Said chicken shifts a little, then tucks up her feet and fluffs her feathers out into a puddle of happy bird, although she does eye Tim when the scratching stops.

"So, pet her. That's what she wants. She's not going to do anything bad. Well, there might be some bodily functions, but she's not going to want to sit in her mess any more than you want it on you," Bart said, then frowned, trying to think.

"So, there are these...confluences. And people show up randomly because of them. Or vanish. Apparently at one point they were largely under control, or at least predictable, but things have changed. And there's three factions. The two official ones, and the unaligned."