on a lark

[alicornucopia]

She combs and combs the world aside and there is another world, just ahead, and she steps in.

The combed-away hole closes behind her. She puts her comb in her pocket.

Thanjen (Unbitwise)

Blueberry (kappa)

Hivers (Rockeye)

Comments

[unbitwise]

They're flying in perfect formation.

There's no reference for size, but they fly like they're the size of a small airplane, not a large bird, if airplanes could flap.

They have human faces.

Also, one of them is looking at her.

[alicornucopia]

...Okay, well, you don't walk through a magic comb portal and expect Spokane. Airplane people. Sure.

Wave!

[wind_on_my_face]

Wing rocking!

They're heading in her direction now. The one that was looking at her seems to be doing it through an arrangement of lenses floating in front of their eyes.

Outside of the human faces, their bodies do not seem to be made of feathers, flesh, or metal. They're sculptures of cartoon birds in milky glass, and yet this surface flexes as they flap like they were covered in skin.

[alicornucopia]

That's pretty weird. But they waved back so she figures they probably are friendly. She puts her arm down and stays put.

[wind_on_my_face]

When they've come closer, they break formation, spread out, and fly into what looks like it ought to be a three-way mid-air collision directly over her head.

Instead, they stop in midair, suddenly, before they touch. Now they are floating straight down.

Now they are standing on the rock in a circle around her, folding their rather inconveniently large wings and walking closer as this becomes possible. They continue to be human-sized, if bulky in the middle in a birdlike way. Human feet, too.

They all have the same face. It's smiling cheerfully.

“Hello!”

[alicornucopia]

"Hi," says the girl, shuffling her feet and putting her hands in her pockets, estimating the size of the gaps between the glass plane bird people.

[wind_on_my_face]

“Oh! I'm sorry!” they say, and move to be on only one side of her.

More tentatively: “I didn't mean to scare you. I'm Thanjen. What's your name?”

[alicornucopia]

"Emily Lark," she says, relaxing substantially when they are no longer surrounding her. "Are you all three an I?"

[wind_on_my_face]

“Well, yes. I haven't heard of anyone managing the other way around.

“I've been working on my symmetry, which is why I did that landing trick, and I didn't think about that I was surrounding you.”

[alicornucopia]

"Well, it was all very symmetrical," says Emily, "and you must have worked very hard on it, I bet."

[wind_on_my_face]

“It's all for fun, though; if it weren't fun I'd stop and do something else. And are you working on something out here, or do you just like scenery?”

[alicornucopia]

"I'm not working on anything special. It is very pretty scenery, isn't it?"

[wind_on_my_face]

“I suppose. This is a bit uniform for my taste; all tree tops. I like things that look different in parts, or at least from a different angle.”

[alicornucopia]

"I'm not used to forests so this is a nice change," smiles the girl. "Where do you usually prefer to be?"

[wind_on_my_face]

“No, I mean, I like being here all right, but I don't like it for its looks from this spot in particular. Just on this island in particular, I'd rather be among the trees so that instead of just green you get different kinds of bark on the trees, and lots of other plants and stuff.”

[alicornucopia]

"I did come through the trees before I climbed up here."

[wind_on_my_face]

They are looking at the trees but don't seem to have anything to say about them.

They might also be looking at her like there's something strange about her. Other than not being three glass plane bird people.

“Do you need any help?”

[alicornucopia]

"Help doing what?"

[wind_on_my_face]

“I don’t know. You're out here alone and there's nothing wrong with that but I can’t even ping you. You're wearing damaged cloth. Are you stranded?”

[alicornucopia]

"...Ping me?" she asks, clenching her hands in her jeans.

[wind_on_my_face]

“Well, yes, uninhabited islands are no place to be visiting without a radio. If you're hiding the rest of you somewhere on the other side of the island or something, then I guess that's fine and I'll leave you be. But it looks like you could be in a lot of trouble and I don't want to leave a person to starve or something.”

[alicornucopia]

"The rest of me?" she asks.

[wind_on_my_face]

“The rest of your kortarem.”

[alicornucopia]

"I don't know what you're talking about."

[wind_on_my_face]

“Your kortarem, the matter that is you and is not your body.”

The glass-plane-bird-people-person are quite sufficiently distracted that they aren't practicing their symmetry very much. The one in the middle, who is still speaking, demonstratively waves a white glass wing — which becomes transparent, loses its shape, and falls to the rock in a gloopy kind of way, leaving behind a human arm.

The rest of the glass follows, and there is a perfectly ordinary human being standing between two glass plane bird people. Still looking confused about why this maybe-stranded-or-something-stranger person is confused.