ArchivedLogs:Pride and Privilege

Pride and Privilege
Dramatis Personae Corey, Ducky, Hive, Horus
In Absentia	2013-04-21 '
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. Two days in a /row/ Hive has been up before noon. He at least, today, does not look as /angry/ about it as yesterday. He's sitting on the playground in the park, perched up on top of a jungle gym, a pair of cinnamon sugar pretzels in his lap and an as-yet unlit cigarette in one hand. Dressed in ratty sneakers, fading jeans, a olive shirt with BLUE SUN printed on it in navy and a few chinese characters beneath, he looks fairly nondescript. Though the park is rather populated today, the /other/ playgrounds here bustling with children, people are giving his section of the playground a wide berth. Maybe New York is /really/ anti-smoking. Likely, though, it has more to do with his companion. Also perched on the jungle gym is one very large -- bird? Perhaps bird. Over four feet tall and with an impressively enormous wingspan, large beak, long tail, strong talons, the mottled bluegrey-black-white-tan creature skittering up the bars of the jungle gym to come investigate Hive's pretzels /looks/ certainly like no bird found in New York. Or perhaps anywhere. And looking close enough might discern the underlying cause of the hostile glares the bird-boy is getting; his torso rather too /human/ in shape to really be birdlike, his bright eyes distinctly intelligent. It turns people's stares from curious to wary, to disgusted, to hostile. Hive just breaks off a piece of pretzel, offering it over for Horus to snatch up in his beak. If he cares about people's discomfort, it doesn't show. Dressed in long black and silver track pants with a brown fleece pull over on, Corey was out for a morning jog on his day off. His long legs ate up side walk pretty quickly, and he was passing the dog park already as he saw the other figures about. Slowing down into more of a walk, he was still watching curiously as he paused at a bench to take a swig from a bottle of water. He'd seen a fish boy before, so why not a bird man, it was definitely something different to see, but he was happy the figure had somene with it, feeding it pretzel it seemed. An unimpressive looking girl strolls along the path, wearing blue jeans and a baggy, worn looking OLD NAVY hooded sweatshirt in either a dark gray or very faded black, carrying a bag with several half finished loaves of bread and other groceries. She's idly talking to herself, it seems, although upon closer inspection, she seems to be talking to a small gray and white pidgeon perched on her shoulder. - the bird appears to blend into her hoody quite handily. Her thoughts, consequently, appear to be broadcasting the conversation she is having with the bird - apparently about some jumpy guy and a bunch of stereotypical thugs from the day before. However - upon noticing the exceedingly large hawk/falcon/bird, she veers off course, and heads striaght for the swingset where Hive and the hawk-man are sitting. Her eyes are wide in wonder, and she smiles up at the large bird. "Hello," Ducky says, her voice quiet, but her thoughts broadcasting the exact same thing, although there is a second series of thoughts in loud screeches and squeaks. She appears to completely ignore Hive, her attention entirely focused on the amazingly large bird near him. Hive lets Horus take the chunk of pretzel off his palm, cigarette dangling loosely from his lips. He kind of winces as people approach, dipping a hand into his pocket to light his cigarette. His eyes narrow on Corey, for a long moment. "Hey!" he calls, loud, over towards the bench. "Hey. You. Dude." So descriptive. It gets a few random Dude's eyes turning towards him, but Hive's only looking towards Corey. At least until that squeaking-screeching voice nears, and then he grimaces again with a long drag on his smoke. "You talking to a fucking pigeon?" he asks Ducky. Horus gulps down his pretzel bite and looks from Hive to Ducky. He is instinctively tensing upon the approach of a stranger. head ducking, tail fanning, his wings quivering. But he stares at her more intently when she is evidently /talking/ to him rather than throwing rocks at him and at first he answers Hive, a quiet chattering in no human words though his /thoughts/ clarify it: "{/I/ talk to pigeons.}" "You are a fucking pigeon," Hive grumbles. Horus answers this with a head-bob, a click of tongue against beak. It's amused. "{I'm /bigger/.}" His head tilts, one direction then another. He answers Ducky with uncertain caution: "{-- Were you talking to me?}" Glancing around a moment to see who else might have been getting called for as Dude, Corey finally realized that he was the one being address. With a smile, he started to walk over to the fellow who was addressing him, then raised a brow as he started to yell at the girl. If nothing else he was curious at being addressed, more so by the foul mouthed one than the presence of the the bird and the girl. "Hey there, whats up?" He couldn't recognize the fellow, even from his usual shift at Montagues, but maybe the guy knew him instead from the other night at Heaven. Ducky regards Hive with curiosity when he confronts her about her discussion with the pidgeon, frowning a bit, "Um, yes? I kinda, um, yeah." She shuffles away from Hive, apparently not sure how to address the question other wise. She then turns her attention back to Horus, smiling nervously and nodding her head, "Yes. I was saying hello, if, um, that's ok? If not, I can go away, I didn't mean to disturb you, but you seemed, well, I'm new to the city, and couldn't help but come over to say hi." Her thoughts echo the same thing, along with the accompanying screeing as an undercurrent. "I'm, um, I'm Ducky," she says, still smiling still, speaking to Horus. "You can understand him." Hive says this with more interest, if no less gruff than his previous question. He leans slightly forward from his perch up on the jungle gym, elbow propped against his knees. A stream of blue-grey smoke is exhaled from his nose. "{Not disturbing,}" Horus says again, head still tilted to one side as he looks at Ducky. "{People just don't usually talk to me.}" He is quiet a moment, then slide-steps sideways along the bar of the jungle gym to scoot closer to Hive. His beak stabs downward , snatching a large piece of pretzel off of Hive's lap. He scoots along the bars of the equipment, sliding downwards closer to ground level to proffer the piece of pretzel out towards Ducky in offering. Hive is watching this interaction, partly curious, partly wary. But his gaze slides away to Corey. "Fishboy," he says, even though Corey never /voiced/ this thought. "What fish boy do you know?" Raising a brow again as he gave Hive another look, Corey seemed a tad confused, really trying to remember the man. He just had a tendency towards honesty anyway, "Well I met him in the park, near the resevoir actually. Grumpy fellow, chip on his shoulder, but well with the way the world is, I doubt he's had an easy time of it." The thought to his conversation with Shane, directed his gaze to Horus a moment, though he hadn't heard anything that was being said between bird boy and the girl. Shaking his head, he looked back to Hive. "I think his name is Shane, unless there is another person matching his description. I can't imagine its a common mutation." Nodding slowly to Hive, Ducky says, "Yeah. Apparently I can. This is cool." She grins broadly, and accepts the piece of pretzel from Horus, and breaks off a small piece for herself before holding the rest out to him again, "Thank you. I don't really talk to people much, and most people kinda ignore me anyway. But, well, I couldn't /not/ say hi to you, since I kinda talk to birds way more than I talk to people." Of course, Hive is subject to all the mental squeaks, clicks and screeches of this conversation, too. Ducky is not exactly the most mentally sheilded of mutants, it would seem. At the approach of the new comer, and the discussion of a fish boy in the reseviour, the young girl shifts a bit further away from Hive and Corey, standing closer to Horus at this point. She seems apprehensively jumpy each time someone approaches. She reaches up to pet the pidgeon on her shoulder as an almost compulsive comforting action - holding up a tiny piece of the pretzel to the bird. Horus skitters back up the jungle gym when Corey speaks, retreating to stand near Hive. He pecks up another bite of pretzel, cinnamon sugar showering downward. "{You know him?}" he asks Hive uncertainly. But then shifts his attention back to Ducky. "{Most people ignore me, too. Where are you from?}" Hive sucks a little harder at his cigarette. "Haaah. Another person matching his --" His smile is wry at this. "Does have kind of a different look, doesn't he." But his smile fades. "He's been through fucking hell," he tells Corey, "The reservoir? When did you see him?" Though Corey's mind was a passage of time, as if he were trying to gauge the when through a series of land marks more than a date and time, perhaps he wasn't very good at it keeping track of time. "About a weeks ago maybe? Less than two weeks at least. Does he live in the reservoir?" He did seem somewhat curious about the fellow, though maybe it was just the angry state he was left in. "And yeah, I imagine theres a lot of that going around." He did again look to Horus at that, though he smiled to assuage the fellow that he wasn't going to hurt him any when it backed away. Ducky isn't sure what the two guys are talking about, but she picks up on the mention of someone living in the reseviour, and frowns slightly. "I think I've heard of that sort of thing. The ducks that live there have mentioned it, but weren't exactly specific. They were a bit spooked and didn't want to talk about it." She shakes her head and looks down at the bag, apparently having been intending to take lunch to the duckies at the resevior. She then looks up at Horus again and nods, tilting her head slightly, "I grew up outside of Chicago. And then I sort of ended up here, because, well, yeah," she looks sheepish for a moment, and scuffles her feet in the sand of the playground, "And so now I'm in New York, because I didn't have anywhere else to go, really. Lady at the homeless shelter helped me get a job, 'cause she was nice, and," her voice grows quieter as she talks, and eventually trails off entirely. A slight blush colors her cheeks when she realizes she was babbling on again. "No. Doesn't live in the reservoir." Hive puffs at his cigarette again, blowing the smoke back out irritably. "He's missing and his dad's worried sick. S'a lot of shitty people out there that --" His head shakes. "He's worried. -- You're homeless? That sucks. How old are you, kid?" His eyes shift back over to Ducky. Horus pecks at the pretzel again. "{I was in Chicago. Once. Cold.}" His feathers ruffle up, as if in memory. Of cold. "{I think a lot of people end up in New York because we don't have anywhere else to go. Have more pretzel.}" He snaps off a bigger piece, skittering warily back down towards the ground to offer it out. His eyes are still cautiously on Corey, though. It's ony a moment later that he offers, even though the man can't understand him, "{-- You want some pretzel?}" "Oh wow, I wish I had known that then. Mel didn't think there was anything wrong when I was hired on." Corey was frowning at that, then he picked up on the homeless thing too and looked over to Ducky. "Oh wow, um, if you need any help, I can talk with Mel or Micah, they know all the local help things going on. Micah might know a bit more, I was helping him plant a garden for the local's." With the offer of the pretzel bit from Horus, he smiled an accepted it. "Mighty kind of you, thank you very much. I'm Corey, pleasure to meet you. 'Fraid I can't understand a word you're saying though." Which caused him to give the girl another look, since she seemed to be able to. Ducky blushes a deeper red and shuffles away a bit, looking like she's about the bolt. "Um, I'm, um, I'm..." she mutters something impossible to hear, although Hive can almost certainly hear he thinking her age 17 and then telling herself to shut up and not say anything about that. She grimaces, and acceptes the other piece of pretzel, nibbling on it idly as she does. "But, um, yeah, I kinda don't have a home, per se. Just, um," the girl looks like she is about to bolt, but, it's a park, and there isn't anywhere to run to. The mention of the missing boy, however, gets her to pause, and look sideways at Hive and Corey. "Um, I can ask my friends to, um, look around?" she holds up the pidgeon that's been perched on her shoulder, "UNless he's not in the city, in which case, well, it's kinda not helpful." "Mel? Micah? Jegus fuck, this is a small city." Hive takes one last drag of his cigarette and stumps it out against the frame of the jungle gym. "Wait, you /work/ at Montagues? Shane works at Montagues." His head shakes. He studies Ducky thoughtfully. "-- You still at a shelter now? You need a place?" He shoves the cigarette stub into his pocket, glancing to Horus. "He was just asking if you wanted a pretzel. His name's Horus." Horus twitters at this, head bobbing. He backs quickly up the jungle gym again, though, once Corey has taken the pretzel. "{I've been looking. But they're sharks. Probably underwater.}" "Yeah he's supposed to be working there. I hadn't seen him yet, Mel's been worried about him." Corey let out a sigh, shaking his head. "And yeah, New York seems a helluva lot smaller than it ought to be. Hell, you probably know Jax too." He did however watch the girl as she mentioned her friends, with a tilt of his head. "You know a lot of people then?" Ducky frowns and nibbles on the piece of pretzel some more, "Um, i'm kinda bouncing around to shelters. It depends on when it is, and where I am, and which ones don't mind the face I sometimes have a flock of birds following me and making all sorts of noise." She looks down and sighs a bit, now holding the pidgeon in her hands and petting it idly. "Do you have a desctiption of the missing kid? I mean, I'm new, so I have no idea who you're talking about, but, well, if he's lost and his parents are worried, thats not good." Ducky nods emphatically, although the mental image of her own family flashes to the forefront, bringing an outward grimace to her young face. Looking askance at Corey, Ducky holds up the pidgeon she's been petting, "Um, well, not exactly people, but, um, I give them bread and talk to them, and they seem to like me well enough." She nods to Horus, "I well, I can ask the ducks if they've seen anything in particular? And, um, I can see if I can get lots of birds to go look at once? It might work, sometimes, although they're kinda easily distracted." Holding the pidgeon up so she can look it in the eye, she offers it a nibble of the pretzel she has been slowly eating, "So, can you do that?" To Hive, the undercurrent of the statement is now quiet coos and trills, instead of the screeches and whistles it had been for Horus. Apparently her brain translates. "Blue," Hive answers Ducky. "Sharky. Teeth. Gills. Webbed fingers." "{Pretty eyes,}" Horus twitters, and Hive reflexively translates for Corey: "Pretty eyes." Horus snaps up a piece of the second pretzel, happily munching it down. "{Is she in school -- are you in school?}" He directs this first to Hive and then to Horus. "{You can come live in my room,}" he offers, because clearly Can Talk To Birds is the only prerequisite he needs for roommates. "... he's offering her his room," Hive translates again, bemused. "Um. It'd have to be water birds, they're likely in the water. You know Jax, too." His eyes narrow on Corey. His fingers drumb against a bar of the jungle gym. "He's Shane's dad." As that bit of information was dropped on him, Corey's mouth dropped a bit in surprise. "How old is he? Shane seemed almost as old as he is..." Confusion as images of both of them side by side in his head, then shook his head. "Ya know, I'm thinking that there is a whole going on that I'm pretty sure I'm missing out on details wise." Running a hand through his head, he set that aside to focus back on Ducky, "Thats pretty damn useful being able to talk to birds. I bet all sorts of vets and zoos would love to hire someone on who could do that... Well, assuming that they aren't assholes to mutants that is. " Chuckling slightly, Ducky shakes her head, "Yeah, but they aren't going to hire a 17-year-old who seems to have personality issues. And, um, I'd show up on the missing persons registry if I tried to apply for a job." She looks sheepish, and puts her pidgeon friend back on her shoulder. "I can go talk to the duckies in a little bit, since they would be the watery ones. Although I'm not sure how good of an idea it would be sending innocent ducks out to look for apparently sharky-type people? But, I can see if they have seen or heard anything. Or if anybirdy has gone missing." She offers her pidgeon some more pretzel, and shifts slightly. Ducky tilts her head slightly, and looks up to Horus, "Um, no, I'm not in school. I was, but, um, last year my parents kinda, well, yeah..." she trails off, "I kinda dropped out. But, um, I'm okay with staying at the shelter for now. I'm sorry, I kinda, um, you're nice and all, but I'm kinda wary about, um moving in somewhere? I, uh," she trails of and looks sheepish, mentally berating herself for being so rude. "No shit?" Hive snorts, handing off the rest of the pretzel to Horus and leaning down to grip the bars of the jungle gym. He swings down, eyebrows raised as he looks over at Corey. "You got a bunch of strangers you barely even know and you're missing some details of their lives? Who would've thought." For a moment he hangs, and then drops heavily to the ground. His tone is bland, his voice flat and quiet. "And yeeeah, good luck with that. It's hard enough to find someone who'll hire you if they know you're a mutant, even fucking harder to find someone who'll hire you to /be/ a mutant. But, you know, you can go ahead and think there's some fucking Disney version of the world where she can sing to the birds. Maybe even find a Prince Charming while she's at it." His head cranes to one side, then the other, stretching his neck slowly. "There's places, though. Not many. A couple. Where we can be safe. I live just in that building over there." He points out of the park to the Lofts, a tall apartment building just nearby. "Apartment 403. You need something, you come look us up, aright?" Horus flutters down from his perch, too, landing on Hive's shoulder. "{It's okay. You should be wary. People are kind of mean.}" "Hey, not everyone's a complete toolbag. I mean you said yourself that Melinda had hired Shane. But yeah, its the same thing that he had been saying. The worlds a shitty place. Doesn't mean we can't hope for something better, let alone try and change it to be better. Fear makes people do stupid things, but not everyone is ruled by fear. Some people try and do better." Corey had a warm smile on. "Besides, I come from Orlando anyway. If anyone can pretend the world is Disney, I can." Ducky looks dejected and sighs, "I know. I'm screwed. But, well, it was either try and do something here, or end up in a mental institution for the rest of my life." She nods to Hive, and Horus, "Thank you for the offer, and, um, advice. I'll figure something out eventually, I suppose. I don't want to live in a Disney movie, and I'm no princess. I just, y'know, kind of want to get to live and be free, kinda? Don't even want a prince charming, just to get to talk with birds and stuff." She shrugs, "I'll see what I can find out about your missing friends. If I can find anything, I'll send word along, somehow." "Yeah, sure. She hired him. To wash dishes, in the back, where nobody can fucking see him. The world isn't Disney," Hive says, irritably edged rather than just bland-flat, now. "And that bullshit of yours? It's not just stupid, it's paternalistic and condescending. /You/ can fucking pretend because you don't have to live it." He reaches up, fingers absently scritching against Horus's head. "You're not screwed. I said the world was shitty. Not that it's impossible. There's people. But they're few and far between. You gotta find the good ones and carve out what you can. Cuz mostly, the world's just gonna shit on you. But you find some good friends, you can help keep that shit off." Horus warbles softly, at this. His beak absently preens Hive's shaggy hair. "{There's good people,}" he agrees. "{You should come. See us. Hang out. Sometimes living's all you can ask for.}" Sighing and putting his hands up in surrender, Corey shook his head, a bit of sorrow in his mind. "Alright, alright I give. I can see why you're friends with Shane. Yes, I know I don't live with it. I'm just a human, I will never see the predjudice you guys have to on a daily basis. It doesn't mean I don't want it to be fair and right." Running his hand through his hair, there was just some sadness over all. "Nobody ever believes in good samaritans anymore." Ducky hangs her head and pets the pidgeon on her shoulder, "I believe in good samaritans. But, well, I have trust issues," she said, shrugging slightly as she did so. "Most people don't think I'm a mutant, they just assume I'm another crazy homeless kid who talks to birds." She runs a hand through her short hair, chewing on her lower lip, "I'll see you around. But, for now, I'm gonna go check on the ducks, and see if any of them can help find your friends. I'll let you know what I hear, if anything useful comes up." As she starts backing away, Ducky lifts the plastic bag of bread to indicate she was heading that way anyway, "Appartment 403, right? I'll let you know." "I'm 403. Horus is 304. Take care of yourself, alright?" Hive dips his head in a nod to Ducky. Horus isn't really listening to this. He gives Corey a long look, and then spreads his wings above Hive's head, fanning his careful preening work into disarray in the sudden draft as he takes off. Ducky gets one quietly chirruped goodbye, and then the birdboy is flying off. Hive /is/ listening to Corey, though, and his tone mellows back into bland even though the look he shoots Corey is outright disgusted. "Oh, I believe in good samaritans, dipshit. I believe there are people out there struggling and fighting and /dying/ to make this world a good place. What I /don't/ believe is that spouting bullshit platitudes so you can pretend to yourself that things are sunny is going to do any-fucking-body a bit of good. Come back and talk to me," he says with a snort, "after you've shed blood in this fight and then you might be able to talk to me about making the fucking world /better/. Until then, you're just some naive toolbag telling /yourself/ pretty lies that might make you feel better but they sure as hell aren't making the world better for anybody else." He shoves his hands in his pockets, walking around Corey to head for the exit. Looking over his shoulder at the walking off Hive, Corey just shook his head. "Its not about bloodshed. Its never about bloodshed. Violence just leads to more violence. Sometimes it is about words, its about Living the right way to begin with." Shoving his hands into his pockets, he started walking off again himself. "If all that would save the world is killing it, I wouldn't even bother getting out of bed. But I think I'll just continue doing what I can do, whether or not its what you think is the right actions to take." "Didn't say anything about /killing/ people, fucking moron," Hive mutters, but it's half to himself. He isn't looking back at Corey, at any rate, and soon heads out of the playground and back towards his home.