Chapter Text
Having seen many things in his, albeit short considering his age, lifetime, Cyno is no stranger to waking up with the ground at face-level. Be it over-exhaustion from work, sleeping outside of his own home, or getting knocked out from a particularly formidable opponent and tied to the nearest ground-ladden post. It was to ensure an escape because, while victory had been obtained for them, the same could not be said of the various other unconscious bodies surely surrounding him.
Tho, he will say that he was not yet made general around that time, and his prowess with his vision was still clumsy, at best. The spirit that came with his vision beat him down more times than any other enemy has, and still counting, when he was learning to master this new kind of control.
Today, or maybe yesterday as he has no semblance of an idea how much time has passed due to his location, Cyno had gone back to the temple he had accompanied the traveler and the eremites some months ago after the disaster of the Dendro Archons kidnapping and imprisonment had finally been resolved. What they had found that day, among the joining of forces after a traumatic experience of dropping in an actively sinking pit in the middle of the desert, was a past the General felt he had a relation to.
The priest, he remembers, had features so distinctly similar to his own, in both physical appearance and choice of wear, Cyno had no choice but to be curious about the true meaning of his title as the General. But at the time, his curiosity stayed as such and he left shortly after the priest's story was told and left Alhaitham and Aether to their dawdling with the Deshret-Obsessed eremite as he mourned over the translated truth.
Cyno did not possess a device like the one the Scribe had used to translate the inscriptions, but he did not let that fact stop him from coming back and seeking for something more on this priest's identity. Perhaps, through searching, he could find an object that could speak in more ways than the limited human tongue.
But, the temple was a tomb, and Cyno had put that into careful consideration when he stood before the entrance of the forgotten underground palace. What he looked for, he used nothing more than the touch of his bare feet on the ground as he stalked among the walls. When he finally reached the final room, the black statue of a seated jackal was the first to greet him before the massive pyramid just behind it.
Feeling somewhat remorseful of having abruptly invaded this place months prior, and then coming again without so much of an utterance of respect or apology, Cyno finds himself putting his hands together and bowing low with his head and torso until his body folded into an angle. The frills and fabric of his headpiece fell to each side of his face after sliding off his back, and the sound carried in echo.
“I come bearing nothing more than subtle curiosity of my own upbringing in comparison to yours, great priest.” His voice bounces off the walls of falling sand, and after a few moments, he lets his gaze go to the side to where he sees abandoned shelvings. They're crooked and overrun with sand and branches sprouting from the walls and floor, and the texts lying in wait with a few relics left behind by mourners were almost glued together with age.
As promised, he doesn't touch a single book, only being able to see the illegible covers lying on top. When he sees a small table of offering, Cyno puts his hands together in another prayer before moving onto the murals just beyond it.
Its covered in moss and mold, the stone crumbling akin to that of a cookie; one scratch and it chips away (Cyno files that away in the back of his mind for later). But it does tell a story. One that Cyno follows with an open mind from the lack of actual words, until he reaches the opposing end of the entrance he came from, having circled the entire room.
But, before he could even think to circle back to any particular panel, as if some crazed scholar with a toxic mentality that hear the beckoning of their true calling, suddenly filled him. Cyno finds his eyes flitting back to the statue. But it lays still in its place, like stone often does, and silence fills the room from lack of the pitter patter of his slow steps.
Not even wind blows, but it isn't exactly quiet either. Perhaps this is where the notion ‘the silence is too loud’ comes from. Where he can’t hear anything, it’s as if he hears everything. What it was, exactly, he cannot discern.
Seeing that he can’t find anything of remote interest around the presumable tomb, Cyno walks in the direction of the statue and lets out a small sigh that resonates with his dissatisfaction with his findings. Or lack thereof, more like, but the shine of the statue brings his attention as he stands before it.
And, upon further inspection, Cyno notices the shine the stone has, which is something that is unexpected in and of itself. Jackal-headed statues are common in desert temples, and ones with the animal itself no less, but the black coloration didn’t reflect like this one did. Instead, the paint would be withered beyond its original coloration as it fades to colors of green, pink-reds, and blues before exposing the true brown stone underneath.
This one is untouched. Unwithered.
Reaching out a hand, Cyno finds that the stone is not painted, and his eyes widen at the sharp edges of the cut statue.
“Black Marble.” He mumbles to himself, and his voice ricochets around the room at the new volume. “A hard find when this deep in the desert.” Aside from the isolation, the sheer amount of it proved just how much importance this priest held. As he peered around to gaze over its body, not a single crack indicated that it was constructed piece by piece.
It was a solid brick of pure marble.
“Fascinating.” Cyno marvels. He’s no architect or researcher, but he can find admiration where he sees fit. Dragging a hand down the side of the pectoral part of the animal, his fingers skim and jump over the jagged bumps until one inevitably leaves a mark to draw blood. While he doesn't flinch, Cyno pulls his hand away for inspection to not sully the statue. The thumbs over the cut leisurely until his vision begins to blur.
He blinks, startled at the sensation, and his head shooting up in alarm at this fact causes his balance to falter and his legs to buckle. With each sway of his body as he steps away from the statue, his mind pounds and begs for him to stop his unbalanced movement until Cyno relents to its pleas and drops to his knees to avoid falling to the floor.
Belatedly, Cyno comes to an understanding when he looks back down at his injured finger that this must be the work of the priest, perhaps having felt threatened or belittled by Cynos intentions. It was no secret that tombs were sacred, holding curses to protect their holders, but to be struck by one was more odd then terrifying as he succumbed to the full brunt of it.
But waking up days, or perhaps even hours, later, was even more so, and only feeling as if all he’d done was come from nothing more than an afternoon nap that took him by suprise on his desk. One that was full of sand, but his body ached all the same as he groaned.
Lifting his head was easier than before expected, and turning to see where exactly it was he had fallen asleep to, he found that the movement was more flexible than what he considered to be normal all while his cheek and face tickled with something. That moved. It was as if he was ungluing his sweat-doused clothes from his skin, only they were laden with sand and soft fabric.
In front of him, his head piece lays on the floor, and while he has it on during combat, the thought of having it scratched didn’t sit comfortably with him. But, when he attempts to get up and only rises knee-high, Cyno blinks at the height he’s reached.
He can feel his feet are on the ground, and he counts one, two, thr-... three… he looks down at the ground and is met with what could only be a pair of paws. Not the hands he was expecting to be leaning on still. When he wills himself to move, the han- paws move with him, shifting as they scratch against the sand.
So they are his. His… that they belong to.
This is a strange curse.
Cyno lifts a front leg. The fur is white, not unlike his own hair, but it has layers of other colors that he can’t seem to understand or even perceive , but he continues with his search as he turns his head - and now he understand the reason of why it is he can go so far with it and see his back, and isn’t that something to think about - and the color covers him completely. A blanket off-white colored fuzz with a texture belonging only to an animal. The tail, he finds, he cannot control at will and it only moves when he shifts his head this way, turns his body that way, and overall reacts to the way the rest of his muscles move. Much like a tongue following a toothbrush.
A fifth limb he has no control over. Completely understandable, but he’s going off track now and he looks back down at his clothes. There’s few, only a pair of pants, socks, and the headpiece, but Cyno goes to gather them, having to make-do with his mouth from the lack of opposable thumbs, and gathers them in a single pile.
After, he sits with his head bowed down to them, staring as he thinks. Thankfully, he’s still coherent enough to do that.
He’s stuck in the form of an animal, and from the looks of it, his body type is similar to that of a fox. Perhaps not the color as the ones found in the desert are more dusty in color, and the ones in the forest have a more brown to them, but the white is a result of his own anatomy. He can walk just fine in this form, and it feels like a child playing tiger as he prowls around in circles, feeling the blades of his shoulders protruding from his back with each step.
He can’t attempt to stand no matter how hard he tries as it only results in his body jolting lightly but never actually coming off the ground, but he can jump with the assist of a running start until he comes to a halt when he remembers where exactly he was again. Cyno trots back to his pile of slobber-filled clothes and sits on his haunches.
The tail behind him bends uncomfortably and he’s also reminded that he’s still naked and attempts to put his hind paws in a way so his ass and sack aren’t directly on the sand. Huffing when that too doesn’t work, Cyno shifts so he's sitting on his flank.
This is already becoming unbearable . He wonders how Tighnari deals with his Fox traits when his own skin feels so itchy and full and hot. So hot.
His ears and head perk up at the thought of the forest watcher.
Tighnari. Cyno thinks, looking at the exit ahead of him. He speaks fox, can’t he? Maybe he could be of help.
With that in mind, Cyno lifts himself with a heave and trots back to where he came from.
It’s well into the night when Tighnari wakes up to something inside his hut, and he will never admit the height he reached when he leapt out of his bed at the sight of red eyes peering too close to his face for comfort, and vines immediately sprout from the ground up to trap the intruder.
He hears a yelp, inhuman as it, too, jumps from its leering, and Tighnari’s ears strain at the noise with a confused frown and bleary, tired eyes as he tries to blink them awake. A little hard in the darkness of his home, but he only grows more confused when the intruder begins to take the shape of an animal.
The vines around it loosen, but do not let go at the size of this creature as Tighnari carefully climbs off his bed, detangling the sheets from his legs and walking to his desk to turn on the lamp. Squinting in the light, Tighnari sees a fox(?) entangled in the vines of dendro he's created with a head tilted back to watch him. After a few moments, it lets out a few yelps, but not ones that could be associated with pain.
Tighnari only sighs tiredly as he rubs the bridge of his nose, vines undoing themselves as they wither into nothing and freeing the fauna that’s wandered into his home. Walking to the door of his hut, he opens parts of the leaves of the door and sweeps a hand in the direction of the outside.
“Out you go.” he says. “This is my home, not yours.”
The fox- rather big for its size- stares at him, sitting in a rather crooked manner now that it’s been liberated from the clutches of artificial nature before it opens his mouth and speaks it’s fox language; screaming in broken howls. Tighnaris ears lower at the gravely pitch with a grimace as it rings in echo. The howls stop immediately after.
From the sounds of it, the fox was a juvenile. But it’s size was double the one a typical adult sported.
Shaking his head to ward off the analytical side of himself, Tighnari steps away from the door and goes to- carefully- step behind it with a few shuffles of his feet and hoping it would scare it off into the darkness of the woods again where it belonged. The fox’s head only turned to follow him, but did not move or growl that predatory growl at his incessant nudging that began to grow into restlessness.
“Shoo!” Tighnari says, exasperated at the lack of cooperation. It doesn't budge except for another yip and a strange roll of its tongue as more noises come from its throat. Amused but not impressed, Tighnaris brow lifts, judging its lack of understanding of fox language, but annoyance wins over any other feeling he has at the moment when the overgrown fox-wolf doesn't leave .
When he grows hopeful at the sight of it standing tho, it’s immediately squashed when it rounds him and noses at his own green tail, which flushes and lifts away from the gesture as Tighnari makes an incomprehensible noise of distress as he rears to face the animal again, ears flushed against his head.
“I’m not here to greet you!” He goes, tail clutched tightly in his hands, but one of them points for the door behind him. “Out.”
The fox looks at the door, looks up at him, and then huffs before sitting crookedly again, both legs pushed on one side. He lays down on the floor shortly after. Tighnari finds this interaction absurd.
But since the fox-wolf doesn't seem to be in any hurry to feast on him - or whatever it is it’s kind does - Tighnari huffs before he goes to the lamp. “Fine then. Sit there for all I care. I have sleep to catch up on.” The light shuts off and he scampers off back onto his bed, cursing about doors and what it brings when you don’t have any. But despite its gentle demeanor, Tighnari puts a flower barrier around the bed to alert him if the fox-wolf has decided to make him into its breakfast.
Disgruntled at his failed mission, Cyno lets out a long puff of air as he lays down on the hard ground.
An entire day has passed and he hadn’t left Tighnaris' side once in the hopes to get his fox friend to realize who he was. But, Cyno won’t lie at the fact that he gets to see Tighnari in how he interacts with animals, and it’s a stark difference to how he is with people; friends and strangers alike.
He… fed him this morning, after all that fuss of wanting him out of his hut the night prior, and even did that thing where he tested Cynos boundary as he ate to see what kind of reaction he would give. Of course, Cyno being a human, there was nothing more to give then a sideways glance as he munched away at some fruits. He was too starved to do anything more, but he also knew that Tighnari wasn’t going to take the plate away from him.
He was a person. Something he was trying to tell the Forest Watcher.
Tighnari hasn’t spoken to him since last night, all his words lost in mutters to himself when he looked at him in scrutiny, but his eyes were kind. Gentle, in regarding him. Not once did they show the typical annoyance or indifference he’d gotten used to interacting with.
Now, all he did for the day was sit in his chair after doing some rounds around the villa and Cyno would hear the occasional flipping of a page. An hour must have passed since he picked it up and Cyno was still mulling over what else he could do to at least be convincing enough to be human .
He can read, but not aloud, writing was proven difficult on paper with a sideways hold of his head as he bit a pencil before Tighnari promptly took it away from him, and writing on dirt was even more so when the fox refused to follow him. He only waved and bid him goodbye before Cyno turned back around and huffed at him with an awkward turn of his head that roughly translated to ‘come with me’. Tighnari tilting his head- cute- and smiling- also cute- at him the moment he sat at his feet derailed his train of thought.
“Not ready to go yet?” He’d said, bending at the waist a little so he wasn’t as tall. “I hope you’re not taking a liking to human life.” and then he looked to the side before bending down into a crouch with a hand copping one side of his face to cover his mouth as he whispered, “ I'll let you in on a little secret; it sucks.”
Cyno could smell the breath of his friend and his mouth opened automatically to take in its scent to the point of tasting it himself. Licking the sensation away, Tighnari chuckled at him before lifting himself back at his full height before continuing his walk to who-knows-where.
The sound of a groaning chair brought Cynos' attention back, his ears turning in its general direction before his head followed and watched as Tighnari turned around from his seat with that same book in his hand. When they flicker over to him, his calculating gaze never left.
He was onto something- something about him surely- and Cyno shuffled his front feet till he was sitting up, hind legs remaining in their lying position as he waited.
“You’re young.” Tighnari starts, eyes flickering back to the book as he flips to a marked page. “But far too big to be a fox, forest, desert, or any other particular species of its family.”
Ah. Of course, he was becoming interested in his biology. But maybe this could work in his favor.
A humm. “And your coloration tells me you might be coming from the frozen lands of Snezhnaya, or perhaps even Dragonspine, but the texture of your fur is too rough and favoring your back. Almost as if it were a protective coat.” Tighnari stands from his seat to step closer to Cyno, to which he goes to mimic, before putting a hesitant hand out to- pet?
Cyno can’t think of any other alternative by the close and hovering proximity to him, specifically his snout, but the fruity, and slightly sweaty scent coming from the exposed palm brings him closer. Perhaps he was seeking permission, or afraid to touch without his awareness of it, so Cyno gave him what he hoped was a good enough signal to do what he pleased with a wet nudge of his nose.
He resisted the urge to lick the delicious smell of food and salt off Tighnari’s hand.
The hand goes to the space between his ears - and isn’t that something, a completely indescribable feeling - scratching lightly by curved nails before they drag down his back. Cyno shivers into a shake of his head and body, to which Tighnari gives him a moment to do before continuing.
“I’m no stranger to albinism, or melanism, and it’s likely you’re the former considering the eye color, but it puts a damper on my limited ability to tell what you are and where you come from. As in, if you really do come from the cold plains, then I have a semblance of responsibility to take you back.”
Cyno doesn't like where this is going, and Tighnari hums as he feels his fur being pinched and rubbed between two fingers.
“Definitely too coarse for a fox, snow would most likely clump and-” Tighnari comes face to face with him, hand on each side of his face and pinching it in a way he’s seen him do before to ensure his safety in case of a bite. Maroon-green eyes fly between his. “-the bone structure of your face is the cause of this wolf-like appearance, which makes you more likely a member of the Canini rather than a Volpini.”
Tighnari goes to the tops of his ears and fondles them minutely before he pulls himself back completely with another tilt of his head, his own twitching.
“I have to say tho, these ears look vaguely familiar to something… I can’t put a finger on what.”
He gets his answer hours later when Collei makes an appearance after a few convincing words from Tighnari that Cyno- or ‘it’ as Tighnari often dubbed him- is harmless, but warning her not to touch him too casually. She does not lay a hand on him and visibly keeps her distance.
But the smile on her face is broad as she looks at him.
“He’s a jackal!” She goes. “Where did you find him?” she sounds marveled as she gives her whole attention to Cyno. Tighnari looks down at him with an unsure scratch behind his ebony ear.
“He was in my room last night and hasn’t left my side since.” a sigh. “I fear that it’s a pup that’s strayed far from its mother but-”
“I’m pretty sure he’s a full grown adult.” Collei interrupts, and Tighnari throws her a confused look, but she’s assessing Cyno, to which is growing used to the fact that yes, his presence is quite strange. “Jackals don’t grow much more than this one does.”
“But the underpaws are smooth. The pads show no signs of wear and tear. Not even kits can keep them like that for long.”
Collei finally looks up at Tighnari, her brows knit with her own confusion. “Really?”
Tighnari nods in affirmation, and Collei’s eyes are back on Cynos, who stares back intently. Perhaps she could help him with the predicament. She knew all about animals and their behaviors in comparison to Tighnari, who was more of a botanist than a zoologist like herself. A personal interest she took upon herself, much like her master.
But because of her skittish nature, he doubts she’d be able to do much.
“You know,” She starts. “Jackals are also known to carry a religious symbolism to them, and because they were deemed connected to the underworld, it mostly consists of danger of the person, or someone close to them.” She looks up at Tighnari, suddenly growing nervous. “Do you think- someone is in danger, Master Tighnari?”
Her voice is meek, and it leaves no room for the fox to ridicule her statement and have it translate into poking fun at her fear. There are times where it is necessary, but this is not one of them, so he puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and gives her a gentle grin.
“It’ll be alright Collei. He just came to me for a place to sleep and some food.'' He turned to look down at Cyno, but he was busy watching Collei, pondering. “I’m sure he’ll go back to where he belongs, and if not, I'll take him back myself in case it’s lost.”
This earns a small laugh from the girl. “Jackals come from the desert, Master.”
“I think I can survive a day of heat if it meant not having my food and bed be hoarded for another.”