Little Blind Mice [Bee]

[Dark]

Something--not a paw, definitely not a paw, or a wing, or any sort of appendage she recognized--had touched her, grabbing and shaking; Raniya has having a hard time registering anything beyond this attack of her personage. She was also fairly certain someone had seriously violated her personal space, but had been afraid to reach out and confirm.

Personal space had never been much of a problem back home; people had known to leave her well alone. The new standard was--upsetting. And what was this about blood? She'd missed something in her daze; she endeavored to pay attention to what was being said.

Raniya was--unsure what to feel by the end of the introductions. Two out of five warned her off the premise; one welcomed her cheerfully; one was perfectly neutral; and the other wanted to...run tests.

"Well met," she murmured, for lack of anything else.

[Bee]

"And now that we have all these pleasantries taken care of," Mnem said, "you can all mosey right the fuck back to your rooms. No more stirring. It is officially bedtime. Especially for you," she told Thalia. "Run circles until you exhaust yourself."

She glanced at Helena and her new friend. This Raniya thing looked mildly to deeply uncomfortable, which cheered Mnem slightly. With any luck the girl would have no intention of ever coming back once she left. "You two can do whatever you please, as long as it involves leaving as soon as possible. If I'm bothered again, everyone gets cyanide biscuits for breakfast."

And with that, she turned and marched up stairs, back to her room, but not before stopping off in a storage closet to grab several new locks to affix to the door. She pushed a dresser in front of it. She grabbed her book.

[Bee]

Thalia frowned with a very deep and pervasive sense of disappointment, because she wanted nothing more than to take this new girl back and practice her tests, but apparently Mommy wanted to issue orders instead. She looked forlornly at the Torquehelm mouse, and thought for a moment that she should try to persist anyway, since Mommy had stomped off and that meant if Thalia didn't go right to bed, she would be none the wiser!

Then a new idea came. She would pretend to go along with the order, and then she would sneak out in a few hours and practice her drugging and dragging skills! Thalia may have been a small child, but she was sure she could muster up the strength to pull Raniya from her bed for science!

"Good night, siblings and Mama and new person! I am going to go to my room, where I will stay and sleep for the rest of the night."

She rushed up the stairs to begin plotting her kidnapping.

[Bee]

Iphis looked at his little sister curiously as she spoke her piece and departed. It was rather unlike Thalia to go along so easily with things when being told no--little children were such quarrelsome little things, bless them and adorable quirks--but perhaps the little girl was more tired than he thought. Mom certainly must have been, since she had been awfully terse with the girl.

"Forgive Mom, too," he told Raniya. "She can get a bit cranky when she's had too much juice. Or not enough juice. It's sort of a delicate balance. She'll be much more welcoming in the morning I think. I suppose Helena is going to show you to a room?" He probably wasn't going to get to play hostess for long tonight. Saddening, but he supposed he should let Helena tend to her new friend. "Sleep well." He glanced at Helena. "Knock in the morning and I'll come down and make everyone breakfast."

He flounced back up the stairs, toting Darla with him.

[Bee]

His family retreated as quickly as they had come down, which he thought was probably a good game plan. He was only sad that he had not been the first to go.

"I'll put locks on Thalia's door, don't worry," he said, because while Iphis was probably dense enough to take their little sister's words at face value, anyone with a speck of discernment concerning the intentions of their fellow Cards could tell that Thalia was telling lies. She wasn't even a very good liar. It was actually kind of sad, because he had the strong sense that she wasn't going to get any better at it.

And with that, he left, as well. Iphis had offered to make them all breakfast--and so had Mom, in her own charming way--but if Raniya was smart, she would be gone before the break of dawn.

[Bee]

As nice as it had been to fleetingly see her family, she was sort of glad to see them all leave. Especially as half of them had been rather disagreeable. She suddenly felt rather overwhelmingly tired. And a little disappointed. None of them had noticed that she had gotten a new form. Wasn't bipedal supposed to be a big deal? The only one to have gotten it so far was Iphis. Maybe they were all just tired and frazzled and there was so much excitement with the new person...that had to be it.

"There's an empty room next to mine," she said. "We can sleep for a little while and then head out to find that woman." She glanced up in the direction of the stairs, up which everyone had disappeared. Well, except Auntie Minh. "Night, Aunt Minh. We probably won't be here in the morning."

[Dark]

Minh nodded absently, "Night, dear," thoughts for the large part focused on dear Thalia. It had come to her attention that she and her daughter needed to work on the art of subtlety; it was all too apparent that the girl was up to no good, and that just would not do at all. Prey must not know it was hunted until it was too late, though a chase every now and then was good for the blood.

She should really go back to doing--whatever it is she had been doing beforehand...cleaning? Perhaps not--but her daughter's education was paramount. What she really needed to do was create a curriculum that would instruct her daughter in the art of subtly.

First, however, she would have to research the proper way to structure such a program. Minh wandered off in the direction of the library, completely forgetting about their guest.