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Post by The Jenn on Nov 29, 2010 2:03:10 GMT -5
"A reasonable plan," Khushrenada agreed equably. He didn't think the Spade should be walking around, not right now, not with his health rapidly deteriorating. He would see if he could get a servant to actually stay outside the door and listen for any potential problems, and another to send for a doctor. Otherwise, he trusted the man's brother to judge his sibling's condition and act accordingly. And there were certainly enough little beasties around him now.
He followed Ez out of the room and stood up straighter, disliking the general lack of height in his animal form. He had become spoiled by his bipedl. "Yes, I'll be fine. If I look drawn, it's more lack of sleep than anything, I assure you." And in truth, besides being tired and stressed and carrying around more weight than he was used to, he was fine. It was the rest of the Court that seemed to be going all to hell.
"I think that we should begin by searching some of the drawing rooms on the ground floor. She might be entertaining a guest, or simply doing work. Mirriam just went to the kitchen, so I doubt that she's there, and there are more than a handful of small rooms to begin searching. Better to eliminate them quickly as possibilities and then begin to look in less likely areas."
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Post by Kari Muffin on Nov 29, 2010 2:13:08 GMT -5
Ez nodded. Well, at least he was going to be fine. That was one less thing to be worried about. "Drawing room sounds like a good place to start," the sparrow said as stared at the door for one long moment before starting down the hallway.
The servants hadn't seen her. At least the few that were wandering around that they passed. Then again Ez was fairly certain that their brains had shut down. It was getting to a ridiculous state and now the Queen and.... everything was falling apart. It just ruffled the sparrows feathers.
The first drawing room hadn't been touched in a while, in fact it was collecting dust. The second was unoccupied as well. The pattern seemed to continue until they came to a mildly disheveled room. It was enough to raise an eyebrow at. "Maybe she was here...." Ez trailed off as he allowed Khushrenada to go first. He was, after all, stuck in his animal form.
Meanwhile Zane was staring at the ceiling, stroking his Mome periodically. Alone. Was this really the best idea they could come up with? His brother must have sent for a doctor at least.
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Post by The Jenn on Nov 29, 2010 2:30:27 GMT -5
Hopefully the servant that Khushrenada sent for the nearest physician would return shortly. He instructed the woman to send them up to Ez's room without delay, when and if they arrived.
The search seemed hurried and unhelpful at first. True, they were eliminating possibilities, but a palace contained many, many rooms, and it wasn't especially difficult for a person to disappear. When they found the first room with a very fine layer of dust on several of the furnishings, he had to wonder if guests simply hadn't objected to the color scheme in the past. The second, third, and fourth were used, though unoccupied and of no particular interest. The fifth, however...
Why were there papers on the floor? The writing desk by the window seemed disturbed, with drawers opened to different levels and items discarded hastily across the surface. And the round table in the center of the room, it seemed mildly damaged. The wooden surface bore several long scratches, seemingly gouged by... claws. Or something similar. That was by no means usual.
"I don't believe for a moment that one of the servants did this," he murmured, crossing the threshhold into the room and glancing about.
Was one of the chairs turned the wrong way? It seemed so. And a sofa cushion was missing. Oh, no, it wasn't. It was simply on the floor next to another chair. He went to curiously inspect the discarded papers, to see whether they were blank stationary or actual documents, and then went to push the drawers of the desk back into place - after checking inside for anything unusual, of course.
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Post by Kari Muffin on Nov 29, 2010 12:17:20 GMT -5
Ez raised an eyebrow at the muttered comment, "No kidding." He slipped into the room, closing the door behind him. It looked like someone had been dragged off the table against their will. He brushed his ruffled feathers down as he took a look around the perimeter of the room.
He searched through the one piece of plush furniture that was in the room. People normally dropped things behind the cushions, so he could at least find a bit of spare change right? When the sparrow was done with his through inspection of the furniture he looked to the windows.
He titled his head with a curious expression as he crossed the room. He eyed the lock before pulling the window upwards, which opened with very little protest. "Damn, it looks like the window's broken. Just about anyone could have gotten in through here.... or out." He shouldn't have been surprised, considering the times when he was younger and had to sneak back into the palace to avoid his father's punishment for going out and having "late nights" in the nearest town. There was always at least one window that someone could jiggle the right way to get in, it just a good deal of patience to find the right one.
Meanwhile Zane was slowly propping himself up on Zane's bed. There was no sign that the servant had actually managed to send for a doctor. It was eerily quiet except for the breathing of the pets, and his own quiet periodic whimpers of pain mixed with a bit of wheezing.
He scratched the bander under the chin when it slowly inched forward to lay its head on his hand. At least Nila was being supportive. His Mome licked his face lightly before growling at the bander. "No fighting you two," Zane said in a half whisper.
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Post by Nathalia on Nov 29, 2010 16:18:12 GMT -5
((Zane's body is suddenly wracked with pain beyond anything he has ever felt before. His entire body seems to roil with the horror of something huge beneath the skin of his stomach writhing in an attempt to free itself.
His cries are some of the only sounds in the building right now, they're more than likely to attract the attentions of his friends...and Ceren. Go ahead and pull her in, she'll be needed.
Hopefully they can get to him before his entire body splits at the seams...))
~Nathalia
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Nov 29, 2010 16:36:11 GMT -5
((doop doop)) Deep within a dream, a terrible noise reached Ceren's conscious mind and she began to stir. Sleepily, she opened her eyes and fluffed up her feathers. Where...? Dark. Right. Right. She had fallen asleep in the room that had once belonged to her mother, sleep having seized her rather abruptly. She rubbed some of the sleepiness out of her eyes, brain moving sluggishly. Why had she woken up? Clearly, she was still tired... There it was again. Rather abruptly, the woman no longer felt tired. In the utter silence of the Court, there was a terrible scream. It sent a shiver up her spine, made her gut twist terribly. " What the hell...?[/b]" she murmured, trying to convince her feathers that they didn't need to be fluffed out like that. It was probably - probably nothing. Certainly nothing. It did sound pretty terrible, though. Perhaps one of the children had been hurt...? Quickly, the Sparrow rose to her feet and made her way in the direction the screams seemed to be coming from. All the while, she tried to keep herself from panicking. It was nothing. |
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Post by Kari Muffin on Nov 29, 2010 17:37:45 GMT -5
The pain was sudden and unbelievable. The first sound that wanted to come out of his beak caught in his throat. His bander let out an alarmed sound before it promptly fell off the bed with a echoing thud.
Zane's eyes were filled with terror. Something was moving inside of him. He let out a terrified shriek in his pain and horror. His body shuddering in protest as he tried to move.
His Mome had bolted off of his shoulder and into the corner of the room at the sound of its master's shrieks. There was nothing that it could hunt, and the confusion of the loud screaming terror were only proving to confused the poor little creature. The bander had already crawled under the bed to hide.
Ez's feathers fluffed out slightly when he heard the faint sound of screaming through the window. He shut it after a few seconds of staring. The sound was still muffled and persistent despite the window's being closed.
Who the hell could be screaming that loud?
What if it was Zane?
"Shit," the sparrow said as he grabbed something stiff and jammed it in the lock. There lock fixed. "Let's go back to Zane. I have a bad feeling."
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Post by The Jenn on Nov 29, 2010 21:48:52 GMT -5
Finding nothing of any particular import in among the scattered papers around the desk, Khushrenada's head jerked upward at the sound of the first muffled scream coming in through the window. He stared at his fellow King, alarmed and fluffing up slightly.
There should not have been screams in the palace. Any. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought it might be Mirriam. The screaming repeated and he could breathe again, recognizing it now as a far more adult and possibly masculine sound than the bat would make in distress. Her screams were ear-splitting in pitch.
But if the sparrow thought it might be his brother... thoughts of an inter-Court murder flashed through his mind and he hissed outward through his beak in a combination of alarm and aggravation. But he had looked awful anyway. If his own body was doing this somehow...
It would have been faster to fly from one room to the other, but both windows were likely locked. Damn. "Let's go," he agreed grimly, a man of practicality. Ez could move faster in his bipedal form, but he would keep up.
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Post by Greenie on Nov 30, 2010 0:35:06 GMT -5
((SORRY I FAIL GUYS ;~~  ) Elodie watched the young bat flutter over her head with mild annoyance - displays of dominance, intentional or otherwise, that she couldn't match were just obnoxious - and shrugged in agreement. "No," She said, feeling as though she was stating the obvious. Did she not have a Heart on her chest? "I'm really not sure how I ended up in this mess.."She followed Mirriam out and basically followed the girl around, as her knowledge of the Court was entirely nonexistent. They had only gotten to about five rooms that the Avington thought were relevant before the cat stopped short, her sensitive ears easily picking up on the cries in the otherwise absolute silence. "Let's go back. Now!" Elodie said to her and took off at a dead run for the original room they'd been in. Hopefully she wouldn't get lost... Being in here on her own while (what sounded like) other people were off dying just wasn't her cup of tea. |
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Post by Lucca on Nov 30, 2010 0:46:56 GMT -5
Mirriam was blissfully unaware that Elodie was so catty about everything. To her, this was just how she acted normally, and she was built for flying and not at all for walking. She led the Feline off on a search of the Palace, chattering cheerfully with her the whole time, even as they were finding 'not much' 'nothing' and 'less than nothing' on all counts. Of course...she stopped dead, large bat ears twitching, as soon as there was a scream. What was that?
Not only that, but there wasn't just one scream...it kept continuing. "Yeah, good idea. I hope everyone is okay!" Mirriam said, but she was frowning as she flew as fast as she could towards the source of the horrible heart-rending screaming. It was obvious that, whatever else the screaming meant, something was Not Okay At All. She swerved from the course Elodie was about to take, since Zane was now in King Ez's room instead. That was where the noise was coming from, so that's where the curious girl headed towards.
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