The Beach Behind Midnight Manor, Saturday Morning

[hasaknightjob]

The advantage of having a beach behind your home was that if you had an African Wild Dog that might want to run around outside, you had a great location for it.

Which was why Marc was on the beach watching Ziv - because of course that was Steven's daemon's name - run along the sand and splash her feet in the waves as they lapped on the shore. Would they need to worry about tracking sand and the smell of wet dog into the house? Eh, whatever.

Selene - because of freaking course - sat on Marc's shoulder.

"You can fly around if you want," Marc told her.

"I'm aware," she said, with that accent that was exactly like Khonshu's (because of course).

Marc shrugged the shoulder she wasn't sitting on. No business of his if she wanted to hang. Considering the talons, it was surprisingly comfortable for her to be resting there.

Marc hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets and watched over everything. On his shoulder, Selene did the same.

Minus the part about the pants pockets, of course.

[open. Conversation with Harley NFB please]

Comments

[totalwildcard]

Harley was still mostly avoiding straying too close to Midnight for varying reasons of comfort and skittishness. But on that particular morning, Bruce seemed to have some opinions about where he wanted to go on his walkies - and guess Harley was willing to indulge him, because when their walk along the beach pulled around onto the stretch behind Midnight, she didn't stop him.

Or maybe it was just because she was distracted, since there was also a white squirrel on her shoulder, trying to climb its way up to the top of her head. "I'm tellin' ya, it's not gonna work!" she was telling him, exasperated but in a way like she already knew it wasn't going to do anything.

"Well you could've done your hair up different," the squirrel retorted.

Bruce, as usual, had no comment.

[hasaknightjob]

"Harley," Selene murmured into Marc's ear, since she spotted her first.

"It's fine," Marc told her. Though he wondered how well a hyena would get along with Ziv, and vice versa.

"I'll give you some privacy," Selene said, and she flew off. Not to give privacy from her. Marc was pretty sure there was no such thing as far as daemons were concerned. Instead she was going to take care of any squirrels.

Well, except for one, maybe. Now that Marc could see Harley's other companion.

"You making friends with reporters?" he asked.

[totalwildcard]

"Marc!" Harley's squirrel squeaked quietly, just a beat too late. Bruce made a curious noise in Ziv's general direction.

Harley herself looked briefly like a deer in headlights - fitting with the menagerie theme, at least - but recovered somewhat admirably with a big scoff. "Pfft, no, this guy only reports to me."

[hasaknightjob]

Ziv gave a cautious wag of her tail, a visual question mark to not being sure if Bruce was a new friend. Any resemblance with Steven around new people was not at all coincidental.

"Suits you," Marc said, meaning the squirrel. The color? The energy? Bit of both, really.

[totalwildcard]

The squirrel would probably have had something to say to that, but he was now thoroughly distracted by trying to find the falcon in the sky. But it was kind of adorable how he was stretching himself tall on Harley's shoulder as he did that?

"Thanks?" Harley said, like she wasn't sure whether to take that as a compliment, an insult, or something neutral. "Little fucker was hiding from me."

That was not what had happened.

[hasaknightjob]

Selene was only concerned with making sure no radio squirrels were around at the moment. How? Don't worry about it.

"Sure it wasn't Bruce?" Marc asked.

[totalwildcard]

That wasn't why the squirrel was looking for Selene, anyway. It would've made sense to, but no.

Harley's head tilted. "Wasn't Bruce how?"

Bruce, for his part, was now making his way over to Ziv as casually as a hyena could. Curious.

[hasaknightjob]

"That your guy was hiding from," Marc said. "Can't say I'd blame him."

Ziv for her part was coming over as well, likewise curious about Bruce, even if he wasn't Harley's daemon.

[totalwildcard]

Bruce sniffed at her. Weird smell you had there, small hyena! (Look, any other hyena or canine was a 'small hyena' to him.)

The squirrel's attention was drawn back to ground level. "What? Like I would hide from that thing?"

He didn't have all of Harley's accent, but there were definite traces.

[hasaknightjob]

"Wouldn't blame you," Marc said. Which, yes, he'd said already. But now he was saying it to Harley's daemon directly. Politeness or whatever.

Meanwhile Ziv had determined whatever she needed to with Bruce. She sat down in front of Marc.

"Hello, Harley," she said. Her accent was the same as Steven's. Her greeting was polite, with an accompanying head nod to acknowledge that this was their first time meeting.

[totalwildcard]

Harley heard the accent.

It led to curious squinting from her that moved from Ziv - after a vague "Hi" - to Marc.

And then ultimately to her pointing at the wild dog, with a, "Steven?"

[hasaknightjob]

"Ziv," Ziv said, helpfully. Because she shared Steven's humor.

"Steven's," Marc confirmed.

[totalwildcard]

"... Why?" Harley asked.

It made sense to her, that was enough.

[pocketpretzels]

Saturday mornings usually saw Steven and Watts off to the mainland to attend services at their synagogue. This weekend had obviously thrown a bit of a wrench in to those plans, though certainly not in a bad way.

Anyway, point was, Watts and Jax were now headed outside, the former with two mugs of coffee in hand, one of which he held out to Marc once they caught up with him.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc had actually been thinking he could go for a cup of coffee, so he took it with a nod of thanks.

"Watts," Selene said, from her perch on Marc's arm. "Jax."

[pocketpretzels]

"Good morning Selene!" Jax hopped onto a nearby rock (he was, after all, a rockhopper) so he had a better vantage point from which to peer up at her.

"Morning," Watts added with a nod of his own.

[hasaknightjob]

"Ziv's been enjoying the water," Selene said, in case Jax was wondering about the quality of it today. "I have seen fish."

"Doing okay?" Marc asked Watts, since the animals were taking care of themselves here. Though he did glance at Jax to make sure he was looking all right. Much as Marc could tell if a penguin was looking all right.

[pocketpretzels]

Jax let out a little trill at Selene's words, glancing over at where Ziv was frolicking and then back up at Selene, clearly a little torn as to whose company he wanted in that precise moment.

"I am," Watts nodded. "It's been interesting. Yourself?"

[hasaknightjob]

By this point Ziv had spotted Jax. She came trotting over to try to lick Jax in hello.

"Talking animals," Marc said, philosophically. "So normal still? For here?"

[pocketpretzels]

And much as Ziv had happily submitted to Jax's preening yesterday, Jax was happy to let her say hello in her own particular way today.

"The qualifier is key," Watts acknowledged with a sip of his coffee.

[hasaknightjob]

Which was good, because right now Ziv was very energetic about giving Jax smooches. In the form of licks, granted, but still.

"You can tell who's Steven's," Marc said, watching this.

Selene made a small humph. Because it wasn't as though her being Marc's was subtle either.

[pocketpretzels]

"You're both well-matched," Watts said.

In the short time he'd known her, Selene also was prone to fussing over Jax and Watts (and, it went without saying, Steven and Ziv), just in a far less exuberant manner than Ziv did. Which was Marc through and through.

[hasaknightjob]

As far as Selene was concerned they were all hers and thus she watched over them. What more needed be said?

"Trying not to think too much about what it means for - " Marc made a vague gesture with the hand holding the coffee cup, doing so carefully so as not to spill " - whatever the fuck this all is. Where they came from. Something."

[pocketpretzels]

"Some world where this is the norm, I suppose," Watts said, with a shrug of one shoulder.

The one holding the cup, for the record, the coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim but not actually spilling over.

[hasaknightjob]

Ziv watched this carefully, in case there was coffee she could help clean up.

"Probably more than one," Marc pointed out. He gestured towards the rest of the island, this time with his free hand. "Consider how many fucking versions of my world we've got running around here."