There's a wild wind blowing down the corner of my street

[cyfor]

Cy has been cornered by bullies. This time, bullies of the fluffy variety.

One of them just called her smelly.

Currently, she's tearing off his ear.

Ragnar is sitting on a bridge over the Chicago river, staring at the water. He's been doing this a lot, lately. He's gotten several odd looks from passerby, but no one wants to--or sees reason to

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[biverbam]

A ways upriver from the bridge Ragnar is sitting on, there's River. She's been wandering (wanderers, she keeps hearing that word and it seems appropriate, fitting, and her bare feet easily follow the suggestion) the streets in ever widening ellipses around the Conrad for a few days now, trying to latch onto a trail that would lead to Sark.

She needs to return the keycard.

Unfortunately, large bodies of water with which she shares a name are incredibly distracting, and even skilled dancing weapons can lose their balance looking for tadpoles.

Thus, Ragnar might notice her as she floats downstream beneath him, ducking under the surface to bubble and bobbing up again every once and again, seemingly too preoccupied with thought (River in a river, a division into itself, a prime, eroding integers and cement) to attempt paddling herself to shore.

[prince_stupid]

He looks down, not quite believing what he sees in the young human bobbing contemplatively up and down on the current. She's not screaming, not begging for help, and so--not surprisingly--the humans nearby notice nothing. Ragnar sighs and drags himself to his feet, skipping lightly up onto the railing and then taking a fantastic, flying leap over the water, shifting as he goes. Passerby who took no notice of a silently drowning girl will probably stare at her apparent rescuer--a primeval, glowing catbeast plummeting toward the river feet-first.

[biverbam]

River isn't noticing much of the other humans, either, to be honest. Everything else in her head is far too interesting, but she loses count of all the minnows she bumps into when she goes under the bridge and looks up to examine the architecture and birds nests (Columbidae, crops and milk and little ones taken care of except for one that fell in the river and died two months ago) wedged beneath it. And the cat on top of it.

Bob up, breathe.

Bob down, burble.

A little further and she's underwater with her breath held as she watches Ragnar shift and sputters a little as she bobs back up and gasps quietly again for air.

So... Not a cat after all.

[prince_stupid]

Ragnar hits the water with a sound akin to a mini sonic boom, slamming water up against the cement sides of the channel and momentarily disorienting himself. He paddles to stay above water. The motion looks ridiculous on an animal his size.

Now for the business of fishing the small human out. It doesn't take a great deal of effort to reach the burbling girl, but then he can't do much more than say "Waaauuugh," and hope she gets the idea.

[biverbam]

River has to kick and paddle to keep her head above water when he lands (nothing like pools on Osiris with hover anti-grav fixed onto the bottom so you had to work to dive below the surface instead of the other way around) and as ridiculous as it looks, she keeps her eyes on him.

It takes her a second before what's expected of her gets through. It's another few moments as she notices, finally, the other people around that are pointing and staring and thinking things like 'Why is that thing going for the girl is it going to eat her' and she finally realizes she's in the middle of a large body of water and her hands are all pruney.

The wrinkles and River's distaste for them are pretty much the only reason things click and she wraps her arms around the catbeast's neck.

She'd say something about how she wasn't drowning, really, but that's difficult when her mouth is barely above the waterline. Instead, she sputters.

[prince_stupid]

He goes under himself for a second at the extra weight, but quickly compensates by striking out stronger than before, the currents eddying around his paws. Ragnar's surprised, frankly, that the weight of his coat hasn't born him down by now. After all, wet fur is awfully heavy. But then, his breed is particularly strong of limb.

He still hasn't figured it out. He probably never will.

When they get to the edge of the river, he scrabbles against the side and hauls himself--and River--onto dry land. "Mung."

[biverbam]

It isn't much extra weight, but River does what she can to alleviate the strain by kicking up and with him, toes pointed and really it would be more helpful if she had flippers but the Rift isn't that generous. Or cruel. Whichever.

She notices the dryness even if he doesn't, though, and when she lets go and flops onto her back on the pavement to squint up at him in the sun (ignoring you, all the people watching, craning rubber necks and whispering strangeness and how you'll have to tell your friends when you get home) she coughs a bit of the water out of her lungs and drippily acknowledges it.

"Function without the form. Rolls off and doesn't touch like... You aren't feathered."

Whether or not she'll acknowledge it again without calling him some kind of water fowl remains to be seen.

[prince_stupid]

He blinks at her. Of course he's not feathered. How ridiculous.

Without preamble, Ragnar is Ragnar again. "You are quite damp, and people are staring. Come. We should get out of the open and acquire the services of someone better equipped to tend to you."

[biverbam]

She blinks back. Then blinks again when he's Ragnar again.

"I know." Of course Ragnar isn't feathered. If he was he'd have a beak (shhh this logic is perfectly sound, pay no attention to the crazy behind the girl).

But she knows the other things, too (ignoringignoringignoring even when they're stepping closer what's going on she's not moving), things that are important and time-sensitive. River blinks once more at Ragnar, at the sky, before she moves to sit up, and then stand.

It's a very articulate move. One that says all manner of things, starting with 'I'm not dead,' and ending somewhere near 'I can be obedient when the situation calls for it, as it is better than getting electrodes stuck to my face.' That last one might get lost in translation for most, though.

Mostly, though, she's stiff and wet and cold, hair clinging in bits to her face, and River is looking at Ragnar like she's in trouble. Got called into the principal's office for swimming during class time and now he'll have to call her parent's. It's then that she takes

[prince_stupid]

He's more concerned for her at the moment than her logic. She looks like a sick kitten, which kicks Ragnar's paternal instincts into high gear. A look from him stops several of the approaching pedestrians--even those apparently concerned for River's well-being. She is his responsibility now, and shall be cared for accordingly.

"Come. We will care for you, and then work out how you might return..." He gives the keycard a blank look. "That."

He starts for the nearest building he knows of--which, go figure, is the Kashtta.

[biverbam]

In many ways she is a sick kitten, very sick in fact, but that's neither here nor there. What's here is people (they're afraid of him, of both of them, and she mouths the words but they don't come out all the way which makes their sideways looks more sides and less ways) and what's there will be a returned keycard. Maybe a towel.

River nods when he speaks, the quiet quiet acknowledgment, then there's a less quiet but still small, "Yes, sir."

After that (and she will testify at a later date that nothing gets funnier looks than deferring to the authority of a cat out loud in public) she plods behind him, leaving a wet droplet trail behind her.

[prince_stupid]

It's not too far to the Kashtta, fortunately for them both.

Not so fortunately for the man Ragnar brought River here to see.

"This way." He leads her up to the second floor's lounge and sits her down on the couch, inasmuch as staring pointedly AT the couch is sitting someone down.

And then he slips off to find Sark.

[sarkraticmethod]

In a stroke of luck for Ragnar (not so much for Sark), Sark is at the Kashtta, doing his erranding for Bristow and caught between hating and loving it.

So there's Sark. Walkin' down a hall. Not expecting to get Ragnars to the FACE, regarding river-soaked... Rivers.

[prince_stupid]

Well have a Ragnar to the ANKLES, rubbing around them in greeting before he speaks. "Julian Sark. I apologize for the abruptness, but there is an issue which I believe you are better equipped to deal with than me. There is a small human female that fell into the river."

Ragnar knows not what irony means. He blinks up at Sark. "I pulled her out."

[sarkraticmethod]

When a cat throws itself at your ankles, most people's first inclination is to scritch like the wind (well, and not fall over, if the cat is huge). Sark not being most people aside, he does, indeed, give Ragnar some scritches before straightening up at the news.

"A.. You thought I'd be..." He collects himself, because stammering is unbecoming, but really Ragnar, you thought Sark is better equipped to deal with humans? A tuna fish sandwich is better equipped to deal with people.

"Where is she?" He can... Pretend for a little while until he finds Harper or Burke or someone.

[prince_stupid]

He turns around and trots back down the hall. "She's waiting in the lounge, and quite damp. I have no clear idea of where I might find something to remedy that."

Ragnar stops next to the lounge door. "She also wishes to return a... keycard to someone."