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"And you know what, Falin? I told them so specifically, and so clearly, that this would upset you!"
Long, crude chains clack and grraek against the cavernous floor with even the most minute of Falin's movements. A twitch, and the links try to turn in on themselves. A step, and a whole bundle spirals in a way that'd knot regular rope.
Marcille is realizing, in the midst of this most humid moment, that her hands are as clumsy as the rest of her. Her staff is laid straight and narrow at her side; it was no help. Now all her fingers are digging into the lock on the very first chain, a metallic antenna clutched tight in her grasp, but not one part of her fussing warrants a result. Earlier, she dropped the antenna and had to turn Falin's leg over in her hands, had to shake it like a water-filled ear.
"They just won't listen," Marcille cries out, her tone clipped and hoarse. "I know you're… This. A monster. But do monsters deserve this, even? There's no light! We should—"
The tiniest dusting of pin feathers populates Falin's nose, once as human as Marcille's or Laios'. When Falin rubs her face all over the brunt of Marcille's elbow, the non-homologous mix of hair and feather and scale is a pad of texture so genuine, it's intriguing, and Marcille stops what she's doing. There's a tickle to Falin's reptilian cheeks. There's a downy sort-of softness on the tip of Falin's ears.
From deep within Falin, from the base of her strange, new throat, comes a rumble. Guttural and steady.
"Whether you mind them or not," Marcille hums, "it's the principle that matters."
And Falin rubs her face all around again, and her lungs visibly depress through the continued croon. It reminds Marcille, vaguely, of a cat's purr.
"Alright." Her hands slip from the outermost chain. "If you say so…"
Like a hound on a mission, with their snout stuck to a scent trail, Falin crawls toward Marcille—one toting step after the other—until her roots, blonde as her feathers, are threading themselves through Marcille's fingers. Yes, Falin nudges herself into Marcille's palm, and all Marcille does is giggle.
There is nothing to do but scratch. Centered, curled scritches that corral the crown of Falin's head. "Do you want something?"
Falin writhes under her; with slow-blinking eyes, Falin anticipates Marcille's next pet and repositions her chin up, up, up, over and over. Her hair and feathers frizz as if she was born with both.
Marcille's giggles erupt into chortles and snorts. "I am, I am!"
Then, with Marcille's view of Falin's eyes caged in the separation of her fingers, Falin brings her lips to webbed flesh. Her forked tongue flicks out and enjoys the brunt roundness of Marcille's knuckles.
Marcille blinks, hard.
"Um!"
It's in times like this that Marcille wishes, in case there's a star shooting through some faraway sky, that Falin would remember how to use her mouth. Not a day goes by without Marcille shutting her eyes and covering her ears, and with great focus, trying to remember the sound of Falin's voice. In a strange way, it was just as flighty as Falin is now. Just as light and quiet—but always sure of itself, of herself.
Percussion intrudes upon the room and the physical moment as Falin totters backward, chains dragging behind her. It must be hard to walk with those foul things weighing her, because she throws her head to the rocks and the pebbles and the aging stone, and her body follows thereafter.
"That's… A bit dramatic."
The flinch in Marcille's voice results in a full-body huff, on Falin's limp part.
Locked away within her chest, kept by chains not unlike Falin's, Marcille's heart swells in a threat to burst.
On hands and knees, she scoots forward and admits, "I'm a little afraid, Falin."
Draconic back legs thrice Marcille's size stretch out—stressed joints creak like wood—and the spiked tip of Falin's tail comes to tickle Marcille's robe. Her hood flits against her braids. She reaches for it, before it can flip over and blind her.
"Okay… Here goes…"
It is then that petting and playing with Falin becomes more of a chore than anything, because both of Marcille's hands put together can kind-of-sort-of scale to one of Falin's feathers. Sort of. One. So she lays her palms flat and pushes down, the same direction those feathers grow—and then up, against the grain, pale-pink skin poking underneath the part.
The rumble returns. That symphonic purr.
How long has it been, Marcille wonders, since someone touched Falin? Someone other than the Mad Mage. Someone that cares where they're pressing, and how they're kneading, and if Falin wants a hug. How long has it been since Marcille felt companionship?
Disgusted—not just by her parties actions, but by hers—she berates herself, a mutter overshadowed by her own breath. They were so lonely without Falin that they never considered the opposite reality: that Falin is lonelier than any other girl in the world. At least Marcille had Laios, and Laios had Marcille, and they both had Chilchuck and Senshi.
Perhaps it's guilt, the very same, that forces her hand. Perhaps it's the rising and falling of Falin's entire stomach as she breathes.
Whatever the reason—she wants Falin to know.
She kisses the soft nude of Falin's belly, where neither feather nor scale has dared to sprout. It feels… Like skin. Like any other layer atop Marcille's hands or Laios' arms. It's Falin's skin, and no matter Falin's form, that isn't going to change.
There's no time for Marcille to reckon with what she's done. Human hands—so far away, so further up Falin's torso—grip the edges of their constraints. Talons shriek against the enveloping dungeon like nails wreck a chalkboard.
"It's alright," Marcille promises.
She does it again. Her lips meet fuzzy, unkempt beautifulness, and she breathes out of her nostrils until hair billows under her. And the chains are like chimes. Marcille is a gust, one Falin will take to as soon as these awful chains break and this awful dungeon is emptied forever.
"I can take care of you."