Voice Test

[defendless]

{A}

[If you find yourself in the woods for any reason, and you happen to be preparing food, you might turn around and find yourself with a certain fluffy visitor, staring intently at your meal with his stomach rumbling loudly.]

{B}

[Alternatively you stumble across a man face down on the ground in the middle of fucking nowhere. If you come close enough to check, he does seem to be alive, just unconscious, and actually starting to wake up!]

{C}

[Or there's a Zeno in your setting. Who knows why! (BECAUSE IF ENOUGH YEARS PASS IT'S EASY TO SAY HIS FANTASY SETTING BECOMES YOUR SETTING, MAYBE HUMANITY STRAIGHT UP FUCKING RESTARTED, WHO KNOWS? THIS MAN IS OLDER THAN THE HILLS.) Anyway follow your dreams, feel free to start something more specific or ask me to start something more specific within certain lines, I'm really excited please love me.

Also feel free to just straight up game setting this shit. Court/AFD/QM/LR this shit come at me bros.]

Comments

[defendless]

What are you looking for? [he's just letting Will do whatever, but for all intents and purposes he seems to be a perfectly healthy (hah) and normal seventeen-year-old boy, if a bit on the thin side.]

[theyregooddogs]

[one last check over, just grasping for any indication, before nervously letting go, wiping his hand on his pants again before holding the strap of his gear]

Whatever would tell me what to do with you. I'm— I'm not a psychologist.

[defendless]

[oh. smiles, in a sad sort of way.] Zeno can't be of help with that, sorry. Zeno has been this way for a long time.

[theyregooddogs]

I think, next time, I'll visit a beach.

[going to look very meaningfully at zeno before he starts walking again, you better come with]

[defendless]

Sorry Zeno ruined your relaxation. [you know, like he believes Will was remotely relaxed with the spooked looking around and the gun. he follows along cooperatively, though.]

[theyregooddogs]

No . . . No, no. It was a good reminder that breaks are just— Breaks.

[defendless]

Ah... Zeno can't argue with that one.

[theyregooddogs]

Wh-What do you do when you're with people?

[defendless]

Zeno keeps his head down, mostly. Juggles for money sometimes, if Zeno needs it. Goes from place to place and doesn't stay long. But that way of living got more complicated when people started putting cameras everywhere, so Zeno started his break around then.

[theyregooddogs]

[cocks his head a bit, caught on that]

Surveillance cameras became popular in the late nineties. And you, you're a teenager. At least, you look like one if nothing else.

[defendless]

Zeno has a very youthful face!

[theyregooddogs]

If I shot you right now, what would happen?

And don't lie to me.

[defendless]

... Zeno would get better in around two minutes, then the place where Zeno was shot would temporarily be covered in impenetrable scales.

[theyregooddogs]

. . . And how many times have people tested that?

[defendless]

More times than Zeno cares to know.

[theyregooddogs]

[another head tilt, eyes screwed shut]

That explains the suicidal tendencies. —Well, the diminished self-preservation.

[defendless]

Zeno can't exactly deny the first, but since it never gets anywhere...

[theyregooddogs]

Can't help checking, though. Right? Could be the one time something sticks.

[defendless]

It won't. Zeno has tried many, many ways. And it makes people sad.

[theyregooddogs]

Which leaves you more alone. No one understands, no one thinks in the same frame of time as you.

[defendless]

Well, it isn't as though Zeno doesn't like people regardless of that.

[theyregooddogs]

[lighter, tone sounds jumpy]

Are they cute to you? Something amusing?

[defendless]

Some people are cute! But not in the way you mean, probably. You're asking if Zeno considers people entertainment, yes?

[theyregooddogs]

Oh, don't stick to the question. Answer however you feel — About, people.

[defendless]

That's a complicated sort of question to ask anyone, isn't it? But Zeno doesn't consider people any less, just because Zeno's perspective is messed up. There are cute people and kind people and misguided people and cruel people, and there always have been, and there always will be. People may not be able to relate to Zeno anymore, but that doesn't mean Zeno can't still relate to people.