GLoG 93: Something something something babies

[Morty]

[Sapling Cabin]

Reelshka looks at the bite and then back at Miranda.

"That's good to know. This doesn't really require more than a band-aid, anyway," she says, then promptly applies one with the ease of someone who's done it many times. She then speaks to all four cubs. "Thank you for coming here, children. You can go play outside later if you want, but I wanted to have you all here for a moment. I need to speak to a new caretaker."

Brinika, meanwhile, wanders over to Khannie.

"Hi Khannie! Maridia tried to steal Pookie's honey again. It kind of seems to end the same way every time, doesn't it?"

[Ironsmith]

[Sapling Cabin]

Miranda nods slowly, watching Reelksha do her thing. She was going to ask what a band-aid was, but it seemed pretty self-evident from subsequent events. As it was, she'd just help usher kids out of the cabin as necessary, eager to get on with the process.

[Earl of Purple]

Sapling Cabin

"She's stickier than usual though because Pookie pushed her in. He's not done that before, normally he's a little too jealous." Cheasadh does grin, though, because it was funny to watch.

Pookie is very hard to clean, as he's always sticky. At least he likes the water so Cheasadh can distract him in the bath by splashing him so he doesn't realise he's getting clean. So long as he doesn't have any honey in the bath, anyway.

[Purple Eagle]

[Daycare]

Manja spots an opportunity!
Even as Orin's reaching towards her, she suddenly flips the situation on its head by going after Orin's hands. She then shows off the ultimate show of domination by trying to stuff Orin's hands into her mouth.

...
Babies do that.
Try to stick things in their mouths.


"No," Harley Moremi says. "Riverside, actually. Got a place there." Used to have a place there, is more accurate. "Well...I guess I'm in HALO now. Actually don't spend much time in Inside - just a day, at most."

[Daycare]

Orin giggles at the sensation of her fingers being sucked on, but struggled enough for only one of her hands to make it. The other one flails as she flops forward, her mouth landing just short of Manja's toe.

Now she's staring at it, contemplating how it'd feel to have it in her mouth, as babies do.

"Oh? Where in Riverside?" Zither asks, showing more interest in the conversation. "I grew up close to the area." When Moremi mentions HALO, Zither smiles a little and nods. "I know HALO, that's where my hubby proposed to me. A friend of ours will be taking over our room soon." She's referring to Svetlana, of course.

[Lake ==> Sapling Cabin]

It's at this time that the posse of kids of various ages arrive at the daycare. Brinika strides in, triumphantly, and does... something approximating a salute in Reelshka's direction. There's a lot of gusto packed into this altogether tiny frame.

"We brought the other kids back, auntie! But Gilda got bit by a bug."

Reelshka, who was about to say something to Miranda, turns from her to the cub.

"Did you? Let us take a look." She looks back to Miranda. "This is a good time to ask, I suppose. Do you have any first aid training? There's often a need of it. Not just to help the kids, but we also lend our infirmary to people who need medical attention."

Zara stops in her tracks once she's placed herself in front of the approaching group. "Shalom, everyone! Shalom, Miss Trollfinger! Zara has two new potential parents who want to enlist daycare services!" She declares before any of them have a chance to speak further.

"Brinika? Zara has heard a lot about you! Let's be friends!" She further adds, once she notices the goblin.

[Artemis97]

Near the Woods

Sekhmet looks down at her feet. Her tail is swishing agitatedly. "I don't know. It's, uh, not what I want, but I don't get a choice. It's, uh, worse for me, but better for, uh, everyone else." She sighs deeply. "It's just a matter of time. Uh, it could be days, or, uh, millennia."

"Do, ah, you want to talk about it?" Balthier asks. He takes a step back to give Sekhmet some space.

[Earl of Purple]

Arrivals

Headed up towards the main cabin is a cat. It's a female cat, unusually a ginger cat- gingers are usually toms- and she has large green eyes. It wears a collar, a velvet band with a metal clasp, and heads towards the main cabin, where she'll start to meow loudly and insistently.

[bc56]

Near the Woods

What to say? Telling Balthier could be risky. But he seems more trustworthy than that. "I'm going to be queen." That sounds good, right? Why does Sekhmet say it with the tone of "I'm going to die?"

[5a Violista]

[Daycare]

No!
Don't do it!

Manja kicks, a little.


"Eastside," Moremi says. There's probably no point in saying more precisely where she lived, she thinks.

"Oh, you used to be there?" she asks. "In HALO? Must've been before I got there," because she doesn't recognize them. "Maybe I'll run into your friend, then. I'm there nearly all the time."

[Morty]

[Rowan Cabin]

Zara will find Reelshka outside and absent of any of her children. She seems to be inspecting the walls of one of the cabins, which seem to be in need of some maintenance. She turns to face Zara as the girl comes and looks up from her notebook.

"That's good to hear. Who are they and how many children do they need taken care of?"

[Artemis97]

[Near the Woods]

Balthier thinks about her tone and asks, "A demon queen?" Given Skhement's heritage it wasn't a stretch to guess. Besides, the Nexus, as far as he knew, had lots of nobility running around, but none of them had a real claim to anything. She wasn't going to become queen of the Nexus anytime soon. "Or a queen of one of the lands beyond the Nexus?" He wonders next.

[bc56]

Near the Woods

"Uh, both," Sekhmet explains, "Queen of a land of demons." She sighs and looks glum. "My mother is queen now. If she ever dies, it is the will of Fate that I succeed her." Of course demons live a long time and are hard to kill.

[Deathkeeper]

Sapling Cabin

”I caught a bunch of bugs!” Glory says proudly.
”But none of them were very fun after. Then Gilda got bit by a green bug.” Which is a big downer. No one likes their sisters getting attacked by fauna.
Meanwhile!
”Whats that mean? That lady Reelshka is talking to pet Mom and Mom is a girl.”
It was really awkward. Gabriel saw the whole thing.

[Rebonack]

[Sapling Cabin]

"You should just ask if you want some honey, Maridia. And you get too many sweets at home, anyway," Khannie scolds. Ugh. Why does SHE have to be the responsible one?

Maridia makes some affirmative noises as she continues licking herself off. And occasionally Pookie. She's really not seeing any major downsides to this situation. Khannie glares at her.

Next up, Khannie needs to justify herself to a hippogriff!

"Umm..."

How's she going to do that?

"No I mean like a human girl," Khannie clarifies. "Petting human girls is weird."

And Khannie is definitely a human girl and not anything else. Don't pay any attention to the fact that she doesn't smell like one because adding an olfactory aspect to her illusion is hard.

Meanwhile!

"Oh... was it scary?" Gwen asks as Gilda stalks over, looking cross.

"It wasn't that bad," she huffs as she begins batting around a ball on the floor. She's going to studiously ignore the fact that her paw hurts a little. "I didn't even cry."

[Earl of Purple]

Sapling Cabin

"You can pet me, if you want. I'm not as fluffy as you or Pookie, but at least I'm not sticky like he is. At least, not right now- NO! Pookie, stop it! Grr, naughty bear!" Cheasadh's offer is interrupted by Pookie setting down the honey pot and trying to give Cheasadh a hug. If she did hug Pookie, she'd then be sticky. Cheasadh's smiling even as she's trying to escape and telling her teddiursa off.

Arrivals

Headed up towards the main cabin is a cat. It's a female cat, unusually a ginger cat- gingers are usually toms- and she has large green eyes. It wears a collar, a velvet band with a metal clasp, and heads towards the main cabin, where she'll start to meow loudly and insistently.

[Morty]

[Sapling Cabin]

"You were very brave, Gilda," Reelshka says reassuringly before looking back to Miranda. "Where was I... all those children can prove distracting, as you can see. Right. As I've said, there's always a lot to do around the campsite, so we expect our volunteers to be able to contribute. A lot of it are very mundane everyday task. But we do also run a therapy service of sorts, including for people who want to leave behind a... checkered past."

Brinika is looking between Khannie and Gabriel. Seems like Khannie is having trouble with her species identity again.

"Petting fluffy people is tricky. Some are fine with it, others aren't."

[Arrivals]

The cat is spotted by GLoG's resident therapist, Sophie. The Exalt stops and looks down at her while heading to the main cabin for something.

"And how did you get here?" she ask rhetorically. If the cat is meowing, it's probably not the kind that can talk. But if it can, she supposes it will just answer her.

[Ironsmith]

[Sapling Cabin]

"You were very brave, Gilda," Reelshka says reassuringly before looking back to Miranda. "Where was I... all those children can prove distracting, as you can see. Right. As I've said, there's always a lot to do around the campsite, so we expect our volunteers to be able to contribute. A lot of it are very mundane everyday task. But we do also run a therapy service of sorts, including for people who want to leave behind a... checkered past."

Brinika is looking between Khannie and Gabriel. Seems like Khannie is having trouble with her species identity again.

"Petting fluffy people is tricky. Some are fine with it, others aren't."

[Sapling Cabin]

Miranda nods. "Makes sense. Logistically, there's gotta be a lot going on here at any given time." She takes a minute to ruminate on the implications of that therapy service; Geneva mentioned something about that earlier. Something about reforming villains? She might have to look into that later; she doubted she'd really qualify as a "villain", but anyone qualified to usher along a reformation of that scale could probably still help her; she had a lot of things in her past she wasn't too proud of.

She snaps out of it in time to catch on to the conversation about petting people. Oh, right. She did pet Geneva. "You know, there are cases of people petting other people." She points out. "A bit more so in my time. It's a good way to get cooties, though, so... I wouldn't recommend it."

[Earl of Purple]

Arrivals

The cat meows again, and turns to look back at the footpath leading to the camp. Then it looks up at Sophie, meows loudly and starts scratching at her neck and shoulder, still staring at Sophie.

It... looked as though it was answering her rhetorical question, if she assumes the cat used the footpath from Inside.

[Morty]

[Arrivals]

That's certainly strange. Maybe this cat is smarter than a regular one, just unable to talk in a way she can understand. She kneels down and examines it more closely, Essence rising up and suffusing her senses. Just who or what is this cat?

[Earl of Purple]

Arrivals

Well, she's not a cat. Sh looks like a cat, and she acts a bit like a cat, but she's actually a person. A rather unfortunate red-haired half-elf, forced into the shape of a cat... by the collar she was scratching at.

Since Sophie's knelt down, the person-cat rubs her head against the Exalt, especially any hands that might catch at the collar. She knows the collar is responsible for the transformation, but can't take it off herself and can't easily communicate the issue, since she's a cat and can't talk.

[Purple Eagle]

[Daycare]

No!
Don't do it!

Manja kicks, a little.


"Eastside," Moremi says. There's probably no point in saying more precisely where she lived, she thinks.

"Oh, you used to be there?" she asks. "In HALO? Must've been before I got there," because she doesn't recognize them. "Maybe I'll run into your friend, then. I'm there nearly all the time."

[Daycare]

Manja's motion merely ensures that her toes end up in Orin's mouth, and she begins to suck on them. Ha, she got something to suck on too, take that Manja!

"Interesting." Zither says with a series of nods, both at the Eastside and the HALO bits. "Perhaps you will, her name is Dr. Svetlana Tanaka. Tell her Zither says hi. Do you also do scientific pursuits in HALO?"

[Rowan Cabin]

Zara will find Reelshka outside and absent of any of her children. She seems to be inspecting the walls of one of the cabins, which seem to be in need of some maintenance. She turns to face Zara as the girl comes and looks up from her notebook.

"That's good to hear. Who are they and how many children do they need taken care of?"

[Rowan Cabin]

"Two mothers with their baby daughters! They introduced themselves to Zara, they are Zither and Moremi!" Zara responds, beaming as she always does.

"Zara knows Zither, because Zither stays close to Zara's orphanage."

[Artemis97]

Near the Woods

"Uh, both," Sekhmet explains, "Queen of a land of demons." She sighs and looks glum. "My mother is queen now. If she ever dies, it is the will of Fate that I succeed her." Of course demons live a long time and are hard to kill.

[Near the Woods]

"That is tricky." Balthier says. "I suppose you can't abdicate? I'm sure some other person would be happy to step up."

[bc56]

Near the Woods

"No, I, uh, can't. Someone of the, uh, right blood must have the throne." The way Sekhmet describes it implies there's something supernatural at work. "Uh, even if I could step down, someone worse would take it after me." Sekhmet seems pretty nice, but most demons aren't, right? She'd probably make a better queen than any more foul denizen of her realm. But she doesn't seem confident in her ability to rule, and she doesn't seem to want to rule anyway.
And of course there's a deeper question here. Sekhmet is a demon. Why is she Good?

[5a Violista]

Daycare

Manja is weirded out!

She rolls over.


Oh.
Moremi recognizes that name. She thought she was with Vigil!
But she tries to not let the recognition show on her face. And she makes a mental note that...she might have to tell Rein to stop calling her Harley around HALO, at least until she has time to figure everything out.

"If I remember when I meet her, I will," she says.

Getting to the question, Moremi shakes her head. "Not a scientist. I do investigative work sometimes, and when one of the experts was going on a dangerous job, I've accompanied them on occasion."

She pauses, since that's a technically-true answer.
She then adds, "But, also, before you say 'why not MERC': after getting in a car crash, I had a really rough pregnancy," not to mention the assassins, "and my boyfriend is in HALO so I joined up to make things easier and to stop him from worrying about me." it didn't help.
Plus, an assassin basically destroyed her house by firing a machine gun indoors at her, throwing her wardrobe at her, and then smashing her into the cement ground hard enough to go through.
It wasn't a fun experience, to be honest.

[Morty]

[Rowan Cabin]

"Do you need help with getting them registered?" Reelshka asks. "I can be there soon, but I need to take a look at this wall first. And we need to ask them if they can afford to donate to the daycare."

[Arrivals]

Sophie proceeds to take off the collar. She doesn't know quite what is going on, but it seems someone is trapped in cat form against their will.

[Earl of Purple]

Arrivals

The moment the collar is removed, the cat stops being a cat. There's no transformation sequence, no shift wherein the cat is briefly both cat and person, just suddenly what was a cat is now a naked half-elf in her early thirties, on her hands and knees. She's got bright green eyes and long red hair, and her pale skin is marked with faun-like dappling of darker skin.

She stands up and will try to hug Sophie. "Thankyou! Thankyou thankyou thankyou! I was worried nobody'd take that thing off. Wait, hang on- what's the time? I'm getting married today, oh, crap. I need to get home, put the dress on and makeup. I can't be late, I can't! His mother already dislikes me eno- wait. Waitwaitwait. She gave me that! Said it was time to bury the hatchet and let bygones be bygones! Oh, that... that manipulative old biddy! She turned me into a cat so I'd miss my wedding! I gotta go. Do you have a car? I need to get home. And get married." She sounds quite urgent, and it is quite important that she's there on time.

[Morty]

[Arrivals]

Sophie will try to gently fend off the hug. It'd be a little awkward, given that the half-elf is naked.

"Alright, slow down, please. It's about midday. Can you tell me what your name is and where the wedding is meant to take place? We might be able to help you get there."

[Earl of Purple]

Arrivals

"I can't get married like this! They'd never let me near the obelisk. I need my dress. I'm getting married at two o'clock, before the Dark Monolith of Khaine in Bloodwell Park." Fortunately, it's about twelve, so they've got two hours yet. Unfortunately, the half-elf planned far more than that, and has spent a significant chunk of the morning as a cat. "My name? Ysable Shyverwood, soon to be Nethereye."

[Morty]

[Arrivals]

"Bloodwell park. Is that in Inside? We have some clothes we can lend you, but nothing wedding-appropriate." Sophie has practice with calming down panicking and distraught people. "Where is your dress now? Did it fall off when you turned into a cat?"

[Earl of Purple]

Arrivals

"Yes, it's in Inside. Near Arkham Street, but not too near. Couple roads over. Yes, it fell off when I put the choker on. It's in my flat, where my parents are probably waiting with the carriage by now. What did you say the time was? My flat's number 12D, Shackleton Road, the attic rooms. Front door's not locked right now, which... Is less worrying right now than being late for my wedding." Brides can be late, so long as it's not too late. And being turned into a cat is not the excuse anyone wants to use for being late.

[Artemis97]

Near the Woods

"No, I, uh, can't. Someone of the, uh, right blood must have the throne." The way Sekhmet describes it implies there's something supernatural at work. "Uh, even if I could step down, someone worse would take it after me." Sekhmet seems pretty nice, but most demons aren't, right? She'd probably make a better queen than any more foul denizen of her realm. But she doesn't seem confident in her ability to rule, and she doesn't seem to want to rule anyway.
And of course there's a deeper question here. Sekhmet is a demon. Why is she Good?

[Near the Woods]

Balthier frowns. "Some sort of Divine Right to rule, then?" He supposes. "I do have to wonder, though, why don't you want to rule? Most demons would jump at the chance for power, but you're...different."