ArchivedLogs:Boaty McBoatface

Boaty McBoatface
Dramatis Personae Desi, Heather, Shane	2017-03-01 "Is it an art thing?"
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Courtyard - Lower East Side
This courtyard is the lush central hub of the surrounding Harbor Commons, bound in on three sides by rows of duplexes and triplexes, cutting upward at the sky with the sharp thrift of a minimalist's style, neat lines and bountiful windows, boldened with accents in wood towards the upper stories, stone towards the base, the whole of the compound sealed in by a low stoneworked wall that opens entrance gates to the streets beyond at its two far corners, smaller gates at building back doors. The fourth side of the courtyard is open to the East River, the ground forming a slight decline, controlled on one side by micro-retaining walls to form wide steps where picnic tables sit beneath the nominative shelter of a trio of dogwood trees, accessible by ramp. The other side is allowed to slope at its natural angle, a wide open yard space, until its cut off at the river's edge, where a massive pair of oak trees stand, a staircase leading away up one of their thick trunks. The yard itself is carpeted in an organic flow of emerald grass swirled through with wending channels of smooth-paved cement walkways, flowing naturally away from the building's front entrances, where some are arced by trellis, some flanked by hosta plants, fern and lilies, a few laid in gentle switch-backing ramps for wheelchair access, before forking off at matching angles to sites of small garden installments. Bird feeders and baths suspended from the necks of small lamp posts, a rock-lined koi pond, a sleek gazebo tucked to one side in simplistic varnished wood, its southern side overgrown with a mass of thriving grapevine and a caged-in barbecue pit under its sheltering roof. A play area and proper garden are within sight off another branch, until finally all paths spiral in like wheel spokes to a shared common house at the center of all traffic flow. Despite the on-and-off thunderstorms throughout the day it has leveled out into a relatively pleasant evening -- if a bit soggy and humid down on the muddy riverbank. Along the water, there's an /exceptionally/ muddy one-eyed beagle currently galumphing after an knobbly round rubber toy -- once multicoloured, though currently just as muddy as the beagle it's knotty curves are mostly just brown. Obie happily rushes after where the ball has been thrown -- then straight past it, crashing into the water. Sploosh! "Yoooooo. {/Dumbface/. Get your ass out of there before you get yourself fucking /eaten/.}" Sitting up on a damp but at least relatively clean rock by the riverside, Shane's Vietnamese sounds lazy, not /overly/ concerned about Obie's immediate prospects of getting nommed. "Obie! Ooooobie. Obie. Ball. Ballll. Ball. You missed. The ball." Obie perks up at the sound of his name, running back toward Shane. Shane closes his fist around nothing -- mimes throwing the nothing in the direction of the ball. It sends the beagle running off again, though at least this time he remembers the ball he forgot the first time around, picking it up and promptly lying down to chew it. Sighing, Shane sinks slightly backward. He's propped up against one flat palm, bare feet dangling over the edge of the stone. His shoes -- neatly polished Oxfords -- are set on a smaller rock nearby, up and out of the way of the mud. He's dressed otherwise not really for getting /muddy/ with the dog: crisp grey grey slacks and neatly tailored dress shirt, a purpleish mandarin-collared suit jacket neatly folded and put aside. "{/Utterly/ hopeless.}" Fonder, this time, this last has switched from Vietnamese to French. As always, Heather carries her plain canvas messenger bag, this time with a pair of tattered bunny slippers hanging out the opening. Her feet, like Shane's, are bare as she walks at a sprinting pace over to the edge of the stream. She puts a hand up to her forehead, shading her tinted goggles uselessly as she attempts to see out a little ways. "Have you seen something?" she plays through her tape recorder, further observing as she looks up towards Shane, "Do dogs usually return the ball or is that just a common misconception?" There are spots of fresh mud on her colourful geometrically patterned sweater and fluorescent orange leggings and she seems to have little regard for their continued cleanliness. "I thought I saw something." Flèche has been digging industriously at the water's edge a little ways down the bank, but her head pops up, ears perking with interest, when Shane starts calling Obie. When Shane throws the (nonexistent) ball she leaps up, all four paws leaving the ground for a moment, muzzle whipping around to follow the trajector of his throw even as she bounds after Obie. Unlike the beagle, however, she seems perplexed by the invisibility of the ball--until he finds it where it had fallen before. Still bounding erratically, she pounces on the beagle and steals the toy, prancing away with a playful sidelong hop while looking back at him in transparent hope of being chased. Beside Shane, Desi is perched on a folded sage-green rain coat, the heels of her tall brown boots hiked up against the rock upon which she sits. She's wearing a lavender blouse with three-quarter length bell sleeves that overlap with elbow length heather purple gloves, and a long, leaf-green skirt. She has her smartphone cupped in one hand, a chess board on the screen, but doesn't seem to be paying it as much as attention as the dogs' antics. There's thin half-smile on her face. "\{The ball will find its way back to you, in time,\}" she reassures her companion in French. Then, in English, "Probably." Looking over her shoulder at Heather, she doesn't miss a beat. "It's a fairly common misconception. Some dogs retrieve quite reliably, but they are a minority as far as I can tell." She frowns, looking out over the water, her shoulders stiffening with alarm. "Did we see something...in the water, you mean?" "{Unless he drops it /in/ the river, do you know how many balls we've lost that way? I mean, we /could/ find them, but yuk.}" Shane shivers, grimacing. "Nooot worth the three bucks at the pet store. Sometimes B's octobots get them while they're dredging. Yoooo." His chin jerks upward to Heather. "Oh shit. What kind of a something. Do you mean like an alive something or a not-alive something or a -- /not/ alive something." His nose twitches, eyes skating out to the water. At the water's edge, Obie is looking kind of /pleased/ at the sudden theft of his ball. What is this SUDDEN PLAYTIME it's not like he was just playing already or anything. He tumbles over himself in his haste to stand, finding his feet again and then charging off after Flèche. Some distance past the dogs, there is indeed a -- shape. Somewhere out on the water. Right now it's hard to make out -- large, very irregular, but it's drifting erratically closer on the river's current, in fits and starts as it occasionally fetches up against rocks and the riverbank. "Salut salut. Yes. Something in the water. It seemed not alive when I saw it. Not not-alive. Like an object." Her eyebrows furrow slightly as she continues scanning for any sign of what she's talking about. She lets out a pleased chirp when she spots it, pointing emphatically in its direction. "The object! Have you seen that before?" She starts trudging forwards through the mucky river's edge to try and get a closer look. She also zips about to pick up a few rocks that are nice and palm-sized with grand ideas of lobbing them at the thing to see how it reacts. Desi squints into the distance at the indistinct shape on the water. "Is it a...boat?" She takes a few tentative steps toward the water's edge, picking her way cautiously across the rocks. As the object drifts closer, its shape becomes clearer--tall, angular, listing heavily to port. On the other side a large plastic pontoon can be see, and the edge of a large paddlewheel. "I haven't seen it before. If it's a boat, it's a very ineffecient one!" Flèche has, in the midst of playing, noticed the shape in the water. She stops abruptly, going quite still with one paw uplifted, tail stiff and high, ears as erect as they will go. Then she starts barking somewhat uncertainly, the noise muffled by the ball she still carries in her mouth. Obie has not noticed anything amiss. He just shoulder-checks Flèche, straight toward the water when she goes still. "Strange-ass fucking boat." Shane hops up to his feet, peering out toward the approaching shape. There's something large and shiny atop it, bulbous shapes dangling on stalks off a golden dome. "Does it have -- /eyes/? Is that boat staring at us? I think it has googly eyes." He is leaning forward slightly, toes hooked over the edge of the rock to keep his balance. "I feel like we're being watched." Heather puts her hands on her cheeks, bouncing her knees up and down a few times excitedly. To Flèche and Obie, the recorder plays, "Stay near me dogs. If you want my protection." There is no surprise evident in her reaction when the dogs ignore her warning. She very gently lobs one of the rocks in the direction of the object. It falls very very well short, and ker-plunks in the water. "It looks sort of like it has a face. With the eyes. And the. Mouth is there. If you tilt your head a little bit. Or maybe. Hm. Maybe it is something else. Is it an art thing?" Desi comes up level with Heather and tilts her head as instructed. "Oh, it /does/ sort of have a face!" The googly eyes on their long stalks swing as the boat sways from side to side and finally runs aground. Desi walks closer and, grabbing hold of one of the supports, hauls the structure upright. The eyes fall into place to either side of the basketball-sized nose. Long fluttering strips of sodden rainbow cloth cling to the sides of the structure in a manner not very much like the hair that it is clearly meant to represent. The mouth (lined with palm-sized rectangular teeth) falls open to reveal a half-flooded passenger compartment with two sets of pedals attached to a crankshaft. Flèche does not see Obie coming and is easily tackled, the two pups roll along the muddy bank, quite ignoring Heather's warning and, now, the strange object in the water. Shane leans down, carefully rolling up his pant legs one at a time before he hops down off the rock. His bare toes squish in the mud as he makes his way closer to the giant floating -- head-thing. "That's a few too many eyes for a --" He squints a little closer at it, then abruptly grins. "Well, I guess I don't know how many eyes disembodied /boat/-heads are supposed to have. So do you have to let it /eat/ you to paddle it? That's not creepy or anything. Do you think the mouth -- closes? It's the kind of art my Pa and B would like, if it's art. Freakish and colourful." "Well. I love it. If it is art then I think I am the intended audience," admits Heather, feet making unpleasant squelching sounds as she trods right up to the edge of the water. She stops with a quick full body shudder upon feeling the cold water on her feet. The young speedster then zips back around to help Desi in getting it and keeping it properly upright. "If it has pedals. Maybe it's not meant for this solo journey. I wonder if someone lost it? How do you lose a rainbow faceboat? Irresponsible. We should adopt it." With Heather's assistance, Desi easily beaches the monstrous boat-thing. When movement turns the paddlewheel incidentally, the mouth yawns even farther open, and a pink tongue sticks out from between the two seats. Once above water, the flooded portside pontoon starts to drain. "Maybe it came unmoored in the storms," she muses, stooping to peer inside. "I wouldn't be /too/ surprised to find out this came from Chimera Arts, actually. We should ask." She gives it one final tug to lodge it more securely on the rocky bank, and another turn of the paddlewheel causes the mouth to ease shut again. "Definitely up B and Jax's alley, though," she agrees, standing back. Then looks up at Heather. "Oh, I not actually sure we've met before now, but this mystery craft distracted me from introductions. I'm Desi." Shane's eyes widen when the tongue sticks out; his silent shiver of laughter comes in a brief shake of shoulders, a brief ripple of gills. "Maybe it wanted to go exploring. Maybe it's not lost. Just on an adventure. Anyway, if we're adopting it we'll need to name it. We can tie it at the pier under the treehaus until someone ever claims it." After a moment longer consideration he amends: "-- Need to name it and maaaybe give it a bath." For a few moments, Heather grins with delight when the tongue sticks out. She nods a few times rapidly, causing her face to be a blur, "I am Heather Brown. Codename: Timeslip. She and her pronouns. It is good to meet you Desi. I've been here for a month. It feels like five months." She puts her hands on her hips to proudly survey her new potential adoptee. "The name I suggest is," she flips up her goggles to squint at it, "Skipper Rainbowface. I need to get some food from my place. But I will be back to help and clean it. Back very shortly." She makes a half wave gesture and dashes off.