When did We Become Pigeon Roosts?

[Friday Morning]

Friday was desperately trying not to move. It was proving impossible already, what with the whole breathing thing that she still needed to do to stay alive (which she still wanted, despite her current condition, thank you very much). But on top of that, Friday had this overwhelming urge to move or do something. Part of that generally came from her power, and specifically from the paper bag she had wadded up in one hand. So this boiled down to a fairly simple question: why not move?

Because of the dozen plus birds that were perched on Friday.

She wasn't sure they were all pigeons, since she didn't really know what those looked like and wasn't sure that there were pigeons in Kalispell. The birds were mostly gearing up to start flying south for the winter, which is probably why they'd been gathering resources at the park. Now Friday found herself a perch. She knew they'd move if she flailed but, well, she didn't want to panic them. For one thing, that would hurt the pigeons' feelings. For another, they might attack her.

Fortunately, she was in a public place, and people were curious. She looked up to each passerby as they walked by, eventually managing a "help" as one drew within earshot of her by now relatively squeaky voice.

[Victoria Foster]

Tori hummed to herself as she walked through the park, successfully shoving the rest of her most-likely-too-big-to-be-bite-sized donut in her mouth. Damn, that was tasty. And, so, so sugary. Her favourite. Though her jaw was starting to hurt from all the work she put it through. You'd think she'd learn to take smaller bites. But she secretly loved it. Plus she had to get her hands free so she could start taking some beautiful fall pictures.

Using her jeans, Tori began to slap and rub the sugar off her hand. She was successfull in creating a stain on her jeans in the process. It wasn't like she took a napkin with her, Tori wasn't that responsible. She took a little break on a nearby bench to pull out her camera and gear. She continued to hum, revealing her enamour with Cheap Thrills by Sia. She really had to stop blasting the radio in her gallery. Axel had offered to make her a playlist, but she hardly trusted that man's taste in music. What would he know about music in a studio?

Click.

Her lens snapped into place. Tori put it up to her eye and took a few testers before adjusting the settings. Test, adjust, test, set and ready! 

Springing from the bench and swinging her black bag over her shoulder, Tori took out with a new little skip to her step. Today was such a good day. She could feel it in the air, the park, through the people around her. She charished occasions like this. Hell, she lived for them. To make everything better, she was completely sober. Yay!

Oh look, a gathering. That always made for interesting pictures. What were people looking at? She had to get a closer look. But before she approched, Tori took a few photos of the people farther up before giving a quick check on how they turned out. Okay, she wasn't as satisfied with them as she wished she were, but curiosity took over anything else. She had to get to the centre of all this attention.

As Tori approached, all she could think was those are a lot of birds. And to make it better, there was a girl. A girl being used as a bird stop. Now that was funny and very, very interesting.  Friday's small plea for help caused Tori to snort in a short laugh. Oh, she would help of couse, but first...

"Hi, sorry, stay still a moment, won't you?" Snap, snap, snap. The lenses shuttered as she got a few good shots from this angle and that. When Tori was satisfied and completely amused, she finally put her camera around her neck and offered a hand. "Guess you've been still a while, huh? Are you starting a bird collection. Haha! Only joking. Alright, come one, grab my hand."

Tori extended her hand towards Friday, encouraging the girl to take with a little beckon.

[Friday Morning]

"I kinda don't think moving's an option..." Friday admitted, adding a slightly embarrassed smile. It wasn't as if she didn't want to move or whatever; that was kinda of the whole issue. She eyed the other girl while she took pictures, wondering what was going on there, hoping that said girl was out to help her and wasn't just there to get some funny pictures to put up online (You could nearly start a blog with everything Friday found herself into on a day-to-day basis, really. She usually found the pictures quite funny when people weren't being mean about it).

"They just kinda started showing up, and I don't want to hurt their feelings," Friday said, shifting. A few cooed, and she added: "Or get attacked," because that would be a sucky way to get some wounds. The girl offered her hand, and Friday tried to shift a little, her own fingers stretching out. Even that slight movement disturbed a few of the birds, and Friday nearly froze in fear. After all, she didn't want any of them to take off in a fright or anything.

"This is kinda rough, huh?" she said, laughing a little. The motion disturbed the birds, so Friday bit her lip. "Have you handled birds like this before? Maybe you're some kind of bird whisperer? Because that would be super helpful right about now."

[Victoria Foster]

Tori retracted her hand in favour of sticking a finger in her ear and giving it a little scratch. This was quite the predicament she was in. But she wasn't just going to leave the girl to figure it out on her own, that would be absolutely cruel.  "I didn't really think that through, did I? Sorry. Guess that means we gotta think of a plan B. Because, sadly, I'm no bird expert. I just think they're great models. Ha!" She began to bite her own lip in mimicry of Friday, rattling her brain on how to remove the birds without causing a frenzy. As Friday's fear gave a small spike upward, Tori began to feel nervous about the situation

Tori's eyes glanced over the girl and the pigeons that were calling her 'pit stop'. Approaching would probably just spook the birds and force them to fly. Or maybe make them upset and react unpredictably. Friday already voiced it, but Tori agreed that being attacked by pigeons would not be very fun. Any means to wave her arms around to get them to fly would not be a good solution either. That's when suddenly Tori snapped her fingers and gestured to the paper bag scrunched in Friday's hand. "What's that? You got bread crumbs in there? Because that would explain their whole attraction to you. I think. Not saying birds wouldn't want to land on you anyway... but there's generally a reason. You best sacrifice your snacks or suffer as a statue forever."

[Friday Morning]

Friday offered a slight shrug, causing more birds to vocally protest. "It's okay. I mean, I'm sure you're expert at other stuff that would help in other situations, and at least you're helping, which is cool," plus Friday didn't know how she would have gotten out of this on her own. Heck, this girl was here and Friday still wasn't sure how they would be able to get out of here. She swallowed, trying to think of something else even as Tori started looking over the various pigeons.

"What?" Friday said, fighting the urge to tilt her head. "Oh, this is, uh, yeah, crumbs and stuff," Friday said, moving the bag slightly with her fingers, using the bare minimum of required motion to get it out a little more, gripped in the tips. "I'm kinda afraid to drop it or something? I was feeding them, and then, well, you can kinda see what happened. Maybe I smell like a bird?"

Friday wrinkled her nose. After all, it generally wasn't something that you wanted to think about yourself, regardless of how true it happened to sound.

[Victoria Foster]

"They were probably getting impatient. Just drop it, I'll spill the crumbs out and they'll be sure to fly off. I think they won't hurt you, but you'll get feathers everywhere when they take off." Tori scratched at her arm in nervousness. This was an odd predicament to find herself in. If someone has asked her 'Oh, hi Tori, what are your plans for the day?' She was sure she would not have answered back with a 'Oh, you know, I'll be helping a girl get birds off of her'.

Obviously, this girl was nervous. Tori could feel it. Hell, she was it. 

"You'd be lucky if bird is the only thing you smell like. Let's get them off before they... oh, you know... do something you don't want them to do?" She slowly reached up her hand to where the paper bag was just dangling from Friday's finger tips. With the greatest of care and tightness, Tori inched herself closer. Her goal was to grab the bag so Friday didn't have to worry about dropping it so close to her feet. The best thing to do would be take it away and spread teh crumbs a few feet away.

Inch. Inch. Inch. There we go. Tori was close enough to wrap a hanf around the bag, causing it to crinkle in her grip. Just as slowly as she approached, she began to back away. "Okay, I got it, I think," Her voice was soft with her caution. "Just let go and we'll be set."

[Friday Morning]

Just drop it? Somehow Friday still wasn't sure that would be enough. The other girl really seemed more confident about it and all. Maybe she had dealt with it? She seemed to even have some idea of what was to happen.

But Friday didn't want to immediately react, not when the other girl was continuing outlining the plan and all. She could feel the hand getting closer, and Friday tried to edge it a bit. "Um, ah, my hand kinda wants to start tossing out seed?" She said, flushing a little. She wasn't sure she should really be explaining her power. "It's a... tic?" That could work. Wasn't like the girl was likely think Friday was "normal" after this whole bird incident or something along those lines.

Tori was right in position, close, and Friday bobbed. She took a deep breath, focusing, forcing herself to drop the bag. She could already fee her fingers twitching, and her face contorted with the effort of resisting the innate memory to start spreading seed. It was just so powerful that it was almost painful to try and keep at it. She really hoped that Tori did something soon...

[Victoria Foster]

“Just… Just let go.” Tori repeated but with much more uncertainty. A tic? Did the girl have turrets? Maybe. It wasn’t like Tori was knowledgeable in the field of mental disabilities. Was it even a disability? It wasn’t an illness, Tori would have known. But if it was torrets, Tori had absolutely no right to judge. She didn't know how to deal with it either. So she decided to just treat it like any other situation.

Giving her head a little title and shake, Tori did the rest of the work and plucked the bag from Friday. In doing so, the bad tore in the process and caused some of the seed to spill. What was left in the bag was thrown to the ground a couple of feet away. The bag was crumpled and Tori gave a little skip backwards of premature success. She turned to Friday with a smile and watched the birds who had began to react to the commotion.

"Fly to the crumbs, you fools!" Oops, her impatience was showing.

[Friday Morning]

Let it go. Friday swallowed, forcing herself to do it, fighting against all those muscles and doing it. It nearly hurt, but she managed. And the other girl grabbed it pretty quickly, the seeds spilling. Friday yelped as the birds started to fly, and the moment she felt pretty free, she jerked her hands up. Several more birds flew in all directions, making noise and feathers and Friday yelped.

She felt one or two claw her slightly, mostly along her unprotected face and a bit on her arms. The girl ended up yelping again, flinging her arms over her head and crouching down, still waiting even after the birds had either gone or moved on to the seeds by now. "Is it safe to come out?" she asked, looking around. "Are all the birds okay?" Because that was at least as important.

[Victoria Foster]

Tori burst out into laughter. Whether it was from glee or nervousness, neither of them would be able to say. Unlike Friday, Tori shielded her face from the sudden upheaval of feathers and claws, worried the birds were so concerned with the feed they wouldn't watch where they were going. But the moment passed without much trouble and when they had all settled, Tori slowly dropped her arms and looked around. All of them were around her feet, pecking at the ground rapidly.

"Yes, it's safe. And it doesn't look like they're hurt. They're quite happy, actually. Are you okay? Here, let's get you down for real now." Tori approached the girl, offering her hand once more. This time the offer was much more appropriate since Friday was free from the weight of birds. "Oh by the way, I'm Tori. Happy to rescue you. And, with your consent, happy to be the photographer who grabbed a great picture of you posing with the pigeons. Of course, I won't use them if you don't want me to. I'll delete them right here."

[Friday Morning]

Once the birds were confirmed as being perfectly fine, Friday started patting herself down. Everything seemed to be in order; those few scratches weren't really anything worse than she'd given herself with her own flailings. She saw the offered hand and took it without thinking twice (though she really should have, given what her ability could and would do at the slightest provocation). Soon enough, Friday would find herself right back on her feet again.

She let out a slight laugh at the memory of the pictures. "It's totally cool. I don't mind at all. Trust me when I tell you that there are totally worse pictures out there of me," Friday pulled a quick face just thinking about them, before looking at the birds again. A few made happy bird noises, but they were mostly just content to go after the bread. That didn't stop Friday from edging away from them, before realizing that there had been something else in that whole thing besides the pictures.

"Oh, right! Manners!" Friday said, nodding. She smiled and extended a hand. "Nice to meet you, Tori. I'm Friday."

[Victoria Foster]

"Friday? That's a unique name. I've only ever met a Wednesday. Makes me wonder... never mind, that's a distracted thought." Tori gave her head a shake in embarrassment. She was going to make small talk on the possibility there were people named of every day of the week. But she considered the possibility of annoying or offending Friday, and so preferred to change the topic.

"I know how the picture thing is. I have some pretty terrible pictures of me out there... most of them I wish were deleted but what can you do?" She offered Friday a smile before turning her attention to the pigeons, allowing herself to be a little distracted for a moment. Her trusty camera was raised to her eye, and a few snapshots were taken. Tori fiddled with her camera to view them, looking neither pleased or displeased with them.

"Oh, so... question... how did you get into this situation? Like, seriously, I don't think something like that would happen to anyone."

[Friday Morning]

Friday shrugged. "it's got its pluses and minuses," she offered, along with another smile. She went back to checking out her arms, confirming that everything was more or less in working order. She could deal with what she saw, at the least, so she focused back on the conversation.

Said conversation led to more shrugging. "It kinda happens," Friday said. She did hedge herself a little there, making sure not to comment on the whole fact that it happened more often to her because of the power she had and its tendency to make her do strange things (case in point: grabbing a bag of treats and then being locked into feeding pigeons until they decided that you were a bird roost; i.e. literally what was happening right now).

"Oh, you know," Friday said, adding another shrug and gesturing toward the birds. "You get some seed, sprinkle it around. Birds figure it out. One tells another. You know how they like to tweet things," she paused, smiling at what she thought was a really clever gag. "But, uh, do you mind if we, like," she made a slight shooing gesture with her hands, "move away? Oh, and I'll totally, like, get you something to pay you back for helping. Like, I think there's this, uh, ice cream truck that circles the park? There's a burger truck too, I think, but I haven't really tried them?" Friday was already starting to strain and look around, determined to locate one or the other.

[Victoria Foster]

Tori lifted her eyebrow in curiosity but said nothing. How does something like this 'just happen'? With absurd luck, apparently. This girl felt quirky and interesting, of course things like this would happen to her. Even her mannerisms and feelings attracted odd looks, events, and people. Hell, why else would Tori have stopped if it wasn't for the laughable scene?

At the joke, Tori laughed. It was unexpected, catching her off guard and making her laugh harder than she should. That was pretty embarrassing. She laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

"Huh?" She managed to get out as her fit began to die down. Realizing she was asked a question, Tori cleared her throat and sobered up. She blushed in embarrassment. "Oh, sorry. It was... never mind. Ice cream sounds amazing. Yeah, I love ice cream. I'm really into that idea. I know the truck you're talking about. It's usually parked over here. Come on."

Tori turned on her heel and started walking, taking lead to the truck as the thought of double chocolate ice cream took over her. The more chocolate the better. Damn, that stuff was good. She would probably order a waffle cone dipped in chocolate.

"So, uh, what do you do, Friday?" Small talk always felt forced and uncomfortable, but Tori was determined to be nice and pleasant. She didn't know Friday and therefore had no idea what else to talk to her about. May as well ask a few questions to find something to grab onto.

[Friday Morning]

At least it seemed that Friday's awkward attempts at humor and conversation were making at least some headway here. Friday was rallying with each passing exchange, and seeing Tori start blushing instead of her made her feel all the more comfortable. She laced her hands behind her back, rocking a little (and still moving a little further away from the birds).

"Yeah, I mean, it's a bit cold for it?" Friday said. She started walking, falling in step with Tori. It seemed like the older girl had a better understanding of where said truck would be, so Friday was more than willing to simply fall into step and keep moving along as best she could. "But, like, who doesn't like ice cream? Plus, I know this truck has some pretty good stuff. Like, because we're in Montana, all the ice cream and burgers and junk are supposed to be pretty good."

Friday did, at least, pause long enough for Tori to ask her small-talk question. If there was any "forcing" about it, it went over Friday's head. "All sorts of things. Like, feeding birds, obviously," she said, giggling a little. "I also help out in my parents' store from time to time. I kinda have a knack for just picking up and trying things," understatement with her power, which Friday definitely didn't want to think too deeply about right now. "There's also projects and junk for school. I'm okay at that, I guess?" she shrugged. She did passably well, and that's what mattered in the end, right? "What about you?"