[url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/8858/posts/ooc?page=6#post-262948]NPC Landen[/url]

Time was, the world was a simple place. It wasn't always that what you saw was what you got, or that everyone could claim to know the exact line between right and wrong. And maybe he sounded like any old grandpa fussing over a bit of hardware his kids had given him. They'd said it would make long distance communication easier, but he'd forgotten how to turn the damn thing on just the other day. Still, when he could make it work, the thing was a wonder, and even if the touch screen was sometimes too sensitive, it was easier to see the screen, and he thought he was getting the hang of texting, for free he'd been reassured at least four times, until he'd seen a young girl, maybe seven or so, waggling her thumbs about and writing sentences on the same device in the time it would have taken him to write one word. He'd grown up in the wrong generation, he supposed. The wrong era entirely. 

And now it wasn't computers or cellphones, it was animals and magic. He'd have called it all complete poppycock if he could have, except the news channels picked up the story after he already found out about it. His wife, bless her, had brought her pigeons home with her the other day. She'd been in such an euphorically panicked state he'd not been sure what to do about it. She'd been crying and ringing her hands and cooing over her darlings all together and there he'd been, staring at a flock of birds he'd known she liked, but would never have expected she liked them enough to let them into the house. Even now, there were feathers floating about the floor, and he was just waiting for some reaction to the streak of white down the back of her favourite chair. It hadn't come yet. Neither of them had understood really what was going on, but while his first reaction had been to try shooing the birds back outside, he'd eventually gotten used to it. He wasn't sure he wanted to understand the mess, but she was his wife and a few birds didn't change that. At least they knew now that it wasn't an isolated thing, though as things got more heated and violent, he'd been working to convince her to stay home. Tell her church girls she was sick, let him pick up the groceries or do any errands she wanted to run. It chafed, sure, but she was getting fragile. 

And then his goddaughter had fallen to the same strange, he didn't want to call it sickness or insanity, but calling it magic sounded almost worse to him. She didn't have anyone to keep her safe the way Ruth-Ann did though, and she'd already learned some neighbours weren't feeling friendly. When she'd called two nights ago, she'd been in tears. So distraught he'd been worried her husband was back. If that had been the case, he'd at least have known how to react, but when she'd gone on about dead birds, he'd had to clamp his teeth over a relieved, "Is that all?"

Well, they'd driven out to see her, and the women had had a happy enough reunion, but when they'd invited her back home, she'd said she wanted to get out of the city. He couldn't blame her, but it had taken a while to figure out where to send her. Finally, he'd given her the keys to their summer cottage and some numbers for the Parks Canada folks he knew who could probably help her more than he could. They knew more about birds than he did...

He was watching the news again, willing something to have changed overnight, and trying to convince his wife that they ought to head out to the cottage themselves a little early when the phone rang. He had to leverage himself out of the chair to reach it. Too bad Ruth-Ann's pigeons couldn't carry it to him or something. But at least he had yet more proof that adding to the number of rings before the answering machine picked up had been a good idea. "Hello?" He hadn't recognised the number, "Who is this? If you're selling something I'm afraid I'm not interested." It was always best to be forward, and he couldn't think of why anyone else would be calling, they didn't get very strangers on the phone.