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Of a Feather [DragonSong]

Started by nephero, April 16, 2017, 10:49:39 PM

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nephero

There was only wind, and gravity.

The former came like a rushing river current, billowing under his glistening black feathers and making them shudder. The latter pulled from beneath him, tempting him downwards, a siren call that nothing on this physical plane was capable of ignoring.

Not without wings.

Kharon had wings. They were spread wide now, carrying him through the air effortlessly, shifting up and down and forward in a lazy looping eight as he flew. It was, without a doubt, the greatest sensation he had ever known-- in every last minute of every last day of every last year of his two centuries, he had never been as happy as he was when flying.

Kharon let out a cry of joy, and surrendered to the pull from below. He dipped, forward and down, and let the wind rush past him as the earth rose up like a titan eager for its meal. Anthills became mountains, and the carpet of deep emerald green broke into a patchwork of leaves and open ground. The closer he dove to the ground, the darker his shadow became, black and threatening and setting every prey instinct scattering.

Luckily for them, he wasn't interested. His wings spread wide to slow his descent, and with a chatter and grumble he landed on a bare tree branch.

Something cawed in the distance. Kharon cawed back. It was harder to think, in this form; he wasn't incapable of reasonable thought, crows were far too clever for their own good, which was half the reason he loved being them. But there was still the limitations, less a language and more intuition, a flash of memory and color and associations. The caws didn't actually mean anything, and yet they meant so much.

This was bright, the stranger's call said. Yellow. A shiny trinket. Spotting a friend, who had shown you the best places to get the sweetest corn. The feeling of the familiar, the pleasant, the curious.

Kharon tilted his head, hopped a few knots to his left. Spread his wings once more, flapped to an adjacent tree. Tilted his head the other way, and let out a louder caw. Curious, inquisitive, searching, questioning, a soft teal colour, a puzzle of a box that you knew held something interesting inside.

Who's there?


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

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The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

The first call got her attention. Lanaya lifted her head, hands stilling in her lap as she paused in her weaving.

"Lenore?" No. No, that wasn't her raven's caw, that was a crow, she thought. Nearly identical, but just different enough that she knew the difference nearly immediately. Just a friendly signal, nothing to be concerned about.

She returned her attention to the charm she was making, binding the herbs with long strands of grass. Then the second call made her raise her head again, brow furrowed.

Another crow, but one whose voice she didn't recognize. Her head raised again and she twisted her upper body, then rose from the overgrown stump where she'd been sitting. "Hello?" Sharp eyes flickered through the branches and landed on the unfamiliar bird. She smiled, raising her hand in invitation.

"Welcome, wing-brother. I haven't seen you here before-" Her voice cut off and her eyes widened slightly, gold irises flashing. There was something...odd about this bird. Something...more. She cocked her head to the side in a rather birdlike gesture herself. "Well. Aren't you a mystery?"

nephero

Ugh. People.

This was the limitation of language, and the part that he liked the least. It might've been nice if it had been physically possible for his fellow crow to mention that there were people, but no, of course not.

So lost in his internal griping was he, that Kharon almost didn't realize that the person was speaking to him. More importantly, she was raising her hand to him. Giving an agitated squawk, Kharon hopped away from the outstretched limb, feathers ruffling in indignation. He really needed to start paying attention, here.

He tilted his head, back and forth, as she spoke, mirroring her own birdlike actions in what was probably the most objectively amusing feedback loop in existence. It took another moment to process what she was saying, and even further to realize that this person here was not nearly as stupid as one might assume. At the very least, utterly observant enough to know when someone was playacting as a bird versus being a natural-grown one.

If he had an eyebrow to raise, raised it would have been. He gave another chittering sort of grumble, the kind he reserved for when he wanted to mutter to himself, dark and gloomy and brown and the feel of earth and bark. He weighed his options: he could fly away right then and there. But to where? And really, the alternative would be returning to his """ward""", wherein he rolled his eyes insofar as a crow was physically capable of doing so.

Fine, then, the jig was up. It would be easier to deal with a person as a person, anyway. So he fluttered down to the forest floor, adjusted his wings and gave one final preening, before in a flurry of feathers the crow was gone, instead replaced by a man.

"Clever girl. You win the prize."


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

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The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

Lanaya's breath hitched on a small gasp and she took a sharp step back as the glossy black feathers and beak were suddenly replaced with a very human, very tall personage.

She blinked at the man for a moment, not quite sure how to respond. She'd known the crow wasn't really a crow, and of course she'd considered the possibility of a shapeshifted human, but...she honestly wasn't sure what she'd really been expecting.

"Fascinating," she murmured. With an apparent disregard for personal space, she set her half finished charm on the stump she'd been using as a seat and moved toward him, tilting her head from one side to the other as she walked a circle around him, studying him from every angle.

"Werecreature? No, that doesn't feel right. A mage then, I suspect. And a powerful one too, to make such a convincing creature. It actually took me a moment to realize you weren't really that crow," she murmured, almost to herself as she wound up back in front of him, almost close enough to really feel the magic she sensed in him.

nephero

All of a sudden, Kharon was very much regretting his decision to reveal himself. This person, whoever she was, had gotten right up in his face and started circling him like, like... well. A hawk. To continue with the bird puns, apparently.

Where his crow form couldn't raise an eyebrow, his human self very much could, and it very much did, almost in exact correlation with how deep his frown got. He might have said something particularly barbed and snarking, but for the last comment this strange woman made.

She was... impressed? Kharon felt a subtle flare of pride, and shifted a bit, as if to soothe ruffled feathers. Careful to keep from looking too pleased with himself, he cleared his throat, arms crossed somewhat defensively over his chest.

The gentle boost to his ego aside, the way she had been examining him was starting to make him feel rather raw and vulnerable, two traits he had a rather adamant hatred of. When she had stopped in front of him, and so close, he couldn't help but break eye contact, looking every which way but those piercing yellow eyes. There was just something about them that belied her otherwise human appearance that set him on edge.

Like recognizing like, he supposed it was. The strange recognizing the strange, like when a bird is not a bird and a human girl is not entirely a human girl.

"I am... particularly fond of transfiguration, I suppose. Practice wins out after a certain amount of-- I'm sorry, are we done with the inspection now?"


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

"Oh." The witch blinked, then took a small step back. "Yes. Forgive me, I'm being rude."

She didn't really sound all that sorry about it.

Her eyes flicked over his face, searching curiously. It had been a long time since she'd interacted with anyone not of a winged persuasion, and if she was being honest she may have lost some of the skill. Perhaps most of the skill.

"My name is Lanaya." She was supposed to introduce herself, right? Oh. And the hand? She thrust a hand out toward him. "Who are you?"

nephero

Kharon's shoulders eased up as the woman-- Lanaya, right-- took a step back, the tension leaking out of him the more his personal space was restored. It wasn't as if he could really be too agitated; there was a difference, after all, between invading space because you didn't know better, and invading space because you believed you had the right.

Lanaya, as far as Kharon could tell in the space of only a few minutes, fell into the former category. It didn't mean he trusted her, or anything, but at the very least she didn't necessarily deserve the full brunt of his hostility.

Maybe about 25%.

Kharon looked down at the outstretched hand before him, seemed to take a considerable amount of time weighing his options. His mouth thinned into a tight line before finally reaching out to quickly grip her hand and immediately let it go again. There. He was being polite, and he would argue into the sunset if anyone said otherwise.

Manners, little bird, manners.

"Kharon. Blackwing. I mean, it's just Kharon," he said, in quick succession, and stumbling as a result. Smooth, dude. Real smooth. The epitome of dignity, may we all learn to be as graceful as thee. Pressed for something to talk about other than that embarrassing exchange of names, Kharon looked around them, at the trees and to where Lanaya had left... whatever she had been crafting.

"This, uh... your territory, out here?"


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

Lanaya glanced at his hand as he withdrew it quickly. Had she done it wrong? Or was that just how handshakes were supposed to work.

She gave a little mental shrug and put it from her mind. It couldn't be that important, really. At his question she smiled slightly and nodded. "I suppose you could say that," she chuckled softly, glancing around at the trees. "I make my home here, yes."

She looked back to Kharon. "I'd thought I knew most wing-brothers and sisters in this part of the forest. You are from further afield, no?"

Just as question left her mouth, a sharp caw sounded through the trees and the branches a little ways to the east of the little glade shivered as a murder took flight. One raven peeled away from the cluster of birds and soared in a wide, low arc before ducking back beneath the treeline and flying toward the two mages.

Without looking, Lanaya lifted her arm to offer a perch as Lenore came in to land. The raven clucked and hopped along her arm to her shoulder, preening a few strands of hair behind her ear before cocking her head curiously at the strange man.

nephero

Further afield was one way of putting it. Kharon's mouth worked in a thin line, debating inwardly just how he wanted to answer such a question. Luckily for him, any awkward silences were cut short by the raven's caw.

Whatever ire Kharon had been carrying visibly melted away at the sight of the bird, his dark eyes widening a bit as he regarded the creature. They seemed to mirror one another's movements, Kharon's head cocking to the side in mimicry of the raven's own, and the barest hint of an amused smile passed over his face before it was wiped carefully clean again.

"I'm from an apple orchard." he said, hurriedly, not giving the words much weight at all before switching subjects. He didn't look away from the raven until he absolutely had to, meeting Lanaya's unsettling gaze with a searching one of his own.

"You tamed her?"


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

She smiled when she saw bird and man study each other in such a similar way, then outright laughed at his question. It was not a dainty giggle, but the raucous laughter of one who had never learned to quell such impulses, oddly reminiscent of the call of a bird itself.

"Hardly," she chuckled, stroking Lenore's breast absently with a finger while the raven clucked and crooned. "She is no more tamed than I am. We are...friends. Companions."

She'd noted the subtle evasiveness of his answer to her question, but decided not to pursue it. "I assume your orchard is some ways from here. I could offer some hospitality, if you are weary." She jerked her head back over her shoulder. "I make my nest just a little further into the forest."

nephero

Kharon had been expecting a myriad of reactions. A proud smile, a smug sort of affirmation, maybe a little chuckle, it could have been any number of things. What he hadn't been expecting was how loudly she laughed, carefree and open and like its own sort of birdsong, and for a moment Kharon didn't know what to make of any of it.

And so he just stared, at least until she explained herself, wherein the tension that had crept up his shoulders eased once more. The raven seemed content enough, especially as she was stroked, and Kharon watched with some mild curiousity the exchange between the two. Some uncategorized feeling welled up at that, bitter and foul, and he had to swallow hard to rid himself of the taste of it.

"I see..."

Companions. Friends. Genuine affection and mutual understanding. How delightfully unfair.

"...It has been a long flight." The truth was Kharon hardly noticed the distance, so enamored was he at being in the wide open air, but it was true that he would not likely be able to make the return trip tonight. And nor did he really want to. He figured he had a few days before the magical compulsion pulled him ""home"", but until then he was perfectly free to do as he liked.

And right now, rest sounded good.

"If you're offering, of course." he added, hastily, with his head bowed in polite deference. Manners, manners.


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

Lanaya's smile widened and she inclined her head to him in turn. "Yes, I am offering." She turned, shifting Lenore to perch properly on her shoulder and twisting her head to press a light peck to the bird's glossy feathers.

"Just this way then, follow me," she tossed back to Kharon as she started into the trees, pausing to snatch up her half-finished charm from the stump where she'd left it.

A gently winding path that seemed to be second nature to the witch but was rather hard to differentiate from the forest around it curved through the trees and Lanaya tripped lightly down it. After a few minutes of walking, the trees opened up slightly into a not-quite-clearing, with a massive oak in almost the exact center.

Her "nest" was settled among the branches of the great tree, woven through and around them to create a treetop hut. The little almost-house itself seemed to be made as much of living plant material as it was of tried branches and the like, complete with a ladder made of woven vines that she called down to them with a casual flick of her fingers.

nephero

Kharon tried his best to mind the paths they took through the trees; Lanaya had seemed nice, but not nearly enough so that he was comfortable not knowing where he was. However, the more they walked, the less sure of where they were Kharon became.

More agitated with himself than anything else, it took him a moment to realize they had arrived. Everything that was Lanaya's nest blended in so seemlessly with the flora of the forest that it took a second glance to realize it wasn't meant to be there. Kharon blinked, momentarily stunned at the careful symbiosis he wouldn't have expected to find out here.

Color him impressed.

"Did you... facilitate this?" he waved his hands vaguely, trying to find the right words to best describe 'magically patchworked plants into a house'. "On your own?"


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

She smiled and nodded quickly. "Yes. I-" Her expression suddenly changed, eyes flicking away for a moment as a furrow creased her brow and her mouth drew into a tight line. "I've been...living here for some time, with just the creatures of the forest. They are true companions, but not always helpful in construction."

She was smiling again, her moment of melancholy seemingly dismissed and forgotten. With a little shrug, she urged Lenore off her shoulder so the raven could fly up ahead of them, perching on what was, upon closer inspection, the edge of a roughly shaped window in the little nest-house.

"Here, step up." Lanaya placed one foot on one of the higher woven rings of the ladder that she could reach, hands moving easily to position themself on the vines. She jerked her head toward Kharon in invitation.

nephero

The sudden melancholy was short-lived, but it struck a chord nonetheless. The way Lanaya had said she had been living here for a while, that hadn't sounded much like it had been her choice. With that, Kharon could entirely sympathize. Life tended to be cruel, more to some than others, and it seemed that Lanaya was part of the former group.

It left him with a sense of... camaraderie? Was that even the proper label for this feeling? It had been so long since he had an opportunity to be objective about his own feelings and not have them immediately twisted into... something else. He wasn't sure which way was up half the time, but in this particular moment, yeah. He was pretty sure 'camaraderie' was accurate.

He didn't press the matter any further, but there was a subtle softness in his expression as he followed the woman up to the tree and took hold of one vine, slipping his foot into the provided rung, all while craning his neck to better keep track of where the raven had flown off to.

Being closer to the tree had the added benefit of being able to further marvel at the design, how that had been a window this whole time. Clever, clever. That must have taken some forethought-- he shook his head a bit, because really, it all must have taken some forethought-- and he had to appreciate the effort.


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

Lanaya's smile widened when he easily stepped onto the ladder and she gave a low, lilting whistle, something like the call of a mourning dove. The vines trembled, then started to curl back up the tree, bringing their passengers along.

"Here we are." The witch stepped off her rung and onto the thing band of relatively flat woven leaves and branches that surrounded the enclosed hut, a miniature porch. Lenore hopped toward her and clawed, earning a "Yes, yes, I know. Check and see if Gale's awake, would you?"

The raven croaked and fluttered into the little house through the window and Lanaya bumped open the door- woven into the branches so effortlessly it at first appeared to be just another section of wall- open with her hip. "Are you hungry?" she asked Kharon, tilting her head.

nephero

Woven into living plant matter, and still being pliable enough for proper movement. Now Kharon was really impressed. All the different types of vegetation-- the oak, the vines, whatever that particular space of leaves was-- probably took a great deal of care and consideration based on their individual needs. It was the kind of webwork magic that he himself rarely had the patience to weave together, but nonetheless appreciated.

All of this, of course, resulted in raised eyebrows and a soft 'hm' as they stepped onto the porch, which was about as close to a sound of approval as he was capable of making, it seemed. He noted the conversation between bird and... he was just going to say human for the sake of brevity, and was again a bit impressed. He turned into a crow, and spoke the language therein as a result, but it was all with a bird brain, the mindset alloted for such a creature and without the typical linguistic inventions of more bipedal folk.

Colors, shapes, feelings, friends and enemies, danger and safety. Fun, occasionally. But what he was witnessing here was like...

He didn't even know how to categorize it, but it was nearly as impressive as the nest.

"Hm?" he finally responded, as if only just then realizing she had spoken to him. "Oh. A little, I suppose. It's hard to tell, sometimes. ...Who is 'Gale'?"


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

She chuckled a bit at his apparent absent-mindedness and gestured for him to follow her into the nest as she ducked through the door.

"That's Gale." She waved a hand toward the woven and growing ceiling above their heads as she bustled across the small space, indicating a small spotted owl, almost perfectly camouflaged into the foliage, who blinked and hooted sleepily. It was not quite dusk, far too early to be awake.

Lanaya chuckled again at the owl's quiet protests and murmured, "We have a guest, Gale. You'll survive, I'm sure." She knelt beside what appeared to be some sort of small fire pit, the only part of the nest not made of plant matter- or rather, it was, but stones had been carefully stacked inside and around it so if a fire was lit it could be contained, and the wall beside it opened out into a gap into the branches, like a chimney.

Her gifts had never been with fire, so the witch resorted to simple flint and stone to light a spark, blowing on it to get the kindling properly lit. That done, she straightened up and moved to a set of sort of cubby-holes seamlessly grown into the near wall, retrieving a simple pot- old and cracked- and a wooden bowl.

"I'm afraid I don't have much. Just stew," she said to Kharon as she returned to the fire and hung the pot over it, thanking Lenore when the raven flew to her with the strap of a waterskin clutched in her beak. Lanaya filled the pot about halfway and began adding an assortment of herbs, mushrooms, and vegetables she'd picked earlier that day. Her half-completed charm hung from her hip, swinging rather dangerously close to the fire when she leaned over the small glow of it.

nephero

Kharon tilted his head upwards to follow where Lanaya was pointing, just in time to lock eyes with what appeared to be a still-very-sleepy owl up near the ceiling. Or what Kharon supposed was the ceiling. Honestly the further one got into the structure the harder it was to tell what exactly was "tree" and "not tree."

Whatever the owl had hooted, Lanaya had been amused by, and Kharon had to snort in his own mild amusement in turn at how she seemed perfectly comfortable communing back and forth. Kharon, as it stood, out in his human form, did not understand a single bit of it. And so he instead fell back to watching Lanaya move about collecting pots and bowls, and he had to snort a bit at her apology.

"Considering you're going out of your way to feed a stranger, I sincerely doubt I have much room to complain." Which was... a bit of a conundrum, now that he had a chance to think about it. Here was this person who he had never met before, who had no reason to be kind to him, and here she was offering him not only a place to rest but a homecooked meal.

It was entirely suspicious, and Kharon fully expected the other foot to drop any moment now. The question only remained: what did Lanaya want.

He supposed he might better mitigate the price by offering assistance.

"Is there something I can do?"


VIGILANCE WALKING THE TOAST
Characters here!

__guilds, yo__
The Territok Orcs // The Oratok Orcs // Fausteth // The Ashmen

DragonSong

Lanaya sat back and turned her upper body a bit to look at her guest as she addressed him. "You could keep an eye on this?" She gestured airily with a wooden spoon toward the pot, then used it to stir absently. "Just make sure it doesn't burn."

Leaving the spoon in the pot, she got to her feet again and slipped across the small space toward a mat of woven reeds and leaves, one of the few pieces of her nest that didn't seem to really be green and alive. She settled herself onto the mat and took the charm from her hip, tucking it underneath the makeshift bed with a muttered phrase that might have been a spell.

With a sigh, she sat back and arched her spine in a stretch, arms extended over her head. Her back was hurting again. That had been happening more and more often lately. Frowning slightly, she reached behind her neck to unfasten the wrapped fabric that served as a semi-shirt, letting it fall away as she got to her feet again and crossed to the shelving holes.

She hummed to herself a bit as she searched for something, drawing her hair over her shoulder and twirling a finger through the locks absently, inadvertently revealing the ragged scars that had been twinging in soreness.

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