[gamepost] O HAI. U HAS A DAEMON NAO.

[mm_cam]

It's a fine and pleasant day by local standards, whether it's in a bar or on a ship or off somewhere else entirely, and everything is going just as you'd expect it to go.

And then there is a poink! noise, and something has changed. You, and everyone else around you, is suddenly accompanied by an animal... an intelligent, talking animal that gives

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[cutsthestrings]

Fiona had just come down to pick a new book from the bar, but now she was too busy blinking at the little wolverine that was toddling next to her since she'd come downstairs.

[acts_of_gord]

"Huh."

Gordon's only just looked up from the apparently high-magnification glass marble that materialized in his pocket a short while ago.

"I take it your companion's new to you, too?"

[cutsthestrings]

There was a second, then a third look at the wolverine before the girl nodded mutely.

"Very. I mean, I know what he is. I've read enough books to be able to identify Gulo gulo. But I don't... quite..."

[acts_of_gord]

"At least you can see yours without assistance," Gordon says. He holds up the marble. "Sati, here, is about a millimeter long. Friendly, though."

[cutsthestrings]

She couldn't help but peer at the marble.

"What's that?"

She couldn't quite tell but she figured that if he knew it's name, he'd be able to identify the creature. Eliot was always a little better at zoology than she was.

[acts_of_gord]

"She's a tardigrade," Gordon says. "A waterbear. I'd heard about them, but I'd never seen one- they're all that size. Here-"

He holds out the marble for examination. There is a tiny, pudgy, eight-legged beastie making its way around the inside.

He'll be pulling the marble back at the slightest hint of it being about to be touched.

[cutsthestrings]

"Oh! Now I remember. Hmm."

She didn't dare reach forward. She wasn't the type to touch. When you grew up in the kind of household she'd grown up in, you barely touched the people you knew, and almost never their things.

"Mine seems to be named Eli."

Which was curiously close to Eliot.

[acts_of_gord]

"Not a bad name," says Gordon. "He looks like somebody you wouldn't want to cross. I'm... not really up on my mammals, I'm afraid."

[cutsthestrings]

"Commonly known as wolverine," and no, she wouldn't know any comic book reference even if you explained it. She barely understands the concept of comic books other than 'things I wasn't allowed to read'.

"Kind of grumpy."

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon nods. "He reminds me a little of something that happened here a while back," he says. "Some of us were... turned into animals ourselves. He looks a little like the one I got- I think it was called a ratel..."

[cutsthestrings]

"That's a honey badger," she said easily.

"They're related, but not quite the same. Though I... I'm sorry something like that happened to you. I'm sure it wasn't pleasant."

[acts_of_gord]

"It's all right. It could have been worse," Gordon says. "are you new here? I don't think I remember seeing you before this."

[cutsthestrings]

She glanced at the stairs, and then at the outside.

"Not... exactly new. I don't come to the bar much. I don't need to. Eliot's here pretty often though. My twin brother."

[acts_of_gord]

"I can't say I know him," Gordon answers honestly. "I've been busy at home. It gets distracting, even here."

[cutsthestrings]

"We've been stuck here for a while," she admitted, obviously not pleased about that.

"Where's, um, home?"

[acts_of_gord]

"Earth. After a number of alien invasions and one conquest," Gordon says. "You?"