The Twofold Houses 5: Rebuilding

[Morty]

[Training Day]

"If you told Cora that, she'd probably want to be my squire. And then Cessie would kill us both," Wenomir says in a tone that's almost ominous. "And that's true. Adir used to be a lot shorter, you see. Then he became a knight and got something more out of it than most. I am, legally, still a peasant. But if you happen to know of a knightly quest I could tag along on, Koshal, I'd love to." He pats the young minotaur's back.

[UncleWolf]

Cessie's Room

"Everyone seems to act under the presumption that all demons are the same sort of entity. That there are typical and atypical ones. It's a complete falsehood. Or rather, a self-deception." Jezebel says after a few moments of mulling it over. "How would you even define such? What I call demons and what we fought in Riverside might seem similar superficially, but I can promise you that silver means nothing to those of my homeland and that their very natures are almost diametrically opposed. I've heard stories of raw primal iron being effective to others, and then there are entities like the fae that are just as self-interested and scheming as any demon I've been told tales of to the point where the only distinction is likely that of name. We might as well be asking what a human is. Such philosophical debates are heretical back home, of course, but they still happened behind closed doors. If Ilpholin is corrupted and demonically touched, but your wards don't harm her, then it is simply a demonic...flavor you are not prepared for. Or it might just be a blessing from a similar looking entity that isn't demonic at all. Like newts and salamanders." Jezebel adds before shrugging a little. "If I were near her, I could tell, but I would rather keep my distance all things considered."

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

Cessie have now gotten up from the bed and turned to Sakura and Adir. "I'm not sure. I met various aspects of Sakura's personality but there was one that was different from all the others. A powerful spirit of some sort."

"Fey." Ambrosia corrects while looking at her notes. "I couldn't tell before but I now would definitely classify Sakura as a 'changeling' by the system I use. Changelings are commonly mortals that are born with fey as a soul. While they don't have any memories of this themselves their soul, they fey, have a different, and much older, set of memories."
She finally looks up at them. "It's rare but in retrospect it makes sense in your case."

Cessie's Room

Cessie can only nod in agreement to that argument. "We likely need to distinct more in-between them. Invent new terms." Her eyelashes flutters suggestively. "Perhaps you could? You're our resident expert after all. Maybe you could even reclassify yourself while you're at it."

[Gullara]

[Not So Good Morning]

"Mean? Who's thinking of being mean? Your daddy was just thinking it might be nice to get them some carrots and lettuce from the fridge. What do you think of that?"

[Not So Good Morning]

"Yeah! Let's get lettuce!" Cassie grins from ear to ear and grabs Adir's hand. Let's go! Laurana is already running inside. She heads right to the fridge and gives the handle a mighty tug to get it open.

[Sweet Dreams]

Adir is indeed waiting. He thought it might be longer. And he's happy nothing out of the expected happened. He probably holds out a glass of water for Sakura. "Yeah, how did it go?" He asks the room in general.

[Sweet Dreams]

Cessie have now gotten up from the bed and turned to Sakura and Adir. "I'm not sure. I met various aspects of Sakura's personality but there was one that was different from all the others. A powerful spirit of some sort."

"Fey." Ambrosia corrects while looking at her notes. "I couldn't tell before but I now would definitely classify Sakura as a 'changeling' by the system I use. Changelings are commonly mortals that are born with fey as a soul. While they don't have any memories of this themselves their soul, they fey, have a different, and much older, set of memories."
She finally looks up at them. "It's rare but in retrospect it makes sense in your case."

[Sweet Dreams]

Sakura gives Ambrosia a dumbfounded look. "I don't get it. What does that mean?" She glances at Adir to see what he thinks of this. "Why does it make sense?"

[UncleWolf]

Cessie's Room

Jezebel gives a nod before a thought strikes her and she gives a small groan. "Ugh. You're rubbing off on me too much. I'm becoming a...a...a Scholar." She gasps, feigning horror before grinning at Cessie. "But if it would help, I could dive a bit deeper and begin true research and recording it all."

[Shadowcaller]

Cessie's Room

Cessie shakes her head, though still can't help but to smile back. "You're really not. In fact, I'm not even sure I could say what your job actually is these days. I mean, besides your new position as spy master. Are you a stay at home mom like Sakura?"

[UncleWolf]

Cessie's Room

"I've been staying home more often, true, but I think I'd go crazy if I did what Sakura does." Jezebel admits, sounding half impressed when she thinks of Sakura. "...incredibly crazy. I should do more, I know, but just being given some degree of privacy after being in the limelight so much had been a welcome change." She gives a sigh, closing her eyes and reaches down to pull Cessie up a bit more so they're face to face instead of face to chest. "But that can all wait until after the rest of this morning. How can I talk of the far future and make plans when I've got a wonderful beautiful and partially naked mage right here?"

[Murkus]

[Not So Good Morning]

Adir hurries over to the fridge, squeezing Cassie's hand as if to make sure it's real. His adorable daughter. He listens to the clop of their hooves on the kitchen floor and is happy to find the pleasant sound hasn't changed. What did he expect, really?

"So strong!" He praises Laurie. Leaning down, he hefts out a big armful of greens and carrots. It's quite a wasteful amount, really. "What do you think? Enough?" He will happily hike them outside for the girls.

[Sweet Dreams]

Adir looks like he doesn't know what to think yet. Sakura can see his face seems a little stormy. Perhaps he's thinking some unhappy or tumultuous thoughts. He glances to Ambrosia with his eyes begging the same question Sakura just asked.

[Deathkeeper]

[Training Day]

Koshal nods as if this conversation is by any means normal.
"Yeah, Message made Faye for me as part of being Lady Danir's squire. And also for the other part of my shadow." Adir might notice that Koshal doesn't cast a shadow when Faye is "out," so to speak.
"I don't really know about any quests right now, but I can probably find one." he assures Wenomir with his usual smile.

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

Even Cessie seems confused by Ambrosia's statement, her gaze shifting between the scholar and Sakura.
Ambrosia doesn't meet their gazes. Instead, she plucks her tome from the air and starts to flip through its contents. "Well, as soon as I met you I could feel a strong presence within. All this time I've believed it was the kami but I should have put more research into why it sought you out in the first place. I thought it simply was your interests that drew it in but that isn't sufficient enough alone. Many women bear children, even more children than you, without this happening to them." She looks up to Sakura, gesturing at her. "Have you had problems with possessions before this point? Changelings attract spirits like moth to a flame. It's common that they get possessed in their early teens, if not sooner. It's theorized they get possessed even as infants but that it's simply not easy to spot at such a age." She absentmindedly flips yet another page in the tome. "Now, I can't say for sure that you're a changeling yet but all signs point to it now."

A pause as she looks between Adir and Cessie. "Oh, you're asking what a changeling is? My apologies. A changeling is a mortal, I'm using that term loosely, which has the soul of a fey. It's, ah, the fey itself is a person that have decided to spend time as a mortal. As it inhabits a body from birth however it doesn't actually regain any of it's memories." She taps the turned page with her finger. "Another question, may I speak to your father? Perhaps he could give us answers."

Cessie's Room

"I think there's only one person that's 'partially nude' in here..." Cessie replies with a not so subtle reminder of this fact. "But... we do need to talk to the children after this, alright?"

[UncleWolf]

Cessie's Room

"We do." Jezebel agrees with a sigh. She'd been dreading the moment. "But I don't know if it'll be harder to explain I'm demonic, or that we're together. My kids are at least used to me being somewhat weird overall, so I don't think they'll have issues to more of it."

[Shadowcaller]

Cessie's Room

"We don't need to explain the demonic part if you don't want to, Jezz. Nor do I think they will have much trouble accepting the fact we're together. What's more important I feel is that you talk to them. You're going to become a big part of their life so I want you to have a connection. You need to be able to talk about anything as they in a way will become your children too. We're both going to have to learn becoming mothers all over again for each other's babes and this is a part of that." Cessie explains softly.

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

Sakura just looks more perturbed after that explanation. She doesn't feel any more enlightened than she did a moment before, to be honest. "No, I've never had anything like that..." She pushes over to the side of the bed and stands up. "Well, Sarget's outside. We can go talk to him."

Provided there's no reason to stop, she'll lead out the back door to wear Sarget is standing in the back yard. His eyes were closed, but open as the group approaches. "Did you learn anything?" He asks. Sakura just looks to Ambrosia to explain.

[Not So Good Morning]

"Yep! Let's go!" Laurana hurries out ahead of them, but Cassie's glued herself to her dad's side. They'll head outside to see Laurana already halfway there. She shouts a greeting to Sarget as she passes him and heads right for the warren. The rabbi were out and about grazing, but startle and run inside as Laurana approaches. It only takes them moments to emerge again once the girl kneels down. Braver rabbits are already coming out again and going back to their grazing.

Cassie stops her dad closer to Sarget. "You scare them, so stay. Gimme the veggies." She holds out her arms to take them, though the full load might be a bit much.

[Murkus]

[Training Day]

"Yeah, well, not like Wenomir needs any of this magical junk to do his job. He certainly doesn't need to grow a few more inches," Adir declares. "However, like with our friend the gun, some things are nice to have along when the job requires. Before I got to these things, I was knocking around my home with a bow and a stone knife. Can't say I miss those times, let me tell you."

He hunkers down by his gear. "What do you think, Wenomir? Something more powerful?"

[Sweet Dreams]

Adir has to withhold a groan. Not more of this. Not again. A little reluctantly, he follows everybody outside.

[Not So Good Morning]

"Yes ma'am," Adir says. He'd salute, but his hands are full. He hands Cassie a handful of lettuce and a couple fat carrots.

He feels his heart swell up with warmth seeing Laurana kneel down amongst the rabbits. They certainly didn't get that ability to calm animals from him.

[Morty]

[Training Day]

"It's a wonder I'm as tall as I am, really. I didn't have what I'd call proper nutrition when I was Koshal's age," Wenomir remarks. "And going on a knightly quest together sounds very fine to me." He then looks to Adir. "Sure. Now that we know I can shoot in the direction I'm pointing, I can try something with more kick."

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

Ambrosia flips back to the last blank page of her seemingly endless tone and writes down a note before she heads for the outside.

Cessie gives Adir a knowing look as she could empathize with his reaction. Back in the days she didn't think he'd withhold that groan so he had definitely improved in her mind. She puts her hand on Sakura's shoulder as they walk down the stairs and gives her a reassuring squeeze.

Outside, the scholar have let go of her tome which is now once again floating besides her as she approaches Sarget, nodding politely before addressing him. "Yes, a fair bit actually if I'm interpreting the data correctly. I will need to ask you a few questions though before I can formulate a theory. How much can you recall regarding Sakura's childhood and birth? Did you often have to protect her from hostile yokai? Any details would be helpful regarding her origin."

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

"I recall it as well as anything. I was travelling in the northern continent. Two spirits approached me there. They posed as humans, but I could tell they weren't. They begged for my aid, told me that a child yet born needed a guardian. They implored me to parent her, stay with her, and guard her. I did some long thinking and agreed. They took some of my branches and wove a basket from them. Before they were even done I could hear Sakura's cries from inside it. The basket blossomed pink right in front of me, and so did my branches. I wasn't always so vibrant you know. They lifted the basket up to me and that was the first time I saw my beautiful Sakura."

Sakura steps away from the others and goes to embrace Sarget's arm. "I don't think you ever told me the full story."

"All the important parts. Or so I thought." Sarget looks at Ambrosia again. "We never had any trouble with spirits as she grew up. Not once. I never saw the two that brought her to me again either."

[Not So Good Morning]

Cassie grins brilliantly and heads off to join her sister. She doesn't rush over, yet as she nears the rabbits still all bolt toward their warren. Cassie stops in place and Laurana looks around confused. After a moment Cassie walks the rest of the way over and kneels down next to Laurana. They exchange some words Adir can't hear. "Come out, bunnies. We have breakfast." She calls softly after a moment. Laurana is busy looking upward for whatever set them off. There's nothing to see, though.

[Deathkeeper]

[Training Day]

Koshal grins and holds up the massive weapon in his hands.
"Well you're welcome to try if you want to." he tells Wenomir, even though he knows Adir probably had something else in mind.

[Murkus]

[Training Day]

Adir shrugs. "Hey, go on if you wanna try it. I don't mind. There's nothing that feels quite like a good pump. And if you wanna put big holes in things..." He nods at the huge-bore shotgun in Koshal's hands.

"Hey, Cern?" The boy perks up. "Why don't you go get us some sodas and some of the sandwiches your mom made? And grab some for yourself too, if you're gonna stay and watch."

Cern groans, showing those weird little fangs of his again, but he doesn't feel too self conscious about them at this point. At least not without someone pointing them out. "Do I gotta?" He wants to see how Wenomir does! And see more of his dad's stuff.

"Yes, boy. Go on," Adir whirls his finger in a 'day's wasting' kinda gesture. "And don't try to drag Koshal's poor animals into the house with you."

Cern huffs and hops down, going to do as his dad says. The stag glances at his shooting-mates. "Kid wants to be like his old man. Listens about as well, too," he grins, exasperated and content all at once. "I wonder sometimes if he's old enough to try some of these. What do you guys think?" He's curious now. "When did you pick up a weapon in earnest for the first time?"

[Sweet Dreams]

If nothing else, Adir has become a little more sensitive with time... but it doesn't always show through his worse nature. In this case, he continues to withhold commentary. He looks on at Sarget and his wife with some concern, but there's genuine interest there too. This is not something he's heard much about, to be truthful.

"She just... appeared in the basket? Like a fairy tale?" Adir takes a couple tentative steps forward and tries to take Sakura's hand while she stands near Sarget. His voice quavers with a bit of laughter. "Damn, baby, don't you wish it were that easy sometimes?"

His eyes find Ambrosia again. "Does all of that mean anything to you?"

[Not So Good Morning]

Aww. He can't imagine the girls are used to scaring the little animals. He doubts it was them, though... probably Adir himself, or something they can't see. Ironically the 'changeling' thing barely crosses his mind for the moment.

"It's okay, girls," Adir tells them from a little bit further back. "They can hear a lot better than we can. They probably just heard something naughty nearby that likes to snack on bunnies. They wanna be safe in their warren. But they might come back if you give it a minute!"

[Gullara]

[Not So Good Morning]

Cassie pouts and crosses her arms. She wanted to feed the bunnies... But soon enough Laurana coaxes her out of it and the two busy themselves layout out the food for when the bunnies do come out again.

Meanwhile Adir will notice Sarget walking over. The old tree stops next to Adir and settles his hands on his knees. "Good morning, Adir. How is everything this morning? I heard the commotion last night."

[Morty]

[Training Day]

Wenomir rubs his chin.

"I must have been quite young, but not quite as young as Cern. It wasn't hard to get my hands on one. Trouble started when I showed ambition beyond being a foot-slogger." He takes the shotgun and weighs it in his hands. "I assume everything that applied to the smaller gun applies here. I'll just point and shoot."

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

"I've never heard of anything like that." Ambrosia admits as she looks up from her tome to meet Adir's gaze. "But it does nothing to disprove my changeling theory." She clears her voice and gives everyone a look to get their attention. "Changelings are fey born in mortal bodies, though usually they're formed by a mothers womb. Not forming in a basket. So that part is quite unusual. These fey might have sought out Sarget specifically since they knew he'd be able to perform this despite not even knowing about it himself. Either way, the fey is usually industiguisable from their parent species at birth but then starts to manifest unusual traits as they grow older." She gestures at Sakura. "In this case Sakura is quite different from her parent though, only sharing a few of his traits so everything else must have come from your 'other' parent." She pauses and looks down on her tome again. "Hold on a moment, I need to look up something." As she touches it the pages starts moving on their own accord for what seems like a full minute until they land on what does not seem to have been written by Ambrosia herself judging by the writing style.

"Here we are..." Ambrosia spends a few moments looking over this seemingly ancient text. "Yes, so the only way for a fey to be able to create something as complex as Sakura would be if a yu-seed was involved." The scholar seems to partly quote. "However, judging by Sakura's appearance I believe her other parent must have been an elf." This time she seems to be addressing Sakura directly. "Elves are fairly common sub-group of fey that have a particular fascination with the human form. They enjoy creating life similar to them which can usually be recognized by their distinctive ears." She makes a gesture at the dryad once more. "They are often associated to the rare and powerful yu-seeds as they are involved with the creation of all life. The only 'female' fey family."

Silence follows as Ambrosia seems to wait for the others to take all this in. While Cessie seems to have been aware of some of this, it looks like a lot of it was new to her too.

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

Sakura takes Adir's hand as she listens to Ambrosia's explanation. It just seems so surreal to have this all described about her.

"The parallels aren't perfect." Sarget observes. "I'm far from mortal, after all, and these elves, if that's what they were, looked more like the people of your land than mine. But that said, if there's one thing I know it's that categorization can only be used to explain so much."

"Okay, but..." Sakura interrupts. "What does any of that mean for me? Like, with the kami situation? What does the stuff Cessie saw mean?" They were so concerned about the kami influence thing, but she's not hearing any answers about that.

[UncleWolf]

Arriving

An early morning knock comes to the door! It is low, close to the ground, and the moment the front door is opened, Ariel waves and grins. "Hiiiiiiiii~!!" She calls out. Her mother stands behind her, packages in her arms, and Sergei stands behind them both, aloof as always. Behind them all, Charles is finishing parking the hover-car. Looks like he was wanting to stay with them this time around, and even though no one knows it yet, he has a few things he'll probably bake in the kitchen for everyone.

[Murkus]

[Not So Good Morning]

"Oh, yeah. Things are alright, Sarget. Cassie just had a bad dream. And then I did, too," Adir sighs, watching the girls. "Now I think I scared their rabbits. Or... something."

[Sweet Dreams]

Adir squeezes her hand for comfort. He tilts his head to one side a little. "Creation of life, huh? Does her soul... does it have something to do with the kami? Attracted it, maybe?"

[Gullara]

[Not So Good Morning]

"Hrm..." Sarget rumbles. "I felt a strange presence last night. I don't know what it was, but as long as everyone is okay..."

[Playdate]

((I refuse to have a several week scene labeled "Arriving".))

After a moment the door is pulled open by none other than Bastion. But it's his sister that chimes in first. He's keeping her at bay with a warding arm. "Hi Ariel!" Bastion says hi a moment later while doing his best not to be overwhelmed by his sister. "Come inside." He adds, pressing backward to make room for them.

[Shadowcaller]

[Playdate]

Garn is in the living room but his attention is turned towards the floors rather than the kids as he's been making sure they're sparkling clean for this 'date'. Though as soon as the children starts yelling he knows he needs to keep an eye on them. He knows from experience that once they got going it was all too easy for them to get hurt.

Cessie is sitting in the armchair in the living room just waiting. Smiling widely once Jezebel's children enters. She half-expected the Frescots to come bursting in at the same time but she though that might be a bit too much right now. Ariel and Sergei hadn't even met them yet.

[Sweet Dreams]

Ambrosia nods to Adir. "If my theory is correct, your wife would have acted as a magnet to kami all this time but something or someone was warding them away. But let's not focus on my theory just yet until we've come closer to confirming it." She turns to Sakura and Sarget. "Yes, Sarget isn't mortal by any traditional definition but there is a phenomena that's quite close to this called Echidas. They're corporeal beings, often animals but sometimes including yokai and people, that are altered to be able to give birth to unusual beings that have capabilities beyond the natural world such as the massive snake-like hydra. I can't say if Sarget have been altered in any way for this, but the principle of spirits having other beings produce children is the same in this case. The idea that it would be used for a changeling would be plausible even if it suggests some kind of greater design than usual."

As she pauses for a moment, Cessie clears her voice loudly. "I think you're the only one that knows all this, miss Ithil. Even if I appreciate you explaining it to us I think you don't need to include all these details. As Sakura asked, how does this connect back to what I saw?"

The scholar gives them all a look, seemingly unsure for a moment. "Right. Well, for that I need to ask Sarget something first." She looks right at the ent now. "Do you know the name of the place you traveled to have Sakura? Yu-seeds are tied to specific locations, most which are known to me, so that would be the simplest way to see if it's true or not."

[Deathkeeper]

[Training Day]

Koshal looks out at some point behind Adir, remembering.
"I was first trusted with a blade when I was about seven. It was about this big." He gestures with his fingers. Not very big.
"Children are expected to help. And learn lessons about using tools. They won't be trusted with bigger things if they can't be trusted with that." Koshal seems to snap out of his distant look.
"Oh, but we didn't have like...plumbing and stuff. So we had more needs than most Nexus folks." he says, embarrassed.

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

Sakura gives Cessie a grateful look. She was feeling overwhelmed by all this foreign terminology flying around.

"Hm, it didn't seem like such a place. It was a hostile environment. A large desert to the west. I admit I hesitated when I realized that was where these elves were guiding me. There are deserts like that in Elshar, and I've always stayed well clear of them."

Sakura nods in agreement. The heat and dry air were unbearable.

[UncleWolf]

Playdate

Bastion will find himself thoroughly glomped and hugged by the smaller girl before she slips inside to give the sister a hug as well. "We brought stuff!" She exclaims, more than cheery at the occasion. Sergei gives a silent nod as he's handed a gift from Jezebel, and once he's let inside he'll head right on over to Garn and hold up the small package for him. "You too." He insists. Inside is a deep blue scarf, long enough for him to wear comfortably. Thankfully it's a durable one as well.

Jezebel, one arm holding the other gifts, takes a moment to help hold open the door for Charles. The older manservant can't help but smile warmly to the children, but he stops in front of Cessie and gives a small bow. "By your leave, I would like to head to the kitchen." He requests.