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There's a man wandering across the field. His hands stretch out in front of him. He's squinting. His mouth hangs open just a bit. He looks somewhat like a zombie, without all the rotting or dropping of limbs.
Walking out into the field from the direction of town is a white tiger. She's only halfway watching where she's going though. She keeps looking up to the sky at a small figuer zipping across the sky with reckless abandon. But she's not paying so much attention to the flying antics that she doesn't stop and sit down in front of the zombie-esque figure, tilting her head curiously at him as she does.
"I know they're around here somewhere," the quasi-zomboid fellow squeaks meekly as he shuffles forward through the grass.
Rather suddenly the flying chap comes to a skidding stop. As much of a skid as you can get without ground, anyway. Pausing just a moment to hover there, he lowers himself to the ground a safe distance from the shuffling guy. "Morning!"
"Ah!" pops emphatically from the shuffler, who is now that staggerer. He takes two clumsy steps back and then falls on his rump in the grass. "Oof."
Kethren blinks a couple times at the rather startled reaction, and smiles as Nuala comes over to sit by him. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."
"Not at all, not at all," mumbles the middle-aged man. He's still squinting, but not gaping quite so much as he looks up at Kethren. It doesn't seem like he has noticed the tiger. Yet. Or, more to the point, he doesn't recognize it as a tiger. Instead, he glimpses toward Nuala and says, "That's a very large dog. It must shed terribly."
Kethren grins "She's more of a big kitty. And a robot. Lack of shedding is one of the nicer points about that sort of pet... Though I'm sure if someone actually wanted that, Aina could make it happen."
"I...see," the squinting man replies, looking from botcat to Kethren again. He gets to his knees, feeling around the ground, running his hands through the grass, and then stands upright with a sigh. "I can't find them anywhere."
Kethren looks around a bit "Er, what're you looking for? We have a lot of things here. Not as many as we'll have once the nex set of buildings is grown, of course."
"Glasses," Squinty answers. "I lost them around here somewhere."
Kethren nods "Ah... well I'll help look around. While doing that though, have you considered just getting a set of cloned eyes made?"
The near-blind man gapes anew. "What?! Scoop out the eyes my beloved mother gave me and replace them with some synthetic monstrosity? I think not."
Kethren shrugs as he kneels down, looking through the grass "Suit yourself. I was more than happy to do that, but it's not for everyone."
"I mean no offense," the squinty man says. "It's all my fault, really. I put them on top of my head to get a closer look at this beautiful specimen of butterfly that I hadn't seen before. Three wings. Blue, yellow, and orange. The butterfly took off. I followed. Somewhere along the way, the glasses must have fallen off my head. Eventually, I lost track of the butterfly. And then where was I?" Nuala seems to be sitting about two feet from the spectacles.
Kethren nods as he looks about "None taken. As I said, it's not for everybody. Though I do kinda wish I'd kept the jar with my old eyes in it. The lady who later became our head of medicine had the most hilarious reaction when she saw them floating there." Nuala's also looking around from where she is, and lets out a fairly quiet roar, at which Keth looks over. "I think she sees something. That them? Kinda glinting in the grass there just in front of her."
The squinter scrambles past the robotiger to peer into the grass. He fumbles amongs the blades to pluck the spectacles free and slides them back onto his nose. "Oh. Thank god!" He turns, getting a good look at Nuala now, and then he flops backward, yelling, "Christ!"
Kethren smirks "Oh, relax. If she were inclined to attack, she'd have done so by now, I'm sure. And I'd be back in the relative safety of the sky."
"Good to know," the formerly squinting fellow replies, getting to his feet and adjusting the glasses on his face. They seem much straighter now. He steps toward Kethren and extends a hand. "Thanks so much for your help. I'm Pennington Steves."
Kethren nods and takes the offered hand "Certainly. I'm Kethren. Architect of the fine city nearby, business manager, armor smith, and wearer of various other hats as circumstances dictate."
"A pleasure to meet you, Kethren," Steves says. "You've done a nice job on the city, as far as I can tell. The most creative and organized blurs I've ever seen." He gives a jaunty wave and then starts walking back toward town.
Kethren waves with a smirk, and takes off into the air once more.