T - Kari, Jenn, Lucca, Greenie

[The Jenn]

That motion was a 'no', that shake of the Avington's head. It was about to try and ask another question, testing out a new and functional voice that it had just discovered, when the bat's hideous wail made it jerk away in shock and pain. Its motion sent it into the gory remains of its mother, the realization of which sent it firmly in the other direction and to the side.

It lay panting, eyes wide, ears as far slanted as it could get them, and staring at the screaming bat in confusion and horror. Its first experience with pain. Why did the bat want to hurt it? Or was it purely because of the horrible, horrible mess, and the gore, and... yes. All of this was unsettling beyond belief.

Slowly standing once more, it moved to wobble as far away from the sound as it could get, ending up in a corner of the room nearer Ez and the window. The cool, clean air wafted past its face and it took a grateful gulp. Then it looked at the bird and shook a little.

[Kari Muffin]

The wail. He honestly should have expected it. The sparrows feathers puffed out as his hands were still clamped on the window. He took several deep breaths of the outside air, trying to remain calm. Mirriam had just witnessed something that would scar her for the rest of her life. There was another child--or well adult this time--to take care of and there was gore everywhere.

He was a King of Diamonds. He was responsible for keeping the Court in order. And there was now one less King to handle the terribly situation. Yarrast wasn't going to be any use and he couldn't exactly dump everything on his sister, could he?

He found himself being stared at by the weird dog thing that had exploded out of bird. It was a hell of a lot bigger than him too. He drooped a little as he offered the canine a towel. "Can you start cleaning yourself off? ... Your Aunt needs time to collect herself. I can help you if you want but... I'm worried that the giraffe over there is going to have a panic attack."

The giraffe let out a choked squeal at the sound of the pained wail. Her new friend was obviously in pain, and there wasn't anything she could do about it. At a time like this she didn't know what to do. She wanted to hide, but she had already been pulled out from under the bed when she tried to.

So she sat there, mildly petrified, her head still covered with a towel. "Mirriam.... are you going to be okay?"

[Lucca]

The wail went on far longer than it should have, far longer than anyone in the room probably wanted it to. It went on and on, a noise encompassing all of Mirriam's pain and sorrow. Finally, though, the little Bat ran out of breath, and coughed, and shivered, wrapping her wings around herself and panting hard. Her eyes were wide, the pupils narrowed to tiny dots, and the silence of the room in the wake of her own aborted scream was oppressive.

Into the silence came the small, non intrusive voice of the Giraffe, and Mirriam's ears twitched. She finally looked up, looking at the nameless child, and she made a choking noise, wide eyes filling with fresh tears, and shook her head. No, no she was not okay. Her guardian was dead...in the worst way possible. And he hadn't even left a child behind, he'd left...he'd left...though the choked out sobs didn't cease, and though it made her stomach tighten in an unpleasant way, she tried to search out where the strange adult who had just been born was.

He was over by the window with Ez and he looked...terrified. Mirriam felt a little bad about that. She...she had to get...under control. She took a shaky step, but slipped, and her eyes tracked over what had used to be her guardian again. Shaking, Mirriam dissolved into more helpless little sobs. Obviously, she wasn't going to be very useful like this...dimly, she just wanted to curl into a little ball and sob forever, but she had...she had a duty. To Khushrenada. To his...child.

Closing her eyes and holding her breath to try and stem the sobbing, Mirriam reached inside herself for an ability that she really hated to use. But in this case...it was needed...it took a bit for her to focus enough under the wave of pain and grief, but she finally found it, and let her breath out shakily as all the bad feelings vanished like mist burned up by the sun.

Slowly, she raised her head, her eyes now distant and remote. It might be a bit unsettling, to see such lack of emotion there. The little Bat logically made a list in her head of what had to be done. First, she crossed to her former guardian's body, feeling nothing as she closed his eyes. It was about all she could do, she reasoned, as she clinically assessed the broken body.

Jack's Ability: She is now able to, once a week, distance herself from any and all emotion and look at a situation from a purely logical standpoint for a full three hours. During this time, appealing to her better nature does you no good, she is incapable of feeling love, sadness, humiliation, fear, or guilt. She is ruthless and will act only to serve her better interests, or those of a cause she knows (logically) to be right. (For example: If she were to begin fighting a cause against her own lover and he/she came up against Mirriam. She could activate this ability and mow through them because it had to be done with brutal efficiency, no hesitation that emotion might bring.)

[Greenie]

Elodie was about to intervene with the giraffe and take the kid out of the room when all the sudden it happened again, except it was the bigger of the two Avingtons.

She stared, a mixture of horror and curiosity in her eyes - what was happening, that the same terrible event would happen to not one, but two Court nobles? And across Courts, too, so that ruled out a specific Suit conspiracy. She kept staring when something literally... crawled and expanded out of the King, and looked back in horror at what it had done.

And then Mirriam started screaming, Yarrast nearly threw up on her, and she curled her upper lip at him as she stepped back to avoid the contents of his stomach. Really, it was gross of course, but it wasn't as if they all hadn't seen the results of an accident before. It was just like getting run over by a carriage, just... more gruesome, of course.

She stared at Ez as he attempted to take charge of the situation, then went back to staring at the giraffe. Elodie didn't want to take care of the kid, she hated children and their whiny, pathetic natures, but this one at least.. didn't act like a newborn. Maybe it would be okay, even if it was a little freaky. The cat edged into the room and over to the giraffe, then poked it with her paw. "Hey, giraffe kid, come on. We're going to go to the washroom, okay? If you throw up on me, my fur and I will never forgive you, so don't even think about it." She said, her words harsh, but her tone as calming as she could reasonably manage, considering she wanted to just snark at all the stupidity.

She left the room, keeping an eye on the giraffe to make sure the creature was following her.

[The Jenn]

The bird was speaking to it? Yes, clearly addressing it. Clean itself off? It... knew how to do that. It knew to find a bathroom and to take a bath. It didn't know where a bathroom was, or what one really looked like.

It knew what a panic attack was, but it had never witnessed one. It thought that it probably didn't want to, either, from the flashes of insight it gleaned on the subject. 'Giraffe' was a somewhat foreign concept, though it knew that it was an animal. With the man in front of it as a bird, as well as one of the women, and the Avington - its Aunt? - as a bat, and the Yarrow as a feline, and the one with an ill stomach as a mix of donkey... the long-necked thing under the towel must have been the giraffe. It couldn't see her very well for the covering.

His Aunt. Not his father, his Aunt... his mother's sister? But she looked so young.

"Where is the bathroom?" it asked in a faint, hesitant voice.

And then the feline said 'washroom', which he knew to be the same thing, and so he turned and walked carefully in the direction she was going.

[Kari Muffin]

The giraffe made a confused noise when she was only addressed by wails. Okay, so the other girl wasn't okay. That was bad. What could she do to make it better. Could she do anything to make it better?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the tap of the cat. She jumped, the towel fluttering off of her face. She gave a timid glance to the cat and then back at the sparrow across the room. But hadn't he said that she should stay still? He made a motion with his hand though.

"Oh--okay. I won't vomit, I promise," she said to the Yarrow. Carefully getting up and following her on wobbly legs. She was still looking around terrified. At least she was mostly cleaned off. There was just a bit of gore left on her fur. It would be easy for the cat.

Ez made a sound as the boy.... dog thing... started to traipse across his floor still covered in gore. "Wait one second," he said as he threw the towel over the boy's back. "Use that to clean up the mess that you're making while walking around."

He looked at all of the gore that was in his room. Suits. He was moving out of this room after this, regardless of what the Queen said he would throw the most ridiculous tantrum possible if he had to. Swallowing he walked over to his bucket of water and the one clean towel that he had left of the floor.

He would have to give that Yarrow cat a hug for taking care of the uh... children.

He gave the bat girl a worried look but focused on the King who had kindly vomited. He set the bucket down one one of the few clean spots left on the floor. He offered the man a hand, "I'm sorry you happened to walk into hell. However I suggest you pull yourself together because we're obviously going to need your help today, Mr. Yarrast."

[Lucca]

Mirriam looked around the room, her gaze calculating. Next thing...she should clean herself off. She was covered in gore, and while it didn't disgust her, since she could feel no such thing at that moment, it was possible that it would keep the others from reacting towards her rationally, or even make her ill. She brushed as much of the blood and mess off herself as she could, which smeared her fur with red and didn't work as well as she had hoped.

With a shake of her head, she took to the air, fluttering in precise, careful motions after the others who weree going to the washroom. On the way there, she caught up to what she supposed was her sister. Brother? Hmm. It was hard to tell. Either way, it would need a name, soon. A proper one. Mirriam would think on it, as it fell to her as the next of kin to name her sibling. She turned to the dog-like creature. "Hello. I apologize for startling you earlier," she said, lacing her voice with Diamond charm so it didn't seem as flat as it truly was at the moment. "I am Mirriam, your sister. Am I correct to assume you have no name, as of yet?" They reached the bathroom and Mirriam allowed the others to go in before her.

Basic Magical Ability: She can act charismatic and persuasive at times, whether or not she actually has the natural charm and grace to pull it off.

[The Jenn]

It was making a mess? The towel made it jump and then freeze in place, listening. Oh... oh, yes. It was. Furthering the mess that was already made by its exit from its mother. Yes. Eww. But it didn't really know how to use the item. Carefully, it craned its head around to tug the object from its back and then wiped its feet back and forth for a moment before continuing on.

With the feline and the giraffe leading the way, it had a direction to follow for the bathroom and washroom, for a bath and a wash.

Its aunt's arrival behind it was unexpected and it looked at her with a touch of worry, wondering if she was going to cause it pain again. That didn't seem to be the case. Instead, she offered it an apology in a warm, sincere voice. It smiled in return, the expression looking moderately anxious on its strange face. And then she told it that she was not in fact its aunt, but was instead its sister. Its mother's child. That made more sense, considering its mother's age.

"Mirriam. That is your name? I accept your apology. Thank you. I do not have a name. I feel that I am... supposed to. That my mother should have given me one. But he did not have time."

Waiting for the other two to precede it into the bathroom, it padded inside at Mirriam's gesture and gazed around with a wary sort of curiosity.

[Nathalia]

Yarrast heaved a few more times, before backing away from the mess and tugging a handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe his mouth.
O...oh, Gods!
No one had told him that this was...
Going...on...or anything.

The...the little monsters that had ruptured their way out of the creatures before him were moving and talking, the antlered creature had a voice that spoke of a full grown adult...and the damn thing looked it too.
The hell was going on in this blasted Court?
Was it contagious?
Nervously, he tossed a look up at Ez as the Feline made a semi-disgusted noise behind him and took the "children" away.
Good.
His eyes roved over the Selkie Sparrow, and then over his sister, then back.
"Ah...of course, sir. Terribly sorry, that was highly unprofessional, but I don't think I ought to have expected such..." His voice trailed off as he tried his damnedest not to look at the destroyed corpses, the Bird behind him still steaming from his open gut.

He cast another surreptitious glance at the female Sparrow before excusing himself shortly to run to the bathroom.
He could not stay in this room!
Not without having another...episode.
He passed the others heading to the bathroom in a rush of hooves and made it to a toilet to vomit this time. He'd run into the male's room and considering the mass women going into the other room, he didn't expect to be disturbed.
Once he'd cleaned up, he listed carefully at the door with long ears until the hallway was quiet, then slunk carefully out and down the hall in the opposite direction...he had something to do.

((The entire Palace still seems...off somehow. Finding the chamber of the QUeen and seeing if there's anything you can do would be a good idea.
Even if there isn't, searching the room may give you clues, yes?
The Queen's chamber is a floor up and to the left...though...it's awfully dark up there...best not to go alone.
Wonder why all the lights are out?))

[Kari Muffin]

"Ezekiel" he provided in a clipped tone. He did not like the way the man was looking at his sister. And the fact that he had barged in here in the first place didn't particularly make the sparrow happy. He watched as the man excused himself, looking at the horrible mess that had been left behind.

Corpse. Gore. Vomit. That pretty much summed up the state of the Courts well didn't it? He wordlessly looked at his sister with a pathetic expression before walking over to a supply closet and procuring a mop, disinfectant and a two white sheets.

The first thing he did was cover both bodies. He was done looking at them.

He glanced down at the mess of internal organs poking them under the sheet with the mop. He cleaned up a little just to make things look less horrible. The rest would be left to a coroner and servants.

"Maybe we should go back to the Queen's rooms. Just in case..." And where was that bastard? He had been gone an awful long time.


The little girl was amazed when she entered the bathroom. Her eyes widening at the sight of things she'd never seen before. The first thing she did was trot over to the various shelves and inspect the soaps. She sniffed one and promptly sneezed. Her ears pulling back in displeasure. She was half tempted to lick it.

She tried to contain her wonderment. Looking at the Yarrow cat expectantly she waited for instructions of what she needed to do to get properly cleaned.