beaufort wind scale [open]

[goodweather]

Who: Phil and you!
What: January open; having a bad one, having a decent one, and Bird Monster Time
When: through January
Where: bellona theatre, library, sports deck, bobby b's, the sky, pool bar, around
Warnings: non-suicidal self-harm thoughts, compulsiveness, probably prior Village stuff will come up


smoke drift indicates wind direction, wind vanes still (cw: avoiding self harm) [rooftop]

This can't be good.

It's the first thing his mind jumps to, when his heart starts racing or the stress builds in his gut, that need to hurt something, but he can't let himself do that. He couldn't before and he especially can't now. He won't. He won't. Too many people care about him. Too many people depend on him. He'll do anything before he relapses like that. The idea is terrifying.

In his cabin he takes a sharpie and draws on himself. As many species of swirling plants and darting animals as he can remember, tangles of geometry, cold fronts, polar coordinates and bad math equations that would probably crash a calculator, as many numbers of the Fibonacci sequence as he can remember; all of it traces up his wrists and his thighs, though no one will see the latter. He can't ruin something like that. He rips a notebook from the bric-a-brac to shreds and painstakingly colors it all red in marker. Tape, too--there's tape in the bric-a-brac and the Sundries, and that he lays on his skin, especially where there's body hair, and tears it off. It doesn't take up hair that much, but the sting is there. That satisfies. That sates. That's safe.

And he runs too. Falls into a dead sprint until his legs burn, then takes off into the sky until his wings and his whole torso does too. It's good cardio, he may as well be productive. Some might spot him soaring in circles above the deck. When he lands, it's onto a familiar rooftop perch, and his legs dangle as he sits to take some weather measurements.

wind felt on face, leaves rustle, vanes begin to move [bellona theatre, library]

In the library, or occasoinally alone in the theatre, a voice can be heard, quiet and low.

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; when I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured wh--when--"

A soft but vicious swear. And then he starts again.

Phil sits with pages and books of literature and poetry in front of him, reciting carefully. He... seems stuck.

small trees in leaf begin to sway [sports deck]

It's not at all unusual to see Phil up on the sports deck; he works out regularly, he keeps up diligently with his sword and combat training, has for over a year by now. And he's a strong sort of guy; the impacts he make aren't without force.

But he starts showing up more often, and for longer. Phil goes at the dummy with a dull training blade with an unusual aggression and speed; the impacts are vicious, and the drills are repetitive, and there comes a point when he strikes and the blade snaps apart, the shattered pieces flying.

Phil stops, breathing hard, and goes to sit and take a water break.

twigs breaking off trees, generally impedes progress [around]

Sometimes he has his earplugs in; often he doesn't, because despite how much he hates the noise, he hates being vulnerable more. As Phil passes through the ship he keeps tabs on his surroundings, carefully avoiding any eye contact so as not to be caught glowering at anybody. No one deserves that from him, but he's not willing to tamp it down, either.

But if someone seems to keep his eyes on him for too long, he'll look right back at them and grumble, "Is there something you need?"

whole trees moving, resistance felt walking against wind [bobby b's]

The routines the same. He drags himself into the bar. Sometimes he gets a cigar, but he always grabs a whiskey. Never by the bottle, though, and for each new drink he gets a new glass. He. Needs to keep track.

He's here more often than he was before, and for longer. But... he has water, and food from the Drunken Sailor, so...

slight structural damage occurs, slate blows off roofs (cw: compulsive behavior) [around, in quiet places]

Preening while he does other things is routine. Usually while he reads, which could be in the library or the lounge or the cafe, or while he's just sitting around in a restaurant or a bar or the pool deck. But these days, sometimes he just--he gets stuck. He'd meant to get up and do something else half an hour ago, maybe even an hour, but his talons still run through his feathers, running and running and digging and pulling and--he's breaking barbs, snapping quills, running his feathers torn and ragged, but that's just as well. That's how he knows it's real. Ugly, but real, and the mistakes he makes stay.

... This is probably an issue, though, isn't it.

seldom experienced on land, trees broken or uprooted, considerable structural damage [around]

Phil takes a deep breath. And--

... There's something new slinking around the cruise. It's bigger than a polar bear and twice as vicious-looking, taller than most people at the shoulder, but it only seems to be winding carefully around the library shelves, or up and down the stairwells, or poking through the Tommy Bahama. It's not thrashing, or making a racket, or attacking people. The most it's doing is trying to use a register with its giant bird hands. Or sleeping on the roof of the pool bar. Or struggling to get out of some Bahama clothing racks that he got stuck in without breaking anything.

(Those who are even passingly observant might see why: those wings are familiar. So are the eyes: the left one clear, the right one slashed and cloudy with cataracts. And perhaps even the sallow white light is familiar, and the cool breeze that blows about it.)

very rarely experienced; accompanied by widespread damage [after the probe launch; rooftop]

Phil slowed down on his weather tracking a lot. Once every other day, maybe every three days. Nothing has changed since July of last year, after all.

But now he thinks it'll be much more useful than not to have someone keeping tabs on the atmosphere. So. He'll be there on the same rooftop spot he always takes. New paper on the clipboard, neatly dated and partitioned. At nearly all hours of the day and much of the night, he's taking readings as close together as 15 minutes and no further than two hours apart. Sometimes he'll fly out over the sea just to scan the horizon. He's made a real nest up there to make the long haul tolerable; cushions, blankets, food and drink, books... plus Erin's sword and the cursed dagger close at hand, and the antimagic ring on his finger. And always wearing his lei. (It's invisible in the daylight, but in the evenings, there's... a strange fluorescent cast of light on him. Like most white fluorescents, it doesn't do him any favors, only serving to make him look more sallow and pale, as though he was ill.)

Sometimes he's up there in that big bird monster shape too, struggling to manipulate the pen in his weirdly dexterous bird hands. It'll be useful to get used to this shape now that he understands what it is. It came to him so close to the eve of potential disaster. It's the same thing as when he got these wings two months before the apocalypse happened on Prismatica, and he used them to race through the collapsing city to rescue and evacuate civilians with Henry.

It's a Hail Mary.

It also means they might live.

devastation [wildcard]

(( hit me on discord or here. ))

Comments

[saltwaterlungs]

[ ...

Darcy immediately goes to scritch the particular spot on the back of his head that would make Dragon Phil fall over. ]

[goodweather]

[ Phil falls over. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Darcy snorts, feeling... strangely both here and somewhere else. Like he's been overlayed with some other version of himself.

Darcy eases himself down to the ground, kind of having to squidge in between a row of chairs to be near Phil's head. ]

Weird.

[goodweather]

[ It's much the same for him. The length of his neck, the lack of spines, the shape of his wings, his lack of horns, this new shape is all at once both more familiar than ever before and still so alien.

Phil takes a second to recover from that and looks up at Darcy from where he is on the floor. There's... he's making some kind of sound, a low and rumbling one unlike the birdcalls he'd been making before. (Look, mockingjays and parrots and lyrebirds exist, right? Surely even though he doesn't have lips that he can move like a human's, he can... hold on...)

The sound is clumsy and the bare minimum of articulated, low and growling and raspy, but it's there: ] 'eah.

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Darcy startles just a bit momentarily from how human his voice sounds, or at least, closer than anything a different version of Phil was able to make. Darcy reaches over to gently smooth a couple of feathers down. ]

Sorry for threatening you.

[goodweather]

'Ssss ogei...

[ Yeah, no, he's putting that down for now and practicing on his own later. This is embarrassing. He just coos again, assuring Darcy that it's alright, he gets it, no harm done.

Phil still wants to get his stuff off of the nest, though, and he figures he does too if he's here. He climbs to his feet but remains in a low crouch and looks up that way, then back down at him. He chirrups inquisitively. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ He has one single solitary task here. To Not Be Weird about this.

Is it weirder to just get on his back or to ask before he- Darcy's overthinking this he's just going to climb on Phil's back, that's obviously what he's indicating towards right. Be cool and fine and normal about this. ]

[goodweather]

[ As soon as Darcy's secure, Phil stands, spreads his wings, and jumps into flight.

It's a very short trip from here to the rafters, but a lift all the same. Gravity lurches; the ground falls. He lands at the nest again, stooping down to let Darcy off and to shove his own stuff back into the bag he brought them in with his giant bird hands. The bag's getting put between his teeth though. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Okay Darcy's not going to be able to be normal about this. He whoops happily as his stomach drops out, even if it's only a short trip up.

Darcy retrieves his couple of books, the couple of knives from the tourney, a blanket from Tommy Bahama. He pats Phil's side, asking- ]

Do you want a hand with that?

[goodweather]

[ The chirping he does sounds a lot like he’s laughing too; it’s hard not to, with Darcy enjoying himself like that.

Some books both for reading and music get stuffed into a small duffel, plus the blankets and cushions he had to pack in absence of a mattress so that he didn’t get up stiff as a rock the next morning. This he passes up to Darcy by turning his head around and dropping it in his lap.

But after that, they’re off again; Phil pushes off of the nest and soars down towards the exit of the theatre. It doesn’t occur to him to ask if Darcy wants to go on his own feet when he starts walking back to the cabins. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Darcy's happy to carry it for him, and there's a moment where he considers dismounting, but. If Phil's happy to carry him, then Darcy's not budging. He doesn't risk trying to lie down-

not like back there. Clouds reflect in his shimmering scales, blue as the gaze of heaven.
Like laying on an ornery spiked armchair with teeth.

-but he is pretty comfortable. If Phil weren't in motion, he might just take a nap. ]

You want me to get the door?

[goodweather]

[ He makes a sound like a seagull's trill. Yes, please. He still doesn't know how to use these hands, and they're set way back from his face.

Besides, once he gets up to the cabin he bonks his entire snout into it with a loud THONK. Phil recoils, warbling unpleasantly. Getting used to this body and having no depth perception is going to be a trial, huh. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Yeah sorry Phil this is funny. Darcy dismounts to carefully scoot ahead and open the cabin door, holding it open and trying to give him some clearance to get through. ]

Maybe I should beep like one of those things in cars that tell you when you're about to crash into something, ehn?

[goodweather]

[ It's fine, his entire life is a comedy. Literally. Phil snorts his displeasure as he attempts to fit himself in through the doorway.

...

He can't get through the door. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

Okay, I think you should probably change back now, [ Darcy snorts, ] I'm not shoving you through the door.

[goodweather]

Wur'ff. Whhhh. Wuuer. [ nope, give him a second. ] Wuuueeerr. Awff. C-'an't. Siiiiex. Hours.

[ He gestures with his snout towards the clock on his nightstand, although it's not a very precise gesture. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Hours is clear enough. So. Darcy sighs in a put-upon manner and leans with her shoulder into his flank, giving him a firm shove. ]

[goodweather]

[ Phil squawks indignantly, limbs scrambling for purchase against the floor (which they do, and rather deeply at that). Stop, stop, you're just gonna make him more stuck! And ruin his feathers! ]

'ust baghh! Bag!

[saltwaterlungs]

Hey!- you didn't fucking tell me I was- [ ughhh, Darcy's not bickering with him while he can barely talk, they grab his bag and fling it in a little haphazardly, along with their retrieved belongings. ]

Happy?

[goodweather]

[ Phil trills. Yes, geez, thank you.

He tries to back up, and like. He does, but not without some very firm effort and discomfort, considering the doorway he's jammed between is going against the grain of his feathers. He backs into the opposite wall of the hallway and snuffs unhappily, trying to reach where all his feathers got displaced with--egh--either a foot or a hand on his snout, whatever can reach there. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Darcy does his best to assist with setting Phil's feathers right the same way Phil did that one time for Darcy. But this is still very funny.

... Actually, ]

I should probably warn the patrol group that you're not a threat, huh.

[goodweather]

[ Phil makes a noise like the most stock sound library sound of a seagull in the world while his snout is stuffed into his own feathers, as fussy about his appearance as ever. ]

Sshhood.

[ If it'll help to have a distinguishing feature besides the whole, you know, bird monster thing, Phil lifts his head and blinks at Darcy with the blind side of his face. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

Right- yeah, [ Darcy taps out a quick message to the rest of the patrol group about Phil and his new form. After a moment, she takes a couple of steps back. ]

I'm gonna send a photo too- once you've sorted your feathers out, ehn.

[goodweather]

[ He takes another minute or so to fuss over himself. It takes some awkward positioning, what with him being as big as he is in a corridor like this, but he manages. And then he stands, so that Darcy can get a good angle.

... Posing. He's posing. ]

[saltwaterlungs]

[ ...

Darcy quickly turns the camera around, fixes his hair and how his suit is sitting, and then takes two consecutive selfies of him pointing at Phil and then giving a thumbs up. Both get sent to the patrol chat. ]