05-08-2024, 10:06 PM
The bird answers me, and I gasp. If I had the ability to Drift, I surely would have in that moment, anything I could do to get as far away as possible from a bird that could talk.
Despite all the other magic, I’d not yet run into any cursed. I had even begun to hope that they did not exist here in this new world. They are monsters, after all, terrible and bloodthirsty and…very bad flyers?
That didn’t seem quite right.
I know my expression has changed as quickly as my emotions: concerned, relieved, shocked, and now: wary intrigue. I have never been good at hiding what I am feeling; years of lessons at it had made me no better at the skill than I am at Drifting. I had always been more focused on other, more interesting things.
Things like tales about curses, and how they were punishments for fiends incapable of speaking the truth, all of them also guilty of the most wicked deeds. I’d always imagined them as something like a bear or maybe even a grimclaw, and to see this (admittedly impressive but still just a) bird is not what I expected.
Equally unexpected is the scolding for not being nice. Nice? None of the stories I’d heard mentioned that the cursed cared about niceties. In fact, I didn’t think they were supposed to talk at all. It is not cursed, I realize suddenly. This is more magic, a kind of magic I don’t know, one that gives animals the ability to speak and apparently to teleport.
I had been rather rude, I realize.
“You actually aren’t the worst teleporter I’ve ever seen,” I answer truthfully, knowing that I’m flushed with embarrassment on multiple levels. “But I am sorry. For being rude, I mean. I just thought you were a bird.” I’d thought he wouldn’t understand me, goes unsaid
I watch as the bird struggles to rise, balancing awkwardly on its large bronze wings, and then glance quickly away, remembering that I’d just apologized for being rude and that staring was only going to compound that first impression.
“A bad…what?” I ask when I look back, trying to understand as a frown obscures the bring of green around my amber eyes. He has more magic? The bright colors of the strangers I’ve come across had been odd enough, and it hasn’t ever occurred to me that a being might change themselves entirely. “Like you can change yourself into something else?” What does the bird become? A rock? A thought?
Peraps nothing, currently, I realize. Just a bird. Is he as bad a shapeshifter as I am a Drifter?
“I’m Nizhonii, by the way.” As soon as I say it, I realize that it’s no longer true. In a world where my home does not exist, it feels somehow wrong to mention it. “Nee. You can call me Nee.”
@Clopin
Despite all the other magic, I’d not yet run into any cursed. I had even begun to hope that they did not exist here in this new world. They are monsters, after all, terrible and bloodthirsty and…very bad flyers?
That didn’t seem quite right.
I know my expression has changed as quickly as my emotions: concerned, relieved, shocked, and now: wary intrigue. I have never been good at hiding what I am feeling; years of lessons at it had made me no better at the skill than I am at Drifting. I had always been more focused on other, more interesting things.
Things like tales about curses, and how they were punishments for fiends incapable of speaking the truth, all of them also guilty of the most wicked deeds. I’d always imagined them as something like a bear or maybe even a grimclaw, and to see this (admittedly impressive but still just a) bird is not what I expected.
Equally unexpected is the scolding for not being nice. Nice? None of the stories I’d heard mentioned that the cursed cared about niceties. In fact, I didn’t think they were supposed to talk at all. It is not cursed, I realize suddenly. This is more magic, a kind of magic I don’t know, one that gives animals the ability to speak and apparently to teleport.
I had been rather rude, I realize.
“You actually aren’t the worst teleporter I’ve ever seen,” I answer truthfully, knowing that I’m flushed with embarrassment on multiple levels. “But I am sorry. For being rude, I mean. I just thought you were a bird.” I’d thought he wouldn’t understand me, goes unsaid
I watch as the bird struggles to rise, balancing awkwardly on its large bronze wings, and then glance quickly away, remembering that I’d just apologized for being rude and that staring was only going to compound that first impression.
“A bad…what?” I ask when I look back, trying to understand as a frown obscures the bring of green around my amber eyes. He has more magic? The bright colors of the strangers I’ve come across had been odd enough, and it hasn’t ever occurred to me that a being might change themselves entirely. “Like you can change yourself into something else?” What does the bird become? A rock? A thought?
Peraps nothing, currently, I realize. Just a bird. Is he as bad a shapeshifter as I am a Drifter?
“I’m Nizhonii, by the way.” As soon as I say it, I realize that it’s no longer true. In a world where my home does not exist, it feels somehow wrong to mention it. “Nee. You can call me Nee.”
@Clopin