Meanwhile, the movie studio gets its in-house scriptwriters together in the parking lot so Sunwind can attend their meeting. They each have pitches ready!

- Sunwind falls through a magic portal and finds Amenta some years earlier and fights the Oahk Empire. Since Tapa wasn't involved in the war at the time they'd stick him in among Anitami planes.
- Sunwind in his usual capacity as a Draak on Amenta shortly after first contact joins the fight when monsters break open one of the moons and attack!
- Sunwind and an Amentan four year old are both accidentally stranded on a half-terraformed planet in a near-future sci-fi setting, where they must then fight aliens who want to interfere with the terraforming attempt!
- Sunwind is, in an alternate universe without Draak contact, actually an Amentan remotely controlling a body designed to survive on this other, highly dangerous planet they're harvesting plants and minerals from!
- Sunwind-and-a-grey buddy cop movie IN SPACE ft. more aliens subject to interspecies policing set a hundred years in the future.
- Sunwind as a fantasy creature in a fantasy world with a fantasy Amentan-analogue princess companion saving the kingdom from a hundred years of darkness.

Okay, wow. That's a lot of interesting ideas.

He could do the fighting-Oahk thing but muses that planes are really loud and unpleasant and if that really happened he'd probably have gone to the equator and hidden instead? Maybe he could fight Oahk with more digging and sneakiness than flying tricks? He's kind of cool on the whole concept, though.

He would totally fight a bunch of monsters alongside Amenta, that sounds awesome. If the monsters were evil and not just desperately confused or something, that is. Sounds like a simple and straightforward way to get maximum awesome on screen.

Protecting a terraforming project sounds like a nice theme, especially if they're trying to keep the bad aliens from burning plant nurseries or something, not just giant science machines. Why only one Amentan with him?

Pretending to be an Amentan pretending to be a Draak sounds interestingly twisty, and 'survive the highly dangerous place while carefully extracting valuable things' is a neat concept too! He's not sure he knows how to act out Amentan-controlling-a-Draak-shaped-body, though.

He is not really sure he understands what the appeal of the buddy cop thing is supposed to be?

This last one hits closest to Draak-favorite aesthetics and saving people from darkness with the power of fire is a powerful idea/theme/arc that he likes a whole lot! It reminds him of some Draak folklore, actually. Should he tell that story real quick?

The monsters could absolutely be evil.

The idea is the planet's not healthy to be on yet so they aren't really supposed to be there; more strandings are more implausible.

It's possible that the Amentan-piloting-a-Draak-body idea should wait till he has more acting experience.

They could show him a buddy cop movie but if he isn't into it that's fine.

Sure, they can hear the story!

Evil monsters is on the list of maybes, from his perspective. So is the terraforming project thing. And the fantasy one. He should probably watch a buddy cop movie, maybe later, but it seems like something else he would have trouble acting out. He knows how to be a big scary fire-breathing lizard, not how to be an Amentan or a cop!

The story goes that in ancient times, the Sun's light was stolen away - who stole it is forgotten, and gets filled in depending on the storyteller: The Others, the Moon, a Draak, the Spirit of Greed - and everything was slowly freezing, and plants were dying in the eternal night. The Draak at the time refused to go fix it, fearing death. Then a tribe of birds agreed that something had to be done and if nobody else would fix things, they would. They flew to where Sun's light was being kept and cleverly stole it back. Then they clutched Sun's fire in their beaks and flew it back to the sky, continuing to fly despite being burned both inside and out. Their bodies, their minds, even their souls were permanently damaged, and they became the Blackburns. Birds with too much wisdom for their tiny minds, who crossed the line from 'wise' to 'insane'. Even now, the Draak remember their sacrifice.

...wouldn't the Draak have starved or frozen eventually with no sun?

Rubies and Sapphires might have been fine, using the Earth's inner heat and the bottom of the ocean. And Elders. Elders can do some absurd things. But yes. It's a very old story, and probably not complete or even very accurate, even if it's said the Blackburns would tell it to you if you asked why they are what they are.

"Is this a real species?"

On Oldhome. 

He sends out a slightly-indistinct image of some corvids.

I've never seen one personally, but they did exist.

Well, lacking any wannabe-actor birds they aren't going to adapt this but they can take some beats as inspiration.

If you don't think it'll make a good movie, then don't bother. The age of darkness idea just reminded me of it. I'm not sure if the evil monsters, terraforming project, or fantasy one sounds best to me. I'm guessing it's not all up to me anyway, right?

It indeed is not; the meeting must also cover considerations of budget, available talent in relevant sub-industries such as music and (Amentan) acting and set design, and the zeitgeist of preferred tropes and styles. By the end of the meeting they're leaning pretty strongly toward the terraforming project idea; it's hopeful in the right way.

Most of this goes waaaay over his head, but he attempts to follow along.

They run out of time on the meeting before completely scuttling the evil moon monster idea but the terraforming one is the favorite and both proposers are supposed to submit followups with more detail for final approval by the producer.

Okay, so the story's not definitely set but close to it. 

Am I supposed to do anything else in particular now? He asks Meksi.

"While they work on that you've got a block of free time by us, so you're scheduled to head over to the other studio for a few days. I think they're planning to pay for me to accompany you rather than assign somebody on their end, so you have continuity."

I hoped the rigger was ready with a flight harness. Oh well. I want to fly there - you'll take a train? Now?

"Yeah, I'll take a train. You'll probably beat me there."

Probably. I'll circle for a while over some farms. Stretch my wings. Show me a map?

She'll go over the map and landmarks with him till he's comfortable with the route.

And then he's off, embracing the wind.

And after an hour and a half he lands near the last landmark, looking around at the new studio.

It's smaller, and has more outdoor spaces; he's met by a yellow.

Hello! I'm here for the short movie. I see Meksi isn't here yet.

"She's not, I can help you with what you need till she arrives. How was your flight?"

...I probably should stop telling people I don't like cities and farms and railroads and things. It was as expected, how's that? I'm excited to make a movie, anyway.

"Great! We think it's going to turn out awesome. I'm supposed to double check that you think you can get some involvement from other Draak for short segments?"