Phoenix Log

[In a scene that might be familiar to some, Marco is back in the barn, with five baby chocobo. Not quite so baby now, he might be able to fit one of them in a bag on his back, but not all of them. He can't even fit them all under one wing, but that's all right, the others he's dealing with in different ways. It might not be immediately obvious, but the loss of Ace is hitting him hard. Normally he'd go into a rage to kill things, but he doesn't seem to feel it's worth it.]

Ace's name is up on the memorial wall. He might come back... I hope so.

[There's a much too long pause in which he looks a world away and scoops up a chocobo fitted with a Spade collar.]

Ah so how about some bird jokes, eh?

You've probably all heard this one: Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side.
Why didn't the turkey cross the road?
He didn't want to be a chicken.
Why did the ducks cross the road?
To prove they could do it better than the chicken.
Why did the chicken cross the road twice?
It was a double-crosser.
Why did the rooster cross the road?
To prove he wasn't a chicken.

A phoenix walks into a bar filled with a bunch of turkeys. He gives them a polite nod and then buys everyone a round of drinks. They crowd around their new friend and offer some peanuts. "Gobble gobble gobble?" they suggest. "No thanks," he politely declines, "I'm allergic." They offer him pretzels. "Gobble gobble gobble?" He takes a few of those and they continue on for hours. Eventually they run out, and just as he was about to leave, they look him up and down and ask, "Gobble gobble gobble?" He gives them a horrified look and explains, "No way! I'm not into that!"

Why did the marines arrest the turkey?
They brought it on suspicion of fowl play!

[And now for something completely different. Now that they're all back and settled, Marco has his phoenix half back and he missed it. Maybe a little too much. With the cold weather and snow he's too sleepy to be bothered running around like an anarchist. Nope, instead, there's a fiery blue phoenix curled up around a family of baby chocobo. And then the phoenix is just Marco, still covered in fiery blue sparkly flames and fiddling with the communicator seeing that it's already on.]

Mah... annoying thing. Well whatever, these little guys had their Mom eaten so uh... [Gee, how does a tough pirate guy explain that he's adopting a bunch of baby birds?] I'm keeping them warm until the snow's over, eh? Fuck it's cold. If anyone needs me, I'm out here. [And screw it, he's just switching back into phoenix to cuddle some birdies and make a haphazard nest in the straw.]