text | un: moonmochi

[hopticulture]

It's strange. There was a lot I wanted to do before I turned twenty.

It doesn't feel wrong to have been brought here, but I wish I wasn't by myself. I remember wanting to spend today with people I cared about, but that's not possible anymore.

[someone is very clearly brooding & feeling the effects of Cloverfield.]

People tend to roll their eyes whenever a girl talks about her feelings in a vague way for everyone to read, but if I didn't say anything about today, I'd probably feel much worse.

Comments

[hopticulture]

I...appreciate the sentiment.

[self-pitying...

the voice on the opposite ends sounds young, like a lost and lonely kid, but holds a certain gravity that a teen who just turned twenty would have.]

I've spent birthdays alone before, but turning twenty is a big deal where I'm from. But there weren't any specific plans; just spending time with family and other loved ones if I was lucky.

[unsheathedfromreality]

["Surprise, you're spending your birthday alone in blood-magic hell!" is a good reason for a little self-pity, in Illarion's book.]

But it is not nearly the same as being home, no?

[Illarion, by contrast, sounds old and steady and maybe a little tired. Kindly, at least, though there's something a little distorted and eerie about his voice, like the resonance is wrong.]

What is special about twenty if I might ask?

[hopticulture]

It's not. At least back home I got messages from my parents and siblings. And I had the gardening club to hang out in.

[since her hearing is probably the best of her rabbit traits, she does detect that's something's off with how this guy sounds. but she chalks it up to the strangeness of her omni.]

Twenty is a sign of adulthood. Back home, we'd hold a celebration for everyone who turned twenty a few weeks after the new year.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Instead, here, a crowd of helpful strangers. [No sarcasm there, just a kind of amused sympathy.]

So young! Even after centuries, it still surprises me how quickly mortals begin your lives. Though I suppose it does not come soon enough, to your view.

What does it mean to you, to be an adult?

[hopticulture]

Centuries? [she shouldn't be surprised. and she's hung up on the 'centuries' comment to notice him referring to her as a mortal. some animals live for a long, long time, but she hasn't met any in-person.] What kind of animal are you, if you don't mind my asking?

Being an adult, to me, means the freedom to live life as I want. Or, how I wanted to. Society still has its limits, but it's different from how it is in school, so it's easier to ignore the limits to try and get by.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Nearly seven of them, last I counted, and I am still thought of as young to my people.

[...What sort of animal is he? It's so charmingly different a question he smiles. It's audible.] I am an elf, and my sort of elf is called a shrike. We were birds once, though now we look much more like humans and orcs. Or they us--we came first.

What sort are you?

[...Hm. Not unexpected, from a new adult, but interesting all the same.] How is it you would like to live?

[hopticulture]

I see...so seven hundred years old... [her voice trails off, more thoughtful if anything. she's not sure if that's possible back home but it's not like she knows every animal in their world and how long they live.]

I've never heard of elves before, so they might not exist where I'm from like how humans don't. Or orcs...how long ago was it when your species were birds?

[because she knows birds, and knows that birds and all other animals came from dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. so that's a familiar thread for her to follow.]

I'm a rabbit. A dwarf rabbit. There are different breeds of us too. [as though a shrike is a breed...hah hah.] And, honestly, I'm not sure how I would like to live. I guess...graduate from university, work at a plant or vegetable shop, be with the guy I like. Maybe have kids...

It's hard to say and back home I wasn't really sure. I'm here now though, so none of that is going to happen.

[unsheathedfromreality]

It is possible we do not; from what I have heard, elves are not so common on other worlds, but humans seem to be everywhere. [This is both amusing and obnoxious by turns.] So, perhaps, you are very lucky that you animals do not have to deal with them, back home.

As for us, mm. I am not a--historian? No, what is the word for this, when you go deeper than that. Archaeologist, I suppose; someone who studies beginnings. But, I am not one of these, so I know only it must be hundreds of thousands of years. Or longer; the oldest elf I know, [might he drown in hell's stinking river,] had lived tens of thousands of years himself and was born an elf to start.

[He has this hazy impression that the numbers may not work out on them being birds "recently" if there are elves that old, but damned if he can put that together. Math is not his strong suite.]

Ah! But your world is not only rabbits, I take it. What other animals are there? [She wasn't entirely wrong about shrikes being a breed; most other elves certainly thought of them that way. Like a monstrous subspecies the rest could safely ignore.]

No, it will not happen as you planned, will it? That severing from your life is difficult, even if you are not dead. Have you taken time to grieve?

[Or was this, in fact, that.]