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10/25/05 - RP Recap (From 9/27/05)

WinK was standing in a field, wondering how Keelan could do this so much without his neck hurting. They were looking at the stars, something that the growing centaur had quite a fondness for. Archery was also something he enjoyed, but after that afternoon's experience of almost shooting his sister, Aurora, in the pumpkin patch he decided he'd choose a different activity to end their day.

"Look!" the centaur said, poiting skyward. "Orion! ... right?" he said, blinking at the angel before looking down at the book WinK had bought him, opened wide in his arms. "Yes! It is!" He said, looking up again. Schola, the little puppy that Trio had graciously given the colt, was stalking through the grass, pouncing joyfully on fireflies before darting to and fro for apparently no reason.

"Very good," WinK said, grinning. "Now, do you know what the right there is?" he said, pointing to a particular group of stars before looking down at Keelan, who was staring hard up at the night sky with a frown of concentration on his face before looking to the book, glancing back and forth between the two for a moment before turning the page. Good ... let his work at it. It would give WinK's neck a chance to rest.

"Abah, ababee," Medea babbled against her mother's shoulder, the tattered tail of her kitty plushie not in her mouth, for once, but clenched between her chubby fists.

"Yeah, whatever," Inle wheezed in acknowledgement. The tiny woman was laden with not only the infant, but a large, bulging backpack and a giant shoulderbag. A bulky-looking tripod was strapped to the bag, and she seemed to be staggering beneath all the weight. In truth, she was; Inle wasn't very strong, and her camera equipment was heavy.

She certainly wasn't meant to be lugging nearly 50 pounds of it through a dark field, and if her car had been working, she wouldn't have been. The minibus, older than she was, was known to crap out at the most inopportune times, and true to form it had done so on her way to a nighttime photo shoot. As if lugging a veritable studio's worth of equipment around wasn't bad enough, she hadn't been able to find anyone to watch Medea and was forced to take the infant with her.

"We're almost home, sweetheart," she said, more to herself than the unaware infant. She paused as she heard voices nearby, and that proved to be a mistake--the strap to her shoulderbag broke, it and the tripod falling to the ground. It sent Inle off-balance and she stumbled before falling on her a**. Medea squealed in surprise at the hasty landing. "********!" Inle shouted, her thin temper snapping. How the hell was she supposed to get her equipment AND her child home now?

"Fuh!" Medea repeated. Inle sighed, remaining on the ground for a moment to regain her bearings.

WinK looked over at the sudden curse word floating through the air. His eyes, so well adjusted to the lack of light already, spotted what appeared to be a woman and a large pile of ... whatever it was.

"What was that word?" Keelan said, looking in the same direction, book still wide open in his hands. He glanced up at WinK, blinking his curious big gray eyes. "It sounded like f-"

"A word not meant for you, or I," WinK said quickly, with a smile. About to walk over and offer his assistance the angel spotted Keelan's little Schola streaming through the grass, yipping happily before circling the pair, snuffling them happily. Well, he hoped whoever it was, wasn't afraid of dogs. Even tiny ones.

Inle looked visibly torn between checking on her equipment and holding her child upright. After a moment of silent debate she finally crossed her legs indian-style and sat Medea in her lap. The infant's tail wasn't yet strong enough to hold her up, so she allowed the baby to use her stomach as a backrest while she leaned over and examined the broken straps of her bag.

As she started trying to tie the ends together she heard a small, high-pitched sound. She paused, looking around only to see the grass part as if for some tiny landshark. Motherly instincts she often denied she had kicked in and she dropped the straps in order to cross her arms over Medea. She grew wary as it circled them, and she was able to make out a vague shape and muted colors. Was that...a rat-sized dog?

Medea appeared to have noticed it too, as she started squirming in Inle's lap, her beloved kitty plushie forgotten as she made grabby hands at the miniscule canine. "Bebebe!" she squealed, crying out in protest as moved her hands away from the tiny canine's vicinity.

"Don't touch it, Medea, we don't know where it's been...or even what it is."

"It's a Pixa," Keelan said as the little gold and black puppy sniffed at the infant's hands but didn't get near enough to be grabbed. "His name is Schola, and he's pretty much harmless." At the sound of his name the little puppy yipped and bounded over to Keelan, panting happily before darting off after an offending firefly that had blinked nearby.

"Are you all right?" WinK said, the angel kneeling down, a foot or two away from what he could see now was a pair. "It looks like you took a nasty fall." He was smiling, but it was warm and welcoming in the moonlight, not sneering or making fun of her unexpected spill. "Do you need help?"

Harmless...harmless was good, especially since she was pretty much helpless on the ground. Wait...was that a voice? Startled, Inle looked up, eyebrows disappearing into her tousled hair at the sight of the centaur colt and the man with him. Apparently she wasn't the only one crazy enough to tromp through a dark field in the middle of the night. The thought wasn't comforting, somehow, although she was grateful at the offer of help.

"Uh...yeah, we're fine, no broken bones or anything." Inle neglected to add that her a** hurt as if she had sat on a chair full of mousetraps--for the child's sake, of course. That and she didn't need Medea swearing like a sailor before she could slither. "Help would be much appreciated though, thank you." The only question was, how could they help? Did she want to repair her bag more than she wanted to keep her child out of the hands of strangers? The answer was yes; if they tried anything, she could probably just whack them with the tripod.

Decision made, she held the squirmy Medea out to the kneeling man. "Could you um...just take her for a minute, please? I need to fix my bag and get up, somehow."

Medea seemed to like that idea, if the grabby-hands she turned towards first towards the centaur, then to the man were any indication.

Keelan looked at the baby and started, closing his book with a loud snap as his gray eyes went wide in the moonlight, relfecting silver in his distress. "Uh ... uhm ... " His hooves shifted nervously. Snakes ... he hated snakes. He could deal with them yes, but he still hated them. Though ... wasn't this different? She was half-human, just like he was, but still ... snakes ... he hated ...

WinK, looking at Keelan, who's mind seemed to be going a mile a minute at the site of the little baby reached his hands out to take the young one. "Hello there," he said with a smile as he craddled her in his arm, poking her nose gently with his free hand. "Aren't we a sweet little serpant, eh?" He laughed quietly at his own joke before looking at his adopted son who was looking at the angel as if he'd just taken the devil into his arms and declared his unyielding love.

"Keelan, help up, Miss--" he glanced at the woman with a questioning gaze.

The young colt, now not as young and as tall as WinK's chest (and growing every day it seemed like it!) stepped forward, hooves careful around the broken bag laying in a heap on the ground, offering a free hand, the other clutching his book at his side.

Inle kept an eye on the fidgety centaur colt as she quickly tied the frayed ends of the bag's strap together. It was a shoddy repair job, but it would hold--hopefully--until she and Medea got home. She was utterly confident that they wouldn't find anyone else so willing to help on the way if it broke again. "Inle," she finished the man's sentence. "And that's Medea." She took the centaur's hand with both of hers and pulled herself up awkwardly. It was significantly harder with the bulging bag on her back, but she managed to keep upright after a moment of wobbling.

Medea squirmed and squealed happily, babbling and giggling at this silly new person. Her nose wrinkled as it was poked, and she awkwardly grabbed at the man's finger, neither coordinated nor accurate in her infancy. This was great! He wasn't the horsey-boy, who looked delightfully fuzzy, but he was certainly enough to sate her tactile nature.

Inle watched them carefully, content to stand and rest for a minute before attempting to lift the heavy, awkward bag. Medea seemed to be having a good time--but then, when did she not?--and this pair seemed harmless enough. "So, what brings you two out here so late at night?"

"We're star gazing!" Keelan said with a bright smile, swishing his tail happily. He held up his book so she could see it, making sure the title was reflected off of the moonlight. "I'm learning constelations so I don't hit pumpkins with arrows anymore!" He seemed very grave when he said this, but behind him WinK couldn't help but laugh.

"No, you'll learn not to hit pumpkins with arrows when your aim with that bow is better ... and we find you a better practice ground," he corrected the colt, who beamed up at the angel. Turning his gaze to Inle he said, "We are star-gazing. I'm trying to broaden his horizons. So far he's taken to it quite well. My name is WinK," he said, turning his gaze back to Medea. "WinK Angelys ... it's a pleasure to meet both of you."

He was wiggling his finger for the little girl, happy that she was so jubilant and energetic for such a young baby.

Keelan was watching WinK act like a total idiot with the baby, glad he was never that small for someone to coo over. "My name is Keelan-fel of Angelys, formerly of Strongwood," he said firmly, as if that would make sense to Inle, which is probably didn't. Glancing at Medea again he said, "She's ... Arcadian isn't she?" before looking back at the woman-turned-pack-horse.

Pumpkins? With arrows? Inle's head tilted to the side, a classic confused expression drawing her eyebrows downwards. Her eyes flicked to the cover of the book and she wondered for a moment what the stars had to do with pumpkins OR arrows, but WinK's explanation made her nod comprehendingly. "Star-gazing's a wonderful way to do that. The night sky holds just as much culture and history as anything else, if you pay attention to the stories surrounding the constellations." The words were said with a fair amount of wistfulness, although her face remained as ambivalent as ever. "And it's nice to meet you too."

Medea giggled, finally closing her hands around the single finger. As she did with everything else, she immediately brought the digit to her mouth. Inle watched her carefully--the baby didn't bite hard, but her fangs, when out, were sharp. Thankfully for Inle, who wasn't carrying band-aids and had no desire for her daughter to chomp on their savior, her baby-fangs were fully retracted.

Inle's attention turned back to the centaur, blinking as most of his introduction went right over her head. "Arcadian? I'm not sure what that is...I sort of came across her unintentionally. Jaden--the guy whose fault it is that she wound up with me--said she's a faerie or something." Inle, at the time, hadn't been paying attention to details, so intent was she on learning why she had found a baby in her backyard.

"Stories behind the constellations?" the colt asked, his hands holding the book to his chest tightly. "This book just has the constellations, their names, and when you can find them throughout the year ... there are stories and histories behind them?" he asked, gray eyes glowing silver in the moonlight.

"Forgive him," WinK laughed, looking up from the tiny Medea who he happily let suck on his finger, unbeknownst to the dangers lurking retracted in her mouth. "He likes to ask questions, but he's a good little colt," he said, watching Keelan look as if WinK were saying something embaressing.

Keelan's face brightened considerably, and he looked at the little baby with a lot less fear in his eyes. "Did you hear that, WinK? She is Arcadian!" he said, excited.

((... Is there any way we can pause this? It's getting on towards 4am and I have school in the morning. sweatdrop I don't think we're in danger of losing our RP as the thread as been moving slower than snail mail. xp ))

Inle smiled and nodded at WinK. "I'd have to wonder if he didn't ask questions; children are supposed to be curious, after all. And he certainly does seem like a nice young man." Compliments, from the normally caustic Inle? Unheard of, usually, but these people helped her, and it put her in a good mood. Good, for her.

With a smile that looked almost out of place, she turned back to the taur-child. "There's stories behind everything, from the smallest star to the largest planet. They may differ from culture to culture, but they're always generally the same, like Leo is always a lion." The night sky and all its mythology interested her to no end; she was a nocturnal creature, named in her native tongue after the moon itself, and it wasn't rare to find her on the roof at night gazing up into the sea of stars.

"I suppose you would know her origins better than I, if you're both from the same place." She watched Medea gnaw lightly, contentedly on WinK's finger. While she had thought about Medea's place of birth when the infant first came into her life, the curiosity had tapered off with time. Now that it was mentioned again, it grew once more. Idly, she wondered if Medea had any memories of her life in this "Arcadia."

"Well, he sure asks a lot of them," WinK said, grinning down at Keelan before moving his gaze to the babe in his arms. "Well then, Miss Medea, do you think you'll be a talker when you're older?" he asked, shifting to hold her upright with both arms, supporting her easily.

"Do you think she remembers anything?" Keelan blurted out, as if he'd been reading Inle's mind. Which he couldn't ... wasn't a centaur thing.

"I remember a lot," he said slowly, thinking carefully about his words. "Centaurs are born as colts, so we can move around right after we're born. I was still young when I came here ... but I remember a lot. I hope she remembers at least something." Even if she was -gulp- half a snake he still wished her at least a small memory, no matter what it was (and he hoped it was good) of where she came from. What was it WinK had called it? Pride of culture?

"Well, I think it's late," WinK said, interupting Keelan's thoughts. "Would you mind if we walked you two ladies home, as to avoid any further accidents?"

Hey, she wasn't done with that! Her eyebrows drew downwards in an angry--though highly adorable--pout, and she waved her hands at WinK. "Bah!" she scolded, about to launch into a babyish diatribe regarding the taking-away of objects when she realized that, hey, she was in the air! Her gaze wandered downwards. "Oooo!" she exclaimed as she saw her own wiggling tailtip and beyond it, the ground. This was great!

Inle grinned at her surrogate daughter before turning her attention to Keelan. "I'm not sure she'll remember anything. It's rare, I suppose, for infants to remember their infancy when they get older, but...well, only time will tell." Part of Inle hoped that if Medea did remember her homeland, she didn't get curious enough to visit it--there were obviously reasons she was taken away from it, and she worried what would happen if the Naga went back.

She too was startled out of her reverie by WinK's words. "Oh, that'd be great, thank you! Luckily we don't live too far from here." With that, she lowered to a knee to retrieve Medea's beloved kitty doll, boosting herself back up with the aid of her shoulder bag. She then bent slightly to retrieve the poorly-repaired strap, slipping it over her shoulder before straightening, the bag rising as she did. Though Inle was horribly off-balance with all the foreign weight, she was confident she could carry it all. Though she stood at a mere 5 feet and weighed just over 100 pounds, she had carried her own equipment for years.

WinK grinned and tapped Medea's nose, amusing himself with her adorable pout as he watched her visually explore her new view of the world. Seeing her tail flail about gently he tickled it absently as he looked to his adopted son. "I'm sure you can help Miss Inle with some of her bags? You have been boasting of how big you're getting ... " he said, a mocking edge in his voice to push Keelan to be helpful.

Looking from WinK to Inle he felt a small blush rise up in his proud centaurian cheeks and he held out his hands to the woman. "Please, let me help!" He'd been trying to prove his grown-up-ness by doing anything from helping Aurora weed her garden to offering to help pick the orchard for WinK. So far he was doing a good job unless he stumbled over his still-growing gangliness.

WinK grinned and let Medea steal a finger back, wiggling it gently for the little serpant-babe. "I can carry some as well, if you like. We're minimalists, so we don't have much, just ourselves and Keelan-fel's book." He smiled, shifting Medea to make sure his grip on her was secure.

Inle cast a wary glance at the taur. He was just a kid, and though the tripod-topped bag was heavy, it was her stuff...she didn't want to burden him, or run the risk of things breaking if it proved to be too much. But he looked so determined, so unlike most kids his age, that she couldn't just say no to him. She knew what it was like to be proud.

With a sigh, she slid the broken bag off her shoulder once more. Though it was indeed heavy, it was still the lighter of the two bags by far, and the inside was so padded that it was unlikely anything would break should it be dropped again. "Thanks, that's very kind of you. Just be careful, alright? It's very heavy." With that, he turned to the larger man, glancing at her daughter with a chuckle. "Ah...I think you're carrying quite enough, and that bundle might just mind being passed around."

Medea giggled at the tickle, clapping both chubby hands over her mouth. Hey, this was great! No jostling, no squishing, and certainly no falling down! And this guy's hands weren't all rough and chemical-smelling, either. She eagerly took his finger again, popping it back in her mouth, both little hands holding onto one of his as if affirming Inle's statement.

Taking the back he carefully pulled the mended shoulder strap over his own shoulder, letting the heavy bag rest on his back so it would be easy to carry it (arms free, except for a hand he kept on the part of the strap that was tied) as well as his own star-gazing book. "Thank you!" he said, beaming happily. "It's not heavy at all!"

It wasn't very heavy anyway, but he didn't struggle under the weight, being a little larger as a centaur than most children his age would be. He took a few steps, concentrating to make sure the package was secure and wouldn't slip off one way or the other from his back when he moved. Grinning up at Inle he said, "All ready to go!"

WinK watched his adopted son for a moment or two before grinning and playing with Medea, wiggling the finger in her mouth gently, squeezing her slightly to make sure she didn't jump out of his grasp in a sudden laughter-filled jiggle. "So, are we all set?" he asked, glancing up with a grin. "Which way is home, Miss Inle?"

Inle watched Keelan dubiously for a moment as the taur-child hefted the bag with seeming ease. She had no doubt that the boy would have an easier time carrying it than she would and managed to hide a smile at the thought that "pack horse" just took on a whole new name. "On the contrary, thank you!" she said before executing a bumbling turn towards WinK.

"Home's that way," Inle replied, pointing past him. "It's not really that far from here, I guess, and the field leads into my backyard. It's not fenced in or anything so I'm not exactly sure where one ends and the other begins, but...well, the House knows." The House, and the land around it, often determined their own boundaries, property rights be damned. With a forward lean and a stumble, she started--slowly, clumsily, in that direction.

((I should be shot for being gone so long. xp ))

WinK nodded, knowing full well that sometimes vegitation decided its own boundries. Next to Inle he seemed a bit ghost-like in the night time, gliding smoothly over the meadow as he looked down at Medea, happy to play with her, even if it was just the wiggling of his finger at the little serpant-babe. If anyone had actually taken a look down at his feet he wasn't really walking on the ground, but an inch above as to make the passage smoother for the infant.

Keelan on the other hand, was jostling just a little as he tried to pick his way across the field (hey, it was harder with four legs you know), but he was doing an all right job with not bumping Inle's bag around too much, his book clutched in on hand, the other still clinging to the strap. Just in case.

"The land sometimes likes to expand," Keelan said as if it were an ordinary thing to think of land as something alive, with a mind of its own. "It feels the need to move, to grow. Just like everyone," he said, casting her a grin before he hopped over a stump in the grass.

Inle certainly didn't notice--her attention was on the ground directly in front of herself. She sought to avoid anything that might trip her or make her stumble, because she knew that should she fall, she'd break not only the items in her backpack, but probably a bone or two under the bag's weight. She felt suddenly grateful that she and Medea had happened upon WinK and Keelan: there was a greater risk of falling with the shoulderbag and if she had fallen, she likely would have crushed Medea. That thought ran a chill down her spine, and she took her attention off the ground long enough to glance up at her young ward, who seemed to be having a blast playing with WinK's finger.

"That may be so," she called back to the colt, "but I'm not sure most land feels the need to stay green from January till December." Inle flashed him a quick grin before wobble-dodging out of the way of a small pothole. The field was starting to thicken into small stands of large trees, and Inle sighed in relief. They were almost home.

((TBC))

"Wake up." It was early, and a cold, wet nose pressed against the back of Inle's hand even as a voice made itself known in Inle's mind.

"Nng," was Inle's response as she drew her hand away from that which was causing it discomfort.

The voice seemed to sigh, its owner moving away...or at least that's what Inle thought it had been doing until the thick comforter she was buried under was pulled away. "******** ooooff," she whined, curling up in a vain attempt to preserve body heat. It was more a natural reaction than an actual need--since her zombification on Halloween, she didn't really feel much of anything, hot and cold included.

"You have to wake up now," the voice--Theora, Inle was lucid enough to determine--insisted.

"Do not," Inle muttered, reluctant as always to get out of bed.

"Get UP. Something is...different this morning, with Medea."

Inle cracked a blood-red eye open to look at the Sentinel. "Different how?"

The feline's gaze was as calm and empty as ever. "Go see." With that, she padded out of the room, not waiting for Inle to follow her.

Inle's groan was muffled by her pillow and she slowly, grumpily rolled herself out of bed, reaching behind her head to give a cursory skritch between the ears of the grunny that had taken residence upon and within it. His ears wiggled as Inle shuffled sleepily down the hall, hiding a yawn behind her hand. Nonexistant brows raised as she pushed the door to Medea's room open further and stepped inside. The Changeling's hand was pushed through the bars of her crib and she was petting the top of Theora's head, much to the Sentinel's delight.

Inle peered into the wooden crib, fully expecting to see the small, chubby bag of flesh and bone and scales she had grown accustomed to seeing. Her eyes widened--Medea was indeed in her crib, but she wasn't as small or chubby as she had been the night before. Her tail had grown long and deeper in color, although highlights borne of early-morning sunlight danced through it like violet flames. She was no longer adorably chubby, either; growth had caused her to shed some of her baby fat in favor of something leaner. Medea's hair had grown longer, the raven locks reaching past her shoulders, and the tip of a pointed ear poked through them.

"I'll be damned," Inle muttered as Medea pulled her hand back through the bars. She watched as the toddler's hands moved to the bars. Medea used them to help pull herself upright from her stomach, her tail aiding her for the first time as, a few moments later, she was sitting upright upon it. She smiled proudly at Inle as if to say, "Hey, look what I did!"

As Inle reached down to lift Medea out of her crib, the toddler pointed at the still-seated Sentinel, saying in a voice bereft of babyish uncertainty, "Kee kah!"

Inle stopped, arms frozen halfway into the crib. "What did you say?" she asked, eyes wide. Even the grunny's ears were perked forwards as if he didn't quite believe what he heard either.

"Kee kah!" Medea repeated, giggling.

"Kee...you mean kitty? Kitty cat?" Inle's arms dropped to her sides.

"Kee kah," Medea confirmed.

It took a moment for Inle to process that Medea had just said her first words...and another to figure out who had most likely taught them to her. Her head turned sharply to Theora, who was looking up at her almost smugly, jaws parted and tongue lolling in a feline smile. "You taught her how to say "kitty cat" before "Mama?!"

"Well...yes. Obviously." The end of Theora's spiked and bladed tail was twitching from its place around her forepaws as if in amusement.

If Inle's blood still ran it would have turned her face red with anger. "******** fleabag! Get the ******** out, you've done enough damage for one day! I knew it was a bad idea to let you hang around my kid!" Although Theora usually ignored everything Inle said, she stood and left the room without complaint, tailspike bobbing happily behind her. Inle sighed and turned back to Medea, who was frowning after the Sentinel. She didn't know what was going on, but the Mama-person wasn't happy with the Kitty Cat. Of course, she never was, but it seemed to impact the toddler a bit more now that she was aware of it. Medea raised her arms, wobbling a little as she adjusted to balancing on her tail, and Inle lifted her up and out of the crib. Her tail flailed a little as it struggled to find its place in the grand scheme of things--"things" being picked up and carried around--before settling at Inle's waist.

Medea frowned as she looked from Inle's grunny to Inle's face. Neither looked too happy. "Kee kah?" Medea offered hopefully.

Inle's frowned deeper as she carried Medea downstairs. "No, sweetie. I'm Mommy."

"Deuuuuuuce!" A tiny voice could be heard clattering noisily down the basement stairs. It wasn't the owner of the voice that was doing the clattering, however, but the creature she was firmly latched onto. Medea--and by proxy, Theora--had been assigned the task of gathering everyone for dinner. So far they had come across Ephenrix--the giant cat hadn't been too difficult to find, as he was usually found sleeping, Tybalt, who had been on his way to the table anyway, and Calumet, who was in front of the television and neither poking nor yelling nor promises of food could get him away from his beloved cartoons. All they had left to get was Caduceus, who was often in the basement working on some project or another.

Sure enough, he was down there; the sweet-sharp smell that indicated he was working preceded actually seeing him. "What?" he asked, obviously distracted; his worktable was strewn with open books, bubbling liquids, bottles, and miscellaneous ingredients. At the moment he seemed to be combining some sort of powder into a vial containing an orange liquid; the mixture fizzed and bubbled, but didn't overflow.

Medea took all this in with wide-eyed awe, having never been down here when her older "brother" was working. An impatient shift from Theora brought her back to the task at hand. "Mama said get for dinner," she said matter-of-factly, eyes still roving over the table. Theora made to leave, but Medea gently tugged the mane one hand was fisted in, indicating that she should wait. "Whatcha doin'?" she asked.

"Working," came the terse reply from Deuce, who had set one vial down in favor of checking on another. "Don't touch anything," he snapped as he caught Medea's curious hand wandering towards the table. She started to draw it back before using it to point at one of the containers on the table. It was a plain drinking glass that held a violet-colored liquid, and wasn't bubbling or glowing or doing any of the other neat things some of its fancier counterparts were.

"Whassat one?" she asked.

Deuce spared a glance at it and shrugged. "I dunno, probably juice or something."

"C'n I have it?" Medea asked; it did look like grape juice, something she was especially fond of.

"Sure, whatever."

With a happy wriggle, Medea reached out and carefully grasped the cup. "I don't think you should drink it, little one," the ever-cautious voice of Theora stated.

"'S only juice, kittykat, ok?"

"I don't think--" but it was too late. Medea had already started drinking, and half the contents were gone by the time she pulled the glass away from her mouth. Oooo, that tasted good! Although the liquid had looked relatively passive, it made her mouth tingle like she had just drank icy-cold soda, and while it looked like grape juice it actually tasted very much like lemonade.

"It's good!" Medea proclaimed, holding the cup down towards Theora. "Try it, kittykat, it's good!"

Theora turned her head away with a snort, ears pinning back and hackles rising. "No, and I don't think drinking an unknown substance was wise, either."

Medea frowned, reaching to put the glass back on the table. "Was only juice," she mumbled. The cup didn't make it as far as the table before it fell out of her suddenly-shaking hand, landing with a crash and a splatter of liquid. ((TBC))

Flickers and shedding Quest post 3