ArchivedLogs:Chupacabra

Chupacabra
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Ion, Isra, Killian, Biteling	2015-07-19 "Even got me a fucking /dragon/ to raise."
Location <NYC> Central Park Zoo - Central Park South
Central Park South is home not just to the park itself, but also to the Belvedere Castle, the Alice in Wonderland statues, and the Central Park Zoo. These areas tend to draw tourists like a magnet - it is, perhaps, for that very reason that places like Bethesda Terrace tend to attract more New Yorkers than not, if just to escape the press of tourism that infiltrates the whole city. The city is baking. Shimmers of heat steaming up from pavement, the heat showing no sign of slacking even as the afternoon creeps on towards evening. Fire hydrants have been opened up, people are climbing into fountains, pools are overcrowding, and in the zoo likely the animals are gravitating towards the indoor portions of their enclosures and their pools and blocks of ice. /People/ are gravitating towards the lemonade stands, ice cream stalls, shaved-ice vendors. Ion's already /been/ to those; at the moment the young man is double-fisting snow cones in vivid bright syrupy colors as he wanders over towards the enclosure labeled 'Tisch Children's Zoo'. Home to sheep and goats and potbellied pigs and other such friendly and pettable animals. He's dressed in jean shorts, heavy stompy boots really inappropriate for this weather, a plain white sleeveless undershirt, and a very heavy leather sling wrapped around his chest that is, currently, kind of wriggly where it holds a small misshapen bundle against him. He's offering the bundle one of his snow-cones. The bundle is more interested in the goat that has wandered up to them, headbutting Ion's leg in search of the treats available to visitors to feed the animals. "I don't got /hands/ for those, shit -- yo, hermanos, you want to feed the -- chomper?" /Which/ chomper he's talking about is unclear. Even in the shadow of a generously sized silver umbrella, Isra still looks a bit wilted. Discomfort notwithstanding, she stands tall and dignified on long digitigrade legs. She wears a gauzy leaf-green sundress that exposes her entire back save for two straps that cross between the base of her massive wings, which bear an intricate feather pattern in iridescent blue and green. Sweat sheens her lavender skin, and she hugs a supersized lemonade slushie to her chest. "I do not think the zookeepers would very much appreciate the exsanguination of their goats." Though the sharp, predatory look she levels at the goat suggests she might not mind a bite of it, either. Dusk is not quite as eye-catching as Isra, but even so the pair of them are still gathering quite a few more stares than some of the actual exhibits here. Beside Isra he /would/ look fairly nondescript -- scruffy-bearded pale young man in cargo shorts and Keen sandals and a plain grey v-neck tee, dark glasses on his eyes -- but his enormous batlike wings get more than a few double-takes of their own. His are colourful as well, blue-green in a scaled mother-of-pearl pattern, resembling the inside of an abalone shell. He has a cup of italian ice in a paper carton, and one wing is stretching out at the moment to pet the approaching goat. He stoops, afterwards, offering it a handful of peanuts. "I didn't bring a bottle -- we're not feeding it the goat, right? That -- isn't why you picked the petting zoo?" He's /eying/ Ion like he's noooooot quite sure. Little could hide the red flush of Killian's face given the toasting heat of the day, given he's been out in it for so long. It's fortunate that most of the children's exhibits are under pavillion or barn-like shelter. One young man stands at the fence line holding a long hose that wraps around from the back of one of the buildings for the goats and is obvious for what he is as staff in a faded taupe shirt with the zoo's emblem embroided on it, even though lines of sweat darken the too-light color a few shades. He doesn't look particularly thrilled about dousing the too-hot grounds with water to ease the swelter of the hoofstock, but there's an unmistakeable grin that twitches the edge of his lips at the look he gets when an unsuspecting kid gets too close to the spray. It's probably 'exsanguination' that gets his attention more than anything else. Then the look of Dusk, then Isra, then- really? The grin twitches and is gone as he drops the hose into a water trough. "..I think that would be less than preferable." Killian invites himself to the conversation, turning to face the trio from inside the paddock. "Welcome to the zoo." Seems more sarcastic than truely welcoming, gaze leveled on Ion. "Pfftwhat? The Frittata, 'e fuckin' tiny, what he gonna ex-agua-nate?" Ion's chin dips down, nuzzling against the bundle strapped to his chest. "Goat's big, can take it, yeah? Anyway why they leave all this food just lie-about then? The rest the food they put it behind the glass?" He waves a snowcone towards the goat in indication, then lifts it to take another crunching bite. There's a little bit of sticky-red ice dribbling down his chin when Killian greets them; his dark eyes light up, bright and lively. His smile lights as well, broad. "/Ey/-o! Ey /shit/ man you want turn that water over here we /melting/. Look at you all -- still /alive/ and shit, good /on/ you!" Said with all evidence of sincerity as well, warm and genuine as he bounds over nearer. "Dusk, Isra, you met this motherfucker huh?" "Thank you." Isra's reply to Killian comes out quite bland and perfunctory. Then, to Ion, "I do not imagine they would do the goat any lasting harm, but I think the zoo means for these animals to serve as educational material, not food." She produces a handkerchief from her brown mirror-work satchel and casually dabs the trail of melted red ice from Ion's chin. "Though the child does need feeding." Her hairless brows wrinkle momentarily. "I could always just handle that, myself." A fractionally raised tone at the end of the sentence marks it as a question. Only when Ion recognizes Killian does she give the stranger a second glance--this one steady and appraising. "We have not met, no." The bundle inside Ion's harness wriggles when nudged and emits a series of flat, unamused clicks. The infant's face, only half-visible beneath its blanket, consists mostly of huge green eyes and a toothy maw. A thin, almost skeletal hand, long-fingered and sharp-clawed like a lemur's, reaches out to swipe in the goat's direction. "Goats /are/ pretty large," Dusk is starting to agree with Ion. His cheeks flush slightly red when Isra comments, and he dips his head a little sheepishly, adding reluctantly, "... but we probably shouldn't eat them, yeah. Right. Uh. They probably ban you for shit like that? I /suspect/. Not that I've ever /tried/ --" He trails off, turning his sunglass-shaded gaze over to Killian curiously at Ion's exuberant greeting. Far less steady and appraising than his other winged counterpart, /his/ expression breaks easily into a warm-bright (and very sharply fanged) smile. "Have we? I'm Dusk. Sup. Are you not supposed to be alive?" His brows lift from behind the sunglasses. "Are these particularly feisty goats?" "Large but quick to give up. It'll fall over before ya get even a quarter. Then," Killian raises a gloved hand, a dismissive gesture, "I'm outta here." Fired or fleeing. He certainly doesn't match Ion's energy, leaning slightly on the fence in something more akin to laziness or exhaustion or both, depending on where in his day this moment lies. But the smugness of his expression seems to be default, as the spread grin of recognition lines his face with something perhaps more friendly. "Of course, man. Surviving. Had to get away for awhile, if you know what I mean. But then here.. recently. It's been useful. Where're you crashin?" The summary a bit choppy, distracted by the goat which has been, essentially, focused on. He shifts a bit to recollect the hose, if only to send the stream not at the cooking trio, but at the hoofstock apparently on the lunch menu for the sweltering day. A distraught bleating follows as it strides a couple of feet away, not smartly enough to go further. "At least wait until after my shift, eh? Killian." Is a simple greeting offered to Isra, Dusk. "Old uh.. friend," seems a hard word to say, "of Ion in some close quarters." Amused at that, apprently. "Think I can handle the goats. In one way or another." "/'course/ he supposed to be alive, this /most excellent/." CRONCH, Ion takes another bite of his now-pretty-drippy snow cone. "Not so lucky all of us, right? Huh? Sometimes you just crash -- but shit yeah /I/ know sometimes you gotta take the fuck /off/ the world it a /shit/-show -- oh /man/ this place it would be useful for you no?" His grin is widening. "Me I crash everywhere. Here, there. All-the-hell over. Found some good people. Even got me a fucking /dragon/ to raise." He is indicating the (entirely inhuman-looking) infant in his sling, reaching behind the leather babywrap to untuck one spindly thin clawed wing and lift it out in an ungainly wave. "Killian, he was one-my buddies back in our fucking /science/ days, yeah? Me, Kay, Ash, fff. Good to see you in one-damn-piece. When your shift end? Hope by then we find our way to some goddamn air condition." Isra's posture relaxes subtly at the explanation of Ion's acquaintance with Killian--so subtly that only the observant would notice her pointed ears un-perking, her tail lowering, her wings settling into a looser mantle. "Isra," she says, evenly, still reserved. "I should not like to get you in trouble with your employers, at any rate. It frankly startles me a little no one has yet asked us to leave in extremely awkward fashion. Perhaps under the pretext that we upset the animals or frighten the children." The ungainly infant tries mightily to snag Ion's hand with the claws tipping the phalanges of their wing, mouth opening wide to snap at the air. The clicking grows loud and insistent, almost like a mechanical growl. "Oh, shit, man." Dusk's smile doesn't fade, at this explanation. "Another alum of the world's shittiest college, then? /Is/ good to see you in one piece. Job and everything. Sweet. Yeah. Not all of us..." His wing lifts, falls, a lazy sort of shrug. "Land on our feet. Surviving's a good skill." He gives a sharp snort as Ion indicates the Eggling, shaking his head. "/Dragon/? That's a little fierce, you still have to hold fucking /bunnies/ down for them. Some predator." "Fuck if you didn't try your damnest to join 'em." The dead ones, that is. Killian's chuckle is a breathy, short-lived thing, eyes narrowed in the light of what certainly couldn't be called nostalgia. "Good? These guys? Takes more 'n just good to tolerate you." His chin tips slightly at the inhuman 'dragon' on his back, "What was that even for, a bribe?" There's other questions for that, but a pause stops him, a faltering of the good-natured flow, "Eh," An utterly unenergetic motion rolls a lopsided shrug, "If this shit wasn't so convenient, I'd say now. But I got another hour. And anything indoor here's gonna be packed so full y'won't even feel the AC." Isra's comment turns the mischievousness of his gaze to linger on her, "The animals won't upset with me in here, not even with all of that." It's almost a smirk, there, but not-quite. "But I can't say much 'bout the people. Too hot to care? Bunch a'..." It trails off, as he answers Dusk, "Took a little bit to score this, but it serves its purposes. Even if it's.." Killian considers, the grin growing, "Not enough." He leaves it intentionally vague as he climbs over the fence to stand on the visitor's side, a lazy yet graceful thing, somehow. "Got enough claws for a predator. What ya call it?" "Aw shit yo I weren't /trying/ for nothing, those motherfuckers just --" Ion shakes his head, slurping sticky red juice out of the bottom of his paper cone, now. Licking it from the side of his hand where it's dripped down. (It's also dripped onto the top of Gremlin's head. He leaves it /there/. "-- They push /all/ your buttons, right? What you gonna do, just let them? -- Oh-oh-/oh/." He bounces on his toes, grinning bright again. "This? This-this-this?" His sticky hand rubs at the infant's back through the leather sling. "This tiny monster, 'ey called /Omelette/. Egg. /Scramble/. Look just like them creepy-ass fucking fly-lemur we saw in that -- that -- small-thing house over there, no?" He's waving over down the path further into the zoo, though admittedly the comparison between the ungainly clawed bug-eyed monsterling and an actual lemur is -- perhaps uncharitable to the lemurs. "Good with animals, then." Isra finally does crack a smile at Killian, flashing long, sharp canines. "Just not the human animals." Her bright green eyes scan the crowd, lingering impassively on the nervous parents who steer their gawking children away from the two winged mutants. Her tail sways a little faster. "Interested in finding other work?" This as she brings the handkerchief back out to wipe the gooey red mess from both Ion /and/ the baby. Omelette--Egg, Scramble, etc.--seems most displeased at the melted snowcone on their head, and tries to swipe it off with their one free arm and one free wing. Neither seems really coordinated enough to do the trick. They also try to grab Isra's hand, though she deftly avoids this. "Not enough for what?" Dusk is starting to droop, a little; he lifts a wing to wipe sweat from his forehead. Leans against Isra's side, then thinks better of it when he realizes this means /extra/ shared body heat. He takes a sip from the paper cup in his hand, Italian ice half-melted. "I mean, not enough for living on? Not enough for -- keeping busy? Not enough for what you want to be /doing/ with your life? Suppose a job's a start. Guess it's rarely an /end/, huh?" He snorts at Ion's introduction of the infant, though he doesn't bother to /correct/ the enthusiastic parent. Killian shakes his head slowly, but despite the motion being targetted at Ion, it's an agreeable thing. A familiar thing. He shoves damp-gloved hands into equally damp pockets of his long dark-grey jeans. "That's.. more than one name." Is pointed out, though lacks no degree of smug amusement, "An' the lemurs're a bit fuzzier." Is that all? Isra's assessment gets another shrug, but something about what she says lights some sort of excitement under those pale eyes that drift between the group. "That's one way to put it," a breath of a laugh, "I am." Is more direct to the second part of it and clarifies after Dusk's questions, "Don't need much t'live on. I can live anywhere. It's more.. what I should be doing." He glances away and back again before offering, "'ey, let's meet up out of here soon, yeah?" It's at first to Ion, but shortly directs to the winged ones ontop of it. A brief tilt of his head is directed assumably in the region of the exit wherever it may be beyond the habitat houses and well-pruned shrubbery. Although the grin is not lost, there's more a seriousness to it than before. "Got some questions, shit to catch up on." "Yeah yeah yeah they got /all/ the name. Gonna be a bigass monster, need enough name to grow into, right? Goblin. {Terror. Face-eater. Deathstrike.}" These last are said in increasingly (amusedly) dramatic Spanish, as Ion nuzzles the top of the Eggling's head with his fingertips. "Out of here? Out of here like where? You get down, the Lower East Side, ever? Out by Evolve? Maybe? There a place near there. Fridays. Good spot. I show you. We go. Catch up." His chin tips upward to Killian. "Meanwhile, yo, I gotta get /this/ fucking biteling some food. {Tyrants say you can't have no goats.} -- You take care, vato." "A lot of work needs doing." This equably, as Isra turns her gaze back to Killian. One of her wings mantles fanning lazily in Dusk's direction, but enough to make a breeze, for all the good it does in this heat. "We should also get you out of the sun." A pause, a slight incline of her head, backswept spiral horns gleaming silver with borrowed light. "Fed, too, perhaps." Then, to Killian. "Hope to see you on Friday." The infant flails at Ion's hand, wrapping one membranous wing around two of his fingers and digging in with tiny crawl. This small victory seems to alleviate some of their malcontent, for the clicking sounds less angry now and more like a purr. "This world's broke as hell. There's always more shit to do." Dusk perks -- if only slightly -- at this breeze. "Hey, good meeting you, man." He flashes Killian a warm smile. "Maybe we'll see you around." His colourful wing curls in a lazy wave. The other one drapes (just as lazy) around Isra's shoulders, and he turns to start navigating around the goats and pigs and out of the enclosure. "{/I'm/ about ready to eat the damn goats,}" he's saying as they leave. "{Where can we get a freaking --}" (Yes, he's eying one of the goats following after them until they pass through the gates), "{-- steak.}" "I've seen it from above." Killian responds easily, to all of the above in Ion's list. "I'll find you." Seems even easier. "...That there is. I've been gone too long." He gives as a collective response to both Isra and Dusk in regards to work, drawing away from that delve into the more serious to reclaim his grin, if one side being a little more twisted than the other. A dark sort of nod follows the formalities, though it's not exactly unpleasant, "Later." he calls after them in the same flow as the effort that takes him back over the fence, back into the shade of the (safe, for now) goats' shelter and whatever bare relief that grants from the frying heat.