shooting for the stars - turkey

[fulzanin]

WE'LL MAKE A WAY WHERE YOU CAN FIND YOUR PLACE
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thanksgiving was a holiday. It wasn't as festive as, per say, Christmas or Halloween, but Feza decided that she could fix that just as easily as she could fix a kazoo to be used by people with mouths different than her own. It was a holiday about eating. Alright. She could work with that. Feza didn't consider herself a master baker, or a great chef by any means. In truth the most recent thing that she had baked had been those cupcakes. No one had taken any, to her knowledge. They'd gone to waste - sort of. Feza had eaten them, of course, but she had felt incredibly disheartened. No one wanted her festive cupcakes, or the free glitter glue that accompanied them. For a little while she'd moped in her home, not wanting to work on anything new. Just like she was now, but it was more so due to a bit of a burnout. Being festive was tiring. The bigger holiday was coming up. She couldn't be burned out, though! The group needed her! They needed her to be festive, keep her head up, smile, and be happy! Even if she really, really didn't fancy getting out of bed. It was very comfy this morning. Nice and warm, but not super cold either. It was incredibly comfortable. The outside had been baking her fur and now, finally, she felt comfortable. It was nice and content, yes, but she felt as if she was being nagged by herself to throw a festivity. A grumble sounded. It was hard being the dedicated party thrower of the group.

She shuffled up from her bed. What to do in order to celebrate Thanksgiving? She didn't know a lot about the holiday. It existed, yes. It involved lots of cooking too. Turkeys. Her mind came back to the creature that this holiday was infamous for. Were there any turkeys in the territory? Could she even catch one, even more so enough to feed the entire group?! That was a daunting task just to think about. Curling back up in bed seemed much more pleasurable- no! She had to do this! For the festivity! For the cardboard boxes! For the group's wellbeing she would have to persevere! Huffing, Feza began scouring through her home for something she could use to hunt turkeys. Her own claws wouldn't work, because she couldn't hunt. Her vibrant pelt gave her away - shapeshifting wasn't an option either because that form was both smaller, and just as vibrant. Maybe she could use her icy abilities to freeze the turkeys? Feza wasn't certain if she even had the energy to devote to such a thing. An alternative, then. She couldn't cook, because apparently no one liked her cooking. She couldn't hunt and let her fellow Tanglers cook the food themselves. An alternative. She needed one.

The snow leopard paced around her home. Her tail and wings were drooping, hanging behind her as she rummaged through her home. Absently Feza began collecting random items, not quite sure what she could do with them. Pipe cleaners, feathers, small googly eyes. Then an idea came to mind. She couldn't get anyone an edible turkey, but what about a little arts and craft session to make their own? A surge of energy shot through her as the idea solidified. The snow leopard began grabbing the tools en mass, snagging glue sticks and fuzzy brown balls and rainbow colored feathers and more googly eyes and more pipe cleaners and more fuzz balls. She flung the door to her home open and used a burst of ice to freeze it open. The burst of cold air that buffeted her face upon opening the door felt nice. Feza began setting out her materials. A blanket was used to hold all the materials in place, to keep them mostly protected from the sharp breeze that was whipping about. Finishing setting everything up, Feza began piecing together her example. A fluffy brown body, another brown ball for the head. Googly eyes, rainbow feathers for the tail and wings, and pipe cleaners for the feet. She messily glued it all together, and turned it over a few times in her paw. It was cute, and small. Feza set the small little turkey down. "Since it's almost, it's almost thanksgiving, I've got turkey materials over here! Come and, come and make a turkey!" Feza shouted. Yes, her wording was a little odd, but Feza pinned that down on her exhaustion. It wouldn't matter, really. Her tired grin was present on her face, sitting and eyeing her materials to ensure that they were still neatly arranged.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE EMPTY CHAIRS WILL BE RESERVED FOR OUR PITY

[charactercemetary.]

[glow=#000,1,400]WE'VE BECOMES ECHOES BUT ECHOES, THEY FADE AWAY — ｡+ﾟ.[/glow]

Some days, Kaito found it hard to get out of bed. He always had to remind himself why he did certain things. This is for Oyaji. Just stay here until you can find Pandora, Kaito. He always had to remind himself to keep moving forward. Even when all the gems he found were duds. Today was one of those days. The cat yawns, slipping out of bed, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He exists his abode, closing the door sharply behind him.

The cat hadn't expected to partake in a kid's joy, but he recalled his father's words. Remember, the most precious gift is a child's heart.

Yeah, yeah. I know, Oyaji. Still, he was a child himself. Well, kind of. The black smoke makes his way over with soft steps, peering down at the blanket and to Feza. "Thanks, Feza. It looks nice - you did a good job setting it up. Do you need any other materials?" He asked - genuinely wanting to help.

[deimos]

Family was one thing he wasn't used to having. Sure, he had his siblings, his mother, but his father was absent. And as far as Piers knew, family was first and foremost at Thanksgiving. Right? The cub lifted his nose in the air as he scented the turkey, his tail lashing, that cream tip of his flashing wildly. That wasn't turkey. That was.. glue. Acidic to his sense. Slowly, the caracal-jaguar rose, padding towards the mess on a blanket.

Now, Piers was built to be a gentleman. His forefront was to be well-thought and composed in the eyes of, well, everyone. But this sight made him depressed. His ears flattened, but he held his tongue as the other spoke. Young cub or not, it appeared Piers was judgmental for a gentleman. "Yes.. It looks nice." He responded, blinking slowly. His eyes shifted to that of the creator, and he almost flinched, but he kept his head high and shoulders broad. What an offensive sight, he recollected to himself.

He looked towards Kaito and relaxed a bit. Well, at least their eyes were similar, right? Piers could appreciate some blue eyes every now and again. He huffed, looking back towards the psuedo-turkey and sat. "Real talk. I'm hungry." Piers mentioned. "I can't tell if this.. turkey made me that way or not." His ears flicked gently, tail curling neatly at his side.

template by orion

[wormwood.]

i was born, on the highway, in a train wreck

with a heart, that was beating, out of my chest

Thanksgiving was yet another holiday that had never really been celebrated back at the pride where Aurum was from, since it was mainly a human thing, and his fellow lions had never really seen the point. Sure, you got to eat a big delicious meal, but... the pride was constantly eating big delicious meals, and the only difference between their usual hunted dinners and a Thanksgiving dinner was that a Turkey was actually smaller, and it required the extra work of cooking. As such, Aurum hadn't really actually expected Tanglewood to celebrate Thanksgiving at all. That wasn't to say that they didn't need it, or they shouldn't celebrate it. After all, the whole group had been in a sort of stagnant mourning lately, and perhaps Thanksgiving was just the thing to put them all in a better mood. Sure, there was Christmas, but the actual day wasn't for several more weeks, and Aurum went sure he could wait that long for the oppressive dark cloud that had been hanging over them lately to go away. Still, when Feza called everyone to her for yet another round of her antics, Aurum had honestly been expecting some sort of poorly prepared actual meal, like the ill conceived cupcakes she had made weeks ago. Seeing pipe cleaners and cotton balls and everything like that? It almost afflicted Aurum with a sense of whiplash, and he stared at Feza's example for a long moment, wondering what exactly she expected them to do with these little fabricated critters. He decided not to ask, since he didn't want to upset Feza or make her retreat back within her lair filled with party goods and an unknowable amount of other things.

Honestly, Aurum still wasn't sure why the hell Feza had decided that this was her purpose in life, throwing parties and festive events and everything like that. It wasn't as if it was part of the guardsman job description, and plus she had been doing it even since before she had been a guardsman, so... why? She claimed that she just wanted to make people happy, since there was so much negativity in the world, and the angel supposed he could sympathize with that. After all, for so long, he had been forced to endure all the suffering in the world, and it had made him an angry and depressed angel for such a long time before he had arrived at Tanglewood... he didn't see why Feza saw such an important responsibility as all hers, however. It seemed like all too often, no one came around to participate in Feza's carefully constructed activities, and all she really ended up doing was making herself as upset as the rest of them. Aurum had to admit that he had been part of the reason Feza had suffered so much for her stunts at first, but lately he had been trying to do better and not yell at her so much. Even without any of his raised voice, it still seemed as though Feza's mental health was suffering thanks to her own stubbornness in clinging to her title as party queen. Part of him wanted to stage some sort of intervention to show Feza what she was doing to herself, but he also doubted that would go as planned, so he decided against it. Feza would just think he was returning to his old cruel ways.

Taking a deep breath to get out of his own head, the guardsman offered the three other tanglers present a smile, stretching out his wings to try and relax his muscles. He then experimentally reached forward to grab a few of the rather messy supplies, looking them over curiously as he tried to figure out how to make a little bird creature with his awkward and clumsy paws. Part way through his thought process, Piers spoke up, and the lion let out a soft snort of amusement, rumbling, "I've only had Turkey once or twice before, but when I have it has been pretty good, so perhaps it was the little model... although honestly that fluffy little guy doesn't look very tasty. He'd probably taste like glue." He pointed to Feza's model for a moment before he finally decided to just attempt making his own little Turkey, a cursed leaving him as glue stained his fur. Pulling his paws back a little, Aurum glanced at Feza and questioned with a tilt of his head, frowning in disappointment, "Hey, uh... how did you do this with your paws, Feza? It seems really hard..." If there was one thing that Feza certainly did excel at over Aurum, it was arts and crafts, and he looked desperately to her for help in this department.

template by orion

[arcy]

-

-

Similar to the many other people here, Crowley hadn't celebrated Thanksgiving. One might find this somewhat alarming if they knew his backstory -- Crowley had been around for six thousand years, and he still hadn't celebrated literally every holiday in the fucking world? To which Crowley would probably argue that he'd been in England for centuries. He'd barely even stepped foot in America.
Needless to say, the fact that it's being celebrated in any manner in Tanglewood is somewhat alarming to the serval. Halloween had been jarring enough -- why did they celebrate Holidays? Why did they celebrate American Holidays? Crowley isn't complaining, per se, but he's not exactly sure how to take any of this. He might even be obligated to celebrate Christmas -- as a demon, Crowley has problems with this. But not enough that he'd argue, probably.
"Pretty sure you can get ... not glue-y and papery food elsewhere," Crowley, who'd had to stand there for a solid few seconds gauging what the hell people were going on about, agrees. There wasn't even paper in the turkey. Regardless, the serval plops to the ground next to the lion -- it looks more like he tripped, but the serval curls up as though it were intentional, so who knows. In any case, the serval doesn't have enough coordination to make one at the moment. It hurts enough to walk, and he feels kind of ... gooey. In the sense that he doesn't feel like his muscles are entirely solid. To be fair, his eye is goo. Haha. Crowley, however, doesn't, however, have any problems participating, and by participating, he means laying there and hopefully making snarky comments. But probably not.
A strangely genuine flicker of concern, and, wriggling closer up, Crowley stretches out his neck to peer at Aurum's ... turkey .. thing. In all honesty, Crowley can't even begin to fathom how Feza made the turkey at the moment, but it shouldn't be that hard, should it? Is Crowley too used to having hands, or otherwise not having hands at all? .. That only makes a little sense. "It can't be that hard?" Crowley says. He continues to be strangely worried, and his tailtip flicks. "Jusst .. glue it in the right places?" His gaze, which, Crowley jarringly realizes is uncovered by sunglasses, and may continue to be indefinitely, flickers between Feza's turkey and Aurum's glue covered paws. He doesn't seem to be able to muster a solution from this, and places his head on his paws .. paw.

-

[deimos]

Piers almost flinched as Aurum approached and went straight into making his own turkey. He couldn't imagine dealing with having that stuff stuck to his own fluffy paws, and as if aware of this, tucked his paws beneath his body as he crouched down a bit more. Arts and crafts was a term that Piers knew loosely, but he wouldn't ever be able to do it himself, nor compare with that mindset. It was messy, and a pain in the butt. He shook his head as Aurum spoke to Feza- 'serves you right'.

Piers gaze shifted to the demon. He grimaced again. The poor guy- he was sure Piers would be laughed at if he called Crowley that to his face- was still looking not a hundred percent. He frowned at his statement about food. Piers was hungry, but Indy, his mother, wasn't around and he wasn't exactly sure what to eat otherwise. He exhaled through his nose sharply at his suggestion, as if laughing, before looking back towards the turkey. "I'm sure she had quite the grip on.. arts and crafts to begin with. Maybe it's.. practice. Yes, practice. Practice makes perfect." As he spoke, the cubs head lifted a bit.

His gaze shifted back towards Aurum then. "You need to practice. End of line." He said matter-of-factly, tilting his head as if he knew best. He was going to be a prideful child, it appeared.

template by orion

[fulzanin]

WE'LL MAKE A WAY WHERE YOU CAN FIND YOUR PLACE
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The first person to arrive came with a compliment. That felt nice. Even an offer to help had been made! That was very nice, the snow leopard would muse. Her tail swung slowly behind her, a paw absently reaching to straighten a corner of the blanket. Feza was proud of this little festivity. A nice little trinket crafting session before Thanksgiving rolled around. Wasn't that nice? It made up for the exhaustion it caused her in full. It wasn't cold, so that wasn't a deterrent - albeit it was a little chilly outside. It wasn't as if the snow leopard could control the weather! All she could do was make ice, and she doubted any other member of Tanglewood was as suited for and loved the cold as she did. Feza was warmed by the compliments that were administered to her, though. She had done a good job setting this up, yes, she could agree to that in full. "Unless you wanna, you wanna add something special to yours then uh, I think I don't need anything else," Feza said, "but if, but if you wanna give yours special flare then you can totally add something!"

The next person to arrive agreed that it was nice. Feza could say their tone wasn't as.. hyped for the activity as she forced her own to be. She was excited, yes, but that didn't mean that it entirely tossed and destroyed the feeling of tiredness that crept into her body. Feza was blissfully unaware of how the other thought her colors to be atrocious, or how he had barely held back a flinch. The snow leopard could admit to liking the ability of being oblivious. It was what allowed her to be so happy. It allowed for her to keep her head held high, to be indifferent to problems because she didn't know that they existed. Her ears swiveled when the other continued talking. Hungry. The other was hungry. And she was being a terrible party thrower, and had not brought snacks. For a moment it did feel as if she'd been stuck through with a stake, kneading at the ground with her paws. "Um. I can make some, some snacks, if you'd like. It, they, it won't be anything really good but, but I can, I can make some."

Next came Aurum. Before, Feza had coin-flipped between either anticipating the other's arrival to her festivity, or hated it. The hate had come from when she had been deadly terrified of the lion. Now? She wasn't scared of him. She was doing her best to take their conversation to heart. The nightmares were even becoming less brutal! She could actually stand to sleep - and occasionally she wouldn't dream at all. She would say the two were correlated, somewhat, but the snow leopard wasn't about to dedicate that much thought to such a thing. Festivities had to be created, after all. "Oh, uh, uh I can understand the confusion. Bake and make sound similar," the festive feline mumbled on the account of the fluffballs being questioned about their edibility. "These little guys aren't for eating though. They probably would taste like, they'd probably taste like glue. And fluff. Neither, neither of those are very tasty." It was likely Feza spoke from experience, considering her absolute love for glitter glue. Surprisingly enough the glue here was not glitter glue, but rather sticks of glue instead. Hearing the other's issue, Feza's tail sharply swung behind her.

Before she could say her verdict and give her advice about how to proceed with the craft session, Crowley began to give his input. The snow leopard's wings stretched from her sides, a little cramped from the lack of use. She would have to give them a stretch again, in the future. An actual one. A flight. To where? She wasn't sure. "Oh, no, no, it's on me for not having food prepared. That was mighty stupid and rude of me," Feza said. The other was talking about the food lacking presence. Dang. She really should have baked some more cupcakes. Her ears twitched, muzzle scrunching up a little. Then her blue gaze flickered back to Piers. "Oh, yes, yes, yes, practice does help but it can't make perfect. Nothing's really perfect unless it's the cardboard boxes." The issue of perfection had come from Aurum's struggle. Feza had entirely missed it, a little overwhelmed. There were people at this festivity! It was actually working! How delightful! "Okay, here, I'mma tell you the, the secret to arts and crafts. You gotta, you gotta use your teeth too. Here, I, I'll show you." Feza snagged the materials, unscrewing the lid by holding it between her paws and using her teeth. Then she moved on to use the same sort of tactic for gluing the smaller brown ball to the larger one. "It does take some, it takes practice to figure out how to grip it and stuff." Absently the snow leopard reached forward with a paw to snag some googly eyes, apparently finding it fit to continue her demonstration by creating another small turkey.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE EMPTY CHAIRS WILL BE RESERVED FOR OUR PITY

[wormwood.]

i was born, on the highway, in a train wreck

with a heart, that was beating, out of my chest

Crowley was next to arrive at the little event that Feza had put together, and Aurum didn't even flinch as the demon half tripped and half sat down beside him, the angel's wing just raising slightly to rest against Crowley's back as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To Aurum, it pretty much was, and he barely hesitated before his ears perked up to listen to Feza. A small chuckle left the older of the two guardsmen when she pointed out that none of the materials involved in the creation of the little turkeys would be very tasty, a fact that Aurum was very much sure of. He then said, his fluffy tail flicking from side to side behind him as he glanced down at his strange mishmash of materials that looked absolutely nothing like a turkey, "Trust me, I wasn't thinking of eating it or anything. I'm sure you're right that it wouldn't taste very good." There was some very snide part of Aurum that wanted to comment on how he was sure that Feza had probably tasted glue and glitter before firsthand – a fact that, even while true, would've been dickish to point out – but he held that side of him back. After all, he and Feza had been getting along much better lately, and Aurum didn't want to upset the delicate balance of things by making it seem like he still bitterly disliked the snow leopard. He honestly didn't, since she had become sort of a staple of his life over time. Sure, maybe they weren't as close as say, he and Crowley or he and Moth, but he still considered Feza family on some level.

Aurum was completely ready to follow whatever instructions Feza then decided to give, but she was preempted by both the words of his demon companion and the new kid, Piers. Blinking over at Crowley, the large lion snorted and said as he kept his glue covered paws away from Crowley's fur, not wanting to dirty the other with his attempts at crafts, "Trust me, it's much harder than it looks. If you don't believe me, you can feel free to try." His tone was teasing, rather than annoyed, and he didn't actually mind that Crowley wasn't exactly participating. The injured male was getting some rest in the company of others, and that was never something that Aurum was going to be annoyed about, even if he felt a bit silly with his paws coated in glue and fluff balls. He then glanced over at Piers, considering the boy's words for a moment before nodding and rumbling softly, "Well... I'm sure that is true, but I can hardly practice if I don't have the proper method of doing it in the first place. If I just wung it and did it the wrong way, then I would be practicing bad habits. That's why I was asking." It wasn't as if he had ever really attempted an arts and crafts project before, always believing there was something more important that was worthy of his attention, including just a simple book, so he doubted that he would be able to figure it out on his own without any sort of instruction. He figured Feza was the perfect teacher in this case, considering he wasn't even sure if she did anything all day except for arts and crafts. Supposedly she hunted occasionally, but he doubted that she could be that successful, considering the incredibly bright pelt she was forced to work around.

It was after all of this that Feza finally seemed to pipe up, her eyes lighting up with delight, seemingly at the prospect of actually helping someone with doing one of her projects. It was actually pretty sweet and childlike, as Feza seemed to be most of the time. She nodded firmly at Piers's words, and Aurum tilted his head to one side when the female mentioned the cardboard boxes, an odd exasperated sound leaving him in the moment. He had heard Feza mention her supposed cardboard box gods several times before, but he still didn't really understand how she could actually believe that cardboard boxes had godlike powers. Although, he supposed that if he tried to explain how the entirety of the hierarchy of heaven worked, it would probably sound pretty damn strange and outlandish to any sort of outsider, so perhaps he shouldn't have been throwing stones from a house made of glass. Taking a deep breath, Aurum listened intently to the advice that Feza gave him, slowly nodding his head and mumbling softly as he focused on his little mishmash with his one eye, "Alright, I guess that makes sense..." He then carefully leaned his muzzle forward, carefully gripping one of the glue sticks in his maw and beginning to stick things together. It was exceedingly hard for him to do so, since his jaws were incredibly powerful and meant for things like snapping through bone and tearing through muscle, not gently gripping a glue stick, but he managed alright.

template by orion