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 Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:21 pm
Rainy Day Reservations
Featuring DoctorCouncillor Amory Kempe, Shati Pac, and Fillin at Trisica University in Imisus.
It is eight in the morning and a rain storm has passed not an hour prior.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:42 pm
Shati had returned to her farmstead the evening before without a hitch. The animals were set up with food and water for the day ahead and the doors locked securely (which had previously never been necessary). She was paranoid, Fillin pointed out, but after the multitude of break-ins and vandals she'd experienced in recent memory, she could accept a bit of paranoia now that her income had returned to relative normalcy. It struck her only as she left the front door that while the Stunteds might have had some intention to help pay her way, she would indeed have to find and hail her own cart for transport deeper into Imisus. As an afterthought, the woman packed a spare outfit as well and headed out the door with Kitty weaving between her ankles. Fillin was tucked once more into her bosom, and the pair traveled to the nearest transportation hub and paid a fair to the University.
Immediately upon arriving, there was a near-crippling feeling of intimidation. On the street amidst the commonwealth, it had not seemed so strange to be speaking to Doctor Amory. Now that she was in his domain... yes, it was a little scary. He was the head of her affiliated organization, and she had rarely even met fellow "scientists" (since he had stated that he would indeed call her one). They had given her strange looks when she walked past in her home-made clothes, dirty and worn. She hadn't the money nor the interest to purchase anything fancier... but now she wished that maybe she would have. She would be amongst scholars, doctors, professors... she was but a farmer. She was simpler than the simple. Making a hell of a face, Shati tugged at her hair and decided that it was too wild to enter with. A handkerchief found its way around the base of her skull and she sighed.
"It'll be fine," Fillin asserted, patting his Grimm's cheek. In this case it was not a tactic of annoyance or intimidation, but a simple affectionate gesture. For all he was torturous, he and she held a kind of mutual respect that one may not see otherwise. Shati looked down to him and offered a sad smile. When Rene's henchmen led the woman to her lodgings for the night she kept her eyes downcast and her hands clasped at her waist. Pretend to be a lady, bow and use your "m'lord"s and "milady"s. Remember your place, and there will be no problems. The poor young woman did not sleep until she placed a bundle of calming effects upon her pillow, including a dried sprig of lavender. Fillin, of course, had none of the same issues.
Eight o'clock was not a difficult appointment to make. On a farm, one was generally awake with the sun if not before. Shati sat on a bed, trying to calm her wild hair and wishing she had something to clean beneath her fingernails with. Would the Plagues come to her, or was she meant to find the Doctor's office alone? Was it even the office she was meant to go to? Her Plague yawned and stretched, and she envied him his ease, giving him a little glare and suddenly realizing where he might have caught the habit. Shame on her.
"If anyone tries to take me, I'll kick them in the shins," Fillin suddenly piped, stretching high and moving to sit beside his Grimm before amending, "or scratch their eyes out."
"Please try to not offend anyone."
A briefly displeased expression crossed the Plague's face, but when he noticed the downward angle of Shati's lips he seemed to forget the offense, instead looking around the room and heaving a sigh.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:49 pm
The lavender stunteds had intercepted Shati and Fillin and led them to the correct office, going so far as to announce their presence so they didn't even have to raise a hand and knock on Dr. Kempe's door. Dr. Kempe may not have had much truck with ceremony, but it was clear that his stunteds had been trained to serve, and it wasn't hard to guess what small lavender hand had been behind that.
The door swung open and this time it wasn't stunteds doing the job, but Kempe himself, still as disheveled and plain to the eye as ever he was, even though he was at work on business. He made a hasty attempt to smooth his hair and unwrinkle his robes, but to little avail, and instead merely offered a rather helpless smile, gesturing his visitors into the modest office. For all Rene's efforts, it was still fairly messy, with paperwork and books rather haphazardly cast about, but there was a comfortable couch at one end and a desk at the other, so the seating arrangements were fairly plain. Amory himself sat down at the desk and reached for a fresh file, which he didn't open before the casual niceties required by polite society were dealt with.
"I trust your trip was pleasant?" he enquired as Rene prepared things sight unseen. "If you'd like some coffee, I've been fortunate enough to receive some as a gift from a student-" he gestured at the cup next to him, "Thank Panyma, something needs to keep me awake."
As he spoke, several stunteds poised themselves to prepare another cup if needed, while Rene emerged from the desk and flourished a bow at the pair of them. "Milady Shati Pac, Fillin," he noted, pulling out a pen and poising himself over a blank parchment.
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Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 6:18 pm
Shati blinked a couple of times after sitting and gave a polite nod. She was a bit taken-aback by all of this even as plainly as the Councillor seemed to conduct himself. It was reassuring to see someone else so absorbed in work that they didn't seem to have the time to press their clothes. She was far from rumpled herself, she had made sure of that, but her clothing was well-worn and simple. She tugged nervously at the knot of her headscarf and looked around nervously; she had not imagined that the Stunteds would be here for the meeting. Really, she should have assumed that Doctor Kempe would not be taking it upon himself to conduct the entirety of the interview, but for some reason she had. The lavender Plagues made her nervous, staring and mulling as they were, and while somewhere in her head she knew that they were just workers, silent companions... she felt like she was on their level. With a nervous throat-clear she offered a potentially Plague-offensive "Lavender is a very strong sleep aid. Does coffee really help?"
It seemed as if the farmer may have noticed too late that there were kinder ways to word her statement, and her hands moved just a bit too suddenly. The knot keeping her hair tidy popped open and bountiful curls spilled over her shoulders. She could do nothing but make a defeated, rodent-like sound and look at her lap and the handkerchief thereon.
Really, Fillin himself was kind of glad to see the ninny and his underninnies present. This meeting was about him, after all, and had been made against the ninny's wishes by the Councillor himself! He wouldn't pretend that he felt the same deep respect for the man as his Grimm did, but he understood that it was a big deal at the very least and, again, about him. These Stunted Plagues were the doctor's servants and nothing more. He held the doctor's interest! The pride that had been present deflated a little at the sight of a very flustered Shati, though, and the bat Plague's chest puffed up in protection. Did she want him to make them go away? He could, he'd bet, and he'd just transcribe the meeting himself, regardless of whether or not he knew how to write or anything about the word "transcribe". His usual glare returned somewhat, although not focused on man they had come to speak with or even particularly his ninnies, just the situation and 'vibe' of the room in general.
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Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 5:38 pm
Amory laughed. "A bit. Finding the line between providing my volunteers with a soothing environment and not soothing myself to sleep is difficult, I must admit. Still! If you find that coffee doesn't help you, Miss Pac, I can send the stunteds away. I find that the smell of lavender can help put people at ease, but it has its disadvantages." He had to have noticed Shati's discomfort, but made no show of mentioning it. Many people were unnerved by Plagues, even Grimms when the Plagues came in such numbers as Rene's team of stunteds, and seeing them swarm all over an office was off-putting at best. Usually around non-Grimms the stunteds tried to stay hidden, and sure enough, Rene clapped his hands, and the various lavender plagues vanished to go attend to other work.
Rene picked up his quill once more, and got back to writing. Clearly he didn't consider himself to be a common stunted, but Amory shot him a look which he came to notice in the fullness of time, and he sputtered rather indignantly, but turned to Shati again, asking: "Shall I leave, Milady Pac? If there's anything that would make you more comfortable don't hesitate to tell me." He shot a reluctant glance at her Plague, and added, "Either of you."
Amory pressed onwards as Rene played host, this time addressing Fillin. "I was wondering if there was anywhere you'd like to begin? We could talk about whether you remember anything as a bat, or what your life as a Plague had been like so far, or even talk about your thoughts on other Plagues. If you have anywhere at all you'd like to start, no matter how off-topic it might seem to you, we can work from there."
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Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:52 pm
There was some relief when the other Stunteds were asked to leave, but there was also a twinge of guilt. Had anyone else ever been so uncomfortable with them, she wondered? Hopefully. Cow-wide eyes flickered up beneath a furrowed brow, and the famrmer shook her head. "No, of course not." Fillin glared a bit deeper, but gave no other sign of disagreement.
Rene seemed to be in charge here, after all, and with his ego there may be collateral damage to kicking him out. Shati wanted to remain in the Councillor's good graces the best she could as well. The man was hard to read, a deep intellectual she was sure. It'd be best to stay careful.
Fillin then gave a thoughtful or offended noise and tilted his head up slightly. Hadn't this man spoken to any Plagues other than his damnable ninnies?!
"Of course I do!" he said, although what he was responding to was not immediately apparent, "I didn't begin to exist when I changed, I existed all along! I was a bat, so of course I remember it! Why would I have stayed with my Grimm were it not for bonding during my mammalian stage? I was not born an object..." and there he trailed off because where was he born? He couldn't remember a bat mother or bat father... when had he been born? The Plague's eyes widened a moment and his mouth opened some.
While Fillin took some time to recover from spirits-new-what, Shati spoke. "I can vouch for that to some level. His personality has remained, his soul is the same. He enjoys the same things, although he has lost his ability to fly..." This seemed to strike the bat Plague back from awe.
"I have! No wings, and I can't say I remember anything about my transformation except falling from a tree. I can do other things now, though. It's instinctual..." Someone was showing off all of the big words he knew! "I could never create air before, not without... breathing." All of a sudden, Fillin looked somewhat put-out. That didn't sound very intelligent at all...
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 11:22 am
"Many Plagues I have spoken to have forgotten details about what, ah, came before," assured Amory carefully at Fillin's evident shock. "It's impressive that you remember so much as you do. Some Plagues remember nothing at all! Rene, for instance, can tell me nothing."
"Simply because I have no interest in remembering what could have happened to a mere sprig of lavender," countered Rene flippantly, and the Counselor shook his head.
Amory nodded as Shati continued, remarking, "That is something that has been surprisingly common throughout my studies, in fact. Even things which you and I would not suppose to have personalities act very much like what they were before. After that accursed meeting with the Emperor, for instance, I made the acquaintance of a book plague who was able to recite the contents of the meeting to me as precisely as if they had been written down." He frowned slightly at Fillin's description of making air, and as he was not, on the whole, familiar with magic, it took him a moment to get wind of what the excito was saying. "I beg your pardon, but what do you mean by that, Fillin? Would it be possible to seek a demonstration?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:00 pm
All of a sudden, Fillin puffed back up.
"Lavender doesn't have a brain," he insisted, "It isn't anything, it just is." He did not look to Rene, let alone allow him any time to respond. The bat Plague was actually fairly open about others who had come from other things; plants, objects... his Grimm was slowly impressing upon him her deep respect for nature. If you listened to her, everything had a spirit.
...but he really didn't like the ninny.
Shati gave her charge a glare and then glanced to Rene as if to apologize for his behavior. She turned to the Councillor then and waited. ...waited some more. The farmer nudged Fillin, who was just pointedly staring away from the meeting's scribe and didn't seem to have processed their host's request. She nudged him gently and he turned to her, bristling, until the information seemed to finally slide into his brain.
"Oh, right," he nodded and unceremoniously crawled to the highest stable point on the doctor's desk. He leaped off without notice, and created a gust of air that allowed him to hover and glide a moment or two before he drifted down the rest of the way. "I wish there was more," he grumbled, and as he passed beneath the shadow of the desk he seemed to disappear entirely save the glowing of his features, blending well enough that even Shati furrowed her brow and watched him emerge from the other side. That was... interesting.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 12:37 am
Rene puffed his chest out further if possible, clearly not to be outdone, but did not rise to the jibe, as the Counselor's head stunted he put a great deal of stock in what was seemly or not. If Amory himself noticed the tension, he didn't dwell on it, because soon Fillin was demonstrating his ability, and the Doctor was keenly interested.
"Fascinating," he remarked, as Rene made notes. "Well, you're still a young Plague. As you grow, your abilities will grow with you." The most common local stunteds in the city were the sort of things that flocked in a city- rats, sparrows, bits of trash or items from markets. Those that had animalistic traits were usually phasmas, but as a caedos, Fillin's magic seemed to have made up for his lost abilities from when he was an animal. "Of course, when you become an anhelo, your powers will likely undergo their most dramatic shift that we know of, along with your physical appearance. An infitialis can have an incredibly inhuman appearance, so you might yet be able to properly fly again, depending on how you develop."
"Do you regret being Plagued?" Amory asked next, steepling his fingers. "Was being a bat preferable to you or is this body equally as convenient?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:05 pm
Unaware whether the ninny had responded or not, Fillin canted his head to one side and rolled his growing eyes toward the ceiling. Regret was not something the Plague generally concerned himself with. It got muddled up in morals and the past, both things the bat really didn't want to bother with. This interview was about him, though, and to deny a question asked would be to disappoint his admirers. That simply wouldn't stand.
"... I... well..." Fillin reasoned, and then righted his head and shrugged at the doctor, "I didn't have a choice in being Plagued, now, did I? I can't regret it. I do miss flight, but now I can communicate and better-- um." Maybe it shouldn't get out that he raided pantries and food stands. "-- move about the city undetected. I can't say for sure if people like me less or more now."
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:27 pm
"And do you like people more or less?" Dr. Kempe continued while Rene made notes. "Do you feel you can trust us? What of other Plagues, do you feel any sort of kinship with them?" He glanced at Shati, and said, "If this makes you uncomfortable to speak about in the presence of your Grimm, we can ask her to leave for a moment, but do you feel dependent on your Grimm? Do you feel any significant connection to her?"
He sipped at his coffee and somewhere in the walls, the sound of a lavender Plague could be heard. A moment later, Rene got up and returned with a small rolled up piece of parchment, which he opened and looked over before he put the missive in an empty inkwell on Amory's desk. He returned to his notes, dragging out a fresh sheet of paper while he was up. Even tidy Rene had trouble using a human-sized quill, and his hands were stained with ink to the point where they were as black as Fillin's.
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:43 pm
"Less," Fillin grumped, "Before I just watched from afar, they minded their own business. Now they're everywhere. I certainly can't just stay in a tree my whole life and sleep the day away."
Shati decided to not mention that the Plague basically lived that life still, but it was in various more glamorous places than a tree in her back yard.
"There's give and take. I don't have to eat insects now, for one. I'm not sure I have to eat anything at all. Either way, my Grimm had me well-fed well before I became this." He looked up to Shati then, eyes narrowed and expression indeterminable. Shati simply looked back. The Plague mused on his relationship with the woman. They... they were a team, sure, and he was maybe fond of her for the food and shelter she had provided before he had grown proper legs... but what would he call that? "Affection" seemed too goopy and "fondness" was heading down the entirely wrong end of the spectrum. His eyes narrowed even further before he turned back to the doctor and shrugged. "I like her. She helps me, I help her." Perhaps he would need a more leading question were anything deeper to be admitted.
For a moment, a corner of his Grimm's lips, but she quickly forced it away. It wouldn't do to ruin the moment now, would it.
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Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 5:50 pm
Amory shook his head absentmindedly. "So far it appears that excito, or at least servos, don't have to eat for a long period of time, although I can't be sure of what other source they might derive energy from. The experiments I've run are simple, I'm more focused on the mentality of Plagues as opposed to the biology." He smiled sheepishly. "Still, I can't help but dabble when the experiment seems simple enough."
Rene scoffed. "What an experiment! I may not have to eat, but I resent being told not to, even for the pursuit of science!"
Amory waved a hand at him. "Do you enjoy eating? Do you ever feel hungry despite the fact that you're not sure you need food?" Rene went back to his notes, but this time he added a question of his own.
"Insects?"
The counselor nodded, latching on to the idea. "Do you still enjoy eating insects?"
"So you have a good relationship with your Grimm, but it was established before you became a Plague," noted Amory. "In what ways do you help her? What do you consider to be the most useful thing you can do?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 4:18 pm
Shati laughed slightly, and Fillin shot her a glance that began full of venom but turned into a soft expression of thought. It was no use to deny the fact that he enjoyed eating, perhaps even more so than the average Plague. He did smirk slightly at the ninny's mention of being told to not eat, but it left his face rapidly.
"I do," he said first, and then shrugged, "and I don't know. I can't remember ever being hungry, even before the change." That either said something good of his Grimm or about Plague biology in general, but which was left to question. Neither of the doctor's guests seemed to know the difference. "No! Not any more! Why bother? Either my tastes changed when I did or they became too difficult to catch. I don't care to know which."
The questions then seemed to turn down a more personal path, and the bat Plague puffed up with indeterminable emotion. Now he wished that he had asked for his Grimm to leave the room, but doing so now would only seem like a point of weakness, which was not acceptable in front of anyone, let alone the ninny.
"I, ah..." Nobody had ever asked for him to divulge such a thing, it seemed. Indeed he couldn't come up with an answer right off the top of his head. He certainly... ate a lot. His size made him not so useful for harvesting, and the cat didn't like him (although that may have been due to his constant harassment). What did he do? The Plague's eyes narrowed and he began to stare down the doctor, puffing his chest and cheeks even further. "Companionship."
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Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 5:44 pm
Whatever Amory made of Fillin's comments, he nodded while his stunted wrote them down behind him. "Many excitos have remarked that they don't often feel hungry, but of course, few of them were ever in a position where they had to eat before they became Plagued." He added, "Your change in taste is interesting. Have you tried to eat an insect since you became a Plague, or has it simply not crossed your mind?"
He gave Fillin space to answer his somewhat loaded follow-up question, but failed to quite stifle a grin at the response the Plague finally made. "A commendable contribution, to be sure," he remarked approvingly. Behind him, Rene cleared his throat, and Amory heard the bells chime the half-hour in the distance. Rene was beginning to collect the notes together, his perfectly organized and rudely disrupted schedule for the Counselor clearly weighing heavily on his mind. Amory chose to ignore Rene's cues for the time being, however, with the one concession of changing the course of conversation. if Rene was going to refuse to continue taking notes, there wasn't much use in his current line of inquiry anyway.
"And do you have any other ambitions, Fillin? Purposes you'd like to fulfill or goals you'd like to accomplish? Things you'd like to do?" He was aware that he had promised to find Shati some useful work to do within the Council, but perhaps if he had an idea of what Fillin's plans might be, he could find something to suit the both of them.
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