TEST DRIVE MEME ⚔️️ 16

[avalonmods]

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A ⦿ Soaking in Your Arrival KERPLUNK, SPLASH! Regardless of what you were in the middle of, you and your familiar have been magically pulled into the world of Avalon just above the Bay's chilly waters. After a brief plunge into the Bay, the rush of water filling your ears and soaking up into every creak and crevice of your body, you may need to cough to clear your airways when you rise above the surface. It's paralyzingly cold for a few seconds before you're approached by the Lady of the Lake beneath the water's surface. She puts a vial of a vibrant, glowing red Everwarm* potion to your character's lips.
The icy water doesn't feel so icy once consumed and you'll be able to move your limbs enough to swim to shore on your own. She can't stick around to explain, she's got to get this to all the new arrivals! Many of which you'll see plopping in around you. If you can't swim, a handful of helpful ice turtles will scoop you up from beneath and drop you off at the shore. It's a fast process, though they do take their time as they need to go around hitting the ice that keeps forming on the surface with their shells to keep the surface open for the falling arrivals. If anyone tries to ask the Lady of the Lake for directions, she will direct you to Archimedes at the Rent-a-Ride. If anyone with Animal Magic asks the turtles, they will give the full spiel, but very slowly, and they like to get off topic and gossip about other turtles you've never heard of. The shores themselves are littered with new arrivals complaining their way up a staircase carved into the walls of the White Cliffs. There is no railing, so be careful, but if you do fall, be prepared for a mysterious sand hand to reach out of the side of the cliffs to catch you. The hand will pat you atop the head twice before retreating back into the wall. This is the Cliff Beast; despite the name, he is quite friendly.

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B ⦿ The Caravan to Camelot

Once everyone is wrangled up to the top of the White Cliffs, the handsome owner of the Rent-a-Ride, Archimedes, will distribute smart phones and a pair of ear buds and tell them to "Check the Shit Box." The "Shit Box" refers to wardrobe more formally known as the Wardrobe of Finding, a hammerspace-like wardrobe that opens to each person's items and pets when the person touches the handle. It was recently enchanted by Merlin to prevent people from having to fish their waterlogged possessions and pets out of the water with them. From there, Archimedes directs everyone to settle in groups into modernized carriages pulled by horses and gives them a basic explanation of why and how they've been brought to Avalon: The rest of the universe is frozen in time and your character has been brought here by a familiar that was able to bond with them. They'll have to learn magic to help save their own world from destruction, but first they've got to get them to Camelot. It is here that you have the first opportunity to decide who they will be in their new home. You'll have about an hour to wander around here, meet and greet, and pet the horses before it's time to go.

These carriages use fae technology that combats weight, so your character will be able to get in regardless of whether they're light as a feather or weigh two tons. The carts have air conditioning when it's hot, heating when it's cold, and a mystical shield to protect from bugs. There is also a mini-bar that pops out of the console, with a special feature for warm winter drinks like hot apple toddy and butter beer. Characters can use their smartphones to connect to Camelot's internet service, avalononline (AOL), to chat with other characters, watch dumb videos, learn about the world, contact Camelot Support (they'll answer any questions they can for you, from how to use a smart phone to where to find quests and resources to learn more about your magic). Be careful if you decide to use your phones while in the caravan-- if you don't use those earbuds and start forcing everyone to listen to your nonsense, Archimedes may make you walk.

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C ⦿ The Red Spring

The journey from the White Cliffs to the City of Camelot is a long one, and the first evening you arrive you'll end up spending at the Red Spring, a booming resort town. Newcomers get free inn rooms for their one night stay on the way to Camelot, containing two twin beds, a bathroom, a mini-fridge and microwave, and a TV equipped with a couple of entertaining video games and movies. Don't want to relax in the room? Take a dip in the communal hot spring. The waters have restorative properties that help horses and travelers recover quickly. It is known to relieve stress, improve energy levels, and mildly accelerate healing. It may be a little chilly when you get out though, so make sure you don't slip rushing back indoors when you get out! The springs are also home to a large training grounds just outside town limits, where there are teachers who will teach basic magic safety and help you discover what kind of magic you have together with other new arrivals. Try target practice, obstacle courses, meditation circles, and other ways to try to figure out just what you can do... if you didn't already have an accidental discovery on the ride there.

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Those who listened to the Fae Queen last time have made it clear to her who is going to trust her when they are given the chance willingly and who is going to defy her. Was it a fair system that only measured trust and wasn't swayed by peoples' ability to figure out her riddles? No, certainly not. Fairies don't care, nor have they done much to give the impression that they don't care about the trivialities of human subtleties. But there is a new batch coming in, and before she shares the information she promised, she needs to see where upon her line they lie. I beckon thee to wither's tree, Where widows often cry, A poisoned place of death's embrace North selkie's weary eye. You seek the prick whose corpse makes rot, And rot begot those life forgot, 'Fore the questing beast slips by. The riddle is presented to all in the form of a dream with a magical compelling not to forget the words, nor to ignore them. There do seem to be two main parties forming based on clues within the riddle, resulting in different possible adventures and proof-of-completion items.

A ⦿ The Dragon's Graveyard CW: Undead, facing mortality
	Welcome to the Land of Rot! Home of banshees (crying widows!?), where nothing living can really survive except things like zombies, skeleton warriors, and so on. Get past all that to the northernmost area of the Land of Rot (or, where is the northernmost now after the collapse of the Ash Mountain took out part of it) and you'll find The Dragon's Graveyard. It's not a traditional cemetery, but the land seems to have been landscaped into an open pit mine. It's clearly not active, leaving huge bones and fossils of skeletons sticking out of the walls. There's a lot of dried blood dying the dirt a copper-y color, and it's unclear what happened in this portion of the Land of Rot, but it clearly wasn't pleasant. Draconic Wraiths run freely around the Dragon's Graveyard-- the unsettled beasts created from the mass slaughter of dragons during the age of dragon slaying.
With the world having been rocked by the death of a dragon for the first time in centuries, despite it being within the rules of this world, they are particularly vicious and unwilling to spare any lives. They cannot be touched by physical weapons and can only be fought with magic. However, if they run through your character, they will immediately plunge into a hypothermic state and will need an immediate healer to undo the damage or a siphoner to remove the Wraith's curse and stop the damage from getting worse. Going three days without a healer or siphoner will result in your character dying! What's more, your character will see a vision of their own death in the future upon the moment of contact.   They do seem to be guarding something at the center of the pit: a broken ceremonial sword with dried blood on it. Perhaps this is the "prick" the queen meant? The sword itself seems immensely heavy and impossible to carry on your own, so bring it back as a group effort and decide where it should go. A bit of asking around and someone will be able to identify this as a sword called "Clarent."

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B ⦿ Well, Sssssshit CW: Graverobbing, buried alive adjacent, snakes
The Forest of the Fisher King seems to be another popular interpretation of the riddle. After all, the "prick whose corpse makes rot" could definitely refer to the Fisher King, whose body is rumored to be buried within the forest. I hear that guy's whole story is that his wife stabbed him in the leg with the holy lance because he cheated on her and she didn't want him to be able to die or have kids ever again- definite prick! The low-down on this place is that it's an enchanted forest with plants that release drug-like magic spores that cause euphoria, rapid (15-20 minute) memory loss, a desire to stay and become a part of the forest, and general submissiveness with anything except attempts to get them to leave (which will be met with violent resistance). Why this? Because the forest plants themselves survive by slowly devouring anyone who wanders in by making them want to stay! Oh, and don't forget the Titan Pelicans that can swallow you whole too. Just about anything in the Forest of the Fisher King will try to eat you.
Turns out, if you manage to get past the spores and get your friends free of it to go deep enough in, even the ground itself will try to swallow you up! Quick sand only takes moments to try to pull you under. Better hope you came with a friend to pull you out. The more you resist, the more likely it is to kill you! Though, everything in the forest is dead or thriving off of death anyway, and with a stroke of luck you'll see a snake slither right down in (or maybe you stopped by the Archivist before you wandered in single brain cell first). A deep, painfully-held breath should be able to hold you long enough to sink down to the bottom, which seems to pull you faster down the less you resist it. Faster, and faster, until it spits you out (unfortunately covered in mud) into an underground tomb. The only thing you'll find here is what appears to be an ornate tomb containing the corpse of the Fisher King and pits of poisonous snakes to capture graverobbers... and a strange creature whose head is a serpent, front legs are like a giraffe, spots of a cheetah, hind legs of two different creatures, tail of a lion, spits acid-- well, sssshit. If you're planning on getting this "prick" out of here, you better get past it before it comes at you-- and it comes faster than most people can run. Get to robbing that grave and run!

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For those who are less adventurous, don't worry. There are ways to test their dedication and trust as well. Before the parties leave for their determined destinations, everyone is sent a lock from the fairy queen with a simple note: Slice your sobriquet upon this seal, Secure our sprouting solidarity. Shackle it at the stockade. Sing sayonara to the key.

A ⦿ Trust Trinkets
There's no explanation as to what it will do attached, so it boils down to choosing whether or not to trust the fairy queen. Very, very simple. Well, if you can figure out which stockade it's referring to. As it turns out, in Nicnevin there is a bridge that crosses the shores of its moat that can only be seen by those who have been granted permission by the fairy queen. Etching a name into the lock, be it real or nickname or initials, will automatically transport you to the start of it. It contains myriad locks attached to it, and there are thousands of keys glittering in the water beneath them. The key to the lock is cursed- failure to discard it in the river will result in a curse falling upon your character. Your character broke an agreement with the fairy queen by taking the key with them despite accepting her invitation and instructions by taking the lock to her bridge and now they must pay the price.
Now they will find that they are unable to open or enter any door without getting someone else to give them an invitation through it. This curse will remain until they find a siphoner to remove it... so you definitely may have some immediate struggles in this new world!

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B ⦿ Pretty Pleases
	Don't know a siphoner? Don't you worry, there's a wizard right there in Nicnevin who can help you out! The half-fairy, half-vampire wizard, Speculoo-- master of the dark, dark, evil artes! An escapee from the fae prison, he'll be approaching anyone who seems to have been cursed by the fairy queen to offer them the deal of a lifetime. Speculoo offers them a potion black as tar and tells them to drink up. Drink the potion and Speculoo will explode into a poof of dust and let out a maniacal cackle-- a pixie! Seriously, you thought you could bamboozle the fairy queen just like that? The pixie's potion will cause you to be unable to resist commands from any person as long as they say "please." Time to teach you some manners!
Either live with this curse, or offer your name to the fairy queen to have her remove it. Don't trust her and try to skate past her punishment right under her nose and you'll find yourself with little choice but to.

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• All test drive prompts are open to anyone in the game at any time to create your own logs with, as the events within are considered game canon. • This post should have top-levels by potential new characters only. Current characters may reply to any threads and may start their own logs off-post, but should not top-level comment on this post. • If your application is accepted, you may accept TDM threads as game canon as long as both players consent. Characters may begin threading as soon as their journal is accepted to the communities. •If nothing here tickles your fancy, try one of this month's Quests for your TDM prompt. • The first "Arrival" prompts are usually present on every TDM, but contain seasonal tweaks for flavor. All other prompts will change monthly. • Questions about this TDM's content? Comment here! If you have a question about the game at-large, please head over to the FAQ. • There will be an associated poll to determine where the sword and the Fisher King end up posted on the 7th alongside apps. Once your character is in the game, or if your current character is participating, please vote in it. We will update this bullet with the link once it is live. • If your character has to give their name to the fairy queen, please comment here so we're aware after you are accepted!

Comments

[sulit]

Klaudia, for her part in all of this, thinks that her message is perfectly clear. Who wouldn't understand that carving things into the table is a punishable offense? The knife is telling! ...in the picture that she drew, not the one that he's still holding when his head whips up and around to find the author.

She all but ducks her head back down in a panic, pretending to stare intently at her own book while glancing up at the bird under her brows. Is he mad? That was such a sudden reaction; she wasn't expecting him to move so fast. Shouldn't he be taking a moment to think about her message? It was a very good and helpful one, so why is he peering around like that? Should she try to explain better? Should she pretend it wasn't her? ...Well, if things go sour, she can always turn invisible and run, right? How fast can a bird really be?

She tentatively glances up when he looks her way, and gives a small hesitant wave. She takes a moment to tear another page out of her notebook and write a new message. This one gets folded up just the same and sailed in his direction.

You'll get in trouble if anyone sees you defacing the tables. Do you need paper? Or chalk? I have some that you can borrow.

[yearofthepeacock]

It's a knife! If he sent a drawing of a knife to someone he would absolutely mean it to imply that the recipient is going to find a knife between their ribs in the near future! That is telling!

So naturally he is going to lock onto the most likely culprit trying to hide behind her book with preemptively malevolent intent and a flaring crest that says target acquired. If she's a would-be assassin she's doing a poor job of it, clearly acting suspicious and the color is hard to miss, too. Different from the rest of the overgrown monkeys, but then, peacocks aren't meant to be the color of frost and death and yet here he is. Perhaps that means she is more than she appears too, hardened by life as an outcast, lethal and calculating and ambitious--

The small wave throws him off. He stares at her, slightly stunned, which gives her plenty of time to write and send over another note. Almost automatically he snatches it out of the air to read it, and its contents leave him more bewildered than ever. This time it isn't a threat so much as a... general tip. And an offer? What is he meant to do with this? Respond by flying note??

Well, one- he doesn't have a brush. And two- no!! Gathering composure and determination, he hops off his seat and strides over to the girl with slow, measured steps, making sure the metallic sound of his claw-guards announces his approach. And once in front of her, he pauses, expression coldly polite, and holds out his wing.

"Hand over your chalk."

[sulit]

That was a more encouraging response... she thinks. Still sharp and quick before but not as much after her message is read. The slow approach doesn't go unnoticed--in fact, he has her undivided attention for the full duration of it, though likely not with the effect he was hoping for.

Peppercorn moves like that, is her first thought. Obviously! Birds can only move in certain ways, but it's mesmerizing to watch a 4-foot bird move in the same ways as a 1-foot bird, like suddenly viewing one in high definition. His head bobs a little with each step--but not as much as Peppercorn. That would get annoying, she assumes. Maybe a little dizzying? It's clever that he corrects for that by standing more upright. And his feet--rather than focus on the claw guards (are they like fancy bird shoes?), she's fascinated by how his feet fold back and splay out again, step after step. Those must be more sturdy than human feet. His balance is probably impeccable. She's a little jealous, not only of that but also his tail...

Is it rude to stare if she's already been staring for this long? She might as well keep going with that same expression of awe and curiosity--right up until his wing stretches out and he demands her chalk. She blinks, looking down at the wing just a little too long (is there a hand under all of those feathers? can he hold things?) before shaking her head a little to snap herself to attention.

"Uh-- Sure!" She pulls her backpack over, eager to help this Very Interesting stranger. She always carries spares, so it's no great loss to her to pull a singular piece out of the box. She hesitates at placing it on his wing, uncertain if he'll be able to grab it or if it'll just roll off... But he's thrust it out at her like a hand, so she'll treat it like one and place the chalk in it.

"I saw you looking at the alchemy books earlier. What are you working on over there? Anything interesting?"

[yearofthepeacock]

The awe on her face is certainly a more appropriate reaction to his presence than her weird notes. He is awe-inspiring, unique and magnificent indeed. Smart of her to recognize that. Her quick and eager compliance with his demand, too, goes a long way towards moving this interaction onto more familiar ground, the kind of ground where he gives the orders and everyone else practically falls over themselves to follow them. His wing closes around the chalk and he slips it into his sleeve, next nestling his knife in between his feathers until it is perfectly hidden. Whatever trouble she thinks he will incur with his actions, it can meet the point of his blades.

Since she has been so forthcoming, he will graciously answer her in return while he casually plucks at the hem of his sleeves until they're pristine once more.

"Anything I do is interesting, girl. Whether or not the alchemy here is useful to me remains to be seen."

[sulit]

What she had meant as an invitation to talk about his project is met with... a boast? Honestly, what was she expecting from a peacock? The cockiness is right there in the name. Rather than be offended, she presses her lips together, wrangling a grin into a more subdued but amused quirk at the edges of her smile. Politeness achieved? He's so assured... It's cute. He sounds new.

"It's useful," she tells him with matter-of-fact confidence--assertive, but trying hard not to be patronizing. "You can make stuff out of almost anything if you know the right sigils. Stone, wood, metal, glass... I bet you could even make gemstones, if you wanted. I haven't tried that yet." Though now that she's thinking about it... She scribbles a quick memo (gemstones???) for later in her notebook, next to a bunch of rough sketches of different sigil formations. She's definitely trying to work out something in there.

"You can remove almost anything too. Doors, windows, locks... I can't think of a more useful kind of magic. Light's a close second, though. Just saying." She might be a little biased about this ranking system.

[yearofthepeacock]

Shen hadn't expected this girl to speak with confidence on his personal field of study, echoing so freely his earlier thoughts of the exciting possibilities inherent in this sort of ability, if it truly works as advertised. When she's momentarily distracted by taking a note, he can't help but crane his neck to try and see what she's writing about. He catches what looks like different permutations on one idea, before quickly returning to a more nonchalant bearing when she looks up again.

Removing things, too... that does sound useful. What could stand in his way, if he could turn any obstacle into its constituent parts, or better yet, reshape it to suit his needs instead? Supposing what she says is true. He does look at her now, gracing her with his attention, at the same time watching for signs of a trick or a lie.

"You're an alchemist, too?" Of course he'd known other alchemists at his parents' court, but they'd strictly followed his family's recipes, too stupid or too afraid to see what else was possible. So it's hard not to sound a little intrigued, despite all his natural guardedness.

[sulit]

Klaudia doesn't notice his snooping, too momentarily distracted by the idea and wondering if she should write down more... No, that note is probably enough. She'll remember what she was thinking now, when she goes to expand on it later. (Debatable.)

But she does take note of his direct attention when she starts talking about alchemy. That only seems to fuel her enthusiasm, and she nods eagerly to his question. "Yeah! Or... I have been for the past year." A year already. That thought would probably wind her if she wasn't moving so quickly past it, determined not to address it right this moment.

"I had a different kind of magic before I came here, but I was able to pick this up quickly enough. They're sort of the same. Parallel, in some cases." Both easier and frustratingly limiting in turn. It still felt like a curse to be limited to only two kinds of magic. She wanted more.

"Are you familiar with alchemy? Outside of here?" Klaudia rounds on him with barely a pause between her last sentence and this one.

[yearofthepeacock]

Only a year? That makes her disappointingly less interesting as a source of information, though also less likely to be a potential rival. Nor does he care what other skills she used to possess elsewhere, though at least the speed with which she prattles on assures he won't have to listen to it for long. Suddenly being questioned in return comes unexpectedly even though that is how conversations work, and he just blinks at her for a moment before regaining his confidence.

He chuckles loftily, plumage fluffing up slightly in pride. "Familiar? Oh my dear girl, I am the most accomplished alchemist of the dynasty." Or, was, an annoying little voice in the back of his mind reminds him. His plumage deflates and he waves that thought aside impatiently before slipping his wings into his sleeves. "It won't take me a year to master this." Considering that he came in here fully expecting to find this 'magic' to be a load of rubbish, this is quite the turn-around, but who's counting.

[sulit]

It won't take him a year to master this, he says. Klaudia has her doubts about that, but considering his... everything, she manages to at least restrain them to a thoughtful 'hmm' instead of voicing them aloud. Discreet! More polite! He can think what he wants about how quickly he'll advance in this. The reality will be whatever he's actually capable of. ...But if he does have previous experience in this sort of thing, then he'll probably do just fine.

"What sort of accomplishments does the most accomplished alchemist in a dynasty have?" she asks, part curiosity and partly to keep him talking while she picks up her chalk to start drawing a circle on the table. Some parts of alchemy are easy. She knows the sigils for sand, glass, and chalk by heart now; it takes barely any thought to inscribe the components of this impromptu project. The details are harder. Some of the lines criss-crossing and snaking through the circle are drawn thick; others, she wets the edge of her thumb in her mouth and carefully reduces the width of the lines to a fraction of what they were. She's gotten better at this part through the past few months, but there's still room to grow. All the while, she casts glances at her new peacock friend. Maintaining polite attention, maybe? Or studying him?

[yearofthepeacock]

Her clever plan can't fail to work on Shen and he goes on talking with a pleased little tuck of his head. "Only the invention of the most powerful and fearsome weapon in all the lands. A young peacock I was when I first discovered the formula and I spent my life perfecting it, until it was capable of leveling a building in seconds, of bringing entire armies to their knees in terror."

In theory, that relentless voice corrects him. If a single panda hadn't managed to lay it all to ruin. And should he speak of this so freely? But truthfully, he wouldn't know what else to do. If he couldn't count this as an accomplishment, if he were to accept that his invention had been a failure, then his entire life would have been... a waste. No, no, he must cling to his pride with an iron grip, like it's the last thing he has.

Still, for a moment his gaze tracks across an unseen mental image haunting him, expression anything but self-assured, before his attention snaps back to the girl and he finally notices her scribbling. Immediately, he is on guard again. "What are you doing?"

[sulit]

Klaudia makes a note to herself that this bird certainly likes to talk about himself. Which is fine because she's enjoying listening to him... though the mention of a weapon does slow her movements to a pause for a few seconds. He sounds a little too pleased about making this weapon and the destruction and fear it could spread; and she can't help but wonder if that's good or bad. It's not like having weapons or enjoying them is a bad thing, but it disquiets her just a little. But only briefly.

There's a lot of different kinds of people here, and ones that came from a lot of different places. Maybe that was normal for him. Maybe there was a reason for someone to need a terrifying weapon. And besides, she's a pirate. She can't very well judge his hobbies, can she? She's certain that a year ago, she would have leveled a weapon like that against a navy ship in a heartbeat. She still not convinced they wouldn't deserve it.

Concern assuaged for the time being, she doesn't quite notice his momentary lapse of conversation; but she does notice when he snaps a new question at her. She blinks at him like it startled her out of her thoughts... and then smiles, a bit of pride of her own shining through.

"Giving you a demonstration." She finishes the last few lines that she needs, then sets the chalk down and looks over her work. That...should do it. Now she just needs the materials. Reaching for her bag, she pulls out a pouch of sand and pours a heap of it into the center of the circle, obscuring the lines for the moment. She adds a stick of chalk to the top of the pile, and then--with a hesitance born of anticipation--touches the edge of the circle and focuses on her magic.

The lines of chalk flare with light, like a match put to powder; and though no heat is given off, the sand and chalk seem to melt together into liquid glass. Guided by the magical instructions, it molds itself upwards and outwards, smoothing into soft curves and delicate (though not yet expertly-defined) features. Where once was a pile of ordinary sand and chalk, there now stands in the center of the circle... a glass peacock. The statuette is only a few inches tall, its robes colored white with the chalk and leaving the feathers to catch faint shadows from their surroundings.

Once the magic has done its work, Klaudia picks up the glass peacock with both hands, holding it gingerly as she offers it to her new friend. "Here. For you." A little spur of the moment gift. "It'd be awful to wait a year for someone to catch up to me, so I'm holding you to that, okay? You better deliver."

[yearofthepeacock]

Still with the threatening sounding remarks! She really should work on that. It's obvious she is intending to cause a reaction with those materials, but without knowing the nature of her plan he doesn't trust it and takes a step back, as if expecting whatever happens next to be aimed at him.

But as soon as the circle comes to life, all caution is swept aside by fascination. This is unlike anything he's ever seen before; uncontained yet controlled, materials melting and combining without an external source of energy, melting and reshaping themselves despite the lack of a mold. Beautiful to behold, and his eyes widen in awe, neck craning forward eagerly as he watches. This truly is... magic. Beyond his understanding, and already there is a glimmer of hunger in his eyes, to understand and master it.

But equally as beyond his understanding is the shape the glass sets into, being held out to him. For him? He stares at it like it's a talking rock, or perhaps like the glass peacock is as likely to pull a tiny blade out of nowhere as its living counterpart. Bewildered and... something even more impossible to name. He hasn't received a gift since-- But it doesn't matter. It's... a tribute of sorts, clearly. To buy his goodwill and some level of cooperation, perhaps, in their shared studies. An acceptable proposition.

"Of-of course. Child's play. But don't expect any little horned monkeys in return, or whatever it is that you're supposed to be." Yet he takes the statuette from her hands equally as gingerly, and doesn't immediately hide it away in his robes. He'll just, hold it, for a moment.

[sulit]

Little horned monkey... What. He probably wasn't attempting to distract her from whatever moment he was having, but that certainly does cut through her thoughts like a hot knife. Her brow furrows, and she accidentally vocalizes that "What", which trails off into an awkward laugh. Is that a thing in his world??? Horned monkeys??? Maybe that would make sense...

She clears her throat, repositioning a modicum of dignity back into her expression. "I'm a tiefling. Not a... horned monkey. More like a horned human. And my name's Klaudia."

She almost holds her hand out to shake, but he's already holding something, and she's not sure that feathers can work in handshakes like that... She's also still sitting, so curtsying is a little difficult without making a whole Thing out of it. But the bird does have sleeves, so maybe it wouldn't be a long shot to try... After a moment of hesitation, she cups her hands together and does a little half bow from her chair. A small greeting!

"What's your name?" She looks up again and fixes him with as much curiosity as she dares to. She's being normal. Friendly and normal. "Are you... some kind of dire peacock?"

Mostly normal.