Log:Talking About Flying

Talking About Flying
Participants Iris, Reggie, Ziv, Etsy	25 August, 2017 Dinner and conversations about flight and swimming and singing and parseltongue.
Location
Late in the evening, which is just about when Etsys become truly active. Mermaids, at least this mermaid, not so much with being morning people. So she's fluttered into the back room of Crossroads, out of Reggie's zoomyzoom sports car that is parked outside. Her feet barely touch the ground, light in her tatty silk slippers, and the flowers in her hair bloom, filling the air behind her with the Flowering's disctinctive scent. Last but not least, her Mantle takes over the ground around her, sprawling green vines and tiny white flowers, washing past with the scent of sea air on a clean morning. She carries back a large platter full of eggs, bacon, more eggs, more bacon, some ham, sausages, a steak... and sets it down at one of the booths. Reggie can carry his own food, this is hers. Draped around her shoulders is what looks like a blue-grey stole, but slides down from her shoulders once she's seated, muttering to itself underneath the current of her chattery conversation with the other otter. Looks like someone's hedgebeast is a bit cross with the competition. "So, not so bads of living in a junkyards, but is not having a propers place of swimmings, is for sures," she explains to Reggie. "But soons will be a colds, so must figure out a place not of a tents if staying in a Vermonts." Ziv is, in fact, already here. She's been hanging around since her shift ended a while ago - since she can't plan for beans about distances and everything, while not having wings. (And neither can her player) So instead of being off happily frolicking in somewhere like a club, she's seated at one of the booths and writing in a notepad. It looks... awkward to say the least, with her elongated hand-wing wrapped around a pen in order to do so; but she manages somehow. Sitting in front of her is a plate of fruit and different meats, that it appears she's been nibbling on for a while. Then, the smell of eggs and bacon and all that stuff at once drifts to her. Blinking once, she looks up from what she's writing in order to visually track where Etsy is going. Another blink, at the sight of the entire pile of food, but she doesn't seem too terribly surprised. "Hello again," she chirps. "It was... Etsy, right?" Iris is active whenever it would be awesome, and that seems to be right now for the time being. When she comes in she's carrying a pig plate with steak and scrambled eggs in one hand and a plate with hash browns and bacon in the other. One hand, edible stuff. The other hand, things that came with her meal but she won't touch. She's wearing a loose maxi dress that billows around her ankles as she goes, and the flip-flops on her taloned feet slap against her feet as she walks. "It's the mermaid and Captain Habitrail!" she says when she comes in to find some familiar faces, and she at least makes the names sound fond, instead of insulting. "Etsy, Reggie, it's good to see you. Hi Ziv," the brightly plumaged dragon beams at batgirl. "Any of you want hash browns and bacon? I won't eat either. And can I sit here? I'm going to sit here." She doesn't wait for an answer before she's already sliding into a seat. "Well, you're welcome to come stay with me on the Airship Adventure in the near term. Of course, it's a flying hollow, so you'd be stuck in the hedge most of the time. Not entirely good for your head, but you seem keen to get out and about in the real world often enough." Reggie speaks with a crisp, upper crust British accent. If it's affected, it's a darn good affectation. "Usually I just link a door to a closet in whatever hotel I happen to be staying in as I travel. No reason we can't replicate that tactic here, I suppose." Reggie stops chatting with his companion when Ziv greets said companion, offering Ziv a cheerful smile in the interim. The astute might detect a quiet *ting*, audible during the smile, accompanied by a glint off of one of his pointy teeth. "Ah. Hello, Iris. Good to see you again." Ziv's ears twitch and twist as she listens to the conversations going on nearby - looking faintly surprised and amused as Iris decides to come over and claim her table. Though it has, possibly, already been claimed by Etsy as well. Up to her, really. Curling her webbed fingers momentarily to ease a cramp, she then flips the notebook closed and puts the pen in the spiral binding. "Wasn't really expecting company..." she comments, perhaps just a little unsettled. A blink, though, and she swivels both ears towards Reggie. "You said a flying hollow?" that seems to have settled in with her - and caught her interest. Liquid brown eyes flick over the otter-man then, and she pushes her tongue into the inside of her cheek. "But you don't have any wings..." "I have wings, and I don't have a flying hollow. It averages out," points out Iris, as if this logic actually works out somehow. She sits down, pushes her plate of unwanted things to the middle of the table, and then lifts fork to start stabbing bits of scrambled eggs. "I would love to see Adventure some time. I'm not so big on the watery playground part, since my feathers aren't really the sort meant for swimming, but I've never been on an actual airship." "I surely do. On either side of my fuselage. For I am a pilot, you see! Reginald H S Danger, at your service. The Daring Reggie Danger to my fans and admirers." Reggie seems convinced everyone will have heard of him, and doesn't seem disappointed when this repeatedly proves not to be the case. "But yes. I fly the Amazing Dangerbug. Sort of an overlarge mechanical dragonfly. In the hedge. To my floating water filled habitrail in the sky. Which is precisely as surreal as it sounds. Lots of good fun, that. You should absolutely ask to be invited, as I will absolutely say yes." Reggie gives Etsy a gentle pat on the back, encouraging her towards a seat. "Flying, you see, is quite a bit like swimming. Just in the air. Or, perhaps, swimming is an awful lot like flying underwater." Reggie wags a hand towards Iris, dismissing her concern over feathers. "You can just ride in a travel bubble. Not everyone that visits is keen on being soaking wet, after all." "Is an Etsy, yes," And then, indeed, Etsy has claimed a seat next to Ziv, across from Reggie. (This is better for playing footsies, though that may be Regulated by the mrbl, that blue-grey otter with the feathery eyebrows that's now under the table.) She settles in with her food and starts eating the sausages first, which is why she's quiet for a little bit. "W-well, I don't have a flying hollow, but..." Ziv says in answer to Iris, at the dragoness's commentary about having wings but not having one of those apparently now vastly coveted things. She's looking back over at Reggie then as he makes his explanation about the flying hollow, and how he has his wings, her jaw going a little slack. As the explanation is finished though, she closes her mouth and gives a misty puff of breath out through her nostrils. "But that's cheating!" she complains, flexing her own small and webbed wings. "And... habitrail? What's a habitrail?" She makes no protest to Etsy joining her, not minding the mermaid slipping into the booth, but lets her eat for now. Iris devours a few bites of her eggs before she answers any questions or reacts to any statements, because food is important. It keeps her awesome. "A bubble! Of course, that makes perfect sense," she says with no hint of sarcasm whatsoerver. "Habitrails, Ziv, are like those little tubes that hamster cages sometimes have for the rodents to scurry about. And it's not cheating," she adds. "It's just winning. If you want to see cheating, play cards with me. Well, no, don't, because you'll never actually see the cheating happen." And in the middle of pushing her eggs across her plate with her fork she pauses, twirls it around in her fingers, and then it's a spoon in her hand instead. She scoops up some eggs with it and shovels them into her mouth. "Well. Flying is cheating gravity, after a fashion. So I suppose that's a fair cop." Reggie doesn't seem particularly flustered. Changelings thrive on cheating fate, after all. "In any case, I positively adore flying. Best thing there is in the world, if I am being honest. I'd rather fly than do just about anything else. Who wouldn't, if they had the ability?" Reggie finally settles down into his own seat across from Etsy. Perhaps to play footsie. Or flippery, in her case. "So. Iris. What's your super amazing talent that I should remark upon to strangers when talking you up in a manner worthy of your excellence?" "Am having a promise of going to swim in habitrails," sighs Etsy almost rapturously in between shoveled-in bites of sausage. She picks up whole over-easy eggs and drops them into her mouth, into the threshing maw that is her piranha-teeth. Delicate most of the time, yes, but there is nothing delicate about the way that she shovels food into her face. "Am not a good of flyings in any ways. A little scary of heights, honestings, but am having a likes of that kind of scaries." Ziv listens for a while to the explanations given her by both Iris and Reggie. She doesn't look particularly pleased, though - in fact instead of the usual flickering state of her ears they just kind of droop. She says nothing for the time being, allowing the others to talk. Instead the Beast busies herself with the plate of food she'd laid out prior for herself, starting to stuff lots and lots of grapes into her mouth. Iris points her spoon at Reggie, then looks down at it. Her brow furrows a moment, she gives the implement another twirl, and there's a butter knife for pointing instead. Much better. Then she grins and says, "you're lucky I'm a tough lady, or I might get upset about all of your reminding me of just how much I lose when I stopped being able to fly." She puts the knife down, freeing her hands, and tugs on her dress a bit until she can work her wings out in the back, then ruffles their feathers up and unfurls them behind her as she returns to scooping up eggs with her fork. Wait, wasn't that a knife a moment ago? "Heights aren't scary anyway, it's just the ground that sucks. Well, that and crashing into other things when you're in the air." She takes a bite, chews it while looking across the table at Reggie, and then answers his question. "My super amazing talent? I'm AWESOME." She follows this up by pushing toward Etsy the plate with her bacon (and hash browns. ick). "What about you, Reggie?" "Oh, me? Unqualifiedly superlative, personally. I really do like AWESOME, however. Has a certain succinct punch to it. Not quite appropriate to my idiom, though, I think you'll agree." Reggie nods his head as though truly weighing the gravity of these matters. Two Standard Bearers feeding off of one another's egos is a bit like setting a live microphone down near its speaker. Eventually everyone in earshot will be covering their ears and making a disgusted face. "Just make an airplane, you silly dragon! I'll help you. I build aircraft, you know. And I'm a certified flight instructor, even. I can teach you civil aviation, get you an airplane, and build you a flying rig for the hedge to boot." He's not entirely ignorant of Ziv's mood. In that he eventually gives her a bit of a double-take and a small frown. "What's the matter, my dear? You don't approve?" -> >> Etsy to Here << <-============================================== Rolled 5 Successes for an exceptional success. < 2 3 4 5 5 7 8 9 9 10 10 > ======================-> >> Wits + Empathy.Adroitness No Flags << <- Fascinated by all this talk of flying, Etsy does snake out one of her webbed hands and steal Iris' bacon, in case it decides to run away while she's not looking. She leaves the ucky nasty plantlife that is the hash browns. "Oooooh." And then she coughs gently, tips her head toward Ziv's back a little bit, indicative toward those tiny wings, and offers, "Is probablies that is not just an Iris needing to be doing a flyings. Or maybes, we can change subjects. A Ziv, is what it is that you are bestest at? I cannot fly at all and never can do any flying ever. But I do like to do a singing, and I like to do a swimming, and I like to grow a plants... " Ziv has been keeping her mouth full of the grapes, probably so she can avoid answering any questions. Immediately, at least. It's fairly impolite to talk with your mouth full, though she does so after part of the masticated fruit has been swallowed. In answer to Etsy's question, rather than Reggie's, she merely shrugs and then says, "...I'm pretty good at singing... kind of good with animals." She doesn't tout her abilities as much as the others do, swallowing another part of the grapes and then poking at the rest. "...and nah, it's fine. You um... talk about what you want to. This has been sitting here a while, anyway." "Oh, undoubtedly," Iris says in earnest agreement with Reggie. "In any case, it's good for us Standard Bearers not to have too overlapping a realm of expertise, is it not? If someone needs to be awed, I can be called upon. If someone needs to be superlatized, you're a better choice." It's totally a word now. The dragon's wings settle back into place behind her, folded up close to her body enough that they just give her back a slightly strange shape. And look a little weird resting over her dress, instead of under. She cuts a bite of steak from the rest and then into her mouth it goes. "I am the world's worst gardener, you know. She sticks up both her thumbs, colored with shimmering scales that seem to glow faintly from within their pearlescent surfaces. "The proverbial lack of green within my thumbs is, I assure you, truly awesome. A thing of legend. It's a shame, because I'm quite fond of beautifully tended gardens, or even the wilderness." She returns to eating. "What kind of music do you both prefer to sing?" "Superlatization is my especiality." Reggie leaves it at that. For once. The turning of the conversation to the quieter of the four suits him just fine. It lets him pour out a cup of coffee for himself and relax back into his seat. He plucks up a menu to peruse the possible grub he might order out front, all while ruining his coffee with too much sugar and milk. "Maybe we can do a singing together sometime!" Etsy leans over, bumps her narrow shoulder against Ziv's, and then shovels another two eggs into her mouth. Nomf. Nomf. "I am liking being good with an animals! I am not so good with an animals really. Animals people, sometimes, but not an actual animals." The mrbl, that blue-grey otter, curls up between Ziv's feet and Etsy's, a warm, reassuring presence against the bat's ankles. Ziv continues to poke at the fruit on the plate, squinting her eyes thoughtfully - but the nudge from Etsy brings her out of it. There's a series of blinks from her, and then she gives a shrug and looks back up - first at the mermaid. "I'm thinking about going to... um... the mines and seeing what's in there... seeing if there's any bats I can convince to come stay with me. Once I have a more out of the way place to live," she gives a flick of an ear after that, and then looks over to Iris - perhaps vaguely amused. "I don't know anything about plants, really, but I doubt you're that bad... and um... I'm trying out a few things. The... burlesque thing amuses me but I don't... know if it's me. A few slower, more haunting songs lately. Been... looking at some lesser-known artists." "Oh, I most definitely am," Iris assures Ziv emphatically. "I'm not great with animals except for eating them, either. Well, except for snakes. Did you know I'm a parseltongue? Also a Gryffindor." Yeah, who would be surprised by that? "I'm definitely NOT Harry Potter, though." She gives Ziv a big grin. "You need a belfry for the bats to live in. Anyway, have you been listening to anyone awesome lately? I'm always interested in more music." Then she looks across the table at Reggie. "Can you sing?" "He can do a sings," agrees Etsy easily. "We sings with the songs in the sporty car that goes zoom. Not so good as a sirens, but pretty good!" Nomf. More bacon, more eggs, more bacon, more eggs. There's sort of a pattern here, hunh? "What is a Harry Potters?" asks the mermaid, who has very little clues about things like, yanno, pop culture. "You can have a snake talks? I like snake talks. Some snakes are in a water living." "...Who's Harry Potter?" wonders Ziv, in the manner of someone who has been living under a rock (perhaps literally, in some ways) for the past decade can. She blinks a few times, looking ultimately oblivious regarding most of the pop culture stuff that Iris pulled out of her hat. "Um... I forget their names. I'll text them to you," she offers to the dragoness, with a bob of her head. Her ears are starting to swivel and twitch again, taking in the various sounds. "He's a wizard," Iris says, without explaining that this is a book thing. Or a movie thing. "It's not really important, anyway. Definitely text me the musicians and stuff, I need something to chase off my current earworms." She grins at Etsy. "I can have a snake talks. I'm kind of a snake, after all. Only kind of, though. I can't talk to lizards, which is interesting if you think about it. Just don't think about it too hard, and get a headache." She stops talking for a little bit to keep eating her steak.