tushanshu | video.

[ THIS IS THE GROUCHIEST TINY FACE right now. shino is so damn unimpressed with like everything. for a few moments, he seems to be poking and prodding at the console, frowning intensely. eventually, though, he sits back, fingers of one hand toying with the cross at his throat. on his shoulder is a large black crow with startlingly wide, cranky-looking eyes. ]

.. People can really hear me?

[ on his shoulder, murasame croaks, wings spreading as he turns his head to glance down at the camera. ]

Shino! It's magic!

[ shino reaches up to close his hand around the crow's beak, scowl intensifying. ]

You say that like you're not used to it. [ he clears his throat, forcing his expression into something a little more pleasant. ] Anyway, I'm Shino and I'm lost, obviously, and need to go home. I'm looking for a tall, skinny guy with blue eyes named Sousuke. He'll have a mark on the nape of his neck that looks like this! [ he pulls his right sleeve up, revealing a small red mark like a peony. ]

And Sou, if you can hear me-- you're a jerk for not finding me sooner!

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[Cass cocks her head, peering at the crow.]

You're - not really a bird. [Birds don't move like that.]

[ murasame cranes his head toward the feed, one wide, perpetually-annoyed looking eye fixing on the camera. ]

I'm a bird right now.

[ shino reaches back, shoving murasame off his head and sitting back up. ]

He's a bird sometimes, but he's a weapon all the time.

[Her frown is sharp and sudden.]

But - he's alive.

Sort of. [ he folds his arms over the console, a hand rubbing at his right wrist. ] .. He's complicated.

[ from the floor: ] Complicated!

We're contracted.

[Contracted. It takes her a moment to find that word, to grasp its meaning.]

Bound together?

Yup. He keeps me alive, and I give him a body and freedom to move around and do things. [ it's far, far more complicated than that, of course, but that's something a stranger doesn't need to know. ] A katana needs a hand to wield it, after all.

[Cass nods, expression thoughtful.]

Do you, um. Work together? When you're fighting?

[ he gives her a slightly puzzled look. ] Yeah, I guess so. Most of the time he just listens when I ask him to do things, though.

[ murasame flaps his wings, hopping back up onto the console and strutting across it as shino strokes a finger down his back. ]

After five years, we're pretty good together, now.

Five years. [Her frown is different, this time, deep and sad.] You...were young. When it happened. [He's young now.]

Not that young. I don't age. [ one of the numerous prices he'd paid to contract with murasame. ]

[Her eyes go wide.]

Oh.

That...must be hard. People not seeing you - as you are.

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