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[foolishwren]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, ROADKILL ROOSTER. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 007.14.007.17 *** ROADKILL ROOSTER has joined 007.14.007.17 <ASSMUNCH45> wat up gurl!!!!!!!!!!! <BANNED USER> SCREENED MESSAGE. UNSCREEN? Y/N -- B& MOTHAFUCKA <CREATURECOMFORTS> Are YOU interested in not having to worry about basic needs? Have we got the job for YOU. Click to read more... <SHOVEL_GUY> hey heather are you getting weird ads for going to live with rich people too??

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[foolishwren]

Yeah?

Well, not to brag, but personally, I wouldn't wanna be anything else.

<sub>[Which is... not a lie, surprisingly.]

[It's something she's slowly come to realize... and honestly? She's not sure how she should be feeling about that.]</sub>

Wings are wings, though... and flying is pretty great, no matter how you do it.

[ka_mai]

Aye. I like the look of bird folks, and I thought it'd suit me. Still do, but I'm stuck as I am and naught to do for that.

[He knows he deserves it, after all, for what he'd done. For the things that lurk in his heart.]

But flying...e'en if I have to be this damned undead thing, least I can fly. If I ever get the trick of it, anyhow! How long did it take ye? To figure it all out?

[foolishwren]

Me?

Couple'a weeks.

_{[She says it casually, but even as she speaks, she remembers the frustration, and feeling like one giant ache when she trudged home after a long day of not accomplishing anything but pulled muscles and embarrassing herself.]}

But it was even longer after that that I got used to really flying-- like going long distance and shit.

[ka_mai]

How long can ye fly for, then? Comfortably, I mean, not if ye pushed yerself.

[The body could technically do all kinds of things if pushed, after all. But he's curious. Bert has no idea how sturdy his wings are, how much strength he needs to make'em work right...how far could he get on his?]

[foolishwren]

Mm... good couple of hours, if there's plenty of thermals.

_{[Soaring had quickly become a pleasure she can barely believe she lived without for so long.]}

[ka_mai]

That's not too shabby at all! Beats walking, doesn't it? Ye ever ride a horse? How's it compare to that? I only ask as I've been a horseman all me life and it's the closest I can think might come to the feel, kennit?

[Riding at full tilt...it almost felt like a fellow could run right off the ground and into the sky.]

[foolishwren]

Horses? Heck no, only rich people do that where I'm from.

_{[Not that she hadnt WANTED to, as a kid....]}

[ka_mai]

Aye? Damn near everyone's got a horse, where I come from. It's the only way to get around. I live on a horse ranch now, actually. Gonna see about getting my horse, from back home. Miss her.

[He'll have to ask Susan how much Pylon had cost, see where he stands on that.]

I always thought riding fast felt like what flying might.

[foolishwren]

You are?

<sub>[She doesn't... actually know anybody who got an entire animal from Mana, or even Tikbalang.]

[... Unless Duchess counted. But she's honestly not sure where that tiger came from. Somehow the fact that the Nest had a completely normal, non-monster tiger hanging around had been something she just sort of accepted without questioning it.]</sub>

That... seems like it could be tricky.

I didn't even know you could do that.

[ka_mai]

Oh aye. My friend Susan, one I live with, she got her horse. Ridden him myself.

[Bert just shrugs. He doesn't know all the details. It's magic stuff, and he doesn't ask questions when it comes to magic. He can't grasp the answers and he knows it.]</small. That's how she got her ranch, too. Same as the one back home - we come from the same world, me and Sue.

[foolishwren]

<sub>[An entire location, transplanted from someone's home?]

[She supposes it shouldn't feel like such an alien concept... after all, Mana just made an entire city rise from the earth for the Nesters, complete with a population of citizens.]

[But that was new.]

[The idea of being able to summon actual fragments of wherever they came from, while not being able to return for real... something about it makes the feathers along Heather's spine rise.]

[But she doesn't bring that up.]</sub>

A whole ranch?

That must've cost her a fortune.

[ka_mai]

Yup, the Delgado Ranch. Dunno how much it cost, I think she and the gel she used to live with went in on it together. That was all a'fore I got here. She took me and my brother in. We all knew each other, once.

[It's a very complicated story, so he doesn't bother to exaggerate.]

But it's a nice thing to know. Wouldn't mind having my old home back, but I wot that's out of the question as I lived in a big castle...

Still.

[He missed Gilead. He missed his room, the one he'd grown up in but hasn't seen since he was sixteen. And if it was gone back home, broken and ruined and crumbled to dust...why couldn't it be like him? Like the others? Find a new life here. Even if it was only for him and Roland.]

[foolishwren]

_{[They're getting close to the park, so Heather's eyes are on the path, but her ears are on Bert.]}

A castle.

Man. People really come from all over.

_{[It doesn't surprise her much at this point, but it's still a little weird when you really think about it.]}

[ka_mai]

Aye. In Gilead, the barony seat of New Canaan. My da was the Dinh - the king's - right hand. Roland was the king's son, he and I were raised together as brothers and all Gunslingers and whatnot and their families lived in the castle. Gunslingers...we're round table knights with guns, to put it simple.

[Or as simply as possible. He's learned quickly that nothing quite like Gunslingers in other worlds. But plenty of them knew King Arthur and the Round Table of one stripe or another.]

[foolishwren]

_{[:I WELL THEN.]}

Huh.

I guess that's not any weirder than all those weird ladies who claimed to be robots from another planet.

[ka_mai]

Cry pardon? Oh, come now, extra-terrestrial robot ladies is much weirder than an order of knights who use guns! I don't even use'em anymore, got my slingshot.

[How many robot ladies were there, he can't help but wonder.]

Ye ken King Arthur, though, yeah?

[foolishwren]

_{[She snorts.]}

Of course I know about King Arthur.

_{[And then, shooting him a sassy look over her shoulder for no reason other than to be a pain in the ass--]}

I know King Arthur used swords.

_{[GUNS WEREN'T EVEN INVENTED.]}

[ka_mai]

Not just 'swords' in general, he wielded Excalibur! Given to him from the lake! ....or found in an interdenominational pyramid. Or tripped over in the garden and plucked from the earth, there's a dozen stories as to how Arthur got Excalibur.

[Bert can't tell which one is true, but the lake one is a very popular one.]

Anyhow, legend goes - and I am inclined to believe it, having seen what I've seen - that Arthur was visited or had a vision or sommat, but Gan - popular god in my where - gave him the design for the first pistols, and bade him take his sword to the only place that could melt Excalibur's metal and forge the first guns my world ever saw. His knights were told to do the same, and all swords were melted and forged into guns. And those were the first Gunslingers, who founded and protected Gilead and laid down the ways we followed till Gilead fell.

[He is absolutely undeterred by Mason's obvious teasing.]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Fortunately, at this point, Heather's more or less fully accepted the existence of god knows how many crazy universes. She's met aliens and superheroes and a kid whose dad was Satan.]

[So while Bert's rambling gets some eye-rolls for show, she doesn't actually disbelieve anything he's saying. Knights with guns isn't even PARTICULARLY out-there.]</sub>

You know, as someone who's used both, sometimes a sword can do what a gun can't.

Anyway, we're here.

<sub>[The park lies before them-- largely dark except for the lamplit paths.]

[Not many humans come here after dark-- that's a great way to get jumped and EATEN.]</sub>

[ka_mai]

Course it can, they're two different weapons. And a knife or spear can do things neither of'em can. But guns are Gilead's sacred weapon. My brother's got the first ones, the ones made from Excalibur.

[Bert just shrugs, eyeing the park. Looks empty enough. And he can scramble up into trees to give himself some lift. Taking off from the ground is far, far beyond him at this point.]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Weapon debates can come some other time-- for now, she said she'd show him how to practice flying, and she's gonna!]

[So she struts forward into the trees, spreading a wing to gesture.]</sub>

Well, c'mon.

We should find a place where it won't hurt too much to eat dirt.

Because you're definitely gonna.

[ka_mai]

Ye say that as though I haven't already.

[Granted it's been more hay and street than dirt, but the point stands.]

I wot half of it's just...I was very in tune with my body, a'fore it started changing. Very aware of it, how I move, all that. Have been since I was wee. But now...everything moves in different ways now, it's different lengths...my proprioception's all mucked up.

[foolishwren]

<sub>[DIRT IS BETTER THAN ASPHALT.]

[She starts to hop into the park, looking for a good tree candidate.]</sub>

Yeah.

Growing a bunch of extra limbs-- or LOSING them-- will do that to you.

You'll get used to it... it just takes awhile.

[ka_mai]

That's what everyone tells me. I know I'm luckier than a lot, I'm more or less still human-shaped. Nothing entirely extra, just..altered a bit.

[His wings weren't wings in the way he's always thought them, after all. His arms didn't change beyond lengthening and thinning, but they membrane had grown out of them. His legs had turned backwards, but to his feet, they were more or less normal legs otherwise.]

But it's enough to make moving about damned difficult! Another reason I'd like to get the hang of flying. Far more elegant than waddling about on hands and feet together!

[foolishwren]

Well, better get started, then!

_{[She stops in front of a small, slightly springy tree and gestures to it with one wing.]}

Climb.