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Meeting: Open Air, Open Mind


Mouse decides on a new year's whim to visit Durem! That tall, dark and winged stranger at the open-air market has 'deja-vu' written all over him... haven't they met somewhere before?

Welcome Home


There was very little sound worth noting, except for the scuffled rhythm of sneakers on concrete and the distinct lack of another pair of footfalls where there should have been one. Instead there was the occasional dragging of a coiled ribbon against ground, its papery scraping almost inaudible, its shadow flickering and warping according to the whims of the Futhark rune that glowed within it, as if serving the purpose of the heart and ribcage their owner didn't quite have yet.

Needless to say, that turned more than a few heads as the two continued their journey across Gambino. The people who lived and commuted close to the Lab seemed to mind a great deal less than they did a couple of years ago when glowing floating torsos were a new sight around town - but as newborn Raevan and green-haired guardian wandered further from there and closer to the docks, more people took time to notice the beautiful and strange sight drifting along close behind the shorter human. A few of the bystanders were able to pay less attention to the trailing ribbon and sky-colored glow and more to parts of the eagle girl's body directly above them.

"S'too bad you don't have legs, hot stuff..." one worked up the nerve to say as he approached, but a jab to the stomach and a kick to the face cut him off before he could propose a solution to that problem.

"...and if anyone comes on to you like that again, either say 'no' or just do what I did there," the guardian casually lectured to her charge while the man stumbled away. "Come on, we have a ferry to catch."

The Raevan's yellow eyes followed the mechanic's pointing finger to the large white boat people were already filing into, and her mouth repeated the word "Ferry."

Mouse gave a quick, approving nod and smile. "That's it. Now come on... Dayo!" Her hand shot out to catch a wristguard and pull it in the correct direction. She was quickly becoming aware of her charge's tendency to drift off wherever a random whim would lead her if she wasn't watched closely. It thankfully hadn't induced any panic sessions yet (partially because the girl was unable to quit staring at the thing of beauty Ekundayo was), and hopefully wouldn't anytime soon.

The two were able to board the boat without a hitch, and the ride back to Barton was wonderfully uneventful. Dayo spent most of her time looking at other passengers who were spending most of their time staring boredly out at the ocean. Her guardian felt relaxed enough to listen carefully to the motor and other inner workings of the boat, trying to see if she could tell what could use a tune-up and deciding that it would be worth her while to give her card to someone working for the transport company. Not that she had much experience with boats, but how hard could they be to figure out?

Half an hour slid by. Barton Town's port was soon in clear view, and shortly after that people were filing back out of the boat and Mouse was leading her slightly confused Raevan down yet more streets to a nearby parking garage. Then it was up a couple flights of stairs, where Ekundayo's confusion increased at the sight of the slight difficulty her guardian had climbing them.

The Frei pointed one of her dainty claws at the large structure of metal and glass that the mechanic was busy producing a key for. "Ferry."

This time, Mouse shook her head and couldn't help but laugh a little. "No, car."

Dayo jerked in surprise when the passenger's door swung out in front of her. A gentle push with a few words of encouragement was all it took to get her inside, fortunately enough; she had seen enough doors at this point to know what they were for. Getting her to agree to wear her seatbelt was another story altogether, however. She clearly did not like the restricting feeling of any object that limited her freedom of movement. It didn't cause her to lash out or make any noise, but the sudden panic and anger that came from the simple action of putting on a seatbelt was so intense that her guardian could feel it- almost as if it were her own emotions being changed.

Mouse took a couple breaths to calm herself down and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. "Okay," she thought aloud, "I'll just drive carefully and we'll work on that later." In retrospect, the safety gear present in the car probably wouldn't have done much to protect a being that possessed no legs or even a waist.

"We'll be home in a few minutes, okay?"

The assuring calm that came from her guardian's statement was something Ekundayo could agree with. A contented smile graced her features and she replied, "Okay."

Meeting: Kung Fu Hustle


Several hours after her brunch with Natsuki, Mouse gets a craving for some kung fu action! And it turns out that another Raevan owner is feeling the same way...

Cloudy Day


Since the eagle Raevan had been born, every day had started and ended more or less the same: warm, sunny and bright, with occasional cottony puffs of cloud slowly billowing across the sky on cool, sweet breezes - really, much like the demeanor of the recently-born Frei. Which left very little to complain about as the days flowed by and both Ekundayo and her guardian basked in the weightless brand of bliss she produced. It was occasionally punctuated by Mouse having to stop her charge from drifting out of a window or into busy traffic, but life was still surprisingly good.

This morning, however, the sky was noticeably different: dreary and gray, with a thick blanket of damp clouds that rumbled with threats of rain every once in a while.

It took a while for Mouse to notice it, since the day felt like what a typical day had felt like for years before Dayo had drifted into her life. Not great, but not terrible either, and with a certain brand of lethargy that came with sleeping in on a cloudy morning - but that was nothing that couldn't be solved with a cup or five of some homemade triple espresso. The house was soon filled with the scent of brewing coffee... which, oddly enough, didn't serve to perk up the mechanic like it usually did...

A moment later her coffee cup was perched on the edge of the bathroom sink, its owner peering curiously into her reflection in the slightly grease-smudged mirror at every angle she could think of. Maybe she had caught some kind of illness while they were out and about yesterday? However, beyond taking note that her hair was starting to get a little auburn at the roots again, she couldn't find any signs that she was anything but perfectly healthy for a woman her age and build. How strange.

After going back into the kitchen for a refill, she made her the living room for a Saturday-morning cuddling session with Mitya in their usual spot on the couch--

--only to find that spot filled, and the octopuss already purring contentedly, a set of little brown claws raking lazily over his velvety skin. The chimera stretched out momentarily to bump his head-body against the hand currently lavishing him with attention, and then settled into the coils of cloud-patterned ribbon that were winding off of the couch and onto the floor.

"Dayo, are you... okay?" Mouse quirked a thin eyebrow, carefully appraising her charge, who still had a trace of a smile on her features even though she looked every bit as sleepy as Fredmitri did.

She glanced out the window, considering the weather, then looked back at Dayo. Cloud of Despair... cloud. Sky.

Maybe it was the weather doing this... or maybe she was just trapped in Mitya's sleepy, catlike emotions for the time being.

Sand in Your Shoe


Aching, welted hands sleepily gripped the steering wheel of Mouse's car, smoothly and expertly shifting the behemoth of a vehicle along the sand-gritted road that stretched away from the beach and towards home. The air was dipping off from the jubilant heat of that day to a calm, cool breeze that caressed the passengers through the opened windows. Salty sea air was slowly giving way to the sweet scent of manicured grass and trimmed trees as Dayo and her guardian made their way back to Barton, the only noise present in the trip being the cool hum of the engine, the soft rush of the air around them, and the mechanical whine of the occasional passing car. Usually there would have been some simple conversation to supplement this, but the mechanic's exhausted mind was running on emergency reserves. The top item on her list of thoughts was how much she was looking forward to getting home and enjoying some leftover pasta - and, since Dayo didn't eat, it seemed like a silly thing to bring up.

The beach party had been quite a success. There was a bigger turnout than she would have expected, including several people who seemed all but entirely clueless about the Lab. Which was good, since that meant more potential volunteers for Kyou's research, not to mention how everyone seemed to have had a lot of fun and make some new friends in the process. Granted, it sounded a bit Saturday-morning-special to be thinking something like that, but it was true. She wasn't about to regret that paintball match even though her body would have plenty of aches and pains to deal with for a long while.

Replaying the new memories of an enjoyable event should have been more than enough to be heading back home with a comical smile pinned across her unevenly-tanned face, and perhaps even illicit a chuckle out of her during the odd left turn... but her features were blank and neutral, as if planning and then running an ideal beach party wasn't really anything to be that happy over. At first she thought she was just tired, but even in that case there should have been that weary brand of happiness at a job well done, and by the time she reached the outskirts of Barton she had long since begun to suspect that something might be wrong.

It was an all too familiar feeling - an emotional stagnation that loomed over her, threatening to become something worse; something inescapable.

She hadn't felt like this since when she had to keep that damned cloud around her house while she searched for the soul that had resulted in the Frei sitting next to her. It had always made the air around it so heavy, determined to psychologically weigh down anyone that came near it until they didn't even have the motivation to stand up. It never ceased to amaze her that Ekundayo came out the exact opposite, making everything around her feel so light that being around her made people feel like they could float up to join the clouds and drift wherever they pleased. Was it the joy of a caged bird finally being set free that lead to such a phenomenon? Or perhaps there was a more mundane explanation, with the powers of the Cloud of Despair being expanded after being joined with a soul that possessed a full range of emotions?

There probably would never be a concrete answer. But that mystery, for once, was one of the last things on Mouse's mind - a more relevant question had come forward as they drew closer to the street they lived on: what had happened to Dayo making everything so fluffy and bright, and why was it leading to everything being so cold and dim?

The answer to that was rather parsimonious, revealing itself when the mechanic rolled her gaze to the side, landing it on the Raevan in question. She was awfully withdrawn and quiet, halfheartedly fiddling with some strands of hair that had snagged in her wristguard. The open window was being entirely unnoticed when normally she would have her head practically hanging out of it like some winged, half-formed humanized dog. More hair was carelessly tangled in her wings, which looked as if they were uncomfortably ruffled, with some of the feathers twisted around and threatening to break in half. It took a while for her guardian to think of the word to describe how she looked, because of how unlike her it was to be like this.

Dayo... was sad. What was the cause for that? She had been lethargic once or twice - but that was always when there were clouds about, and today had been as blue and bright as the ocean they had partied at. Did someone... manage to upset her?

That thought only made Mouse stare at her charge with muted puzzlement as they made their way inside the house, and the eagle girl drifted towards the stairs that led to her attic. No... Dayo just didn't work like that. It seemed almost impossible to upset her as long as she had positive emotions to feed off of somewhere, even if there was malicious intent behind someone's happiness.

Could she have leached off of enough of someone's negative feelings to get like that? The mechanic crossed her arms and furrowed her brow in thought, leaning against a wall in the kitchen while her pasta popped and sizzled a bit in the microwave. Now, that was a bit difficult to believe. They had just gotten home from a beach party of all things, and although she was sure there must have been a few people who had some low points, it shouldn't have been nearly enough against all of those other people who were having fun. Following what she thought she knew so far about the young Raevan's powers, she should have been in the passenger seat with enough bliss surrounding her to make it dangerous for her guardian to drive.

Then again, the Frei was made from the Cloud of Despair, and Mouse had fully expected her demeanor and her powers to reflect that. Perhaps that made her particularly sensitive to sorrow and anger, like a shark being able to detect the tracest amounts of blood in the expanse of the ocean... or maybe it was so potent to her because it was a constant in her previous life as a caged bird and so unfamiliar in this new incarnation.

The cheerful beeping of her microwave manages to snap her out of her thoughts, and as she winced at handling a hot bowl with bare fingers she figured that going on about the possibilities and what-ifs was only going to lead to little sleep and less progress. It was time to be a responsible guardian instead of a girl lost in thought, and try to cheer her Raevan up a little.

A nice movie should do the trick - even if Dayo wasn't paying attention to it, her guardian's amusement would do for a nice late-night snack as well as a mood booster. One hand shoveled a mouthful of pasta into her mouth while the other popped a video into the VCR (she really needed to give that back to Stae sometime), and a few seconds later she was calling Dayo back downstairs with a cooler full of leftover creme sodas sitting beside the couch.

New Favorite Food


"Oh, damn..."

Mouse did a double-check of what she was looking at to make sure that the scene before her was what she thought it was, her hands carefully tilting open drawers to peek inside and moving aside the box of baking soda to see if there was anything behind it. The little hatch on the side door reserved for butter was flipped open momentarily, but that only revealed a scrap of foil smashed into the corner with the help of a blob of margarine.

Besides that, the only things that met the mechanic's gaze were white, condensation and woefully bare shelves. Her refrigerator was as empty as it had been when it was new - and the same could be said for much of the rest of the kitchen, cupboard doors in every direction left open and revealing little more than a packet of instant noodles or half a bag of potato chips so stale that they had become chewy. How had she run so desperately low on food? She wondered for a moment if one of the side effects of her Raevan's atmospheric euphoria was a constant case of the munchies, but quickly abandoned that idea after considering that she might have simply forgotten to restock on food while focusing on caring for a being who didn't need it.

This meant she would have to go on a grocery run... but first, it was time to get something that could be scarfed right away so she wouldn't fill her house with crap she would never eat.

"Hey, Dayo! Come on, we're going out for a burger."

The Frei drifted down from the attic a few seconds later, the usual look of pure bliss on her face. With a touch of extra cheer at the prospect of going out, she asked, "What's a burger?" while idly untangling some of her wild hair from the strings of her bodice.

"Something you can't eat yet," her guardian teasingly smirked. "But the place we're going to makes it all kinds of delicious, so it'll be full of happy people you can feed off of. Sound good?"




And it was good. Upon leaving the restaurant, the mechanic was full and content, and the Raevan... well, Dayo was as blissful as a red ballon bobbling up into the stratosphere after being around so many people who were enjoying their food while laughing and joking with one another. They had ended up arriving at the place during the restaurant's lunch rush - which meant that there was a bit of a wait, but it was more than worth it for the Behemoth Burgers they made there as well as all of the happiness that was around for Dayo to feed off of. Both of them couldn't wait for the next time they could come up with a good excuse to go out there.

For some, the fact that it was so out of the way was a deterrent from going there. However, for Mouse and the rest of the regulars that made up the majority of Dusty Road Grill's consumers, the fact that it was so out of the way made it into a draw. They were all speed demons who craved an empty street they could go wild on, and the outpost that the restaurant was part of had it by the mile, along with tracks of dirt that countless tires had made over the hilly terrain.

"God, I love this place," the greasemonkey grinned, securing seatbelts and starting the engine of her pride and joy. "I hope you're ready for dessert, Dayo!"

"Dess--"

A small foot drove the accelarator into the floor, cutting off the Raevan's chance of ever completing that thought.

And it was apparently Mouse's intention to keep her foot there for a good long while. Her back was flat against her seat, elbows locked straight and knuckles white on the steering wheel. A wide smirk that looked almost feral split her face as she jerked her torso to the right, abruptly yanking the car off-road.

As the tires began to spit plumes of dirt into the grass, Dayo couldn't help but start to mirror that wild look. Every time the vehicle bounced into the air-- whenever the engine roared them to fly out the crest of a hill-- a new feeling rushed up her form that caused her to gasp in surprise and dig her claws reflexively into her seat. And every time it happened, she found herself craving it more, wanting more, until she had broken her awed silence and started whooping with joy along with her guardian as the car slammed onto the ground and sped up once again.

If she had a functioning heart, it would have been bursting out of her chest right then. For now it was just as good to have that strange new energy jumping through her half-formed body. This was beyond the calm euphoria and fizzy laughter she had been content with previously - so much that it made them seem bland in comparison.

Dayo would always be craving this new lightning-burst feeling, whatever it was called.

RP with Chrys! Tag between Zul and Dayo~

http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=14447583