By the Docks of Big Lake IC

[Anyr]

Valya continued to stubbornly rebuff Jason's concerns. The fact that he was right didn't matter. Sibling protocol demanded that no ground be given. Valya gave a dismissive way to her departing brother.

"I will explain to them that their child is fine. Rinley just needs some rest. You'll see, Jason."

Hear that, Rinley? Now you have to get better. Because if you don't, Jason will win an argument. We can't have that. Valya casually lifted Rinley from the elevator with one hand.

"Okay, wayward mouse. You've had your little adventure. Time to go home and sleep it off."

[Please please please get better. There are no spare Rinleys to replace you!]

[Raz_Fox]

Naomi hooks Rinley by the arm, because suddenly just grabbing their hand would be weird, right? Like, that’d come off as taking advantage of them in a vulnerable moment, right after they got into some terrifying escapade below the Titov shrine — the Titov shrine, of all places — and as the protector of the hearts of Fortitude, she knows better than anyone that a heart’s right to be left alone right after a terrifying incident is sacrosanct. It would be worse than taking the day after Valentine’s off for some TLC! No, her responsibility is to get Rinley home in one piece so they can sleep it off and this can become yet another of their delightful, thrilling stories, which is why she pins Rinley’s arm to her side.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she says, with a smile. It’s totally a smile! It’s not forced at all, because that would be rude! “It’s so great to be able to visit, one shrine maiden to another, but we really ought to be going. Thank you so much, and please enjoy dinner!”

Draaaaaaag Rinley out of the room, and walk with dignity. Yes. This is dignified. Her borrowed shoes, pink fuzzy princess pajamas, and bedraggled friend: these things cannot shake the inherent dignity of Naomi Vasili. Only the sound of something moving on the Roofs can do that, and that’s far distant now...

[Thanqol]

Valya continued to stubbornly rebuff Jason's concerns. The fact that he was right didn't matter. Sibling protocol demanded that no ground be given. Valya gave a dismissive way to her departing brother.

"I will explain to them that their child is fine. Rinley just needs some rest. You'll see, Jason."

Hear that, Rinley? Now you have to get better. Because if you don't, Jason will win an argument. We can't have that. Valya casually lifted Rinley from the elevator with one hand.

"Okay, wayward mouse. You've had your little adventure. Time to go home and sleep it off."

[Please please please get better. There are no spare Rinleys to replace you!]

oh okay they were being lifted up off the ground like it was nothing and it isn't just a weird dream anymore but something that actually happens irl that is something that needs to be adjusted to

Naomi hooks Rinley by the arm, because suddenly just grabbing their hand would be weird, right? Like, that’d come off as taking advantage of them in a vulnerable moment, right after they got into some terrifying escapade below the Titov shrine — the Titov shrine, of all places — and as the protector of the hearts of Fortitude, she knows better than anyone that a heart’s right to be left alone right after a terrifying incident is sacrosanct. It would be worse than taking the day after Valentine’s off for some TLC! No, her responsibility is to get Rinley home in one piece so they can sleep it off and this can become yet another of their delightful, thrilling stories, which is why she pins Rinley’s arm to her side.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she says, with a smile. It’s totally a smile! It’s not forced at all, because that would be rude! “It’s so great to be able to visit, one shrine maiden to another, but we really ought to be going. Thank you so much, and please enjoy dinner!”

Draaaaaaag Rinley out of the room, and walk with dignity. Yes. This is dignified. Her borrowed shoes, pink fuzzy princess pajamas, and bedraggled friend: these things cannot shake the inherent dignity of Naomi Vasili. Only the sound of something moving on the Roofs can do that, and that’s far distant now...

"bye Valya" said Rinley through an extremely dry mouth. Some misfiring neuron prompted them to wink and make fingerguns as they were being hauled out the door. Play it cool. If they knew that your heart was still bruising your ribs with every thump-thump-thump they'll never respect you again. They'll worry about you and if they're worrying about you then it'll be way harder to pretend that everything is fine, and if you can't pretend then reality will catch up to you and swallow you whole before you can say butterfrogs! Nightmares can smell shame, which is why cats - who of course are immunized against the emotion as kittens - always have good dreams.

They were being half-walked, half-carried back through the snow by a girl who felt more stable than the earth below. That meant they were going to make it.

[Plerumque]

Chapter II

Rinley, that night you dream strange dreams—the figure in the basement seen at a wavering distance, as if across hot asphalt or below the surface of a pool. They turn slowly and reach out a pale arm, seeming almost hesitant in their movements. You look up, meet their eyes—

And then you're unrolling a checked picnic blanket over a field dotted with buttercups. You carefully unpack the sandwiches, pour the tea, and then the sky splits open with a roar of lightning—

Then you're on a raft, floating placidly through a sunny gorge. Behind you, studying a map, is your second-grade teacher; in front of you, looking out into the distance, are Valya and Naomi. Then you feel a judder as the raft hits an unexpected rock and goes into a spin—

And then you wake up, in unfamiliar surroundings. It takes you a moment to realize you're tucked into Naomi's bed, over in the Vasili house. Another to realize that Naomi is there as well, dozed off in a nearby armchair. The last thing you manage to place are the faint cries of joy and excitement, which seem to be coming, unexpectedly, from outside your window.

Peering through the curtains, you see Herakleides' orchard, decorated with that rarest Fortitude acoutrement: several inches of snow. Battlements appear to be have drawn up where the pumpkin-patch usually is, and a number of your classmates are engaged in a furious melee of snowballs and icicles. As you watch, a bathrobed Herakleides himself appears, wielding a walking-stick threateningly, and the combatants start to disperse. No doubt the campaign will continue, undaunted, somewhere else—after all, today they have all of Fortitude as a playground.

It's another day by the docks of Big Lake.

[Thanqol]

Yesterday makes itself known in the physical. No matter how well they hid the tension it speaks now in stiff and sore limbs. Days are like that. One of them will be filled with manic, driving energy and the next will be a barely tolerable shuffle. Which is which comes down to your dreams and Rinley's dreams are all a'ragged. There's no graceful feline energy here, no deliberate confidence even in mistakes. They're just tired.

It's a bad sign when Rinley can pass up an opportunity to wake to mischief - when they turn away from an active snowfight in progress. It's a worse sign when they go ahead and make a real breakfast. It is a sign of the coming apocalypse and when they also make a breakfast for Naomi, complete with cup of tea, and set it on the bench beside her. Least they can do for stealing their bed.

They're coming back to themselves after what felt like months of absence. It hurts. It's slow.

[Flipping card to Drifting in the Wind]

[Raz_Fox]

Waking up after falling asleep sitting up is hard. All the parts of your body have settled themselves into place just so, and they take great offense at the idea that you would dare move them out from where they lie. That's why, when the smell of buttered toast and strawberry tea hooks in her nose and tugs her up to wakefulness, Naomi doesn't move or open her eyes, at least at first. She just groans a little, the groan of "just five more minutes," but of course now she's warring with her stomach and her eyelids, and the stomach's got an advantage in that fight. She finally sits up properly, blearily blinks her eyes, and mumbles "ghmrmf."

But she's a Vasili, and they don't give up or surrender, even when the forces arrayed against them are aches and sleepiness! Soon enough she's nibbling away at the toast like one of the Fortitude Rats. "Thanks, Rinley," she says, between bites, now capable of speech. Then, as her brainpan finally catches up to what her eyes and ears are telling her, she sets the toast down and gives Rinley a look over proper. Huh.

"Are you feeling all right, Rinley? This is the longest you've gone without talking since you thought you could get into the World Records for it..."

[Thanqol]

Waking up after falling asleep sitting up is hard. All the parts of your body have settled themselves into place just so, and they take great offense at the idea that you would dare move them out from where they lie. That's why, when the smell of buttered toast and strawberry tea hooks in her nose and tugs her up to wakefulness, Naomi doesn't move or open her eyes, at least at first. She just groans a little, the groan of "just five more minutes," but of course now she's warring with her stomach and her eyelids, and the stomach's got an advantage in that fight. She finally sits up properly, blearily blinks her eyes, and mumbles "ghmrmf."

But she's a Vasili, and they don't give up or surrender, even when the forces arrayed against them are aches and sleepiness! Soon enough she's nibbling away at the toast like one of the Fortitude Rats. "Thanks, Rinley," she says, between bites, now capable of speech. Then, as her brainpan finally catches up to what her eyes and ears are telling her, she sets the toast down and gives Rinley a look over proper. Huh.

"Are you feeling all right, Rinley? This is the longest you've gone without talking since you thought you could get into the World Records for it..."

Rinley scowled at the memory. Forty-four hours had been pretty good for not talking! But Rinleys were made for telling stories and they'd just kept bubbling up and out and writing was too slow and everyone was too lazy to learn sign language. They'd get it next time... should they start now that they already had a good start? How long could the record be anyway? A week? There's no way anyone could go a week without talking...

"I'm..." the word slipped out before Rinley could catch it. Darn! This is why it was hard! "I... it's not fair that you'd ask me how I am when you haven't told me how you are. I mean, I forgot to ask you all of yesterday, so I have priority, and for you to ask me before I ask you would make me rude. So how are you? Did you sleep well? You didn't catch a cold did you? Any, you know... did you have any dreams? You have to tell me if you had dreams, I'm a Yatskaya, it's the law."

[Raz_Fox]

Naomi opens her mouth to say, nonsense, she didn’t have any dreams, and besides, she wasn’t the one who needed to be helped home after doing something very ill-advised indeed in the Titov cellars, but... come to think of it, that wasn’t entirely true. She had had a dream.

“So I was tending for the roofs,” she says, slowly, cupping her hands around the warm cup of strawberry tea. “And the clouds were looking like it was going to rain soon. And I was trying to fit this tile into place, and then... well, I heard something,” she finishes, lamely, “and then I woke up and had to try to fall back asleep. What do you think it means?”

It means she’s totally not telling the whole truth about that dream, is what it means. It also means that she’s stressed about something if she’s having storm dreams and work dreams!

[Thanqol]

Naomi opens her mouth to say, nonsense, she didn’t have any dreams, and besides, she wasn’t the one who needed to be helped home after doing something very ill-advised indeed in the Titov cellars, but... come to think of it, that wasn’t entirely true. She had had a dream.

“So I was tending for the roofs,” she says, slowly, cupping her hands around the warm cup of strawberry tea. “And the clouds were looking like it was going to rain soon. And I was trying to fit this tile into place, and then... well, I heard something,” she finishes, lamely, “and then I woke up and had to try to fall back asleep. What do you think it means?”

It means she’s totally not telling the whole truth about that dream, is what it means. It also means that she’s stressed about something if she’s having storm dreams and work dreams!

Rinley has never been so keen to do dream analysis. Literally all of the time it's like this - fitting a dream into words is like trying to pick up the moon with chopsticks. The fact that you'd even attempt it is an implicit act of disrespect to all of the forces involved. But this! Was someone else's moon! And there was a lot less moonshadow than there was on hers!

"That's really interesting!" said Rinley, swaying back and forth like a snake, or a puppy trying to keep its eye on the biscuit. Dad: Never agree with the dreamer! If you interpret their dream at all then they'll alter their memory of the dream to fit your interpretation! "Here, I've got a thing to help -" they leap with a newfound sense of energy across the room and go through the pockets of their big coat. They come back with an old-fashioned brass box with some sort of English word written on the top. When it opens a patchwork of things come out, strange and well-worn apparatuses that had no concession to showmanship at all. The fortune telling kit of a grandmother who's got no time at all for parlor tricks.

Rinley likewise demonstrates a terminally un-Rinley-like attention to the setup. Things have their place and order, it's not just tossed around hurley-burley. Little oxidized copper statuettes of zodiac animals, forty well-worn cloth patches in a rainbow of colours, and a collection of photographs showing faces of all ages, types and emotional states, cut roughly down with scissors and put into card preserving sleeves stolen from Chuubo.

"Pick out anything that reminds you of the dream," said Rinley brightly. "And talk more while you're doing it."

They hadn't actually done this outside of training before. Hm. Seemed like they were growing up after all

[Raz_Fox]

The first marker is a swatch of pale green, almost a sea-green. This is the color of the dream, firmly. It's the sort of green that doesn't feel right, so of course that's the shade it has to be. The second marker is a small statuette of a rat, naturally -- rats for the roofs. The third marker is a photograph of someone flinching away from the camera, startled or afraid, wide-eyed. The fourth--

The fourth isn't one of the things that was set out, surely not. But there it is under her fingers. It's a dingy brass gear wheel, like you might find inside a clock, each of its teeth for slowly pushing along a hand across a face. She spins it, once, and seems to get lost in the spinning. It doesn't stop spinning, either. Round and around and around it goes, and Naomi's eyes are on it, almost like she's slipping back into that dream.

"The sound was so loud," she says, her lids drooping. "The tiles shook. I was surprised birds didn't fly away, but maybe we were too high up for birds."

Do you hear anything, Rinley?

[Flipping the card over.]

[Thanqol]

This is...

Rinley has no idea.

They didn't even know if this was weird or not. It probably was! Had Naomi... brought something back from her dream with her? Had they slept through that lesson? Was this magical? Was there a ritual they were meant to do? Go get the older Yatskayas to sort it out? A vibration of panic runs through Rinley - they know this dream: today is a test and you have not studied. Don't check if you're wearing clothes because if you check you won't be.

"We should go onto the rooftops!" said Rinley, who knew that confidence with volume were the same thing. "See if we can find the spot in your dream! There's bound to be some sort of connection up there that'll let you see things more clearly!"

Time to see if they could bluff their way through another exam.

[Plerumque]

The Titov Shrine

Valya, I imagine you haven't dreamed much since you died—most dead people don't, after all. This morning, though, you wake with the familiar feeling of something slipping from your memory. You try to focus and remember—eyes in the darkness? A rhythmic clanking? An egg-and-cress sandwich, for some reason? You feel you're almost closed your fingers on it when a rap comes from the lid of your coffin, startling the memory away.

"Everyone decent?" comes Jason's drawl from outside, before there's the creak of hinges and the lid swings open, admitting a wash of daylight. Jason looks down at you, smirking. "Just you, then, Valya? After what happened last night Ezther was asking if we needed to set up a spare coffin in here, but I told her no, I'm sure Valya will be more than happy to share hers.

"But that hardly matters, I suppose," he continues crisply. "The reason I'm here is, I need you to go down to the harbor today. The trawler's coming in today with a fresh load of dust, and we're supposed to send someone to meet them. I forget the name, it's something horribly twee like the Windrider or Cloudraker or something. You'll find it. Oh, and maybe take Isabella with you—she ought to get outside, and I hate having her underfoot anyways."

[Anyr]

"GAH!"

The sunlight hurt Valya's unprotected face. She frantically pulled the covers over herself. Her room had heavy curtains to prevent this exact problem. Jason must have opened them! He launched a few verbal salvoes while she reeled. Her return fire was weak and unfocused.

"Nothing happened last night! It's all a figment of your feverish imagination!"

Just a denial? You can do better than that, Valya. The burning sunlight had stolen her wit. Jason kept up the pressure. He was clearly foisting his work onto Valya. But between the light and the dream, she didn't have the will to resist. Her muffled voice emerged from beneath the covers.

"Fine fine fine! I'll do it. But you'll owe me a favour. Now get out!"

Valya was much stronger than Jason these days. At first, that had made him cautious. His old bullying methods no longer worked. But it hadn't taken long for him to discover new ones. And thus, the war continued. She'd get her revenge soon. The cycle of spite would never end.

[Raz_Fox]

Scene cut!

The Vasili shrine isn't actually part of The Roofs. Its buildings have some of the best-kept roofs in all of Fortitude, but none of the shrines are connected to the roof-roads of Fortitude properly. To get up onto the Roofs, you need to go out closer to the docks. Which means that we cut to the two shrine maidens walking, after a hearty breakfast of pancakes and cream, down towards the docks. On one side of the road, there's a gentle rolling slope that leads down to the shimmering blues of Big Lake, and on the other side of the road, there's a thick bamboo grove reaching out over the road, and it's so thick that if you forget an umbrella when you're walking down this way you can duck under the overhang and you'll stay pretty dry.

Naomi's... she's still a little distant, I think. This is worrying at her in a rather uncharacteristic way. She's used to letting things roll off her back, taking things as they come, but this is sticking to her like a burr caught on her laces. She's in definite need of distraction.

[Thanqol]

Scene cut!

The Vasili shrine isn't actually part of The Roofs. Its buildings have some of the best-kept roofs in all of Fortitude, but none of the shrines are connected to the roof-roads of Fortitude properly. To get up onto the Roofs, you need to go out closer to the docks. Which means that we cut to the two shrine maidens walking, after a hearty breakfast of pancakes and cream, down towards the docks. On one side of the road, there's a gentle rolling slope that leads down to the shimmering blues of Big Lake, and on the other side of the road, there's a thick bamboo grove reaching out over the road, and it's so thick that if you forget an umbrella when you're walking down this way you can duck under the overhang and you'll stay pretty dry.

Naomi's... she's still a little distant, I think. This is worrying at her in a rather uncharacteristic way. She's used to letting things roll off her back, taking things as they come, but this is sticking to her like a burr caught on her laces. She's in definite need of distraction.

"Once upon the time there was a scientist - the cool kind, not the lame kind, the kind with dinosaurs. This scientist was working on everything - on robots, on teleportation, on armies, but deep down he only had one dream: to get more brains! Because what do scientists value more than brains? So he turned all of his evil science power to making his brains even bigger. Brains the size of a basketball. Brains the size of a medium size dog. Brains the size of an ironing board! Brains the size of that one really big dog, you know, from the Guinness World Records book? Brains the size of a lorry! Brains the size of a train! His brains were so big that the police came over to him and said, No, Scientist," despite Rinley feeling floaty and distracted themselves, Rinley is a Professional, and a Professional Always Does The Voices. "Your brains are too big! You need to stop adding brains! And the scientist said, Never! I will never stop adding brains, you brainless brainiacs! And then he shot them with lightning from his tesla coils."

While Rinley was a Professional, they were also a little out of it so they kept the lightning sounds and fake screaming to a minimum. This meant only catching startled looks from half the people on the street. Rinley could do a really good blood-curdling scream when they put their back into it.

"Anyway, the police got together and they decided that the only thing that could defeat someone with that many brains was someone with no brains at all. So they got together the most brainless animals they could think of - like, a rabbit and a bird and something - and they told those animals that they needed to defeat the scientist before he got smart enough to calculate the AntiLife Equation. So the animals start going after the scientist and the scientist realizes that he doesn't stand a chance - there's no way his brain powers will work on them! So instead he runs away to distant planet and then thinks, you know, what is the only thing that can defeat an animal? Another animal. So he gets all of the lizards on that planet and uses them to capture a fox so that he can put his brains inside her head and trick the animals into thinking she's one of them and then stab them all in the back! So then she marries an evil panther and..."

Rinley trails off a bit.

"Anyway, I don't know much more, but it's a really popular story on the mainland," Rinley says awkwardly. "I don't really get it myself. Mesmer seemed really keen about it."

[Raz_Fox]

“Animals are very popular on the Mainland,” Naomi says, a little dreamily, her distance reduced by the flung grappling hooks of Rinley’s cheer. “But not like we’re fond of them, I think? More that... they remember animals more than they know them. If you get me? That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”

That’s a terrible vision: a place so un-Fortitude that it has a distance from animals that allows them to be romanticized rather than known as friends and petty nemeses by turns. Animals are.

“The rats are strange there, too. They forget themselves.” She shakes herself a little. “Or perhaps they actually remember themselves here? It’s one way or the other.”

[Plerumque]

The Titov Shrine

"Fine," Jason sighs, and stalks out the door. Or, at least, he starts to stalk, but when he opens the door, Isabella is there, and Jason jumps high enough to set the candelabra trembling. "By the—my god, Isabella, don't just stand there!" he shouts, once he's regained his voice. "Freak," he adds under his breath as he stomps off into the rest of the house.

Isabella steps forward and calmly draws the curtains closed. In the darkness, her eyes look even bigger—they seem to reflect every little bit of light in the room. "Good morning, Valya," she says. "Did you have pleasant dreamss?"

[Anyr]

Jason only dropped his guard for a moment. That was long enough. Valya got considerable satisfaction from his panicked cry. If you focus too much on one Titov, then another will get the drop on you. The harsh sunlight soon receded. Valya could emerge from her bedsheet cocoon. She already knew what she'd see: A familiar pair of cavernous eyes.

Death had greatly improved Valya and Isabella's relationship. When Valya was alive, her sister had seemed so alien. Isabella knew things that she shouldn't know. She saw things that the light couldn't touch. Did the sealed creature whisper its secrets to her? Nobody knew for sure. They just felt that she was dangerous. In life, Valya had kept a safe distance. But now, she was dangerous too. Now she was broken, in a way that scared people. She had a newfound empathy for Isabella. There was no need to back away. She floated out of the coffin, to meet her sister.

"I don't remember. Do you remember my dreams?"

[Thanqol]

“Animals are very popular on the Mainland,” Naomi says, a little dreamily, her distance reduced by the flung grappling hooks of Rinley’s cheer. “But not like we’re fond of them, I think? More that... they remember animals more than they know them. If you get me? That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”

That’s a terrible vision: a place so un-Fortitude that it has a distance from animals that allows them to be romanticized rather than known as friends and petty nemeses by turns. Animals are.

“The rats are strange there, too. They forget themselves.” She shakes herself a little. “Or perhaps they actually remember themselves here? It’s one way or the other.”

"That's super cool!" said Rinley with way more energy than that line called for. There's actually a hungry intense look in their eye right now. "Tell me more!"

This was because Rinley had a secret: They had never actually been to the mainland. Japan, or even Russia, were stories to them. They'd been to Australia once, which made them Worldly, but Australia was an exotic, forbidden place full of rainforests and rivers and thunderstorms. They'd never seen a city except in passing, and anyone who had even a rumour of what it was like to live in one got the full weight of their focus, checked only by their flailing instinct to play things cool.

The rats were different!? What did that mean!?! Tell me, Naomi, or I will shake you upside down until the stories fall out of your head.

[Plerumque]

The Titov Shrine

"Silly!" Isabella laughs, and her face seems young for a moment before it folds back up into expressionlessness. "You can't remember someone else's dreams, Valya. It's surprising your friend hasn't told you that."

And then she's out the door, before you can protest that she hasn't really answered the question. Isabella moves fast through the winding corridors of the Titov mansion—sometimes it seems like she's the only one who really knows where she's going—so by the time you catch up with her she's standing at a doorway, squinting out into the late-morning light. You're surprised to see snow on the ground, but Isabella doesn't seem to be. She stoops to pick some up and watches it shiver into water in her hand, then turns back to you. "Are you ready, Valya? There's not much time."

[Anyr]

Fortunately, Valya slept with a full set of clothes: Just like the first time she'd 'slept' in this coffin. The only things missing were her parasol and hooded coat. Ah, there! Jason apparently hadn't thought to hide them. Valya grabbed her signature accessories; Then rushed to catch up with Isabella.

In a trice, the siblings stood at their house's threshold. The morning light's greeting got rebuffed by a shield of heavy fabric. Valya was lucky. Some vampires couldn't bear to be out in the day. She was strong enough to manage, with a few precautions. Thanks to that, she got to spend her time with actual, living humans...and whatever Isabella was.

"Ready, sister. Shall we depart?"

[Plerumque]

Isabella nods, and then the two of you are off. Isabella hasn't taken you to the exit closest to the front of the house, you notice—it's the one on the side, leading out into what used to be a rose garden. Ezther once tried to revive it, you remember; she spent a spring digging furrows and cutting back all the weeds and even managed to produce a few heady, pale-blue blossoms. Then Jason decided she wasn't paying enough attention to him and dumped a bottle of vinegar into the beds while she slept. Even years later the roses haven't come back.

As fast as the two of you are moving, though, you don't have time to linger. You're quickly through the garden, and then all it takes is an easy vault over the fence and you're on the path that runs from the shrines towards Big Lake. Off in the distance, you can see the old bamboo grove that lines one side of the path, and just past it, if you squint, two familiar-looking backs.

[Anyr]

Valya spared a glance for the pitiful rose garden. Such was the fate of most things in the Titov estate: Either left to rot by apathy, or murdered by spite. The whole place was falling apart. And yet, Valya felt like she'd live here forever. Her one attempt to escape hadn't exactly gone well. Now she just went on brief outings, like this one. She floated above the morning snow, leaving no footprints. Soon she would be amidst Fortitude's inhabitants. But for the moment, it was just her and Isabella.

"So, have you been keeping busy?"

Translation: 'What horrendous nightmares have you been poking with a stick?'

[Raz_Fox]

"That's super cool!" said Rinley with way more energy than that line called for. There's actually a hungry intense look in their eye right now. "Tell me more!"

Naomi gives Rinley a look. A half-fond, half-anxious look of "why would you possibly pack that much energy into something I vaguely remember hearing about, now I have to do my best not to disappoint you, and I am very anxious not to disappoint you."

"Well," she says, drawing out the word, then letting it hang in the air. It's a crisp, sunny cold today, where the air's still and the only way you'll really get cold is if you're riding a bicycle or running and letting the air sharpen all around you. At a ambling walking pace, it's just right, perfect for keeping you awake and thoughtful. "How many animals do you know-- wait, how many animals barring all the cats do you know? Like, see regularly?"

[Thanqol]

Naomi gives Rinley a look. A half-fond, half-anxious look of "why would you possibly pack that much energy into something I vaguely remember hearing about, now I have to do my best not to disappoint you, and I am very anxious not to disappoint you."

"Well," she says, drawing out the word, then letting it hang in the air. It's a crisp, sunny cold today, where the air's still and the only way you'll really get cold is if you're riding a bicycle or running and letting the air sharpen all around you. At a ambling walking pace, it's just right, perfect for keeping you awake and thoughtful. "How many animals do you know-- wait, how many animals barring all the cats do you know? Like, see regularly?"

"None! They've all gone!" said Rinley. It's freezing, misty and miserable today where the air is sub zero and even a million blankets won't entirely keep the chill out. They sneeze. They're not just thinking that because they maybe caught a cold from their dumb vampire-snowman stunt yesterday and/or the soul drain event. No, Rinley is perfect, it is the world that is wrong. "All the birds have flown away and the foxes are all hibernating and the fish are under the ice and Mr. Tsuhi's dog wouldn't come out of the kotatsu if the house was on fire."

And so, poor Rinley, poor tragic wounded lonely princess Rinley, has to waste away the days with only forty cats to keep her company.

And.

That's.

Terrible.

They make sure to let their tragic heartbreak show in their dramatic swoon into Naomi's arms, hand to their forehead in pained lament.

[Plerumque]

Valya spared a glance for the pitiful rose garden. Such was the fate of most things in the Titov estate: Either left to rot by apathy, or murdered by spite. The whole place was falling apart. And yet, Valya felt like she'd live here forever. Her one attempt to escape hadn't exactly gone well. Now she just went on brief outings, like this one. She floated above the morning snow, leaving no footprints. Soon she would be amidst Fortitude's inhabitants. But for the moment, it was just her and Isabella.

"So, have you been keeping busy?"

Translation: 'What horrendous nightmares have you been poking with a stick?'

"Not very," says Isabella, carefully skirting a puddle. "Soramir keeps trying to short-sheet my bed, so I decided not to sleep for a while, to show him. So there's been lots of time. I've been thinking of taking up drawing again, but last time I tried that Father said I mustn't or it would endanger the souls of all who looked upon it. Oh look!" She brightens. "A chipmunk!"

[Anyr]

"Giving up sleep? Let me know how that turns out..."

If only it were that simple. Even vampires needed sleep. Valya's thoughts strayed to last night's dream. She had a feeling she'd forgotten something important. She almost managed to grasp a trace of it: When Isabella suddenly cried out. Chipmunk? Valya sought out the indicated animal. She didn't get many chances to see such things. They tended to flee at the first sight of her. Such was the eternal curse of undea-(etc etc etc. We all now the internal monologue by now.)

[Raz_Fox]

"None! They've all gone!" said Rinley. It's freezing, misty and miserable today where the air is sub zero and even a million blankets won't entirely keep the chill out. They sneeze. They're not just thinking that because they maybe caught a cold from their dumb vampire-snowman stunt yesterday and/or the soul drain event. No, Rinley is perfect, it is the world that is wrong. "All the birds have flown away and the foxes are all hibernating and the fish are under the ice and Mr. Tsuhi's dog wouldn't come out of the kotatsu if the house was on fire."

...

They make sure to let their tragic heartbreak show in their dramatic swoon into Naomi's arms, hand to their forehead in pained lament.

Naomi is solid and dependable, with both feet on the ground. Naomi couldn't be moved if you had a crowbar. She's solid, in the same way that the roof over your head at night is solid; so dependable you don't even need to think about it. The roof will always be there; Naomi will always catch someone who throws themselves into her arms. The only problem with this, specifically, is that it's Rinley who's taking the dive into her arms here.

So Naomi freezes up, letting Rinley sprawl on her outstretched arms like a cat on a radiator. This isn't what she's Supposed To Do, she's aware, faintly, but dropping Rinley is unthinkable and pulling them closer is double unthinkable, and walking while dragging Rinley's feet on the ground is just asking for the two of them to go teapot over kettle, and that's much too irresponsible for her to do. So she petrifies, becomes stone, and lets Rinley's butt sag between her arms.

"I wasn't talking about now, you..." She blanks on a proper insult. Everything is either too serious or too silly. "You Rinley!" There, that's perfect. Absolutely. "It's just that when the animals are out, we actually experience them outside of, like, zoos and television and things of that sort. We know them, instead of knowing about them." Keep talking. Don't look at Rinley wiggling in your arms. That's the trick.

[Thanqol]

Naomi is solid and dependable, with both feet on the ground. Naomi couldn't be moved if you had a crowbar. She's solid, in the same way that the roof over your head at night is solid; so dependable you don't even need to think about it. The roof will always be there; Naomi will always catch someone who throws themselves into her arms. The only problem with this, specifically, is that it's Rinley who's taking the dive into her arms here.

So Naomi freezes up, letting Rinley sprawl on her outstretched arms like a cat on a radiator. This isn't what she's Supposed To Do, she's aware, faintly, but dropping Rinley is unthinkable and pulling them closer is double unthinkable, and walking while dragging Rinley's feet on the ground is just asking for the two of them to go teapot over kettle, and that's much too irresponsible for her to do. So she petrifies, becomes stone, and lets Rinley's butt sag between her arms.

"I wasn't talking about now, you..." She blanks on a proper insult. Everything is either too serious or too silly. "You Rinley!" There, that's perfect. Absolutely. "It's just that when the animals are out, we actually experience them outside of, like, zoos and television and things of that sort. We know them, instead of knowing about them." Keep talking. Don't look at Rinley wiggling in your arms. That's the trick.

Rinley gives a long, meaningful glance at the end of the street, then a long, meaningful stare directly into Naomi's eyes. They are entirely failing to get across their desire to be carried about like a princess - I mean, it's not like Naomi couldn't manage it easily, just check out these muscles. Rinley squeezes one of Naomi's triceps idly while she's talking, impressed with the solidity. These are ladder-climbing arms. Their eyes flick back up to Naomi, a hopeful smile on their face, again communicating entirely improper data. It goes nowhere. Naomi is staring fixedly at the middle distance and talking in her exposition voice. Rinley sighs and goes boneless and it's like holding onto a relaxed cat, as liquid as water, trying to get comfortable but failing and slow-motion sliding through Naomi's fingers onto the snow.

"They know the rats at least?" said Rinley. "Cities are full of rats! Speaking of, Fortitude rats hang out on the rooftops, don't they?" Rinley gasps. "Oh! What if the sound you heard in your dream was rats!" Rinley is up in their most predatory aspect: that of a cat that has spotted another cat's tail dangling unsecured from a windowsill. "I mean, who else is up there these days? Let's catch some rats and interrogate them!" Rinley has spotted a ladder and is heading towards it like the bad guy in a ladder safety training video.

[Raz_Fox]

There are all kinds of things that Naomi should say here! She should explain, calmly, that the rats have their own very specific roof-calls and greetings, and she knows what the rats of Fortitude sound like, being one of their friends, and actually, she should ask them for help, she's just been avoiding bringing the subject up at all, when Rinley bounds and is away!

"I! Abwuh! Rinley!" Naomi's reflexes are too slow to send her directly into catch the Rinley mode, and so by the time she gets to the ladder, Rinley's already taking the rungs by bounds, which means that the only thing for her to do is to follow. Once on the roof, Rinley will find... well, a lot of tiles. And pristine gutters. Maybe even a tiny rat-sized signpost, or some token of their presence, and, most importantly?

A way for a rat, or for a Rinley confident in her ability to jump, to go from one roof to the next, and then to the next, and past that... well, that's where roofs start getting a little strange.