[Voice]

[espigeonage]

[It's 11 PM on a Sunday night and Julien is bored.]

Galu, network. Random request: tell me a story.

Any story! Tell me about something that happened to you, or the other you. Or a fairytale, a joke that requires setup, something you read about in the paper, something you want to happen or really, really don't. Let me guess which one it is. I can tell you one, or a poem, or play you something from a dystopian future.

Yeah, I got the password to the other me's smartphone. It's got a lot of weird nonhuman future-music on it, and a couple of movies that haven't come out here yet. Seems like the library's got corrupted somehow, but there's still stuff there.

Comments

[espigeonage]

[To match, Julien too goes to video. The angle doesn't really show his wings, but some feathers can be seen at the edges of his sleeveless shirt.

He waits a minute, but apparently that's it.]

...Huh. I see. Smart cat then?

[allformii_ko]

I think so. Cats don't know how to use doors normally. I wonder where she learned it?

[Hmmm...]

Why do you have feathers?

[espigeonage]

Well, I have a friend whose dog used to be able to open them, if they had handles. He got too old though.

[Julien shifts in place a little.]

I got a pulse that made me grow them.

[allformii_ko]

But dogs are so dumb! He really learned how?

[Mimi, that's not very nice.]

Why did you have feathers if you're a human?

[espigeonage]

Yep. He figured it out all by himself, apparently.

Pulses! Like I said. It's very annoying!

[allformii_ko]

But humans don't have feathers. Feathers are for birds.

[espigeonage]

Nonetheless, I'm growing them. And still calling myself human unless I go and get a pulse that changes my mind for me.

[allformii_ko]

So even though you have feathers you're still human?

[espigeonage]

Basically! Even if biologically I'm not. If I lost a leg and had to put on a prosthetic to walk, I'd still be human.

[allformii_ko]

Bio--

Pros--

[Huh?]

I don't know those words.

[espigeonage]

Okay. Biologically... here I'm using it like the things you look at to see what an animal is. A human goes on two legs and has flat feet, very little hair, long grasping fingers, no tail, and a fleshy short face. A dog is on all fours and on its toes, has lots of hair everywhere, stubby clawed fingers, a tail, and its face can be long or short but is less fleshy.

Prosthetics are replacements for missing pieces. A peg leg is a prosthetic, but they also make more advanced ones.

[allformii_ko]

So it's because they're biologically?

[Yep.]

And... and you can have a weird leg if you're missing one?

[espigeonage]

Pretty much - it's that if you look at something with fur on all fours and a tail you're more likely to think of it as like a dog than like a human.

[yeah he isn't sure where he'd start with real explaining.]

And um... I meant more that a guy with just one normal leg is still human, he's not less human because of the weird new one.

[allformii_ko]

Ohhh.

...

But a human with feathers is weird.

[Yeah, she's kind of stuck on that one.]

[espigeonage]

Don't I know it. Pulses get like that sometimes.

[allformii_ko]

...

You mean like... I could get feathers too?

[espigeonage]

Maybe. 'S not impossible!

[allformii_ko]

[She looks downright offended at the idea.]

I don't want feathers! I'm a cat!

[espigeonage]

I don't think the pulses care much. So, a cat huh?

[allformii_ko]

[Poof! Once the smoke clears, a dark grey tabby can be seen.]

Uh-huh.

[espigeonage]

[Julien blinks his weird transparent inner eyelids.]

...I see.

So I guess the human thing was a pulse?

[allformii_ko]

I remembered I could look human first, so I kept trying it until one day I could.

[So. Yes? Probably?]

[espigeonage]

Huh. Convenient! I gotta say I'm kind of jealous of shapeshifters.

[allformii_ko]

I can't stay that way forever, though!

[espigeonage]

No? Why not?