T - Xenon, Nako, Harps, Vyn

[carcinoGeneticist]

As things turned out, Sophie didn't get to discover what had her friend in such a panicked state. One minute, they were walking outside, towards those strange machines that they'd initially spied with the Mayor, with her Mother, with the Duck, and with Michael. Things had been strange, but nothing seemed too terribly out of the ordinary.

Until the scenery had changed, suddenly, and they were standing instead on a hill overlooking the inn they'd stayed at.

Sophie let out a quiet little gasp of shock, her eyes going wide and round at the sight. What had -- something must have -- Suits, what?! They'd had to travel to reach the Mayor's house, there was no way they could have just ended up back here without some serious planning on their part.

The girl wanted to panic. She wanted to scream. But she could see well that Lyr was already working on that side of things, and she needed someone stable. Someone to take charge. So she bumped her side against the Canine's, staying there, hoping her bulk would be reassuring. "Don't panic, Lyr," she said softly, hoping her voice sounded strong. "We'll - we'll go see if anyone at the Inn can help us get back to the Mayor's office. Maybe the drilling opened a magic portal?"

It didn't seem likely, but. The people disappeared into the building, and Sophie started down the hill, glancing back to make sure Lyr was following. She stepped into the Inn, planning to go and talk to the person at the desk, but they were no longer there. Her feathers stood on end, and she looked around. "Hello? Is anyone here?"

~~~

On the top floor, Jordan paused and glanced back, ears twitching. "Ey, did any'a you hear dat? Sounds like someone's here...[/b]"

[Harpsdesire]

Kendra had made her way to a room that looked, from the outside, promisingly large, and was methodically trying the keys one by one in the lock. She wouldn't be surprised if none of the keys actually opened the door-- some seemed to be too large or too little to even bother trying, as if they didn't belong to any of the hotel rooms at all! She sorted these out and set them aside, working with deliberate care and concentration.

If they were going to have to try every key in a door, it might as well be the door to the best room. To her knowledge, she had never stayed in a hotel before. In fact, she still couldn't recall doing anything before, yet she still knew things like 'keys unlock doors' and 'the square root of 49 is 7'. She recognized the realms of the cards around her. She understood speech. She knew her name, that she had once had a family, that she hated her temper and loved books and that the little glasses she wore were for nearsightedness.

Kendra even knew that her condition was called retrograde amnesia with declarative memory impairment, but this knowledge did nothing to help her. She shoved the next key into the lock with unnecessary force as tears of helpless anger sprang up to sting her eyes. Stupid memory. She was broken, and even though she could name her condition, she didn't know how she knew what it was, or how to fix it. This was terribly unfair, and she couldn't do anything about it. She HATED it! Kendra tossed the current key, another reject, to the floor in frustration. Even the keys were against her!

It was a good thing Jordan's voice distracted her before the girl had time to devolve into a full-blown temper tantrum. Come to think of it, she did hear something... She scrubbed at her eyes with a paw and took a moment to collect herself. "Sounds like voices. Should we go see who it is? Maybe the rest of the staff are back."

[Nathalia]

((An odd feeling suddenly seems to run through the entire Inn...a feeling that something is unbearably wrong...

The heavy painful smell of ink and oil begins to invade the senses.
A door to the left of Kendra suddenly bangs open, and someone sticks their head out.
"What in the name of er'ythin' is goin' out dere!?"



A long neck pokes around the door, soon followed by the rest of the Quizzical woman.
A Benyan.
And she looks and sounds almost exactly like Jordan!
The Biped pulls back in mild shock, staring at the other Benyan near her.
"I- Wut th'? Who...who're you, now?"))


~Nathalia

[Nako]

Brandy had been about to ascend the stairs when the two girls came into existence. How.. strange! And darling as well, little Yarrow mixes. The canine even looked quite familiar. There was a moment of panic when he realized he wasn't in his usual highly feminine garb… but then again most people wouldn't notice anyways. After all, the necessities were covered and indeed looked beautiful regardless. Besides… who would the girl tell if she found out he was a man, anyways? Still… Yarrows of any age or mix made him nervous when he wasn't completely in disguise.

He gave a jump and a quiet 'peep' of surprise when a woman -burst- into the room. Jordan? No… that wasn't Jordan at all! Jordan was -right- next to him! He took a step back from the two, looking from one to the other.

"My goodness…. are you two related?"

[Vyn]

Kaden could see Kendra was getting rather agitated at the amount of failed keys that fell from her hands. With the sheer number of them it was only logical that so many wouldn't work but he certainly shared her frustration, Kaden had no patience for such tediousness. Just as he was about to offer picking the lock for her, a new set of voices entered the hotel.

He blinked in surprise, attempting to duck out of view of the stairs with their little rabbit prize... only for the door directly in front of him to bang open. He let out a shocked squawk and his wings flared but there was really no hiding the rabbit clutched in his talons. It wasn't until the pounding in his chest subsided a little that he finally realized she also looked a great deal like Jordan. ...Huh.

The new voices momentarily forgotten in favor of the problem staring him in the face. He flashed a cheerful smile, slipping into his usual calm confidence. "We were trying to get a room when this woman gave us a handful of keys and just left. No explanation." He frowned and shook his head. "We've been trying to put one to good use, since there seems to be no one on staff... Know what's going on?" He casually avoided mentioning or even acknowledging that fact that he was currently holding a mythical beast, hoping that it might be invisible to her by the sheer power of his nonchalant-ness.

It worked. Sometimes. Though he usually wasn't trying to hide a rabbit.

[Harpsdesire]

And there she turned at the sound of another Jordon's voice! "Oh, hello." She said to the biped, looking from one Benyan to the other. How curious! In a moment of unreality she wondered if there was bipedal Kendra in one of these rooms, just waiting for her to find the right key...

Kaden stood there holding the rabbit (who had her front paws crossed over her chest and was glaring at anyone who's eye she could catch), and acting as if this whole situation was somehow normal. She did her best to follow suit, holding up some of the keys and smiling as naturally as she could. "Wierd, huh?"

The girl's attention was momentarily caught by the voices downstairs. Raising a eyebrow she went towards the stairs to see who it was. The newcomes sounded female, or maybe young. It could be that they worked for the inn, they might even be able to explain what they deal was with all these keys.

As in cooperation with Kaden, Alicia stayed still in his arms, even her look of irritation easing somewhat as she tried to remain inconspicuous. She hunkered down a little, making herself smaller and flattening her long ears against her back. If Kaden was paying attention, he might notice how fast the bunny's heart was fluttering under her snowy highland coat.

[Bee]

Lyr stuck so close to Sophie that she gently bumped into her as they made their way in, toddling off a bit apologetically and then immediately and senselessly gravitating back. Her nearness was reassuring, her presence something stable and familiar and welcoming. She was willing herself to be calm. They were just the victims of more weird magic, like Sophie suggested. No one wanted her dead dead dead. There was going to be someone in here and they were going to get back and everything was going to be all right. But if that were the case, why was a terrible sense of foreboding awfulness weaving itself in with her own worry? Why was there no staff at the inn?

Lyr bit down on her lip and worried it with her teeth. Calm, she was very calm, no one wanted her dead (except that they did), this was her calm face, her thinking face. She was not hyperventilating. This was no time for a meltdown. She could ascertain the creaking bulk of people, the voices--upstairs?

She tugged at Sophie to follow her over. "I think the people we saw went up," she said. She looked up and caught--something black and electric pink. The people. People who might be able to help. She tripped awkwardly on her words, calling up: "Pardon--pardon me, um, hello, do you--do you happen to know what's going on?"

[carcinoGeneticist]

There was something going on with the Corvie child, and Jordan felt a small twinge of sympathy. Poor thing had something she was having trouble working through, and with everything else going on, why wouldn't she? This whole situation was just weird.

Jordan had opened her mouth to speak when a nearby door suddenly flew open, and a bipedal Benyan stepped out. The woman's eyes widened suddenly as she looked the other figure over. For all the worlds, it was like she was staring into some kind of -- of funhouse mirror, one that chopped off your wings and made you a biped! Then sense returned to her and she gave herself a little shake to clear her mind. Her family had all looked quite similar, truth be told, so perhaps she was some kind of kin?

"Jordan Pike,[/b]" she said quickly, trying not to sound too eager. If this woman was family, then perhaps... No, this wasn't the time to be thinking about business beyond what she'd already come to do. "And if I could tell ya what's goin' on, I would be happy to. Dere's not a soul here oder dan you, far as we can tell.[/b]"

The contact with Lyr was not exactly unwelcome, in the hybrid's mind. It helped remind her of what she was doing here, what she needed to be. Stable, for herself and for her friend and for her Mother. She was an embassy of her Suit, in a way that probably only made sense to herself. This place had been strangely quiet when they'd stayed the night before, but it hadn't been anything like this. The girl flared her feathers subconsciously, trying to shake the heebie-jeebies that she was feeling.

At Lyr's bidding, Sophie also looked up, and blinked. There were indeed people standing up above, talking in voices that barely made their way down below about something important. Her companion was the first one to speak, and so Sophie simply added her voice to the polite requests.

"We need to get back to the Mayor's house," she said plainly, eyes hopeful as she stared up above. "My Mother is there. She'll be worried." There was no reason to bring up space-bending portals, or any of that, because things were weird enough without that, and these new people didn't need to think that she was on drugs.

[Harpsdesire]

The movement and voices in the lobby below had been childen, a pair of little girls. One of them had a strange tree mutation, but even so they looked harmless. In fact, they looked fairly frightened. Kendra tried to smile in a welcoming way as she called down the stairs in answer to Lyr's question. "Not... really." She admitted, "It's like all the people who work here are gone, and we only just showed up."

She was reasonably sure that Kaden wouldn't want even more people seeing his rabbit, so she went partway down the steps to talk to the pair of children. "Well, I'm not really sure where the mayor lives. I'm not from around here. But, hmm..." She ran a paw through her silken mane, thinking. "Maybe we can go there later, or find a high-enough ranked club that can get in touch with her."

What options did they have at this point, really? Kendra went the rest of the way down the steps to the girls, sweeping the main room with her eyes. Where had that mouse from earlier gotten to? She wandered over to look around the ink-stained desk for any clues. Maybe if something was going on in the inn, the messy desk clerk would have left a note or something.

Upstairs, Alicia was getting very frustrated with Kaden's tight hold and they way everyone seemed to be largely ignoring her. In fact, it was almost as if she was invisible to these people. Dreadful cards, ugh. She made a small, irate sound and glared up at Kaden with as much venom as a small adorable bunny rabbit could muster. It was clear from her expression that she disapproved.

[Nathalia]

The woman gave her "twin" one hell of an odd look, tilting her head to the side and then pulling back after the woman spoke, a lop-sided grin on her face.
"Whew, fer a second dere, t'ought yeh might start speakin' in my voice too..granted, s' similar, yeh, but not de same, like."
An awful lot of information then seemed to overwhelm her.
Shaking her head and holding up her hands, she grins a little more easily.
"Ah, nah. Ain't seen nothin' weird. Me 'n m'little pallie got in 'ere late last night. T'were a little empty down dere, but we gots ourselves a nice set-up in 'ere and been hangin' o-"
She had been addressing the odd Bird and as she spoke, her eyes fell to what was clutched in his talons.
She had thought it was an Ace.
That was...a weird little critter.
"What...what is dat you got dere, sir?"
She asked, confused and opening the door wider.
"Name's Suvius, by de way, Jordan. I know a few Pikes, s'a good name. I'm one'a de Lampoons, o'er on de West side, ye ken?"

More voices from down the stairwell made Suvius slit her eyes warily.
"Ow many of yeh are dere an' waht'cha want? Me 'n m'little pallie were tryin' t' hide out 'ere from the monsters what been runnin' around. They don't seem t'like it 'ere, see? Ain't you seen 'em yet?"
She shifted a little as a small face peered its way around the door by her waist.
"Oh. Dis 'ere's m'little pallie; 'er name's Ululani. We're business partners, ain't we m'gel?"


~Nathalia