Home 22: Our neighborhood watch is extra vigilant

[Recaiden]

Well, if she wanted him to stay, she just had to say so.

Zack starts to leave, but turns to give Willa a smile and a wave.

And he really won't be gone long. Barring any serious interruptions, he'll be back tomorrow. A knight! What a thing to be, even better than he had hoped.

[Fenric]

Four glossy purplish-black eggs with oblong sliver spots. They're each roughly the diameter of those "personal watermelons", not quite twice as long as they are wide, and rounded similarly on both ends so as to be basically symmetrical.

The four precious containers are nestled in an array of old worn blankets and towels, and covered over with a web of spells cast with rather astonishingly more power than was strictly required for what the magic is doing.

And coiled protectively around the whole is their mother: a seventeen foot long eastern-type dragon with scales of shiniest black, her fins and whiskers start out a deep purple but fade out to a pale silver at the edges. She has a long, slender muzzle and streamlined shape overall with webbing between her toes. Her deep ruby-red eyes are closed shut right now, as she is taking a nap.

[Recaiden]

And just peeking into the room, ever so quiet, to check on the eggs, we have their father: a twelve foot long snake-like dragon with scales of pale pink, her spirally horns ivory-white, and eyes a very human brown, all of them focused on the well-enchanted eggs.
She smiles at the sight (her own muzzle being rather more broad and rounded) and goes to close the door again. No need to disturb them.

There's plenty to worry about outside this room too.

[Fenric]

Keiko wakes up after a while and nuzzles her eggs, then uncoils herself and shakes in a fashion far more reminiscent of a canine than a water dragon. She completes the dichotomy by stretching and yawning, displaying her numerous long, needle-sharp teeth.

She licks her lips and looks around, then sniffs a few times

Aww... Cleo checked in on me. But now I'm hungry... and there's a pool downstairs with cave-fish!

Sandra!

Keiko's angel/messenger/wraith of doom appears, slender and curvy, and wearing her composite nano-armor

I'm gonna go get food... watch the eggs.

Sandra nods

Sure thing, Kei.

Keiko rolls her eyes at the return of the childhood nickname, and glides out the door.

[Recaiden]

If you are listening closely to things you can't hear with your ears, but only in the back of your head, you might pick up a song. But then, this room was picked for being quiet, and it's so heavily enchanted against outside things getting in.
Easier, but still difficult to hear are the wingbeats of the pterosaur.
Easier still the footsteps of magnetic boots.
And quite clear, the knocks on the door.

A visitor?

[Fenric]

Sandra has been busy cooing over the eggs and talking to the embryos inside, so she has failed to hear music.

and the wingbeats

and sadly, even the footsteps

The knock, however, gets her immediate attention. A really quite unpleasant rifle finds itself gripped in her left hand and a far more dangerous but unassuming looking cylinder appears in her right. But the rifle points at the ceiling for now, and the cylinder is dark and quiet.

Hello? Who's there?

[Recaiden]

Here I am.

"That doesn't sound like Keiko..."
"Hey, hey. It's Hunter! Are you suppsoed to be here, or are you like Chartreuse's crooks?"

On the other side of the door the hilt of a sword is grasped, and its fiery blade springs into existence.

[Fenric]

But the names of Leah are practically gospel within the Church of Keiko (and indeed: she empowers them as if they were her own). Weapons vanish all in an instant and Sandra jumps up.

Leah! I'm so sorry! It's Sandra: I'm watching the eggs while Keiko gets some dinner! Come in, come in!

[Recaiden]

And in she comes. The dragonslaying sword (one could reasonably ask why she brought that here) blazes brightly for a moment, but then she turns the blade off and puts it away.
"Sandra!"
One doesn't see her eyes flash Leah-colored behind the face-concealing helmet.

"The angel, good to see you in this person. Very cute. And so are the eggs!"
She crouches down, although still a cautious distance away, and admires the spots and colors.

"Going to be great to have more siblings! Totally different people who aren't robots or zombies or possessed suits of armor or anything. Even if they'll probably have the wrong number of tails, poor little things."
If you didn't know, the correct number of tails is exactly two.

"Isn't that kind of a petty thing to call a celestial being for? I mean, you're not like a guardian angel, right?"

[Fenric]

Sandra laughs

I'm the only angel, unless you count that little dragon-guy that Tamamo sent us to be our greeter. And he's yet to actually greet anyone!

But seriously, there's not a lot else for me to do: Lewis has handled the few petty criminals who've pestered the worshippers without needing my help, the two followers in the afterlife are hanging out Tammy's heaven and don't need any watching over. Keiko's domain is inside Tamamo's which is next to Myobi's and inside Inari's, so it's not like there's much to threaten us. And besides...

she turns to the four eggs with a grin

I never dreamed I'd get to see dragon eggs! I can't wait to see the hatchlings

[Recaiden]

"Myobi has her own part of heaven? Why?"

Hunter nods.

"Okay, sounds likes a pretty good deal. Our angels are all busy busy busy. There's a lot of work to do, but they're mostly small so nobody minds that they're in the mortal world so much."

"Do you suppose they'll just look like tiny Keikos? Or if they'll be anything like dad. There's probably like 25000 kinds of dragon, you know? Or maybe they're like butterflies."
I don't know why she would think that, but crazier things have happened.

[Fenric]

Sandra chuckles and turns back to Hunter

Well, there's the strict nepotism angle: Inari actually manifested a physical avatar to carry and give birth to Myobi and Myobu. Or there's the fact that Myobi's powerful enough to be a goddess in her own right and might just made it because she wanted to - after all, Inari's main place is a lot like Inside while Myobi's is a garden. Or maybe she didn't feel like hanging around Myobu - he watches over the main Vulpan "Heaven" which is just like the terrain around their homeland of WinterHearth and personally I think there's more of a story behind why those two have the whole "brother and sister" thing these days - they're not really related at all, and they were married in life.

She seems to be taking after Keiko in some ways...

Then she nods

I can understand that. I'd be a lot more busy, but we get a free ride on Inari's lesser kami network so I don't need to handle the minor chores. We so small and new that we don't even have a messenger yet - Matthew handles anything that needs to be done along those lines.

Finally she looks back at the eggs

Well... the spell she used favors the mother for safety reasons, but it was also designed for mammals so ... it's a good question. Doubt they'll look exactly like Keiko, though - it's supposed to blend the father's traits in where it can, and Cleo isn't that different from Keiko.

Sandra is not even remotely a biologist, in case anyone's wondering.

[Recaiden]

"Oh, I know why!"
Hunter smiles and-
This is silly. She isn't here to fight Sandra. Or these eggs. Or even Cleo! So she takes off the helmet. There's still a visor underneath that covers her eyes, but the smile at least is visible now.
"So she can finally be with the person she loves, all in her own place, their own way."

"Well, they were as related as I'll be to these, right? Their genes were completely different, but they had the same parent."
That's how this should work as far as Hunter's learned...but then there's magic and all those part-dragon creatures that exist so who really knows.

"No offense, but are you, ah, alive? Or is your body just magic darkness stuff?"

[Fenric]

Sandra hmms thoughtfully

Mayyyyybe. There's only so much prying I could get away with before I got asked if I didn't have anything more important to be doing.

she grins, then nods

Yeah, something like that I guess... I dunno...

finally a question!

That was part of my orientation! Our spirits are entirely separate entities that exist at a higher level of organization, interacting with this reality through a quantum-entanglement net caused by the physical and electrical structure of our brains. The entanglement is sufficiently comprehensive that we lose touch with that other world while it is in effect. There are a number of safeguards built in to prevent you from leaving while it's still active and at least make it harder for an external agency to take it over... but they're not perfect, obviously.
This body is a temporary construct that I'm inhabiting for the purpose of fulfilling my mission. It's sort of alive in that it is processing a subset of standard biological functions so it makes the entanglement effect, but not entirely as it is artificially kept going and if you tried a life detection spell on me it wouldn't register. You can't "kill" this body with any of the usual necromantic spells because there's nothing for them to work on.
As long as I don't break a certain set of rules from some treaty between the gods ages and ages ago, the safeguards are disabled and I can leave whenever I want to and go back to Keiko's realm - then this will just disintegrate. But if I break them, then this body will be brought to life and it'll catch me and I'll be stuck in it just like I was born in it.
Now it turns out that the spell that does this got reverse engineered by mortal wizards a long while ago, and it's actually the easiest and safest way to do planar travel... but the same rules still apply.

[Recaiden]

Hunter nods.
"Yeah, I got acquainted with that when I ran out of bodies a while back. It's never felt so comprehensive but I think we're doing something a little different."

She shrugs.
"So you don't have a real live brain or anything and this won't keep being you."
"Hmm. It seems like there's a contention between not wanting to be stuck in your body and not wanting other people to take your body when you leave it alone. The people we learned from considered the first one to be way more important. I guess. I'm not sure they thought about it."

A pause.
"Your gods are weird."

[Fenric]

Sandra chuckles

You have no idea! "Our" god is a grumpy dwarf! I met him once, when I was visiting Inari's office. His first comment was "'boot time ye found sommon who nae be an elf!".

She mimics Malukhar's dreadful accent fairly well.

[Recaiden]

"Are your two dead followers interacting through the same entanglement net idea?"
Hunter scrunches up her nose at the silly accent and stands.

"I guess we couldn't call you a 'durn elfy fox-thing' could we? They probably all go to Tamamo."

[Fenric]

Sandra shakes her head

I really have no idea. I had the same thought and asked how many levels deep it really goes: Inari smiled but said nothing, and Malukhar said "It be nae fer ye to ken."

she laughs

I suppose you could call me that, but you'd be wrong: I'm as vanilla human as they come. And my short life in Inside was my first one, so I don't even get a fantastic back-story from past lives.

[Recaiden]

"I think there's just one level above me. But there could be more - how would we know from down here?"

Sandra suddenly sounds like she needs a hug.

"And there's not gonna be future lives to look back on this, are there?"

[Fenric]

Sandra shrugs

Not by default, no... I can always go take a break like Keiko is right now, get some benefits of a mortal life... but it would be really weird for me to go back. Keiko would get in trouble: they'd wonder what she did to get me upset enough to get one of her messengers to do that.

[Recaiden]

"You can't be too busy as a messenger yet, can you? Or do you have too much work in heaven to go doing things in the mortal world much?"

I'm sure Hunter is just curious and doesn't have anything in mind.

But then a thought occurs that she just has to speak, all excited.
"I bet they don't know how deep it goes. Maybe Malukhar actually has an idea, but I bet they're just one or two steps further than us."

[Fenric]

Sandra shakes her head and grins

Nope: not busy at all... that's why I'm babysitting, remember?

(( Two levels to get from Keiko to Inari, three to get to Malukhar, four to get to me after that, who knows? ))

Sandra nods

Yeah... you're probably right. Inari doesn't strike me as particularly interested, either. If you want to get her talking, ask about plants. The higher order stuff is mind-blowing enough but she showed me two-dimensional rice and I don't understand how that possibly works.

[Recaiden]

((Hmm, what's in-between Keiko and Inari?))

Hunter waves a hand.
"Eh, plants, plants. They're boring. They soak up sunlight, they grow, we eat them. Now foxes, those were a fine invention."

"So you could come out hunting sometime!"

[Fenric]

(( Tamamo will be when she finally grows up, but she's not ready for it yet.
Also found there are the scary Queen of Foxes and the King Under the Sea))

Sandra grins

Now that sounds like fun.

And now, Keiko returns! She comes in, and bursts into the biggest dragony grin ever! Her tail wags (that's just not going to go away)

Hunter-Leah! It's so great to see you! Thanks for coming to visit!

[Recaiden]

"Keiko!"

The only possible thing to do is to spring up and give the dragon a hug. Especially if she's acting like a dog.

"Of course! I've missed you, and what an exciting time!"

Say, can you hear me when I'm talking like this, not out loud? Now that you're a proper goddess and all.

[Fenric]

Keiko giggles while Sandra looks baffled

Yep! If you want me to hear you when you think, I can... if I'm paying attention. If you say my name out loud, though, I can hear you... heh...

She smirks and wags a clawed finger

whether I want to or not! That's why gods get so obnoxious with the whole "taking their name in vain" thing, and why nobody with any sense will answer to "God" or "Goddess". I've got a couple of folks who call me when they're busy trying to make more people, and it's dang embarrassing, and I can't just ignore them!

And a smile

And the fun of temporal relativity means that I hear it "when" you said it... as far as I'm concerned. So you complain at 8 am? I hear it at 8 am. You complain at 2 am... it'd better be important. But I learned the hard way to not ignore the 2am calls...

She looks at Sandra with genuine sadness

I could have stopped her from getting killed.

[Recaiden]

Hunter grins.
"Neat! Don't need to bite you at all."

And a way to embarrass Keiko; she'll have to keep that in mind.

"Is there something - oh, you'll just be 'step-mom' when you're not supposed to hear."

Oh...now she just looks down at the ground. Poor Sandra.

"But nobody can personally look after everyone."

It actually sounds pretty bad to hear that Keiko heard something that Sandra was saying and didn't bother looking into it. But it would also be pretty bad to hold getting murdered against god, especially when you get something probably better than your life would have been. At least it's rude, isn't it?

[Fenric]

Sandra snorts

Yeah, right, Keiko: I was one of those people who took perverse pleasure in working your name into their cursing repertoire. It's a wonder you bothered to listen to me at all anymore. I certainly don't blame you that blew it off. And besides, it turned out really well for me: I'm totally not interested in undoing what I've got now!

Keiko smiles weakly

Well... thanks. It was still a dreadful mistake, and not one I'm going to make a second time.

[Recaiden]

Well you almost could make it a lesson about taking one's name in vain, then. The Sandra who cried...okay, it doesn't roll off the tongue. But anyway, it all worked out.
Hunter goes to pat Keiko's head (heads?) in an effort to brighten up that weak smile.

"Well I just came to say hello and see. You'll tell me when they're, uh, hatched?"

[Fenric]

Keiko's sticking to one head these days: it's a lot easier to keep her thoughts straight and she can use her breath weapon without qetting nearly as dizzy.

she nods and grins brightly

Of course! Though really? Four noisy, frisky little things that are going to be really curious and active... I bet they're not something I could keep secret even if I wanted to.
Regardless, it's a couple months yet and they'll be scratching at the inside for a little while, so we'll have warning before they actually get out.