Welcome to Gaia! ::

If something weird happens, don’t pretend it didn’t, Autumn had said. Somehow that had resonated with him more than anything else anyone else had said. These weren't ******** coincidences.

Rylan needed to know more, and he went straight for the one woman he knew had gone through experiences something like his. He needed answers. Answers about the bird with his eyes, answers about the mouse.

He sent her a text.

He took the stairs. There had been enough elevator rescues in his time with the fire department to teach Rylan that lifts were not to be trusted. Besides, he liked to walk - especially when he was agitated and had been for about a week. Something about the motion kept him sane.

He found the door to Lara's office and poked his head in, tapping his knuckles against the door.

"Morning," he said, looking around for Cerby. "How are you doing?"

Rylan set himself down in the little armchair as delicately as someone his size could manage.

"I'm... alright," he said after a pause. "A little concerned, mostly looking for answers. There've been a few developments since last we talked."

He glanced over at the sleeping Cerby, wondering what he'd find if the dog was to open its eyes. Would it be anything like that black bird of his?

"I was with some friends the other day, hanging out, and... one moment I was me and the next, I was looking in from the other side of the window. I was in a bird. I felt the beak." He frowned. "Then I became me again, and I looked, and the bird had my eyes." He stared at her with those unmistakable eyes of his. "That can't be a coincidence, right?"

"I'll take whatever you can tell me," he said with his own smile. There wasn't the same sort of resistance in him as had been the first time they'd talked. Less confusion. Instead, there was a steely sort of determination that seemed to say he was determined to figure out as much of this as he could, if only so he could figure out how to move on with his life.

"So, were his eyes always like that? Or did they... change, as it were, after you... warged into him?" If that was even the word. "Because surely, there aren't that many animals out there with eyes like mine. Or yours, even."

"So you... mark them, as it were. As yours? Can anyone else see through him, do you think, or just you?" He thought of the bird, with its disconcertingly familiar eyes, and how beaky it had felt. "Did you do it by accident? Could I... look through that bird again, do you think?"

Not that he particularly wanted to.

"See through Cerby? Or... the bird?" He said, more than a little nervous about the prospect.

Then again. Why not? The headache didn't worry him, but he certainly wasn't prepared to try any such thing on his own, where there was no guarantee he'd even make it back into his own set of eyes.

"I'm game. I just... try to imagine it?"

He tried, for a second, to clear his mind. Concentrate. That was something he'd had some difficulty doing the last couple of days.

Woah.

It really was like a dream. One minute he was somewhere else and the next, inexplicably, he was there, wings extended, gliding over Rider-Waite. And the entire world below him was a brilliant spectrum of bright, gorgeous colors he didn't even realize existed.

It still felt pointedly beaky but it was so much harder to pay attention to that small detail when the world was rushing by below him. He didn't have to think, just rode the currents on the wind as if he'd been doing it his whole life.

He hadn't realized just how beautiful this town was.

He was as surprised as the bird when he felt the sudden emotional response, felt a rush the same way he did when he tackled something dangerous.

Oh! Hi, he managed to think in response before he found himself back in Lara's office, wide eyed and out if breath

"I found him," he said with wonder. "He was excited. Pleasant, even..." Which was very much the opposite if what he'd expected to feel. "Augh, I'm sorry I called him a s**t..."

Still recovering from the ride, he looked back at Lara. "Did you choose Cerby? Or did you just get pulled into him too?"