What an Awful Surpise! [Finished]

[Lucca]

Eldy sighed in exasperation. Nothing about this was going to be easy. Her whiskers twitched as she snorted at Falks' question. "Got me. That's exactly what I've been wondering since the start of that...-thing- our sister calls a relationship." And now she was bombarded with -more- questions from the peanut gallery. Hoo boy. She turned to the bat, craning her neck upward to see him at the window. "I'm sure I don't know why -anyone- would want that creep close to them, my sister or Heilyn's weapon or any of those stupid servants. And the smell around Apocalypse is...different from sweating, though both are natural. Cards from that region--the Bog--just have these gross oils in their fur that always smell bad no matter how many showers they take."

It was exhausting, all this endless explaining. She had no idea how her mother had done this, and if she could help it, she was -never- going to have any kids! She shook her head, slumping to the floor a bit. "I don't know, I have no idea how long before Mom comes back or if I'm supposed to be watching you or..." She shook her head, throwing the little bat a hard look. It was clear as the little leaf nose on his face that he didn't like the idea of her baby-sitting them. Well, tough cookies.

"Who's Alex?" she asked suspiciously. "Well, whoever it is, he's obviously not here now, so for the moment, I am the one in charge here until a responsible adult tells me otherwise. Or our Mom." She eyed him coolly. Yes, definitely never having kids. Sheesh.

[Kari Muffin]

Benedict snorted at his brother's comeback. Clever. He remained silent as his brother and than sister began to rant. If he had proper eyes he would have rolled them quite a few times in the duration of the conversation.

Did Xiven's love life really matter? Why did everyone seem to care when she already made her choice? It wasn't like she was going to magically "see the light" and throw Pale out a window or anything.

Falks on half listened to his siblings as he looked at them. He was back to thinking about what had happened to Mom. Was she really okay? Was Pale really plotting her murder while kissing Miss Heilyn's weapon in the gardens...?

Ben provided the answer to Eldy's question before anyone else could. "He's our Ace. Dad bought him for Vaska really because he doesn't like to be alone."

[carcinoGeneticist]

Being up here, far away from everyone else, was getting a little irritating, even if Vaska did get some satisfaction out of watching Eldy crane her head back so far so that she could look at him. He shuffled his wings, folding them tightly around his body, and stared evenly at her. Then he didn't blink. She was answering them all as best she could, and for a second, the little bat actually felt badly about it. Not really, though, especially when he was only half-able to listen to her.

The other half of his brain was just too full of other information. Conspiracy theories, panic attacks, blind spite, all of it seemed more important than - oh, say - genuine information that could help him understand other people.

"Oh, okay." He replied, swinging up and clutching the curtains in his little claws and holding on tightly. Then he flipped himself over, reaching a foot out and grasping it tightly. He paused in his gymnastics to pose another question to the woman. "...Wait, but Miss Heilyn doesn't stink. She's a Boggie, too." Or was she? This raised a whole new set of questions. Rhiannon hadn't stunk either, had she? This was making his head hurt as he tried to take it all in... So it was much easier if he just focused on the matter of his pet Ace.

Alex was simple. That was part of why Vaska loved the creature ever so much.

"Yeah. Yeah, Alex is the best. He's on the roof right now." The bat swung down, wing over foot, until he was at eye-level to his half-sister. His red eyes looked almost hopeful when he looked at her. "I put him up there when we were outside. Maybe you can go with us and we can get him?"

[Lucca]

Eldy barely refrained from groaning in exasperation. Of course he had to bring up the counter argument. Which she did know the answer for, but it would take yet more explaining. She wondered if it was even worth it, but then, she had offered to help her Mom out with these kids while they were still irritating little parasites inside Peaches. Besides, Vaska seemed to actually be listening...as much as he ever did. So she swallowed her annoyance. "Heilyn had her fur magically altered to no longer produce the oils," she said, remembering the story clearly. It had been all the talk of the servants when it had first happened.

"Ah." A pet Ace. Well that made sense. She relaxed slightly, wondering if this Ace would be like Fluffy. She liked Fluffy, though she hadn't seen very much of her, especially not recently. She was Xiven's Ace, not hers, after all. It was a bit startling, to say the least, to suddenly look up and find Vaska right on her level when he had just been up clawing the curtains.

Sighing in defeat, she actually managed a small smile. "All right, we'll go find Alex. Why exactly did you leave him on the roof?" Or maybe that was a silly question. Why did Vaska do anything, after all? She could only hope he had access to water up there or something.

[Kari Muffin]

Falks snapped out of his string of nonsensical thoughts when he heard the phrase "on the roof." His eyes widened as his head swiveled around to look at Eldy and Vaska. "Mommy said she didn't like it when you left Alex there. If she finds out she's going to be really angry again." He stated with a rather pitiful expression on his face.

Benedict snorted, honestly. Falks always seemed a few pages back when he had to be sociable. Either way he peered over his brother's shoulder to look at the bat and the cat who were across the room. "Thanks for being the responsible adult on this field trip, Sis," he commented with a cheerful tone.

Falks was more than ready to be led to whichever path they were taking. Though... maybe he could go and try to find Mommy before it got dark? But she did always come to their room before dark to put on the night light. Unless she was away... maybe she went away with that Hatter person she talked about? What if he stole her away? The boy made an alarmed sound before Benedict nudged him to focus.

[carcinoGeneticist]

Oh. Oh. Well, that answered his question. At least a little bit. What bothered the little Bat now was the tone of voice his supposed half-sister had used to answer him, and he puffed his furry little chest up in indignation, his eyebrows furrowing slightly as he advanced on the cat. Then he reared up on his haunches, staring her right in the eye. It made him look a little bit cross-eyed, something he was blissfully unaware of. He was going to let it slide. He was going to just stare her down a little and then carry on, hopefully to gather Alex and then play with him rather than worry about his stupid brother and stupider half-sister.

But the torment wasn't done. His ears flipped back and pinned themselves against his neck. Was she questioning him?! No, not really, but between her and Falks informing Eldy that he'd done something Mom had told him not to do, Vaska was starting to feel attacked. At least a little bit. Enough that it was making his head spin in that unhappy way that it sometimes did.

Great. This was just great. Now EVERYONE would know he'd done something bad, and then Eldy would go and tell mom, and she'd threaten to take Alex away for a little while or send him to bed without any dessert or not let Daddy give him an extra airplane ride on his shoulders. First, the little bat sniffled miserably. Then he rounded on the cat, his shoulders hunched almost angrily, all of his stringy fur sticking out at awkward angles. His little nostrils flared.

He reached out a wing, poking her right in the chest with his wing-claw. "Now - Now you listen here, missie," he started, then sucked in another deep breath, struggling to keep his voice from cracking nervously. It did anyway. "Alex is on the roof because he wants to be on the roof. Just because he's an Ace doesn't mean he can't be on the roof! I'm.. I'm responsivble! Now, are you going to help or not?!" His moment of glory faded, Vaska panted to try and catch his breath immediately following his little outburst.

Never mind the fact that Eldy hadn't said a word to indicate that she wasn't going to help. The little bat's head wasn't exactly on all the way straight.

[Lucca]

Eldy's ear flicked back as Vaska seemed to take her attempt to be nice and explain things to him as some sort of insult, at least that's what she gathered by the spastic way he was staring at her, glaring so hard it made him cross-eyed. Ooookaaay. Fine. Then she wouldn't try to answer any more tiresome questions. No skin off her nose if the little runt wanted to go around clinging to his own paranoid ignorance. It was, after all, their Mom's job to teach him crap.

She turned to Ben and smiled at the skull, more than ever glad for the dose of sanity. "Heh, well, someone's gotta be, you know? Thanks for being the voice of sanity and..." The Cat trailed off as she felt a sharp stab in her chest, and turned in time to see Vaska...lecturing her. Now this was just reaching levels of weirdness she didn't even want to deal with. What had she ever done in her life to deserve this?

She had to close her eyes for a moment and take a deep breath until the desire to bite the little runt's head off (metaphorically of course) went away and she could speak calmly, because she knew that flying off the handle would only escalate the situation. Finally, her ear raised back up to a more neutral position and she regarded Vaska with an almost sympathetic look.

"Vaska," she said firmly, but in an even tone, "I'll help you get him down. Okay? Now if you would please lead the way to where you left him, we'll collect your Ace and have no more arguments." Please let that get through to him...

[Kari Muffin]

Honest to the suits, why was he the only sane one? Benedict scoffed as he watched his brother be utterly ridiculous. If Benedict didn't know any better he would have suspected that their mother had dropped him on his head when he was younger.

Actually that would have been better, he was sure, than this.

Falks's ears pressed against his skull as he edged backwards a bit. Vaska was scary when he was angry. In reality Falks had heard none of the words, and had simply anticipated the rage. He cowered and stumbled into a corner waiting for things to blow over before he followed anyone anywhere.

Benedict made a frustrated noise but beyond that remained silent. He highly doubted that Alex was there on his own free will. Vaska had a tendency to take things out of context when it came to everything. But fine. He'd be quite and let the adult handle the situation.

[Nathalia]

For reaching 101 posts, you all receive the following prize!

Shivering Worm: This tiny, fuzzy, green worm is locked into a small glass case the size of a Human's palm. It shivers constantly and mewls softly in the night. What does it do...?

~Nathalia

[carcinoGeneticist]

((Sorry for the delay @_@))

Voice of sanity? More like the voice of super-boring people, but Vaska wasn't about to say that out loud. He could sometimes tell when his observations weren't going to be appreciated, and now was one of them. But oh, did it make him mad! He knew what Alex wanted, he took really good care of the Ace, even Daddy had said so...

But what if he was wrong? The little bat was standing at the very top of a very slippery slope, and he could see all the way down from there. It was steep and covered in rocks and there was mud at the bottom, but most of the slopes that filled Vaska's mind were similar, and the idea that he could just smoothly glide to the bottom never occurred to him. All he could think about was the idea that maybe he wasn't caring for Alex properly, and that would mean that Mommy or Daddy was going to take him away. Things would go back to the way they had been before, with Vaska all alone sometimes, with no one to fly with him.

Maybe they would sell him to an Ace farm. Maybe his coat would end up on someone's head, as a feathery hat. Vaska's heartbeat quickened. To his family, they'd just see him go somewhat slack-jawed and stare blankly ahead, but inside, panic was running its course. He twitched visibly. Then he gave Eldy a curt little nod, spinning on his heel to lead the way to where he'd kept Alex. Up the stairs, down a hall, up some more stairs, through a weird little passageway the servants used, up more stairs... And then he paused outside a door, a wing pressed against it.

He looked back at his half-sister, mouth dry from his panic attack. "Promise you won't tell anyone, okay? No one at all."