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[wooliefrand]

WHO: All
WHERE: The Pasture
WHEN: Day 24 late evening thru night

[IT NIGHTTIME]

Comments

[hardpity]

[ after his extremely adventurous day aides, still featuring fluffy blue kitty ears and an enormously fluffy (think snow leopard fluffy) blue kitty tail,

is heading back to lily. nothing good ever comes from leaving the house. he's learned this now ]

1/? replying to self

[catposting]

[ today was a FORCED day of REST so one (1) catman is heading back from the lazy river. aside from that minor scare with Aides, today was a pretty chill day! as for the Aides issue...

surely Tart fixed that, right. ]

2/

[catposting]

[ spots Aides. closes eyes. opens eyes.

surely Tart fixed that, right. ]

3/

[catposting]

[ why does his ki feel the same as before aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ]

done

[catposting]

[ pops up next to Aides. he's an extremely fast catman i'm sorry ]

... Hi.

[finalefantasy]

[there's a slight girl in a dark, tattered dress sitting on the edge of the fountain tonight, head lowered, wings curling low against the sides of her head. there's something fucky and feathery going on with half of her face.

her intact eye is closed as if in meditation, and one of the Weeds' black coins is in her hand.]

((i will be trying for lower-key interactions and low chance of fucking characters up here! if you super want something heavier tap me in Discord to talk first ♥))

[electricflock]

[bird? girl? chirp??]

[chasseurdebeaute]

[Has been tasked with a delivery, so this is rather convenient for him. His first thought, much like when he saw “her” last, is beauté]

[arrowace]

[ hides in the shadows and rolls a 14 perception check ]

[finalefantasy]

[the girl's legs are armored and clawed like a bird's, and a dark feathered tail's curled around her in order to not trail in the water.

a 14 reveals nothing else untoward in the vicinity, or at least nothing birds-related that's nefariously hidden! perhaps she is simply Chilling Out.]

[finalefantasy]

[he hears an answering chirp in his mind, though she doesn't lift her head]

[finalefantasy]

[she's freaking out zero percent this time so he can get a better look! there is no hint of blue to her at all like Crescendo remembers, though, only a perfect lack of colour. odd.

a soft voice in his head, asking rather than clawing for the answer:]

Do you always look for the beautiful, first?

Re: done

[hardpity]

[ JUMPS IN ALARM ]

?!?!

[arrowace]

[ they just stay hidden and observing. They're a little tougher than normal to get into their mind- like a Brazil nut to everyone else's walnut, or, like a +10 to wisdom saving throws. But once you're in it's pretty straightforward. They aren't exactly thinking in words, but in a system of rigid threat analysis and cost-vs-benefit calculations; a tough and weird human mind, but a human mind nonetheless.

Is this "the birds?" It is a weed, and it is unnatural. Is it a threat? ]

[finalefantasy]

[they touch Nully's mind. the high wis means Nully can probably feel the touch, though it's staying at the surface instead of delving deeper at the moment. maybe the birds are tired tonight. even the singer of the death of the universe sometimes just goes 'nope']

Yes, and yes.

[catposting]

[ clears throat ]

Sorry for ratting you out. I... miscalculated.

[arrowace]

[ There is an abrupt and deliberate stilling of the mind- an awareness it has been breached; prey that knows it has been spotted, but still must obey the instinct to freeze. And then the calculations again:

Will it attack? Will it pursue? If they get fucked up how many members of their team will cry about it? Is de-escalation necessary and/or possible? Would being a frog help this situation? ]

[finalefantasy]

[there's a little quiet pause, the circling climbing checks-and-balances of their hunter's brain observed as a curiosity]

We are only having a conversation, we think.

Why a frog?

[eonsadrift]

[ There is something still very curious about her, so he can't resist... Zenith floats down from the sky to land next to her, looking curiously at the coin she's holding. ]

Not going to throw it in?

[finalefantasy]

[she tilts her head a little towards him, wings curving a lazy arc in the air]

Do you want to see...?

[eonsadrift]

I have to admit, I am curious. If you'll indulge me.

[finalefantasy]

Very well.

[she opens her eye, and many other tiny eyes open as well, half-hidden in the tangle of wings that's replaced part of her face. she holds her hand out, lets the coin fall, looks up.

it's a memory of flight, and stars, a strange and fractal perspective that doesn't hurt to view but conveys the sense it is actually many perspectives processed through many points of view at once, condensed somehow into a single thing.

nothing notable happens to them in it. they simply travel for a while, together apart, the dark between the stars somehow buoying their wings, never sleeping, never eating, never stopping to rest. they see everything contained there, at least on the paths they choose to travel through. they have not forgotten the constellations, the nebulae, the astral fires and rise of noble gases. they were small things in a large universe, but they journeyed nonetheless.

it lasts a while, playing out over the fountain. it's beautiful. it doesn't belong here at all.]

[hardpity]

Y-you couldn't have been expected to know so..???

[arrowace]

I am very bad at atrocious at absolutely incapable of currently doing conversation.

[ They try to ignore the frog question, and more importantly ignore the glaring logical flaw in their desire to frog. The transformation makes them physically stronger, yes, but does not aid in stealth or ambush. It is simply the desire to shed the perpetually dysphoric mammalian form- to stop presenting as human when they feel always so inhuman.

There's something else down there, under the mind: a piece of magical infrastructure grafted to their soul. It's anchored to a larger system worlds away, but still using this body/soul/mind as a sort of way-station or processing plant. Its presence buffets the human's strength and abilities to something super-human, but it's also slowly degrading the host, leaving them in constant gnawing pain.

But they are very, very used to pain. ]

What are you?

[finalefantasy]

[they know what it's like to be a terminal, a terminus. Nully may feel a vague sense of recognition, both related to that grafted piece and to being bad at conversation. they do not have a particular comment on Nully's pain, if Nully does not. sometimes pain simply is.]

We are called Teleute.

(echoes of meaning: death. ending. peace.)

We are birds taken from our nest. We are singers taken from our song. We are travelers who reached the end of the universe. Unlike you, we were never human.