USER: #AA3333

[whichcraft]

[ COLOR ]

Okay, so, a couple of things.

First off, probably useful for people to know right now: there's silver in them there hills. Forest, I mean. There's silver in the woods and you really have to look for it because it's buried, but it's out there. I found a ring in a chest, and I have a feeling given this place it's not the only one out there.

Second off is magic. I keep seeing people on the forum offering to use their talents to help make things better for everybody around here, so I guess I figure I should throw my figurative hat into the ring on that one, too. I was telling a guy recently that my magic is kind of like clay, and the spells I can do are like molds for it. Just because I've got molds for hearts, stars, and horseshoes right now doesn't mean I can't someday figure out how to make clovers and blue moons, too. It's just...working out how to do it, the first time.

Example: I've overheard enough people complaining about there not being any hair gel around that I went and figured out how to simulate it with magic. I don't need it myself but hey, trade me a favor and I'll do your hair for you, if it means that much to you. I'm a helper.

But yeah, I figure if I can do that, then maybe I can do other stuff, too. Things people think the town needs — above and beyond just putting on music for the local prom, I mean. So I'm taking ideas, if you've got them. I can't make any promises, but...you know, I want to help. Even if it's just really random, stupid little conveniences. Like maybe I can enchant a bathtub to heat the water you put in it or something, I don't know. I'm good at tricks like that, it's kind of what I do.

Third thing, and this is kind of out there but I just wanted to see if anybody else has been having thoughts like this too. Does it ever seem as though this town is, like...some kind of entity in its own right? Like a thing with a will of its own?

Comments

[whichcraft]

[Yes, indeed. There it is, actually almost level with his window if he's upstairs — the world's most photogenic kitty, hanging out on a branch and peering over the side toward the ground with open trepidation.

The plaintive meowing spilling from its little mouth is constant and, well, plaintive.]

[photoshooter]

[Alex, my dude, do you think I know if the chocobroom (chocobro room) is upstairs or downstairs?

Prompto gasps softly and immediately runs out of the room. Less than a minute later he's bolting out the door to the tree, lifting his hands up gently.]

Here--here, it's okay, I've got you. You want to jump? I'll catch you, promise. You're safe now, okay, kitty? You're gonna be okay. I'll climb up there if you want, it's okay now.

[whichcraft]

[Oh well it doesn't matter because what matters is he makes it outside and he finds the cat. The day is about to be saved, look at this heroic rescue.

The cat meows, looking at him, and shuffles its little feet in a way that looks either nervous or preparatory, and then very carefully, it seems to gauge the distance from branch to the platform of his hands before making a halfhearted little hop off of the branch, down into the waiting cradle of his hands.

It's so fluffy he may die. Beware.]

[photoshooter]

[He expires on the damn spot.

No, but he does hold her, mouth hanging open, amazed that she just leaped into his arms just like that. He adjusts his hold carefully, supporting her as comfortably as he can in one arm so he can stroke her amazing, amazingly fluffy fur.]

Wow... hey, aren't you beautiful.

[whichcraft]

[That's about when it occurs to her that maybe she should feel a little bit bad for this. He doesn't know that this is her. He probably doesn't even remember what he'd told her at the dance, about rescuing kittens from trees and playing with them for the best day ever. And now he's holding her and calling her beautiful, and she's enjoying it, except that he's not talking about her, he's talking about a cat.

And sooner or later he's going to figure out that she is the cat, and then it's going to be weird, and — fuck. This had seemed like a good idea at the time and now all of a sudden it seems like...not...the greatest of ideas...

All right, well, fuck it. If she ruined it, she's ruined it. Might as well enjoy it before it goes up in flames, then.

Outwardly, she snuggles into the cradle of his arm, purring loudly, and lets herself be petted for a little while.]

[photoshooter]

Aren't you a sweet thing? C'mere, let's go wait for my friend at the door.

[He carries her over to the front and sits on the step, petting and adoring.]

You know, you look just like I imagined her friend Jerry would look if he turned into a cat instead of a bird. Jericho, I mean. Only I call him Jerry. What's your name, huh?

[whichcraft]

[Summer, she thinks, which is dangerous in and of itself, and the only reason she's letting herself do it is because she physically doesn't have the vocal chords to actually form the word even if she wanted to, so there's no chance whatsoever that she might slip.

She snuggles up against his side instead, flopping down and purring audibly before rolling onto her back and catching his hand in her paws, bumping his fingertips with her nose.]

[photoshooter]

[He gasps the softest, sweetest gasp in the world and otherwise holds absolutely still. He doesn't have his camera in his hand. He can only attempt to save this moment in his shitty, lo-def, printer-incompatible brain.]

This is the best moment of my entire life.

[He says it with utter sincerity, and that sincerity doesn't lift even when he says:]

Okay, Jerry, it's okay if it's you, you can come out.

[whichcraft]

[...Fuck. You know what cats don't do? They don't widen their eyes in abrupt surprise in response to human speech they find startling. And yet that's precisely what this fluffy little orange creamsicle of a cat does, still with her paws wrapped around Prompto's hand, going still as she tries to do some quick thinking and ultimately falls short.

Jerry, on the other hand, knows what to do. He heard his name, and he takes that as his cue to come fluttering down from whatever tree he'd been hiding in, flapping his wings aggressively as he seems to look around for a convenient perch — and proving entirely unafraid of the fact that there's apparently a cat right there in close proximity.]

[photoshooter]

[?

??????????

Like he's spectating table tennis, Prompto looks from Jericho to his feline friend and back to Jericho, croaks a questioning noise, and then lifts a finger either to point or to let Jerry land.]

Uh... Flor?

[He doesn't address it to the cat, but to the general surroundings, as if she'll step out any second in her Cloak of Deflection^TM.]

[whichcraft]

[Grateful for the impromptu perch, Jerry lands and ruffles his feathers folding his wings back into place, which gives the aforementioned feline the opportunity to roll back to her feet and sit down calmly, watching him through big kitty eyes.

Then, after a minute, the cat shifts in a way that nearly every cat never would, lifting her front paws off the ground and supporting her weight entirely on her haunches, shifting from a quadruped to a biped, treating her front paws like hands.

This only gets all the weirder when she proceeds to lift up a front paw and wave at him.]

[photoshooter]

...

[The instant Prompto catches on is obvious, the way shock and realization plays over his face.]

Flor?!

[whichcraft]

[Welp. That's it, Moran, congratulations on orchestrating a big awkward disaster. Sic semper cute-icus: thus always comes to those who think they're cute and can get away with it.

She settles back down onto her four paws, huddling down with a cat's wariness, and after a few moments she shakes her head like a dog shaking off water, and taps her paws on the ground, and in a flash she's back in her human shape, sitting perched on all fours in the same position that the cat was a moment ago, cloak pooled around her like a blanket of shadows and hair rumpled and red as ever above the hood.]

...Um. So.

[There is no amount of fast talking that could ever get her out of this one.]

...Remember that one time, you said you wanted to rescue a cat...?

[photoshooter]

[Prompto stares for a couple heartbeats longer, than bursts out laughing, apparently neither offended nor upset. Jericho he brings up near his shoulder to hop on if he'd like. With his other hand, he bumps Summer's arm with a knuckle, a play-play punch.]

Flor! Why didn't you tell me you could do that?

[He rubs under his nose, grinning.]

Oh, man, I'm lucky you didn't catch me saying anything embarrassing about you while "we" waited for you to show up! It would've been like something straight out of a kid's cartoon.

[whichcraft]

I told you I could turn you into a dog! I didn't think me into a cat was that big of a stretch...

[Speaking of changing between animals and other things, maybe we can turn the big ol' elephant in the room into nothingness by just, like, not looking at it.]

...Hang on, do you usually say embarrassing things about me when I'm not around?

[photoshooter]

[What's an elephant?]

What? No, no! But we were talking about you. Or I mean, I was talking about you, to you. Which is honestly pretty much a one-way street to Awkwardville.

[A n y w a y. He looks at her, then up at the tree, then back down.]

Hey, do you think like a cat when you're a cat? Did you chase a bird up there or did you really just climb up so I could "rescue" you?

[whichcraft]

Nah, I climbed up to make your dreams come true. Being an animal would be kind of useless if all of a sudden the animal brain just overrode your own.

[Standby while we shove this much-beloved children's series about war and aliens and changing into animals RIGHT under the rug.]

I mean, some of the instincts are still there? You don't have to relearn how to walk or anything. But it's not like you suddenly get hit with the insatiable urge to chase laser pointers and knock important things off of counters, either.

[photoshooter]

[He chuckles and clasps his hands in his lap, stretching his legs out in front of him.]

That sounds like it would be fun, too, though. We gotta find some way to entertain ourselves around here, right?

[whichcraft]

I was kind of thinking people might use it like post-werewolf therapy, or something. Like addressing all that forced-transformation trauma with doing it willingly.

[She shifts and nudges at his legs with one of her own, then puts her feet on the other side of his knees, so that her legs are making an inverted V like a bridge over his.]

Psychologists say that's supposed to be good for you, I think. Confronting your fears or whatever.

[photoshooter]

[Oh. That's--new and not new at the same time. It's the kind of tangle he ends up in with Noct sometimes on the best, laziest kind of days, when there's nothing to do but complain and play video games. Really rare days, since the fall of Insomnia. Not quite so infrequent now, though. Minus the video games.

It's new because it's her.

It distracts him for a second from what she's saying, the closeness, but he looks up to meet her eyes again and--it's okay. He likes this. It's comfortable. So he blinks, catches up, and tilts his head a little, re-engaging in the conversation and so establishing the tangle as part of it, the dialogue between them.]

--Ah. Yeah?

[He looks up to the sky as he considers that, then nods and shrugs.]

Yeah, that makes sense, I guess. Like... having control over it the second time.

[He rubs at the underside of one jawbone with his knuckle, remembering the itch of fur there, the urge to bite.]

...Think you should maybe test it on someone first, make sure it really helps?

[whichcraft]

[Well, now. She definitely knows a "I kinda want to do a thing but I don't want it to sound like my idea" when she hears one.]

Yeah, probably. If I could find somebody who'd try it.

[She glances over at him, amused and sidelong.]

Probably not a lot of people would be willing to be the first one to give it a shot, though.

[photoshooter]

I'm adventurous! I'll do it. For the good of the town, you know?

[He nods, going for earnest. He's got earnestness coming out of his ears.]

[whichcraft]

What a champion.

[BECAUSE LITERALLY NO ONE COULD HAVE EXPECTED AN OUTCOME LIKE THIS. CLEARLY. NEVER. NO ONE.]

All right, so what do you want to try? Dog, cat, bird, uh...probably not fish, without getting near a water source...dragon? Gryphon? I do mythical, I do mundane, it's all the same.

[photoshooter]

Whaaaaat? Oh, man, it's like watching TV at Noct's place. Who needs all those channels? How do I choose?

[Prompto leans back on his hands for a second, then immediately comes back up, unable to sit still.]

What kind of birds can you do? All of them?

[whichcraft]

If I know it. I mean — wait, that wasn't a very good way of saying it. I mean like...it has to be a thing I've seen, that I'm familiar with. So by now I could probably turn you into a chocobo, because I've seen the ones you guys keep hanging around. But I couldn't do some random bird from your world I've never heard of before, just on a name.

[Birds, though. That's interesting, that he's immediately drawn to the birds. Birds have wings, have flight, have freedom. He doesn't want to be tethered, maybe. Wants to fly.]