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

[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?

[coquettish_trees]

She would not. I release her to hunt, after all. She is free in the sky each time, and once she has caught herself something she is free in the sky with a meal. If she had a desire to leave, I should think it would be then.

[ And it is the same with Alexandrie. For all that she chafes sometimes under the strictures that come with it, she would hardly choose to leave the safety and plenty she was born to. Espére comes back to the glove, and so does she. ]

Come spring, you may see for yourself, if you like.

[rathercommon]

[ She hesitates, trying to think through the ethical implications of all that. It is, unfortunately, all a bit too complicated - at least for this sort of conversation. So, a bit reluctantly: ]

Maybe. I'm not much of an animal person.

[coquettish_trees]

[ with wry humor: ]

Hawks are not overmuch a people animal. I imagine you shall get on quite well.

[rathercommon]

Then how come that's the animal you picked for yourself?

[coquettish_trees]

[ deeply amused: ] Why because my mysterious persona is terribly beautiful and terribly aloof and terribly beloved but widely known to be terribly dangerous. All shall desire her favor and simultaneously be despairing of acquiring it.

[rathercommon]

That is the least like-you thing I've ever heard.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie laughs gaily.

It is almost a relief, to have changed enough to have such a description be unrecognizable. Kitty would have loathed her, then. ]

What is the most like-me thing you have ever heard?

[rathercommon]

I don't know. That's not really the sort of thing I keep track of.

[coquettish_trees]

I am devastated.

[ she doesn't sound devastated. ]

[rathercommon]

Oh, no you're not, don't even pretend.