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Liamh cleared his throat and glanced at Marshall, glad for a slight distraction. He moved his foot away from the dog under the table. "What's with all the dogs, anyway? There was a shaggy beast on my doorstep this morning, had a hell of a time catching him..."

His attention was sucked back to Antony as she edged closer, feeling the somewhat... predatory... vibe she gave off. "Oh, a threat, are you?" he tried not to lean back in his chair. "I'll be on my highest guard then. I'd hate to suddenly find myself at the mercy of one far more devious and powerful than myself... Actually, wait, that sounds like fun."

"Hmm, sharing..." Liamh furrowed his brows and glanced down, shooting her a look surreptitiously. He patted down all his pockets... he hadn't brought anything, not expecting to need to barter for silverware. "I don't suppose the line, 'breath from my lungs' would work in this situation, would it?" He scratched the back of his neck under the confining hood and gave a lopsided grin.

"I wouldn't mess with her, Liamh. I saw her beat the s**t out of a kid at Halloween. From the sound of it, he had it coming. Buutt...Yeah. Now she has a knife and fork. Do the math." Marshall said, half jokingly, as he looked up at Liamh as he scratched the dog behind its ears.

"...You named him ********? Hee hee...Classy." Marshall chuckled. His attention turned to the entry way. Gaius and some familiar hedgehog woman were talking, and they both had dogs.

"Maan...Every one got a dog. So uncool." Marshall muttered, still scratching ******** behind the ears. He wasn't sure why Liamh just didn't open the stupid DVD case with both hands like a normal person, but far be it for him to complain.

It tasted like pumpkin, sweetened by condensed milk and sugar and some nutmeg. That was the first step- it was recognizable, familiar. But did she like it? She rolled it along her tongue and pressed the pie to the roof of her mouth. Emelyn manipulated the crust, along with a bit of the orange stuff itself, to her back molars and she chewed it. Then she gave herself a moment to make a decision. She even let the hedgehog out of its back 'storage closet' of her consciousness, and she 'asked' if it liked it. And then, the moment of truth as the sensation of truth travelled to her brain and returned with a message in a millisecond:

This is good. This is very good.

It was not quite the pie of her childhood- and not solely for the sake of a different cook. That, too, was true of course- her Grandfather rarely used quite so much nutmeg in his concoction. But mostly, it was the heightened peak of hedgehog senses mixed with her own, very human love of baked goods. Hedgehogs are omnivores, and they will eat... pretty much anything. Given, they're more predisposed to the raw and the grub-like, but human made concoctions are eerily near and dear to the hedgie heart... and taste buds.

"Mmm," she explained, opening her eyes at last, "I was afraid that I'd not enjoy pie as much, now that I have the hedgehog senses as well. But it's... different. And I honestly don't know how healthy it is for me to be eating, come to think of it..." she speared another bite, considering it upon the air a moment, "but it's still so good..." before placing that bite in her craw as well.

The horse-man watched curiously, neck unconsciously craning forward a bit, as Emelyn tasted her pie, as her animal-like yet eerily human face passed through phases of expression, sometimes unsure, sometimes analytic, and finally, pleasure. His expression remained confused until she explained the reason for her uncertainty. “Aaaaah… I understand that. I’ve been dealing the same with the horse’s tastes, and I’m not even as changed as… er, well, I’m not that far along, yet.” He lowered his eyes and rubbed at the mane along the back of his neck self-consciously. “Not that you look animal-ish or anything!”

Anxiety worked with the stream of cookies he’d been consuming to make Gaius’ throat feel very sticky. Reaching for his cup, he lifted it to his lips, the semi-cool liquid running over his tongue. It was particularly thick, whole milk apparently, and somehow tasted a bit off, different from the little milk cartons readily found in the drink dispenser. Gaius licked his lips, wiping away the moustache and regarded the half-emptied cup with raised eyebrows. “Huh, even the milk’s pretty rich.”

He set the cup down and looked back up at the hedgehog woman across from him, regaining his friendly smile. “I’m glad you can still eat it. I think, of everything the labs could do to us, stealing away the ability to enjoy pie would be the greatest crime of all.”

Marshall stared at Liamh's face for a moment. He was, explainably, surpirsed. He was missing half of his face, for cripes sakes! But another thing shocked him even more: people were turning into PLANTS as well?! Wait a second...Bingo! Finally putting two-and-two together, Marshall realised Alec was both being turned into an Animal AND a Plant!

"Of course sharks didn't have LEAVES." he grumbled, feeling like a total retard for not figuring that out. But then, he realised: Alec wasn't here. Liamh was.

"Um...I've never been one for botany..." he said, blushing with a forced chuckle. This was, undoubtedly, awkward.

Liamh glanced at Marshall. "Sharks?" he said, nonplussed. "You mean that Alec kid with the accent? He doesn't have leaves, does he?"

Looking at Antony, he nodded. "I thought about calling them. I think i just need to swallow my stubbornness. I'd sort of convinced myself before this that if I didn't know, it would somehow be less... real." He shrugged. "Kinda bit me in the arse, so you're right, it's not like i've got anything to lose by knowing."

He shot a look at Marshall, then back at the squirrel woman. "Maybe too much to lose by not knowing." He brought his plant-hand up and looked at it, flexing his tendrilly fingers. It still felt so freaking weird. Well, not like he was going to get anywhere by hiding it now. He rolled the sleeve up a bit, showing off the corded vines that his muscle structure had become, trying to work the sleeve carefully over the leaves. He wasn't in quite the right frame of mind to rip them off again just now.

He nodded over at the silverware. "Well, since I'm not being a dork about using the hand - sorry 'bout that Marshall - I guess i don't need something to open the box with..." he grinned a bit lopsidedly at Antony. "Since i couldn't ante up the info for the trade anyway, you kinda had me there."

Gaius snorted distastefully, the mentioned wings twitching and folding back as if embarrassed of themselves. The nature of his serum assignment wasn’t one of his favorite topics mainly because it inevitably lead to Sabin and all the trouble he’d dealt with because of him. He glowered down at a gingerbread man in his hand as he spoke. “Yeah… Kinda. That crazy white-haired doctor got it into his head to make a Pegasus… and I’m the one that got stuck with it.” Snap went the arm. “He thinks he can control me, the way he does that dragon…” His expression darkened. “But I’m nothing like Zach!”

He sighed, the tense lines in his face fading as he regained himself, looking up apologetically at Em, then back down at the cookie in his hand. “Sorry, didn’t mean to burst there… It’s… I guess I have a hard time… getting used to it. I don’t think I’ll ever accept it, but it’s like trying to live after getting laid off. Make adjustments and try to get by…” He munched on the cookie, the sweet taste restoring a measure of his quickly-shifting moods. “I’ve been told I’m wasting my life always living with a hope that tomorrow, by some miracle, we might be rescued, or somehow escape. That I should settle down, forget what’s gone, and try to make a new life here. It just seems… somehow lazy, to live like that. Like it’s easier to let it go and just accept the way things are.”

“Sorry, I’m probably ruining the mood of the conversation with too much thinking,” he apologized with a small shake of his head. He hadn’t meant to interrupt her reunion with pie. The milk was sipped at again to wet his throat. Too much thinking, but none about what shouldn’t be said in an encounter like this. Who was he to assume Em even wanted to hear any of this?