GLoG 93: Something something something babies

[Morty]

[Daycare]

Reelshka follows Zara back to the daycare, which for convenience is happening at a different time than the little griffin invasion.

"Hello. Zara tells me you have new children to be entered into our daycare."

[Sapling Cabin]

"Makes sense, I guess. I don't have a head for magic. Music is way easier for me." She looks between Gabriel and Khannie, her ears flicking up and down. "Do you know Mrs. Geneva? I'd never met her before she came here with her kids. And I don't think I've ever seen her change shape."

[Rebonack]

[Sapling Cabin]

"Oh it doesn't smell right?" Khannie replies to Cheasadh, wrinkling her nose at the orange. "I guess I need to smell more real oranges."

As opposed to that orange soda that gets dispensed by the Fox Cola machine at school.

"Yeah, I know Miss Geneva. She's one of dad's friends. She actually used to live at daddy's house before she moved in with Nick. I... umm... I think she actually had something to do with the accident that made me," Khannie recalls.

Gilda perks up at that.

"You're our sister?" the griffin cub asks.

Khannie recoils slightly. "What? No, it wasn't like that. It was a magical accident and-"

"You're our big purple sister!" Gilda declares as she tackles Khannie.

"Gah!"

Khannie goes down under a pouncing griffin!

With her concentration broken the orange ceases to exist.

"Is she really our sister?" Gwen whispers to Glory.

[Earl of Purple]

Sapling Cabin

"If you do smell more oranges, I'll be happy to eat them afterwards. I like oranges." Which is how she was able to pinpoint the smell. Well, that and her big gnome nose.

Pookie can be carried outside, and he's not carrying his honey tub. He put it down to hug Miranda. Maridia is likely finding this a Very Good Thing. He'll splash quite a bit, and try to knock the tub over. He's also 'accidentally' going to get as much water on Miranda as possible.

[Ironsmith]

Sapling Cabin

"If you do smell more oranges, I'll be happy to eat them afterwards. I like oranges." Which is how she was able to pinpoint the smell. Well, that and her big gnome nose.

Pookie can be carried outside, and he's not carrying his honey tub. He put it down to hug Miranda. Maridia is likely finding this a Very Good Thing. He'll splash quite a bit, and try to knock the tub over. He's also 'accidentally' going to get as much water on Miranda as possible.

[Outside Sapling Cabin]

Miranda is reasonably patient with Pookie; the water doesn't bother her, and in fact seems to mitigate the earlier mess of stickiness Pookie had left when he hugged her. For her part, she's gentle where she can afford to be, even a little playful; when Pookie splashes her, she gives him a look halfway between disapproval and mischief before splashing him back. "You little rascal, you." She chides jokingly.

[Deathkeeper]

Sapling Cabin

Glory leans over to her baby sister. Her responds is unsure.
"You know?

I don't think she is."

[Morty]

[Sapling Cabin]

Brinika laughs, grinning toothily, when Gilda tackles Khannie.

"Having siblings is pretty great, Khannie. Even if I'm not sure why fluffy griffins would think you're their sister. Do you mean the accident that put you in Pokemon land?"

[Rebonack]

[Sapling Cabin]

"The accident that made me, yeah," Khannie explains as she braces one hand against the side of Gilda's face, trying to push the griffin cub off. Gilda definitely isn't small but she isn't huge, either. And Khannie wants to be careful because of how much force she can pack in her arms. It's always a delicate balancing act for her. Most people aren't as robust as pokemon are. "Miss Geneva caused it. This person called Libra had turned daddy into a haunter because... um... I'm not really sure, actually? But Miss Geneva had these weird powers Libra had given her then and daddy really didn't like being a haunter so she offered to try making him something else since she didn't think she could just undo what Libra did. So she did that but she messed up and made him a kangaskhan and adult kangaskhans always have a baby and that was me. I remember waking up on the bed upstairs and then this bad-guy grabbed me. So if Miss Geneva hadn't been helping daddy I probably wouldn't have existed."

"And that makes you our big purple sister!" Gilda helpfully adds "Since mama made us, too!"

"Yeah but she didn't make you like that! She made you with your daddy the way babies are supposed to be made," Khannie objects.

Khannie knows all about how babies are made.

You get two people who share an egg-group with the opposite gender who love each other very much and keep them around each other for a while and then BAM! there's an egg.

Obviously that's how it worked with Nick and Geneva.

[Earl of Purple]

Sapling Cabin

"You don't have to be siblings, you could be, like, cousins. They're fun too, and you don't have to live with them." Cheasadh's integrating well into the goblin swarm, but can't always keep track of all her cousins. Which has led to nicknames being used.

Outside Sapling Cabin

Pookie, once encouraged by Miranda splashing back, will try to start a water fight, completely forgetting he's having a bath and his fur is getting less sticky than it has been in months. Last time Cheasadh tried to bathe him, he splashed soap in her eyes and when she dried them he'd found another jar of honey.

[Ironsmith]

Outside Sapling Cabin

Pookie, once encouraged by Miranda splashing back, will try to start a water fight, completely forgetting he's having a bath and his fur is getting less sticky than it has been in months. Last time Cheasadh tried to bathe him, he splashed soap in her eyes and when she dried them he'd found another jar of honey.

[Outside Sapling Cabin]

Miranda plays along, keeping her head high and away from Pookie's splashes so that soap in the eye isn't going to be a problem for her. She also gives him the same consideration, keeping her hands low and making little waves with them, so that none of her "retaliation" ended up going over his neck. Coincidentally, this should do a decent job of helping to rinse him off, so that by the time they're done horsing around, the bath had left him pretty clean.

"There we go. I bet that feels pretty good, doesn't it?" Miranda says, smiling warmly and holding out a towel.

[Morty]

[Sapling Cabin]

Brinika's smile fades a little as she hears the... highly confusing explanation. She thinks she gets the gist of it. Weird magic happened seems to be about the sum of it. And Khannie just popped into being one day. That must have been as confusing as a molerat in a laundry.

"Well. You don't need to be made in the same way or by the same people to be siblings. But cousins are good too. We have lots of cousins. Because there's always lots and lots of goblins."

[Purple Eagle]

[Daycare]

[Daycare]

"It's possible," Moremi says, though she really doubts it. "She was a catgirl with a huge interest in death, so..." They just started talking.

"One time, I rode a dragon. Well...kind-of," she says. "Was trying to kill it, then it started flying and I hung onto it as it was flying up."

The baby Manja won't be stopped by the mere grip strength of a baby! In fact, maybe even nothing can stop her!
She has to make a slight detour because of the bear, though. She recognizes that it would be bad to try to crawl over it, when her goal is to reach the side of the room, something harder.

"Not her, then." Zither brightens when Moremi mentions riding a dragon, then nods when the story is finished. "That's why I prefer to be at long range. Less chance of almost falling off a dragon."

Orin makes an upset noise, and redoubles her efforts to crawl after and gain on Manja. No escape!

[Daycare]

Reelshka follows Zara back to the daycare, which for convenience is happening at a different time than the little griffin invasion.

"Hello. Zara tells me you have new children to be entered into our daycare."

Zara plops herself between the two babies, and pulls each one close to her, starting to sing a cutesy baby song. Meanwhile, Zither smiles and nods. "Yes, I'm Zither Himura and that's Orin, my daughter." She says, pointing to Orin who's busy trying to grab at Manja's nose.

[5a Violista]

[Daycare]

Ha! Too slow, Orin! As soon as Manja gets to the wall, she can use her final attack, which will crush all her enemies, see them driven before her, and hear the lamentation of their mothers!

Sadly, she's beset by a giant kaiju before she can reach the wall, is grabbed by Zara. She looks at Orin, is willing to forgive Orin for her slights, and considers offering an olive branch if they team up to slay this mighty singing foe.


For the sake of Reelshka:
Moremi looks like she could be from Brazil, with a lightish-dark skin tone and black hair. Looks very much human.
Manja, on the other hand, is definitely not human. Light skin, pure white hair, a long foxlike tail (but much more snakelike than a fox's), pink eyes that have a slight glow to them, and her ears. Look like cat ears, but with long rabbitlike tassels that go downwards, with a golden ring suspended around each, and pink tricorn tips.

"Hi," Moremi says to Reelshka. She introduces herself: "Moremi."
She then says, "Well, I came here to consider whether to enter her in or not. Y'know, see if she'd be a good fit, to see if she can play nice with others and so on." She's a little worried! It's her first kid in a long time, and her daughter is a huge handful, being both a shapeshifter and a cat. And maybe other things too.

Oh.
And her phone buzzes.
She doesn't look at it yet.

[Morty]

[Daycare]

Manja's appearance isn't very surprising to Reelshka. She sees all kinds of unusual children in the daycare. Her own children are on the stranger side.

"My name is Reelshka Trollfinger and I'm one of the caretakers here. I'm happy to see you both here. If you do want to enrol your children here, we'll gladly take them in. Though we do ask for donations from people who can afford it, to help us provide help for those who can't. In the meantime I can answer any questions you have. Is there any particular concern with your daughter?" she asks, looking to Moremi again.

[Purple Eagle]

[Daycare]

Orin stops trying to grab things off Manja's face, and looks back at Manja. Might she be conceding? Whatever, Zara's here and everything's good now. So, she looks up at Manja's mighty singing foe and makes happy baby noises as she tugs at the smiling girl's wavy locks, aiming to eat them.

Zara just grins back, and gives her a kiss on the head, which is greatly appreciated. She turns to Manja and leans in, it's evidently her turn.

For the sake of Zither and BiBi too, who until now didn't know how Manja looked.

Zither sits there, taking the time to watch Zara play with the babies, though she does nod when donations are mentioned. She knew that'd be a thing, and came prepared.

[5a Violista]

[Daycare]

Zither may not have known what Manja looked like, but Orin definitely did since Orin already tried grabbing Manja's most unusual feature...
Instead of gracefully accepting a kiss on the head, Manja reaches at Zara's mouth. Can't kiss her if she has your mouth!

"Um, well, three things," Moremi says. She pulls out her phone so she can check whether the message was important or not.

"Oh, I just have three concerns," she says. Oh, the message is from Rein. Might be important, but might be able to wait. "First, Manja's pretty sensitive to certain types of magic. Also, she's really good at escaping when people aren't watching her. Caused a lot of stress not long ago, actually." She starts navigating to the text part of the phone. "Second of all, she can get pretty dangerous to those around her when she has a tantrum. She needs to be around others to learn to not do that, but also I don't think anybody wants her to hurt anyone else."

She looks at the message.
Oh.
We need to talk.
She puts her phone away.

"Um, sorry. That was, um, her father. Speaking of, that's the third thing. Her father's pretty well-known around the Nexus and isn't universally liked, so I'm a little worried someone with a grudge against him might try to hold her hostage or take it out on her or something," she says, completely failing to mention that there's also a decent chance someone would do the same thing to get at Harley Moremi. Or any of the other reasons why the same thing might happen.

[Morty]

[Daycare]

"Hmm." Reelshka doesn't seem overly concerned by any of this. Just another day on the job for her. "What kind of danger does she present once she gets upset? And can you tell me who her father is? I understand if you'd rather not. We won't let any children in our care come to harm regardless."

[Purple Eagle]

[Daycare]

Zara dodges the grab, and her lips stretch forward in quite a cartoonish manner as she plants a kiss on Manja's head! Manja might be able to grab something after all, which will cause Zara to pull her lip back and free of those baby fingers. "Naughty!"

Oh no, it appears that Orin liked the display and wants a turn too, so she starts reaching up for Zara's lips...

While Zara's dodging grabby hands going for her lips, her other personality's awake and listening to what Moremi says about Manja. Quite an interesting chimera baby, she almost hopes an incident happens so that she can have a chance to... 'shine'. Dahlia can't wait!

[5a Violista]

[Daycare]

The baby can't believe she was called 'naughty'! She's been perfect so far, so she can't believe why she would be insulted so. If she had a glove, she would challenge Zara to a duel right now, to regain her honor.

Unfortunately, she can't do that.
Fortunately, she sees that Orin has joined in the cause to take down this goliath of a person.

Manja synergizes her movements with Orin, by also reaching back at Zara's lips. Can't dodge both of them forever!


"No, it's fine," Moremi says, shaking her head, regarding who her father is. "It's not that hard to figure out anyway, and would eventually come up anyway. Her father's Rein," she says, without any pomp or circumstance.

"So, recently...well, claws are the most common thing recently," she says, "and also sometimes she gets really sharp teeth has happened recently, especially since teeth have started coming in normally. I mean, and she's also done spikes in the past, and started fires, and things like that."

[Rebonack]

[Lakeside Hole Digging]

Khannie is sitting on a rock near the lake practicing her illusions. At the moment? That involves making a pretend rock. Rocks are WAY easier than things like oranges. She doesn't have to really worry about what rocks smell or taste like, so she can focus on sight touch and sound. "Isn't that hole going to fill in with water?" she asks the weird blue kid who showed up a few minutes ago with this crazy lightning sword thing and started using it to dig a cube-shaped hole straight down into the ground.

"Nope!" comes Lapis Lazuli's reply from a good fifteen feet underground. "Stuff only falls into the holes if someone pushes it in! It's kind of silly but I love it!"

Khannie has noticed that Lapis seems like she loves lots of things. She's also pretty sure that Lapis isn't actually a half-elf. If she is then she's got some crazy weird magic powers.

But that's okay.

The Nexus has plenty of room for weird kids.

"What happens if you use it on the water?" Khannie asks. "Does it just make a block of water disappear? Then the lake would have a hole in it?"

"I don't know but that sounds like it would be fun to find out do you think I should try that Khannie?" Lapis, still unseen at the bottom of the hole, asks.

Khannie frowns a little. "I never told you my name," she points out. This is definitely a weird kid.

"Yeah I know you didn't but I can do this scanny thing that tells me lots of things about people like their name and their job and lots of other stuff too but any Aspirant can do that it's easy to know just names and jobs," Lapis rambles back.

"I don't have a job, I'm just a kid," Khannie retorts.

"Yeah you do you're a Magical Girl Sorcerer the scanny thing said so!" Lapis counters.

Super weird kid, Khannie concludes.

Khannie, for the record, is a rather unremarkable looking twelve (almost thirteen!) year old human girl. Brown hair in a little pony tail, fair skin, grey-blue eyes. She's wearing light, airy clothes today on account of it being a warm August afternoon.

Lapis (who is at the bottom of a pit at the moment) is a half drow child that looks to be eight or nine. Dusky bluish skin, black hair, and red eyes. Not that she's visible unless you're peering down the hole.

[Morty]

[Daycare]

She's Reinholdt's child? Didn't Reinholdt have children already? Reelshka isn't quite sure. Given that he cloned himself, maybe... oh well. Not really any business of hers, besides knowing what to expect from Manja. That said, something Moremi just said makes her rather concerned.

"Could you elaborate on the spikes and the fire?"

[Purple Eagle]

[Daycare]

Spikes? Fire? This sounds fun to Dahlia. Zara's in control right now however, and so simply stretches her neck so her head's out of reach of the two grabby babies. For their efforts, they get stretchy elastic arms wrapped around their torsos to keep them in place... too bad their hands are already free.

Orin seems to have re-noticed Manja's weird features, and starts reaching forward to feel around her face.

[5a Violista]

[Daycare]

Moremi shrugs.
"Her father's a shapechanger. She inherited it, including some things that apparently skipped a generation. Has less control over it when she's upset."
Moremi also mentally does a long-distance apology for pushing all the blame onto him.
Sure, what she said's true, but...
...if she only inherited stuff from her father, she'd actually be pretty fine.
Probably.
She's heard stories that one of Rein's other kids wasn't very well-liked, but that seems to have been a one-time thing.

She looks over at Manja and the others there.
And thinks to the text message...how important was it? She can't tell from the message, but it seems important.


Manja looks over at Orin when she gets touched.
You traitor!
She looks back at Zara, wondering how much Orin got paid to switch sides. No! This is no fair! If you break the alliance, you'll never be trusted again!

Manja makes a noise like she's not interested in her face being touched.

[Morty]

[Daycare]

Reelshka's ears flick up and down. That is quite worrying...

"Hmm. Yes, I see the issue. We'll keep an eye on her to make sure no one gets hurt."

[Purple Eagle]

[Daycare]

Orin looks confused when Manja looks at her that way, and makes a sad noise when Manja declines being touched. No fair, and she was going to let Manja touch her face, too! See, she even moved closer so that the catfae wouldn't have to stretch.

She stops touching Manja's face, but offers Manja the chance to touch her face too as a peace offering.

"Zara'll help!" The teen pipes up almost immediately after Reelshka finishes speaking.

[5a Violista]

[Daycare]

"If you're concerned it might be too dangerous until she's older, that's fine," Moremi says. "I can just wait and find something else until then. it's not a big deal. I don't mind."
She glances over at the babies for a moment.
"I don't mind staying at home and watching her, after all."



No!
Manja needs more space!
With Orin getting close and touching her and also Manja's being held and she's been betrayed and now they're ganging up on her and blaming her and

She turns into a kitten. Much smaller. Mostly white, but with a dark pink circle-like pattern on her back and pink on the tips of her probably-ear-things. She climbs out of her clothes. Just barely old enough that her claws are retractable, but she still uses them on the arm holding her, as she tries to get away and falls down to the ground (landing on her feet!). She makes a really cute hiss at Orin for being such a traitor (she trusted Orin!), and tries to scamper away from them both.
Besides, it's too cold here.
She doesn't like it. The weather was nice outside, so that's where she wants to go. And out there, she doesn't have to worry about traitors or kaiju.

[Rebonack]

[Picnicking Tables]

Khannie Vallarm is seated at one of the tables with three things in front of her.

An open book, a fancy fountain pen, and a rock.

She's busy writing notes in the book, scribbling arcane schema and muttering to herself. Wizardry is HARD but Khannie likes it.

Why?

Because it reminds her of puzzling through math problems! It's a cool mental puzzle with all these different parts and you have to figure out how they fit together in JUST the right way. And when you figure out HOW they fit together it's such a great AH HA! moment! At the moment Khannie is trying to solve the equation for making Mage Hand work. Sure, she could use her shadow illusions to do basically the same thing BUT she just sort of KNOWS how illusions work. The answers just come so naturally to her. It's like just talking, practically. Sure she has to learn words to talk but she really doesn't have to think about it. So long as she can say them eloquently it works great!

But things that aren't illusions?

Ugh.

Way harder.

She has to THINK. She has to SOLVE. She has to get really creative and crunch the numbers and make the magic!

Khannie is really glad that it turned out that you don't need a pointy hat OR a beard to be a wizard, otherwise she would have been in trouble.

"Okay. Mage Hand attempt forty seven," Khannie says as she jots down a few more notes. Then she intones a few arcane words, gestures at the stone, and-!

The rock tips up on one edge, wobbles slightly, and then falls over!

Khannie gasps! New results! She must be getting closer!

She furiously jots down more notes in her spellbook.

[Ironsmith]

[Picnicking Tables]

Meanwhile, nearby, a certain thirteen (almost fourteen!) year old vampire was sitting in the shade, watching Khannie work. He had a fleshy-looking ball in his hand, which he was nibbling on idly. He should be eating, yeah, but he hadn't had much of an appetite lately.

He had to wonder what this girl was getting so excited about. So she could make a rock move a little. Big whoop. His big sister could lift much bigger rocks with a lot less apparent effort. Of course, he was comparing apples to oranges here; Maesdan lunamancy has little in common with whatever Khannie was using, and both of them had spent long hours practicing to get as good as they were anyway.

Still. Not a big deal.

Arthfael cringes a little as he realizes he's sat out here for too long and is starting to burn up. With a sigh, he sets down the flesh-ball-thing and picks up a nearby bottle of sunscreen, squirting some into his hand and rubbing it on his arms, sort of hugging himself in the process. Being out here wasn't good for him, he knew. But he couldn't stand being indoors right now. It was too closed off. Too restrictive. There'd be nowhere to run if someone came after him. He'd be stuck, hiding in some corner and praying that terrible thing with the terrible voice didn't see him. He's right there, just out of sight. He's going to find Arthfael and he's going to cut him up with those knives-

He needs to get his mind off that.

"Hey, kid." He calls half-heartedly, ignoring the year-at-most difference in age between them. "Whatcha doing?"

[Morty]

[Picnicking Tables]

Someone else seems to be approaching this place. Before either Khannie or Arthfael see her, they will hear her.

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

Khannie will no doubt recognize Brinika's voice. She's quite a good singer for someone so young. The very small goblin is emerging from behind a small hill near the picnic area.

[Daycare]

"No, we should manage. We'd really rather not turn anyone away. We'll jut have to-" Reelshka forgets whatever she was going to say when Manja suddenly changes shape. "I see what you mean now." She hurries towards the door, both to cut off Manja's escape and make sure it's closed.

[Rebonack]

[Picnic Tables]

Khannie is still busy writing out the details of her next Mage Hand attempt when someone she doesn't recognize approaches her and asks what's up. She pulls her attention away from her spellbook and replies a bit indignantly.

"Kid? You don't even look as old as I do. And you're red as a boiled lobster you should probably be inside."

Then she turns her attention back to her book.

"And I'm try to get this ge to aer transmutation to work right. I think I'm getting the ratio wrong or maybe I'm missing something different I dunno. Either the rock just wiggles a little bit or-"

Khannie makes her next spell attempt!

The stone burst into a cloud of silt and blows away in the wind.

"Beans!" Khannie sort of swears. "Or it does that. UGH wizardry is so much harder than sorcery. It's like doing math problems to do magic instead of singing a catchy song. Not giving up though, I'll definitely figure Mage Hand out."

Oh hey! Speaking of singing!

"Hey! What's that song it sounds nice?" Khannie shouts to her friend rounding the hill.

[Ironsmith]

[Picnicking Tables]

Someone else seems to be approaching this place. Before either Khannie or Arthfael see her, they will hear her.

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

Khannie will no doubt recognize Brinika's voice. She's quite a good singer for someone so young. The very small goblin is emerging from behind a small hill near the picnic area.

[Picnic Tables]

Khannie is still busy writing out the details of her next Mage Hand attempt when someone she doesn't recognize approaches her and asks what's up. She pulls her attention away from her spellbook and replies a bit indignantly.

"Kid? You don't even look as old as I do. And you're red as a boiled lobster you should probably be inside."

Then she turns her attention back to her book.

"And I'm try to get this ge to aer transmutation to work right. I think I'm getting the ratio wrong or maybe I'm missing something different I dunno. Either the rock just wiggles a little bit or-"

Khannie makes her next spell attempt!

The stone burst into a cloud of silt and blows away in the wind.

"Beans!" Khannie sort of swears. "Or it does that. UGH wizardry is so much harder than sorcery. It's like doing math problems to do magic instead of singing a catchy song. Not giving up though, I'll definitely figure Mage Hand out."

Oh hey! Speaking of singing!

"Hey! What's that song it sounds nice?" Khannie shouts to her friend rounding the hill.

[Picnic Tables]

"Yes. I know I'm red, thank you." Arthfael grumbles back, also indignant.

Hmph. You don't just tell someone they're red, Khannie.

"And for the record, I'm pretty sure I'm still older than you." Arthfael adds. "Also, you're short." He puts his hand on top of her head for emphasis; he has a whole four inches on her, so there!

Of course, his tune changes pretty quickly when the rock explodes, causing him to jump back and swear loudly (in Maesdan, so thankfully Khannie won't be picking up any secondhand vocabulary lessons). Owena's spells never did that!

...That he knew of.

"Wh... what did you do?!"