multiversallogs | All mimsy were the borogroves...

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All mimsy were the borogroves...

Who: Mermaid, Manticore, and YOU!
What: lazing by the gross tar, or roaming the city
Where: Brock Marsh where the gross tar forks, and wherever is convenient to you!
When: Throughout last week
Notes: polyvore set with multiple costume changes!
Warnings: Lovely tooth filled friend.

Shrieky was going to take Manticore back to his own world eventually. He'd been around the temples, and he'd asked people for advice, but in the aftermath of the invasion there was enough displacement of their own people for anyone to be too interested in wanting to help a stray manticore. Additionally, it had not evaded Shrieky's notice that when he tried to explain that Manticore had been as hurt and troubled as the rest of them when the sky opened up, certain people looked at his companion as if he too was part of the problem.

He knows it isn't ideal, and he knows that the Manticore will need to go home eventually, but in some not insignificant way, Shrieky is pleased. It's not that he wants the manticore to be trapped in Baedal forever (although it would be nice if the manticore could willingly choose to stay in Baedal forever), but... over the chaos of the last month, Shrieky's circle of friends has been bisected. The squat which had been crammed with it's illegal inhabitants before, now feels comparatively empty. The survivors come and go at odd times, and some have drifted away already, moving closer to their families, or to the outskirts of the city. Shrieky could sense the day coming when they would all be dispersed, and he'd be left alone again.

But as long as Manticore was there, that day was yet to come! The creature had a way of making the entire house feel full with his tolling voice, and he and Shrieky had scarcely been apart since the world was sewn shut. They ate together, played games together, slept in a large lion-y pile together, and roamed the city together. As long as Shrieky could keep his focus on Manticore, and not on his host of lost and dead friends, all would be well!

On this particular day, Shrieky and Manticore have been out for hours. They've had a little hunt through the goods of the Bazaar, they've visited Queequegs where Shrieky had enjoyed a cup of coffee and manticore had enjoyed a bowl of milk, and now they're flopped out on a small patch of grass beside the Gross Tar.

There are two takeaway trays on the grass beside them, one filled with cooked meat, and the other with raw. Both have been picked at, but neither Shrieky nor Manticore are eating now. Instead, Shrieky is sprawled out comfortably, flat on his back, and Manticore is laying on his side, perpendicular to the mermaid. His body is stretched comfortably across Shrieky's stomach, and Shrieky has one hand buried in the Manticore's fur, stroking him lazily.

They are both purring.

[ooc: Multiples welcome and encouraged! If you'd like to thread but don't have a reason for your character to be around Brock Marsh/The Gross Tar, just tag in with another location, and I'll find a reason for them to be there <3]

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Wearying himself is a good strategy for getting back to sleeping normally, the owl thinks as he rides the air above the Gross Tar. The owl in question is an odd sight when the sun is still out, pouch around its neck carrying the CiD. There's no portion of the water's surface that doesn't go looked at, nor the bank, as he picks himself up, flapping to ascend higher. His mind is buzzing away, refusing to let him go a minute without one thing or another popping to mind. Most significantly, his brother. He's been thinking a lot about home, about his usual task of chasing and chasing lately.

Keen eyes snap to and zero in on a strange lump further ahead next to the river, however, and the owl's round yellow eyes blink. As though incredulous. Then, its head turns as though it has caught a scent, not even a hoot or trill escaping it. It drifts languidly off and up over the bank toward the buildings further away, dipping down and down further on. For all intents and purposes, the owl is gone as fast as it had appeared, not even a speck of white visible now in the sky.

But it's not very long before Hawa slouches his way toward where he'd spotted the mermaid and something else, ground crunching under booted feet. His nose wrinkles. He can smell it, even from here--he's good at filtering out scents of creatures not human once he gets used to them, but the new ones always hit him like a smack to the face.

Once he's close enough to be heard (though still a fair distance away), he remarks, "Gotten yourself a new friend, mermaid?"

Edited 2012-03-28 10:36 (UTC)

Sebastian has been swamped with work organizing the various rebuilding projects that Hellsing has taken on. The Guild Hall and Sobek Croix at large survived the crisis intact and in comparatively good condition, but some of their neighbours weren't so fortunate. After years of experience in the field, he knows the value of putting in the needed labour, but also the necessity of time away from people.

With Velcro keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings (CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!), Sebastian is able to let his mind wander and mull over whatever thoughts had occurred to him over the past couple weeks. Perhaps that's why he doesn't notice Shrieky and Manticore until they're almost upon them?

"Oh, I'm sorry to disturb you."

Shrieky tips his head right back, looking up over his shoulder at the sound of the familiar voice weaving down towards him, "Hawa! It's good to see you again!"

He lifts an arm to give a little, backwards wave, and the manticore rolls off him, rising onto it's huge paws to take a better look at Hawa. Shrieky rubs his legs, working some of the feeling back into them, before rolling over onto his knees, in a motion which seems carelessly alike to the one made by his companion.

"This is Manticore. He came and fought off some giant cats with me when the sky was torn. Manticore? This is Hawa. He's an owl and a soldier, some of the time." The manticore lets his mouth drop open, revealing row after row of shark like teeth, and emits a sound like the ringing of church bells. Deep, and full, and musical.

Shrieky isn't disturbed, he just flashes Sebastian a little grin, and replies: "Don't concern yourself! It's perfectly fine."

Manticore on the other hand, is all about paying attention to things which are smaller than he is. The weight lifts off from Shrieky's stomach, and Manticore pads around to inspect Sebastian and Velcro. Propping himself up into a sitting position, Shrieky glances across after him. He's fairly certain by now that Manticore has figured out not to eat people or their pets, but... he's quite large, and quite intimidating, and Shrieky is constantly concerned about making enemies.

He clicks his tongue, before tolling out a short, single note after his friend. In response, Manticore rolls his scorpion-like tail in towards his body. It's a peaceful gesture, he's putting his weapon away.

This accomplished, Shrieky glances back up to Sebastian and smiles again, "You're on my cohort, aren't you? You said you were a handyman?"

Something has blotted out the sun.

Which would be ominous two or three weeks ago, probably indicating something had eaten the sun, but now it's only because there's a pink-haired girl hovering in the air a good six or seven feet off the ground, directly in its path. Megan's wings make a fluttering-buzzing noise as she flies, quieter than one would expect given how comparatively massive they are to the insects they resemble.

Also she is chewing bubblegum that makes her breath smell like powdered donuts. Her backless t-shirt has a picture of a cupcake on it and her booties are American flag print. She is the least threatening thing present here, basically.

"Hiya," she says eventually, and pauses to blow and pop a bubble. "Whatcha doin'?"

The lion-thingy lying on top of him isn't trying to eat him, so she assumes it's either a xenian citizen or one of Baedal's normal weirdo fauna specimens.

Shrieky cracks open an eye at the sudden casting of shade across him, and smiles beatifically when he recognizes who it is hovering above them.

"Hiya to you too! We were just enjoying the sunlight." He tilts his head, squinting up at her, "What's that in your mouth?"

The manticore too is looking up at her, but it's not made any move to de-flop from it's position across Shrieky's stomach, and if anything, the additional company has only intensified it's thunderous purr.

Velcro takes this all in stride. He is a very well trained dog and nothing short of a charging dragon tends to phase him - sleeping and/or otherwise resting dragons are quite acceptable. Meanwhile, Sebastian crouches down and looks absolutely enchanted by Manticore.

"I am, Sebastian LeMat, formerly of Britain, and this is Velcro." Who's a lovely looking manticore? You are! Yes, you.

Manticore trots a little closer to Sebastian, inspecting the newcomer with interest. A forked tongue flicks out from between his teeth, as he catches Sebastian's scent. He lowers himself into a comfortable sitting position, and turns his attention back to Velcro, tongue flicking out again to discern dog from man.

"Pleased to meet you both. I'm Mermaid, formerly of Casnewydd, and this is Manticore, who came through the holes in the world." It seems less strange to introduce himself that way when he's not the only one without a proper name. Shrieky sits up and reaches for the tray of cooked food, keeping an eye on Manticore as he makes friends with Sebastian.

"You, too." When the threat of imminent creatures of every kind falling on their heads wasn't there. His eyes fix on the manticore, taking it in with the sceptical airs of someone who knows full well what he's looking at is capable of. He hasn't lived so long by not being cautious, after all. It's why he'd changed into this form out of sight before making his way over.

After a moment, though, he grunts, half-lifts a hand in something like greeting to the manticore and lets his tight posture ease somewhat. "So he helped you out. Good to hear." It makes him relax slightly, at least, as he wanders closer.

"Is he stuck here now, like the rest of us?" Hawa rubbed his hand along his jaw, looking thoughtfully between mermaid and manticore. He hadn't exactly seen a lot of displaced monsters remaining--well, alive at any rate. Much less being friendly.

The manticore pads lazily towards Hawa, moving to circle around him for a more thorough inspection. Shrieky shifts up onto his feet, he's fairly confident that this encounter won't end with anyone getting bitten, but he wants to be ready to intercede if necessary.

"He is for now. I think once things calm down there are people at the temple of Shada who might be able to send him home, but since he's not killing people or a permanent resident, he doesn't seem to be anyone's priority right now. So he's just been living with me, haven't you?"

The Manticore makes another absent minded little sound, as if in reply.

Megan obligingly gets out of the way of the sun, then, although she still stays in the air. It's a nice day, a break from the shit weather they've had lately (and, you know, the monster rain thing), and she's taking full advantage of the opportunity to stretch her wings.

"Gum," she says, and blows another bubble -- this one of fairly epic proportions, barely managing to prevent it from getting all over her face when it pops. "You want some? I got another couple sticks. It was on sale." Probably because nobody but her wanted that much sugar in their system at once.

She's got a flask in her pocket too but it's already half-empty. She nods her head at the manticore. "Who's your friend?"

Hawa's head turns to watch the manticore as he moves, but otherwise doesn't move or give any indication he's particularly bothered. Inspecting him is fine, but he is very aware of the motions even as he focuses his attentions on Shrieky.

One eyebrow lifts. "They can do that?" He wonders if they can send people back, too, but just don't. He's cautious of being too outright about his investigations. After a moment, he tucks a hand in his pocket, asking, "Others don't mind him, do they?" Referring of course to the people Shrieky had been living in the building with.

Shrieky watches, transfixed by the bubble blowing, but he shakes his head in response to her offer. "No thank you, I have some meat here... it does look strange though. Are you certain that it's food?"

Manticore reaches up to bat a paw at her, in an uncharacteristically delicate motion. The very tip of his paw reaches the toe of her shoe, and he pats it lightly to the side. The claws stay in, making it clear that he's only playing.

"He's Manticore." Shrieky replies lightly, "He's living with me until there's an appropriate time for him to be sent home."

"I don't know for certain. I think they might be able to ask Shada for her intercession? I mean, the gods have sent most of the other monsters back where they came from?" The Manticore winds around behind Hawa, and gives him a little headbutt in the back of his legs, jostling him a little. "But this world isn't right for him. A friend of mine told me, he's too much spirit to exist happily in a place like this, and he'll get sick if he stays forever."

He folds his arms across his chest, hunching his shoulders slightly, as he watches the manticore harassing Hawa. "Most people, I think, feel a little nervous of him? Because so many of the monsters which came here turned out to be bad? But you can't leave someone on their own because of something like that."

He's replying more generally, to the people in the streets and in the temples, but his remaining housemates were no exception. They appreciated that Shrieky had adopted the household ethos of bringing home random strays, but there was a clear hesitance to want to befriend a stray with quite so many teeth.

Hawa grunts at the headbutt, lurching forward slightly and throwing a glance back over his shoulder at the manticore. In retaliation, he nudges at the creature's flank with one knee, just to jostle back. What, he's not just going to let himself be harassed. "Is that so?" he says distractedly to the news about the gods, then makes himself pay attention.

That hunched posture makes Hawa frown, the words more so. Then he sighs, shoulders briefly rising and falling. "No, you can't. But it ain't surprising, that people'd react like that. A lot think that way." If a group of something are considered dangerous or strange, the individuals are looked at like that, too. He exhales through his teeth. It's why Hawa doesn't usually let himself get close to to others, tell them what he is. He doesn't want to deal with that.

Hawa's thinking of humans, mostly. That's not quite fair of him, either, but.

Manticore rubs against Hawas legs, like a giant cat. Then the rubbing turns into leaning, then into pushing. It could be some kind of quizzical manticore power play, or just as likely, some kind of odd manticore game. Either way, the jostling continues...

"I know it isn't. I understand why people would be afraid of him as well, when they didn't know if he would hurt them or not." Shrieky still looks a little morose, but his face is set, "I'm not afraid of him though, so none of that matters."

He tosses his head a little and straightens up, suddenly mindful of his sullen viseage, "So, where have you been since the sky closed? Have you been keeping well?"

Hawa pushes right back, refusing to stumble. It's kind of hard to pay attention when this manticore is pushing at him and a lot of him is focused on not falling flat on his face. But he's pretty good at multitasking.

"He does have an impressive collection of teeth," Hawa remarks dryly, though there's humour in it nevertheless. "But if you don't and you're the one that's around him most, good enough."

Hawa cocks his head slightly, almost owlishly, then shrugs his shoulders. "Here and there. I've got a couple of places." He hadn't found a tree so good as his first one and was rather grumpy about it. Apparently he was a bit of a picky owl. "I've been doing well enough. Ain't hard for me to get by around here." Avoiding working, living off of the land...so to speak.

The manticore pushes and pushes, forcing Hawa to put more force into his resistance if he's going to keep it up.

Shrieky watches them, frown melting into a little smile. Clearly Hawa likes Manticore. It's evident that some people just have better taste than others...

"What do you do when you're not just getting by?" He asks, perhaps a little oddly, since for the last month, getting by at all has been quite time consuming. "I mean, is there anything you do for leisure?"

When Manticore is confident that Hawa's pushing back against him hard enough, he prances away, quickly withdrawing the pressure from the other man and darting aside to try and trip him over.

"It's like food," Megan suggests instead. That's right, isn't it? Candy is technically food. She's a responsible adult, by the way.

Megan flips in mid-air so that she's hanging upside down but bent in half, her legs still dangling under her. It would be extremely uncomfortable on land. In the air, she looks like a puppet with cut strings someone positioned weirdly. Her foot nudges the manticore's paw right back; a predator of that size is naturally going to inspire caution in most people when it comes to "playing," but Megan has a couple shots of Jameson and a major sugar high going on.

"Sent home? I thought, like, people couldn't do that. Or like, the gods won't let them, or whatever. 'Cause they're dicks."

From a distance, the scene of Shrieky with a manticore lying on top of him looks a little worrying, which is why Steph comes closer to investigate. She doesn't even realize she actually knows the person on the ground until she's up close, and by that point she's also noticed the fact that he doesn't seem particularly stressed by the lion... thing that's using him as a pillow. It's also reassuring that Shrieky's petting it.

Still, she doesn't get too close, not wanting to surprise the manticore and end up as dinner.

"Hello," she announces her presence, standing about fifteen fet away from the pair. She's on her way back from TMU, dressed in black jeans and a dark red jacket over a white shirt, with her backpack hanging from one shoulder. She could probably stand to lose the jacket, it's such a nice day.

Edited (jesus my spelling is the worst) 2012-03-29 12:19 (UTC)

"Likes" is debatable here, because how much does Hawa like things usually, really... He's still pushing, his eyebrows furrowed, quite staunchly remaining in place. No, no he's not going to let himself be pushed over. He's ridiculously stubborn about what may be the silliest things sometimes.

"Leisure?" He gives Shrieky an odd look, as though the concept of leisure time is a strange one. Maybe it is. He doesn't often think of doing things for fun or to relax. He never had time--even as a kid he was striving to work harder and become an upholder. "Well, I fly. I look around the place." That's still kind of working, though.

He's kind of interrupted as he finds the pressure against him gone. "Ah--" And Hawa stumbles, but catches himself just shy of falling. He glowers at the manticore rather impressively, yellow eyes narrowed.

The manticore makes a delighted sound, and flops down onto it's back, rolling over on the grass. If it's vocal chords could produce a sound like laughter, that's what it would be doing right now.

Shrieky gives up on standing, and lowers himself to the ground beside Manticore, leaning back so that their initial positions are reversed, and his back and shoulders are draped across the Manticore's belly. His attention stays with Hawa, however, and there's a certain expectation in his expression now. You're going to sit down and join them on the grass, right?

"Isn't there something else? It's not as if you need a job or a place to live, so you must have a lot of time to just spend flying around and looking at things."

Manticore takes another gentle swipe at Megan's foot, the first and tiniest hint of a claw coming out, as he tries to slip off her shoe.

Megan, unless you want your shoe to be eaten by a manticore, it is not a good idea to surrender it to him.

"Well, he didn't arrive here the way we did. He showed up last month, so I think they'll be happy to let him leave." He rubs his fingers through the manticore's mane, frowning slightly, "Actually, could I have some of that stuff? I think I can smell it from here..."

It smells nice too! Sugary! His curiosity is piqued...

Shrieky has to twist slightly, to get a good look at Steph over the top of Manticore's back, but once he spots her he flashes a wide smile and lifts a hand to wave her over.

"Greetings! Are you keeping well?"

He pushes himself up a little more firmly, dislodging the manticore, who makes a sound of complaint.

"I haven't seen you since the world was mended, have I? Did you go after those tall, dark men?"

"Oh," he sounds legitimately pleased to meet them both, "Would it be terribly rude to ask if you spoke British Mermish? I can manage 'hello', 'good-bye', and a couple of the other stock phrases, but it's more embarrassing than anything useful."

Velcro remains quietly at Sebastian's side while he offers the back of his left hand for Manticore to get a scent off of. He's learned his lessons (somewhat) well and remembers that he must never offer a manticore or any of the leonid magical creatures the back of wand-hand.

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All mimsy were the borogroves...

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