♂ KOI, Hedjrebl's Phasmas

[Hedjrebl]

[META]

- Ante Matter -

April 24, 1411

In the late afternoon hours of the day after he'd spotted the propagandists from the Panymese Press in Gadu, Coyotl saw quite a bit of evidence of their presence in the streets. Papers, duplicates of the one he'd been given, littered the walkways and blew about in the wind. He wondered whether they'd been dropped purposefully, strewn about in the hopes that the literate public would be intrigued and read them, or whether they'd been thrown out by readers recognizing them for what they were-- trash, to be discarded and ignored. He had a feeling that the latter was not the case. For his part, he did ignore them, as best he could; he'd been on his feet since before sunrise, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

The day had been long, but ultimately productive. He'd been sent to the home of a husband and wife who raised dozens of chickens for their eggs and their meat, a valuable part of his employer's repertoire of sellers. Their home was half a day's walk from the city. Not only had they been present at the house, but the wife had nearly shot an arrow through Coyotl's foot as he approached; she apologized profusely afterward, explaining that they had been defending their livelihood tooth and nail during the chaos of the last month. That was how they had made it through with almost all of their laying hens alive and unharmed. They had insisted that he take with him a half-dozen large brown eggs as a show of goodwill, which he happily accepted. When Coyotl returned to Gadu with the news, as well as the tale of how the couple survived, his employer had laughed fit to burst, and more than compensated him for the trouble. All in all, it had been a good day.

Spending the whole day traveling from one point to another and back again was a sure way to invite idle thoughts to roam free. As Coyotl walked, he'd turned the events of the past month over in his head, remembering each moment of danger as clearly as though it had happened just the last day. The Obscuvan stalker in Rosstead; the two cultists he and Wickwright had outrun in Gadu; the raiding party that had only spared them due to a quick hoodwink by the man called Arelgren. There had been more recent troubles too, each one strange, each one coming from a new direction. Coyotl couldn't remember the last time he had truly felt safe.

It was all because he had something that was valuable to others, he knew. The koi he carried on his back was like a sort of high-stakes bet in a game he didn't fully understand yet, and it seemed that every day, the ante grew bigger. One after another, the other players in the game- players whose faces he couldn't see, whose names he didn't know- were trying to head him off at every move he made.

What was he do to, then? Once he worked up the nerve, he would petition the Council of Sciences for membership, of course, but that would only help him so much. He would have to be alert, keeping an eye out for any potential danger so that he could avoid it before it became a threat. The problem was, of course, that he didn't know what to look out for.

Those thoughts kept Coyotl occupied as he walked back to the inn he'd been staying at for the past few nights. The building was busted up, and the tiny room he was occupying had a hole in the window, which had a scrap of cloth tacked across it, but it was one of the few inns that was still open for business in Gadu, and he needed a place to stay just as much as the owner needed the custom. In the weak and watery light that filtered through what was left of the windowpane, he set down his jar and began checking the pockets of his coat out of habit before taking it off for the night. Soon, he thought to himself brightly, it would be warm enough that he wouldn't need to wear it during the day. It was a decent coat, and it served him well, but it did look awfully shabby.

In his left pocket, his fingers met with something cold and smooth. Coyotl froze. He hadn't stowed anything in that pocket during the day. As he curled his fingers around the foreign object, he was surprised to find that it felt like a small bottle, and his guess was confirmed as he brought the tiny thing out into the light. It was a glass vial, plain and unassuming, with a paper tag looped around its neck and a dark liquid contained inside; Coyotl recognized it instantly as the same sort of liquid that had been dropped by one of the Obscuvans that had accosted he and Wickwright when they had come to Gadu. The guide had hustled it off to the Scientists without clearly explaining what it was, but Coyotl's main concern was not the nature of the bottle or its contents.

He was more worried about how it had ended up in his pocket.

He'd been outside of Gadu, far from any other people, for nearly the entire day; as he'd walked back through the city, he was sure no one had gotten close enough to slip anything into his pocket without his notice. He turned the bottle over in his hand, picking at the scrap of parchment tied around the top. It was blank, but as he fiddled with it, he heard a faint whisper that issued a single piece of instruction:

"Keep this safe."

Coyotl sat for a long time on his meager cot, staring at the vial, until the light from the window had faded completely.

He was beginning to seriously doubt his ability to keep anything safe-- including himself.

 

[Hedjrebl]

[META]

- If I Ever Feel Better -

April 27, 1411

Final Update
"the entangled messenger"

The crow came in the morning.

Coyotl had returned not long ago from another trip outside of Gadu; it would be his last for the market owner, since he'd confirmed the status of every other main vendor the man had in his repertoire of business connections. He had enough money in his pocket to last him a few days before he'd need to find more work, and after returning to the inn and feeding his fish, he was considering taking a quick mid-morning nap. It had been a while since he'd had one of those, and in his humble opinion, he deserved one.

But the tapping that came at the windowpane was all too familiar, and drove any thought of sleep from his mind.

He could see the crow perched on the sill outside, and sure enough, it held a rolled-up letter clutched in its beak. For the briefest of moments, Coyotl considered attempting to ignore it, in the hopes that it might leave him alone if he didn't let it into the tiny room, but he knew beyond any doubt that that wouldn't work. Warily, he fiddled with the piece of cloth that was draped over the gaping hole that had been made in one side of the window, and the bird hopped through.

Coyotl noticed immediately that this one was different from the crows that had plagued the landscape, dead and alive, during the previous month. It was more real than the others, or at least more normal. It wasn't the same solid, inky-black color of the liquid in the vial that had mysteriously appeared in his pocket some days previously, or the goop that swirled in the water within his koi's jar. It also acted more like a normal bird, which was to say that it acted stupid; after dropping the rolled-up letter onto the floor, it cawed noisily before deciding to explore the new environment it found itself in, flapping onto the cot and pecking at the thin blanket covering it.

"Go away," Coyotl snapped at it. The crow ignored him. He made a grab for it, fruitlessly; the crow chattered at him in a stern reproach and flew to the other side of the room. Frustrated, he glanced around for anything he might use to shoo the creature out the window, and eventually snatched up the blanket from the cot, flapping it at the bird and herding it across the tiny room. "Go on, get, shoo!" Finally taking the hint, the crow left with a final chiding caw, blustering ungracefully out of the hole it had come in through. Coyotl replaced the cloth over the smashed window with a huff, then retrieved the parchment from the floor.

By now, he knew what to expect from such messages, but it didn't stop a shiver from traveling up his spine as he unrolled the black ribbon from around the letter and a cold laugh swept through the room. The parchment itself was blank, so Coyotl simply listened as the laughter died down and a familiar voice spoke:

"What a successful trial this was."

At these words, the parchment seemed to crumble away of its own accord; Coyotl shook his fingers in distaste and wiped them on his pants as the letter turned to dust in his hands, just as the bespectacled man had disintegrated outside of the potter's home in the yellow light of the sunset one week previously. The voice, however, continued.

"I must say, all you Grimms are a troubled lot."

Coyotl didn't much care what the sender of the message thought about him, or any other Grimms, for that matter. He shifted his feet impatiently where he stood. Small talk was one thing, but he didn't much see the point of whoever had sent this letter pretending to some level of congeniality in light of everything that had happened since the first of the messages had been sent out. As he listened, though, his attention was drawn to the black ribbon that had fallen to the floor-- or what used to be a ribbon.

"You see, I've learned something from all of you,
what two-thousand and growing lot there are,
and what few hundred have seemingly passed my trials alive."

Where the ribbon had been was a puddle of liquid black, the sight of which was more familiar to Coyotl than he would have liked; it shivered, then, and as he watched, transfixed with a numb sort of horror, it began to slither across the floor toward him.

"This aura, this Furvus Elixir, it's truly what you make of it...
and I've been deceived all along, and so have you."

Coyotl was no longer listening to the voice. He was backing away from the shadows on the floor, his movements slowed and hampered by the terror rising in his chest. What had been one shifting, writhing mass had become two, and now both were stretching themselves upward, their pitch-black forms slowly becoming more human, and worse still, familiar.

Oh no, no...

"Welcome to my world of smoke and mirrors."

Nochtli and Chipahua stood like twin shadows in the morning light. Their bodies were featureless, and their faces were ghastly, each with a pair of round, stark white eyes and a broken, crooked mouth.

Coyotl's throat was so dry that it hurt to breathe.

Both of them were smiling at him.

They seemed to share a private joke, turning to each other and chuckling, before they stepped casually forward, each giving Coyotl a hearty slap on the back. It was the kind of good-natured greeting they might have given each other back in the old days, a decade earlier, when the three of them lived in Mishkan, carefree and filled with an endless zest for life. Coyotl was frozen to the spot with fear-- yes, there was fear, but there was also something else, a nameless ache that throbbed in his chest and made him feel as though he was about to fall from a very high place.

The thing that was not Chipahua and yet was, somehow, had left his side, as if surveying the room casually, curiously. Turning back to him, it gestured. "Hey, Coyotl!" it addressed him in Chipahua's voice. That simple greeting knocked the air from his lungs as surely as a kick in the chest would have done.

The thing continued. "Lonely, aren't you?"

"Why don't you run your sorry self back to the homeland, huh?" Nochtli's voice was coming from the other thing's mouth. It slung one strong arm around his shoulder, pushing him forward with a laugh. "Panymium isn't made for cowards like you," it said. Coyotl had no choice but to walk where it pulled him, though his feet felt as though they were encased in stone, and he nearly tripped over himself as he was led to the window. The thing that was and wasn't Nochtli peered out the window, then looked to him, as if prompting him to do the same.

"Panymium isn't made for loners like you," it told him, as good-naturedly as if it had been telling him what was for breakfast.

"But what do you have to go back to? Your tribe's already dead." Chipahua's voice again. The shadow that had spoken shook its head, staring at Coyotl with an air of cynical amusement. "You lost your chance." They both laughed at him, then, and turned away, as if they were making to leave, but before they reached the door, their forms began to drip away and liquefy. The two melted slowly down, down into the floor, until all that remained where they had stood was a puddle of black, rippling slightly, but otherwise inanimate.

As if the arm of the thing pretending to be Nochtli had been the only thing holding him up, Coyotl's legs wobbled, then gave way, crumpling underneath him. He hit the floor hard on his hands and knees, and the impact helped to jar a bit of sense back into him. All he could hear was his own pulse in his ears, and the ragged breaths that were still difficult to take. He knew that he was shivering, and could do nothing to stop it.

It was a dark, dark magic that brought the dead back to walk among the living. The words of the two fakes, the things that were not, were not Nochtli and Chipahua, they had shaken him straight to his core, rumbled him so thoroughly he scarcely knew which way was up.

They are dead, he told himself over and over, they are dead. The apparitions were an illusion, nothing more, a horror-show meant to frighten him, which it had certainly done, but he couldn't let it get the better of him, because those things, they were not real, and they were wrong.

They were wrong. They had said he was alone-- that he was a loner. Coyotl's hands, still pressed against the floorboards, made loose fists. Life in Panymium was hard, and it had gotten even harder over the past month. Friends were scattered by the troubles facing the continent, and trust was as hard to come by as it was to give.

But he wasn't alone. Not completely. And if Coyotl was lonely, he was not lonely enough yet to seek out the company of ghosts.

He had missed his chance to return home, but he had gained a chance to live.

Coyotl's vision was swimming, and he closed his eyes, letting his forehead rest against the floor. The specters had shaken him deeply, but he still knew what was true and what wasn't. He would be able to get to his feet, he would be able to leave behind the room with the black-stained floor, and he knew that he would survive in the place that was his home. He would be all right.

But he cried openly for the first time in years that morning, before he found his feet again.

 

[Hedjrebl]

[FACTION MISSION]

- A Road to Somewhere -

Coyotl was surprised at how quickly the Council of Sciences responded to his petition for membership. During the first week of May, at their headquarters in Gadu, he had supplied his name and current living address to the officiate that had spoken with him, feeling very out-of-place amidst the throngs of scholars that came and went around him. He'd expected to be fretting over how the Council would respond for at least a week, so he was taken slightly aback when he found himself being contacted by messenger just two days later.

Breaking the seal on the envelope with one finger, he shook out the letter within:


The Council has played sanctuary for many stray men, women and children in the past,
opening our doors to any who ask of it with little question. But these times are fleeting
and the Council must reassert themselves as a force of constant initiative, both as a faction
and as scientists. Coyotl Coyotl, you are not a well-known professor, nor a doctor,
nor a man of esteem or great wealth, and our intelligence tells us that you were but a messenger
in your previous days, but you do have something special in your possession.
Something that helped you on your journey with Wickwright Finch, is that not correct?

Despite your possession of such a treasure, the Council has learned to take protective steps
against the Grimms to save the Council from its downfall. We know of the hardships you have faced,
Coyotl, but in light of hard times this is not enough. In the border provinces
in every Council headquarters (a map will be handed to you by the messenger
who has given you this letter) Dr. Kirkaldy's most trusted scientists have set up induction ceremonies
for new Council members. Go to one of these presentations and tell us why, Coyotl, you will be
a trusty and capable member of the Council of Sciences.


Though the reply had been swift, it was not the clear-cut, yes-or-no answer he had been hoping for. As he reread the letter, the knot of anxiety in the pit of Coyotl's gut tightened. It seemed the Council knew without him needing to tell them that he had no background in academia, or any other credentials, for that matter. The assurances that Finch had offered him the previous month were rapidly falling away, to be replaced by every nagging doubt he'd had leading up to his request, now needling at him steadily.

With no small amount of trepidation, Coyotl thumbed open the map he'd been handed and quickly picked out Gadu, large and marked with a green symbol. According to the annotation made on the map, there would be an induction ceremony in Gadu in just a few days' time. He supposed that in the interim, he ought to try to prepare a few remarks for the coming presentation, to prove his worth in the eyes of the scientists, but what could he write down? What could he possibly say that would convince them?

No good thinking like that, he told himself. After all, if there was no chance for him whatsoever, surely he would have been rejected outright, not given an opportunity to prove himself. There had to be something he could play on to sway their opinion.

Yet Coyotl's nervousness didn't ease up at all during the course of the next few days. Every so often, he would unfold a piece of paper he'd obtained for the purpose of note-taking and scribble something on it, but more often than not he would scratch out whatever he had written a few seconds later, shaking his head and muttering to himself. In an effort to keep himself from going half-mad with stress, his mind churning away in futility, he attempted to sort out his disheveled appearance, in the hopes that the Council would not mistake him for a vagrant and turn him away on sight. He spent an entire day outside the city, by the side of a nearby river, doing what he could to scrub the grime from his clothes as well as his skin; he even considered trying to make some sense of his hair, which had grown somewhat shaggy of late, with a sharp knife, though he quickly thought better of it and decided that cleanliness would have to suffice.

By the time the day of the induction ceremony arrived, Coyotl had managed to ensure that he looked at least vaguely presentable, if still quite down-at-heel; his nervousness had settled itself into a sort of grim anticipation. He had barely managed to come up with a single idea of what he would say to the Council, but he would just have to muddle along and hope for the best. Perhaps he would get some idea of what was expected of him by listening to the speeches of other applicants.

As he approached the headquarters of the Council, he found that he could make a fairly accurate guess as to where the induction ceremony would be held. There was a gathering of people, loosely grouped together into what passed for a queue, standing outside of a high-roofed building that was set apart from the main offices. One by one, they were being ushered through the doors. Coyotl wondered how many people were already waiting inside. Feeling incredibly self-conscious, he made his way over to the group slowly, attempting to look as casual as he possibly could.

Of the ten or so people standing outside the entrance, not a one of them looked half as shabby as Coyotl did. They all looked to be men of some considerable wealth, or at least class and distinction; they were garbed in the clothes of scholars and businessmen, well-groomed and clean, keeping to themselves or exchanging brief, idle chit-chat with one another. Coyotl didn't care to speak with any of them, fearing that he would make a fool of himself, and they seemed just as content to leave him alone as well. He caught a few bemused stares at his appearance, as well as his unusual cargo, and felt his anxiousness become fringed with annoyance. Leaving the jar behind had not been an option, of course; even if he'd had a secure place to stow it, he felt it only appropriate to bring the koi with him, perhaps as a good luck charm, or as a reminder of why he was there, to keep him from backing out at the last moment. Not that the others gathered there could know that, but he resented the curious looks nonetheless. What business was it of theirs, anyway?! Looking affronted, he hiked the jar up slightly higher on his shoulders, sticking up his nose in the air a bit without even realizing it.

One by one, the applicants filed into the building, and Coyotl found himself at the door after a much shorter wait than he'd thought it would be. The officiate who faced him was a thin, serious-looking woman in perhaps her early thirties, with reddish hair and grey-blue eyes; with her hair cut quite short and pulled back from her face, he had nearly mistaken her for a man at first. She stared at him without speaking for a moment, one pale eyebrow raised expectantly.

"Oh, uhh..." He rummaged through his haversack for the letter he'd received from the Council, presenting it with an air of embarrassment. Seeming satisfied, the woman took the letter, scanning it briefly.

"Mister..." She furrowed her brow and seemed to be rereading something. "... Coyotl?" she asked finally, taking a stab at the pronunciation of his name and getting it mostly correct. He nodded apprehensively. "You have prepared your statements for the Council, I presume."

"Err... more or less," he lied, then added, jokingly, "As prepared as they're going to get, anyway."

The attempt at levity fell flat. With the most deadpan expression Coyotl had ever seen, the woman gestured toward the door to her right. "Do try to make a good impression," she advised him dryly. He nodded again, then hastened through the door, feeling no better about his chances.

The inside of the building, while not as grand as the rest of the headquarters, was still quite impressive. It normally saw use as a lecture hall, and had not taken much effort to convert to its current purpose. The ceiling was high and vaulted, almost reminiscent of a small church; stools were provided for the prospective Council members. Most of the light came from the high windows that faced the sun, but on a day with so much cloud cover, the room was cast in a pale, greyish hue. Small lanterns provided some supplementary illumination. At the far end of the room, a lectern stood near a long table, behind which were seated several people, dressed in clothes of the same color and style as those of the woman who had met Coyotl outside. He could only assume that they were the scientists who would be overseeing the induction ceremonies.

It struck him then just how many people were crammed into the hall, and he stared out over the seated assembly with unease before finding a seat himself. There were at least three dozen others there besides himself, young and old, men and women alike, and as more continued to filter through the door into the room, he wondered whether they would all be called on to speak-- and of all those gathered, how many would be chosen for induction.

Those questions would be answered in fairly short order. Within the next fifteen minutes or so, the number of souls gathered in the hall grew to about sixty. When it seemed that all who would attend had already arrived, one of the scientists at the far end of the hall stood, making his way to the lectern. He was an older man, clean-cut, with dark, thinning hair; he cleared his throat, looking out over the assembled masses before beginning to speak.

"As a representative of Dr. Sedgwyck Kirkaldy, it is my honor to stand before all of you gathered here today." Steepling his fingertips on top of the lectern in front of him, he paused before continuing. "As you are no doubt aware, this ceremony is being conducted with an eye toward seeking out the best and brightest minds among our people-- those who will strengthen the Council of Sciences as a whole and work to benefit the lives of all Panymese citizens. I know that many of you have traveled here from afar, and in times as trying as these, such a thing is not easy to do. We thank you all for your dedication.

"However," he said, weaving his fingers together, "you must know that we will not be able to accept every applicant that has petitioned the Council for membership. In order to ensure that time and resources are spent in the most efficient way possible, it is necessary that we be a bit more... choosy, as it were, than we have been in the past. As such, once all of you have made your cases before myself and my colleagues, we will select ten of you for admittance into the Council's ranks." Coyotl leaned forward slightly at this, his eyes growing very wide. "Now, as there are many applicants to go through, I won't squander any more of our precious time on introductions. To those of you present, when your name is called, please come to the front of the hall and present whatever material you have prepared to myself and my peers." The man gave a brief, professional smile. "We hope that you will all impress us."

With that, he left the lectern and returned to the table, where the red-haired woman was also seated. After taking a cursory look at a list she held in her hand, she read off a name: "Benjamin Speer." A man sitting close to the front of the hall stood and approached the lectern.

Coyotl had broken into a cold sweat. If only ten people would be chosen from the assembled number, he was in even worse shape than he'd figured. Trying to calm himself, he cast a furtive glance at the people seated near him, then at the officiates at the front of the room. Every so often, one of them would write something down on one of the papers that lay on the table. After several minutes, the man they'd called to the front finished speaking- Coyotl realized that he had no idea what the man had said, caught up as he'd been in his own thoughts- and the scientists nodded politely to him as he returned to his seat. They conferred with each other briefly before another name was read out.

"Angela Mowbrey."

It seemed that the names were not being read out in alphabetical order, which meant that Coyotl would not be able to anticipate when his own name would be called. To distract himself from the agonizing wait, and in a last-ditch attempt to prepare whatever he was going to say to the scientists, he made a concerted effort to observe the other hopefuls as they spoke. He listened carefully to what they said, and watched the table of officiates for reactions, limited though they were.

The speakers sounded fairly similar to each other at first, but as he puzzled through the scholarly jargon, he began to pick up patterns and similarities between them. Several of them gave short, dry lectures on their areas of expertise; these were, for the most part, painfully boring, and Coyotl disregarded them. The touting of one's education and personal connections was popular, and it became a simple matter to tell who was using a lot of complicated words to fluff up what was essentially a glorified name-drop. Those among the applicants who were dressed in the finest clothes, Coyotl noticed, often gave the shortest speeches. Some of them were only two or three sentences long, and though the language they used was lofty and sophisticated, their message to the Council was very clear: "I am wealthy. I can give you money." He saw that after those people spoke, the officiates seemed to write comparatively fewer notes, and he wished he knew what that signified.

The minutes passed slowly, and Coyotl was torn between dread and anticipation. Over half of the other applicants had spoken by the time he heard his name read out, and even though he had been waiting for it, a shock ran up his spine when he was called.

"Coyotl Coyotl."

He sat upright with a jolt, then jumped to his feet hurriedly and grabbed the jar containing his koi from where he'd placed it next to his stool. Not bothering to fasten the thing to his back, he simply carried it with him, up to the front of the hall; the walk seemed painfully slow, and he cursed himself for not sitting closer to the lectern. He reached it, finally, after what seemed like a year of walking through the stuffy, oppressive silence of the lecture hall with only the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, and set the jar down beside it, doing his best to ignore the raised eyebrows it earned him from the officiates. He saw one of them, a dark-haired man, lean over and whisper to one of the others, then gesture to something on the paper in front of him. The second man peered at it curiously, then nodded with a look of understanding. Coyotl honestly wasn't sure whether he'd prefer to know what had been said or not.

If the walk up to the lectern had been painful, the moments that followed were excruciating. Coyotl's mouth was incredibly dry, as if he'd just attempted to choke down a mouthful of sand, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't summon up even a single sentence; all the words he knew had fled his mind completely, to be replaced by sheer cold panic. Something, he had to think of something, the officiates were watching him and he was blowing it, the only chance he was likely to get...

Out of desperation, he looked down, not sure what he was expecting to find. It was only then that he realized he was still clutching his letter from the Council in one clammy hand; it must have been there since he'd first brought it out to show to the woman at the door. He scanned it briefly, for complete lack of anything else that might help him.

And something clicked, then, though even as it did, he wasn't sure what it was.

"Go to one of these presentations and tell us why, Coyotl, you will be
a trusty and capable member of the Council of Sciences."

Trust.

Well, it was a start, anyway.

Licking his lips in a futile attempt to moisten them, Coyotl looked up, eyes flickering from one Council member to another. The lectern faced out into the room, but as he began to speak, he addressed the table to his right side, not attempting to project his voice out over the hall.

"I haven't got much to offer you," he began bluntly. His voice cracked slightly as he spoke, but after taking a breath to steady himself, he continued. "I don't have any money, and I don't know..." Catching himself mid-sentence, he recalled Hopkin's puzzlement over his improper grammar the last time he'd talked to the little Plague, and amended what he was about to say. "I don't know much about science and I don't know any professors or doctors or anythin' like that." At the very least, this declaration had gotten the officiates' attention, though whether that attention was positive or negative remained to be seen. Coyotl pressed on.

"What I can give you is my loyalty. I haven't got any connections with anybody, I'm not looking to curry no favors, and I don't have any... any conflict of interests," he said, after grasping around briefly to find the phrase he was looking for. "What I mean to say is, I'm not workin' for anyone. All I'm looking to do is learn, and try to help other folks out when I can. That's-- I'm-- I was a postman. I still am one," he corrected, somewhat fiercely. "But that was before all this mess with the Obscuvans, getting their dirty fingers in the post, and them crows..." At his own mention of the House's activities, Coyotl grew visibly incensed; his face darkened, and the hand that wasn't holding his letter from the Council clenched into a tight fist. "Making a damn mockery out of us. So that's done. Can't work in the post offices no more, not when they're all full of rats. But when you take a job delivering letters in Imisus, you swear a creed. 'To protect and preserve the free exchange of ideas'," he recited. "Just because I can't work in the main dispatches, don't mean that doesn't still mean something. So... so."

He blinked as it occurred to him how much he'd just said, when only minutes ago he'd scarcely been able to recall his own name. Hopefully it would be enough, as by that point he really had run out of things to say.

"So that's what I'm offering you, then. I can get any letter anywhere you need it, and see that it stays outta' the hands of people you don't want reading it. All I want from you is knowledge." He hesitated. Earlier, Coyotl had avoided mentioning exactly what it was he wanted from the Council in terms of information, and he wondered briefly whether being completely honest about it would be in his best interest. He wasn't exactly keen on revealing to everyone within earshot that he was in possession of a Plagued item, either. Then again, he wasn't very good at any of the sort of sideways-talk that might allow him to neatly skirt the subject; if being forthright with the Scientists wasn't the best option, it might well have been the only option.

"I need to learn what I can about Plagues," he declared finally, with a look to the jar at his side. He could see that a few of the officiates seated at the table followed his glance downward. The Council knew that he was a Grimm; he could only hope that that fact was enough to make his intentions clear. "I might not be able to do much to help find a cure to the Black Death, but I must be able to do somethin'. And anything I know that might be useful, from firsthand experience, that information's yours. Even exchange." He held his hands palms-up. "You need people you can trust, and so do I."

That was it. That was all he had. With a final glance at the table of scientists, Coyotl bent down to pick up the jar, his ears buzzing slightly. He was moving in a daze, and was scarcely aware of the nod of acknowledgement one of the officiates gave him. Their faces were just as impassive as they'd been before he spoke, and as he started the walk back to the stool he'd been seated on previously- a much shorter distance than it had seemed from the other direction- quiet words were exchanged between them, interspersed with the scratching of a quill on paper. The next name was not called until after he'd taken his seat.

Coyotl scarcely heard anything that was said for the next ten minutes or so. Rather than whirling in panic, his thoughts seemed to have ground to a complete halt; for a while, he wasn't even nervous at all. He simply stared into nothing, eyes unfocused, with his hands resting on top of the jar that sat between his knees. It was as if a pile of rocks had been lifted off of his chest. Along with the relief he felt at having gotten the whole thing over with, there was also a sense of... was it pride? Yes, he supposed that he was a little proud of himself after all. He hadn't simply stood in front of the Council members spluttering and stammering, and that, in itself, was something.

But was it enough?

As his mind drifted slowly back to reality, Coyotl began to worry. It wasn't the same as the anxiousness he'd felt earlier that day, and on the days preceding it, because in this case he could do nothing further to improve his chances; all he could do was wait. That didn't stop him from attempting to figure his chances, though, and the more he thought, the more he felt as though he had no chance at all. He was completely unqualified, he'd admitted it himself. What use could the Council possibly have for him? He drummed his fingers on the cork of the jar, looking morose, then stopped himself after a moment, wondering if the noise and vibrations would disturb the koi inside. No sense passing his own unease on to the fish. Folding his hands over the top of the jar, he waited as patiently as he could for the end of the presentations.

As the last speaker finished, a stuffy silence settled over the entire assembly. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, and no one spoke, until a polite cough sounded from the front of the hall.

"We thank all of you once again for joining us here today."

One of the officiates stood at the lectern, a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Without further delay, we will now announce the names of those who have been chosen for induction into the Council of Sciences. Please remain seated until all ten names have been read. Those whose names are not called may leave, and are invited to apply again for membership in one month's time; a representative of the Council will be present outside if you have any further questions..."

Coyotl was hardly listening as the list was read. Instead, he'd begun pointlessly agonizing over everything he could have done differently when he'd spoken to the Scientists. His posture had been terrible, probably. Why hadn't he stood up straighter? What if he had been mumbling? Even though he hadn't had any notes to read from, perhaps he should have acted as though he had; it might have made him look smarter, more professional. If he had to try again in a month, he would do so, though he couldn't imagine that he would fare any better, unless he could somehow manage to acquire a world-class education in the sciences during the meantime...

"...otl."

For a moment, Coyotl did nothing. Then he sat bolt upright, his eyes very wide, looking around as though he had just been accused of something. Had they... was that his name? What had just happened? The scientist announcing the names moved on to the next, and as the rest of the new inductees were read out, Coyotl continued to look back and forth in complete bafflement. He hadn't been counting the names, so he didn't know how many were left-- for that matter, he hadn't really been listening at all as they were read, or he would have known whether or not his own name had just been called.

What must have been the tenth name was called- "Josephine Polese."- and the hall began to clear, slowly. Stools scraped against the floor as those whose names had not been called began to straggle towards the door, most looking highly disappointed, some looking angry, a few of them talking quietly amongst themselves. It took a minute or so for the room to empty, until there were only a few people left in it. Coyotl had gotten to his feet, nervously, and swung his jar up onto his back, in preparation for having to carry it out.

It occurred to him to count the others in the room. Three scientists remained; the other two must have left to see to the questions of those outside. Of those seeking membership in the Council, there were nine-- not including himself.

Oh.

Near where the lectern stood, the red-headed woman turned to the ten inductees, scattered among the stools, and motioned with an arm.

"Come to the front of the hall, if you will," she said, before turning to her fellows, who were unpacking bags onto the table they'd been seated behind. Shaking himself out of his daze, Coyotl willed his feet into motion, following after the other nine as they filed toward where the officiates stood. As he neared the table, he could see that the objects being unpacked from the bags were very small candles, which were being arranged into clusters of seven on the tabletop. While the other two were thus occupied, the woman addressed the inductees once more.

"First, let me offer you my congratulations," she began. "I am Doctor Rosenstiehl, and these-" she gestured to the officiates on either side of her- "are Doctors Bremse and Macias."

As she spoke, Coyotl did his best to listen, but he found himself very distracted by the turn of events that had placed him where he stood. Rather than being excited or overjoyed (those would both come later), he felt numb, as if all the blood had drained out of his extremities. He couldn't allow himself to accept the situation, for fear that some grievous error had been made, and it would all come apart if anyone paid it the slightest bit of attention to the fact that he was being inducted into the Council.

Rosenstiehl was still speaking. "In the days to come, you will all be briefed on what will be expected of you, now that you have been accepted as students within the Council's ranks. You were chosen by our group of representatives for displaying traits we believe will be of great worth to the Council's work, be they your accomplishments, aptitude, or... strong initiative." The blood that had gone mysteriously missing from Coyotl's hands and feet shot up into his face as he realized that the doctor had given him a pointed look as she spoke those last two words. With just the barest hint of something that might have been a smile, she continued.

"It is our greatest hope that you will use these traits to advance our cause-- to apply logic and knowledge in the face of fear and doubt; to further your own research as well as that of your peers, that we may gain further insight into all parts of the natural world; and most urgently, to fight the Black Death, which has claimed the lives of so many Panymese citizens over the past decade." Rosenstiehl cast a quick glance behind herself at the table; seeing that the candles, 70 in all, had been arranged on both sides, she stepped away. "If you will each take a place at this table, we will conduct a brief ceremony to commemorate your induction into the Council."

The group of ten spread itself around the table, five to each side; flanked by an older gentleman and a woman, both sharply dressed, Coyotl had a strong feeling- one familiar to him by this point- of being very out-of-place, but squashed it as best he could. Thin wooden sticks, a slow-burning sort used to light multiple candles at once, were distributed, and a lighted lantern was placed in the center of the table.

One of the doctors- Bremse- addressed the group. "The candles in front of you represent each of the Seven Virtues. Light them one by one, and reflect upon the meaning of each."

The inductees held their lighting-sticks to the lantern's flame; Coyotl followed suit, and found that his fingers were shaking very slightly. He nearly jumped when the flame took, burning neatly at the very tip of the stick.

"Chastity, to preserve the cleanliness of body and mind;
Temperance in the face of temptation and excess;
Charity, to assuage the pain of want;
Diligence in one's labors, to the benefit of all;
Patience, to arise unscathed from failure and continue forward;
Kindness in word and action, to preserve the ties of humanity;
Humility, so as not to be blinded by one's own light."

As he lit the final candle in the cluster in front of him, half-listening to the doctor who spoke, Coyotl stifled a yelp as he singed his fingers on one of the candles he'd already lit. A smattering of quiet laughter went up from the assembled group, and in embarrassment, he whipped the lighting-stick through the air to extinguish it.

Yet despite the fact that he was being laughed at, Coyotl found himself slightly less tense after the minor mishap. Somehow, the fact that he had unintentionally drawn attention to himself, but had not been thrown out on his ear, was immensely reassuring.

If he could nearly set himself on fire and still be a member of the Council, perhaps there was some hope for him yet.

The rest of the ceremony, brief and sober as it was, passed by in a blur. There was a bit of hand-shaking and polite congratulations. Coyotl was asked to sign a document confirming his membership, and was questioned by a puzzled fellow inductee regarding his name (to whom he was forced to awkwardly explain why he didn't have a proper surname, and why didn't he just take a Panymese surname, wouldn't that be so much simpler?)

By the time he left the Headquarters to return to his lodgings, the afternoon sun was low in the sky, but his spirits were as high as they had ever been. He twisted one arm around to place his hand flat against the jar on his back, and smiled as one sentence replayed itself over and over in his head. Those six simple words had erased the doubts lingering in his mind as surely as a brisk wind scattering away dead leaves.

"Welcome to the Council of Sciences."

 

[Hedjrebl]

- One Summer's Day -

The day began, as do most days on which important things are fated to happen, like any other.

Coyotl had taken to leaving the jar in which he kept his koi uncorked in his idle moments, over the course of the past month. It was partially a feeling of increased security that prompted him to do so, at least when he was in or around one of the Council's headquarters, but that was not the only reason. The fish, he had noticed, was acting even less lively than usual; it stayed near the bottom of the jar, seeming reluctant to come to the surface even when he dropped bits of food into the water. It made him anxious, and though he didn't know whether it would help anything, he had decided to leave the jar open when he could, to give the creature some fresh air.

His knowledge of biology was practically nonexistent, but Coyotl knew this much: all things needed air in order to live. He'd read as much in one of the volumes he'd found in the Council of Sciences' extensive library, located within the walls of the faction's headquarters in Gadu. It was as close to an introduction to biology as he could find, entitled Flora and Fauna of the Panymese Continent. Leafing through its pages, he'd been particularly interested in the portions having to do with fish, though of course none of them addressed koi specifically. He had learned that fish, though they breathed water, seemed to need access to air as well. It was one of many things he didn't yet fully understand, but the more he read, the more he learned. The progress he made was very satisfying.

Reading books and scholarly journals took much more time and concentration than he'd expected. Coyotl tended to keep a lexicon of terms by his elbow as he read, poring over passages slowly but surely. That was how he spent what free time he had; as far as he saw it, that was a part of the agreement he'd made with the Council when he'd joined their ranks. He was a dedicated postman, running messages and sensitive materials hither and thither, wherever they needed to get to; in return, he was allotted a modest salary as well as access to the Council's wealth of information. At first, he'd simply grabbed whatever texts caught his attention, piling them in stacks on the table in front of him and skimming them at random, but that had been a poor way to go about his "research", such as it was. As the weeks wore on, he began choosing more carefully, selecting volumes that seemed basic enough that he would be able to understand them. There he was, among some of the most brilliant minds in all of Panymium, knowing almost nothing about the subjects that the rest of them seemed to be experts in! It was plain embarrassing, and he was determined to do what he could to correct the situation.

Biology was interesting enough- far moreso than chemistry or geology, at any rate- but the true concentration of Coyotl's interests laid in the study of Plagues. Having heard only rumors of their true nature from those who could not even call themselves Grimms, he was incredibly keen to find out whatever he could about them-- what manner of creatures they were, what type of care they required, how they came to grow from simple objects (and animals.) How could he ensure the Plague in his own posession was healthy if he knew nothing about it?

When he'd found a large collection of reports in the library's rapidly-expanding section on Plagueology, he'd been excited. Once he began reading, though, that eagerness quickly turned to frustration. The volume had been labeled, very simply, On Plagues, helpfully subtitled Concerning Those Objects Having Been Tainted With the Black Death. It had seemed an obvious choice for Coyotl to begin reading, but he found that the reports themselves were written in such unfamiliar language that just attempting to browse through them made his head hurt. It wasn't just the jargon that confused him. Whomever had written the journals of study had wound up even small, familiar words into rambling snarls of sentences, which a scholar would have no difficulty understanding, but which a working-class man with little education would find almost impossible to decipher.

Before long, though, he was tasked with another delivery for the Council, and was required to leave the aggravating text behind. This time, his destination lay near the border between Imisus and Shyregoed; thankfully, summer was entering its height, so the weather remained warm even as he made his way to the northwest. Coyotl kept a few passages copied from the reports on folded scraps of paper, and as he traveled, he would puzzle over them with a furrowed brow, which did little more than make his head hurt again.

The trip took roughly two weeks. Once he had delivered the Council's message, he spent the night in an inn rather than setting out immediately for Gadu once more, needing a reprieve for his aching feet and sun-weary limbs. The room was small, with a table that was barely big enough to hold the jar Coyotl carried on his back; that was where he left it before he turned in for the night, removing the cork from its lid and placing it on the table next to the jar. He took a glance into the water, and frowned at the sight of the fish near the bottom, barely moving at all, its tail fanning back and forth at a snail's pace. Worried, but knowing he wouldn't be able to do anything about the koi's condition until morning anyway, he let it alone.

The morning was nearly halfway over by the time Coyotl woke up. Sunlight streamed through the window, and he yawned so hugely as he stretched that it was a wonder he did not dislocate his jaw. As soon as the fog of sleep had disipated, he heaved himself to his feet, wincing as his legs protested. He looked to the table where he had left his jar, and almost immediately noticed the presence of several droplets of water, shining against the worn grain of the wood.

With something between curiousity and nervousness, Coyotl crept forward until he could peer down into the water, murky but still clear enough to see through.

The jar was empty.

---

Known to those studying the biology of Plagued items, there are
three separate and distinct stages of growth through which specimens
advance, though in every observed case, when the background
of the objects in question and circumstances of their growth have been
noted thoroughly, discrepancies will invariably exist between the lengths
of time required for each individual specimen to progress. No reason
has yet been given to account for these inconsistencies, all proposed
theories having been too vague or else unable to be tested in a manner
satisfactory to the scientific community at large. Nonetheless, the phases
of growth are described as follows:

Putesco, during which time the object remains inanimate.
In cases regarding living animals which have become tainted with Plague,
creatures in question display behavior typical of their species.
Excito, during which time the object takes on a form reminiscent
of a tiny human-like figure, not unlike some manner of faery or sprite
seen in children's stories.
Anhelo, during which time, having experienced a tremendous amount
of growth, the object takes on a form resembling that of a human
in shape as well as size, though in all known cases, certain traits are retained
which mark the subject as being inhuman.

________"On Plagues", Inglewyrd et al, 1409

---

Behind the jar, the little Plague was very, very still.

It sat, dazed, in a puddle of water as small as itself. The puddle was spreading slowly across the tabletop, as though attempting to merge with the little dribbles that formed a curving trail around one side of the jar. The robes that swaddled the Plague, white with accents of blue, red and gold, were sodden with water, as was the wide straw hat that hung across its back. Its face was eyeless, and bore a large spot, bright red; its small mouth drooped open dumbly as it sat.

Until recently, it- he- had been a fish. But something had changed in the night, or rather, a change that had taken place long ago had finally manifested itself, and suddenly, everything was different.

It had taken several minutes of floundering for the Plague to grow accustomed enough to his new limbs that he was able to sling two of them over the lip of his jar. He had dragged himself up out of the water, and allowed himself to slide down the side, onto the wooden table below. Once he had, he'd stared at his surroundings in fear and discomfort, unaccustomed to being in such an open space. He wished that he had not left the water, and he wished to return to the jar, to slip back into the dark space that had been his home for so long, but now that he was out, there was no way to get back. No matter how he pushed and pawed at the side, he could not crawl back in the way he had come. So he was forced to stay. On the legs he had not had until just that morning, he teetered around the jar, to the side that faced away from the light, and sat in its shadow, his brand-new feet splayed out in front of him. He didn't want to see the world around him, it was far too big, there was too much of it to comprehend, and so he focused instead on examining his body, which was now completely unfamiliar to him.

The material that the Plague was draped in hung heavily on his limbs, but he didn't attempt to wriggle free of it. It was cool, and it was wet, and that pleased him. The limbs themselves were unsettling, and he concentrated for a moment on moving each in turn, first his legs, then his arms. They were so different from fins, bending and flexing in strange ways, stiff and solid and ungraceful. His tail, he realized, was gone. With some difficulty, he scraped his sopping wet sleeves away from his arms and gazed at the digits on the ends of them, mystified. Feet were an odd enough thing to have, but hands were a different matter entirely. He flexed his fingers, spread them out wide and wiggled them, staring at the thin membrane that stretched between each one; he pressed his palms together, then drew in a shaky breath at the sensation. With hands, he could touch himself, feel his own body, something that had never been even remotely possible for him before. Gingerly, he touched his fingers to his knees, then pulled them away immediately, as if afraid he would break himself. When no damage seemed to have heen done, he laid each hand flat on the knee in front of it, his legs twitching involuntarily as he did so. The little Plague shivered.

After a long moment's hesitation, he brought his hands to his face and rested his fingertips ever-so-lightly on the surface of his own skin. It was smooth, and the feeling of touching it was incredibly strange. He splayed his fingers and allowed them to drift upwards; briefly, they obscured his vision, then they were sliding up and back, over the top of his cranium, just as smooth as his face, tickling and making him squirm. His thumbs brushed the fins that jutted out on either side-- and then, before he knew it, he had discovered the back of his own head...

It was too much for him. The Plague jerked his hands away, allowing the sleeves to fall over them once more and dropping them into his lap. He shuddered with a feeling that was both unfamiliar and terrible, one that a being more familiar with emotion would recognize as revulsion.

Everything was wrong. Nothing was as it should have been, and he was afraid of the huge place he found himself in. There was not enough water, the air was strange to breathe, it was far too bright even in the shadows where he sat, and there was something else, something tugging on the edge of his newly-expanded consciousness, that was missing, but he didn't know what it was, and that was the most horrible thing of all. The Plague tried to block out his surroundings. He leaned forward, brought up his knees as far as he could, and buried his face in his sleeves. He would sit in his puddle and pretend that the world which so frightened him did not exist. Perhaps, if he ignored it for long enough, it would go away.

Then he heard something move behind him, and he realized that he was not alone.

---

Let it be shewn herein, and indeed it has been supported by the findings
of Messrs. Thurber and Earbrass alike, that a fully formed Plague
as it is known to the community of the sciences as a whole cannot arise
from an object remaining untainted by the hand of the Black Death.
Nor can an item which bears such a tincture be cleansed of it,
an opinion strengthened by the evidence of many and several case studies,
during which every method of sanitation at the disposal of those
operating said studies was attempted, to no appreciable result.
Indeed, among those most eminent in that youngest field of scholarship,
which comprises the observation of and investigation into the physiology
of Plagues, there is little ground of dispute on the matters of growth;
that only an item which bears the mark of the Black Death upon its form
will become animated, through a process of transformation not fully
understood by any man, having been, and thereafter remaining, in the care
of a guardian (such guardians being hereafter referred to as Grimms.)

________"On Plagues", Inglewyrd et al, 1409

---

After the initial shock of seeing the jar with no koi inside wore off, Coyotl was proud of how well he'd handled himself.

He stood very still and breathed in, slowly, through his nose, then exhaled just as slowly through his mouth. All right. Think. Think. Had he left the door to the room unlocked before sleeping? No, he was sure he'd locked it. The window was secure, and besides, it was too small for anyone to slip through easily. On top of that, if anyone had wanted to steal the fish, why wouldn't they have just taken the entire jar?

Then it hit him, and he didn't know why he hadn't realized it sooner.

He leaned away from the table, taking another deep breath to calm himself, his eyes wide and focused on the drips of water, which were slowly soaking into the wood. He realized that they were forming a sort of trail that led around the side of the jar, and on the opposite side, mostly hidden from his view, was the edge of a larger puddle of water, inching outward from its unseen source...

Coyotl took a slow, cautious step backward, fumbling behind him for the wooden chair he'd had no plans of ever sitting in the day before. It creaked against the floor slightly as he pulled it towards himself, and he winced, then turned the chair around as quietly as he could and sat backwards on it, leaned his elbows on the back of the chair and rested his chin on his arms.

He stared intently at the jar for what seemed like an eternity, unsure of what to do next.

"Hello?" came a single, inquiring word from his own mouth. His voice sounded strange to his ears, nervous and uncertain. He swallowed drily in his throat.

There was a long pause, during which Coyotl grew increasingly anxious; then from behind the jar came a tiny, tiny voice, one that sounded just as meek as his own had.

"Do not eat me," the voice said.

A beat passed.

"... What?"

Another pause followed, during which Coyotl tried to process what he'd heard, to no avail. He understood the words, but... well, they weren't exactly something anyone could reasonably expect to hear during their lifetime.

"Do not eat me," repeated the little voice. There was something strange about the sound of it; Coyotl found himself thinking that it sounded like someone trying to talk around a lungful of water. "Please," it added.

Coyotl was at a loss for words. He had known this day was coming, and had been looking forward to it with an eager curiousity, but this was something he hadn't expected.

" 'Hoy," he said finally. "Come out where I can see you."

There was no answer. Only a quiet sloshing sound followed, like a finger poking a pile of soaking wet fabric. It became clear that whatever was behind the jar had no intention of moving.

"I won't eat you," Coyotl said, trying to ignore how bizarre the words sounded. "Promise."

At first, he thought that perhaps the creature was ignoring him. But just as he was about to lean around to get a peek behind the jar, there came another squelching noise. He drew back immediately.

Slowly, slowly, a tiny white face no bigger than a fingertip emerged from around the side of the vessel. For a moment, Coyotl mistook the spot in the middle of the face for a single red, cyclopean eye, but as he stared, he realized that it was identical to the marking that had been present on the koi's head, when it was still a koi.

Though it had no eyes with which to see, the face was unmistakably peering at him, and his mouth hung open slightly as he peered right back.

Behind the jar, the little Plague shuffled. He was having difficulty getting to his feet, and so he crept forward on his hands and knees instead, gaze locked on the huge creature that waited in front of him. The only reason he could imagine for the creature to be staring at him so was that it wanted to eat him, though the creature did not look like a river-bear, or one of the swift birds that he knew, deep in the ancestral corners of his mind, were to be feared. But the creature had told him that it would not eat him, and though he did not understand the significance of a promise, the words were persuasive. They were the first words that the Plague had ever heard and understood, spoken in a voice that was, he found, somehow familiar.

So the Plague scooted along as best he could, though he found that his knees were treading on his sleeves, making it difficult for him to move at all. Eventually he tried a different tack, pushing himself upright so that he was balanced, unsteadily, on his knees. One hand found the side of the jar, and the Plague leaned against its solid surface, pulling his legs up underneath him as he did so, until he was standing. It was no easier than it had been when he had first gotten out of the jar, he found. His feet wobbled underneath him as he lurched ahead, stopping after he'd moved just a few centimeters. He could see the giant creature's face in its entirety now, wide and brown, and he knew that it could see him as well.

Fear came over the Plague once more when the creature's mouth moved, stretching open to show him two rows of teeth, each one bigger than both of his new hands put together. Perhaps he had made the wrong choice, to trust that the thing would not eat him. It very much looked as though it was preparing to do so. He hunched his shoulders slightly.

"Are you going to eat me now?" he asked.

Coyotl blinked, the wide smile that had broken over his features falling away. As the little figure had struggled to its feet, he hadn't been able to keep from grinning at it foolishly. It was so small, much smaller than Hopkin, he reflected, and for a moment he wondered why that was. He could see that it wore a robe with trailing sleeves, and he was forced to squint in order to make out the details of its tiny form. Questions had already begun whirring through his head, such as how the creature could see, and where its clothes, which were very fine indeed, had come from, but before he could formulate anything to say, it had repeated its earlier question.

"What? I just said..." He frowned. Why was the thing so frightened of him? Coyotl leaned forward, putting his head on one side, his brows knitting together closely. "D'you remember me?"

The Plague fidgeted where he stood. Remembering: that was something he had never needed to do before. He cast his gaze downward as he attempted to recall things that now seemed to be an entire world away. It took effort, but eventually the shadowy forms and muffled sounds that filled the recesses of his mind resolved themselves into something comprehensible. There had been things which had appeared above him, things which must have been giant creatures like the one before him now; they had made noises, which must have been words. Though distinguishing between those faces was nearly impossible, the voices had been different enough that he could tell them apart, even in memory. He remembered several, but one stood out more clearly than the others. It had spoken to him often, and for a long time: first when he'd lived in a place that saw both the daylight and the dark of night, then, more recently, in a place that was almost always dark. Often it had been accompanied by food, but sometimes there was no food, and the voice simply spoke, briefly or at length.

At the time, of course, the Plague hadn't understood the words, wouldn't have understood them even if they had not been muffled by the water that separated him from them. His memories were not nearly clear enough to let him recall what the noises were, so that he might try and understand them now, with his new comprehension of language. The voice, though-- that much he recognized, and now he knew why.

"Yes," he answered at last.

Coyotl smiled again, this time with a bit more restraint; the Plague looked back up at him, inscrutably. "Good," he said, for lack of any better response. "That's good." He meant it. The postman chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, trying to think of what else he might ask the little thing. Where could he even begin? There were enough questions bounding around in his head to last the rest of the morning and long into the afternoon, but given how skittish the Plague seemed, he doubted that he would get many answers out of it.

It occurred to him, then, that even if it remembered him, the creature probably did not know his name. "Well, then... I'm Coyotl," he offered, and had to squash the immediate urge to put out one palm for a handshake. "Don't expect you'd know that. Ahh..." One of Hopkin's questions floated back to him, and he made a sour expression. "I didn't ever get 'round to coming up with a name for you, though. Damn." Coyotl fixed the Plague with a scrutinizing look. "What... er... what are you? A boy? I 'spose you sound a bit like one. Got to figure out something to call you, haven't I? Can't rightly call you 'fish' no more, seeing as how you're not." He leaned back in the chair, folding his arms across his chest, frowning in concentration.

The Plague continued to stare up at the big creature- Coyotl, it had said that it was called- as it spoke. It had called him a boy, and thought that he needed a name. He didn't know whether he was a boy, but he did have some vague concept of his own maleness.

"Boy," he muttered to himself.

But if "boy" was not a name, then what sort of thing was he to be called? He unconsciously mimicked the human's frown as he turned his face back to the surface of the table.

No one had called him anything for a very long time. Though he'd been spoken to by many people, being called something was different, somehow. They were all just noises he hadn't known the significance of, but certain sounds had brushed something within him, a thing that had been present even when he was just a fish. Those sounds had become synonymous with himself, and when he had heard them, they had meant "me".

The big voice was the one he knew best. It had talked to him for a long time. But before that, back, back... The Plague's fingers curled unconsciously as he tried to swim backward through his own head, pulling and grasping at memories he had forgotten he even had. There had been a small voice, a very little one, but it had only been there a very little bit. And before that...

The first voice, a bit bigger than the smallest voice, but not so big as the biggest one. It had talked to him in a time that was so far away that he could not even remember where he had been, only that he'd been small-- as small as he was standing on the table, if a different shape. The voice had made sounds at him through the water, brought with it food that was better than anything he had tasted since, and...

It had called him a name.

Coyotl blinked at the little Plague. "You say something?" he asked, leaning forward.

The creature's frowning little mouth worked emptily once or twice, as if preparing to form itself around what he was about to say. His face was still turned downward, as if staring intently at the grain of the wood he stood upon. Eventually, he spoke again.

"Lucky," he said. Then he looked up again. "Me... my name."

Coyotl's eyebrows went up, stayed there a moment, then came back down. He twisted his mouth to the side. "What..." He seemed caught between confusion and slight distaste. "How d'you know that? I mean, how do you have a name? An' what kind of a name is that?"

The Plague drew up his tiny shoulders slightly, in something that might have become a shrug if he'd known what he was doing. But he didn't, so it was more of a defensive hunch. "It is what I am called," he said simply.

It took a moment for Coyotl to formulate a response. Instinctively, he wanted to argue or question, but what could he say? Perhaps the Plague knew something he didn't. "Lucky," he repeated, experimentally. The creature stared up at him, seeming attentive, almost, though he didn't acknowledge the postman with a nod or word. Coyotl's mouth twisted again, and he looked very pensive; then he gave a somewhat huffy sigh. "Odd kinda' name," he declared. That was a name for a charm of some sort, a horseshoe or a favorite coin, not a self-respecting person! Or person-like thing!

The Plague remained silent, and almost completely still, but for a tiny sideways tilt of the head. Perhaps he was just imitating something he'd seen the giant do earlier, but Coyotl was suddenly and unexpectedly met with a twinge of guilt. Had he hurt the creature's feelings? Quickly, he attempted to amend the criticism. "Then again," he said, "then again, maybe it suits you." Silence. He would just have to hope the little Plague- Lucky, he reminded himself- was appeased.

An impulse struck Coyotl, and he leaned further forward, until his collarbone was pressed against the backrest of the chair. "Hey," he addressed Lucky. He reached out with his right hand and laid it, gingerly, on the table, palm facing up and fingers flat. "Can you climb up on my hand?"

Lucky stared at the huge fingers, the smallest one as long as he was tall, then back at the giant they belonged to. "Don't know," he answered truthfully. If he tried to climb onto that hand, he might well fall. He didn't know if he wanted to try, either.

"G'wan, try it," Coyotl said, as encouragingly as he could. He was afraid that if he tried to pick the Plague up, he might injure the thing-- and besides, something about watching the former fish move about, on land, under his own power, was enthralling. He wanted to see the tiny Plague- his Plague- up close.

Haltingly, whether from unease or a lack of control in his own limbs, Lucky shuffled toward the hand, taking his own sleeve-covered arm away from the side of the jar as he did so. Slowly... slowly... When he was within reach of Coyotl's middle finger, the Plague stretched out both arms for it, but he'd moved too quickly and overbalanced; with a gurgling cry, he tipped forward, falling onto the hand and sending his straw hat flopping over his head.

Coyotl gave a snorting laugh at this. "Easy, there..." Lucky righted himself after a moment of wriggling. Having fallen forward rather than backward, the task of climbing onto the hand was half-completed already. With what seemed to be a tremendous effort, he dragged himself the rest of the way onto Coyotl's palm, and struggled into something resembling a seated position in the center, huddled and sodden.

When Coyotl seemed confident that the Plague would not tumble out of his hand, he brought the creature closer to his face, staring unabashedly. So small. Lucky did not cringe away this time, but continued to appear as unhappy as it was possible for a thing with no eyes to look, his mouth set in the tiniest frown imaginable. "What's with the face?" Coyotl asked. The Plague seemed not to understand the question; he attempted to rephrase it. "Somethin' wrong? What is it, what's the matter?"

Lucky didn't know how to answer. Everything was wrong, but one thing was paramount in its wrongness, and he still couldn't even remember what it was. There was the feeling that he was missing something, that something had been taken away from him besides his tail and his fins and his gills, but what was it? Try as he might, he couldn't force himself to know, any more than he could force himself to go back to being the way he had been before that morning, floating in cool water and with none of the worries that now bombarded him from every side.

"Don't know," he said again.

Coyotl looked perplexed. Still, he pressed onward. "Well, I guess that's all right, then. Don't know how I'd feel about things if I was in your shoes neither. I expect there's a lot to get used to." For his part, he realized with a thrill of excitement, he would need to get used to not having to carry a huge jug of water around on his back wherever he went. Somehow, he was certain he'd be able to handle that just fine. "Lot of changes all at once," he continued, only half paying attention to what he was saying, " 'specially for you. You're still pretty quiet, though, so not everything's changed, eh? And you've still got your... thing, that little bubble thing," Coyotl noted. He'd barely even realized it was there; he supposed he'd grown so accustomed to seeing it that it had become completely unremarkable to him.

Lucky couldn't follow the giant's train of thought. "Bubble... thing," he repeated, nonplussed.

"Yeah, just there." With his left hand, Coyotl pointed an index finger at a spot directly over the Plague's head.

Lucky looked up, and then he saw it. An inky-black sphere hung just above him, smoky, reflective, and perfectly round. He knew it well; it had been with him, practically a part of him, for a very long time, longer even than the big voice had been speaking to him. His mouth hung open as he gazed up at it, completely enraptured. He knew, even without the strange feeling that was welling up in his chest- relief, as it happened- that this was what he had thought he was missing, now found, and it had been with him all along.

For years the ball had been a constant presence, and he had spent his days swimming lazily after it, following it, chasing it. But it had always remained just out of range (which might have been just as well, since even now he wasn't sure what he would have done if he'd ever caught up to it). Now, though...

The Plague lifted one arm, shaking away the sleeve that covered it. With what was almost an air of reverence, he raised his hand and brushed it, tentatively, against the orb. It wisped a bit, and the feeling of the less-than-solid surface against his palm was strange; he pulled his hand away, inspecting it solemnly, then looked back up to the orb, which continued to float serenely above.

Coyotl raised his eyebrows slightly at the Plague's odd behavior. "Everything all right?"

Lucky's gaze remained on the black sphere for what seemed, to him, to be an eternity. Then, without his even realizing it, the corners of his mouth tugged themselves almost imperceptibly upward.

For the first time ever, he smiled.

"Yes," he said.

---

There is yet no unifying theory, and the further works of Schoedel
have noted well the lack of such a theory for the whole of man in kind,
that explains the manner in which a Plague, having assumed a form
which seems to possess thought and emotion much like that of a
man, may come to develop the semblance of a personality. For as
the personalities of man are varied, so are the behaviours and affectations
of Plagues; a Plague may be rash or careful, bitter or kind, phlegmatic
or choleric. The cause of this variation is unknown. Is it the origin of
a Plagued item which determines the nature of its temperament? or
perhaps a balance of humours? The only explanation for such qualities,
then, is the one most used to explain the qualities of the character
of man: It is what nature has engraved in us. This, being not the most
thorough expression, is nonetheless the most accurate. It is perhaps
this variability which makes the study of Plagues as a whole a more
captivating field to many than that of anatomy, for instance; for in what
other science, excepting that of human psychology, can one expect
to be so challenged, and in so many different ways?

________"On Plagues", Inglewyrd et al, 1409

 

[Hedjrebl]

- Painful Physical Comedy -

_____❂ Type: PRP
_____❂ With: Maeve LaChance
_____❂ Status: Completed

________What's in a name?
________Confusion arises,
________and damage is done.

 

[Hedjrebl]

- Doctor, Doctor -

_____❂ Type: PRP
_____❂ With: Wickwright Finch and Hopkin
_____❂ Status: In Progress

________
________
________

 

[Hedjrebl]

What's New, Pussycat?

After spending any appreciable amount of time in Shyregoed, you began to forget what seasons were. That was how Coyotl felt about it, at least, especially when it came to autumn. In the northern reaches of Panymium, the concept of fall was little more than a cruel joke, for what was the point of saying it was not yet winter when snow lay on the ground, and had been there for weeks or months already? That stretch of time following summer was dark and bitterly cold enough that it more than qualified as winter.

Certainly, it was a bad time for a litter of kittens to be born.

Coyotl had first noticed them when he saw their mother, a scraggly brown cat with a distinctive white tip on her tail, darting into an alleyway with something dangling from her mouth. When he'd peered after her, he had seen only the lamplike glimmer of her litter's tiny eyes staring back at him from the darkness underneath a half-destroyed, overturned barrel. He had taken a few steps toward them curiously, to see if he could get a better look, but as he approached, the mother cat warned him away, growling and hissing until he left. He had no desire to disrupt them, anyway; while some viewed feral cats as a nuisance, Coyotl held no hard feelings toward any animal that made a habit of catching and eating mice and rats.

He didn't find himself thinking of the kittens again during the time he spent in the small town-- he was kept busy enough by the requests of another Council member, who seemed to have an endless supply of errands he needed Coyotl to run while deeply embroiled in his own research. But on the morning of the third day- the day before he was set to leave for his next destination, in fact- his heart sank a bit at the sight of a small brown cat lying in the ditch at the roadside. Sure enough, a white spot was visible at the tip of its tail.

Coyotl had no intention of taking on the responsibility of caring for a litter of stray cats. He knew their chances for survival would be very slim without their mother. Food was scarce, and it would be a hard winter-- in Shyregoed, there was no other kind. So it was probably a pointless gesture, then, for him to stop as he passed by the alleyway again, to see if the kittens were still there. They were, of course; the gleaming of a half-dozen or so sets of tiny eyes was all he could see as they sat motionless, waiting for a mother who would not be returning.

Another sinking feeling, and another pointless gesture, though this one crossed over into wastefulness as Coyotl fumbled in the haversack at his side for something-- ah, there it was.

What he withdrew was a piece of salted meat no bigger across than the palm of his hand. He assumed it was beef, though it could have been horse or something else entirely for all he knew. It was probably best not to think about it. The postman chewed on his upper lip for a moment before setting about tearing the meat into small chunks, glancing up into the alley every so often as he did. It was a hard world for creatures so small, and it felt rotten to let them alone when he knew full well what was in store for them.

Having torn and shredded the meat as best he could, Coyotl leaned forward a bit and tossed it, underhanded, toward the cats' hiding spot. Their eyes did not move; they continued to watch him closely. He wondered how old they were.

"She'll not be comin' back," he said, a bit stiffly. "Your mum." He knew they couldn't understand him, of course, but he felt he ought to be official about delivering the bad news. It was never pleasant, but it had to be done. "You'd best take care of yourselves from now on." The eyes stared at him as he shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He could only assume they continued to stare as he turned and left, as well.

Cats were always so stoic.

---

Night fell quickly, and in his tiny room at the town's only inn, Coyotl had nearly exhausted the small candle on the table in front of him. It had begun as little more than a stump of tallow, for that matter, and he'd intended to put it out when his eyes grew too weary to read any more of the copied scientific text he'd brought with him, but he had since become thoroughly distracted by the activity of his Plague, who was wobbling back and forth across the tabletop. Lucky disliked the cold just as much as his Grimm did, apparently, and so the candle was alluring to him for the warmth it provided; at the same time, though, the flame seemed to make him uncomfortable.

"It's dry," he had explained, slowly and frowningly, when asked. "It feels bad." So Coyotl watched, with poorly-concealed amusement, as Lucky repeatedly approached the candle, stood next to it for a time, then wandered away from it again until he grew too cold, whereupon he would repeat the process. It was only a matter of time until the little Plague tripped over himself and fell, and then the game (such as it was) would be done, but it was good for him to have practice walking about on his own, as unsteady on his feet as he was.

It was after the candle had been burning for some time that the scratching began.

At first Coyotl thought it was the scrabbling of rats in the walls of the inn, which he'd heard earlier that evening, to his own distaste. But as he listened, it became clear that the sound was coming from the door to the room, rather than the wall, and, worryingly, it seemed to be growing louder. It was as if the first set of claws had been joined by another- and another- and another... Coyotl remained sitting half-turned at the table, staring at the door and wondering, with bleary alarm, whether he ought to open it or try to block up the gap between it and the floor, until another sound joined the growing noise of small creatures scraping and skritching at the wooden surface:

Meow.

Mew.

Meow. Meow. Myaaw. Meow. Mew. Meow.

The scratching continued. The postman looked down at his Plague, as if to ask whether Lucky could hear the sounds too, but it was obvious from the tilt of the Phasmas's head toward the door, and the fact that he had stopped walking entirely, that he could. They weren't a figment of the imagination, at least. They didn't seem to be subsiding at all, either, and though Coyotl had no earthly idea why a bunch of cats would be meowing at his door, ignoring them wasn't doing him any good. Slowly, he stood, and pulled the door slightly ajar, just enough for him to be able to peer out into the hall...

"Mister."

"Hey, Mister."

When Coyotl had seen a living Plague for the first time, in Wickwright Finch's wagon, it had been a shock. The second one he had seen was his own koi on the morning it had grown, and though he'd been expecting the change, it had still been something of an event in its own right. In his experience, Plagues were elusive creatures, and to meet even one was rare, unusual, special.

So when he opened the door to find five tiny figures staring eyelessly up at him from the floor, dressed in blacks and reds and oranges and yellows, he wasn't sure quite how to react.

"Uh," he said after a moment.

One of the Plagues stepped forward. It was a Phasmas, as were all of its fellows, dark in color and in dress but for a few splashes of red here and there. It seemed pleased to be noticed, and reached out a pawlike hand to tug at his pant-leg.

"Mister," it repeated.

"Have you got any more meat?"

"It was tasty."

"Can we have more, Mister?"

Coyotl gawped down at the quintet as they continued to pester him, a few of them swatting at his feet or clambering up onto his shoes. His own tiredness and the surreal nature of the situation combined to make him feel as though he were having some sort of strange dream. It took him some time to piece together the details: what the little creatures were asking from him, the meowing he'd heard, and, yes, when he squinted, the set of pointed ears that poked out of the hat each of the Plagues wore...

That, and the way they had been staring at him when he opened the door. Even from faces without eyes, it was still familiar.

"I, uh," he began, trying to blink away his surprise. "I don't... uh, no, I don't. Don't have any more. Sorry." He gave a small shrug. The Plague that had tugged on his trousers frowned up at him, though it didn't seem excessively put out.

"Really?" it asked, not bothering to remove its claws from the fabric of his pants cuff. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, and on a whim, he leaned down slightly with his hands on his knees to get a better look at the small gathering. "Say... How did you lot find me, anyway?"

"You smell," piped up another, this one even smaller than the first. "It was easy." Coyotl found that he was too baffled to be offended. He just nodded, as though the explanation made perfect sense.

"I'm bored," whined yet another of the cats, hopping up and down where it stood. "Let's go. Can we go? I want to go." The largest of the group, who seemed to be the de facto leader, retracted its claws reluctantly and nodded.

"We can go, there's no meat here." With that, the Plague looked back up at Coyotl, whiskers twitching; then, as one, the entire litter turned and trotted away, presumably to leave the inn the way they'd come. " 'Bye, Mister!"

And just like that, the encounter was over, as brief as it had been strange. Coyotl stood in front of the open door for quite some time, wondering whether he should have tried to stop the little pack of cats from leaving, though he wasn't sure what purpose that would have served. Instead, he simply stared blankly at the spot where the four had disappeared into--

... Four?

A faint cry from within the room prompted Coyotl to look behind him. Lucky had evidently lost his balance and fallen on his bottom at some point, but that was not surprising. What was surprising was the sight of one of the cat-Plagues accosting the koi, sniffing and pawing at his sleeves as though they were hiding some sort of secret. Lucky seemed unnerved by this to say the least.

"Hey! Hey!" Coyotl exclaimed as he rushed to separate the two. "What d'you think you're doing?! Get away from there!" The furred Phasmas was undaunted by the fingers pushing it away from its fellow Plague.

"He smells!" it fairly purred in excitement. "Like fish! Why do you smell like fish?" it addressed Lucky, who was trying to drag himself away from the stranger as best he could, scooting backwards across the table and whimpering quietly. "Why? How come?" Coyotl frowned and scooped Lucky up with one hand, where the Koi huddled in fright.

"He used to be a fish, same as you used to be a cat," he said a bit brusquely. "Now you let him alone, don't go and give him a hard time. He scares easy."

The cat giggled to itself. "Hehehehehe. Ahahahahaha! Fish-face, fish-face." Its voice was high and girlish, Coyotl realized; perhaps this Plague was female. "Fish-face!" She plopped down onto her rump and continued to grin at Lucky, who still had his back to her, and was shaking slightly. "Fish-face, come and play with me!"

"Let him alone," Coyotl said again, furrowing his brow at the cat. "And he's called Lucky, not Fish-face." With the hand that was not holding his Plague, he gripped the edge of the stool he'd been sitting on before and dragged it a bit closer, settling onto it again. "Your brothers and sisters left already, y'know. Aren't you going with 'em?"

The cat tilted her head, then shook it from side to side. "It's cold outside! I don't want to go out. It's warmer in here." Then she leaned forward. "And if Fish-face has a name, I want a name too! May I have one, please? I want one. May I? Please?"

Coyotl was taken aback by this request. First food, and now a name? Were cats usually so demanding? "What are you asking me for? If you want a name, that's your business, innit?" He returned Lucky to the tabletop, though he kept his hand propped up between the two Plagues as a divider. Lucky had finally worked up enough nerve to peek over his Grimm's fingers, but as soon as he saw that the cat was still present, he ducked back behind them once more, shielding his face with his sleeves. Coyotl suppressed the urge to sigh at the rather pathetic display.

"But I don't know what makes a good name," said the cat, resting her paw-hands on the table. "Do you know any? I want a good one, please."

It was a mark of how tired Coyotl was that he ceased to make a fuss over the strangeness of the request and actually gave it a moment of thought. Come to think of it, he had seen a name on a sign in town that had struck him as being a good sort of name, generally speaking. He had heard it before, and someone had once told him that the name meant, literally, "baker", which made sense, as the sign he'd seen it on had been hung over a bakery. Not that cats had anything to do with baking, of course, but it was the only thing he could come up with.

"How about 'Baxter'?" he suggested.

The Plague looked at him with an air of scrutiny, and somehow Coyotl got the impression that if she had eyes, she would be narrowing them at him right at that moment. "Baxter," she repeated thoughtfully. Another pause, and then she nodded, heaving herself up onto her feet and resting a hand at each side of her waist. "I like it. That's a good name." She then approached the hand separating her from Lucky and peered over Coyotl's fingers at him. "Hello, Fish-face! I'm Baxter!" she declared.

Lucky was nonplussed, and Coyotl kept a close watch on the cat- now Baxter, he supposed- in case she tried to chew on the other Phasmas, who, he noted, was a full head shorter than she was, and was certainly the weaker and scrawnier of the two. "Lucky," he corrected her. A question was gnawing at him, one he didn't even know how to find the answer to: Why was she here? He had determined that the group of Plagues had followed him by sniffing him out, fair enough, but that didn't explain why they had done it-- or why this one had stuck around. Perhaps he ought to try a different tack, then.

"Your mum..." he began experimentally.

"She died," said Baxter, cutting him off. The statement was blunt, matter-of-fact, and Coyotl had a feeling that the cat was informing him of something she thought he didn't know, rather than completing his sentence for him. She shifted her attention from Lucky to the window, staring at the darkness outside. "It's too bad," she said simply.

The postman was unsure of what to say next. He couldn't tell whether Baxter was upset or not; he didn't even know whether the concept of death had the same significance to a Plague as it would to a human. Briefly, he wondered how she had found out about the fate of her mother. Maybe the kittens had understood him after all, somehow. Or maybe cats just knew. This explanation struck him as the more likely of the two.

"What'll you do now?" he asked after a moment. "You and your family, I mean. Where'll you go?

"Oh, they'll find their way, I expect," Baxter replied. "Maybe I'll even see them again someday! As for me..." She yawned epansively, displaying a set of tiny pointed teeth, then cast a look of appraisal at the room around her. "Yes," she said, "I think I will stay here."

"Stay here?" Coyotl raised his eyebrows. "I don't know where you think you are, but this is an inn, you know? We," he nodded to Lucky then gestured to himself, "have got to clear out of here by morning, you can't just stay here." He had to wonder, though, what the proprietor of the inn would do if the Plague did decide to remain in the room-- run her out? She was certainly far too small to be a tenant proper.

"Then we shall go in the morning," said Baxter. "I'll come with you. Can I?"

Coyotl stared. "Wh... you..." He shot a baffled look at Lucky-- as if the koi would offer any input. In truth, Lucky had very little idea of what was being discussed; he was preoccupied with hiding behind his Grimm's hand in the hopes that the cat would forget he was there. "You want to... Now, listen," Coyotl sputtered, "when we leave tomorrow, we're not comin' back to this town for a long time, probably. Not for months, maybe even longer. You want to leave just like that?"

"Why not? That sounds like fun," Baxter replied. "And in the morning, I shall get Lucky Fish-face to play with me, once we have both had a good nap." She nodded, pleased by her own schedule-setting acumen.

Try as he might, Coyotl couldn't come up with a solid argument against the proposition. It wasn't an inherently good idea, but neither was it inherently bad; the prospect of adding another tiny member to their travelling party was simply a bit daunting to him. Was it really the best choice for him to assume responsibility for another Excito? Granted, Baxter seemed to be generally much more independent and capable than Lucky was. It probably came with the territory, given that she had begun her life as a cat--

A thought struck him.

"Well, now," he began slowly, "that's all well an' good for you, but why should I bring you along? How're you going to pull your own weight, eh?"

The cat frowned. "But... but how do I pull my weight?" she asked, puzzled.

Coyotl pretended to give the question some thought. "There must be somethin' you can do," he mused. Then, as though the idea had only just occurred to him, "What about catchin' rats and mice? Can you do that, at least?"

Baxter's mouth opened in a silent "o" before she straightened her cap and stamped her foot, looking a bit affronted. "Of course I can! All cats catch mice! Every one!" She puffed out her chest, unwilling to take such an insult lying down. "Why, I'll catch so many mice, you won't know what to do with them all!"

Coyotl fought back the urge to laugh. Well, if that was the case... "That settles it, then," he said with a casual shrug. "I s'pose you can come along with us in the morning, so long as you hold up your end of the deal." Baxter huffed and nodded to herself, satisfied. She seemed to remember something, then, and turned her face upward once more.

"Do you need me to catch mice for you because you don't have any meat left?" She put her head on one side curiously. "Is it because you're hungry? That was a stupid thing to do, giving away all your meat. What will you eat now?"

A grimace spread over Coyotl's features, and he shuddered to himself. "Yech, 'course not!" It had been a long time since he'd been that desperate. "An' is that how you say thank-you?" Baxter shrugged, and he sighed to himself, knowing that it was far too late to begin arguing with anyone, especially a cat. "You go on and get some rest," he said, plucking Lucky up off the table once more. "We're leavin' bright and early, whether you're awake or not." The koi would probably refuse to sleep, as he usually did; Coyotl would have to stow him somewhere out-of-the-way, in case Baxter decided to try anything funny while he was asleep.

The cat, meanwhile, watched the human and his fishy-smelling Plague prepare to retire for the night with detached interest. Normally, she'd be wide-awake and active, since the night was a cat's time, but it had been a long and momentous day. She couldn't stifle a yawn as it crept over her. The candle on the table had nearly burnt itself out, and though she would still be able to see once it was extinguished, the light it gave off was warm and hazy, and she could feel her limbs growing heavier as she watched the flame gutter. There was a scarf lying in a heap on the table, and Baxter padded her way over to it, climbing into a dip in the fabric and kneading at it sleepily.

That man and his fish, she thought to herself as she felt herself dozing off into slumber, are not very smart.

They're lucky to have me here.

 

[Hedjrebl]

- Be Still -

_____❂ Type: ORP
_____❂ With: The Grimms and Plagues of Panymium
_____❂ Status: Completed

________[FARTING AND SCREAMING]
________[FARTING AND SCREAMING]
________[FARTING AND SCREAMING]

 

[Hedjrebl]

[SOLO RESERVE]
Antedated Winter 1411

Don't leave me behind.

 

[Hedjrebl]

[SOLO RESERVE]
Antedated Spring 1412

Homeward bound.