ArchivedLogs:Hunting Stars

Hunting Stars
Dramatis Personae Craig, Dusk, Hive, Rasputin	2014-02-21 Part of Morpheus TP.
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. For February, the weather today is actually fairly conducive to chasing stars -- edging up into the mid-forties and though there are grey clouds over head threatening rain, for the moment it's dry. Hive has a tendency to carry his own personal raincloud /with/ him, though. Today it's literal as well as figurative, his blue hoodie bearing a stormcloud in the white patch on its stomach, raining down blue raindrops as well as small red hearts. His Grumpy Bear hoodie is paired with faded old jeans, very much tattered and frayed at their lower hems, particularly in the backs where they drag down over the heels of his much-abused sneakers (duct-taped together around their toes.) There's a soft fleecey cap pulled down over his ears, deep red with the greek letters Theta Tau embroidered on the front. He has a glower to match the raincloud, scowl etched deep into his features. His hands are shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched up around his ears. There's a large cloth grocery bag over his shoulder, though, and the scowl lessens /just/ slightly as he clambers up (with considerable help from his companion) into the wooden castle of one of the park's playgrounds, rooting around inside until he emerges -- triumphant and /just/ slightly-less-scowly than before. There's a delicate crystalline object in his hand that glitters rainbow-prismatic in his palm, and he flops down (kind of exhausted-looking) against a swaying wooden bridge on the playset, dropping the newly found star onto his chest. It has a paper tag attached; he hasn't yet bothered to read it. Instead his voice /thuds/, pounding sledgehammer-heavy into Dusk's mind. << If the next one's any farther away than 12th street we're calling a damn taxi. >> He sounds just as pained in mental speech as his voice /is/ painful, likely aggravated by the wash of other-minds around the park. Even with his eyes currently closed, the telepath is paying /attention/, a background sort of /listening/ to the mental radio-chatter perpetually around him. Beside him, Dusk looks a whole lot more animated than the scowly telepath. Dressed in faded old brown corduroys, Vans sneakers, a black denim jacket over green henley shirt, he'd be fairly nondescript if not for the /enormous/ dark bat-wings carefully pushed through the jacket and sprouting from his back. He has been ambling along at Hive's side, dark glasses on his pale face and a bright smile (that does nothing to hide his /very/ sharply gleaming fangs) on his face that only brightens when the star is retrieved. The prop of his wing against Hive's elbow looks almost casual, but there's a supportive strength there that holds up the thinner man's weight with ease. Helps him into the castle with just as much ease. When Hive flops down onto the bridge, Dusk hauls himself up to perch on the chains that run like guardrails alongside it, sneakers tucking against the lower rung as his wings shift to drape down onto their outside. He hangs onto one of the chains with one hand, leaning doooown so that he can pluck the star from Hive's chest. << Pfft you weigh like ten pounds dude, I'll just /fly/ you over. >> "Gimme the bag, I'll add this to our /hoard/. Woah. /Sparkly/." Dusk turns the star this way and that in his palm, watching it catch the light. It's a bird! It's a plane! No wait, it's actually a bird. A familiar mental chatter is coming from a bird, mostly just wondering what the hell to do with all these stars and that they are LOVELY. Rasputin flies overhead, holding a star in hir hawk talons, as ze spots Dusk and Hive, flying towards them with a cry. "Hiiive! Duuusk!". Rasputin parks on top of the castle, picking up the star with hir beak, as ze talks. Several other birds around the park begin coming closer to hir for some reason. "What's up?". Craig isn't as intrigued by star-chasing as much of the city. He can certainly appreciate the beauty and can even, to some degree, envy the childlike whimsy and eagerness that he's seen in the faces of the fully grown as they poke around trying to find more surrealist treasures. Craig just isn't much of a magpie and, frankly, anything that distracts him from his audition prep is just going to irritate. Still, as he walks by, he can't help but be a bit captivated by the sight of the bat-winged youth and his companion not only holding a star, but holding a conversation with what appears to be a bird. Hive has been leaning somewhat /heavily/ into the absent support of Dusk's wing, up until the point he has found himself a space to lie down. He slings an arm across his eyes, /groaning/ in reflexive irritation at the approaching cry. "What. In the fuck. Why are you so gorram /loud/." His shoulders tighten inward, hand falling off his eyes to thud against his chest. "Apparently screeching is up." His eyes slant sidelong towards Craig, closing again a moment later. "You got incoming gawking, man," he warns Dusk, just as crankily as his not!greeting to Rasputin. Dusk does provide a rather easy target /for/ gawking; he rises up on his perch a little as Rasputin approaches, stretching his wings out -- folded inward it's hard to tell just /how/ large they are but flared to their full upwards-of-fourteen-foot span draws /more/ than a few stares from around the park. He reaches out with one wing towards the castle, one wingtip extended like he is offering the incoming hawk a /knuckletap/. "Dude. Ras." In contrast to his roommate's irascibility, /his/ tone is nothing but easygoing, warm cheer in his voice as he settles back into place. "Apparently we're hunting stars. What's your prize, there?" He jerks a dark scruffy-bearded chin towards the star in Rasputin's talons. Hive's last warning has him looking around, brows slightly raised. Craig's captivated look just earns the same warm smile (for all that the sharp fangs don't really -- /help/ the impression); he folds his wings back inward with a slow ripple of motion, lifting a hand instead to salute, crystal star touched to his forehead. "Sup." It's just as amiable to the stranger as it was to Rasputin. "Sorry! I'll lower the decibel, please hold.". Rasputin is doing just that, the sound not only lowering, but closing in on the two nearer to their ears, making it much quieter to Craig. "I found. A star. These are some sort of thing. I have no idea what this is about, really!". Ras is dropping it towards Dusk, before perking a head. "Is this like all the other weird crap that's been happening lately?". Rasputin notices Craig, lifting a wing in greeting. Meanwhile, the three birds are getting closer, almost towards the castle. Craig raises a hand in greeting to bat and bird alike, his own expression on of cautious friendship. There's no actual fear, though, or at least not physical fear. -Way to lay low, numbnuts- he thinks to himself, the closeted mutant somehow stumbling across a leader of the mutant movement (Jax) yesterday and then some of its more obvious members today, "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude," he says aloud, "Just...y'know, talking bird. With everything going on, it's a little...fairy tale-ish." "Fff." Hive's arm is sliding back across his eyes. "In fairytales the talking birds aren't annoying as piss." His legs shift inwards, knees crooking up towards the sky. "New York is kind of like a fairytale, though. The old-fashioned kind. Where everyone dies fucking horribly. -- I don't think this is about anything. Whole town is --" Despite his still perma-surly tone, his mouth is curling up into a smile. "Losing its gorram mind." "Oh, I don't think we had much sanity to /start/ with." Dusk dismisses Hive's notion with an offhand flick of one of the long upper thumb-claws on his wings, dropping his hand to his lap with fingers curled loosely around the star. "But if I had to pick I'd pick the happy-crazy over the getting-entrails-eaten kind. You're not intruding, we're just. Taking a breather. Chasing stars is tiring work." "New York's a crazy craaazy place. And I'm a bird.". This voice /is/ expanding towards Craig, though it's much closer to him than a bird's cry from the distance actually could be. Rasputin grins, but then the three birdketeers are leaping onto the castle, surround Ras. And..doing nothing. Rasputin leans hir head back, and the birds lean closer, and when Rasputin leans hir head back forward, the birds return their heads back to the normal position. "Okay, this is creepy. What the hell?". Craig is about to answer when his phone rings, a bit of Tchaikovsky and he holds up a finger, "My director, hold on..." he says, answering, "Craig here...no...you can't push back the auditions, Bobby...cause it's crap, you just want to give Grigorsky time to get over his knee...don't BS me..." he mutters, arguing and meandering around outside the fence. Hive's arm is still over his eyes; he is, therefore, paying no attention to Rasputin's entourage. "What in the fuck are you on about," he mutters, but it's more irritable than actually curious. "We know you're a fucking bird, we have gorram -- eyes." He thrusts his other hand -- shaking kind of badly -- out towards Dusk. "C'mon. What's the next clue. I think I can stand up again." His hand is pressing to his temple as he slowly sits up, dropping his arm to hook his elbow against the chain beside where Dusk sits, causing it to sway slightly in his lean. His eyes are still squeezed shut even after he drops his arm, head dipping down to rest against the chain railing. "'Creative little stars blossoming not just in your backyard, but everyone's. Come sit and help tend them.'" Dusk reads the slip of paper before leaning down to rest it and the crystal star both in Hive's hat, once he sits up, tucking them down into the folded-up brim of the fleece cap. "I don't even have a backyard, man. Not /yet/, anyway." There's a bright glimmer of cheer that lights in his mind at the thought of moving into the Commons and having /space/ in there. His wing shifts down to drape loosely against Hive's back, resting there like a blanket. His head turns, slightly, to watch Rasputin and his cadre of birds. "So shoo them off," he suggests with a shrug. "Sounds like..maybe a garden?". Rasputin says helpfully, as the birds are crowding hir personal space. Meanwhile, someone is walking through the park. "Go! Get out! Agh, go bother that person or something!". Rasputin's pointing a wing at the passerby..and the birds are flying towards them at the same time in unison. "Okay. What the hell just. I think I'm going home this is creepy, you guys can keep my star. I think I just sicced birds on a person..". "Mmm." Hive cracks his eyes open at Rasputin's suggestion, a quick curl of smile displacing some of the scowl from his face, briefly. "Yeah. Huh. Think I might know which garden, too. Uh." He watches the birds fly off, brows raising. "Do they do that a lot?" But at the mention of LOOT he is holding his hand out for the star. "You got the clue that came with it, still?" Dusk flexes a wing, nudging Rasputin's star closer to Hive. "They're not going to go all Hitchcock, are they?" He watches the birds fly off with more amusement than concern. "Rasputin, birdking. Vengeful birdking." He grips the upper chain in his hands, sliding down off his seat to sit beside Hive on the bridge, first, and then slide off it entirely to wriggle under the railing and down to the ground. "If you know where we're going then let's do it. I am so fucking determined to beat Jax at this game you have no idea. -- Helps that I'm a slacker with no job and he's got like ten." But who says Dusk is playing /fair/. "No..that's the first time that's ever happened. Birds actually usually ignore me unless I ask them for stuff. But being a Birdking is awesome. And..I have no idea what they're going to do.". Rasputin grins, still kind of nervous, but the birds aren't actually trying to murder the person or anything, just bugging them as ordered, so all is good. "Well, I'll see you around, Duskyman. Whatsyourface.". Rasputin grins again, before SOARING OFF! Vroooosh! Hive slides down off the bridge, too, curling a hand against Dusk's wing. He leans up against the other man, swiping the second star off the bridge to add it to their trove. "Yeah," he agrees with a thin smile, "I think we got this."