The open palm of desire wants everything, it wants everything...

[techniclybrill]

Shilo is curled up in the common room of the Conrad, flipping through a history book written in the looping handwriting of some angel of knowledge or other. She's doing her best to think about the book, instead of how much she misses home, or her dad, or even her stupid room. Because she doesn't. Really.

Martin is at the coffee shop, staring at

Comments

[nowinprint]

And, because (choose your explanation: 1-Time is wibbly-wobbly; 2-Dmitri Lang exhibits a Chuck Norris-like ability to exist in two places at once), Dmitri just so happens to be walking down a certain street at the same time as a certain ferret who happens to be a certain other of her friends. Not that she recognizes him as such. It's the haircut, or something.

Still, she can recognize a shifter when she sees one, and being one herself, she's got some incentive to promote a sense of bonhomie in the shifter community. She dodges her way through the passersby, dropping into a crouch in front of the ferret. People think she's strange for talking to small animals? Whatever. CLF catch sight of her? She can pretend she's just quirky. And if they really don't take that as an answer, she has enough tasers and mace on her to make their lives deeply uncomfortable, and she would not mind having to bust those out.

"Heading anywhere in particular, Mr. M. P. Furo?"

[thatsortofaman]

Oh look! A Dmitri!

The Doctor bounces excitedly in front of her for a few seconds, clearly pleased to see her. Things are much simpler when he's ferret-shaped. Ordinarily, seeing Dmitri comes with a certain amount of awkwardness and guilt, now it's just FRIEND and GOOD and maybe she'll PLAY WITH HIM! Or even better, get him where he wants to go.

Dmitri! Help me find John Smith. I need to bite him. Chances are he'll be distracted by something shiny before he gets around to biting him, but right now, it seems like the best plan.

[nowinprint]

Dmitri chuckles. Bouncy ferret is bouncy, clearly. And not hissing or spitting or otherwise acting unhappy to be stopped, so. "I'll take that as some sort of affirmative," she says, scooping up one (1) mustelid. "Okay, guy, welcome to Lang Land Transport: free seats available include the forearms, the shoulders, the messenger bag, and the top o'the head. Directions can be given manually-" she points down the street, in case the ferretbrain doesn't equate manually with pointing, "or in morse code. Or I could try to find you a toothpick pencil and a tiny composition book. In-flight movie is a walking your of downtown Chicago; meal service is whatever I've stashed in the outer pocket of my bag. Scritches are available upon request from your stewardess. Where are we headed?"

[thatsortofaman]

The Doctor promptly clambers up her arm to settle himself on her shoulder, hanging on to the strap of her messenger bag. And since she said morse code was acceptable - of course it is, Dmitri's brilliant - he taps out the answer to her question against her shoulder, with one paw. It takes a bit of effort to get the ferretbrain to concentrate, but eventually he manages, John Smith.

Then, she might not know where he is any more than she does. He pauses. Or Kashtta.

[nowinprint]

Dmitri turns to look at him, at that, for a moment before starting off toward Wabash and Lake. "You know, ordinarily I'd point out that you've chosen to ask about a man with the name that's become the genericised trademark for common English name and that there are probably still enough John Smiths in the city to amount to self-parody, but knowing certain things about people who know the Kashtta, things which turn people into animals, people who know specific John Smiths, congruence of personalities and animal forms, and the laws of probability adjusted for Chicago's ambient coincidence field..." ...she may have made that last one up; "...I have to ask: have you been tormenting the Prophet again?"

She accompanies that with a scritch to the back of the Doctor's head, just so he knows she's not antagonizing him. Or is too distracted to care.

[thatsortofaman]

The Doctor shoots her an affronted glare, shakes his head. He most certainly was not tormenting the Prophet or poking the Rift again. He just... sort of... went poking in a friend's head. And it went badly. But really, he meant well, but he's almost entirely blameless here.

...There's no way he's going to explain all of that in morse code. A shake of the head will have to do.

[nowinprint]

Dmitri considers that. Considers that when the Doctor breaks out that particular affronted look - or at least, the one she assumes he means, adjusted for the Doctor being small and ferrety - he's usually twice as guilty as he wants people not to believe he is.

So she laughs. "You're adorable," she says, and goes fishing in her outer pocket for something that might not be too inimical to a ferret's digestive system. After a moment she comes up with a granola bar - tasty; it has cranberries and blueberries in it, too - opens it up, tears off a corner, and offers it to him. "Anyone at the Tower I should be looking for, for you? Or do you just want to play with the ghosts?"

They're stopped at a streetlight, now, and garnering some odd looks, but Dmitri is kinda used to those. And none of them are hostile, so far.

[thatsortofaman]

He considers for a second, eyeing the granola bar like he's trying to decide if she's just using it to distract him. ...then the ferret decides it doesn't care, and accepts the offered piece of it, nomming away happily. Why yes, he is adorable, thank you.

He shakes his head a little at her question. No, no one in particular. Except notVes. He does not want to see Ves, but he doesn't actually live at the Tower, he's just around a lot, much like Dmitri, so maybe he'll be lucky and just... not see him. Though ghosts are interesting and it's been a while since he's done anything about them or the Kashtta's general weirdness, though that's a bit harder with the basement closed...

And now the ferretbrain's running off down that track and entirely distracted from his previous plan to find John Smith and launch himself at his face. It figures.

[nowinprint]

"You know, this is the least talkative I think you've ever been."

Dmitri gives him another scritch as the light changes, and she starts across. At least the Kashtta is not terribly far, and at least the ferret will not have to walk that distance on his own. She can think of several people who would be less than happy if the Doctor got stepped on.

"When you're, you know..." She considers for a moment, decides that there is, after all, an upper bound of explicit weirdness she's going to sit here and discuss in full view of all and sundry, and switches to Russian, «...bipedal and equipped with a set of articulators usable for human-language speech, would you mind if I ask how you manage these things? ...you know, I may need some incentive not to start a betting pool on what your second form is. Cat seems far too obvious.»

[thatsortofaman]

The ferret growls. Or tries to. It's really not very impressive, and leans closer to adorable, but the Doctor does NOT approve of your mockery, Dmitri.

Then he wonders if he even has a larger form, and what it would take to find that out, because he doesn't plan on doing this often - although it's not so bad being a ferret, given that here he is, touching a shapeshifter and not particularly interested in changing back...

He decides the best course of action is to nom Dmitri's hair, having finished with the granola bar. It is a nom of love.

[nowinprint]

Well, that and having a naked Doctor suddenly appear on Dmitri's shoulder in the middle of a street is a bit outré even for them. As far as that goes, Dmitri is actually more comfortable with lovenoms. She gives him a few scritches down the length of his back, wondering if there's anything ferret-toy-like in her bag. Or Doctor-toy-like, sized for tiny paws.

Well, they're not far from the Kashtta, in any case.

«Well, you know, it suits you.» Impulsive, distractable, magpie-minded and, yes, adorable. True, ferrets are missing the ANCIENT AND FOREVER part of that equation, though that would be hilarious (and rather surreal even for Chicago) to see, but for the most part... «And I hope you're enjoying it. You'll have to tell me if your other form is something with wings. We can play catch.»