Seasional Ramblings, Redone for January

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July



The mansion was hard to miss even under the usual set of circumstances. But this time of year, it got especially difficult. If the sight of the inland beach didn't attract your attention, and you somehow managed to avoid the great tower of driftwood, the smell of fish and salt would grab you by the collar and rough you up a bit to make sure you weren't dead. But by the time you got within sight of the place, your nose better be. Unless you were one of those people who liked the smell of the ocean. Fishy, slightly rancid, maybe, depending on what the waves brought in and which way the wind was blowing. But even under normal circumstances Renna didn't like the beach. The ocean, fine. Land, even better. But the place where they met was best left alone. Sand made her itchy; it got stuck in her feathers, irritated her skin, and blew into her eyes. Come to think of it, she didn't much like the desert either. But here she was. At the mansion. Not a true beach, but close enough.

She'd been hearing a lot about it lately, the oddness, and about how it changed every month. Last month it had sounded interesting. Ruled by the God of Chaos, if she remembered correctly? What that had to do with fireflies, she didn't know, she'd never gotten around to going. And now the fireflies were gone. Well, the buggy kind, anyway.

The avian stood just beyond the open gate of the mansion, watching as Firefly the wiurn snuffled around the white sand. He seemed to have no problem with it. Well good for him. Hopefully he'd have a nice day on this outing, someone needed to. Who knew, maybe she'd enjoy herself too, it was a nice day after all, the sun was shining, it wasn't too hot... and maybe she'd decide to grow gills and move in. Right... and oh Gods, she was starting to sound like Kage. That was the last thing she needed.

[F: 0.1]

Digging deep down into her bag of false happy, Renna started down the path that would take her up to the front of the mansion, not that she was going inside. Firefly wouldn't fit through the door. They'd have to be content with exploring the grounds and staring into tidal pools and watching clouds and she was so glad she'd brought a deck of cards. But there could be worse things to be doing today. After all, she'd come here voluntarily, so she may as well at least pretend that she was enjoying herself. "C'me 'n b'y, y'u've never been 'ta 'e beac' bef're." The avian gave Firefly's navy side a pat as she passed, noting that he shied away from her touch. He was most likely... doing... whatever it was that he did. She didn't really like to be touched, so he really didn't like to be touched. The more time he spent around someone, the more he reflected them. Although the reflection was formed in a broken mirror. It was kind of creepy, really, and had a bit to do with why she hadn't spent too much time around him until now. Who wanted to face a warped version of themselves?

Firefly looked up from the hole he had been digging and locked eyes with Renna, his expression blank. But gradually, his eyes started to shine. It was the avian who broke eye contact then, continuing on across the dunes without another word. The wiurn simply followed, a different creature from the shuffling, almost sleepy one that had been there a moment before. Now he was practically strutting; His tail not dragging behind him, but held off the ground as if he couldn't bear to dirty his hide. FireflyRenna. Every so often he paused to shake the sand from his feet like a cat would do if it had gotten its paws wet.

[0.2]

Renna did her best to ignore him. She liked to think of herself of as a flexible person; sarcastic when life called for it, a bit proud at times, perhaps, but Firefly in her presence was... she glanced at him as she changed course and cut across the top of a large dune. All one had to do was look at him. And she'd spent enough time around him at the kennel to know that she really didn't want to. Oh, it wasn't his fault, she knew that, but... She wasn't that bad, was she? The avian skidded down the far side of the dune and stopped at the edge of a tidal pool, peering down into the water to see if she could see any fish. Behind her, Firefly did his best, but he lost his footing on the loose sand and ended up tripping down the slope in a none too dignified fashion before coming to a stop with a splash. So much for seeing any fish.

The wiurn let out a strangled sounding grunt as he hit the water. It wasn't too deep, the water barely even clearing his knees, and his hide was thick enough to prevent injury, but the water was wet and salty and it would ruin his hide! Firefly flared his wings to keep them as dry as he could and clawed his way back onto dry sand balanced on his hind limbs, where he promptly started preening like a spoiled izer.

He'd refuse to move until he was done. And he'd glare at her the whole time like it was her fault; like she'd stood behind him and pushed him. Renna groaned silently. He was an aquatic wiurn, for the sake of the stars, how was it that he could rationalize being like this?

[0.3]

Moving a few feet away from the glaring wiurn, the avian took her coat off and spread it out on the sand. Then she sat down on it. Unlike with some creatures she knew, the glare was for show. He wouldn't attack her. He was clumsy and narcissistic, but a general wimp. If she threw a pebble at him he'd go off and sulk like she had tried to kill him. Renna peered down into the water of the pool and watched as the tiny things came out from behind rocks and started swimming around again, they had recovered quickly from having a huge reptile crash down into their tiny world, and from what she could tell, none of the pool's residents were any worse for wear. Small shrimpy looking things were flitting about in the clear water, avoiding the slightly larger guppy things and staying close to the rocks. One strayed too close and the guppy thing opened its mouth and sucked the shrimpy thing into its stomach.

Her ankles were itchy. Acting on impulse, the avian scooted forwards a bit and dangled her feet in the pool, scattering the fish again. She rested her heels on the rocks so that nothing past the first inch or so of feathers on her legs got wet. She'd read about people doing this in books (written in Marhoo), but she'd never gotten the opportunity to do it herself. The cool water felt nice on her skin, but she wouldn't want to get soaked. She'd most likely get waterlogged and sink. She wasn't a duck after all, her feathers weren't waterproof, and as a general rule she avoided water. Which was why Firefly had reacted so violently when he'd fallen into the pool.

She looked back over her shoulder to find that she was still being glared at.

[0.4]

The things in the pool were starting to get interested in her toes. One of the small, brightly colored fish was swimming around her talons and staring with its fishy eyes. Renna wriggled her foot and the fish darted away. But it came back, accompanied by a few of its friends and a couple of shrimpy things, who proceed to brush up against her skin in an 'I wonder what this thing is' sort of way. The shrimpy things actually settled down on top of her foot as if it had mistaken her grayish skin for the surface a rock. Admittedly, if she held very still, it was kind of hard to tell the difference. Especially if you were a fish. The avian slipped the backpack off of her shoulders and let it fall to the sand behind her without taking her eyes off of the pool.

Firefly had almost finished cleaning the salt from his hide. What he was doing was a very un-reptile sort of thing, but he didn't seem to care. Or he didn't know. He'd watched the izer, and it seemed to be a very efficient way of getting oneself clean. Maybe he didn't have feathers, but were scales really that much different? He watched a lot of things. But oddly enough, he couldn't remember most of what he'd watched. Just this one thing... But he didn't care. The wiurn licked a bit of salt from the tip of his tail and got to his feet. What he cared about was why the feathery lump wasn't paying attention to him. He was surely much more important than whatever she was looking at. With a grunt to attract her attention, he shook himself and struck a pose that happened to catch the sunlight glinting off of his scales in a dramatic way.

[1.0]

The avian looked back over her shoulder when she heard the grunt. She noted his pose; the tilt of his head, the curl of his tail, and ignored it. She focused instead on reassuring herself and turned back to watch the fish. When there was nothing much to do, anything short of watching paint dry could be a source of amusement, and watching the fish in the pool curiously swarm around her feet was slightly more interesting than that. She just hoped that none of them had sharp pointy teeth and a craving for flesh. As the thought crossed her mind, Renna scooted her feet back a bit. This sent a colorful cloud of fish in all directions. She seemed to have broken the spell. Every so often one drifted over to swim between her talons, but not once did the whole population of the pool swarm back. It was mildly disappointing.

Then she heard a jingle, and a cracking sound, and the rustle of fabric. Turning suddenly, she found herself face to snout with Firefly, who had taken her backpack in his jaws. "N' y'u grea' pes', y'u'll pu' 'les in i'!" She hastily pulled her feet out of the water and stood up, careful to not stand on her coat. "Dr'p i'!"

Firefly had anticipated this and taken a few steps backwards in addition to holding his head up as high as it would go. She didn't want to look at him? She didn't want to admire him? Well, he'd make her pay attention to his beauty, if she wanted her trinket back she'd have to give him lots of treats and talk to him and... The wiurn stumbled over something and sat down. Hard.

[1.1]

Random Event!
Seagulls could be heard from behind you... eventually a small flock fly right over your head and out a hole in the ceiling! Now they were on the floor above you, squaking away.

The impact of wiurn rump on ground made a muffled whump sort of noise that echoed off the dunes and sent a small puff of displaced sand out like ripples in a pond. There was really nothing in sight that he could have tripped over, save his own feet. Firefly sneezed. Somehow he'd managed to keep his hold on the backpack, although a few of his teeth had now torn through the fabric, where as before he had been making at least a small effort to do nothing more than drool on it. If he damaged it too badly, the avian would be too distracted by the tatty little bag to give him the praise he rightly deserved right away and then the plan would backfire. But he knew it wouldn't, because he was smart. Yes. And very handsome. He was so much more interesting than any old pool of water.

Suddenly, a flock of seagulls erupted from behind a dune, most likely disturbed by Firefly's racket. They flew by in a rush of feathers barely clearing the top of Renna's head and skimming across the fin on the wiurn's back, screeching loudly all the while. The avian ducked, giving them plenty of room to pass overhead, and seized the opportunity to yank her bag free from Firefly's jaws while he was distracted. The wiurn didn't seem to care, he was too busy trying to keep the birds from landing on him.

And then the birds were gone. As quickly as they had come, the flock had vanished, flying off to somewhere to do seagull things unobserved. They'd left behind a few stray feathers, lazily floating to the ground, and a white splat on the sand. Lovely. But their calls were still audible, so they must not be too far away.

[1.2]

Renna looked over her pack in disdain. There were a couple of new holes in it, not too big, but large enough for some of the smaller things to fall out, and the plastic container she'd had her lunch in appeared to have broken. The pasta was everywhere. She tossed the backpack aside for a moment and picked up her coat, which she dusted off before putting on. She then crouched down and began sorting things from the damp pack into her many pockets. Wiping marinara sauce off as needed. "'Nes'ly, Firefly, 'ere's n' call f'r 'is kind 'f be'avi'r." The avian slipped her deck into a pocket on the inside of her coat. "I s'uldn' 'ave 'ta wa'c' y'u every sec'nd." She pulled a small wooden toy boat from the pack and set it on the sand. It wouldn't fit in a pocket. A wind-up toy would, however.

When she'd gotten things as clean as she could, she wiped down the inside of the backpack with a sheet of notebook paper and put everything that wouldn't fall through a hole back in. The soggy paper she zipped into a baggie and put in on top so she'd remember to throw it away. That done, Renna stood up and shouldered her bag. "Y'u d' kn'w 'at 'is w'n' g' wi'u' re'alia'i'n?" She met the wiurn's gaze. "N' g'd 'ings f'r dinner 'nig'." Renna got no reaction from Firefly, so she turned and started walking. She skirted the tidal pool and started up another dune in the opposite direction from where the seagull calls were sounding from. She didn't want to stir them up again.

[1.3]

The soft regular sound of footsteps behind her was the only indication of the fact that the wiurn was following her. She didn't bother to look back. There was no dragging sound, which most likely meant he was still holding his tail off the ground, but every so often there was a break in the rhythm. Then it started again. Footfalls on sand is an interesting sound. Somewhere between walking on snow and walking on dirt. There was no crunching sound, but nor was it entirely silent. There was a sort of muffled shifting sound as the sand moved around the foot. You couldn't hear it that well if you were making any other noises, but they weren't, and the gulls were no longer loud enough to cause headaches.

She could see the mansion off to her left, casting a long shadow as the sun shifted toward the horizon. Perhaps next time she'd bring a smaller companion, so she wouldn't have to be outside in the dead of summer. Renna changed course for the mansion and its shadow, tracking across the top of a dune. Firefly continued to follow her. He was sulking, most likely. She hadn't petted him, and she hadn't showered him with venison; she hadn't rushed to his aid and cried when he'd fallen. He wanted to be the center of attention. And she was depriving him.

Renna stopped walking to allow him to catch up. Closing her eyes and counting to ten, which is what you're supposed to do to collect your thoughts and is useful to many people who aren't even on the same continent as mad, she slowly turned to look at Firefly, and sure enough, he was sulking. The avian sighed.

[1.4]

He seemed to like sulking. He did it every chance he got, and had it down to an art. A slight bend at the knee, his head drooped down and his eyes looking up so that he almost had the legendary 'puppy-dog' look on his face. He knew she hated it when he sulked. He knew it made her feel bad. And he knew that sulking was the best way to get the attention he so craved. The avian rolled her eyes and rested a hand on Firefly's side. "Alri', I'll pay a'en'i'n 'ta 'ya. S'ees'." The wiurn shied away from her touch again but seemed to peak up. "Y'u've f'rced me 'ta pu' my lunc' in a plas'ic bag, 'ya kn'w. N' 'ta man'i'n 'e fac' 'at i's c'vered in y'ur dr'l?" Renna started walking again, Firefly keeping pace beside her. "I supp'se y'u can 'ave i'. I sure d'n' wan' i' n'w."

Scrubby grass sprouted up here and there on the dunes, and in the distance she could pick out the iron fence snaking around the mansion grounds and cutting the place off from a more stable reality. Evey so often, a gull flew overhead, or a bug buzzed by her ear, and she wondered where all this had come from. Surely the mansion didn't just conjure up this stuff? It had to be pulled in from somewhere didn't it? Dimensional rifts and tears in reality weren't her area of expertise, but she'd read a book once, a fictional one, about this person called a... Chrestomanci? and overlapping dimensions and stuff. The driftwood tower actually resembled a place described in the book.

[2.0]

They had entered the Mansion's shadow now, and had found another tidal pool full of small guppy things and shrimpy things very similar to those in the pool they had just left. But there was a starfish here too, stuck to a rock and glaringly orange. From her current spot, she could look up at the driftwood tower creaking in the wind. The height of the thing was a bit disorienting. She spotted a few windows a couple stories up and saw... fish swimming in the rooms beyond? Strange. Perhaps she didn't want to go inside the place after all. Renna shifted her gaze back to the tidal pool before she got dizzy.

It was several degrees cooler here in the shade, making it actually a pleasant sort of warm rather than sauna hot. The avian shucked off her backpack again and dug out one of the baggies she'd shifted the pasta to after the original container had broken under the force of Firefly's jaws. It had lint stuck to it, and a bit of glitter, but she doubted it'd hurt him. He'd enjoy the meaty bits in the sauce without even noticing the glitter. Renna dumped the pasta out on the sand and tapped the side of the wiurn's nose to direct him to it.

He sniffed at it curiously and licked it up in one bite.

"Glu'n. 'Ya did n' ge' 'at by wa'c'ing me." She pulled out the second baggie of pasta and dumped that on the sand for him too, then stashed the empty bags back in the pack and grabbed the little wooden boat before walking over to the edge of the pool, a few feet away.

[2.1]

Random Event!
Well... that was odd. Little drips of water fell onto your shoulder, and when you looked up, you realized that the ceiling was caked in ice! Eventually, a few feet away from you, a bit of the icey stuff fell from the ceiling...

It was just about the time she was digging around in her pockets for the for the sticks she had to slot into the little holes on the deck of the wooden ship so it would have sails. She'd detached them from the hull so that they wouldn't get broken in her pack. But then something cold and wet dripped onto her coat. At first she thought it was gull poo. There were a lot of the birds flying around here, and it was bound to happen eventually. Tentatively, she looked down. But saw only dark water-spots. Good. She really hadn't wanted to have to wash poo off of her shoulder. Not that it hadn't happened before, with all of her izer, but she still liked to avoid having poo on her shoulder whenever possible. It wasn't pleasant.

But where had the water come from? It wasn't starting to rain, was it? Renna looked up, shifting the boat to her right hand so that she could use her left to shade her eyes. Not a cloud in the sky. But.. maybe it came from that? Way up near the top of the tower was a dark shape jutting out from the side, maybe a balcony, and the bottom might be wet or... covered in ice?

Another few drips of water landed in the sand at her feet, vanishing instantly. They were followed by a small chunk of ice, which hit Firefly on the head, bounced, and landed in the sand at her feet.

[2.2]

What were the odds? Of all the places the ice could have fallen... Firefly snorted and flinched back, shaking his head as if to clear it, sending little drops of water flying from where the ice had melted in its brief contact with his skull. He didn't seem to be hurt, just dazed. Knocked out of whatever loop he'd been in. For the moment at least. He looked around as if he had no idea where he was, then started digging holes in the sand, not particularly caring if he got his hide dusty or not. He didn't even know what he was looking for. He just...wanted to...dig. The wiurn sneezed. His back was to Renna, so for all he knew, he was alone in this strange place.

Meanwhile, the avian had put down the boat and picked up the lump of Ice instead. It was cold to the touch, obviously, and she had to keep shifting it from hand to hand or else the cold started to make her palms go numb. Yet, despite the fact that the ice was dripping wet, turning the sand beneath it dark and getting her feet wet, it didn't seem to be getting any smaller. Odd. Renna tossed it up and down a few times experimentally. Well, she'd heard that weird things happened in the mansion. She tossed it at the tidal pool, skipping it across the water's surface.

Alright, so it floated like normal ice. That was good.

She watched the residents of the pool swim up to investigate the floating thing, their colors flashing brightly. Then she dried her hands on her pant-leg and bent over to pick up the toy ship.

[2.3]