He'd latched onto her because she seemed to be stable enough to keep him upright, but apparently that wasn't meant to last long. He'd hardly gotten his bearings when suddenly they were both heading towards the ground. Don Juan let go of her arm and used his hand to try and regain his balance once again, and while he was unsuccessful he did manage to get control of himself enough to land next to her on the ground instead of on her, which she must surely have appreciated. One of his arms was still tangled up with her — it had been sort of around her waist when he'd been standing, but her dress and skirts were in such a disarray now that they were on the ground that it was hard to tell if that was still the case. His sleeve disappeared somewhere into the fabric of her outfit and his hand was up against something solid. He probably ought to disentangle himself completely, but before he could make an effort to do so the birds had started swarming. (Whether swarming was an appropriate adjective or not was anyone's guess; Don Juan's vision was still slightly blurred and the birds were moving more quickly than he could make sense of, so swarming felt appropriate to him).

"Strange pet," he murmured, assuming that he had probably ended up in someone's garden and that these were the sorts of vanity animals rich people bought to make their gardens more interesting. Peacocks were more common for that purpose, weren't they? If one was going to go with birds, anyway; he knew someone who had a zebra. These didn't look half so colorful, and not so well-mannered, either. "Sit," he told one of the nearest quail, but it didn't appear to recognize the command, so he nudged it with one toe instead.

One bare toe, he noticed. Don Juan scowled at his foot. "Where've my boots gotten to?"

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