First Entrance

[intoaman]

The door opens and a large (but not unusually so) raven flies in. Only it doesn’t. Somewhere between the door and the inside of Milliways, something goes wrong and what started as a flying raven turns into a falling man.

He crashes along the floor, skidding with the momentum of his flight and collides with several tables.

Amidst fallen furniture and smashed cups is a youngish man dressed in black, cowering in a ball. Man-shape may not include wings but it does include tear-ducts which Diaval is making full use of.


{tiny tag - Diaval}

Comments

[street_sparrow]

"Hey." Surely nobody in the room missed that, and there's shortly a boy in his late teens crouched at Diaval's side. "You all right?"

[intoaman]

"No. I'm not." Diaval mutters, his Irish accent thick as he pulls a lettuce leaf out of his hair. "What did I do to deserve this?"

[street_sparrow]

"Probably not much", Gavroche says frankly. "C'mon, you're new so you get a free drink."

[intoaman]

He pulls a piece of broken coffee mug from his collar and drops it with a tinkle. "I'm a new what?"

He gets to his feet awkwardly, touching the scars on his face and neck gingerly as he looks around. "Where am I? This isn't the Moors."

[street_sparrow]

"You're new here. This is Milliways, it usually comes on people like that the first time."

[intoaman]

He looks back at the mess of broken shards on the floor and the upturned tables. "Everyone gets made human?"

[street_sparrow]

"...no, that part's more unusual." He gives the young man a keener look. "I thought that was you. It only just happened?"

[intoaman]

He shrugs and peers around at what other people are drinking. "I was a raven till the day before yesterday. I thought only she could make me human."

[street_sparrow]

"This place has strong magic of its own. Maybe it thought you'd do better here as a human - but not crashing like that. I'm Gavroche."

He's desperately curious about who 'she' is, but it can wait a while.

[herr_bookman]

The appearance of a raven makes Autor yelp and duck for cover, but he can't help peeking at the man the bird becomes. Surely that's not a raven I know. Surely not.

Cautiously, he makes his way over to the newly-changed man, wishing he had a stick to poke him with. "Are you... Are you all right?"

[intoaman]

"Ouch." He mutters with a heavy Irish accent as he pushes the table off him. "That really hurt."

There's a broken shard of glass sticking out of his arm and he winces. "um, could you... I need some cloth or something to pull it out with."

[herr_bookman]

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Autor says, eyes widening as he fumbles for his handkerchief.

"Here," he says, flinching. "That's going to be unpleasant to pull out."

[intoaman]

"Thank you." Diaval says honestly before turning half away to pull out the glass and cover the cut, holding it tight. Clearly the youth isn't keen on blood but then, neither is Diaval. Especially when it's his own. "Sorry. I'll have to wash it for you later."

[herr_bookman]

Autor shakes his head. "You can keep it," he says, blinking. "I can always get another one."

He adjusts his glasses, and launches into the questions which have been building ever since he saw the raven-man's transformation. "Are you a wizard? Or an actual raven? Hey, you're new, right?"

[intoaman]

"You must be fae. Humans aren't so kind." He shrugs a little lopsidedly, making the scars on his throat and collarbone shift.

"I'm a raven. Or I was. Now, I'm not sure what I am." He looks around, his head tilted to one side like the bird he was. "Even when she changes back, I still think like a man. It's... terrified. Um, where is here?"

[herr_bookman]

Autor laughs, startled. "If I were fae, I would be trying to trick you into a contract," he says. "Provided my stories about them are correct, which they might not be."

The scars catch his attention, and his gaze flickers to them before returning to the man's face. "You're in Milliways, a bar. Your first drink is free. Who is she?"

[intoaman]

"Contracts? I've never known fae to trick people into contracts unless they do something really bad. Things like that are usually punishment or payments."

The scars are everywhere - around the outer corners of his eyes, along his cheekbones, down both sides of his throat, across his collarbones and down the centre of his chest, as well as long slashes of them down his arms and around his wrists. They're vaguely symmetrical and just about on every part of his body showing.

He peers around at the place, cocking his head from side to side. "Tastes like magic but not Fae magic. Different. More... like lighting storms."

"She is my mistress, the fairy I serve."

[mergich_singer]

"Hello."

There is a barefooted woman in a beautiful rosette-spotted coat calmly looking down at him with vivid blue eyes, as if young not-actually-men crash into her table all the time.

Interestedly, "Did you mean to do that?"

Her voice is deep and gentle, accented like that of the Wakhi people who live in her territory, and with something like music lilting behind the words.

[intoaman]

"Next exactly, mistress!" He mutters, crawling out from beneath the table. "Please don't change me while I'm flying?"

He looks at her, wide-eyed. "Wait, you're not Maleficent!"

[mergich_singer]

Well, well, well. A bird that looks like a man.

"That is not a name I have ever been known by," she agrees.

(Though she'll accept 'mistress', at a pinch.)

"If anyone here goes by that name, I'm not aware of her."

She has been known to eat birds, when times are lean and no other option presents itself. But she is well-fed, and she knows the rule of things in the Landlord's territory. There is only a brief flicker pf instinct to over-rule, and no outward sign of any instinct at all.

[intoaman]

Diaval also senses there's more to her and backs off in a hurry. "Sorry, miss. Didn't mean to intrude. I'll ah... I'll get out of your way." He's already backing towards the door, picking bits of salad from his hair.

[mergich_singer]

She quirks a brow.

"I can't claim to feel intruded upon," she tells him lightly. "There's no harm for you to expect, here."

[intoaman]

"Says the cat-queen to the bird." Diaval mutters nervously. "And I'm not sure where here is."

[mergich_singer]

"I'm no queen."

She's much more powerful than that.

"And you, for the present, are not a bird."

[intoaman]

"True enough." He shakes the last scrap of food out of his hair, looking down at his hands. "Man shaped again."