(no subject)

[stuck_mynock]

Training!

Atton is not well-adapted to the heat, so there is an area, about twenty yards across, of the back amidst the trees rather cooler than its surroundings, perhaps more fitting for late spring or early autumn, where Atton has deposited his shirt and shoes by a particular fetching tuft of grass and is now doing pull-ups on a fairly sturdy tree branch.

It is entirely possible that the act of keeping the area cool is part of the training. At the very least, it is not the easiest thing he's ever done, which is perhaps why the temperature occasionally rises, then plummets, before settling into a pleasant medium.

Botherable.

Comments

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy is below, with two ice creams.

He's only licked one.

[stuck_mynock]

Atton grabs one on the way down (he doesn't bother to discern which one is unlicked) with a grin, and continues pulling up with one arm, gnawing on the ice cream.

[guppy_sandhu]

Fortunately they're the type on sticks, rather than the type in cones, or it would have ended up on the floor.

Guppy sits at the base of the tree and eats his ice cream.

[stuck_mynock]

Atton swaps arms every so often. Pulling himself up with one arm is fairly strenuous.

He also sees if he can ruffle Guppy's hair with his feet every time he comes down. He has about a fifty percent success rate.

[guppy_sandhu]

The first time he pokes, Guppy looks startled. The second time, he makes the mistake of looking up, and gets a face full of foot.

"Mphew!"

[stuck_mynock]

"You can only blame yourself," Atton says, dropping off the tree and immediately moving into sit-ups.

The added dimension of eating an ice cream at the same time makes this a perhaps slightly problematic proposition.

[guppy_sandhu]

"You're going to get indigestion doing that." Guppy says, wiping his face with a wet wipe.

(He carries them now, it's a necessity)

[stuck_mynock]

"You're going to get indigestion doing that," Atton replies.

[guppy_sandhu]

"I'm not going to eat the wipe, just get your foot smell off my face."

[stuck_mynock]

"My feet are fragrant and wonderful," Atton says.

[guppy_sandhu]

"I thought you had an enhanced sense of smell?"

[stuck_mynock]

"Fragrant," Atton repeats, "and wonderful."

Repeating things makes them true, Atton hears.

[guppy_sandhu]

"To you maybe." Guppy says, but he grins and eats his ice cream.

"What about my feet?"

[hecu_marine]

The temperature thing is more than a little confusing, but to humans it can generally be written off as 'well, shit- Milliways'. Not so much to animals. Even the kind whose species comes from bizarre alien borderworlds with a severe lack of standardized physics.

There's some confused whining from the edge of the practice area, and it ain't coming from the human in the gray-green shirt and cargos (his fatigues are being worked over by a troll of his acquaintance) and elbow-length glove.

[stuck_mynock]

Oh, hey, abominations against nature.

Atton squints at them slightly. They're kind of adorable. In an odd way.

Thoughtfully: "We might have a new winner for weirdest Milliways creature."

[hecu_marine]

"You ain't even heard 'em bark yet," says Adrian, leaning back against a nearby tree with his hands in his pockets. "Fuckers'll break glass, half the time."

One of them- there are three- hops up on its hind leg. Oh, so that's where the mouth went.

[stuck_mynock]

"That sounds kinda - oh, hey, I was wondering where that was meant to be - unpleasant," Atton says.

[hecu_marine]

"It is. Been teachin' 'em not to bark less'n I tell them to," says Shephard. "Comes in handy in a fight or if I'm out hunting, but fuck me if I want to deal with their shit around the house, y'know?"

[stuck_mynock]

"Are the things you hunt as weird as they are?" Maybe wildlife on this guy's world is just like that.

[hecu_marine]

"Some of 'em, yeah," says Shephard. "They ain't from my world, exactly. Buncha eggheads fucked up some years back'n now we got a shitload of critters from the next dimension over running around loose. These here're some of 'em, least their species is. This bunch's from stock that was bred'n born on Earth."

[stuck_mynock]

"Ohhh, you're an Earther. Earth does seem to get the lion's share of weird stuff - like evil sheriffs, and people dressed as bats."

[hecu_marine]

"Sheriffs're like any other kind of person, you gon' git evil fuckers 'long with the good." Shephard shrugs; he's dealt with law enforcement before. "The bat thing, though... we got a saying back home, 'batshit insane'. 's all I'm sayin'. I take it you ain't from my neck of the woods?"

[stuck_mynock]

"Nah. Whole different galaxy altogether. I'm originally from Kazic III, myself."

[hecu_marine]

Shephard grunts and nods. "Can't say I ever heard of it. Been to Pandora, but that's in Earth's galaxy, and I been to Xen, but that's the dimension these fuckers come from, so I dunno if that counts for shit. Name's Shephard."

[stuck_mynock]

"Not heard of either. Kazic III's a little way inside the Rishi Maze, so it's pretty out of the way of everywhere," Atton says, "it has the distinction of being one of the less hospitable planets in my galaxy, though."

Beat.

"Maybe not as bad as Xen, though," because glass-shattering eye-dogs.