milliways_bar | (no subject)

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rae "sunshine" seddon

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The warm breeze over the lake promises summer is soon to arrive. The small, scattered clouds drift across the deep blue of the sky, dappling the open grass with their shadows.

Rae is oblivious to it all, stretched out comfortably by the lakeside, dozing lightly as she soaks in the blazing sunlight.

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The breeze and the warmth and the pretty vistas are all good reasons to be outdoors on this lovely day at Milliways. None of them, however, are why Sinthia is outside: she has, by the courtesy of the bar, discovered ornithopters, and they're fascinating. So of course she built the one from the kit she was given, and now the blue-and-gray not-bird is flapping lazily through the sky.

Sinthia likes it.

Sunshine, given its landings are frequently unpredictable, may not.

The dozing Sunshine startles into wakefulness as the descending not-bird gently collides with her thigh. She stares at the unfamiliar device, still feebly flapping at it comes to rest on the sand.

"Well, that's a neat thing," Rae remarks mildly, picking it up.

Edited 2019-06-11 16:17 (UTC)

She didn't really mean for it to hit Sunshine, but Sinthia comes forward and gently takes it, unhinging the rubber band so it will stop flapping.

"It's called an ornithopter," she says lightly. "The bar gave me a kit. It's a simple mechanical engine, but they look pretty."

"It does," Rae agrees, smiling as she lets Sinthia take the device from her. She looks relaxed here in the bright sun, to an extent she rarely is, indoors. The thought of the scars her bathing suit fails to hide doesn't seem to bother her. "Like one of those big moths or butterflies that look too big to be real."

"My half-brother Billy," there is an accompanying mental image of a rambunctious boy slightly older in age but younger in mind than Sinthia, running through the coffee house with a pack of friends, off to whatever the next diversion is, "had a little plane toy made of light wood that used a rubber band to turn it's propeller, a lot like that, but less birdlike."

Sinthia doesn't mind the scars: she's seen a lot of them on people that looked oddly less capable than Sunshine, for all they were in different clothing and places. "I don't know about butterflies that look that big." They're a fairly normal size where she's been, not having visited the tropics (or anywhere outside of vaguely northern Europe) to see many others.

But her quiet rebuttal is pushed aside to concentrate on the mental image: other children are oddly fascinating to her, in the sense that she's met so few of them. And she desperately wants to know what it is that lets them be so normal. "I just thought this one looked pretty." The double wings gave it a strangely otherworldly appearance, but it was bird- and insect-like enough to seem peaceful, lazily flapping through the sky. The wings were big enough that they didn't seem frenetic when wound and let go.

"You can try it if you want to."

There's a memory of a zoo - a childhood memory, so somewhat limited in scope and awareness but bright and vivid with color - of a large room, warm and humid, full of tropical plants and decorative stone pathways, feeders holding chopped fruit and bright false flowers filled with nectar, with large, colorful butterflies of many kinds fluttering among the people making their carefully meandering way through.

(There is also, fainter, the brief image of a smiling, dark-haired man, forming a shimmering, seemingly-alive butterfly from moonlight and setting it as decoration upon the child's head as she tells him of her day at the zoo.)

"I would love to," Sunshine beams at her. "I do love the colors. Like a piece of sky made manifest."

She who always wears brightly-colored clothes would like a colorful ornithopter.

Edited 2019-06-18 14:04 (UTC)

She nods, taking in the memory of a zoo with a butterfly house, all the colors and fluttering motion making the thought of the room seem crowded.

"You have to wind it," Sinthia says, picking up the craft and unhooking the rubber bands from their loop. "You spin the rubber bands around and around until they're tight, and they store the energy to turn the crankshaft here, and flap the wings." The thin membranes look a bit unearthly as they move, but they're not unsettling. Just wondrous.

"And then you hook them back on, and it starts to flap."

"Sounds straightforward enough," Sunshine smiles. She follows Sinthia's directions, careful and precise with the delicate device. She twists the rubber bands until they are well-wound, ready to be hooked back on.

"Once the bands are hooked back on, I just.. hold it up and let go?"

"You can throw it if you want it to go farther, but you have to be gentle," she says, nodding in affirmation. "The bar gave me a kit to make one. I think she'd give you one too."

"I might get one," she grins, getting to her feet. "An orange and yellow one, bright as blazes."

Part of her is amused to think that neither of them would have any trouble retrieving an errant ornithopter if it should veer too close to the trees or out over the lake - still, she turns towards the grassy expanse between the shore and the forge before gingerly hooking the bands to the mechanism, lifting the craft and giving it a nudge forward into the open air.

Sinthia smiles; another flapping creature would be delightful to see outside when it's nice enough to fly them.

The ornithopter, once released from Sunshine's grip, goes flapping into the air, gaining height as it turns this way and that, flight patterns unpredictable without a functioning rudder. The tail keeps the thing stable by providing some lift, but not much more.

"I like it."

"How have you been, by the way? Enjoying the bar?" she asks, glancing a smile at the girl before letting her gaze go back to following the fluttering device.

Sunshine's motion is slight - it is not necessary, but it gives some physical indication of her intent - a lightly extended hand, palm up. With a moment of concentration, a quiet breeze rises, carrying the sun-warmed air of late spring, smelling of flower and grass and heat, promising a bright summer. The gentle stream of air keeps the birdlike ornithopter aloft and traveling along a bit better than it might have otherwise done.

She shrugs listlessly, watching the ornithopter flap and flutter. "It's alright. Mostly I stay in my room or in the library and read. Not many people talk to me for long." She tends to set people ill at ease, which is something she tries to mitigate, but short of outright lying she fails to see how people will ever be more comfortable with the idea of her.

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