here, a prod at a knot of scarring there, a grasp to turn his head this way, then that way...

"Human, but... changed? How peculiar."

The answer is if you won't give him answers with your words like a people, he's going to try to figure it out his own damn self.

"That is actually the opposite of the thing that I asked you to do." WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS. IT'S NOT LIKE HE BROKE INTO YOUR HORRIFYING HAUNTED GHOST FOREST OR ANYTHING.

Shit he was toasty though. Of course Wade would flinch away, his skin was, in all honesty, quite sensitive, considering all the exposed nerves in there. Most of that looked like either an old, or still healing burn wound. However, it wasn't really the sensation of being touched that bothered him.

More along the lines of the actual weird intimacy of the moment. Not a fan. Have to ruin this.

"... So are we gonna kiss or nah?" STOP TOUCHING. "I would be super duper happy to tell you a bunch of shit, if you gave me my fucking mask back. We live in a society.

... Also do you need like an ice pack? Aloe? Did you stuff your bathrobe full of Hothands hand warmers?"

The moment of eye contact that followed that whole... mess that came out of Wade's mouth, probably didn't help, either.

Most people saw their own death reflected in those hourglass eyes.

Raistlin knew just enough of this stranger, now, to wonder what he saw.

But finally, after that good long moment, he took his hand back from Wade's face and straightened back up once again. At least, to his normal level of hunched lean against the staff at his side. "...Very well."

What, the kiss?

Well, no. Raistlin plucked the mask from his belt and tossed it to land in a leathery splat right on Wade's face. Mask returned. Happy?

Edited 2019-07-19 05:56 (UTC)

Well, if he saw anything, he certainly wasn't saying. Yes, actually, it was super uncomfortable, to say that and then look directly into the face of a complete stranger who had his jaw in his hand. A little awkward, he did actually kind of regret it. Not enough to apologize, he fucking hopes you're uncomfortable too, prick.

"... Wait what-" Oh no, ok okay. Raistlin got a big, over exaggerated, relieved sigh fluttering out from under that mask. "Oh good, I was concerned." With movement now fast returning to his arms, he fumbled with his mask for a moment, before yanking it back on. It didn't really matter too much, his new best friend forever had already seen his face.

It was the principle of the thing.

"Well, that was magical, I really feel like we've bonded today, nameless forest wizard. I can tell, you're really busy though, so I'm just going to army crawl to the edge of the woods and wait for the adrenaline to wear off. Feel free to maintain a comfortable distance of five feet at all times, cool? Cool." Oh did you think he was kidding about the army crawl? Fuck no.

Here he goes, just front arms, all elbow, gonna just drag his half responsive ass back to the edge of the forest because he was also very serious about ten heart attacks being his limit.

Too fuckin' scary in these woods.

"And why is this called an... army crawl?"

Don't mind Raistlin, just casually walking along with. His presence is all that's keeping the undead at bay, anyway. Be grateful.

He appreciates it, really.

"Well, it's good if you're trying not to get shot, or crawl under some barbed wire, or stay hidden in the grass, or it's been a year and two months since you last saw your girlfriend and only the gritty unyielding soil of base camp is enough to get you off anymore, so it's mostly used by soldiers.

Or if you have a serious clay fetish."

As per usual, more than half of what came out of Wade's mouth was discarded with the ease only decades of knowing a kender could afford.

"Perhaps so." At least at the shot part, although Raistlin was envisioning... you know, archers. With arrows. Which went down as much as out. But it wasn't important, so he let it be.

"And why are you apparently incapable of remaining dead?"

Right back to the point, here we go!

"Okay yeah I did actually say I'd answer that didn't I?" God, why did he come into this forest this far Jesus.

"So I'm not a fucking genetic cell biology scientist or anything, so what I'm going to tell you is how I understand it. And how I understand it, is that I was born with the ability to have multiple heart attacks and keep waking back up for another one, but it had to be-"

He grunted, hoisting himself up onto a stump for a breather.

"Activated by weird science shit in order to work. Like I said, I'm not a scientist, so what the fuck do I know?"

"So you were born with some sort of anomaly that... ah, 'weird science shit' unlocked."

Damn. Probably not replicate-able, then, although Raistlin still wished for a moment that he had a way to take notes while hanging out in the Grove like this. When Wade went for the stump, Raistlin paused near it, leaning against his staff as usual.

It sure was dark in these woods.

"Shirak," whispered without preamble; the crystal atop that staff of his lit up brightly enough to cast their immediate area in cold white light, glittering off his skin where his hand clutched the staff. At the edges of the light, movement stirred and retreated; the undead lingered close.

"Yeah. Look, I don't have my medical records on me, let's just call it a terminal case of failure to die. There's people where I'm from called 'mutants'. Just born with super powers that wake up on their own, it's all great for them. And some of us don't actually have super powers-" He grunted again, punching his left leg before kicking it out. There.

"Until someone fucks around with our genetics." A pause... Oh yeah, weird... medieval wizard probably won't know what that is, will he? "More science shit, don't ask me. The town has a library."

And all of a sudden, lo, there was light, Wade jerking his head up just in time to see the undead mosh pit he'd just escaped from retreating back into the darkness. Yeah fuck you.

"So uh.... What's it like being a sparkly forest wizard? Looks fun."

"I have perused many books from their libraries. I will add 'genetics' to the list."

Yep, just like that. Gonna learn him some genetics because he can.

Just try and stop him, number of hours in the day! He'll fight you and he'll win.

"Your manner of speech grows steadily more difficult to parse," he whispered next, strange eyes fixed on Wade from under his hood. "Are you asking... what it is like to have magic?"

Best guess here.

Edited 2019-07-19 08:08 (UTC)

"Sounds like a great way to burn four years worth of lazy afternoons." Genetics, not exactly light reading! He tried to learn a bit of it himself but hahaha no.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

"If you think this is hard to understand, I'd stick around. It only gets more fun with a bowie knife in the frontal lobe." BUT-

"Yeah? Magic's not really a thing where I'm from? It's all science and mutants and mind powers which, I've been told, is more science, but I personally think that's bullshit. I'd do my research, but when I ask someone with mind powers what it's like being a sparkly mind wizard, I get my brain popped like a ripe grape.

.... So yes, yeah. Magic powers, what's that like? ... Can you throw fireballs?"

Raistlin won't be trying to become an expert, at least. But he will learn the basic concepts, and probably a few of the more complex ones to boot.

Gods above, this strange human is an oversized kender. Right down to the line of questioning. This is very, very familiar ground.

"I can, yes."

Understatement of the century.

"Magic is power, where before I had none."

Wade Wilson, the giant, unkillable kender. Don't make the comparison, he might like the title too much.

".... Can I see?" Look, he dragged his half dead body all the way over to this stump, he deserves a reward. "Can you blow shit up? Like just-" He snaps his fingers, "and some poor fucker explodes into beef confetti?"

"...More or less, I suppose." Raistlin had to take a second there to figure out what beef confetti meant, but... sure. Why not.

However, "I am not demonstrating a fireball in an enchanted forest."

Sorry Wade some of us know how to think ahead a bit.