The Bear and Barnacle

Rodolphus had worked up quite an appetite, playing with one of his toys, so after disposing of the evidence, he ambled over to the pub. Order given, with instructions to bring the food as quickly as possible, Rodolphus reached for the first of his beers. His hand brushed the fork of the place setting as he did and...




There was no 'poof', no sparkle or flash of light. Just a half-meter long skull sitting on his plate. Rodolphus' eyes widened in surprised delight. "Where did you come from?" he murmured, caressing one of the tusks.

Spike crushes the remainder of his cigarette under his heel, still looking at the multitude of dogs tied up outside the pub. Well, that's just odd. Of course, round here, odd is the usual. He makes his way into the pub for another evening of crazy nuns and obnoxious frat boys.

Leaning against the bar with his full amount of charm, he greets Ivonka, who merely rolls her eyes at him. He pauses and sniffs the air. "Oh, blimey, do I smell onion? Did someone order onion rings? Come on, love, let us have a taste before carrying it out, yeah?" Ivonka shakes her head, but slides a small plate with a few onion rings on it across the bar to him. "Knew you loved me." he smirks.

His fingers reach out to pick the top onion ring off the pile, but as soon as he touches them, they vanish. And in their place...

"Merowr?" A tiny, insanely cute fluffball of gray kitten. Spike pulls his hand back quickly. "What the hell, Ivonka? This some kind of joke?"

"Not mine, why would I turn food into a kitten? How would I?" she demands, glaring at him.

He looks around the bar. "Well, someone must've done..." He sighs. "Fine, no onion rings."

"Here, get to work...take that to the table in the corner." She shoves a tray at him. As he picks it up, his thumb brushes the pile of vegetables on the closest plate, and, just like before, the food vanishes and is replaced by, this time, a small orange kitten. Spike barely manages to not drop the tray, but quickly puts the plate of...kitten...back on the bar.

"What in the bloody hell is going on here?"

A survivor type, that's what Val is, from the moment he hid beneath the wing of a dead uncle to escape the slaughter of his family to the moment a milennium later when he lost his world. He told Zelas-sama once, and Dolphin-sama multiple times, that that was why Gaav chose him.

“What on earth attracted my brother to you?” Zelas-sama asked brusquely, letting Val go so he overbalanced and fell on one hand in the pelts strewed at her feet.

“He should get fresh blood and let me keep you as a toy. What does he want to keep you for after all these years?” Dolphin-sama remarked absently as Val courteously untangled the yarn behind her knitting needles.

On both occasions (and all the times Dolphin asked again because she'd forgotten), Val laughed that musical, rather infectious chuckle of his and explained that after he'd survived two hundred years of every Golden Dragon in the world trying to kill him, he was ideally suited to his master's unique purposes.

Gaav, however, would probably say that it's deeper than that, that something in Val's nature knew his master before they ever laid eyes on one another. And perhaps Val's meteoric fall after Gaav died and the massive mushroom cloud of destruction it unleashed prove him right. Val came from the Mother Gaav's, and returned to her Gaav's, and came back from her Gaav's again.

So he's startled by this latest strange happening, but not actually surprised by the proof of his nature.

When he gets an ice cube out of the freezer to it vaporizes in a flaring instant of flame. When he touches the cold metal of the sink tap, it goes up too, and when he stares at his fingers for a moment and leans precariously to elbow the window pane, it too turns to fire.

By the time Jack and Zel get out of bed, Val has bundled into his clothes as best he can, considering the wings and the fact that his boots were on the porch and did not survive the touch of his feet. He is outside doing temperature tests. The ground, no. A rock, yes. A tree, no. The water in the outdoor bath, yes – and spectacularly so.

Everything cold he touches turns to fire. It's brilliant.

He goes back inside, opens the Plague's cage with a shirt wrapped around his hand, and lifts out the warm body of the rat. “We,” he informs the Plague cheerfully as he shovels him into his walking harness, “are going to have some fun.”

Albus carefully sets down his half-drunk mug of hot tea on the one, rather precarious, clean edge of table he can find, and sits in the armchair beside it. He reaches for his yarn basket, pulling it toward him, and pulls out his current project by the needles. Noticing a tangle in the yarn, his long fingers slide into the strand, only to have it vanish, no - not vanish, explode is more accurate - into a fine dusting of glitter over his basket of yarn, and himself. A protesting noise comes from behind him, and he glances around to see Fawkes shaking a bit of glitter off his beak. Albus turns back to his now-empty needles, looking slightly perplexed. He sets them down on top of the basket, and then carefully, slowly, he reaches one long finger down to touch a wound ball of blue yarn.

*Poof* - Blue glitter cloud, settling.

He sighs, glancing at Fawkes again. "I suppose that puts an end to that plan for this afternoon, doesn't it?" He pushes the knitting basket back under the table with his shoe, and picks up his tea-cup, sipping at the remaining drink. A look of careful consideration is on his face, and as he sips he pulls the basket back out with his heel. Fawkes tilts his head at him, as he slowly, again, reaches down and pokes, this time, the red yarn.

*Poof* - Red glitter.

He pushes the basket back again, drains the remainder of his cup, and stands, setting the empty cup back on the table. "Well, no use sitting about doing nothing," he tells Fawkes, heading toward the front door. "Shall we see if anyone at the Pub has a similar oddity to discuss?" He pulls open the door, and completly without thinking pulls his multi-colored scarf from the hook by the door. And just as he flings it over his shoulder, sure enough, *poof* again and a shower of multi-colored gliter sprinkles him. "Oh, really now!" he exclaims, heading out the door with Fawkes flying right behind him.

The first time it happens he smiles with more delight than surprise. Chaos moves, after all. Random things changing form around him unexpectedly, well, that's something that happens to mystery priests sometimes. And greyhounds are lovely dogs.

A dalmation and a bloodhound later, he's no longer smiling, although his mouth is still curved up. An experiment that results in a wolf, a fox, another wolf, and a beagle, and an attempt to mitigate the damage that turns one of his most comfortable work shirts (the ones he wears to mediations in the morning, unlike the fun t-shirts he wears to the pub, have long sleeves) into a corgi and a pair of gloves into a Jack Russel terrier and a dog he's never seen before that frankly looks more like a bear.

The obvious solution is to clothe himself astrally, as he always did when purely an astral creature. His tendrils don't change things, so that's safe, and his old uniform, with the turtleneck and gloves and his hems wrapped, that should keep his skin locked away without his having to think about it. Two years away have barely touched the surface of that old habit.

It doesn't feel strange enough to be wrapped up from the world in this way, to have the part of him that hungers standing between his human skin and the rest of the universe. His newish stick--the willow one with the lump of amber up top--is completely the wrong color scheme, but at least it's the right weight in his hand, and will prevent him falling on his face and turning a square of pavement into a poodle with his unprotected nose. Long before the end of the first day, he's forgotten to keep his eyes open behind his glasses, and has developed an almost entirely internal tremor and a quietly cheerful (but possibly slightly disconcerting) smile. Staring into his new sunlight spell for ten minutes doesn't help much, either.

Obviously this thing where he's revived instead of undead is upsetting the universe in some way. If the universe is so sensitive, maybe it should have its nervous system ripped out. Then it would feel better. Probably a good idea to feed the not-pack first, though.

ETA: No, Xel has not yet noticed that his metal-and-glass glasses and the cotton T and jeans and socks he changed out of are still inanimate.

Remember the story of King Midas? The proverbially foolish king who wished that everything he touched would turn to gold ... and then it happened?

Well, presumably no one wished for this.

For this month's event, everything of a given type your character touches will turn into ... something. To put it another way, every X they touch becomes Y. The values of X and Y are up to you.

Examples: Every time Victoire touches paper money, it changes to small flightless songbirds. Anything Jack touches that's made of wood will turn to slime. If Dora touches shoes, they turn into size-eleven Birkenstocks. Whatever.

Food can be immune, if desired, as can clothing. Buildings and other people must be immune (though items belonging to them are fair game). The idea is that it ought not to interfere with your character's ability to actually survive the month. So their clothing can all turn to clown suits or latex fetishwear, but not ice cubes (this is November in England, after all). All their food can change to kippers or broccoli, but not scrap metal ... you get the idea.

This will probably be funniest if things turn to something significant to the character, but there are no limits. Egg beaters? Sure! Air? Why not! Poodles? Absolutely! Black vortexes of doom? Well, as long as you don't godmod an effect on anyone else, go for it!

The tag is "midas touch." Have a ball! Or several.

ETA: Er, yes, we missed something. The changes will be permanent unless that will be difficult for you to maintain, in which case go ahead and have things revert at the end of the month. So, that bit is up to you.