care and feeding for your wolf

[actuallyawolf]

Who: Ylva and the curious
What: Shenanigans with Wild Shape
When: Early September, I guess. Time is soup.


just a little nap

Ylva is a wolf and has no problem telling anyone about that fact. Still, there are other shapes she enjoys. She is not one to be pinned down to one approach to anything. She's flexible that way.

What this means, at the moment, is that there is an allosaurus stretched out on the pool deck, enjoying the sun. Mammals are fine, but have you ever been a large, warm-blooded reptile in a patch of sunlight? Her feathers are fluffed up strategically for maximum sunning, tail curled politely around her, head tucked gently into the classic bird pose of "using my own back as a pillow."

She is very much asleep, but not deeply so.


just a little awoo

When night falls, though, it's possible to hear howling.

The curious will find a large, shaggy wolf pacing the sports deck under the moon, restless and unhappy. She throws her head back to howl, and stops, listening. There's no answer, of course. She knows there can't be an answer. Still, she does howl, and wait, and listen.

She remains alert, though, one ear always out for someone who might come to investigate the actual howling wolf wandering the deck of the ship.

Comments

[broshaw]

Sharky loves showing shit off, so that's fine by him!!

"It's called a phone, and yeah, yours can totally take pictures and videos too. And people can send you text messages. Uhhhh, it's like writing a letter to someone, but they can read it instantly. You just need someone's name and room number."

This is basically why he's like "it's all magic."

"You can also call people, which is like... uhh, you can have a conversation with them from different places. It's pretty fuckin' cool, TBH."

[actuallyawolf]

Ylva digs into the pocket of her very stylish bag, because you can never have too many pockets to pull her phone out. "I didn't really realise it did anything other than open the doors of the cabin," she says. "Can you show me?"

[broshaw]

Extremely stylish, and Sharky gives it a nod of approval. "Yeah, here! This thing has so many functions."

He'll hold his own phone out next to hers, and he spends the next few minutes showing her how to find and send a text message, then how to find the camera and switch it between photo and video. His photo gallery has... uh, you know what, he's just gonna not scroll past the pictures of her as a dinosaur. Yep, probably better for both of them...

[actuallyawolf]

A very informative and overdue lesson, thank you very much!

"Wow, that is... fancy," Ylva says at last. "Neat, though. So they must have things like this where you're from?" Come on, that's at least as impressive as dinosaurs, and it shows in her voice.

[broshaw]

"Oh yeah, pretty much everyone back home had a phone before the Collapse." And that's the payoff! He got to have internet, Youtube, and memes, at the expense of dinosaurs and other sick-ass extinct animals. "They're super cool, though, right? It's better than havin' to wait for letters or whatever. Like, now that you've got my number, you can hit me up literally whenever."

Actually... "So you didn't have anything like phones back home? Like... IDK, telepathy or some shit." He's trying to understand magic, okay??

[actuallyawolf]

"Well, telepathy is definitely a thing. It's just not something I can do. Or that most people can do." She pauses, tapping a finger against her lips thoughtfully. "Well, we did have a thing. A magic jewel we could use to talk to Bowen. But it only worked once a week. It wasn't all that useful."

[broshaw]

"Once a week? That would suck. And only one person? Damn..." Yeah, he'll keep his phone, thanks. "But like, my world doesn't have any of that kinda shit. Like, there's some weird sorta-magical bullshit, but other than that..." Shrug. "Nobody can turn into animals or, like, anything cool. Closest I've seen is this one dude back home could kinda... super jump? Because he ate a special apple, or something."

Cult shit sure is weird, man.

[actuallyawolf]

".... Huh. Are you sure there isn't magic in your world?"

Ylva shakes her head. "Wizards, though. They make weird, weird things. But sometimes neat. Bowen also had a room in his tower full of doors that went all the way across the continent to other places. And he had a door that went to an entire other plane of existence, too. But also he lost his tower, so I don't know how you can be so smart and also so dumb at the same time."

She says, without a hint of irony.

"So maybe he could do something that works more than once a week, but he just. Didn't. For whatever dumb reason."

[broshaw]

"I mean..." Shrug?? He really doesn't know. Like, you go your whole life with nothing weird happening, and then for three years there's magic meth brainwashing people into zombies??? What's he supposed to do there??? "Not enough that I ever noticed it, I guess..."

But there's a bigger question here.

"How the fuck did he lose a whole-ass tower?"

[actuallyawolf]

"That's what we said!" Ylva says, half laughing, half exasperated. "No, the thing had legs on it, lots and lots of mechanical legs. Someone stole the key for it, and then someone else stole the key from them, and then in the confusion the tower just sort of took off on its own. We found it stuck in a swamp."

[broshaw]

"Ooooh, like Baba Yaga!" He and Ava had been talking about that! "Y'know, with the legs and shit -- whatever, what I wanna know is why the dude didn't have a spare key! If I had a walking magic wizard tower, I'd probably have like, a whole keyring full of spares."

Or a secret portal into his bedroom or some shit.

"Guess we can't all think ahead like that, though..."

[actuallyawolf]

Ylva rolls her eyes, laughing. "I'm telling you, wizards are ridiculous. They make all sorts of neat things but it's never practical. This is what happens when you get your magic out of books instead of the real world."

Instead of perfectly sensible magic that involves turning into a dinosaur.

[broshaw]

Honestly? A mood Sharky gets.

"Is that how you learned how to turn into animals? Like, is there some street smarts lesson in shapeshifting where you come from?" Because obviously, she ain't no wizard!

[actuallyawolf]

"Well, I was taught," Ylva admits. "By another druid. He's the one who taught me how to read and write, and speak like this. But it is about watching, and being aware, and learning what it's like to move and sense the world as something else, and then working out how to do it yourself."

[broshaw]

Okay, so, fantasy nerd shit. The things Ylva's saying make way more sense to Sharky than most of the other magic around the ship. "Huh. That makes sense, though. Like, you watch an animal and learn how to embody it in, uhh, body and soul, I guess?? Understanding their rich inner world and the unique way they adapt to their surroundings??"

That all makes 100% sense to him, an avid connoisseur of furry media. But the thing that doesn't is:

"How do you get your body to... like... do it, though???" The transformation part, he means. That's so weird!!!

[actuallyawolf]

She scrunches up her nose, trying to think of how to explain it. "Well, I just... do. I draw on magical energies and use them on myself and change my shape. I mean, it took a lot of practice, and I had to learn how to use magic for other things first, but... it's honestly sort of second nature, now."

[broshaw]

"No, yeah, makes sense that it's hard to do. If it were easy, anyone would fuckin' do it, right?" That's what the motivational posters say, anyway! "It's just... really fuckin' cool, dude. You! Are so fuckin' cool. What the fuck!" He's straight-up starstruck by her powers. And her vibe. And her looks...

[actuallyawolf]

"You think it's cool?"

She blinks at him, still entirely missing any potential flirting that might be happening in her direction. But she grins, pleased, and a little proud. "I mean. It's just practice."

[broshaw]

"Well, yeah, obviously I think it's cool! It's bad-fuckin'-ass is what it is, like, turning into animals is a fucking dream of mine!!!"

Okay, furboy, tone it down. Except, fuck that, "It's probably the most awesome magic power to have, and if anyone gives you shit about it, you can turn into a fuckin' wolf and chomp 'em!" Not seriously, but he's in hypeman mode okay? "Way cooler than having a walking tower, forrrrr sure."