faderift | Bird, bird, bird

Bird, bird, bird

WHO: Myira and YOU
WHAT: Myira pokes around the Gallows and makes a nuisance of herself.
WHEN: Now-ish?
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Myira can be a jerk? Also nudity bc baths

I. A Forest of Dead Trees

Of all the places in the Gallows, the libraries in the central tower fascinate Myira the most. She has never seen so many books basically ever. In fact, she's not really sure what a book is. She's seen writing, but never like this or all of it in one place. Sometimes she shows up here just to wander around the shelves and pull books out at random. Today is one of those days. Anyone who comes into this particular library might hear someone laboriously reading a book out loud, fumbling over words and letters. Those who investigate will find Myira sitting between the stacks cross legged, five or six books stacked around her and another open in her lap that she is painstakingly attempting to read at a glacial (and rather noisy) pace.

II. I'll see myself out

Myira is... bored. Which is probably not a good thing. She's spent some time wandeirng back and forth across the main courtyard for about thirty minutes in the summer afternoon sunlight before boredom and an itch to stretch her wings get her to retrieve her cloak from her room. A few moments later, there's a raven flitting through the air around the towers of the Gallows. She spends some time dipping, diving and generally showing off before that gets old too and she turns to other methods of diversion. She circles one tower, then another, before settling on a likely open window. She flutters into land on the window sill and looks inside, heedless of whatever she might be interrupting.

"...Nice day, ain't it?" Myira is pretty chipper for a bird that just invited herself in unannounced.

III. A clean bird is a happy bird

The bath, Myira has decided, is one of the things that humans got right. At first she'd simply drawn buckets of (cold) water and doused herself with them to try and get clean as best she could until she found out about the baths. Since then she has become a devoted attendee and can be found there basically every night the baths are open. This evening is no exception. Myira is usually the first to arrive and the last to leave. Currently, she's sitting on the edge of the communal bath, naked as anything, and letting her feet dangle in the warm water with a happy little sigh. She's leaned back on her elbows, eyes closed and kicking her legs a little to splash anyone who gets too close. After a moment, she opens her eyes and feels around beside her, then frowns. Turning her head, she calls out to anyone over by the towels and other bathing accessories.

"Hoi. Can you grab me a wash cloth. I forgot t'grab one!"

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Nari is engaged in staring pensively at the locking mechanism she's developing when the question is croaked from... somewhere? Her head shoots up, and then whips around. No-one. She checks her crystal. Not that either. Finally, curiously, she slowly turns toward the window, and the bird.

"...It ...is?"

"Ayuh. Lovely breeze offa the water an' it's clear as you could wish. You can see for practically forever out to th' horizon. An' the city looks real pretty from up there." Myira bobs her head in affirmation and without waiting to be invited launches herself off the windowsill. She flutters over to the desk and begins to pace up and down with jerky bird steps, head tilting this way and that as she studies the mechanism.

"Whassat?"

Edited 2018-06-26 23:35 (UTC)

Still a mix of curious, bemused, and wary to be talking to a raven, Nari nevertheless holds up the piece between her thumb and forefinger to be better examined.

"It's meant to be part of this," she says, picking a few other sections from the pieces laid out farther down the desk. They're not fastened yet, as she's not quite sure on the angles yet, but she pinches the sides to hold them in configuration and places the piece she'd been staring at in among them, hooking the end into a little toothed wheel and pulling it back and forth. The wheel, in turn, moves back and forth.

"But I'm stuck on how best to get it to reset if a wrong move is made somewhere in the rest of the lock." The elf shrugs and smiles wryly. "It may be that I need to scrap the entire section, in which case what it is is tinder." Then, "I'm Nahariel. Are you a mage?"

Myira leans forward and gives a piece a curious tap with her beak, then resumes her casual strolling up and down the desk with barely a care in the world. Heedless of whether or not she's distubing Nari's work, she simply bobs her head as the little wheel turns back and forth.

"I dunno too much about this kinda work, but it looks fine, for sure." Isn't she helpful?

"I'm Myira and I'm a witch," the reply is very chipper and Myira puffs up a little as she identifies herself. "...I dunno if that's like a mage." She's quiet, pensive almost, for a moment.

"What's a mage?"

Edited 2018-06-28 22:08 (UTC)

"It's... nice to meet you, Myira," Nari replies, pausing for a moment and then bobbing her head, birdlike, in acknowledgement.

"As far as mages? Mm. They... are people who are able to use magic." Good. Very specific. "Er. Some throw fire or cause lightning to strike, some heal wounds much more quickly than they would naturally, or wounds that wouldn't heal naturally at all. Some draw glyphs that do... things when they're activated. Like chime, or paralyze, or warm water," she should really talk to Myr more about glyphs. "Some can grow plants quickly from the earth, some can shapeshift," she tilts her head at the raven, "which is why I asked. There are a lot of things that mages can do, although they mostly choose an area to study. What's a witch?"

Myira imitates thate bob in return, staring at Nari without a hint of irony or self-awareness.

"Oh. That sounds fancy. I mean, witches can do some of that. I can scry the future an' changte the weather, and ward things and hex things. And I can change my feathers for skin if'n I want, but I like my feathers better." SHe pauses. "Except here once I been in my feathers for a while I get this itch that I gotta put on the skin again and it doesn't go away until I do. It gets worse, even..." Huff. She doesn't like that AT ALL.

"I can't call up fire nor do healing nor call down lighting, though..."

While the rest is at least vaguely familiar to her, scrying the future sounds like a mix of blessing and curse. Asking about it is on the tip of her tongue, but she's as sure she doesn't want to know as know.

She shrugs about the fire and lightning and such, "There are lots of mages who can't." And then, "You prefer to be a bird then? I'm sure I'd make the same choice if I could." Kirkwall being beautiful would be a welcome change, even not considering the flight. "I'm sorry it itches you here. You're a rifter, I take it?"

"I was hatched a raven and if I'm lucky I'll die a raven." That's a strong sentiment to have, isn't it? She preens a little under first one wing, then the other.

"Bein' a bird is nice. I like it better then havin' to wear human skin, if I'm honest. But human ain't so bad." A pause.

"You got funny ears."

Nari cocks her head at that. This is the first time a rifter's come through from a society that didn't at least have some conception of elves.

"I'm an elf," she says. "We have pointy ears." She thinks a moment, and then shrugs with a quirked half smile, "I couldn't tell you why, but I couldn't tell you why humans have round ears either. We just do."

Do birds have ears? Well, obviously. She'd just never really thought about it.

"Oh." Myira is quiet for a moment, considering the new information she has to digest.

"That's interestin'. So you're different from humans? You look like 'em though." She's trying to wrap her head around this concept. Be gentle.

The good news is that Nari is both as patient as the day is long, and given to thinking about such things. Myira couldn't have flown through a better window on this one.

"We're same and different in a lot of ways," she says, leaning her chin on her hand and trying to explain as she might to a bird rather than a person. "Elves have eyes that are a little larger, and we can see much better in the dark. There's the ears, of course. We tend to be at least a few inches shorter, over all." She thinks of the elven rifters and amends that to "The elves native to this world, at least."

"There's much more that's the same. We can be mages too. We've got the same number of arms, legs, hands, fingers, all of that. Face in the same place." A chuckle. "Neither of us can fly. Elves used to live a great deal longer, but that was a long time ago. We blame humans for that." Nari lifts her shoulders in a gentle shrug. "We blame humans for a lot of things."

"Huh. Well I'm still learnin' the difference so go easy on me, alright? You seem like a nice one though. I'm still findin' my wings here, you know?" There's some more preening, as if to emphasize the point. She stays where she is for a long moment, then flutters over to perch on the edge of the bed. A twinge of space and magic and there's a human girl sitting cross legged there. Dark haired and bronze skinned, she wears a simple linen dress in off-white and an impressive cloak of black feathers over her shoulders. Leaning forward, Myira puts her chin in her hand.

"Old grudges can die hard. I think that's the same no matter who you are."

Even though she'd seen Sam pop in and out of forms a few times over the years since he'd learned, it's always strange to see it happen. Even stranger this time, since they seem to share more than a passing resemblance to each other in terms of colouring.

"Old grudges can die?" asks Nari wryly, nodding a greeting to the new form and then leaning her head on her hand. It's mostly a facetious question. After all, in three short years she'd gone from not seeing a human they hadn't summarily disposed of for nearly two decades to counting a few of their number as dear friends, and one of those as something... else.

"As for finding your wings, we've enough newcomers from other worlds that you should have a good leeway. If someone gives you trouble for not learning fast enough or other nonsense, there are plenty of us willing to step up and put a stop to that."

"That's the rumor I hear, but grandmothers have long memories, so maybe not." Myira laughs and flops onto her back on the bed without much ado. She seems happy to spread out and take space and generally... just be here.

"Yeah, one of th' other Rifters that showed up with me is helpin' me out with learning about humans and clothes and stuff. She's nice--a lot like a mum, honestly." Myira grins toothily up at Nari.

"And this place is interesting at least, even if it isn't home. Most of you seem real nice."

Myira's quick laughter, wide open smile, and immediate careless taking up of space combine in just the right way to remind Nari of her brothers and sisters back in the forest, which jumps the raven the rest of the way over the elf's quiet thoughtfulness and into the laid-back easy familiarity normally reserved for her close friends and family.

"Most of us are," the elf agrees. "People who've chosen to put aside their homes and families to fight for the whole of the world usually have at least one or two redeeming qualities." She pauses, looks a bit apologetic. "And you and the other rifters who didn't have a choice in the matter... well. I'm sorry for that, though I've never been given cause to be sorry about who's come through. The greater order of things seems to be looking out for us as far as the people— and birds— that tumble on through."

"Well, it's an adventure," Myira replies. She rubs at her chin for a moment. "Adventures don't really happen when you're expecting 'em, right?" She laughs. It's a genuine amusement, though tempered by a touch of awkwardness and uncertainty. This whole thing is so different from her normal experience.

"Nothin' I can do about it but see what happens, right?"

"Well that's true enough," Nari replies, raising a helpless eyebrow and ruffling a hand back through her hair. "I never wanted much in the way of adventure, but we don't pick our roads. More like rivers that way.'

Newt is currently in his room and hunched over his desk, working on various paperwork for the Research division. A vague headache has settled in the back of his head, and he tries his best to ignore the way it seems to spread with each passing moment.

Suddenly, there's a commotion at his window; he glances up to find himself facing...a talking raven?

Instantly, his whole countenance brightens as he smiles in return, tilting his head to better study the raven.

"Yes, quite so," he agrees, as though he spoke with chatting birds every day. Well, to be fair, this isn't the oddest moment of his life; far from it, in fact. "The breeze is especially lovely, no?"

"Oh yeah, real lovely! Bit stiff comin' in off the water but it's somethin' else. Seagulls all over the place though." Her tone suggests that Myira does not think highly of said seabirds. She stretches a wing out and preens through some of the feathers for a moment.

"Great view out there too an' bright summer sunlight. S'real pretty. I didn't get to the sea much back home."

"They are rather numerous, those sea gulls," Newt agrees, slight amusement in his voice. He doesn't know whether Thedas actually has talking ravens or if he's talking to a mage, but he i is absolutely delighted.

The 'back home' catches his attention, however.

"Back home?" He repeats, arching an eyebrow. "Are you not from around here, then?"

"They're idiots, that's what they are!" Myira huffs, sounding rather like an annoyed farmgirl from the West Counties. She spreads her wings out after a moment, then gives a little croak as Newt asks another question.

"Oh, nah. I fell--I never fall--out o' some hole in the sky a few days ago."

Her accent reminds Newt of home, which further amuses him; he bites back a smile. That she fell out of a hole in the sky confirms that she's a rifter, and, he assumes, human, at least, in part. He can't imagine whatever force brought them here would choose someone who was entirely a bird to fight the spreading evil. Then again, perhaps it might. After all, he still doesn't understand who or what brought them all here to begin with himself.

"So you're a rifter too," he nods.

"It is all rather inconvenient, this falling out of holes in the sky business, I find," he says.

"I guess? Is that what they call us?" Myira hops around a little on the windowsill and then launches herself across the room in a flutter of wings to land on Newt's desk, where she struts around amongst the papers heedless of any disarray she's causing.

"Yeah! Real inconvenient, especially when you're supposed to have wings and then don't," she gripes. "Wish they'd warned me first."

"It's the nicer term for what the locals call us," Newt notes with a wry expression. "Considering that many of them assume us to be demons or demon adjacent, at the very least. If we couldn't help close rifts, I suspect our situation here would be quite different." And by that, he means worse, of course.

He smiles as she lands on his desk. He reaches into his pocket for some leftover bread and cheese he'd been saving for Merlin in his pocket, placing it on the desk for the raven if she's hungry.

"I think this is the sort of thing that never really comes with a warning," he says. "You normally have wings?"

"Pfff, demons. Demons ain't real." Myira seems awfully confident about that. She tilts her head to listen to Newt, then eagerly goes after the leftovers that are placed in front of her. Never say no to free food, as far as she's concerned. Peck peck peck.

"Ayuh. Hatched a raven, Skies bless me." She fluffs up some feathers. "But if'n I'm spending too long as a raven I get this itch that won't stop until I wear human skin for a while. I dunno what's causing it. Maybe the magic here."

"Ah, I take it you don't remember the creatures that came through that same hole as you?" Newt asks her. "Those are demons."

He smiles, glad that she's taken his offer of food.

"Could very well be," he says. "It's affected my magic as well. I'm sorry you have to spend time not as yourself. That must be difficult."

"Oh. I guess demons ARE real here, then..." She seems more thoughtful than surprised. Hm.

"I hope I don't hafta tangle with them again any time soon. That weren't a good time, not at all." She pecks at the food a few more times and gulps it down.

"It's frustratin' for sure. But being human ain't the worst. Hands are pretty fun!"

"I take it you have at least the rumors of demons, where you come from?" Newt asks, curious. He's used to the ghosts of his world, Dementors and ghouls. Not to mention Poltergeists. The demons are Thedas are unlike any creature he's ever known.

"It depends," he says, considering. "On how many rifts open up and how often we're dispatched to seal them."

He shakes his head, before smiling at her declaration. "They are rather useful, aren't they? Hands."

"Oh, we got spirits both good an' bad and sometimes humans call 'em demons, I think? I dunno." Myira preen under one wing thoughtfully. She flutters across the room to land on the bed and stretches her wings out for a moment before there's a little twist of reality that always accompanies magic. In an instant, there's a human girl on the bed, sitting cross-legged and draped in a feathered cloak. She grins.

"Ye. Real useful."

[ Guess who lives in the library. ]

It's usually pretty quiet in the library, and although Daniel is pretty good at tuning out noises -- a necessity when working at a military base -- these particular sounds draw his attention.

He follows the sound, and has to smile at the sight that greets him. It stirs a distant memory of sitting with Sha're, hidden away in a pyramid, them teaching each other to read the hieroglyphs. A simultaneously both sad and happy memory.

He doesn't say anything right away, not sure he wants to disturb the girl's reading.

Myira is grumbling a little under her breath as she reaches a particularly difficult passage. There are a lot of words here, most she doesn't understand and the letters are all melting together as she tries to make sense out of them. She's so focused that she's not really paying attention to anyone around her, either.

"Mahhh...Mahg-nife? Mag-nife-i-kent?" She chews on her lower lip. "...This don't make no sense..."

"Would you like some help?" Daniel offers, making himself known. The grumbling is giving him the impression she might do better with a teacher, or at least someone she can pose questions to.

Myira blinks and stares up at Daniel after a moment. Huh. She squints for a moment, then jerks her head in a bobbing, almost avian nod.

"I know some letters but this stuff is more complicated than anythin' I seen before. I'd appreciate th' help."

Part of Daniel wants to suggest them moving to an actual table since they're in a library, but honestly, plopping down on the ground wherever convenient works just as well, doesn't it?

"The inconsistent spelling conventions probably aren't doing you any favours either," he says, sitting down next to her. "I'm Daniel, by the way. Nice to meet you."

"Spelling what?" Myira stares at Daniel as if he has a second head. Go easy on her, Daniel. She's literally a wild animal.

"Oh! I'm Myira! It's nice to meet you too!" She grins, face practically shining with good humor. "I fell through a hole in the sky."

He can't help but laugh at the way she says that -- he was hardly as enthusiastic about it when it happened to him. "Yeah, so did I, though it's a couple months ago now."

And alright, adjusting his language usage just a little bit. "And I just mean, how things are spelled doesn't always make sense, and can be different from word to word."

Good luck discussing languages with an actual linguist who speaks roughly thirty different languages. No doubt he'll slip up and use some obscure technical term.

"Fallin' out of holes in the sky seems to be real popular around here," Myira muses. "I don't normally do any kinda fallin' so it was a bit of a surprise for me." She sits back and stretches a little to get a krick out of her back. She's dressed in a simple linen shift belted around the waist with a length of rope, over which she wears a gorgeous cloak made entirely of black feathers.

"Oh, yeah. Letters are only supposed to make one sound, right? That's what I remember bein' told. Or at least... Hrm..." She goes quiet, considering.

"It's been a while since I learned, though and I ain't practiced much."

Daniel does a lot of falling, and a lot of intergalactic travel, so it isn't that uncommon for him. What's uncommon for him is how long he's stayed here. He wonders if the team are on his trail, or if he's been declared dead again by now. Jack's been pretty reticent about assuming anything regarding Daniel's life-expectancy ever since Daniel ascended, considering Daniel does make it a habit of coming back from the dead.

"In some languages, that's true. In this one, it depends what other letters they're put next to, and in a lot of cases there aren't even rules. You just have to learn how a word is spelled."

"Like..." he looks over at the book she was trying to read, finding her spot from what he could hear from her grumbling. "Magnificent."

"Magnificent..." MYira repeats the word, feeling out the sound of the words with her lips. It's strange to her, really. Lips are new and interesting sometimes--when she's a bird she just... vocalizes. She huffs and blows a stray strand of hair out of her face.

"But I thought that th' little line with the dot on it made a different noise."

Athessa makes a face that involves her chin retreating neckwards; the kind of nonplussed expression one adopts when confronted with a truly foreign experience.

Never before has a bird approached her to merely comment on the weather.

"Uh...I guess...yeah. Nice enough."

Myira flutters further into the room and perches somewhere convenient--a bedpost, or maybe a desk. She preens for a moment, then studies Athessa a bit closer.

"Real lovely breeze off the water today. Better'n roasting down in the courtyard."

This is completely normal.

She blinks, and then blinks again. Was this a trick? Could someone have bewitched a bird for an elaborate prank? Or was the Inquisition really just cool enough to employ talking birds?

If the latter, they were missing a huge opportunity to teach the birds some rude bar songs.

"Do you know more tidbits or is this like a one-off party trick?" It wouldn't be inconceivable for someone to lash one of those talking crystals to a bird and make it look like the bird was Talking. Did it's mouth move? Or... beak? Those were the same thing, right?

"Why would it be a trick? Skies, you act like you never had anyone talk to you before." Myira replies with a grumpy ruffle of her feathers. The beak is indeed opening when Myira speaks, though it's not moving exactly the same as lips would. More of the formation of words seems to be done in the bird's throat. Or something.

"What else you wanna know?"

Athessa, taken aback, raises her eyebrows. What she wants to know now seems rude to ask, so she puts a lid on it.

"Never anyone of your...stature, is all." She tries to be delicate about it, instead of just coming out and saying I've never talked to a fucking bird and had it talk back, but it undoubtedly doesn't come off as a particularly smooth attempt at tact.

Myira laughs behind one wing. It's... kind of a harsh sound, honestly. More like a raucous cawing then human laughter.

"Oh, so you never talked to a raven before. Makese sense." She seems infinitely amused by the whole situation.

"I been gettin' that a lot here. Which ain't surprising since we didn't talk much to humans but people weren't as surprised by it back home..." She tilts her head to study Athessa.

"...Oh, you got the pointy ears. That makes you an elf, right? Someone told me that's what that means."

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Bird, bird, bird

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II. Exit, Pursued By Bird

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