ORIGIN - Market Research

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Pale fingers gave the slightest twitch as a half-eaten Donta fell from Shrike's mouth. Jinyi clasped his hands together, deliberately choosing to let his gaze focus on Shrike's excitement instead of the... side effects that came with it. "The chip team," he confirmed, letting some of the sustained, dramatic tone of a pipe organ slip into his voice. For effect.

"Well, you'd help brainstorm ideas for chips, and help make them. You might hunt some prey for the meat, experiment with ways to put it in the chips, or help with making the dough and all that. We can always use extra hands..." Here, Jinyi paused, staring at Shrike's wings and remembering she didn't have hands. "Extra help, magic, skill, ideas, all that."

He continued briskly: "If you're interested, I can show you where we make the chips. You can have dinner with us--" dinner that may or may not be laced with fungus--"and we'll teach you our family spell! I can give you a tour, show you how everything works. I really think you'd do great with us."

@Shrike sorry for the delay!

Her head tilted slightly, birdlike, at Jinyi's words--particularly at the 'extra hands,' but she didn't comment. Her mind was blinded by Dontas™. She was fascinated, held rapt, and nothing seemed better to her than this.

"Yes," was her eager, simple answer, given perhaps a little too fast. But right now, she wanted nothing more. ...Why? she thought, but the distraction was again brief; mere hesitation, rapidly replaced by that desire. "When?" she clarified, at once, followed quickly by a "I'd love to." She was generally at least a little more well-spoken than this; and with a conversational partner offering full, complete sentences, she should've been speaking a little more.

But somehow, things seemed... simplified. She wanted to join in. She wanted to be a part of this-... this... whatever it was. This chip factory-? What need was there for complicated words, when things had become so crystal clear?

Shrike then snapped up another few Dontas, crunching them down, black eyes glittering with pleasure.

@Jinyi

Jinyi shrugged casually, though inwardly he was delighted by Shrike's eagerness. "Oh, whenever you're ready. We could even go now, if you wanted. It's just that way." He pointed in the vague direction of Ursa. "Next cave down. A little walk, or flight, to help digest those Dontas before dinner with the family." Little might have been a little under-exaggerated, but if you asked Jinyi, saying that it was kind of a long walk would just inspire more dread and fatigue. Truly, the thought process befitting a newborn Dontas missionary.

In a smooth, graceful motion, Jinyi rose to his feet, dusted off his robes, and turned toward the general direction of Tunnel B. He glanced back at Shrike, as if asking: you coming?

@Shrike

Shrike pushed up, peering briefly at Jinyi. "Can you fly-?" she asked, surprised.

It didn't occur to her that perhaps he meant, she would fly as he walked; in her mind that meant leaving him far behind very quickly. But after a pause (and a bird's foot rising to scratch at the scales beneath the feathers of her neck), she gave him a bright nod nonetheless. "Let's go now," she agreed.

She wasn't sure what was to come, but somehow, all other concerns had become eclipsed by this one great and glorious goal: ...working at a chips factory.

@Jinyi (want to make a new thread in Ursa?)

"No," Jinyi replied with a shrug. Before the question does it matter too much? could even finish crossing his mind, the Hive's collective knowledge was telling him yes--with cinematic views of dragonbats swooping down to attack prey at astonishing velocities and little songbirds darting in the space between treetops.

Hm.

Jinyi supposed he could always ask to temporarily commandeer a few bats to carry him, but that seemed terribly inefficient and quite a bit over-the-top for something like this. Better to just... act normal. "My bad--I guess we'll have to walk, until I can figure out how to grow some wings," he joked. "This way." The Drone beckoned to Shrike with an inviting smile as he strode toward the tunnel to Ursa. It didn't matter too much that he was leaving the remaining array of Donta bags unattended.

A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, after all, and if others came and tried these without the salesdrone there to recite his pitch, well--

They'd get the message eventually, once they ate enough.

@Shrike do you want to do another thread in Ursa?

For a strange moment, she wanted to help Jinyi do just that.

Shrike had always been unemotional--her bright cheer and friendliness was an act. It wasn't that she was malicious, exactly, but rather she was acting how she thought she should, rather than how she felt. What she felt was cold, calculating, though of course she had moments of amusement or joy. It just wasn't the empathetic sort.

Yet suddenly, she felt... helpful. She wanted nothing more than to help Jinyi find a way to metamorphose, to help them sprout their wings and take to the sky, and she found herself wondering at ways that they might do that. A chrysalis, perhaps--or some as-yet unknown form of magic?

Why do I even care? she asked herself, abruptly--and it wasn't a hostile thought so much as a surprised one. And as she strode contentedly along--an awkward wing-walk--beside Jinyi, she wondered if perhaps this might not be that "friendship" thing she'd heard so much about.

exit Shrike
@Jinyi (for visibility, and hell yeah)

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