WHO: Stephanie Brown
WHERE: Various Outdoors
WHEN: After Take Two Part 1
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None anticipated

The first thing Steph does when she gets home is take a long, hot shower. Definitely top priority. The second thing she does is head down into the bunker. She’s heard about people using the vending machine and nothing terrible seemed to happen as a result. She deserves a treat, she figures, and she knows exactly what power she wants.

She waits until she’s out in the open again to try it out, and isn’t disappointed. She’s small, yes, but whatever she is, she has wings.

HOUSES

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One of the advantages to being small is that you attract less attention. The same holds true for being a bird. As a robin she can glide into her friend’s houses, moving quickly and then staying still to be sure she wasn’t noticed. From there she has all sorts of fun options. She can perch on top of refrigerators, swoop down and startle someone, or steal food when they aren’t looking. A little more difficult is moving small objects around, but that’s just as fun.

Her favorite, though, is waiting until the person is distracted and landing in their hair. With hollow bones and proper timing they might never notice she’s there.

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Being a bird isn't all sunshine and rainbows, of course, and not just because it's early March. Her first real, open-air flight comes to an inelegant end as, failing to out-maneuver a hawk, she changes suddenly back to human shape to foil the poor creature.

She falls with a yelp into the foliage below.

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When she tires of flying and trolling her friends (which takes a good while, to be sure) Steph decides to wander around both villages, gaining an appreciation of what everything looks like when you're a small handful of inches tall. She also takes the opportunity to unnerve people as much as possible.

Getting some food from the inn? Did you notice that there's a bird on top of the fridge, or the ceiling lamp in the common area?

Sitting outside to soak up what sun there is? Don't look now, but a bird's joined you on the bench, and it looks like it's bird-watching too.

Or maybe you're just going about your business, in the dojo, one of the farms, even the library. Wherever you are, a small bird has taken great interest in your doings.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well don't go doing that!"

Of course, not as if she has a choice. Damn dog.

"Hey now! That's enough. Get away from there," he calls, moving to shoo the dog away. "Sorry 'bout that. He's barely old enough to take a piss without helping down the stairs. Still working on his manners," he admits, getting the pup to hurry off to explore something else.

"Where'd you go and fall from?" He asks, looking up at the tree and then moving to kneel down beside her. "Anywhere hurt?"

"It's okay," she insists again, though she's a little breathless now. "Rib's still in one piece. It'd be way harder to breath if it wasn't." Definitely still cracked from the yeti, though. She needs to be more careful about her landings or she really is gonna puncture a lung.

With the dog out of the way she lets her arms drops and sighs her relief.

"Fell from the sky. And everywhere hurts. Trees look so much softer from far away..."

"You..." He moves in close, settling in to hunker down near her, looking her over. "Want to tell me how that's a thing? You going and falling from the sky?"

Because he's heard a lot of things in this place that are odd to him but this one is the weirdest.

She groans. Now she’s kind of comfortable on the forest floor, branches and rocks stuck in her back aside.

"Well, first you have to get up in the sky. Then you have to ditch the wings without picking out a landing route first. But before all that I guess you have to be able to do this."

She changes to bird shape, disappearing and leaving a ruffled robin seated where her chest was in the blink of an eye. There are still some twigs and one small bit of leaf caught in her feathers. She puffs out and tries to shake them all loose.

Joshua's not sure what he's expecting, but that isn't even close to it. Not by a long shot.

Skittering back, unable to keep his balance and falling on his butt. It seems a chance for the dog to rush back, leaping on him.

"Get your butt down," he says, shoving the dog aside, which only made him bark and lick at him. Joshua though hasn't look away from the bird.

"How in the hell do you do that? Guessin' you can't talk though, can you? Is that your ability like I can blast holes in things?"

She shakes her head to the second question, nods to the third, hopping back and forth nervously. She forgot about the dog. She gently flaps her wings and shakes herself this way and that trying to assess any damage. Then she changes back to find herself sitting upright.

"Man, twigs in feathers are really uncomfortable. Flying is super fun though!"

He's talking to a bird, and he's stupid for it but damn it, there was just a girl standing there and he needs to know what and how. At least he has hold of the dog, arms wrapping around him and holding tight to him.

"How?" Still stunned, just staring at her even when she's human again. "How? Aren't you afraid of fallin' again?" Okay maybe reminding her that she fell once is a bad idea.

Herself again, she starts picking the bits of tree litter out of her hair and clothes. In answer to his second question she shrugs.

"Sure. I'm afraid of plenty of things, it's never stopped me before. As for how, there's a vending machine in the bunker that apparently gives you powers."

"It just random then?" Arching a brow, his gaze looking over her in a way that may not even be creepy and weird. He's capable of creepy and weird, but this isn't that case. Just trying to figure out how that size body becomes that tiny aviary form.

"Did you ask to be a bird?" Now he's just nosy and he can't help himself.

"Not totally random," she admits. The staring makes her a little uncomfortable, but only because she's worried she may have pushed him over some edge or other. She feels bad, even if it wasn't entirely on purpose.

"I asked to be able to change into an animal, I just couldn't choose what kind. I figured it would be fun regardless, but being able to actually fly is the best."

"And all of you fits into all of that?" Even as he asks it, he holds his hands out wide for the first and then almost touching for the second. "How do they do that?"

His nose wrinkles and he shakes his head. "I mean, I guess you don't know but that's just ..." He shakes his head.

She shrugs.

"Dunno, but I'm glad it does. I'd be in way worse shape if I crashed through a tree butt-naked."

[open] This is all we got now, scream until your heart stops

HOUSES

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