[FIN] Stranger than Fiction [Jenn]

[Lucca]

Eldy couldn't help but smile slightly. Tabby was actually far more pleasant to be around then some of Xiven's kids. "All right, but there are a lot of them," she warned the little girl, and took a deep breath. "Not all of them are Torquehelms, either. You've got Boggies, Yarrows, Avingtons, and Corvies in the family. But there's, lesse, Othello, Mercutio, Xander, Virtute, Caith, Nerissa, Enkidu, Simun, Kamina, Azazel, Lilith, and Castiel." She closed her eyes and rubbed a paw over her head. Was that all of them? Yes...

Upon opening her eyes again, she saw Tabby's expression go from delighted to...a bit blank. Her eyes narrowed in confusion. And slipped into a blank expression herself at Jak's explanation. "Ghosts," Eldy repeated, skeptical. Ghosts weren't something that the Feline believed in. They were just stories, like Rabbits and Jokers and things like that. No way those things existed.

Eldy was glad to change the subject back to something else. "No idea why," she muttered sarcastically, the bite mostly aimed at herself. She shook her head at Jak though. "Well, that's the problem. The Hearts Palace is not exactly the safest place to travel. Not with the current King the way he is." She frowned, hunching over a little, her ear going back at the thought of Apocalypse. If they asked her to elaborate, she wouldn't be able to, much, given the promise she made to the man (and intended to keep). "Too bad my silly sister barely has time to leave the grounds..."

[The Jenn]

Tabby caught the names, and the last one would have thrown her into a fit of excitement if her aunt hadn't suddenly disappeared in her line of vision. The impending excited explosion was halted, however, and she was left looking around with a tiny, curious frown on her muzzle. Were there any ghosts in the store? If not, she was about to be bored for a good long while. She tried to stand, but something restrained her. Probably Mommy in the other place. Awwww. She flopped back down with an exaggerated sigh and let her head flop back against the couch.

Jak thought, and thought, and then his expression cleared a little bit. "Ohhhhh, you mean Paaaaale," he said with a knowing nod. "Heh. Hehehe. Yeeeah. Actually. Heeeeee doesn't like me much. I try and I try, but he just doesn't want a hug." The grin that appeared at the end of this statement looked more than a little manic, and full of the unshed giggles of the insane.

He leaned in close and stared at her, red eyes not at all unusual in a Highland body but entirely unusual in their suddenly apparent insanity. "He's like my Uncle," he whispered softly, eyes intent and unblinking. "But do you know what he reeeeeally is? Cause I'm not the child of a weeeapon. Even though, right now? I am." And he finally started giggling at an uneasily high pitch.

[Lucca]

Eldy's remaining ear went back, and she frowned, nodding at Jak. So he knew then...well, right. He would, considering who his mother was. Heh. Though she and Pale had come to a sort of...understanding the last time they'd talked, and anytime they met in the Palace they were able to speak to one another civilly...she still Hated the man. And she still feared him, though it wasn't something she liked to admit.

Why Jak would want to HUG him, Eldy had no idea, but then he seemed a little weird. Or...more than a little. She frowned at his suddenly intense expression, but she didn't shy away, though it gave her an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. She glanced around, a quick motion. "Yes, I do know. But you really shouldn't go around...mentioning that. Apocalypse would kill you." There was no joking tone in her voice. She was dead serious. After all, she'd seen the 'true' Apocalypse. And she'd heard about even worse things he'd done that she hadn't even witnessed. He'd taken her ear off just to prove a point...with his teeth! She had no illusions about what the ex-weapon would do to any who stood in his way, family or not.

"...he's the one who bit off my ear, so I know how nasty his temper is," she added, using a paw to gesture to the stub.

[The Jenn]

Jak looked thoroughly taken aback at her admission, staring at her ear - or her lack of one - in surprise as if he'd only just noticed it was missing. He'd seen it, and he had a startlingly good memory for such details, but he hadn't really processed it. He would have later if he needed to take her shape, or if he wanted to remember what she looked like.

"Not very nice of him at aaaall," the man muttered reprovingly, his tone tinged with sympathy. "He's a haaaard one to make happy. Almost as hard as Dell, y'know. Sheee's my sister. A good sister. She used to be very aaangry until she came to live with us again. Now she's juuust fine." He grinned, tongue lolling just the teensiest bit out the side of his mouth.

He shook his head once, hard, and sighed. "Buuut I think he helps keep Mom away. I don't get to see her anymore. Not even when I foam. Just once. Poor Mom... she's the ooonly one of the family I don't have with us yet. Of the immediate family. We have eeeverybody else."

[Lucca]

Eldy was used to getting a few stares for her ear, so she thought little of it as she adjusted her position more comfortably on the worn couch. She gave Jak a blank look at his understatement. No, no it wasn't very nice to tear someone's ear off. And yet...Jak still seemed concerned with making Apocalypse happy. The kid must have some sort of complex or something.

"A-ah...I'm...sorry about that," Eldy offered cautiously. Though from what she remembered overhearing back when Lior and Rhi had both still been at the palace, neither of them were particularly fond of the sons and daughter they'd claimed were sick and had died. Which made Eldy rather unhappy. If she ever had kids (Suits forbid) she liked to think she wouldn't just abandon them.

It made a sort of sense that all the siblings were now with Jak, even the ones that had been at the Palace. And Lior was just weird. What Jak was saying, on the surface, seemed normal and somewhat sweet...his whole family together again.

So why did the statement send the hairs along her back prickling? She cleared her throat, and caught another glance at Tabby. "Um, that's cool and all, but is your daughter okay? She looks kinda out of it."

[The Jenn]

Tabby tapped the fingers of each hand along the floor in an idle rhythm, her expression still extremely vacant and staring. Now it also seemed to be tinged with boredom and a measure of chidish annoyance.

Looking mildly confused at Eldy's question, Jak tilted his head at her. Then he looked at his daughter to see if anything had changed. Nope. She looked the same. Then he looked back at Eldy and slowly nodded. "Uhhhhh. Yeah. She's finnnne. Really. She just does this. It happens. Kiiind of a lot sometimes. Usually doesn't matter when we're at hooome, though she says she doesn't like the ghost down in the alley because he used to drink a loooot and he wants more and we don't keep alcohol in the house. Usually."

Shrugging, he rolled his shoulders back and watched the little girl again. "Nooot sure where she gets it from. 's neat, though. Daddy could mess with dead people, too. Heeee, uh. Brought Mom back to life once. When they first met, a loooong time ago."

[Lucca]

Eldy shot a look to Tabby, and then back to Jak. Fine. The girl was...fine. And Jak was looking at her like -she- was the crazy one? Seriously? Eldy was waiting for the moment when she'd wake up and find this was all some really bizarre dream brought on by spiked tea. The servants occasionally did try to play pranks like that. Or sometimes her Mom would pull something, to help teach her vigilance. Or maybe just to be funny. Hard to tell with Peaches. Usually, she caught it, but sometimes she'd mess up and forget to check very carefully for odd additives.

She was silent a moment as she tried to process what in the name of all the Queens Jak was talking about. Finally, she decided it must have something to do with the girl seeing ghosts...instead of normal Cards? Well that gave a whole new meaning to being 'stuck in the past'. And explained why he'd mentioned them before. She still didn't believe ghosts were real, though Tabby was obviously not on the same plane of reality they were at the moment.

Actually she was beginning to suspect Jak wasn't on the same plane of reality she was either. "Yeeeeaaah, I remember all about Lior and his weirdness," Eldy said, rolling her eyes. Really, the Feline had been certifiably creeptastic and Eldy had never wanted anything to do with him. Though she also though her sister's reaction to him had been just a bit overboard. Just a little. "Oh, uh, no offense or anything. I mean, my Dad was kind of nuts too." She shrugged, trying to ignore the old wound that was prickling again.

[The Jenn]

Jak tilted his head one way. Then he tilted it the other. Then he just started giggling for a minute, before it slowly tapered off.

He was on no one's plane of reality.

"Dad's Dad was your Dad," he agreed with a faint lolling of his canine tongue. "It makes looots of sense. The weird is in the faaamily. And Tabby's got a double dose of weird from Dad's Dad and Xiven's Dad, so she's double weird. And I think I got eeeextra weird from Mom, too, so she has double-and-a-half weird? Or something. There's a loooot of weird going around. I mean, Kieran eats... like... happy. Happiness. He eats it. Aaaaand Amhal's got his temper, like Deeeeell did, before I fixed it. And the whole skin-thing that Mom made suuuch a big deal about. We all got weird. 'cept for Sa. Cause her bones weren't weeeird. And Tabby gets it more."

Affectionately, he ruffled a hand along her hair and through some of the little braids, which were adorned today with a few baubles he'd forgotten to take out the night before.

[Lucca]

Eldy blinked. And stared. And blinked again. And tried to replay what Jak had just said in her head again, but that just made her dizzy. So she stared some more. But when no further opportunities presented themselves, she shook her head. "Okay...I seriously couldn't understand a single word of what you just said," she said bluntly. If she had been a more polite Card, she might have worded it a little better, but Eldy was who she was and she had no shame in it...usually.

Even her wandering trains of thought, which could sometimes get quite random, made ten times more sense than whatever Jak had just said. The general gist of it was that everyone in their family was weird, which Eldy would agree with, for sure. Her ear lay flat against her head as she fished for a conversation topic that wouldn't make her head spin. "So, Jak." A good start. "You said you live here in the city?" Maybe she should pay him a visit sometime? Although she wasn't sure she wanted to meet that much weird in one place, so maybe not. Then again, could it really be any worse than babysitting Vaska and Falks?

[The Jenn]

Tilting his head at her - a tad bit much of a tilt for normalcy's sake - Jak slowly let out a sigh. Then he righted himself and shook. And grinned again. It seemed impossible to banish that expression for very long. "Soooooorry," he said simply, figuring she didn't want him to continue much when she asked another question.

Oh, hey, that was a good one. And easy. "Yeeeeah, we dooooo. We live in the apartment where Graaaampa used to live. He left it to us. When he left. Grampa Seth. I loved him soooooo much. I miiiiiiss him. We lived there when we were all reeeeally little, too. Aaaand. Uh. Then Daddy left us on a mountain. But we found our way baaack. Except for Dell. I had to go and find her later. And theeeen we lived in a pile of garbage, but it made a good home to keep warm if we were careful, which we weeere."