Welcome to Gaia! ::

“I’m sorry, refresh my memory as to how long ago we met? Has it been… gosh, a whole fifteen minutes now? Yeah, what memories… remember when you yelled at me? Good times…” Rem said a tad sarcastically. “Look, I’m not going to ride Leolin. I’ll take this at my own pace.”

He let out a yelp of surprise as the gryphon suddenly seized a beakful of his clothing. “Leolin! Dislodge! Dislodge, I say!” he pulled gently on his clothes, trying to get them out of the creature’s beak without ripping them. This was doing nothing for his stubborn nature. The more he was pushed, the more Remiel Quillan would push right back. That was the thing with men like him. Not to mention, he was a noble. Nobles did not let themselves get pushed around by racers or gryphons!

It wasn’t that Remiel was offended by her at all. It was simply that he got annoyed if someone kept pestering him, despite him pointing out that he is not interested. It was simply rude to keep bothering someone about the same thing over and over again. He had said ‘no’ the first time! What made people think he would say ‘yes’ the fifth time? Once Laura apologized, Rem’s proverbial plumage relaxed slightly. Well, at least she was getting the idea that he was not a man to push around too much. People tended to think that just because he was honorable, trustworthy, and loyal, they could do anything to him. These people generally ended up dead long before their time.

He eyed the gryphon a bit anxiously and shifted away furtively, just to put enough space between himself and that beak should it try to grab him again. “I don’t mind you coming along. I do, however, mind when someone asks me the same question several times, as if expecting that my answer would change within three seconds.” There was a bit of a bite in his tone, but it was pretty clear that he was trying to keep it out. He didn’t want to be mad at Laura. Or at Leolin, for that matter.

“With the houses out here, there are generally little pictures on the gates,” he explained, pointing to the gate of a nearby mansion. On this particular mansion, a snake slithered its way across the bars. “That’s basically how we identify our homes. My own is the one at the end of the lane with the unicorn on it.” By this point, most of the annoyance had drained from his tone.

Yes, yes. He was well-aware of the feminine nature of unicorns. He didn’t get to choose it.

“I’m pretty sure it won’t implode if that’s what you’re asking, Laura,” he said wryly, apparently forgiving her for being such a pest. Since they were alone out here---and he assumed she would be going around as female for now---he didn’t think there was any harm in calling her by her real name. Besides, if she did find harm in it, she would be sure to tell him. Which was a bit of a relief, really, because then he wouldn’t have to keep guessing or anything.

“If it does implode, however, we’ll be the first to know.” Absentmindedly, he scratched the gryphon’s feathers, oddly touched by the creature’s apparent affection for him. And to think that just a few moments ago, Leolin barely even spared Rem a glance, let alone asking for attention. “He’s very sweet,” he said after a moment of thought, referring to Leolin. There was something adorable about it, really.

He didn’t intend on leading her into the servants’ entrance. He wasn’t even sure if he had one, quite frankly. While Laura thought of soldiers as being ‘traditionalist’, most of them were actually pretty easy-going about things like this. As far as they were concerned, every man could die from the same things, so nothing made one better than the other.

The gates alone were imposing. They were of the ‘dark portal’ variety, the type that constructors made when they had just heard a particularly frightening ghost story and were inspired by it. These were the types of gates that decorated the houses of No Return. The silver unicorns only added to the freakiness quality, by being eerily beautiful against that black metal. Rem seemed not to notice the gates, which made sense as he had seen them before.

The house itself wasn’t quite a ‘mansion’. It was certainly a large house, that was true, but it had a certain run-down feeling to it. Once again, it sort of summoned up the whole theme of ‘ghost stories’. The garden out front was wildly out of control, with the weeds battling any plant that grew there.

“It’s a bit of a mess at the moment,” Rem said apologetically. “I haven’t really gotten settled in yet…didn’t get around to hiring a gardener yet or anything…”

Rem looked at Leolin with surprise, wondering what had gotten into the creature. Afraid of gates? GATES? What could they do?! The worst that could happen was one of them would fall over or something and even that wasn’t likely to happen. These were the sorts of gates that lasted thousands of years and ended up in museums. “If he thinks just the gates are scary, he should avoid the cellar. I haven’t gotten around to cleaning it yet. The dust-bunnies have probably long since evolved into dust-tigers and dust-bears.”

“Personally, I hope he never does. One of the finer points of animals is that they don’t notice things like that.” It wasn’t that Rem hated his birth or anything. He rather enjoyed being alive and all that, so he was not about to complain. Nor was he going to complain about having a relatively easy life. Again, he was only human and humans tend to gravitate towards easier things. It was just the way people acted. It got up his nose sometimes. Times such as daytime and nighttime especially.

A slightly uneasy look came over Rem, as if he knew he should have expected this question and wasn’t sure how to answer it. “Well, I could… I just prefer to do it myself. That way, I’ll know where everything is.” Alright, that was only one of the reasons, the one that his mind threw up to block out the truth. The real reason was far more complicated and had to deal with layers of psychosis that Rem preferred to avoid even thinking about, let alone discussing with someone he had just met. “If you want to help, that would be fine with me.”

“So long as he doesn’t try to eat any of the cats or dogs, he’s allowed in the house.” He didn’t think that Leolin would try to eat them, but it was a question worth asking, right? “If he’s more comfortable though, there is the stable outside. That, at least, is clean.” He had spent most of the day yesterday cleaning it out, and it wasn’t as scary-looking as the rest of the place. The horses didn’t mind, anyway. He scratched the gryphon’s head a little, hoping to reassure Leolin.

In sharp contrast to the outside, the inside of the house was actually pretty clean. Or at least this first corridor was. It still had that ominous echo that came from not having furniture, though. That was the sort of thing that always unnerved people. Even more unnerving, the echoes weren’t from Rem, Laura, or Leolin. They were from something else. Several something elses, actually…

Several loud noises came from down the hall, and one of the doors slowly creaked open. There was a moment of silence and then several somethings rocketed out and ran straight at Rem. The man was bowled over by three large dogs, the type of floppy dogs that nobles had the same way that common people had rugs. Still, they were awfully lively… the one that hadn’t knocked Remiel down was running excitedly around the man and licking at his hand, before sniffing at Laura’s clothes. The last one, apparently braver than its companions, sniffed at Leolin, although from a distance of a few feet before barking at the gryphon.

“Back! Back, you hounds of Hell! Back with ye!” Remiel shoved the dogs away before standing up and brushing off his clothes. The dogs, as excitable as ever, took this as some sort of a sign that he was ready to play.

Giving Laura a somewhat embarrassed look, Rem explained, “I don’t like keeping them outside, you see. They’re really good dogs, just… they get very enthusiastic.”

At least one of the dogs looked like he had a touch of wolfhound in him, although he wasn’t as quite as big as the hunting dogs. He had the general look, though, complete with shaggy black fur. He sat at Rem’s side as the other two examined Laura and Leolin. The one sniffing Laura---a black and white female who looked vaguely shepherd-like with somewhat long fur---bounced up and down in response to the woman’s words, as if the words themselves were full of sugar. She danced from foot to foot until Rem grabbed her and forced her to look at him.

“You wanna play? You wanna play a game? Go get it, girl! Go get it, go get it, go get it!” The noble said in an overly excited voice. The dog was shaking from excitement by the time he stopped and took off like a shot, her tail whirring behind her in search of… well… whatever ‘it’ was. “… you know, I’ve never actually told her what ‘it’ is… I always wonder what she’ll do once she finds ‘it’…”

The dog that sniffed Leolin was clearly the youngest. He still had the big paws associated with puppy-hood and the sort of gangly appearance one normally associated with teenagers. Not even the best doggy fancier could apply a breed to this mutt. He was, at best, a bit of everything. As the gryphon shoved at him, the puppy yipped and fell over before nipping at Leolin’s tail.

By this point, the black and white female returned, looking a little dejected. She whined at Laura and nudged at her hand with a cold wet nose.

“That one’s Aggie,” Rem said, pointing at the black and white female. “This here’s Flash,” he patted the large black dog at his side. “And the little one’s Trill. The cats are around here someplace; they may or may not show up, but they’re definitely watching.”

“They don’t live here. They just come around during the day long enough for me to tell them that I don’t have anything for them to do right now and then they go back to their homes. I like doing things for myself. It’s easier that way.” Alright, so the meals weren’t exactly stellar… still, he wasn’t sure if he would trust someone else cooking his food. There was no way to tell what they would put into it. He didn’t even like letting anyone else feed the animals. Or even clean up after them. Besides, he didn’t like the idea of someone else wandering into his room. He liked his space.

The puppy wagged his tail at Leolin, before licking his beak. Nope. Poor little Trill wasn’t smart enough to be scared of an angry gryphon. He promptly rolled over onto his back, apparently waiting for a belly rub. Or at least some sort of attention. Anyone? Attention? Pet the cute puppy! He whined quietly, once he realized that no one was going to rub his belly.

Aggie, on the other hand, was more than ready to play. She promptly fell into a playbow position and barked at Leolin a few times.

“… I should have named her Spaz,” Rem commented before continuing the little walk. Flash trotted at his side, ignoring the other dogs, the gryphon, and Laura. “Anyway, we ought to continue the grand tour.” If that was what this was supposed to be.