[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

[allformii_ko]

I can't stay that way forever, though!

[espigeonage]

No? Why not?

[allformii_ko]

It gets hard to focus after a while, and then I change back.

[espigeonage]

So do you have to be focusing the whole time you uh look human?

[allformii_ko]

Uh-huh. That's how I change how I look. It doesn't work unless I think about it.

[espigeonage]

Cool! Though it does sound like it could be tiresome. So can you make yourself look like a different human? Or like a catgirl?

[allformii_ko]

Cat girl?

[She's already a girl and she's already a cat, what's the difference?]

I either look like a cat or a human. And I only look that way when I change.

[espigeonage]

Part human, part cat. People think they're cute.

All one or all the other?

[allformii_ko]

But I'm already cute.

[Obviously.]

Yeah. Just cat, or just looking human.

[espigeonage]

Hah... [He doesn't dislike cats particularly, but neither is he at all drawn to them.]

Still, it sounds useful. Uh... so, looking human, does that mean you can get things off shelves and stuff that cats can't?

[allformii_ko]

Uh-huh. And open doors and write and things like that.

[espigeonage]

Hm. Yeah, I'm a little jealous!

[allformii_ko]

...? Why are you jealous?

[espigeonage]

I'd like to be able to turn into a normal human! Or at least seem like it. Feathers are annoying.

[allformii_ko]

Because it's like being stuck as a bird?

[Ew. Who'd want that?]

[espigeonage]

[He winces.]

It might go that way. Even now I'm really big and showy.

[allformii_ko]

...?

What do you mean?

[espigeonage]

[Julien shrugs, feathery shoulders rising and falling.]

My legs are longer and my wings are huge. I can't go anywhere now without people staring.

[allformii_ko]

[...Now wait just a minute.]

You have wings?!

[espigeonage]

There are a lot of feathers.

[allformii_ko]

Wings are different from feathers!

Were you a bird or something before?

[espigeonage]

Feathers make up wings, though.

I was normal, before. The other me, I have no idea.

[allformii_ko]

They're still different!

[Has she been talking to a bird this whole time? Hn.]

That's too weird. Even when I remember things, I was always a cat.

[espigeonage]

A wing is just an arm with feathers on.

Well, me and the guy I'm getting pulses from are two completely different people.

[allformii_ko]

How different?