OOC: Sorry this is so short Liz, but he wouldn't exactly strike up conversation with a bird.

Having struck out in his attempt to convince Tses to accompany him to the Masquerade Ball Mariusz had taken back to the skies once again to resume his flight over the city. He watched below him as he flew as people moved about the city cleaning up the mess and putting their lives and businesses back in order. Slowly he floated on the currents of the wind drifting almost lazily over Central Park, continuing to observe the clean-up operations that were under way.

Elizacrow was back! Flying high above the crowded city streets of New York, the possessed corvid took in the wonderful sights, the thrilling noises, and the toxic scents of a human-infested area. It was the life! Or at least it seemed that way to the currently bird-brained mutant girl.

It wasn’t so difficult to maneuver the skies and deal with her current host body. Elizabeth had possessed many crows before and so it was quickly becoming almost a second nature to be one. She was even starting to realize that she had a tendency to act out a few corvid mannerisms in her regular life. A little disturbing, actually. It’s like she’d spent way too much time in a crow’s body or something.

Eh, whatever. She was flying!

Into a bird man!

“Kaa!” she cried as her sleek black form bumped into a much larger, winged form, throwing the bird-girl head over talons before leveling out. “Sorry!” she called out instinctively, being only a bit surprised that the crow actually said it. Heh, kinda cool.

"No problem, are you quite alright," Mariusz asked, eying the crow a bit curiously for a moment. Of course there were so many odd things to see and funny mutations that people could have that finding a talking crow shouldn't really be all that odd of an occurrence, or so he reasoned. If he could look like a bird was it really so impossible to expect that someone could actually be a bird?

As he was speaking Mariusz brought his own flight more under control to keep from bulldozing the much smaller crow a second time. He hadn't really meant to run over the smaller bird, in the figurative sense but he was also much larger than the crow so it probably should have had the good sense to not get in the way in the first place. Still, it was also his responsibility as one of the largest things in the air that wasn't a flying machine to pay attention to where it was that he was going.

It was always awkward enough to run into someone on the ground when you can’t really always see what’s around you. Walls, buildings, and other people always block your view. But in the air one had no such excuse. which is why Elizabeth would’ve been blushing something fierce if she’d’ve been human.

But she wasn’t, and crows cared nothing for such puny emotions. In fact, Liz had had to squash the bird’s impulse to fly back and rudely berate the bird-man.

Oh wait. Were those words being directed to her? She assumed it was her; no other form of intelligent, English-capable life seemed to be floating around up there (although there was a speck of dust that looked awful suspicious).

It was the bird man asking if she was okay. “Fine,” Liz scratched out in her raspy crow voice. By now she was back to normal flight, her ruffled feathers even pushed down by the air currents. “You okay?” she cawed. Crow voices were perfect for caveman talk. Now she had to work on grunting....

"I am uninjured," Mariusz replied, beating his wings slowly as he hovered in midair. Obviously this was no common crow since common crows couldn't speak therefore the only logical conclusion was that the crow was a mutant or, possibly being controlled by a mutant through some kind of telepathic link. Having satisfied himself that he knew, roughly, what he was dealing with the Czech man decided to drop the topic of thought for the time being.

"I assume you are not likely to be a common crow which means you are likely a mutant, as am I," Mariusz began. "What brings you out today? Watching all of the rebuilding going on?"

Hmm. Perceptive. Eyes like a hawk!....man. Though the crow wasn’t too thrilled at being in such close quarters with the comparatively massive entity, Elizabeth had relatively little difficulty in undermining that emotion. although to appease its base instincts, Liz did pull a few yards away from their fellow flying neighbor. It was smart. After all, this guy could easily try to kill them, for no reason at all. It wouldn’t quite be the first time.

He was also uninjured. Good. Not that either one of the brains inside the crow’s head could imagine how a simple bump could hurt him. He also deduced that Liz was a mutant. Well, he probably meant the crow, but it was close enough.

“Cahhhh-rrect!” she crowed back to the winged guy. “And no, not really,” she said in response to his secondary questions. She was just bored. “Bored, that’s aawll.” Heh. The occasional terrible-sounding word wasn’t entirely necessary, as the crow was great at repeating words, but it was more fun that way. Made her sound like a pirate!

“Squawk!” she shouted, channeling her inner pirate for a moment before slanting the little conversation back towards the birdman. “Whaat about you?” She turned her head to glance at him for only a moment before soaring a few feet higher. Turning the head too much could be horrific for steering.

Mariusz twitched a bit at the shrillness of the crow's voice as it spoke. The voice was just a teensy bit grating on the nerves, but such was life when talking to a bird. The vocal inflections of the crow meant that it was likely that the mutant was either telepathically possessing the crow or else that they completely morphed into a crow as their mutant ability. If it were some other form of transformation or possession it stood to reason, to the Czech man's way of thinking, that the voice would not be so off from the norm.

"Watching the city dig out and rebuild in the wake of the riots," Mariusz said, shrugging his shoulders. "Seeing how people react after facing adversity tells us much more about who they are, and the nature of the city at large, than watching the uncontrolled chaos of the riots could. Once emotion has burned out what is left is the true heart of the city and its people."

The bird-man started talking about a lot of things, but unfortunately the wind choose that moment to pick up his dialogue and carry it away before his words could reach Elizacrow’s ears. The only thing she actually caught was the last bit about burned out emotions and the city’s true heart. It was strangely poetic and sounded like a quote from Confucius. Either this guy was well read or was just eloquently creative.

But the wind was picking up even more, potentially rendering any further conversation even more difficult. Personally, Liz would prefer speaking to the guy in her own body.

“It’s getting hard to hear up here,” the crow spoke. “I’m going to head back--you can follow me, if you wish.” Then they could have a perfectly normal conversation.

Then the girl began turning into a circling path that would take her close to the outdoor area of the coffee shop where she’d left her body. The cool part was how she’d disguised her lack of consciousness. She’d set up a thick, heavy textbook in front of her, put on sunglasses, and pulled on giant headphones. That way nobody would think any different of her if she didn’t seem to react to anything whatsoever. Just another teenager, right?

It wasn’t too long before the girl had arrived at her destination. Settling down on the hand that was pretending to hold the book, Liz split from the bird and jumped back into her own brain.

“Thanks,” she said softly to the crow, her voice almost musical after using the bird’s. She trickled a bit of happiness and gratitude to the bird before letting it have the rest of the pretzel she’d ordered, pushing it to one side of the table. She also started bathing it in a nice aura of soothing contentment, that way it wouldn’t freak out all over the place.

Mariusz flapped his wings hard a few times and settled down on the ground. He had chosen to land far enough away from the patrons of the little bistro, or whatever kind of restaurant this was, that his landing wouldn't upset those that were dining out on the sidewalk. Those diners included a brunette teenager that the crow had landed next to. It seemed rather obvious that she was the one controlling the bird's actions, obviously it must have been some sort of psychic link.

"May I," he asked, striding over to the chair opposite the teen and indicating it with a hand gesture. It would have been impolite to simply assume that the chair was unoccupied and his to take if he pleased.

It seemed that the bird-man had certainly wished to continue conversation. It was kinda weird. Here she was, letting her mind wander around the city for a bit when she suddenly meets a various obvious mutant and practically invites him out to tea. (Except for the tea part.) Elizabeth quickly caught sight of him in the air and she’d had just enough time to push a few stray blonde strands out of her face before gracing the bird with a friendly smile.

He very politely asked to sit down and Elizabeth’s respect for him rose. “Certainly!” she cheerfully responded, nodding her head once at the implied chair in question. At the arrival of the bird-man, the crow had shifted closer to Liz. Not that it really knew either one of them, but Liz at least had a certain calming influence on it.

“I’m Liz,” the teen started, shutting the book and setting her headphones and sunglasses on it. Since she was back in her own skin, she no longer needed the contraptions of obliviousness. “And you are?” she queried, feeling like she really shouldn’t be calling the bird-man a bird-man in her head. Besides, it was more civilized that way. The crow kaaed.

When Liz responded that he could seat himself Mariusz pulled out the indicated chair and helped himself to a seat at her table as she began putting away various accessories. When Liz introduced herself to Mariusz it suddenly occurred to him that he had been remiss in providing her with his name earlier when they had met in the air. "How rude of me, I am Mariusz Kasparek," he said, offering her his hand.

"What brings you to this place with your," Mariusz paused for a moment, trying to think up the best way to indicate the bird that was with Liz before finally settling on the most obvious choice, "pet?"

Such a gentleman this Marius guy was! Elizabeth gave him an utterly charmed smile as she leaned forward to briefly clasp hands with him, squeezing only a bit. Leaning back, Liz was just tickled at this strange character. Covered in feathers and possessing an extremely exotic appearance, one would easily jump to the conclusion that this was a wild man from Borneo or such. Yet his every action was cultured and precise.

It was a little ironic, in a way. Like, he had better manners than most people she knew! And his voice. It sounded positively wondrous in person, especially with that bit of accent! She tried squishing her goofy smile into something a little more mature and respectable.

“Oh, she’s not my pet,” Liz responded, glancing over at the ravenous crow. She noticed her pretzel was quickly vanishing. Oh well. It was worth it for the chance to ride around in her head. “ ‘Casual acquaintance’ is more accurate,” she corrected gently. She wasn’t trying to be rude either. She was merely clearing up either a misunderstanding or a language barrier.

“And I’m just out here to enjoy a wonderful tea,” the blonde said, indicating the beverage by the book with a nod of her head. She’d probably need to buy a new one--she hadn’t touched it since possessing the bird nearly half an hour before. Although after taking a sip from it, she realized it wasn’t too cold. Just a mild lukewarm. Eh, still good.

“So,” she began after setting her tea back down. “Do you always chat up every talkative crow you happen to fly into?” She smiled pleasantly at him to let him know that she wasn’t trying to challenge him. You never knew these days--some people took major offense over the slightest little nothings.

"Ah, I think I understand," Mariusz said, leaning back a bit in his seat to be slightly further away from the crow lest he upset the bird. "I would assume that you, essentially, take over the body of the animal through some kind of psychic ability," he continued, lacing his fingers together and placing his hands on the table in front of him.

"I do admit that it is not every day that I strike up a conversation with a crow, or any other animal for that matter," Mariusz admitted in answering Liz's question, shrugging his shoulders. "Even living at the Xavier's School Mansion, the mutant school, I do not encounter animals with the ability to converse nearly as often as one would think," he continued, gesturing with his hands a bit as he spoke.

Elizabeth tilted her head forward a bit and lifted her tea a few inches in acknowledgement of the validity of his assumption. A new angle permeated her smile as Mariusz began to seemingly try to make the crow feel at ease by moving away from it. He needn’t bother. A combination of the other part of her mutation, the quickly-vanishing pretzel, and the crow’s own defiance was plenty enough to keep it from getting scared and flying away.

Feeling no need to similarly remark upon the secret nature of Mariusz’ own mutation, Liz allowed that portion of conversation to die. Partly because,well it was over, and a little bit because talking about stealing animal brains still seemed a bit odd to her.

Besides, Mariusz had dropped a rather interesting tidbit! Liz shifted in her seat upon hearing his current residence, leaning forward in sudden interest. “Well fancy that,” she proclaimed with a glint in her eyes. “I just so happen to live at the Mansion as well.” She’d never seen him there before, but that could’ve been for any number of reasons. She didn’t wander around too much and tended to avoid large groups of people. He also might’ve just moved there, as mutants came and went at all times throughout the year.

Or maybe she’d just been too busy playing with animals. Huh. Speaking of animals. She filed away that little bit about not having conversed with many animals. Maybe one day she’d let him meet Nico. Wait, no. On second thought, after remembering both Mariusz’ perfect manners and then Nico’s recent propensity to swear in some kind of familiar-sounding North European language, she decided against it. ‘Twould be less embarrassing for both parties involved (although Nico wouldn’t care a bit.)

"Ah, I cannot recall ever having seen you around the Mansion before," Mariusz replied. "Still, I do not suppose that should be such an odd occurrence since there are so many people that live and go to school at the Mansion. I would doubt that anyone knows all of them." It was as good an explanation as any.

Mariusz steepled his fingers across his stomach and regarded the woman across the table from him for a moment, trying to decide how old she was. He had never been that good at guessing how old a woman was just by looking at her. He could tell, just from looking, that Liz was younger than he was. But, was she too young? He couldn't tell. Did it really matter? No, he supposed in the grand scheme of things that it didn't.

"Though we have just met I do not suppose you might be interested in attending a party with me in a few weeks," Mariusz asked, changing the subject of the conversation. "Purely as friends, or acquaintances, only of course."