Onias stared at the stars, shifting uncomfortably at the omnipresent being that lurked behind him, placing itself into every place that he had been like a trail of darkness marked with the scent of death. Ah, why must the living be so concerned with the dead? They were, perhaps, more morbid than they might think. He supposed that when one contemplated their own mortality, they must first look upon the mortality of others. Some animal young, after all, would eat their parents and siblings should they die to ensure their own survival. In a different world, would they be the same? Were they really all so far above that sort of viciousness? His train of thought had spiraled into a dark place, and so when the male approached, the look on his face was more of a vicious glower than a pleasant or inviting expression.

"Quite." He replied scathingly, orange eyes narrowing as they settled upon the gaze of the older male. He was scarred and old, weak, perhaps. Or perhaps not. Either way, the stranger had not yet committed any slight upon the ritualist, and so for now Onias was content to simply converse. But there was something else off about the male, as if his very being was off-kilter. A darkness hung from his pelt not unlike Onias' own, and it could really only mean one thing. He rose and moved to face the stranger more fully. A twisted grin spread across his face, and he tilted his head back and forth several times, reaching out his nose slightly to sniff at the stranger.

Ah, curious that the stranger would greet him with such an inquiring phrase. Did he, too, sense their sort of twisted kinship? Onias pulled his head back, settling down onto his haunches and flicking the tip of his tail in a rhythmic motion, a metronome for their conversation. "You will not find many who speak it, especially not here. It is a very old and very powerful tongue." His tones were a bit more placid as he spoke for the second time, orange gaze piercing and calculating. Did this stranger know of his curse, or was he blissfully unaware? In that situation, one might simply think the entire universe against them.

Onias wondered if the stranger had ever heard his language before. It was the language of old magic and spells and rituals and curses, with the power of the ancients held inside it. Perhaps, long ago, it had summoned the curse that hung over the old man like a shroud. His dark lips pulled back over his teeth, then, a sort of half-snarl half-grin that looked rather monstrous in the moonlight. "Why approach me, then? I could have remained a passing thought-- but here you are." He laughed, a humorless and grating sort of noise, before his face became more neutral as he stared at the male, still grasping at what exactly the stranger's presence meant.