The Hangover [open]

[Lotty]

Ohhhhhh that was a mistake. He was hurting, all six feet of him were just hurting. His eyes were puffed red and his hair stuck up and he had bruises on just about every inch of his body. He couldn't tell you what they were from, but Kierjaarth could in one concise little sentence: Mounting failure. Yes, at some point late last evening Mi'rah - who was already one of the most accident prone men on the planet - managed to miss stepping on the offered forearm of his dragon and took the big fall there. Not to mention the many other incidents that day at the gather which included, but were not limited to knocking over merchandise at a stall, setting his shirt sleeve on fire with a candle, and slipping on someone's spilled drink on the dance floor. Yes, alcohol was involved, but the ferocity of the morning's hangover was enough to make him seriously consider never drinking again. After all, it just wasn't a good idea and created obvious lapses in his otherwise superb judgement.

Not to mention it left him with too many questions. Where did all of his marks go? Why did he wake up here of all places? And most importantly, how long has this thing been following him around? The thing in question of course was the feathered creature that was perched on his head picking straw out of his sooty colored hair. For a moment Mi'rah considered that it was Doppelganger stringing his head with shinies as the little Salamandyr was wont to do, but then the brown was already snuggled deep into his shirt and the brown also didn't make the same kinds of sounds. Namely that cras-cras sound that tore his throbbing head asunder.

Burying his face deeper into the table and holding onto a mug of klah for dear life the man began to wish the darter away into oblivion. It was so noisy! And and and it wouldn't go away! It liked him, though he wasn't sure why. Little does he remember how he received the critter in a gift exchange and pulled away a cloth to see a fledgling bird in cage (though at that time in the night he thought he was seeing two birds in a big cage, but thats beyond the point). The bronzerider couldn't get rid of it now. After all it was a gift, even if it was pecking at his skull!

Cras-cras! The black darter cawed indignantly at some passerby and the rider joined in the racket with his own groan before trying to swat the avian off of his head. The darter bounced down to a shoulder and began to peer down Mi'rah's shirt. Oh what was that? Another voice joined the chorus Rahrah! Big scary! Help help! And Doppelganger promptly dug his claws into some skin in an attempt to bury himself in his bonded. It seemed the man's list of maladies were never going to end. This is not how gathers worked, you were supposed to go home happy! He would never do this again. Never ever. There was no doubt in Mi'rah's mind....he had been hexed!

[Sheari]

Shy, moderately paranoid, and generally human-phobic Emilliah was not one to join the Gather in Blossom. She was happy to spend her day alone with Shrew and Dib while most everyone else was on a different part of the continent. True, with nothing to busy her mind other than her usual drudge duties left her plenty of time to think about Mouse. Oh how she missed the blue. Her green had taken up cuddling in the spot he had once done the same, though it was more comforting than one might have thought. Shrew was so real, and warm against her neck and shoulder. Dib had even accepted her in such a way that the phantom gold had taken to flying most of the time, allowing the girl and their new friend to keep her place.

At present Dib was not in Emilliah's direct line of sight, as she usually wasn't when flying. The gold's mental tunes however still permeated Emi's thoughts and Shrew softly hummed along. Soon enough the song intensified and the girl was humming in a rather harmonious way, opposed to her usual ruckus. Eventually there were little trills and Shrew began to chirp occasionally.

Then what was almost a squawk interrupted the trio.

Emi looked about to take count of her surroundings. At a table sat a man with a cup and a bird. She moved cautiously, socked feet making no noise on the floor of the Main Hall. Carefully pulling out a chair across from the man, she sat down and watched him ,eyes wide and watching for any sign of trouble. She'd become more brave since meeting others she felt comfortable with, but her paranoia still pervaded slightly and she remained silent.

[Lotty]

He could never catch a break could he? He felt little talons dig deeper through his shirt and prickle against his skin as the darter tensed up and squalled again. This time it was directed at the girl - she was too childlike to be trusted and little did the rider know about the peculiar habits of his newly inherited pet. For one the bird did not like children, and though she was a teenager, it must have been the too thin face or upturned nose that rubbed the creature the wrong way. Luckily there was something in the shine of her hair that soothed him and after the initial moment of alarm, the dirty blonde had him generally apathetic and quieted. Faranth knew that Mi'rah's own shushes had nothing to do with it.

He picked his head up with no amount of ease to put a finger to the black beak and tried to hush the bird before shifting his focus to the stranger in front of him. That was odd. He didn't get a whole lot of random visitors now did he? He looked at her with a mix of apology and distress. He felt a little bad about how affronted she could very well be at his new untrained avian, but then again his body was in a whole different state of affairs. It was like he didn't even have the energy to worry about someone else's feelings. He shifted oddly as another wave of nausea passed over him and he waited for her to speak ... that was when Kierjaarth cut in.

Maybe it is you who should start the talking hmmm? As typical, the man complied with his dragons whims. It was better to not fight somethings. Especially when it was something as trivial as this, "Hello..." Cordial and polite as ever, if his face was any indication of how sick he was, his voice definitely was not. Also, apologize for the featherduster thing. It is noisy, and I might make it my snack if it is not careful. Good point, "Sorry, for..." he didn't have a name for it. A fact he had just realized, and he was a little loathe to say "pet" out loud. It didn't feel like his. Not in the same way Doppelganger felt like it. The brown salamandyr almost on cue popped his head out from the riders shirt and gave a good look at the drudge, Girlie who go there? Hiiiii!

"Uhm..." maybe he should apologize for both of them. Since although the little guy hadn't caused any trouble yet, he did have a penchant for it, "I'm sorry for the darter and for Doppelganger. They are both a bit noisy? I suppose..."

[Sheari]

Shrew hissed in response to the darter. The fire lizard was quite determined to claw the things eyes out. How dare it squawk at Hers? Emi felt the leading edge of the lizard's rage but didn't entirely understand so she sat there, wide-eyed and wary of this new opponent. The sensitive girl fought back tears, not knowing what she had done wrong. Why was it so mad at her? Ina brief moment, however, the bird silenced and Shrew did as well, though eyed the feathered creature with caution, wings slightly unfurled. Emi absentmindedly placed a hand on the green. Anything almost, to keep her on her shoulder. She didn't want Shrew attacking the bird, even if she was right now a mix of anger and curiosity.

It was almost futile.

Shrew crawled off of the shoulder of Her's and approached the darter. Emi reached, almost sprawled across the table, grasping the flit around her middle and pulled her back. Dib just watched in silence, a calming presence. A rock, per se, to keep Emi from totally losing it and going into hysterics. "Emi is sorry, Emi is sorry," the girl mumbled out, eyes cast down. Small gouges appeared in the table top as Shrew chirped in frustration. Soon though she gave up and allowed herself to be dragged back.

"Emi does not know a Doppleganger. What is?" The question was asked in all seriousness. "Bird-man, is you?" Her tone suggested a statement rather than a question. She failed to recognize her odd wording, as usual.

[Lotty]

He was a little speechless, to put it nicely. Really his jaw went just a little slack as she began to talk, a drudge's level of eloquence he expected, but third person he did not. At first he thought that maybe Emi was a reference to the firelizard...or at least he hoped that it was because he did not want to think that the little waif was anything but normal. He needed something solid like a rational conversation to hold onto this morning, but with this sudden turn of events he realized that there was no chance for this...no not at all. Mi'rah was left to deal with a girl that seemed to be a little touched in the head.

His hands tightened around his cup; he was bracing himself for taking a dive and being his typical overly polite self, because you see the only proper thing to do would be to firstly be nice, and secondly give good and sincere responses...even if that seemed next to impossible. How exactly do you conduct yourself in these situations without sounding condescending? More importantly, would she be able to pick up on it if he was? Oh dear...don't overthink this one ol' boy, "Uhm. Why is Emi? I mean, why are you sorry? You did nothing wrong?" It was a question more than a statement.

Before he could continue, the brown salamandyr took it upon himself to talk to the girl himself. He could never be called unfriendly, Doppleganger is I, what is you girlie? Tastes yum? He wasn't sure if this one was yummy or not. She looked kinda dirty and he knew already from experience that dirty was not so good tasting. Dopple continued to stay close to his bonded. Too many flying things around to feel safe, and this was ok with Mi'rah, he much preferred the creature in close confines instead of bouncing around like usual.

Bird man? No, no, no, he wasn't. He would have never dreamed of one before, but he had this...thing now. The darter gave him a scathing look - it was like he knew he was being called "thing". The rider put up two hands to reinforce his denial, "Birdman?! No. No. Mi'rah, you can call me Mi'rah," he never bothered addressing himself by rank. Ranks changed too much and too quickly but he had been Mi'rah for nearly twenty turns. That was a title he could rely on, "Are you Emi?" He just had to be sure.

[Sheari]

"Nothing wrong, Emi. Did nothing wrong." Never mind the fact that she generally had the grammatical and vocabulary skills of a Salamandyr. That was, however, only a personal fault. The words from the brown thing that just came into view, the thing that had irritated Shrew, surprised her. "No, no, no tastes yum. I am Emi. No eat." She was tempted to touch the brown but the mention of having a flavour made her hold on to Shrew a little more for the sake of resisting the temptation and possibly being bit. "Me is Emi, Doppleganger." She smiled warmly at him.

Shrew squirmed and the girl began to chatter softly to her to calm her down. Her mind in too many places and she nearly missed what the man had said. "Mi'rah," she repeated. It was a strange name, unfamiliar to her in so many ways. The catch in the syllables threw her off and the name came out more as 'Mee-rah' than how it was supposed to sound she thought. Either way, the wriggling green in her hands had decided to consent to sitting on her shoulder. A nice change and the girl rested her hands in her lap, feeling a little more comfortable.

"Emi wonders about the not-birdman Mi'rah's bird?" She had fixated her attention on the darter. Not two seconds ago had it been squawking at anything and everything. Now it rested silently and made no sound. She was interested more in it's sudden change and swoop of emotion than any other characteristic of it. "Hello bird," she said. She chirped at it sweetly, just in case it didn't understand words.

[Lotty]

This was not weird for the former Bendenite at all....

He didn't have to fight off the urge to stare. The girl made him nervous and after rubbing his temples in desperation, he found his blue eyes searching to an all familiar space - the ceiling. It was a horrible tendency, and he really hadn't a clue where he had gotten the habit from, but upward always seemed like a good place to look. The story wasn't in the soil, it was in the sky as far as Mi'rah was concerned.

After tapping his fingers together a few times he passively smiled at her attempt to say his name. It was ok...it would due. Meerah wasn't so far off from the right way that it would make too much of a difference. After all he had somehow had his name butchered much worse in the past so he didn't even make an effort to correct the poor girl, "It's nice to meet you Emi..." he said mildly before attempting to tackle the girl's questions. He felt Doppelganger squiggle in his shirt with excitement. The girlie was smiling at him! She must taste yum! But he would ask for permission first, Rahrah taste Emi yum? The brown spilled out onto the table and gave the drudge a longing look. Taste Emi-Girlie please?

The darter gave the salamandyr a downright evil look and the bronzerider peeped out, "I just don't think thats a very good idea Doppel..."

The black darter was stopped from eating the winged worm thing only because he was distracted by the girl. He rocked uneasily on the rider's shoulder, utterly afraid that she was going to try and touch him. She better not even try! He was quite willing to give her an earful or maybe even a few merciless pecks should a hand come too near his midnight plumage. For now she was safe, though he wasn't quite sure what the deal was with her little chirps. In reply he let out another caw - a much more jarring sound than what came out of Emiliah.

Wincing at the sound, Mi'rah silenced the bird again with a hand around the beak. He just couldn't handle that right now! "I - I wonder about the bird too, I woke up and he was there. I don't know anything about him," really he wasn't sure that the darter was a "he", it was merely a guess. There was something masculine about the creature, and that was all he had to go by, so until he was told different, a boy he would be.

[Sheari]

"Wha-? No!" the girl exclaimed, clasping her hands and snatching them up to her chest. She cringed a little. Taste her? Did it intend to just lick her fingers or actually bite a chunk out of her? Emiliah decided not to figure out which. She had already been bitten once by Shrew and it if her memory served her (however skewed her mind might be) she had not enjoyed the incident and from then on made sure that Shrew ate first. It didn't matter which meal it was either, Shrew was always fed before she fed herself.

The green in question to her thoughts curled her tail around a lock of the girl's hair. Tightly enough to tug on the messy strands and make the girl reach up and untangle the tail from her hair unconsciously.

"Bird...between?" she asked. She had heard of it vaguely, of the nothingness that the dragon-men so talked of. She didn't know if birds could do it too, but she wasn't one to doubt it. The squawk from the darter drew Emiliah's attention sharply and she chirped sweetly at it again, only this time it was a different tone of chirp. Perhaps it hadn't understood her the first time? IT chirped a different chirp? However the bird communicated, she assumed that it responded to little else. Mouse had always responded quite nicely to her chattering, Shrew...well, she was learning.