[Freezair]

Swizzle was worried that she'd lost her new friend. The sounds of his slithering, his rustling, and his chatter fell behind, lost to both distance and the growing crowd. However, just as she was starting to truly worry--what if she lost him? Considering his state of knowledge, that would be horrifying!--she heard the sound of a massive takeoff. She looked behind just in time to see a white, Seraphant-shaped shadow ascend. She smiled. Fly, buddy, fly!

She had no idea if her small Kuhna voice would even reach that high, but she bellowed up to him as fiercely as she could. "GATTLEY! FOLLOW ME!" Her front half went down and her back half went up, wiggling her two tails. "FOLLOW THE LIGHT OF MY FLAMES! THEY'RE THE ONLY ONES WITH BUBBLES IN 'EM!" With that, she headed down the sidewalk, looking for empty places in the crowd where her tail-lights could shine through. Confident he was truly after her, she navigated the crowds adroitly, walking and skipping and jogging all the way down to the museum.

The building was tall and marble, with doors wide enough to accomodate the smallest of the really big Paragon. It had columns that rose up to the white roof, and lines of darkness sparkled in the clean, smooth, cool white steps. The word "LAMENOLAI MUSEUM" was carved in elegant font at the front, with pictures of humans and pets, working in front of lab tables and easels and battlefields. There were also skeletons and leaves and insects and all kinds of things carved around them. The front of the museum was an exhibit in and of itself! The steps were nice and clear, so Swizzle waited upon them for Gattley to join her.

[8]

[Indigo]

It was an amazing feeling, flying. Admittedly Gattley had flown to reach the city in the first place, but that had been different, plagued as he was by fear of flying regulations that no longer applied to him. Now he knew that he could fly as he liked, and it was exhilarating. He had nearly forgotten how to enjoy the wind in his feathers, those antenna things on his head blowing back with the speed of his movement, seeing a significant part of Lamenolai spread out before him. He wasn't sure he'd ever been able to fly quite like this, outside the confines of a tent, although in some ways it was similar to his circus performances.

He searched for Swizzle in the crowd below him, finally catching sight of her flaming tails. She seemed to have spotted him as well, not surprisingly, and appeared to be shouting something. He tilted his head and swooped lower for a few moments, then nodded in case she was still watching. The flames were certainly easy to follow, since practically no one else down there was on fire. He followed her all the way to the building that was probably the museum, based on its size; Gattley didn't read Barakkan very well, and the words at the front were meaningless. The carvings, on the other hand, impressed him, and also served to further convince him that he was in the right place. He lost altitude again, landing carefully on the steps near Swizzle. Had he been able to, he would have grinned.

"That might have been the most free flight I have ever had," he crowed, although his somewhat gravelly voice was not the best for expressing exuberance. "I would assume that this is the...museum you spoke of? Let us see the inside." A sudden worry occurred to him. "Is payment required for us to enter? I do not have money..."

[Freezair]

Swizzle summed him up as he landed. There was a definite sense of difference about him. Though he worried aloud about the museum fare, he seemed different. His mood had lifted, perhaps. There was a little more "hurrah" in him.

"There's a fee, yeah," she admitted. "But it's not too expensive. I can pay for ya. Just be sure to keep them wings in. I hope they don't have a 'you break it, you buy it' policy!"

She waited to see if that would get a laugh.

After the wait, she urged him up. "C'mon," she said. "Let's go inside." She leapt up the steps, past the pillars and carvings. The place did not appear too busy today. Museums were not normally the most happening joints, but this one was quite popular, wasn't it? The doors opened automatically, and a wave of cool, old-smelling air came in. Inside, the walls were white and clean as a high, puffy cloud. They even had little dark marble lines, like the hint of a storm. The columns went high to a sloped ceiling. The floor was carpeted and red, soft on the feet. Cloth rope partitions lead them toward the desk. Already, the form of an enormous skeleton loomed over them--an ancient Paragon, captured in a noble pose.

The receptionist seemed a stunned. She had to get out of her chair and look down to see both of the patrons coming in.

"Two please," Swizzle said from the floor.

[Indigo]

This time Gattley was fairly certain that Swizzle had made a joke, but he wasn't entirely sure how he was expected to respond. He offered the closest sound to a laugh he could figure out how to produce, hopefully without too much of a pause. He didn't give much thought to the matter, anyway, busy being relieved that his new friend was willing to pay for him, although he did flatten his already folded wings as much as he could.

He followed Swizzle up the steps, doing his best to ignore the odd feeling of their corners, and into the building. The first thing he noticed was the size of the room, and he wondered vaguely whether there would be enough room for him to fly. He didn't attempt it, though; there probably were rules about flying inside of buildings, and he might knock something over. Perhaps the size of the room was meant specifically to accommodate the Paragon skeleton, which didn't impress him greatly, although it was in an interesting position. If it was a statue, it wasn't a very good one, since there were no Paragon that were all bones, but he wasn't sure what else it could be. He was aware, sort of, that skeletons were inside living things, but he didn't quite grasp how they would have gotten the skeleton out of the Paragon. He would have to ask Swizzle.

Gattley tried to look reassuring and harmless when he saw the receptionist's expression. He wasn't sure how this admission thing worked, so he decided to wait patiently and hope that Swizzle knew what she was doing. And while he happened to be thinking about that...he leaned down and asked quietly, "Where do the bones for the Paragon come from? How do they come out?"

[Freezair]

"Hmmm?" Swizzle followed his gaze up to the great fossil in the middle of the lobby. At first, she assumed much as he had--this was an amusing joke! She laughed along with him. But from his posture--and that ever-sincere tone of voice--she soon deduced that he was being entirely serious. She frowned.

"Well, they didn't exactly... Urr, let me start again. That's called a fossil. That Paragon lived a very, very long time ago. Longer than anything you can imagine. A million years, or maybe more! And when it died, it got buried in the sand, and more and more sand was put on top of it by the wind and the water. And the sand turned to stone, and so did its bones. They're made of rock now, but people dug up the rock, and carefully dug the bones out from the rock. And they put them up here, so people can see what Paragon looked like millions of years ago. Its horns are different from those of any other kind of Paragon." Swizzle marveled at the ancient beast. Worrying, she wondered if this poor Seraphant could even concieve of that much time! Maybe not now... But perhaps in a little bit.

"...Do you want to just stay here and look? Or would you like to go look in another wing? I could show you science stuff, or art, or history! Which first?"

[10]

[Indigo]

Gattley nodded, staring up at the fossil now with something approaching awe. To think that something from so long ago could still be around! He marveled at the fact that such a thing would be put in a public place, everyone allowed to see it with no great admission fee. But then, the point of a museum seemed to be to expose people to the wonders of the world; hadn't Swizzle said something like that earlier? And he certainly found it interesting, although it was hard to wrap his mind around such a great length of time. He wondered if, a million years from now, someone would dig up his bones and put them in a museum. It was slightly mind-boggling to think about.

Now then...science, art, history. He had the idea that art had something to do with those paintings that Swizzle had mentioned earlier, and those seemed equally intriguing. A drawing of someone or something, presumably that really existed--perhaps this was another way of telling people what things were like a long time ago, and he had a feeling that would help him greatly. "I think that maybe we could go for seeing the art first? And then maybe other things, if there is time. I do not know how long we have in this museum."

It didn't occur to him that art might also show things that weren't real. Imagined scenarios had never been properly explained to him, and though he had heard stories about people or places that didn't exist, he considered them just words. That an imagined image might be vivid enough to be drawn or painted was beyond him, at least for the moment.

[Freezair]

((Wow. I never knew that this got replied to! The topic notification system always seems to bug out on me. I hope it's OK if I try to continue this. But if not, that's fine.))

"Alright! Art's my kind of thing," Swizzle said. "You're lucky. I know a lot about art. Right, then--this way!"

Swizzle headed down one of the many hallways, this one in particular leading to the art wing. The ceiling was high here, and decorated with handsome pictures itself, specially decorated for the museum. The department itself split further, into sections based on different years and segments, but Swizzle headed straight for the earliest one. Many of the paintings in this room were several hundred years old, but the room smelled faintly of oil. Ropes stood in front of the walls, telling people not to approach. Several signs even told people not to use flash photography.

Swizzle stopped in front of one of the many paintings. Accompanying it was a reproduction of a sketch. The painting depicted a large grouping of people at a spectacle--perhaps a circus--with an enormous, mechanical Lakundra in the center. Flowers poured from its mouth.

"Check it out," she said. "These are from the Renaissance--that's a couple hundred years ago. This painter was a clock-maker, but he believed it was possible to make mechanical beings that acted like they were alive. Like Rabbots and Velixes!"

[11]

[Indigo]

[Huzzah for continuing things! It should be interesting, trying to relearn Gattley's speech patterns well enough to type them; my brain keeps giving him a German accent, which is kind of distracting. Tangent, oh no.]

Gattley followed Swizzle as best he could, distracted both by the images lining the walls and the fact that his tail kept coming dangerously near to the very official-looking ropes. The smell of the room was vaguely familiar, though he couldn't quite pin down why. Some of the paintings--for these must be just that--had familiar subjects, but others were as strange to him as this city itself. Perhaps they were simply creatures and places he hadn't seen yet, and that was no reason to worry; he had all the time in the world to familiarize himself with...er, the world.

The painting they stopped in front of was somewhat baffling; while he'd spotted the odd Lakundra before, he'd never seen one spit flowers. Swizzle's explanation was only somewhat illuminating; Gattley had never heard of the Renaissance. He did, however, understand the "mechanical beings" part. "Oh! There is someone in the house, she makes these...beings. I see them sometimes." He paused. "I do not talk to her, though. She is...not patient. But that is not important. This creature, in the painting, the clock-maker saw it somewhere? Who built it? I saw Lakundras before, sometimes, but never one like that." Although that irritable Slynx might have one tucked away somewhere; he wouldn't be surprised, after some of the things he'd seen walk out of that room. And if Swizzle didn't know, he could probably ask someone at home, since a few of them were time-travelers or something.

[Freezair]

"The artist," Swizzle said. She squinted at an important-looking plaque. "His name was--and I'm probably gonna mispronounce this horribly: Giovanni da Dracci. He was smart and stuff, but he didn't actually make a lot of the things he invented. This painting he made, it was just what he thought it'd look like if he built the mechanical Lakundra." She looked back at him intelligently. "Of course, these days, we have mechanical life forms so advanced, they're pretty much alive. Ol' Giovanni would've loved to paint them, I bet! Maybe your friend could even show him hers, if he were still around."

She moved to the next painting, but waited for him. "Take all the time you want lookin' at stuff. In art, you're supposed to be able to admire something as long as you want. Take in all the details of the paintings. For some pictures, they even ask you to figure out what it means, though I think that one's simple: It means Giovanni really wanted to build a mechanical Lakundra!"

[12]

[Indigo]

Someone had explained art to Gattley once, or tried to, and had mentioned the idea of producing images of things that didn't exist. At the time he'd scoffed, so much as he was able to; he understood imagination in itself well enough, but the amount of visualization required to paint such a thing seemed impossible. But clearly it wasn't mere fantasy, although the painting itself was, and, well, that was the point. To imagine something so clearly that you could put it down on paper for others to see--that must be a great gift. He wondered if he could ever manage something like that--he had dreamed, once, of other things, when he'd first been locked in a cage. He had imagined fantastic creatures coming to rescue him, telling him that he belonged with them and he'd never have to look at that filthy ringmaster's face again...

Could he paint things he'd only imagined, the way this Giovanni had?

It was such a surprising thought that it took him a few minutes to process what Swizzle was saying. Gattley blinked, and turned to look at her. "I wonder if someone saw this painting, and maybe was trying to build something like it? Maybe they succeeded, and there is really a mech--mecha--one of these living in the world. Or was living once." The thing about meaning, that was a joke, wasn't it? He was getting better at spotting them. He spent a few more moments looking at the Lakundra painting before following Swizzle to the next one.

[Revelations are really hard to write in roleplay, apparently. Failpost, yay.]

[Freezair]

"You never know," Swizzle shrugged. "They say art imitates life--that is, people make art about their lives and the lives of others. You know, as a way to talk about what they go through. Like, maybe something really horrible happens to them, so they write about it to get out their sadness and anger, and to help them understand why. Or maybe something wonderful happens to them, so they make a painting so other people might have a chance to be that happy. But maybe it happens the other way, too," she said. "Maybe people do get inspired to do things because of art. Maybe someone sees a picture of dancers and decides to dance themselves."

She pointed to the next picture. A man in elaborate clothing glowered out at them from beneath a soft, floppy cap. His lips were turned up in a smile, but he did not look pleased. ""This is a portrait. Back in the old days, they didn't have cameras, so rich people were really into having pictures painted of them so people would know how they looked. This guy doesn't look like he was having fun posing, does he?"

[13]

[Indigo]

That was interesting, the idea of art imitating life and vice versa. Art inspiring people to do things... "If art can inspire people, then could that not be used to make the world better? People locked me in cages. Maybe if someone were to make art about...something with freedom, where there are no cages? Then people who saw it would not lock others up. That would be good. Yes?" Gattley face managed to show some anxiety, although his range of expression was rather limited. No one liked being in a cage, did they? The reasoning seemed sound to him, but maybe it was a stupid idea. He'd never seen art before. Who was he to say how it might work?

He tried to focus on the portrait. "No, he does not look happy. But painting this would take many hours, yes? A long time. And staying the same way for hours is not much fun. Maybe the painter did the face last, and the man was impatient."

[Freezair]

Gattley's voice seemed casual and matter-of-fact, in his way. But Swizzle heard what he said and snagged on it.

She wheeled around, her face soft and sad. "...Cage? You were locked in a cage?" The room seemed to shrink around them, with all the paintings vanishing until only the two of them stood upright in a place of bare walls and whiteness. "What... what kind of place did you come from, Gattley? That's... not right. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's against the law."

A cage? Questions swirled in her head. What kind of cage? How big? And how long?

She looked towards the top of Gattley's head. How innocent it was. She suspected she already knew the answer to that last question, and for that, she was probably better off not learning if it was correct.

[Indigo]

Oh, yes, the cage thing. He hadn't meant to let that slip out. But Swizzle seemed more concerned than angry, and anyway Gattley would have a hard time changing the subject at this point. "I came from the circus. I do not remember the name. They gave us tricks to show the people, and when we were not showing the tricks or getting new ones they put us in cages. They did not want us to escape as long as we could work; after that they did not care. All of us were in cages." He paused, thinking. "Except for the humans. The ones that showed their tricks had big boxes on wheels--like cages, but I think more pleasant. Also like cars, but they had to be attached to another car to move. They had things humans usually have in them, so it was not like it was for us. And some of them did not live with the circus at all."

He decided not to address the "against the law" thing. It might be against the law here in the city, but not in the circus. There the master's word was law, and disagreement was violently discouraged. Nothing could have been done about it while he was there, and he didn't know enough about it to direct anyone back to it. For all he knew, the circus didn't even exist anymore.

[Freezair]

Swizzle's heart pounded. Somewhere, speakers piped soft, classical music into the room full of paintings. It barbed its way into her chest, along with Gattley's words, and she found her throat growing hot and her eyes becoming wet.

"G... Gattley..." She spoke slowly. He sounded so nonchalant, it seemed... As if he thought that was just the way things were supposed to be. Maybe she was reading him wrong, but the off-ness inherent in what he suggested seemed too foul to her to ignore. "That's... that's not right, Gattley. That's... not how you're supposed to treat people. Or pets. There are rules, you know? You're an intelligent person! You've got rights!" She spoke up, drowning out the tinkling harpsichords coming from the ceiling. "You can't let people treat you like that! ...No one should treat anyone like that! It's wrong, Gattley! People were hurting you!"