Welcome to Gaia! ::

Busy. That's what Connor had been pretty much since the moment he'd gotten back from that nightmare of a ball. And never mind what he'd been up to at the crack of dawn when they'd stepped back into ashdown from the fairy realm on that particular day, because he'd been trying very hard not to even think about it, to just wipe it clean from his memory and move on. Busy. That's what he'd been and that was exactly what he'd needed. Between work and classes, he'd barely had time to breathe, let alone to think, and that was just fine with him.

Just. ********. Fine.

What moments weren't spent trying to scrape out a living slinging drinks and serving food at Darlene's, or patrolling hospital hallways in his security guard uniform, or studying, or catching what precious little sleep he could between classes, Connor dedicated to spending with his puppy, Peebles, though she...really wasn't much of a small puppy anymore. Sadly, babies did tend to grow. And grow. And...Sigh.

What was once a wiggling, excitable small mass was quickly becoming a mid sized fearsome Rotty - yet still quite the wiggling and excitable sort.

It was in one of those hard to come by down times that Connor was walking his dog, with no actual determined route. She led, and he tended to just follow and go wherever her padding feet did take them, which on this occasion appeared to be towards the library. Bystanders and passerby's were given glances, and very rarely if he happened to know them, a wave.

He had just reached down to give Peeble's a quick little rub between her ears while they walked when a nearby voice caught his attention. The "Hey buddy" earned a glance in Rylan's direction, and though Connor didn't think that he knew the guy, and while it became quite apparent right away that he hadn't been addressing Connor, something seemed oddly familiar about him.....

Wait. Was that a bird on his head? Eyes narrowed in to a scrutinizing look.

"Hey." Connor said, nodding towards the man, expecting that he likely noticed the scrutiny and feeling some sort of greeting, if even in passing, was necessary.

And then, realization hit. "Hey." He said again, coming to a halt. Peebles, unaware that her owner was no longer walking along with her, jerked hard against the leash, a small grunt and a surprised look over her shoulder given when she realized she wasn't able to take another step further.

"You. You're that guy...ah." He hesitated, and had a glance up and down the street. "******** Friars? Your friend with his insides on his outsides?" He supplied, in case the other guy needed his memory jarred as well.

"Connor." He supplied in return, hand going to Rylan's to grasp in a firm handshake. "And it's...Well, it's not nothing, but it's what I do." Though Thorne had definitely been the most sever case of, well, anything Connor had ever had to treat before, and he had honestly been surprised that the guy had somehow survived. When he thought back to that day, it was with a strange mix of horror and pride.

He released his grip on Rylan's hand, noticing the bird as it hopped down onto his shoulder. It chirped, and Peeble's, who had turned with a stare fixated on Imp, let out a sudden bark in return.

"Bubs, shh." He assured her with a hand to the forehead, giving her a light scruff between the ears. The man's compliment and sudden odd assessment about Connor's similarity in eye colour to that of the dog's was met with a small frown.

"Uh, thanks? I mean, it's not like I'm her dad." He paused for a beat, however, gaze returning to the bird.

"That yours or are you some kind of disney ******** princess?" He smiled, dry, but his tone was amused enough to be easily determined as joking.

The man had caught Connor's curiosity, that was for sure, the moment he cut himself off of saying whatever it was he was going to initially say. However, the conversation had moved on quickly, so it was brushed to the side, now a niggling little thought in the back of his mind that would have been sure to resurface later, if not brought up again.

When Rylan went on to explain his little avian friend, Connor blinked, as yet more realization dawned.

"Holy s**t, that's right! I...actually remember you mentioning that at some point that night. ******** slipped my mind, after everything else. So that's an actual thing like..That's some Game of Thrones s**t, right? You know I--" A hesitation himself, this time, and he glanced down to Peeb's, who was busy tilting her own head back and forth at Imp, now, before he raised a much more guarded gaze back up towards Rylan.

"How did you know? Like, just...how the ******** does something like that even start?" He asked, and something in his tone had changed, wary, like his expression, hesitant, maybe even a tad scared of what the answer was going to be.

The poor canine had no idea what to do the moment that Imp landed on her head. She had gone mostly still, save for a slight tremor in her muscles, as she quite literally vibrated with excitement. Her eyes had fixated upwards in an attempt to see the little bird that rubbed against her fur, and Connor thought that she might go crazy jumping and barking at any moment.

Only she didn't. Instead, she seemed to just...relax, and soon after she sat down on the sidewalk, slowly, almost complacently. She'd let out a soft sound, a quiet almost whine, but other than that, she remained had silent, and eerily (for her) still.

It was almost chilling to watch. At least, to Connor, who was used to his dog being quite over-excitable, it was, and goosebumps broke out over his arms at the sight. When Rylan spoke again, he drew his attention away from the two animals, and listened, attentive but uneasy.

And the more he heard, the more uneasy he began to feel. It was like being told a story that he'd already heard, only rewritten with new words here and there. He shifted a little on his feet, licked lips with a tongue that suddenly felt dry, and his hand tightened around the pink leash that it gripped. Peeble's looked calm, but Connor was feeling anything but.

"That's, ah...kind of ******** up." He finally responded, the cogs of his mind whirring into action as he tried to think of what to say, whether he should say anything, or what he could instead ask next, maybe even change the ********>.

"I mean." Deep breath. "I know it's ******** up. It's been happening, to me, for a while now. I just..." His voice trailed off, and he huffed out a breath, eyes squeezing closed for a moment before reopening, a more defensive look about them. "I didn't know, what it was. I thought if I ignored it...I don't ******** know, I guess I just hoped it would stop. I'm betting that you're going to tell me that it won't."