whole new world

[campanas]

Pen wakes up at about four in the afternoon. It takes her a few seconds to remember why she's here, but then she remembers and starts looking for Cindy.

Comments

[campanas]

"Oooh," says Pen, on the basis of the provided light from the flashlights; and then: "Ooooh!" at the acoustics, and she bursts into song, a high fluttery hymn, filling the space.

[manofmyword]

Cindy beams.

He finds the lights.

There's a stage, and several ranks of balconies going up and up all around the sides, and a huge empty space in the middle of it all where long metal strips on the bare concrete floor hint at an unrealized potential for seating. The white paint is peeling off the pillars that support the balconies, but the brass railings still gleam under a light coating of plaster dust.

[campanas]

Once Pen can see clearly, she runs, still singing, and flings her wings open, and catches air and flies.

She's not very graceful at first - there's no wind in here, she can't catch any updrafts and isn't making her usual course corrections - but she's strong and eager to be airborne, so she beats her wings harder, and sings and sings.

[manofmyword]

He perches on the edge of the stage and watches with a smile.

[campanas]

Eventually, when Pen has the hang of the limited space and the knack of indoor flying, she swoops down on him and, one hand under each of his arms, scoops him up into the air with her.

[manofmyword]

Cindy laughs gleefully.

[campanas]

She takes him a couple laps around the hall, then puts him down again - landing in the process, dropping him is potentially unapproved - and takes off again.

"Not floating-up wind here," she informs him when she's aloft once more and her song is over.

[manofmyword]

"Yeah," he says. "'Cause we're inside. I could find you someplace outside but it'll take longer."

[campanas]

"This okay a little while. And good singing!"

[manofmyword]

"Mhm! This was supposed to be a concert hall," he says. "But they never finished building it."

[campanas]

Pen sings another song, swooping around as high as she can without bumping into the ceiling.

[manofmyword]

He giggles quietly.

[campanas]

After a few hours, she is tired of flapping so much. She lands on the stage, and finishes her current song, and then folds her wings and yawns and goes up to him and hugs him.

[manofmyword]

He hugs back, smiling.

[campanas]

She wraps her wings around him and sighs, rather more happily than she has previously sighed, and then says, "Now what?"

[manofmyword]

Snughug.

"Mm, now we go home and I get you some things to draw with," he says. "Any other stuff you want? More books?"

[campanas]

"Books're good. I dunno, fun things."

[manofmyword]

"Then I'll get you fun things," he promises.

[campanas]

Pen hugs him snuggily and then lets him go.

[manofmyword]

Back to the car they go, turning out the lights on the way.

[campanas]

And soon she is ensconced in his apartment again, peering around the kitchen.

[manofmyword]

He goes right back out to acquire things, so she has the run of the place. The kitchen has all the same things in it that it did the last time she looked.

[campanas]

She nibbles on some fruit. She's hungry after all that flying.

[manofmyword]

And Cindy is back in an hour, carrying a white plastic bag full of things and a large cardboard box.

[campanas]

Pen capers up to him. "What things what things?"