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Kay is looking down at her phone while sitting on the bench, yellow dress and loose hair, studying the video with keen interest, brows furrowed in concentration. Anyone catching a glimpse would see a phone camera filming some altercation or another, as the video finishes playing she swipes the images away. Her expression locked in, what appears to be, mild frustration. Her phone disappears into her purse and her gaze now roams the small, isolated park
Her free hand drums on the edge of the park, something musical in nature and slowly, her expression fades back into calm neutrality. (magic active but cloaked)
pap pap pap pap pap
The sound of stealthy little Fox feet rustle the dry-damp leaves in the park, and then Kay's phone buzzes with a text from Fox.
What are today's pronouns?
As this happens, a vulpine shape hops up on the other end of the park bench and sits there, blinking wide-eyed at Diamond. A little chattery sound which has no words equivalent, not quite gekkering but the playful sound of foxes.
Fiadh steps into the park, a long, many layered peasant skirt in bright colors, a long faux leather jacket protecting her from the cold. She has a flask in one gloved hand, the other hand stuck in the jacket pocket. She looks lost in thought, a little crease between her eyebrows. She does, however, pause mid-step, seeing the fox hop up on the bench next to the person sitting there. She looks at the fox, looks down at the flask, back at the fox...then screws the cap back on the flask and slips it in her pocket, watching for now.
She withdraws the phone from her purse when it buzzes, one look at the screen, who the text is from and then the incredible coincidence of seeing something vaguely fox-shaped appears. She notices the other woman also, from the corner of her eyes, changing what her reply would have been. Kay's fingers tap at the screen and send the reply She/Her "Hello Fox, how are you?"
That's certainly one way to make an impression on a stranger.
A long, slow blink from the fox, rather cat-like, and once the text is sent? The fox nods its head, once, as if in understanding.
It's a well-fed fox, though still sleek, and with blotchy lighter patches on its back. It's also literally inhumanly dexterous at the moment, because someone forgot to release their Honing the Form. Oop. This literal fox moves like liquid, like something out of an animated short about folk tales or something. The fox's black tail swish-swish once, and then its ears swivel to the side, followed by its head snapping to the side when the sound of the cap screwing down catches it.
Those vulpine ears flatten back against her skull, and then, bound scamper flee, the fox makes for the underbrush.
Her jaw drops, but then when the fox flees off she looks sad. She walks over to the woman, but her gaze travels to where the fox fled. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to scare your friend off." Her voice has a strong Irish brogue. "So beautiful..." She trails off, looking back again at the underbrush before looking back at Kay. "Reminds me o' me Gram's stories."
Kayla fiddles with her phone slightly while Fiadh stands closer, offering the Irish woman a warm smile. "I think you surprised the Fox a little bit, but they might come out again." a quick few hit of the screen on her phone, she sends another text to the Smart Fox.
"What kind of stories? Like the old fairy tales of a trickster figure, or something different?"
Wide green-gold eyes peer out from within the underbrush, hidden carefully in the branches which curl protectively around her. Kayla's phone pings again, twice.
She smiles. "The Sionnach, cunning and quick, with the power of the kenning. Some say they carry a pearl, that brings good luck to those the Sionnach gifts it with." She looks thoughtful. "Me Gram always said they are innocent, kenning being cleverness w'out being sly or deceptive." She shakes her head slightly. "Sorry, it's a bit of a hobby of mine, to study the folklore."
Kayla replies to the text she's getting this time with a gif with just a few taps of her screen, then set down the phone, screen up. She listens to Fiadh talk for a moment and study her briefly, just a mundane glance for the moment. "Carrying a pearl? That seems like a strange thing for a Fox to do, no?"
More tap to the screen, then she fiddles with the phone slowly, flipping it up and down.
She laughs. "Aye, a bit. I haven't the slightest where they'd carry one. But the legends say it must be freely given." She tilts her head to the side for a moment, in thought. "Badgers too, with the pearl. Though not near as pretty as a fox, aye?" She grins. "Does it happen often to ye, foxes hopping up to sit next to ye like a fairytale?"
As Fiadh asks her questions, the fox slips out from the underbrush again, so quietly, so softly. Rather than approaching again, she delicately wraps her fluffy black-and-white tail around herself, sitting up and slowly blinking her wide green-gold eyes. Kayla's phone doesn't ping. Fox just kind of ... sits there, blinking slowly. Watching.
"Well, where would probably be like, in their mouth, unless they're one of the fancy many-tailed foxes." Kayla says, going for an occult-ish references. "It happens sometimes, I suspect there's a piece of..." an interruption by a text from a bit earlier and then a look back to Fiadh "What's your name, by the way?"
"Oh! I've been rude. My apologies. I'm Fiadh, though my friends call me Fi." She holds her hand out to Kayla. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
The fox slowly blinks, waiting for -- well, something. Some secret signal, some internally-determined moment to stop looking like some sort of oil-paint animated gif looping slowly on Tumblr.
Ya weirdo.
Kayla accepts the handshake, joining both hand to it as she shakes it. "Pleasure to meet you, Fi. I'm Kayla, but people call me Kay. She and Her tonight, sometimes it changes." When she frees her hand from the interaction, she glances at the screen and smiles.
"To continue my earlier train of thought, I think this Fox looks out for a specific kind of person, it's probably not the first time I've met this one."
She smiles. "A specific kind of person?" She tilts her head slightly to one side. "More like...the kind with spare food, or something altogether different?" She sighs. "I had a candy bar earlier, but I'm afraid I ate it already."
It would be easy to use Incognito Presence on herself and sneak out so she can listen to the conversation from up close, but that's not a very interesting scene and doesn't advance the plot one bit, so instead, with the information Fox has in hand, she sneaks around the back of the park bench and slips up alongside Kay, peeking her head up over the other Mage's lap and slowly blinking at Fiadh once more.
Kayla doesn't particularly seem surprised at the re-appearance from the fox and addresses it with a kind smile and tone. "Scritches okay?" she ask with a wiggle of her finger toward the top of Fox's head.
"Sometimes with spare food, sometimes with a kind hand, or comfortable lap to sit in." Kayla enumerates "Or with the right sort of curiosity that led you to the same place the fox was."
"Or a familiar scent they know won't lead to them being chased out." a tilt of their head. "I don't think I've ever seen them with a pearl though."
She inhales quickly. "As I live and breathe." She very hesitantly holds her hand out...not to touch, more to offer a scent. "Aren't you the most beautiful thing." She smiles. "May I sit next to ye? If our little friend doesn't mind, o' course."
With an impossible delicateness, Fox leans out very slowly, sniffing at the air above Fiadh's skin. She blinks again, her tail twitching, and then tips her head up toward Diamond. A little nod of her head in response to the question, and then she chatters her teeth together for a moment, thoughtfully so.
"Sure!" Diamond gives the top of Fox's head scritches and paying a curious attention to the ears and how they move, mostly for the cuteness factor more than an actual understanding of how Fox ears work in general.
"I don't think they'll run away for the moment, unless they want to eat a mouse or something."
She takes a seat next to Kay and smiles, still holding her hand out to the Fox. "Well, my wee little fox, I hope you decide I'm your friend as well." She looks up at Kay. "I feel a bit like a Disney Princess."
"Which one?" Kayla asks, shortly, leaning back into the bench, watching the moment unfolds before her with interest, if not outright curiosity.
She grins at Kay. "Well, Maid Marian was always me favorite fox." She lets her hand fall down to her lap, ready to move if Fox decides to come sit with her.
"That was Disney?" Kayla asks, curious, uncertain. Clearly she's not the most avid watcher of those movies.
The fox stops being coy -- well, sort of -- and hops up on Kayla's lap, curling her tail delicately around herself for a moment before walking across Fiadh's lap and perching with that inhuman grace on the bench on the other side of Fiadh from Kay.
She smiles in delight and offers the hand closer to Fox, again not trying to touch, more an offering to sniff or whatever foxes do. "I think so...I haven't really watched them since I was little."(edited)
"Have you been in town for long?" Kay asks, setting her phone down into her purse once more, then setting that purse on her lap, it's small enough so a fox could sit there.
"I grew up here, but I was away for a while, for college." She smiles. "The accent throws folks off, my family came from Ireland. I was born here."
The fox sniffs at her hand for a moment, slowly blinks its eyes, and then looks at Kayla for a long minute. There's something of a human-like shrug, and the fox slowly blinks again, turning its head left, right, thoughtfully toward the stars, and then, apparently having sniffed out whatever she intended to sniff out?
The fox takes a small, fluid step further down the bench from Fiadh, shakes herself as if shaking water off of her fur, and then there's kind of a full-body yawn, or a sneeze in reverse, or ... something.
The woman sitting at the end of the bench wears the same backpack and the same jeans and a similar tank top as when Fiadh met her a few days ago, but despite the cold, she's not wearing shoes, or socks, or a coat, and doesn't seem bothered.
"Then how come you ain't got a Philly accent? I lived in Russia for years, but I don't sound like Vasha."
Kayla is only surprised by the act that Fox is taking rather than the fact the Fox just turned into a woman. She waves to Fox in another greeting, then looks to Fiadh, studying her reaction curiously, her bright eyes locking on her.
"You try living with Seamus Mac..." She trails off. She stares at Fox. She opens her mouth...and nothing comes out. She blinks a few times. "You..." she reaches up and rubs her eyes, then looks at Fox again. "You shapeshifters come in fox form, too? That's so much bloody cooler than the wolves! I thought it'd drive me mad to see the change..." She shakes her head a few times. "I thought it'd be a lot more...in-between bits, but ye just changed there like it was a breath!" She then claps both hands over her mouth. "Ah, fuck, I'm not supposed to know about that."
A snickersnort, and then Fox laughs out loud, brilliantly, shaking her head and clapping her hands to her belly. "I'm not anything like a werewolf," Fox answers mildly, "And you really should not give away what you know, it's true." She winks one of her big green-gold eyes at Kayla as the moonlight catches her eyes briefly. (Should humans have eyeshine? They shouldn't. Fox does.)
"But it's okay, because we're all best friends here," she assures, flashing her bright, inhumanly-sharp grin. "I'm a shapechanger but not like... not werewolfy. Not at all."
"I heard they were more active lately, but I haven't actually met one yet." Kayla explains and tilt her head. "Being discreet about things usually goes a long way, but... we noticed a thing or two that got us curious." a beat. "But you knowing about stuff like that is interesting."
"Oh nice, I like the sparkle" Kay mention, making wiggly fingers before her own eyes when she notices the eye shine.
She looks between the two. "Noticed a thing or two about me? You mean my little..." She twiddles her fingers. "luck?" She laughs. "But you saw me get beaten soundly by River! It only works occasionally." She looks into Fox's eyes, trying to catch that glimmer again. "If...if you aren't a werewolf, but you do shapeshift...may I ask what that makes you?"
Now that makes Fox confused. "The what?" Maybe she doesn't know! But her attention gets pulled over to Fiadh again, and she blinks just as slowly as a person as she does as a fox. That may be a thing that she just ... does. Especially after being a fox for a while.
She looks over at Kayla for a moment, and clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "I mean you can ask, and since we're best friends now I will tell you, but if you tell people then Vasha will be sad with me."
"Fox noticed it, I checked for something else, discreetly." A shrug "And well, knowing about this can be enlightening, but it can also draw a bit of attention, yeah." she agrees when Fox mentions Vasha and how sad he'd be.
"I don't know anything much about luck, but we just noticed how you reacted to Fox's presence and it gave us a little clue there might have been something there, so we looked how only we can."
"I'm fairly sure even if I did they wouldn't believe me, but you have my promise, I won't tell a soul." She smiles and pulls out a necklace, where there's a four leaf clover encased in resin. "I swear on my lucky charm." She looks over at Kay. "You mean just now? Because I did for a few moments maybe think I drank a little much, to be honest."
The Thyrsus looks at Fiadh and blinks several times. Blink. Blinkblink. Blink. "Well. Okay, then." Fox smiles broadly. She's still moving with that inhuman grace, now it's just in human form. One hand absently scratches at her opposite wrist, and she laughs. "Well, I do that to people sometimes. No, I'm a wizard, I guess, is the best word. I'm just... a very particular sort."
"And I'm a different sort of 'wizard'." She responds, stifling a yawn. "I can technically shapeshift too, but Fox is the specialist." Kay stands up and stretches out, arms above her head and everything. "Not just now, but when Fox ran out when you arrived."
"Wizards..." She laughs slightly. "I'm assuming the real life version is a lot different than Harry Potter or something..." She lets out a yawn herself. "I...I should be going...I've been working on starting a gallery." She seems to think about something for a moment, then smiles. "I have a studio, it's at <address in NE Philly>...perhaps when it isn't quite so late you'd like to come visit?" She looks between the pair. "I can't promise I won't try to talk you into letting me paint you...I already have a good million or so ideas in mind..." She grins.
"We'll definitely take you up on it. And if you paint, I might even introduce you to someone else I know who might be interested in seeing your art. She's a great baker too." a soft grin. "I am also going to need to rest soon and I still have to walk home."
"If you're heading northeast, we could share an uber or a cab, if ye like." She grins. "Well, the gallery will take some time but I do have a few sketches and paintings up at the studio. Plus lots of scaffolding to play around in when I'm bored and it's too cold to go parkour my way around."
Fox's nose wrinkles up, and she frowns. "No, I'm not written by a TERF," she grumbles. And then she gets up, blinks twice toward Fiadh. "Maybe, we'll see! I'm particular about some things. But we'll talk soon." She flashes a smile toward the pair, and then she blows a kiss toward Kayla. It's the first time that her left hand has been really visible since she shapeshifted back, and the unmistakable flash of perfected metals catch the moonlight, taunting the Moros with answers she won't get right now, because Fox turns and runs back toward the underbrush.
Her body folds into itself mid-stride, and a nimble fox disappears into the woods.
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