2023-12-28: Xander's Resolve
- Log: Xander's Resolve
- Cast: Xander Lovell, Riley Arwell, Magilou
- Where: Viridian City
- Date: 2023-12-28
- Summary: Magilou's new Sprigatito steals Xander's scarf, and leads the Fangs to the Witch again. They're happy to see each other again, but Magilou has heard about what Xander did -- and, surprisingly, she encourages him. With one specific caveat: he must overwhelm Valmar completely when he ascends. So long as he is able to remain himself, Magilou will aid him. But why would she do something like that, when even Riley wants him to stop...?
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
With Avril pointing out the artificial nature of the forest, and with so many of the Drifter community lingering nearby, Xander opted out of the idea of setting up camp. A momentary rest and application of healing salves was enough to push on a little bit further... especially given the strange docility of nature on this place called 'Nede'. (The sphere contraptions Avril warned them about notwithstanding.)
Civilization, it turns out, was not that far off, and the Fangs arrive in Viridian City.
Xander is still dressed in his dancer's garb, the way he'd been during the battle. There hadn't been time to change. He doesn't look terribly uncomfortable though, despite any passerby that might stop and stare. A little strange, that.
"Maybe we can get an inn room for the night," Xander considers, but then frowns thoughtfully, bringing his fingers to his lips absently. The tips of them are blackened with scales and end in curved claws instead of fingernails. "...Though I doubt our currency will be any good here."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Once they had a bit of rest, Riley was hardly going to argue with the opportunity for further exploration. He has a good feeling about this new world. The sky is shiny, the trees are colorful, the monsters are chill... it seems like it wouldn't be such a bad thing if they never found a way home and just had to live here forever and not destroy their home world.
In their travels, they soon come up upon a city, and as Riley is taking in the sights, Xander suggests they find accomodations. "A mysterious inn in a far off world..." Riley enthuses, clearly liking the idea. But it's true, their money is likely no good here.
"Should we try the universal currency of song and dance?" he suggests.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
A dark shape lurks, in the night. In the shadows, even terrors are prey; something here can smell your blood.
On silent feet it pads closer, closer... closer.
Until, in a flash of green --
"Spri!" A kitten meows -- a GREEN kitten, with a leaf marking across his face -- as he hops out from the night to steal one of Xander's dancing scarves, right in his adorable little kitten teeth.
"Spuhri!" He mews, victoriously, through the cloth, as he bounds off down the street.
THAT CAT IS A THIEF!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Are you even up for that?" Xander asks Riley, taking his hands to inspect his fingers. "I may have given us treatment, but the burns aren't gone."
That they are stranded on a new world, far away from the ones Xander needs to sacrifice, and from the darkness Xander needs to further desire, does not seem to ruffle Xander either. Is that not his entire purpose for being right now?
But predator becomes prey and Xander lets out a small, strangled sound of surprise as he is ROBBED! He stares down at the (green??!) kitten.
"Riley --" He grips at Riley urgently, pointing to make sure Riley sees.
But the cat takes off just as fast. At first, Xander is stunned, unmoving, then takes sprinting after the Sprigatito.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"I can make music under any conditions..." Riley protests. His fingers look okay, though the backs of his hands and arms where the burns were concentrated seem a bit questionable still. Before they can settle this argument, however, they are interrupted by A CAT THIEF.
Riley looks over at Xander as he makes the little startled sound, his eyes flashing with hope at what seems like a glimpse of the old Xander in the face of such feline cuteness.
"The local wildlife has taken a liking to you!" he says, chasing after Xander and the cat(?) in turn.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Tux! Tuxedo Mask, where on the Gods' bright Stars are you now --" That's... Magilou's voice?! Magilou, who is currently dressed in a scandalous nightgown, with a nightcap replacing her usual witch's hat. She's ready for bedtime.
But instead, she's out in the middle of the night, calling out for...
"Guhtitoh!" Sprigatito meows triumphantly (if a little muffled), as he runs up to her, still carrying the cloth in his mouth. She picks him up, and he releases the cloth into her hand. "Spri!"
"You naughty kitten," Magilou clicks her tongue, "where did you get this? Wait," she says, holding it up to the light of the street lamp. "This..."
Just as she realises she thinks she's seen that style of clothing before, in pile the Fangs, hot on Sprigatito's trail!!
"My, my, my," Magilou laughs, as she turns to them, holding the CRIMINAL CAT in her hands. "Did my naughty little kitten take something of yours? He was so full of energy after he got out from the Pokemon Centre, he ran out right as we were going to sleep!"
Intel gained: apparently you can sleep in a Pokemon Centre.
"But what a surprise to see you here," she says, "after all that fuss I heard about back on Filgaia..."
OH NO, THERE REALLY WERE PREDATORS IN THE DARK.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Somehow I doubt that," Xander calls back to Riley.
He skids to a halt, wavering to catch his balance as he beholds Magilou at the other end of this cattish crime, all dressed up and ready for sleep she isn't currently getting. It is a dumbfounding enough experience that he does not speak for several moments, and looks briefly to Riley for some assistance in reacting to this.
But only a second later do his thought seem to sort themselves out. "Y -- es," he manages. "That scarf was blessed at the Earth Shrine, so... I don't know if he can activate it or..."
Well, it all sounds a little foolish to be worked up about any of the possible danger to cats now, in front of a witch.
...A witch who knows what Xander's been up to. His posture straightens, and his eye narrows with a harsher edge.
"You could say we were doing a little sight seeing. Besides, even I need Filgaia around a while longer."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley, for his part, is delighted to find Magilou on the other side of cat-based crimes. "Magilou!!" He throws out his arms exuberantly. "I wanted to find you! I'm so happy for you that you were reunited with your spooky love who was sealed beyond this reality or whatever was going on there!!" And!! And she still seems to like them even though they're a danger to the world... such things are very precious now...
"We need Filgaia around for a lot more time," he echoes, nodding. "All of the time, actually." There seems to be an ongoing disagreement about this.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Oooh, an Earth shrine scarf! It must be very valuable! Good job, Tux," Magilou scritches her crime kitten behind the ears, and he meows, happily, "Sprii~"
Apparently, she's not terribly worried about her cat activating magic scarves. Whether that's because she doesn't think he can activate them or because she thinks he can handle it is a question for the ages.
"You should come and meet her," Magilou smiles, to Riley. "Velvet Crowe... the first Lord of Calamity. Just take care she doesn't eat you for the trouble. You might say she woke up on the wrong side of the bed!" She laughs, as if it's a riotous joke, and not a case of the world almost ending.
Magilou pets her Sprigatito, and somehow -- impossibly -- this woman in her outrageous nightwear and very cute cat somehow pull off being kind of sinister. "A while, a lot, forever... they're all just points in time," Magilou smooths over the disagreement, amused. "Hahaha... you play the end times well," here she compliments(?) Xander, her eyes lidding with a lazy smile. "But are you the announcer, or the main event? I wonder."
She's asking, of course, whether Xander will bring about Valmar -- or whether he is Valmar.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander sighs. "She's going to be one you ask to keep, isn't she? And as a packaged deal with the other two..."
As if Xander hadn't already resigned himself to that possibility.
But Magilou praises Tux, and Xander's attention becomes fixated on the creature and its happy response. What is that thing? Who authorized its existence...?! It's a cat but not a cat. Those large eyes. The markings on his face. Perfect triangle ears. A leafy color. A puff of a tail...
Xander absently bites down on his own thumb because he has no idea what bubble wrap is, nor the knowledge that he might need a suitcase full of it if he plans to witness any more of the wildlife on Energy Nede.
He snaps out of charm status at the mention of Velvet, expression softening as he glances away. "...Maybe she did. But it sounds like there's some silver lining." That she's back. Magilou had missed her, and she's back. "Not that it's any of our business."
Isn't he the last person who should be commenting right about now? Yet Magilou handles the news in her own Magilou way. Is it nihilism, or a greater preamble? That also isn't any of Xander's business.
"... I will become whatever I have to be," he says. "And I've no need of being a herald."
He has to be Valmar.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Yes, I want to get to know her! It's crazy to think that the universe had a girl Xander in it... I wouldn't think it could withstand two of him. Is there anything special I should do to make it less likely I get eaten...?" He seems to pretty casually accept this risk as the cost of meeting Velvet. He was some kind of vampire himself briefly once too.
Riley considers. "Are you sort of a trio now, or are you still figuring that out? I'm happy to hang out with Margaret too, provided she doesn't want to kill us for imperiling the world or any of our other crimes."
Xander speculates that Riley might want the three of them saved in the new world. "Of course I want to keep -- wait, no, I'm not going along with that! But if I were, how many exceptions are we talking...?"
Xander seems captivated by the catlike creature. Riley laughs to himself a little, then sobers as the conversation turns to confirmation of Xander's dark intentions. "We're still talking all of that over," he insists.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou breezes right past the comment about saving her, because sometimes, the best thing to say is nothing at all. And sometimes, the best thing to say is setting someone up for failure, as she chirps brightly to Riley: "Why, just be your most charming self! She'll love it!" Just as Xander is Girl Velvet, so is Riley Girl Magilou, and...
... Velvet's definitely going to eat him. But it's going to be really funny.
"We still need to talk about it," Magilou says, with a broad shrug. "Everything happened so quickly... we're still trying to figure out which way is up. And of course, that means --"
Magilou holds her Sprigatito up, and he dangles from her hands just as Xander's precious dancer's scarf dangles from her elbow. "I've been making friends. I can see you're curious!" She adds, to Xander. "Go on, tell the nice murderers what you are, Tux!"
"Sprigatito!" Tuxedo Mask meows, proudly.
"He's a plant cat. And he's mine," she adds, pulling him back and putting him on her shoulder... where he immediately starts chewing on her hair. "What?! No, stop that!" She yelps, but even after she pulls her bangs away, he just starts batting at them.
He is truly the naughtiest kitten.
"Apparently, this world genetically and magically engineered their wildlife to all be like this. They like fighting, which I frankly can't fathom, because the Energy Nede," Magilou gestures out, vaguely, at 'all of this', "hasn't known conflict for aeons. Maybe it's a release valve! Got to get that aggression out somehow!"
But... Xander's going to be what he has to be, and Magilou's smile is sly. "Sounds like there's some unrest in the house," she comments, her teeth flashing in a grin. "Why don't I tip the scales?"
She folds her arms -- the gesture undercut by the way that naughty kitten is still playing on her shoulder. (Now he's gnawing on her nightcap.) "In all my research," she says, "I've not found a single method to purge the Curse of Valmar from a man." Aww, she was looking?! "One way or another, your time is tick, tick, ticking... until, one day... it's gone." Her smile broadens. "... and not just you, either. Even if you died, someone else would take up the mantle... and other fragments already are."
"Gati?" Tuxedo Mask pauses in his criminal acts, feeling the shift in the air. He looks from Magilou to the boys, and nervously rubs his paws together, releasing a sweet and calming scent. He's trying his best...
... but he's working for an evil witch. "I could have let Filgaia slide... but then you went and got Lunar wrapped up in your troubles, too. Tsk... now it's personal. But don't worry your little heads, I'm not mad at you," she assures them, spreading her hands. Maybe she's not mad at them specifically because of that lovely scent, which calms down fighting spirits.
Or maybe not.
"No -- I think it's a grand idea."
Her bangs cast long shadows over her eyes, leaving them as nothing more than glints of light as she grins like a knife.
"You will not merely become Valmar, Xander. You will overwhelm Valmar. You will surpass him. You will crush Valmar's existence with your own, and become a living God. When you ascend, you will not carry out Valmar's will -- but your own. And if you have the courage to remain yourself throughout it all... why, I'll even help you."
Magilou reaches out, with a delicate, gesturing hand. "How about it...?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"She's not girl me," Xander insists. "...And before you start, I'm not boy her." He sighs again, shaking his head. "I have no idea where you're getting these connections."
For one, their claw styles are completely different!! Which is, clearly, the important thing here.
Xander's mouth quirks dangerously toward a smile as Riley asks about what if, though. "Just tell me your favorites." All Riley has to do is relax and let this happen. But he knows, with all these protests, it won't be so easy for Riley to accept.
But Magilou has something to truly be envious of: the friendship and attention of an adorable god damn magic cat thing. A plant cat! What does that even mean! It sounds cute and it should stop immediately. No! The hair chewing is making it worse!
For the first time in several days, Xander averts his eye from something bashfully. (Sorry, Riley.)
"D-Don't ask me," he says of Nede's battle animal culture. "Animals have unique needs wherever you go."
His unique animal need is devouring some planets, as it turns out.
But Magilou gets Xander's attention again, intense in the face of her... Magilou-ness. Briefly, his eye darkens and dips down with the mention of research. None of his turned up anything, either. Clearly. This was the only option he had, and it doesn't matter what Magilou or anyone else has to say --
Uh. What?
Xander gives a skeptical look. He glances down to her hand, back to her, then to Tux (listen, the cat clearly knows better than everyone here, with the way it's acting), then back to Magilou. He huffs a sound that's almost a laugh.
"Who do you take me for? I didn't set off on this path to be subsumed. The whole point is to become the Will. That's the only way to save him... even if it means my nature becomes something that devours and decays and reshapes."
He meets Magilou's dangerous smile with a gaze of steel. "If you accept that much, then I'll accept whatever game you're playing at."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Did you not SEE her, Xander? Did you not catch the vibe? You are still completely unique and original, don't worry, but there has been a dangerous alignment of Xanderlike properties that merit investigation..." His expression drifts off into deviousness as he wonders if, put into the same sorts of situations, they might have simultaneous reactions to it...
Magilou suggests Riley should just be himself meeting Velvet and everything will be fine. "Well, if you say so!" he says cheerfully. He isn't too worried about being bitten; perhaps he ought to be employing more imagination when it comes to what Velvet might be capable of...
Tuxedo Mask is held aloft for introductions. "Nice to meet you, Tux!" he greets the kitten. He glances to Xander at this new tidbit of information regarding the Nede wildlife. "So they're cute and friendly, yet they like to fight... that's an interesting combination..." Magilou's theory on why they would make animals like that seems as good as any.
Magilou threatens to... tip the scales. She says she... has been researching their condition. (Magilou is a true friend! If a capricious and spooky one!) And then, just as she seems to be winding up to declare them her enemies after all... she calls Xander's plan a grand idea.
"H-hey now! Don't encourage him!! Stop it! Hey!" He tries to position himself between them to circumvent the potential handshake that could seal this dark deal.
"Listen, I have something way more important I need your help with that won't even kill everybody we've ever known... ..." he digs through his bag before producing a notebook, flipping it open to a page containing many drawings of Xander making cute faces of varying flavors of shock and embarrassment. "You have to help me get Xander to make these faces again!! He's gotten so calm and confident since he became part god! Your cat might hold the key to defeating him and unearthing a glimpse of Shy Xander again... or maybe you've got some Magilou mischief that could freak him out!" If anyone is powerful enough to successfully tease New Xander, it would be Magilou.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"But I simply must start, for you're obviously boy Velvet!" Oh, no, Riley and Magilou are teaming up. Imagine this for all eternity.
Tuxedo Mask goes 'Spriii~' to Xander, adorably, at just the worst moment. And to Riley, he does his very best to name him: "Riga!" When all you can say is your name, you make do. He seems pleased to meet Riley, too, at least.
Riley gets between them, though, and Magilou laughs, turning him around so he's facing Xander. "Just look at him," she says, over Riley's shoulder. Tuxedo Mask helpfully hops from Magilou's shoulder onto Riley's shoulder to indicate him, too, rearing up to put his paws on his head. "Riga! Riga!"
"Don't you see, Xander?" Magilou asks, with that same mysterious smile. "Your nature must not become something else. You must remain Xander. Do you think Riley will accept your choice for a moment if you don't? I think you can see these pictures as well as I. 'Becoming a nature which devours and decays'... you've just described becoming Valmar, as much as you'd like to pretend you haven't. Even your lovestruck fool can tell that much."
Magilou grins wider. "But you're capable of so much more than that. You can change the very nature of Valmar, if you will only hold onto yourself. Every acrid inch! You have already begun the journey. I can help you to save yourself and the man you love... or you can die like a dog to become Valmar's destruction."
She tilts her head, fingers drumming on Riley's shoulder. "... or have I misjudged you? Maybe you're not up to it... what a shame," Magilou sighs, patting Riley's shoulder. "Bienfu is an excellent divorce lawyer," she asides, to him, quietly.
As if that's the inevitable end.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Yes, Riley, I saw her." That's how Xander knows he's right! But Magilou did get started. Xander sighs again, face in his claw. Ugh. What is it going to be like if or when they all meet? 'When', really, if Riley wants to so badly. That's just how it is. Riley gets everything he asks for out of Xander, unless it'll end in his own death.
For most relationships, this would be a perfectly acceptable boundary. But go and get yourselves cursed by an ancient evil god and apparently it's a point of contention or whatever.
But why! Is that cat! So cute! How are there not laws against this! And then Tux is on Riley and Xander's heart threatens to explode, cheeks darkened as he's forced to behold this collective image, and clawed hand over the lower half of his face in a poor attempt to hide it.
That all chills to a frigid calm as Magilou is back to her unsmiley smiles.
Xander closes his eye for a moment, shutting the world a way a moment to find his thoughts before he addresses Magilou.
"Most of 'Xander' was already destroyed years ago. There's only one part of me that's left, and it's the one part of me that can never be erased -- not by this clysmian we call 'Valmar' or any other force in the universe."
He knows, from his own research, he cannot naively assume that once he fully activates the processes of Valmar in order to take control, he may be no more able to stop them than he could stop his own heartbeat. He must walk this path accepting it likely spells worlds' ends in exchange for Riley's life. But...
"...Whatever happens, I will remain whatever's left of me. These broken pieces Riley's managed to hold onto for me this long... That I can promise without a doubt. If that's what it takes to crush Valmar, then that would be a fun miracle, wouldn't it."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley smiles very hopefully as Magilou's gambit of combining him with the cat against Xander produces the most flustered Xander he's seen in quite a while. "I think it's working...!"
As for the rest of that gambit, though... it makes him uneasy by extension to hear Magilou talking with such certainty as if the act of destroying the two worlds would in itself guarantee that all of Xander would disappear. There is a very dark and selfish part of his heart that has entertained the possibility he might fail to stop Xander, that Xander would do all the terrible things, but that it would, for Riley at least, eventually be 'okay' anyway. As okay as things can ever be when you've been complicit in the murder of everyone on two worlds. But he grimly suspects that might be a thing he could eventually get over, given the amount of time he'd have available.
The other possibility... that he came out on the other side of it all without XANDER... ...and with something ... else in his place... well, he might be hoping for the first time that there was no afterlife after all, because there would no longer be a hope of finding Xander there, or anywhere.
"Mostly I just don't want him to kill everyone," he tries to explain, as Xander gives his own eerily certain promises to hang onto the parts of himself he feels are important. "And the confidence seems good for him in some ways, and having a way forward has made him happier and more peaceful, but... ... I am worried about more changes, too." A beat. "Not DIVORCE worried," he clarifies. Not least because they're not quite married yet.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Spriga?" Tux meows, as Xander paws his face. Riley says it's working, and Tux agrees: "Spri! Riga, spri!!" He proceeds to lower himself back down onto Riley's shoulder, and put his paw over Riley's mouth, mirroring the nascent dark God before him.
(His paws still smell AMAZING.)
As for those uneasy possibilities -- well, that's what Magilou does. She unearths all those unspoken possibilities, and forces them into the light. It's not particularly kind, but it is honest.
"So you have a broken heart," she concludes, regarding Xander with a veiled gaze. "Just like me..."
Her own fingers cover her lips, but the way they're splayed, they cover nothing at all. "If you have true will," and it does not escape her that she is telling him to be indomitable, but she long since made a monster of herself, "perhaps you'll pull off a miracle, after all. All right -- you've convinced me. You'll remain Xander, no matter what happens."
And if he doesn't manage to crush Valmar with those broken remnants of himself... he will still have introduced the limits of a mortal man's broken heart to God.
Magilou leaves that implication to the darkness.
(Call it mercy, or a knife in the back.)
"Do you think Xander would kill everyone?" Magilou wonders, abstract, to Riley. "Is murder his nature, or was it imposed onto him? I suppose we'll find out... won't we?"
Her lips curl back, into an awful grin.
"You'll find that I am an excellent herald."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Having to expose his broken heart has left Xander a little darker than when they started, and Tux is not enough to break the cold his steadies himself with in the moment. It's an option he hadn't considered, but one that feels very stupid to get attached to -- this idea he could crush Valmar outright in what he plans to do...
...Regardless of the outcome, Xander is willing to risk it. A dangerous hope does not absolve him of that sin.
A broken heart.... He once might have sputtered and fussed about it being put in such a way, but now he gives a quiet murmur of affirmation. What darkness lurks in Magilou, Xander isn't sure, but he's sensed it before -- the way her own pain didn't seem to bother her, or how she spoke of certain topics -- that there was an injury that never quite healed. Like himself.
"I won't give up. That's something everyone should know by now." He gives Riley a pointed look before relaxing off of it. Where Xander can lack physical strength, he's carried by resolve in its place.
What that will might end up meaning, what might happen as Xander ascends...
Xander will make sure everyone does, in fact, find out.
But Magilou turns her grin on Riley, and the words 'imposed on' pull a wince from Xander. He sets his hand on Riley's shoulder -- the one not occupied by a Sprigatito. He opens his mouth, but doesn't find the words. Maybe it's the present company. He squeezes instead.
He knows there's no answer to that question that doesn't hurt.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley's mouth is covered with a calmingly fragrant paw. He plays along, putting on a similar expression to Xander's. But such hijinks fade into the much grimmer subject of Xander's potential futures.
Does Riley think Xander would kill everyone? "Yeah, but it doesn't mean the same thing for him as it would for someone else. For him it's love and devotion." Sorry about all the talking about you like you're not there, Xander. He gives Xander an apologetic pat. As for whether it's his nature... Riley's gaze goes distant, contemplating the Xander before the events of Cereza, before Riley very much did impose evil upon him. Could the Xander he knew then ever have done the things they've done since?
"Probably the second one... anyway, we don't NEED to find out. We could just stay here with the cute monsters." And die in three years. Riley gives Tuxedo Mask scritches, leaving that last part unsaid.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Good," Magilou grins, having secured Xander's certainty. "Because... I~ won't~ let you~!" And what Magilou could do to make sure Xander doesn't give up is probably best left unsaid, as much as her wagging finger and singsongy tone don't paint much of a picture of malice.
(THE MALICE IS HIDING BENEATH THE SMILE THEY BOTH KNOW THAT)
"Then we will see what lies in store for you, past your destinies," Magilou smiles to Riley, in turn, spreading her hands -- before she clasps both Riley and Xander's in hers. Did she step forward to pull off such a feat? It's difficult to say just how someone like that really moves. It's also difficult to say just how she got Xander's dancer's scarf to wrap about their hands as she clasps his, but by the time she releases him, it's back in his hands.
A gift, in honour of their dark pact...
Even though that was his scarf in the first place?!
"But for now, there are plenty of cute monsters to go around," she says, as Tuxedo Mask headbutts Riley's hand to get even more scritches. "Now follow me, won't you? They let travellers sleep at the Pokemon Centre, and I can't imagine you have a hotel lined up, under present circumstances."
Shelter...!!!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander DOES NOT know that. Because actual malice would be far less threatening then whatever it is Magilou is singsonging about now! Xander flinches about it, brow twitching. What is she implying. What is this. Why does anyone think he's going to give up in the first place, this entire conversation is completely unnecessary!!
But great, now he's going to have to imagine a little what Magilou is implying because that's how brains work! Why can't she be normal threatening in ways nascent gods can comprehend!
"We will," he assures, for better or for worse.
Then Magilou goes ahead and breaks more laws of reality and gift giving, because why wouldn't she. Xander blinks down at his hand, first for Magilou's touch, and then at having his scarf back. Oh. So she's also that kind of witch.
(Don't think about it. Don't remember. It doesn't matter anymore.)
Xander squeezes his grip around his scarf and then loops it gracefully back through his arms and behind his back like it's supposed to go. He tries to look impassive, but the promise of cute monsters is putting a glimmer in his eye...
He looks to Riley. "...Come on. We should get some rest."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Magilou is managing to expertly play both sides of the current Fang conflict, both sealing a dark pact with Xander while nodding along with Riley that they should put off worrying about any of it and hang out with some cute monsters. It's a little dizzying, really. He flashes Xander a smile that is both nervous and hopeful, unsure if he's won or if he's lost.
But at least the next step is easy. "Come on, Xander, let's meet more cute creatures!" he says to Xander, at full volume. He then attempts to mouth and communicate with gestures to Magilou that they should use the cute creatures to obliterate Xander completely.