crystal.

[cozen]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Bastien
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Fursona meme?
WHEN: Nowish
NOTES: Nah

Hello, my friends. And my total strangers.

[ Those are the only two options. Enemies are for other people. Unless someone considers anyone with an Orlesian accent—and not even a particularly noble one, from the vowels—to be an enemy. Or maybe anyone who sounds too pleasant on a Sunday morning. In that case: swords at dawn. ]

I was thinking about how many popular heroes have a sobriquet. The Black Fox, now the Black Hart. The Nightingale.

Now that I am saying them aloud, they are mostly animals.

Setting aside how arrogant it would be to give one to yourself. If you could choose a pretentious epithet for the history books, or one for your friends—

It does not have to be an animal.

[ Yes it does. ]

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

Tough, fearless, ferocious, surpassingly clever, regularly willing to attack animals far larger than itself, exceedingly good at throwing dirt in ones face...

[rathercommon]

[ ...fine. You win this round, Lexie. ]

And that other word - that means what, exactly?

[coquettish_trees]

[ amusedly: ] Headstrong and perverse, especially when confronted by authority.

[rathercommon]

Now, that's not true.

[coquettish_trees]

[ can you hear her smiling and waiting patiently for the immediate illustration to sink in? ]

[rathercommon]

[ When it becomes clear that Lexie isn't saying anything: ]

It's not. I've got no objection to authority. I just don't like things that are stupid and wrongheaded. It's not my fault that describes most people in charge.

[coquettish_trees]

Ah, my mistake!

[ she doesn't think it's a mistake in the slightest. ]

[rathercommon]

Don't smirk at me.

[coquettish_trees]

I, smirk? Perish the thought.

[ beat ]

Ladies smile nicely and raise their eyebrows. Setting that aside, what is so objectionable about being headstrong and perverse, especially if you are being stubbornly uncooperative with something you deem wrongheaded? Should you rather be described as accommodating?

[rathercommon]

No. It's -

[ A huff of breath. ]

I don't want people thinking that I'm uncooperative for the sake of being uncooperative. I go along with good ideas when I hear 'em.

[coquettish_trees]

Oh, very well. What of the Exacting Badger then?

[rathercommon]

All of these names are making me sound like some middle-aged schoolteacher.

[coquettish_trees]

[ a dramatically heaved sigh ]

You name yourself, then.

[rathercommon]

Kathleen Jones.

[ There isn't any real annoyance in any of this, of course. Kitty, despite her protests, is mostly being difficult just to be difficult, more from boredom than anything else.

Proof's in the pudding: she asks Lexie: ]

Anyway, what would you be?

[coquettish_trees]

[ what a Recalcitrant Badger thing to say.

idly: ]

I shall be the Crystal Merlin, I think.

[rathercommon]

What - like the magician? Why him?

[coquettish_trees]

The bird. Was there a magician named so in your world?

[rathercommon]

Oh. I didn't know there was a bird called that. And - yeah. Supposedly helped a historical magician-king, got seduced by demons and ended up getting trapped in a tree. What's the bird like?

[coquettish_trees]

It is a small quick falcon, largely used for light hunting by ladies. Although they return to the glove readily enough once they trust you, they are temperamental, difficult to get a hood on, and largely decide what they are going to hunt themselves, regardless of what you mean them to. I have one in the mews here, should you wish to meet her.

As to the fellow, I think I shall stay with the bird; being trapped in a tree sounds tedious.

[rathercommon]

Is 'difficult to get a hood on' a comment on your hair?

[coquettish_trees]

[ light laughter; whether or not one approves of the reason, it has its chime back. ]

It is rather difficult to put a hood over.

But no, a hood in falconry covers the entire head of the bird and renders it sightless so that it can be kept safely. Much as horses have blinders put on to keep them from seeing things that might make them startle and hurt themselves, their keepers, or whoever might be standing by.

Society is hardly a place for even tamed wild creatures, but since we insist on bringing them, we shield them from the bits of it that might give them such flight. Most birds hardly mind it, it makes them feel drowsy and safe. Merlins are rather the same, once you manage to hood them. They are not all too pleased by letting their falconer decide what they can and cannot see, however, and are legendarily disinclined to be hooded again once freed.

[rathercommon]

What -

[ The horror is plain in Kitty's voice. ]

But that's awful!

[coquettish_trees]

[ sympathetically: ]

As is riding horses, but we do it. Feral cats do not like to be brought inside, but we do that too.

There is a trade, always, between freedom and safety. Creatures kept well are never forced to endure cold, or thirst, or hunger. Their young are safe from predators, their illnesses and injuries treated.

It all depends upon what it is you value most; although creatures have no such values as you and I.

Espére was hatched in the Val Fontaine mews. She knows no other life. Were I to release her, she would not be able to provide for herself. She would know cold, hunger, fear. Perhaps become the meal of a larger bird. Is it awful, then, to keep her so?

[rathercommon]

I -

[ Kitty shakes her head and lets out a harsh breath. ]

Would she run - fly away if she weren't locked up?

[exequy]

[ In another tower, not heard by anyone at all because he's only listening (and suffering) without activating his own crystal, someone snorts. Like, in a booding but elegant way. ]