Experimentation [FINISHED]

[seraaches]

Movement and clean night air did wot his internal efforts could not; the horse's head was slowly clearing of the drunken fog. Slowly. He gave it a small shake and it retaliated with a sharp, warning jab that it would -not- be happy later. He needed water; a lot of water and perhaps some bread, to help stave off the hangover he was currently not only destined for but heading towards full tilt.

Green ears swept backwards in unease as he realized just wot sort of establishment they had arrived at. "As.... lovely as your company has been," he began cautiously, testing the words uneasily as he spoke them. "I think, perhaps, this isn't the right direction for our....relationship." If that was the correct word for wot had sprung up between them, he would consider killing himself. Why was he going along with this dog anyway? He was a great deal more cognizant now, but his head still felt muddled.

[Dark]

Left to her own devices, Minh felt a bit adrift as she watched the last of the brawlers settle into inebriated slumps, some of them left to be hauled out bodily by the bouncers while others had more sober (and conscious) friends to peel them off the floor and support their swaggering bodies out the door towards what Minh could only assume was home.

The tables and chairs that had been upturned during the fight were slowly being righted, and one of the waiters had grabbed a broom to sweep up what he could of the broken glass. Only one of the chairs had suffered any serious damage, and in between drunks one of the bouncers took it outside.

After a moment spent hesitantly suspended in the dark shadow of her booth, Minh moved out to help clean up. It was the least she could do—she was pretty sure that the black eye the bouncer was sporting had been her fault.

Opps?

[Bee]

Mnem turned to him sharply. A few of them had second thoughts, and it was usually a sign that they were beginning to sober up. But Mnem was not really worrying. They had arrived at their destination, and soon they would have a lovely room and lots of lovely, lovely wine. Not that she wasn't confident her natural charm couldn't do the job, but the novelty of challenge was beginning to wear off and she really just wanted to...get down to business, as it were.

"Darling," she said, merrily, "I don't know what I may or may not have lead you to believe, but we don't have a relationship, and this a perfectly acceptable direction in which to travel. Now," she continued, gesturing to the front desk, "I happen to be in the mood for a good time, and I would have thought that you were as well." She let her expression slip into something resembling dejection. "I would be terribly disappointed if you were to do something so ungentleman-like and cowardly as to leave me standing here on my own."

[seraaches]

Not having a relationship with the canine appeased that portion of the stallion’s brain. Her dejection didn’t phase him but an insult to his honour was unacceptable. His ears flattened and he moved resolutely to the desk. He engaged a room from the clerk, who seemed not in the least bit phased when the horse forgot wot he was saying in the middle of a sentence. Nevertheless, he carefully accepted the key and returned to the Yarrow Gardens resident’s side. His gaze turned uneasy again and he skitted slightly sideways.

Again the feeling of foreboding flowed through him, trying to fight through the drugged slowness of the alcohol in his system. He couldn’t quite seem to grasp wot it was bothering him, however. He was hardly some virgin, and this was hardly the first time he’d been a love hotel, for lack of a better term. Why was he so leery of this canine?

[Bee]

Pleased that her plan had worked so wonderfully, Mnem trotted after the stallion, humming pleasantly to herself, and when they reached their room she ordered the wine and set about enjoying herself.

Sometime after, when she had a moment to herself, Mnem set about contacting Minh. The deal, after all, had been to have her own fun with their--well, victim was a more or less appropriate term, she thought--victim and then hand him off to Minh. The feline was still at the bar, apparently doing something that was actually constructive, but she seemed more than willing to give that up when Mnem told her that soon she would have someone to experiment on.

Unfortunately, now the plan seemed to involve dragging a mostly-unconcious stallion--whose name Mnem still did know, and it was really beginning to irritate her--to Minh's lair.

Oh well. She could get a drunken stallion to a bar, she could get a hung-over stallion to a lair.

She tapped him on the side of the face, gently. "Dear, we're going on a bit of a field trip."

[seraaches]

Shinrai’s eyes rolled open and he blinked blearily at the canine, before automatically tossing his head forward to fight his way to his feet. Further physical exertion tempered exceedingly generously with Mnem’s further judicious use of alcohol, had taken most of the spirit and free thought out of the equine. At this point he was really just reacting, not thinking.

Not entirely certain wot was going on, Rai finally managed to get to the tops of his hooves, giving a small head shake as he tried to realign his brain with his body. It wasn’t working, however; he was still flying fairly free of his legs, and his head dropped slightly as the first hint of sickness swept through him. He wouldn’t throw up, or couldn’t throw up, and he swayed slightly waiting for the feeling to pass.

After just a few moments, however, he seemed to forget he didn’t feel well, and waited for the canine— hadn’t she been drinking too— to lead the way onward. It didn’t seem right, somehow, that she seemed so much more aware than he, but Rai also wasn’t entirely certain he was thinking.

[Bee]

Mnem took a moment to silently beseech the powers of the universe to not let the stallion vomit. Mnem could handle many disgusting substances with ease, but vomit was not one of them. It always made her so violently ill that she wanted to throw up, but she wouldn't, so she would walk around for hours feeling sick because she couldn't stand the thought of just puking and having done with it.

That was not the direction she wanted this night to take.

So. She pushed the stallion along, checking out of the hotel--and she finally caught a glimpse of his name, then, Shinrai, and it was somehow disappointing but she figured that after the wait she had, anything was going to be disappointing--and then leading them both into the chill night air. It was miserably late. Mnem hoped they wouldn't be accosted by any--ruffians. She wasn't in the mood for another brawl. And having to beat someone would harsh her mellow. So to speak.

It took her longer than she expected to lead Shinrai to Minh's apartment, but she was quite sure Minh would not mind. Not so long as she had someone to...work on. Mnem was not sure exactly what Minh was going to do to him, and she did not particularly care.

And--they arrived. Holding on to the stallion with one paw, Mnem lifted the other to give the door a solid knock.

[Dark]

“Knocking, knocking: knocking at my door,” Minh hummed as she burrowed her way through the stacks of books that had grown around her since she’d gotten home from the bar, weaving around the various end tables and chairs that littered the apartment. She was feeling much more alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic since the bar fight, and her mind was brimming with ideas that would probably be considered mad genius—her graph pad was filled with half-worked chemical equations and half-baked theories.

She got distracted momentarily by a live Bunsen burner with some sort of bubbling blue guck that she didn’t remember mixing, but after a moment of contemplation she left it as it was and continued on towards the door. By the time she’d reached it she’d noticed three unfinished cups of coffee, found her missing sharpie, and thought of a plausible way to solve her power requirements.

She opened the door, “Oh! Hey, Mnem.”

[Bee]

The first thing Mnem noticed about Minh's apartment, always, was a curious smell that defied identification--she tried to classify it as acrid or sweet or smoky, something, and it seemed to be at once all and none of these things--but after a moment she just gave up. Her own home had seen its fair share of odd odors, and really, there were more important things to worry about.

"Minh," she said, by way of greeting. She softly urged the stallion forward, at the same time encouraging Minh to move out of the way so they could come in. She wanted Shinrai safely in the house and not out in the open where he might have a moment of terrified clarity and bolt. It wouldn't matter much to Mnem at this point, as she had had her fun, but she didn't want to deprive Minh of a test subject. "I have a present for you. I suggest you keep him liquored up or slip him something to make him nice and docile."

[Dark]

Joyness! Minh ushered Mnemosyne deeper into the apartment, knocking books and tables out of the way before the staggering stallion did it himself. The destination was a mostly obscure recess in the far wall that led to a flight of rickety stairs teetering up towards the attic of the building—and the location of Minh’s secret lair. She did a lot of her preliminary work down in her actual living quarters, mostly because the kettle was right there at hand when she needed coffee and also due to the fact that she was too lazy to move all her books up the stairs. She did try to keep all the sensitive items out of sight of the common eye, though, and with the exception of the occasional misplaced bander, she was fairly certain she had it decently under control.

But—yeah. Back to manically dastardly deeds.

“Up the stairs you go, Mnem-dear. Do you need a hand with him? No, no. Looks like you’ve got it. Better to get him up there before I slip him something, though.”

Minh bustled up on ahead, brushing clear her work station of yesterday’s breakfast and the little flip-comic she’d been making of a doomsday scenario. Yay, stick figures!

Lots of shuffling later, both from Minh and the stairwell (Mnem, presumably,) and everything was ready except for the final detail—putting the subject to sleep for a sufficient amount of time in which to complete the proceedings. Minh’s maniac eyes settled on a lovely rubber mallet—which she didn’t remember buying—and the problem was solved.

“Just put him on the table, and I’ll knock him out good.”