[Location: Adventure Zone] [open to any!]

[imperial_long]

Good afternoon, Taxon: there is an enormous black dragon flying in lazy circles above the city.

Specifically, above the Northern District, that nebulous area currently masquerading as Fantasyland. After all, what's a good castle adventure without a dragon? Even if the dragon is distinctly Eastern in flavor rather than Western.

On the map, the dragon displays as Oolong. In the air, Oolong loops like a black ribbon, drifting down from the sky in long, rippling undulations as he scans the woods below for interesting things.

'Interesting things' qualify as sheep. Or deer. Or, perhaps, even a goblin here or there.

Either way, he's visible from anywhere in Adventure Zone... and for that matter, probably visible from parts of the regular city too.



[OOC: Oolong in da house! Long is currently a 90-foot-long Chinese imperial dragon. He still has his tablet on him. Feel free to approach him in any way from terror to glee.]

Comments

[imperial_long]

The humour does fade a bit at that and Oolong's head twists about again to rest with jaw on the muddy stream-bank and golden eyes whirling slowly, fixed on Remus.

"There are reasons for everything, Remus Lupin. Undoubtedly I have acquired some karma and this is the universe's way of settings things to rights. Perhaps I am even enduring the consequence for karma I have yet to accumulate. The universal principles of cause-and-effect are not bound by linear time, after all."

The dragon puffs some warm blasts of air, eyes revolving in slow, aimless circles for a few seconds as it-- he-- it devotes Thought to this. After a bit, the massive shoulders shrug.

"But I think you are not asking quite so metaphysically. In which case, the answer is more simple: I have no power whatsoever over the form I inhabit. That I have occupied it at all in these last few years is some whimsy of our captors."

[apackofone]

"I am sorry."

Because, of everyone here, Remus understands being forced to assume a physical shape at the whim of something far out of your power and control.

[imperial_long]

Oolong shrugs again, gesturing lazily with one claw.

"It is something I must endure, apparently. As I said: it is my karma. There is no fighting that. And being attached to this body will only bring me pain."

Deep siiiiiigh.

[apackofone]

Deep sigh which Remus braces himself against, leaning into it and relaxing as it ends. "I looked into karmic beliefs once, after the war. I figured I must have done something truly atrocious preciously, or I had chosen a life towards enlightenment this time around."

[imperial_long]

Long nods sagely. "It is entirely possible. You do seem to exhibit the compassion required to progress upon the path of enlightenment, at least."

[apackofone]

"I've always found that suffering leads a being to do one of two things. To close down with anger and rage at the world and those they see as 'weak' like they must have been. Or to feel strongly with those suffering because they remember they what it was like."

He sits down, legs still in the water. "A lot of werewolves in my world become angry. There's only so much persecution a person can bear before they find themselves unable to take anymore. And in many ways, the oppression and sneering is worse than any outright abuse. Like you're to blame for not having the decency to die when you were attacked."

[imperial_long]

"I wouldn't know," Oolong says politely to the first statement, his enormous hands folded under his chin. He does not consider himself to have experienced a great deal of suffering in his existence. Oh, there have been certain moments, of course; but on the whole they've been islands in what even he must admit has been a fairly comfortable few thousand years.

He has more often observed the suffering of others. Although no werewolves, as best he can recall.

"Goodness. How irrational, and yet I suppose people have always projected their own fears onto other victims."

[apackofone]

"Most sentient beings are fairly irrational, I find." Thought is what drives them to it. "The terrifying thing about any werewolf is the realisation that before it was the monster you fear, it was a person. Like you. Any one of them could become one of us, the Other, just with a graze of a fanged mouth. Every werewolf was a victim before it became the predator, the monster."

It was too easy to see them and think of what nearly was, every full moon.

"A lot of werewolves do lash out. They leave society, go and form wild packs. But more stay and deal with the hand dealt them. Form their own subtle packs and learn to cope with the shift in their place in the world."

[imperial_long]

Oolong's vast, golden eyes gleam with interest and wry humour.

"And did you yourself have such a pack?" he cannot resist asking.