application for Duncan Shriek, from Jeff VanderMeer's novels of Ambergris.

[duncan_shriek]

In the Sorting Room, a rug lay upon the floor, and under the rug, something began to thump and shift

Comments

[gourmetchairman]

"Well, we can get you some cheese if you desire," Kaga offered.

[duncan_shriek]

"What I'd really like, if you're offering, is some water for my friend," said Duncan. Who appeared to be unaccompanied.

[gourmetchairman]

Kaga looked around, but didn't see this 'friend' he was talking about.

"I see. Well, the house elf should be bringing some."

As if summoned (which it kinda was), a house elf appeared with some water.

[duncan_shriek]

From another pocket inside his coat, Duncan brought out a small and faintly luminous ball of something.

"It's curled around a drop of moisture," he explained, not meaning to be cryptic, but being so anyhow. "Here, help me pour some water on it?" He held out the thing in both hands.

[scouts_dishonor]

"You got like magic hands, or somethin'?" Scout asked. "What the hell kinda trick is that?"

[duncan_shriek]

"Not magic. Hungry," Duncan corrected. "Not so much a trick as a ... medical condition."

[scouts_dishonor]

"You eat ink?" he said incredulously. Dude, eww. "What kinda freakin' medical condition is that? You ain't got parts fallin' off or nothin' do you?" Scout stared at Duncan, as if expecting his nose to fall off.

[duncan_shriek]

"Not falling off. Growing. Don't worry, I'm not a leper." Liquid though the sounds in his throat might occasionally be, Duncan's tone now was desert-sere. "I'm a human who's been too long underground, that's all."

[damien_thorn]

"Another person, claiming that if we only knew, we would never dare ask them if they're useless." Damien looked at Duncan as if he was something particularly odoriferous that he'd scraped off the bottom of his shoe.

"Care to elaborate on that question?"

[duncan_shriek]

Duncan sighed.

"I can't elaborate on the question, because I didn't make the application. I could elaborate on the answer, but when I wrote that, I didn't think humans had written the question."

[damien_thorn]

Damien had been at Hogwarts long enough to get over his viewpoint that there were only the angelic, the demonic, normal humans, and extremely delusional people that believed in other things. So he passed over "Who else would have written it?" in favor of:

"What, or who, did you think wrote the question?"

[duncan_shriek]

"The gray caps," replied Duncan simply (and unhelpfully, no doubt, though he wouldn't have seen it that way). "The fanaarcensitii, as they call themselves."

[blue_ataru]

"Are the mushrooms edible?" Fungus was a food staple among Twi'leks, after all. Expatriate dead Jedi Twi'leks loved it just as much as the regular variety.

[duncan_shriek]

"Some mushrooms are edible. Some are weapons. Some, I'm afraid, are spies. The red mushrooms I've offered are used mainly as drugs. The effect is to alleviate anxiety and make the mushroom-eater more placid and mellow. This has made them popular in a city generally more dangerous than not. They provide a break from otherwise unrelieved and constant fear." Duncan fished a wax-paper packet from an outer pocket of his grimy coat. "If you'd like one, you're welcome to them. You don't have the face of a gray-cap -- would it be rude to ask you what those growths about your head and neck are?"

[blue_ataru]

"I'll pass, then, thanks. The growths are called lekku. Sometimes brain-tails, which is only a partially inaccurate name since part of my brain does extend into them. They're sensory and communication organs. What are 'gray-caps'?"

[duncan_shriek]

Brain-tails. Duncan regarded the blue woman with calm curiosity. "To sum up the gray caps in a sentence would be beyond even my capacity, and I've studied them almost all my life. They're sentient. They're fungal. They lived under the city of Ambergris before the city had its name." The luminous starfish crept along the side of his face, absorbing the gray and black spores that had stained his skin like so much gunpowder grit. "They have their own agenda. Is there a name for your species, ma'am?"

[dinosaurman]

"You 'may have been dead?'" Grand asked with the Raised Eyebrow of Curiosity. It wasn't that he didn't believe Duncan, but there were varying degrees of 'may have been dead' and he wondered which one it was.

"You've come to the right place, then."

[duncan_shriek]

"This isn't the right place for anything," said Duncan Shriek, weary, peeling the starfish off the side of his face and sprinkling it with more of the water Kaga had given him.

[dinosaurman]

"True."

Grant peered at the starfish intently. "May I take a closer look at that?" Which was only one step away from touching it, which was what he really wanted to do. "I'm the Care of Magical Creatures professor. Professional interest."

[duncan_shriek]

"Only if you give it back," said Duncan, who understood that a closer look required picking the starfish up. "I need it for the time being." As he held the starfish out to Grant, it clung to his fingers, seeking more spores on which to feed. Its arms changed color as its position changed. "Blue is north," he explained to Grant. "I used to teach, myself. Historian, not zoologist."