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Who: Tobias and you!
What: Arrival tiiiime
When: 11/19 (During Alternately You event. Because the boy knows how to make an entrance, I guess.)
Where: Info Booth, around town.
Warnings: None yet, but given that Tobias is from the early 2000's so you can expect some, uh. Language that is no longer acceptable in polite conversation.

Arrival

Tobias was in a meadow, perched on a tree one minute, and the next he'd found himself outside an information booth. After a (very short) conversation, he'd tucked himself into some bushes and made the change from hawk to boy, accepting the information and money from Jerry. But once he'd been dismissed, he wasn't exactly sure what to do with himself.

He was alone. No animorphs. No Hork-Bajir. No obvious threat. No clear objectives. The alone part wasn't so bad, but the rest was just confusing. No one plucked him out of his world without a purpose. He looked over the pamphlet with a sigh, and turned towards the park exit. He looked more like he was leaving an exercise class than a fresh arrival, in tight shorts, shirt, and bare feet.

Around Town

Tobias is wandering around town in some new flip flops and a jacket, if only so he would have pockets to stick his money, pamphlets, and phone in. Under it, he was still wearing tight shorts and a shirt at least a size too small, but he didn't seem bothered by the fact that he was a fashion disaster, sticking out like a stone-faced sore thumb.

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"Well, for not being used to them, you're doing fine." And he was going to stick by that. While he worked on wrapping his head around the 'I'm a bird' thing still.

"It's not wasting it if it's something important," he pointed out. "Shoes are a necessity." Even if you were a bird.

"You're nice," Adam reminded him of Cassie, and she was one of the few humans whose presence he was willing to put up with.

"And they're only important if I'm going to be spending a lot of time as a human." He wished he had a better morph for this. "Do you know how to ride horses bareback?" He might be eighteen but he does not quite realize the double-entendre he accidentally laid at Adam's feet.

"Thanks." He smiled warmly.

Every time Tobias mentioned being human, everything felt super surreal. Adam had to resist the urge to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"I've never ridden a horse. At all," he said. He was pretty sure it would be easier just to buy a pair of sneakers than worry about horses.

He sighed sadly, nodding in reply. "Then I guess I'll have to get some shoes," he made it sound like Adam had suggested torture, not a shopping trip. "The thrift store is back this way... probably." His sense of direction was useless on the ground.

Adam hesitated for a moment. "Or we could go to an actual store for new shoes," he suggested. He didn't make that kind of suggestion lightly, either, but the kid had next to nothing. He at least deserved new shoes.

"What's your name, anyway?"

It takes a great deal of self control not to groan. "Could, but I'm not going to wear them much, so why spend the money? Besides, it's not like someone's going to hire a bird, so I have to make it last." That last part was, maybe, a little bit of a fib. He was no longer restricted by the two hour time limit, according to the grumpy guy at the welcome booth, but he wasn't going to just blindly trust it that easily. "Tobias Fangor."

"Alright." It didn't take much to make Adam relent when it came to money. "But if we don't find anything good at the thrift store, we'll go somewhere else, okay?"

Also 'no one would hire a bird' was totally not true, because Adam would. But he wasn't going to say that just yet. Instead, he nodded. "Adam Parrish. It's nice to meet you, Tobias."

He bit back a sigh, but nodded. "I guess," he agreed reluctantly as he continued down the sidewalk, nodding in agreement to the pleasantries. "So do you always talk new arrivals into buying shoes?" he asked, trying to go for a more lighthearted topic.

Adam laughed. "You're the first," he admitted. "I just don't want you to get hurt. Do you always tell everyone you're a bird?"

He was teasing, which was abundantly obvious, but he was curious, too. It didn't sound like the sort of thing you just went around telling everyone. Someone might think you were crazy. Adam wasn't sure about that part, himself.

He shrugged. "Where I'm from, everyone already knows. I don't need to hide it here, as far as I know, and even if I did..." this time his smile is creepy on purpose. "Hearing my name would be more of a warning to them than a danger to myself."

"Uh-huh." He wasn't being dismissive, he just wasn't bothered by the creepy smile. He'd dealt with plenty of things like that in the past. "Which means?" Was this kid who said he was a bird supposed to be dangerous in some way?

"It means we won the war," he replied simply, letting his face fall back into a blank expression. "And that I'm not afraid of a fight."

The war. Adam looked over at Tobias, considering that quietly for a long moment. Obviously, he had no idea what war the kid was talking about, but you didn't always have to know the full context for something to know it was bad.

"You look too young to be a soldier," he said quietly.

He took a moment to consider how to reply. "I was this old when I joined the war and got stuck as a hawk. This body only ages when I use it, so I look like a kid even though I'm eighteen," but it's not like he could prove it. He'd dropped out of school, and when the war was over he'd cut off almost all contact with humans. "We didn't join the army or anything, this all just... landed in our laps, and we couldn't turn our backs on what was happening."

Somehow, this made more sense than Tobias being a bird to start with. Adam didn't understand the aging thing, but that was a technicality and he wasn't sure he needed to in the long run. It didn't make him any less curious, though.

"You don't have the join the army to be a soldier." All of this would have sounded a lot more wild to him if he hadn't been in this place, having seen the things he'd seen. Being what he was. It was hard to be skeptical after everything that had happened.

"What did happen?"

He considered the question for a moment, trying to decide between the sanitized version they'd put in the history books or the truth. "There's a species of alien that looks kind of like a gray slug. They're parasites, and can hook themselves onto a creature's brain to control the body. They were staging a secret invasion of earth, and one of their enemies gave my friends and I the ability to turn into animals. So we fought the parasite aliens in secret until we won. They put all their chips on earth, and we stopped the entire invasion force with a little help from some other aliens." Adam looked like a history book kind of guy, and Tobias wasn't really in the mood to explain his family tree. Or how difficult the war and its aftermath had been for him.

Edited 2020-11-24 20:49 (UTC)

Adam was a truth kind of guy, but he would take what he could get. Especially since he didn't want to pry too much. Whatever Tobias was comfortable telling him was good enough for him. Mostly.

He listened quietly, nodding now and then as he frowned. "And...the power of earth's animals was enough to stop a fleet of aliens?" He assumed there was a fleet of them, anyway. An invasion force wasn't a small thing, typically.

He huffed out a chuckle. "We were as surprised as everyone else," he agreed, having somehow stumbled upon the thrift store again, he pulled open the door and held it for Adam. "But being able to be a literal fly on the wall has its benefits. There were way too many gorilla warefare puns."

Usually Adam held the door for other people, but he accepted this change with a murmured thanks, stepping into the shop. "I bet there were." He'd almost made one of those puns himself just a moment ago.

"I'm glad things worked out for you." No matter how absurd stopping aliens with normal earth animals sounded. The important part was that it had worked.

Tobias wasn't so sure things had worked out for him personally, but he didn't say so. There were definitely ways it could've been worse.

He followed Adam in and headed for the shoes, tugging off a flip flop -- they were the right size, at least, so he started comparing their soles to those of shoes that looked like they were about the right size. "Some things did," he conceded at least. "What about you? What kind of world are you from?"

"It's..." Where did he even start? How did he describe it? It was a world...and it was his... how did he know what the highlights were? Beyond a bunch of things he didn't want to talk about with a stranger?

"It's normal?" he said lamely. "There definitely hasn't been an alien invasion." Or aliens. Or shapeshifters. "Most of my recent life has focused around dead Welsh kings," he added with a laugh.

Normal. He actually snorts when he hears the word. "So dead Welsh king problems are normal in your world? I guess that means aliens are normal in mine," which wasn't exactly wrong.

He found a pair of sneakers that weren't even broken in, matching the size of his flip-flop, so he took them over to a seat to try them on. He knew you were supposed to wear socks, but he didn't exactly have any, so on the shoes went. He stood up, rocking back and forth, testing the bend of the toe. Like he wanted to be sure he could run in them.

"In my life, they were," he said. "I have a friend who was obsessed." And Adam had humored him, like a good friend did. He'd never thought the things that happened following that obsession would have ever occurred, but it had been what it had been. His life had already been weird to start with though, so maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised, really.

"Do those fit nice?" he asked.

"I wonder if it's better or worse than one obsessed with cinnamon buns," he chuckled, though his face didn't reflect his amusement, and nodded. "These're good," and priced nicely, too. He sat down again, tugging them off and putting his flip flops back on -- and grabbing a random pair of socks from a bin. The shoes might have been white but the socks were neon blue. Just to complete the train wreck of a look he had going on.

"I guess that depends," Adam said. "Does a cinnamon bun obsession lead you to hiking through forests and caves?"

He was too polite to comment on the color of Tobias's socks, no matter how badly they clashed with the rest of what he was wearing. It was Tobias's choice, and Adam had no say in how he should live his life.