What's Alan? [Open]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Deep in the bowels of the ship, he waited. Below him, the groundbound bipeds milled back and forth, their movements without rhyme or reason. Some were holding slabs of metal, some stared out at the strange, hypnotizing space outside, and still others merely stood, endlessly chattering to each other in their countless inexplicable alien languages, waiting for the ship to translate for them what they could not understand for themselves.

He watched all with his keen, avian intelligence. Alien intelligence.

With no master about to end the boredom of his inquisitive mind, he had been forced to improvise. And now he was free. Free to wreak havoc as he would amongst the silly, slow-witted groundlings. FREEEEEEEEEE

Zouichi wandered from location to location on the ship, but so far, not a single brightly-colored feather to serve as a sign of Alan Turing's presence. The parrot had been acting a little sulky ever since Zouichi had left on that last mission, so he'd decided to leave Alan some space. But this morning, the bird was nowhere to be found.

He was beginning to suspect Howard's cat (Emergency Rations was a terrible name) had something to do with this.

[ooc: Post is open! Please feel free to chase the parrot, try to lure him out, reason with him, call him names, try and cooperate with Zouichi to catch him, whatever! He can be run into anywhere on the ship, just let me know where. The person who will eventually corner him, though, is Shoutarou.]

Comments

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

Cassie referred back yet again to the parrot's instincts, but her morph had no more answers for her then it'd had a moment ago. The sound wasn't one that the parrot would be instinctively familiar with unfortunately and it definitely wasn't the sound that her species of parrot would make, so the parrot didn't really know how to respond.

She tried to recall the sound well enough to be able to mimic it, but it was hard and, after she forced the chirp out, she had to admit that it was a poor attempt.

[cityship]

Oh.

Clearly this was an inferior parrot. If it was possible for a bird to look smug, Alan looked it right now. He trilled brightly, taking the opportunity to show off.

Take that, stranger parrot.

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

Well, that seemed to have made Alan happy. Cassie didn't really know why, but she didn't see any harm in it. In fact, it might work to her favor if he'd accepted her as a non-threat.

Taking to the air again, she landed beside Alan this time and squawked again in the tone that she still hoped sounded friendly.

[cityship]

Whoa, whoa! Who died and made you king of his personal space?

In a burst of movement, Alan flew up to a higher perch, flapping once or twice at her agitatedly, tail flaring as he stood up straight.

Yeah, he was keeping an eye on you.

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

Well, that didn't work. Cassie reconsidered. She was almost tempted to see what effect thought-speak might have on the parrot, but then she decided on a different approach, although this was probably just as likely to scare the parrot off, perhaps even more given that Alan might just not know how to do with thought-speak. Still, it wasn't quite as foreign a method of communication for a parrot given that she'd use her parrot morph's own natural abilities to do it, but it would probably still prove that she wasn't a normal parrot.

As she found out the first time she morphed parrot, forming words through a parrot's mouth was not a simple task, but she'd done it before so it was easier to figure out this time.

"Alan," came the chirp.

[cityship]

Alan cocked his head to regard the other parrot with some suspicion, but he did stop fanning his tail feathers. The parrot didn't sound like Zouichi at all. She had said his name, though, which was something the other birds had never done.

"Yoshi," he said, in a deep baritone.

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

At least he hadn't flown off when she'd said his name. Cassie was willing to take any small victory that she could get. But what was Yoshi? Maybe she should have talked to the person who posted the message for some more background before coming to look for Alan.

After a moment of thought, she mimicked him. "Yoshi."

[cityship]

Alan tilted his head in the other direction, rocking a little on the branch. "Ii ko." And then, "Alan!"

Hmm. Maybe he should go bother some more humans.

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

Cassie tilted her head as she considered her next move. She still didn't really know what to make of Alan's behavior, but she was getting a response by talking to him.

Well, time to take it a step farther. She certainly wasn't making much progress with what she had been doing.

"Hi, Alan," she squawked.

You don't want to play with Cassie anymore, Alan? But she's a pretty parrot right now too.

[cityship]

Oh, but Alan was the prettiest parrot. He cocked his head at her voice, but didn't seem quite as surprised as the first time she began to speak. After a moment, he flipped himself over on the branch until he was hanging upside down.

Hanging upside down was awesome, as he'd discovered earlier. He swung back and forth, amusing himself.

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

Cassie watched Alan swinging back and forth, but decided not to mimic that action. Somehow she didn't see hanging upside down as quite as awesome as Alan appeared to, even if her morph should technically be capable of it too.

She flared her wings and took flight again, flying up toward Alan and circling the tree that he was on, but not landing. While she flew, she debated her options.

She could land and demorph, but that could upset Alan enough to send him flying away. Even if she hid so that he couldn't see her (Not for privacy, but because some animals could be upset by the morphing process itself. Seeing humans spring from animals and vice versa was not something that any creature expected to see.), she'd still have to get up a tree that didn't look like it was terribly forgiving when it came to people climbing it without being spotted. She was, after all, an unknown to Alan. And then what? The best she could think of was that she could try to acquire Alan's DNA, so that he'd fall into the trance state associated with the process and try to recover him safely that way.

Not a great plan in any sense really.

But flying around in circles wasn't exactly helpful either.

[cityship]

What was that dumb parrot doing, flying in circles like that? She was just asking to get picked off by a predator or something.

Er... not that Alan had ever seen any predators around here. But that was beside the point!

Whatever; it was time to show this interloper what was what. Alan took flight, darting through the high branches of Hydroponics in a brilliant blur of feathers.

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

Cassie watched Alan fly away and said some very rude things in the privacy of her own mind that might have shocked those who knew her. This limited her options given that demorphing was now out of the question.

Instead, she flew after Alan, giving him as much space as she could without losing sight of him. It wasn't easy. She wasn't a newbie when it came to flying (In fact, she had a lot of experience flying, although not necessarily in parrot morph), but Alan was an actual parrot and she was not.

Although feeling a bit frustrated by her lack of success, she couldn't help but appreciate Alan's grace as he flew. Parrots were such incredible birds.

[cityship]

Alan zipped through the foliage; he visited the area often, and he knew which plants and animals to look out for. He'd thought this parrot's behavior was awfully suspicious, and now she was following him around! He dipped past one of the large Hydroponics herbivores, determined to lose his new tail.

[caringcassie.livejournal.com]

Cassie struggled to follow as Alan began his attempts to lose her, still trying to keep her distance without losing him, but finding that to be increasingly difficult. She had been to Hydroponics before, but never like this and flying through Hydroponics wasn't the same as walking through it.

Alan vanished from her line of sight as he spun behind some unfamiliar animal who seemed to be eating grass, who she quickly decided had to be either a herbivore or an omnivore, and she followed. But, as she flew on, she found that she couldn't seem to spot him again.

How? Where?

Cassie flew up a bit higher, trying to spot his brilliant plumage, but she had no luck.

Frustration, disappointment, and worry flooded through her, but she wasn't ready to give up yet. She wouldn't be able to rest until she knew that he was safe.

[cityship]

Alan had dropped down into the tall grass around the alien animal, scootching along the ground as he headed for the brush. So far it looked like the other parrot hadn't spotted him. Maybe it was a good time to look for some place to hole up for a bit until she gave up.