Home 27: Ward-bound

[Ironsmith]

[Underside Tunnels]

...Oh, crap.

Arthfael might be a few years behind in terms of social niceties, but he knows better than... well, that. Whether Khannie would believe him if he said it was an accident or not, that's embarrassing for both of them. And if she doesn't believe that, he's pretty sure he can look forward to getting his ear proverbially torn off later. Or maybe literally, depending on just how mad she is and how aware she is of the fact that losing an ear would just be a minor inconvenience for him.

"I'll just, um..." Arthfael points awkwardly to an unattended wall nearby, leaning up against it for support. It's not exactly comfortable, but between cold, unfeeling stone and a magical girl going through puberty, it seems like the safer of the two options.

There's a soft, warm glow where his elbow makes contact, his embarrassment manifesting as heat, but other than that, it's relatively antic-free.

Enough so that by the time mention is made about how the giant beetles came to be, he has a little room to snark.

"...Seems a bit excessive." He mutters, still not quite managing to get the usual amount of bite in.

[Rebonack]

[Underside Tunnels]

Ches didn't even notice since she was going in for a hug.

Brinika made a herculean effort not to laugh and actually pulled it off.

"You two are good friends," Khannie informs her gal pals before dropping this subject to never speak of it, directly or indirectly, ever again.

"So breeding the beetles to be bigger? And probably breeding them to be calmer around people? We learned about domestication at school and they talked about that. How people would pick animals with the traits they want and breed those to get something closer to what they're looking for."

People do it with the pokemon that can't talk, too.

Since those are just animals.

"What do beetles eat?" Maridia asks from her perch atop Pookie. Leave it to the fairy dragon to ask about food. She's definitely sniffing around trying to ascertain if there's anything edible nearby.

[Earl of Purple]

Underside Tunnels

"What?" Cheasadh turns to look back at Khannie and Arthfael, seeing him now leaning against a wall, Khannie blushing and Brinika still struggling with laughter. "...I missed something, didn't I?" It was probably awkward.

"Yeah, the beetles are cool. I didn't like them to begin with." Her biological parents' farm was mostly chickens, with a dairy cow.

Maridia smells honey. She probably can't smell much else, that close to the honey-soaked bear she's riding on or possibly stuck to.

[Morty]

[Underside Tunnels]

"Yeah, but don't worry about it." If Khannie wants to move on from the subject, she's all for it. She glances over at Arthfael instead. "When you're as small as we are, you want big creatures on your side."

"We feed them a mixture of smaller bugs, mushrooms and surface plants," Rapnuk explains. He's never been sure what to think about Khannie's tiny dragon. She's like a pet, but she can talk. "In the wild, the giant beetles will eat just about anything, as I understand it."

Maridia won't smell any food other than the honey nearby. Whether or not she'd find this paste appetizing is another question.

[Ironsmith]

[Underside Tunnels]

Fortunately for Meridia, Arthfael does have a few things on him that might be considered food. His inner jacket pocket is full of candies; all still in their wrappers, but with their sheer numbers, still giving off a decidedly sweet smell. In another pocket, he's got a Blood Orange wrapped in tin foil; his uncle had insisted he take along something substantial to eat, just in case.

It's worth noting that this is not, in fact, a blood orange, such as might be found at any mundane supermarket. It's a flesh-colored, orbular fruit, which is packed full of heavy, syrupy juice that works as an alternative to blood. It's more convenient than carrying around a live rat for whenever he needs a snack.

"I mean, yeah, I get that." Arthfael shrugs. "But there's big, and then there's... whatever that's supposed to be. Freaking huge, I guess, is my point. Seems excessive." He reiterates.

Not that he actually has a point.

He just wants to say something vaguely disagreeable.

[Rebonack]

[Underside Tunnels]

There is a not terrible chance that if Arthfael leaves his jacket unattended for any length of time the volume of candy in it will diminish.

"That sounds icky," the fairy dragon concludes.

Maridia is kind of an odd one.

She's something of a pet, certainly. And she's smart enough to talk. But in terms of her thought processes she definitely acts more like an animal than a person.

Clever enough to get into trouble, would be a pretty good way of putting it.

Speaking of getting into trouble!

"You don't always have to be contrary, Arthfael," Khannie points out. Her patience is understandably a little thin with him today. She adds a little glare just to make sure he gets the point before turning her attention back to her friends' dad. "Do you know how much they can carry? I've read bugs can carry a lot."

She's thinking ants.

But she's thinking that uncanny strength is some sort of special property of insects rather than a result of the square-cubed law.

Sadly Khannie doesn't know about the square-cubed law.

[Earl of Purple]

Underside Tunnels

Cheasadh smiles. "I'd like to feed one, but... they also scare me a little." She's sure they're gentle, but they're also intimidatingly large. And she's not sure if they're fed by hand or not.

[Morty]

[Underside Tunnels]

"I'm afraid their food is put in big vats, then they're let loose on it. It's best not to get between them and the food," Rapnuk jokes. "The feeding grounds are a bit further way from here, but I can let into the backrooms so you can take a closer look at them being loaded and unloaded." He looks over to Khannie. "About as much as you'd expect from their size. We use machines or rockamanders for larger loads. Beetles are for quick transports of uneven terrain."

"And there's wolves, but that's for riding on the surface," Brinika chimes in.

[Ironsmith]

[Underside Tunnels]

"Hang on." Arthfael begins, reading between the lines of that last bit. "You're saying you've tamed even bigger creatures for hauling around even more stuff?"

These beetles are already huge! What more could they possibly need?

Well, rockamanders, obviously.

Oh, and they ride wolves sometimes too, apparently. His uncle would probably have things to say about that.

[Murkus]

Fettina's Place


Cantata faux-giggles in return, appreciating the levity - but the nervousness in her eyes doesn't quite fade until Fettina speaks next, all of that tension and fear lifting out of her body in tandem with her betrothed's own breath. She feels that fluttery welling in her heart again as she closes her eyes and leans into Fettina, and her hands seek out the angel's own.

"It's okay," Cantata's eyes seem to speak as she simply squeezes Fettina's hands gently. All the love and relief and elation she's feeling is so easy to read that she almost feels radiant with it - and after a moment, she decides to make that answer even more clear through a shy kiss on the cheek.

Fettina's Place

Fettina blushes just a little. Funny. All the things she can laugh off, and it's a kiss on the cheek that makes her feel a little giddy.

"So, uh... wanna go watch TV?"

[Arkhosia]

Fettina's Place

Cantata smiles, a little shyly giddy herself, and simply nods. She doesn't even need to raise her hands and sign exactly what she's feeling now, all too happy to let Fettina bring her back home hand-in-hand. "Yes, I'd love to."

[Rebonack]

[Underside Tunnels]

The beetles are really big.

Rockamanders are, apparently, even bigger.

Khannie is imagining a salamander, like the little things with the funny feathery necks you find in the lake at GLoG sometimes.

Except big.

GIANT!

And maybe made of rocks?

Like an onix with legs, maybe?

"What are rockamanders like?" she asks, her curiosity engaged.

[Earl of Purple]

Underside Tunnels

"Yeah, that makes sense. I've seen their mouths, they don't look very... discriminate." Insect mouths are all weird, with lots of jaw parts to cut food smaller and move it into the throat proper. And some large beetles can't eat at all, relying purely on energy stored before they pupated into an adult from a grub; stag beetles are in this group.

She doesn't comment on the rockamanders, since she probably knows more about them than Earl does.

[Morty]

[Underside Tunnels]

"They're a bit bigger than the beetles, but much stronger and they don't get tired easily. So they can carry a lot. We've always used them for carrying things."

"They Maybe we can see them, too! They're here like the beetles. And they're really docile so we could even go near them!"

Rapnuk raises his eyebrow.

"I suppose I could persuade someone on behalf of my daughters and their friends. The rockamanders are peaceful by nature, even undomesticated. They rely on being very difficult to bring down and eat. Not that approaching them in the wild is a good idea even so."

[Ironsmith]

[Underside Tunnels]

Hm.

Large animals that might not know how to handle an abrupt change in their environment, handlers that expect them to be peaceful, and a vampire teenager with magical incontinence causing all sorts of problems around him?

What could possibly go wrong?

All the same, the girls look like they'll probably be okay to go in and see these animals. And Arthfael has to admit, they do sound sort of cool. He doesn't really want to be left out...

"Yeah, sure, sounds neat." Arthfael blurts.

Like an idiot.

[Rebonack]

[Underside Tunnels]

Insects are pretty weird, aren't they?

Some insect larva don't even poop! They just store the waste and jettison it when they metamorphose.

But all of these strange bug subjects are not known to Khannie. She just knows that these big animals seem neat.

So anyway, rockamanders.

Those sound really neat and Khannie is still running her imagination wild trying to figure what these creatures might look like.

Above those thoughts, though, one thing stands out.

"Can we pet them?"

If there's an animal you pet it. This is the way.

[Shadowcaller]

[Aetheric Assistance]

"I'm sure she can handle it." Kitsuki adds as her input. Ana's had to cope with some pretty dark stuff recently. It's not far, but she has to be strong enough to handle that. This is just an extension of that.

Aetheric Assistance

Anastasia shivers a little under Jaahlyn's gaze, her words unintentionally turning it almost accusatory in focus. But as Kitty speaks, the kitsune's expression seems to harden as the teenager gathers her courage.

"I can take it," she simply states, sincere and steadfast. She'd lived through an invasion, how much worse could a handful of nightmares be?

[Aetheric Assistance]

The satyr nods. "Then I shall visit your dreams tonight." She turns to Kitty. "Uh, which means that it would be best if I stay over the night. Just in case anything happens." A beat. "If, ah, there's room of course. I can sleep on the floor if need be." She had slept on the streets for the longest time so the floor would be a huge improvement really.

[Earl of Purple]

Underside Tunnels

"Approaching any large animal in the wild is a bad idea. Though you two at least have a smaller definition of 'large'." They're already taller than Cheasadh will ever be, most likely. Though perhaps not by much.

Earl has just realised llamas are the perfect size for gnomes to ride.

[Gullara]

[Aetheric Assistance]

The satyr nods. "Then I shall visit your dreams tonight." She turns to Kitty. "Uh, which means that it would be best if I stay over the night. Just in case anything happens." A beat. "If, ah, there's room of course. I can sleep on the floor if need be." She had slept on the streets for the longest time so the floor would be a huge improvement really.

[Aetheric Assistance]

"Oh, no, we can get the coach ready for that." Thankfully they were quick to get Ana a proper place to sleep, much to Annie's consternation given they're sharing a room. But that leaves the couch clear.

[Arkhosia]

Aetheric Assistance

- - -

Sometime later, as night falls and Anastasia finally manages to slip into a somewhat uneasy slumber, Jaahlyn will find herself within a dream world once again. This time, the setting appears to be a skate park in Riverside. The grass is green and the sun shining high in the sky lends a soothing warmth to the concrete and pavement. Crisp spring air seems all the more wonderful thanks to the wafting scents of burgers and fries coming from a nearby food truck with a handful of skaters lined up in front of it, while quite a few more have already taken to the sloping ramps and elegant half-pipes of the main skating area.

Off to the side, the goat will find Anastasia sat on the rim in her pajamas. She hasn't seen her yet and is currently watching a pair in the middle - a gold-haired boy with purple eyes, grinning and leading a red-haired girl over a slope in the area. The girl is definitely Anastasia as well, but she seems somehow a little... smaller? Less substantial, perhaps.

[Morty]

[Underside Tunnels]

Rapnuk seems to consider it for a moment.

"It might be safe with the rockamanders... like I said, they're pretty docile. We can ask their handlers once we get there."

He will turn and lead the four kids to the back of the office, predictably filled with goblins shifting mountains of paper. One of the clerks questions their presence, but Rapnuk explains quickly that it's just his daughters and their friends here to see something. After passing through a large hall full of boxes, packages and envelopes, the group will emerge into the backyard of the post office. There, they will see two giant beetles, just like before, and two creatures that must be rockamanders.

The animals indeed have a similar build to salamanders, with blunt heads, stocky legs that keep them low to the ground and tails. However, unlike the normal salamanders, their skin isn't slippery. It seems to have the rough texture of sand in the spots where it's not covered by thick, stone-like growths. They grow in a different pattern on the two rockamanders, being thickest on the back and between their legs. Both of them, however, have pointed and seemingly sharp growths on their heads, above their large, pale yellow eyes. Their tails end in thick bludgeon-like protrusions.

One of the two beetles is the one they saw pass them by earlier. Both of them appear to be resting. The rockamanders are waiting for loading, holding racks having already been mounted on their backs.

[Shadowcaller]

Aetheric Assistance

- - -

Sometime later, as night falls and Anastasia finally manages to slip into a somewhat uneasy slumber, Jaahlyn will find herself within a dream world once again. This time, the setting appears to be a skate park in Riverside. The grass is green and the sun shining high in the sky lends a soothing warmth to the concrete and pavement. Crisp spring air seems all the more wonderful thanks to the wafting scents of burgers and fries coming from a nearby food truck with a handful of skaters lined up in front of it, while quite a few more have already taken to the sloping ramps and elegant half-pipes of the main skating area.

Off to the side, the goat will find Anastasia sat on the rim in her pajamas. She hasn't seen her yet and is currently watching a pair in the middle - a gold-haired boy with purple eyes, grinning and leading a red-haired girl over a slope in the area. The girl is definitely Anastasia as well, but she seems somehow a little... smaller? Less substantial, perhaps.

Aetheric Assistance

A stable dream.

Usually things were a lot more chaotic as dreams were a constant stream of thoughts constantly bombarding the mind. If this was the result of a particularly memorable dream or the fact that Ana was also a psychopomp she couldn’t tell. One might think this dream was too generic to be memorable but appearances were deceptive.

Either way, it was time to make Ana aware of it.
She walks over and simply puts her hand on her shoulder which should make her ‘wake up’ if she wasn’t already aware. “Miss Ana?”

[Ironsmith]

[Underside Tunnels]

Insects are pretty weird, aren't they?

Some insect larva don't even poop! They just store the waste and jettison it when they metamorphose.

But all of these strange bug subjects are not known to Khannie. She just knows that these big animals seem neat.

So anyway, rockamanders.

Those sound really neat and Khannie is still running her imagination wild trying to figure what these creatures might look like.

Above those thoughts, though, one thing stands out.

"Can we pet them?"

If there's an animal you pet it. This is the way.

Underside Tunnels

"Approaching any large animal in the wild is a bad idea. Though you two at least have a smaller definition of 'large'." They're already taller than Cheasadh will ever be, most likely. Though perhaps not by much.

Earl has just realised llamas are the perfect size for gnomes to ride.

[Underside Tunnels]

Rapnuk seems to consider it for a moment.

"It might be safe with the rockamanders... like I said, they're pretty docile. We can ask their handlers once we get there."

He will turn and lead the four kids to the back of the office, predictably filled with goblins shifting mountains of paper. One of the clerks questions their presence, but Rapnuk explains quickly that it's just his daughters and their friends here to see something. After passing through a large hall full of boxes, packages and envelopes, the group will emerge into the backyard of the post office. There, they will see two giant beetles, just like before, and two creatures that must be rockamanders.

The animals indeed have a similar build to salamanders, with blunt heads, stocky legs that keep them low to the ground and tails. However, unlike the normal salamanders, their skin isn't slippery. It seems to have the rough texture of sand in the spots where it's not covered by thick, stone-like growths. They grow in a different pattern on the two rockamanders, being thickest on the back and between their legs. Both of them, however, have pointed and seemingly sharp growths on their heads, above their large, pale yellow eyes. Their tails end in thick bludgeon-like protrusions.

One of the two beetles is the one they saw pass them by earlier. Both of them appear to be resting. The rockamanders are waiting for loading, holding racks having already been mounted on their backs.

[Underside Tunnels]

Arthfael knew he should expect the lizards to be big. That was, after all, the main draw. He also knew he should expect them to have rocky skin, possibly literally, as camouflage if nothing else; that was in the name. And yet, seeing these large, rocky lizards is still a little surreal to him; previously, he could only imagine them, and now they're right in front of him, doing lizard things.

That is, he will internally admit, pretty neat.

Someone off in the caves behind them gets the idea that this is the perfect time for a brass fanfare.

[Arkhosia]

Aetheric Assistance

The teenager startles slightly and looks up towards Jaahlyn. "Oh, hi. I uh, didn't see you there." The kitsune gets up to her feet. "Um, I'm not sure how much this dream will help," she comments, looking back towards the dream. The two can see Dream!Anastasia waver and almost fall from her board, looking back to notice a few of the other skaters watching her.

[Rebonack]

[Underside Tunnels]

Khannie idly wonders if the paper the goblins use gets important from the surface or maybe they make it out of something else.

Maybe mushroom fiber?

Or...

Rocks?

Could you make paper out of rocks?

If you can that would make a pretty great trump card in rock paper scissors! Nothing beats rockpaper except maybe scissorspaper. But she's pretty sure scissors made out of paper absolutely would not work.

Anyway!

Rockamanders!

"Wow, they're huge!" Khannie says, walking around to get a good look at them from a couple different angles. "If I didn't know better I would have guessed they're pokemon."

They definitely have a sort of pokemon look to them.

"Do they feel like touching rocks? Have you ever touched one of them before? I touched a shark once. It felt really smooth one way but like sand paper the other way."

Khannie sees an animal.

That animal must be pet.

This is the way.

[Shadowcaller]

Aetheric Assistance

"Hi. You feeling alright, Ana? Since this is, as far as I can tell, your first time dream-walking I got a couple of tips for you. First of all, dreams constantly change as even the slightest thing happening to your body outside the dream can cause major impact on your dream world. The dreamer don't usually notices these changes but as we are in a awake state, and aware of the dreams nature, we can see it. We can also force a dream to remain stable as long as we keep our attention on it." Jaahlyn gestures at their surroundings. "Which I'm doing right now for instance. But if I say, started focusing on our conversation more anything I say to you can cause the dream around us to shift."

She pauses to let that little lesson sink in before she continues.

"Now, I don't think this dream is as irrelevant as you might think. Tell me, where exactly did the event occur? Since I can tell that this is Riverside." And it seemed like Ana's thoughts had taken them here rather than staying in Inside.

[Arkhosia]

Aetheric Assistance

"Hi. You feeling alright, Ana? Since this is, as far as I can tell, your first time dream-walking I got a couple of tips for you. First of all, dreams constantly change as even the slightest thing happening to your body outside the dream can cause major impact on your dream world. The dreamer don't usually notices these changes but as we are in a awake state, and aware of the dreams nature, we can see it. We can also force a dream to remain stable as long as we keep our attention on it." Jaahlyn gestures at their surroundings. "Which I'm doing right now for instance. But if I say, started focusing on our conversation more anything I say to you can cause the dream around us to shift."

She pauses to let that little lesson sink in before she continues.

"Now, I don't think this dream is as irrelevant as you might think. Tell me, where exactly did the event occur? Since I can tell that this is Riverside." And it seemed like Ana's thoughts had taken them here rather than staying in Inside.

Aetheric Assistance

"I dunno, it does feel... weird," Anastasia states rather informatively. She fidgets with the hem of her shirt. "A little like an out-of-body experience, I guess. At least, I think those probably feel like this." Main difference probably being that she clearly has not just conscience but agency, rather than simply looking helplessly at herself from above.

"Um, this looks like a skate park Eliseo took me to in Northside, I think." Looking further, the two can now see more clearly the well-off apartments overlooking the area, easy to spot across the nice trees planted to help shade and absorb noise from the area. "It's, er, close to Moth Park, I think." She shivers at the thought of the area, the sky seeming to become a little more overcast above them. The scent of fast food seems to increase as well, a copper tinge upon it.

[Earl of Purple]

Underside Tunnels

Cheasadh looks around to see where the music is coming from, before turning back to the giant stone lizards before her. Or, since they're rockamanders, they may in fact be amphibians. If so, Cheasadh would be interested to see one in the water. "They do look a bit pokemon-y, don't they? But most of the pokemon I've met have been fluffier." Although that short list includes Khannie and (obviously) Pookie, there might not be any others on it.

[Shadowcaller]

Aetheric Assistance

"I dunno, it does feel... weird," Anastasia states rather informatively. She fidgets with the hem of her shirt. "A little like an out-of-body experience, I guess. At least, I think those probably feel like this." Main difference probably being that she clearly has not just conscience but agency, rather than simply looking helplessly at herself from above.

"Um, this looks like a skate park Eliseo took me to in Northside, I think." Looking further, the two can now see more clearly the well-off apartments overlooking the area, easy to spot across the nice trees planted to help shade and absorb noise from the area. "It's, er, close to Moth Park, I think." She shivers at the thought of the area, the sky seeming to become a little more overcast above them. The scent of fast food seems to increase as well, a copper tinge upon it.

Aetheric Assistance

Jaahlyn smiles at the remark about an 'out-of-body-experience'. "I'm afraid you just have get used to that. Most fey I know think that even have a physical body is strange. As if they're not really themselves while inhabiting one. I wouldn't worry about it too much though. You get used to it at your own pace."

Then Ana mentions 'moth park' which causes Jaahlyn to stiffen as she carefully studies Ana. Finding the shiver she seems to have expected at the mention of it.

"Moth park? I know that place." Concern have crept into the satyrs voice. "Do you go by that place often? It seems to raise unease within you."

[Arkhosia]

Aetheric Assistance

"...I used to go there a lot with Eliseo. It's um, not a place I'm super comfortable talking about." Anastasia pulls her knees closer towards her chest. It's less of a protest towards discussing it and more a statement of fact - she knows Jaahlyn will probably need to probe further.

Breaching the very topic seems enough to cause the dream to waver around them. Things become blurry as the color and life seems to drain out of the skate park, the faint tinge of copper growing to smother the scent of fast food.