abraxaslogs | when floods they came or tides they raised

( wanda makes a face. antoni? what a name, and what even is that thing? it looks like a buffalo, if it was bigger and maybe scarier? it certainly is a lot to take in.

when she hears percy's obvious call towards her (because mary is a menace), wanda seems to come back to the moment and moves over towards the boy she once called her son, careful to not step on any bushels with strawberries. )

You really shouldn't make Mary so excitable, you know. ( —like it's his fault— ) Come on.

( it's a light chastising for something that isn't really his fault, as she grabs onto mary's collar and pulls the dog away from percy. immediately, she goes over to sniff at what antoni and cassian are doing, tail wagging excitedly; wanda's hands clasp and percy's, pulling him onto his feet. )

Alyx, ( does percy know his actual name? she won't risk it, for cassian's sake ) do you have a towel or something for Percy?

( well, she could create one from thin air, but she's currently busy arranging the boy's hair from the mess mary left behind. )

Edited 2024-06-16 02:15 (UTC)

[ He sees Wanda's face at the name which is, funnily enough, the same face he'd made when Annabeth had proudly named the bantha. Secretly however, it's starting to grow on him. Not that he's going to let on that that's the case.

(And is Antoni really that much worse than calling a hellhound Mrs. O'Leary?)

Without missing a beat he follows up Wanda's light chastising with his own - ]

What if you rile up, Antoni?

[ Cassian hasn't forgotten Percy at all it's just more fun this way. As Wanda goes to rescue him and pull the overenthusiastic dog Antoni seems to rouse from his snuffling and takes Mary's place, Wanda trying to fix Percy's hair be damned.

The use of 'Alyx' also doesn't make him miss a beat. Before everything that had happened to them it might have, but it's hard undo knowledge that has been brought to light. ]

You can call me Cassian. We're in private. [ He allows Antoni to give Percy one big slobbery lick before he tugs gently on the bantha's horn. ] It might be easier for him to take a easier.

[ First of all, we do not speak of any slander against Mrs O'Leary. And secondly, it hadn't been a name he'd given to her anyway. Any complaints can be taken up with Daedalus' ghost.

But just as one animal is pulled off of Percy and he can take a breath and maybe get something to wipe himself down with, the gigantic beast 'Antoni' seems to move with surprising swiftness to take Mary's place. It results in a much larger, wetter tongue sliding across his face, and making his hair stick up vertically like he'd just been hair-gelled against his will.

Percy lets out a groan and a sound of exasperated disgust for good measure before he wipes at his face with his sleeve. ]

Eugh. Did I wake up looking like a juicy steak or something?

[ It can be noted that Wanda manages to dodge the Bantha's overly friendly gesture and escapes any loose droplets of slobber while doing so. It's a skill Percy really needs to learn; it almost feels like some kind of sleight of hand trick, only it's her entire body. ]

( yeah, wanda has certainly stepped away to avoid any stray slobber she might otherwise have been inflicted with had she stayed close to percy. it seems like the horizon animals are feeling particularly drawn to the enthusiasm he exudes. )

You could try and make it rain.

( she tells cassian, a light tug at their previous conversation weeks back about his inability to actually do magic; yet the horizon is such a perfect place to practice...

one arm crossed over her middle, wanda shakes out a hand until a towel appears—a mostly damp, but large, towel. this she hands over to percy. )

Clean up with this. Cassian can tell you about Antoni in the meantime.

( given how percy ran all the way here for the bantha. )

[ What Wanda says to him is initially met with a raised brow. He hasn't forgotten their conversation about practicing magic, but changing the weather in a place that isn't his own domain seems like more of a stretch (more than creating a bantha, apparently). ]

They're omnivores - so maybe.

[ Although from the looks of things, Antoni didn't look hungry. He was just curious and clearly wanted to do whatever it was Mary was doing. In all honesty Mary was probably more at risk of being a bantha snack, but since Cassian had been the one to create Antoni he'd make sure that that was the case. In the meantime it's fun to let Percy think otherwise that he could be a bantha snack - while also fulfilling Wanda's suggestion to him in a different way.

A saddle appears over the bantha's back for the express purpose of tugging Antoni away and back towards a small patch of strawberries. ]

You have Annabeth to thank for his name. [ Something about a famous architect that she had been very excited to tell him all about even though he hadn't prompted her to. ] What else do you want to know about him?

— oh man, thanks.

[ Percy gratefully accepts the towel from Wanda and begins to wipe at his wet face. The fact that it's damp (and pleasantly smells like lemony-fresh laundry) helps to clean off the two brands of animal saliva, still wet on his skin. He scrubs the towel through his hair to absorb some of the drool clinging to his dark strands, too, and thinks of what might have happened if the larger of the creatures did try to eat him.

Well.

It wouldn't be the first time, so there's that. ]

Antoni, like Gaudi? You know he was known as 'God's architect' because of the religious influence in his building designs?

[ It's hard not to pick up a fact or two despite oneself when Annabeth gets into one of her architectural tangents. He probably knows more about architecture than he ever would if he hadn't met her. ]

I guess my biggest question right now is: what exactly is he? I've never seen an animal like him before, like a mix between a mammoth and a mountain goat and ... a cow?

( it is with delighted amusement that wanda watches as percy, not an ounce of energy and enthusiasm stolen from him, finally get to his target of curiosity without any hurdle in the way. wanda watches on, standing beside cassian, arms crossed; she leans into the man a little, but in the way that someone would try to get the attention of someone else when trying to emphasize something they're witnessing.

in this case, percy being all knowledgeable about things she has no idea about.

mary moves alongside percy, barking up as if also asking what are you? to the bantha. )

I don't think Cassian would know what those things are.

( if these are the kinds of animals he gets in his world, instead. )

Do you use it for food in your world?

[ There’s still an air of bemusement in his voice — and maybe some fondness? ]

I know about Gaudi. Annabeth told me.

[ More than told actually. She had given him a whole lecture condensed in about 10 minutes. It was impressive, if not slightly alarming because he hadn’t known she could talk that enthusiastically or that quickly.

Wanda leaning into him draws his gaze. She’s correct in saying that he doesn’t have any idea what a mammoth is. Or a mountain goat. Thankfully cows do exist in his universe and even if he hadn’t seen one before, there were plenty in the surrounding areas outside the Castle. ]

This is a bantha. They’re a pack animal that a people called Tusken Riders use in my galaxy but they don’t raise them for food. If anything they use them as mounts and companionship.

[ Antoni lets out a noise of confirmation at that before turning his attention back to Mary, curiously sniffing her in turn. ]

You can use them for food and fur. [ Bantha steak actually isn't that bad. Not that he's going to mention that in front of Antoni. ] You can milk them too — although their milk is blue unlike a cow’s.

[ Percy wrings the towel vaguely rope-like and drapes it now across his shoulders as though he’d just gone for a little dip into the ocean and hadn’t just been covered in two separate brands of animal saliva.

He laughs now, shaking his head with such clear fondness in his voice when he speaks. ]

Of course she did.

[ He suspects that it hadn’t just been a quick ‘did you know’ or brief ‘fun fact’; it had, instead, been a whole thesis presentation with slides and diagrams and one of those 3D models she likes to talk about sometimes. He’s pretty sure he’d seen some of that on Daedalus’ old laptop before it died a tragic death. (RIP Daedalus’ Laptop.) ]

So I take it they’re always this friendly, then? That’s good. I’d hate to be on the bad side of one of these guys.

[ And that’s all well and good, and Percy’s absolutely made it his goal to befriend Antoni the way he’s already planned on befriending Mary (whom he reaches down now to give a couple of scritches behind the ears), when Cassian mentions blue milk. ]

It’s blue? Like it’s naturally blue? What does it taste like? Does ‘blue’ have a taste for these guys?

[ Look, it’s not that he’s excited, okay, it’s just that — okay, no, he’s excited. The only way he could ever have blue milk back home is if he added a couple of drops of food colouring to a glass of regular ol’ dairy milk. And that’s awesome, and he might be guilty of it, but for a milk to come out naturally blue? So freakin’ cool. ]

( and, perhaps, there is a very stark difference in wanda being a woman, while these two are guys—because she cannot see what's so exciting about blue milk, whereas percy seems to be immediately curious about it, and cassian's casual drop of its trivia makes it a curiosity he's encountered as well.

her brows crease, and she figures this is cassian's territory. )

I wouldn't particularly trust him to create any one-to-one flavors in the Horizon.

( sorry, but it's true... remember the tea? )

I've never seen an angry one.

[ And frankly, he's glad for that. As gentle as these creatures were their horns, teeth and weight could probably cause more than enough damage. Not to mention their weight.

Percy's excitement earns a look from Cassian before it settles on Wanda. A hint of incredulousness creeps up in his voice. ]

The tea was different. And I know what milk tastes like.

[ There's a pause as he makes somewhat uncomfortable eye contact with Antoni, the need to make up for his tea bungle rising. ]

I could milk him.

Let's try and keep it that way. Keep the banthas happy.

[ If Antoni wants to have at some of the strawberries in this field, he's absolutely welcome to them. They're just Horizon berries anyway; Percy can always make more. ]

Oh yeah — right, he's a ... him. Okay, that's weird. I mean, usually it's the female cows that are milked back home, but if this guy can produce milk too, good on him.

[ He mumbles a quiet, oh gods as he continues to awkwardly circle the drain on the topic of milking things. Yikes. ]

( cassian's statement that he could milk the male bantha stupefies wanda into silence, and her no, you can't doesn't leave her parted lips as percy proceeds to just automatically agree with the notion.

she stares at them like they're both the dumbest tools in the shed.

affection doesn't mean they are impervious to judgement. )

No one's milking anyone. ( the bantha makes a sound, in agreement? of indifference? ) You don't need to milk anything in the Horizon. Just conjure the drink.

( this is said pointedly at cassian, as a tall glass appears in her hand, which she pushes towards him. )

[ Cassian is far too observant to not pick up on Percy's sudden awkward air and Wanda's (what feels like) indignant silence and subsequent look that he's been on the receiving end countless times before from plenty of other people in his life.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why they both feel some sort of way about his statement. But also - ]

It's just milk. I don't see what the big deal is.

[ And as if to prove a point (or maybe to continue teasing Wanda and Percy in his own, weird way), he conjures a stool and a bucket. And perhaps, much to both of their horrors, he plants himself down on the stool and starts to do the very thing that neither of them probably want to see. ]

Didn't you say this is how you get milk from your cows on Earth?

[ It's not a big deal. It isn't. Or — it definitely shouldn't be. Milk is whatever, it goes great with cereal. You can add it to ice cream and bananas and all manner of fruit and sugar. It's an ingredient in like most non-vegan baked goods.

It's awesome.

But its source can be a little controversial. Clearly.

And despite being super open-minded to as much as he possibly can, because he's a freakin' demigod and his dad is a Greek god, and he's got a Cyclops for a brother and he's been through countless weird and crazy and unfathomable situations, somehow milking a guy-cow-thing seems to be pushing his limits.

Well, at least he knows he's got limits. ]

It's ... I guess it's kind of an Earth thing. [ Percy honestly isn't sure where he's supposed to look, because he's tempted to watch. And he wants to see blue milk. ] We have um — milk hang-ups.

( cassian has the gall to summon a bucket and a stool, all the while completely ignoring the glass that wanda had summoned for him to just put this to rest. her hand around the glass closes into a fist, the item disappearing, as she moves around the bantha and gives percy a deadpan expression about the 'milk hang-ups'.

it's not that it's awkward or strange, but isn't this a male bantha?

she stands now between percy and the bantha, like a mother lion trying to protect its cub from a predator. )

Our cows are female.

[ There’s been as many similarities as there have been differences between his galaxy and the worlds that the other Summoned hail from. But in spite of that Cassian has found that they’ve always managed to find some humour, or at least acceptance, in the fact that they exist at all. Who would have thought milk and the source it comes from would be the dealbreaker?

Cassian going through with milking Antoni is both equal parts aimed at satisfying Percy’s horrified curiosity and poking fun at Wanda’s evident disgust. The sound of milk hitting the bucket joins the sound of the waves like some kind of messed up symphony. And yes, if Percy manages to peek around Wanda, the milk is definitely blue. ]

I still don’t see why it’s a problem if this is just how it is in my galaxy.

[ If he sounds like he’s trying not to smile it’s because he is.

Peering into the bucket Cassian pulls an expression of ‘that’ll do’ and magicks three glasses next, carefully pouring them into each one. ]

Did you still want to try it?

when floods they came or tides they raised — opens + closed

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