Time for a head trip!

Nils shook his head. "That's so black and white, it just doesn't seem likely. Sure, we either help or hinder the Jotunn, but there's a difference between doing either one of those things and actually picking the side of the gods or the Jotunn. As for how you fight shadows, apparently the answer is shine a light on them. Good thing Esperanza's got that coat."
He sighed and absentmindedly preened Nam, much to the young bird's dismay. "I imagine our parents are arming us properly for the task. We've all got talents, and now we've got gifts. Between all of that, I think we'll manage. Although that won't stop me from asking Loki a long list of things when I see him next. He did promise to answer when he came back. Not sure how well I can trust that promise, but it's worth being prepared for."
Nils gave Simon a sympathetic smile. "Oh, trust me, I know. I came very close to flat out decking Loki, and I would have if I'd thought I could get away with it. And he was nice and friendly. I can't imagine what I would've done if he hadn't been."

"Yeah... I still don't know if he was threatening me or offering to let me punch him.. It was like when you're watching a movie and the villain says he'll be sure to see that you get whats coming to you. Only what he said was 'If it helps, I'll take anything you've got.' It was... What are you doing to Nàm?"

Nils paused in the midst of plucking an errant feather. "I'm preening her. It's more or less the bird equivalent of brushing your dog. To be fair, a lot of birds do this for yourself and you may never need to worry about it, but some birds get lazy and don't do it, and since Nam seems young, I thought it wouldn't hurt." He went ahead finished with the feather he was dealing with. "If nothing else, it's a bonding exercise. I have to do it fairly often with Watson just because he's ornery and won't do it for himself unless I help. No idea how that's going to work out now that he seems perfectly happy to stay coatl. I don't quite know how to properly maintain one."
He released Nam, who promptly flew back over to Simon. "She seems to like you already."

"Yeah, she's pretty cool, all thing considered." He reached up to pet her as she settled on top of his knees, and set about preening herself with a ravenly indignant look at Nils. "I wonder how smart she is? I imagine your pretty clever, aren't you? I should teach you to say more stuff maybe? I still don't know how you even work..."

Nils shrugged. "Ravens are supposed to be able to learn how to talk like a parrot, even when they're not magical. Since she is a computer, maybe she can eventually hold a conversation?"
Watson fluffed up irritably at all this discussion of what he considered to be his less interesting counterpart. He once again smacked Nils lightly with his tail and proceeded to crawl down to wrap around his arm, glaring at Nam all the while. Nils laughed and ruffled his feathers affectionately. "She's got to be something interesting, for Watson to get this jealous, at any rate."

Simon scooted her over on to his chest, keeping an eye on the jealous coatl. "I don't know.... I think she is really a raven? But a pretty clever one. I mean... she's Learning. I don't know if it is just a name. And I still haven't had a chance to look at.." Watson hissed again, flicking his tongue towards the raven, and Simon suddenly found himself balancing the sleek black computer on his chest. "Uhhh... yeah, that."

Nils looked thoughtful. "It WOULD be interesting if that turned out to be more than just a name. I can't even imagine what one would do with a computer who is an embodiment of learning."
When Watson hissed, Nils picked him up and held him in front of his face. "You stop that." He said firmly, holding the bird's gaze. "Nam is a friend. We do not attack friends. Don't make me start leaving you at home again." He turned to Simon apologetically, Watson now looking suitably chagrined.
"I'm really sorry about that. He never really got a chance to get used to other animals, other than Mary's pets." He glanced at the laptop on Simon's chest. "Well, you should try it out, see what she can do. Does... does she need a charger or anything?"

"Nope. No power adapter, no ethernet, no wireless card slot.... She's got all the rest though - USB, various card readers, serial ports..." He'd had a chance to look over that much in the drive to the hotel, and now, as he explained the mysterious machine to Nils, he waited for it....for her... to boot. 'Please not Windows....' he thought to himself, considering briefly that she might not have any OS installed before the load screen for Ubuntu 9.10 flashed on the screen, and he grinned. "Oh, sweet..."

Nils nodded. For something that was alive, a power cord did seem a little superfluous. "Well, I'm kind of surprised such ancient beings know anything about computers, but then, I suppose they've had plenty of time to learn."
Watson settled himself back down on Nils' shoulders as Nils leaned forward to look at the screen. "Apparently they don't just know the basics about computers. Interesting. Is she... does she have a lot of space?"

"Well, someone knew what they were doing..." Simon paused for a moment taking in the desktop image. The background currently depicted a dense conifer forest, but movement other than the cursor had caught his eye. Thinking he'd been imagining things, he opened a dialog box to check out the hardware specs, and blinked when a small raven flew out of the graphic forest and perched on the border of the window, preening. He blinked again as he read down the list, to where it was simply marked 'Memory: Yes.' The first absurd thought that passed through his mind was that there were some kinds of things he was just never going to want to use this computer for. Sighing sightly, he pushed the though aside struggling once more with the overwhelming strangeness that had over taken his life in the past few days - really the past week or so since he'd received the urgent text from Aimee calling him over to Chrys's place.

"Looks like that's not going to be a problem... which makes sense if Aimee is right." He frowned at the screen again, and then looked over at his friend. "I think I'm going to need some more time to figure all this out. Thanks for coming by, though."

Nils nodded, realizing that Simon would want to spend a significant amount of time checking out what his new computer would do. He stood up, giving Watson a meaningful look until he switched back into a macaw for the trip back to his room.
He paused in the doorway, looking thoughtful. "You should post that. I bet someone could give us some insight. The internet is a big place."