Logs:Animorphs

Animorphs
or, why do you reward me this? A parrot’s lament
Dramatis Personae Echo, Naomi, Sriyani
In Absentia	2023-04-21 is that an archaeoceratops?!
Location <XAV> Music Room - Xs Second Floor / <???> A Weird Party
Wide and spacious, seating in this soundproofed room comes largely on the sweep of gentle risers that afford the teacher an easy view of all the budding performers, and add another dimension to the acoustics of the room. Instruments of all types are carefully stored around the room, and a grand piano, immaculately upkept, takes the position of prize near the back. In a nod to the eclectic studies of the students, digital mixing equipment and turntables rub shoulders with the classical instruments. Music stands sit in front of most of the seats, and the only windows look out out over the side of the school grounds. BAM. Probably this should be the door out to the hallway that's opening, but it is -- not, this is one of the many storage closets. Certainly much weirder things happen around the school than someone deciding to hide in there for whatever reasons are best known to them but no, nobody has squeezed themselves in among the loaner flutes -- there aren't any instruments, isn't even a closet anymore, there's a breeze coming from behind it. And noise, a lot of noise, voices and -- honks? Squawks? Some grunts? Squeals? A whistle or two? Hoofbeats. Definitely some yelling, though it sounds more communicative than pained. Just, a whole lot of noise that is certainly not music. Hang on, no, at least some of it is music, an operatic soprano singing in the background that is mostly drowned out by the rest. And here, in the forefront, a little flustered, Sriyani in trademark silver and green mask and cape, first calling over their shoulder "-- yes I know, they're just -- okay I -- hang on!" And then to the actual music room, the actual kids inside it: "Ohmygosh are you busy please don't be busy you gotta sec we will owe you like. Uh. -- ack!" Something is tugtugging their cape; they almost lose hold of the door though keep their foot in it to prop it open as their other foot kind of nudges away at the current Nuisance. Echo has been repeating the same measure over and over, a tricky and unusual series of intervals where at least one note keeps coming out on the wrong harmonic. Chops tired, she flutters her lips, emitting a discontented buzzing sound, her attention attuning seamlessly to the other sound in the room: Naomi Winters practicing a tricky marimba part for the spring concert. Echo's eyebrows draw together as she listens to the other girl repeat a rhythm. And closer. She looks at Naomi - one of the first straight-on glances since she successfully stopped looking at her every time any of the percussionists got called on - for one more repetition, her face twisting up in obvious reluctance, fingers picking at her wine-colored v-neck tee. When Naomi notices, because of course she does, Echo grimaces apologetically. "Sorry, sorry, it's just, you're rushing the first two notes of the triplet?" She holds a finger up and looks toward the ceiling; out of nowhere, the woody, natural tones Naomi just generated resound brightly in the room, centered as far toward Naomi as Echo can project, or, ten feet away from Echo, a little distant for Naomi. "See, there," she says, cutting it off and replaying just that section once again. She puts her finger down, flushing, and drops her gaze to the horn resting on her jeans, about to pick it up again when the chaos begins and her attention is assaulted by far too many sounds to focus on. Her mouth opens slightly, as though she is about to ask a question, but her eyes brighten as it dawns on her. "Is that--" The scowl threatening to overtake Naomi's face immediately halts and turns into -- shock? surprise? disbelief? "No I ain't--" Oh, no but she was, it seems. Naomi, wearing a sleeveless DIY croptop with a lightning bolt on the front and XAVIER'S PLAYERS PRESENT: THE LIGHTNING THIEF on the back, high waisted wide-legged jeans, and red hightops, leans forward towards the source of the sound. "Girl is that your power damn that is neat --" When the door opens, where Echo is hesitant Naomi is quick -- she attempts to vault herself over the marimba (it definitely takes longer than just going around would have) leaving her mallets (the same ones the M-kids rescued for her ages ago) abandoned on top of the instrument. "Hey, Doors!" Is this Sriyani's code name probably not. Naomi sounds bright and excited and focused when she passes Echo. "C'mon it's the M-Kids if they need us we gotta go." Naomi grabs Echo by the hand and tugs her along, putting her hand in the gap left by Sriyani's foot and pulling the door open. "What's the sitch?" Does walking through the door explain The Sitch any further? It very possibly does not. They're out in what looks like a very ordinary housing complex, that kind of samey-brownstone mix of loved and institutionally neglected that characterizes a certain segment of much subsidized housing, small sad patches of sparsely grassed yards with shabbily very-well-loved hand-me-down children's toys in them, heavy bars over most of the windows, crumbling but well-swept stoops. Are most projects also zoos? Probably most people do not mean quite this when they use that particular derogation. In one corner of the yard an aye-aye is perched in frozen alarm atop a capybara; a zebra looks like it wants to be stampeding away, a pelican is frozen mid-takeoff, an enormous hippo looks like it is about to take a bite out of -- well, Brendan looks much more chill about all this than he would if he were not Brendan, his corner of this menagerie currently frozen in their tracks. Nahida, a little bit less chill. There are piles and piles of rocks sprouting up around the complex -- it's becoming a little bit of a hazard, here a roadblock, there a towering leeeeaning wall -- as she tries kind of desperately to corral a number more confused, sort-of-fleeing sort-of... disoriented? Animals. The little armadillo Sriyani just shook off herself is now bumbling down a rocky-lined path, although, regrettably, not towards Brendan as presumably Nahida would have liked. A llama is attempting to barge into an apartment door, an entire elephant trying to get back out to the street, a -- is that an archaeoceratops?! -- attempting to clamber one of the sprouting rocky roadblocks, some kind of goat with looooong curled horns irritably butting over the piles of rocks as quickly as Nahida can make them. The singing is, improbably but less improbably than most of this, coming from an African Grey parrot who isn't evidently trying to escape all of this but sitting on an overturned tricycle, singing a Very Sad opera song all to itself. "Please tell me you can do your mojo on animals we gotta get these back over there," Nahida is pleading with Naomi. Did the goat understand her? It looks right at Naomi and blows her a raspberry. Somewhere in all this Nevaeh is popping out from around the corner, wide-eyed: "-- y'all we need some distraction right quick or we gon' have twelve down here in like, two seconds this girl cray but she don' need be in jail we just gotta fix this 'course this the one Friday night nobody's getting carjacked I swear!" Sriyani, having disgorged their very hopeful backup, is opening the same door that just went to the X-Mansion onto a small and messy bedroom that Very Much Looks like it belongs to a preteen girl. Resuming an argument that presumably has been ongoing: "-- turn them back." The child inside -- grass-stained jeans, Starfire tee shirt, colorful beads in her neatly braided hair -- just heaves a heavy sigh. As if this is clear justification: "Kyla took my bike." A rare full smile splits Echo's face as Naomi's scowl evaporates, her eyes betraying that it is 40% made of relief, but there is no time for that as Naomi grabs her hand and Echo is shoving her glasses up her nose as though visual clarity will suddenly resolve the dinosaur into something else. She does not have the focus of a seasoned superhero, eyes darting every which way, but her head whips back to Nevaeh when she says distraction. Her mouth opens and closes a couple times and then she sprints in the outward direction that isn't covered in a rock wall and darts across the street to the stores. Her heart pounds as the officers materialize from down the street. Echo crouches, squeezed behind a dumpster; from around the corner, as the cops are about to cross the street, centered somewhere by the two empty storefronts, the kind of painfully shrill scream that can only come out of a child's throat, followed by grade schooler sobbing, drowns out both the zoo and the party across the street. Echo stitches together more and more aggressive crying punctuated by an occasional "No!" and "Don't touch me!" and "Please, someone help me!!!" She holds her breath until the cops finally begin to bang on doors and then head round the back of the store. Echo slips out and runs back to the real emergency. "Sent 'em looking for my sister," she gets out, panting as she tries to deduce what exactly happened while she was gone. "She could always scream bloody murder when you tried to comb her hair." "...Ohmygod." Naomi was not prepared for this particular nonsense. "Uh! I got no clue? Is that a dinosaur?" Her forehead is forming ridges where on skin there would be some furrow. "I ain't ever tried on no dinosaur uh girl do you think they know English?” She’s turning to ask Echo this, but, Echo is dashing down the street. Naomi, helpfully, blows a raspberry back at the goat. Well, no time like the present. Naomi takes a deep breath, stepping forward from where Sriyani is doing some Very Good Arguing, closes her eyes. Opens them again with a bright flash of emerald glow, eyes matching some of the animals with the slitted pupils and full irises. "'ALL RIGHT ANIMALS!'" She bellows, with enough volume to make up for the deep lack of confidence underneath the psionic hissing. "'SHUT UP AND GO SIT BY BRENDAN!'" Her power does not include conditions for nonverbal commands, but Naomi is helpfully pointing at the lone boy M-Kid. Adds on, more helpfully, “'NOW!'” Do llamas speak English? Do Elephants? These particular animals do, anyway, dinosaur included, apparently. It takes a moment for all of them to collect themselves, though this seems to have more to do with the fact that they are not universally adept at using all their limbs than that they are refusing the order. But, eventually, they have all stumbled through the courtyard and back into the loving surreal embrace of Brendan's time-freeze bubble. Nahida heaves a sigh of relief, giving Naomi a deeply grateful look as she starts meandering through the mess, rocks starting to dwindle and vanish behind her. Over at her lookout perch around the corner of the complex, Nevaeh gives Echo a happy thumbs-up. Sriyani, meanwhile... "... want me to tell Aunt Dee about this, Dayna?" This, apparently, the magic threat, because the girl's eyes go big-big and she reluctantly leaves the temporarily courtyard-adjacent bedroom, trudging across to where Kyla (presumably) and company have been put on pause. Scowls at them. Scowls a little more intently. Froooowns.... then nudges Brendan. "... oh shit yeah," he replies, a little sheepishly. Pause turns into a kind of odd molasses-motion, chaos in slow-mo, a sluggish confusion of limbs and hooves and wings that, just as sluggish, melts down into hands and arms and feet, baffled faces, dirt-stained jeans, a feather still sticking out of a jersey. The slow-mo hold releases. A tumult of middle schoolers start to leap towards a suddenly squeaking Dayna. The pause button resumes. Sryiani's round face scrunches into a sheepish apology as they start back for a door. "... you all are lifesavers. We --" They glance back over their shoulder as they open the door, again, onto the familiar confines of the music room. "Might still be a while." The proud grin coming over Echo's face for the second time that day as she returns two thumbs up to Nevaeh, close to her chest, is something like a blue moon. The silence registers, suddenly, and Echo gives Naomi ten percent of the look of awe she then turns on the reconfiguring teenagers as flesh is made malleable. Echo whistles. "Good luck," she stage whispers to Sriyani, sparing one last backward glance before shrugging and jerking her head towards the door. The door shuts behind them and Echo lets out a deep breath, then squeezes her eyes together for a minute. When she opens them, she's laughing. "Did you hear the--" the squawky soprano singing fills the room, followed by a disgruntled dinoroar. "So those are the M-kids. Can't wait for her paleozoology papers."