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 Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 11:32 am
Bubbly. Delightful. Actually, the exact opposite, but Arthur felt the need for further sarcasm.
"Isn't that nice," he commented dryly, staring with a bare, politely hostile stare. "Who's Atticus? Are you trying to sell something?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:06 pm
Teil sulked. "Atticus? Coon beta? Really pretty even though he can be an absolute brat?" he tried, wondering how someone could NOT remember Atticus. Or not KNOW Atticus.
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:21 pm
Someone other than Atticus thought Atticus was pretty? Now that was a new one. And he was sulking. Oh, wouldn't they just get along wonderfully?
"I make a habit of disassociating myself with pack leaders."
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:25 pm
Asteil sighed. "So you don't know where he is?" the demon asked sadly. "...crap. That's just my luck."
At this rate, he was never going to find Atticus...
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:14 pm
I never know where he is. I make a habit of not knowing where he is. Wherever I am, he isn't.
No, all these implied at least an acquaintance with the coon.
"Good luck," he muttered, preparing to close the door unless, perchance, the demon should say something vaguely interesting in the next thirty seconds.
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:56 pm
"Damnit... I need to figure out what the hell he did to me," Teil muttered darkly before he turned to leave, glancing at the air. Great... what was he supposed to do now...? "Stupid Quest.... stupid Atticus... stupid memory loss...."
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:01 pm
Stopping himself from saying anything unnecessarily impolite (such as 'I hope it's fatal'), Arthur shut the door decisively. He contemplated locking it for a moment, wondered whether it would be worth the fuss and complaints of any residents who'd managed to forget their keys...
No, he had better not.
Someone was coming, and Arthur had the vague impression he wanted to make sure the door was wide open for them...
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 10:24 am
Sins of the Lover
Roles: Madison, Atticus, Edmund
Time: Evening to night, mostly night. Yesterday.
Location: The drive and steps outside the Townhouse's door.
===============
Madison Square Garden sat. Sat, and contemplated. He'd perched himself on the two steps in the outdoor foyer before the Townhouse's door, a place not ideally suited for the act of contemplation but necessary in lieu of it being the best place to catch his quarry from.
He hadn't quite figured out what was going on yet, but he'd made a few likely sounding conjectures in these past few hours leading to nightfall. He hadn't had the opportunity to try them out on anybody either, unfortunately, as the only person halfway interested would likely have been Wolfe and when the boy had gotten home he'd only been interested in an uncomfortable (for Madison) silent, soulful exchange with the pretty little wolf who'd walked him back from the Nest. Puppy love. Yeesh.
Fingering the shimmer charm set in that specific ring on his left hand, Madison pursed his lips and mentally added waiting to his list of activities, where it sat hand in hand with the sitting and contemplating. In a strangely fortunate turn of events, it was not long after that a certain coon beta descended from the dimming sky.
Atticus paused at the sight of the melancholy unicorn at the door, somewhat puzzled by the change in demeanor in an individual he'd always considered unduly chipper. Not bothering to give it much more thought than a playfully sarcastic comment, "Why the long face, Garden? Did they cancel Barney and--"
He never quite got to finish that comment, however, as Madison stood, wheeled back an arm--and an insistent, silver furred fist made intimate, brutal contact with that certain coon beta's face.
Surprised by the impact and unprepared for any sort of assault, Atticus staggered back in surprise, hand going to his face in dismay and shock. It hadn't been a particularly hard or well-trained hit, but it had taken him completely unawares. "What--" he began.
"Ow~!" the unicorn's complaint drowned out Atticus' soft incredulity. "This is why they say you don't punch with a fist, isn't it?" he whined, "God--I know you're hard-headed but seriously, ever thought of replacing that skull with something softer? Like rock?"
Now, however, Atticus was in much less of a mood to debate. The unicorn's punch hadn't been skilled, and apparently, it had also been unprovoked. For this, the coon was unlikely to forgive him within the next eon or two. He unsheathed his own claws, taking a menacing step forward with a burning glare, about to demand an explanation when he was again interrupted.
"So what's up with Asteil?" Madison asked cheerily, still nursing his hand but fairly certain such a question would only cause the coon to balk. From what he'd gathered--or hypothesized, at least--he now had a trump card on the beta. If any of his favored theories were remotely correct, Atticus was going to be embarassed as a maiden upon the mention of a certain redhead demon...
The response wasn't slow as Madison had hoped. Apparently, the coon wasn't as offguard as he'd predicted. "Whatever has you so interested?"
"That he spent a good part of the afternoon alternately bawling at, clinging to or insulting me for one," Madison sighed the sigh of the long-suffering--which, in his point of view, he had quite painfully earned the right to join the ranks of. Asteil had given him one hell of an irritation-ache, the kind of ache that builds up in your sense of self-righteousness and explodes on all unfortunate pedestrians with alternate bouts of angst and rant.
Atticus, meanwhile, was somewhat distracted by the description afforded him. Either Madison had been duped into believing some other demon was Asteil or... or something strange had happened. Either way, he wasn't sure he liked it. "And you're asking me... because...?"
Madison rolled his eyes, "'cause he won't stop yammering about you, dumbass. It was all 'Atticus this' and 'Atticus that' and 'take me to Atticus'--really irritating, 'specially as I can't see why anyone would ever want to see you."
And here was another anamoly. Either admit that it is one or keep your peace. There's nothing this unicorn needs to know...
"He's a bit behind the times, strangely enough--" Madison continued without missing a beat, "Didn't even know you were a beta. Even stranger, none of that seemed to matter to him before he had a near encounter with soul magic a little earlier this afternoon--"
It was Atticus' turn to interrupt, "You've been meddling," he said sharply, suddenly and instinctually aware of the residue hanging about the magician. All pack leaders were spiritual--to a degree--they had to be, considering. Sometimes this spirituality left little gifts, like allowing like to recognize like...
"I didn't do anything," Madison argued plaintively, "He's just spirit sensitive, or soemthing--think you can tell me?"
He knew. He knew something, at least. There were enough hints in his speech, the manner of its delivery... performer to the bone, the unicorn was. "He asked for me?"
"Incessantly," he responded, deciding not to be irritated with the attempt to change the subject.
Atticus was silent for a long moment, wheels churning inside but letting no outward hint of their movement other than the silence. "Obviously, Garden," the coon spoke finally, "He pines for my ravishing looks and adoring attention. Sometimes they only remember that once they've seen the light agai--"
Madison hissed, stood firmly in the way of the door. "Don't mess with me, beta."
The reply was dark, though not quite menacing, "I'm only finishing what you've begun," Atticus murmured, a sinister reflection of 'you started it' childishly dancing on the edges of his tone, "Pratice what you preach."
All right, so there would be no more gleaning via the tried and true verbal interrogation. Was he really so bad at that? Couldn't be as bad at it as he was at soul magic, at the reading of minds and holding of spirits and some such. It was all connected, all part of the heart and soul and... Madison stared at Atticus. Stared at him long and heard, delving straight through his eyes and into... "You've been meddling..."
Atticus rolled his eyes, "Must we be so riddling?"
Madison shook his head in a somewhat disbelief--"I was right to hit you..." he announced distractedly, as if passing judgement. "You're a transgressor, aren't you?" and like recognizes like. "You didn't take Nature seriously enough," secrets are for secreting and for unmaking. They are, they are, they are. "Seriously at all..."
The coon beta merely gave him that 'are you mad?' look and blinked.
The unicorn's head bowed somewhat, weighed down with all the burdens of invasion and investigation, "Your fault."
It is likely that Atticus would have tensed considerable more than that, if the door hadn't opened and a surprised, achingly familiar voice interrupted the broken conversation once more. "Atticus," Edmund spoke in soft surprise and worry, a tinge of... was that regret?... to his voice. No, it couldn't be regret... But it was something similar, something not unlike guilt.
He had no time to respond before whatever emotion it was that tormented his younger brother so got the better of him.
"Forgive me."
Jerked away from all thoughts of irritation with the apparently mentally challenged unicorn, Atticus looked at his brother in a concerned sort of curiosity. Edmund had a tendency to ask forgiveness for the silliest of things, to apologize when it wasn't necessary... but something... that emotion in the tone... "Excuse me?"
It took Edmund almost a whole minute to work his mouth around the words, the inner struggle with the reality of the situation played perfectly to catch Atticus' attention and sympathies. "I... I came across Asteil and Garden," he nodded polite acknowledgement at the strangely silent unicorn, who had settled for recovering his headbones and not engaging in the conversation. "Some distance down the road... Asteil... recognized me..."
The impact of the words, so sweetly and politely spoken, took several moments to dawn upon Atticus. Large, golden eyes turned to stare at Madison in a new light, one not borne of anger but of... a strange sorrow. And something more urgent than that.
"Hey, not my fault!" Madison insisted, waving a hand negligently at the coon beta and waiting for imminent threats.
Atticus' reaction surprised Madison, though not his brother. Shoving past both of them and into the house, he disappeared within in a silent whirlwind of barely contained fear. Garden was right. It wasn't the unicorn's fault... And Atticus knew precisely whose fault it was.
"Funny..." Madison quipped once he'd disappeared, for the benefit of both Edmund and himself, "I'd expected more b***h slaps..."
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:24 pm
Reboot
Roles: Wolfe, Marks
Time: 10:23 am, day after previous post.
Location: Atticus' empty room, the Townhouse roof.
==============
Nothing.
Gone.
Escaped.
Wolfe ran his fingers over the windowsill in what had been Atticus' room. None of the others knew that it wasn't his anymore. He didn't think they did, at least. But he knew. Atticus wasn't coming back. Not on purpose, at least. Atticus had left for that purpose, and purpose was more important than anything, especially when the purpose was people.
There wasn't much missing from the room either, not enough for someone to catch on at least. They all should've heard it in last night's silence, in the way he talked and didn't and mostly didn't. Something had changed, dramatically so, and while Wolfe had not bothered to make himself aware of the coon beta's thoughts and anxieties, a lingering doubt accused that he should have.
No, someone else should have. Someone better. Better with people, better at understanding them and getting them to understand. Still, that didn't change that no one had. Content that there was nothing more to hear or see in the empty room that had been Atticus', he pushed open the window and leaned curiously outside, wondering if the view was significantly different from a beta's point of view. Deciding that there was nothing terribly new or interesting to be had from the view at the window, Wolfe settled for attempting the second option of Atticus' choice--the roof.
Swinging out and perching on the ledge with an easy grace, Wolfe leaned out over the drive below with a curious, searching gaze towards the road. Nothing again. No one coming, going, staying... How empty. As he pulled himself back towards the comfort of wall and climbing, a thump sounded on the roof. No longer indulging himself in a delay, he scrambled up the wall without a second thought, remembering why trees carried so many pleasant memories.
The thump had, as was dramatically appropriate, come from the far side of the roof. Once he'd gotten himself to the top, it was a matter of finding where the landing (for he was sure it had been such--didn't know how he'd missed the sound of wings before, but anything was possible when distracted) had taken place. Or maybe a bird had fallen--tripped straight out of the sky. He hated it when that happened. There was never anything to do about it.
Somehow, the townhouse was far more complicated above than it was below. So, he thought, there really was a tower... And an extra shadow coming off of it. Either a gargoyle, or the source of all mysterious bumps and thumps. Curious as to either but hoping for the latter, Wolfe walked silently forward, hands in his pockets and head tilted in a searching wonderance.
Upon finally getting close enough to the source of the thumps(for it certainly was such), however, he balked and froze. Funny... and familiar... but things were strange on this side of the worlds, and he could let it slide if this guy wasn't the same because, you know--this guy was dead. Dead dead. Finally dead kind of dead. Not the same, not the same, not the same--
The demon sitting on the edge of the tower's roof turned his head to look down at the intruder and raised an eyebrow in smirking recognition. "So I really did follow somebody over here? Seems to be my lot in life. Just can't get away from you freaks, can I?"
Damn! Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn--appearances be damned, but voices never change. Inflection, accent, pitch--no matter what you try to adjust, there is something to a voice that makes it a voice and--and--this was real.
Wolfe stared at the demon in wide-eyed reproach, unsure either of what to think or do. Actions always seemed to mean more than words with Marks, but actions also tended to get more of a reaction out of him--and seriously, sometimes you just wanted the guy to stay put. "You're dead."
All right, so those hadn't been actions and they had been words but they were true! True as day and night and everything in between that makes life sweet and different and good.
"Doesn't really seem so this time, actually," Marks commented off-handedly, watching his own fingers as he flexed a hand in the mid-day sun. "Funny, bet this isn't how it's supposed to feel after so long. Not that I clung to any happy memories or anything, or that I think having these makes life any more like it was..." he smirked again, mostly to himself, and stretched the bloodred wings to cast a perturbingingly colored shadow over the white wolf staring at him from below. "These... were unexpected."
He found himself shaking his head in disbelief--there was nothing else to do. Nothing but to fear and worry and let that dissolve into anger and something of... revenge? No, that was a bad idea. A wrong idea. The kind of thing that got you damned. The kind of thing that... that... what was it? What was that stupid, stupid dramatic thing that got said--revenge ended in tears! That was it. There was nothing for it, no need for it, no reason for it--but if the only other options were those fears and worries, maybe it was for the better after all.
Because those fears... Followed. And why? "What do you want?"
The demon lounged back against the more steeply inclined tower roof, expression reeking of a lazy sort of imperious. "What do you mean by that?"
"You're here--you don't do things unless they're for reasons. You always wanted something, were always after something, always looking for something." Or someone. But that finished and we threw you away and you died for that. You can't be without someone at your back.
Marks laughed, genuinely amused but not without a hint of malice, "You think I was looking for anything but a way back to some sort of life? There's nothing out in the void, puppy, the only thing on my mind has been getting back here. And look where all that one-track-mindedness has gotten me," he whistled in self-appreciation and continued to lounge.
He shook his head again, unwilling to accept merely that. "There's something else."
Pushing himself up on his elbows and squinting down at the accusatory wolf through the unfamiliar sunlight, Marks wondered what, exactly, he was going to have to do to prove he didn't like commitments. Stupid Malk. Convinced he understood everything, even if he didn't know it. "Look, I'm here. I didn't expect you to be. For all I know, you're the idiot that gave me the gateway to get in, though I doubt that considering your talent for disruption. Whoever opened that rift was precise and intelligent, two things I'm probably never going to find myself calling you. Now do me a favor and go bug the perpetrator. I may have used them to my advantage, but it wasn't part of some grand scheme."
Wolfe stared. Long, hard, still accusing. There was so much unforgiven. And yet soo much to be thankful for, for those times he really could've relied on him to kick a** and take names for the real cause but... but that hadn't been how it ended. "I can't trust you."
"How nice," Marks yawned, preparing to ignore him completely. "Go make me breakfast or get off the roof. I'm not going anywhere."
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:44 pm
 Mordred flew to the Townhouse with a little guest he'd picked up along the way. Well, well, well... what have we here? A little bat had wandered away from his master, and now Mordred had decided to play kindly babysitter. Except without the kindly part, or the general good intentions that were implied with the word 'babysitter'.
Unceremoniously entering the house via the first window he saw (and shattered) which might belong to a certain rat of a green color and nasty countenance, Mordred smirked. "Arthur~~~" he called, carrying the unhappy bat in by one foot.
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:49 pm
The last thing one expects when hunched over a desk, scribbling away at some discourse on why everything in the world is awful, is to have one's window shattered.
Considering the most recent addition to the Townhouse, however, Arthur had expected this last thing and had prepared all entry points to his room with retaliatory devices. Except for the window. He'd saved the window, it being the most likely point of intrusion, for himself.
Moving from his seat with a speed unnatural to both normal individuals and himself, Arthur thrust the staff full force at the creature in the window, not really caring where it hit as long as it did.
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:52 pm
Well, hit it did, do damage it did not. The loud clanging noise resounding through the room after Mordred's shield met the rat's staff only led to the angel laughing. "Well, well-- such a pleasant greeting when I merely came to ask after one of your house mates~" War smirked.
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:56 pm
Arthur had not been prepared for armor, much less a shield of such make. The jarred reaction that hit his shoulders brought down an ache so bad... he might as well have hit the angel's head. Stupid, block-headed--
"What are you doing here?" he muttered irritably, turning away from the window and moving back over to his desk, somehow missing the distressed squeakings coming from the direction of one of Mordred's hands.
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 5:02 pm
"You know, I'd almost think you didn't like it when I dropped in! But luckily enough for you," the angel continued before Arthur could respond, "I came by to see one of your house mates-- and you're going to help me find him," Mordred informed his pesky little rat-like almost-acquaintance-esque colleague. "Isn't that simple enough?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 5:04 pm
"Simple, yes," Arthur agreed, sitting down and pointedly picking up the ballpoint "And yet, impossible." Who could Mordred possibly be looking for? And why? Arthur wasn't particularly keen on learning either answer, or even thinking about them for that matter.
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