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Raven was watching Sei, still shaking as she tried to figure out just what the hell he was talking about. "I... I don't know how," she started to say, then just wrapped her arms around her sister, holding her close. "I'll do what I can, but I don't know how to do what you're asking me to."

In her arms, Omi seemed to slowly begin to calm, her eyes finally starting to sag. Something in her mind told her she was okay... that everything was going to be okay now. "He's gone," she whispered finally, her voice barely audible from her roughened throat. "I felt it... I felt something take him. To-san's gone..."

Raven let her hand rub against Omi's back, the girl murmuring softly. "Sei..." she whispered, looking to the other Fa'e. "Can you... can you bring me my purse. From downstairs? I have... I have to call someone. For Dad."

"I need to get help," Raven whispered, fumbling with her purse with one hand and dumping the entire thing before finally managing to pick up her phone. Thank gods for auto-dialling... because she was certain she couldn't have remembered anything, especially numbers. "Mom?" she asked when the other line was finally picked up. The tone of her voice was the first clue that something was seriously wrong. "Mom, I'm at Dad's... I need you here. Something's happened, and I... I don't know what happened, but Omi's a mess and Dad's... gone." She bit down on her lip then, still not able to bring herself to say the word 'dead'.

Shaking her head, Raven looked up at Sei, biting down on her lip tightly. It wasn't as if her mother could see her gesture. "No, mom... he's here." Sighing, she finally broke down, both physically and verbally. "Mom, he's dead. He... he looks like his neck is broken, I couldn't tell for sure. Please come over here??"

It was amazing, really, how one's brain could go from barely-coherant to wide awake with a few sobering words. The foxcoon's eyes snapped wide as she bolted the rest of the way up in bed.

"Are you--" she began.

Sure? Shitting me? All right?

All three would have been acceptable finishes to such a question under such circumstances, yet she said none as she flung the blankets away and dragged herself to her feet.

"Just....just stay where you are, okay? I'll be right there." she said tersely, grabbing for a pair of pants from the laundry basket that had not yet been put away and struggling into them.

Every nerve on-end, she hastily finished dressing, while at the same time bolting through the house and out the door.

Whatever it is, she's overreacting, that's all. Has to be. denial cheerfully spoke up. She could, for the moment, do little except hope to god it was right.

The trip across two yards seemed to take much longer than necessary -- as if she were running against a strong wind -- even though there had been no resistance whatsoever. It was just, simply, that she could not move fast enough for her liking.

During the eternity that was the thirty or so seconds it took her to tear open the sliding glass door of Youko's house, she had plenty of time to think.

Raven was, still, a young lady. And AS a young lady, she had been blessed with the power of blowing things out of proportion and jumping to conclusions. And if Youko was unresponsive, there could be any number of reasons for it. Ones that didn't necessarily lead to the conclusion he was dead.

Finding Raven waiting for her, she swept her into a brief hug that tried to be soothing, even though it was clearly distracted. "Where is he?" she asked urgently.

It was a terrible feeling being torn this way. Even if Raven's assessment of things was wrong...

which it is...

...she was still clearly upset and the desire to soothe her daughter was immense. But even moreso immense was her desire to find what was what for herself.

As Raven finished speaking, she placed her hands on her daughter's shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze, her eyes wandering to the nearby stairwell warily.

"I'll be right back." she assured Raven, hoping she would not insist on following. If he was--

he isn't

But he if WAS...! Steeling herself, she stepped away from her daughter and mounted the stairs purposefully, not giving herself time for hesitation.

She could sense, even before she reached the bedroom door, that something wasn't right. It was a feeling that chased around the base of her spine uneasily, making her tail stand on-end in dislike even as she curled a half-fist and rapped on the half-open door.

"Youko...?" she asked, her voice sounding smaller in the darkness than she would have liked. Nothing.

A hand pawed at the wall blindly in search of the lightswitch before finally finding it and flipping it on, flooding the darkened room with yellow light.

....and he was there. It was undeniably Youko curled in on himself on the mattress, but...

"Youko?" she asked again, venturing to the bedside to take him by the shoulder. If the coldness of his flesh were not disconcerting enough, the unyielding hardness of his muscles was enough to make the bottom drop out of her stomach. ....even before she had gotten a good look at his face, partially hidden by a few stray locks of silver hair.

Gold eyes, usually keen and warm, stared at nothing with a flat glassiness.

And he's so pale... her thoughts moaned sickly in the cage of her skull. Denial, it seemed, had fled at some point during this investigation and had nothing more to offer her on the matter.

Fingers tried, first on his wrist, and then along the bruised length of his neck to find a pulse, and failed.

He was--

She swallowed around the lump that had risen in her throat, letting out her breath in a thin, reedy whimper.