One eager dog thing is out and about! (May catch all)

[tektite]

Characters: Tektite and open!
Date: Throughout May
Location: Anywhere readily accessible in Keeliai
Situation: By prompt
Warnings/Rating: By thread, none so far


[A. Few are safe from a curious dog beast | Around Keeliai | Throughout May | OTA]
Tektite is forever curious and there are just so many things to be curious about here! Especially the other foreigners and whatever interesting objects they might have on their person. Shiny object? Bright clothing? Talks to themselves? Just happens to be nearby? Tektite might just say hi, often with a poke of her nose... or by trying to get her massive, clawed hands on some object of interest on your character's person, be it something shiny like jewelry she wants to look at or something mundane like a backpack to stick her snout in.

[B. She's not hard to miss... | Around Keeliai | Throughout May | OTA]
Even around here, Tektite's quite the sight. A bit hellhound, a bit mutated human, a bit way too big. Especially if she happens to bump into someone or suddenly jump down from a roof in front of them. Oops! She's always willing to offer her tail to help someone up and have a chat... if one really wants to talk to the giant dog beast.

[C. Guard dog | Homeless shelter - Earth District | Throughout May | OTA]
She can also be found around the new homeless shelter! Chilling outside it, on the roof as she watches people pass by, or as the diligent nighttime guard. She hates being bored and might well trot up to an interesting passerby to poke at them. Other employees or volunteers at the shelter are, of course, free to approach her.

[D. Some struggles at the library. | Library | Throughout May | OTA]
When she's still curious but the sun is a bit too bright outside for her tastes, she can sometimes be found in the library, struggling to delicately handle books with massive claws. It can be quite the sight really. She doesn't seem to have difficulty reading anything there but she really is having problems maneuvering things...

[E. Ow, ow, ow! | In darker areas of Keeliai | Throughout May | OTA]
This whole curfew thing really sucks for her. The light isn't kind on Tektite's eyes, giving her wicked migraines after a while. High pain tolerance or not, sometimes she needs to curl up in an alleyway and rest to give her head a break. It is easy enough to spot her there. Perhaps she even approaches a fellow foreigner here and there, asking if there is anywhere she do about this problem? Or a place to go that might be able to help?

Comments

[amberdrake]

Shiny object? Check.

Bright clothing? Check.

Talks to themselves? Well, Amberdrake didn't make a habit of that, but one of the tiny, colorful birds on his shoulder was currently chatting with the one perched on his head. Another was having a great time ringing one of the bells that dangled from the tip of a braid, its little beak full of silky black hair.

[tektite]

Tektite was fixated on the shiney, bright, noisey man. Most opals she'd seen didn't come close to how bright and colorful he was and not even in a jarring way? It all worked somehow and that only drew her in more. She could have followed him for ages, just watching everything, but she couldn't help herself. There was a feather almost as colorful as the rest of him hanging in his hair and, before she really considered that maybe she shouldn't, she was reaching for it. Carefully. Very carefully.

[amberdrake]

"Fuck!" chirped one of the birds, and Amberdrake turned his head -- and caught a glimpse of the sneaky, sneaky dogemonster. He paused mid-step, and turned to look at her. ...Well.

"Hello," he was polite, even when startled!

[tektite]

Tektite stared at him, completely busted. She slowly lowered massive claws to the ground as if she hadn't just had them inches from his head. She meant no harm! But giant claws made noone happy.

The Gem glanced away and sat suddenly. Wasn't doing nothing!

"Hi," she said, sheepish tone mostly lost amid the gravelly snarl of a voice her damaged gemstone generated for her.

[amberdrake]

Drake wasn't alarmed by the big claws, even by his head. He felt no malice or hostility from her, and he was used to huge predators and all that they came with. He tilted his head to one side a little, and smiled.

"It's okay," he took a wild guess as to her gryphon-like fixation, "I know I'm quite colorful. I do it on purpose, after all."

[tektite]

Tektite tilted her head to the side as well when she looked back. He was curious, very curious. Most would have flinched, at least, even if they were used to beasts like her. She was under no illusion that she was anything but a giant, twisted animal to many.

"Oh. Why?" A childlike question to match her childlike curiosity. She felt no shame for it. "I like it a lot but I am probably not who you would want to attract."

Who would want to draw in a giant, mutated Gem?

[amberdrake]

"It makes me look exotic, and when someone who looks exotic pays attention to you, it feels more special," Amberdrake explained with another smile. Nope, no alarm here. "I take what makes me different, and I make it mine." Just like his first kestra'chern mentor had done with her floor-length fall of silver-white hair.

[tektite]

"I see!" Tektite sounded, and was, honestly fascinated. This was very interesting stuff to learn, she would have never thought of it. Nowhere else had she had the time to see and learn so much. For a moment it made her think of a pearl but that comparison seemed rude.

"You are very beautiful," she said without any hint that she meant anything by it but that he was interesting to look at. "Though, in truth, that you talk calmly to me while so beautiful yourself makes me feel more special than just that I am getting attention. Would it not be bad for how you look and this projected image to be seen speaking with me?"

It was an honest and very blunt question, no hurt or accusation to backing it.

[amberdrake]

"Why would it be bad?" Amberdrake asked, blinking.

[tektite]

Tektite looked down at herself as if expecting to see something else. She was too used to the reaction she got from other Gems. The kedan seemed to take her in stride, they were shapeshifters after all! But this was not a kedan, this was, she assumed, a human. A human and many little birds. Their species did not look like she did, ever.

"Why would it not be?" She looked up and flashed her teeth briefly. No threat behind it, just making the point of her appearance being what it was. "I am very large and quite abnormal in appearance, even among a population of mostly shapeshifters. I suppose that comment could apply to either here or the species I come from, but Gems do not change as much as the kedan do. That is not the point. I appear like a predator and that is unsettling to many."

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake's eyebrows went up at that, and then he laughed.

"No, it's not unsettling, or shameful. My own adoptive brother is a gryphon," and then, because he had yet to meet anyone from a world as diverse as his own, "do you know what that is?"

[tektite]

Tektite leaned her head down, doggish expression intent. A new thing to learn!

"No, what are they? Are they very bright?"

[amberdrake]

"Sometimes," Amberdrake chuckled, "not as bright as these little fellows," he gestured to one of the birds on his shoulder, "not unless someone like me paints their feathers for them. And then they can be very bright, indeed. Would you like me to show you? If I touch you, I can project an image at you."

[tektite]

Okay maybe he was a bit like a pearl but the touch thing, that was interesting! She had not met a Gem that could do that though she was sure there had to be one that could. At some point she would have to find out if that was a common Gem ability now or not... No matter.

As offering a hand, if that would even work with her armor, would be awkward, she swooped her tail around, offering him the tip, currently missing its usual poof of black fur.

"Please show me. Can I see one painted?" She was terribly, terribly curious. He really wasn't wrong about someone pretty like him showing her attention making her feel special.

[amberdrake]

"I'll show you my brother, first," Amberdrake suspected she'd like seeing Skan in his pitch-black glory. He set a hand on the tip of that offered tail, and projected an image of Skandranon.

The gryphon was huge, his beak big enough to sheer Drake's head off without hesitation, and his talons were larger than the kestra'chern's hands! In the projection, Skandranon was climbing to his feet and stretching after a session of feather-imping. He gave himself a thorough shake to make sure everything Drake had done would stick.

[tektite]

Tektite was enthralled. Amberdrake really wasn't wrong about her enjoying seeing Skan. He was beautiful, in a different way than his human brother, of course. Huge, powerful, and dark. More, well, put together, than she was, but it still brought her some joy to see beauty in a huge predator like that. One that must be intelligent to be a brother to a human.

"He is very lucky to have you as family," she commented as she stood very still to contain her excitement.

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake smiled at that, and then showed her a variety of other gryphons in full mating-flight decoration. Painted feathers, attached ribbons... they could be nearly dizzying to look at when the occasion struck! Less often during the war, but much more after it.

Once that was done, he withdrew his hand and cinched his shields back up again. "There, see? So no," he folded his hands together in his robe's wide sleeves, and chuckled, "I don't find you that odd. Nor do I care who sees us conversing."

[tektite]

Tektite swayed in place a moment, still soaking that in, before she leapt back, her tail arched over her back. She shifted from hand to hand like an excited dog- unsurprising- the image of the gryphons firmly in mind. She was determined not to forget any of the details.

"I see! Well it is still an honor!" And to her, it really was. "They were really beautiful, I wish I could meet your brother, he was magnificent! Oh, how's this?"

And suddenly she was testing her ability to turn into one of those beautiful gryphons. She became her version of one, not wanting to copy one of the individuals he'd shown her directly. This meant she looked more like someone attached a secretary bird to a serval than anything very noble looking, but she was a gryphon at least.

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake blinked. He knew the locals were shapeshifters, but this was his first time seeing such a thing happen right in front of his eyes.

"That is remarkable," he said, both of the ability and the result. She'd chosen a combination he hadn't seen in Urtho's gryphons, but it still worked.

[tektite]

Tektite was pleased and the crown of feathers on her head puffed up to show it. She ducked her head to preen the feathers of her chest, imitating one of the birds on his shoulder while giving herself more time to show off. She wasn't used to nice words about her form, transformation or not.

"Thank you," she said with a click of her beak. Her voice was the same, seemingly unaffected by coming out of a completely different mouth. "It's a pity I can't take on those lovely colors you showed me."

And, just because, she plucked one of her own feathers, tossed it in the air, and bounced it off the end of her beak before it vanished into tiny sparkles of bright white light.

[amberdrake]

The lack of a voice change was actually interesting indeed; most gryphons had the 'gryphonic accent' if they weren't practiced speakers. Hissed sibilants and rolled rs abounded.

Drake chuckled at her antics. "There's no reason you can't take on some of those colors," he said, and reached into a pocket in his open-cut robe for a bit of leather string. Then, he reached for that bright feather in his hair to attach it to...

[tektite]

Tektite couldn't change her voice if she wanted to. She indeed wanted to but nothing she did a damn thing, so she gave up thousands and thousands of years ago. She wasn't giving it much thought now and was deeply interested, instead, by what Drake was doing now.

In the blink of an eye she was back to her usual self, her pinprick pupils following his hands with the intentness of an animal that's spotted a treat.

[amberdrake]

Drake finished securing the feather to the leather thong and then gestured up at his hair, and then up at hers. "May I?"

He was pretty sure he knew the answer!

[tektite]

Tektite lowered her head to an easier to reach level and grinned. Considering this showed off her large, black teeth, she would usually spare someone her smile unless she disliked them, but Drake had proven he wasn't one to care about that.

"Please!" Her tail swayed happily. "Is it really okay for you to give me that?"

[amberdrake]

"Sure," Amberdrake chuckled, and reached up to expertly secure the other end of the leather string deep in Tektite's mane. Tied so it didn't pinch, and also didn't look tied in... the feather just popped out of her fur like it was supposed to be there!

"There we go," he stepped back and appraised it, "that should stay put unless you deliberately reach up to undo it. I left a little loop you can catch with the tip of a claw if you want it off."