ArchivedLogs:Eyecatching

Eyecatching
Dramatis Personae Horus, Isra, Tag	2014-12-20 '
Location <NYC> {Funhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The house might have started out looking capacious and respectable, but it has since moved through various incarnations, always colorful, but never colorful the same way for longer than a few days. There is little in the way of what most people would call furniture: a sectional couch buried in fluffy cushions, three bean bags of varying sizes, a scattering of bookshelves, what looks like a human-scale cat tree in one corner, and a low, square table surrounded by zafus. The floor plan is largely open, criss-crossed by rope bridges linking small elevated platforms to the landing of the second storey, beyond which lie the bedrooms. The kitchen is separated from the living room only by a long counter, lined with stools. Even the appliances are decked out in unexpected hues, edged with designs that change on a daily basis. A row of tins and jars runs the length of the breakfast counter, none of which match and all of which bear brightly colored text describing their contents: teas, coffees, mates, and various herbal blends. At present, the walls are covered with surreal trees of rainbow hues that sprout billowy clouds from their branches: a literal cloud forest. The lofted platforms in the living room have been incorporated into trees, and puffs of decorative fake snow line the railings of the rope bridge. Fantastical animals lurk within the misty foliage, from yellowish electrical rodents to cloud leopards of actual sky blue, marled with wispy cirrus clouds. On the ceiling, a massive bird is poised to eclipse the sun, its plumage stormy gray and edged in arcs of blue-white lightening. A sleek dinghy graces the wall just beside the second storey landing, its crew equipped with winged oars, leading the eye toward the bedrooms painted up like tall ships poised to do battle. Tag pushes the plunger down on the french press and pours the rich, dark brown coffee into a red-white candystripe mug. He wears a threadbare old tunic, currently leaf green edged in holographic silver, and tattered black gi paints. His hair is a gradient from green to brilliant electric blue, frosted at the tips with glittering silver. Picking up a plate of cookies, he pad barefoot into the living room and sets it and the coffee down on the table. Perched on a beanbag with her long legs folded primly beneath her and wings mantled loosely behind her, Isra does not look very out of place in the surreal wonderland that is Funhaus. Her skin is lavender with vivid green markings in wavy stripes, interrupted here and there with recent cuts already half-healed. Her simple white wrap dress, arranged in sleeveless and strapless fashion, matches the cloudy foliage on the walls. "Thank you." She stretches out a long arm for the coffee and holds it under her nose for a moment, inhaling appreciatively. "How goes the business?" Taptaptaptaptap. Taptaptaptaptap. There's a rattattat at a living room window. Beak tapping insistent-sharp against the window pane. Outside, one small fidgety teenager -- or /large/ fidgety bird, depending on your point of view -- skittering back and forth on the windowpane. There's a camera bag strapped around Horus's neck, his tabelet resting atop it. Skitterskitter. Tap! TAP TAP. 'JOSHUA', announces the robo-voice on his tablet, 'JOSHUA OPEN' 'HELLO' 'SOMEONE IS HERE' 'oh right that's me'. "Not bad, considering it's word of mouth." Tag belly-flops onto an adjacent beanbag. Its cover goes from pink-and-black spiral to a rainbow spiral. "It's picked up a bit, but that might just be holiday-related. Unique gifts and all, you know?" He reaches for a cookie, but aborts mid-movement to roll off the beanbag and into a bounding step. Then he's walking, uncharacteristically slow, and smiling close-lipped. Opening the window, he steps back from it wave a friendly wave. "Hey. Joshua isn't home yet. You can still come in if you want, we got cookies." "If enough of those recipients like their unique gifts," Isra says, "you'll have more word-of-mouth references soon enough." She talks a small, experimental sip of her coffee, then drinks more deeply, twisting around to follow Tag's progress across the room. One bare eyebrow ridge arches high when she sees Horus--or, more properly, his cargo. Her tail twitches and her eyes are still, but her face remains serene. "Hello, Horus." Horus skittersteps sideways when Tag comes to the window, head tilting sideways to regard Tag from one very large eye. Laaarge. The promise of cookies seems to win him over, though; he carefully steps through the window, fluttering past the others to go claim the beanbag Tag had just vacated, carefully fluffing it out. Nesting a hole out of its center. Tucking the camera bag caaarefully into the depression he's made and then settling himself down atop it, feathers ruffling out into a large floof. 'I came to talk to Joshua,' says his tablet, 'you are not Joshua', 'neither of you', 'Maybe one of you could become Joshua?' He looks up after this. Curious. A little hopeful. 'Have very important work.' 'Need to talk.' After a thoughtful pause: 'Also need cookies.' "Cookies I can do." Tag picks up the plate of cookies, a mix of chai snickerdoodles, jelly thumbprints, chocolate chip, and double chocolate treasures. With an elaborate bow, he offers it to both Horus and Isra. "But I'm not sure I can help you on the becoming-Joshua front. He's pretty much his own dude. You're welcome to hang out until he gets back, though." Isra's eyes follow the camera bag until it disappears beneath Horus. She snags a snickerdoodle delicately from the proffered plate with green-purple talons. "Thank you." Taking another pull on the coffee, she considers Horus steadily. "Why are you sitting on that?" Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck; Horus snags one of /each/ cookie to line them up in front of himself on the beanbag. Undoubtedly it is going to be liberally covered in crumbs very shortly; bird-eating is not known for its /neat/ness. 'Why not why no Joshua can become /you/. Practice harder maybe. Maybe more practice. Live together yes? Joshua should maybe rub off. On you.' Horus's head bobs eagerly with this suggestion, though after this he tilts his head again to give Isra a very /stern/ look. His feathers ruffle up again. He shifts slightly, resettling himself carefully atop the bag. 'Egg', he explains, patiently. Tag drags a third beanbag closer to the other two and plants himself on it with cookies and a Star Wars-themed thermos he had left on the floor earlier. "Well, Joshua's power gives him a leg up on /that,/ but mine is just..." He shrugs and waggles his fingers at the plate. The remaining cookies take on a variety of brightly color patterns: checkers, paisley, plaid. "You know. Not super helpful in the turning-into Joshua department. I /am/ gonna use it to give Isra some new colors for the decoration party though. You coming to that?" He tilts his head far to one side like a puzzled dog. "Egg? Whoa, is that--" His silver eyes flick to Isra. "--is that /the/ egg? Yours and Dusk's I mean." Isra nibbles on the snickerdoodle placidly. "I am sure Joshua would not appreciate either myself or Tag impersonating him, in any event." Her wings settle down over her shoulder with a rustle. "Unless black camera bags have become a trendy way of toting about large eggs, that would be ours, yes. Have the pups entrusted you with it, or did you...rescue it?" Then, to Tag. "I'd appreciate your recommendation on colors, by the by." 'Mirror Joshua Joshua Mirror,' Horus answers this. Then quiets, because he becomes rather busy -- with stretching out his head to /exchange/ his cookies, one-to-one, flavor for flavor, for the more colorful ones on the plate. He carefully replaces each in the same spot its corresponding flavor was before. More colorful now. Ah. Better. And then attacks the jelly one hungrily, scattering brightly colored crumbs all over the beanbag. 'Egg-colors', he says, once he's finished his first cookie. 'Bright colors, happy colors, egg colors. Shane went to work. Nobody was sitting on it. I am sitting. Eggsitting. Eggs are /for/ sitting.' His chest feathers ruffle out. Proudly. 'Birds,' he informs them, 'are good at this.' Tag takes a few long gulps from his thermos and dyes the plain cookies to fantastic colors without really even looking at them. "I'm not Mirror..." He grins, then looks briefly concerned, but shrugs it off. "...well, not that I /know/ of, anyway." A double chocolate treasure masquerading as a rainbow-colored buckyball disappears wholesale into his mouth, and it's a long struggle with chewing before he can speak again. "For the party, I figure green and gold, or red and gold? Or you can do the Elsa thing, blue and silver. Oh man, is the egg colorful?" "You are very kind to look after it so." Isra salutes Horus with her mug. "I do not think that the pups are ideal candidates for sitting on the egg. They are not very birdlike. Nor I, for that matter. I should like green and gold, I think." Then she adds, as an afterthought, "Myself, not the egg, which is a rather plain gray as even like myself. Though I have no objection to you painting the egg, either, if Horus does not. He is the egg-sitter, after all." 'Grey egg.' Horus's beak is not designed for frowning. But his forehead rumples slightly inward, a faintly displeased warbling low in his throat. 'Better in silver. Blue-silver-silver-blue. Blue-silver-purple. Silver-purple-blue. Better egg. Improved egg. Egg 2.0. Upgrade. Upgrade the egg. Surprise egg. Kinder egg.' His head bobs again, his next quiet cooing happier. 'Shane would not sit. I told him. Eggs for sitting. Do you know what he said, he said, egg would go behind the counter. Behind the counter! What is that. No. Coffee is behind that counter. Can't sit on that egg at all. I took. I sit.' /Puff/ puff puff. 'Egg should match. Match sharks. Match Isra.' Then, after a hopeful pause, '... match Dusk?' "Blue-silver-silver-blue, blue-silver-purple, silver-purple-blue." Tag repeats this quietly as if making a bid to memorize the sequence. His eyes lose focus momentarily. "I can do that if you lemme see. I won't take too long, you can sit on it again after I'm done." He glances sidelong at Isra. "Could give you the same color scheme. Very wintery! Dusk, too, if he wanted. I swear it's not just an excuse to put my hands on his wings." A faint blush reddens his cheeks. "Well. Not /just./" "I am sure that Shane meant no harm by not sitting on it. It does have its own heating pad, after all." Isra says, her doubled voice conciliatory. She sips at her coffee and regards Horus with an almost smile. Then to Tag, equably, "I do like both blue and purple, though I don't suppose that too many people would ever notice that I matched the egg, nor do I expect the pups will be better disposed toward it for the palette change. Still, I see no harm in it." 'Match Dusk,' Horus says again, the toneless robotic voice coming with a firm and decisive nod. 'Match Isra. Match everything.' Carefully, watching Tag /very/ suspiciously, he backs down off the egg, unzipping the camera bag with his beak and pulling it open. Tracing a wingtip lightly over the top of the egg. 'Shiny egg. Glitter-egg? /Chrome-egg/?' One large eye regards Tag intently. For a moment, at least, before he gets very distracted pecking up cookie crumbs. 'It's okay,' he assures Isra. 'I'm teaching. The pups. To be better birds.' Tag sets aside cookies and tea and sits back on his heels, though it's quite evident he does not actually need his hands free to work his magic. "Let's see. Chrome first." Even as he speaks, the dull gray of the eggshell brightens, not quite to a mirror finish, but certainly shiny. "Blue-silver-silver-blue," he intones, as if reciting a spell. A band of azure blue circles the egg's narrower end, divided into three by two parallel silver waves. "Blue-silver-purple." A broader belt of the same blue appears around the egg's equator, decorated with a light purple vine from whose spiraling tendrils sprout silver flowers. "Silver-purple-blue." The last band, near the wider end of the egg, is shaped itself like a silver wave, in which swim a schools of purple fishes interspersed with sleek blue sharks. "Oh and glitter!" The whole of the egg is dusted with fine sparkles, iridescent with a strong blue-purple shift. "Ta-da!" Isra sits up a little straighter, ears flicking forward, when Horus unveils the egg. "I am having a somewhat difficult time imagining them as birds, but I am not an expert on that, myself." She watches the colors appear on the shell without any apparent anxiety, owing her confidence perhaps to her own regular reception of such services. "Rather a large Easter egg, that," she says. "Impressive, though I should not like quite the same pattern on myself." Horus watches the egg-decorating, giving it only a /very/ satisfied nod when Tag is done. Leaning over to carefully stroke his beak down against Tag's hair. /Just/ so. Then climb, camera bag still open, to settle himself back onto the egg. He shakes his head slowly at Isra's words, and doesn't say anything. Picks up his stylus, though, busying himself /very/ busily with his tablet. But it doesn't speak, though he's working at it very industriously. After some while, he tips the screen outwards. On it, he has produced a picture. Crudely drawn sketch in a paint-type program. Blue shark-y people. Covered in feathers. Beaks with sharp teeth. There you go, Isra. For the imagining. Tag beams, the silver in the tips of his hair and the piping of his tunic glittering brighter. "No worries, Isra, I can make that color scheme work more like...I don't wanna say 'natural,' but you know. How you like it. Organic." He sits up even taller on his knees, meerkat-like as he shoves a red-and-black houndstooth jelly cookie into his mouth. When Horus reveals his work, he emits a muffled but delighted squeal, hands flailing a little. A gulp of tea returns the use of speech to him. "Oh, oh, oh, maybe they'd let me put feather patterns on them. /Silver/ feathers. Ohhhh!" Isra's reply to the drawing is to lift /both/ brow ridges. "How you propose to accomplish this, I am sure I do not know, but I look forward to seeing it in the flesh--or in the feather, as it were." She ducks her head over her coffee for a long moment, then looks up at Tag. "I should like to have a pattern of silver feathers, even if the pups do not. On the wings, at the very least." 'I have many feathers,' Horus explains seriously to Isra. 'Rachel too. We will collect them. Make a collage. Sharkcollage. Birdsharks, sharkbirds, birdpups.' Bob, bob, bob, his head bobs along with this. 'Not silver though.' He gives this long consideration before suddenly striking on a /remedy/ for this failing. 'Tag please make me silver.' He dips his head, picking up one of his brightly colored cookies to extend it. Then set it back down so that he can write again: 'Will pay. A cookie.' Tag is bobbing right along with Horus, aided by the bounciness of his beanbag seat. "Feathers! Yes, I will paint sooo many feathers." He hops to his feet and circles Isra, scrubbing at the fine dusting of blue stubble on his chin. "I'll have to work out a pattern that looks nice when your wings are folded, though." At Horus's suggestion, every color on his person brights as if a slider had been adjusted on the filter of reality itself. "Yep! Can do!" He changes course and circles Horus's seat now. A metallic sheen creeps onto his feathers from the tips up to the roots like a magical. The end result is not a flat, uniform color, but the existing texture and variegation of the plumage rendered into silver. This done, Tag gives a deep bow. "Is this satisfactory? It does makes you /very/ eye-catching, and anyway I can undo it if you get tired of it. I mean Isra gets her redone like every two weeks." Isra watches the process with something approaching delight, and gives the barest nod of appreciation. "Eye-catching indeed, though I suppose it might better camouflaged in snowy landscape." She cocks her head to one side. "I'm sure it would hurt to look at you in bright sunlight, but it suits you." Horus stretches a wing out, wide. Head turning so that he can examine it, an excited-eager trill bubbling up in his throat. The long string of twittering that follows is unintelligible, really, but the excitement it contains is easy enough to read. Horus hops down off the egg, very /carefully/ conscientiously zipping it back up, carefully tucking the camera bag back around his neck as well. 'I will catch,' his tablet announces for him as he writes, quick and eager, 'ALL THE EYES I WILL CATCH EVERY ONE sunlight snow light I am going to catch wait wait wait I have to show Hive will see I will wake Dusk I will catch Taylor every eye every one!' Flutter-zoooooooom. Well almost zoom; he doesn't /quite/ thunk headfirst into the window in his haste to exit but he does have to come to a /very/ abrupt halt. Taptaptap, taptap/tap/. Just about as impatient to leave as he was to come in. 'All the eyes all the eyes,' he is saying. "You better tell Dusk to put on some sunglasses, huh?" Tag looks superbly pleased with himself as he accepts one pink-and-purple paisley cookie as payment. "Oh wait look out for the--" Window. He prances over and pushes it open for Horus. "I'll tell Joshua you were here. You should come help us decorate after you're done making your rounds. Then you'll also get to see Isra's feathers, when I got that worked out." He bounces up onto the balls of his feet and hops back to give Horus space to takeoff. "Happy eyecatching, and eggsitting!"