[open + closed]

[thereneverwas]

WHO: Barrow, Benedict, Brother Gideon, Bfifi, Bmado, you??
WHAT: June catch-all
WHEN: Justinianish
WHERE: around and about the Gallows
NOTES: Individual character starters below, hit me up if you want something specific.

Comments

[muckspout]

Edgard blinks a moment. It seems that Mado is alright, but he can't be too sure.

"Did what work?" He looks up into the sky. "Are you running from someone?"

[lumelume]

"Running?"

Mado blinks at him pleasantly.

"I'm practicing. Did it work? Was I a bird?"

[muckspout]

A long concerned pause stretches.

"Mado." Edgard says seriously. "You become a dog."

Maybe he hit his head a little too hard?

[lumelume]

"That's the very thing!"

Mado's gaze brightens, and he sits up quickly, perhaps quickly enough to bonk his head with Edgard's.

"Do you remember-- the dream we shared, how I flew after you? I was a bird! I could become a dog and a bird!"

[muckspout]

Edgard shakes his head.

"Don't remember you flying after me, just--" He looks to the ground and blushes a little.

He grasps Mado's hand and makes to pull him up, smiling widely, trying to cover up that memory.

"Think you could be a bird for real?" He turns to look from where he's been jumping. "There a safer way to figure this out?"

[lumelume]

Mado is light and easily pulled to his feet, a motion which he assists with a cheerful little jump, as though it were all choreographed.

"I think so," he affirms, following Edgard's gaze to the ledge and back, "but it's been so long since I started being a dog. I was a boy on the street, and it felt natural at the time."

[muckspout]

Edgard frowns a little. He has a hard time believing Mado ever wasn't a dog.

"Can you remember the first time? Was there something that made it happen?"

[lumelume]

Mado's eyes go distant for a long moment.

"I suppose," he muses, "I sort of just... felt it to be so. It made sense that my being should be arranged thus."

He knits his brow, looking back at Edgard. "Perhaps I offer some request that the Fade grants, but I don't know enough about it."

[muckspout]

Edgard is silent for a moment, thinking.

"Does it make sense to you that you're a bird or do you want to be a bird?"

Edgard shakes his head.

"Don't know anything about this, but maybe you should think about what birds are like and what they want."

Edgard fully sits down on the floor cross legged to contemplate this. What does a bird want?

[lumelume]

Pursing his lips in a frown, Mado considers this. It's not unlike the line of thinking he's already taken, but putting it into words, it's more sensible.

He sinks into a crouch, hands folded in front of him. What birds are like; what they really want.

"They want food," he explains to no one, "like a dog wants food. But a dog is pleasant. People want to give it food."

[muckspout]

Edgard nods.

"Birds have to get food. They have to-"

He makes flapping motions with his hands and then points them downward in a dive.

"But they don't need food like dogs need food. They're little. Some eat seeds!"

He looks at Mado again.

"What sort of bird are you?"

[lumelume]

"I was a rock dove," Mado muses, "which suits me fine. Not too small, not too big. They're everywhere, innocuous! Easy to sit and listen."

He taps his chin.

"I thought perhaps if I were falling, I could convince myself to fly. But perhaps there's more to it than that."

[muckspout]

Edgard shrugs.

"Don't know anything about doves, but I do know that birds don't fall. They just-"

Edgard leaps up and flaps his arms with a springing motion while his face is concentrated in deep thought.

"They just jump up and fly." His eyes widen and his face lights up with a sudden idea.

"Wait! I saw someone throw a dove once and it flew away. Should I throw you?"

[lumelume]

Mado considers it, brow furrowed. Then he nods.

"Can't hurt to try," he muses, "though I suppose throwing myself is what I was trying to do. Maybe it will help if someone else does it?"

[muckspout]

Edgard looks Mado head to foot, sizing him up. He stretches his arms over his head.

"You very heavy?" He asks. "Do you want me to throw you up or more--" He points in front of him. "out?"

He then looks directly upward in thought and silently motions cupping his hands and then spreading his arms apart, exactly how one would release a dove.

[lumelume]

"I shouldn't think so," Mado answers pleasantly enough, "and besides, you'll only be doing half the work! I can hold myself up, if you grip my ankles."

So we're doing this.

"Perhaps out, in case I should land back on you. I'm not that heavy, but I'll be concentrating on magic, not on where my feet are."

[muckspout]

"Ankles." Edgard says to himself while scanning Mado all the way down to the, well, ankles.

He squats down and grabs Mado by the ankles, frowning.

"The problem is you're not a bird yet. Maybe you should climb up on me?"

He is still holding Mado's ankles in indecision.