tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; Dec 1
Rating; Variable; starts G
Characters; Janine and OPEN
Summary; Janine visits Xanadu.
Log;
Janine lined herself up for the approach. In her weeks since arriving at the City she'd never gone into it. Flown over it the other day when there'd been those stone angel things, yes, but that was as close as she'd come. But this morning, it was cold. No frost that she could see, but her breath condensed in twin plumes.

She glided down with wings spread wide, the trailing edge of her chilled wing membranes flexing up and down as she killed her momentum, losing speed and altitude. Janine descended as far as was feasible, changing her orientation so her feet were downwards and ready. At last, when she stalled, backwinging twice to cut as much momentum as she could, she was close and slow enough to drop to those feet and run some distance, wings starting to tuck but still half-open and adjusting until they folded neatly and she dropped down onto her clawed hands.

Janine looked along her own back, ignoring the shells clicking around her neck. Landings were... tricky things. Her wing membranes attached shoulder to wrist and finger to below the knee; she physically could not hover, she couldn't even backwing as effectively as a bird could, and there was the fact that standing on all fours with her neck high she was twelve feet tall. But she was getting better at it, and that had been a pretty creditable one. No matter now. She lowered her neck and gigantic beak out before her like a knight's lance, and ambled through the garden entrance. It would be warmer here, right?

[Please state where in Xanadu your character meets her, and only one can see the landing. Thank you!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Rose is walking through the garden toward City Solutions with hot chocolate when she catches sight of Janine flying above. When it becomes clear that Janine is about to land, Rose isn't missing this. She gives her plenty of room, choosing a spot in the corner to watch. Once Janine has landed, Rose takes a step toward her.

"Awfully smooth landin' there."

Janine turned her long head, moving it to see Rose first out of the right eye, then the left. If she pointed her beak straight at her she could see out of both eyes, but considering the size and sharpness of that beak, that could make people uneasy.

< Eh, > she said dismissively. < I've landed better. And worse. Hi, by the way. >

Rose trusts Janine by this point not to skewer her with the beak. "Bit difficult I imagine, learnin' how to land. Hullo." And waving at her.

< You would not believe just how much so. > Janine's 'voice' was dry.

A biting wind picked up, tugging at the not-hairs adorning her body. She couldn't wince, but she could and did duck her enormous head a bit. < It's just way too cold. I'm going into the garden-park-thing. It looked warmer from the air. Coming? >

"Definitely. Can you drink hot chocolate?" She's got an extra cup. It's supposed to be the Doctor's. She doesn't think giving him that much sugar around lab type things is a good idea which implies she won't go get him another cup and take it back to him when she's done talking to Janine. She will. In an case, offering hot chocolate.

The tunnel of greenery - well, brownery, since the leaves had fallen - was easily wide enough for her, but not all that tall. Janine extended her head and neck out before her and started down it, though she looked to the side at Rose when she asked.

< I don't know. But there's some logistical problems there, so you know. > Her hands and arms were not sized or jointed well for bringing tiny things like cups to her immense beak.

Rose follows along at her side, watching how she walks through the tunnel with fascination. "I'll hold it for you if you can slurp it up." She didn't figure Janine could actually hold the cup. "If you wanna try it anyway."

The tunnel wasn't too long. Once in the courtyard Janine raised her head back up and flexed her long neck, making the many joints crackle in sequence. Her neck resumed the S-shape most natural to it, and she looked at the pink-flowering tree out of one eye, regarded Rose with the other.

She lowered her head again, farther. < Tell you what. If it's not scalding, you can pour it into my beak. All at once - I'm kind of huge, a sip's worth won't mean much. >

Rose tests the temperature of the hot chocolate by taking a sip of her own. "Think it's safe enough. Might warm you up a bit."

< All right. > Janine rather doubted it - there just wasn't that much - but hey, hot chocolate. She stopped walking and gaped her beak a ways.

It was longer than Rose was tall, but except at the base, at her throat, it was narrower than her. The lower mandible of her beak was like an oddly-shaped rain gutter with a pointed tongue, now lifting helpfully out of the way.

Rose takes the lid off the hot chocolate and approaches a bit awkwardly. She starts to pour the hot chocolate in slowly, not wanting to dump it all at once. When the cup is empty, she steps back and looks up expectantly at Janine.

"How's it taste?"

Hot liquid pooled under her tongue. Slowly so it wouldn't slosh out, Janine closed her beak, raised her head, and tipped it back to swallow. There was a faint, fleeting impression of sweetness in her throat pouch.

It was a little bit of a blow, but she wasn't surprised. Janine had liked chocolate, once... but it was a human thing, and she wasn't human anymore.

She couldn't really sigh, but she could and did project the 'sound' of one. < Like nothing much. About what I expected - I don't have a lot in the way of taste buds. >

Rose gives her a definite sympathetic look. "Oi. Sorry...thought you might be able to enjoy it. That's a bit of a let down."

Janine made the head-and-neck gesture that served as a shrug. The corner of her beak was wet with a bead of hot cocoa; she didn't notice. < Don't worry about it. Different species, different senses. You have no ability to gauge the masses of air and where they're going; if we found a convergence zone, what you'd get out of it is nothing like what I would. >

Not the same thing, of course - Rose would have no idea what it was like to experience that, while Janine remembered enjoying food and its tastes - but it was a nice thought. < It seems a little warmer in here, with cover... But maybe there's a better place. >

"Now you sound a bit like the Doctor. I'm guessin' you'd get a nice spot of flyin' in while I'd just have a mess made outta my hair."

She glances around and nods. "Yeah. Bit warmer. Haven't spent enough time in the gardens to know it that well."

Janine, turning towards the tropical path, snorted, a sound made weirdly resonant by the hollow space in her huge beak. < That too, but I'm referring to the fact that these - > and here she circled her outsize head around, using that beak to indicate her wing membranes, which moved as she walked - < are a lot more sensitive than you'd think, but not like licked-finger-held-to-the-wind sensitive. >

Her neck eased again back to the S-curve, though now she was looking up, through the interlaced branches to the sky. < I can sense the air in a way you can't. Different pressure zones, the way cold sinks and warm rises, how it moves - I don't need taste or smell, but that is useful. It's definitely warmer over this way, f'rex. >

"Guess I hadn't thought 'bout the advantages to not bein' human. I mean, I sorta think 'bout it with the Doctor but in an entirely different sorta way."

She follows Janine over to the warmer area and nods in agreement.

< So don't pity me, > Janine said a little loftily. < It's give and take. Likely my senses are different from your doctor's, too. >

The tropical path. She ducked her head out that way, pulled it back. Quite warmer. < Weird. >

"No pity. Promise. I think it's amazin' that you can sense things like that."

So there's a little pity that she can't taste chocolate but she'd feel that for anyone just because she thinks chocolate is fantastic. Her brow furrows as things do get warmer. "That is a bit odd. Interestin' though."

Janine suspected that there's pity after all - she pitied herself, a little, though she'd deny that - but she decided to ignore it.

The plants here were in full leaf. Stepping farther into the path, Janine exhaled and relaxed muscles she hadn't known were tense. < I think I'll have to set up shop around here... It's just way too cold outside, I keep waking up with a stiff neck. You know how much trouble a stiff neck is when it's this long? >

Rose runs her fingertips over some of the tropical plants and grins. "Bit difficult to work all the kinks out, yeah?"

< Little bit. > She stretched, which frankly looked a little odd, considering the way her body was put together, and complained some more. < Figures it would be winter here. It was warm, in Montana... >

Wistfully now, she said, < There were thermals. >

"It'll warm up before too long." She ponders this a moment. "Might try the higher points of the mountain when it gets a bit warmer, see if they've got 'em there."

Janine hasn't had a chance to get a good look at a calendar. < Isn't it only like, late November? People were talking about Thanksgiving... you're a Brit, you wouldn't, but it's a late fall thing. >

< Warmer higher up, huh? > She made the shrug gesture. < Might as well take a look. >

"Yeah...just late November. Not this cold yet in Montana?"

She ponders the idea of whether it might be warmer up on the mountain. Traditional it gets colder as you go higher but it's the only place she can think of that might have thermals in the City. "Might be. Haven't been up there yet."