Move Along {Brennan}

[Brennan Shardae]

Oh, yes, he'd have taken that the wrong way, in the process proving that he really wasn't very good about distinguishing jokes most of the time.  He'd have defended himself and gotten flustered, since it really wasn't appropriate, but he was lacking in options.  Pants were better than nothing.

Ahh, distraction.

He actually made a sincere effort not to turn his nose up at the eggs, and he thought he succeeded rather well.  His stomach even growled, suggesting that if he had no other options, it'd be time for another compromise.  He'd eat the eggs if that was all she really had, and he'd be grateful for them because he was hungry.  "No, I won't vomit," he promised, though he wasn't really looking forward to the eggs.  It wasn't even the cannibalism thing, since even ravens will eat the eggs of other birds if they're hungry enough.  As a falcon...

She really DID look incredibly normal in her jeans and tank top, like some pretty woman out of a movie.  Having never lived that 'normal' sort of life, it seemed almost surreal to Brennan.  Avalon didn't make her own food, and really, neither did he.  He had the most basic cooking knowledge, but Avalon was royalty.  She was taken care of by others, and he usually was as well, just being married to her.  Somehow, having Theia take care of him just didn't feel right, though.

"Pancakes and syrup sounds perfect," he told her quickly, rather pleased to have that option instead of the eggs.  "And orange juice?  Is there anything I can do to...help?"

As long as she didn't try to get him to operate a frying pan, or one of those square ended, flat utensils that flipped the food in the pan, he'd be fine.  What was that thing even called?  He didn't spend nearly enough time in the kitchen.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia stared at him for a second, and then snapped into action.  "Bitch, please, do you even know how to work an oven?  Listen, I know you're used to the fluffy and high life, so just... get the glasses out of the cabinet and pour the orange juice, okay?  I wouldn't want you accidentally setting yourself on fire.  Do you know how much trouble that'd get me in?" she asked sarcastically, moving to bump him competitively as he tried to get between her and the center island to the cabinet she'd indicated the cups were in.

She looked back at him and smiled, not surprised that he was all wry again.  "Brennan," she said with a sigh, setting the Bisquick down with a loud thud.  "You need to loosen up, okay?  Think of my house as a sort of..."  she trailed off, blue eyes raising as she struggled to find the words.  "As a padded room. You can do what you want here.  Say what you want.  Act as shitty as you want  - as long as you don't try any of that royalty crap with me,"  she warned, lifting a finger to point at him.

"I know things are going to be really... fucked up for you, and it's going to be like that for a while.  The least you could do is stop trying to walk that weird emotional tightrope you people do," she affirmed.  And by 'you people' she meant every other Avian.

[Brennan Shardae]

Did....she just...?  Yes, she'd called him a bitch!  He actually managed to look indignant for a moment there, but she continued to give him hell about setting himself on fire and being used to the fluffy and high life, and he couldn't even argue with her.  As much as he didn't want to admit it, she was right, so he kept his mouth shut.  He was pretty baffled when she bumped him for trying to get to the cabinet the cups were supposed to be in, though.  Had he done something wrong?  He was seriously going to have to get used to the more casual contact if he was going to be spending time around her, which was looking as though it'd be more difficult than it sounded.

Emotional tightrope?  Was she talking about...the avian reserve?  He didn't see how dropping that would do him any good.  More like, show off the fact that he had NO IDEA what he was doing and that if he stopped to think about what was going on, he might freak out.  That reserve would keep him together.  Not to mention, after spending his entire life learning how to lock his emotions up, it wasn't exactly possible to just STOP all at once.

"I have 'loosened up'.  I cut the tag," he offered, though the very fact that he was standing barefoot in her kitchen without his shirt was proof that he was TRYING.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

"You did," she said, her voice very congratulatory as though she were talking to a child who'd just used the potty for the first time. "That's right, and I'm very proud of you. Maybe after we eat, you can count to twenty for me?" She shook her head and laughed. "Listen, I get that it's going to be hard, but all I'm asking is that you not take every single thing I say and do as an assault on your manhood, okay?" she asked.

She turned and grabbed a mixing bowl out of the cabinet, and started with his pancakes. It wasn't long before the sun had totally set, and there they stood in the middle of her kitchen chatting while she made breakfast food at roughly 6:45 PM. She'd begun to make a small mess, and had little smudges of Bisquick powder on her cheek, nose, and arms. She'd decided to make extra pancakes so that she could eat them later, intending to hoard them all for herself later after Brennan had either left or gone back to sleep.

"When are you going to see Avalon?" she asked out of the blue as she began pouring the batter into the pan. "She probably thinks you're like, dead or something."

[Brennan Shardae]

There she went again, insulting hi---oh.  Well.  That meant he was going to have to assume that every insulting thing she said was meant in jest, which...would take some effort.  This loosening up thing was going to be harder by far than he'd expected, but he nodded nonetheless.  He'd do what he could, and see where it got them.  Considering she was his best bet for figuring out what was going on with him, he could certainly try to do as she asked.

After getting the glasses out of the cabinet and pouring them both some juice, he rather carefully got out of her way, lest he end up as part of her slowly growing, though still fortunately small, mess.  She wasn't the only one who'd noticed how strange it was to be having breakfast with the sun going down, but considering he'd just woken up, Brennan wasn't going to argue.  He almost choked on his orange juice at her question, though.

Avalon.  What was he going to do?

"She'd have every right to.  I did die, if I remember correctly," he remarked dryly.  Was he going to go see her?  How would he even begin to explain something that he hadn't even been alive to witness?  "I don't know when I'm going to see her.  I can't even fathom how she'll react to this, especially so quickly after I lost my ---"

He hesitated for a mere instant, realizing that she probably didn't know the full extent of what had happened, including why he hadn't just flown away when the wolf attacked him, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hash it out.  "I don't know that she'd trust me now.  If it was someone else, I'd have kept an extra eye on him to ensure she was safe, so I couldn't blame her."  He didn't want to say that he was worried she wouldn't want him.  He was afraid that if he went in there to see him, she'd take one look at him and send him away.  He'd seen his eyes the night before, cleaning up before bed, and how could he possibly expect her not to react badly to them?  He couldn't.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

"Yea-ah, I somehow don't know how her guard would react to a dark Falcon just strutting on in. 'Hay guise wats up?' sort of doesn't seem to play out well in my noggin, but you know, things could have changed in the last... few.. hundred years." She squinted a little and scooped the pancakes off of the pan and onto a plate, turning off the burner with a flick of her fingers before she forgot and the house smelled funny for a few hours.

She turned around, plate in hand, and set it down on the island in front of him. "Forks are there." The syrup was already out. "You should probably call her. I don't even know if anyone knows what happened yet, unless that Aristide fellow placed a phonecall to scare the daylights out of everyone. I can say this, though, " she added, voice suddenly dropping all of its previous humour, "If I somehow get dragged down because of this, your friends will find out exactly why the Falcons are totally separated from their society."

Basically, she just told Brennan if anyone tried to screw with her, she was going to harm them. He didn't need to analyze this one - the threat was very clear.

[Brennan Shardae]

He just STARED at her for a moment when she called him a 'dark Falcon', mostly because it sounded like some sort of freaky Animal Planet edition of Star Wars. 

Yes, he'd seen Star Wars, and had been caught falling asleep to Animal Planet before.  He wasn't THAT removed from human society, even if he acted like he was.

"I may be wrong, but I'm willing to assume that it wouldn't go over well," he told her, matching her tone for seriousness as he grabbed a fork from where she gestured, though he stopped and fixed her with his newly violet eyes again as she made her threat.

All the more reason not to call Avalon, as far as he could tell.  How would she and the others react to this?  He hadn't even fathered a child with Avalon, and blood mattered so much to the Avian ruling family.  Oriana was never going to tolerate him remaining with Avalon, and she was still Tuuli Thea, by all rights.  Even if Avalon didn't refuse him back, she was bound to her duty, and the Avians couldn't have a mongrel for an heir. 

Her threat didn't even matter, because what reason did he even have to go back?  "Even if she and the guard don't react badly, I can never stay.  The child of a hawk and a...falcon could never be the heir.  She would need a new alistair regardless of whether I live or die, now," he admitted out loud, taking a seat rather heavily for one of his usual bearing.  He needed to eat, he knew that much, but he really didn't feel like it.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia fell very silent as his words hung in the air. Oh, shi- she thought. She hadn't even realized what all this meant, in a real-time sort of thing. She was just so excited that there was another Falcon, another familiar face, even if it was stuffy ol' Brennan. "I... " she trailed off, and then in an instant, had changed gears.

"You know, I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't tell Aristide to make you a Falcon, okay? He just used me to bring you back to life, and evidently that meant spawning you with some really, ah, different attributes." She spoke quickly, but very clearly. She was plainly saying, 'This shit isn't my fault'.

Obviously, Theia realized she'd pretty much accidentally ruined his life.

[Brennan Shardae]

Brennan would eventually 'loosen up' and stop being so 'stuffy', but it was going to take time, especially with how screwed up his life was lately.  Who knew, perhaps having his life turn upside down would help him go with the flow a little better.  There was no longer a safety net, or any sort of real support system, to anything he did.  His family would essentially disown him if they found out, Avalon's family would refuse him, and he'd be left to either linger and watch his wife take another alistair, or just vanish from the whole picture in a state of shame and dishonor.

Better to be thought dead.

He watched Theia again as she spoke, actually somewhat surprised at her reaction.  She was defending herself, like she thought he might really blame her.  There wasn't a reason for him to, was there?  He didn't know most of what happened, so he didn't know.  "Why were you there?  When I...died.  How did you and that man both end up there?"

He had no idea that she'd caught him just as he departed, or that her grief had caught Aristide's attention.  Honestly, he didn't know that anyone cared enough to have that sort of a reaction.  Considering how closed-up Avians were, that anyone would grieve for him so openly was a foreign thing to him.  Not to mention, there weren't too many people who would grieve for him at all if a situation such as this could completely ruin his life.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

She shrugged a little. She would have had plenty of comments for his inner monologue had she heard it, but Theia wasn't about to read his mind. "I was just out and about. I just got this... feeling and, I don't know, poked my head down in the alley. At least, that's what I remember, anyways. A lot of it was a blur." She leaned off of the counter a little, picking up her juice to take a sip. When she set it back down, she continued.

"That man heard me screaming, I guess. I guess he could pick up on what I was. I don't know, Brennan, I'd never really met him before. Anyways, he said he could fix you, and I told him I'd give him anything for it." She held her hands up. "And here you are, good as new."

The tone of her voice was more sarcastic than excited, like before. She didn't like that he wasn't happy about his new situation. Theia was capricious, vain and selfish, and there was no altering that out of her personality, no matter how many bindings or unbindings you did.

[Brennan Shardae]

Screaming?  She'd been screaming when Aristide found them?  About...him?  That was somewhat surprising, and enough to make him rethink this situation a little.  It didn't make much sense to him.  "Why were you screaming?  For...me?"  That anyone would really feel that strongly about his death would take awhile to sink in, but that sounded as though it was what she'd meant, and it made him wonder if he wasn't looking at this entire situation the wrong way.  There were some horrible aspects of it, but perhaps some of it wasn't going to be so horrible.

She'd said she'd give anything to fix him.  That wasn't such a simple promise, even if her explanation wasn't quite as friendly as her tone had been before. 

"I'm sorry, really, I am.  I'm just...trying to figure out what to do, and any of the things that feel right also sound as though they're going to blow up in my face," he explained, or at least, tried to.  He DID feel bad that he was such a pain in the ass for her, but there wasn't all that much he could do about it, especially immediately.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia grabbed Brennan by the biceps suddenly, forcefully, and shook the hell out of him. "How many times do I have to say it to get it through your head, Brennan? You matter to me. Unlike most of the bird world, I am actually allowed to feel emotions, so when I thought you were dead, I did the most natural thing - I screamed my head off." She released him just as forcefully, and if he wasn't careful, he'd bounce right off of the counter.

"For all of the shit that the 'avian lords and ladies', " and she even made quotations with her fingers, "say about not showing emotion because of how degrading and insufficient at fixing problems they are, it sure as fuck worked for me. Maybe not quite the way you wanted, but it did work."

She folded her arms, satisfied she'd once again shot down the avian reserve theory for bullshit. "And now I'll get off my soap-box," she concluded, finally affirming that she was finished on the topic.

[Brennan Shardae]

He actually flinched when he was suddenly grabbed and shook him like that, not at all used to having people be so physical with him, but what she said made sense...in a strange way.  Of course, the fact that he was contemplating her words didn't help when he literally bounced right off of the counter upon her release.  He was going to have to get used to this, and fast. 

Really, what did it matter?  He might as well try to lighten up.  It wasn't like he was going to be returning to the Avian court anytime soon.  It was true that she hadn't fixed things the way he would have wanted, but the alternative was death.  That wasn't much of an alternative.

"I'm sorry, you're right," he admitted, and he meant it.  He sighed, trying to do as she wanted and relax, and it worked, a little.  He even smiled, and it was an affectionate gesture this time, though still somewhat curious.  "You've given me a second chance.  I should stop being so depressing, shouldn't I?"

Self-deprecation, but still an attempt at humor.  See?  He was capable of it, even if it wasn't all that great to begin with.  He was trying to break out of the mold. 

[Amaltheia Monarch]

"Yes," she said firmly, satisfied that she'd won, although it was unclear as to what. She nodded to him a little. "You should take a look - a real look - at your wings when you get the chance, by the way. They're... stunning. If you thought you looked handsome as a raven, wait until you see what Falcon magic has done for you." She smiled a little, trying to lift his spirits with some complements. She meant them, at least.

The problem with Falcons was that eventually they were so wrapped in illusion and secrecy that you never knew what was real and what was imaginary. It would apply to Amaltheia soon enough, and eventually perhaps even to Brennan, depending on how he took his new abilities. Theia was a child of the White Islands, however, and so her mannerisms would come back stronger every day - it was fortunate, perhaps, for both of them, that she was usually a passionate enough individual not to lie.

That and she still liked Brennan, and as long as he stopped 'being depressing' she'd stay liking him.

[Brennan Shardae]

Perhaps things would go his way, since he was now consciously trying not to be such a downer.  It wasn't going to be an instant change, but he would try.  He still had to figure out the specifics of what he was doing about Avalon, since never talking to her again felt...wrong, but he wasn't going to make it a public thing. 

It hadn't even occurred to him that some Falcon mannerisms might start to surface in him, to be honest.  He was only just accepting the idea that it was all real, and considering what she'd said about his wings.  He couldn't honestly say that he'd prefer this foreign magic to what was familiar, but he would look as she'd asked, and he'd try to look at them with an open mind.  If he looked and considered what they meant, how his whole life had changed, he might begrudge them just because of that.  He was going to try to be positive.

Maybe Theia's presence would help with that.  If he was lucky, she'd keep him busy enough while she was showing him the inner workings of what had happened to him that he wouldn't have the time to really focus on any of his own problems longer than it took to decide how to deal with Avalon. 

"I will, I'll look," he promised, and he smiled back.  Despite what he might think, she was trying to help him, and the compliment was nice to hear, all in all.  Who didn't like hearing that they were thought to be attractive, and to be offered a good point in all of this was nice, even if it was so minor as that.  He appreciated it.  "Yours are beautiful.  I can see why you mourned them so, besides the obvious."