Angels shed feathers. It's just as simple as that. So, either there was a sudden infestation of shedding birds in the mall, or there was an angel mixed amongst the crowd, leaving feathers behind in an unintentional sort of trail. But, perhaps the man was just smuggling birds?

There was not enough squawking for that to be possible. Zavier was innocent, okay? It wasn't like he meant to be dropping feathers anywhere...

The mall was noisy, and sort of hot, so Zavier only bothered with a light jacket to cover his wings properly and, well, it was cold outside. What person was stupid enough to look fashionable at the price of freezing their ass off? Certainly not Zavier. So, here he was, innocent, wearing his jacket and probably-should-be-retired-to-the-trash blue jeans, his hair messy, wandering the mall.

Duck, of course, could be fashionable and not freeze his ass off. Both. At the same time! In coordinating colors, even! (Those more versed in color theory would argue that black is not actually a color. They would be correct. Duck would not care.)

It is a miserable day. It is daytime, for one, the time in which all miserable events live, except the ones that don't. Except mostly he's asleep at night recently and doesn't notice the miserable events happening then. But daytime? Oh yes. Daytime has things like - like this. Like malls.

Duck Houston was promised a sale. A very good sale. So good, in fact, they were lying, and now Duck is here without anything to buy and it smells weird in here and everyone's looking at him like possibly his hair is going to take over Tokyo, which it isn't, he just had a slight peroxide accident and now he's kind of glowing. It would look angelic without the black, maybe. With the black (jeans and shoes and shirt and jacket and it hadn't, actually, been planned, but all of these things were reasonably clean and therefore the outfit of the day) he probably looks like he's going to kill someone, or be really emo about something.

Good thing to be emo about: Raging monster headache and itchy nose and Duck just knew he was allergic to teen girls. Because here he is in Teen Girl Central and his throat is all burny and his eyes are a little water-y and now he must look like a crying emo kid which would just be the best thing ever, wouldn't it, and Duck is about to maybe find some Girl'b'Gone when he sees - a feather.

A feather would not be impressive except he is in a mall and Duck is reasonably sure birds do not live in malls, except in that one episode of Dilbert where monkeys lived there too, except - feather! And, and - birds! And itching! And he is a crying throat-burning itchy emo kid and he hates the world. A lot.

Sneeze.

And Swallow is, as is her wont, people-watching.

People as in that guy. And that other guy.

And that guy with the hair.

And that other guy with the other hair, and the feathers, and okay, that's kinda weird, and....

And maybe he has wings wouldn't that be cool if he had wings because if he had wings then he could teach her about her wings and she could be all woo, wings, and maybe flying and wow she was rambling and maybe she shouldn't have had that smoothie because wow pretty colors.

Take a deep breath. Concentrate. You're Swallow, in forest green coat and jeans and huge clunky winter boots and you have had a lot of sugar. And that guy might have wings. And that other guy is holding a feather, and looking all sad, and that can't be good.

Maybe he was like that guy in The Raven, where the Raven kinda drove him mad just by being there. That'd be sad, 'cause he didn't look half-bad, just kinda old and college-student-ish and mopey.

Which would make the other guy a raven, which would be hella cool.

And she stands, discarding her empty smoothie cup, and wisps over their way, being casually ever-so-casually not casual at all because she has this bad habit of staring at people when she's interested in them.

You know that feeling you get when you're being stared at? That, 'oh, I know I'm being stared at but I don't want to look because maybe nobody's really there and that would mean I just turned around randomly and now I look stupid' feeling? Zavier was getting a mild case of that, and too bad he was an angel and not an owl, because if he were an owl he could've just turned his head around and looked.

But, no, he was just a guy with wings, and that sort of sucked because being an owl would've been kinda cool. And, hey, why was someone staring anyway?

Zavier stopped. He heard Duck sneeze, and that was enough of an excuse to turn around, and...

"Bless you."

And, person. Whoa.

The 'whoa' look. Duck knows the 'whoa' look.

He rarely gets it when he is standing very very innocently in a mall. Possibly his hair is really just that, uh, fluorescent. This might be something to look into.

Another sneeze and this one he stops, which always seems to him like a recipe for later head-explosion, but so far he has not, like, exploded. Which is good. He'll stop when he does.

"Thank you."

Voice a little plugged up with the effort of not exploding (or sneezing), and Duck is a very sad very itchy-sinused creature in a mall he should not be in in the daytime and he is all shuffly and now being stared at with a guy whose hair looks like it's trying to escape. Duck's head goes through the checklist without him, sort of half-heartedly. Could this guy kick his ass? Possibly. Is he attractive? Kind of. Does he look like has anything worth taking?

This takes more consideration, and the answer is a resounding 'my head hurts'. It's enough of a tip-off that the ass-kicking question came up first. Usually that comes second, maybe.

Oh god he's going to die. He's going to have an allergic reaction to something and die and there is a bird in here or this guy is a bird and - oh god the guy's a bird! Except Duck isn't actually high, though his head feels like someone's poured quick-set cement in.

And someone's looking at him. Like at-him at-him from behind and Duck doesn't actually care if he whips around to look at nothing because, dude, sometimes people are standing there with weapons and if you don't look they could shoot you. This has not yet happened to Duck but he is very prepared for the day it does. He will look his messy death head-on, thank you.

Duck's messy death: Tiny freckled girl in a big coat. (A big coat hiding - a gun? A thousand dollars cash? Cornish game hens?)

Actually, cornish game hens.

Well.

Brown winged thing.

Very similar.

"Don't you have a handerchief?"

It's rude to sneeze in public. Swallow has very definite ideas about rudeness.

She has a handerchief. She offers it to him. "Here." Solemnly.

The handkerchief has a feather in it. A brown feather with black stripes, sharp-edged and perfect and oops, she forgot about that, didn't she....

It's all wrapped up neat. Little package.

Could Zavier possibly kick Duck's ass? Maybe. Would he? Probably not. Unless Duck stole his wallet, and then ass-kicking would definitely commence. But now? He's just another staring human (angel-person-thing), his face stuck in that whoa expression that his mother probably would've lectured him to stop making. Because it wasn't nice, and when you get older your face will stick that way!. But, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you're looking at it, his mother wasn't there.

And he was still whoaing at Duck, until he realized he was doing it, then mentally kicked himself and stopped making the face, and just looked sort of sheepish in that, 'hey, I was doing anything wrong' way that's usually never convincing.

And this time, well... it's not convincing, like always.

But that doesn't mean he's not watching that other girl and Duck, still.

Duck has not ever met anyone in his entire life that actually had a handkerchief. He was pretty sure they didn't exist anymore unless you were very rich, or had lovers that required tokens, or existed in a crime noir thriller. If you had Duck at gunpoint this morning and demanded he list off everything he could possibly think of seeing that day, a girl with a handkerchief would not be it.

A girl with a handkerchief with a feather in it, well now. That's just attempted murder. And everyone is very obviously out to get him and who let out that he's allergic to feathers and Duck tries to panic through a list of who hates him enough to try to have him killed in a mall, and the list is both very long and not very inclusive of people that would send out assassins to malls.

He jerks around to possibly accuse the other guy of attempted murder too, or see if he's going to hand him an arsenic laced handkerchief or something, but the guy's still just staring, and if the girl were staring too this would be more of an issue, but she just looks offended. And murderous. Murderously offended? So, guy staring, a lot, and girl staring also and trying to get him to put feathers right up to his face, like, hi, little girl, why don't you put this pepper spray into your eyes or something, but Duck mostly just stands there between them, maybe thirty feet from a store trying to sell him ties with little golf clubs on them, and Duck wonders how exactly his life is like this, right this minute.

Not taking the handkerchief (but also not letting on too much because maybe she doesn't know and it's a coincidence? one shouldn't just go around letting out all their weaknesses, like Clark Kent being like is that Kryptonite are you trying to kill me and some thug being like well I wasn't before but now I am, and Duck really doesn't want that and really does consider it in exactly those terms) he takes a big step back, which leads him a little closer to Long-Haired-Guy, which is farther away from the ties, also, which is probably good.

"So, um."

Sketchy glance between the two of them because, obviously in collusion. Little jittery movement of his hands, like possibly he is trying to signal a butterfly mating dance or something.

"Who sent you?"

Because even if they didn't Duck really wants to ask that question more often. And he doesn't care if he sounds insane because he is in a mall and membranes in his face itch that he did not know could itch.

Now she is offended.

"It's just a handkerchief. Take it."

He's being rude. Again. Why was the world so full of rude people?

If he doesn't take it she might have to throw it at him out of principle. Principle is important.

Or maybe sugar.

"Is that boy a raven?" Because the boy who saw the black feather would see the raven and is he a raven because ravens are great and she really had too much sugar.

Zavier no longer looked like whoa, as stated before. Now his expression took a change for the, 'are you talking to me?' which made him look almost freakishly puzzled, because... there he was, standing amidst the mess of confusion, and, let's face it, there was no way to avoid being freakishly puzzled in this situation.

They must've all been crazy. Or, at least one of them was crazy. Girl with green coat was definitely crazy. Sneezing, weird, whoa looking emo boy was probably just paranoid... and somewhat pyscho. But mostly paranoid.

Zavier folded his arms across his chest, attempting to look like he had a handle on this situation, but he still just looked, quite blatantly, confused.

So, instead of answering Duck's question, he took a deep breath, and...

"What in the hell are you two talking about?"

Which didn't sound at all right to say, did it?

Without turning quite to her, Duck extends a very accusatory finger, arm full-outstretched. The way his body is angled, torso flat-out in the space between them, legs planted square, shoulders half-facing Long-Haired-Guy and arm straight out towards the girl - well, it's very dramatic. It's also blocking foot-traffic, a little.

"She!"

Waggle of finger.

"Tried to give me a feather!"

Tried, only, because Duck is very clever and did not accept the handkerchief. Except now that he's avoided her question for Long-Haired-Guy's, he's actually processed what she said. And -

"What?"

It's not really a pivot, because he wasn't facing entirely away from her. It's more of a swivel. Like a 90-degree swivel. 45-degree? Duck never grasped the whole spatial geometry thing. But - but! He's facing her now and he's still pointing and now she gets the 'whoa' look, but Duck's 'whoa' look is more like 'Does one of us have to kill the other and hide the body?' than Long-Haired-Guy's, which is probably for the best.

"A raven?"

The people buying ties with golf-clubs on them are doing their absolute best to avoid this entire situation.

"He's sneezing and you're a bird and you're both rude."

Says Swallow, who is a paragon of every virtue, you see.

Pause.

"And he's allergic to feathers which makes sense because you're a bird, aren't you? Aren't you? That's so cool, I love birds, are you black? The feathers are black. Black's a nice color."

As mentioned previous, black isn't actually a color.

But anyway.

"Do either of you do model work?"

All of this talking and spinning (or turning, or whatever you wanted to call it) and pointing fingers and accusing combined with the hot, noisy mall made Zavier's head spin. He wasn't exactly sure what to do now, so he waited, unable to escape, because maybe girl with green coat would run after him and call him rude and possibly hurt him. So, he was stuck. They were all stuck, in a sense, and people were giving the three of them odd glances and, like the people in the shop with the ties, trying their best to ignore them. But doing that just made it oh so very blatantly obvious that they weren't ignoring them. Because it was like a train wreck. Horrid, morbid, limbs everywhere, dead people, but you just had to stop and gawk.

Zavier hoped there wouldn't be any dead people or limbs everywhere, but with the way things were going...

Now Zavier just looked indignant. "I'm not a bird! I'm.. I'm just a guy."

Humph. So there.

Zavier. Try to be more convincing next time, yes?

Duck doesn't seem entirely convinced that Long-Haired-Guy is not actually a bird. Not so much that he looks like a cornish game hen, but the 'whoa' face is not endearing to Duck's sense of trust.

Girl-in-Coat, however, is entirely insane and trying to kill him. And.

Quick hand through his hair, which does interesting things hair probably shouldn't and stays sticking up in every direction, like metal fillings stirred up with a magnet, because organic matter should always be comparable to grade-level science.

"Modeling?"

Charming smile that would be more charming if he weren't thinking 'you are insane and going to kill me with feathers and he is a bird', which totally shows up on his face.

"Fine, you're a bird-guy. Which is awesome, I don't meet them often enough, can you fly?"

Subtlety? What subtlety?

"Yeah. Modeling. Like, where I draw pictures of you, you know? I mean, you've heard of it, right? It isn't that rare, of course you've heard of it, and wow, are you allergic to feathers? It'd suck if I were allergic to feathers, I'd be all sneezing. All the time. Wow, that would suck, I'm glad I'm not you, your life must be sucky."

Hyper. Hyper, hyper, hyper.

"Sorry about the feather, I didn't realize you were allergic, I was saving it for later."

"I'm not a... hey, would you stop talking so fast, and talking to him then me or him and me and..." Now he's confused himself. "Just stop talking so fast."

You know, this is exactly the type of thing her brother would probably hit her for. Except, he'd probably be too busy in shock over the two bird-people to care, so...

"You shouldn't openly discuss shit-," oh wait, teenage girl..., "I mean, stuff, like this in public, 'kay?"

He's just exasperated now.

Duck isn't pretending to have any idea what's going on. He's not sure if he ever actually did. Mostly the world is getting blurry, kind of Vaseline-lensed, and possibly the only reason he's not coughing is because he's not actually taking in much air.

"We shouldn't openly discuss flying? In public?"

Because it's either flying or feathers or modeling, and Duck's pretty sure you can discuss modeling in public. And, specifically, that you should because Duck would be all about getting paid to sit somewhere and stare into the middle distance and have people record his hair mishaps for posterity.

Shifts his weight from foot to foot before deciding that Long-Haired-Guy is less likely to suddenly fly into a murderous rage and cram feathers down his throat, because really the guy just looks really confused and like maybe he should take a nap. Girl-in-Coat gets a grateful look for implying that he's pretty and removing the feather, but she still has it so he's not going for much more than that.

And now she's laughing, a brief squeel of unadulterated glee.

It's probably torture on the eardrums. She forgets that she's got a high soprano when she wants to.

Think "EEEEEE!"

Then she claps her hands, and comments, "You're awesome." We're not sure who she's talking to.

And finally, she looks patiently at Duck. "He has wings, he's self-concious, and you're both getting far too worked up about this."

She actually made an effort to slow her word-rate down on that one.

She is perfectly calm, you see. Completely and utterly. She isn't hyper, or practically vibrating in place, or anything like that.

(As a side note, while innish in that she knows everything exists, she is not innish in that she knows the innish/unnish devide exists. I'm sure someone will explain that to her at some point.)

Zavier immediately covered his ears, giving an unintentional low hiss, because not only could that squeel probably break glass, it had to be likely to rupture ear drums.

He eventually dropped his hands to the side, winced, and said, "Don't do that."

"And the only reason I'm getting worked up is because people are staring."

So there.

People are totally staring. Duck's got a whole warring 'People are looking at me, heh' thing going up against the 'People are looking at me and if they are looking at me they will recognize me when I am trying to break into their house later'. And his skull is practically glowing, which isn't as incognito as he usually tries to go for.

"He has wings?"

And someone's awesome? Duck will just assume that he is awesome so he can focus on Long-Haired-Guy and his wings.

"You have wings?"

Duck is not so much believing this as reacting in horror to the fact that someone could have eightymillion feathers right on their skin, all the time. Duck would die. Just standing next to him Duck feels like he's going to die. Maybe his coat, is, um, made of birds? Or something?

The short-term deafness really pales in comparison to the things his sinuses are doing, like trying to commit ritual suicide.

Swallow hadn't noticed the people staring.

This might be because of the monofocus she was operating under, or the sugar, or the lack of caffiene, or the fact that she was still staring at Other Angel and Hair Boy or just because she's oblivious to anything that doesn't directly affect her.

She sticks her tongue out at the mall in general.

"Don't do what? This?"

And she does it again. High, piercing, fingernails on the blackboard of the soul.

The watchers do not want to hear this. They mutter to themselves and take themselves far, far away, because, yeah, ow.

She grins unrepentantly. "Why? It's fun." And after a moment, she adds, "Who doesn't have wings?"

She has wings. Wings are practically normal.

Zavier gave a look like, 'why am I damned to the eternal hell that is life' and then winced and covered his ears again and this time gave a low, "Ow," because he wasn't fast enough to cover his ears all the way.

"Yes, that. Yes, that." He grumbled, face darkened into annoyance.

"You know what... you put me in this situation!" Another hiss, and this time it was Zavier and not Duck pointing a finger at the Green-Coat Girl.

Who doesn't have wings? Superman. Superman totally does not have wings.

Also everyone is insane. And oh my god deaf now, because jesus, girl, tone it down, and Duck is standing there feeling the headache grow and for one no once is accusing him of getting them into a situation, which is novel, and really kind of nice.

One hand up, though the rest of him is really considering fleeing because he has no business here with the insane people and feathers. But, Duck can never just let a question go. He answers rhetorical questions, even. From the television.

"I don't have wings."

This is not something Duck expected to ever have to clarify.

Swallow is innocent. Swallow is pure as the dawn.

Then she ruins it by giggling.

"Pointing fingers is rude," because she can't think of anything else to say because they're both silly and funny and she really shouldn't tease people but it was just so easy.

"And having wings is like having a feathery cloak on all the time. It's warm and comfy and nice and if you were cold you could put your wings over your head and be warm."

Zavier didn't drop his hand. Because it was rude. "You know, you're rude." And right then and there, he dropped a his hand to the side. He looked to Duck, then to Swallow.

"And that makes you a hypocrite."

A look to Duck, his face sort of taking a turn to the 'I'm really sorry this happened' kind of thing. And he shrugged.

"You, person..." Huh... no name person... "We have wings. And I guess you don't. But you should forget all about this, 'kay?"

Then he looked to the girl, eyes narrowing as if to say, 'please, for the love of the gods, little girl, just shut up.'

Duck's jaw tries to drop a little and he lets it, because all-out enbogglement is probably the only way he'll let himself breathe through his mouth. Which he needs to do. Because. OH MY GOD PEOPLE WITH FEATHERS.

In theory he should offer his name, because the guy was totally just trying to use it in a sentence, but if they know his name they can find him and these people are completely insane. And they smell funny. From what little he can smell, anymore.

"Maybe you're both rude!"

Flailing hand gesture, motioning to both of him and the ties and a fountain some ways away.

"And you guess I don't? You can't tell by the fact that I am an actual person and that people do not have wings?"

Also, Duck totally would not be able to hide wings under his jacket. Not even little baby wings. Even if it might be nice to pull them up over his head someday when he was cold if that wouldn't kill him because feathers.

The forgetting thing sounds kind of nice, actually. Repression is sounding like such an absolutely valid lifestyle choice right now. The mall-goers moving around them certainly seem to think so.

"If I'm a hypocrite, you're stupid."

...okay then. Thank you for that riveting argument, Swallow.

"And people do so have wings."

She's a person, she's pretty sure. With wings, might she add.

So there.

Zavier looked hurt. He recoiled slightly, his expression vaguely reminiscent of a kicked puppy.

"Take that back." He growled at Duck. "We are people too." He shot him a nasty glare.

"And I am not stupid. That doesn't even make sense."

Huff!

That was just uncalled for.

Duck would let loose this really awful groan, here, you know, full-on 'the world is crazy and damn it all!' but his throat itches so mostly he just mashes his face into his hands and kind of wobbles back and forth.

"Fine! Fine. You're both birds. Beautiful wonderful birds -" all of this with the congested voice of a, well, a very congested person, "and you're not insane at all and I'm sure you're great people. Oh my god this is why I do not come to the mall."

There is a bench a few feet away. (It was always there! Promise!) He collapses down onto it, in an 'I give up' sort of way. It would be more impressive to just run away screaming but Duck kind of wants a nap. And maybe one of those squishy mall pretzels. And it would suck to flee and then have to slink back in for the pretzel. Maybe he can just outwait the feathery types and they'll get bored and wander off. Or get arrested by mall police. Something.

"If you don't come to the mall, why are you here?"

Swallow does not follow his logic. She really doesn't.

"Did you lose your way and stumble into the mall by accident? Wouldn't that be hard to do? If you were stupid like stupid over there, maybe it would be understandable, but you don't seem quite as stupid as stupid."

She takes things far too literally.

And, apparently, likes the word stupid far more than is good for one.

For the record, she's keeping her distance from Duck, because choking the funny guy with the Hair to death is not on her list of Things To Do Today. I believe she's leaning sideways on a pillar, watching him and keeping half an eye on stupid. Because you see, the mall has always had pillars.

Zavier figured saying he wasn't stupid another time would just go in one ear and out the other, so he simply grumbled, looking annoyed.

"If you were smart you'd realize he meant that he doesn't usually go to malls, and this time he went in to a mall, knowing it would suck, and it does suck."

See? Zavier was too smart. And still standing outside the store where guys were buying weird ties.

Disjointed hand-flail at Long-Haired-Guy, fingertips waggling a little. Duck's head doesn't actually lift much, but it's the effort that counts. (And, really, waving your hand doesn't require much effort at all.)

It's a 'what he said' gesture, and also possibly a showcase of fingernails that might need cleaning. He doesn't actually appear to be needed in this conversation, and if that's the case perhaps he will take a nap.

Leans his head against a pillar (a pillar next to the bench, both of which have always been there, for serious) and tucks inward a little. His hair, which may actually be radioactive at this level, falls a bit over one eye. It'd be more rakish if it didn't just look messy, and sleepy on a level that is not usually publicly displayed. Either Duck does not expect to be killed in his sleep or he no longer cares. Or he's passing out from severe allergic death-reaction.

And Swallow swans over to him (you'd think she'd swallow over, but no, that's not fancy enough for her). And looks down at him, because from this angle he's all hair and his hair's odd and funny and... hm.

She kisses the top of his head, then darts away, laughing.

That wasn't all that bad. Granted, now she wants to wash her mouth out, but oh well.

All in the name of science.

"You're both weirdos," she comments to Zavier.

The weird-looking guy had already retreated to a bench. Now, girl-in-green-coat was no longer really conversing with him, and had also retreated. Which left him alone, being stared at.

He began to sulk. Then headed for the exit.

He forgot to apologize again to the weird-haired guy. Probably for the best, anyway...

"Am not weird," he mumbled, disappearing into a crowd of people.

((Sorry, guys. Stuff has been.. hectic.))

Duck would have argued that, had he heard, but Duck is mostly aware of how a pillar isn't the best thing to lean against, and the bench is sort of wobbly, and a sudden quick pressure on his head that disappears, laughing. Sleepy smile because Duck is a marshmallow, but he is an allergic marshmallow, and half-kicks a foot out at the space where the girl was, but isn't.

At this rate Duck really will just nap, right here, in the middle of a mall. I mean, hey, why go to the mall and not make an event out of it? 'Event' could equal 'nap'. It certainly didn't equal sale. And having a paranoid argument with two people claiming wings and shedding feathers, well, that's not that far out of the ordinary. Usually he gets into paranoid arguments that make him sneeze less, though.

Achieving whatever comfort there is to be gotten on a wobbly bench in the middle of a mall, and sending vague wishes out to mall security to just let him nap a while, Duck becomes increasingly dead, and congested, to the world.