multiversallogs | How many goodly creatures are there here!

How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

Welcome to Baedal.

These are the first words newcomers hear when the door opens and they are invited into their new world. Some fuss, some fight, some need time before they have the courage to step outside. Others, shell-shocked or jaded, go quietly along with the proceedings.

They are given brief instructions; a repeat of what's described in the pamphlet and a door key.

Please stay in your room. There will be dinner soon.

It's been almost a day for some. For others, only an hour's wait. The latest newcomer is lead straight from the arrival room to the dining hall where candles and lanterns have been set out to compensate for failing electricity. (Those who have been here longer explain about rolling blackouts.) The food, however, is warm, varied and plentiful. Seating is open, and less conventional chair are available to those who need them.

There are many strange faces around the table, the majority of these recent arrivals. The proprietor of the Valhalla Inn is here, as is some of her staff. The Sheriff of Mog Hill is introduced, his function detailed. The reason for the dinner is explained:

It's a celebration. A new cohort has finally been officiated; CeidaryBlue523. Your cohort. Please. Introduce yourself. Mingle. Get to know your fellows, they will be your brothers and sisters for as long as you live in this city.

((OOC post for discussion and coordination.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The food, in Malcolm's opinion, is worth further investigation but that might just be because he's been living off army-supplied rations for two and a half years -- anything looks good after even the best they have to supply and Mal certainly hasn't had the best. His opinion on the matter might explain why he's still sitting at the table after being here for so long. A second plate of food, mainly an assortment of fresh vegetables and the occasional succulent piece of meat, sits in front of him with all the different varieties sectioned off into their own clearly defined grouping. Occasionally the man spears a piece with his fork and spends a moment or two savouring the flavor as he cradles a glass of water in one hand before he moves on to the next section.

Malcolm himself is leaning comfortably back in his chair flanked now on either side by empty seats; a young man with roughened skin and chapped lips, lines etched deep around his eyes and mouth. His clothes are no where near as beautiful as Jysiri's. Mal's shirt is a slightly wrinkled plain cotton in a drab olive colour that look as if they've been washed many times and then shoved into the bottom of a sack (which is exactly what's happened). His pants at least are new, the black is unfaded and the fabric crisp; it's obvious they didn't arrive in Baedal with him.

His eyebrows, when he notices Jysiri, climb directly into his hairline and he takes a quick sniff of his glass to check for alcohol content he may somehow have missed while drinking it. As it appears to still be water, a quick glance to the pamphlet laid on the table to his right follows but other then that the medic gives no outward sign of surprise.

Jysiri might have noticed Malcom's brief reaction, but it's more likely that, once he's done loading up his plate (whoever coined the phrase "eating like a bird" had no familiarity with avian metabolism), he's after an empty place to sit, and happens to pick the one next to this fellow.

He noticed some of these foods set out had eggs in them, which is vile. He will focus his disgust on this, because he doesn't even want to touch the fact that "chicken" is a perfectly acceptable menu option, right now. Expression slightly vexed, he sets down his plate, then turns the chair he's picked sideways. The tail tends to get in the way, after all.

"Oh," he says, hesitating a moment, a jerky, sudden stop, and then he tilts his head, equally abrupt. Right. Talk to the humans. "Excuse me. It's all right, if I sit here?"

Malcolm swallows quickly, his eyes darting up and down Jysiri as if to fully take in the skin colour before he smiles (which is really a mere thinning of the lips but his eyes crinkle slightly at the edges giving the sense of genuine pleasure) and lowers his cup to the table. The medic scoots his chair to the side more in order to give Jysiri more room.

"No, it's fine. Do you need more room for your, uh." Malcolm flicks his fingers towards the back of the...man? The alien?... the occupant of the chair next to him, although he keeps his eyes locked firmly and friendly on Jysiri's face. "Your limbs?"

The jerky movements are a bit surprising as well but Mal is slotting this situation into his mental filing cabinet in the same area he puts talking to men with half their faces gone so his tone is smooth under the roughness of winter-abused vocal cords.

At least he doesn't bobble his head when he walks. He does partially unfold and refold his wings when he sits, though, with feathers rustling as he settles in.

"Thank you. This is fine, yes." He smiles back, and the expression is more human-like than his movements, at least. His voice doesn't have that tinny quality of a parrot talking, just a normal voice, a bit quiet.

"You'll be the first human I've sat and spoken with, our hosts excepted. My name is Jysiri. May I ask yours?"

Despite the claws on his fingers, he manages the fork without even much of a glance. Apparently, all this food needs to be picked through before he'll start eating it, but he might just be double checking for any other gross ingredients.

He is so goddamned thankful to have been here for at few days before this big dinner because Mal isn't sure he could be as calm as he's being about anything without the time to contemplate his sanity and the welcome pamphlet.

"Well, thanks for the honour." Mal's expression is still a mixture of calm and friendly, it's a touch more bemused now however. He also refrains from mentioning that Jysiri is something Mal hadn't even imagined possible. "My name's Malcolm Sandhurst; you can feel free to call me Mal or Doc or, really, I'll answer to just about anything these days."

Settling back into a less straight-backed position, the young man drags his fork absently through the pieces on his plate the correspond with Jyriri's own meal. "These green ones are sort of bland but otherwise it's good."

Jysiri tilts his head again, and tries the food. "It isn't bad," he agrees, after a moment. "Mal, then, all right. Mal, you are from Earth, are you? This isn't something that usually happens, where I'm from, but as I understand it, Earth doesn't even have magic. If you don't mind the question, what do you think of all this?" He has to have a little restraint. It would be rude to subject the poor fellow to a hundred questions all at once.

He eats more, picking through the food but making quick work of what's there, all the same. He's mindful of his manners, quiet while he eats, but still attentive, and pausing when he should, to answer. But... he's hungry!

It's alright; Mal was the same way with his first plate (okay, he was a bit more defensively placed about it but none-the-less). And he's more then willing to be bombarded with questions as long as Jysiri understands he'll take his time answering them.

He snorts, licking his chapped lips although he knows it's only making the state of them worse not better, and reaches into the pocket of his slacks. Pulling out a pack of Lucky Strikes he fiddles with container; knocking out a cigarette before tapping it back in but never reaching in to actually smoke one. In these past few years, he'd have found held the nicotine in his lungs between bites but Mal's mother had always made faces when his father had taken his pipe out at dinner and now in a similar social situation, the medic reverts to old manners.

"S'too right we don't have magic; I feel like I'm in one of those novels my teacher used to rant about. Closest I've ever heard was there was rumours about the medic in one of the other Companies being some voodoo Cajun healer or some such."

He sighs and the lines around his mouth deepen although his voice remains as calm and quiet as it's been all along. "I'm still not completely sure I'm not crackers for one thing but I've been here a few days now and I don't. Well. I can't really bring myself to care too much right this moment one way or the other."

A flicker of a smile. "You remind me of a fairytale or something, I'll admit so I must seem a bit the same to you?"

Jysiri tilts his head and eyes the cigarettes, but doesn't comment on them, if he's curious or offended.

He pauses, fork a few inches above his food. "I've read a few stories, fantasies about going to Earth or the City of Brass, all much more exciting and dangerous, I hope, than being brought to a place like this. 'Voodoo'?"

"A bit like one, yes. We know that humans exist, so I suppose that makes you a little more of a scientific curiosity than a fairytale." He smirks, and gestures with his fork. "I could put on a shape that would, perhaps, be more mundane to you, but I would have some difficulty with the silverware."

He's not fooling himself, though. Not being able to use the silverware is a small price to pay for an excuse to show off. If there's a good chance many of the people here haven't seen magic, before, then that's an even better excuse.

"Voodoo is...oh, I don't know. Ritualistic spiritualism hoodoo type. Thing." Mal catches himself wiggling his fingers, thumb pressing the pack of cigarettes into one palm, as if to express mysticism and flushes. "It's a Southern thing so I don't know much more then that about it. Just that they say his touch calms the wounded and he can take your pain away with a prayer."

Turning to fully face Jysiri, the medic latching on to the excuse to overlook his lack of knowledge on his own references. "I suppose if it isn't actually an inconvenience to you. You're preparing for the mundane reality of humans by talking to me. I should prepare myself to not turn into a gibbering blob of offal when people turn into things suddenly?"

He chews his lower lip, pulling it into his mouth and worrying at the chapped flesh; bracing himself in hopes of not making a fool out of himself by any possible reaction.

Jysiri tilts his head again, the other way. "Oh, yes. Sometimes people will hold onto a ritual even when the results aren't what was intended. I could tell stories, but... yes. I assure you, I am somewhat less than terror-inducing."

He pauses a moment, perhaps to collect his thoughts or whatever else needs to be done in order to pull off this trick. His form glows for a moment, then begins to waver. This isn't a shifting of flesh and bone, nothing gruesome about it, more of a flow from one shape to the other. His robes and the jewelry disappear with the transformation, and in about ten seconds, he is an ordinary peacock, perched on the chair.

Mal sucks a deep breath in through his teeth before holding it, pressing the flat of his tongue up against the inside of his cheek with a mildly thoughtful expression. His dark eyes have widened only slightly but the grip on his cigarette pack is tellingly white knuckled.

"That is. That is certainly." He lets what's left of his breath out all in one gush. "If that don't beat all. Can you talk like that; you have human vocal cords in there? Jesus and where does the extra mass go?"

The pinch to his own thigh as the medic leans forward is clearly accidental and not at all meant to check if he's just hallucinating (admittedly he's done this every few hours since he's arrived in the city anyway).

Jysiri rustles his wings, resettling his feathers. He speaks, and his voice sounds the same as it did before, but of course, there's no lip movement.

"I can speak. That's magic, though." He pecks at the food remaining on his plate, with a quiet 'rrr' noise. He brings his head up, again, quickly, and his feathers ruffle again. He is pleased with the reaction he's getting.

"If I could tell you what happens to... the rest of me... I suppose I'd have made my living back home as a lecturer, hm?"

"I don't suppose you wouldn't!" The young man finally loosens his deathgrip on his cigarettes, not even bothering to be angry with himself (for the moment anyway) that he's probably ruined a good few of them to slap his knee lightly and lean back. "Is it innate like--"

Mal cuts himself off and then flushes a little. "I was going to say like the ability to roll your tongue up or wriggle your ears but that's a bit insulting isn't it?"

A pause and then he offers "Your feathers are nifty." like this compliment will perform like a slight-of-hand parlour trick with his earlier comment.

The peacock doesn't seem to mind, at any rate. He's not literally preening, but...

"It's not an insult. I'm as comfortable in my other form as this. This is simply how I was first. It's innate. When I left Earth and arrived in my home, I was able to take on my other form and to think, both of which are innate to all of the kena... all of the birds. But I haven't made much of a study of shapeshifting magic. I specialize in talismans." He tilts his head and must make a point of not fanning his tail. That would be bound to knock something over.

"Oh? You like them? Thank you."

"They're a colourful sight; it's been a long time since I've seen anything not brown or white or red." He plucks at his own drab shirt ruefully; it's a bit weird holding a conversation with a bird but he figures he'll soldier on and just treat as he would any other conversation and it can't end too badly on his side.

Smoothing the puckered spot of cotton back down he continues. "Talisman like protection in the form of pretty baubles or bags full of herbs? Only, I suppose yours are actually effective rather than just spiritualism and such like."

There's this semi-amusing image in Mal's head of Jysiri as a peacock putting together a voodoo doll but he's making sure not to let it show on his face.

"That's terrible," Jysiri says, with another tilt of his head. "That does nothing to help one's disposition. It's good that you're here."

"Talisman, like binding spells to an object. I don't work with herbs, but baubles, certainly." He reaches up with one claw to gesture, then drag his plate closer so he can peck at it more. Peacock claws are not nearly as graceful as the rest of the bird. "I use it in my jewelry-making."

Mal's silent for a moment before he smiles, small and lopsided and only a little bit weary. "I guess it is, for me anyway. I sort of left a great company with no medical attention but they'll pull someone quickly."

It'll be just as if he'd died, after all and isn't that a gruesome thought. Mal mocks himself silently and decides instead to focus his attention on Jysiri's claws and pecking method of eating. "Would a bowl be easier? I can go get you one."

He half stands, wavering politely on the peacock's reply. "You're probably want five minutes to eat and not have to answer all my questions about how magic works with flesh and stone and the like."

Jysiri also falls silent. He doesn't have much at all in the way of facial expression in this form, but he's also still for a moment. "Ah," he says. "So, they'll be all right? That's important."

His form wavers again, instead of answering the question, and in another few seconds, he's back in his humanoid form, and frowning slightly. "No? Questions are fine, no concern."

"They'll be as alright as they can be." That's a nice, delicate way of putting it, right? He offers a small, tightly controlled smile as he settles back down in his chair.

Mal watches the shift of forms back carefully this time, now that he can study it without fearing he'll freak himself (and then probably freak Jysiri out and then from there they'd probably start freaking out everyone else in the room; Mal has seen mass hysteria at work before). "Feel free to return the favor then; I know more about the human body then I ever thought."

Jysiri hmms, still frowning. He has to adjust his robes a little, but everything is mostly in order, just as it was before he transformed. Weird!

Then, he picks up the fork again, and is back to his food. "I know you're fairly similar to some of the others who live where I'm from. Where are you from, on Earth? Ever since I read about it, I've wanted to see the cities with all the electrical lights."

Well, thank goodness he doesn't actually have to describe how intestines look like or feel or how there are so many of them shoved into such a tiny space. His whole body language relaxes again into something approaching the companionable, lazy slump most of his unit back home had perfected across every piece of surface available to them.

"Well now." He frowns in a thoughtful echo of Jysiri, looking down at his own picked-over plate. "Most days the city I'm from has electric lights. Seattle, Washington in the USA. My father's friend was a fishmonger down in the market and he got his supplier to take us all out on the boat one evening; you could see the lights of the city twinkling up and down the coastline after dark and from the water it looked like a whole other city was twinkling back. Very pretty, I thought."

Jysiri picks up on him suddenly becoming relaxed, and just figures the guy doesn't actually want to be interrogated about being human, which is absolutely fine with him. He smiles, then grins at the description.

"That is lovely. Electricity's its own sort of magic." He pauses to finish off his food. "I don't care for how colors look under gas light, and not many of the people who are not kenaki have those, regardless."

Thank god for new friends with more tact then he's used to, that's all Malcolm has to say there.

"Gas lights would look a lot like candle light, I'm guessing?" Mal pulls a tiny face, letting his compainion know he's in complete agreement. "It's hard to work by firelight -- too many shadows in the wrong places. I'd prefer to have sunlight then candlelight, any time."

He waves a hand towards Jysiri's robes. "I can see how those wouldn't look the same by gaslight; it'd be hard to match the colours correctly wouldn't it?"

"As I understand it, mammals can't see as many colors as we can." Jysiri fingers the sleeve of his outermost robe. "Sunlight is always best. We've had some success in replicating it, though I don't believe I'll be getting my hands on a real sunstone here, unless I'm very lucky... but if one is not working, the right candlelight is nice. I mean to get a few, when funds allow. Do you suppose that you'll have difficulty finding work, here?"

"Makes sense; otherwise we wouldn't have something called the 'visible spectrum' I suppose." Mal nods agreeably, all the while slightly amazed at what he'd actually retained from high school. Maybe his parents had been right about college. "I can see a lot of blues in your robe but I suppose it's nowhere near as vibrant to me then, huh?"

His eyes drift down to where Jysiri is fingering the fabric of his robe; his mouth opens and then closes. Christ Almighty, it had been a while since he'd thought of any of his skills in anything other then a medical capacity. "I. Well, there's the basic first aid skills--" not that anything he got to do could be classified as 'basic' anymore "-- but my father taught me to tailor and I'm a fair head with numbers and plants."

A sudden mental image wavers into place of himself hanging a sign that reads 'Stitches - Where we repair the holes in your hide, your clothes and offer the bouquet to apologize with!'

He snorts.

How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

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T_T I'm so sorry it's so late!

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