[OPEN] When everything starts to fall

[espigeonage]

Who: Julien and OPEN!
Where: Pretty much anywhere.
When: Now up until April 29. Putting the date in the subject line's cool!
What: Come, spend a little of the time you have left with a big white bird.



[Some prompts! You don't have to stick with them.]

Julien's birthday is on the 25th. No party this year, but he wants to see his friends and spend some time with them. Go out to eat, stay home and cook, just hang out on couch cushions put on the floor, anything's good.

He builds bonfires on several evenings, in several different places, and watches them into the night. And roasts things on them. Were you drawn by the fire? Want some marshmallows?

And of course, he flies and walks anywhere. In Locke he feeds the glossy, overlarge pigeons, setting down seed. Elsewhere he buys grain and oats and such in bulk, not seeming to notice the attention someone who looks like a pigeon the size of a small horse attracts. Maybe he goes swimming off the coast of Christmas Island. Maybe he struggles with stairs. The sight of him in flight or landing is impressive.

Comments

April 19th

[charcoalfeather]

The days were stretching on, longer and longer, getting hotter as well. Summer was approaching quicker then Rakka thought it would, but that was in the least of her concerns.

So, she had taken a walk, this fine evening. It could help to clear her head.... or make it even worse by making her focus on her thoughts. Sigh.

And then, she spotted the bonfire. It wasn't until she was closer that she recognized who was tending to it.

"...Julien?"

[espigeonage]

The issue with keeping a nice big fire going was how the light of it made it harder to see anything else. Julien turned his head and adjusted the pupil on that side. The afterimage of the bright light faded quickly.

"Suil, Rakka. Nice night, huh?"

[charcoalfeather]

The initial surprise Rakka had felt melted away, replaced by a more happy sensation. It wasn't everyday that she saw Julien anymore. She opened her mouth, only to find a lack of words there.

Nice. She smiled all the same. "Uh, yes! It's beautiful right now."

She started to move closer to the fire, and Julien. "I... It's been a while."

[espigeonage]

"It has, a bit." He looks at her, face fixed and impossible to read. At least she knows who he is now. Julien is not happy about what's happened to him, but for the most part he shoulders it better than he did back then. "Hey, mind pulling out a few strands of hair or a feather and putting them in the fire?"

[charcoalfeather]

"I guess you'd want to get away, now that you're a giant bird." There may have been a joke in there somewhere. Or, it could have been a straight up observation.

She gave him a look of confusion. "Uh, my hair...?"

[espigeonage]

"I'm not a giant bird. I just look like one," he tells her patiently. It's an insistence he makes a lot these days. Even if he doesn't look anything like the others anymore, he's human.

"Humor me! Yuuya was part of this religion where you could use fires to talk to the moon and stars. I'm not part of it, but it's still fun burning things."

[charcoalfeather]

She caught herself and gave him a quick nod. "Right. I'm sorry."

"...Burning things can be fun, I guess." Sure, why not. She'd humor Julien and his bird religion. She reached behind her back, feeling along her wing until she felt a particularly loose feather and tugged it out. She quietly winced. "Ow!"

She looked into the fire, blazing before her, and tossed it in, watching the feather quickly burn up from the heat.

[espigeonage]

He nodded back.

"Aww, yeah. See how that catches? A fire like this is just so cheerful," he said. "You want some marshmallows or something?"

[charcoalfeather]

"Yeah, it's pretty..." She watched the fire briefly, seeing the feather turn to ash.

Well now, that catches her attention. "Ooh, marshmallows sound good."

[espigeonage]

Producing the bag and a stick, he holds them both out in spidery grasping feathers. "Here, stick them yourself. I should've brought s'more stuff."

He wouldn't have. It's so hard to get chocolate and marshmallow melt out of his feathers.

[charcoalfeather]

She carefully took a stick and the bag of marshmallows from Julien's grasp. Rakka spoke lightly, as she stuck a few marshmallows onto the pointed end. Two seemed like a good number. "Oh. Don't worry. There can always be s'more s'mores."

She's funny, apparently.

[bythewaves]

"Come on Benedict, you know you like marshmallows." Arnold is all but dragging his doopple.

"But... fire... and ... things could burn, and... maybe Julien just wants to spend time with you?"

[espigeonage]

Julien hears them arguing from a ways away, but pretends he doesn't notice them until they're within the light cast by the fire.

"Gwannas lu and," he says, though it really hasn't been long at all. "You guys mind pulling out a few strands of hair and throwing them in?"

[bythewaves]

"Suilad" They both answer him automatically, and Arnold giggles at the fact that they did so in synch while Benedict blushes and looks down.

"Hair?" Arnold blinks at Julien and pulls a strand free to throw on the fire. "Sure?"

"What's it for?" Benedict does the same

[espigeonage]

"Awww, stereo act," he teases mildly. "For the fire! I'm doing it too."

Julien's got a messenger bag with a strap made very much longer to fit him. Earlier a small feather had come loose preening - that's not good, he doesn't want to be molting - and now he takes that, gets it to adhere to a stick with some saliva, and pokes it into the flames. There's an immediate smell of roasting meat, stronger than the stink of hair burning.

"Yuuya - the other me - at some point he was the leader of this cult that used fires to pray to the stars and moon. I don't exactly believe, but it's nice sometimes."

[bythewaves]

Arnold pauses, eyes blanking, and Benedict presses into his side worriedly as he blinks back.

"A Elbereth, Gilthoniel" he murmurs and shakes himself, squeezing Benedict's hand in reassurance.

"The elves apparently agree with you? I just got... a prayer, I think? To... Varda, Queen of Stars"

[espigeonage]

"Elbereth! Yeah, Aaron's brought her up before," he says, amused. "If we've got a bad enough interfaith smoothie going on here maybe you can present her with a wish or request here, huh?"

[bythewaves]

"I think Elves must have a thing about multiple names." Arnold says dryly. "My other self apparently had three. And if I'm reading this echo right, Elbereth is also Varda is also Gilthoniel.... who knows how many other names they gave her. Not sure if she's a goddess or what though."

"Signs point to goddess though" says Benedict quietly.

[espigeonage]

"I know she's a heaven-queen. Maybe that's goddess, I don't know!" He wants to ask after their other self's names, but that's something better volunteered than prompted. "The names are a thing with fantasyland in general. You should hear how many names the other Aaron had. Also, Yuuya - someone he knew wrote him as this paladin in a really overblown comic, and gave him way too many names and titles."

[bythewaves]

Arnold frowns thoughtfully, mouthing the words to himself, "Hnm, if I'm translating this right, the 'name', is Elbereth, and then... Gilthoniel is a title? And they use Fanuilos as a title as well, and if the translation is right it implies some sort of ... angelic being, I think. Huh. I never thought of it as a Fanstasyland thing - but it'd make sense, I guess. Although at least one of other-me's names is actual just a translation."

"You should sing it for him" Benedict prods. "Julien speaks Sindarin just as well as you."

Arnold flushes and shoves back fondly. "No way! I'm not a singer!"

"You are now."

[espigeonage]

He's tickled to hear Arnold use the term 'Fantasyland'. There probably is a proper, serious name for that world but no one else has called it by that silly name yet.

"I wouldn't say 'as well'. Aaron taught me. It's not one of my pulses." Even if he kind of wishes it had been. Yuuya seems like someone trying to be a good person, but Julien doesn't enjoy occupying something like his body except when actively flying. "You should both sing it! C'mon. I'm sure you're good!" He curves his neck and tilts his head in the cutest position he knows.

The couple hymns Aaron has sung for him were in Quenya, which Julien has far more marginal understanding of.

I'll take the 25th, if no one else wants it -- assume Julien knows Aaron is crashing at Gabe's?

[elfstoned]

Aaron is outside -- he spends a lot of time out of doors, these days, finding it more comfortable -- when he sees Julien approach. He covers his eyes with a hand and calls out a greeting:

"Hello! I wondered if you'd show up."

[espigeonage]

Up there Julien is circling, his tail tipping and adjusting behind him so he stays stable. He does a wing-waggle, rocking from side to side before tightening the circle, starting to spiral down. It's less noisy and windy than a hurried landing but still, dramatic as hell. Lower he goes, balancing on the edge of how slowly he can fly before he'd stall and drop out of the air, until he's low enough to do just that. It's a light landing, even if the earth nearby trembles.

He's got earbuds in, though feathers cover all but the cord, and his ears are closer to his eyes and lower down than someone might expect them to be. Julien hooks a clawed thumb into the Y where the cords meet and pulls the earbuds out. "Suil - this is where I take a stab and guess I should say I might as well be here, huh? I'm middling at lip-reading."

The song continues playing, tinny but audible, until he can get out Yuuya's ridiculously tiny phone and pause it. "I told people no presents, but I couldn't say no to these. I regenerate hearing damage, did you know?" It's a bird thing.

[mistakesmakeuswhoweare]

Like Isabela would miss his birthday.

"Hey, Blue. Made it through another year, huh?"

[espigeonage]

"Afraid so! I was so much handsomer then." He's breezy and unconcerned-sounding, like nothing bothers him, especially this. "Nothing dims your smolder, though."