You and I in a little toy shop by a bag of balloons... [Party Thread]

[thewalkin_dude]

((OOC: Enjoy the parade! Comment on the floats, band, politicians, whatever. Mingle! ^^ Also, Flagg gives off normal human psychic-ness to anyone who might be poking around

Comments

[allmydiredreams]

PARADES! Babel freakin' loves parades. So many colors and candies and balloons and people. She's noticing that a good many of them have subtly different bodybeats, as well, and that's always interesting -- she'll go poke her nose into others' businesses in a moment.

But for now, she's content to stand there in her big fuzzy coat, staring up at the balloons and grinning over her steaming mocha.

[shadowseeks]

There's a flit of darkness on the ground, and...

O HAI, BABEL. Your shadow now has a bodybeat. A very laid-back, slightly curious one.

Onyekachi is no stranger to revelry. What he's a stranger to is revelry on this scale, of this sort, and he's been passing amongst the crowd trying to get a sense of everything. And to see if anyone will spill some wine on the ground.

[allmydiredreams]

Babel herself hasn't noticed that there's a certain bodybeat that's been...shifting from person to person through the crowd, though her hindbrain's picked it up. Her hindbrain is also the things that's noticing the pattern of Organization operative moving through the crowd. She's paying attention to neither.

So when her shadow suddenly starts beating, syncing with her own beats, she jumps a little and looks down at her feet. "Never known you to sing before," she mutters at it, furrowing her brow a bit. She may lift up a shoe to inspect the sole of it, just in case. In case of what, even she isn't sure.

[shadowseeks]

Onyekachi hasn't been paying all that much attention to the people whose shadows he's been inhabiting, honestly. Most of them haven't noticed him, he hasn't paid attention to most of them, it's like this between shadows and people.

But, you know, when they talk to him...

"Was I singing?" He consders that for a moment, humming out a brief few notes. "Hm. The man by the tree thought it strange to hear a shadow sing, so too."

[allmydiredreams]

And then something by her feet actually speaks and sings and she squeaks and puts her foot down heavily so as not to fall over in surprise. "You speak, too!"

Then she leans down, inspecting the ground a bit -- she can't tell if her shadow is actually darker or if she's imagining that. "You weren't singing singing, you were beating," she corrects. "Though your singing is very nice. Are you a spirit?"

[shadowseeks]

Ah! One who understands!

"I am Oyekachi, a shadow. Yes, I am a spirit. And who are you, girl-who-hears-the-shadow-singing?" He reaches out for a moment, reaches around her to make a swirling pattern on the ground around her feet, then withdraws to the relative safety under her shoe where the sun can't press down on him.

[allmydiredreams]

Babel makes a delighted face at the swirling. "Shadow-swirl, Onyekachi," she repeats, more to herself than anything, the plops down on the ground, the better to be closer to this mysterious new kind of shadow. She's careful not to sit directly on it, though she's not sure that would actually hurt.

"I'm Babel," she replies. "Didn't hear you, felt your sync instead." This punctuated with the usual tap on her sternum, though the effect is somewhat dampened by the giant fluffy coat. "You're quiet and low."

[shadowseeks]

Onyekachi makes a point to keep as close to her as possible. Hey, that's where her shadow is, and that makes the sun a lot less heavy on his back.

"Quiet, low, it's up to papa sunlight to be the high loud one," he answers. "Onyekachi makes no demands. What is the sync you feel, clever sister? Is it like the news-drums?"

[allmydiredreams]

Babel looks up at the sun for a brief moment, squinting, then turns back to Onyekachi. Or, well, the ground and her small shadow.

"Everything's bodybeats, footsteps, in my bones," she says, though the explanation might not be all that helpful, really. "It's different for everything. Never felt a shadowbeat, though."

[shadowseeks]

"Of all the shadows in this world," Onyekachi laments, "I am the only one that sings, I think. Very strange. Not at all like my home. More light, here, too - maybe that's why the shadows went away."

He stretches a bit, extending a very small streetlamp shadow from her shoe's shadow. Onyekachi can always win at shadow charades.

"But I like it here," he says, drawing back in. "I like people."

[allmydiredreams]

Babel tilts her head at the shadow. Passersby are starting to avoid them, because when there's a scrappy girl talking to the sidewalk, well. She doesn't really notice, or if she does, she doesn't care. "It must be lonely," she says.

The shadow display is neat, though, and she watches with a good amount of interest. "People are full of interesting stories," she agrees. "You especially. I've never been in a world that had sentient shadows." The things in the shadows, sure, but the shadows themselves never were.

[shadowseeks]

"I have never been in one that did not!" Onye says. "Everything has its voice somewhere, even when it takes some searching to find. On in every hundred trees will sing when the sun goes down. Sometimes the belly of the earth is restless and it quivers and even cracks open. There are voices everywhere."

He pauses for a moment. Lets that sink in, considers the world around him.

"I hadn't thought of this as lonely," he says.

[allmydiredreams]

"Singing, yes, everything does," Babel says. "But voices...some don't speak. Bricks, concrete, leaves. For some there are only beats."

She studies the shadow around her shoes again. "Only lonely because you are the only one. Not lonely because no people. Just for being onlies."

[deepestindigo]

There's a happy little demon out and about... She just got finished with a date of the paid variety, has changed into something warm, and since she likes a parade as much as anyone, she's been watching the dancers and the floats and grinning to herself.

She's bundled up in her gift from Santa -- one absolutely gorgeous and unexpectedly warm leather coat -- and a fuzzy hat with kitty ears. Of course, the ever-present Pixy Stick is out. Granted, it doesn't do as much to keep her warm as coffee would, but it's what she's got at the moment.

She notices Babel and offers her Pixy Stix automatically. "Hi! Want some sugar?"

[allmydiredreams]

Sugar! Babel never turns down free sugar. She grins the biggest grin ever at the little demon and takes the Pixy Stix, pouring some in her mouth so when she speaks her teeth are colored.

"You have the best hat!" She does a little dance, perhaps demonstrating how awesome the hat is, or maybe how cold it is outside, or maybe excitment at a new person, and then offers her coffee cup. "Coffee for sugar?"

[deepestindigo]

"Ooh, thanks!" Indy grins back, and whether the thanks is for the coffee or for the compliment, it doesn't really matter... She takes a sip of coffee, savoring it, and hands it back with a grin. It's warm, and tasty, and she likes this new person... But then, she more or less likes everyone.

"I'm Indy. Only it's Indigo, not Indiana." She points at the wisps of hair peeking out from under the hat by way of explanation. "Had a friend make the hat for me. She owed me a favor. It's a thing." Because that is the BEST explanation.

...Well, it's better than, 'So I ate this guy that was bothering her for the sake of whore solidarity,' anyway. And he didn't even taste very good, so it was definitely a favor.